Wanna be happy? Or Right?

In this episode Randy and Beverly explore the ways that Hearts and Heads use conversations for different purposes and how that can lead to trouble in a relationship, especially when you both think you're right. So grab your partner - nicely - and learn another way that Hearts and Heads end up messing up communication. 

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to Heart vs.
Head, a podcast that helpscouples communicate and fight
better.
Here are your hosts, RandiHampton and Beverly Craddock.

SPEAKER_02 (00:21):
Hey everybody, it's Randy and Beverly.
Welcome to the podcast Heart vs.
Head.
We are talking aboutcommunication and why it's so
darn hard for hearts and headsto communicate.
And we had a client back eastand we were talking with them
and this is probably, I don'tknow, a few months back, but
Beverly, they brought up aninteresting situation and it

(00:43):
prompted a conversation thisweek as you and I were talking
about it.
So we thought this would make areally interesting topic for the
podcast.
tell that story

SPEAKER_01 (00:54):
so in a nutshell she was upset she being the heart
because her husband was on thehomeowners association board at
the condo complex or housingdevelopment I'm not sure and
basically there had been anincident with one of the
neighbors and the husband hadsided with the neighbor and not

(01:19):
with his wife and I I don'tremember what the argument was,
what the

SPEAKER_02 (01:26):
dispute was.

(01:51):
What goes on?

SPEAKER_01 (01:53):
The thing about hearts is we're so driven.
We care about people.
We make decisions around people.
That is, in essence, thedefinition difference is how we
make decisions.
So hearts are driven by theirown internal values, their own
empathy, their desire forharmony.
And it's not always going tomatter what the external outcome

(02:17):
is.
We would rather have the peopleall be getting along So I think
with hearts is we justcommunicate to bond and to
connect with one another.
And so when our partner makes achoice, kind of following that

(02:42):
head perspective, it's going tocause a problem in the
relationship.

SPEAKER_02 (02:47):
The heart communication, as Beverly has
said, is about connecting withone another.
It's about building relationshipwith that other person.
Heads do it a little bitdifferently.
The head partner in arelationship will typically
communicate to solve problems,to fix or to inform, to trade

(03:12):
information with another person.
So I think heads do itdifferently.
And you can see this.
in other parts of communication,heads tend to be very direct.
We will communicate right andwrong.
And this gets to the homeowner'sargument.

(03:34):
The head partner was right onthe facts.
On the facts of the argument,the head partner was right.
The problem was what the headpartner didn't realize.
Here's the secret, heads.
What the head partner didn'trealize is He probably would
rather be happy, right?

(03:55):
Because there's a moment whereyou've got to decide in your
relationship, especially as thehead partner, do I want to be
right?

UNKNOWN (04:04):
Right?

SPEAKER_02 (04:04):
Or do I just want to be happy?
Do I want to be able to getalong?
So heads communicate in thatway.
We're just very direct.
We are very legalistic incommunication, very direct in
communication.
And it feels bad to heart

SPEAKER_01 (04:28):
partners.

(04:52):
And basically, they're treatingpeople more equally.
Whereas a heart, we just do itdifferent.
We're there to care aboutpeople, have that empathy, that
compassion, that connection.
Hearts are more driven by thepeople and making sure
everyone's okay at the end ofthe day.

(05:14):
If a heart, if the woman in thisscenario had to solve the
problem with the neighbor, shewould have gone over and talked
with the neighbor and connectedmore and told them, oh, I
understand how that feels.
That must suck.
And really, with that bond,probably would have handled it

(05:37):
and resolved it.
It's just it would have beendone differently.

SPEAKER_02 (05:42):
Sure.
And the head couldn't get overbeing right and still being in
trouble for it and desperatelyclung to the rightness of his
argument.
That's why they couldn't getresolution on it.

(06:12):
I remember he said, Randy, whyare they so crazy?
Why is it this way?
It's completely irrational.
I'm right.
This is the argument and here'sthe facts and I'm right.
And why is she being soirrational?

(06:32):
And it really, for a head in theworld of right, wrong, black,
white, everything is this way.
It doesn't make sense a lot oftimes that hearts will do that.

(07:12):
You have to understand yourpartner and you have to
understand that in the long run,you got to give up the right to
be right because it's not thatimportant.
You'd rather get along with yourperson.
And heads, we suck at that.
We're just terrible at itbecause I think most heads hang

(07:35):
on to, no, that's the rightthing to do.
It's the right thing to do.
The neighbor's right in thissituation.
I read the bylaws.
I read the standards.
off the neighbor did this andneighbor did that neighbor's
right wife was wrong it's a realclean line in the brain of a
head, but you don't live in yourbrain.
You live in your house with yourpartner.

SPEAKER_01 (07:57):
Who has a heart.
Who has a heart.

SPEAKER_02 (07:59):
Different.
It's just, it is.
It's very, very different.
And it's not always rational.
When you can understand it fromthat approach, when you can
understand that your partner istaking their approach because of
the way that they makedecisions, then I think you're

(08:19):
able to have betterconversations because now as
I've learned if Beverly walksinto a room and goes I'm having
a bad day and this is why Idon't do what I would do if I
felt like I was having a bad dayif I felt like I was having a
bad day I start doing the thingin my head where I'm like well

(08:40):
why was that person mean why wasthat person angry why was that
person that way and start tryingto figure it all out and all
those things So when Beverlycomes to me and says she's
having a bad day, the naturaltendency for me is to start to
figure that out.
And I'll start to ask Beverly,well, maybe that person meant

(09:00):
this.
Or, well, did they do it thisway?
Or maybe it's because they...
whatever.
And it doesn't matter.
Because in that moment, whenBeverly comes in the door...
And she's had a bad day.
And I go, well, maybe that otherperson was having a bad day.
I'm taking their side.

