We all need to have goals in life. Those goals can be anything from learning a new instrument, to beginning a fitness program or starting a new business. When you begin to set the path for accomplishing that goal you are going to start noticing some very strange things going on around you.
Before I continue moving forward, let me back up about 15 years or so. This is when I started to take notice to the people around me. Growing up we all have friends that we interact with on a daily basis. You develop tight bonds with those people that will be there for life…or so you think.
When I first started to learn about my real friends, or so I thought… September 11, 2001 was a very tough time for all Americans. The country has just been attacked by terrorist and we were about to invade the middle east for payback from what they did.
I was born and raised in New Jersey and on that morning of 9/11, I was able to see the smoke from the twin towers. I remember going outside and looking up seeing the F-15’s fly over and patrol the skies incase the airline attacks were not finished. That morning something inside spoke to me in ways I cannot fully explain. I just had a feeling, a feel that that was so clear and I knew exactly what I had to do. I had to join the Marine Corps and go fight overseas.
There were many challenges I had along the way from quitting smoking weed to begin getting in shape, so boot camp wouldn't completely destroy me. While I started to make these life changes I felt proud and with a purpose so whenever I would meet anyone new, I would find a way to bring it up in conversation.
The stranger would reply with positive words of encouragement and they always made me feel better and they gave me the courage that I needed in order to succeed. Someone I didn't even know was supporting me in great ways.
Yes, I had my own courage and confidence but believing in yourself can me magnified or destroyed from the comments of others if you allow them to take control in your mind. As the days and months went on, this is when I started noticing something. Strangers were always supportive and friends were the opposite.
What the fu*k! I thought friends were supposed to be your biggest supporters?
Turns out this is not always the case.
What I heard during those times was friends would say, “you will fail and never make it through” or “you will quit and be back here in two weeks.”
How is it that I was getting more positive support from people I didn't even know?
There have been many other times in my life when I noticed the same thing happen over and over. My big move to Hawaii over 6 years ago, starting my own personal training business, writing my first full length novel and attending college with the pursuit of a degree.
Strangers supported me and friends would doubt me. Let me be even more clear. Its not that friends doubted me, its that they want to see you do good, just not better than they are doing. That is the hard cold truth.
Building this new business is when I notice things a lot clearer now. When I talk to close friends and tell them about my vision and goals for this business, I can see it makes them very uncomfortable.
I talk about building a multi million dollar business in a few years and they criticize or try and debate with me on why that will not work. The more I let them talk the more I discover about their hidden emotions and thoughts about themselves.
I have learned that there are basically two types of people in this worlds, and sometimes we can be a blend of the two depending on who we are interacting with.
People with an open mind who believe anything is possible through hard work and a strategic plan of action to get there. These are the risk takers in life. They jump off the cliff before ever looking over the edge.
The other type of people are the closed minded individuals. I am not talking negative about them in any way. I am just trying be to honest and as transparent as I can be so hopefully you can learn something from all this.
Closed minded people are easy to pick out in a crown or noticing them the first few seconds of talking. Everything to them is either black or white, there is no grey area in between. They are the ones who have a certain ideology of how to live life and it goes something like this.
-Graduate High School
-Take out huge student loan and attend collage
-Graduate collage with a mountain of debt
-Find a safe secure job that is typically 9-5 daily
-Invest in your 401K
-Get married and have children
-Work 40 hours every week for about 40 years of your life
-Retire with barely anything
-Pass what you were taught onto your kids and the cycle repeats.
They go day in and day out never questioning anything and doing exactly what they are told regardless of how bad it makes them feel and the stress it creates in their personal life. On the flip side of that, some people thrive off of this kind of life cycle. We are all so different in so many ways. Some of the happiest people I know are "close minded" and that is ok. There are still valuable lessons to be learned from those individuals. But a great majority of the people stuck in the "Rat Race" are conditioned based on the way society conditions them.
Misery loves company. So when I would talk to friends and depending on their mood would usually correlate to the answers they would give. When the people closest to you are feeding you with negative doubts sometimes their words can change your mindset about yourself.
It is crucial is you want to succeed at anything you must block out the negative interactions you have and only get positive support from others or none at all. This may mean cutting ties with old friends or limited conversations to close friends to a bare minimum. It is true that we are a collection of the people we spend most of our time with. If you want to be successful, then start hanging out with successful people.
You will never achieve your dreams if you have these huge ambitions but you continue to hang out with negative non driven friends that secretly don't want to see you succeed and they try their best to keep pulling you back down to their level. Your ambitions and goals make them feel uncomfortable because they look at their own lives and know they are just settling for what is comfortable to them or an easier life they may have.
The most important conversation you are going to have in life is the talk you have with yourself. If you want to do something, then go out and make it happen. Ignore the negative people and believe in yourself and the limitless potential we all have.
During the last few years I have developed my people reading skills and have made my social circle smaller and smaller. I only want positive people in my life who are going to encourage me and challenge me in ways that I never thought were possible.
Your closest friends will betray you the most. we have all seen it over and over again in different ways. Your best friend sleeps with your girl, your girlfriend cheats on you with some low life, friends talk about you behind your back and then smile in your face and the list goes on and on. I know you all can relate to exactly what I am talking about.
All I am trying to say is people change over time. Friendships are broken and new ones are formed, but life keeps going on. Our most precious thing in life is time. Use that time to build your life the way you see it.
Do not let others talk you out of your dreams because they cannot do it them selves. You will have to make sacrifices in order to accomplish your goals. But if you put in the hard work now, you will live a life on your terms never answering to anyone for anything.
Believe in yourself and like the old saying goes…
“Whether if you think you can or you can’t…You are Right.”
Until Next Time,
-Zak
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