Relationships Are a Form of Wealth

Earlier this month, I flew across the country to spend 24 hours with people I hadn’t seen in 20+ years.

Why, you ask?

Because I missed the people.¹

Two decades ago, we worked together on an ambitious initiative called Children First — an effort to make educating children the top priority of the $12B New York City Department of Education (a system that had been failing too many young people for too long).

Reuniting with so many brilliant and passionate former colleagues got me thinking about relationships — including how to reactivate ones that have gone dormant.

Because when you come down to it, relationships are everything.

Michael Bloomberg and I did not know each other when he was mayor of NYC, but thanks to the reunion, we now have a very official photo.

In this post (a 10 minute read), you’ll learn:

• How building relationships is like strength training;

• The type of relationships we most underestimate; and

• Two approaches to help strengthen your relationships.

Much of the wisdom in this post comes from a terrific book that helped inspire my recent trip: Your Invisible Network: How to Create, Maintain, and Leverage the Relationships That Will Transform Your Career by Michael Urtuzuástegui Melcher.

Speaking of books, I have an exciting update related to the paperback version of Money and Love (out April 8, 2025)! So please read until the end.

Let’s get into it!

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Relationships are pivotal to our wellbeing

The science is very clear about the importance of relationships. People with strong relationships are happier, healthier, and live longer.²

So if we know the science, why aren’t we all out there enthusiastically building relationships?

For the same reason most of us don’t exercise as much as we should: because it’s hard!

I get it. But sometimes there’s such a big payoff that we need to summon all of our energy and just do it.

Guess what? Strong relationships have that kind of payoff.

During the 2+ decades I spent working inside organizations, I learned relationships are big contributors to success.

Now that I work for myself, I see relationships as the PRIMARY contributor to success.

Michael Urtuzuástegui Melcher, an executive coach, realized this a long time ago. Fortunately for the rest of us, he’s chosen to share his relationship secrets in his book.

Michael Melcher, in addition to being a leadership expert, wears fun socks

I first connected with Michael last October after a mutual friend noted that we’d both be speaking at the same conference and encouraged me to meet him.

I attended Michael’s session and then read his book. I loved it and asked if I could interview him and share his wisdom with Practically Deliberate readers.

Just like my interviews with Nir Eyal and Shira Gill, you can access the half-hour conversation wherever you listen to podcasts (or watch the video below).

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Building relationships is like strength training

As I’ve inched towards my mid-40s, the algorithms have started bombarding me with messages about the importance of strength training.

I’ve become convinced that building strength now is the best way to ensure my future self will be able to do the things I want, including hold my future grandchildren.³

So I’ve begun prioritizing strength training.

Well, it turns out that building relationships is a lot like strength training — and the reality is, we should be prioritizing both. Here’s how they’re similar:

1. They can’t be outsourced — there’s no alternative to putting in the work yourself.

2. They require effort — both in terms of activation energy and maintenance.

3. They’re uncomfortable — Just as micro-tears can leave muscles sore after a hard workout, the vulnerability required to build relationships can be a source of discomfort. But the discomfort ultimately leads to strength.

At the risk of taking this analogy too far, I’ll note that “health is wealth.”

Michael argues that relationships are, too, in one of my favorite quotes from the book:

Relationships are a form of wealth that is under your control. You can create this wealth even if you start with nothing. And once you create it, no one can take it away.⁴

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The type of relationships we underestimate

You might think that the relationships most worth investing in are your closest relationships, your ‘strong ties’ — the family members, friends, and co-workers with whom you already have regular, on-going exchange.

Sure, these relationships are important. But these are NOT the relationships Michael encourages most of us to focus on.

Instead, he argues that we most of us could benefit from strengthening our relationships with our ‘weak ties’ — people we don’t know well and/or those we knew well but with whom we have fallen out of touch.⁵

Michael cites research from Mark Granovetter, who found that people who relied on weak ties to find new jobs were more successful than those who relied on strong ties.

This is because people in our outer circles not only have different information from us, it turns out they’re less invested in a particular version of us (which means they’re more ok with us changing).

Both categories of my ‘weak ties’ were well-represented at the reunion. And even though I didn’t get to catch up extensively with everyone, I’m certain that I could reach out to anyone there and they’d take my call.⁶

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Two approaches to strengthen relationships

Michael offers lots of practical wisdom in the book about how to strengthen your relationships, including scripts to follow and exercises to try. Here are two of my favorites:

Relationship BINGO

Michael identifies 7 types of relationships that are important in your career: weak ties, sponsors/mentors, colleagues, bosses/senior stakeholders, clients, friends/family, and beneficiaries (people you can help).

These relationship categories represent a portfolio. Just as you periodically review your financial portfolio and take steps to rebalance it, you should do the same for your relationship portfolio.

