Unlocking the Secrets to Diffusing Tense Situations with Hesha Abrams

Ever felt like you're tiptoeing through a minefield of conflict, unsure of how to disarm the tension? Hesha Abrams, a former litigator now donning the hat of a master mediator, joins us to share her transformative strategies from her book, "Holding the Calm: The Secret to Resolving Conflict and Defusing Tension." This conversation is a revelatory guide to address disagreements with finesse, whether they're simmering at work or boiling over at home. She details her evolution from the courtroom to a mediator's chair, weaving in her dual role as a mother, and underscores the necessity of early intervention in conflicts.

This episode isn't just about averting crises; it's a masterclass in communication that dignifies all parties involved. We dissect the art of validating others—how a few choice words can cool the hottest of heads and turn adversaries into allies. You'll walk away with practical tools for those moments when political debates get heated or when you're confronted with opinions that challenge your own.

Join us for an episode that promises to not just change the way you talk, but potentially transform the way you navigate all of your relationships.

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Chapters

• 0:07 Effective Conflict Management and Resolution
• 11:27 Conflict Resolution and Validation Techniques
• 18:17 Empathy and Setting Boundaries
• 31:49 Promoting Civil Discourse for Better Communication
• 46:02 Building Relationships Through Effective Communication

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:07

Welcome to the Communication 24-7 podcast, where we communicate about how we communicate. I'm your host, jennifer Furlong. We have a treat today. I am so excited about this topic. Y'all don't even know one of the things that I love to talk about Conflict management, conflict resolution. You know my daytime job as a media analyst. I love to lean in and talk about the tough stuff, but many of us are really hesitant to dive into that. I have a very special guest with me today. She is a master mediator. She's a negotiator and author. We're going to talk about her book, which is an amazing book. I'm going to encourage everybody to pick it up and she has traveled around the world talking to different audiences about conflict resolution. So get your notepads out, take good notes, because I know we are going to learn a lot during this episode. Hesha, thank you so much for being a guest on the show. How are you doing?

Speaker 1: 1:30

My pleasure. Thank you all for listening, Everyone taking time out of their day. We know there's so many demands on your time and the fact you want to listen to this and make your life more harmonious and less acrimonious go you that sounds wonderful, right?

Speaker 2: 1:45

Who doesn't want that? But it's kind of hard getting to that. We need to be able to get to that next step. So I know the audience is really excited to hear what you have to say about this particular topic that we're talking about today. But before we get to that, would you mind sharing with us what's your origin story? Like what made you want to go into this particular field, because it's not usual to find someone who really enjoys engaging in these types of difficult conversations. So tell us about that.

Speaker 1: 2:22

Indeed. Well, I'm a lawyer and I've been a lawyer for 35 years already. And back in the day when you were a young woman and I had children, you couldn't do hard level, intense work and be a mother childcare it was a constant source of difficulty. And I was doing really high level trial work and I found out about this thing called mediation and I said wait a minute. You talk to people for a living, you solve problems, you work out deals, and then I could control it on my own schedule. So I was a hard litigator for about five years.

Speaker 1: 2:59

So I have that background in me so that when I talk with litigators I don't come at this in a kumbaya, airy-fairy, win-win problem solving. Let's all be friendly and talk to each other, because that's not the real world. You know that works. What? 10% of the time? Okay, for those 10%, 15% even, that's great. What about the other 85? When it's somebody that you think is an idiot or a narcissist or evil or stupid or power hungry or immature or fill in the blank, that's real life. And to me, when I can go into a situation that's so intense and so hard and I can help people work out a deal and sometimes it's a cold piece, we just get a deal done. That's fine. Sometimes you get every once in a great while you get rewarded with one of those tiny little kumbaya moments, but it's very, very rare.

Speaker 1: 3:55

And that's where the reasons why I wanted to write this book is that I know tricks, I know tools that our listeners can do today. You don't need a master's course, you don't need some big MBA and something. What can you do today in difficult situations that defuse the tension? And that's why I call the book the Secret to Resolving Conflict and Diffusing Tension, because 100% of conflict, 100% of it, starts with tension and the tension can be or it can be, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1: 4:28

And I have an analogy that I want to announce, a long answer to a very short question, but I'll give you just one quick analogy, because people think and remember by analogies. So we've all dropped spaghetti sauce on the counter or teriyaki sauce or barbecue sauce. Right, take a wet sponge and wipe it up. It's no big deal. You leave it overnight, you're scraping it off of the spatula Three or four months or three or four years, and it is old and moldy and nasty. And that, my friends, is conflict and we all intuitively know that.

Speaker 1: 5:08

So why don't we wipe it up with a sponge when it's wet? Well, I'm afraid of you, jen. I'm afraid of what you'll say to me, or you won't say to me, or how it'll react, or what I'll have to deal with. Or, oh God, can it just go away? And unfortunately, my friends, it never goes away. It stores like nuts for the winter. So one of the reasons I wrote this simple, easy little book is how do you wipe it up when it's wet? And now let's say you don't. Okay, there's plenty of advanced stuff in there too, but there's a lot of the basic stuff of how do I wipe it up when it's wet so it doesn't become ugly and doesn't become nasty.

