#57 Sheila Heen: Decoding Difficult Conversations

Sheila Heen, two time NY Times best selling author, consultant, and lecturer at Harvard Law School, makes the tough talks easier by breaking down the three layers that make up every difficult conversation Go Premium: Members get early access, ad-free episodes, hand-edited transcripts, searchable transcripts, member-only episodes, and more. Sign up at: https://fs.blog/membership/ Every Sunday our newsletter shares timeless insights and ideas that you can use at work and home. Add it to your inbox: https://fs.blog/newsletter/ Follow Shane on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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

• 0:22Shane Parrish?

  Hello and welcome. I'm Shane Parrish and this is another episode of The Knowledge Project, a podcast exploring the ideas, methods, and mental models that help you learn from the best of what other people have already figured out. You can learn more and stay up to date with the podcast at fs.blog/podcast. Listen, we're terrible at marketing, but we have a newsletter. It's called Brain Food. It comes out every Sunday. It's short and sweet, full of the best content we've come across all week. It's worth reading and thinking about. It contains quotes, book recommendations, articles, and so much more. You can learn more at fs.blog/newsletter. That's fs.blog/newsletter. Over 200,000 intelligent people subscribe,

• 1:05Shane Parrish?

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

• 1:45Shane Parrish?

  Sheila, I'm so glad to be sitting down with you and talking to you.

• 1:49Speaker 00

  Well, thank you for coming all the way here because it's really fun to have this conversation in person.

• 1:53Shane Parrish?

  That's much better, yeah.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:55Shane Parrish?

  How did you end up studying conversations?

• 1:59Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, I definitely was not seven years old with people saying, what do you want to do with your life? And thinking, I want to talk to people about how we talk to each other. Like, I didn't really know that that was even a thing, right? So I grew up in Iowa and Nebraska and went to college in California. And I really didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, of course. And so, but law school always felt like, well, that's logical. My dad's a lawyer. I always got the impression from him that he really enjoyed practicing law. So I thought, well, I don't know what else to do. So like many people, you go to law school.

• 2:42Shane Parrish?

  What did you do your undergrad in?

• 2:44Speaker 00

  I was a public policy major, which was sort of politics, philosophy and economics. And I came out of that thinking, I don't think I want to go into politics. But the understanding why people do what they do and unintended consequences was really interesting to me. So, and law school, the first year of law school is very intellectually stimulating. It's really interesting. It's very absorbing. And we had one elective and the one elective that I heard I should try to get into was negotiation.

• 3:20Speaker 00

  So I was lucky enough to get into the class. I take it the spring of my first year and I just totally fell in love. Like immediately, I thought, I could do this every day for the rest of my life and learn something new every day.

• 3:33Shane Parrish?

  What was the text that we're using back then? Is that the Getting to Yes?

• 3:36Speaker 00

  Getting to Yes, and it was taught by Roger Fisher. And Roger Fisher, who founded the Negotiation Project, the Harvard Negotiation Project and who wrote Getting to Yes, he fought in World War II and in both the Atlantic and Pacific Theaters. And when he came home from the war, he found that of the six college roommates who started college together, and at the end of that first year, they stopped out, it was called, to go to war. He was the only one who came home. And it sort of motivated the rest of his life to try to find better ways to help people manage conflict. And so he was a really inspirational person and a really wonderful teacher

• 4:17Speaker 00

  because part of his philosophy was that you, you have to walk your talk and you have to. Demonstrate what you are teaching and how you teach it because teaching itself is a negotiation. You are negotiating for people's engagement and willingness to take risks and to admit mistakes and to see what they have to learn, which is not easy with Harvard Law School students.

• 4:41Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 4:42Speaker 00

  Like failure muscles, not so well-developed in that population. So owning up to screwing something up is a big negotiation, right? In the learning process with each other. And so he was such an amazing teacher and negotiation in itself is such an interdisciplinary field that I just felt like this touches on everything in life and I want to learn it all.

• 5:09Shane Parrish?

  Okay. You were instantly like smitten with negotiation.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  Smitten. Also, like compared to torts and civil procedure, like maybe there was a problem with the comparison set that I was thinking, do I want to do civil procedure? Do I want to do negotiation with people? So yeah, I, right away, I got involved. I started doing independent projects. I interned at the nonprofit consulting group that operates on the side. I became a teaching assistant. I met my husband, teaching negotiation.

• 5:40Shane Parrish?

  And he teaches at MIT, right?

• 5:41Speaker 00

  He teaches at MIT Sloan School. Yep. So we both teach negotiation.

• 5:45Shane Parrish?

  One at Harvard, one at MIT. What's that rivalry?

• 5:48Speaker 00

  Like, we both think it's no contest.

• 5:52Shane Parrish?

  Okay.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  Although we don't necessarily agree.

• 5:55Shane Parrish?

  Exactly.

• 5:56Speaker 00

  But I have to say, the best negotiators in the house are the kids. I mean, kids, as you probably know, are amazing negotiators.

• 6:04Shane Parrish?

  What makes kids so effective at negotiation? Like if an adult tried the technique of kids, it wouldn't work, but for some reason.

• 6:11Speaker 00

  Well, some adults are using kid techniques.

• 6:13Shane Parrish?

  Oh, really?

• 6:13Speaker 00

  Have you not noticed this?

• 6:14Shane Parrish?

  No.

• 6:14Speaker 00

  They did not learn any new strategies.

• 6:19Speaker 00

  Kids are amazingly intuitive negotiators because whether it's conscious or unconscious, they're really paying attention to what works.

• 6:26Shane Parrish?

  Hmm.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  And as the adult in the relationship, sometimes you're just not paying attention to what you're rewarding, right? So if they ask the fourth and the fifth time and you're just like, enough, fine, go.

• 6:42Speaker 00

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

• 7:16Shane Parrish?

  And they're always poking to see like-

• 7:17Speaker 00

  They're always poking. Yeah, they're always poking to see where the edges are.

• 7:21Shane Parrish?

  So how do you balance teaching your kids how to negotiate, which is a super effective life skill? And then realizing you're also a parent and not everything is a negotiation?

• 7:32Speaker 00

  Not everything is a negotiation for sure, but what I think I have come to appreciate is that what I want my kids to understand is if you want something, what is it that I as a parent care about? What are my interests?

• 7:47Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  That you need to satisfy to get me to say yes to what you want? And that may not be possible. Like you are wearing your seatbelt because my interest in you not being maimed or killed or whatever, there's just nothing you can offer me.

• 8:03Shane Parrish?

  But about delaying your homework or something?

• 8:05Speaker 00

  But delaying your homework, well, all right, what are my concerns? What do you think my concerns are about delaying your homework?

• 8:11Shane Parrish?

  So you're getting them to take your perspective?

• 8:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're trying to teach them what we would call second position skills. Can you step into someone else's shoes and imagine what the world looks like to them and what they care about and what their priorities are? And not that you're supposed to guess accurately, but ask them questions, learn as much as you can, because that's what's going to help you craft an option that meets your own interests as well as the other person's. So-

• 8:38Speaker 00

  Partly, I, part of the problem is I have a very low tolerance for them fighting.

• 8:43Shane Parrish?

  Okay.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  Right? Because it just drives me crazy. I'm like, just knock it off. Um, but I actually also need to give them space to figure out how to negotiate with each other. Because it's negotiating with your siblings and your parents where you learn a lot of those life skills.

• 8:57Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 8:57Speaker 00

  For better or worse.

• 8:58Shane Parrish?

  Negotiating with your parent than your sibling as well.

• 9:00Speaker 00

  It is, it is.

• 9:02Shane Parrish?

  How old are your kids?

• 9:02Speaker 00

  So my kids are now, um,

• 9:07Speaker 00

  eighteen, sixteen, and twelve. So I've got a college student, um, a high school junior and a middle school student. Uh, and they are, um, it's funny because they don't think they've learned anything.

• 9:25Shane Parrish?

  Of course, because that would mean admitting.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  In the air. Well, yeah, and, but, and they're actually really good at different things.

• 9:32Shane Parrish?

  Okay.

• 9:33Speaker 00

  Around negotiation. So that's been really fun to watch. Um, and it's also taught me a huge amount about myself, of course.

• 9:41Shane Parrish?

  So what sort of things have you learned about yourself?

• 9:44Speaker 00

  Well, one of it is how little patience I have sometimes, right? And, um,

• 9:50Speaker 00

  when I get frustrated, I can get dictatorial, like, we're done. This is not a negotiation. Just do it. And that's not necessarily helping in some cases, but it's where I go when I get frustrated. So realizing that for myself helps me be like, okay, this is, this strategy isn't helping. It's just escalating the conflict. Um, I've gotta take a break, walk away, come back and do something more productive here.

• 10:18Shane Parrish?

  Yeah, that's a good.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 10:20Shane Parrish?

  Good place to be.

• 10:21Speaker 00

  What is, tell me about your kids and negotiating with them.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  Priceline Negotiator.

• 10:28Speaker 03

  It's me, the.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  Priceline Negotiator.

• 10:31Speaker 03

  We don't need the jingle twice.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  What about a third time?

• 10:34Speaker 03

  Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Seems like they just started.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Time to read the timeline.

• 10:48Speaker 03

  Fine. No one deals more deals than.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Priceline.

• 10:51Speaker 03

  Please stop.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  Priceline.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  Touche.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Priceline.

• 10:55Speaker 03

  Priceline.

• 10:57Speaker 04

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• 11:15Speaker 04

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• 11:20Shane Parrish?

  It feels like a losing battle. I mean, like every time it's just, it's like they will relentlessly try one technique, try another, try another, try another. And it's their ability. I admire it.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 11:32Shane Parrish?

