Do You Have a Personal Board of Directors?

Matt Symes
Feb 20, 2024
4 min read

Updated: 5 days ago

The Lead Yourself First newsletter is a deep dive into what keeps leaders healthy and performing at their peak. Every fourth week, I'll distill one or more points to help you prioritize self-leadership and personal growth.

Man walking in nature during the early morning hours

In my last post, we went over the second of the three steps to success:

Connecting the three A’s with B = MAP
Anchoring the cadence
Surrounding yourself with the right community

This is the final edition of the three part series. We'll look at:

3. THE UNSEEN POWER OF YOUR SOCIAL CIRCLE:

NAVIGATING YOUR WAY TO A FULFILLING LIFE - Part 3/3

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You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

The concept isn't novel.

The depth of the statement, though, is overlooked and under-appreciated.

In the realm of personal and professional development, much is said about the pillars of success: Purpose, willpower, self-discipline, habit formation, and self-compassion. Each plays an important role in our journey toward achieving our goals but nothing compares to one critical decision:

The company we keep.

Robin Dunbar, a renowned anthropologist, has written the most important study on our social networks. Dunbar’s number tells us we can keep social relations with 150 people. What’s often overlooked though, is that while that may be true, we spend 40% of our time with 5-6 people and another 20% with another 10-11 people.

Think about that - 60% of your time with 15-17 individuals.

This circle of 15 to 17 individuals forms our immediate ecosystem, shaping our thoughts, passions, and actions far more than we realize.

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This influence, often referred to as the Spillover Effect, is supported by compelling research from the Kellogg School of Management.

Their study of over 58,000 hourly service workers demonstrated that proximity to high performers could boost an individual's performance by 15%. Conversely, the detrimental impact of a negative influence in our circle can be profound, both financially and emotionally.

However, the inertia of comfort, loyalty, or mere circumstance often dictates the composition of our social circles rather than an intentional choice aligned with our ambitions.

This passive approach to community building is insidiously planting landmines on your intentional journey to success.

Dr. B.J. Fogg, a leading behavioural scientist on habit creation, asserts, “There’s just one way to radically change your behaviour: radically change your environment.”

This statement underscores the transformative power of consciously curating our social environment. Our network does more than define our net worth; it sets the trajectory of our lives, impacting our health, happiness, and overall satisfaction.

This concept goes beyond mere aspiration; it's about embedding ourselves in environments that challenge, inspire, and elevate us.

It's about recognizing that our surroundings act as a contagion for behaviours and attitudes, both positive and negative.

By proactively curating our circle, we can transform it from a passive background influence to a dynamic catalyst for personal and professional growth.

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Reflecting on this, one must consider the people they surround themselves with.

Are these individuals reflective of the life you aspire to?

Do your values align, and do their default behaviours support or undermine your ambitions?

Modern-day thought leaders like Robert Glazer and Shane Parrish (If you’re not following both of them, you’re missing out on an incredible small bit of knowledge every week) emphasize the importance of intentionality in choosing our environments and the people in them.

Robert Glazer noticed that he exercised a lot more in the warmth of Utah than he did in the thriving metropolis of Boston. The default was to get out and exercise. Everyone in his community seemed to be doing so.

I noticed the same thing when I moved to a thriving subdivision in Moncton. “Everyone” was running, walking, biking. There is a Thursday night run group. Especially when I lived two doors from my cousin who also ran, there was consistently a nudge to get out the door.

Parrish takes it a step further and proposes the idea of assembling a personal board of directors—individuals who embody the standards and achievements to which we aspire.

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For those “stuck” on the treadmill with no easy recalibration, start with a board of directors that you admire throughout history.

A few on my board include Yvon Chionouard, Winston Churchill, Warren Rustand, my father, my grandfather, my uncle, Peter Attia, Charlie Munger, Marcus Aurelius, Dr. Becky, and the two thought leaders I put here: Shane Parrish and Robert Glazer.

Only a few of those I can consult directly but taking the best of what I know of how they contended with situations allows me to ask a critical question at the decision point:

What would XYZ (whichever members of my personal board seem most relevant) do in this situation?

I’m not blind to their individual flat sides. They are all human and have all made mistakes.

But I can take from the best of them to guide my decision-making process. And it has the added benefit of getting myself out of the moment and forcing a form of reflection that has helped me enormously.

As we navigate our pathway through this life, let us be mindful of the company we keep. The standards and habits of our closest associates become our own.

The mental models they use to navigate this life become ours. Let this awareness guide us in intentionally crafting our social circles.

The gap between where you want to be and where you are is just a few relationships away.

This is your signal to think about the people you spend your time with.