Speaker 2: 5:46

That's right. I love that analogy it was making me think of. You know, if it's sitting there longer and longer and, like you said, it can mold, it can stain whatever surface it's laying on, and so that's stained right there. In some instances it's permanent, and that's really tragic. If we let something sit for so long, it seems like there's no going back. It gets to a point where maybe there's nothing that we can do to resolve that conflict. So I'd like to talk about that type of conflict, maybe a little later on, but something that you said that piqued my interest is, you know, let's wipe it up with a sponge, a wet sponge, now, before it gets to that point. So many people, though, are really hesitant to have a conversation about something, even if it's just the slightest little thing. What is it that you've learned about people that? Why are we not willing to bring something up to somebody else? What's going on there? That that is so difficult for us to even get started in this?

Speaker 1: 6:58

Fear, fear. And the fear is not foolish. The fear is well placed because you know, we're all adults, we were all children and you experimented with things and you got whacked down hard or you got rejected, or you got betrayed or you got abandoned. No one escapes this life unscathed, nobody. So we all have had those experiences, and by the time we're in adulthood, we figured out all right, this is my MO, right, this is how my modus operandi, this is how I'm going to operate, this is safe, this works.

Speaker 1: 7:31

You want me to try something new? What are you crazy? Why would I do that? This works, and so the question I have for our listeners is does it really work, or does it only work in a quarter of the time, or less than half the time? And what does it cost you?

Speaker 1: 7:47

So, again, another analogy is as if we are cavemen and cavewomen and we're just shoving food in our mouths. Well, here's a fork, here's a spoon, here's a knife, here's chopsticks what's going to work best for you? And you want to make something easy? Because I don't. Again, I am not kumbaya. I mean, my work is real. You have to get and deal with real stuff all day, every day, and when it's real, there's a lot of fear, and the fear can also inhibit your skill set development to try to do something. And so if people want magic beans, a magic thing you could do right now, it's curiosity. That is the number one thing you can do. And yet that's really hard, because if you say something that is so stupid or so selfish or so power grabby or so fill in the blank, it's very hard for me to go. Well, I'm just going to be curious now about you, because your amygdala, which is the fear and negativity center of the brain, gets triggered. And that's one of the reasons I called the book Holding the Calm is because that's the mantra I use for myself. I've an amygdala, I just have a very, very long wick because I've had 35 years in the trenches of human conflict to actually practice what works. I'm sort of like a doctor of humanity. But I can get hangry, I can get tired, I can get. You know, I'm a normal person like everybody else and I give myself grace. And so the trick is I say to myself I'm holding the calm, I'm holding the calm, I'm holding the calm. That took two seconds, and so our listeners are probably saying well, what's the difference between saying take a deep breath or calm down. And if there's one takeaway for this talk, for everybody listening to me, eliminate those words from your vocabulary. Eliminate them. Never, ever, ever, ever tell somebody to calm down or take a deep breath.

Speaker 1: 9:46

And the reason why is if a person's amygdala is triggered, anytime you're upset, annoyed, bothered, frightened, scared your amygdala is triggered Every single time the amygdala feels powerless. So what does a person do when they feel powerless? They grab power. Anyway, they can, even inappropriately, even wrongly, even selfishly or unfairly. That's what they will do.

Speaker 1: 10:11

And when you say to somebody whoa, you are out of control, take a deep breath, calm down All you're doing is exacerbating that sense of powerlessness. So the first thing you do is you get power. So if I'm feeling powerless, I'm going to give myself power. I'm holding the calm, I'm holding the calm, I'm holding the calm. In that two seconds it says to my amygdala oh, girlfriend, you have tools, you've got some tricks up your sleeve. How do you want to handle this? That calms me down 75%. Now I can think, now I can decide what I want to do. It also works if I do that for somebody else. So you and I've had this talk, so we're friends.

Speaker 1: 10:53

Something happens. I can say, jen, you want me to hold the calm with you. You can either go no, I got it or you're going to go, yes, please, god. Okay, let's say you have no idea what holding the calm is, so you can't really say that to somebody. What I may look to you and say you seem very frustrated. How can I help? That's holding the calm for somebody.

Speaker 1: 11:14

You seem really angry. Is there something I can do to help? What can I do to ease your burden? How can I stop making this hurt so much? Imagine you're firing somebody and the person's really upset and you say how can I make this hurt? Not so much, for God's sakes. What does that do to the poison? It just drains out so much of our pain, our misery, our anguish. That leads to tension and conflict and aggression comes from pain and comes from fear, and so you can't spend 20 years on a shrink's couch to try to figure all this stuff out. So that's why I wrote this simple, cheap, $15 little paperback to say here here's some good things you could do right now to take control, to take power. It's really magic, jen. It's just really magic.

Speaker 2: 12:13

I love the fact that you're leaning into just take a couple of seconds and with just that one phrase and, like you said, repeating it over just a couple of seconds, it really does give you that opportunity that you need to think about. Like you said, what do I want to have happen here? Because we have choices right how we interact with someone in that moment in time, that's gonna have an impact, that's gonna influence how they respond to us. In turn and I face this all the time as a media analyst we're in a situation it's kind of a weird situation we meet over Zoom and we always have a variety of different political viewpoints and we read the news and we have to talk about it, and most of the time, we all view the news pretty similarly. But, as everybody can imagine, we're gonna get to those few articles that we really need to have a conversation, because either the bias is so apparent or the reliability is so low and we don't know where our own blind spots are. So it's really important to be able to have those conversations.

