My 4 Rules for Relationship Investing

My Relationship Philosophy (version 1.0)

In my year-end reflection and new year planning, “relationships” was a major theme. The happiest moments I had in 2023 all involved other humans.

It’s both common sense and popular science that having meaningful relationships is the most important factor in a happy life. But growing up, I don’t remember being taught by any school about how to build, maintain, or grow meaningful relationships throughout different phases of my life.

That is why I sat down and wrote this blog, to provide some frameworks on how to navigate relationships as a young adult.

This is my Relationship Philosophy (Version 1.0). It will be updated throughout the course of my life. So nothing in here is final. This reflects my best thinking the moment it was written. I am by no means a relationship expert. So I welcome every discussion via comments, email, or private message.

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My 4 Rules for Relationship Investing

Before any meaningful conversations about relationships can be made, I would like to define the terms quickly. When I say “Relationships”, I mean these 4 types: Family, Friends, Romantic, and Professional.

I believe all relationships you deal with in life can be boiled down to these 4 basic categories.

Regardless of what type of relationship we’re talking about, I think there are fundamentally 4 stages: Initiation - Growth - Maintenance - Ending

Initiation

This is where you have your first interactions and decide whether or not you want to engage in the next stage. This choice only applies to Friends, Romantic, and Professional relationships, because you can’t really choose your family as a 1-year-old baby.

The question of this stage is: “Do I like this person?”

Growth

This is where you try to understand your friends/partner more. You want to be more involved in their lives (personally or professionally). This is where you create shared memories, inside jokes, and spend hours together doing things or nothing at all. This is where strong foundations are built - with depth.

The question of this stage is: “How can I get closer to this person?”

Ending

This is where you drift apart from your relationship. Maybe because you both move to a new city/country and keeping up with long-distance friends is too hard, or maybe they get married and have kids while you’re still enjoying your single life. So you stop trying until a day when you feel too scared to pick up the phone and call them. You’re afraid that you might be a distraction from their lives.

This is where you no longer see yourself in the picture of their lives anymore, and you also don’t see them in the picture of your life.

No more alignment. Shared memories fading. No new memories are made.

It is a tough stage. For some types of relationships like Professional or Romantic, it can happen faster than others. For Family and Friends, it’s a bit slower because we tend to refuse to accept it.

The question of this stage is: “Should I stop investing?”

Maintenance

This is not really a stage you must go to, but a space in between Growth and Ending I chose to allocate many of my relationships. This is where you put in just enough effort to NOT drift too far apart from each other’s life.

Notice that the goal here is a negative one - You’re avoiding the Ending, not actively growing or deepening the connection.

In Maintenance, you don’t call or see each other every day or hang out every weekend. Instead, you’ll still try to:

• Call your parents every week and send them updates whenever you see someone or something cool

• Catch up with your friends every month or quarter

• Call them on their birthdays or send them a message on their holidays

• Send them articles/podcasts you think they would love or memes you know they’d find funny

The question of this stage is: “How do I keep this person in my life?”

I know what you’re probably thinking: “How the heck is there so much work in Maintenance?” Well, that leads us to my rule #1 of Relationship Investing:

Rule #1: It takes effort

You cannot keep a person meaningfully present in your life without putting in the effort.

You either have to maintain, or grow.

The difference between Growth Mode and Maintenance Mode is only Investment Level, which is much lower in Maintenance.

I’ve made the mistake of ending my close relationship with a few great friends just because doing long-distance was hard, and I expected us to be as close as when we shared the same bathroom.

I was wrong thinking that you’re either SUPER CLOSE, or you’re not friends. You’re either Growing the relationship, or you’re Ending it.

For me, growing up is realizing that:

• You can maintain your relationship without the binary pressure to grow or end it.

• If you still cherish your connections and want them to be a part of your life, you need to invest in them (either to maintain or to grow).

• No investment at all = No relationship.

Different phases in life = different relationship priorities.

Rule #2: A relationship is a 2-way game

You cannot try by yourself. There needs to be a level of reciprocation.

That’s why Expectation Management is super important. If the level of reciprocation is less than your expectation, you either adjust your expectation and investment, or risk entering a ✨toxic✨ relationship.

This adjustment should also be a team effort. You should talk about priorities in the next phase of your life and see if you two are sharing the same goal for the relationship.

Maybe you’re in Growth Mode, but they’re just in Maintenance Mode. Maybe it’s the opposite.

Agree on the Goal, then figure out the Way.

Don’t just go in and do all the crazy stuff like planning a trip 18 months into the future, without telling the other person your goal and your level of commitment.

Figure out the highest level of willingness to invest from both sides, and negotiate.

P/s: This strategy might not work for high-maintenance family and romantic relationships.

Rule #3: Invest Early

As I reflected on my relationships over the past 24 years, I realized that Family and Friends are my lowest-maintenance relationships, due to many reasons.

My family has a pretty solid foundation thanks to my parents’ efforts when I was younger. I know that they’ll always have my back. So we’re not crazy about how many times we MUST call each other every week or how many trips we MUST go on every year.

We’ve put in the effort for growth mode early on, so now we’re mostly in maintenance mode. I’m blessed for that.

I know friends who don’t have a really good family foundation, so they have to put in a lot more effort in growing closer to their parents and siblings as adults. It’s a lot harder since you have three other relationship problems to solve.

Same with friends. Most of my closest friends now are friends I made before I graduated from college. My experience traveling in India was possible and 10 times more meaningful because I made a great friend from Semester At Sea back in 2019.

You’ll never know which friend might be able to add value to your life in which unexpected way. It’s 10 times harder to make CLOSE friends (not professional friends) as you get older. So I think it’s wise to invest deeply in friendship early on.

You have your entire life to build a professional network, and the older you are, the easier it gets. But the golden window for Friendship building is in your youth years (especially your college years) before you have a family and too many things to worry about.

→ Don’t miss out on that for some professional glamour.

Early Investments in Family and Friends can pay huge dividends down the line.

Rule #4: No demanding friends

If we spent 4 years in college together, building the strongest foundation ever imagined, we MUST move to low-maintenance mode post-grad.

Because there’s no way we can keep up that level of investment as we enter adulthood with so many new problems and uncertainties to navigate. Such expectation would only cause us stress and disappointment - which is NOT what friendship is supposed to bring you.

If our friendship can’t survive on low maintenance when we’re long-distance (most of my friends are) and I’m trying to grow a business, we cannot be long-term friends.

A friendship can only grow if the people in it grow. I want you to go out there and grow as an individual, then come back and share what you’ve learned with me. I’ll do the same ❤️‍🔥

If you choose your friends right and invest early in a solid foundation,
it should feel very easy to maintain your friendship.

Partial Conclusion

To invest smartly in relationships in 2024, start with choosing a goal for each type for the upcoming phase of your life:

Are you trying to maintain or are you trying to grow?

With the understanding of the 4 types and 4 stages of relationships, I hope you have the frameworks to think about your relationships this year 💌

Relationship Building is hard. But don’t be overwhelmed by it and shut yourself off.

Yes, you have to do something. But I hope that this blog has ensured you that you don’t have to do EVERYTHING, ALL THE TIME.

Good luck building/ growing/ maintaining meaningful connections :)

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If you’ve made it this far, please share your answers on:

• What type of relationship do you plan to invest more in this year?

• Who do you really want to get closer to this year (Growth Mode)?

• Will they share the same goal with you? → Share this post with them to start that conversation (and help me grow this newsletter) will ya 😊

Thank you!!