Ep49_RekindlingRelationships
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Decide Your Legacy podcast. This is episode number 49. I'm your host, Adam Gragg, and if you haven't already, Subscribe so you'll never miss another podcast episode. And if you found the Decide Your Legacy podcast helpful, pull out your phone right now. It'll take you 15 seconds. Give me a rating and review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast content.

It helps it to grow organically and get in front of more people. Today we're gonna talk about rekindling and strengthening and rebuilding relationships. And that does involve repairing sometimes, but talking about relationships that are already at a certain level of health or have been, maybe they've gone stale, maybe you haven't been in touch in a long time.

How can you do that successfully? I get this question frequently, especially with the holidays coming up, so they get nervous. Clients wanna know, Well, what can I do? What tools do you have? I want to get a, have a better relationship with my brother. I really love him, or my parents or my uncles or my friends.

I'm gonna see him. We're, our routine is changed over the holidays, so we have more opportunities for interaction. So that's what we're gonna discuss today. And as always, I wanna share some risks that I've taken recently. So one is I entered a chili cookoff at my apartment complex and I lost, my gosh, I thought my chili was so good, but other people I guess didn't.

But I'm going to not give up. I'm gonna actually, Another chili cook off this Saturday, and maybe I can win this one. There's a few things I'm gonna actually tweak. So I hired an employee, I hired a new employee. He actually started today. His name's Gavin, and he's gonna be a great help to me. So, that's a risk and very excited about that.

I approached a guy at Starbucks who had a new Apple watch, a lean on, and kind of was waiting for him to leave and I said, Hey, you know, Can ask you a few questions. He looked at me like I was a weirdo and I said, Is that the new Apple Watch Elite? And we connected and talked and probably five, 10 minutes, but was a really good conversation.

And then I said no on an investment opportunity that I think is an excellent, excellent opportunity. And the reason I said no, It's because I decided a while ago that one of the things I was gonna, one of the boundaries I was gonna have is to not do business with clients. And so it was a great opportunity and I'm gonna probably regret it and be kicking myself when they're making money, but I'm gonna celebrate their success and support them all the way.

But that was a risk to say no. And it was in aligned with my values. It also reminded. The investment I want to put in right now is really in growing beside your legacy, and so I'm shifting some of that money or the money that I would be investing there into the business, and I'm real excited about that.

So I'm Adam Gragg. For those of you who don't know, I'm a legacy coach. I'm a speaker, podcaster. I'm a mental health professional, almost 25 years. I started in 1998 and my life purpose is helping people and organizations find transformational clarity. That propels 'em forward to face their biggest fears, usually emotional fears, so they can live and leave their chosen legacy.

Not this legacy or not this job, or not this path that their parents chose for them or their friends think they should take, but their chosen life, their chosen legacy. I talk about stuff that you can explain to a six year old. Your six year old, and the child can grasp it. So for example, last week, I discussed knowing yourself. And if you listen to that podcast episode, a lot of those are questions you can, they're all questions you could ask your child that could help them, and challenges that you could actually help them to learn about themselves. Taking risks, doing things that are scary, teaches you about yourself.

I also discuss topics that I struggle with myself and I struggle with relationships. I wanna hide and run. It's not something that I've figured out. It's not something that I don't have anxiety. I struggle as well. My challenge to you today is listen, as a teacher, listen as if you're gonna teach one of these concepts and insights that you gain today and teach it to somebody in the next 24 hours.

So think about that thing you can teach. Say, Here's something that I learned and get their opinion on it. What are your thoughts? Think and listen. As a teacher, this subject's important. It's because one relationships. I do not believe as a mental health professional that somebody can truly overcome and handle depression, anxiety, trauma.

Pretty much [00:05:00] any mental health issue. Without relationships, without healthy relationships, a community is essential and it takes building those relationships and rekindling them and strengthening them. And then our mental health, actually, our resiliency increases greatly as we have these connections around us, and we can often underestimate because most of the stuff.

When it comes to building the life you really want, you're doing a lot of prevention care, you're doing stuff in advance so that you're not thrown off guard when those challenges and stressors do come your way. Our true friends are incredibly loyal, courageously honest, and fiercely committed to us. Our true friends are courageously incredibly loyal, courageously honest, and fiercely committed to us, and we're gonna have healthy and unhealthy relationships.

I'm talking about relationships here that have the potential for health. Maybe they're toxic right now, but you know in your heart that you love this person. You want this relationship to strengthen. You want it to move forward, and the tips and tools I'm gonna give you today are gonna help you to take proactive action.

