Marriage Insights, Your ONE Thing?

Speaker: [00:00:00] What is the most important one thing for your marriage? If you don't know, well, you might as well be fighting with your hands literally tied behind your back. The one thing is the difference between happily ever after and unhappily never after. So let's get into it.

Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potential growing to the men we dream of being while taking care of our responsibilities, working, Being good husbands, fathers, and still take care of ourselves. Well, that's the big question in this podcast. We'll help you answer those questions and more.

My name is Brent and welcome to the fallible man podcast.

You may or may not be a big reader, but unless you like to read business books, you might've missed this book. The one thing, the surprisingly simple truth about extraordinary results by Gary Keller. [00:01:00] If you're in the business world, you might've heard of it. You might not have read it yet. If you're not, whether you're in business or not, I highly recommend this great book, but let me break it down for you.

The concept is simple. You want less, you want fewer distractions and less on your plate. The daily barrage of emails, texts, tweets, messages, meetings, distractions, stress you out. The simultaneous demands of work and family, if I can say the words, are taking a toll. And what's the cost? Second rate work, missed deadlines, smaller paychecks, fewer promotions, and a lot of stress.

But you also want more. You want more productivity from your work. You want more income for a better lifestyle and you want more satisfaction from life and more time for yourself, your family, and your friends. By focusing on the one thing, by focusing all of your energy on the one thing at a time, people are living mixed between everything, trying to multitask, you can [00:02:00] actually have more by focusing your energy on one thing at a time.

People are living more rewarding lives by building their careers, strengthening their finances, losing weight, getting in shape, deepening their faith, nurturing their marriages and their personal relationships. Now that's the excerpt on what the book delivers and what the book is about. For all of you who want the cliff notes version, I'm actually almost a hundred percent positive that you can get this on a few of those apps that offer you those things.

I highly recommend the book. The book actually has like highlights and underlines and stuff in the actual book itself to really kind of draw their points. But I wanted to take this concept because there's a lot of value behind the concept. It's not perfect, but there's a lot of value behind the concept.

And I wanted to apply it to our marriages. Shall we, by the way, my name is Brent and welcome to the fallible man podcast. You're home for all things, man, big shout out to fallible nation. Those are our longtime [00:03:00] listeners who, and you just got to show up for that, right? Stick around, listen to more episodes.

Hey, that part makes you part of the nation as far as I'm concerned. And if you're a first time listener, thanks for giving us a chance. There's a lot out there competing for your attention these days. So for the bottom of my heart, thank you for checking us out. Be sure and connect with us at the fallow man on most social media platforms.

I'm especially active on Instagram and let me know what you thought of the show. I'd love to have your opinion on it and hear what you have to think about it and what we can do more to serve you as a man. So be sure and connect with me there. Now let's get back to the important part of the show. Cause it's certainly not me.

So we're applying this big concept of the one thing to our marriages. Because marriage is important and that's what we're talking about today. So would you help me out and think back to the early days of your marriage and your, even the early days of your relationship, if you're, you know, wanting to go back to [00:04:00] before you said I do right.

My wife and I had been married for 23 years. I've known her and she's been an active part of my life. So, you know, I can think back even before we said I do. For some people, you may have to think back further if you're like me and you've been married for a little while. And for some of you, you know what, you may just be getting out of those puppy dog days, right?

You may still be early in your marriage and just be getting away from that. But think back into those days of puppy dog, lucky love, you know, that vomit inducing silliness that we make fun of all the time of the early days of your relationship. Maybe you had a special song. Uh, that's old school for some of you.

I don't know if the Xennials are into that still, but like, you know, I always had a song with my girl. My wife and I definitely have a song, uh, 23 years later, 25 years later, however you want to look at that. We still have our song. Maybe you have an inside joke. We did. Maybe you had a look like that just [00:05:00] like communicated everything you guys were thinking.

Uh, I have some friends and they were that couple, right? They could communicate with a glance and read each other's minds. Almost. It was amazing. Maybe you had a special place that you guys like to go for dates or when when you really just wanted to be. Alone with each other. Not that way, right? Maybe you have that special place, that diner where you, you went back over and over to your first date or something like that, you know, the kind of mushy stuff of romance novels, not saying it's bad, just, you know, that kind of stuff.

Think, think rom coms. Okay. Then life carried on. You might be a little past that. You might be a lot past that. You may be decades past that. Some of you carried some of that forward with you a little bit. Like I said, my wife and I definitely have a song. Some of you got busy with life and it just kind of started living life, doing the things right.

Especially as you get farther away from that point, [00:06:00] jobs change, homes change. Maybe you live in a different place. Maybe you have kids now, whatever, right? Life kept moving forward. And much like a lot of men who stopped dating their wife out of the first few years, You kind of let those things fade out.

Maybe you remember your songs do this for me wherever you're listening to this Comment what your song is somewhere on my feeds. Let me know. What what was your song? Challenge there it is. Well, what was your song? I'll clip this out and put it my social media. However, Maybe, just maybe, if you're further away from that like I am, maybe we should have held on to some of that just a little bit more.

So we started the episode with an important question. What is the most important one thing for your marriage? Now let me add some clarifying statements so that that question makes a little more sense for you. [00:07:00] Uh, that, that would be fair, right? I mean, it's hard for me to ask a question if I don't clarify exactly what I'm asking you.

There is one thing in your relationship that writes all wrongs in any moment. It might be an inside joke. It may be your song. It might be a special date that you go on. It doesn't matter how mad one or both of you are. It doesn't matter what you're fighting about. It doesn't matter if you're even talking to each other.

