Pain in the A$$

There's someone in your life right now who just gets under your skin. Maybe it's a family member who turns every gathering into a minefield. A colleague who makes everything harder than it needs to be. A partner who seems wired completely differently than you and you cannot figure out how to stop bumping into each other. And the really fun part? You can't just walk away. You live with them, work with them, or married into the same family as them. Here's something that might actually help: researchers who study relationships for a living say that most of the problems in your closest relationships aren't actually fixable. They're permanent. And that sounds depressing until you realize what it means - because there's a way to navigate permanent differences that most people never figure out.

This Sunday I'm going to use one of the greatest creative partnerships in history to show you exactly what happens when you get this wrong - and what it looks like when you finally get it right. If there's someone in your life who drives you a little crazy, this one's for you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Thank you. Before I get to there, I need you to frame this conversation. I want you to think about somebody in your life, a relationship that matters to you, that you can't get out of. This isn't somebody on the street that you, you know, drive away from. No, no, no. I'm talking family member, neighbor, colleague at work, something that's difficult. Don't look at the person if you're sitting at them. No elbows. Hold that person in your mind. You can't get away from them. You can't, you know, maybe you're related, maybe you live with them, maybe you sleep in the same bed with them. But the relationship is hard. You're just such different people. You want different things. You react to things differently. Hold that relationship in your mind as we talk today. Because difference can be handled on two ends of a spectrum. I want to start this message by telling you what happens when you handle differently difference poorly. To do that, I need you to imagine 1957, England. You're at a church. It's not a church like us. It's like an old school, like steeple church, like formal church. And then Friday nights, they let a band or like a bunch of bands come and play there. It was kind of the only place you could go play. And so there's a band playing, and on the stage is a young John Lennon. He is ripping it up. Not playing. He's he's making up improved rock lyrics in the moment. He's nothing but energy. He's got a guitar in his hand, but not only does he not know how to play it, he doesn't even know how to tune it. It's just a prop. And he's just nothing but like energy and excitement and passion. That day, in the crowd was a young Paul McCartney. He's still wearing his school uniform. Think like straight cut or clean-cut kid. For whatever reason, he goes to the back of the stage and meets John Lennon. But what you don't realize is where John is passion and almost no skill on the guitar, Paul is a musical prodigy. So different. He takes the guitar from John. First, he tunes it because it's not even in tune. And then out of nowhere, he rips a little Richard song that plays it perfectly. John is watching him, just like, what am I seeing? This kid is insanely good. Two men completely different at a crossroads. The idea is that John looks at Paul and realizes something. He's like, without that guy, I will be playing church shows, and that's as far as this band's ever gonna get. With him, we could be something incredible. Remember last week? I told you guys there's this idea that you can break people down. That's not break people down. There's seven core attributes or seven attributes that someone has identified. We probably all carry parts or all of them. Maybe we highlight certain ones. The list is up here. It's explore, people who like novelty, seeking curiosity. Any explorers in the room? I can put up two hands. Come on, be proud. Put explorer up. We're gonna get there. Nest builders, connection, belonging, being needed. Any nest builders in the room? Thank you, Trevor. Hallelujah. Looking at my wife, like honey, would you like to put up your head? Uh commander in chief, control, fairness, confidence. You're not allowed to put the hand up either, buddy. I'm watching you. These are people who like to have control of things. Here's John and Paul. John has some commander-in-chief in him. At least that's the way I read the story. And he's looking at Paul, going, That kid can outplay me all day long. If I bring him into the band, I will lose control. It's a moment. He realizes difference. Centralist, this is the one I know. So weird. I can tell you guys to put up your hand for all of them. This is one I'm not allowed to put. Get you put up your hand up. So inside, be like this. Beep. Sentralists. Sex, sensuality, pleasure is important in you. Your brain goes there often. Energy czar. People who do not like to waste energy. Do we want to use the word waste energy? That's an energy czar statement. I waste energy all the time. If I feel I have any energy at the end of the night, I'm like, I did not do my day properly. I need to get rid of it. So I lift weights until I'm exhausted. Energy czars think that's the dumbest thing you could possibly do. My mom was an energy czar. Naps were her friend. Okay, Jester. People who loved recreation joking play. This was Carmen and Jeff. They would wait for half an Jerry. Jerry's back there. He's one of my coaches. Jerry, you said I could talk about you if ever I wanted to, right? Can I do it in this moment? Jerry likes or doesn't like his doctors, and he has many of them based on whether they'll joke with him in this. You know, it's like, hey, we need to cut off your leg. If they're gonna laugh after giving him bad news, he's totally into them. If they're like, I can save your leg, but they're serious, he's like, that's garbage. I need a new doctor. This person's useless to me. Fair, Jerry? Pretty much. Sentry. Sentries are people who navigate the world through threat. If you have some anxiety around the world, chances are you have sentry, defense, vigilance, safety, closing doors, locking windows, making sure that your back's to something, not being scared. Your startled responses like that. Can you see which ones resonate with you? Can you see how that shapes how you move through the world? John and Paul, two men, totally different. They come together in that moment. John takes down his commander in chief, backs it down, and says, I will play fair with you. Remember, commander in chief, we like fairness. Really like fairness. Like, really like fairness. They make a deal. Whatever we build, whatever I start, you will finish. If I start writing a song, you will finish it. If you start writing a song, I will finish it. They become a team. They realize they're totally different, but they become a team. And we get the Beatles. Two men harnessing difference to create that. Any Beatles fans in the room? What's your favorite song? Yell it out. Hey Jude, nice, great one. Oh darling, love it. Blackbird, fantastic. Incredible, isn't it? They wrote so much good music. Two men who are completely different created the biggest band, arguably, in the world. Until Paul Epstein, their manager. He died of an overdose suddenly. What was two men who were different navigating their difference to create the Beatles? Something broke. They were devastated. Devastated. John, who had a troubled past, Paul was almost like his father figure. And he was he was he was grieving and he didn't know what to do. Paul, Nest Builder. He's going, no, no, this is my family. Us four. We're family. We got to keep this thing together. And he jumps in, he starts scheduling rehearsals and like putting themselves on a skit a deadline, and we're gonna get this next album up by this time. And never how the band had worked.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

