Insider Tips from the Pocket Mentor: Be for Others, part 2

Vince Reardon, author of The Pocket Mentor: Insider Tips from America’s Most Successful People, is back to share more great advice. In addition to motivational tips in Monday’s feature of the Motivational Minute, Vince shares more advice on how to “Be for Others,” which he discussed last week.

Last week, we shared how it’s important to be for others. “If you want to be successful and have a happy life, you’ve got to be for others,” Vince says. This week, Vince discusses what he learned from Florida State University associate professor, Dr. Monika Ardelt. Ardelt has spent her career studying wisdom, aging and life satisfaction. One of the things that she describes is how cultural icons like the anti-hero highlight the trend of the “good bad-guy.”

Think of Dexter Morgan in the TV series Dexter or Walter White from Breaking Bad. These are good bad-guys. But does our love of good bad-guys really make a good society?

Vince talks about an alternate cultural icon that we should strive for. His name is Fred Rogers, aka Mr. Rogers. Rogers is friendly, neighborly, and he’s always around to help. Vince says, “I think our society would be a lot better if it aspired to have more Fred Rogers’ around as opposed to Dexter Morgans and Walter Whites. And yet we seem to be ambivalent about that. We like our good bad-guys.”

Fred Rogers is always giving of himself. People who give of themselves are much happer than those that are more self-centered. Ardelt’s research shows that people who are self-centered, even if they’re very wealthy, their self-centeredness tends to punish them with deep feelings of dissatisfaction. On the other hand, people who give of themselves report higher self satisfaction than those that don’t.

Stay tuned to Insider Tips from the Pocket Mentor each week to hear more about varying topics from the variety of people in Vince’s book, The Pocket Mentor: Insider Tips from America’s Most Successful People.