On a recent episode of the excellent podcast Modern Wisdom, tech entrepreneur (and master tweeter) Naval Ravikant said something that's stuck with me:

what you do, who you do with, and how you do it are way more important than how hard you work

I've been mulling this over in my mind a lot, especially with the holiday season now having started. Specifically, I've been thinking about the question there of "who".

The people we choose to surround ourselves with obviously have a massive impact on us. We tend to have similar interests, values, life goals, and the like. We impact them just as much as they impact us. I remember being introduced to many rappers and producers because my friends and I would share these artists' music with each other, and that has gone on to influence a giant part of our lives. But I think that there's something deeper there.

See, people are complicated. Duh. But what that means is that each person is multifaceted and is the sum of a number of parts. What makes it even more complicated is the ouroboros-ness (is that even remotely able to be a word?) of the question of nature vs. nurture: the environment that we are in influences who we are, and who we are influences the environment that we are in. Now break the concept of who we are into many different facets as discussed before, and you can see yet another reason why people find it so difficult to come to a consensus on this. Let's pull on this, because I believe that being around others changes who you are not only in the long term but also in the short term.

It's easy to see how long-term exposure to anything (or anyone, in this case) can alter you. Being around driven people all the time will automatically make you more driven. Being around constant drinkers will make you more susceptible to alcoholism. You get the point. But this is a function of constant short term exposure to these same people. It may seem, well, obvious, but there's a question on the flip side to this: how impactful can a person be on you (or you on them) if you're only exposed to someone for a short period of time once in a while?

The reason that this has been circling in my mind is because for the holidays I've historically gone back to my hometown. Many times you hear about people going back home and seeing their old friends who never left: they're in dead end jobs, living in their parents' basement, their lives are a mess, you get the point. But thankfully, my friends back home are the type of people who you want to be surrounded by: hard working, driven, fit in a physical and mental (and, also, financial) way. This is who they are as people. I meet up with them, we get a workout and some lunch in, and we go out separate ways. We don't even speak that often (maybe once or twice a month), but I consider them my best friends.

Why is it, then, that they inspire me to become better the same way that they're getting after it? What is it about their good habits that permeate time and space to make me continue going hard towards my goals, but bad habits creep in when I'm surrounded by a crowd that's indulging in those behaviors I wish to avoid?

It might be just as simple as that: good things are inherently good, and nothing, neither time nor space, will prevent those ideas from spreading. Bad habits, on the other hand, inherently have a preventative measure that requires a lack of distance. And maybe it's just that that makes them my very best friends.

Let's get after it today and revisit ohr thoughts tomorrow.

Vivek

On a recent episode of the excellent podcast Modern Wisdom, tech entrepreneur (and master tweeter) Naval Ravikant said something that's stuck with me:

what you do, who you do with, and how you do it are way more important than how hard you work

I've been mulling this over in my mind a lot, especially with the holiday season now having started. Specifically, I've been thinking about the question there of "who".

The people we choose to surround ourselves with obviously have a massive impact on us. We tend to have similar interests, values, life goals, and the like. We impact them just as much as they impact us. I remember being introduced to many rappers and producers because my friends and I would share these artists' music with each other, and that has gone on to influence a giant part of our lives. But I think that there's something deeper there.

See, people are complicated. Duh. But what that means is that each person is multifaceted and is the sum of a number of parts. What makes it even more complicated is the ouroboros-ness (is that even remotely able to be a word?) of the question of nature vs. nurture: the environment that we are in influences who we are, and who we are influences the environment that we are in. Now break the concept of who we are into many different facets as discussed before, and you can see yet another reason why people find it so difficult to come to a consensus on this. Let's pull on this, because I believe that being around others changes who you are not only in the long term but also in the short term.

It's easy to see how long-term exposure to anything (or anyone, in this case) can alter you. Being around driven people all the time will automatically make you more driven. Being around constant drinkers will make you more susceptible to alcoholism. You get the point. But this is a function of constant short term exposure to these same people. It may seem, well, obvious, but there's a question on the flip side to this: how impactful can a person be on you (or you on them) if you're only exposed to someone for a short period of time once in a while?

The reason that this has been circling in my mind is because for the holidays I've historically gone back to my hometown. Many times you hear about people going back home and seeing their old friends who never left: they're in dead end jobs, living in their parents' basement, their lives are a mess, you get the point. But thankfully, my friends back home are the type of people who you want to be surrounded by: hard working, driven, fit in a physical and mental (and, also, financial) way. This is who they are as people. I meet up with them, we get a workout and some lunch in, and we go out separate ways. We don't even speak that often (maybe once or twice a month), but I consider them my best friends.

Why is it, then, that they inspire me to become better the same way that they're getting after it? What is it about their good habits that permeate time and space to make me continue going hard towards my goals, but bad habits creep in when I'm surrounded by a crowd that's indulging in those behaviors I wish to avoid?

It might be just as simple as that: good things are inherently good, and nothing, neither time nor space, will prevent those ideas from spreading. Bad habits, on the other hand, inherently have a preventative measure that requires a lack of distance. And maybe it's just that that makes them my very best friends.

Let's get after it today and revisit ohr thoughts tomorrow.

Vivek