

You Are the Average of Your Five Closest Friends - buf
http://bufr.tumblr.com/post/12126279275/you-are-the-average-of-your-five-closest-friends

======
ppog
"Bottom line: If the main topic of conversation you have with your friends is
not how you can better yourself, you need to get new friends."

Thanks, but I'm happy with the friends I have and with the kind of
conversations we have. If your friends love talking about "how you can better
yourself," then fair enough -- whatever works for you. On the other hand, if
your friends love talking about the things they do, interesting things they've
learned, neat ideas, activities, etc. then don't ditch them just because
they're not talking about "how you can better yourself." You'll "better
yourself" by being immersed in a social environment of new ideas and options
and acting on the things you learn, not by dumping your friends and finding
people who want to talk about self-improvement.

~~~
brc
But doesn't this hinge on the definition of 'bettering yourself'.

To me, your comment isn't mutually exclusive with the original.

People discussing things they've learned, ideas and activities who, by my
definition, are bettering themselves. You might like your friends, then
probably, your friends _are_ bettering themselves, and so are you. You
mightn't realise this, but spend some time with people who have a social
circle where complaining and moaning and hating the world are pre-requisites
for membership, and you'd probably realise how good your current friends are.

I don't take 'better yourself' line to mean climbing a career/social/income
ladder, or obsessively reading Dr Phil type books, to me it just means
improving yourself continuously.

If you flip it over and get: "if you find your friends talking themselves down
and complaining all the time, you need to get new friends"

I don't think too many of us would argue with that.

While the thought of dropping friends might seem harsh to some, you are
definitely the product of your relationships and the thinking that goes along
with them. Your life is also a product of the opportunities that come along,
and having the wrong surroundings will produce the wrong opportunities.

You can do a lot worse with your time than make a new friend with someone who
is positive and likes to continually learn. There's a lot of people out there
who could use that advice.

~~~
jamesaguilar
If you broaden the definition of "better yourself" to enough to include all
constructive human conversation, then maybe you could read this statement as a
truth. But if you read it as plain English it's obvious that's not what he's
talking about. He's talking about a very specific sort of conversation around
improving one's career and skills.

~~~
lloeki
From the article:

> _Today, Jane doesn’t know what the celebrity gossip is._

I venture to suggest that it actually refers to the former one you mentioned,
which, being constructive, leads to the latter one in various occasions (but
not exclusively).

------
curiouslurker
Somewhat misleading headline I think given the content of the article but
still a valid point. My question to you folks out there is this: I came across
this statement sometime back and realized I need to change my friends if I am
to better my situation. My friends, while good people, are not goal oriented
and have for all intents and purposes given up. The people who I'd like to
hang out with and who can help me grow reject me most of the time (they
perhaps intuitively have internalized this wisdom and don't want me
contributing to their average since they are at a better place than me
currently). What are some practical ways to upgrade your friends especially if
you are highly introverted?

~~~
ComputerGuru
Just like anything else in life, you have to do this step-by-step.

First, don't sell yourself short. You have some valuable attributes and
characteristics that others will find valuable. You find a friend or group of
friends who are a notch or two closer to where you want to be, people that
have something valuable to give you _and to whom you can give something back_.

You slowly replace your friends with "better" ones that will bring you closer
to your goals and will make you more of who you want to be, and you climb that
ladder to the top. It'll take time, but it's also a far more guaranteed
outcome versus suddenly jumping into a circle you don't yet belong in, where
even if they'll accept you, chances are you'll change your mind and back out.

~~~
deadmansshoes
"You slowly replace your friends with "better" ones"..."will make you more of
who you want to be"

I believe the talented Mr Ripley used this strategy to good effect. There's a
saying about never trust anyone who doesn't have at least one friend left from
childhood.

~~~
HaloZero
Not sure what the point of the childhood friend thing is.

I was a very very awkward youth (I didn't speak English well and I was one of
few Indian students at my school) so I had a lot of trouble making friends. I
don't have many friends from my childhood because I wasn't very good at it, I
didn't really establish lasting friendships until High School and College.

~~~
Radix
High school counts as childhood, and more to the point, childhood friends are
an indication that a person is not a disloyal back stabber and is someone
others value. It's social proof.

it's just a saying though and is useless past its intended meaning. It does't
seem to apply to you.

------
terrellm
I've been in technology for 15 years. In that time I went from QA to
networking/IT to independent software development. Along the way I learned how
to run a business, optimize my websites for search engines, create persuasive
marketing copy, and a lot more. With each new skill I acquired, I have one or
more friends who I attribute to helping me along the way. I could not have
done it without them.

You definitely are the company you keep, both in your friends as well as with
your spouse/significant other.

~~~
ars
And I did more or less all that stuff too and I have no one I attribute it to
except myself.

