How to Work Through Conflict in Your High-Stakes Relationships Before It's Too Late with Jayson Gaddis

[00:00:00] Zach: Have you ever had a fight with your significant other or somebody close to you? know I've had so, so many and knowing how to handle conflict can be the key to maintaining your relationships.

[00:00:10] Jeremy: today, we'll share with you some surprising strategies that can help you manage conflict in a healthy way.

[00:00:15] We'll talk with Jason Gaddis. He's the founder of the relationship school and the author of getting to zero. How to work through conflict in your high stakes relationships

[00:00:25] Zach: Hi, and welcome to the fitness podcast. Thanks for joining us today. I'm Zach and he's Jeremy and together we're two vulnerable guys helping you overcome your struggles to achieve your mental and physical wellness goals.

[00:01:05] Jeremy: And today's Zack, we're talking about conflicts. I hate them. I suck at them. I don't want to have them, but that's not reality. Conflict is a necessary and healthy part of any relationship, 

[00:01:14] Zach: I sincerely have not had any conflict with my.

[00:01:18] Jeremy: Oh shit.

[00:01:19] Zach: Since she left the house 20 minutes ago,

[00:01:21] Jeremy: Okay. Yeah, that sounds more like it, 

[00:01:25] Zach: but no, seriously. I think conflict is healthy in any relationship and how you handle it is really the important part of it. Because I can tell you from experience, you can handle it badly.

[00:01:38] Jeremy: Well, and I don't know how you can enter into any relationship without expecting some level of conflict. And if you're not prepared, if you don't have some tools in your tool basket to deal with. It's not going to end well, because you're going to just rely on instinct, which generally is going to blow up in your face.

[00:01:54] And you're going to be a bad guy. And you're going to regret saying a lot of the things you said when my wife and I had decided to get married. we came from homes where all of our parents had been divorced, so we didn't want to follow on that. So we went to a relationship, a counselor, a family therapist to before we got married, because we knew we need to know what we're getting into before we enter into this lifetime commitment.

[00:02:17] And the tools that we got out of those sessions are with us today. Some of them are echoed in the interview that we'll hear today, but just the idea of, of being aware of your heart rate, being aware of where you are in a conflict and deciding this is not productive. We need to take. And setting aside, , whatever the rules are, 15 minutes, however long it is, but just creating that space to go, okay, we both need to cool off and come back and try this again.

[00:02:43] Or it's okay to go to bed mad. You know, maybe we're this isn't going to get resolved tonight. Maybe we need to sleep and wake up and, try again tomorrow. Creating those boundaries, creating those rules, allow you to have conflict in a healthy way so that it doesn't end up destroying the reality.

[00:02:59] Zach: Jeremy, if I take a break, I can't prove that I'm right.

[00:03:04] Jeremy: That does get in the way of just being an arrogant ass that needs to be right all the time.

[00:03:08] Zach: It seemed to see, seems like a little bit of an issue there for me now. Uh, seriously though, like I totally agree. , and we'll hear it in the interview. , , for me anyway, when I get into a moment, , there's no logic anymore. It's just me. Kind of being an asshole and I need to and I have recognized. When that happens. And my wife reminds me of it and I, need to remember in the future, when that moment hits.

[00:03:35] If I'm just being a jerk, if I just need to be right. If I just need to get my point across, that's the moment where I need to step back and walk away for a little bit.

[00:03:44] Jeremy: Well, how many times when you're in that moment, are you not even having the same argument anymore? Like you're arguing. What you're what you're perceiving the other person thinking or what you're interpreting their words to be , without actually listening to what they're saying and responding to it, , like you're so on a mission to just be right,

[00:04:00] Zach: That's it.

[00:04:01] Jeremy: that you just complete, like they could be literally speaking another language and it wouldn't matter because you're just on this mission that no, you don't understand.

[00:04:09] Zach: Yeah. And you know, I, I guess I've done it for a long, long time and I do recognize it now when I'm in the moment, but it's mind boggling to be like cognizant of that now, because when I'm in the middle of proving that I'm right or mansplaining something. And it hits me that that's what's happening and I'm just like, wow, dude, shut the fuck up right now.

[00:04:36] Jeremy: Well, us not being the relationship experts that our guest is. Perhaps we should shut the hell up and let him give you some amazing advice. And some strategies that I was surprised to hear him, , suggest that I have not implemented yet, because honestly I'm a little too scared, but, we will let him explain those amazing strategies. His name is Jason Gaddis. He's the founder of the relationship school and author of getting to this.

