Very often in the self-development world when it comes to friendship, you hear things such as:
"If you lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas" and "You're the average of the 6 people you spend the most time with".
The mainstream advice seems to say that you need to drop all of your non-successful friends and find successful friends if you want to get ahead in life.
To what extreme must one take this to? Do you just cut contact with any of your friends that doesn't fit the mold of successful and ambitious? Or limit contact and time spent with them but remain friends?
I have a few friends that I've literally been to hell and back with (if you've worked outside in winter in Saskatchewan, you know what hell is) that would do anything for me and I'd do the same for them and they've always been there for me when I needed their help. They just have different life goals from myself. They don't talk mine down.
One other thing I need to address is my willingness to take on new friends. I've always had a small core group and I don't open up and take on new friends very often. I know that networking is important and a great thread here outlines how golf is a good way to get out there and meet people. I've got a set of clubs now and will get out there once everything opens back up. I'm also going to find my local Toastmasters and link up with them as well.
My main question for the more experienced people here on the forum is:
Do you have to be ruthless in this process in order to get where you want? Or is there a middle ground where you can keep those loyal friends in your life?
"If you lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas" and "You're the average of the 6 people you spend the most time with".
The mainstream advice seems to say that you need to drop all of your non-successful friends and find successful friends if you want to get ahead in life.
To what extreme must one take this to? Do you just cut contact with any of your friends that doesn't fit the mold of successful and ambitious? Or limit contact and time spent with them but remain friends?
I have a few friends that I've literally been to hell and back with (if you've worked outside in winter in Saskatchewan, you know what hell is) that would do anything for me and I'd do the same for them and they've always been there for me when I needed their help. They just have different life goals from myself. They don't talk mine down.
One other thing I need to address is my willingness to take on new friends. I've always had a small core group and I don't open up and take on new friends very often. I know that networking is important and a great thread here outlines how golf is a good way to get out there and meet people. I've got a set of clubs now and will get out there once everything opens back up. I'm also going to find my local Toastmasters and link up with them as well.
My main question for the more experienced people here on the forum is:
Do you have to be ruthless in this process in order to get where you want? Or is there a middle ground where you can keep those loyal friends in your life?
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