Category: Relationships

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What Are You Interested In?

What are you most interested in? I am sure several things came to your mind. Things like gardening, good food, sports, cars, cats, dogs, Facebook, well you get the idea. Now, if you are in an intimate relationship with another person, do you know what they are interested in? Most likely you do.

Usually early in the relationship you are all about what they are interested in. If he likes NASCAR you sit with him and watch and even buy stuff with his favorite driver’s number. If she is into shopping you volunteer to take her to the mall and you wait for her as she tries on 10 outfits. When you are dating you are very interested in what the other person is interested in. At least in most cases this is true. It’s part of the courting process, trying to win them over.

Over time that tends to lessen. You start to get annoyed with those things that he is interested in. You don’t have the patience you once had. You simply don’t take the time to do things that you are not interested in.

Here is something that the Apostle Paul wrote about this topic. He is talking about how we should act if we are followers of Christ. If we have that relationship in our lives we should then demonstrate how to love other people in a healthy way, the way that Jesus demonstrated love for us.

So this is how we should show love and treat other people, especially our spouses.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than your selves. Each of you should also look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

What if that read this way – “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider Vikki better than yourself. Chad you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of Vikki.”

So what does that mean to you and I? One simple way is to listen well. When we take the time to really focus on the other person and listen patiently and ask questions to find out more about what they are interested in, that is what Paul is talking about. When we make a decision to learn more about something even though it does not interest us, it shows the other person that we care.

How many wives are deeply interested in what their husband does at work? He spends most of his waking hours working and sometimes the most important person in his life could care less what he is doing at work. Of course that goes both ways, how many husbands are truly interested in what their wives did all day at work or at home. Or maybe he is really into sports and you could care less. That sends a message to him. Or what if she is really into gardening and you could care less about that, that sends a message to her.

When we don’t make the effort to be interested in what interests our spouse we tend to drift apart. Now this doesn’t mean we need to become obsessed with what they are interested in, but it means we need to have a different mindset about relationships. In healthy relationships we are constantly learning about each other and adjusting. We are looking for ways we can connect and serve each other. We are looking for ways to have meaningful conversations so that we can understand each other better.

So think about how you can show more interest in what your spouse or significant other is interested in. Start by listening better, really paying attention when they are talking about something they value. Ask some questions, to help you better understand. When you do this it will express to the other person that they are important to you and that you value them. That simple change in your mindset can transform your relationship. Try it and see how surprised they are when you show interest!

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How Relationships Decline

I recently started reading a book call “How the Mighty Fall” by Jim Collins. It’s about how great companies can decline and actually cease to exist. This can happen very quickly or over a long period of time. He has identified 5 stages of decline for companies that fall. As I was reading this it occurred to me that I see similarities in our relationships that fall. Whether it’s a marriage relationship, dating relationship, friendships or family relationships.

The first stage toward decline is what he calls “Hubris Born of Success”. This stage kicks in when a person becomes arrogant, thinking they have arrived in this relationship and we don’t have many problems. They start to drift away from the foundations of what made this a great relationship. It’s the idea of courtship and pursuing your mate and then after marriage you become lax and a bit more selfish. When you are falling in love, often you are blind to warning signs.

Stage 2 is “Undisciplined Pursuit of More”. Collins says this is when companies go for more scale, more growth, more acclaim, more of whatever they view as success. Maybe getting into areas they cannot be great at, or growing too fast. In relationships this is when we start doing things that are not best for the relationship, but feel like success. It could be after getting married you need that new house and other material stuff. It could be having children right away. It could be getting married too quickly and not taking time to date and build a foundation. In a dating relationship it may be moving in together and living together, or starting to have sex. In other relationships it could be always doing the things you like instead of finding out what the other person likes.

Stage 3 is called “Denial of Risk and Peril”. At this stage internal warning signs are going off, yet we ignore them and keep doing what we are doing. We might discount negative feedback we get from our spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend or friends. We justify behavior and blame external factors for our problems. We think this is just a temporary setback and things will get better soon. We don’t take advice from people trying to help. We hope things will get better, yet don’t make any changes.

Stage 4 is called “Grasping for Salvation”. Things have continued to decline and get worse and now we see there really is a problem. Now we start looking for the quick fix. We start trying to find an easy way to get things back on track. It might be getting a book to read on marriage or relationships. Maybe even starting talking with someone about the problem. We watch Dr. Phil faithfully. Maybe we even start going to church again or get in a small group. Calling your pastor or counselor and schedule an appointment, hoping they can fix this mess.

