Trevor Davis
Nov 3 · 5 min read

I love cliche quotes. The ones we hear or read nearly everyday. The ones found on every soccer mom’s kitchen wall, or in every office breakroom.

We become numb, complacent, even blind to what they actually mean. Often putting them there because we think they sound cool or make us appear deep and philosophical.

One of my favorites is: Surround yourself with people that are better than you.

You see it everywhere.

But how valid is it as advice? Has it earned the lack of attention it gets now?

Instagram and Pinterest are filled with a score of inspirational quotes and misquotes. The very design of their social media platforms propagate misinformation and incorrect data that the general users don’t bother to fact-check for a minute.

Another common version of the phrase is “You’re the Average of the Five People You Surround Yourself with.”

A few years ago, maybe three or so, I had a friend. A friend that had gone from a seemingly solid relationship to a single mother of two after having a domestic partnership for over a decade. She moved back in with her parents and skipped around for awhile on low paid jobs before finding a niche she was good at. Numbers. She became the bookkeeper for a couple small restaurants in town, something she’d done for her ex’s business that she’d helped to build from the ground up.

Eventually she landed a full-time gig at one of the larger pubs in town as their full time bookkeeper and office manager.

Things look pretty solid, right? She was moving up consistently after such a drag-down.

Then things plateaued. She locked into a meager salary doing what she was doing in exchange for finding a comfort zone. A happy place, in a sense. She wasn’t making anywhere near enough money to move out of her parent’s place and find an apartment for her and her two kids.

And she didn’t care. It was easy. Nothing scary. Nothing hard.

She’s in her 40s, with no drive for the future of her or her kids.

She doesn’t get child support since they split custody down the middle.

She’s coasting through life with no engine and only a set of highly sensitive brakes, which she uses often. Anytime something comes along and challenges her to better herself and her family.

I met this woman, lets call her Jen, not long after everything went down with her Ex. We became friends around the time Jen started working at the pub full time. Let me tell you, as a regular at that pub, it was handy having the bookkeeper on my friends list.

We became fairly close, on a platonic-level, and spent a lot of time together.

I pushed her, gently at first, once I realized that math and numbers really were her “thing.” I wanted her to pursue an accounting degree. What better time to do it? She was a single mother that could get innumerable grants and scholarships to help out. Her parents could handle her kids on school days. There was even a satellite university campus in our town that offered all of the initial classes she’d need.

Even the CPA that she worked in tandem with at the pub pushed her to pursue an accounting degree. He told her he’d help her get into a school, offering letters of reference and even contacts. Offered to be her mentor.

And still, she declined. Wouldn’t even consider the idea.

Because it scared her. Challenged her. It was going to take a lot of work. But the payoff would be beyond her wildest dreams. She’d basically be doing what she already was doing, but for five times the salary, providing a future for herself and for her kids.

At some point I quit pushing. I had to or I would lose a friend. So I started just watching her coast. Hanging out and getting beers. Talking about life and her kids. Never broaching the subject again.

Until one day I noticed it affecting me. The “comfort,” the laziness.

The lack of drive.

Jen started to get grouchier. Crankier. She went from one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met to one of the snappiest with a hair trigger temper. I hoped this was an indicator that she was going to finally push herself. Finally have that moment where she found herself wanting more from her life and being willing to pursue it.

She didn’t. In fact, she became even more against hard work and pursuing her future. It became hard just to hang out with her anymore.

Most of Jen’s friends were the same as her. She surrounded herself with women who were divorced but received hefty alimony checks every month and didn’t have to work. With people who worked as cooks four hours a day in the resort town nearby for free season ski passes, but couldn’t even afford to put new tires on their worn-out Subarus, saying they just wanted the good life, while mooching beers and weed off their friends with good jobs. People who were waiting for their parents to die so they could collect an inheritance, their only retirement plan.

It was hard, but I distanced myself from that crowd, that group. I started socializing with people who had built their own successful businesses from scratch. People who had clawed their way up from the bottom and now ran multi-million dollar companies.

The difference was subtle at first. A little here, a little there. A more positive mood about staying later to finish something so I could start the next day ahead. Investment opportunities. A drive to rekindle my writing career. A push to see what I could turn all of the opportunities starting to appear, into.

My life really did start to turn around. Am I suddenly rich? No. Am I happy, finding a drive again? A purpose? Hell yes.

That phrase, that oft quoted, yet frequently overlooked truth: “You’re the Average of the Five People You Surround Yourself with” really means something to me. As a saying is it good for everyone? Probably not. But for me, for anyone like me, I’d say it’s huge.

I’m not running out to buy a placard on Etsy with it embossed on it in shabby chic chalk paint. But I keep it in the back of my mind to remind me to push myself for what I could accomplish if I keep focused. Keep trying to better myself.

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