It’s very easy for very good people to suffer from a lack of creativity and productivity because they’re surrounded by energy vampires, dream-stealers, and negative naysayers. And what I’ve learned over the years is simply this, one of the most powerful ways that you can live a rare-air life, whether it’s in terms of your productivity or performance or in terms of your prosperity, or in terms of your happiness and sense of peace is, delete the people who steal your joy. I’ll repeat that again because I believe it’s so important for you. Delete the people who steal your joy. In The 5AM Club, there’s a model that has been absolutely transformational to people across the planet, and it’s called Joy is a GPS.
There are three elements that will help you dramatically improve not only your success and your performance, but also your levels of inner joy, and one of those three things I teach in the book is the people who steal your joy. In other words, you can do a list in your journal later today or right after this episode, write down in the first column on the left-hand side of the page, who in my life is stealing or diminishing my joy? And then in the right-hand column, write down, who are the people in my life who elevate my joy? And then have the wisdom and bravery to start removing and releasing the people in your life who are bringing you down.
And then I always get this message a lot or this question a lot, well, what if it’s my mother? What if it’s my best friend?
I’d simply say to you, people come into our lives for reasons, seasons, or lifetimes. And one of
the ways you can tell a victim in action is they give away their power to other people. You have a lot more power than you may be exercising in awareness. You have the power to let go of people, even if it’s a family member. Or you could say it’s going to be selective association.
Rather than talking to them every day, I’m going to speak with them once a week or see them once a month. Or you can never see them again, you can see them less often. It might be in between. But you have the power to do what feels right to you. The larger point is simply this,
the first thing I wish I’d learned when I was 20 is you can be around energy vampires or you can change the world. You don’t get to do both.
The second thing I wish I’d learned when I was 20 is that everything that happens to you is for
your growth. A bad day for the ego is a great day for the soul. So the ego might be saying, “Oh, that was terrible. That was a tragedy. That was a difficult meeting. That was a hard moment,” that’s just your ego chattering, and your ego is really the voice of your fear. You want to become much more aware, not of your ego, but of your higher self, that primal genius, that native hero that lurks at your core under the layers of fear, doubt, and disbelief. And
the more you start to get to know your bravest, strongest, truest self, and the more you stand in your true power versus your fake power, the more you’re going to realize everything that happens to you, whether it’s been a tragedy, a subtle adversity is for your
growth. Therefore, it’s all good.
What I’d offer to you is simply this, don’t be a resentment collector. It’s a term maybe you’ve
never heard from me before. Be not a resentment collector. A lot of people what they do is, it’s all about being positive, it’s all about everything being in the sunshine. Well, that’s not really a true life. As a matter of fact, if you want to be legendary leader, you’ve got to go through a lot of suffering. You’ve got to be knocked down and then be willing to continue. You’re going to be laughed at and you’re going to be ridiculed. You’re going to face self-doubt. You’re going to be exhausted at times. You’re going to face all sorts of challenges if you w
ant to get to your Mount Everest. And if you’re listening to the ego as well as the dominant messaging of our culture, which is everything needs to be happy and sunshine and puppies and roses and rainbows and butterflies, then you’re going to miss one of the key insights I wish I learned burned at 20, which is, everything that happens to you is good. Everything that happens to you is for your growth. Everything that happens to you is designed to help you burn away your ego and build more fluency and intimacy with your authenticity. What do I mean by that? I really think it’s the times of suffering that make you great.