Jim Rohn said that we are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with. If you think the people you’re hanging with are outstanding, you’re not likely to believe this theory. And if you hang out with awesome people, you’ll hope it’s true.
There is no question we pick up habits, speech, and ideas for: the people we are spending time with, but do we become the average of them?
Only if we want to.
There are some awful people out there. And by awful I mean their hearts are closed, they are misguided, and they can’t see outside of themselves. If you surround these people with “nice” people they will chew them up and spit them out. They do not become more like the nice people.
There are some amazing people out there. They have done a lot of work on themselves and are confident in who they are and who they intend to be. They are grounded, compassionate, and deeply care for others. Someone who is misguided could not convince them to be otherwise.
But when we find a tribe of people who we aspire to be like, people who we study, admire, respect, and trust, we can go so much further and faster in the direction of our choice than we ever will any other way.
Your ego will doubt this. It will tell you that you’re stronger than them and you can get where you want to go anyway. And maybe you can. But when you don’t have to spend time fighting your way up, you can spend all of your time figuring out how to move forward… and progress becomes so much easier.
Who you spend your time with matters.