[00:04:58] How to work through conflict in your high stakes relationships. But first we want to invite you to participate in our Facebook.

[00:05:04] Zach: If you head over to the fitness community on Facebook, , we're continuing some of the conversations that we have in podcasts. There also, we have a monthly accountability challenge this month. We're focusing on yoga last month was meditation highly encourage you to go and join.

[00:05:18] If you haven't already, we are looking forward to seeing you and then seeing you participate there.

[00:05:24] Jeremy: Now to our conversation with Jason Gaddis, where we started off Mike telling him about the pain that started us on our journey to healing and asked him about his own. 

[00:05:33] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: Yeah, well, we have something in common, which is pain And helped us change our life. For me, Yeah, I growing up, I was a sensitive emotional kid and being a boy in a sports kind of dad, family and sports culture. That wasn't cool. So I learned to stuff and hide and bury that as much as I could to fit in and belong.

[00:05:54] And that worked, I got a lot of approval and accolades. But I was, each year that went by, I was kind of growing in my misery and eventually I started experimenting with drugs now. And abusing drugs and alcohol in my early twenties and started dating women and all the relationships I had, I would keep the woman at an arms length.

[00:06:15] Cause I just didn't want to let her in. I didn't know how and I. I usually just had it, that she was the problem. She was X enough. She was too much of this, not enough of that. I'm too sensitive, emotional, needy, all the things I was depressed about. And after 10 years of that repeating relationship blowout after relationship failure, I just was like, okay.

[00:06:35] I think I'm the problem here because I'm the common denominator in all these failures. And so I, when I had that awakening at age 29 I was like, okay, It's time to get my shit together here. And I really did want love. I wanted to understand love and connection and partnership. And so I enrolled in grad school and started studying myself in psychology and the therapy group therapy, individual therapy, and I just hit it hard, started meditating, and I did everything I could to change myself in my life and met my wife eventually.

[00:07:06] And. Kept studying and training and had a couple of kids. And we just started figuring things out better and better. And then I eventually, I was coaching and working with couples mostly. Eventually started this thing called the relationship school. Cause I got tired of complaining that there is no class on this in high school or college.

[00:07:24] I am 

[00:07:25] Zach: so, so tell us a little bit more about the relationship school. What is it? and where do I sign up? I mean, where can 

[00:07:32] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: people sign up? I don't relationship school.com. The relationship school podcast is our podcast. Yeah. And we're a training organization of, we want to help people basically. Deepen a life skill, which is everybody knows how to communicate, but not everybody knows how to communicate under stress very effectively. So that's kind of, one of the places we focus on is how do we listen under stress? And we train people how to listen differently and how to speak differently. it's a transformational journey, really it's a class, but it's also like if you're ready to completely transform your life and get to know yourself on a deep level, then you know, this is one place to come and.

[00:08:13] Jeremy: And do you have a new book that is also offering to help people it's called getting to zero, how to work through conflict in your high stakes relationships getting to zero.

[00:08:21] What does that mean? And, And what are we going to get out of the.

[00:08:24] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: Totally getting to zero is getting back to that good place. we use a zero to 10 scale, 10 being I'm super triggered and activated and can barely hold still. Zero is we're good and connected and we're on the other side of it and we feel safe and everything's great here. And that's the place I want everybody to live their life from because we're just more effective there and we feel better in our life.

[00:08:43] We're more fulfilled and it allows us the opportunity to take on all the other challenges we're dealing with our life. My book is really how do we get back to that good place? That should be our baseline. 

[00:08:54] Zach: Oh, then how do we get back to that place now? Obviously we don't want you to give all the secrets of the book because we want people to buy the book.

[00:09:01] But what does that look like? I know for me, that's very difficult for me to come down to zero when I'm let's say emotionally charged. So, so what is what's happening in the brain? Yeah, that, that causes people to not be able to , get back to zero. 

[00:09:18] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: Yeah. we're social mammals and we're wired to connect, but we're also wired to protect ourselves and to perceive threat all the time.

[00:09:26] In fact, we're twice as wired to perceive threat than we are to connect. So it's, it's very deep in us to look and be scanning consciously and unconsciously for threats and other people this day and age are the most threatening things that we can experience in modern. And what happens when we get triggered is it just turns on a part of the nervous system called the sympathetic branch.

