Okay, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've all been waiting for problem solving specific techniques, bring it on baby. I love that graphic. So let's get right to it. Now, the most important part of solving problems is a start with a great strategy. As you can see, the guy in the right didn't have a very good strategy, he brought a knife to a gunfight, not a great start, he's not going to have a great finish either. Let's start by looking at relationships.

Now, this isn't a relationship, it's a disaster. When one person has too much control, everything falls apart. Here's the major challenge with relationships. People are actually in a negotiation and they don't realize it. So what you have to realize is that people are constantly negotiating their relationships. So every time you do something, you're literally setting precedents.

Me and my wife we used to back in the day, we used to go to blockbuster, and we would pick out a video. And it was always an argument, should we get this one? Should we get that one? Should we get the other one? Then what we did is we negotiated it. And we said, okay, one week, I'll pick the next week, you get to pick.

And then if you pick a bad movie, I get the pleasure of picking on you for it. If you pick a good movie, then everybody's happy. If I pick a bad movie, then at least you get the pleasure picking on me for it. And if I pick a good movie, everybody gets the pleasure of it. That's a good solid negotiation. The other thing that we agreed to was, don't get too nervous about what anybody picks.

Here's why. We're going to ultimately see every movie that's worth seeing. They're not making them quick enough. So you have to Realize that you're in a negotiation. Otherwise, say you're dating someone and you go to the movies. And you say to your girlfriend or you say to your boyfriend, what movie would you like to see?

And they pick the movie and you say, Great. Well, if you do that a couple of times, what you're doing is you're setting what's called precedence. And now every time they're going to expect to be able to pick the movie, if they can't, they're going to be hurt, disappointed, they're going to act it back out, you know, they're gonna retaliate in some way, shape or form. There'll be passive aggressive, or not so passive aggressive, and whatever is not worked out, will be acted out. So you're constantly constantly in a negotiation. The worst thing you could possibly do is be in negotiation and not realize it.

Everything is a negotiation. So here's what you also have to realize. People do what works. So whether you reward something or punish something or accept something, your behavior There's going to impact their future actions. So if you do something that I want you to do, and I reward you, you're more likely to repeat it. Psychology 101 says that if you want a person to repeat a behavior, reward, think about it like dog training.

If you give a dog a Scooby Snack, every time he does the right thing, they'll repeat it. If you punish him, you say bad dog. Every time he does something wrong, the dog will stop doing it. So we want to reward the behaviors that we want to increase. We want to punish the behaviors that we want to decrease. And we've got to be careful of what behaviors we simply accept because now we're allowing these behaviors to go on.

You can have a behavior going on in your life that you don't accept. Stop everything you're doing. Say I don't accept this and go ahead and renegotiate especially in your relationships, especially with your significant others. Good negotiate actually solve a lot of problems to not sitting down not renegotiating. In one partner, both partners being in pain never works. Limits setting and boundaries.

I love this quote by and Catherine, it simply states boundaries empower us to determine how we'll be treated by others. So I wanted to find two different things. A boundary is an area like this brick wall that you can't go beyond. I like to think of it. Like driving down the road. You've got a white line and a breakdown lane.

That's like a limit setting, you can float within that breakdown lane as much as you want. But when you hit the guardrails, that's the point at which I won't let you go beyond you hit a boundary. So there's soft boundaries basically, which are limits. You can play in this area but don't go past it. This is your warning area. You shouldn't even be in this area, but don't go past it.

And if you come up against my ultimate boundary, a solid boundary, bam, you really gonna hit against it, and then everything stops. And we have to go over and we have to have a discussion about this, you know, this is where I will no longer tolerate it. So there's limits and there's boundaries. Think of the limits as guidelines and the boundaries as true barriers, literally, a brick wall. If you set good limits and you set good boundaries, then people won't go past them. A lot of times we blame people because they come too far into our limits or they push past our boundaries.

You have to take personal responsibility and say, how is it that they got past them? We let them Now, remember, we said relationships are one of the biggest problem areas. So the way that we get rid of most of Problems isn't by solving problems as they come up. But being proactive in making sure that we're following the basics of a healthy relationship so that we never have these issues. Now, if you allow people to be themselves, they won't push back. Therefore, you won't have any challenges.

As long as you pick the good partner, this shouldn't be an issue. My wife and I have a great relationship. You know why I let her do whatever she wants to do. She lets me do whatever I want to do. I don't do anything that's wrong. She doesn't do anything that's wrong.

