If you’re in startup mode or starting something new, don’t be upset when friends and family don’t believe in you or see what you see.
There’s a concept that a mentor once said to me. He said ‘If you want to grow in life, and fulfil your destiny, you need to leave the tribe’.
This is not talking about having fights with your friends, I’m talking about leaving the tribe in a way that allows you to forge your own path.
Jeremiah 1:5, in the Bible says, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born I set you apart”. So if God knew you before you became into physical being, then it means you have a soul.
What this verse is also saying is before you even came into this world, he had set you apart for a specific purpose.
A purpose has been laid on your life and not someone else’s life.
It’s less about trying to find who you are. It’s more about relaxing into who you’ve always been.
As you do that, you’re going to see a vision for your life that’s different to what you have been rolling with.
If you share that dream, God can do more than you can think or imagined.
If He can do more than you can think or imagine. Well, imagine how confusing that can be to someone else!
I know in my early days, when I had the heart to start a business, no one around me was saying it was a good idea.
Everyone was fearful for me.
And you know what? Everyone was kind of judging me and saying it probably wouldn’t work.
On my journey, I found that as you leave the tribe, it’s this:
The first is ridicule. “What an idiot”. I started an IT company after the.com crash of 2000. “What an idiot”.
And then when you keep on persevering, keep on making mistakes and learning, it’s respect. “I respect him. Don’t understand him, but he’s giving you a good, go”.
After ridicule and respect, when it keeps going, and you get a little bit of momentum, it’s curiosity.
When the momentum continues to build, and you continue to learn from your lesson, pride.
So that’s the journey.
Leave the tribe and watch the motions of your friends or family go from ridicule, to respect, to curiosity, and then pride.
It’s a funny thing, I have all these people now say, “Hey, I always knew you were going to do it”.
But you know what? They didn’t believe that at the time.
So just to encourage you on those steps.
Don’t be misled. Give your family and friends a bit of grace.
They just care for you. They can’t see what you can see. And it scares them.
But they still love you.