Recently I had coffee with a friend of mine, Sara,  and I asked her to review some marketing material I has written for a new business I am forming. It is copy for the back of greeting cards I am creating for my seaweed art pressings. Sara is a business owner herself, and a very smart, creative person, whom I have often relied upon for advice and guidance, both personally and professionally. She’s the kind of person who always strives for the best. She is in many ways, an advanced achiever. I admire and respect her judgement and am grateful to have her as a friend. The copy in question was something I had been muling over for weeks. Paul, another person with high standards, had edited it too and thought it looked great. My dear friend, however, offered some more suggestions, a few tweaks here and there, and what we came up with I think is fantastic!

I couldn’t help but feel lucky to have Sara in my life. This was not the first time she has come to my “creative” aid. When I married Paul, she came to my house a few days before the wedding to see what she could do to help. I had wanted to decorate the baskets the flower girls were going to carry and my effort would have consisted of attaching some bows and leaving it at that. Sara took over, adorning the baskets with color coordinated ribbons and dried flowers. Her version was so much better than anything I could have come up with. I still have the baskets, which are displayed prominently on a shelf in my art studio.

Having friends like Sara are the best kind, because they elevate you to achieve more and inspire you to do your best. They raise the bar. This important, not just for me, as an adult, but for kids too. I remember having friends like that when I was a child, and I can see now how significant that kind of influence has had on my own children. For instance, when Sophia was in 9th grade, she was struggling with an intensive English class she was taking. She was so worried she couldn’t do well in the class that she considered dropping it until one of her friends took her under her wing and shared with her some of her study skills for learning vocabulary words. It did the trick and gave Sophia the confidence to not only continue with the class, but to succeed as well. She ended up getting an A .

Academic mentoring is only part of the positive associations one gets from hanging out in the right crowd. My daughter Eva is in 9th grade and just this past year has made a new friend, who is new to our community and who recently had a sleepover at our house. When her mom picked her up, she came in the house for a chat. She told me how happy she was that her daughter had made friends with Eva. She lamented the unfortunate sexual promiscuity of some of the girls her daughter knew from middle school, as in “too much eye liner and hanging out with the football team,” and felt fortunate that her daughter had found a like-minded chum in my daughter Eva. That made me very proud.

At the beginning of the school year, Eva “dated” a football player who repeatedly asked her to go to the movies with him. Alone. The rule in our house is dating in groups only until you are 16. No exceptions. After three weeks of “going out,” Eva dumped him. She never told me the reason why, but I suspect it was because there was too much pressure. She has good sense, and most importantly, high standards and self respect. She raises the bar.