Page 66 - #LoveWarrior

Chapter Eight
Friendships, Mentors, and Influence

“When you’re surrounded by good mentors and coaches, you develop better intuition, as well as better tactics and
strategies.” – Eric Davis, former Navy SEAL Sniper Instructor

Quality Friendships
The desire for meaningful friendships is an honorable one; one that complements our design. We need support. We
need unconditional love. We need accountability. We need people around us to be present in our lives. We need our
life to be witnessed. This is how we cope with the pressures of this life. We get to experience joy with them.

Additionally, quality friendships are those that surpass the surface, that choose to focus on helping you achieve your
goals, not those that lead you away from righteousness. Those who lead you toward your weaknesses, vices, and
addictions are not your friends. I'm not saying this to be rude to these people – quite the opposite, actually. I'm
stating, “Let your life be a reflection of honor and integrity.”

Gay Hendricks, in The Big Leap, speaks on something called “the enlightened no,” something we say to people
when we are invited to participate in activities and projects that aren’t aligned with our best selves, our “zone of
genius” if you will. Borrowing his bit of brilliance, I have developed a first cousin to the enlightened no, which I call
“the divine no.” If you have people in your life right now that are leading you towards your weaknesses, vices and
addictions, try saying this out loud and see how you feel:

“I am really committed to living a righteous life, one that honors my Lord and savior and prepares
me for the (wo)man He has for me. This means only doing things that are in harmony with my values and spending
time with people who honor them. Please do not include me on such activities in the future.

While just thinking about saying this to someone can make the best of us uneasy, it truly is necessary that we do
whatever it takes to protect our hearts from draining friendships. Draining: One here that means the friendship will
not help you on your journey to self-care and Romantic Intelligence, one that will not offer you support and
accountability, one that may possibly lead to an opportunity for the enemy to plot against you.

In the immediate pages that follow, I’ve shared with you my personal roster of close friends and mentors in hopes of
modeling to you the importance of good influence and accountability.

“Mary”
With a heart of gold, this woman and I have been through so much together. We are actually coming up on our 10-
year friendiversary! We've walked through trials together and have seen one another all the way through to victory.
A woman of Italian blood, she's the kind of friend who boils when your blood boils, or boils still when you're just
lukewarm and cooling down. If there's been an injustice done to you, she's not okay with it. She's as loyal as they
come and as present as they all should be.

Ironically, she started out as my colleague, then became my hairstylist, and now I couldn't imagine my life without
her friendship. Quality friendships such as this will always be reliable and present.

“Emma”
Even as I write this, this woman cracks me up. I informed her I would be changing the four of their names for the
sake of privacy, and her response summed up why I love her: “Oh, I get to pick. I wanna be… Let me think.” So
many of my memories with her include us bent over laughing so hard our stomachs hurt. We could barely breathe,
and people around us deemed us crazy. We all need a friend in our lives like this. A friend who can go from goofball
status to super emotional and sentimental in just seconds. One memory I have with her takes me back to a horseback
ride we went on one day. As I cantered around the arena on our favorite horse, the song “Never Gonna Be Alone”
by Nickelback was playing. It was a scene out of a movie, and Emma later painted it from her perspective: “You

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