In early 2002, after collecting my previous school terms
results, I had yet again performed ‘poorly’, and my mother was clearly
disappointed.
That day when we reached home, she sat me down and had a
long conversation with me. At the time, I didn’t know why she wasn’t happy
because for me the results were Ok. At least from what I saw from my friends, I
was within range if not slightly better. She then realized where the problem
might be and asked me to make new friends, start spending time with the best
students in class. She advised me to pay attention to the results most of my
friends were getting and went on to paint a vivid picture of what my life would
look like if I continued to hang around them in addition to quoting the bible
book of 1st Corinthians 15:33.
“Do you want to be like that?” She asked as I
fervently refused at the thought of the image she had painted.
After that encounter, I decided to give her advice a try
though not sure how it was going to improve my results at the time.
When I went to school the following day, I made a conscious
effort to look out for the top performers in class and true to my mother’s word
saw that they hanged around together.
I became consciously aware that every morning before
classes began, during break time and when knocking off most of these students
were together. And as I started spending time with them, I discovered that
their dominant conversations were different to what I was familiar with.
With my initial group, our conversations were dominated
by the movies we watched on TV. At the time we had ABN channel on ZNBC TV which
used to show movie series such as Passions, Bob Morane, Damon, Becker, etc. And
the previous days episodes will be subject of discussion when we met the
following morning in addition to any latest gossip or video games. We would
rarely talk about studying or any schoolwork.
Initially, I found conversations with the ‘class top
performers’ weird and boring at best. A typical chat would go like:
Person 1: “Yesternight, I slept late, I studied up
to midnight and completed the History syllabus.”
Person 2: That is great, but myself I finished the
History syllabus last week.” As another person would join in and say
something like: “I slept when I reached home to ‘break the night’ and
studied whole morning.”
And they said all this in a way that it made studying
(hard work) sound like fun. I felt out of place but remembering moms advise I
kept at it showing up every day where they are. With time, not sure whether it
was because I wanted to become relevant to the group and share my own
experience of “breaking the night”, I found myself doing the things
they would talk about.
This change didn’t feel forced but rather came naturally
and the more time I spent, the more positive changes that were made.
By following my mother’s single advice, I was able to
move from below average student in grade 9 term one to being among the best
students the following term scooping best result prizes in History and Civic
Education the entire school.
I recently recollected this account by observing a
particular pattern in my daily conversations with my wife, workmates, family, and
friends. I realized that each one had a particular dominant theme and by analyzing the context, it gave me an idea of what I was exposing myself to.
What are the main topics of daily conversations when you
chat with your spouse, friends, family, workmates, etc.? These meetings can
take place over lunches (breaks), after knocking off work or on social media
platforms.
The daily conversation may seem so irrelevant as no one
will tell you to do the things that you are chatting about. But with time, if
all that your friends talk about is going to drink, watching football, movies,
gossip, etc. sooner rather than later you will find yourself spending most of
your time doing the same things.
If most of the things your friends talk about is
improving themselves, doing something with their family, business, etc. sooner
rather than later you will start aligning your life in line with these dominant
conversations.
The everyday conversations you are having make a huge
difference to your life in the long run. Pay attention to the people you are
spending most of your time with and ask yourself these questions:
Who am I spending my time with? What have they got me
thinking? What have they got me becoming
Your answer to these questions may help you make the
necessary adjustments which can lead to long term positive changes in your
life.
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