204: Radical Alignment: Getting to Hell Yes with Alex & Bob

With Venmo Stash. A taco in one hand and ordering a ride in the other means you're stacking cash back. Nice. Get up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash on your favorite brands when you pay with your Venmo debit card. From takeout to ride shares, entertainment and more, pick a bundle with your go tos and start earning cash back at those brands. Earn more cash when you do more with Stash. Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cash back per month. See Terms at Venmo Me Stash Terms.

What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello Pivoters. I am so delighted and filled with glee today. It is like Christmas that I finally have my dear friends Bob and Alex here on the Pivot podcast. Bob and Alex are some of my closest friends in New York City. They're like family to me. I spend almost every friendsgiving with them when I don't fly home to California and and they have a new book coming out in August called Radical how to have Game Changing Conversations that will transform your business and your life. Bob and Alex, welcome to the show.

Hi. We're so happy to be here.

So great to be here.

I'm going to alternate. I'll say Alex and Bob. Bob and Alex, let me read your official bios just to give people a little taste. Alexandra Jamison is a success, mentor, life and health coach to creative professional women who want it all. She's the bestselling author of Women, Food and Desire, co creator and co star of the Oscar nominated documentary Super Size Me, and highly sought after wellness expert. She's also the host of Her Rules Radio, an amazing podcast and I just have so much respect for you Alex. I love everything that you're doing.

Thank you.

Bob helps organizations move faster, create better products and become happier. More engaging places to work. He's an authority on agile software development, lean theory and responsive organizational design. He's the author of Agile A Leader's Guide to Harnessing Complexity and he speaks regularly on organizational development and leadership. So you can see Bob and I love geeking out about business, books and agile and all that kind of stuff. So I'm So happy to have you both here. Can you all listeners, can you get a sense that this is like a power couple for those of us in New York, they often host these brunches of rebels, creatives, interesting people with the best bacon.

And I would say, Alex and Bob, you are one of those couples that so many of us not only turn to for advice, but look at and just so respect how you operate that you are so loving and warm and respectful of each other, creative, supportive. And I'm not saying that you're perfect or anybody's perfect, but I will say that in our broader New York and Brooklyn community, you're a go to that so many of us are often turning to for insight and advice. So thank you for being that and in all of our lives.

Wow. We're really touched by that. Thank you.

You didn't know that on the Pivot podcast? I just. My job is to make you blush. You know.

If I can just embarrass you in the first 10 minutes, we're off to a good start.

It's working.

So I'm really excited to talk about this new book, Radical Alignment. And by the way, everybody, this episode is going to come out on Friday, May 1st. Gonna be May already.

Yeah, Mayday.

Oh, my goodness, May Day. And it would be a big boost to Bob and Alex if you enjoy this conversation and you want to get this book, which I encourage everybody to do. Let's all pre order today, Friday, May 1st. And this is gonna give them a nice boost of momentum. I always like to help.

Friends out. And if you enjoy this as much as know, so many of us have benefited from the framework that we'll talk about today. And this book was. We were talking. Has been remolded. There was a previous. We'll even call it a pilot book. Bob is featured Pivoted. Exactly. Yeah. Used to be called Getting to Hell. Yes. And I forgot to mention, Bob was featured in the pilot section of Pivot. So astute readers will already know a little bit about Bob's story.

Tell us about Radical Alignment, and maybe you could even just kick us off with the framework. I'm sure you're going to be asked that a million times, but just to get everybody a little bit on the same page.

Yeah. Can I go first?

Yeah.

All right.

The framework, it's a conversational framework. It's sort of a structured conversation. And the idea behind. I mean, it may seem weird to structure a conversation, but the reason we built it or the reason that it actually kind of emerged as such a valuable tool for us is that it really helps us avoid missing conversations. And in relationships, both in business and in personal life, often conflict is due to two people just not having had the right level of information or operating from different levels of assumption, different kinds of assumptions. A classic one we like to use in a personal context is you're going on vacation. One person wants adventure, the other person wants to rest and relax. Both people really want to go on vacation. And if we just use the word vacation, if we don't have a deeper conversation, we might not design a conversation that really both people end up walking away from happy and satisfied. And we might introduce conflict where none is really needed. So the idea is just like.

Let'S create a structure and let's just make sure that we hit all the notes. It doesn't have to always be so structured. And it can be. We use it. We almost play jazz with it ourselves, you know, now because we've done it so much. But it really is pitched as, or described in the book as a very, very structured conversation that can happen both in business as well as in personal life. Whenever you're doing something important, I like.

