What's More Important: the People or the Place?

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A quick personal story: this past weekend, I spent a few days in Dallas visiting some friends from college. Within a matter of hours, I was reminded how much I missed these guys. Had it really been nearly 2 years since we were all living on the same college campus?

We had a wonderful time — we drove around and explored, spent time outside, ate some amazing food (shoutout to Guerrero’s Tacos, which we can confidently say were the best tacos we’ve ever consumed), hit the gym a few times, and had many great conversations. The vibes were high, ideas were flowing, we shared laughs, and we generally talked about all sorts of things that would never come up over a few hours on the phone.

Dallas — somewhere I probably never would have visited had it not been for these friends living there — is now a place I consider to be cool, and I associate nothing but positive energy with the place.

Sometimes, the best trips are the ones where someone you know shows you what their normal living experience is like.

“Our People”

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how our physical place and the people we surround ourselves with shape us.

We all have what we might call “our people” — we share values & interests with them, build each other up, and challenge each other to become better versions of ourselves. They’re on the “same wavelength” as us.

It’s amazing how the right people can shape our perception of the place.

You’ve probably heard the common quote that goes something like, “We're the average of the five people we surround ourselves with.”

Similarly, we’re a product of what we consume; and in a digital world, we must be mindful of the information we take in. Too much “noise” and we can’t produce clear thoughts. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.

Surrounding ourselves with the right people, as well as the right physical & digital environment, is the sweet spot.

Finding “Our People”

What’s a good test to discover if someone is a real friend? One question to ask ourselves might be, “If it came to it, would I fly across the country to see this person?”

If not, we might want to reconsider if the person is actually a friend, or just someone we’re “friendly with.” There is a distinction.

Over the last 18 months, I’ve battled internally with living geographically far from some of my best friends, while simultaneously enjoying the autonomy and novelty that comes with being in a new place far from “home.”

A lot of people say that LA can be a lonely place due to the the city’s sheer size, it’s car culture, and the social dynamics, where everyone seems to have “their groups.”

I’ve found this generalization to be partially true, but I’d argue that loneliness is more a result of internal issues rather than external. I know plenty of introverts who love being alone, as well as social butterflies who deep down feel isolated. For most of us, if we’re content spending time alone with ourselves, it becomes easier to make friends with others.

If we can fix our relationship with ourself, our relationships with others will naturally follow. 

The incredible thing about the internet is that now we can find people with similar values & interests to us, literally right at our fingertips. While online communities allow us to find these people, communicate with them, and share ideas, we’re limited in our ability to connect on a deeper, more human level.

A perfect example of this concept is that whenever I visit friends in a different city (even if just for a day or two), the energy, creativity, and ideas that flow are far and away better than communication over text, voice messages, or video calls. It’s this concept of “milieu” that we discussed a few weeks ago, where the physical and the social work in tandem to shape our environment.

As we spend increasingly more time in the digital world, it’s more important than ever that we don’t lose touch with this “spark” that’s ignited through spending time IRL with “our people.”

I like to frame the distinction between the place and the people with in this way:

On the horizontal axis, we have the physical place and its varying levels of familiarity.

On the extreme left is our childhood home, probably more familiar to us than anywhere else. The far right end of the spectrum might be somewhere we’ve never been before, far away from home, that doesn’t speak our language, and has an entirely different way of life.

On the vertical axis, we have the people we surround ourselves with. Towards the bottom are more “resistant social environments,” or people who hold us back, while “enabling social environments” are those who challenge us, lift us up, and share our values. “Our people” fall into the "enabling” category.

Let’s break down each quadrant.

“Comfortably Resistant Zones” — Familiar Place, Resistant Social Environment

Familiar places with resistant social environments are comfortable, but they may cause us to fall into bad habits and hinder us from reaching our potential.

Bad habits and resistant behaviors might include close-mindedness, sedentary lifestyles, negativity & pessimism, “take instead of give” mentalities, harmful behaviors (like binge drinking or unhealthy diets), lack of ambition, and mindsets of scarcity.

In resistant social environments, we often feel forced to succumb to norms of others around us (and change who we are). If we don’t, the alternative is to be different and forge our own path. It’s usually much easier to conform with the crowd, making it harder to truly be ourselves. Dependent on where we are geographically located, finding “our people” IRL can be difficult and take time, which means that digitally may be an easier place to start (e.g. through Twitter and online communities).

Personally, I found my current job through a simple LinkedIn message to someone I’d never met before. Without it, I wouldn’t have met any of the people I now work with.

“Campuses” — Familiar Place, Enabling Social Environment

“Campuses” are places that are comfortable, but compared to resistant social environments, we are more easily able to connect with “our people” in-person.

