Couples Report from understandmyself.com | Jordan & Tammy Peterson | EP 226
Conflict avoided is conflict delayed and magnified, and so it was a cross-temperamental learning process for me. I had to learn to work against my temperament in order to engage in conflict that was necessary when it was necessary. We always worked through our problems until we had resolution, and you were very persistent in making sure that we found our resolution. I don't know exactly what that was about, if it had anything to do with your personality.
Well, I think partly, weirdly enough, it was a consequence of my dislike of conflict. I thought, "Oh my god, we have a problem here. It's an actual problem. It's going to happen every day or every week or every month for the rest of our bloody lives. Let's hash it out right now," despite the fact that that will make me sweat and raise my blood pressure and exhaust me. Because if we can actually negotiate our way through it and come to a solution, we wouldn't have to have a fight anymore.
Yeah, and that worked. We went through our problems, and we still continue to go through our problems. We don't rehash stuff all the time.
No, well, we made rules too. One of the rules was, and this has been a rule that Tammy and I have used in our whole relationship, is like do not agree to something you don't agree to. Because the worst thing is you negotiate out a settlement and the person decides they're going to implement it, but really they're resentful about it because they didn't want to have any conflict. And then they're crabby about it every time they do it; they do a terrible job, and they're irritated about it, and that lasts forever.
[Music]
Mom and Dad, fancy seeing you guys in Nashville! We're very happy to be here.
Hi, Michaela!
Hi! This is fun.
Yup, this is going to be fun. Uh, we are going to talk about your couple's report, which is part of Dad's Understand Myself personality report system. Where you can join people together and then see all the ways that you either work or don't work, right?
Right. Each person can do a personality assessment at that site, and then they can join with their partner or with anyone else they choose to have a couple's report generated that outlines their similarities and differences, where they'll get along easily, and where they might have differences and why those differences can be useful and so forth.
So are you guys really comfortable with sharing this with the world? The differences in your personalities and whether or not that works? I mean, apparently it works fairly well. You're both here, you're on the same couch. That's a good start.
Yeah, well, um, we won't say anything that we don't want to share, but we've talked a lot about our personality differences and similarities and figured out at least to some degree how to appreciate them and how to negotiate in relationship to them.
Mom, what do you think? Are you ready?
Yeah, I'm ready.
Okay, we're going to start with agreeableness. So Dad, you scored 95th percentile in agreeableness.
Yeah, that's sad.
And Mom, you scored 29th percentile in agreeableness.
That's different.
So it's a little bit different. So I guess we should talk about, has that been an issue with having one person significantly higher in agreeableness than the other?
Well, if I could start, I think that you want some difference because, you know, you're reacting to what's going on in the world, and you can temper each other or, you know, change the way someone is seeing something through the lens of agreeableness and have a broader idea of interpretations of the world.
So the utility for me in having your mom be more disagreeable than me is that I tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt at a fairly broad level, and Tammy is much more skeptical, I would say, of people than I am. That means that when there's someone around who you should be skeptical of, she's more likely to pick that up.
And so I like to bring her to meetings and just as an observer often, because she'll report to me afterward about her thoughts and her suspicions, and then I've learned through sometimes painful experience to at least pay attention to that.
I think Tam might have paid some price for her higher levels of disagreeableness though.
Think, well like what?
Well, when you're disagreeable, you tend to say no.
Does that have anything to do with extroversion as well though?
Yeah, if you're enthusiastic, you tend to say yes.
Well, we won't talk about my enthusiasm yet. We're going to get there.
Yeah, we're going to get there.
No, but I think it has something to do with me saying no and also wanting my own way.
Stubborn.
Yeah, I want my own way.
Yeah, it also, um, it does lead to some misunderstanding because people low in agreeableness can be kind of curt and blunt.
Not snappy; that's not exactly right. They can be curt and blunt.
They're less polite. And so if you want to know what someone thinks, it's really good to have a disagreeable person around, but it's not like they really go out of their way to smooth things out.
So that there isn't, that's more than just this. I have risk of, like, I'm not volatile, right? And I have really low withdrawal. That's part of that.
Yeah, well that's complicated.
It helps a lot because it means that you're less likely to get upset.
And so, but I'm less likely to walk away when there's a confrontation.
Mm-hmm. Right.
And that can be both good and bad, and that's hard on something scary to be around.
It's hard on somebody who's more agreeable.
How did you experience the differences in our temperament, Mick, when you were growing up?
So I'm, it's funny because I'm in a lot of conflict all the time, but I hate conflict. It really bugs me. I don't like it. I don't like firing people, for example. I don't really even like disciplining people even. I don't like hurting people's feelings. And I would say Tammy is less sensitive to that than I am, and that's not a criticism, but this is coming from someone who's also, I'm split with agreeableness, right? But low in politeness.
Mom, I don't think Mom would hurt somebody's feelings unless they kind of deserved it, right?
Well, I think, and your, I guess description of what deserve is would be different.
Yeah, well I think your mom's judgment is really good, and I think she often puts people in their place, let's say when they deserve it. And also she's also extremely compassionate towards those who need it, but not towards those who don't.
Your mom was unbelievably responsive to you guys when you were infants. So how did you experience the difference in our temperaments, you and your friends, at least when you were younger?
Well, when people came over, they used to be initially afraid of you, like, "Oh, you know, Jordan." But then when they got to know you, that would switch over to Mom.
So that's one example. If I needed to get a yes from a parent, I would probably go to you.
That was very sneaky and treacherous of you.
So was there a downside to that? The fact that I would be more likely to say yes and an upside to your mother's propensity to say no?
Everything was so muddled together because of how sick I was that it's difficult to stay.
So is a disagreeable person more likely to tell you something that they see as an issue to discuss that might be sensitive than someone?
Yeah, definitely. That's why it changes.
So that's truth, right?
That's the truth.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, in the relationship between disagreeableness and truth is an interesting one.
One thing about disagreeable people is because they're in some sense a little bit more out for themselves and are more likely to bargain on the part of themselves than on someone else's part, is that they might be more tempted towards deceit that was self-serving directly, whereas an agreeable person would be more tempted to smooth over the truth and make everything nice so no one's feelings get hurt.
Yeah, both those don't work out well.
No, well that's why it's nice to have a dialogue, yes.
You know, right, both those don't work out well. It's also gone, you know, as your differences on agreeableness, and this is true for all the personality dimensions, maybe except neuroticism, as the gap between you when you're in a couple increases, it's also increasingly difficult for people to understand each other because they don't understand their motivations.
So the agreeable person will be running around doing everything for everyone and making things nice, and the disagreeable person will be more competitive and blunt, and well, and less likely to do such things, and so they can misunderstand and misinterpret each other quite, quite easily.
So I'm going to just read a couple of sentences so people can get an idea of what you get out of this report because this is the amount.
Okay, so you basically do the Understand Myself personality test, you get two people to do that, and then you can hook it up online. And I told Dad that he should be charging for this because I'm running his business, and this shouldn't be a free product.
However, it is a free product. You just hook up your results, so if you've already taken it, you can hook up your results with other people. But there's probably, how many words here? Four thousand? Eight thousand?
