S2 Ep 21: How to Find More Happiness & Love in Our Relationships

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

partner, relationship, app, people, love, understand, conversation, feel, skills, ultimately, read, curiosity, book, impact, children, place, thought, day, appreciation, communication

00:00

Here's what I want to ask you. What is holding you back? What is the thing that's holding you back from going after your dreams and from finding meaningful work you love? Aren't you ready to wake up to the possibilities that are in your life and go after the things you've dreamt up, it's time for you to feel alive again, lit up in for you to know that you're deserving, and you're worthy for the future that's waiting for you. I want you to feel fulfilled and find abundance in your life. I think it's time and I'm ready to help you get started. Now, I'm your host Kristin, of building a life you love. And each week on the show, we're going to help you figure out how you do go after your dreams and find work you love. Here we go. Let's get started. I am Welcome back to building a life you love. This is your host, Kristen, and I am so excited for the conversation you're about to hear. It is about how do we show up in our relationships, especially in our in our marriages or intimate relationships? But how do we show up? How do we work on our relationship skills, so that we are bringing more love and more, you know better communication into our relationships so that they will be happier and more fruitful. So we're about to jump into this conversation. And I think you're going to get so much out of it. And I hope you can apply some of these things to your own relationship. i Today on the show, I would like to welcome Tao litski. He is the founder of an innovative startup called our love, which is a platform to help couples be happier together. So I'm really excited about this conversation. Because before we started recording, we both agreed that the world you know some of the many things we need now is a little more kindness, a lot more love a lot more respect for each other and just coming together instead of being more divided. And so first, can you tell us a little bit about your journey? I know you've you're an entrepreneur for a long time, you've built five companies in the past and successfully grow them to very large companies. You've sold some of them and now you've started this new venture. So can tell us about your backstory and what you're doing now with our love.

01:58

Sure. So my backstory is I came to the US as a as an immigrant from Israel in and when I was 12 years old. And I was actually an undocumented immigrant. And so I had the, the, the interesting experience of kind of seeing America from from the bottom of the heap to over the course of my career near the top. I have been an entrepreneur since I was 19 years old. I sort of grew up in an entrepreneurial family. My father was an entrepreneur, I even was growing up in Israel. And so as a child I here in the US 12 year old 1314 15 helped my father with that business, eventually joined a fledgling family business into distribution space to read magazines and books and newspapers. And over the next 20 years or so he grew into a pretty substantial enterprise with operations in 33. States sold it in 2009. And to Hudson news, the airport new San operator started a couple of other companies around that time one was in the paid by cell for parking. One of the early pioneers in the space we ultimately sold at two Ringu, which is now part of park mobile. And the other part was I control data, which is a b2b payments company, which I was running until I started our love in March of 2021. So that's my professional background. Personally, I, I married very young and had two, two beautiful daughters. In my early 20s, my oldest now I'm just 48. My oldest is 27 years old should be 28. This year. She's in the US Navy. I'm very, very proud of her. I have a 24 year old who is a registered nurse, and an 18 year old son who is a freshman at university I bought University.

03:39

Oh, so good. I love it. I, I love everything you shared there, I love that you've been an entrepreneur your whole life. And like you said, you have these amazing children you're proud of. So tell me first and foremost, what made you decide to step into the wellness space, you know, and trying to help us with our relationships?

03:59

I think probably because of my own inadequacy, or, you know, lack of success in that space. Right. So what really got me interested in this space was that my my second marriage of 20 years was ending, I have a very close friendship with my ex wife and we are we are each other's allies. But the relationship was, unfortunately not as strong as we needed it to be. And I think in hindsight, as I look back at the end of the marriage, it occurred to me that I really wish I had better resources, you know, during the marriage that I was able to stay closer, stay more aware, stay more alert. It didn't happen. We you know, we did try different things. But the bottom line is, you know, there was not a sustained effort to try to save the marriage and I really felt very interested in understanding love from it really initially from a scholarly standpoint and really understand what is the science of love? What makes love work? What makes law fail, I was obviously, you know, very mindful of the data around the lack of like, we all know, the average divorce rate is around 50%. We all know that statistic. But I think most of us didn't realize, and I can't say that I realized that until I started really digging in, was that if you got married today, your odds of actually making it together for 40 years are down to a third. So there's, there's just this this, this, you know, this extraordinarily extraordinary stress on relationships. And we don't know how to deal with it. The science actually pointed the arrow at a very set group of activities and or skills that once mastered, and utilized and embraced, make love far more manageable, and a lot less stressful and a lot more predictable. And when I saw that, when I kind of came into that knowledge, it occurred to me that it's probably not the best way and 2021 and you know, not 2022, to have all that knowledge of accessible through books, when the vast majority of people in relationships, particularly those in, you know, my children's generation, generation Z, even Millennials are just not reading. Or if they are reading, they like to read bite size, and, you know, freakin to the point. So it got me thinking about, you know, is there a way to leverage technology to make relationships more successful to help people feel closer to a significant other to increase understanding. And I got very intrigued by that topic. And you know, it so happened that I, you know, it was the combination of COVID, some, some the divorce a child that was sick, some struggles with the company that I was that was in to, essentially, you know, I stayed through and resolve them. But I was, I recognized that I wanted to do something different. And I wanted to feel much more passionate about what I was spending my time on. And I found passion in this issue, especially as I started to understand that the science is actually quite clear. And it's about helping people access it, it felt like this was not ultimately a problem of supply, because the supply would be the knowledge or the demand, because I actually conducted a national survey with Survey Monkey. And the findings are pretty profound. 83% of Americans said loving their partner more and better and being loved more better was one of their top three priorities. Nearly six intensity was a number one priority. And yet, we're doing so poorly. So it occurred to me that really what we have here is not a supply problem, not a demand problem, but a distribution problem and access problem. And I'll remind you, I started my business in the wholesale distribution of newspapers, magazines, books, and actually also DVDs, if people remember what those are. And it occurred to me that I just may be able to build a team that could go at this challenge and introduce something innovative that could help people. And so that's I decided to lean into go for it.

