How To Overcome The Fear Of Difficult Conversations - Linkedin Live with Kwame Christian, Esq., M.A.

Hey, everyone. Now that we're part of the LinkedIn Podcast Network, we're going to do more LinkedIn Live events that will show up on the Negotiate Anything podcast. So what this means is that you have the opportunity to actually be part of some of these episodes. So if you haven't done it yet, make sure you follow me on LinkedIn so you can stay up to date on when these events are happening. And now, without further ado, let's jump into this LinkedIn live. Hello, everybody. Welcome to our live. And I guess since this is going to be put on the Negotiate Anything podcast. Welcome to Negotiate Anything Live. And so I'm live. Okay, great. Awesome, awesome, awesome. We're live. Michael, good to see you, my friend. Usually I see you in the comments, so it's nice to see you here live. Casey, always good to see you. This is awesome. We're live. We're live. So where are y' all coming from? We got Carlos from Cali, Columbus. Awesome. Hometown. That's where I am, too. Atlanta. Great. We love your interviewers regarding negotiation. Very helpful. Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Good. It is live from South Africa. Jason, my friend. Good to see you. Good to see you. From Australia. This is great. So we are worldwide joining from New York City. Hey, I can't see who this is on my chat, but FYI, I'll be in New York. Oh, Kim's from New York, too. Great. I'll be in New York in August. We'll host an open session. So that'll be good. Sergio from Italy. Kyle Strickland. Look at, look at this. This is great. We got a friendly audience today. This is great. Awesome. So let's. Let's actually do this. Let's ask some more questions. When you think about the. The topic of this presentation, what are some things you want to make sure that we. We cover? What is your hope to learn today? Alex, Good to see you, my friend. Netherlands, by the way, it's not confirmed yet, Alex, but I might be coming to Amsterdam, a birthday trip in September, so don't let me forget to reach out to you. I don't know if it's confirmed yet. I still need to get Whitney's blessing, so. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Cool. Okay, so, yes, all of you, let me know what you want to get out of this, this, this live, this Negotiate Anything live session. What are some of your goals? Then after we get some of the goals rolling in the chat, then we'll start. And so I'll tell you a bit of the. I'll Tell you a bit of this format here. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about my story and how I came to negotiation and how I overcome, overcame people pleasing too. And then I'm going to give you three tips. Three tips that can help you to overcome people pleasing and a fear of difficult conversations. And then we're just going to open it up. I want to hear from you and we'll ask questions. So ask all the questions that come up as this presentation goes on. And Simone, our producer in the back end, he's going to be picking out questions. And if you see another question that you like, make sure you like that question because questions with the most likes are going to get Simone's attention and then we're going to queue those up. Cool. All right, Michael Brown, how to overcome defensiveness from the receiver. Yes. That is big. Damon. Keeping the conversational conversation cordial. That's really tough. That's really tough. Good. Michael, please cover how to have a firm stance without being room rude. That's so hard. Right. Because we want to be able to hold our ground. We want to be assertive, but we don't want that assertiveness to be perceived negatively too. And so we can talk about the difference between being assertive and being aggressive. So that's really good. Removing the emotions. Yes. So Michael, to that point, let's actually talk about that one right now. Impossible to remove the emotions without maybe a lobotomy. So we can't do that. But we can talk about how to manage the emotions effectively and make sure that they don't become too much of a hindrance to our success in these conversations. Awesome. Cool. Well, this is great. Let's start. So let's start off with this story, my personal story. So for me, I grew up in a small town called Tiffin, Ohio. And if you don't know where Tiffin, Ohio is, don't worry, most people don't. It is a very, very small town. My family's from the Caribbean, so I'm a first generation Caribbean American. And for me growing up, let me first off and say, start and say this. The majority of my experiences in Tiffin were great. Still have a ton of great friends from Tiffin. But this doesn't change the fact that when you are a, an immigrant coming into a city and you're the only person who looks the way that you do, it does make it hard to fit in. And so I remember there was this one time in first grade on the playground where I was going to different groups of Friends asking to play with them, and they would say no. So I went with one group and I said, hey, can I play with you? And they said no. I went to another group of friends, hey, can I play with you? They said no. Then I went to another group of friends. Same thing happened. And then the bell rang, recess was over. I was devastated. But I tried to keep it together. I tried to put on a strong face. But then when I got into school and I talked to my teacher, I just busted up crying. And she said, what happened? And I said, nobody would play with me. And so I think back to that time because I remember saying very, very clearly in first grade, I was six at the time. I was like, I will never allow myself to feel this way again. Never again. And so I decided, listen, no matter what I'm going to do, I'm going to make sure that I have friends. I'm going to make sure that people like me. So at the end of middle school, through high school, I became really popular, had a ton of friends, and from the outside looking in, it would. You would say, oh, that's a success. You overcame that