Take an inventory of all the people that are in your life.

Now take a look at all your friends.

What does it mean to you to be a good friend?

Would you pick your friend up at the airport in the middle of the night?

Would you drop everything to help a friend when they call or text?

Are you the friend that truly values the gift of friendship?

In a world that I call disconnected, where we each have hundreds of fake friends on Facebook and Twitter, what really matters is our real friends—the handful of friends that we can count on one hand, that we can actually be ourselves with, that we can actually relax in front of and actually be there for.

Real friendship means going to war for your friends. Real friendship means standing up for your friend when they’re in need. Real friendship means accepting their faults, accepting everything about them and helping them grow to be a better person.

Real friendship is what life is all about.  

Real friendship is not about judging your friend, it’s about accepting your friend. Real friendship is about loving your friend.

So how do we ditch the fake friends and spend the time with our real friends?

When we’re in a relationship, we don’t have time for fake friends and it’s our real friends that are always there for us guiding.

Real friends will tell you exactly what they think and not worry about hurting your feelings.

Real friends will tell you if you’re dating the wrong person and help you re-evaluate the situation.

Real friends will give you their advice based on knowing who you are, inside and out, when it comes down to money, looks, whatever.

Real friends are the people that you need to expose yourself to every day.

But here is what’s really interesting: in order to get those real friends, in order to get that type of intimacy in your life, you need to open your heart every single day and be true, honest and real with everybody you meet.

Everybody you touch, everybody you meet, everybody you run into needs to see the real you. That’s how you can build all your new relationships moving forward, based on the authentic true power of yourself.

That’s the only way to ever meet somebody and expect them to understand and embrace you.