Choose to focus your time, energy and conversation around people who inspire you, support you and help you to... — Karen Salmansohn

Choose to focus your time, energy and conversation around people who inspire you, support you and help you to grow you into your happiest, strongest, wisest self.

Author: Karen Salmansohn

Insight: We spend roughly a third of our lives at work, another chunk with family, and whatever's left scattered among friends and acquaintances. Yet most of us rarely ask a basic question: are these people making me better or worse? Not in a dramatic sense, but in the quiet, cumulative way that shapes who we become. The people around us are like an environment we breathe in daily. Some environments are toxic; others are nourishing. The tricky part is that choosing your circle isn't always a dramatic rejection. Sometimes it's just redirecting your energy. It's texting back a bit slower to the friend who always leaves you deflated, while making more time for the person who asks thoughtful questions about your life. It's noticing which conversations leave you feeling smaller versus which ones expand you. This isn't about ruthlessness—it's about honoring your own growth enough to protect it. What makes this advice counterintuitive is that we're often taught loyalty and obligation should come first. But the real loyalty is to becoming the strongest version of yourself. The people worth keeping around aren't the ones demanding your time; they're the ones whose mere presence seems to bring out something truer in you.