Self-Leadership for Better Relationships

Why Relationships Come First

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What is going on, my people?

SPEAKER_00 0:02

What? You crushed it. You crushed it. All right. I know we've been talking for the last couple episodes about challenges that people go through. So they become aware of maybe some of the things that are actually holding them back. And today we're talking about relationships. All right. So I'm going to air. Yeah, I'm going to air all your dirty laundry systems. Oh. All right. By the way, we just did the laundry yesterday, so we don't have any dirty today.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

We.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Yes. No laundry. We. I'm French. You didn't know that? We we. All right. So on a different subject. Uh, we're going to talk about relationships, marriage, kids, all those good things. And by the way, if you've been following us for a while, you know that these are our core values, right? Is family, connection, above all. Like in terms of like above business. It's at the top of our list. I mean, that's the reason why we're doing a lot of the things that we do because of our family. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about some of the things that people struggle with. All right. Okay. One of the things I get blessed to do is I'm on the leadership team for the Dad Edge. And the Dad Edge, really huge podcast. If you are a father or a husband, definitely listen to it. And might hear me on a bunch of the episodes. But it's really powerful when you're in a room of other parents, other spouses who want to become better for the people that they care about the most. And it doesn't mean that you're going to take your foot off a gas in business or career or spirituality. But at the same time, it's going to help you build what's called an and life. It's something I work on with our clients one-on-one. It's like, how do you have an and life? It's different than an or life. An or life is how can I succeed in this one or this one? But for relationships, I always think about how can I have an and life? How can growing a business make me a stronger father, living the and life? And so the reason why I want to share that is because I talk to a lot of men in this space who are looking to better their relationships. And it's kind of funny because I spend a lot of my time with the dead edge, but most of our clients are women. So I get like this beautiful synergy of both. And I don't want to make any generalizations

Building An And Life

SPEAKER_00 1:52

because everybody's an individual for a reason. But a lot of times when I am having these conversations with people, what they initially tell me is the quote unquote problem or the thing they're looking to change. Once again, just like the last two episodes, it's usually not the actual thing that they're dealing with. They're actually dealing with something else much different. And so I want to talk about today the thing that I have seen a lot when it comes to this whole idea of marriage and relationships and kids and things like that. So when I am having conversations with people, a lot of people want to, especially when it comes to like relationships with their marriage, they want to feel that connection like they did when they first got started. Like feel the connection, excitement, love. They're doing things together. They're on the same team and they're not playing individual sports. They're doing things together. And they love and enjoy being together, those kind of things. And sometime along the way, things stopped being so quote unquote exciting and in that spirit of how they used to communicate with each other. I don't think that itself is something that's quote unquote wrong, but it's also not something that would be helpful to think of as normal. One of the things I notice is like when I'm having conversations, people tend to believe thoughts around this is just normal. Like for you and me, as of this week, we're gonna have been together for 21 years. I don't think it would be quote unquote normal if we weren't as connected as we are right now. I don't think, oh, we've been together for 21 years. So like we should just be friends right now and not like as close and connected as us. But I see that a lot of people think that. They're like, oh yeah, just over time things get like less KO, right? And believe it or not, that's a thought and it is not helpful at all. Like I always ask myself, like, how can I make next year even better? How can I show up even better? So when I'm having these conversations with people and I get in and they're like, hey, Mark, can you give me some tactics on how I can be more attractive to my wife? Let me just tell you, like most men, I would say, they're thinking, like, how can I get my wife to have more sex with me? Instead of, how can I actually get my wife to be more attracted to me? I don't know. I like the second version better, which is like, how can I be the husband that she thinks about all the time that she really wants to be with? Right. And so through these conversations, we will sometimes get to the root of what's actually going on in these scenarios. And one of the things that I see happening a lot is as husbands in the dead edge, they start to grow and they start to change. There is a thought that they have that's like, I'm changing. Why are they not changing? Sometimes it's like, well, they need to change first, and when they change, then I can change. Like people don't think that like consciously. It's like one of these things where it's unconscious under the surface. Well, when my wife starts doing this, then I will start doing this. And it's like a this for that. It also gets me to think about the hidden list of things that we have. Expectations. And it's like, you know what? If she ever gets mad at me, I'm gonna bring up this entire list of all the things that she's done wrong, right? It is crazy because, like, when you think about this, you don't realize that that's the case. And when I think about situations like this where you're wanting to feel more connected, you probably should not have a list of all the things the other person has done wrong. I would highly encourage you to write a list of all the things they've done right. I would highly encourage you to write a list of all the things you appreciate about them. And the things that they've done, the things that they've been through when you've gone through the stuff and yet they're still here connecting with you. That is a really powerful list to have. But most people don't think that through. They're thinking about, well, how can they change? How can I get them to change? How can I get them to want this? Right. I know we teach this in the manual, which is what we talk about in the High Impact Mastery Academy. But when I think about like relationships and when I think about kids and our spouses and stuff like that, or just relationships in general, we have a list of things that basically tells us if they do this stuff, if they take these actions, then that means it's good. I'm good, or I can feel good about this scenario. And so when I think about the whole idea around relationships, I like to think about what is the story that your brain tells you as to what is the proof that your kids love you, or what is the proof that your wife loves you. And sometimes you will find that your brain has linked something that is

