Marriage Startup Episode 36
[Intro music]
LESLIE
Welcome to the Marriage Startup Podcast, Episode 36 - Compromise, the
Champion of Mediocrity. In this episode Laura and I talk about why we
don't compromise with each other, or in our marriage, and why we think
that's healthy. Strong opinions - we have them!
LAURA
This is the first of a two-parter. Our next episode is going to be where we
talk about what we do instead of compromise.
LESLIE
And of course we have the heart of the show, "What we're going to do for
each other this week".
LAURA
I'm your host, Laura Camacho - co-founder of Glimmering, partner in Wild
Goose Guidance, and I just want to apologize for all the coughing you're
going to hear off mic.
LESLIE
Yes, because now we both have this allergy cough or whatever it is, and so
we apologize in advance. And by the way, I'm your co-host, Leslie
Camacho. I am the CEO of Haywire, a newly formed company that we've
started with four amazing people that I'm sure we'll be talking about in the
future. It's the guys behind the Haywire podcast which you can find at
haywire.io, plus the magnificent designer Derek Nelson, and as you can
tell I'm really excited about it. But more importantly, I am the Chief
Espresso Officer of the Camacho household.
Done with the script.
LAURA
All right.
LESLIE
Or I guess most of that wasn't in the script, actually [laughter]. All right, so
we have some community news and updates that are really important to
share.
As a reminder, this is our new publishing schedule. This should be coming
to you late Monday/early Tuesday. We switched that up last week, so you
got Episode 35 on time last week as promised, and this is going to be
delivered on time as promised, and all the episodes are going to be on
time as promised. Hopefully. With all our might, we're going to try.
LAURA
[chuckles]
LESLIE
What else is going on?
LAURA
Do we want to talk about what happened this week and why we are not -
LESLIE
No.
LAURA
Okay [chuckles].
LESLIE
Let's move on.
LAURA
Okay, so we only have two more episodes - this one and the next one and then we have our season break.
LESLIE
That's right. We are almost done with Season 2. So specifically, the first
week of May there's not going to be a Marriage Startup episode. That's
going to be our season break between Season 2 and Season 3. And we
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also want to start talking about Season 3 right now, and we'll bring it up
again at the beginning of next week's episode.
To kick off Season 3, we are going to be doing a series on health that we
are co-producing with our friend, Dr. Marc Wagner, who runs a site called
BioFlourish where he is after - and I quote here - "nothing short of human
flourishing, all the aspects of food, movement, sleep, stress, and
connectedness that make us thrive as individuals and as a species, and
the only hope we've ever known - Planet Earth".
If you are a long time listener of the Marriage Startup Podcast, you will
remember Dr. Marc from the very first community update episode. He's
the one that wrote that gorgeous, gorgeous, heart wrenching poem, and
actually recorded it and did it on-air with us.
LAURA
He is a man of many talents.
LESLIE
Yes. He's been a longtime friend of ours. He is a real medical doctor.
LAURA
[chuckles]
LESLIE
He is not some - this is not some, "He's a Doctor of Science" situation. He
actually quit his practice. Not his practice, but he was part - well, I'm not
going to tell his story. I guess the point is he made a huge shift in the past
year because he has absolutely dedicated himself to tackling the future of
Western medicine, and not in some foo-foo weird sideways thing. He gets
deep into the science on some of the stuff that he does.
We're going to link to his site - BioFlourish.com - which he started late last
year. He's got some amazing articles on there, and even more than that I
highly recommend that you sign up for his newsletter. He also has just
started a video series called Kitchen Voyeur, which is great -
LAURA
Yeah, it's super fun.
LESLIE
- where he goes through actually how to make things, and goes into a
deep dive on the nutritional side of things. I think recently he did eggs.
Anyway, it's going to be a fantastic series. We have no idea how many
parts it's going to be but yeah, we're -
LAURA
We are offering our bodies up to science -
LESLIE
That's right.
LAURA
- in Season 3 [chuckles].
LESLIE
That's a very good way to put it. In Season 3, we are offering our bodies
up to science, particularly the science of Dr. Marc Wagner.
LAURA
No pressure, Marc.
