Latest / RHYTHMS OF REST℠ Leadership Podcast / Episode 15: The Friends You Need (Why Every Leader Needs Two Close Friends)
Transcript
- Kent: If something went sideways this week, who are the two people you would call? And it can't be your spouse or your partner, just two names. For a lot of leaders I work with, that list gets short really fast. They have plenty of people around them, but very few that they can say the hard stuff to. A few years ago, in the hardest two weeks of my life as a parent, two friends reached out to me nearly every day. And I found out in that season what it means to have, to really have people in your corner. Today I want to show you why the friends who carry you through the worst week have to be built before that week shows up. And why, in a world where AI will tell you every leader what he he or she wants to hear, the leader with a couple of friends who tell him the truth is going to make better calls in his business and show up better at home. Plus the one text that can start it all. Well, you don't need balance, you need the right rhythms. Much like a heart where all four chambers have to work together, real success depends on four key rhythms working together in harmony: relational, emotional, spiritual, and tangible. I'm your host, Kent Morowski, and welcome to the Rhythms of Rest Leadership Podcast, where we build the rhythms for sustainable success. The kind that doesn't leave you coming home empty. Before we dive in today, if you're achieving by every metric that matters and you still feel like something's off, the rhythms of rest assessment will show you exactly which of your four rhythms is out of sync and your highest leverage move this week. Less than three minutes, and you'll have some real clarity. Just go to restassessment.scoreapp.com, or you can go to my website at Kent Moroski.com.com. dot com and you'll see buttons everywhere for the rhythms of rest assessment. Let's go. Most leaders I work with, they don't lack ambition or discipline or work ethic. What they lack is someone who will call them on their blind spots and still be in their corner the next day. Now, of course, I do that as a coach, but also there's no one can that can quite do that like a close friend. You know, you talk to people all day, your team, your clients, your board. And if I asked you, if I asked you who you could say the hard stuff to. Or who could say the hard stuff to you, the list gets short really fast. Leaders have plenty of people around them, but very few that that can say hard stuff to them. So I know what that feels like. When something goes sideways, it all lands at home, on your spouse or or your children, because there's nowhere else for it to go. And your family ends up getting the scraps of you or your irritability or your stress. or whatever it is that you're carrying with you. If that's you, you're not imagining it. You have a complex leadership role, family responsibilities, and not a lot of time for leisure. So friendship gets squeezed out. And that's what happens to most leaders that I coach. I believe the right relationships give us wings. The wrong ones, though, can sink us. If you think about it, you can trace nearly every consequential thing that happens in your life, good or bad, to a relationship. And that's especially true of friendship. My daughter gave me permission to share this story. She's now 20 and she's doing well. She has a full-time job and she's going to start college in the spring. And she's had a romantic relationship for over two years. And she hasn't had an episode in several years. And by episode, I mean that during high school, she was in and out of psychiatric facilities four or five times. I lost count for suicidality. it was very tumultuous and scary for her, obviously. It was harrowing for us as parents, for sure. And I hope we never have to relive that again. But that two week stretch after her second hospitalization was particularly hard for some reason. And I remember in vivid detail my two well, first sending a text to my two closest friends and using some explicit language in that about how I was feeling. But you know, after I s sending that text and and alerting them, my two closest friends, they reached out almost daily for weeks just to check in and offer support. And even had some visits in that time as well. It was a great strength to me to know that I had people in my corner who would show up for me. The turn I want you to catch though is those friends didn't just show up because I called them that week or texted them in this case. They showed up because the friendship was already there. If the hardest week of your next year started tomorrow, who's already there for you? Here's the one thing I want you to walk away with. The friends who carry you through the work worst week of your life have to be built before that week shows up. Just let that settle in for a minute. See, most leaders think that they need more people around them, but actually what they need most is people who will love them for who they are and not what they've accomplished, and people, most importantly, that aren't impressed by them. Friendship is valuable on its own. Thomas Aquinas, the ancient theologian and philosopher, said there's nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship. He's