Making Relationships Work with Dr Jennifer Thomas

Hello.

So my guest today is a motivational speaker specializing in the 5 Love Languages and communication. She is a business consultant, a psychologist, and has given a TEDx talk on the 2 essentials for healthy relationships. She's the co-author of the books, The 5 Apology Language and Making Things Right at Work. And these books have been translated into 15 languages and have sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Welcome to the show, Dr. Jennifer Thomas.

Hi, John. It's a pleasure to be with you.

Absolutely a pleasure to have you here. Thank you so much for agreeing to come onto the show today. Um, that was a very brief introduction to you. So if you could tell the listeners a bit more about yourself, what you do, how you help, and what's going on for you at the moment.

Okay, well, I'm coming to you from across the pond. I live in North Carolina. And so that's why I have this funny Southern accent. And I work part-time these days. I've been doing book marketing and giving lectures on The 5 Love Languages and The 5 Apology Languages.

Mm-hmm.

My passion is really to help people to find the match between how they're trying to express love and appreciation to others How they're trying to express their apologies when they make mistakes and what the other person is looking for.

Right.

And I think too often we tire ourselves out of trying to guess what they want. And my passion is to help people to actually learn to ask those questions like, what do you need from me? What really lands with you either when I'm trying to show you how much I care Or when I'm trying to make things right again. And what we find as I share these principles and take questions from people is that they're using our ideas not only at home in their relationships with their partners and their friends, but also it's very useful for them in the workplace.

Right.

Because as we know, if you live and breathe, you make mistakes, you step on people's toes, and we're in the business of making those things right again.

Great. So you help people to really understand where the other person is coming from and what they need in order for your relationship to kind of be there in the best place possible.

Yes, very well said. We try to get people to put each— to put themselves in the other person's shoes. And that varies by person. You know, it's not one size fits all. Each person has their own things that make them feel cared for. And when we talk about apologies, we all had different parents and different teachers, unless you're siblings, of course. And they had their own scripts for what they expected. I'll give you a quick example. Some people say, oh, my parents were very good at teaching me to apologize. And if I just said I'm sorry, they would say, well, sorry isn't enough.

Mm-hmm.

You need to say more, do more, change your behavior, make amends. Well, the challenge is they grow up and they partner or work with someone whose parents thought it was just lovely when they said I'm sorry with sincerity. And so that person gets very hurt or offended when they offer this lovely apology that used to work and their partner says, don't you know, sorry isn't enough? And so we've got this miscommunication between caring people who want to get along, and they might have just walked away and felt very hurt. What we're trying to do is to bring dialogue around it so that people understand we have different scripts and we're going to need to work this through.

That's really interesting, isn't it? That, like you said, most of this stuff comes from the environment that we grow up in, what we're taught, what we see as Acceptable and unacceptable and right and wrong. Um, and we all have very different views of what that might be.

Yes. And the challenge is that, that, that leads to our assumptions and our expectations. And those are all below the surface. We don't really run into them until often we run afoul of them. Yeah. And there's events that can't be resolved. We may sense a tension in the room and we don't know how to get past it in order to enjoy the joy and the love in the relationships. That we're all about over at The 5 Love Languages.

So can you tell me a little bit more about that, the, the 5 Love Languages and maybe then the apology languages? Because it's very interesting, is it, that like you said, that if someone's going to do something that the other person might then feel hurt by because it's not coming across the way that they'd like it to, or they've done something which they think is genuine, but the other person's not able to accept that as a genuine apology or a way of showing affection.

That's right. So we think the concepts are really symmetrical or identical. It's just that the love languages are about helping us to convey our love or appreciation to other people. Gary Chapman originated this concept with the 5 Love Languages, was first released back in 1992.

Hmm.

Um, so it has had some legs and some staying power, and as a counselor, I was using it to help individuals and couples be able to give, uh, words of affirmation and the other love languages in ways that would really hit home for people.

Mm-hmm.

And then this concept of the 5 apology languages came to me actually in my own marriage. I've been married, uh, to a man also named John, although people call him JT, and we're going on 30 years of marriage this June. But as with every couple, we occasionally will hit the rough spot. And there was one weekend I remember that I had made a mistake and I said, I'm sorry. And JT just wasn't accepting it. I could tell that there was still this tension between us.

Right.

And so I asked him what was wrong and he said, well, I just wish you would apologize for that mistake you made. Now, I was taken aback by that. I said, well, I said I was sorry. But to him, that didn't even register. It just went right past him because it wasn't what he was waiting to hear.

