Fully 90% or more of your success in your field, and in life, is going to be determined by your —reference group.“ These are defined as the people you associate with, work with, live with and spend time with. Dr David McClelland of Harvard, in his classic, The Achieving Society, wrote that people adopt the attitudes, opinions, manners of speaking and dress, goals, ambitions and world views of their reference groups. He found that whenever a person made a dramatic change in his life and performance, it was preceded by the formation of a new reference group. Whenever a person failed to change, or fell back into old, ineffective ways of acting, it was invariably because he continued to associate with the same old crowd.
Decide today that from now on, you are going to associate only with positive, successful people. You are only going to spend time with people who are ambitious and determined, and who are definitely going somewhere with their lives. Get around winners, and avoid the company of people who you neither admire or respect. You can‘t fly with the eagles if you continue to scratch with the turkeys.
Especially, get away from negative people. Avoid negative coworkers. Don‘t drink coffee with whoever happens to be sitting there. Don‘t go out to lunch with whoever is standing at the door. Don‘t socialize after work with the first person who invites you. If you are working for a negative boss, seriously consider changing jobs. Working in a negative environment drags you down and tires you out. Staying in a bad job, with negative people, is enough in itself to condemn you to a life of underachievement, frustration and failure. Your life is too precious for that.
