#532: Sheila Heen of The Harvard Negotiation Project — How to Navigate Hard Conversations, the Subtle Art of Apologizing, and a Powerful 60-Day Challenge

Sheila Heen of the Harvard Negotiation Project — How to Navigate Hard Conversations, the Subtle Art of Apologizing, and a Powerful 60-Day Challenge | Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs http://linkedin.com/tim recruitment platform with 750M users, Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover http://eightsleep.com/Tim sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, and Public Goods http://publicgoods.com/tim high-quality everyday essentials. More on all three below. Sheila Heen is a New York Times best-selling author, founder of Triad Consulting Group http://triadconsultinggroup.com, and a deputy director of the Harvard Negotiation Project https://www.pon.harvard.edu/category/research_projects/harvard-negotiation-project/ at Harvard Law School, where she has been a member of the faculty for 25 years. Sheila specializes in particularly difficult negotiations, where emotions run high and relationships become strained. She often works with executive teams, helping them to resolve conflict, repair professional relationships, and make sound decisions together. In the public sector, she has provided training for the New England Organ Bank, the Singapore Supreme Court, the Obama White House, and theologians struggling with disagreement over the nature of truth and God. Sheila is co-author of the New York Times bestsellers Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most https://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Conversations-Discuss-What-Matters/dp/0143118447/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20 and Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well (even when it’s off base, unfair, poorly delivered, and, frankly, you’re not in the mood) https://www.amazon.com/Thanks-Feedback-Science-Receiving-Well/dp/0143127136/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20. She has written for the Harvard Business Review and the New York Times — as a guest expert and contributor to the “Modern Love” column — and she has appeared on NPR, Fox News, CNBC’s Power Lunch, and shows as diverse as Oprah and The G. Gordon Liddy Show. She has spoken at the Global Leadership Summit, the Nordic Business Forum, the Smithsonian, Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Sheila is a graduate of Occidental College and Harvard Law School. She is schooled in negotiation daily by her three children. Please enjoy! This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep http://eightsleep.com/Tim! Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover http://eightsleep.com/Tim is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Pro Cover http://eightsleep.com/Tim to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature. And now, my dear listeners—that’s you—can get $250 off the Pod Pro Cover http://eightsleep.com/Tim. Simply go to EightSleep.com/Tim http://eightsleep.com/Tim or use code TIM. * This episode is also brought to you by Public Goods http://publicgoods.com/tim! Public Goods is the one-stop shop for sustainable, high-quality, everyday essentials made from clean ingredients at an affordable price. Public Goods http://publicgoods.com/tim searches the globe to find healthy, eco-friendly, and innovative products and then packages them using a single, streamlined aesthetic for your home so you can get all of your premium essentials in one place and avoid buying from a bunch of mismatched, single-product brands. Multiple people on my team were already using Public Goods http://publicgoods.com/tim, and now, so am I. 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• 0:00Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:25Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:10Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:55Tim Ferriss?

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• 3:36Tim Ferriss?

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• 3:53Speaker 01

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 3:59Speaker 03

  No, it is an inappropriate time.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 4:15Tim Ferriss?

  Hey everyone, just a quick note. Sheila sent me a short audio note after our conversation, which I am going to share at the end of this episode with her permission. It has a 60-day challenge slash experiment slash mission for me and my girlfriend, and all of that will make sense after you listen to the interview. And my hope is that it will also help a lot of you listening to this conversation. So make sure to stick around after the end of the episode to listen to the details of that 60-day challenge. And without further ado, please enjoy. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. My guest today is Sheila Heen.

• 4:57Tim Ferriss?

  That's S-H-E-I-L-A-H-E-E-N. Sheila is a New York Times bestselling author, founder of Triad Consulting Group, and a deputy director of the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School, where she has been a member of the faculty for 25 years. Sheila specializes in particularly difficult negotiations, where emotions run high and relationships become strained. She often works with executive teams, helping them to resolve conflict, repair professional relationships, and make sound decisions together. I also have a lot of drama in my own life that perhaps we'll end up exploring. But back to the bio. In the public sector, she has provided training for the New England Oregon Bank, the Singapore Supreme Court, the Obama White House, and theologians struggling with disagreement over the nature of truth and God. We will almost certainly come back to that.

• 5:42Tim Ferriss?

  Sheila is co-author of the New York Times bestsellers Difficult Conversations, subtitle, How to Discuss What Matters Most, and Thanks for the Feedback, subtitle, The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well, and then parentheses, Even When It's Off-Based, Unfair, Poorly Delivered, and Frankly, You're Not in the Mood, and parentheses. She has written for the Harvard Business Review and the New York Times, as a guest, expert, and contributor to the Modern Love column, and she has appeared on NPR, Fox News, NBC's Power Lunch, and shows as diverse as Oprah and the G. Gordon Liddy Show. She has spoken at the Global Leadership Summit, the Nordic Business Forum, the Smithsonian, Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Sheila is a graduate of Occidental College and Harvard Law School. She is schooled in negotiation daily by her three children, a problem I look forward

• 6:27Tim Ferriss?

  to having myself. And her website is Triad Consulting Group. You can find both Triad Consulting Group and Sheila Heen on LinkedIn. Sheila, welcome to the show.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  I am so delighted to be here.

• 6:40Tim Ferriss?

  I thought we would start with the foreword of A Difficult Conversation, which is written by Roger Fisher. Could you please describe for us who Roger was?

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Oh, golly, how can I capture for your listeners who Roger was? Roger was just an incredibly inspirational person. So he fought in World War II, and he was in both the Atlantic and the Pacific theaters. He was actually a weatherman, so they would send up a plane. They didn't have weather satellites, right? So they send up a weather plane to check out the weather over Germany, and then that, where they radio back to say whether you should send out the mission. Being in the Air Force during World War II was not a super survivable place to be. And when Roger came back from the war, he found that he had lost several college roommates, friends.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  He was the only one who came home in his immediate social circle. If you go to Memorial Church on the Harvard College campus, the walls are etched with names of Harvard students and graduates. So some of them didn't graduate before they died, who have died in service of our country. And it would be fascinating just to stand there and talk with him. He would point to names and say, oh, this guy was so funny. This guy was just the most generous person I had ever met. And I think that that experience really motivated the rest of his life. He came back and dedicated his life to trying to find better ways for us to manage conflict in the world.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  And his passion was international relations, right? So he would sit down and read the paper in the morning. The newspaper, of course, was how we got our news back, even when I turned up on the scene in the in the 90s. And he would find a conflict and he would just start working on it. And then he would fax his advice off to the leaders involved. And they'd be getting these faxes from some guy named Roger, who who had some kind of interesting ideas. So every once in a while, someone would call him back. And that's how he got involved in border disputes between Peru and Ecuador. That's how he got involved in South Africa, with the ANC and the White Government, just before the constitutional talks. How he got involved in Ireland and it's also how he came to write Getting to Yes,

• 9:06Speaker 01

  which is the negotiation book that really became a foundation book in the field of negotiation and conflict resolution.

• 9:13Tim Ferriss?

  So you mentioned entering the scene. How did you enter the scene with respect to negotiation and conflict resolution?

• 9:21Speaker 01

  I grew up in Iowa and Nebraska and through a series of sort of serendipitous accidents, I ended up at Occidental College in California for college. And when I was applying to law school, ultimately, I was trying to decide whether whether to go to Stanford or Harvard, because of course they didn't get into Yale, which is true of almost every person who's listening to this podcast. So we all have that in common. And one of my college advisors said to me, Harvard is the bigger and kind of scarier choice, I hear you saying, but they have this negotiation thing. And I just have an instinct that it might be up your alley. And probably partly because it was the bigger and scarier thing,

• 10:03Speaker 01

  but also because I felt he knew me pretty well. I decided to come to Harvard. I didn't know anybody. And of course, he was right. I took negotiation my very first year of law school and just fell in love with the field. I just thought, wow, I could learn something new every day for the rest of my life.

• 10:22Tim Ferriss?

  What did you love about it?

• 10:25Speaker 01

  I think partly that it was so interdisciplinary. So when we're trying to understand something, we're reaching in all directions, behavioral economics, neuroscience, psychology, social psychology. You're really reaching in all directions just to understand the human aspects of working relationships and problem solving and what gets in the way. And that means as each of those fields advances and we understand more in each of those fields, well, we get to capitalize on that to think, well, how would this apply to how we

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Manage the inevitable conflict in all of our relationships, well, professional relationships and personal relationships. So I'm learning every day, not only because of my own shortcomings, which become sharper and clearer every day, it seems, but also because I get to stand on the shoulders of so many people who are like, hey, this is really interesting. And I think to myself, wow, that is really interesting. I wonder how that applies. And you're off and running again.

• 11:28Tim Ferriss?

  So when listeners hear the phrase difficult, or I suppose term, although it's a multi-words. I never know what to call something that's two words, a phrase or a term. In any case, tomato, tomato, difficult conversations, especially since I discuss business so much on this podcast. I have guests on who specialize in business. They probably think of a certain siloed breed of difficult conversation. That may be the first thing that comes to mind. But I would love to hear you tell the story. I only got the skeleton overview of this in reading for this conversation

• 12:09Tim Ferriss?

  of your trip to Los Angeles to renew your passport. I don't know if that rings any bells, but if you wouldn't mind filling in the color for that, we could start there.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's start there. Well, on the business side, I will say that difficult conversations come at you from every direction. They're with your subordinates, with your peers, with your boss, with your partners and vendors, et cetera. And often you see them coming down the pike, or you're wondering whether to have them. But every once in a while, they ambush you, kind of out of nowhere. And I think that's what happened to me that day in Los Angeles. So I, where was I going? I guess I was going to Spain because we were going over to teach negotiation. And I was still a student, but I had been invited to go and be part of the Harvard negotiation program that was teaching a week in Madrid. So I had to go renew my passport and I was working that summer in Los Angeles.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  So I went down to the federal building, which is near UCLA, and did whatever I did there that we're all probably familiar with. I got in the elevator to come down and I was on a pretty high floor and the elevator filled, packed. And on the way down to the lobby.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  A guy in the elevator just started ranting, saying the most upsetting and vile racist stuff. And my mind is completely blanked out on exactly what he said. But I do recall that I had never, you know, I'm a sheltered kid from Nebraska. I had never heard even some of these things before. And he was going on and on and on as we clicked slowly down the floors, in a packed elevator of people from all over the world. And it was silent. And by the time the doors opened on the lobby and everyone sort of with relief spilled

• 14:11Speaker 01

  out of that confined space where you just felt trapped and unable to breathe, I was shaking. And I was thinking, oh, my goodness, what could I have done? What should I have done? I didn't know what to do. And was I responsible for saying something or not? And what was interesting was that it has stuck with me. I'm like shaking now. I'm thinking about it. It has stuck with me all these years. It wasn't aimed at me, clearly. I'm white. And yet it stuck with me so viscerally that I ended up writing my third year paper about it. To graduate from Harvard Law School, at that time, you needed to do a pretty big

• 14:52Speaker 01

  research paper during your third year. And I decided to do it on that interaction, just to better understand what was it that was happening? What was I experiencing? What was I noticing? What were my diagnoses for what was going on? What was I, should I have spoken up? Who was I trying to influence or persuade? Or even if I wasn't going to persuade him of anything, was I speaking up on other people's behalf? Or was I just speaking up for myself so that I could come out of that interaction with some sense of self-respect? For sticking up for something and what was I risking in any of those interactions? What would be my purpose and what might be at risk?

