#57 Sheila Heen: Decoding Difficult Conversations
01:27:46 Share

When I least want to listen and when I am most frustrated, I need to actually lean into the conflict to understand it better and understand their perspective better first, even though they still don't get my perspective.

Hello and welcome. I'm Shane Parrish and this is another episode of The Knowledge Project, a podcast exploring the ideas, methods, and mental models that help you learn from the best of what other people have already figured out. You can learn more and stay up to date with the podcast at fs.blog.com. Listen, we're terrible at marketing, but we have a newsletter. It's called Brain Food. It comes out every Sunday.

It's short and sweet, full of the best content we've come across all week. It's worth reading and thinking about. It contains quotes, book recommendations, articles, and so much more. You can learn more at fs.blog slash newsletter. That's fs.blog slash newsletter. Over 200,000 intelligent people subscribe, including most of the guests on this show. So be sure to check it out.

On the show today is Sheila Heen, and oh man, this conversation is going to blow you away. And it's all about difficult conversations. Sheila literally wrote the book on how to talk to people about difficult things. We're going to geek over what makes for a difficult conversation, how to deal with them, how to think about them, how to avoid them, how to teach your kids about them, and so much more. If you deal with humans, you don't want to miss this episode. It's time to listen and learn.

you

The IKEA Business Network is now open for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Join for free today to get access to interior design services to help you make the most of your workspace, employee well-being benefits to help you and your people grow, and amazing discounts on travel, insurance, and IKEA purchases, deliveries, and more. Take your small business to the next level when you sign up for the IKEA Business Network for free today by searching IKEA Business Network.

Sheila, I'm so glad to be sitting down with you and talking to you. Well, thank you for coming all the way here because it's really fun to have this conversation in person. It's much better, yeah. Yeah. How did you end up studying conversations? Yeah, I definitely was not seven years old with people saying, what do you want to do with your life? And thinking, I want to talk to people about how we talk to each other. Like, I didn't really know that that was even a thing, right? Yeah.

So I grew up in Iowa and Nebraska and went to college in California. And I really didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, of course. But law school always felt like, well, that's logical. My dad's a lawyer. I always got the impression from him that he really enjoyed practicing law.

So I thought, well, I don't know what else to do. So like many people, you go to law school. What did you do your undergrad in? I was a public policy major, which was sort of politics, philosophy, and economics. And I came out of that thinking, I don't think I want to go into politics, but the understanding why people do what they do and unintended consequences was really interesting to me.

So, and law school, the first year of law school is very intellectually stimulating. It's really interesting. It's very absorbing. And we had one elective and the one elective that I heard I should try to get into was negotiation. So I was lucky enough to get into the class. I take it the spring of my first year and I just totally fell in love. Like immediately I thought,

I could do this every day for the rest of my life and learn something new every day. What was the text they were using back then? Is that the Getting to Yes? Getting to Yes. And it was taught by Roger Fisher. And Roger Fisher, who founded the negotiation project, the Harvard Negotiation Project, and who wrote Getting to Yes, he fought in World War II.

And in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. And when he came home from the war, he found that of the six college roommates who started college together and at the end of that first year, they stopped out, it was called, to go to war. He was the only one who came home. And it sort of motivated the rest of his life to try to find better ways to help people manage conflict. And so he was a really inspirational person and a really wonderful teacher and

because part of his philosophy was that you have to walk your talk and you have to

demonstrate what you are teaching and how you teach it because teaching itself is a negotiation. You are negotiating for people's engagement and willingness to take risks and to admit mistakes, um, and to see what they have to learn, which is not easy with Harvard law school students, right? Like failure muscles, not so well developed in that population. Um, so owning up to screwing something up, um, and,

is a big negotiation, right? In the learning process with each other. And so he was such an amazing teacher and negotiation in itself is such an interdisciplinary field that I just felt like this touches on everything in life. And, um,

Um, I want to learn it all. Okay. You were instantly like smitten with negotiations. Smitten. Also like compared to torts and civil procedure, like maybe there was a problem with the comparison set that I was, uh, thinking, do I want to do civil procedure? Do I want to do negotiation with people? Um,

So yeah, right away I got involved. I started doing independent projects. I interned at the nonprofit consulting group that operates on the side. I became a teaching assistant. I met my husband teaching negotiation. And he teaches at MIT, right? He teaches at MIT Sloan School, yep. So we both teach negotiation. One at Harvard, one at MIT. What's that rivalry? Like...

We both think it's no contest. Okay. Although we don't necessarily agree. Yeah, exactly. But I have to say the best negotiators in the house are the kids. I mean, kids, as you probably know, are amazing negotiators. What makes kids so effective at negotiation? Like if an adult tried the technique of kids, it wouldn't work. But for some reason, kids... Well, some adults are using kid techniques. Oh, really? Have you not noticed this? No. They did not learn any new strategies. Yeah.

Kids are amazingly intuitive negotiators because whether it's conscious or unconscious, they're really paying attention to what works. And as the adult in the relationship, sometimes you're just not paying attention to what you're rewarding. Right. So if they ask the fourth and the fifth time and you're just like, enough, fine, go.

You've just taught them to pester four or five times or throw the tantrum because then they get something out of it, right? And so they actually just repeat the behavior that works and it takes you a while to realize what you are accidentally rewarding and teaching them to do that's successful with you. And the other thing about kids is that you as the parent are relatively stable, meaning stuck in your ways.

But kids are evolving all the time. So every time you think you've figured them out, they change. So it's a really mismatched competition. And they're always poking to see like... They're always poking. Yeah. They're always poking to see where the edges are. So how do you balance teaching your kids how to negotiate, which is a super effective life skill, and then realizing you're also a parent and not everything is a negotiation? Yeah.

Not everything is a negotiation for sure. But what I think I have come to appreciate is that what I want my kids to understand is if you want something, what is it that I as a parent care about? What are my interests? Right. That you need to satisfy to get me to say yes to what you want. And that may not be possible. Like you are wearing your seatbelt because my interest in you not being maimed or killed or whatever, um,

There's just nothing you can offer me. But about delaying your homework or something. But delaying your homework, well, all right, what are my concerns? What do you think my concerns are about delaying your homework? So you're getting them to take your perspective. Yeah. You're trying to teach them what we would call second position skills. Can you step into someone else's shoes and imagine what the world looks like to them and what they care about and what their priorities are?

And not that you're supposed to guess accurately, but ask them questions. Learn as much as you can because that's what's going to help you craft an option that meets your own interests as well as the other person's. So partly, part of the problem is I have a very low tolerance for them fighting. Okay. Right? Because it just drives me crazy. I'm like, just knock it off. But I actually also need to give them space to figure out how to negotiate with each other.

Because it's negotiating with your siblings and your parents where you learn a lot of those life skills. Right. For better or worse. And it's different negotiating with your parent than your sibling as well. It is. It is. How old are your kids? So my kids are now 18, 16, and 12. So I've got a college student, a high school junior, and a middle school student. And they are... It's funny because...

they don't think they've learned anything because it's just kind of in the air. Well, yeah. And, and, but, and they're actually really good at different things, um, around negotiation. So that's been really fun to watch. Um, and it's also taught me a huge amount about myself, of course. So what sort of things have you learned about yourself? Well, one of is how little patience I have sometimes. Right. And, um,

When I get frustrated, I can get dictatorial. Like, we're done. This is not a negotiation. Just do it. And...

That's not necessarily helping in some cases, but it's where I go when I get frustrated. So realizing that for myself helps me be like, okay, this strategy isn't helping. It's just escalating the conflict. I've got to take a break, walk away, come back, and do something more productive here. Yeah, that's a good place to be. Tell me about your kids and negotiating with them.

It feels like a losing battle. I mean, like every time it's just, it's like they will relentlessly try one technique, try another, try another, try another. And it's their ability. I admire it. Yes. I mean, their ability, their resilience in the face of like constant no's.

