How to TRULY communicate for understanding with Michael Ashford

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute here at A&I. We believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And we are passionate, passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings both virtually and in person all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership. And lastly, diversity, equity and inclusion. Check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Michael, thanks for joining us today.

Appreciate it, Kwame. Super pumped for this, man.

Yeah, me too. Out of curiosity, before you introduce yourself, did you do anything interesting yesterday?

Oh, not really. I watched an episode of Severance on Apple tv.

You didn't have a really fascinating podcast guest on your show or something?

Okay, I see what you're getting. Yeah, I'm thinking outside of work, man. Yes, I spoke with the brilliant Kwame Christian and author of an incredible book, how to have. What is it? How to have Difficult Conversations about Race. Yes, sir.

That's so funny, listeners. You see what happens? I throw an oop. I want. I want to. I wanted Michael to stroke my ego and he's like, man, I don't even remember talking to that quam guy, whoever that is. But yes, man. So look, listeners, so let's get a little snapshot of who Michael is. Can you give yourself a little introduction?

Sure, man. I help people communicate well. And what that looks like, what that sounds like is, of course, I'm a podcaster. So I host the Follow up Question podcast which is focused on, just as I said, helping us communicate well through the power of asking questions, holding space for people hearing different perspectives that we perhaps hadn't considered before, but then full time. I'm the director of marketing at a software company based here in the Denver, Colorado area where I live with my wife and two amazing kids and our two dogs. And as it relates to communicating well there, my job as a marketer is to communicate our value as a company and the software that we provide to people who may want to Buy it. So, all in all, I just kind of package what I do as. I love to communicate, man. I love the power of communication. I don't think we were ever taught what real, good, authentic communication looks like. So I'm on a mission, just like you are, to help us change that, man.

I love that. I love it. Yeah, man, we are. We're vibing for sure. Listeners could be like, I can tell Kwame, stop laughing so much. But yes, man, this is great. And so let's actually talk about this. And listeners, with this episode, we're not going to be as tactical, maybe a bit of. A bit more philosophical, just talking about what we're seeing in communication in general, what we've learned, what we've observed. So this is going to be a bit more of a chill episode. But I really like what you said about the fact that, really, we haven't had many opportunities to learn what communication, what communicating well means. So let's dig more into that. Can you tell us more what you mean by that?

So I'll ask this question, Kwame, have you ever taken a listening class?

Nope.

Nope. Although I bet you have taken a public speaking class or a persuasive writing class or a class where you were told you had to argue your side. Or I bet in every class that you have been in in your entire life, the teacher had the right answer, and your job was to find the right answer and argue that answer or be correct. Right? That's. That's how we were taught. Right? Man, communication is so much more nuanced than that. There. There is an entire other side of communication that we. We have never been taught. Unless you were, you know, unless you maybe took some psychology classes or some philosophy classes or like me, who is a trained journalist, you know, I had to take interviewing classes. Right. So there are elements of that spread throughout, but those aren't required courses. And so we're really good at exerting our opinions, our ideas, our views on others. And we forget or we miss or we don't even realize there's another half of conversation, which is the extraction. How do I pull stuff out of people? How do I understand what they care about? How do I hold space for them in a way that they feel heard, seen, valued? That doesn't mean you agree with them all the time. That doesn't mean you have to condone how they view the world. But at least we can have a conversation in that space rather than just two heads butting and trying to win our conversation. Right? There's a Complete lack of, in our education system of what it means to communicate well and all that that entails, not just have an opinion and force.

It on others 100%. And even when you were talking about the ability to extract that information.

We.

Think about it in terms of extraction for attack, right? And so a lot of times, even if we do take the time to extract information, it is to take advantage and leverage that information against the other person, so can win. And you're so right, because there's the skill and then the mindset to go along with it. I think that's critical. But let's go deeper because I know the listeners have heard me rant about the education system as it relates to communication. Right? But I want to go deeper. Let's talk about the ramifications of that lack of education as it relates to communication. Since we don't have that education, what is, is the result in society?

