North Star Writers Group

I was a senior in High School. I was in class and my teacher was asking us questions. She would ask a question and we would raise our hands if we knew the answer. After three questions no one could miss that there was a student in the back row bouncing out of his seat trying to answer every question.

The problem was that he was probably not even aware that he was crowding out other people’s contributions. He was so concerned with grabbing every opportunity to show how smart he was that he took his eyes completely off his relationship with others. I call this the Game Show Mindset.

The Game Show Mindset is all about being right. You love being right and you jump on opportunities to show what you know. You couldn’t care less if the other guy scores a point. In fact, in your view, his points scored are the ones you lost. People with the Game Show Mindset travel around with a huge, invisible answer button. They stand ready to press it at any time. I call them Game Show Contestants. And like a scary movie, Game Show Contestants are everywhere!

Do you know what Game Show Contestant Managers look like at work? Every time they ask a question, they preface it with everything they know on the subject. They want credit for their knowledge before they turn the floor over to someone else. If anyone then responds with an answer that they think they “should know,” they interrupt by saying things like, “Yeah, exactly – that’s right, but what about such and such?” Game Show Contestant Managers are like Hoover vacuums. They suck up all the opportunities to shine.

This Game Show behavior happens at home too. I should know. I was caught with my hand on the answer button last week. I wanted so much to be right, that I rained on my wife’s parade.

Dawn had rearranged a few rooms in our home over the weekend while I was away in New York leading a workshop (probably a good strategy when you read below). She did a beautiful job in the house and worked very hard. I was impressed and she was rightly proud of herself. The day after I returned from my trip she started to apply her talent to the upstairs office. And then I played the role of the Game Show Contestant.

I said things like, “That won’t fit, I already measured it,” and “That doesn’t look good if it’s not centered.” And then I carried my big answer button to the kitchen and started in again, “That snack is not as healthy as you think,” and blah, blah, blah. Like my high school friend I got so caught up in “being right,” I missed the chance to be supportive and encouraging.

Relationship researcher John Gottman would say that I was so focused on being right, I missed what he calls “bids.” He says in his book, The Relationship Cure, “A bid can be a question, a gesture, a look, a touch – any single expression that says, ‘I want to feel connected to you.’” Gottman’s research shows that most relationships succeed because of the many small interactions people have. He says: “By becoming aware and mindful of such moments, we can give and receive the intimacy and support we all need from our closest relationships.”

Take Gottman’s guidance: Pay attention to your relationships. You can take your hand off the answer button. There’s no need to jump out of your seat to answer every question. Forget about racking up points on the imaginary scoreboard. The rewards are much greater when you do.

Click here to talk to our writers and editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.

To e-mail feedback about this column, click here. If you enjoy this writer's work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry it.

This is Column # DJP007. Request permission to publish here.