8 Lessons I learned From My Billionaire Best Friend
Meeting new people is one of the most amazing experiences you can give yourself. You can learn lessons from others that could change your life especially if they lived a completely different life from yours. Here are 8 lessons I learned from my billionaire best friend.
1. Everything is going to be okay
There was a moment in my life when I decided that moving to Warsaw, Poland would be a great idea to go to college. It sure was, but it was because of a friend I made when I was there. She happened to be a billionaire baby and little did I know that I would learn lessons that I could use throughout my life. One of them is that no matter what, “everything is going to be okay”.
She taught me that everything works out no matter what. There is no reason to add extra stress to your life. People will be people and the only person you can control is yourself. There were many times when I felt everything was out of control. It could have been because of the people I was around, school, family, it didn’t matter but every time I would openly talk about what I was going through she would confirm that things would work out. She was always right, they did every time!
2. Stay classy
My best friend taught me one lesson without even really telling me at all about it and that was to keep your style put together. She was one of the classiest women I have ever met. She had a certain style that was elegant yet trendy. She was always wearing jewelry, hints of designer accessories here and there. Her hair was beautifully straight or curled. Her makeup was perfectly applied every day, and her confidence in herself was admirable. She had this poise to herself that made her whole look come together.
A person that she reminded me of was Blake Lively when she plays in the movie The Age of Adeline. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it. In that role, she carried herself so well in every situation. She never was inappropriate, or rude. She was simply just classy and it made others want to be just like her. My friend emulated this persona.
3. Doesn’t matter who you are
Under all that money, there was a regular person inside. People tended to look at my friend as if she was a diamond. So beautiful, yet so untouchable and I saw this in the eyes of the people who surrounded us. In a lot of ways, it was a crazy experience to watch people drool over her. The lesson that I learned was that she made others realize that it doesn’t matter who you are. Everyone is the same deep down.
She wanted to feel just like everyone else around us and she wanted to not be chosen for the money she had. She knew it didn’t define her, but she also realized it was apart of who she was. I knew she didn’t want me to think of her as this “rich girl”, so I didn’t. I didn’t want a friend like that to begin with.
One of the greatest lessons I saw from her, was the fact that she also accepted me for who I was. I wasn’t rich, I wasn’t anything. There was nothing to my name, yet she saw me in my purest form and wanted to be my friend. I never was seen like that before and I knew at that moment she would be a friend for a lifetime.
4. Don’t trust all, but don’t completely push them out
There are lessons that were a little bit harder for me to understand that she taught me, but it away I respected them. My friend was a very sociable woman. She wanted to be seen, and to be heard like many of us. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be wanted, but many people want to be heard and seen for the wrong reasons. If you have money, and others know this, it gives people all the more reason to try to be apart of your life.
I think she saw this side of people, but she had such a pure heart of not wanting to believe that they were “bad” for her. Instead of shutting people out completely, she made the choice to keep them close just not so close. She chose which people were particularly right to be around in different parts of her life.
There were the people she would get drinks with, people she went to class with, the ones that she could take to events, and so on. I think this is something to learn from because many of us shut people out right away when we don’t like something, but sometimes it’s not about shutting that person out. It’s just about learning what type of person they are.
5. Give them a second chance, maybe even a 3rd, but stop around the 4th
Another one of the lessons my friend had taught me was, to give people more chances. I think a lot of us go through life learning that when a person messes up, then that’s the end of it. But here’s the thing, we all mess up.
Do you remember the time you made the wrong choices and wished that you didn’t do what you had done? It hurts when others won’t forgive you. I’m not saying you should forgive everything a person does if they hurt you but what I am saying is that you can’t be so hard on people.
None of us are perfect, yet we expect others to be perfect and meet every expectation of ours. It’s unrealistic and not attainable. Don’t be so hard on the people around you. Time can only tell if the people you spend time with are truly hurting you or if they messed up on accident.
6. Be giving
If there was one lesson you should take, it’s this one. My friend was very giving to everyone around her. She simply did it because she actually in her heart wanted to. Her father and mother were the same way, always giving as much as they could to the people around them.
I think in ways, it could make people feel uncomfortable and there was at one point I felt that way. The reason why I felt that was because I didn’t know what I was bringing to the friendship. It felt as if I was only friends with her because of the money and that was never the case.
Then I realized throughout our friendship that I did give something to her. It was a true friendship. I listened and loved presently. I would try to pay for dinners, and always celebrated her birthdays but that’s the most I could financially do. Although it didn’t feel like much, I was doing a lot for our friendship in long run. Being loving and authentically yourself is what makes friendships real and long-lasting.
7. Make those you encounter feel wanted
Lessons are taught in very interesting ways. My friend taught me how to encounter all people she met. She has a true gift at making others feel extremely loved no matter where we went. For example, when we became friends we were all about parties. We did it at least once a week, so you can imagine the number of people we met on the regular. She could connect with anyone in seconds just by asking about them and how they were.
People love to talk about themselves and when you take interest in that, people like you extremely fast. She remembers those around her also and was excited to see everyone. She never made anyone feel awkward or not included. There was a certain safety she provided and many of the people in our friend group looked up to her for this reason alone. She knew everyone because she took the time to know everyone.
8. Romantic relationships
One of the last lessons I learned from my best friend was that if you were in a relationship, don’t tell the world about it. When we met each other, we were both in relationships. Mine was going south unfortunately and I was very vocal about it. I think too vocal, especially to the wrong people. When you become vocal about what is happening in your relationship, others feel the need and have the ability to put their input. They think they have a say when in reality you are giving them the say.
My friend was very classy about her love life. She never said much about who she was dating and I admire that. You would never truly know if something was wrong and maybe that isn’t always good to keep things so “inside” but it was good to do because it made the relationship more about the two of you, not the whole world.