08:09

I love it. And I have to tell you, first of all, it's obviously the right time for it. I mean, it's always been the right time, because as you said, so many people have a hard time communicating and really caring and loving our partners, well, you know, the way they may or may need to be loved, and showing our appreciation and doing all the things that your app is obviously trying to help people get better, and maybe remember to do more regularly. So I think it's fantastic. And I have gotten to use the app and kind of test it out. And, you know, we'll talk about that a little bit more in a bit. But I think it's amazing that you've decided to step into this space. And, you know, having been married for many, many years, you know, 22 plus years, you know, you've been in marriages yourself, you know, it's the biggest longest relationship you're going to have other than with your children, typically. And it takes work, right, we have to keep having growth in that. And we have to keep rediscovering each other and all these things. So I think it's such a great topic. And I think it's such a great conversation for us to have, because we all can use more support in this area. And we can all do things a little bit better. You know? So what would you say the top challenges couples are having the relationships that you found from working on this?

09:21

Yeah. So I think the top two challenges are one that we tend to forget that we are dealing with a fellow human being on the other side or whatever the challenge is, and that almost always that person is coming from, or at least we should assume good intent. And we should remember that. Like we are experiencing our reality through our eyes and our ears and our other sensations. So is our partner and their experience over their reality is as valid as our own needs to be received. Did needs to be understood? And I think we really struggle with that we often come at conflict from a place of either defensiveness or aggression. In some cases, we gaslight maybe intentionally or unintentionally, all things that are not conducive to good loving. So the question I ultimately believe people should be asking themselves is, is your desire to prove your partner wrong? Do you feel that you being right? is the ultimate objective? Or is your objective to be in a loving relationship with a fellow human being? That doesn't mean that you you know, I want to be clear that I don't believe that a behavior that's toxic or, you know, crosses, boundaries should be tolerated. I'm not I don't think anybody should be. No one should tolerate being yelled at. No one should tolerate certainly any kind of physical abuse and being called names, those things are entirely inappropriate. I mean, we're not, you know, kids in kindergarten, we're not animals in a zoo. We're human beings, the person on the other side is a fellow human being, if even if you don't feel love for them, right this moment, perhaps they're the parents of your child or children. They are your partner. I think that starting from a place of assuming good intent, and slowing our role and not viewing every situation as a matter of, you know, needing to prevail. That's, that's where I think a lot of people get it wrong. It's it's a little bit of human nature, when you feel wronged to, you know, react. But teaching people how to react more constructively, I think, is entirely doable. I mean, I think, look, I'm not surprised that we don't do well, because we lacked the vocabulary for love. I mean, we've learned things like the five love languages, and I'm not knocking them. They're lovely, and very, very important. What people don't appreciate, though, is it's not just a matter of saying, Well, you know, my partner responds to acts of service as an example. That's a love language. Yeah. What does that mean? Right? What acts of service and and how is it that your partner responds to acts of service is your partner also capable of understanding that showing appreciation practice service is a is the completion of that cycle, right? If you're someone that you know, needs a certain, you know, a certain say a certain order of things, things can be organized a certain way. And, and your partner is not accommodating you for one reason or another, you can certainly come at them guns blazing, where you can come at them from a place of curiosity, how can I help you this, this matters to me, it makes me feel XY and Z talking about your feelings? How can we how can we what can we do together? And I think those things, they're self evident, and at the same time, they're more challenging and more elusive than people think. And I think the main reason they're elusive, is that we don't practice and you know, think about it this way. Imagine if you were, you know, going to go into a gymnastics competition, right? Presumably, even if you're not the fittest person on earth, and gymnastics, not your thing. If you were, if you entered into the competition, you wouldn't want to embarrass yourself, you probably do some, some, some, some exercising and learn about a little bit, maybe you understand you build a routine. For some reason, when it comes to love, we just winged it with this swinging of love, is unlike anything else that we do. In anything that matters to us, show me Tell me one more thing that matters, whether it's managing for retirement at your children's education, your health, the sports teams, you follow, I mean, people pay attention to data and details all the time. And yet, when it comes to love, it's like, you know, whatever it is, it'll be what it'll be, it shouldn't be hard, it should come from, you know, those kinds of statements, which I think for the most part are a byproduct of societal experiences, you've been sort of taught a dad loves a battlefield or, you know,

