People as Vectors of Direction

One of the undeniably hardest parts about being ambitious is knowing if what you are doing is leading you in the right direction. People are one of the best indicators of your direction, and where you are headed. In no order, here are some thoughts abouts how who you surround yourself with is vital to knowing yourself.

You are your environment : Science has shown that the best indicator of your income is your parent’s income, and the zip code you grew up in is one of the best predictor’s of financial mobility. Who you surround yourself with is who you become so think about who you surround yourself with. In the words of Kurt Vonnegut, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” Be careful of who you surround yourself with.

You are not a prisoner to your environment : In the African Queen, Katherine tells Humphrey that “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we were put in the world to rise above.” It is natural for you to gamble if you are surrounded by gambling just as it is natural to go to prison if you are surrounded by criminals. You can leave, move, shield yourself. MJ Demarco — author of the fastlane millionaire — talks about leaving his Chicago home and driving to Arizona with nothing. A few years later, he became a millionaire through hard work and consistency. You, too, can leave your Chicago.

You are overwhelmed and impressed by the average person around you — It becomes a shock what you can accomplish. This is one of the most powerful moments you can experience. At this stage of life, you think of ways to do things you never though of before. You might even believe that as long as you can dream it, you can do it. For me, this happened when I went to a summer program in sophomore year of high school, and started learning what my peers were doing: they were doing research, founders of non-profits, and competitive coding medalists. For the first time, I felt inspired by my peers.

Your friends are doing impressive things. I had already met many impressive people in high school. In college, this continued but I gradually became less impressed at what I had already seen. At one point, I realized that this average was quite high. I knew several friends that got into YCombinator, was an Olmypian, or published in places like NeurIPS. It felt like each year, one of my friends would win Forbes 30 Under 30 one morning. In a super high-growth environment, when you forget about looking at accomplishments relatively and instead absolutely, you realize the average is in the top 1%. You are probably there, too.

If you haven’t experienced the last two felings: the overwhelming inspiration or the aclimatization to excellence, don’t worry! Find great people, talk with them, go to environments where they exist and, soon enough, you will be among them too. When I went to a summer program at Penn four years ago, one of those ones where you pay too much money for a program that gives you no advantage in admissions, I deliberately learned stories of all sorts of people around me. These people were far more successful and accomplished than me, but their stories reminded me we were of the same creed and that I could dream bigger. A program that should have just been a money grab for my family turned into a mentality that taught me curiosity and humility: it helped me think outside of just myself and my school and now the country and the world. Not all of us get that opportunity, but what all of us can do is humbly and hungrily learn from those that we admire.