Why Your Relationships Shape Your Success: Jayson Gaddis on Conflict, Connection & Flourishing

Jason, I'm so excited to have you on the Flourishing Edge podcast.

Yeah, glad to be here.

You know, my friend, when Yoville talked to me about having you, I was so excited because, you know, relationships and the quality of relationships that one has in their life is one of the biggest predictor of the quality of life, of how successful we are, how long we live. And you are one of the deepest experts. You've spent almost close to 20 years of your life helping individuals, leaders build deeper connections. And so I'm just so excited to share stories with you, see practices that help people overcome conflict, practices that help them deepen connection with each other. So. So it's a real joy.

Yeah. Thank you. I'm just really stoked to be here.

Yeah. Thank you. Welcome to the Flourishing Edge, the podcast where we share weekly tips on making flourishing your competitive edge. I'm Ashish Kothari, your host, and each week we'll dive deep with flourishing experts, change makers and executives to share best practices that can help you unlock higher performance through science based interventions. Let's step together into the edge of what's possible and live, work, and lead with more joy, health, love, and meaning. So, Jason, it was. We had a very funny start to this conversation. We did, right? We both walked in, you know, for us, we both walked in and we sat down and we started talking and we said, okay, let's roll. And Jason was looking at me and I was looking at Jason, and we were intently looking into each other's eyes and we're like, okay, who's going to ask the question? And the funny thing is that Jason thought I was interviewing him for the Flourishing Edge podcast and I thought Jason was interviewing me for his podcast. So this is going to be an interesting podcast. We just thought we're going to play together and we're just going to make it a conversation. You know, we're going to take some of our research around flourishing and all of Jason's experience around relationships, and we're just going to have a great conversation around the topic of connection in a world that is increasingly becoming lonelier and more disconnected. And more disconnected.

Yep.

So there we go.

I'd love to start with what we were talking before we hit record, which is your wife in your marriage. And I'd love my listeners to know the way you described your wife was really beautiful. Just how you love her deeply on the inside. It's her birthday and it's one of your favorite days to celebrate her. And I can make up a lot of stories, but I'm like, what is working over there?

Yeah.

What. What has made your marriage be something that you look forward to every day? Hanging out with your wife?

Oh, my God. It is true. I never take it lightly. And I was sharing with you, Jason. You know, I am really blessed to have found my soulmate. I love her more every day than I met than the day before. Definitely way more than when I met her. And, you know, it's always. It's true, right. In relationships. And it was probably true with me, too, because I fell in love with her the first day I saw her. And I say I fell in love with her, but I think really, if you step back, you know, we can go and, like, there was something energetically about her. But of course, right. The first interaction always is physical. And, you know, I saw her and I still remember the day we were both at McKinsey. I had come to join the recruiting team. She was sitting on a chair. She rolled towards me. I still remember that so vividly. It's now 2006, right. So it's. Yeah, a long time.

Almost 20 years ago.

Almost 20 years ago. And I still remember her. And she came and I was like, oh, my God. Like, who is this person? But of course, you know, her physical beauty was one part, a big part of that attraction. Twenty years later, I think she's more beautiful today because that journey that we've been on right together, her inner beauty just shines through. When I see her, I see this divine, magical person, and I just feel always so seen and so present with her. It is really special. You know, she is the keel of my boat and she is the wind in my sails.

Yeah.

She grounds me when I'm flying too high and forgetting what matters, our family, my health, the work we are doing. Because I'm so passionate about my work, I can, like, just work 24, 7.

Get lost in that.

Yeah, get lost in it. And she grounds me. And, you know, what we are trying to do is something that is not the reality today. You know, like, we're trying to talk about happiness and flourishing. Most people are not talking about happiness and flourishing. They want to talk about success and profits and all of these kind of things. So when, you know, we have lots of conversations and only some come to fruition. She's the wind in my sail. She reminds me around why this matters and to keep going. And she supports me in both ways. And there are little things, you know, Jason, that. That have just become, you know, it's funny that it just become part, part, part and parts of our lives. You say, what makes it special. I think we say I love you to each other seven, eight times in a day. Right. Like my first. My first act. Right. I always wake up early. She always gives me crap about it because I wake up at 5 and she likes to wake up at 6:30. But when I wake up, I'm not very silent. And she wakes up, too. But when she comes down, you know, we always hug and say I love you and good morning and.

And even if you're in a fight, but the night before, if you've had.

We never sleep without a fight. We never sleep on a. We never go to sleep on a fight.

Oh, wow.

So, first of all, for me, it doesn't matter what's. Who's right, who's wrong. It doesn't matter. Like, our conflict. Right. What we might be arguing about. Like, I will always. It doesn't matter who's right or wrong. Right. She or I, depending on, you know, where. We'll always come in and we'll just say, listen, I'm sorry. It doesn't matter. What's between us does not matter. And it can be something as extreme as something I'm deeply passionate about. She's our snow. Right. How to raise. What's the right level of discipline or not. Like, it can be really quite. You know, like, things that can kind of send people into a tizzy.

Yeah.

For me and for her, we matter more than anything in between. It's irrelevant. And so we never. We never. I don't remember one day in our 20 years that we have gone to sleep upset at each other. There have been many times when we've been upset at each other, but we just don't let it carry on, you know? And so. No, but it's always. Every day is a fresh start. Every moment, every hour is a fresh start, fresh start.

And so do you talk about what's. The thing was always. Okay, so you actually process it. You talk through it.