LESLIE
Yeah, no pressure, Marc. So point being, if you have any health questions,
issues, about food, nutrition, health, losing weight, I would suggest go take
a look at his site, if there's anything that you're struggling with. I know
Laura and I are struggling stuff like - I think because of the antidepressant
meds, neither of us have been able to get the weight loss we wanted. Just
last week or just the other day, I found out that my blood pressure is going
off, so I'm actually trying to get the antidepressant meds that I'm on
because it's increasing my blood pressure, which is the last thing I need.
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So I had this weird discussion with the nurse and it went like - suddenly I
was going to be on five drugs instead of just one, and then cost going
through the roof. It sounded so much worse than my starting point that I
was just kind of like, "No. We're going to go back to a baseline, reset." I'm
not against trying something else but I want to start my journey back into
that - both of us do - by talking to Dr. Marc about what else can we be
doing to look at this from a human flourishing standpoint.
That's actually a medical term and a psychological term that really does
reflect what we just read. It's the entirety of the way that you live so that
you can thrive.
LAURA
Right. It's a really holistic approach to health.
LESLIE
Right, and he takes a very medical approach to it as well. So okay, point
being, Season 3's going to be huge. I'm really looking forward to doing
that, especially since I'll be coming off a trip to a conference which will be
not the healthiest experience. I'm going to do my best to be healthy there,
but. Anyway, you guys get the idea.
Today - uh, today?
LAURA
[chuckles]
LESLIE
Inside joke, all right. In this episode - because we're trying not to use the
word 'today' - we're going to talk about why we don't compromise in our
marriage. This is actually something that's very near and dear to our
hearts. It's something we've really explored quite deeply over the course
of our almost 12 years of being married.
Before we get into that, we just want to say again, have our standard
disclaimer whenever we have strong opinions, that first, this is what works
for us in our marriage. Your experience may be different - that's okay.
We're not against you, we don't count you as bad people if you think
compromise is great, or if compromise has done wonders for your
marriage. We know people like that. So this is not again a prescriptive,
across the board thing.
We're explaining why we don't compromise as a way to invite you to
explore whether compromise works for you, and if it does maybe
something we say will help you think about something different that you
can add or take away, or you can push back on us - "Hey, Les and Laura,
have you thought about this? We have a strong opinion too - here it is."
Because we would love that. We would love that.
The second part of that is we consider what we're about to talk about only
safe to implement again if you are in a healthy partnership, where both of
you have equal care and concern for each other, and there's nothing major
going off the rails. So again, we are not psychologists, we are not trained
marriage counselors. We're just going over our story and what has worked
really well for us.
LAURA
[coughs discreetly]
LESLIE
All right. Enough of that. We got our coughs out the way. Oh my
goodness, people, we are so sorry.
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Laura, you really wanted to talk about this topic. You're going to lead us
through this conversation, so go ahead and kick us off.
LAURA
All right. So I'm going to start with the definition of compromise. The
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the type of compromise to which we
are referring as "a way of reaching agreement in which each person or
group gives up something that was wanted in order to end an argument or
dispute", or, "something that combines the qualities of two different things,"
or, "a change that makes something worse and that is not done for a good
reason" [chuckles].
I think it's really telling that the other definitions of compromise are "to
expose something to risk or danger," or, "to damage or weaken
something". Like the bullet compromised the hull of the ship, or that kind of
compromise. So there's a real negative connotation to the word
compromise to begin with, and that's something that kind of rang true for
us, and it's one of the reasons why we even investigated the thought of
what does compromise mean, and why is it a good thing or a bad thing for
us.
One definition of compromise that I found is "an agreement or a settlement
of a dispute that is reached by each side making concessions". Now,
concession is defined as "something done or agreed to usually grudgingly,
in order to reach an agreement or improve a situation," or, "acknowledging
defeat". Those two words - grudgingly and defeat - are also emotions that
we really don't want entering into our joint decisions.
So just to begin with, the whole definition of compromise feels very
negative, doesn't feel like a win for the relationship, and as we've seen it
played out in our own lives and other times that we've compromised, I don't
think we've had a very positive experience either. I was wondering, Leslie,
if you would be willing to tell us a story about a time that you have
compromised, either in a relationship - romantic relationship or a business
partnership - and what was that experience like for you.