Stage 5 is called “Capitulation to Irrelevance or death.” This is when the relationship ends. It’s usually when the feeling is hopelessness. Nothing we have tried has worked and we are tired of trying to fix it. It is easier to just end it and move on.

If you have reached stage 4 in any of your relationships, you can pull out of it, but it will take some courage to get back to the basics of rebuilding the foundation. Usually the ones that make it are the ones that are willing to focus on themselves and making personal changes toward being less selfish, stubborn, closed or angry. Forgiveness is usually the key to turning the relationship around and reconciling. I will write more on Forgiveness in my next post.

If your declining, go back and focus on what built the relationship in the first place. Look at yourself and not the other person. Get help early instead of later. Involve God in this process as well. It is always best to start working on your spiritual growth when you are declining in any of your relationships. That tends to be a major reason why things decline, is because people tend to gradually shut God out of their lives and relationships as they decline. Getting back on track with God can help you get back on track relationally.

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Finishing Well

I was talking with a friend and mentor of mine the other day after a funeral that we were both involved in. I asked Jim what he wanted people to say at his funeral. He is 88 years old. He paused and thought for a moment and then said “I want them to say that I was a decent man, that’s it.” Then he thought some more and said, “Chad, I want to finish well, not many people in the Bible finished well so I want to be one of the few that does.”

That made me really think about my own life and the legacy that I want to leave behind. It also made me think about what it means to finish well. I think for my friend Jim, he wants to finish with his focus on God and family. He doesn’t want to let his family down by making bad decisions or saying things to hurt people. He wants to remain humble, helpful and serve the people around him as best he can. I think he wants to pass on what God has given him to his family and friends.

I am 40 years old and want to finish well. None of us know how long we have to finish well. I may get another 48 years and get to the age Jim is at. I may only get a few more years. What I need to remember is that every day matters and every decision matters.

Finishing well doesn’t mean you have to live a perfect life, just a surrendered life. Finishing well is all about having the right perspective about your life, your purpose for being here and your relationship with God. Finishing well for me means building strong healthy relationships, growing in character, learning from mistakes and pouring what you have into the people around you.

My prayer for you today is to finish well, no matter what you did in the past you can make the choice to finish well from this point on.

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Fear

What’s holding you back from living life to the fullest? What fears are causing problems in your relationships? Emotional fear has a way of making us do wacky, irrational things. Emotional fear causes us to do and say things that hurt and confuse those around us. Fear is an emotion of dread or alarm caused by a perceived danger.

Our fears usually come from bad experiences in our lives, when we felt like we were in danger. Things from our childhood, high school, college, bad relationships and abuse whether physical or emotional. When something reminds us of those bad feelings we go into our fear mode. It could be a fear of being rejected again, or maybe a fear of failing or being let down. It could be a fear of being abandoned, controlled, being abused, not being heard or looking stupid. There are many fears that keep us from living life to the fullest.

Dr. Gary Smalley calls this the fear dance in our relationships. Our fear button is pushed, We sense danger, we want it to stop or go away, so we do or say something to make that person stop, which often times pushes their fear button and the process is repeated by the other person.

A very common scenario in many marriage relationships, is one person feels the fear of being rejected or abandoned. This fear causes them to try to control the other person, because they fear losing them. By trying to control the person, it taps that persons fear of being controlled or told what to do. That person pulls further away, because they do not want to be controlled. And around we go, pushing buttons, stuck in the fear dance.

To overcome your fears you must understand them and face them. When you understand what your fear is, you can begin to realize why you do some of the weird stuff you do. So the next time you get into a fight with someone close to you, stop and ask yourself; Why did that make me mad? What am I afraid will happen if I don’t push back? Why does that bother me so much?

The Bible says that Perfect loves drives out fear. Jesus is perfect love, so that is were your focus needs to be in overcoming fear. When you focus on God’s immeasurable love for you, and then allow Him to love others through you, His love will quiet your fears and give you confidence to stop the fear dance.

If you want to learn more about the fear dance and how to learn new relationship dance moves I recommend you read the book – The DNA of Relationships by Dr. Gary Smalley. He even has a quiz in the back of the book to identify your fears. Click here to download the Fear Dance Worksheet.

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Trust Me

Why is trust such a big deal? When I was in the business world of banking and consulting trust was a key ingredient to client development. When clients felt like they could trust you, they would be more loyal, worry less and take your advice more readily.

