If you want to be the best version of yourself, it’s important to make sure you surround yourself with people who share your values and want what’s best for you.

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Here’s a transcript of our conversation:

Brittany: Hi, Ronni.

Ronni: Hey, Brittany.

Brittany: Did you ever have, at any point in your life, your mom getting nervous about the kind of friends you were hanging out with? And it doesn’t necessarily mean they were, but did your mom or dad ever be like, oh, maybe be careful with that person?

Ronni: No, I was perfect. I never did anything wrong. I’m just kidding. Actually. I really did have good friends, but even still, I think my parents were always a little bit nervous because they just didn’t know. And so yes, a few times asked me questions about things, so.

Brittany: That seems normal, right? I think parents do that. Well, I remember my parents having, were a little bit worried about some of the friends I was hanging out with, but it wasn’t, they were doing bad things. Do you like sneaking out or something? It was because their manners were bad. Maybe they were really rude when they came to my house or they didn’t respect the rules that my parents had in place in our house. And I think the reason that our parents get worried about that kind of stuff is because they’re worried that our friend’s behavior is going to rub off on us and that we’ll start acting rude. And you do see that with kids. I remember as a teacher, you would see kids change based on who their group of friends was because it does make a huge impact. This isn’t a crazy idea that parents think is a big deal, and it isn’t because the people we hang around with have a huge impact on our own behavior and the kind of things we do. So, maybe you’ve noticed this, Ronni. I know that a lot of the music I listen to, or even movies I watch is because of the people I hang around with. And it’s not like I’m copying them or don’t have an original thought. I share things with them too. It’s that when you’re around people enough, you share ideas, you swap ideas and different things you like. So maybe your favorite song you would’ve never found without your friend showing you. And those are good things. I love being able to be exposed to new things, maybe even sports. I’ve never watched soccer before, but when I had a friend who watched soccer, I was like, oh, this is kind of fun. So, things like that or a TV show that I was like, oh, I would’ve never heard of this. But I’m so glad that I watch it now because it’s become one of my favorites. Well, these are all because we are around people, and when you’re around people a lot, you start to do the same things. That’s normal. Think about your family too. Usually, families have that one movie that’s their favorite for our families. Princess Bride growing up, we loved that movie. So again, you’re around a lot of things. You start to like them. So, this all leads to what I want to talk about today, and that is why it’s important to spend your time and surround yourself with good people. And that I think is one of the most important pieces of life advice because again, you hang out with, so the network of people that you surround yourself with 100% has a huge impact on your life. And the Tuttle Twins’ 12 New Rules boot camp, which is based on my favorite Jordan Peterson book, one of the rules is to Keep Good Company. And that’s just so important. So that’s what this all kind of boils down to. So if you surround yourself with people who maybe aren’t motivated and who don’t, for example, I remember I had friends a couple of years ago that I’m really motivated. I have a strict routine, I have a schedule, I have things I do, and they weren’t like that. And that doesn’t mean that they’re bad people. That just means we have different value systems. I valued doing as much hard work as I can, and sometimes that’s not good either. I burn out, you have to balance everything. But I had friends who didn’t care about making their careers better. They didn’t care about improving their quality of life. They were okay to just float by in life without having goals and all these things. They were very unmotivated. And I did notice that the longer I was friends with them, the more I was willing to be like, oh, well, I have this really important thing I need to do, but I’ll take the night off to go hang out with these friends. And then you do that more and more and you find yourself becoming less motivated. And again, that doesn’t mean that they’re bad people. It just meant that we had different things that we found important. So, if you, you’re going to be around people who aren’t motivated, then you’re going to find yourself unmotivated. And so you also want to hang out with people who want the best for you. And I think that that’s another problem because even though, again, it’s not bad if people don’t set goals, I think you’ll have a happier life if you do. But when these friends would also say like, oh, just skip that thing you have to do tonight and come hang out with us. It almost feels like they didn’t want the best for me because I think friends who want the best for us or company, ‘ll push you to go to be your best self, right? That’s what I think. I don’t know about My best friend will always push me to be better. I don’t know if you have a friend like that, Ronni.