To say it's the four agreements for how to have a high stakes or highly emotional conversation where everyone wins.

That's so good. Can you share a little bit about the four pieces?

Yeah, it's really simple and we'll go deeper into it, but you each share, taking turns, your intentions, concerns, boundaries, and.

Dreams and the way this kind of shows up. So let's actually use vacation as an example.

That's a good example.

Yeah.

It can seem like a tug of war too. Right. Where it seems impossible to hit what both people are looking for at first glance.

Right. And also you can also frame the questions in different ways. And so intentions, concerns, boundaries and dreams is the, let's call it the buckets that we're filling with information or that we're constraining the conversation to at different times.

But it really is very helpful to really tune how those questions are asked to the situation that you're in. So we want to try something. I'm just springing this on Alex now, but. But we've been dreaming a bit recently about actually going on vacation this summer. And vacation for us every year is to go to Oregon, where Alex's family is. And also where our favorite. One of our favorite places on the planet is the Sylvia Beach Hotel, which is in. What's the name of the town?

Newport.

Newport, Oregon. It sits on the coast. It's an old Victorian.

But Maybe we can just do sort of a quick. Use that as an example. How does that sound?

Sure.

Yeah.

I love it.

All right, cool. So we've already done the first part of the conversation, which is one. We've established what we're talking about, and then we could also even talk about why we're talking about it. And I think we're talking about it because we both want to have a great vacation.

So then we start having the conversation, and it's like, so, Alex, why do you want to go on vacation?

I want to get out of our apartment, and I want to get out of New York City, and I can't wait to get. Get out into the world and explore again and be in nature and. Yeah. Have fun together. Relax.

Yeah. So my role at that moment was just to listen to Alex, and it could go on. You know, frankly, this conversation could be very deep, and, you know, it could take her 10 minutes to get all of her intentions about something or even longer. Right. It could be a very deep conversation. But what I'm also listening for is, like, well, what's important to her? You know, like, well, she wants to relax. She wants to get out of the apartment. So I'm starting to understand kind of the values that sit underneath. Intentions is a wonderful way to sort of expose what our values are, what's important to us. So for me, I want to go on vacation because I actually really like your family. I like to connect with them. It makes me feel.

They'Re, in some ways, I'm. In some ways closer to them than I am to my own family of origin. And it really gives me that sense of family. Like, I really enjoy that. I also want to drink some good wine, and Oregon is a wine. Wonderful place to do that. Eat some wonderful food, get out in some tide pools and find some sea anemones. I can't pronounce it. Anemones. And go hiking and get my feet wet and get damp. Oregon's a great place to get damp.

It is a good place for that.

So we've done the intentions, and so that really leads to the first bucket, and again, it just sort of gets out. Why are we doing this? So what's the second bucket, Alex?

The second bucket is you share your concerns, and this is something humans are really good at. You know, we have a negativity bias. So our worries, fears, and concerns are usually more present than, you know, the good things we want. And it's such a. It's such a. I know it might sound scary at first, but it can be a really soothing exercise to have a safe place where somebody is just hearing your concerns and fears. And it actually can calm down the lizard brain and it helps uncover any potential landmines in a topic.

You mentioned that negativity bias. It seems like for a lot of heated conversations, people jump right to concerns, that it starts with their concerns, and then the conversation is sort of under this cloud of fear and concern and worry. And that. That could even maybe threaten the other person or annoy the other person if they don't share the same concerns.

Right. Or you're not given space to have them. You know, somebody, one person might have a lot of fear and concerns, and the other person gets upset with you for having them. When. Go ahead.

Yeah. No, and I was going to say, I don't want to put words into your mouth, but talk about a vacation this summer. Look at couples where one is highly concerned about getting sick or taking that risk, and maybe the other one isn't. The other one's more concerned about staying home. So I'll let you keep going. I'm loving being a fly on the wall of this conversation, but it seems really important, even of a topic that seems.

I cannot call vacation trivial, especially not now. But a topic that at its face, doesn't seem controversial, but yet with the times that we're in. Absolutely could be.

And concerns don't even have to be logical. I mean, kind of going back to the negativity bias. When we started writing a book together, which was our first project that we ever. Business project we ever did together, we were a stable couple when we started.

And I think we used this process to talk about doing the project together. And one concern that came up was doing a project is going to cause stress, and that stress is going to lead to divorce. It actually went all the way there really quickly, even though that wasn't, you know, like, we've both been in bad relationships or difficult relationships in the past, and we knew that this one was not that. But at the same time, it was like, but yet that concern was there. And there was something great about just speaking it and hearing it come out of your mouth. Because you know how sometimes, like, you say stuff, you're like, oh, that sounds ridiculous now that I'm saying it. And so sometimes concerns are sort of an opportunity for that.

