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Elevate Your Friend Circle
132 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, I discuss the importance of having the right friend circle.
Here's My Book Recommendation:
Relational Intelligence: The People Skills You Need for the Life of Purpose You Want
If you want to send me an email you can email me at [email protected]
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Transcript
Introduction & Host Background
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Eliana Nita podcast, the podcast created to inform, challenge and empower you. Now let's get down to business.
00:00:23
Speaker
Hi guys, welcome to the Alion and the podcast. I'm your host Alion and I am so excited to have you join me for this week's podcast. For the first time, I am Alion and I am a formulation chemist, a licensed esthetician, and a business owner.
00:00:41
Speaker
I own my own lab where I formulate products, personal care products for everybody, some everybody. And I also have a facial studio where we treat skin care issues. And I am a podcaster and so much more.
00:00:58
Speaker
This week, oh wait, sorry, before I even get into what I'm going to talk about this week, welcome back to all of my loyal listeners. Thank you so, so much for tuning back in this week.
The Theme: Elevating Friend Circles
00:01:09
Speaker
And this week I am going to get into a subject that I am calling elevating your friend circles.
00:01:17
Speaker
The reason why I want to talk about this and the reason why this is important for me to do a podcast on is because it's been a, you know, last year in 2022, it was, it was rough for black women, I have to say like, as a black woman.
00:01:35
Speaker
It was rough for us. Y'all, we kind of got beat up a lot. I mean, I won't say 2022 was the roughest year. I mean, we've experienced a lot over the years, but 2022 just really showed us how much black women are unprotected and how much our needs and desires often are overlooked.
00:01:57
Speaker
kind of pushed the side by society, which is not shocking. We already knew this, but you know, kind of just being in the face of it is kind of like when you see it face to face, it's hard. So yeah, it makes it
Case Study: Shanquella Robinson
00:02:11
Speaker
rough. But it was two particular situations that happened that made me want to record a podcast and actually talk about this.
00:02:19
Speaker
The first one was the Shancuela Robinson case where if you don't know who Shancuela Robinson is, she was a young lady who went on a vacation in Mexico with a group of friends and all of her friends returned home, but she was murdered or was allegedly murdered during that time. So no one knows exactly what happened. There aren't.
00:02:43
Speaker
At this moment, at the time of this report, at the time of this recording of this podcast, there hasn't been many developments of what happened. I've been kind of following this case as closely as I can, but I haven't heard any news of any new developments of how her death took place.
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's alleged that while she was on this vacation, she was murdered by someone in her friend group that was on that vacation or the people in her friend group that she was on vacation with corroborated with her being murdered. But there are no details. But the thing that stuck out to me was that she was on vacation with a group of friends, people that she considered friends, people that she considered close enough to travel with.
00:03:32
Speaker
And they left her body in Mexico while her parents had to pay, I believe like something around the tune of five to $6,000 to have her body brought back to the States. And then they wouldn't cooperate with the police. They was withholding details. They lied and said one thing. It was like one story they told to their parent, her parents. And then when her parents did it,
00:03:58
Speaker
and autopsy. They found other things and then they stopped communicating with the parents and it was just crazy. Like that whole story to watch it kind of unravel and unfold. And I don't want to be, um, you know, a detective because that's not my job, but, um, it was, it was very, very interesting to see how like these were supposed to be her friends. And then they returned, they came and brought her mother, her parents rather her luggage.
00:04:25
Speaker
But they didn't no one stayed behind and tried to assist with having her body, you know brought back home or you know, I don't know all of the details, but I just thought that that was really crazy to me and Unfortunately, the truth has not came all the way out. Nobody has said anything or told anything to her parents and so
Case Study: Megan Thee Stallion
00:04:48
Speaker
You know, it's just kind of sad to see that she she lost her life because of some incidents that happened while she was in Mexico and she was unprotected. And another reason why I wanted to record this podcast is because
00:05:03
Speaker
In late December, the Tory Lane's trial took place and Megan Thee Stallion, which is a rapper if you don't know, was dragged terribly. She got shot.
00:05:20
Speaker
while in a vehicle with some people that she trusted, her friends and people that she considered her friends are close people to her. And she ended up getting shot and Tory Lanez was found guilty on all charges.
