Is This The End Of The Pod?

All right, we need to talk about this. Um The podcast is either gonna end today. Or we're gonna figure this out. Is that dramatic enough for you? I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to

I'm putting my law in it like my day song. Um Sam, can we start? Can I start with an apology? Yes. And I say sorry. I was

Let me check my notes. I was a little pissy yesterday. And you were on the receiving end of me being a little pissy. We had a A fight An argument?

Uh disagreement, a lover's quarrel, I don't know what you want to call it. We had something. And I Wanna talk about it here. Not just because

I'm a sicko and I'm like, ooh, this is good content, Jerry Springer. But also mostly because I found it, I thought about it a lot afterwards. I found it kinda fascinating. And at first I felt really bad. I don't know about you, but I felt really horrible the rest of the day. So without discussing the specifics, I want to talk about. What I learned after that. Fight. Can we do that? Okay. Yeah. Okay. So

Here's the story. We got in a fight yesterday. And I wouldn't even call it really a fight. It's like a

Uh every six months there's just disagreements that we had to work through. Exactly. And like most things, it starts off as a misunderstanding, turns into a disagreement, which leads to an argument, escalates to a fight, and then it kind of de escalates into a grumpy agreement. And you sort of move on.

I can I first tell you Why I even Wanted to talk about this. Yeah. Do you know who J McCarthy is by any chance? He's a uh

A rookie football player. He's a quarterback for the Vikings. So he's a he's a rookie. Yeah. I don't know who he is, but I know the name. Food he just got drafted. And like any, you know, a team that sucks, they draft a quarterback, they're hoping he's gonna turn the franchise around. And he just had their first like pre season game. Not even in the season yet.

And he threw an interception. While he was playing. So after the game, he's doing an interview and I I'm scrolling on Twitter and I see this. And I'm seeing this after we have our fight.

And Their interviewer asks him, she goes. JJ, you go out there, you want to perform well. But You know, you throw that interception and I'm sure, you know, that did feel great.

Yeah, well just Talk me through what was going through your mind and h how are you feeling after doing that? And this guy's response was Epic. He goes

What was going through my mind? What an opportunity. She goes, What an opportunity. He goes. Yeah, I mean this whole my my success in my career is gonna be based. I'm a quarterback in the NFL. My success in my career is gonna be based on

My resilience, my ability to bounce back from mistakes. I throw an interception, what an opportunity to learn to get better. And to improve. And I was like, Whoa. Mm.

Fucking mindset alert. You know, I I pride myself on mindset. I am a student of mindset. And when I heard that, I thought, wow, that was an uncommon response. to a very common situation. I would say Most guys are down on it. But then they'll lie and be like, Well, I just you know, next had to focus on the next play, just put it out of my head and and You know

J just get better, you know? But they're kinda bitter about it. And this guy was so genuine when he said, What an opportunity. And so I kinda had that same thought. Where I was feeling bad after our fight and I thought I saw that clip and I thought, Okay.

What an opportunity for me to learn here. And the reason I think it's an opportunity for me was We joke on this podcast, I'm generally super laid back. Like I don't really get easily bothered.

I pride myself in having a good mindset, but of course I'm a human being. I mess up. Which is why When I get bothered.

It's Rare and I suck at it. And so I wanted to tell you some of the things that I reflected on afterwards. I have like five to seven thoughts. Can I just read'em out to you? Yeah. And I I I might have a few as well. So

First one. Fights don't start as fights. And uh what I mean by this is You never start in you never start a conversation intending to fight, nor do you even really see a fight coming. And I the way uh the analogy I was using in my head was like, Oh, a fight is like a forest fire. When a forest fire happens, the explanation they usually come to is, well, there was like a bunch of the what do they call it? Like the dry bush or whatever, like the kind of the dead sticks that that go on the ground. And it's sort of this accumulation, this pile of sticks that nobody really clears out.

And it's not a problem until somebody drops a cigarette on it. And it It could be something that You just squish out with your foot right away, you put it out, there's no big deal. But if you don't put it out right away.

That accumulated dry stuff can catch fire. It can become a wildfire. It could it could tear down a whole forest. And so that was my first observation was man That The debris on the f on the force floor is

kinda like a hidden danger. It's a dog that's not barking and you have to make sure that If a cigarette does drop on it, you're you're able to kind of immediately put it out or clear it out ahead of time. That was the first thought. Which by the way, the reason why That's very easy for you to say that. That's very hard to address. And the reason it's hard to address is because a lot of times people, particularly me, and I know you do as well.

You have this idea where you're like I don't wanna ruffle feathers. I'll just go with the flow. And if you do that too often Then you're like Shit, I've been going th with the flow.

Now I'm bothered. And That's a very hard balance to implement of like When do you go with the flow or when do you say that's not my preference?

