#703: Sheila Heen — How to Master the Difficult Art of Receiving (and Giving) Feedback

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Tim to learn more. That's Helix Sleep H-E-L-I-X HelixSleep.com slash Tim. This is their best offer to date and it will not last long, so take a look. With Helix, better sleep starts now. Hello, boys and girls. Ladies and gyrms. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferris Show. And I'm going to skip the preamble. I'm going to keep it light. My guest today, my omide, we have lots to cover and I'm excited to dig in. My guest today is Sheila Hien. This is her

second appearance on the podcast. Sheila has spent the last three decades working to understand how people can better navigate conflict with a particular specialty in difficult conversations. God knows we need more of that expertise for all of our sakes. She is a founder of Triad Consulting Group, a professor at Harvard Law School and a co-author of Thanks for the Feedback. The science and art of receiving feedback well, even when it's off-base unfair, poorly delivered and frankly,

you're not in the mood with Douglas Stone and difficult conversations. Subtitle how to discuss what matters most. Also with Douglas Stone and Bruce Patton with a newly updated third edition that was just released in August. Sheila and her colleagues at Triad work with leaders and organizations to build their capacity to have the conversations that matter most. Her clients have included Pixar, American Express, the NBA, the Singapore Supreme Court. Maybe we'll talk about that

who knows. The Obama White House and Theologians struggling with the nature of truth and God. She is schooled in negotiation daily by her three children that you can find. My first and very popular conversation was Sheila at Tim.log slash Sheila. He and Sheila, nice to see you again. Thanks for making the time. It's great to see you. The no last time we spoke at length, I was in the

midst of a very challenging chapter in my personal relationship. When my team and I reviewed the last conversation we had, which I always do before a conversation like this, so went through the entire round one. There was a line that stood out for all of us and it might be a paraphrase. You can feel free to fact check this. Yeah, yeah. I can't wait to hear what you're about to say. Quote. It's not just that we have difficult conversations in our most

important relationships. Those conversations are the relationship. I've been thinking about this a lot in the sense that it seems like our most important relationships are defined and steered in large part by how we handle the difficult conversations, how we handle things when we are perhaps not our best selves. To that extent, they're what define a good or a bad relationship. I just wanted to share that because it's stuck out for everyone who reviewed the last

conversation that we had on the side of my team. How should we talk about, because we did discuss a lot surrounding difficult conversations and we will edge into a lot of shared territory. But how should we talk about feedback? For me, when feedback is incoming part of what I'm doing is scanning for what's wrong with it, we can circle back to this question because there's a great set of things that are typically wrong with feedback at least that other people give me.

So it's a shift from, I have to decide whether I agree or disagree and what's wrong with it. Before I decide, let me just understand it. Let me just understand what they're trying to say. So if we go to what language does that suggest, you can ask questions in one of two directions. Feedback always has a past in the future. So you can either ask more about where it's coming from, say more about what you heard me say, or can you give me an example of that, or tell me more

about the impact that that had in the exchange. So you're asking questions of curiosity about what is it that you noticed that is prompting you to say this to me? The other direction that you can ask questions in is forward looking. Where is it going to? If I were to take your advice, what would I do differently? What specifically are you suggesting or requesting?

If I'm feeling particularly defensive, that second set of questions is sometimes easier. If I ask the backward looking ones, it'll suck me into an argument about why they misunderstood or misremember or that's not really what happened. If I just go to, okay, if I were to follow your advice, what would that look like in practice in everyday life? And sometimes they have an instant reaction,

and I realized, oh, you're just saying, drop you a note back to say, I got it. I can do that. If I thought we were talking about am I responsive in a fully human emotional way, you're just saying, just let me know whether you got my note. You don't have to give me the whole answer, which is, of course, why maybe I'm not responding yet. Because I'm like, oh gosh, that's a big question. Let me think about it. I want to give you a good response. And you're just saying, just let me know you got it.

You can give me the full response later. So that's an example of I now understand what you want. Sometimes a person doesn't know what they want. But then that centers the conversation on, okay, so I don't know how to change. If you don't know what would tell you that this is better. There was freezing from the last conversation we had that came up multiple times, which was help me understand. Which I thought was very skillful because it is basically indirectly pointing the

fingers at yourself. If that makes sense, rather than explain yourself, right? Right. Let me understand. And implies a level of responsibility on the receiver that might help to diffuse things or deescalate things. If someone giving feedback comes in hot, so the wording might be diplomatic, but the tone is, listen, fucker, ABC. Yeah, it's amazing how clear that message is.

Any thoughts for either how to deescalate or self-talk that you can use so that the person on the receiving end is able to kind of reply in a calm, cool, and collected fashion? It could be that calm, cool, and collected is more aspirational than realistic. And one thing that can help is just to name the surprise or the this just came out of left field. I'm totally knocked off my center. So just saying, wow, okay, sorry, this is coming out of left

field. So I'm just kind of on my back foot. So that you're just naming where you're at in this moment. And sometimes just naming it can help you find your feet again. Because you're like, okay, I've just accurately described where I'm at. I can be in that space. And now they know I'm in that space. Or just saying, okay, I'm feeling a little defensive. And then you can move to a question. A question that I've been using recently that has helped just quickly get to the heart of what's

going on is what do you feel like I don't get? What is it that you feel I really don't get about? Whatever, this situation about how this impacted you, whatever they're trying to tell you that they feel like you're really clueless about, that's often going to cut through the noise. So let's if we could just jump into a real life example. And perhaps we could examine painful feedback from the past. Your own? Well, we can talk about my own, but I thought we would

give it my job as the inquisitor that I would ask about. That will not protect you, my friend. I know. It's not the flack jacket. I always hope it to be, but I know I came into this expecting that I would be opening the kimono per se, but you just finished the third edition of difficult conversations. And you had to contend with some leader feedback on an example in that book that got large reactions. Could you elaborate on this? So there are a lot of things that we

looked at, fresh and rewrote and reworked and changed about the third edition. And one of the examples that got the biggest and most consistent negative reaction from readers was an example, the story in the chapter about shifting from blame to joint contribution. And it's a sexual harassment example, although it's told as to characters, all the examples in the book are real horror malgames, but disguised. That particular example was mine. And it came from

an experience that I had pretty early in my career as in my 20s. I was sent a broad to work on a project, international project. It was bringing together consultants from lots of different places. And simply because my organization was the one that was holding the funding and in charge of the project in the collaboration, I got named as the team lead. And I was the youngest person on the team by a good margin. And part of what happened, of course, we were in a very stressful context on

site in a divided ethnic conflict. So the task that we have together, we have to come together, build a set of team relationships that are highly functional and adaptive in the moment as things unfold. And so the first couple of days are really spent sorting out sort of how do we connect and how are we going to collaborate together as we tackle getting ready for the project. Over those first couple of days, things settled down in terms of people's reactions to me being the

team lead. I'm sure their first reaction was like, really? Because you looked like you're still in high school. And I had several decades of experience, which was fair enough, honestly. There was one guy who was particularly hostile to the idea and continued to be hostile to the idea. So I decide that the answer for this to win him over and sort out whatever's going on with his hostility to my leadership, all assign us a piece of the next day to work on together and then we'll just

have sort out. We'll work on it one on one. So I did that and it worked beautifully. I soon learned that it had worked a little too well because he started saying things like, I feel like in another world, we would have fallen in love. He was indicating directly and indirectly romantic interest. And I was completely freaked out by that. So I'd say, oh, you know, I'm married. He said, so am I? What's the problem? And oddly enough, I felt totally paralyzed by it and I'm not a shy

person. I'm pretty quick to speak up. In fact, that's some of the feedback I'm getting now, which is I'm a little too quick to speak up. We can circle back to that. Now I just have the opposite problem. And I felt like I'm sending the indirect signals and slightly more direct signals that I'm not interested in. It's not stopping. And I'm trying to avoid him, etc. He's always like

right there at any meal. He's right next to me. And so I felt paralyzed because I felt like, gosh, I have to be sure that I'm right about his intentions that I'm reading him correctly. Maybe it's just a cultural difference between us. There was no HR to go to. And it wasn't a hierarchical thing. Some sexual harassment situations are really tough because it's in hierarchy with a boss. Here, I'm actually in charge. And so the insight for me was, oh gosh, I don't need to be sure I'm

right about his intentions. I just have to describe the impact that's having on me. Number one, and number two, and the reason that's in the contribution chapter, is that suddenly started occurring to me that I might have been sending mixed signals by accident. In other words, I arranged

for us to do this piece of the project together. And maybe that was signaling interest. And so if I just changed my contribution, so my contribution to the problem was maybe inadvertently seeming like I was reaching out to give him special attention because I was paying attention to what he was doing to try to get him in our meetings to get him engaged, win him over. And the other thing I'm contributing is I'm not saying directly that I'm not interested.

So I'll change those contributions. So that was a big aha for me. We disguise it, we write it into the book. The reaction that we got was we had one student of ours who told us when I got to that part, I threw the book across the room, which is not really the reader reaction you're hoping for. I don't know about you. What was the explanation behind that if there was one? You're blaming the victim. You're blaming the victim. You're saying that she, the name of the book is Sydney, that Sydney is

at fault for her own situation, that she should deal with it alone. In other words, she's got to figure out what she needs to change because she got herself into this. And people also had strong views about what was really going on with him. They had strong views about what you should do. Like you should never have this conversation directly. It's unsafe. You should go to HR. So it was a very clear set of themes in the reaction. By the way, what's your reaction as you listen?

My reaction, as I listen, is actually more set of questions. For instance, I'm very curious if the throw the book across the room reaction is mostly American born and raised readers of a certain vintage. Yes. I'm wondering if that's something you have observed in readers from many other cultures. I'm also wondering many other ages because it strikes me as though that may be a very contemporary industrialized US response or North American response to things, which is just a

hypothesis. But that's what comes to mind from me from a curiosity perspective. Totally. And what I particularly like about your curiosity is that like me, it allows us to locate the problem in them. It's just that you guys are either an iHabbs reaction totally. Too young. Like I was, like you'll get it once you're in the work world. A big reaction was like, well, this just can't happen. This should

not happen, which I don't disagree with. And it does. So the goal is what do you do about it. So some people were upset that it was even in the book because you shouldn't be talking about these things. It's like, well, it's a book on difficult conversations. So we want to be tackling the ones that actually happen. We're not going to choose the easy ones. We're not going to choose the easy ones. And if we don't have it, people say, well, what about really hard situations like sexual harassment?

You don't address that. So I agree with you that that reaction was coming partly from, and it has morphed a little bit over the years in terms of the generational sense of what should happen in the ideal world. I think when we're in our 20s, as young adults, we come into the world with a strong sense of the way the world should work. And then we discovered that that's not the way the world works in many situations. And it's kind of outrageous. And then we're like, why are we

not changing this? Why are you guys tolerating it? And this is why revolutions are led by young people. And I think as I've gotten older, what I'm noticing in myself is that, okay, I address some things and don't address others, but I also figure out how to navigate the world as it is. And then those of us in leadership have been successful in the world as it is. And so we're like, don't worry

about it. You'll be able to navigate it. It's a lot better than when I was your age. But I think that's partly why we get complacent, because we do see the progress that's been made, but then we can underappreciate the progress still to be made. I will also say that I want to be fair to the other readers, some of whom were young women from other cultures who have had even more stressful, extreme, horrific experiences. And we're looking for guidance and feeling like

they were being told, well, you're on your own. I was going to just say before we unpack some of the macro and also the example that you're about to give, which I don't want you to lose track of. Unless I missed it, you didn't share how you ultimately address the situation. So I would feel like that's a critical piece of the story. So in the original edition, let's just say, yeah, how did you explain how you then handled that very uncomfortable situation?

So part of what was so powerful for me about realizing, oh, actually, there are a couple things that I have done that have probably contributed to this. And those I have control over, those I can change. And that was a relief. That was liberating for me. It was like, oh, okay, well, I can be even clear about the fact. And I don't have to know that I'm right about his intentions. So I pulled him aside and said, hey, by the way, I may not be reading you right at all. So I'm not saying this

is what you intend. And you have made a number of comments about having a romantic relationship or personal relationship. And I think I probably haven't been clear that that's not of interest to me. I'm enjoying our working relationship. And that's super fun. And I think we're doing a great job. But if I've been unclear, I apologize for that. And that was kind of the end of it. You know, we only had another week or so of work to do together. But I felt incredibly empowered.

And so therefore, when later readers are saying, you're blaming the victim and you're saying, it's her fault and that she's on her own, I felt really misunderstood because I was like, no, no, we have a whole section of that chapter that's about like, it's really important not to blame the victim. And that a victim seeing some contribution also gives them back some control and power. Sometimes it's not saying they did anything wrong. You're not blaming them. They didn't do anything wrong.

And it helps them have a little bit of control over making sure it doesn't happen again. In many cases, which was how it felt to me. So when we're getting this feedback from readers, I lost sight of what we're trying to do in a book, which is that we're trying to put in stories that resonate with people. We think of writing as a conversation with the reader's internal voice. And if we're doing something that's creating a, wait a minute, that's not true.

That's not the way it was for me or that's overstated. If we're creating a reaction, it's going to get in the way of the conversation that we're having because a book is a one-way conversation. So we're trying to anticipate what readers are wondering about or objecting to or confused by or feel off his off base and then address it right away in the book. So the good news was that we had an example that was generating a lot of reader reaction that people were bringing

their own experience to. That's good. But the fact that then it tells the story is if there's one way to handle it when this was a relatively mild version that didn't have power differentials in the way that many people have faced, meant that I suddenly, because it was my example, was feeling defensive and like, well, you're misunderstanding me. And so we did an interim fix where we tried to clarify. There was no HR, that this wasn't the only way to handle it.

The interim fix totally didn't work. So it wasn't clear in the original edition that you did not have HR or some intermediary to go to or it wasn't sufficiently clear. Yes, we thought there was clear. So that's the thing is we felt that it was an incredibly clear and that other people were misunderstanding us. And we have a long list of all the things that were wrong with their reactions and understanding. So we tried to get clearer and clearer with the example instead of it didn't

work. It didn't work at all. So what we needed to do, which what we finally did was say, it's not about my experience actually. It's about what the readers are bringing to their own life experience and the felt pain that they want help with. And this example, the way we're telling it, is not meeting them where they are at. And is a particular version, which is not universal. So eventually,

in the third edition, we took it out. We replaced it with a different example that got to the points we were trying to make with it because we realized that we're just creating more noise than help. Let me ask a question about that because this is the situation itself is outside of my personal experience, but receiving feedback on books. Yes, it is. In my personal experience. So I'm very curious, did you receive strong positive feedback on that particular example

from other readers or was it pretty uniformly negative or confusion? Or did you also receive a equal amount or comparable amount of positive feedback from readers? There were a couple of people who came forward to say, oh, I actually really loved that example. You know, it immediately helped me see situations where, oh, I feel more empowered. Like, I can see what I would do differently. I of course remember those really clearly because I hung on

to them. So tightly, right? Right. They were definitely way outweighed in this case. And you're raising something that's super common, whether you're a writer or just a human, which is you're criticizing something. You hate this thing. But actually, that's, don't you understand? That's the best part of me. Like, that's when everybody else loves. And so you get conflicting reader feedback. Could you say more about the part that other people like about you is that sort of

contribution and reclaiming of agency? Is that what you mean? No, that often the things that we get feedback about from some people, our reaction is like, okay, well, that's just contradictory because everybody else is telling me that that's one of the things that they love about me. So talk to me, by the way, about reader feedback that you get. Because I do think it goes into different buckets. Some is just people of different preferences. And so some people love this part. Some people

hate this part or wish it were different. I should say a few things. The first is that I try to in the case of reader feedback, which is different from proofreader feedback. They're very different because when I reach out to proofreaders, I know the sample size. If I reach out to 10 proofreaders, I can look at which responses are positive, negative, neutral, 10 out of 10. But when you get negative

feedback or criticism, there's a selection bias. If you are operating a customer service hotline, chances are that people who are thrilled with their experience are not going to be the ones who call in or they're going to be far fewer. So it's easy to sometimes perceive that something is being uniformly across subordinate criticized when in reality, this is happened in the podcast where I've talked about certain things that I've done or said that have come under fire. And then people come

out of the woodwork to say, hey, we are actually the silent majority. You think it's great or totally fine, but we're not the ones who are on Twitter yelling and screaming at that. So I just want to point out that selection bias that I try to be aware of with I pay more attention to proofreader feedback generally than I do reader feedback. I pay attention to both. For instance, I was just giving

someone this example last night for our work week came out in 2007. And there was a quote at the head of a chapter from Bill Cosby about breaking the rules that are set for you in an industry. And thank God that a number of readers pointed out maybe that should be taken out for the next printing. And of course, I agree with that and took it out. We hear it quite differently now. Yeah, there's no upside to that only downside. It detracts from the point I'm trying to make.

And it's a distraction not in addition. There's really no upside for the reader or for me in having that in with proofreaders and this will tie into the reader feedback. I am sending say given chapter or chapters to professional writers who are friends of mine who ideally have different sensibilities also to non-professional writers. So let's just call them lay audience readers. And I'm generally asking first and foremost, what do you find confusing highlight anything that

is unclear or confusing? Second, highlight if I could only keep 20% of this chapter what I should absolutely keep. And then if and then if I had to cut 20% have to which 20% would you cut? And my rule with the proofreaders is if one person among my small selection I've selected for good reasons. If they love it, it stays in. And to take something out usually requires a pattern. So if more than one person says take this out it's slow, it's confusing, it doesn't pull

its own weight, whatever that happens to be then I take it out. Those are my three biggest. I mean, if I added one more on I would say please note in the margins or in the document anywhere your mind starts to wander. So anytime you start thinking about your to-do list or your email or something else that's an indication that I'm not building sufficient traction and momentum in the piece to keep you engaged and I have to fix that. Those are the things I focus on.

Yeah, the connection is broken between the voice of the book and the reader. Yeah. Exactly. It's just not compelling enough. So I pay attention to those things and there are some revisions that I've made over time where there's not enough value and upside to the reader or anyone else to justify a counter argument on my part. For instance, in the four-hour work week again, I use the word retarded at one point and it's not going to personally offend the most

people reading it, but it is outdated and it just wasn't necessary. It wasn't a critical piece of a story. I could take it out. I didn't feel like I was compromising the integrity of the

writing by taking it out. So I took it out. But in the case of your example, I would love to know how you personally feel about it, about the revision and the editing of that because, for instance, as I think about my preparation right now that I am undertaking for a trip starting next week, where I'm going to be off the grid in some very remote, in some cases, possibly dangerous

environments. I'm going with someone who's former military. It's a long story that I won't get into, but part of our conversation, largely directed by him, has been what we should wear, how we should pack, specifically to minimize the likelihood of being a target. And different types of behavior, different types of decision-making that are intended to minimize the likelihood, or reduce the likelihood of bad things happening. And it would be, from my perspective,

it would be irresponsible not to have that conversation. And I'm grateful to have someone on my team who has a lot of experience in these environments. This is just a way to say, I could say, well, these bad things shouldn't happen, or these aggressors shouldn't have aggressive behavior. But these things do happen. They will continue to happen. And so for me, it's a question of risk mitigation. End of assuming some degree of agency so that we don't feel like a piece of driftwood being thrown

around in an unpredictable sea entirely. But how did you end up feeling about making the revision? And by the way, I'm not saying you should or shouldn't have made the revision, I'm just curious how it sits with you after the fact. Mixed, of course. On the one hand, relieved, we wrote every different possible version to try to fix it as possible. And it's just like, it's not serving our purposes. And it might be too close to home to personal so that my sense of

it is muddied. And we really need to hear the impact that it's having, which is not helping our cause. And it is such an important issue for so many people, these days male and female, that it feels to me like a conversation about all of the ways in which that feels painful and we can feel powerless and stuck, etc. It feels like an important topic. And it's a conversation that I have with people a few times a year who come to me to say I need help with this situation.

So I'm mourning a little bit that loss. And I'm at the same time persuaded the use of that particular example in this context was not helping. So let's just let it go. And let me think about what I need to learn about my own need to somehow have the particularities of my experience feel heard by readers rather than saying the purpose is to bring forward your own. So that's the point here. And she'll hear missing the point. Can we circle to the proof reader

feedback, right? Oh, sure. And also I asked you to bookmark something that we can come back to or not be mentioned women overseas. Maybe at solely women, but who have contended with much more extreme examples of your situation. So if we wanted to come back to that happy to come back to it, but yes, we can also talk about proof reader feedback. So however, you want to to lead us.

Let's go to proof reader feedback because one of the things that I really love about how clear you are with your proof readers is that you are implicitly letting them know what kind of feedback you're asking for. Yes. This is one of the typical mistakes that we make, which is that we say, Hey, could you take a look at this and give me some feedback? Do you have any feedback from me? Is an incredibly hard question to answer? Yeah, very ambiguous.

Very ambiguous. It's like how honest should I be? Should I have prepared? Et cetera. And if these people are your friends, well, I choose my friends these days, I would say with one critical leg of the stool being their ability and eagerness to give me what might be considered difficult feedback. Call my baby ugly if need be to save me some pain later. Early on, and I'm sorry, I didn't interrupt, but just to offer a contrast early on, I would ask

friends of mine to read and give me feedback in just as many words. And many of them assumed I was looking for moral support. So they would be like, Oh, I really liked this and this and this and this. And they'd leave out the fact that they couldn't make any sense of three other things and really hated two other things. But yeah, I was not surgical in my request. So they gave me what they inferred I wanted, which was a pat on the back and a pat on the head. And that's not actually what

I was asking for. But that was bifle. Yes. And I think that's a big thing that I have learned from the feedback work. When you say my fault, what do you mean? Well, yeah, I saw I felt a little resistance there. So I they could have if they wanted to, if they had been more proactive, they could have asked me to refine or they could have taken a role in teasing out more precise, a more precise request. So I don't want to put it all on me, but I also fumbled the ball,

right? So they could have picked it up, but I also fumbled it a bit. I think you're exactly right, which is to have a rich and meaningful feedback conversation, there's responsibility on both sides. And you're pretty clear and your friends have learned the ones who didn't learn, didn't make the cut anymore. So they have learned what you value in terms of pretty candid coaching and evaluation. And actually, man, add one more thing. The people who are best at giving feedback will actually

ask for they will sometimes ask for further refinements in my request. Okay, well, when you say this, is what you're really looking for this or this? They will, they will drill down until they're like, yes, I can repeat back exactly what you're asking of me. Great deadline. Next Monday, perfect. And then they're on it, something like that. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by ShipStation. The holiday season is

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ShipStation. Go to ShipStation.com slash Tim for a free 60 day trial. Get set up before the biggest shipping season of the year. And ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So try it out. Get two months free when you visit ShipStation.com slash Tim when you want to get shipped done, go to ShipStation. ShipStation.com slash Tim. I'm sure you have this experience, which I also have, which is the other

people hand me their manuscripts. This was true two weeks ago and say, could you take a look at this and give me some feedback? And I have learned that I need to say more, like can you say more about what would be helpful to you at this stage? And just to put a finer point on it, one of the things that has really helped me is to understand that there are really three kinds of feedback. And we need all three over time to learn and grow, but we might need different types of different times.

And the first is appreciation. And sometimes with a manuscript at the stage, it's at what you need to know is like, is there anything here of value? What do you like here? Because I just need a little encouragement to keep going. And I think the appreciation plays a huge role in our willingness to stay engaged over time in the relationship. If I feel like you really see me and get how hard I'm working, or there are things that you like and appreciate about me,

even in the midst of us having some struggle. The second kind is coaching. Coaching is anything designed to help it be better, help me be better. You're being really clear with your readers, like tell me what's confusing. Coach me on where I'm not being clear. And coaching, of course, is the big engine for learning and change and improvement. But you're also actually asking for the third kind of feedback, which is evaluation, like

read or rank it. And what you're saying is there's a standard for what stays and what goes. Tell me what must stay, like it well meets the standard for being essential. Tell me what doesn't make the cut in your view. And that's actually helpful to me. So you're actually asking primarily for coaching and evaluation in your request. And when people are that clear about what they're looking for, it's so much easier to respond. So let me if I could just bounce off of that

a few things. So first is that I will also frequently not ask someone to check all of those boxes. Right. Often it's like one thing. Right. When I'm asking professional writers, especially they have their own deadlines, they have their own work. Reading my stuff is not their job. So I'm asking them for a favor very often, I will ask them to just indicate the 20% that has to go or the 20% that has to stay or just indicate what is unclear or slow where you start to think about other things.

And I'll make up for the lightness of that request by adding more people. I'll just have more proofreaders instead of more requests per per reader. And I should also say I want to give credit where credit is due. So Stephen Pressfield, incredible writer in his own right and has written the War of Art and many other books talks about resistance. And he became an informal coach slash therapist when I was working on fiction for the first time about let's call it a year ago.

And I sent him some very early drafts and asked him for feedback. Being I think in some respects massacistic, I asked him to just vivisect my work. And his response was basically I've read it, I want to read more, just keep going. And what I gleaned from that was that he said that's great kid. I recognize that you want me to tear this apart. And that's not what you need right now.

So I'm actually going to give you the appreciation, not the coaching and evaluation. I'm going to give you like the pad on the back and the kick in the ass just to keep going because actually that's what you need right now. And he was right. Of course, I'm speculating a lot about his inner experience. But that's I think the intention behind the feedback that he gave me. So how do people take this framework, the three kinds of feedback and put it into practice, I suppose. What are some ways

that people might think about carrying that into their day? They listen to this, they carry it into their day or their week. One thing that helps is just to be clearer about what you're short on right now or what you're asking someone for. Or if you're being asked to give feedback, to ask them and maybe not trust their answer. What I hear him saying is implicitly, of speculating, maybe I think what you just need is the encouragement to keep going right now.

He could also be thinking in the early stages of any fiction, there are a hundred things wrong with it. You don't figure out what they are until you're further down the road and you're coming back and revising. So you're just not at the stage that's a good match for specific coaching. Because you just need to keep going once you see where this arc goes, you'll back up and see and figure out what needs to change. Who knows? He's got some philosophy in his own head.

In terms of getting specific about things you can do with this framework of types of feedback, they have different purposes. Easy way to remember them is ACE, ACE, appreciation, coaching, and evaluation. We need all three. Can you just perhaps spend a little more time differentiating between coaching and evaluation? Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Mixing those up. I could totally mix those up. I think of coaching as part evaluation. So how should we distinguish those

two? They often get tangled and often I'm very clear that what I'm offering you is coaching. For reasons I have to do with your personality problems, you're hearing it as judgment or evaluation. Right? So there's often a mismatch between what the giver thinks they're doing and what the receiver hears. Yeah, that happens a lot. And partly that reflects the fact that packed into implicit in any coaching is a little bit of evaluation. Because if I'm giving you a suggestion on how to do

it better, it suggests that you could be doing it better. And so we hear that, which hits an identity thing. Okay. So is coaching the what and the how of improving, whereas the evaluation is basically fail, pass a plus, it's basically giving someone a value judgment on their work. Good enough, not good enough. And then the coaching is here are the steps to take. Yeah. So we have some set of standards for whether this manuscript is ready to go. Is it ready to go out or not?

Standards for performance expectations. In this role, here's what we would expect from you. Great. Obviously. Here's what I'm looking for in terms of the quality of your work. So yes, evaluation is rating or ranking against some set of expectations or standards of how you measure

up. So just asking, am I on track for what you expected from me in this new role? So the question of how is this going in our relationship is often how are you feeling about whether this is still exceeding your expectations or starting to feel wanting that goes along with a whole bunch of coaching potentially for what I wish you would do. So the two are very closely related, but we have the biggest emotional reaction to the evaluation part because we hate being judged. It's hard. It's

really hard to feel judged. And so we're quick to hear it in anything. I was looking at some of the prep notes and one tactic or maybe it's more of a practice that I'd love for you to describe is the the phone a friend because this seems like a low risk high reward way to cultivate the ability to look at things from multiple perspectives and to receive feedback well. So the support of the honest mayor, could you describe for folks what the phone a friend means here?

So part of the challenge of receiving feedback is, as I think I mentioned a little while ago, when feedback is incoming, formal or informal, I'm scanning for what's wrong with it. As human beings, we're very good at wrong spotting. What they're saying isn't true. That's not exactly how it happened or that in the context that wasn't what was going to help. Who's giving it to me? There's all kinds of problems. I don't like them. I don't trust them. I don't want to be like them. They don't know

what they're talking about. Why? I suspect they're giving it to me. They've got their own agenda for how they want me to change. You know, when and where and how they gave it to me was outrageous and ridiculous. If I can come up with what's wrong with it, then I can safely set it aside and relax and go on with my life. The problem with that is that you're always going to be able to find something wrong with the feedback that you get. It could be 90% wrong. That last 10%

might be just what I need to be thinking about in order to change and grow. For instance, what they understood happened and why I did it doesn't make sense. Their suggestion for what to do instead wouldn't work. However, maybe the 10% is that they're highlighting that this is maybe a bigger problem than I thought it was. I have my own diagnosis and I'll come up with my own solution. But they're putting something on my plate that maybe wasn't as visible to me before.

Part of the skill of becoming a better receiver is not letting my triggered reaction and my wrong spotting be the end of the story to throw it all out. But instead, to first work to understand the feedback, then I can decide and sort what is right about and what's wrong with it. Now, that's really hard for me to do by myself for a bunch of reasons in terms of the challenge to see what the giver means and the challenge to see myself accurately and all of that.

And so I can phone a friend to help. And by the way, I'm going to phone a friend anyway. When I get upsetting feedback, I'm going to go complain to somebody else about it, right? Over a glass of wine and we're going to make a big list about what's wrong with this other person and all the ways in which they're wrong. So what I can do is I can reach out to somebody I trust, which I'm going to do anyway.

And I'm implicitly asking them to be what we call a supportive mere. To join me in seeing what's wrong with it. Because if I'm really devastated by it, I'm not in a place where I can learn anyway. Like this one thing and this one mistake is the whole story about me. And I'm so knocked off balance. Or if you're just annoyed enough that you're spun up and rejecting it and pissed off. Yeah. Absolutely. This is just more evidence of what's wrong with them. Yeah. So I'm not in a great

place. And I need somebody else to join me in just getting myself back to a place where I can maybe hear what might be right about it. So asking a friend to really two questions, ask you two questions and help you process in two directions. One is what we're doing naturally, which is be a supportive mere. Join me in asking what's wrong with this feedback. Usually we quit there and go home because now we feel better. And in the meantime,

our friend is thinking it's not totally off base. And so we need to give them permission to then when we're ready to shift and be what we call an honest mere. And to help us see what might be right about it. What might be legitimate and maybe hard for me to see when we have a visual for the supportive mere. It's like a gold-gilded frame. Show me my best in flattering light. They're wrong. I'm okay. I'm fabulous. And we do need that. It's important not to skip it.

And then what might be right about it is more like black mayor. It's like a black mayor. The mere that we often use is actually, you know that hand mirror that you find in barber shops or hair salons. Sure. And the reason is also black mayor. The reason that we use that shape of mere is because when the barber, the hairstyle shows it to you, they're showing you the back of your head. Right. When they help you see something. Yeah. They spin you around so that you

can look in the mirror and see what I mean. You can appreciate when an amazing job they did. But they're actually handing it to you to help you see something that you can't see by yourself. So being an honest mere is asking a friend to help you see what might be right about this feedback. What do you think I should probably hear? Okay. I definitely encourage people to do this. I mean, I naturally do this with a number of my close friends is ask them for that barber

spin around. Look at the back of the head. Right. Right. Yeah. So here's a question that is, it's not directly related, but it's certainly thematically aligned with what we're talking about. And this conversation also what we talked about in our last conversation, things have changed since we last spoke. I am back in these singles arena. And one thing that struck me is almost no number of dinners every one or two weeks where everyone's on best behavior allows you to see what

people are like in difficult conversations. Unless it's heavily engineered, it's unlikely to come up organically. Unless who knows the waiter spills tomato juice on her dress and she freaks out and smashes a glass on the floor and starts yelling at people. Okay. Fine. But you're like, well, thanks for the clarity. I haven't yet architected something like that. But I am curious to know, and I'll give a counter example, actually. I'm not going to name names, but I was out to dinner with

someone I know who last I saw him was actually he was single. Then decided he wanted to find a partner and basically made a commitment. He had a one-pager. He would show each person on a day and he'd be like, what do you think of this one page here? This is what I'm looking for. Oh my gosh. What is on the one pager? We have to know. I don't want to dox him, but a lot of women opt nothing crazy, but he

wants a lot of kids as an example. And a lot of women opted out and he's like, great, I don't want to waste your time. And that was that somewhere like, actually, this is very interesting. And if he decided that he wanted to give someone a serious shot, he would say I can make a commitment to you, which is in six months while either being engaged or will be separated. I won't drag this out for a really long time, but his approach is then to spend a lot of time with that person. Basically,

try to effectively move in with them for two or three weeks and see what happens. I don't know if I'm ready to make the jump to that end of the spectrum, but it does make some sense in so much as kind of fiddling around seeing each other intermittently not really getting a good read of how someone handles conflict or difficult conversations or life when they are compromised, like run down, low on sleep. Seems like it gways a lot of time. And you could just go on these

multi-month boondoggles without either side getting a super clear read of the other. Do you have any thoughts on how to figure this out sooner? I mean, I certainly have had the experience of, say, going on a week-long trip with someone, you see how they handle their luggage getting lost or whatever it might be. But are there any other simple or elegant or obvious approaches that I am just missing where maybe you could sus out a bunch in a conversation over dinner and I'm just not

finding the path of least resistance with questions that really deliver. Do you have any thoughts about any of this? First, I'll note the efficiency orientation toward dating. Yeah, well, I'm not going to be young. I mean, I know, I know. Seriously, I mean, I'm not actually saying it's wrong at all, but it's the lens. Sure. Right? Yes. You've named the lens. The four hour. The four hour really. Coorship. Assessment. Yes. Coorship. That's exactly. That's your next book.

Maybe a fiction. Got a ways to go before I'll feel remotely qualified, right? Anything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're exactly right, which is early in the relationship we're all on our best behavior and sometimes not because it's hard, but because we're just excited and appreciate

and flooded with all of the positive feelings. And so how we handle stress and how we handle conflict doesn't come up for a while, at least experientially, doesn't come up unless, as you say, you happen to see it because something happens while you're together with someone else, who they don't have this protective, positive set of feelings about whether that's because you're traveling together or something happens with the restaurant. And I would say that that's a big red flag,

obviously. If they freak out, they freak out. If they freak out. Yes. Yes. It's funny because sometimes it should freak us out when they don't address it at all too because that's not actually going to be good in the long term in the relationship because that's fair. That's fair. Well, that's great, but now you're not going to say something with me. So some of it is that it's a topic.

I mean, even when we are interviewing teaching fellows because where we work together in a pretty intense January term where we're together from nine to five, six, seven, eight, preparing for the next day because it's an intense three week term class all day every day. One of the questions we ask is like, talk to me about how you experience and handle stress, what stresses you out, and

what helps you and what doesn't help you. Similarly, you know, talk to me about how conflict was handled in your family or in your past relationships in ways that felt right to you or that have felt frustrating or dysfunctional to you. I mean, it's really interesting and rewarding topic of conversation. Whether they're espoused theory for what they think they do matches what they actually do. Sometimes they don't exactly what we think we're doing is not what other people actually see. However,

it at least puts on the table what they think they do. How would you answer those questions in terms of how you handle conflict and stress and what helps? How I personally handle conflict and stress, you know, I owe my ex a huge debt of gratitude in the sense that I think on many levels, she was and is very emotionally intelligent, very, very, very socially intelligent. So I learned a lot through osmosis and through coaching. I was not always the most enthusiastic recipient of

said coaching, but nonetheless. So I'm sorry. I was not realizing that I had hired you for this evening. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say I tend to like to address conflict openly. So we may come back to what you mentioned earlier. Where some people are giving you the feedback that you're too quick to speak up. I do, and this has been consistent for a very long time. We spoke about this in the last conversation, but timing of those conversations matters a lot for me late at night after a full day

when I'm getting ready to wind down. And I already have issues with an overactive mind and on-set insomnia is not going to generally have the best outcome. So experimenting with other times shorter duration, right? Starting in time, type of quick check in, clearing conversations is

very effective for me. I have found the book getting the love you want and some of the frameworks asking for redoes, having a shared language that allows you to, I suppose, resolve things with short-hand, but agreeing upfront that you are going to have that shared language and those practices, at least for a period of time as an experiment, I think is super helpful. So I feel like I handle conflict reasonably well. In my household, though to answer that part, I would say, hey,

I had, this may not be totally fair, but I think it's a decent read. I had one, maybe the term that you would use is like a blame absorber in the form of my mom, where I very conflict diverse, quick to apologize for everything, and then my dad, if he's listening, sorry dad, but blame deflector in the sense that things tended to be taken very personally, tended to get very heated,

very defensive, wise everyone always, ganging up on me or fell in the blank. And to that extent, I had an easier time interacting with my mom than my dad, but both of those coping mechanisms or strategies I have found myself using and neither of them works very well. The deflecting for reasons that are perhaps more obvious, the blame absorbing, I would say oftentimes because if I want a conversation to end, if the ask isn't clear, if for instance, I'm being given coaching,

but there are no examples that can be provided, and I just see no resolution in sight, I am inclined to apologize just to make that conversation go away, because I don't see it going anywhere helpful, but then if I find myself doing that repeatedly, and this is true for a lot of people, not just me, having a stewing resentment that develops, because the apologies aren't really, one could say sincere, one could say not really deserved possibly in some instances,

right? It's a way to take the exit ramp off of this highway of fruitless conversation or debate or argument. So I would say I did not grow up with great models in the household, however, I would credit my time in sports and having coaches I really respected, with helping me to accept

coaching quite easily, including very harsh kind of old country. Feedback Jersey Gregorick comes to mind who's this former world record holder in Olympic weightlifting, who's an incredible coach, incredibly good at rehab and addressing injuries, and his style of feedback to give you an idea, at one point we're having a conversation early on over Black T, this is the intake conversation