It’s the same in any relationship. Take the marriage relationship for example. When both husband and wife trust each other they are more committed to each other, they worry less about what the other is doing while they are not around and they tend to listen better and accept what they hear.

Whether in business , marriage, friendship or any other relationships trust is vital to good health. When you trust someone, there is a comfort or easiness about the relationship. If you don’t trust your friends, you are less likely to open up and share much about what is going on in your life. If you don’t trust your spouse you are going to be skeptical of everything they say or do. If you don’t trust God you will not believe everything He says and hold back from giving him all of you.

So how do you build trust? Henry Cloud made this statement “Where there is a failure in empathy and understanding, trust is not built.” For trust to happen we must listen well. When you listen to someone with the intent of trying to understand them or where they are coming from it builds trust. You do this by being fully present with them, asking questions to clarify and by not prejudging or jumping to conclusions. When you listen with empathy, you are trying to put yourself in their shoes and understand their hearts. When you listen well and someone feels like you understand them, trust is deepened.

Trust is also built by being actively involved in that persons life. When you show that you are actually interested in them as a person it builds a bond. Showing that you value them and want to get to know them will build trust and strengthen the relationship. God demonstrated this quite well, He desires to know us at an intimate level, to always be with us and to care about every single part of our lives. Read Psalm 139.

Trust is also built when we treat others well, no matter what they can or can’t do for us. It is easy to treat people well, when they treat you well. But what about the people that have hurt you or offended you? What about the spouse that has been distant and irritable. When we extend grace, which is unmerited favor, to other people it builds trust and respect. Remember God gives us unbelievable grace.

Trust is also built when we are real with people. When we share that we are not perfect and that we do mess up. When we admit our mistakes and ask for forgiveness. When people see that you are willing to open up and show your weaknesses it builds credibility and trust. The people around you already know your weaknesses and when you mess up. When you admit it, it shows that you are real and not fake. Fake people cannot be trusted.

We also trust people that do what they said they would do. When you walk the talk, so to speak it builds trust. This is an issue of character and integrity. When you make a promise do you follow through or do you drop the ball. When you tell your spouse you will do something do you follow through or do you usually forget. Dependable people build trust and are entrusted with more.

Trust is not something that is just freely given. People don’t usually blindly trust. Trust is earned by our behavior. To build trust we must build the kind of character that the people around us can see on a regular basis. This takes diligent spiritual growth, that shapes you into the man or woman that God created you to be. The benefit of being trustworthy is healthy, happy relationships.

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Top 5 Keys to Strong Relationships

Someone asked me my opinion about what identifies a person that is good at building strong relationships. I made the comment that great leaders are great at building relationships. If you want to improve as a leader and improve any relationship in your life try my top five thoughts.

Here are my top 5 keys in building lasting relationships:

  1. Be Present – Give people your full attention when you are with them. Focus on them, look them in the eye. Make them feel like the most important person in the room.
  2. Listen well – Ask questions to make sure you understand what they are saying. Repeat back what you heard them saying. Use your body language to let them know you are listening.
  3. Take the initiative – Be intentional about meeting with them and spending time with them. Keep track of how long it has been since you spent quality time with the person you are friends with.
  4. Don’t try to fix them – Don’t judge them either. Instead empathize with them and just love them. Friends are not projects, that you need to improve or fix.
  5. Pray for them – When you are regularly praying for someone your attitude and perspective change. Find out how to pray for them by asking them.

Relationships matter!

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House of Cards

I was watching a news report called House of cards the other night. It was reporting on how the mortgage crisis happened. The lenders were making it easy to borrow money and the people were happy to take it. I was amazed to hear about families that borrowed large amounts of money by tapping into their “equity”. Many did it by inflating or exaggerating their income. This was sometimes encouraged by the mortgage brokers. Some of the families did not understand the terms of the loan. They assumed that they could always refinance later if they needed to. All of this was building toward a certain crash. Borrowing and spending money on the hope that your income will always go up and that your home value will never go down. Overextending yourself through credit is always a dangerous game.

Yesterday I had breakfast with a friend of mine and he made the comment that made me think of the House of Cards, “what are you investing in that could bankrupt you?” He wasn’t talking about mortgages, he was talking about spiritually and relationally. Is your faith a house of cards? Are your relationships a house of cards? Does it feel like things could fall apart at any time?

What are the things you are spending your time on that may be distracting you from your relationship with God? Or what are you investing in that is hurting your important relationships? What are you reading? What are you watching? Who are you spending time with? Who are you listening too? Who are you unwilling to forgive? Where are you spending your money? What are you putting in your body? What are you doing with your body? How are you treating the people around you?

