Ever found yourself in a heated argument where emotions ran high, and wished you had a strategy to navigate through it?
Confronting the inevitable storms of relationship conflicts with grace isn't just a skill—it's a necessity for high-value men seeking excellence.
In this episode Josh and I discuss active ways to resolve conflict, communicate better and work through the 4 Horsemen of relationship demise.
===> Join the weekly newsletter and get your free copy of 5 Steps to Becoming a High Value Man
Ever found yourself in a heated argument where emotions ran high, and wished you had a strategy to navigate through it?
Confronting the inevitable storms of relationship conflicts with grace isn't just a skill—it's a necessity for high-value men seeking excellence.
In this episode Josh and I discuss active ways to resolve conflict, communicate better and work through the 4 Horsemen of relationship demise.
===> Join the weekly newsletter and get your free copy of 5 Steps to Becoming a High Value Man
This is the High Value man Conversation Podcast, a show dedicated to the mission of building high value men, men that are courageous, committed and uncompromising in their pursuit of greatness. You run the day and stop having them.
Speaker 2:Run you. Monday, get better, tuesday get better, wednesday get better. Everybody's good when they're not tired. Champions is when they're tired. That's when the real champions come out. The next day get up, get up, get up, get up, keep going, win. I'm going to win, as far away from these dreams as you think you are.
Speaker 1:One great man means a great family, a great neighborhood, a better city. The four horsemen of the apocalypse, the end of times. One of them is pestilence, famine like just rot decay and death, and it is the end. It is the end of all good things is when these four horsemen show up. John Gottman also talked about the four horsemen of relationship destruction.
Speaker 1:Four things that show up that will predict the end of time, the apocalypse of your relationship, and we're going to be going over these four things. These four things are critical pieces of conflict resolution. If you avoid these four things, don't hit them face on, it is like welcoming one of the four horsemen of death into your relationship. And so you have to face this conflict with the right tools. Understand, recognize them, how it shows up for you and your partner, work through them with fluidity so that they don't create the apocalypse in your relationship. I love that. Can we go through each one of those? Yeah, so, john Gottman, an American psychologist, I'm going to read these so that I get them dialed in just right for you guys.
Speaker 1:But first one is criticism, and so the thing we're going to talk about today, too, is understanding the difference between criticism and complaint Very different and you guys talk about this a lot in your coaching is that complaints are necessary in a relationship. They actually create closeness, but criticisms attack the character rather than complaining about the situation. Then there's defensiveness, which typically shows up in relation to a criticism. This is where there is just not a there's a lack of responsibility being taken. The next level, that in the third horsemanman, is stonewalling, where you're ignoring, you're disconnecting, you're completely just avoiding the conflict that's taking place. We've got criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling and the very last one. This is, as you say, it is the nail in the coffin and it's contempt. This is where the meanness just starts coming out. Sarcasm, I think, is a version of contempt, but contempt is just where the bitterness, the resentment, all of it comes out towards your partner, yeah, where contempt shows up, that the individual that's been part of this can do no right by you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even like the way they eat their chicken. Yes, the way that they even tie their shoes. There's something wrong with you. You're an idiot. Yeah, when that starts to show up, that's a clear picture of contempt. And contempt is very fluid on the scale of, you know, one to 10 as far as content. But if 1% of contempt shows up in a relationship where that's again business or romantic, that's often considered by research to be the nail to the coffin, very hard to come back from yeah.
Speaker 1:So again, criticism, criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling and contempt. Recognizing these four horsemen in any of your relationships romantic, personal or business is going to be the way that you actually preserve the relationship, because what they're actually showcasing is an opportunity to resolve conflict. Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, that's great. What I want to do is talk about firefighting. Okay, there's so many times and I just think back over the past, over the last 10 years, it's been a really tremendous shift in my life and all these different areas of my life. But thinking back to my 30s and younger and just how I live life, especially from teens through my entire 20s, probably until I'm about 30 years old, is I lived life from crisis to crisis. I mean literally crisis to crisis, whether that was paycheck to paycheck, drink to drink, bar to bar, relationship to relationship, Everything was crisis to crisis. So I never thought beyond those.