13:54

we've been taught all sorts of really, really, ill advised on justify dynamic, you know, views of what is love, and consequently, we accept a lot less than we are capable of experiencing. And we are giving a lot less than we're capable of giving. And the amazing thing about leaning into love is how rapidly if you're not in the relationship or you know, there's, there's the toxicity that I was talking about before where the lines have been crossed, you're just in a normal relationship. When you're not at your best your you know, you have your occasional arguments for the most part, you you know, maybe just not necessarily feeling the love but but you're still connected. Getting back to a place of feeling strong affection and admiration even in respect for your partner is not a difficult thing to do. And that's kind of one of our goals. With the app. Let people see just how straightforward it is to understand what makes for good love. develop the skills and the practices. It's not really work I noticed, you know, you could view it as that we designed the app to make it as playful and fun as we can. And the point is, you can learn skills without, you know, being in a classroom setting. And that's kind of what we're, you know, hoping to accomplish and get people to a place where they're moving away from this mindset of, there's nothing I can do, and we're not going to be happy and you know, giving up or apathy or anger or frustration or defensiveness. And getting back to a place of okay, you know, what, what's in the past in the past? Today, we're going to start working together on towards a, you know, more and better love.

15:33

Yeah. Oh, my gosh, so much there tell? Well, one thing I thought of when you're when you're talking in that last little segment is, it's much like we have a bank account, if you keep taking deposits, I'm sorry, if you keep taking money out and you never put a deposit in, you're gonna run out of money? Well, it's the same in our relationships, right? We have to keep putting something into it in order to get something out of it. And I think a lot of us, like you said, we kind of, we get, we think, Oh, it's going well, so we put it on autopilot. And then we wonder why we're starting to feel frustration or not loved or not intimate, or whatever the things are. But it's because we're we're putting on autopilot. And I think one thing that I think happens a lot right now, in our culture, with all of the digital, amazing things we have available to us is, we think just because we're in the same home, like, Oh, we're together, right, but we Netflix binge, right, or we do all these things, that those are fine sometimes, but it's not quality time, for instance. And so I think sometimes we also be careful, because we think we're putting time in that relationship. But that's usually not enough of what the relationship needs, you know. So

16:38

yeah, I would say that you're right, and on a wide range of things. Right. So for starters, I think the the mention of the bank account is actually quite relevant, because I think that most of us would not write a check on our bank account, not knowing how much money we have in the bank, or whether we're clear, right? We do not, for some reason, believe, or at this point, that's the experience most of us have, that knowing where we stand in our relationship across the key relational skills that make for good love is something we need to know we are operating in the dark I you know, we in our love right at the gate will provide users of the app with a score across seven critical of skills that represents your point of view. And if your partner is in the app with you, which they don't have to be by the way, you can start the app on your own, and choose when if to bring your partner and if you'd like. But even if it's just you, we're going to use the data you provide to give you a score and give you a sense of where we think you stand. When your partner comes in. That score gets compiled. And suddenly, it's no longer a mystery. Now you can see Oh, my God on appreciation now that we understand what it is, we have very different views on how well we're doing there. You think you're doing really, really well, I'm not experiencing that way. The objective here is not to start new arguments, it's to create illumination, right? Does the famous saying of sunlight, the greatest disinfectant? Well, sunlight is also the greatest means of bringing people together. So the objective there when it comes to the data that we are sharing with people based on their input, is to give them a sense of where they stand so that you know now that you know where you are, you can make concrete steps to go in the direction you want to go and make the plan to get your relationship to where it needs to be. I think in general, I mean, is a bizarre, almost, you know, defies common sense that the relationship that's most important in our lives, is the one that we give fumes to. It's the one that you know, we come back to and for some reason, we allow ourselves to be oftentimes, at minimum, not our best, oftentimes, a version of ourselves, we would be ashamed to show colleagues or friends. And I don't know when people allow this of themselves, I sincerely believe that it comes from a place of either not knowing or not being unwilling for whatever the reason to get disciplined around relational hygiene, we brush our teeth, we should also brush up on our relational skills. It's not that hard. They're not you know, we're not talking about nine syllable words. These are simple words, right? Curiosity. Yeah. Appreciation, accountability, vulnerability. And those words have very distinct meanings. And people that understand those words, can practice better love instantly. And I would say, you know, don't take my word for it, download the app. And you'll see for yourself, maybe the app is version 1.0. There's much work to be done. But the apps got a lot of components that if you're interested in loving more and better you can get to work right away.

