Surround yourself with SUCCESS
I once heard from some random wise source that you as a person are basically the sum of every other person you’ve ever met. This idea is nothing new and I’ve found on many levels how true it really is. I’d be willing to bet that the level of success of your health, wealth, and relationships are directly attributable to the 5 people you spend the most time with. Think about it! If you are rich, successful, healthy, and have tons of great relationships in your life then this is probably no mystery to you. If you aren’t doing as well in these categories and you have a friend that’s sick all the time, a broke or unsuccessful friend that is doing absolutely nothing to improve his/her situation, a friend who is terrible with people, and/or a combination of these in your top five then it’s time to reexamine your current situation!
I’ve had several epiphanies throughout my life about this phenomenon. The first time I somewhat realized it was when I came home to hang out with family and friends after being in the Air Force for a few years. All my friends and much of my family were doing the same old things they had been doing when I left. Many of them were worse off! A few were doing well or better than when I left but I couldn’t really tell you about the friends that aren’t there any more because they are probably the really successful ones who have moved on! In any case, during my interactions with them and throughout the course of all my time spent at home since then I can just sense a difference in myself as I relate to them. I have (and continue to have) life experiences that put me in a position to be much more successful than they are. It’s not that they aren’t capable of success on their own, but that they are either a) content with staying where they are in life or b) settling for what they’ve got and letting their potential go to waste. I still have love, respect, and care for all of my friends. Deep down, however, I know that many of them will stay in the same place they are in for the rest of their lives because they will not make the slightest behavioral changes to get to where they need to go. The level of discipline, responsibility, the constant travel, meeting new people, experiencing new cultures, and overall just gaining experiences from my time in the Air Force and on my own puts me at a huge advantage over many of the people I grew up with. Not to sound condescending, but I feel that I am much more successful and will continue to be than the majority of my old friends for the rest of my life.
Now what about a situation where I was thrust into a group of people who were much more successful in business and life than me? If you’ve read my post about my visit to the Playboy Mansion, it’s obvious that I was a spectator among a great deal of VERY SUCCESSFUL people there. There were many millionaires and multi-millionaires there spread out among many walks of life: actors, professional athletes, writers, models, internet marketers, musicians, and many more. This experience had me in awe at the time. In retrospect, I use it for motivation. In fact I use just about every successful person I come in contact with for motivation whether I meet them personally or not. Remember at the beginning when I said you are a combination of everybody you ever meet? Take that literally. If you have the opportunity to meet someone who has the kind of success you would like to have even a fraction of, enjoy the moment and possibly try to learn a little something from them right then and there. I have had the opportunity to meet quite a few celebrities and if the opportunity presents itself, I try to learn something from each of them. One of my favorite things to ask someone who I would like to emulate in some way is “In two seconds right now, what’s the best piece of advice you can give me about (thing you are most curious about)?”
I’ve gotten many jewels from quite a few successful people this way that I’m sure will go on to serve me well for the rest of my life. Remember “small-chunking“? Consider it a mini-modeling session.
You don’t have to be out schmoozing with celebrities to take advantage of this though. You can get a much more intimate and prolonged mentoring session by picking up autobiographies or just studying facts about those you admire and who have attained the kind of success you want for yourself. Take time to reflect on the things you read and let them really soak in. What traits make this successful person successful? How can you incorporate that into your routine? Don’t just think about it either. Do it! Make a conscious effort to emulate success.
Another thing to consider is your friends and the company you keep. Do they bring you up and enable you to maintain/grow the level of success you are having now? Or are they content with mediocrity and just want to stay in their rung at the bottom of the ladder? I’m willing to bet that you have more than one friend in your top five that fits the latter description. I know I have had that problem at many times during my life and yes it is a problem. As your success grows you will grow as well and vice versa. Some friends just can’t deal with it.
