Back from his trip to Breckenridge, Mike comes at you this week with a question he posed to David Osbourne, who do you have to become too fit into a higher social group? Mike lets you know what David said and gives his own personal experience of how he presented himself and how he showed up to functions.
“People are going to accept who you are, but you shouldn’t accept staying where you are.”
HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 – Intro
0:52 – Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better, don’t wish for fewer problems, wish for more skills and don’t wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom
3:20 – While talking to the Go Crew, mike discussed the question who do I have to become to fit in the group of 5 people you hang around with most
5:01 – The idea of “if people don’t accept me for who I am I don’t need them anyway” is a cop-out
6:58 – Who do you have to leave behind?
7:43 – You’ve got to lean into who you are and embrace who you are
8:17 – Find a friend group that pulls you up to the next level
10:38 – People are going to accept who you are, but you shouldn’t accept staying where you are
11:25 – How are you going to show up to meetings etc.
FULL TRANSCRIPTION:
[Mike Ayala] Thank you for joining me on the investing for freedom podcast. I’m pretty excited about what I’m going to bring to you today. As I mentioned in the last episode, if you listened to it, I just came back from Breckenridge, Colorado for our annual summer event that we do with GoBundance, which is a tribe that I talk about often. And by the way, if you’re an accredited investor you might want to look into this group. There are six pillars that GoBundance and it’s just phenomenal. Finding a tribe like this is extremely difficult, and I just feel so fortunate after coming off the mountain with a hundred guys, especially after everything that’s happened with COVID, I mean, zoom is great. And I appreciate all the zoom calls and everybody rallying and the time we’ve been able to spend together virtually, but there’s just nothing that replaces getting in person with your guys or with your girls. So just feel fortunate that I was able to spend a week on the mountain with some of the best people that I know.
So here’s the question. David Osborne, who is one of the founders of GoBundance, he wrote the book wealth can’t wait. And he wrote miracle morning for millionaires. One of the smartest guys, I know probably one of the top three mentors that I’ve ever had in my life that I know personally, just a phenomenal, amazing person. And I just want to share a couple of things that he shared at this event that really aligns with something I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of years. I’ve even talked to you guys about this a little bit. Here’s something that he said, don’t wish it was easier to wish you were better. Don’t wish for fewer problems, wish for more skills, and don’t wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom. I’ve shared this with you before, and you’ve probably heard this a million times. The sage advice from Jim Rowan, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with basically saying, if you look around you, the people that are around you, you’re going to become like them, whatever that is, whoever that is and whatever that means.
So there are a few questions that David Osborne asked as he was sharing. There was an interview that a couple of the guys in the tribe did Aaron West and Daniel Del Rio. They have a podcast, an internal podcast inside the tribe called seven to eight and basically interviewing people that have either gone through the process or are going through the process of going from seven figures to eight figures. And so they interviewed David Osborne and he’s actually gone from seven to eight to nine which is really cool. But so many amazing takeaways. And here’s the three things that David said, who do I need to leave behind is number one. And what part of myself do I have to leave behind? Number two and number three, who do I have to become?
I’m going to start with number three real quick because I’ve talked with you guys about this and this is something that’s near and dear to my heart. I’m just probably traveling through this process and constantly come back to it. But when Jim Rowan says, you’re the average of the five people that you spend the most time with the question that I’ve posted a couple of times to you guys, and I really spend a lot of time talking about it, if I’m coaching with, or mentoring, or just having conversations with someone as we did in Breckenridge, there’s an amazing group of people called the go crew. And I was having dinner with the go crew one night. And these are the people that volunteer their time. They show up and they work from sunup to sundown, serving the GoBundance guys, making sure that everything goes well, delivering microphones, they’re just there to serve and they are amazing. But anyway, I was having dinner with them. I chose to sit at the table with the Go crew because these guys are just phenomenal. And we start having this conversation about, who do I have to become? And the thing that I’ve always said again, people say, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And so automatically our mind goes to if we look around and we want to become better, and this doesn’t mean that we get rid of our buddies, but we need to get around a new group of people to expand our mind, our thought processes and increase our average. So we constantly start thinking, well, where do I find this group of people? How do I hit them up and say, Hey, will you take me to dinner? Or I’ll take you to dinner, I guess, would be the right thing to do, or Hey, can I pick your brain and buy you a cup of coffee on and on and on. But here’s the question that I have. And David posed this, who do I have to become in order to get accepted by that group of people?
Because here’s the thing in order to do something different than what you’re currently doing, you have to leverage something or someone, or somehow different than what you’ve done, right? It’s kind of like the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Well, you can’t stay in the current group of people that you’re in. I’m not saying you have to get rid of them, not all of them anyway, what things are you going to change? What words are you going to change? What habits that you have, the way you talk, the way you study, the things you bring to the table, the conversations that you have, what are you going to change to make sure that when you start averaging up and leveling up that that group doesn’t kick you out and you might be one of those people that’s saying to me, Mike, well, you know what, if they don’t accept me the way that I am, then I don’t want to be part of that group. Okay, fine. Stay where you’re at. That’s a limiting belief. The idea of, well, if people won’t accept me the way I am and for who I am, then I don’t need them anyway. That’s an excuse. That’s a cop-out, flat out, excuse.