But Paul's going, I can't let us drift apart.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Meanwhile, John flips from commander in chief to explore. Starts pursuing whatever he can that's new, meets Yoko Ono. She is full on Explorer. They go into this crazy that. Now all of a sudden John goes, No, no, no, I want Yoko Ono in the room. In fact, they I want her. You put a bed in the middle of the studio, and she laid on the bed, and now she's calling the shots. John leaves everything behind. His kid, his marriage, everything. He's on like whatever's new, I'm there. So he dealt with his grief. Meanwhile, Paul is like, no, no, come back, come back, come back. Two men who for years navigated this beautifully. Suddenly they're differences. They needed to replace their manager. John wanted somebody, makes sense, right? Explorer. He wanted a manager that honored that. Paul, on the other hand, wanted a different manager, somebody who could like navigate this correctly and get it all taken care of. Two men, again, their differences pulling them apart. Finally, they couldn't they couldn't solve this. So they called the rest of the band in, uh Ringo and George Harris, and said, Okay, you vote. They both sided with John. Paul wouldn't even sign the document. September 1969. John says the words that ended it all. Paul, I want a divorce. The subtext is Paul, you were dead to me. The biggest man in the world fell apart. Not because two men were different. For years, that difference created the Beatles, created all the music we love. They navigated it beautifully. And then at some point, for whatever reason, the difference became the thing that tore them apart. The moral of the story as I see it is this difference does not need to lead to divorce. Difference, when harnessed beautifully, when navigated beautifully, can create the beatles. So the question today is, how are we navigating difference?

SPEAKER_01 12:29

We're not the same people.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

How are we navigating it? This whole series has been about how do we handle relationships, coupled relationships, family relationships, neighbor relationships, work colleagues, school colleagues? All of it. How do we handle it skillfully? Because if not, I started the first week, I talked about Jacob and Esau. Jacob steals the company from Esau. And again, I said, did he not think that at some point Esau is going to find out that he stole the company? Did he not think that his actions today are gonna he's gonna pay the price for them? I decided not to put up my picture, but remember Future Vince, that old bugger with the long hair? Though that is the person, future you is who's dealing with your choices, the consequences of your choices. I talked about how I tricked Jeff once. That got stored in his long-term memory and haunted us for years. The things we do now, if we're skillful or if we're unskillful, future us will live with that. It's a bit of a sober moment, isn't it? Then I started to rebuild. What if we learned how to do this well? I started talking about bidding. Who was who's here for the bidding one? We had a bunch of people on the thing. Oh, that one's it's a bit of a you start to see something that you don't want to see. There's three ways to handle bidding. Somebody does something, you know. My wife will show turn up her nose at me, or will bid a party and she'll look across at me. Or last night she she wanted to show me something on social media, and I was in the middle of watching a video about something. You bid. Gottman said that's the core piece of relationship building. This idea that says, hey, in your relationship, it lives or dies based on how you respond to that. Gottman said there's Surrey Schwans is turning towards. That's oh hey, that video. What? They're doing what online? That's AI. Come on, that can't be real. That's turning towards. Turning against is uh babe. I'm in the middle of her freaking video here. I'm taking a class. Can you please wait for later? It's turning against. Turning away is the one that damages the relationship most. It's not even acknowledging the bid.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

