A friend in need is a friend indeed
Sometimes we need someone to simply be there… Not to fix anything or do anything, but just to let us feel we are supported and cared about
Every week, I write an article to share my learning or discovery during my startup journey. Here is the link to my reasons for penning these articles for myself and for many others like me.
I have always believed in this saying “A friend in need is a friend indeed”. This saying will help you throughout your life in vetting a bad friend from a good friend. This saying will become even more useful for you as you become an entrepreneur.
No doubt, friends are your key support system, and you will need their help at many steps of your startup journey. I talked to two of my friends today and both showed me an entirely different side of friendship.
One of them, let’s call her “A” is trying to start her second innings in her career. The other one, say “B” has already set up her business and is now working to scale and sustain it. We often talk to each other about the challenges in our respective journeys and share our learnings.
Friend A is learning new online courses so she can add that to her resume and get a new job. As I had been freelancing for some time, I shared all the resources with her and gave her tips on how to find a project on various freelancing sites. The conversation was going well, and she was receptive to my ideas. After this, I mentioned the website that I had created for my company. I shared the URL and asked her to share her valuable feedback. She agreed readily.
I called Friend A today. She shared her progress on the job search. She wanted me to keep a check on her progress every week, so she could stay focused on her goals. In the nutshell, she wanted me to be her accountability partner. I did not have any issue with that, after all — a friend in need is a friend indeed. I reminded her about the feedback that she was supposed to share for my company website, she mentioned that she did not get time to check it. WOW, that was an eye-opener for me. This person did not get a few minutes to check my website but wanted me to spend time every week checking on her job searching progress. Not a great arrangement, so I made a silent note to keep away from her weekly checkups too.
I called my friend B as well today, which turned out to be a pleasant experience. I was thinking of creating an online course. Friend B has already published a course on an e-learning platform. I called her to get information on how to create such online courses and the process to publish them online. She shared everything in detail. She motivated me to create the course at the earliest. Though I only wanted to gather the information about the online courses and had no plans to create a course soon. But this friend wanted me to do it right now. According to her, I should start early as this will also help in me branding for my business. She will also help me in the course marketing activities. She has learned a few tricks while promoting her online course and is ready to share all those learnings with me. I had been her mentor a few years back. She told me — “You had pushed me in my earlier days for my project, now this time I will ensure that you achieve your goals”
It was such a heartwarming moment and I felt so good. I could see it as a metaphor for a new journey. I expected just to get some information from her. I wanted to travel on an unknown road, so I asked this friend for directions. My friend has not only shown me the directions but is also ready to walk with me and guide me on this new road. Now, this is a Friend indeed.
We make lots of friends in our lifetime, but if we can make a few such true friends, they can be called our life’s treasures.
You do not need to create a startup to know who your true friends are. But your startup journey will bring in more situations, where your true friendship will be tested more often.
Wishing everyone a great week and hope you meet true friends in your life’s journey
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