Love Life with Matthew Hussey - The Power of Keeping a Promise

Episode Date: January 9, 2017

“Can you make it to my birthday tonight,” asks your friend who’s planned an annoyingly hipster “drinks thing” in a totally inconvenient neighborhood, starting at 11pm on a rainy Friday night when you’re exhausted and all you want to do is go home and binge on Netflix in your PJs. Do you say “yes” to spare her feelings…and bail later? Or be honest up front and risk disappointing her? What about when your boss asks if you can complete that big project by Monday? Do you agree even though you doubt you’ll have the time or the resources to follow through? In today’s episode of LOVE Life, we’re talking about why your word is the most important thing you have, and why the people who count on you will respect you more when you say the difficult thing first rather than let them down later.

Hi, I'm Matthew Hussey. Welcome to Love Life. It's a privilege to be able to offer you bite-sized bits of advice on this podcast that you can use every day. But what if you're ready for a big transformation and you want to do it now? You want to reinvent your career or finally find lasting love or break free from the self-doubt that's holding you back from living the abundant life you were meant to live. If you're saying, yes, Matt, that's me, I'm going to tell you exactly how to do just that at the end of today's show. So make sure you stay tuned. First, let's get to today's episode. Your word is the most important thing you have. It's the thing that builds trust in relationships. It's the thing that makes you seem credible.

It's the thing that makes people believe you the next time you say something. Keeping to your word is what makes people value what we say. Too many of us treat our word too lightly. I really want to, I want my word to be my bond and I'm working on my word being my bond. I'm working on being more realistic with what I tell people I can and can't do, but delivering on the things that I say I can do. Because I know that A, no is a word people don't always like, but they respect it. When you say you can't do something, it actually engenders respect. So we have to get good at

saying no. And we have to get good at really assessing whether it's realistic for us to say yes. Is it realistic in terms of our capabilities? Is it realistic in terms of our timeline and how long we've given ourselves for a task? There's a, you know, one of the quickest ways to lose credibility is someone says, can you do this? And you say, yes, but you have no ability to do it. And then when they ask you again a week from now, have you done it? And you realize you haven't done it because you haven't even got the skills or the ability or the experience or the contacts or whatever it is to be able to do it. In other words, you haven't got the resources. And you say, no, I haven't. They learn that you're someone who makes promises that they absolutely cannot deliver on. So the next time you try and

actually make a promise to them because you need something, that person will take your word much more lightly. It is so easy to lose credibility in somebody's eyes and it's much more difficult to build it back up again. On the reverse of that, if you just keep to little promises, your credibility will build. And when you need something big from somebody, you'll actually have the credibility in the bank saved up for them to want to believe you and say yes to it. One recent example of how much this paid off for me, I was on one of my retreats. We were in Florida. I had 150 women for five days going through a life-changing program with me, a complete immersion program on how to transform their lives in every aspect. And on the final night of this part of this event, we do a party.

And there was one woman who came up to me at the beginning of the evening. And she said, Matt, I have to get a photo with you before this evening ends. I have to get a photo. And I said, absolutely, we'll do it. She said, but I don't want to do it now. I just before the evening ends, I want to make sure that we have a photo together. And I said, no problem. And she was kind of skeptical thinking, is he just brushing me off right now? Am I really going to get a chance to have a photo with him tonight? So the night goes on and I get to a point where I'm about to leave. And I look around for this woman. I can't find her anyway. And I think, oh God, like what am I going to do? I can't find her. I don't know where she is. I had four of my assistants running around the venue trying to find this woman because I couldn't bear the thought of leaving,

having really sincerely promised her that I would take a picture with her, just leaving and having her think, oh, this man doesn't keep to his promises. I woke up the next morning. I called up a couple of my assistants. I said, listen, this woman's name is Samantha. I need you to find her. I need you to call her room. I need you to get her number, send her a text, let her know that I'm going to be at breakfast at this time and to come and meet me at the breakfast table for this picture. I am not leaving without taking this picture. And lo and behold, I was at breakfast and this woman came down and she greeted me with this huge smile and a hug. And she said, I just want to say that I respect you so much that you didn't go back on that promise.

And it separates you from so many people in my life that have never kept to their promises. This reminded me of the power of keeping a promise. You know, we take these things so lightly and we shouldn't because our word is our bond. Now, you're not going to solve this all at once. You're still going to say some things that you can't do. You're still going to overestimate how much time you have, but it's something for us all to work on so that you build up the credibility, the trust, and the respect that other people have for you and what you say you'll do in life. If you do that, I promise you the world and your life will change because people will want to help you and they'll want to be there for you too. Now, if you said earlier, yes, Matt, I'm ready

for a big life transformation now, then I want to invite you to apply for my retreat program. Now, spots are limited, but if you're accepted onto the program, I'll lead you through a series of powerful coaching sessions and enlightening exercises that will remove every barrier standing in between you and the extraordinary life you deserve. You'll walk away with a practical set of tools

to achieve the career, love, balance, and fulfillment you've always wanted. To claim your spot for a phone interview with one of my expert mentors, just go to lovelifepodcast.com forward slash retreat. Take care and I'll speak to you soon.