Navigating Conflict with Authenticity and Self-Control: Insights from Ryan Dunlap

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 AI, we believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations and we are 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.

Foreign.

Thanks for joining us today.

Thank you for having me, man.

It is my pleasure. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Absolutely. So I am a self proclaimed conflict strategist. Most people have no idea what that means when I say it. I'm still trying to figure it out, but the way I typically describe it is I help people get honest with themselves about themselves. So last year I launched a conflict strategy firm called Conflict Ish and we really focus on helping leaders navigate all the ish that comes with conflict, from tarnished rapport to hellish attitudes to diminish productivity. We can help you navigate all that Ish and it's been fun. It's been a journey. I guess the journey getting here has been a little atypical. So my background is in law enforcement. I spent 14 years in law enforcement and I wore a lot of different hats. So I was Special Victims Detective, forensic audio examiner, crisis intervention officer, hostage negotiator, and a couple of other titles. I got really good at having difficult conversations with people in that season. And then because I have a family and a loving wife who pushed me for the right reasons, I transitioned out of law enforcement and went into ministry. And so I became the pastor of Life Safety at a really large church in Atlanta and eventually became the executive pastor of operations at that church. And that opened the door for me to serve on a task force with the State of Georgia, the Sexual Assault Response Team State Expert Committee with our elected officials. And in that room we were creating the best practices for sexual assault response across the state. What was really interesting was I found myself rubbing shoulders with executive leaders and elected officials at a really, really high level, sitting around some really big tables. And I began to notice that a lot of the leaders in those rooms exhibited the same behaviors that I saw suspects exhibit in an interrogation room. So in the interrogation room, suspects were usually afraid to admit they needed help. They were afraid to admit they had done things they weren't proud of, and they were afraid of being found out. And when you would sit around these executive tables with these elected officials and these high level officials, they would notice that they were afraid to ask for help, they were afraid to admit that they were complicit in the problems within the organizations. And because, because of imposter syndrome and self doubt, they were afraid of being found out. And so I began to navigate some of those relationships the same way I did. And so it really was the genesis of what I do now as a conflict strategist is I bring some of the strategies I use in the interrogation room into the boardroom and help people have difficult conversations at what I call level zero. Before I really try to help you solve a problem with another person, I help you try to solve the problem within yourself. And that's really the, the ground level of what I do, and it's probably a little different than what other people do, is I'm not really in the conflict resolution space, the mediation space. I really focus on interpersonal conflict and the conflict that we carry. What I call latent conflict is that fingerprint conflict that leaves a mark on everything you touch, but you can't always see it until you're really, really trying to look for it.

You know, this is great. We are just in the introduction and I've taken an obscene amount of notes, so. So thank you. This is really good. And before, before we get into it, I want to make sure I give you an opportunity to shout out your community too.

Yeah, yeah. So really excited about that. That's going to be launching this weekend. It's what, April 15th I believe is the date. And you know, when I launched the business, we had a really large social media following, kind of a relatively quick period of time on TikTok and Instagram. And some folks said, hey man, we want to go deeper. So thank you for the 90 second video. I want more. And so we're launching an online community. It's basically an online space where leaders can get their ish, and it's called the ish factor. And essentially it's a place where we can develop Character. And we can develop competency around conflict management practices as leaders where we can bring our challenges from our organizations into a space of other leaders who are trying to build and grow themselves and. And get the help that we may not have in our own organization. So I'm looking forward to getting that off the ground and getting the ish factory rolling.

Man, that's awesome, man. I love this. I think it's so necessary. And I appreciate the unique voice you bring to it because you have law enforcement that you detective, a hostage negotiator, did interrogations, you served in ministry, you've been at the executive level, and now you work with executives. You've been on the public policy side with that task force too. So you bring a wealth of knowledge and experience and diversity of perspective that I think is really valuable. And it informs the way that you approach things. And it's really unique. And when you think about your unique approach to these difficult conversations and conflict resolution, what do you think are the key things that are different from the way that you do it, from the way that things have traditionally been done?

