If you’re in business, you probably hear a lot about the importance of managing your relationships. Good sales professionals maintain a database of past customers and prospects, but I actually know only a handful of people who are truly exceptional at relationship management. Here are some tips on managing relationships that can help you business-wise and personally for the rest of your life.
- Be authentic. If you genuinely care about people, this will be easy. People can smell fake.
- Don’t always be selling something. You have heard the phrase “he only cares about people who can do something for him”. I have recently been getting messages from people who I haven’t heard from in years, mostly because they think REOs are coming back, and believe that I may be able to help them. Of course, I know they couldn’t care less about me, they only want something. Like most people, if I am going to help anyone, it’s going to be the people who have proven to me over time that our relationship is based on something more than what I can give them.
- Your most valuable relationships are the people who you have helped in the past. Everyone likes the idea of having rich, successful friends, but I believe if you spend your life focused on helping people, you will never need anything. My father told me to always be kind to people because you never know when or where you will see that person again. Definitely one of the best pieces of advice he gave me.
- Don’t think short-term. It takes time to build a strong relationship with someone. People are only focused on the immediate. Your most valuable relationships are the ones that have survived the test of time.
- Trust is everything in a relationship. I severed a relationship this week with someone I have known for years. It was disappointing to have to do it, but this person proved they couldn’t be trusted. A decade of friendship can be lost in a moment if you violate someone’s trust.
We all have a finite amount of relationship capital, and like money, the more you invest the more capital you will have when you need it.
In this episode, I break down how misinformation continues to shape the way undocumented immigrants are talked about in this country, and why that matters so much. I look at what a recent Dallas Fed report actually says about housing, wages, and jobs, and why some of the loudest headlines got the story wrong. But this is about more than bad reporting. It is about the human cost of turning people into scapegoats, the damage that misinformation does to families and communities, and why ending the division in this country begins with telling the truth.
Latinos make up about 20% of the U.S. population, and our economic power is growing even faster. In this episode, I talk about why that should change the way we see ourselves and the way we move in this country. We are driving household formation, workforce participation, GDP growth, and entrepreneurship, yet too often we still act like spectators instead of stakeholders. This is a conversation about economic power, confidence, and why controlling our narrative and asserting ourselves boldly is not optional — it’s our responsibility.
There are qualities in our community that no data point can fully capture, but this episode is about one of the biggest: grit. I talk about why perseverance, resilience, family, and purpose have always been among the greatest strengths of Hispanics and Latinos, and why those strengths can be a powerful advantage in a world being reshaped by technology, wealth, and access. But grit alone is not enough. If we want to translate all of that talent and determination into lasting economic and political power, we also need stronger networks, better platforms, and more intentional leadership. The opportunity is real. The question is whether we are ready to organize around it.