The people you habitually associate with person and in your thinking, have a tremendous effect on the person you become.

Recent research has shown that the wealth of most people is close to the AVERAGE of the wealth of the FIVE people they spend most time with.

To succeed at adspace sales, you should make an effort to hang out with winners and stay away from people going nowhere with their lives.

Perhaps 80 percent of the people around you, because of factors over which you have no control, are not particularly ambitious, goal-oriented, or successful. They are not accomplishing very much with their lives. They waste their time throughout the day and they grumble and complain at every opportunity.

And if you hang out with this type of person, you will become very much like them.

Dr. David McClelland, who carried out research at Harvard University, came to this conclusion:

• Your choice of a "peer group" would, more than any other factor, determine what happened to you in life.

Why?

Because to belong to a group, you have to BEHAVE in a way that the group expects.

If you belong to a hard-drinking group who enjoy gambling on the races, and you don't drink, and disapprove of gambling - then you aren't going to have much fun. Nor will you be a respected member of the gang. UNLESS you change your behaviour and start downing the sixpacks and betting on the horses.

But if your peer group is made up of successful adsales people, then you'll BEHAVE LIKE THEM.

You'll start to work the way they work, put in the hours they put in, and think and joke and play like they do. Then you'll start to sell like they do, and earn the money they do.

Your 'peer group' is made up of the people you identify with, associate with consider yourself similar to.

Your family is your first reference group. When you get older, your peers at school and college become the people who influence you and the way you behave. The people at your church and your place of work become your peers.

Over time, you develop a picture in your mind of the person you are, and of the kind of people who are 'just like me'. You then take on the same values, attitudes, behaviours, dress code, of these people. Associating with positive people makes you more positive.

Associating with negative people will make you more negative.

A successful, achievement-oriented peer group, either in person or in the people you read about and think about, will cause you to be successful and achievement-oriented as well.

A negative, aimless reference group will cause you to be negative and aimless, just as they are. Your choices of friends and associates has a big effect on your future. So you should choose the people you spend time with carefully because they are having an effect on your thinking, your personality, and on everything that happens to you.

Almost all successful advertising salespeople are described by their peers as 'loners'. This does not mean that they are lonely, or that they spend their time alone.

It simply means that they are very selective about the people they associate with.

They refuse to spend time with negative people. They avoid them at all costs. They realise that negative people, "toxic people," actually drain them of energy and enthusiasm and make them feel tired and pessimistic.

Positive people, on the other hand, make you feel happy and optimistic.

They are positive and cheerful. They are upbeat and encouraging, and they are always talking about opportunities and possibilities. You enjoy their company and you come away from them feeling better about yourself and your work.

Your goal should be to become the kind of person that others enjoy being around.

As you become a more positive and attractive person, you will find yourself attracting other positive, attractive people to you.

And you'll sell far more advertising space.