You've probably heard "you're the average of the 5 people you spent most time with".

So I recently went back through recordings of two of my own mastermind calls looking for evidence of the effectiveness of the peer group. I found not one but five ways that being around peers who challenges you upgrades you by slealth.

1. Direct transfer. The same habit crosses from one person to another.
Martin had got serious about running and was logging ten kms most days. Lance started copying him and named it:
"I've been pretty inspired with Martin's wins and how he's been picking up the running. So thanks"

This one only works if your peer's habit is visible. Nobody copies what they cannot see.

2. Method transfer. Someone takes how you made it stick and applies it to a different habit.

Stephen watched the same running habit but didn't start running. He copied his peer's habit forming blueprint and started a 5min of meditation habit before opening his laptop. He even said
"I've been able to steal Martin's habit forming thing." then described how.

3: The flywheel. The habit-started gets sustained by the habit-follow

Martin said on the call
"Since Lance joined, I've been watching his runs as well" then said how it had inspired him to keep running consistently.

4: Recognition. Hearing other people's wins surfaces what you probably knew and were not doing.

Rob, who had missed the retreat, listened to 4 people describe excellent weeks while not having had one himself. 7 days later his week had turned and he reflected on why:

"It was being able to recognize that these [the things his peers were doing] were the things that I knew I should be doing."

5: Replicating the environment. One person spread the win to their family, or company

I asked one of the founders on the call what had turned his sales around. He again tracked it back to his peers on the group:

"A lot of the culture of what we're starting to bring through the coaching and what I've learned from everyone in this group is starting to permeate through the culture of the business."

Nobody from his company had ever attended anything.
The first 4 move a habit into a new person, or consolidate it in an existing person. This one moves a habit into an organisation, so it reaches people who were never in the room and never will be.

It is also the only one of the 5 that keeps rippling through time and space after the member leaves the group.

To put it simply: peer groups are very powerful, but because so much happens by stealth, we often don't see how much it is influencing us. This is true in the negative and the positive. It's not about number of hours, but quality and depth.

A highly positive, supportive peer group of ~5+ people that you have structured deep interactions with once a week is like a river current that moves you towards your goals even when you're not swimming.

Who is your peer group? And what direction does their current move you?

You've probably heard "you're the average of the 5 people you spent most time with".

So I recently went back through recordings of two of my own mastermind calls looking for evidence of the effectiveness of the peer group. I found not one but five ways that being around peers who challenges you upgrades you by slealth.

1. Direct transfer. The same habit crosses from one person to another.
Martin had got serious about running and was logging ten kms most days. Lance started copying him and named it:
"I've been pretty inspired with Martin's wins and how he's been picking up the running. So thanks"

This one only works if your peer's habit is visible. Nobody copies what they cannot see.

2. Method transfer. Someone takes how you made it stick and applies it to a different habit.

Stephen watched the same running habit but didn't start running. He copied his peer's habit forming blueprint and started a 5min of meditation habit before opening his laptop. He even said
"I've been able to steal Martin's habit forming thing." then described how.

3: The flywheel. The habit-started gets sustained by the habit-follow

Martin said on the call
"Since Lance joined, I've been watching his runs as well" then said how it had inspired him to keep running consistently.

4: Recognition. Hearing other people's wins surfaces what you probably knew and were not doing.

Rob, who had missed the retreat, listened to 4 people describe excellent weeks while not having had one himself. 7 days later his week had turned and he reflected on why:

"It was being able to recognize that these [the things his peers were doing] were the things that I knew I should be doing."

5: Replicating the environment. One person spread the win to their family, or company

I asked one of the founders on the call what had turned his sales around. He again tracked it back to his peers on the group:

"A lot of the culture of what we're starting to bring through the coaching and what I've learned from everyone in this group is starting to permeate through the culture of the business."

Nobody from his company had ever attended anything.
The first 4 move a habit into a new person, or consolidate it in an existing person. This one moves a habit into an organisation, so it reaches people who were never in the room and never will be.

It is also the only one of the 5 that keeps rippling through time and space after the member leaves the group.

To put it simply: peer groups are very powerful, but because so much happens by stealth, we often don't see how much it is influencing us. This is true in the negative and the positive.

Who is your peer group? And what direction does their current move you?

For it to happen at all, the room has to be legible. A member can only rebuild a structure whose shape he can see, which is an argument for running your group in a way that is obvious rather than mysterious.

The science of habit forming: #5 of a series of 9

Ever had a habit you started to form but then didn't maintain?

One of the biggest reasons that us humans don't form new habits is that there is a seed of conflict in the genesis of the habit we just tried to form. Understanding how to avoid sewing that seed is key to creating habits that you can maintain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47q9I2M6Ao4

The future of Bitcoin is bright.

I don't believe this. I know this. This has nothing to do with the technology, the protocol, price, compelling events on the horizon or even the need.

It is because of the people. The people who are doing the work, who are empowering their local communities, making it easier to get money back to their families, empowering businesses, improving their environment - week in week out using Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining as an excuse to do good in the world and help humanity is inspiring.

This is neither rhetoric, nor theory. This is my synopsis of working with over 40 Bitcoin builders as a coach over the last 2 years.

Specifically, every week I have the priviledge of facilitating a group of Bitcoin builders on a mastermind who are doing this work, and every one of them inspires everyone else on the group to go further, improve more, and impact deeper with their own Bitcoin mission.

What we discuss is private. But the ripple of impact these Bitcoiners create is public.

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer network. It is strong because the source code is strong, and the nodes of the network are strong and it is protected by energy itself. But not only because of that.

Bitcoin is strong because Bitcoiners are strong, resilient, anti-fragile, tenacious nodes of the network, standing up and helping our peers in the network, and prepared to make ourselves more robust nodes, because doing so serves the whole network.

4 of 9: The science of habit forming.
This one is the least talked about ... but arguably the most powerful of all

(The first 3 I posted on Nostr Mon->Wed if you missed them)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiOJ_UyojkI

"Bitcoin is used by criminals"

Source: criminals

$500M financing of vented methane BTC mining

- makes the entire BTC network carbon negative
- removes 36M tonnes of CO2-e per year
- is equal to planting 2.5B trees
- further decentralises the Bitcoin network
- shows the world that Bitcoin is an environmental force for good

France's center, left and right just did something they never do: agree on something

And ... Bitcoin mining brought them together

Bitcoin mining is not just a grid stabilizing force, it's a political stabilizing force

kudos to INBi - Institut National de Bitcoin (France’s national Bitcoin institute), Bastien Desteuque and EBEA - who are producing great Bitcoin stories faster than I can document them!

Full story: https://www.batcoinz.com/p/the-150-terawatt-hour-ghost

Some of the best responses I've got on social media has been from my non-Bitcoin related posts on Nostr.

This current series is no exception.

This is part #3 of the 9 rules of habit forming. If you missed the first two, it's in my post from earlier this week

For context: I put this together for clients some years ago - and many used it to successfully develop new habits (and end old ones) so I decided to make it more widely available.

Here's the third in the series (where I get completely upstaged part way through)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRe3LdAlCGA