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What's interesting is that a lot of people will root for you until you do better than them

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and then they stop rooting for you. And it was just because they didn't actually want to see me win.

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Welcome to the game where we talk about how to sell more stuff to more people in more ways and

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build businesses worth owning. I'm trying to build a billion dollar thing with acquisition.com.

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I always wished pesos, musk, and buffet had documented their journey. So I'm doing it for the

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rest of us. Please share and enjoy. A lot of people have heard the term your network is your net worth.

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And to a degree, that's true. To the other degree, it's the average of the five people you spend

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the most time with. Well, it's not true for Bill Gates and for Jeff Bezos because the people

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that they spend time with are less than their net worth, which should mean that their

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note would be less than that. And so, you know, there are statements that are thrown around

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frequently that don't have necessarily a lot of evidence, but, you know, our, I would say,

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spiritually correct. In the last year, I would say that I fell out of touch with the last two

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friends that I had from high school and or college. And this has been a process that's happened,

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you know, gradually over time. And I was having a conversation with Dean Graziozi who has become

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a very, very close friend of mine, he and his wife, Lisa and Layla and I have become, you know,

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close couple friends. And I brought the topic up with him and I thought the discussion would be

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worth sharing. And so one of the things that he told me early on in our relationship, which really,

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really gave me a lot of pause was the cost of his dreams. And so I asked him earlier on and

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it was about 18 months ago before Layla and I decided to build kind of our personal brands,

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et cetera, about, you know, the cost of fame, right? And he said, yeah, you know, I've got people

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who show up at my house and people who leave weird mean comments and it's like all the time,

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you know, and the thing is is that that is a price of willing to pay to make the impact that I

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want to make with my life. When he said that, it just, it really struck me because to me, it was

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in a lot of ways, you know, selfish to kind of not spread the message out of fear of what it would

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cost me. That being said, there's obviously pros that, you know, we've made whatever decision that

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they outweigh the cons, but it was just an interesting perspective in terms of just it is a price

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that he was willing to pay. And so I want to leave this discussion in towards the friend conversation

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that had with him and he had said that he recently had lost one of his last friends, the last

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friend that he had had from kind of his childhood. And I think that there's a lot of people who are

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like, you know, never forget where you come from and the people who supported you, et cetera. And I

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think that's true, but I think for the master majority of us, a lot of people don't support us

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on our way up. At least it felt that way for me. And what's interesting is that a lot of people

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root for you until you do better than them and they stop rooting for you. And I'm not saying that

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the people that I'm talking about were like that, but it's just that was like the first wave of

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friends that I lost, right? And it was just because they didn't actually want to see me win. And

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I had a quote that went pretty viral on Twitter, which was, real friends talk shit to your face

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and praise you behind your back. And freight friends do the opposite. And when I say talk shit,

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I mean like bullshitting, you know, I mean like give each other, you know, give each other flak,

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right? If I'm giving someone flak, they know that we're homies. Like, you know, Dr. Cassia, I was

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thinking about patencing the hermosy advertising cycles. I spent so long developing the cycle,

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which is going to be in one of the books that comes up, you know, in the future. And his comment

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was get over yourself. And that's exactly what I want from a friend, right? I want somebody who's

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going to say that rather than be like, Oh, that's cool. And then be like, I can't believe this guy,

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right? And so we have these people that we collect, you know, throughout our lives. And sometimes

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that come in, you know, you probably heard the saying, they're here for a season or reason or

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a lifetime. And I think, you know, for me, a lot of people have been seasonal. And so I wanted to

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share that because I know that I mean, I'm sure some of you have had a similar path to me and

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that I didn't have a tremendous amount of support from my parents. I think they now retroactively

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think they supported me because it's much easier that way. But I did not, I did not have any support

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from my parents for the decisions that I took until it was already beyond obvious that I was going

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to be successful. And that took years. And that was very hard for me at the time. And I think friends

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fell in that same category. And so, you know, as having this discussion with Dean, we dove into this

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a little bit more. But as we, you know, ascend towards our goals, and I don't say ascend in a

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little sense in terms of like socioeconomic status or whatever, but just like we move closer towards

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we want to where we want to go. And our vision and our mission and our lives become clear,

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it also becomes clear when you have contrast with people from your past. And I have several rules

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of thumb that are, I begin to develop around these relationships. One of them is if I could only

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talk about the past with someone, they usually aren't good friends of mine because I don't really

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live in the past. I live in the future. I live in where I want to go, what I want to do, the things

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that I find interesting were the present of the things that I find interesting today or right now,

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top of mind. And if I can't talk about those things with somebody, then our friendship kind of

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bites very nature will decline over time because there's no growth, right? Because it's only in

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the past. And I have felt a tremendous amount of guilt around the loss of those relationships,

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but I also felt a guilt of carrying them on as in I felt like I needed to water these plants out

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of necessity rather than out of, you know, some sort of exchange. Now, some people might decry that

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or speak against the idea of having an exchange, but I don't think that's realistic. I think that

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people stay in relationships because there is an exchange of value that occurs. Now, I think the

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difference is the strength or depth of the relationship is how long you are willing to wait

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for the exchange to occur. So a parent, for example, is willing to wait a very long time

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for a positive exchange from a child coming back to them, right? Now, some people can make the

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argument that children are a gift throughout that entire period of time. And that's awesome.

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And that's a perspective, whatever. But just to use the time frame as a nice thinking process,

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if you just met someone, if you don't feel like there's a huge benefit to knowing them within

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the immediate future, you probably don't really pursue them out. And the longer you have had

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positive exchanges, the longer you are willing to wait for the next one. It's intermittent

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reinforcement from a behavior standpoint. We are literally reinforced in this relationship.