LESLIE
I feel like the very first two relationships, serious relationships, I was ever
in, I feel like they were both entirely built on compromises, just all the time.
I think where this came from is that my parents were big on compromise.
At least in my background, that is something that I just heard a lot growing
up - from pastors, from my parents, from my aunts and uncles, from some
of my friends' parents. "Yeah, in marriage you have to compromise. It's
just part of marriage. You compromise with each other." There was never
really - I can't remember one instance where somebody said that with a
sense of hope.
LAURA
[chuckles] Yeah.
LESLIE
It was more like a shrug, like, "Yeah," and I think the word defeat really
encapsulates the emotional tone that I associated with the word
compromise. Then with compromise in marriage, I just always assumed
that a relationship therefore had to be full of defeat, that it was people
giving up things that they really wanted in order to make the relationship
work, and that was the nature of a relationship, and that there would be
some other nugget in the relationship that was worth the compromise - you
compromise on this thing so you get this other thing.
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So in my very first relationship, it was just like that constantly, whether it
was what movie we wanted to watch, what kind of food we wanted to get,
where we wanted to hang out with, should we hang out with your friends or
my friends. We were in college at the time without a lot of money - should
we go to Disneyland or should we do something else? Inevitably it was
this exercise of neither one of us being satisfied with the result.
Both of us had this feeling of, "Yeah, well, we just have to compromise in
order to make this work," and so we did that for two years until we were
actually engaged, and then got disengaged, fortunately. So the final
compromise was not getting married [laughter].
LAURA
That was the only time when it was not truly defeat but it felt -
LESLIE
Yeah. It was defeat but that led to eventual victory.
LAURA
Right [chuckles].
LESLIE
Lost the battle but won the war, the opposite of what happens usually.
My second relationship was really similar, and so what I took into my
second relationship is I just wasn't compromising in a good enough way, so
I kind of doubled down on the idea of compromise. In the second
relationship, I really started to feel like a victim early on and I began to get
the sense of the only way someone will love me is if I constantly give up
things that I want on their behalf.
That was a compromise I made consistently, until I just felt beaten. And it
wasn't good for her either [chuckles]. I just knew something was really,
really wrong, but I didn't know what it was. So while in those particular
relationship I can't think of any one specific example, except that the entire
relationship felt that way.
I know in business that I have made the mistake of compromising several
times early on where I really felt like in order to get this other thing that I
want, I would have to give up this thing. This was especially true when I
was brand new to a leadership role, whether I was compromising with a
potential client or whether I felt like I was making a compromise in features
of the software. "Well, we can't do everything so I suppose we'll have to
give up this thing in order to have this thing that everyone wants, but the
dev team isn't really excited about that, but this customer segment is
excited about that. Well, the financials, we know that if we generally…"
Early on in my career it was really difficult to figure out that compromise
was a terrible way to do that. But it was really in the business world where
I began to understand just how unhealthy compromise was as a way to do
it, because ultimately it was in the business world where I realized - and
this was after I had a leadership position at my company, where if you
compromise you instantly lose integrity. It's just as simple as that. So
when I compromised on something to get what I wanted or to give
someone else what they wanted, at the concession of something that was
important, the integrity of what you're doing is gone and it is really hard to
recover from a loss of integrity.
So I knew that I needed a different framework in which to think about
things. That led me on a path to exploring things, and it was really in our
marriage that I discovered that there really was an alternative. But that's
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one of the things that has always been core from even before we were
married, where you just never compromised and I never felt like I had to
compromise with you.
LAURA
[chuckles] Yeah. It's interesting because my story is kind of from the
opposite direction. I don't think that I was really taught to compromise, or
to really back down from an argument so much. My family really likes to
hash things out vehemently.
LESLIE
Yes, they do.
LAURA
There's the foundation of love and affection for each other that's there, so it
doesn’t - it's not really a fight. It's very fierce sometimes. But I was not
taught that I had to give up what I wanted for someone else and so thinking
back on my relationships, I think they all ended when I was asked to
compromise [laughter]. I certainly know the first one did.
