334 - Before You Call the Lawyer: Reimagining Conflict with Ursula Taylor

What does it take to make workshops work? And how can we facilitate collaboration that sticks and leads to results? My name is Miriam Hatnes, and with the Workshops Work podcast, I'm on the mission to find the magic ingredients that make workshops work. Today with me on the show is Ursula Taylor, and she used to be a litigation attorney and is now helping companies and teams to find different solution to their conflict through embracing their emotions, through having honest conversations, and through increased self-awareness. So stay tuned for this deep and hopeful conversation that there is another opportunity beyond the court case. And don't forget to scroll down to the show notes to find links to contact Ursula and to subscribe to the show if you enjoyed it. Thank you for listening. Ursula, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

I'm very curious and excited to talk to you about conflict today. Let's do it. There are very few people who don't have issues around conflict.

It is, it is part of our human experience.

Yeah. And, um, I think there's, uh, I'm fascinated and obsessed, uh, by how we can better navigate through these challenging situations through communication. And, um, yeah, very curious to hear from your experience as a lawyer and a litigation attorney, if I'm not mistaken.

That's correct.

And before we get there, I always start with the same question to warm us up. When did you start calling yourself a facilitator? And actually, do you?

Oh, great question. I think that's part of what I do. And I like facilitator, because it sort of, it sort of suggests that I'm facilitating work that's really done by someone else. And that's, that's really true. I support clients, people, organizations, in doing the work themselves. I'm there, I'm creating the space, the tools, but really it is up to the participants to say yes and to undergo the process.

And when did you start getting involved in this work? And how did you make the transition from being an attorney to becoming a facilitator? Because from how you describe it, it sounds like a massive mindset shift.

Yeah, it sounds like it, but it's really not. I think it's a build when you kind of understand it. I kind of prefer the word consultant because it's a little more vague and amorphous. I would say I hesitate around any labels because I think language is really limiting. And language is, you know, it's the meanings based in history and what we expect. And the work that I do is really Unprecedented in some ways. It's not— it doesn't fit a mold or a trajectory in terms of facilitator's okay, but mediator is one I hesitate around. You know, there's some— coach is one that I hesitate with a little bit. Facilitator is okay, but I think consultant is even broader. You know, I started— to get back to your question, I started as a lawyer because I think at a young age I thought that we could do conflict better if it looked and felt more elevated, right? Like, let's go to law school and really become smarter and better and more equipped. And everyone can wear fancy suits, and there's a judge, and we're in a courtroom. And what I came to learn through the practice of law is it doesn't matter how prepared you are with facts, laws, and arguments, or the setting, or the environment, or how educated or smart everyone is. The reality is that all conflict is created and perpetuated from human emotion.

Mm-hmm.

And what we see in law and legal process is no formal space for that to be dealt with, or I use the word transmuted, taking our human emotion that's more dense and fear-based and changing it into something higher. And I think that's a really important critical piece to any conflict resolution effort.

Is it then what I hear, or my interpretation of that is then the fight about who's right and who's wrong is basically just a distraction of all the emotions that are present and that we try to delude or distract ourselves from?

Yeah, blame and fault is a falsity. It's a, it's a false thought paradigm. that we stick in that just permeates our systems and our cultures and our societies that is really an illusion that's wrong and keeps us limited.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, blame and fault. When you think about— I like to back up and just think about the business case. And I work with companies and business leaders. That's where I came from in law. And it's what I'm continuing to do. And so for me, the business case is really Quite easy. Nobody's running a business on blame and fault. Like, nobody's driving profits by being right and making someone wrong. Nobody is like beating out the competition with righteousness and victimhood, you know? That's not what we're here to do. It's not why we're in the roles that we're in or the organizations that we're in. It's not why those organizations or teams exist. And when you think about what litigation does, the other piece of that business case is how expensive and uncertain it is. And I just like to throw a number because why not? I've never done a lit— in the United States, I've— so I worked as a lawyer for, um, litigation attorney for 17 years in the United States. And, um, I've never done a litigation budget through trial for less than about $500,000. And that's not a real budget, you know, and most lawyers don't do budgets when they don't have to, you know, like savvy consumers of litigation services will compel them and require them.

Mm-hmm.

But they're generally not offered. Why? Oh, that's so interesting that they can be done. And so that budget would come with a list of assumptions that we then can't control. So the business case for litigation isn't there if there's an alternative. And there is an alternative. It's just not understood. But it starts with understanding conflict is deriving from human emotion.

So I love that. And it— you make me laugh that no business is built on blame and guilt.

Right.

And still we're all falling into the trap. So what is, from your experience, what are mostly the tripwires? Where's the moment where it starts to go wrong, where you're standing at this fork and you basically could avoid the $500,000 bill? But somehow you don't.

Yeah, I mean, that's a really great question. And I would pause it at something goes wrong because I don't think conflict is wrong. I think it's opportunity when you see it and understand it early. But how do we get into the long protracted litigation? I think, you know, I operate on the presumption that's, you know, confirmed by science, which is that everything is energy, right? Everything is energy. Matter is energy. But even our thoughts and emotions have an energy. And conflict comes from an energy. And I think of emotional energy as either fear-based, sort of on a spectrum. One side's sort of like guilt and shame, and you have pride and scarcity. And then you kind of move into more expanded emotional energy around neutrality and then hope and courage and love. And so what's the emotional energy that you're operating from? Because we are always operating from something. And I think when we're in conflict, we are operating from more of a fear-based emotional energy.