Speaker 1:I just encountered moment to moment, and it was always firefighting Sure. So, as you can, as you can imagine, when you live that way, just conflict finds you Right. Well, because you're avoiding the real root cause problems and you're just putting out the symptomatic fires.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're stopping out a fire here, stopping out a fire there, ignoring the blaze of the force in front of you? Yes, essentially so in firefighting is reactive communication. We want to hover this on on on communication, but it's reactive communication. And I love the idea of crisis to crisis, because on some form of area, we can all think about a crisis in our life where we either thought about it, maybe we didn't take the time to have the conversation, we didn't do the action or show up with great effort to to make the thing happen, and we lived our life in our default lane over here, before you know it, there's a full-on fight, fire, crisis, whatever you want to call it, and so at this point we're having to react because we didn't do the work that was necessary prior to, and it's very painful. It's very painful Typically in these areas is where fear shows up up both in you and the people around you.
Speaker 2:Hurts are created. There's always going to be residue of that of hurts, and then typically, just the way that people are is it's a reactive version of themselves versus a responsive version of themselves. So you're really getting the worst of yourself put out there and you're experiencing the worst of other people when you live a life that is reactive and firefighting Very painful. But to picture in your head what that looks like, go back to those moments and I we use it, uh, nlp type scenario where go back to see what you saw, feel what you felt, hear what you heard, because every time we've lived a scenario like that it's typically catastrophic. Sure, the pain that's involved in that, the ripple effect that's involved with that Very painful. So firefighting, which is where defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism and contempt lead you to, is you end up experiencing life as a firefighter.
Speaker 1:And there's no joy in that. I imagine you guys have coached a lot of couples in the dynamic of how to have better communication. I think back in some of the tools that you have given me as I worked with you guys through relationship aspects. You know when contempt shows up, when defensiveness shows up, all those have to be nipped in the bud right away, because what you're only doing when you're focusing on a coaching session is you're fighting just the fire in front of you, right, and so you're dealing with like the one problem rather than the feeling underneath, like oh well, she said this or he said this or they didn't follow through with this, whatever it is, but you're just talking about the surface level stuff and that's just the firefight that josh is describing. The firefighting is only focusing on what is burning rather than what is really underneath the surface, which is the feelings and the emotions and the real conflict that needs to be had.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we're not. We're not addressing the core issues by any means. It's always just the outcome, yeah, the outcome of what the moments created. Again, how we feel, what so-and-so said or did, but really it doesn't go back back. It all goes back to typically a few moments or a few scenarios where conflict was avoided. Conflict was avoided we talked about this before in a previous show. Is that conflict avoided? Is conflict allowed to mature? Yeah, so the longer amount of time that you allow to go on from a moment, the more it's it's. We'll stick with the firefighting uh terminology, but the more it's it's that's we'll stick with the firefighting terminology, but the more it's it's allowed to. What was that old movie? Bad draft, the more it's allowed to. Bad draft, such a good one. And so, like the moment the door opens, it's I mean, you're just a explosion, you're absolutely consumed.
Speaker 1:Where, in the moment where you had a spark, if you take, even though it didn't feel good, but you had the opportunity, you showed up, you had the correct atmosphere, timing and verbiage, yeah, and you took care of it issue, you know, disappears or it shrinks right, and so the purpose of this conversation today is all around conflict resolution, healthy tools for it, because if you don't resolve the conflict in your relationship, your romantic relationship or your business relationship, these four apocalyptic forces will show up in some level. You'll notice you're getting more critical or being more criticized, that there's level of defensiveness. You can't get anything right, there's a stonewall or avoidance technique that shows up in the relationship, or there's just a contempt for the other person's character. And so conflict resolution, conflict done healthily creates deeper connection. Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2:And we can probably have this conversation back and forth, Aaron, but I fall so hard on this sword of that true connection is made through conflict.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying go out and punch someone in the face just so you can make a friend. Probably not going to happen that way, no that. But if you shout a friend, you should test it, let's go um. But I have noticed in the closest relationships in my life they're as close and as valuable to me that they are because of the amount of conflict that we walk through together 100. So I, I love, I I don't uh, I would say keep your eyes open for conflict as far as yeah, that goes, embrace it.
Speaker 1:Embrace it, have a thick skin with it and recognize that conflict. When someone is willing to have conflict with you, there's typically a reason for it. They typically care about the relationship, and so being able to step into that with the right tools which we're going to talk over here in just a second but recognize that conflict will create deeper closeness. The avoidance of conflict, just as Josh said, will create an amplification of the destruction.
