So if I go back and after three decades

as a family therapist and start

rebuilding relationships, new relationships, taking all that

I've learned, working with clients, thousands of people,

I would do apply

these three best pieces of advice

that we're going to discuss today. If I had a clean slate, could just apply

three things. This is what I would keep in mind. This is what I would

like to find in friends, in spouses,

in relationships in general. I want to see other people applying these

three pieces of advice as well.

Welcome to the Decide youe Legacy podcast. Today's episode is on my

best three pieces of relationship advice. And I have

a new goal and that I am striving for is to keep every

podcast within the 15 minute

time period. I like 15 minute chunks of time. You can

do a lot in 15 minutes. You can make significant progress,

challenge yourself to grow. You can do a lot of stuff there. And we're not

going to be ultra rigid about it. I mean, if it's 18 minutes, if it's

14 minutes, but in that range, I like that time period.

And we're going to strive today to do just that. So by the end of

this episode today, you're going to have started

thinking about how you can adjust your approach to relationships

and you're going to see that you're making some mistakes and that you could tweak

some things, that you're probably doing some things pretty well that you could

continue to do and engage in. And that's what you're going to leave with today.

So I'm Adam Gragg. I'm your host today. I am a

family therapist. I've been a family therapist for over three

decades. Not over three, for three decades. So started in

1999 as a licensed family therapist. And I'm a

legacy coach. I'm a coach and I'm dedicated to teaching others

how to face life with courage.

Relationships are a big part of that. Reaching

out, connecting. What are you gonna do? I wanna talk

to you about that today. So when I

like to approach relationships, I can often get

forget what I know. It's kind of like can't see the forest through the trees.

I mean, it's not like I get all this stuff figured out. I know that

I can make mistakes just like anybody else. This stuff that I'm talking about today,

I gotta. I'm reminding myself of what

I need to do as well. So the first thing, first piece of advice,

and this is really the hardest of all the three because it's

foundational, it's hard because it's ongoing. You're never gonna

totally have this figured out, but it's to like yourself. I give that one piece

of advice is figure out how you can like yourself. Figure out how you

can work through the crap that holds you back. Your past, your

mistakes, your shame, your fears. All the

stuff that may hinder you from actually, and does hinder you from actually

carrying yourself with confidence in your relationships. That's

a huge deal. If you start liking yourself, things are going to change.

The way that you view yourself is

going to have a significant. And that relationship that you have with

yourself has the biggest impact on the

relationship that you have with other people. Your

self worth, how you view and approach

yourself, meaning how you talk to yourself, what you think about

yourself, the traits that you know you bring to relationships,

how you engage other people. Do you do it confidently or with a lot

of insecurity? That's going to impact the way other people relate to you.

It's going to impact the way that you reach out to other people. And,

and it's so foundational that it'll change everything. Once

you start to actually like yourself. If you have a

secure identity in yourself, then you're not doing

things, engaging people to perform. So your interaction with someone else

when you like yourself is not based on how they're gonna respond to

you. It's based on what you believe is right in that situation. You're gonna be

yourself, not imitate other people because you're not trying to control

that interaction. You're not trying to control how they respond to you. So you're willing

to be goofy, you're willing to be annoying, you're willing to be funny. You're

willing to actually let your guard down because their validation of you

is not going to impact your view of yourself. Very powerful.

So you can work on this. This is what counselors are very good at, helping

people unpack. Why do you struggle with how you view yourself?

This is how we go back and we deal with our past and what's

hanging, what our hangups are based on mistakes we've

made or situations that we've gotten involved in that we wish we hadn't had gotten

involved in. It's such a huge deal. I was once dating who asked

me, well, on a date, I think it was a date, they said, well, how

do I improve my self worth? How do I improve my self

worth? And the answer I had to her

was to focus on your self respect.

So what are you tolerating in your life? Are you

letting people mistreat you? Are you mistreating yourself? Are

you sabotaging yourself when you don't respect yourself? You

aren't going to get respect from other people. Self respect is

connected to self discipline. Are you making commitments and promises

to yourself and then following through, you know, like getting up on time and working

out and eating right, doing things that you know are healthy

for you? Which, by the way, I ate a bunch of ice cream before bed

last night and it kept me up. I knew better and I decided because I

kept telling myself, oh, you deserve it, Adam. You deserve to go to Brahms and

get a huge old thing of chocolate yogurt. It was not good and it

impacted my sleep last night and it wasn't the best choice for

me, but that was connected to my own. I

knew better, and I knew better that that wasn't the right thing for me to

do. Yet I still went ahead and did it and I justified it and it

wasn't healthy and I paid the price for it. So if you

deal with this stuff, you're going to respect yourself better. You're going to bring your

best self to the table and you can get help to work on

this. So you can hire a coach, you can hire. Get involved with a

support group, you can hire a therapist. So the second thing, so

once you start respecting yourself, once you start liking yourself, you're going

to respect yourself, you're going to take better care of yourself, and then you're

going to be willing, which is the second piece of advice,

willing to go first in relational interactions. So

you're the one who's willing to do the goofy thing to get people to open

up. You're the one who's willing to ask the questions, to challenge people to

be themselves and to get let their guard down. You're the one who's willing to

schedule an event or willing to ask somebody out, or willing to ask a

guy to become better friends, to play golf. You're willing to go

and engage in situations where you're vulnerable, where you're letting your guard down,

because yourself, you like yourself. And you like yourself regardless of

how well that interaction goes. So I asked somebody out today

who it was actually interesting because it was somebody that I asked and I met

and I asked on a date, and then it was

canceled like 30 minutes before. And then today I reached out saying,

hey, you want to get out? Want to get together after work? Or do you

want to get together today or tomorrow? And she texted back right away saying,

sure, I would love to. And then I said, well, okay, let's meet at

Picasso's, which is a pizza place in town. Let's meet at

Picasso's. It's 6:00pm at Picasso's Pizza. It's in

Delano. That was at 12:56 and

it's now 3:00 clock. 3:00, 3:10. So I haven't heard anything back, so

hopefully I do. And then we end up connecting. We'll see how it

goes. But it's a risk. I went first. But you know what?

