Will you be happy if you are living the same life five years from now? Charlie “Tremendous” Jones was a fantastic speaker and author. He actually is in the Motivational Speaker Hall Of Fame. He said, “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.”

I have heard a statistic which says your life is the average of the five people with whom you spend the most time. This means your family, income, career and social life are the average of your five closest friends. I realize there may be exceptions to this rule, but I see it to be true the vast majority of the time. The people who you allow to be closest to you have a positive or negative influence in your life. It may be subtle, or it may be glaring, but these people influence you whether you know it or not.

Do the five people you spend the most time with have similar houses, incomes, careers, businesses, marriages and families? The answer to this question leads back to our original question, “will you be happy if you are living the same life five years from now?” Am I telling you to dump all your friends? Absolutely not! What I am saying is if you want your life to be different in five years, you will have to spend time with people who are already where you want to be.

To have a more successful career, spend time with someone who is already successful in the same or similar career. To have a more successful family life, spend time with families who are living the life you envision. To have a more successful business, spend time with people who have achieved the business success you are seeking. Time spent with these people now, will be reflected in your life five years from now — and hopefully sooner.

Whenever I am seeking to change some area of my life, I find someone who is already living what I want. I have done this time and time again. I have done this as a husband, father, friend, salesman, coach, business owner and so on. I will continue to do it as long as I live.

Will you seek out people who you want to be like and spend time with them? Let me ask you one more time, will you be happy if you are living the same life five years from now?