00:05:36
Speaker
And so during this time over these these two years, Megan was railroad. I mean, just walked all over in the media. People talked so badly about her, said some horrible things about her and to her. And it just was it was really sad to see and witness.
00:05:54
Speaker
And what brought me to this place of wanting to talk about elevating your friend's circle is this. In both of those cases, these young ladies were surrounded by people who they consider that they can trust. And from my understanding, Shanquella was very successful. She looked ahead, I think if I'm not mistaken, she had her own like hair braiding business and she was doing really well. She was a very, very beautiful young lady.
00:06:22
Speaker
And she has some good success and Meg The Stallion, as we know, has had tremendous success over these last couple years. And she's skyrocketed. I mean, she won Grammys, all kinds of music awards. She has great covers of something. She's made lists.
00:06:39
Speaker
that people her age has not ever, she's like made history by making a list, I think in Forbes and no one her age has ever made this list. So, you know, she has elevated and made some really big strides in her career over these last couple of years. And so what I realized is that in both of these cases, these women were surrounded by people who had nothing to lose.
Identifying Trustworthy Friends
00:07:05
Speaker
When you have something to lose, like when you have something that's on the table that you know is worth something, you're not going to behave in a way that's going to cause you to lose everything, right? So in the case of Shanquilla, you know, if it comes out that she was murdered, you know, she was around a bunch of people that probably did not have success like she did or was jealous of her success or mad about her success.
00:07:32
Speaker
And you cannot, I mean, I know that this goes without saying, but you can't be around people that's secretly jealous of you. Because when they are, they're going to say and do things to you that's going to possibly harm you and keep you down. And unfortunately for Chancweller, her life ended because she wasn't around people who were safe that had her best interests at heart.
00:07:56
Speaker
And regardless of whether she was murdered or if she died from alcohol poisoning like they said she did, nobody on that trip cared enough to protect her. Nobody on that trip cared enough about her to see about her well-being to make sure that she did not die.
00:08:14
Speaker
And when you are, whether it's from a place of jealousy or a place of envy or spite or hate or whatever, right, you have to make sure that when you get to this certain place of success, and I've experienced this, even though I, you know, like I have considered myself like,
00:08:34
Speaker
I won't say I had like, you know, crazy, like outlandish, like billionaire, millionaire, you know, level success. But when you get to this place of any kind of success and someone around you is jealous and there's even if they're hiding it or if they're being overt with it, it's it's like it's best that you start to make moves to distance yourself from these people because people
00:09:00
Speaker
Honestly, when they don't have emotional intelligence, they lack the wherewithal to behave in a way that's going to cost them something. That's not going to cost them something. So when they feel like they don't have anything to lose, they'll steal from you. They'll lie on you. They'll do whatever it takes to bring you down to their level because they have nothing to lose.
00:09:23
Speaker
They don't care about your well-being and they don't care about anything else that they could potentially lose by sacrificing you. They don't have a problem with sacrificing you because they feel like they've been sacrificed or they feel like they came up short or they feel like that you don't deserve what you have so they'll do whatever it takes to make sure that you stay down.
00:09:42
Speaker
And that's why it's critical for you to elevate your friend circle. In the case of Meg Thee Stallion with the shooting, she obviously got shot. Some people believe Tori did not pull the trigger. Some people believe it was her friend Kelsey that did it. You know, so many people feel every other way, but in the court of law,
00:10:06
Speaker
he was found guilty on all charges of shooting her. Regardless to who you believe shot her, she was shot. And the two people that is up on the list, you know, up for trial, or well, Tori's the only person that's up on trial, but the only people in question is Tori and Kelsey. Neither one of them had anything to lose.
00:10:31
Speaker
Even though Tori had a budding career, Kelsey did not. Neither one of them behaved as if they had something to risk. Tori has a child, right? And he didn't even consider his son before he pulled that trigger. You know, Kelsey is a friend that's tagging along with a friend that has all the access, fame, fortune, whatever.
00:10:54
Speaker
So she's not going to behave in that way. So in that case, if Meg was intoxicated, like they say that she was, you know, if all of them was intoxicated or whatever, Meg is in the most vulnerable position because she's the most visible person in that friend group.
