Something You Should Know - The Power and Benefits of Humor & How to Fight Better with Your Partner

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Starting point is 00:00:17 You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Today on Something You Should Know, where did Mother's Day come from and why were there so many lawsuits about it? Then they say laughter is the best medicine. Why? What happens when you laugh? Our brains are changing when we laugh.

Starting point is 00:00:46 We release a cocktail of hormones. And so in essence, as far as our brains are concerned, laughing is like exercising, meditating, and having sex at the same time. Then why is it your stomach growls at exactly the wrong time so everyone hears it. And you and your partner are going to fight. So if you're going to fight, how do you have a good fight? So a good fight, you can still go to bed angry. The never go to bed angry saying, we don't believe in that. You need to be in a good mental place when you're having this discussion with someone. It's okay to say, I'm really having a rough time. Can we pick this

Starting point is 00:01:25 up later? All this today on Something You Should Know. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology.

Starting point is 00:02:05 That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice

Starting point is 00:02:40 you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. It won't be long before we're celebrating Mother's Day. This episode is being published in March and in May it will be Mother's Day. Do you know the origins of Mother's Day? They're a little fuzzy because the ancient Greeks and Romans dedicated festivals to mother goddesses, so you could kind of call that the beginning of Mother's Day. But according to Reader's Digest, today's version of Mother's Day in the United States

Starting point is 00:03:18 can be attributed to one woman, Anna Jarvis, who actually wasn't a mother herself. She organized the first observance of Mother's Day in 1908 to honor her own mother, who had died three years earlier. It wasn't necessarily to celebrate all mothers. It was supposed to be to celebrate the best mother you have ever known. In other words, your mother. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson named Mother's Day an official holiday.

Starting point is 00:03:49 But what's interesting is this holiday that's celebrated with hugs and flowers actually became one of anger, obsession, and litigation for Anna Jarvis, the founder of Mother's Day. She felt that the holiday was being hijacked by greeting card companies and candy and flower companies, and they were all just corrupting her vision of what Mother's Day was supposed to be all about. So she ended up organizing boycotts and protests, and she spoke out against people, including Eleanor Roosevelt, for using the day to raise money for charity. And she was involved in 33 lawsuits by 1944. So as you celebrate Mother's Day and enjoy the holiday this May,

Starting point is 00:04:37 realize that there was a lot of fighting and bickering about it before it got to be this wonderful, peaceful holiday that we now all celebrate. And that is something you should know. Who doesn't enjoy a good laugh? We like things that are funny and humorous. There's something very special that happens when people laugh together and enjoy humor together. Still, there does seem to be something kind of frivolous about humor. It's not really part of life so much as it's something to do to take a break from the serious part of life. And that may be exactly the wrong way to look at it.

Starting point is 00:05:20 According to Naomi Bagdonas, Naomi is a lecturer at Stanford University School of Business, a media consultant and coach, and author of the book, Humor Seriously, Why Humor is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life. Hi, Naomi. Welcome. Hi, thanks for having me. So explain why humor, comedy, laughter, being funny, why that's important to life rather than just being a break from everything. Humor is far more important than we think for productivity, for connection, creativity, influence, and even our emotional and physical well-being. And yet we don't think of it this way. And so we know from the research that around age 23, people fall off a humor cliff. In essence, we stop laughing. We stop believing ourselves to be funny. And so as a

Starting point is 00:06:12 result, it's a completely under leveraged asset in our lives. And especially in our workplaces, our workplaces are far too humorless. This is actually a learnable skill and people need to start making these small shifts in behavior and mindset to start changing not just the way we work, but also the way that we live. I want to hear more about the humor cliff, because I've never heard of the humor cliff before. I didn't fall off of it. Well, then you are an anomaly in a data set of over 1.4 million people across 166 countries. And as part of this research, individuals were asked a really simple question. Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday?

Starting point is 00:06:57 And what we find from the data is at age 16, 18, 20, the answer is pretty consistently yes. Then at age 23, all of a sudden we start to see a lot more no's. In fact, if you look at the data, people fall off a cliff and that cliff doesn't start climbing back up again until around age 75. And so we have all these misperceptions about humor, especially at work, and we just stop laughing. And why do you suppose that is? It's a great question. We actually dug into that exact question as well. So we surveyed over a thousand people asking them, what holds you back from using humor at work? Because of

