Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / Do You Know How to Fight...Well? With Priya Parker

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Do You Know How to Fight...Well? With Priya Parker · QUESTION EVERYTHING

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the right questions, we get a little closer. Closer to truths.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Closer to each other. Even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Danielle Robay, and each week my guests and I come
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of thinking by daring to ask, what if? Why not?
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: And who says?
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: So come curious. Dig deep. and join the conversation. It's
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: time to question everything. Hello, beautiful people. Hello and welcome
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: to the Curious Minds Club. That's just something I'm playing with.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: But hi. You know, before we get into today's episode,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I feel like we haven't caught up in a minute.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: And I want to share something that is totally unrelated
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: to today's episode, but maybe something that somebody needs to
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: hear because I sort of needed it. I've been having
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: an emo week, if I'm being honest. And I found
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: myself listening to Frank Ocean's song titled Godspeed, which I
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: really think that's one of the most beautiful songs written
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: in the last 25 years. James Blake played on it
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: and he helped arrange it. And the whole song is
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: about this idea that I think we find so rarely
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: in love songs or breakup songs. And it's this idea
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: of parting ways with someone wishing them well. Like when
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: someone hurts us, whether it's a friend, a colleague, a boss,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: a partner, a family member, there's like this very human
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: part of us that wants them to hurt too. We
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: want them to understand the pain that they caused by
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: feeling some version of it themselves. And in the song,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Frank sings, I let go of my claim on you.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: That line is so beautiful because it's I feel like
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  Speaker 1: what if letting go of that person doesn't require us
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: to deny the love that was there? What if the
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: most powerful ending isn't revenge or even a resolution, but
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: just releasing our claim on how the other person should
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: feel and what they should understand or how their story
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: should unfold? And I'll tell you why this was on
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: my mind. I've been taking stock in my life. I've
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: been taking stock of my friendships, my relationships. I was
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: sort of seeing this guy in New York and I
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: let him go. And I was just thinking to myself,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: you know, like who, who checks in on me, who
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  Speaker 1: calls me? Cause I so often am doing the outreach
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: and making the reservation and the plans and all of that.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: And I think I'm ready to let go of some
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: people and some things and maybe You know, in like
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  Speaker 1: a way of respect, like I so respect the time
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: that we spent and can love them maybe from afar.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: But like sometimes not everybody is meant to be in
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: your season, right? Like you have your lifers, you have your,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: what is that phrase? Like some people are a season
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: or reason or a lifetime. You have your lifetime people,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: but sometimes people are for a season. And, you know,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I think that it's better when in doubt. to move
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: towards the light. That's the only way I know how
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: to put it. And that song reminded me that no
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  Speaker 1: matter how painful the moment is or how painful it
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: is to let somebody go, no matter what they did
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  Speaker 1: to you or didn't do to you, the move is
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: always toward the light. And it's not even because they
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: deserve it always, but it's because you do. So yes,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: those are my deep thoughts for the week. It's kind
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: of unrelated to today's conversation, to be honest, but I
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: just wanted to share in case it resonates with you.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: A lot of times I notice that what I'm thinking
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: about or dealing with is, um, usually something that's on
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: your mind too, or could be in the future. And,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: you know, I interview writers all the time for the
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Reese's book club podcast. And I noticed that the more
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: specific they are, the more universal the feeling is. So, yeah, well,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: today's conversation is, has almost nothing to do with that.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: And it's gonna be so good. I wanna paint a
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: picture for you. Imagine yourself on the playground in grade school. Okay,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a classmate demands the toy that you're playing with. It's
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: a pretty common situation, right? Maybe things escalate, maybe a
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: teacher gets involved. It all usually ends with a lesson
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: in conflict, a lesson in learning how to share or
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: agreeing that we don't always have to agree. Well, fast
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: forward two decades and these lessons take a totally different shape.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Suddenly you are on your own Suddenly you find yourself
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: in the real world trying to navigate the coworker behaving
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: badly or the mother-in-law who embarrasses you. Well, then what?
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: We don't always have the words or the toolkit to
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: fall back on. And so many of us are taught
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: to keep the peace and to be polite or to
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  Speaker 1: laugh it off. But enter today's guest, author Priya Parker.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: She's here to paint a new picture when it comes
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: to conflict. You probably know Priya's name. She wrote a
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  Speaker 1: bestselling book called The Art of Gathering in 2018. And
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: now she's back with The Art of Fighting. And in it,
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  Speaker 1: she argues that conflict is a part of life and
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: understanding healthy conflict and how to harness its power is
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  Speaker 1: absolutely critical, especially in these modern times.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Because we have so much choice, right? We can always
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: find another friend group. We can always find another job.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: We can always find another church or synagogue. Or mosque,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: like there's endless choice.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: When the going gets tough, as it does in all friendships,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: we were not faced to actually fight. We can just
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: be like, I can find another best friend.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Or I can find another job. It's not worth it.
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  Speaker 2: And so, so often fights actually done well bring people
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  Speaker 2: closer together. I hate fighting. I hate conflict. Talking about
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  Speaker 2: it gets my hands sweaty, but I know that it's
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  Speaker 2: a doorway to deeper connection.
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  Speaker 1: Priya believes that conflict, when done right, can actually lead
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  Speaker 1: us to more meaningful relationships and increased intimacy. I have
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: to tell you, I totally agree with her. I share
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: this story in the podcast of how I used to
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: be so bad or I thought I was bad at conflict.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: And now I feel so good And I share with
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: you what my breakthrough was. I think hard conversations are
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: not only inevitable, but they're essential. If you've ever avoided
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: a difficult conversation or struggled to speak up or wondered
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: whether it's time to repair a relationship or to walk away,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I think this episode will change the way that you
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: think about fighting. Even that word. So today we are
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: examining if avoiding the fight might actually be costing us
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: more than having it to begin with. It's time to
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: question everything with Priya Parker. So, Priya, your first book
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: was The Art of Gathering, and now you're back with
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: The Art of Fighting. I'm wondering if this book was
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: inspired by a fight you had at a gathering.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I am a conflict resolution facilitator, and people
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  Speaker 2: often ask me why am I interested in gatherings. And
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  Speaker 2: I'm like, girl, do you know how much conflict is
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: involved in gatherings? I mean, gatherings are moments of line drawing.
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  Speaker 2: They're moments of trying to temporarily figure out who is
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  Speaker 2: invited and who is not in this moment. There's moments
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: of like, are we going to do it this way?
