The Three Circles
On how our influences shape us.
“...people think I have a style as a drummer. Part of me thinks that it’s because they don’t know all the influences I’m drawing on at any given moment. But part of me, just as quickly, wonders if there’s any difference.”
- From Creative Quest by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson
We are the sum of our influences.
Do you believe that, dear reader?
Let’s try something.
Pick any domain in your life that you care about being good in.
It could be a specific skill, like wanting to be a good cook, a good writer, a good musician, or even something broader like a good parent, a good partner, a good leader, or a good friend.
Now, once you’ve chosen your domain, I want you to imagine a Venn diagram with three intersecting circles.
On each circle, I want you to imagine a single source that is influencing the way you think or behave within your chosen domain.
With three circles in your Venn diagram, I’m asking you to imagine three distinct sources of influence.
Let’s call this the three circles question.
Can you name your circles easily? Are you ok with them? In other words, are you aware of them and can you accept them?
If I had to name my circles as a writer (at the time of writing this sentence), I think they would be made up of the following people:
Brian Dean - The founder of a niche marketing blog called Backlinko that I used to read religiously over a decade ago. I haven’t read his work in years, yet it was his style of short sentences with line breaks that really drew me in as a reader. He makes large topics feel small.
Billy Oppenheimer - The way that Billy weaves connections between disparate stories is something I both admire and attempt to copy. I only discovered his work relatively recently, and am fairly certain that I’ll be a lifelong fan.
Malcolm Gladwell - He has a gift of truly making anything interesting. When I think of the saying, to be interesting, be interested, I think of Malcolm.
It’s funny, even as I list these for you now, I’m aware of them, and yet I’m not sure that I can fully accept them.
I’m asking myself a few questions: Why aren’t there any fiction writers? Why are they all male?
I’m sure that if I kept adding circles, I could comfort myself with answers to those questions, but that’s cheating. The entire point of this exercise was to choose only three circles.
You can repeat this exercise in any domain of your life.
If you look hard enough, you can even use it to understand the domains of people you admire. If you’re not into hard work, I guess you could just ask them how they would answer the three circles question.
Going back to the top: We are the sum of our influences.
If you really believe that, then the three circles question matters a lot.
If you want to change the way you think, act, or both, consider changing a circle.
Or perhaps all three.
