Kevin Anthony 0:05
Welcome to the Love Lab podcast, the place to be for honest and real talk about relationships and sex, whether you’re a man or a woman, single or a couple, this is the show for you. I am your host, Kevin Anthony, and I am here to help you have the relationship of your dreams and the best sex of your life.
All right, welcome back to the Love Lab podcast. This is episode 345 and it is titled, Aligning Love and Life Through Priorities. Basically what we’re going to be talking about today is how couples can align their priorities in a way that makes not only life easier, but also their relationship a whole lot easier. And that may sound simple or it may not, depending on your perspective, but there are a lot more than you think. You know, some people will automatically go, oh, okay, yeah, we just got to make sure that, you know, we’re aligned spiritually, or maybe we’re aligned politically or whatever it is. But there’s actually a whole list of areas where couples want to work on being in as close of alignment as possible. So we’re going to talk about what those areas are. We’re gonna talk about how you can get into alignment, why you would wanna get into alignment, all of that stuff. If you’re watching on YouTube, you can see that I have a guest with me today who I will introduce in a moment, and he is going to help us step through this topic and figure out how we can become more aligned in our relationships.
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Okay, my guest today is Nick Brancato. He is a personal development coach, author, and relationship strategist dedicated to helping individuals and couples create lives of intentionality and alignment, drawing from his expertise in systems engineering and relational depth, Nick developed the transformative total difference score framework, a cornerstone of his book, prioritize us unlock lasting love with one simple, proven test. Welcome to the show, Nick.
Nick Brancato 2:56
Thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited to be here.
Kevin Anthony 3:00
Yeah, I’m excited to have this conversation as well. My listeners all know that I speak to my guests in the pre-interview call, and sometimes I get really excited, because those calls go really well, and I feel like I relate well with the guests. And that’s how I felt when you and I spoke. And I really like the idea here I mentioned in your intro to this book, which we’ll talk about in a little bit. But yeah, I’m really excited to have this conversation.
Nick Brancato 3:26
It was wonderful to connect in the pre-interview.
Kevin Anthony 3:31
Yeah, so before we dive into the main, sort of core material of the book, and you know, aligning, I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about your background. In other words, how did you come to this framework that you’ve created in teaching about alignment? Because I know there are a couple of interesting things about your background that led you to this place.
Nick Brancato 3:57
Sure. So my background is as a Microsoft systems engineer, and in education, I’ve been a teacher since I was 17 years old. That’s when I started teaching adults, and I have a master’s in education, and I taught high school for many years. I was a tenured teacher, and during that time, I began playing poker and actually became a professional poker player. And I started teaching. After I started teaching high school, I began teaching for the World Poker Tour, teaching decision-making and the mental game of you know, your mental mindset and the mindset aspect of poker is every bit as important as the strategic side of the game. So I began teaching that.
And then throughout that process, when I was coaching people with poker, what eventually happened was that I began doing some relationship coaching as well, because the mental side of the game, when you’re playing for 1012, hours, 14 hours at the table, if you have anything going on outside of the game. Same, your mind is going to be a blur. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to make errors. You’re not going to perform at your best. And so often it’s relationships that are the distraction, relationships that are creating problems or conflict. So I did a lot of relationship coaching as well as poker coaching, and the way I came upon prioritize us, and the total different score was actually it came out of a crisis my now wife, who was my best, one of my best friends at the time, she began experiencing some serious health issues, and so I actually took a break from playing poker and teaching poker to try to help her figure that out, and it was a really challenging time in both our lives, and we just had no idea what was happening to her.
She was experiencing extreme paranoia, so much so that she wouldn’t eat her food for fear of it being tainted or poisoned, she lost like a third of her body weight. It was pretty bad, but eventually, we figured out, thankfully, that she was a paranoid schizophrenic, and so she’s on meds now, and she’s thriving and doing fantastic, and she’s amazing now. So story has a happy ending, but despite the severity of the situation, our relationship actually improved during the crisis, because all of our sort of petty issues fell to the wayside, and health and safety became our absolute top priorities, and so we became completely aligned, and the small arguments and miscommunications, really, they suddenly disappeared, and for the first time, we were perfectly aligned. And that realization sparked an aha moment for me. It made me realize that if having these top priorities aligned makes everything so much easier, what other priorities should we take a look at and examine further?
And so I began to look at different values and priorities, and I do want to distinguish between values and priorities because values are more stable. They stay with you throughout most of your life. Maybe they change over time, but they change some more gradually. They’re your core beliefs. Priorities change. They can. They change over time, they shift, they drift, and they can even change from day to day. So I began by identifying and ranking 10 core life priorities, basically, the things that cover almost all aspects of your life, and things like career, communication, entertainment, spirituality, and sex. So I came up with this list of 10 core life priorities, and then I ranked them one through 10, one being the most important, 10 being the least, and your partner or friend or significant other does the same without looking at each other’s then you compare these two rankings together, and what you get is a Total Difference Score. You get the difference from each ranking. So if I’m a one and you’re a three, the difference between them is a two.
And so we take the ranking for each of these 10 priorities and we get a total difference score. And that’s a data-driven tool that measures priority alignment and misalignment between partners. And so I tested this method with pretty much everyone I knew in my coaching practice, everyone that was willing to participate. What I discovered was that everybody found all these hidden misalignments, areas of life that they had never really discussed fully and just they learned how to communicate better, simply by understanding their different priorities. And so I saw how effective the system was, and decided to write, prioritize us to help as many couples as possible navigate misalignment, and I think most importantly, prevent unnecessary conflict, and the goal is to have a simple, actionable system that lets people turn differences into opportunities for growth, instead of just a source of frustration. And the book is really a roadmap for lasting love. It gives people tools that they can use over time, that are objective and not emotional, and helps take emotion out of the equation so that you can think more clearly about what’s really important to you and understand what’s important to your partner.
