The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be.
Interpretation
Surrounding yourself with the right people can accelerate your personal growth.
This quote by Reid Hoffman emphasizes the powerful influence that the company we keep has on our personal development. By associating with individuals who embody the traits and behaviors we aspire to, we can more rapidly and effectively transform ourselves, as their attitudes and practices can inspire and guide us toward our goals.
In practice
During a workshop on personal development, I shared this quote to encourage participants to evaluate their social circles.
Leaders, whether in the public or the private sphere, must understand the responsibilities that come with their role. They are the most visible standard-bearers of their organizations. Holding them accountable to this responsibility protects the promise of our organizations and our communities.
The same instincts that make us good students can make us lousy entrepreneurs.
The entrepreneurial journey starts with jumping off a cliff and assembling an airplane on the way down.
Any effort to make the death penalty speedier and less costly - more 'efficient' - will inevitably make it less just.
I've long believed that if you're not embarrassed by your first product release, you've released too late.
Good ideas need good strategy to realize their potential.
Part of being a revolutionary is creating a vision that is more humane. That is more fun, too. That is more loving. It's really working to create something beautiful.
There are something like 300 anti-genocide chapters on college campuses around the country. It's bigger than the anti-apartheid movement. There are something like 500 high school chapters devoted to stopping the genocide in Darfur. Evangelicals have joined it. Jewish groups have joined it.
Openings come quickly, sometimes, like blue space in running clouds. A complete overcast, then a blaze of light.
If, in our world, there is any chance of becoming the person you haven't yet become...will I know how to seize that chance, turn my life into a garden that will be completely different from my forebears'?
Great upheavals produce shock waves that widen cracks in political, economic, and security orders. Sometimes the old orders break. Yet it can be in the power of leaders and peoples to shape the directions of change.
Nothing that you plan is going to work out. Everything is going to be totally different than the way you expected. And things will constantly challenge you. Wherever you look the world is not as solid it seems to be.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.