Ultimate Relationship Playbook: Be Your Partner's MVP

Listen Now

Episode Transcription

Welcome back to the Road of Life podcast. We are on the road for this episode. What are we talking about this week, Bennett?

Being a good teammate.

Being a good teammate. It's funny, actually. We're on the road because we're being a good teammate to my mom.

That's right. Chipping in where we, where we can.

Yeah. Help out. That's right. Yeah. That's a good point.

Running some errands for her out at her cottage. So we got here and it was just, Beautiful. So we decided we would record the podcast here today because why not?

Why not?

Yeah.

So be a good teammate. And like we said, we're being a good teammate to my mom because that's another relationship.

Most of the strategies we talk about in this podcast and, and in our social media in different places, we're talking about them, you know, in this, in the context of usually your romantic relationships, your marriage, your primary relationship, but they do apply to all your relationships. So this one does too.

Yeah, I think it's like when you think about any good Like any sports team or any any team that you've ever been a part of and even if you're not into sports You've been part of teams at work your work school project. Yes Families like your mom. Yeah is in our family. So that's a team Yeah, you know, there's different roles different teams and if you think about all the teams that you've been a part of, you can sense when someone's not being a good teammate.

Like you can sense when there is a gap. Like you think about, how would you feel if you were on the field of play and you were giving absolutely every ounce of energy you had to the common goal of your team to go win a championship or whatever it is. And you're doing absolutely everything, all your blood, sweat and tears, and you look over on the bench and you see

Your teammates slacking?

Yeah,

he's not doing anything. They're just sitting there. They're not doing, they're not, they're not pulling their weight. They're not doing, like, how would that make you feel?

Oh, so frustrated.

Yeah, yeah. So, it's like that, like, that school project. You did all the work, and there was that one kid

Who put his name on it.

And got the A.

That happened to me a lot. Yeah.

So there was like, there's always that, like, that feeling of Resentment.

It's a resentment.

Yeah. Like, you, you, it builds resentment. It's frustration in the moment, but the frustration eventually builds to resentment.

Like, when you have a teammate that does not pull their weight, it's going to lead to resentment and further, and it's just going to break down your relationship.

Yeah. And so, what does being a good teammate look like? I think we've made the case that when you're in a relationship, you're on a team, and When you're not both being good teammates, you've got resentment. People are frustrated. Emotions run high. You know, it's tough.

So let's go back to the beginning.

And what does it look like to be a good teammate?

I think it's showing up and contributing to the common goal. I think it's supporting the team. Where sometimes you're going to lead and sometimes you're going to support. Like there's going to be times where you're leading something. And there's other times where you're just there as a, as a extra set of hands.

Like, where do you need me? What do you need? Like today for us, we're lending a hand to your mom, move some stuff around, get, she doesn't have a truck. We're getting some stuff out to her cottage. Like we're in a bit of a support role. Yep. Also leading that project. But so I think there's the support, the leading and then celebrating your teammate when they do something like when they score the goal, they have the great talk, they finish the project, they do something amazing that they're proud of celebrating them. Celebrating with them.

Especially because that's something that we're not generally all that good at like we've talked about it before celebrating is so important to getting you where you want to go to achieving your goals to building your momentum to doing all the things you want to do but yet most of us aren't very good at it.

Because when we set a goal and then when we achieve the goal, by the time we've actually gotten to that milestone, we've got another one set in the future. it's on to the next thing.

We don't do a great job of celebrating our own accomplishments. It's really important, I think, for your teammate, the person you're in a relationship with, to bring some attention to, to acknowledge what you've done, so that You can celebrate that, because if it was just up to you, you probably wouldn't really do it.

It kind of falls on the role of the teammate to say, Hey, whoa, whoa, time out. Like, that was awesome. Let's take a moment and celebrate that. I know you got a lot more things you want to do, but time out.

That was cool.

Let's not, not acknowledge this just because you have more left to do.

And I think there's also, like, the opposite of that, which is, challenging your teammate, which is like a tougher role for a teammate, for sure.

I think there, there needs to be a level of, that's not the first thing you do. There needs to be some trust built up. There's a bit of a, like, once you have the relationship, yeah, once you have the relationship built a little bit, there's a foundation, then you can start. And you understand how each other take different messages.

Then you can, you can craft your message to deliver it in a way that lands.

And I think, There's an element of the intention behind it.

Yeah. Like coming from a place of love.

