Category: relationships

On a podcast where the guest was American Hedge Fund entrepreneur Anthony Scaramucci, he reiterated the exact same thing as the title. He said his mentor’s most importance advice that has stayed with him all throughout and been the most beneficial is this: “Always leave something on the table”.

It could be a small deal or a large one, a few million dollars, or a few billion. Everyone wants to feel like they’ve “won”. Walking away from the table having lost money is not a good feeling at all.

One of the biggest follies I see around me is that folks who are looking to close deals are constantly thinking only about their own side of the bargain.

They says always leave something on the table, but I feel like some parties get so aggressive they end up taking the table itself. Most deals get done on trust and relationships, which take ages to build and nurture. Surely a few percentage points here and there won’t matter in the long run, but it can sure cause long-forged bonds to come undone, or even rip apart.

Nirvana, the rock band of yesteryear, had an insane hit called “smells like teen spirit”. More than teen spirit, it’s team spirit that matters for success in life – not that Niravana felt otherwise.

But a recent TV series called The Last Dance, chronicles the final NBA season of the Chicago Bulls a couple of decades ago.

Anyone who was old enough to watch basketball at the time will remember the outstanding Michael Jordan, as well as his partner in crime Scottie Pippen. I always thought things were great between them given how amazing they were on the court.

But despite Pippen being at least the 2nd best player in the Bulls, he was only the 6th best ranked player on the team in terms of salary. His salary rank was 120th when the entire NBA was considered. Surely very less for one of his caliber.

Continued tomorrow…

During the podcast, Adam Grant requested his guests – the Gottmans – to share examples of how they would resolve conflicts. And boy did they provide some funny yet eye-opening versions.

Without going into the examples here though, even better is how Adam summarized everything beautifully at the end. Here it is, verbatim:

I came into this conversation thinking the Gottmans’ secret sauce must be their knowledge from research and therapy. Now, I believe it's something more: their deliberate practice. It's like they've been training for the Conflict Olympics. They're not just coaches watching other people's highlight reels and bloopers. They're professional arguers. They practice fighting. They review their game tape afterward. Amazing. There's a lot of evidence that what hurts relationships is not arguing frequently. It's arguing poorly, and watching the Gottmans convinces me that the best way to get better at fighting is to do it more, and then debrief on what went well and how you could have handled it more effectively. That way, instead of duking it out to try to win the argument, you're on the same side, trying to improve the argument, together. I think we should all give this a whirl, and I know where I'm gonna start. 

Continuing from yesterday, the Gottmans talk about an interesting concept. The “4 horsemen” is a term coined by John and Julie Gottman to refer to four common behaviors that are predictors of relationship failure. These behaviors are:

Criticism: This involves attacking someone’s character or personality, rather than focusing on a specific behavior or issue. For example, instead of saying “I don’t like it when you leave dirty dishes in the sink,” a person might say “You are so lazy and inconsiderate.”

Contempt: This involves putting the other person down or mocking them in a hostile way. For example, using sarcasm or eye-rolling to show that you think the other person is stupid or unworthy of respect.

Defensiveness: This involves avoiding responsibility for your own actions and trying to shift blame onto the other person. For example, instead of acknowledging that you made a mistake and apologizing, you might say “I only did it because you always…” or “It’s not my fault, it’s yours.”

Stonewalling: This involves shutting down or withdrawing from the conversation, either physically or emotionally. For example, not responding to the other person’s comments, or walking out of the room without saying anything.

Pretty cool way of dissecting relationships, and especially what can go wrong!

In a cool new podcast by Adam Grant, he interviews John and Julie Gottman. The two are psychologists who have been studying healthy relationships for over four decades. They co-founded the Gottman Institute, and have written numerous bestselling books together.

They discuss their famous study on predicting divorce rates in the podcast episode. I first thought, “what? Predicting divorce? How is that even possible? Are they using Vedic astrology?” But no, it was a proper study!

They had couples come into their lab and talk about the issues in their marriage, and were able to predict their divorce rates with astonishing accuracy by coding the little signals they sent each other back and forth. They synchronized the video time code to physiological measures from each person, looking at heart rate, how much they sweat from their hands, respiration, blood velocity, gross motor movement, and the emotions that the couples were displaying.

Almost shockingly (to me!), they could account for more than 90% of the variation in what happened to the couple, and could not only predict whether they would stay together or get divorced, but also predict when they would get divorced and how happily married they would be if they stayed together.

Incredible, and so did they have any more insights to offer? More tomorrow…