Ep. 192-Mastering the Art of Communication, Negotiation & Personal Growth w/ Michael Reddington

We are getting closer and closer to episode 200 of the You Winning Life podcast, and today's guest is someone who takes the art of listening to an entirely new level. Imagine having the ability to uncover hidden truths, strengthen relationships, and drive powerful conversations, whether in business negotiations or everyday interactions. Michael Reddington is a certified forensic interviewer who has spent his career mastering the psychology of communication, interrogation, and leadership. His experiences ranging from conducting high-stakes investigations to training executives and business leaders on how to unlock critical insights in every conversation. He's the real-life version of your favorite true crime investigator, and he's here to share the strategies behind his groundbreaking book, The Disciplined Listening Method: How a Certified Forensic Interviewer Unlocks Hidden Value in Every Conversation. If you've ever wanted to sharpen your listening skills, improve the way you lead, or simply understand what's not being said in a conversation, this is for you. Michael, welcome to the show.

Right.

So, Michael, thank you for hanging out with us today.

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Of course. So I know that, you know, the people that I get to hang out with here are highly motivated, highly excited, have achieved achieved a ton in their lives. And the first thing I want to start off with is what was it that was the motivating force that you knew, this is exactly what I want to be spending my days and nights living and breathing, doing and sharing with the world?

Well, I appreciate you asking, and there's, there's probably stages to that. I don't know that there was one real moment. So I grew up believing that I was going to be a special education teacher and a baseball coach, and I was trending in that direction, actually started my career that way. Then I had some friends talk me into trying the financial industry, and it only took me 2 years, 1 month, and 2 days to decide this is not what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. Went back to school to get a business degree, juggled part-time jobs, and as they say, yada yada yada, that's how I ended up in investigations. But I would say, and this is 100% true, I don't think I've ever told it this way before, that the first moment I was like, yes, this is for me— I had done several interrogations for the company that I worked for, thankfully had been successful. So my district manager at the time sent me to this training course because he was going to hand over a bunch of other stuff to me. The training course happened to be perilously close to where a very good friend of mine lived, so I stayed at his house the night before and managed to get a couple hours of sleep after closing the bar. So I walk into this interrogation class morbidly hungover and was sitting in the front row because I was the last one there. For everyone that's ever— this is all true— for anyone that's ever been in like a seminar in a hotel conference room, I got in the middle seat in the front row because I was the last one to walk in. There was the pitcher of water that's on the table for 3 people. I looked at the guy to my left and picked up the water and put it in front of me like, this is mine for the rest of the day. Nobody can say anything about it. Um, but this is true. I was completely hungover, and about 2 hours into my first interrogation session, realized that my girlfriend at the time was cheating on me. And I was like, you know what, now that I'm putting all these dots together, I think I can be good at this. Like, I think this is for me. And so as my interrogation career continued to build and I continued to have success, I ended up having some mentors, as anybody who has success in their career does. And they really, they breathed that passion into me. I'm trying to remember if it was one specific interrogation. It probably wasn't. It was probably a series. For me, what really fascinated me the most, and now I'm rambling, I know we don't have all day, was not getting people to say, "I did it." But it was, and you might be able to identify with this, it was understanding why human beings will share sensitive information under vulnerable circumstances in the face of consequences. Like, you've never told anybody else this before, but yet you're telling me. That's fascinating. And so that's what really lit my fire. And then once I got into teaching interrogation, it was literally the first class I taught. Like, I'm back in teaching, which is what I thought I would do, connecting with people. And then to do what I do now, to finally wrap up answering a question I think you asked me 25 minutes ago, I was working with a group of CEOs in Ireland and one of them really took me under his wing. Pádraig is the guy that brought me out there. He's amazing. And he was one of several, but he was probably the tipping point where he really got me fired up about taking what I was doing in investigation rooms and bringing it to the business world and the world outside of interview and interrogation. So I would say that those would those would be sort of the, the stepping stones or the dominoes, if you will, how they fell and how I ended up doing what I'm doing. But you are right, I definitely feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be.

It's, it's so exciting to hear this because, you know, the first thing I always talk to my clients about, and that I'm always pushing myself personally for, is, you know, seizing in your mission and your purpose. And asking good questions is, is, is quintessential. To making that happen. And as a therapist, the funny thing is when I was deciding which therapy program to go to or what I wanted to do, actually there was a quick story. I was working in student programming on a college campus and I wasn't sure if I was returning to this position. And one of my students who was finishing her senior year and graduating was actually going to a conflict resolution program as a master's degree. And so funny enough, not even knowing there was such a thing as conflict resolution, sat down and was like, so what are you doing next year? I'm like, I don't know. I always thought I should be going into therapy because my job doing student programming, 80% of my day is actually talking and not just the program side, but getting the relationships with the students and helping them with their lives. And it was that reverse engineer of what am I not looking for? Versus what I am looking for. And I remember going to a therapist a few years before that who asked me questions that no other therapist asked me. And I remember asking them, what was that training? What was that model? And they're like, oh, it's not psychology, it's from the world of marriage and family therapy. It's systemic, it's relational. And, and, and just like what I'm hearing you say, like, to, to bring out something that the person in front of you wouldn't answer comes from asking the right questions. And in our pregame, you said to me, tell me which one doesn't suck. Tell me which possibility of what we could talk about doesn't suck. And I love that because that's my favorite thing to talk about with my clients is let's reverse engineer the process. So can you, can you just unpack that logic? Because people weren't here for our pregame conversation, but, but that's what you asked me, right? Tell me which one of these options doesn't suck. Talk to me me about the mindset and a little bit about that, like, you know, how people can use that to help them solve some things in their life with themselves and maybe even with others.

