Transcript:
Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur but they don’t understand what that means when it comes to your lifestyle. So what are the social aspects of being an entrepreneur? How do you prepare family & friends for the ‘new you’? How do you prepare them for the ‘entrepreneur you?’
When you become an entreprepreneur, you’ll lose friends, relationships, and even family because your time is consumed with building your business. You will outgrow people mentally, emotionally and in every other way. You don’t have time for small-time thinking or the foolishness that other people deal with.
And people who aren’t entrepreneurs won’t understand you. They want to talk to you on the phone for 30 minutes and hang out to just ‘catch up’. But all you can think about is one thing…business. Business, business, business.
People will tell you that you need to take a vacation. It’s not all about the money. Have some fun. What they don’t realize is that while they’re running away from what they do for a living, you run towards what you do. You love what you do more than going to a club. They just don’t get it.
You see pictures of people at the clubs and bars, looking like they’re having a good time. And you know that they’re running away from their lives. They hate what they do, that’s why they need a vacation.
But you can’t stop thinking about what you do, that’s why you don’t care about the vacation.
They don’t understand your ambition, your drive, and instead of coming up to your level, they want you to come down to theirs.
What do you do about it? How do you let people know that you’re building something great and they need to sit on the backburner.
Entrepreneurs don’t have time for small talk or little people problems. You’re not interested in talking about the weather or gossip about so-and-so person. You’re interested in building, in creating, this thing you want to create.
So what do you do?
You need to understand that you’re not forced to talk to anyone or do anything.
A lot of people who are starting their business don’t want to come across as a jackass for telling someone, “No. I can’t meet up with you for lunch.” So they end up giving everyone their time because they’re afraid of offending someone.
With some people, you’ll need to have the tough conversation about what you’re doing and what you expect from them. These are usually the people who are closest to you. And you need to make it as clear as possible.
Tell them what you’re building. Tell them what you expect of them and how your time is going to be focused on your business. Tell them they can’t just call you whenever they want. Tell them your phone will be off and they need to send you a text or leave a voicemail if they want you to return the call. Tell them you don’t have time for gossip.
And then do it.
Turn off your phone. Don’t return someone’s call. Don’t return a text. And don’t feel bad about it.
If they aren’t willing to step up to your level, then don’t go down to their level. If they’re not willing to grow, then there’s no reason for you to shrink.
They say that if you put a crab in a bucket then it will easily climb out. So how do you get the crab to stay in? The answer is easy…you put two crabs in. What happens is that one crab will start to climb out, then the other crab will put him back in.
If you let other people control your time and your thinking then you’re allowing other people to pull you back down as you’re trying to rise.
Tell people that you’re going to the top and they can come with you or get out your way.
You’re 100% responsible for how people engage with you. If you don’t want to talk to someone, then don’t respond back to them. And if they don’t get it, be direct.
I have a friend who texted me videos that had nothing to do with business. And he did it all the time. So I told him to stop texting me stuff that doesn’t relate to business because I’m not interested in it.
Most people are afraid of confrontation.
They’re not direct because they don’t want to offend anyone or come across as the jackass. But I would rather come across as a jackass and live the dream, than to cater to someone else’s life and not know what could have been of mine.
Accept the fact that you have to be confrontational at times.
When you’re building a business, you tend to grow more than other people because you have to. They’re pretty much the same person they’ve always been and you turn into someone else.
And what happens is they say things like, “Man, you’ve changed.”
And you think, “You’re damn right I’ve changed. I’m working on the cure to cancer, you think I’ve got time to talk about how John is cheating on his wife. I’ve got more important things to do and think about.”
Change isn’t a bad thing. It’s a requirement for progress.
You have to truly believe that what you’re doing is more important than what other people are interested in.
If you’re building a business, it’s more important than the poker player who wants to talk about a poker hand. And if you’re the poker player, what you’re doing is more important than that entrepreneur who’s building his business.
Whatever you’re doing is more important than what the other guy is doing.
You’re growing and other people need to keep up with you. You don’t need to slow down for them.
I remember reading about Jay Z and a lot of people saying that Jay Z would get a mentor, learn everything from that mentor, and then leave that person. He would soak up all the mentor’s knowledge and leave.
And people would say that Jay Z isn’t cool because he left people behind who helped him.
But Jay Z left the people behind who didn’t grow with him.
Leonardo Da Vinci has a great quote that goes like this, “Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.”
Jay Z surpassed his masters. He learned from his mentors and when they didn’t have anything else to offer, he left. Why would you stay?
It’s inevitable that you’re going to leave people behind who don’t grow with you. Think about it.
What type of conversation are you going to have with people who aren’t growing? They want to talk about the sports game and you want to talk about business. They want to gossip about so-and-so and you want to talk about ways to increase profit. They want to talk about the news and you want to make the news.
You need to accept the fact that your life is going to change.
The people around you will change. You’ll start hanging around more entrepreneurs and other people who are trying to grow.
And you need to tell friends and family members what to expect. And they either accept it or you stop dealing with them because what you’re doing is the most important thing you can do.
People around you are going to tell you that they need to talk to you because it’s an emergency. But you need to think, “An emergency for who?” What you consider an emergency and what they consider an emergency can be two different things.
Just go to an ER in a hospital and you’ll see an example of this. Everyone in the ER thinks they have an emergency. One person has a broken arm and they’re yelling at the nurses, “Get someone in here now, my arm is broken. I’m in pain.”
But they’re thinking, “Yea shut up. This person got shot. This person got their leg cut off and they’re going to bleed out in 2 minutes. Take your broken arm and shove it.”
People will constantly tell you they need to talk to you and it’s an emergency. Then you find out that the emergency is that they don’t know if they should wear the blue or the white outfit.
Come on now.
Prepare yourself for the change by setting up your own rules for how people are going to talk with you.
And understand that you’re not required to return someone’s text. You don’t have to return the email or accept someone’s call. You don’t have to have lunch with everyone.
You’re building something great. You want to hang around great people, talk about great things, and you have no time for average. If they don’t understand that, then that’s their problem, not yours.