Does Growing Up Mean Growing Apart?

We grew up in a small town and have been friends since we were like two years old. Us working together and having this bond from kids and we've had these amazing successes and these amazing experiences and to me that's like this You love the story. I love the story and I'm really proud of it and it kind of breaks my heart when it's not working. How's Work 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. Your favorite fall flavors are back at Starbucks. The one and only pumpkin spice latte and the deliciously smooth ice cream. Iced pecan crunch latte have arrived and are ready to sip all season long. Or find a new favorite like the new iced banana bread latte that tastes just like fall in a cup. You can find your favorite taste of fall only at Starbucks. Fall is here and that means the pumpkin spice latte is back at Starbucks. It's the one we've been waiting for. So whether you're a fan of the original pumpkin spice latte or ready to mix it up with an iced pumpkin cream chai, the new iced pumpkin cream matcha, or the new iced pumpkin cream shake and espresso, you can find your favorite taste of fall only at Starbucks. So part of it is defining what this idea of like creative utopia might even be. I think one of our issues is we're all a little bit different and trying to find alignment in our differences. Because I feel like our perspectives are a little bit jammed. Hold on. Are we able to get up and move? You can all get up? Okay. So come a second. We're in California, sunny California. And we're meeting in an entirely new place where I meet these three young men who are co-founders of a production company. But they began a long time ago, pretty much when they met in preschool. And they've been playing and creating and working together ever since. They present with some beautiful fantasies as if they're still in the treehouse. But that's probably not why they came to see me. So I just was thinking when you talked about we all have our perspective. If I asked you, you start to create a sculpture of how you envision your dynamic at this moment. How would you set it up? Set them up and then insert yourself in it too. Okay. A human sculpture. Yes. Interesting. I mean, it feels like one of us needs to be holding someone up like a pyramid. Maybe it's like Power Rangers. I don't know. Put your arms up. Okay. Something like that. Yeah. And what would you name this sculpture? All for one and one for all? So everybody is holding with the same force. Yeah. So it's similarity emphasized, differences minimized. Yeah. What I see in the way you set it up is perfect harmony with very little differentiation. So if you want everybody's strengths, then it requires differentiation and individuality. Yeah. So if you made your sculpture, there is none. Great point. I could have asked each one to describe to me the threesome or the triad or the relationship, the way they see it, but it is much more concrete and much more representational to ask people to create a sculpture of the relationship. You see the dynamic. You see the interactions between people. You see the interactions between the parts, and you see the themes and what they aspire to, what they're hiding, and what they're challenged by. And so I was in a new place. I was finally seeing people in person, and I thought, let's do certain things that I like to do when I have buddies to work with. All right. I think I'm drawn to that metaphor. We're all connected. So maybe kind of like a triangle. So you have a similar equal triangle. Yeah. I think we definitely are built on a lot of equality. To your point, it has definitely limited us. Yeah. Yes. Because it's not just that it's equal, it's that it demands similarity. Mm-hmm. And it's not just that it's equal, it's that it demands the same thing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think that's the thing. Yeah. It's not just that it's equal, it's that it demands similarity. Mm-hmm. And if you continuously put the focus on similarity and sameness, you begin to experience differences as trouble, problems, tensions, lack of flow, lack of harmony, threatening, scary. Yeah. The emphasis on the word similar struck me very early. It wasn't just that they had similar views, they had similar representations in the sculptures of their dynamic and their relationships, but they also had similar clothes on. They could have been straight out of a band. Do you have a different one? No. Well, yes. You're part of the same fantasy? No. No, not really. Okay. Good. Let's see. All right. I'm kind of lost. