Connecting with Those Who Reenergize You
Second Principle of our Let’s Go 2024 guide and planner highlights the impact of surrounding yourself with positive and supportive individuals which can significantly impact your journey towards success.
As we go though life, if we’re “lucky”, we push ourselves to do one of the hardest thing a human can consistently do which is GROWTH.
The tricky part is that during your growth the mindset shifts, skills expand, you meet new people, experience new cultures and that starts an invisible CLIMB that requires consistent work and preparation.
If you’d compare life with climbing a mountain such as Everest, it’s not easy and quite the journey. You need a lot of practice and preparation, you need to make sure you packed the right clothes and know how to self-assess in case you start to feel certain altitude symptoms that can cause death.
If you’re not prepared you simply just won’t make it to the top.
To quote one of the best First Ladies the White House has ever seen - when climbing a mountain “everybody starts out the journey ready you know they think I'm going to make it to the top and then you start the climb and some people are ready for it and some people aren't and it's surprising that you learn along the climb who's really ready and there are people who just emotionally physically can't go the whole way run out of oxygen you know they weren't fit for the climb right and one of the hardest things is like when you discover that I mean do you stop, do you go back because there was one member that wasn't ready or do you keep climbing and sort of leave them where they are and we found that that's kind of been the the pattern right now there are people who have been - they were built for the climb like we were, and some weren’t”
The Importance of a Tribe
The CLIMB can be done solo, but it’s the “house recommendation” to have a Tribe along for the ride with you.
Michelle Obama talks about her Kitchen Table and how along her life she collected friends and made time to nurture those friendships, while others just didn’t make the CLIMB.
Challenges in Finding Your Tribe
Similar to life - there are people that will want to evolve, grow, take the uncomfortable path or forge a path where one doesn’t exist, but they know how to be prepared and willing to get the right tools and skills to made it, and some that will stay in the exact same place they were when they graduated high school.
Survivor's Remorse and Personal Choices
When you make the life changing decision to make a big move that you know will change your life forever for the very first time (that being moving cities, countries, continents, professions, or leaving toxic partnerships, etc), you’ll start feeling something called “survivors remorse”. You want to help everyone, bring them with you, help them out, or you just don’t want to lose that connection between you and your friends and family, but you slowly start to grow apart, and all of a sudden your world looks very different then theirs, your problems look very different then their, and a sense of being along in the world starts to creep in.
As Michelle Obama would say “We tell young people that sometimes you got to leave them there because you can't carry people when you're trying to get to the top it slows you down but there's you know survivors remorse that comes with it and I know there you know a lot of times when I talk to kids and I see them well up I see in them that struggle that they've reached a point where they've left people they love behind and they struggle to figure out how to whether or how to maintain those connections and it becomes hard hard and it's draining you know kids for example who got the opportunity to go to college when half their family isn't eating yes right and they've got a student loan and they need to use that loan to pay for their books but they're trying to send money back home to pay the electric bill and I tell those kids like if you want to make it you've got to make some hard choices about what to do with your life or you will not make the climb yourself and then everyone loses and then everybody loses and and I think that's how we've had to look at it …”
Source: Jay Shetty Podcast - MICHELLE OBAMA Opens Up On Her 8 Years In The White House: "We Know Too Much."
Looking back, I wish I had access to such wisdom and podcast -about 15 years ago, when my journey first led me to London, UK. Now, having lived in three different countries across two continents for over a decade, I know better. Progress and growth require hard decision to be made.
How do you make the CLIMB?
You will never have a one or two people that will be everything for you and step in your exact same shoes all the time. First of all you need to know what YOU need and keep tags on those human interactions - after meeting X, did you left feeling better and reenergized or you left drained like an empty tank?
For those who Reenergize you, they don’t need to be THE source of for everything, you can’t expect one person to be a confidant, a partner and person that you can do everything with, that’s a lot to expect out of a person and you’ll end up being disappointed as that’s a very unrealistic. We’re all humans and that’s the beauty of it! We all bring something different to the table through our views of life, our background, our likes or dislikes, the culture we experienced and the environment we grew in.
Finding Your Tribe
First of all do you know what you need? What do you need in your tribe?
Do you need someone to listen while you vent?
Do you need a shopping buddy?
Do you need a hiking group?
Do you like traveling so you’d need someone that is open to explore the unknown?
Do you need someone to go with to music festivals?
Do you like movie marathons or are you a foodie that appreciates cuisines from around the world so you might need someone that is keen on those areas?
Do you need a business oriented mind to bounce off ideas?
Do you need an informal mentor?
Once you know what you need and want start small.
Take on NEEDs from your list and do a bit of research. Is there a meetup oriented towards your interest? Is there a club that you can join? Is there a community at work maybe that has similar interests.
I’m not going to lie it will take some time investment from your side, but what good thing doesn’t?!
Keep in mind to be flexible. No one is perfect and you need to be aware of the difference between a long term connection vs a short one. A long term friendship or connection is based on more then just needs and interests, it includes the values you both have and potentially share, and like any healthy relationship, it includes mutual trust and respect that is built over time.
You can easily put a lot of pressure on someone to be everything for you, but keep in mind that like any Tribe you have the leader, the spiritualist, the dreamer, the warrior, the athlete, the nurturer, the jokester and sometimes even the complainer. Together they are essential to make a Tribe work and our case is no exception. Do you know which role you play in the Tribe?
Building Your List
Start building your list of needs. It might look something like
Plan hiking trips with Alex
Book concert tickets with Raj
Have a morning coffee with Adam
Grab dinner with Amanda at the new place in town: “Best food ever”
Join bookclub X
Start morning meditation classes with Nico
Go over the business proposal with Jo
Practice guitar at the Open Mic tonight with the band
As long as you’re intentional about it, in time some people will stick around and make the CLIMB with you, others you’ll leave behind.
Not everyone will stay with you throughout this journey, and that's okay. Focus on those who energize you, and cherish the moments and memories created together.