[00:09:48] And we go into, you know, you've heard the fight flight freeze response. I call it, we posture, collapse, seeker avoid, and we go into, we disconnect and we go into a defensive posture as a way to protect ourselves. And we move from the front part of our brain, which I call the front seat to the backseat where the scared animal takes the steering wheel and is now.

[00:10:06] And that's when we stay and say and do stupid shit. So our job as soon as possible is to get back in the.

[00:10:12] front seat. And there's a number of things we can do alone and together to do that so that we can get, start to get back to that, good place called zero. 

[00:10:19] Jeremy: Maybe it's in the wiring that you suggested and how we're more wired for threat than connection. But I guess, how does that happen? If the people that we're closest with are our spouses, our boyfriends, girlfriends colleagues. I mean, the people that we interact with every. That's where most of the conflict comes from.

[00:10:34] And, you know, you don't have conflict with strangers generally, unless it's a random traffic thing or whatever. How, why is that? Why do we have so much conflict with the people that mean the most.

[00:10:45] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: Yeah, the higher the stakes get when we combine mortgages we start to have a family together. We joined businesses together. We put in a bunch of money together, million bucks, a a hundred thousand, whatever those become high stakes. And there's two reasons why this is so scary for us to get in a snag with these kinds of people.

[00:11:02] Because number one, our biology is. We're wired to belong and be together. And one of the worst things that we can experience is to be cast out, kicked out, rejected or abandoned as human beings. That's very threatening for us because we don't do well on our own. So that's number one, it's in our biology.

[00:11:17] And number two is our history. We grew up in families where the same thing was at stake. If dad or mom didn't approve, like the fear for a little kid is I'm going to get actually cast out of this. And then a peer group growing up, it's the same threat. It's like, shit, I, you know, and so we do things, we do all kinds of things to try to mitigate that, including develop strategies like I did to get liked, to get approval et cetera.

[00:11:40] And the higher, the stakes, the more of those memories come from our body and our negative experiences in our past come out. If you've been raised in a family for 18 years under a certain relational doctrine or blueprint The place that's going to wake up the most is in long-term relationships.

[00:11:55] That same memory and those imprinting is going to come up in a partnership, for example. 

[00:12:00] Zach: So I heard you say that the most successful relationships people have the ability and willingness to work through conflict. And when I heard you say that it really.

[00:12:12] Just got me thinking about mindset and how, the two people in said, relationship really need to have. An agreement or some kind of understanding to be able to work through that. It can't be one sided. Does that right? And how do you come to that 

[00:12:26] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: consensus? Yeah, I mean, it can be one-sided, but it's not going to go very far.

[00:12:31] You're exactly right. It's the mindset. The mindset that we want to operate in as conflict is not the problem and conflict is actually a welcome opportunity to get to know ourselves and the other person more deeply and to connect to the deeper, more authentic level. That's what really conflicts about it's adversity inside of a partnership.

[00:12:49] No big deal. It's challenged. Yeah. It's challenging. It's hard. It's uncomfortable. But we have this tremendous opportunity. So if both people are operating in that kind of growth mindset oh this is an opportunity. Those couples succeed whereas other couples or partnerships where one person's a yes to it.

[00:13:04] And the other person isn't, or both people are completely ignorant it's kind of a software.

[00:13:09] Jeremy: I think those two points play well together. You were talking about developing strategies to be liked and not be shunned and whatnot. And for many of us that's wearing a mask of some kind, put it putting on some fronts that is appealing to people on the outside while on the inside. We're, starving and dying because we're not being our authentic selves.

[00:13:26] And I think a lot of times I know I've been guilty of this. Most of my life, I hate conflict. I grew up in a home where it happened constantly and I didn't want any part of it. And so I've avoided it a lot in my life, but I have been trying to learn and trying to come out from behind that because I've learned that engaging in conflict and giving the other person the opportunity to see that you're passionate about that thing.

[00:13:47] You're almost sort of robbing them of a gift of that authentic expression and. Connection. I think it creates a deeper connection when you have the conflict, because there's this fairy tale. I think that so many of us have th that you get married and it's just happily literally happily ever after nobody ever fights again.

[00:14:02] But there is a deeper connection I think, missing when there isn't conflict. Would you agree with.