And then I'm also conscious at some point, like I want to say yes, just to like reward the tenacity. But then I'm like, oh, this is going to sabotage me later. And then you're teaching them to pester and pester and pester. So I've started trying to get them to be more persuasive. And so they're eight and nine now. And so like if they want to download a new iPad app,

The rule is I have to take a sheet of paper and they have to write down like what it is, why they want to download it, and like what are the benefits to me. Oh, nice. Good. So it's trying to take my perspective and encourage that. And it's hilarious to see the things they come up with. It's like we won't bug you for 20 minutes. Yeah.

Like you nailed it. That's right. And so it's trying to get them to do a little bit of research on the app too and start thinking about like, how do we persuade people? Because that is a huge skill in life. It's a huge skill in life. And, you know, it's interesting because on the first day of class, when we teach negotiation at Harvard Law School, um,

What I do is I have students actually draw a self-portrait of what they learned was effective as a kid negotiator. Oh. And so they introduce themselves by telling a story. I said, whatever age comes to mind, doesn't matter. Negotiate with your parents, your siblings, your friends, your teachers, I don't care. But what jumps to mind? And what strategies did you learn that were successful? Ooh.

And they tell these hilarious stories. Are these recurring? Like, do you hear the same things every year? Some of the same themes that you'll hear. So first of all, if you think about the population of Harvard Law students, some of them, their strategy was just to be so good and get such good grades and not to ask for much so that when they did ask...

It was hard for their parents to say no. That would work for my kids if you ever listen to this. Right. Exactly. Here's a tip, kids. Right? Others of them, their parents asked them to do presentations. Like they had to make the pitch. Right? Others of them are building coalitions. Right? Either splitting their parents. Oh, okay.

To like go to one who's the easier one to kind of persuade them, get them on their side, and then go to the other to say, well, dad says, you know, this will be fine. Or teaming up with other siblings and saying like, you ask because you're always more successful at this. Oh, interesting. So they're really smart about it. And then later in the course,

When they're getting frustrated, the cases are getting more complex as we're building skills and advanced skills. When they're under frustration or threat, a lot of us just revert to pretty early strategies that were successful. And so it's funny how many times we pause and be like, okay, are you doing that thing, you know, that you did with your parents that's not really not working for you here?

And yeah, often. And they see it. And they see it. They can attach it to what they did on the first day. It's really interesting. That's another fun thing about negotiation, which is that all of us have been negotiating since we were kids. So everybody's an experienced negotiator. But you're not necessarily a good negotiator because you'll tend to just repeat the strategies that are successful for you, even into adulthood, right? And so your strengths get stronger and your...

Your capabilities get deeper, but they don't necessarily get broader. And then the strategies that work for you, you start bumping into situations where that's really not working, but you don't have something else to work with. You don't see what else is possible in terms of how to approach it. And so that's a lot of what we do when we teach negotiation is you're trying to help people see what your go-to strategies are, see where they're serving you well, and then see where you actually need to build a broader repertoire of skills and tools. Yeah.

And then pull out the tool that makes sense. What are the most common tools that people are missing or the feedback that they're not getting that would help them? Yeah. Okay, this is an honest answer, but it's sort of a boring answer. This isn't about my pitch for you to come on the podcast. No, no, no. No, you hardly even had to ask. I was like, absolutely. It's lack of listening skills.

And partly it's because when we get frustrated, first of all, I think that in life we often treat listening as sort of a strategy of last resort. I'm sorry, what did you say? If nothing else works, I suppose I'll listen.

Or I'll pretend I'm listening while I'm trying to figure out what to say. Well, I find that that's what most people do, right? And it's not even a conscious thing. You're just sort of like, oh, I can't wait for you to shut up so I can say this thing. And the whole time you're talking, I'm just thinking about, like, how am I going to phrase this? How am I going to word it? Exactly. And we assume that persuasion is about talking when actually the most persuasive strategy that you can take is a listening strategy for a couple of reasons.

Really good listening means you're learning a ton about not just what is under people's positions, you know, their interests, concerns, priorities, worries, anxieties, that is meaning that they're saying no so far. But also, you're changing the relationship. And then the third thing is that there is

this dynamic called reciprocity, I'm sure you're familiar with it, right? Like one of the strongest social dynamics is that you'll mirror back whatever you get. So if you attack me, I'm going to attack you back. But if you really listen to me, I'm much more likely to then be willing to really listen to you. And so you're enlisting that as a reciprocal sort of

set of expectations of each other in how we're going to approach this problem. How do you teach somebody to listen? Like we all think that that, Oh, like we just have to paraphrase what this other person is saying. Like what is listening? Yeah. So you think listening is like paraphrasing back? I'm not saying that. I'm saying that's the common sort of, I feel like this is a trap. Yeah. So other people think that listening is like paraphrasing back. See how annoying this is? Yeah. It's totally annoying. We're in a loop. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so, um,

I do think that listening, that's why I said this is a boring answer, because it's kind of the answer that everybody knows theoretically we're supposed to listen more. And then we think of sort of the parody of active listening. You know, could you please pass the salt? So it sounds like you would like some salt. Tell me more about that. Listening really matters when we're stuck.

And that's the time when it's actually hardest to listen. Because when we're stuck, like you are not listening to me, I keep repeating myself, we're not getting anywhere. That's the place where shifting the dynamic to be willing to hear like, what is getting in the way? I don't understand what's going on, is probably the very best thing you could do to unlock what's going on and to change the dynamic. But it's the time I'm least curious about.

And, um, when I'm frustrated, I've got so much noise in my internal voice that I don't really have space to be curious about what's going on in your head. Cause I'm coping with my frustration with what's wrong with you. And so it's never your first instinct in that moment to listen. And it has to be a trained response. Um, so my husband, in addition to teaching negotiation is a, um, volunteer fireman and EMT.

And we have an all-volunteer force in our little town. So, you know, he's come to this a little bit later in his 40s. And so he gets sent to the fire academy. Well, first of all, the people at the fire academy are like in their 20s, right? They're going to be professional firefighters. So he's the oldest person there. They call him Pappy. But what he learned, what you learn at the fire academy is to overcome your natural instinct to run toward the fire.

When everything in your body is saying, run away from the fire. And so it's become this image for me of when I least want to listen and when I am most frustrated, I need to actually lean into the conflict to understand it better and understand their perspective better first, even though they still don't get my perspective.

And if I can train myself to do that, which is counter instinctual, then I'm going to be effective in the moments where it's matters most.

And that's not easy. It's just like repeatedly over time, you sort of like catch yourself. It's catching, exactly. It's making the mistake, realizing, oh, I did it again. Or in your case, your husband sounds like he could actually be like, hey, you're doing that thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like what happens when you have two people who teach difficult conversations and negotiations having a conflict?

Yeah, you just have more ammunition. Like, oh, it's difficult conversations. Let's dive into difficult conversations a little bit. That book was phenomenal. It's still impactful. It's still sort of like a go-to that people give to people that are going through relationship problems, that are going through struggles at work. Yeah. Let's start like at the ground floor. What is a conversation? Yeah, great question. What is a conversation and what is a difficult conversation? Yeah.

That was my next question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what's funny to me is obviously a conversation where the two people are talking to each other. But I also think it's sometimes when we're not talking to each other. Like we are estranged or we are specifically ignoring each other. Or you might be talking to me and there's a whole lot that I am not saying to you. But I am saying it to you in my head. Yeah, I was thinking about this as I was doing research and I came up with this idea.

the iceberg of conversation. So you have what's above the surface, which is a very small fraction of the iceberg, which is like the words that people say. And then you have below, which is sort of like your unexplored or unsaid thoughts and feelings and emotions. Totally. Yeah. So as we were trying to understand these conversations, so we had been teaching negotiation at the Negotiation Project. I joined in the early 90s.

