Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
We’re the Vallottons, and we’re passionate about people! Every human was created for fulfilling connections in relationship and family, but it’s not always what comes easiest! We know this because of our wide range of personal experiences as well as years of working with people. So we’re going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family and parenting to encourage, entertain and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health.
Support us at on Patreon at patreon.com/datesmatesbabies
Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
145. Confrontation That Builds Trust: How to Handle Conflict Without Creating Fear
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Episode Summary:
In this episode, hosts Jason and Lauren Vallotton tackle one of the most misunderstood (and avoided) dynamics in relationships: confrontation. They challenge the idea that healthy relationships are conflict-free and instead cast a compelling vision for becoming people who confront quickly and lovingly. Because avoiding conflict doesn’t create peace—it creates fear and chaos.
Through honest conversation and practical tools, Jason and Lauren unpack what confrontation actually is, why it feels so intimidating, and how learning to tell the truth with care can strengthen trust in marriage, parenting, friendships, and leadership. This episode is both a mindset shift and a how-to guide for navigating conflict in a way that leads to connection instead of division.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- Why the healthiest relationships aren’t the ones without conflict—but the ones that handle it well
- How to reframe conflict as a leadership skill at home and in the workplace
- A clear definition of confrontation as proactive truth-telling, not punishment or control
- How avoiding issues or “keeping the peace” often leads to resentment and emotional escalation
- A real-life story revealing how “I’m fine” can mask a deeper fear of rejection
- How the “house fire” metaphor helps you identify and address conflict early
- Why starting soft matters—and how harsh beginnings often lead to painful endings
- How to lead with your own feelings and needs instead of accusations
- The importance of staying focused on one issue at a time to avoid emotional flooding
- Why emotional regulation is key before entering difficult conversations
- How to listen beneath the surface complaint to uncover deeper needs
- Practical ways to make repair attempts that de-escalate and restore connection
Key Takeaway:
Confrontation, when done well, isn’t something to fear—it’s one of the most powerful tools we have to build trust, intimacy, and emotional safety in every area of life.
Join the Conversation:
Have thoughts about this episode? We’d love to hear from you—share it and let us know what resonated.
If you have topics you’d like Jason and Lauren to cover, or questions for an upcoming Q&A episode, you can email them at datesmatesbabies@gmail.com !
Patreon
If you've enjoyed this podcast, would you consider financially supporting the show? Every donation, big and small, helps the Vallottons continue to prioritize making this content for you. Click this link to support! Thank you!
For information on the Marriage Intensive and other resources, go to jasonandlaurenvallotton.com !
Connect with Lauren:
Instagram
Facebook
Connect with Jason:
Jay’s Instagram
Jay’s Facebook
BraveCo Instagram
www.braveco.org
Why Relationships Need Connection
SPEAKER_02We're the Balatons and we are passionate about people.
SPEAKER_00Every human was created for fulfilling relational connection.
SPEAKER_02But that's not always what comes easiest.
SPEAKER_00We know this because of our wide range of personal experience as well as our years of working with people.
SPEAKER_02So we're going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family, and parenting to encourage, entertain, and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health.
SPEAKER_01Welcome back, everyone, to Dates Mates and Babies with the Balatons. It's great to be with you guys.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Hi again.
SPEAKER_01This week, I we actually wanted to dive into a subject that we talked about a while ago and we've mentioned pieces of it, but it feels really fresh in my life and I think in our life, and just the determination to continually grow and get better at conflict and conflict resolution.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01And so we're going to dive into that last week, in the last couple of weeks, we've talked about your book and the launch of your book. And so we've, if you guys miss that, Lauren's launching a book later on this year. Yeah. And we went through just kind of the different sections of her book.
SPEAKER_02And just it's some of the different themes that are highlighted in my book. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And that was really fun. Such a cool podcast and so fun to talk through. And I'm really excited about your book and the launch coming up. But let's let's dive in, babe. I I told you recently, I don't know, probably two weeks ago, that I just feel a new determination and resolve to be relentless with conflict.
