Why It’s Time For An Intentional Approach To Your Key Relationships.
Relationships are the context of our lives.
The people we surround ourselves with are the most significant influence on our behavior, attitudes, and results. Who you are around — what they’ve got you thinking, saying, doing, and becoming — sets the course of your life.
In the words of motivational speaker Jim Rohn: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
The people you spend the most time with shape who you are. They determine what conversations dominate your attention. They affect the attitudes and behaviors you are regularly exposed to. Eventually, you start to think like they think and behave like they behave.
As Darren Hardy writes in The Compound Effect: “According to research by social psychologist Dr. David McClelland of Harvard, [the people you habitually associate with] determine as much as 95 percent of your success or failure in life.”
That’s huge.
But what’s interesting is that the overwhelming majority of people don’t take an intentional approach to who these people in their lives are, why they are there, or how they want to manage and cultivate these key relationships.
It’s understandable.
Culturally, we are told that friendships and relationships should exist, and the main cultural narrative surrounding our friends and close relationships often idealizes the idea of childhood best friends or the person you meet and just connect with. However, if you step back, it’s all based on random encounters and proximity, and none of it leads to intentional life design or outcomes.
None of this is wrong, but it leaves the most impactful influence on your life completely to chance, as the data shows. The people you might meet, the friends you had in one chapter, but who might not reflect your goals for your next chapter.
But here’s the catch: not everyone is doing this. The most successful and privileged people, as well as those living lives they are happiest with on all fronts, are doing the opposite of what the majority is doing. They do take that intentional focus and lens to who is in their lives, why, and who they need to be to cultivate and maintain these relationships.
And today, having this knowledge and a blueprint for the relationships that you need to elevate your life is more important than ever.
A few decades ago, when people generally lived in the same town they grew up in and had jobs that they could count on for most of their lives, leaving your relationships and network to chance didn’t matter that much. Perhaps you weren’t optimized, but were supported with minimal intentional effort, propped up by civic institutions, such as places of worship, extended family, and lifelong neighbors.
Today, none of this is true.
And the failure to understand who should be in your life, how, and why will have a profound impact on your health, wealth, happiness, and ability to navigate turbulent and rapidly changing times successfully.
We are now in an age of relentless disruption. In a moment that can feel like a confluence of chaos that is being driven by: remote work, the rapid rise of AI, and disappearing industries, the rise of precarious and gig work, alongside disappearing social safety nets, crumbling communities and as people move more, they are less connected to relationships that can ground and support them. Amplifying it all is, of course, the dominance of social media and the subsequent rise in loneliness and social isolation.
And yet, ironically, in this moment of disruption and rapid change, it’s your relationship infrastructure and having these personal channels strategically in place that are your real safety net.
That’s what the Tribe of 12 is here to give you.
Tribe of 12 emerged from extensive research into what makes people truly successful, healthy, and happy across cultures and throughout history. The answer consistently points to one factor: the quality and diversity of their relationships.
Our mission is to provide a practical, evidence-based system for building the personal infrastructure to thrive in today’s complex world.
Backed by Science, Proven in Practice
The Tribe of 12 framework synthesizes insights from:
- Longitudinal studies on relationship quality and life outcomes
- Interviews with high performers across industries
- Network theory and social capital research
- Evolutionary psychology and anthropology
- Real-world application across diverse demographics
We’ve distilled these findings into actionable strategies that address modern relationship challenges while honoring timeless human needs for connection, to provide more people with the understanding and insights they need to successfully and intentionally build and manage their tribe, which will become the foundation for a most successful and happy life.