And, you know, we were teaching getting to us and interest-based negotiation and people were taking our courses and going out in the world. And periodically they'd come back and be like, this is great. Let me tell you how I'm using it out in the world. But every once in a while, people would come back and be like, this is great in a lot of situations, but there are actually some conversations I'm in where it's really not helping. And in fact,

When I use your approach, I think it might be making things worse. Really? Yeah, so that was a little bit of upsetting feedback to get. And, I don't know, Harvard being Harvard, we had...

Typical reaction, like, oh, well, clearly you're not doing it right. Like, if our method isn't working for you, there's something wrong with you, clearly. I think eventually we kind of came to our senses and we're like, okay, maybe there's something here that we need to learn. Maybe there's something different about particularly challenging conversations. And they often happen in ongoing relationships, right?

Um, where there's history going on. There's often a lot of uncertainty or disagreement, strong disagreement. And then alongside that, there's a bunch of strong feelings. So what's going on with that? And, and we kind of define a difficult conversation as whatever feels difficult to you.

Okay. Right. So it could be difficult for one person, not for the other. And not for the other. Although what's interesting is that that quickly changes. Like I may be worried about the conversation and ahead of time, I'm thinking this is going to be difficult. You may not anticipate that it's going to be difficult, but as soon as I put something on the table that you didn't foresee or expect, and you realize how much disagreement there is or how frustrated I am with you that I haven't told you all these years or whatever, um,

then it becomes a little more difficult for the other person in most cases also. Even if they feel misunderstood or whatever, that's not fun.

So it's a little bit of a contagious dynamic in both directions. Would a fight be a difficult conversation? Sure. Or is that a different type? Oh, no, no, no. That's included. Keep going. What else? Persuasion is a conversation. Yeah, especially. I mean, like, almost everything. Yeah, almost everything. How does medium affect conversation? You mean, like, are we doing a phone, text, email, in person? Yeah, media. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We, first of all, when you're in this field, you just think everything is in your field. So you're going to colonize the whole world. So we would say that you are communicating with the other side, even when you're not speaking to them, right? Because maybe they're hearing it through the grapevine. So, and you may or may not realize they hear it through the grapevine, but your silence also is communicating something. It's hard for them to interpret and what they get may not be what you intend, but you're

there's some message coming through. Now you asked about the channel of communication or the medium, huge difference. I mean, what would you say is for you is the most likely to escalate what channel of communication? Depends on who I'm talking to. Yeah. So say more. Yeah. I think like if I'm,

There's some people where if I'm texting, that's more likely to escalate or result in a miscommunication than if we hop on the phone. Yeah. And there's some people where I know if I hop on the phone, they're instantly agitated because they hate talking on the phone. Yes. So texting would make much more sense in those cases. Yeah. It also depends on what you...

I'm guessing here, but like what you sort of like want to communicate, like what you want to understand or what you want to learn or what you want to get out of the conversation. Yeah, I think that that's right. So I think that there are a couple of axes to think about. And you put one on my radar screen that I think is exactly right that I hadn't been thinking about, which is just preferences. Right? So my husband hates talking on the phone.

Like, hates it. And so even though the phone would be a much more efficient way for us to figure this plan out, when he answers the phone, he answers the phone saying hello, but he basically says, why are you bothering me? Like, that's the message behind hello.

He's already annoyed to start out with the conversation. So although it would be a more efficient medium, it ends up being a less effective medium because he comes in already unhappy. And I'm always trying for effectiveness first and efficiency sort of second. Exactly. So that's one axis, which is do we have a preference and a reaction to some channels that then ends up being part of the conflict between us?

But the other axis I think has to do with to what extent it's really dialogue versus serial monologue. So in-person communication, hopefully, not always, but should be the easiest to be dialogue, not just because we can talk back and forth, but also you're just getting so much more information, right? Body language, facial expressions, et cetera. Like you're reading a lot more than just the words and the tone. Um,

The phone removes some information, but it's still a back and forth in real time. When you move to email, email isn't really dialogue. Email is serial monologue. So I'm having reactions to your email, like by the second paragraph. And I'm reading the rest of your email through that set of reactions, um,

Which makes me suspect you have bad motives and sort of reads a tone into it, which may or may not actually be there. Right. And then I write back while I'm in that triggered state. And also, over time, if we're frustrated with each other, just seeing your name in my inbox...

I'm pre-triggered. Right. Yeah. I'm already anxious. I feel like being in my inbox, I'm already pre-triggered. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So for some people, texting falls somewhere in between. It's a little more dialogue because it tends to be shorter. But of course, it's cryptic. Right. Et cetera. So partly it's just matching the task. What are we trying to accomplish in this conversation to the right medium for that? Right.

Email tends to be the one that people default to because I want to craft the perfect email to give them a piece of my mind. And it feels safer. But email is actually the one that escalates the fastest. And typically, if a conflict starts on email, it's really hard to solve on email. So I tend to tell people, just pick up the phone. Why does it escalate the fastest? I think because although there's no emotion...

officially in email, of course there's emotion behind email. And so we're reading all these clues. Like, how do you know whether there's emotion behind an email? You don't have facial expression or tone of voice. Well, I think like thinking about this, it's different if I know the person or not, because then I'm projecting sort of like what I know about them into that email. And if I don't know them, I'm less likely to predict emotion, but I'm more likely to skin. Yes.

Yeah. So we didn't even know that. And then we get tons of

Negative mail too, like hate mail and all of that. Yeah, super fun. Over the years I've developed like a thicker skin to some of this stuff. So I read less emotion into and respond less of myself. Yeah. But at the start it was like, oh my God, somebody unsubscribed. Like what did I do wrong? What is wrong with me? Why are you telling me I'm spam? Yeah. What's wrong with me? Exactly, right? Like what did I do? Yeah, we take it all so personally. Yeah. Yeah.

That was so interesting. I forgot what we were talking about. Oh, email. Like why email escalates more. Oh, why email escalates. Well, I do think that when you know the person, okay? Well, actually, let's start at the other end. I think that like the spam and the hate mail that you get, I think that people...

It's easier, particularly when they are emailing strangers or leaving comments online for strangers, it's easier for them to forget that there's a real human being on the other side. And so they're sort of venting their frustration with the world and their life sometimes, et cetera, at someone else. Right. It says more about them in a way. It says more sometimes about them and where they're at and how they're feeling treated by the world than it says about you.

And they're not thinking that it's going to impact you. They're like, Shane's not going to care. Shane's famous. Shane has this amazing followership, so he's not going to listen to me. And they don't understand that actually if you read them, you lie awake sometimes, right? Especially in the early days where you were taking them seriously.

As if they really were about you. Yeah. And they're a little bit, I suppose, about you. But if you hear themes across them, but mostly they're about people forgetting that they're talking to a human being. Now let's go to the other end of the spectrum where it's someone you know well.

And you can tell that they're upset because something changes. Yeah, your spidey sense kind of goes off. Totally. Like, they usually have a greeting and there's suddenly no greeting. Right. Right? And sometimes you can't even, like, articulate why you feel that way, but you're just like, hey, something's up. Like, I sense something's up. Yeah, are you okay? Like, are things okay? Yeah, yeah. And you could be wrong, right? But they've either gotten more informal or more curt. Mm-hmm.

Their language choice has changed. There's no punctuation all of a sudden. Something. Something has changed. Maybe they've gotten more formal. And you're just like, whoa, did I offend you? Or just time lags. Like, I haven't heard from you. Or you immediately get something back that's like, no. You're like, okay, sorry. So anyway, I think what happens is when we feel frustrated on email...