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Are we going to do it that way? Everything from
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: in a dinner party is like, are we going to
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: ask people their dietary preferences? Or are they just going
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: to eat what we serve? It's like tiny, tiny moments
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  Speaker 2: of micro conflict in every gathering. And so... I've always
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  Speaker 2: been interested in gatherings in part because I find them
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  Speaker 2: these moments where people come together and have to make
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  Speaker 2: a decision about how we want to do something in
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  Speaker 2: this moment. And it's almost like the sneaky back door
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: into conflict. I often joke planning for gatherings are like
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: the Trojan horses for the conversations we've been avoiding. And
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  Speaker 2: so the art of fighting is deeply connected to the
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  Speaker 2: art of gathering. It is, I mean, if the art
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  Speaker 2: of gathering is how do you bring people meaningfully together?
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  Speaker 2: The art of fighting is what do you do with
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  Speaker 2: them when shit gets real? And so in a lot
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  Speaker 2: of ways, I wrote the art of fighting in part
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  Speaker 2: because I could see that as a group dialogue facilitator,
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  Speaker 2: which is my profession, in gatherings so often, one of
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: the reasons we're lonely is because I think as a country,
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  Speaker 2: we are gathering less than Studies show that. We have
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  Speaker 2: had a loneliness epidemic, as the Surgeon General has called it.
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  Speaker 2: But I believe that one of the reasons we're all
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  Speaker 2: so lonely is because of our conflict aversion.
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  Speaker 1: Really? Yes. Oh, that's interesting. Say more.
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  Speaker 2: Well, in part, because we are quite bad at fighting.
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  Speaker 2: We oscillate between kind of burning the house down and saying,
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  Speaker 2: I'm never going to come again, or... Exiting and ghosting.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: You have this great phrase in the book, you bounce
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  Speaker 1: or you, it's another B.
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  Speaker 2: Bounce or you couldn't be bothered.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, yes. And so, so often, you know, in modern life,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm biracial, I'm bicultural, I'm really interested in
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  Speaker 2: how people across difference connect, have meaningful relationships. And so
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: often in modern life, because we have so much choice, right?
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: We can have, we can always find another friend group.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: We can always find another job. We can always find
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: another church or synagogue or mosque. Like there's endless choice.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: When the going gets tough, as it does in all friendships,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: we were not faced to actually fight. We can just
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: be like, I can find another best friend, right? Or
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: I can find another job or it's not worth it.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: And so, so often fights actually done well, bring people
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: closer together, Fights are actually quite intimate. And so often
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: our conflict aversion is helping us actually not get through
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  Speaker 2: the storm to better, more meaningful, more rightly sized relationships.
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  Speaker 1: Part of what I'm so curious about hearing about today
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  Speaker 1: is when it's worth a fight. So I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: dig into that in like a few different examples, but
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  Speaker 1: I want to understand in our current climate, which feels
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  Speaker 1: more urgent to you. Is it knowing how to gather,
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  Speaker 1: knowing how to fight, or knowing how to fight at
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  Speaker 1: a gathering?
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  Speaker 2: I would say it's knowing how to gather and how
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  Speaker 2: to fight. You know, part of what I'm interested in
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: is I think our culture is awash in tools of self-help.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: So There are so many apps for how many steps
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: have we taken a day? How much sugar do we intake?
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  Speaker 2: Where and how can I become a better public speaker?
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: And I benefit from many of these apps. I'm sure
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: you do too. A lot of therapy is actually focused
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: on the individual rather than the individual within a collective.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: And all of these tools, even if helpful, are not
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: helping us with our group life crisis, with the question
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: of our shared collective time. And so I like to
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: think of myself in the business of not self-help, but
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: group help, and that we are not given the tools
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: to navigate the groups and the communities of our life.
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  Speaker 2: And so gathering is a tool. Fighting is a tool.
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  Speaker 2: It's a relational tool of what do I do with
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: these other people? And so gathering and fighting are two
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: sides of the same coin, which is at some level,
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: in order to connect, we have to negotiate. We have
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: to decide whether it's, you know, what time of day
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: are we going to meet? And if we have any
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: type of difference, even something like that is actually affects
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  Speaker 2: us differently.
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  Speaker 1: People who.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: If you want to host a gathering from 5 to
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: 7 p.m., a lot of people who are parents are
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: going to be like, well, that's aggressive.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Right. It's not even an I don't want to go. Yes.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Don't you know what my 5 p.m.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Looks like?
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  Speaker 2: Or in a neighborhood, in a community, why don't we
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: meet Sunday at 10? Whoa. Clearly no one in this
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: community goes to church, right? Like we think of these
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: as these sort of banal logistics. But when you actually
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: start thinking about planning any type of gathering, any workplace,
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: these actually start to, you start bumping up against people's
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: ways of living. And so if you want to be
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: in connection with others, rather than either being totally offended, like, gosh,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: how these godless people, you know, I'm saying that in
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: quotes on the Sunday at 10 a.m., to be willing
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: to engage and find ways to have meaningful, relevant, fun
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: ways of spending time together.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: You mentioned that you were interracial, interfaith. Your parents are divorced,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: so you spent your childhood moving between two homes. You
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: had two households with these almost opposite values. And when
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: I say that, it sounds like it was culture, it
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: was politics, it was rituals. And then you became this
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: conflict facilitator. And I was thinking gathering and fighting all
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: still has to do with belonging. It does.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: It does. I love that you're saying this.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: It does.
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  Speaker 2: Fighting is actually about belonging.
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  Speaker 1: Okay. Will you share more on that? Because that was
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: my takeaway from the book.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: I love that you are framing it this way.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Like you got the book, gold star. Like you got
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: the message. You know, when my parents divorced, when they
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: first separated, everyone was shocked. Because they never fought. And
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: so I learned, and I write this in the book,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: I learned very early on that there's actually a lot
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: of loss in avoidance. And so sort of kicking and screaming,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm conflict-averse. I'm a card-carrying, conflict-averse, conflict resolution facilitator.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: And so much of what I have done in my
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: own life is learned the skills, because they actually are skills,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: the skills to fight with the people I want to
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: belong to. And so often, you know, I'm a conflict
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: resolution facilitator. People aren't bringing me and my peers in
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: when they don't want to work it out, right? They
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: just leave or they sue each other, right? I'm brought
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: in when there's actually still a desperate desire to figure
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: this thing out, but the current tools aren't working. And
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: so the art of fighting fundamentally is about how do
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: you fight with those you want to belong to? How
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: do you fight with those you want to be in
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: relationship with? And so the charge in a way of
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: the book is that actually fighting is a really important
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: part and fighting well and doing it and learning the
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: skills of fighting is actually a deeply important part of belonging.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I've personally learned about fighting
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: is that under every frustration is a desire. And it's
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: changed the way that I fight or have conflict because
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: when I feel like I'm going in circles with somebody,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: I take a moment and I say, okay, what's actually
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: the need here? What do you want from me?
