Pull Over Push

Shaan Puri believes that "proximity is power"—the idea that getting physically and socially close to the thing you want is the easiest and most effective way to achieve it. He learned this from Tony Robbins and has applied it throughout his career, from poker to startups to content creation.

Key Points:

• Proximity is Power:

  • You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with
  • This principle applies to everything: fitness, income, ideas, skills
  • It's like osmosis in biology—you naturally flow in the direction of your environment

• Pull Over Push:

  • Pull is easier than push—being drawn into something by your environment requires less energy than forcing yourself
  • If you hang out with people who work out, you'll naturally start working out
  • It's hard to resist the flow of your social environment

• Total Immersion Works Best:

  • Learning Spanish: Duolingo < tutor < moving to Mexico for three months
  • Getting good at poker: The best players lived in houses with 5 other poker obsessives, eating, sleeping, and breathing poker
  • Startups: He moved from Australia to San Francisco because that's where serious founders go

• Project Selection Matters Most:

  • What you work on is far more important than how hard you work
  • Working hard in the restaurant industry limits your outcomes no matter the effort
  • Project selection is the #1 variable, followed by who you work with, then timing/luck, with hard work maybe 3rd-5th

• Hard Work is Overrated:

  • It's not useless, but it's overrated as the key to success
  • Successful people say "hard work" because it sounds good and gives air cover
  • Hard work is good at developing skill and showing you're serious, especially in your twenties

• The Enjoyment Flywheel:

  • If you enjoy something → you do it all the time → you get really good at it → you get results
  • Without enjoyment, you only work to the extent of your willpower → you get so-so at it → you get so-so results
  • No enjoyment = no flywheel

• Differentiate Your Info Diet:

  • Your thoughts will be the average of the content you consume
  • If you consume the same content as everyone else, you'll have the same thoughts
  • To differentiate your results, differentiate your inputs: content, people, how you spend free time
  • These are upstream decisions that affect downstream results

• Self-Selection into Networks:

  • You can self-select into communities: subreddits, Twitter, podcasts, cities
  • Each is a form of proximity that shapes you
  • Opting into or out of these networks is a choice that compounds over time

• Increase Your Odds:

  • You can win anywhere, in any industry, at any time
  • But why not make things easier on yourself?
  • There are no bonus points for doing everything the hard way
  • It's about increasing probabilities of success, not guarantees