Show Me Your Friends and I’ll Show You Your Future
You are the average of the five people you spend most of your time with
Take a look at this Lev S. Vygotsky quote:
“Through others we become ourselves.”
Simply put, we naturally identify ourselves with the people we spend most of our time with.
We become a product of our environment.
Not convinced?
Have you ever found yourself saying these famous words after you did something you regret?
“My friend said it was a good idea, so I did it!”.
If so don’t worry, you’re not alone. We’ve all been in a similar situation, a situation that could have been easily avoided if we were around more responsible friends.
But how do we find the right friends?
I. Monitor Our Energy Levels Before and After We Meet Certain Friends
We all have that one friend.
Before you hang out with them you’re full of energy, high on life, ready to conquer anything the world throws at you.
However, once you meet this friend for a coffee to catch up on life, they immediately talk about how much they hate life, their problems at work, and anything else that frustrates their daily life.
It’s not even 5 minutes into your conversation and their negative energy has already radiated onto you, your mood has quickly gone from motivated and excited to mentally drained. What have you got yourself into?
If a certain friend comes into mind when reading that then you need to reconsider your friends. There’s only so much negative energy your body can handle.
They are holding you back from being the best version of yourself and will ruin your future.
In the words of Dan Pena:
“Show Me Your Friends and I’ll Show You Your Future”
The people you spend most of your time with will determine who you are. Not only will you start thinking like them but your mannerisms and behaviour will mirror theirs as well. So it’s ideal to closely surround yourself with positive, supportive people who want you to succeed.
I live by the rule: If they leave you in a better mood then when you began, keep them in your circle, if not dispatch.
II. Find people who know more than you
If you constantly feel like you’re the most intelligent person in the room, then you are in the wrong room.
We can all comfortably sit in a room full of people we know more than and taunt their intelligence to make us look like geniuses. It’s fun I get it, but we learn absolutely nothing from these particular interactions.
You need to surround yourself with people smarter and better than you are otherwise you will never learn anything. Being around smart people forces you to raise your standards to be at a high enough level to understand them.
Remember:
Smarter people make smart people even smarter.
A lot of smarts for one sentence I know.
But don’t forget you are the average of the five people you spend most of your time with, so simple math means that if you spend most of your time with successful people soon you’ll become just like them.
III. So how do we pick the right friends?
Who you decide to become friends with is one of the most important decisions you will make in your life.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle put friendships into 3 categories:
- Friendships of pleasure
- Friendships of utility
- Friendships of the good
Friendships of pleasure are the friendships that come due to a shared hobby or enjoyment, an example of these are friends with who you play on the same sports team, or go to the same yoga class/gym.
Friendships of utility are the friendships where people become friends due to the benefits each person bring. Work friends, business partners, and study buddies are great examples of this.
Friendships of the good are seen as the ultimate friendship and most important one of the three. These occur based upon respect and appreciation for each other. You both want each other to grow not for your own benefit, but for the love of seeing each other succeed.
The first two friendships tend to be short-term as once your interests change so does your friendship. Examples of this are when you change jobs or decide to stop using the gym, the friendships attached to those interests normally stop as well. However, with friendships of the good, this is not the case, these are very hard to find, but once you find a friend of this calibre, the wait will be worth it.
Here are the 5 traits to look for in a friend
- Someone whom you look up to and admire.
- Someone who mentally challenges you to be the best version of yourself.
- A person whom you trust for advice. Everyone loves giving advice, but only a few will give you the right advice.
- A person who is willing to assist when there’s nothing in it for them.
- After hanging out with them you come home more energised and full of new creative ideas and inspirations.
Take a look at your current friendship circle. Five years from now, are they the type of people you still want to call your friends?
If not, then you’re in luck because today we have the power to make the change that could change our future forever.
I will close everything off with this quote:
He who walks with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed — Proverbs 13:20
