Transforming Negotiations Through Dignity and Respect: Insights from Din Jenkins

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 welcome back, my friend.

It's great to be back, Kwame. Thanks for having me.

Hey, man, it's my pleasure. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Absolutely. So my name is Dean Jenkins. Those of you that have seen me on LinkedIn, you're going to see it spelled D I N, but it is in fact, Dean, I am. I am a police officer by day. I am a law enforcement executive in New England. And I also have a business called Supply the Y, where typically it takes place in the form of a podcast or a webcast where we have all different topics where we facilitate difficult conversations about a given topic.

Yeah, listeners, we're going to put links in the description so you could check it out. It's an awesome show. So it's live streamed, so Dean is much braver than me. And then it's also recorded as a podcast and then also tell them about Supply the Y in terms of the opportunities that you have when it comes to facilitating difficult conversations.

So basically, it's easy to talk about what we don't do. We stay away from two subjects. We stay away from religion and we stay away from politics. Those are very difficult subjects that people feel deeply about, so we don't typically touch that. But anything that is not those two subjects, we facilitate difficult conversations. So that can mean we come into your place of business and we help your team talk to talk to a particular situation, like a De and I situation. I also talk to groups about police use of force. One of the things that I do, I am a Certified defensive tactics Use of force instructor here in Massachusetts. So I do have a certain amount of experience in that. In that realm. And I am also a certified. An FBI certified crisis negotiator. And that helps out in many different areas. And I use those tools, plus all of my experiences in my 18 years of law enforcement, to help people find a little bit of middle ground in these difficult, polarizing situations.

Listen, Dean, my goal is to get to a point where I could say something about my resume kind of in passing, like you did, where it's like, oh, yeah, and by the way, I am an FBI certified crisis negotiator. You know, y. Yes. This is incredible. So everybody. You see, Dean, is a well of resources here when it comes to difficult conversations, because you've been having these difficult conversations in the most significant circumstances. So not just in the business world, not just in personal and professional life, but like in the field with lives on the line. So we appreciate your service and we appreciate your willingness to share with us today, too.

Thank you very much. And yes, there have been some difficult. Some very tight situations where seconds and tone and all the little details matter. And I'm sure we'll delve into that a little bit.

Yeah, man, let's jump into that right now. Because I've been thinking a lot about tone. It's not just what we say, but how we say it. And one of the things I've recognized is that with law enforcement, they are incredible with using their tone to communicate almost like a secondary message behind what it is that they're saying. And you in particular, you have an incredibly diverse skill set in this arena because you can flex that empathetic tone as a hostage negotiator or crisis negotiator. But then since you've been in the field, you've also had to be a lot more assertive when it comes to the way that you are communicating. So how about we just start off by talking about the power of tone when it comes to any kind of difficult conversation?

Oh, 100%. So as far as tone goes, that is a. That's a key with the universal adapter. And what I mean by that is your tone can get you in and out of doors that. That. That force cannot. So in 21st century policing, there has been a big shift. You know, when I first started, it was towards the end of the hey, I'm gonna solve every problem with a hammer type mentality. Like, I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna tell you how it is. You're go do what I say, and that's the end of it. And that was basically, that was the extent of a lot of police officers tools, what they had in their, in their, in their toolbox. But we've realized that, that, that that doesn't work for everybody and it doesn't solve a lot of problems and it doesn't give people the respect and the dignity that we are that most people require in today's world. So that's why you have to have different skill sets. You have to have the ability to access different tones, different body languages. And you have like sometimes maybe you got to slow down a little bit and let people talk. Even if you know they're on and you know what the end result is, you'd be amazed by just simply letting people have a few minutes to vent or a few seconds event, if it's safe to do so, how that can make the end result that much easier. So for example, if you are encountering somebody for something that is low level on the criminal, on the criminality scale, something that is maybe not a volatile situation, or if there's not an imminent threat to you, to your safety or the safety of others, maybe you slow down a little bit and even though you know that you have to take some action, but maybe you do it in more of a conversational tone where the person feels like you're a partner in the solution with them as opposed to I am just big brother coming down and I am telling you what to do. You're going to do this, you're going to do it now, and that's the end of it. Turn around for chance behind your back, that even the most docile people feel insulted and they feel as if they don't have a chance to be heard. And that's what we do now, more in police work than ever before as we give people a chance to be heard again when it is safe to do so.