But there's certain things that she likes to do, that I might not be involved when. And there's certain things that I do that she might not be involved in, especially when it comes to work things. So I don't care if you don't help me with something, but at least Don't get in my way. So we always respect each other and allow that person to be themselves. They can look at that and even deeper aspect and say allow people to be themselves People are going to want to do different things. My wife likes to talk on the phone a lot.

I used to think that was a problem and that she was ignoring me. Then I realized I had more time to get work projects done. And if I did my work projects during that time, instead of wondering when she was going to get off the phone, I wasn't watching the pot boil, and therefore, I didn't have as many issues with it. I just let it go. Then when I get done with my project, I came back she was just about done with their phone call. It seemed like it was just a couple of minutes.

And then she was spending time with me. The problem wasn't that she was on the phone. The problem was that I hadn't set up the right procedure, and I wasn't allowing her to be herself. If I get frustrated because she's on the phone X number of hours every day, I'm going to be frustrated between now when I die, because she's not going to change that. If I allow it and I figure out a way around it. Then I'm happy for life.

She does other things like that for me. That brings us together Point number two, mutual respect. I don't cross her boundaries. She doesn't cross my boundaries. I love her. She loves me.

I try to protect her and love her and worship her and she tries to do the same with me. That's mutual love and respect. Three is trust. I never worry about Burnett, when she leaves the house. I know she's not going to cheat on me. That's why I married her.

Trust is always an issue within yourself. So if I have a fear that she's going to cheat when she goes out of the house, that's a fear that I have. It has nothing to do with Bernadette. I have trust issues. Bernadette doesn't worry when I leave the house. She knows I won't cheat on her.

She has trust. Anytime that she gets a little nervous. They're a little jealous. I reminder that has to do with you. We've been together about 25 years. No cheating yet.

So quarter century, pretty much tells you, you can trust that person. Trust is a key issue. Think of the opposite of these things as well. You don't allow somebody to be themselves. You don't give them mutual respect. You don't trust them, what's going to happen then your relationship will be destroyed.

The fourth one, I think this is the easiest one to build upon and to do on a daily basis is kindness and concern. Why are you in a relationship with this person, if you don't love them, care about them, want to do nice things for them? You don't worry about them. I show my wife love and kindness and giving and concern. I do nice little things for her all day long. We get into a competition.

I try to be nicer to Bernadette than she is to me and Burnet tries to be nicer to me than I am to her. So it's a positive upward spiral. You want to create those positive spirals in your life of love and kindness and caring and concern. That's a positive relationship. Now, notice what happen When you do the opposite of that, I don't care as much about you, you don't care as much about me. Therefore you care even less.

Therefore I care even less in this downward spiral. And soon as pretty soon we're arguing we're fighting and we're each blaming the other person. You've got to take charge, you can always start a positive spiral by doing positive things. Sometimes they're a little slow to catch on, you got to do it two or three times until it becomes a habit. You know, sometimes you got to crank the pump more than a couple of times before the water comes out. So you have to prime the pump.

Five, helping each other but not enabling each other. I will help Bernadette with virtually anything, but I won't do things for her. What I mean by that is like Bernadette will do see us for her nurses license. So I will help her with a couple of questions, or I'll teach her where to find the answers, but I'm not going to take the exam for that make sense. Helping but not an ad Six being responsible for your actions. Think of it this way you get into an argument with your husband and your wife, your girlfriend, your significant other friend could be anybody you're in a relationship.

It could be a parent could be brother, sister child. No matter what happened, it's almost never 100% that person's fault. Say that person was a complete jerk. But you said something about it afterwards. So 90% their fault. 10% your fault.

Here's what I want you to be responsible for your 10% say, Hey, I felt bad that we got an argument the other day. You know, you said bla bla bla bla and I came back at you. I probably shouldn't said that. So I feel I felt bad about that. I just want to let you know that. That's not letting them off the hook for what they did or what they said.

But it's owning up your piece. And as you take responsibility for your piece, and you see it accurately, you'll only take responsibility for that piece that separates you out emotionally so that you're not taking responsibility for the whole thing. Or even half when it's only 10%. And it shows the other person that even though you were my newly at fault, and they were majorly at fault, you took responsibility. It shows them that you were the bigger man or the bigger woman, they will nine times out of 10 either on the spot or within a day or two or within a few hours, come back and they will own their part. Why?

Because you did a good job of role modeling this for them. So this is a wonderful system for how to have good, healthy relationships.