Yeah, dude, another great question that I can't answer in an hour. Um, but I love your 'what am I not looking for,' man. I love that so much. So there's lots, probably different places that this came from. I've got to give a lot of credit to how my dad— I mean, my mom and dad are still alive and together, but when I think about how like my dad taught my brother and I to think and problem solve and those things, it comes back there. But even in investigations, so Oftentimes conducting investigations, my career, the types of investigations I did were mostly white-collar corporate. I did a fair amount for law enforcement too, but they were mostly white-collar corporate type. In the very early stages of my career, if I didn't really have the evidence, I wasn't getting the conversation. But as my career went on, those variables got kind of shifted depending. And then towards the end of my investigations career, we never had evidence. Like, if they— if somebody had evidence, why would they pay us to come in? So in order to really make sure that we were trying to solve the right problems. Asking us that, what am I missing? What am I not seeing? What am I not thinking about? Asking ourselves those questions, either individually or with our investigation teams, became critical because there's always something we don't know. Always. Maybe it's important, maybe it's not, but it's always out there. So honestly, a funny way that I learned— you mentioned reverse engineering, which is one of my favorite phrases. When I went back to school and I was juggling those part-time jobs that I yada yada'd over, one of them was an elevator mechanic. It was an assistant elevator mechanic. The guy I worked for ended up being one of my biggest life mentors ever. And there's funny accidental stories about how this all came together, but there were multiple times where we thought the elevator was done. We hit the button and nothing moves. And talk about like a— I don't want to swear on your podcast, but an old crap moment, right? Like, I thought we were done. Now what do I But the problem solving was reverse engineering. You start with the last thing you did, and then you kind of move backwards towards the first, and you go through the most likely issues and opportunities. So that whole thought process of reverse engineering problem solving, I guess, was first formalized for me in that environment, but then came through in interrogations. So I love that outlook of what am I missing. In fact, I— this still comes up occasionally, but when I used to teach investigations and when I used to teach interrogations, now I spend most of my time working with leadership teams and sales teams and HR teams, teaching them how to employ these strategic observation and persuasive communication techniques in their conversations. But in investigations, I used to straight up tell people, "Your job is to investigate to try to prove people innocent." And then I would watch them look at me like I was the crazy person in the room, which for a record, I might have been, just not for this reason. And it was, if you go in trying to investigate to prove somebody that you're guilty, you will find a reason to think they're guilty. You will find a reason to think my mom committed a crime and she's a saint. But if you go in and you think, well, wait a minute, I got to try to prove this person innocent. Now, to your point, I'm forcing myself to answer the questions I didn't think of, to consider these other possibilities, to turn over as many rocks as I can. And now at the end of this process, if I can't prove that somebody's innocent, that doesn't mean they're guilty, but it's much more likely that I'm on the right track with the right person and I'm open to these additional opportunities. So hopefully I managed to answer to your question. I'd love to drone on on it, but I've been just hearing you say that. I love it.

Well, I can see this situation, you know, with, with someone who's working, you know, young professional. They've been working with their company maybe a year, 2, 3 years, 4 years, whatever it may be, and they're feeling like they're hitting the wall. They're feeling like they're not having impact, they're not having influence, and maybe there's even no mandate for them, right? Here, take this and run, and you have complete carte blanche, right? The one side is I hear a lot from my entrepreneurial clients that One, there's no clarity. Two, they don't feel like the higher-ups are really rooting for them, supporting them. It's just kind of like, report back to me, do the job, or consequences, right? So I'm wondering, taking this approach, right, this idea that, you know, the innocence, but in this situation, your higher-ups are looking for you in favor. They are wanting you to succeed. What could be some ways to approach that scenario? Because I'm thinking about like 2 or 3 people I'm working with right now that have literally said to me, I don't have a mandate. I don't know what they really want. If I ask them specific questions, I get vague responses back. What do I do?

All right, I love all this. So from an initial standpoint, I believe we're in alignment. Of course, your bosses are rooting for you or want you to do well. They wouldn't be paying for you to do the job if they wanted you to fail. And in fact, most of them probably want you to do a great job because because that means less work for them. If we're being completely pragmatic about it, it makes them look better, it improves their bonus, their perception, all those other things. So they might not be showing it the way that we would appreciate it or we expect it or that we want it, but they are almost certainly rooting for you, and they are almost certainly not rooting against you, because they're not going to get on a plane, ask somebody else to fly it, and say, I hope this dude hits a mountain. Like, like, they're— they are cheering you on. They're just likely not necessarily doing it in a way that we recognize or in a way that we would expect. And yes, ambiguity breeds stress. We all love clarity, myself included. Ambiguity breeds stress, and stress kills. Stress kills our motivation, it kills our problem-solving ability, all of these things. So one of the things that can be very difficult for people to do— and if from a therapist perspective I start crossing any lines or stepping on toes, do cut me off— but to me Action defeats ambiguity because action creates its own clarity over time. So, when I got recruited by Wicklander-Zalosky, they are the number one interview and interrogation training and advising firm in the country and in a lot of ways around the world. And so, they recruited me. I'm flying out for the interview. And to be honest, it was my dream job. I mean, you asked me about like when did I know this is what I wanted to do? It was before they called me, but when they called me, like damn sure that is what I want. And so, my dad traveled. When I was young, and I really at this point in my life hadn't been traveling, certainly not to the degree I do now. So I'd always heard that O'Hare Airport was a monster in Chicago. It is.