I would definitely not say definitely. Some people are highly influenced by
friends, some are not.

------
porter
I studied finance and economics in college and spent 5 years in banking. Last
year I quit my job and taught myself python/django, HTML, CSS, and Jquery.
Last week I did a demo of my financial software for my old boss and he loved
it. It's going to allow his analysts to do their analysis in a few minutes
instead of a few hours.

My wife and I moved to a new city while I went through this process, and it
was mostly a lonely road. Friends matter, but don't let a trite saying deter
you from making things happen. If you want to do something, just go do it.
Your friends will soon follow.

------
kellishaver
"If the main topic of conversation you have with your friends is not how you
can better yourself, you need to get new friends."

Friends serve a number of purposes. Some make us better people, some accept
and support us for who we are. The best ones manage to do both at the same
time.

But I think looking at a friendship from the angle of how it can benefit you
and make you a better person is a somewhat selfish metric upon which to judge
the quality or value of a friend.

I have certainly learned a lot from my closest friends over the years and I'm
better for it, professionally and personally, but it's not the reason I chose
those particular people as friends. It's a side-effect of having friends with
similar interests and values, who happen to have different skill sets and
different perspectives on life.

Neither is the sharing of that wisdom intentional, either, but rather it just
sort of organically happens over time as we share experiences together and
help each other out with work, family, and life in general. The motivation
isn't to "make me better" it's to "be a better friend."

We are, after all, talking about friends here, not co-workers or colleagues or
instructors or employers. This "bottom line" just feels rather shallow and
selfish.

~~~
eric-hu
> But I think looking at a friendship from the angle of how it can benefit you
> and make you a better person is a somewhat selfish metric upon which to
> judge the quality or value of a friend.

I was put off by the article in a way I couldn't quite pin down. What you said
was exactly it.

I'm all for intellectual stimulation by interacting with people in the same
profession, but that's not all there is to life. It's certainly not all there
is to being a happy and successful person, at least in my book. If my friends
happen to be in the same profession, that's great. I'm not ready to declare
that anyone outside of development is unworthy of my time.

------
paganel
I don't have "five closest friends". Who am I, then? :)

~~~
fmota
The average of your n<5 closest friends, and 5-n nobodies.

------
prophetjohn
I don't understand how the title of the article is relevant. I'm inclined to
believe that there's some truth to it, but after reading the blog, I didn't
gain any insight on the topic. It just seemed like a nice story about a girl
who turned her career around.

At the very least, I don't see how an automation engineer is the mean of two
Google engineers, a brogrammer, an architect, and a soccer team president.

~~~
Sapient
Perhaps you also have to average in her previous job?

------
DrJosiah
The title suggests some sort of study involving more than one person, the
content isn't a study, it's an anecdote.

Also, your "bottom line" is worse than patronizing, it's bullshit. I have
friends that I talk movies with. I have other friends I talk music with.
Others I talk about technology with. Even others I talk about relationships
with. None of my goals in knowing and interacting with those people include
"get advice from them and become a better person".

Have I become better through interaction with all of them? Of course. But
that's expected as long as you are receptive to changing and you have friends
that are competent.

------
mrleinad
Is this really a true story? Can you tell us a bit more about it? I'm not
asking for details that would identify her, but for more details on how she
got there.

~~~
jasminaata
Hi, yeah this is a true story and it is about me. Ask me anything.

~~~
mrleinad
Great!

1) Maybe "having a mission" would be the best approach at throwing yourself
against the wall over and over again, but I'd like to know if that was the
thing that motivated you not to stop learning. Never did the thought "ok,
maybe I'm not cut for this" cross your mind?

2) You learned chinese during that time? How proficient are you in that
language? Did you do it on your own or did you take classes?

3) Any time management technique you'd like to share with us?

I probably will have more questions later.. :)

~~~
jasminaata
1) You are right, having a mission definitely kept me on track. It also gave
me peace. The moment I decided to start learning about technology, I felt
confidence. I knew that one day I will leave the mediocre jobs and be part of
this new field. This thought alone gave me confidence when I went to job
interviews. During the interview with Genentech I remember thinking about some
html code that I just learned and how I want to go home and learn more. Having
an alternative made me a more confident job candidate. My hobby is learning
foreign languages, I like learning something new every day. So when I noticed
that this is part of every tech position, I decided that it is closer to what
I need, even if it is not the perfect match. I did question whether I am cut
out for this many times, but I had nothing to lose. If I was coming from a
career field that I loved I might have felt otherwise.

2) I was learning Chinese at the end of the day to compensate for not learning
anything at work. I was studying on my own, mainly with Rosetta Stone and
grammar books. It was an on and off process and I did feel burned out
sometimes. Recently I had lost motivation, especially since I am much happier
at work. So I joined my first Mandarin class to get a new direction and see
where I am. It is intermediate level and everyone in the class is much better
than me, because they have lived in China for 1 year. So I have a lot to learn
still but I would say that during the first nine months I laid a pretty good
foundation.

