Living on a superyacht

I was around a lot of swearing; it became my norm and I wouldn’t bat an eyelid at a string of words that might make another person keel over.

I also strike up conversations about sex often, and I choose to hang out with people who are open and bluntly honest all the time. This type of communication has become normal for me, but when it carries over into my conversations with new people they can sometimes be a bit taken aback because they aren’t used to experiencing radical honesty in their everyday life.

Who we hang out with shapes our perception of reality.

Essentially, the behaviours of the people you hang around with most become what’s ‘normal’ for you,

and you usually end up mirroring their behaviour to some extent. So to take my swearing concept into a broader context…

If you’re around people who routinely do a job they don’t love and live a life that they (or you) find mediocre or boring, it will become normal for you and you’ll probably find yourself aiming to keep up with where they’re at; maybe a bit ahead; but not much more. On the other hand, if you’re around inspiring people who live a life full of passion and excitement, you’ll start to find that normal, and you’ll be motivated to create the same.

As Jim Rohn says,

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

It shocked me a bit when I first read that, but it makes sense. These days I surround myself with healthy, inspiring, motivated people; many of whom are entrepreneurs doing amazing things with their lives, helping others, or putting a lot of effort into changing their own lives around. With people like them around it becomes normal to think that the moon is the limit.

This concept is the reason why I have found travelling to be so transformative – it enables me to be surrounded by open minded people who are on a mission to find out what ‘living a bloody good life’ means for them. It took a large dose of travel for me to be able to break out of the mould of conformity and set out to create a life that I wanted, rather than following the life that everyone else was following.

Who is at the front of the status quo herd anyway – are we sure they know where they’re going?

So if you want to make a change in your life it pays to look at who you spend most of your time with – are they going in the direction you want to be going in, do they motivate you to be a better person? Do they eat too much toast? Do they gossip and pull others down? Or do they make you feel good about yourself and empower others?

You can find your tribe (ugh, sorry, I used That Word. Never again.)

online as well as in person

– there are so many groups and blogs online where you’ll find people who’ll make you see that you belong – there are loads of others out there like you that love the things you love.

Some of my best entrepreneur friends are people I’ve met online through various groups and business masterminds. They open my eyes to what’s possible.

Make sure the peeps in your life are adding to it.

And if they’re not, start making some enquiries into where you can meet some

new bloody good folk.