Starting point is 00:07:37 course, age 23 is when we enter the workforce. And what we uncovered are these four myths that people have about humor. And we try our best to debunk these myths. So the first is the serious business myth, the idea that if you take your work seriously, you have to be serious all the time. And in fact, we find that this is actually counterproductive, especially for leaders. We know that leaders with a sense of humor are seen by their employees as 27% more motivating, that their employees are 15% more engaged in their jobs, their teams are more likely to solve creativity challenges, and humor more broadly can reduce stress and help us accomplish really serious things. Next, we've got the failure myth. That's the idea that if you fail, it's going to be hugely detrimental to your career. And in fact, researchers Brad Bitterly, Maury Schweitzer,

Starting point is 00:08:31 and Alison Wood Brooks at Harvard and Wharton have done some research on this and have found that as long as your humor is still appropriate, then there isn't as much risk as we think. And in fact, if we fail, that is if we don't get laughter, but the joke is still appropriate, then it'll still boost other people's perceptions of our confidence in the process. Third, the born with it myth. This is the idea that humor is an innate ability,

Starting point is 00:08:57 not a learned skill. But I can tell you from over five years of teaching this at Stanford's Graduate School of Business that humor can be learned. It's a skill we can develop. And in particular, it's a mindset that we can shift to make it easier to find joy in our lives. And then lastly is the being funny myth. And this is the idea that in order to benefit from humor at work, you have to actually be funny. You have to be telling jokes. And this is completely backwards. In fact,

Starting point is 00:09:26 one of the worst things you can do is try to be funny at work. Instead, this is just about having a sense of humor. So we talk about navigating your life on the precipice of a smile, being more generous with your laughter and looking for reasons for joy. I have worked for people who have absolutely no sense of humor. And I find that often in conversation, when you try to inject humor, that you get those blank stares and it goes nowhere. So I imagine that how much humor you can have in a workplace is set by the boss. If you have a fairly humorless boss, you're more likely to have a fairly humorless workplace. Yeah, absolutely. So setting the tone from the top is incredibly important. What we tell the leaders we work with is if you're not

Starting point is 00:10:18 comfortable using humor yourself, that's completely fine. The most important thing you can do as a leader is be a bit more generous with your laughter and simply signal that you have a sense of humor. So I would love to talk for a minute here about why physiologically this is really important because a lot of people think, okay, well, this is just our psychology and this is sort of a fun and frivolous thing, but really our brains are changing when we laugh. So we release a cocktail of hormones. We release, for example, endorphins, which give us something like a runner's high. We lower our cortisol. So we feel calmer, less stressed. Think 10 minutes of meditation. We release oxytocin, which is often called the love hormone or trust hormone. This is

Starting point is 00:11:03 also released during certain types of physical touch. And so in essence, as far as our brains are concerned, laughing is like exercising, meditating, and having sex at the same time and way more efficient in my point of view. So what's important here is that these changes in our physiology change not just how we feel and how we behave, but it also changes how other people perceive us. So they perceive us as higher in status, more persuasive. And so laughter is not just something fun, frivolous. It fundamentally changes how we as humans feel and how other people perceive us. I think, and this goes back to those myths or

Starting point is 00:11:47 those beliefs that people have that cause them to fall off the cliff, but there is a perception, and I have felt it because I tend to go for the joke. I tend to try to find the humor in the situation, but then I sometimes, especially in a meeting or in a work situation, think, yeah, if you do that, people aren't going to take you seriously. You're the jokester, and you better be very careful with this. What we find is that in general, people are so far indexed in the other direction that if you're weaving humor in, in general, it's going to benefit you and the culture that you're in. We also know that humor makes us more persuasive. So studies have shown that even including a lighthearted line at the end of a sales pitch, like my final offer is X and I'll throw in my pet frog, will increase customers' willingness to pay by 18%. Now, this is an objectively lame joke, but what's happening here is the person on the

Starting point is 00:12:50 other side of the negotiations table, their cortisol is going down, they feel more comfortable. You are now more persuasive in their eyes. And by the way, they walk away from that negotiation feeling better about the sales price than those who paid 18% lower, but didn't have the joke. That's really interesting. Because again, it flies in the face of this idea that, you know, okay, fun is fun. But here, we're doing serious work here. And, and there's just no room for that. And, and, or there's certainly not room for much of it. And so that brings up the question, so how much is enough? I mean, we can't just yuck it up all day. We still have to do the work. So

Starting point is 00:13:32 where's the line if there is a line? Again, in general, our workplaces are far too humorless. And again, this is not about cracking jokes. It's about showing up as more human in our workplaces. And so what does that mean to be more human? I mean, if you're a relatively serious person, you don't, you're not comfortable yucking it up. You're not comfortable laughing a lot. You're just a serious person and you don't want to, I mean, how do you become more humorful if you are humorless? It's a great question.

