This is what I admire the most
You are amazing. Let me tell you why.
Everyone wants a better life: very few of us want to be better people.
Yesterday I was thinking about the people I admire the most. I’m sure you know some too. The kind of people I look to know more and learn from them because their life, career, skills and even behaviour it’s amazing for me. People I feel proud to call my friends, co-workers, partners and bosses. Even that I may be biased to think of them as a “perfect person” I try to look at them as people with determination, nice ideas and better action, able to learn for their mistakes and act accordingly.
After some personal research I found the ten characteristics I admire the most of them:
They know they are not perfect.
In a world like the one we’re living we are always looking for perfection. The perfect dress, the perfect cell-phone, the perfect computer, the perfect life. In a world worried by metrics, they care about significance, because they know success doesn’t mean the same for everyone so they always try to excel at what it’s meaningful for them. They are resilient and always do their best.
They know they are not perfect and they are okay with that. Because, you know, sometimes perfect is boring.
Even they aim for perfection, they know they’re are not perfect -and maybe, never will be.
They always want to be better.
Being no perfect is not a reason to leave the path of being a better person. It’s not about where you are, it’s about where you are leading to and this shows the way people react to the things that happen to them.
You rest, you rust
They always look for an opportunity to improve their life. Improve the food they eat, improve the books they read, improve their grades, improve the number of squats they make at the gym. They are people responsible of their own life and they know they can be better so that’s what they aim to do. They improve what they do and value so they can feel comfortable with whom they are and get closer to the better version of themselves.
They take action.
All good thoughts and ideas mean nothing without action.
They listen.
When I talk to them, I feel powerful. It’s amazing how people can make you feel when they pay attention to you. They are always there to listen to you when you need it, to know you and learn from you and they always look for the right moment to give you significant feedback.
They also know you know them and when they look for your opinion, you can be sure it will matter. Even when sometimes they don’t do what you told them, you can know for sure they listened to you and meditated your version of the solution or the way you looked at the problem.
We need more of this.
They fail. A lot.
“If I fail more than you do, I win.”
Seth Godin.
People often see failure as a bad thing. I prefer to look at it as a checkpoint where you can re-evaluate your goals, methods and approaches to problem solving or the way to plan to achieve a goal.
I love to hear the stories of my friends failing and how they overcame failure by reflecting on their actions and improving the way they react. Sure they had bad times. Sure it was hard. And I’m sure they suffered because of this, but by failing, they learned to succeed. By failing they learned risk to fail is over there, waiting to get you and the only thing you can do is try to implement systems to reduce the risk. And hope for the best.
Most of the stories involved personal, career, financial, even academic failure and it’s amazing how they can take what they had and turn it into an opportunity that made them better and more conscious of their strengths and weaknesses. And it’s unbelievable to think people as them had mistakes, because you know, they seem so perfect!
You can call it failure when you learned nothing from it.
What I love the most about the people I admire is how different their goals and meanings of success are from the “typical-one” with which most of the people can think of. They just see failure as such when it disrupts their goal. When this happens, they analyze what happened and they get back into their pathway to success.
They make me know you can be awesome and be human too.
They ask for help.
Life can be hard sometimes. We can be weak sometimes. And this is totally fine. There is nothing wrong in asking for help. Sometimes we can feel like it’s bad to ask for help, or maybe we are too proud to do it, or maybe too shy, but the time will come to ask for help.
I always learned about vulnerability when I’m close to them. They don’t fear to ask for help, and I can think of reasons why they are not ashamed:
They are the kind of people that helps people.
They know when they need help.
They know to ask for help.
Because even when life is hard, it’s not a reason to get stuck on problems, break-ups, childhood-traumas or diseases. They know the effect that having issues on life have on the kind of decision-making, life-style and habits they have and if something is diverting them of their goal, they look for help to get back to work on it. And I feel it’s incredible how small we can feel compared to them, and how much we can do just by being with them.
We all suffer. But we must all transform that suffering into the art and energy which drives us to change.
Sometimes we just need to laugh, relax and just to be heard.
They care.
One thing I love about the people I admire is they really care about people.
When I’m sad, there’s always a hand for me. There’s always someone close to me to go for a coffee, to have lunch, to the movies, to a roadtrip.
When I’m stuck on work they always know how to help me by either giving structure to my problems, helping me to get my job done or co-working with me — because they can be busy, but they care.
They are the kind of people that talk to me when I’m on traffic just to how’s my day going, how’s my grandma, how’s my job going and nothing else, just because they care about me.
Even I feel special for having people that care for me in this way, I recognize it’s their attitude about people and relationships that makes this work in this way, because I know for sure, they will do it for every single person they value. And it’s very comforting to have people like this close to me.
They laugh.
Life is not a marathon or a sprint, it’s a dance.
The people I admire know how to have fun.
They love to dance, to sing, to spend time with people they care about. They can play, and watch series or to have a nice time watching comedies. They know how to make you smile and feel loved and it’s pretty nice to see them being nice and cheerful even when they excel at so many fields. “How can they feel so relaxed even when they have deadlines every single day?” They just do, and the effect it has on people, it’s inspirational for everyone.
It’s great to have a nice storyteller. They have a lot of funny stories about their life, family, career, work and even relationships. They have been through a lot, but they can still laugh about it. And sure they’re great storytellers. They have a compelling narrative that makes you listen carefully and delight with their stories. And I’m pretty sure you would laugh about it too.
At the end, they know life is not forever and mistakes won’t last. They are able to make mistakes and still laugh about it, because maybe it’s just like Oscar Wilde said: “Life’s too short to take it seriously.”
They love.
A life without love is not worth living.
The people I admire are wonderful at loving. Their families, their work, themselves. They always know how to make you feel love, in your own words.
They are sensitive people who treat others kindly and always are in search for ways to express their love for the people they care about.
Love can be expressed in many different ways. Some just care about you, some will share a lot of time with you, some others will have the perfect word at the perfect time. But I’m sure you will feel love by them.
They are there.
The greatest gift you can give someone is your time, because when you give your time you are giving a portion of your life that you will never get back.
Nowadays, we are closer to our smartphones than to ourselves and this impacts our quality of life and relationships. It seems people don’t like to greet even we seem to be more connected than never.
What I love about the people I love is that when I’m with them, they really are there. They don’t check their cell-phones every 5 minutes, they don’t take photograph of everything they eat, they don’t Snapchat everything they do. They just, are there. And it’s wonderful because you feel important and valuable for them — more than some likes or shares on a Facebook post.
The time goes very fast when you discuss and share things with the people I admire. You would really wish to have more time to share with them. And the moments you can create become very significant, because when you really are there, there can be meaning on even the little things.
Conclusion
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
― Jim Rohn
This is decalog of my aim to be, this is what I aspire for. This exercise made me realize of all the things I found valuable and I hope to have this post to me so I can never forget what I care about and aspire to be someone to admire. For all the people I admire, for all the people I have learned from, for all the people I love, thank you for being there.
