February 9, 2022 • 41 mins
What’s your communication style? Don’t know? This week, Eve and Aditi discuss why communication is key to lowering high stakes conflict in the home. They are joined by Executive coach and author, Daniel Stillman who discusses how to design conversations about domestic life with play, purpose and potential. To learn more about Daniel, visit www.danielstillman.com.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Time Out. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space,
activists on the gender division of labor, attorney and family mediator.
And I'm doctor add Neru Kar, a physician and medical
correspondent with an expertise in the science of stress, resilience,
mental health, and burnout. We're here to peel back to
(00:24):
layers around why it's so easy for society to guard
men's time as if it's diamonds and to treat women's
time as if it's infinite like sands. And whether you
are partnered with or without children, or in a career
where you want more boundaries, this is the place for
you for all family structures. We're here to take a
time out to learn, get inspired, and most importantly, reclaim
(00:49):
our time. So d D, I'm gonna tell you a
story today about communication. I love your stories. It's a
small story, but it's a couple that I really love
because they decided to implement and play fair play during
(01:12):
the pandemic and in the process of having a communication
check in together around what was valuable to them. The
couple I'll call them Richard and Amy decided that they
really cared and they wanted to keep magical beings in
their deck. That was something they were not going to
(01:33):
throw out. By magical beings, I mean Sanna, I mean
the tooth Fairy. So in the course of this conversation,
Richard decides that he was going to be the card
holder for magical beings. He wanted to be the tooth
fairy for his daughter. And his daughter, they're telling me
the story that she loses her second tooth, and today,
(01:58):
I guess what happens. Tooth Fairy doesn't come that night.
So what I love about this story is the way
that Richard and Amy told it to me about what
their communication patterns would have been before a fair play
versus what happened in the moment. So before fair play,
what they told me would have happened because they didn't
(02:19):
have any practice communication practice, they just defaulted into their
old bad patterns would have been that Amy would have
reverted to her verbal assassin personality, which is what she
calls herself, or she would have said to Richard, Wow,
you know you've ruined our daughter's life, so that that's
the end of it. There's no magic. There's no magic
(02:41):
she will never believe in magic again. And so that's
all your fault. It's all your fault. And she would
probably be in therapy the rest of her life because
the tooth Fairy goes to every other child and not her.
So she would have gone really big and really mean.
And how he ruined his daughter's life. And what Richard
said as he laughed and said, yes, that's how Amy
would have reacted. Richard said, and not only that, but
(03:05):
he would have blamed Amy for not reminding him to
put the dollar under the pillow. So after what happened
now in the story, since he took the card, he
owned the mistake right because he had the responsibility. So
he was able to say, my bad, I totally messed
(03:25):
up and I can't believe I didn't get the dollar
under the pillow. But not only that, he took action
to carry through his mistake. He communicated with his daughter
and said I was able to email tooth Fairy at
gmail dot com, which was true. He did email, and
creepily he got a response, and he had printed out
the response for his daughter and said, look tooth Fair
(03:47):
at gmail dot com says she's backlogged. She's having a
you know what I guess would be now called the
supply chain issue with the tooth fairy. And you know what,
when she comes the second night or the night late,
she brings double the money. And now he says, his
daughter is always asking when the tooth fairy comes, can
she come late? Because I want to get double the money.
(04:10):
But what I love about that story so much it
shows a pattern of communication that could have been so
toxic and damaging, and instead it was filled with grace
and humor and generosity and a very different type of
family interaction. And so I love that story because it's
(04:32):
so small, but it really sums up a lot about
what we're gonna be talking today, how we communicate, how
we check in, how we are allowed to give some
grace to people in our lives that we love, yet
still hold our firm boundaries and say we expect a
certain standard of how things should it could be done
(04:55):
because we've agreed to it together. As you're telling us
a story about Richard and Amy, I'm thinking about my
own communications snaffoo, which happened just last week. Last week
I had to do a TV interview, my husband had
a meeting, and the Times coincided. In the morning, it's
(05:16):
a hectic time. People are running around getting ready for
school drop off. So I said to my husband, this
was around seven fifteen. I said, can you do school
drop off today? And he said, I have a meeting
that starts at eight thirty. I interpreted that as great,
(05:37):
plenty of time to do school drop off. So I
started getting ready for my work day. Now it's seven
five and I said, oh, are you going to get
ready to go to school? And he said, but I
have a meeting at a thirty. I told you that,
And that was kind of an AHA moment for me
because what he went when he said I have a
(05:57):
meeting at a thirty was and therefore I cannot do
school drop off. I interpreted it as I have something
at a thirty. It's seven fifteen or seven o'clock. Now easy,
I can make it work. There's so many layers to that.
And you know your story about Richard and Amy, the
conversation that we're going to be having today, my communication
(06:19):
Snap who really makes me think about the fact that
so much of our communication, very deeply important communication, happens
often at the most inopportune times that we're not sitting
down together at the table having a deep conversation when
we're both fresh. It's often two ships passing in the night.
(06:39):
We're working, we're taking care of kids, we're doing so
many other things, and you say something and you think
someone's going to pick up on it, and then they don't,
and it's no one's fault. It's just a shoddy system.
So it was something important you just said, I want
to pause on it for a minute. And that is
the idea of communication as a what a like you said,
(07:02):
ships passing in a night, It's going to be in
the moment, feedback in the moment that often can feel
like our emotions are high and our cognition is low.
So many of us are communicating that way, and it's
the way we've always done it and with the way
we will always continue to do it. But what we're
going to be talking about today is communication as a practice.
(07:27):
D D. I interviewed over a thousand people on social
media and text with a survey question that was deliberately vague.
It asked what is your most important practice? And I
declined to give more context for when I asked that question,
and so a lot of people said, well, I'm confused
(07:47):
by your question. But when they finally were prompted to answer,
most people were responding with things like running, meditation or
taking my dog out for a while. They were equating
practice with something more along the lines of personal self care.
(08:07):
I didn't get one person that said communication is our
most important practice, and listeners were here to tell you
that communication is your most important practice. And if you
don't have a partner, with your roommates, with your parents,
with your work colleagues, communication in all contexts will be
(08:28):
your most important practice. And it's a lifelong practice, and
it's work, and you keep working at it, and it's
a skill, and it's something that you keep building. And
you know what that reminds me of. It reminds me
a d D when I sit there for the seventh
hour on the couch and say to myself, I just
want to be fit by sitting here on the couch, Like,
(08:51):
why have they not invented away for me to get
cardio and muscle strength by just sitting on the couch,
And sadly it doesn't happen. So just like the muscles
in our body, right, communication is a muscle. Good things
don't come to those who wait good things come to
(09:12):
those who practice. So that's why after the break we
were so excited to talk to my high school friend
and man with the coolest job I can think of,
conversation designer Daniel Stillman, who's going to teach us much
more about these topics of how to communicate, why to communicate,
(09:35):
and what to communicate. So our guest today is Daniel Stillman.
(09:58):
He's an executive coach and facilit tator, and Daniel worked
with clients of all shapes and sizes on leadership and
team dynamics as well as on product and organizational innovation.
Daniel hosts the Conversation Factory podcast and as author of
Good Talk How to Design Conversations that Matter, one of
my favorite books and really a handbook for change makers
(10:21):
and innovators. Welcome Daniel, Hey you thanks for having me.
Not only I think do you have the coolest job
that exists? But we also know each other from stuyves
in high school. Go peg legs, Go peg Legs exactly.
But I really wanted to ask you before we start,
how did you become a conversation designer and get the
(10:45):
coolest job of all time? I'll just say that often
I feel like the title conversation designer just makes people nervous.