No matter what, there's that one thing that just gets it done, right? Is it's the sab hills all my friend, all of them, his wife, name Denise had been on the show, their marriage and relationship coaches. And if you haven't heard one of our multiple episodes together, because I love working with them, they have such great, great marriage insights.

Uh, then you should definitely check those out. And I'll link one of those down in the show notes. Be sure and check that one out next. We're talking one time on camera. I think [00:08:00] that's actually one of our shows together. Uh, in the course of the conversation, they told me what their one thing is and their one thing is going for a drive.

That it will eventually end up at Target. Now, Target apparently is something that was an early, early date night. They've been married about the same time as Sarah and I. So like 25 years ago, 24 years ago, Target was an early, you know, we're in those early poor stages of our marriage. Date night for them.

They would go to target and dream about the things they were going to buy. Now that's why that has significance for them. And they talk when they drive, that's actually a better place for them to have conversations. When they're both in the car going somewhere for some reason, it just kind of opens their conversations.

So their one thing is no matter how mad they get or what's going on or what the problem is. They can get in the car [00:09:00] and just drive. And eventually they're going to start talking and eventually they're going to end up at target and that will salve everything. That would be the bandaid that bridges all issues to open up the conversations they really need to have, no matter what's going on.

Your one thing may change over the years. Sarah and I's have for sure. Our one thing right now is going to the range with coffee. No matter what, this is the bridge that fixes all for us. Yeah. You have that one thing in your marriage, but many people haven't consciously identified this power move, which limits his power.

If you don't know what it is or how to use it, no matter what's going on, my wife and I can be angry, frustrated, to the point of not talking or just not even wanting to deal with each I can grab a couple of rifles, grab some coffee, [00:10:00] or drive through a coffee stand and get some and just tell her, get in the car, we're going to the range.

We don't have to be, we don't even have to be like speaking. We generally don't get that far, but we can just be not clicking well. She may not even want to look at me, but I can grab a couple guns and be like, get in the car, we're going to the range. And if I haven't said it, she'll be like, we need coffee on the way.

I'm like, yep, we're getting coffee on the way. That may be the only thing we say on the way to the range, okay? We get in the car, we go to the range, and after enough rounds, the healing begins. Conversations start, usually about whatever we're shooting at the time, because we both like long range shooting, or, you know, they made changes at the range or something, right?

The conversation starts there, but the conversation starts. The healing begins. And as the conversation progresses, we're drinking coffee, shooting guns together, [00:11:00] and that conversation evolves to what we actually need to talk about, no matter what that one thing, that's our one thing. It works. It fixes things.

So what's your power move? What's your one thing you should absolutely, in my opinion, have secrets together. Inside jokes, uh, look that conveys certain things that like you can look at them and they can look at you in a situation they know exactly what you're thinking. I think you should have a song, you should have a date, a dance.

A lot of us would do a whole lot better in our marriages if we held on to those innocent, beautiful things we had in the rom com stage of our marriage. However, the one thing can absolutely save your marriage no matter what. So figure out what your one thing is. Thanks. Now respect that it can change over the time.

So you got to stay on top of it and make sure and allow it to grow and evolve [00:12:00] as your personalities and your marriage changes and grows, let it grow with you, but know what that one thing is at all times and be ready to use it. Not only when you need it, but also use it regularly, make it normal and make it always amazing and thrive in that time together.

We don't have to be in a fight for my wife and I do coffee in the range. That's our date night. That's like, that's a big night date night for us. We go and pop off some rounds at the range and drink coffee, leave the kids with my mom and we're good. That's, that's an ideal date night for us too. So that one thing doesn't have to be just used to fix problems.

Make it part of your life. Make it valuable. Keep it valuable. Keep it what it is. But it will save you when things aren't going well. So what's your one thing figured that out, guys, I promise it is a huge game changer in your marriage. [00:13:00] Now, gentlemen, if you're ready to start changing your life, then you have to make room for change.

There are a lot of little things in your life that can prevent you from making the changes you want to, because your life is cluttered. I found this out firsthand when I started working with my business coach a couple of years ago. It took me six weeks to actually clear up my life, to have the room to implement the changes that he was trying to get me to make in my life.

And I went, huh? Wow. What, what other changes did I not make because I didn't make enough room for it first? So. I encourage you go download a free copy of my e workbook foundations of change to help you prepare successfully to make the changes you want in life. It's legitimately like it's, it's my document.

I wrote it. This isn't like a go download it kind of nonsense book. Like I wrote this specifically to address this issue because this is what I've found with my other coaching clients is there are a lot of [00:14:00] things that we don't account for when we're trying to make a positive change. And we're just not in a space where we have room to make the change we want to.

You have to make that room. So go download a free copy of foundations of change to help you prepare successfully to make the changes you want to make in your life. Whether that's fixing things with your spouse or, you know, growing in your profession, you got to make room for it. At the same time, they'll sign you up for my bi weekly newsletter with exclusive content.

I promise I don't spam you. It will make your life better. I put a lot of time into that content because I actually care. So that bi weekly newsletter is all exclusive content. You won't find on my podcast just for my email audience and you get the book, so you're ready to make the changes when you're ready to make changes.

Guys, find and utilize that one thing. Oh, there's a link in the description for that as well. Find and utilize that one thing and your marriage will get stronger. I guarantee it. Check [00:15:00] out this other episode with Oliver and Denise next. It will be in the show notes for you to check out after this show and be better tomorrow because of what you do today.

And we'll see you on the next one.

Speaker 2: This has been the fellow man podcast. You're home for everything man, husband and father. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a show. Head over to www. TheFallibleMan. com for more content and get your own Fallible Man gear.