Speaker #1What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Growth Gym Podcast, where growth is a journey and not a destination. I am your host, Chris Briggs, and I want to say thank you for taking time out of your daily routine. if you're walking or sitting at your desk, or even just maybe riding in the car. You're stopped and taking time to listen to the Growth Gym podcast. And I want to say thank you so much. I would like for you to subscribe to this so you won't miss any of our great episodes we have coming up. Also, leave a review and share this with somebody, somebody you know who needs to be on this growth journey with because we are on a great journey and we know. that we are wanting to fulfill our full potential and reach our full potential in life. So today, y'all, I got a great episode that I believe is going to really help us because I think today I want to talk about something that we do not always pay enough attention to. And it's the people who are around us. I really want us to look into that because I think about, I want you to really think about the people you spend most of the time with. The people you call or you text. The people whose opinion matters the most to you. The people you want you vent to when things are difficult and the people you celebrate when things are going well. Now, ask yourself a harder question. Who are you becoming because you are around them? Who are you becoming because you are around them? Now, I want you to get your pen and paper out, get your notes out. I got some growth gems, some principles I want to give to you that's going to help you as we navigate through this growth journey. Because I believe most of the time it's difficult for us to ask whether we, there are good... people around us because someone can be a good person and still not be good for your growth. They may be a good person, but they're attunishing and they're stunning your growth because someone can love you but still reinforce habits you are trying to break or someone can have known you for 20 years and still be uncomfortable with the person you are becoming. And I think that's very hard because we don't, because of loyalty. We're surrounded by them and we love their presence. We love being around them. We love their opinions. And they may not be good to our growth because, but because we are loyal to an individual. We'd rather stunt our growth than to not per se just X them out our lives. but to remove them from the circle so we can continue to grow. So today I want us to answer one question. This is the one question I want you to answer. Who is shaping the person you are becoming? Who is it? And I want to give you four principles to help you think about it. I want you to look at the purpose for. Proximity, careful connections, necessary navigation, and intentional investment. The first principle is purposeful proximity. Proximity simply means closeness. And the closer people are to you, the greater opportunity they have to influence you. Think about language. Spend enough time around certain people. You start using some of their phrases. I mean, even in relationships. My wife and I have been together and around each other so long. We pick up some of the language that we use. Even my son, who's 11 years old, and it was so funny. Sunday, we were having a conversation. And he was saying, Some of the old sayings that, you know, my grandmother would say, I find myself saying, he was like, Daddy, you say this and Daddy, you say that. Daddy, you and not knowing because of the proximity of him being around me, he started to pick up things that I say. And we started not only just in our language, but think about music, clothes. Technology, business ideas, TV shows, books, even opinion. People influence one another continuously, sometimes without even recognizing it. People have influence over you. And that's why proximity must become purposeful. You cannot always choose everybody around you. But you may not choose your coworkers because you may not even choose your own family members. You may not control everybody in your neighborhood, but you can become more intentional about who gets influence over you. Because there's a difference. Hear this. There's a difference between somebody having access to you and somebody having influence over you. Did you get that? There is a difference. between somebody having access to you and somebody having influence over you, because everybody you know does not deserve the same level of influence. Some people belong in your life, but not at your decision-making room. Some people can be friends without becoming advisors. Some people can be family without becoming the voice which determines your future. And that's not disrespect. And I want you to understand, it's not a thing of being disrespectful. It's a thing of being mature, of having maturity. But I want you to remember, access should never automatically equal influence. Access should never automatically equal influence. Be intentional about who gets your ear, who gets to speak into your dreams. Who gives you advice about your marriage? Who gets to influence your finances? Who gets to tell you what is possible? Because if someone has never been where you're trying to go, you need to be careful about allowing their limitations to become your instructions. I just said a mouthful right there. Because if someone has never been where you're trying to go, I'm just repeating it because... Because I just help myself. You will never, because if someone never been where you're trying to go, you need to be careful about allowing their limitations to become your instructions. Because purposeful proximity asks the question, who needs to be closer to me because of who I'm trying to become? Maybe you need people who think differently. People who would challenge you. people who will read you, people who will manage, people who manage money well, people who have healthy relationships, people who have already done what you're trying to do. Because growth sometimes requires changing your proximity before you ever see a change in your results. So you got to have purposeful proximity that you ought to have people in your life around you who are connected it. to your purpose. And the question is, why are you around me? What is your intentions? Because everybody around you don't have the right intent. Some people around you are leeches. Some people around you are not around you for the right motive. All