How Do You Know That Your Friends Are Not Supportive?
I've been thinking about the concept of support recently; how we define support, how we measure support and how we value support. In human relationships "support" is seen as a means of holding someone up, being a consistent presence who sometimes shares the responsibility or the strain of whatever is going on life. Support can be financial and it can be emotional or it can simply be a way to help. In business, being supportive comes in very similar forms but I think social media has had an impact on how we are identifying and recognising different types of support.
Ask yourself what does support look like in your world in a business and even professional context. With the rise of social media we have developed a habit or even desire for instantaneous gratification. This means that for some people leaving a comment, retweeting or liking a social media post is the support that they can quantify and measure. It is a visible representation of support and symbolic of our technological inter-connectedness. In my opinion social media has had an impact on our very way of being, our collective psyche and how we communicate that's why some people are convinced that if people do not show support via social media that they are not being supportive. But I have come to the realisation that this type of rationale is quite detrimental to how we view our networks. Social media engagement is quite fleeting, in order to remain satisfied we have to constantly be in the midst of seeking out engagement and being visible which puts a lot of pressure on our network but also on us as business owners or professionals to monitor who is liking and sharing every single post. I remember when I started my YouTube Channel I was nervous and projected some of my nerves and fears using the logic that people were not commenting on my YouTube videos and that no one was sharing my YouTube videos and so I thought that they were not supportive. However I came to some important realisations through that experience. First of all I didn't make my videos for my friends and actually they don't have to be interested in my content if it's not for them, when I figured this out I started to put things into perspective. When I brought it up with some friends (because it's important to have honest conversations offline with people you care about before you resent them) I realised that some of them had been sharing and telling people who would be my target audience which actually had more lasting impact. But then I really started to just go back the core of what support really means to me I realised that support is more than just the physical or obvious. And look there are plenty of people who follow me on social media but don't like my posts but people are just busy and they have other things on their mind that are more important than liking posts but that doesn't mean they don't care. To be honest it also doesn't mean I should spend time over-thinking why they haven't liked a post and neither should you.
You're not entitled to anyone's support, nobody asked you to start your business.
You have to undertake the appropriate research to see if there's a demand outside of your immediate network.— Ronke Lawal (@ronkelawal) May 23, 2019
I want to remind you that just because people are not necessarily engaging with every single piece of content that you share or if they cannot physically attend every single event that you are part of it doesn't mean they do not want to see you succeed, the right people are supporting you in the best ways that they can. Taking it back to business, some parts of my network are not going to be my clients so cannot support me directly or financially but they speak my name in rooms that I cannot enter/I'm not in or keep me in mind when there are opportunities to refer me to. I've had so many opportunities from people who have recommended me and I didn't even know that they were even paying attention to what I was doing but they hear something that they know would be a good business opportunity for me and bring me in.
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For me support can come from a spiritual place, there are a lot of people in my life who are not on social media or rarely use social media and yet they're very supportive through words of encouragement and even through words of prayer and affirmation. Just because they're not physically writing it down their prayers are an even more powerful means of support that protects and encourages me. I want to reiterate the importance of talk about spiritual support because for me prayer is really important. I strongly believe that there are people in my life who are supporting me through prayer and there are people in my life who are speaking words of goodness, joy and abundance into my life. I want to ask you what that means to you and how you can use this perspective to redefine what support looks like in your life. Look at how people show their support during challenging times, when the chips are down who can you call and visit? Who will give you space to be yourself outside of the pressures and stresses of your business?
Of course we are not living in a Utopian society, there are going to be some people who are not necessarily for you and who do not want to see you win. They're not champions of anything you do in fact they might discourage you and be confidence killers, however they show up in your life, whether it is online or offline seek discernment. You will know who is for you and who is not for you if you pay attention but do not allow it to consume you. You have to ask yourself why it bothers you that those who aren't for you don't support you - to me that is a need for validation and by constantly seeking validation we can never truly be satisfied. Sometimes you have to have an upfront conversation or sometimes you just have to keep it moving but do not let misunderstandings block you from good relationships and do not let unrealistic expectations keep you disappointed in people. So take the time to think about what support looks like to you and how you can give and receive support more authentically and openly moving forward.