Inspired Connections: 5 Ways To Choose Your Circle

If you reached out and talked or texted to your family and friends or co-workers or outside strangers and just asked them how they're feeling,

Most people would kind of like have like a blah response.

It would be tired,

Overwhelmed,

Stressed,

Or maybe they'd fallen to that languishing category that was so popular a year ago.

And that matches the global alarm that the World Health Organization put out a year ago saying that there was a 25% increase in anxiety and depression globally.

And so what do we do?

We're looking for inspiration.

That's what we want.

We want to be inspired.

And so we look for podcasts.

We look for books.

We look for anything that will help lift us,

Give us ideas,

Something to help move the needle,

Get us unstuck in some way.

And so we're kind of like looking in the right places,

But not really.

So today I want to talk to you about where's the right place to look,

The most effective,

Most impactful place to move the needle that you can begin making progress with today or at least making shifts with today.

And I'll give you a secret.

Science points to the most impactful place to look is right around you.

Throughout your journey of life,

You may have come across this American entrepreneur's name,

Jim Rohn,

Who was famous for the saying,

You're the average of the five people you surround yourselves with.

Years later,

Scientists found out that's kind of true.

We found out that things like obesity is contagious up to three degrees.

We found out that loneliness and positive emotion and life satisfaction is even contagious.

And so who we surround ourselves with or make regular contact with really matters.

But if you mine all the world's wisdom traditions,

If you mine all the science out there that's around real deep psychological well-being,

Like real happiness,

You're going to find five essential traits that you want to surround yourselves with and get some contagion with.

And why?

To feel good in life,

To feel a deep sense of groundedness and connection and just a real kind of happiness that's out there and resiliency and purpose and meaning.

So this is what we're after.

So I'm going to go through these five with you right now.

The first one,

The first one is genuineness.

So what does that mean?

That means that at an early age,

We begin to adopt this sense of just leaning into what other people are doing.

We learn to wear other people's clothes other people are wearing and or talk like other people and never forget when I changed,

I came from my family,

Came from New England.

I started really intentionally changing my accent when I moved to California because I wanted to belong.

I didn't want to be different.

So this sense of belonging,

This need for belonging and connection,

Which is essentially,

We all essentially belong,

But like we try to get back to it in some way,

Causes us to act differently and think differently.

So eventually what we want is we want to surround ourselves with people that accept us for who we are or that live in a genuine way so we can get a little bit of that contact high and we want that to influence us so we can feel more calm and authentic and confident with who we are.

Imagine what would be different in the days,

Weeks and months ahead if you felt comfortable living your genuine self.

OK,

Number two,

Energized.

We all have aspirations and goals.

And for most of us,

We just get stuck.

That's the reality.

And we don't continue and fulfill those goals.

So what do we want?

We want people who we have contact with who are living in accordance with their values,

Who do have goals and aspirations,

And they're making progress with them.

The science is very clear that when we have goals,

Small goals,

Large goals,

And we accomplish those goals,

We feel better.

That's just it.

Sometimes it's just that simple.

So we want people that we make contact with that are also living alongside that life.

And so we can glean the energy or even have conversations with them to work out our stuckness so that we can also make those progresses,

Not so that we could be famous and wealthy and like all this stuff,

But so that we know that's a recipe for being happier.

And so what would the days,

Weeks and months ahead be like if you surround yourself with that kind of energy?

So you felt more energized.

OK,

Number three.

Number three is about being brave.

So we know that obstacles are inevitable in life.

And to be able to take risks to to grow,

Whether it's financially grow or whether it is in our intimate relationships or whether it's to grow with our own health,

Meaning like actually get up and start an exercise plan or something like that.

We know that that takes courage.

And so we want to be able to surround ourselves with other people who are who do exert that kind of courage or or send us that kind of energy,

Give us that kind of energy when we think about them and it inspires us to live in that kind of way.

And we want that to rub off on us.

So if if you think about a person,

You say,

Does this person inspire more courage in me?

And the answer is yes.

Put them in your orbit.

OK,

Number four,

Playful.

The whole endeavor of like being better in life in some way is all too serious.

You know,

It's all too serious.

Put too much pressure on us.

There's so much pressure around there.

I mean,

Sometimes I look at some of my social media feeds and I feel like there's so much pressure to get better and and to like,

You know,

Live in a particular way.

And and it becomes very rigid.

And so we need to have a more playful mindset.

Research shows that when we have more or more playful mindset,

We create more cognitive flexibility.

That means we we're where we are able to roll with the punches a little bit more.

We understand that obstacles are inevitable in life and we learn from them instead of get stuck in this idea that,

Like,

I tried this thing,

I knew I couldn't do it.

And so that's it.

I'm done.

We want to have a more playful mindset.

By the way,

Having more playful minds,

It's more fun.

So if you have people around you and you think about them and you think that they're kind of flexible and playful and they make their endeavors fun.

We want to keep them in our orbit.

OK,

Number five,

Purposeful.

If you look at all the world's wisdom traditions,

If you look at the science,

You will find that deep happiness,

Real happiness involves feeling a sense of purpose,

Meaning and connection.

It's not just like pleasurable experiences.

The Greeks have two different terms for happiness,

Eudaimonic happiness and hedonic happiness.

Hedonic happiness is the simple pleasures in life.

If we're just seeking those,

The high moments,

Then that's actually associated with more cellular inflammation.

And those kind of biomarkers are not things we want in our lives too much of it.

We do want the pleasurable experiences,

But not without the deep purpose,

Meaning and connection.

So when we talk about people in our orbit,

This could be physical people.

This could be spiritual beings that you can't see.

That's your belief system.

So God and other beings that are out there.

These can be a sense of meaning,

Purpose,

Connection with your pets.

What's something greater than yourself?

So when you think of this person or animal or being,

And this inspires a sense of purpose,

Meaning and connection,

You say yes to that.

One of the most famous scientists on the planet historically,

If not the most famous scientist out there,

Said that the very idea that we're disconnected from each other or don't understand the influence,

The invisible influence that we have on each other is an optical delusion of separateness.

That was Albert Einstein.

And so just knowing that we impact each other for better or worse can help us understand that we need to surround ourselves with or make more frequent contact with other people who we want to inspire certain things in.

And so we can actually set up this network or this frequency of contact with people who are going to inspire a feeling of being more genuine in our lives,

To feel a greater sense of energy,

To accomplish the things we want to accomplish,

To feel more playful.

So we could be more have more cognitive flexibility to have the courage to actually go after the life that we want and to make it more meaningful,

Purposeful and to feel that sense of connection and belonging that's here.

And so go ahead and consider who this is for you and begin to make steps to make more frequent contact with these people.