It leaks through, right, in the words that we choose or the tone, et cetera. And then the other person reacts to that. And because we're each reacting differently,

and reading the emails back and forth from the other person kind of through a triggered reaction. Right. Um, it can escalate. And then don't forget that it's often true that people are CC'd on that email. So now there's an audience which adds to the reaction. Yeah. Um, and the identity quake aspect. Um,

And it can be forwarded to anyone. And it lives forever. And it lives forever. And so it's just hard to turn that around on that medium. It's almost like you can't, in a conversation, you can make mistakes. Yes. You can gauge like how the other, oh, I didn't mean it the way that you interpreted it. That's right. And you can instantly sort of like correct them. Yeah.

Yeah. But email can be sort of like twisted and I would imagine this is starting to be more prevalent in legal cases where emails are coming up that are...

taken out of context or don't explain a conversation that happened at the water cooler right afterwards where they clarified. Yeah, exactly. And one of the mistakes we make is that we get an email that's upsetting and we write back right away. Instead of taking time. Instead of taking time to wait until the adrenaline has gone down, we

We reread it and we think about what we want to respond with rather than how we want to react or how we will react because we're not thinking about it. One of the things that Roger taught that has stuck with me all these years is the idea of being purposive in the next thing you choose to do. So the easiest way to understand it is when your kids are fighting,

You have boys or girls? Two boys. Two boys, right? So you say to one of your boys, why did you hit your brother? And what's he going to say? Because he did this. Yeah. It's like a blame. Yeah, exactly. He hit me. He called me a name. He deserved it. He deserved it. Exactly. And sometimes he does. Right. That's true. And? Yeah, exactly. And so what Roger would say is, I'm sorry, when I ask you why did you hit your brother, I don't mean what...

caused you to hit your brother. I mean, for what purpose did you hit your brother? What is it that you were trying to accomplish? And so the idea of being purposive...

Oh, that's interesting. Not just reacting to what they just did to you, but thinking, how do I want this next thing to go? And what do I need to do? What choice do I want to make in how I respond rather than react that will get us closer to something useful? That's sort of the conversation that we try to have. We don't always succeed at this, but it's like, well, when you did that, what it really means is you lost control of your emotions, yourself, and you responded in a way that...

Yeah.

Yeah. And it's hard because kids are so good at seeing that it's not all their fault. Oh, yeah. And they hear the blame packed in it. And so they're going to argue about why really he started it. And so I was just defending myself. And this is something that we've done with our kids too, which is what did you contribute to the problem? Yeah. Yeah.

Right before he hit you, what were you doing? Right. And one of my boys... That doesn't mean it's equal contribution. Doesn't mean it's equal contribution. That's important about joint contribution. When we shift from blame to joint contribution, it doesn't mean it's 50-50.

It just means that there were choices we each made that got us here and figuring out what those were tells us what to change and to fix. So one of my boys caught on to joint contribution really quickly at a pretty young age. So they would have something that would escalate and change.

I would say to Pete, all right, what did you contribute to the problem? And he could turn on a dime emotionally and just be like, okay, well, I called him a name. I probably shouldn't have done that. Okay, yeah, that's fair. My other son, Jess, we get totally stuck emotionally. And he'd be like, he called me a name, Mom. I'm like, I understand that. We're dealing with that separately. That was his contribution to the problem. What was your contribution to the problem?

He called me a name, right? So I learned that I actually just needed to give him more recovery time to go kind of get out of the reactionary period and then come back. And now let's talk about it. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So I think people's ability to like move emotionally to a place of being more constructive really is just wired differently depending on who you are.

So we're talking a lot about conversations. I want to give people the framework that you had later in the book, which is the three different types of conversation. So blame, feeling, and identity. Yeah, it's what happens. So it's kind of like your iceberg idea that any difficult conversation really has three things going on. There's sort of layers to the conversation.

Um, so the first is the what happened conversation, which include, which is really our story about what has happened, what is happening now and what should happen. Okay. And that that story has three key components. It answers the question, who's right, by the way, me. Always us, right? Always us, yes. Which means you can't be right because if I'm right. Then you're not right. Yeah. Whose fault is it? So that's the blame piece. Okay.

And why are they acting this way? Like, what are their motivations or intentions or character? Like, why are they being such a jerk or such an idiot or so lazy or incompetent or mean? So those three pieces, our answers to those three questions kind of make up the key pieces of our story about what's happening. Because we think the way that we see the world is the way that everybody sees the world.

It's not the way everybody sees the world. It's the way everybody should see the world. Okay. But do we even recognize that there's an alternative way? Like in the moment, are we conscious to be like there's a different vantage point to this problem? I don't know. What's your experience?

You're the expert. Sometimes. And also, it's easy to say, all right, there are two sides to every story. But mine is actually the good side, right? Like, we know theoretically that there are multiple perspectives. But we've thought about it a lot, right? And ours just seems like it's the most reasonable one.

Even though there are other ones, they're not as reasonable or as right as ours. But I should maybe put a caveat on that, which is it's not easier actually when you think you were wrong or that you think you were to blame because answering those same questions the other way doesn't make the conversation easier either. That can often be a difficult conversation when I realize I was totally wrong about this and it's my fault. But that's still one way to look at it.

So the first piece is that what happened conversation. And part of the challenge is that from inside that story, you're not going to have a better conversation. So you have to actually shift your internal voice, meaning that's what you're thinking and feeling in the conversation. You have to shift it first. So your first negotiation is really with yourself. To move from being focused on what I'm right about to

to starting to be a little bit curious about why we see this so differently. Because it seems so obvious to me that I'm right, so I'm not getting why you don't see that. Or what is it that I'm missing here? And to move from blame to joint contribution, what did we each do or fail to do that got us here? Which doesn't mean we did something wrong necessarily, and it's not necessarily 50-50, but that'll help us figure it out. And then from being sure I know why you're acting like such a jerk to...

I don't know your intentions, but I can describe the impact that it's had on me. So that's all inside our story where we're shifting our internal voice and our story. And from that second place of like, I wonder why we see this differently. And we've probably both contributed. Like that's such a healthier place to have a conversation. It's gonna be a totally different kind of conversation. And at the end of the day, I can still decide I'm right, but I have a better sense of why you don't think so.

So still the relationship's in a better place for us to solve the problem if we need to. Because just understanding you doesn't mean that I agree. Right, exactly. Okay. But I might have a better understanding of why we don't agree, right? Because we place different priority on or value on something. And so you think this isn't that important, and I think it's quite important. But now I at least get why you don't think it's important. Right.

So that's all the what happened conversation. You asked about the framework. The framework has two deeper things going on. Because underneath that, the second thing going on is that in difficult conversations, we usually have a whole bunch of feelings going on. And they're often a complicated tangle of fear and trepidation and disappointment and mistrust and betrayal and frustration and anger and hurt in any combination. And appreciation and respect.

really satisfaction, who knows, hopefulness, despair. So part of what's hard is we're trying to figure out what do I do with all those feelings? And particularly in the business world, I think it's easy to think like, well, we just need to keep them out. Like just be objective and stick to business and keep those feelings out of the way because they just get in the way. And the challenge is that often if we're having a difficult conversation, we're

By the time it's become a difficult conversation, we really have two problems. One is whatever the surface problem is, like we don't agree on the strategy or we don't agree whether we should handle this parenting decision the same way.

So we've got a surface problem that we need to solve that we disagree about. But underneath that, we've got a second problem, which is how we each feel treated by the other. Right. Like you always dismiss my parenting approach. Right. Or you just don't get why this strategy is going to cause us to actually lose customers over the long term or clients over the long term. But you never listen. Right.

Right? So if we don't talk about the feelings going on and how we each feel treated in the working relationship or the personal relationship, we're not actually addressing the deeper problem. But that's weird. Can we explore this for a second? Because I'm saying it's weird, not in the sense that we shouldn't talk about our emotions or feelings. I'm saying it's weird in the sense that

The meta message that's given in school is how do we become, how do we override our evolutionary sort of programming, feelings, emotions, and strive towards this evolution?

