 You are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. You need to start paying really close attention to who the people are that you're hanging around with and how they affect your internal environment. Today, we're going to talk about how to always be positive. And I don't mean it from a standpoint of like, oh my gosh, man, let's just, let's just be positive all the time. And from a woo woo wee standpoint or any of those types of things, I'm talking about from an actual practical standpoint. How can I make sure that no matter what happens to me in my life, that I build the mental fortitude to be able to handle it no matter what it is? Because ultimately that's what we're really trying to build an incredible mind for, is to be able to handle everything that life can throw at us. And in reality, we know that, you know, there are some beautiful moments of life. There are some terrible moments of life. And we want to build a mindset that can handle all of this. It's like the phrase, a skilled sailor didn't stay inside of the harbor. You have to go out and actually literally go through and take some bumps and some bruises. And you have to get out of the harbor in order to actually become a skilled sailor. You know, a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor, I think is actually the better phrase. I think I just took two phrases and put them together for the first one. And so whatever, who cares? You know what I'm trying to say. And I mean, from a practical standpoint, how can we make sure that no matter what happens to us, we are positive? And I want you to know this from the very beginning. I'm not talking about how can we just ignore all of the negativity? I'm actually talking about more than anything else, besides ignoring the negativity is actually focusing more on the negativity to extract the positive from the negative. And so people are out there like, well, I don't want to just ignore the negative because positive thinking is a bad thing. You shouldn't just think positive all the time. I'm actually going to be talking about and teaching you how to extract positivity from all of the negative stuff that happens around you. And we're going to go dive into two aspects of your life. The first one is your internal negativity, which is just 100% you. And then the second side is going to be your external negativity, which is also you, but it's also other people that might be around you as well. And the goal of today is for you to mentally sit there, maybe even with a pen and paper, and to see how you can clear house in all of the different pockets of your life and pull the negativity out of it so you can have as much beauty and joy as possible. So when we're talking about the internal negativity, you may have heard me say this before, but I always like to talk about your mind as if it was a garden. It comes from a book as a man thinketh, and he says, imagine that you're the gardener of this garden. You're the only one that has access to this garden. It's impossible for you to plant strawberry seeds and expect that tomatoes are somehow going to grow, because you can't plant strawberry seeds and expect tomatoes are going to, that's not going to happen. Same way that you can't have negative thoughts, negative thoughts, negative thoughts, negative thoughts, and then just automatically you're just positive all of the time. And so what happens is you have to notice the negativity, and just as if you were a gardener, see that that weed grows, you have to go pull the weeds as soon as they pop up. The secret to it though, is that you're the only one that actually has access to this garden. There's no one else. And so you can't allow that negativity to creep in. When you do, you have to immediately identify that negativity, go and pull it like a weed that's inside of your garden. And the reason why I say it once you notice it, is because you can't always control your first thought. You have to rise up until the moment that you're listening to this right now, or watching it, however you happen to be consuming this piece of content, you have a lot of patterns and habits and traits that were built into you as a person. So you might immediately have a thought of judgment against somebody. That might not be the thought that you want to have, but it's your first thought. And a lot of times because of your programming, because of your subconscious thoughts, and everything that's been happening to you up until the first 20, 30, 40 years of your life, whatever it is that the age that you are, that is your immediate first thought. And you can't control your immediate first thought right now, but you can always, always, always choose your second thought. And so if you notice that a first thought comes in, that is not the thought that you want, the same way that you would pull the weed, you got to pull it and immediately replace it with a thought that you do want. The way that you start to repattern yourself is to make sure that you notice the things you don't want and replace them with the things that you do want. Now here's another thing that you have to realize. A lot of times people will have a judgment thought, or a negative thought, or a thought that they don't want to have. And then instead of pulling that weed, they now judge themself for having that negative thought. That does nothing for you to just judge yourself for that negative thought that you now have. It doesn't help you in any sort of way. And in fact, it makes it worse. So it's like looking at the weed and going, oh my gosh, weed, why are you there? I don't want you to be there. That's not going to do anything to the weed. Get off your ass, go and pull the weed. That's what you need to do in