Confidence Classic: The Formula For STRONG Relationships, With Kathryn Gordon Relationship Expert & Best Selling Author

0:00Your relationship should come first. And so many times it's your coworkers and your children and your friends, everybody else gets the best of you. And then your partner gets what's left. No, it should be the other way around. Let's remember when you get into a relationship, you're also bringing in all your past hurts, all your past experiences. You can make your relationship everything you always wanted it to be. It's vulnerability, communication. It's all the things we talk about. It's grit. I'm on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity, and set you up for a better tomorrow.

0:42I'm ready for my close-up. Tell me, have you been enjoying these new bonus confidence classics episodes we've been dropping on you every week? We've literally hundreds of episodes for you to listen to. So these bonuses are a great way to help you find the ones you may have already missed. I hope you love this one as much as I do.

1:04I'm so excited for you to meet my guest today, Catherine Gordon. She's a wife, a mother, businesswoman, movie producer, bestselling author of Relationship Grit, and host of the Catherine For Real podcast. A graduate of Old Dominion University, Catherine became a top producer in sales for several companies before deciding to follow her passion as an actress and model. After the birth of her children, she focused on raising them and helping operate her husband's growing speaking and consulting business. That's an understatement. With her children off to college, she has returned for her second act investing in real estate and movies, mentoring women, included your girl right here, supporting several charities, writing and speaking to audiences about the keys to a great relationship and loves, sharing the truth on her podcast, Catherine For Real.

1:56She's my girl. Well, she's the best. Catherine, thanks for being here. Oh, Heather, I'm so glad to be here with you. You're so awesome. Oh my gosh, right back at you. I'm so excited. So, all right, I want to jump right into this, guys. I have never talked about this on the podcast before. So this is going to be straight out of my comfort zone. That's why I needed Catherine to be here with me. So I very rarely talk about my personal life. I very rarely am excited about my personal life because frankly, I don't meet a lot of great guys. However, I was set up by an incredible person on a blind date and I was more nervous and caring about this date than ever that I ever remember in my life.

2:36And Catherine was holding my hand through the whole process and helping me get so ready. And Catherine, the difference that you made for me and help setting me up for success in that date up for success was something so powerful. I wanted to share it with my listeners. Yeah, I'm glad. It was, it was meant to be, I mean, we just happened to talk at that right time. And I'm like, Heather, have you read my book? Oh my gosh. And guys, so many people will say that to me. Oh, you should just read this book, read this book. This literally, I dropped everything and went and read relationship grit immediately.

3:12It's such an easy read. I read it in, I think it was two hours, right? It's not hard to read. The format number one is super cool. And by the way, this episode right now is for anyone that maybe you're going on a first date. Maybe you're in a relationship. Maybe you've been married for 50 years, Catherine, because I know you shared with me an older woman that really got some massive wisdom that shifted her relationship. This is for anyone that's in any type of romantic relationship, correct? But hold on. It's not just for that. I did my best relationship work when I wasn't in a relationship. So read the book and it'll help you in your next relationship.

3:52It'll help you, you know, do some of the things that you should have done or not do some things that you were doing. So no, I honestly, it's for anyone. It really is. Yeah. In a relationship or not. I think it's, it's important. And a lot of the principles in our book are not just for intimate relationships. I mean, some of them can even apply to work relationships, relationships with your kids. So it's principles and practices on how to have a great relationship. Well, I'll tell you, I needed this book 20 something years ago because some of it, and I just want to jump right in. First of all, at the back of the book, there's Catherine shares 11 tips on how to have a great relationship.

4:37And then John does the same, you know, one from a male perspective, one from female, both super valuable and right to the point. And so I remember one of the things you said to me was don't forget to like drill down on those points, you know, before you go in there and keep them fresh in your mind. So to be funny, I brought them with me, you know, on the date. And so he and I were beating them together and like going through them. But what was interesting was, and this maybe you're going to be like, oh gosh, Heather, no wonder why you never have successful relationships. number four, don't compete.