Speaker 2: 13:29

But, like you said, even though we've been doing this for a long time, I remember one time I was working with another analyst and we started going down the rails a little bit and I remember the analyst said to me because I said, well, let's make sure that we're staying focused on we're not here to advocate right a position, we're here to just look at the text and let's see what the text is telling us and then decide whether or not the text itself is biased, reliable.

Speaker 2: 14:00

And she said to me I don't need a lecture, just like that. And I did exactly what you said to do. I had to kind of back away for a moment. Now I didn't have the language that you were saying right there, that phrase, but I was doing something very similar. And then that gave me just the brief moment I needed to just kind of back away and then back in to think about how do I want to address this in this moment in time, because it could have easily gone in the wrong direction. And that's such a critical moment in time right there to take that moment.

Speaker 1: 14:37

Isn't it? Would you like a quick thing that you can do in that circumstance to totally turn that around? Yes, yes. So what happens is people take positions based on their identity. So let's say you bring information that shows they're wrong, 98% of people don't go. Oh well, gosh, darn it, I'm wrong. Oh well, I guess I'll just revamp what I'm thinking. They don't do that. They push and punch harder.

Speaker 1: 15:04

So when you get something like why didn't need a lecture, I mean, you struck home, but it wasn't persuasive. So in that instance what that person needs because they're feeling powerless, they're feeling judged, they're feeling stupid, they're feeling wronged or criticized is the answer is they need validation. And then in my book I have a ton of sentence stems that you have. They are your friend. So what you can say in that situation is you know what I admire about you? No one says another word. They are wrapped with attention.

Speaker 1: 15:44

What are you gonna say next? Right, this works at the Thanksgiving table with your idiot uncle. It works with your difficult sister-in-law. This works with the coach on your kid's team, or the neighbor, or your boss or your coworker or a client. It works with everybody. So when something gets hot and you can feel it starting to get hot, you immediately stop it and you choose your verb what I admire about you, what I respect about you, what I enjoy about you, what I like about you, what I love about you, and then you say something authentic and let's say it's a hard person, it's really hard for you to validate them.

Speaker 1: 16:22

You know, what you can say, your dedication, your persistence, your commitment, your clarity, your decision-making, your effort. You can say any of those words. So if you pick a couple of them and those are kind of your go-tos, so they're just in your mind, put it at a post-it note on your phone. Put it in your phone as a post-it note so when the situation happens and it's hot, like you said something and she kind of punched at you, you easily could have if you were emotionally immature or tired or cranky, or you could have punched back. Instead you took a step back. Instead you took a step back. Beautiful. And then the next, leaning in piece, is this validation, and while I just described it, that's how you validate people that you don't agree with at all. Yeah, you won't like at all.

Speaker 2: 17:21

You know, it takes a thousand people to build a building and just one malcontent with a stick of dynamite to ruin it all. Knowing how to reduce conflict and diffuse tension is key to a happy life and, even though it tends to be difficult for most of us, there are some simple tricks and tools that we can learn that will really improve our life. Today, pesha Abrams, a world-renowned mediator, negotiator and author with over 30 years as an expert in resolving conflict, implements innovative approaches and thought-provoking solutions that obtain favorable outcomes for even the most complex matters. Pesha's popular new book Holding the Calm shares her secrets of how to read a situation to resolve tension, eliminate conflict and restore harmony. Get a copy of the book today, available on Amazon. Click on the link in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 18:17

And let me give our listeners one more advanced tip, because I like to do these advanced and not just the basic like brush your teeth, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about. I know what you communicate nicely with people, okay, okay. Okay Is, let's say, I have to deal with someone that I despise. I mean, I despise or I'm frightened of, or, and I have to deal with them. It's a client, it's a boss, it's a teacher, it's. I can't run away, I'm stuck dealing with them.

Speaker 1: 18:49

As long as I look through the filter of how terrible you are, it's gonna be very hard for me to do it. So I'm gonna look at you and I'm gonna ask myself one question Would you pull my kid out of a burning car? 95% of the time, the answer to that will be yes, okay. Now I look at you as the person who pulled my kid out of a burning car and if it only gives you a 2% aperture, a 2% opening, fine. Maybe it gives you a 20% opening, fine. That's the place you go into and then do this validation stuff. You will see people literally melt in your hands and no one's gonna say, oh my goodness, jen, you're very good at this, holding the calm stuff. They're just gonna say wow, you can just handle anything. Yeah, you can get along with anyone. Wow, you can just handle problems. Wow, you just get things done. That's what they're gonna say.

Speaker 2: 19:46

Yeah, yeah. What if you are in a situation where there is someone and it could be a friend, a family member, a co-worker, whoever and you've known this person for a very long time and you just feel, man, they require so much work all the time? I'm always validating them always.

Speaker 1: 20:12

Oh yes.

Speaker 2: 20:16

And those who have listened to me for a very long time, they know what I'm about to say. Next, empathy does not come easy for me. I'm just one of those people that I like to just say let's just get to the bottom of the problem. Okay, let's just don't worry about the emotions, let's just solve the problem and then we can all move on from it. So you know like. So don't get your feelings hurt, damn it.

Speaker 1: 20:42

It can be exhausting, because how's that been working out for you?

