Step Up And Pay The Price (Part 3)

Read Part 1 and 2 before reading this.




There is a price to pay for attending to relationships...


And a price to pay for neglecting them.
 

Relationships.  Lately I have been asked about this by a number of people.  It must be that as I get older, people assume I am getting wiser :).  I am not a professional in this category and have made my share of mistakes.  But here is the truth from my eyes - - I have yet to meet a successful, hard driving professional or entrepreneur who can honestly say that in order to be at the top of their game, they did not sacrifice the TIME they had for their relationships  - whether it be friends, family, spouse/partner or children. 

Building a business or profession requires one's full attention in the early stages.  There are only so many hours in the day; so for the first seven to ten years, one is typically faced with the harsh reality of prioritizing.  Many prioritize their life as follows: Business/Profession - 1, Personal/Fitness - 2, Family/Friends - 3.  I was no exception.

The price to pay for attending to relationships is:

Time - you have to commit time to it

Mind space - you have to be mentally there as well as physically 

Emotional availability - your heart has to be open to it

That's very difficult to do early in one's career because one is typically inefficient at execution of tasks, not as effective a delegator (and often no one to delegate to) and all of one's emotions are typically focused on one's goals. 

It is only after things settle down that you can typically focus on the other things in your life.  People who tell you that balance is possible during the first stage of building a business have never done it themselves.  In the early stages of my career, I was 90% business, 5% personal/Fitness, 5% relationships.. Who am I kidding, I was ALL business.

The price for neglecting relationships is that people lose touch, drift apart, and lose the emotional connection.  The road to success can be a lonely one...that's why I tended to build relationships with people travelling the same road. Ultimately, if you neglect relationships too long, you may end up in a place where I see a lot of people in their later years - outwardly successful in their profession but in the middle of the night, when they are alone with their thoughts, very lonely in their emotions and perhaps a few regrets in their hearts. 

Again, I am NOT a trained professional at this stuff.  Just sharing observations. 

It is important, in my opinion, that if you are determined to be at the top of your game that you and the people you are close to discuss this journey and understand the risk/sacrifice and are comfortable with it.  There is a price to pay and understand it as you take the journey. 

If I had to do over again, I would:

Be more guarded with the usage of time. In fact, I would block out segments of time in my calendar and just put down: reconnect. Than it serves as a reminder to reconnect with someone I value. Whether it be 5 mins or 5 hours. 

Fully engage myself when I am with my family/friends - be there physically. mentally, emotionally. Hard to do and requires practice. 

Remain communicative. It would not be a bad idea to get some coaching/counseling - I once asked myself, people go to personal trainers to help us exercise our muscles, we go to music lessons to help us learn to play instruments, we have mentors to help us with our profession,  but who do we go to to learn about relationships? Was the way we grew up necessarily the best way?

Join an organization of like minded, like interest people and invest some of the limited time you have in this community - I was fortunate enough to do this with YPO and it has helped me. That is also why I support the CCADS program in our dental business - it is a community of like minded people taking a journey together.

Learn to send short messages to the people you truly care about - text messages are time efficient and remind people you care.  They are also personal because you truly have to think of someone before you can send them a message.

Once you have stabilized your business, then you can split your priorities more efficiently - 50% business, 25% personal, 25% relations.  Make up for lost time when you get to this stage... if you still have the opportunity. 

For the first stage of my career, I was completely focused on getting the job done!  Ultimately, I wanted to be in a position that, even if I work a lot of hours in the week, I can select when and where those hours are.  That's currently what I do. I am also making up for lost time and I invest the time, mind space, emotional availability and training to get better at it.  In fact, in the same way I have business goals, I now have personal/fitness goals and family/friends goals.

I have paid the "dumb tax" on this in the past...but I am getting better at it. Actually, waaaaaaay better at it. Now I invest the same energy I put into business into my relationships. My goal is to be spectacular at it. 

Speaking of which, I can't finish my blog just now as my brother just called me to join him in a paintball game (ie. bunch of people running around trying to shoot each other w guns that fire little round balls of paint - sounds like something fun to do on a Sunday afternoon). Sounds like a good way to reconnect.

Have to go for now...back later.