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There is often so much more we can do to improve a situation than we realize if we will only stick our neck out a bit.
And I would also love for people to, and myself included, work on sticking our neck out in competent, skillful ways, because you need both of those things.
You need the courage, but you also need the skill.
And the good news is we have our whole life long to try to build it for those of us who are brave enough to say I'm not as good at this could be business writing or negotiation or public speaking but whatever that is we could gain we could gain skills if we were willing to look at ourselves at any age.
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Let's make every conversation a winning negotiation.
Michelle, thank you for joining us today.
I am honored and grateful that a mutual friend introduced us.
I've been listening to your podcast since hearing about it, and I just know I'm in good hands because you and I share that love of conflict mediation, management, remediation, negotiation, all the Asians, right?
Yes, this is great.
And yes, we are birds of a feather here.
And you have a great book that I want to make sure that the listeners know about.
So let's talk about the book.
Thanks. I spent five years working on it.
And what I've learned is it takes a long time sometimes to write a good short book.
It comes in at probably 150 pages, but I know people are busy.
So I didn't want more than nine or 10 pages per chapter.
And I really wanted to challenge people to look at some of the obstacles that end up in our peripheral vision, and they can impact our lives in ways we're not even aware.
And then we get to the end of our life and we have regrets about professional and personal relationships and things that we could have done to improve situations as communicators, But we just didn't wake up to them soon enough.
So I was really grateful when my publisher, BK Publisher, and they're distributed by Plingon Random House, when they were interested when I sent the manuscript two or three years ago and it came out in late 2022.
Since then, it's been a real blast.
I've been getting to travel around the US and do keynotes at conferences, and you know how much fun that is, and do workshops and things based on it.
And it's different than teaching topics that I had academic interest in, because now I'm folding in the stories I was brave enough to tell in the book.
And I find that that resonates with audiences when, of course, when we're brave enough to be a little vulnerable.
Absolutely. And I'll tell you kudos on the way you've written your book, because I know it's tough for you as an author to kill your darlings.
And we have that classic saying, if I had more time, I would have made it shorter.
It's really hard to synthesize your life's work into something that is so concise.
So kudos for getting the book.
who has been interviewing experts in this field since your podcast started in 2016.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
And let's start this off in a fun way.
You can't tease us with stories and not let us know one.
When you think about the keynotes that you give and this incredible book, when you think about everything that you've accomplished and taught, what is a story that kind of touches on some of your favorite parts of conflict and negotiation?
One story that I really like to refer to when I do a keynote is I'll talk about, there's a sad element, but there's a joyful element.
I'll talk about, I lost a big brother when I was 19 and he was 27.
He had heart arrhythmia.
We couldn't find a good reason for it.
One of those things that just happens.
And he happened to be the director of the Harley Davidson Motorcycles Owners Group in my hometown in Northeast Indiana.
And when we were at the memorial service, everyone was pretty dressed up, stuffy funeral home, grieving parents, et cetera, my other big brother, all of us grieving, but trying to show up to help others get through the loss of their friend and colleague.
And there was one gentleman that I'll never forget at that funeral home who came up to me while everyone was talking in hushed tones.
And it was just sort of a, you know, just very official seeming, very professional, more formal.
And he stood in front of me and kind of squared up to me and approached me and said so loudly that all the conversation stopped in the room, but with so much heart, he said, now don't you worry, little Shelly, your brother's got his knees in the breeze in Harley heaven, and he's going to be riding on forever.
And my heart lit up.
I felt healing come over me.
And then I realized as I looked around, oh, this was not the communication choice that others expected this gentleman to make.
Also, he was dressed very differently, head to toe leather, American flag bandana on his head, the chain on his wallet, the black boots, the whole deal.
And no one there who was concerned about fitting in and doing what everyone else was doing brought me the healing that his brave communication did.
And it took him about 60 seconds and probably took him 30 seconds to decide to walk over and open his heart to me.
And that's what I'm looking for in myself and in others.
I'm looking for, as we make those couple thousand decisions a day, I'm looking for us to look beyond the norm and look beyond what's expected, what's easy, and get out of our own self -talk that tells us that she's not going to change, he's not going to care, they're not going to do anything differently.
