#1505 - One Word To Stop Using In Your Relationship

For episode number 1,505 one word to stop using in your relationship or talk about love today . So this came up Twice the idea for this episode a Guest we had on years ago at this point Phil M Jones . Phil M Jones has written many books .

He is One of the greatest speakers in terms of skill that we have ever had on the podcast probably the best speaker We've ever had on the podcast , definitely and he is a business coach and he is a sales coach and he's big on the language you use when you're talking to people .

So I was listening to one of his books recently and he talked about this , which primed my mind to start looking out for it . And I was talking Working with one of our clients who's a psychologist , and I noticed she's very , very good with this . So this is what the the thought behind today's episode is .

I want you to imagine that your partner is out for the day and you say I'm gonna do something really thoughtful for my partner . I'm gonna get them flowers and I'm going to cook . I'm gonna make their favorite dish , I'm gonna clean up the house , I'm gonna light candles and when they get home , I'm gonna serve them dinner . I'm gonna give them a massage after .

It's gonna be a great night . And they get home , you give them dinner . Oh my goodness , I'm so excited , awesome , awesome , awesome . So you get to the end of the night and you're kind of recapping the night and you say what did you think ? What did you think of tonight ? And they said it was really good . I really enjoyed it very much .

But the second that butt hits , you're gonna say , oh my goodness , something is wrong here . Oh my goodness , it wasn't what you wanted . Oh my goodness , it didn't make you happy . Oh my goodness , I miss the mark . What if you take that butt and you replace it with Everything was awesome and Maybe next time we could do blank ?

That is way more constructive than but Something . Alan you , you taught me this . I think you taught me this through . I think it was a joke at the time but lead with praise .

So if you see somebody that you haven't seen in a long time , or let's just say , if somebody does something for you that you appreciate , you want to lead with praise Thank you so much for shoveling the driveway Instead of saying you miss three spots , but thank you for shoveling the driveway .

Those are two very different conversations to very different levels of intentionality and Two very different feelings that are gonna be felt on the other side of that conversation .

So that is what we're talking about today something very , very simple that we can replace in our relationships that will hopefully improve them , but verses and I am grateful for all of you who listen to this show but Versus I am Super grateful to all of you who listen to the show and to very different phrases with emotions on the other side .

We just surpassed our 90th episode . So out of 90 episodes , this one Episode some , for some reason Was twice as many listens . So then naturally , we look at the title . What is the title ? What is why ? What ? What's the difference here ? The title is about nonviolent communication , and that

shocked us . As a matter of fact , we're gonna do a relationship talks virtual event on that topic , because now we know how much our listeners Want to learn more about that . But that's neither here nor there what Kevin is referring to about the and versus the .

But I masterminded with him before of it's a very hard and fine line to walk , because sometimes but is actually necessary to make sure the unpleasant truth actually lands . So , for example , let's say let's say that same scenario happens , but you are Very , very you had a really bad incident happen the day before that you're really upset about .

Now you think that this partner is actually doing that to try to save face and make up for what they had done the day before . So you're not really feeling really good about it , even during the night . It's not . It's not great . The idea here is , and is , important

and constructive , and I do think you need to be very conscious of when you use and versus when you use but . But I think sometimes but needs to be there , and the reason why is because I think that sometimes we lessen and sugarcoat , and this is the the question how do you deliver an unpleasant truth to someone where it really lands ?

But you and you sugarcoat it a little bit with constructive , nonviolent communication , but not to the point where it doesn't actually land .

And I think that that's as someone who studies leadership , as someone who wants to be the best partner I can be with Emilia , as someone who has a team of people , kev , sometimes there's some unpleasant truth that it's like listen , I need to make sure this actually lands , kev , I appreciate that you're always on time , but God damn it , man .

And again that's can be seen as violent communication . Obviously , kevin knows me , so we're good , but at the end of the day , I think there's a time for each and so try and first . That's my point , try and first .

And if and is not getting the point across because it's not landing , you might have to say but and really kind of drill home on some of the unpleasant truths . And so nonviolent communication , I think , is communication that is not directly attacking , because the problem with this is and I said this on book club earlier the good stuff doesn't need to change .

Sometimes we overly focus on the the bad stuff , because the bad stuff I mean . So if I'm late a lot in a given week , I'll use me as an example . I'm doing so much good behind the scenes and Kevin knows that , but that's not what needs to change . So what's going to get the focus thing ?

The things that's going to get the focus are the things that needs to change . But if I feel underappreciated or unseen or undervalued for all the amazing

things I'm doing and Kevin comes in hot with hey man , you know , by the way and just attacks me , that's not going to go well . But If he doesn't actually come at me with that , ever I'm not going to have the necessity to change it and to improve and to grow and then we won't achieve our goals . So there's a lot on the line here .

I always say this this is the last thing I'll share . I say being kind is really easy , and I think being successful without being kind is really easy .

