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Finished reading Vital Friends by Tom Rath earlier this month. Tom is a Gallup guru so the book is driven by deep research and analysis.

The premise is that we spend too much time focusing on the wrong kind of relationships in our lives. We focus a lot on psychology (our relationship with ourself), sociology (our relationship with groups), and anthropology (our relationship to culture). We spend very little time focusing on that one-on-one relationship with another person.

Rath started his initial research when he was working on a Gallup project about homelessness. He found that the reason many people become homeless was due to a relationship with someone (perhaps the last and only relationship they had left) that was lost. Perhaps a spouse who gave up, children who won’t talk to them anymore, or a parent who has resolved to let the child fend for themselves. Furthermore, Rath found that many people get out of being homeless because someone began and cultivated a relationship with a homeless person.

It was the absence of a one-on-one relationship that resulted in homelessness. It was the presence of a one-on-one relationship that resulted in home-full-ness.

It’s that initial research that sparked Tom to flush it out and study the significance of one-on-one relationships more in depth. Throughout years of Gallup research, he identifies eight vital roles that other people play in our lives, and includes a survey component with the book that you complete online that identifies what roles the various people in our lives play.

It was great to see how I feed off the variety of relationships in my life. It was also helpful to see why certain people were not meeting expectations in areas because they are not built that way. Because not every person embodies all eight roles, it is helpful to see how surrounding yourself with others who do have certain roles is beneficial.

And then when you turn the tables and see how you help in others’ lives, things get really interesting.

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