1 investment you must begin making now

… 3 strategies that can help …

There is a connection between relationships and living the RichLife. A lot of people forget this. They put off spending time with loved ones, family or friends, in the interest of work, pressing projects, and urgent deadlines.

They don’t realize that waiting for the ideal time, the ideal amount of money, the ideal circumstance, is the exact same thing as not doing it at all.

So what do relationships have to do with being rich? I want to share with you a little exercise that I often do when I hold a Keys to RichLife seminar. I ask this very pointed question:

If you had great health, and enjoyed all the normal physical capabilities,

and yet you knew you had exactly six months to live –

what would you do?

I don’t think it’s any secret what most of the answers are. I’ve never had anyone once write down that they would immediately go out and buy a bigger house. Or invest in more stocks. Or ask for a promotion at work. 

When faced with a short-term ultimatum, most people

want to spend time investing in relationships, not things.

A spouse or partner, children, parents, siblings, perhaps even a long-lost friend. They want to invest in those human assets that don’t come with a price tag, and as such, these are often the very relationships most easily taken for granted. 

   
Why wait for a death sentence in order to

spend time with those you care about the most?

Why not start now?

I have found that the person who lives a fulfilled RichLife doesn’t place relationships on the back burner to wait until later in life. They don’t play what I affectionately call the when I then I game. It’s one I hear a lot of, especially with regards to retirement.
 
When I retire, then I can

• make time for the grandkids
• spend more time with my spouse
• finally join that bowling league.
  

With younger couples, the when I then I game usually goes something like:

• When I finish remodeling the basement, then I can take my spouse out to dinner.
• When I’m done with this big job, then I’ll meet my sister for lunch.
• When I get that promotion, then I’ll take my kids to that great amusement park.

The problem with this kind of thinking
is that it leads to a bankrupt relationship accounts.

Because you are waiting for some future event, you aren’t investing in these relationships now. When that future moment finally arrives and the money is in the bank, the people for whom it was all for are no longer there.

But how, in today’s crazy world, can you make time for everybody, every day? How do you even begin? Recently I came across a quote that went something like this:

Live each day as if it were your last, and someday, you’ll be right.

You must begin making investments in your relationships today.

Here are 3 strategies that can help:

• Tend to them on a daily basis. This investment is a priority, not something to be taken for granted. Meetings and events with people outside the work place need to be scheduled and given priority just like you would for professional engagements.

• Make the time now with whatever amount of time you have. The investment of your time doesn’t have to be large to be meaningful. Using the time you have now, even if it’s only 5 or 10 minutes, communicates the message, you are important to me.
  

• Start with the small, and you’ll be ready for the big. I have a client who took his family camping every summer in their own backyard. When the day finally came that they could afford a real trip to the Grand Canyon, the family was so close and had created so many wonderful memories together, their trip was even more magnificent.
  

Time invested in people is never lost.

Take a minute to let me know how you make time for the people important in your life. I’d love to hear it!

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