Build Stronger Foundation For Relationships | Jay Shetty EP 219

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation show.

0:10I firmly believe that taking charge of your mindset allows you to be in the driver's seat of your life and unlock your potential. And that's why I'm thrilled to share that my new book is out right now. It's called The Greatness Mindset. In it, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book that I wish I had 20 years ago. It's everything I've learned in the last decade with the research and the science to help you unlock your mind. Make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash 2023mindset to pick up your copy of my book, The Greatest Mindset, today.

0:50Most people's trauma comes out more strongly in how to raise kids, because now it goes back to how they were raised. What they got, what they didn't get, how you were treated. Exactly. So raising kids becomes a really tension-filled point for couples because both either think the way they were raised was great or both had bad experiences and now they're repeating them with the kids or a mix of both. Kids are also triggering because now you're getting to see who they love and who they respond to, who they listen to, who they like, who they connect with. Now, of course, kids don't have favorites, especially when they're young, they don't even know.

1:33But there definitely is that feeling from an insecure parent that I do this all for them and they just want to hang out with you or you get the fun side of the kids and I have to deal with the stress. And I'm not saying none of that's true. I'm just saying that I think raising kids triggers the most amount of trauma. And it's natural because you are now looking at that kid with the lens of what did I not get at that age and I want to give it to these kids. And even though that's a beautiful intention, it may not be ideal because you may overcompensate, you may struggle. And what I've realized with any of this, we're all going to make mistakes.

2:09We're all going to get things wrong. But I think with our kids, we want to be perfect and we want to get it perfect because we love them and we don't want to mess something up, often it's that recognizing that loving them is more important than perfecting everything around them. And I feel that way with my parents. Like I feel my mom loved me so deeply and truly that despite all the imperfection of my upbringing, her love is what lives inside of me. And that is something that no one's ever going to forget. Whereas sometimes you can set up the perfect environment around the kids, But if you don't fuel it with love, if you don't fill it with the oxygen of love, they're not going to grow up with that or remember that.

2:50I start the book with this beautiful conversation between a student and the Buddha. And the student asks, what's the difference between I like you and I love you? And the Buddha replies, when you like a flower, you simply pluck it. But when you love a flower, you water it daily. And so my honest advice, and this isn't just for you, it's truly advice for all of us, including me sitting right in front of you, giving all of this advice is, are you watering your relationship daily? Are you checking the soil? Are you giving it sunlight? Are you aware? I think so many of us get a beautiful tree, a beautiful plant in our lives, and then you think it's just gonna survive.

3:36And so all the work that you've done now, even though it's tiring, exhausting, and transformative, that never stops. And I see that in my life today. I've been with Radhi for 10 years. And I would say that we still have to water the relationship, check the soil, check the sunlight. And I don't think that it ever changes. The stuff you're checking changes, but the checking process doesn't change. So you can't just set it and forget it. You can't, that's exactly it. You can't do a lot of work in the first couple of years and then say, I can ride this for 20. That's exactly the problem. I think we think that two years of work results in 20 years of fruit.

4:16And it doesn't. It doesn't. Like if you look at the harvest, if you look at the seasons, it's a yearly thing. It's an annual thing that happens. And so I really, really feel that. And I would often also say that using the garden analogy, like look out for the weeds and make sure you're constantly planting new good seeds. I think we also think we've thought about all the good seeds. We don't need any more. We don't need to think about anything new. And we keep trying to recreate our first date or we live in the same way or the way we had it was amazing. And we keep celebrating how it is rather than recreating what it needs to be.

4:54And so I think that's really important. But I think amazing relationships can go stale really quickly. Yes. Because we become complacent. That's true. And complacency, it's always like, we always hear that phrase, curiosity killed the cat. And I'm like, complacency did. If you're curious with your partner, you'll keep it growing. And so use curiosity. So if you had to give a love letter or a love audio note to your younger self, the part of yourself, the time when you felt the most shame, what would that audio note be to younger Jay of that season of life? Don't try to fall in love like they do in the movies.

5:33Don't try and fall in love like they do in the songs. don't try to fall in love in some big romantic Hollywood idyllic way ask yourself do you know who you are do you know who they are every time you ask yourself do they like me ask yourself do I really like them every time you ask yourself do they think I'm attractive ask yourself am I working on myself. Every time you think, do they want me? Will they take care of me? Ask yourself, how can I better take care of myself? And so everything you want from someone else, give it to yourself first.

6:29Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

7:19Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.