Most arguments aren't about who's right. They're two people defending a view from a chair with a blind spot.

Before you read, tune in.

This issue lives in Distortion, the bent lens, slightly wrong.

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Press play. Let it set the room. Then read.

(No rush. The words will wait.)

Most arguments have two chairs.

Mine.

And yours.

I sit in mine.

You sit in yours.

And from where we're each sitting, everything makes perfect sense.

I know what I meant.

You know what you heard.

I know what happened.

You know what happened.

I know what I need.

You know what you need.

And now we're sitting across from each other trying to convince the other person to get out of their chair and come sit in ours.

That's where a lot of conflict gets stuck.

Not because one person is necessarily wrong.

But because both people are trying to win from inside their own perspective.

I've been thinking about this differently.

What if there were a third chair?

Not mine.

Not yours.

Ours.

The third chair is where we put the thing we're actually trying to protect.

The relationship.

The company.

The partnership.

The family.

The team.

The friendship.

The problem we're trying to solve.

Whatever exists between us that matters more than either one of us being right.

That's the third chair.

And it changes the conversation.

Because now the question isn't:

Who's right?

It's:

What does this need from us?

That's a completely different question.

I've spent most of my life solving problems.

In business, this comes naturally to me.

If a product isn't working, the product doesn't care whose idea it was.

If a customer isn't buying, the market doesn't give a shit which executive won the argument in the conference room.

If a manufacturing line is producing defects, you can defend your department all day.

The defect is still there.

Reality has a wonderful way of being completely uninterested in our ego.

So eventually somebody has to stop defending their chair and look at the problem.

What's actually happening?

What are we trying to accomplish?

What does the business need?

What does the customer need?

What does the product need?

What does the situation require?

We do this in business all the time.

Or at least good teams do.

But relationships are harder.

Because now the thing being questioned isn't just an idea.

It's us.

Our intentions.

Our behavior.

Our history.

Our needs.

Our fears.

Our wounds.

Our identity.

That's when we grip the chair a little tighter.

Imagine two people in a relationship.

One says:

"You never make time for me."

The other immediately responds:

"That's bullshit. Look at everything I do for us."

Now we have two chairs.

One person is defending their experience of disconnection.

The other is defending their experience of contribution.

And here's the interesting part:

They might both be telling the truth.

One person can be doing an enormous amount for the relationship...

while the other person still feels lonely inside it.

Those truths don't cancel each other out.

But if the conversation stays:

I'm right.

No, I'm right.

Look at what I do.

Look at how I feel.

Look at what you did.

Look at what you did.

Nothing moves.

Because they're arguing about whose chair contains reality.

Maybe neither does.

Maybe reality is sitting in the third chair.

The third chair asks:

What does this relationship need right now?

Maybe it needs more time.

Maybe it needs appreciation.

Maybe it needs boundaries.

Maybe somebody needs to listen without defending themselves.

Maybe somebody needs to acknowledge everything the other person actually does.

Maybe the problem isn't effort.

Maybe it's translation.

Maybe both people are giving something the other person isn't receiving.

You don't discover that by winning.

You discover it by getting curious.

And curiosity is almost impossible when you're busy defending yourself.

That's what makes the third chair powerful.

It creates somewhere else for your attention to go.

Away from:

Me versus you.

Toward:

Us versus the problem.

I've seen the same thing destroy business partnerships.

Two founders disagree.

One wants growth.

The other wants profitability.

One wants to raise capital.

The other wants control.

One wants to move faster.

The other thinks the company is moving too fast already.

Both build increasingly sophisticated arguments.

Spreadsheets.

Projections.

Examples.

Market data.

Opinions from advisors.

Eventually they're not even trying to solve the business problem anymore.

They're trying to prove that their original position was correct.

That's dangerous.

Because the objective quietly changes.

The original objective was:

Make the best decision for the company.

The new objective becomes:

Prove I was right.

Those are not the same thing.

Ego changes the objective function without telling you.

The third chair puts it back.

What does the company need?

Not:

What did I propose?

Not:

What did you promise?

Not:

Whose idea was this?

Not:

Who gets credit?

What does the company need now?

Maybe the answer is my idea.

Maybe it's yours.

Maybe it's neither.

Maybe the best solution doesn't exist yet because we've spent the entire conversation defending two existing options instead of creating a third.

That's another thing I love about this idea.

The third chair isn't necessarily compromise.

Compromise often means:

I'll give up some of what I want.

You give up some of what you want.

And we'll meet awkwardly in the middle.

Sometimes that's necessary.

But the third chair can be something better.

Creation.

What can we see together that neither of us could see alone?

That's a very different posture.

It requires something difficult.

You have to be willing to loosen your grip on being right without abandoning what you believe.

Those are not the same thing.

You can say:

This is how I see it.

This is what I experienced.

This is what I need.

This is what I believe.

And I'm willing to discover something I can't see from my chair.

That's maturity.

Not pretending you don't have a perspective.

Not becoming agreeable.

Not avoiding conflict.

Not surrendering your boundaries.

Just recognizing that your perspective is exactly that.

A perspective.

It's a view from a chair.

And every chair has a blind spot.

Mine does.

Yours does.

Experience gives us pattern recognition.

But it also gives us patterns.

Things we expect.

Things we're sensitive to.

Stories we've learned to tell ourselves.

Ways we've learned to protect ourselves.

The more certain we become that we already understand what's happening, the less likely we are to discover what's actually happening.

That's true in marriage.

It's true in business.

It's true in parenting.

It's true in friendship.

It's true in leadership.

It's probably true in almost every room where two humans disagree.

And there's something else.

Sometimes the third chair tells you the relationship shouldn't continue.

Or the partnership.

Or the project.

Or the agreement.

This isn't some magical technique where everyone holds hands and everything works out.

Sometimes you put the relationship in the third chair, look at it honestly, and realize:

This isn't working anymore.

That's information too.

Because the goal of the third chair isn't preservation.

It's truth.

What does this actually need?

Sometimes it needs repair.

Sometimes it needs a different structure.

Sometimes it needs an apology.

Sometimes it needs a boundary.

Sometimes it needs a hard conversation.

Sometimes it needs more effort.

Sometimes it needs less resentment.

And sometimes it needs an ending.

But at least you're making that decision based on the thing itself instead of the battle between two egos.

I think we need more third chairs.

In conference rooms.

At kitchen tables.

Between founders.

Between parents and children.

Between friends.

Between people who love each other but can't seem to stop fighting long enough to remember what they're fighting for.

Maybe even inside ourselves.

Because sometimes the two chairs are both ours.

The part of you that wants security.

And the part that wants freedom.

The part that wants to build.

And the part that's fucking exhausted.

The part that wants to stay.

And the part that wants to go.

We treat those voices like one of them has to defeat the other.

Maybe there's a third chair there too.

What does my life need from me right now?

Not my fear.

Not my ambition.

Not my ego.

Not somebody else's expectations.

My life.

That's a question worth sitting with.

So the next time you find yourself locked in an argument, defending your position harder with every sentence, imagine another chair sitting next to you.

Empty.

Put the thing that matters there.

Then ask:

What does this need?

What are we actually trying to protect?

What are we actually trying to solve?

What can't I see from where I'm sitting?

And what becomes possible if neither of us has to lose?

You don't have to leave your chair.

Just remember it isn't the only one in the room.

Sometimes the answer isn't mine or yours.

Sometimes the answer is sitting in the third chair.

The reading is done. Let it settle.

Listen →

Stay as long as you want. This is the part most people skip.

In your current conflict, what would you see if you put the relationship itself in the third chair and asked what it needs?

Raymond