There is a phrase I heard recently in a podcast that has stuck with me:

More is caught than taught.

The idea is simple. We absorb more from the environment around us than we do from the lessons people intentionally try to teach us.

We pick up habits from the people we spend time with. We pick up expectations from the rooms we enter. We learn what is normal by watching what everyone else does. We absorb attitudes, standards, language, ambition, cynicism, discipline, laziness, courage, and fear without anyone ever sitting us down and explaining them.

That is true in families. It is true in sports. It is true in workplaces. It is true in schools. And it is true in life.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized there is another side to the phrase. If our environment shapes us, then maybe one of the most important things we can learn to do is shape our environment.

Stop Treating Yourself Like a Product of the Room

When we are young, it is easy to think of ourselves as a product of whatever environment we happen to be in.

We enter a room and immediately begin trying to figure out the rules. Who are the cool people? What do they care about? What do I need to say? What do I need to wear? What parts of myself should I emphasize? What parts should I hide?

I spent plenty of time doing this when I was younger. I tried hard to fit in with the people I thought I was supposed to fit in with. I adapted. I paid attention. I learned enough about enough things that I could usually talk to almost anyone.

That adaptability is not necessarily a bad trait. In a lot of situations, it is useful. Being able to understand people, relate to them, and communicate across different groups is valuable. But there is a difference between being adaptable and constantly editing yourself to gain approval. And the second one gets exhausting.

The irony is that the harder I tried to fit in, the harder it probably became. Because when you are focused on being what you think other people want, you stop being particularly interesting. You become reactive. You are waiting for the room to tell you who to be.

Agency Changes Everything

Life got easier when I stopped doing that. Not because every problem disappeared. Not because I suddenly stopped caring what anyone thought. It got easier because I started making more decisions based on what I actually valued.

I started enjoying the things I enjoyed whether they were popular or not. I stopped trying to force connections with people who did not really fit me. I stopped treating every social setting like an audition.

And strangely enough, that was when fitting in became easier. Not with everyone. With the right people.

There is a kind of freedom that comes from realizing you do not have to convince every room to accept you. You can build a life that attracts the people who belong in it. That is agency. Jocko Willink would probably call a version of it ownership. Instead of constantly asking, “What is happening to me?” you begin asking, “What am I doing about it?” Instead of asking, “Why am I surrounded by people who drag me down?” you ask, “Why do I keep choosing to spend time in that environment?”

Instead of saying, “This is just how things are,” you ask, “What can I build that is better?”

Your Environment Is Not Just a Place

When people hear the word environment, they often think of physical space. But your environment is much bigger than that. It is the people you spend time with. It is the conversations you participate in. It is what you watch. It is what you read. It is what you scroll through. It is the standards you tolerate. It is the habits your friends consider normal.It is how your family talks about health, money, work, relationships, effort, and responsibility. It is what you see every day.

And because more is caught than taught, all of those things matter. If you spend enough time around people who train consistently, training starts to feel normal. If everyone around you complains constantly, complaining starts to feel normal. If everyone you know drinks heavily every weekend, that starts to feel normal. If the people around you read, build businesses, coach kids, lift weights, save money, volunteer, learn new skills, and take responsibility for their decisions, those things begin to feel normal too. Environment quietly resets your expectations.

That is why choosing your environment is one of the highest-leverage decisions you can make. No, not choosing. Making.

Sometimes You Have to Build the Room

The problem is that the environment you want may not already exist. Sometimes there is no perfect group waiting for you. Sometimes you have to create it. That can mean building a garage gym. Starting a training group. Inviting people over. Creating a team. Changing jobs. Finding a new hobby. Leaving a social circle that no longer fits. Spending less time online. Reading different books. Listening to different voices. Raising the standards inside your own house.

It does not have to be dramatic. Most of the time, it is just a series of small decisions. You decide what gets your attention. You decide who gets your time. You decide what behaviors you reward. You decide what you normalize.

Slowly, the environment changes. And then the environment starts changing you.

The People Around You Matter

There is a phrase people repeat all the time: you become like the people you spend the most time with. It can sound cliché, but there is truth inside it. Not because you become a carbon copy of your friends. Because human beings are constantly calibrating. We look around to determine what is reasonable. If everyone around you skips workouts, a missed week does not feel like much. If everyone around you trains four days a week, missing a month feels strange. If everyone around you is constantly late, being late feels normal. If everyone around you keeps their word, reliability becomes the baseline.

Standards are contagious. So are excuses. That does not mean you should only associate with people exactly like you. Quite the opposite. Some of the best environments include people with very different backgrounds, interests, ages, and experiences. The important question is not whether everyone is the same. It is whether the environment pulls people upward or gives them permission to drift downward.

Authenticity Has a Strange Social Advantage

One of the more surprising things I learned is that being yourself is often a better social strategy than trying to be likable. That sounds obvious. It did not feel obvious when I was younger. When you are trying hard to fit in, you tend to over-monitor yourself. You are checking reactions. Adjusting. Editing. Performing.

People can often feel that. But when you stop trying to win everyone over, you become easier to understand. People know what you care about. They know what you enjoy. They know where you stand. And the people who connect with that start finding their way toward you. You stop latching onto the wrong people. You start giving the right people something real to gravitate toward.

Ironically, the moment you stop trying to fit everywhere is often when you start belonging somewhere.

The Advice Teenagers Probably Will Not Listen To

This is the kind of advice I would love to give high school students. And it is also the kind of advice I know many of them will hear and immediately ignore. That is normal. A lot of lessons have to be lived before they make sense.

When you are young, fitting in can feel incredibly important. Your social world feels enormous. A bad day can feel permanent. Being excluded can feel catastrophic.

Telling a teenager, “Just be yourself,” can sound like one of the most useless phrases an adult can offer. But the better version might be this:

Do not spend so much energy trying to be chosen that you forget you can choose too.

You get to choose friends. You get to choose activities. You get to choose what kind of person you want to become. You get to choose which rooms deserve your effort. You do not have complete control over your circumstances. Nobody does. But you have more influence over your environment than you probably think.

Create the Environment That Creates You

“More is caught than taught” is usually offered as a reminder to lead by example. Parents should model what they want their children to learn. Coaches should demonstrate the standards they expect from athletes. Leaders should live the behaviors they ask from others.

All of that is true. But I think the phrase also contains a personal challenge. If you know your environment is constantly teaching you, then be intentional about what classroom you live in. Build a home that reinforces the person you want to be. Spend time around people who make good behaviors feel normal. Put yourself in situations that demand something from you. Remove some of the environments that consistently bring out the worst in you. And when the room you need does not exist, create it.

You do not have to be a passive product of your environment. You can help design it. Then, over time, something interesting happens. The environment you created starts creating you.

And maybe that is one of the clearest forms of agency we have.