Like four thousand words! It's a real detailed report.
Well part of what we did, we spent years building the couple's reports. There's probably a hundred thousand words behind it because there's ten aspects that people are compared on, and then there's five different groups you can fall into, you know, way above average, above average, average, et cetera.
And so the program generates the report based on your placement on a normal distribution percentile essentially, and so there's a tremendous amount of writing and work that went into this. It's the equivalent of at least two books, I would say.
We were going to launch it with a relative fanfare, let's say, but I got extremely ill and we couldn't do that. And so we decided to release it anyway because we thought it was in people's best interest, and we're actually pretty happy with the sales.
And so, but yes, it's a major feature. It's the only personality test I know of, and certainly the only scientifically validated test that actually offers people a direct comparison with a report based on that comparison between them and their partner.
And we're hoping it'll be extremely useful for people because you need to understand that there are temperamental differences, and you need to understand what they are, and then you need to understand and appreciate your differences and similarities and figure out how to negotiate them. Very complicated for people.
So I think what we should do, because we're going to be seriously delving into this, I think I should kind of give a brief overview of what it's going to look like, and then we get into each trait.
So we just looked at agreeableness. Agreeableness breaks down into compassion and politeness. So it will do a comparison between agreeableness overall and then Dad's compassion level, Mom's compassion level, Dad's politeness level, Mom's politeness level.
So when he said ten aspects, it does the five: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, breaks all those into two aspects, and then gives you a comparison.
It's a lot of information here, and that's based on an instrument called the Big Five Aspect Scale, which I developed with my students, particularly Colin DeYoung, who was lead author on that paper.
And it's become one of the standard means of assessing personality psychometrically in the research literature and has also been used by now tens of thousands of people online.
So I think it's reasonable to say that it's the best personality instrument currently available in terms of the breadth and the detail of its coverage, and it's certainly the only one that offers this couple's comparison.
So do you guys think I should just like kind of burn through some of this, and you can stop me?
Yeah, well just that you can just ask questions, and yep, that would be fine. So let's go too.
So we covered agreeableness. Agreeableness breaks into compassion and politeness. Compassion, Dad, you scored 96th percentile, and Mom, you scored 48th percentile.
So some of the information you get here is this: you are likely to be highly conflict-averse because you'll be concerned about causing your partner negative emotion. Your partner, Mom, is likely to be capable of engaging in conflict, and he or she will be a bit less concerned about causing you negative emotion.
So that's one sentence out of, you know, a large paragraph just describing the implications of compassion as a couple. So I'm gonna just keep going, and you maybe Mom too comment if you want to comment about what this kind of thing means.
Dad?
Well, I had to learn to, I would say, engage in conflict, especially when it conflicts with compassion. I've been in a lot of conflict, and I don't find it pleasant, and I don't like upsetting people at all. It really bothers me.
And, uh, but I did learn that conflict avoided is conflict delayed and magnified. And so it was a cross-temperamental learning process for me. I had to learn to work against my temperament in order to engage in conflict that was necessary when it was necessary.
And so that conflict probably perhaps came more naturally to your mother or with less internal opposition.
Yeah, I don't think it bothered me as much, but we always worked through our problems until we had resolution, and you were very persistent in making sure that we found our resolution.
And I don't know exactly what that was about, if it had anything to do with your personality.
Well, I think partly, weirdly enough, it was a consequence of my dislike of conflict. I thought, "Oh my god, we have a problem here. It's an actual problem. It's going to happen every day or every week or every month for the rest of our bloody lives. Let's hash it out right now," despite the fact that that will make me sweat and raise my blood pressure and exhaust me.
Because if we could actually negotiate our way through it and come to a solution, we wouldn't have to have a fight anymore.
Yeah, and that worked. We went through our problems, and we still continue to go through our problems. We don't rehash stuff all the time.
No, well, we made rules too, like when we were talking about an issue, it might have been something as trivial as who was going to clean up the bathroom sink and how quickly after they used it.
Part of the rule was we focus on the specific issue, so you don't get to say, "Well, you never cleaned up the sink, and you're always leaving things around, and you've done this your whole life, and you'll never change," which is a really bad negotiating strategy.
It was like, okay, apparently we have a problem with the sink. That might have been because of our differences in orderliness, which we'll get together. It's like what is it that you want specifically done about this specific thing?
And then we would negotiate back and forth until both of us were satisfied.
And we used to have meetings with you kids once a week. I don't know if you remember.
Somebody.
I vividly remember.
You forgot, why do you vote in a PTSD? Because you wanted to go out and play.
I'm just kidding.
Yeah, well, we'd sort out the week's responsibilities at this meeting, and the meeting had rules, which was, well, there's some jobs that need to be done, and everybody has to play a role in doing them so that nobody gets resentful and bitter, and you have to attend the meeting, although you can leave if you get upset, but you have to come back, and you have to abide by what you say, what you agreed to, and so for the week.
So it was for the week. It wasn't a big ask, right?
Seven days.
But that's a long time for a kid.
It is a long time.
Yeah, well, and people generally don't have meetings of that sort.
And one of the rules was, and this has been a rule that Tammy and I have used in our whole relationship, is like do not agree to something you don't agree to. Because the worst thing is you negotiate out a settlement, and the person decides they're going to implement it, but really they're resentful about it because they didn't want to have any conflict, and then they're crabby about it every time they do it; they do a terrible job, and they're irritated about it, and that lasts forever.
So none of that. So that's a good rule: do not agree to things you do not agree with.
And if you're agreeable, you'll say yes, and then you'll get resentful, and that's the bitter and horrible underside of empathy.
I could add to that too, if you're in a situation where you feel like you have to say yes as an agreeable person, say you need some time.
Yes, because I use that trick. I mean, I'm way better now. I don't have issues with saying no at all anymore, but when I was younger and more concerned about other people's feelings, I guess, I started saying, you know, I can't make that decision right now. I'm not comfortable.
You say, I'm not comfortable making that decision right now, or can I have till tomorrow?
Yes!
Yeah, well, that's not a trick, I would say. That's a good, that's a wise strategy. And we also learned in our relationship often to discuss things and then let both parties sleep on it.
And if you go to sleep with the intent of further clarifying the negotiation, then you often wake up in the morning with something to say, you know, that might also cause further conflict, but is part of the means by which you reach a peaceful negotiated settlement.
I mean, Tammy, you remember when we were first together, we'd have a conflict about some deep thing usually for about three days?
Yeah. And then once a week, well, and then, yeah, yeah, for a year.
Yeah, more than that even, perhaps for the first year.
Yeah, well, often I'd be trying to work through this, and it would be at night, and Tammy would say, "I have to go to sleep now," which drove me crazy.
I'd be up persistently on the internal discussion; she'd be sound asleep beside me, which is extremely annoying.
But she would very frequently wake up in the morning with something to say that was helpful or with a dream that related to it.
Well, those kind of pauses that you take when you sleep allowed me to reflect and find out what I may have brought to the situation, and that always helped.
Yeah, well that was another thing we did constantly too, which was to try to figure out how, you know, I would sit on the end of my bed, and Tammy did this as well when we were having a fight, and think, "Okay, what stupid thing did I do at some point in the lead up to this discussion that increased the probability that this would be unpleasantly conflictual?"