They're like, oh, you're the expert, and I'm like, I'm
just a fan of conversations. My thesis, and I know
you've heard me say this before, is we're all conversation designers,
were all designing our conversations at work at home all
(11:06):
the time. I just, um, I'm a nerd. I've become
a conversation nerd over the last couple of years. I
mean it's like I I studied design. I said industrial
design in grad school, and years later I heard somebody
put those two words together. I'd gone through all these
evolutions of different types of design that came through There
was like interaction design, and then experience design and service design,
(11:30):
and it's like conversation. So I'm like, what does that
even mean? That was and I thought about it for
a while and I was like, that is very confronting
and weird. And that's actually one of the reasons why
I started my podcast. Got was like, what does it
mean to design a conversation? I was just curious. So
that's how I got that title curiosity. That's my answer.
I love it. I love it, and would you consider
(11:52):
a conversation a subset of communication. That's a really interesting
question because I think some people would say, like, oh,
a real conversation is only one where all parties are
fully engaged in discovering a surprising outcome. I would say
that's a great conversation. I would still say, somebody shouting
(12:14):
at someone else is just a very shriveled version of that.
It's a one way conversation with a broken power dynamic
and with somebody who wasn't really clear on how to
get what they want, and somebody who didn't have a
good conversation with themselves about how to get what they
want from someone else. So I would say, like, yes,
any time anybody is talking, it is a conversation. One
(12:36):
way communication is one type of conversation because we always
want something to happen afterwards, right. I also think that's
interesting because that's sort of how I link your work
to the active design of a conversation to broader communication,
because we're all communicating, whether it's dubbing twit clothes and
someone's pillow right there. Yes, But I think the way
(13:02):
I'd like to connect your work as a conversation designer
to broader communication is that idea that the intention of
a conversation means that you can actually have an outcome
afterwards and behavior that's different than it was in the past.
What is that Albert Einstein quote? Right? The definition of
stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again
(13:22):
and expecting a different result. You can get a different
result by listening to Dan still Home and how he
designs conversations. I was very inspired by good talk your book.
I was very inspired to take part of your learnings
to my relationship, and I'm going to pass it over
to Dr A. D. D To ask you some of
(13:44):
that questions that relate to how we bring your work.
Two the hardest domain the home. Wow, And that's what's
really up. When people say, like, what's what's at stake
for designing conversations? Off and I talk about business conversations
because you're like, well, we a lot of salaries in
the room and we just burn them all. But I
think the home is a much much higher stakes conversation
(14:07):
because that's like our whole lives. Daniel, you asked the
question in one of your writings what are conversations made of?
And then you said the answers are diverse, voices, ideas, vibes, connections, collaboration, listening, emotions, reactions, gaps, openness,
(14:29):
and when I think about what makes a happy home,
or what makes a happy partnership or what makes a
happy family structure, these are the sorts of things that
come to mind. I'd left for you to talk a
little bit more about this concept of what our conversations
made of. So two things come up. One is the
idea of that we can design something comes from this
(14:51):
idea that a superbroad definition of design as intentionality and
choices that we make. And so designing as intentionality and
purpose means you could just ask like, well, what are
we optimizing for? And so we could say like, yeah,
I want to optimize for joy or clarity or speed
or consistency. But also noticing what the conversation can be
(15:15):
made of means how do I affect my choices? And
so just the idea of the realization that dumping wet
clothes on a pillow is sending a signal that I
am communicating, like, oh, I have a choice about how
I communicate what I communicate with. My mom, who I
(15:35):
really admire, has this wonderful phrase, which is to start
as you mean to continue. And I was literally just
talking about this on a coaching call with someone in
An example I gave is I sometimes get angry with
something that my wife has done or hasn't done. And
so the question is, will expressing my anger through anger
(15:56):
get me what I want? Now? No? Right? But that
requires a lot of emotional maturity to realize, like, am
I getting what I want? It also has to do
with understanding that like, it's really hard to change your
tone of voice and hide the fact that you're angry.
(16:20):
So you actually have to have a conversation with yourself
before you have a conversation with someone else. Right. So,
this is the thing that came up for me over
the years of studying conversations is realizing that that before
we have conversations with other people, we have conversations with
ourselves about like, well, I don't deserve that? How dare they?
I can't believe I always they never write all of
those things that are our reactions. It's very hard to
(16:44):
change your first reaction. This is mental processing and saying, well,
what do I really want out of this? Do I
want to share my anger with them so that they
feel my pain as I'm feeling it. Do I want
to just pass it along and say, like here, now
you are angry too. Where do I want to have
a peaceable relationship? Do I want to have a tidy
(17:06):
year home? Start as I mean to continue? Right. To
think that sending an angry signal in an angry way
will result in a peaceable home is just not understanding
how physics works. For every action, there's an equal and
opposite reaction. So we're just talking about the physics conversations here.
So you've got to do that internal processing to say, well,
(17:28):
what do I want? What do I need? What do
I think is possible here? Like, what will help me
communicate more clearly with them? What do they want, what
do they need? What do they expect? I need to
pause in the importance of what you're saying, because we
literally prep for everything. We prep for a five K race,
as we prep for parenteager conferences for our kids, or
(17:51):
at least we have to find out what the zoom
link is that never seems to work. We prep for dinner,
But ironically, the thing that's probably the most portant thing
to prep for in our homes our conversations with our
partners are children. The stakeholders around us that make our
home organization function. We give literally no forethought too. Yeah,
(18:15):
there's no prep We're shooting from the hip based on
all of our habits. And so this is the other
aspect of conversation design is understanding either I'm going to
run with habit or I'm going to apply some conscious
intention to it. But there's another piece to it, which
is our partners are also coming with their own designs
and their own expectations. And that's why having the conversation
(18:38):
about the type of conversation you're going to have. So
if you said, like, honey, I'd like to yell at
you for five or six minutes brate you and then
have makeup sex. Does that sound cool for you? And
then they'll be like, yeah, let her loose if that's
what you need. But if this is designing the conversation
for someone versus and for yourself or designing with so
(19:02):
like what do they want, honey, I'd like to talk
about this? The idea that we can't propose. We proposed marriage, right,
but we can't propose like here's my agenda for this evening, right?
And I get it. There's this infantilization of ourselves and
others where we just really want our loved ones are
significant other just to read our minds, to know exactly
(19:26):
what we want and need. And the fact that I
should have to explain myself and to be as prepared
for a conversation at home is I have to be
at work seems laborious, and yet I think it doesn't
have to be that hard. It's really just saying, hey,
this is what I want. What do you want? Let's
(19:46):
talk about how this is going to go. I want
to just ask you why, and I tell you what
I did with Seth because earlier you were talking about
this conversation operating system, which is really your elements of
conversation and within history or the length or the life
of a conversation. The hardest part I saw in my
(20:08):
research was the invitation when I asked, very very very
diverse lived experiences in seventeen countries, how do you communicate
about domestic life? And I'll give you an example. I
went onto a Facebook group that somebody told me about.
It's called the Reason I Hate my husband and kids
during COVID, and in this Spacebook group that someone told
(20:34):
me about, I was my typical lurker watching people post
and one woman posts, if my husband dies during COVID,
it won't be because of the disease, It'll be because
of me. So that was a very provocative post. So
I d m her and I said, I'm a researcher
(20:55):
on the couples dynamics and conversation and community ptation. I
would love to know how you typically communicate about domestic
life with your partner. And she wrote back earnestly, I
don't communicate about domestic life. It's too triggering. This is
my safe space. So I want to just reflect on
(21:19):
us for a second as we're talking about communication and conversation.
