Meeting tonight?

[Amy Berkhoudt]

Are we still meeting tonight?

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Amy Berkhoudt

Cell: 808 283 3335

amy.be...@gmail.com

 

Program Co-Director

Detroit Food & Entrepreneurship Academy

http://www.detroitfoodacademy.com

[Marker, Jessica]

Hey you all,

 

I hope you all are having beautiful starts to your weeks! 

 

I read an article last week that I thought could be a fun Whip to send around to you all for this week’s discussion.

 

So, when you have a moment, read this quick article (3-5 min read): http://addicted2success.com/success-advice/why-successful-people-leave-their-loser-friends-behind/

 

And I’m curious- what is your reaction to this article? How much truth do you see in it? How have you seen this play out with groups of friends you’ve known in the past? From high school? College? Now?  Who do you choose to surround yourselves with? Why? Do you take discretion around who your 5 are? Who are they? Do you have three essential people? Who are they? What purposes do they serve for you?

 

Missing you all tons,

Jess J

 

 

 

Jessica Marker
Group Learning Leader
Teacher Support & Development, Execution
Cell: 415-377-5135
jessica...@teachforamerica.org
 

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[Jesse Fetbroth]

Hey everyone!

I've been thinking a lot about this article the past couple of days and to be honest, I'm still not sure how I feel about it.  I keep thinking back to the REALITY Pause I wrote about a year a half ago, so I'm going to share an excerpt here (using the word "excerpt" makes it seem like I'm some sort of published author; alas, it's just a REALITY Pause-- sorry to disappoint you):

"Throughout my entire life, I’ve set strict definitions for myself of what it meant to be successful.  When I was in fourth grade, I thought being successful meant being named senior class president and senior prom queen (my mother would be so ashamed).  By the time I got to high school, I believed being successful meant getting into a great college outside of my home state of Massachusetts (yes, this was a stipulation).  And when I finally made it college, I believed success entailed graduating with a 4.0 and getting a job that mattered (you know, that whole social justice thing).  These were definitions of success I prescribed for myself and by myself, and in my mind, the only things that really mattered.

 

I grew up with a set of best friends whose life goals were dramatically different from mine.  Most of my friends, when asked about their goals for their futures, spoke of getting married to someone they loved, buying a nice house, and having children.  The majority of them decided to attend school in state (gasp!) and near home, and many still live in or near my hometown.  And to be more honest than I’ve probably ever been, I’ve always judged them for these decisions.  I found their goals—their definitions of success—to be kind of pathetic.  I thought their visions were simplistic and unimportant.  Their dreams were my biggest nightmares.

 

The more I’ve grown up and the farther I’ve gotten from my ambition of being named senior prom queen (a goal I sadly never accomplished… sigh), though, the more I’ve realized the one thing distinguishing their definition of success from mine: people.  Not a single goal of mine has ever involved people.  In fact, many of my goals have involved me moving far away from the important people in my life.  And the scary thing is, I’ve always thought this made me more successful.  I’ve been independent and on my own since I was in high school, and have had experiences markedly different than those of my friends.  But when I stop and actually look back on the past several years of my life, the only thing that’s really mattered is people.  I spent much of college counting down the days until I could come home to visit my family and friends.  I just finished teaching in June, and I don’t think I could list off five lessons I taught my students, but I could tell you in detail my favorite moment which each individual student I ever had in my class.  When I think about my trip to Israel this past summer (every other minute, give or take), I don’t think about the cities we visited or the speakers we heard or the food we ate (OK- so that one’s not really true).  I think about all of you.  I think about all of you all the time, and the way you made me feel, and the things you made me think.  My entire life has been about the people in it, but I’ve never allowed that to be ok.  

 

So, it’s taken me a long time to get here, but I’m starting to realize how much people matter, and have begun thinking about what my definitions of success for the next stage of my life will be, and how the people in my life will factor into that.  But this is still very much a work in process for me.  When I went home for Thanksgiving a few weeks ago and watched as my friends passed around the pictures on their cell phones of their ideal engagement rings, I still had to laugh a little at how different our lives were.  But I didn’t judge them, because for the first time I kind of admired them for their ability to place such significance on the people in their lives.  I suppose you could make an argument for the fact that looking at engagement rings might be more materialistic than relationship-oriented, but I’m choosing to be an asset-based thinker here." 

 

I think I digressed a bit, but I guess the reason that article made me think of this is because I've never been really clear on who my people are, or should be.  After I went on the REALITY trip, I remember for the first time feeling really strongly that I had found "my people" (don't worry, I still feel that way).  But I've remained so connected to the people from the place I call home, even though we have very little in common in terms of personal and professional goals, values, and interests.  They haven't led me any closer to zeroing in on my path in this world, but they've shone light on things that are very different, and that add a lot to what I'd like to think means "success" in my mind: the importance of personal relationships, a healthy work-life balance, and an ability to feel at peace with where you are now, rather than constantly looking ahead to the things you hope will come.  

