Building strong friendships

Image: Sasint/Adobe Stock

What are the features of a good friendship? In a keynote session at the Fetch Long Beach conference December 6-8, 2024, Mary Gardner, DVM, cofounder and chief information officer of Lap of Love Veterinary Hospice & In-Home Euthanasia; and Eric Garcia, internationally recognized information technology (IT) and digital strategist working with veterinary practices, and founder of Simply Done Tech Solutions, shared anecdotes of their unwavering friendship rooted in accountability and mutual support, explaining that good friends can not only lift each other up, but help each other grow and navigate life.

“The world as you view it, no matter how it is, it can be a dark place at times and we can go through our own personal challenges,” began Garcia in the session titled “Evolving Together Through Friendship, Accountability, and the Ever-Present Learning Curve.” “With Mary and I, no matter what's happening, we're always super happy about just how we view life, and we contribute a lot of that to having close friends and to being each other's best friends.”

Gardner and Garcia shared 7 features of their friendship, which Gardner and Garcia call their “friendship creed,” that help them bond and make the friendship a great one. These values consist of “brutal” honesty; “crushing” work, or putting in effort; laughing harder; fueling the fun; accountability; continuous learning; and having an inner circle.

“These are things that we really focus on every day when we're talking to each other or when things happen within our lives or goals and mindset,” said Gardner.

Laughing harder and fueling the fun

Garcia and Gardner explained that an important part of a good friendship consists of being able to be one’s authentic self. “You have to be okay with being silly in your friendship. You have to be okay with being who you are, to think about who you really are. Think about who you were in your younger years, in your early being. Think about that weird person that you used to be, that you suppress because societal norms asked you to be a certain way,” emphasized Garcia.

Crushing work

Good friends challenge each other to succeed and work hard, or “crush work,” as Gardner and Garcia explain. “We challenge each other every year in going into every single event that we do, whether speaking at a conference here or somewhere else. We're always like, ‘Bring your best a game. Do the best you can. Make sure your slides look good. Make sure you know what you're talking about.’ We always challenge each other, and ultimately, it led us to win an award [a few years ago] together in different categories,” Garcia shared. However, he also emphasized that this feature of a good friendship also consists of celebrating friends when achievements happen.

Being “brutally honest” and holding each other accountable

“It's really important, I feel, in friendship[s] to be able to be brutally honest with the person that you're good friends with,” explained Garcia. He emphasized the importance of having open conversations with friends, sharing that when Gardner is “brutally honest” with him, he does not “look at that brutal honesty and say that it hurts [his] feelings.”

Accountability, like open honesty, should also live freely in friendships. In the talk, Gardner and Garcia explained that they are constantly holding each other accountable and keeping each other in check. Earlier this year, Gardner took on the challenge of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro despite having never climbed a mountain and having no experience hiking. As Gardner and Garcia shared, Garcia helped hold Gardner accountable by reminding her to prepare for the climb.

Continuously learning

Good friends push each other to continue learning new things, explained Garcia and Gardner. They shared that their friendship pushed both of them to search for a hobby and try new things—something they did not have prior to their friendship.

“We often complain about what's wrong with the world… instead of complaining, we should channel that energy differently, and we should think about what we're doing to put good into the world,” said Garcia, quoting a lecture he attended on the art of happiness. He explained that both him and Gardner challenged each other to text the other for 31 days straight about something they did to “put good into the world,” pushing each other to learn more about the world.

Having an inner circle of friends

Gardner and Garcia explained that it is important to surround oneself with people who “fuel your fire.” Friendships evolve and grow stronger when they are built on trust and support. Gardner and Garcia explained that it is all right to cut people who are not supporting you off, or those that are hindering personal growth.

During the session, Garcia shared an experience during the COVID-19 pandemic with a cyberbully who began attacking him and a business that he ran with Gardner. According to Garcia, Gardner supported him throughout the entire process. When Garcia addressed the issue publicly, both the community and Gardner stood by him.

“Unapologetically fight for your friends,” said Garcia.

Reference

1. Gardner M, Garcia E. “Evolving Together Through Friendship, Accountability, and the Ever-Present Learning Curve.” Presented at: Fetch dvm360 Conference; Long Beach, CA. December 6-8, 2024.