Playing Small With Your Crew 4/5

Hi, everyone. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Happy Thursday. We've survived this far into the week. I just have to clear something really fast because today has been the day where nothing has gone right. You know, from forgetting keys to there being random rainstorms to thunder and lightning storms, cutting off calls to picking up my dad to take him to go pick up his car and him putting his phone on the roof of the car and us driving away and losing the phone to trying to find the phone to him trying to go and use one of my old phones and have it transferred over and getting a flat tire on the way. And the dog, Luna, who here? Come on. Hold up. This guy. Yes, this one. To her jumping up on the table and eating a whole bowl of mayonnaise. The. The story of why there was a bowl of mayonnaise on the table is a different story. I won't get into it. But anyway. Yes. So, hi, we're here, and it's Thursday and it's raining and it's humid, and we're on Cape Cod. And I want to talk about this series that I'm doing this week about ways in which we play small. And tonight I want to speak very delicately tonight, because this topic can hit people in a vulnerable spot. Okay. I'm talking about how we play small by spending time with other people who play small, our crew. And. Hi, Adam. Oh, Adam. I so appreciate that. I look lovely. And she is a cutie dog, except for when she's eating mayonnaise off of the kitchen table. So here's the thing. I am a big believer that you are the sum total, the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and let's talk about that for a second, because if you're spending time with people who. Who aren't taking their goals seriously, who don't really care about growing themselves, you know, who maybe are like, really content with where they are. And there's nothing wrong with that. I don't want to make that wrong in any way, shape, or form. But if you are wanting more for your life, if you are wanting to grow and expand a business, if you want to. Craig was this. Know if anyone wants to sponsor a NASCAR driver? DM Me. I don't know anyone. I'm not a NASCAR fan. But, you know, let's. Yeah. I mean, if anyone knows, you know, dm, Craig, Sure. But if you want to expand your life, if you want to grow, if you want to have a business, all these things, and you're surrounding yourself with people who not only don't want that for themselves, but don't see the point in that, who aren't supportive, who aren't yada, yada, yada. If you're trying to heal your relationship with money and you're not surrounding yourself with some people who are also trying to heal the relationship with money or have better relationships with money than you do, you are playing small and you're actually limiting how much you can actually grow. Okay, this is where I'm the queen of referencing things that I saw and can't remember where I saw it. And so I don't remember all the details. There was a study done and that they studied friend groups and weight loss and friend groups where multiple people were overweight and only one person was trying to lose weight. That person had a really, really hard time losing weight. If everyone was trying to lose weight, then it was far more likely. But if you're in a group of people who are at a healthy weight and there's one person who needs to lose weight, they're far more successful because they're with people who are already at their goal. Again, I don't remember where I saw this. I'm, you know, very generically referencing this thing that I can't remember where I saw. So Queen of bad references here. Hello. But you know how this shows up? How this shows up is you start talking about what you're excited for. You start talking about your business. You start talking about how much money you're making and how excited you are for it. Adam Ramos. Oh, you remember that? Well, maybe you can find the reference for me. Thank you. If you don't mind being a researcher for a moment. But you start talking about all these different things you're doing, and it can show up in a few different ways with your friend group or with your family group, whoever you spend the most time with. There can be the disinterest. Like, just not interested in hearing about it. Like, kind of nods, but doesn't make a bid for attention here, doesn't try to continue. The conversation, isn't super amped for you. There can also be the friend or family member who's, like, excited for you. They say all the right things, and yet you sense that there's something being triggered on their side. There's some like, oh, good for you. But that means I'm a failure. That means that I'm not doing well. If you're doing so well, that means something about me, which, no, it doesn't. Like, we're all on our own paths that like, if you, if you're living your life and you're happy, that's perfectly fine. And then there's the more caustic version of this where things are going really well for you and this person can start tearing you down because you have activated everything that they believe about themselves. It's bad. You're showing them all the ways in which they can't do what you're doing, even though that's bs of course they can do it. And it discourages you from either sharing, from going further, from expanding. It kills your confidence around it. Because if someone that close to you doesn't believe in you, how are you going to believe in you? This is one of the things that I love about my job is I work with some really incredible people and oftentimes they don't have that person in their life who believes in them. And I get to be that person. I get to be the person who dreams with them and tells them that it's possible and points them in a direction that they never thought would be available to them. It's a really cool job. I love my work. But anyway, then let's just talk about hobbies, how people spend their time. You know, if you're hustling, trying to build a business and you have friends who are really interested in just watching sports or you know, in partying on the weekends, or, you know, doing more nefarious things, or, you know, they're really into gossiping about other people, they're not going to be supportive and they're also going to feel a little rejected when you start doing something different. And that's normal. I mean, that's just how social circles work. And I'm not making it wrong. I'm not saying you have to dump these people. I'm not saying that they're bad people in any way, shape or form. At the