[00:14:07] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. When people avoid and pretend like, Yeah, we don't fight. Everything's great. Over here. Nine, probably 10 times out of 10, they're wearing a mask and they're in a pretty superficial relationship. Any good sports team, any good band, any good marriage, any good business partnership has conflict.

[00:14:23] And they get stronger through it and they know how to figure it out. So we have this again. It's always a choice. Of course. I'm with you. I don't like it. It's uncomfortable for me. Still to this day, it's not like I'm like conflict guy. I love this. Um, I love what's on the other side of it, which is usually that zero yummy connection place.

[00:14:40] And I don't like going through it just like I don't like going through challenges in my business where I get my ass kicked. I don't like that. But I know it's sculpting the in building character and it's helping me become a stronger human. Um, It's like lifting weights. It's the same thing. It's like, this is going to help me out, even though it doesn't feel good doing it sometimes.

[00:14:58] So Yeah.

[00:14:58] we all, We all have a choice here and I I'm trying to encourage the conflict avoiders out there or the people that are in some kind of fantasy about not having conflict that you're missing out. And whenever you avoid an external conflict, you're creating an internal one that you get to carry around.

[00:15:13] Now you have two things to deal with. 

[00:15:15] Jeremy: Yeah.

[00:15:15] Zach: Sometimes joke that before my feet even hit the ground, my wife and I have had a conflict during the day, but then we both are thankful that we just woke up that day. So, I would love to hear a little bit more about the ground rules are like. How do you get through? this is me asking for me, but I know there's so many other people out there, but like when my rage goes, when I am up there at 10, there's no logic. There's no reasoning. There's no want to have a deeper connection. There's just. I need to be right. And I'm going to express it in this way.

[00:15:48] So I would love to hear what are some simple things that somebody could do? If they're in that. just bring themselves down a couple of notches. It just enough for the logic brain to kind 

[00:15:58] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: of 

[00:15:58] kick in. Cool. Let me, Let me back it up with just some context first for answer that. So there's this thing called the conflict repair cycle. That's going to go on forever in your life, which means you got to get good at it. And it has three parts. We disconnect because we have a fight or argue. Distance or something, and then we've got to work to reconnect and then we get connection again and it just round and round, it goes disconnection, reconnection, connection forever.

[00:16:23] And so conflict. As I said earlier, isn't the problem. You're going to go to a town. You're going to go to a seven. You're going to feel rage. You're gonna feel hurt and scared and sad or pissed or whatever the most important place to put your attention on in that conflict repair cycle is the repair and reconnection process. 'cause we're all gonna do the stupid thing or raise our voice or shut down or, you know, dissociate or do something that's upsetting to the other person or a spouse, perhaps. It's how quickly can we recover and own that we did that and understand impact. And then how can we keep working together as a team to feel like we're good at.

[00:17:03] And safe and we're cool. And we repair the injury that we just caused. So that's just on a view level. That's essential to just operate under that paradigm. And then in terms of the brass tacks of what to do in the moment, if we are really heated and we said this stupid thing, or whatever, a couple of things, a lot of couples like keywords, or, stop words or something.

[00:17:23] I, I, those can work. For some people, I tend to think That just take calling a pause, hitting the pause button. I call it. I like pause better than timeout, because pause implies that I'm going to hit start again. And it's, we just need to take a pause and take a break right now, and I'm going to go deal with myself and sit down or I'm going to go on a walk and I'm going to express my feelings to a friend.

[00:17:44] I'm going to punch a bag. I'm going to just breathe into the anger. And I'm going to be with and learn how to self. And then I'm going to come back a little more centered and a little more in my front part of my brain. And the first thing I'm going to do is take responsibility for what I did or didn't do and empathize with the impact over there.

[00:18:02] And the other person can do the same thing. So that's one thing we can do. Now. I will say that it's actually more efficient together. So if I can stay in the room, And make eye contact with my partner and stay there as scary and as hard as that is, especially if I'm at an 8, 9, 10, we I'm less likely to go into memory because of the ways the eyes work.

[00:18:24] When I, When I look away from you, I'm going into memory my brain and I'm going to start compounding all the negative memories. And then I'm going to come back at you with some heat. So maybe more heat and more evidence and more stories about how your. So I contact has this incredible way to help us co-regulate and regulate together where two animals, instead of one are actually faster to calm both animals down than if both animals go into their separate parts of the house.

[00:18:49] It's pretty interesting. 

