Friends. How Many of Us Have Them?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about friends and friendships.

A DJ at heart, I always have music on my mind, and today’s letter reminded me of Whodini’s Friends, released in 1984.

If you want trip down 80’s memory lane, here’s a live video performance which I hadn’t seen before.

As I was searching for the image, I noticed the year this song was published, 1984.

Talk about an influential time in my life, I was 14 years old. Barely a teenager and starting my freshman year in high school.

It was another world for sure, as my parents had enrolled my in Archbishop Stepinac, an all-boys catholic high school in White Plains, NY.

In an effort to participate in sports, I decided to join the track team. As a result we ended up having to show up a few weeks before the actual start of the year to begin training.

I’ll never forget that day. We lived in Yonkers and White Plains was a 30-minute drive north. My dad had driven us there, and we arrived a bit early, so I was the first one that showed up.

I was definitely feeling a bit out of place.

A few minutes later, another guy showed up and introduced himself, “Hi, my name is Xavier!”

Turns out Xavier also lived in Yonkers, and was Ecuadorian. This is a key point as I immediately had 2 points of connection. We lived in the same city (actually 10 minutes away from each other!) and we were both Latinos. We instantly hit it off and would go on to be best friends throughout high school and into our college years.

Given the make-up of the high school was predominately white and leaned very preppy, I know that played a big role in gravitating towards people that I could relate with.

I’ll also be forever grateful to my older brother Jorge, who was a year ahead of me and thankfully had made some friends that we could connect with us well. I’ll save you all the hazing stories, but because of my brother and his friends, we were definitely spared from the worst of it.

Xavier and I had a lot of adventures together during our formative years and he was present for so many special moments in my life.

As happens in life, as we got older we began to less of each other. Xavier went on to get married to an amazing women and they had 2 kids.

In early 2020, just as Covid was peaking, I received a call from a mutual friend that Xavier was in the hospital. In the interest of not drawing this out too much, suffice it to say he did not make it through.

The day I received that news was one of the most painful of my life.

Even though we had fallen out of contact and didn’t see much of each other, that lifelong bond was always there. I had, and continue to have SO many thoughts about this, especially as I get older.

I definitely regret not being able to say goodbye. I regret not doing more to maintain our friendship.

But knowing Xavier’s spirit, I know that if I had reached out, we would immediately have picked up where we left off.

You think a lot about these things as you get older. What it takes to develop a friendship and then what it takes to grow and cultivate new ones.

It’s not easy. Real life takes over and priorities change. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from the past and make better decisions moving forward.

I miss you mucho brother.

With gratitude,

🙏 Harry

What I Created This Week

What a wild ride it’s been since launching my 2nd show, Vertical Farming Podcast in 2020. In December we merged with IGROW NEWS the premiere newsletter in the space to create AgTech Media Group. We’re cooking up some new projects so stay tuned. Our first is a new show, AgTech Weekly Review. This week we also launched Season 10 of VFP, with BIO520 as our new title sponsor. I spoke to Felipe Hernandez, CEO of Hexagro. He shared his insights on the industry and gave us a peek

Catching up on Podcast Junkies, I published 2 episodes recently. Last week I shared an interview with friend and podcast OG, Dave Jackson. He’s the creator of The School of Podcasting and a treasure trove of funny stories and incredibly helpful podcast tips. You’ll be entertained and educated by this one.

This week I published an interview with Jonathan DeYoe. This was a special episode. Jonathan and I worked together a few years ago to launch his show, Mindful Money. So I was excited to have him come on and share his journey with my listeners. He provides a poignant story that was the catalyst for him starting the show that you definitely don’t want to miss.

Looking to Find Your Own Voice?

When you’re ready to launch your podcast, here are a few ways I can help:

Done-For-You - Are you a business owner that’s clear on your messaging and ready to launch your own authority-building podcast with the full launch, production and marketing support of our team? Watch this video.

Done-With-You - Do you have a concept in mind and looking for the support of a community and a little hand-holding from me to keep you accountable? Swipe my podcast launch plan here.

Do-It-Yourself - Are you more of a self-starter and want some help understanding the basics to get started? Sign up for my Podcast Blueprint today!