High Performing Relationships

Hello my friends. I'm Brendon Burchard, host of the Brendon show and founder of growthday.com and I'm honored to be your high performance coach today. I believe that every day we can be inspired. We can live with intention and purpose. We can bring the joy and honor the struggles of each day to push ourselves to grow, to serve, to be a role model, to lead extraordinary lives. I believe that every day is a great day to grow. That's why I started my company, growthday.com it's an online personal growth platform where you can get me and the world's best personal development teachers live coaching you every week. Sharing our wisdom, keeping you motivated and accountable, encouraging you to find the aliveness and the connection and meaning of life that we're all after. If you're not a member yet, please go sign up@growthday.com and join our huge worldwide community of achievers. For less than a dollar a day, you get the world's best teachers live every week. And look, you've probably known for a long time that you needed some expert guidance and inspired community and life changing tools. So please, your breakthrough awaits you@growthday.com now let's get to today's episode. My friends, please listen closely. Maybe you take some notes so you remember these insights of personal growth and share this episode with three of your friends because we all have to share more positive messages in the world today. So share this with three friends just like you who are committed to their personal growth. And also be sure to tag me or DM me on Instagram. Rendon Burchard, Join our million plus community there on Instagram so I can say hi. Thanks again for listening. Now let's begin.

How can you seek to have extraordinary accomplishments and achievements in your career or your life or your mission? How do you live that ultimate purpose and stay sane and maintain the positive relationships around you that make life really worth living and really feel connected? That's the topic we're taking today. This first piece, Be all in. Be all in. I know this sounds so funny, but I know married couples who aren't all in. You know, people who, you know, they got married and they love each other and you know they're not all in. So this first point, Be all in. Be all in to improving and growing the relationship. Be all in to improving and growing the relationship. This is what I want you to write down. Be all in to improving and growing the relationship. Some people, they never really invest fully into relationship because sometimes you know, hey, Maybe when you were younger, you got hurt in a relationship, so you've always been guarded. You know, maybe one time that person cheated on you, so you never trusted anybody again. But I'm not asking you for trust. I'm not asking you to, you know, be around, you know, and always be positive. What I'm asking is be all in to improving and growing the critical relationships of your life. See, my friend Tom Bilyeu, who I brought up a minute ago, one of the things he says about his wife that made their relationship extraordinary is that he says she. He calls her. This is his language, not mine. He says, she's a ride or die chick. She will ride. She's in it ride or die. No matter what happens, she is fully committed, 100% there, in it for the relationship. Just gives everything into the relationship. And how often are we holding back? How often are you going through the motions in your relationships because you're kind of like, okay, yeah, I love her, or, yeah, he's great, but you're not really, like, fully invested. All in, all chips, here we go, honey. It's you and me. Lifelong gonna make this great. How often do you go through a day and you didn't think about improving that relationship or growing that relationship? You just. You're together, you're fine. You show up, you go through the motions, but you're not working all in that relationship to make that person feel heard, make that person feel appreciated, make that person feel loved, make that person feel honored and respected. Being all in, says this person. I am all in to support this person, cheer on this person, love on this person, respect this person. I am all in to improving this relationship and growing this relationship. What I want you to do is say, okay, if I really look at my behavior in the last three months in this relationship, have I been all in? Have I really focused on improving and growing this relationship? Am I showing up in a way that is improving, growing this relationship? Am I giving this person time, attention, and energy so that we can grow and improve this relationship? Okay, one would be bad. One would be like, oh, with this person, I haven't talked to them. I haven't acknowledged them. I haven't even thought about the relationship or improving the relationship at all. Ten would be, I've been really thinking about how to make our life better together or make this relationship stronger. I've been really thinking about what I can do to make the person feel happy and better. Like, you've really thought through it. Now, some of you are going to say, well, Brendan, you Know, I wrote down somebody who is like, my employee. I'm like, okay, are you all in and growing and improving that relationship with your employee? That's the question. Are you all in? Because what most people do is remain casual about their relationships for life. They never approach the relationship like the mission. Think about that. Your relationship is a mission. Have it in your heart and soul to serve that mission. The relationship is the mission. So when you can think about your daily life with your spouse and go, it's my mission to make her feel loved. It is my mission to honor us. It is my mission to grow this relationship. Isn't that different than be like, how are you, honey? Did you make my coffee yet? You know what I'm saying? So few people take their relationship seriously. You have to feed it and water and care for it. But you'll never do that if you don't make that mental shift to go, I'm all in. I am all in. If you want to change your relationship, you go in. That's it. You commit. You say, I'm going to go all in. All the chips in, you burn down the other boats. You say, here I am. I am absolutely committed to you. I'm absolutely