Speaker 2: 20:47

You know, I have learned over the years and this is the funny thing about that I had someone tell me recently they're like Jen, you know. That's just not true. You are one of the most empathetic people that I've ever known, and I just I had to laugh. I said you know, what has happened is I've learned that there's a difference between empathic listening and then listening to solve the problem right, that critical listening. And I've learned to just stay quiet long enough to observe and be able to tell okay, or even ask the person. Are you here to vent? In that case, I got you, I will shut up and you can vent away. Or is this something that you're actually looking to? Have some assistance here?

Speaker 2: 21:33

And that has solved a lot of my problems, but because I've learned to do that, I fooled everyone to think that I have empathy.

Speaker 1: 21:43

That was beautifully done, jen, exactly correct. And you know what I tell people is for God's sakes, give yourself some grace. You know human beings are weird, they're difficult, they're challenging. They're also beautiful and magnificent and enriching. It's all of it. It's just all of it. And so you've got to give yourself some grace that sometimes you know your time is your wealth. Your time and your energy is your wealth.

Speaker 1: 22:12

It's like these old women that say, ah, at least you got your health. You know, it really is true, your time. I mean, all you have to say is let somebody get a cancer diagnosis. And all of the time resources are used very differently. You know, and God knows, you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. You know, I always think of that poor guy reading his newspaper and his lazy boy in a plane falls out of the sky and it's his life. You just don't know what tomorrow will bring. And so if someone is too much for you, you are allowed to say I wish I could help you right now, but I've got another call or the meeting I've got to go to. But you know what? I believe in you and I believe that you can handle this. See that little validation piece and then escape. You have no obligation to be people's emotional garbage can.

Speaker 1: 23:02

That is not the same as being empathetic. So each one of us has to play that balancing game every day with every person in every situation, until you kind of get good with. This is where I'm going to give and this is where I'm not. I wish I'd given a little more there, or I wish I'd given a little less there. Okay, that's called grace. I'm a big believer. You know, I'm going to be 65 years old this year and I go. I finally my sixth decade of life. I feel like I finally learned a few things. That's one of the big ones is your energy is finite and spew it around and not have it. Plant seeds Not a good use of resources. And you are allowed I give everybody permission, you know to to marshal and protect your resources and then to use them wisely, obi-wan.

Speaker 2: 23:56

Yeah, yeah, and I guess they probably need to be prepared, even if they do it as nicely as possible. Or, you know, with all the validation in the world, sometimes you might run across someone who's still isn't going to appreciate the fact that you've said now.

Speaker 1: 24:11

There you go and your boundaries are your boundaries. There you go. But just because you know, your emotional immaturity does not become my problem unless I allow it to become my problem. And one of the beautiful things about again why I call the book holding the calm is it creates a moat around your feelings and how you choose to react to the things. So let me see my hands. I'm like pushing out, because so many of us we feel something Boom, boom. It's right there, and nanosecond in between feeling and reacting.

Speaker 1: 24:45

The more you can create space, a moat around what you feel and how you choose to act, the happier, the calmer, the more successful, the more efficient, the more you're going to be. That's just the reality of it, and I'm human too. Every once in a while something will happen and I go God, okay, back to my moat. And that's why I again, I keep using the. I say it to myself I'm holding the calm. I'm holding the calm because it works. Like your grandmother would give you a rubber band and tell you to snap your wrist, you know that's right. I don't want to hurt myself. You know that hurts when you snap yourself.

Speaker 2: 25:26

I'm already suffering enough, all right. Why do I want to exacerbate this? So true? Oh, I mean such valuable advice here. So, as a mediator, are you working more with individuals, one-on-one, or are you going into organizations and you're helping organizations figure out, you know, how to manage their conflict more effectively? How are you going out there and spreading?

Speaker 1: 25:59

the good word. Thank you. I mean I've been doing this a long time so I have done every possible kind of case. Now I tend to do very large, very complex, very difficult cases, usually between companies or inventors, that kind of stuff, where it's usually very complicated and very involved. Because it's more complicated, it's more fun to me. You know being figured out. But I'll tell you, the big CEO of a huge Fortune 100 company is the same guy or gal as somebody who the neighbor drove over your roses and your pistols I mean exactly the same and has the same late at night. You know what they're talking to me about? Ugh, they're kids. The cross coach is such an idiot and won't give the kid playtime and what can they do so it?

Speaker 2: 26:47

seems like such a normal conversation to have and a lot of people, I guess, don't view CEOs of Fortune 100 companies in that light Exactly the same, or their ex-wife, you know, or it's just human beings and bumper car emotions.

Speaker 1: 27:01

And you know, look at our world now. We've got people, you know, with guns shooting the place up. So you get, okay, no guns, and then you get people saying wait, wait, wait, don't take away my guns. There's no discussion in that Gulf. The real Gulf is how do we keep people safer and how do we off gas, anger and diffusing of tension?

Speaker 1: 27:21

Because we have a lot of it in our society and it's very hard because everyone is labeled in our society you are part of this club or you're part of that club, and the clubs actually have flags, they've got colors, they've got secret words, and so it doesn't really matter even what the content is. It's well, I have to believe this, I'm part of that club and nobody thinks that way, but no one wants to be ex-communicated from the club and so you join in with whatever that belief system is, and so talking to people about content is just like a waste of time. You know, I have a chapter in the book that I call creating small winnable victories, because if you tackle I mean, just think of abortion it's a baby killer right to my body. That's right.

