“Man, I’ve been on so many dates recently; it’s almost starting to wear me out a little,” I half-complained, half-boasted. “And I think I need to check my bank account—dating is expensive!”
“Tyler, what are you trying to accomplish here?” was D’s only reply. “Are you trying to find a girlfriend? Because you’re doing it wrong.”
“I don’t know, really. I’m just having fun—meeting lots of new people. But now I’m starting to get a little tired. Maybe I am doing it wrong, and I just need to take a break for a while.”
D responded, “You don’t need to take a break, you just need a filter! You keep going out with all these random women, and you have no process in place.”
Now I was listening. My roommate, D, is smart. She always has fun bits of wisdom for me when I need a hand.
“You need to implement a BYOA dating policy—Bring Your Own Awesome— starting now! You do cool stuff. You need someone else who also does cool stuff.”
We both had a pretty good laugh at that, but she was right; I needed to practice a little more curation in my dating habits if I was going to keep at this.
The Bring Your Own Awesome Policy
Over the last few years, my life has changed pretty dramatically. I went from being an overweight and depressed workaholic who hated his job to a healthy and happy marathon runner and mountain climber who works from home.
Presto change-o! (Hardly.)
That was a big transformation, and it took a lot of work to make it, but most of that work wasn’t really done by me. Sure, I had to make the choice to make better decisions about my life—I had to be the one willing to embrace the risk of change—but what really made it all happen was the choice I made about the people I surrounded myself with.
I had to make the choice to actually look for inspiring people to bring into my life rather than just accept anyone who came along; I had to look for people who “brought their own awesome” to the table.
Author Jim Rohn used to say, “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” He’s right!
I can see this in myself. Once I start spending a lot of time with someone, I can watch how my behavior starts to change, little by little, to match theirs. I don’t lose my identity (note to self: never lose identity!), but I can see how I start to pick up little habits of theirs and mirror some of their behavior.
This happens in every relationship; it’s supposed to. Each person influences the other at least a little.
Realizing I’m influenced by the people around me is one of the most important discoveries I’ve made about myself. And implementing a Bring Your Own Awesome Policy has been one of the best things I’ve done for my life.
For the last few years, one of my most important goals has been to be the dumbest of my five closest friends. This is how I become more like what I want to be.
- Want to be a great writer? Find five friends who are much better at it than you and spend your time with them.
- Want to be a trapeze artist? Find some circus folks to run with.
- Want to be the best damn hair stylist this side of the galaxy? Make friends with five cosmetologists that make you look like an amateur.
How to Make Friends with Awesome People
The problem with finding awesome people to spending your time with is, of course, that you have to be pretty awesome yourself! Most awesome people I know have their own Bring Your Own Awesome Policy.
If you don’t measure up, you’re not getting in!
But this is less of a problem than you might think. You don’t have to acquire any new skills or do anything heroic (though it helps…) to become an awesome person. Really, all you need is to build confidence in the person you already are.
Most awesome things are done by people who are confident enough to go for it.
When was the last time you heard a story about something amazing where the person behind it said, “Well, I wasn’t so sure about it, so I didn’t try very hard and, really, I wanted to give up. But look, everything turned out amazing anyway!”
When you give yourself credit for the things you’re good at already, you start to build a confidence that attracts other confident people who do incredible things. You become interesting, and people want to know more.
Very important: Eventually, you actually have to do something amazing. We all know someone who talks a big game but never actually does anything, and we don’t like them. Don’t be “that guy!”
Creating Your Own BYOA Policy
To create your own Bring Your Own Awesome Policy, all you really need to do is think carefully about the types of people you want to have in your life, and then work hard to find those people.
At the same time, you also have to work to remove people who don’t make the cut—easier said than done.
I often find it helpful to get started on something if I have some type of baseline to work from. So, a few characteristics you might consider for your own BYOA Policy:
- Are they excited about your life (and vice versa)? Even if someone’s awesome in many other ways, they’ll be a drag if they’re not interested in what’s important to you. And the same is true of you to them. Don’t try to make friends with people you’re not interested in just because you think you need them.
- Do they inspire you to be better? How do you feel when you’re around this person? Do you get fired up and excited to be better yourself? If not, ask yourself if spending time with them is really a good use of your energy.
- Do they embrace creativity? Do they find unique and interesting ways to solve their own problems, or do they just complain about them and hope you’ll console?
- Are they internally driven? The most awesome people know their value and they pursue what they want regardless who or what gets in their way. If someone needs you to be happy and productive, it’s a good sign they have more work to do on themselves first.
- Are they curious about the world? Truly awesome people tend to find wonder in even the smallest things about the world. Look for people who inspire you to learn more about things you wouldn’t have considered before.
Putting it Into Action
When you start to draft a BYOA policy for your own life, don’t be surprised by the results. You might find people who’ve been around forever no longer fit. This is okay. It doesn’t mean they aren’t awesome in their own way; they just aren’t a great fit for you. Let them go so they can fill their lives with people who fit their own definition of awesome.
And you might find yourself attracted to people you would never have considered before. Don’t be afraid of this. Embrace it.
This is your chance to try on a whole new life perspective, don’t waste it!
As for me, I’ve started to apply my own Bring Your Own Awesome Policy to my dating life—if you don’t have your own reasons for loving your life and what you do, then we aren’t going to be a good fit.
And it’s made all the difference.
So, start drafting your own BYOA Policy today. Don’t wait!
And, if you’d like, post your BYOA Policy to your own blog. If you link to this post, our system will catch it and we’ll share it below.
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Image by: drgandy
Great post this Tyler – one thing that I’ve learned improves life dramatically is to embrace change. It’s a bit of a trait in my family to stick to the comfortable and the familiar…I now nuke that feeling as soon as I notice it.
