The 6Ps: People

Happy New Year! I hope you are as excited as I am about the new year and new decade. I had the privilege of having a total knee replacement at the end of December and I am quite eager to eventually live an even more active and vibrant life.

I would also love to continue to share with you the rest of my ‘6Ps for Profound and Positive Living’ framework that I developed to help others stay clear, focused, and disciplined in their daily lives.

The 4th P in the 6P framework is 'People'. The new year is a great time to take a step back and reevaluate the quality of our relationships in our personal and professional lives. The 6Ps framework allows a daily reflection on this by asking ourselves, ‘Who in my life do I need to touch, affirm, support, challenge, and connect with beyond the meetings I have currently scheduled for this day?’.

We, as humans, were designed to be social and communal. Emerging research tells us that more and more people are living more isolated than ever before. They also found that having a lack of true and meaningful friendships contributes immensely to poor mental, and eventually physical, well-being. Research directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest and most in-depth longitudinal study of human beings, tell us that the most important discovery of the study is that those who are able to build and sustain rich, intimate relationships tend to have much greater joy, happiness, resilience and wellbeing in their lives.

Instead of elaborating on the importance of relationships, I thought I would leave you with an activity that I hope makes that idea even more evident. It might help to write these down.

• Brainstorm all the roles you have in your life, e.g., spouse, partner, mother/father, daughter/son, colleague, boss, board member, caregiver, volunteer, mentor, coach, customer, vendor, etc.

• Who are the key people and relationships in your life that are associated with these roles?

• How have these people and relationships impacted your life?

• If you were to pull out your calendar over the last year, would the importance of these relationships be evident by the time you’ve dedicated to them?

• With which relationships do you have a deep connection or strong social bond? Where is it lacking?

• How can you make the building and sustaining of deep intimate relationships with others more meaningful in your life?

• Identify 2-3 people with whom you’d like to be more intentional in how you affirm and support them in the next 30 days. Commit to a specific action you will take with each of them and give yourself a deadline.

• What will be the impact on your relationships with these people?

• How does investing time in these people honor your values and principles?

Please let me know if you are able to complete the activity and let me know how it has helped you strengthen your relationships with those who are important to you.

All my best. Greg.