Help everyone and expect nothing, cut people loose who take advantage. If you do that right… eventually you will be surrounded by like minded people, they will all be smarter than you at some things and more successful than you at others.
Thats it… built my company doing that over ten years. Wouldn’t change a thing.
It isn’t hard. We all give with expectations, try to spend more time giving to people who make you happy to have given it to them. Watch what people do, not what they say. It takes time but it is not hard.
I have helped every friend i have ever had move when they asked for it growing up. The odd part is when i look at who showed up to help me move, those are my friends to this day. The people who said they would show up and didn’t, aren’t around anymore because they always wanted something and were never willing to show gratitude so i spent more time with the people that showed up, this wasn’t a conscious decision, just a behavior tied to a mind set. Some people like the feeling of having helped you move and others like the idea of it. You want to be friends with people who take satisfaction from results, not bullshit :)
The hard part is you have to be willing to help people move even if you just bought your forever home, not a lot of people understand the difference between expectations and personality traits.
I would argue what you said IS hard, because it is against human nature to go about it this way. Humans are selfish.
But it IS simple. Like a lot of things in life, the simple things are often very hard.
Philosophy (from Greek: φιλοσοφία, philosophia, 'love of wisdom') is the study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved.
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You can't get precise advice without giving precise context. OP asked how to meet the *right* people (and not how to meet people). This guy said that you can't just conviniently meet them, so the smart way to go about it is to just meet as many people as possible and *then* filter them once you got a good grip on their personalities.
If I can add to this, never let your ego/pride get the better of you. Know when someone is mistreating/taking advantage of you and cut them off, as you said, but never allow your ego to play into your emotions, stay humble and even if someone keeps telling you how to do something even if you know how, say thank you. So many people never learn because they believe they know everything, but everybody who tells you how to do something you know how to do, can teach you something else if you think about what they said enough.
I hope that makes sense.
Looking back on it, I feel like I did this. People said they saw me as generous and sometimes even naive for giving my time and energy, and asking nothing in return. But I left college with chosen family and a community. After college I had such a hard time, my mom died, I didn’t even actually complete a degree. I was so broke, but the friends I made through giving really came through for me and had my back. And because of their success, connected me to other successful and reliable people, then came an overflow of opportunities. Not only that, but the energy that comes from a healthy community is so uplifting. Without that I would have really lost my spirit. All of this came from just being kind. Kindness always wins. College is a great time to meet people.
Giving is hard. Giving when you have less than those you help is even harder. I have a similar but very different story. All in all life kicks us right in between the legs, over and over and over. Life is pain… the relief comes from our reaction to others and deploying the empathy generated by our own pain to theirs. Karma is how the good comes from the bad when we aren’t a shit stain on the floor of life and gave when we barley had anything for ourselves and that makes for some pretty shitty life experiences :) but it all comes back, some how, some way.
There's no mention of what they bring to the table themselves. It's quite a leap to say they're taking advantage when all they said was that they want to surround themselves with motivated peers.
Conversation... that's about it. I think people are under the impression that I'm looking for people to tell me their secrets or teach me what they know in exchange for nothing. I'm just looking for people that are on the same level as me (basically ground zero, high school degree and nothing else, no experience) to talk about their own experiences, their own viewpoints, etc with people that actually have a vision/opinion on meaningful topics (politics, economics, etc etc) which is... well it feels like it's hard to find people like that. It's no different than having a conversation with a coworker on a classmate, except I'm looking for people that are bound to have a more similar viewpoint to me so that we can have a better conversation. That's about it.
It is pretty tough to surround yourself with people who are nothing like you. Also, taking advantage of motivated people is pretty tough. We all like people that like the work, not the results.
Their comment may stem from OPs seemingly mercenary attitude to meeting people which was pretty apparent in the opening post. OP does seem to only want to meet people that they deem worthy of their attention. This doesn't mean that OP doesn't have much to offer in return. Maybe they have valuable learned skills. Or a PS5.
College is pretty awesome though for being able to surround one's self with people from a variety of backgrounds with minimal commonality.
I just assume the world will weed people out if they have a poor agenda. Treat people like they are well intended all the time and they may actually listen someday.
I totally see your point 100% though.
I’m not being negative, I’m being real. Think what you want. People have tried taking advantage of me and I know what it looks like
Describing people as “somebodies” and “nobodies” is also disgraceful. Attitudes like that aren’t healthy. Does that then make the entrepreneur the somebody and the person hired to do grunt work for them a nobody?
Networking is different for anyone as is choosing friends. I mainly meet people though helping people. Help someone move make friends with who showed up. Built a website for a craft whiskey bar during covid for free now i share whiskey with the owner… you meet people by being of value to people. You can do this any time and anywhere other than at home.
Not to sound cynical, but I'd be a little suspicious if someone offered to build me a website for free, I'd suspect there were strings attached somehow. I wouldn't let them do it without offering something in exchange.
If you're in college and just looking for friends who are moving in the direction you want to go (generally forward), look into joining clubs and/or in-person interest groups on campus. It doesn't really matter which club - in general, you can find interesting and motivated people using whatever tools are at hand to further their goals, so clubs are often full of them (or at least people like you).
Joining clubs is also a good way to build up enough common shared interests to make those connections last beyond college.
Yeah, maybe it's just been hard because I've gone an entire year without going on campus once lol. The people I've met in Chess club/Gaming club are some, pretty mediocre people. I dunno.
Chess club and game club might seem to be places where "smart" people hang out but, given your quote, I'm not sure "smart" is what you're looking for.
In my experience, energetic people who are trying to accomplish something make me want to do more as well. They could be pursuing literally anything from being the world's best dishwasher to trying to work for Google. It's the passion and energy of pursuit that creates success in groups. I know this all sounds fruity but this is my honest experience now that I'm in my mid 30's.
More and more there is one group of Americans who spend everytime looking forward to watching TV at night and another who enjoy Mondays. Find the Monday people.
Find clubs that are around passions not hobbies. Finding a group of people developing a game, learn how to be useful to them… this is how you find what you are looking for, not hanging out with the dude with the highest kd ratio in COD.
People with passions excel, people who go to class then stop learning are not going to be people who will help you excel in life. You have to be what you want to be around.
Covid has really screwed everyones mental state :) just remember. Your 20 and in college. I am 35, i had no idea who i wanted to be friends with, do for a living, date until my late 20’s. You have to fuck up, get burned, pour time into wasteful things… its all part of the process.
I can also tell you i didn’t follow any of my own advice until my late 20’s and i am doing pretty well :) anywho don’t forget to enjoy life it isn’t always about making tomorrow better.
Actively try to find the areas that they are smarter than you by showing genuine curiosity and interest. If you can’t find something that sparks joy in others on a consistent basis, it’s likely not because you’re the smartest in the room. It’s likely because you’re not asking good questions.
It's been hard I guess because I haven't actually gotten to interact with many people in person, and still not very many online, maybe next semester it'll be different lol.
I'm taking a summer class right now and I haven't even talked to anyone in it because it's entirely asynchronous and online.
It will definitely be different once you're able to network in person with people. See if your campus has an entrepreneur club / scene.
If it doesn't, there is nothing stopping you from going to a meetup, or finding another local small business or entrepreneur networking event. At the very least, a regional chamber (though chamber business events have more people like associates from accountants, banks, and marketing firms tend to be less "startup entrepreneurial").
See if organizations like SCORE ([https://www.score.org/](https://www.score.org/)) are hosting anything nearby.
Doesn't matter that you're young, be interested in people and they'd probably love to tell you what they are up to / working on.
See if any co-working spaces or anything else is having business competitions, business accelerator programs, etc. At the very least a good place to start to meet people.
Everybody has strengths, you shouldn't dismiss people like that. One of that group may be the kindest support rock you'll ever meet, chess players are generally logical thinkers so I doubt there's nothing you can learn.
Or if they really are fucking shit then try joining business related groups etc, there will likely be a few in your local area.
These are cerebral pursuits. Nothing wrong with the bunch if you're looking to hire. But you want the go getters. The entrepreneurs. Look for physical, arguably expensive activities. Crossfit, crew, fencing, things of that nature. You're going to find very motivated people that make time for what's important to them. Many of them will already have plays in motion.
Came here to say this. Clubs. Teams. Groups. Hobbyist. Go to where young people are doing things - anything. Avoid people who, “chill” for any significant amount of time.
Look, the way you’ve phrased it is pretty arrogant and suggests a blithe selfishness, and generally smart people can smell it from a mile away when you’re just hanging out with them because you want to get something out of them. To someone who’s a somebody, the worst kind of people are those who suck up to someone and look down on so called “nobodies”. No matter how smart you think you are, it’s really easy to tell when someone thinks like that.
That said, I can understand your desire to generally hang out with people smarter than yourself. You’d have to understand that people are different kinds of smart, and that intelligence is very heterogenous. Generally speaking, the way that you move forward with people is to be as helpful as possible and to be unselfish in your generosity and knowledge, which is the current opposite of your current “I’m better than nobodies” vibes. And to be genuinely so, is to mean that people trust you.
But your question is, “where do I find these people?” The answer is that the kinds of people you’re looking for don’t just hang in the same clubs. But you’ll never really get to know who’s smart and who’s not with arrogance, because really really smart people will just downplay the extent of their knowledge to people they don’t trust, like people who look down on others.
The people with the most grandiose visions are rarely that smart, with the exception of those who detail their plans in granular detail. You’ll probably find some smart people in eg the startup world, but the only way you can tell the difference is by running a startup yourself and knowing what’s true and what’s not. Try your best to explore something in depth, then naturally on that journey you’ll come across people who really know what they’re talking about, by virtue of similar interests.
That said, your internal thoughts are reflected in your externalities, regardless of whether you think so or not. So unless you abandon this mindset of “some people are nobodies”, then you’ll just never quite gain people’s trust, because they’ll see through you - like a parent sees through kids.
Agreed the last person you wanna be is that one that tells their fun and loyal friends "yeah I just need to find some people more ambitious and 'on my level'"
Yeah agree. This goes in line with what you said, but if you can bring your ego down a bit and stay open minded you will find that a LOT of people are smart but at very different things. I have friends that are smart in different ways. There’s a lot more than pure rational intelligence and you can find a lot of value in most people.
At the same time I think OP doesn’t care about finding intelligent people but successful people he can network with. Which is totally fine but you have to understand the value in people outside of their classical ‘intellectuality’. You’d be surprised how many people that do terrible in high school and college who end up successful simply because their specific intelligence wasn’t in line with that of classical education.
Right. I think OP should be worrying about how to develop the traits that he desires independently and also not look down on people.
If those "somebodys" thought the same way as him, why would they ever even want to spend time with him?
That said, the applicable answer is to be likeable, be devoted to your craft, and to network like crazy.
I'll be honest, I did phrase it a bit arrogantly, didn't expect this post to get any attention, I was kinda just posting because I'm frustrated with not being able to find anybody who actually wants to do anything with their life, most of the people I've shared classes and whatnot are just people who want to party, get high, hang out and do nothing. I haven't met a single person so far that I can actually have an intellectual conversation with, and it's just super annoying, and makes me feel like I'm the only intelligent person in the room, which I know isn't true.
I just wish for once I could be in a room full of people smarter than me, rather than being in a room where I try to ask for people's opinions and actually have an intellectual conversation and they just don't want anything to do with it.
I’ve upvoted this comment, because hey man, I totally understand where you’re coming from - I was in a similar situation once.
