Unleash the Power of Surrounding Yourself with Your Truest Fans

Phil Calandra: I found this to be true for myself. You need to find that group of people and surround yourself with people that will be lifting you up, that will root for your success. If you don’t, it’s going to be really hard, I think, for you to take the proper ownership of your business and of your life and your happiness.

Rob Brown: Why can’t we find it? Why can’t we look for it? Why can’t we participate in it? Why can’t we be that friend, that cheerleader, that person rooting for each other’s success? Because, as we’ve talked about many times on this show, I think we’re all called to be truest fans of ourselves and of others, no matter who they are.

Rob Brown: Welcome to the Truest fan Blueprint, a podcast for financial advisors and other professionals looking to get the most out of yourself and your business. I’m, um, Rob Brown and my partner, Phil Calandra. And I promise to walk you through a journey that will allow you to take action in your business and your life so that you can be the best that you can possibly be. Thanks for listening.

Rob Brown: It’s our favorite time of the week. We’re ready for another, a new episode of the Truest fan Blueprint, Rob Brown here, along with my partner in crime, Phil Calandra. Good morning, Phil.

Phil Calandra: Hey, Rob. Good to be with you. You’re right. This is a great time of week for.

Rob Brown: It’s just so much fun thinking about what we’re running into out in the wild as we’re working with clients or talking to leaders of all sorts and the, uh, challenges and obstacles and opportunities that they’re looking for and being able to say to ourselves, these are the same things that our audience is running into, and how can we formulate a topic, a discussion, that really gets the ball rolling and ultimately lets anybody who’s listening to this podcast walk away with something action focused that they can take out into the world and put to work to make their lives better, the lives of the people around them better. And today’s topic, um, really dives directly into that. Um, the idea of talking about and thinking about who you’re surrounding yourself with, um, and most importantly, um, when you’re surrounding yourself with the right people, they’re rooting for your success, which is something, a term that you hear us say very often on this podcast, because we are rooting for the success of our listeners, but everybody around us. Phil, why is rooting for the success of others and being around those cheerleaders so important?

Phil Calandra: Wow, that’s a, uh, million dollar question I like so much when you wrote that line in the original truest fan manuscript, uh, truest fan book. And I think because look at the world around us today, uh, who you’re surrounding yourself and who is rooting for your success. It’s not the world. Look at what’s happened just in the nearly four years since the great, um, plague that we went through, the coronavirus plague, um, the world basically came to an end. Uh, the market dropped. Uh, if you’re a financial advisor, you know how painful that was. And then it went up like a rocket ship not to have it. But then again, in 2022, the Thalwart 60 40 portfolio, which everybody on Wall street professes, I happen to not understand why, um, it had its worst year ever, and we’re bombarded with a, uh, war in Ukraine, uh, the Middle east conflict, now with, know, interest rates, inflation. Don’t even get me started on the political landscape back and forth. Look around us and you’ll see that there’s nothing but you know what hitting the fan. How do you get away from that? And I think it’s what you just said, rob, at the top is surround yourself with people who are optimistic, who are successful, who ignore. They are able to block out the noise. If you can do that, be part of a community, be part of a group, be part of our roundtable, I promise that you will have a much better 2024. If nothing else, you’re going to save your sanity.

Rob Brown: Yeah, that’s so true, Phil. Um, and as we were prepping for this conversation, we were talking about the fact that we all have the ability to control how we react to things. But when you have that constant bombardment of negative news, even if it’s not somebody saying, hey, I am trying to get you off track just by virtue of the way that they’re bringing that negativity.

Phil Calandra: Uh.

Rob Brown: Um, you’re taking yourself down a whole bunch of notches. And so you’ve got to believe in yourself, but you also have to have those people around you who are thinking, how do I move the needle forward? Um, I think, um. What’s that saying about you are the byproduct of the five people that you are in contact with the most? I think there’s some truth to that. Sure. And surrounding yourself with the right people who are rooting for your success is extremely important. And you’ve got to be asking yourself, hopefully, our listeners are asking yourself, am I around those people or am I around those situations? Uh, do I leave the tv on all the time in my office, because it’s so easy to leave the screen going. And I don’t care if it’s which brand of politics, um, it is. Most of what’s in the breaking news is dragging you down. Uh, and then you have people that you come in contact with that you think are going to, um, help you go forward. And all they want to do is commiserate. Either ask you about the problems you’re having or share their problems with you.