Yeah, we always. And you know, and I have to tell you, like, I have to respect her. Many times I'm like, you know, for me, like, 15 minutes. I'm like, no, let's talk about it. I don't want you to be upset. Even if I've done something to make you upset, I don't want you to be upset. Right. I'm happy to apologize. Let's go sort through what needs to be sorted through.

Yeah.

But. But I just don't want you to be upset. Many times, depending on what's happened, she might need Much longer. An hour, two hours. And she's like, leave me alone and we'll talk about it. I know we'll talk about it. So I let her be. Right. Yeah. I remember in my early days of our relationship, I was like, no, I'm not going to leave you alone. Right. Because, oh, my God, like, why do you think that's going to happen? But, like, just. It's. You don't know. We always talk about it. So it's not about putting things under. Under the rock and just pretending everything is okay.

Yeah, great.

But I think it's being able to come into a relationship and to come into that. Right. We hold each other and our relationship with each other as truly something that is sacred. Anything in between is stories.

Yeah.

I have my story based on my beliefs, my experiences. She has her story based on her beliefs, her experiences, they'll never be, you know, they don't have to be the same, and very rarely are they. And it's not about who wins. Right. And it's not about, like, finding the compromise. It's truly in that moment, letting what needs to emerge emerge. You know, we'll come, we'll. We'll figure it out. We always figure it out. Because again, it's not about winning or losing, and it's being able to tune into that. I'm curious, as you worked with couples who are at odds and who have seen. What have you seen play out? How have you seen, you know, couples or leaders? Let's just stay with couples for a minute. When people come in where there is so much tension and might not have that strength of a relationship, what do you think is going wrong there?

So many things, you know, a lot of bad habits, a lot of projections, a lot of old stories, a lot of, you know, it really comes down to the skill and willingness to learn a new way of communicating, a new way of listening. And many people don't want to do that. They tend to want their partner to be different. You know, if you would just change a shish, then we would be good.

Yes.

If I could just make you different, I would feel better. And so a lot of people have this. A lot of couples have this outside in approach.

Absolutely.

Changing their partner. And of course, we both know that doesn't work, but people spend years in that dynamic.

Yeah.

Yeah. And it's only until and unless they're willing to look in the mirror and say, oh, I'm kind of being selfish. Oh, I don't know how to listen very well when I'm activated. Oh, gosh I'm behaving in a way that has you not feel like a priority. Until people do that, they don't advance to the next level.

You know, it reminds me of this beautiful story I heard from Thich Nhat Hanh.

Yeah, I love that guy.

I've read almost, I shouldn't say all his books. He's written close to 180. I've definitely read a large number of his books. And he was telling the story about this husband and his wife, and they were, you know, in a conflict. Right. And. And he asked the husband, and he was telling, you know, he was telling this. The husband was complaining about his wife and how she doesn't love him anymore. And, you know, X, Y, and Z. Right. Like, it was so special when she met. When they met. Now it's not the same, and she's changed. And he asked him a question, and he said, let's imagine if you have a flower, and it's a beautiful flower, and you bring it to your home and you place the flower over a plant. A flower plant, Right. Not just the bouquet, like a whole plant, potted plant. And let's say a week goes by and you see that the flower is starting to wilt. He says, what would you do? He's like, oh, I would look at the flower and I will see what the flower needs. Maybe I'll give it some water and see if I maybe want to put it in the sunlight. And if none of that works, maybe I'll add some nutrients. Maybe the soil doesn't have nutrients. Or I'll try and aerate it. I'll try and see what the flower needs. Because the flower is wilting. And he says, so your wife is just like the flower. Instead of blaming the flower or seeing what the flower is doing, what you're looking into is, what if you tried looking at the ingredients of why the relationship is wilting? What is it that your wife needs? What has been missing? And so this orientation you're going back to, rather than change, the wife or the wife has changed. We all are changing, by the way. Right. Constantly. We're not constant. So instead of really thinking about what they're not doing, tune into, what am I not putting in.

Yeah. It's very much like the garden metaphor. Right. The marriage is a garden. And when. And both people need to pull the weeds, check the fertilizer, check the shade and sun, water. It's not up to one person.

Yeah.

To make the garden flourish, called the relationship. And unfortunately, that's what a lot of People find themselves in is they're the ones doing the work. I'm doing the gardening for our relationship. And that just leads to resentment. Right.

Yeah.

So both people need to get their hands dirty and get in there and take good care of the relationship.

Absolutely. And, you know, it's really. So I think what comes to my mind as you talk about that also is this beautiful. And the garden. Right. You planted it with trees and flowers and some rocks and all of that. But what is the reality of a garden? Weeds are going to show up.

Yeah.

Right. The water is not going to be perfect, and maybe the grass is going to be a bit drier on the other side.

So it's a little off.

So things are going to happen.

Yeah.

And. And so this invitation. Don't expect a perfect garden. Right. Like, you have to work it. Right? Yeah.

You can't expect it to grow itself. Right.

Yeah. Right. You have to work it. You have to do these things to make it. You know, I was. Yeah, it's. I was reflecting on a conversation I had with my son. You know, he's 15, and, like, three, four weeks ago, I was by. It was just. We were at a grocery store. We went. He wanted to cook something, so we went to buy stuff, and I bought some flowers and for my wife. And so he asked me. He's like. Actually, he asked me. And then the. And then the. You know, the person at the shop who was checking it out, he's like, who are you buying flowers for? Like, you know, what's the occasion? So the person said, what's the occasion? And my son said, did you and mom have a fight?

Hmm.

I said, no. I said, what's the occasion? There's no. There's no occasion. I just want to bring flowers to my wife.

