The Power of Mindfulness in Negotiation with Talar Herculian Coursey Esq., CIPP/US, CIPM, SHRM

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 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. Talar, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

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

Okay. Wow. How long do you have? Because I don't know if you've seen my Alphabet tagline on LinkedIn. You haven't? Yeah, somebody mentioned something about the Alphabet tagline. I'm like, yeah, that's exactly what it is. We actually have a joke about it. But that's for another day. I digress. In short, I am general counsel by day for Comply Auto, a privacy and cybersecurity software company. Just started this role in January. I also serve as their vice president of human resources and also vice president of Comply Auto Escort Squire by night, which is more like early mornings because I've become a morning person since having my child. I am a children's book author. I have a series called Ralphie's Rules, and the first book was published a couple of years ago called Ralphie's Rules for Living the Good Life. The second book is coming out November 7th of this year and will be featuring my dog, furapist Dr. Jackson Johnson, so make sure that you keep your eye out for that. And I am also a certified life coach, but not currently accepting any clients because I have too much to do in my day job. I'm also a certified yoga instructor, but I don't teach yoga, I just practice it. And I'm also a wife, a mother to four kids. I have one homemade who's 10 years old. I have three Louis Vuitton baggage who came with my husband. They're all adults now, ranging in age from 20 to 26. And I live in Salt Lake City with my husband, the 10 year old and my fur pist. And that's about it.

Love it. And if you're not following Talara on LinkedIn, you got to make that happen. We're going to put a link in the description of this episode and today I'm excited because we're talking about mindfulness and how mindfulness can help you to become a better negotiator. So set the stage for us when it comes to mindfulness as it relates to negotiation. What's the connection?

So it really starts with Eckhart Tolle. Are you familiar with his work? I love him. I'm a fan. I'm a groupie, actually. It's even in my LinkedIn headline. That's how strongly I feel I dedicated the limited space that I have to him. And so when I'm talking about mindfulness and I don't know if the terms can be used interchangeably, I'm talking about self awareness and self awareness of your ego. So in negotiating, your end goal is to reach a resolution. And that is a common end goal between both parties. Right? That is their common goal. Obviously one side wants something the other side may not. And being able to observe your ego, having that mindfulness and self awareness to, to observe your ego and be able to put it aside in order to achieve your goal is what I mean in terms of using mindfulness to serve negotiation. And when I talk about ego, I don't necessarily even mean like arrogance. I think oftentimes people will confuse ego with someone who's arrogant or, or, you know, arrogance in general. But it's more than that. It's being able to observe all the elements of what's happening in the here and now as opposed to being the witness to what's happening in the here and now. Basically taking on the role of the mediator. You know, the mediator is the observing party or the observe the person who's observing both parties. If you're able to remove yourself from your Ego, you get a better sense of what you're trying to achieve and whether or not the actions you're taking in the words that you're expressing are going to get you to that result.

Oh, this got really deep, really fast, and I like it. This is great. Okay, let's start off with digging into the ego, too, because we talked about mindfulness now, but let's. Let's approach ego in a different way. What are the things that most people get wrong when it comes to understanding the ego and what it is?

Well, I think, like I said, and I take this from the way that Eckhart Tolle teaches it, being able to observe the ego, I think he calls it like being a witness to the ego. And the ego has to do with everything that is just in front of you. It's usually, you know, manifested in the various emotions that we see. So ego could be not just necessarily anger or arrogance. It could also be feeling despondent or sad or, I mean, even happier, joyful, if it. Joyful is the wrong word because he does distinguish between being joyful and being happy. And I love his distinction. I'll tell you real quick. He calls happiness dictated by external factors, basically the things that the ego is going to respond to. You got a new watch, you get a new car, somebody gives you a compliment. These are all external factors that might provide you temporary happiness. But joy he describes as something internal that is not dependent on external factors so that you can continue to have joy and even when the circumstances around you are not joyful or happy, like even in the worst conditions, having that inner peace and joy. So I don't know if that's necessarily a good explanation. And that's probably why Eckhart Tolle is a lot more successful than I am, because he has a better way of explaining it. But I wish I could provide a better way of describing what the ego is like. He refers to the ego of this world, and he draws upon a lot of different religious thinkers. Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, when he's talking about the ego. And he. So like some of his analogies that he will use is in the Christian world, the ego would be our flesh, whereas the witness to the ego would be the Holy Spirit within you. You know, something that transcends the worldly things here and being able to tap into that and being a witness to your ego and not allowing your ego to control you and your life and your words and your actions. And of course, you take that into negotiation and then it's like you've got a superpower if you're able to transcend that. Right. So that. That's the concept that he's referring to.

