Resolve Conflicts Better: Understanding Your Biases with Jeremy Pollack

Hey, everyone, and welcome to our Throwback episode. In our Throwback episodes, we are reintroducing you to some of our most popular episodes. This is great for new listeners who want to learn more about the work we've done in the past. And it's a great refresher if you've been a listener for a long time. Enjoy. Jeremy, thanks for joining us today.

Hey, thanks for having Kwame.

Now it's my pleasure.

So.

So how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Yeah. My name is Jeremy Pollack and I run a company called Pawlik Peacebuilding Systems. We're a nationwide conflict resolution firm. We do primarily workplace peace building work. So we do coaching, training and peace building, peacemaking work in workplaces. So helping co workers get along better and helping teams learn some skills to better manage conflict and prevent conflict from happening.

Fantastic. And of course, you have a new book coming out. Congrats.

I do, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it just got released this week. It's called the Conflict Resolution Playbook. So just. Yeah, pretty excited about that. It's basically, it's a non academic, very much for laypeople, you know, sort of very practical tips and strategies for different, particular, very particular, different types of situations, you know, both at work and at home.

That is great. So today I'm excited about this episode, Jeremy, and I told you, I've been excited about it all week since we spoke, talking about how to resolve conflict in a time where offense is everywhere. And so from your perspective, why is it so important to understand the unique conflict resolution challenges today?

Well, you know, I deal a lot in workplace, but I, you know, and I've done out of the workplace to personal, personal conflicts and group conflicts. And it, I think there's a lot, there's a lot of conflicts that stem from initial miscommunications, misperceptions, misinterpretations. And then if they don't get resolved, what ends up happening is, you know, resentment builds and people start forming a little bit of like an identity around the conflict and, and their mind starts working in a very particular way. And it's set up this way. You know, from an evolutionary perspective, psychologically, it's set up this way. And I think it's important to recognize that some of our, how some of our biases work, how some of our mental heuristics work. When I say bias, I think there's a distinction. So when I say bias, we talk about bias. People in the world today, when you say Bias, they're thinking of this very particular bias called in group out, group bias, which is like a bias towards other people of other social categories. And when I say bias, what I mean is any basically mental shortcut, mental heuristic that the mind is set up to do. And these are the things that the human mind is just, you know, that are innate to the human mind. And one of the most, you know, it has helped our survival tremendously, but it's a very difficult one to overcome in the real world is negativity bias. And it's a very well studied mental heuristic, mental shortcut. And it basically is kind of the rule that it's better to be safe than sorry. So people will automatically assume the worst in order for the organism to prepare itself to defend and survive, as opposed to assuming the best. And that's just the negativity bias. It's a really automatic bias. And I think on top of that, what builds is something that psychologists called hostile attribution error or hostile attribution bias. And this is a pretty well studied phenomenon too. And it's basically that we have a default mode that when we have identified someone as a potential threat, we start attributing all of their actions to them as with hostile intent. So anything that this person does now says, et cetera, is going to be filtered through this lens of is this a hostile act? And a lot of times things that are not necessarily hostile end up being perceived as being hostile. And that creates a whole lot of conflict. It creates a lot of conflict identity, like sort of core belief systems around what these, what this individual, what this group intends to do to me, or what they believe and what they value and all that sort of stuff. So there's this large phenomenon called hostile attribution bias. All human minds are set up to do it. We all do it on some level with people that we have been in conflict with a little bit. And I think it's really important to become aware of because this is something that I see, you know, when I deal with co workers in conflict or even couples in conflict and stuff, where someone has slighted the other. And now every time that person asks a question, does anything, says anything, looks at them a certain way, it's all like, you see they're trying to get me, you see, trying to intimidate me, see they're trying to catch me, it's always filtered to that. And the person didn't even intend for that. Right? That's not what's going on, but it's being Perceived that way, and that's hostile attribution bias. So I think it's really important to just kind of be aware of it.

Absolutely. And I think with any biases, that's really the benefit. We have to recognize that having these biases don't make us bad people, they make us human. It's just a natural function of the brain. Right. But then once we have a better understanding of the bias and the impact it has on ourselves and others, now we can craft strategies to overcome that so we can make better decisions and have better relationships. And I think the thing that you said that was so easy, interesting to me is the fact that we begin to create identities around these perceptions. Can you tell us more about that?