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm kind of holding you down a little bit, but then also trying to do this, but then you're also holding me down a little bit. Something like that. And say what? I feel like we're all sort of looking for moments to shine and to be appreciated. And we're all in it together, but all holding each other down at the same time. I think there's a comfort in the experience. There's a comfort in the unity, but there's also a feeling almost of invisibility at the same time. When you asked what do we want to get out of this, I think the first thing that came to mind for me is that we have this really deep trust, but in a very brotherly way. I trust these guys. If shit hits the fan, they're going to be there. It's like the reverse of a regular work relationship where you don't necessarily deeply trust the people you're working with, but you trust them with all the little things that sort of happen on the surface of that relationship. And I think we sort of don't trust each other with that. Don't trust what the other person might say to a client, how they might conduct themselves, what their vision may mean for our company. And so I think we're all looking to feel trusted. And that's why I feel like we're like reaching out, but the other people are sort of like also, it's like both support and a weight at the same time. What do you think of this narrative? Yeah. I mean, already the thought of just realizing like we hold each other down by shooting for pure equality, that's a perspective shift. So there's a number of different directions we can take. I was thinking, we can start exactly where we are right here and then would mean to start with me almost saying, so what's the most challenging thing we need to address? And we start from there rather than going back. There is, what is the story of the three of you? Because I think that you love the story and you're a little bit weighted down by the story. Yeah. Yeah. So there is breaking some of the scaffolding, changing some of the scaffolding, the way you've set it up, which at this point is a little bit too similar to the three friends you were in middle school. And you're in your mid thirties and you're each wanting. I mean, you're in your mid thirties, you're in your mid thirties. You're in your mid thirties. And if something bad happens in the shop, you still have to straddle continuously love and work. So, do we start with the here and now? Do we want to go backwards first? I can say I feel strongly. I think it's important to go backwards. Wow. For sure. I think. You feel like you carry dead weight? I know we carry dead weight. Okay. Right off the bat, when he emphasizes, I want to talk about the past and our story and our history, I inserted, you mean, the dead weight of the history. So that it created a more specific lens of what we were going to be focusing on as we look to the past. And it is the unaddressed issues that seem to have piled up. And that now make change so fraught. The film company that we have now, when we began, it was sort of this, like, Neverland. And it did kind of turn into, like. Creative utopia. So, yeah, for a minute, it was kind of like in Pinocchio when they, like, go to the bad kids island. And all of a sudden, everything starts to turn a little bit sour. When you mentioned, like, middle school, it does feel like middle school type things pop up. And we sort of, like, go down these long roads of disagreement. And then when we finally get to the end of it, we're like, oh, like, really? That's sort of where we were at? That's what we were. This is the problem that we're actually arguing about? And. So go back a sec. Give me the basics. You know each other? We've known each other since we were children. We grew up in a small. We grew up in a small town together and have been friends since we were, like, two years old. Went through all of school together. And we're fairly inseparable. We used to build ski parks in the woods. We used to skate. We basically learned everything together and did everything together. And started to see the strength that we had collectively. And. Have you always just been the triad? Or have there been other people that could. Come in? Or was there a strong gate around you? No, I wouldn't say a strong gate. I think we've actually been really. I think one of the things that's always excited us is that we bring in a lot of other people. So you have a permeable boundary around you. Yeah. I think we also feel a sense of pride in being, like, ringleaders. You know, we lead adventures and people want to come along with whatever we're sort of cooking up. And I think that's an energy that I feel like we're sort of losing it. And it feels like things become really insular. And all of a sudden, it's just us all arguing with each other. And we do put up these fences that keep other people from really getting involved with us. Chime in. I'm just getting a tiny bit of the story. If you had to describe each of you, what would you say? Like, imagine a cartoon with a balloon above your head. And it says, you know, a descriptive for each one of you. What would it say? You can help. Yeah. So for, like, my friend here, the gentleman who just laughed, he is a person who builds community around him for the goal of accomplishing a thing. And often those things are a way for a community to give back to itself, to receive, to protect something. His project. And his concepts are around sharing and encouraging the uniqueness of everyone in the group to come out no matter how it will be. He'll turn a project of, like, let's go clear out this bramble bush from my property, which is normally a pretty shitty job. But it's pretty fun if we all do it together. And everyone suddenly is, like, having a party, doing what might be kind of, like, mundane work. And at the end of it, it's like, oh, wow. See, look what we've just done. See how clean this is. Like, we've done