I love that you just said that. Yeah. Or even. I don't know why this is even a concern for me, but it is.

Yeah. Like, let me talk about my concerns on vacation. Like, and it's funny, I Was just thinking, this may sound silly, but, like, I'm concerned Alex's family doesn't like me, which is really ridiculous, I think, you know. You know, but it's. But it's. It's, you know, like, it has to do with, like, my history and, you know, I mean, I think we all are concerned about people liking us or something. It's not about her family, per se. It's about me. But it's sort of like, oh, yeah, but if, like, I think about going out there, you know, like, oh, I think about, like, oh, maybe I'll be with people that don't want me around.

You know, I'm concerned that we often end up working while we're on vacation.

Right.

And sometimes one of us needs to work while we're on vacation just a little bit. So I'm concerned about balancing our work schedule with our play schedule, with our teenager's schedule who wants to go to a different skate park every day. You know, it's like, anticipating problems, too.

Yeah.

And I'm concerned, you know, like, this crisis is causing changes in everybody's business. You know, thankfully, we've been spared from a lot of that. And, you know, but definitely, I am more cautious with cash than I have ever, you know, than I have been in the past five or six years now. And I get concerned about, oh, that we should really be spending that money on something else, that this is a dumb thing to spend money on. And so that even brings up a concern that we won't do the vacation and we will suffer for it, you know, because. Because we'll just be like, oh, we can't. We shouldn't. We'll spend that. We should spend that money on something.

Else, you know, and you address the other's concerns. When you're going through the framework, would you respond, or would you just hear each person's concerns? Try to surface them all, as many as you can, and keep moving?

It really depends. And I think. And what it depends upon is it depends upon your emotional state as the person who is listening. So if I hear somebody say something and I want to fix it, or I want to diminish it, or I want to change the other person if I'm feeling triggered, let's just say. And I think that can be sometimes difficult to notice, particularly men, I think we have a hard time noticing when we're triggered. We just think that we are being critical or that we're being logical or something. But really, like, oh, that upset me to hear that. Then you probably shouldn't say anything. But if you are curious and if you really are, you want to hear more and you think your questions might actually help the person get more in touch with their concerns on a deeper level, then by all means. The intent of this conversation, by the way, is not problem solving. The intent of this conversation is pure information sharing. Because the more information we have about each other, the more empathy we have for each other. Which means that any solution we do come up with because we can go into problem solving later or solutioning later, but we want to go in with a full range of information. So right now you're just asking questions.

I love that you shared that. I love that you gave us that frame that this is servicing information and connecting and aligning. It is not about problem solving.

No.

Great.

Not even a little bit.

Awesome.

I feel like I'm lecturing all of the men out there who used to be. Who was. I'm lecturing a younger version of myself who desperately needed to hear that. Because when my partners would share something with me, I'd be like, well, you know, what you should do is blank. Or that concern is silly because of X. I'd want to go into explaining mode or diminishing mode or problem solving mode. And those just aren't. They're not terribly helpful. They have their place. Eventually they can be very helpful. But if you're trying to share information and encourage sharing, they're not.

It's even the number one thing mistake that pivoters make is jumping straight to problem solving. And in a way, they're not aligned with themselves on their intentions, their strengths, their vision. So there are some very similar categories. And when that happens and you jump straight to problem solving. It's what you just said, Bob. There's no solution there. The person can feel more stuck or analysis paralysis, compare and despair. All the things that get in the way. Because we do have this human inclination toward problem solving too quickly, it seems, and almost as a way to control what feels overwhelming or scary.

Yes.

How about boundaries for this upcoming vacation?

Yeah. So boundaries are.

Sometimes challenging for people to express or know. So we encourage you to think of them as starter boundaries. You know, give it a try. It doesn't have to be perfect. And you're not demanding anything in the moment. Think about how you want to feel, how you like, how do you want to feel, and how do you know you need to take care of yourself and what can you do to feel that way? That's, you know, it's like, what's your best self care for Yourself, like a boundary, maybe, you know, I'm not going to drink more than twice a week on vacation, you know, which is more challenging with certain family members than others.

A boundary can be, you know, we're not going to stay with a certain family member. We're going to stay in a hotel because that person is very stressful to be around 24 7.

Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, like, I. And also I think I love what you said about the starter boundaries. The way I think of them too is sort of like flexible boundaries. And if you've had kids or puppies, you know, which I know you have now, Jenny, that they. That you have your boundary and you have to give boundaries to kids and to puppies, but you also have to be flexible with those boundaries because sometimes you may have the boundary a little bit wrong. And a harshness of boundary can sometimes actually.

Well, let's just say, lead to poor outcomes. So when I travel, I always have kind of specific boundaries, which I would even say they're sort of preferences, like if I'm going to fly somewhere, I want to be on an ILC and I want to do a direct flight. I don't like to change.

And I like to fly during the day, not red eyes, not when I should be sleeping, and I like to not get up too early and all of those sorts of things. Also, this hotel we love to go to on the coast, one boundary, we used to go out for two nights, and then we realized that it takes a long time to get there and a long time to get back. It's a drive. So three nights becomes almost a minimum. So it's little things like that as we begin to articulate them. And vacation is sort of an interesting one. If I was articulating boundaries in work, I might talk about how many hours of sleep I need a night or the fact that I need to exercise a certain amount of time in order to be at my best at work. But we're really saying, what is it I need in order to show up as my best self in the circumstance that we're discussing? And it's an opportunity to do not just.

Communicate to your partner your boundaries are. But often it's. These are the questions we haven't asked ourselves. Sometimes, like just discussing, like, well, what do I need? When am I at my best? And so sometimes you can approach them of, well, tell me about a time, a work project or a vacation when you were at your best and what was that like? And then you can kind of get them that way too.

I feel like boundaries are such a tricky area. The word itself is tricky to me, you know, and I've read books that say you've got to have clear boundaries. And maybe it's books on codependency or things like this where if you don't have boundaries, you are completely lost and you're as. You're as addicted as the person you're supporting, you know? Okay. And then I've read other books, and Alex, I know you're all. You've read so many of these too. But let's say Byron, Katie's take on boundaries is there. It's their more rigidity. They're creating certain rigidities that don't necessarily. You can inquire around them and the boundaries can actually soften. And so for me, it seems so tricky sometimes to understand what is a true boundary. And then what if that boundary conflicts? And you could see me, here's my future trip of like, what if, what if. But when. When two boundaries of each person or preferences. And I love how you've given us some options here. Starter boundaries, flexible boundaries, preferences when they seem to conflict, you know, how do you soften around these? And. And. But it's such an important question as well. And what you said, it can be hard to know individually what those boundaries even are or ideal preferences.

Well, well, it's a dance, you know, it's not. It's not always easy in the middle of this conversation to know. I actually recommend, like, going through the entire thing before you start workshopping, that kind of thing. But just notice when you're in the boundary section. Okay, so our boundaries are not aligned. You know, you have. You want to go out drinking every night, and I only want to drink twice. You know, that may be. That may be a conflict there. Okay, so now we see it. Let's like, keep going. Let's keep talking. Let's keep getting through the next section and. And then maybe come back and create the plan.

Yeah. Because right now we're talking about, you know, and I think one way. So we, you know, I do this in a business context. We also do it in a. I run this conversation structure. So in a business context, I might talk about the boundaries of a project. You know, like, well, what are our deadlines? What are. What are our budgets? You know, what are the things that we know? You know, so we can say. We can sort of say we, but we can also say you, like, what. How's you show up as your best, you know, or. I work with a lot of teams sometimes at some big companies. And there'll be one person who is 50% allocated to the project that we're discussing, and somebody else for whom it's 10% and somebody else. It's their primary thing, and their whole career is resting on it and sort of like beginning to articulate those things up front and having different levels of being okay with different levels of involvement or different boundaries. But you don't know until you get all of those out. The other thing I was thinking of is you said that sometimes people lead with their concerns. I also find sometimes people lead with their boundaries.

Especially people. And I've done this myself.

I've read many books on codependence myself and many books on.

Having spent time in an addictive environment. Let's just say that sometimes we're. We are poor with boundaries early on, and so then once we learn them as a new tool, we're like, boundary, boundary, boundary, boundary, everywhere. You just crossed my boundary. Therefore, we just sort of start using them to kind of deflect everybody away from us and push everybody away. And I think there's a time when that's really, really appropriate. But the way we're using them here is really just as a sort of a shared exploration of the first principles of what makes us show up our best and what. You know, and we mean that both individually and collective. And so it has to be sort of a curious conversation, not a firm setting of boundaries. That's not what we're saying.