I may have made this much murkier than necessary, but I'm excited to hear your thoughts.

Talk to you soon!

Love,

Jesse

 

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Jesse Fetbroth

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[Aaron Burgess]

Hey Everyone!

I really enjoyed this article. And I feel like I am doing a lot of it, which is a nice pat on the back, but at the same time it raises questions.

At my graduation party last week, one of my friends (not in the program) asked me how it felt. "How does this compare to high school, and college graduation?" he asked. I thought for a second and suddenly became a bit saddened. It was worse! Sure high school graduations are sad, you say goodbye to some of the people you have known your entire life. Some close friends, but more acquaintances than anything else. Sure they all seems so "cool" at the time, but time has a funny was of working that out. After high school graduation (10 years ago this year!) I keep in close touch with 2 people, and in touch with maybe about 10. Sure if someone is in town I get a drink with them to catch up, but that is about it. The rest weren't exceptional people. For me this story goes on... I felt the same way about graduating college. Sure there are some great people there.. but there are a lot more people that after time, I realized I don't value their friendship enough to work on maintaining it. 

My whole life it seems I have been focusing on surrounding myself with amazing people. That is one of the things that brought me to TFA. It was great, but the day to day in TFA you are not surrounded with other inspiring people. You are at your schools and often surrounded by uninspiring people. As Jesse can attest, it was very difficult in rural north carolina to find people (not in TFA) that I felt I wanted to associate with. 

TFA graduation again, was sad... seeing people go off to different corners of the globe, some of whom continued to work for social change, but not all. And then I was introduced to the Reality Community, and my community at Berkeley. These two groups for me are filled with the people I want to associate myself with. Reality has some of the most dedicated future agents of social change, while Berkeley is filled with some of the most intelligent and inspiring people I have had the chance to work with. 

So to respond to my friend asking how this graduation compares to others... it was much worse! I was saying goodbye to a group of people that I STILL wanted to be associated with. I have not outgrown them, but we have grown together, which is what made it such a special place. 

What I wonder about this article, is it seems a bit self centered. Is it really asking us to enter into all of our relationships with a "what am I going to get out of this" attitude? If it is, is that such a bad thing? 

Curious to hear your thoughts!

Aaron

[Amy Berkhoudt]

Jess and Aaron, great thoughts! I really enjoyed reading how you two interpreted this article. Jess, it was so interesting to read your Pause from last year and to remember how you told us during Check now carve out serious amounts of time in your life for the people you care about. Aaron, I can only imagine that you are continuing to attract super amazing people to you life and Berkeley is not the end of it!

While I was reading this article, I thought of a few things:

1. The repetitive urging of mother for me to go to college to "meet your (rich, Anglo, doctor/lawyer/accountant) husband" (didn't happen, obvs).

2. Leaving the island was a traumatic experience because going back home means realizing I changed and my childhood friends didn't.

3. Umm, hello? First, Hemingway is not the right person to be making an example of materialistic "success." Second, Hemingway's most "influential" friend was Gertrude Stein. She basically bought all those writers their fame (and she was a freakin rockstar). She founded modernism. She funded Picasso. She mentored Hemingway. The Lost Generation was cultural movement and much larger than just "Hemingway surrounds himself with influential people." Hemingway (who is my favorite author) was almost always poor and almost always drunk. He didn't win his Nobel Prize until he was 55 years old... mere years before he committed suicide.

4. My organization is running a large private-donor fundraising campaign and I've been to a lot of fancy meetings with very wealthy people recently. They basically gave me the same tips as that article. It sounds really phony to me. Selling myself and my ideas for money sounds like some sick, cheap trick (there's no such thing as a free lunch).

All this to say, I'm not entirely thrilled by this article. The author sounds like a self-centered d-bag. The site is called "Addicted2Success." Is that a picture of three middle-aged white dudes with long bleach-blonde hair in sport coats and jeans? This is a joke, right?

Financial worth and the acquisition of power is not a measure of self-worth. Substituting the word "friend" for corporate greed leads to a very unhealthy society, one that lengthens the disparity between the incredibly wealthy and the incredibly poor. I'm going to have to sign off before I vomit on my computer.

Much love,
Amy

[Candace Burckhardt]

Hello!

Jess, way to pick such a thought provoking article. I have a lot of different thoughts and feelings coming up about it. 