And just go for it because there is often so much more we can do to improve a situation than we realize if we will only stick our neck out a bit.
And I would also love for people to, myself included, work on sticking our neck out in competent, skillful ways because you need both of those things.
You need the courage, but you also need the skill.
The good news is we have our whole life long to try to build it.
For those of us who are brave enough to say, I'm not as good at this, it could be business writing or negotiation or public speaking, but whatever that is, we could gain skills if we were willing to look at ourselves at any age.
So there's one story.
That's incredible. What a story.
What a story. And what I love about this is the authenticity, too, of the communication.
There was no question about his intentions.
There was no questions about who he was.
He was himself. And that authenticity was powerful.
No, when called me Shelly past the age of about six, he chose to, you know, just his working choices.
I almost felt like it was divinely inspired or I felt a spirit around me.
And I felt I've thought back over the last 30 years since that time, approximately.
Yeah. And that healing continues every time I remember the story.
And we have listeners and viewers to the podcast today that could just have a quick interaction with the grocery store clerk or with an employee or coworker or boss or customer.
We don't know how we might elevate others.
And also we have to be brave and point the things out that aren't fair.
And we have to advocate for others as well for a more, I believe, for a more inclusive, successful society.
I agree. I get excited about it.
I know you do too. Oh, I get geeked about this unreasonably.
If we collectively can start to harness the power of good, courageous communication as a society, we will improve.
Because my philosophy behind everything that I do here and the reason why we produce so many episodes is that we believe that conflict is the greatest threat to humanity.
Our inability to resolve conflict.
We can't get it down.
And if you think about every single issue that is really top of mind today, there is a very, very important, difficult conversation that needs to happen between multiple parties who are unwilling to communicate in a real type of way.
And it comes back to the word that you've been saying multiple times in this conversation, which is brave.
And then right there in the title of your book, we have courage.
But I think a lot of people are lacking the courage to have these conversations because they're afraid of losing status.
They're afraid of the tribalism, the consequence of breaking party lines and things like that.
And I want to give you an opportunity to talk about those words, brave and courageous, because I think a lot of people would find it fascinating for all of the work that you've done, all the consulting and the high level negotiation that you've done to settle on those two words so consistently, I think
is really interesting.
So tell us about that.
Wow, that's so deep.
Okay, I want to concur that conflict will be the undoing of us all of our species if we don't get it together.
I also believe conflict is where all growth, maybe not all growth, but conflict is where most growth occurs.
Yes, I read a book almost every night before bed and I don't feel that I'm in conflict as I am gaining information and thinking through what other authors have written.
But it's when I am confronted about my behavior and perhaps I need to own it and apologize for it.
I'm working on an article right now about someone asked, how can I make a good apology.
And what was interesting is I had just had to make a good apology a few days before, tried my best to make a good apology, but boy, am I fighting with things within myself, ego or fear of being brushed off.
So I come back to courage and to bravery because we have to manage the talk in our heads.
And as you've said in recent previous episodes that I've been listening into, you cannot let the court of public opinion.
I don't know how you exactly said it, but you were saying that so many times we fear what others will think and it stops us in our tracks.
How about some smart risks?
So I guess I bring bravery and courage back to smart risk taking.
Yes, analyze the possible pros and cons, but be very careful that it isn't your own pessimism, your own perfectionism, or someone else's thoughts about you that keep you from expressing yourself to stand up for what you believe is right, to stand up for others, or simply to express a preference.
I have a lot of executive coaching clients right now.
They get goals every, we'll meet for like one or two hours and then they get four or five things to do that assigned by me that they bless or approve.
And once they bless them, it's on.
And they've said they're going to do these four or five challenging communication things before we meet again the next month.
And a few of them have the goal because they're very amiable and they're concerned very much about keeping the peace and their own likability.
I'm asking them to stand for what's right, to be the voice in the room that dissents, or to ask the hard question, stand up for something no one else is.
And then if they are disliked because of it, that's the goal.