Speaker 2:Side note, and some folks are going to laugh out of this, and I'm sure you will too, because you've talked about it, but I've got a birthday coming up that's a big one for me next year and my request for that birthday has been my 12 closest guy friends to take me into a storage container with a single light bulb and basically be 12 on one, and that is a type of physical conflict. I wasn't aware of this. Well, you're invited because, um, this won't be again, because conflict really does create the opportunity for closeness, your brotherhood, that can be met with that. So put that on your calendar. Next January is a big one for me. I've asked Aaron, I've asked Nick about some people to make this happen for me, so we'll do that. We'll grow closer together.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, I like violence, bring violence back, make violence great again. Yeah, indeed, one of the the first apocalyptic forces inside the four horsemen is criticism. Now criticism, I believe for most people, starts out with a request. Criticism is a request gone bad, and so understanding the difference between how criticism and a complaint show up inside is a request gone bad, and so understanding the difference between how criticism and a complaint show up inside of a dynamic of communication is really your first tool to be able to create closeness rather than additional confrontation. So I know you guys do a good job breaking this down inside of your same team coaching, but what's the difference between a criticism and in a complaint? Yeah, how you see the how you onboarded.
Speaker 2:That was really great. We we use different verbiage called bids, so we make bids in relationship, whether it's in the marketplace or home, whether it's a bid to connect or a bid to understand, and the fact that, uh, that oftentimes if those aren't met, then of course little little buds of criticism can be born in that. But the big difference between complaints and criticism is a complaint is circumstantial. It's circumstantial. It's about that moment where a criticism is character based. You always it's you, yes for sure.
Speaker 2:So like a complaint in my house would be like my, my sweet wife had dinner and threw her dish in the sink. It didn't wash it out. So a complaint would be honey, like, listen, it would mean a lot to me if you would spray your bowl out so that I don't feel like I have to go and scrub this thing, because we all know how noodles stick to the side of the bowl. If you don't wash them off, you've got to break out the SOS pad, and so that's a complaint. It's about the thing versus a criticism.
Speaker 2:You always leave a mess. You don't care about me. Yeah, you're selfish. All you care about is you, like you ate, you put it in there because, honestly, you could give a shit about me and I'm glad I mean nothing to you. Let me just go over there and be, you know, your little cleaning boy. Have a good night, go take a bubble bath. So it's really tough to come back from that when your spirit goes that way. So we have to whether it be in relationships or business or with our kids we have to make space for complaints. Complaints are an opportunity to link up, to be in unity with one another, to share things that are important to value. It's when criticisms show up we start to realize we're taking character swings. That's a criticism and those are no-goes. No-goes on criticisms, but make room for complaints.
Speaker 1:I love that this is a self-awareness tool that you're gonna have to work on as a man, because I think that one area that I know that I lean into I don't want to project on you, but I know that I lean into is my coaching dynamic. From the coaching dynamic, there is the ability to speak forcefully to somebody from the standpoint of like, I need to get a point across because, um, you think about in in sports, right, look at sidelines the super bowl is just this past weekend. The coaches are delivering what may feel like a criticism, but it's a urgent message in the time of urgency. So, like, I need to get this, this point across right now and there's not going to be always like the best opportunity and atmosphere and love and dub behind it, because I just need to get the point across. And so the way that that dynamic has been an area that I'm growing in the most, because I put my coaching out a lot. Coaching is easy for me. I think about like and I just need to get this message.
Speaker 1:It also turns into what can be a disconnect in a relationship.
Speaker 1:I'm still learning a lot on that, but from the standpoint I think of a recent incident.
Speaker 1:I fired a client recently and in this firing of the clients there were feelings involved because the relationship was breached, there was things not met on his side, and I had an opportunity to complain or criticize and I thought about this for a minute.
