As you know, with the T1 Growth Academy and our Facebook community we enjoy monthly challenges to build new habits. The November challenge is all about having quality people in our life: we removed 5 people who did not deserve to be part of our life and we cherished 5 people who make our life worth living.
A great question a few of you asked me is “How can I know, besides intuition, who should not be part of my life?”. The reason this is a great question is because if we have a fragile ego, we might risk of excluding from our life some people who actually care a lot about us! For instance, if someone gives you feedback and you cut them loose, that is a big mistake; even if the feedback hurt your ego, they gave you a gift! They spent their time to give you precious insights on how you could become a higher version of yourself. You should actually thank the people who give you feedback rather than cutting them loose.
Over the years my network got larger and larger, hitting almost 10k people across LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. In May, I decided to do a social media cleansing and decrease my social media following to 3’000 people, and that was the best decision I could ever make because it allowed me to strengthen the relationship with the people I truly cared about.
Who are the people you do not want in your life? You do not want in your life…
1. People who are mean to you.
These are the people who tell you have mental issues just because you think differently. They tell you do not deserve happiness and success in your life. Who tell you that you are nothing and you will not change the world. These people do not give feedback. Feedback is something actionable, something that has a base of truth; these people spread hate, they make you feel like shit and they instill the doubt within yourself.
The problem of ideas is that they ingrain themselves in the mind and never leave. They are like seeds that are planted in your head. Now, if your parents and your friends are smart, they will plant seeds with high potential. They will plant seeds that open possibilities. But unfortunately many times people try to plant festering seeds in your head. As the farmer of your own garden, you must not allow them! Find these seeds, dig them out of the soil, and get rid of them!
2. People who make you dumber.
If you want to grow, you cannot surround yourself with people who are stagnant, who do not provide any value and actually make you dumber. If people are happy in their comfort zone, let them be happy. But if you want more, these people cannot be part of your future.
3. People who make fun of you and belittle you.
Pay attention because jealousy comes in jokes! “You? President of the country? Haha stop joking bro, be serious”. “I am serious” “Hey Jake listen up! Matteo said he wants to become Prime Minister! What about becoming an astronaut? Or a unicorn?”. These people not only instill some doubts in you, but also show a lack of trust in your capabilities. Remember, people typically project their own fears and limitations on you. They cannot do something, so they tell you that you cannot do it! When they tell you “This cannot be done” tell them “You cannot do it! I can, and I will”.
4. People you do not even know.
How many people follow you, or you follow, and you never even spoke to them once? What is the value of that connection? Just to show off that you have one more follower? Never mistake the connections with your friends. Your friends would die for you. I remember I once was in a difficult situation in Paris and I sent a message to my three best friends. Within 3, 5 and 12 minutes they called me back. These are the kind of people you want in your life. Try sending a message to the people you don’t even know; they won’t probably even get back to you!
5. The people you keep because you think you might need them one day.
This is such a weak mindset and I am very guilty of it. I used to keep a connection because I thought “One day I might need this person, I’ve better maintain a good relationship”. Let me ask you this: would a Leader behave like that? No, right? We discussed this before, do not be a fake manipulative person. Do not keep people around because one day you might need something from them. In philosophy we study “use people as an end, not as a mean to an end”, meaning that the happiness of the person should be the goal, rather than using the person to achieve your goal.
6. The people who are toxic and bring constant negativity.
In life, and especially when you are an entrepreneur, you will face problems every day. You cannot surround yourself with people who bring even more negativity! Keep the people who have a solution for every problem, remove the people who have a problem for every solution.
Some people have an Emotional Home connected to anger, hate, sadness. You can tell them the happiest news, and they will find a way to ruin all the happiness! Always watch who is not clapping for you when you share happy news because these people are not friends and you don’t want them in your life.