Yeah. No, this is helpful for me because there's so many different ways that we could look at ego. And that's the reason I asked you this question, because what's funny is we've had several people on the podcast coming in and talking about ego. We were almost at a thousand episodes. Maybe by the time your episode drops, it'll be a thousand. And everybody has a different answer for what the ego is, because I think it manifests differently for different people in different circumstances. And there's so many different ways that we could look at it. So we can think about mindfulness and meditation, where you reach this point where you can lose yourself. Like the distinction between you and other people is just completely eroded and the self has gone away. Like, that's an erosion of the ego in that methodology. I like the example from Christianity, too. We have our more carnal desires, and then there's the Holy Spirit that mediates. But then we also have. Just. In terms of an internal negotiation, your mind can operate almost like the internal mediator, where you can separate yourself. It's kind of like the William Urie and Roger Fisher of getting the. Yes. The concept of going to the balcony. So everything is. Is happening. You're there in the conversation. But then you say, okay, I'm going to pause. I'm going to go up above the conversation and look at it from a more neutral, objective perspective. Regardless of the ideology or thought process that we take to it, it really comes down to recognizing that there is going to be something within us that will pull us in certain directions, and those directions may not be very beneficial to what our ultimate goal is. And being able to pause and understand. There's going to be a distinction between what I feel like doing and what I feel drawn to do in the moment and what I actually should do in order to create a true connection and be effective in this situation and then do the right thing. That's the next step. It's a unique skill, but if you can start to master it, like you said, it's definitely a superpower in difficult conversations.

Yeah. I have the book Getting ts, but I haven't read it yet. But that analogy is spot on. Being the witness and the observer from the balcony rather than being in the depth of the conversation. And I think it's the difference. There have been. Many people have referred to this, taking that pause in order to respond instead of react. I mean, I've done my share of negotiations. I was in private practice as an employment lawyer, a management side employment lawyer at Fisher Phillips, and left there after I think almost 12 years before I went in. House and employment cases get really emotional, you know, unless you're talking about wages, but even then, I mean that can get pretty charged. But that, and that was one of the reasons that I was so drawn to that particular practice area is because I like working with people. I like knowing how they take and how they function. And honestly, I wanted to help people. I became a management side employment lawyer when I was a naive and optimistic college student and wanted to make the world a better place. So instead of becoming a plaintiff side lawyer, where I would go advocate for the alleged victim after the damage had already been done, I felt like by being an advisor to the company, I would be the insider. They didn't know that I really cared about all the employees and I was really there in order to protect them. And I'm kind of joking because I was very fortunate. Most of my clients, they wanted to take care of their employees too. They weren't out to get them, but they end up getting sued anyway. Especially when you're in California. I mean, you're going to get sued if you walk around, you know, if you're breathing, it doesn't matter what you do, you're going to get sued. It doesn't make you a bad person. It's just a rite of passage. But anyway, so that was the reason that I became a management site employment lawyer is because I was drawn to people and helping people and enjoyed, you know, the human experience and the human connections. But that my cases were very human. They're not talking about trademark or patents or contracts. They're talking about like racism and sexism and disability discrimination and religious discrimination. Topics that, you know, can be very personal. So navigating those conversations required not just mindfulness and self awareness on my own part, but also everyone around me. And I don't just mean the plaintiff and opposing counsel, even my own client. I don't know if you've been in mediations. I'm assuming that you have because you're a negotiator. But I mean, I don't know what today's world of negotiation is. Maybe there's robots that just go out and do it, I don't know. I remember something that a partner once told me about mediation was it's a poker game and everybody's playing everybody like. And so one of the things that I learned early on was, you know, I'M not just negotiating with the quote unquote adversary person on the other side of the V. I also need to be prepared to negotiate with whoever is in my room, in my caucus, which can be my client. It could be the insurance carrier as well, one or more of them. So there's like a lot of these different moving pieces. But my point in all that is to say that it starts with your own self awareness to be able to pause and respond instead of reacting, but also being able to recognize that in the people around you and finding out, was that just a reaction or was it a response? Was it a calculated response? And what do I need to make them think differently so they will feel differently and then respond differently? So yeah, I think it's a superpower. Unfortunately, I didn't discover yoga until much later. But in hindsight, when I'm learning these concepts and educating myself about it, when I look back to see what I was doing, that is what I was doing. Not knowing that was the case necessarily. But obviously with, you know, with practice, you end up getting better at it.

