Here’s another way to look at it. Let’s talk about spheres
of influence. The popular wisdom of the day is that
everyone should have these enormous spheres of
communication and social networks, the bigger the
better.
Popular wisdom is wrong and I’ll tell you why.
Social networking – tweeting, posting, linking,
blogging, too – is what I call “one-to-many”
communications. The level of interaction and quality of
communication is lousy because a billion people are all
doing the same thing so nobody has the bandwidth to
read but a tiny fraction of what shows up in their stream.
That’s why the vast majority of online interaction is a
complete waste of time. Everything you post just
bounces around the Web and nothing ever really comes
of it. Nothing that matters, anyway. It’s like throwing a
bucket of water into the ocean. Sure, there’s more water
in the ocean now, but so what?
Also, whatever you learn online is visible to everyone so
it provides no competitive advantage whatsoever.
The way to be successful is to keep your sphere of
influence small and focused. How small and focused?
That depends. Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates wrote
code. Richard Branson sold records. Their spheres were
relatively small and extremely focused in the early days
of their careers while they were building their
businesses. Then they grew in time. That’s usually how
it works.
It basically comes down to this: You do want to broaden
your sphere but you want to broaden it by doing what
matters, not by wasting your time on what doesn’t
matter.
Not only does reading about rich people’s habits not
matter, the same is true of the vast majority of what you
do online. And if they wasted their time with all that
stuff, wealthy people would never have become wealthy
to begin with. The only thing successful people do that
matters is focus on doing what matters. Simple as that.
www.bajansunonline.com/MAGAZINE/ | [email protected] | @BajanSunOnline