Yo, hey, what’s up?
I want to talk to you about something really important that one of my clients brought up in a private Facebook group.
He talked about his family and how they don’t believe in him, how they’re pessimistic, and how they downplay what’s he’s doing for his business. After a while, it starts getting to him.
Let me tell you a little story.
You might have heard this before but I’ll tell you one more time because this is that important for you.
It’s really important for anyone who’s surrounded by people who are negative, who are energy vampires, time vampires, and what I’ll call crabs (you’ll see why).
Years ago, my family and I take a cruise to Alaska.
Listen man, I’ve had a pretty rough life. I was broke and poor for the beginning parts of my life when we came to the United States.
Even in my 20s, I was so broke and poor that I was mixing diet coke with cans of tuna fish in a blender in a gym to get my much needed caffeine and protein to continue to work out and train clients. It was literally touch and go to live.
Anyway, here’s the deal.
We were in beautiful Alaska several years ago, and we were walking around looking at people doing crab fishing where they throw these nets into the water and they pull out crabs and what have you.
They have these five-gallon paint buckets. They put a little bit of water in these buckets then start filling them with crabs. As we’re walking by this one particular crab fisherman, I notice that he has about five, six crabs at the bottom of his bucket.
Lo and behold, one of these crabs decided to become really ambitious and started climbing on top of all the other crabs and was really reaching up there for the brim of the bucket.
He was attempting to get away from all the other crabs to win his freedom. Do you understand what I’m saying here?
So of course I was trying to be a good Samaritan. I said, “Hey sir, your crab is about to make a run for it, you might want to put a lid on that bucket.”
He said, “Well, watch what happens next.”
As this little crab grabs onto the edges of this bucket and is attempting to hoist itself up and over, all the other crabs at the bottom reached up, grabbed it by its little hind legs, and pulled it right down. 
Do you know what I discovered in that very moment as that was happening?
That I had crabs in my life. That I had people who didn’t believe in my vision, who didn’t believe in my passion, who didn’t believe in my dream, and would mock me and make fun of me whether behind my back or just under their breath.
I knew that, and it was impacting me and the decisions I was making on a day-to-day basis to grow an empire.
Imagine that!
Imagine in the early 2000s having this vision of growing an online personal training software company and creating FitPro Newsletter and creating this massive franchise and having hundreds and hundreds of coaching clients and information products and speaking from the stage.
That was my vision.
In the mid 2000s I shared it with people, and they were like, “How are you going to do that, you’re just a personal trainer, how are you ever going to do that?”
For me, it was really easy to figure out what I needed to do. I needed to escape from those crabs who were in my life.
Dan Sullivan has a really good saying about this. He says, “Success comes from two places. Success comes from the people that you surround yourself with, and the thoughts that occupy your mind.”
To me, man, that makes total sense, which means the opposite is true. Failure also comes from the people that you surround yourself with, and the thoughts that occupy your mind.
Think about that. Who are you surrounding yourself with?
Are they people who are pushers, motivators, encouragers of your dream, or are they people who are pullers, who want to pull you down to the depths that they are in because they have fear, they have anxiety, they don’t believe in themselves and so they project that on you.
Do you understand that?
I need you to understand that.
It’s not that they don’t believe in you and your vision and passion and purpose; they don’t believe in themselves.
They don’t love themselves, they don’t value themselves, they don’t believe in what they’re doing, so they’re just sucking out the life that other people have because they don’t value what they do, and so they don’t want to see others grow, prosper, and help because that shines a light on their life and shows how inadequate they are.
That’s the truth, man. That is the politically incorrect truth about most people.
99% of people out there are far from ever reaching their potential.
Here you are working your ass off, helping people who are trying to grow a business, paying your taxes, employing people, and what do you get?
You get people who have doubt and fears, and they project that on you. It’s nothing personal. I want you to reframe this for a minute: it’s nothing personal.
All they’re saying is, “Hey, I have all these fears and doubts about myself because I don’t believe in myself, and quite frankly, I think I’m a loser, and so I don’t think you can do it either.”
What do you do?
You have to just distance yourself from those cats.
You have to find a new group of people who are like-minded to hang out with.
That’s what mastermind groups are, that’s what your chamber of commerce should be, that is what a rotary club is.
On Facebook, we’ve got these groups like the Fitness Business Ignition group with hundreds of other fitness experts who are motivators, who are driven, who are on the same fucking mission that you’re on to help people change lives and make the world a better place.
These are the people you want to surround yourself with.
Don’t just keep it online, either. Bring it in-person, man. Find out where other people like you are hanging out locally, go meet them, connect with them, hang out with them once or twice a month in a group, and talk business.
What you do as an entrepreneur is so unique and different than what 99% of everyone else does out there.
They all sign the back of the check, but you sign the front of the check. You’re the entrepreneur, you’re the dreamer, you’re the visionary, right? You’re also an island, think about that, you’re also an island.
I want you to remember that. You have to distance yourself, cut yourself away from all the crabs.
Listen, I’ve had to do that from high school friends. I’ve had to do that with people who I valued and worked with years ago, I’ve had to do that even with some family.
I can’t cut myself from family completely, but I distanced myself. I protected my dreams, my passions, my visions from them, and then I shared my dreams, visions, and passions with the people who cared, who motivated me, who encouraged me.
Today, well, I think I’m doing pretty well, and I get to help others like you do well in life.
That’s what you’re going to do, you’re going to cut out the crabs in your life, you’re going to fix the thoughts that are in your head, you’re going to find motivators and people who inspire and push and want to drive you forward, and hang out with them.
Come to masterminds, come to Fitness Business Summit, find local things in your community. Go find other entrepreneurs who are positive, optimistic, driven, and visionary and want to hang out together.
Committed to your success,
Bedros