It's a big question, but I think intuitively, everybody listening to this probably understands what it is. I think we all can just take a look at the world around us in the ways that we're not hearing each other, but we're all saying something that makes it. That makes it pretty painfully obvious what the ramifications of this is here. Maybe, maybe. Let's go a step deeper. I think it gets to our core of what we believe is possible in other people. And what I mean by that, Kwame, is a question that I've been asking recently is do you believe people can change? Your answer to that, whether it's a yes or a no, your answer to that tells me a lot about how you view and value communication, about how you view and value other people, especially those with differing ideas than you. If you don't believe people can change they are who they are, then how do you think you're going to, quote, unquote, get your way? You're going to force. You're going to try. You're going to try and find every avenue or every possible way to force your view on them because you know they're not going to change otherwise. Right now, if you believe that people can change, then we got to ask the question, why do they change and how do they change? Why do they change? They change because staying put the status quo of how they currently are becomes more difficult than the uplift to actually change their mind, their view, their approach, their position on a certain topic or issue. They change because they have been faced with information that is so discomforting to them that they can do nothing but change their Mind, how do we do that? Okay. It's not, as you write in your book, it's not throwing facts and figures and numbers at them or using their words against them to beat them over the head and use our questions as weapons. Well, you said this. So you believe this, right? Like, that's technically a question, because there's a question mark on the end of that statement. But that's not a question. That's not curiosity. So how do people change? They have to naturally come by it through the course of somebody giving them the space to do it. And that, man, that, to me, if we go real, real deep, that initial question, can people change? Tells me so, so much in our ability to actually then walk through the steps of communicating. Well, if I can ramble just a little bit more here, man. You write in your book about Daryl Davis. Daryl Davis is a black man who engaged with members of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups not to convert them, not to de. Radicalize them, but just to understand how they could hate someone they don't even know. Now, I interviewed Darrell. I've had the enormous pleasure of interviewing Darrell. I also interviewed a man who was the leader of the largest Neo Nazi organization in the United States for more than 20 years. His conversations with Darrell got him out. Now, both men told me neither one of them were trying to force their ideas on each other. I mean, we can go so deep into this man. We can go real, real deep here. But Jeff, his name was Jeff Scoop. Is Jeff Scoop, former leader of the National Socialist Movement here in the United States. He told me Darrell's questions, Darrell's questions that were genuinely curious to get an idea of why he believed the things that he believed actually created such a dissonance in his mind. Because here was this man who wasn't coming to him with judgment, with. With a belief system that he knew he was wrong. So he was going to force that idea on him, to get him to change, to force him to change. Just asked him questions that created such a dissonance. Man, Darrel's a good guy. I like Darrell. Darrell's actually what I'm fighting against. I don't wanna do that anymore. These are all the conversations, man. It gets me fired up when these things happen. And I love that you mentioned Darrell and his work in the book, because that approach, and I mentioned this in my second TEDx talk, if that approach to uncomfortable conversations, if a black man can attend a KKK rally and sit in that discomfort and have that level of curiosity what in the world is stopping any of us from doing the same?

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Let's do it.

There was something that you said, and I want to really go deeper on this because you said, give the person the space to change. And for you as a communication expert, the word space in this context means something completely different than a layperson's perspective. So let's break down that word space. When you're giving somebody space in a conversation, what does that really mean in a conversation?

I think space means asking a question, a curious question, to elicit some sort of story, to elicit some sort of emotion, to elicit some sort of perspective out of the person that you're asking that question of listening. Right? But here, here's the, here's where I would say the space, the holding space comes into play. Listening but not listening to respond, listening to ask another question. Just as you did right there, Kwame, you asked another question. You said, let's go a little bit deeper. Let's get deeper into this. Let's get below the surface. Asking a follow up question. There's a reason my podcast is called the follow up Question. That's what I want people to do. You hold space for someone when you make them feel as if you are truly listening by continuing to push your curiosity further about them or with them. That to me, you know Simon Sinek. I think we all know Simon Sinek. I love his work. I adore his work. The other day on a podcast, he said, good listening is when the other person feels heard. And so much of listening, we try to make, quote, unquote, active listening. This performance where we're nodding our head yes. And I've been told, hold your palms out so that the person can see that you are in a more vulnerable Open position. So I'm supposed to act like I'm listening to this person. How about I actually listen to this person? And as Monica Guzman said on my show and in her TEDx talk, when you point your curiosity at someone and you hold that space for them by giving them the freedom to explore their own ideas and the answers that they're giving you, that's communicatively holding space for someone. Does that make sense?