Let's look at this through the lens of leverage. I want to see if we can draw a corollary between this situation. Let's say somebody is clearly in the wrong. You will 100% be arrested at the end of this situation. You have the full force of the United States government behind you, you have all of the leverage. And then let's think about a business scenario where you have all the leverage. They need you, you don't need them, and you have a ton of different options. And I've heard, and I know in the business world we have to treat people with dignity and respect in our negotiations, even if we have the leverage because we know the power dynamics can. But in this situation, it's not a situation where tomorrow they're going to be the cop and you'll be the criminal, so watch out, right? So, so in those situations where you have all the leverage and they're clearly in the wrong and you will be ending up arresting them, what is the value of still treating people with dignity and respect in that situation?

That's, that's a fantastic line of questioning. And I'll give you a couple different examples. One example is it's very simple, it's very primitive. If you rob somebody of their dignity and their self respect, what more do they have to lose, right? So if you take that from somebody, you've now created a situation where they're like, well, you know, I'm in for a penny, in for a pound, I might as well go all in because you've given me nothing, nothing else, because you've taken it all from me. So that's why, for example, when it's safe to do so, we, you know, we try not to arrest people in front of their children, for example, when we can't, when we can avoid doing that, we try to do that. If we can have kids go into a different room, or if the person that we're there dealing with, if they are compliant enough where they can, you can maybe move into a different area where we don't have to maybe handcuff them in front of their kids, we do that. I have done that and I've had people thank me for doing that. Wow, that's one example. Another example would be your frequent flyer. So we all have every law enforcement agent or police officer out there in your jurisdiction. You have people that you know you're going to encounter time and time again, and you know your colleagues are going to encounter time and time again. So by treating them with dignity and respect and allowing them to hold on to whatever dignity they have, you make it easier for the next encounter or for the next time. I call it almost like a relational credit score. So the next time I deal with them, my credit score with them is high. So if, when I need to make a withdrawal from that bank of goodwill, I can say, hey, listen, Kwame, like, you know, we just, we just, you know, last week we had to arrest you, right? But did I, did I, did I yell at you? Did I lay hands upon you? Did I disrespect you in any way? No, I didn't. All right, then. Well, I need you, I need you to remember that when we go through this and you'd be amazed how many people like, you know what, you're right, like you're right and they, they de escalate, they might still be upset, but when you ask somebody and you put it on them and you, you can line it out, how you've been fed them and how you've treated them, a good amount of people will remember that and, and they, you know, because most people do operate with some form of a code. And everybod, everybody's code, write this down, folks. Everybody's code has some form of respect in it. It is all respect based. There is nobody that operates off a code that doesn't have some level of I need to be respected at this level or in order for me to give respect back. So that's why that word respect is so important when you're dealing with people.

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. Oh man, this is great. Because now there's zero percent chance this episode is going to turn out at all like how I thought, which is amazing. I, yeah, we're going to spend some time on this dignity and respect thing because it's funny as you've described this situation and I'm a lawyer, so I know about criminal justice and things like this. I never one time thought about the, like an ongoing relationship between officers and the people that they interact with. Even if the person's, like you said, a frequent flyer. I really never thought about the relationship beyond the each incident, like each individual incident. That's really fascinating that even in this scenario, the relationship, the relationship still matters that much.

