#1021 The ANTI-Role Model

I asked two questions during a talk I gave at a teacher’s conference. The first one was, “Who here became a teacher because you wanted to emulate an exceptional teacher you had growing up?”

About 50-75 of the three hundred people in attendance raised their hands. Then I asked, “How many of you became a teacher because you wanted to do it better than a bad teacher you’ve had?” Two hundred hands shot up.

What can we learn from this informal survey? For me, there are a few lessons. First, finding a positive role model to emulate is still a good idea. The second is that negative experience imprints more strongly than positive experience. The third is that the way forward is to double down. To have a positive role model to inspire and a negative one for perspective.

With only a positive role model, we may focus on our inadequacies as we develop too slowly for our own taste.

We may spend too much time on self-to-other comparisons that evoke bad feelings. We may run out of steam if we don’t feel we can measure up.

On the other hand, with only a negative role model, we may row too hard in the other direction with no ballast to right our lopsided load.

I did this. I had an upbringing that taught me that there were some who could afford a good life and we who were poor and had to squeeze every penny until Abe sprung tears.

Early in my career, I pushed so hard against that notion that I drove myself into debt. It took me years to find a positive role model for wealth who kept me from unchecked spending because my strong emotional response to my negative role model was, “No one will tell ME I can’t afford it.”

Some people carry a negative past like Marley’s chains. They look at the negative influence of others as an unremovable stain; that somehow, having been subjected to this upbringing or that circumstance, they’re permanently marked and have lost the ability to choose.

I encourage you to find an ideal role model you’d like to work toward becoming more like while using your antipathy for the negative influence like a construction sign, a big orange detour to steer you around the road you were about to go down.

Each time you look at your positive role model and think, “Look how far I have to go.” you can look at the negative role model and think, “Yes, but look how far I’ve come.”

Own Your Sales Gene…