barrier. But that success came with a really, really heavy cost. And that was people pleasing. Because for me, when I ran into these difficult situations or opportunities to have difficult conversations, I would always shy away from it. I would always avoid the conversation because I said, I worked too hard to get these friends, and I am not going to allow myself to risk losing the friends that I worked so hard to get. And so then as I got into adulthood, it became really problematic because I really struggled to stand up for myself and have these difficult conversations until I got to law school. And so I was choosing my classes for law school, second year of law school, and there was one class that just fit perfectly into my schedule, and that class was negotiation. And so I was like, okay, cool, I'll take this negotiation class. Let's see what it is. And I fell in love because it was the very first time that I realized that the ability to stand up for yourself and to be assertive was a skill, not a talent. It was the first time I realized that I could learn this and get better. So I got hooked on it. Because every time that I was able to do these mock negotiations in class, it was an opportunity to put a vote in confidence for the man I ultimately wanted to be, somebody who could actually stand up for himself and advocate on behalf of others. And so we had these negotiation competitions at the law school, and my partner and I, we won the law School negotiation competition after just one week of class. And again, I want to be clear, this isn't because I had some natural talent in negotiation. It was because I was obsessed and I would take the time to prepare, and I wanted to learn and get better. So we won the negotiation competition at our law school, and that gave us an opportunity to represent the school at the regional competition in, in Ottawa, Ontario. And so that we won that competition as well. So it was the American Bar association competition, and people from all over were. Were there for that competition, and we won it. And so I said, okay, there's something here. And for me, again, I loved having those conversations. Not because it was necessarily emotionally easy for me to do, but because I got so much confidence from actually taking the time to stand up for myself. And so for me, even though I loved negotiating and even though I loved resolving confident conflicts on behalf of other people, the thing that I wanted to do was help other people to overcome their fears in the same way. Because I said to myself, if, if I'm having this problem, then other people are probably having this. This problem too. And so that's why I've started the American Negotiation Institute. And our motto is, we believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. So for us, we want to help you to improve your life one difficult conversation at a time. So here in this live, what we're going to do is I'm going to give you three quick tips, and then I'm going to open it up, want you to ask any question, please. The harder the question, the better. Okay, feel free to ask me anything, and we'll go, we'll see maybe 2, 32, 45, something like that, and we'll see where we go. Okay, so here is tip number one, and it's all about mindset. Here's what we have to recognize about mindset. A lot of times we focus specifically on the skills. So if we're afraid of having difficult conversations, we have anxiety or fear. During these conversations. We say to ourselves, okay, I need to get better. I need to practice these skills. And here's the thing about negotiation skills. I probably shouldn't be saying this running a consulting firm for negotiation, but it's not hard to find these skills. If you Google how to negotiate, you'll find something. You know, there, there are a couple good podcasts out there on how to negotiate, shout out to negotiate, anything, but that's usually not the issue. A lot of times, the fundamental issue is a mindset issue in the negotiation space. For many years, we've been giving recipes to people who are afraid to get in the kitchen. We need to figure out how to build that confidence. And that's why my first book was all about that, finding confidence in conflict. And so proper behaviors will flow organically from the proper mindset. So if you start to think a little bit differently about these conversations, that by itself will start to change the way that you interact during these conversations. So let's talk a little bit about mindset here. I remember stumbling upon this TED Talk, incredible TED Talk called 100 Days of Rejection. If somebody could find it and put it in the comments, that would be awesome. Great TED talk. And it was this guy who recognized one of the things that was holding him back in the business world was his fear of rejection in difficult conversations. And so he said, my goal is to be to try to get rejections for 100 straight days. So he would ask for something in the hope of being rejected. And what he found was that he was getting a lot more yeses than he anticipated. And he started to have to ask for bigger and better and more ridiculous things. And he just kept getting yeses. And so I gained a lot of confidence from that. And so my mentality now when it comes to difficult conversations is that everything is practiced. Does your company invest in professional development training? If you believe that your team would benefit from a negotiation workshop, all you need to do is go to our website, fill out the workshop request form, and then we'll set up a time to chat. These workshops are completely, completely customizable, and we've done them all around the country. Negotiation and conflict resolution skills are beneficial across all professions, but they're especially useful in procurement, purchasing, sales, sourcing, and contract management. Our calendar is filling up quickly, and we even have some workshops scheduled for next year. If you think you might want one. I'd suggest reaching out soon so you don't miss out. Check out