Oh, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And that's the thing, because it makes sense. But going back to what you were talking about before with the term dissonance, right? When there's a discrepancy between what you believe and then how you act, it creates that dissonance. And I think that there are probably a lot of listeners who are here thinking, hey, I'm coming into this podcast. Negotiate anything. I'm going to use this negotiation process to get more of what I want. Other people could be in my way, and my job is to overcome those objections and persuade them, even though they might think another way, I want to change their perspective. And now what we're talking about here is probably going to create a little bit of dissonance, because I'm going into these conversations with the intent of changing your mind. But what you're saying is that we have to go in with the intent of listening and understanding exclusively. And it's really fascinating, Michael, because it reminds me a little bit of, like, Taoism trying not to try, right? So we are sitting back and going with the flow, and good things will happen as a result of our lack of intentional effort to a specific goal. And so it's very counterintuitive, because a lot of times, the very thing that we want to get, the best way to get there is by not trying to get there, which is what gets us there. Right? And so if we go in there trying to persuade somebody, we get a lot of resistance. But if we go in there trying to understand somebody, we might inadvertently persuade them in the process. It's really fascinating.

It is. And the question I always ask people is, you know, if you sat down across from somebody and they said, I'm going to change your mind about something that you deeply care about right now, what would happen? You wouldn't be open to. You wouldn't be open to that conversation. The wall would go up. You're going to be like. Like heck you are. I'm going to prove you wrong. I'm going to prove that you can't, because no one wants to have that forced on them. We don't like that. That's a level of discomfort that once that comes into place play in conversation, man, you're talking about years of trying to break down that wall once it's up, maybe. And people know it too. People know it and they can feel it and they can sense it when that is what you're trying to do.

Yeah. And it's, let's go a bit deeper there because it's not just a level of discomfort. It might even be a level of disrespect as well.

Yeah.

It's like you don't even fully know me. You don't even fully know my perspective. And yet here you are lording your superiority over me in this situation. You think that you are smarter than me. You think that your beliefs are better than mine. And so it's not even just, I'm going to prove you wrong. I'm not going to let you change my mind. It's like I have no choice but to defend my honor in this situation by making sure that you don't make any headway because you don't respect me. Okay, Now I'm going to be a force working against you. And what's really interesting is that a lot of times what we set our themselves up for is unnecessary resistance just because of the way that we approach the conversation. And you drop something again, one of these little Michael gems that you say all the time. But we're going to go, we're going to explore this a little bit because most people, they say ask questions, then they might give a modifier, ask open ended questions to get a narrative response. But you said ask curious questions which to somebody who is not like deep into the art like you might think is a redundant statement but you felt necessary to put that modifier curious questions. And so I think one of the best ways to understand what something is is by getting a better understanding of what it isn't. So what is an example of a question that is not curious?