Kevin Anthony 9:34
Yeah. I mean, that’s great. I mean, nothing like a tragedy to get one really clear on what the priorities of life are, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, you’ve been through a tragedy. I’ve been through a tragedy. I know how this does help you align your priorities. And I will say this while tragedies are great at you know, getting you clear on what’s really important, you don’t have to go through. A tragedy, right? Like, in other words, you know, don’t say, Oh, we’re good. We’ve never been through a tragedy like that. It’s all it’s all fine. Like, don’t wait for something like that. You can actually get really clear on what these priorities are without having to suffer through something like you or I have suffered through. I kind of, want to make that clear. I thought it was also very interesting what you shared about the poker bit as well, because that’s something I bet you never expected, right?
You’re like, Oh, I’m going to teach people how to play poker. And like, yes, you’re thinking mindset around poker, right? Because, you know, anybody that’s ever played knows there’s a lot to you know, what cards is he actually holding? Do I have any tells, and you know, any of that kind of stuff? But probably most people have never thought about the fact that, yeah, outside circumstances that have nothing whatsoever to do with poker can also influence your poker game. And so I think it was very astute of you to recognize that in the people that you were working with and realize, okay, this isn’t just about teaching you how to be a great poker player. We need to help you solve the things that are distracting you from being the great poker player that you could be. So very, very interesting. A roundabout way to come into doing relationship coaching.
But the bigger point that I really want everybody to understand here, and this is a point I have been making for a decade now since I’ve been doing this work, your relationship and your sex life are not separate from the rest of your life, right? And so if you’re having problems with your relationship or sex life, it’s going to bleed into the rest of your life, right? Such as, you know the poker players that you were coaching who were noticing that they were distracted because they had a fight with their partner before they went into the game, right? But you’ll also notice that if you really fix all the issues, and you are really in alignment with your partner, and that part of your life is really flowing and happy and stable, and all the words we could use to describe a healthy relationship that you’ll see the other parts of your life get better as well.
And it’s just, it’s really important, I think, for people to understand that. Because I see, and I have seen way too many people try to compartmentalize it and just say, Well, yeah, I know our we’re not getting along well, but everything else is great. Or, you know, our sex life is a mess, but, you know, and it’s like, yes, but because what happens is they tend to want to put that aside and not want to deal with it, and not want to fix it, because maybe they just don’t want to make it a priority. And so what I’m always expressing to them is, even if, let’s just say, the sex itself isn’t necessarily a huge priority for you, it’s going to help you in every other area of your life if you can get that fixed and get it into alignment. So I just kind of wanted to make sure people understood that, and this is yet another great example of it that’s very important.
Nick Brancato 13:01
And was so interesting. What you said about the compartmentalization, one of the things I really experience a lot in my coaching and in my own relationship is moving from compartmentalization and having sort of separate worlds to a more integrated model, a more holistic model, where there’s more overlap in your relationship and the rest of your life, rather than trying to keep things so separate, it’s funny, the couples that I work with, they’re they’ve been together for like, around five years. They live in the same house with two grown children, so they’re a blended family, and they both, one works out, and one works at home. And so they took the prioritize us test, and one of them ranked sex as number three, and the other one ranked it as number 10.
And so I, when I was working with them, what one of the partners said that was so important was that where you rank your priority has nothing to do with frequency or quality of sex in this case. And so even those couple differed greatly in this one priority. They had the same number one. They both shared spirituality as their core. And so one of the things that I think is interesting is when you discover your priorities or misalignments with your partner, you don’t have to start with the ones that are most problematic. You can actually start with the ones that are the most similar and begin with your discussions around your core alignments. And that really helps strengthen you moving forward in any discussions in the communication process.
Kevin Anthony 14:41
Yeah, that’s great advice. Start with the areas that you do connect and strengthen that first, before you get into the ones that are challenging. Yeah, that’s great advice. Let’s dive into the 10 main priorities. Now I wrote the list down. Have it here in Fermi, but I don’t know that I wrote it down in the correct order. So let’s start with it because you said you ranked them one to 10. So let’s start with what is the most important priority of the 10.
Nick Brancato 15:15
Okay, so everyone ranks their priorities one through 10. So each person’s number one is going to be different. The 10 categories are career, communication, entertainment, finances, growth, health, relationships, safety, sex and spirituality. If I had to rank one as the highest, I would have to say that the focus should be on communication above everything else, because if you can’t communicate, you can’t even understand yourself, you certainly can’t understand your partner, you can’t resolve conflict, and you can’t cooperate with anyone, and so it makes it very difficult to have a positive, fulfilling life.
Kevin Anthony 16:02
I’m curious. I agree with you. I think communication is absolutely key. That’s why I’ve done so many shows and so many videos on communication. And the funny thing is, that I mean, they generally do okay, but they don’t do nearly as well as if I do a show on, you know, a specific sex thing or whatever. And I always have found that somewhat ironic, right? Because I understand how crucial communication is. But the thing is, what I’ve noticed, and you can tell me what, what you think I’ve noticed, though, is that most couples do not rank it particularly high unless they’ve already identified it as a big problem. If they’ve already realized that they’re they just can’t communicate, then they’ll rank it as a high level. But otherwise, they now really think about it much. And I’m curious, with all the couples you’ve worked with, how many of them put that as the number one?
