My kid conquering the wall. I encourage them they can do anything.
Same with friends and family. Unfortunately, the more I accomplish in life, the more I see that others don’t feel the same about encouragement. Instead, success changes the people around you more than yourself…
The people that always hit you up for financial favors stop “caring” after you start giving them advice instead of money. Those that don’t deserve favors are always the ones that ask for them the most. Ironically, the ones that never ask for a thing? Those are usually the ones that DO deserve your attention.
Proud of what you’re doing and where you’re going, but hesitant to interrupt your momentum. They are your quiet cheerleaders, only chiming in to give you kudos here and there.
However, there is one more type of person that I’ve surprisingly come to appreciate lately. The 180’ers.
- The former doubters.
- The ones that are friends or family, close enough that they should support you but, insecure of their own life stories so, they never did.
Because they are “close enough,” they can’t totally hate on you. So they bombard you with small seeds of doubt or sarcasm instead.
But as time goes on they start to put 2 + 2 together. They start to be faced with the problems that you hustled to proactively prevent in your life. The situations where they now realize they wouldn’t have to be in… if only they had grinded it out like you had… back then.
But I actually love the 180’ers lately. Truly. Because now they become your second wave of cheerleaders. They stop hating. Instead?…
- They now see first hand what was running through your mind 10 years ago, because they’re facing the problems you hustled to conquer.
- They now appreciate you planting all of those seeds.
- They have come to respect your work ethic, and are heart-warmingly humbled at you extending an invite to join you beneath the shade of your seeds that are now fully grown trees.
Keep your head down, planting the seeds that are right for you. The rest will come around in due time.