Just those, those questions. That question that I kind of referenced earlier where we take someone's words and use them as a weapon against them, we fashion that as a way to cut them to the quick with the, the question that we're asking them. So one example that I can give you is let's take a contentious issue of the day. So let's say you've got an anti immigration person talking to a pro, maybe even open borders or pro immigration person and the anti immigration person points their finger at the person across from them and says you're pro immigration, you're pro open borders. So you want people to come in and take people's jobs. You want our wages to be driven down. You don't want Americans, and we're in America, so I'll use that phrase, but you don't want Americans to succeed. You'd rather just open this country up to all forms. So that's a question in a way, or even saying, phrasing it as a question. So you want immigrants to take our jobs. Well, that's a question kind of fashioned as a statement, but it's used as a weapon against them. And it paints that other person into a binary to where it immediately puts them on the defensive. It immediately makes them. Their guard goes up, and now they have to spend the rest of the conversation defending themselves against a very black and white binary. Yes. No accusation that you've leveled on them with their question. That wasn't a curious question. That was to paint them into a corner, to box them into. Into a corner so that you could continue to drive them down to the point where you could attain victory over the conversation. Right. The curious question would be, you and I come at immigration from very, very different viewpoints. And I'm curious, how did you come to believe the things that you believe about immigration? I referenced Simon Sinek earlier. He always talks with start with why. In the case of difficult conversations, I don't agree with start with why. I think you should start with how questions more. How did you come to that conclusion? How did you come to believe this or even maybe a what question? What's been true in your life that you feel this is the correct thing or the right thing? A why question forces someone to get deeply philosophical that perhaps they've never explored before. So they're being put on the spot of, I don't know why I believe this. I just do. So let's have it out, let's battle. You know, those, those why questions tend to be philosophical, but those, those questions that are pointed, that are, are laced with our accusations, our opinions of the other person that are laced with our perspective fashioned as a weapon to that against that person. That's an example of an uncurious question.

I love it. And tell me what you think about this. This is just me riffing here because it seems like the questions that are lacking in curiosity are often questions that come with limitations. And so, for instance, the, the one that you gave, it's like, all right, I'm limited in how I respond because I'm not sharing what I really Believe I'm. Now I'm defending myself. I'm not really eliciting information in my response. I'm contending with you. Another thing that I see oftentimes, especially in the media, is somebody would give a big diatribe about what they believe, and then they say, wouldn't you agree? Oh, yeah, at the end. So they set it up so that, yeah, I'm going to make you look silly if you don't agree with what I'm saying. And so they're kind of forced to respond in a certain type of way. But even in the examples that you gave, one of the things that's really interesting is that your questions are very simple and not simple in an insulting, simplistic type of way, because simplistic is an insult, but simple is usually an example of somebody who's put a lot of thought into something. It was da Vinci who said, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. And it takes a lot of restraint to hold back, because the more words you add, the more you're biasing what the person is saying, the more they're starting to see where you stand on the issue and then fashioning their response based on where you're coming from. And it sounds like with the questions that you're asking, you're intentionally removing as much of yourself as possible from the question so you can give them space to be as much of themselves as possible in the response. And so there's going to be a blend. There's going to be a skill of asking an artful question as an effective question. But then there's also the mindset that's required to do that because it takes a lot of restraint. So can you tell the listeners a little bit more about just like the art of asking questions?

Oh, man. Yeah. I was taught in journalism school. Well, actually, let me back up. In high school, I was in mock trial. And I know you're. You're a trained lawyer, so this is relevant to you, but I was. I was. We were fake lawyers. I was a fake lawyer in mock trial. But we were coached by real lawyers. And we were told, especially when we were playing the defense attorneys, never ask a question that you don't already know the answer to. Okay. Well, I think that's how most of us approach our question asking. And this goes back to what I said earlier about how we were taught. We're just. We're literally doing what we were taught to do, which is find the right answer and argue that point to the death. Right. The art of actually asking Great questions. And I love the fact that you brought up simplicity, Kwame, because it is. It can be as simple as how. What do you mean by that? What's been true in your life that you would think that way? Like, that's a very. Those are very simple, straightforward, to the point questions. But in all of those. And you also have to understand, you have to manage your tone a little bit too, in the questions that you ask. But all of those, not a single one of those three questions that I just asked input my opinion, my view of the world, my assumptions of how that person or how somebody else might answer that question. It's not reflective in the question at all. The question is, truly, I'm trying to understand you, and understanding doesn't equal agreement. Just because I hear from you an answer that I don't like, just because I was curious about that doesn't mean I all of a sudden agree with that. I can perhaps adopt a level of empathy. Okay, you and I disagree on this issue, but I can now begin to understand how you would see things that way. Can you, can you explain a little bit? I was curious about this thing you said. Just like what you've done, Kwame, a couple times, so bravo. But I'm curious about this thing you said. Can you, can you explain that a little bit more? What did you mean by that? It's just that removal of our own biases as much as we can out of the questions, out of the specific words that we're asking. It is really, really hard for us to do that because we have almost no models of what it looks like put into practice. Turn on the tv, turn on a lot of podcasts, turn. I mean, I teach a podcast interviewing masterclass where I teach a bunch of this stuff because so many of podcasters turn the spotlight back to them constantly. Constantly. Every question is set up with a five minute story about their view of the topic. And then at the end, they do exactly what you just said, Kwame, isn't that right? Isn't that true? You know, just so you're. All you're doing is either we as humans really don't like to disagree with people that we think can. Can build us up more or give us some sort of a spotlight. So in most podcast interviews, you'll hear somebody go, yeah, that's right, that's right. And I'm thinking in the background, do they really believe what that host just said or are they just too uncomfortable with disagreeing with the host that's invited them on the show?

