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📍 Welcome back to another episode of the 200% Marriage podcast with Meredith and Craig.As you've been following along, we've been reading The 200% Marriage: Your Winning Playbook to Be an Unstoppable Team.

And this week, we are reading chapter 19. I happened to write that chapter, so I am going to read that chapter, and we'll get kicked off right now.Chapter 19: Don't Be an Uber Competitive Psycho."Winning isn't everything, but it beats anything that comes in second," Bear Bryant.Saying we're competitive would be a huge understatement.

We love competition. It's probably one of the reasons we both love sports so much, which you've probably picked up on by now.We are so competitive that we used to go head-to-head over the stupidest shit.Picture this.We used to enter our office tower on the second floor, and instead of taking the busy escalator down to the first floor like normal humans, and literally every other person in the building, we'd race down the stairs in full view of the 100 other people on the escalators.

Why? Because we're that competitive.

No one else ever took the stairs, so it was the perfect battleground.If you're wondering who won, you're definitely our people.Mer usually won the races down the stairs because, you know, lightning-quick feet. Her words, not mine.Races up the stairs, though, all me. Long legs that can devour two, maybe three on a good day, steps at a time to give me the edge.

In case you haven't caught our vibe, we love fun and games, so much so that we used to play a lot of cribbage, AKA crib. If you're not familiar, it's a card game, and of course, we kept score. But not just who won the individual match like normal people. Oh, no. We tracked who won the most games overall, keeping an ever-growing tally like uber competitive psychos.

At first, it was fun. We even joked that 50 years from now, we'd still be on the porch tallying up wins.But eventually, it became less fun. One of us fell behind badly in the tally, to the point where that person slammed the cards down in frustration.We won't tell you which one of us lost it, but hint, it rhymes with Megadeath.

Here's Megadeath with her side of the story.Gave that away there a little bit.I'm very competitive. Seriously. A long list of friends would testify to that under oath.So losing over and over and over again, I definitely did not handle it well. At first, I really did try to shake it off,but eventually I cracked.

I was so frustrated after losing againthat I tossed my cards across the table. Yes, I know. It's very mature.That's when we realized that our once fun card games weren't worth the fallout.Here's what was happening for me. One,I was tying my value to winning, which is a terrible move in any situation, but especially damaging when you're supposed to be having fun with your teammate.

Two,I was treating our relationship like a competition instead of a team,and that's what brings us back to this whole team concept we've been hammering home.And this wasn't easy for us. We're both naturally competitive and love to win. If that's you, too, don't worry. You're not alone. If we can adopt a team mentality, so can you.

Here's the part that took me longer to figure out than I'd like to admit.You can't be teammates in some moments and opponents in others. That's not how it works.You get good at what you practice. There's some stat, and no, I'm not looking it up. By now, you know why. Bibliographies and citations, hard pass.

I think it's Malcolm Gladwell who said it. "It takes 10,000 hours to master a skill." Whatever the exact number, the point is clear. Mastery comes from consistent practice. It takes consistent practice to get good at something, and if you're practicing the opposite of what you want, you're undoing your progress.

So what exactly do those 10,000 hours have to do with your relationship? Short answer: everything. Long answer: if you want a thriving, happy, connected relationship, one where you're cheering each other on, holding each other accountable, and showing up as true teammates, you have to practice thatevery day in every area of your life.

You can't just flip the switch to teammates when life gets hard and expect it to work.If you're practicing competing with your teammate over a silly card game or bigger stuff, you're reinforcing the habit of wanting to win, which by default means you want them to lose. Then, when life throws you a big challenge, you'll have no team practice to fall back on.

You'll revert to what you practiced. Your muscle memory will kick in and you'll revert to competing, and that challenge life threw at you will feel even harder.Megadeath out. Back to Craig.

Since the infamous card-throwing incident, we decided we are all in all the time on being an unstoppable team.To be clear, though, that doesn't mean that we won't play cards with each other. We still play, and yes, we even still keep score. But we don't care about the outcome. We intentionally cheer for each other.