So here’s how it works:

1. Pick a few relationship categories you want to invest in.

2. Decide how many spots you want on your BINGO card (a busy working parent might have 3, whereas an entrepreneur building a business might have more).

3. Think of someone in your network in the categories you want to invest in, and reach out to them — this could be as simple as commenting on their LinkedIn post, or as complex as flying to another city to spend time with them.

4. Once you’ve reached the number of spots you’ve allocated for the month, you’re done. Congratulate yourself!

Michael has a BINGO card template you can download at yourinvisiblenetwork.com. It has 16 slots but can be adapted.

The art of the ping

One of the low-lift ways to do #3 above is to send what Michael calls “a ping.” This is a message that doesn’t require a response but has the benefit of reminding the recipient that you’re alive and thinking of them.

A few weeks ago, I received a ping from a fellow parent at my kids’ school (we serve on the board of trustees together). He sent me the below text:

It was the perfect ping, and even though I didn’t have to write back, you can bet that I did! This small gesture was such a mood boost.

While a ping doesn’t need to be a compliment (or a picture of their book), a compliment makes an excellent ping.

This is very much in line with

Alison Fragale

’s advice I’ve previously written about and that she shares in this podcast episode from HBR’s Women at Work, which was one of their most popular episodes of 2024.

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Relationships matter most for those who don’t come from wealth

At the end of my conversation with Michael, I asked him if there was anything else he wanted to mention, and he said something profound.

He said that building relationships is the best way for someone who does not come from wealth to both advance in their career and to keep learning.

It reinforced one of the central messages of the NYCDOE reunion: relationships matter for everyone, but they matter more for those without privilege.

Everyone can benefit from Michael’s book, but those who will benefit most are people from under-represented backgrounds; people who don’t come from wealth; people who are the first in their families to achieve something — because strong relationships will make an outsized difference for them.

If you have FEELINGS about the new U.S. administration, here’s one low-lift form of resistance: buy a copy of Michael’s book from your local bookstore and gift it to someone for whom his wisdom can have an outsized impact. (If you must, here’s the Amazon link — only because it’s on backorder at Bookshop.org).

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Behind the scenes

A huge thank you to everyone who reached out after my last post to say congrats on the Money and Love paperback launching in April and ask how you can help.

First, the requisite cover reveal photo! In the process of working with our publisher on the paperback cover, we learned what a ‘stepback’ is (a second cover of a different size) and got to feature a new blurb from decision-making guru

Annie Duke

! We are over the moon to have her endorsement.

There are three ways we’re looking to spread the word about the paperback: events, mentions, and podcasts.

To that end, we’d be delighted by any of the following assistance:

• Organize an event (via your employer, school, membership org, or book club);

• Spread the word via a newsletter, social media post, internal comms channel for an employer, etc.;

• Make an intro to a podcast host;

• Tell your friends and family about the paperback;

• Write a review

Want to get some fun goodies in exchange for your help?

Join the Money and Love paperback launch team by February 25!

You’ll get a short message each week in the lead up to the launch with one small way you can help us reach more readers who can benefit from the book.

As a thank you, you’ll receive:

• Exclusive content, including a PDF copy of the book’s end-of-chapter exercises

• A signed bookplate you can add to your copy of Money and Love

• An invitation to a virtual webinar in which Myra and I will share new revelations, including how the book has most changed both of our own lives and the chapter we wish we’d included

• Three months of a complimentary paid subscription to Practically Deliberate

Thanks so much for considering!

Deliberately yours,

Abby

1. It certainly wasn’t because this West Coast transplant missed East Coast weather in January, I can assure you.

2. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/08/relationships-basis-long-healthy-life/. Yes, I know this research is cited so often it’s become a cliche. But it’s compelling!

3. Yes, my oldest just turned 12, and yes, I realize I’m a bit odd for thinking this way, but I know from my poll in this post that a lot of you think about your future selves, too!

4. Michael Urtuzuástegui Melcher, Your Invisible Network: How to create, maintain, and leverage the relationships that will transform your career (Dallas, TX: Matt Holt Books, 2023), p. 2.

5. The term “weak ties” is an unfortunate designation that really undermines the importance of these relationships. Maybe it’s time for a rebrand?

6. I want to add a PSA about reunions. If your life isn’t exactly in the place you want it to be at the moment a reunion rolls around, it can be tempting to skip it (several friends of mine have — one had been laid off and another was going through a divorce). Without diminishing the painful nature of those disruptive life events, I’d suggest that times when life doesn’t look perfectly rosy are exactly the times to attend a reunion. This is for two reasons: 1. If you’re willing to be vulnerable and share you’re having a tough time, you’ll build relationships (because others will feel close to you); and 2. This is precisely when your weak ties can help you find another job or lend other support that your strong ties may not be able to provide as meaningfully.