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Beautiful.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: But as I'm hearing you speak about your work as
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: a facilitator, I'm thinking you must be listening for different
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: things than we're all listening for. Like, what are you
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: attuned to? I mean, I'm listening to what you just said. Really? Absolutely.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Like you. So I'm listening to in the one of
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: the To research the art of fighting, I spent time
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: with three different types of people. So I spent time
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: with and interviewed with people who were in fights, who
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: were willing to talk to me, sometimes with changed names.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: I spent time with people who were experts in fights
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: and conflicts, so researchers, academics. And then I interviewed people
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: who are skilled in fighting, so conflict resolution facilitators, trainers,
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: sometimes lawyers. And one of the people I most learned
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: from is a conflict resolution facilitator called Setu Nair. And
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Setu is a brilliant facilitator. And I write about a
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: flag war that erupts in a local government agency that
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: she is brought in to sort of help alleviate where...
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: During Black Lives Matter, the summer of Black Lives Matter,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: this happened in many offices, by the way, around the country.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: A so-called flags war broke out where some employees and
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: staff were putting Black Lives Matter signs on their desks
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: and other staff were putting Blue Lives Matter signs on
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: their desk. And it quickly got very contentious.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: This is happening recently, too, with the conflict in the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Middle East. My friend who is an attorney had this
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: happen at her office. Yes, yes.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, flags and also among conflict resolution facilitators, like
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: when the flags come out, it's not good, right? It's symbology.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: The introduction of a symbol makes it incredibly binary. It's
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: very difficult. It's positional. So in part because we often
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: see different meanings in the same flag, it's very difficult
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: to actually untangle. And so when the flags come out,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: I'm saying that in quotes, it's often a form of
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: conflict that the journalist Amanda Ripley calls high conflict. It's
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: like you don't want to get to the flag part
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: because it's very hard to come back from it. You can,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: but it's more difficult. So anyway, Satu Nair says, when
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: I asked her about how she navigated this, facilitated this conflict,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: she said, I always listen to and for the relational
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: longing for still at the center of the fight. And
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: if you can tap into the relational longing, the longing
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: for people who still longing to be heard, longing to
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: still want to connect, even if you don't want to
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: admit you do, right? And she says, we fight when
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: we're really wanting to be heard. And And so part
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: of what we listen for as facilitators is what is
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: the longing here and where and what is the need
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: and what are they? And sometimes many of us aren't
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: very skilled in articulating what our need is. Sometimes the
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: people in the fight, often the people in the fight
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: don't really know. We don't know why we're so upset
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: and bothered by something. And so it takes detangling.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Well, I always find like the presenting problem is not
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the real problem. So like in a divorce example, people
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: are fighting about a toaster, but that's never.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Not the toaster.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: So how do you as a facilitator like figure out
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: what they're actually wanting?
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, whether you're a facilitator, part of my imitation
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: in this book is the art of gathering was how
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: do you become an artful gatherer? How do you create
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: meaning with people, whether it's a dinner party, whether it's
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: a funeral, whether it's a board meeting? And the art
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: of fighting is an invitation to start learning the skills
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: of becoming an artful fighter.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: So part of becoming an artful fighter is even for yourself.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: is often we're not sure what's going on in the room.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: And the way the book is structured, the way I
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: structure the book is actually the actual fight, the facing,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: is just one chapter in the book. The entire rest
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: of the book is actually getting to that facing and
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: coming out of it. And so the first step is
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: often to determine what is actually happening here. It's not
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: in the heat of the moment, right? It's actually well
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: before or after an implosion afterwards. I'll give a simple example.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: A woman I know was part of a very tightly
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: knit family. I think it was four siblings and parents.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: And they always, growing up, they would always go to
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: a ski cabin. And She was the youngest of these
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: four kids, and she had gotten married, and they had
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: all gotten married. So it was sort of like the
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: turning of the, you know, the turning of the, what's
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: the metaphor?
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Screw?
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: The turning of the guards. Thank you. The turning of
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: the guards. And it was the first time her collective
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: family was going for a vacation, and her parents invited
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: all four couples, all the couples, and they got there.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: And this woman I know was horrified. Because she assumed
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: that there'd be five bedrooms.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: There were two. One for the adult parents and then
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: a shower. shared room of bunk beds i know for
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: the eight adults and i'm just gonna let it sit
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: there just sit there for a moment right like All
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: the devils are here, right? All of the assumptions come out,
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: all of the shock, all of the embarrassment, all of
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: the rage, all of the confusion. Like, how could they possibly?
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: And she took her mother to the side. And in
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: the heat of the moment, I was like, where are
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: all the other bedrooms? And the mother's like, oh, we
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: thought it would be like good old times.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: My throat hurts. I'm speechless.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: And it's like, as a facilitator, It's such an interesting moment. Yes.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: And often in groups, in friend groups, longer-term friend groups,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: in organizations, in families, we often don't get to question
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: or see change except through a fight.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Right? And so in that moment, they had to deal
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: with whatever they had to deal with. But so much
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: of coming out of it was actually having the parents realize.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: And actually, the woman who I spoke to gave me
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: this example. She said... She took a step outside of
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: the shared bedroom. She stepped out into the hallway. She
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: was livid. And then she also could tap into her
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: grief and her mother's grief that they're no longer the
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: family they once were.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Because they're not. Yeah. And so often we don't realize
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: that until there's... Eight bunk beds for like four married couples.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: And so you can, part of getting curious about these
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: moments is it's often actually in really big moments that
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: conflicts arise because they're visible to everyone and we have
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: different assumptions. And so fighting, the art of fighting is
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: first getting curious about these moments. The second is taking
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: a deep breath. And the third is you don't always
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: have to solve it in the moment. It's actually becoming
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: more curious about what's happening here in your life.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: What do you think good conflict makes possible that this
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: sort of fake peace or harmony doesn't allow for?
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Being seen, being vulnerable, having the radical act of knowing
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: that you affect someone and that they affect you. And
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: part of the part of our fear, I mean, there's
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of fear of conflict and some of it is,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: you know, conflict is inherently risky and you can fight poorly.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: But part of what happens in a fight is the
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: first step is you have to admit that something bothered you, right? Like,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: I felt really hurt you didn't save a chair for me.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Right? Do I want to actually say that? Or I
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: feel like, mom, when you book four bunk beds, it
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: makes me feel like you don't understand my life and
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: you still see me as a child, whatever the sentence is.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Conflict is intimate and working with teams, working with groups. Honestly,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: one of the things people are most afraid of is
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: admitting that something impacted them.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: There's this great question you ask in the book, which is,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: can I tell the truth and still belong here? And
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: that really hit me, especially in my family dynamics. I
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: find I'm more truthful elsewhere. That's true for a lot
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: of us. It's interesting. And so I think I'm going
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: to be lingering on that one. But as somebody who's
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: spent years navigating conflict, how do you think you think
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: about it differently than a therapist does?
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: I love this question. And people often say, are you
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: a therapist?
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: I say, no.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Are you a lawyer? No. It's like, wait, what are you?
