Its the people, not the money

"Son don’t bank money, bank people. If you do that, you are going to be much better off."

Wise words and also the theme of a post on Web Worker Daily titled "Do what you love, and rest will follow".  While I am not sp sure that the title of the post really fits the message of the post, here is my take on the importance of banking people.

To me, banking people means forming authentic and meaningful relationships with people you encounter in your life, whether those relationships be personal or professional.  There is a temptation to see "people banking" as the activity it implies, namely an impersonal collection of favours and political allegiances.  I think that would be a big mistake and has the potential to backfire quite badly.  For this process to truly work out, it must be motivated by an authentic desire to form meaningful relationships with colleagues, partners and friends, not with the intention of profiting from those relationships, but rather with the desire to deepen your connection to those people and your knowledge of what they do and represent.

When you form those deeper, more meaningful relationships and then invoke those relationships in your pursuit of your passions, the means to achieve your passion and the money will flow from those foundations you built over time.  The point here is to focus on the person and not the result.  It isn’t (or perhaps shouldn’t) be a case of building these relationships as a means to an end (that really comes across as an abuse of a relationship and not at all authentic) but rather to focus on the relationship as having inherent value and the end itself.

This sort of thing requires a healthy dose of faith and belief that good things will follow on from good intentions.  Very warm and fuzzy, I know, but I believe it works.

Tags: bank people, relationships, authenticity, money will follow, do what you love