Hello, my friends. Before we get back to today's episode, I want to ask you a question. Have you ever wondered how to elevate your team's negotiation game and how you can help the folks on your team have better, difficult conversations? At the American Negotiation Institute, we offer transformative keynotes and workshops tailored to empower professionals with top tier negotiation and conflict resolution skills. Whether it's a keynote for your next event or hands on training for your team, we've got you covered. Don't just negotiate. Master the art with the American Negotiation Institute. Click the link in the description to find out more. Elevate, negotiate and succeed. Absolutely. And I really want to focus in on the reacting versus responding piece because again, that's something we've covered. We always think about it from our perspective. All right, Am I reacting emotionally without thinking about it, just instinctual responses? Or am I actually pausing and responding in a meaningful way with using the higher level thinking that we would want to? But nobody thus far has brought that same dichotomy and applied it to other people. And I think that's so important for us to explore because you said, is this person reacting or responding? So break down for the listeners why understanding that is so important in other people?

Because it's going to make a difference in knowing where you can take your negotiation. If it's just a reaction, then you can make progress and find a way for them to reconsider the request. Maybe you need to package it differently. Maybe it needs to be delivered by somebody else so that the same offer you made previously can tap into them in such a way they put aside the negative reaction, are able to actually respond to it, as opposed to if they're providing an informed response to you, then I think you need to reconsider whether you're going to be able to make progress with whatever offer that you did. Because that's not coming from a reaction or a place of emotion. It's more calculated.

Absolutely.

At least that's my interpretation.

Yeah, you're spot on. Because if somebody responds, or let me say, use the right terminology here, if somebody reacts instantly and I give a meaningful offer and then they say, no, absolutely not. That's ridiculous. I'm like, you didn't think about that. You felt that great. So I'm going to address the emotionality. And what's funny is that when it comes to when situations where somebody reacts emotionally but they react with language that is substantive, I ignore the substance of what they say and just address the emotionality. So that's an emotional reaction. You might not mean that in the moment. So I'm going to address the emotional temperature, bring you back down to baseline. Now, if after considering it and pausing and responding and giving detailed information, you still have that same position, I say, okay, this is real.

So.

So this is going to be something I'm going to need to wrestle with and I'm going to take what you said substantively. You mean that I need to wrestle with the subst. For me, the way I think about it is if I recognize an emotional reaction, I am going to try my best to let that the substance of what they say, go address the emotions first. And then if they still say the exact same thing without the emotionality. Okay, now, now I need to deal with that.

Yeah, yeah. Which is, you know, the reason why my mediations that I used to handle in employment law, I'd black out the whole day. You're talking morning to late, late night for it to get done, a lot of clients would get frustrated. Why does it have to take so long, et cetera. And you can't rush the process, especially when there's going to be a lot of emotions. You have to give an opportunity to let that steam come out somehow so that they can get past the emotional reaction and then provide a response to the offer. Definitely.

Absolutely. No, this is so important. And again, I think a lot of folks, especially lawyers, us lawyers, we can be very type A driven, focusing on the facts and data and logic and it's like, oh, okay, well, you don't like that? Let me hit you with this research a little bit harder. It's so powerful to take that moment and just address the reality of the emotions that the other person's feeling. Because a lot of times, for the sake of efficiency or just out of frustration, because we don't want to deal with it, we try to essentially muscle our way through these conversations. You're experiencing some emotional distress. Cool. I'm just going to push through it and beat you over the head with logic and facts. But it can often do more damage than good. And sometimes, really what people need in these situations, like you said, is time. Block out the whole day, expect to take that time. The more emotional the conversation, the more time it will take to kind of work through that. But it's one of those situations where you have to go slow to go fast, because if you try to move too quickly, then it increases the resistance. But if you take the time and slow it down a little bit and address the emotions, then you can reach a productive solution a lot faster.

