Graduating from high school is a harsh reality. For those 13 years (including kindergarten), your brain is trained to believe that you will always have over 30 close friends. Summer breaks tend to cool that assumption but once fall shows its face, you go back to your friend culture.
When I was in high school I had a few really close friends and a ton of good friends. Once I graduated, I felt shell shocked. If you attended a local college, you were fortunate enough to continue that friendship further. However, if you moved away from home for college you came to the hard reality that you had to start over. Sure...you would have your best friend still to talk to on the phone or by email. But one thing you noted is that having to start over making friends is tough work.
If you were involved in a local church or were in a small group, that would help dull the pain of growing older. These were friendships that were comfortable, but ones where you would not hang out outside of that group.
Then you get older and get married....so you have your married friends. You say bye bye to your hopelessly single friends (jk), and now only hang out with married couples. Now your friendship circle gets cut more than in half. What's next? Kids. Kids which are the greatest joy in life. With this joy comes great sacrifice. Now you tend to hang out only with married couples that have kids. So in the last 5 to 10 years the price of your friendship stock went down 80-95%.
Now you coach your child's tee ball team. So instead of spending time with what's left of your friends, you are hanging out with loud, energetic, ADD riddled 3 and 4 year olds. What's more...work is so stressful that you rarely have time to work on any type of friendship with your co-workers. You get stuck in a cycle of diminishing friendships.
I hope you get the picture by now.
The point is friendships are tough as we get older. As a man, your primary focus is on your wife, kids, and work. Most of us have little energy to pursue something that we feel is a lost cause. The truth is it has been years since we knew how to establish friendships so now it is out of our comfort zone. We have actually lost sight of the value of great friendships.
True friendships take sacrifice, vulnerability, accountability, grace and a lot of time. In time I mean, time spent together. Over the past two years I have been extremely fortunate to increase my friend stock 400%.
Six months ago those friends and I were talking about our fathers. We asked the question, "How many friends do our fathers have, and what type of friendships are those?" It was sad to hear the responses. Most of our fathers (most of which are great men), typically had at most one friend. Sure...these men knew hundreds if not thousands of people. People that they could carry small talk with or talk about their latest promotion or purchase. But most of our fathers have very little accountability and encouragement from other men.
I can't help but think, if our dads are great men what would happen if they were to have 10-15 great, close, meaningful friendships? What kind of people and leaders would they be then?
The truth is the older we get the more we find our identity in ourselves. That is a dangerous thing because we lie to ourselves all the time. The benefit of having those close friendships is that we have others to tell us what they see in us, both good and bad. We have brothers speaking love to us when we are treating our kids well and when we are being emotionally abusive to our wives. We have a sounding board to go to when we can't figure our kids out or when we feel hopeless in our careers.
In my business I use the example of a stool and how many legs it has. This has to do with diversifying your risks. I think in life though, we are much more than a stool, we are more like a pier. A pier is something that gets beaten and battered by the ocean. But after the storm, it gets to enjoy the beautiful sunsets. A pier is also like the journey of life being long as opposed to the stool. Lastly, the more support you have under that pier, the stronger it will be and the longer it will survive.
The more friends we have being a support in our lives the stronger we will be as men. We can't do life alone. We cannot go to church and fake it. We cannot beat all the pressure that this life throws at us and expect to be successful. I will be happy towards the end of my life to admit that I became a great man, a great father and husband because of the friends I let support me.
How are you letting people invest in you and how are you investing in others? Take an inventory of the true, honest friendships you have. Today might be your first step in building a legacy of great men investing in your life.
When I was in high school I had a few really close friends and a ton of good friends. Once I graduated, I felt shell shocked. If you attended a local college, you were fortunate enough to continue that friendship further. However, if you moved away from home for college you came to the hard reality that you had to start over. Sure...you would have your best friend still to talk to on the phone or by email. But one thing you noted is that having to start over making friends is tough work.
If you were involved in a local church or were in a small group, that would help dull the pain of growing older. These were friendships that were comfortable, but ones where you would not hang out outside of that group.
Then you get older and get married....so you have your married friends. You say bye bye to your hopelessly single friends (jk), and now only hang out with married couples. Now your friendship circle gets cut more than in half. What's next? Kids. Kids which are the greatest joy in life. With this joy comes great sacrifice. Now you tend to hang out only with married couples that have kids. So in the last 5 to 10 years the price of your friendship stock went down 80-95%.
Now you coach your child's tee ball team. So instead of spending time with what's left of your friends, you are hanging out with loud, energetic, ADD riddled 3 and 4 year olds. What's more...work is so stressful that you rarely have time to work on any type of friendship with your co-workers. You get stuck in a cycle of diminishing friendships.
I hope you get the picture by now.
The point is friendships are tough as we get older. As a man, your primary focus is on your wife, kids, and work. Most of us have little energy to pursue something that we feel is a lost cause. The truth is it has been years since we knew how to establish friendships so now it is out of our comfort zone. We have actually lost sight of the value of great friendships.
True friendships take sacrifice, vulnerability, accountability, grace and a lot of time. In time I mean, time spent together. Over the past two years I have been extremely fortunate to increase my friend stock 400%.
Six months ago those friends and I were talking about our fathers. We asked the question, "How many friends do our fathers have, and what type of friendships are those?" It was sad to hear the responses. Most of our fathers (most of which are great men), typically had at most one friend. Sure...these men knew hundreds if not thousands of people. People that they could carry small talk with or talk about their latest promotion or purchase. But most of our fathers have very little accountability and encouragement from other men.
I can't help but think, if our dads are great men what would happen if they were to have 10-15 great, close, meaningful friendships? What kind of people and leaders would they be then?
The truth is the older we get the more we find our identity in ourselves. That is a dangerous thing because we lie to ourselves all the time. The benefit of having those close friendships is that we have others to tell us what they see in us, both good and bad. We have brothers speaking love to us when we are treating our kids well and when we are being emotionally abusive to our wives. We have a sounding board to go to when we can't figure our kids out or when we feel hopeless in our careers.
In my business I use the example of a stool and how many legs it has. This has to do with diversifying your risks. I think in life though, we are much more than a stool, we are more like a pier. A pier is something that gets beaten and battered by the ocean. But after the storm, it gets to enjoy the beautiful sunsets. A pier is also like the journey of life being long as opposed to the stool. Lastly, the more support you have under that pier, the stronger it will be and the longer it will survive.
The more friends we have being a support in our lives the stronger we will be as men. We can't do life alone. We cannot go to church and fake it. We cannot beat all the pressure that this life throws at us and expect to be successful. I will be happy towards the end of my life to admit that I became a great man, a great father and husband because of the friends I let support me.
How are you letting people invest in you and how are you investing in others? Take an inventory of the true, honest friendships you have. Today might be your first step in building a legacy of great men investing in your life.
Peter,
ReplyDeleteWhen God wants to get my attention, he definitely knows who to use. Thank you peter for your blogs. Being a single father of two boys, my friendship stock is down to about 99.5%. I feel like im a pogo stick most of the time. I know i need to get involved more at church, but its hard when i have to lug both boys around all the time. Just keep me in prayer. Thank you
Matt