That probably threatening to murder her partner in front of
thousand strangers felt more safe to her than directly inviting
her partner into a conversation about what is troubling her
about the dynamics in her home. So why why is that?
(21:42):
There's so many layers to that. Here's the thing. Most
negotiations stop on the internal conversation before they even start
because there's this term called aspiration value. We ask for
what we believe we deserve. There's all these studies that
show that people won't ask for a raise or A
lot of women won't apply for a job unless they
feel like they meet of the things that they're asking
for it, whereas for whatever reason, men will apply for
(22:05):
that job at of qualifications. So take that with as
many grains of salt as you want. I don't know
why this is, but it is very possible that people
look at the history of their relationship and say, well,
there's just no point, and so the conversation stops before
it starts. But as you say, with invitation, the question
(22:26):
is how can I bring them to the table. It
is my job because I want it to find a
way to bring them to the table, to invite them,
to appeal to their sense of play, to their sense
of purpose or potential. Right, three ways to motivate someone
(22:46):
plays the most motivational, which is why I think fair
play is a really powerful approach. Right. It's a playful
approach to say like, hey, let's put it all on
the table, let's talk about it. But there's also a purpose,
which is say like, well, what kind of a marriage
do you want to have? Right, that's purpose and potentially,
you know, five ten years down the road, like how
do you think we should be interacting? Right? So that's invitation,
(23:08):
and we talked about what our conversations made out of
and how to think about them more intentionally. One of
the things that's really challenging is that we are really
good at being efficient. We jump to conclusions about what
somebody thinks. We're trying to guess what somebody's thinking all
the time, what they mean. But the truth is we
can talk at about twenty words per minute, but we
(23:31):
think at four thousand words per minute, which means there
will always be more to say than we can say,
which means it's always a good idea to slow down
the conversation and ask people tell me more, rather than
going to jump the conclusion and say he's always like
this or she's always like that, Say well, what do
you mean by that? Well, what did you mean to say?
(23:52):
Tell me more about that. We expect a two hundred
millisecond gap between when we say something and when we
expect a response. If somebody weights longer, we think they're
overthinking it, and yet it actually takes around six hundred
milliseconds or somebody to cook up a reasonable answer for
their brains to catch up. There's research on that. I
think it's Tanya stiffers out of the Max Plank Institute.
(24:13):
Like you, people need time to think, and yet we're like,
tell me, tell me right now. And that's because we
get heated because there's so much at stake, and so
slowing things down is always going to be a great
way to design a more safe, an effective home conversation.
This leads me to this wonderful thing that you said.
(24:34):
Curiosity smells a lot like empathy. Many folks will tell
you that empathy is the secret key to transforming conversations,
and they're right, but it's hard to empathize with someone
you truly disagree with, and it's really hard to fake.
Curiosity is easier to fake and just as effective. Active
listening is the key. I love it. Yeah, thank you
(24:57):
for I think it is hard to fake. It's hard
to veil your distaste for someone. But if you can
just squeeze yourself and say, like, you know, it sounds
like you said this, but I'm guessing that that's not
really what you meant to say. So you know, now
that you've heard me say what you said, tell me
(25:19):
what you really think. Now I'm on the edge of
blowing a fuse, but I'm slowing it down a little
bit by using that ace In the whole of active listening,
it's just a safe place where it's like, I think
I heard you say this? Is that everything was there? More?
Do you want to say about that? Tell me more,
because otherwise I'm going to divorce you. Right, don't say that?
(25:41):
Did you? Did you actively threatened to murder me in
front of strangers? Meant to say? I mean the flip
side of this, If we're talking about a relationship between
people who identify as male and people who identify as female,
there's some roles that we slip into. And even in
(26:01):
a relationship where maybe both people don't identify as anything
or however they identify, people take up a certain role,
like somebody's going to be more invested in planning and logistics,
and somebody's gonna be like, well, why can't we just
I can't we just let it roll? My wife and
I had a whole conversation about like not planning our honeymoon.
(26:23):
It was hilarious. I was like, wait, so let me
understand this correctly. I really want to understand what your
ideal vacation is because I'm interested in I love her,
so when I over plan, or as I would put
it plan. She's like, where is the space for you know,
exploration and improvisation. I'm like, okay, well, like tell me
(26:45):
your favorite vacations that you've taken with your family, and
she laid out a couple and I was like, okay,
Like so help me understand. I got curious and she
was able to tell me. So there's always gonna be
somebody who's too much or not enough of whatever it is,
and somebody who's taking an active role in some he
was taking a passive role, somebody who thinks that things
aren't fair, and that person's job is to redesign the
(27:07):
conversation as they feel like they can't. I love that.
I need to be labor your three p s again
because I want to go back to the invitation, because
I do think that it is the hardest barrier i've
seen to fair play. When people get there, you know,
it's like anything right where anticipation is worse than the
thing itself, Like, wow, this is actually really fun to
(27:28):
talk about who planned holidays growing up, or what we
both think about discipline and screen time. Once people are
at the table, I've found that the conversations usually go
much better than people think. It's this huge barrier to
getting there. And so could you go back to play
purpose and potential and give us three openers for people
(27:51):
if they do want to have a conversation. We talked
one of our guests. I had a viral article that
was called my wife left me because I left dishes
by the side of the sink. So say that couple
is talking about trying to get those dishes off the
side of the sink, washed and in the proper home. Um,
what would three invitations be to get somebody to the table.
(28:13):
I'll see what I can do, but I want to
just pull back a little bit and say that play
purpose and potential that comes from this research on intrinsic
versus extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivators are things like emotional pressure,
economic pressure, and inertia. Those are the anti patterns. So
(28:34):
if we're just to say, like emotional pressure, like, how
would you invite someone to engage in a conversation using
emotional pressure, I will never speak to you again unless
you sit down, never speak to you again. Right, Like,
if we can't work this out, I just don't see
us being able to go to that party next week,
or go to your parents for Thanksgiving. That is emotional
(28:55):
pressure and that is fed up, right, But that is
not ativating. You're trying to use fear. That's like reading
Machiavelli and thinking it's a guide book. But about one
woman who said, if you don't start cleaning up every
single time that you don't do it, I'm taking a
picture of it. I'm posting it to my Instagram. Right.
That's assuming that shame is a motivator for them, which
(29:16):
for some people it is, right, but it's a very
poor way of sustained motivation. And just to I go
into the worst of them, which is inertia, which is like,
but you've always done it this way, how could you
possibly ask to change the way we've been doing things
for years? And to appear which is like what will
we just do it this way? And so recently, actually,
(29:39):
I'll tell you a personal story. I cook a lot.
I enjoy cooking. Chopping vegetables is one way for me
to relieve, you know, anxiety. I'm a very natural fast
chef and she is less so. So when she was
in grad school and in school full time, I was like,
I gotta cook, so there's enough food in the house
so my wife doesn't die and she can go through
(30:02):
grad school. Like I wanted to make sure there was
just a cast role that she could just heat up
all the time. And I realized we're not in that
situation anymore. She's been her a new job for two years.
I'm very proud of everything she's done. And so I
said to her, I was like, hey, do you think
maybe you could do dinner one night a week, like
Monday nights I have my men's group and we only
have like two hours. And I was like, you know,
(30:22):
maybe you could do dinner like that one night, and
she was like yeah. So there's another aspect of invitation.
There's play, purpose and potential, but there's also foot in
the door, which is Robert Caldini right. He talks about
the like getting your foot in the door, Like just
a penny would help. Anything you could do would be great.
So doing a very very small ask is Another way
(30:44):
to increase the intrinsic motivation is by reducing the barrier.
It's like, could you watch that one one fork once
a week? Right? Resorting to a playful approach means lowering
the stakes. How I'd love to talk about the dishes.