And that's interfering with the solution. And man, if you ask yourself that question, you'll get an answer. And then you can offer that answer to the person. You can say, "Look, despite the fact that you're utterly wrong and that this is horrible and you should just listen to me because that's what you like to think," you could say, "Well here, I figured out something I did that was not optimal or maybe outright wrong, and it's complicating it. And so like, sorry about that."
And you have to mean that. And if you have any sense, you do, and then we could progress.
Yeah, that was a great strategy because I think it not only deals with the situation at hand but it deals with behavioral patterns that you've had since childhood that sometimes don't work anymore.
And in the conflict, you can see the discord and you wonder what you may have brought to it. So then that can shed some light on past behaviors and then you can update them.
Yeah, through the negotiation.
Well, yeah, that's a huge part of what you're doing in negotiation is that update. It's also the case that if you concentrate on your stupidity, you now have a problem that you could solve, whereas you really can't solve the problem of your partner's stupidity.
You know, you can negotiate and you can discuss it, but really, that's in their domain, so you should really pray to be enlightened about your own ignorance and limitations and error. Because you can get rid of that with good faith and through negotiation.
People are not good at negotiating.
Negotiating one thing too you can offer your partner. We did this a lot too. It's like, "Okay, looks like I'm in the wrong here. What do I have to say? What words do I have to say to you right now that will satisfy you?"
And you might think, "Well if you love me, you know, or you should figure out the words on your own," it's like, "No, I'm stupid. You tell me."
I'll wander through these words awkwardly and artificially because I'm not very good at it, and maybe I'll get better at it in the future.
You can give your partner that gift, right? You offer them conditions for your satisfaction. What do you want? That also forces you to specify what you want.
You have to ask yourself, like you're upset, okay, what do you want? Well, I don't know. Fair enough, we can talk about it, and then maybe you identify if it's, "Well, I want you to suffer."
And then that can pop into your head and you're like, "Oh, maybe I'm contributing to the problem too."
Yeah, maybe, right.
Okay, next. We're still in agreeableness.
Yeah, we're still in agreeableness. You are high in politeness. This is my favorite aspect, and you are low in politeness. So you scored 85th percentile, Dad, and Mom scored 16th percentile.
Right? That's a big difference.
Yeah, there's big differences. That's a big difference between us.
Yes, yeah.
And I noticed this often when we had, when we were fighting, um, arguing because Tammy would say something so outrageous and impolite, and then she would top it with like another thing that was even more outrageous and impolite, and then with another.
They were usually an impolite. People can be very funny.
They were usually so over the top that it would make me laugh, you know? But it was that impoliteness that does cause friction in our relationship because she's more likely to be curt, and Mom's pretty curt.
Yeah.
And pretty blunt.
And blunt. And so, you know, I'll try to do something nice for her, and she'll say something curt or blunt, and then, you know, that hurts my feelings.
But, but, yeah, well c'est la vie, you know?
But you're pretty damn funny, and I think I like that provocativeness.
I'm trying to be more kind and loving.
Yeah, well, I have a better relationship now with my conscience or with my intuition or my higher power.
I have a better relationship, and I'm trying to because, you know, all of us have these personalities we're given wrestling with, and then, you know, do I want to be that blunt?
Well, in some situations, yes. You know?
But in a personal situation with someone I love, well, no.
Yeah, I do. I feel I don't want that.
And yeah, with regards to this distribution, like we all have temptations towards certain sins, and what we've been gifted certain virtues that make it easy for us.
And it's really useful to understand that temperamentally, like an extroverted person is going to find it easy to be social, but an introverted person is going to have to learn.
Oh, I've had to learn a lot, right?
And especially now that he's a public figure. For me to be involved in that, I've had to learn a lot about being in a situation with people I don't know and striking up a conversation.
Yeah, and you're getting good at that. Introverts can get unbelievably socially skilled, but they have to learn it consciously.
And that bluntness and impoliteness, I do believe that that was part of what attracted me to you to begin with because you were teasy, and there's a playful element to that. Or they can be, even though it's like harsh play, right?
It's like playing with a dog who might bite you, but a playful dog.
And I really admired the fact that you weren't a pushover like ever since.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, someone taught us how to do that.
They're pretty good at barking actually.
Bark, bark, bark.
You inhale when you bark.
We can even pull down.
You started this fiasco.
Okay, I think moving on.
I think that we should, I'm going to skip a couple. Let's do extroversion because we were talking about that one.
Oh yeah, let's, yeah.
So Dad scored 98th percentile in extroversion, which is extremely high, and Mom scored 88th percentile in extroversion, which is also very high.
So let's start with enthusiasm, I guess. Enthusiasm is fine. You guys were actually fairly close: 92nd percentile for Dad and 86th percentile for Mom.
Yeah, well, that's one of the things that's actually made our relationship easy.
Dangerous.
Yeah, both of those.
But the thing about your mom is, is that if I offer her an adventure, she'll say yes.
Yes, that's fun.
Yeah, because she's enthusiastic.
So for example, earlier this year, when I was still extremely ill, we started talking about this upcoming tour in 2022, and it's a major undertaking. I think we've got 150 cities slaughtered or something.
I don't know, it's lots.
A hundred?
Anyways, wow.
And I asked her if she wanted to do this because she seemed enthusiastic during the discussion with Creative Artists Agency who was helping her.
Enthusiasm!
Yeah, and you know, she just about died two years ago, and then like I wished I was dead for like most of the last two years.
And so, and we had no idea really if I was going to be able to manage this at that time, but we thought we'd better get on with our lives anyways.
But your mom is always up for an adventure.
And I had faith too that you would be better as well.
I really did.
Yeah, so that's been really helpful for us because my life has been pretty wild in many ways and, but with a tremendous amount of opportunity.
And your mom, despite her lower agreeableness, if there's an adventure to be had, she's on board with it.
And you know, you might think 88th percentile and 98th percentile aren't that different, but if there were 100 people in the room, I'd be more extroverted than two of them than that, all but two of them, whereas your Mum would only be more extroverted than one in ten.
So it's the difference between one in fifty and one in ten. It's still a big difference.
Percentiles are sort of misleading that way.
But because say if you have 98th and 99th percentile in extraversion, the 98th percentile person is more extroverted than 49 out of 50, or 49 out of 50.
But the 99 percentile person is more extroverted than 99 out of 100 twice.
So that's in some sense twice as extroverted.
I scored 99.
99.
Yeah, I scored 99.
But I'm way less polite than you, and I think that has a lot to do with the differences here.
Yeah, that's the temptations towards narcissism, that high level of extroversion and relatively low level of agreeableness.
So you want that moderated by conscientiousness and compassion?
Yeah, well that makes a difference too.
Yeah, that makes a difference too.
Yeah, yeah.
So, well, and we saw this difference in you and Julian because you could not not tell us anything. You told us everything, and you always wanted to be around people, whereas Julian was more reserved, and he was certainly, his proclivity, and this is his proclivity, was to not tell us things, to maintain privacy.
And we could see that when he was three.
Two?
