I'm shooting 100% from three and 85% from two right now.
This 12 Week Year – a productivity system I've used since 2018 that emphasizes shorter timelines, goal-setting, and accountability – two habits I'm working to develop are writing 750 words daily and publishing once weekly. In the last two weeks, I've written 12/14 days, and if you're reading this, I've published twice. Outside of a lil bit of discipline, this momentum can be attributed to my team and my collective bag. My team is the people I’m connected to, and my collective bag is the set of skills and perspectives that I can access through my people.
Let's look at why diversifying the types of relationships and the type of people you have in your relationships will make you happier, healthier, and wealthier.
In basketball, most players focus on developing key skills, a "bag," if you will. What folks don’t talk about, however, is that teams have a collective bag.
Individual players work on shooting, handling, and passing, while teams have shooters, ball handlers, and facilitators.
In the same way that a player needs to diversify their skills – you need to be able to do more than just score to be successful – a team needs to diversify its skillset to be successful. That means that you need a team with diverse roles and backgrounds to be successful.
Your people are your team; they're a collection of individuals who can help you through life and experience it with you. The more diverse your people and their bags, the stronger your collective bag.
Let's take a look at what’s in your collective bag.
There are two components to your team's collective bag: maintaining variety in the type of relationships you have and the kind of people you have relationships with.
In hoop, some players are scorers (strong on offense), some are stoppers (strong on defense), and some are facilitators (strong at passing). Some start, some come off the bench, and some are locker room presences.
In relationships, some people are colleagues, some are friends, and some are family. You call some to talk about the game, some to talk about last night’s date, and some to talk about what you want to get out of this life.
This is role diversification.
You should have people who play different roles for your team rather than one or two people who do it all.
The other, perhaps more important element, is the background of players filling those roles. The NBA Finals featured a team with 7 undrafted players, many of which got major tick (playing time). The Miami Heat's roster was a significant storyline because undrafted players who play well will always defy expectations. Undrafted players are, by definition, overlooked; scouts and executives chose other players over them. Similarly, you can achieve success if you’re open to connecting with people ******who can fill the roles that you need, regardless of where they came from.
This is player/people diversification.
In hoop, player diversification means filling a team's roles with players from different schools, different countries, different physiques, etc.
In relationships, people diversification means having relationships with people of different ages, genders, backgrounds, and cultures.
Let's see how a diverse collective bag can help you win.
When I spent time in Brazil after my sophomore year, I stayed with a host mom in a 2 bed flat. After a week of living there, I found out there was an entire apartment in the attic, and somebody was up there.
So I did what any curious brother would do: I climbed up the ladder to rap with Bro.
When I went to talk to him, I was surprised at how far my lil bit of Portuguese and his lil bit of English took us in communication. Still, I was even more surprised at his perspectives. We talked about everything from working in Brazil to gun culture & violence in the US.
Our conversation was a reminder that the typical career paths, gun culture, and other norms in the US are often different around the world. It established the idea that I don’t have to subscribe to US norms because somewhere in Bahia, Brazil, they aren’t either.
Being connected to people of different backgrounds means opening yourself up to a new world of experiences and perspectives to learn from. Learning, progress, and growth only occur in the unfamiliar and the uncomfortable.
Diversifying the types of relationships and the types of people we have relationships with broadens our perspectives. This helps us to be more empathetic, understanding, and compassionate, which are key ingredients for healthy and happy relationships.
Writers Darren K. Roberts and Ali Abdaal talk about getting coaches for different areas of your life like athletes do for different parts of their game. Naturally, when I started this 12-week year, I thought about which one of my people could be a writing coach for me. So, I reached out to my friend, Thalia.
Thalia of "The Disco" has been writing for over a decade, has written nearly 50 consecutive issues of her newsletter, and has a familiar writing style I enjoy and work to learn from.
My ability to acquire a writing coach so quickly rested, outside of her willingness, in my having a friend who is a more established writer than me.
The more diverse your collective bag (the type of relationships you have and the kind of people you have relationships with), the more likely you are to find someone better suited to provide you with the support you need.
Having access to different people with different perspectives can mean unique solutions to your problems. It's like the devil and the angel on each shoulder, sans the devilish and angelic connotation, and you can have more than 2.
Once you’ve found people who can offer specialized support, you're more likely to delegate the support you need to more people. In other words, you're less likely to rely on one person for every area of help you need: career; romantic relationships; mental health; etc. Having people with different bags in your life allows you to avoid a trap highlighted by Relationship Anarchy: demanding that all of your needs be met by one person alone.
Diversifying your relationships increases serendipity because having varied relationships exponentially increases your exposure to new experiences and opportunities.
You could meet someone while you’re out doing your thing, online, or even when you’re on a mission to do something else.
When I was in Paris this spring digging for Zouk records, I planned to stop by the Bastille Arts Center for a book fair. En route to the center, I saw something I couldn’t explain to myself at first; but the photographer in me was intrigued by what appeared to be my favorite photographic subject: seasoned (read: old) men **hanging out. What I was seeing, I later came to find out, was a go-to spot for Pétanque. So, I did what any Seller would do and sat down to observe and make images. Eventually, I was invited to play with a group of younger players (you know the OGs are too serious to let anyone just pull up). After a few games, they invited me to grab drinks and the rest is history.
Without being open to my plan changing, or playing pickup Pétanque, or talking to folks in the French that I didn’t know, I wouldn’t have met someone from Belgium, learned about basketball culture in France, or have spent a Friday afternoon outside playing in the park.
Diversifying relationships can lead to discovering hidden opportunities or ideas that can enrich your life. Having a wide array of relationships gives you more chances to encounter novel things, which can lead to more growth and more fun.
Let's go into some examples of how to diversify your relationships.
Okay, now that we’ve talked about the importance of a collective bag, let’s talk about how to practice getting one.
Diversifying our relationships opens us up to new experiences, perspectives, and opportunities while also building a stronger community around us.
It's not this piece's place to explain, but a lack of diversification in our relationships collectively contributes to issues like inequality, discrimination, groupthink, and more.
Go work on your (collective) bag and don’t forget to play your role in your people's lives too.
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