Hello Friend,
It’s another week of #MondaySuccessReflections. It’s also the first day as well as the first Monday in September. See how time flies. And we are just about 121 days to the end of the year….that’s more than half-way into 2014.
So, my friend, as you can see, we have no much time again to waste. If we must meet our targets for the year, we must learn to maximize every opportunity that God brings our way. One of such opportunities is the relationships we have with people God brings into our lives and across our paths.
Today, I want to reflect on maximizing your relationships. I am sure you must have heard of the popular John Maxwell’s mantra stating that ‘everything rises and falls on leadership’. But I dare to say that ‘everything rises and falls on relationship’; because even leadership on its own cannot exist until a relationship is first established. This is how important relationship is.
Just look around you. You see people from different class, tongues, tribes, nations and colours, yet in one way or the other you are connected to each of them at one level or the other; you share with them and learn from them. It’s so powerful to know how relationships have transformed many things in the lives of many of us. 
Growing up as a young person, one of the things I learnt from one of my mentors was the power of relationships. When I look back at those relationships I was able to maximize, I have no regrets.
Time will fail me to discuss how I have been blessed by them all. Let me share with you a few things I learnt on my way trying to learn how to maximize your relationships…
- Understand the purpose of the relationship
Just like you exist for a reason, same way, everyone in your life is there at the moment for a purpose. This understanding is the common way to avoid abuse of any relationship.
Someone is in your life or you in someone else’s life to either model a lifestyle, motivate to the next level, mentor to begin to fulfil potential or help to multiply positive results.
You must understand what any person in your life is there for or what you are in other people’s life to do.
- Understand the level at which the relationship is
Everybody in your life is not at the same level of relationship and so it is with you too in the life of other people.
This means that when you treat all of them as if they are on the same level, you’ll not be able to maximize your relationships. In relating with people, someone would either be your down-line (someone you are higher than and looks up to you), your contemporary (someone who’s at the same level of class, knowledge, skills, etc with you that you share notes with) or your up-line (someone above you that you look up to).
You must understand where everyone in your life is and properly give them their due respect and expect same from others as well.
- Understand the goal at each level of the relationship
You will have to determine what you want out of each of the relationships in your life no matter its purpose or level. It is not enough to understand the purpose and level of a relationship in your life. You must be able to know what you want to get or give. This will help you maintain focus in any relationship and avoid any distractions that could destroy your relationship and rob you of the blessings in relationships.
- Understand the kind of relationship it is
Are you in a business-customer, Leader-Follower, Lover-Lover, Teacher-Student, Mentor-Protégé, etc relationship? If you do not know the kin d of relationship you are into, how would you be able to define its purpose in the first place?
For example, if you do not know you are in a Lover-Lover relationship, you may receive the sock of your life when he proposes or when she shows you her wedding card.
But when you understand the kind of relationship existing in your life, you will then be able to set understand its purpose and establish the right level and goal
If there is just one advice I have to give you for this month, it would be: MAXIMIZE YOUR RELATIONSHIPS.
I still remain…..
Your friend in Success and Excellence
Apeh Omede
@jabulaniapeh, @ApehOmede, @SuccessConverge
Team Leader – LifeExcel and Convener, SuccessConverge
BBM: 74200893
As we journey through life 