Your friends that you hang out with, along with the other people that you spend time with have a tremendous impact on you and your life. The opportunities that are available to you, the choices that you make, even the amount of money in your bank account are all greatly affected by the people around you. It’s been said that you are the average of the 5 people that you spend the most time with. Let’s look at how you can put the power of association to work for you.
We are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with.
Association matters
Who you associate with is too important to be left to chance. In order to really put the power of association to work for you, you must recognize that you are in control of, and solely responsible for, choosing who you spend time with. Most people never put the power of association to work for themselves, because their choice of who they associate with is primarily driven by convenience and circumstance.
Affects your thinking
The people that we spend time with have a great impact on our thinking. If the people around us are positive, we tend to be more positive. The inverse holds true as well. Ever notice how if you’re not really careful that when you’re around negative people, you tend to be more negative as well? The thinking of those around us affects our own thinking. Since our thinking affects our actions, and our actions in turn affect our results, guarding our thinking takes on a special importance. Becoming consciously aware of the thinking of those you’re spending time with is the first step toward surrounding yourself with people whose thinking will have a positive impact on your own.
Affects your habits
The habits of the people that we choose to spend the most time with tend to rub off on us. If you choose to spend time with people who are very goal focused and write their goals down on paper, then chances are if you’re not writing your goals down, you soon will be. If those you spend time with tip generously, chances are you do to. If those around us highly value investing in themselves and are focused on growth personally and in their business, then we tend to do the same.
Just like each of the planets has a gravitational pull on their surroundings, our friends have a gravitational pull on us. This isn’t to say that we will become exactly like our friends in every detail, or that all of our friends have the exact same habits. However, the dominant habits of those that we spend time with will tend to rub off on us over time.
The key to really putting the power of association to work is to ensure that the average of the 5 people we’re spending the most time with is pulling us up instead off pulling us down. When you’re consciously aware of the impact that those around you have on your life, you gain the ability to put the power of association to work for you. This is one of the key differentiators that distinguishes highly successful people from the masses.
As one grows older, there is this tendency to be more perceptive to the needs of people around you. I know that I have learned to anticipate my friend/colleague’s moods or sentiments. I like to think that I am supportive of them, that I bring out the best in them, in as much as they make me also a better person. You could say, we all pull each other up instead of the other way around. This is positive power of association.