I'm feeling anxious about it. That's owning your own experience.
(31:08):
It seems just totally innocuous. Making it this huge thing
and bringing the whole story makes it very hard. You're
not appealing to play or purpose or potential. This is hard,
and that means you have to go to your own therapy,
have that into a conversation with yourself to deal with
(31:28):
it's always been like this or you never that that
actually doesn't bring somebody to the table. I think it's
much much more easy to say like hey, and anything
else after that. Do you think, Daniel, that this is
a personality trait of yours or do you feel like
this is something that can be taught. I think empathy
and curiosity can be learned if somebody is willing to
(31:53):
be curious, if somebody wants things to be better, and
if we're willing to ask for more than we think
is pop stable. This goes back to the question of
aspiration value. If you think there's no point in bringing
it up, there isn't. If you're going to come with anger,
expecting it to become peaceable seems absurd to me. So
finding a playful way to appeal to what is playful
(32:16):
in your partner means you have to empathize with them
and understand what motivates them, what kind of potential do
they want, what is their ideal situation. I think if
you can process those emotions and also empathize with your
partner and think about what motivates them, I can tell
my wife I'm angry without without being angry. Can I
(32:39):
tell you why I love this so much? Because um
of a poll that I did during COVID, which was
I've said this to you, which is sort of tongue
in cheek where I've been servying people. Now, I'm over
a thousand where I've asked people what is their most
important practice, but not not one person now, and over
a thousand people when I've asked it vaguely have thought
(33:00):
of communication in that way is their most important practice.
But you have shown us today how you can begin
that practice in such a thoughtful, intentional way. And I
hope you'll come back as a part two for how
to continue the conversation. But this is the hardest part,
getting to that table with play purpose and potential, and
so you've helped us unpack that. Couple that with a
(33:23):
splash of intrinsic motivation, and we're going to have much
better conversations. God willing, good luck out there. Hi, it's
(33:46):
me Eve. Are you a therapist, counselor coach or nutritionists
that has thought about introducing the fair Play System directly
to your clients? Well, now you can come and roll
in the fair Play Method, a new online program that
provides with hands on training, a ton of valuable resources,
and a community of certified professionals who are all part
of a greater cultural movement for systemic change. Learn more
(34:10):
about how you can help your clients shift the domestic
workload in their own homes towards more equity, more fairness,
and greater connectivity. Visit fair Play method dot com. So,
as you may know, now, every episode of this podcast
(34:30):
ends with an action item for you are listeners that
we call a time out. This is really a time
for you to focus on yourself and reflect on what
you're hearing today. And we're starting the conversation first with
ourselves and then ultimately with those around us. Today we're
thinking about how we communicate. That's our time out for today,
(34:53):
before we think about how we interact with others. It's
very helpful to reflect on our vulnerable cities are strength,
what we can do better, what we don't do as well.
So today's time out is an exercise that I'd like
to refer to as the reverse newly Wed game, and
I'm gonna play it with you a d D for
(35:13):
our listeners. And you can do it by listening with
us and thinking along about how you would track as
a d D answers. So reverse newly what game? Communication? One?
Oh one quiz that we're gonna be doing today that
comes out of fair Play the book. It's in chapter
five and we call it the communication vulnerability quiz. So
(35:35):
how would Mac, your partner, describe you in a moment
when emotion is high and cognition is low in your household?
So think back to a time when I don't know,
a dirty stock was on the floor, or you stepped
on a lego or uh, dinner wasn't ready when you
(35:55):
came in the door, something where maybe your emotion was
high and your cognity asution was low. I want to
know if Mac would one say that you're long winded,
you're talking to no one's listening. Two that you use
sharp commands sir, your drill sergeant delivery isn't always popular
with the troops. Three you use bad timing, which means
(36:20):
you drop your grievances or request for help and in
opportune moments, Oh, I see your sleeping, but I'm gonna
shake you away because I need to talk to you
if that was happening tomorrow. For toxic word choice or is?
My friend Claudia calls it the verbal assassin, where you
say things in a really calm way, but they are
(36:41):
really really mean, Like I didn't realize you're going to
become the worst father that ever existed? Was that something
that you knew was going to happen to you? Five
all or nothing? You literally never replace the toilet paper roll.
You always keep the seat up. Six dredging up the past.
(37:03):
This is just like the last time you data DA
or finally, seven which is avoidance and boiling over. I
didn't say anything. I really didn't want to say anything.
I really really didn't want to have this conversation. But
now I'm really really pissed. What do you think Mac
would say about you? I have a big smile on
my face. As you've been reading all of those you
(37:26):
know what's so interesting is that I pride myself on
being an excellent communicator and do it for a living,
and yet I still have communication conflicts with my partner,
which is so fascinating to me. I would have to
say different situations would warrant different responses, but I like
the drill sergeant. I feel like that would be a
(37:48):
common complaint. Mm hmmm, well that's mine too, So maybe
that's why we get along so well. Uh. Seth often
says I sound like nails on the chalkboard every time
I say anything, and it's very very sharp commands. And
I think the beauty of really understanding and starting to
think about your own vulnerabilities, and I hope our listeners
(38:12):
will do this alongside us as well, is that it
gives the humor. It disarms things. When you have an
invitation that Dan Stillman was talking about to come to
the table. You know, often people are afraid afraid to
come to the table if they're used to a pattern
of you in your communication vulnerability. So when you can
(38:35):
start saying things, or when I was able to start
saying things to Seth like okay, I know I sound
like nails on the chalkboard. I know you don't want
to talk to me because my tone sucks, But I
promise you that in this invitation, I'm going to do better.
It not only disarms the other person, but it allows
and opens up that invitation that we talked about today
in a way that's much more palatable to the person
(38:59):
you're speaking with. Yeah, it's almost like you become so
self aware. You know what they're thinking and how they're
feeling in that moment because you've been in that pattern
so many times before, and you're calling yourself out. And
I think in many ways, as you enter a high
conflict conversation, being able to call yourself out, have a
(39:19):
little humor going into it, like Daniel said, going into
it with an open mind. You said something so wonderful
about if you want the outcome to be anger than
going with anger, or if you want the outcome to
be sadness and going with sadness. And of course we
don't want anger sadness in the conversations. We want resolution.
And so by owning your own stuff and your own
(39:41):
conversational vulnerabilities and communication vulnerabilities, I think that's one great
first step into bringing together a conversation that ends in
reconciliation and if not reconciliation, just a deeper understanding and
low conflict. And so, based on Eve's quiz, think about
(40:02):
Daniels communication tips and ask yourself, who are you as
you enter these high conflict conversations and how are you
going to start changing the conversation. Next week we'll be
starting to talk about the three permissions needed to fully
dive into your unicorn space. We have a special guest,
(40:22):
Greg McEwen, one of my favorite authors of essential ism
and his new book Effortless, and we get to talk
to him about the perks and the permission to be
unavailable from your roles. Thank you for listening to Time Out,
a production of I Heart Podcasts, and Hello Sunshine. I'm
(40:44):
Eve Rodsky, author of the New York Times bestseller fair
Play and Find your Unicorn Space. Follow me on social
media at Eve Rodsky and learn more about our work
at fair Play Life. And I'm Dr Addi Narukar, Harvard
physician with a specialty and stress resilience, burnout, and mental health.
(41:04):
Follow me on social media at dr add ne Rucar
and find out more about my work at dr a
d d dot com. That's d R a d I
t I dot Com. Our Hello Sunshine Team is Amanda Farren,
Aaron Stover, and Jennifer Yonker. Our I Heart Media team
is Ali Perry, Jennifer Bassett and Jessica Kranschitch. We hope
(41:27):
you all love taking a much needed time out with
us today. Listen and subscribe to Time Out on the
I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Time Out. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space,
activists on the gender division of labor, attorney and family mediator.
