How to apply Mediation Techniques to Everyday Life with Alice Shikina

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. Thanks for joining us today. With over 10 million downloads and listeners from more than 180 different countries, it's dedicated listeners just like you who have made Negotiate Anything the number one negotiation podcast in the world. I'm your host, Kwame Christian. I'm a business lawyer, mediator, author, and the proud CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Now, before we get into today's insightful conversation, I have a golden opportunity for those of you who recognize the power of negotiation in your professional lives. Have you ever found yourself wishing that you could navigate those high stakes conversations with more confidence? Or perhaps you're looking to empower your team with the art of persuasion and conflict resolution? At the American Negotiation Institute, we've crafted specialized keynotes and workshops tailored for those very needs. We've transformed the negotiation skills of professionals worldwide, and we're eager to do the same for you. We believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And our goal is to help you improve your lives and the lives of those around you, one difficult conversation at a time. Don't let another challenging conversation leave you second guessing. Click the link in the description to discover how we can help you find confidence in conflict, negotiate better deals, and have stronger relationships. Because in the world of business, every conversation counts. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview, listeners. We're doing something exciting. Alice Shakina is actually here in Columbus in person, which is so rare to actually have one of my negotiation friends here in Columbus. So I, I decided we had to make this happen, especially considering what happened with the last podcast rerecorded. And the listeners are probably saying, which podcast? Exactly the problem. We lost the episode of some technical difficulties. So, Alice, glad to have you back. And can you tell the listeners about yourself and what you do?

Yes, I'm very excited to be here, so thanks for having me. And I am actually normally in Oakland, California, as you know, and I'm out here in Columbus because I have family here and I have my dad who I'm taking care of right now. So that's why I'm here for a couple of weeks while my teenage boys are fending for themselves back at home. And I do negotiation coaching just like you, Kwame. I do it mainly for solo entrepreneurs and they come to me to either get advice on how to close sales better or how to have difficult conversations with their new employees because sometimes they're not performing up to par. And they say, alice, I do not know how to tell this person that they're not doing. I don't know how to have this awkward conversation, so I coach them through that. Sometimes I'm even coaching people through their divorces because normally I'm a divorce mediator, but once in a while, I don't get chosen. And so then what happens is the person who wanted to use me but couldn't will re approach me and say, hey, Alice, maybe I can use you as, like, help negotiating my divorce. And so then I come in, not as an attorney, because I'm not an attorney, but just as a coach to say, here's how you typically negotiate things. Here are some strategies. Think about what you want. Think about what your soon to be ex might want. Figure out what things are tradable. And so I coach people that way. And I do tons of mediations as well. So I really enjoy the work that I do. So thanks for having me.

No, it's great to have you. And so, listeners, with this episode, there are a couple of cool things. So first, you know, we usually keep it at about 30 minutes. For this one, we're just going to see how long the conversation goes. So I want you all to kind of feel like a fly on the wall. This is how Alice and I would typically talk. And so you can actually see what it sounds like when negotiators just chat about life. The other thing is we're recording this, so next year we're going to be on YouTube a lot. And so we're going to take clips and put it on YouTube so you'll actually be able to see this, which will be super cool. So I think one of the most interesting things to ask people, especially people who focus on negotiation and mediation, conflict resolution in general, is how did you get into it?

I kind of tripped and fell into it, quite frankly. So my background is actually in theater, and I studied here in Ohio at Miami University in Oxford. And so I studied acting. This is like 30 years ago. I'm dating myself now, so. And when you study acting for actors, as opposed to, you know, this is like a hobby. When you do serious acting study, you do a lot of training. Like, you want to be able to see what is actually going on emotionally with your acting partner. So the very first stages of theater training is not about, here's a role and I'm gonna play this part, and you're gonna play this part. It's literally breaking it down to just humans, two humans interacting. And I look at your face and I think, oh, right now you're looking like you're curious.

Yeah.

Or right now, you know. And so we learn how to read very fleeting sort of like emotions that emotions come and go really quickly. So we have to learn to do that. So that's like my background. Then I went on to sort of do theater and subsidize theater by being a graphic designer. And then eventually I would say many, many years later, I got a part time job with a company where you deal with host families and au pairs. And part. A small part of that job was mediating between the host families and the au pairs. For those of you who don't know what an au pair is, an au pair is a live in child caregiver. And that person is coming from a different country. Not only do you have a cultural difference, you also have a language barrier. They know English, but it's like their second language. And usually when they come, their English is still in the early stages. Sometimes there are conflicts, as you can imagine. If you have somebody from a different country moving in with you, not only are they taking care of your children, they are your housemate. Right. So most of the conflicts have to do with housemate issues. For example, recently I had someone say, Alice, my host family doesn't want me to come home after 8pm on a Friday or Saturday night because the dog wakes up the baby and then once the baby is up, the family can't sleep anymore. So you can see how there's a bit of a conflict. She wants the freedom to be able to go out on her Friday night out, come home at 10 or 11 o' clock at night and then the host family's telling her, oh, but then you're gonna wake the baby up. And so sometimes these things get a little bit more escalated and I have to mediate. And so I started doing that. And my very first time I mediated. First of all, I get no training, I just dive right in. And I was terrified. And the mediations happen in the host family's home where the conflict is. So it's like not a neutral space by any means. And so I'm walking up to the front door, I'm ringing the doorbell, my palms are SW heartbeat is going because I'm thinking I don't even know what I'm doing, but I'm going to do my best. So I went in and I helped them and I talked it over and we got to resolution. And after doing several of these, I recognized I am pretty good at this. I had no idea it was a secret talent that I never knew I had. And so I started doing that at the same time. At that point in time in my life, I was working for a startup in San Francisco. So that was really exciting. And so when I got laid off of that startup job from the startup job, I was looking around to figure out what do I want to do? And I was asked, like, you know, what kind of job do you want? And I said, I don't know. But I know that I really love mediating. I enjoy it. And my friend said, why don't you become a mediator? And I said, don't you need to be a lawyer? And this is a very common misconception. Like, a lot of even lawyers ask me, how are you a mediator? Like, you're not a lawyer. And I just want to dispel that myth for everyone that's listening right now that you do not need to be a lawyer to be a mediator. So I went and got certified, and the teacher who certified me also said, you know what, Alice? Of course, he was probably selling me. But it worked. He said, you should come and take my arbitration certification training. So I did both of those around the same time. So I'm a certified mediator and a certified arbitrator, and I have done, like, a few arbitrations.