Speaker 2: 28:11

Where is there?

Speaker 1: 28:12

There's no in between, and so creating small, winnable victories with a group of people is. You know, chapter one of the book is speaking to the ears that are hearing you. So, just as an example to our listeners, if you're talking to an introvert, would you speak the same way to an extrovert? We all kind of say, oh no, of course I wouldn't. But yet we do. We talk our way, we do our thing. There's a famous behavioralist named Maslow who said that if all you have is a hammer, all you will see are nails. And so it's a big thing to be able to say OK, I'm an extrovert, I'm an introvert, this is how I talk. So in order for me to talk to you, I have to take three seconds to actually look at you.

Speaker 1: 28:59

I was like a bomb detector in the town square. He waddles out in his Michelin suit. He doesn't just start cutting junk, he looks, he diagnoses what is the situation. It's the same thing when you're in any kind of a difficult conversation, tense conversation or one that has the potential to be that way. Take a minute to speak into the ears that are hearing you. If you're a vegetarian, I'm not going to talk to you about steak. If you're a big steak eater, I'm not going to talk to you about plants and I'm doing the basic stuff. But this is not hard. People can just master this dramatic, dramatic, dramatic improvement. And then you're fine tuning more and more and more and more and more and more advanced stuff, but even the basic stuff. Remember fork knife chopsticks.

Speaker 2: 29:54

Do you, since you have been in this field for 30 plus years now, have you witnessed it in society or, I guess, even in between just individuals, those who are within our society? Has there been a decline in individuals ability to engage in civil discussion? It just I don't know. We have conversations all the time in the groups that I'm in and we love to lament about communication. Today, you know, and as the you know, no longer we can't even talk to anybody here. What have you observed, you know, over the past, since you have actually been actively engaged in this field of conflict resolution and management? Are we seeing it correctly? I mean, has it gotten worse or are we just more aware of it now than we used to be?

Speaker 1: 30:56

So I'm gonna say something a little controversial, because it's a long time. I don't think it's any worse. I think people never really have the ability to talk to each other because we don't teach this in schools talk like your mom and daddy talked or your grandma, and that's what you get.

Speaker 1: 31:15

What we are getting now, though, is less civility, that we still can't talk to each other, so can't listen to another perspective, another point of view, but what we've lost is the ability to well, we can agree to disagree. Yeah, that's okay, or, you know, jen, I just think you're wrong Versus Jen, I'm gonna punch you in the face because you're wrong. It's the intensity that has happened, and neuroscientists call this a standardization of deviance. Just to give a quick example, my husband's an airline pilot and was a Czech Airman with American Airlines, and he told me that, a few decades ago, airplanes would get damaged all the time the luggage carts, beverage carts, you know.

Speaker 1: 32:02

Some guy went and paid attention and they whack the plane. Well, you can't take off then, and all the people have to deplane. You gotta fix it. It's a big deal. So they did a rule and they said 10 feet away. Everyone has to stay 10 feet away from a plane. People don't know what 10 feet is, so, finally, they took a paint, sort of like you do a dead body on the sidewalk in the history. They did the shape of the plane 10 feet away from the plane, and guess what? All the accidents dropped down to almost zero. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:32

It was amazing.

Speaker 1: 32:34

But then what happened after a couple of years? Joe was used to parking his cart right on the edge of the yellow line. He's a little lazy today and doesn't want to have to carry the stuff as far, so he goes in a foot. Well, steve sees him do it. It's not a big deal, the line doesn't really matter that much, right? And he goes in a foot and before you know it, that's called the standardization of deviance. When the boundary is not respected, when the line is not enforced, boom, boom, boom, the line meant nothing anymore and they started to wind up with the planes again.

Speaker 1: 33:07

So in countries that they don't give out traffic tickets for people running red lights, you've got horrible fatalities. Our country, well, no one likes getting a ticket or getting stopped by a police officer, but he or she's honestly saving your life by doing that because they're enforcing the lines. That's kind of what's happened in our country, with lack of civil discourse between social media, the talking heads screaming and yelling at each other. You know the newspaper saying if it bleeds, it leads. So we no longer can have nice conversations and be satisfied with it. Now there has to be intensity and drama and that, and that is really so.

Speaker 1: 33:50

My big thing to people is let's just tone it down. We can still completely disagree and think about things differently, but let's tone it down and go get a coffee together, right, and the more we can do that as individuals. In my little sphere of influence, I'm doing this. In your little sphere of influence, you're doing that. I would ask everyone to listen here. Take a moment now and think what is your sphere of influence? And in that, whatever sphere of influence you've got, you just say I'm taking a stand for civility.

Speaker 1: 34:24

That's what I'm doing. I'm not gonna label, I'm gonna say we agree to disagree on that, but I still like you as a person. It was amazing what will happen. People will talk to you more, they will listen to you more, more will get done and you'll get less agitated and aggravated, which you know let's talk about. Having a happy and good life requires not getting agitated all the time.

Speaker 2: 34:52

Yeah, yeah, I can't agree with you more.

