Hey, Cody here. How is everybody doing? Wherever you are in the world, whether it’s morning, afternoon, or evening, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. How’s everybody doing?
So, what I want to talk to you about today are some guiding principles that are really going to make a difference and will be really important over the next few days and the next week as we get into the “Reboot Your Marriage” retreat. One of the things that we’re going to cover in great detail and one of the guiding principles that will not just determine the destination of your marriage but your life in general, we’re talking about your health, your finances, your relationship with your kids, your marriage, everything, absolutely everything, are your philosophies.
The life that you have right now, the life that is manifesting right now, is a direct result of your philosophies. And what’s a philosophy? It’s a collection of thoughts and beliefs, how you see the world, how you process the world is a philosophy, and that is determining the results that you get. So that is the root, right? What you’re seeing in terms of your relationship, your marriage, your life, everything, every aspect of your life is simply the fruit of the root. The root is what causes the fruit to show up. And then we look at the fruit of our lives, and we want to change that, and we start working on that. But if you want to change the fruit, the only way to do that is to change the root, of course, right?
If you’ve got a lemon tree and you’re getting lemons right now, that tree is never going to produce oranges. The only way that tree is going to produce oranges is if you uproot it and you put a new root in there, and you grow a new tree, and it’s got to be an orange tree. A lemon tree will never, ever, ever produce oranges, regardless of how hard you work on that fruit. And the same is true in your life, the same is true in your marriage. The fruit that you’re getting right now is the result of the root, and if you want to change that, and this is the difference between therapy and what we do here, you’ve got to uproot the root. You’ve got to rip it out, you’ve got to throw it into the fire, and you’ve got to start again. You’ve got to rip out your old beliefs, you’ve got to rip out everything that’s going on, and you’ve got to replant, and you’ve got to start again.
So, we’re going to go over some of those beliefs in great detail in our retreat, but I want to give you some right now just to get started. A really important one, because this one right here is going to determine whether some people even bother to show up. Everybody here is saying they want to improve their marriage, they want to save their marriage, but the reality is, most people just won’t show up. The majority of people who have registered for this retreat will simply not show up. That’s just the way it is. I know that, and I don’t take it personally. A lot of people say they want results, but they don’t show up. So, here’s philosophy number one. Here’s what you’ve got, here’s step number one: you have to choose commitment over convenience.
The vast, vast, vast majority of us choose convenience over commitment, and we say we’re committed to saving the marriage, we’re committed to our health, we’re committed to our diet, we’re committed to improving our finances, we’re committed to improving this, we’re committed to all that stuff, but the reality is, we’re committed if it’s convenient. That’s the reality of the situation. We’re committed if it’s convenient. We’ve got to switch that around, and this is a minor twist in philosophy. It’s a minor shift in philosophy, but it produces a major shift in your outcome, and we’re interested in disproportionate results here. We’re interested in the small hinges that swing the big doors. I know you’re busy, I know you don’t have a lot of time. You’ve got a life, you’ve got work, you’ve got family, you’ve got all kinds of stuff you’ve got to do. You can’t give me four hours a day.
You can’t give this four hours a day. You haven’t got it. So, we need to find those small hinges that swing the big doors, and that is how our approach is. We need to find the activities, the small activities that produce the big results. We can’t just do everything. There are so many things we can do here that could make a difference, but a lot of them will require a lot of effort and produce a little bit of a result. We want the ones that require a little bit of effort and produce a big result. We want disproportionate rewards for effort, and we want reduced time frames. That is what we’re looking for here, and you get that through changing your philosophy. Effectively, by changing your philosophy, what you’re doing is uprooting the old belief and putting in a new philosophy, and that is going to get you a new result. That is going to get you a new flip, new fruit.
So, the philosophy that we need to instill here is: I choose commitment over convenience. I know for some people it’s not going to be convenient to get up in the morning and do this. I know for some people it’s not going to be convenient to stay up at night. We’re broadcasting worldwide with this. There are people in America, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, all over the world. People are watching this, and the time zones are different for everybody. And I know for some people, it’s going to be two o’clock in the morning. I get that. But hey, that’s inconvenient, right? But how do you operate right now? Are you operating on convenience over commitment, or are you going to operate on commitment over convenience? I was talking to my wife last night about this when we were going through our struggles, and our marriage was really in difficulty.
