Have you noticed that little kids can do just about anything they want? There’s a mountain of stories about young kids getting an audience with some business or government leader simply because they wrote a letter. Successful people, and people in power, love to do this sort of thing. Any kid who shows a true, deep interest in something basically has a key to the world.
For some reason, a lot of people think this stops somewhere in your teens. It doesn’t. Reaching out to people, writing letters or emails and making phone calls works tremendously. Your response rate isn’t going to be 100%, or even 50%, depending on you’re going after, but it’s going to be way higher than 0%. All you have to do is show an interest in them or their work. The more novel approach you take, the more interest you show in some generally overlooked part of their work, the more effective you’ll be.
Why would someone who’s rich and successful want to meet a kid who’s just out of school and couldn’t find his ass with both hands? What does the rich successful guy get out of this?
Lots of things. First of all, most successful people are nice. They want to help people, especially those just starting out. They were once there, and they remember what it was like. It makes them feel good to help people.
Fine, you say. But, what about those guys who aren’t so nice? Here’s a secret about everyone on the planet, but one that holds particularly true for assholes: they love to talk about their own accomplishments. I’ve scored meetings with and even befriended people who most of the world consider to be colossal pricks, just by being genuinely interested in what they have to say. And they love it. They’ll talk your ear off and you’ll be their new favorite person and they’ll want to help you. They’ll actually find you wildly interesting, even if you just parrot things back, take notes, smile, and nod a lot. (Note that you do actually have to be interested in what they have to say; this doesn’t work too well when you’re bullshitting.) Seth Godin sums up this phenomena nicely, though I would argue that it applies to everyone, even those who aren’t super egotistical, at least some of the time:
It turns out that the best way to appear interesting to someone who cares a lot about himself is to be interested.
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