Why Friends Don’t Actually Root for Your Success

Because they’re not your friends. They’re glamorized drinking buddies, leftover college connections who “know too much” about us (or so we think), jealous high school classmates, former colleagues, and all the randoms you follow on social from a one-night encounter who, ironically, tend to be some of the most supportive if you’re lucky.

In reality, we need to take inventory of our “friends” and ask: Does this person actually want me to win? Be happy? Have a life? Push me? Listen to me? Grow with me? Or not?

Less than 4% of companies ever reach $10 million in revenue, and I’d argue less than 2% of the people in your sphere genuinely care for you - selflessly. If you’re lucky, your number-one fans, from the purest of hearts, are your parents. That’s the most sacred love and if you’re really lucky, you get it from both a mother and a father, each in their own way. I have yet to meet a parent who wouldn’t defend their child no matter what the child did, right or wrong.

The problem is, parents ultimately die, at least that’s the order life should take. The next layer, siblings- is trickier. I once read that while kids can grow up in the same house with the same parents, each one’s experience can be completely different. In general, I think a sibling can be a solid friend, even if they only root for you slightly.

But this piece isn’t about those first two groups. It’s about the old saying: you can’t pick your family, but you can pick your friends. So why do so many people lie to themselves about who their friends really are? Your number-one friend should be the person you marry. Even that’s not a guarantee when so many marriages end in the D-word. So what makes a truly good friend? I don’t have the perfect answer. In writing this, I wanted you to really think—who you believe your friends are, and who actually is.

In NYC, we’ve been lucky to know an older antique dealer who’s never been married. A semi-regular at East Village bars, a “tell it like it is” type because, as he says, “I don’t got much time left.” Not my first such personality. I had a similar friend in Ellensburg who recently passed away. Both echoed the same truth: they sought connection until their last breath, at minimum to be recognized, at maximum to know they were loved.

That’s what friendship should be. The kind of love that’s similar to the bond we have with a pet who’s comforted us through decades of our life. Not the friendships of convenience, gossip, drinks, travel, looks, money, or FOMO, but the classic kind. The kind where you can sit in a room together doing nothing, imagine everything, and still both grow from it.