Tag Archives: Relationship Skills

RELATIONSHIP MAINTENANCE

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Man Looking Under Hood

“Your service life may vary…”

 

The culture of replaceability and technological obsolescence

As a culture, we’ve grown accustomed to industries and services that afford us the luxury of replacement over maintenance and repair. It is further enhanced by the love of new and evolving technologies over existing tried and true products that are developed and produced at affordable pricing to allow designed obsolescence. At best, it’s manufacturers who’ve created products that are intentionally designed to limit user maintenance, tune-ups and repair from their daily life and in many respects from the product’s service life almost entirely. We’ve also developed economies that afford us the tremendous ability to outsource those tasks and services that we would rather not due to nature of that labor, the environmental conditions of that labor, technical skill required to undertake those jobs and the time requirements associated with doing those functions. It’s a remarkable first world achievement. The hidden underbelly of this effect is that we are not cultured to the ideas, concepts or practices of maintaining other elements in our lives that need and require those skills and management abilities to flourish. We simply have excised the concept of maintenance from our lives. This cultural mindset has taken root into the sexual market place, where it is vastly easier to replace a partner than it is to learn the skills and management ability maintain a relationship, let alone repair deficiencies due to standard wear and tear, or exercise restraint in operational use to prevent a breakdown. The hidden cost is dramatically high, emotionally, financially and physically. This cost plays and radiates out from an individual personal level, to the family, into a cultural and ultimately within a society as a whole. The inability culturally to maintain and support personal relationship structures, such as marriages, has proven to collapse entire social cultures and threatens greater societies on a whole.

The nature of maintenance

Maintenance on a basic level accounts for operator observation to the performance of the system being utilized, the characteristics of the environment in which the system is being utilized and how that affects the system standards of performance and wear and tear expectations, the life cycle point of the system, standard conditional use benchmarks for inspections, testing and servicing of subsystems and to the servicing and replacement of subsystem faults, as they occur or ideally before they actually fault, as part of a service replacement schedule, to include integration of safeguarding practices. Having relationship maintenance skills and management protocols and abilities in place to ensure care, appropriate handling and servicing of the relationship and your partners needs will help afford for the relationship’s reliability, quality, longevity, provide increase relationship safety and to preserve invested relationship capital and equity.

Vehicle maintenance analogy

If we choose to use a vehicle as our model for a system, maintenance would start with the driver being cognizant of observable traits, characteristics and performance levels for the vehicle… He’ll notice when the tires a low, when the vehicle pulls to one side when being driven and the unique characteristics of the engine sounds as it moves along, accelerates and decelerates. He will also recognize the environmental conditions in which the vehicle is being driven will affect performance and maintenance requirements… stop and go traffic is very different from highway driving… not only will your mileage vary, but so to the wear and tear. Don’t get me started with racing and drifting… (It amazes me how many guys treat their relationships like something out of the movie Fast and Furious and are perplexed when they wreck it.) Likewise the life cycle point of the vehicle is important… simply the age of the vehicle will dictates the degree of maintenance requirements, as well as expected performance. Brand new vehicles need to be broken in and handled with care, as do antiques. Vehicles in their service years need increasing servicing, as the demands on their individual subsystems mounts (hydraulics, oils, belts, tires, brakes, transmissions etc..). These subsystems should be inspected and tested prior to anticipated fault points, not just evenly periodic intervals or mileage benchmarks. A hard driven vehicle pulling considerable loads will need more care and attention than if it was simply being taken out for weekend country drives. Lastly the operator will include safeguarding measures to prevent corrosion, ensure structural integrity, and safety considerations whether that comes in the form of washing and waxing a vehicle to prevent corrosion, the driving practices that limit damage, or the safety practices of wearing a seat belt and having appropriate insurance coverage. Intimate interpersonal relationships can draw directly from this analogy, even though the major subsystems will be quite dramatically different, the key then is knowing what they are.

Maintenance is not repair

Repairing a relationship once broken is not maintenance and should never be considered as such. Utilizing a system beyond its breaking point is terribly poor maintenance practice and management, yet that is precisely what most people do with their relationships because we lack the skills, experience and proven ability to do otherwise. Repair should be closely linked to a one-time costs and expenditure limits associated with brining the relationship back to fully serviceable condition. This is to ensure the appropriateness for one to make the repair in the first place, to obtain operational effectiveness afterwards and to make sure that a series of subsystem failures do not exceed one’s maintenance expenditure limits. Sadly people too often keep investing heavily in relationship repair when they shouldn’t be, that the repair are unlikely to result in operational expectations and that smaller sub-issue failures ultimately exceed the value of repairing the relationship. This isn’t to mean that there are not cases where it is entirely appropriately to completely salvage a relationship and completely re-structure, re-tool and to rebuild it, but those cases are few and far in-between and in the majority of the cases always involve children.