5:08And I understand now having read your book, of course, don't compete with someone you're in relationship. However, my entire life in relationships, I competed to me again, I'm just, I'm not perfect. I'm far from it. I don't know why I did that. I thought it was funny. I thought it was fun. Like I thought it was a game, whatever it was to me, I wanted to be the fastest. I wanted to be the one maybe that grabbed the build, whatever stupid thing it was, I wanted to win. And because of these tips, because of this book, and because of him and I discussing it that day, something came up. I forget what it was, something stupid about sports or something.

5:45And immediately my mind went to, well, I'll win. I'll find a way to win. And he looked at me and said, I thought Catherine said, we're not supposed to compete. We're on the same team. And it was like that epiphany moment. And I said, you're right. Like we're here to be on the same team, not to go against each other. And it really flipped something inside me. Yeah. You know, you're not alone though. I meet couples all the time that are competing, you know, and it does cause a divide. You might have your partner who's in the gym working out, losing weight. Well, then, you know, the spouse doesn't like that, you know, and a lot of that boils down to what?

6:19Their insecurity. Yeah, of course. Their insecurity. And a crazy thing happens. A wonderful thing happens when you don't compete and you actually start cheering each other on. It's amazing how you just, you kind of start to lift each other up. And that's the whole thing about being a team. Cause when you're on a team, you're not competing with each other, right? It's so true. And it took me back to thinking back on sport teams that I've been on. I was never trying to outdo someone that was next to me, right? I was trying, no, never. If they were on my team, I was there to like high five them and encourage them and tell them to get back up.

6:56and you could, it's a complete mind shift that makes, it makes all the sense in the world. Once it was explained to me, however, no one had ever explained that simple change that I could make. And it was really powerful. You know, and I think sometimes it's just, we model what we know, you know, we might've seen our parents do it. You might've seen a friend do it. We only know what we know. Right. And so you operate from that place. And so, yeah, I do think the tips that we have in this book will absolutely change someone's paradigm and the way they approach relationships. It's so simple, guys.

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10:13Visit NorthwestRegisteredAgent.com slash confidence free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at www.NorthwestRegisteredAgent.com slash confidence free. Okay. So give compliments was another one. And this is interesting, Catherine, because if you are early in a relationship, you don't want to seem like too much and like you're doting too much on someone versus maybe if you're in a relationship for a long time and you've fallen out of it. Now you're like, oh, what? I'm going to reintroduce that. I see on either spectrum, how that could be a little challenging.

10:49I have a story about that. And so John and I, I think our children were in middle school. John was traveling all the time. He was speaking all over the country. Everybody thought he was so great. I'm at home. The kids are fighting. I'm running them to sports all the time. It was a really stressful time for me. So one particular day, John walks into the kitchen. The kids are running late for school. I'm trying to make lunches. I'm in a nightgown. My hair's disheveled. And he looked so handsome. And this feeling came over me, a feeling of jealousy, a feeling of insecurity. And I wanted to cut him down.

11:31At that moment, I wanted to point out just one thing about him that would make him feel bad. And that's when it hit me like, uh-uh, just compliment him. And I turned around and I was like, John Gordon, you look so handsome in that suit. You better be careful. Those ladies are going to be chasing after you. And the funniest thing happened. He got this look on his face and this big smile. And I realized right then, not only did it make him feel good, but it kind of like disarmed me. It took away that feeling of jealousy. And I realized like, you know what? I need to start complimenting him. And the more I did it, the easier it got.

12:13That's the other thing. You'll start to notice the more you start doing these things, these principles and practices, you know, complimenting, reminding, you know, each other that you're on the same team. It gets easier and easier to do. It becomes, you know, a part of who you are. And who doesn't want to be giving of kindness and giving of praise of a person that you're in a relationship with? It makes all the sense in the world. But to your point earlier, if you haven't seen that modeled for you or those aren't the relationships you've been in at first making the transition, it does feel a little uncomfortable.