Speaker 1:I was like what is going to leave a more lasting impression and I chose to go down the criticism route. That was much more focused on character development versus the situation and the defensiveness. I mean, this is the four horsemen showing up in this ending of the relationship. The defensiveness in this is that I know for a fact that how you do anything is how you do everything, and so if I left this stone unturned and just complained about the one situation showed up without really linking the points from the standpoint that, more than likely, how you're showing up in this coaching relationship is how you're showing up in your other dynamics. And so, uh yeah, from that the relationship ended and I'm okay with it Because, at the end of the day, I'm here to serve men and I believe that the message behind that was more powerful than just complaining about the circumstantial situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there are unique scenarios where men need the truth, yeah, and I think you chose to deliver something that didn't feel good, for the simple fact that it's good for this man to know the truth, and I think also, behind that um is is a love like I, the only reason I'm doing this, the only reason I'm saying this, one reason I'm willing to go there with you because I care about you, yeah, and if you're not going to care about you as much as I'm going to care about you, I'm at least going to leave you with something you can walk away with, and it stinks, it hurts, and I also I I think about the mentors in my life that have had very direct critical attacks on my character, things that I have done and acting like a knucklehead.
Speaker 1:I needed that. I needed that voice, that fatherly voice, that disciplinary voice, to let me know that what I was doing not only the situation, behavior, the act was wrong, but how my character was showing up. I needed that like direct, sharp criticism in order for me to grow. And I think that that's in the area where the world of men the rules are slightly different than in your romantic relationship. I know wholeheartedly I can't put a coaching hat on in any frame whatsoever inside of a romantic relationship. It doesn't work. Coaching inside a romantic relationship does not work, and so what works at work will not work with your woman. That's wise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nothing else to do to edit that. That's pretty wise. Lesson learned the hard way on that yeah. So that's a great story, aaron, of a conflict resolution that maybe wasn't handled so well, even though it was potentially what the person needed to have.
Speaker 2:Sure, on the flip side of that not to be the flip side of you, but the flip side of that is, I had an interaction with a man just about a week and a half ago, a subcontractor, who we owed money to, and the individual called me and, literally from the moment I picked up, went on a five, five-minute, emotional, flooded rant, yelling, cussing, really laying to my character, just completely, just going off the rails, for I say five minutes pipe, four minutes and 45 seconds is really how long this was. And I sat there just taking it and I honestly don't get, for the sake of his name, was to call him Charlie, as he got towards the end, and I thought it was towards the end because typically in conversation, a monologue, there's a little gap before someone's taking a breath, and so I said charlie, are you done? Charlie, are you? And so I kept saying this because I thought he was finishing up this rant and, uh, at one point he yelled and he goes don't you call me charlie? And I said well, charlie, that's that's name, what else am I supposed to call you? And um, that that he cussed me a few times like that. But just you don't. You don't know who I am.
Speaker 2:And I said listen, are you finished? I want to make sure you got out what you needed to say so I can tell you what I need to tell you. Can I tell you what I need to say? I asked him permission. Can I have a payment going up to you Thursday? I wanted you to know that he was like I mean, he just spent five minutes going off into that, but that conversation ended pretty quickly. After that, say listen, I'll let you know when that's been processed, means that you know you're gonna have great. He ends up calling me. It was Friday or Saturday the same week, just in a complete just wanted to apologize for showing up being complete ass.
Speaker 2:This was diarrhea all over just completely did and apologize to me. Lo and behold, he actually leads a group of people and wanted to share our interaction of the difference of being led by the flesh versus being led by the spirit. So what he got out of that is, he was in a complete emotionally flooded state, which I also do. Yeah, but because I set the atmosphere for our conversation how I showed up didn't change at all, my tongue was always the same is he was actually able to reset himself and Utilize our conversation as a teaching tool. So it's another picture of what equanimity, but even just conflict resolution, can look like, even though it doesn't feel like the problem itself was resolved. He was getting his payment, but just how I showed up in the moment helped him resolve the problem within himself.
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, and that's the. I think that's the ultimate goal is to be able to remain emotionally grounded, no matter what conflict is coming your way. So, conflict resolution you can't have two people in the height of emotional flooding or in conflict, otherwise you're going to get the four horsemen. You're going to get the four horsemen where it's like, okay, I'm going to be now contemptuous and critical and defensiveness and stonewalling just turns into the. Both you guys are equipped with the negative force the the four horsemen versus one person, choosing to be emotionally more mature and just say you know what, I'm gonna, let you go and just vent it all out. And it actually resolves the conflict by a taking control of the atmosphere, your tone, your pitch, your cadence, the words that you're using and de-escalating that person's nervous system. Essentially, no, I love that.