Celebrating Success with Genuine Friends
00:11:11
Speaker
Before this, this shooting happened, I didn't even know Tory Lanez was a person. You know, I didn't even know he existed before then. I didn't know he wrapped or anything like that.
00:11:20
Speaker
And a lot of you all didn't know that either. But because of this, he got all of this exposure based off of who Megan Thee Stallion is. And so when you are growing up in any kind of way, whether you're making advancements in your personal life, if you're making advancements in your business or in your career or whatever,
00:11:43
Speaker
You have to make sure that you have people around you that can hold you down and support you as you move through these different changes. If people around you are jealous of what you have or any kind of success of what you have, if they can't clap for you,
00:11:58
Speaker
And you can, you'll always notice this. Like if you have a good day or if you have some exciting news and then they try to like cloud it with everything that's going on with them or you know, like let's say, oh, I got a raise on my job today. Oh yeah, I got a raise two years ago and you still don't make as much as I do or I'm up for this new job promotion or whatever. Like if they meet your good news with something that's going on in their life, there's some good news that's going on in their life,
00:12:27
Speaker
And they're trying to basically overshadow your good news. They're basically like, they trying to shade you and you need to be mindful of that. Like if they can't take a moment just to celebrate you, that's a telltale sign that this person is not here for your elevation or your growth. They don't want to see you doing better than them. And it's not about like, okay, I'm doing better than you. I'm one up in you or whatever. It's not about a competition.
00:12:52
Speaker
But it's about, can we just take a moment to say congratulations to a friend, especially if you've been that friend to do that to them, do that for them to congratulate them regardless of what was going on in your life. So you have to be mindful of the people and the spaces that you're in while you're elevating up. And a lot of times we don't want to switch our friend group because of loyalty. We were like, oh, I knew this person since I was in the sixth grade or this person been my friend since blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:13:21
Speaker
And I can't switch up on them. They'll say, I changed. They'll say I'm fake, I'm phony or whatever. But is this person good for you? Is this person going to be good for your success? And yes, in this case, you have to be selfish. I know it's a selfish thing to say, but it's true. You have to be selfish. You have to think about yourself in the best interest of you because if it goes down, let's say if you're intoxicated, right? And you hire or whatever, you know, maybe you had too many drinks or whatever that happened that night.
00:13:51
Speaker
Can you trust this person to make sure that you get home safe? Or would this person let you be lured off with some strange man and you end up getting killed or kidnapped? You have to think about these things before you start to go out into public spaces or whatever and do whatever with people because you don't, you have to absolutely know who you're around.
00:14:14
Speaker
And you absolutely it's hard to tell like everybody's motives are pan, but you got to use discernment to know you absolutely have to have discernment to know who's going to be in your corner. And in this case, you know when I think about the how this all pan out for me.
00:14:33
Speaker
Her everything was really cute, her sex life, her lyrics to her raps, what she said, even down to I read someone talk about like I say like I interviewed her and I had to make it through her speech impediment. I mean they talked about how this girl talks.
00:14:53
Speaker
All because she was surrounded by people that could not handle her success. And all because she did not elevate her friend group when she reached a certain success. It's not necessarily that you quitting or leaving people behind, but everybody can go with you.
00:15:10
Speaker
Everybody, you know, Nipsey Hussle said it best, everybody can go. Everybody not ready for that level. And you have to accept that. And that's a part of success that we don't talk about, that we don't like to talk about is that when you get to a certain place, whether it's a success and you have a breakthrough in your mental healing or whether it's success in your business or finances or whatever.
00:15:31
Speaker
You have to begin to surround yourself with people that are going in the same direction you're going in. It narrows down the few. It's kind of like Jesus had the 12 then he had the three and then it was him. You know, like you have to narrow down your circle. Everybody can't go and you have to be okay with that.
00:15:51
Speaker
That is one of the hardest parts I've experienced with success is knowing that I got to let some people go. And I remember telling my therapist after a situation with somebody that I consider the friend, I told my therapist, I said, you know what, I'd rather be alone than to be around people that don't have my best interests at heart.
00:16:11
Speaker
If I can't, if I can't fully depend on you and know that you're going to have my back throughout, you know, I know that you're going to be here and have my back for real. I don't want you in my circle.