If Mer wins a hand, I cheer. If I score, she cheers. It's about the experience of being together, not about whether one of us wins. That perspective shift keeps us on the same team always.

Not long ago, we were at a game night with friends. There were no designated teams in this game. It was an every person for themselves sort of game.

These friends were also pretty competitive, and by pretty competitive, I mean very competitive.Toward the end, Mer pulled ahead.The others saw she was close to winning, and so they started teaming up against her to block her because that meant game over and the rest of us would lose.They tried to recruit me into their little pitchfork gang.

Instead, I did the exact opposite. I made moves to benefit Mer, and I caught a lot of heat for it.They couldn't believe it. To them, I was sacrificing my own best interests so she could win, and honestly, they were exactly right. They didn't seem to understand that when my wife wins, I win, too.They kept trying to pit us against each other, and we wouldn't budge.

Why? Because we've learned this truth, and we share it with anyone who will listen, even those game night friends. The way you show up in the small moments is how you'll rise in the big ones. Don't wait for a crisis to suddenly team up. Build those habits now.Unstoppable teams show up for each other in all moments, and when the big moments happen, the muscle memory is there.

It's you versus the world in the big moments, so don't build the habit that it's you versus your teammate in the small ones. You will always fall to the level of your habits. It's always both of you versus the world together versus the problem.Looking back, it's wild how competitive we were with each other, how seriously we took those games that in the grand scheme of life mean nothing.

But here's the twist. Those silly games actually mean a lot.The outcome of them doesn't matter, but how you play them absolutely does. Those nothing games are practice reps, and how you treat each other in those practice moments creates the habits you'll carry into the real games in life.

So when life comes at us fast, like losing Mer's dad last year, closing a business, or hitting the inevitable potholes on our road of life,we fall back on what we've practiced:supporting each other, cheering each other on, holding each other accountable, being there for one another. Because how you do anything is how you do everything, and the little things, they're the big things.

They define your relationship and your life.How you practice in the little moments is how you'll show up in the big ones. Rule number four: unstoppable teams practice how they playI love this chapter.Like the, the way we started it with the Bear Bryant quote, that winning basically beats anything.It beats anything in second.

Little tongue in cheek. It's true, but also the opposite of what we're talking about in this chapter. Which is why it's kind of funny. Yeah.But it is definitely how we both grew up and both brought into this relationship. Yes. my whole life, very, very, very competitive. Which is... And it was, like, we had a lot of fun com- like, well, I think back to running down those stairs.

To be clear, which makes it even funnier it wasn't in the book, we worked in health and safety. And then we would- This is true ... race down the stairs. This is true. Literally. This is true. - not the healthiest, safest maneuver. off the clock until I get in there. Totally.I think our VP actually saw us do it one time. It was kind of funny. Anyway, that, it, it- Well, but- Those are fun memories for me. but the card games is where it really, really got real. Andfor, for everyone to fully understand,we kept track of the score of the game, sure, and then at the end of the yearwe would tally how many games you won and how many games I won, and we would write it in a book, and the score would be, like, 117 to, uh, 101 or something.

And then the next year we would tally it again. Like, we were...It was a running tally of forever. And we also played Skip-Bo, and we didn't just count wins and losses in that game, we counted how badly you lost, how many cards left in your pile, and that number got very, very big over the course of a year.

So we hit the competitive thinghard, and eventuallyI couldn't ta- I couldn't hack it anymore.Was getting so frustrated that- You were getting owned. Well, I was for a while getting owned, and it was, I was, I was just getting so frustrated because,I tied my self-worth to winning and perfection and all those things, so I, I was feeling not very good about myself,and I was just tired of fucking losing.

It wasn't fun for me anymore, and w- what are we doing this forWhat are we playing games if it's not to have fun? Mm-hmm. 'Cause having fun, which we'll get to, is a really important part, but if I'm not having any fun when we're doing this, it's just creating resentment. Well, that's not what we're trying to accomplish.

Yeah, and ultimately, if you're not having any fun, I'm not having any fun either. No. A. I'm glad we can play again now.Not long before we wrote the book, we were staying at an Airbnb where they had some board games, and one of them was Yahtzee.