Wow.

And I've been called, your honor, which is kind of a cool. But majority of the time, I am mediating. And so that's kind of how I circuitously got to mediation. And I feel like I use a lot of the skills that I learned as an actress in my mediations because I can, like, pull out, like, what's really happening underneath. And in acting and theater, we call that subtext. And so we're always having to read subtext. And when you're opening a script and you're seeing the words of whatever the characters are saying, as an actor, part of the work is to try to understand under these lines, what is the other character's subtext? Always. Always. And so when I'm mediating, it's the same thing. It's trying to understand, like, what's happening, what's really going on underneath the words. And here's the scenario. But the scenario that's really in front of you is not the real scenario. It's usually some other scenario that's, like, hidden. What's the background agenda? So really, I, like, in both in negotiation and mediation is to uncover that secret.

Yes. Oh, that's good. There's so much to delve into, but I want to focus on subtext. That's really interesting. So can you give an example of a mediation that you had? Of course, honoring confidentiality and everything, where subtext really was the thing that got you across the finish line?

Yes. So there's two things I want to talk about the subtext, but also changing the perspective. So there's two things that's sort of the magic of mediation is like someone's focused, laser focused on like, pointing point A and I'll be like, look at point B and, you know, and I slightly shift it and everything magically moves. But let me back up to subtext. So I had a mediation where the woman came in and it was not quite a divorce mediation. It was a maybe we might divorce mediation. So she came into the room with her husband, and the first declaration she made to me and her husband was, if we don't settle this issue in mediation, I'm going to ask for a divorce. So that was like, clearly on the table. But she said, but I want to work it out. That's why I'm here. And then we went on to have a two hour discussion in which she fought very hard not to get to a resolution. Like, she made her demand very, very high. And he, you know, typically in negotiations you have like a midpoint. So, Kwame, you ask for something, I ask for something else. Particularly when it's money related. You always have your eye for the midpoint. What is the midpoint? And so in looking at her demand and what his demand was, he started moving up and he went way past the midpoint. And she never moved, she never negotiated. She just stayed on her position the whole entire time. And I thought to myself, okay, there's something really strange going on here because there's like no negotiation. The only person negotiating is the husband. And he's trying to save the marriage, and he's moving closer and closer and closer to her demand. And so I thought, okay, something else is going on, and I have to figure out what it is because I'm the only person, like, with the objective lens to be able to figure out what's really happening. So we went through the two hours, didn't really get very far. So then I stopped it and I said, okay, let me make sure that I understand. So I have to lay out the scenario so everyone can see what I'm seeing. Right. Even though we were all present, I need to paint the picture from Alice's perspective. So then I said, okay, so let me make sure that I understand what's happening. When you came in here, you said to the both of Us. If this mediation does not resolve, I'm going to ask for a divorce. Subsequently, for the past two hours, you have prevented any sort of resolution from occurring. I said, so I have one question for you. If your husband were to give you absolutely everything you asked for today in this mediation, he said, yes, like, and you got 100% of whatever it is that you asked for, would you be happy? And there was the longest silence on the earth. It was like probably 30 to 45 seconds and probably felt like an eternity to both of them. And as a mediator, I love using that silence as a tool. So I just let it hang there, and I just sat there and I waited. And I could tell that the reason why it was silent for so long is because she actually had never thought of it. And she was thinking about it, and she said, you know, it would take some of the pressure off. That was her answer. At which point the husband said, thank you very much, Alice, for the mediation. I'm gonna go call my lawyer now.

Wow.

So I think it wasn't so much that it exploded. I think I uncovered, like, some, like, real things. Right. Perhaps, and I'm just guessing, perhaps she was hoping to make it so it looked like he was the cause of the divorce because he wasn't, you know, giving in to her. And perhaps she didn't want to admit to herself that she really didn't want this marriage. There's, like, a lot of stuff going on. But I had to uncover that little gem because up until then, they'd been going to couples counseling. And I believe just by the context of what's happening, that the question that therapist was probably asking was, do you want to work on this marriage? And I believe the answer had been yes for both of them. But whether or not she would be happy was not asked.

Hello, my friends. Before we get back to today's episode, I want to ask you a question. Have you ever wondered how to elevate your team's negotiation game and how you can help the folks on your team have better, difficult conversations? At the American Negotiation Institute, we offer transformative keynotes and workshops tailored to empower professionals with top tier negotiation and conflict resolution skills. Whether it's a keynote for your next event or hands on training for your team, we've got you covered. Don't just negotiate. Master the art with the American Negotiation Institute. Click the link in the description to find out more. Elevate, negotiate, and succeed.