Yeah.

Why does there need to be an occasion?

Yeah. Right.

Why does there need to be a fight? So, again, like, it's like small little acts. Right. Like, But. And she does so many of those.

Yeah. A lot of people wait till Valentine's Day to water their garden.

Yeah.

Give their. Give their spouse flowers.

Right. Imagine what happened to garden if you water it once a year.

Yeah. Again, this is how neglectful people are in their most important relationships. And like you said early on in your intro there that. Or maybe it was before we hit record that the quality of our happiness into old age is really dictated by the quality of our closest relationships, which is the Harvard study. Right.

Yeah.

So it's kind of odd that people know that now. I think that's pretty widely understood. Study. And there's still a neglect that happens, you know, when we get triggered and stressed and we start to judge. We start to guard our heart and pull away and.

Yeah.

Protect ourselves and not attend to the garden.

Yeah. So I'm curious to hear, you know, I have a perspective that I've formed. I'd love to share that with you, but I'm curious. So most people know it, Right. When asked, most people say, what's the most important thing in your life? Most people say they're family, maybe then their health. And yet most people's actions and where they spend their time does not match that at all. And so I'm curious, from all of your 20 plus years of being in the field, what do you think are the underlying reasons when we know, but we don't do?

Yeah.

What is the driver behind that disconnect?

Yeah. I mean, such a good question and an important observation. Right. That people are incongruent. They say one thing, my family is important, but they behave very differently.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think people are a couple things there. People are in denial. They're entitled. They actually, I do think a part of them says that because they really believe that. But if we went around and interviewed their family and said, do you feel like the most important thing. Their family would say no. Their spouse would say no. I feel like I'm behind work, behind hobbies, behind checking out. I'm like, lower down the list. Right.

Yeah.

And I know men tend to posture because they want to be perceived as a good man or a competent leader. Right. I want you to like me. So I'm not going to tell you the truth that I'm neglecting my family because I feel shame about that. I feel embarrassed about that. I don't like that about myself. But I don't want to admit that in front of you. So I'm going to kind of tell Facebook and tell the world that I'm a family man.

Yeah.

Right. Those are some thoughts. I'm curious what you.

Well, I think they're. They're very true. I think there is a fundamental cognitive dissonance. You know, we always tell a story. Right. There's this, you know, and it's true for how. How good of a leader we are. Yeah, it's. It's true about, you know, how we think the world perceives us.

Yeah, yeah.

Right. It's true about our families. It's. The families go into that, too. So I think that is foreshorten. I think that is a lot of posturing. You Know, like, I think there are these norms that we just have bought ourselves into, and rather than being real, you know, we'd rather show up. And even though the disconnect exists within us, it's become so normal that we don't actually think too much about it because it was something else. Right.

Yeah.

You would feel that tension, and you'd hold it.

Yeah, right.

You know, I discovered this work to build on it, Jason, because I'm very curious. This particular one I was really curious about.

Right.

Because I've done the same. Like, look, I mean, I did, you know, like, I'm not perfect. Right. Like, as we were talking, one of the reasons why I love my wife is she, like, pulls me back.

Yeah, same.

And reminds me about, like, hey, you left McKinsey. You were traveling three days a week. You wanted to be with us. You wanted to be with your son. And if you're, like, always working, even if you're here, you're not really here. Why are you sitting with your phone at a dinner table? What's so important right now?

Yeah, what's more important than me? What are you doing?

Right. So, like, we have these conversations on. I'm, like, completely not. You know, she is. She rarely has her phone out. And, like, I will. I will get distracted all the time. And she grounds me, and I can hold it, and I can appreciate that from where that comes from a place of love. And she does it with. You know, it's in the way we talk. Like, there's very little judgment. She'll call me out. But, you know, when somebody calls you out with judgment, it has an edge. It pierces when somebody calls it from a place of, like, I know this matters to you.

Yeah. I'm reminding you.

I'm just reminding you.

I love you. Come right.

Come back. I think it has a very different feel.

Sure.

So the work that. The thing that I found really interesting. So there's a book by Clay Christensen called how will you measure your life? And it's a beautiful book. He was a professor at mit, and he shared the story. One of the things is about relationships. One of the key three moves he talks about. One is relationship. And he said, here's the reason why we continue to prioritize work over family, in addition to the two that you mentioned. And he said, if you think about our brain, if you think about how we are wired, right. We have a heavy bias towards short term versus long term. That's, by the way, one of the reasons why people will do all the things in the Short term, even though they know it hurts them in the long term. Right. We have a short term bias. And the same happens when it comes to relationships. If you stayed an hour longer and you got that report out, your boss or your team would say, great job. If you showed up an hour earlier, or if you didn't show up an hour earlier, your wife or your kids won't say that to you. If you delivered a report a day later, an hour later than when it was expected, your boss would yell at you, your teams would say, hey, you missed it. So we don't want that negativity. We don't want that loss aversion and we crave that, you know, little gain, even though those gains of like, great job tomorrow, if you died, nobody would care.

Yeah.

The only person who would care is your family. But those who care the most are not the squeaky wheel. By the time they become the squeaky wheel, it's too late.

Yeah.

And that's. That was his thesis behind why so many people continue to burn the midnight oil, stay an hour later, do work over the weekend. Because our relationships, our spouses, our kids are more understanding. But with every withdrawal we are making, we get to a place where it's too late.

Yeah. It's death by a thousand cuts. Right.

Right. And that was his rationale, which really resonated. I'm like, you're absolutely right.