this. We've done all this, you know. And this is, like, a very small kind of a thing. But it's just, like, a way. He'll make sure everyone feels like they're really part of this fun endeavor, even if the endeavor is weeding a garden. Like, it's a beautiful thing to kind of have action. So when he is the community builder and the gatherer and the person who thinks about the people more than the task, how does that play out in the triad here? Well, it plays out in a few ways because I'm sure in some ways we will look at things and be like, well, if I was leading, I'd do it this way or that way. But we're like, but we're not leading. So let's instead support what he's doing. And then we'll be there and then look for what's falling through the net. My perspective is the best way to strengthen his vision and his goals will be to just be a backstop. Try to sort of support the vision. Not necessarily. Not necessarily to go and step out as my own. But now you're talking about you. But now I'm talking about myself. So I want to stay for a moment because you describe gatherer, community builder. And what questions that brings for me is people person. People person, how does that translate? Are you the one who experiences a sense of responsibility for you all getting along? Do you carry more of that? Responsibility or anxiety? How does that affect the way you experience conflict since you want people to get along? That's the set of questions that accompany this. None of this is problematic. It's just things go together. We live in cluster of characteristics of aspects of ourselves. So what would you say? Presuming that this is a good. Bubble to put above your head. Yeah, I mean, I think that's, that's certainly fair and accurate. And I, I enjoy bringing people together for sure. And I think that does relate to our projects and it relates to things that we might do sort of personally together also. And you're, you're asking about how I bring that into our relationship and I think I'm not sure whether it's. Because. Because I'm just a very little bit older, but my brother was their age. And I think also I have this sort of almost like an older brother. We're all older brothers, but in our relationship, I definitely think of myself sometimes as. Meaning you're all first born. Yes. Important. Yeah, we're all first born. And you all come from what kind of families? All quite harmonious families. We. All of our parents are together and we grew up in a very small town. And yeah, I think I definitely think of our relationship as I feel like sometimes I have sort of older brother responsibility for it. Often I try to mediate or ease tension or try to find solutions. What's the balloon above his head? See, is an incredibly creative, I want to say like entertainer. I think of you as someone who can talk to anyone who really can deeply relate to people very quickly, but also has a very personal side to him. That is. Is sometimes tough to relate to the world. Want to edit it? Me? Mm-hmm. No, I think that's pretty good. Yeah. I think I definitely struggle feeling misunderstood in our dynamic sometimes. Which is actually nice feeling like that statement is pretty close to, you know, who I am. I see myself as, and I think sometimes I don't know if that feeling is just my own inner dialogue or if that is actually how it is in our, in our group. So your statement would be, it is very important for me to feel understood. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. And it feels very important. Yeah. And it feels very important for me to make sure that the people around me get along. Mm-hmm. And it's very important for me. What would you say? Well, myself? Oh, God. It's very important for me to stand out. Am I being recognized? Thank you. First of all, this wanting to stand out, and it really needs to be understood in context. And the context is that these three young children from small town who were the ring leaders have had tremendous pressure to continuously harmonize, to neutralize all tensions, to close the gaps, to minimize the distance. And as a result, to stand out takes on a whole new meaning because it's the disruption of the harmony. And that could lead to fracture, which they all would rather not see happen. We have to take a brief break. Stay with us. Support for Where Should We Begin? comes from Quince. Hate to break it to you, but now that it's August, that means summer is almost over. For some of you, that might be a relief. Autumn means cooler weather, which also means it might be time to find some cozy cold weather staples. Enter Quince. Quince specializes in effortless, high-quality essentials like ultra-soft organic cotton and premium mung beans. 