So, yeah, so that's how I try to think of what the subtext is, because I was Noticing there was a lot of subtext going on. Right. With her saying, I'm not coming down, I'm not going to negotiate, I'm not going to compromise. All of that has subtext, which is, I'm ready for this marriage to be over.

Yeah.

But she never said it, and there was nothing that indicated that until I asked that question.

It's fascinating.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I think what this story shows is that a lot of times the traditional process of negotiation or mediation might have you go through these steps in a rigid type of dogmatic type of way where you ask questions, you take people at their word to a certain extent. You trust but verify. You want to objective evidence to substantiate these types of things. But I don't think there is enough focus on the art behind it, like the subtlety. Right. And the thing is, with that example that you gave, it was all subtlety because if you just kept on going, the process would have said, hey, keep on pushing and keep on seeing if you could get. Get them closer together. And you probably would have continued to get movement from the husband, but you wouldn't have been solving the actual problem.

Right, right. And then similar to that, there was another one that was a landlord tenant negotiation. And this is kind of like me reading the subtext, but at the same time changing people's perspectives to be able to rapidly move to a resolution. And so we were in. It was like, you know, they were. We were all in court and they have something called day of court mediation. So prior to going into the court, they were mediating. And the landlord came in with his attorney and the two tenants were an adult. It was a mom and adult daughter. And they went in to mediate it. And the landlord kind of was, you know, bullying them, saying, if we go into court, I'm going to win, I'm going to ask for attorney's fees. Like you said all these things. And then they left the room so that I could speak privately to the mom and the daughter. And they began to say, it's horrible. He's like bullying us. He's been doing this entire time. It's really terrible. We really want to stay here. And I was starting to read what is going on. I noticed the things that they were saying, how it was toxic and he was a horrible guy and that they'd been fighting for the last two months. So for me, I'm already reading subtext. Some people are maybe just fact finding at the time, but I was already noticing there's something else going on. Right. So Then I change their perspective by asking them, what is this conflict doing to your physical and mental and emotional health? And immediately they started to cry. And they listed so many things. They were having migraine headaches. They were having upset stomachs, lots of physical ailments, and they were crying multiple times a day. And they, like, released all of this, like, angst and upset that had been building up inside their bodies, causing them physical harm. And then my next question was, what would it take to remove yourself from this toxic environment? And the mom said, we need to move.

Wow.

Yes. And so I said, okay, what? You know, when can you move? You know, can you pay the rent? And she said, we can move in 30 days. And I said, I don't want you to make an agreement that you can't keep, so can you really move in 30 days? Because typically, sometimes people might need 60. She said, no, I have a place that we can move to, and so we can move. And I said, okay, what do you propose to do with rent? And she said, I will pay to the end of the month, and we'll move. We can do it. And so I said, okay, are you sure? Because I don't want to put this thing together that you're gonna feel like you're trapped later on. She said, no, I can do it. I got that done in 45 minutes. The lawyer and the landlord's jaws dropped when I went out to tell them after 45 minutes, by the way, they're moving in a month, and they will pay you for the last month's rent. And the lawyer said, what did you tell them? But I said, oh, I just did my little magic tricks in there. But then later, the tenants, even though they chose to move out in this mediated settlement agreement. Right. She came to me and she said, you are an angel. Why? Because I changed her perspective. She realized if she doesn't have her health, she doesn't have anything. And that that fight was not worth her health. Right. So it's not always about, what do you want? Versus what do I want. Sometimes I need to just say, look over there, and there's something better over there. And that people don't necessarily see that just around the corner, there is something better that they just need to turn their heads and look at it.

Yeah.

Right. So that's sort of the magic, I think, in being able to mediate and also be a negotiation coach is that sometimes I'm able to show people the value in something that they're not looking at. Right. Because I'm reading subtext.

Yeah. So let's dig deeper into this. What is it that you think that holds people back from seeing things from other perspectives?

Laser focus. Right. Laser focus on winning. Laser focus. That you're right. A lot of things that I feel like. So lawyers, when they are in a mediation, they're laser focused on their client, which is where they should be. So because they are laser focused on that, they're not going to be able to see the 30,000 foot view because you can't. What I like to say is you can't be looking through a microscope and a telescope at the same time. Right?

Yeah.

And so they're looking at it with a microscope because they want to make sure that everything's. Their ducks are in a row, that nothing bad is going to happen to their client. I'm looking at it from a telescope. So even with lawyers present, I will typically see things that they can't see because I'm looking at it from a different perspective and a different lens and I'm looking at it from much further away than they are. So I think those are the things that hold people back is just really like putting the blinders on and thinking like, you know, you prepare, you prepare. What do I want? Right. Like we always talk about, prepare your batna, prepare your watna. So you think, what do I want? But then what happens is people start focusing really hard on what they want and maybe what the other person wants. And so they're not really opening up their perspective so they can look around and say, oh, there are these other things, or perhaps this other solution is maybe better than the thing that I want. Right. It's always like that because in a landlord tenant issue, they're thinking about my home, my home, my home. They never thought about my health, my health, my health. Yeah, right.

