Ep #30: Your Entourage: Curating Your Inner Circle for Success

This is all about the entourage. Stay tuned for episode 30 on tips and tricks of how to build a brilliant entourage for your success.

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Well, hello and welcome back, my beautiful, brilliant, confident performers. I am talking all about the entourage today. Last week, on episode 29, I talked about the fall and what happens after the fall. And sometimes the prelude up to what happens after the fall is dependent on the people that you have surrounding you, dependent on the people that you have influencing your life, your thoughts, your choices, the things you do, you say, you don’t do or don’t say. The way you show up, if you show up sober, if you show up drunk.

And all of the different, what seems to feel like small details in your life, whether that’s your makeup artist, your hair, your coaching team. Whatever it may look like in your life as an influential person, whether that’s an influencer, a politician, a performer, somebody who is running a company and operating at a very, very high level. It is very dependent on what your entourage looks like. And I want to break down how I recommend building your entourage for success.

Now, a lot of times we have seen popularly in cultures that so many artists will take their people with them. So, they will take their family, they will take their friends and a lot of coaches and a lot of people who are telling you, “Hey, you have to raise your game”, will actually advise against that. Some people will say, “Hey, blood is thicker than water.” I don’t necessarily believe in that and it’s just based upon the family that I’m in. Now, there are other families that I’ve seen that absolutely blood is thicker than water and maybe their blood is thicker than my family’s blood, but it runs like this for me.

In my brain I have decided there are people that will make me more successful, will push me, will drive me, will motivate me, and will cheer me on. There are those people that I watch kind of in the corner of my eye, what have we got going on over there? I need to push a little harder. I need to grow a lot more. I need to challenge myself. I need to bring more to the game. Then there are those people who actively connect me in my game. So, I’m going to break down what these people, what they look like. And when I say, what building your entourage looks like is dependent on what your life looks like.

They reference that the top five friends, your top five friends are typically how much money you make in your life. So that average between those top five friends when you have people in your life that you are working with and they say, “Your top five friends will be your indicator of your perspective of the world.” My man gave me a really cool kind of example today talking about this topic. And he said, he was referencing, I don’t want to just appear to be a cowboy. And he made the point that if you surround yourself with cowboys, you are going to be perceived as a cowboy.

So, if there’s five of you and you’ve got four people around you that are showing up as cowboys, when you show up with them, that’s how you’re going to look. And they reference a cowboy in a different way in his industry. And the guys that kind of go in and do the things and make the stuff happen and are the active people, the doers in their game that are kind of really taking care of business and getting that dirty business taken care of. And he could obviously elaborate if he was here, but he’s not here.

So, we’re talking about stuff I’m talking about and that’s how it goes. So, I’m going to talk about professionals and pushers. So, I look at, I’m going to just break all of this down for us. We are going to talk about professionals and pushers. Now, my man is absolutely one of my pushers in my life. And that pusher is the person that really pushes you to drive what is next for you. It is that in my opinion, that sometimes that check yourself before you wreck yourself or after you’ve done, wrecked yourself, what are you going to do about that?

And the person that pushes you to say, “Is that your best? Is that how you want to show up? Is that what you want to reflect? Is that how you want to be seen? Is that how you want to be received?” Now, oftentimes you cannot ever control how you are received, that you can opt to show up in a specific manner. I choose those light, happy, fun so I’m saying, “Hey, I’m going to show up like this.” Then there are times when I absolutely show up, no, I am a serious business person taking care of business and that absolutely comes off and it comes across.

Now, when I’m looking for those professionals and those pushers, that is my top tier. And that top tier is, who am I hiring to make me better? And who is actively influencing my life to hold me accountable for how I show up. One, because I have subscribed to being a coach. I live as a coach. That’s my job, it’s what I do. And it doesn’t necessarily define who I am, but it is a good part of who I am. And so even when I opt to get a little twisted, sister and act a little wild sometimes, or color outside of the lines and have a bad attitude or show up Debbie Downer or whatever it may be.

I have people around me that actually encourage me, “Hey, what’s going on here? Let’s talk through this. Let’s walk through this.” As opposed to just the allowance of, you’re allowed to be like that. We’re all human. It’s no big deal. It’s okay if you show up that way, we all need our days. And the people that I work with and I’m chuckling about this because my amazing, beautiful assistant, sometimes I will say, “I don’t want to do that.”

There was something that I had on the calendar and it was doing another podcast or speaking thing or something that was very important on my calendar. And I had then said, “Well, Teddy is available for lunch today. So, I was just going to check and see what time he was available.” And she just said one word to me and it was all that I needed to snap my brain out of, I already committed, I already said yes, I already confirmed. And the one word she said to me was, “Amy”, and that was it.

