As someone who has worked in marketing almost all my adult life, I am a keen student of human behaviour. You know what? After 23 years in the business, I am still often amazed at what I see.
Take yesterday for instance
Following the sad death of Jim Rohn at the weekend, I wrote a brief tribute. After it was published, I was stunned by the number of direct messages I received via Twitter and Friendfeed, from intelligent people, telling me they had never heard of him.
The reason I find this so interesting, is that Jim spoke at over 6,000 events and reached over 4 MILLION people. He was a true thought leader, who focused exclusively on delivering tangible results. But what about value? I recall how Jim was once paid a million dollars by a soft drinks company, for a little of his time and some of his ideas.
By way of contrast, you can hire many of today’s Internet famous thought leaders for relative peanuts.
Here’s my point: We all need to be super-selective regarding the voices we allow to influence us. That’s why I believe it’s important to check from time to time, that we are listening to the right people for what we want to achieve.