Right. That describes it to T. Either Avoid confrontation. That's one reason to just like let it go type of thing, but you don't really fully let it go, right? Like 10 to 15% linkers. Yeah. In my case it's it's a lot less of I'm avoided confrontation. It's more of

I don't want to let myself get bothered by something small. So I ignore it. I think I ignore it, but like ten percent of it lingers. And if you ignore too many things, that ten percent can start to add up. And if unaddressed, it's that stuff on the f on the fourth floor. Okay, so here's the second one. Fights are natural. That was the second thought I had. I wrote down in my little diary here. Fights are natural.

We've been working together on this podcast for four years. I can count probably three serious arguments or disagreements that we've had that felt uncomfortable to deal with. Maybe there's been some other ones I'm forgetting, but like It's understandable. You work together with somebody for four years on a project, you're gonna have disagreements. In the moment, it doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel natural. Logically, you know, hey, this is normal.

But in the moment feels bad. And let's emphasize how bad like when I argue with you or when I argue with Jordan or Joe, my my other partners, like It ruins my week. I hate that feeling. I think you are a little more comfortable with confrontation.

For people like me. like these Midwestern nice people who have been raised to just swall just swallow it. You just you live life like resenting others sometimes or like you just don't fucking complain. I hate it. I hate like there's been times where I've had to fire someone And I won't fire them for a year.

Because I just don't want I just don't want to do that conversation. I hate it. It bothers like I I like I I wake up in the middle of the night. It ruined my night. I was gonna show you my I'm wearing an Uru Ring. I was gonna show you my sleep score was terrible. I slept three hours last night. I woke up in the middle of the night at three AM and I ate three. Pieces of cookie dough from like a Nestle's Bacon. Yeah break and bake. Dude, I wish I had a break and bake. That would have made me feel better. I just woke up feeling shitty.

And It's it reminded like the analogy here is In your diet. You can wake up feeling shitty. I at least I do this as my like My evolution from

Guy with a horrible diet to try to be better about it is I know when I feel shitty and it's either because I just DoorDash Taco Bell, and that was just a bad decision, and I'm paying the price for that. But also, even if you do the right thing at the wrong time, if I eat a very like

A full meal but I ate it at ten thirty. It doesn't matter if I had grilled chicken and whatever, if it was a healthy meal, if I eat too late, I'm just gonna feel bad. Right. So you could do the right thing at the wrong time and get pain. You could do the wrong thing at the wrong time and get pain. And for me this was surprising because usually if I have a confrontation, it's usually a relief because I've been I've been trying to avoid having it and when I do have it, I normally feel quite relieved.

And this one, I felt awful. I felt terrible. I couldn't sleep. It was such an unusual feeling for me, which made me think. I didn't do it right. So that's probably Relatable but not surprising. I'm gonna give you some of the things that I found interesting.

The first is about this guy named Doctor Gottman, let's call him Doctor Gottman because I forget his first name. Do you know who Doctor Gottman is? Yeah. Doctor Gobman is the love doctor. Literally, this is a guy who Studied

Marriages. And his claim to fame is that he could watch a couple for fifteen minutes having a conversation about something. And predict with ninety plus percent certainty. if they were gonna have a divor end up divorced or stay together. Ninety plus percent. And only watching a fifteen minute conversation. In fact, he had something called the Love Lab, which was his

research lab where he would bring couples in and he would say, Talk about X. And he knew that X would lead into a little bit of a conversation. A little bit of resentment would come up and he could watch how they handled it. And in just fifteen minutes predict ninety percent accuracy. And by the way If you let just like a normal marriage counselor or an average person on the street watch that same fifteen minutes. Their accuracy was about 50%, just like flip a coin. They had no accuracy, essentially. But this guy had 90%. And why is that? Because

He had done this a bunch and he f he was able to identify What are the things to look for that would cause a couple to break up? And so One interesting thing last night was I went down this rabbit hole of like, what did Gottman say? What are these things? And he's got uh a couple of interesting, very insightful things. Uh so he's got one thing called the four horsemen of the apocalypse. It basically is like I look for four things that if a couple does these four things.

highly correlated with them not not staying together in the long run. Low marriage satisfaction and divorce. It's like the emotions of contempt. Uh resentment. What were the other twins? So it's criticism.

Contempt, which was the biggest one. defensiveness and stonewalling. And some of these were gendered, so like Men were typically more guilty of stonewalling, meaning wife is bringing something up, he just kinda shuts down. Just

In his mind he's like, I'm not fighting. In her mind it's like you're You're not even you're not even open. You're closing me down when I'm trying to express something to you. But content

Contempt was the one where regardless of gender If you did these things, like an I roll, uh anything that's hierarchy, which is like, oh, you're such an asshole, right? I'm good and you're bad. Anything that creates anything that indicates contempt. was like one of the worst things that could happen. Because it indicates a lack of fundamental respect and e and uh equality in in the relationship. So he's got that. He had another one, which is a magic ratio, which is they would observe interaction and they would see that And and by the way, the the way they did this was fascinating.

Couples talk for fifteen minutes and he's encoding. Every minute I think they divide it into like eighteen signals in a minute or something like that. And they had this like specific encoding where it's like I roll. Like body language turn away.

