Mastering Mindfulness in Negotiations with Andrea Flack-Wetherald

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 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. Andrea, thanks for joining us today.

Kwame, thanks for having me.

How would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

My name is Andrea Flack Weatherald and I have a degree in social work that I use every day in my life as an improviser and sharing these ideas of how we can bring together components of mindfulness practice alongside the same skills that improviser comedians use to make their scenes succeed on stage. We can use those same skills to succeed offstage because all of life is improv. And so my passion has been bringing these things together, sitting mindfully with what it means to appreciate life as improv and and then pay close attention to what skills are comedians using so that we can draw from them readily when we need them. And I have found that there's the most freedom creating work to do when we apply these skills specifically to brave conversations. So that's pretty much become the central focus of my work is equipping heart centered people for brave conversations that help them do whatever they care about better. If that's starting a nonprofit, if that's being a foster parent, if that's ending gun violence. This work has really been applied in a lot of contexts, but pretty much it's my goal to do my part in making the world a braver, kinder, and safer place.

I love it. This is great. And as you. As you're talking, the thing that keeps coming to mind is that I say, man, Andrea should write a book. Andrea should do keynotes.

Check and check, my friend. Good.

So let the listeners know about the book so they can get it.

Yes. My book is called the Funny Thing about what Every Leader Needs to Know About Improv Culture and the World's Least Favorite F word. And I was fortunate to have Colin Mochrie of Whose Line Is It Anyway? Write the foreword for my book. So it's just all about how we can use improv in our forgiveness work so that our confrontation experiences are more effective. And I am happy to speak at events that are full of heart centered people trying to make the world a better place. So whatever that means for you at your company or big event, give me a call. I'm happy to come.

Awesome. Good. I wanted to make sure that everybody knew how you could help them and listeners too. As a. As somebody who speaks regularly, I saw Andrea speak, and she was exceptional. So check that out too. And I think what would be great for us to do is let's not assume we all understand the words that we're talking about. And so the keywords I want to focus on right now are mindfulness and improv. Let's just get definitions for both of those before we move on.

Yeah, perfect. So mindfulness is the practice of being fully present in this moment and allowing whatever it is that's happening for you, whatever thoughts are coming up, whatever feelings are coming up, to explore those with curiosity instead of judgment. And so whatever it is that's coming up for you, if you're feeling like, oh, man, I'm so distracted. Oh, I can't clear my head, you just kind of accept that you don't judge yourself for that. It's a practice. And so often mindfulness is paired with meditation, and that's a really great use for it. But mindfulness can also happen while you're in a traffic jam or while you're in an elevator next to someone who's singing Shania Twain real loud. And you're like, why is this happening right now? And you have full freedom to be in that moment with curiosity instead of judgment. And improv is a form of live comedy where everything is made up on the spot. Oftentimes, I'm Glad you asked this clarifying question, because in a lot of cities, the best known comedy venue is called the improv, but they actually only do stand up, which is very confusing for everybody involved. So standup is scripted. These jokes have been written, they've been practiced, and there might be some improvisation with riffing with certain audience members and this sort of thing, but for the most part, it's not the same as in improv. The lights go down, they come back up. No one is going to save you until the end of your set. You have got to make something out of nothing, just with each other.

Wow, that sounds terrifying.

Yes, it's a lot of people's stress nightmare. And yet I have chosen to do this with my life.

I really love this because it's unique in the industry. So we have a lot of people who talk about mindfulness. We have people who talk about improv. We don't have many people who blend those two. And I can't think of anybody who blends them and then brings them into brave conversations. And as you're talking, it's becoming more and more clear why these two things can be beneficial in the difficult conversations that we're having. But again, let's just break it down piece by piece. Let's imagine we have one person who's approaching a conversation mindfully, another person who is not. What is the difference?

