I remember the day I realised life wasn’t quite what I expected. I had built a business slowly, scraping through years of long nights, raising kids, and juggling fears of failure. Then, over eight years, things changed fast. I earned over $26 million, transformed my family’s future, and stopped worrying about rent or what-if’s. But what I didn’t anticipate was the strain on relationships, the shrink of my friend circle, and the time it took to figure out who I could really trust.
I started from a place few imagine. I was debt-heavy, working as an assistant, wondering how I’d make childcare and rent work. I took a gamble on my own business first weddings, then coaching and watched it grow. When money came, it felt like relief. But gradually, something else settled in: a quiet isolation, as though my life was accelerating and the people around me weren’t always invited.
As my revenue grew and my lifestyle changed new house, more travel, more freedom so did the subtle shift in the people I called my friends. Not dramatic arguments or falling outs: more like distance, fewer invitations, less spontaneous moments. I found myself jerking back when a friend said, “Let’s do something nice,” because nice meant something different now and I knew I wasn’t the same person who could just “go with the flow” like I used to.
One of the hardest bits was realising that some people weren’t friends anymore because I changed I mean me, the one with money changed just because circumstances did. But some of them were gone because they changed me in their minds. They started wondering what I did, where the money came from, whether I’d stuck around when they weren’t making much. I felt the shift when loan requests began, or when casual conversations included pointed comments like, “It must be nice for you,” or “I guess that’s how things are when you’re doing well.”
That’s when I got surer than ever that success doesn’t just bring opportunities it brings liability. Wealth can draw people closer, but more often it raises questions. Are they here for me or for my success? Are we friends because of shared history, or because they see benefit? I found myself measuring friendships in silence, in invitations I accepted or declined, in how many years I really knew someone before I trusted them. I learned to recognise the difference between “we’re friends because we were together when nothing mattered” and “we’re associates because something matters.”
Today I have around 20 people I would call friends and by friends I mean people who knew me before I made money, who didn’t ask for handouts, who never flinched when I said “no” to a favour. They aren’t many, fewer than I expected, but they’re strong. Some work with me, some don’t. What matters is they stayed when I was small, didn’t leave when I got big, and don’t treat me differently if I had less tomorrow.
It took time years in fact to rebuild my inner circle. I became more guarded when meeting people. I still go to networking dinners, I still meet new folks, but now I’m quieter. I watch. I listen. I pay attention to how someone treats others when money isn’t involved. I ask: do they respect me when I decline dinner at an expensive spot? Do they check in when I’m busy, or only when I’m successful? Do they care if I fail, or do they vanish?
Some might say this isolation is the cost of success. Maybe it is. But I choose to frame it differently: I lost some friends not because I changed, but because the relationship changed. And that’s okay. I didn’t lose me. I just stopped pretending that everyone who smiled at me was with me in heart and purpose.
If you’re reading this and you’re on a growth path financial or otherwise know this: the hardest part isn’t the climb. It’s finding people who climb with you. It’s realising that when your world expands, someone else’s world might not. And that’s neither their fault nor yours it’s just the truth.
Value your real friends. Cherish the ones who invite you over not because your house is nicer than theirs, but because you’re just you in that moment together. It's easy to lose sight of that when money is loud.
Because the truth is, money can give you comfort, freedom, things. But it can’t buy the kind of trust that picks up the phone when everything is silent. And the company of people who did see you when you had nothing? That’s worth far more than any paycheck.