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And the way that addiction works is the same thing. You immediately get positive hits,

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and then you can start extending how long before you get another positive hit, which is also how

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abusive relationships work, right? Abuse positive, abuse positive, positive positive, and then like

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abuse and then positive is a little bit later and then a little bit later until the point where

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there's almost no positive whatsoever. I'm not saying that's how you should run relationships,

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but more so, how we work as humans.

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Aimosonation, quick break, just to let you know that we've been starting to post on LinkedIn and

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want to connect with you. All right, so send me a connection request and let me know that you

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listen to the show and I will accept it. There's anyone you think that we should be connected with

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tag them in one of my or lalus posts, and I will give you all the love in the world. All right, so let's

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get back to the show. And so the point of me breaking this down is that I have lost a lot of the

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friends, or almost all of the friends that I had when I started my journey. And the upside is people

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will come into your life to fill the vacuum that the other people left. But sometimes it doesn't

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happen immediately. And I think getting comfortable with having space is a good thing. And a lot of

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people have the impulse or urge to always have people around them. And I think it's to their own

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detriment because I think if you can spend time alone with your thoughts and be okay with just

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being you without other people, then you are more selective. And it's the same way with dating.

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Some people can't be alone. Some people can't be without a significant other. And so they just

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end up checking up with the first person they see after they become single again, right? And it's

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because they have a fear of being alone more than they have an aligned mission with someone that

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they think that this person is really the best pick, right? And so a lot of ways are similar to

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dating with friends in that we can hold out and really just pick the best people. And I think that

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if we, at least for me, if I have two or three good friends, I'm more than satisfied. My cup is

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very full. But I think where I feel drained is where I feel like I have lots and lots and lots of

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acquaintances that are transactional in nature, but purely transactional, or at least they have a

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much shorter time horizon for the transactions to occur. And so if you have lost friends during

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the process of the climb, I don't think it is something that you should lament or be upset about.

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I think that it is a sign of growth because a lot of people say, hey, you've changed. And the only

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natural response that I can have to that is you have it. And I think that that's kind of sums up

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the entirety of this, which is if you grow, you change. Some people, most people don't like change,

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especially if they themselves have not grown or changed and or if they have grown in a different

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direction from you. And it is natural for us to not want to continue relationships with people

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that have grown or have values that are too far in contrast to our own. And those values can change

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over time. And that's okay. And so I think that for me, it took me a really long time to navigate

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through this. And it was kind of an emotionally explorative experience to just say, that's okay.

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And is this price something that I'm willing to pay? And for me, it's a resounding yes. I would be

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far more sad that I had not realized my potential or what I hoped to accomplish in my life,

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in exchange for relationships that I sacrificed my dreams in order to maintain. Now,

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that being said, it almost appears as though I'm sacrificing all relationships in order to have

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the dream. And that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that you will sacrifice older relationships

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and you will create room for new ones. And so I think that there is this, I don't know, old

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lifestyle or a societal expectation that if someone sheds friends for lack of better term or loses

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friends or friends, you know, dissipate into the distance over time that they are a non-constant

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person. And I think that the answer to that question is, yes, we grow. And unless the friends you

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have are growing with you and are pushing you to grow, then they are probably not friends who

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will stay with you for the long haul. And so for me, I'll leave with this kind of last thing that

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I think about for the people that I want to be friends with. I want friends who root for me

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behind my back. And that is rare. Most people do not root for you behind your back.

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It is sad that there are more strangers on the internet who root for me, right? Then people who

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knew me from back home. And it's because we had a shared context at home and the discrepancy

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between where you are and where they are over time, they personalize the fact that they are not

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with you because they had the same resources at the same beginning. And so you're in a different

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place as a result of your own decisions. And so as a result, they feel bad and they don't like that.

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And you're a reminder of that. And so what I seek from the friends that I have are one that they

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genuinely are rooting for me. And that is evidenced by them rooting for me behind my back.

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I also hope that they talk shit to my face because that is what makes life worth living for me.

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But I hope to admire them. I want to strive to be more like my friends in certain ways. And I hope

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that they raise the bar for me to be better and be better in the ways that I want to be better.

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And so in that way, picking friends who are people who are further ahead of you

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in doesn't have to be financially. It can be it can be in marriage. It can be physically.

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It can be whatever. And then the hope is that you are better in some ways than they are. And

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then they can grow from you in that way. And in that way, you both get better. And then you have

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an extended exchange that continues directionally towards both of your goals. And so my definitions

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and my view on friendship has changed over time. It probably will continue to develop and refine.

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But I meet this because I have a lot of people who message me and are like, hey, I feel really

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alone right now. I don't feel like a lot of people are supporting me. And I make this for say,

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that's okay. And I think that there are seasons. And at the end of a season, when you have a vacuum,

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someone does step into fill it. And I can promise you that if you have a higher standard and you wait

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and you don't just give of yourself for no reason just because you are afraid to be alone or be

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without friends, you will end up with better friends who actually root for you and are not just

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place fillers or false friends who, you know, smiles your face but stab you behind your back or

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actually talk down on you. And so I think if you can have that bar and you can have that tolerance,

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you can give yourself that space and that permission to say, I lost a friend. And that's okay. And I

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still love them as a human. Even if I can't give the time that I once did because it doesn't make

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sense for me anymore because we've grown apart. And that's okay. And so I've given myself that

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permission to say, these are the prices that I'm willing to pay to grow into the person that I want

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to be. And that's okay. And so, most of the nation, I love you all. The road can be, can be arduous,

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but I think the road itself is the reason we do it because of the person that we hope to become

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in the process of becoming, which is the successes I have to find it is the process of becoming

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and the process of striving is the success.