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: And my core training as a craft for 25 years
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: is I have been trained in the process of group dialogue.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: It is actually a thing. It's a field. And so
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: much of what I was a student at the University
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: of Virginia when I first learned about this process called
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: sustained dialogue. I was lucky and very fortunate that the
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: person who created this specific process called Hal Saunders came
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: down to the University of Virginia to train us in
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: this methodology. And so much of what he trained us
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: to do first was to just listen. to learn how
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: to listen and actively listen, listen for the need underneath,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: but also listen to what people are actually saying. He
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: would have us do exercises where we would listen and
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: hold a group of eight people and try to run
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: a conversation. And actually what happens, I mean, we were 19, right?
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: Actually what happens when you're starting to run a conversation
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: is you think it'll go one way in your head.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: And then there's actually eight living, breathing beings in front
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: of you. And so you have to figure out like, oh,
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: how do I, who talks first? What question do we ask?
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: What question do you ask first? How do you make
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: sure that only two people don't talk? Like, it's actually
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: a really complicated thing to have a group dialogue. And so,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: so much of my training is in communication. It's also
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: in power. I studied social and political theory, and facilitators
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: who aren't trained in power are going to be incredibly ineffective.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: And I became a dialogue facilitator, but I also went
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: to business school, and so I understand... collective intelligence and
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: branding and marketing, but also what people are actually fighting about.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: And like anything, facilitators, it's like David Brooks, the writer,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: once I heard him say this at a conference, he said,
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: no question worthy of pursuit is answerable in a lifetime.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Say that again.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: No question worthy of pursuit is answerable in a lifetime.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, I love that.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Isn't that beautiful? Yes. And I think like, how do
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: you facilitate meaningful connection across difference is a question worthy
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: of a lifetime.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Right. And so as a facilitator, I'm constantly learning new
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: processes and techniques, but I'm also reading about the world.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: And so that I deeply understand what it is, what
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: the content or context is of the people involved. that
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: are coming to me and coming to us.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Why do you think questions are such a powerful tool
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: in fighting?
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: They often, well, depending on how you ask the question,
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: I was going to say they slow things down.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Unless it's a really like, are you always this stupid?
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: That may not slow things down. But questions at their
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: best offer an openness. There's an opportunity for curiosity.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: And you know you are a master of questions. Questions
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: can be asked to shut down and questions can also
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: be asked to open up. So questions are a tool.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: But done well, a question allows for... An idea that
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: you had to be displaced and or the aperture of
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: your lens of what you're looking at to be widened.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Beautiful.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: And so questions in dialogue, questions are sort of the
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: fence of the conversation. And so questions are map making tools.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: They widen the geography or they narrow the geography. And
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: so questions are probably the thing we're most trained in
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: as facilitators to understand how to ask a great question.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: That's so cool to hear. You mentioned power, and it
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: made me think of a workplace fight. I want to
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: go through sort of these four categories, which will be workplace, friendship, romantic,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and family. And I was thinking about The Devil Wears
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Prada because it was such an iconic movie this summer.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: But we've all sort of had a version of a
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Miranda Priestly. And She's brilliant and powerful and terrifying and
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: very impossible to please. What do you do when fighting
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: could be seen as problematic, when you're the person that's
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: not in power? Because I can't imagine fighting with my boss.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I mean, workplaces have cultures of conflict. Some
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: workplaces have healthy heat. Some places have really toxic conflict.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Some places have avoidance. And when you are in a workplace,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: you are part of a culture. And if you have
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: less power in that workplace, it is harder to do
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: something that goes against the grain of that culture. And
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: so in a context like the Devil Wears Prada, right,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Miranda is the entire, she is the ecosystem of that
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: entire place. She is the rain and the sunshine and
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: the light and the wind and And, you know, I
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: think of that scene of the blue sweater.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: The cerulean blue. The cerulean blue.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: And I think there's so many ways, if you just
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: take that simple example, there's so many ways to read
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: that moment. And I, to me, when I actually, from
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: an art of fighting perspective, Devil Wears Prada 1, to me,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: is actually, we think the conflict is between Miranda and Andy.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Miranda and Andy, Annie Hathaway's character. But actually, to me,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: as I watch the film, there's a deeper conflict and
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: the conflict is within Andy.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: You're so right.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Am I a journalist? And is this job above me?
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Or am I a fashion editor? And I want to
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: be part of this world. And the existential conflict of
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: that film is actually within Anne Hathaway.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know why. You just gave me chills.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: And so much— it' s like going back to that need, like
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: thinking about that scene, what is it? Cerulean. Cerulean Blue. Yeah.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: If you look back at that dialogue, what she actually— I mean, yes—
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: The way Miranda says it is, you know, completely humiliating. Yes,
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: she is a dogmatic leader. Yes, she is using her
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: power to rule with an iron fist. And if you
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: listen to what she says, if I remember it correctly,
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: she says, says something like, you know, you think you're
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: just wearing that lumpy blue sweater to signal that you
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: don't care about this world, that you are too busy
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: to care about what you look like, right? That's the
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: first half of the monologue. And then the second half
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: is what she says, you think that's a sweater, you
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: think that's blue, but it's actually not. It's not even turquoise.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: It's not even lapis. It's circulean. And part of what
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: she's doing in Andy's, what I would say, is she's
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: actually speaking within what Andy values. Yes. Which is expertise,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: which is craft as a journalist, which is understanding how
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: industries form and shape.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: And so.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Though it seems vicious, what she's actually calling on is
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: whether or not Andrea is wanting and willing to see
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: fashion as a world that she wants to enter and
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: be respected in.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Or if it's just something that's frou-frou. And I would
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: say that scene is where Miranda throws down the gauntlet
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: to say, this is a field you should respect.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a turning point.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: You're right. And all of the and the roles of
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: really going in here now, the roles that Andy's boyfriend,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: very handsome boyfriend and and friends play is, you know,
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: if you look at the scenes, she's always going to
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: a restaurant or going to their house or having wine.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: She's drinking other completely other cultural symbols than what she
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: is like. She's not drinking champagne with her friends, if
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: I remember correctly. She's like having a beer. Yeah, these
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: are all she's actually navigating these different worlds as we
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: all are. And the core question for Devil Wears Prada
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: 1 is actually for Andy, it's who am I?