• 15:35Speaker 01

  And I think I really see in that paper, a few of the germs of what later became the book Difficult Conversations simultaneous to that unbeknownst to me. I was writing that paper for Bruce Patton, who is a co-author on Getting to Yes and was supervising the paper. And unbeknownst to me, at the time, he and Doug Stone were already themselves working on what were we learning about difficult conversations? So by the time I graduated and they offered me a full-time job to join them at the Negotiation Project, we were all kind of thinking about and wrestling with some of those same questions.

• 16:13Tim Ferriss?

  So I want to bring in a third player, so to speak. There are many different types of difficult conversations. And then I'm going to ask about how to tie them together. Theologians struggling with disagreement over the nature of truth and God. Now, this seems like the type of disagreement that could go on and maybe in fact, has gone on for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. So it would seem also that there are clearly difficult conversations where not only is it incredibly hard to get to a right answer or a resolution, there may not even in fact be a right answer, so to speak. Now, that could be very different from resolution.

• 16:58Tim Ferriss?

  Maybe there is a resolution, just no right answer. My understanding is that you write and speak on how every difficult conversation is the same underlying structure. What do you mean by that? What ties these things together? How are they? How are they similar?

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, great question. By the way, I spent, I think it was about 15 hours locked in a room with six theologians with disagreements over the truth, nature of truth and God, and I got that all figured out now, so.

• 17:30Tim Ferriss?

  Nice, nice. I look forward to reading that book.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Well, I'm not going to tell you guys.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  I actually, I should pause there because there's, one of the theologians, Dominic, said something so profound in the nature, in the course of that conversation, that it stuck with me all these years.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Part of what emerged from the conversation was if we're made in the image of God, what does that mean for each of us? What do we each think that means? And one of the things that came out was the idea that if our souls are partly the nature of God, maybe it's that we have thousand watt souls, but as human beings, we only have forty watt bulbs that we're able to plug into that. So we understand and show so little of the light that is possible there. And that that image really has stayed with me that maybe part of the journey of getting better at difficult conversations and getting better at understanding humanity and our relationships with each other and our own limitations in

• 18:37Speaker 01

  understanding each other. And I think that learning happens between us, that the way that you learn about yourself, the way you might learn about God, or the universe, or the nature of life is in that space between you and me. And that's where the struggle often is. But you asked a more analytical question, which I will also, I will also respond to.

• 19:04Tim Ferriss?

  I'm happy to go way far into the into the ether with the other types of questions, but we can also just get a toehold with the analytical if we want to start there.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  And that's been one of the things that's been really fun about this field is that it is both incredibly rigorously analytical. And it has to do with who we are and what we think the meaning of life is, and the emotions that we carry into all of our conversations and relationships, whether we're aware of them or not. So when we first started working on the book, Bruce and Doug and I, that became Difficult Conversations, the working title was actually The Ten Hardest Things to Say and How to Say Them.

• 19:48Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Because we figured, I don't know, there's probably like eight or ten or twelve different types of difficult conversations. And a conversation with your boss would be different than a conversation with your partner or your spouse. And that'd be different than a conversation with your teenager, which is probably a volume unto itself. And so we'll just figure out what those different types of conversations are.

• 20:08Tim Ferriss?

  That implies conversations with your teenager.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, fair enough. That is fair enough.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Or conversations where, yeah, they're listening to anything you say. It's a one-sided conversation. We feel, well, we'll just figure out what those different types of conversations are, and we'll have a chapter about each. And this is great because people buy books with titles like that. And so this is a fabulous plan. We quickly ran into a little bit of trouble because we realized that we were wrong, that actually it didn't matter who you are talking to, and it doesn't matter what you're talking about. The same kinds of things show up in our internal voice in any difficult conversation, meaning the internal voice is what we're thinking and feeling, but may not be saying to each other. And those fall into three categories.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  So the first is that we're each thinking about what's happening, what has happened, what is happening right now, and what should happen. So this is sort of our, the story we tell about the facts, quote unquote, facts, because it's really an interpretation. And that includes what I'm right about, who's right, but usually what I'm right about, whose fault it is that we're having this problem, and also what your intentions or motivations or character are. Like, why are you being so impossible? Why are you being so stupid or difficult? Those are the three pieces of the story that I'm telling about you. But by the way, you're telling the same story about me. Well, a different story with the same elements.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  You're focused on what you're right about and whose fault it is, which is clearly yours. No, you think it's mine. And why the other person's acting this way. So that's one level of the conversation, but there are two more things going on beneath the surface. A second is, by the time something becomes a difficult conversation, we're each usually struggling with a whole host of feelings of frustration, betrayal, confusion, guilt, shame. Anxiety and what do we do with those feelings? Often, we don't address them directly. They simply infuse the conversation. They're the energy that drives the conversation and feelings get translated into blame and arguments and accusations.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  And if we don't talk about them, often we're not getting to the heart of what's going on. Even in business, by the time it becomes a difficult conversation, typically, we've got at least two problems. One is the surface problem. Is this timeline realistic? We're arguing about that. Is this the right strategy going forward? Who's right about that? But there's a second problem beneath that, which is how we each feel treated by the other, which is that I've been telling you that these timelines aren't realistic forever, and yet you keep blaming me for missing them because you're just not willing to listen. And if we don't address how we each feel treated, we might resolve the surface problem, but that deeper problem is going to turn up in a different form next week or next

• 23:08Speaker 01

  month. So you've got the what happened conversation. We call it in the book. The second is the feelings conversation. And then at the deepest level is what we call the identity conversation. And the idea here is that if a conversation feels difficult, chances are there's something the situation suggests about you that feels troubling or at stake or maybe a little bit true or maybe infuriatingly wrong. It's not just that we're arguing about money. It's always about more than money. It's about whether I'm respected or competent or a good person or worthy of love even. And that's part of why these conversations feel so high stakes.

• 23:52Tim Ferriss?

  So the identity component, there's the what happened component. There's the feelings conversation, as you mentioned, then the identity is how it affects how we view ourselves, how others view us, or how we view others.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  That's right. And so here's a simple example for people who have trouble saying no. Well, that doesn't seem that hard. Just say no more often. You've probably gotten that advice a million times, right? But it's not that you don't know how to say the word no. It's that chances are you think of yourself as somebody who is very loyal. Or generous, or would never abandon a friend in need. Well, if that's true, then anytime someone asks you for help, turning them down for that help isn't just saying the word no, it's doing something that feels in conflict or intention with who you want to be in the world. And someone letting you know that you let them down will be a much

• 24:53Speaker 01

  harder conversation for you than for someone who just doesn't happen to have that identity story about themselves, right? The guy in the office next door has no trouble saying no to everybody, which is of course why everybody comes to you, because they know you'll say yes. So that also helped us understand why is it that some people have trouble with some conversations and the same conversation is easy for someone else. And it's partly because of whatever the story is that you tell about yourself and who you are trying to be.

• 25:22Tim Ferriss?

  And once you have an understanding of the three conversations, which is, in a way, it's kind of a meta-anatomy of each conversation.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like the underlying structure of any difficult conversation in the world.

• 25:36Tim Ferriss?

  So, once you have that x-ray vision and you're able to look at conversations through the lens of these three conversations, does that then turn into a checklist or an approach? How do you translate that into thinking about how to address or prepare for a given conversation?

• 25:59Speaker 01

  I think that that structure mostly serves as landmarks. So I think that the way that we often will, well, if you're like me, prepare, quote unquote, prepare for a difficult conversation is that we lie awake worrying about it. And maybe we turn on the light and jot down a few talking points. And then we think about how they're going to react. And then we think about our rebuttals to their reactions. And we're sort of charting a path, like, I'm going to say this, and then I know they're going to say this, so I'll respond with this, etc. And we're charting a path through the woods to try to get to the other side. And by the way, then we turn out the light and realize, yeah, I don't know that this is worth even bringing up. And now we're back at the beginning. Trying to decide whether it's even worth trying.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  The problem, though, with the path charting is, number one, it sets you up to do a lot of talking and very little listening. And the second is that if you're wrong about anything, the minute that something surprising happens, you're knocked off your path and you're lost in the woods.

• 26:58Tim Ferriss?

  Decision tree, fallen.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Shit.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  You're not following the script. And so I think the reason that understanding the underlying structure helps is that it gives you some landmarks. So no matter where you get dropped into the woods, you can think, whether we're saying it directly or not, we're wrestling over blame and whose fault it is that we're in this situation. So that's the first reason that structure is helpful. The second reason it's helpful is that the answer isn't just to say everything you're thinking. The more transparent and aligned you can be between your internal voice and your external voice, the better. However, that doesn't mean you should just re-explain even louder why you're right and why this is their fault. You don't just dump that sort of toxic internal voice into the conversation. That's not going to help.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Instead, the first negotiation is really a negotiation with yourself to move from being focused on what I'm right about and you're wrong about to getting curious about why we see this so differently. So I don't have to pretend I don't think I'm right. I still think I'm right. But given how obvious it is that I'm right, what the hell is going on with you that you don't see it? That's really interesting. If I can get curious about that, then it actually shifts my purpose in the conversation. And the purpose of the conversation isn't to hit you over the head with how right I am. It's instead to understand why you see it so differently and why we see it so differently. So I need to show my part, too.

• 28:25Tim Ferriss?

  Could you offer some sample language or tell a story? Either one is fine, could be hypothetical. Or just provide some language for getting curious? Because there's a spectrum of options to choose from, some of which might be passive-aggressive, some might just be aggressive-aggressive. And with the understanding that you're not... In validating your conclusion, you're just hitting suspend on voicing that conviction that you have of being right and getting curious. What might it sound like to get curious?

• 29:01Speaker 01

  So one of the things that we work on in our negotiation course at Harvard is separating empathy and assertion and being high on both in any given conversation. So you both want to be high empathy and curious and you want to have skilled and clear assertion, like, here's how I see it. Let me see if I can explain it in a way that is clear even to myself as I pull apart why I see it the way I do. The mistake that we make, and this is, I think, a little bit of what you're alluding to, is that sometimes we conflate those two. So I'll think to myself, I know I'm supposed to ask a question, so I'll phrase this as

• 29:41Speaker 01

  a question. Why would you think that? Which, which isn't really a question. Why would you think that is like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard with a question mark at the end. So, and so what happens is we ask quote unquote, questions that are really disguised assertions, thinly disguised assertions. And you're much better off just saying, gosh, that seems crazy, but what do you see that tells you that that's true? And just naming that I actually don't agree, or I can't imagine that pulls apart the assertion and just says it clearly. And then I can ask a genuine question, which is, but gosh, I mean, most of the time you're a pretty smart guy. So why would you like, help me understand that?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  And then my curiosity becomes more pure, more clean, actually. And so passive aggressiveness is actually unspoken feelings, frustrations, or assertions that then leak through us pretending to be curious.