Yeah, we could see those differences extremely. Those differences are there extremely early.
I was also a bit confused because you said tell the truth like no matter what.
Yeah, it wasn't a bad thing; we thought you could keep some of that to yourself, and that would be okay.
Well, it's a tricky thing to figure out when you're not saying something because you're lying, and when you're not saying something because you have a right to privacy. It's a tricky thing to sort out.
Yeah, okay, so extroversion breaks down into enthusiasm and assertiveness. We did enthusiasm. Assertiveness percentile Dad and 81st percentile Mom.
I didn't realize you were so extroverted.
I guess there's quite a difference between 80th, 88th, and 99th.
Yeah, yeah.
And also, you're extremely extroverted, and so by comparison, your mom looks less.
Wow!
Yeah, wow.
Yeah, that's just how extroverted you are.
Okay, well there's a huge difference at the upper ends of the distribution.
Like you think, what's the difference between 99 and 99.9? It's like, it's nothing.
It's 0.9.
It's no, it's the difference between one and a hundred and one and a thousand.
So if you got, if you're at 99.9 and you got 10 99th percentile extroverted people in the room, you would be the noisiest person.
So, and that, yikes.
Yeah, and there's no, that doesn't, that doesn't diminish at the upper ends.
Yeah, yeah.
And so assertiveness. I think part of the other part of the reason why I can't engage in conflict resolution is because I will talk about things.
Yes, as people may have noticed.
Maybe!
Yeah, and maybe you also understand that having the conflict now, like you said, is going to prevent conflict in the future, and so it's actually more of an agreeable thing to have less conflict, which would be addressing it.
Yes, if the, in the long run.
Yeah, but I find, you know, when I do my podcast, people sometimes criticize me for interrupting, and that's this extroverted assertiveness, when I'm listening to a conversation, questions are popping up in my mind like mad.
It's part of verbal fluency, and like I need to ask them, I need to ask them.
It's a real impulse, and that's deeply rooted temperamental impulse, and I've always been unbelievably talkative, right from the time I was two.
I think they called me "motor mouth" when I was a kid.
My cousin called me "motor mouth," and that kind of caught on.
So now that'll be a meme, I presume.
I wouldn't underestimate Zoom too, I mean, we're having a conversation, you're not interrupting, and say there's enough of a delay on Zoom that you end up interrupting when you're not—
Well, that's especially true if you're assertive and enthusiastic because, and this is Tam's pretty extroverted, but you and I are talking more, and the reason for that is that her lag to first utterance is maybe a half a second longer than ours.
What is negative?
Negative one.
Exactly!
All right, so I learned when we were disciplining the kids, I often disciplined you guys first.
Assertiveness?
Likely neuroticism.
Well, I don't think so.
But very funny.
But I learned that if I could just shut up for like five seconds, that whatever annoying thing was going on would annoy your mother, and then she would intervene.
But if we just left it to the natural course of things, the, the relatively—well, the difference in extroversion between us, at least in relationship to that, was enough so that I would end up doing most of the discipline.
That wasn't that what you remember?
Yes, verified!
Verified just as an impolite person would insist upon it.
[Laughter]
Okay, conscientiousness. Dad scored 97th, and Mom scored 83rd.
And then let's break it down. I think it breaks down into industriousness and orderliness.
And then Dad, do you want to give like a two-second explanation of industriousness and orderliness?
Sure! Well, orderliness is associated with disgust sensitivity at the emotional level, and orderly people don't like things that shouldn't be touching touching.
They like things where they should be. They like everything organized.
They're more likely to have a schedule. Mess bothers them viscerally, just like disgust does.
Um, Tammy, what's our scores there?
Yeah, you can't talk about me yet!
We don't have our scores up.
Industry!
[Laughter]
Um, so you, Dad scored 99th and Mom scored 96th.
Wow, cool!
But there's, that's an interesting difference there too because that makes me one in a hundred on that dimension, and her one in twenty-five.
And so wow!
It doesn't make any sense, really, does it?
What if I had, it would make sense!
Yeah, right!
And so like I left in my own devices, I would just work all the time.
Yeah.
And lock you in there.
Yeah, we kind of did that in my office.
Because we learned.
No, I learned!
Do you go ahead and tell, you can tell that story.
You went when you went to work. You didn't want to be interrupted, so I didn't interrupt you, so you could be there for hours and hours and hours.
Yeah, and then I, I'm kind of fascinated by how you can do as much as possible in the shortest possible period of time, and that's always kind of a game for me.
And that's associated with industriousness; I like to work. I would work all the time, pretty much.
I'm getting better at leaving that with recreation, especially artistic recreation, and I like to spend time with your mom and you guys, so that those were good breaks, and I have a much more balanced life.
Yeah, I have a much more balanced day-to-day experience.
Yeah, that was especially true, and that was good for you.
Yeah, definitely because you learned how to do some things besides work.
Yeah, well I also trained myself when I was in, especially in graduate school, to really work. I wanted to see, I spent like five years pushing my limits of my ability to work, and then I figured out how to pull back a little bit from that because I was exhausted.
I think when you're young, it's really useful for about two years or three years to work yourself to the point of exhaustion to find out where that limit is and then dial back.
And when you're young, you can kind of stand it because you're healthy as long as you don't drink too much, etc.
But it's really useful to test that out. And so these career-obsessed people, they tend to be extremely high in industriousness, and it's a precondition for extreme success in most endeavors.
Yeah, it's like a game, right? It's like a contest.
It's a contest.
Yeah, especially if you're a little disagreeable too, you know.
So in order to leave university that way, now what's the difference in orderliness between us?
Dad, you scored, this doesn't seem right. You scored 80th, and Mom scored 41st.
But Mom was, I think it was more aesthetics than orderliness.
That's what I think, so openness, I liked beauty.
Oh, that's interesting!
Yeah, I still really like it.
Well, it might have also been something—your disagreeableness probably made you less attached to objects.
Yes, yeah, I'm not attached.
Oh well, that's a, yeah, that's another thing.
Baby pictures, baby books!
Yeah, I went outside one day, those if you want that!
I went, yeah, I should just give them to me, like out of my house!
I went outside one day, and I had this one book where I had drawn little figures in it; it was like I'm, you know, however many centimeters tall and this is my name and I'm five.
It was just sitting on the sidewalk!
My mom was cleaning house!
Yeah, yeah, that was, I think it is she doesn't love me!
I think it is lower that, lower agreeableness.
I mean, Tammy's very good at getting rid of unnecessary things.
And I know that was, you know, perhaps not unnecessary.
Where's Julian's?
It's not Audi!
What is that supposed to mean?
But it does clear away the clutter, and yeah, we've accumulated a lot of things, especially over the last few years, and your mum's ability to not get sentimentally attached to things unduly has been instrumental in us keeping our environs functional and hopefully beautiful to the degree we've been able to manage that.
Yeah, I don't know how old you were when I got rid of all the large suitcases.
We could only have small suitcases, and you could only take that much stuff no matter where you were going or how long you were going for, and that was part of who it was cluttery, to have— we didn't have room for big suitcases.
Okay, no more suitcases!