Yeah. Yeah. I like that a lot. I think there's a lot of truth. Truth in that. And I would add another one here while we're on the subject.

Yeah.

Which is, you know, we're not taught how to do relationships very well in school. There's no class. We just kind of sponge in 18 years of our family, however that went.

Yes.

However healthy or unhealthy it was. And so we, and we tend to, for some reason about relationships, we. We feel shame. Shame that we shouldn't. As soon as it gets hard, we feel shame. And bad.

Yes.

And embarrassed. And we do not want to be seen by anyone that we're struggling in our marriage or struggling with our kids at home. And so again, we posture right. And we don't go learn because we. It's back to that self image. I want to be perceived as competent and capable at home and I don't want to learn. And I feel bad. And then I buy into this fantasy that it should be easy. Maybe I'm with the wrong person. This is too hard. She's too difficult. Maybe I made the wrong choice and I'd rather go back to the Honeymoon stage where it was easy. And like you're saying, people want easy. The seek pleasure, avoid pain program, the hedonic adaptation of human beings. So I just think it's multifactorial for sure. And then a lot of people don't like to learn new things and admit, hey, you know what? I'm a white belt at relationships. I'm not very good at this. Gosh, I should go learn how to communicate with you better. Wife, husband, whoever, team. People don't want to do that. Right. For some reason, they don't want to just admit they're a yellow belt or not very good at something.

Yeah.

And it's so. And we all know from the work we do with humans is that when people take the time to advance in the belts in a genuine way and kind of using a martial arts metaphor, they feel better about themselves. They feel confident and capable because they are earning. Right. Self confidence and self trust over time.

Yeah. I think it's a beautiful. It's beautiful because it is fundamentally shifting our orientation. When we start admitting where we are and taking a posture of learning, we are fundamentally shifting from, let me tell you what you need to do to how do I need to show up? What can I learn about myself? Right. You shift the orientation from the other to me. And from that place, as we shift, we create the shift in the other versus forcing the other person to shift, which they might shift because they care, but they will do that from a place of resentment because they are choosing to let something go. Right. And so I think there is a way to make change happen. And I think the move here, which I think is really beautiful, is to be the change you want to see in the relationship.

Yeah, for sure. Look in the mirror. Right?

Right. Be the change. Start to think about what can I learn? What is my role in this? What is more important for us?

Yeah, yeah. It's. It's like you coach and consult with teams. Right. In organizations. I'm curious, when you're doing that, you probably meet leaders who are very outside in, hey, Ashish, how do I get my team to change? Yeah, right.

Always.

What do you say when they're so externally focused, how do you help them see that that's not the right.

Well, I'll give you a specific one. They say, hey, I want my team to take more risks. I want them to be to, you know, I want them to not paddle the numbers. I want them to resolve conflicts between themselves. Like, why do I have to like, resolve the conflicts? Like, what's, what's like why I, why.

Aren'T they grown ups or right?

Like, why do I have to, you know, raise the bar? Like, why can't they just raise the bar themselves? And my, my entry point always is action and reaction, right? If that's what you're seeing, what are the actions you're taking that are getting them to act and show up in this way? We are a fundamentally dynamic system, right? So I have a funny story for you, right? So I used to work with this one guy and you know, he, we did lots of projects which were high intensity. Every time the team would come up, I'd seen this as a pattern consistently. I've worked with this for a long time. Team comes up, they run the analysis, they have some numbers, says, I think we can save 5%. You'd always say, why not 8%? I think you're being too conservative. Go back and take a look. It needs to be 8%. If they said it's going to take six months, he'd say six months. Like this should take six weeks. Go back and look at this and get it done. Right. So get so. And he's like, you know that that was his modus operating. That were the actions that he would take every number. If it was a savings number, it had, he wanted a higher number. If it was time, he wanted a lower time. So guess what? He had trained all his teams to do.

Same thing.

So if I think it can take six months, guess what I'm going to come tell you to do? I'm going to come and say, jason, it's going to take 12 months. Because I know you're going to go, 12 months should take six months. So I'm like, okay, fine. If I think I can save 8%, I'm going to say, oh my God. Like I think only 3%. We think people don't have memories.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

If you always jump in because you don't like conflict, and if one leader disagrees with another leader, you're going to step in and just say, hold on, hold on, guys. Tell me your point of view. Tell me your point of view. Let me resolve it. If you've shown up that way, guess what, you're robbing the two to resolve it. Or even worse, I've seen this happen all the time. Even worse, you come to me and you say, hey, you know that guy? Let me tell you what he did, right? Like, why would he do that? Like, he's being so not collaborative. He's doing these things that are hurting my. What I'm Doing or what we are doing as a company. He's not there. You and I are having a conversation, and I'm like, you know what? You're so right. Let me go figure this out and I'll give him the feedback and we'll talk about it in the next meeting, etc. Right. What am I creating with that action? I'm creating a culture where it's okay to talk behind the back.

Yeah. Triangulate.

Right. I think it's okay. I'm creating a culture where I say it's okay for you to come to me and talk about him in his back.

Yeah.

I'm versus I'm saying, hey, thank you for sharing that. I'd appreciate if you shared it directly with that person.

Sounds good.

And then come back. Right. Go all the way. And I think let's have a policy that we don't talk behind people's back.

Yeah, I love that. And the only challenge here, from my experience, is people don't know how.

Yeah.

And so to me, a leader would need to mentor and coach and train people how to have hard conversations.

Absolutely.

Because people triangulate, like you're saying, because they don't know how.

Yeah.

They want to go to mom and dad, who are the business leaders, and they want to talk or Absolutely. Spread rumors or something.