Yeah. Definitely reminded me of a quote that Jay Harrington shared recently from Navy Seals Jay Harrington, who's also on LinkedIn and he's got his own podcast, too. He hasn't invited me to be a guest yet, though, so you're obviously.

We'll send him a link and let him know.

He had shared a quote about the Navy seals saying, go slow. Slow is smooth, smoothest fast. And that really resonated with me. And it's something that.

No, you were saying when you were talking about Jay Harrington's slowest, smoothest, and smoothest, fast. We're talking about how essentially, when you slow down, you can be a lot more efficient when it comes to solving these difficult conversations.

Right. So now you've got me distracted with lights on, lights off, and the clapping thing going on. But so I have a confession to make, and hopefully you won't share this with my husband. He is right. He is right. Sometimes that is my confession. And I'm a get it done kind of girl. So when I'm putting together the IKEA furniture, who needs to read directions? You just put it together well, then it's backwards, which is what I end up doing. And that is the opposite of the smoothest fast concept. Right. Slowest smooth, smoothest fast. I don't apply that to IKEA furniture or other things, but when it comes to people, I do and enjoy giving the time and attention to tell me who they are, what they think, and what they Feel, which I believe was one of my superpowers. When I was negotiating and involved in mediations, I would often, even if we never had a joint caucus, which oftentimes in our employment cases, we wouldn't just because it was so charged, it didn't make sense to do it. So we'd end up in separate rooms. But I always made it a point to go over to the other room and introduce myself to the plaintiff. I wanted them to see me as a person and know that I'm not, you know, some corporate head or whatever, and that I want to know how they are. And so that later on when there are communications happening, they recognize that there's a human being on the other side that's genuinely asking me these questions and, and wanting to know what I think about them as opposed to, you know, a number being thrown back and forth. Because oftentimes in these cases, I'm assuming in a lot of different cases, people want to be heard. They want a chance to be heard. And especially if you're going to resolve the case in mediation and they're not going to get their day in court or arbitration, that is going to be their day in court and their opportunity to, to tell their story. And if you take that away from them, then you probably won't be successful in a resolution, at least not that day.

It's so simple, but so powerful. Just that human desire to be heard. And it's also pretty rare in some of these cases where the person feels heard either by the other side or the people around them in their day to day lives. And when you can give them that gift of just taking the time to listen to them and hear them, that is one of the most effective and persuasive things that you can do. It's also very hard to do. Circling back to what we talked about at the beginning with the ego, because our ego will be telling us to jump in, correct the fact they're wrong, let them know you're better than them, all of those horrible things that are antithetical to your goal. But you would feel in the moment that it's really important for us to say this one thing right now. But again, just sitting back and allowing the person to speak, that's going to be powerful, but it'll be very difficult to do unless you're able to let go and kind of separate yourself from that ego and then give it some space. So, Talaria, this was great. This was incredibly insightful. I really appreciate it. And before you go, let the listeners know again about how they can get in touch with you and remind them about the books.

Oh, yes, of course, my books. Getting in touch with me. You'll find me every day on LinkedIn, unless something terrible has happened to me, in which case, please send flowers or food to my husband. I'm on LinkedIn. And lar Herculean Corsi I've got a four leaf clover but I am not Irish. I'm just lucky. And my books, Ralphie's Rules for Living the Good Life is available on Amazon. It is based on the four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I think it would be a great thing for mediators to pass out honestly to their participants while they're waiting around because it's going to teach you those principles of mindfulness and not taking things personally. So go ahead and steal that idea from me. I won't charge. The second book, Ralphie's Rules for Feelings, is coming out November 7th with my dog, Dr. Jackson Johnson. And that will be imparting the tools that I learned in life coaching about how we can actually control our emotions with our thoughts.

