David Wood: Navigating Tough Conversations

Hey there, listeners. It's Jay Cablone from the podcast. Before we get started, I wanted to share an exciting opportunity to test out some strategies for Mike's next book. No, not fix this. Next. His next book. It's a book on marketing and he will be presenting some strategies that you can use to stand out in the market and attract and convert more leads. This will be in a webinar on June 11th at 5pm Eastern Time. It's totally free and you may even end up in the book. As our loyal listeners, we wanted to give you the opportunity to sign up first. Just go to mikeswebinar.com to register. That's mikeswebinar.com. enjoy the show.

Hey, guys. My name is Mike Michalowicz. I'm an author on a mission. A mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. You know what that is? You know how we're fix it on this episode of entrepreneurship elevator. How do you get excited? David's scared. David has a skull sitting next to him and he's scared of me. He's scared of you.

That's saying something.

I know, I know. We have a really exciting episode today. We're going to be talking with David Wood. We're talking about having tough conversations and speaking your truth. You know, my truth is to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. That perception of tremendous success the world thinks you have and yet is tremendous struggle. We fix that on this episode and every episode of entrepreneurship elevated. I'm joined in studio with a few of my friends. I think you're my friends. I don't know if you think I'm your friend.

I'm your best friend.

I. Dude, I consider you a best friend. I really do.

Me too.

Kelsey Ayers, president of our company.

Hello, friend. Thank you for listening to us and.

Leading us through opportunities and challenges now. So thank you for all the work you do here.

Thank you.

Also in studio is Jacob Blown.

Hey, what's up?

Also known as Jeremy Smith. I think I only said your real name like twice. Ever.

I think that's like the second time you ever said it. Yeah.

Jeremy Smith. He's produces our show and is reverting to eating only apples during the coronavirus outbreak.

Producing. It's giving me a lot of credit.

Yeah, I hit the buttons and my other dear friend. My other dear friend Amy Cartel's in the studio. Hello, Amy. How are you?

I'm well. How are you, Mike?

Good, Good. And I heard we more than I heard. I stuck it in your hand that we got an email in regarding profit first and the coronavirus. Do you mind just sharing what this person said to who it is?

Of course. This came to us from Annette Giakamazi and she writes, because of this economic meltdown and fears of COVID 19, my product had about a 70% decline. And I fear it's not over, but because I started completely subscribing to the Profit first system last summer, I will be able to weather this storm for 45 days. Before profit first, I would have been able to last one week and I would have incurred boatloads of debt. Not to mention the anxiety and sleepless nights I would have been experiencing. You're doing work that matters. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Oh, my God.

I literally loved all of it.

Oh, that's awesome. That was a sound effect. That was not actually. Kelsey, thank you for reading that. Annette, if you are listening to our show today, thank you for sharing that. That just warms my heart and congratulations on you for having the courage to execute on that process. I hope more and more people do. I will serve you and protect you. I do want to say share two more things before we bring on our esteemed guests. I want to thank Nextiva for supporting the show. We'll share more about them in a little bit. Also, if. If you haven't subscribed yet to Entrepreneurship elevated, do it now. This is a major binge show. This is episode 304. There's some great content there. Yeah, I know, I know. That was David's dog. That was not David. ITunes, Stitcher, it's. And all those PlayStations everywhere. His name is David Wood. Okay, can you just get the hell out of here?

PlayStation.

You know, Kelsey, I don't know how I can like you so much. You are really. You're just an aggressive. You're great. Are you this hurtful to your family?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah. And I feel they're worse to me.

So I wonder what you grew up under the emotional duress.

Yeah, we're very sarcastic.

His name's David Wood. Oh, I'm sorry. Do you have to interrupt again? Anything else you want to say, Kelsey?

I just wanted to clarify for everybody that it's not on your PlayStation.

Okay, thank you.

Your podcaster podcast.

That's what I'd say. David Wood built the large the world's largest coaching business, becoming number one on Google for life coaching and coaching thousands of hours in 12 countries around the globe, as well as helping others. David's no. No stranger to overcoming challenges himself overcoming a full collapse of his paraglider and fracturing his spine. He coaches high performing entrepreneurs, executive teams, and now prison inmates to create amazing results and deep connection through one tough conversation at a time. With no further ado, David, welcome to our show.

Welcome, David.

Thank you. Mike and Amy and Jacob and Kelly and I think all podcasts should start in such a fun manner.

Thank you.

This is my favorite beginning out of 80 interviews I've done.

Awesome. Can you tell us all those 79 other shows now? Horrible they were. Give us the names. So let's get right into this. I mean, tough conversations. You're talking with prisoners and inmates to executives. That's a wide breadth of people and backgrounds. Is the conversation the same for each person or do we approach it differently based upon the type of person we're talking with?

