To Get ahead, sometimes you have to have the worst car.
Let me take you back a few years…
I showed up for a meeting at a beautiful country club and realized as I pulled into the parking lot that I had the ugliest car there by far. I drove past dozens of luxury cars and finally fit my busted-up Alero in between a BMW and a Lamborghini. My first thoughts were, “Don’t scratch the paint.”
I felt like turning around and going home, but luckily, I sat there for a minute and had a conversation with myself.
I thought, “To be a failure, you hang around failures. To succeed, you need to associate with successful people.” I said to myself, “I’m here today to improve my financial success, so these are the people I need to meet.”
I’m forever grateful that I opened my car door and went inside that day.
My lesson learned was this:
Stay away from people who aren't getting the results you want. Instead, be around people headed in the direction you want to go (it’s best if they’re a little further along the road than you are).
In my case, I was looking at financial success, but this lesson translates nicely to other areas of life. If you want to be a good sales person, hang around good sales people. If you want to be a good parent, make friends with good parents.
The best way to learn new strategies is to have someone demonstrate the successful action, and then get them to observe you as it is copied. Repeat as required to make it a habit.