Who You Spend Time With Matters

"We’d like to think we are above being influenced by others, but of course that’s not true. We are shaped by the people we spend time with, and the examples we observe. Benjamin Hardy has called this the “proximity effect,” and many years ago Jim Rohn famously declared that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with."Ryan discusses why it's so important that you carefully choose who you associate with, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com.

• 0:29Ryan Holiday?

  Who you spend time with matters. We'd like to think that we are above being influenced by others, but of course, that's not true. We are shaped by the people we spend time with and the examples we observe. Benjamin Hardy has called this "the proximity effect", and many years ago Jim Rohn famously declared that "we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with." Turns out that this idea goes back even further. As Seneca wrote, "Even Socrates and Cato might have been shaken in their moral strength by a crowd that was unlike them. So true it is that none of us, no matter how much he cultivates his abilities, can withstand the influences of their surroundings." And isn't that the

• 1:11Ryan Holiday?

  story of Seneca himself? Drawn into Nero's Court, Seneca was sapped of his moral strength until he could barely recognize who he had become. "Do not think that you are better than him. If Cato or Socrates would be unable to resist the seductions of the mob, if Seneca couldn't maintain his equilibrium, what makes you think you will be any different? The offer to work for some notoriously bad boss, to make a boatload of money in a sketchy industry, to serve in some compromised administration, it will not end well. It must be turned down. It is the call of a siren, and it will wreck you. Associate with those who will make a

• 1:51Ryan Holiday?

  better man of you," Seneca wrote, and it was a prophetic warning, one that he himself ignored. So we must learn from his example and be better, because who you spend time with matters.

• 2:05Ryan Holiday?

  And look, this is one of the reasons we've built out Daily Stoic Life, a members-only community of people who are pursuing this calling, this study of Stoic philosophy. I love seeing the posts every day in our Facebook group, people who are volunteering to be accountability partners with each other, people who are putting up thoughts or ideas or posing problems to solve with each other. It's just been awesome, people even now meet in real life. And not only do you get all that with Daily Stoic Life, you get additional Daily Stoic emails on Saturday and Sunday. And of course, you get access to all the courses and challenges that we've talked about here, including our New Year, New You Challenge, which is coming up in January. So check out dailystoiclife.com. We'd love to have you.

• 2:48Ryan Holiday?

  And again, who you associate with determines who you're going to be. And so I think it's a good idea to associate with some people who are on the same journey.