3) I am not good with time management myself, which is why it took me so long
to enter this field. I find the study groups I attend very helpful with this.
Check out meetup.com for your area and search for a topic of interest. Find
the right study group which will allow you to learn on your pace, yet require
your dedication. When you are surrounded with people who are also on a
mission, it motivates you. Even better if you share the same mission.

~~~
meric
"which is why it _took me so long_ to enter this field." Good one. :)

------
swanson
I'd ignore all the complaints here about the Bottom Line message. People will
bash you for making an "absolute truth", take it or leave statement - but
people will also bash you for trying to appeal to everyone with an obvious
generalization. You can't please everyone so at least pick a voice and stick
to it.

I enjoyed the post, even if some of the points are contentious and make me,
personally, feel uncomfortable. There is value in being uncomfortable and
reading someone point out flaws that I might (ok...that I do) have. It feels
bad initially, but sometimes you need that slap in the face to get out of a
rut or spark a change in your life.

~~~
buf
Thanks for the advice. I've come to realize that posting anything on HN will
always amount to some bit of criticism.

Also, I agree that you're spot on with your idea that there is value in being
uncomfortable. I agree so much, in fact, that I wrote a blog article about how
being uncomfortable is a great motivator.

It's called, "Please, Make Yourself Uncomfortable."

Here it is: [http://bufr.tumblr.com/post/6768971854/please-make-
yourself-...](http://bufr.tumblr.com/post/6768971854/please-make-yourself-
uncomfortable)

~~~
AznHisoka
I notice a basic difference between men (which most ppl here in HN are) and
women is that men's first impulse is to be critical, while women lean towards
being supportive... nothing inherently wrong with either approach, both have
its merits at certain times... if you're looking for emotional support,
absolutely DO NOT go to men. They're horrible and want to suggest solutions,
while you just want to be listened to.

------
gueritaverde
I don't think bettering yourself necessarily means getting into a career with
code. Not sure if that's how you meant it, but I think the idea is to
continually develop and learn and if you aren't happy, do something about it.

That's why I am learning to code. Not to be an engineer or to code day to day,
but to open more opportunities to work with people and to be able to hang with
the brogrammers. Current iteration is recruiter, who knows where I will end
up, but I sure as hell am going to keep improving myself and keep looking
until I find it!

~~~
buf
Hi Christina! I'll be in Seattle in January. Let's meet for a coffee and show
me around town!

Also, I didn't mean to imply that engineers are the only people doing
anything. Continuous improvement was the point, and your friends can help you
get there as long as you pick your friends right.

------
fvlr
I would love to know more about this story. I think too many people out there
feels in the same situation.

Randy Pausch said: "The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls
are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to
show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people
who don't want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!"

My congratulations for her. She is another living example for inspiration.

------
goblin89
Seems like most people strongly disagrees with that bottom line about friends,
ignoring the rest of the post, which is very inspiring. Thanks!

I actually somewhat agree with that bottom line. The whole point is lost when
we try to put it more softly and ‘appropriately’. It just sounds too unnatural
for us social creatures. But it is in some way true, as it is true that your
environment influences you much:

For example, people born in poor families have little chance to become rich
and successful no matter how hard they work—it just requires different
mindset. That mindset, it seems, can be acquired by either a) moving away from
friends and family that drag you down (the earlier the better) or, probably,
b) being an introvert, asocial person. I've had myself a similar experience.

I think I've read somewhere that the more social a species is, the less smart
its representatives are at average—take for example dogs and cats. (I would
appreciate if someone would confirm or disprove that information. And it
should still be mentioned that individual intelligence doesn't appear to
matter much in a group work anyway
<http://lesswrong.com/lw/3mh/link_collective_intelligence/.>)

~~~
__rkaup__
You can't train a cat like you can train a dog.

------
pingswept
I know this is barely relevant, but anyway: if we're all the average of our 5
closest friends, it means we're all identical, unless the population is split
into disjoint subgroups that have no friendships between them.

If that's not the case, how could the highest-quality person have 5 friends?
By definition, they're all worse than her, so their average can't be equal to
her, unless we're all equal.

Anyway, back to the anecdotes about Eventbrite or whatever.

~~~
eipipuz
Consider an icosahedron. At each vertex a person with a vector pointing
outwards. In this example, people are normalized and can be understood by 3
dimensions. There you have 12 unique persons, each of them an average of the 5
surrounding it. Pick one of them as the best, you will see that doesn't in any
way violate that it is still the average.

Anyway, yeah, it also smells bad, but it could have a grain of truth.

~~~
pingswept
Ah, and I had assumed we were scalars!

But you're right, and what's even better is that the icosahedron case
generalizes to people walking on the surface of a sphere (assuming they're
evenly spaced).