It's interesting because they went in there and they knew with clarity what it is that they wanted, but they didn't take the time to go a little bit deeper and think about, why do I want that thing. Right. So I might want to win this altercation, but why do I want it? It might be my ego wanting to defeat the other person who I see as the villain in my story. It might be that desire to be right. And along with being right, there's that equal desire to make sure that the other person understands that they're wrong. And so what you're able to do is you're able to say, okay, that's what you want. Let's question that. Why is it that you want that? And then also what other things do you want? What other things are being impacted by the situation? And so, you know, I am hot and cold with this term. But the true win win came from the fact that they realized that there were other ways that they can get their win with less resistance as well. But it takes a lot of coaxing, sometimes from the outside, to get somebody to see that.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, like, for example, I feel like she's focused on the win without realizing she's losing something bigger. Right. So it's about letting people understand, okay, you might win this particular scenario, which is, you know, okay, you can stay in the apartment for, I don't know, two or three months longer, but in gaining that win, you're losing your physical health, you're losing your emotional health. And is it worth it? Right. Because most of the time in a landlord tenant dispute, you're not thinking about your physical health. That's sort of like, people sometimes don't even equate the two. They don't even really recognize that one is causing the other. Right. That the conflict is causing the physical pain. They might just feel like, oh, gosh, I've been suffering from these headaches all the time, and I'm starting to get headaches and stomach aches and what have you, and I don't know what's going on. So if you sit down and you ask them, like, by the way, when did this start happening? Like, a doctor would normally ask them if they really thought about it, they would maybe be able to track that. The time that the conflict started with the landlord is when the health problems began. But people aren't always tracking, like, when certain health things happen in alignment with conflict that's happening in their lives. Right. Like, I think a lawsuit is a little bit more obvious because it's a big deal. So if you're in it and you start to have physical ailments, people usually can match the two. But it's not. Life isn't usually about, like, lawsuits. It's usually like, a small festering problem that work, and then maybe two or three weeks later, you start to have some kind of, like, stomach issues or you can't sleep. And so it's really difficult for people to connect the two. And so as a mediator, I can kind of help them see there's a connection. Here's a connection, here's a connection. And then when you do that, that changes the conversation.

Yeah. So now you are a mediator and a negotiation coach. And so that's another layer, the negotiation side. Can you Talk a little bit about how your mediation skills help you on the negotiation side, too.

Well, so I watch a lot of negotiation happening, right? And I feel like I'm very lucky because I get to watch it all the time. Like, who else gets to watch negotiations happen if you're not in it, right. That you're just observing. And. And I also get to watch a lot of lawyers negotiate because a lot of times they are in the mediations. And so I'm learning a lot of the skills as well as the training that I got previously. So I'm able to use everything that I watch and everything that I see, and I put that into my. Put it in my little pocket of negotiation tricks, strategies that people use. I've done several personal injury cases, and that's a very different type of negotiation that is, like, purely money, and it's about either the death of someone or it's about somebody getting injured. Right? And so those things are very interesting. And I use my mediation and person skills to be able to work with some of the clients who are, like, way, way out of range in terms of what they want because of the fact that either someone in their family got injured badly or. Or killed by the police. And so people have a lot of inflated. For whatever reason, they want justice. Everyone comes and says, I want justice. Unfortunately, in our justice system, as you probably know, Kwame, there's not that much justice. Okay. And so then I, as a communicator, have to be able to come to a place so that they can somehow hear the message that, hey, I know that your brother was very special to you, and even though he's gone, the reason why we can't get $50 million is because usually people can't hear it because they're, like, shrouded in their emotions of, like, loss and grief. Right. But then you have to sort of talk to them to be able to explain to them, like, why the case is valued at this much. And usually this is coming from lawyers to me. So they will tell me, okay, Alice, tell them this is a reason why. But we need you to express to. And so I'm mainly the communication person. Right. And so then I will use those. So all of these things are sort of intertwined where I'm using my mediation skills into the negotiation. I'm using a lot of the negotiation with communication, and it's all. It's all tied together.

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And there are definitely a lot of corollaries between the two skills. And I think about mediation A lot of times, almost like facilitated negotiation to a certain extent. Right? So I'm in there trying to help them to negotiate effectively, understanding that they are here because they were not able to negotiate effectively. Right. And when you think about the mentality and the mindset that's required to be a good mediator, what advantage does that mentality give you as a negotiator?

I think that what it does is there's a lot of tools that the mediator uses, right? Just in trying to keep parties calm, in trying to make sure that the message is clear, going from one side to the other. So then you just take those same skills and transfer it so that when you're a negotiator, you always remind yourself, like, I think in negotiation, quite frankly, self awareness is key. Like, so, so incredibly critical. Because you need to know, when am I getting triggered, when am I getting frustrated, when am I getting offended? Right? Like, you have to almost have, like two of you, one side which is the real you, and the other side, who is the observing you, saying, oh, Kwame, like, you're kind of getting offended about that statement, or, Kwame, like, that just made you angry, right? Because without that little voice, it's very difficult to monitor what's happening and whenever those things happen. Because I deal a lot with people who get upset in divorce mediations. I'm very, very cognizant about the amygdala and what it is doing at all times. And so you want to be able to know in yourself as a negotiator when your amygdala just put the brakes on everything. And so if you don't have that self awareness, then you think you're continuing to negotiate, but the amygdala is now triggered and you're actually not really doing a good job anymore. And so what I think is as a mediator, you really hone those skills of, like, self awareness and awareness of other people to be able to say, okay, something just happened. Your amygdala or my amygdala just got triggered. And now, like, the negotiation is not going to be as good. We need to take a break, or we need to go into separate rooms, or something needs to happen. So I think in watching that with other people, you learn a lot, right? In my negotiation classes, we do a lot of role play. Not only do you learn from the role play, but you learn from observing. You learn other people negotiate and you think, oh, that's a really great tool, or, oh, I never want to do that ever again. Right? So observation is A great teaching tool. So I feel like, in a lot of ways, as a mediator, it really helps me hone my negotiation skills because I get to see what works and what doesn't work when other people do it. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. It's. It's a very unique perspective, being able to see difficult conversations. You see them go well, and then you also see them go poorly, and you can kind of reverse engineer what happened. And when you think about the difficult conversations that you have where you personally are in, where you might be in the conversation itself, how frequently. And if the answer is not very often, that's cool, too. How frequently do emotions escalate to a point where it's like, oh, this is almost out of control?