Okay, so there's several. And I know this from having been on both sides of that. Like, I always want to be real and upfront about that, because there's not a difference between people who are good or not good at confrontation. It's like, who in this moment is connected and who in this moment is freaking out? Like, who in this moment is connected to fear instead of love? You know, the truth is, we all spend time in both of those buckets every day. So when I am not mindful walking into conflict of some kind, I am imagining it going poorly. I am imagining the worst things that they could say. I am remembering the worst pieces of what I've seen them be and reliving that and telling myself some kind of story that their worst behavior is the deepest truth of who they are. When the reality is we are all more than the worst thing about us. Each of us shows up sometimes mean and hopefully feels bad about that later. I know I do. You know, so when we approach mindfully, we are in this moment. We're not in the past reliving the worst pieces of who that person has ever been in front of us. We're in this moment. We're not in the future imagining it going horribly. We're in this moment. And so when I make that agreement with myself, I will be present in this moment. Then if I get into any plan making, my only plans are, how will I come back to alignment? If I get kicked out of alignment in this conversation, if this person says something and it confirms a suspicion I have about them, how will I cope with that? Can I remind myself to breathe first before I respond? Can I remind myself that silence is not an emergency? In fact, silence is actually a really useful tool in improv. There are so many really delicious moments I wish I could email from my brain to yours. Like these memories of being on stage and somebody saying something that either confused their scene partner or they just were choosing to use the comedic tool of silence. And the stage goes completely quiet, and the audience goes completely quiet, and you can, like, hear them scooch forward on their seats, like, just being brought into this moment. And then the tiniest little thing, the tiniest smirk or gesture gets the hugest laugh of the night. Because that silence gave us a pause to all come into the moment together. And so I think about that in brave conversations and how we don't often utilize the beautiful tool of silence, of just allowing people to maybe hear what they've just said and been like, I heard it right after it came out of my mouth. I'm so sorry, that's not what I meant. Or whatever. When we jump on it right away, we utilize a different truth of the universe, which is that there's an equal and opposite reaction. And so if we come in swinging, it's going to take a really grounded person not to be that equal and opposite reaction. You know, that's the way that I treat it. That's the way that I think about it. Like, when I'm mindful, I'm, like, tapped into myself. You know, I've reconnected to the best of who I can be. Instead of just the fear story or insecurity story or shame story or resentment story or whatever it is. It's like, I check out of all that, and I'm just like, the thing.

That I love most about this is that this is something that we can all appreciate that will help us in our brave conversations, whether it's a negotiation, conflict, whatever it happens to be. And the thing that I love the most about it is that there's not, like, an explicit strategy. Do this. Say that they will respond in this way where we're scripting it, which allows us to flow into that improv part. And so let's get really deeper into how improv and that ability to flow can help us in these conversations too.

Oh, absolutely. One of the things that sometimes brings me to tears when I'm thinking about it is this advice that I was given by an improv teacher a long time ago because I would still try and get scripty on stage. I am someone that likes control. I like to know what's going to happen next. I like plans on plans on plans.

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And so improv is like immersion therapy for me. It's not my natural instinct to just accept I'll walk out on stage and then we'll build whatever it's going to be together. I'm like, I want to know what we're building, though. I would love to see the blueprints before I venture out onto the stage. And this improv coach said, andrea, the answer is in your scene partner's eyes. You don't need to be trying to think of the funniest thing that's ever been said on stage, ever. You don't need to hope that the words that are about to come out of your mouth get you discovered for Saturday Night Live. Like, there's not all that pressure in this moment right now. Like, listen to your scene partner. The answer is in their eyes. Like, just connect with your scene partner if it's okay. I don't want to go on forever. We have this really beautiful tradition in improv. Before every show, you make eye contact with each of the other players on your team and you touch them on the shoulder and say, I've got your back. And the reason we do this is that it's freaking scary to know that, like, drunk people paid money, tens of dollars sometimes for you to be funny. And they don't know you. They don't know if you had a bad day. They don't know if it's an off day for you. They just expect to have a good date with their wife, they found a babysitter. They have all these expectations. They're like, this is what I need from you, funny woman. Be funny. Then, you know. And so it feels all this pressure. And it's so easy when you get caught up in other people's expectations or knowing the theater needs to sell tickets. They need people to leave good reviews and tell their friends. And there are these concrete objectives. It's a business, you know, it's a delicious manifestation of mindfulness and also it's a business. So there's these things that have to happen. But if you get caught up in all that and all those objectives of what needs to happen, it's really easy to make selfish, short sighted moves in the scene because you're trying to prove something. You know, you're trying to hustle for your worth, you're trying to do something instead of, you know, the ask of improv is can you decide to hold all of those outcomes lightly and prioritize each other? That's your job. That is the only agreement. The foundation of improv is we will listen to each other. We will look for ways to make each other's ideas look amazing. They say that if improv is done well, nobody stands out. Like, you're all just so busy looking for ways to make each other's ideas succeeded that no one is the brightest shining star, you know. And so before every single show, we remind each other that's what this is about. It's okay for you to be brave out there. You build something interesting and good when people aren't scared to be brave, you know, but if we know that, then the onus is on all of us to build that culture on our team that's like, it's safe to be brave here. Go ahead and sing. Go ahead and try a British accent. Like, we will have your backs. We will be here to make whatever weird thing you do with your electric possum character or whatever. Like, we are here to make that succeed. And we're not going to be on the sidelines like, glad it's not my idea of failing miserably right now. Like, that's not what it is. It's like sacrificial support of your scene partner. And then we trust that when we commit to that and we just trust that like sacred, vulnerable collaboration agreement, then when we trust that it's like those objectives will be met in their own right time, they will be met better. And we will build something that surprises and delights all of us if we can just hold the audience lightly, hold the ticket sales lightly. Like, just be in this moment and listen to each other with your whole heart.

