Pick your friends, not your nose.

Why your ride or die is the most important decision you’ll ever make.

If Mean Girls has taught us anything, it’s that we need to get better at choosing our friends. Despite whatever immediate benefits it may bring you in the context of high school prom, it’s worth it to resist the temptation to befriend only the most popular girl in school. As well, don’t waste your time trying to be the most popular girl in school. In the limited perspective we have as kids, it’s easy to get caught up in the desire to be the big fish in our small pond. Being the best and the brightest is encouraged, envied, revered by everyone whose respect we look to hold as we grow up.

But being the best of course means you’re constantly surrounded by people who are not the best. So you stop pushing yourself to perform. When we’re not challenged, we’re not motivated to push our boundaries beyond our comfort zone. We tend to surround ourselves with people that make us feel good, because it’s easy. Those people with whom we have a lot in common, rather than those who present a challenge. But either way, they will shape us as much as we shape them. When challenges subside and we remain within that comfort zone, it often results in a sort of stagnation. There exists at this point a great equalizer that is a direct result of complacency. If you remain the big fish, are the rest propelling you to grow bigger, or will they one day bring you down to their size?

The thing we often miss in those formative years is that the quiet kid that hid behind a computer all day and didn’t bother attending the prom may one day be the creator of the next Whatsapp. The Asian kid that was awkward around girls and freakishly good at math may end up as Google’s CEO. The black kid who couldn’t pass his English class may end up being the next president of the United States. More importantly, they may end up being the people you want on your team. The people you will depend on to shape your own success. The people that inspire you, whom you find you can talk to for hours about the things that matter. With whom you can create something of substance. Rather than engaging in constant conversations about the golden years of the past.

We are all directly influenced by the people with whom we surround ourselves. The idea is to find those that complement us, even if they don’t always compliment us. Find those people that make you feel inadequate yet motivated to reach their level. Or higher. Those people that are doing, that have perspective to share and a passion of their own.

These days I’m no longer the kid in the room that doesn’t understand what the grownups are talking about. We’ve all been there. The boys talking business. Men and politics. Terms and phrases and news and laughing about jokes that don’t seem funny. But as we grow, we not only understand, but need to be part of, the conversation. It also, however, comes with a sort of realization that the world isn’t quite as we thought it was. The Big Guys don’t always know what they’re doing. Not everyone who’s educated is intelligent. The emperor is not, in fact, wearing any clothes.

I’ve found that because of decisions I’ve made in my life and in my career, I’m now surrounded by the right people. I intend to never lose that small inkling of self-doubt, or rather, that drive to keep bridging the gap, to keep going further. When you’re surrounded by the best and the brightest, you need to become one or you fall out. So you do. And you share the growing pains, the trials, the successes and the roller coaster of emotions along the way. And then you push farther. I used to be plagued with a feeling of inadequacy. Everyone I met was moving faster. Harder. Earlier. And in ways I’d never considered. But it just kept raising the bar. So now, instead of looking down, I continue to reach up.