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So whether you're a fan of the original pumpkin spice latte, or ready to mix it up with a new iced pumpkin cream cha, or the new iced pumpkin cream shake and espresso, you can find your favorite taste of fall, only at Starbucks. Yeah, well, so you know how I said, like, I'll be the backstop? That action has caused me to continually find myself in a place where I feel like, because I don't know who I am anymore. And by that, I just mean all I really know how to do is any task that needs to get done. But when you are the backstop, back, would you call it? Yeah, like a backstop. Yeah. I need everything to be done so that nothing falls through the cracks, so that nothing fails. So you experience it as, I can't trust these guys? No. No, it's… Or somebody has got to look for every detail. Someone's got to do it. And so I am constantly making sure that I don't fail, meaning we don't fail. Or we don't fail, meaning I don't fail. I do attribute my own personal failure as a failure of the group, so I make sure that I do not fail. And how does that work for you, this job? Well… First of all… Yeah. Do you think you should be doing this job? Is this… You've just appointed yourself? So… No, I fell into it by nature, because I'm… I was the one who went to film school, so I had the technical knowledge about a lot of it. I also had the most experience as far as, like, editing is concerned, camera things. We're also in a place right now where the last five years of our lives were to get this one project done. And it was very difficult, and it felt like everything was against us. And to get this one project done, it was very difficult, and it felt like everything was against us. And to get this one project done, it was very difficult, and it felt like everything was in myself, I struggled to, I guess, connect the dots between an excitement that I felt like we weren't going to reach, which sounds really cynical, but I think it's something that we all secretly know about certain things. Tell me if this resonates for you. Complementarity doesn't work when you're trying to make him think like you. Totally. Complementarity works when he knows that he can continue to think the way he does because you're thinking the way you do. Yeah. The only reason he doesn't have to think about what you're thinking about is because you're doing it. Yeah. And the only reason you don't have to be all excited and pushing till the last motion is because he's doing it for you. Yeah, absolutely. It's interdependent parts, complementarity. But a complementarity. Complementarity works when that is acknowledged. Yeah. Does that make sense? Totally. Yeah. I wonder, like, knowing when to trust one another in that, knowing. Because this pertains mostly, I would say, to, like, the brainstorm side of things. When we're sitting down and talking about something and the parameters don't matter. Because for me, parameters don't matter. Never mattered. Whatever. We'll figure it out. Although. I can only do that when I'm talking with you guys because I sometimes will know that you'll say, wait, no, it's not necessarily a thing, but. That's a great example. But. You can dissolve all the norms and all the rules and all the parameters because you've got somebody next to you who will make sure that the ones that really matter are maintained. Yeah. Yeah, and I guess that's it. Maybe that's just the thing. That's complementarity. I introduced the concept of complementarity. I see complementarity as one of the most important structural elements of relational systems between two people on a team in a company. And I'm going to come back to this over and over. And each time they'll internalize it a little bit more and they'll begin to apply it to their own situation. Sometimes I don't know entirely how to react to something because this same project included that same dynamic because there was a moment where you were really offended by me. So what? Well. I couldn't resist. No. I mean, it's like, so what? What I'm saying is, is tension allowed? Totally. Okay. So offended is. Well, tension hasn't been allowed before. I'm actually not sure. Tension. Tension is a thing back when we were like up until about a month ago, we were in a place where we couldn't really let each other have tension because it would rock the boat. And like three years ago, I would just fly off the handle in an instant. And it was partially because I'd been doing so much work on my own sense of self. I felt like they weren't understanding that or hadn't been doing their own. So like I felt like I was putting in all the effort to learn how to communicate with them and they weren't putting in any effort to even listen. And like, there were just so many dynamics. Like we ended up having to go to a marriage, like we went to a marriage counselor to deal with this stuff that we had really weren't able to do by ourselves. And you guys can tell me if you're, how you feel on it. Tension is what? To upset each other? To offend. To disagree openly? To offend? To hurt? To offend is to hurt? Yeah. Because that brings us farther away from this goal of finding some creative harmony. You wanted to say something. I think, you know, between, between the three of us, we all have a decent amount of ego. And I think with our history, when someone says, oh, you know, that, that edit actually is lacking something or, oh, you know, why did you do something this way? It's not just that statement. And it's hard sometimes for us to take that criticism objectively. Meaning? That you personalize it, that it's not, it becomes not an absurd. Yeah, that it becomes almost an insult rather than a suggestion. We know we all love each other, but I think that. And finish the sentence, we know it and but. Well, and maybe because of that, our criticism stings a little more than anybody else's. And I can't put my finger on exactly where that came from. I know why it is. It's because. I have a thought. You don't know why it is. I don't know why. I have a thought. I think when you have a family dynamic is there's all these other issues going on. And it's very easy for you to tie up one frustration you have with the, with the conversation that needs to be had about something that is completely different. But then when I get the offhanded comment about the thing, now it suddenly spills in and emotion is everywhere. Makes sense. I just want to. Check if this makes sense to all of you. