Having good friends is essential to leading a happy life.  There's no arguing that.  Human beings are social by their very nature. What's important is who those friends are.  I will now share with you one of the best pieces of advice that I've ever received.

"Choose to be friends with the people that you want to be like.  Successful people are friends with other successful people."

Like minded people tend to flock together because... well that's natural.  If you are a college student and you have a great idea for a business but you find yourself hitting bars every night with your friends and waking up at 11am, then perhaps you should give up on that business idea.

Alternately you could find some new friends.  Speaking from experience, you will most likely turn out to be just like the people you spend the most time with. Before I started up college again I worked at a restaurant.  In that industry it's very common for people to go grab a post-shift cocktail or twelve.  There were quite a few nights where I didn't go to sleep until 6 or 7  the morning.  Then one day I decided that the person I was becoming was not the person that I wanted to be.  So I changed my friends.  Don't get me wrong, I still talk to and hang out with some of the people I used to.  However I found new friends that were more like the person that I wanted to be in.... say 5 years.

Driven, successful people tend to almost radiate drive and success onto others.  They will challenge you to be a better person, to work harder, and to be smarter.  Find the person on your campus that is always doing something interesting and talk to them.  Become their friend and you will probably tap into a network of similar people.  That's what I did, and I'm reaping a massive ROI.  I joined a business fraternity that was stocked with smart people that are driven.  I started going to the Startup Happy Hours in Dallas hosted by Alexander Muse and from there got involved with SpringStage and became the college catalyst for this blog.

Success breeds success.  If you want to party all night and wake up late, be my guest.  You only get to go through college once (or twice for some ;-) ).  But don't come knocking on my door when you can't find an investor for your company when you graduate because you don't know anyone and all your friends are managers at the Chick-Fil-A.

Don't start tomorrow.  Start today.  Make one new friend today that is more successful, smarter, or more networked than you.  Go from there.

"This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time." - Fight Club