It's actually a very similar conversation. We're all humans, and whether we're a CEO or we're a prison inmate or we're somebody's partner or parent or business partner or customer, there are desires we have that are difficult to express, a little bit awkward. There are tolerations, things we're putting up that we don't like. And I wasn't taught how to speak up as a kid. I was pretty precocious, but I wasn't taught how to address feelings. I didn't even know I had feelings. I didn't know what they were. I didn't know what was happening in my body. So I'm on a mission to help the world in general to identify our potential tough conversations, which is another way of saying, what's our truth we really want?

Did you have a trigger moment that says, starting today I have to take a stance and speak about this, or is it kind of a drip of. Of neglect around tough conversations? What brought you to this moment?

It was a drip feed. Looking back at all makes sense. What happened is I started discovered personal growth at the age of 27, and they kept on encouraging me to go through my past and go through my present and look where I had any relationship that didn't feel great or even past relationships, that I still harbored some resentment or some guilt. And they kept encouraging me to complete those relationships and to have conversations about it. And I said, no way. You kidding? I'm not going to call the Bully from school 15 years ago. I'm not going to call the girl who broke my heart twice and gave me the cold shoulder. I'm like, you don't do that. There's no profit in that. You're crazy. And they coached me through it and I went and had some incredible conversations that were terrifying but fruitful. And I ended up feeling connected with these people who I'd hated. So they kind of threw me into the deep end. And I found since then that it's not just those big, scary conversations, but there are micro conversations all around us that we're ignoring. Like, someone's late for us, and we don't want to say anything because it's going to rock the boat, or they might get defensive or whatever, or there might be withholds we have from our partner or conversations we're not having with our kid because it's just awkward. We don't know how to do it. I'm here to say, nine times out of 10, there's profit in those conversations. And I'm not talking financial profit, obviously, but the gain is greater than the cost. One time in 10, okay, maybe it's best not to have that one. It might land you in jail or lose your job or your partner breaks up with you. Maybe you let that one go. But even then, you'd be surprised how amazing it can be if you're willing to take a risk and be vulnerable.

What about hurting the other person? I mean, one fear to have a hard conversation is there's egg on their face, but it's. You don't want to hurt their feelings.

Great. Give me an example.

There's egg on your face. David. No. So say, you know, for me, like, we're doing this podcast. We. We had some technical issues. Say I didn't communicate to you. I did text you. Say we're running late, but say I just show up ten minutes late. I'm like, hey, let's rock and roll. And I disregard the importance of you being a guest. You're the guest for me, so you're almost in a subservient position. How do you say, Mike, you know what? That. That was kind of rude.

Yeah. Love this example. In fact, something like this happened with a podcast host. I. I offered them a coaching session. I said, look, let me gift you a session. I want to invest in our relationship. And he didn't show for the session. Now, that was. Yeah, I don't like that. I never liked that when that happens. But then when he wrote me about it, he said, oh, my mistake. I'm sorry. I've adjusted it to the next week. So he rescheduled without asking me, and I just didn't feel good about it. Now for half an hour, and I'm pretty trained in this, but for half an hour, I just. I didn't Know what I felt? I just knew I didn't feel good and I didn't want to do the session. And my temptation was, I'm just going to tell him I'm busy and not do the session. That's it. And now our relationship is over. That's what I was going to do. But I took my own advice and I followed the four step blueprint. And the first step is to clarify. So I got clear. I felt disrespected. I'm not saying he disrespected me.

Oh, I understand.

I'm saying I felt disrespect. It was very important distinction. I felt disrespected and I had to ask myself, what's a request I could make? How could I feel good about this? And this is what the worksheet. And if you like, we can give your listeners the free.

Oh, we're totally getting that stuff from you.

Yeah. So I did the worksheet and one of the things is, what's your request? And I was like, what can I ask him for? I just. I just am upset about it. And my request was that if he respects my time, he. He let me know that. That he get the impact of him not showing up, which was half an hour of my life I won't get back, and that he commit to being on time if we reschedule. That was hard for me to come up with those requests instead of just complaining, but I did it and I put my four step process into a video message, which I sometimes do if I'm worried I won't get all the words right. And I sent it to him, and he was so blown away that I was willing to address this. He said, can I include that on my next podcast, that video? And we ended up doing an interview about this, about this whole concept, and I feel closer to him. And we ended up having the session and it was wonderful because I was willing to follow the four steps and speak up and get my needs met instead of sweeping it under the carpet.

That's excellent. I want to get clarity on what the four steps are. I heard step one is clarify. Step two. Is that the request?

