The people you admire have a surprising amount of control over who you become. It’s a quiet influence, often more powerful than the advice you get or even the goals you set for yourself.

We don’t just look up to these people; we absorb their habits, their ways of thinking, even their weaknesses. Admiration is less about inspiration and more about exposure. The people you admire set the standard for what’s possible and what’s acceptable. If you admire someone for their ambition, you’re more likely to value ambition in your own life. If it’s their calm under pressure, you’ll start seeking that too. It’s almost inevitable that we pick up pieces of the people we look up to.

The most interesting part of this process is how it reshapes us quietly. Admiring someone you know well might make you rethink what you do when things get tough or how you approach your work. And it’s not just their virtues that change us; their flaws do too. We learn to manage our own limitations by watching how they handle theirs.

So the real power of the people we admire lies not in big moments of inspiration, but in the constant, subtle adjustments they make to our outlook. If you want to grow in a certain direction, the simplest way might be to find someone already there, and let admiration do the rest.