From the course: Success Habits

The people you associate with

From the course: Success Habits

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The people you associate with

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- The people you associate with make a huge difference to how you think and to what you believe you can do. I think it was Napoleon Hill who said whatever your mind can conceive and believe, you can achieve. And if you associate with the right people, it will help greatly with the conceiving and believing, and, therefore, in the end with the achieving. But most people's main association is either down in the pub or in the office. And it's so easy to just complain about life and then talk about football or cars. Now, don't get me wrong. I do like football and cars, but sometimes I need to be lifted up, not distracted. And it certainly isn't good for me to be dragged down by my pessimistic friends. If I said to these particular friends who tend to be more negative that I was thinking of being videoed in Los Angeles talking about success, I know that some of them would say, are you sure you want to do that? Or, who do you think you are? Or, what if it goes wrong? Which wouldn't be very encouraging. So as well as the occasional bit of football and cars, or criticizing the boss or the government, why not try to select friends and choose to spend time with friends who are generally positive, people who you can learn from and who will inspire you or encourage you to be successful at whatever you're wanting to do. Avoid negative people who will only drain you and deliberately try to fill your life with positive people. If you don't learn from them and they don't make you happy, then why are they your friends? I recently made a list of all my friends, and I thought about how often I dearly like to see them, every week, approximately monthly, a few times a year, and once a year. And when I added it all up I had enough to fill about 150 weekends every year. I bet yours would be the same. There's just not enough time to see all the people you'd like to see as often as you'd like. So the reality is that you end up neglecting some really good people. And when you do see them you find yourself saying, it's terrible, isn't it? A year has just slipped by since we last met up. So the answer is to have a bit of a pruning session and really focus on the friends who inspire you and let the others fade down to once a year or less. I know it sounds ruthless, but otherwise you're leaving it to chance who you spend your time with, who you spend your life with, really. And you only get one life. So, what are your regular friends like? Are they positive or negative? Do they generate energy for you or do they drain it? As Marie Kondo says, do they spark joy? Are they helping you to be successful or are they holding you back, talking you down? And how about doing a friends audit and focusing more on the best ones?

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