worst, I mean, there might be some bad people if you're dealing with a narcissist or a psychopath in your life. If you are, I apologize and I hope you get away from them. But oftentimes you're just activating some insecurity in them or they care a lot about you. This happens a lot with some of my clients who are more successful in starting their business and they can finally leave their full time job. There are friends and family members who have a big value around having security, around having a regular paycheck and having an employer because it means that you're safe and taken care of. They can Actually jump in and just be super fearful for you and project fear onto you, which is really hard to have a, you know, armor up against. Because they love you, they mean really good for you, they want the best for you. And in your weakest moments, or even in your, in your more powerful moments, them saying, oh, you know, I'm just afraid that you're going to fail, that can take the wind out of your sails. So what I want to talk about today is to talk to these people with compassion and understand where they're coming from. Are they coming from a place of love and wanting to take care of you and protect you? Are they coming from a place of insecurity? Are you activating something for them? And then you get to design, and for both instances, you get to design what your boundaries are on sharing stuff about your business. What are they comfortable with, what makes them feel self conscious or, you know, what takes the wind out of your sales that they say, and what do you want them not to say? Or maybe you just learn not to share with them. And then also with the friends that are just in different. I mean, those are the friends you should really drop. I mean, really, like, think about it. Think about who do you want to have friends? Who has friends in this scenario? Regardless of what you choose to do with the friends and family that you already have. Okay, let's just set that aside. You need a new crew. If you don't have people who are excited for you, if you don't have people who believe in you and champion you and like, see where you're going and say, you know what the next step or the next five steps are going to lead you to this incredible place that's, you know, higher up than you ever, ever anticipated being able to reach in your lifetime. If you don't have people who are able to give you really honest feedback about how you're showing up in a supportive, loving way meant to grow you, you need to find those people. You need to find those people. This is one of the reasons I have three coaches right now. I have two masterminds I'm a member of that I'm, you know, in and out of. I'm not, I'm not like a big mastermind group person. But it is really incredible to be able to tune into other people doing scary things, see their questions, see that they're freaking out about certain things and have it be normalized, see them do incredible things and think, oh, my God, good for them. I'm so excited for when I reach that benchmark. As well and to have them also be excited for you to reach that benchmark. When you do, if you don't have this and you don't know where to find it, like, stalk people on Instagram, on LinkedIn. LinkedIn. I have some of my best business BFFs, people that I reach out to. I share wins with them. I'll text Leah, you know, that I hit my first $30,000 month. I'll text Kelsey telling her that a client just had an amazing win and they're going to be really, really happy for me. It's not going to activate them. And the benefit of this is that you don't have to hide yourself. You don't have to hide your successes, you don't have to hide your dreams. You don't have to hide all the hard work that you're putting into this, because it is hard work. I shared a post this week and I got some really sweet messages from my clients. They're like, do you need us to cancel our sessions this week because you're feeling stressed? And I shared about signing back up with my therapist who I worked with a few years ago, and I'm forgetting the point of this. Oh, oh. So I shared about this because I want to normalize that it's okay to reach out for help before you need the help. It's okay for things to be hard. It's okay to, like, do something new and be stressed out by it. And when you're in a crew of people who are constantly pushing themselves, who are constantly learning and trying new things, they understand, they get it. It's just. It's a natural progression of starting a business. And if you don't have people who, at the very basic level, understand what you're going through or can empathize with what you're going through in starting this business, you're starting from, like, way behind the start line. You are starting from, you know, square negative five. Okay. Yeah. Steve Foley. I thumbs up therapy, too. I think therapy is amazing if you find the right therapist, if you find someone who connects with you and in the style that you like. And thank God my therapist still had availability. I just. I absolutely adore her. But anyway, having. Having that crew around you is a such a game changer because there are two analogies I want to play with here. So I speak French. I'm very, very rusty, so if you try to have a French conversation with me, I'm going to be not so good. But anyway, I lived in France for a little while, so that I could learn it. And when I was hanging out with my friends who spoke French worse than I did, I became worse. I wasn't that good. I'd get sloppy. I wouldn't really be precise with my tenses, like the masculine and feminine. Feminine bit. Like, I'd get messy and who cared? Like, we, we all knew what we were talking about. But when I was hanging out with friends who were a level or two above me, all of a sudden my French became much better. It just. And I would sit at dinner with them and we'd be having a French, a conversation in French and I'd say something and they'd correct me and, and not in a place of oh, you're, you're doing this wrong, you're so bad. It's oh, oh, I think you meant to say, and here's how you say it. And oh, your pronunciation on that, you know, whatever. And it's just like this, a beautiful up leveling that happens. And the same thing happens in tennis. I'm not a very good tennis player either, but when you play tennis with something, when you play. Or I'm sorry, when you play tennis with someone. I was reading the comments and Steve, I will get to that. Yes, it's a great question. When you play tennis with someone