Broke People Will Keep You Poor

Most financial advice is generic. From saving money to skipping your latte, neither of them takes a look at what shapes a person. My biggest regret? Was spending too much time with the wrong people. And when I say wrong people? I mean broke people. Y

Not because broke people are bad. But because broke is a mindset that spreads like a virus, and if you’re trying to build something different with your money and your life, you cannot be breathing the same air as people whose default setting is scarcity, defeat, and limitation.

The People You Spend Time With Shape Your Default

Love and spending significant time with someone are not the same thing. You probably have people you care about who are broke. I do too. But if you’re serious about changing your financial situation, you need to get real about that distinction.

The conventional wisdom says you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Your five people are the ones you call when you’re stressed, the ones you grab lunch with on Saturdays, the ones in your group chat at midnight, the ones whose opinions matter when you’re making decisions.

Are these people building wealth? Are they thinking expansively about their futures? Are they making moves, taking risks, strategizing? Or are they complaining about their jobs, talking about how rigged the system is, passing around the same limiting stories about why they can’t do things?

I grew up around scarcity. I knew people who had money, but my core circle, my people, the folks who shaped how I thought about the world — they were mostly people living paycheck to paycheck, dealing with debt, stressed about rent. And you know what? I internalized that. I thought that was normal. I thought that was just what happened to people who looked like me, who came from where I came from. I had no reference point for anything different. No one around me was building generational wealth. No one was making strategic investments. No one was thinking five, ten, twenty years ahead. Everyone was reacting to the present moment and trying to survive it.

And for years, even after I started making more money, even after I had opportunity, I stayed in that same mindset because I was still spending most of my time with people in that same mindset. You absorb the patterns. You absorb the beliefs. You absorb the energy. It’s unconscious. Nobody has to teach you to be broke when everyone around you accepts broke as inevitable.

The real work isn’t just about cutting people off. It’s about consciously choosing who gets access to your time and your energy, especially the concentrated time where real influence happens. It’s about understanding that relationships are transactions of energy and belief, and you need to be very intentional about what you’re trading your most valuable resource for.

What Actually Is Broke

Let me be specific about what I mean by broke people. I’m not just talking about income level. I’m talking about people whose operating system is fundamentally limited. These are people who:

Talk about what they can’t do more than what they can. Spend more time explaining why something won’t work than exploring how it might. Have the same problems they had five years ago because they’ve never actually tried to solve them. Give advice about money they don’t have. Make decisions based on fear rather than strategy. Celebrate other people staying small because it makes them feel less alone in their smallness. See someone else winning and immediately find a reason why it doesn’t count or why they could never do it anyway.

That’s the energy I’m talking about. That’s the broke mindset. And it doesn’t matter if the person makes fifty thousand a year or a hundred fifty thousand a year. It’s a pattern of thinking, and it’s contagious.

When you’re trying to build something — whether that’s actual wealth or just a life that feels less trapped — you cannot be constantly around people reinforcing the idea that building isn’t possible. Their doubt becomes your self-doubt. Their limitations become your ceiling. Their reasons for staying become your reasons for staying.

I know someone who wanted to start a business. She had the idea, she had some savings, she had the skill set. But every time she brought it up to her core friend group, they’d hit her with reality checks. What if it fails? Who do you think you are? That’s too risky. You’ve got a good job. Don’t be stupid. And she’s smart, she’s educated, she’s capable. But after months of that, the weight of it just crushed the dream. Not because the dream was bad, but because she was marinating in a circle of people for whom dreaming bigger than your job was irresponsible.

That’s what I mean. That’s the damage.

How to Actually Change Your Circle

So what do you do? You don’t have to do some dramatic friend breakup scene. You don’t have to announce that you’re too good for people now. You’re not. You’re just trying to align your life with different values and a different vision, and that sometimes means spending less time with people who don’t share that vision.

Here’s what actually works:

You expand your circle. You don’t shrink it by cutting people off; you grow it by investing time in people who are moving in the direction you want to move. You join communities — whether that’s online or in-person — where the baseline assumption is growth. You find people who are already doing what you’re trying to do, and you get into their orbit. You ask them questions. You watch how they move. You let their expanded thinking expand yours.

I started going to yoga classes not just for the physical practice, but because yoga communities are built on expansion and possibility. I started showing up in professional spaces where people were thinking about their businesses and their futures. I started being online in communities where people were talking about wealth generation and strategy instead of complaining about their debt. Slowly, imperceptibly, my reference points changed. My normal changed. What seemed possible changed.

And yes, I spent less time with some people in the process. Not because I announced it or made it a thing, but because their rhythms and my rhythms didn’t sync anymore. I wasn’t available for every hangout. I wasn’t as present in group chats. My energy was going elsewhere, and eventually, those relationships naturally shifted. Some of them survived that shift, transformed into something different. Some didn’t. Both are okay.

The Neuroscience of Your Environment

Here’s what people don’t want to hear but need to hear: There is a real consequence to choosing broke community. You will internalize broke thinking. You will make broke decisions. You will stay broke. Not because poor people are undeserving or because there’s something wrong with them, but because proximity to a mindset makes that mindset your default. Our brains are designed to adopt the patterns of the people around us. That’s not morality; that’s neuroscience.

If your five people are all convinced that the system is rigged and that you can’t win, then you’ll start to believe that too. Not because they convinced you with logic, but because every day you’re hearing it, and every day you’re watching them act like it’s true. You’re not thinking your way out of that. You’re absorbing your way into it.

On the other hand, when you’re around people who are building, who are taking risks, who are learning, who are failing and getting back up — that becomes your normal too. You start to see possibilities. You start to take different actions. You start to make different choices. Not because anyone lectures you about it, but because you’re literally breathing in a different energy.

This is the financial advice that hits hardest because it’s not about a budget or a spreadsheet or a side hustle. It’s about the invisible force field you’re living inside. It’s about whether you’re being shaped by people moving forward or people stuck in place.

If you want to elevate, you have to spend significant time with people who are elevating. You have to be willing to feel a little uncomfortable, a little out of place, until you’re not. You have to prioritize access to the mindset you want to adopt. You have to protect your energy from the weight of other people’s limitations.

And you have to do it without shame about it. You’re not rejecting broke people. You’re rejecting broke thinking. You’re rejecting the idea that you have to accept small as your destiny. You’re making a choice about where your most precious resource — your time and attention — gets to go.

What Separation Actually Looks Like

The people who break out of cycles don’t do it surrounded by people cycling in place. They do it because they made space for different influences. They became obsessed with proximity to people moving in the direction they wanted to go.

Figure out where those people are. Find your way there. Spend time. Listen. Learn. Let yourself be shaped by different beliefs.

Your net worth is not just your bank account. Your net worth is the total value of who and what influences you every single day. And if you’re spending that time with people whose mindset ensures you’ll stay broke, then you’ve already decided your financial future.

Choose differently. Your future self will thank you.