My Self Reflections: My 3 Month Rule for Managing Relationships

Description

About ten years ago, my wife and I bought all of the Christmas gifts and food for an employee and his family because he was struggling personally and financially. They were very appreciative and it was a very emotional experience for all of us. Three months later, he quit and went to work for a competitor, without providing an apology, explanation or an opportunity for me to match the extra $ the competitor offered.

This experience reinforced a concept that I was already beginning to learn - that gratitude seems to have a shelf life of about 3 months, and that all relationships require regular maintenance.

My Self Reflections is essentially my video journal of past and present experiences, life lessons learned and my hopes and dreams for the future. I can get very personal here, and some people may find my opinions offensive, but regardless, I hope you are able to find something in my rants useful and applicable to your own life. All of my journals are recorded at my log cabin in the woods.

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Tags: log,cabin,Self improvement,self help,motivation,inspiration,success,survival,self reliance,habit,personal growth,psychology,happiness,love,faith,hope,personal development,self confidence

Video Transcription

so about eight or nine years ago so a few years into the business but not at the very end things were going fairly well a couple years prior so but a year after starting the bigger business we my wife and I we made that the decision to provide company benefits to the employees it was pretty interesting to see the reports at the end of every month to see what drugs people were using I didn't give us I don't think specific teach person know but what we discovered it's quite a few we're actually taking methadone which is a drug that she administered to help ease the pain of rehabilitating or getting off of drugs and heroin but there's one employee in particular who I knew was going through that program and it was pretty inconvenient to have him on staff because he was on a crew of six guys and six guys in one truck going to a job site when he had to get back on time for a treatment I think it was once a week the whole crew had to finish early that week or we had to make arrangements for this guy to get back to the shop and then home or to the pharmacy to get his his shot or his medication but I really liked the guy I did a lot for most employees but this guy I just I knew he was a really nice guy he just had trouble with addiction and I knew they want to get over get over it and get healed the other thing is he lived with a woman who had kids and he had since they were young very very young so he was basically their father their stepfather and raised them as if they were his own so this employee Chris he was doing the best he could to raise his family paid him a really good wage actually for his skill set and you know was happy to do that as well as pay for the benefits so that he could get the treatment that he needed so then coming up to Christmas we always tried to give Christmas bonus as well as provided a ham or turkey to each family person so that they could have that for their Christmas meal and I heard from some of the other employees that Chris was asking around to see if he could borrow some money off of some co-workers to help buy his kids Christmas gifts he just didn't have any extra money at the end of the week I guess and or he just wasn't using his money wisely and he was in a financial difficult position when christmas came around he couldn't afford to give his kids and a gift so we heard about this anyway through the grapevine my wife and I so we made the decision to surprise him by showing up at his house with a old bag full of gifts for the kids and as well as a couple of vouchers for groceries seen it significant like in the hundreds of dollars so I don't know what we spent maybe two thousand dollars probably on this family and we were so happy to do it we showed up at the door and handed those to the parents of the kids weren't aware of it so the kids you know could just think that it was their own parents and someone else who gave them the gifts it was it was very very emotional and they were so appreciative there was tears on both sides and you know we felt good to do it for them and he was so appreciative that I don't even know if we would have needed that just knowing the kids were going to be taken care of and they were gonna be happy at Christmas gave us a warm feeling we were happy to do that you know so Chris was very very grateful of course and after Christmas came and and thanked us again and we moved on and everybody was happy well three months later he doesn't show up for work one day and then again night the next day and didn't hear from him and then I find out from another employee that he quit and went to work for a competitor and apparently he was offered another I think it was a dollar an hour increase over what I was paying him and I thought you know everything we did for him including all the things through the Year nevermind what we did at Christmas didn't expect repayment for that but no I guess I expected some loyalty so the fact that he didn't come and ask for a raid he just kind of moved on that goes back to what I talked to boss week about asking if he had of us I definitely would have given him a raise he was a hard workers had the issues I guess said with transportation and and scheduling but another denied he was a good worker that would have been happy to give him a raise I knew what he had to do to raise his family so I was willing to support that so the fact that he just got up and left really he left a bitter taste in my mouth I just couldn't believe it but that kind of taught me something about human nature and kind of developed this rule that seems to be holding true and has held true and when I look back it was always true not that there seems to be what I call a three-month rule regarding gratification or gratefulness appreciation and basically what I've discovered after three months no matter what you do for somebody that becomes the