Good day everyone! This is the Part 3 of this interesting, informative and educative series, titled, Why Should Entrepreneurs Have Business Friends(Network). If you have not read the Part 1 and Part 2, I advice you to read it before going on with this article, by clicking here for Part 1 and here for Part 2. Finding the right friend will make us happier and richer, so it is very important for an entrepreneur to have good friends around. In today's article, I will be sharing with you guys one benefit why entrepreneurs should have business friends.
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Loneliness
As humans we are social beings and are created to created to associate with each other. Lack of social connect may be detrimental to our overall health and pose as much risk as smoking and drinking alcohol, which leads to a sedentary lifestyle, which is not good at all. Being lonely is not good for overall mental health, loneliness can cause higher rate of depression, anxiety and even suicide. One way to boost immune system and reduce loneliness, which is a major contributing factor to depression and suicidal thoughts, is by having an active social life. We need friendship in our lives. Friendship have a huge impact on our mental health and happiness. Good friendship helps relieve stress, provides comfort, promotes joy and prevent loneliness and depression. Studies have shown that developing close friendship and hanging out with can reduce the risk of loneliness and also have a powerful impact not only on our physical health but also on our emotional and mental health.
As entrepreneur all you may think about is your work and how it will progress, so you tend to plan your life around the business. You think everything you do must be business related including your relationship and friendship. So therefore, everyone you associate with is somehow connected to your business. You tend to make friends in relation to your business and make sure your business would benefit from the kind of friends you make. We network, go to conferences and business parties, to seek out friends that we know and expect to be of great benefit to our business. But there is a difference between between business friends and social friends. The two kind of friendship play different roles and one shouldn't take the place of the other. Having business friends is very healthy, but you should also have place for social friends as they are truly your friends with no strings attached, hence, they look out for your well-being more than your business friends who is only your friend for the benefits him/her also gets from you.
A business friend would most likely talk to you about how to take the business forwards, the next big deal you should make, that would bring in more money and so on. He/she may less likely talk to you about your personal life such as your emotional health and mental health. But a social friend, that you have connected with, will care more about your as a person. They care about your mental & emotional health and your social life. So having a social friend has it's own unique benefit. In as much as we need network to grow our business we don't have to sideline the need for close friendship. Maintaining a rich network of both business friends and social friends, can add significant years to your life. We all want to know and feel that others care about us even if we prefer solitude and our space. No one likes loneliness, so try have friends that care and show it, by been willing to hangout with you and be there for you when you need them.
Photo by Felix Rostig on Unsplash
I hope you found this article quite interesting, educative and informative, if so, do well to leave your thoughts in the comment section below. Thanks for reading.
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