Not On My Level

I remember one time having a conversation with a member at my church. This was about a year after I graduated college. I was a year into working at a Gold’s Gym, building my brand as a Personal Trainer. She asked me ‘what do you want to do with your life?’ I told her that I’m doing what I want to do with my life. I am in the industry I love and I get to make a difference in people’s lives everyday. She then proceeded to ask me ‘what are your long terms goals?’ I told her I wanted to open my own studio, have my own PT business. 


You want to know what happened next? You can probably guess. She began to tell me every reason under the Lord’s great Earth why that wasn’t possible and why I couldn’t and shouldn’t go down this route. I listened to her ramble on, but with every excuse she came up with I could feel myself becoming more and more agitated. 


Fast forward now, and I have my own growing fitness coaching business (thanks to all of you!). However that doesn’t stop the chatter. That doesn’t stop people telling me how I’m wasting my time or how I should be doing something different, or something ‘safe’. 


Years ago, I would have continually become frustrated in my conversations with these individuals and would have wanted to go back and forth with them until the sun and moon collided. However now I am at a different stage and different point in life. 


I realize that not everyone is on my level. Now, I don’t mean to say that in a condescending tone, but it’s true. Just as in the same sense, not everyone may be on your level. Everyone is not going to where you are, or meant to go where you are. And that’s okay, that’s perfectly fine. Where you’re going is not for them. If you know your path, your vision, where you’re called to: then stick to that path and don’t let the outside noise influence you in any other direction. 


Think of it this way. If I want to make chicken scampi and had never made it before, I’m not going to ask someone that hasn’t done it before or take advice from them if the only thing they know how to cook is a bowl of cereal. 


If someone hasn’t done something before or been to where you are going, how much stock can you really put into what they are telling you? All they are telling you is what they know, and what they are accustomed to. 


You have to talk to people that have been, or are at the level that you are headed. 


So let those that want to talk, talk. Let them stay on their level, and you rise to yours. 


Be Greater!