Success in business is about networking.

It is about relationship building.

It is about your reference group.

The world today is a lot more of who you know and a lot less of what you know.

While who you know could take you just a minute phone call to take you up there, what you know could take you a life time to achieve the same purpose.

Elon Musk concurred to the above by saying that who you would become in the next seven years would be determined by the people you meet and the books you read.

Jim Rohn Rohn was also in agreement by saying that we are the average of the five people that we spent the most of our time with.

Breaking it down, he said:

If you hang around 5 confident people, you will be the 6th;

If you hang around 5 intelligent people, you will be the 6th;

If you hang around 5 millionaires, you will be the 6th

If you hang around 5 idiots, you will be the 6th.

So, the question now is, who is in your circle?

Who do you spend the most of your time with?

Even a study from Harvard University concluded that a substantial portion of our success is 95%or even 99% attributed to our reference group.

So my question now is who is in your circle?

Who is in your reference group?

Who do you spend the most of your time with?

The reason is because the people in your circle would determine your future.

Since nobody can succeed alone, it simply means that the difference between those who are failing and those who are succeeding is the people in their circle.

Going from that, we can safely say that if you surround yourself with the right people, you will succeed. On the other hand, if you surround yourself with the wrong people you will fail.

One thing that successful people have in common is that they don’t seek for friends, rather they seek for like-minded people to flow with.

As the saying goes, iron sharpens iron. When you see people who are going where you are going and are focused and determined to get there, things become a lot easy .You would have their back and they would have your back and together, you all would get there.

You cannot surround yourself with pessimists, doubters, drainers, abusers and crooks and hope to succeed.

The more reason why Bill Gates said that we should surround ourselves with those who would challenge and encourage us to become the best version of ourselves.

Therefore, to succeed in business and in life, you must have people who are positive minded, people who are open minded, people who are inspiring and people who would be motivating you, instead of discouraging you when things are not going as planned.

There are people who if you have them around you, no matter how hard you try, even if you are a genius in a particular field, you would never succeed.

The first type of people that you must avoid like a plague if you want to succeed in life is the pessimists. A pessimist is somebody who is negative minded. Somebody who rarely see anything good in any idea or exercise. Somebody who does not see opportunities, but rather sees only dangers or obstacles in everything.

This type of people are dangers to humanity, because all their lives they are thinking of Armageddon. They are the type of people that profess that this awesome life that we are living is vanity upon vanity.

The worst harm that anybody can do to himself is to have them around him .The reason is because since they are not positive minded, telling them about your big plans is a waste of time because they would discourage you from trying them.

When you bring up an idea, no matter how great and practical it is, they would give you a million reasons why it won’t work. They would tell you of people who have tried the same idea and failed.

The next in line Is the doubters. To be successful, you must believe in yourself that you are going to be successful. The reason is because winning or succeeding starts from the mind. The Bible says that as a man thinks in his heart, so he is. The reason is because thoughts are things, therefore, we are what we think.

You will never become what you did not believe that you would be. So, for you to be successful, you have to first of all believe and then avoid those who would tell you otherwise.

If you surround yourself with doubters, there is no miracle in the world that would make you to succeed. The reason is because you and them would be working on opposite direction and they would be weighing you down and reducing your speed. When you tell them that you want to be the best in the world in something, they would tell you to forget about the dream, because you won’t even come half close.

Doubters usually use your family background, educational background, and other shortcomings to judge and bring you downs.

Some years ago, An American boxer, George Foreman who had been out of boxing for years and had put on so much weight was shouting and telling people that he would be the next world heavy weight boxing champion. Everybody doubted him. Nobody took him serious. Some even thought that he had gone mad. But it was not long before it came to pass. He became the world heavy weight boxing champion.

The reason why he succeeded was because he never allowed the noise of his doubters to drawn the belief he had in himself.

So, once you surround yourself with those who doubt your potentials, know it that you have been made for dinner. What doubters usually do is, with words, they would demoralize and even discourage you from putting your dreams into action. With words, they would cut your wings, so you would not be able to fly. With words, they would cripple your legs, so you will not be able to run.

For you to be successful, you have to surround yourself with those who believe in you and you must know that it is far better to be alone than to be with people who doubt your potentials or don’t believe in your dreams.

The third type of people that must be avoided if you want to succeed is the drainers. Some people are by habit drainers. Anywhere they are, they give negative vibration. They are experts at keeping people down by sucking their energy with words and attitudes.

Whenever you bring up exciting ideas and want them to key into it, the reverse would become the case. Drainers and pessimists are almost the same type of people. They keep people discouraged, disenchanted and disillusioned.

Let’s stop here and continue next week. Bye.

•Peter Anosike has a doctorate degree in Consulting and profit management. He is the international bestselling author of the book, Dangote’s Ten Commandments on money. He is also the founder of Ultimate Entrepreneurs Academy, an organization that trains students, undergraduates and even workers on how to become successful entrepreneurs. Contact number: 08035779230 (SMS Only Please).