Today is Friday, which means it’s Fan Friday! And I’m here to share with you another person/place/thing I’m a fan of.
I started this Fan Friday ritual several months ago, but it wasn’t until this week that I realized how frequently I recommend resources to people I know. Once I started paying more attention to this, I discovered I’m frequently recommending books or websites or tools to my coworkers and friends. I suppose this is the upside of being insanely curious about so many things – I always have a zillion ideas in my brain, ready and waiting to be useful to someone, somewhere, somehow. And it makes me insanely happy to recommend something that’s useful to someone else.
This week at work I found myself quoting a book by John Gottman. The book is called The 7 Principles For Making Marriage Work, and it’s based on the research Gottman conducted in his “love lab” in Seattle. Gottman has spent more than 25 years observing couples together at the Gottman Institute, and I’m a huge fan of his work.
I’m a fan of The Gottman Institute because they actually take a scientific approach to studying marriages. They seek to understand the patterns that exist in marriages that fail and how those patterns differ from the marriages that succeed. They invite couples to come spend a weekend together in their “love lab” so they can observe, videotape and record all their interactions. What they found is pretty contrary to conventional wisdom. What makes marriages successful is not what most people would predict.
After studying a huge amount of this couples data from their lab, John Gottman can now spend 5 minutes with a couple and predict with 91% accuracy if they will stay together. True fact!
No, it’s not magic. It’s science. It’s science about relationships. Which is incredibly valuable since so little of this science exists. I love that they use all that data to deconstruct relationships and identify specific behaviors that truly harm (or help) relationships.
The Gottman Institute has used this research to publish books and videos, and conduct marriage workshops. They have a DVD workshop set you can buy online, or you can attend their workshops in person. Or you can just do the easiest option and buy the best book I recommend.
I know it’s ironic that I’m a single person recommending a book about marriage. But I honestly believe we all have the potential to be amazing relationship partners and we can all learn more about what makes relationships work well.
When I look around to everyone I know in my life, I see a large number of dysfunctional relationships. Unfortunately, I know many people unhappy in their relationships. Which is why I’m recommending The Gottman Institute this week. I’m a fan of their research and their products and I honestly believe their research could help your relationship. Either this one or your next one. 