the link in the description to learn more and we will be right back after this. Everything is practice. Think about your life. Think about the conversations you were having 10 years ago. Most likely, if you're developing in your career, the stakes are going to get higher as your career develops. And so every conversation that you have today is practice for the conversation you're going to have tomorrow. And so the only responsibility you have in these difficult conversations is, is to do the very best you can. That's it. Because the thing is, there's no such thing as a perfect conversation. There's no such thing as a perfect relationship. And there's no way, no matter how good you are, to guarantee a specific outcome. But what you can do is focus on the things that are within your control. So what are the things that are within your control? So you can. You can control the things that you say, you can control the things that you don't say. And when you think about also the fear of difficult conversation, it also leads us to avoid a lot of conversations you can control. Whether or not you have those conversations. That is a big thing. And so just starting to recognize that every single conversation is an opportunity to practice will change the way that you go into these conversations. Because you say, listen, my only goal here is to do the best that I can, number one, and learn from my mistakes. So start to think about yourself like your own coach. So after every single conversation, ask yourself, what did I do well, then try to replicate that. Then ask yourself, what did I do poorly? And then your only goal is to try not to make the same mistake twice. And by doing this every single time you have a difficult conversation, you are incrementally increasing your skillset and your performance for next time. So that's one mindset trick that you can use to improve your ability in these conversations. Next, reinterpreting your feelings. Now, again, probably sounds weird, but I used to have a just really debilitating stage fright, terrified of public speaking. Kwame, aren't you a public speaker? Yes, I am. And what I'm finding is that really the best parts of myself didn't come naturally or easy to me. I had to work through this. So difficult conversations, negotiation, public speaking, this was all learned and built. Built over time. And so one of the things that I learned, my degree is in psychology. And so when you're helping people to get over their phobias, one of the things that they talk about is the concept called cognitive reappraisal. And so that's a big term. Let's simplify this. So imagine you are walking through the woods and you hear something scary behind you. What's your heart? What is your body going to do? You might start to perspire. Your breathing becomes more rapid, right? Your. Your heart rate starts to increase. Those type of things. That's a fear response. But imagine you are a little kid in high school with a crush, and then you see the. The person you have a crush on. What happens? You might start to perspire. Your heart rate elevates, struggle to find your words, whatever, right? But that's more infatuation. But then you have the same exact fear response. When it comes to fear. And you have to recognize that the body is kind of limited in what it can feel and how it feels it. And when we. When our body responds in a certain way, we, in our mind, we have to interpret what that feeling is. And so after we feel it, we give a name to it. So with cognitive reappraisal, what you're doing is you're trying to retrain your brain to think differently about what it is that you're feeling. So for me, with public speaking, I still feel the exact same way as I did when I was afraid of the. Of speaking in front of people. My heart rate still elevates a little bit of perspiration. My breathing becomes more shallow. But instead of saying, oh, my gosh, I'm afraid, I'm terrified, now, I'm saying, no, this is my body gearing up for something that's really important. I'm excited to have this opportunity. This is something that's really meaningful to me. So now, how do we take that same psychology and put it into difficult conversations? Our fears and anxiety and the stress that we feel? Usually what we do is we say, that is a bad feeling. I want to stop feeling it. And so we avoid the thing that is causing it. And a lot of times, that's the difficult conversation. But what we need to recognize is that sometimes these negative feelings have a very strong and real value that can be positive, because stress, anxiety, fear, those also are signals of something that's important. And so instead of thinking, I'm afraid I shouldn't have this conversation, you should feel that my heart rate's elevating. I'm feeling like I want to run from this conversation. You should say, hmm, there's something about this person, there's something about this situation that matters a lot to me. This is something that I care about. And now I have an opportunity to have this conversation. So you're letting that fear guide you in the right direction. Yeah. This is an opportunity. This matters. I care about this. So you're retraining your brain to think about this as something that you should move toward, rather than something that you should avoid. Similarly, again, if you're afraid of having this conversation, a simple trick that you can use is just trying to finish this sentence and go ahead and put this in the comments, too. Try to see how many examples we can get. This conversation is an opportunity. To what? Every difficult conversation presents itself with an opportunity. Your job is to figure out what that opportunity is. So as humans, just like any other animal, when we are presented with a situation, we are asking ourselves a very, very simple question. Should I approach or should I avoid? So if it's something very good and clearly and obviously good, then I'm going to approach that thing. I'm going to move in that direction. But if it's something that is scary, something that