0:00

What you’re about to hear is an unscripted one time counseling session focused on work for the purposes of maintaining confidentiality names, employers and other identifiable characteristics have been removed, but their voices and their stories are real.

0:20

I think dicks are hilarious.

RNA.

Really is the two people who run a Communications company.

We have both like drastically terrible book communicating.

They had been together for 13 years as business partners as close friends that had met in college that stumbled upon this new idea that turned into a very successful business studies on the number of continents and bicoastal and the business is actually doing really well.

0:46

And the relationship is sinking.

The the kind of Single most stressful thing, and it’s in my working life.

If not life is the challenges with our relationship.

I just I feel continually undermined.

1:06

The child has always been that place where I’ve been needed and I feel important.

A lot of the people that work for me are like an extension of my family.

There’s no doubt that you’re emotional and relational diary comes with you to work.

1:23

Imagine going to work every day, and I’m really busy place and no one will make eye contact with you.

I mean, it feels like a breakup.

It doesn’t So, how’s work?

For years, they’ve been sitting with this.

1:47

And so the ask was big.

It was a about just opening up the conversation, be about what actually needed to be talked about.

And see what was a potential resolution that they could both engage in, but the conversation was so hard for them that I understood why it took them four years and it wasn’t just hard for them.

2:12

It was hard for me as well because they kept Sleeves saying we need to talk about this but then did everything possible to not talk about this.

That’s sort of two aspects to it.

For me.

One is the relationship and then the other is the sort of the business and what we both our roles and what we both bring to the business.

2:38

Yeah.

I’d like to sort of be able to get get to a point where we can have a kind of way of.

Being able to see what keeps you awake at night.

I mean, a couple of months ago.

2:56

It was It was kind of quite bad.

But which one the business or the relationship?

Well, business is fine really.

So I’d say it’s probably that’s one thing you agree on, is that both of you are preoccupied by the Fishers of your relationship.

3:24

Yeah.

I mean, I’d say like this sort of when I look at what we’ve achieved together and look at where we’ve come from.

It seems it’s so sad that we can’t see eye to eye.

I think you know the times when we’ve been most aligned.

I’ve been most happy in the business.

3:42

I felt most sort of confident in myself as a as a someone operating the business and just generally like in life because you do business does flow into so many other aspects of the way that you feel about yourself and think about yourself and I read.

4:00

So yesterday was just by chance.

I read that Carl Jung said, loneliness is not an absence of people.

It’s an absence of genuine understanding our society or be feeling genuinely understood.

And I think if I could sort of put my finger on like a key fissure between the turbos.

4:18

It’s like I don’t, I haven’t always felt supported.

Because there’s this because we because there is a fissure because there was a challenge there in our relationship and which had been there for years and it is named it.

4:36

I was getting quite big quite quickly, but I you’re doing good.

The challenge I think is is it okay that I of course be GPS.

You can GPS.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It’s probably just for the best, you know.

4:55

Out that entire period of building.

The company, you know, when we won lots of awards and things, you know, I was always really Keen to make sure that we share the stage together. and, you know, I feel like that you weren’t quite as willing to share the stage with me and at like and and that led to Some of the decision-making that I that, you know, so when you were like, look, you know, you have to let all these people go or you have to do this or that it was, it wasn’t necessarily coming for, you know, even today, you know, we’re looking at the marketing and, you know, I, I feel like you’re quite some anti marketing, but part of the reason, I think your auntie marketing, frankly.

5:42

It’s because I think you think you see it as something that I’m doing.

And so if we can kind of like if it could, you know, if we can show that marketing fails, Thing for us to do then that was somehow diminish me.

You know, rather than that was definitely.

5:59

The thing that we used to do that make sense.

What do you hear?

Yeah, let’s repeat it.

Okay, so that we get a sense.

He said a lot.

Yeah.

So what I have here is that there’s a, there’s a kind of Emotional response to a lot of the decisions that we’ve had to take as a business.

6:33

For me, I kind of think, you know, but before you sorry rebuttal, yeah, what did you hear him?

Say, he said something extremely important.

That it was about doing it together and sharing the stage.

