THE LESS YOU ASSOCIATE WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE, THE MORE YOUR LIFE WILL IMPROVE

Opportunity doesn’t just happen. It happens because it is provoked by excellence. Opportunities come to us because they are attracted by the quality of our lives, our work and our character.

Over the last two weeks I explained that excellence is the discipline of consistently performing towards the upper range of your talent and skill beyond accepted levels of mediocrity. From this truth, we understand three things about excellence: it is a discipline, it is consistency and it is to excel above mediocrity.

Last week I explained excellence is “consistency.” This week, we discover that it is much more. Excellence is consistent performance beyond accepted levels of mediocrity. It refuses to settle for ordinary, even when ordinary is the prevailing mindset of the people around us.

There will always be earth-bound chickens who try to discourage the eagles from flying. Friends that don't help you climb will want you to crawl. This is what average mediocre people do; they try to increase their own sense of worth by diminishing the worth of others. They resent those who excel because it exposes their own lack of excellence. This is why eagles—if they are going to soar—can’t fly with chickens.

At some point your pursuit of excellence will require you to dissociate with certain people—especially people who believe mediocre is “good enough.” Colin Powell, retired four-star General and US Secretary of State is quoted as saying, “The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve. It’s a simple but true fact of life; we become like those with whom we most closely associate, for the good and the bad. Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity.

An important discipline of successful people is discretion in their choice of associates. They don’t surround themselves with people that simply make them feel good by affirming their status quo. They surround themselves with possibility thinkers—people that challenge them. If you are serious about the next level, stop associating with people who are aiding and abetting your mediocrity. Yes, we need encouragement when we fail; yes, we need friends who will inspire us to get up when we are down. But true inspiration and encouragement should never make an eagle feel content about living in a chicken coop, it should challenge him to see his own potential and God-given abilities. It should inspire him to get up and try again, to do better, to flap his wings harder, to fly longer, to expect more from himself until he achieves what God has created him to do.

​For more about excellence and the opportunities it provokes, check out my new book, Upward: Taking Your Life to the Next Level at the links on this page.
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