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Priya, I'm mind blown. While we're on the topics of
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: TV and film, you have this great example in your
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: book from The Bear. And for anybody who isn't familiar,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: it's a show about working in a high-end kitchen and
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: there's constant fight or flight mode. And people are technically
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: arguing about service and standards and mistakes, but there's actually
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: a lot underneath it. Will you share the example from
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: the book? Because I'm actually going to now use this.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: It's a It's a beautiful moment. It's from season one.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: It's a beautiful scene. And you kind of see the
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: relationship between Carmi, the main character, and Sidney, his, I think,
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: sous chef, develop over the course of the season. And
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: there's a moment where, in the middle of service, Carmi
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: kind of yells, as happens often at Sidney. And instead
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: of just, again, pretending it didn't happen, her having to
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: pretend it didn't bother her, right, goes back to the
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: conflict is intimate. He looks at her and he draws
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: a circle around his chest. And she says, if I
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: remember correctly, something like, what is that? And he said,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: it means I'm sorry in sign language. I used to
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: see my two chefs do it in the heat of service.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Where it's like, there's too much to go to repair
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: right now. There's too much, but it's acknowledging that like,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry. And I watched that scene and I was
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: so struck by it because it was this moment. It
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: was one of the first moments in their character development
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: where they, he is willing to to acknowledge his behavior.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: And she is shocked that he cares. And they end
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: up developing this really beautiful working relationship with each other.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: But I saw this scene. And at the time I
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: was storming with my son. I know, even I. Hard
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: to believe for you. Hard to believe. And my son was,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know, seven or eight at the time. And
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: it was the first time I was really feeling, as
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: a parent, like real pushback from my child. He's my
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: older kid. And I realized that I was starting to
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: like if I didn't feel heard, I would like yell.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: And I did not want to yell. I was like,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: I'm not a yeller. This is not who I am.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: And I saw this moment in the bear and I
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: was like, oh my gosh. And I told my son
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: about it. And I said, look, when I really, if
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: we're in the moment and I really need you to
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: listen to me, I'm saying something six times. I often
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: feel like if I say something seven times and I'm
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: not listening to it, then I yell and you listen.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: I don't want to yell. But if I really need
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: you to listen to me, I'm going to put my
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: hand on my chest and draw the circle. I won't
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: use it too often, but that means I really need
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: you to listen to me. And we started doing it
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: and it really, really helped.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Does he use it for you too?
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: He'll often very slightly respond. And this is now multiple
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: years ago, but sometimes if we're out, particularly there's a
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: lot going on and I really need him to listen
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: or to calm down in certain ways. And it should
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: be something as simple as for crossing the street. Like
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: there's not big existential stuff. And kids are full of energy, right?
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: And they're wild and they're rambunctious and you don't want
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: to shut down all of that. But there's certain moments
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: where I need to just get through. And so I
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: use it and I use it sparingly and he'll like
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: almost always he realizes like if she's taking this out,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: it's like time to just connect for a second.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Beautiful.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: And I actually, for The Art of Fighting, studied restaurants
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: because restaurants are a wonderful example of their conflict is
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: baked into every night of service. There are restaurants that
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: are famously toxic. It's a famously toxic field, but not
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: all restaurants are badly run. And some of the best
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: restaurants actually expect conflict in every night of service. And
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: so I spent time with restaurants who bake conflict into
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: their employee handbooks and who find ways to, like the
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: carmy kind of chest, you know, rubbing your fists in
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: a circle, find ways to make sure that they're normalizing
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: everyday repair within and across their staff.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: It also, it was an example of so many of
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: the techniques that you share in the book. One that
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: stood out to me was the cooling down moment. Like
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: sometimes when you're in the heat of an argument, things
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: are moving so quickly. Yes. This hand movement takes a pause.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: It takes a pause.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: It interrupts the pattern. Yes. And then you also give
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: this other example and it's, I didn't write down what the,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: if it was a church or... where it was but
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: somebody would say may the holy spirit speak through us
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: oh yes and you said it was an invocation not
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: an affirmation um but it's slow it has the cooling effect.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Yes this was a was one of my favorite examples
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: of the entire book it's with a minister named martin
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: copenhaver and he was a minister in the 90s of
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: a church that like so many churches at the time
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: were grappling with the question of whether or not to
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: allow gay marriage in their church and become what the
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: parlance at the time was called an open and affirming church.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: And Martin Copenhaver was a minister. They were about to celebrate,
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: I think like their 250th anniversary as a church. And
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: he knew, he was actually, I think he was new
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: to the church as the head minister. And he knew
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: that this was a congregation that needed to have this fight,
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: but he also didn't want it to tear them apart.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: And he realized that the tools that they had been
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: given normally to conduct normal church service, I said that
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: in quotes, were Robert's rules of order, which is like
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: a very specific decision-making process to do things like, you know,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: should we put a swimming pool in the parking lot?
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Like these are not existential questions normally. And he realized,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: as he told me, he said the tools that we
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: had as a congregation were not going to be the
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: tools that were going to help us make this decision.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: And so he looked back, because it was this anniversary
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: of the church, he looked back at some of their
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: founding documents, and he learned that this specific church tradition
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: used to gather in ways where they were congregationalists, which meant,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: bear with me here, it's a little nerdy, but it's
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: super interesting, which is they believed that there was wisdom
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: not just in the minister, but in the congregation and
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: through the congregation.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Which is true.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: Which is true. And they weren't Quakers, but they were
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: sort of Quaker adjacent. And he looked at the ways
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: they used to come together to discuss things that were difficult.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: And he said to his congregation, oh, my gosh, we
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: actually need to go back to our traditional ways, to
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: our roots. Because we have so much wisdom in our
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: archives and we need to re-learn. Also brilliant leadership.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: It's not this foreign thing, all this newfangled way of thinking.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: This is, we can go back to our elders.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: This is our origin story.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: This is our origin story. And he had them come
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: together and practice, not on gay marriage, practice on other issues.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: And one of the core methodologies in this congregational way
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: of speaking together was that after anyone speaks, the entire
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: congregation has to say the words, May the Holy Spirit
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: speak through us. And they would practice this over and
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: over and over again. And once Martin Kopenhauer decided that
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: they were ready to take on gay marriage, they would
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: keep this collective practice whenever anyone spoke as they began
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: to approach the vote. And when I asked him, why
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: did this work so well? He said it had a
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: cooling effect. And it made us to remember that no
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: matter what someone said, it expanded our ability to hold
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: whatever someone was going to say in the room. And afterwards,
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: we would all collectively speak together. And then we would
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: move on.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: I love that word hold because it makes me think
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: everybody's holding all these opposing opinions.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Yes. And they really were. I mean, I write about
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: it in The Art of Fighting, but one person came
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: in and had like a printed out three-pager statement about
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: why the church should not be open and affirming. And
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: the guy stood up, and he clearly hadn't been to
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: the other practice sessions, and he just started reading. And
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: part of the invitation was, speak from your heart. And
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: someone else saw what he was doing and got so
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: angry and yelled out, this is unconscionable. And everyone froze.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: And then the entire congregation said, may the Holy Spirit
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: speak through us. And as Martin said to me, he said,
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: through gritted teeth.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: And then it held. And then the guy looked around
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: and he sat back down and he put his paper away.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: And then another congregant stood and he was an elder
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: in the church. And he said, one of the reasons
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: I want to make this church open and affirming is
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: because my daughter, remember this is in the 90s, right?
