Are You Suffering From “Smart Guy Syndrome”?
Are you successful in your business? Great.
For many of you, I have some bad news. A few of those outstanding qualities and abilities that have gotten you to where you are now are the same ones that may keep you from ever being truly free. The world is full of high class poor worker bees. They make great incomes, but when they stop, the money stops. Sometimes these folks are not that easy to spot, because they have nice houses, nice cars, eat in nice restaurants, even fly first class. They will tell you they love their work. Often that is true — because that is the only way to keep the life style they enjoy after their full time work week ends every Friday.
I just read an interesting article by Kevin Daum in Inc. Magazine (read it here) about 8 things really successful people do. Kevin gets it. He talks about the big picture, including relationships, being in shape (whatever that means to you), your moral code, having an honest self-awareness, etc. All great stuff.
The part I liked best was where he said to always be learning what you can, and if you sense a gap you can’t fill, connect with the people who have the knowledge you need. Sorry, Kevin but you are being WAY too nice.
My personal experience is that almost none of them will sense that gap they can’t fill until they get hit over the head with it. Reality will hit for some of them when (actually IF) they make their five or ten year plan, put some numbers in it, make some assumptions about future growth of their income and assets, and realize they will have to work forever if they want the same standard of living they are enjoying (are a slave to?) now.
For others, reality hits only when they get a coach whom they respect who will explain their situation from enough angles that they finally get it. Usually they become teachable only when they put aside the dreamy pleasure of what life will be someday, and focus on the pain of what the probable future will be if they don’t make some serious changes.
Only when that fear of not taking action is greater than the fear of “maybe I will fail” will these people take action.
So — What is that quality that you have — that quality you worked so hard to acquire, that your friends and family admire, that is possibly holding you back right now? It is a combination of a few things, but I call it “Smart Guy Syndrome”. You have a history of getting into new subject areas, things you knew nothing about, applying yourself, studying hard, and becoming good, often very good in that area. You are smarter than most (don’t get uppity – it’s mostly luck of the genetic draw), and you apply yourself (ok, you can take credit for that one), so there is not all that much out there you can’t get good at if you set your mind to it.
THAT, my friend, is your disease. For many, it is terminal, but others have learned to manage it and live healthy lives. The urge never goes away, but with education, its deleterious effects can be largely avoided. (in case you can’t tell, I am having fun here).
Bottom line (what you need to know and accept): You can’t continue to learn the new subject areas you need to become independent the way you have learned most things in the past. There isn’t enough time. You need to only understand the subject, not the nitty gritty of the implementation. And even then, you don’t learn just by reading books and going to seminars. That is the “old” you. You learn by getting coaching, and doing deals with people who are experts and are doing those kinds of things daily. You look over those people’s shoulders, and earn as you learn.
Will you make less profit if you are sharing with somebody else? Yes, if you have the same old school way of thinking that you “used to have” (when you began reading this :). To think you are making less you would have to assume that you know as much as your coach and the people you are doing the deals with (your co-venturers). That kind of thinking served you well in the past — but you have to leave that behind. You now have more money and less time. There is no longer enough time to get to the next level “doing it yourself”. As one of my friends puts it, you run out of “you” time.
Almost no professional training programs address this concept. Doctors, dentists, attorneys, etc. all go into business woefully ignorant of how to run a business or what the end game is.
Are you following Kevin’s advice about filling that gap? Do you have coaches? Who are you doing deals with now to build your net worth so that when the day comes that you are ready for it (when you retire, get injured, whatever) that it (your net worth and cash flow) will be ready for you?
