I just read a new book by Dr. Ivan Misner, founder of BNI, Who’s in Your Room? This is an excellent read regardless if you like networking or not. It really starts you thinking about the influence of everyone who has been in your life. The fact is they never leave. Once you allow them in your life, they continue to live in your brain forever. We are all influenced good, bad or indifferent by everyone we allow to spend time with us forever. We all have had people that still have an effect on us even since childhood.

I started pondering where some of my beliefs came from and every one of them can be traced to a person. For example, I had a third grade math teacher, Mrs. Chamberlain that had a unique way to keeping me focused. When doing math problems, if I looked around or even seemed distracted, she would walk up behind me and pop me in the head with her really fat red pen. Sometimes it left a small knot on my head with my 1971 “crew cut”. If I were caught talking or goofing off, I would be paddled with her “baby blue” paddle with 10 holes drilled in it to leave a mark in front of the whole class. I was brought up that boys do not cry, but she hit so hard water shot from my eyes, but I didn’t dare cry. Today kids get medicated for ADD and she would probably be arrested for abuse, but in the early 1970s this was standard practice. Mrs. Chamberlain’s influence is still in my head today. I still get angry if I see someone not paying attention in a training class or meeting. I think, why can they not just focus for hour or two? I guess they never had a third grade teacher quite like Mrs. Chamberlain.

I also know where I got my mental toughness. I can trace this back to my sophomore year in high school football to coaches Mitchell and Stokley. These two were my offensive and defensive line coaches. This was my first year of experiencing “two a days”, which means we had football practice for two and half hours in the morning and then two and half hours in the afternoon in the hot Tennessee sun. What I thought was just pure torture for their pleasure was really teaching me how to push my mind and body to a place I never knew existed. The drills are vivid to this day with “grass drills, monkey rolls, duck walks and 40s” usually to the point of getting physically sick and then being yelled at for getting sick. I know lots of people have been pushed through athletics’ or military training and I know these are really strong individuals because of who was in their life. Life is tough and people that lack mental toughness seem to struggle and fall more than those who have this trait. No one is born with it. Someone had to influence you to get us to learn this important trait.

Think about all of your traits and who the person in your life was that gave you this trait. Some are good and some are bad habits or traits. The next time you have to decide if a certain person is going to be in your life, decide what will be their lasting influence even after they are long gone. Everyone leaves something in our lives, like it or not.

“The quality of your life depends upon who’s in your room (life)”—Dr Ivan Misner

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Tim Wilhoit is owner/principal of Your Friend 4 Life Insurance Agency in Nashville, TN. He is a family man, father of 3, entrepreneur, insurance agent, life insurance broker, salesman, sales trainer, recruiter, public speaker, blogger and team leader with over 27 years of experience in sales and marketing in the insurance and beverage industries.