These curios objects are mummy hooks.
They are what the Egyptians used to scrape the brains out of corpses before mummification. Interestingly the Egyptians did not think the brain was much use thinking the heart was the thinking centre of a human. So they scooped the brains out and threw them away. Smart enough to build the pyramids, but not smart enough to know where your smarts come from. Still, we can’t all be good at everything.
Interesting I know, but what hell has that to do with gaining business (or any other) skills?
The answer is simple. Brain picking. See what I did there. 🙂
Picking the brains of people who are where we want to be, or have already travelled our path, is the quickest way to knowledge acquisition.
You can cut down a lifetimes worth of learning, avoid problems, obstacles, costly mistakes, set aside trial and error, a lot of testing, frustrations and heartache, just by speaking to people who have been there and done that.
Am I overselling this?
Right now there are dozens, hundreds maybe even thousands of people who are sitting on information and advice that could save you decades of learning and fortunes in mistakes, and the thing is these people would happily give away this lifetime of experience if you would only ask.
How do I know? Well, I have done it dozens of times. Want to become an expert in an industry faster than humanly possible. Just pick the brains of all the other top people. Most will have a piece of the puzzle, but the thing is most have different pieces. If you pick the brains of all of them… You will be the only one with the most complete picture. Because you will have amalgamated all the separate knowledge into one big shiny ball of wisdom.
OK that’s a little bit of the Why let’s get to the how…
The How..
1. Make a list of 20 people who have the skills you want. This can be industry experts, authors, or any other people who are successful. You preferably want to find people who are not going to be competitive with you (geographically or otherwise).
2. Arrange to talk to them. This could be in person, at lunch, in a meeting, over the phone, on zoom or skype, over a game of golf. The more informal the better.
3. Prepare in advance the questions you need answering. (This is the most important part. You want a list of all the questions that you want answering or could need answering in the future.
4. Ask those questions. (This is not the Gestapo this is a friendly chat. Don’t make it an interrogation.)
Questions to include.
1. What have been your biggest successes?
2. What have been some of your biggest lessons?
3. What do you know now that you would have loved to have known in the beginning?
4. What have been the 2-3 biggest obstacles that you have overcome?
5. What questions do you think I should be asking you?
Don’t leave your questions to chance, prepare in advance memorise and practice them.
I know you are probably thinking that most people won’t give away the golden goose, but let me let you into a secret…
Most people love to tell their story, especially about their business. After all, they never get to tell that story, their spouse and their friends are mostly uninterested so they are starved of attention. So be the one person who will give them that opportunity. You can gain a lifetimes worth of advice in an hour.
Oh, one other thing.. Make sure you listen! This is not about you getting to compare dicks where you tell them how awesome you are also. You are there to lean. So be all earns and very little mouth (except your questions).
If you do this and use the advice given the world can be your oyster. So try it.
A quick thing not everyone will say yes to you at first but the more people you speak to the more you will get to speak to so keep trying.
Question of the day…
Who are the 20 people whose brains you should be picking?
If you value the idea of gaining a lifetimes worth of experience in double-quick time. You might like to take a look at THIS