Who are your friends? Who are the people that have direct or indirect influence on you? Who are the two or three people that come to mind when you need someone to speak with? Whether you know it or not, you are who you are today by virtue of two things –  the kind of books you read and the company you keep. So, if you need to achieve the type of [tag]success[/tag] you desire, you need to watch who are in your cycle of influence.

Wise people avoid negative souls like a plague. Some people can never see the good in anything. If you want to go somewhere in your life, you must first learn to avoid such people. “It can’t be done” “Oh, there is recession everywhere”. “This is Nigeria, it may never work”. These set of people would give you a million reasons why things can’t just work or why you may never realise your dreams. They will give you enough reasons why you should not waste your time trying to do anything. They will even give your reasons why you should accept your present situation as your destiny.

Friends, there is no challenge facing you today that is peculiar to you alone. Your issues are HUMAN issues! Simple! The only way out is for you to surround yourself with high – thinking and well driven individuals. Do not waste your time with people who are going nowhere. Have you ever wondered what happen to these set of people? They end up knowing all the richest people in this world when they turn fifty but they have no personal result to show forth but many stories. They will be glad to associate with success but do not want to go through the process themselves. “That man called minister of finance was my mate in school”, most of them would say.

Look, just excuse yourself from them, for they see only an ugly world, which is simply a mirror image of what they have and conceive inside. This is one major responsibility you owe yourself. Choose the people that you associate with. The responsibility to choose your friends lies solely on you. Friendship is not by force, it is by choice. God has given everyone the power to choose who you associate with. You have the responsibility to choose your friends wisely. You do not need perfect people but you need people that want to grow like you, and that are teachable. Do these people have regard for life itself? And how do they see their parents, other people and even the opposite sex?

Meanwhile, that you should avoid negative people does not mean that you have to become paranoid. One strategy that is very good here is your ability to value people, and to recognize the right peg for a particular hole when you meet one. You have got to master the art of working with people. There is hardly anything you can do in this world without people. Some people will come into your life and you’ll rue the day you met them. Whereas, when you come across some other, you’d wish you had met them before because of the level of impact they have on you.  Your responsibility is therefore to identify the right set of people and move with them. So, do you think you already build the network you need to succeed? if your answer is NO, make a conscious effort today and choose your friends wisely.