It's very hard to do both when you're climbing Mount Everest in this analogy it's and you have a team of people climbing with you and it's life or death , and you take your work that seriously and you take the goals that seriously and you're really building a life together with your intimate partner , emilia and I is an example where climbing Mount Everest together

we want to build a family and we want to build businesses , we want to build teams , we want to change the world . We want to do all this good in the world . It is a serious game for serious people .

We are not messing around here , and sometimes we need to give some unpleasant truths and say listen , if you don't heal that frostbite , you are going to die , and I don't want to see you die . And if I overly sugarcoat that , you're not going to face the hard truth and make the changes necessary to get to the top of the mountain .

And so we all have to walk this line and this is the the . The last question , which is how do you articulate challenging unpleasant truths in a vulnerable , aligned way and share them in a way that's constructive , but you don't overly lessen it to where the real point doesn't actually get across .

And this is the question that I'm constantly asking myself as a leader .

Okay , this is something that could change , should probably change , and even if you think of , think of a character in the movie who never , who always , gets overlooked they're usually very . It's just not enough with that .

Even if we very passive , if we zoomed out , let's just say we zoomed out and said this is a very zoomed in version of something we might communicate . What we could say for this entire episode is make sure you're choosing your words as intentionally as possible . I told Taryn recently one of the things I'm trying to work on .

When I'm overwhelmed and she says , hey , do you want to do this ? Hey , can you do this ? Hey , what about this ? My initial reaction , more often than I'd like to admit , is no , it's almost like I don't even hear what you're saying . I just say no for self-preservation . So I'm intentionally trying to break that of Kev .

I know you're overwhelmed and I know you're exhausted and I know you're under a lot of pressure

, but you could be more intentional with the way that you communicate Instead of saying no , it could be . Is that something I can think about for the day ? That's a completely different conversation . So even the intentionality behind what do you want the other person to feel when you say it ?

That would probably be a little bit of a zoom out we could do , because if you are trying to get a point to land , if you have a landscaper , you're not going to be able to . If you have a landscaper , you have somebody who comes and does your lawn . I had a I had somebody one of my friends dealt with this . Their landscaper

was just messing up horribly , like not showing up , overcharging them .

That might not be a situation where you want to say I do value the work you've done and I know we have a relationship and and you also haven't been showing up as much as you should and I think you over build me you probably want to say I do appreciate the work that you've done and I do appreciate the relationship we've built and I don't really want to go

look for someone else , but I feel like you haven't been delivering the stuff that you need to deliver . That's a drastically different vibe there .

You can't say I appreciate you and I understand that you're overwhelmed and I also am okay with XYZ and you also kind of over build me . See how the over billing me that the , the , the disservice , the disrespect is is masked in too much sugar . And this is the age old question of strength

versus warmth . And this is one of my biggest challenges as a man , as an intimate partner , as a business leader Strength and warmth . When is it time to be like Listen , this has to change . You can't keep playing this way because we're going to lose the championship . And you got to leave . You either got to , got to fly with us or you got to go versus .

I really appreciate all that you've done for us . That's a it's so such a delicate dance and an art and a balance and it's it is unbelievably challenging , and that's why I always say leadership is the hardest thing on planet Earth and people always say no no , no being a parent is , I say , leadership , same thing .

I , granted , I don't have kids , I get that Okay , but when I have children it's going to be leadership . It's just going to be leading little children and toddlers and teenagers and actually adults , but it's still leadership . It's influencing people and , hopefully , what's a positive direction towards their own self actualization .

it and get the result you want ? But it I would say this would be my next little nugget what is your communication pattern ? So I just shared . My pattern is sometimes I say no , sometimes I say no , and here's a list of reasons why . Maybe in this scenario , no , but would actually be good . No , but you know what ?

I know it's important to you , so it's definitely something I can do . Yeah , right , so that that would be something that I could practice , and I am . I'm consciously trying to practice that more and more because I realize I'm probably not going to be any less overwhelmed anytime soon and I don't think I'm going to be under any less pressure anytime soon .

So that's a pattern that I can break with awareness first , with intentionality second , and then with consistent focus . Third and there's necessity to do it I want to make sure Taryn is , she feels fully loved . That's important to me .

I forget the name of the highway it's in New Hampshire , it's King of mangas , king , king of mangas highway , I believe , apparently one of the most famous foliage hikes roads ever in the entire world . Wow , when we Google , there's a holy crap . This place is like super famous .

We listened to the little tour guide thing on the way there and , yeah , it was , it was awesome . But she had asked me hey , the following weekend , and that weekend we went off the rails , for lack of better phrasing . We stayed at a hotel , got no sleep , tucker was barking , it was , it was , it was wonderful , absolutely wonderful .