I—

my schedule is I fly out from— I was living in Jersey at the time, so I gotta fly from Newark to Chicago, get a rental car, drive to the suburbs in time for a lunch, and then after lunch they're going to interview me. I don't want to be late, so I figured that I'm doing the right thing. I know guys that work there, but I don't know the guys I'll be interviewing with. Like, I don't know the owners of the company. So I called the CEO who has become a great friend of mine over the years. I mean, I worked for them for a decade, but before any of that happened, I called Shane. I'm like, hey, I don't want to be late for the meeting. I know O'Hare is a monster. Chicago traffic's terrible. What's the best way that you recommend to get from O'Hare to lunch? His answer to me was, you're an investigator, figure it out. Mm-hmm. Talk about like an oh shit moment, right? Like I want this guy to hire me, but I don't. And this is back in the day, like I'm looking at MapQuest too. Like there is no GPS thing, we didn't have that yet. So to me, action creates clarity because when I hang up the phone and say, okay, I've gotta figure it out, now I've got my own marching orders. Now how I do that is up to me. And a lot of times the lack of clarity works out in my favor because I don't have to do it somebody else's way on somebody else's schedule. I have to get to their destination potentially by an assigned time, but I get to choose my way to do it. And as long as I'm doing it— I imagine anybody that's listening and anybody that you're working with, they're not going to go out of their way to hurt the company or hurt their family. So it might not be exactly the way their boss wants to do it, but they're doing it with the best of intention. So take action. Action creates clarity. And then as you're taking that action— or let's even take a step back. You mentioned asking questions and getting vague answers. Two thoughts on that. One, when you're asking the questions, make it harder for somebody to give you a vague answer. How the question lands on their brain is going to impact how they answer it. So for me, questions like, tell me about, isn't— is in many contexts a suboptimal to awful question to ask. If you're in a good relationship and people are flowing, okay, fine. But if I ask somebody, tell me about, there's no guidance, there's no start point, there's no stop point, there's no expectation. It gives them poetic license. The longer it takes somebody to answer, the more nervous they could become, the less they want to talk. We go on and on. But instead, if I was to say, whoa, so here's the closest thing to a silver bullet I've got. And I think this is especially true for people who are trying to influence up. The phrase is, please correct me where I am wrong, not if. If I say, Jason, please correct me if I'm wrong, I sound arrogant. I'm now Charlie Brown's teacher. You're not listening. But if you are somebody who is in the power seat and I say, please correct me where I'm wrong, I'm likely asking you to do the one thing you'd really love to do. So now I have 100% of your attention, which means I'm winning. So now if I was to say, Jason, please correct me where I'm wrong, my current understanding is this is the target we're looking to achieve, this is the date we need to achieve it by, and this is the most important part of the process. And then I just stop talking and I let them say, you're right, and then add a little on, or I let them say, nah, not quite, and educate me. Either way, I'm winning because I'm getting the information I need that either adds clarity or creates commitment. Now I can say, okay, so when I proceed in this direction, as long as I'm done by this date, we're good.

Yeah, we're good.

So that please correct me where I'm wrong is one of my close to a silver bullet go-to to get people to open up and give me what I need without having to ask. Another one which might not be appropriate for this scenario is the phrase please walk me through. So instead of saying, tell me, walk me through insinuates that there's a beginning and end in chronological order, which causes people to answer that way and makes it easier for me to identify when something's missing or out of order. Instead of saying to somebody, do you remember, I'm gonna say, please take me back to. They still might say, I don't remember, but now they got to earn it. I'm not making it easy for them. The other thing I want to do is I want to ask questions with specific numbers. You know, 2 or 3 is typically fine. I don't want to confuse these people. But if I was to say to somebody, um, what do I need to keep in mind, or what do I need to be aware of as I try to complete this project? Oh, nothing, just, just do what we told you and you'll be fine. Or, I don't think there's really anything out there, you should be fine. But now if I rephrase the question and say, thank you very much, Jason Wasser, I'm on this. As I get started and I'm thinking about the customer experience at the end, based on your experience, what are the 3 most likely customer obstacles I'm going to do you need to prepare for in the process? The odds of you getting a specific answer to that question are way higher. And maybe I don't give you 3, maybe they give you 1 or 2, but brother or sister, you're winning because now you've got the thing you need. I could keep going, but let me pause there before I accidentally run all over your show. But to me, no, it was a different way.

So spot on. It's so spot on because I'm reflecting back to just the different models of, of marriage and family therapy, right? Very solution-oriented, very strategic in its languaging. We a lot of Milton Erickson hypnosis logic embedded in it, even though we're not necessarily doing hypnosis. We have a lot of his logic and languaging, right? Obviously, that also informed NLP and some other models out there that came subsequently. But I see such a strong, powerful relationship between these type of conversations and maybe in a forensic or negotiation type of situation and what I'm doing in my world. And I love asking this question of, you know, especially with couples, it's, it's tell me what you're looking to solve, but don't tell me what you no longer want. In other words, people are so likely to come in and say, well, you know, what's the goal? Why are you here? Well, we don't want to fight anymore. Okay, great. So what would be the opposite end of that? If you were no longer fighting, what would you be doing instead? Oh, well, we'd be yelling less. So it's still focused on that negative languaging versus me challenging them up front. I don't want you to use the freezing and logic, right, that mindset of of all the negative things. We wouldn't be getting along, we wouldn't be communicating, right? The all the we wouldn'ts. If those things were solved, what would that then allow you to do without that negative framework? And it takes them sometimes, me challenging them and stopping them 2, 3, 4, 5 times, because our brain and our neurology is so wired that way. So I love hearing what you're saying in that regards of, well, okay, so what are the two things you and your partner can be doing now? You and your spouse could be doing what you can. You and your child can be doing that is now freed up that you've always wanted to do that you haven't been getting around to do because of those things that you no longer want. It's hard. And I'm wondering like what it is from your perspective that, that helps them start to put this into play or helps them to think about these things? Because there's one thing to be like, okay, I'm going to put these tools into place, but then there's, you know, that shift in overall thinking, overall worldview. Is there something from your perspective, your, you know, and maybe this is something your book gets into and your trainings get into, but that allows us instead of being like, okay, this is a tactic versus this is a mindset?

Man, another great question. So the answer is— the easy answer is yes. But to dive into it, especially when we're talking about like relationships, when people are like, well, that's a tactic and that's a technique— well, everything we use is a tactic or a technique if we're being completely honest about it. So now what's the outcome we're looking to generate? Oh, a happier, healthier relationship. Well then, as long as everybody is aware that we're on track to the same goal and we're being transparent about it, then using tactics or techniques actually is great thing. It's not a bad thing. So when it comes to shifting somebody's worldview or mindset, my experience— and I would love your feedback on this— has been more often than not, that's not a one-question or a one-conversation deal. It takes consistent communication, consistent opportunities over a period of time. One of the other things that we find often is it's really difficult— I hate to say impossible, but we got to be close— to solve an emotional problem with a rational solution. And I feel like that's where a lot of people struggle. And we'll get back to personal in just a second, especially professionally. You get somebody who's— and these are shoes that I've been in— a younger professional working for somebody who's been in the industry a long time, has their experience, has their perspective, and they're resisting something that is just an obvious idea to other people on the team for great reasons. And we keep presenting this emotional person with these rational arguments And then we get mad when the rational arguments don't win. Well, until we solve the emotional issue, the rational alternative doesn't stand a chance. Right. So that's kind of one way someone is.

