Pay attention to the energy around you

Some places make you feel better simply by spending time there. Others seem to take something from you. The older I get, the more attention I pay to the difference.

I didn't always think much about the energy of places or the people around me. I had my rebellious teenage years and spent time with people who were only meant to stay for a season, while others are still in my life today.

Now I notice more. How do I feel when I enter a room, who do I feel good around and, most importantly, how do I feel when I leave?

Some places lift you

Think about your local gym. When have you ever left feeling worse than when you walked in?

Almost everyone is there to improve something. They're getting stronger, healthier or simply putting effort into themselves. Even on days when I don't want to go, I rarely regret it afterwards.

Universities have a similar energy for different reasons. People are learning, working and preparing for lives that haven't happened yet. There are exams to pass, careers to build and plans for the future. There's ambition and hope in the room.

Then there are places that feel completely different.

I don't like casinos. They're built around excitement and the possibility of winning, yet underneath the lights and noise, I often notice desperation. People chasing what they've lost, sitting for hours without any sense of time. Look around long enough and the excitement can start to look more like emptiness.

Hospitals carry something else. There's healing, recovery and new life, but also fear, grief and bad news. You can feel the weight of what happens inside those corridors.

Churches are more complex. They hold weddings, community and celebration, but also funerals, grief and people looking for comfort. Maybe what you feel in places like these isn't a specific frequency, but the concentration of human emotion.

Pay attention to your environment

People affect you in much the same way.

You've probably heard that you become like the five people you spend the most time with. Whether the number is five or not doesn't really matter. What you're surrounded by starts to feel normal.

Spend enough time around ambitious people and ambition feels normal. Conversations about building businesses, investing, learning, travelling or taking care of yourself can change what you expect from your own life.

Spend enough time around destructive behaviour and that can start to feel normal too.

This isn't about wealth or status. Rich people can be terrible influences, while someone with very little can elevate every room they enter. It's about direction. Pay attention to where the people around you are going.

Trust what you notice

The same applies to belonging.

Walk into a room where you're not really wanted and you'll often feel it before anyone says a word. Walk into one where people are genuinely happy to see you and you'll feel that too.

You don't need to rationalise every signal. Notice which places leave you energised, which ones drain you and which people make you want more for yourself.

Whether you call it energy, frequency or simply the effect of your environment, what you surround yourself with matters.

Choose the energy around you carefully, because eventually, some of it becomes yours.