Mm-hmm.

So to your question, where's the tripwire? I think you feel it in your body. I think the earliest signs are less about the story and the facts, laws, and arguments and the drama, but it's an energy in your body. And you can feel it with a pit in your stomach, a clenched jaw, tightening of the shoulders, When are we starting to feel that emotional surge? And then that's a choice point. There's a choice point to operate from that or to take a break and transmute that energy and then make strategic decisions about how to move forward.

Yeah.

And my work sort of brings what I know as a lawyer and legal process and practical negotiation strategy and those sorts of things, but offering, we're going to do this first. Because that's how you're really going to get the solutions and the answers that are efficient and effective.

I love that, this really embodied practice. And what I hear is you first need to calm down to actually reconnect to your body in order to feel that. Because I think if we're in fight-flight-freeze mode, if we're in this me against the world, fear-based high energy, high—

yeah, right, right.

Energy state. Very often we could disconnect from our body sensations.

Yeah.

And then you first need to calm down, to kind of pause, which feels very dangerous in that moment because we are in fight, flight, freeze.

Right.

And then And then what I also see, and I would be curious in your experience now working with your clients, it also requires the shift in perspective that suddenly I'm looking inwards. Because when we are, as you said, when we're in blame, blame mode, then it's not our fault, it's your fault. So yes, I might be feeling all of that, but I'm feeling this because of you.

Mm-hmm.

And what you're inviting them to, if I understand correctly, is to, oh, I'm feeling that, so I have to start with myself.

Yes. What we have to understand, in addition to conflict coming from emotion and the energy of emotion, is that it's also infectious. It spreads. And we're intuitive beings. And so if we don't cultivate a self-awareness, an ability to stop and shift that energy, we just spread it unconsciously.

Mhmm.

And that's what I saw in my practice as a litigation attorney. You know, one blow leads to the next. And, yeah, they're big words and expensive legal briefs and, like, Big arguments, and it's just passing the fear-based emotional energy of conflict. And we stay sort of just in this almost distracted way. Sometimes it's more animated, but it's not resolving what underlies it. And then it's funny because at trial, what the trial lawyers are really trying to do is utilize that emotional energy to recruit The trier effect. So the judge or the jury recruit them into the emotional story, and it becomes a war of who can do that best, as opposed to transmuting that emotional energy and getting more clarity.

Because basically at this point, nobody has an interest in taking it off court because then nobody makes money. Yeah.

And the first person we call when we see attention, a contract that's being violated or breached or a dispute coming up, the first person we call is the attorney. But are the— you know, and I don't mean to disparage lawyers. I don't think anyone comes in with this mindset consciously, but the financial incentives and the system is set up. We consult with the litigation attorney about whether to bring a litigation or how to respond to a litigation, and that person's paid by the hour. For litigation services. So there's definitely sort of a systemic kind of problem with that. I think there needs to be initial stops before— long before the litigation attorneys are involved. And oftentimes there are— people feel that they are, but they're not dealing with it in terms of understanding the emotion, the energy, the people, and the relationships.

Yeah. And I love how you said they're paid by the hour. Yeah. And we're talking about a process where you actually have to slow down first in order to gain a little bit of distance, calm down the nervous system, look at the facts. And then it's impossible if you actually hear the metronome in the background.

Right. It's right. Right. When you step back out and look at the whole thing 20,000 feet up, it's almost funny. When you understand human emotion, emotional energy, how it's infectious, how it continues, how to transmute it, how to change it, how that becomes infectious, that new energy, how you can actually bring more power to a negotiation or a dialogue when you've kind of gotten clear on yourself.

And I have so many related questions. And Before getting deeper into the reads, I would love to address something that maybe a listener might think, oh, all this touchy-feely speaking about emotions. Yes, I understand that emotions are important, but in my case, where my contractor didn't respect the contract, or in my case, where an employee didn't, whatever. So I cannot even imagine all the different cases that you might have dealt with as a— As a litigation attorney, but maybe you can give us some examples of very factual cases where people would think, but this is clear that I'm right and they're wrong. And then add this other perspective of how can, can you find a solution off court?

Yeah, there's no example where I can't, like, take it from blame, fault to human emotion. I mean, if I can sit with the people and spend enough time, I've never had a situation where I'm like, you know what, everything I've said is wrong. This one's blame fault, that guy. You know, if I'm doing that, I'm triggered, right? If I'm doing that, I've been recruited and I'm too, like, in the junk.

Yeah.