• 30:42Tim Ferriss?

  So if everyone's reasonably dysregulated, let's just imagine.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Just imagine a world.

• 30:49Tim Ferriss?

  Let's just imagine a world in which, you know, this calm surface that we all maintain at all times, sometimes falters and two people are getting heated. Maybe it's the second or third time that they've had the same disagreement or argument. What can someone say to?

• 31:08Tim Ferriss?

  Sort of down-regulate that and get to curiosity. And you already gave perhaps a few examples, but any other thoughts on how to language that?

• 31:20Speaker 01

  My guess is that you're familiar with the research by John Gottman up in Seattle.

• 31:25Tim Ferriss?

  I have some familiarity, but please provide a, an overview.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Well, an overview, just a connection to, to the question that you just asked. So he invites married couples into his lab and he invites them to talk about an issue that's stressful between them, to have a difficult conversation essentially. Hooks them to heart monitors and videotapes and all of that. And then, you know, he says that he can watch for five minutes and predict with their different numbers based on his different studies, but 90-ish, 90, 92% accuracy whether they'll divorce within three or five years. Part of the reason I name this is that for me, it really says, it's not just that we have difficult conversations in our most important relationships. Those conversations are the relationship.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  That if we find a way to have them productively or constructively, then the relationship will thrive, whether it's a personal or a professional relationship. And/or is where we start to disengage because you just don't get it and you won't listen. And the relationship starts to fray. So what Gottman is listening for are what are the indicators, right? That he's listening for that tell him which direction it's going to go. And one of them is that as a conversation gets heated and starts to escalate, one of the spouses will often make a joke. But the purpose of the joke is that it's a invitation to step outside this argument

• 32:55Speaker 01

  and to see it for what it is, to see what's happening, which is that this is the conversation we usually have and how it usually goes. And so often it's a little bit of an inside joke. But humor, by the way, I listened to your conversation with Anne Lamott, who I absolutely adore.

• 33:10Tim Ferriss?

  She's a treasure.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  She is a treasure. And what does she call it? Laughter is carbonated.

• 33:16Tim Ferriss?

  Holiness.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  Holiness, yeah. So laughter also in the brain just gives us a little bit of instant perspective, that we suddenly see the absurdity of our own behavior in many cases. And so it's an invitation to just name what's happening. It's like a meta move. So for instance, with my husband, who also teaches negotiation, by the way, so.

• 33:40Tim Ferriss?

  Love to be a fly on the wall for some of those.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can imagine. So we fight about how we fight.

• 33:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  That's the fight we usually have.

• 33:47Tim Ferriss?

  This is like my friends' kids, my friends who are therapists, and their kids are like, "Stop therapizing me."

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Exactly. Exactly, exactly. So we're like, "Yeah, you're not listening." Oh, a little bit difficult conversations. Yeah. So that's the fight we have.

• 34:02Tim Ferriss?

  Stop putting your baton in my face.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 34:06Tim Ferriss?

  That's best alternative to negotiated agreement, folks. Inside joke.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, exactly. That was a very nice inside baseball joke.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, waving your baton around in a romantic relationship is not usually a successful strategy. You know, there are a lot of people who would find me very appealing.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  But but one of the jokes that he and I make when we have the wherewithal to do it is like, "Why will you not just admit, I am good and you are bad? That is what this is about, right? It's about who needs to apologize, whose fault this is, et cetera." So as things escalate, your ability to just name that underlying dynamic sometimes makes the other person laugh, and you can step out of it for a moment. And then that gives you the opportunity to say, "Look, obviously, we've had this conversation several times. I'm not understanding why, fill in the blank, I'm not understanding why what I'm suggesting doesn't make sense. Help me under, like genuinely, help me understand that. Or I'm not understanding what..."

• 35:05Speaker 01

  You're most worried about here. That often helps. And it needs to be a genuine ask. You can't say like, what are you worried about? Because that's really a hot question. It's like, you shouldn't be worried about anything. So why are you being so stupid as to be worrying about something? As long as you can step outside, see, oh, I'm not being curious right now. And I don't have to pretend that I agree to do it. I think that's really the key. And I don't have to say, there's no truth, but from where I sit, I can only see some of the pieces of the puzzle. You have the other pieces of the puzzle and we don't really, putting those pieces on the table for discussion is,

• 35:50Speaker 01

  is how we figure out what we have to work with. And then at the end of the day, we still might not agree about this, but it might open up new options for how we handle it.

• 35:58Tim Ferriss?

  Can I just say, it's a rekindling this great interest in negotiating, but it's not quite negotiating. I mean, it is negotiating, but it's like negotiating reality through in part, choice of language. I remember reading Getting to Yes. I remember reading Getting Past No, which I also really, really enjoyed. And, and then of course, difficult conversations, I think, provides very flexible framework and approach for engaging with many, many different situations, many different people, many different challenges. But just the phrasing that you used with the pieces of the puzzle, right?

• 36:41Tim Ferriss?

  That is something that someone could copy and paste and use themselves. I mean, I just took notes because it's a non-automatic pattern interrupt, if that makes sense. Whereas, and I'll own it, I have a history of some degree of fire. So I, I might, although I have worked on it for a very long time now, but I think I am prone to want to speak very directly, not waste calories and just get to the point. And in doing so, I might ask a question like, what are you most worried about? Or why are you worried about this? But the tone and the brevity of the question, everything about the delivery is.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Not a question.

• 37:28Tim Ferriss?

  Like, for fuck's sake, why are we doing this again?

• 37:31Speaker 01

  I think it's really, what is wrong with you? That is, like, I have a list of possible things wrong with you that I've collected over the years, but I'm just curious which one it is this time. So.

• 37:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  So, yeah, I try to have a few questions in my back pocket to reach for, because in the moment, of course, you don't feel like being curious at all. So, help me understand what you're worried about, or what might be at risk here. What am I missing? What am I missing is actually a great question, partly because they're going to be so thrilled to be able to tell you. They're gonna, they're gonna take that invitation. But genuinely, they can see things that you can't. And, I mean, it reminds me, I sometimes tell this story about my eldest son, his name is Ben. He's 22 now, but when he was about three, we were driving down the street and we stopped at a traffic light and we were working on both colors and also traffic rules, because

• 38:29Speaker 01

  at the time, we lived on kind of a busy street in Cambridge. So we're stopped at the light and I say, hey, Ben, what color's the light? And he says, it's green. I said, well, Ben, we're stopped at the light. What color's the light? Take a good look. And he goes, it's green. And when it turns, he says, it's red, let's go.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Now, the kids seemed bright in most other ways. So, I just thought, like, what is, what is going on with him? My first hypothesis is, maybe he's colorblind, which, then that would be my husband's fault. At least, I thought at the time it was my husband's fault. I've since been informed it would have been my fault. So I start collecting data, right? I'm running a little scientific experiment of my own. And so I started asking him to identify red and green in other contexts, and he gets it right every time. And yet, every time we come to a traffic light, he's still giving me opposite answers because I get a little obsessed with this. My second hypothesis, by the way, is that he is screwing with me, right?

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Which I certainly had some data to, to support. But it wasn't until, this went on for about three weeks. It wasn't until maybe three weeks later, and I think my mother-in-law was in town. So I was in the backseat, sitting next to Ben. And we stopped at a traffic light and I suddenly realized that from where he sits in his car seat, he usually can't see the light in front of us because the headrest is in the way or it's above the level of the windshield, windscreen, as they say in Europe. So he's looking out the side window at the cross traffic light. Now, just think about the conversation from his point of view. He's looking at the light, it's green. I'm insisting that it's red. And he's like, you know, my mother seems bright in most other ways, but she's just wrong about this.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  And the reason that that experience has stuck with me all these years is that it's such a great illustration of the fact that where you sit determines what you see. And when you're in the front seat, position of leadership, and I've got the, I've been driving for however many years at that point. I've never had an accident. I've got the resources, I've got the map, I've got the view of the road. And somebody in the backseat pipes up to say something that doesn't make any sense at all, it's just so easy to dismiss it and move on rather than to say, okay, that doesn't make any sense. Help me at least understand what you're looking at. Because often people in the backseat can see something coming at you that's going to sideswipe you because they're closer to the customer, they're closer to suppliers, et cetera.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  And I have to say that that experience is also coming back to me these days as I think about the conversations that we're having about race. Because from where I sit, as a white person in the United States, I see a lot, but there is a whole lot that I don't see or that I don't interpret the same way. And the idea that I've been missing things all these years and not seen things that have been systematically unjust violates my sense of identity and I feel ashamed.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  And yet, that shame shouldn't keep me from learning more about what else I don't see. And I think that's one of the reasons those conversations are so hard and so important.

• 41:45Tim Ferriss?

  In a situation, whether it's, I mean, it could be any context, right? It could be race-related, it could be with a child, not necessarily in the car context. But in a situation where there seems to be a clear disconnect, in the sense that the two parties are seeing things, not just differently, but perhaps seeing different things.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 42:13Tim Ferriss?

  Are there other tools or suggestions for how to sort of open the aperture? So that both sides get a better understanding of what they are seeing completely or incompletely?

• 42:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, in chapter two, we talk about a tool that actually comes from colleagues of ours at the business school, at Harvard Business School, and MIT. Don Shern and Chris Argerus created something called the ladder of inference. And it just maps the way that our brains take in and process information. So at the bottom of the ladder is sort of all the data, all of the things we can directly experience. And so when I was telling the story about Ben, it's partly that he has information I don't have. It is actually available to me technically, it's just that I wouldn't tend to look there.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  So at the bottom of the ladder is what's available to me and what's available to others. And some data won't be available. I wasn't there when you had the conversation with the board member or whatever. So you have information I don't. At the first rung of the ladder up, it's of the data available to us, we each select a tiny sliver of it to pay attention to. And so we might be in the same meeting, but I'm listening for the things that affect me and are going to ruin my weekend. And that's just not what you're listening for. You're listening for the things that are going to affect you and your weekend. So in some sense, we're attending different meetings in terms of what we're paying attention to and what we remember.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  And then one more rung up after data selection is interpretation. What do we make of it? How big a deal is it? Based on our past experiences, which probably are different, what does this represent? Or what do we predict about it? So we're reasoning and interpreting about it. And then we come to conclusions. And then when we get into a difficult conversation, we tend to trade conclusions. That was a great meeting versus that was a total waste of time. This is a good idea. That seems like a good idea, but we've tried it before and it's never going to work. So part of the reason that curiosity and understanding why we see it differently helps is that it helps us to unpack the lower rungs of the ladder to understand where we diverge.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Was it that we each notice the same thing, but we have different predictions about how that's going to go in the future? Or how big a deal it is? And whether it's important enough that we have to address it right now? Those are interpretations. So part of what I'm listening for in a difficult conversation is I'm just trying to understand what do you see and how do you interpret it? We each have implicit rules about how, how the world is supposed to work. Do we have different implicit rules here? It helps me to put those pieces, puzzle pieces on the table and try to fit them together, understanding that some of them just won't fit. And that's okay. That's okay. But now I understand why, what you make of it.

