Charlie Magdaleno: Blog

   Recently, I've started running a few days a week with a friend of mine, and it got me thinking about how important it is and how beneficial it can be to have partners in your life.

  A partner can keep you accountable.  If you decide to skip a workout, or start lagging behind on a deadline, in many cases you're only hurting yourself.  However, when you've got someone depending on you to follow through with a commitment, to hold your end of a bargain, that can often be all the motivation we need to do some great things and become some great people.  A truly terrific partner is one that not only doesn't let you cheat others, but doesn't let you cheat yourself.

  A partner can both challenge and validate your way of thinking and being.  Let's say you and your longtime friend decide to into business together.  Perhaps you're the creative, charismatic, "big picture" kind of person, and your friend is the rational, intelligent, and detail-oriented kind of person.  All other things aside, this is a powerful combination for leadership as you always have someone who is looking and leading ahead, and someone else making sure your train's got enough steam to get there.  On your own, however, you may end up stuck as someone who's always thinking about what can be done in the future instead of thinking about what can be done or SHOULD be done right now.  With the mutual respect and appreciation that should come with any partnership, it's amazing what having just one other person that balances you out can do.

  Perhaps most importantly, a partner is someone to experience things with.  It's great that you followed your favorite band across the country for an entire Summer, but really the LAST thing you'll probably ever remember are the shows.  Journeys like these, momentous occasions and insignificant instances often times generate their value based on the people involved, and the experiences we share with them.  When you went off to college and made the move completely on your own, that was a big deal.  It's arguably an even bigger deal to consider how big it was when you moved into your first home with your spouse with nothing but love, a $500,000 debt to the bank, and a vision for what could be.  It's the partnerships that we engage in in our lives that make the difference between remembering and reminiscing; between telling a story and sharing a memory.  And really, perhaps the only thing worse than a life not lived is a life not shared.

  I urge you to take the time to express your gratitude for the truly special partnerships you've enjoyed in your life- in whatever way, shape, or form they have come about.  Additionally, for those of you embarking on some new and exciting journeys, I hope you consider doing it with a partner- they can be the one to push you when you need to be pushed, be the one to help you see the right when you're wrong, and be the one to see exactly what you see when telling the story of your life.

  After all, Rome wasn't built in a day, and it surely wasn't built by one person.