in California a long time ago. He was looking at me, sort of narrowing his eyes as he drank his Black T, and he reached across, he kind of pinched my back, almost grabbed my nipple, like give it a pinch and he leaned back and he said, you are too fat. But the guy has the bonafides, right? He's a real performer. He has an excellent track record and I was like, okay, let's call a spade of spade. Yeah, I could probably do without like the late night pizza benches after having maybe one or two

glasses of wine that I shouldn't have that. Yeah, yeah, okay, like I could put up a fuss, but this guy is very straight. He's not exaggerating. His tone is very matter of fact. He's not saying it in some kind of finger wagging, holier than that way. It's just a statement of objective fact. So fine. And so I would say that I feel very fortunate that in a sports capacity and also why I think mandatory sports are an excellent, excellent idea for youth in general. I became very comfortable

with fast direct feedback in those settings. So the way that I navigate conflict and feedback is very context dependent. And I would say that over the last five years, the way that I am able to metabolize comfortably feedback and illicit feedback in my intimate relationships or personal relationships, let's say, has become much closer to what I am able to do in the sports or skill acquisition arena. Because I can do that with language and other things. It's not just physical

sports. So that's the long story long, I guess. I'm happy to keep going though. If you want to keep me in the hot seat, I kept doing the hot seat for a while. So certainly for more digging, we can do. I'm happy to do it. Well, so one of the things that strikes me, a couple of things that strike me, one is your experience with him with the coach. Yeah. And also the guy that you're going to be traveling with who's coaching you on what to pack and what to wear and how to stay under the radar,

you are hiring them with that specific job in mind. You're hiring them because you believe that they have expertise and you are eager to hear their coaching. It's not always easy to hear. But the role is clear. The friend is just a friend who happens to come with the benefit of

being someone A, I really, really respect as an operator in the world. Yeah. Which is important to how I'm very relevant to how I receive feedback, who is better than me in so many departments, more skilled than I am, more practice than I am in so many capacities that is very easy for me to receive his feedback, which is also very brief, very understated, very direct, says with a smile,

it's not just the content but the tone also is very matter of fact. So yes, but it's part of my expectation in those relationships that that type of feedback is something I value very highly. Yeah. And so that's one of the conundrums of feedback is why is it that sometimes we're so eager for it and even when it's rude and surprising with the pinch, we're grateful for it a little faster.

We're like, fair, fair, you know, I'll take that on board. When other times somebody else teaches us the same thing, our really into some chicken, she reached the cross and pinched and she was like, wow, you are too fat. I don't think I'd take it as well. Yeah, no two future dates just cross that off your list. Very likely to happen, but like the exact same feedback, different ways in

different place. Yes. I would feel very differently about it. Absolutely. So this is one of the conundrums by the way of feedback, which is why is it that sometimes I actually, it does feel like a gift and I'm grateful for it. And other times it's like, yeah, screw you. We're done. You're dead to me. You're dead to me. And I don't even, we don't, we don't even need to finish dinner. And speaking of sexual harassment, stop pinching my peck. So I'm going to come full circle here.

So I'll make a general observation and then I want to go back to your parents a little bit too. But the general observation is that one of the things that we start to notice is that when we have a reaction to feedback, there are sort of three kinds of triggered reactions we have. So one is what we call a truth trigger. What you're saying isn't right. Wouldn't work. Good bad advice. It's

all about evaluating the quality of what the person is telling you would help you. The second is what we call a relationship trigger, which is everything to do with who's giving you the feedback, whether you trust them, whether you like them, whether you think they know what they're talking about, whether they really have your best interests of mine or their own agenda. We often have a bigger

reaction to the who then the what. And then the third is what we call an identity trigger, which is partly the story we tell about who we are and whether that feels threatened or not. But also in the course of the feedback work, we uncovered some evidence that suggests that in terms of sensitivity to feedback, how upset we get and how long it takes us to recover, that can

vary by up to 3,000%. Can you say that one more time? That our sensitivity to feedback and other things happening in our lives, by the way, it's not just feedback, but in terms of how upset we get, how activated we get and how long it takes us to recover. So you lying awake in the wake of the argument arguments are partly who's the problem, which one of us is the problem and which one of us needs to change in many cases, that how long it takes us to recover can vary by up to 3,000%.

And so that is just the way we're wired. So that is past experience, something around trauma that gets tripped, that changes your sensitivity. So part of the challenge is, like I am having a triggered reaction to what's happening whether that's feedback or conflict. And in what ways is that making it harder for me to hear what might be right about what you're saying and see what's important. So to circle all the way back around to the dating question, part of what you're

trying to figure out when you're dating is, well, who are you? What's different or cool and or complimentary about this new person that I'm getting to know a little bit? And it's really hard in the wake of a breakup because the baseline that you're comparing to is someone that you know incredibly well and have a ton of history. And it's really hard to close that gap when that person is the baseline. I'm curious about your reactions to that. Another question is, who am I in this

relationship as it's starting to develop? Do I like the way that I am in this relationship? That's a big one for me. I'm showing up. Yeah. Right. Does this person help me to be a better version of myself or is this person sort of summoning the demons of my lesser self? Yeah, exactly. That's a real thing. It's a real thing. And I'll name the third thing and then we'll come back to this thing, which is just, okay, what's the U plus me? Combination. How authentic

and honest are we being with each other? Join, know what to expect. Do I know how you feel? Do you know how I feel? It's an era. And how do we handle the inevitable friction that we're going to have because in any two combination of two people, you've got lots of things that are complimentary and some things that are going to have some friction just because you have really different preferences and habits and interests and whatever. And in how we handle that, does it bring out the better

part of me or the worst part of me and vice versa? And does it feel fair also? Or does it feel like one of us is always the one who has to apologize or to change? And so say a little bit more about bringing out the better parts of you and the worst parts of you. Well, let me preface that by saying I did a Q&A with some of my audience yesterday. Okay. And if my talking about relationship stuff on the podcast could be a Rorschach test,

holy shit. Do I get a lot of stuff projected on me? There were so many questions like, Tim, why can't you hold on to a partner? Dada, Dada, Dada, Dada. Like, what haven't, why can't you learn the lesson about this, this, and this, all of these things? And I would just say, just briefly, that I actually, if you were to talk to my last few X's who I'm still on good terms with,

they would, I think I'll say that I'm a really good boyfriend. I'm not perfect. But I talk about this in the same way that I might, if I had an expert on language learning on, I would ask them how I could improve in language learning, even though I think I'm pretty good at it and to have a demonstrated track record, I would still want to be better because I know there's

room for improvement. So I just want to set the table a little bit so that I maybe stem the flow of, Tim, why can't you figure anything out in relationship type questions in my open Q&A sessions that I do ever once in a while? I mean, I interrupt you for just once I get to say, you're naming that that's really, why can't I figure out? Because it's easier for me to see you not figuring something out, but partly, my seeing that is motivated by, in my own life,

why can't I figure out what's going on right in my own relationship or where I'm stuck? Or it might be I was stuck for a long time and gosh, I want to help you, but a lot of people vomiting their own stuff. Totally, it's the totally the more shack. So I just wanted to. Yeah. So, yes, yes and yes. And to, I would say that more than almost any of the questions or criteria you mentioned, the one that gives me a clear signal is, do I like who I am around this person? That's it. And some matches

work better than others. Obviously, some combinations are better than others. And sometimes there are massive trade-offs. Maybe you have excellent chemistry with someone, but it's also so combustible. And the communication is probably sort of handicapped in some way that's going to be disastrous ultimately, right? So the read that I ask, though, because it's something that I can confirm myself.

If I ask a question about someone else or I make an assumption, for instance, that based on how they're interacting in a first or second date, I think they're going to be really bad at de-escalating conflict. They seem to interrupt and step on top of me a lot. I might say it seems like X and they say, oh, wow, well, you said I hated or loved X. And I've said, well, actually, no, that's a very

exaggerated version of what I just said, but those are not my words. And getting this taste test, I might infer that they would be bad at de-escalating conflict, but I can't really know that for sure based on a first date. Maybe they're just nervous. Maybe they had too much coffee. Who knows? I can assess, though, how I feel, hopefully, with higher fidelity. I pay attention to that because I think it's a more reliable, knowable, defensible feeling or assessment. So I do pay a lot of

attention to that. Is someone dredging up all the stuff that I haven't had to deal with for a while? It's not to say I can easily point to causality. Maybe there are other things that are happening that day or that week or that month that have set the conditions. Or do I feel at ease? Are we laughing easily together? Etc. Am I feeling good about who I am with this person? Is very much at the top of my list. Yeah. And part of what I love about that is that you're paying

attention to what is being called forward. And years ago, I was in one of those Hanigan off again, break up, get back together, terrible relationships that I couldn't quite see my way out of at the time. And my mom, who doesn't tend to say much explicitly, my mom gave lots of generalized coaching and instruction to us as kids, but she wouldn't tend to comment on something specific happening in the moment. She gave general advice. It was up to you to figure out

Oh, this is one of those things. Yeah, one of those things. So she wouldn't she'd kind of leave it alone in the middle of it. But in the middle of it, she said to me, one night, you know, at this stage, I don't know that it's supposed to be this hard. And somehow that was like the light bulb that was like, yeah, actually, it's supposed to be this hard this early. So I was so appreciative at the time. And it was just an observation. So I'll also that observe that

the focusing on, gosh, where is this? I'm really enjoying the conversation. This is really bringing forward my best self. Then sits in tension with, and what happens when we get in conflict? Because then it doesn't test that sometimes. So what's your experience with that? Well, I would say that there's someone trying to make you feel good. It's not that hard. If we just go with like the heteronormative thing for a second, right? If a woman laughs at your jokes,

you feel great. So it's not hard for a woman to realize that and play that hand very well. There's someone trying to make you feel good. And then there's just how you feel from a state perspective being around them, being exposed to them. And so I would say it doesn't show you the play by play of how something will unfold in conflict. And if someone is over the top cheerful all the time, that is definitely a yellow flag for me because that isn't reality.

