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 Welcome back to the Road Life podcast with Meredith and Greg. Choose your hard, that's what we're talking about. Life is hard. Everything is hard, it can be. Mm-hmm. And you get to choose which option, which hard are you gonna choose. .

Everything in life worth having? It takes effort and is hard. And your relationships are no different. No. No difference. No difference whatsoever. There's gonna be hard in doing the work up front. Mm-hmm. To have the great relationship. Or if you don't, you're gonna have the difficult conversations after the arguments, the fighting, the disconnection.

It's . Choose which one? Yeah. Like . You wanna have great fitness and be in great shape, that that's hard. That takes effort. That takes work, man. My arms are still sore from that, workout from yesterday. And same with your career, same with your business. But because my arms hurt now they're gonna be stronger and better in my old age.

That's correct. So I'm gonna be able to do some things in old age. That I would not otherwise have done because you made your arm sore yesterday. Because I made him sore yesterday. And that's right. Choose your heart, guys, your business, your career. It's the same. You wanna have a great business, you wanna have a great career.

It takes work. It takes showing up, it takes effort. It's, not easy. It's hard. A hundred percent. , everything you want in life is on the other side of hard. And I think that was Monty Williams, right? Yeah. The coach of the sons a couple years ago when they were playing in the finals against the Milwaukee Bucks.

Yeah, it was everything you want on the other side of it. Guys, this is hard. This is this whole playoffs. This, season is 82 games. The playoffs are four series best of seven. This is hard. Literally everything you want is on the other side of heart. I just love that quote. Yeah. I think he's fantastic.

And I just love Yeah, love that quote. Yeah. And I think we've, adopted it as our own and everything you want is on the other side of hard, uncomfortable, scary. Yeah. That's it. Diff difficult and, and scary. Yeah. And it's so true. Yeah. If you want the relationship, the body, the life, the business, all the things.

It requires work. Yeah. Or you don't get those things and life becomes harder. Yeah. And your relationship is no different.

The hard work in creating a great relationship is actually far easier than the hardship, than the constant struggle of a bad relationship. Yeah. So, yeah, it's hard and , you can choose your hard, but the hard work upfront to have the great relationship is way easier than not having the great relationship.

Yeah.

And there's. There's two types of hard, so let's talk about the two types of hard in relationships, because the upfront version mm-hmm. The easier, hard, we'll say mm-hmm. That you've, alluded to in that little quote is to build a great relationship, you need to do some really difficult things, and one of those things is get vulnerable.

Mm-hmm. It's hard. It might be the hardest. It's not easy to get vulnerable and share your intimate thoughts, feelings, what you're afraid ofs and your fears and all the insecurities and all the things, but it build a great relationship. Sure. Freaking does. Can confirm, can, can confirm. 'cause I've done it both ways.

I've tried to build a relationship, not doing any of those things. Thank God that ended very poorly and then I've done it, sharing all of those things and it's way better. Yeah. Win. Active listening. Listening to your, spouse and putting aside your ego and really hearing what they're saying, even if it doesn't feel good that they're bringing up something, how you're not showing up.

Yeah, it's hard or whatever it is. It's hard to listen, listen and take it on. Yeah. And, reflect and like actively listen. Like really listen to understand, not just listen to respond, but to actually listen, to understand your perspective, your point of view, and not let my ego jump in and defend myself is really hard.

Yeah. Yep. Growth is really hard. Yeah, it is. I guess, kind of admitting that you are not your best self now and that there's so much more to go. Yeah. And doing the hard work to become the best version of you, and it's a constant journey. You never really ever get there. There's always more you could do. Mm-hmm. But just taking that on, understanding that you're not the best version of you, there's a better one out there.

And doing the work to try to become that and to. Understand that that's always going to be the case. Right. And, just growth in and of itself, like by definition is uncomfortable. You can't grow when you're comfortable, so you have to be uncomfortable in order to grow. Mm-hmm. So not only is the whole concept of admitting that you're not currently the best version of you, which PSU never will be 'cause you're always growing.

Mm-hmm. But just the, humility of admitting that and being willing to grow is hard. The actual act of growth requires discomfort. Mm-hmm. Which is hard. Mm-hmm. And then like having tough conversations. Ugh. Those are the worst. Well, but, I mean, and also the best, they're not the worst though, because if you have 'em now, they don't, get tougher if you don't have 'em now.