right. Here go the second principle. You got to have helpful connections. Now, I want you to be careful here because I want you to think about walking around judging everybody in your life. That's not about getting a little success or deciding everybody from your past is beneath you. This is definitely not about cutting people off, what I'm trying to say. It's about having healthy relationships that can challenge you. And I want to say this, because people who can genuinely care about you will not always tell you what you want to hear. Did you get that? People who genuinely care about you will not always tell you what you want to hear. If people are always telling you what they what you want to hear, then that that that no, you need to let them go. But because the question is not, do they always agree with me? This is a question you got to ask. What does this relationship constantly produce in me? What that that that is the audit that you got to do. You got to look at the. a careful connection because after spending time with this person, am I inspired or am I drained? Have they drained me or have they inspired me? Do I think bigger or smaller once I get through having a conversation with them? Do they challenge my excuses or help me justify them? I'm just trying to give you an audit of how to make the right assessment. to the audit of having a careful connection. Can they celebrate my progress without turning it into competition? Can I be honest around them? Can they correct me without trying to control me? And then can we disagree without disrespect? These are the questions we got to ask as we make the assessment on where are we truly connected. And I think that is very important because connection matters. But connection alone is not enough. We need healthy connection. That's the key. Because there's a difference between having history with someone and having health with someone. And I think more so we lean on history than health. Just because we've been friends a long time, just because I've been knowing you a long time, just because we've been... You know, you were there when my dog died or you were there when I lost one of my loved ones or when I was without employment or I was at a rough patch in my life. Sometimes this is all I'm trying to say to you, brothers and sisters and friends and those who own this growth journey with me. This is all I'm trying to say. You have to you have to discern and make sure you learn the distinction between seasons and reasons. Oh, that's good. You got to understand you are in my life maybe for a season and for the reason you're in my life. I think we are trying to we are trying to combine the two and say, hey, you in my life. But just because you was in my life for that reason and I don't want to I don't want to let you go. I want to make you a lifetime partner when actually you supposed to be only for a season. And sometimes we stay. deeply connected to people simply because we have known them for a long time. We grew up together. We went to school together. We've been friends forever. And that's valuable. I'm not knocking that. I'm saying you need loyal people in your life. But history tells you how long someone has been there. But health tells you what the relationship is producing now. And sometimes relationship changes. It changes. And people grow in different. direction. And I think a lot of your frustration may be of the fact that you're holding on to something that's been over with. And I'm not just talking about people. It may be a job. It may be a habit. It may be something that you may have been indulging in that's over with, but you're really dealing with separation anxiety. You don't want to let it go. And it's hurting you more than helping you. I'm talking from experience. There was an old man that told me a couple of weeks ago, he said, until he said, your life, I knew that you had a calling on your life. I knew that you, you were, there was something in you. You were different, but you had to move away from, from the leeches. Man, when that old man told me that. And I started looking back over my life. Because there was a lot of opportunities I missed because the person I was connected to or the people I was connected to, they didn't get the same opportunity. So now they wanted to hold me back. They wanted to hold me back and keep me from going forward. But sometimes it's simply you just need you on different levels. And here's the growth gem inside this principle I want to put on you. Don't. You don't have to hate someone to realize and to recognize they are no longer, no longer belong in your close circle. Why do we wait to a circumstance happen and we build up a motion of hate, bitterness, resentment to realize this person doesn't belong in my circle? Because you can love people without giving everyone unlimited access to your life. You can appreciate where someone has been with you while recognizing where you are going requires different voices around you. And that is very key because where I'm going in life and I told a young lady this the other maybe a month ago, one of my classmates, matter of fact, she was sharing. She's going in a doctoral program. And I told her, I said, hey, she called me big bro. And I call him my little sister. And I said, hey, sis, you need people going into this doctoral program. You need people around you. You need different voices. You need people who's been where we're trying to go. You need people who knows the agony, who's going to know. They're going to know the frustration, the emotional stress that we're going to be going through. And I said, we got to surround ourselves around people who've already been where we're trying to go. and And it made a lot of sense where I'm trying to go. I can't carry people from yesterday's season into a new season because what they're saying to me is only they're speaking of past tense and not understanding that I'm needing future tense. Y'all get what I'm throwing at y'all at this episode. This is helping me because if you're not careful, if you don't change your circle, everything people say. If you don't change who's around you, you don't change the people around you, you will find yourself always hearing past tense and never hearing future tense. They always will talk about what was, what used to be, how we used to do it, what we used to do and where we used to go and never talk about where we're going, how we're going to get there, when we're going to do it. They're never talking about future tense. And so your circle is very important. important, very vital to make sure you have people who language is connected to where you're going. You got to be careful. Y'all, this just helped me. Man, you got to have people who speak language to where you're going. Past tense language is not going to help in future tense in your future. