Only Drink the Best Wine

Click below to listen to the podcast!

Summary

• Over the years, my husband and I have tasted a lot of wine... good and bad, and as our taste buds have learned more, we have also determined drinking bad wine is not good for our overall experience. Much like surrounding ourselves with negative or toxic people is not good for our growth...hence the title.
• "One of the most detrimental things that we can do on our journey to growth, both personally and professionally, is surround ourselves with negative input."
• This can be a tough topic, and I get a lot of push back and objections with this one, because none of us like to do things that have the potential to be emotionally tough. However, we know the 5 people we spend the most amount of time with have the largest influence on our happiness and our long-term success or failures.
• Attitudes are contagious! Surround yourself with the good ones.
• "High achievers recognize that anyone aspiring to learn and grow brings great value to those around them."
• The key is to recognize the positive people in your life that support you and encourage you in your dreams and your visions. These need to be the tribe that you spend the majority of your time with.

Full Transcript

Welcome to the final module of showing up as your best self. I am Leigh Wilson, and this is Focus Forward Business Design.  As we wrap up in this final module, I wanted to save this topic for last, as it can be the hardest to implement change.  I am hoping that as you have gone through this course you have made some significant changes in different components of your world from your morning routine, to conquering that to-do list.  Now that you are showing up ready to take charge every day, you are likely to be showing up for others at a higher level as well.

This title may seem a little odd, but my husband and I are wine lovers and tend to socialize with others that appreciate the finer grapes as well.  Through the past 10 years or so we have tasted a lot of wine…good and bad and as our taste buds have learned more, we have also determined that drinking bad wine is not good for our overall experience.  Much like surrounding ourselves with negative or toxic people is not good for our growth and well-being…Hence the title..

This last piece is going to take some time for you to do a bit of deep looking into the people that you surround yourself with.  This can be a tough topic, and I get a lot of push back and objections with this one, because none of us like to do things that have the potential to be emotionally tough.  However, we know that the 5 people that we spend the most amount of time with have the largest influence on our happiness, and our long-term success or failures.

The challenges that present themselves of course are obvious.  We all have people in our lives that may not have been put there by choice.  It could be family members, co-workers or even friends.  How can we just cut those ties and walk away and still consider ourselves good, ethical, integrity-based people? It can be hard, but one of the most detrimental things that we can do on our journey to growth both personally and professionally is surround ourselves with negative input. 

"It is proven that the more someone illustrates a bad attitude around a person, the more that attitude becomes embedded into the recipient.  It is no joke that attitudes are contagious." 

I totally get it.  I have a member of my family who is extremely negative but is someone that I cannot exclude from my life and would not want to.  I am very careful about the amount of time that I spend with this person and the atmosphere of the meeting so that I can guide the conversation.  What I have noticed is that from time to time she is beginning to  actually agree with my positive spin on things that could otherwise be construed as negative.  It is my hope that this is a step in the right direction and maybe I am rubbing off on her…just a little.  Maybe at some point the negativity will decrease …that is my hope, and I am sticking with it

The moral of the story is that you do not have to dump all of your family and friends.  I mean that does seem like it would be a bit extreme don’t you think? 

What It comes down to is a healthy balance of time and engagement. The key is to recognize the positive people in your life that support you and encourage you in your dreams and your visions. These need to be the tribe that you spend the majority of your time with. The others get much less of your valued time.

As you are making and reviewing the list of people in your life, please remember that as I said earlier attitudes are contagious, so the good news is that there is a chance that those people that you have known forever, friends from grade school even, that are not playing at the same positive level that you are can be brought around.  

Now that you have a list of the people that influence you both positively and negatively, I am sure that you have discovered people in your life that you know may not be the healthiest for you as you go after that joyful life and big dreams.  You may not have even recognized it until you sat through this exercise.

You may find that some individuals may even need to be cut out altogether, but be kind as these people likely have no idea what they are doing. On that same list there are likely some amazing people that contribute more to your world than you could ever express. Cherish those relationships and grow together.

I encourage you to also look to expand that circle by making a list of the people that you respect and would be honored to be a part of their circle.  Reach out and introduce yourself.  You may feel that you offer little value in their world and therefore there is no room for you. Here is something to realize though, high achievers are natural givers, teachers and mentors.  If you are genuine and forthright about your intentions to hang out and learn from amazing people, you just might be surprised at how welcome you are.  High achievers recognize that anyone that aspires to learn and grow brings great value to those around them.

I hope that this has proven helpful and given you one more tool to show up as your best self and please remember to share your world with good people and good wine.

If you would like to personalize this process and really find out how to take your personal and business life to the next level without compromising one for the other, then it is time for you to take advantage of my offer of your 1:1 complimentary high performance coaching session.  In these 60 minutes we will go over the key components that are critical in high performance and see how they correlate with your current life and your future.  

Click here to schedule your personal coaching time.

As you go through your journey remember…it is always your choice to Focus Forward.