"A man's gift makes room for him and brings him before great men."
This is a key verse about the nature of friendship and success. Every friendship or working partnership is because of a benefit that one person brings to another. When the benefit no longer is worth the access, then the access stops. So in business when the gifts, talents, and abilities of the person do not measure up to the next level, then the access to those levels is denied.
What a person has to ask is: What am I good at? What is the one strength or two strengths that I have that I can be one of the best? It is those strengths that will produce the success and entrance and prestige that most people want. Build on your strength, not on balancing out your weakness.
Friendships are based on this also. Four levels of friendship: acquaintance, casual friendship, close friendship, intimate friendship. One must provide a benefit to the other person in order for them to bring you to the next level. When the gift, talent, skill, or prestige is not enough, then the access to deeper levels of friendship ceases. As crass as this sounds, you must ask: What benefit do I bring to this other person? Can I be of more benefit to that person? How? Is it worth the investment to move to a deeper level with that person?
Remember, it can be all types of different gifts – skills, time, listening, pleasure, money, access, prestige – but the other person must see it as valuable enough to trade access for it.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz