All right, we need to talk about this.
The podcast is either gonna end today or We're gonna figure this out That's that dramatic enough for you.
I feel like I could rule the world.
I know I could be what I want to Sam can we start I start with an apology.
Yes, and I say sorry. I was let me check my notes I was a little pissy yesterday and You were on the receiving end of me being a little pissy.
We had a fight an argument Disagreement a lovers quarrel.
I don't know what you want to call it.
We had something and I Want to talk about it here Not just because I'm a sicko and I'm like, oh, this is good content Jerry Springer But also mostly because I found it fat.
I thought about it a lot afterwards I found it kind of fascinating and at first I felt really bad I don't know about you, but I felt really horrible the rest of the day So without discussing the specifics.
I want to talk about what I learned after that fight Can we do that?
Okay, yeah, okay, so Here's the story.
We got in a fight yesterday and I wouldn't even call it really a fight.
It's like a Every six months.
There's just disagreements that we had to work through Exactly and like most things starts off as a misunderstanding turns into a disagreement Which leads to an argument?
It's a fight that kind of deescalates into a grumpy agreement and you sort of move on and can I first tell you why I even Wanted to talk about this.
Yeah, do you know who JJ McCarthy is by any chance?
He's a rookie football player.
He's a quarterback for the Viking.
So he's a rookie. Yeah, I don't know who he is But I know the name football he just got drafted and like any you know a team that sucks They draft a quarterback.
They're hoping he's gonna turn the franchise around and he just had their first like preseason game Not even in the season yet and he threw an interception while he was playing so after the game He's doing an interview.
I I'm scrolling on Twitter and I see this and I'm seeing this after we have our fight and The interviewer asks him she goes JJ you go out there.
You want to perform well But you know you throw that interception and I'm sure you know that did feel great You know what just talking through what was going through your mind and how are you feeling after doing that and this guy's response was epic He goes what was going through my mind?
What an opportunity? She goes what an opportunity and he goes Yeah, I mean this whole my my success in my career is gonna be based I'm a quarterback at the NFL my success in my career is gonna be based on my resilience my ability to bounce back from Mistakes I throw an interception what an opportunity to learn to get better and to improve and I was like whoa Foggin mindset
alert, you know, I pride myself on mindset.
I am a student of mindset and when I heard that I thought well That was an uncommon response to a very common situation I would say most guys are down on it But then they'll lie and be like well, I just you know I had to focus on the next play just put it out of my head and then you know Just get better, you know, but they're kind of bitter about it And this guy was so genuine when he
said what an opportunity and so I kind of had that same thought where I was feeling bad after a fight and I thought I saw that clip and I thought okay It went on opportunity for me to learn here Hey real quick, you know one of the cool parts about what we're doing is that people have reached out and told me that they've built Actual million dollar businesses made their first
million often idea they heard on the show that is crazy That's wild.
That's why we want to do the show and we want to see more of that one of the questions We get asked over and over again is is there some kind of idea database or spreadsheet where we list out all the different business Ideas that we've talked about well the answer is finally yes The fine folks at HubSpot have dug through the archive and pulled out 50 plus business ideas
and put them into a business Idea database.
It's totally free. You go to click hubspot.com slash MFF and get the database for you.
All right now back to the show and The reason I think it's an opportunity for me was we joke on this podcast.
I'm generally super laid back like I don't really get easily bothered I pride myself and have a good mindset But of course, I'm a human being I mess up, which is why when I get bothered It's rare and I suck at it.
And so I wanted to tell you some of the things that I reflected on afterwards I have like five to seven thoughts.
Can I just read them out to you?
Yeah, and I might have a few as well.
So first one fights don't start as fights and What I mean by this is You never start you never start a conversation intending to fight nor do you even really see a fight coming and other way The analogy I was using in my head was like oh a fight is like a forest fire When a forest fire happens the explanation they usually come to is well There was like a bunch of the what do
they call it like the dry bush or whatever like the kind of the dead sticks that that go on the ground And it's sort of this accumulation this pile of sticks that nobody really clears out and it's not a problem until somebody drops a cigarette on it And it could be something that you just squish out with your foot right away.
You put it out. There's no big deal But if you don't put it out right away that accumulated dry stuff can catch fire it can become a wildfire It could tear down a whole forest.
It's not my first observation was man that the debris on the on the forest floor is Kind of like a hidden danger.
It's a dog that's not barking and you have to make sure that if a cigarette does drop on it You're able to kind of immediately put it out or clear it out ahead of time.
That was the first thought Which by the way the reason why that's very easy for you to say that that's very hard to address and the reason it's hard to Address is because a lot of times people particularly me and I know you do as well You have this idea where you're like I don't want to ruffle feathers.
I'll just go with the flow and if you do that too often Then you're like shit.