It's brutal, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 15:17

When you realize, oh wait, I have done that. Time and time again. The next week we looked at Emily. She she looked up this idea of how do we read the people around us? So the bid, we look at the bid and we see, we we see the person, we go, oh wait, wait. I thought this bid was for sadness, but it's actually for frustration. She taught us to read emotions. Do you have the picture for me? She said there's seven core emotions that when you can see them, when you can read them, you can actually respond to something. Just one second, that's not the one. Put it down. It's okay. Clearly didn't send my notes in properly, did they? My bad. Sadness, anger, disgust, fear, and a few others that I forgot. The idea is if the bid comes to you and you match the emotion, it will resonate as a turn towards. If the bid comes towards you and you miss it, it will feel like a turn away or a turn against. Remember, Emily talked about her daughter bidding at the sewing machine. She was bidding frustration. Her mom thought she was bidding help. When someone bids, seeing the emotion that they're doing helps us turn towards if we choose. Last week I built this whole idea from Gottman about these emotional command systems. It was interesting. As I left the service, people kept talking to me about their different systems. Oh, yeah, that's mine. Oh, I'm like this. Oh, that. Now, this isn't exhaustive. Even their original work says this isn't exhaustive, but it's a way of becoming mindful of difference. I started off by saying, can you see yourself? This week somebody called me. I wanted to make a change in one of our systems. He called me and he's like, so explorer. I was like, oh, totally. That is exactly what I just did. I changed something because I got bored. Don't you love it when someone calls you out and it's totally right? It's one of those moments where you're like, but the realization is I am an explorer. I'm passionate about that. I'm also commander in chief. If I don't have control, I get a little cranky. Now, here's what I wanted you to do. The relationship I asked you to think about, right? The one that you can't get rid of, but that's hard, that's challenging right now. Here's the first step I want you to do of navigating differences well. Ask yourself, what are their top emotional command systems?

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Take a second.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

You're a commander in chief and you're married to a nest builder. Your neighbor is a jester and you're a I don't know, centralist. How's that gonna work? You're making jokes and they're making inappropriate advances? I don't know. However, that works. If you have that one, tell me how it's solved that one. But can you feel the sometimes I should use notes? The number of people who gestures, you know, someone who likes to make practical jokes with a sentry. A sentry hates being scared. A gesture loves scaring people and loves being scared. This does not work well together, does it? Again, please do not elbow your person next to you. We're gonna do something with the person next to you right now, but not right now. Once I saw this, I realized I was an explorer. At 16, me and my buddy jumped in his 1976 Honda Civic. We had one of those old school uh maps, you know, where it's like a book, and you get to the edge of the page, and it's like J12, and you go to that page, and that's the beginning of the next. We literally left from southern Manitoba on a two-week trip to go snowboarding. 16 years old, sleeping in the car. My mom is a nest builder, energy czar. That poor woman. She's like, Can you call me every day? No. Right now I have like she died early for a reason. She had me. I'm sorry, mom. She's up there in heaven doing release to me. Right? I didn't realize what she was, and she didn't realize me. We could have handled that so much better. Me and my dad, both commander-in-chiefs. I used to work for him in his shop. All we did is fight over who's in control. Like hours every day. That's all we did. Now I would have gone like, hey dad, can I have a part that I get to control and you have the rest? He'd have been like, Yeah, okay, you take care of like the gluing station. Okay, great. I will make it the best gluing. He was an upholster, we glued a lot. You do that. I will make the best gluing station in the history of the world. Can you see the people in your life who are different? Can you see how they're different? There's this idea that says when we start to realize difference, we can go one of two ways. Spectrum again. Oftentimes what happens, and let's just see if this has ever happened to you, and then I'm gonna just flip it around. Has anybody ever made stated their preference as kind of like an imperative? The windows need to be closed. It's the right way to have a house, to close the windows and lock the doors. Don't put up your hand, but anyone had someone speak this way to you? No, no. The family needs to be together. That's the right answer. We're a family. We need to come together. Someone's saying, Oh, you're monogamous? Yeah. Welcome to 1980s. Like we've evolved past that. The core of what's going on is they're taking their emotional command system, their preferences, and making them statements of morality. Can you feel the difference? Remember a couple weeks ago I told you the prodigal son story? Younger son has explorer, goes off to explore, loses all his money, comes back. Father's nest builder. Like, of course you can come back. Of course you can. The nest is full again. Goes to the older brother who's been running the show, commander in chief, saying, Hey, come, we're having a party. Your brother's back. The older brother's like, Yeah, no. Blew all your money. This is not fair. I've worked my butt off. This makes no sense. Meanwhile, now that's the story. Let me show you the quotes from the story. Can you show me the first quote? This is what the older brother says to the father. It's not fair. Remember that word fair? Commander in chiefs. It's not fair that you have a party for my brother and you've never thrown a party from me. Don't you like the never word? These are words we use when we want to make our preferences into absolute statements. You never. This is bad. You're horrible. Now, what would have happened if the father, or sorry, the older brother would have just been honest of his commander-in-chief preferences? Can you put the next line for me? He could have said, Dad, could you throw me a party sometimes too to celebrate all I've done for the family business? That would feel really good. Can you feel the difference? Let me show you one more. Can you show me the next line? Why can't oh, this is the this is the nest builder father who for the nest builder father, family is everything. Coming together is everything. The older brother not coming is like a catastrophe. Why can't you come to the party so we can be together, you ungrateful wretch, right? Can you feel the subtext here? What if the father would have said this? It would make me feel really good, like my family's complete. If you could come to the party, I'm throwing to welcome your brother back. If someone said the first line to you, how would you respond? Defensive. Pushback. This isn't fair. This is dumb. How dare you! Do you know he blew all your money? What about the second one? When we moral the I don't know the right word for it, I'm gonna call it moral preferencing. Making your preferences a moral imperative. We have to spend time together as a family. We need to be sexual this much. We have to have this, right? This has to be this way. When you do it that way, this thing collapses into a fight.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