When the pendulum swings really far and that towards the mask of everything is always great, in my experience tends to swing very hard back in the other direction equally into the darkness. So I'm cautious around that. But I would say if someone can make me feel physiologically calm and relaxed, and that is a byproduct of their personality, not necessarily the words they say or how they laugh at my jokes, that that often I think is a foreshadowing of having a more useful time in

conflict. If I am less activated by the combination of our two personalities in general, when things are heightened, I will probably be more heightened, but maybe not Defcon 5. In which case, I will just be able to speak, listen, pause, suggest, we table things for a while and come back to them when we're a little descalated more effectively. At least that's how I suppose I'm thinking about it now that I have to put words to it.

And you're reminding me of something that we were talking about last time, and that you've mentioned today as well, which is working something through two resolutions. And I'm curious about what resolution feels like or looks like. In other words, I think in lots of interactions and relationship, someone is saying, hey, you did that thing again. And by the way, I just want to note,

I'm annoyed right now because film of blank. Noting it helps me actually say like, and we don't have to talk about it now, but I just needed to name it so that I don't instead act passive aggressively annoyed about it and pretend I'm not. And then can we live in that space? Can we hold that space and we don't have to totally unpack it right this very minute? And sometimes that's enough, you know, it's a chronic thing between us, you know, and I'm just noting it. And can we live

in that space both of us? Do we feel equally comfortable? Or is one of us say, well, now that you've said you're annoyed, we've got to stop everything and spend a couple hours unpacking it. And what's our preference there? It's my nightmare. Yeah, I mean, I kind of feel like a lot of processing, just like a lot of presentations fail from too much information, not too little information.

In the sense that what does resolution look like to me if that's the question? I would answer that I think the simplest way to achieve resolution is to have some agreement of what that looks like in a shared framework like something out of one of your books or something from getting the love you want where there are actual triage tools that have determined endpoints, right? Whether the end point is I just want to say this right now, we don't need to address it. I'm not asking for

processing, but could we schedule a time talk about it? Great. Like episode complete, right? I'm not saying that is the one and only tool. The tool could be some version of nonviolent communication where when x, y, and z happened, I felt this story I make around that is this could I ask you blank, right? Having a clear request and agreement and then episode complete, right? So I think it's

just having a mutual agreement as to what those exchanges look like. And I mean, a question that I want to ask is this came up in a number of places in our last conversation, but we didn't dig into this one piece in particular. It's related to a line that I'll read and there are a few different versions of this, but given Gottman's research about two thirds of our conflicts and long-term

relationships are not really resolvable. The task isn't to resolve them once and for all, is to figure out a way to handle them or navigate them and manage them together that feels okay and good. To zoom out, I do want to ask you about that. And specifically is the only way to figure that out to basically be with someone for six months for a year. But broadly speaking, I'm wondering what

you think of the Gottman Institute. They get cited all the time because I'm sure people have heard and I'm going to get the specifics wrong here, but that the founders of the Gottman Institute could look at five minutes of video footage of a couple and with 95 plus percent accuracy predict who would be divorced within the next three years or whatever it might be. Yeah. People have heard these anecdotes. What is the Gottman Institute and what do you think the strengths and weaknesses

are to the extent that you've been able to glean either of those things? I think that the work that they're doing is fascinating and additive and they're just aren't particularly when they started, there weren't people really studying marriage and long-term relationships, good bad and everything in between. So there might be talk about why did things break down, but you weren't also looking at

what was working for other couples. And from my point of view, of course, their focus on what's most important, which is that they are inviting couples in, they're inviting them to talk about a topic that is stressful, so they're inviting them to have a difficult conversation. And they're hooking them up to heart monitors and all of that and then they're recording all that data and then they're following the couple and noticing what correlates with either

self-reporting being happily married and doing that over time because sometimes people will self-report being happily married and then they divorce and then they're going back and saying, well actually I wasn't happily married, which may be revisionist memory, but also maybe it was good enough for me to be happy, but then we weren't talking about what we need to talk about. Right, the good was good enough, but the bad wasn't being addressed. Right, exactly. The bad

wasn't being addressed. So it felt like what we never argued about anything. Well, it's because one of us wasn't speaking up to say the things that were bothering us because it was good enough. So I think that the work that they're doing is incredibly valuable and it's very descriptive, meaning it's identifying what are the variables. So, you know, eye rolling is one of one of the things that is most closely correlated with the relationship, fraying and divorce, partly because eye rolling

is just an external indicator of internal. Here we go again. I'm not really listening anymore what they code as contempt. I'm not aware of a single culture where eye rolling has a positive indication. Right, right, right, exactly. Exactly. So what they're doing is that they're identifying and describing what correlates with a relationship ending or seeming to have staying power.

What I love about that is that it lines up so nicely with the prescriptive work that we do, the diagnostic and prescriptive work that we do to take a look at what's really going on that's getting a stuck. Why am I rolling my eyes? Because I feel frustrated, unheard, we're falling back into our usual pattern where I don't expect there to be a resolution and I'm exhausted by that and I don't know how to get out of it. So it lines up nicely with our observations about what

gives people stuck and also then what helps. But it gives us insight through another lens about the longer term impact of that. The fact that about a third of the conflicts tend to be temporal, you can say that they're resolvable or they just we move on because we had to decide where to live and we decided and now we're in a different sense. Yeah, they're not arguing about that anymore. We need to figure out how to parent young children. We no longer have young children.

Now we'll just have confused about how to parent older children. So two thirds are just reflective of the particularities of you plus me. And where we're going to have some rub and the question of, are we able to notice that, note it and hold it with some humor and affection for each other in the midst of it?

Even as we're honest and direct about you're doing that thing again. And do we feel like I feel seen and heard and it's a relatively balanced sense of, you know, sometimes you get your way sometimes I get my way and we're slowly it's getting to be a less loaded topic rather than a more loaded topic. What's your experience with the loaded topics and eye rolling maybe? I have very low tolerance for eye rolling. I just don't have time for people who behave that way.

So that's a one strike you're out kind of situation. There are too many amazing people in the world and there are too many people who don't do that also. There are plenty of people who don't engage

with that. Let me preface, I'm going to ask clarifying question about your question but I will say that I was thinking about it a bit as you were discussing the government institute that I don't say this much but I've probably said it a half a dozen times observing couples at dinners or at weddings where I'm like they will be divorced within three years, 100% accurate. Yes, yes, yes, you should just be deputized to like one people know. Right.

Honorary degree from the government institute. That's right. I honestly don't think it takes Poirot or Sherlock Holmes to figure it out. I mean to me a lot of it seems pretty obvious but the eye rolling making jokes that are at the expense of the other person where you observe one person laughing who made the joke. The other person clearly not laughing. Yes, yes.

Any type of emasculating which can go both ways but any type of cutting down in a group environment seems so obviously a recipe for disaster but when you say the loaded topics or how I relate to that could you phrase that a different way what do you mean by that? The topics that are chronic irritations between us or differences and then we make meaning out of that. The fact that you know this drives me crazy and yet you still continue to do it or this is something we disagree about

and it's still not feeling settled or good. Yeah, I suppose they're different of course different species of chronic, unresolved or maybe unresolvable friction. I would say that I certainly in my last handful of relationships, it's not like I've had a ton. I mean I've had a few long relationships. We come to a truce I would say on a lot of those things if we can kind of laugh at them together and sometimes they drive one person or the other crazy but there are these sort of manageable

differences that can be more often than not laughed about. I would say for me as someone who has always battled chronic fatigue and I do think that that could be explained partly by multiple documented infections with Lyme disease but there I'm sure other contributing factors. The problem for me is not generally the problem unless somebody really betrays trust or something like that and does something that from the outside would be considered terrible, clearly terrible.

I would put up with more of that when I was very young like a lot of people. The exciting person was worth all sorts of drama. I'm just no longer at that place in my life. I don't deal with those types of situations really but I would say the problem for me is frequently not the problem itself, the situation that is sort of under discussion. It's the method of discussion and the duration of

discussion. For me if constant processing becomes a defining feature of the relationship that is a meta issue for me that is very difficult to metabolize which doesn't mean I don't talk about problems. It's just like we should have a toolkit that allows us to and also a degree of independent resilience and interpersonal resilience whereby it's like if someone dropped a piece of gum on the floor and they don't do it all the time just pick it up and throw it out like it's not a big deal.

Right accommodate the other person does not require a conversation. So I would say that for me the most of the issues at least those that are coming to mind right now are not big in and of themselves but if the discussion ends up feeling like it's just going in circles upon circles upon

circles then I do struggle with it. That I struggle with which is certainly not unique to me. Every couple I know has some version of this but certainly my hope is that with someone I'm with long term the majority of time it does not feel like heavy lifting like your mom said to you like at this point I'm not sure it should be this hard. Right. Yes. And the couples I've talked to who I really admire who have been together 15, 20 plus years generally all come back with some version of that.

It shouldn't be hard all the time. However I find them all very difficult to model because almost without exception they met when they were very young neither person had anything. There were young and stupid and loving life and they met through complete luck of the draw circumstance it would seem oftentimes very early and sometimes it's like high school or college and their lived experience is just very different from mine. Right. My life doesn't lend itself to as much of that now as it

would when I was 16, 17, 18, 20 early 20s. So I'm not sure how to model what they've achieved in other words. Part of what you're making me think about is a conversation that I had with my youngest sister who I got married young. I mean I look back now and I'm like why did I think I had any business getting married at 26. So I'm one of those people who have been married forever and

I think my husband John I grew up together in so many ways. My youngest sister got married at 37, 37, 38 and when she met her husband well at first she friend's own dim and he wasn't a contender and then suddenly she had this epiphany of like oh the right person standing right in front of me. He was like I can wait I have the patience of an insect as one of the prey mantis will wait. That's right. That's right. We actually commissioned a custom song for their wedding and it was all

about Stacey's big epiphany and how patient how patient Dan had been. I know you'll come around. Good for Dan. Yeah exactly. Good for both of them I guess. Good for both of them and in real time it didn't take that long it just felt like forever to him but he then proposed quite quickly.

