
Who Are The 5 People You Spend Time With? - philk10
http://leostartsup.com/2012/07/the-people-you-spend-time-with/
======
stephengillie
_‘You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.’ Jim
Rohn_

I see it backwardsly - the 5 people you spend time with are the ones most like
my average. I'm not who I am because of my friends; they're my friends because
of who I am. If I were willing to replace one of these 5 with another, I would
still be me, but I would have a less-close friendship with that person.

This article seems to suggest we should all dump our current "go nowhere"
friends and try to become PG's best friend (or friends with similarly
accomplished humans). I counter with the Nash Equilibrium, that PG would
exclude most of us, and we'd be stuck back at square one, having to be friends
with plain-old each other.

The author himself whittled down his life to 2 other people. What a selfish
and lonely life!

~~~
readme
I think the important thing to realize here is that it's just someone's
opinion. It's not a scientific fact that you are the average of the 5 people
you spend the most time with.

The theory breaks down when you don't spend time with anyone, because you
can't divide by zero!

A live human being is no more influential to me than a good book. If you
really want to get a good "5" and you can't find enough talented people,
consider replacing your unwanted friends with dead trees.

~~~
kruk
You need to take into account that your interaction with a book is usually
short while the effects of your interactions with people accumulate over time.

It might be different for people with very strong personality but I think it
is generally true that we are strongly affected by the people we surround
ourselves with.

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eshvk
I feel sad for the author if he actually believes this. Sure your environment
does influence you a bit, there is something to be said for self determination
and individual character. I have throughout my life enjoyed friendships with
amazing people who have driven me to succeed. On the other hand, I wouldn't
have the depth/perspective in life where it not for my incredibly enjoyable
friendships whom I have had with people who didn't exactly "succeed" in the
conventional sense of the word. Friendship with those "less successful" people
didn't exactly pull me down or make me "any less" than who I am right now.
Sometimes one makes friends because one enjoys a dimension of a person's
character and not just because they make a ton of money or start a bunch of
companies.

~~~
readme
I think OP has a point but his theory neglects that dead people are still in
our 5 through their works that live longer than they do.

It's possible to be a complete loner and still have a "5". Also count people
you don't personally know who influence you through their current works...

------
brianlovin
I appreciate the sentiment of OP's article, but I (slightly) disagree.

Many of my closest friends are not successful, in the conventional sense of
the world. They coast through college and float through life. Smoking weed and
drinking are their past times.

But you know what, they're my closest friends. They don't hang out with me
because I can help them with business or earn them money. They ask me for life
advice, not business advice. They don't give a shit about traffic to websites,
they care about how many people they can get to laugh at a joke.

They're rooted in the real world, not the tech world. They understand people
way more than they understand technology, and I think many of us here on HN
could use a dose of that.

So while it is admirable and refreshing to surround yourself with smart and
ambitious people, let's not lose sight of our roots and the beauty of loving
people for no other reason than that they bring us happiness.

------
nick_urban
'Spend time with people who want to have the kind of life you want to have.'

This is a great motto if you actually know what you want. If not, you might
choose the wrong people and end up with something that doesn't make you happy.

Also be careful that you don't cut the people out of your life who would have
given you an important perspective (or would have had your back).

Being with smart people is good. Being in an echo chamber full of self-
important opportunists is not.

------
hcarvalhoalves
_It doesn’t matter how smart you are. It doesn’t matter how talented you are,
which skills you have, where you are born or which family you came from. All
that counts if you want to be successful in life is the people you surround
yourself with._

That's just sad, centering one's life around others. I present you a different
perspective: [http://artofmanliness.com/2012/06/11/becoming-an-
autonomous-...](http://artofmanliness.com/2012/06/11/becoming-an-autonomous-
man-in-an-other-directed-world/)

~~~
guard-of-terra
It's not. If you're not talented, not skilled and not interesting, nobody of
interest would let you surround yourself with them.

------
melvinmt
"Lifehacking" your friends for individual gain is going to leave you with no
friends at all.