Okay.

And so I asked him, well, you know, I said I was sorry. What did you want me to say? And here I like to pause and ask people, what do you think he wanted? Because the chances are that your answer is one of the 5 apology languages, and it's the one that you most want to hear. In his case, he said, "I wanted you to say you were wrong when you made that mistake." And I said, "Okay, JT, I was wrong." Like to me, they were synonyms, but to him, no, because and I understand it. There's much more acceptance of responsibility with I was wrong, and I know we can be sorry for something that happens to someone that we had no part in. And so he had a good point. And it triggered my interest in the topic of apologies. And I went on with Gary Chapman to look at what other things are people waiting to hear. Yeah. So I'll lay out the other 3 for you cuz there are 5. Yeah. Uh, the, so we touched on I'm sorry and I was wrong. The 3rd one is making amends or making reparations.

Mm-hmm.

The, the 4th one, it, we call it now preventing a reoccurrence of the problem.

Right.

Uh, early on we would call it genuinely repenting. It's the same idea, it's letting them know what's going to change, but we wanted to make the language less, uh, religiously laden for people. And so we're focusing on change and how you're going to prevent the problem from happening again. And then our 5th apology language is actually a question, and that is, will you please forgive me? And there again, the childhood scripts come in because some parents and teachers demanded that, others did not. And so when those people grow up and get together, if you really want people to ask you for your forgiveness, but that doesn't even occur to them, then you're going to need to have an important conversation about what is your apology language? What can I say to show you how sincere I am when I apologize. And when we talk about apologizing, sincerity is the key word. You don't talk very long before that comes up because we, we want to know, do you really mean it? Or are you just saying this to try to get out of the doghouse?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, just because what you said earlier on was very interesting. That's what you said. When you pause, you wait for someone else to kind of say, what do you think he was waiting for me to say? Because to me, and same with the love languages, words don't really mean anything. Because, you know, my upbringing, things were said and they were never followed through with, or, you know, if you say sorry, but then you still act in the same way the next time something happens. So the words with, again, same maybe with your, with JT, is that it doesn't, the words don't register because I'm like, that doesn't really mean anything to me.

Right. That's a good point. Um, it reminds me of the saying, a little less talk and a lot more action. Yeah, that's, that's what you would be waiting for. Both again, the parallel between the love languages and the apology languages.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And that's interesting as well, like you said about changing the word repent, because that does feel very biblical, doesn't it? It's a false connotation. I repent.

That's right. I mean, we definitely want people to turn from their bad ways. We want them to straighten up. But we don't need to inject religious language into it for people where that may be triggering in some way. And so, um, you know, we've worked with a secular imprint so that what we share, any Bible verses are footnoted because we want to be able to be understood by people from any religion or no religion at all.

Yeah. And again, then how does that kind of work then How do you work? I mean, you say you work part-time now. I guess you're still working with people to help them in this space. What kind of things would you do with, with a couple or in the work environment to help people to kind of really get this and sort of say, okay, it's there, there's an importance on me trying to understand somebody else.

Right. So for example, recently I went to a company and they brought me in to do a half-day seminar teaching them both. The 5 Love Languages at Work. Um, and there's a book on that now that Gary Chapman wrote with a psychologist named Paul White called Appreciation at Work.

Right.

Okay. And there we focus on the first 4 love languages and not so much on physical touch.

Yeah, that might be a bit inappropriate.

All right. Now I will say that sometimes they bring it back in with a pat on the back or the high five, that can actually mean a lot to people whose love language is physical touch.

Yeah.

But, you know, we find that the other 4 are what we want to focus on in those seminars. And then for the second half, I talk about it's great to have all of this appreciation going on, but we know that offenses are going to happen. And when they do, What it does is it creates a barrier between you and the other person. And the barrier is, um, it's, you could picture like a roadblock when there's construction. They set out those sawhorses, uh, we call them, it's an obstacle so people won't run into it. So they'll go around the barrier.

Yeah.

And those barriers build up over time if we're not able to resolve the conflict and it can actually become a huge wall. Well, how are we going to work productively at home or at work if there's a wall between us? If you're in the actual workplace, you may wear a name badge. And if we're in conflict with each other, it kind of feels like, are we not even on the same team here? Do we not work for the same company on this badge?

Right.