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So let's take a break. And then we'll pick up. So it's always interesting to find out what people say when I'm out of the room. Um, and, and if there was something that they were actually holding back on, or if there was something that they needed to rectify on the spot. Like, it's hard not to be frustrated when you say that you were doing all this self work and nobody was trying to hear your perspective. It's like kind of the exact opposite of what happened. Okay. So like when I said that, I know everyone had been doing it, but when I had been doing it, this was before we'd already kind of started talking about that sort of stuff. I don't know, personally, I feel like I spent like a ton of energy trying to even bring. Us all to like a communicative seat at the table and like brought up the whole idea of even seeing a therapist together in the first place. And it's just like, you, you did, it's a touch point for me because it feels like a revisionist history where all the effort I put in is removed from it and awarded to you and put on your shoulders and you do everything. Yeah. I'm sorry for that. That was not, no, the, um, yeah. Feed me in. I was, I was pretty frustrated by something in the first half of the session, basically, and we were just kind of passing it out when S said that he felt like he was doing all this self work and nobody was listening or nobody was putting in an effort to try and understand him. I felt kind of minimized in that statement because I didn't really feel like that was all that accurate. Um, for me, I, I feel like we all have very different communication styles and we would end up in these situations in our studio where everyone was sort of sitting in separate corners, just fuming and I, I, I need to hash it out. And I think I would look around the room and I would see T. Continuing to work as if nothing was going on at all, S would be internalizing everything and tearing himself apart, but being completely silent and forcing himself to move along. And I would be kind of like sitting somewhere in the middle and just feeling like everything's falling apart. And I felt like I put so much effort into trying to even open a corridor for communication. In like a healthy way between all of us. And when I hear like, I'm the only one putting in this work, I kind of respond to it like, are you kidding me? Like, I feel like I have been carrying the torch of we need to communicate better the whole time. And when it feels like it's not even remembered, it just makes me feel like. Back to the very beginning, it makes me feel very misunderstood. I think those things just make me feel like, I don't know. Really lost. And I've, I've talked to the US before where I'm like, I feel like I'm putting in all these different forms of work. And nobody sees it. Nobody? Like in our group. Neither of them? Sometimes. Yeah, I mean, I think that's totally reasonable. I think of, of all of us, C is the most visionary and you can talk to him. Okay, cool. I think you have the best moral compass, uh, or best compass for our company. but I definitely recognize that at times when there are lots of to-do list items, how we might prioritize those and maybe recognize each other for those more than the bigger contributions. This moment in the conversation for me is about unique vulnerabilities. These are experiences. These are not facts. And part of what is confusing in the way that you talk is that you sometimes talk fact when you're actually talking feeling, experience. His is, my contributions are not valued. What I bring is not seen as important. His is, I have to pick up the slack for everyone. What would you say is yours? Like I'm required to be the leader or something. I have to. I have to be the mature one. I have to be the older one. Or like responsible. Responsible one. So when you say, I feel that, what you really are describing is an experience. When he says, I do everything, it's not a fact. It's how he feels in the moment. He feels overwhelmed. He feels like he's got to step in. And by the way, your three positions are positions of responsibility. Just so you know. There are variations on the same thing. I make sure that the conversation gets going. I make sure that, you know, that we stay connected to the bigger picture. You are like, I make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. These are all statements of responsibility. But they're experiences. They're not facts. Do you know the difference? Yes. Should we be talking about them in different ways? It helps when you say, my experiences are