committed to this relationship. I'm absolutely committed to improving it. And I know how hard that is. So measure yourself today. Take a quick, honest look and just go, okay, have I been showing up for my loved ones and really trying to improve these relationships? Have I been growing my relationships with my families, with my family? Or I'm just letting it go? I mean, listen, the reason you show up here every month is to take good, hard look at your life in these different categories. I ask you to look at yourself, and I know this one's an easy one to glance at. I know you can say, oh, well, it's not that important, Brendan. I get it. I know it's easy to make jokes. I know it's easy to tease. But listen, the most important thing you can ever do is gauge your commitment in your relationships, really look at it and really think at it and ask, well, what's preventing me from being more fully invested in this person and in this relationship? Is it because I got hurt that one time? Is it because they weren't honest? What is the reason I'm not more fully into this relationship? And then you got to do the hard work. You got to either figure out, is it your stuff? Like, is it your stuff because of your past? Is it their behavior now? And you got to solve that. If it's your stuff from your past. And that's getting in the way of you having fully committed, amazing, extraordinary relationships. Then it is time to do the deep internal work. It is time to get the therapist if you need it. It is time to get the relationship coach if you need it. It is time to solve your stuff. Because if you are holding yourself back from having great relationships, no one can fix you. Stop thinking that that ideal, perfect person is going to come around or the persons you're with are supposed to cheer you on and support you and make you better. No one is going to make you better but you. No one. And that's where most people screw up their relationships. They keep I want her to make me happy. I want him to make me happy. I want, I want, I want, I want, I want. Take, take, take, take, take, take. Without doing the work and saying, oh, I'm not able to connect here because I have some stuff from my past. You got to deal with that stuff now. If the reason you're not all in to improving or growing a relationship, you have to ask one, should that relationship be in your life? Now, I asked you to write down the five most important ones. So the assumption here is that they are. That this is an important relationship in your life. But if you know, you're casual about it and you're kind of looking at these different relationships, and some of you, it's time for you to break up with your friends, to break up with that team member who's not getting it and let them go to break up with. Like, if you can't be fully invested in improving or growing that relationship because of their behavior, you have to say, what is it that about their behavior that's not working for me to be able to improve this relationship with them? And then it's time for the hard conversation. It's time to sit them down and say, listen, I want to connect more, I want to give more, I want more vibrancy or joy or connection between us. But I feel like I can't put it in because every time I do, you're doing these things. I'm seeing this feeling, this sensing this. I want us to be better, but I don't know how to make it better because we've tried. So tell me, what do we need to do? Let's figure this out together. If you're not all in, you got to ask three simple questions. One, is it your past? Is it your stuff that's preventing you from fully engaging, committing, or connecting? Number two, is it just a person who should not be in the picture. And you've got to make that tough decision now. Is this the time for this person to no longer be in your circle or this person to be in your life? I know that's hard. Or is it time to minimize your time with this person? Or 3? If it's their behavior that is preventing you from connecting more deeply with them, it is time to have that conversation. As you guys know, I often recommend this book called Crucial Conversations. Crucial Conversations. It's a great book to read to help you figure out how to do that. You know, for those of you who really just like, I don't know what to say or, you know, they're going to fight with me, make sure you read that book. It might help you in finding some new language to be able to have that conversation. But the most important thing is to ask yourself the questions and to rate yourself. Here's what the goofiest thing, the best thing I've ever done on a weekly basis to improve my relationships in my life is exactly what I'm asking you to do. Here's the five most important people in my life. And I know five is arbitrary. You might have, you know, five kids, so those count. Plus your spouse, plus the person who works for you or whatever, right? So however many people who are really close to you or need to be close to you, write down those names. Score yourself. Every week, I score myself on a score of 1 to 10. How am I doing in these relationships? 1 is bad, 10 is great. Then I ask those questions, what is it about me preventing me from improving this relationship? And what's their behavior that's making me feel like I shouldn't? And then I get to do the hard work because you know what the opposite is? Going through the motions or avoiding. And you know what high performers don't do? They don't go through the motions and they don't avoid. And I've been blessed to study the highest performing people in the world. I coach many of them. I've trained most of them and. And I've had that beautiful gift now of seeing over and over and over and over again that true, real thing. And that is, man, they're willing to look at themselves and rate themselves on a consistent basis. I really want you guys to be willing to do that for yourselves. All right? I mean, I wish I could tell you how life can feel when you get that immediate circle of love ones, whether it's spouse, family, friends, partner. When you get that circle, just vibing. I mean, when you really got, you know, a Couple people who. There's just an amazing, extraordinary quality relationship. If you guys have that. If you already have that extraordinary quality relationship