Welcome to this conversation between Stephen & Warren - in this one we tackle Relationships.  Stephen takes us beyond relationships with friends and colleagues - and we look at how we relate with the world around us.  It's a big idea but boils down to some key principles.

It's a good topic and really helps to drive ownership of your starting position.  Let us know what you think on podcast@coachpro.online.

Some notes from the episode below:

Relationships can be how you relate with people, both personally and professionally, so friends, and colleagues, partners and bosses, but also your relationship with your work, your relationship with possessions, relationships that you might have with habits, or trends or things. And importantly a good relationship with yourself in terms of how you see yourself; your own identity, your purpose and how you relate to that.

So it's how we relate to things in terms of its purpose and value, what we will do for it, and what we expect it to do for us. So that we can make sure that what we're doing is developing, maintaining and redefining relationships; that we have put thought into all these areas in a way that's optimal, that works best for us in terms of being able to shape and own those relationships, but also that it gives us that confidence and sense of personal growth.

The relationship between you and pretty much everything else can be improved or done better overall.

Relationships are fluid. Alive. They'll have varying degrees of importance, relevance and prominence in my thinking. And that‘s okay.

Important to understand that this lifelong relationship we have with ourselves and everything around about us has an energy and has a flow and that we can either just be on the receiving end, or we can take more ownership of that and start to shape it.

First of all, your need awareness of the relationship and then it's about managing that to make sure that it remains current, relevant and of value. All our relationships have a current value. The relationship you may have had with a new car was a relationship with something that was inspiring you, was motivating you, was giving you focus. Now you've bought the car that relationship with that now needs to change because it's no longer the thing that you're chasing, or you're inspired to go and get. So you now need to change and redefine that relationship.

The more longer term, strategic view on relationships is, what are the future relationships I really want to build that are optimal for everybody involved.

I feel like I'm in a computer game now. And I'm the central character - you're already in that computer game and you're already the central figure. But it depends on whether you want to sit back and wait to see what happens, or whether you want to shape what you want to happen next

Social media may define the relationship with you as being the target. And if you do not redefine that relationship, then that relationship will be defined for you. If someone puts you in a position where they see you as a victim, or someone to pick on or to take advantage of, if you don't redefine that relationship then that’s the relationship.  Choose something better for you rather than it be chosen for you

In terms of your own emotional well-being, then this gives you some sense of control and mastery over that relationship. If you don't put yourself in a position in that relationship, which makes you happy or strong or confident then you're going to get what's coming to you. Sometimes that will be good and sometimes it will be bad, but it's out of your control and being out of control will lead to anxiety, stress or unhappiness. So this is an important way of taking control of things and getting on top of things.

It starts with you. And it's the relationship you have with yourself. That relationship is:what do you want to be able to count on yourself for? What value do you want to bring to that relationship? You will never be able to do it for someone else more than you do it for yourself. That's why it starts with you.

What would others say I'm good at?

What would others say I could be counted on for?

When I'm at my best, what strengths do I have, when do I tend to shine?

When am I allowed to be the best version of myself?

When am I at my strongest? My most influential?

When am I most proud of who I am and why?

The most beautiful relationships are lifelong. Lifelong relationships require continual redefinition. Because it protects the currency, protects the value, protects the relevance.  It communicates how important that relationship is because it's continually being redefined.

Certain relationships that you can redefine all on your own and there are certain relationships where you're going to have to engage with the thing, or the person and say, ‘Look, this is where I would love this to start going’.

You want to get ahead of the game in a good relationship and say:how can we make this even better?

Setting out an emotional contract is important in building really positive, beneficial, mutually respected relationships. I've also seen it being the thing that destroys and breaks relationships.

Often in business when you're pitching to get a client we don't tell the client why it's so important to you. You don't make it clear what you're getting from this relationship. And yet you expect or hope that relationship to evolve into more than just a transaction.  When people know how important they are to you and to the process then you've got a relationship that's more than just the formal transaction reason that got you together in the first place.

You have a relationship already with all people and all things, you're just going to be more consciously aware that you have that relationship. And some of those relationships are hopefully fantastic, fulfilling, loving, rewarding relationships that you want for the rest of your life. And there's others that have the potential to get closer to that. And then there's some relationships that you may want to start that you haven't started yet. Because this is how you can really start a relationship on a really sound footing. Because it's based upon value and trust and communication.

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