how I, you know, the way this lands on me, whatever the language. But it helps a little bit in the language. When you go and you say, I do everything, he instantly, and you put it like truth, then his default mode is, therefore what I bring is not important. If you make yourself so important, it lessens his importance. So it helps to translate. Yeah. Yeah. I get that. I want to be clear. There are facts. Facts exist and they are part of relationships, of companies, of dynamics. But in this particular moment, what stands out is the pseudo-factual talk. It's the fact that people are presenting, their subjective experience as an objective truth. And that needs to be parsed out. We'll be back with a session right after this. And while we love our sponsors, if you want to listen to this session ad-free, click the try free button to subscribe to Astera's Office Hours on Apple Podcasts. With Share My Trip from Uber, you can send your live trip location to the ones who matter most. Like Dan and Hannah, who always wait up to make sure their daughter gets back to her college dorm room. 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Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-4-6-6. 4-4-BOTOX to learn more. It probably hurts our work relationship because I think we bring a lot from one to the other. Give me an example. You know, we'll have like a brainstorm and you can sense that it's falling off the rails because one person is feeling something that's been dug up from the past somewhere. And depending on the conversation, you know, you don't know which person is going to be in what thing it is, but it ends up there and it's really horrible. It's really hard. So somebody says, I want to work on project X and that will bring up things from the past? It's a very similar dynamic to what we've already talked about. Like, S will feel like we're talking about an idea that's going to bury him in that sort of like all the bullshits running through him kind of role. Or I might end up in a spot where I feel like I don't see where I fit in value to this thing. Or T might feel like he's just being put in this box of I'm the responsible one and I don't have creative skin in this project. And I think we all recognize the value in each other that we bring, but somehow that's not translating into our own personal feelings. So this is not the past. And that's a thing that's, I think, hard for us to break through, maybe. I think it feels like it's the past because it feels like, oh, this is always where I've been in this dynamic or something. Right, but it's very much in the present, too. Yeah, of course. Right, so you start to have a conversation, each of you, with your default settings. The person left the default settings remains. Yeah. That's very much the fact that it's been there before and you've known it, but it's not like something that, I get it, it feels like it's from the past. Because it's familiar and known, but what gets triggered is that you each slide into your default settings. And so those are having a conversation with each other. And the other parts of you are kind of going in bystander mode. And you're watching, and that's what makes them the past, your younger selves, your childhood wounds, your early moments. Challenges. You're watching them having an argument with each other and you're staying outside. And part of what I'm imagining is how about we invite some of your adult parts into the conversation, too? Because you basically leave it up to those little ones, those more fragile ones, those more wounded ones, those more, you know. And they are very observant and they try to protect you, but they are not always accurate anymore. Anymore. And that's what's happening. And now, does that make sense? Yeah, like we might think that one of us is, I don't know, not able to hear something because they've reacted or we think of them still almost as a child. Because the person, he's having a conversation from the place of I'm not acknowledged when I contribute isn't valued. And he's instantly thinking, I'm going to get flooded. I'm going to get overwhelmed. I'm going to get all alone. It's all going to be on me. And that's the person, that's the part of him that is in the conversation. And so you're right that it is not a suggestion, but a criticism because it's like we're not talking about the item. There's actually very little of a conversation about the project itself. This is a conversation about our respective fears and vulnerabilities. That's what we are discussing. Mm-hmm. yeah and so it's very confusing because it's not stated overtly oh now it's that part of me that is having a conversation but you you feel the tension he's instantly goes into that's energy he goes into the i do it's a kind of a semi pouting complaining feeling diminished but making yourself you know but but the energy is right there so nobody can miss it oh my god got me yeah huh got me i mean now that it's in front of you it's like you know you know oh i you can be very overt about it and just say you know that that that tension is rising in me or you can just have a conversation with your own tensions what what's really challenging is we all put a lot of weight on this relationship i know i personally look at us working