Dharius Daniels - How to Know if Your Friends are Reliable

What’s up? Listen, I have a question for you, and the question is really simple: Are your friends reliable? If the answer to that question is yes, I have another question: How do you know? Well, in this video, I want to talk to you a little bit about that. I want to help you decide and discern whether or not you have the reliable friends you need to create the amazing life you want. Stay tuned!

Listen, I can’t emphasize this enough: You can’t be your best self by yourself. When I look back at different seasons of my life, I notice that whenever my life improved—check this out—either someone new who added value came into it, or someone who was actually a liability left it. Every time my life got better, either someone came in, or someone went out. This is why I will never stop talking about the importance of relationships. I’m telling you right now, I can’t be my best self alone, and one of the most important relationships we all have is friendship.

In previous videos, I’ve done tons of unpacking about why friends are so important. I believe friends are probably your greatest relational asset because you’re going to be most vulnerable, most authentic, and most transparent with them. Friends get to see the real you in a way that others often do not, so they have the opportunity to speak into your life in a way that other people cannot. Therefore, I think it’s so crucial that we take friendship seriously.

Listen to me: A person who doesn’t take friendship seriously is a person who doesn’t take success seriously, because you can’t be your best self alone. I believe there is a framework we need for friendship. I’ve talked about that framework in different videos, and today I want to discuss the fourth trait we must consider, think about, and filter when it comes to friends: our friends need, listen to this, unmovable reliability.

I want you to hear this proverb; it’s one of my favorites: Proverbs 18:24 says, «One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin.» Check this out: He didn’t say one who has just unrighteous friends; he didn’t say one who just has uncontrollable friends or hyper-emotional friends. He said, «One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin.» Notice he didn’t say they immediately come to ruin; he said they soon come to ruin. That’s so interesting because some things are ruining us incrementally, not immediately. Just because something isn’t destroyed right now doesn’t mean something isn’t happening that’s destructive.

So here’s a question I want to ask you: For everyone you’re calling a friend, do they have unmovable reliability? You see, it’s dependability and trustworthiness that make someone reliable. So, when you think about reliability—I’m sitting on this chair right now, right? I have all my weight on this chair, so I need to have faith that this chair can hold me up. I need to trust that this chair is reliable.

This might be a bad example, but it’s the best one coming to my mind right now. You kind of need to think of your friends as chairs from time to time—not that you sit on your friends; that’s not what I’m saying. But the question is: When the weight of your life falls on them, can you trust them to be there for you? Think about it. This is why reliability is so important. Reliability is predictability, and if there’s one thing we all need in friends, it’s predictability.

Here’s what I mean: When it comes to friends, you shouldn’t need them all the time. If a person says, «I need my friends all the time,» I don’t know how healthy that relationship is; that might indicate some codependency. God did not create any of us to be co-dependent.

We weren’t created to be independent, and I know we might like independence and say, «I can do this by myself.» But we were not created to operate in isolation. We weren’t created to be co-dependent; we were created to be interdependent. What does that mean? What’s the difference? That’s the happy medium. It means I recognize my need for other people, but I’m not overly dependent on them because I understand what others are and aren’t responsible for.

So, I don’t make others responsible for what I’m responsible for, and I don’t make myself responsible for what others are responsible for. You see what I’m saying? That’s interdependence, and that’s the way we’ve been created. It doesn’t matter. I know you might be like, «Dr. Darius, I’m killing it. I’m winning. I’m doing it my way. I’m sticking with my way.» But just because you’re not experiencing another level doesn’t mean another level doesn’t exist.

So, you might think you’re killing it. I’m telling you, if you are co-dependent or independent, and you think you’re killing it, you’re still settling because there’s another level that’s only unlocked when you become interdependent. So, if you’re doing great being hyper-independent or co-dependent, think how much more you would thrive if you did it God’s way and became interdependent. There’s a degree of dependency; there’s got to be some predictability. I need to be able to know that when the weight…