#099: This Is What Really Matters

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People matter. Chris Peterson, one of the founding fathers of positive psychology, said that positive psychology could be summed up in 3 words: “other people matter.” Not new gadgets, or the latest and greatest car, or the biggest home, or your investments. While many others in the self-help and business field will try to tell you that these things should be your only focuses, this advice just isn’t correct. I know this is a top focus that many entrepreneurs focus on because a lot of business moguls that I follow on Instagram only share photos of stacks of money, new Ferraris, Rolexes, and penthouse suites; not people. Is this what the meaning of life has come to? I sure hope not.

On the other hand, please never feel bad for building wealth. Building wealth can be fun, and having fun is amazing, but I am more talking about wealth in that it should never be your sole focus. Building a bigger business is only worth it if you are impacting people in better ways.

Building a bigger business is only worth it if you are impacting people in better ways. Share on X

The mindset that says you must increase your volume and your profits, leaving no efforts good enough, is a relentless cycle of let-downs, anyway. This is what builds a life of never finding what one is looking for. This also builds a life of never being happy and never finding peace. To find happiness you need to be able to see the fruits of your efforts, and the easiest way to do this is to see how you’ve helped other people.

When you flip your focus from money to people, employees and customers are taken care of properly, and more revenue is then a byproduct of the leadership work you’ve put in. When people are first, the rest of life falls into place. We are talking about leadership here, so if leadership is the impact you have on people, then I want to see the number of lives you are impacting, not the dollar amount in your bank account.

There was a time in life where money was my only focus, and I found that the chase of more, more, more was empty. When I achieved what I thought would make me happy, I only wanted more. I recently talked to my wife, Jasmine, about this time in life and she agrees — it was the most miserable we’ve ever been. Our priorities were out of whack, and as a result, we weren’t looking for ways to impact people. (If you haven’t noticed yet, leading in life is intentional.) Instead, we were looking out for what would only benefit ourselves. Again, only focusing on yourself is another wrong principle that many leadership books teach, but I’m here to challenge this idea. I fell for this trap, and I don’t want others to do the same.

When I found that the key to life is being intentional with pouring into the lives of other people, I stopped focusing on only getting to know people who I thought were successful, and instead focused my attention on everyone. You see, there’s tons of leadership books that also say to only focus on those relationships that will help make you more successful, leaving an underlying message that there’s people who shouldn’t matter to you, but that’s nonsense. All lives matter, not just a few.

The key to living a great life is being intentional with pouring into the lives of other people. Share on X