Friends can be the ‘secret sauce’ when it comes to succeeding at something. Friends are the ones who encourage you, praise you and sometimes even give you a kick in the ass when you can’t reach around to do it yourself. They can be the glue that keeps you together, the cheerleaders who pump you up through the rough stuff. Most of my close female friends are far away. Sometimes I really miss them. Now it’s not that I don’t think of them often. I do. But it’s in a sort of ethereal way…like lovely background music that you somehow take for granted but would be looking around for if…