6:49

No, yes, but that’s no words.

That’s Look, we tend to be able to repeat things quite easily.

When it’s tough, we have no problem.

Listening to what’s extraordinary is how hard it is?

7:09

And generally we can probably handle 10 seconds, which is three sentences. but before you answer, you have got to just say, this is what I’m hearing.

And then, instead of shaking your head.

You can say, you heard a piece of it or part, that’s part of it, but there’s more so that we first established.

7:30

I will tell you what I heard, but it’s also to be checked.

It’s not because at this point, we have reached a place where there is a confusion between you’re disagreeing with my idea, with an idea versus you’re disagreeing with me and it becomes essential lized.

7:47

It’s not about Good thing it’s not about this or that it ends up being about me and I feel that on some level.

I’m undermined and then I have to prove myself and I’m being tested.

And if it’s something that I want by definition, you want wanted, but not because of the idea but because it’s coming from me.

8:07

And that’s how the waters have gotten muddled.

Is that?

Yeah, okay.

It’s okay to say, I don’t know.

I’m not sure.

I really understand what you’re saying.

But if you don’t listen it because you’re busy with the rebuttal.

Yeah.

8:26

So you got to slow it down.

And anchor yourself first and foremost into the listening.

That’s the essence of the communication is actually not the talking.

It’s the listening he gave you the opening line, right?

8:46

There’s a loneliness in not being understood.

That’s a that in itself is a loneliness.

And you are, do you still see each other outside of work?

Do you still have a friendship?

Sometimes you still talk about anything besides the shop.

9:06

Yeah.

Okay.

Do you still go out just to hang and be with each other for the company of each other and we’ve lived in different places for five years.

Yes.

No, to still text each other stuff.

That is not about work as the way that you bring each other into each other’s lives.

9:28

Is that a loss?

Do you care about it?

Are you so fixated on the shop and in the business that the Friendship is no longer on the menu.

No, I mean, I’d quite like it there.

I’d sort of would quite like to not have the business in the way and just be able to be friends, you know, outside of that.

9:49

The thing that’s quite marked is like we’re lucky enough to have built a company of people who we get on really well with.

No.

No, I understood the people in the company.

I rather happy.

It’s just the two co-founders that I like particularly with each other.

Yeah.

10:04

With each other.

Yeah, and at this point they can’t discuss an idea because an idea becomes the representation of a person and when it becomes a centralized this way you no longer, if you decide you no longer know, if you’re discussing.

I don’t like the idea or I don’t like you right?

10:20

And that’s where potentially Where I get very frustrated because so does he?

Yeah, so first answer him.

I mean answer him doesn’t mean argue.

It.

It it’s just Repeat.

Now that I said it just repeat it again.

10:37

What do you think he was talking about?

What did you hear?

That when I object to an idea, he sees that you see that as somehow a rejection of you or or a way of sort of me, somehow, proving a point for the first hour of decision.

11:05

They’ve told me what they want to address, and they’ve shown me how they will do anything possible.

Never to talk about what they came to.

Talk about.

The avoid conflict, the avoid pain, they avoid the inevitable to avoid having to face each other and say those things to say.

11:24

And I want to continue with you.

And I’m actually actively trying to push you out.

This is not an uncommon story among co-founders in which, when often may find that there is one person whose primary Paradigm continues to be the relationship and the friendship.

11:44

And the other one was more mercenary and whose primary Paradigm becomes business first.

So after an hour, my frustration has been mounting and I feel for them because I realize that they’re desperate to engage in the conversation and they have no idea how to do it and they’ll do anything not to do it because it is about to show the sad sides and the not nice sites that each of them carries.

12:21

We when we first set the company up.

We talked all the time.

I mean like just daily.

Yes several times because we were always always are all we could do this.

We can do that.

We can eat, you know, and I think as the business developed, you know, we just talk less and then the less you talk, the less you sort of get that genuine level of communication.

12:44

It’s like a relationship.

Yeah.

YooHoo you.

In the beginning is don’t stop.

I think all Just, I think kind of trying to unpick every bit as well like that whole period in London. in terms of letting people go, that’s where I feel like let down by you in like it.

