The power of people you choose to be around you cannot be understated.
Sometimes, it is impossible to achieve success if you hang out with those who have no desire to achieve success in their life. It’s very contagious — as you’d often hear “you are the 5 people you spend your most time around with!.”
It’s harsh, I know.
Selecting your friendship and who you hang out with can sound like very snobby — why do you even discriminate, dude?
The truth is, you have to be mindful who you invite into your life. Pessimistic people drag you into their own pessimism like crabs in a bucket. They drag you down, and won’t let you escape!
Therefore, I can’t stress enough the important of having quality people around us. Right people will bring the best in yourself, they’ll help us to grow, and make life more meaningful. In this article, I’ll show you 3 type of people, in my opinion, you should have around you at all cost.
Somebody You Look Up To
“success leaves clues” ~Tony Robbins
It really does.
Whatever it is. Maybe you aspire to be a successful entrepreneur, a great leader, a badass UFC fighter, a rockstar programmer, or just a teacher giving value to the society — you have to learn from the best.
Success leaves clues. If they are in the position you aspire to be, they must’ve done something right in order to achieve it. Learn from all their advice: mistake, success, insight, what to do and not to do, and behind the scene of their accomplishments.
The most valuable resource you’ll have, is probably from those who have done it in the first place. That’s when you need to amp up your curiosity. Less talking and listen more. And cherish the opportunity to pick their brain.
“what if I can’t find those kind of people?” you ask.
I often get asked this question a lot.
The answer is simple. You can read book, watch interview, listen to podcast about fascinating people/topic that you are interested in.
Stop using your gadget just to post stupid selfies on the internet. Use it for something that is becoming rarer nowadays: to consume knowledge.
“when I was in my teens, I didn’t have many friends because they were busy partying — i instead spent those hours reading tons of books: biography, personal finance, learning language, self-help etc.”
We wish we could be in the same dinner table with some of the greatest thinkers in the world, like Elon Musk, Warrant Buffett, Ray Dalio, asking their advice about magic formula and whatnot. But, most (99%) of world population won’t have access on that.
Thus, book exist!
It basically compress their lifetime story: success, failure, lesson learned into just 200–300 pages long. Nice.
Some of my favorite books are:
- Can Hurt Me by David Gogun
- Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
- Start with Why by Simon Sinek
- Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
Somebody you Compete With
I’m not telling you to compare yourself with anyone!
Having somebody you can compete with (in healthy way) will stimulate you to grow and keep pushing further in life. And this is essentially what we want.
It is not wrong to feel competitive toward other people: friends, coworker, family, etc. It’s not right, however, to cultivate jealousy and sinicism as a result of that, instead of channeling those energies to improve and better yourself. Unfortunately, we often fall on the former behaviour.
Competition is not about beating other guys to prove you are the better one, aka the alpha — it’s about trying to be better each day and yesterday.
It’s all about the process to improve, not to prove.
“if you compete against others, nobody want to help you. But if you compete with yourself, everyone will help you. (Simon Sinek).”
I use to be so critical about myself. I thought I need to be better than anyone else — everyday was a battle to be more cooler, more intelligent, more outspoken, more follower, more, more and more. It was a race without a finish. Not nice.
Thank god, I realized it wasn’t helping me at all.
Once you realize this fact, that the only battle you have to fight is within you, each improvement you make each day, no matter how small it is, will become a major step in your development.
But still, you need competition in your life. Somebody who will challenge you to grow. Somebody who will push you (internally) to ‘be the best’ not just ‘be enough’. And somebody who will remind you there’s still a lot you don’t know, and probably still be for the rest of your life.
That’s what we need!
Somebody You Help to Inspire
This is the last important pieces.
In this world, everything does not only revolve around you. Chances are, many people might not have the same opportunity as you do in life. There are probably people around you, who are struggling badly, and you just haven’t noticed it yet. Right now, they are lost. Have no sense of purpose. And maybe in the edge of giving up on their dreams, unless somebody reaching out and guide them on the right track.
The reason I’m telling you this, because I was kinda that guy back in the days.
Young, and newly became blind at the age of 13, I didn’t speak any English. Heck, nor I even spoke at all. Shy, and timid, I was struggling to socialize. I wanted to be a part of a group, , seeking advice from the, so called: super bright people, but always ended up being ghosted at the end.
Fast forward to now, I’d give anything to help that kid. I bet, my 13 year old self would’ve thanked that a lot.
We get carried away of focusing to much on the personal agenda: career, money making strategy, romantic mission, etc, while forgetting the knowledge and experience we’ve acquired in life can be used to changed other people’s life. Significantly.
Make a portion of your life’s goal is to inspire. I’m not telling you to be a motivator or anything, but make whatever you do in life to then be inspiring to others — whether through your creation, your profession, courage, or just simple act of sharing your knowledge and experience to help other’s.
“make the mission of what you do to not only about making money, but at the same time to also teach, to entertain, to inform, to help, and to make people laugh.
That’s when you add value to your life!.”
Conclusion
Be brave enough to let go those who always bring you down. Pic the right people you surround yourself with — few quality people will actually do you wonder in life.
Always set yourself with 3 heroes:
- Heroes you want to be
- Heroes you collaborate with
- Heroes you inspire to be the next heroes
P.S. Please share and clap if you find it useful😄