So can I give you a quick example? So when I was a patrol officer many years ago, I was in a department in New Hampshire and I was part of the warrant apprehension team of that department. So the difference is, you know, any police officer can serve an arrest warrant, but when you have a team that's in charge of warrants. You typically, you're dealing with the people that are not low hanging fruit. So people that are more, maybe a little elusive, people that are difficult to find, people where the charge is a little more serious, that typically goes to that warrant apprehension team. So I was looking for this gentleman that had a first degree assault warrant, which in New Hampshire is essentially first degree murder, attempted murder. And this person, I just happened to be patrolling an area and lo and behold, who comes out of a local bar, this person walks right out. So I'm by myself. I had, you know, I've been looking for this person for weeks. I had no choice. I had to go, go in and act. So when it got to the point where it was obvious that there was going to be a fight, this person clearly did not want to be arrested. Somebody who I had arrested previously, but I had treated with the utmost respect, yelled over to this person and said, hey, Jenkins is fair. Like don't, don't do what you're about to do. Like, he's fair. And he completely de. Escalated. The person that I was arresting at the time, who was a very serious person, I mean, this is somebody who did something knowingly with the intention of doing something that would most likely take somebody's life. And this person might have saved me. The person that yelled over might have saved me from, from either getting hurt or having to hurt that person or us having to hurt each other. So I just. That's when I knew that there was something to that respect and dignity piece where I had somebody who had no reason, like we weren't friends, anything to stand up for me and to, and to vouch for me that I was going to treat this person fairly.

Wow. Wow, that's so powerful. I mean, there's so many different things to look into. I think one is just. That's a bit outside of what we're talking about with dignity and respect. But I think it's the, the ability to get an endorsement and get credibility in a situation where you might not have any credibility. You clearly have the credibility in general society as the police officer upholding the law in that situation. But for the person you are on the other side, you're the enemy. And for somebody to just say, hey, he's not the enemy in the way that you think he is, and for that to carry so much weight, I think that's incredible in such a short period of time too. Just one statement.

It was extremely powerful. And you're right, that's Outside of the nor what people normally think about a negotiation. But make no mistake about it folks, when I am convincing somebody that they need to go to jail and do it peacefully, that is very much a negotiation. So it does manifest itself in different ways. Now how does that translate to what you were talking about earlier as far as a negotiation within a boardroom? It's the same thing. You know, people tend to want to do business with people that they like, people that they feel, that they feel respect them and people that treat them with dignity. So that's how this skill set transfers over, over into that world as well. So you were talking about an example where with, in negotiation where one side has leverage but the power dynamic could shift. So if you, if, if there's a specific example you want me to speak to, I can certainly do that.

Well, yeah, let's use an example. I hear all the time we have, I, we have a lot of clients that are in the procurement world. So supply chain, they're, sometimes they run into situations where they are dealing with a single source supplier. So it's just one company that they can operate with in order to get this, this product or whatever it happens to be this material. And then, and they run into a situation where it turns into almost like a hostage situation where the supplier is like, all right, we're increasing the price. Well, you can't do it. The contract terms say that blah, blah, blah, well, too bad we're going to stop shipment if you don't increase the price. And so a lot of times that's a situation where the supplier has a lot of the leverage and sometimes they are very heavy handed in that negotiation too. So that's the situation that came to mind because a lot of our clients.

Deal with that, that, that's a tough one. So you're talking about almost like a monopoly type situation where it's like there's no, there's, it's not like you can go to somebody else down the street and get the same, the same materials.

Bingo. Yeah.

So, so with that, the way I would look at that, and again like, I mean we do have situations like that in law enforcement is I would definitely try to talk to the least amount of people possible. Try to make it as human as possible. When you, when you, when you, when you, when you're having this conversation, what I mean by that is I always feel like this kind of a conversation, one on one is optimal if there's a person, a specific person that's, that's in charge of making that decision. That that's the person you talk to. But you definitely don't want to try to do this in a boardroom type situation if you can avoid it. Because now people, there's, there's all these different variables in the room. And now people are worried about losing face. Nobody wants to be made to look weak. And there's all these different hurdles you have to overcome now that are, that are really, it's really just noise at that point. So if you can eliminate some of that noise and just have one on one, human to human conversations with people, I think that that's a powerful way to attack that because people are generally, and I'm saying generally air quotation reasonable in nature. They want to be reasonable and they want to be collaborative and they want to work together. So when you are able to break it to a human level, I feel like that is your best opportunity in order to, to accomplish that.

