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it happens when you laugh, our brains are changing. When we laugh, we released 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 you're going to fight. How do you have a good fight, still a good fight can still go to bed and 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. Okay, to say: I'm really having a rough time. Can we pick this up all this today on something you should know.

Something you should now fascinating into the world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today, something you should now make her brother s cry To something you should know, I'll be long before we're celebrating mother's day episode has been published in March, and in May it will be mother's day, Do you know the origins of mother's day their little fuzzy, because the ancient, Greeks and Romans Dedicated festivals, too mother goddesses? So you could kind of call that the beginning of mother's day, but according to do readers digest today's version of mother's day in the United States can be attributed to one woman, Anna Jarvis, who actually wasn't a mother herself, she organised the first observance of mothers day in nineteen o eight to honor her own mother, who had died,

three years earlier it isn'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 nineteen forty seen President Woodrow Wilson Name mother's day, an official holiday, but what Interesting is this holiday that celebrated with hug? and flowers actually became one of anger, obsession and litigation for Anna Jarvis, the founder of mother's day? She felt 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 thirty. Three lawsuits by nineteen.

thirty four so as you celebrate mother's day and enjoy the holiday. This may real is 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 something you should know it who doesn't enjoy a good laugh 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 it's about humor, it's not really part of life. So much is it something to do to take a break from the serious part of life, and that may exactly the wrong way to look at it, recording Naomi bag donuts, Naomi, is a lecturer at Stanford, University, school of business, a media consultant and coach and author of the book. Humor

recently why here, Is a secret weapon in business and life nail welcome hi thanks for having me, so explain why humor comedy laughter being funny, why that's important to if, rather than just being a break from everything humor is fine more important than we think for productivity for connection creativity in Clinton, even our emotional and physical well being, and yet we don't think of it. This way and we know from the research that around age twenty three people fall off a humor cliff. In essence, we stopped laughing. We stop believing ourselves to be funny, and so, as a result, its a completely under leverage asset in our lives and especially in our workplaces are workplaces are far too humorless. This is actually a learning. Skill and people need to start making these small shifts in behavior and mine.

That 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. I can Well, there you are an anomaly in a data set of over one point: four million people across a hundred and sixty six countries and as part of this research individuals were asked, are really some question: did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday and what we find from the data is at age. Sixteen, eighteen, twenty! The answer is pretty consistently. Yes, then, at age, twenty three, all of a sudden, we start to see a lot more nose. In fact, if you look at the data, people fall off a cliff and that that cliff doesn't start climbing back up again until around age. Seventy five and so we have all these misperceptions about humor, especially at work, and we just stopped laughing

and why do you suppose that is its a great question? We actually doug 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 course, age. Twenty three 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 counter productive, especially for leaders. We know that leaders with a sense of humor are seen by their employees as twenty seven per cent more motivating that their employees are fifteen per cent 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 nets. We 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 I've, researchers Brad bitterly Maurice Schweitzer and Allison would Brooks at Harvard and Wharton have done some research on us and have found 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, 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 in particular a mindset that we can shift to make it easier to find

join 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 full 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 talked 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 it you get those. Blank stares, and it goes nowhere So I imagine that how much humor you can have in a workplace is set, the boss, if you have a fairly humorless boss, you're

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, as if you're not 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 simply signal that you have a sense of humor, so I would love to talk formatted here about why physiologically this is really important, because a lot of people think ok well, this is just our psychology and MRS you know, sort of a funding for thing, but really our brains are changing when we laugh so we released a cocktail of hormones. We release, for example, endorphins, which give us something like a runner's.

if we lower our cortisol, so we feel calmer, less stressed, think you know ten minutes of meditation. We release oxytocin, which is often called the love hormone, our trust hormone. This is 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 and 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 of in this goes back to those myths there or those beliefs that people have that cause them to fall off the cliff. But there is a perception and I've. I've felt it because I tend to go for the job 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 It's 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 you and the culture that you're that you're in we also know that humor makes us more persuasive, so studies have shown that

even including a light hearted line at the end of a sales pitch, like my final offer, Zacks and I'll, throw in my pet frog will increase customers willingness to pay by eighteen percent. Now this is an objectively lame joke, but what's happening here. Is the person on the other side of 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 eighteen percent lower, but didn't have the joke That's really interesting, because, again it it flies in the face of this idea that you know, ok, fun is fun, but here we we were doing serious work here and- and there's just no room for that, and and there are there, certainly not room for much of it and so that brings up the question. So how much is enough? I mean the we can't just