One of my best friends from back home hung out with me for a week recently and he was really on hard times. I took him out with me around parts of Baltimore and Maryland, which is a much bigger scene than he’s used to. I interacted with people and acted much more assertively and confidently than I’m sure he ever remembers me being when we were younger. At the end of our time together, he was telling me how much I had changed and how it seems like I’m not even the same guy he grew up with. I took that as a compliment. I tried my best to give him some advice he could possibly turn his life around with but as usual I could tell it was going in one ear and out the other. Now I still care for my friend and he could call me any time. But in many respects I’ve cut ties with this guy because he will take away from my success and drag me down in the opposite direction with him. It’s just like when someone is drowning and you have to be very careful about how you approach them to save their life because they will just be so panicked they will drag you both down under the water to a certain death. The point here is to not get dragged under the level of success by a friend who is drowning in failure.
The same thing applies when you are dealing with VERY successful people. You have to realize that they are successful for a reason and if you are going to try to learn something from them, it had better be a very important and well thought out question. This is some insight you want to get from this person that you can’t get just by your own study. These are the kind of people who you want to keep company and counsel with in order to reach their level of success. You don’t want to be the drowning victim who they won’t save because you’ll take you both under, so present yourself accordingly. Take the advice they give you and apply it and use what works and toss what doesn’t, as with any information you use to enrich your life.
One stereotype that I hear a lot of people cast on rich and/or successful people is that “the money changed them”. I don’t think that’s true at all. It all comes back to personal growth. Once they have experienced a level of success far above the people they’ve known, they realize they will have to be around people who have similar drives, goals, objectives, and motivation in order to maintain that success and propel it even higher. This is as true for the small business owner you know down the street as it is for the A-list actor.
This post can be concluded with a few points:
1. Pursue relationships with and learn from the kind of people who have the success you want to have. This may sometimes mean leaving behind friendships so you can gain new ones. This doesn’t mean forgetting about your friends or being too good to talk to or hang out with them any more. It does mean spending more time working on yourself and learning from new mentors and in all likelihood less time with your regular circle of friends.
2. If you have a friend who wants your counsel or advice to get to where you are, GIVE IT TO THEM! But only if you judge them to have the drive and commitment that will get them to a level of success that you can also benefit from them in return.
3. Don’t feel insulted or miffed if your friends comment or complain that you have changed or are changing. Take this as a compliment! They notice your personal growth. This can inspire intimidation or jealousy among some of your less secure friends. It comes with the territory. Don’t hesitate to explain to them the path you are on, but ONLY if they ask. A true friend will not judge you or ask you to stop your train on the fast track to success and you would be foolish to let them do so.
4. Be a value-giver and not a value-taker. Even when you are learning something from a mentor, if you are attentive and ask inquisitive questions you are probably teaching them something just as much you are learning by giving them new insights and perspectives they had not previously considered.
5. Don’t EVER be jealous of another person’s success. Be inspired and motivated by it and use it as an example to learn from and fuel your own success.
Clark
Dropping out of High School(The Smart Way)..and succeeding in college
I dropped out of high school.
There I said it. Even a lot of my closest friends don’t know that about me. Most likely because I come off as an intelligent and educated person, which I am. But when you hear those badly stereotyped words “high school dropout” what do you think of? Losers, stoners, and minimum wage job workers? A lot of people that end up dropping out of high school DO end up this way but for the most part they were already that way before they started.
What I am here to talk about is how I dropped out of high school the SMART WAY. I went on to get my Associate’s degree within two years and another one during my time in the Air Force. I still haven’t finished my Bachelor’s but that’s only because I didn’t play the game as intelligently as I would have liked and was held up by a few roadblocks along the way(some family, some monetary, and some that were of my own imagination). Nonetheless, if you are even a reasonably intelligent person, you can learn from my mistakes and realize this is an option for you. Especially if you have supportive parents like I had.
It all began when I realized I was just drifting through high school aimlessly. I was staying up late at night(much like I still do now), barely covering my homework, falling asleep in class and just basically half-assing it. I was an intelligent kid; I had been in academically gifted and college prep courses all my life and my family usually put me in some kind of summer activity or course here and there to stimulate me through the years. I guess I had just become disillusioned with high school and started feeling a bit distracted by this or that for whatever particular reason.