She said to me, “You can have it. Anybody can have the marriage they want, anybody can recover the marriage they want, but they’ve got to want it more than everything else. They’ve got to be committed to it if they want it. If they want their sleep, some people will want their sleep more than they want to show up here. Some people will want their Netflix time, their YouTube time more than they show up here, and if that’s you, then God bless you and I love you, but that’s not what it’s gonna take to change your marriage. If you value Netflix over saving your marriage, if you value YouTube over saving your marriage, if you value sleep over saving your marriage, then your actions are speaking louder than your words right now. And I know that sounds harsh, but here’s the thing, we’re a God-centered organization, I love Jesus, and Jesus said, ‘Know the truth and the truth shall set you free.’ It’s the truth that’s going to set you free, it’s the truth that’s going to release you from the bondage that you’re in in a terrible marriage, it’s the truth that’s going to restore things. And I’m here as a coach, as your guide, it is my obligation to tell you the truth. That is the only thing that’s going to get you the result.”
It sounds great, right? It’s like, “Okay, well, that sounds great, Cody. Everyone loves the truth.” No, nobody likes the truth. Nobody wants to hear the truth. If you want to piss somebody off, if you want to make somebody mad, tell them the truth. Nothing will upset somebody faster than the truth, revealing their true selves to them. And my goal really during these five days is simply to hold up a mirror so you can see yourself as you truly are, and you can then start to see what the problems are.
I work with literally thousands and thousands of people, and I’m telling you, I can talk to somebody, and within five minutes, I can pin, I can tell you exactly what the problem is in the relationship. I can tell you exactly what needs to happen, and I can tell you if they’re gonna do it or not. Five minutes with somebody, and I pretty much can nail, with a very, very high degree of accuracy, what’s going to happen in their lives for the rest of their lives. Because unless there is an attitude of commitment over convenience, unless there is an attitude of “this means more than anything to me, and I’m willing to sacrifice this,” I’m willing to sacrifice anything for this, I’m willing to sacrifice my convenience, I’m willing to sacrifice my sleep, I’m willing to sacrifice my YouTube time, I’m willing to miss a meal, I’m willing to cancel a board game, whatever it is, whatever it is, is going to tell me how committed you are to what’s going on, and the chances that you’re going to have success in your relationship.
Now I know you don’t know me, and it’s like you might be thinking, “Well, how do I know that, true Cody? How do I know that you can help me? How do I know you can get the result?” And I get that, I really do, but here’s the thing, right?
When I was in this situation, I would have tried anything. I would have listened to anybody. I would have given anybody a chance. I would not have ruled things out. I got to a point where I was like, “I’m lost, and I don’t know. I am simply not qualified to decide who knows this stuff and who doesn’t. I’m simply not qualified. Look at the mess that I’ve got my own life in. Look at the situation I’ve got my own life, and look at the mess I’ve created in my house and the mess I’ve created with my wife. And here I am deciding who’s got the information that’s right and who doesn’t. I don’t know the first thing about a successful marriage.” That was the only conclusion that I could come to at that point, and I wanted to get out of that hole so bad. I wanted out of that hole so bad. I was willing to listen to anybody on the off chance that they might have some good information, on the off chance that they might be right.
So, I’m not asking you to believe what I’m saying here. I’m not asking you to say, “Cody, you’re the marriage guru,” because I’m not. I’m not asking you to believe that I have all the solutions and all the answers. I’m not asking you to believe any of that at all. All I’m saying is that if you are absolutely 100% serious about saving your marriage, then you’ve got to adopt an attitude of, “I’m going to choose commitment over convenience, and I’m going to do whatever it takes.” And whatever it takes is listening to anybody who’s offering a solution, right? It’s like even today, I will listen to anybody, anybody that’s out there that’s saying, “I have a solution to this problem.” I’ll give you my ear. I’ll listen to it, and I’ll give you the opportunity to prove that to me.
And I’m telling you, don’t believe a word I say. Go into this retreat, go into your experience with me, whatever that is going to be, whether it’s just watching these videos or whether we decide to work together or whatever it is, go into it skeptical, go into it not believing a word I say, and let me show you, let me share with you, let me demonstrate through my story, through my actions, through what I tell you, that there is a path out of the situation that you’re in, and the way out is through the truth, and the way out is through commitment over convenience.