Yeah. You know, there's something that's called a conflict identity, and it essentially becomes this. So someone gets into a conflict, and this happens after a while, not right away. So you get into a conflict with someone, you can resolve it pretty quickly, within the first month or two. But if a conflict goes unresolved, if we avoid or sweep it under the rug for several months or even years, and this hostile attribution bias is in effect, and we start looking at this person as this person is hostile towards me, they're trying to get me, et cetera, et cetera, after a while, it seems to me that people build a core piece of their identity around being in the conflict. So now I am. Now when I go to war, for instance, I am now a victim, and I'm being attacked by this hostile person, right? So there's this victim oppressor identity set up. And then it becomes. Well, and I've seen this over and over when I deal with. When I coach individuals in conflict at work, where they go to work and they go, I can't quit because if I quit, they win. If I quit, then I'm not in the fight anymore. And it would be in all. If you look at it from an objective perspective and you go, you're not happy. You're not doing what you want to do. You're working for someone that doesn't, you know, doesn't appreciate your value or et cetera, or at least it doesn't seem that way. Why are you there? And the answer is, because if I quit, they win. And if I quit, then. And it's a little bit of like, if I quit, I don't know what else I'm going to do. In other words, I don't. There's. Part of my purpose now is to fight the good fight. I'm here to fight this fight. And that's that conflict identity. And you see it in large groups of people. I think it's very relevant in. You know, I have. When I went to Israel, and I have friends that are in Israeli, and I would talk to them, and I really. It feels to me that a core piece of their identity is around being in the conflict with, like, you know, the Arabs or the Palestinians. And if you were to. If you were to pose the idea of, like, what if we took that away? There's a very serious part of their identity that starts to get triggered or challenged. Like, well, then what. What would my purpose be? Who would I be without being in that. Without me being the victim of that conflict? And so I don't. You know, I'm not an expert in that realm of the world, but I've just. I was just noticing that anecdotally, with a couple of friends that I've talked to in Israel, and I. And I totally see that in the workplace when I deal with people, it's like, they've. Part of their purpose now in work and in life is to fight against this person, is to fight against this hostile. This hostile actor. And they're. And they're a victim, and they're going to win. You know that. And so that conflict identity is very tough to break because we have to now change a core piece of identity. Yeah.

And so think about this. This is what makes this so fascinating to me, because we often think about problems. We think about conflicts, okay? There's a conflict, I want to resolve it. There's a problem, I want to solve it. Right. But there's an element of ourselves that gets caught up in it that almost makes us resistant to solving that problem. I think about the relationship between the Joker and Batman to a large extent. They almost need each other because what is the purpose of my character without it?

It's a great analogy. Yes, great analogy. I mean, what's the purpose of creating that character without. If there's a hero, there has to be a bad guy. And when we get into hero identity and I'm in this conflict, if I get out of the conflict, then who am I? I'm not the hero anymore. So what's my purpose? And that's what I totally think. That's, you know, that's what seems to happen a lot of times, at least in my experience.

Yeah. And I think one of the things that's important, too, is that there becomes, like you said before, it's almost like a group identity. So I just Signed a book deal to do my second book, which is how to have Difficult Conversations About Race. And so you can see group identity being a major part of that, because sometimes, depending on who is saying the message, you're going to interpret it different ways. And it doesn't matter exactly what it is that they say, it's just who said it. And we're going to attribute hostility to. To it, and then that becomes almost like a badge of honor within your tribe, within your group. You see, I didn't trust what that person said to me. That's what we do as a people. And so it makes it really tough for us to really progress in our conflicts, whether it's at work or at home or on a social scale. Because this bias will have an impact on how we're perceiving everything that comes our way.