Andrea, there's so much brilliance in everything that you said that it's hard for me to pick where to go. But there is one thing that I think is really, really important for people to hear. It's that you said improv is not your natural instinct, and yet you're on stage crushing it and writing books about it. Can you talk a little bit more about your ability to. To absorb this and then put it into practice?

Okay. Therapy helps a lot. Like, I'm just going to plug finding a therapist right off the bat. But I think a big part of it for me is that I found it because I just. I went to a workshop because I thought it would be fun. Like, I truly. That's how I found improv was. The first business that I ever tried to start was called Share Closet. It was a great idea. I did a real bad job being in charge of it. It just, like, blew up and I was really sad. But I had won this startup competition which allowed me to go to startup workshops for free in the city of Pittsburgh. So I went to this thing that was called improv for CEOs, and I was like, I'm still technically the CEO of this burning pile of garbage, so I'm going to. I'm going to this workshop. And, like, I knew that it would be fun, and it was. I just did not realize that the things that I had felt so estranged from, which we can go all the way down in the weeds or we don't have to, But I felt really estranged from the way that I understood God and the faith that I had grown up with, like, life and just experiencing other cultures and realizing, like, oh my God, what if there's more than one acceptable way to be on this earth? Like, what if the truth wasn't that there's one right way to understand God? And fortunately for me, it's the way my family does it. Like, what if that's not true? So I super freaked out and just felt lonely. Like, I didn't really understand who am I on a deeper level? So then I go to improv and it's like these ideas of just loving each other bravely by the way that we listen and show up for each other felt so deeply familiar. I was like, wow, this is like deep soul level goodness. And that familiar sense of, like, not needing to know everything, finding wisdom by just asking brave questions. And like exploring and figuring things out together versus needing to be the expert. Like, it just was this huge relief. Like, it was like my soul exhaled in a really important way.

Oh, this is good. I love this because that last thing that you said, not needing to know everything, like, this is, that's one of the things that holds people back, that fear of the unknown. And so they're like, I don't know how this is going to turn out. I'm not sure what to say. And they let this fear hold them back. But the reality is that great negotiators, great conversationalists, they embrace the unknown. And that is a, like, it's a skill, but it's also a mindset. And I want the listeners to, to really focus in on that key word that you said. When you let that go, you said you felt relief. Because a lot of times we feel that fear, that anxiety, the stress, the pressure. These are important conversations. That's why we're feeling this way. And so we're like, I don't know how it's going to go. Nobody does. And that's the beauty of it. So can you talk a little bit more about your process of being able to kind of let go of that control in order to in fact get more control over your ability to perform?