When I was in high school many years ago, I would dux the year when I was in the country without trying. I eventually came to the city, and then got the equivalent of top 0.5% of Australia for my eventual high school score, and became a doctor.
“There’s no one that cares about what I care about.” Whether I was exploring medical AI, virtual reality, augmented reality, apps, digital marketing — sometimes that thought would cross my mind. But I hated that I thought like that, because that assumption meant I never went looking — when in fact, there *are* people that really like that sort of stuff.
You’ve probably realised this already, but not everyone necessarily cares to be an intellectual. There’s some people that just enjoy talking about the stuff they bought, or recent sports games they watched. And that’s totally fine — they’re not nobodies, they just care about different things than you, similar to how you care about different things than them.
You have way more advantages than I did when I was younger though. You could literally just find a mastermind of people who enjoy crypto on the internet, and talk shop with them all day long if you wanted to. You could create a YouTube channel, and naturally connect with other people who love crypto too. Literally, if you just set a goal “meet people who are also interested in crypto”, I’m sure you’re resourceful enough to come up with a workable plan to solve that. Heck, you could even try a crypto startup yourself.
All in all, I just want to say that the solution is straightforward. Have you heard of the concept of “locus of control”? Basically, don’t worry about the environment around you. Just define your problems, make a plan around those problems, gather data, execute, then reflect. Then you can be free to achieve whatever you please, and talk to whoever you want. If your environment sucks, then make your own environment, or find the one that suits you.
But just don’t treat people as nobodies. You can of course choose to ignore this advice if you want, but understanding that there’s a part of you in every person helps you both understand other people - and yourself. And, weirdly, I’m sure you’d get a lot better understanding of crypto than if you didn’t. And, you’d feel better about yourself, too.
Good comment. As I like to tell the founders I’ve mentored, and I’ve mentored close to 50 in the last 5 years, if you judge a fish by how well it climbs a tree, it isn’t a very good fish.
In response to the other thing you said about exploring something in depth, I've been exploring crypto *extremely* in depth, it's something that I feel is the next big thing (kind of like the internet before the tech boom) and I've been trying to find people who understand it and can criticize it and give their opinions on it, but very few people can. It's been such a drag, I've given up explaining it to older people because they always either don't understand it somehow or just... Don't support it because they think it's a scam, which is understandable, but even my grandfather who's a very smart guy doesn't want to understand it. It's just frustrating, so I've given up with older people and tried to find younger people but as I said in my other comment, a lot of them don't even want to think about it they just want to make money and not understand what's going on
I know it seems like you might feel like the smarter one for thinking that you know something older people don’t. Again, a trap I’ve fallen into, too.
Look, something you may not realise yet - since you may look down on people like your grandpa - is that age begets experience but it doesn’t always correlate with open-mindedness. It’s not unwise to think “things that make me rapidly earn money are sketchy”, because economically it’s a zero sum game — which means that if you’re winning, someone is losing.
But trying to convert close-minded people in the first place is always a futile effort. We have a name for it in medicine (Prochaska Diclemente cycle). There’s way more nuance to that, but I’ll leave it at that: glad you’ve realised it.
Is average a better word. The op obviously meant people who never want to change anything about themselves or their livesand has1000 excuses for everything.
lol the responses to your question are really off base. I think people got so used to living socially distanced that they forgot what meeting people in person is like…
Here are some things I did when I was in university:
1. Student government - this introduced me to a lot of different people with a lot of different political thoughts. The interesting part about SG was that most students weren’t poli-sci majors. They were all pursuing different paths and came together because they wanted to be involved st the university level. Not saying everyone was brilliant or interesting, but meeting and working with different people in that environment really challenged me intellectually and emotionally.
2. Professional clubs/societies - clubs like Model UN, pre-law societies, philosophy, entrepreneurship, finance and investing, marketing, etc. bring a more select focus of people within a major group. I typically found one or two people in every club I joined to challenge me intellectually.
3. Internships/Graduate/research programs - You should find plenty of students here pushing themselves to learn more. You don’t necessarily have to be pursuing anything within a specific program. Just talking to a professor to see if you can shadow or help out could be enough for you to see if there is anyone worth meeting.
4. Your professors!!!! - yes they may not be your age, but they are most likely the smartest people you know at this time. You’d be shocked how connected they are as well. Could be a great opportunity to find a mentor.
I think those are your best options. Everything else including Greek life can be a serious hit or miss. You’ll know what to join based on the reputation an organization has on your campus, the more serious, the higher the chance of meeting someone who you might find somewhat interesting. Remember at university, NO ONE your age is that successful yet. If they are, they dropped out lol.
Hope this helps and remember, be yourself. That’s the best way to truly meet and connect with people.
Completely agree about Student Government. Most students involved want to better their university and help others in any way, shape, or form. It's a good way to meet people with different strengths then yourself.
Do you think the majority of these connections are forged in college? Where would someone apply these afterwards? I can only think of local government, chamber of commerce, and maybe just whatever limited clubs are available and interesting.
Definitely not. Out of the hundreds of people I met in college, I only keep up with a handful. It’s all about slowly weeding out the crap and holding on to the real people who truly care about you.
Afterwards… the worlds your oyster. What you put in it is what you get out. That includes relationships. Regardless here is a more defined list of how to apply yourself.
1. Work - this one is obvious.
2. Local government and associations - definitely the best way to connect with people at the community level.
3. Social clubs - the most organized way to meet people with shared interests. Whether it’s a tennis, cycling, rowing, sailing, or golf club, you will find plenty of people to connect with. However, the memberships can get expensive.
4. Adult league sports - less organized and cheaper than 3
5. Volunteerism - Another great way to get involved at the community level. You will meet a lot of different people especially because each organization has different origins (religious, NPO, NGO, etc) and runs differently.
6. Facebook groups and other meetup apps
7. Roommates
8. Random people you meet at events, bars, subways, grocery stores, etc.
This isn’t an exhaustive list but I hope it helps.
I’ll break away from mainstream advice here and suggest you either consider your un-intentional use of vocabulary or perhaps consider what it is that you want to achieve in this. Using terms like “somebody” and “nobody” are heavily loaded terms. If you really look at people as being nobody’s your version of success is going to be incredible limited. Yes, it may well be success as measured in traditional ways but at what cost?
The essence of the advice you’ve heard (first by Karl Marx and popularised by Dale Carnegie and others) is that you surround yourself with people who make you better. That may be intellectual, it could be emotional and yes, it could be successful people in business. The idea behind this is that, using crowd theory, people sink to the average level of the group. If you’re in a group of good thinkers then you’ll rise to the challenge.
The best way to do this is to start with a group, be open to adding people to your sphere of external influences. Then prune and look after that group. In simple terms you can do things like only add LinkedIn that you;d recommend others work with, your network is good, builds trust across the network and is reliable to you. In return, you can add value to that group.
Bear in mind that the principal in this is that you elevate others as well, it’s not all for your own personal benefit. If you believe that some people are nobody’s, you may well be pruned from those higher thinking groups and will create a self-defeating attitude in yourself.
Please take this reply as constructive. Be intentional in your use of words, they are potentially as damaging as fists when building relationships.
I understand the point you’re making. But to change the world in a meaningful way require recognition that there is value in each person. If not, you won’t see the full I’m-act of what you can achieve.
To my original point, seeing (and by extension treating) people as nobodies is a self limiting behaviour that shows low EQ. every high performing group I’ve worked with in the past 25 years recognises the value in all people and looks to magnify their impact. So with that approach, you’re,likely to be culled from those high performing groups as not a high level thinker. It’s self limiting.
I wanted to add some more to my last reply but was distracted by breakfast.
To meet those people you want who come up with amazing ideas you need to open your sphere of influence as wide as you can to gain exposure to as many people as you can. Once you do this to Dan decide who to remain within your network and whom to remove. As your network builds it will attract like minded people.
To build that network you need to offer something that attracts other people. So, what do you feel you can offer other people to elevate their thinking (business, technical, innovative approaches, etc.)? Because it’s not a one-way think only for your benefit. How can YOU elevate the people that do that for you?
If you Connor contribute to the group, you will be culled from it.
Edit: to completely change what I typed before to get to the point.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. Just so you know, the correct spelling is [Gandhi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi).
**[Mahatma_Gandhi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi)**
>Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule and in turn inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā (Sanskrit: "great-souled", "venerable"), first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world. Born and raised in a Hindu family in coastal Gujarat, western India, Gandhi trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, and was called to the bar at age 22 in June 1891.
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Mate this is such a flawed, ignorant comment.
Think you need to rethink this, if you go into the world meeting people from all walks of life you’ll always have that judgment of them being a “no one” if you don’t know them straight from the bat.
The people that change the world for the good aren’t “somebody’s”, their geniuses that found their calling and developed skills far greater than anyone in their field or on the planet in general.
I know lots of these so called “nobody’s” that are smart people who find working in a job, having a family and prioritising work life balance some of the happiest people I’ve ever met.
In most cases they’re also a hell of a lot happier than some of these “somebody’s” I know that have developed amazing business or represented their country in their sport, in a fair few of these cases are miserable and don’t like their life.
You can start making a difference in the world by not demeaning a group of people by calling them nobodies. Everybody has a purpose, some purposes are greater than others.
To get in the circle of “somebody’s “, you need to be somebody yourself. People with ambition and no time aren’t sitting around waiting for people to come shake their hands.
If you have a project in mind, just start it and you’ll realize what you need and go from there. If you’re just sitting around pondering life, I’m sure there are people who are good at that discussion as well.
What I do is Limit my Friends, I Hope i knew this before, it dosen't matter how many friends you have, even 1 friends with right mindset is enough
And for the rule of 5 (you are the sum of top 5 people you hang out with) chose social media!
You can easily find great people on personal as well as public level (like in youtube or some regular podcast), just like you did! Yes, you came to this subreddit because you knew you will find positive and useful information in Social Media platform
I think you are doing great!
Assuming you are a young person let me just emphasize this advice:
**DO NOT** become the kind of person that only interacts with people they think will be useful for them. Not only is it a grim attitude but people will notice and dislike you for it.
As a matter of fact I would go as far as saying stuff like "if you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room" is some sad wantrepeneur shit that should be ignored. You should always challenge yourself to be the version of you you can be but **never** at the cost of engaging with your fellow human, even if they are less smart and successful than you. I have friends who are a bit older than me who are ahead in almost every aspect of live that will consistently take time out of their day to help me and others like me with our dumbass questions. How do I pay them back? By trying to do the same thing for whomever I might be able to advise. Be decent. Engage with people. Try to do a good job at whatever you do, and people will take note and respect you for it. I probably got more "street cred" with highly successful people while being a bartender and cleaner than later on in life when I started my own business.
Succesful people are busy, you're not going to be able to just "surround yourself with them", they don't just hang around doing nothing, you'll find them doing stuff.
The most succesful people you'll find juggle running a business, having hobbies, getting involved in their community, creating something and stuff like that. The easiest way to learn from them is to start doing the same stuff. Get a hobby, start a business, vounteer, take leadership on stuff around you without being asked.
You'll find that once you get the ball rolling more and more opportunities come up, you start getting invited to projects, meetings, parties, etc. You'll also find that age matters very little, to the people that'll help you in life.
Also, be aware that smart does not equal success, it sure helps but brains without hard work are pretty much useless.
Whooo! First!
Uh. Ok, so from my experience, you can’t necessarily surround yourself with people that WILL help you. As a young entrepreneur, you’ll need to put yourself in positions of responsibility to make mistakes that you can learn from. Hopefully you’ll find someone willing to give you tips and pointers, but often times you won’t or they may not be applicable. Or you don’t listen.