Absolutely. Group identity is a great example. I mean, forming conflict identities as a group is actually probably much easier than doing it as an individual, because that way you're getting. When you're in a group of people who all feel like victims, you're getting support, you're getting reinforcement from each other to go. See, this is true, this hostility. It's true when you're in an individual, like, let's say, like in a. Just in a workplace and you've got a boss and no one else is being, you know, attacked by the boss, just you. It's kind of. You're questioning yourself, you're doubting, you know, so maybe there's a little room. But when you're in a group and it's. It's much more. It's much easier. And you see it today with, you know, the political divides and stuff. Like, if you're on one side, the other side's trying to get you. The other side's trying to change your way of life, the other side's trying to threaten you. It's like that's the group mindset, you know. Groupthink is a powerful mechanism.

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Like you said, I dealt with this exact same thing this week. I noticed the bias in me and in attributing hostility when I don't know that there is some. So that's an important question. And I think, you know, I think number one is awareness of the fact that this bias exists. And really when I say awareness is like recognizing that this is a true psychological phenomenon. It's studied, there's lots of papers on it, and it exists pretty much in all humans as far as we know. So it's not. It doesn't make you like, bad or wrong or something like that. It's like, this is just what it is. It's a normal, natural thing to have a bias towards negativity or a bias towards watching out for threats and attributing hostility, threats to certain individuals. So having the awareness of that I think is important. The second thing is just discernment about whether the threat is real or not. So I might be aware of the threat, but I also don't want to gaslight myself into saying, well, it's just the bias. It's not really the person, because the person actually might be being hostile. It's important. So I think having some steps to take to discern and trusting yourself is not always the best route. So I think having someone objectively come in and give them the information that they need, like take a look at this email exchange. What do you think about this? Does this sound hostile to you or am I just perceiving this? And that can help, you know, sometimes getting a couple of opinions, you know, as long as it's appropriate and that sort of thing. You know, once someone determines, if you determine that someone's actually being threatening, there's a whole, you know, go down the route of what are the protocol is for your life or for your work or whatever. But if you determine, like, you know what, this person is asking me questions, they're saying things to me, I'm perceiving them as challenges, hostile, etc. And they may actually not be because they seem, if you look at objectively, they actually seem benign. This person looked at it, they said it was benign. So I'm looking at this now. So if you recognize that, I would just say one thing is starting to separate out behavior from your interpretation of the behavior. This concept of behavior from interpretation is super important and it's something I use in all my conflict resolution coaching and is when you notice a behavior, in other words, the person asked me a question, that's a behavior. What's my interpretation of that behavior? And noticing that your interpretation is not necessarily true about the behavior. Right. So you're so. So you've got to parse that out. And if you are assuming hostile intent, it's important to have a dialogue with this person and ask them. You can ask them, what did you mean by that? And if you're having, like, feelings that this person is intending to attack me, the person is intending to challenge me because they don't trust me, because they don't value me, because, you know, whatever the stories are, I would say ask that person for reassurance. So for instance, someone. This is an occurrence that happened in an office place recently. The boss, who's being. So there's an executive, and the executive sees everything that the boss says to him, asks him, et cetera. Every time the boss asks him a question, it's like he's trying to challenge me, he's trying to catch me, he doesn't trust me. So the boss asked him a question. I look at it and I go, that seems like a pretty reasonable question to ask you. Doesn't seem loaded.

Right.

