Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Ever stressed about the fact that you and your partner don't quite see eye to eye on a specific subject? You're not alone. But here's the thing. Those differences might actually be something to celebrate. Today, we're diving into why a successful relationship doesn't actually require complete agreement on every issue. Instead, it thrives on embracing each other's unique perspectives. We'll explore how loving your partner, warts and all, can actually strengthen your bond, similar to how diversity drives success in business and sports teams. Plus, we'll give you the secret to turning your differences into your team superpower.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Hey, we're Kim and Rog, and we're here to show couples how to get the best out of their relationship so they can start living their dream life together.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: We're a West Aussie couple who are living the life of our dreams. We don't entertain the word should, we think about the future as a field of possibilities and we let joy be our compass.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: We've taken the simple idea of working as a team and applied it to our marriage. And it's been a game changer, allowing us to work out what truly lights us up in life and to go after it together.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: From living in snowy Japan to starting our own house stripping business, we've achieved some big dreams. And most importantly, we feel fulfilled and are having the most fun we've ever had.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Peer conversations from inspiring couples, thoughts from relationship experts, and tales from our own lives as we help you to gain the wisdom and skills you'll need to turn your relationship into a real team.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: These are relationship conversations for real people, by real people. So sit back, get comfort in whatever tickles you pickle, and enjoy living the team life.
Although there is much conjecture over whether opposites attract, and in fact, recent studies show they don't, we still have many differences between us and our partners.
And that makes sense, right? We're all unique individuals, molded by our genetics and lives to date. But sometimes these differences, even when small, start to become significant issues between us and they can cause rifts and resentment. So today we're going to talk about the fact that although we are different, our differences can be a strength in our relationship and should actually be celebrated. We're going to talk about why it's important to celebrate these differences, how to become aligned despite them. And Kim and I will also share how we have gone from a space of letting our differences get between us to our differences becoming a key part in our successful relationship and our business.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: Yeah, today's a bit of a mindset mover. We're hoping because we know that when we were struggling in our relationship years ago, we, and that's not to say we don't have struggles today, but we're not struggling in our relationship. And we've worked, worked very hard to get to this place.
We focused on our differences as negative things. We would blame our differences. And if you will, like, people love that word today, weaponizing. We would weaponize it. We'd say, you're just so different. To me. This is not going to work. One of the biggest mindset moves we made in our relationship that really benefited us was to understand and reframe to our differences being a strength and appreciating that they were going to clash sometimes, we were going to clash sometimes. But that was not about our relationship as a whole. That was about the fact that we do see things differently, issues differently. And there is another way to approach differences in the way you view an issue that can keep you aligned. And I just think it's really important to understand that this is a mindset around differences actually being a strength, rather than differences being a reason you can't be with that person.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: That's right. And we understand this. We've lived through it. But also, relationship experts believe that differences are critical to, I guess, the strength and bond between two partners as well.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: Yeah, Stan Tatkin talks about this a lot. He talks about this idea that you. The importance, I guess, of accepting and loving one another, warts and all. And I think that's the phrase he uses, warts and all, in a relationship. I just think this is so brilliant because it really goes to the heart of unconditional love, where you fully and unconditionally love this person, even though you may not always agree or be able to understand why their perspective is the way it is. Appreciating that we come from such diverse backgrounds, such different backgrounds from one another, you're always going to have differences from your partner and embracing these different. That manifest as some of them that will look like imperfections and flaws as part of the whole person understanding. That's what makes them themselves. They have things that you will agree with and things you'll disagree with, and that's okay. You love all parts of them. And I think that might sound actually quite drastic to some people. The idea that you would love the bits in a person that you find difficult, but that's what real love is. Real love is even loving the bits you find difficult. And when I think about that, you and I both have things we still find difficult in one another.
I love those bits of you, even though I find them difficult, because I love all of you. It's part of the whole. And this level of acceptance fosters a deeper connection and trust between partners. When you experience from your partner an unconditional love, which is what this is, it's the deepest bond you can possibly have with someone. And you'll recognize it because people say things like, they just let me be myself. It's the number one thing you hear come out of someone's mouth when they find their soulmate. And they say, I want to get married, or, I want to be with this person forever. And you say, how do you know they're the one? They just let me be myself. What they're saying is they accept me fully, warts and all. And that's what we're saying. Even with differences, you love the whole person. That's the warts and all approach.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And Esther Perel also believes that one of the importance of the differences between two people in a relationship is that sort of tension it provides, because the relationship is a bit more exciting, it's a bit more dynamic. She even says that differences in a relationship can add an erotic energy, which, hello. You know, so we have different approaches.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: To that information.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: You know, she believes that it actually fuels desire, the mystery, the novelty coming from being different, wanting to know more, or even a bit of negative conflict. But you love it. You love all the. What did you call them in one of the last episodes of the Peccadillos?