You're so right. You're so right. And I know as a fellow podcaster, it's challenging. Sometimes listening to other interviews, I'm like, stop talking.

I've literally yelled that in my car at some podcasters. Ask the question.

Yes. Yes. Oh, man. Yeah, I'm with you. And listeners. There are very few models of this, but there's this really great podcaster. His name is Michael Ashford. You should check out the follow up question podcast. I will tell you, though, when I looked at the calendar and I saw the name of the podcast, I said to myself, this is going to be a great episode. This is going to be fantastic. Because it's somebody who actually understands the artist of asking a good question. And it was, it was great. I mean, you just, you highlighted me throughout. And this is not me speaking, like, as an egotistical type of person. I'm saying, like, it is so rare to be put on a spotlight. Not in a bad way, but somebody caring so much about what it is that you think and believe. It's. It's rare to have somebody ask great questions and then also genuinely listen and then follow up the follow up question podcast. Right? It's. It's rare. So I like, I'm not kidding about that. So when the listeners want an example of what that looks like, seriously, it's. It's a masterclass, which is funny because that's what you have a master class teaching podcasters. It's great.

You know, if I could jump in real quick there, Kwame. One of the most frustrating things about the show that I host in the, the type of guests that I have on and the perspectives that I've. I've been, I've been honored to help bring out in the interviews that I've done is this notion that some people get of me that I agree with everyone that's on my show, and I don't. Almost almost. I say almost every guest that I've had on, they have said something or there's something in their work that I disagree with. The good thing is, I don't think you'd ever know. I intentionally go into every interview making sure that no matter what, at the end of the interview, you don't know if I agree with this guest or not. You may have an idea, but you don't know for sure. Now I will be. Let's clear the air real quick here, Kwame, your book, how to have Difficult Conversations about Race and Heck, yes, I agree with everything that you wrote in there. There's no need to get into any Vagaries there. Great book, man. And I was so excited to interview you because so much of what you talk about and having difficult conversations about race in that niche and in that microcosm are fantastic and wonderful. And yes, absolutely. What we should be doing and can be expanded out into. Let's just have difficult conversations. Right. And man, I jived so well with what you wrote in your book. So kudos to you.

I appreciate that. I appreciate it. It's. Yeah, it's. That was a tough one. Right. Because it. I wanted to be a skills based book. So when people who are in the field of negotiation, conflict resolution, effective communication, when they give me flowers on that, that means a lot. So I appreciate that.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Well deserved.

Thank you. Let's go, let's. Let's explore understanding versus agreement because this is where a lot of people struggle. What is it that makes it so tough for people to balance that in these conversations?