7. People you haven’t spoken with in over 5 years.
If you did not chat with someone, it might mean that they were not that important for you. If they never chatted with you, it probably means that you were not that important to them. Now, if you realize there is someone very dear to you, reach out! Tell them “Hey I realized we haven’t spoken in over 5 years and I really want you in my life, I am sorry I never kept in touch over the years, let’s chat more often in the future months”. Otherwise, let them go.
8. People who ignore you, and you hope one day they will notice you.
This is a big one. Sounds familiar? It might have happened with your high school crush. Would a Leader hope that someone sees their worth? You have nothing to prove to others, and this leads me to the next point which is:
9. People you want to prove wrong.
Again, Leaders have nothing to prove to others. When you want to prove your worth to others, the reality is that you just want to prove to yourself, to your ego, that you are enough. I repeat, Leaders have nothing to prove to others and don’t hope that one day someone will see their worth because they know their worth! Leaders go on their path and attract a following because they bring more value than anyone else. They do not care about proving other people wrong, they care about being a higher version of themselves! These two things are sometimes confused because since you want to be a higher version of yourself you prove the naysayers wrong, but the reality is that you don’t do it to prove someone else wrong, you do it for yourself.
10. People who talk shit about other people.
The most interesting people, you might have noticed, talk about ideas. If you find yourself around people who talk about people, greet everyone and go away, because these people are not living their life, they are living other people’s lives! How sad is this? I am guilty of this too, we are all guilty of this; sometimes, we spend our life watching what other people do and talking about what other people do, and we forget that the most important thing we have is our life and the present moment, and if we just talked about ideas we could improve our life. But it’s easier to talk about other people!
I lost contact with so many friends because they would always talk about people, and it is fine once in a while but in in general you do not want people who talk shit about others. Especially because they might talk shit about you when you are not there! Have you ever thought about this? When people say something, what they say says much more about themselves than it says about other people. For instance, if someone says “That person is such a loser”, they make fun of them, they are probably an envious shitty human being. That’s what I noticed in the people in my life. It is not always the case, but it is very often the case, which means that when you are not there, they will say the same bad things about you.
11. People who do not have the same goals as you.
There is an incredible experiment that was conducted. The researchers approached a group of guys and picked one: “We bet we can know your annual salary without asking you”. The guy is like “Come on that’s impossible!”. The researchers asked his friends “What’s your annual salary?”. They summed all the salaries and divided by the number of friends, and found the average salary of the friends. “Is it around X a year?” and surprisingly the guy was like “Omg that’s so close to my actual salary!”. This experiment proved that the people in our life shape our goals; if you want to make $1M a year, do not live with people who make $50k. Your salary, your energy, etc. is a direct reflection of the expectations of your peer group.
12. People who tell you what you want to hear
This is quite a difficult one to grasp. You see, we always have a choice and I know this very well being a Coach: we can tell people what they want to hear, or we can tell people what they need to hear. I know that you love hearing that you are right, that you are smart, that you are making the right choice, but this does not help your growth. The real friends are the people who tell you what you need to hear, so that you can use the feedback to improve.
Make sure to not confuse the negative people, the haters, with someone who is giving you a feedback for your own benefit!
Why is our conversation today relevant?
Here is a personal story. A really good friend of mine recently told me "I don't post everything I want on social media because my followers might comment and make fun of me" and I told him "It's your social media. Just remove the people who do not support you". And he said as a joke, but I know there was some truth in his words: "But then I would be left with no followers!" And this is the problem of many people. They are afraid of not being loved.
You do not want to cut people loose because it seems weird to say “Hey my peace of mind is important. I am focused on my goals and I want people who feed my flames. I do not allow anyone who pisses on my fire to be part of my life”.
The advice I would like to give you all today is the following: never be afraid of not being loved, never be afraid of letting go of the people who do not deserve to be in your life, because your true friends, the people who are meant to be in your life, will be in your life! There is abundance in life if you just open your eyes and allow it to fill your soul.
Make your life a masterpiece, see you next week, I appreciate you and I hope you have an amazing day.
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