Are We Still On The Same Team?

Renee

There is a competition that can quietly show up in a marriage that nobody remembers signing up for.

Who got up earlier? Who worked later? Who emptied the dishwasher last? Who has driven the kids more this week? Who remembered the appointment, who forgot it, and of course, the particularly dangerous question of who is more tired?

After almost 25 years of marriage, Mark and I have learned there are certain competitions nobody actually wins. Keeping score in a marriage is one of them.

And when you're also business partners, you suddenly have an entirely new collection of things available to add to the imaginary scoreboard. Who brought in the client? Who had the idea? Who did most of the work? Whose project needs attention first? Who gets recognized for something the two of you built together?

We've never actually created a scoreboard, of course. But that doesn't mean one doesn't occasionally appear in our heads.

I've also realized when mine is most likely to appear.

It's usually not because I need Mark to acknowledge that I've done more. It's because some part of me doesn't feel like what I'm doing is being seen at all.

And there's a pretty big difference between the two.

Mark

As we've been exploring the Six Human Needs over the past few weeks, that realization brought us to two more: significance and love and connection.

Significance can sometimes get a bad reputation because we associate it with ego, status, recognition, or wanting attention. But underneath it all is something incredibly human. We want to know that we matter, that our ideas and contributions have value, and that the people we love recognize what we bring to their lives.

Love and connection are closely related. We want to belong, to feel understood and accepted, and to know there are people in our lives who truly see us.

The problem isn't wanting to feel significant. The problem begins when significance becomes comparative.

Instead of asking, Do I matter? we start wondering, Do I matter more?

And that's when the scoreboard tends to come out.

Renee

I think running businesses together gives us an interesting perspective on this because Mark and I contribute in very different ways.

Mark is naturally visible. He's hosting, speaking, leading trainings, making introductions, having conversations, and building relationships. Put him in a room full of people and give him five minutes, and he'll probably know half of them and have introduced the other half to each other.

A lot of what I do is less visible.

I'm often the person behind the scenes thinking about the strategy, writing the emails, building the pages, working through the technology, planning the event, creating the run of show, and making sure all the pieces actually connect.

And here's the funny thing about work that happens behind the scenes: when everything works, nobody necessarily notices it, and sometimes, Mark gets credit for that too. 

Nobody walks into one of our events and says, "Wow, every automation fired correctly, the registration data imported perfectly, and the right slide appeared at exactly the right moment!"

They simply experience an event that works.

The same thing can happen at home. Nobody necessarily notices every appointment remembered, form completed, ride coordinated, schedule managed, refrigerator stocked with healthy options, or every detail handled. But if one of those things doesn't happen, it suddenly becomes very visible.

I don't need applause for doing the things that are mine to do. But I've learned there is a difference between wanting applause and wanting to feel seen.

And when I find myself mentally keeping score, it's often because I don't feel like what I'm doing is being noticed.

Mark

We experienced another side of this recently when Renee and I attended a business event together.

We've been business partners for about 14 years. We've hosted plenty of events together, spoken together, traveled together, and built businesses together. But somehow, until this summer, we had never simply attended someone else's business event side by side.

Walking into that room was an interesting experience for me because I knew a lot of people. Some knew me through the JV Directory Networking Events that David Riklan and I host twice each month. Others were people I'd interviewed, collaborated with, introduced to someone, or simply gotten to know after years in the same entrepreneurial circles.

Almost immediately, I was saying hello, giving hugs, reconnecting, and making introductions.

And yes, it felt good.

There was connection because I felt like I belonged in the room, but there was also significance. People knew me. They remembered conversations we'd had and relationships we'd built. I could see evidence that some of what I've spent years creating mattered to people.

That's a very human thing to enjoy.

Renee

My experience walking into the exact same room was different.

I knew several people, including some of our MetaMind clients, so I wasn't walking into a room full of strangers, but Mark was clearly in his natural habitat.

Within minutes, he was talking to one person, hugging another, introducing me to someone else, and probably mentally figuring out which two people in the room needed to know each other.

That's Mark.

Then, during one of the breakouts, I met someone new. When he learned who I was, he told me he'd heard amazing things about our Soulful Leadership Experience from good friends who had attended.

This person didn't know me. But he knew something I'd helped create.

There was something incredibly meaningful about realizing that something we'd built had made enough of an impact that people were talking about it in rooms where we weren't even present.

It reminded me that significance doesn't always look like having everyone know your name when you walk through the door.