has a little bit of an element of risk, then I'm going to avoid that. And now with these difficult conversations, sometimes the risk is so clear that we focus on that and we say, that's exactly why I shouldn't have this conversation. I need to avoid this. But if we train ourselves to say this conversation is an opportunity to blank, now we're going to start to see those positive aspects of the conversation and it'll make it more likely for you to. To approach those things. So we have now I'm reading in the chat to learn to understand, to realign on expectations, right? This is great to practice. That's a really good one. To find my strong places to gain a new perspective. These are really great examples. Right. And so what we have to do is start to train ourselves to see the opportunity. And when we see the opportunity, we're going to move in the direction of that difficult conversation instead of avoiding it. Now, with the last point, we're going to talk about some really, really simple skills that you can use to have the conversation. One of the things that I've heard a lot is that the toughest part of the conversation is the, is the beginning of the conversation. How do I even start the conversation? What do I say? And so I have a really, really simple framework that you can use to start the conversation and probably should have brought a PowerPoint. So if you all could, like, just put this into the comments so people could see it and make it easy, this would be really helpful. So here's what you do. It's a very simple equation. Situation plus impact plus invitation equals engaged communication. Okay? Situation plus impact plus invitation equals engaged communication. So what you want to do is first you want to describe the situation using what I call naked facts. So these are facts that are stripped of all interpretation, all judgment, and all opinions. Next, we want to describe the impact of the situation and the impact it has on us. So the thing is, if I talk about the impact it has in general or on society, people can debate that. But if I talk about the impact it has on me, it's personal to me, so it makes it harder for the person to debate that. And then lastly, invitation. But we want to invite them with a positive outlook. Too. But again, when we're inviting people, we're not giving them the opportunity, yes or no. To have the conversation. It's now or later. When's a good time for you? Okay. And so a lot of times when we're introducing these conversations, we introduce it in a way that invites unnecessary resistance at the beginning of the conversation. All we're trying to do is, number one, start the conversation, and number two, start the conversation with a little bit of positive momentum. A lot of times we start the conversation at the point of disagreement. So we say, hey, you, I'm mad at you because of this and this and this, and you're wrong because of that reason. Wow. Defensiveness. Right. They. They are predictably going to respond with defensiveness in that situation. Okay, but now let's think about another situation. Let's say somebody said something that hurt your feelings, you felt offended, somebody said something inappropriate or something like that. How would you address that? So let me give an example of how you would use this framework to address that. So, hey, earlier today in the meeting, you said xyz. That's the situation. All right. And that made me feel uncomfortable. That's the impact. And we're going to be working together for the next few months on this project, and I've really enjoyed working with you, and I just want to make sure that we're on the same page and we can work well together going forward. Are you free for a conversation right now? Invitation. That's it. Really easy. How long did that take? What, 15, 20 seconds tops? And I think the, the. The more just simple and easy you make it, the less resistance you'll feel internally, emotionally, when you're starting the conversation, and the less resistance they will feel at the beginning of the conversation. Right. So again, we want to remove as many points of friction early on in the conversation so we can actually start. Once you get into the conversation, it becomes a little bit easier, but it's that tension at the beginning that is really tough. And a lot of times in these conversations, what's going to end up happening is that you might be the only person who recognizes that a conversation even needs to happen. And so really, we have to think about it in terms of it's our responsibility to step up and have the conversation when it matters. Okay. And then the last one, we'll go into this. I can give some examples of this, too. And I talk about it all the time, so I'm always mindful of. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but the framework that we introduced for our difficult conversations at the American Negotiation Institute is compassionate curiosity. It's a simple three part framework. Step one, acknowledge and validate emotions. Step two, get curious with compassion. And step three, joint problem solving. So it helps you to know what to say and when to say it for maximum impact. So if there are emotions on the other side, you acknowledge and validate the emotions by saying something like it sounds like it seems like, or I can tell that. So it sounds. It seems like this has had a significant impact on you. Or I can tell that this is something that you care a lot about. You care a lot about. Or I can tell, or I can see that this has been really frustrating to you. Something like that, Right. And so what you do, that's the acknowledgment portion. But then you validate it by listening and then repeating back your understanding. An important point here is that at this point, it's likely that they'll say things that you disagree with. Now is not the time to contend those points. You'll get your time, but now's not the time because right now the only thing we're doing is trying to lower the emotional temperature of the room by acknowledging and