Nick Brancato 16:56
Very, very few. You’re so dead on what you just said, only when they identify it as a constraint or a conflict point or a problem in the relationship. Did they rank it high? Otherwise they just kind of assume that their communication is fine because they talk or maybe they text. So just because you are communicating doesn’t mean you’re communicating well. That doesn’t mean you’re communicating in a healthy manner. It doesn’t mean you’re communicating honestly, and all those things are so key. And so one of the things that I think is great about the book is that it’s a conversation starter, whether you’re in a great place in your relationship or a terrible place, it’s going to help you identify areas that prevent conflict from occurring in the future and uncover it in the present.
Kevin Anthony 17:44
Yeah, absolutely. And when I, when I work with couples, almost always the first session or two, we have to sit down and really focus on communication. There’s, there’s a whole module in there that we need to really go over. And I always know, because if I’m going to work with anybody, an individual, a couple, whatever, there’s always, you know, it’s not, I don’t call it a pre-interview call, but it’s like a strategy call, where we talk before we agree to work together, and I get to hear about what their problems are. And it’s always together. I can instantly tell from that first moment that I talked to them, where the communication challenges are. I mean, it’s just so obvious. You just watch them and how they interact with each other, and it’s like, Okay, number one thing we got to start with communication.
So there’s always a foundational piece there where we have to go over some communication best practices. Because, as you said, even if they think they’ve got good communication, there are almost always areas that are not working the way that they should be. And for us to make any progress as we go down this road in this process of doing couples counseling together if they can’t talk about all the things that we’re going to cover throughout this then they’re just not going to make progress, right? So we really always have to make sure we get that communication as dialed in as we can because it makes the whole rest of the process easier.
Nick Brancato 19:11
Yes, so true. And also, listening skills are so important. Having good filters and bad, and listening to hear and empathize, versus just waiting for your turn to speak. And so I think the frame in which you listen is so critical because you really want to operate from a learning stance, from a place of curiosity. You want to understand why your partner has the priorities they do. You don’t want them to have your same priorities, or for them to change their priorities because you think they should be different. It’s really about understanding each person’s personal priorities, adopting a learning stance and being very curious to understand why their priorities are so high and what you’ll feel. Is that your priorities will naturally shift because you want to be positive and you want to help and support your partner, and so your priorities will align more naturally just by communicating about them.
Kevin Anthony 20:13
That’s a really important point that you make because a lot of times when it comes to anything, where we are ranking both people in a couple, right? And we’re saying this is where you align and this is where you don’t align. There’s a tendency to think everything has to align up as much, as best as it possibly can, right? And if it doesn’t, oh my god, we’re in the wrong relationship. We shouldn’t be here. The point that you’re making is it’s not so much that you’re trying to get them all to align perfectly. It’s that you’re trying to understand each other’s priorities so that you can learn how to work with them. And you know, you might find, of course, that if somebody’s priority is way off from yours, that might not work for you. But I would venture a guess, and I’m curious how you know your experience has been with the couples you’ve worked with because I guarantee that you’ve worked with a lot of couples who have gone through your process and found that there was a lot of things that weren’t aligned, right? But what I’m curious about is, you know, how many of them get to the place where they actually go? We’re so out of alignment, this isn’t going to work.
Nick Brancato 21:20
That’s a great question. So many people assume that their relationship should just work if love is present, but they never actually measure whether they’re aligned. And so when somebody, when a couple, comes to me, or a couple that I’m currently working with, that is that is a very high TDS score, total different score. So that means they’re not very aligned. The lowest score would be zero, the highest score would be 50. If you’re perfectly aligned, you’re a zero. That’s like one in a trillion. So nobody’s perfectly aligned, and so that’s important to know. So when they do have a high total different score, the couples, sometimes they think it’s going to be like a doomsday sentence, but it’s not. It just means there’s more low-hanging fruit for improvement.
Sometimes couples occasionally recognize that they should be a part, but for the most part, they’re seeking advice and counseling or coaching because they both actually want to be together in some way. That’s why they’re investing in the relationship. And so what I find is that there’s lower hanging fruit in the couples that have a high total different score, they’re more likely to have conflict, but there’s also more to communicate about, and so we can get through once we establish good communication skills, which is so important like you talked about, that’s how you spend most of your time in the beginning. Once that’s present, then you can really attack the issues that would that are causing conflict right now or that are likely to cause conflict in the future. When people have a high TDS, it’s usually because there’s conflict right now about almost everything, but things are typically very surface level. And so what I advocate is operating one level above.
And so if you’re fighting about dishes or how you’re spending your time or anything like that, you’re usually trying to solve the problem at the wrong level. You’re trying to solve the symptom. You’re trying to prevent this. You’re trying to solve the symptom, not the root cause. And so when that’s going on, you need to look one level higher, and that’s where priorities really come into play because they help you operate in an objective way that’s at the right level. And only, I’d say about 10% of couples that have a high TDS tend to part because of that. So maybe one in 10 with a TDS over, say, 35 which is pretty high, but once they get to the 40s, they need professional help. And sometimes it needs to be more than me. It needs to be a therapist or a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or any number of things like that.
Kevin Anthony 24:04
Yeah. I mean, that’s pretty much what I expected you would say is, that you know, you don’t see that many couples that actually get to that point where they go, Oh, my God, we’re so out of alignment. In other words, for the majority of people, if, even if, they find that their priorities are not in alignment, it’s possible to work with that and still have a successful relationship.
