Ep 229 | The One Thing to start TODAY to Improve Your Key Relationships

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into it. Today I want to talk about personal relationships. And I want to share with you one specific thing that I've done in my relationship. Started doing this years ago, about 12 years ago as a matter of fact, and it has made a massive, massive difference in the quality of my key relationships, specifically my key relationships. Now I've shared this in, in a previous episode, but I've yet to isolate it just for its own episode. And so I want to do that today. This is going to be a quick hitter. Something I think we could all start to implement or deepen the implementation of in our current relationships, especially our key ones. I'll start by telling a story. So years back, about 12 years back, and I know it was 12 years back because this story is about my daughter Avery, who is now 13. About 12 years ago, so Avery's, you know, about a year old, and at a year of age, I mean, this is my firstborn. I recognized probably 9, 10 months, maybe 11 months into that kid's life. I recognized around that time that she finally started paying a bit more attention to her dad. Now don't get me wrong. I love that she was paying attention to her mom. But for those first several months, as, as many of you know that, that have kids, and if you don't have kids, it's still very applicable. So just stick with me. For those that have kids, you know, those first handful of months, the kid doesn't really want a lot to do with, with you as the dad. Right. And at some point, again, I think it was 9, 10, 11 months in, she really started more or less recognizing me and wanting to be around me. And, and it was, it was special. Like I could remember seeing that turning point. And shortly after that, I was explaining to my business coach at the time, guy named Mike Fleming, who I've talked about on the podcast before, I remember Mike saying to me when I was explaining this to him, like, hey, Avery kind of like almost turned the corner. I see that she's way into me now. Mike said, well, I guess it's time. And I said, time for what, Mike? And he said, it's time for you to establish a ritual with your daughter. So what do you mean? He goes, she's old enough now. You need to figure something out that on a weekly, at a minimum weekly, maybe it's monthly, but weekly basis, you and Avery, just the two of you, go and do something. Could be anything. But you form a habit, you form a ritual, you start spending dedicated time together on a regular basis. Maybe it's some sort of activity or whatever it may be. But start that ritual now. And, you know, I hadn't really thought of that. And I'm like, you know what, I might as well give it a shot. So I decide, that I'm going to start taking Avery with me every Sunday. And we're going to go to Whole Foods. I didn't necessarily have shopping to do. I mean, if we did have some shopping, we did it, but we were going to Whole Foods. And we were going to get a green juice. And I put her in the cart. You know, she's a year old. And I go grab green juice. I also learned you don't give a 1-year-old a tremendous amount of green juice. That's a whole different story for another day. But we started torn around the supermarket, torn around Whole Foods every Sunday. As the years went on, you know, she grew up a little bit. We started going to the splash pad. And then, you know, every, every weekend, and then we started going to do something else. And then we did this, then we did that. And eventually that turned into weekly date night. Now I'm going to pause. Okay. Forming that ritual. Was an amazing thing for me. But what I recognized in the course of doing that was that whether or not my dad and my mom were purposeful around this with me, I don't believe they were. But there are things from my childhood where, you know, if you— if I was to describe things from my childhood today, I'd say something along the lines of, oh, my dad used to always take me to this, or we used to always do that. And the reality is, maybe we did, maybe we didn't. But in my mind, I remember those moments so fondly. And, and I don't know if we did them, you know, I think we did them 100 times. We probably did them like 5 times, maybe 10 times. But as a kid, having that experience specifically with my dad in this example, and having that, what, what I perceived to be a ritual. Here I am 40 years later. And I remember it as fondly as I do. And I remember doing this with Avery thinking, gosh, I wonder You know, I only took her to Whole Foods maybe 15 times, 20 times before we moved on to the splash pad. But now, and again, she was too little, but like in this example, is it possible that one day she's like, oh yeah, my dad and I used to always go to Whole Foods, or my dad used to take me every Sunday to the splash pad. I do know now at her age at 13, when she, you know, looks back, she's gonna say, yeah, I went on date night every week with my dad. As a result, right, of this continual, like, this habit of ritual of going out together on a weekly basis. And I do weekly, you could do monthly, maybe it's even quarterly. But having done this, I'll talk about what goes on during that, that, that time. But forget about that for now. When she reflects back, she's going to remember doing these things with her dad. And I like to think that's going to have a positive impact on her down the road. I hope that it has a positive impact on our relationship. Now, when we go out today, you know, these, these, these times we're hanging out are quite a bit different than they were when she was, say, 3. You can imagine the conversations we had at 3 versus the conversations that we now have at 13. As a matter of fact, I don't even go into the, the date nights with Avery with a pre-planned agenda in that I just, I want the floor to be open. And if she feels like talking, Great. And if she doesn't, that's great too. Just the fact that we have time. Now don't get me wrong. There are times where, you know, I've got to convey a certain message and I'll look for an opportune time to have that dialogue, but I don't force any of that. Just the simple fact that we're getting together on a weekly basis and we're spending time is the victory. Now that goes on with my daughter Avery. It also goes on with my daughter Katie, who's a couple years younger. Goes on with my wife and that we have these rituals and we don't break these rituals pretty much ever. Like, sure, there are certain things that do come up and we've got to reschedule or even skip a week. But the idea here is by introducing this ritual, by introducing these weeklies, by having some sort of plan in terms of where we're going to go, what we're going to do. It's not like I get in the car and go, well, let's go to eat. Where do you want to go? I don't know. Where do you want to go? Yes, it could be that, but just the thought or the planning, just from an efficiency standpoint, matters. But then the repeating of this, this habit, doing it over and over again, it does something magical for the relationship. So I'm sharing this with you today because Mike Fleming, my coach, had told me to do it. And I'll tell you, it's arguably been the greatest thing I could have done for my key relationships, maybe the most impactful thing to have a standing meeting. And, and we'll see how this continues to shake out. Again, I told you my daughters are 13 and 11. Interesting time, you know, when they're 15 and 13 or 18 and 16, we'll still be doing this. And I think some good things— I know good things will come of this, but I think just having that time together, you know, one day they're going to look back and I'm certainly going to look back and say, man, we got to spend every week together. And that was our ritual. So the focusing question for you today, what key relationships do you have that maybe you can introduce a ritual of some sort? Maybe you've got a young child and it's time to introduce this standing ritual. Maybe you've got an established relationship, relationship, and you need to invigorate it in some way, create new energy. What would a standing Tuesday night meeting look like? What would a Thursday walk in the park, what would a Saturday hike that you do every single week or mostly every, or most every single week What might that do? And again, you don't have to go into it with a specific agenda, just the simple fact that you're spending time and you both know that it's on the calendar. What might that do? So where can you introduce this ritual strategy in your life and what kind of impact might it have? That's all I have for you today. The No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening and remember every single day, brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get it. Let's get after it.