So when I was younger, like elementary age, I had this peculiar tendency to get into fist fights with kids, hate them for a while and somehow become friends with them. One time I remember clearly that I landed my first punch in this kids head and sent him reeling. He got up and looked at me and we both knew the fight was over and somehow I ended up going to his house and he became my very best friend. This time the process occured within one day! Looking back I know why this happened.
Two reasons: First, I have learned that the people we resist the most are people that are just like us. We repel the same magnetic energy if you will. Second, your best friends in life don’t let you BS them. They hold you accountable. They call you out. What happened to me in elementary school was resisting people simlilar to me and not liking people who made me responsible. This process occured again in my life a few years later.
My friend Cody Moore invited me to go with him to run an errand about two years ago. The purpose of the trip was for me to pick his brain and identify some things I could do with him. Cody at the time was a very successful entreprenuer and investor (Today even more so.) , I was struggling to find my purpose and passion in life, He was willing to meet with me to help me. I really wanted him to give me an opportunity with the people and businesses he was involved in. He was being a friend, I was being a moocher. He asked me ‘What do you need to be successful?’ I said ‘More time. More money. More opportunities. More…’ I mentioned a few other things as I was trying to identify for myself what I actually needed. He said ‘You don’t need anything.‘ I got upset. I said ‘Cody, I don’t speak your language. I’m not fluent with your vocabulary.’ (He spoke differently than anyone else I spoke with at the time. He used different words and they meant stuff.) He said ‘I know, but that’s not what I’m calling you out on.’
What I thought I needed were things Cody could not give to me in the first place. This situation reminded me of being a little kid in fights, this fight was not physycal but mental. I was fighting Cody but he wasn’t fighting me. Cody taught me that I don’t NEED anything! He taught me about being a victim and speaking victim language. Using words like need to, have to, should of, could of, if only, etc…I look back at this conversation as one of those truly life changing experiences. As a friend he wasn’t letting me slide with my self deception. He called me out. That’s what real friends do. I was mad at him. He challenged my thinking. That’s what real friends do. I was mad at him. I wanted to punch him. He looked past that and saw my potential. That’s what real friends do. He will be considered my friend forever from that one conversation. I feel indebted to him still from that day. What kind of a friend are you and I?