Yeah, And I love that take on it of asking for each individual. I've never heard boundaries expressed as what helps you show up as your best. I mean, that's so. It's so empowering to think of it that way. Instead of, what don't you want? What do you want to block out? What are you trying to prevent? And that whole thing of let me erect all these boundaries so that you, the other person, can make me feel safe, but instead, like, what do I need? And what arises within that question. And I love Alex's reminder. Don't try to solve this yet, because here again, with concerns and with boundaries, it might be tempting, if there's sensitive points in this, to try to solve from that place. Although it doesn't seem as generative as, let's say, even the last section of the framework dreams might be.

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes by the. You know, you. You might find points of conflict in the first or in conflict, concerns and boundaries, but the final section, you're ending on a high note. You share your dreams. You know, if this vacation were to go so beautifully for me, for you, for us, for the family, what would be true? Like, what would have happened for this to become such a life affirming, you know, generative vacation for us? And sometimes that is in that, like, that helps frame those conflicting boundaries. The answer just becomes obvious. It can solve that problem.

Yeah, yeah. Dreams are sort of like, what are we creating? You know, like, it's pulling, it's what's pulling us towards rather than boundaries is sort of like, well, what are we moving away from? Or what are we trying to wall out or wall off? And I think they're both, you know, it's much better to have a. If you're making decisions about boundaries, to be clear about what they are in service of and the dream is what they're in service of, you know, so we're originally, I think in the first in this conversation, we're just like, let's get it out. Let's just sort of like, let's, you know, it's sort of like brainstorming rules. Right? There are no bad ideas, you know, like, there are no bad boundaries. But we are not making any decisions now just because, you know, we're not ordering off of a menu just because I say my boundary, you know, my boundary is I'm going to go out drinking every night. I don't know where that came from because that's not me. But anyway. But let's say that it was a boundary. Like I want to really tie one on every night this vacation because that's going to, you know, that I'm just getting that bound. I'm just getting it out there as kind of a starter. I'm not saying that I'm going to get everything. I'm not ordering you to allow me to go out drinking every single night. You know, like, that's not. I'm not ordering off of a menu because a relationship is a dialogue, a relationship, and we're both fully committed to the relationship above and beyond any specific experience that we're having. Right. And we always understand there's going to be one person having low desire, one person having high desire for whatever it is we're discussing. And so we're going to have to. Everything is sort of a negotiation and we're just being explicit about that.

And I think the part of sharing our dreams together that I love so much is it really helps frame the relationship. And also the vacation. The specific topic as coming from the place of like, we are for each other. I am for you and you are for Me and this relationship isn't 50, 50. It's 100%. 100%. We're both really investing in this. That's what, that's the power of this entire conversation.

It's really helpful to include your partner's happiness in your dream, you know, to kind of remind them, you know, like, so let's say we go on the. We're going on vacation.

Tell me about your dreams for this vacation.

So my dream for this vacation would be that we, and often I like to do it almost viscerally, like, how am I feeling at the end? You know, more than what have I experienced along the way? And I think, you know, my dream is that we're flying home from the conversation. Everybody is healthy, everybody is happy.

You've collected some shells that are going to, that are sitting in your bag and they're going to be joining the collections we have around the house. And we're well rested and kind of coming home, really excited to get back to work because actually this is going to happen before we launch our book probably in August, so that we're coming home, like, ready to do that final push for the book. Or maybe it's after the book launch. I don't know. I don't know. We may do it in late August in case it'll be after.

But yeah, my dream is that we each feel so totally filled up and satisfied in ourselves. Like, you had the experiences that were fun and relaxing and filling for you. I feel rested and reconnected to nature and had fun with our kid and got to see all our family and friends and had fun with them and new memories were made and, you know, surprising things happen and we had great food and, you know, just really feeling into all of those possibilities for each other and ourselves.

That sounds awesome. I think we're all going to come on this vacation with you.

I should point out that we've taught this process, by the way, to probably about a thousand people since the start of the pandemic. And we haven't been talking about anything nearly as happy as going on vacation in the summer. We've been talking, honestly, we did a lot. A lot of it was early on, was scoped really around social distancing and what does that mean for a couple? What does that mean for a family? But we still asked the dream question at the end of it. It's like, it may be weird to say, what's your dream for this pandemic? Given that.

It'S so horrific and it's costing, you know, people so much Personally, both, you know, their lives and their livelihoods and so much uncertainty. And yet there is a way that you can get through a stressful circumstance and be proud. You know, like, I think what I kept coming up for me whenever we would approach this was I want to look back on my time and I want to be proud of the way that I behaved, that I didn't let the stress cause me to behave in ways that I'm, you know, that, you know, how we can all get kind of small sometimes that I didn't get, you know, angry and tight. But I was courageous and I supported the people around me and I took care of myself and I took care of the things that were important and that I didn't put anybody at risk by, you know, walking around New York City without a mask or without gloves or too often. Yeah, yeah.

