On Tuesday, we started talking about what we can learn from Bill Gates as an investor. How does Bill Gates choose where to invest his time and resources? These key ideas are what make Bill Gates a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist. They can help you move from developing a strategy to getting extraordinary results!
The second lesson I learned from Bill Gates is to learn how to prioritize your priorities. Many people are great at working off lists and goals. Most people struggle to know the most critical thing they should be doing. We need to help our people uncover their own unique strengths and capabilities. Then develop programs and experiences that maximize their abilities in those areas. Bill Gates can be ruthless in deciding where he invests his time and money to have greatest impact. We all need to become better at saying no so we can say yes to the things we do better than anyone else.
The third lesson I learned from Bill Gates is that to impact a problem we must move from strategy to synergy. It’s critical to develop a good strategy, it’s the foundation of your investment philosophy. But to be really successful you must be agile in how you achieve your goals. When you have great people around you, you must learn how to get synergy out of your relationships if you want to achieve both your and the team’s objectives. To me, synergy means having the right people doing the best things for them to do at the time. People who get things done are great at getting synergy out of their investments of time and resources. Are you?
The final lesson I learned from Bill Gates is to learn how to turn your passion into purpose. When you see people who are exceptional at life, you see they do what they want to do the way they can do it best. What would you do if you had Bill Gates’ money? How would you impact the world in your own unique way? Would you go out and find a new way to impact the world? It is critical that you understand where you invest your life.
You can always make more money, but you can never make more time. To get the most out of your life while you’re here, it’s critical that you invest your time in your passions. All the better if your passions impact the world in a positive way, that’s great. If they don’t, that’s fine as well. But you only have this life to live today.
So how are you going to invest your life?
I believe I’ve left out one piece of the puzzle that all my best partners and clients possess. They know how to impact and influence other people like few others. Starting next week, I share several blogs on how to increase the influence and impact you have on the world. In the past several weeks, you’ve met some of the people I’ve learned from.
I’m always told “It would be easy to have more impact if I had your ability to influence others.” I believe we can learn how to be more influential. It is a learned skill. I plan to see if I can share what I’ve learned over the next several weeks. If you can master this skill, your world will never be the same!
See you next week!