You know, so it's really important for me to have self-awareness and for me to be aware of myself and, like, dealing with my own emotional energy as I go through this. But let me just think of, you know, I just like examples. So I represented managed care plans in a lot of disputes opposite healthcare providers. And, you know, I was engaged in one litigation at the end right before I shut my litigation practice down. And it was like a chiropractor, physical therapist suing a health plan for a very low amount of money. It did not make sense. It's like the amount of money at issue will be surpassed In just the initial pleadings, the initial complaint and answer. So I immediately said, "What is this?" And tried to work with my client to understand it. And it was just kind of this: there was so much corporate hierarchy, and it was just kind of in the weeds. Like they're just not submitting the health claims correctly. We're actually managing a plan for someone else. It's not our money. They have to do it this way. They haven't done it this way. So I pick up the phone. I call the lawyer. He's like, "We've done it." It's just there's a lot of loss in translation. He's kind of amped, but I can talk him down, and he starts to understand. Yeah, we need to try to resolve this. But then I got I got a clip of the audio, so of the healthcare provider, the the chiropractor, physical therapist calling into the health plan. I got to feel that energy and listen to this human speak. I could feel her exasperation. I could feel her frustration. I could feel her her. Fear and her lack of trust in speaking to a managed care plan. Healthcare in the United States is is a mess. So any anyone who's experienced it will know probably what I I'm talking of from your own human experience when you've tried to call in and understand what's covered and what's not and why not, and it's just and it's your health.

So there is kind of survival fear angst.

Yeah, this was a small company, family-owned kind of thing, and it was just all of the and the angst. And I just needed access to my person and this person, and understanding, and dialogue, and awareness. Preceding that, I would need sort of a creation of some sense of trust. And that can be done. But it wasn't done in that case. And I was of the mind, well, can I talk to— no, no, no. We don't let our outside lawyers speak to our— you know, there was like layers of lawyers that were just like, you don't get to talk to this person. And I'm like, well, then I can't help you. And that started my whole process of, but I want to help you. And so I need to get out of this and start doing this differently.

And what I— thank you. So what I hear are the basic human needs of everyone wants to feel heard. So I have an issue and I'm addressing that and everyone brushes me off and pretends as if I'm a crazy person. So, and then I get angry because I don't feel heard and I scream even louder. And then there's bureaucracy that avoids that. And then there's maybe one person who made a mistake and then doesn't feel safe enough to admit that mistake and tries to cover it up.

Yeah, more fear, more fear, right? So yeah, the overarching kind of principle of all of it is moving from fear to something higher than fear and doing— we have to do that for ourselves before we can induce it in the other side. or create paths on the other side. And there's variations on that. But that, that's the overarching kind of goal. Sometimes you're dealing with people who can't feel themselves, you know, more of like a narcissistic kind of situation. And in those, it's still incredibly helpful to get clarity for ourselves that we are not emotionally charged, so that we can see, okay, where do I have leverage? Where do I not have leverage? What are the strategies? What really makes sense here? We are so clouded and so small and so limited when we're operating with that fear emotional charge, right? That, like, scarcity, that anxiety, that anger and irritation. They're all okay. They're all allowed. But they're allowed to be honored in the sense of feeling them and releasing them, not staying in them and perpetuating a conflict from it.

And it's, it's almost magic once we realize that simply acknowledging emotions makes them pass. I had this very silly moment. I was playing a card game with my partner. And she made a move and I was about to do— and it made me so angry. I couldn't control my anger. And I was at one moment I spoke it out. I'm like, I feel very angry. And I described all the body physical sensations that I felt.

Mm-hmm.

felt in my body. And then I started laughing because it was, it was hilarious.

Wow.

Me observing myself just getting in this anger. And I didn't know why, where this came from. But just expressing it, then letting it go and laughing about it. Since then, I was in similar situations, nothing.

Right. Right.

And then I realized, oh, that's what they mean by observing emotions, letting them go. And then it's Kind of healing wounds, whatever they are.

Yeah, sometimes it takes a little more, but to be able to do it in the moment is really powerful. That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's exactly it. I mean, observe it, feel it, go into it. Sometimes if it's more deeply rooted kind of trauma, that you've got to go back and back and back. But just acknowledging that I'm angry or I'm hurt or I'm upset, That you're clouded from that, you know, that can be really, really, really important to any team or organization that's trying to figure out how to navigate a conflict.

Yeah. And then I think we have to really unlearn a behavior that is maybe comes from a good, good part where we want to bond with someone. So then, oh yeah, you're so right to be angry. They're wrong. And then I guess that's what you mean, how the conflict then spirals and spreads.

You've got to be careful of being recruited into that. So that's really great that you brought that up. Because when we want to be a support to our friends or our colleagues or our partners in situations where they're in a conflict, and it can feel like the supportive thing is to get recruited into blame and fault and to energize that, but we're just perpetuating and energizing it. We're activating it in our own bodies.

Mm-hmm.

Maybe spreading it out further. We're sort of deepening the groove for, for our friend or our partner or whoever it is. I think the better strategy is to observe it with them.

Mm-hmm.

You feel angry, you feel hurt. You know, offering a dose of empathy can help them offer that empathy to themselves and start to get under it. But if you can just observe them and hold space for it, Without going into it, that's really powerful. So then that becomes part of the strategy in a negotiation. You know, when you can hold space and you can only, you can only do it if you're neutral and you're not neutral if you're activated. Right? So that's why it's so important. There are strategies to then help that person move through it and come back and start to be able to engage in a more effective dialogue and awareness building and problem solving.

Yeah. And then you're dealing with very powerful people who want to solve a case. They believe that they're right. They're willing to go to court. And then you approach them and say, let's talk about your emotions. I'm just imagining this very stereotypical—

Mm-hmm.

50-plus privileged white man, successful CEO, angry.