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Oh, the Peccadilloes.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: The Peccadillos. You know, it's those things that can annoy you, can sometimes even drive you a little crazy. But it's like crazy and love crazy. The other thing that she highlights is, in fact, it's really critical in our growth and learning between two people, because we see things differently and our partners can actually expand our horizons by exposing us to new perspectives and new experiences. And it's not just the relationship experts. People who study high performance teams also believe that having different personalities, people with different backgrounds and skill sets, is critical to the success of a high performance team. And some of the reasons why it's so important is that when you have different ideas and perspectives, you have enhanced creativity and innovation in a team. If you're all thinking the same, if you're all trying to do things the same way, there's less likely you're going to innovate. It's less likely you're going to do cool new stuff.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I think this is a great way to think about differences in a relationship to bring in the team perspective, high performance team perspective. And we always try to bring a team lens from high performance businesses or sports teams or whatever, because that is a true team. And what we believe here is when you work as a team in your relationship, just as you would in any other team space, that you will get the most out of that relationship. It's not about milking the most out of the milking the most out of life. It's about getting the most out of what you want out of life together, experiencing your greatest love, all of those sorts of things.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: Well, you're in a collaborative environment. Whether you're in two people in a relationship, or 20 people in a team, or a thousand people in a business, you're in a team or just over varying difference in sight. And there are fundamental truths which create successful teams. And this is why Kim and I call our podcast living the team life.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Yes, because when you're in a collaborative environment, which means more than one person, you have a unique opportunity to work as a team. That's what you have. You have that opportunity. So coming back to what you're saying, sorry, I've digressed off a little bit to the side, but the importance of differences is really emphasized in high performing teams, and it's a great one for us to look at a little bit more closely because then you can bring that in to the relationship perspective. Roger, you talked about, you said enhanced creativity and innovation, that high performance, diverse teams bring a wider range of perspective and ideas. The other thing that they do is they have better problem solving. When we have differences, different viewpoints, different ways of doing things, we come at things with multiple angles. We address challenges from different viewpoints, and we have different ideas about what effective solutions can be. It's like extra horsepower in the unit, and it's a really great one. That's what we see in high performance teams, and it's exactly the same within a relationship.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: Well, two heads are better than one, aren't they? That's the old saying. And of course, if you're innovative, if you're problem solving, you're going to make better decisions because you can bounce ideas off each other. You're going to have, you're going to analyze the situation differently, more thoroughly, and you're going to avoid the group think. You're going to challenge the status quo. You're going to challenge each other to come up and make a better decision. And so many of our successes in life in love are about our ability to make the right decision at the right time. Should I buy this house? Should I take on this mortgage? Should we have another kid? A, B, C, D, e. All these decisions we make every day, big life decisions, little life decisions. Having each other there will help us make the right decision.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: That's such a great one.
You're getting extra information and input. That's how you can look at the differences. The differences are bringing more information and input. If you've ever made a bad decision and you go, I miss that information, this happens to me all the time. When I look back at something where I've made a bad decision and I critique it, which I like to do, and figure out what went wrong, I will see that. I perhaps didn't talk to rog about it. Perhaps I missed that extra information because one of our greatest strengths is actually talking to one another about something we're thinking about doing. I'm thinking about making this decision. I'm thinking about heading down this direction because we own different areas of the business and the household. And so before we will hit go on something, we will ask one another, and undoubtedly, that person will bring an important, different perspective to the table on that.
Another part of that, a massive benefit in high performance teams. It's really, really obvious to having differences, is you increase your productivity. And we certainly know that Rog and I work so differently, we approach the household so differently, and as a result, we use our differences to our advantage. We stay in the zones we're best at, and they are polar opposites. We are. I'm big thinker strategy. I'm quite flighty. I am busier in my head than I should be, and then busier verbally than I probably should be. And Roger is more consistent, dependable, more grounded, I would say. And so that's how we function. That's we allow those differences to shine, and we give each other the tasks that slot beautifully into each of those spaces, and as a result, we become more productive together because we're staying in the spaces that work for us. The different spaces that work for us.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And really, that's because we have a broader skill set. And this is what high performance teams who have different personalities and people with different skills have. They have people with a broader skill set. And when you're dealing with life, which throws so many different aspects and challenges your way, you need to be a jack of all trades and many things. Specialization doesn't work in the contest of life, really. You need to make sure that you and your partner have the ability to tackle life's problems together. And if you just look at things exactly the same, you're not going to, I guess you're not going to get the cut through. You need to get the best out of life.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And one of the other things that I really love about differences is you get a broader skill set. You also get a more broader. I don't know how to put this.