Absolutely.

Because they're scared.

Yeah.

They don't know how.

Exactly.

And so you, as a leader need to realize, okay, I can't just say, you two go work it out. Because a lot of parents say this to their teenagers or their little toddlers or whatever is, don't bother mom and dad. You go work it out.

Yeah.

And that's a huge disservice because kids don't know how to work it out.

They don't know how to work.

They need to be shown and taught. And most adults were never shown and taught and so they don't know how.

Yeah.

So any organization that doesn't have a protocol on how we work through hard conversations and repair and get back to a good place and not triangulate is completely blowing it, in my opinion.

I agree with you. Right. In fact, that's one of the reasons, Jason, for us. So we have a framework that we created and two of the components. We call it Perl. And the whole idea behind perl, I think you'll like this, is we were sitting at a beach and I had this framework of these five words which really articulated a big chunk of the work we were doing around flourishing. It integrated all of the science from Michigan and Oxford and Harvard and a couple of other places where people had done this work. My wife actually came up with the world pearl. We were sitting in Costa Rica, we were watching the ocean. She's the more creative one. The story that we tell now, always after the pearl, is pearls get created by irritants that get into oysters, which is sand.

Yeah.

And they're able to create this into something magical. Not necessarily for the oyster, but definitely for us. It does, you know, help. I'm not sure oyster will say pearls are very valuable, but we certainly think so. But we definitely think so. Organizations have daily irritants in terms of conflicts between bosses, employees, customers, suppliers. And our idea is this framework. These five allow, if you build those capabilities, it allows organizational leaders to take those frictions that exist in any relationship, parents, friends, spouses. This conversation is brought to you by Happiness Squad, where we help leaders build new mindsets, new habits, and transform their ways of working to truly flourish. If you're ready to unleash the untapped human potential in your organization and operate at your best, come Visit us@happinesssquad.com and start your journey today, colleagues, and turn those irritants into something of value. No innovation happens without conflict. No. Diamonds get created without pressure and heat. Right. Gold needs to be boiled over and over for impurities to go away. Yeah. And so one of the key elements in that framework is around energy. Right. Are our interactions creating and leaving you with more energy or are they draining you of energy?

Yeah.

And one of the key modules within that energy is conflicts. How do we have better conflicts? How do we really think about the fact that we need to have conflicts? We don't need to avoid conflict.

Right.

But there is a way to have conflicts that can allow us to listen a lot more deeply, can explore all elements. You know, we use an iceberg analogy of behaviors driven by thoughts, driven by needs and emotions and fears and safety. But that's a little bit of like how we end up doing that work. I'm curious. You do a lot of work with leaders when you teach people how to have better conflicts at work, you know, especially those high stake ones.

Yeah.

What have you seen as some of the moves that can help leaders?

Yeah. Well, the first one is to realize that avoiding everybody in the culture needs to understand that when we avoid conflict and hard conversations, we create more conflict and hard conversations later that are even bigger, more charged and more difficult.

Yeah.

And it's very. I try to validate. Look, no one likes conflict. It's hard, it's Uncomfortable, we feel bad. We don't want to hurt someone's feelings. Like, a lot of people need a lot of just reminders here and about the human nervous system and the human animal and how we operate. And we go to the back part of our brain and we say stupid things under stress when we're upset with someone. People need that, the science behind it, to kind of be like, oh, I'm not crazy. Yeah, this is scary. Okay. It's nor. It's a normal part of healthy relationships even and teams is conflict. So it starts with a whole mindset, shift around, normalizing everything, Right?

Yeah. Normalizing that. We are wired to go below the line, wired to be in defense, fight, fight, flees. Right. Like, we are wired to go there.

Blame, yes.

Judge, defend, defend.

That's how we are. Right.

So just. That's normal. Like, if that's where you go, you're not wrong. You're not. There's nothing bad.

You're not crazy.

That's just normal. That's how we evolved. So I think it's. I love that, like, step one is recognize it is normal to go there.

Yes, yes. So we validate that. And then the next thing is we've got to learn some basic skills and tools about speaking and listening in a way people can understand and in a way people feel understood. So I teach a framework called lufu. L U F U. You listen until the other person feels understood. Not until I think I understand, but I listen to you until you tell me you feel understood.

I love that. Lufu. Listening until you feel other person feels understood.

You got it. Exactly.

Beautiful.

Yeah. So that's the acronym. It's just easy to remember. And then there's four real basic steps there. We reflect back the essence of what they're saying. Well, it sounds like you got upset because I didn't turn the thing in on time. Did I get that right? You know, and you say, yeah, and then I validate your feelings because you're frustrated, let's say. And I say, makes sense. You're frustrated. That's an easy way to validate someone that makes sense. It makes sense. You make sense. Your feelings make sense, because. And then we do the third thing, which is we take responsibility because I didn't give you a deadline, because I was fuzzy with the deadline, because I didn't manage you well, because I wasn't clear about the outcomes and goals. I take responsibility for how I contributed to you being frustrated with me. Right. And then the fourth thing is empathy. We offer some kind of empathic Response that would suggest that we actually care about the other person. Wow, that sounds really hard. Gosh, I can't believe I put you in that difficult situation. That's kind of heavy to feel that over here, that I impacted you that way. And then ideally, you start to feel really cared about and understood and your nervous system starts to relax and you can soften and open up. Up. Right. And then you might now reciprocate to me. You might practice lufu with me until I feel understood and then I get to share kind of what happened for me. And if done well, right at the end, people feel connected, like we're on the same team.

