The Education of Millionaires - Michael Ellsberg [37]
There it is. From one of the world’s most successful twentysomething leaders: if you want to be successful, and make a huge impact in your life, find exceptional people to learn from, and surround yourself with them.
So how do you find these powerful guides and teachers in real life, outside of the classroom? “Great networking is not about quid pro quo. It’s not a back-and-forth. It’s about give-give-give as much as you can, and if I see you succeed, I’m really happy. And, if I’m your friend, you’re going to pull me up with you. If you have everyone in your network asking each other, ‘How can I help you? How can I help you? How can I help you?’ you’re going to go far in your life. If you’re genuine, and you want to help people—give, give, give—it comes back around.”
I can hear the more cynical of my readers saying, “Well, that’s easy for Bisnow to say. He was running a seven-figure business and had a forty-thousand-dollar credit line when he called to invite those CEOs skiing to get advice from them. He could afford to take risks. I don’t have a seven-figure business, and I certainly can’t risk forty grand in credit card bills to pull off a stunt like that. How does this ‘giving’ stuff apply to me in my situation?”
Great question. I’m glad you asked!
■ HOW I FOUND TWO OF THE MOST AMAZING MENTORS IN THE WORLD
When you’re just starting out on your path to success, and you want to find mentors farther along the path than you, what do you possibly have to give someone who is much more powerful, connected, and successful than yourself?
Let me tell you a story of two of my most powerful mentors and teachers in life, Bryan (whom we met in the Introduction) and college dropout Eben Pagan, one of the world’s most renowned and respected teachers of marketing skills for entrepreneurs—and how I connected to them.
If we were to predict Eben Pagan’s level of future success from his high school and college career (as most parents, teachers, and school officials do), our estimates would have been quite low.
He thought school was a “waste of time” as he grew up in Oregon in the ’70s and ’80s, in what he describes as semirural poverty. He got middling grades at best with a spotty attendance record. He spent most of his teen years playing in a Christian rock band. He dropped out of community college after one semester to tour full-time with his band.
“I was doing the music thing for roughly five years, with different bands. I went on tour with one band, then recorded an album with another band. Fairly soon, however, I came to realize that it was very difficult to ‘make it.’ Everyone’s got a dream as an artist, and it’s very difficult to make that dream come true. I wanted to have success in my life. I wanted to be able to live the lifestyle I wanted. Growing up in my town in Oregon, I didn’t know anyone who was successful or wealthy, and I didn’t know anyone who knew anyone who was successful or wealthy.
“Just intuitively, though, it seemed like rich people and real estate tended to intersect. So I decided to go learn about real estate and get my real estate license. But I was a miserable failure in real estate. I recall I sold one-and-a-third homes my first year. And these were cheap little homes. Total, I earned a couple of thousand dollars. I was still working part-time in a manual labor job.”
Not an auspicious career start. However, if we were to use his high school, college, and early career record as a predictor of Eben’s future success, we’d be way, way off.
As a result of getting into real estate, Eben discovered something that would later prove to be central to his life: he learned how to educate himself