Nick Brancato 24:31
Absolutely. Often, those couples seem like they’re fighting the hardest to be in a healthy, successful relationship, because they’re staying together despite all this conflict that’s going on, my wife and I, early in our relationship, we had so many miscommunications and so much conflict, because we approached communication from opposite directions. Sometimes we were going to the same place, but we were having difficulty communicating about it. We were taking different paths. Paths, and so we had a lot of arguments and miscommunications in the beginning of our relationship. And what priorities do, what the prioritize us test does, is it’s like a GPS system for your relationship. So you might have a one GPS system, you might have Apple Maps, and I might have Google, but at least we know we’re going to the same place when our priorities are known.
And so most couples fight about surface-level things instead of realizing they’re misaligned on a deeper level. And I think measuring your priorities anyway, like even if you just with your partner today, write down your top three priorities and have them do the same, and then compare those priorities without looking first. And then compare them, you’re going to be shocked at what you find you might be aligned on one of them, and expect that. And then you’ll find things that you didn’t even think might be on the list. And so just doing a simple check-in with anyone important to you really in your life, will really have a profound impact on your connection and your communication.
Kevin Anthony 26:09
Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is something really I talk about this a lot. I don’t do a ton of work in the dating space. Most of the people that I’m working with are in relationships already, but I do, of course, work with single people too, and people who are out there dating. And I often describe the dating process as it’s like an interview process, right? Like, you know, I’m not trying to make it all, you know, corporate or anything like that, but a lot of times, people don’t realize that the whole point of this early phase of dating is to get to know who this person is, and to try to understand who they are and figure out, you know, what it is that they want out of life, so you can see if there’s alignment there.
And a lot of times, people don’t do that. They are pretty much just in the dating phase, they just get into this, like, is there attraction there? Like, that’s pretty much the only thing they’re really looking for, is their attraction, whether it’s physical attraction, or sexual attraction, right? And they just going based on those chemicals that are flowing. So I’m always trying to reorient people and go, okay, yeah, you want there to be attraction. But remember those, those attraction chemicals, don’t last forever, right? They’re temporary. And if you really are looking for a long-term relationship, you got to look a lot deeper than that, and you’ve got to find more. And so what made me think about that was, this is the perfect thing that you can do early on when you’re dating somebody.
And I know sometimes people are like, I don’t know. Man, that’s kind of like, do I really want to go that deep with somebody I barely know? The answer is yes, yes, you do, because you can avoid a lot of wasted time and trouble and arguments and incompatibilities if you take the time early on in dating to really go over these things. Like, imagine, all right? Maybe not the first date, right? But imagine you’re, you know, you’ve been dating for a few weeks now, and you’re like, Okay, there’s attraction here. We seem to get along well, like, hey, let’s talk about, like, what things are important to us in life, you know, what do you want to do? Maybe you’re younger and you’re like, career, career, career, right? Maybe you’re older, and it’s like, relationships, family, you know, like, How amazing would that be if people actually took the time to sit down and discuss these things openly? And I think this would be a really good framework to help them do that.
Nick Brancato 28:33
So true. That’s my vision for it as well, totally using it as a diagnostic tool to help you improve your relationship, or know that a relationship isn’t the right fit early on, and especially if you’re intimate with someone, the more intimate you are, the more rapidly you should be going deep with your communication, and maybe even do it before you’re intimate. But this is part of intimacy. Right? Intimacy isn’t just the physical act of sex, it’s the component of sharing and being vulnerable, and this helps you do that in a very safe way.
Kevin Anthony 29:12
Yeah. I mean, I’m all for tools. The more tools we have, you know, the better. It’s okay to have a giant toolbox. It doesn’t mean you have to take everything out of it all the time, but, you know how it is. I mean, like, we’re guys, you know, like, as guys, we kind of do that. It’s like, I want to have every tool over there, because five years from now, I might need that one tool, right? That’s how I kind of see it when it comes to, like, relationship stuff. Like, there’s nothing wrong with having as many tools as you can have to make sure that you have a successful relationship. Doesn’t mean you have to use everyone all the time, but the fact that you have it when you need it can be extremely helpful because I’ve seen just too many couples hit a wall and go, What do we do now?
Nick Brancato 29:57
Yes, it’s so true. Have. Your toolbox and not using the tool for five years, and knowing you’re going to need it, you don’t know when. What I love about paying attention to your priorities, the prioritize us test and the TDS score is that it’s evergreen. Once you learn this tool, you don’t even need to use the book. You just need to you just need to learn the method. Takes you five minutes once you have it, you can use it and pull it out of your pocket anytime you need it. You can use it when times are great to further align. You can use it when times are tough. There are also additional tools that I think are really important, like once you align your priorities, once you rank your priorities, something that’s simple that people can do is write down how many hours per week you’re spending on each priority and really check in with yourself. Just this looks very useful on the individual level because you can see are my actions in alignment with my intentions.
That was always my goal in teaching poker for your actions to be in alignment with your intentions at the table. The same thing’s true in relationships. Am I spending my time where I say my priorities are or do I need to shift something? Because so many people rank certain things as high priorities or rank them low, like a lot of people rank entertainment as a nine or a 10 or an eight, meanwhile, they’re spending four or five hours a day on passively consuming non-educational content, and that is crazy for most people. They don’t mean to be doing that. It’s kind of an accident. It just happened to them, and now they check in with themselves. They can realign Another thing to check in with yourself on is your satisfaction with each priority. How satisfied are you in life? If you’re very satisfied and it’s a low priority, maybe you have a very good balance. But if you’re not satisfied, it’s a high priority, how much effort are you exerting to improve that? Maybe you need to increase your effort.
