#357 Relationship Mastery: Transform Your Personal and Professional Relationships With These 4 Untapped Strategies

[00:00] Like no one wins a fight. Like if you win the fight, then you know, the other person has resentment towards you. If you lose the fight and you have resentment towards them, like give them an out, like in that example, I just use, if you catch somebody in an inconsistency in their argument, like give them an out.

[00:15] Cause you're not trying to win the argument. You're trying to come to an agreement. Welcome minutes. Welcome to another episode of success through failure. This is your host, Jim Harshaw, Jr., and today I'm bringing you a solo. the episode, As a matter of fact, this is part one of a four-part series on mastery. So I hosted the retreat on master.

[00:35] In may. And I learned so much just in preparing like the theme, like I said, was moving to mastery. And so, you know, I've been studying this stuff for years, decades, really ever since I was competing as a wrestler and then as a coach and as an entrepreneur and on and on just studying, learning, listening to podcasts, reading books, going to seminars, et cetera.

[00:58] And I get to the retreat. And the attendees include just amazing people from a broad, you know, swath of society. You know, there's a psychologist there, an executive coach, there's an entrepreneur and a college athletics administrator, a pastor, a wounded combat veteran attorney, a sports mindset coach, an aspiring politician, an educational consultant, the school principal, like just wide range of wisdom.

[01:24] And all these people are. Lifelong learners. And I learned so much from the attendees. Like I knew I would, but I was blown away. I wish I could take you back there. I wish I could rewind time and let you come and, and just experience it cuz it was so mind-expanding for me. And I learned some so much from them that I want to share it with you.

[01:45] So I'm gonna share it with you through a four-part series now. My program reveal your path. The coaching program is broken into four parts. Now there are four sort of parts that we go through in terms of, you know, number one, we discover core values and go deep there. And then number two, we create goals that align with those values.

[02:04] And number three is we recreate a, an environment of excellence. So for anybody who is ever an athlete, you have an understanding of what this environment is like. It just kind of carries. Forward, you know, there's people in this environment like coaches and, and teammates and maybe strength and conditioning coaches, et cetera.

[02:20] But that's, that's part of the environment of excellence. And then fourth, and finally is you gotta have a plan to actually follow through cuz guess what? The stuff hits the fan in life and you can't just quit and give up, you have to have carry this clarity of action through the hard things. Anyway, that's the high level of the program, but within there, we set goals in four different areas and those four areas.

[02:43] Number one relationships. Number two, we call them self goals and self goals. The subcategories are growth, impact and fun. Okay. So growth is like personal growth, learning a new skill, getting a new certification or degree, et cetera. Right. Growing impact might be Phil philanthropy or volunteering or making an impact in the world.

[03:04] And then fun is just stuff that's purely fun. All right. So that's the second category. So number one is relationships. Number two is self. Number three is health and wellness. And number four is wealth or work like our professional goals. So those are the four categories, relationships, self health, and wealth.

[03:21] That's how we're gonna break this down. That's how we broke down through the workshop portion of the retreat. And there were so many takeaways from each of these different categories that each one of these I'm gonna break into a, a specific episode. So we can deep dive into each one of these today's. Is about relationships.

[03:37] Alright, so let me zoom out one more time. Before we go into the actual content here, let me tell you the format of the retreat. So you can kind of get an understanding of how this information I'm about to share with you came to be. The four phases of the retreat were explore experience, create, continue.

[03:55] Okay. So number one, explore. What did that mean? That means we had a Jeffersonian dinner on Friday evening and a Jeffersonian dinner is where you have one intentional dinner conversation. Everybody was sitting around a huge table and we had one. Intentional conversation about the topic of mastery. There was some pre-work that I gave to everybody in advance.

[04:15] So they showed up with sort of some thought already put into this. So we explored that night and then we explored the next Saturday morning in a workshop experience was the second phase of the four phases of the retreat. And. Experience was this I, I brought in a, it was a surprise, not a pleasant surprise for some, at least.

[04:34] Initially I brought in a guy who does fire and ice. And what that is is he has an ice bath and we submerge in ice. And then he had a sauna, like actually a beautiful mobile handmade, like mobile sauna. And so we alternated between submerging in the ice bath. And then jumping into the sauna to warm up. And we went through three cycles of that and it really required a test of our mastery skills, mindset mastery.

[04:58] Most importantly, the third phase of the retreat was to create, and we created a custom 30 day challenge, cuz we've all heard of these challenges out there. There's the Exodus 90 there's 75 hard there's 75 soft. Actually, if you have not heard of that one, there's whole 30, right? There's these different diets and challenges and things that are off the shelf packaged.