validating the emotions, giving them an opportunity to express themselves. And this process helps them to calm down. I'm not going to go into the neuroscience unless somebody asks me a specific question about it. But just know that it works. And if you want to learn more about it, check out affect labeling, a ff, ECT labeling. And then you can see the science behind how this works. To quiet the amygdala in the, in the limbic system. Next step, get curious with compassion. After we lower the emotional temperature, we're going to ask open ended questions with a compassionate tone. And then last step is joint problem solving. So this is just collaborative problem solving that we're familiar with. Just standard in negotiation. Now when we're talking about those questions with a compassionate tone and your tone in general, we have to remember something really important. We don't know exactly how we sound. It's funny being a podcaster. One of the things that I hear a lot after somebody does an episode, they say, yeah, I've gotten really great feedback on the episode. I think the content was really good, but I don't like my voice and, and it's very. It's so consistent. I went through that the first year of podcasting, editing my own podcast. I was like, ugh, why do people listen to me? This is gross. Do I breathe like that all the time? All the Time. Right. We don't know what we sound like. And so we have to recognize that sometimes when it comes to our tone and how we sound, we are not the best judge of that. And so one thing you can do to start to get an idea of how you're sounding to other people, and this works well with colleagues and, like, family and friends, probably not so well in a transactional business negotiation or a legal negotiation. But for people who are close to you, something that you can do after your conversations is ask them this very simple question. How did I make you feel during that conversation? Not what did you think of my performance? Or something like that. No, how did I make you feel? Because a lot of times you'll be surprised at the response that you get, like, oh, you know, he sounded a little bit snarky. Oh, snarky. Oh, you sounded really aggressive. Aggressive. I did not realize that. Right. And so take that feedback and start to try to moderate your tone. And so it's going to be different for different people. Maybe you get quiet. Who knows? Maybe it's the opposite. Right. But for me, I know that I have certain tells, so I know that I can get a little bit louder and I can start to talk fast. And so for me, my simple rule that I keep in mind for myself is low and slow. So when I'm trying to have a difficult conversation, I try to slow it down a little bit and I lower my voice because I don't want my passion or my enthusiasm to be misinterpreted as aggression. Right. So little simple tweaks like this. But again, sometimes that feedback, we can't give it to ourselves because we don't hear ourselves. Other people hear our voices reverberating through the air as sound waves. We hear our own voices through our skull. It reverberates through our jaw, in through our skull, and then into our hammer, anvil, and stirrup onto our tympanic membrane. It's a very different process. So we very literally sound different to other people than we do to ourselves. So other people are in a better position to make an assessment of how we sound. So pay attention to that. So, wow, welcome to my TED Talk, I guess. Well, this is twice as long as this TED Talk, so that went a little bit longer than I thought. Thought. But let's open it up to questions. I want to hear from you all. I can see that some. A lot of things were happening in the. In the chat, in the comments, so that's great. But, yeah, I want to hear from you all. Simone, can you put up some of the questions? Okay, Michael Cheney, please cover how to have a firm stance without being rude. So one of the things that we have to recognize is in our difficult conversations, it's always going to be our responsibility to protect ourselves, not somebody else's. It's going to be ours. And the way we do that is by being assertive. Now, the problem is sometimes it's difficult for people to be assertive without tipping into being aggressive. Okay. And that's where that rudeness comes in. So let's break this down. What are the differences between being assertive and being aggressive? So when you're being assertive, here's a great way to describe it. And this is from my friend Lucine Mehrabi. Make sure you follow her on LinkedIn. Her content is amazing. If you as can somebody tag her in the chat, I want to make sure that she gets a good shout out here. So one of the things that we need to do when it comes to assertiveness is understand what it is. And I got this definition from her. So assertiveness is the willingness to recognize that your voice has value and you have the right to say what you want to say and at the same time recognize that the other person has the same right. Now when you're being aggressive on the other side, you recognize that your voice has value and you have the right to say what you want to say, but the other person does not have that same right. So aggressiveness is just all about you. I think that's really important. Another thing that we can do, and this is from Michael Bungay Stainer. He was actually his interview was this week, but his episode is going to go live, I think June 19th. He has a really great framework coming out in his new book and essentially it's pre negotiating the relationship. So you're going to talk to the other person and say, whether it's a romantic partner, a business colleague, or somebody that you're negotiating with transactionally, you're going to have an early conversation saying, hey, how do we work well together? If we run into conflict, what's the best way for us to resolve conflict? How do you like to be addressed in those situations? What are some things that bother you or could maybe turn you off in those conversations, those type of things. And