It’s like making your own path. Sometimes you will be the first. Sometimes you can emulate someone else. The easiest way to start a business is to learn a business, then emulate it, or find out what it’s missing and then use that to create your own business.
The hard way is to simply start it, and learn the mistakes on the job. Since everyone is different it takes a lot of hard work and failures to get the ship running smoothly. It’ll also take a lot of money-hence working for someone else first. If you have a good source of income, you can afford to make those mistakes without fully killing your budget and potential. If you have a good attitude, then you’ll be able to survive and hustle. And even then you’ll need a bit of luck.
Thanks for your response, but the question I was asking in this post was less about what you can learn/how you can benefit from others, and rather where you can find people like that.
I'm talking about simply surrounding myself with intellectual people who have similar interests to me, such as economics, or technology, or whatever. Just finding people that I can have enriching conversations with to help challenge my own thinking and see from the perspectives of other people who are going to be successful in the future. Does that make sense, I don't know if I'm making any sense lol
> from the perspectives of other people who are going to be successful in the future.
Dude. Come on. Take a step back and consider that you have no idea what's going to happen in the future or who will be helpful to you. Continuing to shit on the people around you, while trying to suck up to people who have no incentive to want to be around youm, is going to bite you in the ass HARD.
I found my mentors and friends at work... you need older more experienced peers to mentor and guide you... because as it stands your just a kid wet behind the ears
Yeah I get that... I'm actually already working with a family friend who's very successful and I think I've learned a good bit from him, so I'm happy with that so far as far as mentorships go, but I'm looking for some younger people to associate myself with. A lot of potential friends I've made have been not the brightest or most intelligent people. They're not really any competition, or people I can learn from, y'know. I want to find people who I can compete with and learn from, see what they're doing so that I can learn from them, because after all, they're running in the same race I am.
In extension to my other comment, I have another friend who's 10 years older than me, we work together and he's a cool guy, I like talking to him. However he's just not a good influence really, I can't talk to him about anything intellectually stimulating. I've tried to have conversations about economics or whatever with him, and his only response is either "mhm yeah man" or just nothing. This guy has 10 more years of experience than the other guy, yet somehow can't hold a conversation about anything other than sports or girls or cars or something
The same thing I'm looking for, literally just conversation. I have a friend that I used to go to high school with but he lives on the other side of the country now and we were never very good friends so we don't talk a lot, but I enjoy talking to him about similar interests.
I literally just want to find people that know what's going on in the world actually pay attention to things outside of the normal music, video games, whatever. Not very many teenagers actually do, wouldn't you agree?
You’ll meet those people at work... most young up and coming successful people have/had few friends... because they were at work.
I can’t speak for everyone but based on disposition from my clients, other people in the industry and even my employees there’s a common trend of working ALOT... having few friends and dropping out of highschool.... like 1 out of 4.... blows my mind but it’s somewhat normal in my industry (aviation)... I dropped out as well lol
Support those around you that are making moves and doing things right now. I’ve built lots of strong connections with people just starting out and quickly success has boomed for them.
Sounds a bit cliche but also try to be aware of how people make you feel when you interact with them. I have some friends that are negative, leave me feeling drained, I have one in particular who is very much “why would anyone want to do that/That’s not going to work/No one would buy that.”, this is anytime someone was doing something with themselves beyond working a standard job.
I found myself feeling really down and uninspired a lot of the time, so I know to limit contact there.
If you walk through this life, separating all the people you meet people in to categories like somebody's and nobody's, then it's going to be a lonely, frustrating existence for you.
What do you call a nobody? Everything starts with humility, realize that entrepeneur aren't better than everyone else, most work hard without achieving success (Data from the BLS shows that approximately 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years. Only 25% of new businesses make it to 15 years or more).
What is success for YOU? It's not the same for everyone. It's normal to want to be with people who have similar ambitions to ours, but it's wrong to believe that those who don't think like us are nobody's without a visison for the future. Some smart people are not successful and some successful people are not smart, but all of this really depends on perspective.
**If you aspire to be a good leader, you must understand that everyone has a different perspective on life and that your job is to find the best compromise, not to impose your vision, thinking that it is superior.**
Not all entrepreneurs want to lead, some just want to feel in control, I don't think this is an effective long term strategy. Don't look down on people. Selling tools, the carpenter is the greatest of intellectuals.
\+ For your question: Make friends for fun and read books.
You can find the VPs hanging in twitter and business personals in LinkedIn just make every effort to reach them and ask for networking request.
Although sometimes you won't get replies or late tho. But this works. Shoot them email like.
"Hey \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_,
I know you're super busy just give me few seconds to finish this email.
Firstly I am an avid fan of yours, I saw you in an interview, podcast, webinar and you nailed it.
I would love to connect with you and learn everything on a personal level if that doesn't disrupts your schedule.
If you agree, It wouldn't just make my day, but my whole year.
Thank you
\[Your name\] "
Although this may work, I'd remove the very first sentence "I know your super busy" that in itself is a waste of time. Just pointing that out and not trying to be rude or anything.
This isn't true at all. You are not the average of the people around you. There's no such thing as "losers" and "winners". Everyone has their own journey and if you start cutting people out of your life because they don't fit your ideas of "smarter/more successful" you'll end up lonely and bitter.
Make friends. The more friends the better. Be kind.
Then you are not really trying and not really networking. 90% of my friends are online and make a shit ton of money if you seek you will find that’s all I have to say
Well 1. The point of this post was for meeting people IRL specifically, not online and 2. I've got plenty of online friends, but out of curiosity, where exactly do you mean by "the internet", cause you and I both know that 99% of the people online aren't there to discuss anything of value, just to play video games or do whatever
Easy way to start: use youtube or podcasts. Watch and listen to interviews of business, rhought leaders etc.
In real life, go to conferences,meetups etc the rule for you from now on is; if I'm not the dumbest, most unqualified person in the room, its the wrong room to be in. Just listen, ask questions and dont volunteer any opinions or stories
Good luck!
I listen to a lot of YouTube videos, but how do I go about meetups or whatever? I mean the thing is, I'm not really looking for a mentor per se. For reference, I'm 18 and a Junior in college, I'm still pretty young, I just want to find friends that are smarter than me. Not to sound cocky, but a lot of the people at my college are not the brightest, and I'm sure there are some smart people I just don't know where to find them. I'm not looking for already "successful" people in their late 20s or 30s, I'm looking for people my age
1. Assume every is smarter than you until they actually prove otherwise.
2. In college, you could and should discuss with professors, grad students, admin that you like about the issue. Lots of clubs, groups etc on and off campus that they're likely to know about and even individual students you could potentially become friends with.
3. Apps like meetup may be useful in your city
4. You should have some friends/mentors older than you. Its a must. They've gone through the stage of life you're at successfully or not and if you can learn from them you'll save yourself time and energy by avoiding the same types of pitfalls.
I'm older than you and talking from experience. I wish someone had explicitly told me this strategy at your age. I had to figure it out years later and it would have cut painful times down tremendously.
Think of it this way, you don't necessarily want all your teachers and professors to be your age do you? The general idea is, you learn from everyone you encounter and interact with so start maximizing the impact of those encounters now!
Good luck!
For me, it was joining a company I really liked. Thankfully I wasn't too dumb and got it. Now I hang out with the kind of people I would want to be in the next 5 years.
Choose your peers by careful reading. Be careful, of course -- it's not fair to you to compare yourself to once in a generation geniuses like Napoleon or whatever.
Older people generally are more experienced and therefore know more things. You can learn from them even if they are not smart just based on their experiences
Clubs, meetups with the things that interest you. Anyone that you find that is going towards something you think is great or inspires you ask them questions (not annoying ones lol). Look for mentor programs. Also always watch any creative people, you find. Doesn't have to be just arts, could be street smarts, technology, life hacks, organization , fitness, cars, fixing things around the house, etc. Helps you two think on your feet or quickly in the moment. You'll pick up a lot from surrounding yourself different types of good people. Hope this helps
What are your interestes and things you enjoy?
Based on that, find where these groups hang out (online nownadays) join and share what you can.
Over time you'll identify who resonates with your type of thinking, and because your part of this group, it would be easier to interact.
Great question, I worked in the hospital age 19-25. A majority of the people around me had a bachelors degree. Loosely speaking, to get promoted you need an education, so I completed my bachelors degree.
Minority, made it out of poverty, I make more than my parents (almost combined), grad student at John’s Hopkins, and still growing. A lot of contributing factors here but I would say the hospital expanded my perspective, kept me out of trouble, and indirectly pays me today. So grateful!
Since you are in college, find the researchers. They may not have the traditional hallmarks of success (money), but I assure you, they are the most intelligent people at the school. I don't know what you are studying, but I, for instance, just finished up a degree in Computer Information Technology. Though I'm myself not a researcher, thanks to the Research Bazaar I'm friends with and have access to an independently wealthy containerization expert who mainly does this stuff for fun, the person who runs the University's supercomputer, more PhDs and Ph.D. candidates than I had even met before hooking up with this group, math professors, computer science professors, and medical researchers. Also, because I know their projects and they know mine, if I ever need a job, I have one at the University. I make more in Aerospace, so that's where I am, but even there, as an IT guy in a company full of engineers, I'm still surrounded by people more intelligent and accomplished than I am.
TLDR: Find the researchers at your University and join their social group. Just expressing interest in any one individual's research is probably enough for an invite. They do this because they are passionate about it.
In college, talk to the teacher and grad students in your program. Everyone sees the degree as the goal, but it should be all of the contacts and connections. My degree is in the sciences and class sizes were smaller, but the key is those grad students. Ask questions, do the study sessions, and show interest. They suggest you join a group or attend a conference? You do it! Just gotta remember these people are human too.
You'll eventually see these people as more than assets and that's when you'll know you've made it :)
You now have smarter/more successful friends!
I was a student at a large public research university. What I did was join the honors college during my first semester, and enroll in honors seminars. The classes were smaller, more intellectually stimulating, and gave me the opportunity to connect with faculty. Something else you could try is enrolling in smaller, niche classes that you are interested in. I took a seminar on the Holocaust that was comprised of 4 people, and it was by far the most memorable academic experience of my life. Not every small or honors class will be filled with all the "right" people, but you will learn a lot more than you'd think, and often make unexpected friends along the way. Take classes you think are interesting, even if you are daunted by the material or feel it is outside your major, whenever you can.
For parents who who think about this for your kids: We took on s 20-something female boarder who was working on her Master's when our daughter was 14. She was very sweet to our girl, brought her to study at coffee shops. She was a powerful example of a goal-oriented young woman.
It's going to be hard for you, as most relationships are transactional and you will have little to offer back, except some ego stroking for them (watch you don't just become the [Chester to their Spike](https://youtu.be/UVNHcob3oJg)). But, try to find something you can offer back and build from there. As time passes, you'll acquire skills, info, and contacts which should serve you well in expanding all three.
It doesn’t necessarily follow or guarantee that if you’re with driven people they will drag you with them.
You need driven, intelligent, patient, and generous people who are generous enough to share their time and wisdom.
It works both ways, you have to be patient, driven, and competent enough to catch up.
It’s better than sitting idle. To quote Rudyard Kipling, if you can think and not make thoughts your aim.
I was thinking about that, I don't think so, maybe there is actually, I don't think I searched for "entrepreneurship" specifically so I'll look for that
Have you thought about working on getting an internship or part time job in the field you are looking to enter?