Yes. I'm wondering if I should tell that story. I don't think I will. But no,
there was a moment where he wanted to do this one thing and I said,
"Absolutely not. You can't be my boyfriend and do that one thing with
those people." He said, "Okay," and I walked out, and that was the end of
the relationship.
So yeah, I think - I mean, I really came into our marriage with a very
different view on compromise, but also knowing I did not want to be the
person who stomped all over you to get what I wanted. We had to find a
middle way, and I think because of our two stories - you coming from overcompromising and me really not compromising - in order to have a healthy
relationship together we really did have to find a totally different philosophy
for ourselves.
LESLIE
Yeah, and I would use the term different philosophy versus a middle way.
It's not like we -
LAURA
Yeah, that's true. Middle way is a compromise [chuckles].
LESLIE
It's not like we found a halfway point between compromising -
LAURA
No, no, no. You're right.
LESLIE
- and not compromising. We decided that that road we're just not going to
go down. We're going to head this other direction.
LAURA
Yeah.
LESLIE
So yeah, the thing that I've learned about compromise is that especially in
a relationship, and in most of the business situations I was in too - those
are ultimately relationships - is that when you get into the idea of
compromising you're making it about yourself and the other person, and
not about what's right. You're not stepping away and taking an objective
look about what is the right thing to do, what is most aligned with what we
are both trying to achieve.
Typically compromise happens when you're not aligned on the end goal,
and I think where you and I were very, very fortunate in the beginning of
our relationship is that we had very clear goals when we met each other
that lined up perfectly, that we wanted to do together, and that's not true for
a lot of people. So I think that we got a very healthy start by accident. It's
not like we went into the relationship comparing notes in that way, like,
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"Good, we won't have to compromise anything. Let's do this." We found
out after the fact that that was true, and we were fortunate in that, but then
we've also been very deliberate about keeping it that way.
So when you compromise, you are making it about yourself - "This is how I
win." When you start giving ground on that and you can't share that win
with the other person, then ultimately you're going to lose even if you get
what you want. Same if you capitulate to the other person, because again
you're exploring what you both need and it's considered a compromise
because both of you have to be defeated for the right thing to happen, and
ultimately the right thing doesn't happen because of that.
If you want a really obvious example of this, it's the health care system.
Without getting into a political debate about who has the right philosophy
on that, the actual system that we've had, every single step of the way is a
compromise of two competing philosophies, so what happens is you get
the negative aspects of all the philosophies involved and you get none of
the positive aspects. So regardless of how you feel about Obamacare,
whether you're for it or against it, the actual implementation is the result of
a series of compromises, and the outcome is we get the worst of what the
anti-Obamacare wanted and what the pro-Obamacare wanted, and we
don't really get the benefits of going whole-hog into any one philosophy.
It was also true before Obamacare, and it was before that, all the way back
to the beginning of it. If you just look at the history of that it's that way, and
you hear this in politics all the time - "We just have to compromise" - which
really means, "We're just going to make sure that the people who voted for
us lose." So that's as far as I want to take the political stuff, because I
don't want this to be a political show. It's just a decent example of what it
looks like.
LAURA
Yeah. The visual that I'm getting when you're talking about compromise,
especially in a relationship like a marriage relationship, is of a tug-of-war.
I'm pulling for what I want, you're pulling for what you want, and the
compromise really ends up being one person letting go of the rope.
LESLIE
Right.
LAURA
Then no one wins because if one person gives up, the victory is not to the
other person, really. They haven't truly won anything.
LESLIE
Or like our TV broke this week and so we've been wrestling for the past
several days - or at least I've been wrestling, I don't think you have - with it,
about should we replace it. We don't have a lot of money right now. We've
had a very good month in April but that's after three very bad months. It'd
be nice to replace some of our war chest but the TV is an important part of
our household to some extent. It's where our daughters - we have a lot of
family time around Minecraft, we really enjoy some family time in the
evening together, especially recently, so I began to look at other TVs.
I went to eBay, started looking at Craigslist, and I found these deals where
here's a TV but it's used so there's no warranty. Still going to be $500 or
$600 but it's $2,000 brand new so isn't that a stellar deal? But what if it
doesn't work? Then I don't really want to spend $500, so let's go see what
we can find for $300. But then - and I ran down this whole series of lists,
and it really became about me being angry that I didn't have the money to
buy a brand new TV or the TV that I would really want.
