8 Types of People You Need In Your Life for 2022
29 Jan 2026 · 32 min
This is a transcript of a Jay Shetty podcast episode ('On Purpose') focused on the eight types of people to intentionally surround yourself with in 2022 (cheerleaders; people who check you; carers; people of high character; competent coaches; consistent friends; champions; challengers). The episode mixes personal anecdotes, practical advice on identifying gaps in one’s social circle, and listener actions (express gratitude, seek missing roles), interleaved with multiple sponsor ad reads and calls-to-action (e.g., Calm meditation series). The tone is motivational and practical, emphasizing intentional relationship-building and reciprocity.
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We need someone in our life that we know represents integrity, honesty and all the values we appreciate. And because they remind us of our North Star, it's so easy to forget the meaning of life, the essence of life, the truth with which to live by. In this world where we see people with all sorts of intentions, all sorts of aspirations, all sorts of ambitions, and we completely forget who we are, why we're here, and what the goal of life is. Hey everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number.
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Listeners, each and every one of you. Because every single week I see you turning up for On Purpose. And I'm so grateful because whenever I sit down to record these episodes, I look through the reviews, I look through all the downloads, the listens, and I look through all your Instagram posts and Twitter posts and I just think, wow, I. I am so fortunate to have such an incredible community and I appreciate you all. I really do. Because you Know, it was not so long ago that I would struggle to have five people come and listen to me on a Friday night in London. And I remember just wanting to deliver the best speech and presentation I possibly could for those five people. And I would stay there for hours afterwards, answering people's questions and dealing with their challenges and their issues. And now that I get to do this with you, I cannot thank you enough. I really, really cannot thank you enough. So today's episode is all about the eight types of people you need to surround yourself with in 2022. Now, we've all heard the saying, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've probably heard that again and again and again, and it's a really powerful statement. That's why it's lasted so long. But often it's interesting to think, well, who should those five people be? How do I pick them? And often when this topic is brought up, it's saying, well, you should surround yourself with people that you want to become like. But then it's saying, should every one of the five people around me be spiritual if I want to become spiritual? Should all the five people around me be wealthy if I want to be wealthy? Should all the five people around me have honesty and integrity if that's what I want to be? Or should all of the five people around me be famous if. If that's what I want to be? Now, I'm not saying you should want to be any of those things. I'm just saying that when you think about it that simplistically, it can actually become challenging because you may actually think, well, I don't want to be surrounded with those types of people. I want to have more deep, meaningful relationships. Maybe I don't know enough of those people. And while I want to connect with them, I also want to connect with the people around me. Now, people also say you are the company you keep, but as time has gone on, I found that we need to be more intentional. So today I'm going to share with you the eight types of people you need in your life in 2022. And I want you to notice which ones are missing. Chances are, as I go through the list of these different types, you're going to start thinking of people and saying, oh, yeah, that's where he goes, or that's where they go, or that's where she goes. And you're going to start realizing who in your life is supporting you in a certain way, who in your life is helping you in a certain way. But you're also going to start to notice areas where there are gaps, where they are missing, where when you pause and when you try to think about it, you actually can't think of anyone. And those are the relationships you want to try and build. And the others are the relationships, of course, that you want to keep. Now, one of the things I've thought on as time has gone on, is that it's harder to make deeper friends as we get older, right? How many of you have felt that? How many of you have experienced that as you get older, it's harder to make deeper friends? At school we spent like eight hours a day with our friends, right? Or at least six hours a day. And today we don't even get close to six hours a week or eight hours a week, let alone, you know, chances are we may not even get six or eight hours a month with our closest friends. So that quality time, that depth of time has changed. Another thing that's changed is not only the amount of time, but it's also the formation of ideologies and formation of our behavior and formation of our values and character. When you are growing at school, not only growing older, but growing in areas of interest, passions, things that fascinate you, all of that growth allows you to grow with others. And it's the growth with others that build your relationship with them. And so now, because we don't grow as much, and remember, I'm not just saying aids, this is still possible later on as well. But one of the biggest things that fascinates me when I think about this idea of the eight types of people you need to surround yourself with, is that I read a great article by Ben Renner, and he quoted a study that states American families spend just 37 minutes of quality time together per day. And on the weekend it goes up to around 2 hours and 47 minutes. Can you just imagine that for a second on a daily basis you spend 37 minutes with someone that's important to you, and on the weekend, around 2 hours and 47 minutes. The reason for this long work hours, busyness, fatigue, exhaustion, just wanting to sit down and be quiet and have your own space. Which means that the time we spend with people has become even more precious. So why not get really focused and intentional about our relationships? I think another reason why I'm recording this episode right now is to make sure that you're spending this precious and quality time with people you actually want to and people that want to spend time with you. I think we've all experienced it where you disconnect with friends, you lose touch, you lose connection, or sometimes you kind of keep people in your life just for nostalgia, just for history. And while that can feel nice for a while, you don't really see them in your future. You're not really building something in your present. And so relationships that are