"Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher."

Oprah Winfrey

I love going to my local Business Women's Network breakfast meetings. This morning they had a sheet of paper on each table with a heading, and our sheet had "Your top seven tips for achieving success". Appropriately enough I was sitting with a 'hall-of-fame' award winning business owner, and the President of the Business Women's Network, among others.

I wanted to bring one tip to your attention today, and that is

"Surround yourself with the right people"

It's not a new concept. In fact it probably dates back to the dawn of time when cave-men surrounded themselves with others who were stronger than them (cave-women of course ;)) Napoleon Hill talks about it in "Think and Grow Rich" written in 1935, particularly in his chapter titled "Step 9 Toward Riches: The Power of the Master Mind".

The Master Mind is a formalisation of surrounding yourself with the right people. You can literally choose a group of people to meet with on a consistent basis with the focus being on moving each of you forward to a place that would be difficult to reach on your own.

A Master Mind group is one thing, but who you are surrounded by on a day-to-day basis is also indicative of where you are going. If you are surrounded by others who are pessimistic, discouraging and who are what I call "energy-suckers" it is a long hard slog uphill to drag yourself out of the same space. If, on the other hand, you are surrounded by optimistic, encouraging people who inspire you to think bigger than you already are, you will find yourself swept up in the delicious flow of life.

For those of you that are already there - congratulations. I would like to challenge you to raise the bar - just a notch or two - and see where that takes you. For those of you that are looking around you now and aren't feeling particularly inspired - where do you start?

Here are just a few ways for you to consider: