Written by: Dr. Jeni Wahlig, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
No matter where you are in the business world – from being a solopreneur to being responsible for hundreds of people with a corporation – you’re likely paying attention to the business’s bottom line. But there’s one factor you won’t find on your balance sheet that could be having a major impact on your cash flow and, ultimately, your profit relationships.
As an entrepreneur myself, I know how important it is to keep an eye on the bottom line. Even when earning a whole lot of money isn’t your primary goal, it’s nevertheless important to ensure that your business is turning a profit. Because a profitable business ultimately supports everybody.
But when most business owners, accountants, and CFOs are looking at a business’s profitability, their focus is on the line items they can account for. Yet there is one thing that I have found has a tremendous impact on a business's profitability that you won’t find on your balance sheet – relationships.
How do relationships affect profitability?
Ultimately, it’s people that determine whether a business is profitable, right? People do the work, sell the products, offer the service, engage with current and prospective customers, manage other people, and so on. People affect a business's productivity, quality of products and services, reputation, and management of resources. Therefore, people affect profitability.
And people are affected by relationships.
Now, some businesses are savvy enough to invest in building strong team dynamics in order to help ensure that relationships within the workplace, at least, are running as smoothly as possible. These businesses know, at least to some degree, how important relationships can be to a business’s success.
But what about relationships outside of the business organization – our marriages or intimate partner relationships? These are the relationships, in particular, that I want to draw your attention to.
Why are intimate partner relationships so important to business?
Intimate partner relationships are important because when these relationships aren’t they affect just about every aspect of a person’s life. It can affect mental health, physical health, time, energy, focus, and a sense of safety in life. Relationship distress can become all-consuming, draining energy and attention from even the most driven employee or business owner.
Consider, for most people, their intimate partner relationships are central to their experiences of family, stability, and life satisfaction. These are the relationships that we go home to after work– for recharging, connection, and fun. But if that relationship is in distress, it’s likely taking more than it is giving, which leaves a person with little left to give to their job or business.
What can I do about it?
If people are ultimately what drives profitability, then it’s an easy step to see how taking care of a business’s people is a smart business strategy. And more and more, businesses are valuing people over profit and looking for ways to help ensure their employees (and hopefully you owners too!) are happy and healthy.
That said, investing in people’s relationship wellness is rarely, if ever, included in one’s benefits package or as a necessary business expense. I’d argue that it should be.
The truth is that almost no one is taught how to do relationships well, least of all intimate partner relationships. And, as I’m sure you well know, intimate partner relationships tend to be our most challenging ones! People need relationship education and support.
Why relationship education?
Support for relationships, like couples therapy, is all well and good, but it often falls short of creating the lasting changes that people need. One major reason for this is that couples don’t yet have a foundation of relationship education to help them understand and succeed in actually doing something different, and the structure of therapy is not set up to provide that framework before diving into difficult conversations. At best, this can lead to months or years in therapy before any significant and lasting change is felt by couples. At worst, it can result in therapy making things worse than they were before a couple started. As a former couples therapist myself, I’m very familiar with this conundrum.
Relationship education, however, offers partners the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of what is really going on at the root of their problems, frameworks and tools (like empowered accountability) for more effectively navigating whatever challenges may arise, and can teach them how to consciously create happy and loving relationships that last. There’s truth to the adage, “Knowledge is power,” and I believe that it’s a lack of knowledge about relationship dynamics and skills that results in so many relationships suffering in distress.
In fact, I would argue that if more people got the relationship education that they need (and deserve) there would be a lot less need for the relationship support. And because education tends to be much less costly than ongoing support, it’s a great business investment that will most certainly support your bottom line.
If you’re interested in a robust relationship education program that will teach you or your team the most important skills for navigating any challenge and creating energizing and fulfilling relationships, we’ve got you covered! Our 6-week Be the One digital program covers everything you need to know to understand why problems happen, how to powerfully navigate them regardless of what your partner does, and how to consciously nurture connection and love from a place of authenticity and empowerment.
And if you’re looking for support and relationship education, we offer both in our 6-month high-touch relationship transformation coaching program. Schedule a FREE 90-minute Relationship Empowerment call, so we can explore what’s not working, how you’d like things to be, and the next most powerful steps you can take to get there. And if we think we can help, we can talk about that too.
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Dr. Jeni Wahlig, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Dr. Jeni Wahlig (she/they) is a transformational relationship coach, licensed couple & family therapist, teacher, author, & public speaker. She identifies as graysexual queer, genderqueer-femme, polyamorous, white, able-bodied, & a parent. Self-proclaimed “relationship nerd,” Jeni has dedicated her career to studying relationships & supporting couples, particularly within the Queer & Trans communities. In partnership with her soulmate, Calvin Osili, Jeni offers critically conscious relationship education & coaching through their business, PowerfuLove. Their mission is to empower couples with the knowledge and skills they need to move beyond struggles & consciously create an extraordinary relationship.