Starting point is 00:14:08 And I would challenge that because we behave differently at work than we do at home. And so one exercise that we do with our students is we have them do an email audit. So they have to go back, they have to go into their sent folder of their emails and look at their last 10 emails. And we have a competition called a jargon off. And our students have to find the most egregious business speak that they've used, right? Attached, please find. Regretfully, I will be unable to attend the meeting. Whatever that is that could have been written by a robot. And you,

Starting point is 00:14:46 I mean, it is impressive what our students come up with from their set folders. And this is incredibly pervasive. So we know that the more technology mediated our communication becomes, the easier it is to lose our sense of humor and our humanity along the way, right? We are communicating through robots. And so we start to behave like robots. And so being more human, and I would bet that if you check your scent folder, if anyone listening checks their scent folder, there are ways in which we are behaving and interacting at work that are just not how we would behave and interact on the weekends with people who are our friends and loved ones. It's about bringing more of that weekend self to work with you.

Starting point is 00:15:29 Because the benefit of doing that is what? Other than what you've already talked about, about how it's good for you physiologically to laugh and have humor in your life, and it's maybe good for relationships, but how does it help the business? A recent HBR survey found that 58% of individuals would rather trust a stranger than their boss, right? So trust is an incredible issue in our world right now. And showing more humanity, showing that we have a sense of humor, that we are, you know, someone that our employees would feel comfortable hanging out with on the weekends, makes a really big difference in having people feel more comfortable

Starting point is 00:16:11 around you, feeling like you're more approachable. And so one example of this is Dick Costolo, former CEO of Twitter. He at one point walked into the elevator at Twitter one morning and, you know, he's CEO, Twitter's growing incredibly fast. And he's standing at the back of the elevator and he hears someone whisper, oh my gosh, I think that's the CEO. And, you know, he overhears this and he says, hello, yes, I'm Dick Costolo. I'm the CEO. I'm real. I'm a real human being, flesh and bone. Nice to meet you. And he reaches out and shakes their hand and the whole elevator erupts in laughter. And Dick realized there was this incredible status barrier that had built up where people, and this wasn't just whispers in the elevator, right? This was people aren't feeling comfortable

Starting point is 00:16:53 bringing him hard news. People aren't feeling comfortable being open with him about what's going on in the company. And so he started, you know, using these elevator rides every day as ways to talk to other people in the company, as ways to humanize himself. And he knew that those moments in the elevator were then being talked about, you know, in the lunchroom and in meetings later in the day. And so, and this is of course, just one way that he did it, but he had many techniques that he used to show that he had a sense of humor, to show that he was a regular person. And his goal really was to cut down the status barrier. Naomi Bagdonas is my guest.

Starting point is 00:17:33 Her book is called Humor, Seriously, Why Humor is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest.

Starting point is 00:18:22 Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed,

Starting point is 00:19:10 critical thinker. Check out the Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Naomi, I have known people, I've worked for people, just been in social situations with people that have a sense of humor. It's just not my sense of humor. I don't find them funny. I'm sure they probably don't find me all that funny. But in other words, a sense of humor is great, but not everybody likes the same sense of humor. So we know from research that there are four broad humor styles that people tend to fall into. Those are the stand-up, the sweetheart, the sniper, and the magnet.

Starting point is 00:19:52 So we've got the stand-up. Those are bold, irreverent, not afraid to ruffle feathers to get a laugh. Think Amy Schumer or Eddie Murphy. And next we've got the sweetheart, earnest, understated. These people use humor that lightens the mood and lifts people up. So think Bowen Yang from SNL or Jimmy Kimmel. Next, you've got the sniper. And these people are edgy, sarcastic, a little more introverted, but they are masters of the unexpected dig. So this is, you know, think Michelle Wolfe or Bill Burr. And lastly, you've got the magnet. So magnets are expressive, charismatic, a little bit silly, and really easy to make laugh.

Starting point is 00:20:30 So think someone like Jimmy Fallon. So what we know is understanding your own humor style is also going to help you get a window into what your risks are. So, you know, you asked earlier about over-indexing. Well, that's a total magnet risk. Magnets have to be aware of how much they're using humor and how silly they are with their humor, you know, because that's the biggest risk for them. On the other side of the spectrum, you have the sweetheart and the sniper. Snipers are really stingy with their laughter. Like,

Starting point is 00:21:01 you've got to work very hard to make a sniper laugh. And so if a sniper is in a leadership role, some of the coaching that I'll do with them is around, hey, listen, here are the benefits of you just signaling you have a sense of humor. And that's sort of what we'll start to work on along with, you know, these principles from comedy, like you never want to punch down. You want to use humor that's uplifting, especially if you're in a leadership role. So it really does vary by humor style. As I'm listening to you, it dawns on me that one of the problems and the struggles that people have with this is that there's humor and then there's also discipline. And you think of the military, not the funniest organization in the world. And that if you allow too much humor, that discipline will break down.