13:08

Stop becoming a partnership there because I was doing everything I could to try and support you and to help make these difficult decisions to the point where I actually came back and did some of it.

But you there was a kind of unwillingness to listen to to those very practical suggestions and solutions and that led to immense frustration on my side.

13:41

I know had an impact, you know, from on a personal level and that, yeah, that’s kind of where it, it really that.

I mean, that was tossed.

Really damaging.

I think we just both have very different narratives about like what happened from when he moved to the US on.

13:56

I think we came here.

It was, you know, admittedly like you it was something that you really drove and you know, we moved over here and we basically gutted the UK business.

How to make New York into the biggest opportunity that we could.

14:16

He said, just you just said something that I want to pick up on for a sec.

If you love me, we have different narratives.

Give me just a sentence.

What kind of relationship cultures you come from?

14:34

And you grew up in?

When it comes to talking about difficult subjects.

Being direct with people that are close to you managing conflict.

14:53

Expressing certain feelings or not or other feelings, but not those what kind of relationship cultures did you grow up in?

What’s your Accord is the relational, diary, the stuff that we bring with us to work and does not stay at the door.

15:15

I mean, for me, we didn’t we didn’t talk about feelings a lot at home.

What?

I mean, various of loving environment and very happy with my upbringing.

And but there wasn’t my dad’s English and didn’t talk about motions very much.

15:34

My mom, my mom German very direct.

So I sort of got some of the that, directness, I think.

How did people handle disagreement conflict?

Yeah, not we’re not a sort of big like talkie, emotional family.

15:56

I’m not good at vocalizing, my feelings.

I know that I’ve been told and I think that then I have very think high expectations of myself and therefore other people and can not verbalize that kind of stuff.

16:13

So I think there are I recognize there are times where I just expect people to get things and expect them to, you know, yeah.

Just have high expectations and I think that then when that doesn’t happen, I then get annoyed.

16:29

And how do you sure noise passive, aggressive?

I think, what’s the withdrawal?

I’ll just kind of go very quiet.

Yeah, I normally just do that and just keep it keep it inside.

Good old British coffee.

16:46

Yeah, but there’s an art to passive-aggressive.

So what’s your what’s your particular?

Craft.

I think just point and ask you to yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Known him, many years.

Yeah, and you may be better off at.

17:04

Yeah, you children you said yeah, probably I’m very similar vibe from for me, too.

Either rolling your eyes or I find you lick your teeth to me quite a lot.

I find that quite which is very sort of animalistic, sort of fight mechanism.

17:27

That’s then if you notice that butt, you ditch me all the time, you know, the I think they sort of just so hilarious RNA really is that?

For two people who run a Communications company.

We have both like drastically terrible at communicating which probably are sitting here.

17:43

When all the rivers.

The fact that you’re here.

I always take as there’s a, there’s a longing underneath.

Mmm.

There’s a wish for something better.

Yeah, you may not know how to do it.

17:59

But you at least have a desire to want to do it and that that speaks volume.

So I don’t think that the fact that you’re here is because you’re worse than others, quite to the contrary, but I do want to know how this conflict get managed.

18:15

How does appreciation gets expressed.

How does Disagreement come out.

How does sadness get is?

I mean, there’s a wide vocabulary.

So what’s the vocabulary you come with?

Bottle it up and don’t deal with it and then go to the pub.

18:41

Probably why I’m still ready.

Carp about my dad died when I was 10 not that has anything to do with this really but I Inability to deal with challenges is or emotional challenges.

Story is is an issue.

I don’t even deal particularly well with communicating and happiness.

19:03

That’s where you are.

Hmm, you are rather unhappy with your relationship with your co-founder, and your friend, and he you rather unhappy as well.

So that is actually the thing that you’re in the midst of at this moment, not the direction of the company.

19:23

That is actually unfolding quite well.

And part of what you’re doing about.

Your unhappiness, is your fortifying, the troops, you’re building a case for leaving.

19:40

But of course, with the fantasy that he would do the leaving.

So you don’t even have to take responsibility for that.

