3 Key Principles

Here are three of the key principles that we teach as vital to understand for a great relationship of any kind!

Principle #1

One  of the most powerful things that I have learned in all of my leadership training over the years is the concept of personality styles. I believe that not understanding this idea is at the core of 90% of our interpersonal relationship problems.

Most of us are aware of the concept but have never taken the time to understand it properly. Therein lies the problem. Understanding it is life changing!

I've got 4 friends who perfectly illustrate the challenge.

 #1 is the get it done at all costs, ready, fire, aim type. #2 is an organization is everything type. #3 is the if it's not fun and exciting why do it type. #4 is a peace maker.

Here's the problem. Each one views the others as having some character defects. The truth is that there is no one best personality type! All are important to accomplish anything worthwhile.

The take home principle is to allow others to magnify their own strengths instead of trying to make them become like you! (Round peg, square hole?)

The best leader is the person who works to understand all of the types and implement their strengths into their own personality!

Principle #2

A while back a friend of mine mentioned a book called "The 5 Love Languages". That book was a key turning point in improving our relationship. It helped me understand a strange experience that had happened to us a few years earlier. I'll bet many of you can relate to this!

Penny was having a rough day getting the house ready for company or something like that and she sent me to the store after something. While I was there I walked past the flower stand and in one of my rare moments of brilliance I decided to get her some flowers to tell her that I loved her and appreciated her!

Here's where it gets crazy. When I walked in the door, she took one look at me and my "stupid flowers", gave me the evil eye and told me if I didn't want them to rot, to take care of them myself! Yikes!

Now if you know her, that was totally out of character, so what did I do wrong?

I was trying to use the wrong love language to communicate my feelings to her!

Her Love Language has always been "Acts of Service" not "Gifts"! She really would have felt very loved if I would have helped her get the house ready instead!

Plus, it would have meant even more to her because she knows that I don't like to do that!

Reading that book has sure has saved me a lot of money on flowers since that time! LOL! And my sweetheart feels much more loved now-a-days!

Principle #3

Another turning point in our marriage came when we learned this simple truth. A woman's #1 need in her marriage is to hear and feel loved! A man's #1 need in his marriage is to hear and feel respected!

They are closely related but not the same. Love and Respect are Sister and Brother!

Remember guys, for the ladies, knowing they are respected is nice, but feeling loved makes their heart go Pitter-Patter!

For us men, it's nice to know you're loved, but feeling her respect is everything!!!

We just really want to "Be your Man!"

It really is the little things in life that make a difference. Here's the magic. All of these are easy to do...but they're also easy not to do!

If you just do that one little thing every day, how much farther ahead will you be after, say 10 years, than you would have been had you not?

What's your "Little Thing?"

For more info on all of these principles see our store front for the books and audios about them!