My father had dropped out of high school when he was around my age. He went on to do the same thing I was destined to do, which is one of the reasons I decided to go through with it. He dropped out, got his GED, got an Associate’s from the local community college, then went on to transfer to a four-year school. He had done it, encouraged me to do it, and gave me his blessing and experience to guide me through it. He had wanted me to do it from the time I was 14 but it wasn’t legally possible at that time so I always kind of kept it on the backburner of my mind for the next couple of years.
I got to the start of my junior year in high school, and one day while I was sleeping in Biology class and was forced to wake up I seriously started to consider dropping out and just jumping to college. The next morning, after my mom was trying to make me wake up for school and I didn’t want to after another late night television binge I rolled over and said “I’m quitting school, getting my GED, and going to college.” She didn’t want me to but my father instantly came in the room and said “Then do it NOW. Don’t procrastinate.” So that was all the motivation I needed.
I went to school with him and started the process of dropping out. My guidance counselor told me to sleep on it, but my dad then came in with me and said this is what I WANTED to do. So she signed the paper and I went around to all my teachers, got signed out, and I was DONE.
The GED was a joke to me. I was in a state-provided preparatory facility at the local public library. I finished all the top level exams and essays in 2 days time and was deemed ready for testing. I felt a bit bad because there were a lot of older people there while I was zooming through the requirements, who were struggling with basic math and English booklets. It made me feel blessed to have my intelligence and youth because it truly does get harder with age if you don’t put yourself into it. But luckily I was on the good end of that equation.
I aced the GED no problem. I took all the exams at the community college I would be attending over the course of a day. Once my scores came back I began to talk trash to my dad. I scored 20 points higher on the test than both he and my mom did(they ironically had the same score).
I then took the entrance test to community college and started working with the advisors and financial aid office to smoothly transition into college life at the tender age of 16. Most of the people I went to school with were understandably much older than myself but I did alright. I did make some mistakes here and there but I also had some successes and I feel like I got a headstart in life experience over my peers. That was 1998. I graduated two years later in the summer of 2000 with an Associate’s. I was hoping to transfer to a 4-year college but I had unwisely decided to get married and have a daughter at that time. Family duty called so I joined the Air Force to support my daughter. The degree did help boost my rank and money in the military immediately though so it was definitely a benefit.
Some of the insights and lessons I got from this experience are as follows:
1. Don’t drop out unless you are really prepared to go all the way with it and realize the drawbacks. I do have some regrets. I never went to a prom. I never experienced that senior year of high school superiority. I didn’t have anybody I could really relate to in college. I had friends, but my college friends couldn’t really relate to me because I was younger and my high school friends had a harder time relating to me because I was in college and much more responsible than they were. This lead me to definitely feel a sort of loneliness at times but as they say it’s lonely at the top.
2. Also realize the benefits. I wasn’t in Advanced Placement classes in high school. I wasn’t getting any college credit for the classes I was taking. But I knew I was intelligent enough and prepared for college. I decided I would be far better off to go ahead and “skip” my final two years of high school to get into college immediately and start earning credits. I also knew I would save myself and my parents a great deal more money by going to the local community college(which I probably would have done anyway even if I had stayed in high school) instead of going to a 4-year institution right out of high school.
3. You will probably be better off than your friends. I remember the day I was dropping out, one of my best friends tried to talk me out of it, even though he knew I had a plan. 11 years later, I have 2 Associate’s degrees, am on my way to a Bachelor’s and he hasn’t even gotten his GED. After I quit and went to college, he floundered around 2 high schools, never completed his diploma and has half-assed it this entire time. Don’t be a half-ass.