Yeah, yeah, they tour just so people know with a carry-on.
It's very impressive, these outfits!
Carry on!
Okay, let us continue.
Do you know what the stewardess said to the vulture when he tried to bring three bags onto the plate?
Only two carry-ons allowed, sir!
Yeah, I sent that to Reader's Digest, and I got a hundred-dollar check!
That makes the story so much better!
Yes, it does!
Yeah, well, I really liked reading just when I was a kid; you know, it was a good magazine. I remember seeing that it was written in there for you.
Yeah, I bet those are—the people are gonna be scrambling to get their hands on those now!
We should have some of those.
Okay, anyway, just try to make money just in any way possible.
Okay, we covered extraversion. Enthusiasm is fun, assertiveness, enthusiasm that means to be possessed by God, by the way.
Enthusiasm that you just say fun instead.
Yeah!
It's a lot of positive emotion.
Yeah, yeah, extroversion is the positive emotion dimension, and extroverts are fun to be around.
I used to think that enthusiasm meant somebody knew what they were doing, but now I know it's just enthusiasm.
Yeah, yeah, discounted them being like, that's a great idea!
Yeah, that's a great idea!
Here's the plan!
Let's do it!
Fantastic!
Yeah, like, oh wow, okay, you're really into this!
That's where, you know, you're into everything!
Yeah, exactly!
Every idea is good!
Yeah, well too much enthusiasm makes you manic; I've had that.
That issue a bit?
Yeah, yeah, it makes you manic. That's that, so every trait pushed to its extreme can degenerate into a pathology, and that, that's true of all of them.
You might think you can't be too creative; it's like, oh, oh yes you can! You see patterns everywhere even when they're not there.
And it's very difficult for highly creative people to catalyze an identity because they're interested in everything.
That's different than being enthusiastic about everything. You can be interested in everything without thinking everything's a great idea and let's get on it, or you can be both.
Extroverts are impulsive.
So and fine, yeah, and there's, it's certainly the case that you can have too much fun.
One of the things that was painful about having children was the realization of how much time you spend disciplining them because they're having too much fun.
Because they run around and, you know, they get too excited and then they wear themselves out or they trip over things or bump into each other.
It's like settle down, settle down!
You think I'm educating my children not to be happy?
It's like, well, everything has its limits.
I'm happy!
That's good!
Okay, neuroticism.
Actually, first quick question: what happens in couples if you have one person who's super extroverted and one person who's not?
Because that to me, my mom and dad, my dad was probably as extroverted as you guys because he was super extroverted. My mother was not super extroverted.
Yeah, he's still now, he's 90.
And still funny, yeah.
And he's the life of the party, man!
And he was the life of the party in Fairview.
Yeah, I think you're doing this.
I think your dad was the most extroverted person in our town; it seemed that way.
Yeah, I mean he was. And there was about three that were way more extroverted than I was.
Yeah, way more. Way, way more!
I was always quite surprised by his enthusiasm and his goal of just doing anything.
And he was low in agreeable, super low in politeness.
Yeah, yes! And he's hilarious.
Yeah, he is!
Yeah!
But you don't—yeah, and he'll tell you what he thinks too, man, even kids!
Yeah, like I told my kids, "Don't do anything to annoy your grandfather; he will not forgive you!"
And you were good!
You were good!
But yeah, my mother was very quiet.
Yeah!
Unbelievable!
And I don't think she would have known anyone if it weren't for my father, because he brought people to her, and I don't think she had the temperament to bring people to her.
She didn't, she didn't.
So thank God that she found him, and that he found her.
Yeah! And introverts get worn out by social interaction, and they need to go have a break fairly frequently, whereas extroverts get energized.
And so, yeah, it was tricky for your mom and dad because it was hard for them to bridge that gap because your dad was always out socializing.
And yes, and your mom enjoyed that, and she thought he was funny, but she was very—she didn't go out with him, and she didn't really go out and make friends on her own either, you know, through sports.
And that's something that she did with sports, even though she was introverted.
She could act out something, but not, yeah, maybe more open.
Yeah, because that can sometimes override it, right?
If you're an introvert but you're high in openness, well, she was actually a good athlete too, so that helped a lot!
It was a domain of competence for her, and that's a kind of social activity, right?
It's not sitting around talking, which extroverts will do.
It was going on doing things with people, and so that's something for introverts to consider too.
It's a good avenue to social interaction, shared activity rather than mere socialized conversations, like dancing.
They went dancing!
Yeah, they curled together, they golfed together, and Mom went and watched all the sports that Dad did.
Hockey and baseball.
And so she was out with people when he was doing things.
And then when she was a little older, she was doing them too and did very well with him.
My Dad, my mom is extremely high in enthusiasm and my dad is very low in enthusiasm, although he's quite assertive.
Makes him a complicated character because he's half extroverted and half introverted.
And so he was difficult to understand in that way.
But it's difficult to rouse Dad to enthusiasm for any activity, and that's hard on my mom because she's really enthusiastic and really, and less assertive, although not unassertive.
And so that was, has been a point of conflict between them and their relationship.
Okay, neuroticism.
So you scored 74th.
Yeah, I was probably still pretty sick when I took this test, and I've done this a number of times throughout my life.
I know it says clearly on the website you can only take this once, which is terrible marketing.
Yes, I don't think that's true either.
I don't think it's—you go through life changes; you can do it again, right?
But you should—there should be a gap between the times you take it.
Oh yeah, you can't just repeatedly take it till you end up with the personality you don't have what you want!
Yeah, for sure!
Well, that's really why we built that portion in there.
Let's say just don't cheat. If you just repeatedly answer the questions honestly because I did this when I was young, and it was pretty much the same.
But when my depression went away, my neuroticism plummeted.
So the withdrawal aspect too.
But also the volatility—well, depression is a modulation of your neuroticism in some sense.
And so it's always been difficult for me to answer the neuroticism questions because when I'm healthy, I'm low in withdrawal, and I'm low in volatility.
But when I'm unhealthy, well, both of that mounts up.
And so then the question is—because I've had some repeated bouts of depression—the question is, well, who are you?
And who are we?
Well, it depends on whether or not I'm depressed.
Yeah, so it's hard to answer.
Um, but I think, oh, and this—you can tell me if this comment is wrong, but I think people can get along with a variety of different personality traits, right?
But if you have two neurotic people—yeah, I just try and find...
I remember seeing my score, and my score neuroticism was like 90 something.
I was like, okay, the only—there's certain personality traits I wanted to mate, but I definitely can't be with another neurotic person.
Well, women initiate about 75 percent of divorces, and there are multiple reasons for that.
What? But one reason is that women are higher in trait neuroticism; they're more sensitive to negative emotion, so they feel more units of negative emotion subjectively per unit of stress.
That's a way of thinking about it.
And so they get unhappy faster.
Now why is that?
Well, the jury's out on that, but some possible reasons.
It seems to kick in at puberty because it's not true for boys and girls; they're smaller, their upper bodies aren't as strong.
They're not likely to win physical contests, especially with men, especially with tough men, despite the marvel movies.
And so the world is more dangerous for them in some sense physically.
But I think more importantly is the fact that they are going to bear primary responsibility for dependent infants.