So if someone does have a fear, I mean, this is now getting into a little bit of the EQ conversation, right? When someone is that more rational personality style, right? They're very logical, they're very didactic, they're very practical. There's facts. Everything is ones and zeros, black and white. How does one challenge them from your, from your, you know, from your perspective, if you were working with them, to be able to understand other realities, other perspectives, even if their logic and facts are accurate from their perspective, and even from the maybe like a third party, right? And you have this other person who's a little bit more emotional. How do you get that hyper-rational person to sit in emotionally? Because for me, it's all about vulnerability. It's all about talking about diplomacy, you know, and, and letting that person understand what diplomacy looks like. It's not always bull in a china shop. But what are some of the things that you've encountered and you've worked with those hyper-rational, you know, no-nonsense, you know, the break balls type of personalities to swing to the other side? That, you know, F your feelings, emotions are for the weak type of paradigm.

Sounds like we've met a couple of the same people. Yeah, for me it is, and it takes time. Usually it's not easy. It's not a one-shot one-kill situation, as we're talking about F feelings, one-shot one-kill whatever. But it is shifting people to an outcome-focused mentality. So if you and I are in a conversation, I'm hyper-rational, you're a little bit more emotional. I'm— this actually just happened to me last week. A buddy of mine called, he's a financial advisor. He had to— he received some emails from an over-emotional client the night before. He's about to talk to them, so he calls me. It's like, hey man, here's what I'm getting into, how do I get through to them? My answer was, you don't. Like, you're never going to get through to them. They are so— based on what you're telling me, they are so far off the deep end that any rational attempt to get through to them is going to push them further into the deep end. So now let's think about the outcomes that we really want. Correct me where I'm wrong, but the outcome that we really want is a happy, sustained customer who, yes, you help reach all of their financial goals, and as a result They help you reach your financial goals because they're one of your clients and we're going to reduce stress over time. Yes, that's what we want. Said, okay, good. So now what we're going to do is we're going to listen. Say, well, I don't have patience for this. Like, no, but you probably have patience for the money that they pay you. So let's look at it different. If we can listen to them for 15 minutes without interrupting and then say, often at this point in the process, what our clients typically expect of us is and then give them the communication plan that you were going to give them anyway, but now work in a few things you just heard them say into the plan. This conversation will be over in 30 minutes. But if you try to preemptive strike, if you try to cut them off, if you interrupt, if you do any of these things, block out 2 hours for the call. So a lot of it is working to get— I'm backtracking here, I apologize. Often when we lose control in the moments, and I would love your thoughts on this as a therapist, when we lose control in the moment, we interrupt somebody, we cut somebody off, it's because the value of satisfying the emotion we're feeling at that moment surpasses the value of achieving the greater outcome. And if I can stay focused on the greater outcome, when that emotion flares, it's valid. I can be right. I can tap myself on the back for why I'm angry, frustrated, impatient, whatever. But then I can swallow it and I can wait until I have a more appropriate course of action because the outcome is more valuable than the emotion. So that's— it's a longer path, but trying to get people to think that way. And then the last thing I try to coach people— not the last thing, but for this answer, the one of the other things I try to coach people to do is think to yourselves, that's a valid perspective. It might be invalid to you, but it's valid for them. So in my mind, if I can say, well, you're supposed to think that way, that's a valid perspective. This is probably gonna be the lamest analogy anyone's ever used on your show, but it's like if you have two boxers or two martial artists getting ready for fight. Of course they're talking bad about each other. Well, he's, he's too afraid to fight. He's trying to get out of it. He's dodging me. He won't stand up. He won't wrestle. He won't— you know, they're supposed to say those things because they're trying to get the other guy to fight them. Maybe they think them, maybe they don't, but that's what they do. I'm not getting into politics, but some of these negotiations that bleed into the media, they're supposed to say these things whether they believe of them are not because it's how the game is played. So if we can understand that, we can do a better job compartmentalizing our emotions to valid perspective, focus on the outcome, and then find the right path forward.

Yeah, I'm just, I'm just resonating on, on the Cobra Kai and No Mercy as I just finished the, the last episodes of the new series. But, uh, yeah, right. So I think a lot of this has to do with self-awareness at the end of the day. And, and then, and, and it's not a light switch where you either have it or not. There is an— probably an infinite amount of layers and levels to self-awareness. And when you're saying, my— this person can have a valid point of view even if I think it's invalid, that takes a massive ego check that I would dare to say a lot of people don't know yet how to process that. And if, and if you're struggling with that, that's where a good therapist comes in to, to work on that. Because if it's showing up in one area, it's probably showing up in other areas. And I see this all the time in my couples. I see this all the time in, in the entrepreneurial space. I see this a lot of time with those very high-powered entrepreneurs that are, you know, again, sometimes they can be the bulldozers even though they have big hearts, but they're not, you know, it's vulnerable and scary to show that big heart that they have. So I think, you know, to partly say what my feedback would be on is, is that whole Brené Brown, that vulnerability is a superpower, it's not potential kryptonite.

Yeah.

And, and if you can lean into— and I, and I love this phrasing, and I said it a minute ago, and I don't know where I came up with it— it's communication. When we talk about the word communication, I would much rather use the word diplomacy as a substitute for communication, because we all communicate whether we realize it or not. Good, bad, indifferent, body language, verbal, nonverbal. So a lot of my clients will come in and say, we're having communication issues. Well, of course you are, because we're not taking into consideration history, culture, gender, trauma, intergenerational themes, life stuff, right? All those intersecting things. I do believe it's where can someone check their ego and say, where I end and where you start are, like you said, the word valid. But also, what's the— what am I losing out on by not getting curious versus I need you to agree with me? Yeah. And then if you do need everybody to agree with you, what's that about?