who is worse than you, your game actually gets worse. And when you play tennis with someone who is better than your game actually gets better. And I'm not a sports person. Maybe Drew Howard, if you're watching, can speak to what this phenomenon is about. But the same thing happens when we're building businesses. The same thing happens when we're growing our mindset, when we're healing our relationships with money, when we're doing anything that is outside of our comfort zone that we haven't done before. And Steve, we have coaches in most aspects of life. Why not our mindset? Absolutely. I mean, mindset coaches are all the rage right now. I work with several of them are my clients and they are game changing, they change lives. And you know, I have had mindset coaches in the past and they were phenomenal. But if you. Here's the point of today's live and I'm going to keep it under 20 minutes, okay? Because we all need to get to our night and I need to go to sleep early because today has been a day. But if you don't have this kind of crew, you need to find one. And there's no shame if you need to hire it, if you need to join a mastermind, if you need to hire a Coach, if you need to join a book club or some aspect of where you get to be in community with people who are doing a similar thing to you, okay? If you need to hire it, don't worry about it. There's no shame in that, okay? You'll develop relationships and friendships through that. And, you know, as adults, and especially in Covid, it's hard to meet people, okay? So don't put so much pressure on yourself to go and not just make friends, but make friends. That will help you level up. Okay? But if you do have these people in your life, I want you to reach out to them tonight. If you have people who are playing their bigger game, who are at that next level, who are pushing themselves, I want you to reach out to them and I want you to say, hey, listen, I'm trying to grow myself in this way, and I have a lot of people around me who aren't. And I see you. I so appreciate the example you're setting for me and for other people who are trying to emulate you. Is there any way we could do coffee? Can we do a coffee chat? Like, even if you don't actually physically meet them for coffee, if you just go for a walk and talk on the phone? Because I want to hear everything that works for you, what your pitfalls were, any advice you have for me. And I just want to spend time around people like you who are doing incredible things. And let me tell you, when you do this, when you up level in this way, the universe just opens up to you. The universe takes that as awesome. This person is really bravely asking for what they need, and we're more than happy to give it to him. Her, they. Let's see. Steve Foley. Yes. You rise to your competitors level. Absolutely, absolutely. You know, we're watching the Olympics right now, guys, the Olympics are on TV. The 2020 Olympics in 2021. That's a trip. I don't know if it's messing with anyone else's brain right now, but you see the importance of teamwork, of that crew, of that tribe, of having people around you who, yeah, they're your competitors right now because you're competing against them in the Olympics. But you've trained together, you have broken down together, you have tried new and scary things together. Okay, there's something in that. There's this magical alchemical thing that makes you better throughout that. You know, it makes you braver to see other people trying something scary and thinking, oh, well, if they can do it, I can do it. Right? Let me see Steve, that concept is very typical in sports. Weak competition doesn't make you grow 100%. Yeah. Not knowing sports at all, I just know the tennis analogy. But, yeah, I believe that it goes across sports and, you know, it's, you know, the gymnastics team, you may know, everyone is still talking about Simone Biles. To have the bravery to step down like that. She needed an incredible team around her that encouraged her to stand up for herself, for her own mental health. That was the bravest move an athlete at that level in this scenario could have made is a step down like that. It takes a crew. It takes support to make that possible for a person. So if you don't have this for yourself, it's out there. You can create it. You can go after people. If you want me to be on your crew, please, you know, I have my being brave call every single Friday. That's tomorrow at 11am it's all about creating this crew for people. And I'll probably actually be talking a little bit about this tomorrow. Reach out to people that you have, like, business crushes on, you know, who are doing the thing that you want to be doing and you don't know how and you just want to be friends with someone who is. And if you need to pay for it, if you need to sign up for a coach, if you need to sign up for a mastermind or whatever, go ahead and do it. What's stopping you? It's going to make a world of difference for you and your business and your impact and your income and yada, yada, yada. You know the whole drill of what I talk about. Anyway, we have. We have 15 seconds before we're at 20 minutes. So now I'm feeling the pressure because I committed to not doing 20 minutes. I think we're probably going to blow past it for a second. But anyway, that's what I wanted to talk about tonight. Go and find your crew and set really healthy boundaries around the people who aren't your crew. And if that is ending friendships, if that is not sharing, if it is asking for them not to offer certain kinds of input, it is all okay. Okay? It doesn't make you selfish. It makes you someone who cares about yourself and your own goals in service of creating the life you want that is. Is going to benefit everyone. Okay? There's nothing. There's nothing better you could do in the world anyway. That's all I have tonight. Happy Thursday. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. I hope you all get amazing sleep tonight. I'm wishing that for myself as well. And I will talk to you tomor with 5 out of 5 another way that you are keeping yourself small. And to Steve and to Adam and to Craig and to everyone else who has been watching, thank you for joining me this evening. And thank you for your input, guys. I really appreciate it. And you know, Craig, if anyone wants to sponsor a NASCAR driver, then DM him. Sure. I sports people. I don't know how any how many sports people follow me. I think a lot, but I don't know. Anyway, wishing you all a great night. Talk to you soon. Bye.