Phil Calandra: Yeah. The other saying that comes to my mind is, if you want to fly like an eagle, you can’t walk with the turkeys. And if all you’re hearing is the negativity around you, then, um, that’s going to be where you walk. You’re going to end up, uh, know, and you’ve heard me say this, the audience has heard me say this. I hate now that there is not Atlanta Braves baseball on just about every single night, because I refuse to lower myself into the sewer. And a lot of people listen to, I need to watch Fox News, I need to have CNBC on, or Bloomberg on in the morning or MSNBC, because if I don’t, then I’m not in tune. I’m not going to be up on the current events. That’s hogwash. All that is doing is creating a pessimistic cloud over your life. And I assure you, if we go into 2024, is there something going to be magically different about 2024? In the vernacular, the cloud, the news cycle, it’s going to get worse. We’re going into a presidential year. Turn it off. Pay attention to optimistic things. Look at the trajectory of humankind, uh, and you’ll see that everything is getting better around us. I was reading an article just recently about, uh, we’re financial advisors for the most part. Some, uh, of our audience is not. But how do you think the market did in 2023? I think the market’s been spectacular. It’s been about as resilient as it’s ever been. And right now, we’re 5% on the s and p 500 as we’re speaking. I think we’re about 5% from the all time high that we hit January of 2022. 5%. That could happen by the end of, uh, the Santa cross rally could do that. But what would you think if you turned on our news channels in the United States? You’d think that the economy was in the crapper and that the market was horrible. And I’m here to tell you, I, uh, don’t see it. That so?

Rob Brown: Yeah, no, I’m with you. And that’s a great example, because part of what we’re talking about is not only making sure that you don’t let other people dictate how you view the world and how you react to the world, but also by focusing on those things that you believe to be, um, most important, and getting rid of that negativity, you can propel your direction faster. Uh, we’re always talking about wanting to grow faster, and, uh, I think that’s a good thing to talk about. And certainly that’s what we help some of our clients do. But that faster growth can be faster growth, not just in the growth of your business, but faster growth in the way that you develop stronger relationships, build better teams, um, get more done in the community by being part of those causes you care about. Um, and when you are focusing on what you’re trying to accomplish and have people beside you rooting for your success, you’re going to get there faster, and that bad news isn’t going to do it. I remember, I don’t know how many years ago this was. It’s probably 20 years ago now. I was listening to a talk radio show in Richmond that was going over, um, I was living there at the time that was going over all of the bad news. And I never called talk radio shows, but I called and I said, why, um, are you always talking about bad news? Why don’t you ever have conversations about good news? And the host quickly said, because nobody would listen to this show if all we talked about was good news. Goodbye. And there was no discussion. He wanted to turn my good news question into bad news controversy. And I think that’s unfortunately a, uh, reality of the world that, um, we’re surrounded by.

Phil Calandra: Yeah, that’s called the oldest axiom in media. Bad news is good copy. They’re never going to spin it because the negativity is what sells. And that’s why we have now this bifurcated news cycle of, um, channels. You can line up the conservative view, you can line up the liberal or progressive view, and guess what they’re going to do? Try and pit you against each other. So let’s not get overly political. Um, although we could.

Rob Brown: Yeah.

Phil Calandra: I think to me it becomes you taking ownership of your life, you taking ownership of your economy, you taking ownership of your business, your outcomes. I was having a conversation with someone just the other day, and the topic basically came around to, uh, buying in. What is it that you can buy into? If you’re part of a big organization, you need to be able to buy into what leadership is selling you, what leadership is trying to direct. If you don’t agree with it, which I don’t always, then speak up, give your input. Be a team player. If you’re an individual advisor or a solo boutique advisor, and you’re on an island by yourself. I found this to be true for myself for 18 years before I joined, uh, went through my merger. You need to find that group of people and surround yourself with people that will be lifting you up, that will root for your success. If you don’t, it’s going to be really hard, I think, for you to take the proper ownership of your business and of your life and your happiness.

