High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way

by Brendon Burchard

Over the past decade, researchers have made fascinating discoveries about a phenomenon called “clustering.” They found that behaviors, attitudes, and health outcomes tend to form in social clusters. The people around you even affect how much you sleep, the food that you eat, and how much money you spend or save.26 This dynamic, which has been dubbed “social contagion,” has been shown to have both detriments and benefits. On the negative front, researchers have found that bad behaviors and outcomes such as smoking, obesity, loneliness, depression, divorce, and drug use tend to grow in social clusters.27 If your friends smoke, you probably will, too. The more of your friends who are overweight or divorced, the higher the odds you’ll get there, too. Likewise, positive things such as happiness and prosocial behavior also seem to spread within social groups.28 For example, if you have a friend who is happy in life, your chances of feeling happy go up by 25 percent. Researchers have even noted that expertise and world-class performance in music, soccer, art, baseball, tennis, and other fields happen in clusters.29 This “contagion” effect is usually relevant up to three degrees of separation. This means that it’s not just your friends and family who can affect you. Research shows that your friends’ friends exert an influence. So do your friends’ friends’ friends. With each degree of separation, the effect of your environment becomes less, with nonsignificant effects beyond three ...