Step two? No, step two is ask permission.

Okay.

You don't want to just launch into, hey, we need to talk. You don't want to launch into. You know, you're smoking in the house really bugs me. Like, get permission to have the conversation. And I have a three step formula. It's a very simple formula. It's wonderful. And once you've done the worksheet, this will make more sense because the worksheet will ask you, what's your hope? This is when you clarify it, first step, you'll ask, what's your hope? What's a good thing that could come out of this? And it will also ask you, what's your fear? How could it go wrong? So now when you get to step two, which is ask, you'll be prepared. And it goes something like this. Hey, Bill or Mike, there's something I haven't been saying, and I haven't been saying it because. Insert your fear. Yeah. But I've decided I'd like to bring it up because. Insert your hope here. So in this case, for the late conversation, it could be something I've been saying because I'm afraid you'll think I'm oversensitive. Maintenance. And you might tell people this guy's a jerk. But I'd like to bring it up because I'd like to feel closer to you and I'd like to feel good about doing this coaching session. And I think us talking about it might do that. Do you have about 10 minutes to talk? Now that's step two, which is ask permission.

Okay, got it. I love the Hope fear strategy. What's the third step in the system?

Third step. And by the way, the. An acronym for all of this is case. So very easy to remember. C, A, S, E. And it stands for clarify, ask. And the third one is the S stands for share. This is where you share the issue. When you were late, I. I felt. I felt bad about it. And when you said you adjusted it to the next week, I felt like you weren't respecting my time. And this is where you'll insert your request if you have one, from your worksheet. And my request is if you're willing, abc. And then step four is so important. And Mike, I forget to do this so often. It's so easy to forget. Inquire into their point of view. How is it, how is it for you to hear this that I'm bringing it up? Do you feel defensive, embarrassed? Are you inspired or something else? And I want to hear anything you've got to say about it. And what are your ideas? Maybe you've got a better idea than. Than I do. And this is where you get curious about their world and you collaborate. You might work it out together. We think we've got it all worked out after we've done the worksheet. That's one point of view. The fourth step reminds us that we need to inquire and find out how it is for them. And I forget this so many times. I'm like, all right, so we're good? Yeah, we're good. And I'm not even asking them. We don't want to have tough monologues. Step four allows us to have a tough conversation.

Amy, we had a tough conversation. Amy pulled me aside once and said, I got to talk with you. And you started off by saying, you may have to fire me over this. Amy cares more about our relationship and the health of the office than her individual role. Maybe she's the exception. How do we get the confidence that we can have that conversation safely and that we should trigger and take the action to have that conversation?

Well, step one is going to be your best friend, which is the clarify. And in the download that will give people, it's got the four steps. It's also got a completely separate worksheet that you use for step one to clarify the issue. Because, you know, whenever I'm triggered, I'm not usually clear what's going on. I just know I'm upset and I don't like it, and I wish they hadn't done that or I want something. Maybe. Maybe there's a woman I'm attracted to and I. I just don't know how to share it. Like, that's. That could be a tough conversation for me. But I'm just like, I don't. I just. I'm not going to do that. So the step one will help you clarify and work out your hope. That's a big deal. Oh, wait. If I do have this conversation, I might feel good about working with this person. That changes things. And then what am I afraid of? I'm afraid they're going to ridicule me. I'm afraid they all get defensive and won't hear me out. They might even attack me. That's great information. I want to know that about myself. And then you decide after doing the clarification step, if you're going to have it. And you'll probably have a lot more courage once you've gotten clear on what's going on, because now you've got a whole lot of things that you can share with the other person if they're willing to listen. Whereas if you're just a mess and you just like, I just don't like it. That's awkward to talk about. Right. Because you're just not clear. So that. That will give people a lot of confidence. I think just doing that first step and then knowing you've got three other Steps. You can even take this worksheet with you and say, I wrote some stuff down because I wanted to do a good job of this. You don't have to pretend you got it off the top of your head. I wrote down some stuff. So if I'm reading, I'm reading my notes.

What do you do when it's in the moment? When you're presented with a situation you don't have time to prepare?

You carry the worksheet in your wallet.

Yeah, well, this is, this comes up a lot in the executive coaching I do because a lot of executives only change their behavior and develop their leadership skills and different things. Now the ideal is when it happens in the moment, you have enough agency resources, skill and awareness to see what's happening and you do it. But hey, look, I've been doing this for 20 years and sometimes in the moment, I'm not going to catch it. I might just get triggered, I might shut down and freeze. That happens to a lot of people. So the next best thing you can do if you don't catch it in the moment, you don't have all the words, is go and do the worksheet afterwards and then call the person and say, can I have a do over?