Yeah. If you think having a tough conversation is hard now Wait, wait till, wait till you see the result of not having had it. Yeah. Layla Hormo. Yeah. Yeah. It gets way worse. So. Even though it feels like the worst in the moment, it's actually not, it gets a level worse. Yeah. It gets a lot, of levels worse.

Well, it's, like you're willing to trade in that short term, momentary discomfort of this conversation to a lifetime of dysfunction in this relationship. Mm-hmm. So those are the, the hard of proactively working on your relationship. And now let's compare those with the hardship or the hard mm-hmm. Of having a bad relationship.

Mm-hmm. Constantly arguing endless fights when nobody feels seen, heard, valued, respected, nothing gets resolved. We're just fighting every day about the same thing over and over again. Mm-hmm. You're on eggshells. You never know when the next fight about that same thing is gonna be triggered. Yeah.

Emotional disconnection. Mm-hmm. When your partner is, or when you feel like your partner just doesn't care about you. Mm-hmm. Or doesn't wanna listen. That you're not on the same page, you just can't get connected. You're just roommates. Mm-hmm. Ships passing in the night talking about logistic bills. Kids, that's your life.

Separate lives, separate hobby, separate bedtime, separate schedules. You separate lives, your two ships passing in the night. , complete emotional disconnection. Does that sound better than having a convers, a vulnerable conversation every once in a while where you share your fears and dreams? Yeah.

Right. Like, let's choose are hard. What about resentment? Oof. Resentment's tough. 'cause resentment is like poison inside of you. It's just holding onto the past, holding on all the unresolved issues that came up that you weren't able to address and focus on solutions. So they keep coming up and you hold them down, and then when something comes up that triggers it, you throw it out as blame and , there's a constant tension in, your relationship all the time.

, that doesn't sound very good. No, that sounds awful. And then take it all together. Like the emotional, and the physical exhaustion from, all of this, from constantly walking on eggshells, avoiding the next fight, from being in the next fight, from feeling like you don't have a partner, from feeling emotionally disconnected, from feeling like roommates, from feeling like the resentment is gonna overwhelm you and take you over.

It's exhausting. Mm-hmm. That doesn't feel good. No, it's obvious that both paths that we've just talked about are hard. Mm-hmm. Right? Like there's no getting around the vulnerability, the, admitting when you're wrong. All those things are hard. They are. Mm-hmm. They're hard. Mm-hmm. But the things that we just talked about, the constant conflict, the resentment, the exhaustion, the emotional disconnection.

Yep. Those are all so much harder. Hard, and they're long term. Mm-hmm. If you, actually do the hard work upfront, it's temporary. Mm-hmm. And then you're in maintenance mode. Mm-hmm. Then you're feeling the good, you're, just on maintenance mode. And the more you do it, the easier those things get.

Mm-hmm. They don't always become the easy, easy, but they're easier. Right. And then when you're in that maintenance mode, now you've got all this energy and focus and attention that you used to go to the eggshells and the fighting and the disconnect and the exhaustion. If you don't have that anymore. So you've got all this energy and attention and focus that you can redirect to the other areas of your life, the other dreams that you have, and the other person has all that energy and time and focus and attention to redirect to the other dreams and goals that you have.

So you both have this like exponential energy force to drive you forward to achieve all your goals and dreams together. Mm-hmm. That's why I have a kick ass relationship and , doing the hard work of being in sync and being connected. Is a cheat code to achieve the dreams in the rest of your life.

Mm-hmm. Achieve your goals in the rest of your life.

It's like, have you ever seen, there's this video, I've seen a couple different versions of it where. There's a bunch of cups lined up. , so there's a, bin closest to the camera. Oh, yeah. And there's two people and there's plastic cups like lined up all the way. . Yeah. 12 lined all the way to a back wall.

Mm-hmm. Like facing away from the camera. Mm-hmm. And one of the people. Takes the cup closest and throws it in the bin and works their way all the way to the end. And the other person will then select the furthest cup away to put in the bin and work their way back closer. Mm-hmm. To the bin. And it's a race.

You get all the cups in the bin. It's a race to see who can get them in first. Mm-hmm. And so both this reminds me of, yeah. So one side is the upfront hard. Yeah. The other is the. Backend hard. Yeah, the hard forever if you don't deal with it. Totally. And it's funny because I've watched different versions of this and every time the person who starts closer and puts the mm-hmm.

