DREAMS: The Company You Keep: Who’s On Your Team? I PART 3

Tim Pecoraro: 00:00:20

Well, hello and welcome to the Uphill Community Podcast. Your source of inspiration to clarity or to gain clarity, elevate your standards and embrace your call more. Together we choose the uphill climb.

Pursuing the hard best over the easy good. And discovering the extraordinary life waiting to be lived in community. Welcome to the show.

I'm so glad that you are here to join me today where we'll be continuing on in our conversation, discussing dreams, putting dreams to test, and really finding out what those dreams are made of. Are they your dreams? Are they someone else's dreams? Are they clear? Are they not clear? We're going to get into all of that. So, man, I'm disappointed.

I'm watching some March Madness Yukon Huskies lost. They're out. But that's okay. It's all right. It's all right because my Notre Dame Fighting Irish women are still in.

They're doing well, but yeah, it's good. March Madness is good. I like March Madness.

It's one of the best tournaments that there is because you really see people have an opportunity kind of like us. You know, we all have a little bit of Cinderella stuff in us where people don't think that we have what it takes to make it to the next level.

And then you get out there and you play and you play and you do a great job. Man, you can actually do amazing things when you just put yourself out on the court. Just get out there and give it a go. And I did that recently.

So, I mean, I've been doing it pretty much as an entrepreneur for many, many years now. 20 plus years. I've been very fortunate to just live a life and do a life of doing what I love and being able to make a living out of that.

But I was recently up in Arkansas and I had the wonderful opportunity to, to present to Walmart and the corporation corporate headquarters. I got to see the new on 350 acre, 350 million square feet of building. Had lunch in their, their, their lunch area, which is really cool.

But I was able to have this meeting and man, just sitting in a room with people who are, I mean, and I listen, I, I appreciate companies, anyone that's out there doing stuff, I really value them. But the things that they are wanting to do with people and how to take care of people blew my mind. I loved it.

And so to be able to be in the room and know that there are things that I'll be able to work together with them on is just an awesome, awesome thing. And so there's some folks up there and that I have come to really appreciate and value and getting to know them was really, really good.

And that's kind of like me just this guy, this small town guy, this little guy that lives in, well, I live in small town South Carolina, you know, but with my journey, coming from Connecticut, moving to South Carolina and then just going up there to this place that I believe has tremendous impact.

And my favorite thing is to go where the people are, where you have people challenges and you're trying to grow people and see people improve and get the maximize the potential, help people individuate and see themselves actualize into things and make a difference. Like that is what I love doing and I was able to go do that. So just shout out to that corporation, I can't wait to do more stuff with them and.

But yes, it's just really cool. And that reminds me of just like I said, the McNeese that knocks off a top rated school. When you look at that, that's what I feel like.

I feel like a little McNeese going in there into Walmart because I have the ability, I have the skills and I have the stuff. I didn't go in there and knock anyone off, it wasn't a game.

But knowing that I'm able to compete, I'm able to be a part of a tournament, I have the ability to compete at that level or to be able to present at that level and bring value and good things to an organization that could pretty much hire anyone to do stuff. So hey, if you're out there and you have a dream and that's what this is about, do you dream? I think you do.

And if so, this is a great episode for you to listen to today because this is gonna be around the people that are with you as you dream.

So before we jump into it, if you're following me on Instagram, that's im pecoraro or you can follow me on LinkedIn, please just talk with me there, text, put some things out there. A little direct mess me. If you listen to the podcast, if you have any questions, please feel free to do that.

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If you're listening to the podcast, thank you for listening, but don't try to sell me anything, okay? Just, it's just don't just say hello, talk or show something that will help me add value to other people. Right? That would be Great.

And then if through that process, I see that you send something and we engage, we talk over time, and we start asking questions about each other, hey, maybe something could happen, then. Maybe then we can work together. But just don't. Just don't come and just sell me something. All right. Thank you so much for not doing that. Yeah.

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And if you're looking for community to do some people do life with some people doing the hard best, doing that stuff that's gonna help you. If you're a person that's in transition, if you're a person that's trying to go to the next level, a person that's just been thinking, you know what?

