1KHO 886: Human Connection is Fragile | Jason VanRuler, Discovering Your Communication Type

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Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside Podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich, the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. And I have an author today who has written his second book. And this one is about communication, which is so important in this day and age, especially with all these AI companions and chatbots taking their debut in our world. Jason VanRuler, welcome. I'm excited to talk about all of this.

**Jason VanRuler** (1:25)
Thank you so much for having me. I've been looking forward to it.

**Ginny Yurich** (1:28)
Okay. So you have this book about Discovering Your Communication Type, The Five Paths to Deeper Connections and Stronger Relationships. But you also wrote another book called Get Past Your Past. Can you talk about your path toward becoming an author, your licensed therapist, your speaker, your coach? You've been doing podcasts, stuff, and you have a ton of workshops and courses.
So is there a childhood thread there or did this start college years? Were you got interested in these topics?

**Jason VanRuler** (1:56)
Yeah. Always been interested. So I always tell the story when I was eight, if you can believe this, I journaled that I wanted to be a psychologist, write books, and live downtown in a brownstone apartment. I was that clear about.

**Ginny Yurich** (2:11)
That's like a second grader.

**Jason VanRuler** (2:13)
Yeah. So what I always joke and say is, it's because I knew I wasn't going to be an astronaut or in the NBA. I was wearing corduroys with penny loafers.
I was honest about my career prospects. So I'm like, I think it's heading here. So I journaled about it. Honestly, I think it's just because as a kid, I was super fascinated by people and I read a lot of books.
So it taught me to think about, like, why do people do some of these things? What is that about? So I always wanted to do it. And then life just happens. And so really in the last five to six years, I've actually gone, okay, like I'm just going to do the thing, even though maybe I don't feel ready or I'm afraid. But it's just, it's been really empowering with some of my friends just like do the thing. So that leads me here.

**Ginny Yurich** (3:03)
Yes. Okay. I think this is a critically important book because you talk in the book about how human connections are fragile. And I think it's exacerbated. The feelings of it are exacerbated in an age of AI when there can be frictionless relationships. So I was actually glad that you said human connection is fragile. It helps to sort of normalize like when there's some hiccups along the way. I think this is actually pretty normal. Can you talk about how that there's lots of fighting on couples retreats?

**Jason VanRuler** (3:32)
There's no fighting on couples retreats. I've never seen a couple fight. What do you mean, Ginny?
There is lots of fighting on couples retreats. Yeah, the thing is that relationships are fragile and they're challenging. That is why all the good stuff is a result of a good relationship. The thing is you have to do the difficult thing to get the good thing.
If we don't understand that they're fragile or that they can be challenging, we take for granted something really important. The kind of funny thing about a couples retreat is it's usually the first time a couple has ever put a spotlight on their relationship. Most people coming into that are like, we don't do this every day. We're not asking these questions. We're not thinking through these things. If there's going to be conflict, there's going to be conflict at the retreat because it unearths some of this stuff.