First, I would like to get two things straight:

I’m a grown-ass man I don’t know shit about project management

Okay, let me get one more thing across here: one of these two statements is a lie.

You see, I’m a person that has always just done things when and how I wanted. Time to go to a theme park? Let’s just go! Ready to hit the club? Get dressed and let’s do this.

My friends, however, like to plan things out, which always confused me. Why couldn’t everyone just be like me and go with the flow? Sure, the results weren’t always phenomenal, but at least we did something.

I never knew what organization was until I met my wife. She knows what organization is all about. I’ve never seen somebody take a closet with zero space and turn it into a sound studio for her organizationally-challenged husband.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this is where I talk about how project management is all about organization. But while organization does play a role, that isn’t what I am going to talk about. So, stop what you’re thinking and focus.

Actually, let’s stop talking about my wife for a second and go back to take a look at all the people I dated in the past. I would say my success ratio with regard to dating and relationships is hovering around 3%. That means of the people I’ve been involved with, I had a good relationship with 3% of them. The other 97% were complete failures.

If you asked me why that was the case, five years ago I’d have given you a completely different answer. Today, I am going to tell you: most of those relationships failed because I lacked empathy. I didn’t even try to compromise because I wholeheartedly believed that if a woman didn’t understand my needs or why I did things the way I did, then she didn’t understand me. If she didn’t understand me, then this thing wasn’t going to work.

The funny thing about this line of thinking is that every single woman I’ve dated has tried to reach out and understand me. ‘Why should I try to explain myself,’ I’d think. ‘The right woman will just get me.’ I’d think worse if I had taken the time to explain myself: ‘Why do I need to explain things all over again?’

To me, relationships were meant to be fun. I didn’t have time to get bogged down with talks about trying to understand the woman I was seeing. I’d just figure: ‘Time to move onto the next one…’

Even Peter Pan had to grow up

Thankfully, I grew up a little bit. This was by no means a fast process. At one point, I was grappling with loneliness—a feeling I’d never felt before. I figured this weird feeling meant I wanted some type of companionship. And embracing new companionship meant exploring why past companionships hadn’t worked out. After a ton of thinking, I began to realize these patterns were happening because I wasn’t open to doing things any other way but mine, and for me to stop being lonely, I needed to change. I knew my wife for the better part of eight years before my brain finally kicked in with some common sense.

A relationship with your wife can be great when you take the time to talk to each other about how you view the world. Sure, at first you seem to have everything in common, but as you get to know each other you start to see the differences. The differences aren’t bad; you just need to understand them.

I always figured my job was to convince my partner to think like me, which is ridiculous when I look back at it. My real job was to understand why she saw things the way she did and to see how things shifted when I put myself in her shoes.

Once I did that, everything changed. I mean everything.

This is where I talk about project management.