Curating Your Support Network
00:16:24
Speaker
I want you with me. I don't want you around me. I don't want your energy. I want none of that. Everybody go, you go your way. I'm gonna go my way.
00:16:29
Speaker
And you have to be okay with that. That is one of the most critical parts of success is making sure the people around you have your best interests at heart. You need to be able to have a down day and they have your back. You need to be able to have an up day and they have your back. You need to be able to depend on the people that's with you to make sure that if it goes down, they have your back no matter what.
00:16:54
Speaker
And if they can't save you, they're going to do everything in their power to make sure that they try to do so. What happened to the shanquella was devastating. I thought about, I was talking about it with my mom. I said, mom.
00:17:09
Speaker
If I had to went on vacation with one of my friends, I wouldn't have left the country until I know that I've done all that I can to make sure that my friend can make it back home. Regardless if that friend fell off a cliff, we were taking pictures and the person fell off a cliff. If I had to spend my own money to make sure that that person came back with me, I was going to do that.
00:17:31
Speaker
And that's how you have to be with people in your life. You have to, you know, and people have to be like that with you. It's like, no matter what happened, we coming back. We gonna be okay. Everything's going to be okay. You should be able to trust people in your life. So I just want to tell you guys, you know, like,
00:17:49
Speaker
Not tell you, but encourage you to take a look at your friend group and let go of the survivor skills. Stop feeling bad because you're the one that made it. You put in the work. You put in the energy. You put in the effort. You did what you had to do. It is not your responsibility to carry your friends and make them successful. It is not your responsibility to pick your friends up by the bootstraps and make sure that they make it to the level that you make it to. It is not your responsibility.
00:18:18
Speaker
It is not your responsibility to do for them what they have to do for themselves. If you put in the work, they have to put in the work too. So let go of the survivor's guilt. Don't feel like that they have to come along because they've been there the longest. Are they good for you? Are they good for the person that you are today? If they are not, maybe you need to readjust. It doesn't mean that you can't be friends with them or you can't be cool with them, but maybe they can't have the closest access to you.
00:18:48
Speaker
Maybe they're not that person that's riding in the car with you no more. Maybe they're not the person you take the vacation with. Maybe they're not the person you're taking advisement from or you're on the phone with all the time or you're sharing your issues or your problems with. Maybe they're just somebody you hit up every now and then and say, Hey, what's going on? Let's shoot the breeze.
00:19:07
Speaker
However, it's critical that you have people in your life that's gonna have your back no matter what. And whatever season you're in for right now, they need to have your back for the season, regardless, good or bad. So it's the time now, if it's never been more of a time, if it never, like for me, it has run strongly in my ear that you have to make sure that the people that's in your life
00:19:34
Speaker
are about and for your life and if they're not then you need to either cut access from them or alter the access that they have of you.
Tools & Recommendations
00:19:43
Speaker
So that's my encouragement for you guys this week. I hope that this really encouraged you and challenged you
00:19:52
Speaker
To make you start to think a little bit differently about your friendships and like see what's going on within the people that's in your inner circle because I'm telling you, your inner circle is going to reveal you and that's going to help you. Either they're going to help you or they're going to be your biggest downfall.
00:20:09
Speaker
Of course, I have a book recommendation for you. It is called Relational Intelligence by Dr. Darius Daniels. The full title of the book is called Relational Intelligence, the people skills you need for the life of purpose you want. And this, listen, y'all, I'm telling you, this is the book that really kind of like transformed my thinking as it pertains to who gets access to what and who gets access to me at what time and all of that.
00:20:35
Speaker
This is the book you need. You can get it on Audible. You obviously can get it in on hard copy. Amazon has everything so you can get it from there. But I will indeed link the book in the show descriptions and I hope that this podcast
Conclusion & Contact Info
00:20:52
Speaker
blessed you. And as always guys, be blessed and stay relevant. Oh, one more thing. If you need to contact me, you can always contact me.
00:21:00
Speaker
at alienanytashow at gmail.com. And you can follow me on all social media platforms. I am your fav chemist on everything. And as always guys, I love y'all. See you next week. Peace.