We all like meeting people who are doing amazing things. The excitement that comes from finding a kindred spirit, who is working hard on their own slow project in their spare time, is one of lifes joys. But how do you find people that are doing these things? How do you go about locating them? If you had to find someone, doing something awesome tomorrow – how would you start? Here are a few of my thoughts.
1) Behind great people, is a great community.
We’ve all heard the saying, “Behind every great man, is a great woman.” The same applies to people doing great stuff. Behind every magic person is a magic community. People are not awesome by themselves, they often become so because they are supported by an able cadre of other inspiring people. If you want to find magic people, start looking for the community they spend the most time with.
One example is the #samehuman community, who meet once monthly in Melbourne for dinner. If you’re doing something socially progressive and geared towards making a positive difference in the world, you should dine with the #samehuman clan each month. Another is the #leanstartup movement in Sydney, which has a monthly meet-up to discuss their ventures with each other. Or, spend a day co-working at Inspire9.
2) Magic people are doing magic things.
You can find awesome people by looking for awesome projects. People are doing amazings things every day now, and you can often find those amazing people by looking for their amazing projects. Zach Klein, as an example, gets asked for magic every day.
Sites like Kickstarter and Fund Break in Australia, are now a platform for people who are doing really good work, on their own time and money. People like Jeffery Yoo Warren, who successfuly kickstarted his project “Grassroots mapping the Gulf oil spill with balloons and kites. If I were looking for someone to recommend for a geomattic engineer position then I wouldn’t hesitate to send them Jeffery’s way purely based on the fact he’s doing what he is doing in the Gulf.
3) Don’t ask how you’ll find them. Ask how magic people will find you.
Do people like Zach know you? People are now coming to him so often, asking for magic, that he has decided to create jobs.zachklein.com; a site specifically for sharing the different positions which people in his community are looking to fill. Often, you won’t find people doing good stuff – they will find you. Trust that you’re doing good stuff and trust that these people will find you. Magic happens all the time.
The Squiggly Line 
Well said Steve. The foundation of what you are saying is that we search by person instead of by keyword – and that the exploration element is vital. Rather than rushing to get the ‘best guy’, an open scanning search is constantly running in the background.
Excellent post, Steve!
I certainly decided to follow point 3 when I made my YouTube channel. I remember wondering whether magic people would find me if I just started posting things that were magic to me. It worked 🙂
Thanks @Ross and @Jen. @Ross, I like how you remind me that the search is alwats continueing…it’s something I probably didn’t spell out clearly enough in the main post. This kind of searching is almost impossible to orchestrate quickly…it’s a constant process, which pays dividends with time.
@jen – “I remember wondering whether magic people would find me if I just started posting things that were magic to me”
Perfectly said.
🙂
Great post Steve. I really like this point: “People are not awesome by themselves, they often become so because they are supported by an able cadre of other inspiring people. If you want to find magic people, start looking for the community they spend the most time with.”
Like minded people find one another and support and challenge one another to explore and dive deeper into ideas and taking action. The creative individual is often the one highlighted, however there is often a powerful collective at the foundation.
Thanks @Jan – I like how you capture the way people within these communities challenge each other through creative tension.
Looking forward to chatting more soon
😉
Great post Steve,
I think you really pulled together some great ideas about the all important support network that people need to come up with better ways of doing things than the status quo.
cheers mate
Thanks @nige 🙂
Produce magic and you’ll get magic in return. We always harvest what we sow, don’t we?
Some good thoughts here. Thanks.
Inspiring post! Thanks Steve for starting my day with a positive and upbeat message.
Cheers!
Some people give off magic more than others. They seem to be happy-go-lucky and more artistically inclined than others around them.
Common traits of people who produce magical outcomes perhaps?
I’ve found an easy to to attract good things in your life is easy. All you need to do is smile!It sounds corny, but it’s amazing how many people will not smile during their day.
Keep smiling Steve 🙂
Thanks everyone 🙂
You said it perfectly Hopkins.
My #twocents provoked by each point –
1) An independent entity ( a person) is always part of an interdependence entity ( community). The two work together, flow energy backwards and forth.
2) Black Hat -> Are amazing people always just doing “projects”? The most amazing person could be doing nothing. Sort of thinking about “doing” vs “being”. If you are looking for magic in just people’s doing, do you miss out on people magic “being”?
3) I love this – “Trust that you’re doing good stuff and trust that these people will find you.”
A mentality of opportunity and people abundance. Less about scarcity.
When you are doing good within yourself, the people will gravitate around me. Light attracts light. Good attracts Good. Awesome attracts awesome. The natural flow of the Tao.
Eddie
Hey @eddie! 🙂
Thanks for your comment, I agree with all of it – but only want to highlight your second point.
I agree, there are a bundle of amazing people out there who are just being, not necessarily doing. Finding these people can be even harder, because you often won’t see them and they often won’t have a specific project to talk about.
I think the key is, as @ross was discussing above, that this is an ongoing process and once you find someone *doing* and you like that, you can then follow them regardless of what is going on presently. But I agree, that you may miss out on the magic of people being, if you focus too much on finding the doing.
Thanks for the comment
🙂