only relationships because of nostalgia and history don't always make it to the future and don't always help you get the future that you want. And that's something really important to think about, is that is this relationship helping me create that. So before I dive into these eight things, there's one thing I want you to remember. A deep, deep reason why I thought this was an important topic to record is that we want everyone to be everything, or we want one person to be everything. Usually the person we marry, the person we date, the person we live with, we want them to be everything. We want them to be good at doing everything. Answer every question. But often what happens is we want everyone in our life to have every quality. And what you're going to see here is that people are likely going to have one or two of these, and that's enough. That's beautiful. So this episode is not about saying, well, this person gives me this, this person gives me that, and this person doesn't. It's actually about noticing and appreciating and increasing our gratitude. So let's start with the eight types of people you need in your life in 2022. One of the first types of people that you need in your life are called cheerleaders. These are your peers. They spur you on. They cheer your every achievement, your every accolade. They cheer the small wins. This is that person who sees you post something on Instagram and they can't wait to share it with their friends. These are the people that call you up and congratulate you, make, maybe they message you in your DMs or text you when something happens in your life. And they're cheerleaders. They're genuine, sincere cheerleaders. How do you know if someone's a genuine, sincere cheerleader? One thing is, they've done it from the start. They've always done it. They've always been there. The second thing is, they do it even when the wins are small. And the third thing is, they do it even when there's nothing to cheer about.
They really believe in you.
They see the good in you at all times. They try to fan that spark. It's not that they're naive or they don't Understand that you're a human with flaws. It's just that they're always trying to see the good in you, and they're always trying to remind you of the good in you. We all need cheerleaders in our life. Now, what's the difference between yes people and cheerleaders? Cheerleaders are those people that are always helping us seek the good in ourselves and see the good in life. Yes people just agree with what we're saying. So cheerleaders are not agreeing with you. They're actually pushing you and noticing the brilliance in you, the excellence in you. A yes person just agrees with you. So if you're complaining about something, a yes person will just say, yeah, you're so right. They're just useless. They're not helpful. Whereas a cheerleader will actually say to you, oh, actually, well, let's look at this. This is what I think you've learned from this. This is what I think is so brilliant about the way you see this.
They're seeing the good in you so.
That you can seek the good in the situation. Notice how different that is from a yes person. Notice how completely different that is from a yes person. A yes person just agrees with you whether you're being negative or positive. Cheerleaders are not trying to be negative or positive. They're trying to seek the essence and seek the good in you and in others and in the situation. Think about it for a moment. Who are the cheerleaders in your life? Make a list of names that come to your mind. Now, if you've written down one or two names, you're an extremely blessed and fortunate person. If you're sitting there going, well, why can't I think of more people? Remove that thought. Be really profoundly grateful and appreciative of the one or two people you've written down. Now, if you're someone who hasn't written down anyone, I want you to take a moment to push yourself. I promise you there's someone in your life who's being a cheerleader and you don't even recognize it. So often we overlook these people because they're always in our corner. They're so close that we look past them, right? They're so close to us that we look past them. And even after that, if you think about it and you still can't think of anyone, then I want you to find a cheerleader this year. Now, how do you find cheerleaders? You don't go looking out saying, hey, I want to hire a cheerleader to be in my life. Hey, I need more people who support me in my life. Who are they going to be? Obviously, you don't go on a recruitment drive for cheerleaders. The way you find cheerleaders is cheering other people on. Who are you cheering on? Are you being a cheerleader for others? Are you being a genuine, sincere cheerleader for others? When you cheer other people on genuinely and sincerely, even if they don't become your cheerleaders, people will start to notice that in you. And that will be such an attractive quality. Think about that for a moment. Okay, so the second type of person you need in your life this year is someone that checks you. Now, these are the uncomfortable people in our life. What does it mean when someone checks you? It's when someone reminds you of your truth, who you really are, what you've been through, what you're going through. And they check you on stuff. If they see you buying into your own hype, if they see you maybe creeping into arrogance or ego. And sometimes this person, they may not even have sincere intentions. They may be envious, they may be jealous, they may want to hold you down. They may try to check you even when you don't need to be checked. But guess what? They're actually one of your strongest allies. Because they're reminding you, even if they're doing it negatively, of something that is going to benefit your life. When we lived as monks, or the number one quality that we were trained to admire was humility. And I have people in my life that consistently humble me. Some of them are chosen. Some of them are not chosen. Some of them I know may humble me even from a place where it's coming from their arrogance or their pain or their own challenges. But I receive it because I realized that they're giving me an opportunity to always remain a student. They're giving me an opportunity to remind me to never get ahead of myself. So the people that check you are not always chosen, but the people that check you, whether they do it for the right or wrong reasons, they can be really powerful and beneficial in your life. I've realized the times I've made the biggest mistakes in my life are the times when I felt beyond. When you feel untouchable, when you feel like you're doing better than others. And I wouldn't say that that's a natural feeling for me. I've always enjoyed being equal to others. I've always enjoyed being together with others and building with others. But I've really noticed that those who have checked me in really interesting times have allowed beautiful things to come into my life.
