“Friendly” Advice

Along with our family influences, our friends also have great influence over our decisions and actions. Because of this one truth, we as success driven people need to make sure that the advice we are surrounding ourselves with, and accepting, comes from respecting and loving sources. We need to make sure that the people we allow to influence our lives truly want to see us succeed, and are free of any selfish agendas. In return, we need to make sure that the advice we give others is exactly what we would want for ourselves.

It seems that too often we see others fall prey to the words and thoughts of outside influences. It is a vicious cycle of giving poor advice and taking poor advice. I think that there are a couple of different reasons for this. One, the majority of people just pass on what they’ve been told as “truth” by others who are actually not successful therefore they are giving incorrect advice. Two, some people actually don’t want you to succeed whether it is consciously or subconsciously. In my experience, this portion of people in the “middle class comfort zone” do not like when others around them progress out of it. They don’t feel that it’s fair for others to “have” more than they have. They seem to give advice only to keep people from succeeding.

Unfortunately, there have been instances where we failed because we listened to what others said or told us. We listened too closely to the “odds of success,” or other nay saying comments, and succumbed to their negative conclusions. I am sure that a good portion of you can relate to this, and while some of you might have endured on through, some of you might still be curious as to what you can do avoid these circumstances.

These are the five things that we have done that have worked with great success:

1. We make sure that we were giving out the advice that we would want to receive in return. Instead of being jealous, we are positive towards other people’s ideas, and we realized that people appreciate that.

2. We slowly weeded out those who were not giving us productive advice, and started surrounding ourselves with friends that wanted for us what we wanted for them.

3. We are doing everything that we can to be around people who are more successful than us. The old saying, “If you want to see what your future holds, look at your friends today,” is practiced thoroughly in our home.

4. When all else fails we have learned to recognize the agenda that is placed behind any advice that we are given. There will always be advice, but if it is garbage, you need to put it where it belongs.

5. WE ONLY TAKE ADVICE FROM PEOPLE THAT WE WOULD LIKE TO BE LIKE IN THAT SPECIFIC AREA!!!
(this is the MOST important one! For example…we take parenting advice from people we deem as “good” parents who have been successful in raising GOOD kids, and we take financial advice from people who are successful in the areas that we desire to be successful in. Makes perfect sense doesn’t it?)

-Scott