I like the BYOA idea lot…one thing that really bugs me is dealing with negative and moany people too often, it’s contagious! But I think the BYOA idea is a good remedy for this
Great post Tyler! I really like the idea of trying on “a whole new life perspective.”
Hey Tyler, BYOA fits sometimes, but in the same vein as not wanting to be around downers your whole life, you similarly don’t want to be around yes people the whole time. I guess it’s about having some balance. You need a variety of people in your life. Sometimes you need a ‘Board of Directors’ so to speak, especially if you’ve got a special project or goal in mind. Sometimes it’s useful to get a black hat view (check out Edward de Bono’s Thinking Hats). This mightn’t mean a negative view but simply an alternate way of looking at a particular problem or issue. If you’ve got relationships that aren’t supportive of your plans, Do you really want to give up that relationship? Perhaps spend time with them in a different way, and seek out your ‘board’ for projects. Having someone to constructively challenge you can help sometimes.
I might have been born in the wrong place at the wrong time! Never known anyone more internally driven/curious/inspired/creative than little old me!
That’s why I’ve resigned myself to being alone. Most people are mixed up and rarely know who they are or what they want. I’m a hermit and I like it!
You know, I feel quite the same way! The nature of my work and situation really lends to a high intensity living where I have to be really driven or it’d just eat me alive. That said, it seems to turn off a lot of people that would rather coast through life instead of really making it count. There’s gotta be more of us out there!
BYOA policy? Love that. Now I just need to be my own awesome doorman that filters out the un-awesomeness.
I love that you mention curiosity as a sign of awesomeness. Lately it’s seemed that an exploring interest is lacking in the people around me. The lack of it is almost scary.
Hey Tyler. I love this post. I wanted to expand on the point about needing to be awesome in order to surround yourself with awesome people. I’ve found that a genuine curiosity and a genuine smile can go a long way, even if you’re a bit outside of your element. For example, I am not a scientist, but I love to surround myself with brilliant scientists. Since I’ve done nothing awesome in that field, I can’t rattle off a list of relevant accomplishments. Instead, I can ask questions, share their enthusiasm, and be honest about my desire to learn more. I’ve found this makes people like me (or at least willing to hang out with me) despite my lack of deep knowledge on subjects they’re familiar with.
Great point Hannah. People who are genuinely awesome will also enjoy mentoring & encouraging others who are willing to walk the same direction but aren’t as far along the path. You can tell the genuinely awesome people from the pompous upstarts by their respect for the questions of those coming up behind them. Never be afraid to look stupid or ignorant. Ask lots of questions.
There is NOTHING..and I mean NOTHING about this post that I don’t LOVE! I wholeheartedly support the policy and everything else! In fact, I’m going to go and read it again!
Simply brilliant. And an *awesome* idea! Will consider stealing this, and adding to it the willingness to be vulnerable, because then there is authenticity, and with those two a whole ‘nother level of awesomeness develops.
This post came so right in time for me. For quite a while now I’ve been haunted by the feeling that pretty much all my personal interactions with people (aka friends) have become extremely superficial. It’s not that they are negative or that I don’t like hanging out with them, but I miss some sort of connection on a deeper level that was once there and is now gone and I dearly miss it.
My problem is that I suck at meeting new people. “Small talk” is a synonym for “nightmare” to me so I mostly stay on my own when going out which finally leads to sticking with the status quo instead of risking being completely alone. I really don’t want to sound whiny but I can’t figure out a solution for this.
@ Sarah, Small talk is simply chatting menial stuff to prove you are not a social maniac. After that, pick a topic and just blurt some words out.
My problem is that I live in a tiny town, where nobody is interested in anything apart from getting drunk. Finding awesome people to do what I do will be a struggle.
Tyler, I’ve had the opposite problem — there aren’t many single 50+ men in my city to date. I just deleted my profile from an online dating service because most of my supposed “matches” were either a) bikers who lived on their Harleys; or b) men with photos of dead animals who loved fishing/hunting/camping. I don’t have problems with these activities; I’m just not interested in doing them myself.
In the end, I was spending much more time sending “we’re not a match” responses than I was having fun and meeting people. So I’m going to spend my time looking for someone who can bring his awesomeness to the table and has the characteristics you’ve listed here. Great post!
Repost! This is great advice. I recently made a big shift in my life – changed careers, moved out of the city to a more small-town community, and got rid of all the crappy people that were draining (and even sometimes bullying!) me. Since I starting putting myself first and being truthful to myself about who I was and what I wanted to be doing, I have never felt more ‘in my power’. Almost every day now I will meet someone new that is inspiring and has so much to offer me… but first I had to give that to myself. Sometimes its scary taking a leap of faith and making some change in your life, but existing is not living. Everyone deserves to feel truly happy every single day, but first it has to come from within.
Tyler, as always, you bring so much perspective to life
The BYOA Policy is brilliant but what’s better is the policy for inclusion/exclusion of people in your life. I think a lot of tend to “let anyone in” in the spirit of sociability, and end up sitting in a crowd and wondering what the heck you’re doing there! Thanks for the welcome insight 
“One of my most important goals has been to be the dumbest of my five closest friends. This is how I become more like what I want to be.”
This post is full of gems. We moved 10 months ago and I find myself currently alone a lot and looking for friends. I would rather be with nobody than with the wrong people.
Right on Tyler! Good shit.
Great article! Your friends may change as you go through different times of your life. As you go through changes, you may find your old crew no longer fits in your life. They are not bad, they are just different from you. If you have made a breakthrough, members of your old crew may try to dissuade your changes and suck you back down to where you were.