Kevin Anthony 31:58
Yeah, this is a really important point that you just brought up, which is, that you can take the test and you can rank your priorities. However, what do your actions actually say about how accurate what you just wrote down is, in other words, just because you say something is a priority or isn’t a priority? Is that really true? And I love that point of, you know, getting really honest with yourself and looking at where do I spend my time because that really will show you where your priorities currently are too. Where are you putting in the actual time? I have heard a lot of people tell me that their relationship is a priority, but then when you ask them what a typical day or week looks like in their life, what you get is almost all work and kids and, you know, extracurriculars. You’re like, where’s the relationship in that mix?
Yeah. So that’s I mean, okay, if you’re having difficulty figuring out what your priorities are, look towards your actions, and if you notice that your actions don’t line up with what you think your priorities are, right, then that gives you a really good idea of sort of where you need to work. And then the question becomes, are the priorities that I stated really my priorities because that’s one potential thing is, well, maybe the things I think are priorities aren’t really priorities, but then the other is, maybe they are really the priorities. You’re just not doing what it takes to actually make them priorities. So either way, you kind of learn where you should go next, right? So if they’re not your priorities, right? You need to really re-evaluate and go, Okay, I need to get really honest and clear with myself and my partner about what my real priorities are, right? Then you’ll know whether or not you’re in more in alignment, because if you both take this assessment, right, and you’re like, Oh yeah, we’re somewhat aligned, but then your actions don’t actually align with your stated priorities, then you might not be in as much alignment as you think. And then, of course, there is if, if they actually are your priorities, but your actions show something different, then you know, I need to change my actions.
Nick Brancato 34:17
Exactly. That’s so incredibly accurate and really well said, one of the things that I still do with my wife now is we check in with our priorities all the time. And what I love is how she can ask me questions just out of curiosity, and it can make me realize, like, wait a second, this is supposed to be a high priority, but I’m not spending any time on it. Or, wait a second, this is supposed to be a low priority, and I’m spending quite a bit of time on it, and so it helps me check myself, just because I have to share it with someone else, and just because she asks me questions about, How much time do you spend on that, or how important is to. Now used to be really important to you, has it changed?
And so if you check in with each other regularly, you can prevent what I call priority drift, which is where you don’t check in with your partner. Your priorities were aligned in the beginning or at some point in your relationship, but they’ve drifted, and you haven’t talked about it. So maybe you starting a relationship, and you both have a career as a top 30 priority, and so you’re both very driven and focusing a lot of your time and effort on that, and you understand that you just have time for each other when it fills in, but then something your life changes. Maybe family gets involved, maybe a child, maybe one person just gets more serious about the relationship, and unless you check in, one person still has a career as a high priority, and the other person’s become a middle priority or even a low priority, as family and relationships and health and safety have increased as a priority. So if you don’t check in, then you’re dooming yourself to future conflict by not preemptively stopping it, you can really prevent a lot of conflict from occurring just through conversation. Oh, you have to know what to talk about.
Kevin Anthony 36:11
Yeah, for sure. I love the idea of check-ins. This is a key component that I teach all of the couples that I coach as well. It’s this idea of check-ins. And I actually have several different layers of check-ins. From the just weekly check-in like, Hey, how you know, how are you doing? How was this week for you? Or what do you have going on this week? Or just, you know, a quick little check-in about, you know, sort of daily life, shows that you’re interested and curious about what’s happening in their life and you’re also showing that, you know because a lot of times those check-ins will be like, you know, how’s your week looking? Do you need help with anything, right?
Is there someplace where I could, you know, make whatever you have to do this week easier, or that sort of thing? So there’s that I often also recommend, sort of, what I call, like, quarterly check-ins, which, you know, you go a little bit deeper, like, you know, okay, it’s been, we’ve made it through the holiday season, right? You know, how are you doing as a result of that? Do we need to take, like, a weekend vacation to decompress from that, or whatever? But the big one, and this gets a little bit closer to what you were talking about, is, I always recommend couples do at least yearly, like deep check-in, right? And this, this comes to how the priorities can drift, right? So this is something that my wife and I used to do when she was alive every year, and we used to do it around New Year’s just because it was a good time. But you don’t have to do it around New Year’s. Make it whenever you want, just do it regularly.
But New Year was always a good time to sort of take a step back and evaluate where have we been, and where do we want to go? And what we used to do is talk about those deeper life priorities. Where are we with our business and our careers? Is this something we still want to put a lot of energy and effort into? Where are we as far as, like, where we live? Is this still how we want to live, where we want to live, like, all that kind of where are we as far as what we want out of our relationship? Because you know, you can go five years relatively quickly and not even realize those five years just flew by, and maybe you want something different out of your relationship now than you used to, right? So if you don’t have those conversations, you never know, and that’s why people will say it just came out of the blue. I thought everything was great, and suddenly she told me she wants x, right? And it’s like because you never checked in.
Nick Brancato 38:31
That resonates with me so much. People think they get blindsided, but they were ignoring all the red flags, or even if they saw the red flags. They weren’t talking about them. They weren’t having the difficult conversations. They weren’t even having the easy conversations, which a lot of these conversations are. They’re not all hard. Talking about your strengths as a couple is just fun and easy and makes you both feel better about yourselves what you were describing, I think of as small, medium, and large check-ins, and so I like to encourage couples to have a small check-in ritual, even if it’s only five minutes a day, where they have no screens, where they often I encourage people to have, like, a hot beverage together, maybe in the morning for five to 15 Minutes, or after dinner or before bed, just something that they can connect over a central a shared, sensorial thing, a little bit of an experience. Just take a moment together.
