Thoughts on Success and Happiness
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7/23/2012

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"Birds of a feather flock together."
"You can't fly with the eagles if you continue to scratch with the turkeys."
"If you lie down with dogs you will get up with fleas."

Each of these statements is about checking our environment and seeing how it is in relation to how we want to be.  People often think in terms of the other people they have around then and I think it can also be about the places we hang out and the things that we see and do.

When it comes to where we hang out or the things that we see and do, people tend to be more open about changing those areas.  For example, if you wanted to learn how to speak a foreign language, most people would understand if you decided to move to an area where that new language is spoken.  They would also understand if you started reading and watching material in that foreign language.

A young man that really inspires me is Khatzumoto, he learned Japanese in 18 months, including reading and writing.  What's even more amazing is that he was living in the United States, attending an English speaking college, with a major that was not Japanese.  He did not take classes.

How did he do it?  In short, he made his environment as 100% Japanese as he could.  He spent 18-24 hours per day surrounded by Japanese, as he says he "became Japanese".  He did this all while having fun!

Khatzumoto includes quite a bit of self help advice and mentor information on his site.  He used that knowledge to motivate and educate himself about how to be a great success at learning Japanese.

He took the environment advice pretty much to the extreme.  I seem to remember him telling a story about how in the cafeteria he would not hang out with his fellow English speaking students and they maybe said things about him.  He was not too concerned as his priority was to learn Japanese and speaking English with his classmates would not help him towards that goal.

Now, as word of caution.  Khatzumoto also had an English speaking girlfriend at the time.  He did not immediately break up with her, just because she did not speak Japanese.  There are some relationships that have other benefits besides just contributing to us achieving our goal.

I think you should think very carefully before telling any close friends or family members that you don't want to hang out with them because they don't contribute to your success!  Besides close relati0nships and family members, there may be many other people that are not contributing to your success and you may consider spending less or no time with them. 

Another option instead of trying to spend less time with these people, try and spend more time with people that you think will be a positive influence on you.  A challenge for you can be try try and make a list of people you think would be a good influence on your success and see what you can do to hang out more with them.  These might be people that already have achieved what you want to achieve, or maybe others that are also of a similar mindset, trying to achieve like you are.
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