Hey there.
Dan Martell here, serial entrepreneur, investor,
and creator of SaaS Academy.
And this show, I'm going to talk to you
about how to stay positive when you're
surrounded by negative people.
Be sure to stay to the end, where
I'm going to share with you an exclusive training called
my future living training.
I shared with this at my Idea to Exit live event
in San Francisco.
And I think it'll really serve you to get even more
out of the right mindset and perspective
to approach your day.
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So I often get asked by friends and family members
and a lot of entrepreneurs online
about how do I deal with the negativity and the frustration
of people around you when you're trying to just express
your dreams, your goals, your excitement for the future,
and you always feel like they're the quickest
to shoot them down, and be critical about the ideas,
and tell you what's missing or what's not going to work.
And how do you get that feedback,
and deal with those people, and still approach your day
feeling driven, excited, and passionate about
what you're building?
One of the best analogies I got from my buddy Jesse
was the concept of the tugboat versus the lighthouse.
OK?
And essentially, the way you've got
to think about it is both of those
have the same function, the same outcome--
to get the ship into shore safely.
But if you think about it, the tugboat, it goes out there,
and the ship is coming in, and it's pushing against the ship,
and it's moving it in the right direction.
And the ship might be off course.
And it comes around, and it hits it from the other side.
And it keeps guiding that ship with a lot of energy and bumps
and frustrations into the direction, to the point where
the ship finally gets to the port, to its destination.
And on the alternative side, you've
got the lighthouse that just sits there
on the shore to help guide the ship to safe passage
if it's choosing to go into port to avoid hitting
the rocks in the cliffs.
And both of them act in the same way, a beacon of direction,
except one takes a lot of energy,
the tugboat, and the other one takes no energy,
and if anything, allows you to get even more out
of the act of just shining our light.
And I believe that too often when we have negative people
in our lives, a lot of the reason they even get
the opportunity to voice that opinion is
because you're trying to shine your light-- or sorry--
you're trying to play tugboat with them
and trying to convince them that there's a different approach.
And what I would suggest is do the opposite, which is--
lighthouse is just be the light.
Shine your light.
Be the example.
And if that person at some point in the future
wants to get your support, then they will.
Here's the crazy part from my life and experience,
is even though I grew up in an environment that
was really challenging-- if you don't know my story,
I grew up in group homes, foster homes, crisis centers.
Ended up in jail twice by the age of 17.
And today, when people look at my life,
the life I've created for myself and the freedom
that I have and the business success,
having built and sold--
I've started five companies.
I've exited the last three.
I became a multimillionaire at 27.
And I'm not sharing any of that to brag.
I'm just sharing to give you context for what's possible,
from literally group home, foster home at 17 to 27,
financially independent and really,
super grateful for having incredible people show up
in my life.
But the even coolest part of all this is looking at my family--
my brother, who's one of the top entrepreneurs in Canada--
he won an award-- he's a homebuilder--
my friends, my peer groups, a lot of those guys
that I hung out with in high school.
All I did was just focus on myself and shine my light.
And when and if they were ready, they would show up.
And I think it's such a powerful analogy that's
just going to help you reframe this whole thing.
But what I want to share with you in this video
is the perspective, these three perspectives
that might help you reframe your frustration.
Because it's not what happens to you.
It's how you react to those things that
are going to change the feel and the vibe around it.
So these are the three perspectives and mindset shifts
that I want to share with you today.
Number one-- compete against yourself.
One of the fastest ways to get yourself
into a doom and gloom, frustrated environment,
especially when you have negative people around you,
or people that are always bragging,
or whatever it is, frustrating people,
is to actually compare yourself to them.
OK?
So what I want you to not do-- write this down--
do not compare your behind the scenes
to somebody else's highlight reel.
As you're scrolling through Instagram or Facebook
or Snapchat or whatever, and you see these other people
that you know in their life that maybe
started after where you were at, or may
have had less resources than you have,
and that are doing so many things-- do not
compare yourself to them.
It doesn't help you.
It doesn't serve.