That’s passive aggressive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and he feels it.

Hmm.

And he even says it.

19:57

You know, you’re you’re inching me out.

So far so good.

Yeah, I continue.

I just I feel continually undermined.

We had a thing on Friday where we have a deck that we send out.

20:16

I want you to try and do that thing that you just said is so hard.

Yeah.

I’ll be with you.

I’ll help you.

Thank you.

I just fail continually marginalized a company that I’ve liked loved and given my all and given countless late nights and weekends and hours and hours and weeks of lost sleep.

20:52

I just feel like my joy and desire to do.

It is just crushed like over and out.

And every time we’re on a call and I mean, it doesn’t even necessarily need to be where I go off on one like quite often.

21:09

You just roll your eyes at the things I say or you know, like finding that the deck with that we like we might like when you want to check, if he’s listening with my name.

It’s beautiful.

And I got so upset about that on Friday because like that was just, it was just the clear as possible.

21:28

Manifestation of the way I feel, So that was just it was a slide of the company and it had everyone in the company on it except I just literally just didn’t feature.

So it was like a sort of it was a hierarchy of the company with one person missing and the one person missing with me and that just, you know, now that hurt that hurt, but it hurt because I’ve had that feeling For years, you know that first year when we entered loads of into these big Awards the to see you thinking and using feeling okay.

22:11

You tell him that hurt.

Yeah, and now the shut up.

Yes it with it.

The problem is that you talked to flatten whatever you feel.

Yeah, and you go numb and when you go numb he goes numb.

22:28

Yeah.

Fair.

That is fair.

I guess that’s it.

Now.

I’ve got back to him sit and let him react.

Yeah, I get it.

It’s an awful thing.

You built this thing.

They put a slide up.

You’re not even in it.

Yeah, that’s a clear feeling.

22:45

Yeah.

It sucks to be edited out.

You feel excluded and hurt period.

Yeah.

Shut up, Michel not know.

Each other.

I know I know.

23:02

It’s not shut up.

It’s you don’t allow yourself to feel it.

Yeah, and I it hurts, it feels off.

But by continuing to talk, you don’t allow yourself to actually see I loo what you’re saying.

That’s right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

23:22

I realized in listening to the session that I actually ended up doing with him, what he was doing with his partner.

I was trying to help him to actually just let it sit for a moment with the load of emotion.

23:38

That was coming up as he was describing how he had been rendered invisible.

But instead of saying, just sit with it for a moment.

Where in your body, are you feeling this?

And then just watch the wave.

23:58

Come over him and just say, stay with this.

Let it come out.

I ended up saying to him.

You’re not letting yourself feel.

Rather than helping him to actually feel it and let the other person see the consequences of his actions, so I missed it.

24:22

That’s the only thing you turn to him.

And you say, do you get it?

Do you understand?

We’re not solving the business problem at this product.

So, we solve, we just in this conversation.

Do you understand what I’m saying?

Understand what I’m saying?

24:39

Yeah.

Yeah.

What like, how would you like it to be?

That’s a very good question.

I guess I’d like to just put a lot of that animosity behind us.

24:59

You know, like there’s a lot of water under the bridge.

I understand that.

I want us, I want to feel like you’ve got my back.

Yeah, which I’ve yeah, I totally understand and for me, it’s about kind of, I guess, finding a way back to, you know, that the first few years of the company and how that and how that worked.

25:34

But part of that is, is around the roles that I think, and that’s where that’s where I kind of keep keep coming back to I listen to him, say I want you to have my back.

25:51

I want to feel that you still care about me.

I want to feel like we’re still in this together and the other one answers from the place of structurally.

I think we need to redefine the rules here in the company, but emotionally she kind of is gone.

26:10

And this discrepancy is something that I really Have witnessed so many times in romantic relationships.

When one person is still fighting for the relationship and the other person, basically just came to drop this one off and said, see you later.

26:26

I’m going, I’m on my way out and it is basically there.

You cannot work on a relationship.

If one person is gone.

You need two people.

Yeah, I get it like from a, from a sort of emotionally supportive Spector, and it definitely can do more.