Phrasing of a thing. Yeah, but like all these little nuanced things that he because they would they would immediately encode and then they would have a score at the end of it and they'd have positive. interactions between the couple and negative, but they're like these micro interactions, right? to the surface, it didn't even look like they're having a huge fight, yelling at each other, throwing and screaming uh, you know, throwing things across the room. None of that. But even in just like a normal conversation, he could get that indication. So he said the magic ratio is five to one, right? Every couple is gonna have negative interactions. That's not avoidable.

It's what's the ratio of positive to negative. And if it was five to one, the couples would stick together. uh below five to one, you start to get into higher likelihood that the couples will not stay together. I thought that was kind of interesting. Um there's a ton of like little micro things that he has in there, like repair attempts. So how do you de-escalate? People who know like any couple that stayed together had a good habit of Using humor

Or taking a break. Or just saying, I'm sorry, that was stupid. I shouldn't have said that. That's not actually what I mean. What I mean is this. a way to de escalate in a in a fight was like a huge tool that was that was very useful. And that was one thing I think I did poorly yesterday, which was I was not

De escalating well. Right. Either could have taken a break. Could have just made a joke, could have said Actually the way that came out is not actually how I feel. How I feel is really this.

But instead it was like some cost. Like, I said it, now I gotta defend it, which is like such a stupid way to go. He's got this whole philosophy that I'm super fascinated by now and really excited to do kind of like a little bit more of a deep dive on. Like, how cool is that guy, by the way? Yeah he's great. I I joke with my wife. Where I'll say, look. I've made my point.

I am Dug it. Okay, there is no retreating here. I'm what you call dug in. I cannot go back. And the reason I'm raising my voice is because that would mean that if I talk lower, it will I'm losing the argument. Right. And that is not happening. Yeah, like you know in UFC fights, I remember McGregor say, We'll see who takes the first back step. He's like he's like, Oh, we're gonna fight, but I'm not he's not just his trash talk was not I'm gonna knock you out. He's like

He would get in their mind, like, let's see who takes the first back step because he's actually a counterpuncher. He wants the guy moving forward. So he'd put that in their mind. If you take a back step, You're a bitch. And As silly as that sounds. That would describe my behavior in a lot of interactions. Yes. Let's see who takes the first back step, which is Not serving me well.

No, I get in trouble a lot for it and it's incredibly stupid. And there's so many times where I'm like Shit. I I my ego won't let me retreat. But that is the right decision.

Right. Let me give you a a mechanic that I learned that I wish I had yesterday when we were fighting. I once took an improv class in San Francisco. And the very first class, instead of teaching you how to do improv, the very first lesson is not Here's what you do. It's

Here's what you do when you screw up because you're gonna screw up a ton. You are beginners. This is hard. You are gonna screw up a lot. So the first tool we give you, and they would just go, she she was like, When you say something that was stupid or didn't make sense or Or was not funny and you tried to be funny. The weight of the world is gonna come crashing down on you and here's your solution. Ready?

And she's like, can you all do that? We're like. And she was like That's it. When it happens, just go woop and that just means to everybody. Clear the slate. That didn't happen. We're moving on. We're moving past that. It was a whoop.

And I wish I had a mechanic like that in so many more areas of my life. Where A way to eject or abort or pull out of a tailspin of like I didn't want to go this way. I didn't want to say that. I didn't want that to come across the way it came across.

I needed a whoop to just be like That was n like Let's wipe this late clean real quick. Like a atch a sketch. Just quickly shake it and it's gone. Yeah, I uh you would look really dumb if you did that, but I agree that is a very that is a very helpful thing. I I I've got in I've I get in more trouble because of this thing more than

Anything else. Right. All right, another observation. My body keeps the score. So I have this coach, as an executive coach, which is like, you know, business strategy, but mostly like therapy, thinking through basically

Helping me think more clear and be a better person. And he's great. And he has this See his stuff that he says that's great that I'm like Totally buy it. He has other stuff that he says that I'm like, I get that you buy it. I'm not sure that I buy it yet. And one of the things he always talks about is. Like the body keeps the score.

Have you read that book? I've read the book. But I you know, I'm I don't have back pain and I think it's more of a it's like a literally like a back pain book, right? It sort of it's basically like uh the easiest one are soldiers who have PTSD. Uh they see they they feel things physically.

And I frank I actually don't remember the the entire premise, but I believe it was if you change your body, you can actually change your mind. Right. So he'll ask me. He'll be like, I'll say something like Where do you feel that when you say that I'm like

I don't feel like And I I said it from my mouth. What are you talking about? He's like, No, like is there a tightness in your chest? Like Bro, I don't wanna like, I don't wanna do yoga. I just wanna say what's going on and then figure it out with a logical solution. And he's helping me learn that.