There's nothing to learn there.
What you should do instead is compete against yourself.
You should ask yourself, am I focused on being better today
than I was yesterday?
Because from my perspective, that
is the only thing that you can control and that matters.
Because how people create their reality
and go about their lives has nothing
to do with the resources and the impacting decisions
that you can make for your own life.
And the truth is, as you've probably experienced,
is most of those people are not actually-- the highlight reel
is not the reality.
Many of them-- this is crazy, because I
coach high-performing software entrepreneurs, very
high performers, guys that are doing $100 million plus,
but also folks that are at $25,000 in monthly recurring
revenue and upward.
And what I've discovered is, especially
when we do sharing our wins-- in our Facebook group every month,
I say, hey, everybody.
It's the end of the month.
Time to share your top three wins.
And you see the highlight reel.
You see the people adding--
doubling their MRR in a month, adding a bunch of new team
members, doing all these things that on the surface look great.
But I know, because I'm their coach,
that they're really struggling with self-confidence, imposter
syndrome, team members that just quit.
They're in the middle of a divorce, et cetera.
Right?
So what I want you to understand is
that all of those other people's realities that you're
comparing yourself to, good and bad,
serves very little help for you.
The only thing you can do is focus on you,
and who you were yesterday or last week, and ask yourself,
am I getting better?
And if the answer is yes, congratulations.
Keep that up.
If the answer is no, fix it, but don't do that
by comparing yourself to other people's reality,
because it's just not real.
Number two-- claim your morning.
One of the most powerful things that you can internalize
is the fact that the only thing you can control
is how you spend your time, how you show up
in this world, what you do for work,
for productivity, et cetera.
And one of the most powerful things
that you can add to your day to claim your day,
to build a sense of momentum, to build confidence
is to own your morning ritual.
OK?
And what I mean by this is that first 90 minutes of your day.
You can either tell your subconscious, tell your mind,
tell yourself that, hey, my time's not that valuable.
And I get up, and I lollygag.
That's what I say to my two boys.
I lollygag, and I kind of get stuff done,
but I don't really have a sense of purpose, and whatever.
And you kind of have breakfast, and you kind of
check your emails, but there's no structure to it.
OK?
So that's what most people do, especially if they're
in a funk, especially if they're frustrated with other people,
especially if they just went to a party
and somebody was bragging about their new boat,
their new house, their new car, whatever it is.
And you're just like, oh, my god,
why am I not further along?
Whatever funk you're in, you can go about your morning that way.
Or the alternative is claim it, drive it, and move it forward,
and design a ritual that from the moment you wake up,
the first 90 minutes is for you, 100% for you.
You claim it.
You block it out.
You have a very structured process for going through that.
And I'm not telling you which one to look at,
but you can go look at Hal Elrod's book, Morning Miracle.
He's an amazing dude.
He's a good friend of mine.
Go read his book if you're like, hey, what should I do.
If you want even more inspiration,
go check out Robin Sharma's book, The 5:00 AM Club.
Whatever it is for you-- and I'm not saying
you have to get up at 5:00 AM, even though I
get up way earlier that that.
You want to understand that how you approach that morning will
set up so much for the day.
It will set up your confidence.
It will set up the momentum.
It will set up the progress.
Because what I've discovered is that first 90 minutes,
that's where the magic happens.
OK?
And if you're frustrated because other people in your life
are being negative, et cetera, you just
got to do something that they will never do--
to know in the back of your mind that you're
capable of way more, regardless of what they say.
It doesn't matter if it's your parents, your uncle, your best
friend.
You know you get up, and you have a structured morning.
You have output.
You have real production, and that you design that,
and you're holding yourself accountable.
Because that's the key.
You've made a commitment to yourself,
and you're holding yourself accountable.
And when you do that, everything else changes.
All of a sudden now, you know that, hey,
I'm willing to do things that other people won't
to live a life that they can never live.
That, to me, is the coolest part of all this,
is that when you join the 5:00 AM Club,
or the Morning Miracle Club, or whatever you want to call it,
you're joining a tribe of doers, of action takers,
of game changers.