Sometimes it's discovering that something you've poured yourself into matters to someone you may never even meet.

Mark

That experience also reminded me of something important in our partnership: visibility and significance aren't the same thing.

There are things people associate with me that would not exist without Renee. We've created things together where I may be the person someone recognizes first, but that doesn't mean I created them alone.

And over the years, I've had to become much more conscious of everything happening behind the scenes that allows me to stand out front in the first place.

One person may create the opportunity while the other creates the systems that allow us to deliver on it. One may bring in a relationship while the other nurtures it. One may see the possibility while the other figures out how to make it possible.

Trying to determine which contribution is more significant is probably the wrong question.

Because now we're keeping score again.

Renee

And keeping score can be incredibly subtle.

I don't sit down at the end of the day and announce, "I've reviewed the data, and according to my calculations, I contributed 63 percent to this household today."

Although now that I've written that, I'm not ruling it out.

Usually, we just notice things. I notice the thing I asked someone to do that still hasn't been done. I notice the twelve things I'm carrying around in my head that nobody else even knows I'm thinking about.

Meanwhile, Mark is experiencing everything he's doing that I may not see.

Before long, each of us can build a remarkably convincing case about everything we've contributed.

Now we have two attorneys presenting evidence in a trial neither of us needed.

And we're supposed to be on the same side.

That's why I've realized that what I usually want in those moments isn't credit.

I want acknowledgment.

Those aren't necessarily the same thing.

I don't need Mark to declare that I've done more. I don't need him to fix anything or immediately tell me about everything he's been doing too.

Sometimes I simply want to hear, "I see how much you're carrying."

Or, "Thank you."

That's it.

No parade or fanfare required.

Okay, maybe an occasional parade.

Mark

I think that's where significance and connection meet.

Underneath significance is often a desire to be seen. And connection deepens when we're willing to truly see another person.

So perhaps the better question isn't, Who contributed more?

It's: Does the person I love know that I see what they're contributing?

That's a completely different conversation.

If I need to make my contribution bigger by making Renee's smaller, neither of us wins. And if Renee has to minimize what I'm doing in order to validate everything she's doing, neither of us feels more connected.

But there is room for both of us to matter.

There is room for me to say, "What you're doing matters," without immediately following it with evidence that what I'm doing matters too.

And apparently, there's also something else I've learned after all these years: appreciation works much better when it isn't followed by the word but.

Renee

Yes. "Thank you for doing that, but..."

No, stop before the but.

You're welcome.

I also think this gets harder during busy seasons. When we have enough time, energy, money, and sleep, generosity tends to come more easily. When everyone is stretched, the imaginary scoreboard has a funny way of reappearing.

That's probably when we need connection the most.

Sometimes the most helpful thing Mark and I can remember is that the person across from us isn't the problem.

We're tired. We're overwhelmed. Something didn't work. The business needs something. The kids need something. Life needs something.

But we're still on the same team.

That doesn't magically make the problem disappear, but it changes how we approach it.

Mark

Maybe that's one of the gifts of building a life and businesses with another person.

You have someone who can remind you that your significance was never supposed to come from being more important than the person beside you.

Renee doesn't have to become smaller for me to matter, and I don't have to become smaller for her contribution to count.

Sometimes significance is walking into a room where people know your name.

Sometimes it's learning that something you created has touched people who don't know your name at all.

And sometimes connection is simply having the person who knows you best look at everything you're carrying and say, "I see you."

Mark & Renee

Even after all these years together, we still occasionally keep score. We're human. But we're getting better at recognizing that when the scoreboard starts appearing, there may be something underneath it worth paying attention to.

Maybe we don't actually need to establish who did more. Maybe one of us simply needs to know that what we did mattered.

Recognition, appreciation, attention, and a genuine thank you don't cost anything, but they can change the energy of a relationship remarkably quickly. Because when we both feel seen, there's much less reason to compete for significance in the first place.

There will always be things to accomplish, problems to solve, businesses to grow, kids to raise, dishes to empty, appointments to remember, and contributions to make. None of those things require one of us to win at the expense of the other.

We're not competing for significance.

We're building something together.

And every once in a while, especially when that imaginary scoreboard starts appearing, it's worth remembering one simple question:

Are we still on the same team?

Where have you been keeping score in a relationship that matters to you? And what might change if, instead of comparing contributions, you made sure the other person knew that theirs mattered?