And if you have an infant depending on you, you should react to the world as if it's more dangerous than you might if it was just you navigating through it.
So now the downside of that for the people who have to live with women, and for women themselves, is that they're more likely to get upset, they're more likely to make a big deal out of something statistically speaking.
There's plenty of men who are more neurotic than plenty of women, but on average which is the case—that's just the worst!
I'm just going to put it out there that is the most...
Yeah, well it's just, it's useful for men to understand this, you know, because women—
We got Mom!
Oh, Michaela, that's extroversion talking away and then realizing what she's saying.
Yeah, that's for sure!
Did you know, side note, shying away from this?
Have you heard of the vasopressin and oxytocin for bonding, which is really interesting?
So vasopressin is released when there’s stress, and men tend to bond when that chemical is released.
Isn't that interesting?
So you can stress out a man in a situation, and that'll increase reconciliation bonding.
Yeah!
But for women, it's oxytocin that's really involved with bonding.
So what you want to do for a woman is make her feel safe.
Yes!
So it's interesting, isn't that interesting?
They did a bunch of studies on voles too, shot them full of oxytocin and vascular presence—see what happens!
But that's, that’s so cool.
So you can be more neurotic; you can get away with being more neurotic as a woman if you're with a man who's more stable.
And potentially according to voles, that might even increase bonding if the man can take away some of the woman's kind of problems and make her feel calmer.
Yeah, well I think that's highly likely, highly probable that, yeah.
And so I think when I'm healthy, I'm low in withdrawal and a little higher in volatility but low in withdrawal because I don't, you know, fear doesn't stop me from doing things.
Yeah, Mom, so this—I would say when you did this, because you scored 80th, and that's just not true because you wouldn't do a world tour and meet all these people if that was the case!
You'd just stay home!
Right?
You scored a third?
Yes, I have no withdrawal!
So we're kind of—we're a little bit—the sex differences here are turned around.
Yeah, I know that, that's, yeah!
Well, and so that means that when we have a disagreement for where, whatever it is, caused by my need for safety being a woman and your need for being, uh, having some sort of reconciliation is kind of backwards.
Yeah!
Well, your mom has a relatively masculine temperament because she's low in agreeableness and low in neuroticism, and I have a relatively feminine temperament, especially when I’m depressed.
And so, and that's an interesting, it's interesting to consider that in light of this cultural argument about sex and gender.
Well, there's two sexes, let's be clear about that, and there has been for several hundred million years, so there's actually no dispute about that.
But there's a lot of variability, even biological variability at the temperamental level.
And so there's plenty of masculine women and feminine men, but that doesn't mean they should switch bodies.
That's actually the wrong solution to that problem.
And that can be true even though on average women are higher in negative emotion and higher in agreeableness.
Okay, oh yeah!
So neuroticism, I mean the, the one of the problems there is that people are higher in negative emotion and neuroticism will tend at least from the perspective of those lower to make mountains out of molehills.
And so it's a problem that you deal with in clinical practice a lot, especially with people who are depressed.
Because any failure makes them think they're a horrible, unworthy person and that their life isn't worth living, and that's too much of a reaction to every problem.
So part of the way you bind that is you try to make the discussion about the smallest thing it can possibly be about.
And I think that's a good guide to political discussion as well.
Everything's not climate.
Local. Local. Local.
Specific! Practical!
Ah, actionable!
Negotiable!
Articulatable?
Yeah, it's not arcade articulatable!
Yeah, I think it's articulable, but maybe—[Laughter]
See, the impolite person corrected me.
Dad's right!
But you can also say articulable?
Huh? I don't know that word!
Yeah, so they're so, they're girlies!
We learned!
Yeah!
We learned something!
Yeah!
Successful podcast!
Well, that's me enthusiasm asking!
That doesn't make sense; tell me about that alone!
Well, that's that provocative part too!
That's linked to a sense of humor!
Most comedians are low in politeness, high in compassion, though they may still be.
They're low in politeness because they'll say things that no one else would say, and that's funny!
It's often funny!
Openness to experience!
Yep! That's basically the creativity dimension essentially!
That's what people think openness is, like how willing you are to discuss things, how open—it's not a great name.
The psychometricians didn't nail that one well, but it's a hard one to get right.
But you can think of it as creativity and interest in ideas, and that's otherwise it's misunderstood.
Yeah, so Dad, you scored 98th overall, and Mom scored 68th.
And that breaks into—so when I scroll down here, actually I'll show it on the screen, but you can see behavioral roles, your virtues and faults as a couple and that's under all these different personality aspects.
So intellect, that's the first one. It breaks into intellect and then openness.
Intellect Dad, you scored 97% on intellect. Mom scored 34th percentile in intellect.
And that's really interest in semantic ideas, I would say.
So people high in intellect, they're philosophically minded; they like non-fiction particularly.
Men are likely to be higher in this intellect than women, although women are higher in the other aspect of openness, which is more interest in aesthetics and formal creativity and more likely to read fiction.
And so I'm really, really interested in ideas, although I'm also interested in aesthetic experience.
And your mom is definitely less interested in ideas than I am because I'm obsessed by them.
Oh yeah, yeah, you're obsessed by ideas!
Oh yeah.
Yeah, you notice that some people have noticed that!
Yeah!
Yeah, I mean, when I was in graduate school, I was thinking about ideas at an extremely rapid rate 16 hours a day, like it was non-stop.
The only thing I could do to stop it was go lift heavy weights; it was the only thing.
And alcohol!
When you were a little kid, when I knew you when you were eight, nine, ten, you seemed very thoughtful; you seemed very interested in the books that you were reading.
So the whole ideas had already begun.
Yeah, I was reading like, I always went to bed and read. I could read a book a day when I was a kid, science fiction book usually, but I read a lot of nonfiction, world book encyclopedias, and I was obsessed with words.
I couldn't tie my shoes if the shoes were on an old newspaper, you know, sitting on the porch.
I'd stop and while I was telling my shoes, I'd read all the newspaper articles.
My brother was the same. I used to do that!
He couldn't get in the house because he'd kneel down, take his boots off, and there he'd be reading!
This man, words! Words!
And combinations I haven't seen before!
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
So, okay! So, and then there's the other aspect of openness, and what's the difference there?
Uh, 96th for Dad and 87th for Mom.
Yeah, and that was a pretty good point of contact for us too.
For a long time, I was obsessively investigating and buying art, and I bought like 400 paintings, but I whittled them down from a subsample of a larger sample of say 4,000.
So I'd go on eBay and look at like 2,000 paintings in an evening, which you could do on eBay, which was really cool.
And I got so, the good ones what I thought were good would sort of pop out at me.
And then I'd print them out and lay them on the floor, and your mom would come in, and with her unsentimental and judgmental eye, and slightly less interest in aesthetics, we would go through them, and I would ask her,
"Okay, there's 10 here, get rid of the worst one."
And she was very good at that!
Yeah, it worked really well.
And it was interesting too because your mom was kind of worried about my art-buying obsession, which lasted about three years!
Could have been more worried about it!
