Quote: (03-01-2018 05:50 AM)bgbusiness Wrote:
How do I balance "Kindness" and "Hustle"?
One thing I noticed was that those people are actually coming from a pretty high value position. Ex. A guy making 6~7figures is helping out a guy making mid 5 figures, that is just pure value. Is it possible to give off "good vibes" when my value is lower than the other person?
I know it wasn't your main question, but I noticed this statement and wanted to comment because I think it might be skewing your outlook a little.
I won't go into the details but in the 90s I worked with clients from the White House, World Bank, IMF, and State Department (we were in the Foggy Bottom, D.C.). At first I was intimidated upon meeting some of the same people that I had just seen the night before on the news, but I was startled to discover how incredibly nice they were. I mean, highly influential people spending time talking to me about stupid stuff like pets and kids and in general being very friendly. Their subordinates/ assistants/ undersecretaries etc however, those people were monsters. They never lost an opportunity to tell me how busy they were, how I was wasting their time, how I needed to do X, Y and Z immediately, blah blah.
After thinking about it for a while I realized- the powerful but nice people were once just like the less powerful but mean ones. At one time they were younger, less accomplished, yet full of ambition, working at a high level government job or law firm to get the get the lucrative directorship/ clerkship or whatever position and more money (with these people I think it was more about the power and access to the Clintons, but it's the same idea). In other words, they super powerful ones were nice because they could now afford to be magnanimous, which is not something all of us can say, especially when we are in a junior position in an organization.
I guess what I'm saying is that if you are a low level or mid-level in your career or social group (not an insult- I mean professionally if you're still relatively young and proving yourself), you shouldn't fell too much pressure to be altruistic. Don't worry about missing out on an opportunity to help people, or if someone might think you are nice or a pushover. Do you like being altruistic and helping people? Work on yourself, achieve some things, and then take some young people under your wing. That sort of help will also be much more significant in someone's life than just doing trivial things.