Regardless of What Others Think: It Isn’t Always About Money

I’ve heard it more than once in my life and I’ve heard from a few people lately.  “As long as I’m making money I don’t care”.  Really? Well you should.

I’m not here to write about morals and being a family man or the importance of friends.  I’ve struggled with all of those at some point or another.  What I am here to preach is relationships.  These build everything.  The three things I just mentioned AND wealth.  Relationships are what others judge you on.  “John says he’s a great guy” or “he has the Company X account so he must be pretty good”.   Long term relationships say a lot about who you are and where you’ve been.  They build a road that gives you the history, confidence, and support to make good decisions.

Think about the times you had a choice to make, whether it is in business or in your personal life.  The more relationships you have,  the more opportunity you have to ask the right person for advice.  None of us are born with all the answers and most of us will never learn them either.  Successful people ALWAYS surround themselves with people that can answer those questions.  Sure you can pay people to hang around you and do those things,  but it’s never the same as people that want to be there.  Paid people become yes men. They tell you want you want to hear.  People with whom  you have a good relationship tell you what you need to hear. Paid people leave and take their and your info with them.  They could care less if you make another dime unless you’re giving them some incentive to think otherwise.

It takes time to build solid relationships.  It takes a lot of proving and showing to another person or company that you are someone that they should do work with or entrust.  You may think that pissing one person one person off or burning a bridge that didn’t need to be burned is no big deal,  but it usually is.  There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with someone, not everyone likes everyone else.  Calling them out, making them look bad, and trying to publicly shame an individual only leads back to you.  Every time you talk bad about another company in front of your new possible partner they are thinking to themselves that someday you may say the same bad things about them.

So while you rate your your life, your business, and your success on how much money you make think about the set up.  Setting up a foundation that will make you more money down the road.  Every time you forget to email back, you dismiss someone that may appear of no help to you or your business, or make fun of someone that isn’t as skilled as you, you are burning a bridge of someone that may have helped you in the future in one way or another.  I realize you can’t pay your mortgage with relationships but you can’t have a healthy wealthy life by yourself either.

PS: No,  I don’t always practice what I preach but I do know my wrongs as I do them.