Who you're around quietly shapes how you think, what you tolerate, and what you believe is possible. Over time, it does more than influence outcomes.
It resets your standards.
In 2016, my strategy for growth was simple: work harder. Longer hours. More output. It felt responsible. It was also incomplete.
A friend whose business trajectory I respected invited me to a mastermind in San Francisco. The investment was $6,000— felt expensive at the time.
I went anyway.
That single decision set off a chain of events that lead to New relationships, New conversations, New exposure to how high performers thought and operated.
The following year, my income increased by over $200,000.
Years later, I heard Tony Robbins name that pattern: Proximity is power.
Here’s what that came to mean for me:
Your environment shapes your standards. Your standards shape your results.
Over time, you unconsciously adopt the pace, expectations, and decision-making norms of the people around you.
Put a driven person in a passive environment long enough, and they slow down.
Put an average performer in a high-standard room long enough, and they recalibrate.
This works through a few simple mechanisms:
Standards. You rise or fall to what’s normal in the room. When follow-through, investment, and execution are baseline behaviors, they stop feeling optional.
Models. You stop guessing. You see how people structure days, make decisions, recover from losses, and grow responsibly.
Emotional conditioning. Confidence transfers. So does urgency. So does discipline. The same is true for hesitation and scarcity.
In 2026, I believe this is one of the highest-leverage moves available: deliberately placing yourself near better thinking, better standards, and better decision-making.
There’s no substitute for real relationships, real mentors, or real rooms.
Some proximity will always be physical. Dinners. Masterminds. Private conversations. Being in spaces where standards are high.
Every major inflection point in my life has come from those rooms.
What changed for me wasn’t the value of proximity.
It was the desire to operationalize it.
I didn’t just want access to high-level thinking a few times a year.
I wanted the standards, frameworks, and decision filters from those rooms embedded into how I work every week.
So I built something to support that.
I created a custom GPT that reflects the thinking of people who’ve shaped how I operate: Gary Keller, Keith Cunningham, Tony Robbins, Codie Sanchez, Alex Hormozi, Allie Miller.
Not as a replacement for mentors.
As a way to carry the room into execution.
When I’m pressure-testing an idea, preparing a new strategy, or structuring a high-impact decision, I consult my "board of advisors" I’ve deliberately built.
That shift saved me significant time in 2025 and raised the quality of my decisions.
This Friday, I’ll show you how to build your own modern proximity with the core mentors and leaders you value.
If you want different results this year, start by choosing different rooms.
→ Register for the AI Time Mastery Session (free)
—Shoney
Your environment is the invisible hand that shapes your behavior.”
— Naval Ravikant
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Shoney Ivens
CEO - KW Westfield | Real Estate Investor
I help agents and entrepreneurs build smarter systems—so they can grow income, reclaim time, and build with intention.
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