It's like your brain grows, you actually grow the infrastructure for learning. So when you have someone who's different and you start to think differently, you start to think, oh, okay, I need to consider it from this side. Your brain grows its infrastructure to consider even more. You become more open as a result. It's like a cycle that feeds itself. So when you work with your partner and their differences and their different ideas and their different way of thinking, you start fostering this continuous learning process yourself. I want to learn more. I want to grow different ways of thinking. I want to think about it differently. And that feeds into itself. So you actually build your capacity to learn when you open up to differences in the relationship and embrace them and different ways of thinking.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think one of the final and almost one of the most important aspects of a high performance team and why they believe that having different personalities, people with different skill sets, people with different backgrounds in a high performance team is so critical is because they can adapt. We all heard it during COVID pivot. Adapt. You know, be more flexible because diversity can make teams more adaptable to change. Because the varied experience and viewscape viewpoints actually help us navigate and embrace new situations that are definitely going to happen and the challenges that are ahead. There will be someone in your team, whether it your wife or you, who are better equipped to have it. And because, again, they've learned from you and you've learned beside each other for so long, you're going to be able to have each other's back. To hit that problem head on.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: I think this is my favorite of the reasons we've given for why differences are so important. And we're using, obviously, the frame of high performance teams and how they embrace different personalities and different people and use differences to their advantage.
Being able to adapt in challenging situations is one of the most critical skills you will have in a relationship because it is the pain and suffering of a challenging situation, a truly difficult time in life that will break relationships. And if you embrace your differences and open up to the fact that your partner may approach it differently, but they may bring something that's going to help you guys get through this the, the likelihood of you coming through that better is so much higher because you're covering more bases. What are our options in terms of being flexible? If you think the same way, if you guys do everything the same, the options you will have when you need to think differently, which is what being flexible means, will be limited. But if you both think differently, when life throws you serious lemons, you guys are going to come up with different options because you're going to have different viewpoints, you're going to look at it differently, you're going to have differences. And as a result, the way the opportunity you have to come through that difficulty, better off rather than worse off, is higher.
That's a simple numbers game.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: That's right. So we've discussed why relationship experts believe that differences are critical to a healthy relationship. We've also just discussed how high performance teams, and this is commonly known, believe that the more differences and variation of the members that I have in their team, the higher performing, the more successful they will be. So why are differences such a problem? Why do we have differences causing problems in our relationship? Well, Kim and I strongly believe, and a lot of the research backs this up, is because most people don't have shared values. And this is something that was very, this was something that was apparent in Kim and my relationship probably over the first ten years, maybe not at first, and we can discuss that in a bit, but more recently, we are very aligned. And so while first our differences were creating a chasm in our relationship, now our differences actually are strengthening our bond. And this is because our values are aligned. So we're going to take you through quickly why it's so important to have aligned values and the impact it has on your relationship.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: Well, can you just talk for a second, Rog, about what values are? Because I think that's important for people to understand the difference.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Yeah. So values are how you see how you see the world. So a difference might be just the way you go about things or how you do things, but the fundamental principles are how you feel the world should work or how you see the world.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: It's the principles of your life, the way the direction in which you want to go in your life follows principles. I see myself as this person. I value this about myself. Therefore, I'm going to undertake actions that head towards that value system. But a value system has to be articulated. And I think this is an important point. You said a lot of people are struggling with their differences because they're not aligned on their values. I don't know if they're not aligned or that they don't know how to be clear on what their team values are. And we can talk a little bit more about that in a second. But let's talk about why understanding what you're principled about in life, what you believe in, your values are so important in a relationship versus having differences. What's the benefit of being aligned on values and still celebrating differences on issues or approaches?