A good example of these environments are, naturally, college campuses, where there are all sorts of smart, ambitious people around us, in a place that can feel like home.

These environments are often hubs of innovation and creativity; but eventually, people tend to get tired of staying in a single place all the time.

The human urge to explore new places is strong, and we tend to seek unfamiliar places.

“Lonely New Places” — Unfamiliar Place, Resistant Social Environment

Unfamiliar places with resistant social environments are places that are new (unknown), and we are simultaneously fighting resistant cultural behaviors & norms, while also assimilating to a new place and way of life.

Familiarity varies, depending on the level of geographic differences (think moving to a new city in the same region vs. moving to an entirely new culture or part of the world).

Examples of this environment might be having just moved to a faraway place, or traveling solo, where we don’t have meaningful connections to anyone in our immediate surroundings. These environments can be lonely, but they can also be introspective periods in our lives where we grow and discover the most about ourselves.

“Creative Sweet Spots” — Unfamiliar Place, Enabling Social Environment

“Creative Sweet Spots” are where the magic happens.

Some of my most creative, productive, and meaningful moments have been when I’m traveling to somewhere new with friends — real friends. The wonder & awe of new places, combined with navigating unknown situations, and experiencing it all with people we care deeply about blend to form moments of prolific inspiration.

Imagine you’re in a new place. At an extreme end of the spectrum, you don’t know the language, how anything works, or even what you’re having for dinner.

You’re forced, by your environment, to be present in that moment — you can’t afford to be thinking about next week, let alone tomorrow.

On the social environment axis, you’re surrounded by a group of open-minded, curious, and generally good people with mindsets of abundance. You’re all there with a similar purpose — to connect, grow, and experience new things. You may even want to then share those learnings with others.

We have the power to craft our environments.

If we are bound to a single physical location, we can start by crafting our social environment.

Think of the places (both digital and physical) where you spend your time. Of those people you interact with (whether actively or passively), which of those do you admire? Who shares your values? Are they people who challenge you and lift you up, or are they holding you back?

If we can find our people, we can start by connecting and interacting with them more (even if just digitally to start). Over time, we’ll start to create not just positive relationships, but actual deeper friendships.

As a personal example, I met a guy on Twitter who lives in Germany, and now we chat every week about all sorts of shared interests. And it all started with a simple DM.

Then, as we get to know people and time goes on, maybe we try to meet them IRL — it’s amazing how, when you put a bunch of enthusiastic, like-minded people in one place, the ideas start flowing, and the energy gets people excited. It’s a flywheel effect that only gets stronger with momentum.

On the flip side, if we are location-independent (i.e. work remotely), we’re already a step closer to making this social environment a reality. Rather than arranging cumbersome meetups (which might be flying across the country on one-off occasions), we can actually live in places near our people.

A Vision for the Future of People and Place

Imagine taking this a step further, and once we’ve found the right social environment for us, seeing our friends IRL doesn’t need to be just a one-off thing. If we establish a small “tribe” of friends that is location-independent, we can all physically go to an unfamiliar place to live for an extended period of time.

You might have heard of the concept of “hacker houses” in places like Silicon Valley, where a bunch of smart software engineers & tech founders live together. It’s the same concept, but we’re creating our own. And in the extreme version, we’re creating our own in a place that is both new and unfamiliar.

The concept of digital nomadism — spending extended periods of time in different locations but never fully settling into a single location — has exploded in recent years, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down.

One of the main arguments against digital nomadism is that you never build community or set down roots. Well, what if you created an environment such that you moved with your community?

It’s a big idea, and one that would require the appropriate planning and individual circumstances, but it’s not a far-off reality with the direction the world is headed.

This concept works best if you’re single and have no children, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way — there are plenty of digital nomads out there who travel with their spouse, and sometimes even with their kids.

Finding “our people” takes work and thoughtfulness around who we spend our time with. While the best places tend to attract the best people, it isn’t always the case.

If we get the right people working together toward common goals & a shared vision, and we put those people in a physical environment that fosters creativity & growth, magic can happen.

Ideas and experiences, like money, compound.

The right tribe of friends, coupled with the right place, creates more frequent opportunities for compounding and meaningful experiences.

Stasis is death. Movement is life.

But in the end, no matter where we are or who we surround ourselves with, the choice of who we want to be is still our own.

Might as well embrace the inevitable change alongside people we care about.

Coming to you from 40,000 feet, probably somewhere over Arizona.

-Owen

Fresh Finds

Dividing work between humans and AI (Axios)

Article | 3 minutes

As the world approaches an inflection point where AI will soon be taking over many traditional jobs & tasks, discussions like this are important. What are the strengths and weaknesses of humans and AI individually? How can we work in tandem with technology to create a better future? If there’s an enough interest, maybe we’ll do a deeper dive on this topic.

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