get up all day. We still have to do the work so, where 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 a, heavily serious person, you don't you're, not comfortable yakking it up, you're, not comfortable she, laughing a lot you're just a c, his person and you don't, I mean how do you become more humor full? If you hurt if you're are humorless, it's a great question and I would challenge that because we behave differently at work than we do at home, and so one exercise that we do it our students is, we have them, do a an email on it, so they have to go back after after they're sent folder of their emails and look at their last ten emails.

and we have a competition called a jargon off and our students have to find the most agreed just business speak that they used right attached. Please find Regretfully, I will be unable to attend the meeting whatever that is, that is, I could have been written by a robot and you I mean it is impressive what our students come up with from their sent folders, and this is incredibly perfect 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 robot

and so being more human, and I would I would bet that if you check your sent folder if anyone listening checks are sent folder, there are ways in which we are behaving in 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 work with you, because the benefit of doing that is what other than what you've already talked about about, how it's good for you physiologic Lee to laugh and have humor in your life and It's you know may be good for relationships, but how does it help the business? A recent HBR survey found that fifty eight percent of individuals would rather trust a stranger than their boss right, so trust isn't

credible issue in our world right now and showing more humanity showing that we have a sense of humour that we are. You know someone that our employees would feel comfortable hanging out with on the weekends, makes a really big difference and having people feel more comfortable around you feeling, like your more approachable and so one example of this is the custom of former CEO of Twitter. He at one point walked into the elevator it twitter one morning and in his seat, YO twitters growing, I'm incredibly fast, and he standing there the elevator in here someone whisper. Oh my gosh, I think that's the ceo and YO he overhears this and he says hello. Yes, I'm the castle. The ceo, I'm a real I'm a human being flesh and bone nice to meet you. He reaches out and shakes her hand and the whole elevator erupts in laughter and dick realized. There was this in inaudible status barrier that had built up where people and

wasn't she whispered in the elevator right. This was people aren't, feel uncomfortable, bringing him hard news. People aren't feel uncomfortable being open with him about what's going on the company, and so he started Using these elevator rides everyday as ways to talk to other people in the company is ways to humanize himself, and He knew that those moments in the elevator were then being talked about. You know in the lunch room 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 a regular person, and his goal really was to cut down the status barrier. Me back. Donuts is my guest. Her book is called humor seriously why he, is a secret weapon in business and life so Naomi I have known people. I've worked for people just been in social situations, with people that have a of humor

just that my sense of humor, I don't find them funny, I'm sure they probably don't find me that all that funny, but in other words sense of humor is great, but not everybody likes the same sense of humour. So we know from research that there are four broad humor styles that people tend to fall into. Those are the stand up: the sweet heart, the sniper and the magnet. So we got the stand up. Those are bold irreverent You know not afraid to ruffle feathers to get a laugh, think Amy Schumer or Eddie Murphy, an extra about the sweetheart earnest understated. These people use you were there. vikings the mood and lifts people up so think, Bowen Yang

ass, a now or Jimmy Kimmel. Next, you got this neighbour, and these people are edgy sarcastic a little more intervene voted, but they are masters of the unexpected dig. So this is gonna, Think Michel, Wolf or Belburg. And lastly, you ve got the magnet, so magnets are expressive charismatic, a little bit silly and really easy to make. Laugh 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: over indexing. Well, that's a total magnet risk. Man, its have to be aware of how much there 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 Amis Labour sniper are really stingy with their laughter like you've, got to work very hard to make a sniper laugh and a in a leadership role, some of the coaching I'll do

Them as around hey, listen here, the benefits of you just signalling, you have a sense of humour and that sort of what will 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 leadership role, say it. It really does vary by humor style, As I'm listening to you, I it it me that that one of the problems in the struggles that people have with this is that that there's humor. and then there's also discipline and you think of a military, not the funniest organization in the world, and that that, if you will How too much humored that discipline will break down is that is that a fair assumption that people have that people operate under absolutely and ask the serious business math 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 are used to be and so bit so there was one

