Transcription
Okay, I want to jam with you a little bit about this word, influences. You do become your influences. You do become your conversations. You do become the people you spend most of your time with.
So, as your mentor, my loving encouragement is, spend a lot more time with people whose lives you want to be living. You want to be a billionaire? A lot of people are with me in this program because they want to be billionaires, or maybe even deca-billionaires. And as you probably know, I've spent a lot of my professional life coaching some of the most successful financial people in the world, a lot of the most successful empire builders for going into my third decade. The point simply is this: if you want to be rich, be with financially successful people. You want to be happier? Spend more time associating with people who are optimistic and enthusiastic. You want to be a performer that wows all witnesses? Well, let me ask you right now, do you spend time with people who are working at genius level? If you want to be someone who is spiritually alive, so you're connected with the intimacy of that higher nature of the world, and so you're working on minimizing your ego so you can be an instrument of service, well, are you spending time with people who are on that journey?
You do become your influences. So, if you look at a victim, they want more health, they want more happiness, they want more prosperity, they want more productivity. But if you look at who they're spending their time with, they're with other victims. They're with people who are addicted to their devices, people who are spending all their time eating in restaurants, or complaining, or looking at bikini shots of men and women on the social media. And so you say to them, "Well, have you taken a good look at your life?" I mean, think about that. Most people complain or they wish for a better life, but they've never looked at themselves in the mirror. And I want you today to have a good, hard look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself this: Who are my influences? Who are the people who are in my friendship circle and my work circle, and even your stranger circle? Are you going to coffee shops where the baristas are mean or angry or not nice? Are you going to have lunch at places that are dirty and a mess, and you can just get a negative vibe about it? I mean, your influences fundamentally affect your mindset. Your influences fundamentally affect your energy.
Which brings me to your environment. Your environments are fundamentally important as well. When I work, whether it's writing, whether it's working on videos, whether it's planning out the next quarter, planning out the next year, my workspaces are pretty much minimalist. They are full of light. Borrowed from Steve Jobs's favorite creativity strategy, I have these whiteboards in my workspaces. They're actually glass, they're white glass that I can write on. I love working in hotel rooms. I love working on airplanes. You know, I spend money on beautiful hotel rooms because Warren Buffett taught me this: billionaires don't worry about the cost, they think more about the investment and the value received. You see, you're really smart being here with me in this program. You're getting priceless information that will pay for your investment in many, many multiples. That's just really smart. And so I spend the money to get a nice hotel room. I spend the money to be in beautiful places. I take the time to get my environments right because I understand the way that I feel in my environments massively affects my creativity, massively affects my productivity, massively calibrates and influences my performance.
All it takes is one idea that you get. Maybe it's a new business. Maybe it's a new ritual. Maybe it's a new way of leading your team. Maybe it's a new way of thinking. All it takes is one idea that you get in one environment that could allow you to change the world, or revolutionize your life, or move the entire needle for the way that you spend the rest of your existence. So think not only a lot and really hard about your influence, but also think about your environments.
And then you might say to me, "Robin, you know, in terms of my influences, some of these people are my family members. You know, it's my mother, or it's my father, or my sister-in-law, or my brother, or my best friend." And I would simply say, "Well, maybe then it's time to spend selective association with those people." Because if you really want to transform your life, professionally, personally, physically, spiritually, here's a simple tactic: Ask yourself this question: Which people in my life fill me with joy? And which people in my life steal my happiness? Simple exercise. Do a list. Which people fill me with joy? And which people steal my happiness? And bring into your life more people who fill you with joy, and delete the people, or spend less time with the people who steal your happiness. And just watch what happens to your performance, your productivity, your prosperity, and the way that your life looks.