From the desk of Cody Sperber:
It’s Monday.
Do you know where your friends are?
You shouldn’t. Almost no one worth knowing is anywhere anyone knows.
Do you want to be worth knowing? You better get lost, and find these people. It’s the only way.
You are your friends.
That is the bottom line.
Why is this?
It’s because everyone is projecting themselves on to everyone else. The more powerful your friends are the more real you become in your own eyes. And real people do real things.
Holy sh-t, that was deep. Was that deep? I’m gonna have to re-read that like a thousand times to make sure it wasn’t total nonsense. Either way it probably needs deleting. I’ll decide later when it’s too late.
Do you want to be successful and THRIVE? Spend time with successful people at thrive.
Do you want to be healthy? Stop hanging out at your local 3-in-1. No one mixes tacos, pizza and a bucket of fried chicken without dying in poverty. Think about that.
You wanna be spiritually aligned? Stop going to happy hour 17 hours a week. It doesn’t even make sense. Everyone there is insane.
Our problem is we think we’re in control. We’re the “captains of our soul” – manifesting machines living the dreams of our own making. Right?
What if that’s not true though? I got a D+ in history, but I’m pretty sure I recall people being wrong about stuff before.
What if we control… nothing.
What if … You become what you see, hear, and experience on a consistent basis – a mere product of your media intake and social environment? Why not do an experiment, and go green for 30 days? See if cash goes with you.
You have got to hang around people who are ALIVE, man! The world is full of walking, nonsense-talking ZOMBIES just waiting for you to wake up and shake em up!
Are you shaking people up right now? If not I have bad news for you:
YOU’RE DEAD.
*SMACK*
There. I just shook you up. Thank me later. For now, I need you to get even more aliver. You’re no use to us yet. You gotta get around people who are positive, powerful, zombie smacking superheroes – people who are moving in the direction that you want to move in.
Go to seminars if you’re having a hard time finding people like this. They’re all there winning together.
LISTEN.
You cannot regularly hang around people who are going in the complete opposite direction you want to go in and think you are going to end up somewhere other than not where you want to be.
You just can’t. I don’t care how bad you feel for them or how much you enjoy their company. Man (or woman) up, and do what needs to be done.
I had this one friend I had to eject from my journey not too long ago, and, man, I just hated to do it. He was so funny, so fun to chill with – just one of those types of people that everybody wants to be around. But he was trouble. There was pretty much no way to hang out with him and not come home with a DUI and dirty conscience. I had to give him the ax. Did I feel bad? Not even slightly. I felt bad for my self because I didn’t get to laugh as much for a while, but that’s about it.
There is another reason you need to be careful who you surround yourself with. Your social community dictates to your subconscious (without you realizing it) what is “normal,” and therefore what you should expect from life.
I used to be broke, as you know. Luckily I met a guy at a seminar, and he ended up mentoring me. Yes, he taught me how to make money. But the best thing he did for me is simply let me hang out with him and watch. I saw first hand what was truly possible.
He had a mansion, 4-car-garage+driveway full of cars and diamonds all over all of it. It was like I was living in a rap video every time I saw him. Except when he was in Africa solving world hunger.
I had nothing.
I used to watch adopt-an-African-child charity commercials over and over just to make myself feel like my nothing was something.
But as I spent time with this guy my belief system was being upgraded. I was witnessing firsthand what was really really possible. And he wasn’t even super intelligent which made it even sweeter.
“If he can do it, so can I” was the very clear message.
As time went on and I met more and more people like my mentor (especially at seminars / events – church for millionaires), I began to view this lifestyle as normal. In contrast, if I had restricted myself to hanging out with fellow rats in the race, like I had been doing previously, I would have continued to see that as normal.
I kid you not even the slightest little bit when I tell you I quit my j-o-b and had a check for $40,000 in my hand within just a few months of meeting this person. It was the most money I’d ever seen in one place … ever.
Fast-forward a few years …
I’m making six figures thinking I’m amazing. I go to a higher level seminar where I quickly realize I’m not as amazing as I thought. I start hearing stories about this one guy making 8 figures and saving the world at the same time.
Now do I do what most people do and get envious? Think he must be doing something illegal?
Of course. But I also get inspired. And I also eventually make him my mentor (of sorts).
