“That’s Not What I Meant” — We’ve All Been There
Coach David opened with a simple ask: has anyone here ever said “that’s not what I meant”? If you’re nodding right now, congratulations, you’re human, and also possibly guilty of talking a lot without actually communicating.
He shared a wild stat: roughly 134 trillion words are exchanged around the world every single day. And yet, as he put it, very few of them are actually understood. Communication, he explained, isn’t complete when you’ve said your piece — it’s only complete when the other person understands you. Send a message, receive a message, but skip the understanding part, and congratulations, you’ve achieved absolutely nothing except noise.
The Domino Effect Nobody Warns You About
Here’s the chain reaction Coach David laid out, and it’s the kind of thing you’ll want to tattoo on your fridge:
No communication → Love becomes assumption → Assumption becomes frustration → Frustration becomes distance → Distance becomes disconnection.
He made a point that hit hard: when couples say their marriage ended over “irreconcilable differences,” it’s rarely actually about money, in-laws, or the bedroom. It’s that somewhere along the way, people stopped feeling heard, understood, and valued.
The Three Levels of Talking (Only One of Them Actually Counts)
According to Coach David, most couples never get past Level 1: Surface Communication — the “what time is the bus coming,” “did you buy bread” variety. Purely functional, zero connection.
Then there’s Level 2: Emotional Communication — the “I felt hurt when you didn’t ask about my grandma” kind of talk, where you’re actually connecting on feelings.
And then there’s the one most marriages never reach: Level 3: Covenant Communication — where couples start asking the big questions, like what values are we passing to our children? and what legacy are we building together? This, he argued, is where thriving marriages live.
Meet the Communication Killers
Borrowing from well-known relationship research on the “Four Horsemen” of failing relationships, Coach David gave us his own field-tested list of communication killers:
- Criticism — the “why can’t you ever just…” energy
- Defensiveness — meeting every comment with a shield up
- Harsh words — self-explanatory, sadly
- Emotional withdrawal — going silent, stonewalling, checking out
- Assumptions and interruptions — deciding you already know what they meant before they finish the sentence
He was also refreshingly clear that tone matters more than most of us admit. “Can we talk?” and “We need to talk” are, apparently, two very different weapons — and one of them will absolutely ruin your evening.
You Don’t Win an Argument. You Lose a Connection.
Possibly the sharpest line of the night: the goal isn’t to be right, it’s to do what’s right. Coach David told a story about a husband who “won” every single argument with his wife — and slowly lost her in the process. Winning felt good in the moment; it cost him everything else.
Actual Homework (Yes, Really)
Coach David didn’t just diagnose the problem — he handed out prescriptions:
- The 3-Minute Rule — Sit down, hold hands, one partner talks for three minutes uninterrupted. No advice, no correcting, no interrupting. Then switch. Revolutionary, apparently, because most of us can’t manage 30 seconds.
- The 15-Minute Rule — No phones, no TV, just conversation about your day. Preferably in the evening, so you actually have something to talk about.
- For the singles in the room: talk about everything before you say “I do” — values, vision, money, children, faith, conflict, dreams. Love is not enough. You’re not just falling in love, you’re building an institution.
- The Covenant Formula: Hear me. Understand me. Value me. Respond to me. Repeat. (Coach David’s mic-drop line: “Great communication is not complicated. It’s consistent.”)
- The 7-Day Challenge — Every day, ask your spouse one question and actually listen to the answer, without trying to fix it. Sometimes people don’t need solutions. They need someone to hear them.
But What If You Skipped the Communication Homework While Single?
One of our very own — the host herself — asked the question a lot of us were quietly thinking: what happens if you never built that communication foundation during the dating stage, and now you’re already married?
Coach David’s answer was reassuring: communication doesn’t stop being learnable just because you’ve already signed the paperwork. “You’ve now come into the kingdom,” he said — and the work simply continues from wherever you are. Marriage, he reminded us, is a journey, and like any good project, it unfolds in stages. Nothing is beyond repair; it’s never too late to start hearing each other properly.
The Takeaway
If there’s one question to leave this webinar with, it’s the one Coach David closed on:
“Do people feel safe talking to me?”
Simple question. Life-altering answer. Whether you’re happily married, newly single and terrified, or somewhere in between scrolling this on your phone during a meeting you should be paying attention to — it’s worth asking yourself.
Got thoughts, questions, or your own “that’s not what I meant” story? Drop it in the comments— we know you have one.
