I once read a quote that said that you are the sum of the five people that you spend the most time with; your five best friends. I’d like for you to take a moment to think about those top five people in your clique. Are they the kind of people that are living according to what you value? Are they out doing things and going places? Or are they the kind of people that are just hanging around at home doing the same old things that they always do? Do your friends bring happiness, creativity, health, and positivity to your life?
The top 1% of America’s earners are the top 1% because these are the kind of questions that they’ve been asking of themselves for generations. They are massively effective at surrounding themselves with individuals that are accelerating, and building each other up. They surround themselves with success, and in turn absorb the characteristics required to become successful.
I have discussed before about how you are the custodian of your own mindset, and as such, it is exclusively your duty to ensure your happiness. This concept fits very nicely into Chris’s model of people, situations, and mindsets. He describes these three points as being cyclical. Due to the transfer of state of mind, people will influence your mindset, which will influence the situations you put yourself in, which will influence the people you hang out with, and so on. Here’s an example from the book Inner Logic – Engineering Your Life to exemplify:
Everyone has those days when they find themselves in a foul mindset. For whatever reason, it may be that someone sent you hate mail on social media or that someone made extra work for you with a bad decision at the office. Now that we are past the event, we have the residual effects of a bad mood. Thus, you could come home and call your bad news friend, who will be happy to have you join them at the local pub, where the two of you can exchange miserable experiences and console each other. You could close the place down feeling the turn of your foul mood to the feeling of irritated drunkenness. You could then get to relieve some steam by insulting a local. You may find yourself with one more person that dislikes you and may even take a swing if they had a similar day. You and your new friend could then take a trip to the local jail, where you will get to spend some of your future hard-earned money on an attorney while adding the stress of a new pastime: learning necessary litigation.
Now let’s rewind to the place where you had the initial control of the situation after your bad day. You could have come home and called your bad news friend, but instead of the drinking buddy, let’s say you called the person who enjoys a yoga workout after a stressful day. The two of you could let out steam while meeting a neighbor who turned out to be friends with the local police chief. The new friend and you may choose to go out for a coffee after yoga, where you spend some time with a few members of the police force, who in turn introduce you to your newly elected state representative. Now when the police get called away to break up a fight at the local bar, where a few of your high school buddies happened to be intoxicated from venting because one of them had a bad day at work, your conversation with the state representative leads to a new pastime: learning the necessary skill of aiding the representative’s upcoming campaign for governor.
So instead of letting something bring you down and then brooding over it, you decide to go out with your active friend that can help you get it off of your mind and a plethora of unexpected results come of it. I know these are extreme examples, but they exemplify the benefits of choosing good friends well.
This weekend, at the Florida Podfest, I learned about this concept in the broadcasting world called an avatar. Your avatar is your ideal listener. Your avatar epitomizes the qualities of the people listening to your content. And so the more time you spend identifying your avatar, their plights and their joys, what their daily routine is, where they go for fun and to just rest; the better you know your avatar, the better your content will be. I would advocate defining your friendship avatar. Think about what friends your hero-self would hang out with. Think about what your ideal friends do for fun, and where they go. And then go to those places and make friends. These will be the people that share the same interests and dreams as you. They will be working towards the same personal greatness as you and they will be interested in helping you get there.
Now, to conclude this discussion, I have just written about how you should find friends that are bringing all of these wonderful attitudes and knowledge to you, but in order to deserve such amazing people in your life, you should actively be adding value to their lives as well. The best friends in life are the people that would be glad to provide an opportunity or help to you, with the expectation that if the need were to arise, you would have their backs too. This is the basis of camaraderie. Your group of friends will become your tribe; a close-knit group of people who have joined together to overcome the struggles of life together. So go out and seize the life you want. Find the people you want to become like, put yourself in the situations you want to experience, and attain the mindset you crave.
Tell me what you guys think, where have you found those friendship avatars in your life?
To read more about the Life Balance Cycle, check out Chris’s book at: http://www.amazon.com/Inner-Logic-Engineering-Your-Life-ebook/dp/B00U5G7QQU
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