with most of the people around you. And it's a deep, connected, vibrant, amazing, joyous relationship. Double high five, my friends. Because most people don't have that. What you need is you need the immediate circle people in your life. You need to work on improving and growing those relationships. That's the goal. You know, I once wrote this book called the Charge. The subtitle was activating the 10 human drives that make you feel alive. And in the Charge, there was something controversial in there. And I taught that. As you get busier in life, sometimes you have to start bucketing friends and relationships, and you have to kind of mentally put people into, like, you know, buckets of how much time you're going to spend on them. And not everybody liked when I said that, because I said, listen, you have old friends, that's one bucket. You have maintenance friends. Maintenance friends. And then you have growth friends, right? Your old friends. They're old. They're another part of your life. Maintenance friends, that's the person you reach out to on their birthday. You might send them a Christmas card. You know, once in a while, you connect with them. Growth friends. You are actively creating adventures and time together. You are doing things together. You are in communication. You're texting and teasing and making fun of each other and having a good relationship where you're growing and learning together throughout life. So I'm here to tell you, if we accomplish one thing today, it's develop that growth circle. Whether that's your spouse, your partner, that's two or three of your best friends. I want you to have, like a circle of friends where you are working hard to improve those relationships and grow those relationships. And everybody else, they get less time. They got to get less time from you. We've got to get your time back to the relationships that matter and will matter in the future for you. Okay? How many of you be honest, how many of you hang out too much with people who drain your energy? They're old friends, but they're still hanging around. They're maintenance friends, but there's no connection and vibrancy and joy in that relationship anymore, that friendship? What do you got to do? Ask those three questions? Is it something from you holding you back? Is it they shouldn't be in your life, or is it something about their behavior? You need to communicate, and then it's time to maybe cut ties. Maybe it's time to have that tough conversation but, man, I want you to make it like your peer group and your intimate relationship. It is going to be vibrant and amazing. You've been through enough in life. You deserve to have extraordinary relationships now. But you've got to find those relationships and you got to go all in on improving and growing those relationships.

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I want to tell you a story as I'm going to teach you this second point today. Two of my friends, one of them from Montana and another Matt Boggs and Jason Miller, they had terrible relationships. They're two men who were having terrible relationships throughout their early 20s or something like that and they just, they couldn't figure it out. They couldn't have good relationships. But one of their grandmothers had had her relationship with her husband for like 50 plus years and he sat down with his grandma. And he said, well, you know, what's the secret? And they started having some conversations about what the secret to a lifelong relationship was. This inspired them to want to know more. She said, go ask some other couples. Don't just take my word for it. And this began what they called Project Everlasting. And they rented an rv, and they had people from all around the United States nominate couples who'd been married 40 years or longer. And they had to be nominated, and they had to be happy, you know, because a lot of people have been together 40 years, but they're not happy no more. So these guys were reported to be happy they were nominated. My friends got in an rv, went around and interviewed them to find out what their secrets were to extraordinary relationship. And so these were like America's greatest couples, more or less. They'd been married 40 years longer, had been nominated. And out of all the relationship advice in the world, what do you think was the pattern? This was over 200 couples who've been married over 40 years each. What do you think was the number one thing they said led to a great quality relationship? The number one thing was respect. And that's why I'm going to start it. But I'm going to say it this way. I'd like you to make demonstrating respect the actual goal. Make demonstrating respect the goal. Respect is a difficult one, because, listen, that last time you were condescending with your spouse, that wasn't respect. The last time you judged their feelings as stupid, that wasn't respect. The last time you interrupted them when they were really trying to share something or explain something, that was not respect. That last time you said you would do something, but you didn't do it. That wasn't respect. We break respect in these subtle little ways so often. Go back and score yourself on this category. 1 to 10. 1. You have not been demonstrating respect actively and consciously at all. 10. You actually think about it. How can I demonstrate respect to this person? And you think about it actively and consciously. That's a 10. That's like, wow, you're amazing. Okay. One. You don't even think about it. You're just going through the motions, being disrespectful. 