I didn't have over fifty 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 a 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 fifty teams, the teams that had humor that had a moment where they all laughed together had more productive function. 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 there's a wealth of research that shows when humor exists in a team, they are gonna perform better, and this is

I'll 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 were able to bounce back more quickly from setbacks as well one of my greatest most set spying joys in life is when I get into a conversation with someone and the laughter it's an it builds in it builds. I can do this with with my son's. So a couple of my and my brother, my wife, where it just laid kid just becomes uncontrollable laughter, 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. Absolutely, and no and wants to lead a boring life. No one wants to have a boring conversation, and yet we are risk of her and so even that moment right that moment with your son, you're laughing or crying that those me Ants are going to be the ones that you remember years from now or decades from now and by the way this is not just you know, will 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, walk into a room- and you know no matter what it tackle that day, you're going to be able to get through it and you're going to find some joy in the process We reminisce about those teams that we've been apart of don't realize is that we,

creating those environments in every team we work on. If we are, more generous with our laughter if navigating our lives on the precipice of a smile, if we're showing up as more human- and you know more, broadly than that. My my partner in crime at Stanford, Doktor Jennifer, occur. She spent her career researching what drives human well being and what drives happiness verses. What we think, and one of the most profound revelations that we had from this work is actually stems from the exact opposite. 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

presents joy and love so boldness. I with I wish I'd been less fearful of change. I wish I'd. Take bolder taken. Bolder risks off intensity. I wish that I had by the way that was true to myself. Now what other people thought I should be presence. I wish I had lived less my past and my future and instead savoured the moment joy joy, 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 in the reason that we, spent the last six years of our lives on this topic of humor is humor mitigates each of these five four

it's 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 and 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 you were empowers us to do that presents all of humor- and this is you know, comedy one o one is about listening, really carefully, it's about being in the moment and waiting for that, simple truth that you can make a call back to where you can. You know react to in a way that that is unexpected joy. Of course, this one is is perhaps the most obvious, but when we navigate our lives on the precipice of smile, we find more opportunities for joy. Again, joy comes more, Thirdly, and lastly, love- and this is perhaps an unusual connection-

You know Michael Lewis, the author he in in our we had a conversation with him and it's the afterward of the book, and the last line is where there is humor love isn't far, hide, 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 you know him falling on the floor laughing. It's a display of your care and your love for each other I think everybody knows just inherently that humor and laughter, but not all just feels good in the moment, but you know that the feelings linger that that it must be in some way good for you, oh there's one more thing I'll share in that point, which is one of our favorite studies, was conducted in Norway, and this is a study that links humour to launch Aberdeen, which is pretty profound, so it was a fifteen year long

the two no 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. humor. This is not I'm funny just I have a sense of humor that these people were thirty, more resistant to severe disease and they live on average eight years longer- and I mean this- the whole body of research around what happens to us physiologically when we laugh that we increase blood flow, you know physically there. There are some health benefits to laughter but no that's another factor here till all really last twenty minutes, or so has really been nothing but reason after reason, after reason to lighten up and and have fun and and laugh it up a little bit, my guest is and nail me back down ass. 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 in the show notes thanks Naomi. This was fun thanks like it was really nice talking to you and thanks for what you do, we're big fans, podcast and it's amazing how consistently you are able to have a really interesting conversations and teach things that people had no have you ever met anybody whose, in a marriage or relationship say you know, when we fight Do that really? Well, I'm really good at it. I've never heard anybody say that until today it's and 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. Well why? not actually get better at it. If it's possible and is according to Penn Holderness. He and his

I have come as close as you can get I suppose, to getting really good at fighting with each other and they written book called everybody fights so why not get better at it a pen man thanks for having me. So, let's start with why you became a master at fighting and what brought what brought you you and your wife to decide hey. We need to get really good at this sure. Well, my wife Kim I have been married for seventeen years now and I feel like you- can multiply years by seven and make it like over one hundred in dog years, because we worked together and we live gather, and 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 did what a lot of people

What I recommend a lot of people. Do we went to counseling and figured out what was going wrong and weird inspired by the help that we got and really how simple it was that we wanted to share it I sense is that a big part of the problem is that even it when people read books and listen to you and go, seminars and 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 you go and talk about our feelings went when you're so upset. I think you're exactly right. One interesting thing is: there's a party or bring, and it's the part that controls your speech and when your stressed out you're getting in a fight it sort of surrenders to the other parts of your body, and it starts it stops working as well.