Just takes the easy row. Starts easy. Yeah. And takes the cups quicker. And they get it looks like they're winning. Yeah. They get like for most of it, eight, they get like eight or nine cups while the other person has like. Two or three. Mm-hmm. But eventually the tide turns and the other person has to run further to get those cups after they've already done a whole bunch of running to get those first few cups.

Mm-hmm. And the other person, the person who starts further away, who does the hard first, always ends up winning. Yeah. Literally every time. And I don't know if there's a video, like a link we can post or something. We'll see. We can find it. We, we'll see if we can find post a video. But it's really fascinating and it really reminds me of this concept of.

Life is hard, but if you do the work upfront and just put in the work on your relationship to build the relationship that can support you through the rest of your life, even though life is hard, like things are hard, it becomes easier. Life gets easier. You do it that way. Yeah. But if you don't put in the work to have the vulnerable conversations to admit when you're wrong, to show up and,

take a hundred percent responsibility. Yeah. Then it becomes a lot harder. So if it's so obvious, right? Like in a vacuum, it's so obvious that doing the hard work up front to build the the great relationship is so much easier than living with the crappy relationship later. Why don't we do it because we're human beings and we're wired for comfort.

Yeah. And , we're also short term, it's like dopamine now. It's like, what, serves me now though? Mm-hmm. Like, I get it. Theoretically long term, but that's not my immediate future. Mm-hmm. My immediate, what's within my arm's reach is right now. Mm-hmm. And I want this to be comfortable, so I'm gonna avoid that conversation.

I'm gonna kick the can further down the road. And that's a problem for later. And it will become a problem for later. Can, the can gets bigger the further you kick it. And eventually you're going to come up to that can and you're going to have to kick it again. Mm-hmm. And it does become bigger and it's gonna hurt your foot when you kick it this time.

But that's a problem for later. Right now. I'm kicking that can mm-hmm. It's uncomfortable in the moment and we're wired for comfort. Yeah. So we avoid it. Yeah. That's, the biggest one I think, actually, I think that's the biggest two that you just covered. We're wired for comfort, so we always see comfort and avoid discomfort.

And two, we want the instant gratification now. Mm-hmm. Like, we are an instant gratification society. Mm-hmm. We're not wired. To work towards the long term that's against our evolution. It's against our wiring. Mm-hmm. And so we do what's easiest, right. What makes us feel good right now.

Mm-hmm. So I think those are the, first two, first two biggest two reasons for sure. Mm-hmm. The third reason is probably our ego. Yeah. Just put that bugger in the, passenger seat. We talked about that in the last episode. Yeah. So we won't dwell on it too much here. , but your ego is getting in the way of a lot of stuff Yeah.

In your life. It's there to keep you safe. It's an evolutionary thing, but at some point we gotta put that son of a gun in the backseat at some point. You gotta choose your relationship over your ego. Yeah. You gotta choose the relationship over being, right.

Yep. Period. Another reason we talked about it in the last episode too, actually, is. Old habits die hard. Mm-hmm. We've been wired a certain way for a long time, like evolutionarily and in our lifetimes growing up and learning that, you know, being wrong is bad and all the things we learned growing up that we, take in and write stories about it.

We have to unlearn so much behavior about not wanting to share our feelings, not wanting to be vulnerable, not wanting to let anyone see us as weak. Mm-hmm. Like, there's so much of it that requires unlearning. Yeah. And that's hard. Yeah. Then I think one of the other ones is we have this vision or this mindset towards discomfort as being a sacrifice.

And sometimes when it's a sacrifice, it's almost like it's optional. Like it's something that you can do or you can, or you don't have to, it's something like, I'm not gonna bother with this. I'm not gonna sacrifice this. But really at the end of the day is it's an investment. Mm-hmm. Because you're, going to have to pay the discomfort price at some point.

There's a tax, there's a tax. Yeah. There's a discomfort. Tax life doesn't come easy. Like it's meant to be lived. There's meant to be discomfort. There's meant that's where growth happens. And if you think of it as an investment in your relationship, and you just do it upfront. Mm-hmm. Get it outta the way and do it upfront.