19:42

Yeah, so a couple things. The first is, I think it's really interesting because one I think a lot of times it really does come down to our communication, right? Or I think we think we communicate more than we do. So for instance, if my husband got up and he was, you know, heading out to work because he goes he gets up earlier. to go to work, and he unloaded the dishwasher? Well I be so like, Oh, that was so nice. But I don't always remember every time to text him and say, Hey, I really appreciate that, right. So sometimes I think we have the good thought, but we don't always tell our partner. And then the other thing I think that happens in relationships is, we hear our partner and I know you talk about this, and I know in the app that addresses this, but we we think we're coming across in a loving way. And we're trying to talk about something. But our tone is taken by the other person as different than we mean, right? The intent sounds different because of the tone. And I know in your app, you have something that actually can even help us with fat, right? How do we have appropriate conversations with people? Not? Because it's not just our words? So what can you tell somebody?

20:43

So I well, I think it's a it's a, it's a, it's a critical fact, it's actually oftentimes, you know, again, just to generalize a little bit, women hear different pitches than men. And it's often the case that the male husky voice, even if raised a little bit can sound much more, you know, hostile or, and then, of course, are the instances where people do raise their voice and act inappropriately, we built into the app a audio biometric tool called Talk to me, it literally sits in the coffee table that the app is a game, right? So it's a it's a virtual relationship home. In that home, there's furniture and things tools, as you engage with with the home. And as you engage with content, your loved coins, which you can use to continue to change your furniture, buy virtual gifts for your partner, anytime, real gifts. But one of the things that's on the coffee table right in the middle of the family room, is our audio by measure game, talk to me. And what that game is, is it's a game where you can select one of any number of topics and engage in guided conversation. And what the app does is it listens to your tone and your voice. And how, how much time do you take between your partner finishing a sentence and us speaking up? Which is an indicator of where you formulating your answer, are we actually actively listening? There are lots of really interesting variables, the, the app doesn't understand any language. So it's language agnostic, you can have this conversation literally in any language, it is paying attention to tone, and it's going to give you a read and the Read is delivered to you in the form of a bouquet of flowers, which will bloom if you're doing things well, and it will wilt or not grow. If you're doing things poorly, if you're doing things exceptionally well, the bouquet will become Fuller and have more flowers. The idea is as you have these conversations, you will begin to appreciate you'll begin to see

22:36

what tone is driving, what outcomes and the goal is, essentially, identify learn from the app. What are the you know, what is the tone and the and the conversational etiquette that leads to great outcomes, and then replicate that. And it's a, it may sound easier than it is. But in fact, it is just as easy as it sounds that first of all, you don't even have to have a guide a conversation we offer them. But you can literally turn on the app and have any conversation that you're gonna have an art if you think you're gonna have an argument started, because I think it'd be really interested in seeing the data and the analytics around. How many moments of what what type of communication did you have? What is the impact of that wilted bouquet of flowers on an app can seem just like a trivial thing. But if you don't believe that the impact on your soul and on your relationship, yeah, is every bit as real as a dead flower. You're fooling yourself. And you know, this is really ultimately what it comes down to you. You can choose to care about prevailing at all costs, or you can choose to care about loving at all costs. And it's really a choice. And it's it's harder to do when you don't know what to do. But once you learn the scales, once you understand that it's actually pretty straightforward and involves seven skills, the seven skills to interface off of one another. They don't require every skill at the same time. But you'll need to know which skill to pool and if you're not sure the app can help you with that. Once you know that. It is to some extent it feels like scales have been lifted off your eyes, you know, knowing as an example that the right way to approach your partner when they're expressing grievances. It's a curiosity. And that curiosity doesn't mean merely asking questions, it means being deeply interested in the answers almost anthropologically interested right now. Wow. Why is my partner feeling this? Why are they experiencing that? And a lot of times, it is in fact, what you started with, which is our impact is very different than our intent. We may have intended to come across a certain way. But we come across differently. And when that happens, the tendency is to justify or rationalize or excuse Yeah, and I would urge people to go to accountability when that happens, which means You know what, it doesn't really matter if you had a bad day at work, it does not give you the right to raise your voice at your husband, it doesn't matter if you, you know, your boss was mean to you, you don't get to come home and be short with your wife, that's that, ultimately, is something that we must start from a place of accepting that when we are with our partner, we have an obligation to try to be our best selves. The vast majority of the time, we're all imperfect, we're all human beings, we're gonna have moments of laughs. But when those moments occur, come back to accountability, right? If you have lapsed, lead with accountability, take responsibility, make your partner know that you are aware that you should have been doing something in a certain way versus the way that you did it. And stop full stop. Don't feel that. Now that I've said I'm sorry, let me tell you why I did it. And therefore you must forgive me. It's it's a fool's errand to try to bully your way into understanding. It just won't work. If you want closeness, you're going to have to reach closeness or understanding, not believe. Oh, my gosh,