Yeah, but generally when I brought her upstairs to look at the paintings, she'd say, "Well, I don't like that one, and I don't like that one, and I don't like that one,"
"But you could get those other three!"
And that was enthusiasm plus her interest in aesthetics, and so that's funny!
Yeah, okay, well, and that's a good one.
I think it's really hard for couples where one person is really high in openness and the other one isn't; that's a hard gap to bridge, man.
Because the one person is going to be really interested in ideas and in art and literature and music and all of that, all of the whole artistic realm, and the other person isn't struck by that or consumed by it.
And I don't know how to mediate that—well, that was good for us—
For sure!
Yeah, it really made fun for us!
I mean my mom is lower in openness than my dad, and art scares her, especially if it has to be nice; like she'd have her house covered with kittens if that was a possibility!
In fact, she does to some degree.
I bought some rough Russian Impressionist paintings from an artist that I really liked in the Soviet Union, and they were selling for like nothing; they were next to free!
I bought my dad ten of them, which I really liked, and sent them to him and he liked them a lot, but Mom wouldn't let him hang them up upstairs.
I think they were too unsettling for her, but he eventually got them framed and then brought them up sort of one at a time, and she got accustomed to them and then liked them.
And then years later, probably ten years later when I reminded her of the first part of the story, she didn't remember it at all!
She really liked the paintings by then, but it took her a long time.
Art is quite terrifying, you know?
And if you're naturally attracted to it, that's one thing, but beauty is no small force, man!
And so for people low in openness, they're not attracted by the aesthetic experience to such a degree, and so it's kind of unsettling for them.
So, and that's a tough, that's a tough, I remember I went to visit my dad and we had gone to Vancouver, and I said, "Let's go to the Emily Carr Museum."
"Why would we want to do that?"
He said he wasn't very high in openness, but what makes you think that'd be a good idea?
But I think what about this though, if you have someone who's extremely extroverted though, then wouldn't that just override it because even going around and—
No, no!
They just want to go there because to be part of the crowd and have fun!
Yeah!
Yeah, but they don't care about the art!
Yeah, but the museum would have to be full of people!
Yeah, they'd go to a party at a museum!
Yeah, but they wouldn't go—imagine the museum was empty and they had to go there alone!
Like, oh yeah, I'm extroverted, but I would go to a museum alone!
I'd rather go with someone, but I would go alone!
Yeah!
And I go to movies alone!
See, I don't.
Yep, I like movies alone as well!
Yeah, I think I've had that issue a bit when I've been traveling.
And I like to go to parties when I'm the only one there that I don't know anybody else there!
I used to do that all the time when I was in my twenties, you know, around the university, and I’d find a party, and I'd walk in the house and be in a party with people I didn't know anyone.
Low in withdrawal.
Yeah, yeah, that's part of your basically.
Yeah, I was like, “Oh, this is interesting!"
That was disrupted for you to some degree by the pill.
Well, the pill—yeah, the pill was terrible!
It made me depressed!
And volatile!
And volatile!
But thanks to everybody!
Like, no one says, everybody depressed and volatile!
I still had no withdrawal though.
It upped my volatility but it didn't change—
No, no!
It didn't!
So that's interesting!
It doesn't make everybody depressed!
I had clients who were depressed, especially with PMS.
Like they had cyclical monthly depression, and for some of them, the pill smoothed that out substantially.
So you have to pay attention to individual pills!
I know it wasn't good, it was terrible!
It ruined a lot of people!
I didn't take care of myself!
I didn't cut my hair!
I didn't take proper care of what I was wearing and stuff!
It really depressed!
Yeah, it was really bad!
It was really—and you're not prone like—
That's so wonderful!
It was chemical!
Yeah, you're not prone to depression like that!
No, Rebecca is, like unbelievably bubbly!
Not prone, I would say, at all!
Same thing, as soon as she went on the pill, she was crying every day!
Yeah, that's a massive difference!
And people are put on that when they're like 14 for safety when your emotions are all topsy-turvy anyway!
And they're like, and then it takes a couple weeks to make you depressed!
So you don't really notice right away, and then you're on it for 10 years before it's like, "Oh, you know," or longer—15 years!
Because apparently, it's safe to take forever!
Anyway, I started taking the pill when I was 16 years old.
I finished, I definitely had way more trouble with my parents for the last two years of high school, so I think I changed dramatically.
And then I went off to university.
You changed around that time, and I went off the pill, went to university, went back on the pill, dropped out of university, and I was meeting boyfriends.
And so I would take part in goal-directed when I was not on the pill, and then as soon as I was on the pill, I'd drop everything.
Well, it was terrible!
After Michaela was born—no, Julian!
Yeah, that's right!
After Julian was born, we were getting along pretty well, and you weren't going down the pill.
I went back on the pill when Julian was a year old.
Yeah, and I just—my— I was completely different person!
I was a completely different person!
And luckily someone came to visit who said the same thing happened to her, and so I stopped taking them, and then I—then it was fine!
Yeah, it was quite dramatic!
It was quite dramatic!
Anyways, we shouldn't talk about that too much!
Yeah, yeah!
No, but birth control pills and—
Yeah, they're going to get along!
Yeah, right!
Can we?
Well, we went over the personality report!
Yeah!
So people can go to understandmyself.com!
Yeah!
It's dirt cheap!
We tried to make it ridiculously cheap!
We tried to make it—we had nine—we had rules for the company.
We wanted to only sell—we wanted to sell because we wanted to make sure we developed the personality tests and also the self-authoring suite, which helps people write about their past, present, and future.
We wanted to only offer high-quality scientifically validated interventions that were self-directed for people, so they had to be based on a solid research background.
We didn't want any administrative overhead; we wanted people to be able to do it on their own.
We wanted to make it scalable ultimately, and we wanted to keep the price as low as possible.
And so those were the—and the saleability issue is think about it this way: you develop a personality test but no one uses it.
Well that's not a good solution to the problem.
You want to have people use it, so then, and then you want to have them use it and be happy enough about it to pay for it because that's actually a mark of its utility.
So we instituted my partners and I, Dr. Robert Peale, who was my graduate supervisor, and Dr. Daniel Higgins, who was an MIT trained engineer and was my student at Harvard, whom I've been working with now for 20 years.
We used those principles to guide the development of all these tests, and that's worked real well so far.
The website's a bit wordy, but we're working on that now.
So anyways, yeah, understandmyself.com.
I think, you know, even though, well, when we were first working on the test, we gave it to kids.
Yeah, that was really useful!
They were young, young!
Six years? Grade six?
Yeah, five or something. I remember that, like super young.
You had to self-score it!
Yeah, and I realized because, oh yeah, it didn't work for them at all.
Kayla and I would get into tussles now and then, and I realized after reviewing her personality scores that it wasn't because she was low in agreeableness because I thought she was pushing back, but it was because partly because she was ill, she was volatile, and she’d get upset when we were discussing things, not because she was rebelling or pushing back, but because she got upset.
And so I tried to learn when she was upset not to get upset about that in return, but to give her a hug or a pat, and to understand that it was emotional upset rather than, you know, rather than a motivated rebellion.
That was really helpful!
And I learn too that Julian was extremely easy to get along with.