I've been going with the with the flow now I'm bothered and That's a very hard balance to implement of like when do you go with the flow or when you say that's not my preference Right that it that describes it to you either avoid confrontation.
That's one reason to just like let it go type of thing But you don't really fully let it go right like 10 to 15% linkers or in my case It's a lot less of I avoid a confrontation.
It's more of I don't want to let myself get bothered by something small So I ignore it.
I think I ignore it But like 10% of it lingers and if you ignore too many things that 10% can start to add up and if I'm addressed It's that stuff on the on the forest floor Okay, so here's the second one fights are natural.
That was the second thought I had it wrote down in my little diary here fights are natural We've been working together on this podcast for four years.
I can count probably three Serious arguments or disagreements that we've had that felt uncomfortable to deal with maybe there's been some other ones I'm forgetting but like it's understandable you work together with somebody for four years on a project You're gonna have disagreements in the moment.
It doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel natural Logically you know, hey, this is normal, but in the moment feels bad and let's emphasize how bad like when I argue with you or when I I argue with Jordan or Joe my my other partners like it ruins my week.
I Hate that feeling. I think you are a little more comfortable with confrontation for people like me Like these Midwestern nice people who have been raised to just swallow it You just you live life like resett together sometimes or like you just don't fucking complain.
I hate it I hate like there's been times where I've had to fire someone and I won't fire them for a year because I just don't want I just don't want to do that conversation.
I hate it. It bothered like I like I wake up in the middle of the night It ruined my night.
I was gonna show you my I'm wearing a ura ring I was gonna show you my sleep scores terrible.
It's the three hours last night.
I woke up in the middle of the night at 3 a.m and I ate three Pieces of cookie dough from like a nestle is Bacon bake whatever it's called breaking.
Yeah, I break it. I wish I had a breaking bake That would have made me feel better.
I just woke up feeling shitty and It's ever my like the analogy here is in your diet You can wake up feeling shitty.
I at least I do this as my like my evolution from guy with a horrible diet to trying to be better about it is I know when I feel shitty and it's either because I just Door dash Taco Bell and that was just a bad decision and I'm paying the price for that But also even if you do the right thing at the wrong time if I eat a very like a full meal But I ate it at 10 30 It doesn't matter if I
had grilled chicken and whatever if it was a healthy meal if I eat too late I'm just gonna feel bad right so you could do the right thing at the wrong time and get pain You could do the wrong thing at the wrong time get pain and for me This was surprising because usually if I have a competition It's usually relief because I've been I've been trying to avoid having it and when I
do have it I normally feel quite relieved and this one I felt awful.
I felt terrible. I couldn't sleep It was such an unusual feeling for me which made me think I didn't do it right so that's probably relatable, but not surprising I'm gonna give you some of the things that I found interesting the first is about this guy named Dr.
Gopman Let's call him Dr.
Gopman because I forget his first name.
Do you know who Dr. Gopman is?
No Dr. Gopman is the love doctor literally this is a guy who Studied marriages and his claim to fame is that he could watch a couple for 15 minutes having a conversation about something and predict with 90 plus percent certainty if they were gonna have a Divorced or stay together 90 plus percent and Only watching a 15-minute conversation in fact he had something called
the love lab which was his Research lab where he would bring couples in he would say talk about X and he do the X would lead into a little bit of a conversation A little bit of resentment would come up and he could watch how they handled it and in just 15 minutes predict 90 percent accuracy And by the way if you let just like a normal marriage counselor or an average person on the street
watch that same 15 minutes Their accuracy was about 50 percent just like flip a coin They had no no accuracy essentially, but this guy had 90 percent and why is that because he had done this a bunch and he He was able to identify What are the things to look for that would cause a couple to break up and so One interesting thing last night was I went down this rabbit hole of like
what did Godman say? What are these things and he's got a couple of interesting very insightful things So he's got one thing called the forehorsement of the apocalypse It basically is like I look for four things that if a couple does these four things Highly correlated with them not not staying together in the long run low-married satisfaction and divorce It's
like the emotions of contempt resentment What were the other two close so it's criticism contempt which was the biggest one defensiveness and stonewalling and some of these were gendered so like men were typically more guilty of stonewalling meaning Life is bringing something up.
He just kind of shuts down.
Just cut the kind of like in his mind He's like I'm not fighting in her mind.
It's like you're you're not even open.
You're closing me down I'm trying to express something to you But content contempt was the one where regardless of gender If you did these things like an eye roll anything that's hierarchy, which is like oh, you're such an asshole Right, I'm good and you're bad anything that creates anything that indicates contempt It was like one of the worst things that could happen
right because it indicates a lack of fundamental respect and Equality in in the relationship So he's got that he had another one which is a magic ratio, which is they would observe an interaction and they would see that and And by the way the way they did this was fascinating couples talk for 15 minutes and he's encoding Every minute I think they divided into like 18
Signals in a minute or something like that and they had this like specific encoding where it's like I roll Like body language turn away phrasing of a thing Yeah, but like all these little nuance things that he gets they would they would immediately encode and then they would have a score at the end of it And they'd have positive Interactions between the couple and negative,
but they're like these micro interactions right to the surface It didn't even look like they're having a huge fight yelling at each other throwing and screaming You know throwing things across the room none of that But even in just like a normal conversation he could get that indication So he said the magic ratio is 5 to 1 right every couple is gonna have negative
interactions That's not avoidable.
