Recently I read something that prompted a very simple but important question: Who are the 10 most important people in my business life? Do you know who they are in your life? It’s a simple question, but I realized I didn’t know the answer.

My next thought was, how dumb is that – that I don’t know the answer to such a simple but important question. So I took 60 seconds and made a list of the most important people in my business life (being one who rarely takes things literally, I actually came up with 14 people).

My next thought was, so what do I do with this list? Here are a few things that came to mind: I can call, write or visit them and make sure they know how important they are to me. I thought I should probably try to do this at least once a month for most of the people on the list. Find out what they want out of life and think about how I can help them get it. Think about ways to make our relationship stronger; especially ways to increase trust between us. Give something meaningful to them, or do something meaningful for them with absolutely no expectation of anything in return. Invite and encourage them to ask me for help whenever they need it. In general, I decided to at least think about them periodically.

As it turned out, I had a lot of fun following up on this idea. One of the things I decided to do was call people and say, “I wanted to call you now because I do not need anything whatsoever from you at this time. However, I thought it would be tacky to wait until I needed something to call you.” It was a good icebreaker, and in many cases, through the process of catching up with each other, one or the other of us discovered ways to help each other. Even if the call only served to help us catch up, both of us felt better about touching based on an ongoing basis rather than only when we needed each other.

Here’s another idea: Years ago I read a book titled “Uncommon Friends” by James Newton. As a matter of fact, one of my local important-to-me friends that many of you may know, Don Hutson, gave me the book. The book talks about the times that Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel, Charles Lindbergh and other notable individuals periodically got together at their winter retreats in Ft. Myers, Fla. They established a tradition of beginning their conversation by posing the question: What has become clear to you since we last met? That is quite an interesting question considering the distinguished members of this periodic gathering.

So, why not call some of the people important to you and ask, “What has become clear to you since we last talked?” You never know where such a conversation might take you and your important friend.

Chris Crouch is CEO of DME Training and Consulting and author of several books on improving productivity. Contact him through www.dmetraining.com.