26:07

absolutely. And I yeah, I think one of the things that app does, and that we all need to do more of his be self aware. And like you said, we need to be aware of where we're standing in our relationship, and where we need to maybe see what our role is, or if we think our behaviors one way, but it's really not. And I will tell you this, my husband is an engineer, right? He's a logical kind of guy. He but he's not a big, I mean, I read out of five books a day, right? Like, I mean, I must, I don't even know about the amount of money I've spent on Amazon ordering books. And I don't, I don't want to think it's like Christian inspiration in business, and you know, self development. But my husband helped me do an audio book or something. But he's never anytime I've been like, oh, you should read this, this book about relationships. He just doesn't get around to it. He doesn't do it. But I will tell you when I was telling him, you know, because we had this interview about your app. And I told him about the talk part about the AI. He was like, Okay, let's do it. I think what's so interesting is seeing something in front of you, like you said, that's very tangible. It's no longer about, well, this is what I said, or this is what I think you should do, or how you should do something different for myself. It's right in front of you as like this almost third party, but it's an app. But I think that it kind of lets it be on this equal playing ground, if you will. So it's, it's interesting how just quickly, he was like, oh, yeah, okay, let's try that. Or, yeah, so because normally, like you said, a book just look daunting. He's kind of like,

27:33

it's daunting, it's daunting is one aspect. And just to be clear, I am a voracious reader of books, I encourage people to read I this is not a matter of meats, is trying to suggest that reading is not a great hobby, or habit, it is to say that knowing which skill to pull out of the toolkit is extraordinarily hard when you're trying to access some book you read a year ago, or even a month ago, you will remember the vocabulary and the vocabulary is critical. Because we human stinking words. And if we are not able to have the right word come to mind, right? When we are experiencing an emotion or a challenge, when we don't know where to go. We go to emotion. And emotion is often not your friend in times of stress. Yeah. And so really, the thought here is, how do we put information in people's hands and he look, the app has a lot of content, but it's delivered in a light way. I mean, it's videos that are two, two and a half minutes long, it's audio that's a couple minutes long, it's short, Axio style articles, you know, it'll take you three to five minutes to read if that it's exercises. And I am extraordinarily confident because we've seen it in focus groups that people who are willing to lean in for just a few minutes a day, just do one thing today, you don't have to do a million things come in Update your mood, which is you know, I'd love to talk about the mood update and why we built it. It's a really important component, write a note of appreciation, play a game, do something quick, earns a love coin, send your partner God gift. I mean, these are things that are fun. And as we go forward, by the way, we're going to be adding a chat product is going to be really, really neat. That's going to give people another read on their communication, design written communication, you're going to get a score for how well you're communicating in writing with a significant other. There are all sorts of really cool things coming but the thinking ultimately, this given the option to do something, they'll make your relationship better, assuming that something requires no more than a few minutes of your time every day. That it's something that's quite frankly, not to sound crude, but you can do sitting on the toilet, or, you know, during your lunch break, it doesn't require of course, a lot of that requires you spending time with your partner though the conversations we're discussing are ideally are done in person. Ideally, they include some significant eye contact It's amazing what eye contact and those kinds of calm, cool, fun conversations can do to suddenly reawaken love and affection. But ultimately, the thought is straightforward. If you if you still love your partner, will you not commit to three to five minutes a day to try to feel substantially better about your relationship? I mean, why wouldn't you give that a shot and in our focus groups, I'm glad to say that men and women alike leaned in and said, You know what, yeah, I see why this is important. It's certainly worth a few minutes of my time every day, men especially reacted to knowing the score, if you will, where do I stand? What does my partner think? What am I aiming for men are generally speaking and generalizing, competitive and want to improve. And so the combination of the features that we built in the app, we built it very thoughtfully, so that we can overcome objections, like, I don't have the time, I don't want to do this. This is too complex. This is too academic. It's too. It's none of those things. It's fun. It's like you can get through it quickly. And I'm telling you, if you just do it for a bit, you will see the impact.

31:09

Oh, yeah, as well. So three things that I want to mention. First is I think a lot of us have picked up bad behaviors, especially with this digital age, meaning, I know this has happened in my relationships, whether it's my children or spouse, we think that we're listening, but we're still staring at our phone. And we don't think that that's, we think it's appropriate, at least the one spouse does and you're kind of like, wait, but it's not I don't feel like you're I'm getting your respect and your attention. Right. So I think the first thing is, we have to be aware that the way society is right now has allowed for us to think some of these things are acceptable, when really they're not, they're not going to help improve our relationship. Right. So that's the first thing I want to mention. And I'm sure you have something to say about that. The second though, I want to say it's more of a like a tip or thought for people is when we're going into a conversation, and I'm sure your app helps people with this. What we need to remember is we need to be clear on what it is we need out of that conversation. And a lot of us forget to do that stuff. So this can be with a friend, your spouse, a child, but you need to say, Hey, I you know, we're going to chit chat, like, Oh, I just need you to listen, I just need a you know, I'm looking to figure something out here. Because I think from what I've understood most conversations with, you know, our significant other, or they're either too in to get connection, right, or emotional support, I'm sorry, connection with a person we want to feel connected to them, or we're looking for support. And I don't know if that's what you kind of understand to be to make I'm sure it's a little bit deeper than that. But so I think that's two things for people to remember, the clearer we can be on what it is we need in that moment, the better the outcome is going to be.