Incredible. Talar, really appreciate it. Thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

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. Hey. Hey. How are you?

I'm good. How are you?

I'm good. It is good to see you. There we go. Got, got rid of that note taker. I like your. Your glasses.

Thank you.

Really cool. I don't think you. I don't think you were wearing glasses last time.

I like to keep you on your toes.

I like it. I appreciate it. I appreciate it.

How's life Irish today?

Listen, don't throw me off of that again. I was deeply perplexed, confused. I thought about that for a long time. I was like, where did I go wrong?

It's all good. Yeah.

That's funny. Have you. And I'm the only person who has done that and made that mistake.

You know what's funny? I don't know if I told you this, but the only time anyone has ever said you have an accent. I was 17 years old, Hostess at Claim Jumper. And it was like this elderly couple that I was sitting. I said, really? Kind of accent do you think I have? They said Irish. They were older.

So what's my excuse? I saw Shamrock. That does my excuse. I saw Shamrock. I think that's my bias. I only think one thing. I think, like, Lucky Charms.

So funny. Well, it just goes to show, and I think that we talked about this last time. The, you know, the biases that we have, the things that might not even pay attention to. Mm.

One of the things that I realized, it's comical when, you know, there are different types of biases, but there's some really dumb biases. And it's only after I. Like, somebody asked me a question, and I start to answer the question. I'm like, man, this is stupid, and it's not based on anything. And one of the ones that I realized is I was talking to Whitney, and I was talking about how hard it was for me to just accept this new identity as a dad. And this is what I said. And this is when I exposed the bias. I was like, yeah. I remember how surprised I was when I would see somebody in a podcast interview or whatever, and they were really cool, and then I found out they were a dad. It was always surprising. And then I said, oh, my goodness. I never thought dads were cool. That's why I was so resistant at the beginning. Ridiculous.

That is ridiculous. That's a good one.

Yeah. How is that even possible? Yeah. Yeah. So that was a good one.

Well, cool.

We need to. We need to make an interview happen this time.

Let's do it.

Can't just keep hanging out. I. I saw that.

I mean, we could.

We could, but next time, we got to do it in person. We got to get to. To the. To Utah.

I'm working on it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be cool. There are a few folks, like, do you know Michelle Oleroid?

Doesn't ring a bell.

Okay. She was a podcast guest, too. She's often in the comments, but. But she's in Salt Lake City. There's somebody else I talked to in Salt Lake City.

Her last name.

Let me see. She has a last name that I say very quickly intentionally, just in case. No, not just in case. I know I'm not pronouncing it right.

Pronounce it correctly. You know what's weird? I realized this as you said it is because, like, when you're scrolling through LinkedIn, you're reading the names and you're reading a lot of the content for some reason. It just seems different when hear somebody saying it out loud. Roy Ball. Okay, let me see. Because I like connecting with local people here. So if I'm not connected, I'm pretty sure I am connected with her. Her name is really funny.

You are? Yeah, she's with the. The bar. Utah State Bar.

Oh yeah. Why isn't it? See, this is so. It's frustrating when the searches come out squirrely. It's like, why wouldn't you show me the first person? It's not coming up.

That's weird. Wait, hers?

Yeah, at least like on my phone. Let me see if I just do. If she's a first connection, I'll just do. Yeah, it doesn't show that I'm connected with her. Michelle Roy Ball.

No, I think that's her maiden name. It's Oldroyd now. O L D R O Y D.

O L D. Yeah. Okay, there we go. Yeah, we are connected. See, look at you throwing me off like that. I need to meet with her in person because I think she'd be great person for me to know. Okay, I've got her.

You should. And you should check out her episode. Her episode was really good.

Okay. All right. No pressure, right?

Listen, there is a ton of pressure. I want to be clear on that.

Well, you know what? I reject your pressure. You can pressure to yourself.

You cannot reject my pressure.

I just did.

Not there.

Just like that.

That is not fair. Okay. It's weird. I can't find the good Apple podcast link. It's funny. I need to get a better way because I can't just be googling my own podcast to try to find episodes. There has to be a better way, right?

