Do You Have To Be Selective With Whom You Associate With In Order To Succeed?

Everyone knows that business success depends a great deal on your business connections as well as social connections. But don’t get the idea that I’m trying to persuade you to abandon your friends in exchange for your well connected business friends.

Rather, the message I’m trying to convey is that the company that you keep may either elevate you to success or tie you down. There is even a popular saying: “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are.”

This popular saying reflects how society usually judges a person. For example, people who associate with normal people tend to be looked at by society as a normal person while people who associate with outliers tend to be also looked at by society as also outliers.

This is the reason why there are parents who hate it when their children associate with people they think are lazy, rebellious or have anti-social attitudes. These parents think that their children would be influenced negatively by these people they associate with.

There is a reason why the saying: “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are” or the other saying: “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you your future” has a strong element of truth in it.

This is because people who tend to be similar in thinking tend to group together. This is the reason why for example the word “club” exists. A club as defined by the Oxford Languages is an association or organization dedicated to a particular interest or activity.

This means that people for example who like basketball not only end up playing basketball together, but also become close friends. Think of your school years. Think of the people you associate with in school.

Do you strongly associate with nerds because being friends with nerds give you a feeling of not being alone? Do you associate with the gym rats because you are into physical activity? Do you associate with the musicians in your school because you like to be a musician yourself?

Although you might be popular in school and well liked by everyone, you tend to be grouped by everyone as someone who belong to the elite class although you may hate this branding. But in reality, this is who you really are. So, your social associations define who you are.

During your early years in elementary, highschool and even college, earning money would likely be not the most important thing in your life. You’re probably more interested in pursuing more entertaining activities like playing sports, hanging out, or chasing after boys/girls.

But things change when you graduate and have to fend for your self financially by working. Suddenly, you can’t hang out as much with your drinking buddies who might have more free time than you because they’re either unemployed or have more free leisure time.

Suddenly, your relationships with your school drinking buddies change and you have to make a choice. Do you give more time to your drinking buddies and maintain your friendship with them or concentrate on your job to be better off financially?

To make matters worse, there are old friends from school or from your past who don’t understand the choices you have to make and still hang out to the notion that you maintain friendships at all costs no matter how irrelevant your relationship with them have become.

People who have no ambitions stay the way they are. They simply don’t change. They let their lot in life take control of their destiny. How many times have you someone say that the reason why they are poor or unsuccessful is because it is their lot in life.

But there are people who come from very poor backgrounds who somehow develop ambitions either thru sheer will or fate. For example, a tall but poor person is given an opportunity to play basketball for some unknown team because of their height.

This small and seemingly insignificant event may just be the right condition to awaken the ambition of this poor but tall person to become very good at basketball to one day become a sporting star millionaire.

It can also happen by sheer will. A poor person might become so tired of being so poor that they devote all their time in trying to be rich rather than spend their time leisurely with their other poor friends.

And this is what the other poor people around them don’t understand. That somehow, despite the seemingly inescapable poverty around them, these people still develop the drive to escape their poor situation to try to become successful.

If these poor but ambitious people start to develop traction in trying to be successful and escape their poor background, there would be mean people who out of jealously or genuine meanness would try to bring them down.

Instead of supporting these ambitious people, these mean people would try to break the ambitious person’s drive to succeed. There is nothing much to say about this except that there are plenty of mean people who live today. This is just reality.

There are also opportunistic people who try to leech off the success of successful and not so successful people. Once again, there is nothing much to say about this except that these people are a reality in life.

If you are trying to succeed in life it is best that you watch out for this people because they can really break whatever momentum you have going on in your life. If some of your acquaintances or even friends turn out to be these sort of people, it is best if you distance yourself from them.

There are even people who would actually sabotage your efforts to become successful. Some go as far as harming you. So be very careful with your close acquaintances as they have the best chance to harm your efforts and even you.

We often hear about celebrities and other successful people only associating and even having relationships with other successful people. To many people especially those that are unsuccessful, this might seem that famous people are superficial.

But I read an interview with one of the band members of a famous 80’s rock band called Duran Duran who answered why they only date models and other celebrities. He stated that it takes a lot to be successful.

He states that his band hardly have time to relax and do normal things like what normal people do. Through their work as rock stars, most of the people they meet are other entertainers themselves and this is the reason why most of their friends are entertainers/celebrities also.

Besides, successful people tend to have the same buying habits as other successful people. A celebrity for example who owns an expensive sports car have little to talk with a normal person who owns a cheap car if they ever meet each other and talk about cars.

It’s just a reality in life that when people become rich and successful, their outlook in life would also change, mostly, these successful people would have more expensive tastes. This is just another reality in life.

When I mean succeed it doesn’t only mean becoming rich. It could be anything. If you’re an employee, choose companies and co-employees that are not toxic and would help you improve your career.

If you’re a businessperson, choose employees that are not problematic and have a certain degree of loyalty to you. Choose business partners and clients that are not toxic and underhanded that they would cause harm to your business.

If you’re a partner, choose a partner that is again not toxic while also helping you improve yourself as well. Choose one for example that is not a nagger or materialistic. Choose one that would cheer you up and help you when you’re down.

If you’re a friend or an acquaintance, choose friends and acquaintances with a positive outlook in life and are not jealousy-prone.

Like it or not, you cannot be friends with everyone especially if you want to succeed in life. There are people who are just plain mean, jealous, opportunistic or simply do not understand why you want to be successful.

In their eyes, you’re leading a much better life than the one that they are leading which to them may seem unfair. Sometimes, these people can be reasoned with but for the most part they can’t be reasoned with that your only option is to distance yourself from them.

You might also like to read the article:

Am I Materialistic? How Does It Affect My Life?

Being materialistic affects many facets of your life. This includes your career and financial situation. Most importantly, it affects how you interact with people in society and how they interact with you ...