Yeah.

With the entire board. Let's take them to court.

Yeah. Yeah.

How do you break that cycle?

I mean, I'm always surprising myself at who I can kind of bring down, you know, like who I can kind of work with. And it starts with just Seeing seeing fear and feelings, and not seeing blame and fault for myself, like for myself, right? My own grounded clarity. And there's usually an open opening somewhere. There's usually a you know I was working with a founder of an organization who was going off about something. There was an internal tension that was brewing into a conflict, hovering around a conflict. And he said, "And that cuts deep." Because I founded this company and that cuts deep. And I just— that cuts deep. You know, like it had to do with parental leave or the number of weeks for parental leave. And they charged me with collecting the feedback from the employees and delivering it. I'm like, they're not happy.

They're not happy.

You know, it's too little. And he— but he gave me that opening to sort of unpack that with him. And I just watched him shift. Right? I watched at the beginning of the conversation, we are done talking about this. The parental leave is what it is. To the end, to being like, okay, I see it. You know, we're too small right now to offer that much, but let's keep the conversation going. And as we grow, you know, he opened up, and it, it was me helping him see his feeling. And it was, you know, I facilitated. It was, it was him, but I facilitated. And, uh, I think the other piece, the very practical piece, is not everybody's calling me. It's not for everyone, right?

Mm-hmm.

The business case is very clear, especially if you understand what litigation is. But I do think one of the challenges I face is that the people who understand what I'm saying don't need me, and the people who need me don't understand what I'm saying. So I really work with that sweet spot of people who are a little more expanded, a little more open, Maybe they've engaged in some level of individual wellness or healing for themselves, you know, but they're, they're business people and they haven't integrated those ideas completely into what they're doing in a business setting. So they have an opening, but they have— it's not their pattern or practice. And so I kind of just bring that together for them. Yeah, those are, those are the people I work with very well.

Yeah, I see that there needs to be some emotional literacy.

Yeah, there needs to be awareness. There needs to be a yes, let's try this. Yes, I'm open. There needs to be a willing participant. Yeah, because I can't come in and be like, you're doing it wrong. You don't understand emotion. Right? Because that's just my own, my own righteousness, my own, you know, that doesn't work. I'm not gonna argue my way into like convincing someone to not argue. Yes.

I recently recorded an episode on the inner child. Leading the boardroom.

Mm-hmm.

All these wounded people are exploding and reacting in fear and blame because basically there's the inner child that wants to feel heard. And I think it's very related to the work that you do, that once we acknowledge that there is a wound, Like, this cuts deep. So there was something attached to the topic that has nothing to do with the topic.

Yeah.

But to their story around it.

Yeah.

That makes them close up. And it's funny that you say it. I realize in myself, my trauma response is, I don't need you anyway. I'm done with it. Don't need to talk about it. I'm out of here. And this is usually, now I know, The moment. Calm down.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like the inner child. And it's so important. Another thing that I try to help people do is to see themselves and others as humans just like me, just to see each other as humans just like me, not as a judgment. But let's just accept— let's all accept the fact that we are operating from human emotion, that we all have fear. Let's create some levels, some ground rules of acceptance around that. And I think corporate hierarchy and structure is often imbued with a sense of fear. Well, that person's more important than me or more powerful than me, or that person's this age, or that person is— and it requires some efforting around, like, let's just reset and understand this person is a human.

Yeah.

not this inaccessible sort of powerful creature that, that, that can't relate to us.

Had this to do with our notion of professionalism?

Yeah, yeah.

To see the person behind the title, the role, the hierarchy?

Yeah, I think that that is, is, is sort of, um, I think a lot of, you know, ideas around professionalism, and this gets back to what I was sharing when I was talking about when I came into— went to law school and began legal practice. You can't touch it because it's important and everyone's wearing a fancy suit and using big words and everyone's really educated. It's still humans dealing with human emotions. And I think ideas of corporate culture and ideas around professionalism or that word sometimes, or the hierarchies, we disconnect And get further away from our understanding of each other as humans, as human, relatable, empathetic human beings, powerful human beings that can leverage and operate from emotional energy that's fear-based or more expanded.

Yeah. And I would be curious about this, the spreading of the conflict, because it usually starts with an individual. And then there are also companies that go to court. So there are people representing companies and then it becomes very intertwined. How can you trace it back and actually heal that? Also these kind of—

Yeah.

What is the difference between an interpersonal and an interorganizational conflict? I think that's a good question. Yeah.