  I mean, their ability, their resilience in the face of like constant no's. And then I'm also conscious at some point, like I want to say yes, just to like reward the tenacity, but then I'm like,

• 11:43Speaker 00

  And then you're teaching them.

• 11:44Shane Parrish?

  This is going to sabotage me later.

• 11:45Speaker 00

  Faster, faster, faster.

• 11:46Shane Parrish?

  So I've started trying to get them to be more persuasive. And so they're eight and nine now. And so like, if they want to download a new iPad app, the rule is I have to take a sheet of paper and they have to write down like what it is, why they want to download it, and like, what are the benefits to me?

• 12:04Speaker 00

  Oh, nice.

• 12:05Shane Parrish?

  Right? So it's trying to take my perspective and encourage that. And it's hilarious to see the things they come up with. It's like, we won't bug you for 20 minutes.

• 12:14Shane Parrish?

  Like you nailed it, but yeah.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 12:16Shane Parrish?

  And so it's trying to get them to do a little bit of research on the app too, and start thinking about like, how do we persuade people? Because that is a huge skill in life.

• 12:23Speaker 00

  It's a huge skill in life. And, you know, it's interesting because on the first day of class, when we teach negotiation at Harvard Law School, what I do is I have students actually draw a self-portrait of what they learned was effective as a kid negotiator.

• 12:40Shane Parrish?

  Oh.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  And so they introduce themselves by telling a story. I said, whatever age comes to mind, doesn't matter. Negotiating with your parents, your siblings, your friends, your teachers, I don't care. But what jumps to mind? And what strategies did you learn that were successful? And they tell these hilarious stories.

• 12:55Shane Parrish?

  Are these recurring? Like, do you hear the same things every year?

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Um, some of the same themes that you'll hear. So first of all, if you think about the population of Harvard Law students, some of them, their strategy was just to be so good and get such good grades and not to ask for much, so that when they did ask, it was hard for their parents to say no.

• 13:13Shane Parrish?

  That would work for my kids if you ever listen to this.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  Exactly. Here's a tip, kids, right? Others of them, their parents ask them to do presentations. Like they had to make the pitch, right? Others of them are building coalitions, right? Either splitting their parents to like go to one who's the easier one to kind of persuade them, get them on their side, and then go to the other to say, well, dad says, you know, this will be fine. Or teaming up with other siblings and saying like, you ask because you're always more successful at this.

• 13:49Shane Parrish?

  Oh, interesting.

• 13:50Speaker 00

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

• 14:21Shane Parrish?

  And they see it.

• 14:22Speaker 00

  And they see it.

• 14:23Shane Parrish?

  Attach it to what they did on the first day.

• 14:26Speaker 00

  I mean, that's

• 14:26Shane Parrish?

  It's really interesting.

• 14:27Speaker 00

  That's another fun thing about negotiation, which is that all of us have been negotiating since we were kids. So everybody's an experienced negotiator. But you're not necessarily a good negotiator because you'll tend to just repeat the strategies that are successful for you, even into adulthood, right? And so your strengths get stronger and your, your capabilities get deeper, but they don't necessarily get broader.

• 14:53Shane Parrish?

  Okay.

• 14:54Speaker 00

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

• 15:19Shane Parrish?

  And then pull out the tool that makes sense. What are the, what are the most common tools that people are missing? Or the feedback that they're not getting that would help them?

• 15:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, okay, this is an honest answer, but it's sort of a boring answer.

• 15:34Shane Parrish?

  This isn't about my pitch for you to come on the podcast.

• 15:39Speaker 00

  No, um, no, you hardly even had to ask. It's like, absolutely.

• 15:46Speaker 00

  It's a lack of listening skills. And partly it's because when we get frustrated, first of all, I think that in life, we often treat listening as sort of a strategy of last resort.

• 16:01Shane Parrish?

  I'm sorry, what'd you say?

• 16:06Speaker 00

  If, if nothing else works, I suppose I'll listen. Or I'll pretend I'm listening while I'm trying to figure out what to say.

• 16:11Shane Parrish?

  Well, that, that, I find that that's what most people do, right? Like, and it's not even a conscious thing. You're just sort of like, oh, I can't wait for you to shut up so I can say this thing. And the whole time you're talking, I'm just thinking about like, how am I going to phrase this? Or how am I going to word it?

• 16:24Speaker 00

  Exactly. And we assume that persuasion is about talking. When actually, the most persuasive strategy that you can take is a listening strategy. For a couple of reasons. Really good listening means you're learning a ton about not just what is under people's positions, you know, their interests, concerns, priorities, worries, anxieties. That is meaning that they're saying no so far.

• 16:53Speaker 00

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

• 17:26Speaker 00

  Set of expectations of each other in how we're going to approach this problem.

• 17:29Shane Parrish?

  How do you teach somebody to listen? Like, we all think that, that, oh, like, we just have to paraphrase what this other person is saying. Like, what is listening?

• 17:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, so you think listening is like paraphrasing back.

• 17:41Shane Parrish?

  I'm not saying that. Saying that's the common sort of, I feel like this is a trap.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, so other people think that listening is like paraphrasing back. See how annoying this is?

• 17:50Shane Parrish?

  Yeah, it's totally annoying.

• 17:51Speaker 00

  We're in a loop. Yeah. And, and so I do think that listening, that's why I said this is a boring answer. Because it's kind of the answer that everybody knows theoretically we're supposed to listen more. And then we think of sort of the parody of active listening. You know, could you please pass the salt? So it sounds like you would like some salt. Tell me more about that.

• 18:14Speaker 00

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

• 18:47Speaker 00

  And when I'm frustrated, I've got so much noise in my internal voice that I don't really have space to be curious about what's going on in your head. Because I'm coping with my frustration with what's wrong with you. And so it's never your first instinct in that moment to listen. And it has to be a trained response.

• 19:09Speaker 00

  So my husband, in addition to teaching negotiation, is a volunteer fireman and EMT. And we have an all-volunteer force in our little town. So, you know, he's come to this a little bit later, in his 40s. And so he gets sent to the fire academy. Well, first of all, the people at the fire academy are like in their 20s, right? They're going to be professional firefighters. So he's the oldest person there. They call him Pappy.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  But what he learned, what you learn at the Fire Academy is to overcome your natural instinct to run toward the fire when everything in your body is saying, run away from the fire. And so it's become this image for me of when I least want to listen and when I am most frustrated, I need to actually lean into the conflict to understand it better and understand their perspective better first, even though they still don't get my perspective. And if I can train myself to do that, which is counter instinctual, then I'm going to be effective in the moments where it matters most.

• 20:18Shane Parrish?

  And that's not easy. It's just like repeatedly over time, you sort of like catch yourself.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  Catching, exactly. It's making the mistake, realizing, oh, I did it again.

• 20:26Shane Parrish?

  Or in your case, your husband sounds like he could actually be like, hey, you're doing that thing.

• 20:31Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, what happens when you have two people who teach difficult conversations and negotiations, having a conflict? Yeah, you just have more ammunition. Like, oh, missed difficult conversations.

• 20:41Shane Parrish?

  Let's dive into difficult conversations a little bit. That book was phenomenal. It's still impactful. It's still sort of like a go to that people give to people that are going through relationship problems, that are going through struggles at work.

• 20:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:57Shane Parrish?

  Let's start like at the ground floor. What is a conversation?

• 21:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, great question. What is a conversation and what is a difficult conversation?

• 21:05Shane Parrish?

  Yeah. That was my next question.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. So, so what's funny to me is obviously a conversation with the two people are talking to each other. But I also think it's sometimes when we're not talking to each other. Like, we are estranged, or we are specifically ignoring each other, or you might be talking to me, and there's a whole lot that I am not saying to you, but I am saying it to you in my head.

• 21:30Shane Parrish?

  Yeah, I was thinking about this as I was doing research, and I came up with this, the iceberg of conversations. So you have what's above the surface, which is a very small fraction of the iceberg, which is like the words that people say.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:43Shane Parrish?

  And then you have below, which is sort of like your unexplored or unsaid thoughts and feelings and emotions.

• 21:49Speaker 00

  Totally. Yeah. So as we were trying to understand these conversations, so we had been teaching negotiation at the Negotiation Project. I joined in the early 90s. Um, and you know, we were teaching getting TS and interest-based negotiation and um, people were taking our courses and going out in the world and periodically they'd come back and be like, this is great. Let me tell you how I'm using it out in the world. But every once in a while, people would come back and be like, this is great in a lot of situations, but there are actually some conversations I'm in where it's really not helping. Hmm.

• 22:29Speaker 00

  And in fact, when I use your approach, I think it might be making things worse. Really? Yeah. So that was a little bit of upsetting feedback to get. And I don't know Harvard being Harvard, we had typical reaction like, oh, well, clearly you're not doing it right. Like, if our method isn't working for you, there's something wrong with you, clearly. I think eventually we kind of came to our senses and we're like, okay, maybe there's something here that we need to learn. Maybe there's something different about particularly challenging conversations. And they often happen in ongoing relationships where there's

• 23:09Speaker 00

  history going on. There's often a lot of uncertainty or disagreement, strong disagreement. And then alongside that, there's a bunch of strong feelings. So what's going on with that? And, and we kind of define a difficult conversation as whatever feels difficult to you. Okay. Right? So it could be difficult for one person, not for the other. And not for the other. Although what's interesting is that that quickly changes. Like, I may be worried about the conversation and ahead of time, I'm thinking this is going to be difficult. You may not anticipate that it's going to be difficult, but as soon as I put something on the table that you didn't foresee or expect, and you realize how much disagreement there is, or how frustrated I am with you that I haven't told you all

• 23:51Speaker 00

  these years or whatever, then it becomes a little more difficult for the other person in most cases also. Um, even if they feel misunderstood or whatever. Right. Um, that's not fun. So it's a little bit of a contagious dynamic in both directions.

