A Tribute to a Great Friend

This has been a great week where we spent some wonderful time in Gibraltar with my brother and his wife and this made me realise how important family time is.

Thank you, Richard and Adele, for the invitation to stay with you in beautiful Gib, we had a wonderful time with you both and it was great to get to know you better. We must do it again soon.

Don’t focus on the wrong things

It is so easy to get lost in work and other time-consuming projects and we can forget the most important things in life which are relationships. These can be relatives or friends they may be close, or distant but true friendships last a lifetime.

One of these friendships I have is with a 6ft 6in American called Randy Haefner (or Haef as I call him). We first met in Sunderland when we were playing basketball professionally for Sunderland. We had a great time up there and we got on really well.

We stayed in touch

When I retired from playing in 1981 after winning the Play-Offs with Haef, I secured the position of commercial manager for Sunderland for 3 years then I left to become the General Manager of Manchester Giants.

Following this I secured employment with Metro Radio for 5 years then I set up my own business. The two years I ran my business were tough. It was the time of that recession and everything I tried didn’t work out.

True friendship

During this time Haef was an amazing friend. I can’t go into details, but he did things for me which were above and beyond anything a friend would do including helping me to get to New York to try to save my business.

We didn’t save my business, but I have applied many things I learned from the failed business which have helped me build my current international business. The reason my business is succeeding today is because of Haef and our friendship.

It was like we had never been apart

‘In every negative situation there is a seed of something positive.’ The business failed all those years ago, but I am now seeing the seeds of positivity being sown into my new business. Thank you Haef!

After maybe 20 years apart we saw each other at my wedding on the 9th May 2015 to Julie and it was like we had never been apart. We saw each other again in Gibraltar last Monday and again it was like we had seen each other a few weeks ago.

Don’t let great things go

Haef emailed me when we got back and summed this up in some beautiful words:

“Absolutely great to see you and Julie again! Every time we meet it’s as if virtually no time has passed. That’s the sign of a great friendship. Wish we could have spent more time together.”

We will be seeing Haef and Ana Maria again soon and it won’t be several years again as I have made a decision to keep in touch with good friends regardless of how busy I get.

Thoughts for the week:

1. What is your view of relationships?
2. Are relationships nice but low on your list of priorities?
3. This week I challenge you to raise the importance of relationships in your life.
4. Don’t go through life making money and succeeding at the cost of relationships.
5. On your death bed you won’t ask for your bank balance, but you will ask for your friends to be around you.

Well that’s it for this week have a wonderful weekend and keep Believing.

Warm regards

John

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