I hadn't really fully bought in until yesterday. When I felt terrible after it, physically I felt terrible after our our conversation. I was like, Oh shit. I think he's right. I think the body does keep the score and I'm more of a believer in that woo woo shit. So that was a another observation for it. Well, did you feel terrible because you felt that I was wrong or because you didn't like how the words you used? I felt terrible because I felt like I did myself a m uh

Uh Disservice. Disservice, which is I don't think I conducted myself well. I thought I actually had a good Point meaning I don't disagree with any of my words and I disagree with all of my delivery. And what a shame because it's like actually what I did was

A a total net negative. I Undermine my own Point. What I was trying to express, I didn't express well. It wasn't effective. And

I made you feel not good too,'cause that wouldn't be feel good anyways, and I was like Oh, the other lesson of course is People don't remember what you say, they just remember how you made them feel. If it makes you feel better, I I think your delivery wasn't as bad as you think.

That does make me feel better. Thank you. And I agree. And I agree with your points. Like the points you made were not bad points. You're The problem With having an argument with you is You are quite logical. And you do make logical points.

The other problem with you is that most people, myself included, are more emotional than logical. And that's sometimes hard for you to understand. Yes. And also to give myself a uh more blame here is I am like a firecracker or something like that. It's like

You can play with it, you can hold it, nothing's gonna happen. for a like ninety nine out of the day out of all the days of the year, three hundred and sixty four days out of the year, that firecracker It's just Easy to easy to handle. But on July fourth, there's one day

That like five percent of the time where this fuse gets lit, there was like no No warning and it's fucking explosive. And so it's like that's I think my problem is. I'm extremely tolerant and unbothered. Until the moment I'm bothered, and then I'm a big whiny baby. And I like get really upset really quickly more than I should. And again, and I real what I realized yesterday was

Oh, that's just because I don't have many reps doing it. And this is kind of a bullshit, like my greater strengths is I have no weaknesses, but it's I think it's honestly true in this situation, which is I'm so rarely bothered that when I'm when I am bothered, I'm so poor at handling it. Whereas I think somebody who is more frequently runs into situations like this. They Come

they become more mature and have better tools to deal with it than I do. It's almost like Because you're pretty emotionally healthy, that is actually a weakness. You know what I mean? Because you don't assume that other people are broken. Or like that their egos dictate things. Do you know what I mean?

Well, I think you're giving me a very generous band ball. I'll I'll consider that not just a compliment, but maybe something that might be true here. Can I read you a couple more bullet points just words I jotted down in my journal here. So There are no winners in war. There's always a benefit to expressing myself, but uh and finding resolutions when there's a mix up, but once it escalates

There are only you know, there's no there's no winner and loser. There's only two losers in a situation like that where I think at a certain point the conversation was productive and then a certain point it was unproductive. And once it got into an unproductive, and by the way, we weren't like cursing each other out or anything. I don't mean to make it sound like that. But just On a relative scale, it wasn't one where I felt, wow, that was super constructive and I feel better about the relationship. It's like No, I think we did some damage there.

And there were two there was only two losers in that interaction. There was no like Winner and loser. Which is stupid because when you argue you kinda wanna be a winner or a loser you wanna be a winner and that default so the person being a loser in the interaction, but That's a false.

Idea. Have you read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People? Clearly I should go and reread it. I read the first chapter about people loving their name and then I was like, This is great. And I'm like the most beautiful word in the English language is a person's name, so say it a lot. But like right in the third chapter, like one chapter after the after that, he tells a story about how

He was with this influential person who was telling him a story. And the guy got a lot of the story wrong. Like he was like saying this is a quote from Shakespeare. And Dale was like Actually Right.

That was Thomas Jefferson who said that. Uh and the guy who he corrected Fucking hated him. He's like no don't correct me over this shit. And the whole point is like when you try to correct people or argue with them. To prove a point.

It doesn't it it rarely ever works your way, which sucks because Sometimes it makes you feel good to win an argument or to think you won an argument, but it actually It's more often than not a shitty But didn't Lincoln also say the same thing, like never criticize? And I've always had trouble with that idea. I think in the book How do influence influence people is like never criticize.

I was like never. Yeah, I'm I'm looking at never criticize. And I was like, never how how do you function with never critic? How does that how do you Well do the accountability. I don't I don't underst I still don't understand that. Well what he said in that letter or in that chapter was he'd also said Lincoln would do this thing where he would write an angry letter to someone And one time he wrote like a scathing leather letter to someone And he didn't send it.

And the reason why he did that was one time he talked shit about this guy and the guy was like, I challenge you to a duel. Which was a fight to the death. And Lincoln was like Dude, I'm not doing that. That's insane. I'm I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I'm sorry. And like it was like I'm not gonna criticize people ever again. And so instead he would write these letters. Where he would like bitch bitch him out. And then just not send'em. And he that he was like, That makes me feel better.

