2026.09.02

How do you surround yourself with the right people?

It’s a question I often ask myself with Luka, my partner, since we launched our entrepreneurial project.

Because launching a project has something pretty revealing about it: you find out very quickly who really supports you. Who encourages you when things get hard, who gives you energy, who believes in you before there are even results, but also, sometimes who takes some away from you.

And in the end, it may be in those moments that you really understand the quality of the people around you.

Indeed, the people around us may be one of the most important things in our life. They can be one of the reasons for our success, as for our stagnation. The people we spend time with influence what we consider normal, what we dare to do, our way of thinking and sometimes even the person we become.

You often hear this sentence: "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."

The idea is interesting. But the reality is much deeper than that.

Surrounding yourself well is not simply looking for people who are more ambitious, smarter or further ahead than you. It is understanding what we expect from our relationships, choosing people who make us move forward without only looking for our comfort and understanding that we too have a role to play in the quality of the people around us.

So the first question you need to ask yourself is:

1. Do you know what you look for in others?

We are all close to certain people for a reason.

Not necessarily out of self-interest in the negative sense of the term. But because each relationship brings us something different.

With some people, you are mainly looking to laugh and have a good time. With others, to talk about your problems. Some stimulate us intellectually. Some reassure us. Others challenge us, open us up to new things or simply allow us to be totally ourselves.

The problem appears when you expect every person to fill all these roles.

A friend with whom you have the best nights out is not necessarily the one you will go to for professional advice. And someone who pushes you a lot in your work is not necessarily the one with whom you will be the most vulnerable.

So the first question to ask yourself is:

What place does this person have in my life?

Surrounding yourself well is also accepting that the people around you are made up of varied profiles, each bringing you something particular.

2. Look at what direction the people around you are taking you

Once you know what you look for in others, you have to look at the effect they have on you.

The people around us gradually define what seems normal to us.

If everyone around you starts businesses, starting a business seems normal and less risky. If everyone does sports, doing sports becomes natural. If everyone complains, that attitude too can end up becoming normal.

That does not mean you should only spend time with people who have the same ambitions or the same lifestyle as you.

Someone can pull you upward through their ambition, but also through their generosity, their curiosity, their optimism, their discipline or simply their way of treating others.

So the question is not:

Do the people around me resemble me?

But rather:

Do the people around me bring me closer to the person I want to become?

If yes, keep them close. Nourish those relationships, learn from them and make sure you bring them as much as they bring you.

If not, that does not necessarily mean you have to cut ties. But maybe take a step back, rethink the place these people have in your life and look for more people who are going in the direction you want to take.

The people around you do not need to go in exactly the same direction as you.

But it becomes dangerous when it constantly pushes you in the opposite direction.

3. Look for people who support you, not who comfort you

You have to be careful not to confuse good people around you with people around you who validate everything you do.

Someone who supports you will not always tell you that you are right. They may tell you that an idea is bad, that you are making a bad decision or simply that you lack perspective.

But the fact that someone contradicts you does not mean they are right.

It all depends first on the legitimacy of their opinion:

Is this person legitimate to advise me on this subject?

Do they really understand the situation? Have they already lived through something similar or obtained the results you are looking for?

When you have to make an important decision, look as much as possible for people who have already gone through what you are about to do.

Then you have to look at what can influence their advice:

What is their interest behind what they are telling me?

Someone can sincerely want what is good for you while projecting their own fears or their relationship to risk. But their opinion can also be influenced by what suits them personally.

To take a bit of distance, ask yourself:

If my decision had no consequence on this person, would they still give me the same advice?

Someone who wants what is good for you tries above all to help you think, while respecting the fact that the decision belongs to you. Someone who is mainly defending their own interest will try more to steer your choice.

If this behavior becomes recurring, you probably need to rethink the place this person has in your life.

Real support is therefore not permanent approval.

Look for people who are on your side, not necessarily of your opinion.

And above all learn to know who to listen to, on what, and why.

4. Become the kind of person you would like to have around you

When we talk about surrounding yourself well, we often think only about others.

Are my friends present? Do they support me? Do they bring me something?

But a relationship works both ways.

Dale Carnegie insists a lot on this idea in How to Win Friends and Influence People : to build good relationships, start by taking a sincere interest in others.

Listen to them. Remember what matters to them. Value them when it is deserved. Support them in their entrepreneurial projects. Try to understand their point of view before wanting to impose yours.

So we can turn all the previous questions around.

Am I myself the kind of person I would like to have around me?
Do I really celebrate my friends’ successes?
Do I listen to them when they talk to me or am I simply waiting for my turn to answer?
Do I check in on them when I have nothing to ask them for?
Am I able to tell them something difficult when they need it?

We often want to attract generous, ambitious, curious, reliable and kind people.

The best way to get there probably remains to start by developing these qualities yourself.

5. Build strong bonds, but do not close your circle

Finally, surrounding yourself well does not mean building an extremely closed circle around a few people.

Close relationships are essential.

They are generally the ones that bring us trust, support, vulnerability and depth.

But less close relationships also have enormous value.

A former classmate, someone met at a party, at a dinner, a friend of a friend or a person you see occasionally belongs to circles different from yours.

And that is exactly what makes them interesting.

They can expose you to new ideas, new environments, new ways of thinking or simply to people you would never have met otherwise.

So you probably need both:

Strong bonds for depth.
Weaker bonds for openness.

The goal is not to accumulate contacts.

It is simply not to become so comfortable in your circle that nothing new enters it anymore.

My conclusion

Surrounding yourself well is ultimately not about looking for the five perfect people whose average we would mechanically become.

It is much more subtle.

Surrounding yourself well is not a decision you make once and for all. It is something you have to regularly reassess:

Qu’est-ce que je recherche chez les autres ?
↓
Est-ce que mon entourage me rapproche de la personne que je veux devenir ?
↓
Est-ce que les personnes que j’écoute veulent réellement mon bien
et sont légitimes pour me conseiller ?
↓
Est-ce que je suis moi-même le genre de personne
que j’aimerais avoir autour de moi ?
↓
Je nourris les bonnes relations, je prends de la distance avec les mauvaises
et je continue à rencontrer de nouvelles personnes.

Then, with time, I start again.

So the goal is not to build the perfect circle.

It is to build, progressively, a human environment that helps us move forward, while becoming ourselves someone who helps others do the same.