[05:16] Pre-prescribed well, what about one that's actually specifically for you? And that's what we created. And as I record this, I'm in the middle of this. We are actually all in the middle of our 30 day challenge that we created. At the retreat. Now the fourth and final phase of the retreat was to continue, right.

[05:32] So we continued this 30 days to mastery. Right. So explore experience, create continue. So that was the framework for the retreat. And within the retreat, we did the mastery workshop on Saturday morning. And that's where a lot of this content that I'm about to share with you comes from. All right. So we're gonna talk today about relationship.

[05:52] Mastery. All right. Relationship with mastery. What does that mean? How does, what does that look like for you? Like you wanna master your relationships? We know, you know, we know we wanna make more money. We know we wanna be ridiculously healthy and fit and all that, and look good with the beach muscles and all that good stuff.

[06:08] Really it's relationships that makes us happy when we know this research has proven it over and over. There's the grant study outta Harvard. It's the longest longitudinal study on human happiness ever. And the biggest finding that they came out of there with, and it still continues on today is that the one thing that makes people happy?

[06:28] Is meaningful connection, meaningful relationships. So that's what today's about that relationship mastery. How do you do that before I share that with you? I wanna share with you one review. This was from J Lyons den, L Y O NS, J Lyons den. He said this, when he left the rating and review on the podcast over on apple podcast, he said I've been consuming a large amount of content from podcasts and books.

[06:54] It was helping me a bit, but it wasn't getting me very far. Then a friend turned me onto success through failure and it was a complete game changer. Unlike many other outlets, it got me taking action. I can't say enough about the show. The host and all those involved in the community. So thank you so much, Jay Lyden for the listener.

[07:13] If you wanna join the community, certainly you can do that. Go to JimHarshawJr.com/APPLY, but you can at least follow the hashtag TF pod. So for success through failure, STF, pod, follow that hashtag on Twitter. On Instagram and you can join into the conversation, interact with me there. Let me know you're listening.

[07:32] Let me know what you think. Uh, take a screenshot of this podcast and, and post it with that hashtag and let me know what you think of this episode and any other episodes. All right. Let's dive into it. Relationship. NA, I'm gonna give you four of my biggest takeaways from this portion around relationship mastery.

[07:52] Okay. Number one, is this. Back in episode 328, I interviewed Dr. Jeff and Jessica Jennings and they are with greatest marriage ever is the name of their company, and they are relationship coaches and they're amazing people. And they always share this one story and they share this on the podcast. This argument that occurs in their home about when Jessica doesn't put the nail Clippers back in the same place.

[08:20] Right. And it, and it drives Jeff crazy. But Jessica, like, that's just kind of how she is. Like, she's the creative type, you know? And she's not always quite as organized as Jeff is, and Jeff's like the opposite. And it leads to these sort of, you know, arguments you've been there. You know, these arguments that blow up out of like the smallest little things.

[08:40] And the takeaway from their lesson is it's not about the nail Clippers. It's really about something much deeper. Right? Jessica's a creative in, in when she was a kid. I, I forget exactly how she shares the story, but I think like, you know, that was kind of like a, a challenge for her. And she was always trying to be more organized, but that's not how she's wired.

[08:57] And so she felt bad about that. And Jeff, on the other hand, likes to be in control of things like, and know where things are and, you know, that goes back to his childhood and. It takes a deep level of communication to actually understand that, to get behind that argument. It's not about the freaking nail Clippers.

[09:15] It's about something much deeper, oftentimes our childhoods and how we were raised and how we're wired. And we do these little things, especially if you're married and you're living in the whole same home with somebody there's these little things that can just get under each other's skin, like the nail clipper thing.

[09:32] And, and, you know, if you're married or have a significant other, or ever have been married or have lived anywhere with anybody else, you know, that these challenges are real and they can stem from the smallest things. But it takes a deep level of communication to actually uncover those. And that's what the first takeaway is communication.

[09:53] And I'm not just talking about to master relationships. You just have to communicate and talk. I'm talking about, you have to have deep communication and deep understanding. You might be sitting there going, ah, Jim, come on communication. You're telling me that was a takeaway and how to master relationships, duh.

[10:11] Here's the thing. Did you want me to tell you that, like you had to take this supplement and you had to click your heels three times, take four deep breaths, and then you would master your relationships. That's that's not how it works. It's communication like this is the first and one of the biggest takeaways was communication.

[10:26] Now, listen, it doesn't always have to be that deep level of communication. Like marriage counseling is one way to do that. Ali and I have gone through marriage counseling and it's tremendously, tremendously valuable. The level of communication that takes place there in front of our therapist. It, it doesn't get any better than that.

