Wanna Make A Ton of Money? Stop Hanging around With Losers!
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When I was a young boy growing up, I became very impressionable. This turned out to be something that most of the time worked against me since I always seemed to attract the wrong crowd around me.
My grandfather would always tell me "Dime con quíen andas y te dire quien tu eres". Tell me who you associate with and I will tell you who you are. Wow…little did I know just how much wisdom there was and still is in that saying.
We usually hear that “birds of the same feather flock together.” We are subjected to opinions depending on the circle of friends that we keep.
Those words are not just a fancy parable that makes us sound smart when we say it, it is in fact a Law that governs Human Nature!
To prove my point to you, I’m going to encourage you do a quick exercise. I promise that after you do this, your life will never be the same and you will look at how you invest your time and with whom more carefully. Let’s begin!
The Law that I’m referring to is called "The Law of Association". It’s one of the most powerful laws that governs mankind.
The Law of Association states that we will adapt to our surroundings, whatever they are, whether good or bad. In other words, you will become like the people you spend the most of your time with.
Afterall, no one invests their time with people whom they don’t have at least one thing in common with.
One of the most fascinating things about the law of association is how it affects us in our financial lives. For example, if you were to poll your 10 closest friends and ask them how much money they make, it shouldn’t surprise you that 8 out of the 10 will be earning on average the same amount of money as you and the other 8 friends!
Here’s another example: Those same 10 friends of yours, more than likely read the same books, watch the same movies, go to the same social events and have the same moral and spiritual core values and beliefs as you and the rest in the group. (this is assuming all 10 friends hang around with each other, you included).
The Bible makes this very clear:
"A righteous person is cautious in friendship, but the way of the wicked leads them astray" Proverbs 12:26
A friend, a true one of course, can be an effective prevention against misfortune. In this regard, you have to choose your friends carefully. It is not a question of how many friends you are acquainted with, but of how many worthy friends you have; because the latter, even if they’re sometimes rare to find, is better than hundreds of unreliable ones.
"A man of many companions may be ruined, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." Proverbs 18:24
3 Steps To Obtaining Quality Friends And Improving Your Life
If you want to improve your life you must dedicate yourself to studying people in order to eliminate the biggest and most common mistake that we can ever commit – making the wrong character judgment. This can easily be done using the following 3 principles:
1. Develop a sound judgment. Don’t be trapped by crafty words or insincere compliments. The friends you keep can influence your behavior, so use both your intellect and instinct in all your decisions.
2. Look within a person’s depth. Make sure that he is someone whose character is unquestionable, as you perceive a “real friend” to be. Our world is full of deceit, so use not only your eyes but also your heart in seeking for the good ones.
3. Become the person you want your friends to be. In the same way that you cannot give what you do not have, you cannot ask for what you are not willing to give. So the best way to change your friends is to change yourself. Take the lead in improving your life and influencing your close friends towards the right direction, with love and patience.
As you improve your life, one of two things will happen: either your friends will see the light and choose to follow your lead or they will depart form you and go attract other friends that just like them…and so will you.
Leadership is influence. Chose to be a leader.
There are just a few people in the entire humanity that we dare trust our lives with. Be clever enough to trust your honor and love to someone who is confident enough to trust his honor and love to you.
Friends can make or break you. Why choose someone who will just bring you disappointments in the end? As my grandfather would also always tell me, “we cannot choose our relatives but we can always choose our friends.”
Thank you Abuelo, for the wise words that now guide my life.
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