SPEAKER_02And which yeah. That sounds like a certain it sounds I determined to be relentless in conflict, but describe what you mean because it's actually so good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think whether you're a business owner, uh married, just a every human being, I we are faced oftentimes with like life brings opportunities for conflict and opportunities to either bring something to the light or to share a need or to confront something that feels out of line. I mean, there's just tons of different scenarios. As a parent, I mean, when we're constantly confronting our kids. I mean, even this morning, Edie got a new microscope and where I was trying to teach her how to use it, and she was not happy that I was trying to teach her.
SPEAKER_02She's not a gracious student sometimes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she wasn't being a gracious student. And so, right, that needs some confrontation. And I would say I'm fairly good at confrontation. You are. I've had to do it a lot in my life. I used to be terrible at it. I'm always, it's always uncomfortable. Conflict for me is always uncomfortable, it's in the sense that I don't enjoy doing it for lots of different reasons. But I think more and more as I've led Braveco, as we've been married longer, as our kids are getting older, going through different phases, as we're leading younger kids, as I'm leading just in ministry, I'm seeing the benefits over and over and over again, the beautiful benefits of learning how to do confrontation and being quick to confront in a way that's healthy. And also the downside and the pain of not confronting. Right. And so, I mean, in this podcast, I want to talk through what confrontation really is, some of the myths, some stories, but yeah, I just I see such a beautiful benefit in bringing truth and in bringing connection and health through conflict. And honestly, I think I feel more and more afraid of what happens when I don't confront because I'm afraid of the consequences or because I'm just trying to keep the peace.
Why Avoiding Conflict Backfires
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Yeah, I I was really struck when you brought this up a couple of weeks ago, because it was in the context of a situation that really required your leadership. Yeah. And I think whether we're leading our homes, whether we're leading in our communities, whether we're leading in businesses or whatever, like you mentioned, good leadership requires conflict management skills and conflict resolution skills. And inside of that, we often have to confront. And I think a lot of people measure health in a relationship by how much or little conflict exists in the relationship. It's true. If you're a great leader and you can lead your employees well, you probably don't have a lot of conflict on the team. Like these are probably these are like common subconscious thoughts. If we have a healthy family that's strong, we don't have a lot of conflict in the home. If I have a healthy relationship with my husband, we don't argue much. And I I think I want to confront the idea that that's true, right? And and say that healthy relationships aren't measured by the quantity of conflict, but by how you move through disconnections. And some couples, honestly, strong personalities are probably gonna have more disconnection at times in their relationship than people who are wired differently, that just naturally kind of move and ebb with the flow of the river, whatever it is. Like you and I probably, probably largely because of my personality, honestly, our dynamic, we do have a lot of conflict. When I say we have a lot of conflict, I mean we have a lot of opportunities in the day where my differences and your differences collide. And over the years, we've gotten better and better and better at navigating through those opportunities for disconnection. That's called conflict resolution. That's called conflict management. And because I'm wired the way that I am and you're wired the way that you are, we have to do that pretty regularly. And our marriage is better for it. Like we're we're actually so much stronger than we were back in the beginning when we didn't know how to do that well. Yeah. So I what you said to me, and I'm just gonna probably like quote you slash maybe I won't get the words exactly right, but what I heard you say a couple weeks ago that I loved was you said, I want a reputation as someone who will confront quickly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but that is what it's like.
SPEAKER_02I want, and you were talking about it in the context of Braveco. You're like, I want to get a reputation amongst leaders, men, people in our community. I want to be the guy who everybody expects. If I mess around, Jason's gonna talk to me. If there's a disconnection, Jason's gonna bring it up so that we can repair it. If there's a like basically, it's kind of like a you're not gonna get away with anything around me. And not even in a negative way, but it's like, no, I care about my leadership. I care about the relationships that exist inside of my leadership. I want to be known as someone who will confront quickly because your heart truly is for team and it's for moving together, it's for connection. And we don't get the benefit of awesome connection with people, whether in our homes or in our leadership worlds, without the ability to manage conflict and have healthy confrontation skills. And I was inspired by that, honestly. I'm like, yeah, I want that reputation too.
