Vanessa Van Edwards explains how the people around you directly shape your performance. Sitting within 25 feet of a high performer boosts your output by roughly 15%, while proximity to a low performer can depress it by about 30%. Negative emotions are especially contagious.
If you're around people who are low performers, whatever that means to you, who have negative cues, who are feeling anxious or tired or low confident, you could catch those cues and that affects your own performance. This is why it is incredibly critical to invest in the 5 people who you spend the most time with. You want to make sure those 5 people are the cues you want to catch. Do you like the cues they're sending? Do they give you the right motivation feelings? Do they make you feel like— do they make you a better version of yourself? If you sit within 25 feet of a high performer, your own performance improves by 15%. Here's the kicker: if you sit within 25 feet of a low performer, your own performance decreases by 30%. This means that our negative emotions are more contagious.