your mind. Don't judge yourself for it. Don't get emotional over it. You look at it and you say, that weed is there. I need to pull that weed. So you can't control your first thought, but you can always control your second thought. And the other thing that makes it beautiful about life is realizing that negativity is going to happen no matter what, things are going to happen that you don't want to happen. Failures are going to happen. People that you love are going to die at some point in time. I'm not trying to get more of it. I'm just being very practical and realistic here. People that you love are going to die. Relationships are going to end. People are going to be fired. Things are going to happen in life that you don't want to happen at some point in time. Instead of allowing those things to get you to go down a path of negative thinking or judgment or fear or worry or anxiety, why don't you look at them knowing that it's going to happen. There's nothing you can do to avoid it and say, what can I learn from this? What can I learn from every aspect of it? I'll give you an example. My grandparents passed away a few years ago within 17 days of each other. Tragic sucks. They have beautiful lives though. And so what I wanted to do instead of getting sad and depressed about it, and I'm not saying don't grieve, is what I did was I actually sat down and I planned out what I loved about them and how I could put that into my personality so that I can look at a death and something that I didn't want to happen but did happen. And I can try to figure out some form of positivity from it because ultimately you're either looking at the world one of two ways as if it's happening to you, which is like, oh, woe is me. You know, this just happened. This person broke up with me. This person died. I'm so sad for myself. That's woe is me. Or you look at as if something is happening for you. Imagine as if you're in the Truman show, you know, the show with Jim Carrey from years ago in every single event, every single challenge, every single thing that happens to you is a perfectly crafted curriculum for the life that you are trying to live. As if somebody up there is just like, okay, now make it rain. Okay, now make this person break up with this person. Now make this person get fired, whatever it is. Because you have to go through those things in order to get to the next level of life. Imagine as if it's just a giant game and life is just a perfectly crafted curriculum for your growth. If you thought of life that way, how differently would you approach every single thing that happened to you, every single challenge, every single beautiful thing and every single negative thing that happens to you as well? Life is happening to you is a negative way of thinking of it. Life is happening for you is a beautiful positive way of thinking of it. It's your choice. You are the one that's able to decide which one it is because it's never about what happens in your life. It's your perspective and perception of what happens to you in your life. And so you could say, okay, yeah, these things are happening to me or these things are happening for me. So things are going to happen. It's never the event. It's your perception of the event and how you're actually putting it into your life. So that more people can see this message because it helps us get it out organically. So hit that like button and I appreciate you. One of the things that people really struggle with the most when it comes to negativity and positivity is that when these things do happen, they are almost resisting reality. Like they don't want this negative thing to have happened. And so they're almost resisting it and trying to fight it. Even though it's already happened, they're trying to fight it because they don't want it to be that way. And I will always say this. The amount of stress and anxiety and worry and fear and all of those things that you feel around something or that you're currently going through will be in direct proportion to how much you are resisting the way that the world is. Let me say that again. The amount of stress, anxiety, worry, fear, all of those bad feelings that you don't want that you're going through or will go through throughout life will be in direct proportion to how much you are resisting the way that the world is. The world is going to happen. People are going to die. Relationships are going to end. People are going to get fired. People are going to run out of money. All of these things are going to happen probably at some point in time. There's a chance that they could happen to you or someone that you love. And if you resist it, it's going to put you into more stress, anxiety, fear, whatever. But if you accept it, then you can realize that now it's time to move on and see this as a challenge in life and now you can go into it with an open mind, more positive in seeing it as a learning lesson. You know, if somebody passes away, if you try to resist that, you're going to put yourself into a torture chamber in your mind of resisting because you can't bring that person back. It's impossible to bring them back. So what can you do? You can grieve, but you have to accept. That's part of the grieving process is to accept it and then try to take the beautiful aspects that that person put into your life. If a relationship ends, your stress and anxiety will be higher if you are resisting that and wishing that it were different than it currently is. So you have to realize we can't control all of those problems that happen to us, but we can always control our reaction to every event in our life. So that's talking about the internal negativity. That's your job is to clean house in your mind. Now when we're