Absolutely, yeah. So I think that has a lot to do with renegotiating my relationship to that feeling of fear. I didn't even mean to say negotiate. And like, that was so perfect though, like, nailed it. But truly, just coming to this place of that feeling of fear does not automatically mean danger. Like, what if it means opportunity to discover something? And it felt so reaffirming because I went to this theater for the first time. I did this workshop and it was in an office building. And then when I finally went to the theater, because I was like, what if I like took classes and went all the way down this rabbit hole? Like, what if I just see where this goes? And my family was like, so I had now destroyed a company, found a full time job, and was like, I might quit that job to do improv. Just in case you were like, worried I was making a secure life choice. I'm not. So I go to the theater and they have the words follow the fear painted on the wall. And it was like, this is amazing. And then the more theaters I performed at, the more I noticed that those words were like on people's T shirts or on posters. And it's. I think there's might be someone's gonna listen to this Podcast and be like, no, I know who said that the first time. I think it was Chris Farley who said that and who talked about this idea that with improv, when you have that feeling and you just like, it's like immediate boob sweat. For me, it might be other sweat for other people, but for me it's just like definitively boob sweat. And then I know I'm being invited in a great way. It just feels scary right now. But that feeling of, oh my gosh, I don't know what's going to happen. What if it's not your prefrontal cortex saying you're about to be eaten by a saber toothed tiger? What if it's some other part of your cerebellum or whatever? I don't know, I'm making stuff up that's like, you want to be involved in this. Like you're. What you're feeling is not fear of this scene. It's fear of being embarrassed if you get it wrong. It's fear that you're not good enough to play this game. That's what you're afraid of. It's not this action, it's what if you're not enough? And so it's just this mindset. The work that I needed to do was just allowing myself to believe that I was good enough to be on the team. Like, allowing myself to believe that I was allowed to play. You know, letting go of some of the Christian girls are nice and they keep their shoulders covered and like that's their job. And just kind of being like, well, I might have more jobs than that.

This is so fascinating. I love the idea of following the fear. And I, when we talk about fear, following the fear, tell me if I'm on the right track. Because we're saying that the fear is leading us to some greater truth.

Yeah. Or joy, or like just something that's good.

There's something. Right. And it's fascinating too, because people are would talk about the fear of failure, the fear of offending people and those type of things. But then if you take the time to do a little bit of introspection and go deeper. Yeah, it could be a fear of inadequacy, a fear of worth. Maybe I'm not good enough for this opportunity. And if I have this conversation, that might be confirmed to myself, Right. Maybe I'm not good enough or worthy of this person or this relationship or whatever it happens to be. And this is really fascinating because what could happen is if we follow the fear and we figure out what we're really scared of, then we can do that internal work to overcome that fear. And even though it doesn't seem from the outside looking in that the therapy or whatever it is that you did beforehand is, is at all germane to the conversation at hand, that self work could be the thing that helps you overcome that performance anxiety in the moment.

This is the reason not to just plug my book again, but this is the reason why I wrote a book about forgiveness. Because the idea to me is forgiveness first, forgiveness before anything else. You don't need to walk into the confrontation being like, well, we'll see how they handle it. And if they've earned my forgiveness, it's like if you do that inside work first before anything else, you are going to show up to that conversation totally different. You're not going to be choking the life out of it. Because the only way you can heal, the only way you can get closure, the only way you can feel optimistic or whatever is how this person handles it. You have no control over that person. Why put the keys to your emotional freedom, your confidence, your belief in your own future? Why put those keys in anybody else's back pocket? And so my whole deal with forgiveness is like, I notice and we're about to go real all the way into it. But the way that you follow the fear confidently is by figuring out when am I really in danger and when am I not? And the way that you know that is by just like you said, figuring out what am I really afraid of here? What is the real thing that I'm afraid of? And I can't tell you the number of times that what I came back to is like wounds from my past have me feeling like I'm not the kind of person who can succeed at this. You know, forgiving myself for share closet and the mistakes that I made that blew that up is the only reason we're having this conversation right now. Like, the only reason that a second company ever existed was doing that emotional work of like, it's safe to not do things perfectly all the time. Like, what if I did a really good job of building a bridge from where I was to where I am now? I thought I was building a rocket ship and that's not what I was building. But I built a really dope ass bridge and I'm really glad for where I am now.