No, I agree, I agree. And I think that's often overlooked too because the, a lot of times we just have emotions running high in that situation. So the supplier, it may, they might look like the bad guy in that situation, but they just might be doing what they've been told to do. And then also the procurement leader who's having the conversation, it feels like an assault, like an ambush type of situation. And a lot of times they respond in a reactive type of way. But I think reminding people that at the end of the day we're people, we're humans. And if we simplify the interaction, minimize it to one person, like somebody who's on the other team, who you can establish a respectful relationship with, you can gather some information and still find some way to have a more collaborative approach so we at least elevate the quality of the conversation. Can't guarantee the outcome for sure, but by minimizing the amount of people that are in the room and being strategic about creating a contact with somebody and preferably making it one on one contact, that's big because they're more likely to be open and vulnerable and share information if they are one on one versus if they're in front of their team. You know, now they're showing off to.

Their friends, they're showing off their friends, they're afraid of maybe outing somebody. There's always that too. Again, I hate to use this terminology being in law enforcement, but nobody likes a rat, right? Nobody likes the person that talks outside of the family. So when you eliminate those onlookers from the equation, it's easier to have those conversations and just get down to brass tacks and say, hey, listen, where did this come from? We have disagreement. Everybody was good with disagreement. What changed? All of a sudden?

That's powerful.

And then the first person that talks after that loses. So that's where the discipline of negotiation comes in when you have to ask those difficult questions. And you have to have the discipline to sit there and maybe let an uncomfortable silence happen for a little while and not try to fill it with.

With.

With. With empty talk.

No, man, you're spot on. You're spot on. And I want to go back to that. The code, the code of respect.

Yes.

I think this is something that would be really, really fascinating for a lot of listeners, especially coming from the world of criminal justice. Right. Because in this world, you might be arresting somebody who has objectively done things that are wrong and they still want to be treated with respect. How do we understand their code in order to treat them with respect?

That is a tough one, because everybody's code is different and it's all individual. That's what I. That's what. That's when I've really found that respect is in everybody's code. That's why I start at that level. And I. And I ask people. I usually go down to do a checklist. Have I. Have I. Have I. Did I. Did I unduly yell at you? No. Because, you know, I'm not really. I'm not really a yellow and screamer unless I absolutely have to. Did I. Did I unnecessarily put my hands on you? No. If you can get no's to a couple of those questions. And when you're asking people if you've disrespected them just by doing that, you break down people's walls, because whether they know it or not, they're admitting that you have not mistreated them. And you can build from that. And by not mistreating people, isn't that what respect is all about?

Wow.

Okay.

Okay. So let me. So in those situations, you're actually kind of running a list of situations or things that people might have done in the past or in general could potentially do that are disrespectful. And you're saying, hey, did I do this? No. Did I do this? No. Did I do this? No. Essentially building the case that you have been respectful through this interaction.

Kwame, I'm really going to bake your noodle with this. All I'm doing is the same thing I did in sales when I was in sales before I was a police officer.

Wow.

If I can save you money. Will you, would you sign up with my service? Yes. If I can increase the quality of your, of your phone service, will you, will you sign up with me? Yes. If I can lower your percentage rate on this amount on your mortgage, would you, would you, would you be financed with me? Yes. It's no different. It just in a law, it's through a law enforcement lens.

Wow, man. Hollywood has really led us astray with, with the way these interactions go. No, this is really fascinating.

It's, it, there's so many different ways to do this. If you, you know, if you can read the situation, if you're dealing with somebody who's maybe, you know, has food insecurities and they're not. And they haven't eaten. Hey, when was the last time you eaten? It's been a while. If I got, how about this? You know, we'll bring you down the station. I mean, we have to rest, you know that. But how about this? You come down, you do X, Y and Z and I'll get your burger afterwards. Would that, how about that? Let's feed you, let's get you fed. Let's solve one problem today. Can we solve that problem? Yes. All right, this is what I need you to do and then we're going to, we're going to make this happen. This who I am, this is my name. I'm whatever my, you know, I'm Dean Jenkins of whatever rank. I'm going to be here, do this. I'm the person, I'm, you have my word, I'm going to be here and I'm going to take care of this and I'm going to make sure you get fed. But I need you to do this first.