• 45:17Tim Ferriss?

  Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. It's summer of 2021 and with all the rapid changes we've seen since last year, small business owners are busier than ever. Time spent searching for and interviewing the wrong candidates for job opening could be time better spent growing a business, growing your business. That's why LinkedIn Jobs has made it even easier and faster to reach candidates worth interviewing. Create a job post for free in minutes on LinkedIn Jobs to reach your network and well beyond to the world's largest professional network of more than 750 million people. That's a lot of people. Focus on candidates with the skills and experience you need. Use screening questions to get your role in front of only the most qualified people.

• 46:00Tim Ferriss?

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• 46:28Tim Ferriss?

  I don't know if this is a, an opportune time. It's, I suppose it's not an inopportune time to ask you what is meant by a statement against interest? Statement against interest?

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:42Tim Ferriss?

  What is that? And how does one potentially use it?

• 46:45Speaker 01

  So a statement against interest is telling you something that if I was completely self-interested, I would not admit. Like that that last answer was a little bit rambly and confusing.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  If you have the illustration, it's much easier to explain. So it's owning or admitting something that isn't in your interest. It might hurt you. An apology is a statement against interest in many cases. The reason that statements against interest can be so powerful is that it, it's the fastest way in the research. It's the, one of the fastest ways to build trust between people because the other person thinks, well, I guess they must be being honest because otherwise they wouldn't say that. We talked earlier about not just taking your internal voice that's focused on blame and what you're right about and dumping it into the conversation. The shift from I'm right to why do we see this differently should also be accompanied by a shift from blame to what we call joint contribution.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  And joint contribution assumes, look, we each did things and they might've been totally reasonable things. Nobody did something wrong, but we each did things or failed to do some things that got us here. And it doesn't have to be 50/50, but if I'm willing to own and be accountable for my contributions to this problem, that makes it more likely that you'll be willing to do that as well. And so a statement against interest is I might own my contribution upfront. Look, Tim, we should have talked about this a while ago and I should have brought it up earlier because it's been bothering me for a while. So I apologize for that, but I wanted to talk about, fill in the blank, owning my part of it upfront, which is often avoiding or delaying a conversation is a really common

• 48:29Speaker 01

  contribution to a problem that is festering. Signals, this isn't about blaming, this is just about understanding what's going on and trying to make it better.

• 48:37Tim Ferriss?

  Are there other examples you might be able to share in doing homework for this conversation? You mentioned apologies. I mean, certainly there are good and bad apologies.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Yes, there are.

• 48:47Tim Ferriss?

  Or helpful and unhelpful apologies, and I actually might want to come back to that. This is something I'm very much trying to get better at. I don't think I'm the worst in the world, but I'm definitely not winning any gold medals at the moment in that department.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Can we dig into that?

• 49:00Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, sure.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  Now you're sorry you brought it up, aren't you?

• 49:06Tim Ferriss?

  Right, right.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  Tell me more about how you think about apologies and what makes one good or bad, effective or actually ineffective.

• 49:20Tim Ferriss?

  Well, obviously, this is timely for me. So I think part of the reason I've been looking forward to asking you about this is that, coming back to the ladder of inference, I think that perhaps I'm not paying attention to the right elements of apologies because my self-assessment is that my apology is pretty good.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  My apologies are amazing.

• 49:46Tim Ferriss?

  They're fucking amazing. I didn't want to be too strong.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  You should be much more appreciative of how good that apology was, yes.

• 49:56Tim Ferriss?

  Right. I'd like to thank the Academy. So I think I'm honestly simply not seeing what in this case my partner is seeing. And what I've noticed is that content almost doesn't matter, or the content matters. But if my tone is implying I don't have a lot of time for this and is of a certain intensity or volume, the words really just don't matter. So there is some just regulation that needs training on my side.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  So the, the message is not that you're sorry. It's that will this apology make this end?

• 50:43Tim Ferriss?

  I think probably, that's probably right. I'm like, okay, I see this could drag on for a while. I'm willing to suspend the conversation of who is right and who is wrong. And I'm willing to apologize if this just terminates.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Means we can be done.

• 51:01Tim Ferriss?

  If we can just move on to something else and stop this particular conversation. So I.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Oh, that's such a great insight.

• 51:09Tim Ferriss?

  And, you know, I'm not totally, you know, knuckle dragger about it. I have, you would think after reading all these books and so on, that I would be acing this, but I think that also I often jump from, I think my girlfriend wants me to feel how she feels more than she wants me to understand in some analytical way what is causing what I view, or what maybe we both view as an issue, if that makes any sense.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:44Tim Ferriss?

  And I just, in the world, generally don't operate with that as my primary lens.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:52Tim Ferriss?

  So those are some of the things that contribute. Sometimes the, the apology works, but it's not consistent. So I'm looking for some rules, some guidelines, some language, anything that can help me get out of the remedial class and into the more consistent, normal class.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  We are all in the remedial class, honestly, but I was just chuckling to myself because your, your frame was the apology works.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  And that suddenly made me think, oh, that's actually probably a piece of it, which is if I'm apologizing for my own purposes to accomplish my own purposes, maybe that's antithetical to an apology.

• 52:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  We could probably make a really cool list of the different things that make an apology less than apologetic or less than satisfying. So one might be, it's really, can this be over yet?

• 52:56Speaker 01

  Another that I often make the mistake of doing myself is, look, I'm sorry you felt that way.

• 53:05Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  Which is basically, you shouldn't have felt that way. And what I did was completely reasonable, so the problem is still you and your oversensitivity. I think that part of what makes an apology meaningful is that you are genuine in owning something that you've contributed to the problem and that you're acknowledging the impact that it had on them. So that third piece of the what happened story is about why are you acting this way? And the advice, the shift in that category is from, I know why you're doing what you're doing, or the flaws in your character that are problematic, to separating intentions

• 53:49Speaker 01

  and impact, which is that it's quite possible, and most of the time, we had good intentions, or we had no intention, we just weren't thinking about it, and it had a bad impact. And I think that when someone feels we owe them an apology, maybe they want two things. Maybe they want us to sort of own and take responsibility for. Whatever we contribute to the problem. And they also want us to really see and care about the impact that it had on them, to really fully understand it. Rather than to explain it away or continue to believe that it was their problem. And maybe those are the two key elements to an effective apology.

• 54:33Tim Ferriss?

  If you were to give me the crutches and walk me through this, any suggestions for wording, languaging this? And also, if I'm reflecting on everything we're talking about, I think another weakness of mine is almost certainly that I, in some cases, provide an apology that checks both of those boxes. And then, within 10 seconds, I say, "And..." Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, which is the sort of counterpunch. Not counterpunch, or justification, or this is why I think this is an oversensitive reaction. So I have the apology, but then I can't leave "good enough" alone.

• 55:17Tim Ferriss?

  And then I add some type of rebuttal or kind of light body shot to it. And that just completely removes any benefit of, or most of the benefit of the apology. I think that's probably something that I also do, where I get some of the first part, and then I just keep talking when I should shut the fuck up for at least 15 minutes.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and the 15 minutes maybe gives you perspective on whether you need to say it, but I don't want to actually accept that you don't need to say it.

• 55:53Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  Maybe you do. Because, because if you're still feeling unsatisfied, like, there's more here that is at the heart of it for me, that doesn't feel like it's been acknowledged, you might have done a great job of acknowledging her, or the impact on her, finally, she would say. And there's something that feels unfinished for you. So sometimes it's that... From an identity point of view, you want her to understand that you had good intentions and weren't trying to hurt her or upset her, whatever. It might be that you feel she also contributed to this and you haven't, you don't feel like she's taken responsibility for her part of it.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  And in ongoing relationships, personal or professional, part of what's hard is that you know this drives me crazy and you did it again, even though you just apologized for it a week ago. So maybe your apology isn't real because you're still doing the same thing. And that's the wrestling. I mean, John Gottman and his marriage studies suggest that two thirds of what we argue about today, we're still going to be arguing about five years from now. And for those of us who have been in really long, we were arguing about them five years ago and 10 years ago. So it's more about the ways in which we're different and how we manage that.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  And so if you're feeling like, I gotta add something, it may be that you feel one of those two things. Either the impact on you isn't acknowledged, maybe three things. The impact on you doesn't feel like it's acknowledged. You don't feel like she's owning her part, her contribution to the problem. And/or you just want to know that she knows that you had good intentions, that you weren't trying to be a jerk, because that would be against sort of the story you tell about who you want to be in the world and in the relationship. I don't know. What do you think about all of that?

• 57:43Tim Ferriss?

  I think those are all pieces of it. And I'll give you a little bit more of the script.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 57:49Tim Ferriss?

  So if you're like, Tim, give me your script for a very uncomfortable evening right before bed. Like, what's the perfect recipe?

• 57:58Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 58:00Tim Ferriss?

  I'll give you a bit of the play by play and then we can, we can go from there. So the way this often manifests is...

• 58:09Tim Ferriss?

  My partner, it's very important to my partner that she can speak truthfully and not people please. And I support that. I think that's very important. Sometimes how that shows up is I feel like I can't share my truth. And if I do, she feels compelled to apologize and then feels resentful that she was looking for an apology and ended up apologizing herself. Does that make sense?

• 58:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:38Tim Ferriss?

  She'll speak truth. I will often apologize. I'm not saying I do it well, but I will apologize. And then I'll say, and I don't feel complete for these following reasons. And if you have the right to share your truth, I feel also that I should have the same right. Here's my truth. And then she feels the need to apologize for that. And that sits very poorly because she's like, well, wait a second. I was feeling X. I came to you. I just wanted a clean resolution or some demonstration that you're curious and interested in my experience and then possibly an apology. Now I ended up apologizing. And then, just

• 59:20Tim Ferriss?

  to complete this nightmare fairy tale, it's not a nightmare, I'm being dramatic, but then I will say, I don't need, nor am I asking for an apology. Right? So like, that's not on me.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 59:36Tim Ferriss?

  This, this may or may not have happened recently. So it's very fresh in the mind.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Yes. So wait, wait, rather than telling us about it, would you be willing to play both roles? Say what she says.

• 59:48Tim Ferriss?

  I can try.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  Say what she says, and then switch roles and say what you say back, because this will give us the rhythm of it even better than the analysis. So how does, how does it start?

• 1:00:00Tim Ferriss?

  She's actually very diplomatic and has, generally speaking, incredible emotional regulations. So she will, when it goes well, or when it goes better, I would say she will ask something like, could we set a time to talk for a little bit? And then we set a time.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Okay. So hold on. When she says, I'll be her, can we set a time to talk?

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  And then what do you, yeah, right. You say, sure. What are you thinking to yourself? And feeling?

• 1:00:32Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, shit. Here we go again.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:00:35Tim Ferriss?

  Right. But, but, but, but that's, that's okay.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  But that's fair enough. No, I'm not saying that that's bad.

• 1:00:41Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  It's, it's just that, yes, of course. And then you're already worried about it is

• 1:00:48Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  part of what we're exploring. So keep going.

• 1:00:51Tim Ferriss?