32:42

So on that point, I would say that the great challenge that is often unappreciated even ignored, is that a vast amount of the population about half overall, in more in communities of color has has experienced childhood trauma. And childhood trauma has significant implications in adult communication. Especially if you are someone who witnessed a parent being mistreated. Or you yourself were mistreated, and you viewed, you saw other people ignore the needs and wants legitimate needs and wants of people that you love or of yourself the impact of that on our relationship is, I think vastly underappreciated. We have on our team, Dr. Larry McCullough, he's the Chief Product Officer, Chief Product Science Officer for our company. And he's also the co founder of the pine tree Institute, which is dedicated to understanding the implications and impact of childhood trauma, nobody's acronym ace, AC E, on adult communication and a big challenge that people who have experienced trauma or in a relationship with someone that has experienced trauma, that is extraordinarily hard for people who have experienced trauma to express their wants and needs openly, they're afraid of vulnerability. They oftentimes don't, they may not be aware of it and may not be conscious. But subconsciously, they believe that if I'm, if I exposed myself, I'm likely to get hurt, or, or worse, you know, find myself again, potentially being traumatized. And so we have some features in the app that are designed specifically for that the mood update component of the app, right. So as you come into the app, you you literally look at, you know, a family room, and the back door is French doors, and you can see weather outside and your partner's mood update will update the weather you see. So if your partner is having a great day, and they've updated their mood, you'll see sunshine outside your window and you could also go see why your partner is having a good day you can click on their day and it will tell you what their reasons were what that what tags they identified as the cause of their their good day. But it's also a particularly impactful and your partner's having a bad day. So if you're coming into the app, and it's a rainstorm outside, there'll be a public A message that tells you your partner's updated their, their relational well being, you can go in and see it and you can, you can find ways to be more responsive because you're exactly right and moments of pain or stress or anxiety, what we look for in our partner is support and support takes on different forms, it doesn't, you know, unfortunately for some people, there is this sense of my partner has to make me feel better in the fact that nobody can make you feel better. Feeling better is something that you need to own. But it is certainly acceptable to expect your partner to care, to be empathetic, to be curious, and to do their very best to help you come out of wherever you are at that given point. So as we grow, the early version of the app allows you to share your mood, have your partner see it, you can you can send words of confirmation or words of strengthening to your partner, when you see that they're not having a good day. As we go forward, we're going to as we get to know our users more, we're going to get more prescriptive, we're going to get to know Kristin, and we're going to get to know what she responds to best and we're going to get to know, you know, when we will we may even identify that there are certain patterns in your schedule and calendar. Look at that every Monday in the afternoons. It's not a very good time. Why is that? What can we do about that? How can you partner lean in. And our goal ultimately is to do what's known as J it just in time, support. And, you know, we want to take the reading my partner's mind out of the equation, we want to get to a place where we are using artificial intelligence to support and reinforce the good intentions that most of us have, I think for the most part, if we know our partners, not in a good place, and we are clear on why the vast majority of us would want to lean in and be helpful. What's difficult is trying to read our partner's mind if they struggle to express their feelings. If they're telling us they're fine, if they just shut down or if they respond angrily, which triggers our own insecurities and anger and other counterproductive behaviors that don't drive. You know, closeness and love. So, I think ultimately the that the the implication that, you know, or the impact rather that that I think people should be thoughtful love is you may not have thought much about your partner's childhood, you may know that they have or have suffered trauma. And by the way, nearly 40% of us have suffered more than three traumatic incidents in our childhood. If you know that about your partner, factor that in don't assume well, it's in the past, it's over. It's you should assume that there there is an impact that there are implications. And it's not it does not give them any license to go rage at you or do anything. That is like I said, toxicity is not okay. But But understanding. And then being curious about how your partner is feeling will almost always lead to positive outcomes. That's that's our experience. It's true. Not just in my current relationship, but also in what we've seen in focus groups. And it's consistent that people who come in to the app even skeptical, thinking that yeah, how can you know, if we've been at we've been together 10 years? And how, how's it going to change anything? It's not so much the app changes, any great app gives you the tools. And with those tools, you're going to be able to change things.