I think these types of rituals, these small efforts, go a really long way. So you do a small one once a day, and then a medium one once a week, and then a large one maybe once a year, or at most, once a quarter. And that can be something where you really get a lot of high-quality time together, like a trip or a staycation, even, or just something where it’s all about prioritizing your relationship and nothing else for that period. And the small things can really be, they can literally be five minutes a day. People think they don’t have time, but five minutes of connecting with your partner is so powerful.
Kevin Anthony 40:12
Oh, yeah, you know, you mentioned earlier about how much time people spend on entertainment, even though they rank it relatively low. This is a conversation I have all the time when I have couples or even individuals complaining about their sex lives, right? And we want to talk about, how do we prioritize that. And it’s like, ah, but that takes so much time and blah, blah, blah. And then again, you start asking deeper questions, and it’s, how much time do you spend on social media? How much time do you spend watching your favorite show on Netflix? Right?
It is an enormous amount of time, and to which I always have to say, so you’re telling me you can’t find 15, 20 minutes, 30 minutes maybe to really connect. I mean, the reality is, is, the studies say the average man only lasts about, you know, three to seven minutes when it comes to sex. Now, if you’ve taken my program, that’s not true, however. I mean that the reality of it is is like most people can have a full-on from, you know, zero on the arousal scale, through ejaculation and cuddling in 30 minutes like that, most people can do that, right? I think it should be a lot longer than that. But hey, you know, the point is, you can’t find 30 minutes to do that. Yes, you can. You just have to prioritize it.
Nick Brancato 41:28
Yes, absolutely. And that’s so funny how you mentioned you can have the full experience in 30 minutes. It’s really true, and in just a few minutes of connecting, you uncover so much. One of the things I like to ask people when I’m working with them is, when do you flirt? When do you flirt? How much do you flirt? Do you prioritize it? Because it’s hard to go from nothing to full-blown sexual experience you’ve not even been flirting with your significant other like to ever like besides one compliment a day, or if you even do that, you know, do you do you flirt with them? How much did you flirt with them in the beginning, and how much do you flirt with them now? The same level of stimulation and connection. Flirting is a great way to connect. And if you have, like a hot beverage ritual, or if you take a walk together for a few minutes a day, or stroll, or any of these kinds of things, then you have time to connect. You have time to flirt. And unless you do it through text message or something throughout the day, you’re probably not doing it at all.
Kevin Anthony 42:37
You’re absolutely right. And anybody that’s listened to my show for any amount of time, if you really heard what he just said, he just explained exactly what I talk about when I talk about what I call the constant state of arousal, which is the little things that you do day in and day out to nurture that connection and that arousal level Absolutely, you’re totally spot on with that. I think that is one of the big keys to keeping a relationship juicy and also nurturing the sexual component of your relationship is just those little things. It could be a flirty text. It could be five minutes to just connect. It could be, you know, grabbing each other’s butts, whatever. I mean, there’s a ton of things, you know, in there, but it’s doing those things on a regular basis that really nurtures that connection. Okay? I totally missed my mid-show break, so let me just do a quick break for that, and then we’ll come in. We got a few minutes left after that, and we’ll wrap up.
Are you a couple? Are your relationship and sex life where you want them to be? Are there changes you would like to make, but just don’t know how maybe you think there is nothing that can be done if you’re not 100% happy with where your relationship or sex life is, then get help today and change your life. Go to https://www.kevinanthonycoaching.com/couples/ and schedule a strategy call with me today so we can map out a strategy to get you where you want to be so that you can have it all your way. That is https://www.kevinanthonycoaching.com/couples/. Book your strategy call today. As I always say when I have guests on the show because so many of my guests are also people doing great work out there. At the end, you know, I will give Nick an opportunity to tell you where you can find him if you resonate with his message if you want him to step you through the priorities, or help you align your priorities. By all means, please go check Nick out. Also, what I care most about with this is that you get the help that you need. It doesn’t matter. Yes, it’s great if you work with me. I love it. But you know, I think Nick is a cool guy, and I think he’s got some really great information here. So if you resonate with him, check him out as well.
Okay, we didn’t talk specifically about each of the priorities, and that’s okay. I didn’t expect to actually get dive into every single one of them. What’s more important is, I think talking about all the things that we’ve covered so far. However, I am somewhat curious. You know, use. If you had to rank one as the most important, you said communication. And so that spurred a great conversation about the importance of communication in a relationship. I’m wondering. So top three, right? We got communication is number one. What would you say in your experience, would be the next two most important things to have in alignment?
Nick Brancato 45:21
I think being in alignment around growth is incredibly important, because when people are uncertain, people are doing personal development work or skill acquisition, and their significant others or even their friends aren’t, and they’re remaining more stagnant or stable at best, often regressing, because when you’re not growing, you’re shrinking, there’s atrophy. If you’re not building muscle, it’s deteriorating. And so the same thing is true with growth. And I would say the third thing is actually for significant others and for partnerships that are intimate sex, because if you’re not aligned physically, then that can lead to all kinds of problems, including health problems, including feelings of safety. And so it’s another form of communication. Really, it’s physical communication. And so I think people don’t give it enough credit. I know that you do, but most people don’t prioritize it enough, and it’s a blind spot, because even if they have sex with some regularity, are they really connecting? How much are they using as a form of communication?