[10:44] It doesn't get any harder than that sometimes, but it doesn't get any better. The nap and it creates this understanding so that the things about the nail Clippers. Don't create the big blowups. It really brings you closer. If you communicate quick interruption, if you like what you're hearing here, and you want to learn how you can implement this into your life, just go to JimHarshawJr.com/APPLY to see how you can get a free one-on-one coaching session with me.

[11:11] That's JimHarshawJr.com/APPLY. Now back to the show. Now you also have to do the other simple communication also. Hey, what's our week look like what's the plan for dinner on Wednesday. Who's going where like this week, like what's on your agenda. What's on my agenda. Like you still have to do those sorts of things as well.

[11:31] Like the, the smaller communication, but deep communication. We often assume that our, our partner, our kids or our family, or our colleagues, like this is about relationship mastery at work as well. Right. Communication. Like we also don't assume people know what we're thinking and how we're feeling. And then we think that we know how they're feeling, but we're not, we, we don't, we just we're projecting how we interpret the world in our perspective, in our upbringing, in our childhoods and our perceptions them, like, if this is a conversation with a colleague in a, a relationship you wanna master at work and you have a conflict with somebody or you, you don't wanna get to the point of conflict.

[12:10] You have to have a deep conversation. It can't just be like, Hey, here's the, the checklist of the 10 things we gotta do for this project. No. Some of those conversations have to be like, how did it feel going through that? Like, do you struggle with, with this part or, you know, can I, can I tell you how I felt about going through that part of the project last week?

[12:26] That was really hard for me. And this is why, how did you feel about it? Like go a little bit. And also just go into like personal lives, cuz sometimes someone comes into work grumpy one day and they snap at you or, or they're not showing up on time and, and you just assume they're, they're lazy and being disrespectful to you, but maybe they're going through something.

[12:44] And when you understand that it's a totally different level of communication that happens first of all, to get to that understanding, but can happen after that. And if you're in a leadership position, you want people, you wanna have a high performing team under you. It requires that level of communi. Not just telling people what to do, but actually understanding them.

[13:05] Okay. That's number one is communication, right? So Joe's gonna share four. That was number one. Number two. Is this, have you ever caught somebody in an argument where like, you know, you're in this debate, you're in this argument and they say something that's like inconsistent with what they said earlier in the argument or what they said last week or something.

[13:22] And then you're like, oh, I caught you and you can paint them into the corner. See, I told you, so you said this now you're saying this, you ever do that right? Like now, for example, maybe once they said that, you know, they love going out to dinner and then you asked them to go to dinner and they didn't wanna go.

[13:38] And you're like, ah, you said, you said, you know, I caught you, you said this, and now you're saying this right. Maybe you've been on the other side of that. Right. Someone catches you in an inconsistency and you're like, well, yeah, but when the last time we were talking about this and there's this, you know, this is a different situation.

[13:53] And like you kinda go on the defensive, well, that. That's not fighting fair. I remember learning somewhere. It might have been when all and I got married. It might have been our pastor when we were doing our premarital counseling. I can't remember, but I think it was him who taught us this about fighting fair, fighting fair.

[14:10] It's hard. It's hard to do. I mean, it's never, unfortunately we don't, we never see that done in politics. I mean, you, you can't fight fair in politics. If you catch somebody doing something wrong or that's made a mistake, you have to throw them under the bus because it's, you know, it's about me winning and you losing.

[14:25] Unfortunately, that's what politics is about, which why I stay out of it. It sucks because nobody fights fair. There's a middle ground that nobody talks about. At least the, the media doesn't wanna talk about. And, uh, and, and politicians don't talk about, but don't get me. Uh, I'll get off my soapbox there before.

[14:40] Climb up too high on that one, but it's so hard to fight fair. Like you shouldn't try to win fights. Like no one wins a fight. Like if you win the fight, then you know, the other person has resentment towards you. If you lose the fight and you have resentment towards them, like give them an out, like in that example, I just use, if you catch somebody in an inconsistency in their argument, like give them an out.

[15:00] Cause you're not trying to win the argument. You're trying to come to agreement. They have to take your ego out of it. And that's number. Setting your ego aside. If you want to master relationships in your life, it's not about you take your ego out of it. It's if it's at work, it's about whatever you're trying to accomplish together as a team.

[15:25] And you know, if it's at home, it's about 10 to have a peaceful relationship and a, a meaningful, deep relationship. And sometimes that means giving in or giving the other person an out or, or sometimes it means saying, I'm sorry. That's hard. You wanna master your relationships, take your ego out of it. Set your ego aside.

[15:46] All right. Number one was communication. Deep, meaningful communication. Number two is set your ego aside. Number three is this recently? My, my youngest daughter ILA. She gave me, uh, she, it was like a spot treatment. She had this like swing in our toy room where it's this like big piece of like fabric and you can just lay in it.

