All my life, apart from my family, the only thing I’ve ever been able to rely on was knowledge.  I took apersonality test last year that measured your activity style.  My style was to gather facts and try to understand.  That’s true.  But I have come to see how limiting this is.

Up until last year, I was pretty reclusive.  I wrote a book and a website, interacted with a few Clients and answered Reader’s emails, but that was about the level of my interaction.  I’d never hung out at forums, taken courses or spoken to other Writers.  You see I only valued what I learned.  And I learned quicker alone.  Interaction slowed me down, because I had to wait for other people to catch on.  Like the Hare with the Tortoise, in my arrogance and impatience, I overlooked the power of friendship. 

photo credit: scott_48074

It’s so much harder to do anything alone.  It’s like living without the wheel, electricity and chocolate.

In an upcoming post, I’ll be talking about my Sister.  We are very different in styles.  She is much more sociable.  Now academically, I outshone her easily.  Yet despite having more qualifications she had much greater success in the jobs market.  

Aside from one or two, she has got every job she applied for.  And she works at a senior level.  You see, she does a good job, but more than that she has a network of people, collected from school and every job since, that help her know how to best position and apply herself.  

Apart from one job that lasted six months before the company hit trouble and restructured, I have never been hired for a job that used my brain.  You might think I have personality issues or interview poorly.  Yet everywhere I have worked, I got great references from and could go back to any of them.  Many of them I have.  

When I have been at day long interview assessments I have always reached the last few.  I just missed the final cut.  But you see I never had a network to tip me off about unadvertised positions.  No one ever wanted to be the first to take a chance on me.  To do that someone needs more than logic, they need an emotional connection.

I couldn’t create that and so I’ve always had to take the longer route and do anything I wanted to do by myself.  Some people have someone more experienced to guide them on their path.  I’ve never had a Mentor to show me the pitfalls and shortcuts, so I have had to rely on books or expensive courses and figure out the steps for myself.

photo credit: diy.disco

In whatever you want to achieve there are always multiple paths.  Some people get there by what they know.  But there are others who get there by who they knew.  Sometimes people feel this is unfair, but really it’s just a different skillset.  Probably an easier, less painful and more valuable way to get what you want.   

Now I’m not a social person, but I’m not socially dysfunctional.  It’s not that I don’t like people or can’t get along with them.  More that small talk bores me and I’m a little uncomfortable with it, so the payoff never seemed worth the risk of rejection.  I know what I’m here for and what I’m built for and it isn’t small talk.  So it’s often easier for me to write an 800 word blog post than to know how to respond with a quick 2 line comment. 

But now I have reached a point where I have gone as far as I can alone.  I needed to be isolated until now because I needed to develop trust and conviction in my own independent opinions.  Towards the end of last year I realised that I had gone as far as I could from study and contemplation and it was time to interact with the world more actively.  To share and express myself as honestly and fully as I could.  In doing so here, your comments and questions have made me dig deeper and gain greater clarity.  And so I enjoyed the interaction and wanted to create it at a deeper level.

Then I joined Facebook and Twitter to work out what they are about.  Initially they baffled me, especially Twitter.  But just from being there for a while, I stumbled across some really interesting people who were working in various ways to help people get more from life.  And I gained so much in interacting with them.  

Relationships really are the shortcut to everything you want in life.  If you want to avoid or quickly move through life with minimal pain and negativity, it’s going to come through other people. 

I know that the next step for me is to end my isolation and become more involved in relating to people and through them relating to Life in a deeper way.  I think it’s probably true for you too.

photo credit: Flyinace2000

Today as the world becomes faster and more competitive, we need to be able to develop relationships.  The world is gradually moving towards oneness and unity.  It benefits us in so many ways to be a part of networks in the coming years.  Networks of all kinds.  Networks of physical friends, networks of professional contacts and networks of like-minded people.  People often talk of multiple streams of income, but it is more important to have multiple streams of friendship.

As I said, I have started by building a network of friends on Facebook, Twitter and also LinkedIn.  I’d like you to join me there.  But we need multiple networks, you might not be on there or you might want to keep that network to certain other relationships.  That’s why I’ve been looking into adding networking features into my websites.  

Just yesterday Google invited me to try out their new feature, Friend Connect, that helps websites add social networking features.  You sign in with one log in and can have Friends across your favourite websites.  I jumped at the offer and so at the top of the page, to the right, you’ll see a box that looks like this;

I would love it if you would join here and we could both add to a new stream of friendship.  At the moment it’s quite limited in it’s functionality.  So it might not be the ultimate solution, but it will be a start we can work from.

I made a quick video to show how easy it can be to join Friend Connect here

Tags: Core Concepts // 4696 Comments »http://livewithoutconflict.com/blog/the-value-of-friendship/The+Value+of+Friendship2008-12-05+12%3A36%3A19Rob+McPhillips