Quick, Hide The Comics! (And Other Truths...)

Someone once told me, "Show me who you are hanging out with and tell me what you are reading, and I can tell you what your life will look like in the next year." (I thought to myself..."Quick. Hide the comic books!")

This person is a mentor to me in the area of Leadership Development, and I learned this from him: Two things that can determine who you are becoming in the near future are:

1. Who your friends are, and;
2. What you are putting in your head.

It's Friday, so it's time for a little weekend reflection and perhaps some thoughts (and if necessary, some action) toward change. Let's talk about #1. Here's a true story for you...

I was talking to a friend this morning whose teenage daughter was dating a guy that has a habit of smoking pot and stealing. His friends also have some pretty ugly habits. So, some of the closest people to her are people who engage in some shady activities, and guess what...? This week, the boyfriend was arrested for illegal activity and some other friends were tracked down by police and arrested due to their involvement, and the girl received several threats against her by some very unruly individuals who the police tracked through her emails, and they, too, ended up arrested and in jail. Not to mention, her parents lost a couple of days of work and a couple of nights of sleep this week, and the whole family is upset and will spend several days trying to get their lives back together. Then there will be court dates, more police work, and probably cost a bit of money just trying to get everything sorted out. The couple had been dating for about a year.

The short of it all: after a year of dating, the results were...Jail, threats, more jail, a lot of crying, physical threats, fear, financial and physical stress, broken heart...and did I mention crying? All because of a choice in friends. WOW!

Take a look around you. What is the character of the two or three people closest to you? What are their habits? Are they positive people, or do they regularly speak and act negatively? Given a choice in a difficult situation, would they seek to do what is right, or would they choose the "easy way out", or even what is wrong?

What influences us doesn't always just happen overnight. Most of the time, things are building up in our lives without us even realizing it, until one day we wake up and "WHACK!" the results of our habits (and most of the time, our friend's habits) begins to catch up to us.

You can relate to this as a Martial Artist in a good way. You start out as a white belt...you practice hard...you do your very best week in and week out...you develop habits through your practice, and next thing you know, you are a yellow belt...or a blue belt...or a red belt, or...yep, that's right - you find yourself testing for your Black Belt!

That didn't happen overnight, and it took the development of habits. Guess what else? You didn't do it alone! It took a team of people around you to help you get there.

So, whether it's in the dojo or in life...whose influencing you? Are they bringing you down or raising you up? Are they helping produce strong habits, or are they making questionable decisions? If you could look at the three people closest to you, would you want to be like them in a year? The reality is you may already "BE" who you are hanging out with. Are you satisfied with that?

There is always room to grow, and to become stronger, and develop better habits. My question to you is, "Who do you want to become, and what, or WHO, will it take to get there?"

Just think about it...and in the meantime,

Have An Extraordinary Weekend!
Doug McGannon
Kickgen username: KGDoug
http://www.twitter.com/dougmcgannon