4 C’s of Relationships

I started listening to this new podcast recently called the Dairy of a CEO. It’s hosted by Steve Bartlett who’s basically a millionaire, author, etc. It is a business podcast which means it’s about bringing successful people on and basically understanding how they became so rich and famous and so how you can too, so it’s not really the type of podcast I usually listen to.

But I’m really enjoying his podcast because I find his questions more introspective. And he’s had such a large array of hosts from CEOs to researchers, to authors.

And guess who was the guest this week — Jay Shetty. With the amount I talk about him and refer to his stuff, people are going to assume I’m like the biggest fan of him. I really am not. But I’ve got to give it to him, he honestly drops some gems at times.

One segment of this episodes conversation was about relationships and Jay says something that I found really profound.

He says

I think one of the biggest mistakes we make as humans is that we often look for divinity in humanity.

It’s the idea that we tend to begin relationships with people on the premise that the other person has all you’re looking for. They have all the answers, can give you all you need and is basically perfect.

And that is one of the main reasons people feel dissatisfied in relationships, whether it be a friendship or a parent-child relationship or even a romantic one. We enter a relationship expecting so much from the other person, even though they didn’t agree to any of it, and then get disappointed when they can’t deliver 100% of it.

According to Jay, what we need to realise is that different relationships will offer different things. He splits this into the 4 pillars of relationships — the 4 C’s.

These 4 C’s are Care, Competence, Character and Consistency.

Majority of relationships will fulfill one pillar. If more than one are fulfilled, then you’re pretty lucky! Which is pretty crazy because we tend to look for all four in one.

Here’s a breakdown of the 4 C’s.

Care: Someone who loves you unconditionally (but may not always be there. Eg. Your mum)

Competence: Someone who you can take advice from, who can help you grow, etc.

Character: Someone who guides you and keeps you grounded in your morals and values

Consistency: Someone who you can always count on to be there.

—

It’s interesting, because as I thought about who in my life fits in what quadrant it made me realize that sometimes maybe I was expecting more than one pillar from some people.

Someone who gave me unconditional love, them not being there for me when I needed them made me question their lack of Consistency, when they were there with the pillar of Care. Someone who was always there for me, I questioned why they couldn’t help me with my problems. They were there for Consistency but I wanted Competence from them too.

That is what usually resulted in feeling let down or dissatisfied.

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Over the years as life teaches you, you learn to understand to not expect much too much from anyone. Not from a pessimistic stance. But more of a realistic stance where you recognise that just as you’re imperfect and have a gazillion faults, in the same way not to expect anyone else who enters your life to not be imperfect and have a gazillion faults too.

But I really like the 4 pillars concept that Jay shares because it provides a way to assess what you can expect from each relationship and what you cannot.

If you reached till the end of this reflection, thank you my friend. I appreciate it!

I hope we get to meet each other in my next post too. Until then, if you have any thoughts about what you’ve just read let me know (in the comments or any other way). I’d love to start a conversation!

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Until next time,

Thasneema 🌻