There’s a world of growth-oriented people that can be hard to see if you don’t publicly put yourself out there as one of them. If you’re always working on your personal growth in the shadows, such people will have a hard time spotting you. You’ll just look like another zombie going through the motions. You need to give such people a way to recognize you. If even one such person spots you, a single invitation can open up an entire network of new growth-oriented friends.
I was pretty shocked by how quickly other growth-oriented people flowed into my life when I started putting myself out there as one of them. It began happening from the time my first article was published in a software industry newsletter. My email address was included in the byline, and a few people wrote back to share feedback and thanks. As I continued down this path, there was a steamrolling effect. The more I expressed my values through published writing, the more like-minded people recognized me and offered some kind of connection.
If you were a growth-oriented person with a rich and vibrant network of growth-oriented friends, and you spotted a like-minded person who seemed to be all alone, largely unaware of what life could be like with a network like yours, what would you do? Would you keep quiet and let that person keep struggling, or would you reach out and offer some kind of invitation?
The counter-intuitive idea here is that if you want to receive such invitations yourself, then seek to become the kind of person who will reach out to help others. You can do that starting today. This is perhaps the most effective change you can make to demonstrate that you’re a good match for a growth-oriented friendship circle.
Otherwise if you believe you can’t help anyone right now, then next year you’ll probably believe the same, and the year after that, and so on. And growth-oriented people will continue to ignore you because you’ll seem to be too self-absorbed to be a good match for them. This is because personal growth is easier and faster with a network of givers. The more givers and contributors you see in a network, the faster everyone grows. So it’s just common sense for such networks to repel non-givers who only seem to care about themselves since that would only weaken the flow.