And so we have a dialogue, and I'm in the dialogue and I'm trying to help this person reinterpret and reassure this behavior. So I said, what did you mean by that? And he literally. I just didn't have the information. I was curious and I wanted to know. That's all I wanted. I didn't mean to challenge you. I really. I wasn't trying to catch you. I didn't. Okay, great. So that's reinterpretation. Now reassure. Do you value him? Absolutely, I value him. Do you actually think that he knows what he's doing? Do you trust him? I do trust him. I do know what he's doing right? So getting that, taking some of the insecurities that come along with the interpretation of hostility and getting the other person to reassure them. And you can ask someone to do this. You could say to them, you know, I'm having some difficulty, you know, and I'm just, I think I'm interpreting things a different way. Can you tell me what you meant by that? And then you can ask them, do you trust me? Do you, do you value my opinion? And that kind of stuff. And you can hear what they say. And if they say, yes, I trust you, yes, I value you. You can hear the reassurance. You've got to do your best to take them at their word. You've got to do your best to start, like, to fight any like little voices that come up and go, yeah, they're just full crap. They're not really telling me the truth. Right. You got to fight that. Right. So I think deciphering between behavior and interpretation, asking for that reinterpretation, that reassurance from the person, that can start to heal the mistrust. It can start to heal this idea, this filter that everything they do is hostile. And then, and then I think you have to start giving someone the benefit of the doubt. You have to start saying, I'm gonna. Instead of being in default mode to hostile act, I'm gonna be in D. I'm gonna try to be in a conscious mode towards. Towards like, you know, good intentions. So because the default mode is like hostile, the person's being hostile, right? That's default mode. We wanna try to get you out of default and into conscious response. And the conscious response is, you know what? I'm going to give them the benefit of doubt. Maybe he really doesn't know and that's why he's asking. Maybe it's not because he wants to challenge me or question me or catch me doing something wrong. He actually doesn't know and that's why he's asking me. So I think that's another important part. And this is a constant awareness, like a constant battle for yourself. Because once you recognize I am attributing hostility where there is none, probably a lot of times this person has done some reassurance, they have reenter. I do understand why they're asking me these questions or why they're seeing those things now. I do get it. It's not because they're trying to be hostile towards me. It's just a constant check in every time you get a. Every time you get a little like a pain from them. Or a question from them or any kind of behavior from them. How am I, how am I interpreting that? You know, just constantly checking with yourself. It's not easy. Certainly not easy.

Right. It's not easy and it's not natural. But one of the things we have to do in these conversations is develop positive, unnatural responses to these very common situations. And we're developing new mental habits. And it reminds me of a section in my book called the Benefit of the Benefit of the Doubt. Right. Because the thing is, a lot of times we say I'm not going to give them the benefit of the doubt because I'm giving them a pass or why would I do them any favors?

Exactly right.

But the thing is, the benefit of the doubt is a gift we give ourselves because it helps us to think about the situation more objectively. And we're still holding people accountable for what they did or did not do. But we don't want to assume hostility where it's not entirely sure that it exists. You know, and I really love this point because we introduce that level of self awareness, we analyze the behavior and then the interpretation of the behavior separately. And then it helps us to think through it a little bit better. And I think something else that we could do to again continue to challenge ourselves, I guess we could consider this an internal negotiation is say if this was done with benign intent, how could they possibly be thinking about it? Right.

Yeah.

So then it helps us to recognize that there is a potential alternative explanation from what we originally thought.

I agree. And I love that. I love the idea of the benefit of the benefit of the doubt. There's a lot of benefit to giving someone the benefit of the doubt. One other thing I thought, you know, if, if we're recognizing that someone is behaving in a defensive way and there is a little bit of hostility or passive aggressiveness or something, and this could be, this could be said from the other side too. We're noticing it in someone else is, I say, you know, it's much. It's very hard to empathize or to, to take the other person's perspective or to be there and open hearted and compassionate. If you're in defense mode and if you see someone's in defense mode and you start to become in defense mode, we get to an impasse and it's just like, I don't want to. Either I don't want to talk to the person or I'm just gonna be aggressive or something. So what I would say, you know, to sometimes to break that is, can You. If someone is acting defensively, can you try to focus on their pain? Can you get a sense of where they're in pain, what they're afraid of or what's making them sad or what's making them just generally frustrated and trying to understand. You can ask someone too. Like, you get into, you know, get into a conversation. And I just. If you could imagine that this person, if you went to them and said, hey, what's going on with you? Like what. Why are you talking to me like that? Why are you, you know. You know, having, you know, what's going. You have a particular attitude lately or something? What's going on? That's. That's that, you know, and they. And they were to. To tell you and drop their guard and tell you, you know what? I'll be honest, man. I'm dealing with this thing at home, or the money's not good, and I'm really afraid. And they were actually to be vulnerable. Not that this happens, but if they were actually to be vulnerable, they're drop their guard. If you could imagine doing that, it's much more difficult to be in a defense mode and a hostile, aggressive mode. It's much easier to be in compassion with that person. So I would just say, like, if you can find even. Even imagine what this person's pain is, it's much easier to be in a compassionate space with them. Start to let your own guard down, not be so hot, not be so defensive, not. Not assume hostile intent. Much easier to do that if you can focus on someone's pain.