I'm done being stuck. Go to theuphill community and check that out.

And there's always room for more people to come in and be a part of the community that we have been growing. So. Oh, without any further delay, let's jump into today's episode. So before.

Before we begin the episode, though, in this episode, I'm thinking around the title will be the company you keep. So who's on your team? This is around dreams, the company that you keep, who's on your team.

But before we do that, let's take a moment to revisit where we've been in this dream defining journey. Okay, so in episode one, it was all about the ownership. It was all about clarity. And so we asked the question, is your dream really yours? Right.

And can you clearly see your dream? And you were challenged to write your dream in one clear sentence and make sure it wasn't based on someone else's expectations.

You definitely don't want to do a dream off of someone else's expectations. That's just a no go from the beginning. It's never going to work because it's not your dream. So.

And then in episode two, what we did was we explored attainability and strategy. Right?

So you were encouraged to get honest about what's missing, what skills are missing, what knowledge is missing, what support is missing, and then create a real plan instead of just hoping things fall into place. Hope is not a strategy. Hope is like the drug of choice with people. It's hopium. We don't want to be doing hope. Okay? Hope isn't a strategy.

I want hope, but I'm not gonna make that my strategy. Okay? And then also passion. Without a plan, it's not gonna take you very far. So you can have hope, but it can't be your strategy.

And you can have passion, but passion needs a plan.

So now that you've taken a hard look at your dream, if you've listened to those episodes and your strategy, it's time to look at your circle, your people. Now, there are episodes, and I don't remember what number episodes they are off the top of my head, but you can look through the episodes.

You would see that I did stuff around your circle, your inner circle, your outer circle, in between circle. It's about the circle, the people in your neighborhood, who are these people? So when it comes to pursuing your dream, it's.

You've got to look at that circle. Who's helping you, who's hurting you? Who's helping your progress? Who's hurting your progress?

So we want to talk about the company that you're keeping and why it may be the most important factor in the momentum that you're going to generate for you and your dream. Okay, so this is gonna be around just. If you're thinking about a theme, it's people in your relationships. All right? I talk about this often.

And because it doesn't matter. You cannot do anything without people. You need people in your life. You have to be a person if you want to go up and grow up. You need people.

You need people to sharpen you iron. Sharpening iron, that proverb is strong, but it's a violent process. It's the striking to get it sharp. You've got a bead on it.

It's got to be heated in order to sharpen it. It's got to go through. That's what iron, sharpening iron is all about.

Okay, so this is basically looking at who's in your corner and surrounding yourself with the right people. This is what we're going to be getting into. So let's open this way. Imagine there are two talented athletes training for the Olympics.

One is surrounded by an elite team of coaches and nutritionists and mentors, pushing them to be their very, very best. And then the other is training all alone, all by myself, right?

Without any guidance or feedback, who do you think has the greatest chances of success? And it's like bing. You know, it's like an easy answer and almost like a duh. So the. The answer is just. It's just unbelievably obvious.

But too many of us are trying to chase our dreams without the right people being around us. All right? Now, I'm not talking about just any people being around us. I'm talking about the right people being around us.

So no one is going to succeed in isolation. That's where I want to get. I want to set up from the beginning.

And the people in your life, they're either fueling your dream or they're draining your dream. There's two things either fuel the dream or drain the dream.

And today, what I want to do in this conversation is explore with you how to build a team that will challenge, support, and strengthen you so that your dream isn't just a wish. It's not hopium built on hope. Right? It's not passion without a plan. But you've got to have these people. It's. It's something you act.

This is something that you can actually make happen if you have the right people in your life. All right, so there's simple three. Three simple things here. I think I have. Here, let me see. I want to make sure I don't have more than.

Yeah, just three. Just three today. So the first one is the power of your inner circle.

And so the power, the inner circle is basically the people you spend time with that are going to help you shape your beliefs, your energy, and your habits. Those are three key things, right? If you think you can, you can. If you think you can't, you cannot and you will not. Right?