~~~
Eliezer
Erm, I could be wrong but wouldn't the icosahedron be the maximum "evenly
spaced" set of people on the surface of a sphere (that weren't all confined to
a great circle)? Lots of regular polygons, rather fewer regular polyhedra.

(Of course if we make the jump to a 4D sphere we can put 600 people into the
largest regular polytope, the hexacosichoron.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convex_regular_4-polytope>)

EDIT: I am wrong, it'd only take a uniform polyhedron, not a regular one. E.g.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icosidodecahedron>

------
scottallison
FYI, the original quote is by motivational "guru" Jim Rohn: “You are the
average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

------
egypturnash
I take issue with that 'bottom line'. I have friends who I hang out with and
talk about the business side of what we do, yeah. We also spend a hell of a
lot of time just kicking around and critiquing PROJECT IDEAS, and sharing the
stuff we've found that we think is pretty awesome.

~~~
swanson
All the things you are listed are about Getting Better...

Your conversations shouldn't be reciting self-help books to each other.
Sharing stuff you think is awesome and kicking around projects are both great
examples of bettering each other. Gossiping about celebrities or talking about
that new World of Warcraft expansion pack are not.

~~~
westicle
What if you happen to think the new World of Warcraft expansion pack is
awesome?

~~~
count
Improved micro is still self improvement :)

------
azakai
Warning: This website maxes out your CPU, for no obvious reason. Happens on
Firefox and Opera.

Might be related to the fancy graphical effect on the top there. Is it worth
making all of our fans run, though, I am not sure.

------
dells
writing software is not the only way to change the world. though, if this is
the life she was interested in living, this is an awesome story for her. most
decent people's friends don't necessarily need to be engineers or high
achievers to have great value. (none of that is positive or negative in
response to the post.)

------
notpmocd
Cute anecdote, but I was hoping for something about social media data
analysis...

------
albertobrandao
Amazing article, thank you for it.

------
georgieporgie
What? What was with the Eventbrite 'brogrammer' paragraph? You seem to say
that 'marrying' social life and technology is a bad thing, but it's the segue
into her (apparent) use of user groups and networking to further her career.
Also:

 _Bottom line: If the main topic of conversation you have with your friends is
not how you can better yourself, you need to get new friends._

Uh. No. If you drop universal statements like that, you're probably... Well, I
won't go into it. At any rate, there are a wide variety of reasons to have
friends.

~~~
pnathan
What is a _brogrammer_ , anyway? I am imagining something like the Cheezburger
"Bro" site, but sitting at a computer??

~~~
chugger
Bros before Hoes

~~~
irahul
English isn't my first language, but I believe "hoe" means prostitute, and
doesn't have any positive connotations in any context.

Your remark doesn't have anything to do with the context, and is offensive.

~~~
jinfiesto
"Ho" means prostitute. "Hoe" means garden tool.

------
zyfo
_If the main topic of conversation you have with your friends is not how you
can better yourself, you need to get new friends._

Or, put another way, if you prefer to read fiction and non-personal non-
fiction rather than self-help books you need to get some new books. Why?
Because Oprah said so.

~~~
khafra
I agree with the implication that talking about bettering yourself isn't
usually the best way to better yourself.

------
MostAwesomeDude
I'm a 99% introvert, with an EQ of 42. This post really fails to account for
outliers; sometimes people are simply far out of line with respect to the
average.

~~~
mrlinx
hello there fellow intovert. quick question, where did you measure your EQ?

~~~
Quipr
<http://lmgtfy.com/?q=empathy+quotient+test>

Click the guardian one.

~~~
piface
I apparently scored a whopping 16 points.

~~~
mrlinx
me having 26 seems a rather good score after reading yours.

------
suivix
My close friends all moved away after I graduated college two years ago... am
I a nothing person because I'm not a socialite like Jane?

------
gregw100
This advice is far from universal, though it's an interesting insight into the
author's perspective on friends. If you are the type of person who would
rather take your own advice, regardless of whom you have frequent social
interactions with, then your close friends (however many you have, five is not
necessary) are more than likely going to be people who accept the fact that
they do not control your life. That doesn't mean that they are not your
friends. It just means you don't use your "friends" as bars with which you are
constantly trying to get above. Friends are people who you choose to be with,
for whatever reason. So if you have the need to constantly feel like shit by
having your friends tell you how much your life sucks in order to feel
motivated enough to take action for yourself, than this advice is for you. But
many people would rather not hang their life's course on the words of their
five closest friends. Not to say I'm not impressed by "Jane's" achievements,
because that sounds like a hell of a lot of dedication!

------
Flam
I like your articles. Bookmark'd your blog. You are wise.