So what we're doing is we're actually giving people the, uh, we have profiles for both love languages and apology languages. And then we give the whole team the results of the profile so that they can refer back to it. They can go in the break room where it's posted, or we send it out now for virtual teams so they can access a document that has everyone's preferred languages so that they can remember to speak those. And we're getting very strong results. We're hearing from people who say We were stuck, but we didn't know what was wrong. And another thing I believe firmly is that, you know, people are quiet quitting. And so we're trying to help with retention because it's easier to keep the employees you have than to hire and train new people. And there's a saying, you know, people join companies but leave bad managers. And so one of my interests is in going to companies where there are conflict between the different team levels or within teams and helping them to find a way to get back so that everyone is moving in the same direction and they have that satisfaction of feeling understood and being appreciated.

Yeah, thanks. That's a great kind of culture to try and bring into Businesses especially, isn't it? Can you just, I read about quiet quitting a little while ago. I wasn't aware of it until a few months ago. Can you just explain to the listeners what quiet quitting is?

Yes. So that's when someone emotionally quits their job, or I think it could apply to personal relationships too. So you don't hand in your badge, you don't break up and move out. But emotionally, you're checked out, you've moved on, you may be looking into other alternatives. And there may just be some constraint that's keeping you there. It's not love. It's not appreciation. It may be, hey, we live together. And so, you know, I don't want to go through the trouble of moving all my stuff out. But I know that this relationship is dead in the water.

Mm-hmm.

Or if it's the workplace, hey, I've got bills to pay. I can't quit yet, but I'm mad at you. I don't feel appreciated and emotionally I'm out of here.

Okay. Thank you for explaining that. 'Cause I found that's a very interesting concept when I read about it recently that I thought, yeah, that's what, that's what a lot of people do, especially, I mean, I've done it at work for sure. Uh, and I've probably done it in a few relationships as well where there are things that you just, you've checked out. You're not really involving yourself in it or engaging with it or putting any kind of time or effort into it, but you're staying there for whatever reason it might be. But like you said, I guess if you can turn that relate— those relationships around, whether it's something at work or whether it's within your personal relationships, if you're able to reengage and get your needs met or get something more substantial from the relationship, it might help you to want to Be there and, and, and keep that going.

Exactly right. And my alma mater is the University of Virginia, and there's now a psychology professor there, uh, Professor Wilcox, who has done some studies on these personal relationships, marriage in particular. And he's looking at what happens when dissatisfied couples either break up or tie a knot and hang on. And so he did a 5-year follow-up on couples that were ready to divorce. And just a rough summary, as I recall, he came back to all the people 5 years later, whether they were still together or not. And what he found was that the ones who stayed together were more satisfied and content in their lives in general than were the people who went through the process of divorce.

Right.

And the psychologist who's watched people go through that, and I imagine your listeners can relate to this, It's just a very bumpy road to go out on your own. They say the grass is always greener on the other side, but people get over there and, and find, oh, this is, this is really rough. And there were some things that were kind of nice about having a helpmate and a partner. And so he was able to, to quantify the difference in terms of overall life satisfaction.

Right. So the people that actually then were able to sort of Changed their perception and salvaged their relationship and worked together to move that forward, had much more life fulfillment than the ones that have kind of given up and moved on.

Yes. And I will add an asterisk with this that we don't encourage anyone to stay in an abusive situation, of course. But for people who were just feeling like, you know, I'm not feeling fulfilled. Something's missing. Well, sometimes what's missing might be something in yourself. It's not that you need to find another person. Maybe you need to be another person. Maybe you want to develop in, in some new aspect, and that could bring new joy to the relationship. And I like to use personal examples and sometimes client or consulting examples. Here's one from my personal life. I have, you know, some skills I've honed through life. Like I took piano lessons throughout childhood until I was about 18. But when I would go to parties, I didn't know how to dance. And I felt like I was a wallflower. It was a skill, seemed like everyone else had but me.

Right.

And then I married JT and he was in the same boat. He really didn't know how to dance either. And so, We could slow dance at weddings and whatnot, but as far as owning the dance floor, that wasn't gonna be us.

Right.

And then when the pandemic hit, we have 3 kids, almost grown now, and we realized, you know, within the next 5 to 10 years, we're gonna have a wedding of our own to put on. And I had this desire to be able to get out there and dance Comfortably. And so we signed up for dance lessons and we started them in person and then we switched to virtually. We did that for 12 to 18 months. We only learned 2 dances, the rumba and the hustle.