Yeah, this is great. There's a book called the Charisma Myth, and one of the things that the author says is that you can kind of give people a pass and make up an excuse for them. And I actually started doing this in my mediations, and it sounds very strange, but this is the way it works. So if somebody's acting really over the top in a mediation that I'm in and they're accusing me of being on the other side, and whatever, what I say to myself is, I make up an excuse. Well, maybe their dog died today. Maybe they lost a loved one. Maybe they, you know, they ended a relationship, whatever. And so it helps me to depersonalize it, right? It's not about me. This is about what they're going through. And I really like the idea of analyzing where that's coming from, utilizing a little bit of compassion and empathy in this situation as it relates to potentially bad behavior. Like, why are you doing that? Because one of the things that really frustrates people in difficult conversations, especially about sensitive issues. Race, politics, religion, those type of things. People get defensive. People get very defensive and they say, oh, they're so defensive. I can't break through that. Taking the time and asking, well, why do you think they're getting defensive? I think that's a really interesting perspective because usually defensiveness is going to be motivated by some kind of fear. So I think about. Think about a difficult conversation about race. A lot of times people would get defensive because they say, I feel like you're accusing me of being a racist or somebody who's bigoted or bad. Right. In politics, I feel as though you are accusing me and the team that I support of being somehow bad or nefarious or something like that. And they are like me. So you're saying that about me. And so I feel the obligation to defend myself really harshly. Right. And so I think when. Exactly. And so I think when we slow it down and then realize, oh, these are legitimate fears, it helps us to empathize and navigate the situation a little bit more deftly.

Well. And they're legitimate fears. And also, they're not about me. Right. This person's, you know, it's something I talk about a lot, is feelings are real, but people's stories are not necessarily real or true. For everyone, feelings are real. Your feeling of fear, that's a real thing. You're feeling it. There's no debate about that. But the story on which that fear is based may or may not be real or true for both of us. It may be true for you, it may not be true. It may be true for both of us. May not.

Be.

So when someone expresses, hey, I'm feeling afraid, and they say, here's why in all the stories, if we could focus on the feeling, if we could focus on this person's pain, the fear that they're feeling, and not take their story and go internalize it and go, it's about me. They're afraid of me because I'm doing something bad. If we could separate those things out, it would help a lot so that the person hearing it is not in a space of defensiveness and they could actually hear converse, talk, see what's needed to help soothe that relationship, build the trust again. Yeah. So not internalizing, I think, is a huge thing. That's part of the thing. On the other side, if someone is the one who's being accused of being hostile, that person's constantly walking on eggshells. They're constantly feeling sort of monitored or you Know, looked at in a way where, hey, am I doing something wrong? They're doubting themselves, they're questioning themselves, they don't like doubting themselves. So I don't, I'm just going to avoid this person or I'm going to be aggressive towards. So all this stuff happens when you internalize the other person's attribution of hostility because you might be doing something totally benign. But when they attribute hostility, then it becomes defensive mode because you're internalizing. So can you not internalize it? Can you go, this person's afraid for whatever reason something's going on, I'm doing something that's being interpreted a certain way, but it's not because I'm bad or I'm wrong or something like that necessarily.

Let's stick on that point. So if we recognize that the other person has potentially maybe dealing with the hostile attribution error where they're looking at us and assuming hostility, let's actually break down a few strategies that could be utilized in that situation.

