Friendship Is My Best Friend at Work

Who is your best friend at work? Not sure?

On a daily basis, who are you in honest relationship with at work?

Who do you lean on?

Who are you vulnerable with?

As an entrepreneur, friendship is my best friend.?

Friendship supports me. It helps me see around corners. It gives me sage advice, and context and loves me where I’m at.

In the moments when I felt like quitting, the most powerful thing I could do IS NOT to open another spreadsheet, crunch a number or go on a selling binge.?

It’s to call a friend, get real with them and ask for help.

Those friends have never failed to hear me, see me, lift me up, and guide me back to my own wisdom.?

At a recent conference, someone I deeply admire, (the amazing Priscilla McKinney, author of “Collaboration is the New Competition”) shared a story about mutuality that has stuck with me.?

She was meeting with a friend who was reflecting on their years of friendship and how good their friendship was. Instead of responding with a pat answer, Priscilla said, “I’m sorry, friend, but I don’t actually think we are that close.”?

“Why not!?” the friend asked.

Mutuality. Priscilla explained, “For me, I need a friend I can give something to, support in some way, do something for them. In turn, they receive that help.” (True for me, too.)

In this case, her friend had never accepted an offer of help, had never reached out for help, nor given Priscilla a chance to give her something she needed.?

There was no mutuality in the relationship. They weren’t, as Priscilla put it, itching one another’s backs, or tending to one another’s adjacent needs, which is critical for true collaboration.?

It’s also critical for friendship.?

And just like I wrote about the reality that you will get your heart broken at work,

I truly believe you need deep friendship, deep mutuality in your work world.??

I know I do.?

As an entrepreneur, embracing the concept of mutuality may not come easily.

You’ve got to override the cacophony of voices telling you to stay focused on the work, to grind, to do deals. Friendship and mutuality are not a “let’s find a win-win situation where we both make money.”?

Building friendship and mutuality is about vulnerability, sacrifice, and, many times, about putting business concerns on hold to tend to human beings.?

I’m a little ashamed to say that when I began as an entrepreneur in 2011, I was bound by many artificial constructs society had imposed on me:

• That I had to fight for business. (I’ve always been averse to combat.)
• That I had to be wary of other people. (I find people fascinating and believe most are genuinely good.)
• That I should guard myself and information about my business from others. (I need and grow from deep connections.)
• That other people were competitors. (I did not want to fear everyone, and living in a scarcity mindset only ever made me sad and depressed.)

One by one, over the years, those ideas have come tumbling down as I met and identified the entrepreneurs I admired and I became a part of communities with love, abundance, support and humanity as shared values.?

With that support in place, I began to embrace my way of being an entrepreneur and leader – and rejected what traditional capitalistic society told me business had to look like.?

• I believe now, in collaboration.?
• I believe in lifting every person I meet in business up a little bit, as best I can, whether or not they do the same.?
• I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt.
• I believe in sharing information.
• I believe in mutuality and vulnerability. In business.

And I believe in the power of finding and nurturing friends who are on a similar journey.?

Friendship has been the lifeblood of my entrepreneurial journey.?

I carefully tend to my best friends in business and they have become some of my best friends, period. As a woman who has been acculturated to build relationships, I use these powerful skills to keep myself motivated and to combat the loneliness that comes with entrepreneurship.?

Friendship can really help you as an entrepreneur.

It can reset your vision and comfort you when times get tough.?

In the moments when I felt like quitting, the most powerful thing I ever did was turn to a friend and confess I wanted to chuck it all.?

Those friends have never failed to hear me, see me, lift me up and guide me back to my own wisdom.?

Emily Soccorsy is owner and lead brand strategist of?Root + River , a brand strategy firm that believes brand is how others experience your soul. Root + River provides brand messaging, language, positioning and catapult content for brands, leaders and teams who want to change the world, their industry or their community with their brand. She's also a speaker, and an award-winning writer, who feels most alive when creating word alchemy or visual art. Emily is the co-author of?Rooting Up: Essays in Modern Branding ?and is the author of the newsletter,?Thought Cookie .?Emily has been a lifelong empath, and a daughter, mother, partner, sister, mentor, creator and sometime baker and runner.

She is a board member of?Ellivate Alliance ,?The W Source? , Rosie's House and a contributor and guest of the?EntreArchitect? ?community. She is a cohost of?Reclaiming Ourselves ?podcast and a graduate of?Love and Healing Work .