26:48

Mmm.

Yeah, do you think there is validity in what he describes when he says, I feel undermined?

You don’t have my back.

You translate this as he wants me to agree with him.

I saw your next thought is how can I be have his back and not agree with him?

27:10

It’s the only way he will feel supported as if I say, yes.

Do what he says and I don’t agree with it.

Yeah.

All right, speak up.

27:33

Yeah, I mean, yeah, cuz I think that that kind of is You know, I think for from a work perspective that the I do have doubts, you know, I did that.

So that’s kind of where it comes from.

I just kind of do Sort of worried about the the role and what what you’re going to be doing and where that’s best placed.

27:59

And that’s where I think to a certain extent that I don’t have your back, you know, from a business perspective.

I’m Superman, you know, I don’t want, I want you to be happy.

And I’m yeah kind of happy, too.

28:19

Yeah, I see with me, though.

I sort of say yes.

I’m happy to help you get that, but I am kind of saying on my terms and so I do recognize that that’s that’s not the right way to do it.

Really?

So, in terms of kind of supporting but not agreeing.

28:38

What does that look like?

I think the first thing you may want to sit him is I don’t know how to do it with you.

You know, part of the stock is that at this point, if you don’t agree with him, he can’t hear what you say either because it instantly feels rejected or undermined.

29:01

So, he’s into his wound.

He’s into being hurt.

He is not able to actually hear that.

Maybe there’s a different point of view.

Everything’s muddled.

A thought is a feeling and a feeling is hidden.

By the way, if you ever say, I feel that what follows is never a Feeling.

29:25

What follows is a thought?

The injunction that.

Moves us into thought and generally to thought about what the other person is doing.

I feel hurt is a feeling.

29:41

I feel that you’re undermining.

Me is a statement about him.

Yeah.

Clumsy language of new vocabulary that you want to learn somebody in the company is going to have to do it anyway, because these are normal feelings in the company.

Mmm, being hurt feeling.

He ejected feeling excluded, free not include all of these things, you know.

30:02

Yes, in a polarized system, every person basically ends up defending themselves.

And there is a lack of accountability.

That just says what you are describing about me.

I did do that said, there is more when you did.

30:22

Did I didn’t react in the same way or I totally see that.

I almost tank to ship.

In this situation, everyone is only referencing half of the story.

And it’s the other person who then highlights the part that each one is not acknowledging.

30:46

That’s what happens in a polarized system is that everyone is actually saying the part that they wished the other one was saying but is not Meanwhile, I don’t know anything about the slide.

But that’s hostile.

31:05

Aggressive.

Somebody owning that.

I mean it wasn’t me that but that so yeah, I guess I could have.

Well, you did bring up about six months ago and I did create a new slide with all of us on that.

31:22

And I have a version of it, which I’ve been sending out to clients, which does have you on it so that so it’s so that will cut and dry.

It was just the clearest possible manifestation of something which I’ve raised in the past, you know, it’s not it’s also not like it was a mistake that happened and it was rectified and you know, it was fine and dandy.

31:41

It was a mistake that happened.

I raised it and sort of said there was another person in the company agreed to fix it and then six months later.

It’s not been fixed.

You know, I’m not saying that’s like that is directly your fault at all.

32:00

But it’s just it’s it’s a manifestation of something as far more that I feel on a basic level, on every single call that we do the management team and every single document that gets sent out every single email, you know, it’s slightly overstating it but like I just, it’s just, it’s a background feeling.

32:19

That is always there.

What what what where do you think that comes from?

I think it comes from good.

It’s very good.

I think it comes from a real desire that this was is just your company and that I wasn’t part of it.

32:42

I mean that’s very interesting but kind of that stuff never had that feeling and I’ve been in the position where I felt completely like I have no role and you know sales the wind, you know in the early years a lot, you know, you were the guy that had the filmmaking ability was I doing?

33:02

I was just sort of hanging around.

But I suppose.

Yeah, but I supported you then.

Now the shoe is on the other foot.

It’s not even though I’m not getting that support back.

I feel like actively you’re using the fact that I am not quite such a defined role.