Speaker 2:It doesn't expose the fact that I'm emotionless, so not like I suppressed how I felt. What I didn't give this gentleman is I didn't give him the power to trigger me. That's good. And so this can happen so frequently in men is that we, somebody, will say something or do something and all of that creates this, this reaction in us, and that's really what he wanted he was, and he exposed me later that, like he's a financial, personal, financial bind, he was having issues in his home and one of his children are sick and I just happened to get the phone call. Sure, nice, shocking to work out that way, yeah, but what happened in the moment? The reason it was able to reach the resolve that it reached, is because I didn't give him the opportunity to trigger me, that's good I'd see a feature episode talking about triggers.
Speaker 1:I hate that word but it's true Like that is. That is a popular word because of people's low emotional equanimity, there's a high level of emotional reactivity, and so most of us are walking around with some form of trigger just waiting to happen Parking lots, traffic, you know someone says something, but job doesn't go the way you want, and so you're living in this triggered state where you're just creating more conflict. Yeah, we'll definitely have to do that. Okay, so we've talked about the four horsemen. Let's do some tools.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we talked about the worst case, like how do you resolve this? You know the complaint versus criticism. We discussed that complaints are healthy and imagine we, the, the listeners, can fall back on the previous episode we talked about actually how you communicate in a healthy place. One is going to be the remind me again the environment, yeah, so atmosphere, yeah, and the timing. Atmosphere, timing, delivery, love that. So if you're going to deliver a complaint like and you want to create this closeness, first and foremost, you've got to cover those communication foundations. Yes, for sure, this is phase two, when there's conflict arising.
Speaker 2:We literally have three options of how we show up in the moment. So you want these to be responsive, not reactive. Remember, if you're reactive in a moment, then you're firefighting. Sure, there's no third direction or no second direction. But if you're going to respond to a circumstance or scenario, then here's your three options. You have the option to turn towards the individual and if you guys are only listening to my voice, I'm turning towards Aaron. We're facing each other. So we have the option to turn towards.
Speaker 2:You have the option to turn against, which is really I'm putting up my fists, I'm getting ready to verbally or even physically go against you. That's turning against, or turning away, which we talked about earlier, is stonewalling, defensiveness. These are some of the areas that have turning away. Is we physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually turn away from, to get up, to get away from the scenario? So you have three options when responding to any given problem or conflict turn towards, which is unifying, yeah. Turn against, which is just fighting, or turn away, which is retreating. So this is again in parenting and in marketplace, in your, in your romantic relationships. Those are three ways you can respond to any given conflict.
Speaker 1:I love that and in that response, go back and listen to the previous episode on communication. Once you turn towards that person, then your goal is to make sure that's the right environment, atmosphere, that's the right time, yes, and that your body language, tone, cadence and the words that you're using are all chosen with intent. Yes, yeah, so good. So after the turning towards like that, become the critical piece of, let's just say, in the in the conflict.
Speaker 1:The conflict's so heated, I'm emotionally flooded and charged like I just need a little bit of space, which is there's nothing wrong with that. We certainly need to take space and time, but I need to get some counsel. And so I, which is there's nothing wrong with that. We certainly need to take space and time, but I need to get some counsel. And so I think that there's there's probably healthy counsel and very unhealthy counsel in conflict resolution, where if you're going to gossip, case build or to connect with somebody that doesn't have what you want in a relationship and you're going to vent and complain, that's not healthy counsel, because that's actually putting more poison inside the relationship dynamic versus having a healthy person in your life a relationship coach, a team to go to a pastor, to go to someone that is neutral in the space. That will actually give you the healthy feedback that you need to hear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so true. I would say, aaron, this is my opinion, because it's not factual. Just my experience is the reason why most people don't see counseling through or don't see coaching through. It's how good it is. They reach out to an individual like that because they want to be justified. Yeah, this is what happened to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is what this person did yeah, this is how I'm reacting to that person. Let's go Now. Tell me I'm right, yeah, and a good coach will fire you if you're being an asshole. Tell me I'm right, yeah, and a good coach will fire you if you're being an asshole. For sure, 100% Sure, because they will not maintain a relationship with someone that is not living in integrity. And that's a good coach, a good counselor, a good person in your life where you want to seek advice from. You want the level of neutrality and direct feedback where you can actually grow in the relationship, not stay stuck. Feedback where you can actually grow in the relationship, not stay stuck.
Speaker 2:And again this, this fear of people, of who people naturally turn to, is in the midst of difficulty.