so what you start to do is you start to co create a roadmap for conflict resolution. So then when a conflict arises, and it inevitably will, you already have some kind of framework in place for this specific relationship as to how to address the conflict. And it helps to overcome a few of those biases that might exist. So let me. Let's just think about another, a very simple bias in group versus out group bias, my team versus your team. A lot of times in conflicts, it's really easy for us to see the other side as against us. And so what we have to do is beforehand, if we start to generate some positive momentum by having this conversation before the conflict happens, we can refer back to that conversation and say, hey, listen, like we said in, in that meeting a couple of weeks ago, we knew conflict was going to happen, and here it is. And that's okay. It's an opportunity for us to work out, work this out, and we can keep on referring back to that conversation to make sure that people still have the feeling of best intentions in mind. So those are a couple of things that we can do to make sure that we are still standing up for ourselves without seeming rude or aggressive. Cool. Awesome question. Thank you, Michael. Cool. Alex, good to hear from you. How do you reframe the possible negative outcome? That's a big one, right? So we have to recognize that we are not going to always get what we want. I think that's really important. And the other side has to recognize that too. It's never going to be a perfect, perfect outcome. And again, if we think about pre negotiating these types of things, we have to recognize that sometimes a decision ultimately will need to be made, and sometimes it's not the decision that we want to be made. And still we recognize that this is just a natural part of the relationship. It's not a signal of something bad happening in the relationship. And I think again, we have to think of ourselves almost as branding experts within our relationship, too. So before the thing happens, before the outcome happens, we want to say, hey, this might be the outcome. Sometimes you're going to be disappointed in the relationship. Sometimes I'm going to be disappointed in the relationship. I'm not perfect. I'm going to make mistakes. I'm sure you're not perfect either. You're going to make mistakes, but that's okay because I'm willing to work through it with you. And I think just addressing that up front is a really, really helpful and healthy way to reinterpret the outcome. Because a lot of times we, we get a negative outcome and we say to ourselves, see, this is an example of why this relationship should have never worked or will never work. And sometimes, sometimes that's legit, but sometimes we can be a little bit fatalistic about these Outcomes that don't go in our favor simply because we haven't had a chance to think proactively about it and recognize it's not always going to go my way. So I think just having that conversation early is going to be important. And then talking about the reality of the different outcomes, too, that's. That's really important. And I think also too, something I've. I've started doing in negotiations is, and this is a shout out to Jim Camp, the author of Start with no. Really great move he would do at the beginning of conversations, he would encourage them to say no to him. If he's making a request, say, hey, feel free to say no to this if it doesn't work for you. And the reason he would do that is because, number one, he would want the person to feel comfortable being truthful and honest. Because a lot of times people say yes when they really mean no, and that either leads them to make a decision that they regret or say yes in front of you, and then after the conversation, undermine the deal because they felt forced or whatever. And so also, if somebody says no to you in a conversation, you want to make sure that you are there for that, because if there are objections that you can overcome, you want to be able to overcome that. But if somebody gives you maybe or gives you a fake yes, then you kind of feel stuck. And so by giving somebody permission to say no, sometimes it can lead to better outcomes just because people are more willing to be forthright. So at the beginning of my negotiations, a lot of times what I say is, hey, listen, I'm looking forward to having this conversation with you to see if we can work something out. And sometimes in these situations, we might not be able to work something out. And that's okay. I'm not going to take it personally, but I want to make sure that whatever we come up with works for both of us and we can find a way forward. It might work, it might not, but I'm looking forward to having this conversation with you to see if it does. And so again, just before we even get into the con, the conflict or difficult conversation, we are framing that positively, whatever the outcome might be. Cool. Awesome question, Alex. Cool. What's the time to walk away from the conversation? So, first of all, we have to recognize that walking away from the conversation, it's an imprecise science. So let me try to give you a. Let me give you the standard negotiation strategic response to that question. In order to understand when to walk away from the conversation, we have to understand when we should stay in the conversation. So we walk away from the conversation if we're getting a bad deal. So we have to understand what is a good deal first in order to know when to walk away. So in a traditional transactional type of negotiation, here's a simple way to think about whether or not you're getting a good deal. So important terms to recognize Batna, best alternative to a negotiated agreement. So a good deal is going to be better than your batna. So think about it. If I'm negotiating with you and the negotiation is going okay, but I always, I always know I have a plan B. Whatever I come to, whatever agreement I come to at this negotiation table with you, it has to be at least better than plan B. Because