A lot less than it used to, to be honest, because I'm, you know, as a theater major, I'm very emotional, right? And that means I'm very passionate, and I can get really angry. And so in relationships, I would say that I've gotten significantly better. I'm divorced because I didn't know these skills when I was married, so. And then. So in my relationship now, I don't feel like I have as much conflict because now I have the skills that I did not have when I was married, even to the point where if someone is a narcissist, like, I feel like I know how to handle that now, and I know how to sort of guide those conversations. Where before I was constantly being gaslit, I didn't know how to handle it. I would flare up and get super angry and constantly get gaslit. But I feel like I have a better sense of being able to manage those conversations with that kind of a person now. And so it's gotten much better. Let's just say, just to give you an idea of how much I used to scream, I developed a Polyp, like, about 15 years ago, and they were like, you're yelling too much. That's why you have a polyp on your vocal cords. So I literally started losing my voice, and I started having a smoker's voice because of that. So I don't yell that much anymore.

Wow, this is this fascinating. So a couple of things I want to pull out first. This is a skill, right, because you realized I am a naturally emotional person, but you layered that baseline with skills, and then you were able to temper that emotionality in difficult conversations. And then also now when you're dealing with difficult people, you're able to utilize these skills to diffuse some of these situations before they get explosive. And I think that's just a really important lesson for people because they might say, oh, I'm bad at difficult conversations or negotiations because I am X. Well, okay, cool. You are self aware enough to recognize that, but that doesn't absolve you of the responsibility of improvement because you can improve with diligent practice. And then also when we're dealing with other people, if you start to become mindful of those little shifts in body language, in tone, and you start to realize when the conversation starts to shift or turn in a different direction, then you have the skills to deal with that before it becomes something that is out of control. And that's something that is. It's a really important skill. But again, since you're able to not only be in a lot of difficult conversations, but also observe a lot of difficult conversations, you can see those micro shifts as they're happening and address those problems while they're smaller so they don't become big problems that are out of control.

Yeah. And so, you know, for the listeners who are like, oh, well, what are some really good tips? I have some really easy. They're not easy to do, but they're easy to remember. Right. Easy to learn, but not easy to do is really like when you find yourself in some kind of altercation or someone might be yelling at you or. And you know, quite frankly a lot. There are a lot of difficult conversations, but most of them are with your spouse or your children, quite frankly. And so let's be real here. And so I feel like the main thing that everyone forgets to do and so just write it down is to acknowledge what the other person said. You don't have to agree. I always tell people, don't defend, don't defend, don't defend. Your top three rules, don't defend. And then just acknowledge. So let's say that someone says something about you think it's absolutely not true. None of it is true. Guess what? It doesn't matter. Just acknowledge it. And I don't mean by saying kwame. I hear you. Get rid of that phrase. Put it in the garbage. Don't ever say kwame. I understand what you're saying. Get rid of that phrase. Put that in the garbage. And I get you, like get rid of all three. Those are terrible, terrible phrases. They shortcut and they're actually not indicative of whether you actually understood me or not.

Right.

