#5 This Selfish Habit Destroys Your Relationships

hey guys this is Greg Denning and you are in the school of awesome sauce where I share with you Amazing Stories and strategies to help you live an extraordinary

[Music] life good morning my friends it's another fantastic day to be alive thanks for listening to this podcast last episode I uh want to remind us all to just absolutely cherish our relationships and the people that mean so much to us do you ever slip into this kind of mode where you take them for granted like you're just going along and life's so busy got all these things to work on and and just go go go and you're focus on other things or or you just get comfortable right we all you get comfortable with something if it if it becomes commonplace it's there then it's easy to forget you know when I was a kid this is one of the few memories that I have and it still stings me to this day I think I must have been I don't know maybe 11 or 12 and my brother who's just below me 3 years younger than me you know just wanted to hang out with me wanted to wanted to hang out with his older bro which every kid does and now that I have kids like my younger kids they just adore their older siblings and I can see it and sense it and it's it's the most it's the most beautiful thing right and they just they worship them man they just want to be like them and they want to do everything with them I have an eight-year-old son right now who just loves and adores his older brothers and wants to do everything they do and and do it the way they do it and just everything he's you know even when you ask him hey what do you want to do well I'll do whatever they they want to do right and he just loves them and I'm sure it was like that with with my little brother and with me and and one day I was heading to a friend's house and didn't want to be bothered by my little brother tagging along right and I just wanted to hang out with my friend and you know I was I told him no I told him stay back and he followed us anyways gosh and I can I can still see it in my mind where I was and where it happened and and I just I remember being so bothered that he was bothering us and following us he wouldn't stay home and I I ended up telling um my stepdad who then came and got him and Drug him back home and spanked him and and I went off to my friends and you guys when I think of that and that it it just that memory has stuck with me and stung me for so long and I didn't realize it at the time but it's so clear to me now it was just an act of selfishness what better thing could I have done as a brother than to yeah of course buddy come along with us everything we're doing you're in man and and have been that kind of brother and I wish I could go back in time and be that kind of brother that would have done everything to honor and respect him and and do everything I can to like facilitate his wants and desires and wishes and to you know make sure I'm always including him right like to go out of my way to include him in what we were doing and make it special for him but I didn't have the understanding and the vision and I do now man I do now and so I want to remind all of us to to cherish the people we love and to love them to love them even more what would your relationships be like if your capacity to love was five times or 10 times more than it is right now think about that what what would it feel like what would it be like what would the D Dynamics be like of your marriage your parenting your friendships the community your your work relationship ships what would that all be like if you had a greater capacity to love and you really showed it and proved it whoa and isn't isn't life my friends isn't it all about relationships I mean that's that's an easy answer because what would your life be like if you didn't have any and if they were all broken and hurting and maybe even some of you right now are hurting you have some relationships that are really struggling and hurting and I want to encourage you that like you can make those changes you can make huge shifts and it always starts with you don't blame it on the other person don't play that card man it's so easy for us to go oh yeah well well if they would only do that then then things would be better and if they will change then I'll change but we we can't sit around waiting for other people to change we just got to jump in and say I can do what I can do I can't change other people but I can definitely change myself so it starts with me I'm going to make that happen and and really invest in these relationships so today maybe even right now jot down a couple of things you could do with each of those important relationships and do it specifically what's something you could do to improve that relationship to really level up to really invest and cherish them include them how can you start reaching out like in my story how could you start reaching out and including those people more letting I mean prove it not not just say it and I hope you say it all the time we need to be expressing our love every day I often meet uh people as I'm out coaching and mentoring traveling around the world I often meet people who who Express very little love or affection they just they don't do it they they have didn't have the habit or they didn't grow up like that and I I want to encourage all of you to do that express your love every day man make sure you tell the people you love that you love them send them notes you know tell them that give them hugs and then prove it prove your love with your actions and oh man it just it makes life so much better and you know if you listen to the previous episode you heard about the the story of their car accident how we almost lost our daughter and that's just a reminder and then all around us I'm sure you know people and maybe you've lost people you love but when when we lose a loved one you know it's this this great reminder that we need to cherish the people we love and and hopefully we don't neglect it too long and then lose someone and wish we had given them more love and more time and more attention at the end of the day and at the end of our Lives we're never going to be like man I wish I'd spent more time at the office I wish I'd spent more time by myself doing nothing right we're all G to we're going to think about our family members we're going to think about our friends and on our loved ones and that's that's going to matter so let's not wait until it's till it's Dr FC like that and we're filled with the mors but let's make sure that each day we say you know what that's that was so special right and let's let's create these relationships that we can celebrate and we can wake up just so grateful for and make sure that at the end of the day you're like yep I did the right thing today I did the right thing I expressed my love they know that I love them I showed it I included them I I made it happen one more thought here as we we expand our love right so our love starts with oursel we got to love ourselves because it all starts there the you guys the more the more I love myself the easier it is for other people to love me not not to a weird narcissistic way you know what I'm saying but I I got to have enough healthy self-love that I'm lovable and I can actually receive love and acknowledge it um the less I love myself though it actually makes it harder harder for other people to love me so it