And it took that split second for me to be like, “You cannot cancel this meeting that you have planned that will be an absolute benefit and help to these people that have asked for your field of expertise, you’ve committed to. You already have confirmed.” And all the work that went into that for that split second of your brain saying, “Oh, yeah, of course I want to go and sit across from my man and eat a salad.” That is not what I’m allowed to do. And so, she says, her one word, “Amy.” And I know, okay, I’m being crazy.

So, then I stick to the plan. And that plan is typically set out for me to succeed in my overall goals, my overall objective, to be financially abundant in my selected field of work while not compromising time with my family and quality of life. I live by that overall objective. I do not detour from it. And I love it and it works for me very, very well. So, when you hire your professionals, that means my assistant, she is a skilled performer in the realm of managing my life. She has managed hundreds of people simultaneously, and now she gets to focus on one person and it’s me.

And I probably feel like hundreds of people to her at certain times. So, God bless her, Kelly McCarthy, she is just fantastic. So, hiring those professionals, I hire coaches. If I do not know something or if I want to know something, I hire the professional. Also, my professionals and my pushers, again, that same top tier. When I go in and I’m building out this entourage, I’m looking for my champions, my cheerleaders. My champions and my cheerleaders are the people who are absolutely on my team.

They’re the people who are in my corner, who have my back, who cheer me on when they know I need it, who are there, if I could give them a call at any point, have a bad day. The champions and cheerleaders in my life, I call those people, friends. Those people are my true friends. And I really, truly only have a handful of true, true friends that I refer to, in truth, probably two handfuls because I’ve traveled so much and have lived in a lot of different places.

But my true, true friends, where I can absolutely call them and they will be there, they will be my champion, they will be my cheerleader. They will be my sounding board, they will be that space or place to vent. They are beautiful people in my life that show up for me all the time. That is my dearest best friends, Kelly, Cynthia, Sally. I have friends who have been in my life since I was 18. Then I have my Vegas friends, Colby and Ashley. And I have a group of my arts friends, Marcy and Whitney and Andrea.

And so many different people in that handful of friends corners, that those are your champions, those are your cheerleaders. Those are the people that support the work that you do and support the work that you’re trying to do as an overall end too. And I think about that and there are so many people and so many different tiers that are true champions. My friends, Lauren Shibden, Lauren Skidmore. I have so many Laurens actually in there. And it is so important to know that those people, you can call in, call up at any time, they are your cheerleaders and champions.

Now, let’s look at this. Your rivals, there are those people in the game that are out there playing this game of life and they’re this kind of constant, again back of the brain kind of, they’re the person that maybe even healthy competition wise pushes you. And you want that, you want those people who drive you to be better, who push you in areas. That I love seeing what they do and kind of keeping my eye on the rival in the corner of my eye allows me to say, “That’s an interesting way to do that.” And whether I like it or I don’t, it gives me more information on how to strategize my own game, my own success.

Now, when I think again of that aspect, I don’t think of it in a negative sense. I don’t intentionally have anybody in my brain that actually stands out as somebody, I can’t wait to beat this person or I’m focused on being better than them at this. I always look at success as being the best revenge in anything. And so, it’s one of those, I don’t hang onto too much of that energy at any point in my life. I’m always just very focused on the success of what’s next for me and what’s next in my game.

But absolutely being aware of what’s around me and who’s pushing that way and who’s pushing this way. But I am absolutely more focused on collaboration for creation than anything else. But the rival in the game has that kind of secret kind of corner where they’re doing their thing, also simultaneously watching you and seeing kind of back and forth what’s going on there. And I don’t choose to make them, but it’s absolutely apparent that there is somebody sometimes that when you get that competitive nature inside of you, it does propel you to show up differently. So, there is that connotation there.

Now I want to talk about the connectors. The connectors in your life are probably a good part of your entourage. And that could be you building that around people who allow you to connect with the community on a greater basis. One of my connectors, when I think about it, is, I have a dear friend who I am able to call and they literally know everyone. And if I want to talk to somebody or get somebody’s phone number, then they’re able to do that and they’re willing to connect me at all times and pretty much to anyone and that’s super fun.

And having that ability, you obviously have to get to a place where you can have that call, you can have that phone number, you can have that person in your corner. And once you do, sometimes it just takes a call from that person to say, “Hey, I have a friend, her name’s Amy. She wants to see this done, are you able to help her out?” Most of the time, the standing that they’re in and the way that they’ve paved their own life, they’ve set a really solid foundation and they’re able to connect to pretty much anyone. And I have a few different people in my corner like that, really, really cool.