And I'm doctor add Neru Kar, a physician and medical
correspondent with an expertise in the science of stress, resilience,
mental health, and burnout. We're here to peel back to
(00:24):
layers around why it's so easy for society to guard
men's time as if it's diamonds and to treat women's
time as if it's infinite like sands. And whether you
are partnered with or without children, or in a career
where you want more boundaries, this is the place for
you for all family structures. We're here to take a
time out to learn, get inspired, and most importantly, reclaim
(00:49):
our time. So d D, I'm gonna tell you a
story today about communication. I love your stories. It's a
small story, but it's a couple that I really love
because they decided to implement and play fair play during
(01:12):
the pandemic and in the process of having a communication
check in together around what was valuable to them. The
couple I'll call them Richard and Amy decided that they
really cared and they wanted to keep magical beings in
their deck. That was something they were not going to
(01:33):
throw out. By magical beings, I mean Sanna, I mean
the tooth Fairy. So in the course of this conversation,
Richard decides that he was going to be the card
holder for magical beings. He wanted to be the tooth
fairy for his daughter. And his daughter, they're telling me
the story that she loses her second tooth, and today,
(01:58):
I guess what happens. Tooth Fairy doesn't come that night.
So what I love about this story is the way
that Richard and Amy told it to me about what
their communication patterns would have been before a fair play
versus what happened in the moment. So before fair play,
what they told me would have happened because they didn't
(02:19):
have any practice communication practice, they just defaulted into their
old bad patterns would have been that Amy would have
reverted to her verbal assassin personality, which is what she
calls herself, or she would have said to Richard, Wow,
you know you've ruined our daughter's life, so that that's
the end of it. There's no magic. There's no magic
(02:41):
she will never believe in magic again. And so that's
all your fault. It's all your fault. And she would
probably be in therapy the rest of her life because
the tooth Fairy goes to every other child and not her.
So she would have gone really big and really mean.
And how he ruined his daughter's life. And what Richard
said as he laughed and said, yes, that's how Amy
would have reacted. Richard said, and not only that, but
(03:05):
he would have blamed Amy for not reminding him to
put the dollar under the pillow. So after what happened
now in the story, since he took the card, he
owned the mistake right because he had the responsibility. So
he was able to say, my bad, I totally messed
(03:25):
up and I can't believe I didn't get the dollar
under the pillow. But not only that, he took action
to carry through his mistake. He communicated with his daughter
and said I was able to email tooth Fairy at
gmail dot com, which was true. He did email, and
creepily he got a response, and he had printed out
the response for his daughter and said, look tooth Fair
(03:47):
at gmail dot com says she's backlogged. She's having a
you know what I guess would be now called the
supply chain issue with the tooth fairy. And you know what,
when she comes the second night or the night late,
she brings double the money. And now he says, his
daughter is always asking when the tooth fairy comes, can
she come late? Because I want to get double the money.
(04:10):
But what I love about that story so much it
shows a pattern of communication that could have been so
toxic and damaging, and instead it was filled with grace
and humor and generosity and a very different type of
family interaction. And so I love that story because it's
(04:32):
so small, but it really sums up a lot about
what we're gonna be talking today, how we communicate, how
we check in, how we are allowed to give some
grace to people in our lives that we love, yet
still hold our firm boundaries and say we expect a
certain standard of how things should it could be done
(04:55):
because we've agreed to it together. As you're telling us
a story about Richard and Amy, I'm thinking about my
own communications snaffoo, which happened just last week. Last week
I had to do a TV interview, my husband had
a meeting, and the Times coincided. In the morning, it's
(05:16):
a hectic time. People are running around getting ready for
school drop off. So I said to my husband, this
was around seven fifteen. I said, can you do school
drop off today? And he said, I have a meeting
that starts at eight thirty. I interpreted that as great,
(05:37):
plenty of time to do school drop off. So I
started getting ready for my work day. Now it's seven
five and I said, oh, are you going to get
ready to go to school? And he said, but I
have a meeting at a thirty. I told you that,
And that was kind of an AHA moment for me
because what he went when he said I have a
(05:57):
meeting at a thirty was and therefore I cannot do
school drop off. I interpreted it as I have something
at a thirty. It's seven fifteen or seven o'clock. Now easy,
I can make it work. There's so many layers to that.
And you know your story about Richard and Amy, the
conversation that we're going to be having today, my communication
(06:19):
Snap who really makes me think about the fact that
so much of our communication, very deeply important communication, happens
often at the most inopportune times that we're not sitting
down together at the table having a deep conversation when
we're both fresh. It's often two ships passing in the night.
(06:39):
We're working, we're taking care of kids, we're doing so
many other things, and you say something and you think
someone's going to pick up on it, and then they don't,
and it's no one's fault. It's just a shoddy system.
So it was something important you just said, I want
to pause on it for a minute. And that is
the idea of communication as a what a like you said,
(07:02):
ships passing in a night, It's going to be in
the moment, feedback in the moment that often can feel
like our emotions are high and our cognition is low.
So many of us are communicating that way, and it's
the way we've always done it and with the way
we will always continue to do it. But what we're
going to be talking about today is communication as a practice.
(07:27):
D D. I interviewed over a thousand people on social
media and text with a survey question that was deliberately vague.
It asked what is your most important practice? And I
declined to give more context for when I asked that question,
and so a lot of people said, well, I'm confused
(07:47):
by your question. But when they finally were prompted to answer,
most people were responding with things like running, meditation or
taking my dog out for a while. They were equating
practice with something more along the lines of personal self care.
(08:07):
I didn't get one person that said communication is our
most important practice, and listeners were here to tell you
that communication is your most important practice. And if you
don't have a partner, with your roommates, with your parents,
with your work colleagues, communication in all contexts will be
(08:28):
your most important practice. And it's a lifelong practice, and
it's work, and you keep working at it, and it's
a skill, and it's something that you keep building. And
you know what that reminds me of. It reminds me
a d D when I sit there for the seventh
hour on the couch and say to myself, I just
want to be fit by sitting here on the couch, Like,
(08:51):
why have they not invented away for me to get
cardio and muscle strength by just sitting on the couch,
And sadly it doesn't happen. So just like the muscles
in our body, right, communication is a muscle. Good things
don't come to those who wait good things come to
(09:12):
those who practice. So that's why after the break we
were so excited to talk to my high school friend
and man with the coolest job I can think of,
conversation designer Daniel Stillman, who's going to teach us much
more about these topics of how to communicate, why to communicate,
(09:35):
and what to communicate. So our guest today is Daniel Stillman.
(09:58):
He's an executive coach and facilit tator, and Daniel worked
with clients of all shapes and sizes on leadership and
team dynamics as well as on product and organizational innovation.
Daniel hosts the Conversation Factory podcast and as author of
Good Talk How to Design Conversations that Matter, one of
my favorite books and really a handbook for change makers
(10:21):
and innovators. Welcome Daniel, Hey you thanks for having me.
Not only I think do you have the coolest job
that exists? But we also know each other from stuyves
in high school. Go peg legs, Go peg Legs exactly.
But I really wanted to ask you before we start,
how did you become a conversation designer and get the
(10:45):
coolest job of all time? I'll just say that often
I feel like the title conversation designer just makes people nervous.