I think, you know, again, I think first off, being aware of the bias, so understanding, hey, this is a human, this is a human mental heuristic, sometimes a mental error and it's real and this person might be experiencing it. So it doesn't mean that it's true, doesn't mean that I'm actually being hostile. I shouldn't internalize it. And you know, so being aware of the bias and also the discernment part is important on this side too. Like, am I doing something that's hostile? Really getting discerned. Can I ask a friend, Can I ask a trusted colleague? Come in, can you look at what I said to them? And does it seem like I'm being hostile? Would you read this as hostile? Would you read this as challenging? You know, so getting some of that discernment, if you can objectively go, I'm being, I'm, I am being, I don't have any hostile intent. It's fairly benign what I'm doing. And I recognize that. And now it's just a hostile attribution bias. If you can recognize that, I would, you know, I would say again, having a heart to heart with the person sitting down, having a dialogue and just kind of, you know, first off acknowledging that I can, I understand there's an issue. I understand that something I'm doing is really bothering and I want to hear about it and opening up the space to let them talk and just listen. And this is the tough part, staying calm, staying open, listening and not internalizing. Their story. Because if you start internalizing the story, you're going to get defensive. So if you can just stay calm and listen and try to separate what's the behavior they're talking about and what's the interpretation they've placed on it. The interpretation is not real. It's just their interpretation. The behavior is the real part. So if we can separate that, I also call this like being a communication archaeologist. You're going to go in and investigate, you're going to do some digging, and you're going to separate out behavior from interpretation. So then that way, if you hear that, what tends to help a lot is if I can recognize behavior and interpretation separately, I can. Then I can own up to behavior. You know what? You're right. I did say that. You know what? I did do that. You're right. So owning the behavior is very important. Not the story they place, not the meaning, but the behavior itself. Owning that. And then the. The interpretation part. This is the part when you get to reinterpret. I did do that. I did say that. But let me tell you. And I. And I will own up to the fact that I did not communicate my intentions. Obviously, I did not communicate clearly. Obviously, you got the wrong message, and I apologize for that. Like, that's not what I intended. What I actually intended was. And then you can reinterpret for them what I actually intended. I actually just literally didn't know, and I needed that information. And I just. I just asked you. I really didn't know. And let me just reassure you now. You reassure them now. Let me just reassure you. I totally trust you. I totally value you. This.

Ha.

Like, when I ask questions, it's not because I don't trust you. It's literally because I don't know. Please believe me. Right? So that owning the behavior and then reinterpreting and reassuring those pieces I often, you know, I think are helpful. I've used it myself in a personal situation several times, and it's been very helpful. It doesn't always get rid of the problem right away, but it's helpful in that. Starting that conversation, you know, and then. And then I would ask, you know, going forward, what's the right way to approach you? What's the right language I can use so that you don't. So that it doesn't seem like I'm being hostile. Because if I'm asking this question or I'm. I'm coming to you in this way, and it seems like I'm trying to catch you and say, I Don't want that. That's not what I want. So what would be the right way to do it? And let them tell you. Well, if you said this way, or if you came to me on Friday at 3pm When I have a break or something like that, or if you come to me not during my work hours and come to me at home when we're having dinner, I can have a conversation. Cool. That's when I'll come to you then with it. So getting them to tell you when it's appropriate, how it's appropriate to approach you, what the language is to use so that they have some agency in building the solution. Yeah.

Oh, this is fantastic. Because think back again to Joker vs Batman example that gave, where it's like, all right, they have a story. They're the villain, you are. They are the victim, you are the villain. Right. And so if they accuse the villain of doing something, what is the villain going to do? The villain would deny it. Right. And so whenever somebody misinterprets our behavior or our intentions, when we say, that's not at all what I was trying to do. I was trying to do this, they'd say, hmm, that's what an evil person would say. I know, right. And so what we're doing is we're breaking that pattern. Because what we're doing is when they say, hey, you did this, you say, actually, you're absolutely right. I did do that. Tell me a little bit more. Let me learn about. Help me to improve through this. Right. And the thing that's really tough, Jeremy, because I really took our initial conversation to heart, I actually put this into action this week, is that this is not easy and it does not feel good. No. Because when I. In. In my situation, I fully didn't. I genuinely did not believe that I did something wrong. And I'm not going to say my intentions were wrong, because that's not the case. But I understand that their interpretation is that it was wrong. So I will recognize the behavior, but separate, like you said, behavior from the intent. And so what I would do is I would want them to paint the picture for me. All right, tell me the story. How are you interpreting that? And then when I see what I inter. When I recognize as a misinterpret where I want to jump in and defend myself at that moment, I say, okay, that's interesting. Tell me more. I want them to get the whole story out. And then, like you said, I want to give them that reassurance. Well, let me tell you this. I do Respect you, and I'm sorry that this had this type of impact on you. This was something from our guest, Alyssa Carpenter, who said, you want to apologize and say I'm sorry. That versus I'm sorry if. Because it seems like you're denying the emotions if you say, I'm sorry if I'm sorry that it had this intention to you and then this impact on you. And so this is what I said. I said, listen, my goal is to accomplish that, and the way I did that in the past had a negative impact on you. So in your opinion, how should I move forward and accomplish this goal in the future? Exactly like what you said. Because what we've done is we've turned this narrow element of our relationship into a negotiation. Now we're negotiation behavior, intention, and what the relationship looks like going forward. But it takes a lot of patience because especially in the business world, we want to move on and get stuff done, but we have to slow things down and address this in order to move forward.

