Friends of the Good: How Remarkable Friendships Transform Our Lives

Back in 4BC, long before the bookshelves groaned under the weight of millions of self-help guides, the Greek philosopher Aristotle had already figured out something about friendship. In his Nicomachean Ethics, he argued that not all friendships are equal. Some friendships, he said, are convenient; others revolve around shared hobbies or just plain fun.

Then there are the truly rare ones. Aristotle called these “friendships of virtue, or “friends of the good” – people who aren’t just there to cheerlead and wave from the sidelines, but who are genuinely invested in your growth. And it’s this ancient idea that inspired investor and philanthropist Demond Martin to write Friends of the Good.  

On paper, Martin’s life looks like the American dream made flesh: University of North Carolina, then Harvard Business School; assistant to President Clinton’s White House chief of staff; more than 20 years as a senior partner at the private investment firm Adage Capital; and later, co-founding the purpose-led wellness brand WellWithAll. Add in board roles, honorary degrees, and major philanthropic work in health and education, and you might assume this is just another standard victory-lap memoir.

But that’s not the book Martin has written. Instead, he reflects on the people who made his journey possible. Before the boardrooms and business plans, there was a childhood marked by instability and violence – schlepping between rough projects to a trailer in rural North Carolina. As a boy, he said, with a heroin-addicted stepfather, he “saw things that kids shouldn’t see” – with a real chance of either ending up dead or in jail.

A non-sensational read

Friends of the Good doesn’t sensationalise those years, but shows the backdrop against which certain figures stepped forward: a teacher who refused to let his potential go to waste; his UNC fraternity brothers in Alpha Phi Alpha, a Black collegiate fraternity with civil rights leaders among its members, who taught him the value of service and brotherhood; “Second Fathers” who opened doors and showed him what leadership looks like; and a grandmother whose constant generosity became a template for living. People Aristotle would have recognised as friends of virtue.

And in a Tate / Peterson culture obsessed with the idea of the “self-made” person, this book doesn’t make a fetish of self-reliance. Achievement, Martin argues, is communal. Someone is always offering you a ladder. The real question is whether you notice – and whether you do the same for others.

He also writes about what he sees as an epidemic of loneliness and disconnection – especially among young people. And he suggests: what if we measured success not by money or title, but by the strength of the people around us? What if mentorship and accountability were central, not peripheral, to ambition?

In the end, Friends of the Good suggests destiny is rarely a solo act. A simple truth that anyone in PR or comms, where relationships and networks are everything, will instinctively grasp. As the Oscar-winning producer David Fialkow says, “This book is a master class in gratitude and grace, and a reminder that none of us can succeed alone.”  

Final word goes to Aristotle: “Those who wish well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of own nature and not incidentally; therefore their friendship lasts as long as they are good – and goodness is an enduring thing.”

• Friends of the Good: How Remarkable Friendships Transform Our Lives by Demond Martin is published by Penguin Random House.

Ali Catterall is an award-winning writer, journalist and filmmaker whose writing has featured in the Guardian, Time Out, GQ, Film4, Word magazine and the Big Issue, among many others. Ali is also the writer and director of the 2023 film Scala!!!

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