You Become Like Who You Follow

I'm Alex Charfen and this is the Momentum Podcast made for empire builders, game changers, trail blazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers, and creators of all kinds. Those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution.

Sure, we pay attention to their rules, but only so that we can bend them, break them, then rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny, we define it. We don't understand defeat because you only lose if you stop and we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority, the few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future. And instead of just day dreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters. Clearly the most important people in the world because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive human evolution and we always will be.

You become like who you follow. This is both a fact and a warning. The world of thought leaders and information product providers and people who run masterminds and coaching programs, and have put out books, have put out information for you to absorb, has expanded exponentially in just the last few years. It has become ridiculously easy for anybody who wants to, to put up webpages, to have the right funnels to get people coming towards them for a solution or a result. It's just what this current market is giving us.

In fact, if you go online and you type in just about any search engine followed by, or search term, followed by mastermind or coaching, you're going to find a whole list of people who show up and purport to do what you may be wanting to do. Or purport to have the success that you may want to have.

But I wanna give you this warning, this suggestion, this plea that you are very careful with who you follow because you will become like who you follow. So evaluate the person before you join anything where there's a commitment level. Now, if you're just going to read a book, it might not be that big of deal. If you're just gonna buy a small information product and consume it, it might not be that big of deal. But if you're going to join a coaching program, a mastermind, go to an event. Participate in somebody's curated environment then you must evaluate that person before you join. Don't just evaluate the event, or the content, or the referrals, or what other people have said. Evaluate that person because you need to ask yourself the question do I want to become like the person I'm following? Do I want to become like this person who I'm committing to learn from?

And here's the challenge, I've been in this business for decades and I've worked with hundreds, possibly thousands, of CEOs, and here's what I've watched: when one of my clients joins a mastermind or joins an information product, they become more like the leader when it comes to how they treat themselves. Their relationship with themselves. How much the either work or don't work. How much they take care of themselves. How they treat themselves. They become more like the leader in their relationships. Not just in their relationships with their family, with the people around them, with their marriage, but with their relationships with everyone. And they certainly become more like that leader in business.

But I want you to ask yourself, before you sign up for anything with anyone, the simple question, do I wanna become more like the person leading this in every way? Do I wanna become more like the person leading this in how I treat myself? In how my relationships exist and my business? So if you're someone who is married and you have a family and your wife, or your husband, is important to you, your kids are important to you, you want to ask yourself the questions, is the person that I'm going to follow, do they have the same values I do? Do they have the same ideals I do? Do they care about the same things that I do? Because if you're following somebody and you think you can compartmentalize just the business information and leave everything else out, I'm here to tell you it just doesn't work that way.

I've had too many clients who've made the exchange of following someone that they didn't really like or didn't really love their personality, but really wanted the business result, and what happens is one of two things. Either they get into the mastermind and they realize they just can't overcome the other things and they drop out, or stop paying attention, or pay a ton of money and get very little results because there's not a congruency with the person leading.

Or the second part, they lean in, put the time in, put the effort in, look up six months later and think wait a second. This isn't the life I wanted and it mimics that other persons exactly. The problem with coaching, with mastermind, with any of these programs is that by the time you figure out you shouldn't have been in it, often times, it's too late. You've adjusted, you've made changes in your life, you've started to become like the person leading it.

So before you join a mastermind go through a serious evaluation as to whether you should even be there. Ask yourself, do I wanna be like this person and who they are, how they act, how they treat themselves? Do I want the relationships, the family, the marriage this person has? Or if they're not married, is that okay with you? Do you wanna be led by someone who doesn't see marriage as important? Maybe it's not a big deal to you, but is it something you wanna mirror? Is it something you wanna bring into your life? Their relationships and the business they run because you follow the whole leader. If you think you can compartmentalize the information you're getting from them, you can't. You will follow them and who they are and their tendencies and their abilities and their challenges.

And I'm very open about this with my clients. In fact, we have this discussion before they join my mastermind because I wanna make sure that they understand I hold myself to a standard where I aspire to treat myself and self care as well as I possibly can, so that I can create momentum on a daily basis. I do everything I can and I put the processes in place so that my family is stable. My marriage is stable. My wife and I are connected and in love every single day and care about each other at a very high level.

And in the business I run, there's congruency and belief and it's filled with true believers, and the people on my team will tell you that we run our business exactly the way we coach our clients and we wouldn't have it any other way. So, for me, this is a standard that I feel like I need to live up to on a daily basis to honor the people who have chosen to follow and learn from me.

I feel like I'm not only doing it for myself. I'm doing all of those things also for every one of my clients because if I hold myself to that standard, if I come from a place of congruency and a place of knowing, then it makes it infinity easier for me to coach and have an influence on my clients. I want them to understand that if we're gonna spend time together that they will become more like me. They will get healthier. They will hydrate more. They will add routine and process into their lives. They will understand at a higher level why they've been doing what they've been doing. They will start to understand the behaviors that are holding them back and move them out of their lives. They will start to enrich the relationships around them by understanding that if you add a little process to a marriage everything changes. If you find time for your children you can connect in a way that you absolve the guilt of being a parent and owning a business.