Yeah.

And that was really hard and uncomfortable to go through, but now I feel closer to you because we just went through something hard. We have mutual understanding and respect. Yeah. So that's just one way that we can do that.

Yeah. You know what I love about that is we so often have an orientation. Right. This notion that we always judge the others on behavior. We judge ourselves on intention. Right. And here you're beautifully bridging that by saying, the person is upset or they've said something to me, and you're stopping for a minute because in your mind you had the intention of doing whatever you had. It didn't show up this way. There were so many other things that happened they had no way of knowing. So rather than telling them again to just say, hey, let me tell you all the defensive stuff that I would otherwise say, you're just pausing and saying that is their reality right now.

Yeah.

And so I'm just going to explore that. Right. I'm going to listen, I'm going to play back what I heard. Right. Till they say yes, I feel listened to. Right. And then this notion of truly thinking, stopping and just thinking about how might I have contributed to this? There's always. There is always that. Like, there is no two interactions where we don't have some part.

That's Right.

It doesn't need to be 50, 50. It might be 1%, but even that 1%. But if we start from there, we start to make a shift happen.

Yeah. And we want to demonstrate to the person on our team or the spouse or whoever that we were aware that how we are, how we are, how we act, our behavior impacts the other person. Always. It could be my facial expression, it could be my tone of voice. It could be the way I send emails. I impact people. Right.

Yeah.

And if I want to blame you for being too sensitive. Right. I'm completely missing that. I might have done Something despite my good intentions, that just I wasn't even aware of. But now you're telling me it upset you, and now I'm aware that I impact you.

Yeah. And again, going back, I'm just reminded. Right. And you're holding the relationship sacred. It doesn't matter what my role was, what your role was, but I am holding the sacred. And regardless at who was wrong or who held the, you know, who contributed to it, what matters is what you felt. So you're validating how the other person felt and. And your role in them feeling that way and saying, that's not like I want to change that.

Yeah. And I like to remind people, validation doesn't mean you're right and I'm wrong.

Exactly.

It means Everybody's experience is 100% valid.

Yes. And it always is. And it will rarely be the same because we all see and feel from our own beliefs. We are projecting. That's right. We are projecting. You know, I love that when you talked about kind of going from, we are wired to go below the line. That's where we find ourselves. You talked about a different way. The four moves Lufu. You know, one of the things I found quite helpful because from that sympathetic nervous system, we become aware of. That's where we are. We're constrained, we're feeling angry, we're feeling frustrated, we're feeling attacked, we're feeling whatever. Whatever.

Yeah.

I found, like, in a core part of the work we end up doing, we always talk about the power of breath to actually shift. Once I realize I'm below the line, before I can even access the above the line, the creative part where we can explore what matters and where you're coming from. And I can speak without the edge. Right. The jagged edge of kind of the defensiveness. I actually have to get calm. I have to get in a more creative state. And so we always introduce this pause.

Yeah. Pauses are so helpful.

Breathe. Remember a good friend. Remind yourself of the real kind of, you're all in this together, assume positive intent, but you can't do that from that place. So we always, you know, introduce that pause so much.

The pause is great. And there's all this neuroscience to back the pause and the breath and how important it is to can. It can literally change our state in seconds, right?

Yeah.

If we're willing to.

And a big part of the pause, for me, I always say the move I often talk about is one, breathe. Plant your feet. I know you've just got a wally of what somebody shared with them, and they feel you feel defensive, especially if it's coming from your boss. Right. Or if it's coming from a colleague and you feel attacked. So now I'm in defensive mode. Right. Just breathe. And then the second cognitively, I always highlight, just open your heart. When you breathe, open your heart and open your heart with this core element that there is no one who doesn't want to be happy. There is no one. Right. Like that is what grounds us. Regardless of how big the divide between all of us is, in the end, we all want to be happy. We all have suffering, we all have a struggle that's going through. Most importantly, we are both human.

Right.

The human condition is real. And so opening your heart to that allows us all of a sudden to stop seeing each other as different, but as the same.

Yeah, yeah, it's good. I might, depending on my audience, I might not use open my heart language because some people, men in particular, might think that's a little too new age or something. So I might say because I really like open my heart. Right. That works for me. Another way we can say that is can you take a breath and see if you can stay receptive? Can you stay curious? Can you stay interested? Can you stay available in the conversation?

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. Don't close up.

Yeah. Because closing up doesn't. It's not going to get us where we want to go.

Yeah.

If I put my walls up and I kind of lock the key and I write you off, it's going to be hard to get through that.

So I want to hear a bit of a story. Jason, you've helped so many over your 20 plus years in this field. Tell me of the story of either a couple or an organization or leader of where you found them, the journey you took them on and what became possible. Because many people, I think this notion of that are that this is actually possible. The more real stories people hear, the more they feel like. Yeah. Because we live so much in a world today of it's not working. Okay, let's go find something else.

That's right.

Right.

Yep.

So tell me a story.

Yeah. Well, I'll tell maybe a work one and then a marriage one just to give to and I'll keep it quick. So the work one has got a not so happy ending, but it's was very relieving. So two business owners, I do an intensive where I'm with them for a couple days and they had a 20 year conflict that they did not address for 20 years.

Wow.

So do you think. How do you think I'm going to do coming into that. Right. What are my success rate chances here? They're pretty low.

Yeah.

But I'm like, yeah, let's do it. And neither of them got their ideal outcome because there were two business owners really at odds over an agreement that never happened in writing.

Wow.