Starting point is 00:21:48 Is that a fair assumption that people operate under? Absolutely. And that's the serious business myth, right? That if you want to accomplish serious things, you have to be serious along the way and disciplined, you know, and all of these other characteristics that, of course, in a traditional model of work, we needed. But we are moving away from, you know, simple problems in our world, and more and more, we need more creativity, we need more, you know, we're solving different types of problems that are not as straightforward as perhaps they used to be. And so there was one

Starting point is 00:22:26 study done of over 50 teams, and these are real working teams, and researchers videotaped one-hour team meetings discussing actual things that these teams were working on. Well, they then had an independent group of observers rate whether or not there was laughter in that meeting, whether or not there was humor. So did the team laugh together? They then had the bosses of these teams, the supervisors, rate the team across a whole bunch of characteristics, both in the moment and also six months later. And what they found was that of these 50 teams, the teams that had humor, that had a moment where they all laughed together, had more productive functional communication. They performed better as a team as rated by the supervisor, both in the moment and also six months later. And so, I mean,

Starting point is 00:23:19 there's a wealth of research that shows when humor exists in a team, they're going to perform better. And this is not just about them having better relationships. Although by the way, having a close friend at work is one of the greatest predictors of retention of whether or not you leave your job. It's also because when we laugh, we become more creative. It becomes a more psychologically safe environment. People are comfortable sharing their ideas that maybe they wouldn't otherwise. And we're able to bounce back more quickly from setbacks as well. One of my greatest, most satisfying joys in life is when I get into a conversation with someone and the laughter starts and it builds and it builds. I can do this with my sons, a couple of my friends, my brother, my wife, where it just becomes uncontrollable laughter.

Starting point is 00:24:12 I did it with my son the other day, and we were both laughing so hard, and he was standing up, and he just fell down. He was laughing so hard. And those moments are just, to me, the best. They're magical. Mm're magical. Absolutely. And no one wants to lead a boring life. No one wants to have a boring conversation. And yet we are risk averse. And so even that moment, right, that moment with your son, you're laughing, you're crying, that those moments are going to be the ones that you remember years from now or decades from now.

Starting point is 00:24:46 And by the way, this is not just, you know, woohoo, this is because your brain is releasing dopamine. And so you're actually locking those moments into your short and long-term memory. And similarly in business, right? We all remember those teams that we've been a part of, where it feels like joy just comes more easily, right? You walk into a room and you know, no matter what you have to tackle that day, you're going to be able to get through it and you're going to find some joy in the process. And we reminisce about those teams that we've been a part of. And what we don't realize is that we can be creating those environments in every team we work on. If we are more generous with our laughter, if we're navigating our lives

Starting point is 00:25:25 on the precipice of a smile, if we're showing up as more human. And more broadly than that, my partner in crime at Stanford, Dr. Jennifer Ocker, she spent her career researching what drives human wellbeing and what drives happiness versus what we think. And one of the most profound revelations that we had from this work actually stems from the exact opposite place that you would think we'd go, which is from death. So research has been done with hospice workers around what people wish for in their final days of life. And from this research, five themes emerged. So these are the five things that people regret in their last days of life. And those are boldness, authenticity, presence, joy, and love. So boldness, I wish I'd been less fearful of

Starting point is 00:26:20 change. I wish I'd taken bolder risks. Authenticity. I wish that I had lived the way that was true to myself, not what other people thought I should be. Presence. I wish I had lived less in my past and in my future and instead savored the moment. Joy. And this is an important phrasing. I wish I had let myself be happier. I wish I had not taken myself so serious and let myself find joy. And then love. I wish I had the chance to say I love you one more time. And what's profound about this work and the reason that we spent the last six years of our lives on this topic of humor is humor mitigates each of these five regrets.

