Score Your Spats: How to Stop Arguing and Enhance Your Relationships - Nir And Far

The problem is that so many of our interpersonal conflicts come about when people are disagreeing about issues that don't freaking matter. And so what this technique does is isolate the issues that do matter.

Hi everyone. Welcome to the near and far podcast. This is Nir Eyal and I'm so excited you're here with me today because we're going to be talking about one of the problems that I used to have in my relationships that today I can say I have overcome. And that is how to have arguments to enhance your relationships. And this article is called Score your spats. And I'm going to share with you a technique that I have used throughout my 20, what is it now? Three year marriage that has really helped us getting over these simple arguments that would, would, would leave us with bad feelings and we couldn't really get to a resolution. We have found this incredibly simple technique that everyone should know about. If you're in a relationship or you want to be in a relationship and you want to be a better communicator, this is a killer technique. And to help me read the article, we've got Nick Gray. Nick, how you doing?

I'm doing good. I'm doing great. Now this article came kind of about. Shane had sent you a text, right? Can you kind of talk about that or how this spurred about.

So Shane Paris, I'm sure many listeners will know him. He's the author of the Farnum street blog and he writes all about personal development. And we met up a few years ago. He's an old friend of mine and I told him about this technique and he remembered it and he started using it in his relationships. And then just a few weeks ago, he emailed me and said, you know, hey, I don't know if I ever told you this, but I've been using this technique all the time and I love it. And I just wanted to thank you for telling it to me. And then, you know, I kind of forgotten about it. And so that kind of spurred me to write this, this blog post so that it can reach a wider audience and hopefully benefit more people.

Well, that's great. Let's get started. The name of the article is Score your spats. How to stop arguing and enhance your relationships. Whenever you have a disagreement with someone you care about and who cares about, you pose this straightforward question. How important is this to you? On a scale of 1 to 10, the size of the disagreement doesn't matter. Whether it's about dinner choices or naming your firstborn child, this method helps avoid unnecessary disagreements and keeps relationships strong most of the time. See exceptions below. Why this Question Is a Game Changer before adopting this approach, my wife and I often found ourselves in drawn out debates. I was left wondering if she was arguing for the sake of it or if the issue genuinely mattered to her. Recent research from Michigan State University and Harvard University highlighted a common issue, interpersonal projection bias. Scientists found individuals often project their own feelings and states onto others, even when the other person's situation is different. For instance, study participants who felt fresh or tired made assumptions about how others felt based on their own feelings, leading to misjudgments. Fresh individuals overestimated how tired ones felt and vice versa. This tendency to believe others perceive situations similarly to how we do can lead to conflicts. The one to ten question method helps counter this by offering a clear way to express feelings and priorities, reducing potential misunderstandings. Consider this when my wife and I moved into our home, we had different ideas about how things should look. While I had strong feelings about certain aspects, like my workplace setup, other things mattered less to me. Instead of debating every minor detail, we'd check in with each other. Her how do you feel about this couch color? She'd ask, showing an online photo. Me not a fan. To be honest, such responses used to frustrate my wife. I seemed dismissive of her choices without suggesting alternatives. This could lead to tension, but with our new approach, the conversation evolved. Her On a scale of one to 10, how important is a different color to you? Me two. Her all right, I value this at a six, so I'll go with it. Sounds good. How about Indian food tonight? I'm a 10 for masala dosa. Using numbers provides clarity. Assigning a value to feelings and preferences makes understanding easier. It paves the way for constructive resolutions, strengthening the bond.

Yeah, so this is essentially the core of the technique. It's a very, very simple technique. And what you're doing to overcome projection bias? Again, projection bias is when we think other people feel like we feel, we project our feelings onto others, assuming like, we can't get into other people's heads. So we assume if this is important to me, it'll be important to them. If it's not important to me, well, of course it's not that important to them either. The problem is that so many of our interpersonal conflicts come about when people are disagreeing about issues that don't freaking matter. And so what this technique does is isolate the issues that do matter. And so what we found in my relationship, at least, and why this works so well for us is that you discard those 80 to 90% of issues that are way more important to one one person than the other. And so why argue about it? So I don't really care about the color of the couch. So when my wife used to ask, well, what do you think about this? And I said, I don't really like it, that was honest. I wasn't lying when I said I don't like that color. What I wasn't giving her the information that wasn't present was how much do I actually care, Right. I cannot like the color and be. And still be fine with it. So now that we know, well, how big of a deal is this to you? Right? Scale of 1 to 10, how important is it? We let the other person or yourself have their way, in a sense, on the stuff that really matters. That where there's a big gap. And we'll talk about some of the details here, right? Like what happens if two people have the same number? Or what happens if there's a small gap between the two? We'll get to it right away. And. And why? This isn't always appropriate for every single relationship, but for many times, I would say 80, 90% of the time that we've used this technique, it solves the conflict right away because you immediately discover that either both people think the issue is not that important, or one person thinks it's important, one person thinks it's not, and you just go with the person's opinion who thinks it's very important.