38:36

Yeah, well, and I think as we talked about, for one, it's because the app is actually just like it's giving us it's now top of mind daily, or however often you're using it right you have this awareness about thinking about your relationship in a different way to though it's helping you take regular action, and probably action you weren't previously taking, or maybe not as well. And I, you know, I know, this is an old book and an old movie. And I know it's a Christian based book and movie, which obviously may not align for everyone, but you remember fireproof, but the whole idea of that was it was 40 days, right? Of kind of serving your partner of that book. But the whole the whole point there was it was about action, regardless of how your partner was what they were doing. Right It was that you were going to show up and in love well, and serve well. But you know, similar in the way that this is really just about that, right? How do we take action? How do we be more aware? And then I think you're so right. And I know it's one of the love skills but curiosity is so big, whether I mean, of course in our relationships within our business lives in our in our whole life. Like if we're not curious, we don't we can't find wondering things. We might need to take a step back and kind of see what's that about? Like how, why have we lost our joy and our excitement for things and I think a lot of people in relationships, think oh, I know my partner, but I would challenge every one of them to say what have you learned knew about them in the last year, week, month? Because and I will tell you, my husband sometimes He is the guy that he doesn't like to on the spot stuff sometimes, right? Like if I'm like, why would you want to go on a trip? Right? Like, he doesn't necessarily always like those questions. But if it was sitting in front of a little app, and he could process before I'm asking him these things, he's more comfortable with that. And so I'm just saying, to me, I'm always very curious. But that's not how everybody's default is right now. So I would just encourage you, how can you like you said, the app helps this. But we've got to be curious, because that's the only way you're growing in a relationship, you know, how do they like their coffee in the morning, if you like, My husband doesn't drink coffee, so and he's not usually here in the morning, other than the weekends. So he doesn't probably even know that, right? Because he's not here today with me at breakfast. But that would be something right? That you can say, Oh, I could I could learn that. Or oh, he likes, you know, pepper on his whatever, right. But we should keep learning these little details, you know, and they do try to

40:49

for sure. Look, learning is critical. The concept of curiosity is is applicable in nearly every conversation you have with your partner, it is the first skill we teach. In the app, it's the first skill we think people need to master. And it's because nearly everything is better. When you start from a place of Hmm, I wonder why. So the most impactful place for that actually, is during conflict. So sure, it's amazing and helpful to know how to, you know, it certainly will make your relationship closer, if you're able to show your partner that you're paying attention to the little things that matter to them, such as how they make their coffee. But I think even more importantly, in moments of stress, we need to reach for best selves, not our not our impulsive stuff, not our angry self, not our immature cells. And the best place the best rather, the best way to do that is to curiosity. Whatever is happening, what you know, it's think of it the same way a two year old I mean, we've all had, whether it's our own two year old or someone else's. You've had the experience of walking through. I don't know a store with a two year old. And how many times will they ask why? Yeah, why? Why? And sure, it can be annoying. And I'm not suggesting that the question should be why it should be, huh, tell me more. Why does it feel why does it feel that way? Why do you think you feel this way? And if you're doing it sincerely, if you're doing it from a place of I'm not judging, I'm not playing defense, not trying to gaslight not gonna rage. Just gonna listen, I'm gonna listen, not gonna try to formulate my answer. I'm gonna listen, I'm going to be thoughtful. Whatever I hear, maybe I'll think of a follow up question. That's always a good idea. So before you respond, ask yourself, have you exhausted the questions right before you go into Okay, now that you've told me everything, let me tell you how it is. First of all, again, absolute, it's a failed strategy. If you're going to try to tell your partner how it is you're going to ride what we call ride one up and give your car your partner the impression that you are better than them smarter than them are knowledgeable in them have a better appreciation for reality in them, that let me tell you what you will be unhappy. And most likely, it's a future point, not in the relationship with that person. So if that is your goal, be my guest keep on going down that path, you are well on your way to achieving the goal of being lonely, unhappy and alone. But if that's not your goal, if your goal is, you know what I really do want to be close. And I really do want to get over myself, whatever that means. And I want to help my partner get over themselves, whatever that means. And I understand that, you know, I probably should get better at showing appreciation and I can be more accountable. And vulnerability, which we haven't talked much about vulnerabilities he huge Yes, of effective loving, being able to share your fears. Share your anxieties. Be yourself be your genuine self and know that the person on the other side will never abuse that information by bringing it out against you taking taking some sort of a stab at you, that is a horrific thing to do to your significant other that you love. And again, if any of you have done it, that doesn't mean you're done. We've all made mistakes, just don't turn the page, start new Make a commitment today. If you want to stay in this relationship, you don't have to to free country. But if you decide that you want to be this relationship, then whatever the past is, if you're willing to try and your partners want to try turn the page. Start over. Yeah, started start learning the skills. They're fun. They're easy. Our love is on the App Store and both on the iOS and Android. We can

44:40

help. Awesome so tell. Do you have any last thoughts or tips that you want to share with your listeners about love and good really? Yeah,

