Ep 678 | Outgrowing Relationships and Why It’s Okay

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. One of the best pieces of advice that I've ever received came from a mentor of mine years ago. It was a, it was a tough lesson from this mentor. This individual said to me, he said, Brian, you're going to outgrow some relationships and it's okay. You're gonna have to be okay with it. Now, when he first said that to me, it just did not sit right. And the reason it did not sit right is because I do value loyalty. I do value connection. I believe if sticking by your people. But over time, after I kind of sat on that for a while— and by a while, I mean maybe years— I realized he wasn't really saying I should abandon people. He was saying that growth, both in business and personally, growth has a cost. And sometimes that cost is comfort. The higher that you climb, the fewer people are comfortable at that altitude. And you have to decide, do you stay where it's safe or do you keep climbing? Now, let's, let's dive a little bit deeper into what it really means to outgrow people. Outgrowing someone does not mean that you think you're better than them. I think it means that you're just moving in a different direction or, or at a different pace, and you have different priorities. People enter your life for different seasons. Some are, are meant for a chapter. Others are meant for the entire book. Too many of us, I think, we try to force every character into the complete or the full story, the full book. You see this all the time. You see it in business, you see it in life. You see, you know, people that when you change, they, they don't. When you start pursuing goals, um, that makes them uncomfortable. When you start to build discipline, you see them stay in distraction. And before long, the relationship becomes a lot more friction than it become— than it, than it is fuel. And I think that's what this mentor meant. If you keep growing, you're going to naturally create distance from some people. And it's not personal. It's, it's just a byproduct of progress. Now, I had a very personal experience with this many, many years ago. And I had a friend of mine, a guy that I more or less grew up with. Who I love. I love like a brother. And at some point in my late 20s, I decided it's time for me to be more serious with my career. I was dabbling in things and I was making a couple bucks here and there, but I had concluded it was time to get focused. It was time to really, uh, drive and, and see how, how, how big I could get, how much I could grow, how many people I can impact, all of that. And I had this friend of mine and I remember looking over at him and thinking to myself, man, we are, we are on much different paths right now. We've had a lot of fun together. Again, I love him like a brother, but my goals and his goals were not even close to aligning. My desire to improve and get better and become more focused was not the same way he saw his life going. He was rather happy and content and complacent doing what he was doing. And I was really aspiring to get to that next tier. And I had to make a decision one day that, yes, I still love him. But if I am committed to where I want to go, I got to look at all things, including my environment, the people I'm spending my time with. It was not personal at all. It was the byproduct of the progress that I hope to make. I'm guessing you probably have had some friends from childhood too. Good people, people you've shared memories with, but your worlds may have diverged. They were happy staying in the same routines, but you're building or pushing or striving. And at some point, the conversations you were having started to change. Your conversation stopped being aligned. They would talk about the weekends and you would talk about your vision. Neither of you was wrong. You were just on, on different wavelengths. And side note, maybe you still have this per— these people in your world today, and, and this, this is bringing a stark realization to you now professionally. Same sorts of things apply. I've had people that have worked alongside me, be it partners or employees, who were incredible when the business was smaller. They were loyal, they were hardworking, they were reliable. But as the company grew, the demands started to change. And what we needed from that role was no longer what they could deliver. And in those moments, leadership means making the, making the tough call. Because holding on too long for these sentimental reasons of sorts, it ends up hurting both sides. When you think about growth or when you experience growth, it oftentimes exposes mismatches. And I don't think that that's betrayal. I think it's, I think it's just evolution. There's no easy way to outgrow someone, but I would say in terms of this breakup, for lack of a better term, There are, there are ways in which you could handle it. There's better ways than just simply abandoning. I think it starts with you being honest and kind. I think the mistake that so many make is they pretend like everything's the same when it's just not. And as a result, it breeds resentment. Now, if we're talking about a friend, I think you got to be head-on and acknowledge the change. Hey, I've noticed, or I feel like we've really been on different paths lately. And I want you to know that I value you, I value our relationship, but I'm also being pulled towards something that's taking more of me. If it's an employee or a partner, I think you've got to focus more on respect and clarity. Maybe it's something like, hey, you've been a huge part of what we've built. But where the company's headed now requires something different. And I want to help you land in a role or a season that fits who you are today. Now, I think it's also really important to do your best to not make them wrong. What do I mean when I say that? You don't need to villainize someone to justify growth. In other words, you can love people and still outgrow them, so don't make them wrong. I think you've got to accept that closure may also never be clean, and this is arguably the hardest part of all of this. Sometimes they're going to understand, and sometimes they're not going to understand, but I believe that maturity means staying grounded in your values even if others don't see your view from the from the same vantage point, even if they don't see it from the same mountain that you're climbing. So, as you're thinking around this, and I'm going to guess you probably have already, you know, started this next practice I'm going to describe, I think we all should be auditing our relationships. I think we've got to ask ourselves, have I outgrown this person or someone or something? And I think there's a simple framework for, for, for this audit. I think number one, you've got to do an energy audit. What do I mean when I say that? After you spend time with them, do you feel expanded or do you feel drained? Do you feel inspired or, or are you defensive? If it's consistently draining, you've probably outgrown that relationship. You've probably outgrown that dynamic. I think you also have to do a, you know, as part of this framework, a values audit. Are your values still aligned? Growth, honesty, accountability, ambition. If these things aren't shared anymore, the relationship's going to lose a lot of what made it into what it was, right? The relationship loses gravity. So I think you do an energy audit, a values audit. I also think you could do a vision audit. And the way I would consider, uh, doing that, I'd ask the question, do your future paths still intersect? If you're chasing 10x and they're comfortable at 1x, you're gonna eventually find yourselves walking different directions anyhow. It's just gonna happen. And then lastly, in terms of the framework and these audits I'm describing, I think there's this reciprocity audit. In other words, are you both contributing to each other's growth, or is one person always pulling the other one forward? True partnerships, in my opinion, they, they actually evolve together. So I don't think you have to cut people off instantly. I think that, that would be a mistake. But you do need to recognize when you've stopped walking down that same road. And when you realize that you've stopped walking down that same road, you have to have the courage, right? You have to have the courage to keep going. Right? You're going down the road. You got to keep going down the road. You can't stop because they're not with you. So as we're working through this, I think the last component of this is that I would challenge you, or I would ask you to maybe look at this in a different way. In other words, reframe this loss. When you let go of relationships you've outgrown, it's not a failure. It's a signal that you're just changing. And that is kind of what growth looks like. I mean, we talk about that topic so much here at No Days Off. When the world is changing, when you're evolving, when you're getting better, you know, both personally and professionally, these changes, that's what growth looks like. You can love someone and still move on. You can appreciate their role in your story, but you may not need them in every chapter. I do not believe that's selfish. I just believe it's self-aware. So if you're serious about becoming the person that you are capable of being, I think you have to accept that not everyone's going to come with you. Some people are going to choose comfort over growth, and that's their right, and that's totally cool. It's your responsibility though to keep climbing. Keep in mind you are likely leading others that want to have massive success as well, so holding on to anything that doesn't serve the greater cause is putting everybody's future success in jeopardy. Don't resent those that you outgrow. Honor what they brought into your life, wish them well, and then keep moving forward towards that, towards that next summit. Because if you stop growing just to stay connected, you're no longer honoring them and you're certainly no longer honoring yourself. That's all I have for you today. The No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.