Lessons - The People Filter: Why Your Success Depends on Who You Let Stay (Scott)

In this lessons episode, we're going to examine how the people you surround yourself with directly impact your success. Energy draining relationships. Relationships that do not serve you aren't just annoying, but they are actively limiting your potential. We're going to talk about why boundary setting is in selfish but strategic and how relationship curation works as a competitive advantage. The most successful people aren't just selective about opportunities, they're ruthlessly protective about who gets access to them and their mental space. Surround yourself with the dreamers and the doers, the believers and the thinkers, but most of all, surround yourself with those who see the greatness within you, even when you don't see it yourself. This is one of my favorite quotes by Edmund Lee and I think this quote speaks perfectly to the idea that I want to talk about today, which is you have to have a people filter. And why your success depends on who you let stay in your life. Because most of us, we are surrounded by the wrong people and I know it sounds harsh. I have worked with hundreds of high achievers, entrepreneurs, founders, executives, CEOs and I've noticed a pattern, it's so consistent, it cannot be ignored. Most people's biggest obstacles are in their strategies, their product, their market timing, they're the energy draining relationships that they refuse to release. And it doesn't even have to be in a business context, it could be relationship, it could be friend group. We hold on to people too long. Now, I know a lot of people who listen to the show are entrepreneurs, so I'm going to show you why it's even more important for you, but a lot of the lessons that we're going to talk about today can be applicable to all areas of your life. Now, if you are an entrepreneur, this is going to impact you financially, it's going to impact your business progress. You are going to hold on to, for example, the client who never pays on time and consumes hours of support. The team member who delivers mediocre work while creating constant drama, the mentor whose outdated advice keeps you playing small, the friend who subtly undermines every new business idea and venture you start. And you tolerate these relationships because you think that's what good people do. You pride yourself on loyalty, on sticking things out, on seeing the best in others. Meanwhile, they're silently stealing your most valuable resource, energy. And without energy, your creativity suffers, your decision making suffers, your resilience suffers exactly when you need it most. So today, I'm going to share with you why having a ruthless filter for the people in your life is the most underrated advantage you're ever going to develop. Because once you understand this principle, you're never going to look at relationships the same way again. But first, let's talk about the high cost of low quality relationships. I want to tell you a story about a friend. Let's call him James because I don't want to use his real name. James was building a very promising SaaS company, smart guy, great product, clear vision, but every single time we met, we hung out, we had lunch. He looked more exhausted. Now, why is this? His business was growing, but his energy was shrinking. And when I dug deeper, I discovered that James spent roughly 60% of his working hours managing to particularly difficult clients. Now, these clients represented only about 20% of his revenue, but they consumed most of his mental bandwidth. And he was so adamant that he could not afford to lose them. But here's what James failed to calculate, the opportunity cost. Every single hour he spent managing difficult relationships, that's an hour that is not spent on developing new features that would attract better clients. Creating content that would position him as a thought leader, building systems that would allow him to scale his business, recovering the energy needed for creative problem solving. So James was trapped in the oldest entrepreneurial fallacy, believing that all revenue is good revenue. It's not. Some revenue costs you way more than it's worth. And after a lot of resistance, he finally fired his two most difficult clients. And within three months, he had replaced the revenue threefold with clients who actually respected his boundaries and his process. And more importantly, his energy returned. That creative spark that had attracted clients in the first place that reignited. He started enjoying his business again. And the lesson is that your business can only be as healthy as you are. And your health is directly tied to the quality of your relationships. Now this doesn't just apply to entrepreneurs. This applies, like I said at the beginning, to everyone. I'm going to teach you some universal laws about relationships. And if you are building a company, great. If you are trying to build a relationship with somebody, great. If you're trying to succeed in your career and you're working a nine to five, great. This applies to all of you. So the first idea is the energy exchange principle. This is a fundamental concept that a lot of people completely miss. Every single relationship in your life operates on an energy exchange principle. Some relationships are net positive. So you leave the interactions, feeling energized, inspired, stronger, some are neutral. So they're not really draining or energizing it and some are negative. So after you spend time with these people, you feel depleted or doubtful or diminished. So this isn't just emotional fluff. This is practical business math, practical relationship math. I want you to imagine tracking your relationships the way you track your finances. So positive energy relationships, they're equal to investments that appreciate over time, neutral energy relationships. They're kind of break even transactions and then negative energy relationships. These are expenses that deliver no return. So no smart business owner in the world would continue investing in something that consistently loses money. Yet we do this constantly with our relationships. Now the argument will be, well, I have to maintain all these professional relationships with difficult people. That's just business. That's just life. But is it though really because Warren Buffett, one of history's greatest investors, he famously operates by what he calls the inner scorecard principle. So he surrounds himself only with people that he genuinely likes and trusts. And in his own words, I work only with people I like. If you go to work every morning with your stomach