Jim Rohn, American entrepreneur, author, and motivation speaker was credited with the saying, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”.
After reading the statement, I asked myself the question, “Can this be true?”.
I believe we are all aware that the influence of friends can have a large bearing on one’s life, both positive and negative. In fact, in my March 2021 blog (https://www.frommydeskathome.com/post/what-is-success-is-it-more-than-fame-and-material-wealth), when referring to the things of success, I pose the question when talking of friends who could determine your future, “Do people add to my life or are they subtracting from my life?” I suggested having a circle of friends that will lift you up and add value to your life were key to you living a successful life. Such friends will spur you on and be an encouragement during the good times and the challenging times. Your circle of friends will usually be those who have at least some common interests, some common values, but often a common 'glue' which holds the friendship together, such as old school or university friends, work colleagues, friends from a sporting club or friends from a similar faith group.
Mind you, having friends is not only a one-way street where you are looking for them to lift you up. Conversely you may have friends who require the same from you and others in their friendship network to encourage them as they confront their challenges or join with them in their celebration of success.
So, when reading that I could be the average of the five people I spend most of my time with, I became quite curious. I understand the intent of the statement that we need to be purposeful whom we hang out with, and if we want to improve ourselves, we need to be among those who will be positive influences on our development and growth.
Photo Credit: Media from Wix
If someone is an avid reader of William Shakespeare, they are more likely to be among fellow readers and fans of the playwriter. It would be very unlikely that they would be found wondering through the exhibits of the Marvel: Universe of Superheroes. As it would be unlikely to find someone who is into streetcar culture walking through the National Herbarium of Victoria in Melbourne Gardens.
I was at a leadership conference a few years ago and in one session the speaker suggested that if we are to improve our leadership mindset, we should seek to be amongst people who exhibit the leadership attributes whose skills, temperament, and values we wish to aspire to have. I am not suggesting that these people become your friends, while they may (over time), however it's more to the point that if we wish to be influenced towards a certain direction, it will be helpful if our sphere of external influence supports our aspirations.
I am sure you have heard the quote which says, "If you want to fly like an eagle, don't hang around turkeys!". "Why? Because turkeys don't fly!"
I can see the value of being amongst people who can positively influence us, because if you wish to enter a conversation, it will be so much easier if you, and those around you ‘speak’ the same language. Furthermore, if you are wanting to learn from others, what better place to be amongst peers, mentors, and teachers who have a common interest, discipline, and outlook to life.
With the statement from Rohn still bothering me, I went in search of research material which could substantiate that proposition.
Trawling through the Internet I came across an article by David Burkus, published in May 2018, where in it he refutes that the statement “We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with” is true. However, he does provide some qualifications to his conclusion.
He writes, “At least not in the way that you think. I’ve been researching the science of social networks for my newest book, and I found that you are indeed influenced by the people around you. But that influence doesn’t stop anywhere near the five people you spend the most time with. It’s far more dispersed and research suggests it includes people you haven’t even met yet.”
In the article Burkus references studies by Nicholas Christakis, Professor, from Harvard University and James H Fowler, Associate Professor, from University of California.
There were a number of research papers published by Christakis and Fowler, but the two most relevant in reference to the points made by Burkus were drawn from the study on The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsa066082) and research on The Dynamic Spread of Happiness in a Large Social Network: Longitudinal Analysis Over 20 Years in the Framingham Heart Study (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19056788/).
In the second research paper, the objective was to evaluate whether happiness spread from person to person and whether niches of happiness form within social networks.
Photo Credit: Mentatdgt from Pexel
Burkus drew from the studies by Christakis and Fowler that happy friends make you happier. But if your friend of a friend of a friend is happy with their life, then the research suggested that you have a six percent greater likelihood of being happy yourself. In his article, Burkus concludes that while six percent might not seem like much, other studies suggest that if you received a $10,000 pay increase, it would only trigger about a two percent increase in your happiness. I am sure some of you would be happy with the $10,000 raise but remembering not as much as if you’re among happy friends and associates.
The first study mentioned above is however more telling. Christakis and Fowler examined the data set from the Framingham Heart Study over the period spanning from 1971 to 2003. In their research they realized that it covered more than just the heart health of the participants. They studied for all sorts of medical conditions including in the areas of obesity and smoking.