[00:19:38] Speaker A: So really, values are the foundation of trust and understanding. Because if you both believe, if you both understand and believe in the same principles about how you see the world and where you want to go in the world, you have a trust that you will be with each other on that path no matter what. When your values align, you're more likely to understand each other's actions and motivations, and this leads to a deeper underlying trust between you.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: The next reason that values are so important to be aligned on, unlike differences on issues, is they reduce conflict when we share our values. That's our deep principles. So how we see ourselves as humans in the world and what matters to us when we share that way we see ourselves, there's way less propensity for conflict. Because even if you disagree on what you're doing, you will know that the outcome is bigger than the what. It's the. Where you're going. Okay, we didn't do that quite the same. I didn't enjoy the way they did that, but I see it's aligned to our values. I see it's aligned. For example, we have a very strong value that we spend time with the kids on the weekend. That's. We have a strong family value that we spend quality time with the kids. That's an overarching value. So on the weekend, we like to spend, I don't know, however many hours a day with our kids, we make sure that we get one on one time. You come in and you might look at your partner and they're playing a soft version of paintball, and you say, my God, what are you doing? I wouldn't play paintball with my kid. They're too young. Rah, rah. That is what they're doing. The fact that they're spending quality time, though, will allow you to move past that and say, I love you for spending quality time. That's what we've agreed on. Can we look at doing this a different way as opposed to being just hung up on what they did? Because it was. That was different to the how you would have approached it, right?
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not what they're doing, it's why they're doing it. And if your whys are aligned, your principles of why you're doing is aligned, you're more likely to have a disagreement, repair and move on better, stronger people.
[00:21:51] Speaker B: Don't play paintball with your children was a bad example.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: Just wear eye protection.
And the research backs this up in terms of long term compatibility. And this is what the team life's all about. Finding a partner who you can go through life with through thick and thin.
Having a line core values increases the likelihood of a long term partnership and also increases the likelihood of satisfaction in a relationship. And the research is clear on this. Partners are more likely to support each other's goals and life choices and as a result, be on the same path in life that, as opposed, if they had different principles and different values, or as we talked about, they don't understand each other's values and principles, or they haven't agreed them.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And part of that, I think, that long term compatibility is that when you share your values and you've been able to articulate that together, you feel more intimate and you're willing to support one another as well, more because you understand that you're on the same page about how you see life, what's important to you, who you are as humans, and where you're going in this world together.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: Now, quickly, to close off the episode, Kim and I are going to give you a little personal anecdote about how, in some ways, we are very different, but how our values are aligned. And as a result, we've gone from a team that used to struggle with our differences to a team that our differences, in many ways, are our superpower.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: Yeah, this isn't really a specific example. It's more that what we realized in our early years was we were actually very aligned on a lot of values. It's what connected us to one another.
We share our perspective on the world and our principles in a lot of ways, even as 18 year olds, which is interesting because your values, I think, are still evolving a lot at that very young, impressionable age.
What we weren't able to do in the first decade of our relationship is articulate those values. And so we thought we weren't meant to be together because we had a lot of differences. And we just really wanted to talk about this and explain that what might appear as incompatible differences is not necessarily the case. Differences can be fantastic. They can be the gold part of your relationship. What takes you to a whole nother level, opens your world up, grows you as people to together. What you do need to do, though, is get clear on what you are aligned on, and that is your values. And to do that, you need to articulate these. You need to actually go through a process of writing out your values. And this is where we started to get on the same page. We literally started writing, and I can remember doing it, what mattered to us. We talked about what was important to us in life as people. And we started to realize we wanted the same things, we cared about the same things. We saw ourselves clearly aligned as people and our belief systems, and we hadn't been able to articulate that before. And what happened in the future then. So in the last decade, when we've had differences, which we have all the time, because we are very different people, we would come back to, I can see why they're doing it, and it's aligned to our values. And so most of the time, sometimes we don't align with our values. People go wrong for all different reasons.
And that's how we would resolve conflict and move forward and stay connected together.
And that is a really critical difference. Okay, rog, what's your gold nugget from today's episode?
[00:25:27] Speaker A: My gold nugget is that all of us want to be loved for who we are. And by loving your partner, Waltz and all, and them loving you, waltz and all, you're creating the foundation for a really safe relationship. And from safety, you're creating a foundation for strength.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: And I think building on that, if you see the differences and it has bothered you, realize that talking to them about your values may just be the missing link you've got. That will take you from being bothered by differences to embracing the differences, using them as your superpower, and getting on the same page to head in whatever dream direction you have for life, whoever you see yourselves as doing the things that really matter to you guys together.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: You'Re amazing. You've just spent quality time on your relationship.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Feel like you're on a roll. If you want more living the team life relationship insights and conversations, head over to kimandroj.com where you can find all the show notes as well as tons of other relationship goodies.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: And if you liked today's episode, please hit subscribe or let another couple know where they can find us. It'll make them happy and it'll make us really happy.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Until next time, keep on living the team life.