There were tons of people at this event making absolutely ridiculous amounts of money. I submerged myself in this new environment that was both inspiring and humbling for three days. And now I’m one of them. I’m friends with almost every single person who spoke on stage at that event, have similar sized businesses as them and even share the same stage.
We tend to restrict our “world” to our own little circles. We subconsciously block out how big this world actually is and what’s really going on in it. This is done to make us feel artificially important/big/significant/special/GOD-like, etc. and not like the insignificant little bugs we really are.
So, for instance, your average person doesn’t tend to measure their financial accomplishments against Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Donald Trump because that would make them feel small.
We don’t judge our charity in light of people like Mother Teresa because that would make us feel artificial. We don’t compare our physical health with anyone because we just don’t even want to go there.
And psychologically speaking “everyone is crazy” (besides us).
We are the big fish in our tiny little pond. We make sure of it.
We think “Ha. I am a large mouth bass in this little lake full of minnows. I’m the best.”
We purposefully ignore the ocean with all its sharks and whales and Loch Ness monsters (I’m a believer. And they’re in the ocean too, not just that lake in Scotland).
“I made $75,000 this year!” we boast.
The guy making $75,000 a day remains quiet.
As a rule of thumb I feel a sense of shear unadulterated horror if I involve myself with a group or attend an event of some sort where I find I am the big fish in the small pond. I will usually start playing Marco Polo (“fish out of water!”) and leave or I will make a mental shift from “this is for me” to “this is for them.” In the case of the latter I will consider the group a charity opportunity and begin to help them as best I can. But I’ll limit my exposure. And that’s not mean – that’s wise.
The brave soul seeks the ocean. He is constantly on the look out for whales who can teach him how to be a whale. He is a whale watcher, which is weird, but it pays. He even becomes a whale harpooner in the case of hostile corporate takeovers. He goes where he thinks the whales will be, knowing good and well the more exposure he has to them the more he becomes like them. He is happier to be made uncomfortable in the presence of greatness for the sake of growth than remain cozy in the company of mediocrity for the sake of ease.
The Bottom Line: Surround yourself with people better than you. Your life depends on it.
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Recommended Reading:
The Compound Effect—Darren Hardy
I’ve been on a bit of a self-improvement kick lately because it’s been instrumental in the successes I’ve had. And even though we all know there’s no ‘quick fix’ to achieving success, we still look for shortcuts.
Newsflash… It requires hard work and it takes time. There’s no ‘one thing’ to getting what you want. It takes MANY everyday decisions to get you there, which is what this book is all about.
Darren Hardy shares about how you can shape your destiny through decision upon decision upon decision. Meaning, thousands of actions that seem insignificant now will work together to determine where you end up. And it’s up to you whether you take control and start to consistently make the right decisions.
Don’t worry, to help you get the hang of this, he gives practical exercises based on valid principles.
When I started following these instead of listening to the empty promises contained in many other self-help books, I really did see change—in reaching business goals and even personal ones. It didn’t happen overnight, but it DID happen.
The step-by-step guidance was super easy to implement with specific things you can keep track of and charting your progress. He’s a smart dude.
Like I said, it’s not a quick fix book, but it is a shortcut.
Students Success Story:
Hey everybody. This is Jamie Groman here. I just got back from the title company and I picked up my first check. I cannot believe it. It was a wholesale deal and I got a $15,000 check. It feels so good to get that first deal
I kinda got taken for a ride for a long time by somebody who claimed to be my mentor. You know, you have me pay him. And any deal I brought to the table vanished and he was taking them from behind my back and it discouraged me. And I had been doing that for almost two years. I was, you know, just hoping and praying that this guy was my answer and he just wasn’t.
And Clever Investor, I cannot believe the support that they give you the knowledge, the information is just, it’s just so good. There isn’t anything like it out there. And so for me, it got this deal done. It gave me the confidence to get out there and really continue on this journey of creating a financial future in real estate.
Financial freedom is what I really want in life. And, Clever Investor is such a good platform for that. And I couldn’t be more grateful to all the staff, so wonderful. Cody. I appreciate how you’ve invested back into the community to help others have success like you’ve come across and I couldn’t be happier.
I can’t wait to keep doing this. It’s lit a flame in me that is not going out and I cannot wait. I appreciate you hearing me out guys. I’m so thrilled. Peace.
