15-Days to Go Chapter Reading - Be mindful of Association Day7of21

Hello everyone, welcome to day 7 of 21. Uh, those of you who don't know, I've taken a 21-day live challenge before the launch of the book Small Town Bigger Dreams paperback edition, and today is day 7. So we have got 15 more days to go. So I'm so, so excited, and every day I'm trying out new things to see what value I can bring to you. So thank you so much joining us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube. Thank you so much for joining. So for today's session, I thought what different I can do, and I got an idea. Why not read a chapter from my own book? So today I'm gonna read the first chapter of the book, which is Be Mindful of Association. So please follow along, and I, I love to have your comments. As to what do you think about this chapter and what's— does that make sense or not. I've posted the link to pre-order the book if you are interested on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. And let's start. So Chapter 1: Be Mindful of Association. You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. That's the quote by Jim Rohn. So this is a famous quote that genuinely signifies why it's essential to be mindful of our association. With the term association, I mean everyone around you. It could be your friends, families, your colleagues, the people you carpool with daily, etc. The greater you spend your time with someone, the major is their impact on you. According to the Law of Average, if your top 5 people are of high caliber, your performance also improves automatically. And similarly, if you are the person of the highest caliber in your group, your account will also decrease over time. You may ask why this is so important. If you're associ— if you associate with good, cheerful, and hardworking people, they'll elevate you. However, if you are connected to negative, destructive, or lazy people, they'll drag you down. Let me explain a bit more. Consider you are an above average student who somehow manages to become part of the average or below average students. You'll feel superior to them for some time. It'll be great, it will feel great to be part of this circle, but eventually you'll catch up, catch them up. You'll become disinterested in studies have poor time management, and chances are you might get into some bad habits. You might have heard this, the crabs in a bucket story. If you put several crabs in a bucket, you don't need to close the lid. That's because even if one of the crabs tries to get out of the bucket, others will grab it down. You don't want to be one of the crabs in that bucket. Do you? Next, consider you are the same above-average student, but this time you become part of a group which has all the toppers, brilliant, and super achiever students. You somehow got lucky to be part of their inner circle. What do you think will happen next? You'll feel it's too much for you. You get an inferiority complex and be demotivated at the start. But if you keep up with the group, especially when they are discussing studies, new achievements, or a bigger perspective, you'll feel that you also need to contribute. This will in turn drive you to go the extra mile, study a bit more, learn a new thing, achieve a few more milestones. This is where growth will happen. Who you chat with who you call, and who you spend most of the time with truly impact your life trajectory. My late grandfather, who I admire and get inspired from, used to say, "Your early association in life determines how your rest of life will carve out." It was gruesome to hear that as a teenager. He was strict on who we are hanging out with. Every time I was late from school, college, or friends' visit, he would grill me about why it took me so long, why I was late. In my hometown, the locality we used to live in— didn't used to live in— was full of good-for-nothing kids and men. He made sure we didn't— when we didn't venture out of the house without any apparent Purpose. I have had my shares of bad and good association, and it truly impacts— impacted how my life changed over the years. I'm starting with the bad one. Who is lazier? When I completed my intermediate from my hometown, Jaipur, I would say I was above average student with a lot of potential. I had topped my class. I was confident. I had an excellent feeling for my future ahead. I liked math, physics, and chemistry. I had 80% plus in all these 3 subjects. Remember, we are talking about the year 2002, and I was part of the UP Board where it was not easy to get such good marks. As with any good math student of that time, I also wanted to get into a perfect engineering college, so I had decided to devote next year to the preparation for the engineering entrance exam. I was confident that if not IIT, Indian Institute of Technology, I would go to an NIT, National Institute of Technology, or a reputed government college. My father arranged for me to move to Varanasi, about 60 kilometers from my hometown. Now, this was my first time living out of my hometown, and since I did not know the place. He decided to put me up with his friend's son, and that proved to be the biggest mistake of my career. That was— the person was nice, average in studies, and more importantly, didn't have much interest in participating for engineering entrance exams. Within a few weeks of my association with him, my performance started dropping significantly. Preparing for the entrance exam of Excellent Engineering was a mammoth task, and I kept on losing interest in studies and didn't study hard. By the end of the year, I managed to get into a decent private college based solely on my performance, and not without any donation. We didn't have any money to pay for a management quota seat. To this day, I wonder that had I been careful that year, I would have had a completely different life. Change association to change results. Now let's share some examples of my good association. After the debacle of preparation year, I became cautious of my association. I chose friends only after precise deliberation with people of good and healthy intention. During the engineering studies and afterwards. It's not that I have not had made bad friends, but the law of averages always helped me be on the upper or growth side. My closest friend Manvinder Singh, or Vincy as we used to call— as we call him, has been there with me through thick and thin. We met around 1999 and we are still friends. I gave him career advice and he not only followed that but also reached a pinnacle in his career. I'm just so proud of his achievements. One of the great things is that I enjoy talking to him about things that I can't do with anyone else, and the same goes for him. Also, when we meet, we keep on talking so much that he— this 5 AM guy, which you'll read about in Morning Rituals chapter, who sleeps by 10 and wake up by 5 AM, or sometimes Yeah, I would sleep by 5 AM and wake up. And sometimes on the way back to my place in the metro on Monday, having associated with him has uplifted my life. Anytime I have anything I need advice for, I know who to contact. So above was one example of how I deliberately chose with whom to associate. It. I still have cordial relations with so many friends, relatives, colleagues, etc. Still, I am more mindful of who I choose to keep in my inner circle. How to improve your association. So you might be thinking about what to do if you feel surrounded by bad association. Let me start by reassuring that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Here are some specific steps you can take to improve your association mindfully. Number 1: See if you can find someone with whom— with who you would like to associate more. You might want to get in touch with them in form of having a discussion, getting some tips, engage in their preferred activities. By the way, do not get into stalking someone you admire That's criminal and not advisable. You need to be subtle and adapt to their practices. Number 2, at times you may find it is not easy to find such a person, or if there is such a person, he or she is not approachable. In that case, you should resort to other form of associations like reading books by great authors, listening to podcasts, and watching great YouTube videos. However, while watching a video online, be cautious as you might easily drift to something you didn't intend to watch. Number 3: Participate in volunteering activities, for example, Toastmasters, Rotary, etc. Many a times you will be able to connect with great people in these organization. They are generally friendly people who can motivate and uplift your spirit. I totally believe in these words. Our association is powerful, it can uplift us or bring us down, by Gaur Gopal Das. Action items: once in a month, take out 10 to 15 minutes, go to a quiet place and time for you based on if you are a morning or evening person. Try to analyze the people and especially with those who you spend the most time. See if they are helping you to learn and grow. If they are, continue associating with them. If not, think about improving your association. So that was a chapter reading from my book Small Town Bigger Dreams. I had a great time reading this. It's, it's a different feeling when you read a chapter from your own book. We, many of us read chapters from other authors' books. It was definitely a special feeling for me. Thank you for sharing that moment with me. So that was day 7 of 21-day live challenge. As I said earlier, my book Small Town Bigger Dreams is getting launched on November 2nd in Amazon India. I hope if you have not yet, please, please to preorder the book. The book has been— and that's a great news I wanted to share with you before I go— the book has been trending in the hot new releases in the personal time management category, and it's also one of the bestseller, top 50 bestseller in that same. So I hope you get a time to preorder that. I would love to hear your feedback and know how do you find that. So until tomorrow, as I say every day, Keep learning, keep growing, and keep going out of your comfort zone. This is Haritosh Srivastav. I'll be back tomorrow with day 8 of 21-day life challenge. Stay blessed, take care.