Yeah, maybe we need to try that. I still don't fully understand how you do the never criticize thing, but I think they're right, which is rarely does it do any good. Um okay, let me give you a couple others. Everybody is the hero of their own story. And convincing them otherwise is a fool's errand, myself included. I recently heard this when I was in Canada, uh at the uh Andrew Wilkinson's event. I was sitting at a dinner table with Chris Sparley, Chris's Andrew's business partner, who's more under the radar, but a super fun guy and

He's one of my I don't know top three Dinner party. Yes. The guy's just electric at a dinner table. And one of the things he said was he he brought this up. He goes, Isn't it funny? He's like, I have never met a person. Who does not

View themselves. As Acting I forgot exactly how you said it, but like acting good, acting just, no matter what they're doing. And he's like, I think everybody from serial killers on. views themselves as the hero of their story and uh, you know, justified.

Uh either what they did was right. Or the wrong thing they did was justified. He's like, Isn't that crazy? I was like that that is Actually crazy. And It was so true. Like I felt like

When we were arguing yesterday, I was the hero of my story. And I had done all these valiant things. That were, you know, um you know, my my protagonist moves and then you were like Uh-huh, but I am the protagonist. And I'm like, you know, in the as an escalator was like, You're the villain, I'm the hero, and you're like, I'm the hero, you're the villain. And it was like, wait. We are both idiots is actually what we both are. We're neither the heroes nor the villains in this scenario.

But it was just a a good reminder of man, I'm guilty of that. If I'm guilty of that. Everybody's guilty of that. And I I looked it up. There's something called identity, which is like the the psychological name for for this phenomenon that even you know Hitler on believe this about uh About themselves. And the problem is that

Then you go and like you ask your wife or your close friend About any situation. And you explain it. And oftentimes they'll say, You are right. But the reality is is like you're not prob you're probably not explaining the situation.

Like to where you can truly get wonderful advice. Do you know what I mean? Right. Well, there's another one I looked up when I was when I was Talking to chat GPT about like, what is the name for this? Me and my friend buddy just had this argument. What's the name of that? syndrome. What what is what was I doing and what is that called? One of them was called

Mistaken attribution. The principle was this. When I'm wrong. It's because of the situation. When you're wrong, it's because of the character. And if you do that, it's a very unhealthy mindset to have or a bias to have. It's a a misattribution bias.

And we all do this, which is Oh, those things that I did are the wrong well, that's just because the this was what was going on in the situation. However, if you don't give that same benefit of the doubt to the other person. That Their actions were

situationally dictated and and not from any poor intention. Then you end up with this the same problem as like in investing. It's like when I win, it's skill. When I lose it's bad luck. And in the same way in a fight, it's if I'm wrong, it's situational. If you're wrong, it's character. It's your you you just you that was a choice, but that's who you are. So someone

told me this years and years ago and it kinda changed my life and I try to use it all the time and I'm a human and I fail. And I I failed on it a little bit, uh, or I failed on a lot of it yesterday, but basically it's the idea Where we judge ourselves on our intentions. But we judge other people. On their actions. Right.

And I try to remind myself constantly. And that's really it that's another thing that's very simple but hard. But it is like Very important, I think. Truly. And dude, during our conversation yesterday it was like

Well you know I didn't There was no malintent in this, right? Yes. I know that. And it's like and you I know that you had no malintent, but you did. Right? You're like, Yeah, of course. Well we should have done it, but it's like Then what the fuck are we talking about?

What does this mat none of this matters at that point. What are you mad about? What am I mad about? How does this even make how does this even make sense if there's if we both agree. That the intentions were correct. Then we could de-escalate this down to, oh, we just weren't clear about XYZ, or oh, we had a miscommunication, misunderstanding. I thought you meant this, you thought I meant this. Oh yeah, silly mistake on my part, but didn't mean to make that mistake, just a natural mistake. Yeah.

because I'm not a perfect person. So I think there was a moment in there where we could have de escalated that we we we didn't properly do it. That's how every argument actually should start. That's actually what I'm gonna do is like Can you explain your intentions and I'll explain my intentions and then we'll break down the actions to see like if there's alignment or whatever. Right. I once argue with my wife.

And then I had a training session with my trainer right afterwards. And you could tell I was like a little off. at the beginning, like my my vibe is usually like Good vibes only. I did not have good vibes only, but I was just quiet. He was like, What's what's up? And I was like, Oh yeah, you know, and I started to explain the situation.

And he goes, Oh, here I got the solution for you. And I thought he was gonna be the solution to the argument, to the problem, the issue, quote unquote, that we were discussing. And he goes, No no, here's how here's what you do. When you're in that moment. Just remember.

I love you, right? You love me? Cool. And we want to be happy? All right. We're good. Like it's just like Cool, then nothing else matters. And what he was saying and he's like what I mean by that is

Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? And he's like I have a lot of clients that are like you, Silicon Valley types, businessman you know, logical left brain thinker types. There is a desire to be right.

And it is sometimes at odds. With the actual outcome you want. Which is Happiness, harmony, you know.

Cooperation, feeling good. And if you remember what the thing you want really is, you wanted the happiness, harmony, cooperation. You don't want you want that more than you want to be right? you will act totally different. So just remind yourself of that. As the argument starts.