I wish I had a good answer, man. My sense is that we have been, we have been. So much of our conversations on so many important issues have been issues that most of us don't have direct control over. That's a big key. So much of what we care about and the things that we pay attention to these days with the technology that we have with. I don't want to go the cliche of blaming social media, but I'll say it anyway. With social media, with the media in general that we have access to constantly. I'm not sure that we were ever made or intended to know all that we know. I don't think we're physically capable of handling that burden of knowing all that we know. I mean if you think about this is not a wishing for the good old days, but let's go back 200 years. How big was your network? You barely knew what was happening in the next town on the next block over from you. If you lived in a bigger city, let alone every little thing that the president said that you know happened, what weather event happened 6,000 miles away from you and how many people were killed and how many people were homeless and how many people need like these things that yes, we now have a global response to them to where we can help more people. But it has also done a damage to our, our psyche, I think in that we are now burdened with the pressure of knowing so much. And so in this world where we have been, it has been framed to us that every issue is this binary, right, wrong, good versus evil, fair versus unfair. That's how all of it is framed Right. Or most of it, I should say. I can't be a bi. I can't talk about the fallacies of binary and then lump them into a binary myself. We believe, and get the sense then that the people that we disagree with are out to get us, that they're not just that they don't just disagree with us, but that they like. Like we probably intend to do in our conversations. Anytime they interact with us, they're trying to win there. And you talk about this in the book Conflict versus Combat. If you go into conversations believing that you're going into hand to hand combat, figuratively speaking, or sometimes literally speaking, how are you going to respond? And. And what then? What does it feel like to understand your enemy's position? That's where we get into this place where under just simply understanding feels unsafe. Because at the same time, if we begin to understand the enemy a little bit more, what is the rest of our tribe on our side going to say about us? Oh, you're fraternizing with the enemy. And so even just that level of. I understand where this person is coming from. I don't agree with them. I think their view of the world is wrong. I think the way they're approaching this situation is perhaps immoral or unethical. But I understand why they made the choices that they made. Look, there are a lot of terrible things that happen in the world. I can understand how just about anybody gets to the point where they. In the decisions that they make. I don't agree with all of them, not by a long shot. And that's where the tribalism that we are experiencing. There's a term that comes up in a lot of the conversations that I have with a lot of experts in this space called affective polarization, where it's not just that you disagree with the quote, unquote, other side, but that you actually see them as a threat to your very existence. And when someone is a threat to your existence, you don't want to understand them. You want to stomp them out of existence. And that's where understanding can feel unsafe. And man, it's just not the case. It's not the case in so many of the conversations that I have over. Let me, let me give you a great example. I'm a lifelong Christian, born and raised. I did an interview with a man on my show named Andy Norman, who is an atheist who wrote a book basically outlining his case for why, among other things, faith and a belief in God is an abnormality, is a virus that we should try to immunize ourselves against. I was. That was one of the toughest interviews I've ever done. Several times I didn't want. I. I sat down to cancel the interview because I didn't want to do it. But I would have been a hypocrite had I not. I got into that conversation with Andy and literally did what I set out to do. I just wanted to ask him questions. It is interesting. That is one of the few interviews where he asks me questions. He gets curious with me and I start giving him some of my perspective, but only after I've been asked. And man, we had a wonderful conversation. We had a fan. It was one of the best conversations that I've ever had. I don't agree with everything that Andy says or said in that, but at the end we both agreed. I respect the heck out of you. I don't agree. I understand where you're coming from and I can see the conclusions that you've reached based on your life experience, the things, things that you believe in. I can. I can understand how you wrote a book like this and why you would believe that. My faith in God is, to put it bluntly, a virus. I don't agree with it, but I respect your ability to go through that logic and come to that conclusion. At the end of the conversation, when the interview stopped and I no longer was recording, he told me that our conversation gave him hope. And Kwame, I have zero idea what he meant by that. I didn't dig any further. I didn't ask any more questions than that. But I'll take it. I'll take it. Whether that is a secular hope or a religious hope, I'll probably never know. Nor do I think it matters to have somebody tell me that our conversation and holding space for him to share his ideas with me, somebody who believes very differently than him. It was not a threat to me. I built it up in my mind that it was and at the end it wasn't.

That is powerful. Listen, Michael, if my interview at 4pm was not with Rebecca Zung on her podcast, we would keep going, but I need to land the plane, man. Oh, that is a great place to end. This is great. Listen, you have to let the listeners know again about you, the podcast and listeners. We'll put links to some of those episodes Michael referenced as well into the description so you can have easy access there. But yes, let the listeners know how to get in touch.

Well, the podcast is the follow up question and you can find it anywhere. You find podcasts where you're listening to this right now. You can, you can find it there. And then my website is Michael Ashford.com then that's the hub of everything that I do, man.

Michael, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Kwame, congratulations. You've just joined an elite club by listening to to a 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 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.