Building Positive Relationships

Relationships are challenging at best.  Even the most positive relationships have their ups and downs.  Everett and I have been tracking and exploring our personal and business relationships.  We agree the following are important elements to a successful relationship of any kind with another human being.

Making that human-to-human connection in an authentic way.

Every yoga class ends with Namaste, meaning “I see the divine in you”.  When we breathe and really take in the person in front of us and see the divine in them, we make an authentic connection that honors their humanity and ours.  This is how it starts.

Sharing and listening.

Part of being in a relationship is being heard and seen.  Sometimes we are so excited about what we have to share, we forget to listen and see the other person in front of us.  As much as we want to be seen and heard, so does that other person.  Even when our values, ways of communicating, and our culture are dramatically different, listening helps us find common ground or at least mutual respect.

Building trust through transparency, straight talk, and straight actions.

It’s often difficult to be both totally honest and strategic in your interactions, especially with business.  Being transparent, talking straight and straight actions,  builds trust.  Trust is essential for building relationships.  Most of us have experienced broken trust in past relationships.  So, we know how important building trust is to both business and personal relationships.

Taking responsibility for your actions.

Part of transparency – straight talk and straight actions – is taking responsibility for your actions.  One of my substantial life missteps was passing the blame to a colleague on a mistake that I was not willing to own.  It happened years ago, in my 20s, when I was  just starting out in my business.  Eventually I did fess up, but the damage was done, resulting in losing that client and the potential business from having worked with this individual. 

As we all move forward on our self-mastery journey, relationships are an essential part of our growth, success, happiness, and humanity.  Share your experiences and what other aspects of relationships are important on our social media.