We all need to take a serious look at where we are investing our time, talent, thoughts, attention, money and energy. There may be some things you need to eliminate, change or get out of in order to avoid a bankruptcy, whether that is emotional, relational, financial, physical or spiritual.

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Loving Well

We all want to have close loving relationships. Whether it is your family or friends we want those relationships to be healthy and last a long time. It’s the same in our marriage relationships. Our desire is to have a long, happy, healthy marriage. I’ve studying about love and relationships for a while now and thought I would write about how to make love last.

The Bible has a lot to say about this topic. Relationships are highly valued by God. He told us to love Him with all we have and to love other people. 1 Corinthians chapter thirteen is the most famous teaching about love. It is used in most weddings and many vows. The Apostle Paul is teaching about the way of love, kind of a reminder about how to love other people, especially your spouse. I want to focus on verses 4-7. In verses 4, 5 & 6 he talks about things most of us would agree are very important in loving another person.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” I think we all agree those are hugely important in any love relationship. Then he says something that has always bothered me. He uses a word I don’t like to use much, he says always, not once but four times. “It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” The Message version says this: “Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end.”

Always, really, how is that possible? The more I thought about it the more I am convinced that this is the key to a long, happy love relationship. Let me explain.

In every relationship there are expectations. When those expectations are not met there is a gap. It is in that gap that we have a choice to make. Do we choose to assume the worse about the other person or do we believe the best. When someone you love lets you down and does not do what he said do you always look for the best or do you go negative.

In a business book called “The One Thing You Need To Know” by Marcus Buckingham he talks about a study that was done on happily married couples. They were looking for the one thing that was common with happily married couples. They thought the answer would be that they knew each other well and had clear expectations about each other. That was based on studying couples that were struggling in their marriages. What they found was just the opposite. They found that happily married couples had an unrealistic view of their spouse. In questions about their spouse they always rated them higher than the person rated themselves. The study discovered that couples that choose to believe the best about their spouse until proven otherwise were much more happy in their relationship.

Another way of saying it is that they make charitable judgements about each other. When he is late from work again, she thinks and believes that he is working hard on some important things and is grateful that he provides for the family. When she forgets to pay a bill again, he thinks and believes that she has been busy and things have been a little crazy lately.

When one of your expectations is not met, what do you choose to do? Do you choose to believe the best and spiral upward in love or do you assume the worst and spiral downward in love? Think back to when you were falling in love with this person. You did not notice the negative things, because you were so focused on the good things. The happiest couples were the ones that have maintained that in their marriage.

When you choose to believe the best, you draw the other person closer to you. You cause the other person to want to be with you. When you go negative, even if you are right, you push the other person further away from you. No one wants to disappoint someone they love. When you assume the worst and say those negative words you are contributing to the damage of your relationship.

This principle works for any relationship. How do you respond to your children when they don’t meet your expectations? How about your parents, your friends, your brother or sister?

Read it again: “It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

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Whispers

I read this Cherokee Proverb that I really like. “Listen to the whispers and you won’t have to hear the screams.”

If you are attentive to the small issues, you can avoid a lot of big issues. Listening can keep problems from escalating. When you hear the the whispers of those around you it helps you connect with them; understand them; serve them; lead them and love them.

Many of the problems you face at work, at home and anywhere else is a result of not listening. When you are focused on your own needs, your own problems and your own best interests, you tend to not listen to those around you. That usually leads to mistakes and bad decisions. It also puts up a wall to those around you.

If you will take the step today to be a better listener, all of your relationships will improve. People will want to spend time with you, because when you listen, you communicate that you care.

To be a great listener, you need to be humble and be willing to slow down enough to hear those whispers. Whose whispers are you missing? Are you getting only screams? Start by listening for those whispers, those small things that you can act on and respond to that will communicate that you care.

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Make it Personal

I recently read about a spiritual exercise that I thought I would do myself. After doing it I was humbled and reminded what it really means to love people. We sometimes just read Scripture and don’t make it personal. I would encourage you to read this with your name instead of mine. Then ask yourself does any of this describe me? Do I love other people this way? Would anyone in your life say this about you?

Chad is patient, Chad is kind. He does not envy, he does not boast, he is not proud. Chad is not rude, he is not self-seeking, he is not easily angered, Chad keeps no record of wrongs, Chad does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Chad always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

I don’t know about you, but that was a wake up call for me. That is what I want people to say about me when I am gone. What can you start doing today to make some of that true about you in your relationships?