Speaker 1:Conflict, whatever it is, uh can often turn to a parent, a mother or father can often turn to, maybe a brother or sister, a sibling Um, you're better off without that person. Potentially my neighbor, someone went to college with, and they all and again we turn to those people.
Speaker 2:Generally speaking, so that we can be justified in how we're reacting Versus someone that we're talking about here, You've got to know who you're seeking counsel towards, and I think the biggest thing is do they have the fruit that you want?
Speaker 1:So the whole point of counsel, anyway, think of the Fortune 150s of the world.
Speaker 2:It's not to pat me on my back. Tell me I'm doing things right. No, tell me my blind spots, show me where I'm not seeing. Give me a reason to not make this business deal, because if you can't, then I'm going to do it that type of thinking. So, again, we've got to discover that the people we turn towards, the people that we're leaning on when matters, when, when moments matter the most, is got to be people that we don't want to speak life over us, that are going to challenge our thinking. That's going to say you know what you? You got to own your part of this. Quit being focused on what he or she did. Be focused on what you can change and change yourself. And, by the way, go home. Don't go to the bar, don't bust open, open a beer and take, take your tail and go own what you can be responsible for.
Speaker 1:So counsel is such a big deal. I love that. I love that. So we've got turn towards have a good, healthy counsel. These are the tools to improve your conflict resolution so you don't just stay in the firefighting mode. And what I really hear the kind of space for this is proactive communication. Like you're being proactive, you're not letting things fester, you're not letting them turn into a an area of neglect that's going to create indifference or contempt or stone one, because you're actually facing the conflict right on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the other, so you mentioned the one. Turning towards turning against is is this a hill that you want to die on? Oh, so good. Is this the sword you want to fall on? Does it mean that much to you?
Speaker 1:right now. Yeah, write in your notes, visit in a few hours, see if it still means that much to you. Yeah, and have a safe place that you can just let that out with other men too. So if you're talking romantic relationship like, have a place where you get to let out the fury, like towards whatever dynamic is coming up in a safe place and container, because guys will get it. You know guys will get it and they'll be able to say, all right, cool, do you feel better? I do, thank you, and then it'll be that. That's it, because we understand the chaos inside our brain.
Speaker 2:But if you bring that into the relationship dynamic and let that vomitous energy out, it just creates so much destruction you can't repair, yeah, which we actually have going on right now within our hvm community.
Speaker 1:Shameless plug, talk about that the safe place for guys to talk about 100.
Speaker 1:So you know, one of the one of the formats that we do is not only share the wins, but we have a vice dump, and a part of the vice dump is anger.
Speaker 1:Frustration, irritation, anger whatever it is that you're walking through is being able to have a container and have a guide to be able to hold space for that. At the end of the day and this is probably one of the biggest issues that we're seeing in our country and our society right now so many guys are the lone wolves. They're isolated, they're alone, they're suffering in silence. They're not understanding why they're not getting their needs met with their woman at work or inside the world. It's because they're not spending time with healthy men, and if your only relationship is your partner, your spouse, your significant other, your wife, your woman, your girlfriend, she's the only person. She's getting the best and the worst of you because you're not actually getting other men to help correct and recalibrate. She can't be your closest confidants and your lover at the same time, and so having a place to be able to be a man and actually get some counsel is essential to you becoming a man. That's it and that's the place to do it, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's the place to do it. And then the last thing, again, turning away from is really just fleeing, just suppression In between your actions. I don't know how to say what I need to say. I shouldn't feel this way. Maybe I'm just being a big daisy here, or whatever you want to call yourself. I'm bringing the word back, whatever, um. And so my question here is like how's that working out for you? Yeah, you know, if you're, if you're always in retreat, how's it working out for you? Yeah, you've got to be aware of these three opportunities and start to train yourself to turn towards those scenarios. Go face-to-face with it, have the communication you need to have and have it sooner rather than later. Yeah, again, conflict with given time. Is conflict allowed to mature, conflict ignored, is conflict amplified? Yes, and it will backdraft on you. By the way, go see that movie. It's been a while.
Speaker 1:Great movie, that's a good 90s reference, maybe even older, maybe 80s, yeah, okay, so let's, I want to recap some of these tools, because this was a this was a great episode with a lot of meat in it, so we talked about the four horsemen. One thing that, if you've got criticism showing up, there is a tool that you guys actually talked about, but it's the gentle startup, and so, rather than criticizing, recognize, okay, I need to complain about something, but I need to gently warm up the situation, and so I'm going to come in, I'm going to come in easy. I'm coming to kind of cool start rather than hot, coming out of the gun gate with your guns blazing.