And I'm not agreeing with the described rationality where we're effectively like AI bots walking around, you know, not having any thoughts or feelings. And so how do we reconcile that view where, you know, this overarching message is one thing and then you're saying it's really difficult to actually get to the root of the problem if we don't surface ourselves.

our feelings and our emotions. And not only do we have to surface them internally, like to ourselves, because often we suppress them internally. We have to surface them to the person we're having this difficult conversation with. Yeah. And be vulnerable and open ourself up, which is like almost the antithesis of sort of like rationality, right? Yeah.

And then we have to be heard. Right, right. And risk that you won't be heard. We have to feel that we're sort of acknowledged, I guess, in terms of... I know, it's scary, right? So I guess the rational argument for that is this gets you to a better outcome. So if you're willing to put your... Yeah, and I think the other rational response is that's just reality. So I think we have...

And this is changing a lot actually recently, but there's sort of a traditional story that there's rationality and there's irrationality, right? There's being objective and then there's being emotional and that those are

you know, totally separate sphere spheres and never the twain shall meet. And I think what we're learning over time and neuroscience is learning is that these two things are just really intertwined that, um, how you feel changes how you think and how you think changes how you feel. Yeah. And that, um, objective decision-making does not exist actually. And that, um,

feelings are actually really important information, right? So if you look at system one and system two thinking, right? Your intuition and feelings are telling you things faster than

then your rational brain can figure out logically. But they're also, they're clues, but you don't want to rely on them, right? Because they can also lead you astray. They're full of biases and misinformation. But if you don't pay attention to them, you're going to really miss the boat on what's really going on. So when we teach negotiators, it's like interests are feelings. What people care about, what people worry about, if we're going to get this deal done,

You've got to respond to what people worry about, care about, can get excited about, can get on board with, how much risk they're willing to tolerate. Those are all related to emotion.

And relationships. And if they're going to make a decision, they have to know what their interests are. So I'm sure you're familiar with Antonio Damasio's work. So he's at the University of Iowa. And he wrote a book called Descartes' Error. Okay. I think I've heard of the book. I don't think I've read it there. Yeah. So he...

is one of the researchers that took a look at what are called split brain patients. So there are people who either... Oh, do you go fully rational or fully emotional? A congenital defect or an accident, right, an injury, it means that the part of the brain that processes emotion is actually physically separated from, severed from the prefrontal cortex, which is your executive function thinking, what we think of as the rational decision-making brain.

And he and other researchers were like, well, there is a population of people who can't access their feelings actually just physiologically. So these split brain patients are the perfect population so that we can learn how to make objective decisions because they must be the perfect decision makers. And what they found is that these people can't make decisions. At all? At all. I mean, just asking them, when would you like to come into the lab? They have no idea.

Like they'll recite their schedule, but they have no instincts about, well, it's kind of a busy day or that's going to be a little tight or inconvenient, or I'd kind of prefer to come in on a Friday. Like they have no preferences. They don't know what their preferences are. And that you have to access feelings to know what you care about and what worries you. It's a signal. It's a signal. And so interests are feelings. So part of

The challenge in difficult conversations is that we have both of those things activated and both are really important. And so I want to also be clear, I'm not talking about like in the middle of the workday, you

You know, I should be saying things like, you know, I'm just feeling really sad today. I can't really make any copies. But if we could process my feelings for seven hours, that'd be really helpful, right? Like, we got work to get done. But I am saying that if how we feel treated in our collaborative working relationship isn't working, it's going to get in the way of us being able to get done what we need to get done and solve problems as they come up. So...

I don't think it's usually good advice to be emotional, but I do think it's usually good advice to, if there is emotion involved, if you can name it and put it on the table, you can do it in a super professional way. I mean, if we're having an argument and going around in circles in a meeting, if I can just say, okay, so hang on guys, I'm frustrated. I don't think that we're getting anywhere and I'm confused as to why.

That's a perfectly reasonable thing to say. It doesn't sound like I'm being emotional, but what I'm doing is just naming the emotions in the room. Right. Right? And that's going to cut to the heart of the issue much faster than continuing to argue about the rational arguments. What does it mean to be emotional? Great question. I think of emotional as sort of exuding, leaking the emotion all over, right? So...

You know, in that meeting, it might be like, this is ridiculous, you guys. Like, it's so obvious. Now, I am expressing frustration, but I'm not actually very effectively saying, guys, I'm frustrated because this feels obvious to me. So describing emotion is...

feels to me effective and putting it on the table for discussion that's different than being emotional, demonstrating emotion, or often we translate emotion into blame or accusations. Not often even intentionally, but that's how it comes out when we're frustrated. And that is often not as helpful. Now I say often, I'm hedging because I think there are some situations where it's useful

to show how frustrated you are. And there's a funny contribution system sometimes that happens in some relationships where the more upset someone becomes, the more calm the other person gets because their coping strategy in the face of upset is calmness. And the more calm they get, the more upset the other person gets, right? Yep. Do you know people with this cycle? Yeah, totally. Yeah.

And so the person who is so calm doesn't know what to do because they're like, I don't know what else I can do. And the other person is like, why aren't you reacting? Like there's no reaction whatsoever to what I'm saying. Right. The calm person is like, will you stop being so hysterical? And the person who is getting more and more upset is like, okay, you're not getting, either you're not getting how important this is or you don't care. Right. And both of those are even more upsetting. Right. Yeah.

So there's this funny way in which their coping strategies are actually making the problem worse totally unintentionally. And so in that case, what I tell the person who tends to go to calm and they're wondering like, well, I don't understand why this isn't working. I'm like, you need to tell them or show them that this does matter to you, that you find this actually quite frustrating or upsetting. And just if you tell them that, I think that that will help. I think that will start to reverse that cycle. Yeah.

And so that's why I'm hedging my answer because I actually think showing emotion sometimes actually is helpful because it breaks a cycle because people are reading your calm as not caring. That's interesting. There's one thing when I was doing research for this that I was thinking about this feelings thing that struck me is

Did a lot of work talking about my feelings in marriage counseling for whatever reason. And then... For whatever reason. For whatever reason. I don't know what feelings would have to do with a marriage. No, I mean for whatever reason I'm bringing this up. Oh, got it, got it. Just for context. No, I like it. Keep going. Giving away personal information here. I don't intend to do that. And then I noticed that in relationships that I started after that, I was more apt to bring up feelings very early in the relationship. Yeah.

Almost like as a, not even a test, but as a, like the cost of failure would be really low. Whereas I'm still reluctant in some cases to talk about these unsurfaced feelings with relationships that are longstanding. It feels so much harder sometimes.

Like there's so much more baggage. There's so much more complexity to them. But it's really easy with some of the people I brought up feelings with early on where I can bring up like the craziest things now and it feels safe and it feels like it's not going to impact our relationship. It feels like it makes us stronger and there's tons of benefits to it. But even realizing that I still have a hard time with people I've known for like 20 years. And you did this thing when we were 18 that really bothered me, right? Like,

Am I the only one that holds on to this? Yeah, you're the only one. No, of course not. Yeah. I mean, I love what you're describing because I do think in any relationship, you start to wear a groove pretty early about what we do and don't talk about and about how we handle feelings and whether we talk about them or not and which feelings we talk about.

And so once we've worn that groove that feels pretty comfortable and expected from each other, anything you're doing that tries to step out of that feels really awkward. Yeah. And they're not sure what to do with it sometimes. Yeah. Whereas when you're establishing new relationships, you don't have a very deep groove yet. So the stakes are lower because if they don't take the invitation, okay, that's fine. It's not that big a deal. Yeah.

