At first glance, this may seem like it doesn’t have anything to do with mortgages and helping you ramp up your business, but I’ll tell you this may be one of the most important messages I have ever sent to you.
Making sure everything at home is good is critical to how we do things at work.
It all overflows to each other, home and work.
Think of a jar of water and then putting even just 1 drop of red dye in it. The red dye doesn’t just sit there on one side of the jar, in short order the entire jar is red. This is the same for “work and home” for us, it all overflows to each other.
That’s the set up for a life changing conversation I had about 7 years ago…
I was sitting on my front porch visiting with my then 30 something year old niece. Out of the blue, she said “You know why so many people end up in divorce (or separating from their mate or life partner)?”
My first thought was, what is somebody that just got married a year or 2 ago going to have to say to me about How To Make Relationships Work… what the heck does she know..
But then she shared with me something that has been an absolute game changer for me…
“The reason so many romantic “living together” relationships break up is because they confuse “marriage (or mate) issues with “roommate” issues. You see couples really have 2 different relationships going on at the same time. They are a romantic (or married) couple and they are also roommates.”
She went on to explain, “You see, “roommate” issues are things like leaving the cap off the toothpaste, using up the last bit of coffee without picking up more at the store, leaving the car empty of gas, or having the TV turned up too loud while the other is trying to rest or wants quiet time.”
“Marriage issues” she said, “really boils down to 3 things, beating, cheating, and/or addictions.”
She explained that we have to be very careful when we are having an argument with our mate, not to elevate “roommate” issues to “marriage” issues. Roommate issues are just part of living with somebody and not to be elevated to “I can’t live with you because you didn’t put the milk back in the refrigerator…”
So these days I remind myself to keep things in perspective and that if I’m feeling a bit of strife in my marriage, it’s extremely likely just a small roommate issue and not worth getting upset about.
When I started doing that about 6 or 7 years ago, it was a game changer!
Now things are pretty darn good at home, and with things pretty darn good at home, it’s way easier for things to be pretty darn good at work. I find my work conversations go way better and I feel more confident about putting together my team, asking for the business, getting more sales and loans closed with the entire mortgage team over here.
I guess it really all boils down to, “Don’t sweat the small stuff and it’s all small stuff.”
Now I realize that some of the people that read this are single and enjoying life in that way. Awesome. Perhaps you know somebody that could benefit from this bit of wisdom that can be a life changing awareness for them, if so, please pass it on.
OK, so I know this isn’t my typical message, and I sincerely debated about sharing this as I didn’t want to offend somebody or perhaps seem “uncool”. But I decided that real friends take risks to help each other out. Thanks for letting me be a part of your awesome journey.
If you need help with anything else, give my team a call.