James Altucher is an interesting guy. That’s a pretty understated way to describe someone who is a serial entrepreneur, author of a number of books, creator of many podcasts and who now lives a nomadic existence with no home of his own and all of his possessions carried with him 24/7.
He had a post recently where he talked about the people Walt Disney surrounded himself with that enabled him to be successful. While Altucher does not fully buy into the “five people you surround yourself with notion” (something I wrote about recently with my “Those Five People” post), he did provide what I found to be a very solid infographic about this topic. While the people in your life do have an effect on who you are quite a bit, they aren’t the sole influence in your life. As I wrote previously, you don’t always have complete or immediate control over those 5 people you spend all of that time with, save for very radical life changes. However, the things he points out in his 5×5 rule is to clearly highlight the other areas you do have control over and their key impact on you:
I like this tweak since it’s a more accurate reflection that accounts for things well beyond people… and while the people piece is hugely important, it’s good to keep front of mind all the other factors which we each have the free will to effect upon ourselves each day.
And if you are reading this and chose to make this a small slice of your content for the day? Well, then I appreciate the heck out of you and hope I earn that every time these posts come out. I think all of you total more than five, but I can assure you that you’re a big piece of my positive influence every day and I’m hugely grateful for that.