So beliefs who Are the people that are helping you shape your beliefs? Are these people that are giving you the can do, you can do this?

Are they the people that help your belief by coming alongside you and challenging you and holding you accountable? Is that what they're doing?

Are they people that are helping you get in front of the things to build that belief, to work with your mindset, to change the way that you think? Because Dr. Henry Cloud says this so well, and I say this all the time, but behavior follows belief.

No person will consistently behave in a way that's inconsistent with how they see or they view themselves. All right? It's impossible. You're. If you think you're a loser, you're going to live like a loser.

If you think that you can, you're going to always step out like you can. That's what they say in boxer. It's boxing. It's a puncher's chance. This person's a puncher and he's in the ring and he has a chance because of it.

You've got to put yourself in that spot. So it's your beliefs. These are the people, the people you spend time with. They're helping you shape your beliefs.

They're helping you shape your energy. Are these people that drain from you? Are they always sucking the life out of you? Can you hear your energy leave your body when they come around?

You know, I see this all the time. There are some people that. It's almost like I would rather just take a.

Just, I don't know, a sharp object and put it under a toenail rather than have to be around them. And it's not because I'm not compassionate and I don't care about people.

It's just some people just don't want to believe for anything more or better. If you were to talk about, oh, wow, you know what?

I was doing this thing, I got very, very close, and, you know, I almost met my goal, but I'm not there. Oh, wow. At least you meet your goals.

You know, look, that it's okay to be like that every now and again, but there are some people who are always in the camp of, it'll never work, it's not gonna happen. That's impossible.

Listen, I'm okay with all of those challenges because the only way you get better is you have to be put in an impossible situation to find out what you really can be. And I don't want to be around people who aren't going to help me with that belief or help me with the energy to get there.

Who are draining me because I want to not only just have a puncher's chance, I want to get in there and I want to punch. I got to do my thing. Okay, and so what about the habits as well?

You know, the people you spend time with, they're going to shape your beliefs, they're going to shape your energy, and they're going to shape your habits. Now, listen, I'm going to tell you right now that your life looks like your habits.

And so one of the things that I try to do, instead of trying to break bad habits, right? It takes a lot of energy to break a bad habit. So instead I shift my thinking, right?

My belief, so that I could take my energy and put it towards creating a new habit that I want to spend the rest of my life trying not to break. Look at that. So I literally flipped that thing around. So a lot of times it's, oh, man, I wish I could stop this. Oh, I got this bad habit. I got this.

Well, what do you want to do? And then change your mind? Do the opposite. Think about the value that's going to give you.

You want to be around people that are talking to you like that. I've got people in my life that do that. I like being in the room and just like, you're hearing the energy, right? And I'm talking to you.

And when we get into conversations and I'm with people and I'm smiling and I'm talking, and everyone's like, man, you are just smiling. Are you just happy? I'm. No, it's not just happy. It's. I'm full. I believe I'm in a room with people where there's potential.

Like, all that stuff to me is magical. It's people magic. I love it. So the power of your inner circle is going to shape your beliefs, your energy, and your habits.

So you want to surround yourself with people who challenge you to be better. That's why I use the hashtag better at being human, right? I love it. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm always trying to get better at being human.

So I don't want those who keep me in my comfort zone. I want people in my stretch zone. They stretch me. They push me so that I can be in my strength zone. All right, so here's a question for you.

Who are the five people you spend the most time with, and do they push you forward or hold you back? Try to think about that as you're thinking about the power of your inner circle, right?

As you're thinking about this whole thing for your dreams and where you're going, as you're looking at this and you're saying, who are the people in my life, the company that I keep, who's on my team? Because my goal is to have the right people in my life to get to where I want to be.

So the first one, obviously, the first part of this today is the power of your inner circle. The second part is identifying the right people for your dream.

So there are three types of people on your journey or in your journey, on the pathway to. To where you want to go. So the first one is like mentors, all right? Not coaches. I'm talking about mentors.

These are the people ahead of you who provide wisdom and guidance. They can tell you where they were and how they got to where.