Kevin Anthony 46:45
Yeah, I agree, you know, and the the studies in psychology all show that having a healthy, fulfilling sex life is a critical component to a long-term, successful relationship. They all say it. Now, the only caveat to that is, is, you know, what you consider a healthy, you know, fulfilling sex life varies from couple to couple, and individual to individual. For some people, that might look like we have sex five times a week, right? For, you know, hours at a time, and for others, it’s like we have sex once a week pretty regularly. We both enjoy it, and that keeps us fulfilled, right? So you got to figure out what your your level is, but having that as a component really is critical to a long-term successful relationship, because it is, yes, it’s a psychological need that we have. It’s also a physical need that we have.
And what I have seen is that there’s really no way for people to suppress it in any sort of healthy manner. In other words, if you have a strong desire and sex is a priority for you, no matter how much you try to convince yourself, it’s not, because maybe your partner is not that into it, or, you know, whatever it you it’s like, it’s like trying to hold a beach ball underwater, you know, it just doesn’t work. Well, eventually that thing’s gonna pop up, right? It’s probably gonna pop up and hit somebody else in the face. So, so, you know, you just, you can’t deny that, if that’s part of, you know, something that’s important to you, which it is to the overwhelming majority of people, this is how long term resentments build up, and anger and frustration and all those things, and so you really can’t deny the importance of having a healthy, functioning sexual component to your relationship. I also want to talk a little bit about the other one, though, that you mentioned, which is the growth.
Because I don’t think this is one that people actually think a whole lot about. Now, where I live, I live in Southern California. I have for almost 25 years now, one of the positives that I will say about Southern California, there are a bunch of positives. There’s a bunch of negatives too, just like every other place. But one of the positives is that I’ve noticed anyway, is that there is a significant part of the population here who is focused and oriented towards growth and spiritual growth, although a lot of that is more New Age oriented, you know, it’s still growth. In a sense, they’re still oriented towards wanting to learn more and grow more. And so because of that, I’ve had a lot of experience, not only personally, but with friends and clients who go through this journey that you’re talking about.
And because of that, I have seen exactly what you said, which is when you have a couple where one person, for whatever reason, decides that you know growth is important to them, and they really take off on that growth road if the other person isn’t also doing. Doing something to also grow, you end up with a lot of problems in the relationship, and sometimes those problems get to the point where they’re really hard to resolve because they see things at that point from such a different perspective it’s really hard to reconcile. Now I will say this, and I’m curious about your opinion also, in just a moment. But I used to describe it as this because many, many years ago, I had a partner who we were both actually really into growth. But, you know, she loved to go to seminars and workshops and things like that. And I preferred more like, I like to read a lot of books. So I would read a lot of books, I would watch a lot of videos, listen to a lot of audio, you know, lectures and things like that, because, you know, that’s just what I like to do.
But what I learned from that is, it didn’t necessarily matter what sort of, you know, back street we took, we always ended up relatively at the same destination, right? What was more important in that particular situation is that we were both oriented towards growth, and we were both doing things towards growing our individual selves, as opposed to, you know, one person who just is like, Nah, I’m good, I’m good, but so, but I’m curious what you like. What are your thoughts around that? As far as you know, how important is it for people to do the same type of growth, versus is it just important that they’re at least focused and oriented towards growth? And what happens when one person isn’t focused towards growth?
Nick Brancato 51:35
I love this topic, and it’s rarely discussed, so I everything that you said really hits home. And so I live in Vegas, and there’s mostly a growth mindset here too. A lot of people move here because they’re looking for change and they’re looking to grow in some kind of way. When I work with people and they don’t identify, one identifies growth as high, and another identifies growth as lower what I think is fascinating about growth is that if you look at growth mapped out over time, what I find is that the people who have a growth mindset, that are actively doing self-improvement, they become much more interesting over time. And the people that do not have a growth mindset, remain where they were. Their conversations remain similar. The things that they talk about are the same, the topics are the same. They reminisce more. They’re more focused on the past, not the future, and they kind of live the same six months of their life, over and over again, instead of developing and changing and growing in new ways.
So I don’t think that two partners have to be growing in the same area. It’s okay if you have different interests. It’s okay if one is focused on career growth and another is focused on personal development, or somebody’s focused on learning AI and the others are focused on learning to cook, that’s all great because they’re both improving themselves as a person. They’re both they’re both acquiring skills, they’re both nurturing themselves. And I think that that’s an important aspect of growth, is that it’s an act of self-care, yeah, and so people neglect themselves when they’re not learning and growing. And it’s really true that if you don’t use it, you lose it. And so if you’re not improving in some way, then you’re gonna start deteriorating.
Kevin Anthony 53:32
Yeah, you know, you mentioned this earlier in the conversation also, and it’s something that I talk about a lot, right? Which is, you know, everything is either growing or dying. There’s no There’s actually no in-between. There’s no like, everything is just perfect. If you look around the world, everything is either growing or it’s dying, right? And so which, which end Do you want to be on? You know, you want to be on the growing end or the dying end. I also think it’s interesting, too, the way that you phrased it, which is, like, they could this, your partner could continue to be interesting to you, right?
Which is really, I think, kind of fascinating, right? Imagine that. Imagine being in a relationship with somebody for a decade and still finding them interesting, and still finding that, like, there are things that you’re getting to know about a person that sounds amazing to me. Sounds way better than just like, you know? The other thing you described was literally Groundhog Day, right? You remember the movie, it’s like the same day over and over and over again. Wow, does that sound boring?
