Friday Final Reflection: May 26, 2017
Collaboration and the Company we keep
Happy Friday Friends! Don’t you just love short weeks, they fly by!! This week saw an amazing event at Innovation Works London. This past Wednesday (2 days ago) we celebrated 150 Years of Social Innovation in London. SixFive Interactive, the developers of my website, was doing interviews with co-tenants and asking them why they loved working at Innovation Works London so much. I gave my answer and then immediately thought I could have said so much more. The answer I gave was the collaborative environment there. All the friendly faces don’t hurt either. I feel I need to go a bit deeper, so here I go.
A friend once said to me “You are the company you keep.” Well, that’s bullshit, right? I mean you aren’t like all your friends. Some of my friends are super-rich, others on welfare. Some deal mortgages, some deal drugs. I am not any of those. The more I think about it the more it makes sense though. We all have a crew, people we run with, people we spend more time with than our families. These are the people we work with, have a beer with after work, and go for our run with every morning. These people shape our lives no matter what we think. They have an influence on us, through our subconscious. They influence our moods, our emotions, our thoughts. These people intrigue us, anger us, make us happy, and make us think. I’ve run with some amazing people in my life, others not so much.
I think it has to be a goal of all of ours to surround ourselves with the best people possible. That doesn’t mean they are rich, intelligent or powerful. What they should be is caring, compassionate, empathetic, and sharp. They should bring value to your life. What we have to do then is be the same to them. I have to do that, I have to be that. We all have people in our lives that bring out our darker sides. Being mean, gossipy, angry, lazy are traits we all have. They lay dormant in us unless we are them or someone brings them out. We have to not be that and then surround ourselves we people who don’t bring that out of us. It’s not easy and it’s kind of cold too. It has to be done though.
That is the main reason I love being at Innovation Works London. I am surrounded by great people with ambition, drive, focus and best of all, optimism. Toxic environments breed toxic people. It could be work, a relationship, a friend or family. I’ve fallen into that trap too. You have to ask yourself: If I know this is bad for me, and yet I continue to do it, who is the fool? Is it the bad people/place/things around me, or is it me for allowing them to bring out the worst in me. I’ve been guilty of being a fool far too many times in my life.
Thanks for reading and tune in next week for the “Monday Morning Money Moment.” Have a Great Weekend Friends!!
“Unity is strength… when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.” – Mattie Stepanek
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Joseph James Francis is a Financial Advisor. You can find him on various social media platforms and at www.budgetboss.ca.