Yeah. Coming from a place of love because you know that they're capable of it. Like when I sent you that link for that 29 kilometer run. That when I sent it to you, my expectation was, we'll do this as a relay.

It's between two lighthouses. It'll be beautiful. It'll be a nice fun Saturday for us to tag team this run together. And when I sent you the link, you registered us as individuals. And that was not my idea of a good time.

Yeah, you wanted to run 14 and a half kilometers.

I wanted to run, yeah, 14, you run 15.

That was Okay. That was my sort of image for what we were going to do.

But you registered us both to run 29K. And I didn't love that. I cried for a minute.

Because?

Because I didn't think I could do it. But you registered me to do it because you believe I can.

Believe it and know it.

For sure.

I Stopped crying, fairly quickly, didn't last long. And decided to borrow a little of your belief, because I've never run that far before, I'm not sure that I can. So I decided to borrow your belief, because you seem to believe it really strongly. And you challenged me, that was your loving way of nudging and challenging me, that like, hey, why don't you try something that you've not done before, and that you are capable of doing.

I didn't necessarily believe I was capable of it.

So let me, let me explain my rationale, my point of view from, from that, on that story. Okay. So you sent me that link.

And I thought you sent it to me because you thought it would be a really cool run to do. Yeah. And I didn't one, for one half a millisecond, consider that you were doing that so that we would each run half of that race. Yeah. I didn't, it didn't even, the thought never once crossed my mind. I just assumed it was, oh, you're interested in this race. I'll just register us to do it.

The advertisement I sent? Talks about it as a relay. You can do it by yourself, but most of the content around it was: Relay.

So I thought it was obvious that that was the intent.

Bennett looked for the fine print where you can run it by yourself and then followed those instructions.

No, I didn't. I just look, I didn't know what it was. I just saw, okay. There's a race between two lighthouses. It's cool. I feel like that if in a race like that, where it's not an out and back. Yeah. So it's not like you get to see the same things. Right. Like, if I run half of it, you don't get to see the other half.

That's right. Right? You wanted me to see it all.

I think we both deserve the opportunity to see the entire thing between two lighthouses. That's going to be an extraordinary I think, I think, an extraordinary experience.

Yeah. And I've heard really good things about it. I'm sure it's going to be lovely.

I think it's going to be beautiful. And I think it would be a shame if one of us, both of us missed it on the half. So you're going to go through a race and I'm not going to have one idea of what you saw in that second half.

Right. Because I did the first half. Right. But now we're both going to get to enjoy the full meal deal. The full length of that race. Totally awesome. But it never once crossed my mind. That you weren't capable of doing it. Right. And that, that, that wasn't why you sent it to me.

Right. Where, for me, I 100 percent didn't think I was capable.

So, I had that moment of frustration, overwhelm, you know, not believing in myself. But you didn't waver, so I borrowed a little bit of your belief. Yeah. And now we've been training.

And I'm, I'm sure it will be fine. We don't know, it hasn't happened yet. I'm sure it will be fine.

It will be.

I'll be able to do it, I'll just run nice and slow.

I'm sure it will get done.

100%.

The point of that being that as my teammate, you challenge me to level up. And that's one of your jobs as my teammate. When you're coming from a place of love.

Challenging me for the sake of challenging me?

No bueno. No bueno. Don't do it. Don't bring that here. But I'm also going to get to take on another role in our relationship when that day comes and I see you finish the 29 kilometers, we get to celebrate the big accomplishment.

That's right. That you didn't think you were able to do, but you do know that you're, you're capable of doing.

Yeah. I think the other thing a good teammate does. Is pull their weight

like contribute when you

see something that needs to be done. Yeah, you just do it

You don't wait like oh, I don't want to do that.

I'll wait for him to do it

No if you see that something needs to be done and you're capable of doing it or at least capable of trying to Do it.

Give it your best effort. Stop waiting for someone else To, to pick up your slack because you don't feel like doing it, or it's gonna be hard, or, you know, whatever your reason in your mind is, I think it's easy to kind of fall into that, well, he usually does that, I'll just wait and let him do it.

Yeah, there's a level of accountability when you're in a relationship. When you see something, take accountability and make sure it gets done.

Yeah, I think accountability is a good, a good topic actually, because we often hear about, in a relationship, pulling your weight 50 50.

And I think actually the better way to look at it is 100 100. If I take 100 percent accountability for, The state of our relationship and you take 100 percent accountability for the state of our relationship.

then we're each giving everything as opposed to half and half.