And so what you want to do is say, okay, let me make sure that I heard what you said and then you repeat back the whole entire thing, including the details, because I do this Work with other people, and they have a tendency to repeat back a summary. Don't even repeat back a summary. Repeat back, like, every single thing, every little detail, because what will happen? The other person feels seen and heard, and they will relax, and their anger just significantly goes down to the point that it's visible to you. You're gonna be like, oh, like, wow, I reduced anger in the room. Because in this world, everyone just wants to be acknowledged. They just want to be heard. And so, you know, it doesn't matter if you say something about me and I don't feel like it's true. If I at least acknowledge that you felt this way, that I did something against you or I was rude or what have you, even if I don't admit it, you will feel like I admitted it. I don't even have to say, oh, I agree with you, because I don't. Or, yes, that's true, because I don't think it's true. If I just say, this is what you feel about me. You feel like I did this horrible thing to you, or you feel like I was being a mean person and you're like, yeah, that's how I feel. I'm like, okay. And all of a sudden, like, that anger will be gone. It will dissipate, and then we open the door to a new conversation. What can we do about that? Right? And so I think that's, like, the number one tip is to acknowledge. And what happens right now is someone will come at me. Let's say you say something about me, and I'm going to just immediately go into defense mode. And people think, oh, we're talking, but there actually is no communication going on. And sometimes this could go on for, like, hours. And you think you're being very articulate, and everyone thinks they're hearing each other, but actually, everyone just wants acknowledgement. So even if you're totally in the wrong, it doesn't matter. Just acknowledge it, and then you can go on from there. It's like this magic pill, and I want to give everyone this little pill to say, just take the pill and go around and acknowledge everyone all day long. And you will suddenly find that you have a lot less confidence, conflict in your life and even with your children. Yeah, right. And the other thing, too, and this happened earlier, this happened yesterday, is to. If you. If you feel like, you know, obviously you knowing how to actively listen, we all want to practice active listening. However, sometimes the other person is the person who is not actively listening. Right? And so here's a really good Trick, ask them to repeat back what it is that they heard, because nine times out of 10, they did not process everything or anything that you said. And there's a little echo chamber sitting somewhere inside their brain where your words are still bouncing around but have not yet been processed. And so then when they repeat that back to you, they actually process it, right? And so this happened yesterday. So I have a 17 year old and a 14 year old boy who are at home while I'm here, they're in California. My 14 year old spilled a bunch of rice, cooked rice on the floor, and he cleaned it up three times. So he felt like, I did my job, I cleaned it up three times. So my older son said, there's still rice on the floor. You need to clean it up again, do it again. And so then there was a fight, right? My older son was like, I'm not doing his job. This is his job. He spilled the rice. He should be responsible. And the younger son said, I did my job, I did it three times. Why do I need to listen to you so wisely? Instead of getting to a physical fight, which they have done in the past, my older son called me and said, mom, like, he's not cleaning the rice. And so I explained to him, I said, first of all, please listen. So I took a moment, I said, listen, and I let there be silence. And I was hoping, Kwame, that by giving him that silence, he would actually hear me. But I don't think it worked. But here's what I said. I said, I understand there's still rice on the floor, and I understand that your brother does not want to clean it up. But here's the thing. He's three years younger than you, so he's going to do a job three years worse than you. And he said, oh, but I did the same thing when I was his age and I cleaned it up. And he had all these arguments. And so I tried to convince him and I said, but you're not hearing me. You're not hearing me. Yes, I am. Yes, I am. So I said to him, suddenly I was like, okay, I need some tools here. So I went into my negotiation toolbox and I said, what exactly did you hear? And he said, well, I heard you say that I had to clean it up after him and that you want me to do it. And like, you know, he was struggling to figure out what I had said because he wasn't really listening. And then he paused. And then I think for the first time, he. In the echo chamber, there was some Additional words. And he went into the echo chamber and came back out and said, and then you said something about, I'm three years older than him, so I'm going to be better at him at cleaning it up. And I could tell that as he was saying those words, it was the first time he processed it because suddenly his attitude changed. And I said, do you think instead of just saying do it again, can you just help him and say, here's some rice here, here's some rice there. And point out the places where you see it, where he clearly can't see it because he's 14. Right. It's not like he's blind. He just can't see it. Right. And so he said, okay, fine, I can do that. And I asked the younger son, if your older brother points out and doesn't just say, overall, just redo the job, but can you just pick up here, here, here and here, can you follow those instructions? And he said, yes. And we got the job done. Mom for the win.

Yes. That is awesome. This is great. And so let's do a little breakdown here. So let's just break this down in terms of like negotiation parlance, right? So we have positional bargaining versus interest based bargaining where your sons were using positional bargaining. This is my position. Clean up the rice. This is my position. No, I'm not going to clean up the rice versus interest based. How can I figure out what it is that you want and why? And then figuring out how we can do move forward, focusing on the future. And then your older son says, I'm tired of positional bargaining. It's not working. I'm using my batna. Best alternative to a negotiated solution, calling mom and she's going to make you do it. Right. And so then you just demonstrated how he should have gone about doing it. So it was a negotiation lesson. You used your negotiation skills while at the same time teaching him how to negotiate more effectively. And really with everything that you just said, you talked about the two main keys to the conversation, which is reciprocal listening. Really you listening and then them listening. But sometimes we're not always, we're not in control of their ability to listen. But a really simple, non combative way to get somebody to listen isn't in saying you're not listening, because the answer to that is, yes, I am. Right now we're having a silly conversation. But if you ask them to prove it and then they can't, then it triggers a little bit of humility and then they listen. But I want to go back to what you said about the. I think the first three rules and difficult conversations, don't defend, don't defend, don't defend. Which is exactly the opposite of what people want to do. And I think it might be really hard to not understand, but hard to accept because emotionally we want the other person to not only see us as right, but also at the same time see themselves as wrong and bend to our intellectual and moral superiority. Right. And so. So we have to be able to let go of that. And I think it's really hard for people to realize that we can resolve conflict and move forward in our relationships even if we don't agree with everything that's being said. And it takes a lot of restraint to just sit there and acknowledge without agreeing. So let's go deeper and let's talk about why doing that is so hard.

So, okay, so the question was why you shouldn't defend.

Right? And why it's so hard.