Starting point is 00:27:03 So we know that when people, when we have environments of laughter and levity, people are less risk averse. They take bolder chances and they have the stronger social support systems to back them up. For authenticity, we know that when people are showing up with more humor, they care less about what other people think and they do more of what they believe. Humor empowers us to do that. Presence, all of humor, and this is, you know, comedy 101 is about listening really carefully. It's about being in the moment and waiting for that simple truth that you can make a callback to, or you can, you know, react to in a way that is unexpected. Joy, of course, this one is perhaps the most obvious, but when we navigate our lives on the precipice of a smile,

Starting point is 00:27:54 we find more opportunities for joy. Again, joy comes more easily. And lastly, love. And this is perhaps an unusual connection, but, you know, Michael Lewis, the author, he, in our, we had a conversation with him and it's the afterword of the book. And the last line is, where there is humor, love isn't far behind. And it's our thesis that they're sharing a laugh with someone is a little display of love, right? You laughing with your son, you crying and, you know, him falling on the floor laughing. It's a display of your care and your love for each other. Well, I think everybody knows just inherently that humor and laughter, but not only just feels good in the moment, but, you know, the feelings linger that it must be in some way good for you. Oh, there's one more thing I'll share on that point, which is one of our favorite studies was conducted in Norway. And this is a study that links humor to longevity, which is pretty profound. So

Starting point is 00:28:58 it was a 15 year longitudinal study in Norway, where they asked people, you know, do you feel like you have a sense of humor? And what they found was that individuals who say that they have a sense of humor, this is not I'm funny, just I have a sense of humor, that these people were 30% more resistant to severe disease. And they lived on average, eight years longer. And I mean, this is a whole body of research around what happens to us physiologically when we laugh, that we increase blood flow. You know, physically, there are some health benefits to laughter. But you know, that's another factor here too. Well, really, the last 20 minutes or so has really been nothing but reason after reason

Starting point is 00:29:41 after reason to lighten up and have fun and laugh it up a little bit. My guest has been Naomi Bagdonas. She is a lecturer at Stanford University School of Business, a media consultant and coach. And the book is called Humor Seriously, Why Humor is a Secret Weapon in Business and in Life. And you'll find a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Naomi. This was fun. Thanks, Mike. It was fun. Thanks, Mike.

Starting point is 00:30:05 It was really nice talking to you. And thanks for what you do. We're big fans of the podcast. And it's amazing how consistently you were able to have really interesting conversations and teach things that people should know. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan,

Starting point is 00:30:25 the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong? which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong? And finally wrap up your week with Fisting Friday where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't

Starting point is 00:31:20 Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Have you ever met anybody who's in a marriage or relationship say, you know, when we fight, I do that really well. I'm really good at it. I've never heard anybody say that until today. It's kind of interesting to think that every couple fights. People in any relationship argue and disagree. And when we fight, we mostly just kind of stumble through it.

Starting point is 00:31:58 Well, why not actually get better at it if it's possible? And it is according to Penn Holderness. He and his wife have come as close as you can get, I suppose, to getting really good at fighting with each other. And they've written a book called Everybody Fights, so why not get better at it? Hey, Penn. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. So let's start with why you became a master at fighting. I mean, what brought you and your wife to decide, hey, we need to get really good at this? Sure.

Starting point is 00:32:30 Well, my wife, Kim, and I have been married for 17 years now. And I feel like you can multiply those years by seven and make it like over 100 in dog years because we work together and we live together and we run a company together and so all of that put together has led to a bit of a powder keg when it comes to our relationship after sort of the early honeymoon phases of our marriage we started getting in a lot of fights and we couldn't figure out why we kept having the same fights over and over again so we

Starting point is 00:33:02 did what a lot of people do and what I recommend a lot of people do. We went to counseling and figured out what was going wrong. And we're so inspired by the help that we got and really how simple it was that we wanted to kind of share it. Well, my sense is that a big part of the problem is that even when people, you know, read books and listen to you and go to seminars and you can get all this information about how to disagree and how to fight better but in the moment when the fight actually is going on it's very hard to to put the anger and the emotion aside and be very logical and talk about our feelings when when you're so. I think you're exactly right.