It's what's the ratio a positive to negative and if it was 5 to 1 the couples would stick together Below 5 to 1 you start to get into higher likelihood that the couples will not stay together.
I thought that was kind of interesting Um, there's a ton of like little micro things that he has in there like Repair attempt.
So how do you deescalate people who know like any couple that stayed together had a could habit of Using humor or taking a break or just saying I'm sorry that was stupid I shouldn't have said that that's not actually what I mean what I mean is this a way to deescalate in a fight It's like a huge tool that was that was very useful and that was one thing I think I did poorly yesterday
which was I was not Deescalating well right either could it took a break Could have just made a joke could have said actually the way that came out is not actually how I feel How I feel is really this but instead it was like some cost like I said it now.
I got to defend it Which is like I said just stupid way to go.
He's got this whole philosophy that I'm super fascinated by now And really excited to do kind of like a little bit more of a deep dive on like how cool is that guy by the way Yeah, he's great.
I joke with my wife. What do I'll say look I've made my point I am Dug it okay.
There is no retreating here.
I'm what you call dug in I cannot go back And the reason I'm raising my voice is because that would mean that if I talk lower it will I'm losing the argument right and that is not happening Yeah, like you know when you have see fights.
I remember Greg were to say we'll see who takes the first back step He's like oh, we're gonna fight but I'm not he's not just this trash talk with nomin and acu out He's like he would get in their mind like let's see who takes the first back step because he's actually a counter punch He wants the guy moving forward.
So you put that in their mind if you take a back step you're a bitch and As silly as that sounds That would describe my behavior in a lot of interactions.
Yes. Let's see who takes the first back step which is Not serving me well Yeah, I get in trouble a lot for it and it's incredibly stupid and there's so many times where I'm like shit I my ego won't let me retreat, but that is the right decision right let me give you a mechanic that I learned that I wish I had yesterday when we were fighting I once took an improv class in San Francisco
and The very first class instead of teaching you how to do improv the very first lesson is not here's what you do It's here's what you do when you screw up because you're gonna screw up a ton you are beginners This is hard you are gonna screw up a lot so the first tool we give you and they would just go She was like when you say something that was stupid or didn't make sense
or was not funny and you tried to be funny The way to the world is gonna come crashing down on you and here's your solution ready whoop And she's like could you all do that?
We're like whoop and she was like that's it when it happens Just go whoop and that just means to everybody Clear the slate that didn't happen we're moving on we're moving past that it was a whoop and I wish I had a mechanic like that in so many more areas of my life where A way to eject or abort or pull out of a tail spin of like I didn't want to go this way.
I didn't want to say that I didn't want that to come across the way it came across I needed a whoop to just be like That was like let's wipe this late clean real quick like I just sketch just quickly shake it and it's gone Yeah, I you would look really dumb if you did that but I agree that it's a very That is a very helpful thing I've gotten I get more trouble because of this thing
more than anything else right Hey, so you're listening to a business podcast which means you're probably like business and you like podcasts and because of that I've got another business podcast and you to check out it's called marketing made simple and its host is dr JJ Peterson again marketing made simple marketing made simple brings you practical tips to make
your marketing easy and more importantly Make it work one of the episodes that I think you need to check out It's called get your audience from don't care to buy now with better copy And he basically just breaks down all the biggest mistakes that most marketers make when it comes to their audience in respect to copy Which is obviously a topic I love and I talk all about so you
guys need to check it out marketing made simple You can get it wherever you find your podcast All right another observation my body keeps the score so I have this coach is an executive coach Which is like you know business strategy, but mostly like therapy thinking through basically helping me think more clearly And be a better person and he's great and he has this See
his stuff that he says that's great that I'm like totally buy it There's other stuff that he says that I'm like I get that you buy it I'm not sure that I buy it and one of the things he always talks about is like the body keeps the score.
Have you read that book?
I've read the book But I you know, I don't have back pain and I think it's more of a it's like a literally like a back pain book, right?
It's sort of it's basically like the easiest one our soldiers who have PTSD Uh, they see they they feel things physically and I frankly I actually don't remember the entire premise But I believe it was if you change your body you can actually change your mind right So he'll ask me he'll be like I'll say something.
He'll be like where do you feel that when you say I'm like I don't feel like and I said it from my mouth.
What are you talking about?