Oh, that's kind of.

I kind of froze. Or I got triggered and I got angry and I've gotten clearer and I'd like to have a do over. Can we talk for 10 minutes?

I got a question. Maybe don't get asked this one often, but what about self talk? Like a hard conversation with myself? You know, I like to joke around. I think it's fun. And then sometimes I say something like, oops, I went too far. You know, the coronavirus is happening right now. I may make a jibe at coronavirus and that was not appropriate. And maybe I can't recover from that for the people I spoke with, but maybe I can have a discussion with myself. Is there such a thing as self tough talk?

Yeah. I find that often the toughest conversation is the one we have with ourself leading up to the tough conversation with someone else. All that self talk about, they're going to freak out. They're going to. I did something. I don't know if we got time today, but I did something super embarrassing.

That, that's super embarrassing. We have time. We do, we do about three minutes. Three minutes. But what was it? What was it?

And I wanted the 3 minute version. Maybe another time.

Okay.

But I'm super embarrassed and I'm like, oh, I just cannot, cannot talk to this person about it and they're going to be horrified, they're going to be disgusted, they're going to be offended. And your question was? Oh yeah, that was my tough conversation with myself. All that self talk the way out of it for me. And I think it would work with your example. Say you said something inappropriate about the coronavirus is do the worksheet.

Yeah.

Then ideally nine times out of ten go and have that conversation with the person. And that was, that was my way out of hell. As I went and had it. It was horrendously embarrassing, but it turned out great. And then it's all cleared. So you could go to someone later and say, you know what, I made that comment. I thought it was funny in the moment. I think it might have been too much. I just want to apologize and check for impact. How was it for you? You could almost always go after the fact and clean it up. It's better if you catch it in the moment. But they say the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.

Yeah. What about teams? I know you're really into supporting teams with tough conversations. That's actually the recent theme of our podcast. We're talking about employee and team empowerment. How does this work as a collective group as opposed to a one on one?

Yeah. I thank you. I'm so excited about this. So what we're doing, there's a school in Virginia that's just hired us and the Tough Conversations program is we start with a training. Say it could be a zoom call or it could be in person. And that's to introduce the four steps and give people a chance to practice it. But then crucial piece is we offer spot coaching afterwards for the whole team or the whole company. And because some, some companies can't afford to hire a coach for one to one sessions with all their staff. It's just, it adds up. But this is almost like an employee benefit where they have a link, everyone's got access to the same link and they can book a session with a coach as soon as same day when they have a tough conversation they're not sure how to have. Hey, my boss is micromanaging me or I really, really want on this project and they shut me down. I'm thinking of leaving about it. Or, or I screwed up. How do I confess that? Or this client is driving me nuts. How do I set a boundary role? Play it with me or one of my team takes 30 minutes and then you go out in the real world and have the Conversation. Totally empowered. Very excited about this, this service.

I'm excited for you. One last question before we gotta go. You know you had that paragliding accident. You break your spine maybe sometimes you have a tough conversation with someone caring for you. The person set, you know there who's taking care of you, you have to kind of a confrontational conversation with. And yet they're your caregiver. How's it working a situation like that?

Well, what's an example of the tough conversation with the caregiver?

Well, I'm thinking like, for example, my, My parents are elderly. They. My father needs occasional care and maybe he doesn't like the way they're. They're doing a certain part of the service, yet they're the ones who are, you know, taking care of him. So how does he have that conversation yet still get at a queer and not retaliation?

Oh, okay. So let's take the bigger the meta picture. Someone's got power over you or authority.

Yeah, yeah.

Basically you could lose something. And this is in every tough conversation, there's usually a fear of loss. So it could be your boss is going to fire you or your partner's going to divorce you and take the kids or in some cases, I've had tough conversations that could have sent me to prison because I confessed to a crime. I said I did something illegal and I'm sorry. And if they wanted to prosecute, I could have gone to jail. So it's vulnerable. And when you do the worksheet, there's a box once you say, what's my fear? Okay, how could it go wrong in your case? The caregiver could stop giving me care and I'm really screwed. Am I willing to accept the consequences now? Often again, nine times out of 10, I'm willing to accept the consequences. I have a faith that this is the right way to go. But one time in 10, I will not have that conversation or I will not even tell the truth because I don't want to go to jail or I don't want to be deported from the country or whatever it is.

What's going on, Dave?

Now you'll probably find with, with your caregiver.

Yeah, you.

If you say, I'm afraid to bring this up because. And you insert your fear, I'm worried you won't take care of me anymore.

Yeah.