And so I helped them see that they both fell down. They both didn't get the agreement in writing because they were blaming each other for all kinds of things. And I said, look, if you look at the mirror, you both came up short. You didn't get this in writing. You participated in a relationship where you continued to not address the conflicts that kept coming up, but between you, you made up stories about the other person. You shoved it all underground and you went along to get along. And as they begin to take responsibility for that. Right. They were like, oh, wow. Right. Because they were so stuck in blame.

Sure.

And I helped them get into responsibility about the whole thing. Not self blame, just responsibility. I fell down. I didn't do this. Yep. I treated you poorly. I never brought this up with you. I was too scared, you know, I was too insecure. I thought we would lose the relationship. So I didn't say anything. I helped them do all of that. And by the end of a couple days, they finally got to an agreement that their relationship was going to end. Their business relationship, which was hugely relieving because they were caught in all these stories about each other, misinformation and just resentment. And I was like, you guys, if you want to truly heal, you got to go deal with these past hurts now.

Right.

So that you don't repeat this in the next business relationship. So that was one that was, in my opinion, successful, but not at all in the way we think of success.

Yeah.

More profitable. And everybody was a team now and hugging each other.

And what I'm curious about is how did that conversation that you enabled. Yes, they decided to part ways from a business point of view, but what did you see happen in terms of the rift? So they were together as a business. They rent apart. But they came in, I'm sensing, Jason very much far apart already as individuals.

They were already so far apart apart.

Did this journey, these two three days work that you did together with them, did it actually help them at least come closer and shed some of these resentment, the anger, the frustration that they might be holding for each other?

Yeah. Thanks. There was a huge amount of tears, which was the relief again.

Yeah.

They were. The walls were able to come down and there was open heartedness. There was forgiveness. There was a hug. That was a long embrace where there was tears, you know, so a lot of. A lot happened. Yeah, I'm glad you picked up on that. Because there was. As the walls came down and they took responsibility, they didn't feel like they had to defend themselves anymore. Yeah. And they could open, soften and let the other person in. Right.

Yeah.

So. Yeah, absolutely.

So I think I, you know, for me, that's what I could sense. Even though that's not what you were saying, that's what I could sense that. Yes. While the business actually went from a business point of view, they went sideways. But from a relationship and even, you know, from what they're holding, they were able to lighten the load. They were start. You know, that's what becomes possible. So that's really successful because in the end, whether they. They were the best friends forever. Winnie the Pooh, right? We're going to be best friends forever, aren't we? It doesn't matter. But I think what you're doing is you're shedding all of this, which continues to be toxic. Right.

Yeah.

You know, resentment is poison. We drink waiting for the other, hoping for the other to die.

Yeah.

So from that, I think you. I love your work because you help them lighten the load. You help them.

That's right. You don't need to carry the load. Right. You do this work all the time. And like, people can't be fulfilled if they're carrying so many resentments and burdens with other people.

Yeah.

You don't want to carry that to your grave, you know?

Exactly.

So I like to remind people, you have a choice. You can do that if you want, but it's a choice.

Yeah. You know, Beautiful.

Yeah. And then just the other quick one, and then we should probably start wrapping up. Is just a couple that had been married 30 years. And it's very similar where they just. Somewhere along the way, they. Because they had no agreements about talking, telling the truth about, hey, if we're not happy here or frustrated, can we just talk about. Just went underground because they didn't want to upset each other. And actually there's a lot of love between this couple. And so they thought they were doing their partner a favor by not bringing up hard things because they didn't want them to be upset, which in reality means they're protecting themselves. Right. Their story is, I'm protecting you from bad feelings, but really I'm protecting me. So as I help them see this, they begin to tell the truth about what they've been holding back, and there was lots of tears, and now they're closer, more connected than ever, and they have a new agreement that they're sharing openly things that are hurtful, frustrating, a little painful, a lot painful. And it's really sweet to see the. The reconnection begin to happen, you know, and to get out of that story that they had of, oh, I don't want to get this person upset.

I love it. Right. And then in that what you're fundamentally framing is rather than not talk about difficult stuff, because that's all it is, difficult stuff. But oftentimes we don't do it because deep and then there's a story, the person is difficult. So if I tell you I'm kind of sharing something about you versus a difficulty in what we are facing here.

Yeah, that's right.

Right. And I think if we are able to take ourselves out from a situation that is difficult, that is hurtful, what it's feeling.

Yeah.

We can actually talk about it.

Yeah, that's right. And then it's not this big, scary thing.

Yeah.

You know, and people do need to learn that. It's. It's. Yes, it's mostly uncomfortable to talk about hard things, but we can. With a little guidance and a few skills, we can get through it and actually feel better.

Yeah. Beautiful. So I just want to, like, you know, maybe I'm thinking, you know, we end, Jason, with like, you know, to our listeners who've been listening to this dialogue, you know, what might be three things. You might suggest three moves, and you can choose whether you do it in the organizational way or a relationship way. And I'll add the outer. The alternative on. So if you go organizational, I'll talk individual relationship, or if you do a couples, I'll. I'll do organizational. So pick one and say, you know, what might be three to five things that listeners listening to this right now could try to. To improve the quality of that relationship, whether at work or at home.

Yeah, I'll do two obvious ones. Sure. And then I'd love to. And there'll be personal relationships. So maybe you can do the business.

Yeah.

Kind of work stuff. One is that my wife likes to remind me of in couples. Of she works with couples as well, is we have to be able to talk about the relationship whenever we want. When it's hard, when it's good, when it's bad. If we can't talk about how we're doing, we have a lot of problems. Right. Because if there's disharmony between us or tension or conflict that's not being talked about or we can't seem to get through it and we also can't talk about it. How are we going to get anywhere?