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I always felt, I think as an employee, I went through a lot of conflict management conflict resolution training classes. And it was really telling. You would go through the process of the workshop and do the things and fill out the boxes, and you'd walk out of the room with a co worker and almost inevitably you'd hear someone say, okay, that was a waste of time. That was really good because you've got this really charismatic leader who's giving great content. Right. But sometimes it was very academic, very heady, or it's very theoretical, or it was just disconnected from the issues that were happening inside the organization that nobody can tell you about. And for me, I wanted to create a solution for organizations that made conflict feel less taboo, that made it feel more approachable and more relevant to where we actually are in an organization. When other folks that come in a little bit more buttoned up and polished, I want it to be a little bit more. More reckless. And so that was really the whole idea behind even the name Conflict ish to help leaders deal with all the ish that comes with conflict. Because I needed it to be a little bit disarming. I wanted it to be something that people could wrap their arms around. So from a process standpoint, it really is personal. It's personal. Here's what I'll tell you. A lot of times when we jump into conflict resolution or even negotiation, a lot of it is taught From a SCRI standpoint, step one, step two, it's very analytical, it's very memorized, and we try to build on these practices. And what I discovered through my time in law enforcement is it takes a lot of mental reps to get to a place where you can, in the moment, recall those steps and those scripts and those things to say. Because we're operating out of our limbic brain and our prefrontal cortex is shut down because it's all about survival. And so rather than prepare people with scripts and some of those things that other people are doing, I really help focus on self awareness, self confidence, and self control. And my goal is to say, I want you to recognize, reset, replace, and repeat. These are the four Rs we typically work on when it comes to identifying our own conflict challenges. And if we can do that, we can build a mental muscle and some muscle memory around how we show up to conflict. It's not about changing who you are. We just want to change how you show up.

Right.

We want to change your communication or your presence in the space without changing who you are fundamentally. And that seems to be pretty helpful and successful for, For. For my client so far.

So, yeah, absolutely. And I love the fact that you're essentially empowering people to lean into their authenticity, because I think a lot of times people think that in order to resolve conflict or negotiate or be persuasive or be a leader, they have to adopt some other Persona. Like, this is what a leader does. This is how a leader talks, those type of things. But it's really important that we empower people to be authentic and take these principles and put them into action, but feel comfortable enough in their own voice to do it the way that really resonates with them 100%.

Yeah. And it's interesting, too, because I was reading some research on this a while back about imposter syndrome and fake it till you make it and how, you know, at the highest level, we say, hey, you should fake it till you make it. But when it comes to conflict, like, we're not really good at convincing other people that we're faking it. You know, people can read through that. And so if you can't learn to walk through that with some sense of authenticity and some, Some. Some. Some ownership of, like, hey, this is who I am, then you're going to have a hard time, because really getting to the. To the nitty gritty of conflict requires that you've got this rapport, this trust, this understanding of people. And if I don't trust the representative that you're bringing to the table. I'm not going to have a conversation with that representative. And so how can you show up in your most authentic form, even if you don't feel confident or comfortable in that space? And it's the difference of me saying, hey, remember this script? Or me saying, hey, Kwame, when you go into this conversation, I want you to be nice. If you can just be nice, you can emulate that behavior. We can use all the sciency terms and mirror neurons and all of those things, but just on a very basic level, be nice. And. And when you're having the conversation, do it as nicely as you possibly can or as honoring or as respectful as you can. And what you'll find is it's easier to try to emulate an emotion than it is to remember a script. And. And that I've. I've seen a lot of my. My clients who have struggled with memorization get really, really good at having difficult conversations by just going, okay, be nice. Be nice. Be nice. Be nice. All right, I'm.

Be nice.

I'm gonna be nice. And it works wonders for them.

This is really interesting. It's almost like an emotional anchor that you can hold onto when you're having the conversation. And you're still making sure that you are, number one, having the conversation because a lot of people are afraid. And number two, when you're having the conversation, it will have an impact on the tone that you bring to the conversation, the way you carry yourself, while at the same time making sure that we're not diminishing the message. The message is still the same. You can still be assertive. You can still set boundaries. You can still advocate for yourself, and you can still do that with a nice tone.

Absolutely.

I think people miss that sometimes.