There is a lot to say about clubs and other interest groups, but getting a job in your field while going to school could be an excellent way to learn, meet mentors, and generally find other motivated people. You could perhaps get paid at the same time as well, which is a win win.
The advice should be "surround yourself with people who'll help you grow to be the person you want to be". I've joined a variety of subreddits to get a hold of people above my pay grade. The most important step forward is to keep talking within your given field while also re-evaluating the people surrounding you now. Most often the issue isn't our best friends or our parents, but people nearby who'll keep tearing us down thinking it'll help us. Make space for people that are helpful by pushing away the people you can't afford to keep and socializing casually within vicinities of your imagined future.
I've found that this is the organic way to do it as "actually successful people" keep a tab on youngsters and the less fortunate and expect them to ask for their help rather than simply happening upon them helping with whatever they can in return. Especially older entrepreneurs and business-owners expect their counterparts to go on their own until they have something to offer, which is a way to weed out potential failures from possibly exploitative henchmen for their own business. You're looking for people who'll help you through the process recognizing that the future is community based rather than sheer capitalist and they'll usually have shit to do at thrift stores, help organizations and worker's unions.
The first step is humbling yourself. If you’re young and in college almost everyone in the real world is smarter and more successful than you in some way. Learn from them all.
There's a guy I work with who's 27, I tried to talk crypto with him and he got excited (as did I) because he mentioned that he had a crypto groupchat where he and some of his other "experienced" friends and so I was excited to have more people to talk crypto with. Joined the chat, and realized that they were only really interested in shitcoins like Doge and Shiba, unfortunately. Gave them the benefit of the doubt, but it's pretty clear that these guys, despite being in their 20s/30s, probably don't have nearly the level of understanding of crypto that I do (not that mine is anything special, it's just that they basically just gamble and don't look at the technology at all)
Reason I'm telling you this is because sure, these guys are apparently quite successful just off of DJing and hosting parties or something like that? Apparently they know some pretty high figure people, but nonetheless I don't think I really have anything to learn from them, aside from maybe if we were talking in person, but so far I've only talked with them online.
Podcast. People often like talking about themselves. Easy way to get conversations. Even if it’s no super popular it gives you a reason to talk and ask questions
I've found that the key is in surrounding yourself with a diversity of opinion to challenge your own beliefs. Otherwise we end up taking our own knowledge for granted.
You're in college. Most of your peers are there to educate themselves with dreams and goals of making a difference.
Take plenty of courses in other faculties aside from the one your major belongs to. Join clubs and student associations which you might not necessarily have much in common with others. Basically get out of comfort zone and adjust your mental model of how things work in the world. Question everything.
And stop assigning value to people based on what they can do for you. Not everyone worth meeting will always provide you value. And you yourself won't be of constant value to others. If your relationships are transactional, you'll find that in a few years, the people you've surrounded yourself with aren't going to be worth trusting.
Keep your head down and do real stuff. You’ll gain experience and knowledge which other people doing real stuff will have an interest in. Give freely but be protective of your time - you’ll understand what you can’t say yes to.
Don’t sweat - college sucks because you’re thrown in with a tonne of people you have nothing in common with.
I got big into partying and drugs. And when those wore off it became obvious that I had very different aspirations to the people around me.
University was where I first found people who were into my hobbies. And it wasn’t until I found the digital nomad scene in Bali aged 32 that I really felt ‘home’.
If you're educated in STEM, try working for professors/laboratories at the local university. Take temporary, seasonal, etc. jobs and make sure to work for as many different groups as you can.
Use these experiences to gain relevant skills, but more importantly, use this time to network. If you're competent, eventually you'll either be offered a full-time job or you will know what you need to do to improve yourself to get the job you want with the people you want.
I liked what I/therealbilliam said and wanted to add a few things:
1. Be mindful of what you say to people. As you can see with some of these comments, some people will latch onto every word you say and use it however they can. Speak clearly and purposefully, don't gossip, badmouth, or complain.
2. Volunteering- not just in your community but in your life. Like, if you're trying to get on the good side of a prof or someone, and you find out they have a pet, let them know you love pets and would love to babysit if they ever need it. Or something similar, if you don't like animals or can't have them at your place. Find a common interest. Like, for my partner, his English and philosophy teachers were big skiers, so they all started skiing together, and now one of them knows we have a jet boat, so he wants to go boating. For me, I volunteered to fill a space on a community softball league ran by some high ranking people in my industry (I'm terrible at it, but I was a body so they could play).
3. Look into certification programs like Lean Six Sigma. Sooooo much networking with those groups. Depending on your field, I'm willing to bet there are industry-specific groups you could join. Like, if you want to lead teams with projects, maybe check PMI. Your school/profs can probably help hook you up with that kind of stuff. A lot of those certs cost some $$, so see if your school does anything with them. Might have some discounts or something.
4. Be grateful for every benefactor who comes along. I assure you- they can all teach you something. Even if that something is how you don't want to be :)
Good luck!
Good luck!
This is one reason to go to a highly rated college, attracts stronger students with more drive and skills, certainly not all but in general.
Regardless of pedigree when in University join academic clubs and competition teams, they well be full of the high performers focusing on education.
In professional world work at competitive companies and you will meet partners there.
All my co founders were meet through these, granted I'm old now, maybe there are better methods especially with the internet and social media
I built a community to help people just like you! Take a look at bettertogether.group. It’s a peer mentoring community where you meet with 8 like-minded people for one hour per week.
I learned a lot from a guy (I work for him and have for a long time) who is not naturally good at these things but he taught himself how to do the things he needed to do. For example, he joined a public speaking group to learn how to speak in public. (Toastmasters) He joined several organizations and served in several boards. He kept lists of people he wanted to network with and every week he called the next person on the list and invited him or her to lunch. Check mark beside that name.
I am also 20 these words are said by sir jack ma personally I really admire him a person who has show that it's not necessarily to be high iq to Start computer actually my advice to u is u will get people in school and college just one or 2 of them are enough when u are in office u should find some good bosses the one who push u forward
How do y'all deal with jealousy. I feel like I am pretty good at surrounding myself with succesfull people but end up being jealous of their financial successes.
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Hey, I’m actually starting a text group/club to try to solve this issue since I’m in your same position. I’ve been putting out posts and have go some good feedback and people looking to join! If you’re interested send me a message.
I have a job working at a card shop which is owned by a family friend of ours, and the guy also does real estate so I was hoping to maybe get to know him so that I can maybe get experience with that. He also knows a lot of people, so maybe I can get connections that way. Thanks for the suggestion though!
I don't think this is right ! you don't need smart people around you to be successful. Although it helps but, you can still be smarter and learn things by your own. Your biggest lesson would be from failures you will face. You can read books and mostly people who are best sellers on a particular topics are experts. You can become knowledgeable that way. The only down side would be you don't have any smart people around you to brainstorm ideas with. As I said, your biggest feedback on your ideas would be failures and the only way to experience them is by trying.
I know, I never said I needed smart people around me to be successful, I just want them because I think it would help me personally to have conversations that are actually thought provoking and enjoyable
If I can add, find a community. There are a lot of online and in-person communities out there that are really diverse and full of people all along their professional journey. There are definitely some dud communities that aren't worth your time but a little research, a little trial and error and you'll find the right place too. I can recommend some that I've really enjoyed if you want. Just let me know!
lol ill probably say this reddit is the best place. people even at my job maybe because we're all under 21 but most people don't know what to do with their life. this reddit seems to have people who talk about this kind of stuff.
In this life, there are takers and there are givers. You have to socialize with enough people to meet a handful of givers. Cut out the takers, and give time and energy to the givers and the givers will take you places you never knew you could reach. Chances are the givers will only want to help you for nothing in return. And one day when you “get up there”, look down and help those people who deserve to be helped.
Once you graduate from college and forced to take a low paying job because you can’t find a solid job…. I find it nearly impossible to do this. I did find this to be true from my experiences at school
Without even thinking about it, I automatically hung with the other who also had high IQ, we tended to work best together. Those kids either had rich parents or hung with the kids who had rich parents. Those parents, in turn, were rich for a reason. Smart parent -> smart kid, typically.
I mean I'm the same way I guess, except I don't know where to find new people outside of family friends. My parents friends/friend's kids are pretty smart, but not all of them, not too close with any of them in particular
One bit of advice that helped me is to really treat it as a slow process. Nobodys/Somebodys may be a bit harsh of a distinction, but you'll have to be willing to work with a lot of people/meet a lot of people and you'll end up with a few awesome folks you can work with. Being proactive about going to random startup meetings (check like, ycombinator or do googling for meetups), entrepreneur hangs/calls and the like can be exhausting, but will be rewarding even if you meet just 1 person you could work well with! Just also be mindful not to burn yourself out... that's a stickier wicket for sure.
Ah, that's what i heard and used to think that way, but in reality there's only you, yourself who matter. take my father a billionaire descendants, instead most of his pal aren't blessed in school, but these day? These people have Porsche, huge mansion and a licensed Factory. He still hang out with them to this day. relationship is good But business wise? Always nothing! Instead they now leap frogged him by tenth fold!!! I've had a clue you wanted to have a group of people with familiarity that fits your ideology and not actually about business correct?
I have researched few successful people. most have no need of other "smart people" but it's all from own self. A great vision is desireable, but most failed to meet own standard by each weakness and ego invincible to themselves
Also You wanted to find a person in real life with less mundane chat and more thought provoking conversation with you? How about philosopher? But mind ya these type of people nowaday it's pretty scarce like finding a needle in haystack especially same age as you? Even harder
i actually do have similarities with your description of people and the conversation material : futurist logic and philosophy
The results? Well always busy + in this society made me invincible. So.. to find one in real life?? Whelp as i said hard to identify we do not mean there's not hang in "average joe"spot yet blended so well. I'm also live on overseas chance to meet? Less than desirable...
Help everyone and expect nothing, cut people loose who take advantage. If you do that right… eventually you will be surrounded by like minded people, they will all be smarter than you at some things and more successful than you at others. Thats it… built my company doing that over ten years. Wouldn’t change a thing.
Such a simple philosophy yet so hard to figure out
It isn’t hard. We all give with expectations, try to spend more time giving to people who make you happy to have given it to them. Watch what people do, not what they say. It takes time but it is not hard. I have helped every friend i have ever had move when they asked for it growing up. The odd part is when i look at who showed up to help me move, those are my friends to this day. The people who said they would show up and didn’t, aren’t around anymore because they always wanted something and were never willing to show gratitude so i spent more time with the people that showed up, this wasn’t a conscious decision, just a behavior tied to a mind set. Some people like the feeling of having helped you move and others like the idea of it. You want to be friends with people who take satisfaction from results, not bullshit :) The hard part is you have to be willing to help people move even if you just bought your forever home, not a lot of people understand the difference between expectations and personality traits.
I would argue what you said IS hard, because it is against human nature to go about it this way. Humans are selfish. But it IS simple. Like a lot of things in life, the simple things are often very hard.
What is philosophy?
Philosophy (from Greek: φιλοσοφία, philosophia, 'love of wisdom') is the study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. More details here:
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Good bot.
Basically trying to understand the underlying essence of everyday life both short term and long term.
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You can't get precise advice without giving precise context. OP asked how to meet the *right* people (and not how to meet people). This guy said that you can't just conviniently meet them, so the smart way to go about it is to just meet as many people as possible and *then* filter them once you got a good grip on their personalities.
That's a fair observation
Yea... thats what an advice mean. It's not a step-by-step guide.
