{"id":43,"date":"2016-08-04T10:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-08-04T10:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thefight\/?p=43"},"modified":"2016-06-06T19:32:05","modified_gmt":"2016-06-06T19:32:05","slug":"are-your-friends-bringing-you-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thefight\/2016\/08\/are-your-friends-bringing-you-down.html","title":{"rendered":"Are Your Friends Bringing You Down?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-44\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/400\/2016\/06\/IMG_1176-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Associate yourself with people of good quality,. It's better to be alone than in bad company.\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If you hang out with five millionaires, you will be the sixth.\u00a0 If you hang out with five geniuses, you will be the sixth.\u00a0 If you hang out with five knuckleheads, you will be the sixth.\u00a0 We are the average of the five people we hang out with the most.\u00a0 Are those people positive, successful, talented, of good repute? Because if they aren\u2019t there is a good chance that your life is being affected negatively by them.<\/p>\n<p>We are called to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, but that doesn&#8217;t mean sacrificing your hopes, goals, and dreams for the sake of dragging someone along with you to your detriment.\u00a0 Sometimes the \u201cfat\u201d needs to be trimmed off of the life we are living. The people we surround ourselves with are either the wind in our sails or the anchor in the mud holding us back.<\/p>\n<p>I have made my living by seeking out and finding the people I want to surround myself with.\u00a0 Do you need to take a harder look at your inner circle?\u00a0 Do they share in the hunger for goals, like you?\u00a0 Do they support you through the good times and the bad?\u00a0 We all have positive influences in our lives we wish we were closer to\u2026I challenge you to make a call or send a text to them today and deepen that relationship.\u00a0 Your success depends on it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you hang out with five millionaires, you will be the sixth.\u00a0 If you hang out with five geniuses, you will be the sixth.\u00a0 If you hang out with five knuckleheads, you will be the sixth.\u00a0 We are the average of the five people we hang out with the most.\u00a0 Are those people positive, successful,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":604,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12,4,3,10,7],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","tag-friends","tag-iron-michael-chandler","tag-michael-chandler","tag-michaelchandler","tag-mma-fighter"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Are Your Friends Bringing You Down? - The Fight<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thefight\/2016\/08\/are-your-friends-bringing-you-down.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are Your Friends Bringing You Down? - The Fight\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you hang out with five millionaires, you will be the sixth.\u00a0 If you hang out with five geniuses, you will be the sixth.\u00a0 If you hang out with five knuckleheads, you will be the sixth.\u00a0 We are the average of the five people we hang out with the most.\u00a0 Are those people positive, successful,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thefight\/2016\/08\/are-your-friends-bringing-you-down.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Fight\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mikechandlermma\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-08-04T10:00:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-06-06T19:32:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thefight\/files\/2016\/06\/IMG_1176-300x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"mchandler\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@MikeChandlerMMA\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Are Your Friends Bringing You Down? - The Fight","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thefight\/2016\/08\/are-your-friends-bringing-you-down.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Are Your Friends Bringing You Down? - The Fight","og_description":"If you hang out with five millionaires, you will be the sixth.\u00a0 If you hang out with five geniuses, you will be the sixth.\u00a0 If you hang out with five knuckleheads, you will be the sixth.\u00a0 We are the average of the five people we hang out with the most.\u00a0 Are those people positive, successful,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thefight\/2016\/08\/are-your-friends-bringing-you-down.html","og_site_name":"The Fight","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mikechandlermma\/","article_published_time":"2016-08-04T10:00:03+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-06-06T19:32:05+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thefight\/files\/2016\/06\/IMG_1176-300x300.jpg"}],"author":"mchandler","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@MikeChandlerMMA","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thefight\/2016\/08\/are-your-friends-bringing-you-down.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thefight\/2016\/08\/are-your-friends-bringing-you-down.html","name":"Are Your Friends Bringing You Down? 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