Over the past few years I’ve talked with several clients about a lack of support or encouragement from their friends and even family members. Actually, it’s more that their friends don’t really understand why they want to have a business when they can just quilt or make art. Or, why they should expect to make a living from something others can share. Or, why they don’t just enjoy retirement instead of starting up that new business.

It’s a difficult place to be. We want our friends and family to support us. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen. I read a quote from the late motivational speaker Jim Rohn: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” If the five people we spend the most time with are those that don’t support us, what does that do to our business? It certainly doesn’t help us grow our business easily.

What can you do to change the situation? First, identify who is not in your camp, support-wise. Then make a decision that you need to remove them from your life or limit the time you spend with them. I get that this is not always easy, particularly if it’s a family member. Hopefully, some of these people will get on board when they experience your passion at what you are doing. Next, look for people you can add to your circle that will be supportive. Of course, you may first need to identify what you actually need from people. Look for ways that you can be around these supportive people.

If we really are the average of those five people, don’t you want to be average with people who support you?

Here’s another quote to remember if you struggle with this,

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2013 at 5:55 am and is filed under Business, Goals, Productivity, Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.