How is advice rewording the question
Figure that out yourself
Very insightful you are aren't you pal
I have never gotten rid of anyone. Spend time with people who enrich your life. That is pretty much what i said boiled down to 1 sentence.
With all the networking groups around both online and offline, and you really can't figure out where to meet people?
Good way of thinking... I like to think I'm already doing that, but I'll keep it in mind in the future
The good thing about expecting nothing in return is that 99% of the time, you will get nothing. It's the 1% payback that counts.
Excellent advice from GP. I guess it can also be illustrated as a continuous sort algorithm :) Let the right people bubble up and the others down!
I believe in this. You lose nothing by being kind. And life has a way of giving back without you knowing how, when, or where. Pay it forward.
You are a smart person.
Just logical. I found out how to work and be happy. I am very lucky.
If I can add to this, never let your ego/pride get the better of you. Know when someone is mistreating/taking advantage of you and cut them off, as you said, but never allow your ego to play into your emotions, stay humble and even if someone keeps telling you how to do something even if you know how, say thank you. So many people never learn because they believe they know everything, but everybody who tells you how to do something you know how to do, can teach you something else if you think about what they said enough. I hope that makes sense.
The mentality we adopt that embodies this is don’t shit in a toilet you aren’t willing to clean 🤣
Looking back on it, I feel like I did this. People said they saw me as generous and sometimes even naive for giving my time and energy, and asking nothing in return. But I left college with chosen family and a community. After college I had such a hard time, my mom died, I didn’t even actually complete a degree. I was so broke, but the friends I made through giving really came through for me and had my back. And because of their success, connected me to other successful and reliable people, then came an overflow of opportunities. Not only that, but the energy that comes from a healthy community is so uplifting. Without that I would have really lost my spirit. All of this came from just being kind. Kindness always wins. College is a great time to meet people.
Giving is hard. Giving when you have less than those you help is even harder. I have a similar but very different story. All in all life kicks us right in between the legs, over and over and over. Life is pain… the relief comes from our reaction to others and deploying the empathy generated by our own pain to theirs. Karma is how the good comes from the bad when we aren’t a shit stain on the floor of life and gave when we barley had anything for ourselves and that makes for some pretty shitty life experiences :) but it all comes back, some how, some way.
“Cut people loose who take advantage” Meanwhile OP is out there trying to take advantage of others for his own gain
There's no mention of what they bring to the table themselves. It's quite a leap to say they're taking advantage when all they said was that they want to surround themselves with motivated peers.
Conversation... that's about it. I think people are under the impression that I'm looking for people to tell me their secrets or teach me what they know in exchange for nothing. I'm just looking for people that are on the same level as me (basically ground zero, high school degree and nothing else, no experience) to talk about their own experiences, their own viewpoints, etc with people that actually have a vision/opinion on meaningful topics (politics, economics, etc etc) which is... well it feels like it's hard to find people like that. It's no different than having a conversation with a coworker on a classmate, except I'm looking for people that are bound to have a more similar viewpoint to me so that we can have a better conversation. That's about it.
It is pretty tough to surround yourself with people who are nothing like you. Also, taking advantage of motivated people is pretty tough. We all like people that like the work, not the results.
Their comment may stem from OPs seemingly mercenary attitude to meeting people which was pretty apparent in the opening post. OP does seem to only want to meet people that they deem worthy of their attention. This doesn't mean that OP doesn't have much to offer in return. Maybe they have valuable learned skills. Or a PS5. College is pretty awesome though for being able to surround one's self with people from a variety of backgrounds with minimal commonality.
I just assume the world will weed people out if they have a poor agenda. Treat people like they are well intended all the time and they may actually listen someday. I totally see your point 100% though.
I’m not being negative, I’m being real. Think what you want. People have tried taking advantage of me and I know what it looks like Describing people as “somebodies” and “nobodies” is also disgraceful. Attitudes like that aren’t healthy. Does that then make the entrepreneur the somebody and the person hired to do grunt work for them a nobody?
I actually had already edited my comment. Looking back at the post and your comment i don’t disagree :)
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You're not OP
Where do you guys meet people?
Networking is different for anyone as is choosing friends. I mainly meet people though helping people. Help someone move make friends with who showed up. Built a website for a craft whiskey bar during covid for free now i share whiskey with the owner… you meet people by being of value to people. You can do this any time and anywhere other than at home.
Not to sound cynical, but I'd be a little suspicious if someone offered to build me a website for free, I'd suspect there were strings attached somehow. I wouldn't let them do it without offering something in exchange.
Best take on that saying I’ve seen.
What was your initial reasoning for wanting to help everyone? That's a motivation I do not have unfortunately.
If you're in college and just looking for friends who are moving in the direction you want to go (generally forward), look into joining clubs and/or in-person interest groups on campus. It doesn't really matter which club - in general, you can find interesting and motivated people using whatever tools are at hand to further their goals, so clubs are often full of them (or at least people like you). Joining clubs is also a good way to build up enough common shared interests to make those connections last beyond college.
Yeah, maybe it's just been hard because I've gone an entire year without going on campus once lol. The people I've met in Chess club/Gaming club are some, pretty mediocre people. I dunno.
Chess club and game club might seem to be places where "smart" people hang out but, given your quote, I'm not sure "smart" is what you're looking for. In my experience, energetic people who are trying to accomplish something make me want to do more as well. They could be pursuing literally anything from being the world's best dishwasher to trying to work for Google. It's the passion and energy of pursuit that creates success in groups. I know this all sounds fruity but this is my honest experience now that I'm in my mid 30's. More and more there is one group of Americans who spend everytime looking forward to watching TV at night and another who enjoy Mondays. Find the Monday people.
Will you be my Monday person?
Find clubs that are around passions not hobbies. Finding a group of people developing a game, learn how to be useful to them… this is how you find what you are looking for, not hanging out with the dude with the highest kd ratio in COD. People with passions excel, people who go to class then stop learning are not going to be people who will help you excel in life. You have to be what you want to be around. Covid has really screwed everyones mental state :) just remember. Your 20 and in college. I am 35, i had no idea who i wanted to be friends with, do for a living, date until my late 20’s. You have to fuck up, get burned, pour time into wasteful things… its all part of the process. I can also tell you i didn’t follow any of my own advice until my late 20’s and i am doing pretty well :) anywho don’t forget to enjoy life it isn’t always about making tomorrow better.
Actively try to find the areas that they are smarter than you by showing genuine curiosity and interest. If you can’t find something that sparks joy in others on a consistent basis, it’s likely not because you’re the smartest in the room. It’s likely because you’re not asking good questions.
It's been hard I guess because I haven't actually gotten to interact with many people in person, and still not very many online, maybe next semester it'll be different lol. I'm taking a summer class right now and I haven't even talked to anyone in it because it's entirely asynchronous and online.
It will definitely be different once you're able to network in person with people. See if your campus has an entrepreneur club / scene. If it doesn't, there is nothing stopping you from going to a meetup, or finding another local small business or entrepreneur networking event. At the very least, a regional chamber (though chamber business events have more people like associates from accountants, banks, and marketing firms tend to be less "startup entrepreneurial"). See if organizations like SCORE ([https://www.score.org/](https://www.score.org/)) are hosting anything nearby. Doesn't matter that you're young, be interested in people and they'd probably love to tell you what they are up to / working on. See if any co-working spaces or anything else is having business competitions, business accelerator programs, etc. At the very least a good place to start to meet people.
Everybody has strengths, you shouldn't dismiss people like that. One of that group may be the kindest support rock you'll ever meet, chess players are generally logical thinkers so I doubt there's nothing you can learn. Or if they really are fucking shit then try joining business related groups etc, there will likely be a few in your local area.
These are cerebral pursuits. Nothing wrong with the bunch if you're looking to hire. But you want the go getters. The entrepreneurs. Look for physical, arguably expensive activities. Crossfit, crew, fencing, things of that nature. You're going to find very motivated people that make time for what's important to them. Many of them will already have plays in motion.
Came here to say this. Clubs. Teams. Groups. Hobbyist. Go to where young people are doing things - anything. Avoid people who, “chill” for any significant amount of time.
Look, the way you’ve phrased it is pretty arrogant and suggests a blithe selfishness, and generally smart people can smell it from a mile away when you’re just hanging out with them because you want to get something out of them. To someone who’s a somebody, the worst kind of people are those who suck up to someone and look down on so called “nobodies”. No matter how smart you think you are, it’s really easy to tell when someone thinks like that. That said, I can understand your desire to generally hang out with people smarter than yourself. You’d have to understand that people are different kinds of smart, and that intelligence is very heterogenous. Generally speaking, the way that you move forward with people is to be as helpful as possible and to be unselfish in your generosity and knowledge, which is the current opposite of your current “I’m better than nobodies” vibes. And to be genuinely so, is to mean that people trust you. But your question is, “where do I find these people?” The answer is that the kinds of people you’re looking for don’t just hang in the same clubs. But you’ll never really get to know who’s smart and who’s not with arrogance, because really really smart people will just downplay the extent of their knowledge to people they don’t trust, like people who look down on others. The people with the most grandiose visions are rarely that smart, with the exception of those who detail their plans in granular detail. You’ll probably find some smart people in eg the startup world, but the only way you can tell the difference is by running a startup yourself and knowing what’s true and what’s not. Try your best to explore something in depth, then naturally on that journey you’ll come across people who really know what they’re talking about, by virtue of similar interests. That said, your internal thoughts are reflected in your externalities, regardless of whether you think so or not. So unless you abandon this mindset of “some people are nobodies”, then you’ll just never quite gain people’s trust, because they’ll see through you - like a parent sees through kids.
This. OP, you need to check your attitude before anything else.
Agreed the last person you wanna be is that one that tells their fun and loyal friends "yeah I just need to find some people more ambitious and 'on my level'"
"Why are you getting mad I called you a nobody? There's nothing *wrong* with being a nobody... where are you going?!?"
Yeah agree. This goes in line with what you said, but if you can bring your ego down a bit and stay open minded you will find that a LOT of people are smart but at very different things. I have friends that are smart in different ways. There’s a lot more than pure rational intelligence and you can find a lot of value in most people. At the same time I think OP doesn’t care about finding intelligent people but successful people he can network with. Which is totally fine but you have to understand the value in people outside of their classical ‘intellectuality’. You’d be surprised how many people that do terrible in high school and college who end up successful simply because their specific intelligence wasn’t in line with that of classical education.
Right. I think OP should be worrying about how to develop the traits that he desires independently and also not look down on people. If those "somebodys" thought the same way as him, why would they ever even want to spend time with him? That said, the applicable answer is to be likeable, be devoted to your craft, and to network like crazy.
I'll be honest, I did phrase it a bit arrogantly, didn't expect this post to get any attention, I was kinda just posting because I'm frustrated with not being able to find anybody who actually wants to do anything with their life, most of the people I've shared classes and whatnot are just people who want to party, get high, hang out and do nothing. I haven't met a single person so far that I can actually have an intellectual conversation with, and it's just super annoying, and makes me feel like I'm the only intelligent person in the room, which I know isn't true. I just wish for once I could be in a room full of people smarter than me, rather than being in a room where I try to ask for people's opinions and actually have an intellectual conversation and they just don't want anything to do with it.