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That's an excellent example of where I was really tempted to compromise,
because the right thing to do is to save money until we can get the TV that
we want. Not only the TV that we want, but the TV that's going to meet our
daughters' needs, our needs, the space, where we're going to be protected
by at least a manufacturer's warranty so if something goes wrong - if we
bought something off Craigslist and it breaks in a month then we have two
broken TVs and we're out $600.
It wasn't until I was able to step back and look at it objectively that I was
able to just stop the idea of compromise, going down that idea and just
asked myself what does a win actually look like. A win is not spending
money we shouldn't spend yet, and a win is also getting the right TV that
we need for the right reasons, and all we have to do is be patient and wait
for the right time, because it's not like we can't do other family things.
So then I started thinking about what else can we do? Well, there's plenty
of stuff we can do. The weather's better - we can play outside. So today
we just sent them outside, they rode bikes and did scooters and did other
wonderful things. Then it kind of all went away. As soon as that lifted, I
remembered that we had more than just the manufacturers, and I got this
nagging feeling in my head like, "I think we bought a four-year warranty
with this TV."
The TV's been broken for three or four days and I had not even looked at
the paperwork because I was so sure we needed to buy a new TV, and I
wanted a new TV anyway, so I immediately jumped into, "How can I
compromise to get what I want?" So we actually dug out the paperwork
and there's a day left on the warranty, so we're getting it repaired for free
this week.
LAURA
Yeah. We are getting a brand new TV essentially.
LESLIE
Yeah. The point of that whole exercise is that I made it about me, and as
soon as I made it about me and what's right, I almost damaged my
integrity. I almost damaged the integrity of this show because we've been
preaching for 36 episodes now you put the first things first. I'm going to put
these priorities and live this out, and I almost damaged that today. As soon
as I stepped away and said, "No, I'm not going to compromise," then I
suddenly had the mental space and my brain just said, "Hey, you had a
warranty! Find it."
The equivalent of that will happen if you decide not to compromise. You
may not discover you have a warranty or whatever the case, but your brain
will figure it out once you have allowed it to just set success conditions.
"This is what success looks like. We're not going to think about what
mutual defeat looks like." That's where the title of the show comes from that compromise is the champion of mediocrity, where you're essentially
saying, "All right. It's clear neither one of us are going to win, so let's
discuss how we both lose. How little are we willing to lose? What does a
loss for us both look like?" How stupid is that?
LAURA
Yeah.
LESLIE
Strong opinions [laughter].
LAURA
Yeah, I was going to say. Like we said [laughter].
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LESLIE
What about you? Have you - what is a practical example of compromise,
where you've either done it or you've come close to it?
LAURA
I remember we had to do a lot of compromising in our first job together with
our boss. There was just - we felt like we knew what needed to be done a
lot better than he did, and we had a system that we wanted to work with.
We wanted to actually have project management and he had no interest in
project management, so he would go and sell things and then we would
have to find a way to deliver on them. It was, like, two years?
LESLIE
Yeah.
LAURA
Two years of just feeling defeated every single day because we knew
every single day he was going to have promised something to the clients,
and we were going to have to be the people that disappointed everyone. It
happened over and over, and we finally ended up just leaving because it
was a situation that was broken beyond repair, and we needed to get out of
Southern California anyway. But that to me I think is one of the biggest
experiences of that defeat of compromise, where it's just like, "[sighs] We
can't. We can't do all this, so really, how are we going to let everyone lose
in the best way possible?" Kind of from the rubble, what can we still
create?
LESLIE
Yeah. You promised the client something we can't deliver so now here's
this halfway measure in which we lose, because now we're less likely to
get work from you in the future, and our integrity's busted because we
couldn't deliver what the person who represents has promised, and you
lose because you don't actually get the thing that you've been counting on
to earn the value that you needed. It happens just all the time. It's
rampant, and it's because it's easy. It's the easier thing to do than figure it
out, because there's a whole set of challenges that go along with it.