33:24

To marginalize me.

Yeah, I mean, I understand why you would feel that my kind of responses.

It’s it’s come from come from a business reason like they’re sort of like yeah, but I but back then I could have gone.

33:44

You know, what?

I don’t see the value that you’re bringing, you know, you like, there’s a such a discrepancy in the value that we bring to the company.

Not only was I making the film.

I was also new business director, right?

So I was making all the calls.

I like, you know, to all the agencies that then group like blue the company up, right?

34:05

I could at any point then have gone.

What exactly is he doing?

And I didn’t, I stood by you.

And I always made sure that we shared the podium.

And when we had the challenges in the UK and you were over here at board level crossing, you used the fact that we had low sales in the UK.

34:31

To completely commandeer the control of the board to ostracize me.

And you know, we know like companies go through sales Cycles.

We’re like, sometimes you’re up.

34:46

Sometimes you down.

We had a sales squeeze last year in New York, which we came through.

You know, we had challenges with the office refit.

I’ve stood by you, like I could have used any of those things as leverage by didn’t I get it.

I understand the sort of.

35:07

And that was difficult and it felt very hard at the time.

But the way the UK business was structured at the time was that’s not what he’s talking.

I know, I know so don’t know but that was a very strong business.

35:22

Case the point where that business nearly folded and If I hadn’t come in and made those decisions at those at that time, probably would have done and, and it wasn’t about some sort of personal power struggle.

35:39

It was about trying to save the UK business.

Yeah, I mean, you know, over the period from when you left to now we’ve left, we let 27 people go in the UK’s turn their business around, right?

We had already let a number of people go before that.

35:57

We you know, you Move and basically just said, right?

We have to do it like right now.

Right, I’d wasted, you know, seen it coming from anyway, if you go in this direction, you will do an interesting comparative studies of the narrative and that’s irrelevant because you’re not busy trying to really understand each other’s narratives.

36:21

When one person keeps repeating the same thing over and over again, it’s easy to get frustrated.

Sarah.

Can you can you find any talk about something else?

But the fact is that we repeat, because we are still waiting for the other person to actually acknowledge that, which we are saying, so we’re holding up the flag.

36:44

Not just because we are stubborn and and a OneNote person, but because we are signaling to the other person.

I need to know that.

You see what I see before?

I can move on to the next thing.

37:02

He’s talking about a very particular thing.

Which is regardless of the cycles of the business.

I’ve always put us first and I experienced you putting the business first basic as a betrayal.

And you’re saying I value our relationship but not at the expense of the whole business and I needed to do certain things which you still haven’t recognized, because you’re busy with your wounds.

37:32

I think that’s fair.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Let’s move Dowden.

Otherwise, you will leave and you’ll continue what you’re doing.

What he needs to know is have you given up on us?

Is the business really become more important.

37:49

Then we will discuss shade either.

He gets a certain role, or you get bored out or give a partnership agreement or none.

No, nothing probably should get out.

How old were you, when you started this whole thing.

It’s here, where the friends of, okay, you know.

38:06

He’s still into that.

You know, you, my friend.

You’re my buddy.

You’re my partner, and we do this together and we waver, and we were all the ups and downs together and you’re into the, you know, the business comes first and you’re in my way, basically.

38:26

Yeah, else.

A fair assessment.

Yeah, you’re in my way and he knows it.

You want to make the decisions, you want to be the CEO, you want to, you know, you’re actually no longer talking in Partnership terms and he’s in a completely different story board.

38:46

Yeah, I mean, I think that is that is true.

And I do that.

That is the way I see it.

I do.

I see it as a business.

I’ve seen my responsibility towards the board, the shareholders, the employees, the clients.

I don’t see the company kind of defines, you know, everything about me.

39:04

I do see it as a, it’s become amazing thing, but I don’t think it’s going to be the only thing I’ll ever do.

I hear you.

I don’t agree with a catsuit classification of this difference that I don’t care about the company and parkour and I’m not interested in the success of the like that or sorry that I put the relationship first.