12:48How do you get people to break through that uncomfortable moment? Well, I mean, I think you need to ask yourself the question. Do you love this person? Do you want to make the relationship work? And sometimes it boils down to, you know, we need to make sure we're also modeling good relationships and behavior for our children. I mean, I talk about in the book, I mean, I came from an alcoholic family and it was a very volatile upbringing. I mean, my parents loved me dearly, but they were alcoholics. But I can tell you what, my boyfriends were all womanizing, you know, guys who were physically abusive.

13:29And, you know, that was what I learned. That was what I knew until I started to work on myself and realize that I needed to break this chain. And it's never too late. And that was a time before you met John, you were doing that work. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You know, by the time I met John and that's why I say, you know, I did a lot of my relationship work when I wasn't in a relationship. I got out of a very narcissistic, I was dating a very narcissistic, abusive guy, not physically, but definitely emotionally and spiritually and mentally. And so when I hit rock bottom with that relationship is when I started to work on myself and started to uncover my own, you know, beliefs about relationships.

14:15And so that's how that, you know, it kind of transmuted into that. And I saw a therapist. And so I really worked on myself. By the time I met John, like I would have never even given John the time of day if I was still the person I was in my early 20s. I wanted to date the bad boy, good looking, charismatic, you know, happened to be a womanizer. That wasn't what I wanted to do, but you know, that kind of guy. And so John, here he was this like good looking, preppy, more wholesome guy. I wouldn't have given him the time of day. So, But I was able to see all the good qualities in him. And then as you read in the book, obviously we hit our rough patches because everybody has stuff.

15:04And so for us, there was a lot of stress. We hit the ground running. We got married, had started having babies right away. So being in a relationship and wanting it to be a healthy, loving relationship, you should always be working towards that. The other thing that I say in the book is, you know, your relationship should come first. And so many times it's your coworkers and your children and your friends, everybody else gets the best of you. And then, you know, your partner gets what's left. No, it should be the other way around. You know, I think a lot of times that's not the case, right? For sure.

15:44Because life just happens. That's how I felt like, right? Like all of a sudden something big happens at work and you have to run off and handle it. Or like you said, the kids are going through a challenging time at school and they really need their mother present. It seems to make all the sense in the world as you and I are just sitting here having a conversation right now. But in those difficult moments, how do you remind yourself? I think it takes practice. And I think you have to have processes in your life, right? So one of the things that I highly recommend you do is have a family meeting.

16:18And when I say family meeting, it could just be you and your partner, or if you have kids, sit them down too. But if it's you and your partner, say every Sunday, and if you don't live in the same city and you're just starting out, have somebody, one of you come to the table, so to speak, on the call with something motivational or something, you know, a Bible verb, whatever it is, something that is inspiring to you. Talk about that. Talk about what's going on for your week, what you have coming up. So it's about making the connection. And the more you start to do that and start thinking about your partner in that way, it just becomes easier and easier.

17:01And think about it with your partner. You just think, well, they should understand because, you know, they're closest to me, right? And so again, it's about changing that paradigm. And sometimes it takes work. It takes effort. It takes effort. So I suggest family meeting. Communication is number one. John has a quote, where there's a void in communication, negativity will fill it. How many times if you don't hear from someone or, you know, nothing said, you automatically fill your head with something negative, that's probably the furthest from the truth. Right. So it happens all the time. Yes.

17:42Yes. Yes. So it's about making that commitment. And I don't care if you've been married five times. I don't care. You can always start, Heather. As I told you, I got an email from a woman. She was 85 years old. and I think her husband, she said was 89. And she wrote me this email and said, after reading my book, she didn't bite or, you know, snap at Jerry. I guess her husband's name's Jerry. I didn't snap at Jerry like I normally do. And he noticed, you know, and I thought, oh my gosh, that is like a million dollar testimony. You know, like I love that. So it doesn't matter where you are in your relationship and it doesn't matter how old you are, you can start today.