You probably find that that vulnerability is rewarded and it won't end up not to take care of you. But you could do a revelation or a confession or something. Someone may say, I'm no longer willing to do that, are you willing to take that risk to possibly have deeper connection and whatever result that you're looking for in your hope on the worksheet? And if you're not, maybe you don't have it.

Yeah.

But I'm here to help you find a way to have it. If you can possibly find a way.

David, this is some powerful stuff. We got to go. Before we let you go, how do we get this worksheet? How do we get more information about what you're doing?

Thank you. The website is playforreal life. It's not a.com playforreal. And three things you can do at that website. You can download the Blueprint, which is a free download for tough conversations. You can subscribe to my podcast, which I don't think I had last time.

Yeah, what is it?

It's Tough Conversations with David Wood.

Boom.

Probably saw that coming. And so subscribe to that if you'd like to join me as well. And then the third thing is if something resonated for you listeners here about truth telling and leadership and you want to up level not just your life, but your life and your business, because I don't work on one. I work on both. Request a session with me. And I don't charge for these sessions if you qualify for a discovery session because it's how I find the right people to work with long term. So you can do all three of those things at Play4Real Life.

David, thank you so much for joining us again. It's good connecting with you every time, brother.

Well, thank you, Mike, Amy, Jacob and Kelly. Appreciate it.

All right, we'll see you later. Bye. Bye. Bye. So some interesting insights there, huh?

Yeah, so good.

I. I'm really interested in. Well, I'm interested in hearing what the feedback is from you guys because I got some unique insights with me. What we're going to do before we kick into this, I do want to thank nextiva. Nice, Jeremy. I tried to throw you off there. Nextiva is a voiceover IP phone company and it's the best in the business. So if you need a phone system or you want to enhance what you currently have, check out nextiva's offering. It's the high end stuff at the low end price. Just do it. Yesterday you said tomorrow.

Yeah, this is great too.

Nothing is impossible.

I love that. I do love that actually. Is that motivational for you guys?

No, it doesn't really resonate.

So for me it is.

Stop yelling at me.

Yeah, yeah, I'll do it when I.

Want to do It.

I got jacked up. I was. I went for a jog down at rfl.

Okay.

You know, you ever go down walking in there?

I walk.

It's a. It's a long walk. It's a mile and a half loop. And so I was doing a loop, and I started jogging, and I jogged past this woman, and I looped her, and she's like, oh, you're crushing me. And I got all jacked up. I actually did a video.

I know.

I can't wait to post that.

I'm like, I don't compare yourself to other people doing it. Compare yourself to the people who are not doing it. Like, there's 7 billion on this planet. 7 billion people. There's probably 6 billion plus who are not running today. Like, you're out here running. You did it.

That's a really good.

So that's the comment to do it videos. The did it video.

I'll have to put that in a sound bite on there.

So that's more motivational and inspirational. And then the do it.

That was totally motivated. What you just said was motivational and inspirational.

Oh, really?

Because I've never thought of it that way.

Yeah.

I do compare myself to the other people.

Right. We're always looking at the person in front of us and saying, look how far behind we are. But if we look at the people behind us, we've achieved and we're a representative for them.

Yeah. Or at the gym, when you don't know how to use the equipment.

Well, that's embarrassing, though.

It's coming from you, who I think is. You're very hard on yourself.

Really?

Yeah.

Maybe.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I. I was at the gym. This is a great gym thing. I was like, oh, that's a different type of ab machine. I'm like, it's really difficult to get in there. It was a curl machine. I squeezed myself down. I'm like, oh.

Every time I stare at it for a long time, I'm like, I really wonder.

I sat on a piece of equipment backwards the other day, and it was like, thank God. It, like, occurred to me within a second of doing it. So I sort of tried to, like, slide off of it and turn around. Like, I was just, you know.

Yeah.

I don't know. I'm trying to come up with the.

Disease right now, just using it to stretch.

Gyms are funny because sometimes when it's filled up, like, you don't. There's no equipment to use.

Yeah.

Look busy with something.

Yeah, you gotta look for busy. So you go for the one machine no one uses was that leg spreader thing, like, especially for guys.

Oh, it's awkward for a guy. It's awkward for a girl.

Really hard for girls, like, who uses that machine.

No, some girls love that thing. They, like. They're on it the entire time.

It's. It's kind of crazy. All right, Jerry, jbone, why don't you. Or Jake, why don't you tell us?

Close.

Close, people. I said it so quickly. The introductions. How could you remember the names?

I know they can't.

And you. You just laugh.

And my name is on the email, so that's the only reason.

Jake, Kelly, Amy.

And it's three letters.

So funny. Jake clone what you take away.

