When I started with HowToLiveWow.com, I wrote a blog post that changed my life. It made me realize more than ever that happiness and success come and go in tune with relationships with people. That’s why this post is dedicated to one of the, if not the most important relationship of all: the one with your partner.

“I want to be able to summarize my entire life in just one magical word: ‘Wow!’ The love of my life: Wow! My children: Wow! The friendships I had: Wow! The career I worked on with dedication and joy: Wow! The things I learned and passed on in life: Wow! The most beautiful spots on earth I had the opportunity to visit: Wow! What I managed to do for others: Wow!” Read the original blog post..

First of all, it takes two. This so-called ‘perfect relationship’ only works out if both of you pay attention to the following aspects.

Attention. Attention is like oxygen to your relationship. If you don’t get enough, eventually it will cause irrepairable damage. If you give to much of it, you’ll start hyperventilating. Everyone needs a certain amount of confirmation. Some need more, some need less. I am not just talking about physical attention, but also about showing genuine interest in the other person’s day-to-day activities, emotions and overall well-being.

Acceptance. It is vital to accept your partner as he or she is, including his or her flaws and bad habits. However, this should not be mixed up with having no limits whatsoever in what the other person can do to you. It is important to show your limits, and to be clear when something hurts you. After acceptance, which usually stays within your confort zone, comes tolerance, which basically means you start accepting things about your partner that are a bit outside of your comfort zone.

Communication. The ability to express your thoughts, ideas, concerns, and most important… your love it’s crucial. Most relationships fail due to communication errors.

Trust. Trust creates an important foundation for your relationship, as it takes away a large part of the fear to lose someone. It’s not something you create by merely expressing trust. It shows from your behaviour instead. It means you don’t scroll through your partner’s email every second day. It means that if your partner is late from work, you don’t doubt the fact that he or she had a rough day at the office and needed to finish some work. Give eachother space to move freely.

Respect. Expressing respect towards eachother can be extremely uplifting. I’m not just talking about respect for the other person, but also for yourself. By respecting yourself and respecting the other, you create a positive, upwards spiral in which your mutual appreciation grows. Don’t forget; respect needs to be expressed! It is virtually impossible to agree about everything when you share your lives, but respecting your partner’s decisions and opinions when they are different from yours is an important way to showrespect.

Having it all… or maybe not? Many people are looking for a Miss or Mister Right who “has it all”. This expectation might be a little unrealistic. When you feel like you’re looking for someone who “has it all”, first of all think of what “all” means to you. Define what you believe is essential about a partner, and what is less important to you. After determining what you find important about your partner, ask yourself whether you really need all these things in one person. I, for example, love a good discussion about politics. I can have such discussion with my best friend and to be honest, I don’t think I could have a discussion about politics in this particular way with someone else. For that reason, I consider it less important to have similar political discussions with my partner. Surrounding you with a couple of people – a partner, a best friend, a mentor, etc. – who, if you combine them, provide all emotional, intellectual and physical needs you have, makes you less dependant on one particular person.

Love. Needless to say, the only irreplacable part of the foundation of a perfect relationship is love.

What does your perfect relationship look like? Do you already have such a relationship? Share your comment with fellow readers!

photo by p0psicle

Business and motivation guru Jim Rohn once explained that you are the average of the five people you are around most. Though you can discuss the term ‘average’ here, I do believe there is a lot of truth in it. Though some believe that this vision neglects the existence of our own consciousness, I actually believe that the characteristics of those five people say a lot about how conscious you take decisions about the people you spend, let’s say, 80 percent of your time with.

Do you remember your mom telling you: “I don’t want you to hang around with that kid anymore, he has bad influence on you!” That might have been true when you were 12, and it’s still relevant today. Those who you are spending your time with often affect your decisions on the short term and at least partly define who you become on the long run. You can hang around people who are committed to excellence, and you are becoming a different person compared to if you hang around those who are committed to their complaints and a status quo in life. They affect your state of mind, your motivation, your skills and knowledge and they can even affect your physical well-being.