Starting point is 00:33:45 One interesting thing is there's a part of your brain and it's the part that controls your speech. And when you're stressed out or you're getting in a fight, it sort of surrenders to the other parts of your body and it stops working as well. And so when you hear someone say, I'm so mad at you, I can't even talk to you, that's a physiological reaction. Yeah, well, there's the

Starting point is 00:34:06 problem right there. How do you discuss this well when you can barely discuss it at all? 100%. One of the things that we talk about is de-escalating. You have to take some time just to chill out. It could be taking a few deep breaths. It could be kind of petting your dog. We used to be, by the way, horrible at this. We would just plow through the fight and it would devolve into fighting about all sorts of things that we didn't even start talking about in the first place. You've got to chill out and let that nervous system kind of calm down before you get any farther with the fight. So that's step number one. And then once you get into the fight itself, it's about the way that you say things, not

Starting point is 00:34:45 necessarily what it is that you're saying. Because 90% of all communication, and I'm not the one who invented this, it's been said a lot of times, 90% of all communication is actually nonverbal. It's in the way that you say it. It's in your tone. Sometimes it's in how loud you are, how close you are to someone and what you're doing with your body and your hands. And so how do you do that? Well, let's say you and I are getting in a fight because Michael, you don't like the way that I chew, right? If you say you're really ticking me off with the way that you're chewing your food right now, it's not as effective because you're kind of accusing somebody of doing something. It's not as effective as if you were to say, hey, Penn, I feel a little stressed out and the sounds that I'm hearing, they're making me

Starting point is 00:35:32 feel uncomfortable. So you're going from you're acting or you should into I feel. And when you talk about your personal feelings, they're your own and you can't really argue with them and people have to respect them. If somebody's chewing is bothering you, chances are, I bet, that it's been bothering you for a long time. You never say anything. You never say anything. You never say anything. And then when you finally say something, you get mad about it. Here's something really interesting for us. When you get to be with someone for a period of longer than just a few weeks, when you start living together and you start developing habits together, you have these things that you do in your life that are unspoken jobs of yours. And our counselor called them secret contracts. They're just these little things. Some of them are good. Like it's good. Kim wakes the kids up in the morning

Starting point is 00:36:29 and then I drive them to school. I don't want to wake up as early as her. Kim doesn't want to leave the house. So we never really talked about it. That was just kind of how it worked out. Like she would wake them up. I would take them to school. At night, she would make dinner.

Starting point is 00:36:41 I would do the dishes. I would put the dog to bed. She would go to bed a little bit earlier. And we've never said any of these things. They've just always happened. They're these secret contracts that we have in our marriage. A lot of fights happen when you have secret contracts that you don't agree with and you haven't gotten around to addressing. So we have one really big chapter about that when Kim went on strike because no one else in their family would change the toilet paper roll. And that includes me. Like our kids wouldn't change it. I wouldn't change it. She like took

Starting point is 00:37:09 to Instagram and had this sort of guerrilla warfare thing where she told all of her followers that her family was taking her off, knowing that I don't ever check Instagram. And so I found out about a week later that she'd been toasting me on social media about the fact that I never changed the toilet paper. We took that to our counselor, expecting me to be 100% wrong. And Christopher was like, Kim, did you ever ask him to do it? And she said, no, because I always have to do it. He goes, you need to ask him to do it because mature people ask for what they want. And she had never once asked anyone to do it.

Starting point is 00:37:44 She just got upset because she assumed that was her job. And that happens all the time. Like my secret contract is I'm supposed to be like the mood keeper upper. I'm supposed to be the golden retriever and the happy guy in our family. And sometimes I cannot do that. So we actually had a pretty valuable conversation

Starting point is 00:37:59 about household duties. And we had a conversation about me always having to be the cheerleader. And we kind of amended those secret contracts, but they can lead to a lot of fights so what's a good fight what's the anatomy of a fight well fought do you think so a good fight goes when you start with your feelings and you say this is what's going on in my life. And I feel like there needs to be a change. The most important thing for the next person to say, and there's two things you can really do that are really useful. One is to just say, I hear you. And the other thing, and this is a crazy tool.

Starting point is 00:38:38 I had no idea how well it works. You just kind of summarize and repeat what she just said. And what that does is it gets you guys pointed in the same direction, right? So you're both, she's saying something and you're hearing what she says. Then you follow with how you feel, right? Now, this is always going to, this is not always going to work perfectly. You're going to move into you always, or you should, or you might even like change the subject and move into, let's say we're talking about not changing the toilet paper.