together and having this bond from kids and we've had these amazing successes and these amazing experiences and to me that's like this you love the story i love the story and i'm really proud of it and it kind of breaks my heart when it's not working because i don't know how to fix i don't totally know what to do with all of that knowledge and we know how it's listen yeah the story is developmental when you were two 10 20 30 35 it's a different story before the company when you were playing together and building outhouses and and wood houses and god knows what you build and then when you went and did your first little film together and then into this company and you didn't really just build a company you build a lifestyle yeah in order to continue something that you cherish now you're in this next development you finish this big project and your fear is that the thing is going to dissolve you when in fact it's just growing but growth is continuously straddling what you keep from the past and what you add that is new yeah this is a backtrack a half a sec but i appreciate the perspective shift of thinking about i always treat it like oh these little things that are you know that's the voice of my old me this is an old me voice and i think that's sort of doing a service to the fact that it's not it's still me now which kind of makes me feel like okay well then i can work through that more or at least that there's more of an ability to it's very present it may be very much from childhood it may be a young voice but it's very much in the present and the question is how does it serve you today sometimes it serves you it says watch out be careful but sometimes it sees danger that is no longer there and so it needs to be put we needs to be reassured and it needs to be reassured by you first and then by each other because you know each other like nobody else take advantage yeah i mean i was just going to add like i think what what makes it so heavy feeling is when we get it right it feels so good to the point where sometimes we look at each other and we're in disbelief it's like we're still playing as children and that feeling when you've kind of crafted this life that feels surreal at times you're like wow if only we could feel this all the time and then the opposite side of that when it feels like it's really not working it just feels so dark and so short of it being perfect harmony magical childhood you there is only one option which is it's not working rather than it's more complicated it's not as easy it's more difficult than we imagine there's a few tensions we need to address you go from all to nothing yeah i mean it's definitely a trade yeah yeah okay so that that's exactly what i saw when you did your sculptures you have sculptures that are like perfect harmony that's how we started right and there is it's so when that when that's not happening when not everybody's holding hands together and you uphold each other and everybody has the same weight and then short of that there is no alternative rather than sort of well like we've been trained to think that way for sure by society i think like you win or you fail there's no in between that's like the message especially for men there's no alternative so then we all have internalized this i don't i don't feel the same way well i don't know whose house you've grown yeah um no i don't i don't think i fully feel that way i think my biggest success is a balance of stability and creative harmony or like a harmony between us like stability in the sense of maybe a financial stability or that we're just like successful to at least a base level with our company but i don't think i fully feel that way i think my biggest success is a balance of stability and then that we're all acting in a certain amount of harmony and and really like that we are providing a value to one another that we can't get ourselves but aspirationally i don't think we need to be the best at what we do i think we can find our own path yeah so and how does that land on you when he says we don't have to be the best i'm just curious how much of this conversation do you think involves things that you internalized in your conception of manhood and masculinity in truth it's my kid little me is very much in that mind and i don't really necessarily know exactly where it came from because well i can many theories but it doesn't really matter what's one well i was a small person i was the smallest on the playground i had to deal with like people trying to bully me all the time i always had to win every fight like i couldn't back down if i get squashed on like there was a moment in time where like i'd felt very alone on the playground in a fight no one had my back i had to take down two guys who were like just a little bit bigger than me but like all their older brothers were egging them on and i'm just like there it was absolute but clearly stuck in my mind as like a very important thing because that moment in time it felt like nobody had my back and it was just up to me completely and and that is probably why i used to be like the cleanup guy or whatever like i just felt like there's no one else here i'm gonna have to do this so um it's a strength too do they know this story yeah yeah i've told him