Surrounding Yourself with the Right People Makes All the Difference

Welcome to buildbetter, a weekly newsletter where I provide actionable ideas helping you understand and build meaningful relationships—in every aspect of your life.

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Read time: 4 minutes

Today at a glance:

• Topic: Importance of surrounding yourself with the right people

• Tactic: Considering which relationships are worthwhile

• Quote on the impact of our tribe

• Devin's Finds: 📰, 📰, 📺

• Commitments: 🤝

Why is it so important to surround yourself with the right people?

Jim Rohn would say it's because:

But that’s a simplified view. To say that is to say any previous five people that surrounded you had no impact beyond your relationship dying down.

My view is that we're an ever growing quilt consisting of patches from everyone we've surrounded ourselves with. Each new patch added seems to be a bit bigger and at the forefront of our attention, but that doesn't mean the older patches' impact is replaced or they cease to grow. They continue to play an important role in shaping us.

Some of my older patches that have had the most influence on me:

• Family: the earliest set of patches on my quilt. Growing up, I was lucky to be around my immediate and extended family all the time. They emphasized getting together for the big and small occasions and that we could always rely on one another when challenges arose. That focus on meaningful connection stuck with me.

• Friends: Many of my closest friends over the years were made from the sports I played or the deep interests I had. The friends that had the biggest impact on me often had a few common qualities: ambition, depth, self-awareness and thoughtfulness. That helped me develop purpose.

• Colleagues and mentors: Being part of small teams with little hierarchy helped me develop close relationships that focused on professional development, mental models, and solving real world problems. That helped me develop a growth mindset.

But these patches don't only create good. Think about the bad habits you've picked up—maybe it’s a focus on status and money over relationships—anything that holds you back rather than powers you forward.

That's why it's so important to reflect on who you surround yourself with.

It's not a new concept, but I don't think it commands the priority it deserves. The result? We end up settling for the friends that have overstayed their welcome and the professional connections that no longer have a place in our life. Sharing their constant stream of thoughts, opinions, and acts rubs off on us more than we think. It impacts our outlook, resilience, emotional intelligence, and most importantly, what we believe we can achieve.

Which makes it even more important that we don’t add anything more to the bad patches on our quilt. But how?

Consider Which Relationships Are Worthwhile

Tim Urban’s Tactic

Tim Urban came up with the "Does This Friendship Make Sense" graph in a post 10 years ago and it still holds true today.

All of our friendships fall into one of these categories. The big mistake we often make is spending similar amounts of time across each category. Instead, prioritize Q1 because these are the friends that are around for the long haul while having a positive impact on your life.

Take some time to think about who falls where and redistribute the time and energy you commit to them. And please, just stop focusing on Q4 friends all together…

Sahil Bloom’s Tactic

In his Curiosity Chronicle newsletter, Sahil mentioned a great mental model to consider who you surround yourself with: Someone is either holding you back or powering you forward, there is no in between.

Quote on the Impact of Our Tribe

Be thoughtful when picking your tribe.

Today's Finds:

📰 10 Types of Odd Friendships You're Probably a Part Of by Tim Urban (14 min read): From his famous Wait But Why blog, Tim observes how many of our friendships are made in our adolescence—a time we put little thought into who we want to be around. Instead, proximity, the life our parents choose for us, and the college we end up at dictates which friendships form. Many of which may not be worthwhile friendships to keep in the long term. Tim discusses a way to view these different friends and how to pick the right ones to commit time to going forward.

📰 When people spend a lot of time together, their brain waves start to sync (2 min read): Some science behind why we adopt ways of looking at things and behaviors of close friends. It's actually the result of brain wave synchronization and neural coupling. (If you want to dive deeper, check out this research on brain wave synchronization while people interact)

📺 Why it's important to actively construct your social environment (5 minute video): Are you a visual learner? Check out this visual summary of why the people you habitually associate with determine as much as 95% of your success or failure in life ⬇

Best of luck building,

Devin