This is a very interesting topic I will be discussing today. I run into this issue every weekend or maybe even everyday. I have a lot of good friends growing up and I respect a lot of them. They support a lot of what I do and happy to see me grow. I love my friends and I have a very tight circle of friends that I only hang out with, but even your friends will tend to be bother about the amount of growth you have done.
Then I have online marketer friends and local entrepreneurs. They too enjoy the other people with the same interest and ideas. They help motivate me as a person while I do the same. These friends I hang out with at meetings and socialize about our entrepreneur skills - asking help topics and generalizing about the next 'big' wave of internet ideas.
The conflict here is there is a difference in interest. All my friends are hard workers and some have hard lives. Most of them struggle but they make life livable. Some are doing well but hate the jobs they are doing. Marketers and my entrepreneur friends' are struggling as well, some are beginners with big dreams, others are just getting the hang of it. Some of them even have jobs and do online marketing as a part time hobby. Everyone struggles.
It is annoying when my friends' ask what I have been up to and I say I am making a new website or busy marketing. They quickly retaliate and say about what and what income will I be bringing in. I simply just say I make enough and I be humble about it. I tend to draw that line and not brag about how much I make a day extra from my job, I do not want to appear superior. When I go out with my friends I tend to spend more money and share a lot of it, this puts an image on me. To my friends I have money because I make money online, but they want to feel that sense too.
For example this past weekend, one of my friends knows of my success because we hang out a lot and he know I do not mind spending the money as long as we are having a good time. He came to me and ask if you have another big idea let me in - I will help you out. Now how should I feel about this? That is great he wants to help me out and be in the business model that I currently have but where is his motivation? There is no prerequisite on his part, just working 2 jobs and lives with his girlfriend's parent's house. I just said 'cool.' I was not excited that he wanted to help out. It seems that if my friends' see me make money and they can tell I have money then I feel in a sense guilty because I am putting them into a situation where I think they will not be successful in.
On the other hand, I get lots of emails and IMs and tweets all day about online marketing and affiliate marketing and all that stuff. I am not an expert but I can throw some ideas in to help a person out, as long as they do their research. I hate answering simple question. I personally do not mind conversating with marketers and talk about what my conversion is on this campaign was or how much I make etc. To some extent. I mean I expect it in return a lot of noobs will even speak about their failures just so they can have a grasp of what to do next. While others will go a head and say I made X amount of websites and I am selling X of them. This is great because my interest follows their interest and there is no conflict of interests. I can feel comfortable to spend money around these types of people.
But the conflict still remains, my friends I grew up with and are part of my closely knitted circle trust me and I can sense they want me to 'hire' them when I get big. A lot has already proposed the question to me - when you get big don't forget me. Again, I do not mind telling my friend what I am currently doing; I hope to motivate them to seek something better than working 2-3 jobs and coming home tired. I want to show them that it is possible for anyone to get into something I am doing.
Where my entrepreneur friend's ask if they want to network, I will be jumping for joy because there is similarities of interest. My friends are great people I just do not know where to draw the line between my internet business and hanging out. Should this be even brought up as a topic of discussion to my friends? A lot praise me and they mention money situations a lot, which I do not like. I hate it when people complain they do not have enough money but they do not do anything about it. I hate seeing my friends struggle but I do not want to nurture them, there has to be that drive. When we go out I do not mind spending money we ball out and we ball out hard. Some of my friends are big money makers in their own ways and this is how we have fun, then they struggle until next paycheck.
Sometimes telling my friends my goals and my ideas tends to bring some sort of arrogance and I do not want to bring that into my relationships with my friends at all. I want everyone to be comfortable and being who they are no matter what a person money value is. Even my entrepreneurial friends may feel some slight jealousy of the big guys, but that is motivation. Their really isn't much arrogance but more of a helping hand. These friends of mine have the spirit of making more than the highest paid 9-5 guy. They have that drive. I do not mind sharing some thoughts or ideas, because there is already that bond of money making ideas. When told to my other friends, they think negatively about it already, playing devils advocate.
But in the end, friends support you but the conflict of interests arises and I feel I do not want to talk to them too much about my business because there maybe a jealousy factor within. I d not want to be a bad guy I love my friends because they helped me a lot with growing up. Okay that is enough for now. Tomorrow I might recap this and do a video or maybe talk about motivation.
Just writing what is on my mind.
