How to Win at Life… in a Relationship!

Listen on Sound Cloud 

Why are we talking about how to create impactful romantic relationships?

We are discussing this topic because a vast majority of people, will invest their time mostly either at work or with their wife/husband/partner. Both aren’t hard to acquire, and the latter is extremely typical.

How do people get caught up in relationships?

For human beings finding someone they are attracted too can escalade into something more serious through a variety of means. The snowball that is romance could begin with a glance, a hug, and most impactful, a conversation. The emotions and desires will grow if the attention is reciprocated on both ends. From there what is common, the relationship blossoms into some form of commitment.

Now the next stage (for those who made it this far) requires either party to blink. Before either is aware, the very same person they thought was sent from the heavens is now in a heated exchange with them about pancake batter mix preferences or the door being unlocked.

Jokes aside, people weren’t designed to get along with each other, especially under constant exposure to one another. Thus conflict is built into the design of love and prolonged intimacy. That being said, the problem isn’t the conflict. The problem is that there aren’t the tools given to us at a young age to learn to navigate the complexities romantic relationships bring before we experience them.

Why start learning how to thrive in exciting & results driven relationships today?

We all will get tossed into the jungle of love. It is known instinctually and by just looking at the data readily available in our daily lives.  Virtually all of us will experience these seemingly uncharted waters one day. Yet so many fail at establishing any real alignment or understanding.

Also trying to cultivate inspirational and result driven relationships isn’t taught in school. Unless we try to find the answers, we will never have the skills to navigate these waters.

With anything we undertake we may as well do it well, and there are those out there that aren’t just “getting by” in their relationships. They are thriving individually while together at levels they weren’t doing prior to meeting each other living the single life. Their are couples who establish themselves as powerful and exciting duos, enabling one another to achieve their full potential and realize their dreams!

How do Nick and Jess enable each other tor reach their full potential while in a committed relationship?

Nick and Jess met back at college in cafeteria 9 years ago. They felt a special spark right away and felt they wanted to get into a more committed relationship as fate would seem to have it.

Much like any relationship of course hurdles existed. Their relationship however, had one hurdle after another from the jump (like having a long term relationship almost instantly for many months when Jess had to leave to Australia). After being communicative and overcoming some very challenging initial hurdles, they realized how overcoming their challenges empowered them to to become stronger together then they were alone so they decided to double down on their relationship and improve their finances, careers, romance, fitness, investments, passions, and communications at greater levels (with the help of some mentors and amazing books).

Here are some tips taken from our episode all about how Nick and Jess win at life while in a relationship:

1) Have deeper conversations, stay engaged, Keep the spark alive  – To keep the spark alive, ones understanding for each other has to go deeper than favorite colors and food but deeper into what inspires one another. Really take the time to discover the other person and naturally a deeper connection will be created that will help keep things feeling new an interesting.

2) Make a decision to stick around during the valleys  – As they say character is made in the valleys and not the peaks, and relationships to are forged in the valleys. It is during the hard times you learn to problem solve. There is intimacy created like diamonds that are created under pressure. Where we start to trust and believe in each other’s ability to overcome hurdles together is when pressure and stress arises! Stay around for the diamonds.

3) Learn each other’s Love languages -Going into the relationship, it is important to learn how people communicate ideas of care, support, and affection. This helps keep connection and attraction alive. It is required we receive the feelings of love and care from our partner we need to keep our “love tank full” as the book “The Five Love Languages” talks about (highly suggested read).

For Example, Jess has some favorite Love languages like quality time (being completely in the present moment doing something she loves to do with her partner) and acts of service (being productive and seeing Nick contribute around the house.

Nick at one point was always on his phone, absolutely addicted and because a love language Jess requires to be spoken to keep their relationship strong is “quality time”. Nick didn’t realize she didn’t feel valued when he was always on his phone! So he made sure to keep his phone down when him and Jess had time set to do something together.

4) Be perceptive to what is being communicated without talking about it – Nick learned that all the time Jess isn’t going to share what she likes and doesn’t like and may not share her comfort zone or what makes her happy when he asks. He learned to speak love languages Jess responds well to by looking at what make her happy, but he needed to learn what she looked like when she was happy first!

For example, people hold the door for one another and don’t always say thank you but they may show you with their body language they are grateful. Learn to read the signs and listen to the unspoken.

The more we get to learn to speak each other’s love language the better frequency we will create with our partner. This will make future communication positive and easier to have conversations that may be tougher down the road.

5) Learn to have tough conversations – Having conversations that are uncomfortable, awkward, or threatening require a level of finesse to maneuver. If we are someone who likes having a touchy conversation right when an issue pops up, consider waiting a little longer. If we happen to be someone who likes to avoid these kinds of talks at all costs, give your self timeline in which you will have to bring the topic up.

Nick and Jess suggested the book “Crucial Conversations”, all about how to create the right temperature to talk about something.

6) Radical transparency don’t hide anything –  Consider sharing your emails, finances, credit card statements, even passwords. If this is someone you are planning to build a life together with, this level of transparency can help support one another by breaking down barriers that would divide two people who are on the same team by establishing radical trust in one another.

