Relationship is a form of currency, it is actually another stream of income

“Your choice of people you associate with will have more impact on what you become than any other single factor” — Brian Tracy

Richard Simmons III said: “Without great friendship, life is virtually bankrupt.” The greatest form of bankruptcy in life is not money, but people. The right people are worth everything. Robert Kiyosaki said: “The richest people in the world build networks; everyone else is trained to look for work.”

Your network determines your net worth. The farther you are from rich relationships, the closer you are to poverty.

One of the greatest truths about relationship is that of all the resources available to man, it is only relationship that is inexhaustible. It neither be depleted, nor can its full scope be understood from the beginning. The rich leverage on relationships and connections.

A distinguished member of the British Parliament travelled to Scotland to give a speech in 1890. There, his carriage was hopelessly mired in the thick mud of a rural road. Many poor passers-by were happy that the rich man was stuck in the mud and waited to see how he would ever get out without soiling his attire.

A young poor Scottish farm boy saw the helpless rich man and decided to help him out. While many poor farmers looked disdainfully at this boy’s kind gesture, they never realised that the poor lad was forming a bond that would last him a lifetime.

He helped the man to move his carriage out of the mud with large draft horses and was ready to resume his journey. The lawmaker insisted on paying the young man, but the lad refused. “Are you sure I can’t pay you for your time and effort?” the gentleman asked. “Thank you sir,” said the young lad. “It is a privilege to help such an important person as you.”

“What do you want to become in life?” asked the lawmaker. “I want to become a doctor, but I doubt that will happen since my family does not have the money for such education,” replied the young lad. The young politician promised to help the young man become a doctor, and he held onto his promise.

This kind gesture started a relationship that this boy nurtured, despite the huge aristocratic gap between him and the parliamentarian. Several letters were exchanged between these two ‘friends’ over the course of several years, and guess what: The rich man kept his words by sponsoring the young Scottish boy to achieve his dream of becoming a medical doctor.

The story did not end here, as something unusual happened that later shocked the world. Fifty years later, a man called Winston Churchill was the prime minister of Britain during Hitler’s insurgence and he was seriously down and close to death due to pneumonia. During this period, pneumonia was like the present day HIV infection without any cure in view. The whole of Britain was threatened by the health of their leader.

Churchill miraculously recovered because his physician gave him an injection of a new wonder drug called penicillin, which had recently been discovered by a brilliant medical doctor, Alexander Fleming.

Alexander Fleming was the young boy that had pulled the stalled carriage from the mud. And the man who promised to return the favour by sending him to a medical school was Winston Churchill’s father, Sir Randolph Churchill. By saving the life of Churchill, he might have saved the whole of England and probably the whole then from Adolph Hitler’s reign of terror.

What a monumental blessing that would have eluded the world if Randolph Churchill was unable to see a medical doctor in the young farm boy, and what a great opportunity to fulfill a life-long dream that would have been lost if the young Alexander Fleming never established a relationship with the noble Randolph Churchill.

Hear this: Being poor should not make the people that are rich the object of your vituperations and anger. Make friends with the rich or you would remain perpetually poor. The real identity of a man is not to be measured by performance, but relationships. Just like Alexander Fleming, surround yourself with people that believe in you and are willing to invest in you.

Relationship is wealth in waiting. Everything you ever want in life is a relationship away. It is not enough to have talent and skills; you must understand the power of building valuable relationships. The greatest gift you can ever have in life is the gift of someone that is addicted to your vision and success. If you want to be rich, stay around people that expose you to opportunities and isolate yourself from people who hide opportunities from you.

There are some people that are liabilities to your future; take conscious effort to surround yourself with people that are assets to your future. Whether poverty or wealth, they are both a function of the people you spend most of your time with. They say if you surround yourself with nine losers, you would soon be the 10th. Do not expect positive things in your life if you surround yourself with negative people.

The wrong people would suck serenity, optimism, tranquility and energy out of you. You must constantly carry out relationship audit and severe yourself from toxic and destructive relationships. You have to learn to cut off people that threaten your peace of mind, joy, self-respect and self-worth. Surround yourself with people that would empower your future.

As a relationship coach, there is a unique assessment that I normally use to help people who are working towards building fruitful and valuable relationships. I call it Relationship Audit Test (RAT). Take a jotter and write out all the names of people that you cannot avoid talking to in a month. Do a relationship audit for all of them by clearly looking at the value they have been adding to you over the years.

Give them a maximum of 20 marks each for the following five indicators. Sum it up and cut yourself off from the people around you with a score point of 40 and below.
1. How have they been helping you discover yourself?
2. How have they been investing into your growth?
3. How have they been helping you in your journey of personal development?
4. How have they been stretching you to accomplish your goals and aims in life?
5. How have they been helping you develop your relationship with God?

Sometimes when a man fails in life, his friends are the first set of suspects. Sit down and look critically at all the relationships in your life and cut off those ones that are fueling your failure. Kevin Eiken Berry said: “Look carefully at the closest association in your life, for that is the direction you are heading.”

Don’t go into the future with a ‘liability;’ go into the future with people that would add value to you and recognise your worth. You would need to audit your relationships and cut off people that are liabilities to your future. You are either a blessing or a burden, an asset or a liability, a problem solver or a problem.

There are so many people you would never realise that you are better off without until you cut them off. When their absence is not felt, then their presence is irrelevant. Jim Rohn said: “You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is this ok?

Hang out with friends who are like-minded and who are also designing purpose-filled lives. Similarly, be that kind of a friend for your friends. You need people that believe in you, people that invest in your dreams and goals, and people that bring the best, not the stress out of you.