Think of the five people you spend most of your time with. Who are they? What do they contribute to your life, your ambitions and your happiness? You might now come to the conclusion that you already surrounded yourself with inspiring, supportive, positive and wise people. In that case: Congratulations! If one or more of these people take you down, demotivate you and do not contribute to your success, happiness and well-being, some action might be required.

I am not telling you to recklessly eliminate someone from your life who might be critical at times, especially not when someone has the credibility to do so. Negative advise can still be valuable! And even if you should come to the conclusion that someone you are hanging out with a lot (in real or virtually) systematically fails to contribute to your life in a positive way, there is no need to aggressively throw the door into someone’s face. You can decide to gradually decrease time you spend together, or simply bring to the table that you feel you are moving into different directions.

What about people who you are not in touch with, but still connected with? I, for example, am very much connected with Tony Robbins, through his publications, and with Barack Obama, who’s strategies continue to inspire me. Even if it’s not possible to be personal friends with someone, you can be connected with them by virtue of exposing yourself to their work.

Also read the following blog post:

• 5 Tips: How To Meet Someone You Would Really Like To Meet
• External: You are the Average of 5 People You Spend the Most Time With by my colleague Celestine Chua

Photo by aprilbell

The other day I gave a brief seminar about embedding networking skills into, together with my friend and colleague Danny Mekic’, at the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, in front of approximately 100 first-year students. It was a great evening with a fantastic audience. Someone from the public asked me the question: “What if I really would like to meet someone but not have direct access to this person?” An interesting question, and I would like to share the answer with you.

First of all, there are roughly two types of people. People in your inner circle, and people in your outer circle. In this context, I define people in your inner circle as people you can physically approach, directly call or otherwise contact personally without significant effort (apart from finding the guts to do it). A local politician, that cute guy or funny girl who lives across the street, etc. To those we have direct access. This blog post is about how to meet outer circle folks -  people you usually cannot easily get in touch with; a national politician, your pop idol, a famous religious leader… you name it!

To illustrate my example, I hereby share with you that I would love to meet one of the world’s most successful and acknowledged motivational speakers, Mr Anthony Robbins. My suggestions are not a 100%-success method – I would be selling such method for astronomical amounts! – but it certainly increases your chances! So, here we go…

1. Tell everyone about it. You, or someone you told, might one day come across someone who replies: “I know that person, I can bring you in touch if you want!” Or you might come across someone who knows someone with direct access. By the way… does anyone of you have direct access to Anthony Robbins? Or ARE you Anthony Robbins? Drop me a line!

2. Just ask. Try to get in touch with a person as close as possible to this person. You will most likely be stopped by a secretary, a personal assistant or not get any reply, but asking doesn’t hurt. I once tried this with the CEO of one of the leading Dutch airlines when I was 15. Two weeks after my letter I was invited to his office, where we sat down and talked for about 15 minutes. Then he had to leave to – surprise! – catch a plane.

3. Hold on. Don’t give up if you really want it. This does not mean you should go as far as becoming a stalker, but if you try to achieve your goal in a legitimate way and via a variety of channels, your persistance might one day be rewarded. Leaders usually have a weak spot for people who don’t give up, as they are usually of that kind themselves.

4. Have something for the other. Your position suddenly becomes much stronger if you have something to give, and not just come to get. Apprach your favourite politician with an idea that you believe should appear on his or her political agenda. Impress your pop idol with an initiative that generates a lot of positive attention for him or her.

5. Be clear. Be very specific in why you would like to meet that particular person in all your communication. For instance, I would like to personally meet Anthony Robbins to particularly discuss how to motivate young people and to ask him how he applies the techniques that he promotes in his own life. That would answer some of the questions I struggle with myself, and by making that clear he also knows in advance why he would meet me.

Who would you like to meet? Good luck, and drop me a line when you succeeded!