Is Your Elevator Going Up or Down

I was very fortunate in High School. I escaped without suffering from many of the poor choices my classmates then, and many of my athletes do today. Sports helped a lot. It kept me busy during the school year, and my Coaches expectations gave me some good boundaries. But there were a lot of hours in the day, and a lot of days in the year, when I was outside of their influence. I would like to say that I was just an exceptional person with great character, strong convictions, and a highly motivated achiever with a vision, but not even Michael Jackson could pull off that story. I was a ordinary teen. The reason I dodged many of those bullets: smoking, drinking, doing drugs, skipping school, etc. was because my best friend, Keith Costner, a person I grew up with and hung out with almost daily wasn't into those things. Pretty simple, huh. Thousands of books have been written on how to be successful, and I had not read one of them. So you might think that it was pure luck that I wound up with a friend that just wasn't interested in those things. I have no doubt that it was divine intervention. One of my favorite quotes is, "Friends are like Elevators, they are going to take you up or take you down." My parents, teachers, and coaches had probably told me to be careful about hanging out with "The Wrong Crowd!", but I don't think I would have realized if they were the wrong crowd.
Why do most people never achieve their goals?
Because they take advice from losers!
I tell my wrestlers this all the time. By "losers" I mean someone who has not done anything or at least they have not done what your wanting to do, themselves. Many of my elite athletes train year round. They make sacrifices in order to be great wrestlers, several have missed the prom to go to a tournament, or they pass on other events in order to train. But their non wrestling friends often say things like, "You work too hard. You are too focused on wrestling." They don't understand the price required to succeed at the top level, so why would someone wanting to be good, listen to their advice? I don't know but they do, which is about as useful as a blind mans description of the sun. Under this negative influence the wrestlers start thinking about the things that they are sacrificing instead of what they are trying to achieve.
To be successful you should surround yourself with positive people. Ones who will encourage you, support you, and help to remind you of your goals when you start to wonder off track. Get around winners, people who are heading in the direction you want to go. Spend some time thinking about whether the people you choose to spend time with are helping you toward your goal or away from it. Ask yourself are they taking me up, or down, and change the relationships that aren't helping you. Choose your friends wisely and maybe you won't need to be lucky.