about this um and like i come to see that little kid thing uh and the masculinity part as a bit of a strength but also i have to just not let it rule me and keep me in check i'm much happier since i've kind of learned to embrace less masculine sides yeah the feminine side um there's a lot of positive sides to that we'll leave it there and for you um i think i'm more similar to see and i think it could definitely be reflected in our ego i think we each take criticism i think more defensively you know how you were distinguishing before between a criticism and a suggestion it's actually not that different most criticism are veiled wishes but instead of saying i would like this we say you never do that you understand i would like your help is a wish you're never there when i need you right he's a criticism i like that it's a really good feeling being asked for help i think like when you on this most recent project you're like hey can you come in and help me run through some things i'm like yeah i'm there let's go but when you feel like you're kind of being put down or something you're like well you know what i'm not going to show up the way you want me to because i feel xyz i wonder um when when you get sort of closed off or kind of brooding are there things that i don't know you want us to do when you get stuck when you get stuck like s was saying you know i'll just pick up all the all the work from you but i'm not sure that's actually helpful no it's a great question yeah i think personally i i wish i knew like a concrete answer to that i feel like more often than not i think i i don't know maybe i want to be like brought in or something or just did you have tantrums as a little one me i don't probably i was just gonna say there's no way you didn't yeah there's no way you didn't because i'm sure we all did yeah i mean i definitely don't think i was some little saint um i mean i don't think i'm having like pout or brood are you stuck like stuck in brood mode yes probably yeah i think so okay so this is the thing it's like he can't tell you what he needs because he's stuck he's brooding he's feeling victimized and entitled at the same time and what he could use is someone who gets him out of the state he needs a state change and that may mean moving not feeling change state change standing jumping jack you name it movement because when he stuck his body is frozen that's what i meant by imploding it's not exploding as in loud and but he goes and so what you need to do is movement and not talking about what's going on that's probably not what is helpful in that moment actually getting his mind off it cool feels quite accurate and now you can tell them what kind of things get your mind off it it can be going doing errands it can be going to get a beer it can be you know going to ski or going biking or running or any of the physical stuff let's just go and don't discuss any of it and then you can come back once he's out of it he's back in reset and he can take himself there but it takes him a long time that sounds pretty true to me we have to end so tell me where have we arrived and what would be the sculpture now it's been enlightening i think one of the things that i actually feel like is the most simplified thing that i'll take away was recognizing that if we all think that we're going to be able to do this and we all think of our contributions as equal then we're actually diminishing each of our individual contributions um and i think that's something that really resonates sort of like throughout many of our roadblocks um and stagnates our progress it also kind of felt to me like we were all looking at it in this idealistic sense and showed that we're also all a little bit blind to the present in some way the story is robust let it grow let it breathe yeah esther perel is a therapist best-selling author speaker and host of the podcasts where should we begin and how's work to apply with a colleague or partner to do a session for the podcast or to follow along with each episode show notes go to how's work.esterperel.com how's work is produced by magnificent noise we're part of the vox media podcast network in partnership with new york magazine and the cut our production staff includes eric newsom destry sibley sabrina farhi eleanor kagan kristin muller and julian hatt original music and additional production by paul schneider and the executive producers of how's work are esther perel and jesse baker we'd also like to thank courtney hamilton mary alice miller and jack saul so your favorite fall flavors are back at starbucks the one and only pumpkin spice latte and the deliciously smooth iced pecan crunch latte have arrived and are ready to sip all season long or find a new favorite like the new iced banana bread latte that tastes just like fall in a cup you can find your favorite taste of fall only at starbucks your favorite fall flavors are back at starbucks the one and only pumpkin spice latte and the deliciously smooth iced pecan crunch latte have arrived at starbucks the one and only pumpkin spice latte have arrived and are ready to sip all season long or find a new favorite like the new iced banana bread latte that tastes just like fall in a cup you can find your favorite taste of fall only at starbucks