How the People You Surround Yourself With Affect Your Success

 

There is a principle (and there’s different variations of this) that says if you average the top six people that you have consciously chosen to spend the most time with, you will find you.

 

And it’s not the coworker that was forced into the cubicle next to you (although there is energy there if you’re spending all day with them), it is your friends, your spouse, mentors, business partners, even a boss if you chose your job.

 

When you look at those six people, roughly you will find a couple that are doing better than you in some areas, you will find a couple that are doing worse than you, and there’s a couple that are equal to you. So in essence, you find you.

 

So the question becomes, who have you chosen as your top six? Have you consciously surrounded yourself with people who are excelling in life and succeeding in ways you want to?

 

And what also happens, if you are accelerating at a dramatic pace and becoming epic and awesome, the six people are going to say “WHOA! You’re moving too fast, you’re going to disappoint yourself, you are going to fail! Slow down!” Why? Because they care about you and they are afraid themselves. If you’re the tadpole who escapes at the top of the pond and never comes back, it says something scary to them.

 

So, when you look at who your top six will be tomorrow because you’re an epic, quantum changed individual, it becomes a big “foot on break” moment because you may not want to, be willing to, or ready to change out your top six.

 

What if it’s your spouse? What if it’s your colleague? Your boss? Your business partner? Not that you’re going to change out them out necessarily, but they can be a source of friction because they’re like, “You can’t risk this money, you can’t risk this time, you can’t risk our reputation in town to do this!”

 

Here’s how you toss your top six: you toss them emotionally, you toss them on some other axis. The amount of time you spend with the person is important, and there’s also the intensity at which you interact with them.

 

I’ve got someone in my top six, I probably don’t talk to him once a year, but the intensity with which we talk is breathtaking. Because it’s a friend of mine, used to be a client, now we’re kind of co-mentors, we give back and forth when something’s going on with each other. This guy’s clearly in my top six, talk to him once a year, but when he and I chat, the ramifications are intense. So there’s time and intensity equations here.

 

So when do you toss the top six, or how do you toss the top six? It’s easy to toss or push a person out. You just spend less time with them. You’re busy now, or you get them on an off day, you get them when you’re dissociated, and you’re going to listen to them.

 

And a lot of times, the reason why it’s hard to toss one of your top six is because they love you. And they want the best for you, and they’ll say, “Oh, please, please, don’t do this, you’re just setting yourself up, and I love you!” And you can simply respond with, “Oh, thank you for your opinion. I’ll take that under advisement. Okay, no, I’m not doing it.” You control this. You control who your top six is.

 

So, how will you change your “top 6” today?