Finding Your Core Network
Date: December 28. 2024
Written by: Marc Bjørnholt
In today’s world, we increasingly see the tendency for everyone to go alone. It’s easier to do everything ourselves so that we get stuff done quickly. But, as an old adage says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together”. Not only are we far greater when we act together for a common purpose, but it’s also much harder for someone toxic and malicious to bring us down if we have people surrounding us, whom we trust and who share our kindness-based belief system. And to be truly kind towards yourself, you should take care of your network, so that you don’t become too vulnerable.
I think it’s also useful to take inspiration from other cultures’ ideas, specifically Ubuntu, the idea that “I am, because we are”. It’s our sense of community and our acknowledgment of our deep dependence on each other that is going to be the motivation for our search of allies.
The Right Allies
The best kind of ally is someone who is trustworthy and reliable. But how do you know if someone is trustworthy and reliable? The two questions that I always ask are: 1. Do they act in accordance with what they claim to believe (trustworthiness), and, 2. Do they keep their promises and act the way that they say that they will (reliability). If the answer to both questions is yes, then you can safely label them as allies.
The first option to finding allies and building relationships is what I call relating. When you ask a colleague how things are going in their life and show that you care, they might tell you that they are struggling having recently lost a beloved family member. While it’s not guaranteed, because you have experience with grief and have had to figure out how to deal with it yourself, you can relate to them by sharing your experiences with grief and how you got through it. It’s not certain that it will help in their particular situation, but they will certainly appreciate your gesture of reaching out to them and showing support.
The second option is about how you act. You can help out by doing favors. Some research even shows that asking for favors from them can help in boosting their positive attitude towards you. You can start today by doing small favors and asking for them in return.
The third option is about complimenting. For those who don’t know how to make friends at work, start by complimenting people, and speak of them positively whenever in conversation with others. It needs to be authentic, so only pursue this how and when it feels authentic to you. Side note: avoid gossip or having negative things to say about anyone. When you consistently look for the good in others and say kind things out loud, it becomes second-nature. It’s quite hard to be mad at someone who is complimenting something about you, and it may even start a lifelong connection with a person who shares a belief-system similar to yours.
When you’ve tried some or all of these steps, you will hopefully be on the right track to relying on your new core network of people you can trust. It’s just one small step but a significant one towards the goal of creating the future you envision in your most inspired dreams.