how I found friends who actually inspire me

I've been so fortunate lately to be around so high achieving, so smart people all the time and I also made a video about this separate from this one, but I feel like I've learned so much and I feel like I have the obligation to literally share this with the world because I think this is one of the most important things that could have happened in my 20s or honestly at any age and any time. Friendships are probably one of the most important things you can work on when you're young and when you're older, too. Like this should be a priority. Love and having this friendship love and closeness and caring deeply for a person should be your priority, not your discipline, not your goals, not anything like that.

And there's a lot of reasons for that, but one of the main reasons is that you will live longer if you have a quality group of people in a community around you that will help you in all levels. Like if you have this community around you when you're older of people that will help you a lot and you feel like you're close to them, then you will lower your cortisol, you will be less stressed, you will increase your life expectancy by like 24%. You will cut your like disease risk, like heart diseases or strokes. Also, students with proactive study groups, like for example, high achieving students who group together and study together, their GPAs are shown to be way higher and their persistence is also shown to be way higher.

Teaching others or learning from peers is also very important because it boosts your skills, your memory, your just understanding of the thing that you're teaching. And I have experienced this a lot first hand because if you're surrounded by people who know a lot about what you want to learn about or who have the mentalities that you want to have and who are kind of the people that you want to be in the future, then you are way more likely to end up in basically the same mentalities and same mindsets and be closer to who you want to be. Like being in San Francisco and having friends from San Francisco, I've learned so much about the AI, I've learned so much about the startup mentality and the fact that I have no limits and I can basically create anything. That I always wanted to have this mentality, but I never truly ended up having it because I just never saw a role model or someone in my life that has it.

Like I've never had anyone close to me that has this mentality. And we learn so much and we easier from peer-to-peer, person-to-person than from an influencer or a podcaster because we are not there when they face the hardships of their lives or the things they struggle with the day-to-day life that they live in. I've seen a lot of benefits and I've seen a lot of benefits and I'm going to go through all of the benefits that I've seen, but I just want to say that this is probably the most important thing that you can do for your future self and for your current self, too. Investing time in love, in caring for people, and gardening these very deep connections with people, and actually truly loving people, I think.

I don't do this. I don't do this as much as I should, but it's probably one of the best things you can do for you to have a guaranteed happy life. So, some things that I've seen, goal setting or like having an accountability buddy will boost the chances of you completing a goal or doing a task by like 35% or sometimes from 65% to 95% like it's insane numbers. And that study buddy or that person that you're spending time with should be actually like you should be close to them.

You should be feeling safer on them. You should respect them. And this buddy system like it's actually insane. If you want to do anything, just pick a person that you trust that will do it with you or will keep you accountable.

You'll grow a lot by having people around you that are more advanced than you. Not very advanced, but a little bit more advanced. And this you can grow the group of people by time because they will literally push you to the next level and then when you're at the next level, find the next level and next level and next level. I'm not saying that you should not keep some people across all of the levels.

For the most part, with friends that maybe you don't feel like they're your soulmate, you should advance, advance, advance, advance with people who have closer mentality with with what kind of mentalities you want to have and maybe closer positions to the positions that you want to have and just closer lifestyles to the lifestyle that you want to have in the future. Experiences with others and like having different experiences, having different opinions around you will grow you and your identity way more and you will understand a lot about yourself. I used to believe that I can live an entire life by myself and I will have 100 cats and I will never get married. Probably never get married still, but like maybe I will have a relationship.

Anyway, I genuinely thought that I could live by myself and basically not have anyone and I'm talking about friends, not only like relationships and romantic partners. And I very quickly learned that this is absolutely impossible and if I do this and I isolate myself, and this is a recipe for one disaster to me going crazy even though you don't see it now because you're in your 20s and you still go to school and stuff like that. But when you will have work and especially if it's remote work, you will not have the chance to meet people as often as you have now and you will not have the chance to learn from them. Just share experiences with them.

And so if you want to grow, you need people around you to grow you because otherwise you will not change your habits and you will not change the current patterns that you live in. And yeah, another thing that was shocking to me, but it's true is basically if you have a very strong social group, it's like you're getting vaccinated for like anti-stress and anti-anything. Like people usually who end up being depressed, stressed or have these mental disorders or problems in their lives, it's usually because they don't have a strong support system around them and maybe they don't trust the people around them or they have some patterns and behaviors from their past and from their childhood that doesn't allow them to now have very close friends and people that are of quality around them. But if you have a network around you that is so beautiful and you love them and you truly feel like you're very safe around them then that will almost guarantee that you will live longer and happier and not be stressed.