Starting point is 00:39:04 And I'm really upset that I always have to do the dishes. And we've like left the original argument. Another tip that our counselor gave us is once that starts, we have a saying that we actually say out loud during the fight that is stay in the airport. It's a weird metaphor, right? But the airport is gross. You don't want to be there. You want to get on a flight and go somewhere else. And so in arguments, you frequently just like jet somewhere else in the middle of a flight. You've got to stay on the argument at hand before you move on to the next one, like one fight at a time. You have to continue to take a temperature of where you are in the day. If you're tired or you're drunk, that's a really bad one. Or if you're hungry

Starting point is 00:39:46 or if something really bad went on in your day, it's okay to say, I'm really having a rough time because of this, this, and this. Can we pick this up later? So a good fight, you can still go to bed angry. The never go to bed angry saying, we don't believe in that. You need to be in a good mental place when you're having this discussion with someone. By the way, that was really tough for me because I hate it when people are mad at me. And all I want to do is satisfy people and apologize immediately. And what I've learned is I've got to finish the fight and I've got to finish it in a stable environment. It seems that with couples, when there's something, a disagreement

Starting point is 00:40:26 to discuss, what turns a disagreement into a fight is anger. It's the anger that gets in the way of having a reasonable discussion about it. We've had that before, and it's almost always because something else is ticking us off that has nothing to do with what we're talking about. So I think a couple of things that we do, we do that 30,000 foot view and we hover over ourselves and we say, okay, you're angry because you haven't eaten. You're angry because you haven't slept. Or you're angry at me.

Starting point is 00:41:02 You're very, very angry at me because of something that's been building up over a long period of time. We can't have a good conversation about this when you're so angry, all you can do is shout. So you've got to kind of take some time. And the answer is, how long does it take? The answer is, as long as it takes for you not to be feeling that way.

Starting point is 00:41:21 And that's at least how we try to do it. And by the way, it's sometimes taken a day or two for that to subside. But our belief, Kim and I's belief is that if you try to have a fight when you're already angry, you're not going to get anywhere. It seems a lot of times, and you hear people talk about this sometimes, that when you fight, the thing you're fighting about isn't what you're really fighting about. It's really something else. And this is either the straw that broke the camel's back, or it's just an opportunity to finally let out some steam.

Starting point is 00:41:53 But what you're fighting about is really there's something else behind it. I had to put my parents in a skilled nursing home a couple of years ago, which anyone who has done that knows that it's pretty brutal. We actually had to move him into an independent living facility, then into a skilled nursing home, then sell all of their personal possessions or find a place for them where they could be safe. And during all of that, we were getting in fights about everything. And neither of us were talking about the grief that I was going through and the stress that Kim was going through, because even though these were people who meant a lot to her, these

Starting point is 00:42:30 were not her parents and she didn't really know the best way to deal with it or to intervene. So I guess my answer is a lot of times when you can't stop fighting, it's because there's something under the surface that you haven't brought up. When we brought that up, it made everything a thousand percent better. I mean, it still sucked what was happening with my parents, but at least we were able to communicate with each other a little bit better. Yeah. It seems that sometimes it's hard to figure that stuff out. Like what is the thing? How do you figure out what that big stressor is? Because even though it's obvious in hindsight, and when you say it,

Starting point is 00:43:09 I imagine in the moment, it was kind of hard. You knew you were upset and stressed out, but it was maybe hard to pinpoint exactly what was causing it. Yeah. Do you remember when you were a kid and you would ask why over and over again, and your parents would ultimately get to something very elemental? Like, it's so funny, whenever I asked my dad something, why over and over again, it either would go back to the Big Bang Theory or God, because he had to keep going back to the most basic thing. You can actually do that in a fight. You can ask why over and over again until you get to the heart of the matter.

Starting point is 00:43:38 You had said that, you know, it's not so much or it's not just what you say, but it's the body language, the how you say it, the tone in your voice. And I have this image of you and your wife arguing in this very calm, well, so here's what I feel. But do you go at it? I mean, that's such a good point. Sometimes even when we're using the right words, like here's how I feel. You can hear my voice right now. If I say, here's how I feel, I feel really upset that you're asking me to be the good guy all the time. Or if I say, here's how I feel. I feel really upset that

Starting point is 00:44:21 you're asking me to be the good guy all the time. Those are two very different things, right? And also, you couldn't see me, but my hands were like flying all over my face. And I stood up and I like bowed my chest out when I said the second one. There are all these other things that are happening when you're shouting at someone. So that's just a whole other element that you have to worry about on top of the things that you're actually saying. Yeah, well, but it also seems like if you want someone to know you're upset, it kind of makes sense to get loud and sound upset. And you're saying that that's probably not the best thing to do if you're trying to resolve a problem.