So I really liked when he said that, you know, he had an opportunity to not talk to that person because he felt disrespected and he was upset.

Yeah.

And he reflected on it and sat on it, and then, you know, came back and did the right thing, and then it turned out to be something good. And I think it's really easy in the moment to. To do that and to not take that step back. Some of the best advice I got was on, you know, when you feel upset, you know, if you want to send an email, wait, you know, wait like, half a day or the next day, don't send it. And then there's. It's funny that this came up today because there was. I was feeling really cringey about something I did years ago, and I thought about it, and I was like, oh, man, what's wrong with me? And then I was reading an article, and it said, you know, when you have those moments, the fact that you feel that way is proof that you're actually growing.

Yeah.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

Right? If you're like, yeah, everything's fine. Yeah, that's actually a good point. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. I think there is also a forgiveness to ourselves. That. That is a learning experience, and we can grow from it. I'm gonna go with my takeaway. You know, he's mentioning, oh, sometimes you want to avoid conversations. And I get it. Right. Because something could just be of no benefit to the other person. It could be harmful. And then he said, oh, you know, I don't know if he's referring hypothetically or seriously about committing a crime. So at first. At first, I was taking it back, saying, wow, you commit a crime, you can go to jail for this. I was at an event where they. It was a woman who works with inmates, and it was an audience of People that she said, has anyone ever been in jail? So not a single hand went up in this audience. She goes, has anyone ever here been in a fistfight with someone else? One third of the hands went up. Has anyone ever hear smoke marijuana? All the hands went up. She goes, I want to know every person here has committed a crime. And that just changed my perspective of criminal. You know, when we hear criminal, really we've all committed a. I assume here, a criminal behavior. Something that's against the law. The people in jail just got caught at it. So it was a great equalizer. So I used to be taken aback when someone's like, I committed a crime. Like, oh, you know, I have to. I smoked weed.

Yeah.

I've. I've been in fights. Speed with Amy.

How many people break the speed limit every day?

I mean. Yeah, exactly.

You're breaking the law.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think, like, you know, philosophically, when you think about morality, there's a gray area there. There's always these perspectives, the bigger picture, like, whatever.

Yeah.

And I always think about that.

Yeah.

I thought.

I thought the whole presentation was a tough conversation about tough conversations. I liked it. What was your takeaway?

Yeah, I really liked how he said, it's not just about, like, the big crucial conversations, but it's also those micro conversations that happen all the time. Those. Those things that you just keep letting happen because they don't feel like a big deal, but you're setting precedents for something that is a big deal.

Boom. Aim. How about you?

I just loved all of this. I don't have a religion, but this is as close to my religion as we get. So for me, this is like what he's discussing and this step by step, step breakdown of how to go to somebody who, you know, you're having these feelings with. These feelings where you. These are the things that trigger you to, like, behave passive aggressively. These are those little things that get you to be an. And you don't want to be, but you're really. It's fear that's keeping you from having these conversations with somebody. So I feel like this is really the recipe for the oxygen for connection. I love this.

Well delivered, Amy.

Yeah.

What an acute awareness, too, right? The passive aggressiveness that comes about if you don't do this.

Because you see that, right? You see yourself like that person who said, I rescheduled you for next week. How dare you reschedule me for next week's. My language.

Yeah, you're doing. I know.

I'm gonna have to, like, bleep.

No, no, no. But Amy usually doesn't swear.

I just don't.

But this is part of your religion.

This is my religion. I swear in my religion a lot.

Yeah, I think. Anything else? No, no, I think those are great insights. The one thing I also wanted to mention, I thought, I thought when you would say it is every time I asked him about something, he said, give me an example. Did you hear that response? That's a great listening tool. He wanted more clarity before he gave a response. I thought that was actually part of having a conversation is really understanding the angle or the what I was trying to get across and I wasn't explaining it well with my parents.

No, initially it's a really good example actually because.

Oh, initially I said, yeah, a caregiver. And he's like, give me more exam, whatever. Thank you, Amy. I just thought it was very interesting that he kept on asking for more information before he responded.

Yeah, yeah, I like that too. And I also like when you're in conversation, if you're like me in a super slow processor, it gives you time to, you know, a little bit better conceptualize the scenario.

Yeah, I love that you, you can go back and do it again, which I frankly think I have to do 99.9999% of the time. I am never the person who can have that direct conversation as this is unrolling or unraveling in front of me. I always end up having to go back and do the work. But it gets done. As long as it gets done, I feel like.