Speaker 2:Like, rather than hot, coming out of the gun with your guns blazing. That's not a gentle start-up. That's where criticism really turns into an impact. You want to do something really difficult. Jump on a treadmill when it's set at 18 as a speed Great example. You want to start at a 2, work your way up to a 3, a 4, get to an 8, then work your way up to a sprint. Conversation's the same way, gentle start-up.
Speaker 1:If defensiveness is showing up in your relationship, dynamic, and first place to talk about this is don't point the finger at your partner, because if it's showing up in your partner, it's also showing up at you, like your relationship is a mirror. So anything that you can point out of them, guess what it's showing up in you as well. And so if defensiveness is showing up, take responsibility. That's the antidote for this horseman of defensiveness. Take responsibility, ownership and responsibility. Yeah, that's big what you're willing to own. You're willing to change Love, that Stonewalling.
Speaker 1:So stonewalling is the ignoring, the avoidance Left untreated. This turns into a feeling of neglect between you and your partner. But there is, I think there's a healthy mechanic on this where you need to self-soothe and so there might be a need for a timeout. But to give your timeout a time frame and this is something I learned from you guys Cool, we have a little bit of conflict. We need time to de-escalate, relax the nervous system. I need to come back to this in an hour and this is a literal, not an inferential. We're going to come back to this later, but we're going to come back to this. Have a conversation an hour, max 24 hours, because we need to de-escalate and calm down.
Speaker 2:Yes, timeouts are allowed when you have a strategic time in yes period, yeah, and it's up to you to honor that. So, especially if you're in, if you're married or in relationship and you ask for a timeout, do not make your spouse come back at the time in time and say are we going to talk about this now? No, it's your responsibility, don't be a bitch. If you put it on the calendar, if you ask for the time off, then you better be the one that says okay, now I'm ready to reengage, I've collected my thoughts, I'm ready to lead this conversation. That is a picture of true masculine leadership.
Speaker 1:Oh, your stuff, it's good. And the last piece, contempt, as contempt shows up the way and you and your antidote for contempt is appreciation. And so finding things to be grateful thankful for creating a love list that you don't even have to give to your partner, but finding three, four or five things throughout the day that you're grateful. What's the tool that you guys session, session, session. Yeah, so session is a check-in route use it.
Speaker 2:You can. You can sashay at any time of day. Again, this is your, this is your atmosphere and your timing. This is a lot where this comes from. We would sashay at nighttime, right before we ate. We sit down with our dinner and as we're eating, we would do a sashay. So sashay is just a check-in stands for sad, angry, silly, happy, excited tender. So Sasha S A S H.
Speaker 1:E.
Speaker 2:T, you can go back and replay this for those, for those breakdowns, but we're just to check in. Hey, listen, today I'm checking in. I just want you to know that I felt sad that when I got home you weren't here, uh, but then you also decided to make a standard, which you haven't done in a while. I feel very tender towards you because you chose to do that this really tasty boom to check it. Men in general are not great at exposing emotions. You want to have a great relationship with your spouse. You want to have a great relationship with your partner, with your children. You want a great sex life. Amen, then. Exposing our emotions need to become more fluid in our lives. I love iPhone for this reason. I hate iPhone for this reason. Is shirts on? I'm sure it's on Android too, but we've got these great emojis and we like to communicate with emoji, so we'll show an emoji without actually expressing what that meant to us.
Speaker 2:Sashay is a great opportunity to verbally be in proximity. I love that. So presence, take this down. This is. I don't mean to side travel this, but we will. That presence does not. That presence does not does not just mean proximity. Just because we're next to each other Doesn't mean I'm being present. Present means yes, we're next to each other, but also I'm looking at you. You've got my attention, my eyes, not on my phone, not on my phone and now I'm going to verbally express something to you that's meaningful to me and I know it's meaningful to you too to sashay and check in.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that. I love that. So we we a little bit off topic on that because that wasn't the tool I was thinking of, but I love it is that, um, as you are creating your way, your antidote for contempt, so contempt, contempt has shown up in the relationship. Appreciation, admiration for your partner is an essential way, and so creating a list of like three things you're grateful for, grateful for about your partner is such a good tool that gets you in the mindset of working through whatever other feelings are coming up. Nobody forced you in that relationship, wherever you are.
