One of the greatest things that has happened to me in my life is me meeting this one friend.
This is because this one friend was on a similar journey to me. He was on self-improvement. He was
actually my only friend who's on self-improvement to such an extreme that I am. And when I met him
towards the end of the school year last semester. So actually last year it was probably eight months
ago when I met him. And there's a whole story that goes along with it which you know let's just say it.
At this time I was going to the gym at like six in the morning before school and he decided to go
in the mornings also. And so one day we're in the mornings and we're going up the elevator together
and the thing is that we kind of knew each other already. Like we used to play video games together
every once in a while so we knew each other and we went to the same school for a couple years at that
point. So we went to the same middle school and high school so we knew of each other and we knew
each other. But we didn't really know each other. We just knew each other's names and that's pretty
much about it. And so we're in the elevator going up and I'm just like hello good morning.
And he's like oh you go in the mornings? Oh yeah. And so we start like we go on our own ways
and then I'm lifting and then I walk to my next area to start my next set.
And I see him at the leg extension machine and he's got this water bottle set up on top of it.
And I noticed the water bottle because I had just seen a YouTube video talking about it.
YouTuber named Hamza. He talked about how this water bottle is extremely good because it's made
of metal and there's no plastic or anything. And so I grew a desire for that water bottle
which I just didn't pull the trigger and buy it yet off of Amazon. And so I knew of that water bottle
and when I saw it out in the wild at the gym I started a conversation and we started talking.
And then we started talking about like estrogenics which I had just learned about because I just
read a book about it. And then we also started talking about like a bunch of other stuff like
health stuff. And we actually were like extremely... I don't know. Actually let me just tell you my
side of the story. So I after that workout we both go home and I'm like oh my gosh I just found
someone who's on the same journey as I am or at least a similar journey. And I tell my mom and
I'm super excited because I remember that literally the other month or the other week I was
complaining to my mom that there's no one like me. Like I don't know anyone who's like me. And I was
referring to that no one else is on self-improvement like I am. And so I get super excited. I'm like
mom I found someone who's like me. And so I'm super excited and then we go to the gym again
like the next day and we're going to the gym all the time. And I'm pretty sure at that time
we only saw each other on the weekends in the morning. So we're going to the gym early and we
keep talking to each other at the gym. And we're sharing different things like oh do this do that.
Oh read this book read that book I learned this I learned that like all these things were sharing
information. It's basically like he spent the past year learning all this stuff. And I spent the
past year learning all of this other stuff. And we're basically sharing all this knowledge that
we learned from each other that we learned from our own experiences to each other. And we're basically
getting two years of experience for the price of one. And over this like past summer like the summer
we met each other we spent every single day all morning together we would go to the park barefoot
and shirtless and literally just walk around for hours just strategizing sharing information
talking about things we learned. And we basically taught each other nearly everything we learned.
And then it got to a certain point where it wasn't really worth our time anymore to spend that much
time together. So we kind of like stopped hanging out as much. And this was intentional we did this
on purpose we actually said that we should do this because our goals were self improvement and we
weren't helping ourselves or each other by spending all this time together. So eventually got to the
point where now we're only spending like an hour or two every month or every other month.
But we're like the point of the point of this podcast episode is to find yourself
someone who's on self improvement who's on a similar journey to you who is actually
doing similar stuff to you because iron sharpens iron. In yesterday's episode I talked about
your environment and I talked about how the people you surround yourself with are basically
creating you. So if you are surrounding yourself with that one friend who is on self improvement
you're going to grow exponentially. And we spent that entire summer together growing and
and when school started we were walking to school to get our packets for our schedules
like right before school started and we decided to walk home together and we were just talking
about how much we grew. We were just like reflecting over the past summer. We grew so much and we
were reflecting we were kind of comparing how much we grew to how much we probably would have grown
if we didn't meet each other. And if you're like the fact of the matter is that we grew let's just
use metaphor. We grew 100 feet of growth because we met each other. But if we didn't meet each other
we probably would have only grown 10 feet of growth. I'm not even exaggerating that's how much.
Like we literally grew 10 times more than we would have. There like in reflection there were so many
things that I ended up doing because I had the courage and I had like the strength of another
person behind me to back me up. So for example this is going to sound dumb and weak but this is
actually how I was. I had clash of clans on my phone for a long time and this was just a very
simple thing that I had on my phone that I was I had like that was literally the only entertainment
I had on my phone clash of clans and that was because I got like I played it for years and I
leveled up the the account so much that I literally was I was proud of it. Like I leveled it up so
much that I would show people like this is how good I am. And that was the one thing that I had on
my phone that I said I was going to keep. I was going to show my friends or not my friends I was
going to show my kids. But then I was like dude what am I talking about? Like that's like that's
just holding me back. I'm not going to show my kids that. Like that's just a waste of my like
waste of my life. And so I ended up deleting clash of clans way sooner than I probably would have
eventually. I probably would have deleted it eventually but it may have taken like years.
And at that point maybe I wouldn't have deleted it. I don't know. And so I ended up fast tracking
my growth on all these one time changes. Like over the past two or three podcast episodes I was
talking about these one time changes. So like the one time changes that affect your entire life.
For example deleting your social media account, changing your environment, like making your
workspace more professional or more minimalism. Changing your room to be more minimalistic.
Like all these one time changes affect your entire life for the like rest of your life.
And so I made so much more one time changes than I would have otherwise. So that's another
extremely valuable benefit. Like learning information from him as well as the action that
all of that information caused. And the third and most important part is the mastermind. So
basically when you're spending time in a harmonious connection with another person who is on a same
like energy level and a same like path as you who you both have similar intentions and desires.
When you're spending time with that person you basically create a mastermind which is
basically you it's basically a third mind that is basically some people call it God,
some people call it Jesus, some people call it other things. I don't know. But pretty much
you create this third mind that you both can draw information from and it fuels you and you can
actually gain epiphanies from it and intuitions and it helps tremendously helps you move forward.
So that's the most valuable part of what I like basically the mastermind is the most valuable
part that I got from my friends.