It's okay if someone doesn't say good morning to you tomorrow because you disagreed with them in the meeting.
Be diplomatic and assertive at the same time.
Jot down the date, jot down the meeting in which you were brave diplomatic when you were assertive, right?
Try to use both of those things and then come back to me in a month.
And I can't wait to hear about the things that they've done.
So that's been pretty interesting.
One woman recently said, my family was stunned when it's Friday night is pizza night.
And I said, enjoy your pizza, everybody.
I'm going to go get Chinese because it's what I'm really hungry for.
Like great. She said there was just the mouse at the dinner table just went, you're going to do what?
Well, she's just going to meet her own needs.
Radical. So it could be very, sometimes people practice like sending a steak back at a restaurant and saying, thank you so much for preparing this for me.
But this is well, and I asked for medium rare.
Could you please cook it again?
Mind blowing for some people.
It's a little, the little things lead to the big things.
And the more we can tolerate hearing others opinions.
Also, I think the closer we get to a more informed society.
I agree. It's tough.
And it's funny, you probably noticed my expression because pizza night is Friday night for us.
And then you said you ordered Chinese, I was like, how could she?
Yeah, and there's a lot of that's not what we do in this family.
That's not what we do on this team in this organization.
I think it's I always picture like bowing, as long as we are bowing to not bowing, but acknowledging the other person has a different opinion, belief, priority, concern.
And then we hold that up as important, as you well know, from all of your years of lawyering and teaching negotiation.
And then we bring ours up as if we believe it's as important whenever we can.
And I've had some clients say, I'm afraid I'll be fired.
And I understand that.
I am in business for myself.
So I can't be, I guess I could be fired by coaching or training clients, right?
But I can't be fired by someone who is my supervisor, but I worked as a human resources and training director for many years.
And I remember that feeling of, you know, it's 430 and the boss says, hey, come see me before you leave.
And everybody's first thought is I'm getting fired, even if they're high performers.
So that's when we need that courage and we have to summon it within ourselves.
Interestingly, no one else can give us courage or summon it for us.
That's right. Let's know what you think about that.
Like, how do you help your clients be courageous when they need to be.
Hello, my friends. Before we get back to today's episode, I want to ask you a question.
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Elevate, negotiate, and succeed.
Will AI improve our lives or exterminate the species?
What would it take to abolish poverty?
Are you eating enough fermented foods?
These are some of the questions we've tackled recently on The Next Big Idea.
I'm Rufus Griscom, and every week I sit down with the world's leading thinkers for in -depth conversations that will help you live, work, and play smarter.
Follow The Next Big Idea wherever you get your podcasts.
It's pretty much the same way that you do it.
Because I recognize that a lot of times in negotiation, we've been giving recipes to people who are afraid to get in the kitchen because they might know what to do or say, but that's not holding them back from doing or saying what needs to be said and done.
It's the fear that is holding them back.
They need more confidence.
They need more courage.
And one thing that I really appreciate the fact that you addressed is the fact that this is smart risk -taking.
I think there is some benign gaslighting that can happen in the negotiation and conflict resolution industry where we say just have these conversations without acknowledging the fact that the fear comes from a legitimate place a lot of times and there is some risk.
So it's not about just being reckless.
It's not about denying the risks.
It's about taking smart risks, which is good.
And then also, too, again, we often, as negotiation experts, come from a place of privilege where we run our own institutions.
That gives us a lot more power when it comes to being able to say no with confidence.
So I'm really appreciative of the fact that you said, yeah, people are concerned about their livelihoods in these situations.
And it's a tough, tough place to be in.
But for me, what I tell people is if you are in a situation where you have an unmet need and you're afraid to say something, And if you do say something, then there's a negative consequence.
That is vital information that you need to know that might tell you that you're in the wrong place.
And so when we think about the strength that you have in a negotiation, a big part of it comes from your alternatives, your BATNA.
So I would tell people, especially if they have that concern about being fired, I say, well, I think you should start having some conversations, start networking a little bit more, start uploading some opportunities around.
So now you feel more empowered because now you're empowered because now you're reminding yourself that you have options.
