By Ken McClinton on August 3, 2012
The famous quote by Jim Rohn states that “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with”. While I understand that Jim Rohn meant this to be a quote that would encourage you to surround yourself with successful, motivated people who can help you achieve your goals; I believe it can also be used as an excuse for someone who hasn’t reached the level of success they are striving for.
As a life coach I am in the business of busting limiting beliefs and this quote can definitely be interpreted as a limiting belief, depending on how you look at it. For those of you who don’t know what a limiting belief is, it is basically a belief that you have about yourself or the world that can prevent you from achieving specific goals or results. By that saying you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with it can be very tempting to blame your failures or lack of success on the people around you, instead of taking responsibility for your own results.
Now let’s take a look at some of the holes in this argument and get into them one by one.
The People Around You Will Influence You
Of course the people around you are going to have some influence over you, but only as much as you allow them to. Like we talk about all the time on this site, you control how you react to your environment. Whether you decide to take to heart everything that the people around you say or you decide to listen and use the information that you think is useful, it is your decision, not their words that will influence you.
Does this mean that it wouldn’t help if the people that you surround yourself with were supportive of you? Of course it would help. But even if the people around you don’t understand why you have chosen the path you are on, it will only affect you if you aren’t sure about why you chose your path in the first place. If you are committed to making something work and you know why it is important to you, then it really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks as long as you believe in it.
You Don’t Have to Do What They Do
You have your own brain and you can make your own decisions. If the people around you want to go out to a bar on a night that you have to work late, even if they try to persuade you to come out, you are the one who makes the decision of whether to work or go out. If you know you need to get something done, then choose to work on it and get it done. If you think it can wait and you want a night out, then choose to go out. Sometimes taking a step back and letting loose can be the best thing to get your creativity flowing again anyway.
Would it help you become more successful if your friends spent their time looking for networking events instead of bars or nightclubs? Maybe. But if you and all of your friends went to a networking event, who is to say that you would leave the security blanket they would provide you with to go talk to other people? You can make an excuse for almost anything, but at the end of the day it is you who controls your decisions and your success, not anyone else.
Social Media/Technology
With the increased popularity of sites like Twitter and Facebook, especially when it comes to business, it is so easy to get in touch with just about anyone in an instant. This means that you no longer need to spend your time physically surrounded by successful, motivated people, because you can get in touch with them on a daily basis through twitter or any other social media site.
On a daily basis I communicate with a number of amazing coaches and bloggers that inspire me and make me want to continue to improve myself. We even share strategies and new resources to help each other become more effective at what we do. So even though only one of my close friends is a coach, I still have as many resources available to me as someone who surrounds themselves with coaches all the time.
No More Excuses
The bottom line is that you have no excuses. If you are not yet where you want to be, look in the mirror, not at the people around you.
If you want to make more connections and gain more resources then take the time to research your field. Follow the authorities in your industry on Twitter, check out their blogs and email them any questions you have.
There are more than enough resources out there for you to be able to surround yourself with whomever you want and continue to succeed.
Believe in what you are doing, own your decisions and be proactive. If you do these three things there will be no reason why you can’t accomplish anything you want, regardless of your environment!
By Ken McClinton on July 17, 2012
How many times have you heard yourself say some version of this statement: “I want to be successful”. I have personally said this many times in my life and I have heard others say it so many times that I have lost count. The problem is that we stop there. We say, “I just want to be successful” and we don’t take it a step further in order to make it happen.
Is it because we are all liars and we don’t really want success? No. Is it because we are too lazy to gain success? For some people this is true, but not for most. So why then do we fail to reach the success that we desire? It is because we are uneducated about what it takes to really be successful.
Below are 30 quotes from some truly awesome individuals about success, failure, and everything in between:
“Success is doing what you want to do, when you want, where you want, with whom you want, as much as you want.”- Tony Robbins
“Live out of your imagination, not your history.” – Stephen R. Covey
“Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.” – Napoleon Hill
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me.” – Steve Jobs
“Don’t borrow someone else’s plan. Develop your own philosophy and it will lead you to unique places.” – Jim Rohn
“Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.” – Malcolm Gladwell
“A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.” – Charles Schwab
“Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.”
– Dr. Wayne Dyer
“At some point in life you have to face your fears, and head on even though you can’t be sure of the outcome. A great deal of people will never reach their dreams and it won’t have anything to do with their ability or skill set. They won’t reach their dreams because they were too afraid to try.” – Eric Thomas
“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” – Paulo Coelho
“All successful people, men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.” – Brian Tracy
There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.”
– Deepak Chopra
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
– Michael Jordan
“… continue to harness your own originality and what makes you unique because I know that when you’re a teenager, sometimes when you’re an adult, what sets you apart can sometimes feel like a burden and it’s not. And a lot of the time, it’s what makes you great.” – Emma Stone
“Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.” – Jack Canfield
“As soon as you start to feel differently about what you already have, you will start to attract more of the good things, more of the things you can be grateful for.” – Joe Vitale
“Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.” – Dale Carnegie
“The way I define happiness is being the creator of your experience, choosing to take pleasure in what you have, right now, regardless of the circumstances, while being the best you that you can be.” – Leo Babauta
“If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.” – Timothy Ferris
“A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.” – John C. Maxwell
“I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life.” – Zig Ziglar
“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” – Richard Branson
“Forget about the fast lane. If you really want to fly, harness your power to your passion. Honor your calling. Everybody has one. Trust your heart and success will come to you.” – Oprah Winfrey
“You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.” – Warren Buffett
“When you’ve got 10,000 people trying to do the same thing, why would you want to be number 10,001?” – Mark Cuban
“As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.” – Donald Trump
“It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” – Bill Gates
“Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity.”- Will Smith
“It’s simple. If you don’t do something for your own reasons, you’ll either do it terribly, be terribly unhappy doing it, or both.” – Scott Dinsmore
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.” – Abraham Lincoln
Which of these quotes resonates with you the most?
Has one of your favorite quotes not been mentioned here?
Share in the comments section!