He's like no like is there a tightness in your chest like bro.
I don't want to like I don't want to do yoga I just want to say what's going on and then figure it out with a logical solution and he's helping me learn that I hadn't really fully bought in until yesterday When I felt terrible after it physically I felt terrible after our conversation And I was like oh shit.
I think he's right. I think the body does keep the score and I'm more of a believer in that We were shit.
So that was another observation.
What did you feel terrible because you felt that I was wrong or because you didn't like the words you used I felt terrible because I felt like I did myself a disservice disservice which is I don't think I conducted myself well.
I thought I actually had a good Point meaning I don't Disagre with any of my words and I disagree with all of my delivery and what a shame because it's like actually what I did was a Total net negative.
I under mine my own point What I was trying to express I didn't express well.
I wasn't effective and I made you feel not good too Because that wouldn't feel good anyways, and I was like oh the other lesson of course is people don't remember what you say They just remember how you made them feel if it makes you feel better I I think your delivery wasn't as bad as you think that doesn't make you feel better Thank you, and I agree and I agree with your
points Like the points you made were not bad points.
You're the problem with having an argument with you is you are quite logical And you do make logical points The other problem with you is that most people myself included are more emotional than logical and that's sometimes hard for you to understand Yes, and also to give myself a more blame here is I am like a firecracker or something like that.
It's like You can play with it.
You can hold it. Nothing's gonna happen For like 90 not out of the bit out of all the days of the year 364 days out of the year that firecracker is just easy to easy to handle But on July 4th there's one day That like 5% of the time where the fuse gets lit there is like no No warning and it's fucking explosive and so it's like that's I think my problem is I'm extremely tolerant
and unbothered Until the moment I'm bothered and then I have a big whiny baby and I like get really upset really quickly more than I should And again, and I realize what I realized yesterday was oh, that's just because I don't have money reps doing it And this is kind of a bullshit like my greatest trend is I have no weaknesses But it's I think it's honestly true in this situation which is I'm
so rarely bothered that when I'm when I am bothered I'm so poor at handling it Whereas I think somebody who is more frequently runs into situations like this they come They become more mature and have better tools to deal with it than I do It's almost like because you're pretty emotionally healthy that is actually a weakness You know what I mean because you don't assume
that other people are broken Or like that their ego's dictate things.
Do you know what I mean? Well, I think you're giving me a very generous bend, but I'll consider that not just a compliment But maybe something that might be true here.
Can I read you a couple more bullet points?
Yeah, words I jotted down in my journal here So there are no winners in war There's always a benefit to expressing myself, but And finding resolutions when there's a mix up, but once it escalates there are only you know There's no there's no winner and loser.
There's only two losers in a situation like that where I think at a certain point The conversation was productive and then at a certain point it was unproductive and once it got into an unproductive And by the way, we weren't like cursing each other out.
I think I don't mean to make it sound like that But just on a relative scale it wasn't one where I felt wow that was super constructive And I feel better about the relationship It's like no, I think we did some damage there and there were two there was only two losers in that interaction There was no like winner and loser which is stupid because when you argue you kind of want
to be a winner or a loser You want to be a winner and that defaults so there person to be a loser in the interaction But that's a false idea Have you read Dale Carnegie's how to win for incident influence people?
Clearly I should go and reread it.
I read the first chapter about people loving their name And then I was like this is great and I was like He has a famous line in that where he goes the most beautiful word in the English language is a person's name So say it a lot But like right in the third chapter like one chapter after that he tells a story about how He was with this influential person who was telling him
a story And the guy got a lot of the story wrong like he was like saying this is a quote from Shakespeare and Dale was like actually You know that was Thomas Jefferson who said that And the guy who he corrected Fuck it hated him.
He's like don't don't correct me over this shit And the whole point is like when you try to correct people or argue with them to prove a point It doesn't it rarely ever works your way which sucks because Sometimes it makes you feel good to win an argument or to think you want an argument But it actually It's more often than not a shitty thing What didn't Lincoln also say
the same thing like never criticize and I always had trouble with that idea I think in the book how to win friends and influence people was like never criticize.
I was like never Yeah, I'm I'm never criticized and I was like never how how do you function with never credit?
How does that how do you Well, do you know what accountability?
I don't I don't understand I still don't understand that like he said in that letter or in that chapter Was he also said Lincoln would do this thing where he would write an angry letter to someone And one time he wrote like a scathing leather letter to someone and he didn't send it And the reason why he did that was one time he talked shit about this guy and the guy was like
I challenge you to a duel Which was a fight to the death and Lincoln was like dude, I'm not doing that.
That's insane. I'm sorry I didn't mean to offend you.