if it's not, I'll just go with plan B. Right. So that's number one. So it has to be better than your batna. It has to serve your interests. It has to serve their interests too, because we don't, I don't want to bully somebody into a bad deal because if they end up feeling like it's a bad deal, then this deal is not secure, they don't have true buy in. And then they're going to be trying to undermine the deal the whole way through and reclaim some of the value they thought was improperly taken from them. So I want to still make sure that it's a good deal for them and I want to make sure that the deal is at least acceptable to third parties. So other people who are agreeing to this, who are part of this, who might not be at the negotiation table, but might be affected by what happens at the negotiation table, I want to make sure that the deal is at least good enough for them that they don't jump in and make it worse. Right. Or try to destroy the deal. Right. So if we're negotiating and I'm recognizing it's not meeting those metrics and it's been an extended period of time, at some point I have to recognize we, we are not getting closer. And I think that is a. Something that's really important for us to recognize as the, if we're thinking about negotiation in terms of momentum, we can see both parties starting to inch closer together. But if you've been stuck for a very long time and it doesn't seem like anything's going to change, then I think the best thing to do is to walk away. Now it becomes more imprecise when it comes to interpersonal relationships. Family, friends, romantic partners, those type of. Because now we're dealing with A lot of intangibles. How do I feel in this relationship? Do I feel respected? Does. Does it feel like there is parody in this relationship, some mutuality, those type of things? And we have to follow the. Our feelings in a lot of these situations. If you're not feeling good, if you're not feeling respected and you're not, you haven't been feeling that way in a long period of time, then the most, sometimes the most humane thing you can do is back out, right? And again, I can't say what it is for different people, but I think what is important to know is that not all deals are meant to be made. The way I look at negotiation is not. Negotiation is the art of deal making. For me, negotiation is the art of deal discovery. I'm coming here, having this conversation, seeing whether or not there's a deal to be made, is there a relationship to be had, those type of things? If yes, great. If not, that's fine. But I want to have some kind of idea in my head that tells me, hey, it might be time to peace out. And something else that can help, especially when it is something that you care strongly about, is have somebody who is not connected to the deal offer you advice. Just as a sounding board, just say, hey, this is how I'm feeling about the negotiation. This is the situation. What do you think? This is how I'm feeling about the relationship. I. What do you think? Because they can look at it without the cloud of emotions and they can let you know whether or not you're on the right track. So I think inviting third parties in, in terms of, like, for counsel can be really beneficial when you're determining whether or not to walk away. Great question. Cool. How do you react to a passive aggressive tone? Awesome question. Let's. Simone, if you could drop into the comments the episode from where we're going back, like four years. Beth Bulow how to deal with passive aggressiveness. I think that episode's really, really helpful. So essentially, when you're dealing with passive aggressiveness, what we're doing, what the person who is being passive aggressive is doing, is they're trying to say something with the guise of plausible deniability. So somebody has a sarcastic kind of tone or they say something under their breath and then you said, hey, is there a problem? And they're like, oh, no, no, no, no. No problem at all. No problem at all. Recognize that a lot of times passive aggressive behavior comes from the fact that somebody wants to say something, but they don't feel comfortable having the difficult conversation. And they think that they can just kind of chip away through innuendo with the hope that you'll catch on and give them what they want and understand what it is they're saying. And so the way that you address this is by bringing that hidden conversation and that hidden agenda to the forefront, simply using the compassion and curiosity framework. Right. So, hey, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you're not fully on board with this plan. Can you tell me a bit more about that or something? If I don't know exactly what somebody is feeling, I'll say, hey, let's pause the conversation for a little bit. What am I sensing? I feel like there's something you might want to say. And I want to give you space to say that because you're somebody that I care about and I want to hear from you. Okay. And so you want, what you want to do as much as possible is you want to bring what is unsaid directly to the surface so we can actually have a conversation about it. Because it's frustrating for them because they, they have some kind of unmet need, but they don't feel comfortable enough to actually bring it up and say something about it. And so they just keep on chipping away and they're like, wow, why can't Kwame understand me? Because you're not telling me anything, so I can't understand. So I'm getting frustrated too. And it just perpetuates the conflict and creates more dam in the relationship. So the best way to deal with passive aggressive behavior is by addressing it directly. Just using the same framework, situation, impact, invitation, and then flowing through the conversation with compassionate curiosity. Cool. What other questions we have? We have about five minutes left. What is your self talk like right now before I step into the room? Yeah, the self talk, it depends on the circumstances. You know, here's the thing. How. How