• 24:08Shane Parrish?

  Would a fight be a difficult conversation?

• 24:10Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 24:11Shane Parrish?

  Or is that a different type?

• 24:12Speaker 00

  Oh, no, no, that's included. Keep going. What else?

• 24:15Shane Parrish?

  Persuasions, conversation.

• 24:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, especially, yeah, almost everything.

• 24:20Shane Parrish?

  How does medium affect conversation?

• 24:22Speaker 00

  You mean like?

• 24:23Shane Parrish?

  Text, email.

• 24:24Speaker 00

  Text, email.

• 24:26Shane Parrish?

  In person.

• 24:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, media.

• 24:28Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 24:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. We, first of all, when you're in this field, you just think everything is in your field. So you're going to colonize the whole world. So we would say that you are communicating with the other side, even when you're not speaking to them.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  Right? Because maybe they're hearing it through the grapevine. So, and you may or may not realize they hear it through the grapevine, but your silence also is communicating something.

• 24:54Speaker 00

  It's hard for them to interpret and what they get may not be what you intend, but there's some message coming through. Now, you asked about the channel of communication or the medium. Huge difference. I mean, what would you say is, for you, is the most likely to escalate? What channel of communication?

• 25:16Shane Parrish?

  Depends on who I'm talking to.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  Yeah. So say more.

• 25:18Shane Parrish?

  Yeah. I think like if I'm, there's some people where if I'm texting, that's more likely to escalate or result in a miscommunication.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 25:28Shane Parrish?

  Than if we hop on the phone.

• 25:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:30Shane Parrish?

  And there's some people where I know if I hop on the phone, they're instantly agitated because they hate talking on the phone.

• 25:36Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 25:36Shane Parrish?

  So texting would make much more sense.

• 25:38Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 25:39Shane Parrish?

  In those cases.

• 25:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:40Shane Parrish?

  It also depends on what you, I'm guessing here, but like what you sort of like want to communicate, like what you want to understand, what you want to learn, or what you want to get out of the conversation.

• 25:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think that that's right. So I think that there are a couple of axes to think about. And you put one on my radar screen that I think is exactly right, that I hadn't been thinking about, which is just preferences. Right? So, so my husband hates talking on the phone, like hates it. And so even though the phone would be a much more efficient way for us to figure this plan out. When he answers the phone, he answers the phone saying hello, but he basically says, "Why are you bothering me?" Like, that's the, that's the message behind hello. He's already annoyed to start out with the conversation. So although it would be a more efficient medium,

• 26:30Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 26:30Speaker 00

  it ends up being a less effective medium because he comes in already unhappy.

• 26:36Shane Parrish?

  And I'm always trying for effectiveness first and efficiency sort of second.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  Exactly. So that's one axis, which is, do we have a preference and a reaction to some channels?

• 26:45Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 26:46Speaker 00

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

• 27:20Speaker 00

  The phone removes some information, but it's still a back and forth in real time. When you move to email, email isn't really dialogue. Email is serial monologue. So I'm having reactions to your email, like by the second paragraph. And I'm reading the rest of your email through that set of reactions, which makes me suspect you have bad motives and, you know, sort of reads a tone into it, which may or may not actually be there.

• 27:49Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 27:50Speaker 00

  And then I write back while I'm in that triggered state. And also, over time, if we're frustrated with each other, like just seeing your name in my inbox, I'm pre-triggered.

• 28:02Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 28:03Speaker 00

  I'm already anxious.

• 28:04Shane Parrish?

  I feel like being in my inbox, I'm already pre-triggered.

• 28:07Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly, exactly. So for some people, texting falls somewhere in between. It's a little more dialogue because it tends to be shorter. But of course, it's cryptic, et cetera. So partly, it's just matching the task, what kind, what are we trying to accomplish in this conversation, to the right medium

• 28:25Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  for that. Email tends to be the one that people default to because like, I want to craft the perfect email to give them a piece of my mind.

• 28:35Speaker 00

  And it feels safer. But email is actually the one that escalates the fastest. And typically, if a conflict starts on email, it's really hard to solve on email. So I tend to tell people, just pick up the phone.

• 28:50Shane Parrish?

  Why does it escalate the fastest?

• 28:53Speaker 00

  I think because although there's no emotion officially in email, of course, there's emotion behind email. And so we're reading all these clues. Like, how do you know whether there's emotion behind an email? You don't have facial expression or tone of voice.

• 29:11Shane Parrish?

  Well, I, I think, like, thinking about this, it's different if I know the person or not, because then I'm projecting sort of like what I know about them into that email. And if I don't know them, I'm less likely to predict emotion, but I'm more likely to skin.

• 29:25Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 29:26Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  So when you know them.

• 29:28Shane Parrish?

  Yep. We get tons of negative mail, too, like hate mail and all of that.

• 29:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:33Shane Parrish?

  Over the years, I've developed like a thicker skin to some of this stuff. So I read less emotion into and respond less of myself.

• 29:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:43Shane Parrish?

  But at the start, it was like, oh, my God, somebody unsubscribed. Like, what did I do wrong?

• 29:49Speaker 00

  What is wrong with me?

• 29:50Shane Parrish?

  Why are you telling me I'm spam?

• 29:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:53Shane Parrish?

  What's wrong with me? Exactly, right? Like, what did I do?

• 29:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, we take it all so personally.

• 29:57Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:00Speaker 00

  That was so interesting. I forgot what we were talking about.

• 30:01Shane Parrish?

  Oh, email, like, why email escalates more?

• 30:04Speaker 00

  Oh, why email escalates? Well, I do think that when you know the person, okay? Well, actually, let's start at the other end. I think that, like, the spam and the hate mail that you get. I think that people, it's easier, particularly when they are emailing strangers or leaving comments online for strangers, it's easier for them to forget that there's a real human being on the other side. And so they're sort of venting their frustration with the world and their life sometimes, et cetera, at someone else.

• 30:36Shane Parrish?

  Right. Says more about them.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  It says more sometimes about them and where they're at and how they're feeling treated by the world than it says about you. And they're not thinking that it's going to impact you.

• 30:51Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 30:52Speaker 00

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

• 31:10Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 31:11Speaker 00

  And they're a little bit, I suppose, about you, but if you hear themes across them, but mostly they're about people forgetting that they're talking to a human being.

• 31:21Speaker 00

  Now, let's go to the other end of the spectrum where it's someone you know well, and you can tell that they're upset because something changes.

• 31:31Shane Parrish?

  Yeah, your spidey sense kind of goes off.

• 31:33Speaker 00

  Totally, like, they usually have a greeting and there's suddenly no greeting.

• 31:37Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 31:38Speaker 00

  Right? Or...

• 31:39Shane Parrish?

  And sometimes you can't even articulate why you feel that way, but you're just like, hey, something's up. Like, I sense something's up.

• 31:45Speaker 00

  Are you okay? Like, are things okay?

• 31:47Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 31:47Speaker 00

  And you could be wrong, right? But they've either gotten more informal or more curt. Their language choices changed. There's no punctuation all of a sudden. Something, something has changed. Maybe they've gotten more formal. And you're just like, whoa, did I offend you? Or, or just time lags, like, I haven't heard from you. Or I, you immediately get something back that's like, no.

• 32:12Speaker 00

  Like, uh, okay, sorry. So, anyway, I think what happens is when we feel frustrated on email, it leaks through, right? In the words that we choose or the tone, et cetera. And then the other person reacts to that. And because we're each reacting and reading the emails back and forth from the other person, kind of through a triggered reaction.

• 32:38Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 32:40Speaker 00

  It can escalate. And then don't forget that it's often true that people are CC'd on that email. So now there's an audience which adds to the reaction.

• 32:46Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 32:47Speaker 00

  And the identity quake aspect. And it can be forwarded to anyone.

• 32:52Shane Parrish?

  And it lives forever.

• 32:53Speaker 00

  And it lives forever. And so it's just hard to turn that around on that medium.

• 33:02Shane Parrish?

  It's almost like you can't, in a conversation, you can make mistakes.

• 33:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 33:05Shane Parrish?

  You can gauge like how the, oh, I didn't mean it, the way that you interpreted it.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 33:09Shane Parrish?

  And you can instantly sort of like correct them.

• 33:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:12Shane Parrish?

  But email can be sort of like twisted and you, and I would imagine this is starting to be more prevalent in legal cases where

• 33:19Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:20Shane Parrish?

  Emails are coming up that are... Taken out of context, or don't explain a conversation that happened at the water cooler right afterwards, where they clarified, or?

• 33:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. And, and one of the mistakes we make is that we get an email that's upsetting and we write back right away.

• 33:38Shane Parrish?

  Hmm, instead of taking time.

• 33:40Speaker 00

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

• 34:12Shane Parrish?

  Two boys.

• 34:13Speaker 00

  Two boys, right? So, you say to one of your boys, "Why did you hit your brother?" And what's he gonna say?

• 34:19Shane Parrish?

  Cause he did this.

• 34:20Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 34:20Shane Parrish?

  It's like a blame.

• 34:21Speaker 00

  Right, exactly. He hit me, he called me a name.

• 34:25Shane Parrish?

  He deserved it.

• 34:25Speaker 00

  He deserved it, exactly.

• 34:27Shane Parrish?

  And sometimes he does.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  Right, like, that's true, and?

