Heads‑up: The concept of this post might seem trivial, but it can improve your career, happiness, and the people you care about. Proceed without caution. It only takes about 10 minutes to read.
What is “Root For Your Friends”?
It’s getting excited for your friends when something good happens, and rejecting jealousy.
It’s deeply believing that a rising tide lifts all boats.
It’s understanding that most games in life aren’t zero‑sum; they’re wildly positive‑sum.
Outcomes: If you read this post, you will be more:
- excited for your friends
- generous with your praise and support
- open to collaborating with others
- likely to introduce your friends to people who can help them
Note: I call a friend who roots for you a hypeman or a hype friend.
The Hypeman Flywheel
The most underrated part of rooting for you friends is that it benefits everyone. A flywheel is a concept where each input creates a positive feedback loop that improves the next loop.
A good example of a flywheel in business is where a company collects and utilizes user analytics such that their improvement of the product means more people use the product, which creates more data for what’s working, which creates a better product, which drives morepeople to use the product, etc.
The friend flywheel is similar. It’s a positive feedback loop where you root for your friends, building them up and sharing info with them which creates good will and levels them up, and now they’re slightly more successful and informed and they often share info and deals back with you due to feeling closer with you. Then you level up and get access to more info and better deals and you share with them, and the flywheel keeps going.
One Caveat
Obviously the flywheel only works if your friends reciprocate.
Alex Hormozi says “The best way to change your life is to change your friends.” You don’t have to do this, but if you’re reading this and the quote resonates with you, maybe you should consider it.
Look for friends who aren’t threatened by your success. I talk about spotting friend who will “root for you” in a second.
A caveat of the caveat
Even if you root for the “wrong” friends, it’s still the best way to live. Life is better not feeling jealous. You can sleep so much easier at night by genuinely being happy for your friends, even if they’re a bit jealous of you.
Do you have a hypeman?
Visualize something for me.
You just shipped a side‑project that lands on the front page of Hacker News. Who’s the first person you want to tell?
That person is your hypeman—the friend who celebrates your victories like it’s their own milestone. No one comes to mind? Maybe you haven’t really trusted anyone with your wins yet. Let’s identify who you could do that with.
How to Spot Friends Who Root For You
Here’s a list of things to look for that indicate a person might be a great friend:
- People who speak honest truth to your face and praise you behind your back.
- People who consistently congratulate you when good things happen.
- People who like and share your stuff.
- People who intro you to people who might be able to help you.
- People who give you different ways to improve your product/brand/life.
- People whose default is “Let’s work on this together!”
- People who give meaningful feedback on your projects.
- People who say “We did it!” even when they did the majority of the work.
How to Be a Hypeman
This is a two way street. You can’t expect your friends to root for you if you don’t root for them. Here’s how you can do that:
- Be quick to praise: Train your first instinct to praise.
- Be tactfully honest: Good people value constructive criticism deeply.
- Expand their vision – “That’s awesome… and imagine if you… and have you seen this…?”
- Signal‑Boost – Shares and like their stuff all the time and ask them to tell you when they post.
Closing
Rooting for your friends is the best way to live. I pray you now believe that.
So yeah, go forth, reject jealousy, and root for your friends! This is a message a lot of people need to hear, so I’d love if you shared it.
- Joseph “rez0” Thacker
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