39:29

The reason I think the relationship is important is because with it without the relationship, the company tells itself to pieces and that’s, and that’s why I’m willing to overlook things.

Which on the face of it seemed extremely damaging.

To the company.

39:46

Yeah, you know, I mean, it’s not some sort of like, oh, you know, this is our amazing exciting adventure.

And, you know, we have to stick together and, you know, damn the consequences as long as we’re together.

It’s that the value.

To the company that we are able to offer is drastically enhanced.

40:07

When you combine our two skill sets.

She no longer thinks that no.

I know you think that, but he no longer thinks that that’s where you actually are parting.

40:23

Hmm.

Yeah, don’t do that for a while and because of that you are spinning your wheels.

Mmm.

I’m saying it for you because you’re not being direct and You know, if you don’t live here, did you have to be?

40:43

Yeah, at this point you have to be out of sheer respect for him.

Yeah.

Now you’re right because otherwise you will leave more convinced with what you already came in.

Yeah, and you’re going to continue to do more of what you did in a more.

Blatant way and it’s hostile.

Yeah.

Maybe he should continue the company since for you, you know, if you sell cars or if you sell movies, it’s not fundamentally different.

41:07

You like the selling you like the structure like the business piece.

And so, you know, who knows whose company it will be, or maybe he does take a certain role in or he takes a new division that is not about corporate or whatever you choose to do, but your first and foremost, It’s a terribly painful thing to do it like this, but it’s the respectful thing to do.

41:30

Yeah.

And it’s why you can’t that is.

Let him do it.

Just say that whatever you’re going to say.

41:47

I don’t know what, but Yeah, I mean, I think we have had the we have had the conversation, but it would be useful to.

For both of us to really think about what we want to do.

And yeah, and what that looks like, I agree.

42:10

I think if I may.

The reason you’ve lost so much confidence in me.

Is that you really struggle?

Almost the point of not seeing the benefits and the things that I’ve done for the company, you know, we’ve got this actually thriving culture in the UK, right?

42:39

That was because well, in part, amply supported by the rest of the team, I made turning the culture around in that business.

The number one priority.

And we’ve done that and it is absolutely thriving and it’s thriving to the point where neither of the founders need to be there.

43:03

Now have real difficulty attributing that to anything that I did.

But like, who else did it?

Yeah, I do.

43:19

I mean, yeah, just the sort of value conversation is often on quite intangible things.

And I just I think you know with my sort of business head on that.

I’ve got idea, I do find that difficult to sort of put a value on because it’s, you know, it’s often the stuff that’s kind of out there a little bit.

43:41

And yeah, I mean, I guess that, you know, the tangible tangible aspect of it is the same.

Will’s and the prophet we’re making the UK like that is extremely intangible.

I mean, the other thing is, you know, our Brooklyn refit which you oversaw when end up costing at the last count $350,000 which you know, we originally signed off $80,000 to do that.

44:07

Now that was entirely on your watch, right?

You know, if we’re being completely harsh and, you know, and and the business does really come first.

There could have been quite different outcome from that.

So, you know, I’m happy to like again, I don’t want to sort of get into the specifics and the context around that, because it’s not really about that.

44:29

But I’m happy to put my case forward and take it to the board or, you know, if we can’t agree, it between ourselves and but notice how it was as in.

I’m happy with my response to it.

I think that’s that.

That’s not a.

Maybe some fun is this.

44:45

I’m not going to argue with what he says about London.

The fact is I hold him responsible for And then when it doesn’t go well on his side, he’s responsible when he doesn’t go well on my side.

There are a lot of other circumstances.

45:02

Mine is circumstantial his personal.

It’s classic.

You want to leave or you want to part?

Why do you need to destroy him first?

As a way to justify.

45:21

Your wish to go.

I mean, you were entitled to go for whatever reason that you choose, you’re entitled to go.

Then you’ll decide how you want to divide and part in all of that.

But you’re entitled to do to want that and you don’t want him to leave.

45:37

So you’re groping that I guess roping is not there.

Yeah.

Sure.

Sure.

Sure.

I’ve been imagery from other all these girls.

That’s actually go ahead to this.

