You're the Average of Your 5 Closest Contacts

You've probably heard it before. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. This isn't just a cliche, it's a fact. Because the people you choose to let in on your life have influence on just about everything about you, including your habits, your attitude, and your overall success. You are the things you are because of all the things you've heard and saw in the past. You can't just remove these things. You can try, but you can't, because they're all there, living deep inside you, in your subconscious. You want to live a better life and be more successful, then you need to assess and probably change who you spend your time with. This may sound like common sense, but it's far from common practice. To some people, it probably sounds extreme and. And it might be, but so what? Let me ask you this. Would you post your password to your bank account on the Internet, or would you even post it on your family chat? No, you wouldn't. Because it doesn't make sense to give anyone access to your bank account. And just like your money, you shouldn't give everyone access to your time and your energy or your mind. Your time and your mental space are your most valuable assets. And just as you wouldn't hand out the password to your bank account, you shouldn't hand out unrestricted access to your life. Just knowing who you hang around with and how much influence they have on you should be enough to do whatever it takes to guard your inner and your outer circle. But I've come to realize that most people have two big problems holding them back. First, you think you're immune. I mean, how could a harmless conversation or going to lunch with a co worker influence your life? But it does because everything your brain takes in compounds with your way of being and living. We adopt attitudes and beliefs and values of whoever has influence over us. And when we were little, it was our parents and our teachers, and as we got older, it was our friends and our coaches and then mentors. And later in life, it's our community. And wherever we spend the majority of our time, which for most of us, is at work. Although this isn't just about your success at work, it's about the impact it has on everything in your life, from your health to your happiness. You ever notice how negative people love hanging around other negative people? Well, why do you think that is? It's because mass attracts mass, and negative people need to be around others who will justify their way of thinking because they won't be challenged. And so it Validates their own mindset. Because it's much easier to complain together than to confront the need to change. Misery loves misery. So if you want to get better and be more successful and live a life worth living, here are a couple steps you can take. But I have to warn you, it's not going to be easy. Because you first have to think. And that's why this is the first problem. Because people don't think. They're too busy and distracted, looking at their screens with their phones beeping and buzzing in their pocket during the day and next to their pillow at night. You have to think and and take stock of all the relationships in your life and identify the positive and negative influences, figure out who the players are, who raised the bar, and know where to find more of them. The next thing is doing one of the toughest things anyone would ever have to do. And that's running as far away as possible from the negative influences. Because you need to decide whether someone is going to remain a presence in your life. Cutting them off is hard. No need to burn bridges. But being strategic and starting to lean the other way is the one you want. And once you identify those positive forces in your life, your goal is to double down, find more of them, and spend more time with them. Over the course of my career, I've had the privilege to be in the room or sitting at a table with some big time CEOs. Time when pretty much everyone in the room had a higher IQ than me. And it's not that they were just smarter or more successful or had a bigger company or a bigger bank account. These people were playing on a completely different level than I was. It was like they were living in a different world and experiencing life much different than me. And they were. And I can't tell you how many times I walked away thinking the exact same opposite compared to what I was thinking when I walked in. So many times having my perspective completely flipped upside down. Things that at the time seemed impossible to overcome. And after reframing my mindset, not only do those things seem more realistic, but I walked away with a plan to execute them so I could get it done. When you change your perception, you change your life. When you start to think and see things differently, you start to make decisions that lead to different results. Results that you couldn't previously see or even imagine. And that's what high performers who hang around other high performers know. It's as if it's a secret that the average performer doesn't know about. Debbie Downers on the other hand, they do the opposite, and it's hard to see it in real time, but it could very well be the reason why you come home in a bad mood, or sit at your desk feeling down and blue, or produce results that are less than average. Because those simple, harmless conversations at the water cooler have more of an impact than you think. And after you figure out what role the people in your life play, you want to be deliberate about expanding your network and finding bigger, more positive influences to incorporate into your network by putting yourself out there, meeting new people, creating opportunities that can lead you down a more successful path. Again, you may not see it at the time, but it's the tool or the hack that they share, the introduction that they give you, or the idea that you heard them mention during your conversation that make all the difference. Figuring out where these people hang out and then going there and spending more time there and getting outside of your comfort zone, having the courage to make a new connection. That's what high performers do. You need to start thinking different than you have in the past. One of my favorite ways of understanding how a positive or negative influence shapes our life is from Earl Nightingale. You probably haven't heard of him, but he's got millions of hits on YouTube and he's been dead for more than 30 years. One of his videos is called the Strangest Secret. Check it out if you've never heard it before. In it, he shares an analogy comparing our mind a piece of land. And he explains that a farmer can plant a seed of corn or a seed of poison, but the ground doesn't care because it will return whatever you plant. If you plant negative or positive things in your brain. Just like the land, you'll grow whichever you feed. So you need to be deliberate about what you're planting in your life, because your brain doesn't discriminate, it just grows whatever you feed it or whoever you feed it. And on that flip side, those negative people who bring you down, they will infiltrate your psyche more than you can ever imagine. So identifying who they are and making changes now is critical. Don't underestimate the power of your top five. Guard your inner circle as vigilantly as you would protect your bank account. Because the stakes are high and your choices have consequences. So you better choose wisely.