Video Transcript (for those who prefer to read)

0:01 If you're in a committed partnership, I've got a question for you. How are your fights? See, I've been thinking lately.

0:14 And I've had this idea that I think is maybe a little radical, at least interesting, which is that, in my experience, a healthy relationship that's likely to do well over a long period of time is not in any way judged by a lack of fights.

0:38 It's actually judged by how effective your fights are. And I think one of the best ways to make sure that they're effective is to think of them like a core skill.

0:54 Like a foundational thing you can learn and work on and get better at and assess how you're doing at them right now.

1:05 And I think a big part of where this comes from is my relationship with Jackson, my husband, who you might know.

1:16 And I don't know if you know this full story, but Jackson and I started our first company three months after we met.

1:23 And on top of that we moved to another city, to Chicago, to live together three months after we met. Because we had a technical co-founder who was there.

1:34 And we just knew that agreeing to be a co-founder with a couple that had only been together for three months was already, like, a huge risk and something most people would not want to get into.

1:47 And so we were, like, we cannot bring any of our relationship stuff into the office. It'll just be miserable. No one wants that.

1:57 We can't be those kind of confounders. But we were early in our relationship. We were figuring a lot of stuff out.

2:04 We were disagreeing all the time about lots of things — we were trying to live together after, you know, knowing each other for a couple of months.

2:10 And so we would literally, like, we lived in Chicago and we would bike to the co-working space, and I remember fighting on our bikes, you know, biking down the streets and we would stand on the sidewalk in front of the office being like, we have got to get to the bottom of as fast as possible because we cannot take it into the room with us.

2:30 And we, you know, Jackson and I are just the kind of people who find that kind of interpersonal stuff really interesting.

2:41 And as someone said at our wedding, brainstorming is our flirting. And so, because we were in this cauldron of working together and being new in a relationship first that whole year especially, and then later, as we started Job Portraits, we came up with a lot of, I think, sort of innovative

3:01 interesting, thoughtful ways to approach fights and disagreements. And, you know, I got to bring in a lot of my learnings from the years of personal growth and, you know, work that I've done, and energy healing and therapy and stuff like that, moving out of code dependency patterns and non-violent communication and EFT work.

3:23 And a lot of those things were really useful to us and now I’m thinking about how to bring some of those tools and skills to other couples, but also people in any kind of committed partnership because again, we were in two kinds of committed partnerships, right?

3:43 We were cofounders and we were in a romantic relationship. And I think there's a lot of overlap between those things. And so what I'm offering this summer is a three-part workshop for committed partners.

3:59 And it will actually be something that you come to as a pair. And basically, in each session, we will introduce some of these key tools.

4:11 We'll give you some homework in between the workshop. You'll get a chance to actually practice in a private breakout room with your partner, some of the tools, and then a lot of space to, you know, debrief and share learnings and support each other through the process.

4:25 I'm super excited about it. Especially because Jackson is going to come and be kind of my special guest and you'll probably get to see us interact and probably some of these ways in real time, which I hope will be instructive. And I'm really thinking about this for couples who are not in any kind of crisis, but just want to continue to get better at being in partnership and are excited to get some new skills

4:54 and being in a learning container with lots of other great people. So if you're interested, let me know.