right. Friendship Is true and valuable on its own. But what ensues as the after effect of our friendship affects both our business and other relationships as well. So the leader who has a couple of people in his corner makes clearer calls, recovers faster when things when decisions go wrong, and doesn't, most importantly, doesn't take his stress out on his team or especially his family. That's a side effect of friendship, and it's a big one. Research shows that at having at least two close friends outside your spouse is associated with higher life satisfaction, higher self-esteem, and lower levels of depression. Two. Not a network, not a full social calendar, just two, which is important for leaders to know. Two was enough for me in the worst season of my life. Or one of the worst seasons, and that's the whole proof I need to tell you that this is within reach. You know, as more people try to fill that gap with AI, and all the research is out there, people are trying to fill that gap, that friendship gap with AI, the leader with real friends who tell them the truth will have an edge that few others have. Now, that why is that an edge at work and at home? Well, think about where your input comes from right now. Your team has a paycheck writing on you. Your board sees the numbers once a quarter. Your clients want something from you. And at home, your family just wants you. Not all your business problems. They don't want the CEO. They want their husband or wife, their father, their friend. And AI, if you're using it for that purpose, is built to agree with you. So There's a real edge to friendship. The friendship edge is this. Because friends want nothing from you, they can be frank with you. They can challenge you and encourage you in the same conversation, and they can do it just because they care about you. It affects home because they tell you when you're becoming someone that you don't want to become before your spouse and kids have to. At work, those friends are probably not in the room with you for decisions, and they don't need to be. You can leave lunch with a friend clearer about who you are and what matters. And that clarity is what you carry back into that hard call or tough meeting. You know, within a few years, every leader will have the same AI advice in his pocket. We already do. But information has stopped being an edge. The edge that will remain goes to the leader who still has a few people. Who will tell him or her what the machine never will and never can. Like the time I was complaining to my one of my close friends, David, and he laughed and encouraged me not to become a cynical old man. You know, friends carry that kind of weight to challenge you without you getting offended because you know that what they're saying is for your good, and they're gaining nothing by saying. If a name or two came to mind while I was talking, you already have that first piece. That friendship isn't gone. It's just waiting on a text. Now in the Rhythms of Rest framework, the R stands for relational rhythms, fostering deep connections that energize you rather than drain you. If you remember, it the rhythms of rest framework, the R stands for relational rhythms, and that's fostering deep connections that energize you rather than drain you. So I'm gonna draw it on this on the screen again. So again, it's rhythms. Of rest R stands for relational. I'm gonna draw that one a little bigger. I'm not a not a great artist, but you'll get the idea. We've got the four rhythms, like the four chambers of the heart. They all have to work together just like the heart to be healthy and whole. So we've got the first one is relational. Now, through there's three types of relational connection that I consider vitally important. Those are your inner circle. That's the one we're talking about today. That's your partner in close friendships. We've got coaches, counselors. I spelled it wrong, sorry. And mentors as the second one. And then the third one is your community or tribe. I'll just put your community. So today we're talking about this one, your inner circle, and in specific, your friendships. now each, let me stop sharing the screen here. Okay. Now each each of the four rhythms, R E S T has a what I call a keystone rhythm. And again, that comes from Charles Duhig's concept of keystone habits. It's a particular habit that drives change in other areas. I call it a keystone rhythm. Excuse me. And each letter in rest has one rhythm that starts a chain reaction across multiple areas. And for R, it's the inner circle. And specifically the one that gets crowded out the most or first is close friendship. Now, let me just say that with a with a caveat. If your if your marriage relationship is a mess, you know, that's obviously a keystone. rhythm as well. The reason I chose friendship is because for most leaders it's the one that goes first in that inner circle. And so if your relationship, if your marriage is a mess, you know, start there first. But if that's largely in intact and and doing decent or well, then here's I want to encourage you to start with close friendships. And you know why it disappears for leaders is because there's little opportunity to build it. And when they even when leaders do join some sort of group where