It's not working for me either.

It sounds interesting. I noticed that I talked differently around my New York friends than my LA friends. Both groups would comment on it whenever I flew across the country. When I went to Australia I also picked up a lot of the words. Sunnies for sunglasses, breaky for breakfast. It took my a while to go back, mainly because I think they are such cool words and so much shorter.

But words are much easier to pick up on than long term changes in aspirations or accomplishments.

When I was 15 I hung out with a great group of friends that all lived in the same 3 block radius as my best friend. It was the summer and I basically lived at her house for 3 months straight. We woke up, or were woken up by someone in the group, showered, and wandered around, hung out, got drunk, lit off illegal fireworks, all sorts of stuff. We didn't do much. We just hung out and explored and had fun. The doors to everyones house was always open. It was nice.

My best friend and I were 15 but most of the other guys and girls were 18-23. While we were 4.0 blah blah blah high school kids, they were mostly average in high school, working delivering pizza, or taking a couple classes at the community college. We realized we were much smarter than them and would probably end up going down a completely different path (it was pretty much assumed that you would into a 4 year university right after high school.) Nonetheless, I started comparing myself to these people and didn't go to the summer class I was taking at the community college or spending as much time editing videos or working. I started blowing off everything to just hang out, do nothing all day, have a great time. I wasn't self-aware enough to notice though. One of the guys pointed it out to me. He also gave me a piece of advice that stuck with me: "Never compare yourself to someone who is below you - always look up and compare yourself to them." He wasn't making some huge social statement about class or opportunities. He was simply pointing out that I had started to be satisfied with my actions and situation by only comparing myself to this group of friends. Instead of trying to be better, I started to be content at where I was.

It's a balance. You have to be content with yourself, but you can't only be content with yourself. You can't let the fact that you are happy with your situation and pleased with your accomplishments hinder you from continuing to be better and grow and move up.

I think that is what happens in college. You are surrounded by like-minded people with similar level of intelligence and interests. It's easy to simply move forward with that group of friends - taking classes, learning new things, etc. The ones that fall behind or excel feel differently than the rest and subconsciously adjust to be the same.

I hope the link gets fixed. I want to hear more and see whether anything I just said is true or talked about in this interview.