Pulling Greatness From Your Friends
Virtually every Hollywood love story has the same moral: “So-and-so doesn’t matter without having someone to share it with.” Hollywood is right, but they only tell you half of the moral because they still want you to blow your next paycheck on “so-and-so.” The truth is, that “someone” doesn’t have to be your spouse or family pet. True love, as amazing as it may be, is nowhere near as valuable as true friendship.
So let’s revisit that moral, and this time, replace “someone” with awesome, inspiring, and successful friends. If you accomplish your most precious personal goal and have awesome, inspiring and successful friends to share it with, you are officially living a Hollywood love story. Don’t believe me? Ask anyone who has either achieved success or watched a Richard Linklater movie. Few things in life are more enjoyable and satisfying than doing awesome things in awesome places with awesome friends. It’s extremely difficult, however, to obtain the first two parts of that equation before the last. Friends with the aforementioned three qualities are essential if you have the world’s greatest pleasures in your horizon.
These qualities are broad and ambiguous but most people have similar definitions of the kind of friends they want to have. Among the first qualities that come to mind are supportive, happy, interesting, intelligent, sociable, and clever. But the more you think about it, you realize that there are a few, less obvious qualities that are actually very important to you. How about, say, respectable. Admirable. Someone who leads by example. Someone who goes after his or her dreams with vigor and passion.
Having friends of this nature is incomparably satisfying for two reasons. One, it gives you a positive image of yourself, since there may not be a more accurate way to assess your character than examining the people you surround yourself with. The second reason stems from the fact that these are people you care about. Their happiness is your happiness, and you want success to find them just as badly as you want it to find you. Embarking on the journey to success doesn’t seem as worthwhile if you don’t take your friends along with you. It would be lonely at the top without them, regardless of how many celebrities or sexual goddesses you meet.
You cannot achieve true success by simply working hard, making money, or gaining widespread acclaim. There’s one more thing you must do in order to prevent all of your hard work from going to waste. You’ve got to be a really, really, good friend. And, as we’ve just determined, being a good friend doesn’t just mean being fun to be around.
It’s up to you to turn the people you care about into people you respect and admire. You need to pull the greatness out of them, for the sake of their happiness and your own. No, you probably don’t know anything about the goal they have in mind or the industry they are in. But book smarts are far from the most essential characteristics of a great teacher, coach, or partner.
When you learn that a friend is pursuing a goal, you must push him or her to surpass expectation and devote as much time as possible to perfecting the skills required for this objective. Any sort of weakness within your friend’s mental process must be eliminated, so you must not only encourage your friend to be confident and work hard but also exude confidence in yourself as well as an extraordinary work ethic. These are, after all, the two most reliable ways to show someone that something that seems impossible is within reach. You’ve got to remind your friend that he or she is rich in toughness, pride, talent and dedication while exemplifying these qualities in everything you do, including the way you carry yourself.
Everyone experiences self-doubt but you’ve certainly helped your friends out of quite a few ditches throughout all the time you’ve known each other. The only difference between those times and the present is that you need to do more than make them laugh or show them a good time. It’s your job to lift your friends’ spirits by consistently preaching the incredible fortune that lies ahead and vowing to always have their backs when they think they’ve got nothing left. Self-doubt is, of course, just one of many obstacles in the journey to success, which can additionally cloud your judgment and foster incorrect decisions. Lucky for your friends, they have you to bring them back down to Earth and urge them to be optimistic but rational in their strategies of pursuit.
Another important trait of a good friend is resourcefulness. Anything you possess that could be of use to your friend’s journey must be made available to him or her. For example, if you know anyone who could be of service to your friend, even someone you haven’t spoken to in years, introduce this person to your friend. If you have a skill that could be applied to an element of your friend’s journey, gladly volunteer to lend a helping hand. Maybe the resource your friend needs most is a reputation. In this case, take it upon yourself to build your friend’s fan base with the same enthusiasm as someone who has just discovered the next Jimi Hendrix.
Watching your friends become successful will cause you to develop a new sense of respect and admiration for them. Their opinions will be of significantly greater value to you and you will feel prouder than ever to call them your friends. Their success will motivate you to set more ambitious goals for yourself because you’ll want to give your friends the same pride that their success has given you. It will be the approval of your friends, not your boss or an industry titan, that makes you feel worthy of praise.
But the best reward of pulling greatness out of your friends will likely come to you well before you’re all enjoying the best food and beverages in your dream destination. Think about how good it feels to see someone mimic one of your trademark principles. Now amplify that feeling by one thousand. The realization that you have changed someone for the better will, at least temporarily, make you forget all about whatever personal goal you’re chasing. Your friend’s hard work has paid off, and now you want nothing more but to see this person continue in this direction and fulfill any other void he or she might have.
Due to extenuating circumstances, you might not even be there when your friends are celebrating their success. But just knowing they are celebrating is enough. You have discovered the meaning of life and the utmost purpose of friendship: When your friends care more about each other’s success than their own, everybody wins.
Written by:
Benjamin Arabov
E: Benjamin@puredigitalco.com