The Power of Friendship

Embracing the relationships that unlock your destiny.

Friendship is a word that holds great significance to me. If you are familiar with my work, then you know that friendship has always been a challenge for me. I have encountered treacherous, vindictive and toxic people throughout my life. As a result of this, I found it very hard to make friends and even more difficult to trust people. I found myself very guarded and isolated. Then I made a powerful discovery that changed my life forever. I discovered that relationships are simply a reflection of the value we believe our lives hold. Therefore, when we tolerate toxic, condescending and unhealthy relationships it reveals the lack of value that we have for ourselves. That awareness altered the trajectory of my life and redefined the standards of my relationships. Ultimately, you always want to associate higher. Relationships that are not taking your life higher are not healthy for you. I am thankful to now be at a place in my life where I have healthy relationships. Now I want to share some of the qualities I look for in friends.

1. Authenticity must be the foundation of all your friendships. Any relationship entered into under false pretenses will fail. Your life cannot be supported by superficiality. If superficiality is what connected you, then I can guarantee you that superficiality will ultimately be the thing that causes the collapse of the relationship. In my early years, my desire to be accepted caused me to settle for artificial relationships in my life. Essentially, I knew that these individuals did not really like me or care about me at all. However, my fear of rejection and being alone caused me to tolerate these individuals in my life. These relationships were totally false and they brought no fulfillment to my life. You cannot build relationships on lies and expect them to have longevity. Make sure that you are not building your relationships on artificiality. It is not okay to surround yourself with people that do not like you and do not have your best interest at heart. Never allow rejection to birth desperation in your life. Desperation will always produce destructive and dysfunctional relationships.
2. Loyalty is a key to successful friendships. As I stated earlier, I have experienced so much betrayal in my life that it made me almost paranoid. When you have been hurt so many times you start to become suspicious of everyone. You start to question the sincerity and motives of every person that enters your life. Unfortunately, you start pushing people away because you are too afraid of the pain that will come with getting too close. Loyalty is very important to me. Loyalty means that you are trustworthy and reliable. If you do not have trust then you ultimately do not have relationship at all. You want to surround yourself with people that are dependable. In other words, you need people that you can share things with and not have to worry about that information getting into the wrong hands. You need people you can confide in and know that your heart is safe. I know what it is like to be around people that you are constantly guarded and closed with. That is a miserable feeling and those are not the types of relationships you want in your life. Friends are people that you can open up to and be and be vulnerable with. More importantly, true friends will never humiliate or shame you for being vulnerable. You can bare your soul with true friends.
3. Unconditional love must be a pillar of your friendships. When I started my freshmen year of college years ago, I had already made a decision that I was simply there to learn and gain as much as I could from the experience. I was tired of superficiality, tired of being hurt, tired of disloyal people in my life and I did not go to college looking for friends. However, I quickly made a new friend in my International Business course. She then introduced me to a guy and we shook hands and talked a bit. He had changed his major and was now in the same program. We talked a while and I did not think much of it. However, I soon noticed that we had a lot of the same classes. We talked more and we ended up sitting together in a lot of courses. Then we grabbed lunch and hung out a lot on campus. I was just being nice but I had no idea that he would end up being one of my best friends. This was years ago and to this day we are still the best of friends. This person entered my life at a time when I was healing from so many deep seeded wounds. He reminded me of unconditional love. Unconditional love is love without conditions and without boundaries. This was very new to me because I had not had many friends like that in my life. You need people that will love you unconditionally. You need to surround yourself with people that are concerned about your wellbeing and your welfare. I know for a fact that my best friend would go to the ends of the earth for me and I would do the same for him. Best friends are the ones that love the parts of us that we hide from others.
4. You need friends that bring out the best in you. One of the things I love about right relationships is that they always elevate your life. If you assess your relationships and find that they are always pulling you down, then it might be time for you to change your inner circle. At this stage of my life, I am so thankful that I have people around me that genuinely love me, support me and believe in the greatness in me. More importantly, we all support and push each other to new realms of success. My best friend has been one of my biggest supporters and encouragers. At some of the lowest moments of my life, he has believed in me and pushed me to keep going. I cannot tell you how many times I thought about walking away from business or giving up on a project. However, each time he has been there with support, encouragement and straight talk to get me back on track. Also, I have also supported, encouraged and pushed him to accomplish new goals in his life. You need relationships around you that make you better. Relationships should enrich and expand our lives. My friends have helped me discover treasures within me that I never knew existed. The right partnerships will perceive your value and help pull greatness out of you.