There's no difference. I've certainly— it's all humans and human emotion. I mean, I've certainly experienced the big corporate entity that just has the litigation budget and has the in-house lawyers and the outside lawyers. And so what's driving the dispute is really far away from the people who are then doing the litigation. It sort of got kicked off and handed over to someone who handed it over to someone. And then you really don't get back to those people until much further in the litigation when you're starting to do depositions and you're bringing humans to the table to tell stories. And that's evoking emotion, right? So a lot of times litigations can go on for a long time in that way. And I think for those kind of entities, they're facing the business case, the business problem. They're facing the practical business reality that litigation doesn't make sense. if there is a more efficient way. They're all dealing with budgets because the thing about litigation is that it's a bit of a black hole. What I've come to understand in my practice as a commercial litigation attorney is that there's no end. There's always more discovery. You know, we try to have limits, but the judges and arbitrators aren't really incentivized to cut it off because what if they miss something? Maybe one more deposition, maybe one more Because the only thing, one of the few things that can jeopardize an arbitration ruling, for instance, would be not allowing evidence, right? So they have their fear about not allowing more and more and more and more and more. And so then it kind of becomes limited by the budget, and it could grow. It can just grow and grow and grow and grow and grow. So I think the practical business case is always there for trying to look at this differently. dedicating some resources and process to thinking about this differently. It's easy. But back to your original question, I really like working with smaller or more mid-sized organizations that are a little closer to their founding business goals and haven't just sort of cut off. This is the litigation budget. These are outside counsel that are really just trying to operate more leanly, drive results, you know, produce a service or a product. And, and really are just not, not mired in, in this idea that litigation must be.

Because the moment where you outsource the process, you're removing the human being from it. Yeah. And then there's basically no way to solve it in a healthy, right, human-centered way because, yeah, it's just a number, just a case.

Right. And, and what ends up happening and I mentioned that I hesitate to use the word mediator to describe my services because I, I feel that there is fundamentally a huge difference between someone who comes in and facilitates a ceasefire by creating a countervailing fear of the cost of the process, of the outcome, versus someone who's helping to transmute the underlying fear in more efficient and effective ways.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I think a mediator traditionally, in my experience, in my experience, and this isn't every mediator, but in my experience, it's really about coming in and dealing with the parties and creating a threat of fear about how much this has cost and how much it will continue to cost and chances of success and things like that. And that can be valuable. That ceasefire to a litigation can have a value, but it requires a certain amount of bloodshed first. It, you know, so it's still expensive. It's still expensive. And I firmly believe that if you're not dealing with the underlying human energy that's creating the conflict, you're just going to continue the pattern in other spaces and relationships and situations.

Because it pretends to deal with something that is actually not the full truth, ignoring all the underlying energy, emotions, history.

Right, right, right.

And then, yeah.

It's a ceasefire. A ceasefire. Yeah.

It's an interesting perspective because in the ceasefire, in the process that you describe, people are, that's what I understand, looking inside to see, okay, so how can I first calm down to then maybe have a little bit more empathy or compassion to see also the other side and then meet in the middle? Whereas the mediation is I look at the other side? And how can I get them to admit, or to come a little bit closer? So it's still in the blame way where we try to find a middle ground instead of the healing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that, that's close. Yeah, the inner work to sort of deal with the emotional charge. It's less about seeing the other side's perspective. We might never see their perspective. Their perspective is probably fear-based and probably a little bit false and just a thread. I like to talk about threads. Like, everybody who's in a tension or conflict has a thread, a thread that's being touched, like a fear-based thing. Even if you seemingly did nothing, quote unquote, wrong, something's charged for you if you're in it, if you're dealing with it. And so Getting under that, transmuting that, shifting that emotion is critical to having clarity. And where I'm trying to lead people is, what do you need? Like, can you answer that question? Can you answer that question? Because I have seen huge legal briefs and pleadings with very little clarity on what the litigant actually needs in terms of dollars or outcomes. Or rulings, and it's just about the other person being wrong. And you know, then there's these vague, vague pronouncements at the end about wanting what's just and equitable, and the judge will decide. It's like, what do you need? What do you need? And and when you can answer that question in a neutral way that's sort of oriented around your business goals, your business function, your business objectives, and not a human emotional charge— be right, make them wrong, show this, prove that— then we're, then we're really getting somewhere.

Yeah. Yeah. Reminds me of the concepts of nonviolent communication.

Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've heard of that.

Yeah. It's very disarming suddenly to, to look at, okay, what is it actually that I need and what am I afraid of?

Right.

And I'm very surprised I'm hearing that is that very— are so unclear about that, because I would think that this is the main thing how they get into it. I want a million because you've hurt me, or—

Yeah, sometimes there's a bit more clarity on it, but oftentimes the damages are undetermined, the precise outcomes are undetermined. It's, it's generally just a fear. I've seen big litigations between competitors because they just kind of want to block their competitor. Or just a fear of a repeating pattern, you know, built from assumptions. And it's a host of different things depending on the situation. And I'm not saying all litigation is wrong or not the best choice. There are certainly times when you've kind of done some of that and you've dealt with it and you've looked at it in sort of a neutral— gotten yourself to a more neutral, grounded space and looked at litigation budgets and looked at chances of success. and done that initial work, and, and the business case is there for litigation. I think that does happen, but, but the litigation industry is disproportional to what's actually required and needed when we're, we're engaging in more efficient and more elevated conflict resolution strategies.

That's my economist brain now, um, coming in, where the time and energy and headspace of an individual suddenly is more valuable than the litigation budget of a company. I'm like, okay, so we're going to protect our CEO from having a conversation, diving into that, or dealing with it. So let's pay an attorney.

Yeah.

And burn the millions.

Yeah.

Because these are basically different budgets.

Yeah.

And totally detached from the human being.

Yeah.

That should actually be at the center of an organization.

Yeah, yeah. I think that that often happens. And I think that what you're pointing out is a form of fear. I don't want to deal with this. This is, like, kind of draining. Let's give it to the attorneys.