• 34:31Shane Parrish?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 34:32Speaker 00

  And so what Roger would say is, I, I'm sorry, when I ask you, "Why did you hit your brother?", I don't mean, "What caused you to hit your brother?"

• 34:39Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 34:40Speaker 00

  I mean, "For what purpose did you hit your brother? What is it that you were trying to accomplish?"

• 34:45Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 34:45Speaker 00

  And so the idea of being purposive.

• 34:47Shane Parrish?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  Not just reacting to what they just did to you, but thinking, "How do I want this next thing to go? And what do I need to do? What choice do I want to make in how I respond, rather than react? That will get us closer to something useful."

• 35:01Shane Parrish?

  That's sort of the conversation that we try to have. We don't always succeed at this, but it's like, well, when you did that, what it really means is you lost control of your emotions, yourself.

• 35:11Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 35:11Shane Parrish?

  And you responded in a way that if you were thinking or in control, you probably wouldn't choose to respond. It's got nothing to do with what your brother did, because that's all on you.

• 35:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:22Shane Parrish?

  I'm gonna talk to him separately, and that's a different conversation.

• 35:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:25Shane Parrish?

  But it's like, what do you control and what don't you control?

• 35:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and it's hard, because kids are so good at seeing that it's not all their fault.

• 35:35Shane Parrish?

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  And they hear the blame packed in it, and so they're gonna argue about why really he started it.

• 35:41Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  And so, I was just defending myself. And this is something that we've done with our kids too, which is, What did you contribute to the problem?

• 35:52Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  Right before he hit you, what were you doing?

• 35:55Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  And one of my boys.

• 35:59Shane Parrish?

  That doesn't mean it's equal contribution.

• 36:00Speaker 00

  Doesn't mean it's equal contribution. That's important about joint contribution when we shift from blame to joint contribution. Doesn't mean it's 50 50. It just means that there were choices we each made that got us here. And figuring out what those were tells us what to change and to fix. So one of my boys caught on to joint contribution really quickly at a pretty young age. So they would have something that would escalate. And I would say to Pete, all right, what did you contribute to the problem? And he could turn on a dime emotionally and just be like, okay, well, I called him a name. I probably shouldn't have done that. Okay. Yeah, that's fair. My other son, Jess would get totally stuck emotionally. And he'd be like, he called me a name, mom. I'm like, I understand that. We're dealing with that separately.

• 36:44Speaker 00

  That was his contribution problem. What was your contribution to the problem? He called me a name, right? So I learned that I actually just needed to give him more recovery time to go to kind of get out of the reactionary period and then come back. And now let's talk about it.

• 36:59Shane Parrish?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 37:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I think people's ability to like move emotionally to a place of being more constructive really is just wired differently, depending on who you are.

• 37:10Shane Parrish?

  So we're talking a lot about conversations. I want to give people the framework that you had later in the book, which is the three different types of conversation. So blame, feeling and identity.

• 37:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's what happened. So it's kind of like your iceberg idea that that any difficult conversation really has three things going on. There's sort of layers to the conversation. So the first is the what happened conversation, which include, which is really our story about what has happened, what is happening now and what should happen.

• 37:41Shane Parrish?

  Okay.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  And that that story has three key components.

• 37:46Speaker 00

  It answers the question, who's right? By the way, me.

• 37:50Shane Parrish?

  It's always us, right?

• 37:51Speaker 00

  Always us, yes.

• 37:52Shane Parrish?

  You can't be right, because if I'm right.

• 37:54Speaker 00

  Then you're not right. Whose fault is it? So that's the blame piece. And why are they acting this way? Like, what are their motivations or intentions or character? Like, why are they being such a jerk? Or such an idiot? Or so lazy or incompetent? Or mean? So those three pieces, our answers to those three questions, kind of make up the key pieces of our story about what's happening.

• 38:17Shane Parrish?

  Because we think the way that we see the world is the way that everybody sees the world.

• 38:22Speaker 00

  It's not the way everybody sees the world. It's the way everybody should see the world.

• 38:24Shane Parrish?

  Okay. But do we even recognize that there's an alternative way? Like, in the moment, are we conscious to be like, there's a different vantage point to this problem?

• 38:33Speaker 00

  I don't know. What's your experience?

• 38:35Shane Parrish?

  I don't know. You're the expert.

• 38:39Speaker 00

  Sometimes? And also, it's easy to say, all right, there are two sides to every story. But mine is actually the good side. Right? Like, we know theoretically that there are multiple perspectives. But we've thought about it a lot, right? And ours just seems like it's the most reasonable one. Even though there are other ones, they're not as reasonable or as right as ours. But I should maybe put a caveat on that, which is, it's not easier, actually, when you think you were wrong, or that you think you were to blame. Because answering those same questions the other way doesn't make the conversation easier either. That can often be a difficult conversation, when I realize, I was totally wrong about this, and it's my fault.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  But that's still one way to look at it. Right? So the first piece is that what-happened conversation. And part of the challenge is that from inside that story, you're not going to have a better conversation. So you have to actually shift your internal voice, meaning that's what you're thinking and feeling in the conversation. You have to shift it first. So your first negotiation is really with yourself.

• 39:53Speaker 00

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

• 40:34Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 40:34Speaker 00

  Where we're shifting our internal voice and our story. And from that second place of like, I wonder why we see this differently. And we've probably both contributed. Like, that's such a healthier place to have a conversation. It's gonna be a totally different kind of conversation. And at the end of the day, I can still decide I'm right, but I have a better sense of why you don't think so. So still, the relationship's in a better place for us to solve the problem if we need to.

• 40:57Shane Parrish?

  Because just understanding you doesn't mean that I agree.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  Right, exactly.

• 41:01Shane Parrish?

  Okay.

• 41:02Speaker 00

  So, but I might have a better understanding of why we don't agree. Right, because we have different,

• 41:09Speaker 00

  we place different priority on or value on something. And so you think this isn't that important, and I think it's quite important. But now I at least get why you don't see, think it's important.

• 41:19Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 41:20Speaker 00

  So that's all the what happened conversation. You asked about the framework. The framework has two deeper things going on. Because underneath that, the second thing going on is that in difficult conversations, we usually have a whole bunch of feelings going on. And they're often a complicated tangle of

• 41:38Speaker 00

  fear and trepidation and disappointment and mistrust and betrayal and frustration and anger and hurt in any combination. And appreciation and really satisfaction, who knows, hopefulness, despair. So part of what's hard is we're trying to figure out, what do I do with all those feelings? And particularly in the business world, I think

• 42:05Speaker 00

  it's easy to think like, well, we just need to keep them out. Like, just be objective and stick to business and keep those feelings out of the way because they just get in the way. And the challenge is that often if we're having a difficult conversation,

• 42:20Speaker 00

  By the time it's become a difficult conversation, we really have two problems. One is whatever the surface problem is, like, we don't agree on the strategy.

• 42:26Shane Parrish?

  Hmm.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  Or we don't agree whether, um, you know, we should handle this parenting decision the same way. So we've got a surface problem that we need to solve that we disagree about. But underneath that, we've got a second problem, which is how we each feel treated by the other.

• 42:42Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 42:42Speaker 00

  Like, you always dismiss my parenting approach.

• 42:45Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 42:46Speaker 00

  Or you just don't get why this strategy is going to cause us to actually lose customers over the long term or clients over the long term. But you never listen. Right? So if we don't talk about the feelings going on and how we each feel treated in the working relationship or the personal relationship, we're not actually addressing the deeper problem.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  Priceline Negotiator.

• 43:08Speaker 03

  It's me, the.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  Priceline Negotiator.

• 43:11Speaker 03

  We don't need the jingle twice.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  What about a third time?

• 43:14Speaker 03

  Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  Seems like they just said it.

• 43:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app.

• 43:27Speaker 02

  Time to read the timeline.

• 43:29Speaker 03

  Fine. No one deals more deals than.

• 43:31Speaker 02

  Priceline.

• 43:32Speaker 03

  Please stop.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Priceline.

• 43:34Speaker 03

  Touche.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  Priceline.

• 43:35Speaker 03

  Priceline.

• 43:37Speaker 04

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• 44:00Shane Parrish?

  But that's weird. Can we explore this for a second? Because, and I'm saying it's weird, not in the sense that we shouldn't talk about our emotions or feelings. I'm saying it's weird in the sense that the meta-message that's given in school is how do we become, how do we override our evolutionary sort of programming?

• 44:18Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 44:18Shane Parrish?

  Feelings, emotions?

• 44:19Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:20Shane Parrish?

  And strive towards this. And I'm not agreeing with this.

• 44:24Speaker 00

  Rationality.

• 44:24Shane Parrish?

  Strive towards rationality.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 44:26Shane Parrish?

  Where we're effectively like AI bots walking around, you know? Not having any thoughts or feelings or.

• 44:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:34Shane Parrish?

  And so how do we reconcile that view where, you know, this overarching message is one thing and then you're saying it's really difficult to actually get to the root of the problem if we don't surface our feelings and our emotions. And not only do we have to surface them internally, like to ourselves, because often we suppress them internally, we have to surface them to the person we're having this difficult conversation with.

• 44:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:58Shane Parrish?

  And be vulnerable and open ourself up, which is like, almost the antithesis of sort of like rationality, right?

• 45:06Speaker 00

  Um.

• 45:07Shane Parrish?

  And then we have to be heard.

• 45:09Speaker 00

  Right, right. And, and risk that you won't be heard.

• 45:11Shane Parrish?

  We have to feel that we're, we're sort of acknowledged, I guess, in terms of.

• 45:17Speaker 00

  I know, it's scary, right?