Isn't it amazing what revitalizing and updating one's resume can do.
And I always tell my clients, if you don't have an updated resume, as of today, all the best stuff you've done in one to two pages, as much bragging as you can honestly do in that document, I feel like you're driving around without a driver's license.
I wouldn't do that.
I make sure I have my wallet with my driver's license when I drive.
And I think all of us professionals need to have an updated CV or resume so we can be ready when someone says, would you like to be on this board or would you volunteer on this commission or committee?
Or you never know who you might meet where you want to investigate another potential employment relationship.
And you wouldn't have to leave your employer high and dry.
I've given two months notice before when I left my last employer, which was in 2004.
Incredible. I wanted to ask you about visualization.
It's something I'm interested in researching now and thinking about, do you, for yourself, you have a tough negotiation or you're about to teach or you're meeting with a client who's known to be difficult to interact with.
Do you spend any time visualizing it going well before you enter the communication?
And do you advise people to do that?
Do you think it might help?
Oh, yes. Oh, it definitely helps.
And I definitely advise it.
And I think the best example of my visualization is from the TED talk, because I I trained, my background's in psychology, my undergrad degree's in psych.
And so I was thinking about what is it that sports psychologists would tell their high performers to do.
And so I would do that.
So the memorization part is boring and irrelevant for this conversation.
But what I would do is every morning I would envision myself getting up, waking up, going to the gym, taking my shower, getting my clothes, walking out of the gym, driving to Dayton, getting out the whole thing, all the way on stage, walk through the whole thing.
And I would do that in the morning.
I would do that in the evening.
So I would do that for months leading up to it.
And when it comes to a tough conversation, what I would do is at this point, I feel really confident in my negotiation skills.
So I have, I know why I'm confident in the fact that I have the skills that it would take to get through it.
So the visualization that I like to do is I just envision the person at their absolute worst, like cartoonishly bad.
So it's like, okay, what is the absolute worst that they can do to me or say to me in this conversation and recognize that I'll be able to survive all of those.
So I know that if my visualization allows me to survive the worst, when something other than the worst happens in the conversation, I'm already in a good spot.
So it's almost like mental resistance training because I go and I lift this heavy weight mentally beforehand, and then it feels really light in the actual conversation.
So creative because most folks who use or teach visualization ask us to imagine the best case scenario, which I do think is also a good use of time.
But to imagine the worst that can occur and to know, as you said, you have alternatives that applies to every type of communication we might find ourselves in.
And I ask people to remember, like I grew up as a dancer, as a ballerina, and I ask people to remember like their dance space is this 50 percent.
And that's all, of course, that we can do our best to perform within.
And the other person's space is the other 50 percent.
And so they may be stepping on your toes, out of step, out of rhythm, and you can offer grace and, or you can rise above the communication by 30 ,000 feet.
And instead of talking about what you're angry or frustrated about, et cetera, you can switch to 30 ,000 feet and say something like, I'd like to talk about how we're talking to each other about this.
My spouse this morning and said, I want to, he didn't say it that way.
He said, it doesn't feel like you think we're on the same team about this.
And I thought, you're absolutely right.
He goes, it feels like the stress is coming from you at me.
Not that this is a problem we have to deal with together.
And now I will need to go and tell him I said that on a podcast and he'll be shocked because you know, I like, as we've discussed, I really like to win, but I'm growing and maturing each decade, hopefully each day, but each decade and each year that I live.
And I think I will visualize him maybe being gracious and laughing and saying, you know, it's who i am and it's one of my weaknesses to sometimes stop thinking team and start thinking i instead of we yes yeah i think it's it's just a natural human response and i think every once in a while no matter
how well skilled you are in this your humanity will etc you can switch to 30 000 feet and say something like i'd like to talk about how we're talking to each other about this my spouse this morning and said, he didn't say it that way.
He said, it doesn't feel like you think we're on the same team about this.
And I thought, you're absolutely right.
He goes, feels like the stress is coming from you at me, not that this is a problem we have to do it together.