I'm sorry and like it was like I'm not gonna criticize people ever again And so instead he would write these letters where he would like bitch bitch him out and then just not send him and then he was like that makes me feel better I'm ready to try that that that that I still don't fully understand how you do the never criticize thing But I think they're right, which is rarely
does it do any good Um, okay, let me give you a couple others Everybody is the hero of their own story and convincing them otherwise as a fool's errand myself included I recently heard this when I was in Canada at the Andriul Consent's event sitting at the dinner table with Chris Sparley Chris is Andrew's business partner Who's more under the radar, but a super fun
guy and he's one of my I don't know top three Dinner party Yes, the guy is just electric at a dinner table and one of the things he said was he he brought this up He goes isn't it funny.
He's like I have never met a person Who does not view themselves as Acting I forgot exactly who said it but like acting good acting just no matter what they're doing And he's like I think everybody from serial killers on Views themselves as the hero of their story and you know justified Uh, either what they did was right or the wrong thing they did was justified He's
like isn't that crazy? I was like that.
That is actually crazy and it was so true like I felt like When we were arguing yesterday I was the hero of my story and I had done all these valiant things that were you know You know my my protagonist moves and then you were like Uh-huh, but I am the protagonist and I'm like You know as an escalator is like you're the villain on the hero and you're like I'm the hero You're
the villain and it was like wait we are both idiots is actually what we both are We're neither the heroes nor the villains in this scenario But it was just a good reminder of man.
I'm guilty of that if I'm guilty of that Everybody's guilty of that and I looked it up.
There's something called narrative identity Which is like the psychological name for for this phenomenon that even you know hitler on Believe this about uh about themselves and the problem is that Then you go and like you ask your wife or your close friend about any situation and you explain it and oftentimes They'll say you are right But the reality is is like you're
not probably you're probably not explaining the situation Like to where you can truly get wonderful advice.
Do you know what I mean? Right.
Well, there's another one.
I looked up when I was when I was talking to chat GPT about like what is the name for this?
May my friend buddy just had this argument What's the name of that syndrome?
What is what was I doing and what is that called one of them was called mistaken attribution and what it the principle was this When I'm wrong It's because of the situation when you're wrong.
It's because of the character And if you do that it's very unhealthy mindset to have or bias to have it's a misattribution bias And we all do this which is oh those things that I did it the wrong well that's just because that this was what was going on in the situation However, if you don't give that same benefit of that out to the other person that their actions were situationally
dictated and not from any poor intention Then you end up with this the same problem as like an investing.
It's like when I win it's skill when I lose it's bad luck And in the same way in a fight it's if I'm wrong it's situational if you're wrong it's character It's your you just you that was a choice that's who you are So someone told me this years and years ago and it kind of changed my life and I try to use it all the time And I'm a human and I fail and I failed on it a little bit Or I
failed on a lot of it yesterday, but basically it's the idea Where we judge ourselves on our intentions, but we judge other people on their actions right and I try to remind myself constantly and that's really it that's another thing that's very simple but hard, but it is like Very important, I think Truly and dude during our conversation, I was like Well, you know,
I didn't there was no malintent in this right yes I know that and it's like and you I know that you had no malintent in what you did right yeah, of course What we should have done is like what the fuck are we talking about what is this bad none of this matters at that point What are you mad about what am I mad about how does this even make sense if there's if we both agree that the intentions
were correct Then we could de-escalate this down to oh, we just weren't clear about xyz or oh we had a mr Miss communication misunderstanding.
I thought you meant this you thought about this.
Oh, yeah silly mistake on my part But didn't mean to make that mistake just a natural mistake You know because I'm not a perfect person So I think there was a moment in there where we could have de-escalated that we didn't properly do it That's how every argument actually should start and that's actually what I'm gonna do is like Can you explain your intentions and I'll
explain my intentions and then we'll break down the actions to see like if there's alignment or whatever Right once arguing with my wife and then I had a training session with my trainer right afterwards And he could tell I was like a little off at the beginning like my my vibe is usually like good vibes only And I did not have good vibes only but I was just quiet and he
was like what's for what's up?
And I was like oh, yeah, you know, I started to explain the situation And he goes oh, I got the solution for you and I thought he was getting me the solution to the argument to the problem the issue Quote unquote that we were discussing and he goes no, no, here's what you do When you're in that moment just remember I love you, right you love me cool.
Are we want to be happy? All right, they were good like he was just like cool that nothing else matters And what he was saying is like what I mean by that is do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?
And he's like I have a lot of clients that are like you silica valley types businessmen You know logical left-brain thinker types There is a desire to be right and it is sometimes at odds with the actual outcome you want Which is happiness harmony, you know cooperation feeling good And if you remember what the thing you want really is you wanted the happiness harmony
cooperation You don't want you want that more than you want to be right you will act totally differently So just remind yourself of that as the argument starts.
No, it's funny. We were talking and we were arguing And 30 minutes in your newborn started crying Yeah, and when I heard that cry it broke my frame.
I was like I don't want I don't want him to be upset Like you want it like is there an alarm?
