Hector_LaMarque_-_Mental_Toughness_-_02_Dealing_With_Unsupportive_Family_and_Friends

Sometimes our families and friends may not understand or support our dreams and ambitions, especially if it's something different from what they expect from us. They may not have the knowledge or information to see the potential in our goals. It's important to be patient with them and not let their ignorance discourage us. Only we can determine our own potential and success. Our families may try to protect us from potential disappointment, but they can't truly know what we are capable of. It's important to surround ourselves with people who encourage and support us, rather than those who try to bring us down. We shouldn't worry about what others think of us, as long as our actions are legal, ethical, and moral. It's okay to disregard the opinions of others and go after what we want in life. Another thing is on this mental toughness thing is, you know, your family probably isn't going to understand your interest in building a business of your own in the financial service industry since it's, you know, it's probably a lot different from what you're currently doing. They're going to go, well, that's not what you do. You're a school teacher or you're a fireman or you're a truck driver or you're a, you know, a Federal Express driver or whatever, right? They're not going to see you as a person that builds a financial service business, okay? So in fact, they might not be very supportive, but their lack of support is usually with good intention, okay? So it's important to understand that, you know, our families love us. They care about us. They're really thinking about us, but sometimes just because they think about it doesn't mean what they say and do is the right thing for us, okay? A lot of it comes from a lack of knowledge of the potential America has. So you're talking to people. You're all excited about what you're doing, what you've seen. They don't have any idea what you've seen. They don't have any comprehension of how it works, what the potential is or what we do for people. They just see you as being excited about something that they think you're probably not going to be any good at because you don't have any experience at that. And they don't know that there's thousands of people that didn't have any experience either and now are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. So don't worry about that. See, they don't have all the information that you do, so be patient with them. And don't allow them to destroy your hopes and dreams because of their ignorance. And that's what it is. They're just ignorant, which means they don't understand it. They don't know anything about it. See, your family sees you as you are now, or they think of you as you were when you're growing up. And maybe you were kind of messed around a lot when you were growing up. So they don't see you as being a responsible business person building this great financial service company. And they don't see you as a person you could be. See, they might not believe that you have what it takes. But listen, only you can determine whether you have what it takes or not. Other people don't know us well enough. I don't care who they are. Even our spouses don't know us well enough to know if we can succeed at this or not. Only you know that. There are too many examples of people like you who've built very successful businesses. So if they've done it, so can you. If you'll just give yourself a chance. Our families, they love us, and they're usually trying to protect us from potential disappointment. They mean well, but they can't possibly know what we're truly capable of, can they? Think about that. They can't. Nobody can decide ultimately what we can or can't do. And it's my experience that most of us, virtually everybody I run into, dramatically underestimates their potential. They just don't see themselves being successful. In Primerica, what's going to happen is you're going to have a lot of people encouraging you, coaching you, mentoring you along the way, sharing how they got through it all and how they succeeded. That's going to happen. Our family doesn't know. I had my own situation with my father. When I first got started and I told my dad I was going full-time in Primerica, and I had, quote, a good job, right? I was making the $50,000 ranges back, like, I think it was in 1984, right? So this was 23 years ago almost, right? I told my dad I was quitting my job and going full-time, and he started giving me a hard time about it because he was afraid for me. He thought, you know, are you crazy? You have a good job. You're going to leave that job to start this thing. What do you know about that and blah, blah, blah? You know? He was afraid for me, really. Really what he was trying to do is he thought he was protecting me, and he was being a little bit negative. You know? So I had to straighten him out. I said, Dad, I said, look, I'm on my own. I've never asked you for anything. You don't support me or my family right now. When I come to you and I ask you for money to help me out, to support me, at that point you can start offering me your point of view regarding this. Because I build this business, I'm going to need a lot of support, right? And if I come and see you and you're going to be negative, I can't come see you. You know? I can't be around you. So you need to decide. You're either going to support me or you're not. If you're not, we're just not going to see a lot of each other. Okay? So what do you want to do? And so what happened is from that point on, he never said anything. He was always positive, very supportive, and what I found out is people will only be negative to you if you let them, if you allow them. If you don't allow them, if you set them straight in a nice way, right, but a direct way, they're not going to do that to you. People treat us how we allow them to treat us, and no other way but that. So I just set them straight. From that point on, we had a wonderful relationship. He saw me really succeed. I was able to do some awesome things for him and my mom, taking him traveling all over the world and just, you know, we really did some really fun things. Dad passed away about a year and a half ago now. I just think about that every day. Thank God that I made it in this thing and I was able to do some really wonderful things for him and my mother before it was too late, and something you might want to think about. And even though we didn't understand, you know, and they don't a lot of times, but then sometimes you might be fortunate. You might have somebody that's really, a family that's really supportive. But my experiences both aren't that supportive, okay? Friends and coworkers, a lot of them are going to throw cold water on any idea you might have to break free and realize your dreams, especially if they don't have the ambition to do anything extraordinary with their own lives. What I found is the people that are the least motivated are always trying to throw cold water on something you're trying to do. So in becoming successful, it's important to know that most people don't really want us to break out of the rat race and realize our dreams. You see, if we do that, it becomes uncomfortable for them to continue to rationalize their mundane existence. If someone they know that's like them breaks out and gets free, now they've got to really face themselves, right? I know that happened to me repeatedly, several people, including family members, try to make me feel guilty for working hard, for being focused, for being so ambitious. They would say things like, all you think about is money, money isn't everything, don't you care about your family, you work too hard, take it easy, smell the roses. They'd say all these things to try to get me to slow up and get disfocused. It's really interesting that these are the same people today say to me, Hector, don't you ever work, you're always on vacation, you're always traveling, we can't ever find you. Hey Hector, can you lend me some money? Hector, can you donate some money to my church? These are the same people that were harassing me the whole time. Now that I'm successful, oh, I always knew you'd be successful, can you help me out? The point of that little interaction is this, okay? You can't please everybody, you've got to make sure that you focus on taking care of yourself and your immediate family. And don't worry about what the other people think. Learn that your good friends are going to like you and value you for who you are and not for what you do. Don't spend your life expecting other people to understand or appreciate you when you're trying to be great. Since most of the world is trying to be average and fit in, they're just simply not going to understand or appreciate you. This is especially with people that are maybe not your family. Their unconscious goal is to have us be like them so they don't have to face the reality of their lack of ambition. By the way, it's okay for them to be satisfied with the status quo, but we don't have to join them. I've found there's a much more satisfying and exciting life if you're willing to go after it and disregard what the average and ordinary say to us about it, okay? I think for me, one of the most important lessons I learned is to disregard what people thought about me. As long as everything I did was legal, ethical, and moral, what you think about me is none of my business. If you're always trying to please people, if you're always adjusting your behavior and what you do to please what you think other people want you to be like, that is a losing proposition. You're never going to win if that's the way you approach your life. You're going to have to go after what you want. As long as it's not injuring them, it's none of the doggone business, right? It just isn't.