About the Episode
Rick Jordan shares some personal stories around friendships that have taught him some valuable life lessons.
Listen to the podcast here
Watch the episode here
What’s shakin, welcome back to ALL IN. I’m your host, Rick Jordan. And we’re gonna dive in today about raising the bar in your life. As to who has access to you before we dive into this, I would love to have your help. Please. Can you share this out with at least three people today? We don’t take promotions. We don’t take sponsors. The only way we grow and help more people is with your help. Share this out. Thank you. Alright.
Let’s talk about this here because this is something that a lot of people have said over the course of my career and have coached me on this, even with now being a public company and IPO coming. I’ve had mentors and board members even say to me that Hey, Rick, you know what doing this kind of thing is actually a very lonely road. And they say that because like all the time that’s demanded of me, all of the people that want access to me and the energy that has to be put into a lot of different areas. But this really I think goes deeper than that. And that’s what I want to talk about is when you start to work on yourself and you start to continue to move forward and level up. You start to realize that people around you are not doing the same thing, or at least at the same pace. And this came from a conversation I had, I actually connected with a childhood friend of mine just a couple of weeks ago. For some I’ve seen him for maybe like 15 years, and way back when when we were like 19 years old, something like that he and I were best buddies growing up from like age five to age 19. And I remember even the day making friends with him I was just the same as I am right now. Just to the point of asking him something the first time I met him I remember like riding bikes around the neighborhood and I come up to him and I’m like, Hey, dude, you want to be friends? He was like, Yeah, sure. Then he became my best friend throughout my entire childhood.
Then there was one day I was just hanging out. I was still living at my mom’s place again. I was 19 with a couple other friends and his cousin came to the door. And I had met his cousin many many times, and he’s like, “Hey, Rick, I’m gonna go hang out with my cousin” and I’m like, Dude, no worries, have fun. Then he dropped off the face of the earth. It was the weirdest thing. He dropped off the face of the earth and I hadn’t talked with him for like two years after that. I would call you now, he was still living with his mom. He was like a year younger than me. And I didn’t understand exactly what happened and he and I just caught up for the first time just a few weeks ago. And it was crazy. Seeing him is almost kind of like old times, but yet not really.
I started to realize this because I’ve seen this in my life across many many different facets: personal and business is that every time I level up, I would say my circle of friends or people that were around me decided to like recycle. And it’s one of the most grueling experiences to go through, especially the first time because you start to realize that as you’re meant for more as you do things to advance your life, there’s people around you that are not thinking that way. And it’s actually okay. Because I started to feel that relationships in your life are actually something that’s there for a season for the most parts, right and I realized I’m always going to have a good relationship with certain people in my life. And just, you know that those are gonna be lifelong things. Like for instance, I have one dude that works for me right now. Ryan, I’ll talk about him. He’s probably actually listening to this right now while I’m recording this, but we even, you know, didn’t talk to each other. For a few years reconnected and things were just like they were before. And we’ve just always been that way. And I know there’s a couple others I can name in my life like that too, from a friendship perspective. But this is really friends especially I mean, you can look at this from romantic relationships, business partners any way you want to.
I’ve had this scenario with the business partner too, as I continued to level up and do things and started doing all these media appearances a couple years ago, I had another business to where it just wasn’t making that much money and I wanted to level that up too, because of all this new knowledge and new ability that I had, and he just wasn’t ready to so I ended up pulling out of the business because he was still stuck in this place.
Friends especially are the ones especially when you’ve had them like my childhood friend that I was talking about my best buddy growing up. I mean, we went through everything together. And I’m sure as I’m talking to you can think of someone like this. And I’ve had the scenario even with different people that I’ve worked with, in church, different pastors that I’ve supported. And those were amazing, amazing, good friendships, amazing, good relationships while they were there, and I came to realize that they were just there for a season.
This is the straight truth. Especially when you start to level up but even beyond that, when you heal from a trauma. As you begin to heal, it’s always time to re-evaluate who has access to you. As you level up, it’s always time to reevaluate those who have access to you. And that’s because you will feel this pull back, even though you don’t want to go because you like hey, I’ve healed I’ve moved on. I’ve leveled up, I’ve moved on. I’ve increased my knowledge. I’ve moved on. I move forward, I move up. Those individuals will continue to want to pull you back where they’re at because it’s more comfortable for them. To have you the way that you were. Did you catch that? It has nothing to do with you. Which means that you should not take this personally. It actually has everything to do with that individual in that old circle of yours in that old season of yours. And these could be amazing, good memories from that person. From that business partner from that childhood friend, just amazing memories with that individual, but understanding that they were there for a season of your life and they could have even helped you get to that next level. And that’s okay.
As I’ve had friends come and go on my life, I start to realize that those friendships were absolutely incredible in the moments that they were in because I could not have gotten through those time periods in my life and there was some rough ones even with my best friend growing up because he was there when my dad died when I was 16. I could not have made it through that scenario in my life without my best buddy there.
Now years later, he’s got a wife and a kid, I’ve got my kids, I’ve been married and it’s just insane as I think back at this stuff, because catching up with him a couple years later, I’m talking 15 years later it was just absolutely incredible. It’s just insane as I think back at this stuff, because catching up with him a couple years later, I’m talking 15 years later, was just absolutely incredible. To be able to reconnect with him, have other amazing moments, but understand that that’s just a moment in time. Because as you continue to move on and move up and you re-evaluate who has access to you and you start to move those people out of your life that were there for a season, you will start to see new people come into your life that are there for you right now. It’s impossible to allow space for those new individuals that are there to lift you up even higher. They’re to be with you for the next 10 years. 20 years. 30 years, whatever it is, maybe even a lifelong friend. It’s impossible to have that happen and make space for those individuals. If you don’t reevaluate your circle right now. Under wrap easy and quick.