Willful misconduct

Worse off than negligence are those acts of willful misconduct either in damaging the relationship initially or through the consequences of our failure to appropriately manage the relationship repair once the initial damage is done. This occurs when we are hurt, angry and vengeful and we lash out in defiance to our partner, the situation and ultimately from the emotional dependencies from our past that are triggering and inflaming our response. When we harm our partner and our relationship in response to a relationship fault, we ultimately hurt ourselves. The inability to recognize and respond appropriately to boundaries, to control one’s emotional impulses and resolve personal emotional dependencies apart from relationship issues will invariably lead to the wrecking of the relationship, from our own accord, not from the original infraction. We are never justified in damaging others or our relationship in seeking a resolution to a fault or infraction. Relationships and partners handled in that regard don’t need repairing, should be classified as unserviceable and ultimately junked in quick order.

 

Managing Ego Depletion

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Fuel-gauge

Men trip over mole hills, not mountains…

 

Limited supply of emotional energy

The problem with stating an obvious is that it doesn’t invoke introspection of the baseline idea or concept into our lives and how the obvious plays into our management and decision-making surrounding any number of issues that we face. They’re too easily glossed over. Much like an idea or concept hiding in plain sight, it’s just not seen. This is particularly true of the ego, the pool of emotional energy reserve utilized for self-control, decision-making and willpower. When this energy level is low, it typically impairs one’s ability to facilitate appropriate decision-making both on a personal level and on an interpersonal level which are exemplified by aggression, reduced ability to make trade-offs, decision avoidance, impulse decision-making and impaired self-regulation. Not quite what we want for a healthy relationship structure…

Emotional Muscle

Researchers in social psychology contend that the ego is much like a muscle, that it can be strengthened and built up over time through exercise. It is one of the reasons that older individuals tend to have more ego reserve than the young, is the fact at having lived longer lives and have as a consequence learned to manage this emotional reserve better through experience. And like any muscle, exercising it will drain and fatigue it, but given appropriate rest and refueling, it will grow stronger. But we don’t do that… we chronically strain ourselves and then pile on acute stresses on top of it, much like a cross-fitter who grossly over trains and ultimately ends up injuring themselves in the pursuit of health. When we chronically strain ourselves and then pile on acute stresses on top of it, we must increase the degree of self-care to counter it. If we don’t, we will be running ourselves on an emotional deficit and quickly become ego depleted and suffer the corresponding impaired, undesirable and maladaptive behaviors we wish to avoid in the first place.

A Morale Correlation

While there is a strong correlation between ego depletion and morale, one does not nessicitate the other though. An example is a marathon runner at the completion of a 26 mile run will suffer from a degree of ego depletion, in their ability to make cognitive processes the same way, as if they were well rested- they’re simply exhausted, but will likely be in high morale for having completed a strenuous task. This would be an example of an acute stressor with high morale. If the same marathon runner was then told they would have to walk back, now a chronic stress, we could expect morale to drop dramatically. The same is true in reverse, that we can give fuel to the ego, by ways and means of increasing morale. A relationship partner suffering from chronic or severe acute ego fatigue is a leading indicator for poor morale and future relationship ability impairment. If left unaddressed or mismanaged it can lead to very deleterious behaviors that ultimately lead to the relationship’s failure. How many people are led to cheating on their partners due to sustained chronic stresses built up within their relationship, or external forces acting on it? Learning to identify factors giving rise to ego fatigue, monitoring yours and your partners levels of emotional reserve and countering the effects of ego depletion are tremendous skills to utilize to avoid bigger issues down the road and sustaining a healthy long-term relationship.

