Full Circle Associates

Authors of, “Finding the Extra-Ordinary Marriage: A Guide to Building Strong, Loving and Compassionate Couple Relationships Using Appreciative Inquiry”

Somehow early on during the Appreciative Inquiry Conference I had the good chance to meet Joan and Michael Hoxsey. It may have been that moment when Joan walked up to the “Virtual Home” area with two other women and I referred to them as her friends. They were her daughters, but it was clear there was a great wellspring of friendship in their relationship. And there were smiles of great humor. As the days passed here, we talked more and enjoyed each other’s’ company. Yesterday Michael and Joan pressed a small book into my hands and said, read this, then lets talk tomorrow.

I read this little gem and we sat down to talk this afternoon. The first five minutes were rapid fire humor which I could hardly do justice to with my notes, but this one bit stuck: “Dick and Jane run, but Mike and Joan get married. Here is the story how they stayed married.”

Nancy: So why did you guys write a book?

(My first challenge – keep track of who was saying what. Joan and Michael often completed each other’s sentences, jumping in with side comments and one liners. Whoa!)

Michael: “We’ve done something similar in past. We took the micro concept of family strengths and enlarged it to encompass any group that contains relationships. Use the family strengths.”

Joan: “The reason for this particular book has much more to do with the effect of AI on us as a couple and as a family.”

Joan was the director of a 0-3 program and was looking for a planning process that was built on strengths as opposed to all the problems these families have. Part of it was out of this work and the family strengths work Michael referred at Univ of Nebraska. “We saw the power of talking people both from a realistic level and strengths. One of the strengths is appreciation.”

(I am giving up referencing who says what… let it flow, baby, let it flow!)

“When Joan discovered Appreciative Inquiry (AI), we found out there was a retreat for couples by Jane Magruder Watkins and Ralph Kelly. “Here’s a good deal: we can do marriage stuff for ourselves and learn AI.”

“Little did we know that between the time we made the decision to go and actually go to the retreat, our youngest child (33 years old) died. He went to bed and did not wake up. We came home from a conference and discovered he had died. It swept our legs out from under us. You are not supposed to bury your children.”

“We are not sure how we managed to get in the car and go to the retreat. We knew we needed something, and at our core there was a resilience that needed to be activated. So we made the trip from Ohio to Virginia. What we discovered through the AI process were all of the strengths that we have had over 40-something years of marriage. They are accessible to us, but we don’t always remember them. It was such a powerful and realistic experience, we decided we wanted to share it with other couples. Not just those in trauma, but if it would work for us in that extreme situation, maybe it would help others. Couples and those in relationships. The power to transform where we are through appreciating one another, respecting one another, being eager to be with one another.”

Michael continues…”So we started keeping appreciative journals. We used to write in journals as a dialog, out of obligation to a community. We grew a lot in that process. With the AI journals, it was different. Each day we consciously remember why we appreciated each other. Not only does it recall that moment, but puts us in the stance of looking for something that we appreciate in the other.” Joan adds, “it is not onerous. The act of appreciating someone else has such power to give other not only to the person appreciated, but the person doing the appreciating. It’s become a looked for, anticipated part of our day.”

Michael caps the comment: “It’s like dessert. We’ve earned it. We haven’t’ made it a huge 7 steps to joy. Just take a note, by writing it down, and take note by observing. “

I asked them what they do next with their journals.

Michael was quick to note “My writing leaves a lot to be desired. Joan has become, she’s my pharmacist. She can read the prescription. Otherwise I have to read it to her. I’m able to read Joan’s. She is a very clear writer. And they are simple exchanges.”

He continued with an example. “One night on our way to Orlando last week we stopped in Forsythe GA about 9pm at night. We’d been driving for 14 hours. I was too tired to write. So for the first time we just did a conversation sharing. I layed on the bed with my eyes closed and she appreciated that I drove and I appreciated that she appreciated me and I knew it every minute of the day. It made my day easier. The rhythm of our day, week, month was disrupted by that failure to write.”

“The key thing,” added Joan, “is that we’ve not made a big deal out of it. So there’s no guilt associated with it. We noticed a dip, but we didn’t feel guilty. But we miss the intimacy that it brings. What often happens is that it sparks long conversations, about where we’ve been, where we want to go, what we’re dreaming about. It has a been very useful way of grieving for our son. Often times he comes in to the conversation, into the appreciations, what he brought in to our lives. Mike may have a time when he’s very visible about his grief. What I’ve discovered is that I appreciate that. I would never have known that 2-3 years ago. To appreciate his grief and losses has been wonderful. I think the same is true for you,” she said, turning to Michael.

All of our eyes were moist.

