Life never goes as planned.
You will fall and may not be able to get back up. You will have to find a way to crawl. Whenever you find yourself up on your feet, get ready for the next hit, because it’s coming. You need to learn how to fight standing, kneeling, and on your back. You need to continue progressing towards your objective, no matter if you’re on the ground or standing or if somebody’s carrying you. You need to associate with people who will be honest enough to tell you the truth even when you don’t want to hear it. That’s just the fact of life. They always said a real friend is going to be the one, if you fall in a hole, is going to jump in and help you out.
Finding those people who are willing to jump in that hole with you is not an easy task, and there’s probably not going to be a whole lot of those for any of us throughout our entire life. Most of us will end up being surrounded by a bunch of associates, but when it comes to real friends those are rare. You need to embrace those relationships the same way you would embrace a relationship with a husband, spouse, or children or whatnot. They need to be secured and maintained, so there’s always trust, but at the same time, that’s not to say that those people aren’t going to stab you in the back the same way. It’s usually the people closest to you are the ones that are going to do the greatest damage, so you must keep your eyes open.
I don't want to sit here and say you want to try to build a fortress, but you’re going to get stabbed. You’re going to get knocked down. You’re going to get hurt. You’re going to get hit. Shit’s going to happen. Things are going to throw you off kilter. Nobody is going to go unscathed. Everybody is going to accumulate damage if they’re trying to accomplish something worth a fuck. The more perceived the success is, the more damage is going to come their way. That’s just part of it all. You need to understand that it’s just part of the process. Learn from it.
One of the examples that I always like to throw out there is, the show may not be as popular now as it used to be, but American Idol used to be the biggest damned thing on TV. You’ve got these 20ish-year-olds, if they have a bad night. Their coaches rip them apart. Not only that, they’re destroyed across all media. There’s negative shit all over about how bad they are, how fat they are, how bad their performance was, all this, all this and all that, and they handle it. Now, they may have PR directors and so forth saying, “Hey, look. This is part of it. It’s normal.” In contrast, I know people that if somebody says one insignificant - bad thing about them on social media, their whole week is fucked up. Even after the post has blown through the page cycle, they are still a wreck about it. Knowing that only a fraction of those it was posted even see it, these people are still a total wreck about it and in some cases still can't let it go weeks, months and years later.
You’re going to tell me that this 20-year-old from American Idol had greater fortitude than these people I keep seeing? It’s obscene to me. You need to learn how to roll with the critics, and they’re going to be there. I don't believe in totally ignoring the critics because sometimes there will be truth in what they say that will make you better. You need to listen enough to be able to pick up on is this and ask could this be true? Then that’s where you have to have a good group of people around you, because if you do believe some of it may be true, you need to ask them. If they’re honest, they’ll tell you, “Yeah, you are an asshole.” “I’m a fucking asshole?” Then you can go about trying to change and become better.
If you don’t have those people around you that are willing, to be honest, and all you have is just a bunch of people giving you high-fives and the “rah rah” speech, you’re never going to get better. You’re going to be one of those guys who are going be saying, “Oh, fuck the critics,” "I don't care what people say". You know it's bullshit and so does everyone else because if you don't care, there would be no need to say you don't care.
You don’t need to scan every single thing everybody says and then analyze it all. I mean, you still have to do your work. Social Media is the biggest waste of time ever created so be cautious of how much time you are spending on it. According to digital trends, the average American checks their social media feeds 17 times a day - an average of 4.7 hours a day. The age group who reviews it most are between the ages of 25-54, NOT those between 15-24. Think of the things you could do with just half that time. Is, this time, worth trading the time you spend with your kids? Creating something awesome? Didn't think so but most people don't think about it.
You can never let anything ever get in the way of your creativity, innovation and ability to move forward. That’s the toughest challenge as a business owner or anybody that’s trying to get in the industry and even in life is how do you keep plugging forward on the most important things at the worst times?
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