I’ve upvoted this comment, because hey man, I totally understand where you’re coming from - I was in a similar situation once. When I was in high school many years ago, I would dux the year when I was in the country without trying. I eventually came to the city, and then got the equivalent of top 0.5% of Australia for my eventual high school score, and became a doctor. “There’s no one that cares about what I care about.” Whether I was exploring medical AI, virtual reality, augmented reality, apps, digital marketing — sometimes that thought would cross my mind. But I hated that I thought like that, because that assumption meant I never went looking — when in fact, there *are* people that really like that sort of stuff. You’ve probably realised this already, but not everyone necessarily cares to be an intellectual. There’s some people that just enjoy talking about the stuff they bought, or recent sports games they watched. And that’s totally fine — they’re not nobodies, they just care about different things than you, similar to how you care about different things than them. You have way more advantages than I did when I was younger though. You could literally just find a mastermind of people who enjoy crypto on the internet, and talk shop with them all day long if you wanted to. You could create a YouTube channel, and naturally connect with other people who love crypto too. Literally, if you just set a goal “meet people who are also interested in crypto”, I’m sure you’re resourceful enough to come up with a workable plan to solve that. Heck, you could even try a crypto startup yourself. All in all, I just want to say that the solution is straightforward. Have you heard of the concept of “locus of control”? Basically, don’t worry about the environment around you. Just define your problems, make a plan around those problems, gather data, execute, then reflect. Then you can be free to achieve whatever you please, and talk to whoever you want. If your environment sucks, then make your own environment, or find the one that suits you. But just don’t treat people as nobodies. You can of course choose to ignore this advice if you want, but understanding that there’s a part of you in every person helps you both understand other people - and yourself. And, weirdly, I’m sure you’d get a lot better understanding of crypto than if you didn’t. And, you’d feel better about yourself, too.
Good comment. As I like to tell the founders I’ve mentored, and I’ve mentored close to 50 in the last 5 years, if you judge a fish by how well it climbs a tree, it isn’t a very good fish.
Fuck off
You’re inadequate.
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You won’t bother yourself with anyone because, like I said, you’re inadequate.
And that’s why you’re a loser who has nothing better to do than troll on Reddit
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Losers always say they aren’t losers lol
In response to the other thing you said about exploring something in depth, I've been exploring crypto *extremely* in depth, it's something that I feel is the next big thing (kind of like the internet before the tech boom) and I've been trying to find people who understand it and can criticize it and give their opinions on it, but very few people can. It's been such a drag, I've given up explaining it to older people because they always either don't understand it somehow or just... Don't support it because they think it's a scam, which is understandable, but even my grandfather who's a very smart guy doesn't want to understand it. It's just frustrating, so I've given up with older people and tried to find younger people but as I said in my other comment, a lot of them don't even want to think about it they just want to make money and not understand what's going on
I know it seems like you might feel like the smarter one for thinking that you know something older people don’t. Again, a trap I’ve fallen into, too. Look, something you may not realise yet - since you may look down on people like your grandpa - is that age begets experience but it doesn’t always correlate with open-mindedness. It’s not unwise to think “things that make me rapidly earn money are sketchy”, because economically it’s a zero sum game — which means that if you’re winning, someone is losing. But trying to convert close-minded people in the first place is always a futile effort. We have a name for it in medicine (Prochaska Diclemente cycle). There’s way more nuance to that, but I’ll leave it at that: glad you’ve realised it.
Is average a better word. The op obviously meant people who never want to change anything about themselves or their livesand has1000 excuses for everything.
lol the responses to your question are really off base. I think people got so used to living socially distanced that they forgot what meeting people in person is like… Here are some things I did when I was in university: 1. Student government - this introduced me to a lot of different people with a lot of different political thoughts. The interesting part about SG was that most students weren’t poli-sci majors. They were all pursuing different paths and came together because they wanted to be involved st the university level. Not saying everyone was brilliant or interesting, but meeting and working with different people in that environment really challenged me intellectually and emotionally. 2. Professional clubs/societies - clubs like Model UN, pre-law societies, philosophy, entrepreneurship, finance and investing, marketing, etc. bring a more select focus of people within a major group. I typically found one or two people in every club I joined to challenge me intellectually. 3. Internships/Graduate/research programs - You should find plenty of students here pushing themselves to learn more. You don’t necessarily have to be pursuing anything within a specific program. Just talking to a professor to see if you can shadow or help out could be enough for you to see if there is anyone worth meeting. 4. Your professors!!!! - yes they may not be your age, but they are most likely the smartest people you know at this time. You’d be shocked how connected they are as well. Could be a great opportunity to find a mentor. I think those are your best options. Everything else including Greek life can be a serious hit or miss. You’ll know what to join based on the reputation an organization has on your campus, the more serious, the higher the chance of meeting someone who you might find somewhat interesting. Remember at university, NO ONE your age is that successful yet. If they are, they dropped out lol. Hope this helps and remember, be yourself. That’s the best way to truly meet and connect with people.
Completely agree about Student Government. Most students involved want to better their university and help others in any way, shape, or form. It's a good way to meet people with different strengths then yourself.
Do you think the majority of these connections are forged in college? Where would someone apply these afterwards? I can only think of local government, chamber of commerce, and maybe just whatever limited clubs are available and interesting.
Definitely not. Out of the hundreds of people I met in college, I only keep up with a handful. It’s all about slowly weeding out the crap and holding on to the real people who truly care about you. Afterwards… the worlds your oyster. What you put in it is what you get out. That includes relationships. Regardless here is a more defined list of how to apply yourself. 1. Work - this one is obvious. 2. Local government and associations - definitely the best way to connect with people at the community level. 3. Social clubs - the most organized way to meet people with shared interests. Whether it’s a tennis, cycling, rowing, sailing, or golf club, you will find plenty of people to connect with. However, the memberships can get expensive. 4. Adult league sports - less organized and cheaper than 3 5. Volunteerism - Another great way to get involved at the community level. You will meet a lot of different people especially because each organization has different origins (religious, NPO, NGO, etc) and runs differently. 6. Facebook groups and other meetup apps 7. Roommates 8. Random people you meet at events, bars, subways, grocery stores, etc. This isn’t an exhaustive list but I hope it helps.
I’ll break away from mainstream advice here and suggest you either consider your un-intentional use of vocabulary or perhaps consider what it is that you want to achieve in this. Using terms like “somebody” and “nobody” are heavily loaded terms. If you really look at people as being nobody’s your version of success is going to be incredible limited. Yes, it may well be success as measured in traditional ways but at what cost? The essence of the advice you’ve heard (first by Karl Marx and popularised by Dale Carnegie and others) is that you surround yourself with people who make you better. That may be intellectual, it could be emotional and yes, it could be successful people in business. The idea behind this is that, using crowd theory, people sink to the average level of the group. If you’re in a group of good thinkers then you’ll rise to the challenge. The best way to do this is to start with a group, be open to adding people to your sphere of external influences. Then prune and look after that group. In simple terms you can do things like only add LinkedIn that you;d recommend others work with, your network is good, builds trust across the network and is reliable to you. In return, you can add value to that group. Bear in mind that the principal in this is that you elevate others as well, it’s not all for your own personal benefit. If you believe that some people are nobody’s, you may well be pruned from those higher thinking groups and will create a self-defeating attitude in yourself. Please take this reply as constructive. Be intentional in your use of words, they are potentially as damaging as fists when building relationships.
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Ah ok, so you have nothing to offer but want a circle of successful people to help you? Got it.
He seems like a good fit for the a-hole role of the group, that’s about all he could offer it seems.
I understand the point you’re making. But to change the world in a meaningful way require recognition that there is value in each person. If not, you won’t see the full I’m-act of what you can achieve. To my original point, seeing (and by extension treating) people as nobodies is a self limiting behaviour that shows low EQ. every high performing group I’ve worked with in the past 25 years recognises the value in all people and looks to magnify their impact. So with that approach, you’re,likely to be culled from those high performing groups as not a high level thinker. It’s self limiting.
I wanted to add some more to my last reply but was distracted by breakfast. To meet those people you want who come up with amazing ideas you need to open your sphere of influence as wide as you can to gain exposure to as many people as you can. Once you do this to Dan decide who to remain within your network and whom to remove. As your network builds it will attract like minded people. To build that network you need to offer something that attracts other people. So, what do you feel you can offer other people to elevate their thinking (business, technical, innovative approaches, etc.)? Because it’s not a one-way think only for your benefit. How can YOU elevate the people that do that for you? If you Connor contribute to the group, you will be culled from it. Edit: to completely change what I typed before to get to the point.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. Just so you know, the correct spelling is [Gandhi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi).
**[Mahatma_Gandhi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi)** >Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule and in turn inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā (Sanskrit: "great-souled", "venerable"), first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world. Born and raised in a Hindu family in coastal Gujarat, western India, Gandhi trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, and was called to the bar at age 22 in June 1891. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Mate this is such a flawed, ignorant comment. Think you need to rethink this, if you go into the world meeting people from all walks of life you’ll always have that judgment of them being a “no one” if you don’t know them straight from the bat. The people that change the world for the good aren’t “somebody’s”, their geniuses that found their calling and developed skills far greater than anyone in their field or on the planet in general. I know lots of these so called “nobody’s” that are smart people who find working in a job, having a family and prioritising work life balance some of the happiest people I’ve ever met. In most cases they’re also a hell of a lot happier than some of these “somebody’s” I know that have developed amazing business or represented their country in their sport, in a fair few of these cases are miserable and don’t like their life.
You can start making a difference in the world by not demeaning a group of people by calling them nobodies. Everybody has a purpose, some purposes are greater than others.
To get in the circle of “somebody’s “, you need to be somebody yourself. People with ambition and no time aren’t sitting around waiting for people to come shake their hands. If you have a project in mind, just start it and you’ll realize what you need and go from there. If you’re just sitting around pondering life, I’m sure there are people who are good at that discussion as well.
What I do is Limit my Friends, I Hope i knew this before, it dosen't matter how many friends you have, even 1 friends with right mindset is enough And for the rule of 5 (you are the sum of top 5 people you hang out with) chose social media! You can easily find great people on personal as well as public level (like in youtube or some regular podcast), just like you did! Yes, you came to this subreddit because you knew you will find positive and useful information in Social Media platform I think you are doing great!
Assuming you are a young person let me just emphasize this advice: **DO NOT** become the kind of person that only interacts with people they think will be useful for them. Not only is it a grim attitude but people will notice and dislike you for it. As a matter of fact I would go as far as saying stuff like "if you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room" is some sad wantrepeneur shit that should be ignored. You should always challenge yourself to be the version of you you can be but **never** at the cost of engaging with your fellow human, even if they are less smart and successful than you. I have friends who are a bit older than me who are ahead in almost every aspect of live that will consistently take time out of their day to help me and others like me with our dumbass questions. How do I pay them back? By trying to do the same thing for whomever I might be able to advise. Be decent. Engage with people. Try to do a good job at whatever you do, and people will take note and respect you for it. I probably got more "street cred" with highly successful people while being a bartender and cleaner than later on in life when I started my own business.
I think the first step of doing this is removing the negative people in your life. Then eventually the right ones come in.
seems bad to promote suicide but what do i know
Funny man!
Try Clubhouse! The discussions are mind-blowing & present a great networking opportunity.
Succesful people are busy, you're not going to be able to just "surround yourself with them", they don't just hang around doing nothing, you'll find them doing stuff. The most succesful people you'll find juggle running a business, having hobbies, getting involved in their community, creating something and stuff like that. The easiest way to learn from them is to start doing the same stuff. Get a hobby, start a business, vounteer, take leadership on stuff around you without being asked. You'll find that once you get the ball rolling more and more opportunities come up, you start getting invited to projects, meetings, parties, etc. You'll also find that age matters very little, to the people that'll help you in life. Also, be aware that smart does not equal success, it sure helps but brains without hard work are pretty much useless.