And now I will need to go and tell him I said that on a podcast and he'll be shocked because as we discussed, I really like to win, but I'm growing and maturing each decade, hopefully each day, but each decade and each year that I live.
And I think I will visualize him maybe being gracious and laughing and saying, you know, it's who I am.
And it's one of my weaknesses to sometimes stop thinking team and start thinking I instead of we.
Yes. Yeah. I think it's just a natural human response.
And I think every once in a while, no matter how well skilled you are in this, your humanity will start to show.
And it can be frustrating.
But I think when we give ourselves the grace and treat ourselves with self -compassion and self -forgiveness, it allows us to recover a lot faster.
And this is just one of those unfortunate byproducts of being married to a conflict resolution expert.
Every once in a while, the spouse will say something and you're like, well, hey, don't read my book, man.
Don't bring that to me.
Okay. But I think for me, when I think about negotiation, though, we think about the outcome that we're trying to get, but we don't think about it from a philosophical sense about the fact that we learn so much about ourselves and the world through the way that we interact.
And when you think about it too, win, lose or draw, you can always turn it into a win through the lessons that you learn through engaging in the conversation.
You're going to understand what you really care about because sometimes your limbic system will respond in ways that you did not anticipate.
You'll learn about what other people care about for the exact same reason.
So for me, especially when I think about negotiation, not as the art of deal making, but the art of deal discovery, I recognize, okay, if I don't get what I want in this conversation, that doesn't mean that I didn't perform well necessarily.
I'm still going to evaluate to see what I could have done better.
But sometimes it's just a deal that should have never been made, an opportunity that was not meant for me.
And sometimes we try to force something that shouldn't be done.
So we need to be willing to accept our position and accept our limitations because that's the only pathway to growth.
Oh, well said. I think I'm going to be disappointed soon here about a book signing that's not going to happen.
The ordering didn't work out time -wise to have the books at the place where I could be, et cetera.
And I was thinking this morning, do I send another email kind of trying to push that forward to make it happen?
And I thought, no, I'm going to do something different.
Maybe this isn't the deal for me.
And who knows whether an outcome is good or bad.
You really don't know what you might be avoiding when you don't get your way to your point.
Yes. Yes. Let's talk about the TED Talk really quick.
That was 2017 in Dayton, is that correct?
Yes. Yes. And how do people find that?
Because one of the things they need to see is the beautiful illustration that you brought up on the screen behind you of the human brain and what parts are firing in what parts of our communication are going on.
What's the name of the TED Talk?
So finding confidence in conflict.
Taking a note. Yes.
Finding confidence in conflict.
Super easy to Google and find.
And your visualization really benefited you that day.
Above all else, I think as I was getting a feel for you as a public speaker, I was looking at the size of the audience, the bright lights and the big size of the stage.
And what really struck me was not only your expertise, but how calm you were through all of it, including your walk -off.
It looked like you had done it a thousand times before.
And now I understand that I think you had done it many times before in your mind.
So you were just taking part in something that had already happened, so to speak.
Exactly, I'd been there before.
It felt familiar at the end of the day.
It's, I'm glad you liked it, but it's funny, Michelle, when people talk about it, they're like, oh yeah, your TED Talk about Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
I'm like, that was one element.
That was one element.
But it, you know, back to humanizing.
It humanized you right away.
And I like that you went and ate your wife's granola To get back in her So that shows me that you can be petty sometimes too Yes Or on the mistakes that they could make And they say In this call or this negotiation I'm not going to do this I'm not going to say this That's not how goal setting works
You have to pick something positive and drive toward that Or you're just going to drive to your focus And focus on not saying that thing that you really want to say Rather than being in flow in the moment With the person in front of you Well said Could I take a few minutes of our time together and just
highlight you choose.
Could I highlight one or two of the four hidden challenges that I write about in the book?
For your four, what would you like?
I would love that. Yeah, this is good.
Okay, and so Michelle, I know based on the pre -interview conversation and this conversation, I could talk to you forever, forever, but we're coming up on time here and I know there are four hidden challenges that you mention in your book and I want us to focus on your top two And we're going to leave
the other two for cliffhangers.
So where should we start?