[00:18:50] Jeremy: That is

[00:18:51] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: I like that. 

[00:18:52] Jeremy: Yeah, I've for years, we've practiced the, take a break methadone, my, a couple of therapists that my wife and I started. He always said that was one of the first tools he ever gave us was when you get to that point where you both just know, you just have to walk away.

[00:19:03] And so that's brilliant, but I've never considered staying in the room. Like, And that, that would be, I think the hardest part of the experience. But I think, like you said, that's just going to add so much value to that conflict too, because that's just a deeper, almost spiritual connection that you're creating by doing.

[00:19:21] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: Yeah. there's something really powerful again about, I like to think of two scared animals coming together and actually moving physically closer because the last thing we want to do in that moment is look at the person and move closer. It's counter-intuitive right. But it's going right to the lion's den and you're just trying to soften your shoulders and your face.

[00:19:41] And you're, you're going to do your best to act as safe as possible, and non-threatening as possible to the other person. As you start to calm down and looking at their. And then you can even reach a handout. If touch works for your partner, you got to know what works for the other person, right. Um, touch my, lowering your voice, softening your tone of voice slowing down in your voice and how you're communicating, maybe standing side by side, because it's less threatening a little bit and looking kind of three quarters view.

[00:20:09] This is up for each couple, has to find out what works for their nervous systems, but it's really about the nervous system. How can we get back in our social engagement system, where we're actually coherent and okay.

[00:20:20] Jeremy: interesting. 

[00:20:21] Zach: Yeah I can, I'm just envisioning it in my head and I can just see my wife's laser beam eyes.

[00:20:26] It didn't meet from across the room. I know she wouldn't quite look like that, but that's my fear. 

[00:20:31] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: Yeah. Yeah. And maybe again, as a team, if you guys work together like, Hey, those eyes scare me a lot that look on your face scares me. And I'm wondering if you'd be willing to blink a couple of. And stay in the room with me and just see if you can soften just your jaw, your shoulders.

[00:20:46] And can we do that together? And let's see what happens. 

[00:20:49] Zach: the other piece that you said in there was when you've taken a break, when you come back is owning what you did, that is also again, took me a long time to learn how to do that. And even to this day, Just hearing you explain that I'm hit with a wall of resistance of no.

[00:21:05] I can not give into that. So I would love to hear a little bit more detail. If you could say more about, how does. How do we process that a little bit better so that we can be okay with it? Cause I know it's hard to come back from something like that and tail between the legs going. Nope. I made a mistake. 

[00:21:24] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: totally.

[00:21:25] Yeah. Well, if a lot of people are like you, I get that way too. Um, It's like, no, no, you first damn it. Um, So what we can do in that moment , And we can do this as an experiment. I just like to get into ownership of what I'm doing, because it's part of that personal responsibility. So one thing we can do is say, honey I'd rather be self-righteous right now and make you wrong than take responsibility for anything it's on. 

[00:21:49] Jeremy: Yeah.

[00:21:50] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: And it's one step before I actually do it before I actually do the wrong making and the finger pointing. It's just, I just, I'm transparent about what I'm thinking and what I'm about to do. And there's something cool about that. It takes the edge off. Cause I it's, I, it makes me very trustworthy, because I'm just telling the truth about I'm just over here blaming you and I don't want to take any responsibility and that's I know I don't, I'm not going to stay here, but that's where I am. Right. So you can offer the reassuring statement. Like I know I'm not going to stay here. I'll eventually get there.

[00:22:18] This is just where I'm at right now. I want to be right. I'm very stuck on this. I'm very convinced of myself that I'm right and you're wrong. And I know this isn't really true, but this is just where I'm at.

[00:22:29] Jeremy: I think it takes a tremendous amount of self-awareness to, in that moment when you're a nine or a 10, to be able to get to a point where you can. Look, I'm furious. I know I'm wrong. I'm going to get the like, you know, when you're there, how do you, how do you come back down? I mean, cause you've been meditating.

[00:22:45] You've been, you have that practice. I think most people that, don't engage in self care. Don't do these things to sort of become more self-aware. How do they find that path to be able to make that connection with themselves and go, oh that's what I'm feeling. I shouldn't say that out loud.

[00:22:59] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: Yeah.

