In this episode, we discuss the importance of choosing the right people to hang around and how you choose your day.
Full Transcripts
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about how you’re the average of the five people you hang around the most. I’ve talked in the past about how the cost of having low-value people in your life is your life, which is true but you also have to know that you’re the average of the five people you hang around the most and you’re probably the average of your surrounding. As people, we don’t have complete control over our actions. I think I heard that our day and all the actions that we take, about 80 to 90 percent of those actions are done on autopilot.
This makes sense because if you had to exert mental energy for everything you had to do as a person, from breathing to paying attention to everything around you, you would probably have a hard time functioning in society. So doing things on autopilot is something our brains like to do to converse energy. Which allows us to exert energy when it is required. And most of the time, you’re not even aware of what you’re really doing, it’s just a habit. When it comes to our habits, we can have productive habits and we can have destructive habits. We want to try to minimize the destructive habits and maximize productive ones.
So when you’re hanging around a group of friends or co-workers, you’re going to pick up on some of their habits. I know with my last roommate, I picked up a lot of his vocabulary and I still use it. I enjoy using his language and I’m sure there are somethings that I did that rubbed off on me. When my last serious partner, she had a sweet tooth and before her, I rarely ate sweets but she always had to have something sweet and I would partake in those delicious carbs. Now two years later, I find myself craving something sweet and sometimes I do make that side trip to get a milkshake.
Willpower is a diminishing trait, the more you use it in a day, the less you will have later on the day. Unless the productive habit is so ingrained into your personality, then you’re going to start slipping. Look at your friends and it will pretty much tell you who you will be as a person. You’re going to have the same hobbies, you’re probably going to have similar careers, and your physic is probably going to look similar. You just have to ask yourself, are you okay with this? If you’re not okay, then you need to place yourself in a different environment.
You can bring people along with you and see how they will do, and hopefully, they start taking on productive habits. Not everyone has to be super ambitious and work all the time, you just have to be fine with the life that you choose. If you’re hanging around a lot of people that don’t match your values and you’re starting to feel like they’re holding you back, that is a choice you’re making to stay. You might be staying with that group of friends because you’re worried about being lonely or not having a support group. You can still keep your friends, that start focusing on finding another group of friends.
Maybe that group of friends is good for your once a month release and then you have another group of friends. If you’re looking to become successful in your career, then you should hang around people that will help you in your career. For me, most likely I’m not going to get business advice from someone just entering college, I need to find a different place in order to the advice I need. Plus I’m more likely to get opportunities for my business if I hang around the right type of folks. If I hang around a lot of people who don’t want to better themselves or have a lot of disposable income, then it’s very unlikely I will get a quality client. It’s possible but I can’t risk my entire business trying to find a diamond in the rough. I need to make sure I’m spending my time correctly. If it’s time to play then I play, if it’s time to work, then I work.
Also, if I start to upgrade myself, it’s not like I’m going to forget people in my life. Those people were a valuable part of my life and in someway they shaped my life. I’ll tell them a happy birthday and I lend them a hand if they need it but I need to focus on my mission and I’ll add people to it that I see fit. I have big goals of running my own financial planning firm with advisors underneath me so that we can help out ten thousand families. I won’t be able to help out ten thousand families if I have the wrong people in my circle.
This concept of five can be applied to other parts of your life. Like you’re the average of the five activities you do the most. So if you watch a lot of reality television, then you will only really be able to talk about reality television. If you spend a lot of time playing video games, then you’re game. If you’re constantly reading one new source of another, then your thoughts are going to be the average of that news source. So be careful what you’re consuming with your mind. Garbage in means garbage out.
So ask yourself, what type of life do you want to have and then just filling it with people, ideas, and things that will help you be that person. If you’re not living the life you want to live, then ask yourself, what do I need to remove or add to help me get there. Since your day is already filled with activities, you most likely need to focus on the removing part. This might suck but it’s required to be true to yourself.
That’s it for today’s episode, and to summarize it, you’re the average of the five people you hang around the most. If you hang around five people not doing well financially, then you’re most likely going to struggle financially. If you hang around five people who are killing it financially, then sooner or later you might be killing it financially. Whatever life you want to have, just make sure you’re filling it with people that will help you live that life. Life is too short to not be living the life you want to have because you’re never going to live that life again if enough time passes by. So make decisions that will cut away the waste so what’s left behind is what really matters to you.
Thanks for listening today! To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
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