Where they were and now where they are and how they got from where they were to where they are. There are people that you want in your life. So, for instance, there's always a rule of five.

For me, there's mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and financial fitness. Those are the things that I'm always thinking about and I want. To me, that is the shalom of God. That's where you have peace.

If you have money, but your mind isn't right, okay, you can't have peace. So even though you have money, you may have peace of mind financially, but when your mind's not right, you don't have peace there. If you have your.

If you have. You have a good mind, but you're. You're lacking money and your emotions are all jacked up. Like, you see what I'm saying?

Like, you've got to try to find. How do I. I get those things. I look for the shalom. I want fitness. So the people around me.

When I think of the five people around me and I can tell you who they are, they all. There's. They can all show me the fitness. Mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and financial. Those people help me with that.

Now, that's even in the mentor category.

So not only do I have five that are with me all the time, that help me, that are in my inner circle, that push me to be better, but then I also have these mentors that are people who provide wisdom and guidance in my life, who can take me to where I would want to be. When I look at their life relationally, I want that. When I look at their life financially, I want that.

When I look at their life emotionally, I want that on and on and on. So you can figure that Out. If you don't see it in their life and you don't want it, what are you doing? How are they mentoring you? How.

Okay, you want people who can show you where they were and how they got to where they are. Second is your peers. So those that are on the same path who challenge and grow with you. So you want to identify the right people.

Who are the people around me? Right? The three types.

I've got mentors, but then I've got the peers who are the people that are on the same path and are they challenging me and are they growing with me? Because my goal is to win with people. But in order to win with people, you have to grow with people.

And if you're going to grow with people, that's the only way you're going to have to go with people. So if I want to win with people, I got to grow with people. And if I grow with people, I've got to go with people. I'm gonna have to.

I can't do this thing on my own, nor do I want to. And then there's the third type. There's the supporters, right? These are people who just believe in you and who encourage you. They're the fans.

They're the ones when you're 1 and 13, they love you. They still cheer for you. Now I'm a New England Patriots guy. Tom Brady, man, I miss him. I miss the Pats, okay?

Whether you like them or not, I'm not getting into all that. But guess what? I still love the Pats. It's not the same as when we were winning all the time. Winning, winning, winning. All right.

But also, it's cool to see some other people win. That's great. But I still love my team and I still cheer them and I support them. Now let's change that. That's just a sports team.

That's just all that is. But what about the people around me that I care about? Where there's a true connection and relationship?

Or I support them because I believe in them and I'm in proximity and they're in that one in 13 category. They have one win and 13 losses, but they're still world class. When you look at a pro football team that's 1:13, the team is made up of all stars.

It could be the chemistry of the team. Who knows? What's the reason? But there's a reason that they're not in a winning season. All right? Gotta figure it out.

But you can still support them while they're doing it, and that's what I do with folks all the time. That is my plan and my desire. So I want to challenge you. You want to have people who believe in you and encourage you. Right?

So you need all three of those. You need mentors, people who will provide you wisdom and guidance. Right.

You need peers, people that are on the same path as you, who challenge and grow with you, go with you. Right. To win with you. And then supporters, people who believe in you and encourage you.

And if you don't have all three, you're missing key relationships. All right, so here's our questions or question. I want you to think about, who do you have in each of those categories?

I want you to take a minute, there's some time after this podcast and write them down. And where do you need to add someone if you don't have people in those categories? Where do you need people in those categories?

And try to think about that. And then lastly, you want to recognize who you may need to let go of. I spent the last four years doing this, actually five.

And then in the middle of me doing that, I've had also had some people who I thought were very close to me. There's a.

There's a guy that I thought was very, very close to me who literally burned our relationship to the ground and did it for their own self and for their own glory. And it's sad.

And that person, to me, you know, I had to work past being feeling like how pathetic they are to how sorry I feel for that individual because they're very small.

They're a little person that needs to realize that they could be much more and they could have a whole lot more, and they don't have to do that to people.

I'm just grateful they did it to me because there are some other people with what this individual did who would have really just burned their life down. They could have gone and just wrecked their life by what they did. So I get it, letting things go and letting people go.