4. Once you are in college, act like an adult. I had a situation my first semester where a history professor had an awful policy that tardies counted as absences. I came into his class tardy quite a few times and it knocked what would have been a B to a D in that class. This was unacceptable to me as I couldn’t transfer the credit for the class. I was inexperienced in dealing with people and had trouble getting up the stomach to approach him about changing it. My dad called for me and also was willing to meet with the professor’s supervisor. Neither the professor or his supervisor would change the grade but told me that I should be dealing with it myself whether I was 16 or not. Lesson learned. After again trying to go back to the professor on my own, he denied me yet again but seemed to have more respect for me. I then appealed one level further and took it to the vice president of the college who changed my grade to a C. I could live with a C because it was transferrable credit. Being young and in college is a perfect time to learn to deal with uncomfortable situations as an adult.
4a. Learn how to keep good documentation. The situation mentioned above turned out well enough for me but it possibly might not have. The vice president’s memo on my grade change didn’t get immediately put into action and I didn’t realize it until my last semester of college. I didn’t have a copy of his memo and the admin office had to really dig to find it and they very easily could have NOT found it. This taught me the importance of keeping copies of EVERY important document. Set up a decent office with a good filing cabinet and file all your important documents. It could mean the difference between a C and a D!
5. Do your work at all costs, even if its bad. My dad taught me this lesson among many others. Many times if I was slacking off and hadn’t gotten my work done he would tell me this about big assignments. “Just do it. It’s better to turn in something than NOTHING. A 60 is better than a ZERO.” He was absolutely right. I found out that in some circumstances, teachers didn’t even GRADE all the assignments and you got credit just for turning the assignment in. This alone got me an A+ in an online computer class and helped me make Dean’s list for that semester.
6. Take great notes. Especially for classes like history. My notes in all my history classes after that bad first semester got me A+ grades in all of them. It also helped for those review sessions before the big final exams in many classes like biology and math. This may be common knowledge but its worth repeating: most teachers design their own tests around THEIR teaching and not all from the text books. Put effort into taking copious and detailed notes.
7. Try as diligently as possible to get GREAT teachers. Talk with your fellow students and peers and find out who the good teachers are for each subject and what their styles and strengths are. If you find a good teacher , use them again for another class in the future if possible.
8. For papers or assignments, finish early and talk to your instructor about reviewing and editing it for you. This will take a B paper to an A. The instructor will simply carve out the parts of the paper he/she doesn’t like and also tell you the areas where they feel you need more. Get your rough drafts and final drafts completed early and then ask them to edit it for you. I really don’t know any instructors who wouldn’t do this gladly if asked. Use any writing improvement facilities available. One more tip: always use one more reference than required. This lets the instructor know you’re going the extra mile.
9. Be careful of taking too many courses at one time. I’ve read Steve Pavlina’s blog and he really advocates taking a lot of courses at once to finish college quickly. I completely agree but you have to KNOW and be CONFIDENT you are ready for this. I pretty much bombed an entire summer session because I was taking too many classes and not putting the full effort into any of them. If you do insist on taking more than the traditional “full” schedule, make sure your maturity, consistency, and dedication are in check and devise a system to get your studies done and STICK TO IT.
10. Be careful about the company you keep and keep your emotions in check. As I said earlier, I was a bit divided between my friends because of my choice to go to college. Attempt to surround yourself with positive, motivated people. If I had more friends like myself I may have done even better in college and maybe even completed a doctorate by now. I was hanging out with a crowd that was destined to be less successful and therefore it sapped my motivation to be all I could be. I also started dating the wrong girl, got her pregnant, and got married at a much younger age than I should have(if I ever should have!) Focus on your studies first and make sure your emotions are not knocking your life out of balance.
Well there you have it. I don’t regret dropping out because it has led me to where I am now and I’ve had a pretty awesome life with experiences that many of my friends can’t even dream of. If I could go back in time would I do it again? Maybe, maybe not but the lessons that I learned have been invaluable to me up to this point. I basically fast-tracked my career, education, maturity, and life overall by doing what I did and I know if my daughters someday are in the position that I was in I could guide them. Options are power and while not always the most desirable route, this is just one more option.
Clark
