Author and executive coach Rob Pennington shares how you can show someone you care in the simplest of ways.
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00:00 I believe that feeling loved is more important than being right.
00:05 I think we all agree. Again, we forget in the middle of the argument.
00:10 In my shower, we have this knob that you pull to turn the water on, right and left, hot and cold.
00:19 A little plunger that you push that sends the water either up through the shower or down into the tub.
00:27 I, like everyone I knew, pulls the plunger so the water comes up through the shower.
00:32 I put my hand in, wait until the temperature gets the way, anybody else do this?
00:36 And when it gets the way I want, then I get in.
00:38 My wife, for some other reason, has this experience that when she turns on the water, she expects it to be going down into the tub.
00:48 So she leans in to put her hand underneath the faucet. Where's the water coming from after I've used it?
00:54 From the shower. What does it do? Hits her in the head. How's she feeling?
00:57 "Rod, you left the shower on!"
00:58 And we get into this argument about who's going to have the plunger in or out.
01:02 Haven't you ever had silly arguments that were intense about that?
01:08 Who's going to control who? Whose right way is the right way?
01:13 That went on for a long time.
01:17 Power struggle.
01:22 And somehow, I don't know why, sometime when I was finishing the shower, I thought of what was going to happen.
01:30 And I saw myself having a choice of doing something with that plunger to have it go up in the shower or down into the tub.
01:38 And I knew very clearly that if it went down in the tub, how would my wife feel?
01:44 She'd feel loved.
01:46 And isn't that the way we want the people we love to feel?
01:50 We want them to feel loved.
01:51 And I saw how simple and easy that was.
01:55 But I had to realize the difference between a requirement and a preference.
01:59 That you don't go to war over preferences.
02:01 In fact, when it's not a requirement, by definition, you've agreed to not agree.
02:07 You've agreed to not have to have it your way.
02:10 That's what not a requirement is.
02:12 And so, push the plunger in.
02:16 When she comes in and the water hits her hands, she feels loved.
02:20 And just to be a little poignant about it, she passed away about four years ago.
02:26 And when I take a shower, I am still pushing the plunger in.
02:32 It makes me feel loved.
02:35 [Music]