Faithfulness In Business and Relationships | On The Homefront With Jeff Dudan #103

I want to talk about faithfulness and I want to talk about the concept of faithfulness in terms of navigating important relationships in your life. You know, we've got relationships with so many people out there. We've got business people, we've got partnerships, we've got employees, we've got spouses, we've got children, we've got friends. And so much of thinking about these relationships is what do you give these relationships unconditionally? And then when are you thinking about what I'm getting versus what I'm giving inside of that? And what is your personal view on giving more than you get or being okay with being faithful to somebody and really truly giving to them for their benefit, even if there's nothing expected in exchange for that? I've got a great friend who's a business owner who built a huge international brand, over 500 locations inside of a franchise. And he once said to me, I've stopped having expectations of anybody. I don't expect anything from anybody. And if I do expect anything, it's the fact that they are probably going to disappoint me or under deliver to me. And I really had a hard time with that because as a business owner, we talk about accountability, we talk about clarity, we talk about urgency, we talk about results and outcomes and execution. And what do we need to do as business owners to influence people and in a way that they can be successful. And if you get it right, you're aligning their success with the company's success. You're aligning their outcomes with your outcomes and the company's outcomes. And if you do it really well, you're aligning all of those with the outcomes of the world, doing something good in the world, solving a major problem, impacting humanity. And you're really looking for that alignment. And inside of that, every way, every, at every step along the way, there's this trade off. Okay, you want to come to work for a company that I'm building, and we have a vision of some change that we want to make in the world. And to do that, we need a lot of people on board and aligned with that. So you create an employee relationship that you need to be faithful to. You create maybe a partner, a business partner relationship that you have to be faithful to, then you create, maybe in our case, a franchisee relationship that we need to be faithful to. And as you go through all of these different relationships, people are always expecting something from you. And you also have an expectation of what you're going to get in exchange for that. But it's never equal. And I've been in very few partnerships, relationships, personal relationships, where they were. I think the term is para passu, para passu maybe, which is, you know, equality or equity or equitable. In terms of exactly what you get. The scale is absolutely level on both sides of it. There always seems to be somebody that's giving and is giving without condition and maybe getting less back from it. And then there's always in every one of those people that are looking to make sure that they're taking from it. And I think that's capitalism. I think that's good. You need to be looking out for yourself. You need to be figuring, like, what do I get out of this? Because if you're going to trade your time and your energy for something, then you need to make sure that you're getting a return out of it. So that's really the balance right now. In a business relationship where you're selling somebody something, I'm selling you a paint job or a fence or a roof or a clean house, whatever it is, it's pretty clear you're giving them a price of consideration. They're giving you the money and you're giving them back whatever the scope of work was for that. That's easy. Did you do a good job? Did you meet their expectations in terms of delivering what you said you were going to deliver? And then all the soft stuff around the outside, did you do it with a sm? Did you do it on time? Did they feel like they got good service, that they were important? So you've got all of that. And great companies tend to deliver on the product or service and make people feel good about the investment that they made, the interaction that they had. But it gets a lot more complicated when you get into interpersonal relationships, especially around faithfulness. And I try always to put myself in the other person's position, from their perspective into their view. Because if you can understand what people truly need and what's truly good for them, and then you can find a way to give them that and align that with what you, the company or whatever is needed inside of that, then that feels to me like the basis for a good relationship. The reality of it is it's very few people are faithful forever. And the faithfulness to the. That trade, that exchange of expectations, of time, of energy, of effort, of outcomes, there's always seems to be something that gets out of balance. Maybe over time the needs change, maybe the scale is now people feel the scales tipping one way too far in one direction. And they need more and all of that. And I think as I go through navigating life and really trying to create this recurring life of value creation where whatever I'm involved with, I want to make sure that anybody that touches it is getting a fair and faithful return on their time, their energy and their money. And also then creating something that if they're so motivated that they can grow that and that as they grow that opportunity or they grow that relationship, that it's going to confer, you know, that same growth back upon, whether it be me, if it's a personal relationship or the company. And it's, I don't know, it's. It's. I guess as I get older and you look and you see that there's, you know, you've crested the hill and there's probably less time in front of you than there is behind you. And then, you know, things happen in your life that, you know, what is it? Deaths, weddings and things like that that really change perspective in your life. You get a little bit more thoughtful about, you know, what you give away and how you allocate your limited time, energy, money, love, attention, respect, wisdom to people and making sure that while you're giving it faithfully that you're giving it to a place that's going to grow and you're watering something that you want to grow, the people are going to be able to use it and they're going to be able to multiply it and use it in their lives. So I don't know where you all are about this concept of faithfulness and giving. First giving more, giving unconditionally, and then also making sure that you're not being taken advantage of. And I guess as I get older and if I was going to sum it up, I would say, man, if whatever you're giving is helping somebody, and if whatever you're giving is, you have the best of intention to contribute and to create things that other people are going to be able to take and grow and benefit from. And if you can come to the point where you don't have expectations that you're going to get maybe equal or fair compensation, time, energy, love back, then it takes a lot of pressure off because you're not constantly negotiating in 360 degrees in your life and you can kind of go through and then also not worry that if people don't want to take advantage of the opportunities or the wisdom or the thought or the resources that you've been able to put in their path for them to use, then that's on them. And, you know, nobody should spend their life living other people's dreams. Nobody should live their life trying to live up to other people's expectations. What you care about in your life, what's good enough for you, what you're willing to trade in terms of what you're willing to get and where you want to end up in terms of all of these things is really up to you. And there's some peace inside of that. I'm not sure if that was helpful for anybody, but that's just what I walked into the room with today. And I really hope that. That people can understand that. Just because it's a great deal for somebody else, and maybe it's a better deal for somebody else than it is for you, that doesn't make it a bad deal. That just means that you've given more than you expect to get. And maybe some way in the universe, you've created some value, you've created some stability, you've created some awareness, you've created some opportunity for somebody else, maybe somebody that you never even touched because it's somebody that this person is touching, and that makes it a great deal.