We Are Five People We Associate with Most

Last month I was invited to participate in a charity golf tournament in Las Vegas to celebrate life of late dancing legend Gregory Hines. The event was held to raise funds and awareness of tragic disease that took this entertainer’s life.

Although we were focusing on this serious matter, it was a true pleasure to meet all celebrities and people whom I would not normally have opportunity to meet while living here in San Diego. However, what really left an impression with me most was a conversation I had with Gregory Hines’s father, Maurice.

I went up to him and simply asked this question: "What was it about Gregory’s upbringing that made him such a leader in his art?"

"Well, it’s like this," began his proud dad in an authoritative manner. "All we did was watch what he loved to do and then encourage him to continue doing it. You should’ve seen his eyes light up when he was only a child dancing for family. When we put a ball in his hand, he didn’t share same passion so we simply took it away."

"That’s it?" I asked in a surprised tone.

"Yes, it’s as simple as that," he replied. "You see so many people try to push their kids into doing something that they themselves want, rather than supporting their children in doing what they want."

Which brings me to this topic.

Where could you be right now—or even better, where could you be tomorrow — if you surrounded yourself with a network of positive support to assist you on your journey?

There’s an old saying that goes, "We are five people that we associate with most, and our income is an average of those five people."

Wake Up to Life You Love

While speaking at a San Diego university recently, I was fortunate that I was not asked to leave stage. You see, I chose to share with students in my audience some frightening statistics. I announced that, while many would receive their degrees, few – very few – would end up pursuing careers in their chosen field. At this point, faculty began giving me dirty looks.

I went on to say that, while most students were there to pursue a dream, dream they were chasing was not their own. Many students enter college to live up to expectations of family, friends, and society. They’ve been told they should become an accountant, lawyer, doctor or teacher because of great future and financial gain. In trying to do what others think they should do rather than following their individual passions, they rarely continue along same path once they leave campus.