starts with me and it starts with you that we love ourselves and we acknowledge ourselves we respect ourselves and then we start loving those that are next to us that we're building these special relationships with we love them and we cherish them and then as our love grows and grows and grows it actually starts to extend out even to strangers and as I you know you you've heard part of my stories if you started listening to these episodes especially when I was out on my own I felt so lonely and so isolated and I was hurting and I lacked self-love obviously and I lacked um important and close relationships I didn't have there was a time period I didn't have any and I missed having you know friends during this one time period where you know I'd moved to couple new places and I I didn't really know anybody I felt timid and shy and and I was just I was just hurting inside hurting and lonely and scared and desperate and insecure and depressed and I often think about that me back then and what I must have come across to others and you know what I was happening and and obviously everyone you know in their own in their own life we're all in our own life doing our own thing but I often think you know if if I could go back and do life over I would become the young man that reaches out to the the former me does that make sense I would be the guy that goes out and connects with and and supports and encourages and cheers on and and befriends the old me if I could go back and do it over again I'd spend my my Youth and Young Adult years reaching out to those kids that I know are lonely and hurting and just desperate for any kind of connection and love and friendship they just need some help and they need someone to put an arm around them and say hey you got this man let me know how I can help that's that's who I would be that's the kind of person I'd be and I go back and but I can't go back and you can't go back and we can't we can't change the past but we can only change the way we see the past and so what I can see from my past from that story with my little brother from my own hurt and experiences and and wishing there was someone there to to put an armor around me and love me and help me encourage me and Mentor me and train me I can learn lessons from that and become that kind of man and so I am on a mission and a quest to become my very best self to work on me harder than I work on anything else and to get the growth that I need the Improvement that I need so I can then after I grow I can then be a huge asset to those around me right you guys have all heard this it's like the the oxygen masks on the airplane right when you're flying the oxygen mask comes down and and the flight attendants tell you like put on your own mask first even before you help a child and you're like what that seems crazy like it's a little kid man help the kid but the point is you if you're if you're suffocating and if you're struggling you you can't help other other people so you you've got to be in a good place first you got to make sure you're in a good place you're healthy and strong and and growing and proving and you're capable like you've got to be in a good place and the the better off you are the more capable you are to help others right and so we've got to get in that good place and then get on this quest to be a phenomenal husband or wife right to build an extraordinary family culture to be a world class mom or dad to be a true friend and neighbor because oh man you guys feel this can you can you sense this can you feel this just this desire to be your best self and really invest in others and remember like here's a there's a question I heard years ago that really struck me powerfully like I just said at at the when in in every role you're in ask yourself what the people around you will think of you and remember about you in that role so what will your spouse think of you during this time period when they look back during this time and remember you what will they think your kids you know when they're little or when they're teens what will they remember what will they remember about you during this time period what will your co-workers remember about you during this time you worked with them or uh the people you're leading what will they remember about you or will you what will your neighbors remember you get what I'm saying and we start thinking about that like whoa okay like I I want to step it up I want I want to be remembered in a great way because not not not for any ego or anything but because I was striving to become a great person and I treated other people with deep respect and love so let's just take take an inventory today and it's it's little things remember I love to say this little things done consistently and well make a big difference little things done consistently and well make a big difference will you please with me today make sure that each of your children know how much you love and cherish them we make sure your spouse knows that show it to them say get to them prove it like do what you need to do change what you need to change if you if you've got some addictions or struggles or bad habits or things you're struggling with that's having a real negative effect on your relationships man fix those things get that junk out of your life and really step it up so you can give your whole self to the people around you love you right oh we can do this you guys and it makes life so good when we do it so invest in yourself invest in your relationships let them know again man I I know I keep repeating this you guys you're like okay you've said that already I'm T tired of your repetition but I want to emphasize so powerfully I want to make sure I'm saying this in enough different ways that it just hits home we prove our priorities with our actions and we prove our love with our actions and with our words so prove it show it make it happen and it will make a difference ah love you guys thanks for listening here thanks for being good people thanks for investing your relationships as you do this we can have this dramatic effect starting with ourselves and our family and our friends and our community and we can have this positive effect on the whole world on really showing uh our family and others how to have great relationships and how to live live life like that connected and in love in love with people and Life to Live a great life remember awesome is always an option reach

upward hey everybody thanks so much for listening to this episode I hope you got a lot of value out of it and found some things that you can apply to your life right away hey I'm I'm being totally sincere when I say I I live to help you live your extraordinary life so I hope you'll reach out to me if you have any questions or let me know how I can help you in any important area of your life and in fact you know this this podcast is brought to you by the school of awesome sauce monthly coaching program take advantage of that get in there if it's the best way to get a breakthrough to the next level so you can level up your health your spirituality your emotions your mind your relationship your finances business every part of your life just get in there where you have a a coach and a mentor you have a supportive Community to make things happen so so jump in there take advantage of this try it out get in there with us and level up your life see you on the inside reach upward [Music]