No, it's funny, we were talking And we were arguing. And Thirty minutes in, you're newborn. Started crying.

Yeah. And when I heard that cry It broke my frame. I was like I don't want I don't want him to be upset. Like you wanna like is there any and I'm I wasn't there physically but if I were, like is there anything we could do to like

Make him happy. Like can we hug in front of him? Like I remember thinking like I don't want this kid to be upset. Like That's the only thing that important that that's actually the important thing. It's like Oh, he's upset like that. That's unacceptable. Podcast dads are fighting. Yeah. I remember thinking I'm like

Oh, like let's let's tend it. You know what I mean? Like it totally broke my frame where you're like For some reason, making him not cry just for two seconds is significantly more important than uh any like large business conversation. I thought that was like Kind of interesting. A hundred percent. Um All right, I have a couple more and then we can we can stop. You know, hugging each other. So

Th I wrote a category, what did I learn about myself?'Cause I noticed as I was doing the uh you know, I I I My coping mechanism was like Ooh, this research is fascinating. Ooh, this framework is cool. And I was like, all right, all right, but I'm kind of distancing myself. From

the cold hard facts of my own behavior. And my own mistakes. And I wanna tell you what I wrote under what did I learn by myself. I said, I made the cardinal sin. The cardinal sin in any relationship is

measuring. I remember um Once meeting uh this guy Stan Chevnostsky Stan Chevnosty is a very Successful business. Uh not Google, but Facebook. Yeah. So if he first was a uh entrepreneur, he created uh

Him and his buddy James Courier have been business partners for like twenty years. And they have like a great business marriage. And I was hanging out with Stan once and he was telling me about like what they did with tickle and how they sold that for like whatever to you know like a hundred million dollars or to Monster. And then they created this other company, this other company, this other company. And then Zuck recruited him and Zuck like recruited him for like 10 years. And finally, you know, he he finally went and worked with Zuck and he ends up running Facebook Messenger and He's had an amazing career. I said And one of the cool things was when he went to Facebook, I was like, How did James handle that? Like now he's doing all the work.

For that like they're They've co-founded NFX, this like fund. in this incubator and they are accelerator and they And now you're going and taking a job at Facebook? Like doesn't that put some stress on the relationship? And he was a and he kinda laughed and he was like

It's not that. That's not an issue, but like, you know, we have such a strong partnership that like We it's great. That worked out great. And I was like, How do you guys do that, man? I was like,'Cause I wanna work with somebody for twenty years. Like that's a

When I think about winning what winning looks like in my life, that that's what winning looks like. Uh find somebody amazing. Just do. projects with them for 20 years. Find a handful of people that I could do that with. And um he told me he goes, Oh, the secret's very simple.

He goes, the first thing is Um Turn it into a giving contest. He said ninety eight percent of the relationships you h you are in are taking contests.

Meaning You're trying to get out as much as you, you're asking, what am I getting out of this relationship? That's the fundamental like underlying questions. What am I getting from this other person? What am I getting out of this? You don't realize it, but you you don't realize it until you get into a tit for tat scenario, meaning they didn't do this. So I'm also not gonna do that. They did this to me, so I'm also gonna do that to them. And you get into this tit for tat. contest is measuring and basically it makes the pie smaller. Because the beautiful thing about James is that James is constantly trying to figure out how to make our relationship pie bigger.

Meaning he's just thinking, How do I give more to this relationship? And he doesn't measure even when I'm not giving as much. He just gives he just keeps asking himself, How can I give more? Because the beauty is that if you if you're with somebody who's wired that way You start to do it too. Your

relationship high grows like crazy. And I remember hearing that and being like This is the way. That is the wisdom. That is the fundamental truth about how to do this. Tony Robbins has a very similar framework around four levels of love. One of the he calls the tit for tat thing, he calls it whoring.

He's like, I'll give to you if you pay me, basically. It's like I'll put out for you if you if you put out for me. And he's like, Most of us run around our whole lives whoring. Um, and most of the relationship we have there, and and that is the root cause of why you get into these patterns, these negative patterns with people because It's in game theory terms. If every time one person

Even accidentally. Short change is the other. And then you intentionally shortchange back. And then they pick up on that and then they shortchange back, like what are you left with at the bottom? Very little. Um

But it is very common. And I think that was the the cardinal mistake was I was measuring what I was getting instead of focusing on What am I giving and how do I give more? Cause that's just who I am. Whereas what I was doing was saying, How can I give so much? 'Cause then

I'm gonna get back. And that's fundamentally like a measuring scenario where instead it should just I I wanna I wanna roll differently. So I think that was the probably the biggest mistake I made. I I think. Is that your list? I have one last one, but it's a positive one, so I'll end on a positive note, which is The best relationships are bigger than you. So me and my wife used to argue a bunch when we were dating. We actually end up

breaking up right before we finally got back together and ended up getting married. And we broke up because I was like, dude, you're just upset all the time and I don't really know what to do. Like I'm just being me and like if that upsets you, we should be together. And she's like, No, I'm not upset. I'm just I'm like, You're upset. We're upset a lot. We're fighting a lot. This is too much. I don't want to do that. How long were you dating when you broke up? And how long did you break up for? And then how long until you got married? Okay.