so when you hear someone say I'm so mad at you, I can't even talk to you. That's a physiological react yeah. Well, then, there's the problem right there. How do you discuss this? Well when you can rarely discuss it at all. One hundred percent, one of the things that we talk about is d escalating. It's 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 self. It's about the way that you say things, not necessarily what it is that you're saying, because ninety percent of all communication- and I'm not the one who invented this- it's been said a lot of times. Ninety percent of all communication is actually non verbal. 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 in 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 pen. I feel a little stressed out and the sounds that I'm hearing they're making me feel uncomfortable sooner. from your acting or you should into I feel, and when you talk about your personal, going there 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 saying, 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 start developing habits together. You have these things that you do in your life that are unspoken jobs of yours and our counselor called him secret contracts they're just these little things. Some of them are good, like it's good, Kim wakes, the kids up in. Winning and then I drive them to school. I don't wanna 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 him up. I would take him to school at night. She would make dinner. 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 to 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 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 liked took too Instagram and had this sort of warfare thing where she told she told her. Followers interfere sticking your off, knowing that I don't ever check Instagram until I found out about a week later, that she'd been toasting me on some for media, about the fact that I never change took put a paper. We took that to our counselor expecting me to be a hundred per cent wrong and the increased effort was like Kim. Did you ever ask him to do it said? No, because I would have to do and he goes

you need to ask him to do it, because mature people ask for what they want and she'd. Never once asked anyone to do it. You just got upset because she assume that was her job and that up All the time like I, my secret contract, is I'm supposed to be like the the mood keep her upper, I'm supposed to be the golden retriever and a happy guy in our family, and sometimes I cannot do that. So we actually had a pretty valuable conversation 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 when start with your feelings and you saved. This is what's going on in my life- and I feel like that- it needs to be a change. The most important for the next person to say in theirs. You can really do that are really useful. One Did you just say I hear you and the

and this is a crazy two. I had no idea how well it works you just and if some arising repeat what she just said That does is it gets. You guys pointed in the same direction right so you're, both your you're. She sang something in your hearing what she said, then you fuck how you feel now. This is always going to if this is not always going to work perfectly you're going to move into you always or you should, or you might even like to change the subject and move into. Let's say we're talking about not changing the toilet paper and I'm really upset that I always have to do the dishes and we'd like left the original argument, another tip that our counselor gave us is once that starts use. But we have a saying 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 one, one fight at the 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 or of something really bad went on, in your day, it's ok to say, I'm really having a rough time because of this this in this, can we pick this up later, so a good, you can still go to bed angry, that the never go to bed angry, saying we don't even that, you need to be in a good mental place when you're having this too. Thus with someone by the way. That was really tough for me, because I hate it people are mad at me- and I all I want to do is satisfy Poland 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 thing, a disagreement to discuss what turn the disagreement into a fight is anger that it's the anger,

the gets in the way of having a reasonable discussion about it. We we 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 we do that thirty and for viewing we take up. We taken we hover over ourselves and we say: ok you're angry, because you haven't eaten you're angry because you haven't slept or you're angry at me 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 kind 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 and that's at least how 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, canonized,

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 that when you fight the thing you're about, isn't what you're really fighting about. It's really something else- and this is, did the straw that broke the camel's back or it's just an opportunity to finally lead out some steam, but you're fighting about, is really there's something else behind it out of my power, it's in a skilled, nursing home a couple of years ago, which anyone has done. That knows that it's pretty brutal we actually had to move him into an independent living facility, then skilled, nursing home then sell all of their personal possessions or find a place for them. Where they can be safe. And during of that. We were getting and fights about everything and we ve been neither of neither of us we're talking about the grave that the grief that I was going through and the stress that Kim was

playing through, because, even though these were people who meant a lot to her, these 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 and made everything thousand percent better. I mean it still sucked what has happened with my parents, but at least we re 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? What how do you figure? What that big stress or is because, even though its it's obvious in hindsight and when you say it, I imagine in the moment it was kind of hard. You knew you were upset and stressed out, but it was may be hard to pinpoint exactly what was causing it. do you remember when you were a kid and you would ask why, over and over again and your parents, but They get to something very elemental legacy funny. Whenever I asked my my dad something