When you honor your differences as preferences, something shifts. Something beautiful happens.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

You're not fighting over whether my preference is right. You're asking the person to meet you exactly where it matters. Okay, once you realize there's a difference, you've avoided making your preferences moral statements. The next piece you need to learn is this. And I'm gonna, me and my wife learned it from Stan Tack. And in fact, my wife said this to me not 12 hours ago on the couch last night. She told me I could say this. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to take that person in your mind, that relationship you can't get away from, that is struggling. That you that's not easy to be with. I want you to imagine that you're standing. If you're married to them, you can stand holding your hands. If you're not married, you can stand far away. So you're here, they're there. And I want you to pretend you're looking at them in the eyes. Got there? Now I want you to read this line with me. Put it up for me. I take you as my pain in the ass. Let's try that again. I take you as my pain in the ass. If you're married today, look, or if you're coupled, look at the person right now and just say, I take you as my pain in the ass. And they're gonna say, I take you as my pain in the ass. Last night my wife's like, I take you as my pain in the ass. And I'm like, ooh, don't use my words against me. Can you feel the shift? Difference is not necessarily easy. We need a whole cocktail of hormones inside of us when we first meet as couples to get through the fact that they're gonna be the pain in your ass. But we need about 16 months to create a baby if that's how you roll. And then they are a pain in the ass. Kids, you can say this to your parents, not your dad today. It's Father's Day you're not allowed to say it on Father's Day, but tomorrow you can say to your dad, you are a pain in my ass. Parents, you're not allowed to say it to your kids, but you can think it. You can look at that kid and be like, but it's I take you as different. And I understand that that difference is not easy all the time. When me and my wife say it, it's like, yeah, we love each other. Sometimes I'm a pain in her ass. She's looking at me going, like, dude, you're being a pain in the ass right now. And I'm like, Yeah. Because who I am is different. I can't get rid of it. You can't get rid of it. You can try and honor it, but you can't get rid of difference and the challenge of difference. That's sobering, isn't it? I take you as my pain in the ass. The final thing, actually, there's two more things I want to say. I I get to wear my favorite shoes today. Can you all see my shoes? This is where you go. Ooh, ooh, nice shoes, Clausen. These are LaSportiva Guide all leather. You couldn't even get them in Canada. Imported from Europe. Now we're talking. Now we're talking. And stylish as hell, right? Come on, people. No. I have ungodly big feet and they're very narrow. Go online, I search. For months, I'm searching. I find a guy who's selling these shoes for 50 bucks on marketplace. Nice! I feel so validated all of a sudden. So I drive out, he's over by COP. There's like that new area in there. I drive up this place and I'm like kind of feeling like, you know, that IKEA commercial? Like, start the car, right? Like 50 bucks. These are 250 pair of shoes. Oh, I love you guys today. So I get $250 pair of shoes for $50. I'm feeling bad. I'm like, should I give the guy an extra $50 just because like he comes out, he's hobbling, he's broken his foot. He'll never be able to wear these shoes again. He's got like 10 pairs of shoes. They're all in his closet. He's just like, if you would use these shoes and get them out of my house, that would be a gift. And I'm like, 50 bucks. Start the car. Two people, when they're different, can trade something and both be better off for it. Difference allows that. John and Paul, if it would have been both energy and energy, it wouldn't have worked. Or guitar prodigy and guitar prodigy, they'd be like, you know, the other guy's like, no, it's like that. You know, it's like, no, it doesn't work. Instead, what happened is John brought the energy and Paul brought the musicianship. They traded. If you are ninja level right now, you're asking yourself, how do I use this with that pain