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My spiritual teachers are some of these people. Whenever I've had something big happen and I would share it with them, hoping that they would celebrate with me, they would actually check me and they would often respond by just saying, stay humble and the blessings will keep coming. And I would always think, what do you mean let's celebrate. This is amazing. Come on, tell me how great I am. And again, they would check me and I'd realize and I'd accept that. Actually in that moment, if you stay humble, the blessings will keep coming. If you become arrogant, the blessings will leave. The blessings are coming because when we're Humble. It's like having the shades of our house open or our shades of our apartment open. The sun just floods in, and when we become arrogant, the shades go down and the sun can't get in. Who in your life checks you knowingly or unknowingly, positively or negatively, but that you can realize why they're in your life? I'm not saying they're perfect and what they're doing is coming from a good place, but if you can receive it in a good way, it can be one of the most powerful relationships in your life.
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Now, the next person we all need in our life is someone that cares for us. And these are people that we obviously spend a lot of time with. They're people that have a big role in our lives. They're people that are integral to our lives. So really thinking about who those people are that care for you. And the biggest thing here about people who care for you is also to remember, who are you caring for those people that care for you? Make sure you're caring for them. True. Make sure this is reciprocal because it's so easy to be like, well, these are the people I need in my life, but who we being in someone's life? And I promise you the one of the most critical and important things is figuring out and thinking about who do we share care with? Now, how do you know someone cares for you? They do what they say they're going to do. That's the definition of care. As simple as that. Does that person do what they say they're going to do? That's care. Because someone may not say anything, and that's fine. They're allowed to not say anything. Now someone may say something and they may not do it, and someone may just say stuff and they actually follow up with it. And I'd ask you the same question. Who do you do that for? Do you actually do what you say you're going to do for others? Or do you say it and then kind of retract, kind of backtrack, right? You like, to people, please.
So in the moment, you say, yeah.
Yeah, sure, I'll do that. I'll make everything happen. And then you backtrack and go, hey, I don't think this is going to work. I'm not sure this is going to happen. Really. Think about that. The fourth type of person that we all need in our life is someone with high character. We need someone in our life that we know represents integrity, honesty, and all the values we appreciate because they remind us of our North Star. It's so easy to forget the meaning of life, the essence of life, the truth with which to live by in this world where we see people with all sorts of intentions, all sorts of aspirations, all sorts of ambitions, and we completely forget who we are, why we're here, and what the goal of life is. And it's actually one of the simplest things that we can shift in our life by simply having someone of high character in our life. For me, I find that when I'm around someone with high character, I just truly get reminded of how I really, truly want to live. And by the way, character isn't an age thing. I have a really dear friend who's around 10 years younger than me, and he has such high integrity and such good character. And that reminds me of it. And then I, of course, have my monk teachers and my wisdom teachers who have really great character. And when you are around someone where you experience really good character, you start to see how character is more powerful than caliber. It's more powerful than someone's network. It's more powerful than wealth. It's more powerful than anything. It's.
It's.
