There’s a quote, attributed to Jim Rohn, that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.
I’ve only recently become familiar with that quote, but realized it has come to play with me many times over my life.
Often as I’ve started new ventures, as I was immersed in it, the people I was around were also in that world. We all fed off each other. As each of us had successes, it motivated the others to strive harder, to achieve more.
Early in my life, I was surrounded by action takers and risk takers in business, with low to zero education, but the audacity to create a business as big as their dreams would take them. I can see now how much that affected me as I took my next steps.
I’ve seen the opposite in effect as well. People having trouble finding work, surrounded by others also saying the same thing, so they seem to feed off each other.
Recently as I study brain science, I’ve learned about how the brain literally filters the world around you and feeds you more of what it thinks you are looking for. So quite literally, the world you see in front of you is being created by you (or your brain).
A person that sees abundance and opportunities will see non-stop opportunity and abundance. A person that sees struggle and hardship, will see non-stop struggle and hardship.
This is the same part of the brain that say, once you are in the market for a house you see For Sale signs everywhere, when before you weren’t paying attention to them. Or how an air conditioner can be rumbling loudly in the background and you don’t pay it any attention until you take a moment to actively listen to it.
This part of your brain CAN be reprogrammed. But you have to make a conscious effort to do it.
For people striving to be entrepreneurs, that would be to build that network of success around you. People who take action, and are making things happen. It’s actually not hard to find like minded people, we are all looking to strengthen those networks.
At different stages of my life, I was surrounded by great people who were all aiming for the same things as me. We celebrated each other as we booked new gigs and opened up new markets. There wasn’t much in the way of excuses being thrown around, only motivation to not fall behind.
Just some food for thought.
