How to Improve Your Relationship

Oh, I love this one. How to be Great in a Relationship. I'm going to wing this. As you guys always know that these are all freestyle videos here, but that's a great question. How to be great in a relationship begins with having the intention to be great. I know that sounds so simple, but you meet so many people who, they jump into a relationship. They're so excited to find their girlfriend, their boyfriend, to get married, to have that husband to that wife, that partner, and they're so excited about it. And then over a period of time, what ends up happening? They get caught in a routine. They get to know the person better, they develop habits and responses and pet peeves. And all of a sudden they stop seeing the magic in the very person they met with and intentionally had this idea to grow this great relationship. We're going to be amazing together. And people stop putting great intention and great efforts into their relationships. And over a period of time they feel ho hum and they start to die. And you and I both know that. So the challenge is this. If you want to have a great relationship, your intention must be to be great, to make the other person feel great, and to build a great life together. Now, I know it's not always easy. You know, I'm married. I have the same challenges as anyone else. Like, it's difficult sometimes to make sure you're as empathetic as you can be, to be as present as you can be, to be as understanding, loving, perfect, amazing, passionate, spontaneous, whatever it is. Everybody struggles the same in relationships. So what can we do about it? Well, I think there are three very powerful intentions that if you had in your relationship, no matter what that relationship is like now, it will improve it. Even if you already have an extraordinary relationship, a little more of these three things will improve and fire up that relationship. The first one is attention. People want to feel true attention from you. And this is a major challenge today because I know a lot of people, they literally cannot be in a conversation and connect anymore. They can't even keep their eyes on each other and pay attention to each other without like looking around, everything else going on, all the distractions or worse. Today they pick up their phone. Are you in a relationship with somebody who just can't even have a conversation with you for 10 minutes without having to look at their phone? That'll drive you nuts. But that's the challenge today. And if you're the person who learns to take this mentality and have a true intention for people where you are completely enveloping them with energetic Presence, I mean, being really right there with them. Present, engaged, enthusiastic for the relationship, the moment, the connection. You will stand out from everybody else and your partner, your. Your spouse, your lover, your wife, your husband, your girlfriend, your boyfriend. They will feel you. Again, the challenge right now. The disconnects in relationships are driven by mostly distraction today. The inability for people to look eye to eye, to feel each other, to sense each other, to be present in the moment. And so what ends up happening when the relationship goes astray? People start trying to, quote, unquote, show love to another person. So what do they do? They. They go out, they buy flowers. They go out and they buy diamonds. They go out and they say, hey, look, honey, I emptied the trash. Hey, look, honey, I washed your things. Hey, look, honey, I ran your errand for you. And they're trying to say, look, I did something for you. They're trying to show something, a gift to that person, to recreate something, to have that love. But all people want to be shown is attention. And we forget that they don't need something from you. Jesse Jackson said a long time ago, people don't want your presence. They want your presence. Meaning they don't want your gifts, your stuff. They want you fully engaged, fully charged, fully connected with them. Again. If you're going to improve any relationship, all of the improvement will come from a greater degree of attention and presence, gifted to that person, to that moment. Learn to be vitally there and present with them again. Learn to have an entire dinner without looking at your phone. Can you do it? Learn to have. Go out for a walk without bringing your phones. Go out and do something together with no phone, no distraction, just the two of you to have a moment together. If you don't think you can do that, then you're addicted and you need to seek digital help. It's like, do not tell me that you can't have a conversation. Look, I. I know you think you're important, and we all think we're really important, but let me tell you, there is no person in the world who cannot learn to have a few hours where they can be human again with the people that they love. And that will be the best gift you can ever give. You want your relationships to be fiery and zesty and spontaneous again? Then those things can only happen in a moment where you're free from other distractions, where you can be with each other, just truly experience something. I mean, think about it. The best memories you probably have in all of your relationships were times when the two of you were just Kind of in a moment together where you were truly, fully there, vibrantly connected in the moment, present together in one way or another could be chaos going all around you, but the two of you connected and there was this feeling of sense. It was like bam. You know, you were there for each other. Attention. You have to have the intention to give extraordinary amounts of attention to the people that you love. By the way, this is so vital, because if you don't have attention, think about it. All the ills of relationships come in when people aren't giving themselves attention anymore, right? You can't show respect to somebody unless you give them attention. You can't pick up on their nonverbal cues or guesstimate or feel or sense or mirror their emotions, their energetic level. You don't know if someone is down or up unless you're attentive to them. So all ills in relationships begin with giving better, more present and vital attention to the person that you love. The second intention to have is that you have to give more appreciation as well. See, did you know most people in the corporate world, in jobs, and to the high degree, about 70% of people who leave a job leave because they did not feel appreciated. Well, a relationship is work too. And people leave relationships because they don't feel appreciated. They don't feel appreciated. I don't mean appreciated like, hey, honey, thanks for washing the dishes now, by the way, you should say that. But it's bigger than that. The appreciation of the totality of the person. That's what's magical in relationships. An appreciation of the totality of a person. To appreciate their struggles, to. To appreciate the small things that drive you crazy. To appreciate, not just the things they do for you. If the only things you appreciate in a relationship are the things that somebody is doing for you, then what you are doing is you are appreciating the fact that you have a servant. And that is not what love is. Love is the appreciation of the totality of a person to appreciate their challenges, their struggles, their dark sides, the frustrations they have in their lives, the stupid things that they do, the things that drive you crazy. To understand, appreciate somebody is to accept them at a level that they've never even felt accepted before. To appreciate the totality of who they are. Yes, show appreciation. Right? You ought to be saying thank you, honey in a million ways. You know, to show