Like-minded friendships came up in my head today somewhere around kilometre six, on day 2073 of this run. I want to be honest about where the thought came from. It wasn't abstract. It was practical. I was thinking about a friend from school who, like me, ended up in entrepreneurship, and how different our conversations are now compared to some of the other people I grew up with.

Here's the question I kept circling back to on the run. If you have a goal, a proper stretch goal, one that should make you a little uncomfortable to chase, does it help or hurt you to be surrounded by people who don't share it?

Most people never actually ask themselves this. I didn't for a long time either. You end up with a friend group by accident, not by design. School put you in the same classroom. A job put you in the same office. A five-a-side team put you on the same pitch. None of that is a bad start. But nobody sits you down and asks whether these are the right people to be around ten years later, when your goals have changed and theirs might not have.

I'm not saying cut people off. That's too simple and, frankly, too harsh a way to think about relationships that might have real history and real value. What I'd rather do is ask a more useful question about each person I spend time with. Are they pushing me forward, keeping me neutral, or pulling me back?

Neutral is fine. Not everyone needs to be obsessed with your goals to be a good friend. Some people are just good company, good listeners, good for a laugh, and that has its own value. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

But the ones who pull you back are worth being honest about. Sometimes it's not even intentional on their part. It's just that their priorities are somewhere else, and being around them constantly nudges your attention somewhere else too. Time is the one resource none of us get back, and the older I get, the more I notice how limited it actually is. Every hour spent with the wrong influence is an hour not spent building whatever it is you're trying to build.

The friend I mentioned, the one from school who's now an entrepreneur too, is a good example of what the alternative looks like. We can still laugh about the old days. That doesn't disappear. But we can also talk seriously about setbacks, about what didn't work last month, about a decision either of us is wrestling with. We're both getting knocked down in our own ways and learning from it, and we're sharing that with each other instead of carrying it alone. That kind of relationship compounds. It doesn't just feel good, it actually moves you forward.

There's a harder layer to this too, and it's family. Friends are, in the end, a choice. Family often isn't, not in the same way. I think that's worth acknowledging rather than glossing over, because it means the friendship question is actually the easier one to act on. If a friendship isn't serving either person anymore, there's no obligation keeping it in place. That's not cold, it's just honest.

I bring a version of this thinking into the run itself, even though running is mostly a solitary pursuit. Day 2073 means I've now covered 15,997.52km, which leaves 24,077.48km before I've completed a full lap of the world in barefoot-style shoes. That's the kind of number that only gets smaller through daily, unglamorous repetition. No single day moves it much. It's the pattern that matters, and the pattern only holds if the environment around it supports it rather than working against it.

That's really the connection between today's topic and the wider mission. This run is part of a fundraiser to help save children's lives, through Great Ormond Street and BBC Children in Need, by attempting to run a distance equal to the circumference of the earth, one consecutive day at a time, for as long as it takes. Right now the target is £1M raised. None of that happens without consistency, and consistency is much harder to protect if the people around you are constantly pulling your attention somewhere else.

So if you're chasing something that matters to you, take an honest look at who you spend the most time with. Not to judge them, but to understand what effect they're having on you. Are they making the goal easier to reach, or quietly making it harder? It's a simple question, but most of us never actually sit with it long enough to answer honestly.

If you want to follow the mission, day 2073 and counting, 15,997.52km down, 24,077.48km still to go, you can watch the full episode, subscribe, and if it resonates, consider supporting the fundraiser. Every follow puts this in front of more people, and more people is what gets us to £1M for children's causes.

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/9EDLMA3sNtI