Forming Rituals in Your Key Relationships

What's going on? It's Brian Gubernick, and thank you for joining me today at the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Better at business, better at health, better relationships, just better at life. So let's get into it today. Today I'd like to discuss forming rituals, specifically creating rituals in your relationships. Now I wanna share a story, a personal story that may prompt you to think around the rituals you can be creating in your most important relationships. When my daughter, my older daughter Avery, was born, that was 2010. So, she's 12 now. She'll be 13 this year. When she was born, I mean, call it what it is, the first 9 months, 10 months of her life, she barely knew who Daddy was. I mean, I'm sure she maybe recognized I was the other guy next to the one who was most important to her and is still the most important to her today, Mommy. But it wasn't until, I don't know, maybe month 9 or 10, where I could really see that my daughter, my firstborn, was connecting with me. And at that time, my business coach, who is still the same coach I have today, Mike, Mike had said to me, as I was sharing with him how neat it was that my 9 or 10-month-old was now really connecting with me, Mike had said, "Well, Brian, have you formed any rituals with your daughter?" I said, rituals? What do you mean? He said, well, you know exactly what the definition of ritual is. Are you doing something regularly with her, week after week, or day after day, or month after month, that over the course of time becomes a standard? It becomes the expectation. Are you doing anything? And I said, Mike, she's 9 months old, she's 10 months old, she doesn't know what's going on. And he said, "Maybe she doesn't, but you do. And if you build the habit now, as she gets older and she knows a little bit more about what's going on, well, she's going to value that." And so, Mike challenged me with my young daughter, my baby daughter at the time, to create some sort of ritual. So, a few months later, you know, she's just over 1 year old at this time, and she's moving around, and she's starting to walk, and and she's able to spend more time with just me and isn't so dependent on her mom. My first ritual, what I did, because Mike really forced my hand and said I had to, I'm like, what can I do with my daughter? So I started taking her to Whole Foods every Sunday. And I started taking her to get a green juice of all things. So I'd put her in the cart, we'd go there together, she couldn't really talk, But she knew that if I got a green juice, she wanted some sips. And like a knucklehead father, I learned that there's probably a little too much green juice you can give a 1-year-old. I learned that one the hard way. But that became our thing. And for the next several months, if not year plus, every weekend, Avery and I would go to Whole Foods. Now, I'll fast forward over the course of time when Avery got old enough. That's what started as the ritual of green, of getting a green juice at Whole Foods became date night. And that date night still exists today where I have a one-on-one dinner with my 12-year-old daughter. I do the same for my 10-year-old and I do the same for my wife. Now, the important thing here is not that I'm doing anything right, but when I think back to being a kid, I say to myself often, gosh, or I'll say to my brother, remember when we used to do such and such all the time? Remember when Dad used to take us to do whatever it is all the time? The reality is he probably didn't take us there all the time. He probably only took us to that restaurant or took us to that game or took us to that activity 3, 4, 5 times. But in my mind, My jaded, my, you know, now I'm 44 years old. When I'm remembering back when I was 8, it was all of the time. And I look back at those times again, to me, it seemed weekly, but it was probably just a few times. I look back and I look very fondly on those times. I remember certain things that may or may not have occurred. And that ritual that my father created, and I don't know if he was purposeful in doing it, But that ritual without question deepened my relationship. And so for me, it's manifested today into this date night with my daughters, which gives an opportunity for me to converse with them. And it's a little bit more interesting today because they drive the conversation today versus what used to happen just a few years ago when I was driving the conversation. And you know what, some days there may not even be conversation, and that's okay. That's okay because of the ages they're at. If they're just hanging with Dad and they're willing to share some things now and again, the ritual is successful. So in conclusion, the focusing question for you specifically for your relationships: do you have any rituals in, in those relationships? If so, how could you get even more out of those rituals? Maybe you go to the park together on a daily or weekly basis. Maybe you go to a specific restaurant. Maybe there's date night in your— I don't know what it may be, but how can you get a little bit more out of those opportunities? An example, date night should be planned. That's my coach telling me, it's not me telling you. Date night should be planned. You don't just hop in the car and say, "Hmm, what do you feel like eating tonight?" "Well, I don't know. What do you feel like having?" See, that's not planned. That lacks intent. So if that's you, how could you bring more order and structure to your date night to make it more meaningful? Or if it's an activity, how could you extract more value out of that? Or if you don't have these rituals, what relationships do you have right now? That could use some growth, maybe some improvement, and doing something on a regular basis with that individual that's standing, that's firm, that's always in the calendar, that you honor almost every week or every day or every month, whatever it may be. What could you put in place? Do you need to have that thing in place? What options do you have available to you? That's all I have for you today. Hopefully you found some value in that conversation because at the No Days Off Podcast, Every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it. Thank you.