(09:23):
And it's a bad idea and it neverworks out well for us heads if
we do it that way.

(09:52):
I will say, okay, stop.
This is why.
And explain it and stand myground and fight for what I
believe in when it's important.
What's changed in my world isthe definition of when it's
important.
Man, things aren't thatimportant.
When it comes up against beingin love and being in a

(10:15):
relationship and not having thestress and the pressure of all
the other crap in my life, beingright just moved down the list.
And it isn't that I don't standup for things.
So I think heads look at it alittle bit differently.
But I also think that most ofthe heads should be rational
enough to understand when theytruly step back and go, do I

(10:38):
want to be right or do I justwant to be happy?
You want to be happy.
It matters more.
Being right is just not thatimportant in most situations.

SPEAKER_01 (10:49):
And the problem with it is that in those examples
that you gave, usually the headjust jumps in and starts telling
the heart why that's wrong or tosolve that problem for them.
And all of that just comesacross as uncaring, as robotic,
as narcissistic.
That's where a lot of theselabels come from.

(11:09):
And we start throwing aroundthese labels where not even
true.
It's just our partner makesdecisions differently and looks
at things differently, and wedon't always understand that.
And so when they're not like us,when they aren't caring and
putting people first, then wethink, oh, well, they must be

(11:32):
the opposite of that.
It must be the uncaring robot.
There was another thing thathappened with that couple that I
want to point out, a secondlearning there, which was she
was upset for, number one, thathe didn't see it her way.
And the second thing, though,was when her husband chose to

(11:57):
back the neighbor, he was beingso kind to her.
And that kindness was viewed as,oh, why is he being so kind to
the neighbor?
He must be manipulating her ordoing it for his ego, male ego
needs an ego stroke.

(12:18):
But what we had to really breakdown and explain to this couple
is that heads are sometimesdoing things because they just
align with goals or principles.
If they're going after aprinciple, it's this kind of
fairness or kind of black andwhite thinking.

(12:39):
Maybe he was trying to treateveryone equally, or maybe he
was being nice because he's onthe board, he wants to get
reelected.
But with heads, there's always agoal.
There's always usually somereason, some strategic reasoning
behind

SPEAKER_02 (12:54):
it.
or the problem, whatever it waswith the neighbor, it's entirely

(13:18):
possible that the head looked atthat situation and went, well,
if I go this way, it helps meover here with this other thing.
So if the neighbor wins this,then we can deal with this other
thing in a different way, or itgives us leverage, or I need the
neighbor to do a better job ofshoveling their snow or

(13:41):
something like that.
And if I give them this thenthey'll be more likely to do
that so then the niceness comesin potentially just as part of
that process of solving not justthe one problem but solving
other problems potentially

SPEAKER_01 (14:00):
prevention for down the road we had to explain
really to the heart how it'sdifferent for heads and hearts
and that the meaning isn't hewas being nice to her because he
had feelings for her or was insecretly in love with her or any
of those type of motives, thatreally there could be all these

(14:20):
other reasons for why he wasbeing nice to that person.
And then we also explained a lotof times with hearts, the reason
that we feel compelled to benice is mostly because we're
emotionally attuned to otherpeople's feelings.
And sometimes we eveninternalize other people's

(14:41):
emotional states.
We tend to if someone isstressed, we might feel
stressed.
And it's that empathy andkindness that causes us to be
nice.
So it's more of an intrinsicreason why hearts can really
care about people and reallyfeel what they're feeling.

(15:04):
And so therefore, our kindnessis more from an intrinsic versus
heads come from that moreexternal.
Whether it's principle,fairness, efficiency, or
reasoning.

SPEAKER_02 (15:18):
Strategy.
And a lot of times it's viewedas manipulation when the head is
doing it.
Manipulation, though, wouldinvolve probably some intent.
And a lot of times heads aren'teven using it with intention.
It's just the way we think.
It's not that we intend tomanipulate a person.

(15:41):
We're just trying to get to thegoal.

SPEAKER_01 (15:43):
Well.
Well, and again, it could bebased around fairness, justice,
structure.
There are a lot of reasons whythinkers might have that motive.
And they, for the most part, aremorally sound, you know, strong
reasons for that niceness.
So we really need to take amoment when things are going on

(16:04):
in the relationship.
We need to try to understandwhat's happening, ask more
questions, less accusations, andwhen we really listen to our
partner, realizing that they'renot the same as us, then we can
actually get to the real reasonbehind what's going on,
understand it, and communicateabout that.

SPEAKER_02 (16:27):
Beverly, you are absolutely right.
I don't need to be right, noteven on this.
That's the podcast for today,everybody.
Thank you so much for tuning in,and we will talk to you soon.
Go talk to your partner and Takethis head and heart stuff into
account and recognize how itchanges how you do what you do.

UNKNOWN (16:56):
I love it.

SPEAKER_00 (16:59):
Thanks for listening to Heart vs.
Head.
You can learn more atheartandheadcoaching.com and
check out new podcast episodesevery Wednesday.
If you have a question for Randyand Beverly, send an email to
info atheartandheadcoaching.com.