I think something like We were probably dating for Two years, I guess. Broke up for one month exactly? And then

Got back together and It was it's been amazing ever since in a unbelievable kind of way. Meaning You know, most people are like, Oh, people don't change. And if my friend was in a relationship and I'm like, Okay, so y'all were fighting all the time, you broke up for a month. She got back together and was like, no, no, now I'm gonna be cool about everything. I'd be like, dude, come on.

You serious? What are the odds of that? What are the odds that like? It'll just all turn around. And then it it actually did. And one of the things that I would say it turned around like Uh a one eighty is like a full turn. It turned around like

130, which was great, huge improvement. And then when we had kids, it's now a full 180. Where I told my wife the other day, I was like, dude, when's the last time we fought? And she's like, uh I don't know, but do we have time to fight? And I was like, exactly. I was like the best thing about kids is that Both you and I have an unspoken agreement, which is okay first of all, we no longer doubt each other's intentions. I know You were trying to be great for me and I'm trying to be great for you, and we're not perfect. That's okay. But second to that is When we do disagree or have an argument.

We Only let herself suffer for like ninety seconds. Whereas you were saying, like, dude, when I have a conversation like that, it ruins my week. It used to ruin our week. Then it started to ruin our couple days. Now it ruins literally ninety seconds, but it's like, yo, we gotta

be awesome parents and we gotta like function, we gotta go to gymnastics right now. Like, are we really gonna like make this car right uncomfortable? Like, dude, l how about we just agree to this like Totally let that go and just get back on the good foot. We've been doing that now for the last like three, four years, and it has been amazing. It is a miracle. It is something I would not have believed. And if my friend told me, yo, that's how it's gonna go. I'd be like, Yeah, oh you're bullshitting yourself.

But I think the principle is The best relationships have something that's bigger. Then Yeah. just yourself in it. You you can't really be selfish.

As a parent, you you know, your selfishness goes down when you have kids just because it y it's really about I'm at least for me, I should speak for myself. life is very much in service of them. And I I I won't I will give up so much I used to never give up for them. Um, and that and I feel like in a way the podcast thing is great for us because it's something bigger than us. Like let's say we didn't have the podcast.

I probably after that last interaction probably wouldn't have talked to you for a few months just out of like, Well, we don't have to talk, so why would I talk? Whereas the podcast is like, No, I gotta make this right, which made me think What can I do better? Which made me grow up and be a little bit of a better person today. Before you uh put a bow on it, let me say one thing. So

When we have that argument, also when I have any argument with anyone. In business. I like this little thing gets in my head where I'm like I like sometimes I'm like, you know what? I don't want to do business ever again.

I don't want the like I don't want confrontation, like You know, it's like when you're losing a board game and you just like Fuck this game and you like flip it up upside down. Like

Sometimes I'm like, I don't want any of it. I'm out. I don't want any of this. I don't want any drama. And the reason I like reading history And biographies is

I'm able to see it. people I admire in like some of the issues that they've had. And I think I've said a bunch that like All great men are bad men, meaning anyone who you admire, like who's achieved greatness, whether it's a president or a CEO, like there's people who dislike them.

Because they've had to kill Like someone, like you know, like in war, but you're like that war was Unfortunately good, but there's Down to use downsides. And I think about like

To do anything interesting in life, whether it's Business or whatever. It involves confrontation and it involves tension. A lot of times. That is such an uncomfortable feeling, but it's sort of like working out where it's like you

Gotta do that to make your muscles strong. But I And I And I hate it. When it's happening.

And I have to remind myself like Don't burn it down. Don't walk away from everything. Like you can achieve what you want. You just have to go through some arguments sometimes. But it's sort of like when you had let's say you had a company with a hundred employees.

And let's say twenty six percent of those employees are unhappy. That's like a pretty good ratio. So you have roughly seventy five percent of people who are happy. But that means that every single day If there's twenty six days in the work week.

Or in the month, work work days in the month. Someone's gonna bitch to you. Do you know what I mean? And someone's gonna bitch to you every single day. And what it does to you is it makes you think everything is bad. And it's really hard to switch your psychology.

To be like, no, not everything is bad. I need to compartment compartmentalize these two things. And it is a I've gotten better as I've gotten older. But it's that is a huge issue, uh, for me personally. And I think it's an issue for a lot of people where they they face some adversity and I typically human adversity, like tension between people is

I think, in my opinion, the hardest one and the most common one. And the reaction is fuck it. Yeah. I have that reaction. I have that reaction.

I think even though the thing yesterday I was like, all right forget the whole thing then. Not the podcast, but like the situation we were arguing, I was like, Oh, forget it. Who cares even then? I do that all the time. I do that all the time. And I have to I ha it's a really hard thing. to say, is my future self gonna be happy or sad that I made this decision in this particular moment? It's really fucking hard.

kind of history at biographies'cause it's like The problem is one hundred times bigger than your current problem like whatever the TIF is with your wife or with your neighbor or whatever it is, it's like Well I just Last night spent four hours reading about these guys who were shipwrecked and like that's one of the reasons why.

