Creating Our Culture - We Are the Company We Keep

"The culture we create in our lives is really an external representation of an internal value system we develop and cultivate--a culture in life by the choices we make, and the people we let close to us and surround ourselves with. Creating the right culture takes discipline, precisely because we have to make hard choices that may involve saying 'No' to people who feel attractive, interesting, or like they're giving us some kind of short-term seductive reward, but don't actually live up to the values that we hold dear.

"Throughout our lives, culture is actually one of the hardest things to cultivate. It takes real effort. It takes real energy, and it often requires us to say 'No' to things that our ego wants to grab. The way I see culture is that if we keep feeding the right culture, if we keep paying attention to that intuition, if we keep paying attention to people's character, to people whose values reflect our highest values, and people who don't seem to have those values; [if] we make decisions on that basis, our life will get better and better over time. Sometimes it feels like, in the short term, we're taking a step backwards.

"It doesn't often feel good to stand behind the culture we want to create; but long term, our entire world becomes a real tangible reflection of the values we hold dear. The people in our lives, from the person we choose to spend our life with romantically, to our friends, to our colleagues, or the people we hire if we have a business, everyone will end up being a reflection of your culture: a culture that your life is evidence of you taking seriously.

"[We must be] disciplined, willing to be ruthless, and do the hard things when it comes to saying 'No' to people who may feel sexy and exciting, or rewarding in the short-term, in favor of waiting for someone or proactively searching for someone who actually represents the values they care about. That doesn't just take effort and discipline. It takes guts it takes guts to say 'No' to the opportunity in front of you, resting only on some kind of faith that, at some point, someone better, someone with more character, someone more in line with the way you are will come along. But I believe that if we can create space in our lives, that faith gets rewarded. But the right person can never come in if we never create that space. Love needs space.

"Sometimes you have to wait a little longer to find that person who fits with your culture, and you have to say 'No' a little more. When nothing's happening in your love life, in the short-term, that can feel like a thankless task. It can feel like a thankless thing to have to do, to keep saying 'No' when it doesn't feel like there are any other opportunities around. That's what makes it brave. But the rewards for being brave are profound."

- Matthew Hussey

"Will this opportunity diminish or enlarge me?"

- Oliver Burkeman

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