• 45:19Shane Parrish?

  So I guess like the rational argument for that is like, this gets you to a better outcome. So if you're willing to put your.

• 45:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I think the other rational response is that's just reality. So I think we have, and this is changing a lot actually recently, but there's sort of a, a traditional story that there's rationality and there's irrationality, right? There's being objective and then there's being emotional and that those are, you know, totally separate sphere, spheres and never the twain shall meet. And I think what we're learning over time and neuroscience is learning is that these two things are just really intertwined. That how you feel changes how you think and how you think changes how you feel.

• 46:09Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 46:10Speaker 00

  And that objective decision-making does not exist, actually. And that feelings are actually really important information, right? So if you look at system one and system two thinking, right? Your intuition and feelings are telling you things faster than your rational brain can figure out logically, but they're also, they're clues, but you don't want to rely on them, right? Because they can also lead you astray. They're full of biases and misinformation, but if you don't pay attention to them, you're going to really miss the boat on what's really going on. So when, when we teach negotiators. It's like interests are feelings.

• 46:52Shane Parrish?

  Mm hmm.

• 46:52Speaker 00

  What people care about, what people worry about, if we're going to get this deal done, you've got to respond to what people worry about, care about, can get excited about, can get on board with, how much risk they're willing to tolerate. Those are all related to emotion and relationships. So, and if they're going to make a decision, they have to know what their interests are. So I'm sure you're familiar with Antonio Damasio's work. So he's at the University of Iowa and he wrote a book called Descartes' Error.

• 47:23Shane Parrish?

  Okay, I think I've heard of the book. I don't think I've read it there.

• 47:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, so he is one of the researchers that took a look at what are called split-brain patients.

• 47:32Shane Parrish?

  Okay.

• 47:32Speaker 00

  So there are people who either.

• 47:34Shane Parrish?

  Oh, like you go fully rational or fully emotional?

• 47:37Speaker 00

  A congenital defect or an accident, right, an injury. It means that the part of the brain that processes emotion is actually physically separated from.

• 47:47Shane Parrish?

  Okay.

• 47:48Speaker 00

  Severed from the prefrontal cortex, which is your executive function, thinking, what we think of as the rational decision-making brain. And he and other researchers were like, well, there is a population of people who can't access their feelings, actually just physiologically. So these split-brain patients are the perfect population so that we can learn how to make objective decisions, because they must be the perfect decision-makers. And what they found is that these people can't make decisions.

• 48:19Shane Parrish?

  At all?

• 48:19Speaker 00

  At all. I mean, just asking them, when would you like to come into the lab? They have no idea.

• 48:25Shane Parrish?

  Wow.

• 48:25Speaker 00

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

• 48:45Shane Parrish?

  It's a signal.

• 48:46Speaker 00

  It's a, it's a signal. And so interests are feelings. So part of the challenge in difficult conversations is that we have both of those things activated and both are really important. And so I want to also be clear, I'm not talking about like.

• 49:02Speaker 00

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

• 49:36Speaker 00

  But I do think it's usually good advice to, if there is emotion involved, if you can name it and put it on the table, you can do it in a super professional way. I mean, if we're having an argument and going around in circles in a meeting, if I can just say, okay, so hang on, guys, I'm frustrated. I don't think that we're getting anywhere, and I'm confused as to why. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to say. It doesn't sound like I'm being emotional, but what I'm doing is just naming the emotions in the room.

• 50:04Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 50:05Speaker 00

  Right? And that's going to cut to the heart of the issue much faster than continuing to argue about the rational arguments.

• 50:11Shane Parrish?

  What does it mean to be emotional?

• 50:12Speaker 00

  Great question. I think of emotional as sort of exuding, leaking the emotion all over, right? So, you know, in that meeting, it might be like, this is ridiculous, you guys. Like, it's so obvious. Now, I am expressing frustration. But I'm not actually very effectively saying, guys, I'm frustrated because this feels obvious to me.

• 50:36Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 50:37Speaker 00

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

• 51:11Speaker 00

  And there's, there's a funny contribution system sometimes that happens in some relationships where the more upset someone becomes, the more calm the other person gets because their coping strategy in the face of upset is calmness.

• 51:24Shane Parrish?

  Mm hmm.

• 51:25Speaker 00

  So, and the more calm they get, the more upset the other person gets, right?

• 51:29Shane Parrish?

  Yep.

• 51:30Speaker 00

  Do you know people with this?

• 51:31Shane Parrish?

  Totally.

• 51:34Speaker 00

  And so the person who is so calm doesn't know what to do because they're like, I don't know what else I can do.

• 51:38Shane Parrish?

  And the other person is like, why aren't you reacting? Like, there's no reaction whatsoever to what I'm saying.

• 51:43Speaker 00

  Right, the calm person is like, will you stop being so hysterical? And the person who is getting more and more upset is like, okay, you're not getting, either you're not getting how important this is, or you don't care.

• 51:54Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  And both of those are even more upsetting.

• 51:56Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 51:57Speaker 00

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

• 52:35Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 52:35Speaker 00

  As not caring somehow.

• 52:38Shane Parrish?

  There's one thing, I was, when I was doing research for this, that I was thinking about this feelings thing that struck me is, did a lot of work talking about my feelings in marriage counseling.

• 52:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:47Shane Parrish?

  For whatever reason, and then.

• 52:49Speaker 00

  For whatever reason, for whatever reason, I don't know.

• 52:52Shane Parrish?

  No, I mean, for whatever reason, I'm bringing this up, like, just for context.

• 52:56Speaker 00

  No, I like it, keep going.

• 52:57Shane Parrish?

  Giving away personal information here, I don't tend to do that. And then I noticed that in relationships that I started after that, I was more apt to bring up feelings very early in the relationship.

• 53:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:11Shane Parrish?

  Almost like as a, not even a test, but as a, like the cost of failure would be really low.

• 53:18Speaker 00

  Right.

• 53:19Shane Parrish?

  Whereas I'm

• 53:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, the stakes feel low.

• 53:21Shane Parrish?

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

• 54:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're the only one. No, of course not. Yeah. I mean, I love what you're describing because I do think in any relationship, you start to wear a groove pretty early about what we do and don't talk about. And about how we handle feelings and whether we talk about them or not, and which feelings we talk about. And so, once we've worn that groove, that feels pretty comfortable and expected from each other, anything you're doing that tries to step out of that feels really awkward.

• 54:34Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 54:35Speaker 00

  And they're not sure what to do with it sometimes.

• 54:38Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 54:38Speaker 00

  Whereas when you're establishing new relationships, you don't have a very deep groove yet. So the stakes are lower because if they don't take the invitation, okay, that's fine. It's not that big a deal. But you're actually broadening what we can talk about.

• 54:53Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 54:54Speaker 00

  So changing the habit with an old friend or family member can feel riskier, whether or not it is, and just more awkward, I think.

• 55:05Shane Parrish?

  That's really interesting. I find it like it's also a signal for the type of relationship we're going to have. If I, if I put myself out there and I feel like I'm talking about something that I want to be comfortable talking to you about.

• 55:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:20Shane Parrish?

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

• 55:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, and whether they are game to change that and be in a different kind of relationship with you.

• 55:44Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 55:45Speaker 00

  And if it's an older, longer standing relationship, it's like you really want to go there, right?

• 55:50Shane Parrish?

  So how do you bring that up in a relationship? Or like, say you're married and you want to bring up feelings, but you've never really talked about them. Or like, how do you go about getting out of that pattern that you're in?

• 56:05Speaker 00

  Oh, it's a great question.

• 56:07Shane Parrish?

  Good luck.

• 56:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. Good luck. One of the things we talk about in the book is this idea that we each have an emotional footprint.

• 56:17Speaker 00

  And the idea behind that is that we all grow up learning which feelings are okay to talk about. And which you've learned quickly are better left alone. So because every family has signals that are sent about what we do talk about and what you don't talk about. And then, you know, you go to school, you have friends, you have early professional relationships, et cetera. So all of our individual relationships have footprints. But also we're bringing a set of sort of lessons with us from early experiences.

• 56:49Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 56:49Speaker 00

  About what's okay to talk about. And so now you're married to somebody who also has all this early stuff and a particular footprint. And then together you've co-constructed something.

• 57:01Speaker 00

  And so part of it is maybe noticing which feelings they seem more comfortable with, whether that's with you or with other people in their life. And also noticing which feelings end up getting translated into something else. Because if, if we don't feel comfortable talking about a feeling, often we'll translate it into an argument or blame or

• 57:27Speaker 00

  anger is often a secondary feeling. So.

• 57:31Shane Parrish?

  Oh, can you say more about that?

• 57:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. Anger is often, when I say secondary, I mean initially what we feel is something else. Maybe it's hurt.

• 57:43Speaker 00

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

• 57:55Shane Parrish?

  Angry at you for hurting me.

• 57:57Speaker 00

  Angry at you, right? And it might not even occur to me that under that anger is actually hurt or disappointment or confusion or loneliness. What I I actually experience it as anger or frustration. And so sometimes it actually takes a little bit of work on my part to think, I am really pissed. So like, what's that about? Let me just unpack that a little bit because I I'm not gonna let go of angry or pissed, but there's probably more in that bundle that I should do some thinking about first before I know what I wanna talk about or what I wanna share. And then I'm much better off sharing the more complete set of feelings. Like, let's talk about marriage.

• 58:42Speaker 00

  I love you and you're driving me crazy. Like, I hate you right now. And both of those are true. Both of those are actually true in this moment. A little more on the hate side than the love side right now, but I'm sure it'll course correct, I hope, soon, soon as you apologize. But like, actually, it's an easier conversation to have if it's a more complete conversation.