  I think I'm, I think I'm avoidant in that way.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:54Tim Ferriss?

  Or I'm just like, God, life is busy enough. Like, I don't, I don't want to deal with this right now. But I'll set a time and we will set a time. We'll figure out a time. And in those cases, when I know there's an end time also, this is very important for me. And I know I'm still on the analytical side, but if a conversation erupts spontaneously, and I'm like, this could go for three hours if this doesn't end. This could go indefinitely. I get very agitated. Or I could just to own it. I make myself very agitated just to own the state. Okay. If it comes up spontaneously, then I'm already kind of looking for the exits. Okay. And then she'll very often say something like,

• 1:01:41Tim Ferriss?

  when X, Y, and Z happened, I make up the following story. I'm not saying it's true. I'm not saying you're wrong, but the story I make up, she's very good about this, which really removes a lot of the defensiveness from me at least. The story I make up is A, B, and C. Whatever A, B, and C might be.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  Is that you fill in the blank because you wanted or couldn't stand blank, blank, blank? Is that what the story sounds like?

• 1:02:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Or you, I mean, you did X, Y, and Z because you don't think about me and you make unilateral decisions about the, these types of things. And then my input isn't important. I'm, I'm making that up, but it, but it could be real.

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  That's the general template. Yep.

• 1:02:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it could be a real example. And

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  And what do you feel when she says that?

• 1:02:35Tim Ferriss?

  It depends on the instance. So I would say that there are some times when I immediately feel badly and I recognize that she's right.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:45Tim Ferriss?

  Right. It's like totally on point. I was just a dick. I'm sorry. Like I was busy or over caffeinated, underslept, who knows, maybe all of the above. And so there are times I'm like, you're totally right. And then there are other times where I think I'm often so concerned, especially if it's right before bed. I'm like, oh God, I gotta nip this in the bud with this camp going on for an hour and a half.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  Cause I won't be able to sleep. Yeah.

• 1:03:06Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:03:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:07Tim Ferriss?

  Where I might say something like, I'll tell you what's going through my head, just to give you a window into it. So what I'm trying to verbalize, which maybe you can do a better job of, because you've had front row seats to so much of this. I am very hesitant to say, I'm sorry I made you feel X, because I don't believe we ever make someone else feel a given way. And I think that's a very disempowering phrasing to use with yourself or anyone else, which is why I said, like, I made myself agitated.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:03:41Tim Ferriss?

  Because there are people, friends of mine, for instance, like my friend Matt Mullenweg, he's like the Buddha sitting on a lotus flower in the middle of a hailstorm at any given time. Like he's so calm. I don't think he would respond the way that I did. So I want to own that there are probably choices and maybe some genetics involved. I don't want to say, I'm sorry for making you feel X. So usually I'll say something like, I'm sorry if I wasn't thinking, if I wasn't choosing my words carefully enough and I said something in a way that came off as A, B, or C. And I'll say something like that. And if I just stopped there, it would probably be fine.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you can't quite leave well enough alone, because what feels unfinished?

• 1:04:30Tim Ferriss?

  Well, what feels unfinished is I generally operate in a world with people who have very high degree of toughness and resilience and grit. And I'm not saying she doesn't have those things. She does. But the people I spend a lot of time with are very, most of my closest friends are very thick skinned. And so I don't feel like I have to. Be delicate around them or walk on eggshells. And I resent when I have to do that because it turns like a 20 second conversation into a 20 minute conversation.

• 1:05:09Tim Ferriss?

  And fatigue is something that I have grabbled with my whole life, like extreme chronic fatigue. And I think it could have something to do with having had Lyme disease twice, growing up on Long Island and, you know, East Coast, how that works. But who knows? I have no idea what the reasons are, but I'm very sensitive to that. So I'll, I'll say something like that. And then I'll very often ask something like, is there more? Right? Which is from Harville and Helen Hendrix, Amago Work and so on. You can see we've done a fair number of workshops and read a fair number of books. So I'll say, you know, is there more? And we'll do that for a bit.

• 1:05:48Tim Ferriss?

  And then I will usually feel tension in my body because I feel like the exchange is completely one sided and I have my own perspective on what happened and maybe why it was reasonable. Maybe why, in fact, it was really generous and charitable and super light, light touch. Like actually.

• 1:06:10Speaker 01

  You should have heard what I wanted to say.

• 1:06:12Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. If you thought what I said was harsh, it was much less harsh than what I wanted to say.

• 1:06:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. So that, that is the script.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:06:22Tim Ferriss?

  That would, that would be an example of how it unfolds. And I should say, I'm not convinced that I am right and she is wrong. Like, that's not what I'm saying.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:06:33Tim Ferriss?

  But, but I am convinced that these exchanges very often end up feeling unfinished and presenting sort of a bitter aftertaste for us with some regularity. It's not all the time. Like, I think overall, we're doing a really good job as a couple and doing all the stuff. I like, but we're kind of meeting things head on and I don't think we're avoiding much. Nonetheless, these exchanges I find very draining.

• 1:07:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:09Tim Ferriss?

  So.

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  Well, I can imagine.

• 1:07:11Tim Ferriss?

  Words of wisdom, recommendations would be most appreciated. And because like one option is if I just want to preserve the peace, if I just want to. If I just want her to feel better, then I won't share my side. Then I just sit there seething because I'm like, A, why the fuck do we do this right before bed? B, now I get to sit here and like, one of us gets to share our truth and then I get to censor myself, which for a lot of reasons, from childhood experience and trauma and all this stuff, we don't necessarily have to get into, like self censoring in that way is, is just, it's not an option for me. It really has, it's very corrosive. So that's, that'd be an example.

• 1:07:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:54Tim Ferriss?

  Of how things can pan out.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  There's so much, there's so much there that we could unpack. One observation is, and I'm speaking partly from my own experience, being married to someone where we have very different norms for how harsh or direct to be. And so the fight for us, and, and I hear it a little bit in what you're describing, is the fight is a little bit about what is the normal level of sensitivity or insensitivity? How thick should your skin be or my skin be? And you're struggling a little bit about the norms and the meaning you each make of

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  them. And also in that moment of like, do I just shut up and try to sleep? But the problem is that my internal voice is saying like, I can't believe you brought this up right before bed. I'm not a bad person. You were totally overreacting. My friends would not be upset by this. And so the exchange is all empathy on your part and no assertiveness.

• 1:08:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  But you know, from experience, that if you share the assertiveness part, you're back in for the next four rounds.

• 1:09:04Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:04Speaker 01

  Which is exhausting. And, and if I were you, I would be flooded that whole time, just emotionally, like adrenaline, cortisol, et cetera, which is not helpful right before bed.

• 1:09:16Tim Ferriss?

  Not helpful.

• 1:09:17Speaker 01

  And is hard. So you're, you're looking for the exits is totally understandable, particularly given your childhood experience, to just find a way out that feels safer in terms of how you feel. And you know analytically, you're not unsafe, but emotionally, it's all there. Actually, who I adore, she and I had a really interesting conversation last year about growing up in households where there is yelling, criticism, et cetera.

• 1:09:48Speaker 01

  Being really hard and also we were talking about the fact that getting yelled at doesn't tend to faze her.

• 1:09:56Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  So she has the tolerance to stay in a situation for quite a while because she loves and adores her dad, but he was tough. He was harsh. And the meaning she makes of it is like, oh, well, I can survive this. This is okay. I don't feel unrespected or unloved in the personal context here. And I can put up with it because I have experienced getting to the other side of it in exchanges with him. And that that has grown her a thicker skin. And I don't know if that feels true for you also, which given what you've endured, I don't have time to get upset by smaller things.

• 1:10:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I think with athletic coaching and just general feedback, not so much from my parents, but with most of the training that I've done, like, I actually not just tolerate, but do really well with firm coaching. Not abusive, but like, I like direct because it's fast.

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:02Tim Ferriss?

  And I'm sure I also like positive reinforcement more than I might recognize, but it's never been a soft and positive has never been my default, both in receiving feedback.

• 1:11:16Speaker 01

  So the meaning that you each make of a tough, harsh, curt, whatever, exchange is really, really different.

• 1:11:24Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  And this is true, by the way, it's true with my husband, who years ago, when we were first married, my sister, my youngest sister, lived with us for six or seven months. And when she would leave a dish out, he would grab the dish and go to the bottom of the stairs. It was three floors. It's like a condo, tall condo. And he would yell at the stairs, hey, stink bug. That's what he called my sister Stacy.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  Get down here and take care of your damn dish. And like, that was so not my reaction. My reaction is, pick up the dish, feel resentful, put it in the dishwasher and seethe.

• 1:12:02Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  So, because in my household, there wasn't a lot of open conflict. My parents would think for a long time before they would come and then we would have a conversation. And I might get spanked, by the way. My grandmother gave my mother a board of education paddle. So, but it would never be done in anger. It would be done as a very deliberate choice to teach you something. And so, there wasn't a lot of open conflict or harshness. My husband grew up just in a very different household where there was yelling and sometimes harshness. And, and so, like you and your girlfriend, we make very different meaning out of those two things.

• 1:12:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, so where do you go from there?

• 1:12:44Speaker 01

  Well, so, maybe I'll make an observation about her startup and then an observation, maybe an option for your decision point. So, her startup is so skilled, like, this is the story I make up.

• 1:12:56Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, she's very good at it, yeah.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  Really good at it. And with that, she's buying space to dump her internal voice into the conversation. She's saying why you're doing what you're doing, it sounds like, is part of it usually. You don't care, you made a lot of decisions because you don't think about me.

• 1:13:14Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  I might suggest that if she focused more on the impact on her, rather than your, why you were doing what you were doing, even though she says this is a story make up, this is a story make up about why you're a horrible person. If you want to escalate a conversation, speculating about why the other person did what they did is one of the most reliable ways to make them defensive and angry.

• 1:13:38Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  So, so she's doing a good job of caveating it to say like, I know that I'm just making this up. And at the same time, hearing it can't be easy. So, just.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  The story I make up maybe is helpful, but she might get further with you if she just said, "Look, you made that decision without consulting me at all, and I was both surprised by it, dismayed. I wondered whether you thought I had nothing else I needed to do, or why you did that, especially since you know that that bothers me." That might be easier to respond to because she's not speculating about your intentions, which are actually invisible to her.

• 1:14:17Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  So you're basically flooded, and her story about you is sort of the worst possible version, at least it is when it's me. You're selfish and a jerk and don't care about me. On the back end, I wonder whether the Internal Family Systems, IFS, work, might be helpful. It's related to the "and" stance, which we talk about in difficult conversations, which is, "Look, there's a part of me that just wants to go to sleep and thinks you're right, that I should have consulted you, knows that you're right. And there's a part of me that feels like I do want to stick up for myself a little bit."

• 1:14:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  And I wonder whether you understand whatever it is you need to say. I wonder whether you see me this way, because that would be upsetting, or whether it's just what you worry about. And so I think you can use that language of, "A part of me just wants to go to sleep, and a part of me feels like if I stay silent, I'm replicating the silence I had to hold as a kid sometimes. And that doesn't feel good for us either." Or, "There's a part of me that wonders whether this is going to work, because I do feel like I'm walking on eggshells. And I think we got to figure that out."