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: This is pre-gay marriage. There's a very different cultural context
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: is because my daughter is a lesbian and she's the
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: most wonderful person I know. And when she gets married,
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: I get emotional talking about it. When she gets married,
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: I want it to be in this church. And I
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: want you all to be there.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. I got chills again when you said that.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: That's beautiful.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: But part of what this minister was doing and part
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: of what you don't need to be a minister to
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: begin to learn these tools of the collective was he
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: was helping his group have a conversation they didn't know
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: how to have together, but needed to.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Tools of the collective. It reminded me of a very
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: silly viral trend. There was people saying, we listen and
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: we don't judge. And it was going all over Instagram.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: I love that. Well, it was anytime somebody would say
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: something that their partner would sort of dislike, they had
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: to like grit their teeth and say, we listen and
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: we don't judge. That's amazing. And it's sort of this
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: new age version.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: OK, I want to talk about the most iconic fight
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: on television of all time, which is Ross and Rachel.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: We were on a break. We were on a break.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: Define break.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Define break. I think to this day, no one can
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: determine who was right, who was wrong, which is what
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: made the fight so interesting. And one of the things
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: that I learned from your book is that it almost
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: really doesn't matter who's right and who's wrong. It is
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: the art of fighting, the act of doing it. Dane
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Cook has this very famous joke where he says the
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: first fight you ever have in a relationship is the
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: same fight you will have for the rest of your life.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Very good.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: It's sort of true. Because the presenting problem is never
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: the real problem. Do you feel like there is a
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: way when we are fighting to not get trapped in
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: that loop?
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, like this Miranda example, I'm going to
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: look at the scene a little bit differently.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: So if you rewatch that scene, you know, the famous
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Rachel Ross sort of, you know, how could you do
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: this to me? For most of the scene, it's actually
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: a split screen. It's Rachel and Ross in one room.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: And it's the other four roommates and the other listening in.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: And they're fighting. And simultaneously, Monica and Joey and Phoebe
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: are like listening in and they're commenting live. And so
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: when I'm watching the scene, I'm actually looking at it
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: from the lens of the group.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Huh.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: And so you have these four best friends, right? Who
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: are all part of this relationship and this dynamic. And
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: it's funny, right? There's certain moments when Joey's like, I'm
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: going to go in there. Like, you can't go in there.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: He's like, I'm hungry. I need a sandwich, right? Or
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: he's like, there's a scene where, you know, Rachel asks like, well,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: how was she? And the two guys, again, split screen
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: are like, don't answer that. Don't answer that, right? But
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: part of this is like, they're all part of this fight.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: They're all affected by their relationship. By Ross and Rachel's relationship,
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: what happens to them affects the group, right? And so
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: what's so brilliant about the producers is they're, by showing
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: the other four roommates, they're raising the stake. They're showing
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: the stakes.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. I would have never thought of that.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Of the fight. And so and then they're like, oh,
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: don't answer that. And I think he said she was different.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: And Joe was like, oh, no. And he's like, good,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: different or bad, different.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: But again, you're like they're hanging on to every word.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: And yes, they're the audience. They're us.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: But they're also this group of friends.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: And part of when I look at this fight is
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: looking that like most of our fights are not in
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: a vacuum. And when we're part of a group, even
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: the dyads affect the whole group. And so what we
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: think of as being able to share, being able to witness,
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: if I heard that, do I talk about it? Do
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: we admit how you can't go in there and get
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: your standards? Otherwise, they know we're going to listen. Is
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: it better for them to listen? Are they helping hold
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: them as a group?
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: Or are they actually complicating their dynamic? Right? Two of
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: them are siblings within the group. And so part of
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: the reason I love Friends... Is because it's a beautiful
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: example over many years of the different dyads and relationships
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: that are both their own individual relationships, but also become
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: the fabric of the group and they affect each other.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: And they're a unit. Yeah. Speaking of friends, there's this
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: famous scene in Insecure where Issa Rae, who plays Issa,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: and her friend Molly. Are you familiar with it?
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: I've seen that clip, so tell me about it.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: So it's not just one issue. It's like years of disappointment.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: And I think the reason the scene took on a
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: life of its own the way that the scene from
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: The Bear did was that it was so relatable. Everybody
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: has this experience with a friend where it just sort
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: of builds up over time. When you look at a
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: friendship rupture like that, is anyone being an artful fighter?
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: So if I remember the scene correctly, Issa, like something
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: happens in the room and Issa, like she texts and
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: she's like, I don't want, like, this is not, this
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: is not for me. And she leaves and her friend
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: chases her out the door and says, I'm sorry, you
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: weren't supposed to see that. That wasn't for you or
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: something like that. And she turns around and then they
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: face each other.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: And we've all been there. It was like the moment
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: of facing. And one of them says, well, it's not
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: just about tonight. And the other one says, well, I
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: didn't think you wanted to talk about it. Which is, again,
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: it's creating the space for conversation. It's acknowledging that there's
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: something between us, the space between us. And then in
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: that moment, part of what she's saying is, like, we've
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: been off for months now. And they're kind of, if
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: you remember that scene, they're, like, assessing each other. And
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: one of them says, I don't know the scene very well,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: but one of them basically says, like, well, I'm not
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: really sure, like, what there is here. And then I
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: think Isa says something like, okay.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: And the friend says, okay. And then Issa goes into
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: the car. And to me watching that, it's actually a
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: moment where the friend is willing to speak what Prentice
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Hemphill calls the dangerous truth. I'm not really sure what's
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: here anymore. This feels like it's not working. And to me,
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: in speaking the dangerous truth, what they're willing to actually
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: do is acknowledge what is actually happening. And in that moment,
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: it's seconds, but in that moment, part of what they're
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: both assessing is the question of like, why are we friends?
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Why are we still friends? And is there what I
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: call in the book still a motivating force to our
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: present friendship? Are we friends in the present moment? Not
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: based on the connection we had six months ago or
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: two years ago. And part of modern life is, again,
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: it's full of choice and people change. And often conflict
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: is an opportunity to invite an acknowledgement and a witnessing
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: of that change and then a renewal of vows as
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: to whether or not we want to update our contract,
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: renovate the house, or whether it was beautiful and it's
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: time to part.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: How do you know whether it's worth fighting for? And
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: as you say, to bounce or to bother?
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: The way I decided to structure The Art of Fighting
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: is it's designed into three parts. The first part of
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: the book is called tear. The second is called grapple.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: And the third is called cleave, which means to cut
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: or to bind. And I designed the book. I tried
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: to write the book as a guide, as a practical
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: guide of the process that a group goes through when
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: it's in conflict. And The first third of the book
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: is called Tear. It's actually helping the reader assess what
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: type of fight you're in. whether or not this is
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: something to face or to avoid. And also what type
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: of fight is this? Is this what I call a kerfuffle?
