Surround Yourself with Lifelong Learners

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

Yes, your success depends on your own performance. But have you ever seen an award acceptance speech where the recipients didn’t give thanks to all the people who helped them get to the podium? Whether a best actor, business legend or superstar athlete, winners know how to surround themselves with people who are smarter, more experienced or better connected than they are. The people around you have a huge impact on you, so you should think about the people you’re spending time with the same way you think about what you eat and how you’re exercising.

So What Makes Someone A “Good” Person to Spend Time with?

Good people inspire you to be a better person, provide you with motivation to achieve your goals, empower you to make the changes you need to succeed and cheer on your success.

These people tend to be committed to lifelong learning. Learning for them are a mode of personal enjoyment and a path to professional success. It’s a joy to engage them in a topic, having an array of new ideas, perspectives and topics at your disposal when speaking to these people can boost your confidence.

No one has time to read everything they are interested in. By surrounding yourself with curious, engaged learners–who also like to discuss the ideas they learn–you give yourself the best opportunity for exposure to the information and ideas that could positively impact your world and put yourself in the best place for exponential growth.

If you are interested in your own growth, the people you surround yourself with should also be actively working on improving themselves and the world around them. Seek to spend time with other people interested in expanding their minds and their perspectives and in continuous learning.

How Do We Meet These People?

• Join a Learning Community: You can choose to join an organization/group focused on the topics you’d like to learn e.g. a book discussion group that meets monthly or a networking group that gathers regularly to trade notes. You might even consider a formal class or training program to add depth to your exploration of a topic and the type of commitment that is inherently structured. These communities increase commitment and make learning more fun.
• Leverage Technology-driven Learning Communities: While technology can be a distraction, it can also be used to dramatically aid learning. Online Course forums like (MOOCs, Allison, Coursera allow people to remotely participate in community and learn from some of the world’s most brilliant people with the added commitment of class participation.

We’re all born with a natural curiosity, we want to learn. But the demands of work and personal life often diminish our time and will to engage that natural curiosity. By surrounding yourself with people like this, you are naturally impelled to keep learning and striving to be your best self to keep up. Sometimes, just putting yourself in that growth-focused environment is maybe what you need for your continued professional relevance and deep personal happiness.

See you next month.