18:31Make a change. Like the minute you start thinking something negative or you want to lash out, think about it. Maybe come out with a compliment instead.

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20:36I ask you to try to find your passion. To hear that you're able to impact people with these principles. And one of the reasons I think that the book resonated so well is not only were you so vulnerable in sharing these difficult moments for you, but John also was to see both of you so incredibly raw. It was shocking for me at first when I was reading it. That was something that we talked a lot about because we knew what ended up happening. And the reason I wanted to write this book is I kept running into women at the grocery store for some reason. And they would share their story of, you know, they were split from their husband or, you know, they were leaving him.

21:23Just there was a lot of a lot of that happening in my community. And I found myself asking them the same questions over and over. Well, did you talk to him about that? I mean, very basic questions, Heather. But see, that's what happens. Life happens. And when you're in it, it was basic communication that wasn't happening. And the more I started to see this is when I realized I went home and I said, John, I really feel like we need to show people. Because let me tell you something. If John and I can stay together and have the type of relationship that we have now, which is amazing now, anybody can do it.

21:59I mean, anybody can do it because it was bad. I mean, we were definitely not connected. He was very stressed out with the businesses. I was stressed out with it. It was complete disconnect. And we were able to build our relationship back, starting with a strong foundation, like really starting that with his story, especially because when we ended up writing this, John was already a best-selling author and speaker and people know him and knew him as the guy that was you know all about positivity and leadership and then to read the story of him as this miserable negative mean guy was hard it was funny his brother read the manuscript before we sent it to the publisher and he was like John you can't get this out there and God blessed my husband he said, you know what?

22:52That's the reason that I need to get it out there. Because if I could come from the place of negativity that I was in, anybody can do this. Anybody can improve their relationship. And so the book, as you've read, it goes back and forth. It's John's side of the story and my side of the story. And we kind of go back and forth. And that was how we wrote the book. People always ask, how'd you guys write it? He would sit down at the computer and type up his part. And then I'd sit down and kind of edit what he had wrote and add it. It worked. It flowed really well. Yeah. I've never read a book written the way that you wrote it.

23:29However, it's incredibly engaging because I can't wait to hear what the other one had to say in response to that event. Because to your point, of course, we're always going to see things differently. And there's going to be different sides to what was happening when he was on the road versus when you were at home or it impacts people differently. So it was always so interesting and eyeopening and reflective for my own self to think about my own relationships in life and that there is always another perspective. And it can always at different times be a different person that's stepping in to maybe be the leader in that relationship or take the chance or be really vulnerable, which is what I saw a lot of in the book too.

24:06Let's remember when you get into a relationship, you're also bringing in all your past hurts, all your past experiences, but that's the good news. You really can still have a great relationship. You can make your relationship everything you always wanted it to be. But again, it's vulnerability, communication. It's all the things we talk about. It's grit. It's grit. G-R-I-T. Yeah. And I can tell you what that means, by the way. So the title of the book, Relationship Grit, the G stands for God. And I can tell you personally that John really, really became the best husband when he started to work more on his relationship with God.

24:52And, you know, they say the strand of three cords is not easily broken. The cords on the cover of our book. So bringing God into your relationship. And then the R is resolve. You have to resolve to work on your relationship, to stick it out. You know, so many times you, and I'm guilty of this. I've been in Just, you know, check out because it's not going the way I like it. Or a lot of it I think is it's ego, but it's really the fear of being hurt, right? Oh, for sure. Yep. So then you want to check out. No, because the grass is not always greener most of the time. I won't say always, but most of the time.

25:33My caveat with that is this. If someone is being physically abusive or, you know, something like that, that's a different story. You know, I don't, you don't need to stay in the relationship. But if you're just having problems, money, whose job is it to do, you know, whatever that is, you can work it out. You really can if you love each other. Now, I will say that, you know, like when I was having problems with John, but he was, you know, and he was talking to me that way. I didn't want to really connect with him as much. But let me tell you, you know, when you change that, it changes your heart.