Yeah.

There's this false idea that we're going to give it to the attorneys and they're just going to do. It doesn't really work. It comes back to you. It'll cost you a lot of money, but ultimately, the witnesses, the facts, the people, have to be dealt with in a litigation, usually by the time of depositions and certainly by the time of trial. And so you're sort of giving it away to attorneys who aren't incentivized to get to the root of it, is human emotion, spending quite a lot of money. And look, that choice can be made. That choice can be made. Business leaders can choose to do that. And that's their choice. And that's something that they can live and learn through, or, or what have you.

Mhmm.

But what I'm, what I'm bringing to the table is that it, it doesn't have to be that. It doesn't have to be that expensive, that draining. And there's oftentimes ways to deal with this before litigation. Because the other, the other piece is once you're, once you're in a litigation, there's, there's a sort of a shrouding, like, or a fear to speak or talk without You know, counsel, and then you have, you have to make sure that you say everything and you don't waive anything. And, you know, conversation and dialogue can become a lot more limiting once you're bringing in that system and structure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, so I wonder, so your client would hire you because they have the impression that there is more, there's more money to save Mm-hmm. By not going all into the trial. And then you have to, to speak to the other side, basically.

Not, not always. Not, not always.

It's, it's, it's—

that's, that's the thing. It's, it's less critical than people think. People think, I've got to get the other side. And certainly in a mediation where you're hammering out a ceasefire, you do. But oftentimes, working with just one side is enough. And why is that the case? Because once one side has sort of transmuted what is driving them from a fear— from a fear standpoint, they can enter dialogue and discussion negotiation from a much more powerful place. They know what they want. They know how to get there. They can sit there and create space for the other person to say all kinds of triggering things that are not triggering anymore because one side has dealt with it, the more grounded, expanded energy that's coming from one side is also infectious. And it comes through, you know, in the negotiations. And there are strategies for engaging with the other side to sort of induce a sense of psychological safety and bring down walls and build trust. And there's plenty of negotiation strategies— strategists who talk about this and write about this. What I'm bringing to this is that there's initial work that has to be done.

Mhmm.

But you shift the dynamic of the negotiation. You shift the dynamic of the dispute, of the litigation, of the conflict through one party. You get clarity. You can answer the questions. You're not driven by emotional charge. And that spreads, and it affects how we, uh, how we deal with the other side. It affects our clarity. We start to see solutions. We're operating from more expanded energy. Things make sense. You know, we're surrendering what we can't control. We're sitting in the fear of not getting exactly what we want and letting that go and getting right down to what we actually need. It's a number of things happen when you can lift that energy. Yeah. And it's amazing.

Yes, I can definitely see that and have experienced it. And this means that you would mostly— who would mostly call you a Company that is where someone is threatening to sue them?

Mm-hmm. That would, that would be yes.

And then they would find out what is— or first see more clearly and then see, okay, so how can we, what can we offer them, or how can we ask for the information we need in order to make an offer?

Right, sure. I can help in those situations where there's a potential litigation or considering a litigation. I prefer to work also with something a little bit that's even before that, where you're sort of just dealing with a partnership or some sort of— maybe it's contracting partners externally or vendors or internal relationships and teams to navigate tension, to show leaders how to exemplify that. For others in sort of team-building workshops, sort of leadership workshops oriented around harnessing conflict as opportunity, using tension points to elevate, avoiding the inefficiencies and the drain, but leveraging it for growth. Because conflict is inevitable, tension points are inevitable. But when we learn how to navigate them, just like you were describing with your partner in the card game, When we can really do that and have those strategies, it can shift entire teams and organizations and how we interact within and externally.

How important is it to clarify and communicate our relationship with conflict? Yeah. Because depending on our upbringing, our families, we might be afraid of conflict. We might have attachment issues. Um, already the word conflict can trigger us.

Right, right. And, and I, I'm, I'm conscientious of that. I view conflict as opportunity, but not everyone uses that word in the same way. And it's what I was saying about language being limited. So sometimes I say tension point, mitigating or navigating or avoiding conflict, because that feels a little more comfortable to people. Because fear of conflict is, is It's another thread of fear, right? It's another thing to sit in and deal with and contend with in terms of those strategies. Because it does limit us. It does, it does preclude dialogue. It, it inhibits us from understanding, from growing awareness of ourselves and the people we're dealing with if we're constantly hiding from the potential conflict.

What would be your advice to your younger self when you started, maybe when— and maybe it would be different when you just started studying law or before and after you finished the degree.

Yeah, I think, I think, you know, I believe that nothing's wasted. You know, we're all on these paths and every problem is an opportunity for growth and learning. Sometimes we have to go through things to know and understand more. And so I don't, I don't really subscribe to this idea of like, I was doing it wrong, but now I get it. I needed to do it wrong, you know, to get it. So I think my advice to my younger self would be, you're exactly where you're supposed to be. Just keep going, you know, keep going. You're exactly where you're supposed to be. Keep going. And, and that's all there is to it. And, you know, I think self-awareness, consciousness, becoming aware of ourselves is power. It is so powerful when we can start to see what limits us, when we can note when we're animated or charged and have an inner strategy, sort of our own internal strategies for changing that. We operate so much more effectively in the world.

Mm-hmm.