Yeah. You know, I'll just add this. We focus a lot on, you know, we say, well, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And that's absolutely true. But I always felt like there was a missing component, you know, because it's not what you say, and it's not only what you say and how you say it, it's also who's saying it. And we have to really pay attention to messenger bias and who the communicator is, because if we miss that component, you can hear the right message from the right person or the right message the right way, but if it comes from the wrong person, then that message might fall flat. And so we always try to work on our clients messenger development and message delivery, not just the message delivery. So we want to develop you as a messenger, and we want to help develop and deliver that message.

This is powerful. I do not want people to miss this. Okay, so when you're talking about that messenger bias, go deeper into what that means for the listener. So when they're going into this conversation and they're or strategizing about the conversation, or just thinking in general about difficult conversations that they have now that they know about the reality of messenger bias, what can they do to improve their outcomes with that knowledge?

Yeah. So one of the things that we know about just the way we decode and encode information is that we are constantly evaluating other people, constantly. Before they even say anything, heuristics are telling us about that person. Right. I'm already making assumptions about who you are because of your age, your race, your position, your title, all of these things. And so I'm in direct competition with the Persona you've created about me in your mind. That is messenger bias at its core. It defines whether or not I believe you are competent and whether or not I believe you are trustworthy. And based on what you say and how you say that, competency and trustworthiness will inform whether or not I actually receive what it is you have for me. And so the best thing that we can do as messengers is make sure that we speak to that created Persona that people have about us. What I refer to as speaking to the elephant. So I'll give you an example. I recognize that I look very different from people in most of the rooms I walk into. I'm a young black man who walks into a room who typically is speaking to executive leaders who have been in business for longer than I've been alive. Okay. That is an elephant in the room. That is the thing that is blocking their ability to think into what I'm saying. And so if I get on the platform and I start talking and sharing insights, the first thing they're thinking to themselves is, what can this young kid tell me about conflict or conflict strategy? So I speak to that elephant first to inform my messenger. So I'll say that I'll speak it almost in a self deprecating way. And I'll say, I know what you're thinking. What can this young black kid from Chattanooga, Tennessee tell you about running your multibillion dollar organization? I'll lean into that thing. And here's why I do that. It's so much easier to avoid an obstacle that's out in front of you than one that's hidden beneath you. So if I know that people are thinking this thing in the back of their mind, their inner narrator is having this dialogue, and I bring it out in front of, and I say, here's what you might be thinking, or I've gone into some rooms and I said, what. What can a former police officer tell you about dealing with positive relationships with people in. In today's day and age, what could a police officer possibly tell you about navigating? You know? And so, because that's what people are thinking, that's what's in the back of their mind. Like, what's this guy going to tell me about building rapport? Nobody trusts police. So if we can do that, we understand that people are evaluating us. They, they want to determine if we're competent and trustworthy. If I can build competency and trustworthiness on the front of a conversation, then everything that I say after that is going to be potentially more influential and easier for them to hang on to. So messenger bias is important. I think it's one of the things that we miss before we really focus on message development and delivery.

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 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. Yes, yes, I agree 100%. Because again, just like you said, if I trust somebody more, if I think somebody's more competent, even if they say the exact same thing as somebody else, I'll find that person to be more persuasive because I find them to be more competent and more trustworthy. The listeners are probably saying, okay, this makes sense. I understand that I need to make sure that people think I'm competent and trustworthy. That's how I overcome messenger bias. Now, the thing is, there are probably mistakes that people make that they don't even realize that they're making that undermine those goals of being seen as competent and trustworthy and makes that messenger bias go in the negative direction. So what are those things that we do accidentally that undermines how competent people think we are and how trustworthy they think that we are?