[00:23:00] Well, here's the cool thing about relationships is. If we're with someone we trust and we love, and we care about. It's a team effort. It's not just a, Jeremy on his own or Zach on his own effort thing. I've just got to handle this. It's a team effort. And that means I do work on this, on my own, and I do start meditating.

[00:23:19] I learn how to be with my experience when I'm upset and I'm, and I'm enraged even. You know, In the car, when someone cuts me off, , some of us go to emit immediately get triggered into the road, rage, and it's just like, pull the car over and just see if you can take five breaths and set your timer on your phone for two minutes and breathe and just be with yourself. Could you do that? I like to take the allowing myself to blame approach also, which is whether it's in the room or the other room, just letting my wife have it in my mind. Right. So I'm actually not saying it out loud, or I have a friend, a male friend. I have a couple male friends that can receive this kind of communication.

[00:23:54] And I, I let it rip with them and I'm like, dude, I just need to vent for a fucking second. And I tell them how fucked up my partner is or whoever that mad at is. And so it's going to a safer place where it's going to be received. And then later I can, they can help me clean up the mess. And they, my first question always is to my friends has helped me see my side because I'm not. So that's the individual part I can do without her. And then what's cool with her is we can be a team trying to figure out my nervous system and my reactivity as a team and the same with her. Like we're a team trying to look at objectively her nervous system. And how do we, yeah. How do we handle you when you're this upset?

[00:24:36] Because when you partner with someone, you have this amazing advantage. , Where you don't have to do it alone, you actually can be a team trying to figure this out together. 

[00:24:42] Zach: That's amazing. I'm sitting here listening to all of this golden nuggets coming from you, and I've never been in a situation where I actually am kind of looking forward to the next conflict with my wife so that I can try to practice 

[00:24:57] Jeremy: just go do something stupid real quick. It won't take you, but a second.

[00:25:00] Zach: It naturally it'll happen. I know it will. The day's not over yet. is there anything that you'd like to tell the audience, you know, simple things that they could do to Be better about conflict resolution with the people that they love.

[00:25:12] And then, where's your book at? Where can we find it and where can we find you online? 

[00:25:16] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: Yeah. Cool. Let me, Let me share one last concept that I call two shitty choices. So for the listener that has a habit of, Well, it's not worth it. I'm not going to go there. It's just going to make it worse. I want to present your choices, that you've kind of figured out for yourself and.

[00:25:31] That's Troy say I speak up and it doesn't go well. And the person goes away. They reject me. They, it gets worse. We get into a worst fight. That's what I say, Joyce B is I don't speak up, but I have to kind of betray myself and I just go along to get along. And I minimize that. My truth doesn't matter that much.

[00:25:46] I better just not bring it up. , those are the classic choices people fund. And then the book I'm advocating for third choice, which is really choice a, that turns into choice C courage through conflict, where I do speak up because I'd rather maintain my relationship and my integrity with myself and lose my relationship with you versus lose my relationship with myself, but maybe keep my relationship with you.

[00:26:11] And I think when people hear. Said that way. It's like, oh shit. Right. That's what I'm doing. And I just really want the listener to consider. Yeah. That's probably what you're doing. And the courageous move here is to learn, apply yourself. This is a life skill. Anyone can learn. I don't care how you're wired.

[00:26:29] You can learn how to do this and how to communicate more effectively under stress. And it just takes practice and you can do it. 

[00:26:36] Jeremy: you talked about just your own experience and we're talking about our spouses. I S I heard you say that your approach to conflict changed. When, I guess with maybe not when you met your wife, but with your wife, what was that evolution like for you?

[00:26:50] What was conflict before that growth with.

[00:26:54] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: Conflict before it was blame. I was very caught in blame and very little personal responsibility and I would make statements like, oh, it's probably me, but I actually never looked into it. So I was just kind of a cop out. And then when I met my wife, we were actually studying psychology together.

[00:27:09] And nerding out on it separately and together, and it started to become very interesting to try to figure out how do we get back to a good place that I call now called zero? How do we get there? And, you know, take us hours to process stuff is two budding therapists back in the day, like three hour, four hour processing.

[00:27:27] Our arguments like dude, you're projecting. No you're projecting got kind of exhausting. So we just got more efficient over time. And we used to do the go in the corners of the house, kind of a. Uh, And let's come back when we're in a better place. And that, that we still do that once in a while, but for the most part now where we stay in the room and deal, and that's, it's just evolved over time.

