 Hey, hey Tony Gaskins here Celebrity life coach best-selling author motivational speaker Some of you already know me some of you may not but one thing I keep seeing every day in my q&a's and the messages That's coming to me Is focusing on communication in a relationship? So as you know, I like to go Live every day at noon to record a video For my page based on the questions that I received the day before or the things that I'm seeing most often So a lot of times when I'm here on live. I'm talking to myself But hopefully you can set the notification to let you know after it's been uploaded when I'm done so you can watch it But understand this you have to have Communication rules in your relationship. I Have a quote that says Communication to a relationship is like oxygen to life Communication to a relationship is like oxygen to life and a lot of times people say oh well communication is not the most important thing in a relationship, but it actually is and although you have respect and love and honesty and trust and all of those other things all of those things are a part of communication to respecting someone is communicating with them if Understanding someone come from communicating with them Being honest with someone comes from communicating with them Being able to trust someone comes from communicating with them. So everything love is built through communication so everything stems from healthy communication in a relationship and I see this as I'm in my work as a relationship coach every day and Reading through emails and DMs and messages about the breakdowns in Relationships and a lot of times it goes back to a breakdown in communication So here's what you have to understand you got to think about this, you know and in your relationship Every relationship is a little bit different. So you have to create communication rules for your relationship and Here are some of the rules that I have created In my marriage of almost 13 years that has helped us communicate and I pulled this these rules from all over studying business working in behavioral science and I put them all together and I utilize these rules in my relationship The first thing that you have to understand is that you must seek to understand So write that down seek to understand if you watching this while you're driving or something like that make sure you watch it again later seek to understand and the importance of seeking to understand is You are putting Their lenses on your eyes and you're looking at life through their lens through your partner's lens And the benefit of that is now you get to feel like They feel you get to really take into consideration the things that your partner has gone through and experienced and if you don't take the time to seek to understand Then you will assume that everyone's experience is the same as yours, but if your partner has been through sexual abuse physical abuse abandonment drug abuse Any type of pain or trauma even a divorce of their parents when they were young and coming up Every single thing that happens to us It affects us In one way or another sometimes for the good sometimes for the bad But you have to be able to seek to understand then be understood and Stephen R. Covey wrote about that in his book on the seven habits of highly effective people Seeking to understand then be understood and I took and I applied that to my relationship So basically in other words walk them out in their shoes walk them out in your partner shoes Now after You have done that and that's a daily practice. The next thing that you're gonna have to do is you will have to Take the time to look at the Issues and then decide do I address this now? Or do I address this later? So you have to wait from one to twenty four hours from one to twenty four hours To address an issue and the reason why I say one to twenty four hours and that twenty four could be 48 or 72 but the reason why I say that is because if you are angry and it's a deal breaker and You don't take the time and you go to address this issue and You are steaming hot it can turn into a physical situation so you have to take the time to address the issue But you have to know when you should approach it So if at one hour you're steaming hot because this can be a deal breaker Then don't talk about it then keep everything cool calm and collected at 24 hours You check your temperature if you're still hot stretch it 36 48 72 hours But when you call this meeting that hey, you know, I would like to talk to you. Let's find some time to talk You can go into it emotionally intelligent and Be cool calm and collected Now the next part of this is when you sit down to talk That's exactly what it should be a sit down Discussion so when you're communicating you shouldn't even be discussing this in in the kitchen You shouldn't be in the kitchen discussing this because if you're up and your energy is different Then you could end up getting into a fight Y'all could end up throwing something so you want to sit down and be and have full attention and be able to say Hey, you know, I want to talk to you for this reason. So you sit down and you take turns talking You take turns talking without cutting one another off without button in while you are taking turns talking You're seeking to understand then be understood and then on the next part of this you are Allowing your partner to express themselves fully now the next rules here is no yelling No cursing No name calling so when you put all of these things in place and You seek to understand then be understood You call the meeting to where you ask hey I need to talk to you and you sit down to talk and then you take turns talking and you're not yelling You're not cursing and you're not name calling and You are listening and not to Respond but to understand and then here's the key After both parties have expressed themselves. It's not about arguing so it shouldn't go to yelling and when you are speaking you have to use I feel statements or a statement that is expressing what's on your heart instead of using Accusatory statements that is saying you never do this or you always do that So understand that and then in that space Now both of you have heard one another and the last part of this is to take action Take action. So if I express myself to my wife It may be tough. It may be hard to hear but then she says you know what okay cool. I got it You know, I got it. That's what you need and I said what do you need from me? And she she tells me what she needs then I say, okay, I Hear what you need. So what we do instead of pointing to blame and saying oh you always do this You always do you always do that? We say, okay, I'm gonna give you what you need and you give me what I need We come together. We meet in the middle and now what happens is when you take action That is where the love and the respect and the trust comes in because you're saying I know she has my best interest at heart I know he has my best interest at heart We love one another and we're going to make this work. And so with this communication Write down your rules that you need to stick to wait one to 24 hours to address it sit down while talking no yelling no cursing no name calling and Use I feel statements Don't cut the other person off and then after the conversation Take action Hey, this Tony Gaskins. Thank you so much for listening. I try to pop on here and talk to myself on live Sometimes some of you can make it but I know a lot of people at work. It's noon on the Friday So I'm on the archive this so if you're watching the recording Make sure that you're able to leave me a comment with other topics that maybe you want to hear about Thank you so much. We'll talk soon