Today’s topic is: Know Your Top 50
Now, what do I mean by “know your top 50”. Simply, I remember as a kid being in a classroom, sitting down on the right-hand side of the board, right along the wall that I was at, the teacher had crafted this type of paper mache. I’m not exactly sure what you call this cutout cardboard, but they have the phrase “Birds of a feather flock together, so choose your friends wisely.” I’ve also had mentors over the years tell me, “Doug, the rising tide lifts all boats.” I’ve also heard that “You are the equivalent of the top five people you spend the most time with.” You probably heard that as well. I think attributed to Jim Rohn. All these phrases have one thing in common. What they say is “The people that you’re spending the most time with, tend to be the people that you’re most like.” You’re spending time with very financially savvy people, you tend to be more financially savvy. If you’re spending time with people who are extremely fit and active, you tend to be more fit and active.
I found this to be very true in my life across all five of the core areas, whether it be spirituality hanging out with people who are extremely spiritual, whether it be a particular denomination of religion, meditation, or something else that they found. Or even if it’s people that have amazing marriages. My wife and I have really worked hard about surrounding ourselves with people we feel have solid relationships because we knew that would carry over into our own relationship. So what I did is I sat down with intention and wrote down my top 50 people in my personal life who I felt really raised the tide for me. They lifted the bar, but not only that, these are people that I thought I could contribute to and they also contributed to me in a loving heartfelt way. I don’t mean they contributed me financially or anything else. I just meant that when I was around them, I felt fulfilled, I felt like they weren’t draining me. I also felt like they were raising their standards higher. I look upon the standards that I wanted to live by and as I look at the list, I think about these people: each one of them holds a special place in my heart.
Now, if you’re like me, it was really hard to get your list down to just 50 people, but it’s also really important in this modern day where we have all the social media. We have our cell phones. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, or whatever it may be. Hundreds of emails coming in a day and if you’re an entrepreneur like me, maybe thousands in a day. It’s really hard to pay attention to the people that we care about the most. They just tend to fall by the wayside. They’re all over the world and sometimes it’s hard to stay in contact, so I intentionally put together my top 50 list with this in mind.
These are the top 50 people that I want to stay in contact with and what I’ve done is I’ve broken down this top 50 list into the five categories: mind, body, soul, relationship, business. So, I have their name on column A on the left and then in each column, I have the separate category. Now, I’ve done this so I can relate to what level they are in each of these five areas. Most of these people I know, so I actually know exactly what their numbers are because I simply ask them or I know them so intimately that I have a pretty good idea. Now, I say most of these people because whenever I make my top 50 list and I do edit it regularly I always add a few people that I don’t know.
People that I want to get to know on my list, for example, there’s one person that I don’t know personally. And that’s Tony Robbins. I’ve been to all of his events I think he’s an amazing person he’s a great speaker. He’s entertaining, he’s engaging, and he’s on a very similar mission that I am. I’m on a mission to uplevel the world by helping one person at a time really better their personal lives, as well as their business. I think Tony would be a great fit in my top 50 list. Now, you may be going, “Doug I just did a CTRL ALT DELETE on my life, and I’m starting from scratch. I got two people, what do I do with that?” Well, it’s very similar. You take those two people, you put them the top of your list, and you hold them tightly. Those are people you love. Then, you really want to stay close to them.
Now, think of the other 48 people for you. In this example, people that would up-level your life and help it make better. So, what are your goals with your outcome to the people that are going to contribute to you and not drain you? We don’t want any emotional vampires on this list. We want people that are actually going to really work on up-leveling you in your life and those are the people could be the Dali Lama. It could be the guy at the convenience store down the street. You walk in to get groceries, and every time he’s just got a smile and says hello. Let’s think of people that light my life up. It’s little things that they do to add them to your list. it’s not hard to come up with 50. Narrowing it down is the tough part.
Now, I want you to make a separate list very similar, so you’re still going to have the names and then each of the five categories. With business now, who are the people in your business or with your business that can significantly move the needle for you? This could be current clients. This could be potential clients, maybe you don’t own your own business, that’s fine. Somebody within an organization that can help you. This could be the CFO, CEO, a manager, or somebody else in a business profession. Or maybe you have a business idea and you need somebody that can help you. Maybe it’s somebody that’s going to get them a factory or knows more about this. Or maybe you have no business ideas, you’re working a dead-end job, you want out, you just want to get out.
Come up with 50 people that have made it, that have been successful at getting out who will have a mobile free lifestyle, if that’s what you want. Doesn’t matter, the key is to have your top 50 people on this list. Go ahead and list them down. Again, you want to rank them in one of the key five areas, so that is mind, body, soul, relationship, business. Where do you think they fit into that? Now, if you don’t know them, you’re not going to know where they rank exactly in that list. Let me give you a real-life example from my situation. So, I had somebody on my top 50 on the business side, and we started communicating.
Now, I knew by doing my due diligence by looking at social media and profiles whether they happened to be a golfer or not. A lot of their pictures were about golf. I also knew by looking at their profiles that they were severely overweight, and they didn’t look overly happy in a lot of their pictures. I know from my fitness background that somebody who’s in shape is going to become a better golfer. Now, of course, we know that somebody who is getting in good shape is an exercise routine that is going to be better at everything in life. You just are. But I also know from golf that they’re actually going to have a better rotation on their swing, and they’re going to enjoy their golfing experience more. So in this exchange of top communication with them, I happen to mention golfing and actually gave him an article with a couple fitness golf tips. I’m gonna call this person Tom. It’s not their name, but I was like “Hey Tom, I noticed that you really like golfing and so I found this article I thought I’d share it with you.” This actually spurred a communication about their fitness and wellness journey, which was totally off topic from the business, which we were going to discuss. Or I was hoping we were going to discuss business. This established a relationship between us sprouted from my fitness background, so it’s very easy for me to talk about fitness and wellness.
You could do the same even if you don’t have a fitness background. It is very easy to find information online. What this did was allow us to establish a relationship and even though we may or may not do business together in the future, this person and I have a real relationship that we can move forward with. I can note this in my top 50. What tends to happen for me is business relationships and personal relationships become intertwined. I generally become really good friends and very close with the people I tend to do business with. You may find the same thing for yourself.
So, my action step for you today is when you get a chance, sit down, (now this could be on a piece of paper or you can do excel like i did) make a list of your top 50 people that fill you up in your personal life. If you don’t have 50, that’s okay. Who are those other people you can fill those slots that once you get to meet them? Like Tony Robbins, in my example, you can add them to your lesson. You can keep up-leveling in business too. Who are those 50 people that can significantly move the needle towards your goals go ahead and make your list or make your ratings? Let me know how it goes.
That’s it for today, as always to www.authorofyourownstory.com for these show notes, as well as additional tips, tricks, and insights. Of course, we have a separate email that goes out called Our Daily Teachings that goes right to your inbox every single day with another tip to help you up-level your life. That’s it for me. Have a great day!
Of course, we have a separate email that goes out called Our Daily Teachings that goes right to your inbox every single day with another tip to help you up-level your life. That’s it for me. Have a great day!
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