• 59:04Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 59:04Speaker 00

  Like, on the one hand, I'm really grateful to you and I really appreciate, you know, the following things that you did. And I felt really frustrated and disappointed when you didn't do this other thing. That's easier than just walking in the door and saying like, what the hell? Like, why didn't you do what you said you were gonna do? So actually, interestingly, sometimes putting more feelings into the conversation lowers the stakes.

• 59:29Shane Parrish?

  That's really interesting. If you're in a conversation, what are the things that you can do to uncover these sort of like hidden feelings that people are feeling, but not necessarily telling you

• 59:41Speaker 00

  about?

• 59:42Shane Parrish?

  Because you wanna get to a better place in the conversation?

• 59:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:47Shane Parrish?

  Like that's something you control. You might not control how they frame the conversation or how they started or what they're saying, but you can, you can recognize, oh, maybe there's more going on here. And then what do I do to uncover, to look below?

• 1:00:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a great question. So let's circle back to that listening thing that we were talking about, because I often think that it's not just, am I listening well or listening poorly? It's also, what am I listening for? And I can listen for why you think that you're right, or what you think I contributed to the problem. Those are important things to listen for, but I can also listen for how you're feeling about what's happened between us. And I need to be able to move between those, between facts and feelings, because you might be in one more than the other at any given point in time. But so one of the

• 1:00:43Speaker 00

  choices I can make is to listen beyond the accusations or the blame, et cetera, or the arguments that you're giving me for the feelings, and just respond to the feelings as if that's what you told me.

• 1:00:55Shane Parrish?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 1:00:56Speaker 00

  So, you know, you're yelling at me because I said I'd pick up the kids and I was late. And I can just listen for the feelings behind it, which is, so I can imagine that was pretty frustrating.

• 1:01:11Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:01:12Speaker 00

  And particularly because you suspected I was going to be late.

• 1:01:17Shane Parrish?

  Because it's happened before.

• 1:01:18Speaker 00

  Because this is the seventh time it's happened. So yeah, if I were you, I would be frustrated, right? So you're just, and by the way, you're not telling them how they feel. You might say, I'm not frustrated.

• 1:01:31Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:01:31Speaker 00

  You know, I'm just exasperated. It's like, okay, I'm, I stand corrected. Like, I'm not going to fight with you about what your feelings are, but now we're actually talking about them. Because that's, the emotions are what's fueling the energy of that conversation. And so actually, if we can cut to that, we're actually getting to the heart of it faster than continuing the argument about what the schedule was and whether the traffic was bad and whose fault it was.

• 1:01:53Shane Parrish?

  Hmm.

• 1:01:55Speaker 00

  So partly what the way to introduce feelings, you can do two things. One is listen for, what is the feeling that they're expressing, maybe through being emotional or translating it into blame and accusations, and just name that and acknowledge it. And ask them about it. The second thing that you can do is you can share a little bit about how you're feeling by describing it. Like, you don't have to take huge risks. Just say, like, yeah, I'm disappointed in myself. I'm frustrated with myself, or whatever. Frustrated with you. That reciprocity thing

• 1:02:30Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:02:31Speaker 00

  means if I'm going there, I'm inviting you to reciprocate. And I can't guarantee you're going to take the invitation. And I may need to be persistent about it. But if I share my feelings, you can't really argue with that.

• 1:02:43Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:02:43Speaker 00

  You're not frustrated. Uh, let me check. Yeah, no, I am.

• 1:02:49Shane Parrish?

  Now I'm angry, too.

• 1:02:50Speaker 00

  No, yeah, now I'm frustrated even more.

• 1:02:55Shane Parrish?

  Often, I've found that feelings, sort of, I don't know, maybe for, it's just me, but for other people, I would imagine it's very similar. Like, they sort of like cause some sort of anxiety in me around the conversation.

• 1:03:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Shane Parrish?

  Uh, to varying degrees. And I wouldn't, sometimes it might prevent me from having the conversation.

• 1:03:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:17Shane Parrish?

  What are the, what are ways that we can deal with that sort of like internal?

• 1:03:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, so we, should we talk about the third layer?

• 1:03:26Shane Parrish?

  Identity.

• 1:03:27Speaker 00

  Identity, because we haven't talked about that. We probably shouldn't. It's totally related to what you just asked. So, so part of what we found is that when we talk to people about their most difficult conversations, and we start to pay attention to what they're thinking and feeling, and often not saying in the conversation, there was a very consistent structure. So what people are preoccupied with in their internal voice is a story about what happened, as we've talked about, um, a whole bunch of feelings that they're trying to figure out how to handle. Um, and then the deepest level, the third level, is what we call the identity conversation, which is kind of the conversation I'm having with myself about myself. What does this situation suggest about me?

• 1:04:10Speaker 00

  That I'm not a good spouse? That I'm not a good person? Um, that I'm not competent? That I'm not worthy of love in some way? You know, sometimes people will say, one of the things I have a hard time with is saying no.

• 1:04:29Speaker 00

  And that's often related to identity, that there's a story you tell about yourself, like you're a good friend and you're a team player. And if you'd never abandoned someone in need. And if that's your story, anytime someone asks you for help, you're not just saying the word no, you're doing something that feels like it's in conflict with who you want to be in the world.

• 1:04:50Shane Parrish?

  Right, like quitting a job.

• 1:04:51Speaker 00

  Like quitting a job, you're disloyal. How can you be disloyal? Or how can you hurt someone else so much by breaking up with them? And so if a conversation feels difficult, there's often something about identity, something the situation suggests about you that raises the stakes on the whole conversation. And so that's part of the anxiety that then drives the intensity of the feelings. And those feelings color our story about what happened and what should happen in the future. And so these three actually work together. But it's often identity at the deepest level that is the hardest part.

• 1:05:32Shane Parrish?

  Because we're being forced to confront our identity with ourself and acknowledge that maybe we are a quitter and we don't want to see ourselves as a quitter, but we're in a job that we know is not going to work for us, or we're in a relationship that's not gonna.

• 1:05:50Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and identity is complicated, right? And life is complicated. So it's not as simple as our identity stories are, which tend to be black and white. Like, I'm not a quitter, and I hate this job.

• 1:06:04Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:06:05Speaker 00

  And I'm not the kind of person who wants to waste their life doing something that they hate. So now I've got two identities that are in conflict with each other. And I can't figure out how to be the right kind of person, given that I have two values about who I am that are in conflict.

• 1:06:20Shane Parrish?

  What do we do?

• 1:06:22Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:06:25Speaker 00

  So I mean, this is, this is one of the reasons why it's often the conversation with yourself that you have to have first.

• 1:06:32Shane Parrish?

  Walk me through that conversation, though. What does that look like?

• 1:06:35Speaker 00

  It's easy to do in an example.

• 1:06:37Shane Parrish?

  Give me an example of a difficult conversation that you had. Like, I'm just wondering, like, how do we walk ourselves through identity conflicts? Or even just, like, when we have multiple identities, that's one angle to it. And they're in conflict with each other. And we didn't really realize we had multiple identities and they can fly or they're in conflict. But another one is like, we just have this, we've, you know, been taught as a kid that we never quit or, and now we're doing something that is very clearly.

• 1:07:07Speaker 00

  Something you should quit.

• 1:07:09Shane Parrish?

  But it is something that we're sort of like, we should quit, but that makes us a quitter. And we were, we've been told that we're not quitter or don't quit.

• 1:07:16Speaker 00

  Right, exactly. Well, so one thing to do is to stop holding your identity as either or black or white. Because if you think about it logically, you can't go through life never quitting anything because you can't do everything forever, all the time, right? So you have been quitting things. So it's shifting that to, okay, a quitter is someone who quits because it gets too hard, or they're not committed enough, or they're not willing to stick it out through the hard parts.

• 1:07:44Speaker 00

  But a person who makes a good decision for themselves, that actually putting more of my energy toward this doesn't make sense.

• 1:07:54Speaker 00

  That's actually someone who's making good decisions for themselves. So maybe that's different than being a quitter. Or.

• 1:08:02Shane Parrish?

  So reframing effectively.

• 1:08:04Speaker 00

  Reframing it, right. And realizing, actually, this is a simplistic story, this quitter story that I have about myself, of what I can't be, because it's getting in the way of something I need to be also. Let's talk about, like, work-life, work and family conflicts. Because on the one hand, I think of myself as someone who's very responsive to clients. But I also think of myself as someone who pays attention to their kids.

• 1:08:32Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:08:33Speaker 00

  So now I've got a client who, you know, needs help, they're texting me on the weekend, et cetera, et cetera.

• 1:08:41Shane Parrish?

  You know who you are.

• 1:08:46Speaker 00

  And by the way, they're always responsive to me.

• 1:08:48Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:08:48Speaker 00

  And like, can I play at this level? If I can't be on and give them the help they need when they need it, if I'm coaching them or helping them through a conflict or whatever it would be, um, maybe I shouldn't, maybe I'm not cut out for doing this level of work, right?

• 1:09:05Speaker 00

  But in the meantime, my kids are like, Mom, I was talking to you.

• 1:09:09Shane Parrish?

  Hello.

• 1:09:09Speaker 00

  Hello, right? So I think of myself as a good parent who listens to and is there for their kids. So now I've got two parts of myself or two stories about who I am that are in conflict while I'm standing there on the lawn with the phone in my hand, right? And I'm supposed to be doing something with my kids or I'm on vacation doing email. The whole time all my kids are like, let's go to the ocean. Come on, let's go. So, so part of it is just having the conversation with yourself about how, what are the limits to this story I have about who I am or want to be because it's too black and white? And how do I be honest with myself that I can't be a hundred percent that all the time?