So it was my parents were visiting my sister also lives in Boston and she left the room and he suddenly turned to them and said I just wanted to let you know how much I am in love with your daughter and I want to ask her to marry me and spend the rest of my life with her and my mother is like well I have some follow-up questions my father's like be quiet. He said to me later I wanted to leap across the island and kiss him. Yes we love you we think you're awesome.

Which you don't reflect something about each of my parents but Stacey in the meantime was out of the room and so she then walks back in the room this is a completely out of the blue topic of conversation. Secret caucus complete. Yeah and suddenly it's like well okay I'm gonna run down and get a ball of champagne kind of thing. So they weren't officially engaged yet but it was on the table that they were more or less and they had been dating for less than a year. How long

have they known each other though? That a year. Oh all right a year before that or a year it was a year total. Yeah well they probably met they met through a mutual friend at a party and the friend had called Dan to say you need to break up with whoever you're going out with because I'm going to introduce you to someone tonight. Wow but she didn't know. They get a bouquet of flowers over here. Oh yeah they yeah they have milked that for all its worth.

As they should. And they knew each other for a few months before she figured it out and then they were dating an earnest and then this is probably nine months after that. So after all the tests she and I went for a run together. I said how are you feeling and she's you know amazing and I can hardly believe it and and also I'm just I'm still waiting to find out what's wrong with

them. And my reaction was well you know five years from now you're going to have a much more robust answer for that question of what's wrong with him but the real question is are they going to be dealbreakers for you and what would the dealbreakers be. And so Tim I'm curious given your experience partly what you're listening for in the early stages of dating is are there dealbreakers here for me not because I'm judging this other person but because I just know that that combination is

not going to work or whatever. And so one of them sounds like it's endless processing. Yep endless processing be one and I want to own my part obviously and some of this in the sense that I'm sure I contributed to situations that were uncomfortable enough for my significant other that she felt the need to process. However I do think she also sort of leans that direction

in terms of communication. So yes endless processing or a primary project being processing like that is expected to be a dominant feature of the relationship necessary for sure but a dominant feature of the relationship know I think that it shouldn't feel that hard and if it does chances

are there things that are probably irreconcilable differences. So that would be one dealbreaker other dealbreakers if somebody throws sharp elbows that's what I'm very wary of for a lot of reasons but if somebody throws sharp elbows if they are vindictive if they speak in a really

aggressive upset way about their exes those are all red flags for me not yellow those are red and it's astonishing what some people and I'm grateful they do but what some people will volunteer on first days in terms of like oh yeah my ex did this and like I showed him by like taking a torch

and doing this this and this and I'm like okay I enjoyed your chicken salad because this has been swell thank you yeah the sharp elbow somebody who is an anyway vindictive is a dealbreaker I would say if someone is a monologueer that's also dealbreaker I want somebody who is a good

listener good asker of questions I think men tend to do this a lot more than women the monologue in but I've seen some exceptions yeah overtalkers people who step on me or other people when they're a mid thought to like interject or one up that gets exhausting so those would be a few that come

to mind I mean I'm sure there are others but those are a few that immediately leave to mind when you ask well in part of what you're describing is something that the Gottman Institute would reinforce which is that what are our implicit rules about conflict and that the couples that

have staying power tend to have boundaries on no matter how upset I am with you there are some places that I don't go because in a long term partnership you know each other so well that you also have the capacity to really hurt the other person and part of because you know what would hurt

them and you secretly think it sometimes especially when you're frustrated and that even in those moments you don't go somewhere that is gratuitously that sharp elbow or vindictiveness or meanness yeah you don't turn into a quentin Tarantino action sequence right it's not kill bill kill

exactly all of a sudden yeah suddenly you didn't know it but I was wearing that yellow suit the yellow jumpsuit jumpsuit under my under my pajamas tonight so I think that the boundaries that we eat to soon on how we handle the hardest moments those being shared boundaries feels like a

wise guideline to have for yourself the other thing that I was thinking about about your processing point is that for me it feels like boy there's a long period during which where we're bumping into each other and where there's some friction between us processing it to understand it better like

what was going on with me that I did interrupt you which by the way interrupting is one of the things I feedback I give my husband because he's a big interruptor which makes me crazy crazy and that means in part see I'm blaming him for this that I am an interruptor because if I don't get my word in

edualize I'm not going to get in and I think as a woman and a professional in some of the spaces I'm in being willing to speak up to get into the conversation when there's a moment to do so has in many contexts served me pretty well and in other contexts and other relationships

I'm doing to other people exactly the thing that he does to me my husband does to me that makes me so want to kill him the kill bill comes to mind so I think the question of understanding gosh what's going on with me when does it happen what's going with him was it happened that kind

of processing can be helpful and then there's a point where we've talked about it a hundred times we've dissected it a hundred times we're back doing the thing that triggers the reaction and it just is it just is so there's a point where you have to decide and for me the switch is he's changed as much as he's going to change or I've changed as much as I'm going to be able to change I do it maybe less often or he doesn't less often I still do it sometimes and misstep so if I assume

this person is not going to change can I live with that can we each live with that and if so then then it's easier to have the let me just note you did that thing again oh you're right I apologize this was we can talk about later if we need to and we can move on because we don't need to

reprocess something that we have already processed and we're at the limits of how much each of us is going to be able to change sometimes like in some moments what occurred to me as you're talking also is that people like to do what they're good at so the big strong guys like to go to the

weight room the flexi people like to go to yoga the debaters like to debate and the people who are on some level good at say emotional process and like to emotionally process yes so if that is part of their identity then you are signing up for that and I think I somewhat

knowingly somewhat unknowingly probably signed up for that and she is very very good at it I just it was I think a constitutional meaning personal constitution mismatch of sorts some national constitutional issue yeah yeah and talking about the second amendment here

we're like relax everybody yeah but yeah people like to do what they're good at and I need to be cautious about that too right because my response to some of that would often be to try to kind of put her in a cattle shoot to get her into this like logic puzzle where I knew I would

be better right and try to steer her into some labyrinth of spreadsheets and analytics because I'm better at that stuff and that wasn't helpful it was hugely counterproductive I'm sure at many different points but that's what I'm good at so more and more I've tried to cultivate

an awareness of what I do because I am good at said thing whatever that is which applies to so not just relationships but also how you structure your day and your week and choose your projects like are you choosing these things because they're truly the most important or are you

choosing these things because you happen to have some skill and therefore it's comfortable for you to do these things I think about that a lot I just want to make an observation about what you just said which was so insightful and where you feel comfortable and what you're good at

because for some people I don't know her so I don't know if this true or per but for some people part of what makes them feel safe or secure or reassured in a relationship is to rock the boat I've had some relationships like that and rocking the boat so that we have something to process

helps me feel connected to you is redemonstrating that you care and that processing emotional processing goes to a place that feels comfortable to me and feels reassuring to me in that place if we go back to the three positions which is just there's my perspective which is obviously correct

then there's the other person's perspective the second position and they're inside their story and their world and why they think they're correct and then either both of us could step to the third position but what a neutral observer say about what's going on and what might help us get

through this she's in the place where like I want to be connected with you we need to be ourselves connecting in the first and second position and the place where you go because you feel more comfortable might be the third position to step out to be analytical about it to say well let me

just step back to understand what's happening here because if I can understand what's happening here I need to know then I have advice for myself about where to go and she's like don't leave me here like you're you're disconnecting to go to the balcony or the third position you should do this

for a living so so so that's the way in which like that processing also was not serving as purpose for her and was not where you felt you wanted to be or was she was asking of you that resonates as very on point and I would further say that I contributed to that by

for most of our relationship being very weak in terms of her love language of words of affirmation so it would make sense to me that with a deficiency of words of affirmation that one could be male female doesn't matter would want to rock the boat to elicit that type of connection in processing

to get those words of affirmation so I think I almost certainly contributed to that very directly in that way yeah I have that same profile that's a weakness for me also and I see it showing up in my personal relationships as well as my work relationships giving words of affirmation

yeah my family was not a super demonstrative family to feel the need to say it out loud yeah same same it's changing so how do you work on that I'm curious I mean I have improved I'm still very much on training wheels but I have made substantial improvement I think

how are you working on it what have you found helpful to work on giving words of affirmation positive reinforcement because I did not grow up with a whole lot of that and very much learned to do without it in say sports as well and in skill development kind of trained myself and not

to really require it and to be intrinsically motivated so I then expect that of most people which is an unfair expectation it just doesn't map the reality very well so how have you worked on it you know some of it is just with conscious reminders to myself to do it like a timer on your phone

an index card with five lines so you can pull out and be like hold on John yeah well that's the kind of thing that I might do honest to God yeah I mean and it's also trying to get better at noticing in myself when I do feel grateful for something somebody did

like I get an email that I'm just like oh my god that is so helpful just to remember to say it out loud the other thing that I'm to just shoot them back a note to say like thank you so much for taking the time it took to send this to me because it's incredibly helpful and that's all

it needs to be I also notice that I'm better at it in writing than I am verbally so that's okay if that's where the training wheels are to remember to just text to say when I notice something specific that's something we didn't talk about about appreciation which is to seem genuine like

great job isn't very genuine compelling specific yeah compelling doesn't sound necessarily sincere that being specific helps so also just like hey I particularly appreciated your note or I thought your whatever was particularly had a really big impact on me I think the more I can just notice

