In business there’s a saying, “Never work with friends and family…don’t ever hire friends and family.”

The reason people say this is because so many people have been in situations where things go wrong in the business or at work…and now it impacts their personal relationships as well.

This conversation recently came up inside of my high-level Master’s Mind group…a group of business owners and corporate leaders. Most of them agreed, working with friends and family isn’t a good idea.

But I don’t agree.

In fact, I only want to work with friends and family, and here’s why…

As Kingdom people, how are we supposed to never work with friends and family?

Aren’t we all in the family of God? Isn’t friendship one of the highest values in the way we’re supposed to relate to one another?

I don’t think the real problem is working with friends and family.

In my observation, most problems come up because people don’t always know the best way to steward and manage multi-dimensional relationships, so they avoid them.

Sadly, we miss out when we do that, because when managed well, multi-dimensional relationships can provide the highest form of leverage for all areas of life.

Leverage, as you know, is a force multiplier that allows you to do things you wouldn’t normally be able to do on your own…a car has leverage, a plane has leverage, options have leverage.

But, unless you know how to properly manage the plane, drive the car, or trade options… then using them can cause problems and create undesirable negative outcomes.

The same is true of relationships.

When stewarded well, multi-dimensional relationships can be the most fruitful, dynamic and rich relationships that you have… creating leverage for all areas of life, including: wealth, health, impact, joy, friendship, fun…and more.

A great case study for this is my relationship with Ramie Khalil. If you're part of any of our programs or have been on the Wisdom Challenge, then you've met him...

Ramie’s not only my business partner, he’s also my friend, and a part of my family. I consider him like one of my own sons, his wife Shelly like a daughter, and their twin boys, like my bonus grandchildren.

We have a multi-dimensional relationship, and over time, with a lot of difficult and honest conversations, we’ve learned how to steward and manage this type of relationship very well. As a result, it’s created massive leverage for both of us.

Ramie was at the Master’s Mind event where this conversation came up recently, and he shared with us a 3-bucket framework he uses to define his relationships and give them the right context.

Context of the relationship matters because most problems happen when we don’t have the proper understanding of what the relationship actually is and how it is interpreted by both parties.

If you have high expectations for lower quality relationships it’s almost always a recipe for disappointment. So the first step is to define and understand the context of the relationship for what it actually is.

The 3-Bucket framework is a great way to start thinking about this. We recently shared it inside of my Kingdom Seekers mentorship community, and I thought it may be helpful for you too…

The 3 Relationship Buckets

The idea is that we have three relationship buckets, and the people in our lives fall into one of those three categories.

Once we’re clear on which bucket someone is in, then there’s less pressure on the relationship. It becomes healthier and freeing because we know what to expect from them, and what might be expected of us…

Bucket #1

The first and lowest level is social relationships.

Social relationships are people that you know of, and they know you. You’re friendly with them when you’re together, but they’re just a social relationship, not much more than that. This group may include people you know from work or church...simple casual relationships.

The expectations are much lower in this group than in others. Not a lot is required from either party inside of social relationships. It's mostly surface level communication.

Bucket #2

The second and most common level is “doing-life-with” relationships. Some people call these "friends," they are involved in your life and you are involved in their life.

You talk about more personal things, they have greater insight into your life, you support each other, know things about each other’s families. You are usually on similar journeys in some aspect.

There’s intentional two way communication on this level. You’re intentional toward them, and they’re intentional toward you. It’s not just a one-way pursuit of that person, but both parties value the connection.

There’s genuine care for each other and you have permission to speak into their life and they have permission to speak into your life.

This is an important level to distinguish and get clear on because not everyone should know personal things about your life or have the freedom to speak into it.

A lot of problems arise when we try to put level 1 social relationships into level 2 spaces. Social media has made this an even bigger problem by calling everyone "friends." Social media connections are not your friends.

Your level 2 circle is much smaller…think of it as your inner circle. Jesus only had 12 people in his inner circle.

The expectations inside of these level 2 relationships move up dramatically.

It becomes even more important that you communicate honestly and begin practicing active stewardship of the relationships.

Bucket #3

The third and highest level is covenant relationships. Covenant relationships require the greatest level of commitment, stewardship, and honesty.

This is a very small group, generally less than 5 because a covenant relationship means you’ve chosen to attach your life to the other person.

It means, you’re locking arms in pursuit of something together

What you do has the ability to affect them, and what they do has the ability to affect you.

Boundaries no longer exist in covenant relationships… everything is on the table. Health, finances, decisions…everything you do now has to take into consideration the impact on the people you’re in covenant with.

That’s why this is the smallest group, because every new covenant you add takes something away from the ones already in place. Not just your time, but your mind space, heart space, and the capacity to consider or think about those people and how your decisions are impacting them.

For me, I only have 3 people I’m in covenant with… Suzette, my wife, and then my business partners, Ramie and more recently, my biological brother Victor.

Being in covenant means we are tied together, moving the same direction, and staying connected. It means we move together and in sync to achieve what we want to achieve.

It means nothing is off the table, and we no longer chart our own course, but we consider the impact and implication of our decisions on the people we are in covenant with.

This is the piece the “never work with friends and family” advice always misses...

A business partnership is a covenant relationship. The reason most partnerships fail is not because they worked with someone close to them, but because the relationship was never treated like the covenant it actually was.

Relationship Audit

This simple 3 bucket framework is very powerful and when used consistently it can make a significant impact on how you see and steward your relationships.

I’d recommend you take some time right now to think about the people in your life and where they fit…not where you wish they were, but where they actually are.

Who are the people in your social circle?

Who are the people you are doing life with?

Who are the people you are in covenant with?

How have you been interacting with these people? Have you been giving level 1 people access to your level 2 space?

Have your expectations been too high for lower quality relationships? Or too low for higher quality relationships?

What, if anything, needs to change about how you’re showing up in these relationships?

Once you have people in the right bucket, I believe you’ll see a natural health return to your relationships…

You’ll find more peace and freedom, as the expectations fall into place, and the way you interact and show up shifts to the proper context.

This is the beginning…there’s a lot more to this, and we went a lot deeper on this conversation in Kingdom Seekers.

We talked about how to process and have the difficult conversations required to preserve and grow your multi-dimensional relationships…

Honestly that’s the part most people are afraid to do. But there’s a simple process you can follow to make hard conversations simple and effective, we shared it on the mentoring call.

If you want access to the replay, and to get this level of mentorship 3x per week for less than the cost of a cup of coffee…