And it's going to give you a sense of confidence
that when people say stuff, it doesn't even register anymore.
I don't have that issue because I just
don't even think about it.
People can say stuff to me, and it's
like, that's their reality.
It's not mine.
If somebody says something negative to me,
I don't take it personally anymore
because I now know thyself.
Know who you are.
And it starts by claiming your morning.
Number three-- friendventory.
I wrote about this a long time ago on my blog,
and I think it's something that's worth bringing up.
If you have not done a friendventory lately,
I highly encourage you do that.
Here's the way it works.
You make a list of everybody you interacted
with in the last 60 days.
OK?
People that you spent the most time with,
from your best friends to your gym friend to your blah,
blah, blah.
You make a list of everybody, and then make
a list of characteristics that you know
is required for you to succeed in regards to your health,
wealth, financials, business, fatherhood, whatever
it is, those characteristics that you
know that you need to succeed.
And then ask yourself, do those people
have those characteristics?
Do those people embody, inspire you to live that way?
And if you can't circle anybody on there
out of those different facets, then you
need to do a friendventory.
You need to free up some people.
Now, look, I'm not saying that you cut them out of your life.
I think that's what people-- they
misunderstand when I say this.
I'm not saying you say to them, hey, F off.
I don't want to talk to you ever again.
All I'm saying is that next time that person texts you and says,
hey, do you want to hang out on Friday night,
you say, hey, man, I'm busy.
Appreciate the invite.
That's all you say.
Next time your mother reaches out and says,
hey, you want to do dinner on Sunday,
you say, hey, appreciate the invite,
but I'm already committed.
And you just start giving yourself some space
to fill that with new people.
Maybe you reach out to your running club.
Maybe you reach out to the local entrepreneurship group.
Maybe you reach out to a volunteer program where
you can mentor another kid.
Whatever it is you need more in your life,
try to start recruiting those people.
Maybe you need to go find some mentors.
Watch-- I've got a ton of videos on my YouTube channel
around finding mentors and connecting with mentors.
Maybe you need to do that and start
adding those people to your list of your relationships.
Because what I've discovered is that it's way easier
to avoid the dragon than to slay it.
What do I mean by that?
Look, if I have to be around somebody that's negative
because they're family members and, it's
the holidays, that's one thing.
But if I know that that's the way
they are-- and I'm not here to change their life.
I'm a lighthouse, OK?
I'm going to keep my space.
It's easier for me to avoid them to then have to overcome them.
And I don't want to introduce that negativity or that energy
into my life, so I just keep my distance.
Even if I'm at a party or somebody
is coming into my space, I may just walk away way and go talk
to somebody else.
I might go and play with the kids.
I might go and read my Kindle, whatever it is.
You can decide what to do with your time.
And you're not going to make a big show about it.
You don't have to be all dramatic about it.
You just make that decision, and you know you made it.
And that's how you get more positivity, less negativity
in your life.
So three quick mindset perspective
tweaks to stay motivated when you're
surrounded by negativity-- number one,
compete against yourself.
Don't compare it.
Number two-- claim your morning.
And number three-- go through a friendventory.
So as I mentioned at the beginning,
I want to share with you an exclusive training called
Future Living.
It's something I taught in San Francisco at my Idea
to Exit live three-day seminar.
And it is one of the most powerful things
that I see all top performers-- literally,
you name me that person, from Steve Jobs to Gary Vaynerchuk
to whoever, and I will show you somebody
that lives in the future.
Now, if you want to understand how to do that,
click the link below to get access to that training.
But it will give you the right mindset, the framework,
the thinking patterns to create that world for yourself
so that it's really hard to get into any negative thoughts,
because you're not even living in that space.
So the link is below.
You can click that to get access.
If you like this video, be sure to softly tap the Like button.
Feel free to share this with anybody
that you care about that you think that it could serve.
And as per usual, I want to challenge you to live a bigger
life and a bigger business.
And I'll see you next Monday.
To stay motivated when shrouded--
shrouded.