I wasn't there physically, but if I were like is there anything we could do to like Make him happy like can we hug in front of up like I remember thinking like I don't want this kid to be upset Like that's the only thing that important that that's actually the important thing is like oh he's upset like that That's unacceptable like that's not acceptable.
I cast dads are fighting.
Yeah, I remember thinking.
I'm like oh like let's let's tend to you know I mean like it totally broke my frame where you're like For some reason making him not cry just for two seconds is significantly more important than a any like a large business conversation I thought that was like kind of interesting 100% All right, so listen to how ridiculous this is so I remember in the 90s when I used to
go to dinner with my family Which is a kid and you get to the hostess stand and she would say something like do you want to be in the smoking or non-smoking section?
And we look back at that now we think that is ridiculous I cannot believe that existed Well, I often ask myself that question now which is in 20 years What am I going to look back and it's going to be sort of like the smoking versus non-smoking section question and that my friends is why I love the 16 Z podcast they look at how technology is changing so quickly and how you
can stay on top of it The podcast is put on by VC firm and Jason Horowitz is one of the best firms out there in the world And so they're able to see all this amazing information that people like you and I we don't normally get access to and I love hearing steps opinion on it So they look at topics like autonomous vehicles the science behind drugs like ozempic and things like
that and the security behind LLNs and how it's on all of our devices and whether we should be freaked out or not So check it out.
It's called the a 16 Z podcast.
It's hosted by Steph Smith One of my favorite people on earth again the a 16 Z podcast you can find it wherever you get your podcast All right, I have a couple more and then we can we can stop you know hugging each other so This I wrote a category.
What did I learn about myself because I I noticed as I was doing the you know, I My coping mechanism was like oh this research is fascinating.
Oh this framework is cool.
I was like all right But I'm kind of distancing myself from The cold heart facts of my own behavior in my own mistakes and I want to tell you what I wrote under what I learned by myself.
I said I made the cardinal sin The cardinal sin in any relationship is measuring.
I remember Once meeting this guy Stan Chabnowski Stan Chabnowski is a very successful bass book in Google Not Google but Facebook.
Yeah, so if he first was a entrepreneur He created him in his buddy James Courier have been business partners for like 20 years And they have like a great business marriage and I was hanging out with Stan Watson He was telling me about like what they did with tickle and how they stole that for like whatever to you know Like a hundred million dollars just to monster and then
they created this other company this other company this other company And then Zuck recruited him and Zuck like recruited him for like 10 years and finally, you know Finally went and worked with Zuck and he ends up running Facebook Messenger and he's had an amazing career I said and one of the cool things was when he went to Facebook.
I was like how did James handle that like now he's doing all the work For that like they're they're co-founded NFX this like fund in this incubator and they are accelerator and they And now you're going and taking a job at Facebook like doesn't that put some stress on the relationship And he was and he kind of laughed and he was like It's not that that's not an issue, but like
you know, we have such a strong partnership that like We it's great that worked out great And I was like how do you guys do that man?
I was like because I want to work with somebody for 20 years like that's a When I think about winning what winning looks like in my life that that's what winning looks like Find somebody amazing just do projects with them for 20 years find a handful of people that I could do that with And he told me he goes oh the secrets very simple He goes the first thing is Turn it into
a giving contest He said 98% of the relationships you you are in are taking contests Meaning you were trying to get out as much as you you're asking what am I getting out of this relationship?
That's the fundamental like underlying questions.
What am I getting from this other person?
What am I getting out of this you don't realize it?
But you don't realize it until you get into a tit for tat scenario meaning they didn't do this So I'm also not going to do that They did this to me so I'm also going to do that to them and you get into this tit for tat Contest is measuring and basically it makes the pie smaller Because the beautiful thing about James is that James is constantly trying to figure out how to make
our relationship pie bigger Meaning he's just thinking how do I give more to this relationship?
And he doesn't measure even when I'm not giving as much he just gives he just keeps asking himself How can I give more because the beauty is that if you're if you're with somebody who's wired that way If you start to do it too your relationship pie grows like crazy And I remember hearing that mean like this is the way that is the wisdom that is the fundamental truth about how
to do this Tony Ramirez is a very similar framework around four levels of love one of the he calls the tit for tat thing He calls it horing And he's like I'll give to you if you pay me basically it's like I'll put out for you if you if you put out for me And he's like most of us run around our whole lives Horing and most of the relationship we have there and that is the root cause
of Why you get into these patterns these negative patterns with people because It's in game theory terms if every time one person even accidentally Shortchanges the other and then you intentionally shortchanged back and then they pick up on that and then they shortchanged back Like what are you left with at the bottom very little But it is very common and I think
that was the cardinal mistake was I was measuring what I was getting instead of focusing on What am I giving and how do I give more because that's just who I am Whereas what I was doing was saying how can I give so much because then I'm going to get back and that's fundamentally like a measuring scenario where instead it should just I want to I want to roll differently So
I think that was the probably the biggest mistake I made I think Is that your list?