44:49

you know, I would remind people that what we're seeing in our society overall right now the the the savageness of our politics The take them down, you know, at all costs sense that is there in our society, I don't actually think it represents the majority of us, I think the majority of us are somewhere between the 20 yard lines, right. But unfortunately, we don't necessarily feel that way in our everyday lives anymore. And one very important component in this mission for me and the team at our love, is to improve understanding starting in the home, you said before, and you're right, these are skills that are transferable. You can use them at work, you can use them with your friends, you can use them with your children, you can use it with your elders, you know that your parents if you're a young adult parents, and the goal ultimately is to help us be more understanding, be more empathetic. Stop thinking that everything's a zero sum game, it is not a zero sum game. And this is coming from someone that because I came to this country as a 12 year old and came from what was back then a third world country now as a first world, country, Israel, I really appreciate what's amazing and unique about this country, maybe in ways that Americans take for granted. And I would say to all of your listeners, my fellow Americans not to get on a high horse, I would just say, if you don't think what your children are hearing, in how you communicate with your spouse is impacting how they feel, and how they communicate, whether it's in the classroom, or their friends, or your neighbors, if you don't think the benefits of better communication within your relationship will ripple out and you'll begin to see that storms calm around you actually, when you know how to do when you know how to approach fellow human beings, storms, camaraderie. So I would say if if nothing else, even if you're going to do this, even if you don't, you may be in a position to say, you know, my partner is probably not gonna want to do this right now, I don't know, maybe we're, we're not in a great place. Or maybe my partner justifiably thinks that I need to work on myself first, then do that download the app, don't invite your partner work on your own, there are plenty of things you can work on on your own. But ultimately, the outcome and I think the greatest benefit is ideally going to be felt more broadly than just inside your home, ideally, you will be able to feel it around you. And the impact will be that hopefully all of us can find our way back to each other because, you know, you know, divided house cannot stand right, as I think Abe Lincoln said, and I think that's true. And I think it behooves us to hurry up and get started.

47:30

Oh, I so agree. And I think you're so right. I mean, you know, I recently had just written something and I, you know, is basically we really do need to come together in are the things that we have, like, we need to stop worrying so much about the things that are different, you know, differ with us. And it does all come down, though, you know, be be respectful, and have, you know, have respect for people having differing opinions or viewpoints, just be love, be compassionate, and empathetic. And if we could all do more of that, you know, with our spouses, but in all of our relationships and all of our commentary as well. It would be a better place. And I hope that's what most of us want for our future, especially for our children.

48:06

I think we do I think we just need to go grab it, I think we need to, you know, we can't be passive about it. I think, you know, it's, I understand why a lot of people feel or you know, have frankly, again, I have failed in love and so I firsthand know this frustration and and what happens when you don't have the tools and you don't know how to do it and your partner doesn't know how to do it. And it's it's it's a it's a it's it's almost like a swirl, you know, down the sink, and it's very hard to stop. The good news is you know what, you can make a decision right now that you're going to try something different. You can start today. Tomorrow, you'll be a day into it the day after that, you'll be two days into it. And before you know it, you're on your path to more better love.

48:50

I love it. So tell tell us a little bit more how people can eat. You shared it earlier. But tell us again, how can people download the app and or anything else you want to share.

48:59

So you could download the app. The app is our dot love the couple's relationship game, you can download it at the iOS store or the Android store. You can also go to our website, which is our dot love, again, our dot love, there's no.com there, just our dot love. And you can get a lot of great advice, good information, watch some of our videos, watch, read some of our blog posts, listen to our podcast, and download the app from from there, the app is almost entirely free. And you have the opportunity to get to work right away and be on your way to more and better love in a matter of minutes from downloading the app.

49:37

Oh, well, thank you so much for being with us today. And thank you for being someone that's trying to help you know us all connect better and just, you know, bring more love and hope into the world.

49:48

It's It's my honor, and I hope I hope that I hope that they have an impact. That's my goal.

49:53

I'm sure you will. Thanks again.

49:56

Thank you so much, Chris, and thanks for having me on. And I want

49:58

to share this quote with you that really hit home for me about a relationship. It says, relationship is like a house, when a light bulb burns out, you do not go and buy a new house, you fix the light bulb. And I think too many of us aren't focusing on making sure the light doesn't go out that we keep, you know, fueling the light, if you will, giving an electricity. And if it does go out, then it's our job to figure out how we can start lighting up the house again, we don't need to step out and buy a new house, you know, or find this new relationship. If this is one that we're in that we both still love each other. But as we talked about this conversation, it's about showing up every day to try to be our best selves to not give our partner those fumes to give them as much as we can of ourselves and to pay attention. And to you know, like Tom talked about, make sure we are stepping into it with accountability and we're spending quality time we're curious. You know, we find time for intimacy, in conversation in so many more things like in the seven love skills. But I think this is such an important conversation, I hope you were able to take away some things that you can apply in your own life and in your own relationships so that we can show up as just better human beings and our conversations and our commitment to each other. Once again. Thanks for listening to the podcast and if you enjoyed the podcast, we would love it if you could leave a review on Apple podcasts because that helps us get discovered by more people. We'd also love your feedback. So email me at Kristin at Kristin Fitch comm or DM me on Instagram. I'm at Kristin Fitch and let me know what ideas or ideas for shows or for guests that you have. I would love to hear from you.