I just finished my second read of Gottman’s book, The Relationship Cure. Like every other meaty re-read I’ve completed, I’m blown away with how much more meaning I take from slowing down and going back. Why am I so slow to realize this truth that the best way forward is often found when retracing our steps? Why am I prone to overvalue learning something new? Why? The reason that I am prone to make these mistakes is the same root reason why you are too, we’ve bought the lie that the fastest way forward is through learning something new, some new technique, some shortcut, some simple science, some quick fix, and something sure. We bought the lie that we gotta go FAST.
Gottman points out that deep, meaningful relationships do NOT require that we go to war together. Glad to hear that since my entire generation pretty much missed out on that mess. Deep, meaningful relationships do NOT require that we become masters at plumbing the depths of anothers soul, or that we experience some minimum number of “aha moments” where we’re simply freakin’ magic.
Trust, the kind that bonds us to another, is mostly built by how we send and receive “bids.”
Our bids are our attempts to connect with another. “Tell me about your day, son, How’s your dinner tasting, tell me about how you picked this carpet, it’s gorgeous.” “Tell me more, help me understand what you’re thinking, let’s go to Church this morning,” and thousands or other very mundane and seemingly immaterial bids are the lifeblood of every human relationship. You see, the mundane moments matter. Funny, huh.
Today, turn toward the bids of those relationships that mean the most to you. Tune in to the look. Tune in to the tone. Tune into the nuance. Tune into the body language. Tune into your spouse, your sibling, your son, or your neighbor and begin to notice the thousands of bids for your attention that you’ve mostly missed. Slow down and retrace your steps, so to speak. Look up from you ipad when your Miss enters your office and take in all the signals. FM is in the making. Your second nature is being built, slowly. You will need to reread your closest relationships over and over to truly grasp who they are. You will have to reread your bride, brother, and your boy, over and over and over again.
Slowly.
The magic will come, most likely, within the mundane bids and how you choose to respond. Like me you may have already mastered the two that you don’t want, turning away and turning against. These come naturally, sad to say…
Build your second nature and practice turning toward, turning toward, turning toward and turning toward some more. As we build our second nature of turning toward another,we pick up momentum and meaning. No war. No deep dives. No aha. And, then suddenly we feel more connected, more united, and more shared meaning with another. Suddenly, it feels. The truth is that suddenly is simply the way we notice. Slowly is the truth about how we build deep, meaningful relationships with another. Slowly going back and retracing our steps and rereading another and then rereading some more.
God, help me wake up in slow town.
God, help me…
BUILT TO LEAD 
I love this book. In the opener there is a typical scenario of a corporate exec walking down the hallway and eyes in cubicles dropping as he goes by to avoid making contact… this is because the leader never says hello to the little people and the little people have become conditioned to avoid initiating (this is the result that happens when someone stops bidding… it leads to NO bidding).
I love how it really helps explain Gallup’s 28/55/17. Only 28% of most teams are engaged. 55% are DISengaged. 17% are actively DIS engaged.
The main reason we disengage is because our bids are either DISapproved or, far worse, DISmissed….i.e. ignored. When our bids are DIS_d, we are DIS_d.
It’s so simple, but this also explains the reason why BTL practice has such a powerful effect on jolting the culture of an organization — because the foundation for how we practice is to intentionally facilitate having teams & leaders bid to each other, and teach them how to accept each other’s bids.
The cool AND to what you shared Toto, and why practices (at work AND at home) can keep getting more & more FM, is that bids received lead to MORE bids. Master connectors are masters at initiating and receiving bids… and when we are in FLOW the number of bids being initiated & received is almost beyond counting b/c there is a ONEness that defies transactional accounting…
AND like Gottman says. in relationships — an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure! (pun intended)
Thanks for this R+R and reminder, Toto.