And there's nothing that sharing is caring like I said, we've had some conversations. Some we, you know, when you got ill, we had some tough conversations around that. Just about your experience. It was out of love and care. And you've talked with me. Tough conversations. And it's all been rooted in speaking of service and clear clarity between each other. I think that's a powerful. Yeah, that's a powerful thing. It actually shows care for the relationship. I've got a killer app for you. It's called Process Street. You know, your business lives or dies by its processes. You got to do it right and you have to have the team following it consistently. We know that in house and that's why we implemented Process street and I encourage you to do the same. Process street is the easiest way to manage your team's workflows and recurring processes. In fact, it even comes with pre made templates for things like client onboarding, employee onboarding, sales processes, marketing processes, content publishing, promotion, customer Support processes. You name it, the system has it. And now you'll have a consistent deliverable for your company. Do what we did and implement Process street in your business. Plus, I got a deal for you. If you sign up now at our link, you get 20% off. So go to mikemcalowitz.com processstreet that's mikemcalowitz.com ProcessStreet and if you're struggling spelling Michalowicz, you're not alone. Go to mikemotorbike.com SL Process Street. Don't throw that superfluous slash at the end that messes everything up. Go to mikemotorbike.com Process street and get 20% off today. We want to know what you think too, our dear listening friends. So we encourage you to rate, review and subscribe to our podcast and leave a comment, share a couple deal details, what's going on? Yeah, so let's deal, too. Thank you. I really do mess up a lot of work words. No, I just speak too quickly a lot.

I mean, I mess up every other word when I speak. I just don't speak as much. So.

Yeah, that's passive aggressive. What's your fear? What?

There's no fear in that. Do it.

No, you said I speak a lot and I get to see you're just trying. Like I'm speaking too much. I can feel the passive aggressiveness there.

I was giving you credit. Oh, because we make you carry the entire show.

We make you do it all.

I was trying to have a tough conversation there and it turned into a compliment. I became passive.

Anger again.

There's something with me.

I better eat more of these.

Chocolate. All right, what's the. What's the question? We got.

Oh, it's.

We're.

Now we're going to the game.

Oh, game time.

Yeah.

So what is the fake one that's so well produced?

I think you're.

Look at your books.

Like how she note.

That's so up. I love that.

So, number one, lickable wallpaper.

Oh, yeah.

Ever get so hungry you wish the wallpaper was edible?

Yeah.

With lickable wallpaper, you can actually lick the wall and enjoy five flavors. More coming soon, including chocolate, banana, cookie dough, cinnamon, and orange creamsicle. It's like a giant scratch and sniff sticker, but better tasting.

I feel like that's when. Like Willy Wonka.

Oh, right.

Why would it be scratch and sniff, though? Like, who would ever. Did you ever try licking a scratch and sniff?

No, but this you could.

Oh, this.

But have you ever tried as a kid?

No.

No.

Me neither. You think as kids, you big. Oh, my God, it smells so good.

I did try to taste the markers. That smelled like the orange.

That makes sense. That looks edible. I would do the same thing. That's totally legit.

Next is the Ham Dogger. Tired of buying two kinds of buns for your barbecues? Ham Dogger converts ground beef or pork into a hot dog shape. So you can eat it just like a hot dog.

But okay.

Yeah.

What did you think it was the.

Bun for some reason.

Tell me about this.

The bun was going to be round with two long hands.

Oh, really?

Convertible bun.

So like a UFO shape with two cigars coming out?

Yes. That's where I went to. Oh, good.

That's funny.

That's funny. I didn't picture that at all.

Okay. And then finally, we have the date stapler. The date stapler will stamp the date using proprietary ink method every time you press the stapler handle to insert a staple into your paper. Now you can staple and date your documents at the same time. Perfect for the overworked legal aid. Or the lazy office worker.

Like, I need to notate when I stapled this.

There you go.

That's true. There's kind of awkward if you're stapling. What if you just need to say, I wonder if you can remove that function and just staple?

Yeah.

I just want to keep this together, but I don't want anyone to know when I did it. Yeah, that's interesting. Who. Who went first? Who did not go first yet. Because I went first, I think, once.

I don't know. I think I went first once.

Did you?

You sure?

I don't think I went first.

Okay, you're up, Kels.

I'm gonna go with the Lickable Wallpaper only because I feel like that's such a headache to produce and I feel like it would fade so fast. Right?

Yeah, it's awfully peculiar.

Yeah. Unless it's only supposed to be, like, a temporary thing, like, for, you know.

Yeah. What about you?

I feel like the Lickable Wallpaper is something I've seen, too.

Yeah.

You think you've seen it?

I think I've seen it.

Oh, so you think it's real?

I think it's real.

But you think it's the fake one?

Yeah, yeah. I'm saying it's a fake one.