You can't control other people and what they do, but you can make it more likely that those relationships succeed and more likely that you revitalize those relationships that might be floundering right now. So last episode, I talked to you about getting to know yourself, and this is the very first point I wanna make about rekindling and rebuilding relationships is you need to love yourself first.

You need to have a good relationship with yourself. That means confidence. With yourself first, and go back and listen to that podcast 48 if you wanna learn some tips and tools on how to get to know yourself, how to love yourself. So here's a 15 minute challenge that I sometimes give companies when I speak to them.

So if you did this every day, and I'm gonna challenge you, my listeners, and I'll just leave this open kind of to anybody if, if you do this activity for 30 days, Consistently, honestly, and you report back to me and you tell me it has not helped you. I'll give you a free coaching session. That's a $300 value, right?

I'll give you a free coaching session. It'll be live over Zoom or in my office if you live in my area, whatever. But basically the challenge is this, and this will help you to actually improve your relationship with yourself. So you start off in the morning and you do the daily five and five, and that means you list five things that happened in your life yesterday that were positive, and it may be hard at first, and five things you're looking forward to later in the day.

You gotta do this in the morning. Five things that were positive the day before. Five things you're looking forward to later in the day. And then you're gonna look in the mirror. You're gonna set a stopwatch and you're gonna for five minutes, tell yourself the intrinsic qualities that you love and like about yourself.

You're gonna look at yourself in the mirror. And tell yourself what you like and love about yourself when you do that for 15 minutes. So 10 minutes for the five and five, five minutes for these things you really love and like about yourself, and they have to be intrinsic. So they're qualities that won't be taken away.

It's not like I'm so good looking, or I love the fact that I'm six three or I love the fact that, you know, I have all this money. Those are extrinsic things. Those are things that are gonna diminish because a six three person, is it gonna end up being six two at some point? You know, I'm six three, you know, and I know eventually as.

I age, which I just turned 49, that I'm not gonna be as tall down the road. So, but things that you love, that are qualities, like you're friendly, you love people, you want to help, you're generous, you are spiritually minded, those are the kinds of things and those are gonna help you improve your relationship with yourself.

And so check out the link in the show notes two to the daily, five and five as well. That'll give you some information and as well as, confidence building activity that'll give you information on identifying things that you love about. Second thing is you gotta be honest. Like I said, our true friends are honest with us.

They're courageously honest with us. Courageously honest with us. So I remember when I had two new admins and they both started about the same time, and it was at the beginning of the year. And I'm a prankster and I have a fart machine, and I put the fart machine in the waiting room area and I was joking around with a client by pressing the button and it was making loud fart sounds and everything.

Both of those admins had the courage to come to me and say, You know what? That's really funny, but we're actually kind of embarrassed by that fart machine. We didn't know it was there. And these two new clients came into the office and there was a, They were brand new and they were really embarrassed by that.

You know, Would you please not do that? But it took a lot of courage for them to say that. And I said to them, I said I was wrong. And I'm sorry. And then I never did it again. Which repentance means you don't do the same thing again. So now I just hide it in people's offices who I know are gonna find it funny and I know their clients are gonna find it funny.

And I used the fart machine that way. Actually. I wore my fart machine out. I need, I don't know what happened. It's not the batteries. I just think I've used it so much. Cuz on Halloween it died. I mean, come on. So anyway, be honest. You have to be honest emotionally, that means sharing your hurts and your feelings, the things that are struggles.

Celebrate, sell the things that are, celebrate and share the things that are good in your life. So those are gonna be foundational to starting to build a relationship, and it requires you to be yourself, to be [00:10:00] honest. Trust me there. I mean, because you're gonna be sharing things like, this bothered me, or I'm insecure about this, or I am gonna have this interaction with somebody.

I don't know what to do. I'm afraid it's going to go wrong. I'm afraid I'm scared, or I'm excited about this new thing in my life. And then you're honest about it. Then you're gonna see the reaction because our true friends, like I said, are gonna be fiercely loyal to us. They're gonna celebrate our successes, and that's one way you know that you don't have a real true friend when they are negative.

About what you are passionate about. They don't have to totally agree with it, but you're gonna get the sense that they wanna move on to a different topic or they're expressing some kind of jealousy rather than tell me more. Or I can really tell you're excited about it, or it makes sense to me. You'd be excited about that kind of stuff.