But it was definitely travels , a whole thing , everyone knows . Okay , now , the next Sunday she wanted me to go for a hike , potentially with her grandma , her Mimi , love , mimi , big fan . Now , when she asked me , I said Okay , and this is my question , instead of immediately saying no , I don't want to do that , which , quite frankly , I don't .

That's my truth . I don't want to do that . It's nothing against me , me . It's nothing against you . It's two Sundays in a row and I'm also overwhelmed as hell . I have a lot of back office work that I need to catch up on because I am behind , right , but she doesn't know that she does . But not really okay .

So she asks , and so , instead of immediately saying no to Kevin's point , I say how important is it to you that I'm there from zero to 10 ? She said yeah , probably not that important . I said okay , in that case it's gonna have to be a no for me . I'm gonna stay . Do the back office .

Don't worry , though , you go , I'll take care of the pets completely myself . Like you go do your thing . And that was good to go . And I think she ended up switching with Mimi . Instead of doing Sunday , she ended up doing Wednesday , and they had this nice little hike . So that's another cheat code for nonviolent communication .

Instead of immediately like absolutely not . And then she thinks I don't like her grandma , or something like that , which isn't true . My truth is the layers I'm overwhelmed . We did last Sunday . I wanna get ahead . I have XYZ going on that I'm not even consciously aware of . I don't wanna do that , but I have these reasons that I'm not even aware of yet .

So , instead of that , it's okay . How important is this to you ? If she had said 10 out of 10 , I would have done it , because the Kanga-Mangus Highway , she had said , I said , is this bucket list ? And she said yes . I said done , it's done , doesn't matter , doesn't matter what else I have going on , we're doing this .

This is your birthday , let's rock and roll . But if it's a five , no , it's gonna have to be a no for me . And again , I know I say that I'm insecure about saying that because that's the way Emilia and I operate . She asked me you know , how important is this to you ? It's like , eh , three , okay , no , like that's a hard . No , we live a hell yes life .

If it's not a hell yes , it's a no .

and you both do it for each other , so it's not like you're just doing that .

That is what I would leave you with , whether you're watching or listening this fire episode Kev . It's a good topic , this was a good one . Shout out to Phil M Jones and our amazing client , dr Yvette Dr .

Having studied intimate relationships a lot over the last couple of years , with conscious couples and relationship talks , coaching , all stuff I think it is too . Trust , communication and vulnerability . Those are the three pillars Trust , communication and vulnerability . And now if I had to pick a fourth , it would be humility .

But communication is the big one , it's one of the biggest . So if you're doing violent communication , you're in trouble . That's not good . So you got to work on that and I definitely didn't realize this . But in my childhood my mom and stepdad used violent communication and I adopted some of that and I didn't realize it until way later in life .

It changes everything when you overcome that .

But if you are looking for a place where you can be vulnerable , you can be yourself and self-improvement is cool and it's the way and it's common and it's what we do . Please join the private Facebook group .

I know that there is a lot of people out there who feel like they're the only person in their circle growing or focused on growing , or who would listen to an episode like this about something so specific . If that's you which it is because you're listening please join our private Facebook group . Link will be in the showdowns .

be a good one . Some people say just be unapologetically you . It's like some people are saying that so they can just be bullies . If you're a dick , you should probably change . So at the end of the day , hopefully that's funny for everybody . Ok , so we have two different things that Kevin and I are doing a lot behind the scenes like a bunch .

We've talked about them before , but I'm going to articulate it in a little bit of a different way . Kev does podcasting , podcast coaching . You want to start a podcast , you want to monetize a podcast . You want to grow a podcast . Kevin's your guy .

He has been doing hours and hours and hours and hours and hours with podcast clients , helping them grow their shows , start their shows , monetize their shows , all that . I'm leaning far more into the business side and I'm coaching a bunch of business owners from all different industries , all different backgrounds .

So for our listeners , who are here to learn and who love growth and who love personal growth and holistic self-improvement . If you want to jump into the next level , maybe that next level is podcasting . Maybe that next level is starting your own podcast . Maybe that next level is monetizing a podcast you already have .

Maybe that next level is starting a business underneath that podcast , or maybe not having to do with podcasts whatsoever . Maybe you have a brick-and-mortar business . Maybe you want to start a gym . Maybe you want to start a pet store . If you want to podcast or start a business , reach out . If you want to podcast , reach out to kevanatnextleveluniversecom .

If you want to start a business , reach out to me , alan , at nextleveluniversecom , and what you might find is that a lot of podcasters end up starting businesses underneath it and a lot of business owners end up starting podcasts to improve their marketing . So it's a really cool ready lefty situation .

We got going on here and we have many people that are doing both , many people that are doing one , and maybe in the future , that'll be you .

Hopefully , tomorrow's hack will save you from that a little bit . As always , we love you , we appreciate you , grateful for each and every one of you , and at NLU we are not a fan . We have family . We will talk to you all tomorrow .