It all works out. And I love the idea of forgiveness too, because when I think about forgiveness, I think it's a gift you give yourself. We often think about the other side, but if you can forgive, then you let go. And I think a lot of times people feel they struggle with the concept of forgiveness because in their mind, if I forgive somebody, then I'm saying what they did was okay. That's not necessarily the case. But I think sometimes if you're struggling with that word forgiveness, you could almost turn it into just letting it go. Right. In order to give yourself the gift of mental health, stability and, and a path forward to our contentment. And the thing is, you're right. When we put the path to our happiness and our well being in the hands of somebody who harmed us, that's a very dangerous thing. It's very disempowering. We're giving them all of the control of our well being, you know, And I think, and tell me what you think about this idea. It seems like when we talk about following the fear, it seems like a lot of us might be afraid of forgiveness, but because we feel as though if we let go of that, we're letting go of something that we held onto so dearly, like a toxic security blanket. And we thought that was the thing that was protecting us. But we are reluctant to let that go because we're afraid of what it could mean.

I agree with all of that. And I think we're afraid because in our culture we don't hold accountability and forgiveness together very well. We've bought into this completely untrue idea that forgiveness comes at the expense of accountability or consequences or boundaries. And that's just not how it has to be. At least that's not the way I teach it. I think that it is compassion in its completest sense to hold somebody accountable and to allow there to be consequences and boundaries that keep people safe and that motivate growth. I know that I've had so much growing to do in my life and learning to do, as has every human person. And I can think of so many times that accountability from my friends or just brave questions, even before we even needed to get all the way down there to consequences and boundaries. Brave questions? What did you mean by that? Oh, that hasn't been my experience. Like, these simple things we feel like aren't good enough. But they changed my life. They helped me become a more loving version of myself to just get curious about, like, later when it's just me and mama, you and I'm up at night, like, am I doing this right? Am I, like, am I a good person? Like, asking these questions, you know, and thinking, like, why did that person say that to me? And realizing in My time at the pace that I could grow, like, oh, that belief that I have is hurtful. Like, I didn't realize that it was, but it is. And, like, does this check out with what else I believe about love? I don't think it does. I don't think I can draw a connection between this belief and. And who I am as a person of love. It might be time to get rid of that one. Like, that one's not really serving me too good. No, More like, I'm gonna have to get rid of that one. And so in time, this gentle. Like, their accountability doesn't have to mean dropping the hammer. There can be gentle accountability, but it doesn't have to be. It's perfectly okay for accountability to be whatever it needs to be in that situation with that scene partner. And I think a lot of the fear that people have expressed to me, at least, about forgiveness is just this worry that it comes at the cost of accountability. And I don't think that it needs to. I think we can hold those two things together, and I think we honor our scene partners better when we do.

This is great. And Andrea, next time you come on the podcast listeners, you see that assumptive close. Next time you come on the podcast, we need to talk about apology and forgiveness, because that's so important. So important. Yes, and I want to also say, listener, when Andrea responded to what I said, she said, I agree with what you said and was an improv technique. Can you tell us a bit more about some of those specific skills, like the yes and. And other things that you can use, like, actually in the moment to flow?

That was such a good ear, Kwame. Like, look at you go. Yeah. So this idea of yes and is about acknowledgment and acceptance and building your own thing. So when I teach it in professional settings like this, you know, it's easy to feel like yes and is not for real life, because in real life, we can't say yes to everything. But yes and doesn't mean building more injustice, hate, fear, whatever. That's not working for you. The spirit of yes and is not ignoring that it happened. The spirit of yes and is acknowledging and accepting what exists and then building on top of that what works better. I've never said it exactly like that, but I do think that that is a good summary of the spirit of yes and it's about acceptance and autonomy, and that's also what forgiveness is about. So one of the things that I encourage people to do when they are getting proactive about forgiveness Work when they're heading into a difficult conversation is to write out yes and statements. And these are not statements you need to read to anybody. In fact, it's better if you don't put that pressure on yourself, if you allow yourself to just be honest and because, boy, do people just trivialize their feelings. So many times people tell me they struggle, struggle, struggle to say what's bothering them, and then they kind of twist around. I'm like, can I give you permission to be upset about whatever it is? It's not too little. Your feelings matter. And sometimes what we do drum stuff up to be bigger than it was to justify our feeling, because it's like, we're not honoring whatever happened, whatever slight happened. I'm allowed to have that feeling. It's enough that I felt uncomfortable about it. I don't need to turn it into anything bigger than it was in order to be allowed to feel exactly how I feel about it. So when I encourage people to write the yes and statements, I encourage them to be specific. Specifics are a lovely thing that improv coaches encourage people when they're learning. Like, add as many details as possible. Like, it's so helpful to your scene partner when you're really specific. This is a skill that I encourage people. Your own improv when you're writing these things. It's not always helpful when you're confronting someone to be like, specifically, I find your shirt offensive. I find your body odor offensive. I find your hair too offensive. Like, it's specific. There's a time and a place for the different improv skills, you know? But when you're writing ahead of time, be specific. What did they actually say? What were their actual words? How did you feel about that? And what is still possible? So the yes, and I accept and acknowledge this thing, and good things are still possible for me. And my ability to succeed in my career is not hanging in the balance of how this person reacts to this, even if it's your boss. The beautiful truth that all of life is improv. Infinity ways that this thing can play out. What you ultimately want is joy in your life and in your career. That's what you ultimately want. There are so many paths to achieving that. So when you take. When you accept that maybe this is skill number two, accepting that it's improv, and therefore realizing no matter what happens in this confrontation, the most important things are not hanging in the balance. There are so many ways that things can turn out to be wonderful.