churning, you're in the wrong business. And his rationale is simple. The energy he preserves by avoiding negative relationships gives him the clarity to make better decisions and the strength to overcome the countless obstacles that will inevitably appear at some point in his path. So this isn't about being cold or transactional. It's about being intentional with your most precious resource. So here are three warning signs that you are currently with the wrong people. You don't need this complex framework to identify the relationships that are holding you back. There's three very clear warning signs that somebody does not belong in your inner circle. So the first warning sign is that they consistently drain your energy. Energy vampires come in many forms. It could be the perpetual victim that turns every conversation into a complaint session, the drama magnet who always has a crisis needing your attention. It could be the perfectionist who finds problems, but never solutions. It could be the pessimist who shoots down every idea before it can take flight after interacting with these people. You feel exhausted rather than exhilarated your creativity dips, your motivation. One of my favorite quotes is by Brendan Bershardt. There is a universal law of energy. If someone or something drains your energy, you will never reach your potential. This energy drain isn't just a feeling. It is a measurable liability to your success. So pay attention to how you feel after every single significant interaction. If you consistently need to recover after engaging with somebody, that's data that you cannot afford to ignore. The second warning sign is when people disrespect your boundaries. Healthy boundaries are the immune system of your success. They protect your time, your focus, and your energy from constant invasion. So boundary violations, what do they look like? So contacting you at all hours and expecting an immediate response, expanding project scopes without discussion or compensation, dismissing your process or systems as unnecessary and making requests that clearly conflict with stated limitations. Every single time you allow a boundary violation, you teach people that your needs don't matter. And if your needs don't matter to you, they certainly won't matter to anyone else and the third warning sign. They make you second guess your worth. This is perhaps the most dangerous kind of person, people who inject doubt into your self perception. These are friends who respond to your success with subtle digs. The clients who never seem satisfied regardless of your performance, the partners who constantly compare you to competitors. Their corrosive effect is cumulative and often invisible until significant damage is done. And studies show that self doubt directly impacts decision-making quality. When you constantly are questioning your own judgment or your own worth, you make defensive rather than offensive most. You play not to lose instead of playing to win. And for ambitious people, ambitious entrepreneurs, this mindset is fatal. So how do you upgrade your relationship portfolio? Now listen, everything I'm teaching you, it's already been taught before, it's already been learned before, but sometimes we have to go back in history and learn from the grades. And one of my favorite stories about upgrading your relationship portfolio comes from Benjamin Franklin. He created a famous Junto club, carefully selecting only those who would challenge and elevate his thinking. Thomas Edison surrounded himself exclusively with brilliant minds who energized rather than depleted his creativity. Eleanor Roosevelt was famous for saying, great minds, discuss ideas, average minds, discuss events, small minds, discuss people. Understanding that you need better people around you is one thing, but actually making that happen is another. So we know the historically people who were great focused on building the best possible relationship portfolio around them. How do you do it for yourself? A few steps, a few ideas. So step one, conduct a relationship audit. I want you to take inventory of the 20 people that you interact with most frequently. And for each person, I want you to ask, does this relationship give me energy or take it away? Does this person respect my boundaries? Does this person reinforce or undermine my confidence? And would I choose to start this relationship today if given the chance? Be brutally honest. This isn't about judging others. It's about acknowledging your reality. Step two, implement the three R strategy. So for each negative relationship, decide which R applies. So the three R's are restructure, reduce or release. Restructure. Some relationships can be salvaged with clear boundaries and expectations. And often a single very direct candidate conversation can transform a draining relationship into a sustainable one. Reduce. Some relationships are not toxic enough to eliminate, but they aren't healthy enough to maintain at current levels. So systematically decrease the frequency and the duration of these interactions. And lastly, release. Some relationships simply need to end. This includes firing clients, distancing yourself from undermining friends or even leaving partnerships that no longer serve your growth. Now, the hardest decisions, these are going to be hard decisions, but the hardest decisions that you're going to have to make will create the most space for opportunity for potential for you to thrive. And the third step is to create attraction systems for better relationships. So how do we do this? Well, nature, arbor's a vacuum. When you release negative relationships, you create space for better ones. But don't leave this a chance. So deliberately design your environment to attract your ideal relationships, meaning communicate your boundaries publicly through your onboarding process. And yes, you are onboarding people into your life. You can share content online that resonates with the values that you prioritize. So people who are attracted to you are attracted to you before they even meet you because they see what you post online and what you speak about. You can participate in communities or your ideal connections gather. Obviously, if you are going to start up conferences, YPO, EO versus if you're spending time drinking at a bar, you're going to attract slightly different people. And lastly, from a business context, structure your business and your offerings and your products to appeal to the clients you actually want. Now, this very deliberate approach to environment design, it mirrors what Franklin did with his Junto Club centuries ago, what made Franklin's approach so