One power that has given to us by our creator is the power to choose. The power of free will. I believe that the person you are today is the result of all the choices you have made in the past.

Ten years from now, you will definitely become 10 years older. if you are 20 today, you will be 30 and if you are 30 today, you will be 40 a decade from now. The question is who would you have become? What would you have achieved?

The answer lies in three major choices that you make every single day. It is what I call the three choices that make you who you are.

1) The People You Choose to Spend Time With
As social beings, we have the tendency of picking up, matching and following the beliefs, attitudes and habits of the people who surround us. If the people you mix with have negative thoughts, complain all the time and lack self-belief, then the chances are that you will become that way as well.

If the people around you constantly think positive, are self-motivated and set high standards, then you will become that way as well. Since we were young, we have been subconsciously picking up the thought and behavioral patterns of the people around us. Haven’t you notice times when you spoke just like your friends or your mother? Have you noticed times when you behaved just like your friends? It is common sense that if you surround a positvely charged magnet with 10 negative ones, the positive magnet will soon follow the charges of the rest.

This is why there are some people who get all motivated and positive after going for a personal development training but soon go back to their disempowered ways? When they leave the seminar, they go back to a negative environment where people tell them all day that life sucks and that things are hopeless. A seminar can immerse you in a powerful environment for 4-5 days, but the wrong friends will immerse you in a damaging environment for the rest of your life!

Let me ask you this think about this… Write down the names of 5 people you spend most of your time with. Now look at these names and ask yourself: Do these people bring out the best in me? Do they inspire me? Do they challenge me? Do they uplift me? Or do these people make me feel lousy and bring me down?

Think of the beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and standards that these five people have for themselves. Are these the beliefs that I want for myself? Are these the attitudes that will help me succeed? If the answer is yes, then GREAT. If the answer is no, then it is time you change who you spend time with. If you want to succeed, you have to mix with people who are successful (or who aspire to be successful). If you want to be highly motivated, you have to mix with people who are highly motivated.

The main reason why many of the participants from my Holiday Program Malaysia (e.g. Patterns of Excellence, wealth Academy etc…) create powerful and long lasting changes is because of the new friendships that are forged during the program. I have developed and implemented a system where program graduates form into success groups where they keep each other in check and develop a powerful new group culture where wealth and success in the norm.

2) What You Choose to Put into Your Mind
The second thing that makes you who you are is what you choose to put into your mind! What are the books you choose to read? What are the magazines you choose to read? When you read the newspapers, which section to you focus on? Which websites do you spend time surfing on? What bookmarks are in your web brower? What seminars do you choose to go to?

I often find it very funny when someone tells me that they want to increase their wealth. Yet, they read FHM and sports magazines (instead of SmartInvestor, The Edge and Fortune). They spend their time surfing entertainment sites (instead of moneycentral.com, sgx.com, cnn.com). They read Singapore ghost stories (instead of business & financial books). They rather spend their time and money watching a movie or going on holiday than attending financial management and investment seminar. They input negative thoughts like ‘why am I so poor?’ instead of focusing on thoughts like ‘ how can I learn the strategies to become rich?’

So the second lesson is that if you want to excel in something (e.g. health, success and wealth), you have to invest in your education and learn everything you can about it. Fill you mind with knowldege and thoughts of wealth and you become wealthy.

3) The Dreams You Choose to Have
People who become better and better every day and move towards their goals do so because they have big and inspiring dreams that fill their minds the moment they open their eyes in the morning. If you have big dreams of becoming the best in your field, building a church/mosque/temple, sending your children to the best schools, buying a landed property, building your own business, then you will live each and every day with passion, focus and a sense of purpose. Every decision you take and every action you take will be purposeful. As a result, you will move closer and closer to you goals every day.

However, if you have no dreams that inspire you out of bed. If you have no goals that fill your mind every moment, then you will tend to follow the decisions and actions of others blindly. You will tend to go in all directions with little sense of purpose. You will live your life day by day, without much meaning. And where you will end up 10 years from now will not be by YOUR plan, but by the plan that others have set for you.