A Real Confrontation Story
SPEAKER_01Like, yeah. For when I look at Jesus, I've been thinking a lot about the man Jesus and who he was and some of the different attributes that made him just so such an incredible leader. Yeah. And Jesus's ability to confront in love consistently was so profound. Yeah. And confront the people that he loved the most. And so I know for me, just my nature naturally is how can I help? And I really want to please. I don't want to rock the boat, but more than I don't want to rock the boat, I don't want to disappoint. I love helping people so much. And inside of helping people, that for a long time I was okay with betraying my own needs or conscience, even if it meant like I don't really want to, I don't want to have conflict in between us. I'd rather just like fix it some other way, fix it somehow. As I've gotten older, as we're leading more things, as our family's growing, as Braveco is growing, as the church is growing, the also my my need for greater leadership is growing. And I'm watching just as your kids get older, for instance, if you think about it, it's makes so much sense. Like the lack of confrontation as your kids get older doesn't create more peace, it creates more chaos.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01The lack of confrontation as your business gets bigger doesn't create a better business and more harmony. It actually creates more dysfunction. Yeah. As an organization grows, the same thing. You know, in our government, the same thing. Like anywhere you look, where there is no standard that you're holding. And so I think about it like that like there is a standard that that we are to adhere to in life. And you could look at it as the fruits of the spirit, you could look at it as the Ten Commandments are a set of standards, and our my ethos is a set of standards. And anywhere that I'm not upholding those standards in my life, all of a sudden chaos begins to come in. It's Adam and Eve. And so I think just to kind of shed a little bit of light, like oftentimes people didn't grow up with confrontation leading to health, intimacy, connection. And so it is very scary for most people. I did a confrontation last week with two guys, and this was part of the conversation that I was having with you before I did this conversation conversation. And at first it was really challenging because of the fear.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The fear that the guys had around the conversation, you know, of not being handled well in the past and being really tender and scared of authority and leadership. But my heart is connection. My heart is always how do we get to a place of health and connection or peace or like true peace? And so coming into that, I think really understanding that confrontation is not punishing, it's not proving that I'm right, it's not me controlling you, right? It's not me venting all over you, it's me bringing the truth into the light. It's me caring so much about integrity, standard, that I'm willing to tell you the truth in a way that you can hear it in a way that brings connection. And I think that I think that's the real, that's the real goal, and that's the real challenge in it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I think that's good. And I think it's important to remember that a lot of people, like you described yourself in the past, think that avoiding conflict is loving, and it's really not because if you're avoiding conflict, you're not telling the truth. Yeah. You're not telling the truth about how you feel, you're not telling the truth about how you're experiencing that other person.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that does not lead to connection.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's true.
SPEAKER_02So ultimately what we're talking about is truth telling in a way that brings connection and creates a foundation where that relationship can grow, whether it's an intimate relationship or a work relationship or a relationship between a parent and child that has to be intact in order for that relationship to grow and be really fruitful.
SPEAKER_01You know, it's interesting is my conflict last week, the the confrontation was actually about telling the truth. Right. And a friend had, which I'll keep totally anonymous, a friend had had told me that they didn't have a problem with something that I had done. And just in my leadership, they had said, like, hey, I'm good. No, I'm great. Another friend had told me, like, hey, I think that you hurt this person's feelings. And they came in and talked to me about it. So when I went to that person and said, Hey, did I hurt your feelings? They were like, Oh no, it's great. I had no problem with you. It's all good. And I I walked away and I was like, that doesn't feel like the truth. That that doesn't actually feel honest. It feels like they're afraid to tell me. Right. And so I got both of them on a phone call together and actually on a Zoom, and just said, Man, my heart is to care for you so well. Like, my heart is that all of my relationships that I care about would be would Thrive. And I'm nervous that I didn't get the full truth from you. I'm nervous that when I like even I did something wrong. He doesn't want to tell me that I did something wrong.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I want to take so much ownership because if I don't, he has resentment, he has pain, and there's no way for me to care for him.
SPEAKER_02And there's no way for you guys to build moving forward.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_02And you cap off the amount of connection you're able to have.
SPEAKER_01And at the end of the day, he came back and said, Man, I'm just so afraid that if you knew that I was hurt by you, that you'd ultimately reject me.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01And the crazy thing is, it's the exact opposite. Like if I know that I hurt you, now I can build our relationship.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because I didn't mean to hurt you.