talking about the external negativity, let's dive into all of the different aspects of it. First thing that we think about and I hear all of the time is Rob, what do I do if people around me that I love are negative? And we have two options and really two options that you have either number one, you let them go and let them live their life the way that they want to or number two, you have to figure out some way to spend less time with them. It's that simple. If you want to truly grow into the person that you could become and someone's bringing you down, either they need to be released and let go or you need to spend less time with them if you truly want to become the person that you can become. Those are the two options and whichever one you choose is your choice and that's beautiful, but ultimately you have to realize if there's external negativity around you it's crazy to think that the external does not affect the internal. So if it's really important to you to build a big beautiful life that's positive that you love full of joy, peace, happiness, all of that. It's going to be really hard to do when you have people that are bringing you down all of the time. So I'm not saying that you need to just leave your parents and never see them again. What I'm saying though is can you spend less time with them? If your mom calls you and throws all of her worries on top of you, can you tell her to stop doing that? Can you and you have to realize this, you teach people how to talk to you. So if that's happening, for instance, where your mom's calling you and throwing all of the negativity and all of her worries on top of you, just say mom, stop. I don't want to listen to this. Don't call me, call somebody else any time you want to be negative. Right? You teach people how to talk to you and you're an adult now. So teach people how you want to be talked to. You have to realize that because the top five people that you spend the most time with, you will be the most like. I always say if you want to be a millionaire, hang out with five other millioners, you'll probably be the sixth. If you want to be fit, hang out with five people who are really fit. If you're hanging out with five alcoholics, you're probably going to be the sixth. If you're hanging out with five people that are overweight, you're probably going to be the sixth. You are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. You need to start paying really close attention to who the people are that you're hanging around with and how they affect your internal environment because ultimately you might start to realize go through your top five and say, okay, number one, two, three, four, five. These are the five people I spend the most time with. Okay. Three of them are really great. Three of them are really supportive. Two of them, I need to spend some less time with these two. Okay. So let me drop these two out of my top five. I can still hang out with them every once in a while and see them at family events or whatever it is. But now I can replace two other people that I know will support me and push me and allow me to think better and have them in my top five so that I can grow and expand into the person that I know that I can be. Now, some people say, but Rob, I still live at home with my parents. My mom is so negative. Then what do I do? Well, see it as another challenge. Once again, like the Truman Show, like I said a few minutes ago, everything that happens to you is a perfectly crafted curriculum for you to become the best version of yourself. So if you are in the Truman Show and you're just bloop, you're given a negative mother, as an example, then how can you see that as a challenge for you to become more positive in that environment? Right? How can you see it as if it's a game in order to get to the next level of life? You have to eventually get past this level that you're on. And that might just have a really negative mother as the example that you have in this level. Right? And you have to think about it. It's like walking into your house and it's fully negative. If that's what you have and there's nothing you can do about it right now, it's like walking into the gym for your mind. Right? How can I go and lift as much weight as I possibly can to get my muscles as big as possible? That's how you grow. If you want to get bigger biceps, you do heavier biceps curls. Right? If you want to get more positive and build a strong mental fortitude, you're going to have to put it under some strain. Here's your challenge. If you choose to accept it, go into there and realize that you're going to be surrounded by negativity and you need to build this mental fortitude of positivity because that's what you're given. You got to figure it out. So who do you surround yourself with? Who do you spend the most time with on a day to day basis? And do you need to shift your top five a little bit because you're going to become the people that you surround yourself with. It's just the way that it works. You will hold yourself to the same standards that everybody that you surround yourself with as well do. As well do. I don't know. That wasn't even right. You're going to you're going to you're going to hold yourself to standards that everyone else around you holds themselves to. So you have to think about that. So that's part of external as the people that are around you. Other aspects of external that you might not think of. Well, number one, how about the music that you listen to? This is a big one for me. I didn't really realize was was actually affecting the way that I feel like I have music that I listen to now. I have music that I used to listen to and I don't listen to as much anymore. Sometimes I'll indulge. You