Yeah, and it wasn't because he was agreeable because he's not agreeable, but he's really emotionally stable, really low in neuroticism.
And so, and when in retrospect, I thought, well that makes sense.
Because if he said no, you couldn't get him to do it.
Like really, really?
When he was a little kid?
When he was a little kid, he used to say yes in school sometimes, but not do it!
Yeah, just didn't want to be bothered by the people who were yes!
Shut up!
So I had to explain to him, I said, you know, there might be other kids who want to do this.
You've said yes!
You've got the right to do it, but now you didn't do it.
Someone else didn't get to do it, so just say no and get on with it.
Well, now he just says no very easily!
Yeah!
When he was that—it used to confuse me.
Yeah, confuse me!
"Hey, can you help with this?"
"No."
"Yeah! What do you mean?! You can't, like, I don't really want to help with this either, but I'm helping with it because the other person needs help!"
You're just saying no; what are you doing sitting at home?
Like I want to be sitting at home!
When he was about 11 months old, he had this tippy cup.
And he used to—we'd fill it with water or milk and give it to him, and he used to dot make dots everywhere with it.
And when that was milk, that wasn't such a good thing!
So we tried to get him to stop doing that, and we finally had to take the cup away because there was no way he was going to stop doing that, and he was only like 12 months old!
11 months old!
And I had a battle with him one time when he was learning to feed himself because he had taken the spoon from his mom.
He wasn't going to give that goddamn spoon back!
And then he wasn't eating because he'd just eat a bit, and then he'd play.
He's playing hockey!
Yeah, he has played hockey, that's right!
And then he was getting too hungry, and then he'd get crabby, and he wouldn't nap, and then he was upsetting his mom.
And I thought, all right, kid, I'm taking that spoon back because I'm going to feed you!
And it literally took me three hours fighting with this like 10-month-old!
It wasn't really a fight though; it was really ingenious, so he’d poke him in the shoulder a little bit, and Julian would be sitting there with his mouth shut!
Oh, just try to feed me!
And then he’d poke him a few times, and he’d go, and then you stick the food in his mouth.
Then he tried to push it out with his tongue—airplane mode!
Yeah, I thought it was on airplane!
But apparently it isn't!
Let me fix that right real quick!
So, yeah! It got so intense this fight that your mom had to leave the room because she couldn't tolerate the conflict, and it was making me sweat too!
But I thought there’s no damn way this nine-month-old kid is gonna win!
I was patient like I'd learned at that point when I was disciplining you kids not to usually not get upset.
It was just like—no, on the steps with you!
You stopped doing that!
When you're willing to behave like a civilized human being, you can come back!
That was the rule!
Do something disruptive!
Yeah!
You remember those words?
Well, you were pretty easy to discipline because—
Very easy!
Yeah!
You should have known you were agreeable!
Yeah!
All we had to do really was say no, and we didn't even have to say it very harshly!
You'd just stop!
I think I scored 50th percentile because the compassion was at 88.
Okay! Brightness isn't like low, but Julian, when we used to put him on the steps, man, he would just sit there and rage!
Like his fists clenched, his jaw—are you ready yet?
He'd say, "Oh no!"
But he was trying to get himself under control!
Yeah!
And your mom and I would watch this because especially if he went to daycare and interacted with some kids who were full of tricks, he’d come home full of tricks, you know?
He'd try them out—let's try this out and see if it works!
And so it does that!
Yeah, yeah!
Yeah, yeah!
And so Tammy and I would talk because we tried to present an integrated disciplinary front.
We weren't going to let you kids play one of us against the other, although imagine you'd manage that some of the times.
And we'd say, "Okay, Julian, he's getting out of here, we're going to crack down on him for two weeks! He doesn't get away with a whisper out of line!"
And so we'd really like attend to him right, watching it!
If he ever did anything out of line, it was like stop!
And what was really interesting, this was so interesting!
Every time we did that, he liked us way more!
Oh yeah!
Yeah!
It comes for attention!
Yeah!
It's not chaos, right?
Right?
Got some boundaries!
They're not just like, "Well, how far can I go?"
Yeah!
Oh, I have a story!
I have a story!
So when we were in Boston, I was taking care of these little kids one afternoon.
Someone's care worker had a car accident, and they didn't have someone to take care of him!
And I had your friends that used to come over and play all the time, so I had this troupe of kids in the house.
And so this little guy came in, and he was about three years old, and his mom said, "Don't worry, he won't eat anything, but you know, just keep him for the day."
And I thought, "Well, that doesn't make any sense!"
So don't worry, he won't eat anything!
So at lunch time, we sat down, and we had chicken pot pie, and you guys knew that you had to eat!
And so did the two kids who always came; they knew!
Yeah!
Except that one kid, he'd only eat hot dogs at home!
Mitchell?
Yeah, was that right?
Yeah!
But he ate everything at our house!
Probably knew what was that!
Yeah, yeah, I didn't know that!
Yeah!
Anyway, this little kid sat down, and he wasn't going to eat anything, but we did the same thing we did with Julian.
Yeah!
Except I used more reward.
And then he would eat something, and we'd go, "Good boy!"
We tried to feed him something, eh?
Yeah!
And he was about, he was about four; he might have been four.
We tried to feed him something, and he'd go like this.
Yes!
And I thought, "Well, that's what a nine-month-old does."
It just moves his head.
I thought, "Oh, this kid hasn't been interacted with since he was nine months old!"
Yeah!
And so I just keep the spoon in front of him, and with a little bit on one, finally he'd eat it, and then I’d go, "Pat, pat, pat! You did the feeding, not me, that was you that did that!"
And you were there!
I was watching!
That's right!
And you kept rewarding him, and then it was so interesting!
So when I had come home that day, that kid was standing in the porch by himself looking miserable while the other kids were playing.
And I came in, I looked at him, I thought, "What the hell? That's not good!"
And so then I poked him a bunch, you know, to try to play with him, and he just went like this; he was sullen, and he had no idea how to play, and so that was really sad.
And then lunch was after that; anyways Tammy fed him, and he got right to the bottom of the bowl and finished it!
And she said, "Look, you finished it! Look what you did!"
And he just lit up into a huge smile!
Oh, that's gonna make me—
Yeah, oh!
It's worse!
It's worse!
He wasn't toilet trained yet!
Yeah!
He followed Tammy around for the rest of the day like a puppy!
Like he was right on her path, and then—
Yeah, when we sat down, we used to go downstairs and watch Disney, and he sat on my knee.
He climbed right up on her and grabbed her like that!
Like that little monkey clinging to the wire mother in the famous experiments!
And then, Jesus Christ!
His mother came home and came downstairs, and she saw Tammy hit this kid clinging to Tammy, and she said, "Oh, super mum!"
And grabbed him by the hand and laughed!
It's like, that's a horrifying story!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Well, she was a psychologist too, so just to put another—I think he was a psychologist.
Okay, whatever.
Yeah, I hope that that day wasn't enough to really help him, help him some.
Well, yeah, right!
Or just make them hate you!
Yeah!
And take it out on the kid!
Yeah!
Which they definitely would if it's like "How dare you show attention!"
It was something, man!
Yeah!
Well