I was reminded this morning as I reflected on my top 5 strengths (Based on the Clifton Strengthsfinder profile you can read about here) of how important meaningful friendships are in my life. My number 2 strength is Relator and here is how Clifton describes it:
Relator describes your attitude toward your relationships. In simple terms, the Relator theme pulls you toward people you already know. You do not necessarily shy away from meeting new people—in fact, you may have other themes that cause you to enjoy the thrill of turning strangers into friends—but you do derive a great deal of pleasure and strength from being around your close friends. You are comfortable with intimacy. Once the initial connection has been made, you deliberately encourage a deepening of the relationship. You want to understand their feelings, their goals, their fears, and their dreams; and you want them to understand yours. You know that this kind of closeness implies a certain amount of risk—you might be taken advantage of—but you are willing to accept that risk. For you a relationship has value only if it is genuine. And the only way to know that is to entrust yourself to the other person. The more you share with each other, the more you risk together. The more you risk together, the more each of you proves your caring is genuine. These are your steps toward real friendship, and you take them willingly.
I am exactly as this description states for Relators. I want to understand others feelings, goals, fears, dreams and I want them to understand mine. I don’t necessarily seek approval from friends and they won’t always agree with me anyway, but I definitely want them to understand me and especially understand my intentions. I think it’s one of the reasons why I’ve learned to over-communicate things. In addition, I do deliberately encourage deepening relationships with people. It reminds me of a re-connection I made this week with a lost friend named Tina Andrews.
Tina is one of those people that is always so vibrant and enthusiastic when she speaks. Her tone of voice just makes me stand at attention and hinge on every word as I know there is always something I can take away in her words aside from intended response. She’s one of those people that I happened to meet by chance with the idea of doing business together, yet once I realized who she was and what she had accomplished I started asking myself what the heck she would do continuing a relationship with me outside of business. She always had time for my calls and email and even to connect for lunch. You see, Tina and I operate in different worlds. We are uniquely different, yet I think we both share traits within the aspect of being Relators. We lost touch for years, yet at the right time we were re-connected and seemed to pick up where we left off.
Ultimately, one of my goals in business was always to do business with those people I cared for and who respected and appreciated me for more than what I could do for their bottom line. I have been graced with the ability to say that I have several people like Tina Andrews that have proven to be friend first, client a distant second place. I missed her and I miss having more friends like her in my life. Unfortunately, not everyone is open to such relationships and sometimes their junk (or mine) gets in the way. For me it’s not to consider what could have been, but to realize that there appointed times and people that I will be able to foster relationships with and that I can expect everyone to be receptive to my nature as a Relator. Today, I am thankful for people in my life like Tina that didn’t give up on me and took the one extra step required to have us connected once again.
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