The Myth That Connection Fades

SPEAKER_00 6:10

actually never supposed to be linked, but it gets you to just experience a different feeling in your body, right? Because a different perspective. And it gets you to show up and to take actions that actually create more disconnection than ever. And when you create more disconnection through your actions, you're actually going to manifest and create less connection with them. When in turn, when I get in and I have these conversations and I go, hey, do you see this? Do you see this situation? And it totally flips them that they come back the next week and go, My relationship has never been better. Which by the way, I have a story as I said that. You want me to share with you? Yeah. Okay, so um we were on this call. It was a dad edge call. I'm not gonna give you any names or anything of people, but we were on a call, and one of the things the guy was talking about had a lot to do with they're struggling with getting distracted. The husband and wife are both business owners. They both run the same business, kind of like you and I do, and they're struggling with having distractions come up. And so one of the things that he told me is he's like, I don't want to have this conversation with her because it always creates more disconnection. I'm like, there it is. There is the thought that it's actually screwing you. Because the reality, I remember hearing this once, I think it was from a relationship coach was talking about this, is like true connection happens in the repair. Yeah. It happens in the repair. It doesn't happen when everything's going well or when you pretend like something doesn't happen. And so I asked him, I said, I'm curious, what do you would think it would be like if instead of you thinking that whenever you have this conversation, it goes down the wrong path, what if you started to think about like how could this conversation actually make you closer to your wife than ever before? And I remember him on the call, like looking at me, and he was like trying to process it, right? Because you need time to process something like that. When you go from a belief you're challenging their belief and you challenge it and you call somebody forward, they have two options. Number one, that is never gonna work. That's usually the one I hear if you're not on the dead edge or if you're not on with somebody who wants to coach. That's never gonna work. If you're with your friends and they don't have like a high level of self-awareness, they're gonna tell you that. Or you can go, I need to think about that. That's a great question. And he said, I need to think about that. That's a great question. And the next week he came back and he had a huge smile on his face because he couldn't wait to tell us what had happened. When you start to reframe the way that you think about your relationships, things in the relationship will change. This example, right? You start to think of this as like this is actually gonna be a more of a connection moment than a disconnection moment. And then you approach the situation like, hey, you know what? I have really been struggling with my phone and getting distracted. And the one thing that I want to make sure that I do is to show you guys that you guys are way more important than any phone call, any business transaction than ever. And so I would love to see if you could help me with this. Are there things that you have done that you think could help? Are there like ways that maybe you could call me forward when like I need to be called forward? And I promise you, I'm not gonna overreact or respond negatively. I love it if you could do it in a nice loving way. But even if you don't, I want to take full control over this because I love you guys so much and I want to make sure that this does not control my relationship and I refuse to keep doing this. And guess what happens when that happens? You take ownership for your part, and guess what usually happens? They take ownership for theirs, and now you're on the same team, and now you feel more connected. And now this guy comes back on and goes, I don't know what's happened, but like I feel more connected to my wife than I felt in years. And it had everything to do with that belief that was actually holding him back. Oh, if we talk about this, everything's gonna go wrong. Well, your brain is living in two places your history or the past. Your history of your brain, of like, oh, here's all the things that have happened, but then the past of like, oh, well, that's ever happened before. This is the reason why. And we live from that space, we project it into the future and we create more disconnection like that. And this is the same thing. So when you get in there and you find it, it's amazing because it actually isn't as much hard

The Hidden List Of Expectations

SPEAKER_00 9:55

work as the technical solution is. It's just being able to see there's a different way of thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