know, when I was younger, really didn't like hardcore metal. Then I moved in and had a roommate and we were both musicians and I started to really appreciate it because hardcore metal, like they are the best most talented musicians in the world. Incredible. But for me, I've come to realize that music makes me really anxious and it's super negative and about killing and death and all of this stuff. I can appreciate them from afar, but I don't listen to it anymore. Right. I've just realized that that music and that's just me. It might not be you. It's okay. I've just realized that that music, the external of that music affects me. Some of the music I used to listen to, hip-hop rap music, it's not the way that I live my life. And I don't want to say out loud some of the things that they say because anything that I say out loud is an affirmation and going into my subconscious. And if I don't want to treat people the way that they treat people, I'm probably not going to listen to that music. Do I still indulge if it was 12? Yes, as much as I used to. Absolutely not. So I try to literally listen to music that I can feel inside of me is raising my vibration, I guess you could say, because music is a vibration. You are a vibratory being. And so you have to realize that's going to come into your body and make you feel a certain way. The words will, the music will, the vibration will, all of that stuff will. I'm not trying to be weird and we have like your vibrations, but really essentially, music is a vibration. You are a vibratory being. There's no way around that. So that music is affecting you in some sort of way. So think about that. What else external affects you? What about the stuff you watch on TV? The news, stop watching it. It doesn't, it doesn't really inform you. It doesn't keep you informed. It keeps you conformed. That's really what it does. Right. There's other ways to get your news. The new stations, probably not the best, especially if you live in America. Right. So news, reality TV. Oof. And some people are like, oh, but I just watched reality TV because it's just mind numbing and it's just fun to watch what people do. No, you're watching people. I've seen a lot of reality. I've walked in the room when it's on. Screaming, treating people that you would never want to treat. That external, that's coming into your eyes. It's coming into your ears. Everything. You are consuming it. The same way that if you were to eat your shoe, it's going to in some form of, some way come into your body and make you not feel good. You're still consuming all of the stuff that you see in here. Think about it that way. What about games you play? Do you play video games that are hardcore shoot them up games that make you anxious, that are keeping you on the edge of your seat? I had a friend that literally, he was on this podcast where he was playing video games that were just hardcore games that kept him anxious and it clicked a part of his brain over and he wasn't able to sleep for a year and a half because of all of the anxiety that it created. And that wasn't just the video games, but that was the straw that broke the camel's back, which shows you those things come into your internal environment. So if you're not going to go up and honestly think about it, if you're not going to go out and shoot a bunch of people on the street, why would you want to do it on a TV? Really deeply think about that and start to reassess it. What you do is your own prerogative, but really start to think about these things that you do. You know, I was playing VR the other day, played it like for a few hours with one of my friends, so much fun, so incredible. But when I was done, I realized my level of anxiety was so high because I was literally in VR, in reality. Shooting things and it was just like, things were popping up and it was scaring me, it was keeping me on the edge of my seat. It literally raised my anxiety. And I was like, I can't do that again. Was it fun? Hell yeah, it was fun, but it literally made me feel bad after. Something to think about. Just think about the games that you're playing. How about people you follow on social media? Think about that. Just think about all of the external pieces of your life because ultimately, everything that you consume is going to affect you in some form of a different, like whatever it is that you do, no matter what it is. If you drink cyanide, it's going to affect you because you're consuming poison. Think about how many forms of poison that you're consuming that's not actual cyanide. But stuff that you're seeing, stuff that you're hearing, people that you're surrounding yourself with and thoughts that are going on inside of your head. Ultimately, the best thing for you to do is take a pen and paper out right now and actually plan out what your life looks like, the positive side, the negative side, and what you need to do to clear house of every aspect of that negativity because ultimately, there's nobody in control of your life internally and externally except for you. You need to sit down and actually plan it out as if it was a business and you were creating a business plan because internal and external environment are going to affect you in some form. That's just the truth. You have to see if it's something that you want to be consuming or if it's something that's poisonous to you. Hey, thanks so much for watching this video. If you want to learn even more about Master Your Mind, click right here and watch this video as well. You're focusing on all of the input and your input is just negative, negative, negative, negative. The output of the way that you think and the way that you feel all day long is going to be negative. That's just a fact.