• 1:09:55Shane Parrish?

  And that's okay.

• 1:09:56Speaker 00

  And that's okay. That's actually human. We sometimes do an exercise where we ask people, um, just finish the following sentence. If I know nothing else about myself, I know I am a blank person. So pick a couple of adjectives. What would go in those blanks for you?

• 1:10:15Shane Parrish?

  Kind.

• 1:10:17Shane Parrish?

  But not always.

• 1:10:20Speaker 00

  See, we're already, we're already, yeah, exactly.

• 1:10:22Shane Parrish?

  I cut somebody off the other day. That was not kind at all.

• 1:10:28Shane Parrish?

  Thoughtful.

• 1:10:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:29Shane Parrish?

  Giving. I mean, uh, we tend to think of positive things, right?

• 1:10:34Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:10:34Shane Parrish?

  Not negative.

• 1:10:35Speaker 00

  Yes. So I'm guessing those are true of you.

• 1:10:40Shane Parrish?

  Generally.

• 1:10:40Speaker 00

  Generally.

• 1:10:41Shane Parrish?

  I can see the look on your face.

• 1:10:43Speaker 00

  Well, and also because if they came to mind quickly, they're important to you.

• 1:10:48Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:48Speaker 00

  Like they're a big piece of who you want to be in the world and what you value.

• 1:10:55Speaker 00

  And I also know that they're not always true of you, right? As you quickly

• 1:10:59Shane Parrish?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:10:59Speaker 00

  Mentioned.

• 1:11:01Shane Parrish?

  It's easy to think of examples where you've not been those things.

• 1:11:04Speaker 00

  Not been those things. And by the way, those can sometimes be your hardest conversations. Because it's where I'm disappointed in myself.

• 1:11:10Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:11Speaker 00

  Especially maybe for high achievers because we hold ourselves to a really high standard. Like, I should have known better. I should have seen that coming. I can't believe I did that. And so whatever those sort of characteristics that you hold most tightly are, they are sometimes also a key to the kinds of conversations that are hardest for you. Because you let yourself down and you're disappointed in yourself.

• 1:11:31Shane Parrish?

  Oh, man.

• 1:11:34Speaker 00

  On that note.

• 1:11:36Shane Parrish?

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

• 1:12:03Speaker 00

  Oh, that's such an important question. So I have teenagers, right? And one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot in the last few years is what is it that I want my kids to be able to do? I want my kids to be able to see someone else's point of view, even when they feel strongly the other way. I want them to take responsibility and for what they contribute to the problem, right? To own their part and to apologize and work to fix it. But also I want them to stick up for themselves and to speak up for themselves when they feel like they're not being treated well.

• 1:12:48Speaker 00

  And so if that's what I want them to learn, they have to have a model for learning that.

• 1:12:54Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:12:55Speaker 00

  Which also means I have to be willing for them to speak up to me.

• 1:12:59Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:13:00Speaker 00

  When they don't feel like I've handled something well. They have to see me apologizing to them when I

• 1:13:08Speaker 00

  Handle something poorly, yell, even though I hate that and I'm so disappointed in myself.

• 1:13:16Shane Parrish?

  Oh, there's a parent alive who hasn't yelled at their kids. Yeah.

• 1:13:19Speaker 00

  And, you know, it's like, I'm supposed to be good at this. I do this full time and I just really blew it. Right. And so I'm so disappointed in myself, but I need to actually say that out loud to them. So I have to actually walk the talk and model what I want them to be, which means that I have to apologize to them sometimes, et cetera. Right. And as they get older, to shift more responsibility to them and let them make their own mistakes, which is really hard to sit back and watch a kid make a mistake. Oh, my gosh.

• 1:13:49Shane Parrish?

  Cliff, but they'll be okay, but you're still like.

• 1:13:50Speaker 00

  And you keep, and you keep going like, hmm, cliff. There's, uh, uh, I don't know. That's a good idea. And but, I mean, within the bounds of safety, obviously, you just have to walk alongside them.

• 1:14:01Shane Parrish?

  Right. Usually when I see my kids doing that and they haven't quite caught on yet, I'm like, do you want a recommendation?

• 1:14:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:08Shane Parrish?

  So I'm like, trying not to make a decision for them, but also trying to offer them valuable.

• 1:14:12Speaker 00

  That is so great.

• 1:14:13Shane Parrish?

  Valuable information. And to, just to come back to apologizing to your kids, I think that that is, uh, modeling that is super important. I remember the first time I did that, I was like, oh my God, like this, I was like walking myself through this. I'm like, what am I doing? Right. And I apologized to my kids and I was like, I'm sorry. Like I, I responded disproportionately to what happened. I lost my patience and lost control of my emotions and reacted in a way that I don't want you to react.

• 1:14:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:43Shane Parrish?

  And my youngest just put his hand on my shoulder and was like, it's okay, dad.

• 1:14:48Speaker 00

  I bet that he remembers that too.

• 1:14:50Shane Parrish?

  Yeah, I think so. Yeah. It was a powerful sort of like, but it became easier the next time. It was like so much easier.

• 1:14:57Speaker 00

  Cause you're wearing a new groove between, where like, that's normal.

• 1:15:01Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:01Speaker 00

  Hopefully it doesn't happen too often, but when it does happen, they expect it from you.

• 1:15:05Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:15:05Speaker 00

  And vice versa.

• 1:15:06Shane Parrish?

  And then we had a conversation about it.

• 1:15:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. What'd they say?

• 1:15:09Shane Parrish?

  What would be really helpful for us? Cause I'm like, well, you know, like, how do we, cause I'm super patient and then I'm not.

• 1:15:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:17Shane Parrish?

  Right. Like there's.

• 1:15:18Speaker 00

  Super, super patient. And then all of a sudden, you're really, really not.

• 1:15:21Shane Parrish?

  The most patient person in the world, but there's a switch. Like you cross that switch. And so now I'm like. We're getting to the line, like I can feel it, right? And like I give them warnings.

• 1:15:32Speaker 00

  Warning, Will Robinson.

• 1:15:33Shane Parrish?

  What you choose to do with this information is up to you. But that was what they wanted. They wanted more of a, like a transition where, because they're kids, they want to push their boundaries. And they want to push it to the very max and then they'll back off.

• 1:15:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:46Shane Parrish?

  So it's like, okay, we're getting there. And just that information given to them, super helpful for them to realize like what's happening. Because it's not always visible with me.

• 1:15:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:56Shane Parrish?

  Because I am like very patient, but then I'm not patient at all.

• 1:16:00Speaker 00

  Right. And, and it's hard for you to actually be self-aware as you're approaching that line. But once you actually get better at it yourself. You can feel it and you notice the feeling. That's part of the like pay, listen for the emotions in yourself, not just in the other person too.

• 1:16:16Shane Parrish?

  The other thing I want to cover quickly, just before we end this is sort of like marriage conversations.

• 1:16:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:23Shane Parrish?

  Where, what are the like most common ways that people derail those conversations? And what would make the biggest sort of difference for having better, again, with the, the goal of understanding and connecting and having a more meaningful relationship with your spouse?

• 1:16:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:43Speaker 00

  Well, have you read any John Gottman yet?

• 1:16:46Shane Parrish?

  A little bit, yeah.

• 1:16:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I think his research, just for understanding what goes wrong, is really powerful.

• 1:16:53Shane Parrish?

  Can you explain that just so everybody?

• 1:16:55Speaker 00

  Absolutely. So John Gottman, he's up in Seattle. He spent his career researching marriage.

• 1:17:02Speaker 00

  He has all these, all this data and observations, which I think resonate with anyone who's been in a long-term partnership or relationship.

• 1:17:14Speaker 00

  Things like two thirds of the things you're fighting about today, you're going to be fighting about in five years. And you were fighting about them five years ago, right?

• 1:17:20Shane Parrish?

  Does recurring?

• 1:17:21Speaker 00

  Recurring theme issues because about two thirds of what you fight about are not solvable. They just reflect differences between you.

• 1:17:30Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:17:31Speaker 00

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

• 1:17:51Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:17:51Speaker 00

  And sometimes it's not over because somebody resents.

• 1:17:56Speaker 00

  The way the decision was made. You made me move here.

• 1:17:59Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:17:59Speaker 00

  Right? So now that's going to live on at a deeper level in terms of ongoing resentment.

• 1:18:04Shane Parrish?

  And it's going to rear itself in ways that don't come out as like, you made me do this. It's going to come out as something else.

• 1:18:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Cause you're horrible.

• 1:18:11Shane Parrish?

  And so it's really hard to get back to the, the root cause.

• 1:18:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. So, so the other thing that he talks about is the fact that he, in his research, he invites couples into his love lab and he hooks them up to heart monitors and he videotapes and audiotapes them. And then he invites them to talk about an issue that's stressful. So in our language, to have a difficult conversation.

• 1:18:35Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:18:35Speaker 00

  And his claim to fame is that he can watch a couple for five minutes and predict with 90, what is it now? Two percent accuracy?

• 1:18:42Shane Parrish?

  Crazy.

• 1:18:42Speaker 00

  Whether or not they're going to divorce within three years, five years, something like that.

• 1:18:47Shane Parrish?

  It's like uncanny.

• 1:18:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. I haven't volunteered to go to Seattle. I don't know about you.

• 1:18:53Speaker 00

  But what's interesting is what he's looking for as the clues that he's picking up. And it's things like eye rolling, which is sort of a leaking out of contempt or dismissal. Like, oh, I've heard this like a million times. I'm not listening. I'm already formulating my counter argument. Right? So that's an indicia of not actually listening.

