Jim Harshaw (Wrestling with Success) emphasizes the importance of the people with whom we spend the most time (According to Jim Rohn, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”). He stresses the need for a “Mastermind Group.” A phrase that I hear Mr. Harshaw use regularly is “environment of excellence.” This is a concept that in critical to well-centered fitness.
Environment is sometimes included as a component of wellness (in addition to spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional, and social). Personally, I don’t believe that environment can be separated from the other dimensions). So, I keep the dimensions to the five. Nonetheless, environment affects and is affected by one’s spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional, and social centeredness.
Spiritual excellence is not perfection. We nonetheless create an environment of spiritual excellence by the practices that help us to recognize that we have purpose and that there is something greater than self. For many, this leads to faith and religious practices. For others, it simply leads to a sense of social and moral responsibility. Our spiritual environment is cultivated by our practices of prayer, meditation, daily affirmation, volunteering, social activism, gratitude, and recreation, as well as, religious practice and fellowship. Daily routine and positive habits contribute to this.
An environment of physical excellence is easier for most to understand. Physical environment, however, is much more than water, air, and soil quality. It includes all aspects of our surroundings: home, work/school, car, gym, etc. An environment of physical excellence motivates and encourages us. It is a source of positive emotions. The environment of physical excellence affects our physiology. The environment within which they occur affects diet, exercise, and our physical efforts. Music, aesthetics, space, lighting, color, etc. are stimuli that facilitate or impede our physiological responses or adaptations. We must create and immerse ourselves in the most positive, most encouraging, most motivating environment. Our physical environment of excellence must fuel success.
Physical excellence also includes physical health and performance. To be at our best physically, we need to manage such things as our diet and exercise. Diet is not something one does to lose weight. Diet, rather, is our eating habits—how and what we eat over the long-term. Exercise and physical activity are likewise habits that must become routine. So, in pursuit of physical excellence, we must remove the barriers that interfere with well-centered habits. We must remove the excuses. Scheduling is a critical factor in physical excellence. We must structure our day to maximize the opportunities for success. We need to schedule our eating, as well as exercise. We need to block out time for exercise—blocks of time that are not easily disturbed. Mealtime needs to be calm and planned. I’ll come back to these topics in subsequent posts, because these are important and simultaneously easy and difficult to address.
Our intellectual environment of excellence fuels our mental faculties. Television, radio, books, podcasts, the Internet, the people with whom we converse: these all affect us intellectually. We need a regular diet of brain stimulation. The mind needs stimulation. One creates an intellectual environment of excellence by limiting the mind dumbing stimuli and emphasizing the creative and cognitive stimuli. We must immerse ourselves in activities that educate us. We must be lifelong learners. Like physical exercise, our intellectual exercise must involve structured time scheduled into our day. Otherwise, we will gravitate to the most mindless use of our time—excessive time spent in social media, purposeless television viewing, computer games, etc.
In the bible, we learn that the “fruit of God’s Holy Spirit” is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It occurred to me rather recently that these are not a gift that is merely bestowed upon us, as we are sometimes taught. Rather, as a fruit, these must be cultivated–developed or fostered. It takes work. It takes action. Thus is the challenge of creating an emotional environment of excellence.
Recently, I wrote about how our attitude shapes our attitude. Our emotional environment of excellence is what we choose it to be. Likewise, it is very much affected by the quality of our environments in the other dimensions. Personally, I find that disruption of my well-centeredness is first exposed by the status of my emotional well-being. Choosing, however, to be more emotionally centered draws me to the center. If I choose to voice my cynicism, I tend to be more critical. If I choose, instead, to offer myself as more positive, I will be more positive. For me, starting the day with some positive affirmations and journaling—before anything else—best creates a positive and energized emotional environment of excellence. I have to consciously put myself in a positive emotional state to be in a positive emotional state. We will create the emotional environment in which we find ourselves (as much as we might want to blame our emotional environment on others).
If we are, indeed, the average of the people we spend our time with, our social environment of excellence is surely a matter of the relationships we foster. Undoubtedly, there will be unfortunate times in which we must spend time with people who do little to promote our social well-being. This can’t be helped. We can, however, endure these relationships by cultivating our overall well-centeredness. We must avoid destructive relationships as much as possible and seek to add value to all of our relationships. Be purposeful in your relationships.
Jim Harshaw’s concept of a Mastermind Group is nothing new—he points out numerous successful people who have provided him with the inspiration. For more on forming your Mastermind Group, I would refer the reader to The Quick and Easy Guide to Starting a Mastermind Group in 30 Days or Less (http://jimharshawjr.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Mastermind-Group-Ebook.pdf).
In this age of social media, the nature of relationships has changed somewhat. We no longer need for relationships to be face-to-face, per se. Undoubtedly, we want to foster relationships that are in-person, but there is value to social media, the telephone, and Skype. These allow us to maintain connections that might otherwise be lost because of distance. We must balance these and be sure to maintain close relationships with friends and business associate that are not separated by a computer screen.
While the Internet and computers/smart phones are of certain value, they can greatly damage the social environment of excellence. It is quite disheartening to see a group of people sitting at a table with each staring at his or her phone. Given the opportunity for human interaction, put the phone away and be fully present in the moment.
The social environment of excellence is one in which there are no distractions. The involved individuals are engaged in value-added conversation. At the very least, we should set a prescribed amount of intentional time—daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on circumstances—with the important people in our lives. Regular date night with one’s partner. Regular “dates” with one’s children—individually. Regular intentional small group meetings (e.g., bible studies, mastermind groups, etc.). Nightly dinners at the table! Game night with family/friends. These are but a few of many ways that one can cultivate an environment of social excellence. Key is creating the opportunity to build and foster value-adding relationships as much as possible.
A well-centered individual is one who is intentional about living a purposeful life and creating an environment of excellence for themselves and the others in their life. Our environment is what we make of it. It is a choice. For some, it may be easier to create an environment of excellence. For others, it may be challenged by circumstance. In the moment, however, it is what we make of our circumstance that determines our success.
Be your best today; be better tomorrow.