Sometimes we slip up, sometimes we compromise by accident without
intending to. There's been times when I haven't realized that I've
compromised. I think there are situations where compromise is okay, and I
think that the only time where compromise is okay, it's where everyone is
agreed that what's being discussed is inconsequential and so your integrity
is not at stake.
If you are trying to decide between two vendors from which to buy staplers,
it's not worth going and doing a deep dive on - unless you're buying 1,000
staplers, right? But you just need to buy two staplers for the office, and
some paper, and you're trying to - there's some situation, because there
always is when you're trying to do stuff, yeah, of course, compromise on
something there. Just get it done, get to the important stuff.
So I think there are situations like that but even there you have to be really
careful, because if you make that a habit you'll take it into the bigger things.
LAURA
Yeah. So I feel like this is a good place to stop because next week we're
going to talk about what we do instead. I'm really excited about that but I
don't want to talk about it here.
LESLIE
Well, I think we should give a summary of where we're going -
LAURA
Okay.
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LESLIE
- because I don't want to just leave on the dour note of "Don't compromise
or everything is ruined" [chuckles]. At least that's been our experience.
So what we do instead is invest. We really think about what is the win that
we're actually looking for here, what is the collective win out of this. We set
aside our personal feelings about it as best we can, and even if that takes
time we would rather take time and work through what it takes to get to
that. We think of it as an investment to the end goal versus, "[sighs] Here's
this middle ground. Okay, I guess we win by losing."
LAURA
I think now would probably be a good time to unveil my metaphor. I
already said that compromise to me felt like a game of tug-of-war. The
visual that I get for investment is more of a teeter-totter, where the
marriage is the fulcrum between each partner. Sometimes one person is
up, sometimes the other person is down, but the marriage is the balancing
point and the anchor. I don't know, I feel like that.
LESLIE
Yeah, and if you're doing it right you're both having fun.
LAURA
Right, exactly. It's like part of the ride. Some people are - one person's up,
one person's down, sometimes you can just level it out and play, try to
keep it balanced. But I just feel like there's that connection, and especially
the point in the middle where everything comes together is that
relationship, and that's what you're investing in, is the relationship. From
the relationship, both people are fed.
LESLIE
Yeah. That sounds like a good place to leave it, because in the next
episode we really want to dig deep into that, not just make - that's a great
starting point statement, I think, to get us thinking about that, and then
we're going to take a deep dive into actually how we do that, and some of
the things that we think about in more detail, and some examples.
All right. Let's take a break, and we'll come back with what we're going to
do for each other this week.
LAURA
All right.
[break music]
LESLIE
All right, and we're back with what we're going to do for each other this
week. Laura, would you mind introducing the section this time?
LAURA
Oh, sure. Ooh, I don't have it front of me. You always say it so nicely. So
this is the part of the show where we show our love proactively and
intentionally. Instead of asking for the other person to ask us for
something, we just offer. We try to look for the unspoken needs and give
to those before the request is even made.
LESLIE
So let's do that.
LAURA
Okay [chuckles].
LESLIE
I'll go first.
LAURA
Okay.
LESLIE
The rest of April's going to be crazy. This week's going to be a huge week
for me in terms of the stuff that I'm trying to get accomplished for Haywire,
and some of the larger things that Haywire's working towards, in addition to
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having client work and proposals to get out, and everything else. Then the
following week is the conference I'm going to at the end of the month which
we both talked through and we agreed that I need to go because it's going
to be good for us. I'm going to Peers at the end of this month but it also
lands on our 12th anniversary.
LAURA
[chuckles]
LESLIE
Which I feel terrible about, and so again we did talk it out, again and again.
LAURA
Oh yeah. This was not a compromise.
LESLIE
No, it wasn't.
LAURA
No, I fully support you going to Peers.
LESLIE
But I still don't like being away for it, as much as the other things I know will
be good for what we want to do together. So I just want to make sure that
this week, and especially this weekend, that I'm just present. I'm going to
make the commitment that no, I'm not going to work next weekend no
matter what needs to get done, no matter what I think needs to be done
before the conference, or yada-yada-yada.