Um, but you're actually broadening what we can talk about. Right. Um, so changing the habit with an old friend or family member, um, can feel riskier whether or not it is, um, and just more awkward, I think. That's really interesting. I find it like, it's also a signal for the type of relationship we're going to have if I, if I put myself out there and I feel like, um,

I'm talking about something that I want to be comfortable talking to you about. Yeah. And it's not sort of like super vulnerable or anything like that. It's just like I want to be able to have these conversations with you. And gauging the response is indicative, not perfectly, but I mean, it's sort of indicative of where that relationship will go.

Yeah. And whether they are game to change that and be in a different kind of relationship with you. Right. And if it's an older, longer standing relationship, it's like you really want to go there. Right. So how do you bring that up in a relationship or...

Say you're married and you want to bring up feelings, but you've never really talked about them. How do you go about getting out of that pattern that you're talking about? Oh, it's a great question. Good luck. Yeah. Good luck. One of the things we talk about in the book is this idea that we each have an emotional footprint. And the idea behind that is that we all grow up learning which feelings are okay to talk about.

And which you learn quickly are better left alone. So because every family has signals that are sent about what we do talk about and what you don't talk about. And then, you know, you go to school, you have friends, you have early professional relationships, etc. So all of our individual relationships have footprints. But also we're bringing a set of sort of lessons with us from early experiences. Right. About what's okay to talk about.

And so now you're married to somebody who also has all this early stuff at a particular footprint. And then together you've co-constructed something. And so part of it is maybe noticing which feelings they seem more comfortable with, whether that's with you or with other people in their life. And also noticing which feelings end up getting translated into something else.

Because if we don't feel comfortable talking about a feeling, often we'll translate it into an argument or blame or anger is often a secondary feeling. Can you say more about that? Yeah. Anger is often, when I say secondary, I mean initially what we feel is something else. Maybe it's hurt. So you hurt me.

And I don't feel totally comfortable saying like, hey, you hurt me. But it's very clear to me I should not have been hurt and you should not have hurt me. So now I'm mad at you.

Angry at you for hurting me.

Because I'm not going to let go of angry or pissed, but there's probably more in that bundle that I should do some thinking about first before I know what I want to talk about or what I want to share. And then I'm much better off sharing the more complete set of feelings first.

Like, let's talk about marriage. I love you and you're driving me crazy. Like, I hate you right now. And both of those are true. Both of those are actually true in this moment. A little more on the hate side than the love side right now, but...

I'm sure it'll course correct, I hope, soon, as soon as you apologize. But actually, it's an easier conversation to have if it's a more complete conversation. On the one hand, I'm really grateful to you and I really appreciate the following things that you did. And I felt really frustrated and disappointed when you didn't do this other thing. That's easier than just walking in the door and saying, what the hell? Why didn't you do what you said you were going to do?

So actually, interestingly, sometimes putting more feelings into the conversation lowers the stakes. That's really interesting. If you're in a conversation, what are the things that you can do to uncover these sort of like hidden feelings that people are feeling but not necessarily telling you about because you want to get to a better place in the conversation? Yeah.

Like that's something you control. You might not control how they frame the conversation or how they started or what they're saying, but you can recognize, oh, maybe there's more going on here. And then what do I do to uncover, to look below? Yeah, it's a great question. So let's circle back to that listening thing that we were talking about. Because I often think that it's not just am I listening well or listening poorly? It's also what am I listening for? And I can listen for...

why you think that you're right or what you think I contributed to the problem. Those are important things to listen for, but I can also listen for how you're feeling about what's happened between us.

And I need to be able to move between those, between facts and feelings, because you might be in one more than the other at any given point in time. But so one of the choices I can make is to listen beyond the accusations or the blame, et cetera, or the arguments that you're giving me for the feelings and just respond to the feelings as if that's what you told me. Oh, that's interesting. So, you know, you're yelling at me because I said I'd pick up the kids and I was late. Um,

And I can just listen for the feelings behind it, which is... So I can imagine that was pretty frustrating. And particularly because you suspected I was going to be late. Because it's happened before. Because this is the seventh time it's happened. So, yeah. Yeah.

Right. Right.

And so actually if we can cut to that, we're actually getting to the heart of it faster than continuing the argument about what the schedule was and whether the traffic was bad and whose fault it was. So partly the way to introduce feelings, you can do two things. One is listen for what is the feeling that they're expressing, maybe through being emotional or translating it into blame and accusations, and just name that and acknowledge it and ask them about it. The second thing that you can do is you can share a little bit about how you're feeling about

by describing it. Like you don't have to take huge risks. Just say like, yeah, I'm disappointed in myself. I'm frustrated with myself or whatever. Frustrated with you. That reciprocity thing means if I'm going there, I'm inviting you to reciprocate. I can't guarantee you're going to take the invitation and I may need to be persistent about it. But if I share my feelings, you can't really argue with that. You're not frustrated. Right.

Uh, let me check. Yeah, no, I am. Now I'm angry too. Now I'm frustrated even more. Um, often I found that feeling sort of, uh, I don't know, maybe for, it's just me or, but for other people, uh, I would imagine it's very similar. Like they sort of like cause some sort of anxiety in me around the conversation, uh, to varying degrees. And I wouldn't,

sometimes it might prevent me from having the conversation. Yeah. What are the, what are ways that we can deal with that sort of like internal? Yeah. Well, so we, should we talk about the third layer? Identity. Identity, because we haven't talked about that. We probably shouldn't. It's totally related to what you just asked. So, so part of what we found is that when we

talk to people about their most difficult conversations and we started to pay attention to what they're thinking and feeling and often not saying in the conversation, there was a very consistent structure. So what people are preoccupied with in their internal voice is a story about what happened, as we've talked about, a whole bunch of feelings that they're trying to figure out how to handle. And then the deepest level, the third level, is what we call the identity conversation, which is kind of the conversation I'm having with myself about myself.

What does this situation suggest about me? That I'm not a good spouse, that I'm not a good person, that I'm not competent, that I'm not worthy of love in some way. You know, sometimes people will say, one of the things I have a hard time with is saying no. And that's often related to identity, that there's a story you tell about yourself. Like you're a good friend and you're a team player. And if you'd never abandoned someone in need,

And if that's your story, anytime someone asks you for help, you're not just saying the word no, you're doing something that feels like it's in conflict with who you want to be in the world. Right, like quitting a job or leaving a relationship. Like quitting a job, you're disloyal. How can you be disloyal or how can you hurt someone else so much by breaking up with them? Right.

And so if a conversation feels difficult, there's often something about identity, something the situation suggests about you that raises the stakes on the whole conversation. And so that's part of the anxiety that then drives the intensity of the feelings. And those feelings color our story about what happened and what should happen in the future. And so these three actually work together.

But it's often identity at the deepest level that is the hardest part. Because we're being forced to confront our identity with ourself and acknowledge that maybe we are a quitter and we don't want to see ourself at a quitter, but we're in a job that we know is not going to work for us or we're in a relationship that's not going to work.

Yeah. And identity is complicated, right? And life is complicated. So it's not as simple as our identity stories are, which tend to be black and white. Like, I'm not a quitter. And I hate this job. And I'm not the kind of person who wants to waste their life doing something that they hate. So now I've got two identities that are in conflict with each other. And I can't figure out how to be

the right kind of person, given that I have two values about who I am that are in conflict. What do we do? Exactly. So, I mean, this is, this is one of the reasons why often the conversation with yourself that you have to have first.

Walk me through that conversation, though. What does that look like? It's easy to just do an example. Do you have an example? Give me an example of a difficult conversation that you had. I'm just wondering, how do we walk ourselves through identity conflicts or even just when we have multiple identities, that's one angle to it, and they're in conflict with each other, and we didn't really realize we had multiple identities and they're in conflict. But another one is we just have this

We've, you know, been taught as a kid that we never quit or and now we're doing something that is very clearly. Something you should quit. But it is something that we're sort of like, we should quit, but that makes us a quitter. And we've been told that we're not a quitter or don't quit. Right, exactly. Well, so one thing to do is to stop holding your identity as either or black or white.