That's probably a better question for you to answer. I just think insecure, but that's a better question for you to answer. Yeah. For me, I'm very fortunate that the team that I worked with, when we got called into investigations multiple suspects, no evidence, everybody had already been interrogated, nobody confessed. That was a couple weeks or months before we ever get involved. So in order for us to build the bond necessary to encourage the commitment to tell the truth, we have to go in— yeah, we got game plans and techniques, but it has to be ego in the back pocket. I have to connect with somebody else until in so many words they show me me what they need to experience so I can give it to them in order to get what I want. It's— so one of the things that we have to learn, and this is one of the core components of the Discipline Listening Method, is real successful communication is entirely dependent on your counterpart's experience. So I could sit here and say, what do I need to do to be a better listener, a better communicator, a better questioner, a better interviewer? I'm not a therapist— a better therapist, whatever it is. But it's really, what does— in the context of this situation, what does this other person need to experience in order for them to commit to choosing to say or do what I need them to say or do? And if I can give them that experience, the odds of me getting the outcome I'm looking for skyrocket. But if I make this about, well, this is how I feel and this is how I want to say and this is what I think is right and this is my perspective, I'm I'm just— I'm headed for disaster.

And that's honey versus the stick anytime, right? And again, I, I do see this just, you know, and I'm thinking about like just, you know, some of my listeners who I know are dating, you know, and they're trying this in, in relationships and they want to get to know somebody, right? And again, it goes back to that fear of like, I want to ask good questions because obviously, you know, if they're dating and they're dating for serious purposes or not just dating to date, but they also don't want to come across as interrogative, but they also want to share what's important to them. And I find a lot of times they'll share what's important to them, but they'll come across, you know, again in that very like, well, my way or the highway. This is what I want. Do you meet my qualifications? So I'm wondering, you know, does this same approach apply there? And is there some nuances, uh, that the dater, you know, or the person in relationships can to take into consideration when, when communicating?

I think so, for sure. Now, again, in dating, there's a wide spectrum there, right? So depending on where I am in life and who this person is, are we just kind of getting to know each other and over time this might turn into something? Or depending on the situation, is this something that really could be serious? And yeah, I don't want to be a stalker, I don't want to be crazy— all those things that we've all had to navigate in our life, right? Um, but when we talk about getting that information, I'm going to start— I know we want to focus on the positive, I'm going to go to one negative first. Please be very careful asking questions with implied expected answers. If you ask somebody a question and there's an obvious right answer to that question, whether it's true or not, don't be upset if that's the answer you get and you find out later it's not true, because the way we ask the question, or when or how we ask the question, made it obvious that there's only one good answer to this, so I'm going to give it to you. So work hard to avoid those, to keep us out of that trap.

So would we call that a leading question versus an open— you know, like, I'm trained in very open-ended questions, right, versus leading question. Yeah.

And I think even you're— I agree, but I think with those as a baseline— yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree. But I think the implied expected answers are like the, the cousin of the leading question. Like, you could still ask somebody a leading question and they feel like they at least have some freedom for where to take the answer. I mean, there's obviously a direction you're trying to take them, but like with an implied expected answer, some of the obvious ones— and it is a leading leading question. But if, you know, you haven't done this, have you? Well, obviously you want me to say no. You'd be open to this? Would you be open to this? Like, it's a yes or no question. It's not necessarily leading. Would you be open to this? But in the context of the situation, yes is good, no is bad. So I'm going to say yes. So I 100% agree. But I feel like those implied expected answer questions could even be worse than just your standard leading question. Um, even when we're asking the open question One of the things that I've learned, and I do consistently, and I'll talk about my relationship with my wife as well and my son, is what we call it in the Discipline Listening Method is illustrate before you investigate. And my sigh was using the word investigate in relation to relationships, right? But if I think of each question as its own little investigation, what I need to do is illustrate some, especially if it's a high-impact question, if it's a sensitive question, the more sensitive, the more high-impact, the more important this becomes. Comes, I want to take a second to illustrate my understanding of the situation, show a little situational awareness, I guess, to say, before I ask the question. So if I'm dating somebody and I want to figure out what's something that won't get me canceled, let's just say if they might want to have kids in the future or something like— I think that's pretty fair depending on how serious the dating is. If I ask somebody, so what do you think about having kids? Or do you want to have kids? Or I can't wait to have at least 5 kids. Do you want to have kids? Like, now there's only one good answer to these questions, and depending on where we are right now— are we happy? Are we fighting? Uh, are we on vacation? Did we just get a hotel? Are we out to a fancy dinner? Are there people at the table? Like, the situation could really influence how I answer the question, right? Whether it's what I think or not. So think about when you ask the question, not just how you ask the question. But now, if the question is, you know, a lot of times when I think about my own situation, there's days where I can't wait to start a family, then there's days where I probably should wait, there's days where maybe I don't want to at all. You know, I do think that generally a big part of my life at some point in the future would be having kids. So understanding that things change in life and circumstances all the time, I'm just curious, what would be a scenario where you would really be excited about starting a family? So now I'm not asking you, do you want kids? First, I'm illustrating that honestly I'm back and forth on it sometimes. Yeah, because no matter how bad somebody is dead set on having a family, I guarantee you they woke up at least one day and was like, I don't know that I want to do that.

So it's not Or wanted to shove it back into the womb and be like, let's start that one over.

Which doesn't happen. Yeah, hypothetically speaking.

Hypothetically speaking, right.

Uh, so now because I've illustrated that I've kind of gone back and forth, it gives you— I've shown my vulnerability. It's easier for you to be vulnerable now. Instead of asking you, do you want kids? Do you not want kids? How many kids do you want? It's, what would be a situation— or the con— however I asked the question the first time, what would be the situation or the circumstances that would make you want to have kids? Now it gives us a comfortable way to have the conversation where it's not about what I want, it's about the situation where I think that would be prudent, better.

Yes.