And so some of the stuff we're talking about today, just so you know, I have talked in previous episodes about repairing broken relationships. Today we're talking more about strengthening and rekindling already, already somewhat healthy or potentially healthy. Relationships I've talked about in the past, validating, being curious, a soft startup having six to one positive to negative interactions, not taking the bait, being assertive.

You can listen to previous podcasts about those things and many of you actually have today. We're talking in, coming from a different approach. So be honest, Emerson. Not too long ago we went to visit my cousin, actually my brother and her first cousins in New Orleans. And I remember I went, and I've thought about this as a dad, that you know, good parents are honest with their kids.

They're not gonna be harsh. They're gonna have this soft startup, but they're gonna be challenging their children to help them move in the right direction. And that means pointing out things that are uncomfortable. And I know sometimes Emerson doesn't like to hear these things from me, but one interaction in a situation where we were in New Orleans, her cousin Bella is closer to her age, so they're less than a year apart.

But Ava is about three years younger than Emerson. And so Ava gets excluded sometimes. And so one time I pulled Emerson aside, I asked her if I could talk to her, you know, can I talk alone? And she came and talked to me and I said, You know, I've noticed in these interactions that sometimes you, and. Kind of do your own thing.

And I know Ava's feeling excluded. Can you please, or can you try to include Ava and be mindful of that? And her response to that was really, really positive. They're not always, it's not always really positive, but those are the kinds of things that good, honest people are gonna tell us. They're gonna tell us we have a booger on our face.

They're gonna tell us when we, you know, have eyelashes that are. Going all over the place. It need to be plucked like I have. Sometimes they're gonna tell us these things because they care about us and want the best for us, and it's hard to be honest, but they're gonna do it. So number three is view conflict as an opportunity.

So you're gonna have all these situations with these people that you love and care about, these new situations, holidays, whatever it is. And there could potentially, as you're honest, there could be some. Because maybe you're more assertive now, maybe you're sharing, you don't agree with that perspective.

You know, kindly, lovingly, gently, and then they're getting all defensive and you're not taking the bait and you're repeating that. I just don't agree and here's why. But you can see that conflict if you go in with the right mindset as a way to build and strengthen the relationship. You only actually have intimacy in relationships if you're willing to walk through the conflict and get to the other side.

Recently, one of my friends, he was the best man of my wedding. His name is Donovan, and we've been friends for probably close to 25 years. We've had a disagreement on a situation and I, I have a very strong opinion about a certain situation and basically we visited and talked and had a drink together.

And then he expressed his opinion about it, and I expressed Donovan, that really bothers me. I said, You know, my, I would be comfortable if you, if you expressed your disagreement in this way. And it was basically him saying like, I don't know. Rather than having a passionate opinion about something, which he does when he doesn't have facts on it, and I challenged him, I said, I'm really bothered by that harsh language.

You know, I'm really bothered with you being so passionate about something when you really don't have the evidence, and I don't have the evidence either, but by you saying it in that way, that bothers me. And I was pretty passionate about it. And he apologized and said, You're right. I don't know. You know, And I had a conflict with another friend, a good friend who I've been friends with for over 20 years as well.

And it was a kind of similar situation, but basically it was where I felt like him going. I shared some things in confidence and I felt betrayed. And I told him, and I said, You know, that was a betrayal. I mean, that was something I shared with you in confidence as a friend, as a confidant. It was never to be shared with anybody.

It was between me and you. You were a sounding board. But anyway, I felt like those were necessary conflicts to have, and I believe they're gonna build the relationships that I have with these two people. I am confident it's gonna build the relationships I have, and it may lead to me having more boundaries, but it can build through conflict.

We can build relationships, and we do build relationships. Number four is help other people succeed. So if you know what their goals are and they share their goals with you, we'll help them to get. , [00:15:00] whatever that means. It may be moral support, it may be encouraging them, it may be being excited for them and maybe showing and telling them stories about people who have also succeeded as well.

But you're getting, and they're gonna get the vibe that you want them to succeed. It's an emotional thing that'll come out of you when you go into relationships that, you know, a priority I have with people I really care about is their success, is my success. Their success is my success, and that's a shift in mindset.

It's going from a win lose kind of situation to a win-win, that when other people succeed, I succeed as well. And so your mindset is, how can I help? They can do it and not why it's gonna go wrong and how I'm gonna criticize it and what potentially could be the downfall. That might be part of being honest with somebody, but you can be honest with them and still be cheering them on and cheering on their successes.

