Who’s in your framily?
I found out a few weeks ago that some guy I know in my small corner of the world was talking shit about me. Over the weekend I learned that someone else from my small corner of the world has held a years long grudge against me. Just yesterday someone sent me a note saying that “some people were gossiping about how I got to be so successful so quickly.”
Well, talking shit about what? Holding grudges since when? And who are all these secret people talking, anyway?
So, first things first: let’s pause for a moment of self-awareness. Yeah, maybe I piss some people off. I’m an all-in kind of person who goes hard for the people I love and the causes I hold dear. Sometimes that means I scrap and fight and come out the other side bloodied and bruised, and sometimes I’m wrong. When I know I am, I own it, I apologize, I learn, I evolve. And sometimes, when I know I’m right, you best believe I own that too.
(By the way, if you are struggling with self-awareness — and aren’t we all? — you must, must, must read my dear friend Tasha Eurich’s book, Insight: We’re Not as Self Aware as We Think and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed in Work and Life.)
But, once again, these nagging questions pop up. I’ve been sitting with their hairy little ghosts over the last 24 hours, and 24 days, vascillating between the pain that I feel at causing harm, and the harm that I feel by being caused pain. But, doesn’t that happen to all of us at some point? You get a drive-by, a side-eye, a casual comment, even just a naive knifing. And it hurts. And we fester in the uncertainty, the agony, the self-doubt.
Did I do what she said? Is his take who I really am? Could what they are saying really be true? And just who is this “invisible army,” as my sister Brene Brown calls them, who are holding a secret cabal and chit chatting away?
Y’all, it’s gaslighting in its most bullying form.
I didn’t do it. It’s not who I am. It’s certainly not true. And, “lots of people are saying” usually turns out to be the perpertrator and her dog.
Because, here’s what I know to be true: hurt people hurt people. And, anyone who has come out of the past two year period still harboring the same stuff they brought into it, well, that’s more about them than about you. There is pettiness and jealousy and envy and shame and competition and you, pursuing your limitless self, don’t have time for that cancerous nonsense. (Tweet this.)
There’s an old African proverb that states: The lion doesn’t turn around when the small dog barks. So, yap on, small dogs, yap on. I’ll be over here making moves and manifesting magic. (Tweet this.)
And, you? Well, you aren’t going to be able to change the people around you, so sometimes you might just need to change the people around you. Let me tell you how.
Years ago, I decided to do just that and form a #FRAMILY: a combination of friends and family who really know me, who get me, who never let me settle for mediocrity, and to push me to continue to become the very best me I can be.
This is your framily. Who is the first person you want to call when…
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You’ve got exciting news?
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You’ve got terrifying news?
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You’ve got a nasty problem to solve?
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You’ve got an idea to bounce around and improve?
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You’ve got a crazy dream to float?
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You’ve got an extra ticket to your favorite vacation spot?
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You’ve got a body to bury? (Just kidding. Sort of. I have a friend whose nickname in my phone is “The Shovel.”)
These are the people who you know are in your corner, who are on your side, who see you — like, really, really see you. And, they may not be the family you were born with, and they may not be your friends from high school (though they can be either or both). It doesn’t matter when or how you met them.
What matters is that they know what you can do, and actively want to help you get there. They are abundance minded. They are non-judgemental. They are not competing with you. They know that if you succeed, they succeed. And if they succeed, you succeed. #elevatorstothetop
And, if you want to go through your own process of finding your #framily, you can do that as just one of 70 pages of exercises in my course, which I’m discounting for a very brief shining moment, below.
In the meantime, tell me: who’s in your framily? Forward this post to them and give them a high-five, a fist bump, a virtual hug, and let them know how much you think the rock your socks.