 

Managing Morale

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Altimeter

“Low morale comes with a high price tag”

Relationship altitude

Relationships face a number of growing pressures over time that tax the capabilities of the individuals within them and inhibit the ability of the partners to enjoy and benefit derived from being in the relationship to begin with. These can be as simple as long-days, the day-to-day stresses of a job, endless household chores and just loosing focus or more acutely being burdened by mounting pressures and expectations found throughout life in and outside of the relationship. They can often be found in latent and unresolved issues or conflicts, or the feelings associated with invalidation when we’re taken for granted and our contributions are ignored, forgotten or unappreciated. It is important to recognize that morale is a nebulous emotional energy state, and like all energies, it is in constant flux depending upon how that energy is utilized. It can drive a relationship forward or serve as the fuel that feeds relationship discontent depending upon how those states are managed. Good leaders and managers know that morale is their responsibility and is established from the top down and that morale has both an individual and group (relationship between parties) component to this human phenomenon. That is, the leader within any organization is responsible for managing an individual’s individual morale and then managing the morale for the relationship- people first, relationship second. Simply put, sick people don’t make for healthy relationships or organizations and great leaders manage this.

Leadership first

Short-term fixes create long-term problems, because they don’t address the issue. Energizing and motivating your team has its place, but should not serve as the foundation of morale. As the leader of the relationship it is your responsibility to set the tone, nature and culture for the morale of the relationships. It is determined by your overall presence, your masculinity as a man, through your thoughts, actions and the manner in which you carry yourself. It will be represented in the manner in which you respond and meet her hypergamous nature. How you demonstrate composure, reserve and calm, through steady control of emotions and maturity. It will be displayed in your confidence in knowing your capabilities, your belief in those skills and the actions you take proving those attributes. They will be on display when you face adversity, showing resilience in a tendency to recover quickly from a set-back, shock, or adversity and in maintaining purpose and focus when stressed. Good leaders know that emotions and emotional energy are contagious; that they are contagious between people. As such, they will utilize those attributes to their favor, by leading by example, showcasing and sharing positive traits and nipping negative traits in the bud, before they spread and grow. In this regard morale is viewed as a culture, not a band-aide, as your partner will need to have leadership they can believe in, before they can have faith in the relationship.

Individual morale

The world’s best militaries recognize that they must first respond to the needs of the individual soldier before that soldier can or will attend the needs of the higher organization. They do this by assuring that the individuals physical and emotional needs are met though good supply lines, hot food, sound cover, rest, relaxation and recovery, news from home, the quality and care of the equipment they will be utilizing and the training and support they receive. They further recognize that quality of life is serious business to their organizational mission and therefore have a uniformed approach to the care of the workforce and their families. That’s why on every major military installation you will find a myriad of services and infrastructure to support, sustain and strengthen the individual and their families. Likewise in relationships, we need to care for our partners first, before we consider caring for the relationship. We must have a firm understanding of our partner’s emotional and physical needs and address those needs. In turn we must then go beyond just the basics and attend to the quality of the life of our partner, as well as their basic needs, before we can expect them to focus on the relationship and relationship goals.

Relationship morale

In actively managing a relationship and the business of it, we must make certain that the relationship sticks to its core purpose. In simple terms this is benefits management. Are you actively managing the reasons why you and your partner are in a relationship with each other? Are those reasons being met? If this was a business model, are your employees getting paid on time? Are they compensated appropriately? Are they able to take sick leave and vacations, as needed and desired, or is that benefit package in name only, due to workload and staffing constraints? Is the working culture what was promised when they interviewed? Are their contributions and work efforts recognized and rewarded? Do they feel that they make a difference? As a corporation how competitive are you? Every high-tech company offers stock options, but how many offers high morale? Is it any wonder that those that do are coveted work places, draw superior talent due to it and tend to be more successful because of it? How does your relationship brand and culture compare? It should come as no surprise that measuring relationship satisfaction is correlated to relationship longevity… just how far have you prepared your relationship to go?

Managing Feedback, Coaching & Mentoring

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Coaching-Mentoring

“A relationship is only as good as the partners in it”

 

Developmental stagnation and the cycle of failure

We have an expectation that people over time learn, develop, and grow. We formulate these thoughts and notions under the heights of our own explosive growth, as children and young adults and just assume that, that progression continues throughout life. By now, if we honestly reflect upon that notion, we know it not to be the case, that unless the individual is honestly applying themselves in the search of knowledge, seeking out new ways of thinking, acting or behaving they’re developmentally stunted, in the age in which they learned those particular skills or knowledge base. Quite often it’s decades old and from another period of their life. We also have a fond notion that people learn from their mistakes and while this ‘can’ be true, it too, normally isn’t. It’s just far too easy to accept failures, big and small, reframe, and cast blame, then to continue on having truly learned very little. It is why people who seek to succeed continue to train themselves, seek direct feedback, solicit coaching to find their blind spots and objectively guide their process, while forming mentorship to help put it all into perspective. If we’re interested in developing relationship skills, fostering management ability and establishing maintenance protocols, nowhere is this more readily available and pertinent than that of the relationship we’re in. In that regard, relationships are tremendously fertile grounds for testing one’s abilities, attributes and to learn, if we create and utilize a framework for doing so.