• 1:15:35Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  So whatever it is, that's the part that won't let you sleep.

• 1:15:39Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the giving voice to the parts is a good suggestion. And for people who don't understand the reference, just quickly, so IFS, Internal Family Systems, founded by Richard Schwartz, he may be Dick Schwartz in the podcast notes, I've had him on the podcast, is a framework for...

• 1:16:06Tim Ferriss?

  Not just interpersonal communications, but also therapy and trauma work, where you identify different aspects of the self. That's the internal family part. That's the reference. And it's very, very powerful for trauma work. That's where I have the most familiarity. So for people who want more on that, they can just search my name or IFS at tim.blog/podcast. That's a good idea to name it because it also, it also buys a little bit of time and it provides a window into the felt experience without leaping directly to an argument.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:16:46Tim Ferriss?

  It's kind of announcing the players on the stage before the players start talking.

• 1:16:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a way in which you're stepping to what we would call the third position, like to a balcony to name what's going on.

• 1:17:00Tim Ferriss?

  Could you say more about that?

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we talk about really skilled communicators and negotiators developing first position skills, second position skills and third position skills. So first position skills are how self-aware are you of what's going on for you? What meaning you're making of things? Different emotions you're bringing to the table or identity issues, et cetera. And can you share them clearly and skillfully? Second position skills are how good are you at stepping into someone else's shoes and imagining the world as they see it and, and finding a way to get yourself to genuine curiosity? If I can get from that's crazy to I wonder why you think something like that,

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  which feels crazy, well, that's at least a step in the right direction. So those are empathy skills. And also letting them know that you understand or that you're working to understand it anyway. And third position skills are can I step above the fray and name what's happening? That's what the couples are doing in the Gottman work, which is to just admit, I am good and you are bad. That's what's really going on here. Like you're naming our usual escalation pattern.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  So in the book, we talk about stepping to the third position, starting a conversation from the third position, which is, I know that you and I struggle with a difference, or I know we feel differently about how we talk to each other, for instance, or I know that it makes me crazy when the dishes are not done before everyone goes to bed and food sits on the table, which I think is disgusting, and I know that after dinner, you just want to relax. And so when it's your turn to do the dishes, the food does sit, and I wonder what we should do about that. There's a difference between how I prefer things and how you prefer things, and the conversation is about just better understanding that and what we should do about it, that that's a promising way to

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  start a conversation. It's also related to what we call the "and" stance, and there are a couple of different kinds of "ands." There's what we call the "you me and." I know you prefer it this way, and I prefer it another way. I know that you find it hard when I'm harsh or direct or make unilateral decisions, and I find it hard when you accuse me of being selfish when I do that, since I don't think that's really what's going on. What should we do about that? I know you feel upset and betrayed and let down by me, and I feel wrongly accused and upset and betrayed that you would think that of me, that we can both be upset at the same time. So that's the "you me and." Then there's

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  another thing called a "me me and," and this is much more what Shick Schwartz, I think, is talking about, which is that I love you and admire how skillfully you've brought this up and care that I have once again upset or hurt you, and, and I'm also mad at you for bringing it up now, and I'm worried and frustrated that I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep, and I feel partly wrongly accused or misunderstood at least. And so I feel conflicted. And the feelings, if we're going to step into the feelings conversation part of difficult conversations, often there's a headline feeling.

• 1:20:20Speaker 01

  Or there's a feeling I think I'm supposed to have right now, but underneath that are a whole bundle of conflicting and mixed feelings and sometimes sorting them out. And I think this is part of what Dick Schwartz is helping people do with IFS, which is to sort out the parts of them that feel differently.

• 1:20:37Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  I love you and I'm mad at you right now. Yes. Yeah. We sometimes give people two chairs and like, put the positive feelings here and in this other chair, put the negative feelings there. Say what you want to say to them. And when you move between chairs, you need to spend time in each chair. And when you move between chairs, use the word and not but. Cause usually we'll say, I love you, but you're driving me crazy.

• 1:21:04Tim Ferriss?

  That negates the first statement.

• 1:21:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. They say but is the great eraser. So it feels like the first part is just easing in. The second part is what this is really about. When in fact, often it, both things are equally true, which is why and helps.

• 1:21:20Tim Ferriss?

  So I have to ask, and this is not meant to provide myself with supporting evidence for my lesser behaviors.

• 1:21:30Speaker 01

  But if it happens to, that wouldn't be terrible.

• 1:21:32Tim Ferriss?

  If it incidentally had that effect, I wouldn't cry about it. Hey, stink bug, get, come down here and clean your dishes. Did that work?

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  Yes, it did because John's reputation in my family and with most people who know him is, you know, he's got some rough edges. He likes to be a little bit provocative. Once you get to know him and understand his really beautiful generous heart and there's a little bit of a persona that he puts on for his own entertainment as well as hopefully others, you really adore him. So they sort of hear it and make meaning of it as it is actually intended.

• 1:22:16Tim Ferriss?

  So you're saying, set expectations. This is important.

• 1:22:19Speaker 01

  Maybe set, maybe set expectations, but also learn over time. So actually it's interesting because I'm on the more sensitive side with my husband. So he's harsher than I am much of the time because of just the families we grew up in. I stand on the other side vis a vis my co-author and business partner, whose name is Doug Stone. Doug is much more sensitive than I am. And so I have the fun of feeling frustrated at how sensitive he is sometimes. And we've been, I mean, we've been very close friends and collaborators for 28 years or something, probably coming up on 30 years now, more than 30 years since 1991,

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  30 years. So every once in a while, we'll have an argument or really be frustrated, genuinely frustrated with each other. And, and what he says happens when that happens is that he basically goes home and thinks like, well, it was a great friendship, but I guess it's over. Like, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna erase you from my favorites, my speed dial favorites. And I guess I'm gonna have to figure out how to move on and find someone else to collaborate with. Because for him, an argument, it would have to be so bad to get it out on, in the open. And for someone to be frustrated with him is a huge identity issue for him. So from his perspective, it's over. And then like an

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  hour later, I'll call him and he's like, why are you calling me? We're not friends anymore.

• 1:23:51Tim Ferriss?

  You're like, it's just Tuesday again. I know we do this once a week.

• 1:23:55Speaker 01

  I mean, it actually is relatively rare, but, but I'm still thinking like, what are you talking about? Like, of course, we're frustrated with each other. That's normal. And we'll figure it out. I probably am not really seeing what you're trying to tell me or why this makes sense. So the meaning I make of it is like, good friends can talk it through. And the meaning he makes it of it is good friends don't have fights.

• 1:24:18Tim Ferriss?

  So what do you say? And you've known each other for so long, maybe, maybe you skip the, the formalities. But what do you say after one of these flare ups? What would your best self?

• 1:24:32Speaker 01

  My best self, my, my best self wouldn't have called an hour later. I would have waited a little longer.

• 1:24:39Speaker 01

  So that I can see my part of it. My best self, when she shows up, does tend to start with what I think I've contributed to the problem.

• 1:24:50Tim Ferriss?

  And how do you introduce that?

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  Which is often that I get, when I get frustrated, I, the place I tend to go is bossy dictatorial. We don't have time for this. This is what we're gonna do. And as an oldest sister, it's really a strength of mine to be bossy. When people say I'm bossy, I'm like, well, if you would listen to me, your life would be going so much better. So I don't see what the problem is. But I think I see my own patterns and. I'm willing to own them. I know that I am feeling maybe freaked out or anxious that we're not going to finish this on time. Let's imagine we're working on a chapter that isn't working. And by the way, we're reworking difficult conversations now, like as we speak, we're doing a third edition. So I've got my, my book here with all my notes and

• 1:25:37Tim Ferriss?

  Oh yeah, look at that.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  What have we learned since? What didn't we include? What's missing, et cetera? So when we're writing together, Doug is really good at taking things apart and letting them be messy for a while because he has a sense, or we both have a sense, like this isn't quite right, but we can't figure out what's wrong with it. He's really good at taking it apart and taking it apart, letting it be messy again, where we don't see the way out from a writing point of view, makes me very anxious.

• 1:26:06Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I know the feeling. When you've taken everything out of your closet, off the hangers and put it in the middle of the floor and you're like, well, now what the fuck do we do?

• 1:26:15Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's like, look, the chapter had 10 things that were really working about it. And one or two that we sensed were not quite right. So why did we have to throw out the 10? But sometimes you gotta throw out the 10, you gotta kill your darlings because otherwise you're not going to see what it is that's wrong. You've got to rebuild it. And he's really good at being more comfortable with the rebuilding, the tearing down especially. So I'll maybe start with, look, I know that part of what's driving me is I just am incredibly anxious. I'm totally freaked out that we're not going to figure this out. So I'll just own what are the feelings that are driving me to be so insistent about what we need

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  to do? So there is some first position, like self-reflection, and what am I contributing to the problem, stuff going on, that I'll be willing to own. One of the strongest norms in the literature, the research literature, is reciprocity.

• 1:27:16Speaker 01

  So if I attack you, you're going to attack me back. And if I am willing to own my part of this, I make it easier for you to be willing to own yours. If you don't, how do you bring up someone else's contribution? Sometimes you can do it as a request. Hey, I don't know if this would be possible, but would you be able to fill in the blank? Implicitly, I'm asking you to change something because what you're doing now isn't helping from my point of view, but I'm framing it not as a would you knock it off? But instead, would you be willing to do something different? And that sometimes helps, especially when you're talking up in hierarchy. Hey, boss, if you could give me a heads up before the meeting, I could probably

• 1:28:00Speaker 01

  be better prepared to answer your questions in the meeting. Would that be possible rather than ambushing me? But you don't add the last rather than ambushing me part.

• 1:28:09Tim Ferriss?

  One approach that I've read about, this is also, I think, a weakness of mine is presenting things as a shared problem, not immediately offering or asking for a particular solution. Could you speak to that and maybe give an example or just elaborate?

• 1:28:31Speaker 01

  I think that that's and actually we dig into this a little bit more in the feedback book.

• 1:28:37Speaker 01

  The feedback book has a chapter on relationship.

• 1:28:40Tim Ferriss?

  Thanks for the feedback.

• 1:28:41Speaker 01

  Thanks for the feedback. It has a chapter on relationship systems and the way that in relationships, working relationships or personal relationships, often we each have feedback for the other about how we think the other person needs to change. You have feedback for me? That's hilarious because the problem here is clearly you. And obviously that's part of what's happening here as well. Because the problem isn't that there's something wrong with me or something wrong with you is that the combination of the two of us is a little bit of a struggle on some front. So that's a shared problem for us to figure out if we're going to continue to collaborate, live together, be in a relationship.

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  What should we do about that? And I do think that a lot of difficult conversations are about the argument, who's the problem here? And if instead it's the combination of us is part of what we're each struggling with, that's a much better frame.

• 1:29:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, it's, there is no target that can become defensive, right? It's objectified in a way.

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's each of us standing on one side with the problem in front of us, rather than standing across from each other, pointing to each other as the problem.

• 1:30:05Tim Ferriss?