The level of discomfort you have at the back end will be much less. But if you see it as a sacrifice and you are like, yeah, but I don't wanna make that sacrifice optional. I'm gonna opt out. Yeah. I'm not gonna do it, then I promise you later on the tax becomes bigger. Yeah. And harder to pay. Yeah. And so the reward of doing that hard work up front of it, paying the smaller tax earlier days not kicking that can down the road.

Is what we talked about. It's having that great relationship, having that energy and time and, focus and attention to put towards the other things. It's having that emotional intimacy with your person feeling connected, like you have a partner. So many things, the trust and the respect. Mm-hmm. , you just have a more joyful experience.

Yeah. You feel like a true partnership. Yeah. More peaceful, like we talked about before too. Like you've got more peace between you, more peace within you. Yeah. I can't put it any simpler than that video does. It's like, yeah, we'll find it and tag it. Yeah. It's, really about, you said it, it's short term pain for long term.

Mm-hmm. Gain. Mm-hmm. I don't remember how exactly you said it, but it was you, you can trade short-term, dis discomfort. Discomfort for term dysfunction. Dysfunction. Mm-hmm. That's, I mean, that's what it boils down to. Mm-hmm. So. How, how do we, how do we do it? How do, how do you do the hard work?

How do, if someone's like, okay, you've sold me. I get it. I'm willing to put the hard work in now so I can make my life and my relationship better long term. What do I do?

Number one, shift your mindset from believing that discomfort is a sacrifice and know that it's an investment. Mm-hmm. And really just know that discomfort is required. Get it upfront. Do it upfront like it's going to be required. Life is hard. Everything in life is hard, but everything you want is on the other side of hard.

So just choose your hard and choose it wisely. There's an easier, hard, mm-hmm. Or there's a harder hard. Yeah. Choose the easy one. Choose the easier one. Yeah. And pay the upfront tax. Yeah. The other thing I think is be intentional about what you're choosing. Mm-hmm. Like choose the relationship, choose the long term goal over the short term, being right in your ego.

Yeah. It's a choice. Yeah. You're faced with a million choices in the run of a day and. Be intentional about those choices and not just let your ego run on autopilot and then prioritize vulnerability. If there's one thing, like if we could boil down everything to like one sentence about relationships, it's that vulnerability is the superpower to all of your relationships.

If you want better relationships, you need to get better at being vulnerable. Yes, , so I would say if you can get vulnerable. Earlier on it is hard. It is uncomfortable, but by doing it there you are laying the foundation and you are paying the tax early. Mm-hmm. So that your relationship thrives and, builds for the long term.

Mm-hmm. So that you don't have the long term dysfunction. So I would say practice vulnerability. And the other one I think is listen to understand not to respond. We all tend to listen to respond. We want everyone to see it our way and take our side and see our perspective. Stop listening to respond and, start listening to actually understand their perspective.

Yeah. And then the last one I'll say is, because it's hard and we get caught up in the difficulty of all of this. One of the things that keeps you in momentum is celebrating the victories as you have them. Yeah. Even the small wins. Celebrate them together as you push through one of the hard things together, like getting vulnerable or having a difficult conversation, or whatever it is that you do upfront when you get through one of those things, celebrate that.

Mm-hmm. And keep yourself a momentum so that it becomes easier to do it next time so that showing up vulnerably becomes a little bit easier next time. Because you saw how much of an impact it had on your relationship and how fun it was because you created a celebration around it. Then it creates momentum and you can do it again and again and again.

Fun bonus tip for a, something you can do to celebrate, create your own handshake in your relationship. Mm-hmm. That's super fun. It's a great way to celebrate and it builds connection between marriage, handshake, homework for you. Mm-hmm. Go do that. So choose your hard, literally everything in life is hard

Some of it's easier and some of it's harder. So choose the easier, hard stop kicking the can down the road. Choose your hard, choose the relationship you want, that's gonna level up your whole life. And I think that's about all we have to say on it. Bye for now. Share this episode with a friend who also needs this message.

'cause we all wanna make our relationships easier, so share this episode and we will see you next week.

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It fills our heart like nothing else. Now, we are super protective of this community because it is all about trust, love and support. So it's not for everybody, but if this does sound like it might tickle your fancy, then check out the link in the show notes and reach out to us if you have any questions, we'd love to chat and see if it's a fit for you.

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