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: Meaning it's kind of annoying, but like, you know, it's
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: not existential. Is this a hairline fracture? Meaning actually this,
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: it may seem small, but these are very different values
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: and you should probably, you know, stitch it up pretty quickly.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: Or is it a full blown rift? And in chapter
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: three of the book, I go through a set of questions.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: Can I actually read it?
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: I go through a set of questions about whether or
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: not you should face this fight. So the chapter's called
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: Just Dive In, Not So Fast. It happens to me
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: again and again. First, people call me in a frenzy
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: wanting to push their incipient group fight situation away or
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: minimize it. But then when I help people see what
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: they're facing, they often flip from wanting to disappear the
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: crisis to wanting to dive into it right now like
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: a kid into a cake. First, I have to convince
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: people to get their heads out of the sand. Then
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: I have to tell them to cool their jets. And
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: I then go in and talk about the reasons not
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: to face. So it shouldn't be conflict aversion, but there's
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: four reasons not to face. The first is rifts can
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: be creative tensions. So sometimes, and in this case I
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: talk about groups, but sometimes rifts are actually, in certain
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: group fights, there's actually a value in keeping issues unresolved
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: because disagreement can double as inspiration. And I talk about
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: a consultant who works with organizations to find their conflict pairs,
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: to find two elements that actually help them have a
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: lot of life together. So one is rifts can be
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: creative tensions. The second is. This can be discussed, but
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: not here. There's certain, particularly in the workplace, there may
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: be a way out of the conflict, but it requires
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: people to actually dig up parts of their childhood or
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: trauma that's inappropriate for the workplace. And so actually, there
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: are absolutely fights one should not have in the workplace
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: to protect people. Third, it's not a rift. It's a death.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: So sometimes... Reasons not to face is when you are
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: actually pausing and not through conflict aversion, but because like
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: Issa and her friend, you may realize, you know what?
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: There's no longer weight here. Like there's no longer desire here.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: There's no longer relational longing here. And it may be
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: really sad and it may be full of grief, but
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: it may not be worth fighting for. And actually what
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: you need to do, and I call these tiny heartbreaks,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: what you need to do may not be to face.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: It may be to find a way to close. Write
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: a letter and never send it. Changing a very modern way,
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: like changing what you call them in your phone, right?
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: Changing the words BFF to like their first name and
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: their last name. These are all kind of modern breakups
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: that we don't actually talk about. And then the fourth
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: is it's not a rift. It's an informational gift. So
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: sometimes people are showing you who they are.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: I like this one.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: And you should know that. And part of assessment is...
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: Whether it's letting people be who they are. My husband
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: and I argue about this one a lot. And it's
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: a discernment. I don't know. I mean, the person may
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: not know, but it's like, are they just showing you
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: their real colors?
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: Or are they alterable? And should you say something? I
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: have a very silly example of this. So when my
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: husband and I had our first child, we were on
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: a beach and our kid was little, like one and
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: a half and a very large seagull. started approaching our
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: picnic banquet, like large, like kind of scary to be
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: near a kid and very aggressive. He was eyeing some
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: leftover French fries and the bird like came up and
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: we both are like instinctively like lashed out at the bird.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: And my husband yelled, no. And I yelled, hey. And
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: And we looked at each other. And in that moment,
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: we realized the husband thought the bird was being the bird.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: And I thought the bird could do better.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: It's so good because yours was an invitation and his
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: was a salutation. Yes, this was like a declaration. Yes,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: that's a better word. Right?
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: And so, and we keep on laughing about this because
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: at some level, I was trying to call the seagull.
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: To their higher being and he was like it's a
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: seagull like you gotta protect your child that's funny and
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: I think that like if we were gonna like pull
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: out this metaphor I've never spoken publicly before we're gonna
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: pull out this metaphor I think there's the hey and
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: the no version of like friendship.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: That's so good for you the hey and the no
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: yeah and you kind of do know deep down.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: And sometimes people surprise you.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: You know, we also have stories in our head. So
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: part of discernment, to boil it down very simply, I
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: think it's a couple of checks. The first is, there's
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: this Hindi word, man, which means, it means literally mind,
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: but it actually means more like, do you feel like it? Like,
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: the phrase is mannaya. And it's like, if you want
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: to go to the movies, like, Danielle, should we go
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: to the movies together? You could say like, mannaya. And
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: it's like, if you don't have the mann, you don't
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: have the mann. Like, I get it. You don't feel
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: like it. So the first check is like yourself. It's like,
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: do I still have mann? Like, do I still feel,
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: and you can be mad, you can be hurt, but
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: often the reasons we're crying or really shaken is because we,
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: that actually, that shaking and that upsetness is actually because
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: we are also want to be in relationship with that person.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: We want to be seen. We want to be respected.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: If you don't care, you leave, which is why I'm
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: interested in that. How do you fight with those you
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: want to belong to? So to check in, do I
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: still have mun here? And then the second is to
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: also try to assess when you're calm, like, do I
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: think saying something will alter this person? And that's a
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: real question. And so I talk about one of the
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: fathers of conflict resolution. His name is Kreisberg, and he
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: talks about the four conditions that allow for conflict to
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: actually take place. And one of them is you have
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: to believe that by saying something, you can actually alter
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: the situation.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: That is what I struggle with in my family dynamics.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: That's really interesting to learn.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: And if you want to say more.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: I think, and maybe I'm not alone in this, but
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: my parents are who they are. Yes. And I love them.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: And so sometimes, even though I know there's more there
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: or I'm frustrated, me saying something isn't really going to
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: change their behavior or the situation. Yes.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: There's a beautiful Christian philosopher and theologian, Joyce Ann Mercer,
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: and she calls this strategic change. Conflict avoidance. And she
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: says that in some contexts, often in families, it can
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: look the same. You can cosplay avoidance and strategic conflict avoidance.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: But sometimes, whether you've tried everything in your toolkit, whether
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: you have tried everything and you've spoken your piece, you've
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: said what you've said, and you realize they're not going
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: to change, you have to assess, do you still want
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: a relationship with these people? And then at some point,
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: you have to kind of lay down the arms and
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: What's the Instagram thing?
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: I listen and I don't judge.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: I listen and I don't judge.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: And I think families are often such a great example
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: of this because they're your family. And Carl Pillemer wrote
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: a book that came out in March 2020. I mean, terrible,
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: terrible timing for a book, but it's an amazing book
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: and it's starting to get more traction. I just say
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: because that's the month the pandemic hit. And it's called
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: Fault Lines.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: Great book. And he looks at the first ever study
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: of a national study on estrangement. And he says, first
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: of all, estrangement is growing. Second of all, it's not
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: as uncommon as people think it is. People often have
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: a lot of shame around estrangement. It's actually, it's common.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: He defines estrangement as not having a, I think not
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: being in touch for more than a year intentionally with
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: someone that you deeply care about.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: Something like that. Anyway, and- Part of what Karl Pillemer
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: is talking about is that one of the things he
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: says to come back from estrangement is... And he also
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: studies those who overcome estrangement. And he says one of
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: the things for those who are able to overcome estrangement
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: is to be okay with not having the same story. And...
