Hippie CEO Life #29 - On Giving Back
October 28, 2022
“Show me a successful individual and I’ll show you someone who had real positive influences in his or her life. I don’t care what you do for a living—if you do it well I’m sure there was someone cheering you on or showing the way.”
— Denzel Washington
Earlier this week, i had the opportunity to talk with a 20 year old inspiring entrepreneur. And while we covered a lot of incredibly important topics, there was one particular part of the conversation that really hit me hard and i’ve been thinking about it all week.
We were talking about the importance of learning from others and she stopped me and said, “I would love that but at least where I come from, finding really great people to learn from is so incredibly hard. There are lots of people that are willing help and offer some advice, just as long as they feel like you don’t have the potential of becoming more successful than they are.”
After she said that, i stopped and just thought and thought and thought.
She is right. i can create an incredibly long list of people that i’ve worked with throughout my career that once they reached a desired destination, once they finally climbed that elusive summit, they turned around and proudly announced to everyone still on the path, looking for some guidance and advice, “ NO!!!! I did this all on my own, now you need to do it on your own as well!!!”
But they didn’t do it all on their own. Every single one of them had help, had experts give them advice, had friends carry some of their burden. They all had help but once they reached the summit, they conveniently forgot about all of those mentors and guides they had along the way.
Let’s not be the type of person that is on this list, instead, lets be the type of person that is driven to help guide the next generation, that truly has the desire to see people learn from our journey, not with the hope that they reach the same destination that we did but that they surpass it.
To bookend this week, thinking about giving back, yesterday i met with an amazing group of graduate students in the Brand Insights and Analytics course at East Tennessee State University. Just one small part of a lifetime endeavor of giving back, teaching the next generation, mentoring the next great innovator, guiding the next leader that will change people’s lives for the better, as a way of saying THANK YOU to all of the amazing coaches, teachers, mentors, guides, supporters, and friends that have helped me along my journey.