Nick Brancato 54:34
Exactly this idea that people sort of find someone and then get locked in a relationship and then do some sort of routine with them till they die for decades on end. Is sort of like a Hollywood myth, almost, where that’s not that shouldn’t even be what you want. I mean, it sounds, it sounds like a version of hell to me, you’re just, you’re just living the same thing again. And. Again, you can only get so good at, those simple areas. And what I think is so wonderful about growth and it being an act of self-care, is that what you said, you’re either you’re either living or dying, you’re either growing or deteriorating. And I think what you mentioned about the beach ball analogy is very profound. You can’t hold a beach ball underwater and sustain it, just like you can’t balance and sustain that.
Balance is not a sustainable state, but equilibrium. That’s sustainable, and that’s what your goal should be. In a relationship, you don’t need a relationship that’s equal where both partners have the same things in the same way, and this and that you need. You need a relationship that has an equilibrium where you’re where you’re in alignment, and you’re aware of each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and you can account for them together so that you’re you’re better as a together. You’re more whole than you are when you’re apart. That’s really the goal with anyone that I work with, or from my relationship, is to be better together.
Kevin Anthony 56:09
I completely agree. I mean, absolutely 100% that you come together and you are both better for having come together. 100% Yeah. And I love that idea of equilibrium. I think one of one of the biggest problems we’re having in society today is we’re trying to make everything equal, and that doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work. And one of the things that you also mentioned was, you know, people’s individual strengths and weaknesses, and that’s how you get something that’s really strong, whereas you take advantage of the places where, hey, you’ve got to strengthen this area, right? I’ve got a strength in this area when we come together now, we’ve both got that strength, right? If we try to make everything equal all the time, we lose that. We lose that, you know, taking advantage of the strengths that everybody brings, and we just try to make everything equal and boring and bland, and it doesn’t really function well that way anyway.
Nick Brancato 57:10
No, it sure doesn’t. One of the things that has changed for me significantly over the course of my life is I used to be very competitive. You know, I used to be a professional poker player. I was very competitive. I was competitive even before that in my youth, and now I’m so much less competitive, maybe not competitive at all. Now for me, it’s all about cooperation and things that are mutually beneficial and sustainable in the long run. Those are the kind of relationships that I want to have, whether it’s friends or my wife or my mother or anyone, whoever the relationship is. I want it to be mutually beneficial and long-term sustainable, and that’s a concept that actually comes from Game Theory. It’s an optimal strategy for life. It’s where both people the sum is greater than the whole one plus one equals three or more when you work with your strengths and when you share them with each other, and you can account for each other’s weaknesses.
Kevin Anthony 58:09
Yes, and you know, if we’re really honest, and we look back at, you know, the entirety of, you know, human existence, what you really realize is the way we got to what are we in now, almost 8 billion people. Yeah, there were a lot of things, obviously, farming practices, blah, blah, blah, but the reality is, how we got there was cooperation, not competition. We’re constantly told that it was always competition, that it was dog eat dog, and it was, you know, out competing. The other guy, not saying there wasn’t any of that, but it was cooperation in villages and families that got us to where we are. That is the actual model for success. And it’s the same thing in a relationship.
Nick Brancato 58:52
Yeah, that just hits home. It reminds me of the diff of like an infinite game, of the difference between a finite game and an infinite game is a finite game has a winner and a loser, and someone always comes out on top in an infinite game. That’s how I approach things. You can have sustainable, mutually beneficial wins, where things grow through cooperation, and you’re so right that things are always made about competition, and that’s not what got humanity to where it is at all. It’s our ability to cooperate, for sure. And, when you look at cooperation, I think one of the most important things is obviously communication, and so that brings it back home to where, if you can’t communicate, you can’t cooperate, and you can’t cooperate, it’s going to really hinder your ability to grow in all areas of your life.
Kevin Anthony 59:54
Yeah, well, we may not have control to shift the entire world into cooperation, but you do have control to shift your own relationship into cooperation, and the more people who do that, the closer we get to world cooperation. I love it, all right. Well, we are out of time. Nick, it’s been great speaking with you. Please take a moment to tell everybody where they can find your book, and you if they want to work with you.
Nick Brancato 1:00:24
Sure my book, prioritize us is available on Amazon. You can get it as an e-book, paperback, or hardcover. Makes a great gift. If anything from this conversation resonates with you, you can go to my website, Nick brancato.com, and for a limited time, you can actually get a free copy of Prioritize Us as an e-book for a download. And so you could check that out if you’re interested in coaching. I do couples coaching, I do personal development coaching, and you can find me at Nick brancato.com or on Instagram, at personal dev coach, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to DM me with any questions or comments. I love to interact around this topic, as you can probably tell, and I really appreciate the chance to be here on your show. I think what you do is really incredible. You’re like an Iron Man with all these episodes that you’ve made. Thank you. It’s really impressive, and I love what you’re doing and how you’re sharing. You should be very proud.
Kevin Anthony 1:01:29
Well, thank you. I do appreciate that, and the link for Nick’s website will be in the comments. So if you’re not sure how to spell Brancato, don’t worry about it. It’s right there. I have a difficult to spell Italian sounding last name as well, so I know the struggle. All right. Nick, thank you again for coming on the show and sharing about your work and your knowledge, I think what you shared today was really great, and if people really heard that message, I think they’re they can really be on the right track to having a better relationship.
Nick Brancato 1:02:09
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure.
Kevin Anthony 1:02:12
All right, everybody that’s all the time that I have for this episode, and I will see you next week.
I hope you like this episode of the Love Lab podcast. If you enjoy this show, subscribe, leave me a review, and share it with your friends, and for more free exclusive content, join me in the passion vault at https://www.kevinanthonycoaching.com/vault/. That’s https://www.kevinanthonycoaching.com/vault/.Thanks for listening and remember, as Celine used to say, you’re amazing!