They're like, oh, you're the expert, and I'm like, I'm
just a fan of conversations. My thesis, and I know
you've heard me say this before, is we're all conversation designers,
were all designing our conversations at work at home all
(11:06):
the time. I just, um, I'm a nerd. I've become
a conversation nerd over the last couple of years. I
mean it's like I I studied design. I said industrial
design in grad school, and years later I heard somebody
put those two words together. I'd gone through all these
evolutions of different types of design that came through There
was like interaction design, and then experience design and service design,
(11:30):
and it's like conversation. So I'm like, what does that
even mean? That was and I thought about it for
a while and I was like, that is very confronting
and weird. And that's actually one of the reasons why
I started my podcast. Got was like, what does it
mean to design a conversation? I was just curious. So
that's how I got that title curiosity. That's my answer.
I love it. I love it, and would you consider
(11:52):
a conversation a subset of communication. That's a really interesting
question because I think some people would say, like, oh,
a real conversation is only one where all parties are
fully engaged in discovering a surprising outcome. I would say
that's a great conversation. I would still say, somebody shouting
(12:14):
at someone else is just a very shriveled version of that.
It's a one way conversation with a broken power dynamic
and with somebody who wasn't really clear on how to
get what they want, and somebody who didn't have a
good conversation with themselves about how to get what they
want from someone else. So I would say, like, yes,
any time anybody is talking, it is a conversation. One
(12:36):
way communication is one type of conversation because we always
want something to happen afterwards, right. I also think that's
interesting because that's sort of how I link your work
to the active design of a conversation to broader communication,
because we're all communicating, whether it's dubbing twit clothes and
someone's pillow right there. Yes, But I think the way
(13:02):
I'd like to connect your work as a conversation designer
to broader communication is that idea that the intention of
a conversation means that you can actually have an outcome
afterwards and behavior that's different than it was in the past.
What is that Albert Einstein quote? Right? The definition of
stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again
(13:22):
and expecting a different result. You can get a different
result by listening to Dan still Home and how he
designs conversations. I was very inspired by good talk your book.
I was very inspired to take part of your learnings
to my relationship, and I'm going to pass it over
to Dr A. D. D To ask you some of
(13:44):
that questions that relate to how we bring your work.
Two the hardest domain the home. Wow, And that's what's
really up. When people say, like, what's what's at stake
for designing conversations? Off and I talk about business conversations
because you're like, well, we a lot of salaries in
the room and we just burn them all. But I
think the home is a much much higher stakes conversation
(14:07):
because that's like our whole lives. Daniel, you asked the
question in one of your writings what are conversations made of?
And then you said the answers are diverse, voices, ideas, vibes, connections, collaboration, listening, emotions, reactions, gaps, openness,
(14:29):
and when I think about what makes a happy home,
or what makes a happy partnership or what makes a
happy family structure, these are the sorts of things that
come to mind. I'd left for you to talk a
little bit more about this concept of what our conversations
made of. So two things come up. One is the
idea of that we can design something comes from this
(14:51):
idea that a superbroad definition of design as intentionality and
choices that we make. And so designing as intentionality and
purpose means you could just ask like, well, what are
we optimizing for? And so we could say like, yeah,
I want to optimize for joy or clarity or speed
or consistency. But also noticing what the conversation can be
(15:15):
made of means how do I affect my choices? And
so just the idea of the realization that dumping wet
clothes on a pillow is sending a signal that I
am communicating, like, oh, I have a choice about how
I communicate what I communicate with. My mom, who I
(15:35):
really admire, has this wonderful phrase, which is to start
as you mean to continue. And I was literally just
talking about this on a coaching call with someone in
An example I gave is I sometimes get angry with
something that my wife has done or hasn't done. And
so the question is, will expressing my anger through anger
(15:56):
get me what I want? Now? No? Right? But that
requires a lot of emotional maturity to realize, like, am
I getting what I want? It also has to do
with understanding that like, it's really hard to change your
tone of voice and hide the fact that you're angry.
(16:20):
So you actually have to have a conversation with yourself
before you have a conversation with someone else. Right. So,
this is the thing that came up for me over
the years of studying conversations is realizing that that before
we have conversations with other people, we have conversations with
ourselves about like, well, I don't deserve that? How dare they?
I can't believe I always they never write all of
those things that are our reactions. It's very hard to
(16:44):
change your first reaction. This is mental processing and saying, well,
what do I really want out of this? Do I
want to share my anger with them so that they
feel my pain as I'm feeling it. Do I want
to just pass it along and say, like here, now
you are angry too. Where do I want to have
a peaceable relationship? Do I want to have a tidy
(17:06):
year home? Start as I mean to continue? Right. To
think that sending an angry signal in an angry way
will result in a peaceable home is just not understanding
how physics works. For every action, there's an equal and
opposite reaction. So we're just talking about the physics conversations here.
So you've got to do that internal processing to say, well,
(17:28):
what do I want? What do I need? What do
I think is possible here? Like, what will help me
communicate more clearly with them? What do they want, what
do they need? What do they expect? I need to
pause in the importance of what you're saying, because we
literally prep for everything. We prep for a five K race,
as we prep for parenteager conferences for our kids, or
(17:51):
at least we have to find out what the zoom
link is that never seems to work. We prep for dinner,
But ironically, the thing that's probably the most portant thing
to prep for in our homes our conversations with our
partners are children. The stakeholders around us that make our
home organization function. We give literally no forethought too. Yeah,
(18:15):
there's no prep We're shooting from the hip based on
all of our habits. And so this is the other
aspect of conversation design is understanding either I'm going to
run with habit or I'm going to apply some conscious
intention to it. But there's another piece to it, which
is our partners are also coming with their own designs
and their own expectations. And that's why having the conversation
(18:38):
about the type of conversation you're going to have. So
if you said, like, honey, I'd like to yell at
you for five or six minutes brate you and then
have makeup sex. Does that sound cool for you? And
then they'll be like, yeah, let her loose if that's
what you need. But if this is designing the conversation
for someone versus and for yourself or designing with so
(19:02):
like what do they want, honey, I'd like to talk
about this? The idea that we can't propose. We proposed marriage, right,
but we can't propose like here's my agenda for this evening, right?
And I get it. There's this infantilization of ourselves and
others where we just really want our loved ones are
significant other just to read our minds, to know exactly
(19:26):
what we want and need. And the fact that I
should have to explain myself and to be as prepared
for a conversation at home is I have to be
at work seems laborious, and yet I think it doesn't
have to be that hard. It's really just saying, hey,
this is what I want. What do you want? Let's
(19:46):
talk about how this is going to go. I want
to just ask you why, and I tell you what
I did with Seth because earlier you were talking about
this conversation operating system, which is really your elements of
conversation and within history or the length or the life
of a conversation. The hardest part I saw in my
(20:08):
research was the invitation when I asked, very very very
diverse lived experiences in seventeen countries, how do you communicate
about domestic life? And I'll give you an example. I
went onto a Facebook group that somebody told me about.
It's called the Reason I Hate my husband and kids
during COVID, and in this Spacebook group that someone told
(20:34):
me about, I was my typical lurker watching people post
and one woman posts, if my husband dies during COVID,
it won't be because of the disease, It'll be because
of me. So that was a very provocative post. So
I d m her and I said, I'm a researcher
(20:55):
on the couples dynamics and conversation and community ptation. I
would love to know how you typically communicate about domestic
life with your partner. And she wrote back earnestly, I
don't communicate about domestic life. It's too triggering. This is
my safe space. So I want to just reflect on
(21:19):
us for a second as we're talking about communication and conversation.
That probably threatening to murder her partner in front of
thousand strangers felt more safe to her than directly inviting
her partner into a conversation about what is troubling her
about the dynamics in her home. So why why is that?