Speaker 2: 34:56

One of the things that I really appreciate about that is sometimes we are gonna have to agree to disagree. I mean, at the end of the day, the reality is, if I have this belief system and you have that belief system, the likelihood of us convincing the other one to completely agree with us is, I mean, it's not very high that that's gonna happen, and I have been. I find it personally frustrating, you know, especially social media. I have to limit the amount of I'm exposing myself to social media because the number of people who don't agree with that, you know, the whole agree to disagree thing is not something that they think is legitimate, you know. No, you have to agree with me on this and I'm going to beat you down, you know. And until you acquiesce to whatever it is that you know, I believe and that is so completely exhausting and it's like you're beating your head up against a brick wall, like why are you doing that to yourself? Why are you doing it to the other person, but why are you doing that to yourself to begin?

Speaker 1: 36:04

with. Try the validation. Sentence them in those situations, cause even if you can't convince them or stop it, you'll feel better about yourself. What will happen is your sphere of influence will increase a little bit. Yeah, other people will notice and they'll say you handle that really well.

Speaker 2: 36:23

That was. You know what I admire about you your dedication.

Speaker 1: 36:28

You know what I respect about you, your commitment, your commitment. You know it's not hard to do and it stops people in their tracks, cause very often when people are spouting off, what they're really saying is I'm a very insecure little person and I need to feel important or I need to feel valued and listen to me. Right, okay, okay, and you'll see people. When you do that, often they'll walk back the position. Wow, that's not the way I meant it.

Speaker 1: 37:01

I don't think it's not that much. Yeah, oh, okay, okay, you know, I mean it's. People think about wars. Wars are really actually over. People want to keep fighting and keep fighting and keep fighting. So rare for someone to go and they go to court. They keep doing appeals and appeals and appeals. It's not like, okay, you lost, so are you there like you're done, win or lose. I mean, our justice system is designed for at some point the files got to be closed. That's right, it's done. And yet, you know, we just keep the fight going because of the identity of the person and so.

Speaker 1: 37:41

That's one of the things I like to talk about in the book. Have lots of stories in the book and they're all battle-tested, and what I tell people is I can give you words. You won't remember a doggone thing. I said I give you stories allergies. You'll walk away, go, you know what. How does that apply to my life? And what did that do you know? Like? I just thought of one that's not in the book. Should I tell you now and help our help, our listeners have a little bonus? Oh, absolutely yes.

Speaker 2: 38:18

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Speaker 1: 39:01

I Heard this on NPR hidden brain and was after the book was, but I just thought how brilliant it brings this point home. So there's a company that would sell 20 and 30 thousand dollar couches. They were bespoke, customized. You could make them any length you wanted to pick the piping and the fabric and the this and the that I'm do-do-do and fancy, fancy, fancy, right, and you would design all this stuff online. People would get All the way to the point of sale and a huge percentage would not complete the sale. The company was from ox, because these are people, clearly, that could afford it and had invested time and energy in designing it.

Speaker 1: 39:47

Why are they completing the dog on sale? So what do people do? You have a car. You either have gas or you have a break. 95% of us put on the gas.

Speaker 1: 39:57

I'm gonna talk more, I'm gonna persuade more, I'm gonna do more, I'm gonna convince more, I'm gonna give more. So here, more sales, more promotion, more advertising. Pasha didn't change a dog on thing. So finally, that that put the brakes on and they hired somebody to contact all the people at the point of sale who didn't complete the sale and chat and be nice and lovely with them and then say do you mind if I ask why you didn't complete the sale? The number one, overwhelming reason why people that could afford a twenty thousand dollar couch didn't complete the sale, but a boom, betta, bang. They didn't know what to do with the old couch. Isn't that ridiculous? Well, obviously, the solution is so easy now We'll take away your old one, give you a time when we bring you the new one. It just had never dawned on anybody, and so I Guarantee all of our listeners that if you think of a couple of people that you're in some conflict with now or that you just don't want to deal with, there is a barrier there that you have not discovered. And if you go into it trying to uncover the barrier in instead of trying to persuade or convince, the problem just kind of goes away. Or they agree, or sometimes they think it was their idea and they agreed, and you still get what you Want anyway. Who cares? You know you decide on the definition of a win for you when you go into it.

Speaker 1: 41:26

But I love that story. You know a book, I've got tons of stories, and so if you're flamocs, if you're at a point where Gen we're, I can't even talk to you. We see the world so differently and you're not willing to listen to anything. I'm not sure what to say to you. Stop talking, give them a story. Yeah, just say you know what that reminds me of a story. Or I read us.

Speaker 1: 41:51

I read this in Holding the Calm, this cool book, and what I tell people is take my stories. They are. Everyone I put in there is designed to be told in less than a minute and it's been battle tested by me and real live Conflict situations, and it had to work at least 10 or 15 times before I put it in the book. So every single one of them works. Take my stories they have been researched, you know, because you're more likely to go tell me a story. First of all, you get a break from me haranguing you and Telling basically how wrong you are and how right I am. Yeah, now we, we are together Listening to a story and then you take away from it Whatever you choose to take away from it.

Speaker 1: 42:34

It's a terrific technique and I have used it with, you know, truck drivers to CEOs and everything in between, because it's the. It's a human experience. We talk about all this diversity, equity, inclusion, stuff, which, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know we need to do it. It's all important. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I want to go below that. I don't want to talk to someone as a black woman or a white man or a Hispanic female like what. That's your outside. I'm interested in your inside.

