Moving onto the next level of Maslow’s hierarchy : relationships.

Let’s get started

Important Relationships

As we climb Maslow's hierarchy, we reach a level that's often overlooked in the world of entrepreneurship: relationships.

Unless you are Scrooge McDuck we look after ourselves and strive for financial security not just for our own sake, but to protect and care for those we love.

This could be family, friends, or even our wider community. Basically anyone we decide to spend our (limited) time with.

I was recently at an entrepreneurship dinner where this topic came up. One attendee shared how he was so focused on making money to secure his family's future that he wasn't actually spending time with them. He was missing the forest for the trees, so to speak. It's a common trap many of us fall into - working so hard for our loved ones that we forget to actually be with them.

This is where intentionality comes in. We need to be deliberate about carving out time for our relationships. Whether it's for our parents, siblings, children, friends, or partners, we need to consciously make space in our busy lives for connection.

Before going any further I recommend checking this video

This applies not just to parents but to anyone you care for and want to spend more time with.

The concept of intentionality in relationships is powerful. It's about actively choosing to prioritise the people who matter most to us, rather than letting work and other obligations constantly take precedence.

But how do we do this in practice? It starts with identifying who's most important to us and then deliberately scheduling time for them. Let's use AI to help us with this process.

You are a compassionate relationship coach. Help me identify and prioritise the key relationships in my life. Ask me questions about my family, friends, and community connections. Guide me to reflect on who I want to spend more time with and why. After our discussion, provide a summarised list of my most important relationships, categorised by type (e.g., family, close friends, mentors). Ask one question at a time and wait for my response before proceeding

This is another coaching prompt. We’re using them a lot this week! Because this week is about reflection and (thankfully) AI has infinite patience to listen to us!

This prompt will help create a list of those most important to us.

It may also reveal some relationships that are less important to you than you thought. These may be relationships that you want to minimise rather than maximise in the future. This too is a valuable insight.

Now that we've identified our key relationships, let's use AI to help us schedule quality time:

You are a skilled time management and relationship coach. Based on the list of key relationships I provide, help me create a plan to carve out quality time for each person or group. Ask me about my current schedule, work commitments, and any challenges I face in making time for relationships. Then, suggest specific strategies for scheduling regular, meaningful interactions with each person or group on my list. Include ideas for activities or ways to make our time together more intentional and meaningful. Remind me to actually book these times in my calendar. Ask one question at a time and wait for my response before proceeding.

Use this directly below the results of the first prompt to “feed in” your list.

This will again run your through a process of questions. The end result will be a very specific action plan of exactly how to protect and build the relationships identified as important.

Remember though that the goal here isn't to turn our relationships into another task on our to-do list. Relationships are not a tick-box task. This all seems quite clinical! I get that.

All that we’re doing here is giving ourselves a broad plan and some nudges. We want this to lead to realisations like: “oh I really want to spend more time with old friend from university. I’ll reach out and organise a get-away for a long weekend”

Go and enjoy that long weekend. Work will wait.

Keep prompting,

Kyle