(21:42):
There's so many layers to that. Here's the thing. Most
negotiations stop on the internal conversation before they even start
because there's this term called aspiration value. We ask for
what we believe we deserve. There's all these studies that
show that people won't ask for a raise or A
lot of women won't apply for a job unless they
feel like they meet of the things that they're asking
for it, whereas for whatever reason, men will apply for
(22:05):
that job at of qualifications. So take that with as
many grains of salt as you want. I don't know
why this is, but it is very possible that people
look at the history of their relationship and say, well,
there's just no point, and so the conversation stops before
it starts. But as you say, with invitation, the question
(22:26):
is how can I bring them to the table. It
is my job because I want it to find a
way to bring them to the table, to invite them,
to appeal to their sense of play, to their sense
of purpose or potential. Right, three ways to motivate someone
(22:46):
plays the most motivational, which is why I think fair
play is a really powerful approach. Right. It's a playful
approach to say like, hey, let's put it all on
the table, let's talk about it. But there's also a purpose,
which is say like, well, what kind of a marriage
do you want to have? Right, that's purpose and potentially,
you know, five ten years down the road, like how
do you think we should be interacting? Right? So that's invitation,
(23:08):
and we talked about what our conversations made out of
and how to think about them more intentionally. One of
the things that's really challenging is that we are really
good at being efficient. We jump to conclusions about what
somebody thinks. We're trying to guess what somebody's thinking all
the time, what they mean. But the truth is we
can talk at about twenty words per minute, but we
(23:31):
think at four thousand words per minute, which means there
will always be more to say than we can say,
which means it's always a good idea to slow down
the conversation and ask people tell me more, rather than
going to jump the conclusion and say he's always like
this or she's always like that, Say well, what do
you mean by that? Well, what did you mean to say?
(23:52):
Tell me more about that. We expect a two hundred
millisecond gap between when we say something and when we
expect a response. If somebody weights longer, we think they're
overthinking it, and yet it actually takes around six hundred
milliseconds or somebody to cook up a reasonable answer for
their brains to catch up. There's research on that. I
think it's Tanya stiffers out of the Max Plank Institute.
(24:13):
Like you, people need time to think, and yet we're like,
tell me, tell me right now. And that's because we
get heated because there's so much at stake, and so
slowing things down is always going to be a great
way to design a more safe, an effective home conversation.
This leads me to this wonderful thing that you said.
(24:34):
Curiosity smells a lot like empathy. Many folks will tell
you that empathy is the secret key to transforming conversations,
and they're right, but it's hard to empathize with someone
you truly disagree with, and it's really hard to fake.
Curiosity is easier to fake and just as effective. Active
listening is the key. I love it. Yeah, thank you
(24:57):
for I think it is hard to fake. It's hard
to veil your distaste for someone. But if you can
just squeeze yourself and say, like, you know, it sounds
like you said this, but I'm guessing that that's not
really what you meant to say. So you know, now
that you've heard me say what you said, tell me
(25:19):
what you really think. Now I'm on the edge of
blowing a fuse, but I'm slowing it down a little
bit by using that ace In the whole of active listening,
it's just a safe place where it's like, I think
I heard you say this? Is that everything was there? More?
Do you want to say about that? Tell me more,
because otherwise I'm going to divorce you. Right, don't say that?
(25:41):
Did you? Did you actively threatened to murder me in
front of strangers? Meant to say? I mean the flip
side of this, If we're talking about a relationship between
people who identify as male and people who identify as female,
there's some roles that we slip into. And even in
(26:01):
a relationship where maybe both people don't identify as anything
or however they identify, people take up a certain role,
like somebody's going to be more invested in planning and logistics,
and somebody's gonna be like, well, why can't we just
I can't we just let it roll? My wife and
I had a whole conversation about like not planning our honeymoon.
(26:23):
It was hilarious. I was like, wait, so let me
understand this correctly. I really want to understand what your
ideal vacation is because I'm interested in I love her,
so when I over plan, or as I would put
it plan. She's like, where is the space for you know,
exploration and improvisation. I'm like, okay, well, like tell me
(26:45):
your favorite vacations that you've taken with your family, and
she laid out a couple and I was like, okay,
Like so help me understand. I got curious and she
was able to tell me. So there's always gonna be
somebody who's too much or not enough of whatever it is,
and somebody who's taking an active role in some he
was taking a passive role, somebody who thinks that things
aren't fair, and that person's job is to redesign the
(27:07):
conversation as they feel like they can't. I love that.
I need to be labor your three p s again
because I want to go back to the invitation, because
I do think that it is the hardest barrier i've
seen to fair play. When people get there, you know,
it's like anything right where anticipation is worse than the
thing itself, Like, wow, this is actually really fun to
(27:28):
talk about who planned holidays growing up, or what we
both think about discipline and screen time. Once people are
at the table, I've found that the conversations usually go
much better than people think. It's this huge barrier to
getting there. And so could you go back to play
purpose and potential and give us three openers for people
(27:51):
if they do want to have a conversation. We talked
one of our guests. I had a viral article that
was called my wife left me because I left dishes
by the side of the sink. So say that couple
is talking about trying to get those dishes off the
side of the sink, washed and in the proper home. Um,
what would three invitations be to get somebody to the table.
(28:13):
I'll see what I can do, but I want to
just pull back a little bit and say that play
purpose and potential that comes from this research on intrinsic
versus extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivators are things like emotional pressure,
economic pressure, and inertia. Those are the anti patterns. So
(28:34):
if we're just to say, like emotional pressure, like, how
would you invite someone to engage in a conversation using
emotional pressure, I will never speak to you again unless
you sit down, never speak to you again. Right, Like,
if we can't work this out, I just don't see
us being able to go to that party next week,
or go to your parents for Thanksgiving. That is emotional
(28:55):
pressure and that is fed up, right, But that is
not ativating. You're trying to use fear. That's like reading
Machiavelli and thinking it's a guide book. But about one
woman who said, if you don't start cleaning up every
single time that you don't do it, I'm taking a
picture of it. I'm posting it to my Instagram. Right.
That's assuming that shame is a motivator for them, which
(29:16):
for some people it is, right, but it's a very
poor way of sustained motivation. And just to I go
into the worst of them, which is inertia, which is like,
but you've always done it this way, how could you
possibly ask to change the way we've been doing things
for years? And to appear which is like what will
we just do it this way? And so recently, actually,
(29:39):
I'll tell you a personal story. I cook a lot.
I enjoy cooking. Chopping vegetables is one way for me
to relieve, you know, anxiety. I'm a very natural fast
chef and she is less so. So when she was
in grad school and in school full time, I was like,
I gotta cook, so there's enough food in the house
so my wife doesn't die and she can go through
(30:02):
grad school. Like I wanted to make sure there was
just a cast role that she could just heat up
all the time. And I realized we're not in that
situation anymore. She's been her a new job for two years.
I'm very proud of everything she's done. And so I
said to her, I was like, hey, do you think
maybe you could do dinner one night a week, like
Monday nights I have my men's group and we only
have like two hours. And I was like, you know,
(30:22):
maybe you could do dinner like that one night, and
she was like yeah. So there's another aspect of invitation.
There's play, purpose and potential, but there's also foot in
the door, which is Robert Caldini right. He talks about
the like getting your foot in the door, Like just
a penny would help. Anything you could do would be great.
So doing a very very small ask is Another way
(30:44):
to increase the intrinsic motivation is by reducing the barrier.
It's like, could you watch that one one fork once
a week? Right? Resorting to a playful approach means lowering
the stakes. How I'd love to talk about the dishes.
I'm feeling anxious about it. That's owning your own experience.