in the ass person? That's the question we ask. If the person, you know, my mom, my mom was an energy czar, you know what she would always have ready for us? Snacks. I swear I could have gone on a two-week snowboard trip in the back of a civic, and we would not have needed to get food at all because my mom would have filled that thing up with snacks because running out of food for her is anathema. Instead, I just left and didn't tell her. Can you see how you can trade your next door neighbor who's sentry, who's driving you nuts? Well, let them take over protecting your space. I have a friend who's crazy high century, off the chart sentry. He's so, I shouldn't say it that way. He is significantly more, has more money than I do. Significantly, because companies hire him to handle their internet security. He harnessed his whatever that is, and the company harnessed whatever they have, and they said, let's trade. How could you take that person who is a pain in your butt and trade so you're both better out for it? Nest builder. Plan the family gathering. If you have a commander-in-chief, make sure that they get to pick where you're going, but they will collect the money from everybody who owes you money. Nest builders hate collecting money. Commander in chiefs, money for sure, I'll do it. Done. Could it be that you could trade with that person? Now, this is like ninja ninja level. But it's what made the Beatles incredible. Could it be the difference when harnessed beautifully is what can create something so special? The final thing I want to say, and I want to take us back to the Bible. Remember, I talked about the story of Jacob and Esau steals the company. We don't know how much longer later, but they they come back together. Esau forgives him. That's a whole message. Trevor said a whole series. Probably he's right, a whole series of how that happened. They don't say, it just says Esau connects them again. But here's the last piece that I want you to see. Difference isn't necessarily like this. You have to honor difference. Here's what happens. Esau says, Okay, Jacob, finally we have family back together. Come live next to me. Be my neighbor. Jacob wisely says, Um, I don't want to push my animals too fast, so we're gonna go a little slower. And actually, we're gonna stop at the town before your place, and we're gonna live there. Difference does not mean this. Navigating life with someone who's different says, I probably need a certain amount of space. We need a certain amount of space. We need a nice eight-foot fence between me and my neighbor. We can navigate the world well, but with the eight-foot fence. No gate. What is the optimal distance that you and that person need to navigate life and honor both your differences? Differences created the Beatles. One of the most successful bands in the world, creating some of the most memorable music of our time. Handled skillfully. Difference handled not skillfully destroyed the Beatles. Jacob and Esau said, We can be different when we live the right distance apart. We now have a choice. We can go the way of the Beatles. We can divorce the person, and divorce in the broadest sense, from divorce marriage to, you know, calling bylaws on your next your neighbor to, you know, undermining somebody at work, you know, whatever that is. You've seen all the ways it goes badly. We can have a divorce, or we can use these ways to navigate difference, and if we can harness difference so that we can live life as the Beatles. Where are you today? Divorce end of the spectrum or the Beatles end of the spectrum. John and Paul were the same people they were through that entire space. The only difference is how they managed it. Let them be a cautionary tale. There is a way to navigate this beautifully. That's Jacob and Esau. Or divorce. As you go today, make an intention. I take you as my pain in the ass. It's a way to shift our minds to say, you know what? Yeah, difference isn't easy. And yet, this can be something beautiful. If it's a really cranky neighbor, let's beautiful might be too strong of a word. This can be something less painful than it currently is. May we walk away from here today skillful. Honoring difference skillfully. And may we find the perfect distance between the people in our lives so that we can create something beautiful together. Amen. Hell yes. Have a great week, everyone.