So, what are the traits of high-value friends or skillful friends? One, like skill level, they excel in skills that you want to learn or achieve or improve on. Two, they are empathetic and they are somewhat humble. Like, they don't They're not a narcissist, they're not scared, they're not insecure that much of you taking away their knowledge or you taking away their I don't know, energy and stuff like that.

They're just empathetic and willing to help you in basically anything. And a lot of people, especially in my home country, are very insecure and very like they have imposter syndrome, basically. They feel like they They're not meant to be there. So, they're very scared of sharing knowledge.

They act like a narcissist, but they're very insecure in what they're feeling. And they actually feel like they're below most of the people around them. So, I felt throughout my life in my home country that my friends were not like actively trying to help me, and I was not actively trying to help them, either, because we all grew this habit of Yeah, we don't really want to help each other because we're in competition. Or we don't want to help each other because you're better than me or you're lo- less than me and stuff like that.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't like these kind of friendships, and I don't think they're of quality, and I don't think you can learn a lot from them. You can have fun with them, but you don't have that much knowledge that you will get out of them or like I don't think they're long-term, either. The friendship is also process-focused and not like goal-focused.

So, like if you tell a friend, everything in the process, like your failures, everything that you're struggling with, everything that you're thinking, and not only your successes or the things that you did right or like Usually, when you only tell a friend about the things that you did right and the goals that you achieved and stuff like that, that's not a real friendship. That's not deep enough. People who are very skilled in listening, those are also good friends because they know what to ask, and they're curious about you. And you will just know when they are like that.

You will know when someone is faking active listening and when someone is very much an active listener. And this is very important because if you're not an actively listener yourself, you will learn a lot from them. And also people who challenge you, people who are not afraid to say what you did wrong, and people who also care about you. Like, they challenge you because they care about you, and they don't they don't put you down.

They try to raise you up from the things that you did wrong. So, how do you build this circle? Join more communities. Like, join communities in which you are basically in the process of doing something.

Like, join art communities, join AI communities, go to different events that are maybe not that popular and maybe not everyone is going to them, but the people that are going to them, they are interesting. If you really truly want to get into these communities and don't know where to start, like you're just in the beginning, I think ChatGPT will help you a lot with this. Like, you can ask it to find communities in your area, and it will be highly effective if you talk a lot about it with it. Like, don't just say, "Oh, I want to find a community."

Say, "I value this. I want to learn this. I want to find these kind of people." And it will kind of help you guide you through how to get to those people that you want.

After you're in these communities, try to prioritize consistency. Try to prioritize going and showing up and doing the same things. Like, if you're in an art class, go to that art class every week, you know, and find those people and talk to those people every week, and then you can talk more to them after the art class. You can experiment with whatever you're doing in that community, but like you showing up every week and people knowing that you will meet you, that will create some sort of familiarity with you, and you will connect with them more.

This is also the thing like, say yes to things. Say yes to events where you know the kind of people that you want to meet are there. Even if you're not feeling in the mood or like you don't really want to go, because just them seeing you, they will feel more familiar to you, and they will feel like you're more of their friend. They will just recognize you.

You can also use your network to connect you with like your friends' friends. So, basically you have friends, right? And they have people that they admire and they really like. They can connect you with those people.

You can make a good impression. You can just talk well about that friend that connected you in the beginning so they connect you more. But I think this is very important because people trust like personal references and personal interactions. So like if you want to reach someone, the best is to find someone that knows that person.

Now, of course you cannot do that always, but I'm sure somewhere in your friend group and friend circle that you currently have, someone knows someone that you would might be interested in talking to. Another thing is to actively DM people that might interest you. Like if you watch people on Instagram or YouTube or I don't know, they have small communities and you feel like their work impacts you and you want to learn more about what they do and how they live their lives. Then just sending them a DM if they're not super famous, that could be enough for you to just get a coffee with them and after that if you connect, then you can be friends.

And I know this sounds weird and like why can I just not stick with the friends that I made in high school and stuff like that. But like you taking an active step to go towards the people that will match your values and will match your lifelong goals. That's also an important part of your friend group. Like it shouldn't just be people that you met through some I don't know context that don't really align with your values.

Like I bet school doesn't really align with your values that much unless you went to like I don't know if it's Harvard or something like that. If it's a high school then I you probably don't have that much in common with those people and they probably don't have the values that you have. And also build these relationships in which you can teach each other stuff and you can learn from each other a lot. You should constantly be learning yourself.

You should constantly have some things that you can teach people. And when they ask you or like when the conversation arises, you should teach them stuff. And then they should teach you stuff so that you have a relationship in which you grow. You both grow on all sides, not only like fun conversations.