But let's do it this way where it's not people doing it to you, because that will happen. Maybe I'll do an episode on that. But here's the thing. Some relationships are going to drain your energy and belief in yourself.

It's going to take away. It's going to cause you to doubt. And so those are some of the relationships you need to walk away from.

It's tough, but you may need to limit your time then with the negative or unsupportive individuals, so you may not be able to get away from them completely. But you may, you can limit the time. You can, you can just say, I can't do this anymore.

So your future success is going to depend on who you allow into your space. And I cannot emphasize that enough.

Whoever you are allowing in, allowing into your space, that is either going to help or hurt where you're wanting to go now. Life is not all about me. I believe in. That's why it's called alignment and partnership and working together with people.

If you're not in the right alignment, you just don't need to be with those folks anyway.

So one of the rules should be that if you know what is the thing that you're trying to accomplish, the things that you do, you know, your standards, all of those things, that's okay. You may meet people just like you, Everybody, you're just like you.

But then when it comes to some of the finer points of direction and what you're wanting to say yes to and no to, and if that person doesn't support that or whatever, it's not that they're bad. It's just, maybe you're just not aligned and you need to let that go.

But if it's just negative and it's a pull down and a tear down, that's when you can be a little bit more adamant and a wee bit more restrictive and a little bit more. I would say yeah, just, just. I literally would say no. You're, you're, you're just, you're out. I can't have you doing that.

Now give a person the opportunity to say, you know, do you want to fix this? You want to change this? Can we find some sort of way to, to where, you know, you can keep that negativity out or whatever?

If they can't let it, if they can't, then I'm going to minimize my time or completely let them go. All right? Because again, future success depends on who you allow into that space equally. So who are you going into that space? Are you the negative?

Are you the unsupportive? Are you the one tearing things down? Are you the one not helping the belief system? Are you the one that's not willing to change and grow?

Are you the one that's not able. Able to challenge and have those things in? Are you the person bringing in bad habits? Are you the person draining the energy?

Are you the person that's lacking passion? Right. Don't be that person. Just don't be that person. Well, Tim, that's hard. How do I not be that person? You got to Change some things.

You got to work on your mind. You got to work on your emotions. You got to work on your spirit, man. You got to work on who you really know, who you are.

You've got to be okay with things not being okay all the time. And you've got to also get to a point, and I recommend reading the book. You got to learn to be unoffendable.

There are going to be people that say the most rudest things to you. There are going to be people that do stuff to tear you down and harm you. And you know what? It's on them. Let them have that, okay?

I have nothing else to do. People will make decisions and I cannot change that. But I can change what I do because I still have an opportunity. My power lies in my choice.

I still have power to choose. And I encourage you to do the same thing. So the last one here, the recognizing who you may need to let go of.

Are there relationships that are slowing you down or discouraging your dream? And if so, you need to identify them and you need to make a decision about it. You may need to walk away. So there you go.

So simple reflection here and reflection of the questions. A little recap. First, one that I want to make sure that you sit down and you do is who are the five people you spend the most time with? Who are they?

Write them down. Second is who is mentoring, challenging, or encouraging you? Who are those people?

And then lastly, are there relationships you need to distance yourself from? Think about that. So I will challenge you this, this, after this episode. Answer those questions.

But when you're done with this episode, if you haven't listened to the other two before this, listen to it. But identify one relationship, just one.

One relationship that you can strengthen and one relationship that you can create distance from this week because I'm sure there's both. Unless you have nobody in your life, you can have one that's less, a little bit of distance and one that you'll deepen.

So reach out to someone who can challenge you or support you and ask them for a conversation. Ask. Can we talk? I want to talk about this thing I've been listening to. Would you walk with me? Would you do this with me?

Will you share this journey with me? Can I be of value to you as well? Hey, you can do that.

And next week we're going to be talking about something that stops most people, obstacles and grit. What happens when the things get tough and how do you push through challenges instead of giving up? But that's what we're going to uncover next week.

But hey, until then and until next time. We'll talk soon.