This post is dedicated to Terry Sjodin and the rest of my legacy friends from the Mackay Roundtable.
There are new friends and there are legacy friends.
By "new friends," I mean any friend you've met in the last few years. You can be super close with these people, but they don't yet know your real nitty gritty qualities simply because you haven't known each other long enough.
It takes at least five years of being friends with someone to see all the permutations of their personality. To see how they deal with all the different pitches life throws at them - and for them to be comfortable showing you all those sides.
Then there are "legacy friends."
These are the friends you make when you're younger. Who you grow up with.
Or who you met when you were older, but have known for years and years and years.
They've seen every side of you. You've seen every side of them.
And because you know each other so deeply, because there's such a high level of understanding, you don't have to tiptoe around each other.
You can be brutally honest with each other.
And it doesn't even matter how honest you are with them, because they know when you're hiding the truth anyway.
They know your shenanigans.
These legacy friends are like the quality control department in your life.
These are the people you should turn to when you're in a bind, or when you need to know the absolute truth about yourself.
But you shouldn't turn to these people only when you're in trouble.
You should be in touch with your legacy friends regularly, so they can keep you honest. So you don't veer too far from your true self in the first place.
Technology provides us with so many easy ways to communicate that there's no excuse for not being in touch regularly.
I'm lucky because my closest legacy friend is my wife. She's known me since I was 17 so I can't get anything by her.
When she tells me something about myself, even if I disagree with it, even if I don't want to hear it, I know it's probably true.
You can't put a price on that. It's literally priceless.
So what about you?
Who are your closest legacy friends?
When was the last time you talked to them?
It should never be too long. Call one of them today!