revolutionary at the time was his selection criteria. So I want you to take a lesson out of his playbook. He didn't choose the wealthiest or the most powerful people in Philadelphia. Instead, he selected quote unquote ingenious individuals with complementary skills. So a physician, a mathematician, a geographer, a natural philosopher and others who really shared his hunger for knowledge and improvement. And the rules of his group were very explicit. So members would debate in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth without fondness for dispute or desire for victory. That was a model. And they asked each other challenging questions like what benefits have you lately received from any man not present or in what manner can the Junto assist you in any of your honorable designs. Now, this wasn't networking as we understand it today. It was relationship curation at its finest and what were the results of the Junto Club. So from this single group emerged America's first lending library, a volunteer fire department, a public hospital and even the University of Pennsylvania. Also, the American philosophical society which continues today was a direct outgrowth of the Junto Club. And Franklin's genius wasn't just his own intellect and how brilliant he was. It was his ability to create an environment where the right people could connect, challenge each other and collectively elevate their impact. And this is far more than just some historical footnote. It's a masterclass in what we're talking about today. It's a masterclass in strategic relationship building that transformed not just Franklin's life, but basically the entire American experiment. So when we talk about attracting better people into our circle, building better relationships, releasing people that no longer serve our goals. It's not about manipulation. It's not callous. It's not cold. It is intentional design. We have to design who we surround ourselves with. Now, we spoken about why it's important to curate your group, your tribe, your advisory board, your mentors, your friends, your peers, your customers. There's some frameworks and some strategies, but it's actually very easy to figure out if someone belongs in your life. I know that it may seem difficult to release people from your life, but it's very, very easy to know if they belong in your life. What do you do? Pay attention to how your body and your mind responds when you see their name on your calendar or on your phone. You feel this subtle contraction in your chest. Does your breathing become shallow? Does your jaw tighten a little bit? Or do you feel an expansion, a lightness, an anticipation, happiness? And when you realize the truth, when you realize who should be in your life and who shouldn't be, act accordingly. This is not new wisdom. This is ancient wisdom. I spoke about Benjamin Franklin. We can go back even further. The ancient Roman philosopher, Seneca, advised on this particular topic to quote, associate with people who are likely to improve you. Welcome those whom you are capable of improving. The process is a mutual one. Men learn as they teach, meaning I've sort of spoken about this from your perspective, right? Who you surround yourself with in hopes that they improve your life, challenge you, push you to be better. But at the same time, you're doing the same for them. That's what's beautiful about surrounding yourself with the right people. It's not a one way exchange. You are all improving. You are all growing together. And that only happens. That kind of energy only exists when you release the wrong people and make space and room for the right people. Now, I have mentioned this a few times, but we should address the elephant in the room. Upgrading your relationship portfolio is uncomfortable. You're going to face guilt about ending professional relationships and even personal relationships that aren't working. You're going to worry about being perceived as cold or calculating. You're going to question yourself a lot, whether or not you're making the right call. And this discomfort, expect it. That's the tax that you pay for growth. Every single successful person I know has had to make difficult relationship decisions on their path to creating something meaningful. Every single one has had to disappoint someone and the partnership fire a client or just distance themselves from energy draining connections. You cannot build something extraordinary while maintaining every relationship you've ever had. The math simply doesn't work. The energy required for exceptional achievement demands exceptional protection. I'm going to say that one more time. The energy required for exceptional achievement demands exceptional protection. So let me leave you with one last little rule. As you start to release relationships that don't serve you, you create the space for new relationships and I've given you a couple ideas about how to attract the right people, but I want you to adopt a new standard for evaluating the people in your life. I call it the five to one return rule. So for every unit of energy you invest in a relationship, you should receive at least five units in return. It's not about calculating or keeping score. It's about recognizing that truly valuable relationships multiply your energy rather than merely consuming it. And when you apply this standard, the decisions on who's in your life becomes very clear. If they drain your energy, they disrespect your boundaries or they make you second-guess your worth, they're not your people. They all stop, no exceptions, not even for family, old friends or profitable clients. It's isn't about becoming cold or callous. It's about becoming clear and intentional. And by the way, the inverse applies as well. So that means that if somebody is investing their energy into you, you give them five units of energy back. You invest in them fivefold. And when you're doing that to each other, that's how you create successful relationships that improve both people involved. Because the truth is there are people out there who will energize you, respect your boundaries and reinforce your worth. People who will help you become the person you're capable of becoming. Those are your people. And you cannot find them if all your time and energy is consumed by those who aren't the most successful founders, the most successful entrepreneurs, the most successful people. That I personally know aren't just careful about their business strategies or their career strategies or their life strategies. They're ruthlessly selective about who gets access to their time, their attention and their energy. And you should be too.