Power of Association 1

Before I met my wife, financial discipline was alien to me. At first, I thought I was always out of money because I wasn’t earning enough.

Then I got a job that paid me almost three times my previous salary and after several months of working there, I still didn’t have up to a month’s salary saved up.

And then wifey came into the picture. She wasn’t a penny pincher but she was a “ruthless” saver and investor, even though she still managed to live the good life??.

That impacted me significantly so much so, I was subsequently able to save in just a couple of years much much more than I had ever saved in thirty-something years before I met her. I became a champion of fiscal prudence.

If you can learn and imbibe bad behaviour through peer influence, you can learn and imbibe good behaviour through peer influence.

There are things you’re struggling now to accomplish all by yourself that if you were to strategically plant yourself in a company of people who are headed where you want to go or who are already there, you will achieve those things much quicker and with much less effort.

It’s been scientifically proven that people find it easier to imbibe their desired habits and behaviours if they company regularly with a tribe of peers or a company of mentor figures who already possess or model those desired habits and behaviours.

Proverbs 13:20 - “Keep company with the wise and you will become wise...”

There’s a Yoruba proverb that says, when you wrap a bar of soap in a leaf, after a long time of being intermingled, the soap and the leaf become indistinguishable.

It’s a law of nature. There’s a subconscious deposit in you of positive or negative values from all your associations.

Sometimes, I feel like the role that association plays in the success equation has not been sufficiently examined.

Associations are often considered in the negative context of “evil company corrupting good manners” but less so in the context of their ability to trigger positive behaviours and outcomes.

Associations are also often relegated in self-coronation exercises by “self-made” men who portray themselves as having flown to the top solely on the wings of their own ingenuity with negligible input from others.

But truth is, we are all products of influence - positive or negative.

And you can’t out-think or outperform your major associations. The dominant beliefs and behaviours within your primary associations soon become yours.

This is why it is said that a person’s life is the sum of the five people closest to them.

From personal reflection, I have come to realise that I have always been at my most fervent spiritually when I have been consistently in the company of people burning with spiritual fervour.

I have been at my smartest when I have been afforded the luxury of continued interactions and collaborations with equally smart or smarter people.

The creators of the popular cartoons, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's laboratory & My Life as a Teenage Robot were buddies & roommates after college. They all worked at the same company with the creator of Johnny Bravo - another hit cartoon.

Choose your associations, partnerships and collaborators carefully - it's a life-altering decision.

Many of the well-known founders of some of the world’s most successful companies had at least one other person who shared their passion, vision and commitment.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen (Microsoft co-founders)

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (Apple co-founders)

Larry Page and Sergei Brin (Google co-founders)

Reed Hastings and Mark Randolph (Netflix co-founders)

James Clear, author of bestselling book, Atomic Habits, once said in an interview, “Join a group/tribe where your desired behaviour is the normal behaviour. It’s easier to imbibe a desired habit in a social environment than alone.”

There’s no behaviour that cannot be learned. It’s even much easier with the right association. You become bound by the code of social expectation within that association to embrace the normative behaviour of the group.

I think that this is greatest gift anyone can give themselves.

If you’re not self-starting and you desire to be, then join a group of self-starters.

If you’re struggling to stay motivated, join a tribe of motivated people.

If you struggle with esteem issues, company with individuals whose confidence is sky high.

Their qualities might seem intimidating to you at first, but once you realize that you’re there to be influenced by them and not to impress them, that humility will help you flow more easily with them and to gain all you could from them.

Their dominant behaviours which you desire will inevitably rub off on you.

Power of Association 1

Pseudonym/pen name "nom de plume": Suresh