I over and over again it either would go back to the Big Bang theory or God, because if 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, Mute said that you know it's not so much or it's not just what you say, but it's the body language. Is that how you say it to the tone in your voice, and I and I this image of you and your wife arguing in this very calm. Well, so he what I feel and but do you like go at it, I mean that's. That's such a good point. Sometimes, even when were using the right words, but 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

if you don't. I feel really upset that you're asking me to be the good guy all the time, but 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 have and I stood up- and I like bode my chest: when I said the second one they're, all these other the right, there's always of the things that are happening. when you're shouting at someone. So that's that's just a whole other element that you have to pray about. On top of the things that you're actually say yeah well, but it also seems like if, 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, but it it seems like it's human nature, that you know that that the actions after match what you're saying if you're upset you sound upset, and we 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 and there's gonna, I mean there's passion right everyone's got:

fashion, but every time we do, the fight tends to not go in the direction you wanted to. It's just it because I don't, if you've ever done this before, but if you raise your voice, she's gonna match your tone, but all that higher incidentally- you can do is go even higher and as soon as the first person raises their voice, a evolved into everyone raising their voice? Again, we do it. Sometimes we still do it. It's just telling you went when you do it it doesn't. You dont progressed the way that you would probably want to. you know those couples, though, that that they seemed like they're, always fighting like they're, always yellow at each other. In an end, they don't see him a whole worse for the wear. That's just their style of committee. locating it have you ever Cena that and know what I'm talking about? Yes, I have seen it

and then so what are you you know? I mean: does this not apply to them? I mean need that they just let it all out and scream and yell and- and they seem fine well they, they probably having a good marriage rate, will 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 the stuff our counselor was telling us. I think the council would tell them the same thing like if you, if you kept a a calmer tone, you might prove Rest through remember an argument. An argument is 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, ever 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. 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

Why isn't it interesting? How often I mean I can speak for myself in and I know other people have said the same thing that fights. When happened like there's nothing more important than this fight we're having right now and and in a week, if you don't even remember what you are fighting about it just like it goes away at it. Wasn't that important, but at the time now 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 ninety percent of the fights that we have like you're, absolutely right. They just they go away and I think what doesn't go. Is whatever the underlying feelings were that caused the fight, but sometimes the fight has nothing to do with what there's underlying feeling why does seem when you're in a relationship for any length of time just by then? nature of interaction. There's going to be miscommunication, there's going to be misunderstandings, people are going to take things.

necessarily the way you meant them. It's bound to happen We had one knocked down, drag out fight where she it too. She wanted me to write em a musical, and I I've written a lot of music online, and I enjoyed that, and I have talked to about wanting to write a musical and a musical is like twenty thousand times harder and she asked me that while we were like in the middle of doing a thousand other things in our life is like. I think we should do a musical, and I can help you with the script like. That would be amazing in my response to her was: do you think that the best use of your time, and I was saying that because she shed a thousand other projects that she was doing and she got so mad, she got to 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, the escalation period, because she was pissed.

I realized it. She was mad at me because I wasn't taking her seriously as a professional like it entirely like as a partner. it's like a major problem. If you work with someone and it started, with us talking about a about whether like whether or not she was too busy to help me with a 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 is probably more important, but understand I did before that. Well, anybody who's been in a relationship knows that the relationships aren't always easy. The fights are prob the hardest part of being in a relationship. So it's interesting to listen to somebody who's really taken a. Dive into, why we fight and and how to get better at it It 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

in the show notes thanks pen for being here. Thank you, Michael appreciated, appreciate, 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, of all it's, not your 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 actual. 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 everyone it just it to be louder at church.

That is something you should know if you're one of them, people who listens to this podcast but has yet to share it with someone else. but why is that? Please share this part I give him the link and let them here it is well. I might brothers, thanks for listening today to something you should know. Do you love love? I can't on Vander. Proper rules now get to know her on give them long Lala, whether assistant chess I get in interaction. Hang over while on hearing extroverted insurer ways I got what did it so people would probably assume you're an extra work is when you're out your social and listen. That, like eight takes a toll on day, that's a real thing. You get like physically exhaust said my body, her yeah give them Lala, listen wherever you get. Your PA casts.