Framily

We are who we are because of the systems that support us. We are always standing on someone’s shoulders and that’s why the whole ‘self made’ man adage is nothing but a myth. We either admit that our success is a by product of our circumstances or choose to ignore the big elephant in the room.

And, by success, I mean our greatest success – whether it is getting through school or college or doing well at what we do. Of course, we do put in the hard work but then again, you could argue that our family instils our work ethic. This is not to say we don’t have control on our lives. We do control our responses to events but our support system probably has the greatest power of them all, the power to make us or break us.

That is why kids born to wealthy families typically do well. That is why everyone wants to work in a prestigious company or study in a prestigious school. Brands, at the end of the day, are support systems (atleast their alumni groups are..). Success breeds success.

Keeping this in view, our family and close friends are our most basic support system. I term this one as framily. These are the folks we share our successes and failures with and hopefully, they support us during our lows and cheer us on during the highs. The expansion beyond family is very helpful here too since, for many, close friends play that role. Still, like it or not, family matters. When we fall seriously sick, no friend can afford to put a stop to their life to take care of us. Family will.

If we have mentor relationships in the ‘friends’ bucket, that’s helps as a lot too. For as we grow, they often tend to be the greatest support system of them all. I say this because they have not only ‘been there, done that’ but also offer a guiding, slightly less biased point of view. Such relationships are worth their weight in gold.

We all have support systems – whether we like it or not. The good news is that whether they are strong or weak depends a great deal on us. We DO control this part.

All that said then, I think the big question to start the week by is the obvious one –

Are we doing enough to build and nurture our support system?

Happy Monday!