High School.

In 10th grade, I was a B-C student. I was just floating along, enjoying playing soccer, basketball, swim team and hanging out with friends. I had no real goals or purpose. I didn't read books, never took homework seriously, and didn't care about most things. I was, in many ways, average at most things, especially school.

Then one day a student named Nick joined our school from abroad. Nick was a dedicated student and went about life with focus and purpose. 

Nick and I soon became best friends, and because of this ONE relationship and the amount of time we spent together, I became a student with a 4.0+ GPA by the end of the school year (I didn't even know you could get above 4.0). This one person made my stats go up.

It's not surprising that Nick went on to be an MD/PhD from Johns Hopkins.

College.

Freshman year of college at Virginia Tech, I met a girl named Brittany. We started dating and she was different from other girls I dated previously. There wasn't drama. We were better together. We pushed each other to go bigger, take harder classes, sign up for the things we really didn't want to do but really should do to make our lives better. We called each other out on our BS (if you know me, you know I need this often and am grateful for it). 

Ultimately, we supported each other in getting out of our comfort zones and that helped both of us grow. Brittany even helped me take on clients for a calculus tutoring business that paid 3x what we could earn at the Virginia Tech dining hall. 

This one person made all my stats go up.

It's not surprising that Brittany is now a very successful entrepreneur, leader, and mom of three kiddos at age 32. 

Corporate.

When I switched jobs from a big four accounting firm to wall street investment banking, I met a guy named Jean. Jean was my boss and I was his underling analyst in lending money to institutional investors so they could buy up single family rental and small balance commercial properties.

Jean is a very kind, thoughtful, 25 year wall-street veteran with a massive amount of wisdom from experience. 

He was well respected on the floor, not in an intimidating way, but because of who he is and how he treats people. Jean saw something in me (though looking back I see that I was finally actually showing up, ready to learn, eager to help and he sensed it) and went out of his way to take me under his wing and spend hours with me each day training me up on everything he knew about real estate and the business.

This daily training and attention over a year changed everything for me. I was learning from someone much further ahead of me which created a warp speed effect in my personal and mental growth. 

This one person made my stats go up. Not surprising to hear that Jean has since been promoted several times and is highly successful in his career and is an exceptional developer of people.

Entrepreneurship.

From there, I launched a few companies and started collecting relationships with those much further ahead of me --- those with wisdom from experience, successful outcomes from good decision making, and the numbers to back it up. 

I was diligent and selective, which caused my search for mentors to be effective. I met Jason, Elizabeth, Vlad, Paul, Frank, and even started running ideas by my parents (who have great wisdom), and many other mentors who I wanted to learn from and who have helped me along the way. 

The knowledge from others started flowing, and these mentors were willing to pour into me because I was executing on everything they were teaching me. By the way, if you want a mentor to invest in you, execute at a high level and tell them the results. They'll want to help you more. 

Suddenly, our businesses took off and I went much further than I would on my own. Once my stats got high enough, I wanted to keep growing, so I joined mastermind groups like GoBundance and Young Presidents Organization. The relationships in these groups add fuel to my growth every day. 

Note that by no means has it been a perfect journey. I've been broken down and put back together many times. My ego gets too big, I stick my foot in my mouth, and I make relationships with the wrong people who pull my stats down -- you name it, I've been there. And -- now -- I am so hyper aware of my elevating my stats, that I keep this concept front of mind.

Get around people who level up your stats. 

For me personally, I want to spend time with people who pull my stats up. People who, when I'm around them, help me generate a bigger and brighter vision for myself than if I was on my own. 

The book Tribe of Millionaires by GoBundance refers to this phenomenon as The Influence Effect. 

Personal development guru, Jim Rohn echoes, "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with." 

Warren Buffet states, "I learned that it pays to hang around with people better than you are because you will float upward a little bit. And if you hang around people that behave worse than you, pretty soon you'll start sliding down the pole. It works that way."

So the point of this article is to get you thinking. 

Think about your own life.

Write all of your relationships on a piece of paper and figure out:

• Do you have the right relationships?

• Who is adding to your stats and who is bringing your stats down?

• Who are you missing currently in your life?

• What will you do in the future to keep your stats front of mind when entering new relationships or determining who you want to spend your time with? 

Of course, this exercise is not just for your business or financials, but in all gardens of life.

Go get it!

It’s time to level up. - JB

You can email Jon @ jon@movewithmomentum.com