I am sitting here in the waiting room of Tiffany Springs Honda while waiting on my wife’s car to get finished. We had received a recall notice for the airbags and that is what is being replaced while I wait.

I am reading a great book “Developing The Leader Within You” by John C. Maxwell on my iPhone 6 plus while I wait and enjoying listen to a conversation next to me from a few older lady’s that are wives of pastors. Such positive conversations they are having which I love. Not always is this the case, even though they are in the field they are in.

I love being around positive people and honestly refuse to be around negative anymore. I will literally get up and leave if someone is being negative or spreading gossip. Negative people will always do their best to drag you down, especially if they think that you are doing better than them. Life is way to short to place yourself around that negative energy and garbage. Some people will say “I don’t have a choice” due to my job or whatever. Really, I ask. We all have choices, but some choose not to exercise their choices, but rather make excuses why they are failing and unhappy.

We all have 24 hours in a day just the same as we all have choices of the books we read, the things we listen to, the things we watch on tv, and most importantly, “the people we hang out with”.

Who are you allowing to rub off on you? What books are you reading? What are you allowing to come out of your mouth on a daily basis?

The day that I made the decision to change my association was the day the my life started to change for the better. The day that I started limiting myself to what I listened to and what I watched on TV was also the day that things started getting better more me and my life. The day that I started reading good “self help books” from people such as John C. Maxwell, Robert Kiyosaki, Bob Proctor, T. Harv Eker, Joel Osteen and other great leaders and roll models such as these was the day that my life really started changing for the better spiritually, emotionally, and especially financially.

We tend to get what we speak. And when we read and listen to junk, we speak that same junk. When we hang out with negative people, we to become that same negative person. Some will say this has nothing to do with being negative or down on ones luck, but I beg to differ that one. I have experienced it all myself. At one time I was in that negative place and I can tell you first hand that we become who we hang out with, the books we read, the things we listen to, and the things we watch on TV.

Hang out with a drug dealer and you will become one. Hang out with drunks and you will become one. Hang out with financially independent and successful people and you will become one too. It will not happen overnight, but it will happen eventually.

Try this: Take 5 people that you hang out with the most and take their incomes and divide them by five and that is pretty much what your income will be. This formula works almost perfect every time it is used. Want more income? Hang out with high income earners! Don’t care about making money or having more out of life, then hang out with broke people.

Take action on your life. Don’t allow the wrong people, books, newspapers, TV shows, news, and negative co-workers or world to influence you. Your future and destiny is in “your hands”, not anyone Else’s! Don’t get me wrong with TV, it’s not all bad, you just have to be careful what you watch and allow to clutter up your mind. I like educational TV programs, like HGTV where I am learning how to do our own home projects. I love self help books due to the fact that I am learning from other financially independent people who was all at the very bottom at one point in there life, and I am learning how to get myself where they are by learning from their mistakes in life. We all screw up from time to time, but we must learn from our mistakes, correct them, and then not make those same mistakes again.

Chase your dreams and stay positive! Travel, live on the beaches of the world, do what you want, whenever you want, take your family with you, never have a worry in the world. Sound dreamy? Many think so. Many also think it isn’t possible, or that it is all hype, or that only the rich and famous can have that lifestyle, and those my friend are the ones to stay clear of. Those types of negative people that use to be in my life were the ones that held me back for so long. Be very careful who you take advise from, especially financial advise. Broke people cannot give you any kind of good financial advise. On the other hand, rich people can tell you exactly how they did it and how you can too… if you will listen, then do.

Creating the dream lifestyle really isn’t that hard. Of course it will take work and commitment, but the wait, the work, and the tears that go into it will be so worth everything you have to do to get it. I looked at it like this; either do the 60 year plan, which is really longer than that now. You work till your 60, 70, 80 years old or more, then hopefully have enough to live on until you die, or, work your butt off for 2, 5, or maybe 6 years, then take the rest of your life off and never have financial struggles again. Hummm? Which sounds better?