So if you interact with people over the holidays and they share these things, cheer 'em on, ask 'em about it, Give them positive feedback. Tell 'em how proud you are that they took that risk share with them. Stuff that you admire about them because they took that risk, help them succeed. I have this kid that I've been mentoring since he was 12 years old.

He's not a kid now. He's actually 12 years younger than me. We have the same birthday. So he, when I turned 49, he turned 37. His name's Robbie. I've known him and I met him, through Big Brothers Big Sisters as a mentor, program type program, Wow. A long time ago. So anyway, I would've been 25 and he was 12.

Our relationship has lasted and it's gone through rough times, but it's lasted. I mean, I'm always so honored when he calls me and tells me about a job decision he has to make, or about a business struggle he has or about a new relationship. And he actually just recently got married, go Robbie, to a great person and he's made so many great decisions in his life.

And I think as I analyzed that relationship it has had all of these types of aspects, viewing conflict as an opportunity, cuz we've had conflict. I mean we've had a lot of conflict, especially from 12 to 19. And it's been stuff in times where I've had to just let go of the outcome cuz I don't know if the relationship is gonna survive, but obviously it actually has.

And honesty, him being honest with me, me being honest with him. As well. And I'm truly, truly blessed because I remember one time he reached out to me because he had never actually met his dad and he was going to go and potentially visit his dad for the very first time, and he wanted me to go with him.

And that was years and years later. And so I look at those things and say, you know, when we judge the quality of the relationship right now by the situation that in the state that it's in, we're gonna be misled so often. If we're doing the right things and our heart is in the right place and we're trying to help 'em succeed, it may go through three months of conflict.

It may go through situations where you don't hear from somebody for a period of time. It may feel like the relationship is failing, but I will tell you and promise you that it's not. You know, even though you may part ways. You are doing the right thing and you're sticking with it, your motives are in the right place, and I would encourage you to keep going on and then maybe it's a new relationship, but practice the tools and the skills.

So the fifth thing is to share your personal goals. It's scary to share your personal goals. It's vulnerable to share your personal goals. You wanna get those out there to some people, especially these people and relationships where you're trying to rekindle things so they can know and be on the same bus with you, and that's gonna help you even see.

They stand as they respond. But if you wanna do things in your business that are different and you're going to different places relationally, or you're challenging yourself to grow spiritually, or you're wanting to get and improve your health in some kind of way, share those with people because that is gonna open up the door for them, sharing their goals with you and being vulnerable with you, and it's gonna help you and give you an opportunity to rekindle because that's real stuff.

That's foundational stuff. I know a lot of people who have a lot of acquaintances and know friends. I'm serious. I have, I know a lot of people have a lot of acquaintances and no real friends. They are popular and on surface level, they have these people they hang out with and they drink with and they golf with or whatever, but they really don't have any friends because they haven't taken the risk to actually share and to give it a chance to actually grow into something that's different because it requires that, I'm gonna tell you what my goals are.

Or I'm gonna tell you something that's bothering me, or I'm gonna tell you a dilemma in my life and I'm gonna see how you handle it. Because that risk, yeah, they could betray you, they could do something that you don't want them to do, but it's gonna show you where that relationship actually stands. So the sixth thing you wanna rekindle relationships is be curious, be curious about their lives.

Ask questions, open ended questions about their lives, and even come prepared with some things cuz you know that certain aspects of their life have been going in whatever direction because you are at a distance with them. Maybe a family member you, you know, just from a distance. But then get really curious as you're watching football on Thanksgiving or as you have a chance to play games or.

As you have a chance to kind of just hang out and talk over dinner, [00:20:00] ask questions, and something that I've am gonna do a future podcast on and that I'm actually gonna start doing and heading in this direction is interviewing my family because I want a record of this for my kids and I want a record of this while I have one kid right now, but maybe I'll have another kid one day.

I wanna a record of some of these interactions cuz I think it's incredibly encouraging to people to see. You know, interviews with their grandparents or even like a great uncle or whatever, and cuz that's them, that's part of their legacy, that's part of their history. And it'll be flattering to the people in your family.

Maybe uncomfortable, but I would, I would suggest filming it. I would suggest trying to film it. You it over Zoom. You could do it live. But you're being curious about them in their lives. That's kind of just a side note there, cuz the curiosity I'm really talking about here is that you're approaching people as what can I give and how can I learn and how can I listen and how can I paraphrase and summarize what they're sharing and approach these relationships that might be awkward, that might feel uncomfortable, but in this new, in this social situation, I'm really getting to know them and I'm not formulating my response before I actually.

