I was lucky to have people smarter than me always around me. On the other hand, if you explicitly aim for surrounding yourself with people better than you, you

I was lucky to have people smarter than me always around me. On the other hand, if you explicitly aim for surrounding yourself with people better than you, you will almost always succeed. So do that. (I was the best math student in my class, my grade, my school, my city, etc. so I aimed for national math olympiad, and got to #10. Why would you settle for the best in your school?)