Whether rich or poor, talented and highly motivated friends early in life can show us how to set our own sights higher and permanently raise our life's trajectory. In 8th and 9th grade I attended a decent middle school and high school, but happened to meet Patty, Nicole, Craig, David and Chris, who generated friendly competition with me…
Whether rich or poor, talented and highly motivated friends early in life can show us how to set our own sights higher and permanently raise our life's trajectory. In 8th and 9th grade I attended a decent middle school and high school, but happened to meet Patty, Nicole, Craig, David and Chris, who generated friendly competition with me. They ultimately went to Harvard, Williams, Johns Hopkins, USC and West Point, and their influence on me lasted for the rest of high school, even though I moved away.
I know another guy, the first person in his poor white family in Northern Alabama to go to college, who got there by competing in a friendly way with a best friend who was determined to go to West Point. The guy not only made it into West Point, too, but became a doctor.
Our friends definitely shape how we see ourselves and the standards we set for ourselves in life, especially early in life when we're all molten metal and have a disproportionate effect on the shape of one another.
Of course, the reverse is true too--bad friends pull us down, as Mike Tyson has talked about many times.
Whether rich or poor, talented and highly motivated friends early in life can show us how to set our own sights higher and permanently raise our life's trajectory. In 8th and 9th grade I attended a decent middle school and high school, but happened to meet Patty, Nicole, Craig, David and Chris, who generated friendly competition with me. They ultimately went to Harvard, Williams, Johns Hopkins, USC and West Point, and their influence on me lasted for the rest of high school, even though I moved away.
I know another guy, the first person in his poor white family in Northern Alabama to go to college, who got there by competing in a friendly way with a best friend who was determined to go to West Point. The guy not only made it into West Point, too, but became a doctor.
Our friends definitely shape how we see ourselves and the standards we set for ourselves in life, especially early in life when we're all molten metal and have a disproportionate effect on the shape of one another.
Of course, the reverse is true too--bad friends pull us down, as Mike Tyson has talked about many times.