10. It's like on your agenda to demonstrate respect. I'll give you an example. You know, sometimes my wife and I will go out and we'll see other. We'll be with a couple or we'll see other people, and I make it a goal. I literally make demonstrating respect to my wife and of my Wife goal. So as we go to sit down, I'm like, okay, we're all together as friends or we're meeting these people. I'll say, I want them to know that I respect my wife. So I will say things to her or give a level of appreciation to her verbally that people hear. And they're like, wow, he really loves his wife. But I'll often use the word literally with her respect. Honey, I respect how hard you have worked to make an amazing relationship with us. And I'll say that to her in front of other people. Honey, I respect how hard you work. Honey, I respect how caring you are. Honey, I respect and appreciate all the help you give. Honey, I respect how brave you are. I respect how courageous you are. I respect how giving you are. I respect how thoughtful you are. You're the most thoughtful person. Respect is not just something that you demonstrate by sticking to your word or not interrupting. You have to tell your partner on a consistent basis that you respect them. What do you respect about each of those people you wrote down? And when's the last time you told them that? Write down the five most important people in your life, or 10 or 15, however you want. Write down the most important people in your life. Score yourself. Have you been demonstrating respect? One is no, 10 is yes. But then what I'll have you do is just scratch out real fast. Just write what's something you do respect about them that you could communicate and tell them. That's what I mean by that. Like demonstrating respect. I didn't ask you to have respect of them. I said demonstrate it to them. Demonstrate your respect for other people. Demonstrate. I tell myself this before almost every major meeting I have. I say respect the people in this room. Respect the people in this room. Something my dad taught me. Respect other people. So I try to actually verbalize it. I try to communicate it. I try to do things that show it. And if you were one of my friends and you knew me, none of my friends or none of my family questions whether or not I respect them. Everyone knows it. If you're in my inner circle and I have respect, you know it. You know it. Now, here's the issue. The funny thing is this new generation. And when I say new generation, I mean people alive today. I don't mean millennials or generation X or Y or whatever. I mean, if you're alive today, respect is not a word that's actually used that often. People prefer other words that are easier, and that's nice. And yet that's why there's no depth in the relationship. You know, there's lots of other things that we could say that we want. You know, even. Oh, look, look, even Odile said. She said, I like. I appreciate better than I respect. I understand that, and that's a good thing. But respect is something that they need demonstrated. And said all people, like, I understand that that might be your approach. Like, I like. But appreciation is just one form of respect. And I think that we need to put that word back in front of us again. We need to make it a goal, make that a goal, make demonstrating respect a goal. So maybe something. What could you do for your spouse or someone that you love to show your respect for them or to explain to them that you respect their work, their effort, their values, their heart, their commitment? My wife, she knows I respect her, like, more than any other person alive. There's no question. There's no lack of respect ever in our relationship, even when we have fights. Because the number one way to quickly make a conflict be worse is do something so that the other person feels like you don't respect them. When respect is gone, there's almost nothing else you can do. You can placate, you can say nice things, you can write them a gratitude note, but if they don't feel respected, that's trouble, right? For me, I feel disrespected. If I am sharing something, I'm right in the middle of, like, passionate sharing, and someone interrupts something and they interrupt and it's something that's kind of unrelated, and it's not, like, in line with what I'm sharing about passionately. So I feel interrupted and kind of like, from a tangent, I feel disrespected. Now, I know many of you are going to say, brendan, take it easy, man. You don't have to feel disrespected about that. But that's my immediate impulse. It doesn't mean I freak out about it or go crazy. I'm just saying that to me, it's not a show of respect. Show respect is cheering it on or jumping in the conversation or aligning with it and, like, creating something together. Now, for Denise, she's. I mean, that's not a big deal to her. She's happy to jump in in any conversation. So we have different ways. Another way of respect, as I said before, is absolutely making sure that if you say you're going to do it, you do it. That is integrity. That is congruence. I'm defining it here as respect to your partner. If you promised your partner something, show up said you're going to do it, do it, promise to be there at that time, get there on that time. It's not that we don't all struggle with those things, but you being congruent with what you promise is a real big thing. How you win respect from another person, you do what you say you're going to do. You show up. When you say you're going to show up and you're generous, kind or thoughtful towards them, they will feel respected. Also, the way that people feel respected is to be heard. So learning to reflect back what they are saying to you accurately, and I really work on this one, it's like learning to like, if Denise says something, I listen to the words with precision of what she says and I reflect those words back. Not my words, not my take what she said. Because when people feel that's big. When people feel like you say, oh, yeah, he heard what I said, they feel respected. So you got to work on that one, too. And listening to other people being thoughtful towards other people, doing what you say, all those things are so obvious. And that's why I say make demonstrating respect the goal.

Okay, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Brendon Show. Tell some people about this episode. It's on each of us to spread positivity and empowerment during these times of chaos and negativity, right? So I'm asking you to be the dealer of hope and personal growth and education in your tribe. So take a screenshot right now and share the screenshot and this link to this episode with three of your friends today. Post it on social media. Use the hashtag growthday. That's growthday, because that's the name of my company and we're always giving away prizes to our community. If you'd like to help me personally, then please rate and review the podcasts on Apple Podcasts. Give us some stars. Cheer us on.

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