Many successful individuals seek to mimic or model themselves after other successful people they admire. Typically, these are individuals within their same industry.
This copy cat strategy helps you in numerous ways:
- Avoid Mistakes – Because you are walking in the footsteps of other successful individuals within your industry, you are able to avoid making the “school of hard knocks” mistakes that those successful people made during their journey to success. This saves you both time and money and makes your journey to success much easier. Not having someone to model yourself after forces you to figure it out on your own, through the school of hard knocks. Mistakes not only costs you time and money, but can cause you to fail, if you don’t have enough working capital to survive your mistakes.
- Work Ethic Habits – Success requires a consistent, hard work ethic. Almost certainly, the successful people you copy will have forged a powerful work ethic, during their journey to success. In order to achieve the success they achieved, you will be forced to forge a similar hard work ethic.
- Growth Habits – Copying other successful people forces you set your bar higher, to the level of those you are following. This necessitates that you grow and improve to meet that bar. The individuals you follow will have acquired an abundance of knowledge and/or developed Virtuoso skills. In order to achieve similar success, you will have to devote significant hours growing your knowledge-base and/or honing your skills in order to become a Virtuoso at what you do.
- Self-Assessment – Because you are trying to rise to the level of the individuals you are copying, you must constantly self-assess where you are and benchmark your progress against those you are following. Self-assessment forces you to continuously pivot and make adjustments in order to produce results that are similar to those you are copying.
If you want to increase your chances for success exponentially, find someone in your field who you admire and use them as your benchmark to copy or emulate. They will become your template, which will allow you to grow into the person you need to be in order for success to visit you.
How do I know it works?
Since 2009, I have been trying to emulate JC Jobs.
JC Jobs is the main character in many of my Rich Habits books.
JC possessed amazing good habits, sold hundreds of millions of books, traveled the world speaking to millions at big events, advised Kings, CEO’s, Presidents and other individuals who became wildly successful through his Rich Habits.
So, I modeled myself after JC and did everything I thought JC would do.
I adopted daily habits I thought JC would have, like getting up at 4:30am, reading to learn at least one hour a day and exercising every day.
I imagined JC would have millions of followers around the globe who read his books and articles. So, I began writing every day in order to become a great writer, just like JC. I wrote many books and hundreds of articles, just like JC.
I imagined JC made well thought-out decisions. So, I made well thought-out decisions, just like JC.
I imagined JC took educated, calculated risks in order to succeed. So, I took educated, calculated risks I thought JC would take.
I imagined JC was relentless in the pursuit of his dreams. So, I created a list of dreams and created goals in order to help me make those dreams come true. And, most importantly, I never quit on my dreams and goals because JC never quit on his dreams and goals.
Everything I imagined JC did, I did.
Soon evrerything about my life began to change.
My books eventually became international bestsellers.
I became a sought-after speaker. I traveled to numerous states in the U.S. to speak. I traveled to Australia, Canada, Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi and many other exotic places, just as I imagined JC would have. I even spoke on the same stage as some very famous people, such as Sir Richard Branson, Robin Sharma and Mark Victor Hansen.
Many of my articles were picked up by the media and some even went viral. One article got as many as 11 million hits. Thanks to my JC Jobs copy cat efforts, I now have people from every corner of the globe who have read one or more of my books, media articles or blog articles.
Find your benchmark – someone you can relate to and who can help push you to become the person you need to be in order for success to visit you.
The only regret will be that you didn’t do it sooner.
