Diversifying your Friend Portfolio

In life, we meet so many different types of people through our day to day activities that it often surprises me how many people spend the majority of their time with the same exact people or the same types of people.  I have found that this is the case because many people are comfortable with their current friends and don't desire to go through the work of learning and understanding new people in their lives.  However, there are tremendous benefits gained by not only allowing new friends to come into your life, but also actually seeking and cultivating relationships with different types of people who cross your path.

THEY WILL GIVE YOU A BETTER APPRECIATION FOR OTHERS

We can all have a tendency to live in our own bubble of a world.  We know the people who we grew up or went to college with, but we rarely find ourselves stepping out of these boundaries of comfort. And even when we desire to make a new friend, they are very much a carbon copy of our existing friend base.  What diversifying your friend portfolio will do is allow you to have a better appreciation of all the different types of people in the world and how they think.  When you spend time with someone who is not exactly like you and understand their background and how they came to the philosophy by which they live or accomplished the things they have, you will have a greater understanding of the differences in all of us. At the same time, however, you will also get a better appreciation of how much we are all very alike at the core.  We live in a world in which diversity is becoming the new mainstream way of society and by allowing yourself to integrate and learn more about others who are not like you now, you are giving yourself a great competitive advantage in life and work.

YOU WILL LIVE A MUCH RICHER, INTERESTING LIFE

If you ever pay attention to The Most Interesting Man in the World commercials, one of the things that is hinted at implicitly is that he has a great appreciation for many different cultures. While one has to think that his general heritage is that of Hispanic in some nature, all of his adventures take places with a multitude of different types of people.  By befriending those who are different from our normal circle, we will increase the chances that we will participate is some new and exciting activity that we never would have received the chance had we not taken the chance to step outside of our comfort zone and try something different.  While life is about many things, one of the most important things is to be able to look back at it with fond memories and no regret.  By experiencing a diverse portfolio of activities from your diverse friends, you will have a plethora of different memories to pull from as you age and will be a much better conversationalist for others to enjoy...i.e. the most interesting man in the world.

YOU WILL HAVE A MUCH MORE DIVERSE APPROACH TO LIFE

One of the great byproducts of befriending those who are not like you is that you will have the ability to truly understanding how they think.  Whether it is a philosophy they acquired from their upbringing as a child, the part of the world in which they lived, or the traditional teachings from their heritage or religion, there will probably be a number of different lessons that you can glean from them to apply to your life.  I've always said that while no one group has it all right, if you are able to pull a little nugget from every one, you often have a much better chance of solving problems and overcoming different challenges that we all face life, regardless of race, creed, or sexual orientation.

It has always been my opinion that people are what make this world a great place.  How much better is a life enjoyed by individuals who make it a point to seek out, learn, and befriend all the different types of people in our world to live a life of variety and excitement.  While Drake may sound right when he says, "No new friends," unfortunately, he could be missing out on some great people and an EVEN BETTER life.

Ken Middleton is an Account Executive at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech.

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