(31:08):
It seems just totally innocuous. Making it this huge thing
and bringing the whole story makes it very hard. You're
not appealing to play or purpose or potential. This is hard,
and that means you have to go to your own therapy,
have that into a conversation with yourself to deal with
(31:28):
it's always been like this or you never that that
actually doesn't bring somebody to the table. I think it's
much much more easy to say like hey, and anything
else after that. Do you think, Daniel, that this is
a personality trait of yours or do you feel like
this is something that can be taught. I think empathy
and curiosity can be learned if somebody is willing to
(31:53):
be curious, if somebody wants things to be better, and
if we're willing to ask for more than we think
is pop stable. This goes back to the question of
aspiration value. If you think there's no point in bringing
it up, there isn't. If you're going to come with anger,
expecting it to become peaceable seems absurd to me. So
finding a playful way to appeal to what is playful
(32:16):
in your partner means you have to empathize with them
and understand what motivates them, what kind of potential do
they want, what is their ideal situation. I think if
you can process those emotions and also empathize with your
partner and think about what motivates them, I can tell
my wife I'm angry without without being angry. Can I
(32:39):
tell you why I love this so much? Because um
of a poll that I did during COVID, which was
I've said this to you, which is sort of tongue
in cheek where I've been servying people. Now, I'm over
a thousand where I've asked people what is their most
important practice, but not not one person now, and over
a thousand people when I've asked it vaguely have thought
(33:00):
of communication in that way is their most important practice.
But you have shown us today how you can begin
that practice in such a thoughtful, intentional way. And I
hope you'll come back as a part two for how
to continue the conversation. But this is the hardest part,
getting to that table with play purpose and potential, and
so you've helped us unpack that. Couple that with a
(33:23):
splash of intrinsic motivation, and we're going to have much
better conversations. God willing, good luck out there. Hi, it's
(33:46):
me Eve. Are you a therapist, counselor coach or nutritionists
that has thought about introducing the fair Play System directly
to your clients? Well, now you can come and roll
in the fair Play Method, a new online program that
provides with hands on training, a ton of valuable resources,
and a community of certified professionals who are all part
of a greater cultural movement for systemic change. Learn more
(34:10):
about how you can help your clients shift the domestic
workload in their own homes towards more equity, more fairness,
and greater connectivity. Visit fair Play method dot com. So,
as you may know, now, every episode of this podcast
(34:30):
ends with an action item for you are listeners that
we call a time out. This is really a time
for you to focus on yourself and reflect on what
you're hearing today. And we're starting the conversation first with
ourselves and then ultimately with those around us. Today we're
thinking about how we communicate. That's our time out for today,
(34:53):
before we think about how we interact with others. It's
very helpful to reflect on our vulnerable cities are strength,
what we can do better, what we don't do as well.
So today's time out is an exercise that I'd like
to refer to as the reverse newly Wed game, and
I'm gonna play it with you a d D for
(35:13):
our listeners. And you can do it by listening with
us and thinking along about how you would track as
a d D answers. So reverse newly what game? Communication? One?
Oh one quiz that we're gonna be doing today that
comes out of fair Play the book. It's in chapter
five and we call it the communication vulnerability quiz. So
(35:35):
how would Mac, your partner, describe you in a moment
when emotion is high and cognition is low in your household?
So think back to a time when I don't know,
a dirty stock was on the floor, or you stepped
on a lego or uh, dinner wasn't ready when you
(35:55):
came in the door, something where maybe your emotion was
high and your cognity asution was low. I want to
know if Mac would one say that you're long winded,
you're talking to no one's listening. Two that you use
sharp commands sir, your drill sergeant delivery isn't always popular
with the troops. Three you use bad timing, which means
(36:20):
you drop your grievances or request for help and in
opportune moments, Oh, I see your sleeping, but I'm gonna
shake you away because I need to talk to you
if that was happening tomorrow. For toxic word choice or is?
My friend Claudia calls it the verbal assassin, where you
say things in a really calm way, but they are
(36:41):
really really mean, Like I didn't realize you're going to
become the worst father that ever existed? Was that something
that you knew was going to happen to you? Five
all or nothing? You literally never replace the toilet paper roll.
You always keep the seat up. Six dredging up the past.
(37:03):
This is just like the last time you data DA
or finally, seven which is avoidance and boiling over. I
didn't say anything. I really didn't want to say anything.
I really really didn't want to have this conversation. But
now I'm really really pissed. What do you think Mac
would say about you? I have a big smile on
my face. As you've been reading all of those you
(37:26):
know what's so interesting is that I pride myself on
being an excellent communicator and do it for a living,
and yet I still have communication conflicts with my partner,
which is so fascinating to me. I would have to
say different situations would warrant different responses, but I like
the drill sergeant. I feel like that would be a
(37:48):
common complaint. Mm hmmm, well that's mine too, So maybe
that's why we get along so well. Uh. Seth often
says I sound like nails on the chalkboard every time
I say anything, and it's very very sharp commands. And
I think the beauty of really understanding and starting to
think about your own vulnerabilities, and I hope our listeners
(38:12):
will do this alongside us as well, is that it
gives the humor. It disarms things. When you have an
invitation that Dan Stillman was talking about to come to
the table. You know, often people are afraid afraid to
come to the table if they're used to a pattern
of you in your communication vulnerability. So when you can
(38:35):
start saying things, or when I was able to start
saying things to Seth like okay, I know I sound
like nails on the chalkboard. I know you don't want
to talk to me because my tone sucks, But I
promise you that in this invitation, I'm going to do better.
It not only disarms the other person, but it allows
and opens up that invitation that we talked about today
in a way that's much more palatable to the person
(38:59):
you're speaking with. Yeah, it's almost like you become so
self aware. You know what they're thinking and how they're
feeling in that moment because you've been in that pattern
so many times before, and you're calling yourself out. And
I think in many ways, as you enter a high
conflict conversation, being able to call yourself out, have a
(39:19):
little humor going into it, like Daniel said, going into
it with an open mind. You said something so wonderful
about if you want the outcome to be anger than
going with anger, or if you want the outcome to
be sadness and going with sadness. And of course we
don't want anger sadness in the conversations. We want resolution.
And so by owning your own stuff and your own
(39:41):
conversational vulnerabilities and communication vulnerabilities, I think that's one great
first step into bringing together a conversation that ends in
reconciliation and if not reconciliation, just a deeper understanding and
low conflict. And so, based on Eve's quiz, think about
(40:02):
Daniels communication tips and ask yourself, who are you as
you enter these high conflict conversations and how are you
going to start changing the conversation. Next week we'll be
starting to talk about the three permissions needed to fully
dive into your unicorn space. We have a special guest,
(40:22):
Greg McEwen, one of my favorite authors of essential ism
and his new book Effortless, and we get to talk
to him about the perks and the permission to be
unavailable from your roles. Thank you for listening to Time Out,
a production of I Heart Podcasts, and Hello Sunshine. I'm
(40:44):
Eve Rodsky, author of the New York Times bestseller fair
Play and Find your Unicorn Space. Follow me on social
media at Eve Rodsky and learn more about our work
at fair Play Life. And I'm Dr Addi Narukar, Harvard
physician with a specialty and stress resilience, burnout, and mental health.
(41:04):
Follow me on social media at dr add ne Rucar
and find out more about my work at dr a
d d dot com. That's d R a d I
t I dot Com. Our Hello Sunshine Team is Amanda Farren,
Aaron Stover, and Jennifer Yonker. Our I Heart Media team
is Ali Perry, Jennifer Bassett and Jessica Kranschitch. We hope
(41:27):
you all love taking a much needed time out with
us today. Listen and subscribe to Time Out on the
I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get
your favorite shows.
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