Hello and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're

getting a little better at life. I'm your host, Cory Muscara. In today's

episode, we're going to talk about the importance of surrounding yourself with

positive influences. More to come on that in a moment, first let's settle in

together with the Sound of the Bells.

So the other day I wrote a post on Twitter and Instagram and by the way if

you're not following me on Twitter and Instagram, I encourage it because I

put a lot of teachings there. But this particular post I said the old school

thought was that you're the average of the people you spend the most time with.

I think there's that famous Stephen Covey quote that says you're the average

of the five people you spend the most time with. And then I said the new school

way of thinking is you're the average of the people you most see in your

newsfeed. And I acknowledge that this is of course an overly simplistic view.

But it's worth evaluating whose ideas you surround yourself with because a

lot of this does influence how you think how you relate to the world and what

you believe. And it's less about the people themselves. It's not like you're

becoming the average of those people. But more about the ideas and the content

that they're sharing. If you think about how many of your early beliefs and now

significant beliefs about how the world works and how people respond and

political beliefs, religious beliefs, a lot of this is influenced by the people

you grew up with, family, the influences on your life at an early age during

childhood, even into adulthood. And while you are an autonomous human being and

...