• 1:19:16Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:19:16Speaker 00

  Or feeling heard. Right? So we have a no eye rolling rule at our house.

• 1:19:23Speaker 00

  So I have to say to my teenagers, I saw that. I think you were eye rolling. They're like, that's because you're being ridiculous, mom.

• 1:19:30Speaker 00

  So he's looking for contempt or dismissal. On the positive side, one of the positive corollary or clues that he looks for is as things escalate, that they have an escape hatch, which often involves humor. So it's an affiliation move to reconnect and to break the cycle of escalating conflict. So, you know, it's an old joke or it's a something that just gets people out of the escalating.

• 1:20:00Speaker 00

  Frustration to be able to self-observe and be like, okay, well, we're having the same argument again and to shift the dynamic. And so I really think his research is terrific to help understand the, the key places where it's not just that people have difficult conversations in their relationships. In important ways, those conversations are the relationship.

• 1:20:24Shane Parrish?

  Hmm.

• 1:20:25Speaker 00

  And if we handle them well.

• 1:20:27Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:28Speaker 00

  The relationship will strengthen and thrive. And if we don't handle them well, the relationship starts to deteriorate. And so for me, the difficult conversation skills are the prescriptive side of his descriptive research.

• 1:20:42Shane Parrish?

  Hmm.

• 1:20:43Speaker 00

  And I find it fascinating how they, how they line up and how much I've learned from his research that gets me thinking about what are we missing on our side of the fence to understand what helps.

• 1:20:55Shane Parrish?

  So what would those be?

• 1:20:57Speaker 00

  Well, it'd be things like owning your contribution.

• 1:21:00Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:01Speaker 00

  The same thing with, um, listening for the feelings, actually trying to understand the other person's point of view, even though you already know that they're wrong.

• 1:21:10Shane Parrish?

  Putting aside.

• 1:21:10Speaker 00

  Putting aside, right?

• 1:21:11Shane Parrish?

  Just let them speak.

• 1:21:12Speaker 00

  Exactly. Let them speak. Try not to roll your eyes. Um, or just be transparent about, okay, we have talked about this a hundred times. Like, I don't think this is getting anywhere. So what do you want to do?

• 1:21:23Shane Parrish?

  Hmm.

• 1:21:23Speaker 00

  Right? Like, just name it.

• 1:21:25Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:26Speaker 00

  And put it on the table as a joint problem. Like, I don't think we're ever going to agree about this. So now we have to figure out what to do, given that.

• 1:21:33Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:21:34Speaker 00

  But then you're into like, okay, now it's a joint problem to solve.

• 1:21:38Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:21:38Speaker 00

  To see whether we can come up with any options.

• 1:21:40Shane Parrish?

  Yep.

• 1:21:40Speaker 00

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

• 1:22:08Shane Parrish?

  That's really.

• 1:22:08Speaker 00

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

• 1:22:20Shane Parrish?

  Uh, I think that it's, it's really interesting because as I observe, um, friends and sort of colleagues.

• 1:22:26Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:22:27Shane Parrish?

  And try to ascertain sort of like the health of their relationship with their partners. One of the things that sort of correlates to a negative place is their inability to talk. So somebody will bury something that they want to talk about. For whatever reason, be it anxiety, they don't want to talk about their feelings. They don't want to have a recurring conversation. They, they bury it, but the more they bury, the more they're like, the farther apart people get in their relationship.

• 1:22:53Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:22:53Shane Parrish?

  And so they're not coming back and they're not connecting. And the people that have the strongest relationships will bring up stuff that they know is going to be a difficult conversation, but they sort of feel safe that they're going to be understood or listened to. And they're going to get to a better place, even though it's going to be a struggle to get there.

• 1:23:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and your description, I think of the people who feel like I tried to bring it up. It was not well received. I learned it's not worth bringing up.

• 1:23:24Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:23:25Speaker 00

  Or I won't get heard or will even get yelled at. They stopped speaking to me, whatever, like it just escalates and doesn't go anywhere. And so I just have to bury it.

• 1:23:34Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:35Speaker 00

  And that resentment ends up festering and their relationship is slowly eroding.

• 1:23:42Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:23:42Speaker 00

  The connection that they have is eroding.

• 1:23:46Speaker 00

  When you feel like you're holding back, but actually you're just building it up.

• 1:23:52Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:23:53Speaker 00

  Right. You're shoving it under the rug and pretty soon.

• 1:23:55Shane Parrish?

  Your happiness goes out the window.

• 1:23:57Speaker 00

  It goes out the window. So this is another, this is a connection also to the Gottman work, because he talks about positive and negative interactions.

• 1:24:04Shane Parrish?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:24:05Speaker 00

  Um, and they're tiny little bids.

• 1:24:07Shane Parrish?

  Micro bids.

• 1:24:08Speaker 00

  Micro bids, right? So, um, and you can get a positive reaction as, as simple as, you know, it was cold today. And then you actually say, yeah, freezing. But you responded to me in some way that heard, I felt heard and acknowledged. You could also ignore me. I get no response, um, or you could, um, respond negatively like it wasn't that cold.

• 1:24:32Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:24:33Speaker 00

  You know, you're just a wimp. And so a couple of things, I'm, you sound like you know this research, um, I find it really interesting.

• 1:24:43Speaker 00

  The optimum is, what is it, five to one?

• 1:24:46Shane Parrish?

  I think so, yeah.

• 1:24:47Speaker 00

  Five to one, positive interactions to negative interactions. And it's not better to have a bigger ratio of positive and negative, like 10 to one is not better because of what you're describing. If it's 10 positive interactions or 50 positive interactions before any negative one, typically one of the partners is holding back.

• 1:25:05Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:25:06Speaker 00

  And they're not raising things that they should raise to say like, well, I was disappointed that you didn't pick that up when you said that you would on the way home. And so like five years later, they're more likely to be divorced. Because they're not actually talking about some things that they need to talk about.

• 1:25:23Shane Parrish?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:24Speaker 00

  The other thing I find interesting is a negative response is actually better than no response.

• 1:25:32Shane Parrish?

  Oh, because no response just signals that you just don't care.

• 1:25:35Speaker 00

  Right. You're just totally being ignored. And so it's actually better in the relationship if you say, wasn't that cold, you're just a wimp, because at least we're still in relationship.

• 1:25:47Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:25:48Speaker 00

  And, and also people have different models of relationships. So for some people, that friction like tells us that you care, right? So, um, there are couples who fight more and fight less, but the fighting more couples aren't necessarily less happy. Depends on how they quote unquote, fight. Um, and whether that feels normal to them and connected to them.

• 1:26:11Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:26:12Speaker 00

  Cause it tells me that you care about it. Yeah. And I think people also sweep things under the rug because it feels too threatening to bring it up. Like it's going to threaten the relationship or they try to bring it up and the other person feels that they are threatening the relationship. And so they respond by shutting it down.

• 1:26:29Shane Parrish?

  Plays on our insecurity.

• 1:26:30Speaker 00

  Plays on our insecurity. And then of course, the, the sad fact is then that actually dooms the relationship. Because we can't talk about anything.

• 1:26:40Shane Parrish?

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

• 1:27:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. And if your purpose, if you shift your purpose from, I need to go home and just get them to see it my way.

• 1:27:08Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:27:09Speaker 00

  Or let them know that they need to change.

• 1:27:11Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:27:13Speaker 00

  Honey, I love you and I would love it if you would change.

• 1:27:16Shane Parrish?

  Could you just be a different person?

• 1:27:18Speaker 00

  Right, that would be really helpful. And I have some specific requests about what kind of person I would like. If I shift my purpose in the conversation from getting them to change or getting them to apologize, see that I'm right, whatever, to just understanding better what's going on, like, why is it that we have such a hard time with this? That conversation is much more likely to be fruitful because we don't have to agree at the end of it. I just have to go in wanting to learn something about, and I don't have to give up my view to do it. I don't have to pretend I don't have a view. I'm actually much better saying, we really disagree with this and we're stuck. I don't get it. What is so hard? Why is it so important to you?

• 1:27:57Shane Parrish?

  Drop wanting to resolve it. Don't even go in with that agenda. Just go in with sort of understanding.

• 1:28:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:28:03Shane Parrish?

  That's a great.

• 1:28:04Speaker 00

  And then you're gonna have a better conversation. It's gonna be lower stakes.

• 1:28:07Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:28:07Speaker 00

  Because not figuring out a solution isn't failing.

• 1:28:10Shane Parrish?

  Right.

• 1:28:11Speaker 00

  Failing is not learning anything new about the other person.

• 1:28:16Shane Parrish?

  That's a great place to leave this. This was an amazing conversation.

• 1:28:19Speaker 00

  Thank you. It was really fun.

• 1:28:21Shane Parrish?

  I really appreciate it. And we'll have to come back for part two and we'll do it on feedback.

• 1:28:25Speaker 00

  Yes, we'll do it on feedback, which has everything to do with marriage. Marriage is one long feedback conversation.

• 1:28:32Shane Parrish?

  Thank you so much.

• 1:28:38Shane Parrish?

  Hey guys, this is Shane again. Just a few more things before we wrap up. You can find show notes at farnamstreetblog.com/podcast. That's F-A-R-N-A-M-S-T-R-E-E-T-B-L-O-G.com/podcast. You can also find information there on how to get a transcript. And if you'd like to receive a weekly email from me filled with all sorts of brain food, go to farnamstreetblog.com/newsletter. This is all the good stuff I've found on the web that week that I've read and shared with close friends, books I'm reading, and so much more. Thank you for listening.