Now this is really interesting because we think about negotiation, hostage negotiation, business negotiation, conflict resolution, we are obsessed with open ended questions to the point where I think it gets a little bit simplistic. And in the examples that you've been giving, you've given a great case study for the use of closed ended questions.

Yes.

So break that part down too.

So that part is. You have to measure because there's a point in time where both, both have their place. Open ended questions have their place. I like open ended questions when I'm trying to gather information to lead to my closed ended questions. So when I ask open ended questions, the whole point of that is to get a certain amount of information that I need. For example, if I, if we're talking about in a negotiation, like a crisis negotiation type circumstance and I am trying to Figure out what drives somebody, what's important to them, what, what gives them, what gives them a reason to live. For example, we call those hooks. So like a lot of times it's people's kids. Like people love, people love their kids and no matter how bad they are, they, they still love their kids. So that's usually something that's good. It's something that gives people joy. Whether it's sports. A good one for me that I used to always use is food everybody likes to eat. So I talk to people about different kinds of food they like and this and where they go and you'd be amazed at how that draws people in sometimes. And once you can get people to drop their God and you get them to give you a little bit of information, then you can start using those closed ended questions to kind of box them in to an area where, and again, this isn't 100%, but it certainly increased your chances. An area where they are more likely to do what you need them to do and they feel like they're a partner in that as opposed to me just telling them they're going to do so. It might take a little bit longer, but we're still going to get to where we need to go. And now maybe I don't have to use force, maybe I don't have to, I don't have to, you know, do anything that you're going to perceived as disrespect or taken away your dignity and we still get to where we need to go. So it's a little long winded answer, but that's part of how I use it.

Yeah, that's a great answer. It's a great answer. And I love the term that you use, boxing them in. It really gives us the visual because at the beginning when you're asking those questions, you are gathering data, you're understanding what really drives them. Then once you start to get an idea of what drives them now you can be a little bit more directive with the questions that you're asking. No, I don't want you to go this way now. I need you to focus on these things. And it's a series of questions that lead them to the ultimate conclusion where it almost makes it hard for them to disagree without being unreasonable.

Exactly. And you'd be amazed that even that regardless of education level, regardless of what people have going on as far as mental health, if they are in that reality, in that moment with you, that this can be an effective strategy.

Man, this is good. This is good. And last question, you Remember at the beginning, before we started the podcast, I was like, man, I want you to talk about tone.

Absolutely.

I guess we're going to bring you back on to talk about tone. This was great. This is really great. And I think it's something really powerful that we all can replicate in our own ways. And I think just being mindful of the fact that, hey, everybody has their own respect code. And if we recognize that somebody's level of emotionality starts to go upward, I think as we're going through this kind of flow chart of different possible triggers for what led the person to become so emotional in this situation, I think exploring whether or not the person feels respected or they feel as though their dignity has been jeopardized in the situation is a really good thing to address. And I love that you actually speak directly to that, because there might be situations where I might have a conversation and I might say, I think the person might feel as though I'm disrespecting them, and then we might respond by trying to be more respectful. But what you're saying and what you're doing is you actually go directly to it, say, hey, hey, let's go. Go down this chart of what often leads to disrespect. And once you can get the person to say, no, you checked all those boxes. You actually did well there. It seems to have a calming impact on them, too.

Absolutely. And. And. And again, you know, it.

Let's.

Let's. Let's bring it back to the negotiation table. This is a strategy that is extremely helpful where you increase your opportunity to close, because at the end of the day, that's what we're looking to do when we negotiate. We're looking to close in a manner that is favorable for us, but it doesn't mean that we need to leave scorched earth on the other side of the table either. So when we use these strategies, it gives you that opportunity to really get down again, just to humanize the experience. Because at the end of the day, people want to feel respected. They want to. They want to be left with their dignity, and they want to feel like they were part of the solution, whatever that may be. And. And when you can give people those three things I found, again, with. With. With my experience in sales and my experience with negotiating and trying to get people to talk to me when they didn't want to, it all comes down to closing it. My closing numbers were so much higher.

By doing that, man, this is great. This was a masterclass. And before you go, I want you to remind the listeners about Supply the Y, about the podcast and about the facilitation offerings that you have too.