Now, getting back to what I was saying, my job really is to hold the mirror up so you can see yourself in the mirror because, like I was saying, I can talk to somebody and, within just a few minutes, tell them what their problem is, and what are the chances of them ever solving that problem because I’m not emotionally involved in the situation.
I don’t have a story, I don’t have anything. I have no dog in the fight and no emotional involvement in it. A lot of times, we just can’t see the trees for the woods, we’re too emotionally involved. When you step back and hold up a mirror, it becomes obvious what the problem is. I can talk to someone for just a few minutes and nail down the problem. I can see what’s going on with them and their relationship, and provide solutions to those problems.
If you can see yourself in the mirror, you can start to see your own problems and the truth. Instead of focusing on the fruit that’s being produced in the relationship, we need to uproot the beliefs, philosophies, habits, rituals, and routines that are causing the problems. We need to weed the garden and re-plant. If you’re willing to do that, you will get the results.
Marriages thrive in certain environments. If you create an environment where your partner feels loved, cherished, heard, understood, nurtured, respected, and there’s mutual admiration, physical and sexual attraction, satisfaction, and a vision to move forward together, the relationship will thrive.
Very rarely does someone decide to end a relationship out of the blue. There are usually underlying issues that have been neglected or ignored for a long time. When relationships die, they don’t just die, they starve to death.
Very rarely, if ever, does somebody just wake up and go, ‘I’m out of here,’ and it’s completely out of the blue. When somebody says to me, ‘My wife has just said that she wants a divorce, and I don’t know where that’s coming from,’ or ‘My husband wants a divorce, and I don’t know where that’s coming from,’ that tells me that you’re not paying attention. That tells me that you’re not listening. If you don’t know, after years of marriage, why your partner is leaving, you don’t know what the problem is, you don’t know why they want a divorce, that tells me that you’re not paying attention. That tells me that their needs are not being met, and you’re not even aware of what their needs are, let alone being able to meet them. And again, it’s harsh because that’s the truth, right? It’s the truth that will set you free.
And if, when you get to the point, and you raise your hand and go, ‘Hey look, I’m not meeting my wife’s needs,’ or ‘I’m not meeting my husband’s needs,’ or ‘I’m not validating my husband or wife,’ or ‘I’m not doing this for them,’ or ‘I’m not doing that for them,’ and you can own that, once you own that, you can start to work on it. You can uproot that tree, and you can replace, replace it, and replant it, and get new through the next harvest. But as long as you’re going, ‘The problem is the world, and I’m fine,’ then I don’t know what to tell you at that point. If you’re in a position, which a lot of people I talk to are, and again, this is where I say, when I talk to people, I can pretty much nail where they’re going to be in a year, two years, five years, just based on what they’re saying. A lot of times, I talk to people, and they’ll say, ‘There’s nothing wrong with me at all. I’m doing absolutely everything right.’ Yeah, but your partner still wants to leave. Right? She wants to leave. He wants to leave. It’s like, they don’t want to leave because you’re doing everything right. They don’t. If you were doing everything right, if you were meeting their needs, if you were validating them, if you were loving them how they want to be loved, if you were all of these things, they wouldn’t want to leave. So, the sooner you can shed that whole idea of, ‘The world is fine. I’m fine, and the world is the problem,’ and you can shift that around, again, it’s a minor refinement of philosophy, right? You’re not going to change the world. You can change yourself, though.
If you think that you’re fine, and the world is the problem, and you’re going to work on the world, you’re going to lose. You’re not going to win that fight. You’re not going to change the world, and you’re probably not going to change your partner, either. The only place you can change is internally. You can change yourself. You can manage yourself. That’s what you can do. That’s where you can win, and that is what we are going to focus on in this five-day retreat. So, what I want to leave you with is, I went off on a rant there, I went on a bit of a rant. Choose commitment over consistency. How you do anything in your life is how you do everything in your life.
You can’t be committed over here and not committed over there. Commitment over consistency, that’s got to be philosophy number one. Say it with me: I choose commitment over convenience. I’m going to do this because I’m committed to it. I’m going to work through this because I’m committed to it, even if it’s not convenient. Commitment and convenience generally don’t live on the same street. Sometimes you have to get on an airplane, sometimes you have to spend some money, sometimes you have to do things that are just not convenient. Commitment and convenience don’t live together, but you’ve got to have the attitude of choosing commitment over convenience. God bless you, please show up. I love you all and I’ll see you soon.