them that. To tell them that, to whisper in their ear, to grab their arm, to give them a hug, to make love. All those ways that you can show appreciation in those Ways. Those are great, right? But it's bigger than that. You have to appreciate their soul. You have to appreciate who they are as a human being and have such extraordinary respect and appreciation for that that they feel that from you, because that's a challenge today. A lot of people try to show appreciation with a gift, but they never show it of that other person's humanity. And once you do that, you realize it's not just showing appreciation for what they do for you, it's showing appreciation for their reality. Right. For their reality. I remember long ago I got to have lunch, long conversation with John Gray, who wrote a great book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. I'm sure you've read it or heard of it. A great, great master teacher in relationships. And he says, you know, you should know the questions you're going to ask your partner when they come home from work or when or in your communications. There's some things that men could say to women, as an example, that will really help them. And he told me these long lists of things that guys could say, and I laughed and I laughed, and they were funny, but they were so true. So you should have a list of things that you could say to appreciate somebody's reality each day. Here's my list, if you want to know it. When this one, I think this first one is John's, to give him credit for it. When my lady is talking to me and she's telling me things about her day and I'm listening to show appreciation for her reality, I want to know more about it, right? So often, tell her. She'll say something like, oh, tell me more about that. And I'll tell you what. If you tell someone that they love you, tell me more about that. What else happened? What else was that like? Tell me more. Elicits more communication from them. As they communicate more, they feel more heard, more empathetic, more understanding, and they feel like you are vibing with them if you're present. So important. Tell me more. My second favorite, though, and the one I love to say so much to people is when someone. If anyone's ever complaining to me in a relationship, if my wife is ever complaining or she's upset about something, I always empathize by saying, that's so lame. Sorry that happened. That's so lame. Oh, gosh, that sucks. That's so lame. Oh, I realize that's so challenging. That's so hard. Sorry about that. Oh, gosh. You know, just to. Just to kind of go, oh, yeah. When they're complaining Go, oh, yeah, that sucks. Yeah, that's so lame. Sorry that happened. Like, it's so simple. But to empathize at that point, say, yeah, you're right, that does suck. That is lame. To mirror that back to them, to reflect that, to rephrase it. They feel it and they sense it, and it's important. And the third one I love to say is, I'm here for you. Anything I can do. That is so powerful in showing appreciation for where they're at. Maybe they do need help. Maybe they feel left alone. A lot of people in relationships, when they're complaining, they end up complaining about their spouse or their partner because as they're complaining, that partner isn't present with them and doesn't ask them anything, doesn't engage with them, so they feel like they're just reporting out, but they're not having a communication. Right. It's very different if you are in your own relationship just complaining, but you don't feel like there's any back and forth in conversation. Then at some point you realize, gosh, you could just go and sit across from some stranger at Starbucks and puke all your complaints on them. Right? No. Part of a magical relationship is having somebody who can pitch and catch, who can have that conversation back with you, who can really understand what you're saying. And so you have to elicit that from people. Appreciate people's reality by asking them to talk more about it. Appreciate someone's totality as a human being by truly feeling and sensing them and sharing things with them, like compliments that show appreciation, giving them gifts, giving them things that say, you know, I appreciate what you did for me, but I appreciate who you are too. You know, honey, I love when you do that. I always appreciate that about you because, you know, you're so good with people. You know, honey, I love you about that. I'm so thankful for you. I appreciate that because you do always notice what I feel and what I need. You know, honey, I just want to tell you I love you and I appreciate you so much because the way that you talk to the kids, you just. You're so amazing with them. You have to say things like this to have a real high level of relationship. And I'll say the last thing. The third thing is adoration. You have to adore people. If you don't adore the person that you are with right now, you have to resummon that up. You have to look for the things in them that will help you do that. And the way to do that, give Them more attention, show them more appreciation. When they receive more attention and more appreciation from you, there will be an energetic change in the relationship. It will turn more vibrant, more. There'll be more pop in it. And all of a sudden you'll start to notice that person. They come a little more alive around you, and it'll be easier to adore them because you're like, oh, look, I never even noticed they do these things. That's funny. Or oh, gosh, I never noticed they did all these things for me. I have attention to that now and I appreciate that. Now you'll start to adore them more. When you adore the person with you, with more you, you do things for them, you do more things for them. You want to see them light up, you start supporting their dreams more. Are you doing that because real adoration is getting out of your own way and asking, what is it about this person's life that I can support that they love to do? Because showing real adoration is showing support. Real adoration is not just doting on somebody with flowers and gifts, though you should do that too. It's about wanting to support their bigger life goals, their bigger dreams. When you truly adore somebody, you want so desperately to see them happy and passionate, engaged, living their own fully charged life. When you really adore someone, you go out of your way, out of your way to brag about them in front of them, right? When they're there and you're in a social situation, you'll compliment them, you'll brag about them and you'll make them. Like, if you haven't made your partner, your spouse, your lover, your husband, your wife blush for a while with a good compliment in front of other people, what are you doing? Right? I'm always trying to embarrass my poor lady, you know, but in a positive way, because I'll compliment her in front of other people and she'll be like, I really appreciate you said that about me. Because I want her to feel adored. I want everybody in the community. I want everybody in my life to know how much I adore my lady. So do you have that intention for yours, for the person you're here with? Does everybody know how much you adore them? Are you bragging them up? Are you, Are you really adoring them personally and publicly? When you do that, you'll notice a different level of engagement in that relationship too. And everything will change because they will feel adored, appreciated, and feel like you're giving them attention so they'll turn it around. Now. They'll give you more attention, more appreciation, more adoration. And there'll be this spark that happens between the two of you that you never imagined that you could have. That is what it feels like to live the charge life.