And I want them to know all of that because when I coach someone it's not about the business exclusively. When I work with someone it's wholistic. It's about the entrepreneur. It's about the business. It's about their relationships because that is the only way this works. I've met a lot of people who claim to be able to get a result by focusing on just one thing. Hey, I'll show you how to build a ten million dollar business by just improving your lead generation or your organic traffic or your whatever it is. But the fact is, if that individual has never done it themselves and they've never built the team or created the infrastructure and they don't have a life that you would want, you have to wonder why you're following them.

Because today, depending on what information you're looking for or what solution you feel like you need, there are hundreds of people who offer it. And if you want to have what you do be successful, here's my suggestion, go out and find someone that you like first. Go out and find someone that you want to be like first. Go out and find someone that you respect on every level first. Then invest the money in the mastermind, the learning, the program because you're not just investing in the outcomes that are promised in any one of these programs. You're not just investing in the coaching results when you coach with someone. You're investing in learning everything from that person that you're going to learn. You're investing in learning the nuances of how they do things, their habits, their abilities, the way that they look at things, the way that they look at the world, the level of optimism they have, the level of congruency they live with, the level of integrity that they have in their work.

And so, I want you to be careful because far too many entrepreneurs are making an exchange, and saying, well, I don't really like this person, but I'm gonna join the mastermind anyway because there's an outcome I want. I don't really like this person, but I'm gonna join their coaching program anyway because there's a business result they want. I don't really wanna be like this person, but I'm gonna go to their event anyway because there's other people that i wanna be around there.

Well, here's the problem with that. Sooner or later you're gonna look up and ask yourself what happened because when you follow someone and you're in their environment, you can't help but become like who they are. So, for anyone, if you're evaluating a coaching program right now, if you're evaluating working with someone, if you're evaluating taking on information from anyone, simple [inaudible 00:10:21] test. Ask yourself, do I wanna be like this person? Because it's not just an assumption, it's a fact that we become like those that we learn the most from. It's just mathematics. We take on information from someone, we're going to become more like that person. We learn their perspective. We learn their point of view. We learn their skills, their abilities. We will become more like that person at every single level.

So whenever one of my clients is evaluating someone who can help them, or a mastermind that they might join, or a coaching program they might join because I work with people who have multi million dollar businesses and they might need something from someone else besides me. I ask them a simple question, is the leader of that program someone you're willing to be like? Is the leader of that program someone you're willing to be around and become like? Is the leader of that program someone you would be proud if someone said, hey, he or she is just like, and insert the name of that leader. Because if the answer to any of those are ambiguous or a no then you should really consider what you're doing. Because you're going to be investing your cash, your time, which is the most valuable resource we have. Your effort, which none of has more effort to go around. Your energy, which there is only so much you can do. And your focus on this person's habits, their skills, their abilities, and what they put together for you to learn.

Ask yourself if it's something that you really should be doing. Ask yourself if it's something you're really committed to. Ask yourself if you're okay with following the whole leader, with becoming like who you follow. This has been something that I had to learn and evaluate because I didn't realize just how dramatic this was. About a year ago we joined Russel Brunson's mastermind The Inner Circle. You know, I've been in a couple of other very high visibility, high level masterminds in the past and joining Russel's, I went through this evaluation. I asked myself, am I okay with being more like Russel Brunson? Am I okay within my family acting more like Russel Brunson? Am I okay in my business with acting more like Russel Brunson?

And other than the fact that Russel takes all together too many supplements, if you're listening Russel, the answer was an overwhelming yes. You know? I've been around Russel and his kids and his wife and his family, and he's the real deal. I've been around him and listened to him talk about himself and had private conversations with him where I think to myself, this is someone that has an incredible level of integrity, an incredible level of congruency. I really am okay with becoming more like Russel. I want to become more like him. When I look at him and his business, he has an incredible team who are out changing the world for the tens of thousands of people who have decided to adopt [Click Funnels 00:13:20]

And so, yeah, I wanna become more like Russel in my business too. The guy's running a, I think at this point, a 60, 70, or 80 million dollar company with evaluation in the hundreds of millions without taking on any investment capital. He's not just a unicorn, he could end up being the unicorn. So, yeah, when it comes to Russel I'm really happy with becoming more like Russel Brunson. The question for you is, are you really happy with becoming more like the person that you follow?

It's one of the reasons we changed the masterminds that we were in. They were great, and they meant a lot, and then we met some incredible people, but when I looked at the leadership, you know, I'm married. I have my kids. I love my family first and I want them to be taken care of. And yes, I wanna grow multi million dollar businesses. That's all I've done my whole life, but not to the exception of everything else.

There's far too many organizations where that's exactly what happens. So, for you, if you're ready to join something, to talk to someone, to join a mastermind, to grow and scale your business, evaluate everything about that person before you do it because the business information, the business skills, the growth, the outcome of the mastermind is what you're paying for. But the by-product of being in it is that you will become significantly more like the person running it because that's just how it works.

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