“I’M NOT A RISK-TAKER, I’m just a very hard worker with really good friends.”

            I read this line from a creative magazine awhile back. I wish I knew who wrote it so I could properly thank them for such wisdom. They so eloquently captured what I have felt my whole life. I am not naturally a risk taker, in fact, being the third out of four siblings I was happy to let my older siblings charge ahead and after the dust settled and I knew it was safe, then I would move in. Yet, if you were to chart the actions I have taken in my life, you would probably argue that based of my lifestyle and decisions, I am a risk-taker.

This whole risk-taking business is a funny thing. You see, I spent a good portion of my childhood paralyzed by fear, my wild imagination constantly showed up with a buffet of things that could go wrong. Yet how have I become such the opposite of the very thing I dreaded? One of the biggest reasons - my friends. For me, friends have come both in the shape of the family I was born into and the family I’ve discovered along the journey of my life.

One of my favorite songs has this line, “Like ships in the night.” I know the song has nothing to do with what I’m about to say, but I love the line, and the meaning it holds to me.

I have begun to realize that often friendship can represent and reveal itself in our lives in two ways: Some friends like the ocean, driving us into new places, challenging us, pushing us, calling us up, all the while standing with us. We are like a ship driven on by their unrelenting love for us. On the flipside, there are friends who become a beacon of hope in our lives, the call to come home. They stand resolute unmoved by the elements and waves, leading us with their light back to places we have forgotten and places we must return.

I want to dedicate this weeks’ blog to those who have represented both to me. The very fact that this company exists is the very product of friendship. Don’t become so caught up in the world you’re creating that you suddenly realize you’ve built a perfect world, but lost everyone in the process.

Creativity thrives in great friendship.

Great friends call the best out of us, they make you brave, because you’re so focused on following them you don’t realize you’re not afraid anymore.

In the same way, great leaders are born.

I always believe that great leadership is born out of great friendship. True friends are so focused on following and supporting each other, they don’t realize they are leading each other. That’s because relationships are the most valuable source of creativity.

Even as I write this I can’t help but think how in under a week I will be hiking up the side of a mountain for three days with a backpack strapped to my back. Why? Because I’m caught up following the people I love.

So maybe if you’re feeling creatively stuck, it means you need to put down your tools, turn off your computer, put aside those responsibilities and start investing in the most import creative gift - friendship.

Besides, who knows where you will end up.