«Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close» by Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman:

Shine Theory

Even before we used the words “Shine Theory,” it was an operating principle of our friendship. We came to define Shine Theory as an investment, over the long term, in helping a friend be their best—and relying on their help in return. It is a conscious decision to bring our full selves to our friendships and to not let insecurity or envy ravage them. It’s a practice of cultivating a spirit of genuine happiness and excitement when our friends are doing well, and being there for them when they aren’t.

We wanted the best for each other. Every time a friend has encouraged us to follow through with a life change we’ve been talking about forever, or gently pushed us to get a therapist, or supported us in leaving a dead-end job, they were practicing Shine Theory. They wanted us to shine our brightest. And often, wanting the best for our friends has prompted us to seek better things for ourselves too.

Shine Theory can be applied to any arena of life where our ambitions lie, from the domestic to the professional. It’s when we care deeply about achieving a goal—getting a promotion, having a family, mastering a skill—that we often default to feeling competitive. We start to view the world as a series of power rankings. Shine Theory asks that we replace that impulse of competition with one of collaboration.

One of the clearest ways to see Shine Theory in action is to look at the work world. After years of watching our male peers get priority boarding on the professional rocket ship while we were on standby in the gate area, we stopped internalizing this as a personal failure. Together, we became skeptical of gatekeepers and decided we’d get further if we helped each other. We pooled our contacts and resources, affirmed each other when we felt stymied by bosses who didn’t see our value, and strategized together to get the highest salary possible. We brought bridal-shower levels of energy to news of a friend’s promotion and greeted pay raises with high-pitched squeals of joy.

Shine Theory is especially useful for people who don’t look like the traditional power players in their industry. There has long been a sense among marginalized folks, if only at a subconscious level, that there are a limited number of spaces for us at the top. Have you ever seen a voting ballot that’s more than 50 percent female? Or a Fortune 500 boardroom packed with people of color? This lack of representation has created a pervasive scarcity mentality: the idea that there are only a few great jobs and you have to compete with people who look like you to get one of them.

This isn’t really a radical idea. In fact, it’s at the foundation of many long-standing systems. The organizing principle of expensive private schools, for example, is that powerful people get more powerful by building close bonds with each other over several decades. That’s what the proverbial old boys’ club is all about too. It’s not who you are; it’s who you know. We take that idea and apply it to sharing power, not hoarding it.

No matter the arena we’re practicing it in, Shine Theory starts with refusing to give in to comparison and competition, and trying instead to forge a bond and a connection. When we notice a person seems to have something we want, instead of turning them into an external barometer for how we’re feeling about ourselves, we work to see them as a potential ally. We have come to realize that if someone is tearing us down or targeting us as competition, it’s often because they are lacking in confidence or support themselves. We try to be the one to take the first step and declare that we are willing to work hard to collaborate. We try to consider how far we could get together.