Do you know what “those who are ahead of you” are doing?

No matter where we are, we can always admire others, learn from them, and appreciate their talent.

Here’s an easy one: I invited my U12 team (under 12) to watch the U16 team play. I suggested we could watch “how the big boys play” and learn from their experience. We could all watch the game together and talk about what we learned. Oh, and there will be fries.

So that worked out well.

Do you go to conferences? Do you know what people in your industry are doing who are further along in the game than you are? Or not necessarily ahead of you, but maybe doing things differently? Maybe they are going about it in a completely different way, but are using the same source material. Who knows, they might not even be a competitor, but more of a potential partner.

Or would you just rather not hear it?

You don’t want to hear how successful others are because it just reminds you how far you have to go to get to where they are. Or you’re just plain not interested in getting better or learning from others and you’re doing fine as it’s going now. That’s fine too.

But know they’re out there. Be OK with where you are and where they are. If you want to get where they are, study them and figure out how they got there. Then you have a path. Not necessarily the path, but a path.

That’s all you need.