Yeah, and I think that's just a little bit of a mindset shift Like ugh, I'm only responsible for 50 percent of this. This is his 50%.

I'm leaving this mess right here. Yeah for you to deal with On your 50 percent time.

I'm clocking out. Yeah. I'll see you in 50 percent of my time.

Right. So like an extreme ownership, an extreme accountability for your relationship.

And obviously like it takes two people in a relationship, but if you take extreme accountability for the relationship, then you're going to do everything that you're capable of doing, including supporting. I'm going to do everything I can, I can do in the relationship, which includes backing you up, supporting you, challenging you, all those things. I think it's just a that level of full ownership as opposed to: well i mean you did this so what am i supposed to do now?

So i'm out. Yeah you figure it out

the team's always going to be in a better place i think when each teammate is giving 100 is giving 100 and taking full accountability for the state of the relationship.

Absolutely I couldn't said it better myself,

I think the other thing about being a good teammate, actually, and it kind of goes back a little bit to the concept of love-love and not keeping score and not being in competition. When you're on the same team, unless you're an F1 team, you're not in direct competition with each other. When you're on the same team, you're Working toward the same goal.

Ultimately, it's a team goal. You've got a, you've got a championship or a goal of something that you're a dream life or something that you're building towards.

You're on the same team. You're building towards that together.

Right. We might have different strategies for getting there, but ultimately we're on this same team working toward the same goal. And what doesn't fit within that is being in competition with each other as teammates, trying to achieve the same goal.

Because In a relationship, if I'm trying to beat you, if I'm in competition with you, if I'm trying to one up you, if I'm trying to win an argument or a situation or whatever, if I'm, if I want to win, that means you have to lose. And since we're both on the same team trying to get to the same goal, if you lose, I lose.

Ultimately I lose. Even if I think I'm winning in the moment, I guess it's kind of the same as I won the battle, but really I'm going to lose the war. That's one element, I think, of being a good teammate, is keeping in mind that you are on the same team, trying to achieve the same goal, and competing with your partner, trying to get there, is gonna slow you down.

It's a huge energy suck, too. Like, if you're fighting a battle here, and competing here, Then all your energy is focused here, on competing here, when you could both be joining forces and going and attacking that goal, that thing that you want, that, that dream life, that whatever it is that you're, you know, striving for, you're not putting your energy towards it, you're never going to get there because I'm directing all my energy towards beating you in this little stupid game that we're playing when the real game is life, and we're letting it pass us by.

Well said my love.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah. I think the other thing about relationships too is kind of going back to accountability where it's like I'm going to leave that, I don't want to do that. There's always going to be things that you don't want to do and it's true in a relationship, it's true in life, it's true in business,

it's true on your sports field.

It's true in everything.

Yeah. Practice. We're talking about practice.

Like Allen Iverson didn't want to practice. Neither does Nate. Yeah. Practice sucks, but that's how you get good. Right. It's the things that you don't want to do, that the other person probably doesn't want to do either.

So. Take one for the team. Yeah. At some point, you're just going to have to do some stuff that you don't want to do. And it's just the way life works because when you do them and you get really good and you get past it and you're on your dream trajectory to your dream life, all of that stuff that you're going to get to enjoy all the things that you do want to do.

Right, right.

Doing the thing you don't want to do is usually the thing that levels you up.

It gets you the path of having to do that a lot less.

Yeah, it's true.

It really does come down to the golden rule of:, Do unto others what you would like done unto you. If you would expect someone else to show up for you and be a good teammate and support you and celebrate you, And challenge you respectfully then Do that for your teammates.

Yeah. Show up and be there. Step up.

Be the teammate you want to have.

Yeah. And keep in mind that it's all for the greater good. It's all for a reason. Have intention behind it. Think about it before you, before you walk away from that pile of dirty clothes or whatever it is.

Dirty air fryer baskets. Yeah,

before you walk away from that, just think about how it would feel on the receiving end of that. Like coming upon that and knowing that someone else, someone could have done that. I was gone for three days and this is still here. Show up and be a good teammate and That's how you win.

Well, thanks for joining us on this episode on the road today. If you enjoyed it, feel free to share it with someone else you think might enjoy it as well.

We'd love it if you'd leave us a review. And we'd love it if you join our Facebook group, Traveling the Road of Life, where we'll talk more about this stuff. Bye. Have a good day. Bye.