So character is the most charismatic thing, right? We're drawn to people with high charisma. Let's be drawn to people with high character. Character is where true charisma comes from. Character is what really shines through in the form of real charisma that lasts, that's sustainable. We will be attracted to many different things if we don't have someone in our life who has high character. But if someone has high character, I promise you they'll be the most attractive person in the world. Don't lose that person now. We need someone in our life who is coming to us for support, for help. They come to you, and you're there for them. A lot of these people are people that are giving to you. Who are you giving to? Who are you showing up for? Who are you making time for? Who are you helping and supporting? Beyond the people that you have a blood connection to, who are you going out of your way for? One of the reasons is because when we get selfish and lost within ourselves, we actually make life harder. Life becomes less meaningful. And when you have someone that comes to you for shelter, for support, you get to rise to your best self. You're given the impetus and the incentive to become more, to be more, to connect more, to grow more. I know that for years I've been a mentor, obviously for now years I've been a coach. And I would honestly say that needing to be there for others has made me better for myself. And instead of just trying to extend myself to others constantly, it's made me make more time to invest in myself because I want to be better for others when they call upon me. This list isn't just about a list of saying, well, this is what I want in my life. This is my menu. This is who I'm picking, who cares about everyone else? No, no, no. This list is about someone you can be compassionate towards, you can be supportive towards, you can help. You can love. The fifth person or the fifth type of person we all need in our life is someone who is competent in the areas we want to grow. This is an important thing. If there's an area of your life that you want to improve, make sure you have a coach. Make sure you have someone who's competent. Make sure you have someone who understands that area. I cannot stress this enough. If you've been trying to solve an area of your life for a long time without a coach, chances are it's going to take much longer. I know that I have solved situations in my life in under a year, maximum two years, because of the right coach. And by the way, sometimes I have to move through a few coaches. Sometimes I have to date. Coach, date, right. You have to go on a date with your therapist. And that's not. Don't date your therapist. That's not what I'm saying. You have to go out and meet lots of therapists to find the right one. Meet lots of trainers, meet lots of health coaches, whatever it may be for you. But we need someone who's competent in our life and the areas we want to grow. Don't just try and figure it out yourselves. And by the way, that competence can come from a podcast, which you're all listening to right now. The competence can come from books, the competence can come from apps. Right? These are all places that the competence can come from. Now, 6, 7 and 8. We all need people in our life that are consistently there. There are some people in your life, you may think they're just always around, they don't add any value, they don't give me any of the other things. But guess what? We need those people. Those people that you can always call up and hang out with. You can be in the same room and be silent together, you can be alone together, you can hang out, you can connect. And those people are so underrated, so underrated by. But I promise you, if you someone that's been in your life consistently, they're special, respect them, appreciate them, don't undervalue them, don't see them as your tag along, don't see them as your person who's just around you, that person's around you, and they've stayed around you because they love you, they value you. They may not know how to say it, they may not express it, but I promise you that person is special. And don't forget about them. Now, the last two types of people, you need someone in your life that champions you. Now, a champion isn't someone who's always there, who's always accessible, but when you reach out to them, they can champion you. And this comes by trying to offer support. I'll give an example. Someone reached out to me recently and he said to me, jay, can you do this for me? And he's not someone that I know that well. And I said to him, I said, if you had approached me and offered to actually do that service with me, then it would have been so easy to write something genuine. When you're looking for someone to champion you, make sure you have something to offer them. One of the biggest challenges with this episode that I was thinking about when I was thinking about creating is, I don't want you to walk away from this going, okay, well, this person's useful to me, this person's not. I want you to walk away from it and say, well, who am I doing this for too? If you want any of these people in your life, I promise you, you're going to be having to do that for others as well. And chances are, when you think about it, you'll be like, wow, I'm not really championing anyone else. I'm not really doing that for anyone else. We may check others, we may be consistently there, but are we really truly championing others? And the eighth and final one is you need someone who challenges you. Now, the difference between checking challenges, the check person just checks you, like, goes, are you okay? Are you doing all right? Is that who you want to be? The challenging person actually asks you to challenge your ide, challenge your thoughts, challenge the way you believe and think. Now, this person, again, may not be someone who agrees with you. This person may not be someone you agree with. This person may not be someone that you actually even vibe with, but they challenge you. I hope you're recognizing that there are plenty of people in the world who may not care about you, who may not be believers in you, but you can use that as support if you see it that way, if you respond to in that way. So These are the eight types of people you need in your life in 2022. I hope that you have realized the gaps and also spotted those people. And here's what I want you to do. I want you to text, call or message the people that do these things for you and say, hey, thank you for being a champion in my life. Put it on Instagram and tag them and say, hey, thanks for being a cheerleader in my life. Take a screenshot right now and tag them in this and say, hey, thanks for being someone who cares for me. Thanks for being someone who's high character for me. Express that gratitude towards them. Appreciate them deeply, because I promise you, people are doing this without that from you. And then think about the people that you want to do that for. Reach out to them and say, hey, I'm going to champion you. I'm here for you. Hey, I'm cheering you on. I'm here for you. Hey, if you ever need anything, come to me for advice. I just want you to know I'm always going to be there for you. Go and send them that message as well. And wherever those gaps are, start searching for those people. Searching, seeking, looking. And then see what you can do to serve them and offer to them and grow in your life. Thank you so much for listening to today. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being my champion, my cheerleader, my check, my challenge, my care, my consistency, coming to me here for insight for helping me work on my character and for being such competent people who are investing in your growth. I appreciate you. See you next week.
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