I just need to make sure I'm available for you and the kids so that there's
that charge-up time, so we can pre-charge the kids - because they have it
rough while I'm gone - and because we need it too. April's been a rough
month for us, and that's going to include this week. In the evenings I'm
going to try to make sure that I'm done in the evenings, for the majority of
the week. There might have to be a couple of exceptions because we
have some guests coming into town which we're really looking forward to
seeing, wining and dining and all that good stuff.
But yeah, that's what I want to do. I want to make sure - I'm going to make
sure that I'm available this weekend, and that I'm going to set all aside and
make sure I'm 100% present for you and the kids.
LAURA
That sounds really good. Thank you.
What I'm going to do for you this week is I'm going to write out the script for
our next episode so that as much as possible you can just show up on
Wednesday, because I know that it's really busy for you.
LESLIE
Which reminds me - we probably can't record on Wednesday [laughter].
We have a schedule conflict for Wednesday but Thursday will work.
LAURA
Whenever we end up recording.
LESLIE
[chuckles]
LAURA
You can just show up and make your tweaks. That just takes the pressure
off for you.
LESLIE
Yeah, it does. That sounds wonderful. I can just - yeah, [sighs] I can feel
the stress going away in that sigh even. Thank you. That'd be wonderful.
All right. That's going to do it for us this week. We would love to hear your
thoughts on compromise. We just gave very strong opinions about it. We
would love to know how you - whether you agree with us, whether you
think differently about it, all that good stuff.
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Plus don't forget Season 3 - start sending us your health questions, or
health challenges, now, with whatever you're struggling with, whatever
you'd like us to tackle, whatever you want to talk to us about a real bona
fide doctor who really cares about the holistic approach to everything, in a
deep, meaningful, backed by science way [chuckles]. Really looking
forward to that.
Here's how you can get a hold of us. We're going to start with email,
because I think for the stuff we're asking for, this is probably what most
people are going to need. You can email us at [email protected]
and as a reminder, and as an introduction for first time listeners and for
long time listeners, anything you email is considered private by default.
Let's take an issue like weight loss - "Hey, I'm struggling losing weight, I'm
dealing with these sorts of things. I would really like you to ask or talk
about your experiences, or his experiences" - and you just want to share
your story with us but you don't want that story shared on the air? Please
feel free to do that. We will extract the right questions, make sure that we
protect your identity, and we'll even email back to you and say, "Here's
what we'd like to say. Is this okay with you?" We've done that I think every
single time we've talked about something on the show, and that's why
we're asking now, so that we have two weeks to get these things done and
so we can really communicate with you if you need that in order to be able
to share and get what you need out of this show here. So again, that's
[email protected].
If you are feeling adventurous, you can post on Facebook. We have a
fairly active Facebook group at facebook.com/marriagestartup.
If you want to comment directly on this show, you heard something, like,
"No! That's not how it works. Here's how it works for me, here's what
works really well, and here's my strong opinion," or, "Yeah, we love it. We
really agree with what you're doing." Either way, you can comment directly
on this episode by going to marriagestartup.com/36. That's the shortcut to
get to any episode you want to comment on, by the way. We will respond
to everything.
And Twitter people - send us your feedback by Twitter. Again, we
announced the episode on Twitter this week. We may start doing some
different things on Twitter, who knows? You can find us on Twitter
@marriagestartup.
Finally, you heard me mention at the end of the show that I'm going to be
at Peers at the end of April/beginning of May. I know that some of you who
are listening are going to be at Peers. I would love to see you in person
and catch up with you, talk about this, life, the universe, whatever you
want. I so value the relationships out of this, and so if we have the chance
to meet in person I would love to do that.
LAURA
We really need to make some Marriage Startup business cards.
LESLIE
We do. We should. I have an idea for that, actually. We can talk about
that after the show.
LAURA
Okay.
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LESLIE
And last but not least, if you want to help promote the show, you can do
that by going to marriagestartup.com/itunes, and leave us a rating and
review there. That's easily the best way to get the word out on the show, it
helps keep us in the Top 200 Business Podcasts in iTunes, so that makes
it easier for people to discover the show. We really, really appreciate when
people do that.
All right, that's going to do it for us this episode. We will see you guys next
week and as always, be kind to each other.
[Outro music]
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