Is it based on finances? Is it based on career? Is it based on where I live? Is it based on the size of the house? Is it based on the car I can afford? Is it based on how old I am or how long we've been together? All these things are fair, and now we have the opportunity to have a conversation as opposed to, do you want to have kids? I'm not sure. Well, if you're not sure if you want kids, I want to have kids, so why are we wasting our time? Well, because we have an open tab, and up until 5 seconds ago, we were really enjoying each other's company. So how we ask the question— we talk about a lot— focus on the issue, not the person. Focus on the resolution, not the consequences. A funny example, and I'll shut up after this, is in my house, we only have one child. My son is, is young, and So if we're parents with multiple kids, you might not think I'm a real parent. We'll agree to disagree, but I get where you're coming from. So generally, when we get up in the morning, I'll get up first. If you can't see me, I'm bald, so I get ready a lot quicker than my wife. So I'll get up first, then my wife will get up, we'll get my son up, and then I will start taking care of my son and our dog. And then Brooke and I kind of hand everything off back and forth until we're out of the house. But generally, it's up to me to wake up, uh, get Gabe up and feed the dog and let the dog out and do all that stuff and get that going. When my wife— then this ended up— the funny story is I wrote this in the book before getting her permission. She found it in the book, hilarity ensued. Um, but she would come out of the bedroom and on her way through the living room and through the kitchen, often towards the laundry room where her clothes were, she would say, did you feed the dog? Now anytime we ask somebody the question, did 'You,' or 'Didn't you,' that feels like an accusation whether we mean it or not. Just like the question 'Why' feels like an accusation even if we didn't mean it. So when she says, 'Did you feed the dog?' my answer is, 'Of course I fed the freaking dog. That's my job. I do it every day.' Now, in fairness, there's certainly been days I forgot. Today might have actually been one, now that I think about it, to be honest. Um, but I tell her, 'Yes, I fed the dog,' but I feel as silly as this example is attacked right now. For context, she's going to the laundry room, which is where the dog food is. So she's not attacking me. What she's thinking is, Mike, I'm on the way to where the dog food is. Should I get some for Daisy while I'm there? But instead, the question comes out, did you feed the dog? So we laughed about it, and now the questions are, does the dog still need to be fed, or has Daisy had breakfast?

Yet.

So now you just change the subject of the sentence and all of that negativity, feeling attacked, goes away. And we're not really going to fight over feeding the dog. But a lot of times if we're in a relationship and we're trying to figure out, wait a minute, how did this fight start? Like, how did we get here? Often is because, to your point about asking questions, we asked a question in a way that felt obvious to us but was felt like an attack to them. Questions can be perceived as invitations or attacks. Sometimes it's the timing. And let's face it, there's not always the perfect time to ask a question or bring up a topic. So put that aside for a second. But sometimes it's the timing. Sometimes it's, you know, who else is around? Where are we? These types of things. But often it's how did I say it? Right.

Diplomacy.

Yeah.

And I'm reflecting just on two things. One is in the business world where they talk about handling objections. Reflections, right, and all of the ways that you can hear what they're saying, but then make it much more macro by reflecting back their wording and maybe even implying, I'm wondering if this is what you really meant by that, help me understand or help correct me if I'm wrong, right? Like you said before, that help me, right, correct me if I'm wrong or where I'm wrong. And two would be this idea of in graduate school, one of our professors in our internship, or in, you know, on-site, we had a student clinic, which was super cool. Many people don't know this, that we had something called a reflecting team, which is big in the MFT, marriage and family therapy world, where you have the student therapist, or even sometimes even a licensed therapist in the therapy room. And yet the one-way mirror where the team can call in. So it's kind of very much like what you see on TV with observations and NFP, you know, all those type of things, except we're, we're there to help out, right? And, and I remember, uh, Dr. Anna Lynn Schooley— shout out to you— uh, talked about the 5, you know, never ask the why question, only ask who, what, when, where, and how, but never ask the why, because then there's a judgment, there's a right or wrong answer, right? We're not looking for the binary, is this right, is this wrong? We're looking for the context and in which it made sense to that person.

You just— to me, you just hit the biggest word: context. You mentioned EQ earlier, call it situational awareness, call it contextual awareness. You mentioned, mentioned personal awareness earlier, self-awareness. But that situational awareness, contextual awareness is so key for two re— well, for probably for many reasons, but the top two were: one, if I want to understand why somebody said or did something, the context that they made that decision is is extremely important, 'cause they likely would've handled the situation differently under a different set of context. So what's the problem I'm trying to solve? I have a young son. You know, thankfully the trouble or issues he gets into now are nothing, right? But I have to be aware that how I'm handling the situations we run into now are setting his mental expectations for how we're gonna run into it when he's a teenager or older, and there are much bigger consequences the test. So it's all very important to understand the context he's making decisions in, help his little mind wrap around what drove him to make the decision— not just what he said was wrong or did was wrong, but understand what was going on when it happened so he can learn to identify and adjust for those factors moving forward. But then also for us, I fully believe that for the— not over 90% of the people I ever interrogated They would have made different choices if they were in a different situation. That doesn't absolve them of responsibility or accountability or consequences. They gotta own all that. Had they been in a different situation, they would have made a different choice, and that's part of being human. So if I can understand that, now I can do a better job being empathetic and being aware and being diplomatic, as you mentioned, and doing these other things to create the resolutions and relationships that we need, as opposed I'm right, you're wrong. I'm smart, you're dumb. I'm in charge, you're not. I would love your thoughts on this, and then again I'll be quiet. I keep running on, but I feel like we were all operationally conditioned how to talk by adults when we were kids. Parents, teachers, coaches, church mentors, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts. If you had a lot of fun, maybe a cop or two. But these were the people that taught us how to how to talk. So now that we're adults, unless we intentionally try to unlearn what we have learned, we end up talking to adults like kids.

Yes.

Which only makes things worse. But we don't realize it because it's how people talk to us our whole lives. But we have the opportunity to break that cycle if we focus and put the effort in.

