Building Meaningful Friendships

I spoke about this from the perspective of being an introvert. Networking sounds like a professional activity to me—something you do to build your career or make a sale.

Today, I want to discuss building meaningful friendships. In today’s digital world, building meaningful relationships can seem daunting. Sometimes, it requires courage, intentionality, and even a strategic approach. The relationships you cultivate can significantly enhance your personal or professional life (I guess that sounds like networking). Having the right friendships can be the difference between finding the path to success versus the slippery slope of failures and defeat.

Two famous quotes come to mind when I think about meaningful relationships. The first quote is the following.

“If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room.”
Confucius

Translation: If you surround yourself with successful, smart, motivated people, you are probably going to push yourself to learn more, find more success, pull yourself up from the ground, and learn from your mistakes.

I believe that we should invest time in relationships that are helping us become better versions of ourselves. In the current social media environment, there is a tendency to focus on friends who support our social norms, which can create a comfort zone that can limit our personal growth.

It is extremely important to have friends that share out values, it can be equally important to surround ourselves with diverese perspectives and experiences. Friends who challenge us to think outside the box, challenge our beliefs, challenge our convert zones and push us to think critically can really help us in our development and growth.

You have to find the right balance. Too much comfort can limit our growth. At the same time, interacting with people that have values too divergent from our own can also create other distractions which can also limit our growth.

I think you really have to be pationate about self improvement. This will really help you cultivate the right relationships. This will also help attract like minded people who are also interested in enhacing their own lives. You really want to assemble a group of friends who are driving each other to become better versions of themselves.

We are all very busy so we really want to focus on our ideal connections. We have to be clear with the caliberof friends we want. I am not saying we should avoid people that are fun. Everything should be done in balance. Try not to go to extremes as that can also limit your personal growth. What I am saying is try to move beyound just defaullt or ordinary relationships and look to focus on those that move you towards or support you goals and aspirations. There is nothing wrong with doing this.

Tony Gaskins has an interesting quote about this that I agree with. “Evaulate the people in your life; then promote, demote or terminate. You’re the CEO of your life.” This is a great way to think about it. This is not a bad thing. There are only so many hours, days, weeks and years in our lives and while it is good to have a lot of fun, we should also be thinking about that value of our time and which friends and relationship bring us the most value.

My friend Ryan Hurst over at JuYuKai.com has a similar perspective.

Ryan talks about not getting sucked into things that are not important to you. Helping your friends is important. That is why we call them friends, but going back to this idea of promotion, demotion and termination, not all friends are created equally. Friendship should bring some form of mutual value or benefit to everyone. If the friendship is taking your focus away from what is important to you, maybe you need to re-evaluate that friendship.

Another quote I enjoy and that I think drives the point home is the following.

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
Jim Rohn

We are greating influenced by the people we surround ourselves with. If you want to be the best version of yourself, it is critical that you surround yourself with the best people possible.

Seek the optimal environments that you can place yourself in to meet desiable peers. If you are trying to get in shape, the gym is the best place to find like minded people who will help you drive towards success.

If you are looking to improve as a husband or father, nothing wrong with joining a strong church group or a group of fathers on the same path as you. Attending some kind of men’s confernce or business conference can we a smart move for you. Two I highly recommend would be Apogee Strong Dads and Order of Man. A third and even better option, in my humble opinions, it my own site, TheDayWarrior.com.

Healthy friendships require clear boundaries. Respect the boundaries of your friends and make sure you clearly communicate your own boundaries.

Regularly reflect on your friendships and your role within them. Do not forget Ryan’s wise words above and do not get sucked into friendships and matters that force you to lose focus on what is important to you.

Are your friends helping you to aspire to become a better version of yourself?

Are your friends helping you to self-evaluate and improve, dring you torwards success?

If they are use these reflections to grow and strengthen your relationships.

Building meaningful relationships is a worthwhile and rewarding journey. Remember, it is the journey that is the most important. The journey is where you build the shared experiences, trust and growth over time. It is this journey together where friends learn to support each other, navigate lifes changes together and celebrate sucesses together.

I will close with another famous quote about friendships.