SPEAKER_02But it's the perfect, it's the perfect example of how common it is for people to have been so hurt inside of conflict, yeah, that they're terrified to confront.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I said to him, like, okay, think about how this plays out. Because if you're in our leadership world and if you're a part of my life and we're doing stuff together and building stuff together, but I can't count on a hundred percent that if I hurt your feelings, that you're gonna come and tell me, or that if I'm doing something that you don't approve of, that you're gonna tell me, all of a sudden, like it doesn't take long before this relationship, the next one, the relationships that you're in, like if we can't trust each other with the truth and do conflict together, we're protecting in the beginning, we're protecting harmony, but it doesn't take long before this is chaos everywhere. Right. There's there's no real standard. You're so hurt that you are venting to other people about it, or you're so hurt that you have all these assumptions inside. And I think whether again, whether it's a business or a marriage, a lot of marriages are like that.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like I don't tell you the truth about what's happening in me. And I withhold because of all these reasons, right? Again, I'm afraid of punishment. I just really want peace. I'm afraid of you. And we never actually have a real place of harmony and deep connection. And the truth is, is that inside our connection is more damaged because of the withholding than it is even about the thing that happened.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01And so to me, like this is a massive, this is massive. This is so massive in every relationship in marriage. When we fail to confront, we escalate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's the opposite of what we think will happen. You're afraid that you're gonna escalate inside of confrontation, but it's the opposite. You actually get rejected when you don't go, hey, my feelings are really hurt, or hey, it is a ultimately what's gonna happen. He's gonna get frustrated, or you're gonna get frustrated, or you have this bitterness inside. And so we create the thing that we're trying to actually avoid. And so I think getting to a place where we go back to the basics. I just want to go back to the base basics of how to confront really well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, great.
Conflict As A Hidden House Fire
SPEAKER_01And because we've talked about it enough so much on here in the past, but also if you're in a marriage or if you're with your kids, or if you're in a business where you there's there's pain, there's chaos, there's disconnection, and you're not bringing a healthy daily dose of confrontation in a way that brings connection, you have an environment, you have an ecosystem of fear. That's ultimately what's happening. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_02Two things that have come to mind that I just want to like articulate. Number one, when so we're kind of using conflict and confrontation interchangeably in this conversation. Confrontation, the word, is actually really triggering for a lot of people. Because when I say confront, you think, and I'm talking to you listeners, you think I mean I'm about to come and tell you what you've done wrong.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_02That is not what confrontation is about. No, confrontation is my pro the proactive action I take to approach you and present you with how I'm feeling or what I'm experiencing.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02I'm not coming to tell you what you've done wrong. Now, sometimes that happens, like with my six-year-old this morning when she's giving you the stink eye because she doesn't like how you're setting up her microscope. I tell her, hey, that's not okay to treat dad that way. I'm letting her know, hey, this isn't okay. So there is that, especially when you're in levels of authority with people. And you know, that happens. But but but confrontation is my ability to proactively show up and be truthful with you. Now there's ways to do that. There's ways to show up proactively and be truthful that brings connection. Yeah. And when people are afraid of confrontation, it's because typically they haven't experienced confrontation in a way that brings connection. Yeah. So we'll kind of talk through that a little bit. Can I say one other thing? One other thing that I was that just came to my mind that I feel like maybe it was the Holy Spirit and maybe it will be helpful for somebody to have like a visual. We had this fire inspector come to our house not that long ago because we have an Airbnb. So he had to like, you know, for the permitting process and do a fire inspection. And we we have to have a fire extinguisher on our wall in the place that we rent out. And I was just thinking about how conflict is kind of like a fire. It sometimes it's just a little spark and you can see it and you address it right away. Sometimes it blows up a little bit before you give it some attention. Well, the most destructive house fires happen inside the walls, like with where the electrical is or where the right. So if the fire is hidden.
SPEAKER_01Because you can't see it, because you can't get to it.
SPEAKER_02You can't see it and you can't get to it. If a fire in a house starts inside of a wall or up in the attic or somewhere where it's not accessible, there's going to be so much more damage than if the fire happens in the kitchen sink or the other day. Yeah, it's gonna see. We were cooking, you were cooking, I was cooking smash burgers because that's like my new thing right now. And there was a paper towel on the counter that caught fire.