Jenny, you mentioned future tripping, which is something we do, but I actually future tripping for this dreams portion. It's, you know, it's a slight pivot and how to future trip. Like I'm looking back on this vacation from the future, looking back and saying, wow, that was amazing. How did it go?

Yeah, I love that. And I love Bob's question of what would I be proud? So both the vacation example and even something that feels, talk about triggering, I could see how these stay at home, shelter at home situations can be such a roller coaster. I'm in one too. I'm sure you guys have been as well where some days you're optimistic and hopeful and getting along and then other days it's like we haven't done anything other than see each other. Yeah.

Or hour to hour, it's not even full days.

Totally, totally. But it's a huge part of what I teach too, that without that vision and the more visceral, the better, as you both said, that's the draw. That's what becomes so compelling and creative. And I wonder if you experience this with your framework, but with pivot, certainly I tell people you don't have to know how you're going to get to that vision. It's just the permission to let yourself dream a little bit before you get too bogged down in the how and the next steps that go. Go big, be wild, be crazy, be curious, say what's really on your mind for your vision. You can always change it later. But I don't see any downside of just letting yourself roam in that dreams stage of this radical alignment framework.

Yeah. And get clear on what's essential. I think the boundary conversation. You can Have a boundary. Like, I need to leave work. Let's say I'm at work and I'm having a. My team. I need to leave work at 5 every day. And that shows up as this kind of. Can almost be petulant. But it's like. But my boundary is that I get time with my family each day. You know that. Because that's. Because that's how I show up my best the following day. And my boundary is that I eat well and I exercise enough and I sleep well. And so you sort of begin to kind of get. And I think the dreams are. We get to the end of this project and we're really proud of the work we've done. And, you know, nobody has sacrificed their health in order to get there. Right. Like, they can almost be very simple. And they can be. And that's almost really the radical. Rather than saying, you know, like, I'm on stage at the TED conference describing the best thing ever, which may be part of my dream. Right, right. You know, but. But it's not. But it's not. We're not trying to fantasize necessarily as much as we are trying to be, like, grounded in what the. What the true essential nature of this thing is for us.

I love that. I love that. And I'm so happy you brought up vacation as the example today, too, because in a way, you're giving us all a light. Like, I think you're walking us all through a dream of what can this be in the most simple ways? And the essence. I just love that guidance around the essence of the vision and the dream. How has it been? So you've been sheltering at home, doing virtual workshops and connecting with friends, I'm sure, virtually, and working on this book and getting ready to launch this book. So how has it been for the two of you? This is the first book you've written together. It is a pivot, is the next iteration of getting to hell. Yes. But talk to us about this process. And I always think whatever topic you choose to write about, Alex, I mean, you both know this, you're both authors, but you suddenly get a black belt in that topic. So I'm curious what you've learned even working on this version of the book that's coming out with sounds true about this process that maybe you didn't even know a year ago.

I know we both feel like it's some kind of divine timing that we're starting to promote and market this book in a time when the tool that we wrote about is so helpful. To people. It's. You know, we were not planning on teaching a bunch of huge online workshops to people before the book launched, but we've had the opportunity to share the tool, and we've been using it constantly together as a couple for the book, for our marriage. You know, we. We have a child who has been with his dad most of this isolation period. And, you know, we're going to be using it with him when he comes back. We're going to be using it as a couple before he comes back. And, you know, I'm really grateful for this tool. We use it so often, and it helps us just get clear and reconnected because we do certainly spin out. I'll speak for myself. Like, I have moments of doubt and fear and worry, and coming back to this grounding kind of ritual of a way to connect that feels safe and structured just really helps bring some.

Alignment into my life.

Yeah. And I think for me, the thing. And I've also continued doing my work as a management consultant. As you know, I have a client near your home, but of course, I haven't seen them because we're all working in our home offices now for what, seven weeks? Six or seven weeks at the moment. Plus the book. Plus. So anyway, there's been a lot of stress, actually. I've been working very hard. There's been a lot of stress. And one of the things, I think the gift of difficult moments in our lives and in our world is that it really allows us to rethink about what's essential. Just like in New York City or all over the world, I guess we've discovered that people who deliver our food are essential workers. People who bag groceries in grocery stores are essential workers. And they may be people who aren't compensated. Like they are essential.

