Growing up, we keep hearing these lines again and again.
“You are who you hang out with.”
“If you hang out with five rich people, you’ll be the sixth.”
For a long time, I believed this. Or at least, I didn’t question it.
But working, living, observing people — it slowly hit me that this thought is… incomplete. Almost misleading.
Because the truth is, you are who you are.
I can hang out with rich people.
I can hang out with celebrities.
I can hang out with powerful, successful, intelligent humans.
And still remain exactly where I am.
Why?
Because proximity doesn’t fix a broken mindset.
If my thinking is rigid,
if I am not curious,
if I am not willing to listen,
if I don’t know how to ask the right questions,
then nothing changes.
Recently, I heard a story that stuck with me.
Someone almost got a chance to meet Shah Rukh Khan. Not a fan meet. A real, small interaction.
The person who was arranging the meeting asked him one simple question:
“What will you do when you meet him?”
The guy froze.
He said, “I’m a big fan. I’ve watched all his movies.”
That was it.
And that silence after that answer said everything.
Because Shah Rukh Khan is not just an actor.
He is a businessman.
He understands branding.
He understands charisma.
He understands discipline.
He understands failure, patience, family, balance, and reinvention.
If I meet him and all I can do is say, “Sir, big fan,” then that meeting means nothing.
Not because Shah Rukh Khan didn’t give me value —
but because I didn’t know how to receive it.
I can spend 365 days with him.
I can sit beside him every day.
And still learn nothing.
That’s the uncomfortable truth no quote talks about.
People chase circles.
They chase rooms.
They chase networks.
But they don’t work on becoming someone worthy of the room.
Being around greatness doesn’t upgrade you automatically.
Your mindset decides whether you grow or stay the same.
So no, you are not who you hang out with.
You are:
- what you observe
- what you question
- what you absorb
- what you apply
Everything else is just presence.
And presence without awareness is just noise.