Speaker 2:if there's contempt, at some point you are nuts about that person. A hundred percent. Yeah, go back to those moments and remember why you were nuts about that person. I bet you, they haven't changed, you've just decided not to see it anymore.
Speaker 1:So good that stings. I like that. It's good, all right, so we've got the antidote for the four horsemen. You want to focus on proactive communication. You want to really focus on the understanding that there can be complaints, but to have a proper complaint, you need to create the environment for healthy communication. First and foremost. Have good counsel to be able to turn to, as a relationship is going to be really a reflection of the input that you're getting for your relationship. So have the men, have the, the groups you're part of, have the counselors, the coaches, the therapists, whatever that looks like inside of your life. So you're getting good wisdom. I think the last piece that I want to land on is that to resolve conflict, you need to connect first. Right, so there'll be any type of correction, behavioral correction, whether it be with your kids, with your partner, with your spouse, with your business, with your employees. Especially, there needs to be a feeling of connection before the correction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, here's a great jab for you. So take your mask off so I can hit who. Everyone is listening that correction without connection is nothing more than abuse. Correction without connection is nothing more than abuse and I know that comes comes across very strong. But if I'm going to and again this is whether with our children or their spouse and I, I challenge you, tread lightly with the word correction with your spouse, your romantic partner. It's not your job to correct them. It is your job to lead them. But the only way to lead is for them to know that you care deeply about them, which requires a connection now with our children.
Speaker 2:Most of you out there will have children, or you weren't children at some point in your life. Is that if you're going to correct your children, do it in a way where you've connected with them first with this eyeball, the eyeball. Try to understand what they were thinking, be with them as you're correcting them. If it's always just do this or don't do that, it's literally a type of emotional abuse because they don't understand, help them understand.
Speaker 1:But to stay on the relationship side is, again, if you're ever going to correct again, I think, the word is, can create a little sensitivity around it, but a goal of a correction is just to change trajectory Right, and so any type of a micro connection correction while we're driving, like a small micro movement, can change the trajectory of a car or a plane, and so all we're doing is we're correcting the trajectory of the relationship, and so there's going to be natural there's in every relationship.
Speaker 1:I need to correct the direction, and this is not necessarily I need to correct you or your character. Remember the difference between criticism and complaint but we're making complaints so that we can correct the trajectory that we're both agreeing that we're walking on. I agree with that. Yeah, it's good, it's good, okay. So quick recap on this avoiding conflict, neglecting to have conflict and the absence of conflict is actually the foundation and the breeding ground for the four horsemen of your apocalyptic end of your relationship fire, destruction, contempt, anger, criticism, resentment. All the negative things you don't have to happen or show up in your relationship happen because we avoid conflict, that's true.
Speaker 2:And then walking through our points of allowing complaints to be involved in how you do your life in the marketplace and in your relationship in your house and with your children. Complaints make space for them. Be aware of criticisms, no character jabs. Stay away from those. Then, also, as far as tools go, we want to remember that we have three ways that we can respond. That's turning, turning towards, against or turning away. Only one of those will serve you turning towards, so being aware of those.
Speaker 2:And then also being hyper aware of where your counsel is coming from. Choose counsel that points you in the direction that you want to grow. Uh, do not choose counsel that's going to pat you on your back and tell you that you know what you're doing is wonderful, probably not going to work out well for you. That's why you need a coach in your life and you need a community around you that's going to challenge your thinking and then be proactive in your communication. Proactive means being proactive. We don't want to firefight. We want to make sure that we have a thought, something's coming up, we actually turn our attention towards it and give massive effort to have that communication and do it safely.
Speaker 1:I love that Boom. If this episode was helpful, served you in your conflict resolution and communication skills, do us a favor. Leave us a five-star review. Leave us a comment. Share this with a friend. Tag someone that needs to hear this. It's the most gentle, loving way to even resolve conflict inside of your relationships. Just give them this episode. Tag your spouse. Tag your spouse. It's just given this episode. Yeah, take your spouse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, take your spouse. Yeah, I want you to watch your mother. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but no, this you guys have just served. You do us a big favor too and share with someone else out there in the world and then DM us, message us, let us know what kind of content you soon. Next time, boom, we off the podcast.
Speaker 2:Get back to the fucking mental lab.