And so one or two evenings a week, we would play a few games of Yahtzee. And I remember being really proud of myself that I found myself rooting for you to roll a Yahtzee, 'cause you needed to roll a Yahtzee on your thing. And I thought back to how I was with the card game and how I was today, and I was like, "Whew, I've come a long way."

And it feels so much better. I still wanna win the game. I'm not saying I'm not competitive now. It's not like it just disappeared. I still wanna win the game of Yahtzee. I just- Directed- ... also want you to play well so that if I win, I'm the best It's just directed in a more healthy way. Yeah. You still wanna be the best.

I still wanna be the best. I just wanna be the best if you're also good. I don't need you to suck for me to be the best.both things don't have to exist.The games night was the first time it became super clear for me, I think for us, thatthis cutthroat competitiveness is undermining your relationship.

And relationship with the players around the board for sure, but relationship with each other. And I...It was a lot of fun that night, and it was also incredibly helpful and clear, because that, that really, that, that board game experience was the seedof this chapter for sure.but I, I really think the five rules for being an unstoppable team were born that night.

Mm. Like, we've been talking about other one's growth and little things or the big things. We've been talking about those before, but to really pull them all together, that was the seed of pulling those all together in the five rules to be an unstoppable team. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was an interesting night for sure.

And explaining that to people, how you show up in the little moment. Like,how you show up in the little moments is how you're gonna show up in the big moments. Uh, sometimes people are like, "Yeah, but it's a game night. It's just, just chill." Mm-hmm. Like, what if we just, like, competed on game night?

And it's like, okay, yeah, we can do that, and, and we can still try to win and all the things like we've talked about, but, but if you're tying the, a, a certain level of importance to that, to the point where you're getting,agitated and angry with the other person who is winning or at yourself and throwing cards or getting, like- A- and at that game night, people were getting visibly angry with decisions other people were making, and it's like, you know what?

It's, it's just a game. In the grand scheme of life- Mm-hmm ... this is not that important. We're just here to have fun. The outcome of this game is not important. It doesn't mean anything at the end- How we play the game might impact relationships at this table. Right, and how you do anything is how you do everything.

And so if you show up in those moments frustrated and angry, and, out for yourself over everyone else, then that's how you're gonna show up when the big moments happen, too. Mm-hmm.And, you know, getting that across to everyone, um- I'mnot sure we nailed it ... I don't know that everyone took that, that message away in the moment.

I think it's something that you, you know, in those moments the- we're at elevated and you're heated, and it's maybe not the right time. And it's come up multiple times. Oh. Like, we've played card games with large groups of people that got very competitive, and whenever we remotely supported each other in those games, we would get attacked, for sure.

Yeah. . Not everyoneunderstands, and that's why the book exists. And so, like- That's- ... one person actually said, "That's not the point of the game. The point of the game is to beat everybody else."to me, the point of us all playing this game is to have fun together and build relationships.

So it, it depends on how you approach it. Mm-hmm. 'Cause one of the people got really frustrated with us and was like, "That's not the point of the game. The point of the game is to beat everybody."I guess that- That, that's your perspective ... that's two frames. Yeah. Our perspective is that we're not willing to sacrifice relationships- To win a stupid card game

for this stupid so practice how you play. How you show up in the little moments, the little games, the little pieces is the muscle memory that you build for when life throws the big shit at you. So be smart about how you practice.That's it for this week. Next week we're wrapping up the, the five rules to be an unstoppable team with the fifth rule, which happens to be chapter 20.

And chapter 20 next week is don't tackle your teammate. There's a time and a place for that. Wink. So we will, see you next week. Bye

And that's a wrap on this week's briefing. If this episode hit a nerve, don't let your momentum die Head over to the 200percentmarriage.com/unstoppableteam to take the unstoppable team audit. Find out exactly where your domestic drag is hiding so you can start optimizing your team today. And if you love the show, share it with another power couple who refuses to settle for fine, because a 200% life is better with a community.

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