I'm going to start with the first two I write about in the book.
And they are hiding from risk and the mistake that we all make sometimes, which is defining to be right.
So hiding from risk is when we feel fear of exposing ourselves.
We don't want to expose a real or a supposed weakness.
You know, a lot of people will tell you, oh, I'm not good at that.
I'm not good at this.
And they're not even correct.
And then other times, they really aren't good at those things, but they hide.
They dim their light.
And what we need to do instead of hide from risk is decide what our values are.
And then once we understand what our unique mission is, then we can find within ourselves that gumption, the chutzpah.
No one else can do that for us.
But when we align with our purpose, we tend to become more willing to try to speak our truth, our needs, or defend ourselves or someone else, make a suggestion, offer the praise, ask for what we need.
And we can do that even clumsily and succeed.
Not everyone has a real facility with words.
And that doesn't mean that what you have to say isn't important.
So you're not extremely talkative or articulate.
That's okay. Sometimes it's the folks who speak the less words that I listen to the most closely that I listen to very carefully, because I'm thinking, you know, wow, this person, I'm not, I've not known them to express emotion in this way.
This is very meaningful.
So let's decide to engage when it involves our values.
And then we can always get better at how we write and speak.
And the second hidden challenge that I write about in the book is defining to be right.
And I don't know if cussing is cussing aloud on the podcast.
if it's PG? We can do PG cursing.
Yeah. When you're so sure that you're right, that nobody can tell you anything.
And you'd be surprised at how body language, at how past interactions are remembered by people.
And then you get put in a box.
Oh, he, she, they are difficult to disagree with, talked over me, interrupted me, didn't give my opinion any room to be heard.
So they don't tell you what they do see or what they do want or what you do need to know because you blow it by acting like you're so sure of yourself and that there can be no other experience as important as yours.
I do it too. So defining to be right is putting too much stock into our assumptions.
Assumptions often are bad news.
So instead of relying on assumptions, let's try open -ended questions.
I believe that you think X, Y, Z.
Am I anywhere close to that?
No, I don't think that.
Where'd you get that?
Oh, it was based on something I read that you wrote, something you said, something that so -and -so said that you said, the way your face looked.
I do this often now.
I ask an open -ended question to explore whether my assumption is correct.
And sometimes I'll even use a preamble like, Hey, I may be assuming too much here, but in this negotiation, is this one of your top priorities?
And I'm shocked at how often I'm wrong.
And the person might say, well, that's, that's part of it, but really this is more important to me.
Okay. I'm educated.
And also I noticed that things warm up sometimes between me and the other party because they can see, hear, and feel, I definitely care about what you think so that we can find some common ground, hopefully.
Also with defining to be right, I just want to mention, celebrate when you have the guts to accept that your hunch is incorrect or that you assumed a a little too much as important as yours.
I do it too. So that's putting, defining to be right is putting too much stock into our assumptions.
Assumptions often are bad news.
So instead of relying on assumptions, let's try open -ended questions.
I believe that you think X, Y, Z.
Am I anywhere close to that?
No, I don't think that.
Where'd you get that?
Oh, it was based on something I read that you wrote, something you said, something that so -and -so said that you said, the way your face looked.
I do this often now.
I ask an open -ended question to explore whether my assumption is correct.
And sometimes I'll even use a preamble like, hey, I may be assuming too much here, but in this negotiation, is this one of your top priorities?
And I'm shocked at how often I'm wrong.
And the person might say, well, that's part of it, but really this is more important to me.
Okay. I'm educated.
And also I noticed that things warm up sometimes between me and the other party, because they can see, hear, and feel, I definitely care about what you think so that we can find some common ground, hopefully.
Also with defining to be right, I just want to mention, celebrate when you have the guts to accept that your hunch is incorrect, or that you assumed a little too much.
And when you're willing to say, I'm sorry, I assumed I did not check with you.
So I will revise that in my thinking or in this deal or this interaction.
I was mistaken. That's big.
And I coach a lot of high power people who, unfortunately, they have a lot of people doing this around them all the time.
I think so too. I think you're right.