Yeah, there's gotta be a better way. If only there was someone smart enough to figure that out.

I know. Golly. Okay, cool. I like the mindfulness and yoga to prepare for difficult conversations. I saw your other podcast interview. I forget the show name, but if I recall correctly, it was. You were talking about being a yoga instructor. I think it was law related. Do you know which one it is?

No. Yeah.

Do you do a ton of interviews?

I've done many, yes. My first one was with Trish Baxter on what was the name? Was it legally speaking or. No, the Defense never rest. That was my very first podcast that I had done and what like three years ago or something? And it was mostly about, you know, my journey from file clerk to general Counsel. And then a little bit about my journey to Lebanon to try to get my dad out and all this other stuff. And I mostly just did it because I was bored. I mean, it was the same reason that I got on LinkedIn. I just wanted people to talk to, like, you want to talk to me on a podcast, fine, I don't care. Whatever, you know, talk. And so after I did that episode with her, I asked her, I said, have you ever been interviewed on your own podcast? She's like, no. I'm like, let me interview you. So I did. And then after that, I ended up co hosting with her for a while too, just because it was fun, you know, it was more fun to have conversations. So I don't know how many of those I did, maybe six or seven. And then I've been on a few random ones, so maybe a dozen or more.

Very cool. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun. I mean, it's. I tell people like, these are conversations I want to have anyway. Now we just record it and share it. Just nerding out. I love it.

Yeah. Although they're not all fun. I've become a podcast snob after I started listening to them, which I didn't even start listening to podcasts until the pandemic. And there's a real difference. I don't know if you listen to some other ones. And to your point about sound quality, that's one of my pet peeves. When there's like bad sound quality on a podcast really turns me off. The other thing too is when it's like you can tell when it's a forced conversation as opposed to natural.

Yes, you certainly can.

And those hurt me. I have like a visceral reaction to it, and so I don't enjoy those.

There's some people who are just not good interviewers. Like, interviewing is a skill. You get better at it. Right. But there's some people who just don't invest in it. And then there's some people who are so formulaic, they have the same questions for everybody, or they don't have the exact same questions for everybody, but that you can tell they're running through their list and they're forcing the conversation in specific directions. It's. Yeah, it's very off putting, especially when you actually care about good conversation and you can sense that. You sense it immediately.

Yeah, yeah, that, that's, that's how I feel. I care about good conversation, definitely.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the things that's been eye opening to me is the like the discrepancy between the approach in general, big, big picture between like traditional media and independent media. Because you think about somebody who has a, like a TV show, you have to inorganically force this within a certain like, time frame. Okay, we got five minutes to talk about this thing. You don't get to know who the person is. Everybody's just selling really quickly. But when you have more time and no time limit, you can go so much deeper. And even if it's not a Joe Rogan style, like three hour podcast, you could still get to know somebody if you just give them 20, 30 minutes. Just talk like people. It's so strange. And I think a lot of times the interviewer is lacking confidence in just letting the conversation flow so they feel like they need to just micromanage the whole thing.

Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah, I didn't realize, like, it, like, you're right, it is a skill, the interviewing process, being able to guide your guest without trying to control them. So this balance between continuing an engaging conversation and like not having dead silence because they don't know what to say.

Yes, yes. It's mind boggling. It's mind boggling on a number of levels. Yeah, it's. The discrepancy can be very clear. I think the biggest thing for me is like, why wouldn't people want to get better? Just like honing that skill. Or maybe there's just a lack of self awareness or maybe just no desire. I don't get it. I really spent a lot of time thinking about this. Talara. I really don't get it.

I think it's a combination of both. I think some people just don't have the self awareness to realize they suck and that maybe they should be doing something else. I mean that with all the love in the world that. Exactly.

Some people need to hear it.

Yeah. I'm sure you have many skills, but podcasting is not one of them. I invite you to explore other avenues of self expression.

Becoming a monk, vow of silence.

Well, you know, speaking of which, I am a fan of Jay Shetty. Have you read any of his work?

I have not read his work, but I've seen him in a number of interviews.

Yeah, he's a fascinating guy. I read his Eight Rules of Love. I actually. What did I do? Oh, first I listened to it on audio and then I liked it so much I bought the paper copy and I bought a copy for one of my sons too. Yeah, I really liked it. It was really good.

