ACCORDING to John Mason ‘you become like those with whom you closely associate – for the good and the bad.
It is better to be alone than to be in the wrong company.’ To associate is to keep company with someone as a companion, friend or partner.
What usually comes from such an association is best summarised by a Swiss theologian, John Lavator, who says ‘frequent social intercourse and intimate connection between two  persons make them  so alike   that their dispositions make them like each other. Their faces and tones of voice contract a similarity’.
There are four types of people: Those who add value to you; those who multiply your value, those who subtract your value, and those who divide your value.
In spite of any amount of peer pressure that you may have, you should ensure that you associate yourself with only positive people who can add to your value, multiply your value and from whom you can learn something useful to your life.
In the business world, there are many examples of best known and enduring business partnership associations. For example, the social networking service Face Book was founded in 2004 as a business partnership association by four college room-mates of Harvard University, Boston, USA.
Mark Zuckerberg, computer science student, Chris Hughes with a first degree in history and literature, Dustin Moskovitz, student of economics major and Eduardo Savern with a degree in economics.
The company Yahoo was started in 1994 and incorporated in 1995 as a business partnership association by two Ph.D. Electrical Engineering candidates David Filo and Jerry Yang at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA in a campus trailer. The Website started as ‘Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web’. The name ‘Yahoo’ is an abbreviation or acronym for ‘Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle’.  An oracle from ancient Greece was revealed hidden divine knowledge by a deity or god.
The company (DHL) is a business partnership association which was created in 1969 by a law graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, USA, Larry Hillbrom, who brought in his two friends Adrian Dalsey and Robert Lynn.  They combined the first letters of their last names of Hillbrom, Dalsey and Lynn and arranged them alphabetically to create DHL.
In 2002, DHL was bought by Deutsche Post, a Germany world’s leading mail and logistics group with more than one hundred years of experience in the business.
The Information Technology (IT) company Hewlett-Packard, popularly known as (HP), was incorporated in 1947 as a business partnership association between Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, both 1935 electrical engineering graduates of Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA.
They tossed a coin to decide whether the company would be called ‘Hewlett-Packard’ (HP) or ‘Packard-Hewlett’ (PH) and Packard won. But they decided to call it ‘Hewlett-Packard’ (HP) anyway as faithful and loyal business partner associates. Hewlett-Packard or HP is the first company in US history to report revenues exceeding US$100 billion. The German car and motor-cycle manufacturer BMW founded in 1916 originated with three manufacturing companies to create a business partnership association of BMW.
The Rolls-Royce motor company in the UK is a business partnership association between Frederick Royce the car designer and maker and Charles Rolls the marketer.
Royce would build the cars and Rolls would sell them.
The company name Rolls-Royce is a combination of their two last names.
Frederick Royce was a car electrical equipment manufacturer who built his first Royce car in 1904. Charles Rolls was an adventurer and marketer who managed to put himself first in the company name Rolls-Royce.
In 2004, the company celebrated its 100th anniversary.
The car making company Daimler-Benz created in 1926 in Germany is a business partnership association between the two world’s oldest motor manufacturers Benz and Cie Company founded in 1883 and Daimler-Motoren Company founded in 1890. Gottlieb Daimler (1834-1900) was an inventor and creator of the first high-speed engine in 1883, the riding car in 1885 and the first motorised carriage in 1886. Karl Benz (1844-1929) was an inventor and creator of the first complete petrol- powered car in the world, the Benz Motor Car to a surprised public in 1886.
The Daimler-Benz  trademark of a ‘Three-Pointed Star,’ which has been on Mercedes-Benz vehicles since 1910, belongs to Gottlieb Daimler. While working as Technical Director of a Gas Engine Factory, Gottlieb Daimler marked a star above his own house on a picture post card, and sent it to his wife telling her that ‘This star would one day shine over my own factory to symbolise prosperity’.
Overall, the Three-Pointed Star on the Mercedes-Benz vehicles symbolises Gottlieb Daimler’s ambition and dream of universal motorisation on land, on water and in the air.
The name ‘Mercedes’, which is in the Mercedes-Benz Business Partnership Association comes from an active business man Emil  Jellick, who began in 1898 to promote the vehicles of Daimler-Benz, especially among the rich, through Sport Car Racing, under his pseudonym ‘Mercedes’, which was actually the name of his daughter.
The name ‘Mercedes’ is a Spanish girl’s name which means ‘Grace’.  Initially, ‘Mercedes’ referred to the team and driver and not to the brand of the car.  In 1900, Emil Jellineck made an agreement with Daimler-Benz concerning sales of cars and engines, use of Jellineck’s pseudonym ‘Mercedes’and the development of a new engine bearing the name ‘Daimler-Mercedes’.
In late 1900, Emil Jellineck received from Daimler-Benz his first vehicle fitted with the new engine and the first Mercedes. The exceptional performance of ‘Mercedes’ gave Jellineck and Daimler-Benz enormous publicity and brought the Daimler plant to full production capacity such that in 1903, Daimler-Benz registered ‘Mercedes’ as a trade name.
From that time, Emil Jellineck obtained permission to call himself ‘Jellineck Mercedes’. He later jokingly remarked that ‘This is probably the first time a father has taken his daughter’s name’! The rest as they say is history.
Norman Vincent Peale advises that, ‘cultivate friendships with hopeful people. Surround yourself with friends who think positive, faith-producing thoughts and who contribute to a creative atmosphere.
This will keep you re-stimulated with faith attitudes.’ An African proverb says ‘If you sleep with dogs you will catch fleas’, a Bulgarian proverb says ‘If you find yourself making two steps forward and one step backwards, it is because you have mixed associations in your life’ and an English proverb says ‘Birds of the same feather flock together’.
Proverbs 13:20 and 14:7 summarise the need for you to associate with positive people by stating that ‘Keep company with the wise and you will become wise. If you make friends with stupid people, you will be ruined. Stay away from foolish people; they have nothing to teach you’.
Business man Warren Buffet says ‘It is better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behaviour is better than yours and you will drift in that direction’. You become like the people with whom you keep company.
Your prolonged association with negative people will make you think negatively; but your prolonged association with positive people and that will help you to raise your level of thinking and start to think positively and become confident, determined, ambitious and successful in your life.
To succeed associate yourself only with positive people who add to your value and also who multiply your value.
The author is a motivational mentor and consultant in positive mindset change. mail:positivemindpower
1511@yahoo.com