45:56

Yeah, look how.

Yeah, I recognize that.

So I can be very difficult in that in that sense.

That’s got to be really hard.

You looked.

46:14

Because you have a sudden desire for whatever reason and everything gets measured with a V Dot.

I mean if I have a wish for you is that you would leave with one new thought, but it’s not happening.

46:34

What’s happening, is a reinforcement of every thought you already have it brings up culture.

You say once again, he brings up culture.

We’ve already talked about culture and him and his culture, you know, you doesn’t sucker to you to say, of course you had something to do with it because they probably is something he had to do with it.

46:51

Maybe not as much as you think, but you’re not going to give him an inch, right?

Yeah.

It’s fat.

Because you pissed.

I don’t know why you’re pissed but you pissed your in an anti and he knows it.

So he’s trying to justify himself.

He’s trying to prove to you that he’s capable of something and the more he’s trying to prove in the more you think he’s pathetic.

47:13

But you don’t realize that you’re putting him down the whole time because you give him nothing.

You know, you’re entitled to see.

I don’t want to continue together.

That’s a fair wish but what you doing is Is aggressive.

47:32

It’s hard.

Yeah, you know I had something to do with it.

And you say, well, I’m not going to get into it because, you know, I have a very different understanding of what really have to be happened.

And you know, there is no value to this and this is what the hell is this?

Because I’m sure that tomorrow, you’re going to make a speech at your company about culture.

47:54

And how important it is because everybody does this day so you must be doing that too.

Yeah, but when he brings it up, you think it’s woo.

Yeah, that’s what I mean.

Whoo.

The hi sport.

Your the you know, you’re the hard skills, your the hardcore, your the number and but when it’s your numbers, then it’s circumstantial and then yourself happy to bring the board, you know, to do what arbitration which story is the board going to believe.

48:25

Should not have you know, when you say you lost trust in me or you, it’s what’s striking to me more is to watch how you lost trust in you.

Yeah, if it’s painful to watch yeah, the can only imagine that it painful to experience it.

48:45

Yeah, absolutely correctly.

Identify just get in this kind of like mine set of.

Like this is, this is a business.

This is how things should be run.

This is how we, you know, resolve problems.

But you have a confirmation bias.

49:01

Everything.

You hear or everything.

He says gets interpreted, vis-à-vis.

Yeah, your main idea.

Yeah.

It’s like you never change perspective of called hair.

It gets more and more rigid.

49:16

Yeah.

No.

Yeah for sure.

Okay, you stuck.

Yeah.

Yeah.

With that.

You suck.

Yeah.

At the end of the session, there was no master game plan of how they were going to proceed.

49:34

Henceforward.

But so much had been set that they had been avoiding for four years.

From the acknowledgement publicly about the difference between one holding the business and one holding the relationship to either one of them.

49:56

Being able to actually acknowledge anything that the other one is saying about them and therefore being stuck in highly differentiated and entrenched narratives.

So blaming the other for the Steaks and blaming circumstances for their own mistakes.

50:18

And so while I said, I wished you had left with something and I’m not sure we leaving with anything new.

I’m not so sure that they didn’t leave with anything now.

Esther perel is a best-selling author, speaker, and host of the podcast.

50:37

Where should we begin to learn more about Esther perel swirled to sign up for her newsletter, or to apply to be on the podcast?

Go to Esther perel.com /.

How’s work?

How’s work is produced by magnificent noise for gimlet and Esther perel Productions.

50:54

Our production staff includes Eric Newsome, evil.

Watch over Destry Sibley.

Alex Lewis, Kristen Mueller and Coordinating producer is Lindsay rutowski.

Our recording engineer is Noriko acaba.

And Damon, Whittemore is our mix engineer.

51:12

The theme song was written by Doug, slavin and the executive producers of how’s work.

Our Esther perel and Jesse Baker.

We would also like to thank nazanin rafsanjani, Matt Lieber, Darien Le Beach Courtney.

Hamilton Kelly Roos, Nick oxen Horn.

51:31

Dr. Guy winch.

Paul Schneider Thomas, Curry Shawnee avram and Jax all.