Right.

And we can now do them from memory. And it's been a nice achievement for the 2 of us. It's something that we share and enjoy, and it would be easy for us to slide now that we know how to do it. We could forget about it. And so I realized we need to make it a habit. So on Friday night, along with our, hey, it's the end of the work week, let's have a little relaxation celebration, I also want to put on the music. And see if we can do our dances without having to refer to our notes.

Right.

And I will say it has brought a nice new element to us of having this thing that we share and that we've accomplished together. It's brought a new aspect of closeness that I didn't even know was missing. And so that would be my hope for people who are listening to this and saying, I don't feel fulfilled. My question would be, is there a wish you have that you and your partner might be able to fulfill together?

All right. That's a really good, that's a really good take on it. And I just make sure that you're in charge of the music list when you're children.

Yeah.

I mean, that's great. Is it? It's because, you know, we can get a bit stale, can't we, in relationships? Or we can forget the things that, you know, especially when you've had kids and they've become the focus of your attention for many years. You can lose sight of your own dreams, your own kind of ambitions, and what you want for your relationship with your partners as well, can't you?

Yes, that's very well said. Um, and we sometimes do the big things to stay close, like maybe an anniversary trip or even an anniversary weekend. But what I say is that's not enough. We need to do the regular maintenance. I recommend quarterly getaways if possible. And if you don't have family to keep the little ones, then maybe having a friend with whom you can trade off. And there's a benefit in that of not only building your own relationship, but in relying on others in community. We draw closer that way too.

Again, getting that right support network in place. But like you said, having those connections with people to make sure that you can live a life outside of of your responsibilities, I guess, as well, isn't it? To make sure you can have some fun and some pleasure and indulge yourself a bit more in your, in yourself and also within your relationship.

That's right, John. And what it takes is putting it on a calendar and making it happen because we know that there's the tyranny of the urgent. But what we need to do is focus on what's important but not pressing and putting those They call them rocks or golf balls or the big pieces into place. So looking at the calendar and saying, when can we get away? How are we going to make this happen? And then I think also doing smaller gestures of appreciation. And again, you know, at home, it's easy to think about, okay, I should maybe write a love note, stick it in their lunchbox, but also— Gestures of appreciation at work are important too. I was just reading a new study that showed when we express gratitude to others, it lifts everyone. They like that person better if it's a team situation, and they like us better.

Right.

This is some new research that I just found so interesting, but it really makes sense because we're living in a world where there's so much division, so much contention politically and otherwise, that when we're with someone who's willing to elevate others, it's very refreshing and we're drawn to it.

Again, now that also with gratitude, it does you the world of good, doesn't it? If you can be grateful for things around you and for people around you, then you feel that can completely shift your own kind of, uh, kind of mental space as well, can't it?

Yes, and I believe neurochemically it releases endorphins for us, and, and we can feel that there's a lift that comes with that. Um, and then back to the topic of love notes, I, I had a personal story I can share on that. I noticed while we were stuck in the pandemic that, um, you know, we were really just relating to the people in our family for the most part, and our attitude at my house became kind of stressful and down. We had things that we had been looking forward to that were canceled. Um, I had 2 kids who got sent home from their college experiences, so they didn't want to be where they were stuck back at home with mom and dad.

Uh-huh.

And then, um, our high schooler, who was in middle school then, was also underfoot. So we were all right on top of each other. And I thought, you know, the, the atmosphere around here is kind of bad and getting worse. And I didn't want to go to the others and, and ask, you know, can you try not to complain so much? So I, I asked myself, what can I do to improve the atmosphere here? And I decided, um, I mentioned the love notes earlier. I decided that leaving some notes around the house for each person might be helpful. And just simple sticky notes, or you can actually buy these little packs of notes of appreciation that come pre-printed. You can add something personal to it.

Okay.

But I went around and tried to stick those up at least weekly for each person on their door or their mirror. And I don't know how much it moved the needle because I don't know what it would have been like otherwise, but it at least made me feel like I was doing my part. And I want to tag on that with a second idea. This is specifically for couples. Someone told me many years ago, you don't always need to go out and buy an anniversary card or a Valentine's Day card. What you can do if you've saved those over the years is you can arrange them by date and then just pull out an old card from 5, 10, 15 years ago and write a new message on the back of it. And so we've been doing that now for a long time. We also make a note about how we celebrated.

Right.