Oh, well, thank you for that opportunity. Again, folks, if you're not already following me, check me out on LinkedIn. You can follow me on the Supply the y page, on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Instagram, and on YouTube. We are on all your favorite podcast platforms if you want to do the audio only version. We offer all different kinds of trainings to facilitate difficult conversations. Mostly it's been DE and I, it's been police use of force, but it is not limited to that. So any difficult conversation outside of religion and politics. If you are having, if you and your team, your organization would like a little help facilitating these conversations to get people to find some middle ground. Keep supply and supply the why in mind. It's something that we're passionate about, something that we just love to do.

Love it. Dean, I appreciate you, man. This was really, really great. Thanks for spending time with us.

Kwame, always a pleasure. I look forward to the next one.

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Man.

Crushed it. That was so good.

I thought that was. I thought it went really well.

Yeah. I was taking all these notes. I was like, hold up. No, this respect and dignity thing, we need to go into that. That's so cool.

It let me tell you something. Especially now that I'm older, I can't jump fences. I can't run people down. I have to be able to have a different tool set in order to swing things in my favor a little bit on the street and the respecting. There's something too that I am telling you. It's gold and it's perfect for 21st century policing.

Yeah, 100%. 100%. You don't want to bust out those jiu jitsu skills on the blacktop.

I'm glad you mentioned that. Have you still been training or did that.

It fizzled it's just. It's. The timing of these classes are just so bad for me, like, every single time. It's. It's. It's like right when I would be doing something because I have this. I have a whole community at the gym. So, like 6am to 8am I love just like lifting and working out. If there was a time where I could jump in, you know, like on the weekends, a little bit easier. You know what kills it, though? It's the. It's Kai's sports schedule.

I was going to say, when your kids start doing activities, weekends are going to be tough.

Yeah, bro. That's. That's the thing. I. But I loved it. I think it was like. One of the things is like, you're. You're. You're almost forced to be in a flow state. And I remember the professor, the first day when I was there, he broke it down so easily because I was. I was like, down at that time. And he said, the trouble. The troubles of the world seem trivial when another man is struggling, choking the life out of you. I was like, you're right. It was really hard for me to focus on the, you know, the BS at work when I was sitting here fighting for my life, bro. After. I remember after the first. After the first training session, I just. You know how it's. It's one of the best workouts in the world. And I was changing my gi. And I looked at my. Like, I looked at myself in the mirror and I looked at my muscles and like, what are you doing for me? I just.

What good are you?

For the last hour, I was just getting crushed by all these computer nerds who I outweigh by 60 pounds. Couldn't do anything, Dean. It was wild. Couldn't do anything. It was like magic.

It's humbling. It's very humbling.

It really is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I. I settled down on the fact, like, okay, I'm just going to keep benching. And my goal, my fighting. My fighting strategy is to be big enough to deter aggression, make people think I can fight, and then just never.

Well, how long. How long were you there?

I did. I did, man. Like a handful of practices. So it was not that much.

So, like, a month.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. So, I mean, I started to get better, but. But, you know, it was humbling, man. I was bigger than most people. I remember one time they put me up against this because it was like the two biggest guys in the class. But there was a massive discrepancy because I was like 220 at the time. And this dude was like, this guy was like 280.

Yeah. Like what I weigh. Yeah.

So, like, not only was he better, like more skilled, but I was just getting like, smushed the whole time. What am I doing here?

It's awful. It's like drowning without water. When somebody's is on top of you.

Like that, bro, that's exactly how it felt. Like I. They just said, okay, open mat. We're just going to, you know, roll for a bit and switch. And man, it was exhausting. I was just like huffing and puffing and as I was rolling with these guys, they're just like, you have to calm down. You have to control your breathing. I was like, man, you're trying to kill me. How am I supposed to calm down?

It's, it's, it's, it's counterintuitive. It goes against all of our natural. All of our, all of our natural defense mechanisms. It does. It really does. But they're right, because that's what allows somebody like me, who's a cheeseburger away from £300 to, to outlast somebody like you who is in the gym, you know, six times a week. And at the end of a three minute round, you look like you ran a marathon. And I'm. And I'm look like I just got up and walked to get the newspaper, bro.

