Real Friends Hurt Your Feelings

3 Comments

friendsIn the context of starting a business you’ll find a lot of people who are excited for you…on the outside.  It’s not real, genuine excitement though.  You know the kind; “Oh, that’s great Bob. You’ll do well.”  And then it’s on to the next topic.

I surround myself with people who are genuinely excited about my ideas though.  My wife usually sits at the top of that list.  She’s often my biggest cheerleader.

I also look for people who are willing to hurt my feelings, but who do it in a loving way.  I have friends that are more than happy to say, “Justin, man, that idea stinks.”  And I’m grateful for it.

I tell people who want to hire me that I’ll be like a best friend to them.  I promise to care enough to hurt their feelings.  That’s what real friendship is about.

It will help you in business and in your marriage and other relationships.  We’re just not meant to do life alone.  That’s why I’ve been a long time member of the Free Agent Academy and am now a paid professor.

But you don’t have to join a group or pay someone.  You just need to find one real relationship.

What’s that relationship look like for you?

(Photo by AndreaKw)

Posted on June 18, 2010

  • http://www.freeagentunderground.com Kevin Miller

    beautiful commentary and truth Justin. Hey, thanks for being that kind of friend…do me.

  • http://twitter.com/Scott_Priestley Scott Priestley

    “You just need to find one real relationship. What’s that relationship look like for you?”

    - That relationship is with a person who has started where I'm starting and has prevailed to have the success I want to have. Not someone who's just a step ahead. I've heard Dan Miller say “If you know just one more thing than they do, that makes you the expert” (48 Days podcast 6/16/10). Not to me it doesnt. I want to engage with someone who is not just a step ahead of me, but someone who has traveled the road many times and knows the lay of the land not just one step ahead, but several miles ahead too. When a baseball player looks for a batting coach he doesnt look to the guy on the team who's batting average is just slightly better than his, he looks for a guy who has years of experience and a proven track record of making huge gains in the performance of other players.

    With that said, I think there is a significant difference between a mentoring relationship (which I am referring to above) and a coaching relationship. To be successful with a coach, I dont need them to have launched a highly successful software company (my field), but if they are coaching me on my ADD tendencies I need them to have mastery of their own ADD tendencies. If they are coaching me on Social Media, I want to know that they have had tremendous success with their Social Media strategy, not just “better than average”, if they're coaching me on developing a book idea I want to know that they are a NY Times Best Selling Author – not just someone who read about it, attended a seminar and is trying as hard as I am – - that's what peer groups like 48Days.net, FAAtrial.com, Inside919 are best at. When it comes to advice about my software business I go to guys who started out coding in their basement and have built that into a successful 8-figure consulting practice.

    So I guess I am saying that the “relationship” Justin mentioned in his article means many things to me:
    1. Niche coach who has mastery and proven success in that specific area
    2. Business Mentor
    3. Peer relationships

    Anyone else have similar or opposing thoughts?

  • http://coachradio.tv/ Justin Lukasavige

    I agree Scott. I don't discount those people who are one step ahead of me though. They were just there yesterday and their experience is fresh in their minds. I'm getting together with a small group of people from around the country to brainstorm next month. We were very careful to pull people together that were at ALL levels of business development. I think a clean mix is important.

    I like your list. It goes right along with what you're saying. Every relationship is important. I even learn from those below me, which is why I continue to hang around them. Some of them have become my best friends and are performing at a higher level than I am. Now I'm learning more from them than they are from me.