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. So you got to have people around you. Not every relationship problem requires an exit, but sometimes it requires an adjustment. So you got to make that adjustment that you need to do. Even notice how a GPS, when a GPS system, when you take the wrong turn, you don't cancel the trip. It reroutes. It makes an adjustment to put you back on course. It recalculates. It puts you back on course. And that's how we got to treat people in relationships. Because every relationship... doesn't need to end, but every relationship does need the right positioning. Some people are just, some people are close friends. And I think defining people's role in your life will help with influence and understanding careful connection. Y'all, I'm way over my time. Some people are close friends. Some people are mentors, colleagues, acquaintances. Some people belong in the front row of your life, while others are better in the back. But the mistake that many of us make is giving everyone a front row seat when we ought to have reserved seating in our lives. Here goes the fourth principle. Fourth principle. Here goes the fourth principle. Oh, yeah, I done gave y'all the third one. You got to have necessary navigation. necessary navigation, all right? Sometimes you got to navigate. Sometimes it requires an adjustment, all right? Sometimes you got to have necessary navigation. Sometimes you need more distance. You need more conversation. You may need more boundaries. So you got to understand, all right? Here go the fourth one, y'all. I'm just talking and I haven't even looked at my show notes. I'm just speaking from the heart, y'all, because this... this is something I had to learn in my life. Intentional investment. Here go the fourth one. We talked a lot about what people, other people can bring into your life. But now I want to turn the mirror around because it's easy to listen to an episode like this, what I'm talking about, and immediately start evaluating everybody around you. You'll start saying like, he drains me. She drains me. He doesn't support me. They don't understand my vision, but maybe here's the harder question that we must ask. Are you the kind of person you are asking to find? Because you want friends who encourage you, but here's the sad reality. Are you encouraging? I mean, you want people to celebrate your success, but can you celebrate theirs? You want people to challenge you. But can somebody challenge you without you becoming defensive? I mean, you want people to listen to you, but do you listen? Or you always run in your mouth. You're never quiet enough. That's why nobody tells you anything. You talk too much. You want people who are dependable. Can people depend on you? Growth is not just about finding better people. It's also about becoming a better person to be around. And it may be the fact that it's not your surroundings per se. It may be you. The people don't like to be around you. People just, they just, I mean, you don't understand. That a healthy circle should not be built around what you can get from everybody. Healthy relationships involve contribution too. There should be people in your life who can pour into you, but there should also be people you pour into. People are always pouring in your cup and you ain't never pouring into nobody else. There should be mentors, but there ought to be peers that you ought to be mentoring somebody. They should be eventually people who are coming behind you who benefit from what you have learned. That's what makes healthy circles powerful. Everybody grows, everybody contributes and everybody wins. I think that's what we fail to understand. Here goes the growth gem that I want to share with you. Your circle doesn't just surround your life over time. It helps shape the life you are building. It shapes the life you're building. I mean, what, what y'all, this is a good episode. But what, what really is it you or is it the people around you? It's a good question. Here goes your growth challenge for the week. I want you I want to call it the circle check. I want you to take a sheet of paper, write down five people you interact with most consistently. I don't want you to overthink it. And beside each name, answer these three questions. Five people. I want you to answer these three questions on every person. What does this person bring out of me? What do I bring out of them? And does this relationship support the person I'm trying to become? Did y'all get that? This is what I want you to ask. What does this person bring out of me? What do I bring out in them? And does this relationship support the person I'm trying to become? I do not use this exercise to condemn people, but use it to create an awareness. Because I think sometimes we so consume that we don't have time for awareness. And here goes one more question I want you to ask. What relationship do I need to intentionally invest in this month? Maybe there's someone you respect who needs you. who need you to call them or you may need to, they may need to call you. Maybe there's someone younger. than you who can benefit from what you know. Make that investment because building the right circle is just not about substitution, but it's also about addition. All right. So before we close, I want you to sit with this one question. If you become more like the people you spend the most time with, would you be happy with... the person you became, would you? All right, y'all. Thank you so much for spending these moments with me on the Growth Gym Podcast. Hey, I hope this episode has been a great help to you. And I want you to be intentional about who's close. Be careful about who influenced you. And have enough wisdom to reposition relationships when necessary. All right. So make that investment, make that adjustment and build healthy, healthy connections around you. Until next time, hey, make sure that you keep learning, keep connecting, keep becoming. And most importantly, keep growing for growth is a journey and not a destination. This has been your host, Chris Briggs. Thank you.
