BONUS: Kwame Gets Interviewed by Trent Shelton

0:00Hello, my fellow negotiators. I am super excited about the format for today's episode because it's a reverse interview. Now, don't get me wrong. I love hosting this show, but every once in a while I get the opportunity to actually be a guest, which gives me the pleasure of being interviewed by some of my closest friends and favorite negotiators from all over the world. It also gives me the opportunity to reflect on my experiences and share some of the most important lessons I've learned in this business, even the most challenging ones. And now, without further ado, let's dive into the episode.

0:59Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let him know it was me. That's the best way to support the show. Kwame, what up, man? Thanks for joining the Trench Young Podcast. My pleasure, man. Thank you for having me. Man, thanks for being here, man. One of the things that I'm always intrigued about is how somebody takes an idea that they have and makes it a reality. So like for you, when did you first know that your purpose or your mission was real for you? Man, that's a great question. I knew from a young age that I wanted to help people.

1:37I was always called to help people, but I didn't know how. Like, what does that look like? And I think when you ask most young people, they say, I want to help people. There's like no focus to it, you know? And at first it was through psychology. That was my undergrad degree. Then I had a brief foray into being interested in politics. So that's what led me to law and master public policy. Thankfully, that was short-lived. I think that's a good choice for my family and mental health. But for me, I always had trouble with tough conversations. I was a people pleaser for a long time. And it wasn't until I got into negotiation in a negotiation class in law school that I realized this was a skill, not a talent.

2:13I could actually get better at it. So we had these negotiation competitions and I participated in it. And my partner and I, we won the competition at Ohio State. that gave us an opportunity to represent the school at the American Bar Association competition in Ottawa, Ontario. We won that too. And after that, I was hooked, bro. Because I was like, this is, it was my, it was a game changer for me because it was the first time I could actually step up and have these conversations because I actually knew how to do it. But then I recognized that if I was struggling in these conversations, other people probably were struggling in the same way.

2:42And so for me, I made it my mission to help to make difficult conversations easier because at the end of the day, the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. So with what I do, I just want to help people to live their best life one difficult conversation at a time. Man, I love that. And I feel like I'm gonna get some therapy during this conversation, man, because, you know, my book, Protect Your Peace, I talk about, you know, me being what I call a triple P, like professional people pleaser. And sometimes I avoid tough conversations, but I realize in avoiding those tough conversations, it usually leads to a lot of unresolved conflict that pops up later.

3:20And so I want to ask you this, just being as a social media guy, and I know a lot of our audience, you know, they always have an idea and a dream and they go out and do it, but it's always a moment, at least I can talk about in my career where I knew it was real. Like I knew the information I was given was like, okay, this is valuable. This is actually something that people need. Was there a moment for you online where you put out your content? And did you ever struggle with that, by the way, putting out content. Yeah. And yeah, if anybody says that they didn't, they're lying. It's super vulnerable, man.

3:53And a lot of times I recognize that really smart people, people who have a lot to offer, they struggle because they are not willing to show their full selves. And every day it's a battle that I face. How much am I willing to share and that type of stuff? But for me, the game changer was the TED Talk. And so I did a TED Talk called Finding Confidence in Conflict. It went really well. I could see it was a big audience, like 1 ,200 folks, and I could see people really resonated with the message. And for me, as a lawyer, I taught at the law school, at the business school and everything. I know there's a specific way negotiation traditionally is taught.

4:29It's often very transactional. It's all about how can I extract as much value from other people? And my approach is more of a heart-centered, human-centered approach. So yeah, we do work with big companies and help them to negotiate really big deals. But at the same time, my approach is fundamentally different. And I was a little bit insecure about that. I'm like, I can hang in the academic conversations. I'm an adjunct professor, so I can do that. But the way that I want to approach it is different. And the TED Talk was the first time I really came out as myself saying, hey, this is who I am.

