On the podcast this week, I ask you the question – who is in your top five? Let me explain! A few years ago, a cell phone company had a benefit for their customers where you could select the top five people that you talk to the most on the phone and those calls would be free. They would run advertisements where they talked about you having a "top five." My husband, Greg, and I used to find the whole "top five" thing amusing, and I recall it was often the source of jokes with comedians! Then I heard a quote and it really had an impact on me. “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” by the late Jim Rohn. You’re the average of the five people that you spend the most time with in terms of income, positivity, taking action, etc. The five people you spend the most time with are who you’ll be the most like. I remember when I first heard this quote, it really caused me to think about who the five people are that I spend the most time with. At the time, I was thinking how true the quote was. My income was the average of the five people I spent the most time with. My gossip level was the average of the five people I spent the most time with! (I don’t gossip anymore, but I used to gossip a lot!). I changed how I spend my time It was a conscious decision that I made to change how I spend my time. Hearing that quote over and over again and thinking, well, who do I want to be like? What income do I want to have? What kind of free time do I want to have? How do I want to spend my free time? What do I want to talk about in conversations? I don’t listen to the news anymore, but at the time I was watching CNBC every day and I was freaking about the stock market… our money… every day. I lived in a very moment-to-moment life. Now I live a much more peaceful, purposeful, proactive, cultivated life. I have cultivated the life that I am living. I let the media and the people in that I want and I don’t let in the rest. My life is not directed based on what comes across my desk or comes across my TV. Even in my free time, I am choosing not to be marketed to through commercials, and I’m choosing not to get my news fed to me through a regular network news program. Who are your five top people? Now when you hear this, you may think about the five people you spend the most time with. They may all be under three feet tall! You’re not going to change that. You’re not going to change your spouse, your kids, your parents, your parish, your church, your whatever. The people you spend the most time with are somewhat static and somewhat flexible. So, who you spend the most physical time with may not be as easy to change as who you spend your intellectual time with. Ask yourself, who do I want to learn from? Who do I want to be like? If I could hang out with them tomorrow, and we lived in the same city, who would I hang out with? I changed my top 5 through podcasts. I picked two or three podcasters I really liked at the time and I listened to every one of their episodes. And I would sometimes listen to their episodes over and over again so I would mentally be with them all the time. When I find someone I like, I listen to their podcasts and (virtually) I become their "best friend" and get to know a lot about them. You probably know a lot about me. You may listen to me every day. You may be interacting with me in social media. I like to think that I might be one of the top five people that you spend the most time with! Great characteristics of your top five people I want you to think about the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and who are the five people you most want to spend 2018 with? Listen to the podcast to hear about four characteristics of people that I think would be most helpful for you to have in your top five going forward in 2018. Change your mindset A year from now at the end of 2018, what do you want your life to look like? Who do you want to be associating with? How mu