MMM: All Issues Come Down To A Relationship Issue

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Welcome to Monk Mode Monday, a simple practice every week to play and win the inside-out game of entrepreneurship!

All Issues Come Down To A Relationship Issue

Happy Monday Evolutionary Entreprenuers!

I’m coming to you this week with two principles I wish I learned much sooner in life:

1. All issues come down to a relationship issue

2. All issues can be solved by creating a secure attachment to that relationship

Take any one of your issues or frustrations.

In business or life.

Sit with it in deep reflection, distilling it down to its core.

What you’ll find is it’ll always come down to a relationship issue.

We have a relationship with everything in the universe. Few are conscious, most are unconscious.

For entrepreneurs, you can sum it up into 3 high-level Relationship Categories:

• Your relationship with Yourself (like your physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial health)

• Your relationship with Others (like your partner, family, friends, team)

• Your relationship with your Business (like your company, finances, clients, marketing, responsibilities)

As you can see, each category can be further broken down into sub-categories.

The point is, ALL your issues and frustrations can be distilled down to a relationship issue you have with yourself, others, or your work.

Let’s look at some examples.

Say you’re struggling to get new clients. It’s easy to default to blaming your marketing, sales, product, team or even the market.

But distill that issue down to the root issue and you may realize it’s your relationship with one of those areas:

• Your product/service isn’t compelling enough and you’re avoiding the work to make it better because that would mean facing the hard truth that it’s not good enough

• Your messaging doesn’t create trust and resonance with your audience and instead of refining it, you’re overly focused on pushing sales out of fear of not hitting your targets

• Your team is not performing well and you’re avoiding the hard conversation with them about performance out of fear of them leaving

It’s easy to blame the “thing” the issue is about, rather than addressing your relationship with it.

But that’s where the real issue lies. And also where your greatest opportunity lies.

The moment I realized this universal law, I couldn’t unsee it in everything I struggled with in both my business and my life.

And seeing it showed me exactly what I needed to focus on with each of my issues.

Change your relationship and you’ll solve the issue.

So how do you change the relationship?

Principle 2: All issues can be solved by creating a secure attachment to that relationship.

In relationship work, there’s a concept called Attachment Theory.

Attachment Theory focuses on the psychological explanation for the emotional bonds and relationships between people, particularly between a parent and child and between romantic partners.

It talks about 4 main Attachment Patterns or Tendencies:

• Anxious Attachment

• Avoidant Attachment

• Disorganized Attachment

• Secure Attachment

I believe a lot of the principles behind Attachment Theory can also be applied to creating secure and healthy relationships with Yourself, Others, and your Business.

As Julie Menanno puts it:

“Attachment theory is NOT meant to be a prison sentence. It’s meant to help you better understand yourself so you can grow. It’s about emotional support, healthy communication, solving problems, co-regulation, and every kind of connection.”

Attachment styles and tendencies live on a spectrum, from very insecure/unhealthy to very secure/healthy.

“The goal isn’t to magically go from one end to the other, but rather to meet yourself, and your relationship, where you are, and do the work from that place. Find the balance between being gentle with yourself and your partner, and holding yourself and each other accountable. That in itself is a trial and error process. Growth is never a dramatic experience. It happens with consistent effort over time. Just keep moving forward, pick yourself up and start over when you stumble, and one day something will happen and you’ll say “wow, I (we) really handled that differently than I (we) did in the past. Look at that growth.”

Bringing the principles of relationship work into my business has been game-changing, to say the least.

Being someone who grew up with avoidant tendencies, my go-to question to ask myself every time I’m faced with an issue or problem in my business or life:

Where am I being avoidant and what am I avoiding?

The answer to this question ALWAYS led to the solution of my issues.

I challenge you to give it a shot.

Today’s MMM Practice:

Take out your journal and reflect on these prompts:

• What’s your biggest or loudest issue this week?

• Which of the 3 Relationship Categories (Yourself, Others, Work) does it fall under?

• Breaking it down a bit more, what sub-category (area of life or business) does it relate to?

• What’s your relationship with this area like?

• Where on the Attachment Style Spectrum would you describe your relationship with this area?

• How do you know? What are some examples of behaviors, feelings, and thought patterns you’re experiencing here?

• What CAN you do this week to move closer to a Secure Attachment with this area?

• What WILL you do this week?

Go get it my fellow Evolutionary Entrepreneur!

I’d love to hear your takeaways, stories and experiences with these MMM practices. Share it with me at [email protected]

Your Pal,

Colin