The Campbell Academy Blog (72)

Transact or transform

I think we transact or we transform in all our relationships and interactions with other people.

You can get the picture if I give you a few examples, perhaps.

I will give you love if you give me sex, or worse; still, I will give you money if you give me sex.

I will give you status if you give me money.

I will try to provide you with happiness if you provide me with security.

I will give you respect if you give me whatever it is; I want for respect.

Everything in those types of relationships is transactional.

They are not the most sustainable relationships by a long way.

Consider what it's like in a transformational relationship where what you would like to do is empower the individual you're in a relationship with to be better or healthier or happier or kinder or anything it is that you can do to help them.

Imagine what you get back from a relationship where you do that and where you seek out to do that at every possible opportunity.

Transaction vs transformation is a standard business practice discussion around leadership styles, but I realised recently it's not leadership styles; it's just styles of being.

Either we can try to make it better for other people, or we can try to make it better for ourselves; it's straightforward.

In just trying to make it better for ourselves, we're unlikely to make it better for anybody else, but in trying to make it better for others, we almost always make it better for ourselves.

Every so often, it's necessary to drop into the transactional, but only every so often.