  Could you speak to blame absorbers versus blame shifters? And maybe there are some other categories, I don't know, but those two?

• 1:30:13Speaker 01

  One of our observations is that when you make the shift from blame to thinking about things in terms of contribution, it's not just that you're using a nicer word.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  Blame assumes that somebody did something, what they did didn't measure up on some yardstick of what was appropriate, what was professional, what was expected, what a good person would do, and so they fell short in some way, or did something quote unquote, wrong. And therefore, the question is, how should they be punished? And occasionally punishment is formal, like they're fired, but more often punishment is informal. Who's in the doghouse? Who has to make it up to, who, who has to apologize? So it's no surprise that people try to avoid being tagged with the blame. But they also try to avoid being tagged with the blame because in most situations, it

• 1:31:09Speaker 01

  wasn't just me, I was reacting to what you were doing. So contribution shifts to come from a really different assumption, which is that wherever we're at right now, which is the problem, which is a problem, we each did or failed to do some things that got us here. And

• 1:31:30Speaker 01

  That going forward, if we want to improve that, understanding what we each contributed is the way to actually change things and improve them. So I think that the looking for what am I contributing to this problem is part of what empowers me to know what I could change or try to do differently. I went on a little bit of a tangent, which is background for your original question. You want to state your question?

• 1:31:55Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I was just gonna ask if a sort of perverse, maybe that's a strong word, but an exaggeration of that is the blame absorber.

• 1:32:05Speaker 01

  Yes. So if we're talking about what do we each contribute to this, I think that each of us leans in a particular direction. Blame absorbers are quick to see what they have screwed up. So the first place they're gonna point a finger is at themselves. Like, I should have seen this coming. I should have said something earlier. I can't believe I let myself get into this situation again. And blame shifters are the opposite. They're gonna see everybody else's contribution first. I'm late because the traffic was terrible, because my kid wouldn't put their shoes on, because Zoom wasn't working correctly, et cetera. So their first instinct is to point a finger away from themselves, either to the situation or to other people.

• 1:32:49Speaker 01

  And you would think, gosh, it'd be great to be a shifter, because nothing is ever your fault. But the experience of being shifted is basically the experience of being victimized by the world and everybody else in it, because you don't see your part. And so it's actually very disabling.

• 1:33:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:04Speaker 01

  If you're an absorber, I think we're all taught to be absorbers, particularly as leaders. Take responsibility, the buck stops here. The problem is that if you're a true absorber, in doing so, often you let other people off the hook. You take responsibility for everything. My mother tends to be an absorber. Like, if there's an argument at dinner, she'll think, oh, I should have served something else. Or I'm sorry. She apologizes when the weather is bad when I visit. It's like, Mom, I don't think you were really responsible for the weather. Although she told me recently, we were talking about this, and she said, I'm not really an absorber, I'm just a social absorber. I know that's what I'm supposed to say, but inside, we both know it's your fault.

• 1:33:44Speaker 01

  So absorbers and shifters often will find each other in relationships or in the workplace because it's the perfect relationship, right? We both agree it's the absorber's fault. But over time, what happens is the absorber gets fed up and tired of being the one who always apologizes and tries to fix things and takes responsibility and being the bad guy. And so it's a stable system until it's not. So part of the reason that this is all important is just to reflect on your own pattern. What you see first and contribution balances whatever you see. If you see your own part first, well, remember, it's not all you. You can't fix this by yourself. You can't be the hero and fix something by yourself.

• 1:34:28Speaker 01

  You need to think about what would other people need to change if we're really going to have change and vice versa, of course. And I think this is related to those roles of hero, villain, victim.

• 1:34:38Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. Do you want to speak to that?

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  In the back of my mind, I was thinking about the ways that these two things overlap, which I have been thinking about recently because the hero is often an absorber who says, you know, I'm going to come in and save the day and I'm a good leader who takes responsibility. Now, it could also be that the hero is a shifter. Nothing's ever their fault because they're only a good guy. This is related to identity. So it'd be interesting to to hear how you think about that. The villain role, nobody wants. And when people attribute negative intentions to you, or you're the problem, nobody wants to play

• 1:35:23Speaker 01

  that role in the conversation. That's why, starting from the third position, helps. Like, this is just the difference between us. Nobody is the villain here, or nobody's the problem.

• 1:35:34Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, and for people who want more context on this, one option might be podcast episode I did with Jim Detmer, D E T H M E R. He likely refers to this from someone else. I can't remember the originator, maybe you do, but the drama triangle.

• 1:35:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, the drama triangle.

• 1:35:52Tim Ferriss?

  And puts these three perspectives into practice for problem solving. And his website is, I think it's conscious.is or something along those lines. But if you look up the Conscious Leadership Group and Jim Detmer, I'm pretty sure they have PDFs on their website that people can find related to the drama triangle, which I do find interesting. I find practicing that, where sometimes you're instructed to stand in each spot and verbalize each of those perspectives, to be very challenging. I do not have much of a flair, at least not intentionally for the theatrical. My girlfriend would probably disagree, but I find it very

• 1:36:37Tim Ferriss?

  difficult. Intellectually, I find it useful to think about and journal on, but to actually practice live by standing onto those spots in front of someone like a therapist, I find it incredibly hard. I find it really, really challenging.

• 1:36:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it can be really hard. It's interesting for me because when I listen, when you are a third party, like in this conversation, and you were describing your conversations with your girlfriend, I'm a third party listening to that. Any of us, when we're a third party listening to someone else's conflicts, it's easier to hear in it, like, oh, I see what they each think that they're right about. I see what they're each contributing to the problem. I can hear the ways in which they each feel accused of being a bad person or having bad intentions. And they're each really wanting the other to understand the impact that this has had on them. And they're each full of frustration and hurt and confusion and anxiety and adrenaline.

• 1:37:36Speaker 01

  And maybe they're wondering, am I a good partner? Am I a good person? Am I worthy of love? Am I broken in some way that needs to be fixed? I hear the other person wanting to me to fix myself. It's not just they want to fix me, they think I should fix myself. As a third party, you can hear all of that. And you can also hear, oh, I hear someone playing the victim role here. That in storytelling, human storytelling, often those three roles show up. Any Disney movie is going to have a hero, a villain and a victim. Or set of victims.

• 1:38:09Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  And we each can fall into those roles and how we tell our own stories as well. If you want to get better at this, often listening to other people's stories and asking them questions about, well, what, what do you feel like you contributed? Or what do you feel you're right about? And what does the other person think they're right about? The most common pattern is actually, we each actually might be right. We're just talking past each other. Your girlfriend might be right that she, well, clearly she's right, that she felt hurt or overlooked. Or this isn't how she would like to be, whatever, talked to, et cetera. You're right that you didn't do it on purpose and that it wasn't that big a deal in the grand scheme of life.

• 1:38:54Tim Ferriss?

  For me, right?

• 1:38:55Speaker 01

  For you. And that if you're going to be in a relationship with her, it actually is a big deal for you guys to figure out how to navigate. So the problem is between us. It's a shared problem of how we will figure this out.

• 1:39:08Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:08Speaker 01

  So I think the challenge is that in our own conflicts, it can be so much harder to see.

• 1:39:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:18Speaker 01

  Like when you're standing in that place, describing to a therapist, it's really hard to see our own patterns. And that's the challenge of getting better at difficult conversations.

• 1:39:28Tim Ferriss?

  You mentioned the Disney movie having all three, which is so true. And I can't remember the source, but I remember listening to someone. And they were talking about how we create drama in our own lives because we want our lives to be the most interesting movie imaginable. No one wants it just to be a snoozer. So we create these stories and figures and so on. And I was just thinking to myself, maybe all of our stories have. Hero, villain, victim. And if you can't find one, that's who you are. That's the role that you play. And maybe that's a way of backing into it.

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  Oh, that's beautiful.

• 1:40:08Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:09Speaker 01

  I also find it sometimes useful, that useful if I think, how in the world do they tell this story? Can I tell their perspective, putting them in the hero role?

• 1:40:22Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:22Speaker 01

  Because they do feel like they're the hero of their own story in most cases.

• 1:40:27Tim Ferriss?

  Have you ever seen, that's an old movie, it's an Akira Kurosawa film, Rashomon?

• 1:40:32Speaker 01

  Yes, it's wonderful.

• 1:40:34Tim Ferriss?

  If anyone listening has not seen Rashomon, I want to go see that again. It is an entire film where the same events are told through the eyes and perspectives of different people in the film. It's a beautiful, beautiful film.

• 1:40:52Speaker 01

  It's a beautiful film. I'll add one more film if you're curious about hero, villain, victims, which is Shattered Glass.

• 1:40:59Tim Ferriss?

  Never heard of it.

• 1:41:01Speaker 01

  So it's about Stephen Glass, who made up those articles he wrote for the New Republic? Was that it?

• 1:41:09Tim Ferriss?

  I can't recall.

• 1:41:09Speaker 01

  I'm certainly forgetting because it was a, and, and so it's a

• 1:41:12Tim Ferriss?

  Big scandal.

• 1:41:13Speaker 01

  Big scandal. And Hayden Christensen, was he the guy who played Anakin?

• 1:41:19Speaker 01

  Am I remembering my?

• 1:41:20Tim Ferriss?

  I'm more of an episode four kind of guy, so it could very well be, but that actor.

• 1:41:24Speaker 01

  The actor, that actor, of course, I brought up a movie that now I can't remember clearly to describe, but the point of it is that he, Stephen Glass in real life, was so good at playing the victim, that he had colleagues and friends stepping into cover for him when people got suspicious. Who would say to the editor in chief, like, why are you being so mean? Why are you doubting him? Of course, this is true. Why are you coming down on him so hard? He's very sensitive. And he was so good at playing the victim that he had other people enlisted as heroes who would intervene to help cover for him. And it's a fascinating and beautifully done movie.

• 1:42:06Tim Ferriss?

  Shattered Glass. Do you come away feeling depressed? Is it a beautiful but downer of a movie? What should people be emotionally prepared for?

• 1:42:16Speaker 01

  I came away feeling fascinated.

• 1:42:20Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 1:42:21Speaker 01

  I came away feeling fascinated with the way in which he so effectively managed those conversations for so long and the way that he cast the editor who was, who started to be suspicious and ask harder questions and demand to see his notes and tell me when this happened. They cast him as the bad guy. And so it's been also helpful for me when I feel like I'm being the bad guy because I'm being too harsh or demanding or suspicious or something. Is that just the story that's being told? Are my questions and concerns justified? Because I can be very vulnerable to not wanting to be the bad guy. Yeah. And it causes me to not want

• 1:43:06Speaker 01

  to have conversations sometimes.

• 1:43:08Tim Ferriss?

  Well, Sheila, if you'd be interested, I think we will probably need to do, or I would like to do, a round two at some point. We have many more things we could speak about.

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, yes, for sure.

• 1:43:22Tim Ferriss?

  We've only covered a small percentage of the terrain. Difficult Conversations is the book that has come up many times in this conversation, how to discuss what matters most. And then the book that we spent a little bit of time poking at from oblique angles, thanks for the feedback, The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well. Your consulting group is Triad Consulting Group, which people can find at triadconsultinggroup.com. Is there anything else that you would like to say? Any closing comments, requests of the audience? Anything at all that you would like to add before we close this round one?

