Who’s in Your Circle?

I’m on week 3 of 4 for traveling in a row. That’s a pretty big deal, considering I’ve not traveled this much in the past 3 years — combined.

Two things I love about travel: 1. think tank time (something I’ve definitely missed) and 2. reading.

I load up on my iPad from the library before I hit the road or airport to read — my bestie becomes the library Amazon plug-in on Chrome. 😉

First off, I read several books at a time. One of the books I’ve been reading the past few weeks discussed the groups you should be paying attention to for your career entitled, Take Back Your Power by Deborah Liu. I think this was one of the items she mentioned, which was — pay attention to your tribes, including the following:

• Mentors
• Sponsors
• Team
• Circle

Several folks have written about mentors vs. sponsors (hint, they’re different and you really need both), and of course team dynamics have been written about since the dawn of time. But the one that struck me, and the one I forgot to think about consciously is your Circle.

Who’s in your Circle? Let’s back up — what is a Circle? A Circle is your close friends who tell you like it is, who you consider “peers” but maybe each person within the Circle has a different superpower than your own.

Your Circle is important for several reasons — beyond the “You are most like the 5 people you hang around the most, so choose wisely.” They, mid-career, are the peers most likely to network you to awesome opportunities, or to tell you like it is, when you’ve already established your mentors and you MAY or MAY NOT already have great sponsors in place. (Spoiler alert: sponsors pick you, not the other way around. I digress.)

Your Circle is important to nourish because your circle can help you out of jams. Think of it this way — Circle friends can be those you don’t see every day, but you know if you got stuck in a jam at 3 am, they’d be there and drop everything to help you out. Rare. But powerful.

Your Circle can be vital to your career development, and your life development too. Your Circle-folk can also get you to see different views or perspectives of the world that maybe you haven’t thought about before, maybe because you spend all your time in the same profession, surrounded day to day with the same professional backgrounds as you (and you know what that can lead to — the Monkey Cage problem.) Your Circle can get you out of the Monkey Cage.*

(*The Monkey Cage can smell, but if you’re immersed in it — you no longer smell it.)

Your Circle is something you should be building and refining over your career and life. People will come and go. But, the very best you should include in your Circle — for your Circle can be one of the most powerful forces in your life. Choose wisely.

Right now, I’m determining at this point in my life, who is in my Circle.

Who’s in yours?

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Erin L. Albert is an author, instructor, pharmacist, and VP of Pharmacy Relations at CostPlusDrugs.com. Opinions here are her own.