Speaker 1: 43:04

Are you an introvert, an extrovert Do you? Are you a thinking person versus a feeling person? Are you a big picture person? Are you a detail person? Are you a rebel renegade who doesn't follow rules, or are you a person that only follows rules? Mm-hmm, that's like easy stuff. People will self reveal that to you so easy in the first 10 minutes of talking. Okay, so if I'm dealing with the rebel rouser, I'm not gonna talk about these are the rules, and if I'm talking with a rule follower, I'm not gonna go throw the rulebook away. Go with your gut, right? It's not hard Once you train your brain to think like that.

Speaker 2: 43:41

Yeah, yeah. It's so interesting that you said that I was telling a friend the other day that I was gonna have you on the show and we were gonna talk about conflict management. And, of course, whenever you talk to anybody about, oh, I'm gonna talk to so-and-so about conflict management, I always get really excited because they already have something in mind. You know that that they're really interested in in connection to this topic, and one of the things that I like to talk about when I work with groups on communication skills is it's something very similar I talk about how to identify different communication styles so that you can adapt to others communication style rather than trying to force them to be like you. Figure their style out so that you can adapt to them.

Speaker 2: 44:27

And it's gonna take you a lot farther, you know, in the, in the conversations that you have with them and you know I will be asked the question all the time Well, what about the differences between men and women? And they communicate, and One thing that, one thing that I have found in focusing on the communication style is it takes that away. Yeah, you know, and really, in that sense, there really are no differences in how men and women communicate.

Speaker 2: 44:59

When you're talking about the actual Communication style itself if you're just focusing on that rather than focusing on, you know, if there are man or if there are woman. Yeah, um it. What do you? What do you say to that in in the conflict management Arena? Do you view that similarly or do you have a different take on that?

Speaker 1: 45:19

No, I agree with you totally and I laugh out loud, because when someone says how do you deal, how do you talk to men or how do you negotiate with men, what you're really saying to me is your skill set is very limited in that area, because you look at all women or all men is this giant amorphous mass. It's almost like saying how do I talk to Asians?

Speaker 2: 45:42

Yeah right, if you were to say that out loud, there would be the get the audible gas.

Speaker 1: 45:47

Yes, but let's make it like even real. You know well how do I talk to black people Ridiculous, it sounds, ridiculous, it is, it is. So what I tell people is everything you just said. You just you go, bullet you.

Speaker 1: 46:02

I told me chapter one of the books speak into the ears that are hearing you. It requires me to look at you, to listen to you, to see who you are as a person. And you know, the ancillary benefit of that is you feel like I care, give a darn meter isn't broken. So when someone feels like they're give a darn meter isn't broken, I'm more likely to want to engage with you. Mm-hmm, I talked to you because you seem to kind of care about me as a person. And you know, think about it.

Speaker 1: 46:36

Most people in relationships that don't work for them. They wear clothes that are uncomfortable, they live in places they don't like, or with people they don't like, they have jobs they don't like. That's the vast, vast majority of people. So in a moment of time again, I talked about the sphere of influence. This is sort of like a vortex of energy. You are in that place with that person one. You're safe, you're validating, you're listening, you're curious, you're engaged. It's like I have a chapter in the book I call giving a dozen roses, and that's what we're talking about here. It's like you gave somebody a dozen roses and what did it take me to do? You didn't know my time, just because I had to think like that. And so you know what people want, and people will ask the same question to me too. You know they want a magic pill. How do you give me, give me the sentence to use to talk to all women? There you go. I'm gonna say, well, it's not that one.

Speaker 2: 47:36

That's right. As a matter of fact, there are none of these. Out of all these options, zero of them are gonna work people want that, you know.

Speaker 1: 47:45

And I want to say look, I want chocolate cake to not be fattening, right, and brussels clouds To be to be in, it's like, it's just what it is. So the question again that's why I use the fork, spoon, chopsticks thing. I mean you can eat with a fork like this, stabbing it? I mean you can, it works. I'd rather hold the fork properly. Okay, but that's your level of choice. So if you want to be the kind of person who takes food and shoves it in your mouth, now god bless, go right ahead. If you want to stab it with your fork, if you want to eat soup with your fork, okay, that's your choice.

Speaker 1: 48:19

Or here's reading glasses. You're not seeing so well. Can I put a pair of reading glasses on your eyes so you get to go? Oh, that's better and that's what I tell people. You don't limit yourself into how do I talk to this person? You learn how to be a bomb detector or a doctor, and I look at you. And I've got one more analogy, just because that's what people will remember when they listen to us Uh, your tummy hurts, you go into the ER and you go bleh. Right, most of us go gross. I don't want to look at that, not the ER doc. She looks at it. Smell like it should smell. Are there pills in there? Is there metal? Is there undigested food? It's a diagnostic for her.

Speaker 1: 49:05

So, people have emotional bleh. That's just vomit, that's all it is. And so, if you can look at it as a diagnostic tool, people are really not that complicated, they really aren't. They will self reveal very quickly and very clearly and then you can go oh okay, I didn't realize that so much, really angry. I tell you that person who's really angry has fear underneath. Now, maybe you can get to it, maybe you can't. Your job is not to be a shrink, but my job is to not let that blow me out of the water, right. So I look at you, my boss, oh, going at me like this, and I look at you as just a scared little boy in his underwear takes away a lot of the power. Right Now I can make choices and then say, instead of saying, what are you afraid of, which is really accusatory, well, what's the biggest concern to you? Think of the couch story. What's the barrier in your way of wanting to try that? And then people will end up telling you things that you didn't know, and then you'll get to go oh yeah, makes sense to me. Oh yeah, maybe there's not a solution to that, or, you know, I do have an idea that might be a solution to that.