One thing I do want to make sure that you're very, very clear of these five podcasts that we're doing, we want to make you aware of maybe some things that might be holding you back. For some of you guys, this is not the space in relationships that's holding you back. Maybe there's a different space that's holding you back. But there's a difference between awareness and actually getting yourself to believe what we're talking about here today. Right. Because if you are just like, oh, I know that, logically, that makes sense. That means you just don't believe it yet. Yeah. And there's actually a process to help you to be able to believe that, but you have to choose to believe first. You can't choose to believe, nope, this is true. She's out to get me. Good luck with that. That is not going to work in any situation ever. And it doesn't matter what that person is doing or whatever, like, because you're going to look for more evidence that it's broken, wrong, or missing. It's important to really become aware of it, which is what we're doing here on this podcast, and then figure out a plan to be able to show up differently when you're about to have that conversation with your wife.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah. Yeah, it just gets me to think about how like this is truly about taking ownership, even when you don't believe yet, right? When you're still kind of processing and in the process of reframing your thoughts around the whole situation, it's about taking ownership because I feel like I've had this experience in our relationship too, is that when we have, you know, moments of disconnection or like there's arguments or there's something going on, there's always like this idea that you have to match the other person's energy. That, you know, well, they're responding this way when I try to talk to them, and it could potentially be because of the way that you talk to them, right? But it's always about like, well, if they're gonna be this way, then I'm gonna match that. Yeah. And this is basically challenging that and challenging it in a way where it's, well, no, you take ownership and you respond in this way because you want to create that connection. It may sound cliche, but it's like you be the bigger person and you start to reframe your thoughts around the whole situation. And then it may not go the way that you hope at the beginning, right? Because it's also another person involved. But it doesn't mean that it's not gonna work eventually. So I think a lot of it has to do with just learning to take ownership in that process and that it's not gonna be a flip of a switch. It's gonna be something that takes time.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Yep. On that subject, before we move on to the next episode, what you just shared right there in terms of taking ownership. I've had a lot of people who come to me and are basically like when I get into these conversations with my significant other or my kids, like they shut down. They shut down, this is what they ask. Why does it always have to be me to start that conversation? That is the most terrible question you could ask yourself. Okay. Why is it you? Because you're the best person to start it. Because you are the one who's gonna reach in, lead yourself, effectively start that conversation, get past the uncomfortableness because this is what you do. There's a difference between like, well, I always have to be this person. You can keep thinking that it is not going to help you show up the way that you need to. Or you can think, I actually know how the brain works. I'm the perfect person to do this. I'm gonna do this right now. You see the difference? So many people, when they think about like self-leadership lab, for example, they're like, oh, discipline and being able to get yourself to do it. I'm like, no, I'm gonna find a way for you to want to do it and not just want to do it, but want to do it with an entirely different energy that you don't know

Repair Conversations And Ownership

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how the other person's gonna respond. But I guarantee you, if you put these two responses, you responding your old way and you responding your new way, and you put them together like head to head, one is gonna be more likely to produce results and the other one is not. And by the way, I don't mean just relationships, I mean every area of your life. One of the things that's really, really near and dear to me is just the whole idea of what we're talking about today and how this applies to every area of your life. And I know there's gonna be people who are gonna be like, ah, I don't have the time, I don't have the money, I don't have all of these other things. And there's just something inside of me that's like if you leaned into something like this and you developed a skill that allowed you to respond instead of react and create a high level of energy that is gonna feel like attraction energy, no matter what it is you're doing, whether you're doing it with your kids or your spouse or at work, people are gonna want to work with you more. Like whatever that looks like, what do you think the impact that would have on your life if you started to do that in every area of your life, every situation that happened? And it wasn't just something you had to think through, but you started to think through it so often that it just became a part of your normal operating system. I gotta tell you, you get to Sergeant Two at LAPD, you'd go a multiple six-figure business, you'd lose 100 pounds, you'd be more connected to your family than ever before. And I don't know about you, that's the gift that keeps giving forever. Being able to lean into something like this and be aware of it, that's awesome. But you got to figure out how to take that next step. How to get yourself to take those actions. If you got this on your own, crush it. Go out and do it. But if you feel like there's something missing, if you feel like we were talking to you today, we were literally picturing people in my mind today that I'm like, I wish they had the skill

Why You Should Start The Talk

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because it would transform how they show up, how they sell, how they connect with their family, how they work on their health and fitness. And it's something that they will never, ever not have again. They'll have it for the rest of their life.