It’s Penny Zenker.  On this show we explore your greatest potential of tapping into core elements of time and energy management.  At Take Charge, we provide you with a strategic way to dramatically and sustainably increase your productivity and your profits.

This week we are going to focus on the psychology of relationships.  You have heard me talk about Championship psychology.  For those of you that are new, it means bringing your best into everything you do.  Treating every day like game day.  It’s clear in athletics and successful people know how to apply it to business.  So many times, it’s overlooked in our personal life.  Our relationships reflect and reform our success in all areas of life, especially in business.  None of us, succeed purely on our own.  Seriously, no one.  Can your business succeed if you are not forming positive relationships with employees and clients? Can you bring great energy to the board room table if your relationship with your spouse or children isn’t fulfilling?  Tony Robbins has been quoted saying “The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships.”  That is where the emotions are most magnified.  The real key to maintaining a championship psychology is being able to do this even when circumstances are not in your favor. 

Let’s take Nelson Mandela for example, he was unfairly jailed but he made a choice that he would like to focus on learning a language of his oppressors so when and if he would get out, he would bring about great change.  He was once asked how did he survive all of those years in jail?  He strongly responded with the words, I didn’t survive, I prepared.  So champions are not born champions. They are grown and you make a choice to be a champion.  It takes more than just DNA or desire to be one.  It takes passion, commitment and dedication.  This is true for how we show up for everything we do.  There is an expression:  How we do something, is everything.  We are creatures of habit.  How we do something is how we do everything.  Today I am joined by Sky Blossoms to share her experience on the topic of bringing a championship psychology to your relationships.

She is a relationship strategist for high performers as well as an author and speaker.  She received her medical degree and for more than a decade she studied psychology and alternate therapies.  Sky’s humble beginnings of growing up in the Ukraine, sparked her drive for extraordinary life experiences.  It prompted a relentless search for answers.  Her personal journey through pain, disappointments, and failures taught her vital lessons and led the discovery of bliss and fulfillment that she now shares with others.

On our program, you will learn three tips to dramatically improve your relationships.  How to understand your wants and desires intuitively.  A simple tool to discharge negative emotions.  You have such an energy about you.  It was nice meeting you in Las Vegas.  It’s great to have you here.

S:  Thank you Penny.  I am thrilled to be here.  I love your shows.  I am honored to share my knowledge and expertise with your audience.

P:  We are eager to get to know about you.  You have an interesting background about how you made it to where you are today.  Can you share a brief history about your journey?

S:  My early life experiences inspired my passion for relationships.  I was born and raised in Ukraine.  My parents struggled financially.  They often didn’t have enough money for food.  Out of desperation, they went to work in Germany for nearly four years.  Since they worked in the military base, the rules were strict and they couldn’t take me with them.  I had to live with my Grandparents in another place.  About 11 years old, I entered into some of the darkest years.  Depression and suicidal thoughts.  My parents improved their financial situation.  My clothes were getting fancy and my peers could only dream of the stuff I was getting.  But I learned that material stuff wasn’t anything compared to relationships.  I wanted to be with my parents.  I would have given all of that up.  I changed schools five times.  That taught me that the skill of relationship. It is one of the vital skills in life.  Later on, moving into another country and adapting to a new language, building new relationships from scratch. That is one of greatest skills in life you can acquire.  That is what brought me to do this professionally.  Also, personal fulfillment is by far one of the greatest contributors to happiness in life no matter how much you succeed in business.  There are two things that we ultimately need.  A great state of health and personal relationships and fulfillment.

P:  Those are things we take for granted until we don’t have them.  A great state of health and having great relationships.  So many people grow up in their family environment and they take for granted that they have and see their parents on a regular basis.  It must have been so challenging to be without your parents and all of the new schools and what not.

S:  I am actually glad I faced the challenge early on because I see if from working with my clients and working with families that it is often taken for granted.  We forget sometimes to eat or work out from running around, our system starts to break down.  The same with relationships.  We think its ok to watch tv vs. to spending quality time with your spouse.  Until we are faced with a divorce.  It’s better to do preventative measures vs. fixing problems when they arise. 