Yeah, that's a really great question. So I use this thing, I call it an influence triangle. And we talk about how relationships, reputation and resource inform how people receive us. And one of the things that we typically miss is resource. Resource is what you know and how easy it is for people to get it from you. And when you're communicating as a messenger, you know, you can have a lot of knowledge, but if it's hard for people to get that from you, then you won't be seen as a repository, you'll be felt as a vault. And we want to make sure we open up that repository of knowledge. And one of the things that I see a lot of people do is they over communicate, they'll say too much. And, and because I'm trying to demonstrate my competency as a communicator or because I really want to build trust with you, I'll say too much, I'll go too far. I had somebody explain this to me this way. Actually, I shared this on LinkedIn today on someone else post. One of the best pieces of advice someone gave me was a friend of mine. He says, ryan, you speak in movies when you should be speaking in episodes. And I said, ouch, since you talk too much. Like I know you're competent, I, I know you are, but the more you talk, the less confident I feel in your competency. So get to the point. So that's one of the major things that I see is that when we get nervous, when we feel we're being judged, criticized or evaluated, we will over talk, we will over communicate. The other thing that we'll see a lot of times is we will, will be very concise, but will be cold. And so you'll hear people. When it, when it comes to communicating is we'll try to say the thing that we need to be that needs to be said and then we'll just shut off the mic and we'll, we'll fail to bring our humanity, our personality into the conversation. And so you, it's, it's all resource, it's all information, no personality. And that's hard to hold on to as well. And so people say, wow, that guy's really, really smart, but I don't like them. So you know what I mean? And that's very possible. It happens all the time. So yeah, over communicating or not bringing enough humanity into the conversation are ways that we can sometimes step on our own feet when we're trying to demonstrate competency, but we might leave some meat on the bone, so to speak.

Agreed. And the timing of this is funny, Ryan, because yesterday I had a keynote and one of the people asked. So my problem is I talk too much in a negotiation. How do I handle that? And so I want to focus on that because a lot of people who are more extroverted or people who might talk under pressure as like an emotional release valve, they can struggle. And in the negotiation space, we say things like, don't speak too much, make sure the other person speaks more. There is value in silence. Great. People can cognitively understand that. It doesn't change the fact that it's difficult for them to do in the moment.

Right.

So if you're coaching somebody who struggles with over sharing and talking too much, what advice would you give them to be able to have a little bit more restraint in the moment?

Yeah. So it's interesting. This is what we really kind of focus on, the self awareness side when we do. Coaching is really helping them understand the why behind the what. I think if you don't really understand why you're over talking, then it's really hard to get behind some people over talk because in their mind, the more value they give, the more competent they appear or the more helpful they are. Some people talk too much just because they're nervous. But you would solve that problem differently for each person. Right. The person who's nervous needs to build their confidence and you would probably spend more time helping them with message prep, with really knowing their topic and getting them comfortable with some ritual before they get on the platform. The person who is communicating because they feel like their voice just gives a lot of value. We're going to have to work on how to be clear and concise and how to give bullet points for every talking point and then how to back up every point with a question. I one of the things I've got a client now and I told him, I said, I want you to ask more questions and you answer. And that's really been something helpful for him. So rather than just giving the answer, you ask for the answer from other people and then you just give context to it. So I could go into a room and I could say, this is how you have a difficult conversation. This is, this is how you do it. Here's step one, step two, step three. And you just kind of, you just talk. Or you could come in and say, we all have difficult conversations. Tell me what are some things that you've encountered in the past that have been most difficult for you and what'd you do about it. And what that does is it forces you to sit back and listen. It forces you to use this narrative approach where the other person is dictating the content of the conversation rather than you. Simon Sinek's book Leaders Eat last, speak last, be the last person to open your mouth. So, yeah, understanding the why behind the what is one strategy there. And because it can be so different, I hate to just kind of give a blanket approach, but I would say that's probably a starting point, is understand why you're overspeaking and deal with that issue. If it's a confidence issue, work on building that confidence through message prep and message development. And if it's a value standpoint where I just talk a lot because I want to give a lot of value, we're going to work on being a little bit more concise and asking more questions than we answer, seek to be more interested than interesting, and really just kind of own that biting tongue for.

A moment, you know, that's brilliant. That's really brilliant. Especially the why behind the what. Because we can't just give blanket advice to people because different people will present with different things for different reasons. And so we have to go through that introspective process to figure out what it is that's causing us to behave in this way and reverse engineer a solution from that. And I think what makes it even more interesting is that we might over talk for different reasons in different scenarios. So in this conversation it might be because I feel like I need to win, I'm turning it into an argument. And so I'm debating the other person in this conversation, it might be, I feel insecure, they have more degrees than me, or they have a bigger business than me or whatever it happens to be. So you feel like you need to compensate for some type of reason, and then for this other one, it might be a feeling of desperation. Whatever it happens to be, I think we have to recognize that our performance gap will manifest itself differently in different ways in different conversations for different reasons. And so it takes, it's a journey. And I think that's one of the coolest things about conflict resolution, negotiation, persuasion, communication. It is an endless journey of self exploration, self discovery and self improvement. There's always something that we can improve.