Man, I talk about the adult temper tantrum all time. And when I see, you know, whether we're talking about— we're not to get into politics, but when we're seeing, you know, watching any hearings or any, you know, even in campaigns, what you're witnessing is really just an adult temper tantrum, you know, or, or, or, or as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory very much called it, right, the Veruca Salt personality. I want the world and I want the world now type of personality, which, right, which if you, if you look at Veruca Salt as that character. And then imagine that this is how so many adults are running around the world. That really is why, you know, it is— I go back and forth between calling it the adult temper tantrum or the Varrick Assault Syndrome, right? And just listening to that is, again, it goes back to that, again, diplomacy, self-awareness, doing your work, figuring out what's triggering you both, you know, verbally, nonverbally, What aren't you aware that you're picking up from somebody else that you're, that you're reacting to in those regards? That does take a lot of that inner work, which is why I love on one side this didactic— and I don't want to minimize it by using the word didactic, but in fact, putting it up on the pedestal that we do need these training and these skills that you've leveraged and you've learned in your life. But in order to be truly, truly, truly, truly effective, you also have to have that personal growth and insight where you can be really amazing in your business world and have the shit show at home and think that your life is okay, or you're doing some good things at home, but then you're walking into work because you're pleasing and appeasing, you know, because your nervous system is in fight or flight and think you're going to be successful at work. It's not going to work out for you. So I think that whole person and that whole balance needs to be applied to this. Um, otherwise, yeah, you're going to have those psychological leaks. Like, I'm sure you pick up and you see, you know, or I love that show Lie to Me that used to be on TV back in the day. And if you haven't watched that show yet, anybody, people out there listening, it's, you know, an old, old Fox or FX show. Um, it was just so freaking amazing, um, in that regards. But I do see how many different variations of that adult temper tantrum are still happening when someone doesn't get their way, whether it's just that, you know, Gottman talks about in the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, right? Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. And the contempt is many times non-verbal.

Oh yeah, which, man, now you're gonna send me on another track. But you talk about lotomy and facial expressions and microexpressions and conversations for a whole other face, but the microexpression of contempt is the only asymmetric— it's the only one that happens on one side of the face. And typically it almost looks like a smirk, like, like one side of the lip kind of curls up to the side. And yeah, that leaks out. Someone feels like they've got that moral superiority in the moment or whatever it is. I love your phrase, um, adult temper tantrum. And often when we deal with it with adults, we forget to deal with it like we always did with kids. Often with the kids, you let them gas themselves out and you deal with get after. With an adult, we just attack it right in the middle. Well, stick to the same strategy that worked. Let them gas themselves out. And for me, I'm waiting until I get the— like, I want that last piece of oxygen out of self-resignation to it.

Yeah. And I see that in couples, right? Yeah. And I see this in couples. And if you're listening to this and you're having this issue in relationships, never respond to that. Like, what you're— what Michael was just saying is, is the ultimate key me. Don't, like, do everything in your willpower to not be triggered. It has nothing to do with you. If you haven't read the book The Four Agreements, go read The Four Agreements. Make that one of your— I think every single family should own that book. It's the best. Sometimes it's on sale for $9.99 on Amazon, right? Every home should have The Four Agreements. It's not about you. It's their shit that they're projecting on you. And if you take the It's your fault. Sorry, it's your fault. It's your work to be done. If you can go, like Michael just said, wait till they gas themself out, wait till they exhaust them, and even pivot to a different part of the conversation, even don't even attend to that. But if you lose, right, if your nervous system is high, is jacked up and hijacked and flooded, get that fixed, get that repaired. That's the only key to starting a foundation of success. In that dynamic.

I agree completely, and I'll see you in R.A.I.S.E. One of the things that I had to learn through interrogation is that it was important for me to accept whatever somebody was projecting themselves as— the bully, the victim, the person who really cares. You know, pick a label, right? But to me, it was— I had to just accept that this is how they want to be seen right now. Right now. And once I know how you want to be seen right now, I can flip to the right page in my playbook, and then I can be the right person to balance this out for the conversation. And the one I run into a lot, especially in businesses— I've got a boss or a customer or somebody who, they want to be the bully all the time. Cool, I wish they weren't, but we're not going to change them from that. So now understand that that's how they want to be seen. So now, to your point, this isn't about you. They'd be acting this way to anybody else who was wearing shoes and standing in front of them right now. So put that away and think to yourself, all right dude, you want to be a bully today? I wish you weren't. But seeing you declared early who you want to be, you gave me plenty of time to get to the right page and figure out who I need to be to use your approach to get me to where I want to go. So I couldn't, I couldn't agree more.

Yeah, yeah. Ah, what a good place for, uh, for, for you to share share about the book and about the website and everything you're doing. So, and also you have the podcast, so let's, let's just take a few minutes and share a little bit about those.

I appreciate you asking. Thank you very much. So the book is called The Discipline Listening Method: How a Certified Forensic Interviewer Uncovers Hidden Value in Everyday Conversations. And it really is— I hate to use the word thorough because like we talked in the beginning, I missed something somewhere. There's no doubt about it. Nobody wants to read a 600 page book, as my publisher told me. But it is hopefully an exhaustive look at research, experience, and stories from the world of investigative interviewing, business conversations, and family conversations to give people the strategic observation and persuasive communication skills in order to encourage people to share sensitive information under vulnerable circumstances in the face of consequences. And everything we talked about today and so much more is there. If people are interested in the book, learning more about the book, it's available on Amazon and Barnes Noble, if they want to learn more about it first, the website is disciplinedlistening.com, which is also where they can find the podcast. It's called I See What You're Saying, the Disciplined Listening Podcast. And we have guests on from all over the place to talk about unique perspectives on how we can improve and employ different communication techniques. If they're looking for more for me, that's at michaelreddington.com. All of my interviews and articles and things are there. The company is in Quayson, inquisive.com. So if anyone's interested in the training programs that companies ask us to facilitate for their leadership teams, management teams, sales teams, HR teams, they can find that all there. Not the biggest social media guy, to put it mildly, but if anybody's interested, Michael Reddington, CFI, on LinkedIn would be the place to really connect on social media. I'd be very happy to— make sure you mention that you heard here. I'll accept it. I'll follow up with a note. Happy to continue the conversation.