That was every single round. And I tell you that the gym gives you such a false sense of security because you put up these numbers and everything and I mean, it doesn't matter at all. So the guy was 280. I was like, all right, cool. I can bench that for reps. That's not. No, this is not benching. I'm not moving this, man. I couldn't even, like, Hulk the little guys off of me, you know, like, what is happening in this world? It was. But. But the thing that I love the most is that, like you said, it's humbling. And I recognize that I spend the most, like the majority of my time doing things that I'm really good at other than parenting. Parenting is perpetually humbling.

Oh, yes.

But it's like, it was. It felt really good to be like a beginner again, to just be able to absorb things from everybody else that was there. I felt like a little kid. Like, I had. I genuinely hadn't felt that way since, like, like childhood. Looking up to a coach who was teaching me at like, a sport that I'd never played. It was really fun. I wish I had more time to do that.

Well, even, even that month or whatever you were there is going to be helpful for you if, God forbid, you have to get into a confrontation because you at least have some semblance of the basics about, like, you know, if you ended up on the ground, you know that you got to get. I mean, you know what an underhook is. You know, you got to get an underhook, and then you got to try to get out on the side, you have the underhook. Or if you end up on top of somebody, you're not just going to be like, up tall trying to bench press them down. You're going to be low like a wet blanket trying to just. That could be. That could be. That alone could be the difference if, if you ever have to subdue somebody for a little while.

Yeah, yeah. You know what's funny? When I was so. One of my cousins got married to somebody who has a relative who's in the UFC, it's Nate Landwehr. Good fighter, probably about 155 or so. And so we were talking about fight. I just love picking his brain. And he's like, man, if I get into a street, I don't get into street fights or anything. I'm not fighting for free. I fight for money. I'm not fighting for free. And he's like, I'm not. The only thing that you need in a street fight is speed and the ability to run away, because there's no reason for you to be in a street fight. You can. You can beat a boxer by running away. You can beat a wrestler by running away. He's like, the only thing you might want to learn is jiu jitsu. So you can get that underhook, push the guy off, and then run away.

And then get away. Get out of there.

Yeah, yeah. I was like, noted. That's. That's what I'm going to focus on. There you go, doing cardio. That's my new fighting strategy. Smart, man. Yeah, man.

Well, cool.

Well, we'll get this up. Do you want me to float your name to that client to see.

Of course. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Cool.

I'll make that happen.

I appreciate that and thank you for the virtual learning idea. That's a great idea.

Yeah, bro. You should do that. And I think people would love to learn the art of facilitation, especially with sensitive topics. You got that? You do it all the time. So. So. And like I said, I've never heard of anybody doing it with sensitive topics. Like, that's that's unique.

Well, I appreciate that. And I'm going to say I'm going to close with this. I say it every time. We don't get a chance to talk often, but if you ever are feeling the way to your world and you just need to pick up a phone and vent for a few minutes, call me, bro.

Will do. I need to do it more. I really do. That would be, that would be good. I will 1000% do that.

You know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I understand more than, you know, you know how difficult it can be.

Yeah, it's challenging. And the mindset, like, just with maturity, just learning to, to have a better perspective. Because I remember, like, last summer I was like, in the doldrums, like, in it. But now just being able to take a step back a little bit from time to time, I still feel that pressure, but not as bad. But I recognize that one of the biggest mistakes that I make whenever I'm really locked in on something is that I start to not really use the resources I have in terms of the relationships that I have. I start to isolate and just come down into the cave and write and write and write and work and work and work. And it just perpetuates, like, the problem. So this is a really good reminder for me.

You're an internalizer now. There's no doubt about it. You know, and sometimes you need somebody who's not your wife, who's not somebody you're, like, necessarily in business with that you can talk to. I mean, I know that in my line of work, like, I need, sometimes I need people outside of my building to talk to, to. So I have some people that have no skin in the game with anything that I'm going to talk to them about to talk to. And it's super refreshing and it's super helpful. And if I can ever help you with that, please be an honor.

Yeah, bro, thank you. No, I'll definitely do that. I appreciate this.