Starting point is 00:44:57 But it seems like it's human nature that, you know, that the actions have to match what you're saying. If you're upset, you sound upset. Yeah, and we don't get an A-plus on this, Michael. We don't. We really don't. We still raise our voices with each other. There's passion, right? Everyone's got passion. But every time we do,

Starting point is 00:45:20 the fight tends to not go in the direction you want it to. Because I don't know if you've ever done this before, but if you raise your voice, she's going to match her tone, but a little bit higher. And so the only thing you can do is go even higher. And as soon as the first person raises their voice, it just sort of devolves into everyone raising their voice. And again, we do it sometimes we still do it. I'm just telling you when, when you do it, it doesn't, you don't progress the way that you would probably want to. You know those couples, though, that they seem like they're always fighting, like they're always yelling at each other, and they don't seem a whole lot worse for the wear.

Starting point is 00:45:58 That's just their style of communicating. Have you ever seen that and know what I'm talking about? Yes, I have seen it. And so what do you, you know, I mean, does this not apply to them? I mean, they just let it all out and scream and yell and they seem fine. Well, they probably have a good marriage, right? Kim and I had a good marriage. We felt like we went from a good marriage to a very good marriage to a great marriage because we tried all this stuff our counselor was telling us. I think the counselor would tell them the same thing. Like if you kept a calmer

Starting point is 00:46:31 tone, you might progress through. Remember, an argument has a beginning, a middle, and an end. You might progress through it so that you wouldn't have that same fight again. Having said that, I mean, again, yeah, everyone does their own thing. It's by the way, it's good that you're fighting some, I'd be more worried about someone who never fights than someone who fights all the time, to be honest with you, because the passion is there. But I would say they might want to try having a conversation where they're not raising their voice and see if it, if they get to progress that they hadn't gotten to before. Isn't it interesting how so often, I mean, I can speak for myself and I know other people

Starting point is 00:47:15 have said the same thing that fights when they happen are like, there's nothing more important than this fight we're having right now. And, and in a week you don't even remember what you were fighting about. It just like it goes away. It wasn't that important. But at the time, nothing was more important. I have no didactic advice for this only to tell you that when we started putting this book together, we couldn't remember like 90% of the fights that we had. You're absolutely right. They just, they go away. I think what doesn't go away is whatever the underlying feelings were that caused the fight. But sometimes the fight has nothing to do with what those underlying feelings are. Well, it does seem when you're in a relationship for any length of time,

Starting point is 00:47:58 just by the nature of interaction, there's going to be miscommunication. There's going to be misunderstandings. People are going to take things not necessarily the way you meant them. It's bound to happen. We had one knockdown drag out fight where she wanted to, she wanted me to write a musical. And I've written a lot of music online and I've enjoyed that. And I've talked to people about wanting to write a musical and a musical is like 20,000 times harder. And she asked me that while we were like in the middle of doing a thousand other things

Starting point is 00:48:36 in our life, she was like, I think we should do a musical and I could help you with the script. Like that would be amazing. And my response to her was, do you think that's the best use of your time? And I was saying that because she had a thousand other projects that she was doing and she got so mad. She got out of the car and walked away. And I had no idea what had just happened. I was like, what did I just say? And after a very long de-escalation period, because she was pissed, I realized that she was mad at me because I wasn't taking her seriously as a professional, like entirely,

Starting point is 00:49:12 like as a partner. And that's like a major problem if you work with someone. And it started with us talking about whether or not she was too busy to help me with the musical. The underlying issue was much, much bigger. And I've definitely learned how to not only trust her, but believe in her and actually respect the fact that her job may not just be as important as mine. It's probably more important. But I don't know that I did before then. Well, anybody who's been in a relationship knows that relationships aren't always easy. The fights are probably the hardest part of being in a relationship. So it's interesting to listen to somebody who's really,

Starting point is 00:49:50 you know, taken a deep dive into why we fight and how to get better at it. My guest has been Penn Holderness. He is author of the book, Everybody Fights, So Why Not Get Better At It? And there's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Penn, for being here. Thank you, Michael. I appreciate it. We all know about the growling stomach. It's the reason you don't want to go to church without eating something first, because it seems to happen at exactly the wrong time. What's going on when your stomach growls? Well, first of all, it's not your

Starting point is 00:50:27 stomach. It's your intestines, mostly. As air passes through, the intestines contract and expand, and that's what makes the noise you hear. When you have food moving through your system, it muffles that sound, which is why people tend to associate a growling stomach with being hungry. But actually, you're always making that sound, you just don't hear it very well after you've eaten. Occasional stomach growling is completely normal. It happens to everyone. It just seems to be louder at church. And that is something you should know. If you're one of those people who listens to this podcast but has yet to share it with someone else, well, why is that? Please share this podcast, give them the link, and let them hear it as well. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

Starting point is 00:51:18 Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity.

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Something You Should Know - The Power and Benefits of Humor & How to Fight Better with Your Partner

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