Eight Rules of Love.

Yeah. And he. He starts with. I mean, it's not a new concept, but I like how he explains it is you have to start with getting to know yourself. You know, knowing who you are, what you like. How do you want to be loved? What does love mean for you? Which, I gotta tell you, I'm. What? I'm almost 49 years old and I'm still trying to figure out what love is.

Interesting. What do you mean?

I was raised with what I believe to be an unhealthy definition of love, which is sacrifice and martyrdom. To love someone is to put their happiness ahead of yours. Essentially, what I grew up with. And as you can imagine, that is not a great way to be loved. Not just, well, to love, it's not a great way to love. But then I impose that standard on people around me. So it was like, if you didn't make my happiness a priority over yours, then that means you don't really love me.

Yeah, that. Wow. That's powerful.

So it's not that Love is not that. So. So then what is it? And the closest I've come so far to discovering it for myself. Was it Pima Chodron who provides this analogy? I don't know where it came from, but it's, you know, if you like a flower, you pluck it and you take it home, right? You're going to admire it or give it to somebody, but if you love a flower, you leave it there, you water it, you let it grow.

Hmm. That's fascinating. That's really interesting. So then it sounds like that latter definition of love is more of being a facilitator of the other person's growth without trying to take ownership of them.

Ownership or control? Yeah. So, like, my translation into the human relationship has been, if I love you, then I want to encourage and support your fulfillment to the best version of yourself, whatever you believe that to be. Not what I believe that to be.

Wow. That last part is probably. Is challenging in general, but it's probably got to be even more challenging as it relates to children, too.

Yeah, definitely. But, yes. And, you know, my little one, he's 10, he hasn't gotten quite to the point where he's told me he wants to go join a rock band like his dad. But so far, I feel like it hasn't necessarily been that hard to, like, nurture him in what he enjoys. Like, right now, he. So he's in a choir school, and now that he started the fifth grade, he's going to be singing in the choir. And I was really Surprised that he even cared about which choir he placed in. There's like three different levels, depending on your skill. And he was placed in the top choir. So he's singing with fifth to eighth graders in mass in the cathedral. And we'll be traveling. We're going to New Orleans in April for him to go sing there. And then there will be international. So it's like this really big deal. And we were so surprised because this kid, like, we normally think of him as so introverted and shy and easily anxious around loud noises and a lot of people. But when we allowed him to find his own path and what he enjoys, it's certainly not what we expected. And he is so excited he's going to be singing. There's an opera coming, too, the Little Prince. And it's like, it's an intense schedule that intimidated both my husband and I. And we asked him at first, he's like, no, my son didn't want to do it. But then it was like, a few nights ago. He's like, you know what? Can I still do the Little Prince? Because I'd really like to do it. We're like, are you sure? It's a lot of work, a lot of rehearsing. He's like, yeah, yeah, I really want to do it. I discovered I really like to sing. Okay. Isn't that awesome? Like, if you allow someone to be who they are and find what they enjoy, like, it could be something totally different than what you would have expected.

Wow, that's incredible. That's so cool. I need to think about that. That flower metaphor. I think that's powerful. That is really, really powerful. Because, you know, that's how. Wow. Yeah. That is deep. Okay, I might need to give this Jay Shetty a chance here.

I think. I think it's really interesting. You don't think about love and what it is and how to love. I mean, and I don't mean that in a judgmental way, but at least for me, I feel like it's one of the most important things in our lives and in the world. Again, from my personal perspective, I spend so much time thinking about it.

