The Plan for Action #6: Your Spouse is your greatest asset
At this point, let's recap the Plan for Action:
Change Yourself
Change Your Family
Change The World
Up until this point, we were focused on changing yourself. Changing others means leadership, and before you can lead anyone else, you must first become worth following. This is why you must change yourself first: if you can't lead you, how can you lead anyone else?
The first steps were about you leading you. And now, you are in control of yourself, you are pushing yourself to become more than you ever thought you could be, and you no longer see every challenge as daunting. You are ready to move forward. in future chapters we're going to talk about tools and assets, and we already mentioned getting your personal finances under control, but at this stage, let's talk about the one person who will be more valuable to you than anyone else on this journey:
Your spouse.
If you are single, consider this one something to think about for a future spouse.
Your marriage affects everything
If you have a family, you are no longer just "yourself." You now have a family, and that family is a part of your character which determines who you are. If you neglect your spouse, it will affect everything else in your life.
Something we all hate about the vast majority of politicians, is that they are "plastic men giving pretty speeches." Not long ago, there was a particular political podcaster of which I was a big fan, and one reason is because he was a husband and father, and in his voice you could hear how much he cared about his family, and how his activism came out of concern for his wife and children's future.
Until he divorced. And found a new girlfriend.
In a very short period of time, just a few months, there was something about him that changed. The words were mostly the same, the ideas were the same, but the person was not the same. At that point I turned to other sources of inspiration.
I could list the many benefits marriage plays in taking action, as well as how a bad marriage can wreck things, but you must understand that you are not an individual. You are your family. Activism, education, mentorships, they cannot succeed without a shared vision and support from your spouse. Do not rush out in an attempt to save the world, and then some personal family matter hamstrings you at a critical moment. I've seen that also - great starts in activism, but the spouse wasn't on board. Suddenly they will start wrecking the activism not because the cause is bad, but because the cause got between the spouses, and a cause in the wrong place may as well be adultery in terms of emotional impact.
Shared vision
For the various kinds of action you might be taking, make sure first that you and your spouse both understand the costs, and you are both on board. This doesn't necessary mean you are both into the same cause, but it does mean that your spouse is able to be supportive and able to help you succeed. If ti takes a couple of months, or even a couple of years, to get them on board, make it happen.
Ultimately, your spouse is going to be the person closest to you, that is going to be in your corner and helping you to fight on. In this context, you can have more "fight" than you ever could otherwise, so do not neglect this relationship.
As always, thanks for reading. This section is a single chapter, so next we're going to be moving into "Changing the World."