And if you want to deepen these relationships, especially if they're skill-based and maybe they feel a little weird to you cuz like you're not that close to them or stuff like that, you can have some work meetings or you can have like study sessions or work sessions. You go to a cafe and you work together or study together. You can critique each other, like give each other challenges, or do do stuff with each other that feel more natural, or feel more fun in the relationship. And you can also plan goals together, and like literally have the same goal, and then you can hold each other accountable.

One thing that I did with one of my best friends is we did like a month of us working out every day, and we send each other pictures on a group chat that we made on WhatsApp. And if we don't work out in that day, then we have to pay the other friend like $2, $3, something. This is so nice, because one, we keep each other in touch. Like we we know what each other is doing every day.

And also, we get to work out, and we get to achieve our goals. So, I think this is one of the most coolest things that I've done in a friendship. And yeah, I don't know, just sharing music, sharing things like that that are actually growing each other, that are making us learn from each other. I think this is very important.

However, I think another point that I really want to make is that you have to learn to be in solitude, too, not only with your friends. Because otherwise, if you're not happy with who you are in solitude, or like if you're not happy when you're alone, then you're going to be more addicted to those friends groups, and it's going to be harder for you to leave the friends that are not growing you, and that are toxic around you, and that maybe you shouldn't be spending that much time with. Like I I bet you have some friends right now that you know you don't want to spend that much time with, but you just feel like if you leave them, or like if you don't spend as much time with, you're going to end up alone, or you're going to end up in some situation in which you wouldn't like, which kind of is equal to being alone. Alone time is your time to learn more.

Alone time is your time to grow yourself, and alone time is your time to remind yourself that you don't need people. Research shows that solo study and peer collaboration are like the best combo for you to grow the most. So, if you learn stuff by yourself, and then you go to people, and you talk about it, then you're going to grow way more than if you were just to talk to people or just to study by yourself. And so, giving yourself time to be alone and giving yourself time to enjoy spending time alone, but also learn alone, that will push you a lot in your future and you will become a better person and you will attract better people because you attract who you are.

Now, a big part of not being able to find the friends that you want to find is also coming from your own being and who you are. And if you are constantly jealous or comparing yourself to people, you cannot expect those people that you attract around you to not do the same for you. This is hard for me because I think I've been raised in a society where we compare each other a lot and it's not that productive or that nice. But if you constantly tell yourself that your friends will bring you growth too, that if they succeed, you will succeed too because you're their friend, it's way easier to contact someone successful that you met like when you were five or like when you were in high school than to connect with someone successful that you never met in your life.

So, stop comparing to people that are your friends and start comparing with earlier versions of you and with maybe your exact competition, not necessarily your friends. Also, not every friend is for leveling to your skill level or not every friend is supposed to grow you. Like some are just very nice for support and happiness and if you truly learn to love that person, then you shouldn't leave them just because they're not growing or they're they're maybe not having the mentality that you want to have. Diversity is important and as long as they're not keeping you down, I think it's still important to stay with them and communicate with them and learn from them too because you can learn from people even if you feel like they're below you.

I I really don't like this higher up and like lower down. Like I don't think people are below you or above you. I think people are below you in some areas and above you in other areas and you should know what those areas are and you should find the good and the like high-level in all of the people that you meet because that's going to make you more curious about them and better at like listening to them. You should also accept that you have to leave some people behind and if they are dragging you down and you feel like you're not Yeah, you're just not being yourself around them or like you just don't feel like they're calming you down, they're more stressing you and yeah, then you should leave them.

Like you should spend less time with them and you should not be scared of that because even if you feel like those are your only friends, you will find new people when you become a new person. So what if you feel like you're all alone and you don't have anyone right now that you can have this kind of deep conversations with or like learn a lot from. I think journaling and teaching AI and talking with AI will be helpful, especially when you want to grow yourself even if you haven't found your people yet. But at the same time I feel like you should focus and put a priority on finding people that you love and you should put yourself out there even if you're an introvert.

You should put yourself out there and find people that truly you can just spend time with and that time is more beautiful than spending time alone. But you should use this solitude to innovate and build projects and do stuff and create I don't know different things. Don't scroll online. Don't I don't know get this gratification from online wasting your brain basically.

Try to create something. Try to do stuff. Try to learn stuff because that those things that you learned those are the things that you're going to talk about with the people that are also learning and growing and constantly becoming better. I hope this was helpful for you and I really think this is one of the most important things that we should talk about that we don't really talk about.

Like we think of friends as something that you need to have and indeed you do need to have them, but what kind of friends you have is also very important. If you enjoyed this video, I really think you're going to like this video, too. Love you guys. Have the best day of your life and really hope that you're going to find the most beautiful friends on the planet.

Kisses. Bye-bye.