I have one last one, but it's a positive one so I'll end on a positive note which is The best relationships are bigger than you so me and my wife used to argue a bunch when we were dating We actually ended up breaking up right before we finally got back together and getting married And we broke up because I was like dude you're just upset all the time and I don't really know
what to do Like I'm just being me and like if that upsets you we should be together And she's like no I'm not upset.
I'm just I'm like you're upset.
We're upset a lot. We're finding a lot.
This is too much I don't want to do that.
How long were you dating when you broke up and how long did you break up for and then how long until you got married?
Okay, I think something like we were probably dating for two years my guess broke up for one month exactly and then got back together and It was it's been amazing ever since in a unbelievable kind of way meaning You know most people are like oh people don't change and if my friend was in a relationship and I'm like Okay, so y'all were fighting all the time you broke up
for a month she got back together and was like no now Now I'm gonna be cool about everything I'd be like dude come on.
Are you serious? What are the odds of that like what are the odds that like It'll just all turn around and then it actually did and one of the things that I would say it turned around like 180's let's say a full turn it turned around like 130 which was great huge improvement and then when we had kids it's now a full 180 where I told my wife They was like do when's the last time
we fought And she's like I don't know we do have time to fight.
I was exactly. I was like the best thing about kids is that Both you and I have an unspoken agreement, which is okay First of all, we no longer doubt each other's intentions I know you were trying to be great for me and I'm trying to be great for you and we're not perfect That's okay, but second to that is when we do disagree or have an argument we Only let herself suffer for like
90 seconds Whereas you were saying like dude when I have a confrontation of that ruins my week It used to ruin our week then it started ruin our couple days now it ruins literally 90 seconds was like Yo, we gotta be awesome parents and we got to like function.
We got to go to gymnastics right now It's like are we really gonna like make this car ride uncomfortable like dude.
How about we just agree to this like Totally let that go and just get back on the good foot We've been doing that now for the last three or four years and it has been amazing It is a miracle.
It is something I would not have believed and if my friend told me, you know, that's how it's gonna go I'd be like um, oh, you're bullshitting yourself But I think the principle is the best relationships have something that's bigger than Just yourself in it you can't really be selfish As a parent you know, you're selfishness goes down when you have kids just because it's
really about I'm at least for me I just speak for myself Life is very much in service of them and I I will I will give up so much.
I used to never give up for them Um, and that and I feel like in a way the podcast thing is great for us because it's something bigger than us like let's say we didn't have the podcast I probably after that last interaction probably wouldn't have talked to you for a few months just out of like well We don't have to talk so why would I talk?
Whereas the podcast is like no, I got to make this right which may be think what can I do better which may be grow up and be a little bit of a better person today Before you put a bow on it.
Let me say one thing so When we have that argument also when I have any argument with anyone in business I like this little thing gets in my head where I'm like I like sometimes I'm like you know what I don't want to do business ever again.
I don't want to like I don't want Confrontation like you know, it's like when you're losing a board game and you just like Fuck this game and you like flip it upside down Like sometimes I'm like I don't want any of it I'm out.
I don't want any of this.
I don't want any drama And the reason I like reading history and biographies is I'm able to see people I admire and like some of the issues that they've had And I think I've set a bunch that like all great men or bad men meaning anyone who you admire like who's achieved greatness Whether it's a president or a CEO like there's people who dislike them Because they've had
to kill like someone like you know like in war But you're like that war was unfortunately good, but there's down to use downsides and I think about like To do anything interesting in life whether business or whatever It involves confrontation and it involves tension a lot of times That is such an uncomfortable feeling, but it's sort of like working out where it's
like you got to do that to make your muscle strong But I and I and I hate it when it's happening and I have to remind myself like don't burn it down Don't walk away from everything like you can achieve what you want you just have to go through some arguments sometimes But it's sort of like when you let's say you had a company with a hundred employees And let's say 26% of those
employees are unhappy That's like a pretty good ratio.
So you have roughly 75 percent of people who are happy But that means that every single day if there's 26 days in the work week or in the month work work days in the month Someone's gonna bitch to you.
Do you know what I mean? And Someone's gonna bitch to you every single day and what it does to you is it makes you think everything is bad And it's really hard to switch your psychology to be like no not everything is bad I need to compartmentalize these two things and it is a I've gotten better as I've gotten older But it's that is a huge issue For me personally and I think
it's an issue for a lot of people where they they face some adversity and I typically human adversity like tension between people is I think in my opinion the hardest one and the most common one And the reaction is fuck it Yeah, I have that reaction.
I have that reaction super fast.