The way that perhaps they should be or even appreciated sort of socially. They don't have the. The social value or whatever in the city, necessarily. I hope that's coming out okay. I'm really not trying to disparage anybody, but what I'm saying is it gives us this opportunity to rethink what's essential. And what I'm discovering is that my work is often about strategy and my work is often about, let's call it the IQ or the capability of a team of an organization. But what I'm discovering is that it's the EQ and it's the relationships, which is really the game changer and really the difference. And I think I've been. I've been called in that direction probably for the Past five years and now this has given me the opportunity to be like, oh, yeah, this is where my career needs to focus almost entirely, is on building really strong emotional relationships between team members, because that's the difference maker in business and is the difference.

Maker in life, I think, as evidenced by your epic brunches, both of you.

Exactly. Yeah. Now I just want to do those for a living. If I can just figure out a way to do that.

Oh, my gosh, if only. If only everyone could experience your brunches. No, you're both. You're both so good about connecting with yourselves, with each other, and with your community. And I think that's why when I started this episode saying, you're like family to me in New York, I'm not the only one that would even say that. So it is really a gift that you both have. And I love. I just love seeing how this body of work has unfolded and evolved over the years. And, Bob, you said it at the beginning, it's kind of like jazz. But watching you speak on stage together for the first time in 2018 at Responsive, I'm going to throw that in the notes. Seeing you facilitate these workshops now, even having you here on this podcast, of course, it's seamless. I was wondering, how's it going to be interviewing two people at once and we're not on video or anything? I've done it once before, and sometimes it's awkward, sometimes not. But it's such a delight to just see how you're both so in the moment with each other.

Thank you.

Thanks. Well, this is so fun to talk to you. Well, it's always fun to talk to you, but it's even more fun somehow when it's getting recorded and shared.

I don't know.

It's very exciting.

I feel. I'm so happy that the Pivot podcast community gets to learn more about both of you. Like, this just brings sparks a lot of joy for me. I'm very curious because any. I talk on the podcast, too, about thought leadership, public original thinking. Pinning down a framework takes work. This is an iteration. You. You've both been playing with this for a long time. Before it even had a name for their sections that you used to have that you left out or things that you renamed. Like, I'm just curious about the evolution of these four stages and how you got it distilled to this essence that we have now.

Well, dreams used to be called desires early on, and then we decided that it was the one when we were working with it because it Started off, actually, we were teaching it in a couples workshop that we taught years ago. And it was almost a. What do you call it, like an afterthought. Because we realized, I think after the first workshop that people were arriving with different level of expectation for the workshop. Often one person was being dragged there by the other and we're like, and we're like, you know, you guys need to be aligned before we even start. And so we just sort of developed this. We were like, well, what are the things that are missing? Well, people. Well, why are you coming? Well, I'm coming because, you know, I'm just going to gender this for a moment. I'm coming because she made me come, you know, like. Right, Like. And while that's, you know, it could be better, it's also not. It's also a rather valid and even kind of a sweet intention. Right. Like, I'm here because my partner wants me to be here. And I don't know what I'm getting into. I don't. Everything's fine as far as I could tell. You know, like. But just getting that out and having that out and having it present in the room, we found really valuable. And then the, and then concerns was also like, well, I'm, you know, we would find, you know, we would find like in the workshop that people would walk over. We would call them like landmines. You know, like those third rail topics that you don't know are there until you start talking about them. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, man, we should have known that ahead of time. So let's talk about concerns. And then boundaries and dreams. And dreams was just sort of a nice way to end. So I don't think it's really changed. I think it's. What's changed about it is that it's become more important and it's spread into more contexts for us. It's more foundational and it's more universal.

Yeah. We've used it in so many more unique ways since the beginning.

We've figured out how to apply it. It really applies to almost every situation or topic that we have.

I remember so many times either me calling Bob or Alex being like, can you tell me the four steps again? And writing them down maybe on a napkin. And then I've also been in the room when someone else is saying, can you tell me those four steps again? And I just remember so many people informally always asking, you remind me, because I gotta, I gotta really prepare for this conversation or we're really disagreeing on this thing or there's a lot of fear in this other area. And I just remember so many friends and so many moments extracting this from the two of your brains over and over.

Well, this book started as a Google Doc, I think for exactly that use case. We were like, I've just explained this so many times. And not that I don't love to explain it to people, but I actually was explaining it once to a friend. I was in a cab in New York and it was a lot of traffic, so I ended up being in it for like an hour. Coming home, a 10 minute ride turned into a 60 minute ride and I was on the phone with a friend in LA who was just getting together with a new partner. And I described the whole. And then at the end of the. I was getting out of the car at the end of the conversation and the Uber driver leaned over and he's like, thank you so much. I learned so much from that conversation.