Rob Brown: Yeah, that’s, uh, absolutely true, Phil. You know this. I’m, uh, very actively involved in prison ministry. Um, I go into, uh, a maximum security prison with a team, um, of great guys, um, um, almost every month and sometimes more than once a month. And, um, as we were preparing for the show, I was recalling a conversation that I had a couple of weeks ago when I was in the prison. Uh, one of the things that we talk about, um, in the prison is what is the definition of a friend? And we let them know that friends are not people who bring you down and always want to bring the negative up. Friends are people who want nothing but the best for you. And so as I was sitting around the table having, um, a conversation, um, with the guys that we’re working with, um, about how they felt since they got involved in our program. It’s a christian ministry, um, how they got involved in our program, they said, you know, the most important, or this one particular person said, the most important thing that has happened to me is that I have found real friends inside of this place who I can talk to and are willing to look out for me. Um, almost spitting out verbatim that we’re looking out for the best of me. And that’s what this particular individual was struggling with, was he felt, as you said, kind of all alone, isolated. Um, prison is an awful tough place to get that, but you can find it everywhere. So why can’t we find it? Why can’t we look for it? Why can’t we participate in it? Why can’t we be that friend, that cheerleader, that person rooting for each other’s success? Because as we’ve talked about many times on this show, I think we’re all called to be truest fans of ourselves and of others, no matter who they are.

Phil Calandra: Couldn’t agree more. Nothing more I could say, because then I’d start preaching.

Rob Brown: Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. And maybe as we start to bring this podcast to an end, as always, we like to say, okay, what action can I take to really kind of put this idea to work? And I think there are two. Uh, one is going to be a little self serving on our part, but the other one you can do no matter what. Um, stop right now. After this podcast is over, don’t turn the next podcast on. Take five minutes and assess. Are you around people who are rooting for your success? Um, and sometimes you’re going to find out that there are a couple of people who are, but there are a couple of people who aren’t. Just identify those people and then make a plan for having conversations in the coming week with those people who are your truest fans. To say, to sit down with them, take them to lunch, take them out for a cup of coffee, say, you know, I was thinking about you and the way that you root for me. I want to partner with you, um, and just be, um, truest fans of each other, encouragers of each other. I think that’s a really great place, um, to line yourself up to be more successful. Uh, and then the second idea, um, is we’re going to be launching a new service inside of truest fan coaching called the Truest fan Roundtable, where our goal is to create a community of cheerleaders of truest fans. And if you want to get an idea for how that works, uh, you can go to free access, and you’ll get a full description of how the truest fan roundtable works, um, as well as get an opportunity to join for free. So you might want to check that out. Truestfancoaching.com, free access.

Phil Calandra: And you could put, uh, that link in the show notes and on YouTube. Uh, subscribe to the channel, click on the link, get to see what we’re doing. The only thing that I’ll add, and then I know we want to wrap it up, is so much of this for me and the success that I’ve had over the years is, number one, a mindset. Um, and then being accountable to your mindset, and you can choose, you can choose to be optimistic as we go into 2024. You can choose to be pessimistic as we go into 2024. Join me. Join rob, be optimistic. And optimism is the only realism. That’s one of my mentors, uh, instilled in me.

Rob Brown: Yeah, I love when you say that Phrase, because, um, it’s not Pollyanna. Ah. If you look at successful people, they are excited and optimistic about what they’re doing, and they’re surrounding themselves with people who support that. And that’s a big part of, uh, what you should be doing now and all of the time. And I don’t want to end on a downer, but maybe ask yourself, am I being the opposite of that to other people? And maybe there’s a person that you should go to and say, hey, I realize that I leaned on you a little too hard. I breathed a little bit too much negativity into your life. Let’s turn that around. Let’s be each other’s truest fans. Let’s root for each other. Um, but make it a conscious thing. Uh, even when Phil was talking just a minute ago about the decision to be optimistic or pessimistic about the future, it’s an active decision. It is not something you should fake or wander into. Um, and it’s really easy to do. We talked enough today about why that’s possible. So, Phil, anything else to close us out?

Phil Calandra: I love it. It’s great to be with you, Rob, as always.

Rob Brown: Yeah, awesome. And it’s great to be with the folks who are watching and listening to this podcast. Stay tuned. There’s a lot more good stuff coming as we finish up this year and move into the next one. Because, um, as we started out in the very beginning of the show, as we like to end all of our shows, we want you to know that we are optimistic and we’re rooting for your success. Take care.

Rob Brown: Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Truest fan Blueprint. If you want to learn more, head over to our website, truestfan.com. On the site, you’ll learn more about becoming a truest fan. You’ll also find today’s show notes and links to the other gifts and resources we talked about during this episode. Again, thanks for listening. And remember, we’re rooting for your success.