Like Jesse, most of my goals throughout life have never involved people. I have constantly struggled to maintain friendships because I move so often and my goals were always so personal and individual (in my head). This has all changed since starting the Reality Check fellowship and my husband and I have committed ourselves to a core value of creating quality relationships. The people we choose to have quality relationships with are based mostly on if we enjoy being around them rather than how they will contribute to our success. 

This often comes into conflict with our other core goal of financial security. We are in the process of opening a business and I am thinking a lot about money because this is why most people own "for-profit" businesses, but making loads of money really isn't important to me or my husband. Rather, having our own business means financial independence from our employers (thus security) and the freedom to spend our time on things that truly matter to us. It's easy to focus on simply making lots of money with our construction company as a goal, but I'm having a much harder time thinking about how to evaluate our goals of independence with our time and money. In keeping with the article, who would our 3 friends look like? It would be much easier to focus on finding 3 friends who have more money, equal money, and less money but want to grow. Making our own path seems to involve a lot more than just a simple yes/no friend list or categories like the article suggests. 

Candace

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[Jane Keir]

Hi Guys!

I miss you so much! I wish we lived in the city so that we could go out to dinners together! I enjoyed reading all of your thoughts on this article. I think there are truths in the statement that your friends influence you and your success, but I don't believe that you should chose your friends just to get ahead in life. I think that you should befriend all the people that you like and trust. If you want to spend time with someone then you should. This made me think about my life/identity in High School.

When I was in High School I split my time between two categories of people (I know it sucks to put people into categories, but this is how it kinda works in high school). I hung out part-time with the high achieving, straight A, school involved, college bound, middle class kids because I liked school, got good grades, and took IB classes with them. I liked that they pushed me academically, and because of their influence I became treasurer of Key Club, joined swim team, was in drama club, studied abroad in France, and applied to college. I didn't want to go to college, but my best friend who was very driven to go to college was spending so much time applying to college that I decided to apply too. I had planned to move to Paris and have a romantic life there and write poetry and fiction. Obviously, I ended up going to college instead. But, I wasn't totally into school. I loved going to concerts, and having adventures. I used to love to sneak back stage at shows so I was the "bad girl" of the "good girl" clique.

The other group I hung out with were my neighborhood friends. They were into piercings, tattoos, drugs, sex and rock n roll. They got terrible grades, (some dropped out), they didn't take advanced classes, they didn't apply to college, and they didn't join clubs but they were so fun! We would go to the beach, wander around the neighborhood, and go to concerts. It was a blast. To them, I was the good girl with good grades who was still cool.

I was very comfortable in this double identity because I didn't really fit either mould and both group of friends gave me an outlet for different parts of my personality and my different interests. Therefore, I believe you should just be friends with whomever makes you feel happy and supported. People are complex and so are friendships.

On the other hand, I do think that networking is important (but I don't know that you should be conniving about it). I think that if you follow your passions it will lead you to the people that share them and it's important/natural to form relationships with these people. When I was researching my novel on pandemic influenza I interviewed the head science officer in the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine at CDC because I wanted to know how quarantine worked in our present day. He was like, "so you are getting your Masters of Public Health and you are a writer, do you want a job?". And I was like, "yes please!" This is how I fell into a dream job situation. 

Cheers,

Jane

[Nicole Wellman]

Happy 3rd to last day of May! It just seems like 2013 is flying by. I apologize for being so tardy with this response, but I just turned in my Masters Exam last night that I've been ferociously working to finish in my 7 day allotment! Woohoo.

It's refreshing to think of something other than theory, and I enjoyed reading all of your different, insightful comments on this.

My thoughts are:

-I agree with the author that no one achieves success totally on their own. There are always amazing people that surround great leaders and visionaries.

-However, I think that success is different to everyone. Just like "amazing" is different to everyone.  These terms are so generic, and can mean completely different things depending on the person.

-Relationships are the most important thing in my life.
-Looking back, it's so interesting who are my closest friends--my people.  And in thinking about my people, I think about how NOTHING about my people includes me thinking about how successful they are or what our relationship will do for me.  These relationships are about growing together, sharing, loving one another, and supporting.

-I agree with Jane that networking is important, and I think the best network is a genuine one-of people that you truly admire and can connect with.  Personally, I am too honest to try to befriend someone that rubs me the wrong way- and a lot of times people that act entitled rub me the wrong way (and many of those people that act entitled are also "successful").

-On a final note, I think that the people we surround ourselves with definitely do lift us up, but like many of you touched on- in different ways.  It doesn't have to be a lift up in status, but could be a lift of spirits, love, or awareness...I think the most important relationships help you be your best self.

Love to all,
Nicole

Nicole Wellman
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wellman...@gmail.com
(602) 377-2910