Yeah, well. And it also takes. It also takes a massive humility. It takes a lot of going. I am going to put my ego aside for a moment, because the minute this person says, I did something wrong, my ego is going to want to jump up and go, bull. I didn't do that. You know, it's going to. Right. It's immediately going to. So we have to. We have. You know, it's. It's the most difficult thing to put the ego down because the ego is prideful and the ego is fearful, and the ego wants to be right, you know, so, you know, one thing I say is, like, if you can allow yourself not to be right, it doesn't mean the other person's right, doesn't mean anyone's right or anyone's wrong, but it means that you. You don't have to be right and the other has to be wrong. Stop being right for just a little while. You know, it's. That's. It's a tough. It's a tough one, but it's.

Oh, my gosh. It was seriously the hardest thing I've done this week. Just being completely. It's Friday. It's the hardest thing I've done. I've done this week. And I was. This is. It's a new habit for me. And I was. I was. I literally had to sit there covering my mouth because I wanted to say something.

You want to jump in and defend.

Exactly. And the person actually said, are you okay? And I said, there's a lot of stuff that I want to say, but in this conversation I am just here to listen and understand how you're seeing things and what I can do to get better. And I felt hugely validated.

No, no. But yeah, no, you, so, so you are, in that case, you're putting your, your ego aside. You're, you're, you're, you're practicing humility because you're, you're willing to feel fearful or sick or, or whatever it is that you just want. Like, you know, you, you're, you're willing to feel that internally, but externally you're willing to open the space. And that's so validating for someone to just be able to talk and hear, like, feel that they're being heard, feel that they're being listened to and that they're maybe having some effect, some impact on you.

And I think one of the things we have to recognize is this. We often because of the tunnel vision that comes with the fact that we feel as though we're threatened, we feel as though we need to address this now, we need to solve this problem now. But with the majority of our relationships, there is a, this is just a very small fraction of the relationship. And I had to step back and realize, listen, I'm still in the game. They're going to be years worth of interactions with this person. And so I am going to take it. I'm just going to eat this today. And then what I've recognized is ever since that moment on like Tuesday or Wednesday of this week, every interaction has gotten better going forward. And so I think what we have to do is maintain a long term perspective on these interactions and make sure that we're not winning the battle but losing the war.

Yeah, well, and that brings up another good point. I think something that's important too, maybe just starting off a conversation about this is helping paint a picture of a better future for you too. So like when you start the conversation, you go, listen, I can tell that there's challenges here. I don't want there to be challenges. I actually, I think that we could have a great future together. I think that we can build something great together, you know, like, like giving them a little bit of like your vision for the relationship. And then you can open up and say, can you, you know, just tell me what's going on, like, tell me what you're experiencing. But I think giving that, I mean, I think that that's important. A lot of our peace building work is to help people paint a brighter picture of the future. What could, what could our new relationship look like? What could our relationship, what could our dynamic look like if there's more trust?

Absolutely. This is great, Jeremy. I could talk to you about this forever. This is fantastic. And listeners, if you like this, I know you are going to love his book. So, Jeremy, before you leave, let us know again about your company and the new book.

Yeah, my company is Pollock Peacebuilding Systems. You can find us@pollockpeacebuilding.com and my book is called the Conflict Resolution Playbook. You can find it on Amazon or a bunch of other sites. Yeah, hope, hope, hope it, hope it helps in some way. I hope it's useful.

Fantastic. Jeremy, thank you again for coming on the show, my friend.

Thanks, Kwame. Appreciate it.

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I'll catch you later, Sam.