Awesome. And then last question that I, I now am starting to ask people is, is there a book that you believe, obviously, in addition to your book, that, that is a must-read? And it doesn't necessarily have to do with the field that you're in, but something that you've just loved and you're like, man, like, you know, like I said, The Four Agreements is something I think for, you know, $9 to $11, everybody should have in their home. Is there a book like that that you feel that everybody should have in their home? And is there an album that you think everybody should have listened to from any point in your life that you're like, man, I just want to open?

That one's a little bit more dangerous to answer, but the book one, yeah. So I'll answer both. For books, absolutely. So if people haven't read George Kohlraser, K-O-H-L-R-E-I-S-E-R, I might have that I and the E reversed. Sorry, George. He's written two amazing books. The one that I recommend starting with is called called, uh, Care to Dare. It is the best book on leadership and interpersonal communication I've ever read in my entire life. It's based on attachment theory and many other things. He teaches at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is amazing. I can't recommend that book enough at all. So that would be one. I also highly recommend reading anything Robert Cialdini has ever written. C-I-A-L-D-I-N-I. He's the godfather of persuasion. I would start with one of two books, either Influence or Pre-Suasion. Influence was really his first and Pre-Suasion is probably his latest. But I would start with either one of those two. I've been very fortunate to build a relationship with Robin Dreeke, who's a former FBI spy recruiter, spy catcher. He's awesome. He's got several books. I would recommend starting with The Code of Trust. I've also been very fortunate to build a relationship with Kwame Christian, who's host of the Negotiate Anything podcast. He's amazing. He wrote a— he's written a couple of books that are great, but the one I'm going to promote here, he wrote a book called How to Have Difficult Conversations About Race. Oh, the conversation— the book should really be called How to Have Difficult Conversations About Anything. And he and I have had this conversation on air, so I'm not insulting his work, I promise. Yes, it's an awesome book about how to have difficult conversations about race, but if you took the word race out and put any other topic there, the same process Guys, so I highly recommend that book. I'm actually looking over my camera here at my bookshelf. I could probably— I'm a nerd, so I could go on and on. For people who are looking to get the most out of their lives and their potential, uh, Aaron Salkow wrote a great book called The Ninth Stratum, which is the science behind and strategies for achieving our full potential in our personal and business lives. So you got to pick that one up, dude. I could go an hour probably just recommending books. Great shape.

It's funny that I'm now like reflecting back on like, you know, I'm getting close to episode 200. I'm like, why haven't I— why haven't I done that question more often, including the second one, which is— which you said could be a little bit dangerous. Yeah, but throw an album— throw an album at us.

Ah, so you're asking like a punk rock kid, a hardcore kid, the album question. Um, man, which ones would I say say there's a lot. So I don't know, I think I have almost 90 gigs of music on my iPad, uh, or my— it's not an iPod anymore, right? I guess it's on my phone now, iTunes. But albums that I would say— I'll go artist instead of albums, but I would go Social Distortion for sure is one. I'm trying to go ones that would be like more down the middle for people to try, not like But I would go Social Distortion for sure. Um, if people are into— well, you know, why don't I do this? So maybe if you're into country music, here are some people you may never heard of but you should be listening to: Jesse Dayton, Dale Watson, um, trying to think of some of the— um, Whitey Morgan, Jackson Taylor. Again, there's more, but check those out. Um, if you're into— well, like I said, I'm a punk rock guy and I couldn't really tell you any of the new punk rock bands.

Uh, I'll throw one at you. Face to Face.

Yes. Oh, you want to start talking fat records? We can start getting into Pennywise and Lagwagon.

Yeah, I saw them all Warped Tour in the '90s.

Some old Bad Religion.

Uh-huh. Yep, the Vandals and the chicks.

'90s, dude, I'm ready to go.

I have my, my, my Warped Tour press pass from 1996 or '97 Warped Tour still that I got the VIP pass that I somehow got hooked up with a crazy story. But, uh, yeah, but I just, you know, it's just— wow, that was so—

it's not now, not now, but I want to—

yeah, but yeah, 311 I think headlined, uh, that, that, uh, thing. But that was the first time I heard Lagwagon and, um, you know, some other bands. But, uh, yeah, I'm just, just laughing because like I should have asked these questions more often and, you know, to open up people. That's funny, just then we'll wrap up with this. I put on randomly— somehow Beck came to my mind, right? And everybody knows, right, that I'm a Loser Baby song from the '90s. But what But what an amazing— like, you know, just going through some of the playlists streaming yesterday, just the melodies in the song and the craftsmanship that people don't know besides like, you know, that Where It's At and I'm a Loser were the two biggest songs ever. But he's got some really beautiful melodic— we're talking about like, you know, '90s, you know, alternative rock and even the 2000s. But just someone who I stumbled back on and have just in the last 24 hours, I'm but like, people need to go back and take a look at Beck one more time and just listen to stuff that wasn't on the radio. So anyway, Michael, whatever you listen to, not what's on the radio. Exactly, exactly. So Michael, thank you so much, guys. If anybody listening out there, right, obviously you can reach out to Michael on LinkedIn if you have any questions or what, what to lean into. You want more, more book recommendations, want some more questions about the stuff that he's doing in training, please, please give him a, a shout out. Like any, you know, any other episode, please leave us a review on Apple iTunes. That's really the best way to give us a review. Even if you didn't hear us on Apple iTunes, just kind of, you know, see if you can do that for us, and that'll help this get out. And if there's anybody you know that can benefit from listening to this episode, please, please do so and share it. And again, Michael, congratulations on everything you're achieving, on the book and the success you've had, and, and just being an awesome dude who, you know, now I know even more so is awesome based on our shared love for, for music. We clean up pretty well.

We do. We do.

Even though, even though, you know, I had, you know, even though I've been to too many real big Phish concerts over my life.

So got rid of all those JNCO jeans a couple of decades ago.

I never had the JNCO, but I did have the Skids back in the early '90s. So yeah, if we're going to, if we're going to date ourselves here. So. All right, everybody, thank you again. And we're looking forward to seeing you. Thank you.