5 People You Oughta Spend Time With

Jim Rohn is one of my favorite motivational speakers.  Aside from his exceptional rags to riches story of working his way up from a store clerk to a mega-mentor, he is extremely quotable person. He grew self-improvement greats like Tony Robbins and Jack Canfield. As a pitching instructor, I only have one hour per week to make an impact on the way players think and act, so I have to it right. I appreciate a great dictum. Plus, we instructors like to hear ourselves talk quite a bit, so Jim is inspiring me to improve on being succinct.

"You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with."

When I heard this Jim Rohn quote on a podcast, I was sitting in my cubicle, struggling to complete office tasks, eking out a smile. Any bit of positivity I could squish out was simply a mask for doing the work I did not want to do. One day I stopped, looked around, and calculated the hours in my day in which I spent at work with the people who occupied this physical space with me. How much mental space were they also sharing with me? Surrounding me were negative coworkers who kept talking about the terrible things they saw on the news every morning.

I wondered if I was like them. I had to admit, I was negative about my job, too. I often felt sorry for myself, and I didn't even do good work!  Worst of all, it was my own fault for choosing to be there. I was essentially wasting my employer’s time.

If you ask a pitcher who the five people she spends the most time with, it can be a great lesson in choosing good friends and good teams.  Talk about setting up a system for success and putting more control of life into one's own hands!   Instead of having to ward off destructive talk and destructive actions, it might be best to limit time being spent with these peers. Hence, if a pitcher wants to be great, she must surround herself with top-level competition, especially on her own team.

That said, who are the five people softball pitchers spend the most time with?

Her catcher, obviously!  No, not her teammate catcher -  her practice catcher.  That is most often mom or dad.  In some cases it may be an older sibling or another mentor, but whomever that person is who takes her to lessons, sits on a bucket, has conversations in the car on the way to practices and games, and plays catch with her in between the “formal” moments - that is the person who is most influential in a pitcher’s thinking.  And healthy thinking leads to a good attitude and good performance.  Thus, a parent, obviously bears the most responsibility in the outcome of his daughter's pitching career, not only because he spends the most time with her, but because he is the one person this pitcher has no choice but to spend the most time with.  His faults become the pitcher’s faults, and his strengths also become that pitcher’s strengths - physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Character is being shaped through this time spent. How life-changing!

According to Rohn’s theory, each person is the sum of the 5 people closest to him or her.  So who is that parent to her daughter? Does a parent spend most of his time at work with negative people, and then bring that negativity into pitching practice? Do moms bring it into the car rides to and from pitching practice? Into the conversations after a game?  Does a parent spend most of her time with a character on the television? A gossipy friend?  Is this parent a model of health or work ethic? Does she know about mental toughness and resiliency?

A coach also has an enormous responsibility because a girl has little choice in who her coach will be, and the commitment can endure for much more than a single year.  Who is a coach to his player?  In order to be a great coach, and a great “Top 5,” one has to be an innovative problem solver, a disciplinarian, and a leader. It's tough to be innovative when a coach spends time only with other coaches who are very similar to himself. It's tough to be disciplined and teach discipline when he spends most of his time with his players who aren't disciplined yet.  It's tough to be a leader when a coach has no one leading him.  Perhaps all coaches would benefit from having their own mentors or coaches. Good news! I’m giving you permission to spend money on that personal trainer or golf instructor.

My own life is very different now than it was when I was working in places with negativity.  I ended up leaving the office world to be a full-time pitching instructor. I wanted more choice in who I was going to be and who I was going to be around.  These days my students are “one of my five” people I spend the most time with .  I want their joy and excitement to rub off on me. My enjoyment, passion, and enthusiasm in all phases of my life has been reinvigorated because of them, so thank you, students.  I am who I am today - a better me - because of you.