Revitalize Your Relationship Coaching

As a former workaholic and professional dancer-with-burn-out, one of the pillars of my work with clients is helping them build a more sustainable schedule. If you are an entrepreneur, you need time to work, but probably not as much as you currently spend. For the past month, I have been experimenting with a 25 hour work week and I am loving the effects on my business and my life. It feels more in alignment to only spend time on what is essential and beneficial for my clients and use the other hours of the day enjoying the life I have worked so hard to build. You might not be ready to cut down your hours at the desk just yet, but if you are overworking this one is for you. I want to offer you the same first step I took to reprioritize my entire life, personally and professionally. It called Self-Investment Sunday (but any day that works for you, will work for this) One day each week, our family goes almost completely screen free and usually the day before we get whatever we need to make that time restful and fun.

On Monday I had a moment that stopped me in my tracks. I was hanging out with my kids and realized that in 4 months I will be sending them both to school. We have been under lockdown full time since February 2020 and while it's been a rollercoaster, the bond of our little family is strong and beautiful. So the realization that soon they would be off on their next adventure gave me pause. Even though I consider myself to have a much more harmonious schedule than the average entrepreneur, I still work more than I want to on things in my business that I am not entirely sure are essential. Don't get me wrong, I have developed some serious entrepreneurial superpowers (and I will teach you all of them inside the Love + Success Group Coaching Program) For instance I know how to:

Yesterday, Steve shared some wisdom we have learned from one of our Love + Success Summit speakers Tiffany Shlain (if you aren't registered for the event, you can do so here; it's FREE). In our home, we are more plugged in now than ever before. My kids do everything virtually from kindergarten to piano and even yoga. But after reading Tiffany's book 24/6, I knew I wanted to have a no-screen day every week, but wasn't sure if I could pull it off. The thought of not being available on the weekends to tie up loose ends, not finding out until Monday that our website was down or that a client was having trouble accessing something, sounded more stressful than being able to just check my phone and email over the weekend. I was torn, but I decided to give it a try and I am so glad we did because our screen free day is beautiful.

This post was inspired by 24/6, the book by Tiffany Shlain, who will be a speaker at the Love + Success Summit for Entrepreneurs . To hear from Tiffany and 9 other amazing speakers—FREE—register for the Summit now.

Saying sorry is hard, but it’s necessary for a strong relationship. If you struggle with apologizing in a way that is true to yourself here’s something to try: state your intentions behind your actions as well as your feelings for the effect that those actions had on your partner. For instance, “I’m sorry you feel like I’ve been avoiding you. I didn’t intend for that to happen, I was just very focused on my work. What can I do to help you?” This way you hear them entirely without defending. You acknowledge that you have room to grow, but also that your heart is in the right place. You are in this relationship because you love them, and emphasizing that always helps during a disagreement or when your partner says that something you did or said hurt them.

One day every week, I take a CEO day. It's a day without meetings or client work where my calendar is wide open to think about the big vision for my business and how to make even more impact for the people we serve. It's also the day I do some luxurious self-investing. I do my own coaching, deepen my study and mastery of the art of coaching, take a long walk or do a workout, a sauna and go for a massage.

Self-care or what I like to call self-investing, is one of those things we all know we should be doing and yet most of us don’t.  The main reason I hear from my clients is that there is always a list of things to be done and people who want their time and attention. So the thought of carving out even an hour a week for most people leads them to feel guilty (especially the entrepreneurs).

As a man, have you considered how many of your feelings you were taught not to feel—especially those that could cause you to do "unmanly" things, like cry? If you sometimes struggle with your relationship, this lesson repeated all around us could be the reason. First of all, what does "unmanly" mean? It includes feeling: Weak Sensitive Receptive Unsure Upset Vulnerable Basically it's anything other than the generally accepted norms of manliness, which mean feeling: Angry Determined Strong Confident Successful What this means is that if you're a man and you're feeling anything on the first list, you will want to avoid it, repress it, or hide it from the world. This is because most men were taught that you're not "supposed" to be feeling it. So it won't even register. And you'll miss the tender, vulnerable moments because those feelings are not welcome for you. What Changes Everything

Let's start with a story: Jessica is hurting. She's sure her partner isn't attracted to her anymore. Desperate to bring some spark back to her relationship, she tries everything she can think of: she gets new expensive skincare to make her face look younger, starts a new exercise program, changes her diet; she even tries watching the shows her partner likes in hopes of being able to connect more. But her partner doesn't notice. Jessica is feeling even worse than when she started and is beginning to wonder if her relationship has a future. This story is all too common in relationships. And the outcome is more or less guaranteed, since Jessica focus is on changing her outside to make her feel better inside.