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: Part of whether it's an example in your family, I
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: think how old you are kind of matters. I think
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: young people are supposed to have fights with their parents
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: in part to self-differentiate. And I think that particularly in
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: modern life, families have so much difference within them that
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: part of the way through is to continue to tap
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: into that longing.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: And also.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Have a lot of fun together. Have a lot of
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: fun together. One of the best pieces of advice I
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: ever got when I was going into a complicated family
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: dynamic was it was like, don't have complicated conversations. Have
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: a fucking blast. Have fun together. Sing together. I have
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: a sub stack called Group Life. I have a webinar.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: I have a group help session where I talk about
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: how to hold heat with your family over Thanksgiving. And
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: one of my biggest pieces of advice is have fun.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: Wow. The best advice I ever got as a journalist
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: when I was doing news and entertainment news was this
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: guy said to me, the person who has the most
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: fun wins. Wow.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: It's really true.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: It like all comes down to it. It's really true.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: I have the same advice for gatherings. One of my
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: first webinars on group life on my sub stack and
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: it's free and open to all is called host a
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: gathering you actually want to attend. When you do that,
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: I promise you, if it makes you giggle, if it
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: makes you feel like, I want to do that, do that.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: And actually, in The Art of Fighting, I bring a
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: lot of that wisdom through when I look at groups
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: that come through a fight.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: And afterwards, the ones that are like, you're kind of
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: licking your wounds. Like, it's not fun. Yeah. But they've
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: kind of come through it and then you have this
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: decision to make. Do we come apart or do we
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: change and kind of renovate the house and come through?
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: And those that often come through are first doing other
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: things together that isn't just about the conflict. But the
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: second is they're often doing things that remind them why
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: they like each other. It's sort of like going on
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: a date with your spouse or partner after you've just
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: been like in logistic nightmare for months. And you're like, oh,
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: we like each other.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: And so part of like, have fun. I call it
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: watering the garden. One of my favorite examples in the
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: book is a guy who was having a lot of
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: storming with his daughter. She was around 12 years old.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: He had divorced her mother. Complicated, like hard relationship with
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: his kid. And it was during the Taylor Swift era's tour.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: And he, I think during the pandemic, got into Taylor Swift.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: And he wanted to do therapy with her and he
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: wanted to do therapy with her and she kept on refusing.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: And I think part of it was like, we're not
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: going to do the thing you want me to do.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: And.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: She, during the Eros tour, was like, invited him to
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: go to the concert. I mean, invited me like, dad,
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: will you also pay for these tickets? But he was
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: so excited. And he called me up and he was like,
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: I've had like a breakthrough. It's the first time in
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: a long time she's invited me to do anything. And
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: over the course, as they planned the concert to go
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: fly to this concert together in Chicago, they planned outfits.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: They made friendship bracelets. They thought about which Easter eggs
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: she might, you know, the hints that she would, which
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: song is going to play. And part of what happened
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: was they had a different shared plane. to connect around,
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: to have fun over. They then went to the concert
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: and the way he describes it, it was so beautiful.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: It was, he calls it like thousands, it was being
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: around like thousands of, I think, feminist wolves, like come on.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: And she was so moved that he was willing to
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: make a fool of himself.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: There were moments where they like yelled, like screamed the
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: lyrics out loud, like we're never going to get back
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: together again. And I think again, in modern culture, we
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: don't have ways to kind of storm And it totally
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: changed and healed something in both of them.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: I love that idea. It's not avoidance. It's just transference.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: Add additional juice to the system. Add additional juice. Have fun.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: We're all exhausted. We're all bored. Find ways to add
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: juice to the system.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, I have some rapid fire for you. The best
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: way to end a fight.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, it depends on the context, but I studied ancient...
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: And traditional ways communities would fight for this book. And
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: I looked at ways when a tribe or a village
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: was having a group fight, what they would do. And actually,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: communities have so much intelligence, we've forgotten a lot of it.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: But all of them, whether it was in Hawaii, whether
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: it was in the Minyanca tradition in Western Africa, whether
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: it was the Vikings, like internal conflict resolution, they always
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: ended in some form of a meal together. They always
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: ended in some symbol of whether it's sharing food, breaking bread,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: in some cases bringing whiskey or beer to the other side.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: It was always breaking bread together.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: It was a gathering.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: It was a gathering.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: What's the hardest apology to accept?
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: An inauthentic one.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: What's the most underrated repair tool?
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: Molehill clearing.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: The kind of conflict you still avoid.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: Ask my husband.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: You guys are the coolest together. Everybody is like the
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: two of you. Okay, your go-to fight song.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: Probably Pink's Let's Have a Fight.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's good. A fight people should stop having.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: Like political opinions.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: Especially online. A fight you wish more people were willing
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: to have.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: To admit with care when someone you care about hurts you.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: Your favorite fight scene from TV or film?
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, one of them, Succession is so full of
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: all of these family fights. And again, I wouldn't say
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: that it's artful fighting. It's an example of what not
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: to do. But one of my favorite, I think this is,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: I just find it very hilarious, was they actually brought,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: they were on a retreat and they brought a facilitator
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: to try to help them. And I don't know if
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: you remember the scene or not, but I found it
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: so funny to all of the facilitators out there, which
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: is like the guys like starting to have not having
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: any progress. And then he decides to like go, the
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: facilitator goes and like dives into the pool and he
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: breaks his nose. And he like Lee and he, you know,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: he like causes all of this problems. And I just
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: think it's just, I just found it so funny that
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: like even the facilitator that goes into that system, like
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: literally gets like beat up.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: That is funny.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: It's just, I, you know, succession as an example is,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: It's a wonderful, wonderful canvas to look at unhealthy group fights.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: It's a wonderful canvas to look at power dynamics.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: A person you trust to fight artfully.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: One of my best friends, and I think we're so
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: close because I know she will always hear me out. Yeah.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: And I know that even if she wants to get
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: defensive and I want to get defensive, she will always
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: bite her tongue while I'm talking. And we'll laugh and
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: sort of sweat together through it. And we're both conflict-averse,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: but we also have a commitment to each other to
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: always come back together. And so I never, I mean,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: to this point, I'm talking about The Art of Fighting.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: I hate fighting. I hate conflict. Talking about it gets
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: my hands sweaty. But I know that it's a doorway
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: to deeper connection.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: Last question. What's a book that you read that changed
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: your life? Something you think everybody should read?
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: The Soul of Money by Lynn Twist.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: Priya, thank you so much.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: day to have a good day. I'll see you next week.