Beware the people your passion attracts!
When I first read what Hugh MacLeod wrote in his book Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity, it struck a deep deep chord:
“…as soon as they get a foothold inside the inner circle, you soon realise they never really understood your idea in the first place… And the weirdest part is, they don't seem to mind sabotaging your original idea that got them interested in the first place, in order to maintain their new-found social status. … it is amazingly common.”
Had I not experienced this first hand with an ex-business partner, I would not have believed it could happen. It scared me that Hugh described this sort of behaviour as “amazingly common.” Ugh!
As people, we more often than not do irrational things in the service of our ego. And we justify these with constructed rational reasons afterwards. We all do this to different degrees. The difference is, some of us are aware of this tendency and can take steps to moderate it. Others are oblivious and seem to be blindly carried along by it.
The trick is to sort the genuinely like-minded ones from the crazies. My personal litmus test kit: Do they have integrity? Are their actions consistently aligned with their words? The more outwardly charming someone is, the more I will pay attention to their actions. Do they hold themselves to the same rules they apply to others?