The Christakis and Fowler research found that if a friend of yours becomes obese, you are 45 percent more likely than chance to gain weight over the next two to four years. More surprisingly, however, they found that if a friend of your friend becomes obese, your likelihood of gaining weight increases by about 20 percent, even if you don’t know that friend of a friend. The effect continues one more person out. If a friend of the friend of your friend develops obesity, you are still 10 percent more likely than random chance to gain weight as well.
Not only do your friends influence your propensity to be obese, but so do their friends, and what's more their friends of friends, were the conclusions drawn from their longitudinal study. Because Christakis and Fowler had data spanning over three decades, they were able to show a real cause-and-effect relationship between individual friends (and friends of friends) and weight gains. While the researchers looked for a variety of explanations, they concluded that the most likely one appears to be norms. If your friend is obese or a friend of a friend is obese, that changes your perception of what is an acceptable body size and your behaviour changes accordingly. It might also be that the food consumed around a gathering of such a social network are more conducive to weight gain than lean or more health conscious eating.
Photo Credit: Pixabay
In a follow-up study, Christakis and Fowler found something similar with smoking rates. Using the same social network data, they found that if your friend smokes, you are 61 percent more likely to be a smoker yourself. If a friend of your friend smokes, you are still 29 percent more likely to smoke. And for a friend of a friend, the likelihood is 11 percent. While these remain the results of the study, it could be speculated that if your friend is a smoker, you are likely to be in and around the friend in a smoking environment and therefore perhaps likely to smoke yourself.
It is interesting to further speculate that if you are a non-smoker and most of your social group are non-smokers, a friend who is a smoker might be one who kept up the friendship despite the smoking, and who may be working to change their smoking behaviour. This is where you and others as friends can have a positive influence on someone in your friendship group who is working towards a specific goal of giving up smoking.
From the studies and the research that Burkus investigated for his 2018 book, Friend of a Friend he concluded that our friends are real influencers of our future. The implication is that we don’t just need to be more deliberate about who we spend the most time with. We need to be examining our entire social network and its influence on our life. Even if our connections are a couple of relationships removed from our immediate friend, there will be some influence that these connections will have on us. Burkus suggest that we are the average of all the people who surround us and not simply the average of our five friends we spend most time with. I believe that Burkus is saying that our circle of friends and even the friends of friends has an influence on us, more than we know. While we don't select our friends to wilfully influence others or have them influence us, and to get from them something we are lacking in, there is a subtle "rubbing off" or "exchange" of our values, views and outlook to life among our network of friends. These can be positive values, views and behaviours or they can be negative values, views, and behaviours. Burkus challenges us to look around and make sure we’re in the right surroundings and sphere of influence.
So, what should we be looking for in our social network of friends to ensure that we are living out the best version of ourself?
Jordan Peterson, the author of 12 Rules of Life: An Antidote to Chaos, gives us a clue. He says, “Make friends with people who want the best for you”. It is quite reasonable that our friends are people whom we like to be with. The Merriam-Webster dictionary describes a friend as "a person who you like and enjoy being with". In as much as you would want the best for your friends, see them succeed and do well, there would be an expectation that the friends you make will also have your back. In other words, be a supporter of your endeavours and successes.
Your friendship support network is paramount. Achieving success is much easier when you are surrounded by the right people. Like the research from Christakis and Fowler, there are many other studies that show that having friends is important to our mental, physical, spiritual, and social well-being.
Photo Credit: Jess De Silva
When we were young, we would have made friends because of circumstances, like making friends with neighbours as we shared the same neighbourhood playground or skatepark or like me, staying in the same block of apartments. Other circumstances where we made friends would have been as classmates or enjoyed the same hobby interest or played in the same cricket team. Other instances could have been while we attended the same Sunday School classes or attended the same Youth Camp.
Parents too would try to influence our network of young friends, as they create environments at home where friends can socially interact under their watchful eyes and guidance. Some parents will go to the extent of installing a swimming pool, having a basketball ring, purchasing a pool table or table-tennis table for their children and friends to gather and play in a ‘happy and safe space’. The musically inclined family will probably have a room set aside for a piano, perhaps with a few guitars and sound system where their children can enjoy a jam session at home. There is nothing wrong with this and if parents are willing and able to do this, their children are truly blessed.