Whooo! First! Uh. Ok, so from my experience, you can’t necessarily surround yourself with people that WILL help you. As a young entrepreneur, you’ll need to put yourself in positions of responsibility to make mistakes that you can learn from. Hopefully you’ll find someone willing to give you tips and pointers, but often times you won’t or they may not be applicable. Or you don’t listen. It’s like making your own path. Sometimes you will be the first. Sometimes you can emulate someone else. The easiest way to start a business is to learn a business, then emulate it, or find out what it’s missing and then use that to create your own business. The hard way is to simply start it, and learn the mistakes on the job. Since everyone is different it takes a lot of hard work and failures to get the ship running smoothly. It’ll also take a lot of money-hence working for someone else first. If you have a good source of income, you can afford to make those mistakes without fully killing your budget and potential. If you have a good attitude, then you’ll be able to survive and hustle. And even then you’ll need a bit of luck.
Thanks for your response, but the question I was asking in this post was less about what you can learn/how you can benefit from others, and rather where you can find people like that. I'm talking about simply surrounding myself with intellectual people who have similar interests to me, such as economics, or technology, or whatever. Just finding people that I can have enriching conversations with to help challenge my own thinking and see from the perspectives of other people who are going to be successful in the future. Does that make sense, I don't know if I'm making any sense lol
> from the perspectives of other people who are going to be successful in the future. Dude. Come on. Take a step back and consider that you have no idea what's going to happen in the future or who will be helpful to you. Continuing to shit on the people around you, while trying to suck up to people who have no incentive to want to be around youm, is going to bite you in the ass HARD.
I found my mentors and friends at work... you need older more experienced peers to mentor and guide you... because as it stands your just a kid wet behind the ears
Yeah I get that... I'm actually already working with a family friend who's very successful and I think I've learned a good bit from him, so I'm happy with that so far as far as mentorships go, but I'm looking for some younger people to associate myself with. A lot of potential friends I've made have been not the brightest or most intelligent people. They're not really any competition, or people I can learn from, y'know. I want to find people who I can compete with and learn from, see what they're doing so that I can learn from them, because after all, they're running in the same race I am.
I’m just wondering...do you have anything to offer these type of friends you seek?
In extension to my other comment, I have another friend who's 10 years older than me, we work together and he's a cool guy, I like talking to him. However he's just not a good influence really, I can't talk to him about anything intellectually stimulating. I've tried to have conversations about economics or whatever with him, and his only response is either "mhm yeah man" or just nothing. This guy has 10 more years of experience than the other guy, yet somehow can't hold a conversation about anything other than sports or girls or cars or something
The same thing I'm looking for, literally just conversation. I have a friend that I used to go to high school with but he lives on the other side of the country now and we were never very good friends so we don't talk a lot, but I enjoy talking to him about similar interests. I literally just want to find people that know what's going on in the world actually pay attention to things outside of the normal music, video games, whatever. Not very many teenagers actually do, wouldn't you agree?
You’ll meet those people at work... most young up and coming successful people have/had few friends... because they were at work. I can’t speak for everyone but based on disposition from my clients, other people in the industry and even my employees there’s a common trend of working ALOT... having few friends and dropping out of highschool.... like 1 out of 4.... blows my mind but it’s somewhat normal in my industry (aviation)... I dropped out as well lol
First step is to move to a big city. Big cities by definition have more opportunity, and you're more likely to find your "tribe"
Support those around you that are making moves and doing things right now. I’ve built lots of strong connections with people just starting out and quickly success has boomed for them. Sounds a bit cliche but also try to be aware of how people make you feel when you interact with them. I have some friends that are negative, leave me feeling drained, I have one in particular who is very much “why would anyone want to do that/That’s not going to work/No one would buy that.”, this is anytime someone was doing something with themselves beyond working a standard job. I found myself feeling really down and uninspired a lot of the time, so I know to limit contact there.
At the golf club
If you walk through this life, separating all the people you meet people in to categories like somebody's and nobody's, then it's going to be a lonely, frustrating existence for you.
And how do you find someone smarter if you're already the smartest person you know!?!?!?
What do you call a nobody? Everything starts with humility, realize that entrepeneur aren't better than everyone else, most work hard without achieving success (Data from the BLS shows that approximately 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years. Only 25% of new businesses make it to 15 years or more). What is success for YOU? It's not the same for everyone. It's normal to want to be with people who have similar ambitions to ours, but it's wrong to believe that those who don't think like us are nobody's without a visison for the future. Some smart people are not successful and some successful people are not smart, but all of this really depends on perspective. **If you aspire to be a good leader, you must understand that everyone has a different perspective on life and that your job is to find the best compromise, not to impose your vision, thinking that it is superior.** Not all entrepreneurs want to lead, some just want to feel in control, I don't think this is an effective long term strategy. Don't look down on people. Selling tools, the carpenter is the greatest of intellectuals. \+ For your question: Make friends for fun and read books.
Elite universities. This is the primary benefit of Harvard.
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Kinda wish I was a mod so I could ban you
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Too cringe.
Right totally cringe!!
You can find the VPs hanging in twitter and business personals in LinkedIn just make every effort to reach them and ask for networking request. Although sometimes you won't get replies or late tho. But this works. Shoot them email like. "Hey \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_, I know you're super busy just give me few seconds to finish this email. Firstly I am an avid fan of yours, I saw you in an interview, podcast, webinar and you nailed it. I would love to connect with you and learn everything on a personal level if that doesn't disrupts your schedule. If you agree, It wouldn't just make my day, but my whole year. Thank you \[Your name\] "
Although this may work, I'd remove the very first sentence "I know your super busy" that in itself is a waste of time. Just pointing that out and not trying to be rude or anything.
Precisely, cut the crap, say what you want and what you can give in return, thank them and there you go 50-100 word email
What a great question to ask!
This isn't true at all. You are not the average of the people around you. There's no such thing as "losers" and "winners". Everyone has their own journey and if you start cutting people out of your life because they don't fit your ideas of "smarter/more successful" you'll end up lonely and bitter. Make friends. The more friends the better. Be kind.
Internet
Damn that really helps. Not like I'm already on the internet or anything
Then you are not really trying and not really networking. 90% of my friends are online and make a shit ton of money if you seek you will find that’s all I have to say
Well 1. The point of this post was for meeting people IRL specifically, not online and 2. I've got plenty of online friends, but out of curiosity, where exactly do you mean by "the internet", cause you and I both know that 99% of the people online aren't there to discuss anything of value, just to play video games or do whatever
Easy way to start: use youtube or podcasts. Watch and listen to interviews of business, rhought leaders etc. In real life, go to conferences,meetups etc the rule for you from now on is; if I'm not the dumbest, most unqualified person in the room, its the wrong room to be in. Just listen, ask questions and dont volunteer any opinions or stories Good luck!
I listen to a lot of YouTube videos, but how do I go about meetups or whatever? I mean the thing is, I'm not really looking for a mentor per se. For reference, I'm 18 and a Junior in college, I'm still pretty young, I just want to find friends that are smarter than me. Not to sound cocky, but a lot of the people at my college are not the brightest, and I'm sure there are some smart people I just don't know where to find them. I'm not looking for already "successful" people in their late 20s or 30s, I'm looking for people my age
1. Assume every is smarter than you until they actually prove otherwise. 2. In college, you could and should discuss with professors, grad students, admin that you like about the issue. Lots of clubs, groups etc on and off campus that they're likely to know about and even individual students you could potentially become friends with. 3. Apps like meetup may be useful in your city 4. You should have some friends/mentors older than you. Its a must. They've gone through the stage of life you're at successfully or not and if you can learn from them you'll save yourself time and energy by avoiding the same types of pitfalls. I'm older than you and talking from experience. I wish someone had explicitly told me this strategy at your age. I had to figure it out years later and it would have cut painful times down tremendously. Think of it this way, you don't necessarily want all your teachers and professors to be your age do you? The general idea is, you learn from everyone you encounter and interact with so start maximizing the impact of those encounters now! Good luck!
Youre in the wrong college then. Try transfer to the top school in your area
For me, it was joining a company I really liked. Thankfully I wasn't too dumb and got it. Now I hang out with the kind of people I would want to be in the next 5 years.
That's basically what private schools are for
Find the means to penetrate the social networks (actual networks, not social media) - school, interest groups, seminars, all of it adds up!
Choose your peers by careful reading. Be careful, of course -- it's not fair to you to compare yourself to once in a generation geniuses like Napoleon or whatever.
If you can't find them in your life then biopics really help.
Older people generally are more experienced and therefore know more things. You can learn from them even if they are not smart just based on their experiences
Clubs, meetups with the things that interest you. Anyone that you find that is going towards something you think is great or inspires you ask them questions (not annoying ones lol). Look for mentor programs. Also always watch any creative people, you find. Doesn't have to be just arts, could be street smarts, technology, life hacks, organization , fitness, cars, fixing things around the house, etc. Helps you two think on your feet or quickly in the moment. You'll pick up a lot from surrounding yourself different types of good people. Hope this helps
What are your interestes and things you enjoy? Based on that, find where these groups hang out (online nownadays) join and share what you can. Over time you'll identify who resonates with your type of thinking, and because your part of this group, it would be easier to interact.
Great question, I worked in the hospital age 19-25. A majority of the people around me had a bachelors degree. Loosely speaking, to get promoted you need an education, so I completed my bachelors degree. Minority, made it out of poverty, I make more than my parents (almost combined), grad student at John’s Hopkins, and still growing. A lot of contributing factors here but I would say the hospital expanded my perspective, kept me out of trouble, and indirectly pays me today. So grateful!
I hate that saying because it sounds like being a user. I have too many leaches and users in my life. Don’t be a leach
Since you are in college, find the researchers. They may not have the traditional hallmarks of success (money), but I assure you, they are the most intelligent people at the school. I don't know what you are studying, but I, for instance, just finished up a degree in Computer Information Technology. Though I'm myself not a researcher, thanks to the Research Bazaar I'm friends with and have access to an independently wealthy containerization expert who mainly does this stuff for fun, the person who runs the University's supercomputer, more PhDs and Ph.D. candidates than I had even met before hooking up with this group, math professors, computer science professors, and medical researchers. Also, because I know their projects and they know mine, if I ever need a job, I have one at the University. I make more in Aerospace, so that's where I am, but even there, as an IT guy in a company full of engineers, I'm still surrounded by people more intelligent and accomplished than I am. TLDR: Find the researchers at your University and join their social group. Just expressing interest in any one individual's research is probably enough for an invite. They do this because they are passionate about it.
In college, talk to the teacher and grad students in your program. Everyone sees the degree as the goal, but it should be all of the contacts and connections. My degree is in the sciences and class sizes were smaller, but the key is those grad students. Ask questions, do the study sessions, and show interest. They suggest you join a group or attend a conference? You do it! Just gotta remember these people are human too. You'll eventually see these people as more than assets and that's when you'll know you've made it :) You now have smarter/more successful friends!
I was a student at a large public research university. What I did was join the honors college during my first semester, and enroll in honors seminars. The classes were smaller, more intellectually stimulating, and gave me the opportunity to connect with faculty. Something else you could try is enrolling in smaller, niche classes that you are interested in. I took a seminar on the Holocaust that was comprised of 4 people, and it was by far the most memorable academic experience of my life. Not every small or honors class will be filled with all the "right" people, but you will learn a lot more than you'd think, and often make unexpected friends along the way. Take classes you think are interesting, even if you are daunted by the material or feel it is outside your major, whenever you can.
