Midwestern Yoda

“Hang around with people who are better than you are,”  Warren Buffett

Another great quote from the Midwestern Yoda! As he has been so aptly named.

I have always believed this concept to be true.  Hanging out with people who are better than you, leads to you bettering yourself. As the same concept is true- hanging out with ne’er do wells usually leads kids down the wrong path, as did hangin’ out with the “wrong crowd.”  You always hear the neighbor on the news saying “Well he was a good kid until he started hanging out with the wrong crowd,” after some heinous crime.

So shouldn’t the same concept be true for hangin’ out with people who are better than you? I don’t think he meant better than you in the snobbish way. But rather, better than you as a person, as someone who has more education, more training or even a better job than you.  What it does for us is it makes us want to do better.  When we hang out with people who are achieving amazing things, we want to achieve those things too.  

Why not take that concept and use it find people that you want to be like.  As a young college student I always looked for mentors at school, women who could teach me to be like they were. I did this when I got out into the world of work. My mentor was someone who ran a nonprofit. I knew one day I would do the same thing, so I watched her, who she worked with, how she handled situations, and how she resolved conflict and moved up.  This served me well as I was growing into my career.

Who we hang out with as friends and colleagues can have a huge impact on what we do.  So, look around and decide, am I hanging out with the people who make me want to be a better person? If not, maybe you need to start keeping better company.  

I Just Wish I had Someone to Talk to

As a small business owner do you sometimes wish you just had someone to talk to about your business?  Someone other than your spouse/significant other?  Someone who has been there and done that or is in the middle of doing just that?  At BizWorks one of the key things we offer our business owners is someone to talk to them.  

We do this in several ways.  Our staff is there to listen - help with solutions or just be that person when someone needs to vent.  We also put a mentoring team in place for each of our residential members.   These are professionals in the community who want to volunteer their time to help out a small business. 

So how do you find someone to talk with?  One thing I hear over and over from other small business owners is that they find like-minded small business owners or another professional who is willing to have coffee every so often. Small business owners seem to form their own support systems that way.   

Look at the professional groups or a networking group to find other small business owners who might feel like you do. Ask someone to coffee and tell them you’d like to have coffee once a month just to talk over new ideas, vent or get some advice.  Of course, if it’s another small business owner, you can do the same for them.   They might just need someone to talk to – like you.  

Suzanne Cormier
Executive Director
BizWorks (Small Business Incubator)
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