I spent much of 2006 studying life and leadership coaching. I went through a program at Coach University (CoachU) which, at the time was the premier life coaching training program. 20 hours a week for a year. Half of my fellow students were training to be "life coaches," the other half were sent by their companies to learn how to do executive coaching.

 

I learned a ton from this program. I applied it to the work I was doing at the time of helping people in recovery. When I started working more with pastors and other spiritual leaders, I used these coaching principles to help them (a) be better spiritual leaders, and (b) stay emotionally and spiritually healthy while trying to help others. Now, after having come back into ministry in the church, I still find it helpful in the work I do with staff and key leaders in the church.

 

I honestly think it was some of the best training I ever got. 

Of the many important and helpful things I learned, probably the most significant was the importance of one's "personal environment." We had a whole class with the title, "Designing Your Personal Environment."

 

This was in the early 2000s, and the idea of Designing Your Personal Environment was novel, to say the least. In a nutshell, the concept is this:

 

 

The only way to make change last is to make significant shifts in our personal environment:

 

Our personal environment has shaped and continues to reinforce our current life patterns. If we try to change important aspects of our lives, yet leave our environment unchanged, we will need to exert tremendous will power. This only works as long as our motivation is high and our focus is sharp.

 

But eventually we run out of steam. We face setbacks. We get distracted by other challenges or new opportunities. The intensity of our commitment to the new habit or way of living wavers. And we drift back to our own ways. 

 

 

Environment matters. The environment we are immersed in pulls in one direction or another.

I ran across a great article by Martin van Doorn about this topic recently, with the same title I'm using. You can read his (excellent) article in full here. Some highlights:

 

Sociologist Nicholas Christakis shares research revealing that "If your friends are obese, the chances that you are obese is 45% higher. If your friend's friend is obese, your risk of obesity is 25% higher."

One of the most helpful insights I got from the article was what van Doorn says about how our environment shapes our unconscious, which in turn shapes what we think is possible for us, and normal for us. 

Environment determines unconsciousness, and unconsciousness matters most

 

Your subconscious determines 95% percent of your behavior.

 

In an inspiring article, Benjamin Hardy explains how your “normal” life reflects the level of your subconscious mind, and your subconscious reality — what is “normal” to you — is (as you’ve probably guessed by now) mainly determined by your environment:

 

Your external environment is the ultimate feedback loop. It is telling you, very clearly, what is “normal” to you. — Benjamin Hardy

 

What our environment considers normal is the unspoken that shapes our behavior and our thinking.

 

Emotional consciousness  —  if that’s a thing  —  is [very] vulnerable to intrusion by others. I don’t even have to speak your language to get in. Others influence it as soon as we unconsciously recognize their facial expressions and non-verbal behavior. We transmit emotions, attitudes and beliefs to each other continuously.

 

Which ones we expose ourselves to is crucial.

 

Don’t let it depend on proximity or chance or on how it has always been, but consciously plan which opinions, attitudes and life-philosophies you do and do not allow in your life. Instead, spend a lot more time crafting, nourishing, sustaining the contexts you spend time navigating.

 

This helps us understand what lies behind personal development guru Jim Rohn's idea that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. Think about this:

If you take the five people we spend the most time with -- our five closest friends / associates -- you can average out a lot of things:

The article puts it this way:

If our environment shapes which emotions we experience and what we unconsciously consider to be normal behavior, goals, beliefs, and attitudes then Jim Rohn was right and we really are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.

 

The people you spend the most time with shape who you are. They determine what conversations dominate your attention. They affect to which attitudes and behaviors you are regularly exposed. Eventually you start to think like they think and behave like they behave.

 

As Darren Hardy writes in his book, The Compound Effect:

 

 

 

Of course, none of this is new. King Solomon wrote about this in the book of Proverbs 3000 years ago. "Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm." - Proverbs 13:20

 

What we are talking about here with the people we associate with is also true -- to greater or lesser degrees -- about other aspects of our environment. The media we consume ... the movies and TV shows we watch, the magazines and online news we read ... it all affects us both consciously and unconsciously.

So choose your environment wisely. Be meticulous about who you let in, and who you keep out.