As you chart your journey, there are only two plans in this world that you need to acknowledge – God’s plan and your plan. When you align the two, then you will find what is known as your true purpose in life. The biggest personal tragedy in life is when a person starts looking outside both their personal plan and God’s plan and starts looking at the plans of another mortal human.

One of the things that I spotted and recognized early on was the sheer amount of low-quality people we have allowed into our lives. If you grew up in the hood, this is your biggest challenge – remove yourself from low-quality people and low-quality spaces and keep your head on a swivel and plot an escape plan.  The biggest failure I have seen over and over was folks in the hood associating with low-quality people and low-quality spaces and it literally destroyed their lives and happiness.

Think about the sistas chasing low-quality dudes and these dudes chasing low-quality sistas and how it turned out for them. Think about the young brothas and young sistas who hang out in the wrong crowd and they end up a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as they say. Whenever I come across someone I know from the hood and they still struggling and I see them looking mad at me rising above the hood we both came from, I quietly smile at them knowing their history and who they choose to hang out with growing up – that’s why I’m where I’m at and that’s why they there where they at.

This goes beyond the hood and school – when I was doing international travel, I figured this out. I heard a professional on YouTube discussing how to make moves around the world and he talked about low-quality ex-pats in Asia that are mostly Westerner loners and losers from places like Canada and UK chasing Asian women from the Philippines to Thailand and the weebs in Japan and Korea. That made sense to me and it is what I also experienced as well. I run into ex-pats in Japan who were US military, JET teachers or ran some small-bit operation but I did not meet true entrepreneurial-grade folks that I would like to have as colleagues. These folks went around talking about Japan doing this, Japan is cool, Japan is weird, and stuff like that. That’s not high-quality folks and the YouTube professional was right.

However, in Dubai, you going to have high-quality true entrepreneurial-grade people hustling and making things happen. You going to be around fast-paced, got an idea, and running with it folks who will reflect your ambitions as well that you meet at the gym club and meeting at the clubs on the weekend through introductions. But even in Dubai, you have to separate the wheat from the chaff because it’s a lot of scammers in Dubai as well as fakers who won’t last long, you have to know the real quality over there.

But the biggest space is how you operate in cyberspace. I’m going to tell you right now – there is nothing that discredits you quicker than telling someone candidly you follow a charlatan on YouTube or Instagram or TikTok. You should never have anybody else name in your mouth except a direct family member or a personal friend that you support. You coming to me talking about someone on YouTube you following immediately tell me you're just a loser sitting at a computer screen watching instead of actually out here handling things in the real world.

The best thing is to stop and re-evaluate who you are choosing to associate with. Look at the places you visit – I realize I was going to hood grocery stores because I was chasing WIC chicks because I’m from the hood. I learned that I need to be in more upscale grocery stores to meet the kind of quality chicks that are at my level of the game. I was going to a lot of hood spots where again because I’m from the hood and think they will relate and appreciate a brotha that handles his. Nah, they trying to set a brotha up to tear him down – I realize I need to frequent social spots that have my caliber of women that I’m currently at. Think about all of the places you frequent and write it down where you going to stop visiting and what new places you going to start visiting.

FACT: It was here on Dream and Hustle over 10 years ago that Black women were complaining about where all the good men at. I told them on this blog all the real men are at the international wing of the airport – no broke brothas or joke brothas take international flights and we about our business. Next thing you know, sistas want to travel internationally hanging out at the international terminal looking for brothas  – yeah, I started all of that.

Look at the people you are around and I want you to remember one thing in life – the most important thing. The best thing is you can always meet a new awesome sexy cutie or someone who handling theirs better than the last person you were dealing with. Don’t fret around the same clowns that you grew up with unless they are growing alongside you. I personally know you have not met the best person for you in this world yet and that person is still out there. I realized a lot of Black dudes who I grew up with or went to school with are simply low-quality; they have not grown like me and were in my life talking about how someone else is rich while ignoring my success, like I said, jealous low-quality folks. I cut off 99.7% of Black men from my life; the only brothas around me now are solid individuals.

Learn to discern between high-quality and low-quality spaces and people. Look at those who snuck themselves into your life and start trying to downplay you and withhold praise with their presence – trust me, you going to laugh and be shocked at the number of folks who showed up in your life you didn’t realize. Look at the community you live in and the places you frequent and analyze if low-quality or high-quality.

You deserve a high-quality of life and you also deserve to be around high-quality people, make this your plan.