C.A.R., The Vehicle to Your Dream - Part Three: Associating with Excellent People

Associating with Excellent People

You are the combined average

of the five people you associate with most –

including the way you walk, talk, act, think and dress.

Your income, your accomplishments,

even your values and philosophy will reflect them.[i]

     -Jeff Olson, The Slight Edge

Ever been crab fishing?  Anyone who has will tell you if you only have one crab in the bucket, you need a lid.  If you have two or more, you can leave the lid off.  Why?  Because if there is only one crab it will try to climb out of the bucket, but once you have several crabs in the bucket, they will continually pull each other down, and, as a result, by the end of the day, you are ready for a crab feast!

It’s the same way with people.  We may find ourselves around crabby people who have given up on their Dreams and will do all they can to drag others down, keeping others from achieving their Dreams as well.  But in the end, those crabs are going to be building someone else’s feast instead of rising above the bucket of life and fulfilling their own.  We don’t have to be a crab.  We don’t have to enter the bucket.  How?

Your why.  What do you want?  Whatever it is you want, find people who have achieved what you want and form relationships with them.  The more time we spend with people, the more we tend to look and behave like them.  Associate with positive, responsible, reflective, empowered and empowering people with vision.  Dissociate from negative, irresponsible, blaming, entitled and enabling people without vision.  This may be the most difficult and painful part of walking in our Greatness, especially if we love these “crabby” people. 

Henry Ford said, “My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.”  The more time we spend associating with negative people, the more likely we will write stories that do not serve us.  At first, it may not be evident, but over time those negative stories will manifest, growing more toxic in our lives.  What we focus on will grow.

There is a difference between a negative friend and a challenging friend.  Friends who challenge us to grow by speaking the sometimes-painful truth or asking the tough questions are challenging relationships.  Friends who simply look to drag you down, leaving you feeling empty and defeated are negative relationships.

Remember, “as iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.”[ii]  The more time we spend with positive people, the sharper we become, writing stories that serve us.  At first, it may not be evident, but over time those positive stories will manifest and bring positive results from the positive, proactive practices in our lives, moving us toward our Dreams, growing our Greatness, creating The Greatness Revolution.

Dissociating While Practicing Compassion

Dissociating with negative people does not mean ignoring, withholding or being cruel.  We can still give negative people time, but perhaps instead of an hour, we give ten minutes.  Often, we can sense when our encounters with these people begin to head down a road of negativity.  When that moment arises, we bring our time to a close and move on.  We still practice compassion.

            Adversity is not a reason to dissociate with others. Sometimes, friends or family experience a difficult season in life.  Many responsible, positive, reflective, and empowered people struggle, and they want to grow in their Greatness.

However, others, no matter how blessed, see a half-empty glass, what’s wrong with every situation, and do not want to get better.  They have resigned themselves to a life of quiet desperation.  They choose to wallow in the The Spinning Rainbow Wheel of Death (without the rainbow, of course).  Even the Great Physician asked the paralyzed man by the pool, “Do you want to get well?”  Unless we answer, “Yes!” to that question, there’s not much anyone can do.  As Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right!”

With people who wallow in what’s wrong, unfair, and impossible, sometimes we have to compassionately let them go the way they choose.  No person has the power to heal another person all on his own, period.  A Buddhist proverb reads, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”  A person must want to be healed, must want to get better, and must want to be transformed in his Greatness.

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[i] Olson, Jeff.  The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success.  Success Books, 2011.  Print.

[ii] Proverbs 27:17.  The Old Testament.