[00:27:47] And I felt like it got more efficient, but we probably disconnect and argue just as much as the next couple. We're just, trying and we're very committed to getting more efficient. 

[00:27:55] Jeremy: Lots of great tools here. I'm sure there's a ton more in the book. Where can we find it? And where can we learn where.

[00:28:00] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: Yeah, cool, man. Getting to zero is the book, how to work through conflict and your high stakes relationships. Just came out. I'm pumped about it. I think it's going to serve you and uh, getting to zero book.com is probably the best place. Cause there's a little conflict quiz you can take on that page that I think is pretty fun and interesting.

[00:28:17] And there's a lot of other little resources there, but that'll take you to your places you like to buy books also. 

[00:28:23] Jeremy: Perfect. Thank you so much for the opportunity and the time this has been great. 

[00:28:27] Jayson Gaddis Interview - USB: Yeah. Thanks guys. 

[00:28:27] Zach: Our thanks to Jason Gaddis, the founder of the relationship school and the book getting to zero. How to work through conflict in your high stakes relationships. Jeremy, I got to say that that there's so many nuggets in there that I took away, but, the one that really. Really stuck with me was when I am in that moment of, I have to be right to just say that and be like, Hey, I'm being an arrogant Dick right now. And I just want to be right. And I want to be upfront and tell you that that's what I'm thinking. So I just love that.

[00:28:59] Jeremy: Have you been able to practice that yet?

[00:29:00] Zach: I haven't yet. Um, because we haven't had a conflict

[00:29:04] in 25, 30

[00:29:06] Jeremy: Yeah, exactly.

[00:29:08] Zach: No, I have not yet. I haven't gotten to that level. , I've been very, very cognizant since we had this interview. I've been very cognizant of when we have conflict to make sure that we're working through it and that I'm not mansplaining things and I'm not being an arrogant a-hole that I can.

[00:29:24] Jeremy: The one that stood out to me that I have also not, , implemented. No, no, I honestly don't think we've had a real fight or argument since the interview happened. But the idea of staying in the room that is the antithesis of everything that I learned 20 years ago from my counselor. It was, , when things are at their worst, take a break, come back.

[00:29:43] The idea of staying in the room when things are at their worst and making eye contact and just like shutting up and allowing the anger to just be and getting through that together. That flies in the face of everything I've known for 20 years. So that is really intimidating to me. , mostly because I think I'm the opposite of you, like instead of wanting to be right.

[00:30:05] I always kind of feel like I'm probably wrong, but I'm just lashing out. Cause I'm angry and being seen in that vulnerability, I think is, is too much for me.

[00:30:12] Zach: Yeah. I don't know if I could do that myself. I feel like whatever fire had been burning, it would be like, , the forge, just getting hotter, being in the same room, like just the, the energy in that room. , and I know that the next comment, , which would normally be like, what would you like for dinner would come out?

[00:30:31] Like, do you want to fucking eat. don't know, I will,

[00:30:36] Jeremy: You might want to avoid that one, then you might want to avoid that strategy at least for awhile. All

[00:30:40] Zach: But, but again, , having ground rules and talking to your partner about, , how you're going to handle conflict before the conflict actually happens. , that's just, there's no wiser words, right? I mean, you'll save yourself a lot of heartache and headache.

[00:30:55] If you. Put down those ground rules and know how you're going to handle conflict before you have.

[00:31:01] Jeremy: Absolutely. And if you need a place to vent, perhaps before you unload all that fury on your partner, you can always do it on our Facebook community. You can join today. We have lots of great conversations there. We actually, we had our first Facebook live there. Uh, last week, total train wreck. I'd never, we'd never done anything like it before.

[00:31:17] Totally did it. Giant mess, but our guests was very gracious and very patient and a really fun conversation about meditation. So if you're into that, check that out. That's in the Facebook group, you can find that on the show notes to this episode@thefitmass.com. 

[00:31:30] Zach: I just want to point out that, like that train wreck. I wasn't part of it.

[00:31:35] Jeremy: Yeah. You were watching quietly from the corner. Well done Zach. Well,

[00:31:39] Zach: I was support. I was supporting.

[00:31:41] Jeremy: All right, well, links to Jason Gaddis and his work and the relationship school and his book and everything we've talked about in this episode are in the show notes@thefitness.com where we will be back next week with a brand new episode.

[00:31:51] Thanks so much for listening.

[00:31:53] Zach: See everyone.