For our last Valentine's Day, you know, I pulled out a card that was 15 or no, it must have been 20 years old because my daughter just turned 21.

Yeah.

And on it, I had written originally, the grandparents have come to town and they're keeping our older son and the baby for one of our few, you know, outings. So, we went to this certain restaurant which had since closed in the intervening 15 years, but it It was a nice trip down memory lane, and it also fits with my— I tend to be a green person. I like for us to, you know, it's better to reuse than to recycle. And so maybe that's a tip that a listener will take away today, that you can travel through history with your partner and reuse some of those cards.

Okay, yeah, and that's a great idea, isn't it? Because I guess you can reminisce, you can think about I mean, that opens the kind of whole idea of what we used to do, how we used to be, where are we now? And I guess you can, you can, there's so many kind of things you could look at by doing that type of thing.

Exactly right. Yeah. And I love to share ideas or in the workplace, they call it best practices. What are the things that are going to help you to feel loved and appreciated? And often it is having a sense of shared history, Shared values and a common purpose. Another thing that we can do to help each other is to not always be striving to, you know, what do we want to do next? What do we want to achieve next? I recommend that people stop and celebrate your achievements.

Hmm.

Count your blessings. Often we're focused on this gap between where we want to be and where we And we forget to turn around and look at how far we've come. And so I hope everyone will take just a moment today to look at where you are and to reach out and to maybe thank some people who have helped you to achieve or accomplish what you do have.

Yeah, great. Again, like, again, it's a kind of going into that kind of gratitude space and our appreciation space, which Which makes you feel so much better about your kind of general kind of space that you live in.

Exactly right.

And I guess like if there's nothing you can really feel grateful or appreciative for, there's a lot of work for you to be kind of then focusing on then, okay, how am I going to get myself into a space where I can kind of start to appreciate things and, and, and be grateful for what I've got?

That's true. And if you really cannot find those things that you feel grateful for, or that you feel excited about, things that you're looking forward to, that can be a sign of depression. And so putting a plug in for my profession, you don't need to suffer through that alone. There's definitely help if you're feeling down, if you feel that all you're looking at are dead ends. That's, that's not the truth. And so there are people who can help you navigate your way through that.

Yeah, most definitely. I agree. If you, if you're stuck in that really kind of dark, maybe empty space where you just can't see any positives at all, it's definitely worth seeking out someone to explore that with. Um, thank you for sharing what you've done so far. There's, we, I mentioned right at the beginning, your TEDx talk, and you spoke about, I believe, the 2 essentials for healthy relationships. Would you be able to share what those 2 are? things are with us today? Yes.

So, you know, different experts have the, you know, 3 keys to happiness or other ideas like that. But Kerry Chapman and I feel like it really boils down to 2 simple things, and that is that we need to be able to express love and appreciation to the people who are closest to us. That fills up the love tank. But there's a threat to the love tank, and that is when we mess up. And that can drain your love tank very quickly. And so second essential is our 5 apology languages. Whenever you have a misstep or a mistake, it's important not to try to cover that up or deny it or blame others.

Mm-hmm.

Those are some really common mistakes that people make. And we see right through it. We know when someone isn't accepting responsibility.

Yeah.

And it's so much more refreshing if they will own up to it and talk about, um, for a serious offense, we recommend that they use all 5 of our apology languages and then check in with the person and say, have I covered what you need to hear? Have I done what you need me to do? What else would show you how sincere I am in wanting to make things right? And Gary Chapman and I find with these 2 principles, it's kind of like having tracks that your relationship can run on.

Mm-hmm.

Things go more smoothly, and teams and couples are finding that they're able to have a lot Yeah, I guess that would be true, wouldn't it?

Because if someone's in denial or won't accept responsibility, and that's something that kind of you mentioned earlier on about abusive relationships, it's, you know, in a lot of instances and that kind of, no, they don't ever take responsibility and they're always trying to blame you for all the problems and, and those problems just keep repeating themselves no matter how many times you ask someone to do something differently or even plead them to do something differently. They're not going to engage at all in that kind of space. And that kind of kills both edges of that healthy relationship then as well. Them 2 tracks are completely off.

Yes, that's exactly right. I was just saying that it takes 2 people to keep a relationship, but only one can spoil it or end it. Um, we can't do this alone. And so if, if someone's listening and they're really struggling in their relationship, they Uh, feel blamed, they feel attacked, um, then, then they may want to go see an expert who can help tease apart what's going on.

Mm-hmm.