Oh my gosh, that's so cool. I know. Anyway, we, you know, I was thinking when we came to this conversation, I'm like, and there I'm going to go do that thing where I asked them to explain the method yet again. Because I, you know, here I am, it's four years after Pivot came out. And I've explained it many times just like both of you. But I love how you picked a topic that's fresh right now. And I just had a chuckle to myself realizing if you spent your whole podcast tour of this book launch, each time picking the next topic that's real for you, you'll work through so many things by the end of your book launch.

Yeah, that's genius.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because we're going to do it anyway.

Yeah. After four or five years, someone says, what are the four stages? And you're like, okay, here we go. And you sort of go on this autopilot and. But you didn't do that. I'm very impressed.

I like it.

So still so fresh and so useful for us. Like, it's still this really snuck up on us as being like, it is. I would, you know, I don't know. We have a. I'm just gonna brag. We have a great relationship and.

Yes, you do.

I've had bad. From my perspective, we have a great relationship.

Yes, I agree.

Okay, wonderful.

I third it. I third.

We have like. And I've. I've relationship has been something I've struggled with a lot in my life. And one of the reasons though, that I think we have this Relationship is this not. It's not just the method. We're also the right people for the right for each other, you know, like, having this conversation. But it is. But this method has become so foundational to us, and I'm just so glad. I'm so grateful. Like, we just got a text today, someone saying, I taught it to her a year ago, and she's like, I use it for everything, and it's amazing. And I'm like, that's so. It's just so wonderful to hear that it's having an impact for people. So, anyway, thank you for giving us the platform. We really appreciate it.

So my final question before asking where people can find you and more about the book and pre order is, what are your dreams for this launch this year?

I mean, I would love for this to get on a bestseller list. That would be amazing.

My dreams are that we just get this tool into so many people's hands and that we just get to keep basking in the joy of hearing people's experiences of coming together and getting clear and finding relief and, you know, finding and creating great relationships.

Yeah. I mean, I share the dream about the bestseller list, and I. And the dream is, though, that it gets into a lot of people's hands and that it. And that people begin to pass it around. That it really. Because I think it's the word of mouth, which is so gratifying to me when I hear somebody said, oh, I found this. When I find out from somebody who hasn't. Who hasn't heard it from me, who has used the methodology and has made a difference in their lives. And then I think from a personal perspective, like our dream, my dream is that we are building a. We both have other businesses and we do other things, but that this becomes a real sort of a thing that I get to do all the time. A thing that I get to do a lot of, you know, a significant part of our business smorgasbord.

I love that. My dreams are that you get to go on this amazing vacation and everyone comes home safe. That we have a friend brunch again when we can. Oh, my goodness, where would I rather go the second we can get out of the house? And my other dream is that you'll be on the Sounds True podcast and Tammy Simon will interview you because I just love her interviewing style. It's so good. And I can't wait to listen to that. She's the publisher of Sounds True.

Awesome.

That's now my dream, too.

That's going to happen, right? I mean, it's inevitable?

I think so, yeah.

Super cool. So our other collective dream is that if you enjoyed this conversation, you'll help Bob and Alex. Alex and Bob kick off this launch with a really strong pre order day today. So of course, if you listen to this after Friday, May 1st. No worries. I'm so happy you're here. You can still pre order and that it does make a difference to help show publishers and show Amazon which books are going to have some traction and momentum. It even helps the publisher determine how many copies to print for the first run, something as practical as that. So go wherever you buy your books to find radical alignment, how to have game changing conversations that will transform your business and your life. Alex, thank you. Yeah, tell us, where can people find you?

I was going to say, we really appreciate you. Go to Amazon for the day for the first, because that's the algorithm we're.

Trying to protect by Amazon. Every other day go to an independent bookstore.

Awesome. And what about online? I know there's a special book website.

You can go to radicalalignmentbook.com and if you put your name in the little email box, we'll give you a free chapter that takes you through scripts and the steps that we use in our home, how we've used the conversation. So it's a great free chapter guide.

You'll also get notified of the workshops we have coming up. We don't have one firmly scheduled yet, but we'll have it scheduled probably midweek next week and then that list will be notified. So sign up there.

If there's one thing to know about Alex and Bob, they're always cooking up something. So whether it's brunch or a pie or a workshop, there's always something.

Yeah. Thank you both so much. Thank you, thank you. And thanks everyone for listening.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.