That's a great idea.
And I challenge them, who can tell you the truth?
Who tells you the truth that you don't want to hear?
And we work towards that.
We work towards inviting people to educate us because we might be defining to be right.
And the other two that we won't go into today, but I hope folks will read about is rationalizing the negative, and that is choosing a pessimistic mindset.
And it's a choice. And I think that's so basic that people miss.
You can choose to be optimistic or pessimistic.
Choose one. And you can change your choice.
If you grew up in a pessimistic household or with a pessimistic team, it can be changed.
And the final is settling for good enough.
And that's when we decide satisficing is going to be the way we're going to go.
And I vote no on that.
I know you can't always be striving and giving 110%, but I hope we will all choose a few things that we're willing to strive towards.
So thanks for letting me explain the four hidden challenges a little bit.
This is so good, Michelle.
This is so good. And one of the things that's so fascinating to me is that when we have folks on the show, we talk about negotiation, conflict resolution, difficult conversations.
Most people come with the same foundation, like the same core, because the psychology is more or less the same.
We might to have cultural nuances and things like that.
But where I love these hidden challenges because they're very unique.
These are really your contributions.
I think that's fascinating.
And I'm battling the restraint to go too much deeper because I want to explore more.
But there are two things that I want to hone in on when we talk about hiding from risk and then one other thing from defining to be right.
Please. When you said when you're sharing, sometimes you can share that clumsily.
You can be inarticulate and still be very effective.
This is so powerful because I remember one of my mentors who got me into negotiation, actually my first negotiation professor, he had a stutter.
He had a really, really significant stutter.
And he was still exceptional as a negotiator, lawyer, and mediator, like legendary.
And the thing is, a lot of times we are just searching for reasons to hold ourselves back.
I can't do it because of this.
I can't do it because of that.
And so sometimes somebody would ask me in a training, well, how would you approach it in this way?
And then I give an answer.
They're like, that was beautiful.
I couldn't do what you did.
I said, well, I've done hundreds of podcasts and I teach this all the time.
You don't need to do it like I do.
And back when we would do sparring sessions on the podcast, I loved making sure that we didn't edit it so they could see how imperfect these conversations could be.
Just like real life, a thought about your professor.
As he spoke, people immediately were confronted with the fact that he was not going to be a perfect speaker in our usual standard.
And that allowed them probably to relax a little bit, maybe.
Yeah. He got outcomes that he wanted to get.
They're literally never wrong.
I'd be like, get this dude out of here.
I don't want that anywhere.
That's gross. Oh yeah, well, that's you, Mr.
Lawyer. Sometimes you can never be wrong.
So once I recognized that even if I did achieve the goal of perfection, it would be incredibly off -putting to everybody I interacted with.
It helped me to be a lot more chill and a lot more forgiving of myself and a lot more willing to be vulnerable and show those imperfections because it is that shared humanity that pulls us together.
This has been like a therapy session for me.
So I want to thank you for everything I've learned from you today and tell you that if you ever have an extra opening or somebody cancels, I'm back in a second.
You just pick the communication topic.
Okay. I love it. I love it.
And I will take you up on that because that happens.
That does happen. That does happen.
Hey, for our listeners, I also want to mention, we talked about not being, maybe we're not the smartest person in that room or the most articulate or we're afraid to speak up.
We can use preambles too.
We could say, I'm not exactly sure how to say this, but I want to jump in with this.
Or I don't have all the data right in front of me, but I'm feeling a trend this way.
Or this might be a little uncomfortable, but I do feel that we should talk about XYZ.
The preamble also can help open ears.
Yes, I love it. I love it.
I'm just calculating these different angles we could have for when you come back on this show.
So let's try to make that happen.
That would be great.
Michelle, this has been fantastic.
Thank you again for coming on the show.
And before you go, remind the listeners about your work and your book and how they can get in touch with you.
Well, Happily Communicate With Courage is for sale any type of bookstore you like or online.
And I'd love for people to come check out our website with my impossible to spell French last name, which I think you're going to have in the show notes, gladioconsulting .com.
