“What could someone figure out about you by the friends you’ve chosen? …Do your close friends tend to be older or younger than you? Less or more talented and successful than you? Do they share your values? Ambitions? Interests?”
Gregory Stock, The Book of Questions
Beyond the Quote (62/365)
You could probably learn a lot about someone by the friends they’ve chosen. In fact, I’m a firm believer in the idea that you are a product of who you surround yourself with the most. How could you not be? Your close friends are the ones who have the greatest influence over you. They’re the ones who you spend the most time with, who you challenge to games and do activities with, who you poke around with intellectually, who you have deep conversations with (or at least conversations beyond the superficial), and who you measure (and ultimately align) values, ambitions, and interests with. While this certainly isn’t always the case, I feel like it is more often than it’s not and can definitely provide noteworthy insights that will help you better understand your current situation.
If you feel like you are stuck, plateaued, or in a rut, sometimes it’s because you need to change your perspective and get a different look at the problems you’re facing. The fact that the problems you’re facing are unsolved means that the answer is outside your current parameters of thought—you have to expand your thinking to find the solution. If the people in your circle are less experienced, less talented, less intellectual, less disciplined, and/ or less thoughtful then it is unlikely that you will resolve the problem(s) you’re facing. If the people in your circle are more experienced, more talented, more intellectual, more disciplined, and/ or more thoughtful then it’s much more likely that they will help stretch your parameters of thought to include a solution to your problem. But what’s most likely the case is that the people in your immediate circle will be very similarly experienced, talented, intellectual, disciplined, and/or thoughtful. Birds of a feather flock together—in humans, too.
So if we want to expand our thinking and learn how to better solve interesting problems in life like how to learn new skills, how to live more presently, how to better maintain positive relationships, how to build more successful businesses, how to become more financially independent, how to have meaningful conversations, etc., then we need to surround ourselves with the birds of that interesting feather whose thinking has been expanded to that level. Does this mean that we need to ditch our friends and look for some type of feather upgrades? Not necessarily.
I would only ever recommend this if you were completely miserable with your life and the “friends” in your immediate circle were toxic and negative for your situation and path. If you love your friends, however, and enjoy spending time with them, but maybe still want to try and improve your life you could, of course, look for a mentorship or apprenticeship or even just try connecting closer with an acquaintance who has done interesting stuff in their life—this can be a great way to dig into someone’s brain who might be able to stretch your current parameters of thought. But there might be an even better way still.
Remember that in today’s world, who we surround ourselves with isn’t only limited to our physical environments—we have to include who we surround ourselves with digitally and imaginatively. If you spend time every single day interacting with Kim Kardashian’s social media, then that will start to have an impact on you and your thought processes. The same is true if you spend all of your downtime listening to Gary Vee. In the digital world, we can surround ourselves with just about anybody we want. But if we really want to connect to their way of thinking, then short clips from social media timelines aren’t going to be as powerful as the long form productions that go deep like books and podcasts. This is where you can dive deep into the way a person thinks and surround yourself with them imaginatively and in a rapid and extremely low cost way.
Booking a private session with Tony Robbins, for example, costs around six figures per hour. Buying one of his books contains WAY more insight than you would ever get in one hour and probably costs less than the Uber would cost you from the airport to Tony’s house. The point is, you are a product of who you surround yourself with the most—yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to ditch your crew. Surround yourself with the most interesting and thought provoking people you can find both digitally and in print and you’ll be astounded at how much they’ll stretch your mental parameters. The power in this sentiment can’t be understated. It’s a privilege that’s grossly underrated and underutilized and could wildly expand the parameters for all of our ways of thinking. So, what’d you say? Who are you gonna hang out with tonight?
This post became the introduction for: 10 Deep and True Friendship Quotes For You to Cherish
Don't Let the Motivation Stop There...!
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