I think even Yeah, I was like forget the whole thing then not the podcast but like the situation we were arguing about is I forget it Who cares even then I do that all the time I do that all the time and I have to I have it's a really hard thing To say is my future self gonna be happy or sad that I made this decision in this particular moment It's really fucking hard to nail that do
you also read the kind of history of biographies because it's like The problem is 100 times bigger than your current problem like whatever the tip is with your wife or with your neighbor or whatever it is It's like well, I just last night spent four hours reading about these guys were shipwrecked and yes That's one of the reasons why like oh, okay, that's more relative
I read it for that reason to it's sort of like when I used to box I used to get my ass kicked in the morning.
I was like oh everything else the volumes way turned down like I just got beat up And it's okay like I don't mind like and that's sort of why I like re-m biographies I also like reading them because I like seeing This is a normal feeling that I am having it is it is okay And that is like a cool thing about reading about these people is when I'm in these moments I think don't
burn it down Don't walk away Don't don't do these things.
It is normal to have this and you have to accept that like in order to do anything interesting conflict is part of that and oftentimes conflict or constraints is where beauty and art is created.
Do you know what I mean? Yes 100% that makes a lot of sense to me and I think is Pretty wise to be honest.
Let me ask you a question.
Have you ever heard the phrase Somebody say the slang skill issue You're not a gamer and you're not like 17 years old so you might not be like part of this like subculture where One of the like common internet slangs is just skill issue And what skill issue me like somebody will describe like a huge problem They'll be on Reddit typing like this whole thing about how the this is bad
and this is hard and this This thing out of my control whatever and then somebody will just skill issue And I think it started with gaming which is like they're complaining about the game And then somebody who's better at the game will just say skill issue and what it fundamentally means is like there are so many things that we Describe as outside of our control or just
fundamentally hard or impossible That's actually a skill issue meaning if you had the skill you wouldn't be bitching and whining about this Um, that's how I felt about yesterday meaning When I started reading the gotman stuff.
I realized oh skill issue Disagreting and arguing is a skill and I have a skill issue.
I am not as good at it as I could be and the reason why is Um, when I'm reading his stuff.
He's got all these different words to describe things.
He's like I was reading his like encoding of the arguments.
It's like cross complaint I'm cross what's a cross complaint.
I'm like looking it up. I'm like oh, yeah Yeah, he just did that he did a cross complaint like that's what that was that's why that didn't feel good And he's like yes, but I was like oh dude.
Yeah, I did a yes, but where I agreed but then I like undermine my agreement right afterwards, but the next sentence I said um, and I realized in the same way that uh, once read like intelligence is the number of distinctions you have on a subject What that means is if if you talk to Eskimos about snow Snow we like I have one word for snow snow They have like 15 18 21 different
ways to describe snow the snow that's a little bit runny the snow That's really hard the snow that falls fast the snow that like behaves differently because they live in the snow They had they had to become intelligent about snow they had to create a vocabulary That described the distinctions because they mattered in their life and they were familiar with them Whereas
somebody who's not not so skilled and familiar with snow only has one word in the same way as this guy was describing Arrogument dynamics.
I realized oh skill issue There are a bunch of words for snow that I don't know when it comes to arguing and arguing well I think he's even got a book called like fight right or something.
I haven't read it But it's like I'm gonna go read that and so that was the last uh interesting takeaway which is yet again skill issue So many things in my life just come down to that.
Oh losing weight is hard.
No, no, no skill issue I used to have this asshole friend in college used to say uh The only way you get good at drinking and driving is through a lot of practice I'm like you're a horrible human even but you might be right uh And uh Sort of that's kind of like this.
That's kind of like this.
You gotta fight a lot in order to like uh It's learned how to do it correctly Um, okay, well Sam.
I'm sorry for all of those reasons that I just said And and it's mutual you prepared this so it's gonna sound like you're well you are uh It sounds like you're being the bigger the bigger man and I want to like and I want to let you know that uh Everything is mutual.
Uh, I feel like Uh, it sounds like you Well, it sounds like you're in some ways you're you're you're sort of acting that You didn't blame me for anything you only blamed yourself and I want to let you know that it that's not actually the reality You just You just use more words than I did Your word count was higher, but that doesn't mean that the the feeling is different
That's it that's the pot You By the way, we get to use the one time and one time only youtuber thing to do where it's like It's all over.
I'm shutting it down. We quit Uh, we're breaking up like the one time you can fake You could fake your own death you could fake retirement you could fake your breakup and Everybody wants to click to see the goss and then they you know, it's the boy who cried wolf you can only do it once But you get a hell a lot of clicks that time so I think we should use it this time We should title
this whatever you know, it's over my cash or yeah, it's over.
Sorry guys, you know You know shons apology or like We're breaking up here's why That I feel like I could rule the world.
I know I could be what I want to I put my all in it like no days on a road.
Let's travel never looking back.
Right?