friendship could form, you know, they say groups of twelve to fifteen are often the best size for that because you can look around the room and see, I might get along with this person or this person as interactions happen. You can see who you who you might jive with or click with. But in those settings, leaders often get pulled in to fill a leadership vacuum, either because they're asked and people know they're a leader, or because they sense the leadership vacuum and they step in. But studies show that loneliness is linked to burnout among leaders. Arthur Brooks expounds in his book From Strength to Strength: the burnout stems from the leader's inability to make deep human connections at their work because of their position. Leaders are seen not as people, but as dispensers of power, information, and money. So the question I always get in this scenario is: well, what about my spouse? And what about my dog? Well, your spouse might be your best friend, and dogs are wonderful companions, or maybe it's the other way around for some people, but one person is not meant to carry the full weight of your emotional needs. And your dog can't be a substitute for human beings, as good as a friend or companion as they are. Now, healthy leaders need close friendship outside their marriage and their pets. So back to Arthur Brooks for a minute. In that same book I just mentioned, From Strength to Strength, he contrasts what he calls real friends versus deal friends. I need a sip of coffee before I continue with this. So real friends versus deal friends. As the story goes in the book, he was about to go fishing with his son, and he takes an important call right before they're about to go out fishing. When he gets done with the call, it was a you know, he was the head of a, I think, a think tank or a nonprofit at the time, and you know, they they catch up with some niceties and then get to business. When he was done, his son says, Who was that, Dad? And to which Arthur replied, A friend. His son asks, His his son basically says to him, Dad, you know, or or sorry, his son said, Was that a real friend or a deal friend? And you know, Arthur asks, What do you mean? And he's and his son goes on, he said, You know lots of important people, and you do each other favors. Those are deal friends, but you don't have a lot of real friends, you have a lot of deal friends, dad. Ouch, right? Out of the mouth of babes. You know, real friends. They're not impressed by you. Leaders need people who can say hard things without judgment, who need nothing from them and can do nothing for them, at least as it relates to business, and who love them genuinely and aren't impressed by their accomplishments. Your spouse, your kids, and the people you lead are all going to benefit if you build a few close friendships that really truly energize you. Your family gets someone who brings home more than scraps. And so does your team. Wow. Okay. Well, let's land the plane right there. Each time we take a moment to focus on one of the four rhythms of rest, and an action step that you can take, simple action step you can take in the next 24 to 48 hours, and a reflection question to help you go deeper if you choose to. If your calendar is full, and so is your house and your life. A new friendship can feel like one more thing on the list, can't it? But having people around isn't the same as having people you can lean on. So if something went sideways this week, who are the two people that you would call other than your spouse or partner? And when did you last talk with either of them? Here's what I want you to do. And I recommend in the next actually 24 hours, and maybe even as soon as you are done listening to this podcast. Text one of them something like this. And something like this. I haven't seen you in a while. I'd love to catch up. Here are some dates that work for me. And then try to get a date on the calendar within 14 days. That one text is how you become a leader with people in your corner before you need them. Chances are you already have people that you have been close to if you're not right now. And all is it, all it takes is one simple act of reconnection to restart that. So here's a reflection question for this week. When you hesitate before sending that text. It's usually the voice that says you should be able to carry this yourself. What is the reason for that voice saying you should be able to carry this yourself? Once you send that text, would you drop sent in the YouTube comments or on social media or reply to my email with the date you put on the calendar? No names needed. Just drop that and tell me about it. I'd love to hear about it. Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Rhythms of Rest Leadership podcast. And if you did, would you consider sharing it with someone else you think would benefit from it? And if this episode described a challenge that you know all too well, that's what the newsletter is for as well. Every other week I send the tools I use with clients to build rhythms into how they lead. There's no filler. Go to Kentmoroski.com forward slash newsletter, and you can get on that biweekly newsletter. It's free and it's where new frameworks show up first before anywhere else. Hope you have a great couple of weeks. Bye. Until then.