Hmm. You know, that's interesting. I remember when Kai was born, it was tough for me and Whitney. Just that shake up in the. In the relationship. It was a tough time because we got married super young. We got married at 21. And then we. We went through. I went through law school. She went through med school. So we had Kai. And this was planned in residency. We thought, oh, this will be. We can make this happen. Oh, my God, so hard. And. But yeah, so that was tough. And so I did a lot of exploration there at that time. And I think I pretty much found what I was looking for too, because I was. I was at a point where I was thinking about it in terms of kind of mutual sacrifice, too. So I wanted to see more sacrifices. And then I realized I'm kind of being selfish here and I need to do a better job of finding myself and loving myself, appreciating that. And I recognize I was always tied to something or someone, and it was almost like codependence on my part. And so that's when I had to. I did a lot of therapy, spent a lot of time, like, thinking it through, and I was like, okay, cool, I need to refocus on myself a little bit. And the relationship got a lot better. And so I think now one of the reasons why I'm not so much exploring the concept of love is more because I feel like I'm in a good rhythm with all of those relationships, but more so. This is interesting because I've never said this explicitly, but I'm thinking it. Thinking of love almost as just one of the top ends of the spectrum of human connection. So for instance, I brushed past somebody on the street and I was like, oh, hey, you know, somebody I don't know, okay, little connection, right? But then love is at the deeper end of the connection. And so at some point it goes from, like, friendship or affiliation to love. That point is kind of hard to specify. And so I'm thinking about it in terms of where on that spectrum of connection I want to make sure that I maintain, you know, so, okay, with Whitney, I want it to be way over. Here with friends is like here with kids, it's. It's somewhere there. So I've almost. It's almost like I've removed the term love from that consideration when I'm thinking about it, but just thinking about it more in terms of depth of connection.

Interesting. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

That is really interesting. I have not explicitly spent a lot of time thinking about that since six or seven years, because Kai's seven. Really Interest. This is an interesting revelation that I haven't really gone deep into that. And I think it's often those times where I find maybe deficiency is a strong word, but there's an area of opportunity that I'm going to, like, go super deep into the research and then learn and learn and learn and learn. Reading a lot of Brene Brown, some John gottman talking about the principles of marriages that work and that type of work that's been. That was, it was. It's like binging on that until I figure it out.

Yeah, yeah. No, I. I love both of them. I follow both of them as well. But I think in a lot of respects, a lot of these, you know, thinkers and creators are sharing similar concepts, but they're gonna hit differently, you know, with different people and then in different times of your life, depending on what stage you're in. Because a lot of my thought work around love now has to do with being a parent. You know, since I had my son, I want to make sure. And it's. I don't want to sound like I'm judging my parents for how they loved me. They loved me how they knew best. Our circumstances were different. I mean, we were leaving a war torn country in the middle of a civil war in the Middle east and we didn't have a home. And so they, their needs and their love were more primal and those basic things they were trying to provide to us, safety and shelter and security. I thankfully am grateful that I'm not in that situation. And so I feel like I can go past that in my parenting so that I can love my child in a different way. He doesn't need to worry about what country he's going to live in or a home or a bomb going off or, you know, whether there's going to be food at the grocery store and stuff like that. So I feel like it's. We get to, in the words of Taylor Swift, concern ourselves with champagne problems. You know, like Taylor Swift, I am familiar.

There are a couple of her songs that I like, a couple of her songs that I know she doesn't have, like, not enough bass for me.

Got it. Okay. It's all about the bass.

It's all about the trouble. That's another song.

That's another song.

Good reference.

We are a big Taylor Swift family. Big killer's family or first of all, we're a big music family. Everybody in the family plays an instrument except for me. I just appreciate the music. Yeah, yeah. Big concert goers. But anyway, going back to like the parenting and love, you know, my parents were so busy trying to love us by providing those basic needs that they didn't have the luxury of being able to think about love in other terms.

Yeah.

Like, you know, watering the flower. You know, I grew up where my parents told me where I was going to go to school and what I was going to be and what I was going to do and who I was going to marry and where I was going to live. You know what I mean?

And yeah, I mean it's critical for resilience. I think about that a lot. There was this book called how to Raise an Adult. Really great book. And one of the concepts was Parenting Toward Obsolescence. So it's like, all right, I want to try to parent you and get you to the point where you are self sufficient where you don't need me, which is hard to do, but gotta let them go through those bumps and bruises. That was a really good lesson. And wait, we're doing it again. We got to do an episode.

Okay. I have that book, by the way. I have it on audio.

Oh, you do? You like that?

I haven't started it yet. How to Raise an Adult.

It's really good.

Yeah, but I saw that recommended somewhere else. Okay, let's start.