Um, because if you think about it logically, you can't go through life never quitting anything because you can't do everything forever all the time. Right? So you have been quitting things. So it's shifting that to, okay, a quitter is someone who quits because it gets too hard or they're not committed enough or they're not willing to stick it out through the hard parts. But a person who makes a good decision for themselves that actually putting more of my energy toward this doesn't make sense. Um,

That's actually someone who's making good decisions for themselves. So maybe that's different than being a quitter. So reframing effectively. Reframing it, right. And realizing actually this is a simplistic story, this quitter story that I have about myself of what I can't be because it's getting in the way of something I need to be also. Let's talk about like work-life, work and family conflicts.

Because on the one hand, I think of myself as someone who's very responsive to clients. But I also think of myself as someone who pays attention to their kids. Right. So now I've got a client who, you know, needs help. They're texting me on the weekend, et cetera, et cetera. You know who you are. Yeah.

And by the way, they're always responsive to me. Right. And like, can I play at this level? If I can't be on and give them the help they need when they need it, if I'm coaching them or helping them through a conflict or whatever it would be, maybe I shouldn't, maybe I'm not cut out for doing this level of work. Right.

But in the meantime, my kids are like, mom, I was talking to you. Hello. Hello. Right. So I think of myself as a good parent who listens to and is there for their kids. So now I've got two parts of myself or two stories about who I am that are in conflict while I'm standing there on the lawn with the phone in my hand. Right. And I'm supposed to be doing something with my kids or I'm on vacation. Right.

Doing email the whole time. All my kids are like, let's go to the ocean. Come on, let's go so so part of it is Just having the conversation with yourself about how what are the limits to this story? I have about who I am or want to be because it's too black and white and How do I be honest with myself that I can't be a hundred percent that all the time and that's okay, and that's okay That's actually human

we sometimes do an exercise where we ask people, um, just finish the following sentence. If I know nothing else about myself, I know I am a blank person. So pick a couple of adjectives. What would go in those blanks for you? Kind, but not always. Yeah, exactly. Somebody off the other day that was not kind at all. Uh,

Yeah. Giving. I mean, we tend to think of positive things, right? Yes. Not negative. Yes. So I'm guessing those are true of you. Generally. Generally. I can see the look on your face. Well, and also because if they came to mind quickly, they're important to you. Yeah. Like they're a big piece of who you want to be in the world and what you value. Yeah.

And I also know that they're not always true of you, right? As you quickly mentioned. It's easy to think of examples where you've not been those things. Not been those things. And by the way, those can sometimes be your hardest conversations because it's where I'm disappointed in myself. Yeah. Especially maybe for high achievers because we hold ourselves to a really high standard. Like I should have known better. I should have seen that coming. I can't believe I did that.

And so whatever those sort of characteristics that you hold most tightly are, they are sometimes also a key to the kinds of conversations that are hardest for you. Because you let yourself down and you're disappointing yourself. Oh, man. On that note.

I know we're running up to time here. I want to cover two things before we sort of end this conversation. One is like, what are the things that parents should instill in their kids about conversations? Like what is it you wish all parents knew about having conversations with their kids, not necessarily teaching their kids, but having better, more meaningful conversations used to build and strengthen relationships with your children? Oh, that's such an important question.

So I have teenagers, right? And one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot in the last few years is what is it that I want my kids to be able to do? I want my kids to be able to see someone else's point of view even when they feel strongly the other way. I want them to take responsibility for what they contribute to the problem, right? To own their part and to apologize. Yeah.

and work to fix it. But also I want them to stick up for themselves and to speak up for themselves when they feel like they're not being treated well. And so if that's what I want them to learn, they have to have a model for learning that. Which also means I have to be willing for them to speak up to me when they don't feel like I've handled something well. They have to see me apologizing to them when I...

handle something poorly yell even though i hate that and i'm so disappointed in myself when it happens parent alive who hasn't yelled at their kids yeah and you know it's like i'm supposed to be good at this i do this full time and i just really blew it right and so i'm so disappointed in myself but i need to actually say that out loud to them

So I have to actually walk the talk and model what I want them to be, which means that I have to apologize to them sometimes, et cetera. Right. And as they get older to shift more responsibility to them and let them make their own mistakes, which is really hard to sit back and watch a kid make a mistake. Oh my gosh. And you keep, and you keep going like,

I don't know if that's a good idea. But I mean, within the bounds of safety, obviously, you just have to walk alongside them.

Usually when I see my kids doing that and they haven't quite caught on yet, I'm like, do you want a recommendation? Yeah. So I'm trying not to make a decision for them, but also trying to offer them valuable information. And just to come back to apologizing to your kids, I think that modeling that is super important. I remember the first time I did that, I was like,

Oh my God, like this, I was like walking myself through this. I'm like, what am I doing? Right. And I apologized to my kids and I was like, I'm sorry. Like I, I responded disproportionately to what happened. I lost my patience and lost control of my emotions and reacted in a way that I don't want you to react. Yeah. And my youngest just put his hand on my shoulder and was like, it's okay, dad.

I bet that he remembers that too. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. It was a powerful sort of like, but it became easier the next time. It was like so much easier. Because you're wearing a new groove between where like that's normal. Hopefully it doesn't happen too often. But when it does happen, they expect it from you. Right. And vice versa. And then we had a conversation about it. Yeah, what'd they say? What would be really helpful for us? Because I'm like, well, you know, like how do we...

Because I'm super patient and then I'm not. Yeah. Right? You're super, super patient and then all of a sudden you're really, really not. I'm like the most patient person in the world, but there's a switch. Oh, yeah. And like you cross that switch. And so now I'm like we're getting to the line. Like I can feel it. Right? And like I give them warnings. Warning, Will Robinson. And I'm like what you choose to do with this information is up to you. Yeah. But that was what they wanted. Yeah.

They wanted more of a transition because they're kids. They want to push their boundaries and they want to push it to the very max and then they'll back off. So it's like, okay, we're getting there. And just that information given to them is super helpful for them to realize what's happening because it's not always visible with me. Yeah.

Because I am very patient, but then I'm not patient at all. Right. And it's hard for you to actually be self-aware as you're approaching that line. But once you actually get better at it yourself, you can feel it. And you notice the feeling. That's part of the pay, listen for the emotions in yourself, not just in the other person too. The other thing I want to cover quickly just before we end this is...

Yeah. Yeah.

Um, well, have you read any John Gottman yet? A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So I think his research just for understanding what goes wrong is really powerful. Um, can you explain that just so everybody? Yeah, absolutely. So John Gottman, he's up in Seattle. He spent his career researching marriage.

He has all this data and observations, which I think resonate with anyone who's been in a long-term partnership or relationship. Things like two-thirds of the things you're fighting about today, you're going to be fighting about in five years, and you were fighting about them five years ago, right? Those recurring... Recurring theme issues, because about two-thirds of what you fight about are not solvable. They just reflect differences between you. Right.

Who's messier and who's less messy and drives them crazy? Who spends the money and who gets anxious and wants to save the money? All of that stuff, those preferences aren't going to change. Those are the friction points between you. It's just how do you handle them? And about a third of the things you're fighting about are transitory. Like we decided to take the job or not, move or not. And sometimes it's not over because somebody resents something.

Right. Right? So now that's going to live on at a deeper level in terms of ongoing resentment. And it's going to rear itself in ways that don't come out as like, you made me do this. It's going to come out as something else. Yeah, exactly. Because you're horrible. And so it's really hard to get back to the root cause. It is. Yeah. So...

