Tell me what you think...

I'm developing and running a start-up-business, and as you know, that takes a lot of time and energy and focus. But at the same time... my social life is suffering (non-existant currently).

How do you balance making money with the rest of life? Thing is,

1) I never really developed social skills to where it's so effortless for me that I just pull great people like a magnet, I'd have to invest effort, focus and energy into it.
2) Due to personal development and the personal growth through business and other things, my criteria has grown very high on whom I can tolerate. I tend to not be able to hang-around people who's only conversation revolves around hating their dayjobs, sharing celebrity gossip and limiting beliefs on finances and/or growth.

You get into this transition where... You're incompatible with your old social life, but you can't attract people of say "donald-trump in the making" caliber yet. Ideally, you'd just go and take part of business conferences, seminars, etc... But those require a bit of money, which you don't yet have. So you're stuck in the middle.

What would you do in this transition phase? Focus on just the money until you get to the higher level where you get the higher quality people, or go and try to fit in the low-quality people while you're doing the money-making and getting to the next level? At some level they are mental poison with their limiting beliefs... but then, being obsessed with money 24/7 isn't productive either.

Any ideas?

Social life is overrated, focus on shaping your life into something special and you'll find yourself attracting good people without effort. Oh, and don't forget that you can meet a lot of great people by volunteering with no fees or dues involved.

I'm not an expert on this or anything, but here's my opinion anyway: I think everybody has some kind of trouble with this part. Even for those whom it may seem effortless for them....

I remember a radio interview with a marketing director who confessed to having a difficult and lonely childhood. Because of that, he desperately wanted people to like him. So, he tapped into this pain and desperation to drive him to be able to "sell" so to speak, but he say it was tremendously difficult for him, not just to do so, but also to not take it too personally... because he did take it personally, and at the same time, he also knew that there will always be rejections.

Perhaps in the end, the simplest and oldest advice is still the greatest: Do things that inspire you and others will be inspired by you. Do things you are passionate about, and others will be drawn to you. Even if that is not always true, I believe it does at least get you a step close towards success each and every time.

And anyway, success isn't always about getting it right the first hundred times, it's also about being able to bounce back quickly from each failure, learning from it, and finally achieving success in that a hundred and first time....

Exactly. Very well said.

That is my concious plan too... Once you get to a certain financial level, you will find attracting the good people effortleslly.

1) Former poor life filled with lots of average people
2) Current getting rich life without people
3) Future gotten rich life with lots of high quality people

So my issue is with nr.2... How do you know you're not going into an extreme? How do you know when you're being a workaholic. And is there some sort of middleground. The truth is, when balanced, you get more done than when you push and work 16 hours a day (oddly enough).

But that's where the problem is. You keep reading stuff like "people who are loners, justify their poor social life as being part of their career" or "people find something to work on and say socializing is just overblown, you don't really need it, in order to avoid" etc... Etc...


So its kind of a double-whammy. You're torn between "Am I a former geek who's trying to make up for it by being a workaholic and"... "Sacrifice is needed to achieve higher levels, you're sacrificing average now, so you can enjoy extraordinary later on"



P.S.

Thanks for the volunteering idea! I totally forgot that those activities tend to draw in a higher profile of people. That's just the kind of practical idea I like. Any more you can think of?

Volunteering is a good suggestion. For me, i have met friends through recreational sports teams that i play on. I play ice hockey on two teams in the DC area (its not exactly cheap -- my league fees are the only big ticket item i spend on) and athletics pulls out a very unique mix of people. I have some blue collar early 20 year olds on my teams to high priced lawyers (some of which were absurdly high up in the government), and we all have something we can discuss and relate to -- our team. Then you can build relationships from there as you are bound to meet similar people in this atmosphere.

Anyway, this is where most of my friends have come from. Just an off-the wall idea.

whether you like biking or art or cooking or comic books or whateer, join a local group and socialize around your interests. also meetup.com is a great way to meet local people based on interest.

This presupposes that "poor" people are "average" and "rich" people are "high quality." In actual practice the opposite is often true. A person's income has absolutely no bearing on how interesting and engaged they are. I grew up around a lot of rich people and I found plenty of them to be incredibly boring and self-obsessed, so a future "gotten rich" life does not guarantee that you'll meet "high quality" people.

You're better off seeking people who share your interests through volunteering (as suggested above), through your business, through places where you take your vacations, etc. And don't pay any attention to how much money they make. If you only want to mingle with rich people, you stand a good chance of becoming just another boring rich snob.

I like www.meetup.com for finding people in my area with similar interests (it's free). I joined a dog group that meets regularly at a local dog park, and I'm about to join a walking/hiking group as well. There are groups in every city based on shared religion, jobs, hobbies, etc. I share your frustration in separating from old friends who bring negativity and shallowness to the table. I find that my life feels more full when I have 2-5 quality friends vs. 20-30 casual acquaintances.

The answer to your question really depends on what you want out of life? If you're life's goal is to make money, then you'll have to align yourself with people actively seeking this same endeavor. You'll use each other, burn each other, step on each other, because after all, you and your "friends" will all be focusing on the same end - Money. The sooner you recognize life isn't about money, rather the utility money can potentially bring into life the sooner you'll be able to surround yourself with "quality" people who share the interests that money can often facilitate, but certainly doesn't create.

What does that mean? Well, for example, I love to travel. I've made some decisions in life that provides me with the flexibility to travel whenever I want. Although many of friends still need to work and are unable to travel as much as I can, the trips we've done together have been amazing. Money can make it easier for me to embrace new interests, for example, last year I started cycling, not an inexpensive sport by any means, but along the way, I've met many cyclist I enjoy riding with (or trying to keep up with). Five years ago, I learned to SCUBA dive and I appreciate the fact I've been able to earn many additional certifications and spend a great deal of time diving... where I am in life allowed me the freedom to focus on diving... These activities have created up new friendships and interests...

Like you, I get bored, so I have many different interests, and many different people to do them with... However, don't confuse your interests in success for the real interests that you want to pursue once you achieve that obscure goal... I have wasted many years in my life working towards success when I've been successful nearly the entire time... I've let many quality relationships go because at the time, I didn't realize that I had everything I wanted already I just didn't know it because I had never defined success and the things I ultimately wanted to do once I was there. I could have embraced SCUBA, Cycling, and Traveling ten years ago, but didn't, because I was too busy trying to find success... Actually, if I would have "retired" 10 years ago, I would have done it with more money than I have today, yet, because I didn't know what success truly represented, I kept on working away...

Embrace the interests and eventually the people will come along with it... If you shelter yourself in the science of business your social skills will get worse, your interest become more academic and less real, and the concept of success will become more and more distant and unreachable.

~Frank C

Plan yourself in such a way that you allot time for your social life on weekends. Planning is everything.

Thanks,
Karim