For example, if I'm dealing, um, with someone who's come to me and said, we just can't get along, um, he or she blames me for everything, um, I'll tell you some of the things that I begin to address with them. Um, the first is extreme language. Um, I don't think it's good communication to use always, never, every, all, and none.

Yeah.

And so I make, make them aware of that. And so where I just said he blames me for everything, or she blames me for everything, that's actually kind of a foul on my part because they're going to immediately disagree and say I don't blame you for everything. I just blame you for this, this, and this. So the extreme language just invites disagreement.

Yeah.

It's not a good place to start. And so I banned those extreme words from— I've tried to ban them from my own vocabulary, and I ban them in my office in the sense that I say, we're gonna have to acknowledge those. So even if one's Raise a finger to acknowledge that, you know, oops, I said that, and maybe choose a different word. Like, it seems that you usually, or very often, this is the case. And then we're off and running and we can deal with some other things. A couple of other tips I use. One is having unconditional positive regard. And this comes way back in psychology from Carl Rogers. Carl Rogers. Um, I use it in my own marriage where our assumption is that you're a reasonable person, that you're trying to be helpful.

Yeah.

And that you're intelligent, right? And so, uh, that rules out a lot of problems because I'm not gonna call you stupid or call you dummy or something like that if it's true that I have this positive regard for Another thing that we talk about in our latest book, which is Making Things Right at Work, is the importance of making positive attributions. And some listeners may not have even heard of this before. So attributions are the assumptions that we make about the motives of others. You know, we do it all the time, but people might not have had the word for it.

Mm-hmm.

Suppose that I logged on late for our interview today. A negative attribution would be, John, if you said, oh, you know, Jennifer, she's got this reputation of being unreliable. It's something about her and it's not changing.

Right.

And then the opposite is a positive attribution. And with those, we don't make things about the person and we don't make them long-term. To do the opposite, you say it's about their circumstance and it's temporary or passing. So, John, you might say, uh, if you had a technician, well, technician, Jennifer hasn't logged on yet, but I know she'll be here. She has a great reputation. She always shows up. There must have been an unforeseen thing that popped up just this And I'm sure she'll be right along.

Yeah.

And so you see how that would change the whole tone of our interaction?

For sure.

Because for your listeners, if you're the one who has been criticized, who feels misjudged, then you get— first you get defensive, but then after that you get really hurt. When someone makes a negative attribution about me, I almost I don't want to defend myself. I want to say, you know what, if that's what you really think of me, uh, we've got a bigger problem. I'm not even going to defend around being late this one time, but we need some serious help if you think these internal negative qualities are true of me. Um, so what we do in Making Things Right is help people to recognize negative assumptions or attributions And to change those so that we can get back on track and work productively.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like that assumption that someone's doing something intentionally just to give you a little bit of a hard time, isn't it? Because if I had thought that about you, if you were late, that puts me in a, in a bad mood or a difficult mood as well.

Right.

You're then going to pick up on as soon as you arrive that I'm not quite in a good mood. might be incongruent or in a, in a good space. And then I could be, like you said, I could be accusatory in some way about you and, and judge you in some way. And then, like you said, you're gonna get all defensive and our conversation is pretty much gonna go in an unhealthy direction.

Yeah, it spirals, doesn't it? And so I, I'll tell you, I've actually stopped doing marriage counseling and, or relationship counseling, and that might surprise some Others will say no. I get it. I found that it was uncomfortably contentious situation and that I was really able to do some strong and some helpful work by just working with one half of any couple or even a work partnership.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and this reminds me of, of one way in which I did that. So I was working, um, with a woman, we could call her Anne, and Anne often Complained about her husband, said that he always wanted her to be at home when he got back from his trips, and she needed to have a life, and he never did this and such. So you can hear the extreme language. So we addressed that without even needing him to be there, and then she brought up another complaint. She said he actually he knows that it's his job to take out the trash every. whatever night, and he doesn't do it. And the reason is he wants to bother me. So he does it. He doesn't take out the trash in order to get on my nerves, right? And so I said, timeout, Ann, do you hear what you just said? And we did some teaching on negative attribution. And I said, can you tell me what would be a more Positive attribution. And so she was able to come up with, okay, he's busy, he's got a big project, he has a lot on his mind, he's not trying to annoy me, and he just forgot to take out the trash. And then she goes home and she comes back a week or two later, and it was different. As you pointed to so wisely, John, it was affecting not only him, who felt criticized, but it was making her so mad. She was so mad she could have just spit nails at him for, you know, doing it, which I really think was forgetting, um, to make her mad. And so it ended up, um, being a calming result for both of them.

