Book: Vital Friends
As a member of the Gallup poll, I get to regularly voice my opinion that President Bush is doing a terrible job. If that weren't satisfying enough, a couple of weeks ago Gallup sent me a book, Vital Friends by Tom Rath. This past weekend, I was looking for something to read and I came across it again. With a shrug and a sigh, I sat down and started to read.
The premise of the book is that people in general can become happier, healthier, and more productive by focussing on their relationships. According to the author, vital friends (friends who you can't do without) fall into eight categories that describe what you get out of a relationship. Builders are great motivators. Champions stand up for you. Collaborators are friends that share your interests. Connectors are friends who introduce you to new people. Companions are always there when you need them. Energizers are the "fun" friends. Mind Openers introduce you to new things. Navigators are great at giving advice. The book breaks down each type of friend, describes what they do, how you'd describe the friend to someone else, how to strengthen that type of friendship, how to acquire more of that type of friend, and how to be a better friend of that type.
Friendships are not always mirrors in terms of what roles the parties play. For example, my wife is a builder, a companion, and a navigator. To her, I'm a companion, a navigator, and a connector. One of the nuggets of advice in the book is to appreciate the roles that your friend is best at and not dwell on the roles that your friend may not excel at. One of the biggest fights that my wife and I had was when I tried to get her to be more of a Collaborator in a hobby that she had absolutely no interest in doing.
One of the "bonuses" with the purchase of the book is access to the VitalFriends.com website. One chapter of the book describes how to use the site. On it, you can answer questions and figure out what roles each of your friends plays in your life. But there isn't a way to sign in without the code from the book. So you can recommend that a friend try it out, but in order to access the site, she would have to buy a fresh copy of the book and hope that no one grabbed the code from the book while it sat on the shelf at Borders. I appreciate that the authors want to be paid for their work, but in the age of MySpace, FaceBook, and other social networking sites, there ought to be a way to make the service available to someone without them having to purchase the book.
The premise of the book is that people in general can become happier, healthier, and more productive by focussing on their relationships. According to the author, vital friends (friends who you can't do without) fall into eight categories that describe what you get out of a relationship. Builders are great motivators. Champions stand up for you. Collaborators are friends that share your interests. Connectors are friends who introduce you to new people. Companions are always there when you need them. Energizers are the "fun" friends. Mind Openers introduce you to new things. Navigators are great at giving advice. The book breaks down each type of friend, describes what they do, how you'd describe the friend to someone else, how to strengthen that type of friendship, how to acquire more of that type of friend, and how to be a better friend of that type.
Friendships are not always mirrors in terms of what roles the parties play. For example, my wife is a builder, a companion, and a navigator. To her, I'm a companion, a navigator, and a connector. One of the nuggets of advice in the book is to appreciate the roles that your friend is best at and not dwell on the roles that your friend may not excel at. One of the biggest fights that my wife and I had was when I tried to get her to be more of a Collaborator in a hobby that she had absolutely no interest in doing.
One of the "bonuses" with the purchase of the book is access to the VitalFriends.com website. One chapter of the book describes how to use the site. On it, you can answer questions and figure out what roles each of your friends plays in your life. But there isn't a way to sign in without the code from the book. So you can recommend that a friend try it out, but in order to access the site, she would have to buy a fresh copy of the book and hope that no one grabbed the code from the book while it sat on the shelf at Borders. I appreciate that the authors want to be paid for their work, but in the age of MySpace, FaceBook, and other social networking sites, there ought to be a way to make the service available to someone without them having to purchase the book.
posted by mypetrock at 5:48 PM
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