As family, friends, and readers know, I have learned so much from mentors. This stems from the way I was raised. My dad believed that there were two ways to learn: figure it out on your own or learn from the lessons of others. The latter tends to be cheaper in time, talent, and treasure… and emotions.
This applies across all of human knowledge. We do not need to rediscover gravity or atoms. We know how to make concrete. We know which berries are poisonous and which are nutritious. Throughout most of human history, we can and do build on what previous generations and others have already figured out.
The same applies to life. The same applies to people. This is why I have had mentors most of my adult life, and why I am blessed to mentor others. Mentors often provide the cheat codes and shortcuts.
Decades ago, a mentor asked me about a relationship with which I was struggling. He said, “Is this a walk, bike, car, or plane relationship?” I had no idea what this rather cryptic question meant and asked him to elaborate. Or maybe my face asked him to elaborate with some odd look.
He told me to imagine a task that I was able to do but the friend may not know how. The example he gave was changing a tire. He said one could judge all their relationships by how far they would go to perform a relatively simple task.
If the person needed their tire changed, how far would I go to help? Would I walk to meet them? Bike there? Drive there? Fly there?
I remember pausing to let that sink in.
At the time, I was in my mid twenties. I had never really considered that relationships could be measured, much less mapped against modes of transportation. I thought love, loyalty, and friendship were either present or not. Binary. On or off. This idea suggested something different. Something more nuanced.
It was not about whether I liked the person. It was about what I would do for them. How far I would go. And, more importantly, what effort I was willing to give when it cost me something.
Would I walk a few blocks to help them out? Probably. Would I bike across town? Maybe. Would I cancel a day’s work, jump in the car, and drive across the state? Not for everyone. And fly there? Only for a few.
The answer was not just about physical distance. It was about relational weight. It was about cost: emotional, time, energy, and money. It forces one to think about the relationship and almost quantify its impact. The real question was whether I was willing to pay it.
Cost in relationships is not just about inconvenience. It is about what you sacrifice, what you postpone, what opportunities you forgo. It is the meeting you miss, the sleep you lose, the comfort you abandon. And ultimately, it reveals what you truly value.
It absolutely sounds harsh. It probably is harsh. However, each of us has a limited amount of time and resources. This approach merely acknowledges what most people innately do – focus on those who and what matter most. Or what we should do.
It reframed everything.
Suddenly I had a way to clarify what had been murky. The friend I was struggling with: was I willing to walk for him? Sure. But fly? No chance. And if I was honest, I was not sure I would even bike across town.
That realization told me everything I needed to know. Not about him. About me.
I think about the time my friend Corky and I were catching up over breakfast in 2015. We talked about our plans for the upcoming weekend. Corky shared his plans to celebrate his wedding anniversary. I mentioned I was headed to Leadville, Colorado, to help a buddy run the Leadville Trail 100-mile race. I also shared that no one on the crew had ever done the race, and I was the only one who had run ultramarathons. My max race distance was 50 miles then. Hell, no one else on the crew had even done a marathon.
Corky expressed his deep concern for the runner and for me. “You are f’n f’d. You are so f’d you have no idea how f’n f’d you are.” He repeated that a few times.
Thirty minutes after leaving breakfast, Corky called me. He declared he would see me at the airport. He was going with me. This also meant postponing his anniversary plans. Corky jumped on a plane and even ran a chunk of the race because of our relationship.
When someone is in need, I ask myself quietly: is this a walk, bike, car, or plane relationship?
And when I am the one in need, when life has punched me in the gut or I need someone to show up, I know who is in each category. I do not hold it against anyone. Most people belong in the walk or bike category. That is okay. Not every relationship needs to be a plane ride.
The reciprocity is rarely perfect, and that is fine. Sometimes you are someone’s plane while they are your car. Life is not a ledger. But over time, patterns emerge.
The friend who always has emergencies but disappears during yours. The colleague who seeks mentorship but never offers support in return. The family member who expects plane-level commitment while offering walk-level investment.
These imbalances teach us about boundaries, about where to invest our finite emotional resources.
Over time, I have learned to intentionally invest more in the relationships that are mutual car or plane rides. I want to build with people who show up. People who call at 5
a.m. because they know I am up. People who send handwritten notes. People who rearrange their lives to be there when it counts. People who fly across the country for the funeral of someone you love. Not because they had to. Because they wanted to.
I also try to be that person.
Not all the time. Not for everyone. But for the ones that matter most.
That is how I measure relationships now. Not by how often we talk. Not by how many years we have known each other. But by how far we are each willing to go.
My father was right that learning from others is cheaper than figuring it out yourself. This framework, given to me decades ago by a mentor, has saved me years of confusion and misplaced energy. Now I pass it on, another lesson learned from others rather than through costly trial and error.
That question from decades ago does more than help me measure relationships. It shapes how I choose to live within them, with clarity about their nature and intentionality about my investment.