7) Make sure your “home team” wins  –  Nick and Jess refer to their relationship as the home team. So this helps make it easy to understand the obvious that the home team is the team they represent and who doesn’t want the home team to win? Because they have a winning mind set, they realize they are only as strong as one another are at the end of the day as in any team sport.

When you start looking at you and your partner as the home team, you start thinking long term and develop more exciting strategies that will pay off when thinking together. Sacrifices won’t feel like sacrifices in the relationship because you are working towards the greater good of something better then where you are today so you can one day win the championship AKA your dreams!

8) Prioritize your finances –At one point in the relationship Nick was selfish with his money and doing things only for him. This manifested in focusing on instant gratification and short-term purchases. The little things are great to have now but takeaway from future more fulfilling investments that can keep the spice in your relationship alive and help deliver on your dream.

Remember, double the income means potentially double the savings and two minds who can plan a way to do great things with their money as money is a resource to help you live your life.

As Nick shared, the route of Evil is not money, It’s the love for money that is the route of all Evil.” Love your vision more than you love your money and respect your vision enough to save to help reach your goals. This will inspire discipline in your relationship. Dream up a beautiful life and plan your finances accordingly to help build resolve. Oh and keep each other accountable by asking each other, “is this something you need today?”.

9) Achieve career success, but make sacrifices intelligently with end goals in mind – Nick is looking at what is going to help them get to their goal the quickest by starting with the end goal in mind and working backwards when looking at what are some acceptable and more challenging strategies they will deploy. The idea is to have both you and your partners short term goals align with your long term goals. Maybe it means working nights for X amount of time. Maybe it’s working a lower paying job to spend more time with the kids. But the question to ask always before making these impactful decisions are are your activities taking you towards your long-term goals eventually? Are the short term trade offs worth it for the long term vision?  Communicate these potentially compromising activities and make a decision together.

For example, Jess got a great job offer as geologist in Texas out of school. Due to there being limited jobs in Chicago close to home. She could have got a great paying job, but she chose to not take the job to prioritize the relationship. Jess would have been off shore on a oil rig off of the Gulf of Mexico really far from Nick.

She knew she had to find a position that is right for the relationship. Does this mean in theory perhaps she could have decided to take a year to save some money, get experience and come back? No, this decision may have been right for another couple. However she felt that they can achieve their long-term plan by compromising on her not getting into her field right away.

The good news? Their patience paid off as she ended up finding a good job more local not long after and finding a name for herself in her company!

Another example of a potential sacrifice that they decided to make is at the beginning of that position however, her and Nick were either working day shifts or nights shifts not seeing each other much. They decided this was more digestible as a short term sacrifice and decided to tough it out for a period of time and not see each other as much as it was worth the sacrifice for them as they knew more freedom would be in the horizon. Eventually they got the promotions and hours they wanted and today have great schedules that compliment the time they would like to share with each other.

10) Always prioritize your health, as health is wealth  – If you can’t move, you can’t experience the joys of life nearly as much. Eventually you can’t enjoy everything you worked for too if you can’t get out of bed. Nick and Jess have ultimate goals which require they be as healthy as they can be so they can enjoy the fruits of their labor feeling young and healthy.

How they do this is by making certain things a part of their lifestyle. Meal prepping for example is something they do to achieve this. Diet is 70% of any individuals health they believe and the other 30% is working out. Focusing on that 70% gives you the biggest ROI when looking at starting to focus on your health. New in a relationship? Why not start building your bond with meal prepping exciting, fun, and healthy meals you both enjoy?

11) Leverage one another’s ambition for excellence  – Once you get some momentum in areas like managing your health, it is obvious it may dwindle down in one another at any given time. Practice lifting your partner up, for example, like when they don’t feel like working out can build resilience in you both. Eventually you both will have enough practice to know when to push each other and the best ways to do it.

While you may be strong enough on your own, being surrounded by someone as equally motivated as you at times will help you pick each other up off the valleys and into new peaks!

12) Find mentors who have the relationship, finances, health, business acumen, romance, and communication you would like with your partner  – Nick and Jess have mentors and they exercise a radical level of transparency with them.

During the pandemic, their mentors helped them a lot with their mindset and mental health within the relationship. So much so they fully love truly spending so much time around each other even in close quarters now. Of course, this is no easy feat, it took some work, but the point is they learned how to make any of their challenges they face a strength.

Any hurdle they face, they learn to overcome them because they learned slowly over time as they overcome their challenges, they build muscles that will help them lift a future weight much easier.

This for them is hugely possible with the help of their mentors whom they share openly all aspects of their relationship. They trust their mentors because they are living the life they want, achieving the high performing results they seek, and navigating confidently the uncharted waters Nick and Jess have yet to approach. 

12) Give 100% per person, no 50 / 50 splits in energy – 100% efforts is what Nick and Jess feel make them so resilient. They can rely on each other to try and give their best effort even when they don’t get the return they expect from their partner. How they reset that egotistical expectation is by reminding themselves something that Jess shared:

“Our job is to leave a mark in people’s life not a stain” and based on that, we must assess that the reason we give our best effort is to enhance one another’s life while fulfilling our aligned purposes. It is normal to feel frustrated when you don’t get what you want so being focused on what you can control is imperative especially as long as you are both making reasonable efforts to win for the home team and leave a positive mark in this world and eachother.

***Combine these tips together – when you pair some or all of these together your benefits compound**