What are your ideals? What do you aspire for? Who do you look up to? Who lives a life you want to emulate? 

These questions are important because our concept of what’s possible drives the effort we apply to get there. If you had never heard a brain surgeon could open up a skull, remove a tumor and save a life, would you think it were possible? If you had never seen an airplane, would you believe humans could fly? Or running 50 miles in a single day?

Seeing people do amazing things defines the ceiling of our own dreams. This applies to many areas:

• People leading the field of your career in talent and influence
• People who can balance rich family lives with fulfilling jobs
• People who chase their dream projects while also supporting themselves with a 9-5
• People who found a way to take a once-in-a-lifetime trip to somewhere amazing
• People who started their careers over in a more fulfilling field later in life 
• People who beat an addiction
• People who uprooted themselves to a new country to start a new life
• People who left a bad marriage to start over romantically

No matter what your Everest is, there are people out there who have climbed it. It’s incredibly important to seek out connections with people who can inspire you. People you can look up to. You really are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with, and you want those influences to pull you upward, not downward. 

Take a moment to consider what the best-case scenario for your life is. Write it down. Now 10x your goal. Suspend disbelief and flesh out what a radically outlandish success story of your life would look like. Are there people on this planet who have even small aspects of that life story? Spend some time learning more about their background. How did they get where they are? Can you reach out to them, tell them you admire them and ask a specific question about their journey? I can not overstate how much difference this can make. Talking to someone who has accomplished your dream will illuminate paths you didn’t know you could take. You will act differently, more doors will open, and you’ll play the game in a way that gets completely different results.

How high you aim changes what targets you can hit. Who you look up to defines the art of the possible. You would do yourself a huge favor to learn from the best. The worst thing they can say is no, and there are a lot of people out there you can ask next. What are you waiting for?

Further Reading: If this post resonated with you then I think you’d get a lot out of Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss. It’s a series of 100+ interviews with top performers from many different walks of life, extracting their journeys, lessons learned, and the resources that helped them succeed. They answer questions like “How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours?” as well as “In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life?”. Not only was it a great lesson in “successful people have bad days too,” which I needed to hear, it showed me tons of books and TED Talks and methods that have helped me immensely. I hope it can help you too!