5 Types of People

Recently I had a conversation with a colleague about the different kinds of people we have encountered during our careers. 

1.     Not good at their job, and also not a good person. These are the people who drag you down with their bullshit.

2.     Great at their job but an a-hole. These people are tolerated because of their performance.

3.     Great person but not good at their job. The marshmallows of society. Their poor performance at work is tolerated because they are so nice to be around and they are fundamentally good people.

4.     Great person and great at their job. The best you can hope for in most situations. A High performer who just gets shit done, but is also a good person inside and out. Not necessarily perfect, but with a solid character and principled enough to be trusted by others, AND they deliver in spades at work.

To this I’d like to add one other category of people- one that is worth spending some time reflecting on.

5.     Someone who excels at a level where they make you better in every way just by osmosis. These are the people who drag you up and help you transcend yourself just by being so amazing (at no energetic expense to themselves). These people are not just on another level, they are practically on another planet.

A category 5 person is so great that they exude a kind of unspoken invitation to match them in their excellence.

They don’t need to tell you to be better – they are just so amazing that you can’t help but be drawn into their orbit and want to be like them.

The kind of person whose presence and impact on you can still be felt long after they have left the room.

They have transcended the standard levels of ego and insecurity and only sit in a frequency of deep and unwavering self-respect.

It’s the kind of self-respect that can’t be given to you. It doesn’t come from compliments or accolades, it comes from doing the right thing, every time, when no one is looking.

So rare are category 5 people that I can only recall meeting two of them in my lifetime – one very recently – prompting me to come to this realisation.

‘They became what they observed’.

What are you observing and what effect do you have on others when you are observed by them?

Stay classy ✌🏻