Speaker 1: 50:26

Now look what's also happened from a neuroscience point of view. You and I have created a subtle little team, building the chapter in the book where I talk about the benefit of plural pronouns, and we, instead of I or you yes, you can do this, we will look into this. It literally, psychologically just works with people and this stuff is just magic and when you can play with it. That's why I insisted with my publisher It'd be a simple paperback. I wanted an inexpensive. I put a discussion guide in the back so that 15 people in an organization want to buy it and then have lunch and go over the discussion questions in the back. That can get continuing education credit or training credit or whatever they do. And then you don't need to hire some big fancy trainer to come in and do it for you. You can discuss it with yourselves, because what will happen is we're talking and, jen, you'll say, well, I thought that story was stupid. Really, I found it very impactful. And then you're going to say, really, tell me more. Now that's how real training happens. It doesn't happen because I stand on a podium and do entertainment, which is still valuable in its own right, of course, but the real training isn't that small group stuff with people saying, really, why would you think like that? Huh, isn't that interesting? And the questions track the book. So it's simple, it's easy, because I want people to get better at this in their home lives, with their kids, with their bosses at work, with their neighbors.

Speaker 1: 52:07

So that standardization, a deviance thing I was talking about we can take the civility and pop it out another foot or two, yeah, and then that's the standard by which we talk. We talk hateful talk. We don't talk accusatory talk. We can say, let's say, someone's spouting hard at me. I can say, ok, I hear you and I hear how strongly and how passionately you believe that. Do you think I might have a different opinion? Yeah, that stops people in their tracks. Huh, what? Well, no reasonable person could. Do you think I'm a reasonable person? Now, all of a sudden, they stop and they listen. Oh, this is 80% of the time I don't worry about the 10% or 20% crazy, because that's beyond the scope of what we can do here. That requires real professionals and I do that in my real professional world. But any of the time this is going to work, I'm going to call that good.

Speaker 2: 53:08

That's right. Yeah, leading with questions that's what I'm hearing over and over again the leading with questions, and that really does open up a whole world for that conversation to be able to take place. I just really love that. That is absolutely wonderful. I'm telling you, listeners, I told you keep your notebook out. You're going to learn so much in this conversation. I have learned so much in this conversation. I've really enjoyed this. This has been absolutely wonderful. I can't believe we've already been speaking for over 50 minutes, so we're coming up on the hour here really quick. But before we wrap things up, I wanted to ask you is there anything that you didn't have an opportunity to touch on out of the conversation that we've had thus far that you'd really like the listeners to be able to hear?

Speaker 1: 54:02

You asked so many good questions. I feel like we talked about a lot of things, so it was really good. What I would tell people is I have a web page holding thecomcom and I don't sell the email list to anybody, so you can sign up and then I come up with cool stuff all the time. And as I'm coming up with cool stuff, I just send out emails to my folks because people are trying to do this better. And if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, hesha Abrams, I post all the time and I do little one minute videos, and the benefit of the one minute videos is you can email it to somebody, I mean, let's say, to somebody who's difficult and you're having a challenge with. Instead of saying, my god, you're difficult, you can say, oh, I just saw this one minute video on this topic, I thought it was interesting, and then you forward it on over to them.

Speaker 1: 54:48

So there's a lot of subtle ways to be able to do that. So, linkedin, I've got a Facebook page and on my Holding, the Com site, because I'm really and I would ask our listeners as a favor to me, if you do buy the book I mean, you can get it anywhere Barnes and Noble Books of Million Walmart. But Amazon, of course, is the big dog in that fight to leave a good review, because that helps the search algorithm, because the more people we can get to be reading this and talking about it, maybe we can actually take back our society and create more civility. And at least you, dear listener, within your sphere of influence and Jen does it within her sphere of influence and I do it within mine we're like little cells of a body getting healthier and healthier, and healthier, and I really do believe that we can make an impact. I really do.

Speaker 2: 55:42

That's fantastic. I will make sure that all of that information is in the show notes for the listeners. Make sure that you connect with Hesha online through her social media platforms. Buy the book wherever you want to get your book. Just make sure you get the book and, I agree, make sure that you leave. Just leave something on Amazon if you decide to buy it on Amazon.

Speaker 2: 56:05

Let everybody know how it worked and how wonderful it was. I know, as an author myself, greatly appreciate having those reviews out there. So let's do that for Hesha, because I think this is absolutely wonderful. And thank you so much for being on the show and just sharing with us everything that you experienced within this realm and giving us some tidbits, those golden nuggets of information out of your book. I know somebody out there is listening to this and they're going to try, just like you said, experiment with it. This is a skill, just like any other skill. We got to work at it to get good at it. So experiment with it and then report back to us Let us know how it goes, because I'm really curious.

Speaker 1: 56:53

I love it.

Speaker 2: 56:54

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 56:55

Love it, that's great.

Speaker 2: 56:57

Well, everyone, have a great rest of your day and I hope you all will just keep working at it. This thing we call life and the conversations we have. It ain't easy, so we'll just keep plugging away at it. All right, hesha? Thanks again, everybody, take care. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media or leave a rating and a review.