5:02I was a people pleaser. It was really tough for me. These are the conversations that matter. Yes, it'll help you at work with your career, but it's really about the conversations with the people that matter the most, like your family and your friends and your loved ones. And this is how you live your best life. And just to see how people resonated with it, that gave me so much confidence. And so that was really the catalyst. I was doing the podcast for a while, but I was kind of quiet about it. But now I recognize that I need to share this because when I'm holding back, I'm truly being selfish.

5:33And here's what I mean. I have a message that can help people. The people who are listening to this podcast, they have a message that can help people. And if you're not sharing that because you feel uncomfortable, then you're prioritizing your comfort over the needs of the people that you were put on this earth to serve. So, I think once you recognize that you need to focus on other people, then you feel compelled. You have no choice but to share. So, I want to just challenge people because they might say, I'm shy, I'm uncomfortable. And those things might be true, but we should add selfish to that because you're focusing on yourself and not the people who need you.

6:07A thousand percent. I mean, I noticed even in my career as a speaker, anytime that I allow fear to control me is because I was thinking about myself. I was going inward. And the thing that I always tell people when you're thinking about self, it's hard to be in service for you. I'm just curious about this kind of switch gears when it comes to having hard conversations, because I'm super curious about this. Like, what would be the first step that you say somebody needs to take in order to approach a hard conversation? Maybe with a spouse or a coworker or maybe it's with a stranger. Is it all the same?

6:40Or is that step differently when it comes to different people in your life? I would say it's, it would, the approach would differ based on the person and the circumstance. Let me give an example. Like the mechanics of the conversation are more or less the same. You would alter your approach based on tonality. like the way I talk to my 10 year old is different from the way I talk to my wife, right? You know, so you have to code switch in that type of way. But the you have to understand your challenge, you have to be humble enough and self aware enough to recognize your challenge. So if you're somebody who is conflict avoidant, and you recognize a conversation needs to happen, but you don't want to just shoot from the hip and have the conversation right now, what I would say is, hey, Trent, listen, I don't want to, you know, ambush you here, but I want to have a conversation with you sometime this week, when's a good time for you?

7:27And so that does a couple of things. Number one, it helps you know that a conversation needs to happen. So it's gracious to you. I'm not like bombarding you. But also it locks me in. I've burned the bridges. I can't just be like, just kidding, bro. Then I look dumb. So for me, if you're conflict avoidant, the first thing you need to do is commit yourself to having that conversation to that person. Right. But then once you're in the conversation, here's the thing, man, we have to keep it simple. You can find hundreds of communication techniques, hundreds of negotiation techniques. And I want to be clear, all of them will work.

8:01All of them will work. Now, here's the thing, though. If you go in with all of these things cycling in your head, what ends up happening is that now you're overthinking. You can't access the information you need and you're not performing. You're not flowing. So we have to be realistic. So for me, one of the things that I've done, I have negotiated anything. We've had over 1 ,700 episodes of the podcast, almost a decade. So I've learned from some of the best negotiators on the planet. And so for me, I took what I've discovered from them to create one framework that I can use in every conversation, whether I'm at home with my wife and my kids, whether I'm negotiating big deals as a businessman leading the American Negotiation Institute or as a lawyer, right?

8:41It's all the same. And it's called compassionate curiosity. So step one is acknowledge and validate the emotions. We're going to do that once we see emotions on the other side, we're going to do that to lower the emotional temperature of the conversation. Then when we have level heads, then we get curious with compassion. That's step number two. We want to ask open-ended questions with a compassionate tone to gather information, create rapport, show empathy, show that we're hearing them. And then number three, it is joint problem solving. So it's not me versus you. It's you and me versus the problem.

9:09We're going to look to the future to see what we can do together to make this situation better. And as I'm doing that, my goal is to let the other side talk more than me, because that means I'm gathering information. They are feeling heard. They're not feeling as though I'm controlling them, even though I'm the one guiding the direction of the conversation. And now this one, this point is very, very technical, kind of hard to appreciate, but this stick with me here. The less you speak, the less likely you are to say something stupid. Think about this. How many times have you been in a conversation and they say, you know what?