long does it take a lawyer to say it depends in the conversation? Here we go. I made it 41 minutes, so kudos to me. So how. What is the self talk like? Depends on the situation. So for me, if, let's say back when I was mediating, mediating was so much fun because I got to be in the middle of conflicts. But the beautiful thing was I didn't own the conflicts. So it was really in the hands of the party whether or not they decided whether or not there was going to be an agreement. And at the end of the day, my goal was to just facilitate communication. I wasn't pushing people in any direction. So for Me, I'm just saying, hey, before this conversation, I'm just going to focus on the parties, focus on their needs, and just try to help them get closer to a deeper understanding. That was, number one. Just help people understand each other. So that was easy with the mediation. Now, one of my favorite questions to ask on the Negotiate Anything podcast. All of these brilliant negotiation experts we have on is, hey, okay, thank you for these tips in these workplace negotiations or transactional business negotiations. Out of curiosity, how does it work for you at home? How are you with your family, with your friends? They're like, oh, my gosh, I'm terrible. It's like I lose all of my skills. Right. We all have that. So the closer the relationship is, the more emotional will be and the more likely our emotions will take us off the beaten path. Okay, so going into these conversations with, like, family and friends for more intimate, difficult conversations, I'll tell you what the self talk should be. Say, hey, Kwame, what would you tell somebody else to do? Your job here is to use compassionate curiosity, listen and empathize. That's it right now. If it's a situation where I know I'm going to be emotional. Here's the. Here's a beautiful thing about compassionate curiosity that I don't think get the opportunity to go into enough is that compassionate curiosity, when internally directed, is a tool for self negotiation. Okay. This is really important because first of all, it took me years to figure out how to design this thing so it can be used externally in the exact same way internally. So I really want to make sure we have an opportunity to address that. And second of all, it's really quite simple. Step one, acknowledge and validate emotions. So I'm going to ask myself, hey, Kwame, what are you feeling? All right, list all of your emotions. So let's give an example of what that looks like with that internal self talk, that self negotiation. All right, so what am I feeling? I'm angry. Now, let's pause here. Angry. That is an emotion. But it's important to recognize that anger is a secondary emotion, not a primary emotion. Usually, anger is triggered by something else. So I would say, what else? What else are you feeling? We often feel multiple emotions. So, yeah, I'm angry. Okay, what else? I'm disappointed because I thought this person was going to do this, and they ended up doing that. Anything else? I'm feeling a little bit disrespected, too. Right. Okay, great. Anything else? Nope. Got it. Listed all of them. And for those of you who googled affect labeling you'll understand why that works when internally directed as well. It lowers the emotional temperature for yourself as you get a better understanding. So now getting curious with self directed compassion we say, okay, so what's making you feel that way? Well I, I thought we're on the same page about this, but they ended up saying that what else? Okay, yeah, I thought they should have addressed this to me directly, but now I'm hearing it from somebody else. And we keep on asking what else and why do you feel this way? Until we fully understand not only what we're feeling, but why we're feeling it, then the last step is joint problem solving. Internally directed joint problem solving. And this is reconciling the differences between your heart and your mind. So what is it that would satisfy me emotionally in this situation? What would satisfy me substantively in this situation? Okay, and so what would satisfy me emotionally? Yeah, I want to yell at that person. Okay, cool. That'll make you feel better. Does that meet your goals? No, it doesn't. So let's figure out something else. Well, yes, I feel really strongly about this, so I should probably have a respectful conversation about this and address it and let them know exactly what I'm feeling and why. Great. So that actually helps you to address that emotional need that you have and the substantive goal of actually addressing the situation. So again, compassionate curiosity flipped backwards. Internally directed is a great tool for self negotiation. So cool. We're at 245 now. Feedback. Love feedback. This is the first live live episode that I've done solo. So I'd love to get your feedback. Yo, listen, that's the only feedback I need. If Mike says that it was good, it was good. Shout out to Mike. The the only Wolverine that I love. That is a college football OSU Michigan joke. So listen, if Mike says it's good, then it's good. So yeah. Thank you all for staying with me this whole time. This was a lot of fun. I'm going to check out the comments that and the questions that I wasn't able to get to. Those could inspire some future posts. Posts. But yeah, this was fun for me. Give me comments, let me know what I can do to make it better for next time and let me know whether or not you want to see more of these things. So I guess that's it. That's all I got. I hope the sun is shining where you are. It's shining in Ohio and that makes me smile. And check out the Negotiate Anything podcast. Seven days a week coming at you with new episodes. So appreciate it. We'll be in touch. Congratulations. You've just joined an elite club by listening to a four full episode. You're now officially on the Negotiate Anything team. So welcome aboard. What most team members do is they 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, 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.