Why it's so hard? It's so hard because I think we live in a society where that is what we learn. You grew up in a house, you see your parents. That's just the way we are as a culture, is that we need to defend ourselves. Right. I don't know if there are other cultures that don't do that, but I know that in this culture that is sort of the norm. So then when you do that for the first two decades of your life, it's difficult to rewind and undo that. Right. And so it takes a lot of mindfulness to be able to be like, okay, don't defend. Right? But what's amazing is that people will come to me for coaching and we really role play the thing that brought them there, the conflict. And I will tell them, don't defend, don't defend, don't defend. And you know what is magical about that is they actually see each other. If you don't defend because there's actual communication that happens. And so what happens is by not defending, you keep the amygdala from getting triggered. Right. Even if yours might be getting triggered. If you try really hard to stay focused on the conversation, that logical side is going to override the emotional part. So even initially you might be like, I want to defend myself because this is so messed up. But if you really try hard to, like, mirror back what the other person is saying, acknowledge what they are saying, it is going to, like, decrease your emotional state. And then the conversation that happens after that is where you are going to be seen. It takes a little bit of time and I think what happens is that people think that defending is going to take the shortest amount of time to be seen, when in fact, unfortunately it ends up taking a very long time because it devolves into this argument. I know you've been there, Kwame, by that laugh. And what they don't realize is that by not defending, let's say this happened yesterday, I was coaching someone and they said, well, I would want to defend because it takes too long to acknowledge. And I said, but think about it. You had a fight for a week because you defended and had you done this 20 minute longer thing because, you know, initially I think the defense, he thought, oh, the defense will take five minutes. And it ended up into a one week long conflict. Whereas if you say, if you say, okay, I'm just going to work this, I'm going to acknowledge it's going to take 20 minutes. But guess what? Even though 20 minutes is longer than what you presume was going to be a five minute conversation, that five minute conversation when you defend actually turns into like a one hour kind of conversation. So ultimately, the quote unquote longer conversation is actually shorter because you actually see each other and hear each other's perspective. When you're not defending, when you defend, you're thinking, this is gonna take me five minutes, I'm just gonna defend myself. And two hours later, you're still in the argument. So it's about like your perception of how things are gonna go forward in the future. So people never think like, oh, I'm gonna spend the next two hours fighting or arguing with my spouse, right? They don't think that. They just think, I'm gonna spend five minutes, I'm gonna defend myself and it's gonna be over. That's where everyone thinks. But like, in reality, it is a different story. So if you can just all just accept, okay, that's the reality. I'm going to now go forward and try not to defend. I'm going to just take the longer route. You will find your life to be far fewer conflicts. You're gonna be like, wow, I hardly ever fight because I'm going around just, just acknowledging someone else's perspective about me. Because then they will say, yes, that's exactly how I feel. And now that that person feels heard, now you can defend in a way that they can hear you.

Yes, exactly. You know what? This reminds me of two things. One is jokey. The other one is serious. It reminds me of planks. You know that exercise planks. My trainer had me doing planks for 30 seconds. 30 seconds felt like an eternity. Because it hurts, right? And so the perspective issue that you were talking about, the perception, is that it will take too long. It's not that it'll take too long in actuality, it's that it will be very, very painful while you do it. And I think that's something that, at least for me, maybe I'm a messed up person, Alice, but when I am listening really, really effectively and acknowledging and validating people in a conversation, that is a conflict that I'm turning into an opportunity to connect and solve problems. If I'm doing those things effectively, it registers through my body like a physical pain. And I remember specifically the conversation that made me realize this fully was just like a year and a half ago with my mom. And so having parents is great. That's great. Love my parents. Foreign parents, that's great too. But they could be very opinionated sometimes. And as a parent, I don't know what it is, but getting criticism from a parent, from your own parent about parenting is the most insane thing in the world. And so I remember this one conversation. Mom was. She disagreed with a parenting decision that I made. Kai was acting up in school a little bit. And so for me, I said, said, okay, so you don't like going to school? Because he kept on saying he doesn't like school. And he was kind of like, stand being standoffish. And he's like, yeah, I don't like school. I said, okay, cool. Well, you know what the opposite of school is? The opposite of school isn't home and play. The opposite of school is work. So you can come to work with me. This is what you're gonna do today. Okay? Welcome to the real world, bro. And mom thought it was a bad idea because she thought that it was, you know, putting into his mind that school was bad. And so my thought process, which ended up being correct, was that he would do. He would be at work with me for about two hours and tap out because I said, all right, Kai, I just did this presentation. It was in front of about 200 people about conflict resolution. And essentially they weren't being nice to their friends. So I want you to write a note to them saying, I want you remember to be nice to your friends. And sign it Kai. I still have these, by the way. And he was like five at the time, so it took him like 10 minutes to write one of them. And I was like 190 nights ago.

So he was.

He was begging to go back to school at the end, but mom heard about it. She wasn't happy. So I remember I was sitting in the car. I was in my garage, and I said, kwame, what would you tell yourself to do in this conversation? What would you tell somebody like, you are coaching, right? Sit there, listen, acknowledge and validate emotions, nothing else. 16 straight minutes. I remember vividly, Alice, 15 straight. 16. 16 straight minutes of just listening, summarizing perfectly, and then asking, what else? Just kept on going, kept on going. And then I asked. There was some silence, and I was like, is there anything else you would like to say? And she said, no. And then I said, okay. And then some more silence passed. And she's like, are you okay? I said, yes, I'm fine. I just wanted to listen. I just wanted to make sure that I understood you completely before I said anything. And would you be interested to hear what I think now? And she's like, yes. And before, she wasn't listening to me. But then when I let her go first and I acknowledged, then she was able to listen. And so I spoke for, like, 90 seconds. And you know what she said? She's like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. I agree. Right. But otherwise, we would have just been arguing to this day. Right. And so, again, the perception is that the 16 minutes, it is a long time, but it's not as long as, like, hours of conflict. And I think really what we have to do is recognize that when we are feeling that way, that pain registering through the body where you want to jump in and defend yourself, sometimes we feel that, and we listen to our emotions and say, this is a truth.

Truth.

There's a difference between thoughts and feelings and truths.

Right?