Kelsey says logistics. So which one you think is a fake one?

I'm going with date stapler because I just don't know.

Yeah, I feel like we would have seen that.

Yeah, I think day stapler I think if Jeremy invented that, congratulations. You were probably going to bring it back to the market. I think it's pretty genius. The hamburger Shaper former is excellent. If you ham Dogger. If you. If you did make it to like ham Bunner thing, that wouldn't have worked.

Yeah, that's a dumb idea.

I'm with Kelsey. I'm with Kelsey. Particularly with this coronavirus and, and. And people's just concerned about health in general. Like you invite a guest over and like, hey, you want to have a quick lick of my wallpaper? I don't know, it's just. See, that's why I think it's got to be a fake product.

Well, I like how you said, want.

To have a quick lick? And then there was a pause.

That's the problem.

Oh yeah. Well, cuz how would you say it? Would you say to a guest, hey, wallpaper. That's what you would say.

If you're not a girl, you want a quick lick? No, my wallpaper.

Yeah, but how would you have that conversation? Like say you have a new guest over name someone hasn't been to your house yet.

I feel like it's one of those things where, like, you really prepare people for it. Like, everybody knows you have lookable wallpaper. Come to my house. I got lookable wallpaper.

Oh, you say in advance that okay, that's the way you should do it.

Don't. To Joe Schmo did it.

Yeah. How do you. How do you keep people from licking the spots somebody else already licked?

That's a concern. Right?

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. How do you do your house, Amy?

With my lickable wallpaper.

It wouldn't like attract the smells and things in the area.

Bugs.

The reason I had that pause is because it like, hey, you want a quick lick? And it's like my wallpaper. Like it's a really weird thing to say cuz no one's expecting that.

Perhaps I chose incorrectly with the.

Just hold your tongue out.

If you said, hey, you want to have a quick look at my wallpaper? And it's like, oh my God, I'm with a weirdo. They think you're a murderer. Murderer. I don't know. So I'm. It's a lot of confab around the fact that I think the lickable wallpaper is also a fake.

Yeah.

Confab discussion. Yes. So just say chat. The fake product goes to Amy.

I won.

Is the state date staplers.

No way.

Oh, wow.

These entrepreneurs nowadays. Amazing.

Lickable wallpaper, sadly, is very real. It's disturbing. I don't understand what the point of that is.

Did you verify. Can you purchase this somewhere?

You know, it's verified. Gosh.

I guess it's for just a little feature. Wall by your bed. You could.

But why would you lick your wall like.

Yeah, it's so gross.

I feel like it's creating bad habits.

I think it is.

Think about.

I just had to lick the wall.

How much you, like, touch your wall.

I hope we got that video. You do the lick there, the air.

And then the hamdogger. That is.

I think that. I think that bun is a good idea. I know shaping the meat seems like a better.

Seems better to me, but I like.

The idea of a bun that, you know, you have. You have buns in the house. If you have buns in the house.

You know what I would do?

You're having hot dogs or hamburgers if I made that.

But I just make an oval instead of.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I guess.

Yeah. Because I want to minimize the amount of. Because you're gonna get a lot of bread with no meat, and that's. You know, you don't want too many bites like that.

I think that's why it should be.

Are you designing it here?

Designing it? Oh, that doesn't look.

Let me see.

It looks like a middle finger.

It looked like a penis at first.

Somebody's giving the middle finger bread.

So just so everyone can see that that was her. I love that.

That's my bun.

So when an Amy initially drew it, it was like that. Just so everyone can see it. That's how she drew it. So interesting where your mind goes. Yeah, okay. That was absolutely horrible dick rolls. I will tell you one thing, though. We do have some for when we. We do our next Christmas party or whatever. We have some good comments from Kelsey in this episode to post on the video we make of her.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Licking the wall.

Yeah.

She's yelling out, it looks like a penis.

When you said, can you come over and get a quick lick? That's the best sound like that ever.

You guys do have the best sound.

When are you gonna do a mic video?

Soon. It's coming soon. Actually, I was thinking about doing one with the FTM launch.

Oh, that's a good idea. That ruined me.

That gives you the authority for the media.

Oh, all right. Let's get out of here. So a couple of things. If you have questions you want us to answer on the show and eradicate your experience with entrepreneurial poverty, we want to hear. Send the email to ask mike michalowicz.com and one more thing we want you to check out Fix this Next. You know, these are tough times. There's no question about it. But our businesses can survive, they can thrive if you do the right thing at the right time. I hope that fix this Next will be a tool for you to do that. So go to fix this next.com and we'll get you all the stuff you need to start moving your business forward again. That's fix this next dot com. All right, See you guys later. Bye.