I’m not saying that when people judge you or mistreat you or any of that kind of stuff, that you should hang out with them. But what I am saying is that if you want to become higher and you want to average up, I’m telling you right now, you’re going to have to bring some new conversation to the table. If, and by the way, I’m going to preface this by saying, I’m not opposed to basketball or sports or anything else. But if all you ever talk about and hang out with is your five sports buddies. And you want to try to find yourself in a group of people that will talk about investing or real estate investing, or how to invest in businesses, etc. It’s probably not going to go very well. When all you know how to talk about is basketball or sports, you’ve got to study and increase your vocabulary. And again, and I’m not if you’re the person that’s saying to me, well, Mike if you can’t accept me for who I am, then I don’t want to be there. Then stay where you’re at because that’s what you’re really saying to yourself is you don’t want to expand your mindset and grow.
So here’s the thing back to David Osborne. I mean, David Osborne is a normal person. He’s an amazing person. Actually I got to spend some time on about a two-hour hike with him, just talking to him and asking him questions. And there’s a little bit of fear around that when you first get around somebody that’s as amazing as that, but he’s a person just like everybody else. But I guarantee you if every time I talk to David Osborne, I’m still talking about the same problems and the same issues in my life. And I’m not making any progress. He’s probably not going to talk to me for very long, but here’s the reality. I don’t have to not be myself. That’s, I’m not telling you to change your personality. What I am telling you is don’t waste his advice. Not just David’s, anybody’s, don’t waste their advice. Don’t waste their time, make sure you’re a doer and an executor. So the question is, who do I have to leave behind? What people in my life do I need to leave behind? What part of myself do I have to leave behind? This is that thing where I am saying, if you know, well, if you don’t accept me for who I am, what part of yourself do you have to leave behind in order to become that new person? And who do I have to become? Like, where am I going? What things in my life do I have to change? What does that ideal person look like in 6 months, 12 months? And again, I’m not telling you to change who you are at your core, your personality, the traits that everybody loves about you. Make a list, what are the top 10 things that you would say people love about you? And what are the top 10 things that you would say, people, don’t like about you? And that’s probably there is that you need to start working on.
So here’s what David Osborne said. He said we got to make a decision that we’re going to lean into who we are and embrace who we are. So one last time, who do you have to become in order to level up? So if you get an ideal avatar or person, if you’ve ever found yourself saying, man, I wish I had somebody in my life that was like this. I wish I had somebody in my life that I could talk to about this. I wish I had somebody in my life that, could just teach me a little bit more about business than I understand, or teach me a little bit more about real estate than I understand. And again, you could go pay a mentor or coach. That’s not really what I’m talking about. There’s plenty of mentors and coaches out there that get paid to teach you what it is you want to know. But if you truly want to find a higher friend group, that’s going to challenge you, a peer group; doesn’t mean that you got to leave your friends behind. I have friend groups that we go out regularly. We have dinner and all this stuff together. And then I have different peer groups that I don’t hang out with all the time. I might not even talk to them all year, but then we go hang out. I just got invited to go on a camping trip with 10 different families with guys that I don’t talk to very often, maybe once or twice a year, but when you go there, it’s a peer group that really pulls you higher. So yes, you could get a paid coach. Yes, you could get a mentor and I think you should. But what I’m really talking about here is how you find a friend group, a peer group, a support group that will pull you up to that next level. How do you increase your average by getting around a bigger tribe? And as David said, here’s the path to it. Ask yourself the question, who do I need to leave behind? What part of myself do I need to leave behind? And then who do I have to become?
So if it’s true that you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with, which I think it is be selective on who those people are, but also really spend some time thinking about the things inside of you that you need to change. And I’m not saying even when you finally get to go hang out with that group, don’t beat yourself up. Just take inventory about the conversation and the way you showed up and just start thinking about how you’re going to show up next time and the things that you’re going to change. I’m going to leave you with this. I remember I’ve done a couple of summit at sea with the real estate guys Robert Helms and Russell Gray. They’ve had a major impact on my life. And I remember the first summit at sea, I was, I was a little nervous cause there are a lot of really, really smart people there that you get to have dinner with and hang out with and just get your mind expanded.
I’m so not going to lie. I was a little nervous. I didn’t spend a lot of time prepping on how I was going to show up as I’m talking about. But I’ll never forget, I was just a sponge. I was drinking out of a fire hose and I just, took as much information in as I could. And then I’ll never forget the second summit at sea that I went to. I remember flying there and I made myself a note about intention and how I was going to show up. And I just started making a list of the way that I was going to show up. And here’s the thing again, oh, they don’t accept me the way I am, blah, blah, blah. Well, people are going to accept you the way you are, but you should not accept staying where you are. And so I set the intention of how I was going to show up. I was going to show up curiously. I was not going to hide in my room when I felt like I’d be an introverted and yes, I can be very introverted. I wasn’t going to just hang out with my room. I wasn’t going to go back, with the people that I was comfortable with, the people that I already knew, the people that I had already hung out with, I was going to set intentions to meet one new person every day and get into a deep conversation, those kinds of things.
So I set intentions of how I was going to show up the second time. That’s what you need to start thinking about. How are you going to show up to meetings? How are you going to show up to, even if you ask somebody to coffee so you can pick their brain, be prepared, what’s the list of questions that you want to ask them? And I’m not saying going with 20 questions, because that could get a little overwhelming, but if you could only get one takeaway from that meeting, what would it be? So I want to leave you with this. Who do you need to become? Who do you have to become in order to show up differently and to raise that average of the five people, who do you have to become?
