I’d rather learn from someone who is two steps ahead of me than someone who is ten steps ahead.

The problem with emulating top performers is that we’re skipping over the part of their journey when they sucked. No company, organization, agency, podcaster or solopreneur has ever appeared fully formed. They’ve all gone through phases of suck.

We tend to idolize top performers as a society. It makes sense. It’s inspirational. 

But I don’t want to confuse inspiration with education. The people that I can learn the most from are the people who are just ahead of me on the journey. 

They have more to teach me because the problems they’ve recently solved are the problems I will soon face. They can remember what it’s like to have my current struggles because their own similar struggles weren’t that long ago.

There’s a saying that ‘every level brings a new devil.’ I want to learn from people who still remember how they overcame the devil on my current level.