SPEAKER_01It was right next to the burner. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02On the open flame, a paper towel. And of course, I had this moment of like terror, and Jay took care of it in an instant. When a fire happens in front of your face, you can address it. And so conflict is like that in a relationship. If you're if you're hiding, keeping to yourself, if you're not exposing that flame of conflict, it becomes so much worse and so much more destructive. If you just let it be in the open, you can extinguish that thing pretty quickly, especially if you start when the flame is small. Now, if I had panicked, run away, avoided the problem, right? We would have had a whole like gas fire on our stove and it would have been a nightmare.
SPEAKER_01It was funny because I saw it happening. I saw the thing catch on fire and I said, Hey, babe, that paper towel's on fire right there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're just like that calmly, to wit at which I screamed.
SPEAKER_01And you and then you were like, babe, you were so calm. I was like, Well, did you want me to scream and say, Oh my gosh? And to but to me, it's a really great example of like, I didn't want to, I wanted to escalate the problem, but I didn't want to escalate it. And all those things are right, babe.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, luckily, Jay didn't. Avoid it and walk away to the other room and leave me to myself, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, or you just catch on fire. I think great conflict is not uh just about honesty, it's honesty with skill. And when people say, I'm just being honest, it's like, no, you're punishing me. You're using conflict to punish me, not to build connection. And that's what people hate. That's the damaging side. It's destructive. Yes, it is. And so I want to just go through and really quick and talk through how do we do conflict well and just give a quick refresher.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I think so. And and while we talk through this, I really want people to put aside their personality differences because there's people, people consider certain personality types, like they're good at conflict. I'm like, no, being good at conflict has nothing to do with a personality type.
SPEAKER_01No, it's true. Like most people that I know that think they're good at conflict are good at they don't mind fighting.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And that is where it gets destructive. And people don't want to engage in conflict with people like that because they just are there to fight. They're comfortable with boxing gloves on.
SPEAKER_01Yep. So to me, the first step is you have to have the right, if you don't have the right motivation, then you're just gonna try to win an argument or cast a bunch of judgment on somebody. The motivation is has to be rooted in love.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
How To Confront With Skill
SPEAKER_01And we just see that with Jesus every single time. Like he's cloaked in love and is looking for connection. Yeah. And the the next step is you have to be willing to talk about yourself. Because when you do, when you start in conflict and your goal is to talk about them and what they're doing and what you think they're doing and why you thought that they did it, everybody hates that. As soon as Lauren says to me, You don't like to X, Y, and Z, you don't take care of me like you, like you take care of your friends or your hunting or your fishing. I just want to poker in the eye. As opposed to saying, I feel really lonely, I feel sad, I'm in pain, I feel really confused. When you talk about yourself, it puts the conversation in a place where there can be a listener and there can be a talker, as opposed to somebody that's punishing and another person that's defending. And so the greatest key that I think I ever learned in conflict was by the Gottmans. And it was this it's that harsh startups fuel bad endings. And so if you start soft, however you want the conflict to go, that's how you have to start. So if you take the end, like how do you want it to end? I want it to end lovingly and caring. I want Lauren to feel seen and known and loved, then I bring that to the very beginning. Babe, can we talk? I really want you to feel cared for and I want to feel cared for. This morning was really painful for me. And I don't want to walk around like that, and I know that you don't either. It sets the tone for a conversation that we can both listen to because it's soft. If you start harsh, if you start with a, I'm really angry by how you always X, Y, and Z, that conversation is going to be very, very hard. You never listen, you always shut me down. All those types of things are gonna be really painful. And so if you're gonna do conflict well, you have to start soft. If you don't start soft, then you're literally trying to scale a very hard mountain to scale, as opposed to like, let's go on a walk together down a flat road.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. The second step would be to stay on one issue at a time. And I think this is where, especially if you don't allow yourself to stay current in your conflict resolution, then the temptation is to pile all kinds of accusations and experiences on top of one another and bring this whole case. And you know that's that's a really bad idea because it is impossible, especially for the listener, to be flooded by, you know, accusation after accusation after accusation, it's much easier to swallow when you're talking about one issue at a time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think step number three is to regulate before you communicate.
