The Only Thing Better than Being Right
And no, it's not Cheetos and milk you total weirdo.
Mea Culpa
Mea Culpa is a Latin for “I fucked up and I’m sorry.” In the interest of full transparency, I fucked up by doing the exact thing (minus the Cheetos and milk) I’m telling you not to a few days ago. I’m writing this to teach you something while also reteaching myself something that needs reminding.
Some Roman History
It’s 280 B.C.E. (in other words, a long damn time ago). Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus had just defeated the Romans at the Battle of Heraclea. Then in 279 B.C.E he did it again by defeating those Roman hordes Battle of Asculum.
You’d think he’s be celebrating, right? Wrong. He fucked himself by destroying his armies and losing his best commanders. Meanwhile the Romans, had an almost infinite supply of men and resources. He scrapped his campaign. So in other words, he won but he lost.
”If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined.”
— Plutarch
As if that wasn’t bad enough, they named winning while getting your ass kicked after the guy. A victory where the cost of winning is so high that it wasn’t worth it in the first place is called a Pyrrhic Victory. Twenty three hundred years later and his name lives on in infamy. What a burn.
Other than watching Gladiator fifteen times, that’s pretty much the extent of my Roman history knowledge. Let’s switch gears boys.
Does This Sound Like You?
You’re in the kitchen after a hard day at work rummaging around for Cheetos and milk (fucking weirdo). Your wife comes in and she’s upset about something that seems less important to you that your messed up snack fetish.
You stop and listen and she tells you she’s super pissed because you forgot to put the garbage out…again. You “always” forget to put the garbage out and she’s sick of reminding you.
Being the champ you are, you respond with something like, “I hate how you say I always forget the garbage. I clearly don’t always forget the garbage. In fact I do it a hell of a lot more times than I forget it.”
The conversation spirals down the shitter with you both arguing about how often you don’t take out the garbage. Finally, she gives up and says, “Fine. You don’t always forget the garbage. Can you please just take it out?”
And you’ve won the argument…right? Pause now, and go reread that part about Pyrrhus. I’ll be here when you get back.
Where’d You Go Wrong?
Let’s go back to the beginning when you’re in the quiet kitchen peacefully looking to make a comforting bowl of Cheetos and milk. Everything is right with the world and it’s about to get even better.
Then your wife comes in and wrecks the moment talking about the garbage. And because she’s upset, she exaggerates the problem, and your defensive 12 year-old comes out. Just like he did when your mom gave you shit.
And then you do what you often do. Go on offense because, just like on they say on ESPN, the best defence is a great offense. You focus on winning. You want to prove your right.
Here’s the rub, son. By “winning” you’ve made your wife feel you don’t understand what she’s thinking or feeling and you’ve fucked up your relationship just a little bit more. Does it still sound like “winning” to you?
The Better Way
First of all, let me translate what, “you always forget the garbage” means.
It means something like, “I’m feeling frustrated and angry right now. You said you would take care of this task and you didn’t. And now I have to remind you. And I have a million other unseen things I have to think about that no one appreciates, like managing the relationship with your GD mother, and I just want this fucking thing off my plate.”
Let me give you an idea you can repeat over and over and over in your head until it becomes part of your personal operating system.
BEING EFFECTIVE IS BETTER THAN BEING RIGHT
Before we move on, go stand in front of a mirror and repeat that to yourself 30 times out loud. If you feel dumb doing it, remind yourself how shitty it feels to have botched another opportunity to connect with your wife.
Effective means being able to achieve a desired result.
The key words in that definition are “desired result.” You need to be clear on what you want so you give yourself the best chance of achieving it. Here are a few ways…
Define Your Core Values
One way to get clear on your desired result is to create your core values with your wife. When those are clear, you can frame your desired result as, “I want to live our core values right now.”
This isn’t “woo-woo shit'“. It’s crucial. Having a set of values that forms the foundation of your relationship as a couple. When you define them and talk about them, it’s amazing how clarifying they can be. If Core Values sounds too lame to you, call them something macho like Operating Principles.
Here’s an exercise you can do with your wife to discover and document them:
Having a clear set of core values is one of those proactive things you can do that pays dividends in all kinds of situations; from aligning on how you spend time and money, to how you raise kids, to how you think about and plan your future to how you navigate conflict in a way that brings you closer together.
Unless one of your core values is, “We’re assholes to each other”, there’s a good chance taking a second to reflect on them before you respond will help you be more effective.
Once they're created, here’s how you get clear on your desired outcome: Your wife comes in and says, “You always forget to take the garbage out.” Instead of immediately firing back you remind yourself, “Live our core values dickwad.”
It’s that simple. Now you understand your desired outcome. It’s to think, talk and act in alignment with your core values. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Start getting the reps in now.
Don’t worry about what your wife is doing. You have very little control over whether your wife lives your couple core values, but you have total control over whether or not you decide to.
Now that you’re clear on your desired outcome, you can be intentional about doing your best to achieve it. In other words, EFFECTIVE.
Ask Yourself This Question
Sometimes the answer to what being effective looks like is not obvious. In that case, a great question to ask yourself in the moment is:
What does being effective look like right now?
Here are some examples of what some desired outcomes could like like in the situation I described earlier:
I want my wife to feel seen, heard and understood about this issue
I want to navigate this disagreement while becoming closer
I want to step up and own my shit when it comes to missing garbage day
I want to understand what else is causing her to feel overwhelmed and upset
I want to model what being a good conflict engager looks like for my kids who are probably around the corner listening (the little bastards)
I want her to keep managing the relationship with my mother (I’m kidding - I love you mom).
There are a few benefits to asking yourself a question like this:
It creates a pattern interrupt. I’ll talk more about that in a future post but in a nutshell, it breaks you out of the “feel attacked so attack” pattern that we tend to fall into.
It redirects your energy away from reacting towards solution-finding. The questions we ask ourselves and each other are fateful. They change the future before we even have an answer.
It gives you a chance of finding an actual fucking answer that could help you in the moment.
Ask Yourself This Other Question
If you end up reading this SubStack for a while you’re going to learn that I LOVE questions. Questions form the basis of all my professional work.
Here’s another question you can ask yourself in the moment:
What’s a question I can ask to learn more?
In this case you are clear on your objective. It’s to learn more so you can better understand the other person’s point of view. So by asking yourself that question and then asking your wife a question, you will definitely learn more. You’ve achieved your desired outcome. Again, in other words, EFFECTIVE
Wrapping Up
You can win and still lose everything. I want you to win together. If you’ve made it this far, I think you want that too.
We too often think on conflict as a zero-sum game. One person wins and the other person loses. That thinking can often lead to a situation where both people lose. A better idea is always to try to create a win-win.
You ultimately have total control over deciding what you want in any given situation. Taking the time, even if it’s only a few seconds, to think about what you want is the first step in process of behaving in a way that will help you get what you want.
And when you think, talk and act in a way that creates your desired outcome then, my son, you have just become EFFECTIVE. And being effective feels very damn good.
In fact, in my opinion, being effective is way, way better than being right.
Now get after it. And for the love of god, please consider coming up with a better snack!