But What About Friends and Family?

In meetings - at home or work - I like when people challenge my thinking rather than rubber stamp my ideas or tell me what they think I want to hear.

Echo chambers make me uncomfortable.

Since my "Chasing Elon" post, I've been pondering this question from an old friend:

"Interesting post today. You mention the failure of marriages. But, the focus of your statements is on financial success and/or achieving goals. What good is either if your family and friends are nowhere to be found at the end?"

It's a complex question.

The simple answer is that I'm bringing my friends and family along for the ride.

The complex truth is that, as with any long and arduous journey, not all make it to the end.

Bryant was my best friend in high school. Through thick and thin, he and I were thick as thieves.

We used to sit in my bedroom - where he'd sneak in at all hours of the night - and dream about the future.

What would our lives entail?

Where would we live?

How would we make our fortunes?

In those late-night hours, we talked a lot about getting rich and being able to do whatever we wanted to do. We even had a bet as to which would be the richest by the time we were 40, with the loser paying the winner $50,000.

In 1994, I moved to Greensboro, NC, where I enrolled at UNCG. Towards the end of my first year, Bryant joined me. He crashed in the dorm with me for the last couple of weeks, returned to Charlotte for a few months, and then moved into a run-down house in the ghetto I'd rented that summer.

That June and July, in between the partying, I took classes and worked at UPS.

Bryant only partied.

By that fall, I'd decided to take a semester away from school and took a job as a door-to-door window salesman.

Bryant partied on.

Soon, he was out of money. No longer having a job, money, or direction, he'd become dependent on me.

You might think this story ends with me getting pissed off and kicking him out.

It does not.

It ends with Bryant packing his belongings into his car and taking off, leaving me to cover his 1/3 of the rent and utilities.

I never asked him to leave.

I never wanted him to leave.

But his vision was incompatible with mine. He was dragging me down, and I wasn't about to step off the train just because he didn't buy a ticket.

He stayed on that path until the end, and I only saw him once more before he passed from this earth on a cold December night.

Before and after that day, I've missed our extraordinary friendship.

The experience taught me a valuable lesson.

It's OK if a friend doesn't want to come along for the ride. They have a life to live, too, and far be it from me to dictate they walk my path.

The same holds for family.

As many of you know, I have neither seen nor spoken to my mother in nearly a decade. Like the question that prompted me to write this, it's complicated, but the simple version is that she could not resist interfering in my and my children's lives in toxic and detrimental ways.

I love her, but I cannot be around her.

My answer to my friend's question, then, is this:

Although it comes across to some as if I'm merely chasing the almighty dollar, I am attempting to build an extraordinary life that combines success across the four quadrants of mind, body, business, and relationships.

And because I started playing the game late in life, I'm very much behind the eight ball.

The possibility that I don't alienate a single friend or family member along what's left of this journey is near zero. I've studied many successful people, and this seems to be a universal truth.

However, the same is true of those who don't share my aspirations. There is absolutely nothing wrong with living a simple, ordinary life. Indeed, I often envy those who are satisfied by that course. But walking that path does not eliminate the possibility of alienating friends and family.

Not all friends are for life, and while blood may be thicker than water, it does not dictate that you abide toxic relationships.

Ultimately, whether we're living the life we chose or the life that chose us, we all take risks in our relationships.

And I will continue to take those risks long before I compromise on the life I'm building for myself, my wife, and my children.