Michael had another story to share. “I’d like to tell you something that has just happened (he turned to Joan) What the Navy is doing and what we are about. – it is the same thing. I remembered that at diner last night, sitting in restaurant with our two daughters. I was aware that this was the family that we used to talk to people about. Adult parents and adult children, sharing responsibility. I realize that’s what happens in the Navy when the admirals, and ensigns sit down together at the same table, in civilian clothes, and talk about what it means to be a solider. They are accepting shared responsibility for the course of the organization. In the Navy, they are talking about the power that AI releases, when an enlisted person can speak up in the anticipation that it will make a change in the service and not in their status.

Joan smiles, “When we were young, I thought we were in the age of having good children, a whole laundry list of what a good child is. All these ideals. We never got one out of 6 of them like that. What we’ve discovered is what we were really doing was elevating good parents for our grandchildren. That is the reflection we are now seeing. Adult children and adult parents coming to that place of really deep respect for one another.”

Years after you’ve written this book, what stories would you like to hear

Sales in the hundreds of thousands! Laughter
I’d like to hear more of the stories I heard last night from our daughter that she never thought to share with us. She has a very dear friend who has been through really tough separation and diverse. And she has read our book. Her daughter’s friend. She said it was the most helpful thing she’s read about what it is that she wants. I’d like to have lots of people find some way learning how to be respectful, loving and confident in their relationships with one another. Take the risks and weather the storms that relationship and family… all families, to use the everyday language, at risk. When you love somebody you are always at risk of losing them. I would like to know that we have helped some people to have a day or two now and then, when they really appreciated each other an experienced that. And it helped them get through tough stuff. They felt secure enough to support others, in laws, outlaws, children, grocer, bus driver. It is amazing what happens when people see how much you appreciate what the do. Admiral Dave Anderson was outside talking to the porters. He now has that sense of how important the app is. You don’t lose anything. Appreciation is your ROI. The investment is an observation, a little bit of time and some integrity. The return is fantastic

I’d like to look like the picture in our book.


I think we are really fortunate as a family, husband and wife, mother and father, that even though we had this tragedy of losing 33 year old son, we do not in any way have the sense that he left us wanting to know how much he was love. There is no sense of should have said… done… because we were very expressive about that. And by the same token we have no doubt, we even have physical proof in the form of letters that he wrote us that he loved and respected us, thought we were funny, loved his brothers and sisters with all his heart. We’ve been very fortunate to understand and value that. I don’t know where that gift came from. It’s been where we’ve been

It seemed a shame to not share a bit of that. To give people some prospects.

AI was a name for what they were already doing. Had something they had and gave a framework. One of the six strengths. Felt frustrated in this relationship… did I ever really tell you I appreciated you asked Mike? Oh yeah. I don’t think in the 47 years we’ve been married to miss a day to tell me how much you love me, how beautiful I am. It would be a false impression to say AI gave us that. We found a way to intentionally bring forward on a consistent way something we knew inherently, was important. IT moved that one of 6, I had trouble accepting that appreciation was a strength. It wasn’t until I practiced it, tried it out, what happened to me when someone appreciated something I had done. What a ready source of affirmation. How easy it is to find something to appreciate. Give people a chance to be appreciated.

What you are saying Mike is that AI has, in this intentionality, to look for more specifics. While you never missed a day to tell me you loved me and I was beautiful, you were pretty generic about it. AI gave us the gift – I really appreciate it when you have the diner on the table. I have a way of making the bed. Mike thinks its stupid but he does it any day. You have to go around the bed again. IJ: I can’t tell you the first time I discovered he did it my way, “he really DOES love me!” M: If that proves it and diamonds don’t, that’s it!

We’ve been watching for doing the things we love. The story we love is the story about image. We’ve done a lot of this couples stuff. The skills stuff. The nine faces, eneagram, MB, not the Cosmo sec partner quiz! We’re at a active listening workshop. One of these where you have lunch on your own. We’ve gone off campus. I spend the whole lunch hour telling Mike he does not do listening right. I was really… trying to do this in a saccharine cheerful way. Pretty distant on the way back to the campus. Were in a neighborhood. Mike was holder her hand so she would not run away. This car parks and an old woman gets out of the card. A foot shorter than the car. Comes around, opens the door and helps an even older gentleman. He wasn’t her son. They get to the sidewalk, brush themselves off. She brushes him off. They link arms and walk to the Dr. office. Joan had the image, oh my god, there we are down the line. The tenderness with which they treated each other was… it was… I have no notion that that was AI. I took a hold of Mike’s arm and we went back to the workshop. If I stay on this track, our emotions were entirely changed by watching that. That’s the story I most love (J) about what we’re trying to share.

We do have a stake in each other as family, as human beings, all of our relationships. We know when our relationship is strong nothing can phases us. Family is a self healing organization. Paul Pearsal has written about the power of the family

AI has brought it from here (head) to here (heart) to hear (lips). It has helped articulate. And it has given us the most important thing – a support community. Home is where they have to let you in. Take off all of your armor. Relax and be. The expectation are thank god you are home safe. That is home. That’s family.