Like oh okay. Problems are relative. I read it for that reason to it's sort of like when I used to box and I used to get my ass kicked in the morning, I was like Oh, everything else the volume's way turned down. Like I just got beat up and it's okay. Like I don't mind like

And that's sort of why I like reading biographies. I also like reading'em because I like seeing This is a normal feeling that I am having. It is it is okay. And that is like a a cool thing about reading about these people. Is when I'm in these moments, I think.

Don't burn it down. Don't walk away. Don't don't do these things. It is normal to have this. And you have to accept that like

In order to do anything interesting. Conflict is part of that. And oftentimes. conflict or constraints. Is where beauty and art is created.

Do you know what I mean? Yes. Um Hundred percent. That that makes a lot of sense to me and I think is

Pretty wise, to be honest. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever heard The phrase Somebody said a slang skill issue. You're not a gamer and you're not like seventeen years old, so you might not be like part of this like subculture where

One of the like common internet slang is just Skill issue. And what skill is she made like somebody will describe like a huge problem that'll be on Reddit. typing like this whole thing about how the this is bad and this is hard and this the this thing out of my control, whatever. And then somebody will just

skill issue. I think it started with gaming, which is like they're complaining about the game. And then somebody who's better at the game will just say skill issue. And what it fundamentally means is like There are so many things that we describe as outside of our control. Or just fundamentally hard or impossible.

That's actually a skill issue. Meaning if you had the skill You wouldn't be bitching and whining about this. Um, that's how I felt about yesterday, meaning When I started reading the Gotman stuff, I realized Oh.

Skill issue. Disagreeing and arguing is a skill. And I have a skill issue. I am not as good at it as I could be. And the reason why is Um When I'm reading his stuff, he's got all these different words to describe things. He's like

I was reading his like encoding of the arguments. It's like cross complaint. I'm cross comp what's a cross complaint? I'm like looking it up. I'm like, Oh, yeah, yeah, he just did that. He he did a cross complaint. Like that's what that was. That's why that didn't feel good. And he's like, Yes, but it's like Oh dude yeah, I did a yes but. Where I agreed, but then I like

undermine my agreement right afterwards by the next sentence I said. Um, and I realized in the same way that Uh I once read like intelligence is the number of distinctions you have on a subject?

What that means is If Uh, if you talk to Eskimos about snow. Snow we like I have one word for snow. No.

They have like fifteen, eighteen, twenty one w different ways to describe snow. The snow that's a little bit runny, the snow that's really hard, the snow that falls fast, the snow that like behaves differently because they live in the snow. They had to they had to become intelligent about snow. They had to create a vocabulary that describe the distinctions because they mattered in their life and they were familiar with them. Whereas somebody who's not so not so skilled and familiar with snow Only has one word. In the same way.

As this guy was describing R argument dynamics. I realized Oh, skill issue. There are A bunch of words for snow.

That I don't know. When it comes to arguing and arguing well. I think it's even got a book called like Fight Right or something. I haven't read it yet, but it's like I'm gonna go read that. And so that was the last uh interesting takeaway, which is Yet again. Skill issue.

Uh so many things in my life just come down to that. Oh, losing weight is hard. No, no, no. Skill issue. I used to have this asshole friend in college. He used to say, uh The only way you get good at drinking and driving is through a lot of practice. I'm like you're a horrible humid humid bee, but you might be right. Uh and uh that's sort of that's kinda like this. That's kinda like this. You gotta fight a lot in order to like uh uh learn how to do it correctly. Um okay. Well, Sam, I'm sorry for all of those reasons that I just said.

And and uh it it's mutual. You prepared this So it's gonna sound like you're well, you are uh It sounds like you're being the bigger the the bigger man. And I wanna let and I wanna let you know that uh everything is mutual. Uh I I feel that like Um it sounds like you

It well, it sounds like you're in in some ways you're you're you're sort of acting that You didn't blame me for anything. You only blamed yourself. And I and I wanna let you know that it it that's not actually the reality. You just You just used more words than I did. Your word count was higher, but that doesn't mean that the the feeling is different. That's it. That's the part.

By the way, we get to use the one time and one time only YouTuber thing to do where it's like It's all over. I'm shutting it down. We qu we quit. Uh We're breaking up like the one time you can fake. You could fake your own death, you could fake retirement, you could fake your breakup.

And Everybody wants to click to see the gas and then They you know, it's the boy who cried wolf. You can only do it once, but you get a hell of a lot of clicks that time. So I think we should use it this time. We should title this whatever, you know, the is this over podcast or yeah, it's over. Sorry, guys. You know you know, Sean's apology or like Um

We're breaking up. Here's why. Some some version of that. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my law in it like my day song On the road less travel never looking back

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