new norm or it becomes forgotten and never no longer carries any weight so why are that really impacts is that you know as an employer with hundreds of employees over a few years every time I gave a race that person worked hard they were very appreciative I put up to three months they were used to making that money now they were living up to those meetings or beyond those means and they were no longer appreciated and they now expected that so if it was $20 an hour they're now making twenty one after three months they found another way to spend that extra dollar and now they're back into financial difficulties and they thought they were worth more it was very frustrating I found out that that was almost without fail with that exception that seemed to be the normal with every situation every time I gave somebody a raise or a benefit or a bonus or some other kind of perk it was unappreciated after three months but I started thinking more or more about everything in my life and everybody in my life and I realized that's actually a norm for all people and all those exceptions to every rule but gonna say all people and all situations whether its financial or not so I talked about doing things and having that financial or time debt to people and that the three months rule applies to that as well what I discovered is that even a friendship especially a newer friendship seems to deteriorate after three months if you don't maintain that relationship so in other words if I met somebody online which I've done on and done some things and then three months go by and we don't communicate suddenly we're almost alienated almost shunned or like there's a wedge driven between that didn't even exist before I knew that person or when we first went out and that's just one example of something really recent but it's happened throughout my life and I look at all relationships I realize they have to be maintained and even the best relationships three months seems to be that limit where if you don't maintain it that starts to break down and you know knowing that and just accepting that that's human nature first of all allowed me to stop resenting people if they are that way or if that situation arises and secondly identifying it myself and am I doing that to somebody else and trying to not be that way and also trying to avoid those situations so if I know there's a particular relationship that I really want to maintain that could be a business relationship personal relationship even a family relationship that it's worth putting that extra effort into communication within those three months and that's so obviously it's a lot more to a relationship than just communicating and interacting with her three months going by and very deeper relationships and family members typically the three months rule is looser or maybe doesn't even apply but I think even in that case sometimes it gets to the point where three months is kind of a strain of you know if 3 months goes by and there's no communication there seems to be a strain it seems to be a thought that we go through in our head is why is that person not communicating with me there must be something wrong with me or they must have a problem me and I know this happens to me all the time and in family included when you start thinking that it's amazing what your mind can do and what stories you can start creating like okay what did that person do to me and what person what did I do that person and then just that kind of snowballs into a fight that never happened but you both actually believe that happened and you have this reason validation for or no longer liking that person or supporting that person so it's a very odd thing but again I keep finding it over and over again I find that it's true and the same thing with a business relationship so if you're in business especially if you're a salesperson or you know operations manager or you own your own business when you don't communicate with those customers it could be a fantastic customer in the past but somebody else comes in and starts communicating with them better or deeper and suddenly they're they're their new best friend of their new best supplier or best customer so it's so important and to maintain that relationship and put that extra effort in so I called the 3-month rule I've never actually said what else what kind of rule it is like a verification rule or something gratefulness or whatever but when I say there's the three months rule again to my wife and she chuckles and because she knows that it kind of latched on to this thing and I'm always talking about it but she's she agrees I mean it seems to be absolute universal truth so I've had to like I said I just my life and I understand that certain relationships are going to come and go and if I don't maintain it over three months I'm either making that conscious decision that it's not worthwhile or that there's other priorities even though I'd like to maintain it I just don't have the time so then what are the priority relationships in my life and how do I maintain those so I'm going to continue to live that way until proven otherwise but I don't see that happening I think I'll just continue to expect that no no that I'm upsetting people when I don't communicate or I don't provide something of usefulness to them or a value within that time that we're gonna see a slow decline or maybe been a you know cut off of that relationship completely and I have to accept that and know that when I do that I'm maybe hurting somebody else even because it can be painful when you start developing these things in your head these thoughts in your head about why somebody's alienating themselves from you anyway

that's my thought for the day that's thought for this week if you are new to this part of the videos or you're new to the channel at all no and you want to go back I would say for the last five weeks or so so throughout the months of October and probably even into September I've been doing these rants or reflections at the end of every video so if you want to go back and watch that portion feel free that would be appreciated so thanks for watching this one and have a great week guys take care [Music]