Ask them or get an answer to a question. I'm not even thinking that I'm not. I'm just letting go of that. I don't know what the next thing I'm gonna ask. I don't know what the next thing that they're gonna say is. I don't know what they're gonna ask me. I'm learning to let go. And that kind of counteracts being prepared or contradicts being prepared with some questions.

But there's the aspect of just letting go. I mean, maybe you have another question that comes to mind based on that past question, but this curiosity is crucial. Number seven. Is to be yourself. Okay? And so, being yourself, I talked about in the last podcast, but, but actually before I go to number seven, if you have found this podcast helpful, hit the link.

Subscribe to Shatterproof yourself. I'm gonna give you 27 actions you can take to improve and work on your mental health and to manage stress in your life. You don't wanna miss that. Click the link. Shatterproof yourself. So the last thing here, number seven, is be yourself. And so, I, on Halloween I had a costume on, and I'll maybe possibly put a link in the show notes.

I'm not sure yet, but I have a great costume and I'm not telling everybody what it is because I'm gonna reuse this costume as well. But that was me. I'm a goofball and I got to go ahead and be around people and let go of fearing judgment. Let go of fearing rejection. Let go of. People looking at my quirks and my awkwardness and, and just saying what's on my mind.

Just sharing it. And I'm not saying saying what's on your mind that's gonna be offensive, but here's the deal. When we are ourself, we're not acting out of a place of fear, anxiety, depression, impressing people, wanting them to like us, saying what they know, what we know they want to hear. Politically, religiously, whatever it might be.

You know, we're ourselves. It's not coming from that place. It's coming from a calm, confidence self, which we can work on when we love ourselves, and as you convey it, people are gonna be much, much more receptive because it's not coming from this insecure place. It's simply, this is me. Take it or leave it.

I mean, it's, This is me. I mean, I dressed up in a costume and I went in and I played the role for about 30 minutes in front of people and I got some really weird looks and I got some crazy stuff. One person said, Man, Adam. After they figured out it was me and a lot of 'em were my friends that I knew were all hanging out at a specific place on Halloween.

One of them said, Man, you know, that took a lot of confidence to do that because you know, you, a lot of these people don't know you , that kind of thing. And I, I took it as a compliment, like, Okay, I mean, this is me. And I know it's quirky and I don't wanna embarrass people intentionally, and I don't want to make my parents uncomfortable, and I'm not gonna do that intentionally, but I am gonna try and strive to be myself.

So what can you do with that? What actions can you take? Well, you just do one little thing that's more of yourself than it was before. It might be that you speak up or it might be that you wear something different that really is you, or you maybe go ahead and listen to some different music because that really does resonate with you and you're not ashamed of it anymore.

All part of being yourself. And so some I'm excited about, I wanna share is I have started the production of a new course, a new online course, and it's gonna be on stress, self care, resiliency, anxiety, depression. I've had so many requests from companies to produce this product, and it is starting in process, and I'm gonna keep reminding listeners that this is coming, this is coming.

And so. I am excited, super excited about that. I'm also super excited about my next podcast because it's gonna be on a topic that I've struggled with greatly over the last few years on sleep, on things that I have learned that helped me sleep, help that have helped me sleep better, and that can help you sleep better.

So tell your friends about that one, because I think it'll be extremely useful to the right audience. What insight did you gain from today? Write that down. Tuck it away. Tell yourself at three times in your head, if you're in your car, [00:25:00] what is that one takeaway, that thing you wanna make sure you don't forget about today?

As I've said before, this is called the Adams 30 70 rule. 30% of change is insight. You can sit in my office, you can acknowledge that you got these negative mindsets. But if you don't do anything about it and take action, that's where change occurs. You have to take action. That's the 70%. That's why it's more important to take action.

30% is insight, 70% is action. So make a decision about something that you learned today, and it may involve an emotional risk. It may, and it will probably involve an emotional risk where you can get rejected, hurt, judged, laughed at. Teach something that you learn, Teach that insight to somebody in the next 24 hours.

Again, hit the link to my pre pdf shatterproof yourself. Have me out to speak to your company, can be over zoom or it can be live. If you're in my area, Make it your mission to live the life now. You wanna be remembered for 10 years after you're gone live your legacy. Now you decide your legacy. You decide your future, no one else.

I appreciate you greatly and I'll see you next time.