I try and emulate people I like. I'm an emulator. I copy people. I take their ideas and make them my own. I use their success for my success. I try everyday to learn something new from them. Something I can use. Something that will make my life better.
When I'm in a room with someone new, someone I just met, I copy them.
I copy their sitting style. I copy their personality. I copy their speech patterns. I copy their hand movements. I mimic them.
They sit up, I sit up. They lean back, I lean back. Like a mirror. Until there is a rhythm or pattern established - and then, if they want (and most often times they don't know it but they do), they will start to mimic me.
This puts everyone in the same, solid frame of mind because people often think, "this person is a lot like myself" when they are being mimic'd.
They (the "experts) say that by age 7 your personality is completely formed. That may or may not be true - but even if it is true, we are always learning and always adapting to various situations and as a result, we can always learn from the personalities of others.
There's a lot that can be learned by emulating and stealing bits of personality from everyone - even people on the internet or on TV.
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I started emulating people about the time I started whispering to myself like a golf commentator. Whispering everything I was about to do.
Here are 5 people I emulate:
David Letterman
I was 12 I think, the first time I watched his show.
He was funny. I wanted to be funny.
He was self deprecating. I liked that - poking fun at himself and not taking life too serious - I could do that.
He was on TV. Maybe one day I could be on TV.
He was in front of an audience. I liked audiences.
He had people come to see him. People had to sometimes beg to come see him. I wanted to be that person. The one who people begged to come see.
Archie Bunker
He hated meatheads. I hated meatheads.
He wanted peace and quiet. I want peace and quiet.
He was a Christian. I am a Christian.
He gets bombastic. I get bombastic. There's very few things I love to do more than yell. That is true. I have more fun yelling sometimes than I do fishing. That's pretty serious.
Archie would yell and argue back and forth and say silly stuff and look like an idiot and look smart and prove points and miss points and stick to his guns. And then he'd ask for a beer (love beer) and the the potatoes to be passed. It still makes me laugh.
He uses big words (wrongly). I use big words.
He owned a bar, I'm a partner in one.
He's got a big heart. He would never admit, really, when he was wrong, but he though his words said one thing, it was often his actions that showed the other. He couldn't be pigeonholed no matter how much people wanted to make him into what they saw him as.
Archie was his own person. Bottom line. Archie was Archie. You do you, I'll do me. I like that.
Jerry Seinfeld
Jerry isn't funny to me. He is ha-ha funny but not split gut funny. But what I like about him is how he's so observational. I'm observational.
Quick wit. Dry wit. Serious wit. Funny wit. The guy just has wit. And I like to emulate wit.
Some find his observation mundane, and I can see that. But it takes a lot of work to get deep enough to be mundane.
His movie Comedian is one of the best because it shows what a real grind it is to come up with the mundane.
I love it when he says in that movie he was thinking of taking time off in the afternoon because the people were all jacked up and Colin tells him, "no, work, work, work, work, work." - Colin is right.
Always be working. Always be selling. Always be marketing. Always be thinking of Open Doors and Opportunity.
You always have to be thinking - and thinking leads me to the next guy ...
Donald Trump
He's only now a politician. When I was starting out emulating him he was a real estate mogul and only a real estate mogul.
He built Trump Tower. Wrote The Art of the Deal. Said, "if you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think BIG."
I always wanted to think big. And so I emulated the only guy I knew that was actually doing that (sadly it wasn't my father).
Trump was larger than life in those days. He had everything. The big house, the beautiful wife, the fancy cars and yachts - even his own airline.
Yes, I even bought his board game. Ready to take over the world.
Unfortunately, I never once got someone else to play the game with me, and so, it went unopened. No telling where that thing is now, but it might be worth a penny or two.
Jerry McAnaulty
He was my pastor for a long time. I still stream hims sermons online. He's the best.
This guy just has it together. I like people who have it together.
He taught me everything I know about service to others and how we are to live our lives (the 'Big Guy' taught him).
Service is something that takes us from closed doors to Open Doors and Opportunity.
When we seek out opportunities to help others, we ultimately help ourselves.
It's a lesson I need to remember and learn every single day. Just remembering Jerry and wanting to emulate him reminds me of who he is and who I should be also.
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