Photo Credit: Media from Wix
There is only so much that parents can do, because at the end of the day, we all grow up forming our own social networks and friendships. The influence of parents plays an important role in a child’s life and while not covered in this blog, could be a subject for another essay in the future.
While some of us have continued the same friendships over the years, there is one thing that would have unlikely stayed the same and that is our individual goals and ambitions. These goals and ambitions change over the years as we grow, mature and moved into new environments, like changing neighbourhoods, having to relocate as we pursue our careers or having new goals as we form new relationships, get married, settle down and raise children of your own.
The latter changes are environment related, and their outcomes are often a direct result of the choices we make, either with positive or negative outcomes. One would hope that in most cases, and in the ones that matter the decisions we make are positive ones. The same holds true with the friends we make, particularly as we grow older.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, my March 2021 essay spoke of the value of having positive influences from friends. At the expense of repeating myself, I wrote, ‘have a circle of friends that will lift you up and add value to you’. Ask yourself these questions in determining your friends:
Who encourages me?
Who teaches me?
Who takes me out of my comfort zone?
Who loves me?
Who prays for me?
Who complements me?
In a similar vein, we too need to hold up this 'mirror' to ourselves when being a friend to others. Can we say that we are doing these for our friends in our social network?
Photo Credit: Media from Wix
In her blog, entitled Show Me Your Friends, I’ll Tell You Who You Are, author Jan Osburn shares five attributes your friends should have. These are not too dissimilar to the ones above.
Make you a better person
Support you
Push you to meet your goals
Inspire you
Help you transform
In the same blog, Osburn describes five character-traits of the friends we all should have, and for that matter be, as friends. I would add that the abovementioned attributes should all be wrapped up in each of the character-traits mentioned below. While Osburn classifies each of these five character-traits as stand alone, I suspect that a number of these character-traits could be applied to an individual, and come into play as the circumstances arise.
Dreamers: Firstly, the Dreamer trait does not carry the same negative connotation that we may have been accused of ‘daydreaming’ while in a class listening to a literature review. Osburn writes that while Dreamers can be perceived as being unrealistic, they can stretch us to think creatively and often get us to consider things ‘outside the box’. They will often ask the question “what if” and make us believe that anything is possible.
Drivers: The Driver helps make dreams a reality. Drivers are good at planning, are pragmatic and decisive. They will get us to a point when we must decide. Drivers are those friends focused on results and who will drive us to achieve them.
Motivators: Friends who are Motivators inspire us. Like Drivers, Motivators are focused on results, but not any result. They will keep pushing us until we meet our goals which are often tied to a higher purpose that they know is within us. Motivators are friends who are full of energy and enthusiasm.
Supporters: There is no one like a true friend who will stick by you through the challenges you may face. These friends who are Supporters have the best intentions for you, through ‘thick or thin’. They will be most excited when you succeed in your endeavours.
The Devil’s Advocate: The Devil’s Advocate is a friend who is not afraid to ask questions of you, as they may see problems before they arise. Often the voice of reason, they are critical thinkers. They are friends who will look out for you.
Osburn sums up these character traits simply as:
A Dreamer will help you dream it.
A Driver will help you turn dreams into reality.
A Motivator will inspire you every step of the way.
A Supporter will never leave your side, through good and bad times.
A Devil’s Advocate cuts through the BS and tells you the real deal.
It is important for us to remember that remarkable people produce remarkable people and in turn, success produces success. Not only could we be recipients from our remarkable friends, for our successes, but we could also be contributors to and instruments for our friends' successes.
Photo Credit: Media from Wix
We need to remember the influences that friends have on our lives. As Mark Twain was credited to have said, “Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great”.
The corollary to that, where we can influence others in a positive way, is reflected in this quote by Joel Osteen. “I believe that God has put gifts and talents and ability on the inside of every one of us. When you develop that and you believe in yourself and you believe that you’re a person of influence (as a friend) and a person of purpose, I believe you (and your friends) can rise up of any situation”.
So, choose your friends wisely, but uppermost be a true friend to others.
Comments