P:  There tends to be an urgency when all of a sudden it rises to the top.  That is why so many people search for balance because we live in an urgency culture.  We are reactive vs. proactive.  That is why we are talking about this today.  Why relationships affect our psychology.  I agree that we need to keep those things in the forefront.  Great state of health, one of the four components, is physiology.  It has to do with our state of health.  The other three elements in there which are purpose, language, and focus, they really have a lot to do with how we manage our energies.  Also how we filter those into the relationships and how we develop those relationships both with ourselves and with others.  We need to remember the core relationship with ourselves.  Do you agree?

S:  I agree!  Moreover, the quality of your relationship with yourself reflects in the the quality of the relationship with others.  I keep seeing the confirmation of that time and time again with every client I work with. 

P:  I believe that it is one that people tend to focus on in the least.  We are missing out of some of the most important elements because we are focused on other areas.

S:  I agree.  I think nobody is teaching that.  In school, we are not taught that.  Our inner dialog is so important.  Our self-image is crucial and how our relationships are formed.  Our belief systems and our outlook on life in general is all reflected back to us with our quality of relationships with coworkers, colleagues, everyone.

P:  When you were younger, you went into bouts of depression.  That is a certain area that talks about where your self-confidence and self-image was, right?

S:  At that time, my depression was due to my parents being away and I was missing them.  The whole environment was new and I felt like a victim.  It was done to me, against my will.  At the early age it is difficult to take ownership of that.  It was not happening to me it was happening for me.  I took it as a gift.  It honed my skills of forming relationships and cultivating them took years.  You start valuing relationships once they are taken away from you.  When you have to move to another city and your best girlfriend stays, it takes dedication to stay in touch and stay connected.  Here I notice people don’t even look at each other anymore.  In a social setting, everyone is glued to their gadgets now.  No more conversations anymore.  You don’t even know what the other person is feeling anymore.

P:  How did you go from medical school to deciding to become a relationship expert?

S:  It wasn’t conscious to be honest with you.  My interest and passions for psychology and human behavior came personally.  I was studying all of the information I could get on human behavior.  For as long as I can remember, it was helping me to cope on my own life challenges.  After medical school, I moved to the United States.  Here, I went on an exploration of careers.  I felt like being a dentist just wasn’t my calling.  To be a dentist or a doctor, you must be passionate and love it and feel called to do it.  Otherwise, I had no right to take that responsibility.  I felt like I liked it, but it was not IT.  I have done all kinds of things from hosting tv shows to working for video production companies, but I had the question of what is it that I am supposed to do?  Interestingly, sometimes life prepares you for what it is that you are supposed to do.  Your purpose is not always revealed to you all at once.  For me, it came in the form of inspiration.  I wanted to write my book.  My journey was unfolding in ways that most people would call miraculous.  Synchronicity after synchronicity.  I have learned that whenever I step on the right path, it unfolds before you.  If you are moving in the wrong direction, you are faced with obstacle after obstacle.

P:  That is an important point.  Some people I have come in contact with feel lost.  Maybe it’s a mid-life thing with some, they feel kind of lost.  They are not really sure what that passion is for them or their purpose.  I think it’s important to point out here that we don’t have to be born knowing what that is.  There are few people that are born into knowing that they are a dancer or a musician.  There are so many people who as you said, that through their life’s journey, they have found out later in life what it is that really takes hold of them.  Really brings their life and other’s lives to a whole new level.  I just wanted to point that out.  If you are in that place that you are not sure, take comfort in the fact that know that this is all preparing you for your next steps.

S:  If I may add, think of yourself like a piece of coal that is born to be a diamond.  When you are born as a coal, you don’t know yourself as a diamond.  You might need to go under some extreme conditions of pressure and high temperature before you can shine your brightest. 

P:  I love that.  Thank you for sharing that.  It’s time for a short break.  Stay tuned as we get into more depth with Sky Blossoms.