To cut ties or to not cut ties?

You’ve finally taken the leap towards achieving your lifelong dreams but your friends are just “eh” about it. It’s not that they don’t want to support you, but maybe they just don’t really agree with what you are doing or find it realistic. Kind of hurts your feelings, doesn’t it?

I remember a few years ago, when I first got into network marketing & started learning about being an entrepreneur, my mind was blown and I just wanted all of my friends to understand that whatever they were doing wasn’t working and I just discovered the thing that could change mine & all of their lives. Hah, just writing this makes me realize how crazy I must have sounded to them. Who knows? Maybe I am crazy-- but that’s not the point I’m getting to here.

In short, I went from hanging out with my friends all the time where there would be smoking, drinking, partying, you know the deal… to going to business meetings, luncheons and reading books about self help. “You’ve changed Lisa,” they said. And to be honest, I had. I was starting a new chapter in my life & that chapter involved doing things that would gear me towards my goals. I’m not saying that what they were doing was necessarily bad. I was just over that party stage in life & wanted a change, and they didn’t seem to understand me.

My first instinct was to just disassociate myself from anyone who didn’t see things the way I did. “If you hang out with five broke people, you’re bound to be the sixth,” my new colleagues would say - and to an extent, they are right. Associations are very powerful. I wouldn’t know the things I know today if I hadn’t surrounded myself with people who were better than me. But if I’m to be really honest with myself, choosing one side over the other & disassociating myself with not only the ones who didn’t see eye to eye with me, but the ones who I grew up with, shared memories with & saw as family, hurt me deep down.

After a couple years, I decided to put my anger aside to help them. For those who said they wanted to move to LA, I helped schedule interviews for jobs, recommended they read the Slight Edge for better daily practice, even offered my place to stay until they got things situated… but nothing. No one took any of the advice nor took anything seriously - they were "good". How could you say that you want to do this but don’t do anything to achieve it? It was so frustrating to the point I asked myself, “What’s the point!?” I even reconsidered disassociating myself again but I knew not having them in my life made me sad. I had known so many of them for years and we had so many great memories. I was just sad that I had let all of those years go just because they didn’t see success the way I did. And that’s when I realized that success is different for everyone!

Earl Nightingale said it best in his audio, The Strangest Secret. “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” Not everyone wants to wants to go on the trips that Marie, Lyssa & I plan; not everyone wants to travel; not everyone wants to be super wealthy, or debt free, or whatever. And that’s okay!

It can be frustrating hearing friends say “I want to go on one of your trips but I don’t have any money” only to see them spending money on other things. Heck, there was a time I invited a lot of my friends to go to one of my dance performances & no one showed up because $20 was too expensive - even though they always had enough money for booze or weed. At the time, I was furious but ever since I accepted their actions & stopped expecting people to change, my life has been so much happier. I may not spend as much time with my old friends as I did in the past, but I consistently keep in touch and visit as much as I can because the way I see it, they bring me back to high school or back to the days we were kids & didn’t give a shit about anything but having fun at the moment. I also don't ever expect any of them to come to one of our trips or even drive to LA to visit because I know their priorities are elsewhere but I ain’t trippin'. I'm not taking it personally. That's just how they are.

So if you’re going through something similar and are debating whether you should cut ties with people you care about, I personally wouldn’t. It would rip a part of your heart that you don't need to rip out. If you really need space, try limiting your time together & don’t be afraid to let loose when you do hang out. Then when you’re not with them, focus on your goals. The best way to inspire others is by doing it yourself.

A friend of mine recently mentioned how she was walking through a gravesite and noticed how all of the makers said ‘loving husband’ ‘beloved mother, wife & friend’, or ‘wife, mother, daugher’. None of them said ‘loyal employee’ or ‘successful entrepreneur’. In the end it's who we are, not what we do.....I know we all need to make a living but be sure to have a life and treat the ones you love like they may be gone tomorrow.

Find that balance. I promise, it feels so much better.

xo, C