There's also a paradox to it; why would anyone who's supposedly "better" than
you, have you as a friend?

~~~
ams6110
I don't think he said or meant that you should try to have friends who are
"better" than you but rather _those that will help you get to the next level
you want to get to._

In other words, people who are supportive and have abilities and interests
that complement your own.

I certainly know people who are toxically negative, gripe about everything and
complain about perceived injustices, and when I spend time with them I become
less motivated. And the converse is true, thinking of one person in particular
who I would not consider a friend (in that we don't hang out socially) but who
is so positive and energetic about everything that it's hard not to ride that
wave when you spend time with him.

------
bootload
_"... One conclusion I kept coming back to in this talk is that a large amount
of how successful you will be in life comes down to the people you spend time
with. ..."_

Wrong. Extrovert. What about creative introverts?

 _"... Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me. They’re shy and they
live in their heads. The very best of them are artists. And artists work best
alone ..."_ Steve Wozniak, iWoz ~
[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26shyness....](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26shyness.html?pagewanted=all)

~~~
eurleif
Being an introvert doesn't mean not being influenced by the company you keep.
Most introverts aren't asocial, they just enjoy being alone more than
extroverts do.

~~~
bootload
_"... how successful you will be in life comes down to the people you spend
time with. ..."_

I read this as equating success by association. Not in the presence of the
right company the authour flounders. Woz discredits this idea.

~~~
eurleif
How does Woz discredit the idea? He said that he works best alone, not that no
one else was involved in making him successful. Do you really think Woz would
have been as successful if he had never met Steve Jobs?

------
josephcooney
What about kids? "I won't spend time with my 2y.o. because he wants to drive
trucks around in the mud and aspires to stop peeing his pants, and that just
doesn't align with my life goals".

~~~
lotharbot
The advice in this article seems to be much the opposite of "work-life
balance". It's suggesting that you stop spending so much time with your kids,
your elderly parents, your sister with a mental illness, and so on -- or,
rather, that if you spend time with such people, you'll be less "successful"
or "accomplished".

I don't buy it. IMO one of the major factors that encourages success is having
a reason for your goals -- often, wanting to provide a good life for your
family. In my current household, the five of us (who spend most of our time
with each other) have primary ambitions of "make a solid career", "keep the
household running smoothly", "recover from severe illness", "learn to poop in
the toilet", and "learn to talk". Part of what makes us successful at the
first two is the _motivation_ to support the other three.

------
vipervpn
One of my best friends is an elderly woman who lives alone and cannot walk.
She slurs her speech because of a bad head injury a few years back. She has a
terrible short term memory.

She is pretty cool.

I visit her about three times a week and we will talk for hours. I wonder why
we get along so darn well - I'm a 40 year old single guy with practically zero
in common with her - but I always leave her house feeling happy. She will wave
goodbye to me from the screen door until I am out of view.

I like watching out for her wellbeing and brightening her day, yet I still
feel I'm the one who is benefiting.

------
lcusack
This idea of friendship is heavily influenced by a western consumeristic
culture. Friendship is a transaction, only worth it if we are getting an equal
or greater amount out of it. The irony is that when friendship is thought of
in this way it ceases to be friendship. It's simply another commodity.

True friendship is based on a covenant relationship. I will be with you no
matter what and therefore I am your best friend.

------
Killah911
Seriously? I would refute this article some more, but alas others have beat me
to it. I really like the quoting Dr. Dre for philosophy part. I don't think
Dr. Dre was necessarily talking about "losing" friends in the same way as the
author...

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zavulon
> Today, the people I spend time with are just 2 people. Joel and Tom.

That is really, really sad.

~~~
ams6110
In your mind. He seems to be happy with it.

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10098
As I see it, this article boils down to "maintain relationships with people
for profit, not fun". Which does not look like a good approach to
relationships to me. Look at it this way: what would you do if you found out
one of your friends did this and somehow you ended up on his "list"?
Personally, I'd try to avoid contact with that person as much as possible.

------
cristos
It sounds like the usual doctrine stuff.

This can apply to an individual, but isn't generally true. Close 5 awesome
doors, but open two that match you at that point. Alienating people is never,
ever an option to consider - there can be exceptions, of course - if there
isn't honesty, or the person drools on your floor and throws fecal matter on
your wall.

"I am you and what I see is me."

Your personality is reflected through other people. You are a true friend, a
helpful person with cool ideas, the other person will follow along, usually.
I'll scratch your back and you'll scratch mine.

What can be wrong with having everyone as a friend and helping and get helped
by the ones that stick over the years?

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jnacks
90% of your time with 2 people every day? What's left in a few years?

------
Tichy
And when/if you actually do get successful, you realize you don't have any
real friends and shoot yourself. Congratulations!

~~~
gutnor
When you have that mindset, you find yourself with likely minded "friends".
The problem is not on the way up, the problem is your "friends" will also
brutally let you down if you are ever in a bad spot, or not performing to
their expectations.

Of course in the beginning there is almost no downside: you find yourself with
other young motivated entrepreneurs, you share success and failure, the entry
to the club is only motivation. If you make it, you will want to surround
yourself with other winners, but now the entry to the club is success. That is
when statistics and human nature start to play against you.

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rlu
what a disgusting read