[16:07] And she's like, daddy lay in here. So I laid in there and she like, started like giving me a hand massage and a foot massage and all this. And like, and she was like giving me this, this spot treatment, you know, and she was having such a good time with it. And I was like, ah, this feels so good. And. And I, I told her, I was like, you know, now you actually, of my four kids, you are actually now my favorite child.

[16:24] And I'm always joking with my kids and telling, like, telling them about the rankings and like, you know, like now you you've just moved into first place in terms of favorite, my favorite child. And you actually just got demoted to fourth place for what you just did or said or whatever. I'm always just joking about this stuff.

[16:40] Right. And I can joke about it because it's true. I, you know, my, my love for them is unconditional. I don't have a favorite child, you know, it's like my love for them. They're all different, completely different in completely different ways. My love for each one of them is totally unique. It's 100%, 1000% unconditional.

[16:58] I'm not keeping score. You know, this one gave me the spa treatment and gimme a hand massage, you know, or, you know, this one gave me the, the nicest father's day card or this one argues the most with me. You know? It's like, it's not about that. Right. It's it's purely unconditional love. And that's what, number three is unconditional love.

[17:17] Love without measure. And again, this is not just with your significant other. This might be with your, your colleagues or your boss or your friend. The best example here is Jesus. Whether you're a Christian or not, I am, but whether you are not, you can look to this guy as the perfect example of unconditional love.

[17:38] He loved the people who hated him. He offered forgiveness on the cross to the people who murdered him. And, and there's a million other examples of that in his life story. And throughout the Bible. What a great example. Again, whether you're a Christian or not, this guy is the, the man. I mean, he was, he was the one he like unconditional love, love without measure.

[17:57] Like that's what he lived for everybody in his life. And, and we can too, if you wanna master your relationships, unconditional love, love without measure. Right. So number one was communication. Number two was set your ego side. Number three, unconditional love loving without measure. Number four, is this. We all know somebody in our lives who is, or has been in a relationship that, that didn't have healthy boundaries.

[18:26] Right? Maybe it's a significant other. Maybe it's a family member. Maybe it's a colleague at work. Well, you have to set healthy boundaries. Right. This kind of is the opposite, like the balance of the first three, right? There's, you know, communication, there's unconditional love, you know, there's, there's setting your ego aside, but you know what.

[18:47] What about you? Like you're part of this too. You're part of this equation about mastering relationships. You have to have your own boundaries know what's important to you and set your own boundaries. Right? We can go too far with some of the other stuff, the unconditional love, you know, just giving and giving and giving of ourselves.

[19:10] And we can set our ego aside to the point. We are just demoting ourselves and depriving ourselves of the healthy part of the relationship, which is receiving or not getting taken advantage of. So you've got to know how to set healthy boundaries as well. Right? So that's number four, knowing how to set healthy boundaries.

[19:34] I know I gave you four just now there are four more in the action plan, but what I wanna hear from you. What else? What, what am I missing? What did we miss at the retreat? Right? What are the things that you felt like should be part of this should be part of the conversation. Got a lot of amazing listeners out there you included.

[19:55] So let me hear it. Take a screenshot of this, post it on social media, or find the social media posts about this episode and let me know, let me know what your thoughts are, right. Get the action plan. Uh, you, you know, all you have to do right now is actually print out the action plan. And if you wanna master relationships, just email the PDF to your significant other or your boss, and just tell them they're doing it wrong.

[20:15] You wanna master relationships? Just tell them they're doing it wrong and send them the link to the podcast or send them the PDF of the action plan that should work. Right. But there's four more takeaways in the action plan from the retreat that I really want you to get. Don't miss out on these things.

[20:30] Be sure to tune in to the next of the four episodes on mastery, we're gonna be covering, like I said, self mastery, health, mastery, and mastering of, of your professional life. Like wealth mastery. We call it all right. Relationships, self health, and wealth. Don't just listen to this episode and move on, do something with it.

[20:51] Take action. I look forward to hearing. Good luck.

[20:57] Thanks for listening. If you want to apply these principles into your life, let's talk. You can see the limited spaces that are open on my calendar at JimHarshawJr.com/APPLY where you can sign up for a free one time coaching call directly with me. And don't forget to grab your action plan. Just go to JimHarshawJr.com/ACTION.

[21:16] And lastly, iTunes tends to suggest podcasts with more ratings and reviews more. You would totally make my day. If you give me a rating and review those go a long way in helping me grow the podcast audience, just open up your podcast app. If you have an iPhone, do a search for success through failure, select it, and then scroll the whole way to the bottom where you can leave the podcast a rating in a review.

[21:42] Now I hope this isn't just another podcast episode for you. I hope you take action on what you learned here today. Good luck. And thanks.

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