the small things that are specific the better and that's helped me I don't know do you have other tips because I could use them so I was exaggerating a bit with the index card but for a while and I could probably use with doing more of this I would literally put in a calendar or a

minor yes like yeah say something nice to this person this person this person yeah yeah and there's always something I can think of that is specific and I just for whatever malfunction or being a little nicer to myself conditioning through my upbringing neglected to mention then I would mention I'd

literally put it in my calendar yeah and I found that helpful I did find helpful and I also am appreciating I'll say it right now I'm appreciating your connecting this to maybe what was going on that caused that hey we need processing I need reassurance because I'm not sure where I stand

or I felt overlooked or not seen etc which part of what I'm learning is that when I have somebody who is frustrated or upset it is often that they are also feeling underappreciated and that's on me so let me ask you a bit about giving feedback instead of receiving and I know we've

touched on this indirectly and maybe even directly in this conversation but for people who are in the supervisor boss or it could be significant other but we've we spend a bunch of time on the personal let's talk about the professional even though they're two sides of the same coin if you are giving

feedback to someone who tends to be sensitive I'll just set the stations it's not actually really the case for me right now in any capacity but it has been at various points with employees with significant others what are your suggestions for giving feedback and how to open that door

hopefully in a way that doesn't immediately provoke or exacerbate a really defensive type of kickback one foundation thing is have the two of you had a conversation about how they prefer to get feedback and that can be one of the most helpful and powerful things to do

which is to say I'm talking about hey what makes you feel appreciated because some people need to hear the words other people don't really care about the words but the fact that you come to them for advice with some of your toughest problems or you you know would like their input on your proof

reading tells them they're valued right so what makes you feel appreciated if I have coaching for you what's your advice to me on when and how to give it do you have pet peeves about feedback generally we all have pet peeves that's a really interesting conversation to have

when you're triggered by feedback how can I tell how will I be able to tell and might be totally obvious but sometimes people shut down and I can't tell whether you're taking it in or arguing in your head and when you are triggered or feeling defensive what advice you have for me

on what will help and we have a we have a little template that's like how to get the best out of me that each of us can jot down some thoughts too and then talk about how to get the best out of me is that a template that is available online or that we could put in the show notes?

Yeah on the triad consulting website try and consulting group.com we have a nav called help yourself and it's got a bunch of templates exercises etc so just having that conversation up front means I don't have to guess at how to give you feedback because you've already told me and hopefully I've

taken some notes which I keep handy to remind myself and so I can refer back like hey I had a couple of thoughts about the presentation last week and I wonder when it would be helpful to chat about it a little bit or whatever right the second thing is that really the fastest way to change

a feedback culture and to help people be more receptive is to become a good receiver yourself and be soliciting and eliciting feedback from others and to assume every conversation even when I think I'm pretty clearly the giver here I'm probably going to end up being a receiver because

what they're going to say is well the reason I did that is because you were so unclear about what you wanted or whatever so I have to assume there are things I've contributed to the situation that are going to be part of the conversation even when for me the primary purpose is to tell you

what I think you could do differently or better there's a question that we use a lot that I think is incredibly helpful just in building a habit of integrating feedback into daily life which is not hey do you have any feedback from me which we've talked about as a terrible question

well intended but terrible particularly from a leader because giving feedback up feels very risky and fraught so if you are in a position of leadership you are impacting more and more people and fewer and fewer of them are going to take the chance to tell you about it so you've got to actually have some pretty advanced skills in receiving feedback and inviting it and one way you can do that is to ask what's one thing what's one thing that I'm doing or maybe failing to do that you think

is getting in the way or what's one thing that if I could change it would make a difference to you or what's one thing that in our Monday morning meeting we could change to make it more efficient because I know people are flagging they're energy is flagging that's a question that you can toss

off while you're walking down the hall and lowers the stakes it's very clear you're asking for coaching you're looking for something to improve and you're also signaling and by the way I expect you to be receptive to coaching also because I'm going to demonstrate I value it I assume I'm still

learning and I expect that you're still learning too one thing what's one thing at a time put in sequence how much that can do is there anything because if you ask is there anything you'll be like oh no you're great we love working with you you have to assume there is yeah let's kind of like

my if you had to cut 20% what would yeah yeah that's why the reasons that's such a great question yeah it's forced it applies some very clear constraints constraints right they yes the option of not naming something is not implicit in that question that's fair do you get people who ignore

the question anyway no because they make terrible proofreaders so generally my friends know exactly these are people I've known for a while typically so they know exactly what they're signing up for and they know what type of feedback I have given them in the past right so it's reciprocal oh

yeah yeah for sure so they have a very good idea of exactly what I'm looking for and they'll ask clarifying questions if need be but though what is one thing dot dot dot is a really useful characteristic for getting the type of feedback that may not be forthcoming especially if you are

at the top of the pyramid or in the hierarchy and a leadership position well Sheila we've covered a lot what if what if we not covered is there anything that you would like to discuss before we begin to wind to a close if we neglected anything that pops to mind we've certainly

gone through a lot of different scenarios we've gone through the interpersonal we've gone through intimate relationships we've gone through professional environments is there any particular point that comes to mind or anything you'd like to add before we begin to land the plane

once in my head is maybe a follow on to what you just said about the one thing and being in leadership which is so when we were working on the feedback book part of the challenge is that the need to give feedback is a felt problem like I have feedback for

you I'm carrying it around with myself because I don't know how to give it to you or I've tried to give it to you and you're not taking it so if there's a book that would help me do that I would buy that book and could use some help the the need to receive feedback from other people who are

carrying it around and not giving it to us is not necessarily a felt problem I'm oblivious to it I have mixed feelings about it it's like carbon monoxide the invisible killer that's right it is the invisible killer that's actually very good that's a very good metaphor for it so do I want

a carbon monoxide detector I do I know I should and it's also moving from a push model of learning I decide what you need to learn and I push you to learn it to a pull model of learning which is I'm curious what you think I have to learn or could improve which is very much your stance

Tim it's very relaxing to be with someone who has that stance right it's also I think your book does a great job of this I mean it is a learnable skill I learned this through skill acquisition where for instance I would need to have to turn lay people non-coaches into coaches and to do that you

have to elicit with lots of very specific questions and very well thought through questions for instance if you want a native speaker to help you learn your target language that is actually a very big ask and very challenging if they're not trained teachers if you go up to a native

English speaker and you're like tell me the difference between anything and something or like when do you use N versus the when it's a new person being introduced to a sense I like there's most native English speakers would fail the test of English as a foreign language or do very

poorly would be so confusing because what is reflexive is not something they can explain and so I think I've developed that stance through a lot of repetitions with mostly different skills and it is not something that came intuitively but it is something that you can pick up very very

quickly with the right toolkit and with that toolkit you become an incredibly skilled and fast learner and I think that's a big aha for me which is oh gosh I can learn from anybody they don't have to be a skilled giver because I can help with that to hear and understand what they're trying

to tell me and then I can figure out what to make of it and what I want to take away and leave behind the last thing on this front is that as leaders sometimes people will say well I don't really know what I should be working on and my answer to them is like well you know who knows pretty much

everybody else everybody around you has a list of the things you do they make it harder for them to do their job and it's a list they pass amongst each other about you so it becomes the sort of conventional wisdom about you what's great about you and what's hard about working with you

but if you want to know what's on that list you have to ask and you have to ask in a way that persuades them that you actually want to know and you'll take it seriously you can't promise that you can change it or you would change it but at least listening for the themes that you hear

from different people at different times will help identify the things that oh yeah that's probably something that's not helping in this context yeah and this topic of feedback thanks for the feedback the science and art of receiving feedback well it's a bit of a Trojan horse for a bunch of things

as you mentioned right if you want to be a super learner it doesn't just apply to interacting with your boss at work it doesn't just apply to your direct reports at work it doesn't just apply to your significant other actually applies in a million different contexts

how can you elicit the feedback that will most help you to take constructive next steps I mean it applies to everything and to that extent I mean it's a very meta skill that is transferable across a million different disciplines it's healer people can find the triad consulting group

at triadconsultinggroup.com and I also did go to the help yourself you have all sorts of tools and links available on the help yourself portion of that website so people can go there so anywhere else you would like to point people I've been trying to get better at social media and

LinkedIn try has a LinkedIn page and I now have a LinkedIn page and I try to post occasionally and get more than occasionally so I think that the question of where do I get help with this we also have a list of what's on our shelf you do too Tim we have a lot of overlap in the kinds of things that you're reading and thinking about and this journey is such a central one that there's lots of different resources out there all double check to see if our

latest list of resources things that we would recommend is up. Great so we'll link in the show notes then to certainly thanks for the feedback the book and books try a consulting group and then to the respective LinkedIn pages for people who would like to explore and we'll put those a Tim dot blog slash podcast as per usual any last words before we go I'll say thank you very much for the time as always have enjoyed the conversation immensely and taking copious notes. I am thinking

about your dating project. Yeah and journey I'll be interested to hear how it goes and also what you find that cuts to the heart of what do I want to understand about this person and about myself in the way that we show up together that is either super energizing and rewarding and fun

which is how it should be or anxiety provoking and draining. Yes I would strongly prefer to lean heavily in the former grouping instead of the latter so I will keep you posted on my progress perfect perfect perfect perfect and thank you so much for taking the time always such a pleasure

and to everybody listening you've heard this before until next time be just a bit kinder than as necessary not only to others but to yourself know thyself as the sign would say over the oracle at Delphi partner that is learning how to elicit and metabolize good feedback so take a close

look at it and until next time thanks for tuning in. Hey guys this is Tim again just one more thing before you take off and that is five bullet Friday would you enjoy getting a short email for me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend between one and a half and two million

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