One of my favorite connectors is Louanne Madorma. I’ve mentioned her a ton on here. And she’s actually in my handful of deep friends, too. She’s also an amazing and brilliant mentor. So, there’s a lot of people who can be a number of different things. She’s a pusher. She is absolutely a professional that I would hire and many people, very, very many people hire her to do really big work in the field that she does as well.

Your mentors, your mentors are where it’s at. When you look at what’s been done, what can be done, what’s possible, and the mindset that it takes to achieve the things that you think are currently situationally hard. Your mentors will be that advice and that example for what is possible. And your mentors are also a great guide and barometer for what’s next. Whereas they’ve paved the way in so many brilliant, beautiful ways and what are they creating or showing you or perpetuating that you could absolutely learn from and even continue to improve upon. That is how I look at my mentors.

My mentors are that excellence, that resilience, that brilliance, that amazing, just connected gift to all the things, all the people, all of the requirements that you see in yourself, of finding what is true success you can see in your mentors. Now, I have some brilliant mentors I’ve learned from in my industry. And Mayor Karengo, she’s probably one of my all-time favorite top mentors on how to show up unconditionally loving your city, loving your people, loving giving back, loving that true, selfless way of living. She is the ultimate example of that. I see her work tirelessly day in and day out. It’s incredible.

When I think about my industry mentorship, I look at Louanne Madorma. I look at people like Arlene Phillips. I look to people industry wise, just people who have led the way in politics in ways that you don’t really know sometimes what to expect from them. But they are just secretly paving the way in quiet strength and brilliance and excellence and it’s just in how they continue to show up. It’s one of the things that I actually wish a lot of us would focus on even a little more.

Sometimes we get our voice and we think, I want to be heard and scream from the rooftops what needs to be done, how it needs to be done. And there is this true blessing associated with that quiet power and that natural presence that you bring and you show up with and you just focus on achieving. You just focus on solving the problems. And you’re more solution focused than you are problem focused. And I think sometimes, if we were able to do that as a society and we were able to do that as a team of people where we focus more on solutions of what works as opposed to the problem and what doesn’t. I think we’d be in a very different position in all of our lives.

Now, all in all, when I say you need your professionals, your pushers, that’s one and the same. When I say, choose a partner that’s a pusher, you have to have thick skin to have a partner that’s a pusher. Both Teddy and I show up in each other’s realms where we push one another to be better individuals. We push one another to expand our concepts and our mind and what we have been ascribed to in our life. And what we wish to focus on our achievements and how we wish to focus on our achievements and how we like to influence and inspire others. That focus will absolutely be a necessary component any time you are building a strong entourage.

Champions and cheerleaders, remember that’s your handful, your core of diehard friends. And those friends, and that thick and thin through the end, you can have tough times with friends. You can have times, I remember when I was on Idol and my friend Kelly, who’s been my best friend since I was 18 kind of gave me the whole line, you’ve changed type thing. And some people will say that and it’s definitely a very helpful way of looking at things where if someone you love says that to you, what does that mean?

And because I love him so much, I thought, you know what? I’m going to consider what does that mean. And for him that meant that my focus was off. There was a bit of too much center focus on just me achieving in my life and my goals and the lack of balance of the personal life and the people that loved me and different things like that ended up kind of being skewed and I didn’t want that. And I even asked him, even when I started the journey, “Hey, if that ever happens, can you please help me out and remind me of that?” And he did and he was true to his word.

And it’s really cool just being friends all these years later because I am not 18 anymore, yeah, girl just turned to 45. So that is the summary of the people that I feel are necessary to build professionals and I call them your pushers, champions and cheerleaders, your mentors. They’re the people that are in front of you and have successfully done the thing. The connectors are the community focused people that are driven to propel you to what’s next. And those rivals are that relevant focus on what’s happening out there, what’s next, how do you grow, how do you raise your game.

Most importantly, focus on being your true, confident self, showing up in the best way that you know how, in the way that is truest to you. And having that team of people that hold you accountable, I promise you, makes you successful. When we are each other’s sounding boards in that entourage for betterment, we succeed. I want you to hang on to this thought. When you are each other’s echo chamber for negativity, that’s when you lose. You lose momentum. You lose focus. You lose structure. You lose success. You lose connection. Don’t ever allow yourself to be an echo chamber for what’s negative, for what’s wrong.

Be a sounding board for what’s relevant, what’s next, what’s real, what’s tangible success. Stay focused on that and I promise you, you will be set up for a life of success. My beautiful performers, it is all about showing up confidently in order to be seen and be remembered. In the meantime, take care and be well.

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Thank you for listening to today’s episode of The Confident Performer. If you want to learn more about living your truth and showing up as your most authentic, beautiful self, visit www.amyadamscoaching.com. See you next week!

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