“Everyone is affected by three kinds of influences: input (what you feed your mind), associations (the people with whom you spend time), and environment (your surroundings).” ― The Compound Effect
During a seminar, the speaker asked the audience, “What percentage of shared responsibility do you have in making a relationship work?”
A insightful teenager, wise in the ways of true love and who had all of life’s answers. “Fifty/fifty!” he blurted out.
To him, it was so obvious; both people must be willing to share the responsibility evenly or someone’s getting ripped off.
“Fifty-one/forty-nine,” yelled someone else, arguing that you’d have to be willing to do more than the other person. Aren’t relationships built on self-sacrifice and generosity? “Eighty/twenty,” yelled another.
The instructor turned to the easel and wrote 100/0 on the paper in big black letters.
“You have to be willing to give 100 percent with zero expectation of receiving anything in return,” he said. “Only when you’re willing to take 100 percent responsibility for making the relationship work will it work. Otherwise, a relationship left to chance will always be vulnerable to disaster.”
This wasn’t the answer the insightful teenager was expecting!
But he quickly understood how this concept could transform every area of his life. If he always took 100 percent responsibility for everything he experienced—completely owning all of his choices and all the ways he responded to whatever happened to him—he held the power.
Everything was up to him. He was responsible for everything he did, didn’t do, or how he responded to what was done to him.
You have to be willing to give 100 percent with zero expectation of receiving anything in return. Only when you’re willing to take 100 percent responsibility for making the relationship work will it work. Otherwise, a relationship left to chance will always be vulnerable to disaster.
The Compound Effect