Yeah, 100%. I used to have a supervisor, he would say it's attention to manage, not a problem to solve. And so, you know, adjust your mind around that. When it comes to conflict this is something that is an ongoing journey. There is no destination. You're always going to find some other nuance, some other challenge, some, Some thing that you've not had to overcome before. So make sure you've got the right mindset going into it. Not all problems can be solved. Some just have to be managed. And, and conflict management, conflict resolution is one of those things.

Okay, so I, I have to say something. This. There's something I've noticed with the way that you. That I really admire, and I'm wondering if I am right in my assumption and where it comes from, because first of all, I love your quotes. I'm taking all of these notes on these quotes, just dropping gems, very quotable, and then you're very succinct with the answers and then you extrapolate and I'm wondering if you get that ability to be like that, to, to be brief, that brevity from the success you've been having on like, Instagram and TikTok.

I think that is a huge part of it. Because I'm going to be honest with you, it is not my natural communication style. My natural communication style is to over talk it. It always has been. I have been a talker since day one. So. Because I've spoken to that elephant before the record button was hit, right? What I have to do is I have to make sure that I'm always focused on my highlights, the key points, answer the question and then expand on the question. That's been my, my modality since day one. But it's something that I would say Instagram perfected because when I started posting videos, I would write a script out for a video and it would be four minutes long. And I'd say like, you know, that's not even, that's too long for a real. You know, I can't, I can't put that out there. So I would have to start taking things out and, and making it fit into a very concise but clear message that still had all of the meat, all of the punch and all of the impact without the fluff. And that was challenging for me. But I've, I feel like I've gotten better at it. So I do tend to speak in sound bites very, very frequently. My wife and I, we call them Ryanisms. So I do, I do have a lot of quotables that are just kind of, that's the way my brain operates now.

I love it. It's impressive. I noticed it about, yeah, probably after about 10 minutes because I was, I really like that format because you have a really punchy response at the beginning that answers the question fully in a short period of time. And then you extrapolate on that answer. It's. It's really incredible. And again, we got 800 episodes down with the. With negotiate, anything that. That stands out. And I. And I figured it was more learned than anything else.

100%.

Yeah. And I think that's really empowering for the. For the listeners, too, because like you said, this wasn't your natural way to do it, and yet you have mastered it by doing it so well. So can you go into that, your ability to adjust?

Yeah. So, you know, here was one of the coolest questions that I ever was ever asked. So when I. When I was a police officer, I wanted to be a tactical operator. That's. That's the only. That's the goal. I wanted the guns, I wanted the gear. I wanted to be the GI Joe. And so I was privileged enough to go to FBI SWAT school. One day, the FBI called up, said, hey, we need a place to take some special agents, do some training. And I was one of the few guys that was selected to go. When it came time for me to apply to be a tactical operator, my supervisor said, I can't recommend you for this. I need you to become a hostage negotiator. You're a very effective communicator. I need you with a megaphone, not with a long gun. And I was torn, Absolutely torn. I sat on it for about a year before I finally applied. I had a chance encounter with a group of hostage negotiators one day, though, that changed the trajectory of my life. It's literally why I'm here today. I asked one of the negotiators, in passing, I said, what does it take to be a negotiator? Now, in my mind, that was influenced by this thought that I had that nobody Cool is a hostage negotiator. No, but nobody Cool does this job. Those are the ones who are a little overweight. I'm not trying to hate on my team. They're a little overweight, and they just didn't have the tactical proficiency that some of the other guys did. And this negotiator looks at me and he says, how are you most likely to get someone killed? And I paused for a second. I said, excuse me. He says, you want to know how to be a negotiator? I said, yeah. He says, how are you most likely to get someone killed? How are you most likely to screw this whole thing up and to say something that's going to take a bad situation to make it worse. And I thought about it for a second and I said, well, I'm a little impatient and I talk too much. And I said, what I know about me is I'm willing to abandon an effective process simply because it's taking too long, and I'll over talk my way out of a situation that's going well. And he says, great. I don't even care about the answer. I just need to know that you know the answer so that we know what to work on. Because as a negotiator, you have to understand how you're most likely going to contribute to the tension in the room. You have to know what you're most likely going to do to make situations worse. What's going to cost someone their life on the other end of a conversation. And that fundamentally was a paradigm shift for me. And because I had never really sat back and thought, listen, when we do conflict, we're usually talking. I would call someone like you or somebody else to say, how do I fix that person? Right? I need, I need, I need to fix them. But never had anyone challenged me to fix me first, had no one challenged me to sit down and say, ryan, what are you going to do to make a bad situation worse? And so that is the foundation for everything that I do today. It's one of the questions I ask my leaders. How are you most likely to get someone hurt who's in your career? So everything that I do is focused from that vantage point. My communication. What am I most likely to say that's going to devalue my message? What is it about my communication style that's going to potentially turn somebody off? And I'm constantly working to adjust the dials and turn the levers so that I can communicate effectively when the spotlight's on, so to speak. But it all came from that question, from that negotiator years ago, before I was privileged enough to become a hostage negotiator myself. And it's the way I see the world now. What am I going to do that's going to screw this thing up?