• 1:44:01Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh. Maybe just if you're having difficult conversations in your life with yourself and with the people around you, that you're not alone. They're part of being human and being in relationships, but they also are an indicator that you care a lot about what you're doing and you care about the people you're doing it with. And so in many ways, it's a sign of health. And so for me, that's been part of what's been so rewarding about this work is that you meet someone and you get to know them. Pretty well, very quickly, because we go straight to the edge of what they're coping with and not sure how to handle and struggling with. And for someone who's naturally pretty

• 1:44:46Speaker 01

  shy, myself, I have found that such a beautiful and rewarding open door. So for everybody that, for you, Tim, just in this conversation, and also for everybody that I've had the privilege of working with over the last 30 years, it's like they let me into part of their life that really matters and the conversations that matter to them. If that's where we live together in our relationship, like, I'm there. I'm totally there.

• 1:45:18Tim Ferriss?

  Well, Sheila, this has been so much fun and very helpful. I took a lot of notes. There are many things I'll be following up on and maybe some lines that I'll rehearse later in the mirror before I go on stage.

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:45:32Tim Ferriss?

  Into this evening.

• 1:45:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:45:35Tim Ferriss?

  And this has been tremendously helpful. I hope we have another opportunity to continue the conversation. And what a gift to be able to spend time together. So, thank you so much.

• 1:45:49Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:45:50Tim Ferriss?

  And to everybody listening, as always, we will have links in the show notes to everything that we discussed, all the books, all the films, all of the everything, any particular concepts, any names at tim.blog/podcast. So you can just search Heen, H-E-E-N, and that episode, this episode will pop right up. And until next time, measure twice, cut once with those harsh words. Do some thinking.

• 1:46:22Tim Ferriss?

  Try to take the, try to take the third position. And thanks for tuning in.

• 1:46:27Speaker 01

  Hi Tim, it's Sheila. You know, as I thought about our conversation afterwards, of course, I thought of all the things I wish I would have asked, or had insights I wish I would have thought of at the time. And, you know, that's normal. The good news and the bad news of difficult conversations is that they're usually happening in ongoing relationships over time. And so it's not so much about having exactly the perfect script or thing to say in the moment as much as it is about having an ongoing conversation. So, in the spirit of an ongoing conversation, I thought I would offer a couple of thoughts I had afterwards, just in case they might be helpful to you.

• 1:47:10Speaker 01

  So the first is that one of the questions that sits underneath many, many difficult conversations, it's sort of the background music to the conversation, or maybe a low hum, ominous hum, below the surface, is the question, is this gonna be okay? Are we going to be okay? Is this conflict going to mean consequences? Or even the end of the relationship? When someone raises something important to them with someone else, part of what they're asking is, is this the kind of thing that we can talk about, talk through, and resolve together? And, you know, particularly given Gottman's research about, you know, two-thirds of our

• 1:47:54Speaker 01

  conflicts in long-term relationships are not really resolvable. The task isn't to resolve them once and for all, it's to figure out a way to handle them or navigate them and manage them together that feels okay and good. And I think part of what might be happening when your girlfriend comes and says, hey, can we talk? Is she's saying, I want to raise something that's happening that's actually not okay with me. And if I were in your shoes, and maybe if I was in her shoes, I would be thinking, and what does this mean for us? Is this going to work? Are we going to be able to figure out how to navigate this together?

• 1:48:38Speaker 01

  And you might be feeling like, gosh, what you're asking me to do is to be perfect. And I have already demonstrated that that is not going to happen. So if I continue to sometimes misstep or be an asshole, like, is that going to be okay? And so I think that's going to raise the stakes for both of you in the conversation. And I wonder whether there's a way to turn down the heat or maybe the volume on that question, at least for a while. A second thing, and I have a thought about how to do that, but let me add a second thing that I have been thinking about that is related, which is when she comes and says, hey, can we talk?

• 1:49:24Speaker 01

  The implicit topic or purpose of that conversation is singular. It's about her topic. And when you ask the question, is there more? Which, by the way, is a fantastic question. And it may unintentionally reinforce that the whole purpose of this conversation is about your concern or feeling hurt or impacted by me. And in addition, is there more? It's putting everything on the table all at once, like leave no stone unturned. It's like you're doing spring cleaning every evening that you have this conversation, rather than just a light spot dusting in the relationship. And I'm not sure you need to do a spring cleaning every evening.

• 1:50:10Speaker 01

  And so I wonder whether we can do a couple of things. One is reassure each other that that question, are we going to be okay? Is answered, yes, we are going to be okay. And we're going to figure out how to handle this, to turn down the power on that conversation or the heat. A second is, can we expand the frame on what your conversation is about beyond just her topic? Because if it's just her topic, then when you can't help yourself and you add your perspective, it feels disruptive or off topic. When I think actually, the frame of the conversation should be, hey, I noticed something today

• 1:50:53Speaker 01

  that I want to talk about, that's one of those places where we have some rub or some friction. And I want to tell you about it. And can we expand it to say, oh, great. And I'm really interested. And then I would love to, you know, share what was going on with me in that moment. So the purpose of our conversation isn't just hearing you out so that you can speak up and not people please, which is I totally support. I love that about how you support that with her. But also, and then I'll add like what was going on for me and we can kind of figure it out together. So it's framing the purpose of the conversation as just understanding. Maybe there'll be an apology in one direction or another, but maybe it's just about, oh, cool.

• 1:51:37Speaker 01

  This is one of those moments. Let's just unpack it a little bit and notice what is happening and talk about if neither of us changes a whole lot, what could make this better? What small things might be able to make this better? And so you might do a 60 day experiment that when she comes and says, hey, can we find a time to talk? Your automatic response should be, oh, yes. Awesome. I can't wait. And, and I can't wait to hear what you have noticed and I'll add what I noticed in that moment and maybe we'll better understand this. And that actually hopefully lowers the stakes and changes the frame to be a little bit

• 1:52:22Speaker 01

  more inclusive and also treats it a little bit more like a spot dusting. I suppose if we're going to keep that metaphor. And at the end of 60 days, to see whether the tenor of these conversations has changed. The last thing that I will say is of course, the timing of when you're having the conversations as we talked about a little bit is kind of disastrous for you. And I'm sure that when she says, can we find a time to talk? You're picking the end of the day because obviously you both have a ton of other stuff to do during the day. But I wonder whether that's exactly the wrong time. I know it's always the wrong time for me. So often I hear the advice from long partnered people like, don't go to bed mad or don't

• 1:53:06Speaker 01

  let the sun go down on your anger is something my grandmother would have said. And that seems like good advice, except that in practice, it's horrible advice, because the end of the day is exactly the time, especially if we're irritated with each other, it's exactly the time when like, I've been carrying around and adding to the list of my partner's flaws and problems. And I'm tired, I'm irritable, I have exactly zero energy or patience to do the hard work of listening. And it is hard work to listen to someone tell you something that you've done that has upset them, or to feel misunderstood,

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  and to try to properly, accurately, understand each other. That's actually hard work. So the last thing I would add to your 60-day experiment, should you decide to accept this mission, this mini-mission, would be not to have them at bedtime, but just to find a time, maybe when you're each at your best in terms of energy, and to treat them as like quicker check-ins earlier in the day, to try to understand for each of you what's going on there, and over time, to start noticing those patterns. At the end of 60 days, if you like, we can get together and talk about feedback, and we'll see how it went. Anyway, Tim, thank you so much for the conversation. I so enjoyed it, and I

• 1:54:29Speaker 01

  can't wait to hear what happens next. Good luck.

• 1:54:35Tim Ferriss?

  Hey, guys. This is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found, or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered, it could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric, as I do. It could include favorite articles that I have read and that I've shared with my close friends,

• 1:55:15Tim Ferriss?

  for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com, all spelled out, and just drop in your email, and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. My god, am I in love with Eight Sleep. Good sleep is the ultimate game changer. More than 30% of Americans struggle asleep, and I'm a member of that sad group. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep, and heat has always been my nemesis. I've suffered for decades tossing and turning, throwing blankets off, putting them back on, and repeating ad nauseam.

• 1:55:59Tim Ferriss?

  But now, I am falling asleep in record time, faster than ever. Why? Because I'm using a simple device called the Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep. It's the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced, but most user-friendly, solution on the market. I polled all of you guys on social media about the best tools for sleep, enhancing sleep, and Eight Sleep was by far and away the crowd favorite. I mean, people were just raving fans of this. So, I used it, and here we are. Add the Pod Pro Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55 degrees Fahrenheit or as hot as 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

• 1:56:44Tim Ferriss?

  It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature. My girlfriend runs hot all the time. She doesn't need cooling, she loves the heat, and we can have our own bespoke temperatures on either side, which is exactly what we're doing. Now, for me, and for many people, the result: Eight Sleep users fall asleep up to 32% faster, reduce sleep interruptions by up to 40%, and get more restful sleep overall. I can personally attest to this because I track it in all sorts of ways. It's the total solution for enhanced recovery, so you can take on the next day feeling refreshed. And now, my dear listeners, that's you guys, you can get $250 off of the Pod Pro Cover. That's a lot. Simply go to eightsleep.com/tim or use code TIM.

• 1:57:28Tim Ferriss?

  That's eight, all spelled out, E-I-G-H-T, sleep.com/tim, or use coupon code TIM. T-I-M. Eightsleep.com/tim for $250 off your Pod Pro Cover.

• 1:57:45Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Public Goods, the one-stop shop for sustainable, high-quality, everyday essentials made from clean ingredients at an affordable price. Public Goods is your new everything store, thoughtfully designed for the conscious consumer. They have everything from A to Z. People on my team already used Public Goods before they became a sponsor, and I tested them, and now so do I. One person loves their ramen noodles, for instance, for backpacking, camping, festivals like Burning Man and so on. Another loves their bamboo toothbrushes and now uses them and many other products. I love their candles and many of their food staples. My dog Molly loves their freeze-dried duck nibs. And Public Goods searches the globe to find healthy, eco-friendly, and innovative products, and then packages them using a single streamlined aesthetic

• 1:58:29Tim Ferriss?

  for your home, so you can get all of your premium essentials in one place, affordably, and avoid buying from a bunch of mismatched, single-product brands. Public Goods also ethically sources and obsessively develops each of their products to be free of unhealthy ingredients and harmful additives still very common on drug and grocery store shelves. They use a membership model to keep their costs low and pass on even more savings to their customers. Small changes in the way we shop can make a big impact on personal health and the world at large. So join hundreds of thousands of others who have switched to their new everything store, Public Goods. I worked out an exclusive deal just for you, my listeners. You can receive $20 off of the products in your first Public Goods order with no minimum purchase. Just go to publicgoods.com/tim

• 1:59:13Tim Ferriss?

  or use code TIM, that's T-I-M, at checkout. One more time, that's P-U-V-L-I-C-G-O-O-D-S dot com forward slash TIM to receive $20 off of your first order.