SPEAKER_02And that's I've had to work on that. That's probably like my number one thing I've had to work on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, totally. If you go into a conversation and you are dysregulated, now you're fighting two things, right? What's going on inside of you, and this like being stretched really, really, really thin. And whatever the person, whatever else the person does, you have no bandwidth. Yeah. So dysregulation creates a lack of bandwidth, emotional bandwidth. And so if you're regulated, if you take some time and you're like, man, I'm really mad right now. I need to think through how I start this, I need to calm down, I need to to really slow everything down. It it will save the conversation so much.
SPEAKER_02You know, and I think that's this is where most people get it wrong, I think, is because most people wait to have conflict or wait to confront until they're very dysregulated. Most people stuff it down or try to ignore it or avoid it until you're actually so dysregulated, you're not in control of yourself and you freak out on the other person, whether it's an employee or a child or a spouse. So really being regulated. And here's here's a rule of thumb for myself is I when Jay and I get into a really big disconnection, I try really hard not to talk about it in the moment. I try to go and take a shower and gather my thoughts. And it's not me going and like creating a case against him in my mind that I'm gonna bring to him. It's actually me trying to go, okay, what's the truth? What do I need? How do I feel? What's happening for me? So that I can, inside of a really self-controlled state, approach the conversation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's real. Two more things, just real quick. One, listen for the deeper thing, right? Often the thing that somebody's bringing to you is goes further, it goes below the surface of what they're actually talking about. And if you get really good listening for what they're actually saying, not just what they're talking about, your relationships are gonna get so much better.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then I think the last one that's really, really important is couples that repair well really enjoy their relationships. Yeah. So a lack of repair looks like you still have a bunch of resentment, pain. You have not, you have not reconciled the conversation. And oftentimes you can see it happening in real time. Like we've all been in a conversation that started harsh, that is in the middle of of chaos, and you're just like, gosh, I hate this so much. A repair attempt would look like, babe, I started that so poorly. Is it okay if is it okay if I just take a five-minute break and come back and we try again? Yeah. A repair attempt can look like, hey, it sounds like it sounds like you're really frustrated about this. There's probably a really good reason for that. I just can't do this conversation like this. Can we try over? A repair attempt is any attempt to get it back to a place of where you where we can actually have a civil conversation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, de-escalating it.
Repair Attempts That De Escalate
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And so doing a a great job at repairing, it can look like it could even look like validating somebody, like, hey, I this sounds really painful for you, and it makes a lot of sense. I want to hear you. I can't, I can't hear you when it's when when you're yelling judgments at me, but I do want to hear you. Or I'm not wanting to attack you. I think the conversation may have started like that. Can I try over again? Anything like that. The most important thing in my mind is it's back to what I said to you. I want to get really good. I want to be known for. I want to, I want my the ecosystems inside of the cultures that I'm in, in our marriage, at church, in Braveco, with our kids. I want an ecosystem that's healthy, where there's lots of trust, where there's where needs get met, where the standard of Jesus is present. And the best way that I know how to do that, that I've learned how to do that, and what I really the lack of the lack of confrontation, the lack of I think real connection, the lack of a standard and upholding a standard. I've just, as I get older, I watch how that more and more and more breaks down the very things that we want the most. It breaks relationships, it breaks marriages, it breaks businesses, it breaks churches. And our ability to, I think the dedication to getting really good at it, getting feedback in these areas, practicing on a regular basis is really key.
SPEAKER_02I agree. I think it's one of the most important things we could do in our leadership and for our families and in our communities. So, guys, hopefully this episode has been helpful for you. Share it and comment about it. If so, we'd love, we'd love to hear your comments. Hey, also, if you guys have topics you'd like for us to cover in this podcast, or if you have questions you would like us to include in an in an upcoming QA episode, we just want to make sure you know that you can email us at datesmatesbabies at gmail.com. That comes right to me and I'll kind of field those questions. So be sure to let us know if you have something on your mind. All right, everybody. Hope you have a great week. We will see you back here next time.