I was sharing my journey with someone this past week. I said that a critical part of it was meeting other early-stage founders and forming an accountability group of sorts. The person I was speaking with probed a little about why that group had such outsize influence. The answer was that the group wasn’t just talking about starting companies, they were taking action. And not only were they acting, they were executing at a high level. The results spoke for themselves.

Looking back on it, I can see that being so close to smart people doing amazing stuff was transformative. They showed me what was possible and made me push harder for what I wanted. I didn’t want to get left behind by my peers, so I leveled up.

My takeaway is that finding other entrepreneurs whom I could relate to was helpful—but finding the ones doing great things was positively transformative. Being in the presence of people doing amazing stuff increases the chances that you’ll do amazing stuff too.

Who in your circle is doing amazing stuff?