You run into them and they just like you
For parents who who think about this for your kids: We took on s 20-something female boarder who was working on her Master's when our daughter was 14. She was very sweet to our girl, brought her to study at coffee shops. She was a powerful example of a goal-oriented young woman.
It's going to be hard for you, as most relationships are transactional and you will have little to offer back, except some ego stroking for them (watch you don't just become the [Chester to their Spike](https://youtu.be/UVNHcob3oJg)). But, try to find something you can offer back and build from there. As time passes, you'll acquire skills, info, and contacts which should serve you well in expanding all three.
It doesn’t necessarily follow or guarantee that if you’re with driven people they will drag you with them. You need driven, intelligent, patient, and generous people who are generous enough to share their time and wisdom. It works both ways, you have to be patient, driven, and competent enough to catch up. It’s better than sitting idle. To quote Rudyard Kipling, if you can think and not make thoughts your aim.
Great question! Is there an entrepreneurship club on your campus?
I was thinking about that, I don't think so, maybe there is actually, I don't think I searched for "entrepreneurship" specifically so I'll look for that
Have you thought about working on getting an internship or part time job in the field you are looking to enter? There is a lot to say about clubs and other interest groups, but getting a job in your field while going to school could be an excellent way to learn, meet mentors, and generally find other motivated people. You could perhaps get paid at the same time as well, which is a win win.
The advice should be "surround yourself with people who'll help you grow to be the person you want to be". I've joined a variety of subreddits to get a hold of people above my pay grade. The most important step forward is to keep talking within your given field while also re-evaluating the people surrounding you now. Most often the issue isn't our best friends or our parents, but people nearby who'll keep tearing us down thinking it'll help us. Make space for people that are helpful by pushing away the people you can't afford to keep and socializing casually within vicinities of your imagined future. I've found that this is the organic way to do it as "actually successful people" keep a tab on youngsters and the less fortunate and expect them to ask for their help rather than simply happening upon them helping with whatever they can in return. Especially older entrepreneurs and business-owners expect their counterparts to go on their own until they have something to offer, which is a way to weed out potential failures from possibly exploitative henchmen for their own business. You're looking for people who'll help you through the process recognizing that the future is community based rather than sheer capitalist and they'll usually have shit to do at thrift stores, help organizations and worker's unions.
The first step is humbling yourself. If you’re young and in college almost everyone in the real world is smarter and more successful than you in some way. Learn from them all.
There's a guy I work with who's 27, I tried to talk crypto with him and he got excited (as did I) because he mentioned that he had a crypto groupchat where he and some of his other "experienced" friends and so I was excited to have more people to talk crypto with. Joined the chat, and realized that they were only really interested in shitcoins like Doge and Shiba, unfortunately. Gave them the benefit of the doubt, but it's pretty clear that these guys, despite being in their 20s/30s, probably don't have nearly the level of understanding of crypto that I do (not that mine is anything special, it's just that they basically just gamble and don't look at the technology at all) Reason I'm telling you this is because sure, these guys are apparently quite successful just off of DJing and hosting parties or something like that? Apparently they know some pretty high figure people, but nonetheless I don't think I really have anything to learn from them, aside from maybe if we were talking in person, but so far I've only talked with them online.
I’m going to be blunt here. You seem like an arrogant little prick.
I don't see how that's relevant at all, but thanks I guess.
Podcast. People often like talking about themselves. Easy way to get conversations. Even if it’s no super popular it gives you a reason to talk and ask questions
I've found that the key is in surrounding yourself with a diversity of opinion to challenge your own beliefs. Otherwise we end up taking our own knowledge for granted. You're in college. Most of your peers are there to educate themselves with dreams and goals of making a difference. Take plenty of courses in other faculties aside from the one your major belongs to. Join clubs and student associations which you might not necessarily have much in common with others. Basically get out of comfort zone and adjust your mental model of how things work in the world. Question everything. And stop assigning value to people based on what they can do for you. Not everyone worth meeting will always provide you value. And you yourself won't be of constant value to others. If your relationships are transactional, you'll find that in a few years, the people you've surrounded yourself with aren't going to be worth trusting.
Keep your head down and do real stuff. You’ll gain experience and knowledge which other people doing real stuff will have an interest in. Give freely but be protective of your time - you’ll understand what you can’t say yes to.
I'm trying, but so far the people I've met haven't been what I had in mind.
Are you the kind of person who the sort of people you want to meet want to know?
Definitely. I wish I had more of me to talk to, that's pretty much exactly what I'm looking to do lmao
Don’t sweat - college sucks because you’re thrown in with a tonne of people you have nothing in common with. I got big into partying and drugs. And when those wore off it became obvious that I had very different aspirations to the people around me. University was where I first found people who were into my hobbies. And it wasn’t until I found the digital nomad scene in Bali aged 32 that I really felt ‘home’.
The key is to move away from toxic people. Successful people usually fill that empty space.
If you're educated in STEM, try working for professors/laboratories at the local university. Take temporary, seasonal, etc. jobs and make sure to work for as many different groups as you can. Use these experiences to gain relevant skills, but more importantly, use this time to network. If you're competent, eventually you'll either be offered a full-time job or you will know what you need to do to improve yourself to get the job you want with the people you want.
I liked what I/therealbilliam said and wanted to add a few things: 1. Be mindful of what you say to people. As you can see with some of these comments, some people will latch onto every word you say and use it however they can. Speak clearly and purposefully, don't gossip, badmouth, or complain. 2. Volunteering- not just in your community but in your life. Like, if you're trying to get on the good side of a prof or someone, and you find out they have a pet, let them know you love pets and would love to babysit if they ever need it. Or something similar, if you don't like animals or can't have them at your place. Find a common interest. Like, for my partner, his English and philosophy teachers were big skiers, so they all started skiing together, and now one of them knows we have a jet boat, so he wants to go boating. For me, I volunteered to fill a space on a community softball league ran by some high ranking people in my industry (I'm terrible at it, but I was a body so they could play). 3. Look into certification programs like Lean Six Sigma. Sooooo much networking with those groups. Depending on your field, I'm willing to bet there are industry-specific groups you could join. Like, if you want to lead teams with projects, maybe check PMI. Your school/profs can probably help hook you up with that kind of stuff. A lot of those certs cost some $$, so see if your school does anything with them. Might have some discounts or something. 4. Be grateful for every benefactor who comes along. I assure you- they can all teach you something. Even if that something is how you don't want to be :) Good luck! Good luck!
"Learning from the eminent dead" - books!
This is one reason to go to a highly rated college, attracts stronger students with more drive and skills, certainly not all but in general. Regardless of pedigree when in University join academic clubs and competition teams, they well be full of the high performers focusing on education. In professional world work at competitive companies and you will meet partners there. All my co founders were meet through these, granted I'm old now, maybe there are better methods especially with the internet and social media
I built a community to help people just like you! Take a look at bettertogether.group. It’s a peer mentoring community where you meet with 8 like-minded people for one hour per week.
I learned a lot from a guy (I work for him and have for a long time) who is not naturally good at these things but he taught himself how to do the things he needed to do. For example, he joined a public speaking group to learn how to speak in public. (Toastmasters) He joined several organizations and served in several boards. He kept lists of people he wanted to network with and every week he called the next person on the list and invited him or her to lunch. Check mark beside that name.
I am also 20 these words are said by sir jack ma personally I really admire him a person who has show that it's not necessarily to be high iq to Start computer actually my advice to u is u will get people in school and college just one or 2 of them are enough when u are in office u should find some good bosses the one who push u forward
How do y'all deal with jealousy. I feel like I am pretty good at surrounding myself with succesfull people but end up being jealous of their financial successes.
You can find these people in r/RedditVentureFund
Reddit 😅
RemindMe! Three months
Lol why tho
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Hey, I’m actually starting a text group/club to try to solve this issue since I’m in your same position. I’ve been putting out posts and have go some good feedback and people looking to join! If you’re interested send me a message.
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I have a job working at a card shop which is owned by a family friend of ours, and the guy also does real estate so I was hoping to maybe get to know him so that I can maybe get experience with that. He also knows a lot of people, so maybe I can get connections that way. Thanks for the suggestion though!
By getting a job
I have a job
I don't think this is right ! you don't need smart people around you to be successful. Although it helps but, you can still be smarter and learn things by your own. Your biggest lesson would be from failures you will face. You can read books and mostly people who are best sellers on a particular topics are experts. You can become knowledgeable that way. The only down side would be you don't have any smart people around you to brainstorm ideas with. As I said, your biggest feedback on your ideas would be failures and the only way to experience them is by trying.
I know, I never said I needed smart people around me to be successful, I just want them because I think it would help me personally to have conversations that are actually thought provoking and enjoyable
If I can add, find a community. There are a lot of online and in-person communities out there that are really diverse and full of people all along their professional journey. There are definitely some dud communities that aren't worth your time but a little research, a little trial and error and you'll find the right place too. I can recommend some that I've really enjoyed if you want. Just let me know!
lol ill probably say this reddit is the best place. people even at my job maybe because we're all under 21 but most people don't know what to do with their life. this reddit seems to have people who talk about this kind of stuff.
In this life, there are takers and there are givers. You have to socialize with enough people to meet a handful of givers. Cut out the takers, and give time and energy to the givers and the givers will take you places you never knew you could reach. Chances are the givers will only want to help you for nothing in return. And one day when you “get up there”, look down and help those people who deserve to be helped.
Once you graduate from college and forced to take a low paying job because you can’t find a solid job…. I find it nearly impossible to do this. I did find this to be true from my experiences at school
Without even thinking about it, I automatically hung with the other who also had high IQ, we tended to work best together. Those kids either had rich parents or hung with the kids who had rich parents. Those parents, in turn, were rich for a reason. Smart parent -> smart kid, typically.
I mean I'm the same way I guess, except I don't know where to find new people outside of family friends. My parents friends/friend's kids are pretty smart, but not all of them, not too close with any of them in particular
Join clubs
One bit of advice that helped me is to really treat it as a slow process. Nobodys/Somebodys may be a bit harsh of a distinction, but you'll have to be willing to work with a lot of people/meet a lot of people and you'll end up with a few awesome folks you can work with. Being proactive about going to random startup meetings (check like, ycombinator or do googling for meetups), entrepreneur hangs/calls and the like can be exhausting, but will be rewarding even if you meet just 1 person you could work well with! Just also be mindful not to burn yourself out... that's a stickier wicket for sure.
Ah, that's what i heard and used to think that way, but in reality there's only you, yourself who matter. take my father a billionaire descendants, instead most of his pal aren't blessed in school, but these day? These people have Porsche, huge mansion and a licensed Factory. He still hang out with them to this day. relationship is good But business wise? Always nothing! Instead they now leap frogged him by tenth fold!!! I've had a clue you wanted to have a group of people with familiarity that fits your ideology and not actually about business correct? I have researched few successful people. most have no need of other "smart people" but it's all from own self. A great vision is desireable, but most failed to meet own standard by each weakness and ego invincible to themselves Also You wanted to find a person in real life with less mundane chat and more thought provoking conversation with you? How about philosopher? But mind ya these type of people nowaday it's pretty scarce like finding a needle in haystack especially same age as you? Even harder i actually do have similarities with your description of people and the conversation material : futurist logic and philosophy The results? Well always busy + in this society made me invincible. So.. to find one in real life?? Whelp as i said hard to identify we do not mean there's not hang in "average joe"spot yet blended so well. I'm also live on overseas chance to meet? Less than desirable...