They say, you are the average of the 5 people you spend most of your time with.
At the top of your head, who are these 5 people in your life? Your colleagues? Friends? Family? Make a guess as to how much they are earning. Compute the average. More often than not, the number will be roughly the same amount as your monthly income.
Still can’t believe it? Observe the groups of people in your office. Who do they eat lunch with? In most cases, the managers eat lunch together with their fellow managers. The team leaders, with other team leaders. The entry level staff with their peers as well.
You spend your time with the people you are most comfortable with. The people who earn the same amount flock to each other like magnets aligned on the same sides. People who have a BIG disparity in income more often than not, repel like magnets on opposite sides.
Still not convinced? Are you familiar with the saying, tell me who your fiends are and I’ll tell you who you are?
I rest my case.
This is biologically wired within us.
Have you ever seen a baby smile whenever someone smiles at him? Or is it the other way around? Perhaps the baby smiled first? 🙂
The baby doesn’t speak any language, but both baby and the adult mimic each other. It’s like magic.
The answer lies in the mirror neurons embedded on our skin cells. It’s subconscious.
We are made to subconsciously copy or mimic what we see.
Have you seen couples, over the long term start to seem look-alike?
Behaviours in money tend to be similar as well.
Why is this important?
If you want to upgrade your income, realizing this can put you on the fast track. You will invest more time learning how to develop yourself so your mindset, thoughts, behaviour and skills align with those of the people who are earning more than you.
I am not saying let go of your friends. I am not even saying you make friends only with people who are richer than you. Or even imply to judge people based on how much money they make and use that to determine whether to be friends with them or not. Far from it.
My only suggestion is for you to be conscious of who you spend your most time with. We all have 24 hours in a day. It is up to us to make use of those hours to improve our situation in life. This is the greatest equalizer of all. Rich or poor both have the same number of hours. It’s a matter of utilizing our resources to the fullest within those 24 hours.
Don’t waste your time spending it with cynics. Don’t associate yourself with negative people, people who drown your energy, people who always complain and make excuses but do nothing to improve their situation. If you spend your time with them, sooner or later, you will become just like them.
Instead, invest your time developing yourself. Do yourself a favor and find someone who has achieved the results that you like. If you can, take that person to lunch. Ask him questions. Observe not only his answers, but how he answers them.
The power of a mastermind group
Want something better? Find a group of people who has the results you like. Spend time with them. If it’s not possible yet, start by reading their books. Attend their seminars. Observe them. How they act. How they think. How they behave. Be with them.
It’s going to be awkward at first. You may feel out of place. You may start to think you are way over your head. Just stay. Take a deep breath. Know that you are ok. It will come, sooner than you realize.
Always remember, you are who you are because of the books you’ve read, the places you went to and the people you met. Of the three, what carries the most influence are the people you spend the most time with.
If you want to accelerate your path to financial success, as what Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich, you need to form a mastermind group. He devotes a whole chapter just talking about it. This tells you how important having a mastermind group to a person’s success is.
No one is an island they say. In the same way that nobody can claim to be a self-made man. There is no such thing. Our success is a result of our own efforts plus the help provided to us by the people we encountered along the way.
Once you realize that the universe is ready to serve what you want most in life, you will undrestand that everything you ever wanted is possible. It is reachable. You just have to decide to make it happen.
As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said,
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”