"The company you keep"

This was posted in one of my groups and wanted to share.

"Tell me who your best friends are, and I will tell you who you are. If you run with wolves, you will learn how to howl. But, if you associate with eagles, you will learn how to soar to great heights. "A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses." The simple but true fact of life is that you become like those with who you closely associate-for the good and the bad.

The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve. Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. An important attribute in successful people is their impatience with the negative thinking and negative acting people.

As you grow, your associates will change. Some of your friends will not want you to go on. They will want you to stay where they are. Friends that don't help you climb will want you to crawl. Your friends will stretch your vision or choke your dream. Those that don't increase you will eventually decrease you. Consider this: Never receive counsel from unproductive people.

Never discuss your problems with someone incapable of contributing to the solution. Because those who never succeed themselves are always first to tell you how. Not everyone has a right to speak into your life. You are certain to get the worst of the bargain when you exchange ideas with the wrong person".

Don't follow anyone who's not going anywhere. With some people you spend an evening: with others you invest it. Be careful where you stop to inquire for directions along the road of life. Wise is the person who fortifies his life with the right friendships. It Is Better To Be Alone, Than In The Wrong Company."

- Nelson Mandela

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Think about the people you spend most of your time with - how do you feel after you've spent an hour with them? Do you feel like taking a nap or taking on the world?

There are people in your life, usually those closest to you, who may want the best for you, but inadvertently make you doubt your dreams. You may want to be a figure competitor, run a marathon, climb a mountain, start your own business, or even just lose those last 10-15 pounds... and yet there will be people who won't understand the passion in your heart, only the pain of their current situation.

They'll tell you it's ok not to work that hard, to be careful not to get hurt, don't put yourself out there, you're fine the way you are; why would you want to (fill in the blank.)

They are speaking from a place of love for you, but also from fear of change. Heck, I probably told myself a lot of the same things along the way... after all, Who am *I* to lift this really heavy weight? Who do I think I am to want to run when there's no wild animal chasing me?

But there are people in my life that answered me: Who are you _not_ to be?

These are the people I call when I'm down. These are the ones that call me or email me out of the blue, but it's at a time when I need it the most. These are the folks who fortify my life.

There have been people who have passed in and out of my life, and some that I have shown the door to. I appreciate everyone who has graced my life and have learned lessons from everyone, and I know there I still have a lot to learn from those who have stuck around.

They help me stretch, help me grow, help me through the levels of discomfort that I'm welcoming in my life. They help me realize that without pain, there is no gain. (for more on that, an AWESOME article by Tom V.)