It's nice. I'm excited to use this question. How important is this to you? On a scale of 1 to 10, the next section is called the Potential for Misuse and Trust. This method shines in close relationships, but isn't universal. For instance, during a zero sum negotiation like selling a house, it's not the right tool. It best suits lasting relationships. Spouses, children, close friends, or long term business associates. Like any strategy, there's potential for misuse. One might exaggerate their feelings. This is a risk, but also a litmus test. Interestingly, animals exhibit similar behaviors. Dogs, for instance, expose their vulnerable underbellies during play. Any dog causing real harm gets ostracized. The 1 to 10 question not only resolves disputes, but also offers insights into a person's commitment to the relationship. At its core, this method fosters introspection and validation. Asking someone to quantify their feelings prompts self reflection. Conversely, posing the question acknowledges the validity of their feelings. But what if both parties feel strongly if there's a difference of three or more Points. The one feeling stronger usually decides if both rate 8 or higher. It calls for a deeper discussion. Thankfully, such instances are rare. My wife and I don't use this method daily. Sometimes weeks pass without mentioning it. Over the years, however, our bond has strengthened, turning arguments into productive conversations. We don't always feel the need to talk things out. Often I gauge the importance of an issue before discussing it with my wife. If it's not significant, I let it go, knowing she does the same. Misunderstandings in relationships are common. Tools like the 1 to 10 question are invaluable, anchoring our interactions in mutual respect and understanding. Sometimes a simple question can be the bridge to deeper relationships. The question, how important is this to you on a scale of 1 to 10 can clear away confusion and bring people closer together.

Yeah, so that's, that's the crux of the technique. And, and like I said, there are some caveats, right? I would not use this technique in a negotiation. That's a one time thing. So for example, if you're selling a house or selling your business, if that's a one time interaction where it is zero sum, like if I sell my house for more money, that means that you have to pay more, so you get less, that's not the right place for this type of technique. This is a technique to use for long term relationships. So not only do I use this technique with my wife, probably that's the most frequent. And with my daughter, I have used this in business relationships where it's a business partner who I want to do long term business with and it becomes a really, really good litmus test. I remember when I was in business school, one of my professors, Andy Ratcliffe, said that one of the ways that you want to test whether someone's going to be a good business partner is, is that you want to give them to the gun and see if they shoot you in the back. Right? Figuratively, of course. You want to give them the opportunity to screw you. You want to give them the opportunity to see if they think zero sum. Zero sum meaning if I get more, you get less. If I get, if you get less, I get more. That's not the kind of person you want to do business with. That's not the kind of person you want to have a friendship with. Even you want to be friends with. You want to do business with people who believe in non zero sum, meaning if I do better, you do better. If you do better, I do better. We call this in economics, overlapping utility functions. And so as nerdy as that sounds, thinking about the relationships in your life as overlapping utility functions. Meaning if my wife Julie is doing better, right. If things are going great for her, I do better as her husband, I'm happier that she's happier. That's an overlapping utility function. And so that overlapping utility function is something we also want to do in our business relationships, right? Like when I, when I was at my last company, we had four co founders and we had this very, very tight bond. Two couples, in fact, two married couples. And we did business together and we genuinely wanted each other to do better. And we're still business partners today. Actually, we and Julie and I invested in their company called Marco Polo because we just love the heck out of them. We have so much trust, we have so much respect, we have so much mutual admiration. We have these overlapping utility functions because we want them to succeed. Well, we have that relationship because we've been time tested to know that even when they had the opportunity to screw us, even when they had the opportunity to get more and us get less, they didn't take that opportunity. We gave them the opportunity to shoot, shoot us in the back. And they never did. They in fact did the opposite. They said, no, no, no, you, you take more, you take more. And that's what this 1 to 10 rule does. If you are even early in a relationship, let's say you're dating somebody and you want to see is this someone who has a zero sum mindset or a non zero sum mindset. You give them the opportunity, you tell them, hey, I read this great article. Why don't you read it as well? It's about the 0 to 10 rule. I, on a scale of 1 to 10, how important is this to you? Well, if the person is a good person, if they're the kind of person you want to build a long term relationship for with, there'll be fluctuations, right? Sometimes there'll be a zero, sometimes there'll be a nine, sometimes there'll be a two. If the person, on the other hand, if every issue to them is a nine, well then that's not really the kind of person you want to have a long term relationship with because they don't understand that sometimes there's a give and take in a relationship, right? That sometimes things, not everything can be super important all the time. So that's a good test. Do they screw you over by saying, oh, everything's a nine. For me that means I always have to get my way? No, that's, that's not, probably not the kind of person you want a long term relationship with. But this 1 to 10 rule can can really help establish what type of mindset that other person has and sustain throughout the relationship. Again, you know, we I, Julie and I don't use this technique every single day, but every once in a while you know when it comes up to something that otherwise would have led to a big discussion and big conversation just as simple, hey, how important is this to you? On a scale of 1 to 10, 90% of the time we figure out one person is more than three numbers away go with what they want. Again, if it is something that both of us are close together, okay, especially if it's very rarely something that both of us think is an eight plus, then we sit down, we say, okay, let's have one of those standard we need to talk type conversations.

Well, one of the hardest things to talk about in a relationship can be money. And if you liked this episode, you may enjoy the other near and Far podcast called Money. Don't go it alone with your wallet. We recorded that last year in May, so check that out in your podcast app. Near also has two other articles that are related to this one. One is called how to Listen like youe Mean it and the other is why values in a relationship are what make it last or not. You can find those on Near's website at www.nearandfar.com. well, you're listening to near and Far Business Behavior and the Brain. Near blogs at that near and Far website I mentioned, but he also has a weekly newsletter filled with science backed strategies for designing healthy habits that your customers will love. Sign up for his free newsletter@www.nearandfar.com. that's www.nirandfar.com. thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.