Prioritizing Family and Relationships

Sep 8, 2014 by Jim and Jerolyn Bogear

 

A few months ago, NBA great, LeBron James was dominating the sports news channels. Now even those of you who do not know anything about basketball have heard about this LeBron guy. He is the best basketball player on the planet currently, and arguably one of the best of all time. In fact, he has stated that if there is a Mount Rushmore of basketball he hopes he would be one of the few on it.

He recently left the Miami Heat where he took them to 4 NBA Finals, winning two of them. He has returned to his home area of Cleveland. Why?

It’s all about relationships!!!

Interesting, seems like I have heard, okay, I have said that literally hundreds of times to people. It isn’t about championships or even the Mount Rushmore of basketball in his desire to return to Cleveland. It’s about family, friends, and relationships. You see in 2010 he left Cleveland to go play for Miami, and it was about championships. After he announced his decision in an ESPN special that even LeBron regrets doing, he boarded the jet to return home. It is reported that he asked his family and close friends on the plane, “Did I make the right decision?”

In 2014 he decided to return to Cleveland to supposedly finish his career back home. His family wanted him to return; he wanted to return; and of course the fans wanted him to return. But this decision was made on relationships — his connection to family and friends, and a desire to be in the community where he grew up.

Now we all can’t or don’t want to return home, but we do realize that life is more than price tags, accumulations, or salary packages.

Life really is all about relationships and living a life of significance.

We recently encountered a CEO who was willing to take that position in a very high profile company, but only if they allowed him to put his family first. If this Fortune 100 company said no to his priority of family, then he would gladly say no to the CEO position.

• So what decisions do you need to make to prioritize family, friends, and those people who are most important to you?
• What decisions do you need to make that are based on relationships and significance, not just chasing after worldly success?

You see when we capture success, there is something so much more to life that continues to escape us. We are not saying that you cannot be successful and still make relationships a priority, but there is a decision that causes us to put the priority of relationships and significance first and not ourselves and the pursuit of only success.

We have often said and continue to communicate to many that if you and I do not win where it counts most, at home, we really do not win much anywhere else. We trust that you are successful in what you believe God wants you to accomplish but do so with the mindset and priority on relationships and a life of significance.

What decisions do you need to make that really do make family and relationships a priority?

~ Jim and Jerolyn Bogear