8 years ago I was living in Honduras serving a church mission.

There was another missionary who just… irked me. 

Ya know, the kinda person that just makes you go:

I honestly couldn’t tell you specifically why he bothered me… it was just something about him.

Which is interesting since we hadn’t really even interacted much at all.

One day, to my surprise, we were assigned to work together as missionary companions.

For the next 7 months, we spent every waking moment together.

Working, preaching, eating, sleeping… everything.

And it turns out… this guy was awesome.

The more time we spent together and the more time we talked, the more he inspired me to be a better person.

He truly became my best friend.

What changed?

There was a time when he irked me… and a time he was my best friend.

What happened in between?!

• We spent time together

• We talked

What’s cool is that these two habits, or ingredients, aren’t just a “how to make new friends” formula.

It’s the most basic blueprint to improving any relationship.

On the rocks with your spouse?

Kids not respecting what you say?

Feeling distant from someone you care about?

1. Spend time with them

2. Talk to them

I’m reminded of this every time we visit my family in Utah. It’s an 11 hour drive, so plenty of time to talk.

Somehow, we always end up in a deep conversation about our goals and plans, things we want to improve on, and habits we want to build together.

We always feel super connected after these long drives, and all that happened was spending time together and talking.

On the other hand, we’ve also noticed how any time our kids consistently start acting out and throwing more tantrums, after some personal inventory we often realize we haven’t made a point of spending as much time with them.

As soon as we do, tantrums subside and they tend to behave better.

It’s wild how simple it is!

So what relationship do you want to improve this week?

What will you do different in the next 24 hours to spend more time with them and just talk?

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- Kody

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P.S. These take 3 hours to research, write, and design. It only takes you 3 seconds to share.