And we can create abundance and live more joy and, and be happier, more fulfilled humans. When we can cultivate an ability to become aware of ourselves, not from a sense of oh my God, I can't believe I did that, and and hammering on the shame and the guilt, but with self-love. You know, oh, now I'm feeling guilty, and now I'm feeling shamed. You know, it's it's it's it's about moving from fear, from moving from fear to more expanded neutral love love energy, and we have to do it within ourselves before we have the capacity. to affect other people before we have the capacity to, to, to change our teams and, and our dynamics externally.

Because otherwise we always project and we react to all of their, all of their emotions with our own.

Right, right. We perpetuate, we perpetuate the fear, perpetuate the fear.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Do you think it would have changed something or it would change something if lawyers had more coaching training or would learn about the human side. And maybe I'm wrong, maybe it is part of the studies to learn a little bit about psychology and, yeah, and coaching.

Yeah, I think it would help for lawyers to understand that they are being recruited. They're often recruited into the emotion, and, and clients are looking for that in some way. Like, they're aggrieved and they want to hear how their lawyer Buys into it too, right? We can feel supported when our attorney is like, "Yeah, that scumbag! Let's go after him." Feels good at first, and then you get the bill. But yes, I think it would help for lawyers. They would be more effective as attorneys and counselors as and advisors to understand the role of human emotion, understand how they recruit it and perpetuate it. And but back to my comments about the financial structure, I. I think we would need to pay lawyers a flat fee and arbitrators too. So, I'm actually a certified arbitrator with the AAA. And I'm newly certified this year. I went ahead and did that. And the first thing I said is, I don't want to be paid by the hour. Why am I being paid by the hour? We're supposed to be efficiently resolving disputes and we have a system where I'm paid only if and when this goes to a long hearing. What do we— you know, my experience, people don't want hearings and hearings. They want out. They want solutions. They just don't know another way. So lawyers too. I mean, I think if we create a system where lawyers are paid a flat fee and incentivized to find solutions, whether that's through an outcome that's negotiated or a quick and a quick resolution or adjudicated outcome.

Mm-hmm.

Then you've aligned the financial structure of the lawyer with the client. And the old-school legal mentality is you can't do a flat fee because we can't bring our highest and best work if we can't make sure we've looked under every rock and we've done everything possible and we're uber-prepared. You can't do a flat fee because what if this and what if that? But the thing is, I think what you have to— with the common sense, practical Reality that you have to bring to that, that any litigator who's practiced for any number of years knows, is there's no limit to the number of rocks to look under. There's no limit to the amount of discovery to take. There's no limit to the amount— it never ends. So chasing this idea of perfection in legal practice sort of undermines the ability to reach an efficient resolution. And so when we're paying lawyers by the hour, we're setting ourselves up in the wrong ways. We're setting the lawyers up in the wrong ways to serve. And, and I think if a lawyer is— has intuitive capacity and emotional intelligence and understands some of what I'm sharing, they can be highly effective in marrying an understanding of law with emotional intelligence and some of the strategies I'm speaking about to help clients get solutions as opposed to just a never-ending process of fear.

Yeah, needs an update, the system. Right?

We got to start somewhere, though. We have to start somewhere.

Yeah. What would be your advice to someone who wants to start getting better at addressing conflict with their teams?

Yes, start with yourself. I'm a big fan of mindfulness modalities. It doesn't have to be formal meditation, but self-care, walking in nature. We're very intellectualized right now as our humanity. You know, we're sort of— we're taught that knowing more and having more intellectual knowledge and power is where it's at. We actually need to take time to step away from our ego intellect and get distance from it so that we can observe it. Because when we can observe it, we can see where the clutter is coming in. And, and when that clutter is, is removed, That's when we get our intuitive, our creative breakthroughs, the aha moments, the solutions, the ideas. So someone who wants to do conflict better, do you better.

Right.

Do you better. Start with your own, your own self-awareness, your own need to control, your fear-based need to control. When I first started this idea of this consultancy, I noted myself being angry at the angry. I noted myself being angry at the conflict, and I knew I wasn't ready. Like, I could sort of write and speak and, and claim it in a sense, but I didn't really start breaking through in terms of, like, clearly letting go of blame and fault and, and forgiving and having compassion for what's happening with, with, within the angry. You know, I had to do that, that work on an individual level before I could really get to where I am now. Yeah.

I think it's, is it Mark Walsh? He was also on the podcast. He always says that you cannot act from an open wound. You first have to have healed and then you can work on it. But, um, if you're still triggered, what his example, I think is, um, he's a coach. His example is that he cannot coach on divorce because he hasn't healed yet. So he's still too vulnerable. But all the other topics where he has, he has overcome his own kind of triggers and anxieties, now he's ready. And I found that so wise.

That is, that is wise.

Because otherwise we project and we take it personally and we have all these judgments and we Right, right, right.

It's true. It's true. We have to note ourselves. We have to kind of sit in those moments and release that and get our own clarity so that we're just being recruited. So important.

Yeah. And then when I understand you correctly, the how to do conflict, that there basically is not, there's no source for the conflict if we are able to step away from the blame and the guilt.

Right.

And then suddenly it's maybe a challenging conversation, but the conflictual part is gone.

