#FuelStop: A Founding Father Frenemy Fiasco…and Stout Tips to Keep The Peace

stout fuel stop quick takeaways Stout Fuel Stop: 1 min read/3 min watch

No one creates conflict better than politicians, and no one covers history in a funnier way than Comedy Central’s Drunk History.

Founding Fathers John Adams and Thomas Jefferson started off the best of friends, despite their diametrically opposed views on the fluidity of the Constitution. But once they decided to run against each other in the presidential election of 1800, all hell broke loose, and an ugly, all-out war erupted between these two former friends. After that, it took over a decade for these two frenemies to finally reconnect!

But take these #Stout tips to heart, and you can top them when it comes to keeping the peace.

  • Watch Tempers. It takes a great deal of effort to build relationships, but only a minimum to destroy it. Make yourself heard, but do so in a spirit of mutual respect. Nothing burns a bridge faster than fighting dirty, either by denigrating the other party, or using knowledge gained from a relationship against the other person.
  • Give Some Space . . . If tempers overheat, retreat to let everyone calm down. Distance is both a physical and an emotional concept – be sure to respect both while you take a break. Once tempers have cooled, you can try to begin the resolution process.
  • . . . But Not Too Much. If both sides are equally stubborn, it’s easier for a disagreement to turn into a stalemate; in the case of Adams and Jefferson, their estrangement lasted more than ten years. Find a way to extend an olive branch before too much time passes and both parties become entrenched in the conflict. And have patience – as mentioned above, resolution is a process, not an event.
  • Use Middle Ground to Build Upon. Both Adams and Jefferson loved their country. Conflict over the way to express that tore then apart, but their patriotism is also what re-bonded them in later years. Find a place where there is agreement, and work forward from there.

Stay tuned next week for more #Stout tips on handling conflict from Jen Groover, innovator, entrepreneur, personal development evangelist and author of the upcoming book Operator’s Manual for Life.