We've put my team of seven and I, we've put a lot of love and time into putting a lot of free resources out there.
And I would love for people to go check out The Coach's Corner, which is question and answer, real life question and answers that my clients and friends bring to me.
And there's a newsletter called Breakdown, which is named after one of my favorite rock and roll musician Tom Petty's song, Breakdown.
And each quarter I write from the heart about ways that we can think about communication maybe differently for more joy and success in life.
It's amazing. Michelle, thank you so much for joining us.
Really appreciate it.
Great work. Hello, Michelle.
I am Simone. I am the producer of the podcast.
And I've been listening to the episode in the background, and something you said got my attention, so I have a question about that.
At one point, you mentioned that having an optimistic or pessimistic mindset is just a choice.
But to me, it feels like a challenge.
I experienced a big loss when I was young.
My mom passed away, and I was very, very young.
And while we were fighting her cancer, I tried to stay as optimistic as possible.
But despite my mindset, she passed away anyway.
And since then, I've found it hard to approach things with optimism, you know?
Even in negotiation, difficult conversations or other areas of life, I feel like it's safer to be pessimistic.
So if things go well, it's a good surprise.
And if things don't go as planned, then I was expecting that anyway.
So how can I shift my mindset?
Because to be honest, I am sick and tired of that.
Okay. Well, Kwame, my undergrad degree is also in psychology, and I'm not going to try to be a therapist here for you, Simone, but how old were you when you lost your mom?
20 years old. 20. And so when I was 19, I lost my brother.
I also lost my mother, and I lost a niece.
So I get you. We weren't fully formed yet as grown -up adults.
We still needed them very much in our lives.
But you think, think about what your mom, how would your mom like for you to live your life?
What did she teach you in the years up to her passing?
And did she sometimes show joy and bravery in the face of loss?
I'm guessing that it might be helpful for you to think about if she could see you now, what would she like to see?
How would she like to see out.
And I do think there's, personally, I experienced a thin line.
I can't access my mom physically anymore to have an actual two -person conversation.
But when I get quiet and I think about what she would want for me, I think she wants me to be brave and to continue to look on the bright side and not let life knock me down to the point where I live in fear.
So to summarize, it's fear or regret they both stink to experience but i'm guessing that you might enjoy fear more than regret think about that choice as well and i'm so sorry for your loss well thank you so much and and i i think it's very good to think about going back or moving forward it's not thinking
about present at that moment it's like okay what would happen if i go 30 years in in my life or if I go 20 years to when I was 20 years old.
So it's like moving the time.
I don't know how to explain that, but I think it's a very good mind.
No, I understand. Hey, I was, you know, we were just talking about how I started teaching conflict management and negotiation when I was 23.
That was the first communication topic I fell in love with for whatever reason.
Maybe there was, I grew up in a loving home where there was a lot of French tempers and a lot of conflict.
So maybe I wanted to understand it better.
You know, maybe that's part of the psych degree.
But I was just saying to Kwame, dang, 30 years went fast.
I started teaching this when I was 23.
Now I'm 53, and it feels like it was about 10 years.
Also, I think as you age, time moves faster.
So start a journal or have an accountability partner where you make choices that scare you, where you think you're going to be hurt or disregarded, or your heart might be broken, or you'll be laughed at, and then make that choice and log it for yourself or share it with someone who will be an accountability
partner. And then the fun part is celebrate after you do four or five of these things, you win what?
So most of my clients are working with, they call it a self -care menu.
And when they do hard things where they would rather be pessimistic, but they choose optimism and bravery, they go back to their self -care menu and they reward themselves with something from the menu, which could be stretching for five minutes, or it could be a nice coffee drink, or it could be a new
download, or it could be a massage, but they have, and I have this, a list as well.
It's a long list and I can go to it.
And when I know that I've stretched myself, I remember to reward myself because nobody else is going to do that for us.
Everyone's asking you for things, Simone, get a list together of ways that you could reward your bravery and of course reach out to me anytime.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Now, before you sign off, I have something to tell you that I've never told you before.
Just kidding. I've told you before, but you should listen to it again.
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I'll catch you later.