Right, right, right. We have to access the highest and most powerful version of ourselves to operate in powerful ways with intention and conflict. And as humans, we have this false idea in our societies that the fear-based sort of manifestation is the most powerful. the pound your fists on the table and I know more and I'm better than— and my money and my status and my this and my that. That's fear. That is fear. That is pure fear. That is not the most powerful version of ourselves.

Yeah.

That is not the most effective version of ourselves. The version of ourselves that can sit there and know who we are and say to the other side, I hear you. I can't do that. I just know that, like, have a boundary that's like not— it just is. It's incredible. It's incredible.

Yeah, it's real power and authority. That was Parker Palmer. He said authority is self-authorship. So if we know who we are and if we're grounded in our own values, then we have this kind of innate authority, right?

We just know, and we operate from that knowing, the inner compass.

Yeah.

We can effectively create space for other people because we're not threatened by what they bring. We're not worried about having to please them or appease them or fight them or be them or oppose them. We just know who we are, and we can listen and say, oh, that's interesting, sit on it and be like, oh, I think that guy— I think that person was operating from some fear and scarcity insecurity, or that kind of opened my mind. Our discernment becomes so strong.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And what, um, what makes me a little bit sad is, um, it's so obvious you cannot unsee it once you saw it. And unless you have experienced it, you're just in the blind. You don't know. So I think for many to imagine that there could be a space where they're not angry, where they're not fearful, where they're not operating from this fight, flight, freeze system seems just out of reach.

Yeah. Until you, until you start to do it here and there and in spaces and places. But we all, we've all seen and experienced the leader who does that, or at least does that at times, and how powerful and infectious they are, you know, in changing the energy and inspiring and creating hope and courage and Creating a sense of safety. Like, we've— we know what that is. We know what that looks like and feels like.

What is it? Maybe you can recall one of those actions, because isn't that vulnerability in action?

Sure.

The leader who, who can show that. Yeah, I think an example.

Yeah, uh, an example. Um, you know, vulnerability is power. What's an example? You know, Martin Luther King is an Yeah. There's other political leaders who are sort of more embodying a truth. It's probably less so in politics. I feel that politics— this is just my personal— is mostly driven by people who are in their fear, at least in the United States. So I don't know. But Martin Luther King comes to mind. I think for all of us, though, there are moments— it's hard to sort of put a judgment on a whole human because we all vacillate in and Right? That, you know, fear is part of the human experience. There's no person who's above that or outside of that. The best we can do is have self-awareness and, and have compassion for ourselves and self-love so that we can create the space for ourselves to, to kind of transmute it.

Yeah.

Right? So consciousness and self-awareness, the best of us operate with that. Nobody's operating without fear. Nobody's operating Perfectly at all times.

Yeah. And I think then speaking out that fear, I heard that was on a different podcast. I heard this example of a CEO who was kind of putting pressure on his team and they were making mistakes and he was pushing them to the deadline. And then in the all hands, he acknowledged that he was operating out of fear. Um, that they wouldn't get the update on time, or they wouldn't get the investments in the next round. And just acknowledging that, Mm-hmm. Um, and how it then changes the dynamics, and people then actually being willing to support and to work if they understand that it's not just this ego Maniac screaming around and hitting them because they missed the deadline or they put a bug in the code.

Right.

And I—

what I see happen in those scenarios is, you know, the best of them can, can see their boss as an egomaniac. But what often happens is they think, oh my God, I'm not good enough. I'm going to be fired. I'm not meeting the mark. That, you know, that goes into the— it triggers their own scarcity or unworthiness or other fear-based emotion. when the leader is operating from that. And it's unsaid. It's unsaid, right? Because if you have fear, then there's not safety and there's not vulnerability. So nobody's saying, when you say that on our all-hands call, I feel unworthy. No one's doing that, right? So, but that is what's happening. That is what's happening. It's triggering different forms of fear of scarcity in the entire organization.

Yeah. What remains your facilitation challenge?

I think it's probably what I said. The people who understand me don't need me, and the people who need me don't understand me. So I think my challenge is finding and aligning with the folks that are just really hit that sweet spot of being open, Mm-hmm. But needing the support. And the good news is I think times are shifting and changing. And, you know, I describe it as, you know, humanity goes through its chapters of evolution. And, you know, we had the Industrial Revolution, machinery and factories and making of things, and then the technology age with iPhones and what have you. But I believe strongly that we're merging into something new and entirely different. Today, we have AI for our facts and our figures and our knowledge and our information. We're in the human era. We're cusping into the human era. Who is going to start to understand and leverage themselves as human beings and call others forward to do the same? That is what's going to differentiate— that is what's going to differentiate teams and companies and organizations. And that's what's going to be the competitive advantage. The business case might be the prompt. You know, I wanna— I want the competitive edge. Well, how are you leveraging your humanness in yourself and others? And, um, so I, I think the time is now for this. I don't think this could have been 5 or 10 years ago. But I think what I'm talking about now fits. It's starting to fit because people are tired of the war. People are tired of the fight. They're drained, and they're looking for some relief.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I love this kind of beautiful mic drop. It's like ending on hope.

Mm-hmm.

In all this chaos. Yeah. And hate and polarization. Yeah. Yeah.

The hope. There is hope.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for this opportunity to chat with you.

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