Ronni: Well, actually, it’s interesting as you’re talking about this because I very much agree with you, but I feel is right before we started recording this, I actually mentioned that I was trying to drink a gallon of water a day. Well, there’s actually more to that story. So, there’s this health challenge thing that’s out there. You may have heard of it. It’s called 75 Hard. Have you ever heard of that before?

Brittany: No.

Ronni: Okay. Well, it’s like a challenge. And you’re supposed to do two workouts a day and then drink a gallon of water and try to eat.

Brittany: Two workouts are a lot.

Ronni: I know, I know. Well, they’re like 45 minutes. And you can do things like going on a hike or watching a yoga video, which is what I’ve been doing, and eating healthy food and reading 10 pages of a book. It’s just a list of things. It’s supposed to be hard for 75 days, but am decided recently that I want to try to develop better habits. Because previously in my life, I’d kind of fallen into a place where people that I hung out with a lot weren’t as encouraging, I guess, and weren’t as, didn’t really feel as though they pushed me. So I decided to do this challenge, and I found a friend who is also doing this challenge at the same time. And so we’re being accountability partners. I’ve only been, this is only day four, okay?

Brittany: Day four is better than no day. So, good job.

Ronni: But it’s already, I can definitely say that it makes a huge difference when you have a friend or a group of friends or a family in your life that is encouraging and encourages you to become a better person and to improve and to stick to things. And so that definitely, it’s extremely important. So, I was just throwing in my own little example right now.

Brittany: I mean, I love that. Again, I’m big on storytelling and personal examples. I could just rant all day about this is good, but if you don’t have examples, it’s really not. People are be like, so what? Prove it. Yeah. So, these people we surround ourselves with really play a big role. And if you don’t surround yourself with people who don’t want what’s best or who don’t have the same values as you are going to suffer a little bit, right? Because your life isn’t going to be as successful or as good as it could be. And so we create our own networks in our lives, and those are of course the people we want to be around. And that includes family and friends and mentors, which we’ve talked about how important those are and all these people who influence them. But here’s the cool part about that. It’s not all just like I need to surround myself with better people. You should also be the person that people want to surround themselves with because I think you can be a good example and lead by example. So, just like we have good influences around us, we want to make sure that we are those people. And so, we want to make sure that there’s a give and take, that you’re both contributing, you’re both adding value to each other’s life. And I want to say, who wants the best for us in our lives too? I’m not saying that means let’s be the rich. I’m only going to hang our rich people to be rich. I want to have the newest this. It just means living a full life with purpose, which I think is the most important thing in the world where we try our best to succeed at what we do. We try our best to be good people. And so that’s always been a big thing for me. And I wish I would’ve learned that earlier because I think I did have this belief when I was younger that magically I was just going to become more successful, and I didn’t really have to do anything about it. So, I was going to hang out with friends that didn’t really try. I even remember, and you guys know how I feel about college. I don’t think that’s the end all be all. But I remember having friends who worked in a restaurant, which is very hard work, I think every job is so important and has so much value, but they just didn’t have any desire to do something else when they got their job. They just wanted to stay there. And that’s just a weird feeling to me. I don’t know about you, Ryan. I think we’ve talked about being overachievers before, but I am not okay to just be in the same spot forever. I want to be better than I was the day before. I think you can relate. Am I wrong?

Ronni: Yes. I’m constantly, oh, what’s something new I can do? What can I learn? What can I accomplish and achieve all the time?

Brittany: It’s really time-consuming guys there. It’s not enough hours in the day. So, maybe there’s a balance. Maybe we want to meet too much. But again, a lot of this just has to do with the people in your life. And so I’ve always loved that Jordan Peterson rule and the Tuttle Twins version of the rule that just tells you, if you want to improve your life, if you want to be better, you have to make sure that you’re hanging around people that want the best for you. So, we’ll keep this one kind of short today, but I just want to remind you of that and choose your friends wisely. You can’t really pick your family. So, you guys all better get along on that one, but you can choose other people. So, as always, don’t forget to and subscribe to the podcast. Until next time, Ronni, we’ll talk to you later.

Ronni: All right, see you soon.