The Monday Blog: Who you spend time with is who you become

Who you spend time with is who you become!

This is one of my favorite lessons that I’ve learned from Tony Robbins. Being part of his first ever online virtual UPW was an experience I’d recommend to anyone. Considering the world we’re now living in and the changes that have happened, it’s imperative more than ever to be flexible with change.

Yet change is one of the hardest things for us all, including me, to wrap our heads around and embrace. There is comfort in knowing with certainty that everything is going to be okay, and you’ll have your house, your job, and that upcoming vacation you booked, and you have a paycheck coming in and are earning the same thing day in and day out, and your favorite show on Netflix has been renewed for another season. But what happens when your entire world and everything you knew with certainty comes to an end one morning when governments basically shut the world economy down? It’s brought about one of the biggest unknowns for everyone. If anyone would’ve told me a year ago that this could happen, I know I would’ve said they were crazy.

When we get stuck in that place of fear, one of two things is going to happen: Either we’re going to change radically by stepping way out of our comfort zones, or we’re going to basically shut down and become angry and worried, which is a downward spiral to no place good. When great things happen for everyone, especially in times like this, is when we step out of our comfort zones and take that chance on the unknown—you know, that place no one wants to go because it’s damn uncomfortable. How many of you have lived by the saying that the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t? Is it really?

Right now, we’re living in the most uncertain time ever, because everything about the way we lived has changed radically overnight. Your economy, the one you created, has either dried up or prospered. How many of you know someone right now who has made a shift in his or her business to change with this shutdown? I know a few who’ve radically changed their businesses overnight. If you weren’t online, doing something, selling something, getting your product to someone, what happened to you?

People are creating some brand-new concepts on how to deliver goods or products based on the way we have to do things right now. Being able to shift while being shut in, being able to create your own economy by pivoting during these challenging times, takes stepping outside your comfort zone, that one place very few are comfortable going. But it’s the one place where each of us must live. I wouldn’t be an author today if I hadn’t stepped out of my comfort zone into one of the hardest industries to get into.

But what does that have to do with the idea that who you spend time with is who you become? Everything. Your peer group, the people around you, whether online or in person, needs to have a higher standard than you so you can and will strive for more. If your peer group consists of people who just get by, who consistently lower their standards, then what you’ll end up doing is lowering your standards to match theirs. That’s why in any business venture, you want to surround yourself with a peer group who are achieving things at a much higher level than you. It’s like that saying: You have your friends, and then you have your peer group.