This is really great. And there's so many applications for this But I think one of them in difficult conversations is the avoidance of accidental invalidation. Because a lot of times somebody says something that we disagree with, and our immediate response is to counter what they were saying, and then they feel invalidated. They feel as though they need to double down. They're like, no, Andrea, you didn't get it. Let me say it again. But I'm going to say it again, louder this time, right? And by simply listening and saying, yes, I see where you're coming from. And adding onto that, it makes what you say subsequently a lot more palatable because it doesn't seem like you're undermining everything that they just said. And so it increases the fluidity of the conversations, too.

And another thing to bring the mindfulness piece into it that I really encourage people is when they have that tendency to get louder. Be mindful. What feeling are you having right now? Often it's frustration or confusion. So we get louder when it's like, I just said the thing that you're asking me about. Why aren't you understanding? And so what I encourage people is to just, like, breathe again. Silence is not an emergency. Make good use of the tool of silence. Give yourself a minute to think on it, and then also realize, like, sometimes just an honest response is better. You don't need to come in as the guru, as the teacher, as the expert. It's okay to be like, I'm feeling like we're not understanding, and I'm feeling sort of frustrated by that. Can you help me understand, like, where the disconnect is? Like, it's okay to just say the thing that needs to be said instead of being like, ah, we're running out of time on our agenda. I must get my point across. Is the objective to get your point across, or is the objective to make progress with your scene partner? Like, what's the ultimate thing that needs to happen here? And then the other really important thing that I encourage people to think about is surrendering their scripts. People have little sayings, little things that they're keen on saying. They've said them forever. Don't bring a script to an improv party. All of these conversations are improv. That's what's really happening. So bring improv skills, don't bring scripts. An example is when people say, well, think about it. That's such a great way to invalidate someone. I don't know if you can think of times you've heard somebody say, well, think about it. So whatever those things are for you, if you notice, and the thing is how you can tell if you do this, is if your friends tease you about it, like, what are. What are the things that you come back to and just decide, I am going to just be present in the moment and allow what gets said next to be born organically from this moment. Not a script that I had in my backpack because I was ready to get them ready to prove my point.

You know, this is so good, and I could just keep chatting with you about this forever, and I know I could. But for the sake of the listeners, their commute is probably ending, so we'll start to bring this to a close. But before we wrap up, are there any parting words of advice or encouragement you'd give listeners as they start to bring this mindful improv methodology into their everyday life?

Cultivate hope. Because one of the biggest, best underminers of confrontation or brave conversations is the feeling of despair or the feeling of panic that things can't get better. And that's what pulls us in to toxic hatred of whoever is other in the conversation. So the more you can cultivate hope in your life, the more freedom you will feel to actually use these ideas in the conversations that can create more joy and freedom and goodness in your life.

I love this. I really do. This is great. And so, Andrea, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. And before you go, let the listeners know how they can get in touch with you and how they can work with you, too.

Yes, you can find me at and beyondimprov.com and you can also find me Andrea Flackwetherald on LinkedIn. Those are the best ways to reach out.

Perfect. Thank you so much.

It's been a pleasure.

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 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.