So the other thing that he talks about is the fact that he, in his research, he invites couples into his love lab and he hooks them up to heart monitors and he videotapes and audiotapes them. And then he invites them to talk about an issue that's stressful. So in our language, to have a difficult conversation. Right. And his claim to fame is that he can watch a couple for five minutes and predict with 90, what is it now? 2% accuracy. Yeah, it's crazy. Whether or not they're going to divorce within three years, five years, something like that.

It's like uncanny. Yeah. I haven't volunteered to go to Seattle. I don't know about you. But what's interesting is what he's looking for.

As the clues that he's picking up and it's things like eye rolling, which is sort of a leaking out of contempt or dismissal. Like I've heard this like a million times. I'm not listening. I'm already formulating my counter argument. Right. So that's an indicia of not actually listening or feeling heard. Right. So we have a no eye rolling rule at our house.

I have to say to my teenagers, I saw that. I think you were eye rolling. They're like, that's because you're being ridiculous, mom. So he's looking for contempt or dismissal. On the positive side, one of the positive corollary or clues that he looks for is as things escalate, that they have an escape hatch, which often involves humor.

So it's an affiliation move to reconnect and to break the cycle of escalating conflict. So, you know, it's an old joke or it's something that just gets people out of the escalating frustration to be able to self-observe and be like, okay, well, we're having the same argument again and to shift the dynamic. And so I really think his research is terrific to help understand the key places where people

It's not just that people have difficult conversations in their relationships. In important ways, those conversations are the relationship. And if we handle them well, the relationship will strengthen and thrive. And if we don't handle them well, the relationship starts to deteriorate. And so for me, the difficult conversation skills are the prescriptive side of his descriptive research. And I find it fascinating how they line up and how much I've learned from

from his research that gets me thinking about what are we missing on our side of the fence to understand what helps. So what would those be? Well, it'd be things like owning your contribution. Yeah. The same thing with listening for the feelings, actually trying to understand the other person's point of view, even though you already know that they're wrong. Putting aside. Putting aside, right? Just let them speak. Exactly. Let them speak. Try not to roll your eyes or just be transparent about,

okay, we have talked about this a hundred times. Like, I don't think this is getting anywhere. So what do you want to do? Right. Like just name it and put it on the table as a joint problem. Like, I don't think we're ever going to agree about this. So now we have to figure out what to do given that. Right. But then you're into like, okay, now it's a joint problem to solve to see whether we can come up with any options. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I think, um,

Part of learning in life is seeing those difficult conversations and those relationships, the strong ones and also the hard ones where there's friction in the relationship in your life, whatever those relationships are, worker or family and friends, and getting curious about what you can learn from them, what you can learn about people and what you can learn about yourself.

And to me, that's like a lifelong journey, which is why I just keep learning more every day and wishing I knew it like five years ago because that would have been really helpful. Yeah.

I think that it's really interesting because as I observe friends and sort of colleagues and try to ascertain sort of like the health of their relationship with their partners, one of the things that sort of correlates to a negative place is their inability to talk. So somebody will bury something that they want to talk about for whatever reason, be it anxiety, they don't want to talk about their feelings, they don't want to have a rick

recurring conversation. They bury it, but the more they bury it, the farther apart people get in their relationship. And so they're not coming back and they're not connected.

And the people that have the strongest relationships will bring up stuff that they know is going to be a difficult conversation, but they sort of feel safe that they're going to be understood or listened to and they're going to get to a better place, even though it's going to be a struggle to get there. Yeah. And your description, I think, of the people who feel like I tried to bring it up, it was not well received. Yeah.

I learned it's not worth bringing up or I won't get heard or will even get yelled at. They stop speaking to me, whatever. Like it just escalates and doesn't go anywhere. And so I just have to bury it. And that resentment ends up festering and their relationship is slowly eroding. The connection that they have is eroding. When you feel like you're holding back,

But actually, you're just building it up. Right. You're shoving it under the rug and pretty soon... Your happiness goes out the window. It goes out the window. So this is another, this is a connection also to the Gottman work because he talks about positive and negative interactions. And they're tiny little bids. Micro bids. Micro bids, right? So, and you can get a positive reaction as simple as, you know, it was cold today. And then you actually say, yeah, freezing. Yeah.

but you responded to me in some way that heard, I felt heard and acknowledged. You could also ignore me and I get no response. Or you could respond negatively like, it wasn't that cold. Right. You know, you're just a wimp. And so a couple of things, you sound like you know this research. I find it really interesting. The optimum is, what is it, five to one? I think so, yeah. Five to one positive interactions to negative interactions. Right.

And it's not better to have a bigger ratio of positive and negative. Like 10 to 1 is not better because of what you're describing. If it's 10 positive interactions or 50 positive interactions before any negative one, typically one of the partners is holding back. Right. And they're not raising things that they should raise to say like, well, I was disappointed that you didn't pick that up when you said that you would on the way home. And so like five years later, they're more likely to be divorced.

Because they're not actually talking about some things that they need to talk about. Yeah. The other thing I find interesting is a negative response is actually better than no response. Oh, because no response just signals that you just don't care. Right. You're just totally being ignored. And so it's actually better in the relationship if you say...

It wasn't that cold. You're just a wimp. Because at least we're still in relationship. Right. And also people have different models of relationships. So for some people, that friction tells us that you care, right? So there are couples who fight more and fight less. But the fighting more couples aren't necessarily less happy. Right.

Depends on how they quote unquote fight and whether that feels normal to them and connected to them. Right. Because it tells me that you care about it. Yeah. And I think people also sweep things under the rug because it feels too threatening to bring it up. Like it's going to threaten the relationship.

Or they try to bring it up and the other person feels that they are threatening the relationship. And so they respond by shutting it down. Plays on our insecurity. Plays on our insecurity. And then, of course, the sad fact is then that actually dooms the relationship because we can't talk about anything.

So this is anybody listening, go home tonight. No, like try to have a difficult conversation. Something that's been lingering or ongoing and try to reframe it from a point of understanding and from a point of expressing these feelings and exploring your identity and what is challenging in that. Yeah.

And if your purpose, if you shift your purpose from, I need to go home and just get them to see it my way. Right. You want to learn. Or let them know that they need to change. Right. Honey, I love you and I would love it if you would change. Could you just be a different person? Right. That would be really helpful. And I have some specific requests about what kind of person I would like. If I shift my purpose in the conversation from getting them to change or getting them to

apologize, see that I'm right, whatever, to just understanding better what's going on. Like, why is it that we have such a hard time with this? That conversation is much more likely to be fruitful because we don't have to agree at the end of it. I just have to go in wanting to learn something about, and I don't have to give up my view to do it. I don't have to pretend I don't have a view. I'm actually much better saying we really disagree with this and we're stuck.

I don't get it. What is so hard? Why is it so important to you? Drop wanting to resolve it. Don't even go in with that agenda. Just go in with sort of understanding. Yeah. And then you're going to have a better conversation. It's going to be lower stakes. Right. Because not figuring out a solution isn't failing. Right. Failing is not learning anything new about the other person.

That's a great place to leave this. This was an amazing conversation. Thank you. It was really fun. I really appreciate it. And we'll have to come back for part two and we'll do it on feedback. Yes, we'll do it on feedback, which has everything to do with marriage. Marriage is one long feedback conversation. Thank you so much. Hey guys, this is Shane again. Just a few more things before we wrap up.

You can find show notes at farnamstreetblog.com slash podcast. That's F-A-R-N-A-M-S-T-R-E-E-T-B-L-O-G dot com slash podcast. You can also find information there on how to get a transcript.

And if you'd like to receive a weekly email from me filled with all sorts of brain food, go to farnhamstreetblog.com slash newsletter. This is all the good stuff I've found on the web that week that I've read and shared with close friends, books I'm reading, and so much more. Thank you for listening.