Nurturing a culture of development

It is important to recognize that your partner is you team and like any good team, developing trust and communication is a key element for group performance. It is incumbent upon us, as relationship leaders and managers, to establish open lines of communication within the relationship, foster and nurture the trust in the communication process, through proven experience and exercise in their utilization. Simply put, we must practice good communication and trust development prior to our having to need them in a time of crisis. Learning a new skill during a time of crisis is a horrible learning environment and piss poor planning and management. We can start this by recognizing and validating our partners in what they are already doing well and what we appreciate. We can also solicit from them the same. Not only does this foster incentive for the behavior, but also initiates a communication process regarding behavioral performance. Over time this process quickly becomes part of accepted relationship culture and develops a natural reservoir of good will, that then can progress to specific negative behavior performance remediation with less resistance. While we cannot directly control our partner’s orientation for overall receptivity and likelihood of acting on feedback, we can foster an environment of support for it, by establishing trust, respect, and interpersonal validation in early communication efforts with our partner, rewarding performances improvements and clearly communicating a strong link between value and outcome.

The (3) ranges of development management

In developing a frame-work for personal development it is important to recognize three major categories in which development takes place and need to be managed separately; much like goals they consist of a series of ranges from short, medium and long-range in nature. They are the following:

Feedback– short-range in nature, that provides explicit, factual information on performance with specific emphasis on technique and skill. These elements can be measured and appropriate goals set with associated follow-up. They are task specific.

Coaching– will require greater knowledge transfer with longer duration of involvement. It requires an establishment of a solid connection of trust and respect and communication rapport within the relationship and centers less on technique and more on process and direction of areas of developmental concern, which may not be entirely known or identified at that time.

Mentoring– is done throughout the lifespan of the relationship. It is primarily process focused, requiring strong levels of emotional ties, broad objective viewing, and developmental guidance and support for future role and relationship visioning.

Application

At any given time, in investing in our partner and our relationship, we may be called upon to utilize these management traits in concert, in series or alone. If our partner by example lacks a particular skill, it will be incumbent upon us to provide specific feedback regarding that, provide a frame-work of coaching in which that skill development can be exercised and visionary guidance in the form of mentoring.

We may become aware that our partner has a subconscious developmental issues from their past that are playing out within our current relationship and needs/desires assistance and support in discovering, analyzing and overcoming those issues.

We may also find that our partners look to us as examples, a source of strength and inspiration or simply a vision for how to live and be.

Now rather than later

It is important to develop a positive and proactive culture of giving and receiving feedback, mutual coaching and peer mentorship within a relationship, to not only continue personal growth, development, and health, but to preemptively stop conflict spirals, which have their root cause in poor feedback, an erosion of trust and respect and poor interpersonal behavioral performance. During a process of relationship conflict, which is bound to occur, it is not the time to come to terms with previous errors of judgment, revisit old sources of tension and renegotiate how to coordinate with your partner, which is often the case when we don’t. By then you’re well behind the power curve. It’s far better to start now.

 

Socrates Anthology Released!

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Socrates Anthology

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anthony @ The 21Convention just released not only my 21Convention-Austin video presentation, but complied all the talks that I’ve given for the 21Convention into a packaged ‘Anthology’. I’m more than touched and truly when I started down the road of self-improvement and assisting like-minded men, I never had any of this in mind. I am deep impressed with the work that Anthony has done over the years and continues to foster a growing community of awareness. He’s truly a remarkable individual and I am grateful for his trust and friendship that he has continually shown me over the years.

Yes, you can watch the videos for free, but take it from me, the $6 spent to get all of them full-length and in HD (better to see the ‘big guy’) are really worth it. It is also a small token to help support the 21Convention and the cause of self-actualization and lifestyle design which is the backbone of the movement Anthony started with the 21Convention.

In all honesty I found myself taking notes on my own talk, both for context I wish to explore further in my own blog and future talks and shamelessly because a line or two has receded into deeper memory and the video sparked it fresh again, or it just could be my age.  In any case, if you enjoy the blog, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the videos.  If you have any questions regarding content with either the blog or any of the talks I’ve given you can talk to me via email and I’ll be sure to respond.