Yeah.

There's no team in the world that doesn't talk about being a team. How do we become a better team? Let's talk about that. Right? No team gets. No high achieving, high performing team gets together and says, let's never talk about our relationships between us on this team.

Yeah.

What's working? What's not working? Right. The best teams, the best bands, the best duos, the best marriages. Talk about the relationship consistently, regularly, with rigor, with care, with respect. That's number one. Number two is people always ask me, what's the number one skill? Relationship skill. If you could only teach one thing and it's repair. You've got to be able to repair any conflict anytime, anywhere. Because if you can do that, you can get through any hard conversation, any challenging chapter of your life between you. Right. You know how to come back and get back to a good place together. If couples could learn that, we'd be in a different place.

What it's bringing to me is we don't do this regularly, but I think I'm taking away. I'm going to try this with my wife at least once a week. Let's talk about how are we doing? We're doing great. So we don't talk about it, but I think it's still even. We might be doing great. There might be things that have happened that we decided not to talk about because not that big of a deal.

Right.

But I think just this notion of checking in once a week, like, let's find 20 minutes. Let's sit outside when we're both in a place, maybe it's in the mornings or in the evenings, sit with a cup of tea and just say, hey, how are we doing? Talk about us. Not our kids, not our family, not our work. Right. Like, how are we? How are you? And how are we? And if we just create the space and a ritual, it allows both of those, what you just highlighted, to become possible.

That's right.

We can talk about hard things. We can talk about repairs that might need to be made. And we do it from a place of learning rather than judgment.

That's right.

If we can come into that place from a place of learning. So I'm going to go try that. I'm going to go make that happen. Amazing. And we'll see where that goes.

And what about you? Two to five things, whatever. As we wind down Here.

So I think I'll start with, I think I'll start with the, with the first. A lot of the work that this, that happens around relationships, connections, you know, it's come from, hey, high performing team. To be a high performing team, we need psychological safety and relationships. Right. So let's build it because we want high performing. And you know, I might suggest, let's change that. So let's start by recognizing that in work, at work, if you're leading a team, every person on that team that you're leading is somebody's son, daughter, child. Investing in that relationship from a place of growth, helping them feel seen, being valued, showing up with a deep sense of care and responsibility because it's the right thing to do, not because it drives performance. I think is one of the mindsets that I would invite everybody who's listening to Take. If your workplace isn't one where you want your son or daughter or child to work at, don't blame your boss. Don't blame the culture. Focus on what you can do to make a difference.

Yeah, that's good.

Focus on what you can change. How can you show up for those who are working for you or working with you differently? And do it from that place of obligation because it's the right thing to do. I think that's number one. Right. So number one is recognize, don't do it for performance. Performance will happen, but that's not the reason.

Yeah.

Do it because it's the right thing to do. The second is own it. Think about what you can do. Approach it from a mindset of learning and agency rather than feeling like victim. And I already know what the answer is.

Yeah, right.

So I think that's, I think those are, those are two big ones. And then the last is, look, relationships require, if you want a real deep relationship, I want you to think about what is one of the key ingredients and the key ingredient is vulnerability. If you are not willing to show up, share your struggles, share your imperfections, share your worries, the person on the other side is not going to, to do that.

Yeah. Yeah. Amen to the vulnerability.

Right?

100%.

So learn whether you're a man or a woman to not to shed that. There was a post I saw today where Tiger Tiagarajan, who I think he led Infosys or Cognizant, one of the tech companies, for a long while. He said, I actually disagree with a post article in Forbes that he read about that Satya Nadala and Indra Nui and several others had talked about how the CEO's job is a lonely job. He said, hey, I was never lonely as a CEO. Why? Because I was willing to be vulnerable. I was willing to connect with others. And there were so many around that I could say, I don't know the answer. I'm struggling with this. What do you think? So the reason the CEO job is so lonely is because we feel if I don't have all the answers, if I show that I'm struggling, I am not going to be credible.

Right. Completely.

Don't do that. Right. Start to open up, be vulnerable. And I think if we do those three things, I think we change the relational fabric of our organization and if we change the relationship fabric of our organizations, we can create a place where work allows us to grow into the best version of ourselves. Right. We spend more time with colleagues at work than we spend with our families.

Yeah, a lot of people do.

Make that be your daily ground of practice. Take the frictions that exist in work to help you become the better version of you. Let those frictions polish you to let your true diamond shine versus resist it. Those would be the three that I share.

I love it. Ashish, thank you so much. Where can people learn more about you?

Well, they can follow us on happinesssquad.com we also post quite regularly on LinkedIn on my both personal LinkedIn as well as our Happiness Squad LinkedIn. And then of course we have the Happiness Squad podcast so they can listen to. We've had close to 170 experts on the topic of flourishing and we continue to add more.

Beautiful.

Yeah. Jason, where can people find you and learn more about your work and what it seems like what your wife does as well?

Yeah. Relationshipschool.com and I'm at LinkedIn and Instagram. Jasongattis j a y S O M.

Gattis G A D D I S Amazing. Well, my friend, this was such a generative conversation.

Yeah, it was super fun, unexpected and a treat to get to know you.

Same here. Be well.

Yeah, you too.

Thank you for joining me on the flourishing edge. If today's conversation inspired you, share it with someone who's ready to flourish too. Subscribe, leave a review and stay connected for more tools to achieve breakthrough performance through flourishing. Until next time, keep learning, practicing and growing into your fullest potential.