I was listening to a podcast this afternoon, Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal. I think, I’m not sure if I was listening to the most recent episode, but this was the episode where Chris Ducker was the guest.

Of course there’s a lot of value to be learned from Chris Ducker. In the past, I did consume a lot of his advices and suggestions and learnings. However, all of that aside, what really stuck with me from this podcast is the ending note where Chris talks about the value of relationships. Or rather, I should say, the importance of valuable relationships, even in the professional space. Chris was talking more in terms of the influencer business or this influencer field of professionals, but I think all of us have seen this in every possible profession.

You know, there are people who get close to someone or people start to forge a bond with someone just because they stand to gain something from that person? Like someone would try to get close to someone who is already established in the field, who already can in someway promote their work or who is in some way beneficial to their career or some project they are working on at the moment. In fact, I am sure you can even think of some person(s) who keeps changing their associations even based solely on who is beneficial to them at what phase of their life at work. One thing we have all experienced at some point is that kind of a false professional association, a fling relationship at work, instead of really bonding with someone for who they are as humans and not expecting anything in return – not expecting them to support your work or your career or your professional standing in any way whatsoever. If they do, that’s an add on. That’s a blessing. There’s a lot to be grateful for then. We might even have tried it out as a coping mechanism to “fit in”, only to realise that it’s never worth it. This is why it is so important to remind ourselves to not start a relationship at work based on such a superficial outlook, and at the same time to be cautious when someone else tries to relate to us this way.

And this is so, so, so important. Yet, this has become so extremely rare. I don’t know if it was always this rare to find honest human connections amongst professional associates. But yes, this has become so exceedingly rare nowadays with relationships being used instead of valued at every step of the so-called “success” in the workplace. I am not sure if that’s exactly what Chris said word for word. But to the best of my understanding, that was pretty much the point, the word of caution that he put out and it is such an important one.

Relationships, personal and professional, are meant to be built, to be valued, to be treasured, and never to be used. Like ever.

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