Wow, that's powerful. And again, it's so empowering too, because if we think about it from the lens of how do I fix other people? That's ultimately disempowering. Because at the end of the day, people have agency, they have choice. You can say everything perfectly and then they just say, no, that can happen, right? But when you think about it from the perspective of what can I do to make myself better. What are the things that I'm good at? How can I improve upon those? But also what are the things that I am not good at, the things that I struggle with, how can I manage that throughout, Improve upon that or find some way to navigate around that. Right. And so I think that's incredibly powerful because again, it shows your adaptability to your mindset. It's. You essentially tell me if this is a fair conceptualization. You wanted to have the, like the big guns and have the cool look. And so you. It's almost like you will change your mindset to see. Go from a warrior to the. Seeing the value of being a peacemaker.

Warrior, peacemaker or warrior guardian is typically how. That's how that's, you know, because both a warrior and a guardian have weapons. But how they use it and why they use and deploy those weapons is very different.

Different.

One is very offensive and the other is defensive. One is to go after a problem. The other one is to protect a. Protect something of value. And what I want to do is I want to protect something of value. I thought my biggest contribution was going to be going after something, but what I realized is that I was best suited to protect something. And so that's what I kind of put on. And I get to use words to do that. But what I'm doing now is I'm figuratively speaking and, or maybe literally speaking, helping to protect people from themselves. I'm. I'm helping people to avoid becoming the next headline. My clients are high conflict personalities. They're. They're people who have sexual misconduct behaviors, people who have done things that could get them in a lot of trouble potentially. And I'm trying to get them out of their own way. I want to have the conversation before you, you know, you cross the. The point of no return. And, And I can't do that unless you're willing to get honest with yourself about yourself. That's. That is the power of understanding. Intrapersonal conflict. That self awareness, self confidence, and self control. Those are the three pillars that I push my clients to really understand. And I use this illustration of a volcano. You know, the conflict that we experience, the conflict that we see externally started on the inside first, that something was boiling on the inside and the ground was shaking around before we got to the point where things erupted and we had to deal with the negative impacts on other people around us. So I want to deal with that tectonic shift, that internal shift inside of us so that you don't burn the people around you. So that you don't do or say the thing that causes harm to someone else.

Yeah. Oh, this is good, man. Ryan, I could just talk to you forever about this. So we got to have you back. We're going to have you back. I appreciate this. And before you go, remind the listeners about you, how they can get in touch, where to follow you on social and also about the community. YouTube.

Yeah, for sure, man. We are at conflict ish everywhere. So it's conflict ish on Instagram, Tick Tock and on online conflict ish.com and our community launches on Saturday. It's called the ish factor. And that can. You can find that at what's it, home.ishfactor.online or something like.

I don't know. We'll get the link. It's.

It's on there. Yeah, it's on there. It's not launched yet, so we're still figuring it out. But no, it's going to be great, man. So just an opportunity to kind of pour into folks who are looking to improve how they lead themselves and others through conflict. And I'm really excited to be able to launch this and just make it an extension of myself. For those who don't have the ability or the resource to hire me one on one, they can still come in the community and learn alongside with me.

This is great, Ryan. Really appreciate it, man. Thanks for joining us.

Absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.

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