Let’s talk about relationship management. Your relationships are fourfold… You have your personal relationships, you have your significant other, you have your supporting team, and you have your customers. There may be another, which are more of your strategic partnerships, and others that aren’t direct buying customers, but they’re conduits and intermediaries.
The universal idea is to be looking after your best of the best people in these circles. You have to cherish these individuals. Be fond of them. Admire them. Look for ways to strengthen them. Always add value, just for the joy of it. Your orientation is on how they can win. It’s always about being a go-giver, right? It’s not about you. If you focus on them first, it’s pretty obvious that things will be coming your way. It’s when you’re greedy and ambitious about what you can take that just takes away chances for them to delight you, serve you, originate opportunities for you.
There are always opportunities and open doors whenever you continue to help people, and help them by giving them helpful help… Help that they can’t give themselves. Taking honest help into account means understanding what people really danger themselves into and how you remove it, how you give them opportunities that they want to reach, and how you help them strengthen things that excite them already. If you’re always focusing on the leadership, and the confidence, and relationship, and creativity that you can bring those domains, you’ll always be valuable – and that means you’ve got your heart in the right place, you’ve got your intellect using it’s right gifts, and you’ve got your whole soul force having a place within you that’s always directed from your source… Your source-centric purpose to help people, and to help them genuinely get helpful help.
I can’t be clearer about that. Everyone in your life, your relationships… To be great at them, you have to be able to show that kind of fondness and admiration for what is great in their life and what needs to be improved from there, what is endangering them, what has to be removed through your heroics, and what opportunities they need to reach so that you can help them reach those opportunities… And that means listening.
The greatest leadership skill in the world is listening. It is. Without listening, you wouldn’t understand where people are. If you don’t understand where they are, you can’t market to them. You can’t sell the right way. You can’t relate with them and build them in terms of a relationship long-term. You can’t really do much when you don’t listen. So, it’s not about what you say. It’s about what you hear. You have two ears and one mouth. Get interested, not interesting.
Now, there are some really key things in these relationship areas. First is communication. Communication starts with listening, but it also starts by saying clearly what you mean to say. By stating what you know and then using your data points to back it up. It’s not about being a know-it-all. It’s not about showing how much you know… But when you do claim something, always look for ways to back it up. If you’re making an assumption, put it out front. Dangle the carrot and talk about how you got there: “here’s my thinking on this and here’s how I got there.”
Make room for your ignorance. Access your ignorance. This will go a long way with your significant other by moving into that kind of space without thinking that you know, but instead just putting your assumptions in check. Making room in yourself for listening and being a bit more curious will go a long way. Asking a few questions about what you think the other person means shows that you respect them, and that you’re looking to understand them from where they are versus where you think they are.
So get out of your head, and focus more on inquiry… And using curiosity and compassion and connection as the leading sources of how other people relate with you and engage with you in trustworthy ways. Creating an atmosphere of trust leads to vulnerability. That leads to intimacy and commitment to the truth, which creates great exchanges. It creates a convivial relationship with friendship, and a sort of trusting quality of truly being able to say anything and not withhold the private stuff to the public atmosphere, but be able to remain externally open and internally transparent.
Intimacy means “into me, see” and it starts with you, rather than them. So that being said, we have to also learn how to set boundaries, and setting those boundaries means being clear about our needs. Being clear about our wants. What are the most important aspects that we want and need, and what are the things that are not as important but we’re willing to live without?
You must know what matters to you. Other people can’t relate with you until you really know what’s important to you. If you want to see what’s important to you, just look at your calendar. You’ll see what’s important to you right now by how you spend your time. Now, that probably is an interesting thought, isn’t it? Because maybe some of the ways you’re spending your time really don’t matter to you, but that gives you a bump to consider what does.
So, what does matter to you in your life right now? What matters to you in your relationship right now? What really matters to you that your past helped you see? And what doesn’t matter? What’s on your not-to-do list? What are some of the things that you would prefer to just do without? Qualities in others, qualities in your life, conditions in your life…
Knowing what matters to you is about having an energy map. When other people know what matters to you, they can push the right buttons and delight you. When you know what matters to them, and you know their favorites, you know their preferences, you know what they like and love, you’re able to orient yourself around delighting people because you know what’s important to them. You can give them things and create experiences with them that always hit the sweet spot.
That’s a great way for you to create positive sentiment about you… And vice versa is don’t ever forget what you cherish about someone. Make sure that you appreciate them, and tell them what that is. Don’t let fall by the wayside what you would admire and what your fond of with other people. That requires effort to create a long-term committed relationship, both in business and in personal.
Getting the right kind of support means being willing to get your needs met. It means asking for support, being vulnerable, saying to the other person what you really need, making a request, insisting on getting your needs met, learning ways that make you feel safe. Again, that helps them position themselves to be effective as a partner. It also means learning more about what they need from you in support. How can I support you? How do you know that when I treat you certain ways, you feel important to me? How do you know when I do that? Give me some clues into when and times you feel most important to me… These are the things we need to ask other people, especially in our personal relationships.
Then there’s planning. Family planning. Routines. Activities that you need to do. That means making an ideal week. What does that look like? How does that work? What are the activities you do together? What do you do apart? Maybe having a family meeting to say “here are the three things that I appreciate about you” and vice versa… Here are the times we’re spending with friends. Here are the times we’re spending alone. Here are the times we’re spending with each other… And then, what are some of the big to-dos this week?
Maybe having a household meeting isn’t a bad idea. Maybe getting together with your spouse or significant other for a check-in or a chat, just to have some light campfire chat around coffee or tea could do a lot of good. Instead of it being so planned, make it more freestyling than organic by just doing that Sunday morning and connecting.
Again relationships require intention. They require a commitment, and commitment means courage. So right now, think about what’s in between you and creating the personal relationships that you want. Ask yourself if you’re willing to let that go, and what needs to happen in order for you to bring those relationships you desire into being. What about your business relationships? What could you do more of? What could you do less of to fortify this?
Something worth thinking about…
In the next audio, I’m going to go into this next area, which is going to be managing your business. I’m going to go into five areas there that are really important to shore up in this Anti- Fragility Fitness. See you there.
