A great piece of advice I got many years ago was something to the effect of 'find people where you can compound those relationships over the long term'.
This is a long tail benefit. If you spend your life to find friends, co-workers, a spouse, that you can stay with for 50-60 years - there is a significant advantage to that.
I will be the first to admit that in trying to find people that I can do business with long term has burned me. I am a trusting guy and making handshake deals has cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars. But what I lose out in money I gain in realizing that keeping those people in my life would have cost me more over the long run.
Life is never that simple. Person 'X' can't help me so I won't even pick up the phone. Rather there are different kinds of relationships. I have buddies that make me laugh and the longer I know them the more I laugh - I want that to compound.
You hit the jackpot if you find a long term compounding relationship in your wife or husband. Experiencing a 50 year wedding anniversary is a special event only a handful of us get to have. If having a spouse that you love and care about is your only compounding relationship then you already won.
The only issue with this is you never know which ones make it through the filter until the very end. A business partner can be great for decades and one day it goes sideways.
But we go on. It is important to respect these compounding relationships more than the others.
No comments:
Post a Comment