And so even though I feel this doesn't mean that it's true. And so I have to recognize that a lot of times that pain or discomfort that I'm feeling isn't a sign that I'm doing the wrong thing. Sometimes it's a sign that you're using the right strategies and skills. But it's just hard to do.

It is hard to do. Nobody wants to just sit there, not defend. But you will have a lot shorter of a conversation if you don't do it, if you don't defend. And you'll get to a resolution, and it'll be a resolution that you feel feels good to you. Right. Like, your mom was like, okay, great. Right. But then my question to you is, why was your son not wanting to go to school? Did you ask him?

Yeah. So one of the things that he struggled with at that time, and I realize I struggle with it too, is transitions. So if he's playing, he's really in the. In the mood of playing. And then when it's time to wrap up and transition into something else, whatever it happens to be, he gets really, really frustrated because he likes to play. So those transitions were tough. And I think about it, for me, I love to work. And then Kai comes home from school and, like, work is done, and I'm like, oh, my God. So that was his job.

But that's, like, really good information, right? Because as a parent, then you're like, oh, gotta build in transition time.

Exactly.

Right. So I think that it's a really good. I always think that it's a really great parenting when you're, like, you use your compassionate curiosity with. With the kids.

Exactly.

Which a lot. I don't feel like a lot of enough parents do. I feel like they need to say, like, what's going on? Why? And just keep digging deeper and chipping away at it till you can understand it and then you can resolve for it. Because I feel like there are very few things that you cannot resolve with your children if you approach it with your compassionate curiosity to find out what's really going on.

Yeah, agreed, agreed. And again, for me, it helps me to practice because the conversations that we have with our loved ones are the toughest ones, because I always say to myself, yeah, the business conversations, those are easy compared to the fact that I have to come home to my wife every day. And if we're having a conflict, that's just tough. But if it's at work, I'm like, yeah, peace out. Don't need to deal with you. And then I can go out my life. So, yeah, it's good practice. Alice, this was great. I appreciate you coming in and doing this.

I appreciate you hosting me at your home studio. This is beautiful.

Thank you. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. This was fun. And so we'll do more of these and.

Great. Because, you know, I'm usually here once or twice a year.

Nice. Yeah, we'll make that happen. And I think this is a good beta test for other, like, in person interviews too. So we'll see if we can make.

That happen next time. We should talk about negotiating with your kids.

We should, we should.

Because everyone has kids, right? I mean, most people have children. And I feel like even the best negotiators fail with their children 100. The other thing, too, is I really want to change the paradigm of parents who feel like, no, I don't negotiate with my kids because I'm the parent. I want to change that paradigm because I'm like, you need to teach your children to negotiate by negotiating with them. So it's not about like you losing power as a parent, but it's about teaching them with every negotiation that you do, it's a lesson for them, them, so that as soon as they leave your house when they're an adult, they will beat out all the competition simply for the fact that they've been practicing for all those years.

Exactly. And I think also my Hypothesis, Kai's still 7, but my hypothesis is that similar to a difficult conversation, it'll be tough and require investment up front. It would be easier to just use my leverage over him to force him to do things. But if I can get him to, to make the right decision by having the difficult conversation, then he is going to be more autonomous and able to make the right decision.

Right.

And so I, my mom hates when I say this, but I say it all the time. It is true. I'm parenting towards obsolescence. I want to become, you know, I'll be that voice I'm always going to be around, but I don't want to be absolutely necessary for survival like that. I feel like that's one of my goals as a parent, to help Kai to be self sufficient and being able to make good decisions as part of that too.

Yes, definitely. I parent in the same way. And I, but I'm a little bit of a ninja in that because I had my son, I wanted him to apply to like a boarding school. And he had zero interest, right? Zero interest. So I was like, okay, Alice, let's do this. So I was like, okay, how about this? How about I tell you that regardless of the outcome, you don't have to go. You make the final choice. If they accept you, great, you can decide whether you want to go or not. Let's just call this an exercise in practicing to apply for colleges. I said, you're going to have to like do an actual interview with someone. You have to write essays. I said, but this is just like practice for college, so it's invaluable. And suddenly there was value for him. So then he was like, okay, I'll do it. Because that was just enough of a hook. And then the other thing that you have to know about psychology, and this happens in mediation and negotiation as well, the more time that someone invests in something, the more invested they are in the thing, right? And so the more time he invested in interviewing face to face, writing those essays, he suddenly wanted to actually go there without any prompting from me at all. So then he went through the whole thing. The ending is not so great because he didn't get accepted. But for me, the win is that without a fight, I got a child who did not want to go to boarding school to go through the entire application process and want to go to that school.

Oh, that. So that. I mean, yes. Next time we talk, it's going to have to be on that. Because there's so many things we have, like sunk cost fallacy. We have the endowment principle. Once somebody feels as though they own something, they value it more. We have escalating commitments. All of this stuff, all of this is good.

I know that'll be a bookmark for next.

Yes. So that's a teaser listener, so make sure to check that out. But Alice, appreciate it. This is awesome.

Thank you. Awesome.

Congratulations. You've just joined an elite club by listening to a full episode. You're now officially on the Negotiate Anything team. So welcome aboard. What most team members do is they subscribe. Subscribe to the podcast because that allows them to automatically get the latest episodes of the show. The best things in life lie on the other side of difficult conversations. Keep learning, keep practicing, and keep getting better. Your relationships will improve, your career will soar, and you'll have the confidence you need to get the most out of these crucial conversations. Again, thank you for joining the team. We're excited to have you, and I will see you in the next episode. I'll catch you later.