Yeah, no, definitely. I mean, if you, like you said, if you assume that someone's out to get you, um, that your other partner or someone at work is out to get you, that's going to make you feel Very victimized. It's going to make you feel like they don't respect you. All the manner of things that could come up. And like you said, you're not going to be able to hide that from them when, when you're having a conversation, are you? And then you might even accuse them, in fact, of all of those things.

Yes, exactly. You accuse them and they feel like, oh my gosh, that's what you think of me? It's very hurtful. And then that gets back into people quitting. A consultant friend of mine has a great book called Your Employees Have Quit, They Just Haven't Left. His name is Rich Schlentz. And so this is creating people wanting to quit and leave. And ultimately, if I think about it, it's not always the one who gets accused or hurt who leaves. It may be, as you said, the one who consistently makes negative attributions is going to feel very frustrated and they're going to quit and leave too. And so we want to have the whole thing get surfaced and dealt with so that people are able to stay and be productive with each other, whether it's at work or at home.

Awesome. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. That's amazing, the stuff that you've shared so far. I'm afraid we're going to be running out of time soon. If people wanted to obviously find out a bit more about you, what you've done, what you're doing right now, how would they be able to reach out or to find you on, on your social medias or your website?

Right. My website has everything. My website is drjennthomas.com. That's D like dog, R like red, J-E-N, thomas.com. And there, about halfway down the page, I've got a link to my TEDx talk. that I gave a few years ago on the 2 essentials for healthy relationships. I've also got links to our books, The 5 Apology Languages and Making Things Right at Work. And then I'm on 4 or 5 different social media channels at The 5 Apology Languages. And on Facebook, I'm there as Jennifer Thomas Author.

Awesome. I will make sure that all of those links are in the show notes for the— for today's talk. Absolutely amazing talking to you. I do like to ask my guests, um, if they have a favorite quote or something like words of wisdom, maybe something that they think, you know, I've got one that I, I think that there's one thing that makes the biggest difference when I do a workshop or a talk. Is there something that you could think of or a quote that you think, so if someone just took that away today, that would be an a great thing for them to put into practice.

Yes, indeed. I think it's very important for our yes to mean yes and our no to mean no. And this one, you can actually find it in the Bible. Not everybody realizes that, um, but it, it's not limited to that. The concept really comes back to boundaries, and I've been so pleased to see the popularity of boundaries now.

Yeah.

Because we need to give a good yes. That is, if I tell you yes, I'll follow through. I'll be there. I'll try to be early, not just on time.

Yeah.

And then also being willing to say no and to recognize the power in that of not stringing people along or failing to complete a task at the last minute. It's actually very kind sometimes to say no.

Great. And that's a, that's a massive thing. I think that especially being, uh, in my background in therapy and then into coaching, that's, that seems to be a massive thing that people really struggle, don't they? Especially if they want to say no, but they end up saying yes, and then they don't follow through with the thing that they've said yes to. And the, and the consternation and the discomfort and everything that it causes someone just trying to say no in the first place.

That's right. The people pleasers around the world will resonate with this. It's a real struggle. I feel it. Our challenge is to make sure that we're only going to say yes when we mean it. And there is a real freedom that comes in that. My friends know I'm not going to offer something if I don't want to do it. And so we don't need to argue. I don't need to insist. It's simply, I'm offering it and it's okay.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's good for people to know about you as well, isn't it? Because there are also a lot of people out there that find it really difficult to ask for help or to put themselves in that space where they need other people. But if they've got someone that they can trust and rely on and people that follow through with the things that they say they're going to do, that puts them in a much better position to actually reach out in the first place.

Exactly right.

Thank you. And like you said about boundaries, it is great to see that boundaries is kind of, is, is a buzzword at the moment because they're so essential to life, aren't That's right.

Yeah, we, we want to see people succeed in their relationships. We believe that boundaries are making a difference, as are these apology languages and love languages. So as we wrap up, I want to give my best to all of your listeners and say, hang in there, check yourself, and also communicate openly.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, we've scratched the surface of so many different things today that we could have talked about for hours, I think. So thank you so much for your time today, Dr. Jennifer Thomas.

It's been a real pleasure, John. Take care.

Thanks, Jen. Take care.