If this individual. I'm not gonna name names if they don't reach back out and

if they don't actually, if they cancel or whatever,

it's not about me. I feel good because I actually reached

out. I was willing to go first. I have this golden hour that I've been

planning into my day every single day. And these the hard tasks that I want

to avoid every day. I've called it a golden hour. I really don't even know

why, but it's golden if I actually execute. And so I'm

making a list of people I'm reaching out to, hard conversations where I could get

rejected. And if I get through it, I find myself being energized. I got through

it today. I made 16 contacts today. In my golden hour,

I made three. I had three meaningful conversations, not nearly as many

as I would have liked to have had. But one of them

closed a deal and one of them got a meeting set up. And then the

other one was just pretty encouraging. So it was good, it

was positive. I was energized afterwards. And hopefully I get this date

today. And then if I don't, I'm thinking about asking a buddy to play golf.

Maybe that's what I do instead. And maybe we go out tomorrow night. Because I.

I said I could go out tonight or tomorrow night. We'll see what happens.

But I got some cool things happening and going on. Go first. That's

why I'm a fan of Icebreakers. I'm a fan of lists. I'm a fan of

challenging ourselves. I'm a fan of community activities and

things where you're joining a group of people engaging in the same kind of content

or same kind of activity. Study groups, book clubs, things that you

have to risk connection. You're going first.

Really cool stuff. So another thing, and this is the

last that. Well, first of all, if you want to challenge yourself to go

first, I would not. And I would definitely

encourage you to not lean on motivation. Don't lean on

being energized to actually do things that move

the needle in Relationships and in your business and in your life. Because

if you do, then you're dependent on your feelings. And

your feelings are gonna let you down. Cause they're gonna lie to you at times.

No, you don't wanna do that. What you have influence over is your

discipline. You have influence over making a

schedule and sticking to it and establishing times,

blocks of time that you're going to get specific things done and

sticking it out. So I'm encouraged.

One thing I'm encouraged by is because. Because I have been

challenged by some friends to engage in certain aspects of my life that I

want to avoid. And I'm going to hopefully be able to. Well,

I know I'm going to be able to share successes with some friends about things

I've wanted to avoid, but I've actually had some conversations that I would have

avoided had I not had accountability in my life. And it's

the discipline to not want to let them down or not want to have to

actually share that I didn't follow through on certain activities, mainly making

hard calls and dealing with difficult conversations as a

leader in my company that I try to avoid and difficult

conversations in my family that I try to avoid. And I have accountability. I'm going

to go share and say, I actually went first, I actually got it done.

And that's really encouraging to me. So you start off by figuring out

how you can like yourself, and then you figure out how you can

go first. And the third piece of advice that I would give you to build

better relationships is to be curious, to seek first to understand, then

to be understood. This will force you to listen in

your interactions. When you remember to be curious, your anxiety is going to

decrease because there's very interesting information you can gain

from other people. For probably over two

decades, I've challenged people to come up with their top 10

questions that they can ask others. And I'd encourage you to

do the same. In fact, the next podcast that I'm going to be recording after

this one is on creating your top 10 questions list.

The reason I want you to do that is because these questions

come from you and they're. They're questions you like

to ask other people because you're very interested in their answers.

One of the questions that I'm interested in hearing people's answers is a silly

one. It's whether or not they like hard or soft yolk. And I find that

most people are very set on what they like in that area. I do not

like hard runny yolk. It's gross to me. I don't want to be near it.

If someone's eating that in a restaurant, I want to sit away from them.

I don't really like that. It's really funny. But it's a curious question. I

don't know what yours are. That's one of my silly ones. But. But I want

you to be curious in your interactions. It will decrease your anxiety

because you're not making it about you in that interaction. In fact, when

you're curious and when you're going first, you're letting go of making it about

yourself, which is really the powerful part about it. And it's making that

interaction fun rather than stuffy and

self centered and self promoting, not fun.

So those are my best three pieces of advice for you. To apply to your

dates. To apply to your work interactions. To apply to your sales calls. To apply

to your supervision of employees. To apply to your family and your friends

like yourself. Go first, be curious if you found this

helpful. You're going to love Shatterproof Yourself. This is

my content on seven steps to a giant leap in your mental

health over three decades of working with thousands of clients.

Some of the best stuff, worksheets, whiteboards,

content, videos you can walk through with your team, with yourself.

And one of those sections is all on dealing with

relationships. You're going to learn more about how to

improve your relationships. Cool stuff. So

I want you to hit the link, check it out. You can purchase that, go

through it with your team, take action. There's no

positive change until you decide to change.

Decide today you decide your legacy. Nobody else to

decide means that you're eliminating other options. Your legacy is the impact your

life will have on others. So

live. In closing, I want to share with you what I always do. Live the

life today that you want to be remembered for 10 years after you're

gone. You decide your legacy, nobody else. I appreciate

you greatly and I'll see you next time. And oh yeah,

subscribe like and share this podcast that helps it

grow organically. Thanks for tuning in. I'll talk to you soon. Bye bye.