How does one guy get to the top of the world? With a lot of help from his friends.
Love him or hate him, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg clearly seems to have cracked the code of what it takes to reach the ranks of the truly successful.
Perhaps part of what makes him so appealing to people is that he himself was an outsider. Through intense focus, hard work, and determination, he raised himself to become one of the richest and most powerful people in the world. His company is now poised to become the infrastructure of the planet.
While popularly depicted as a loner, the true secret to his success is the opposite of that. Zuckerberg is a team player, and his success lies in leveraging the community of people he surrounds himself with.
At Facebook, he created a “growth team.” which itself has grown from a handful to hundreds of people and designs tactics for various parts of the company. They have rigorous metrics they use to determine their success.
At home, Zuckerberg relies on his wife, Priscilla Chan, to keep him grounded. When they started dating, she reportedly insisted that they have a minimum of 100 minutes of alone time each week and a regular weekly date night. Fifteen years later, this ritual is still in place.
Recently, Zuckerberg strengthened his commitment to Community by releasing a mostly philosophical manifesto, explaining his desires for the future of Facebook — and the world. His own words show how much he believes in the power that people can bring to one another.
So, what can the everyday entrepreneur learn from Zuckerberg’s example?
Team up
Just like Zuckerberg found, we’re better together. One person by his- or herself cannot a world-changing company make. In his manifesto, Zuckerberg laments the lack of community organizations. His growth team is brainstorming ideas and improving on existing ones daily.
For help meeting new people, check out Meetup.com and, of course, Facebook Groups.
Date night
There is plenty of research to support that having regular date nights (whether with a romantic partner or with friends) is beneficial to managing stress and maintaining work-life balance. If CEO and father Mark Zuckerberg manages to find the time even during his busiest days at Facebook, you should see how important this truly is.
Need some help from your community to watch the kids, get a ride, or do your chores to make date night a reality? Check out a social sharing site like Enfavr to help lighten the load.
Like and share
To really understand the secret of Zuckerberg’s success, all you need to do is take a moment to think about how connected you are to the people you don’t see every day. The next time you like or share someone’s post, pause for a moment to connect with the person across the internet.
While we won’t all build a world-changing company or write a manifesto like Mark Zuckerberg, there is much we can learn from him in understanding his vision for a global community.
