Acharya Prashant explains that to find the right friend, one must first be at the right place. To be at the right place, you need to know what is right for you. When you know what is right for you, you start moving in that direction with all your energy and dedication. As you move towards your goal, you will find people who are like you or better than you, moving in the same direction, who will prove to be helpful. The first and foremost thing is your own commitment to yourself. Using an analogy, the speaker illustrates that if you want to become a badminton player but don't have a partner, you start by doing whatever you can, even if it's just bouncing the shuttlecock off your room's wall. When you get fed up with this, you will realize you need a proper court. Upon seeking and finding a court, you will encounter other players who are fit to be called friends. The process begins with individual effort, which leads you to the right places and, consequently, to the right people. You cannot just go out looking for friends; the first step is to do the best you can in your individual capacity, which will eventually force you to seek out better places where you will find better people. If you remain where you are and as you are, you will only find friends who are just the way you are. To find people who truly deserve to be called friends, you need to aspire, endeavor, look at yourself, see where you lack, and shed your weaknesses. In this process of inner effort and honesty, you will almost accidentally come across people who will prove to be good friends. Having good friends is a luxury that not everyone can have, and like all luxuries, it comes at a price that must be paid through self-effort. Otherwise, one is left with accidental friends, like a roommate, which is hardly a fruitful or elevating relationship. Human beings are meant to operate via consciousness, not by chance. Friends cannot be accidental. Leaving things like friendships, relationships, and career to chance is like being an inanimate object, like a fallen leaf, floating about in the wind. To find a great cricketer, you are more likely to succeed in a stadium than a shopping mall, but first, you must develop some cricketing skills to be allowed entry. The speaker points out that the questioner is able to speak with him only because he is sitting in an IIT campus, a place he had to reach first before he could connect.