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

Jim Rohn

Many people don’t agree with this quote by Jim Rohn, but I do.

I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding around it - of what he really thought with this. I think people tend to take it too logically - word-by-word and literally.

What it really means (my opinion) is that if you e.g., read books such as autobiographies by grand people like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, etc. then you start to think like them. You’re “spending time” with them.

Our brains don’t make a huge difference (if any) between the people we see on television, in real life, or whether we read about them in books. If we spend a lot of time with them, we connect with them. We feel as if we actually know them. This is why we sometimes feel as if we know the fictional characters from the series. Logically we know they don’t exist - that they’re characters played by actors - but we don’t care.

Also, if we spend time with people who have great thoughts, who are inspiring and positive, we tend to be the same. The opposite is also true: if you’re around negative people who complain and play the victim, it’s hard not to have similar thoughts.

Imagine you’d start hanging out with Elon Musk on every Monday, with Gary Vaynerchuk on every Tuesday, with Margaret Thatcher on every Wednesday, with Donald Trump on Thursdays and with Barack Obama on Fridays.

It’s an unrealistic thing to imagine, but I dare you to tell me your thought patterns wouldn’t change.

So, the Jim Rohn quote might not be true literally, but there’s definitely truth in it.

KRISTJAN

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