If you want to get where you want to go, you have to Dump Your Duds. Your duds are clients, people and friends that are going to hinder your success or keep you from moving forward. They might be close friends, family members or even your old fraternity or sorority members. It’s anyone that does not encourage you to become more. This was something I have had to learn the hard way. I held on to for a long time to my duds thinking they were my friends. Truth be told they really weren’t. They were encouraging me not to do something worthwhile and it took me along time to realize it.
In my opinion, a true friend wants to see you succeed. They encourage you to become great. They want to see you become more. It took me a while to see that my duds didn’t want this for me. They didn’t want to see me succeed. They wanted me to stay the same or worse, fail (some even attempted to sabotage my results). Hugh Macleod puts it this way, “Great ideas alter the power balance in relationships. That’s why great ideas are initially resisted.” You will become like the people you spend the most time with. Do you want what they have? If you don’t, then you need to surround yourself with people that have what you want. Do your friends encourage you to be the best you can be? Or give you permission to stay the same? I don’t spend time with those people anymore. I surround myself with folks that want to see me become great. They encourage me to become more than I am. And I do the same for them. It has made a huge difference in my life and my results. Do this: Write down everyone you spend the most time with. Are they positive towards your goals, or negative? It’s time to dump your duds.
There are two types of people, anchors and motors. You want to lose the anchors and get with the motors because the motors are going somewhere and are having more fun. The anchors just pull you down. – Wyland
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. – Jim Rohn
Opportunity is all around us just waiting to be found. In order to find it, you must open your eyes and be ready for it to appear. You have to be willing to walk away from what you already know and are comfortable with in order to pursue and see it. If you won’t allow yourself to be ready then it will never come knocking on your door. You will be blinded to it and stay the same. I think a lot of people are so stuck in the past or with what they already know, that they won’t allow themselves to see anything new. They dispel opportunity from themselves. Finding opportunity means you must be willing to seek it out and ready to act fast when it comes to you. You can’t just wait for opportunity to find you. You must make your own opportunity. 
I’m a pretty big fan of the movie the Count of Monte Cristo. Entertaining flick. One quote has stuck with me from it:
I read a great quote today by Hugh Macloed, my favorite artist on 
I think there is a desire inside all of us to be accepted. We try to look, talk and think like everyone else. What happens? We become like everyone else. We hide who we are inside, in order to fit in with the herd. We lose what makes us great. Our personality, ambitions and style. We give up our originality so that we can become a carbon copy of what “we are supposed to be” in everyone else’s eyes. Frankly, we do this because we fear others will think we’re nuts. We worry that others will call us crazy. 