9:43I hated talking to that person because they listened too well. That's not a mistake you can make. And so it's usually we say the wrong thing. And I think a lot of times we don't recognize how important the ability to demonstrate restraint is. A lot of the things that we want to say, we say it for our own validation or self inflation, or we say it because we are covered with our emotions and we're trying to hurt people. It's not productive. And so if you start to recognize that all you need to do is say less and listen more, it makes the conversation so much easier. Oh, that's so masterful, man.

10:17And it's so true. You know, is it something about the person listening, even myself, when you're in these conversations with somebody and those emotions, because you're human, right? Sometimes those emotions do rise up, right? Sometimes maybe somebody says something to get an emotional arouse out of you. Is there a mental cue, that's what I would call it, that you go to, to be able to, you know, kind of reset your emotional state to get back into listening and not be defensive? Is there a process? Or do you say like walk away from the conversation? Or do you say, you know, like, is it something that you say that really helps you go from like, I'm about to go to 10?

10:52Yes, that brings you back to five. 100 % so here's the thing bro because again I want this to be as simple as possible without being simplistic so it took me a long time to make compassionate curiosity with that approach because I wanted it designed not only for the external conversation with other people but also the internal conversation with myself so when I get triggered I've done this so many times I can do it quickly so it's just a matter of practice I'm going to label my own emotions what am I feeling so I might say I'm feeling angry so that's a great example because anger is a secondary emotion, not a primary emotion.

11:24There's usually some other emotion that is triggering anger. So, what else am I feeling? Well, I'm feeling disappointed. What else? Disrespected. What else? You know, I'm annoyed too, right? Okay, good. Anything else? Good. Now, here's the psychology that works on you when you're using it for yourself, but also other people. In psychology, you need to name it to tame it. When you are very emotional, it's your amygdala firing. So, that's the part of the brain that creates all of your emotions. But the part of your brain that engages in logical, rational thinking and executive function, that's the frontal lobe.

11:55But these things, they have an antagonistic relationship. So the more emotional you are, the less clearly you're thinking. The more clearly you're thinking, the less emotional you are. It's an either or proposition. So when we're labeling the emotions for other people, it triggers the part of the brain that actually accepts or rejects the label is in the frontal lobe. So when I'm feeling angry, that comes from the amygdala. But when I say, is anger the name that I would give to this sensation, that's the frontal lobe. So that's why it works to calm you down for both you and the other person. So after I list what I'm feeling, then I say, why do I feel this way?

12:30Well, I feel this way because the person doesn't even seem to be listening and I've interrupted several times. I thought this was going to go differently and I'm going to list all that so I can get an understanding. And then I ask myself, now what should I do or say next in the conversation? So you can start to get good enough to do this within like five or so seconds internally in a conversation. So what that looks like to the other side is maybe just taking a step back, taking a deep breath, exhaling as you're going through this thought, and now you're coming back to the conversation more composed.

13:02The slowing down of the breathing lowers the emotional response. Going through this process lowers the emotional response. And now you're not emotional, you're thinking intellectually, you're thinking logically, and now you can go through the conversation more sensibly. Are there any signs in this negotiation conversation where there's total deal breakers where, you know, my dad says, like, he's a guy that he's really good at it. I think he's a masterful negotiator. He always says, like, you know, they say, like, you can't, you can lead a horse to water and can't make make him drink it. And my dad's always said, well, if I know it makes if I can make the horse thirsty, you know, he'll always drink.

13:41And so I'm more on the side of there's certain deal breakers to where like, you know, forcing conversation and really trying to get a person to understand or getting a person to change their emotional state. Is there certain deal breakers for you? Are you a person that you're a master at where you can feel like, okay, I know I can get this person to respond the way I want them to respond or change their state or do you have a deal breakers where it's like, this person is totally not hearing this. This person is not getting this. So let me just walk away from this conversation. So, yes, the answer is 100 % yes.

14:14And I think beforehand, we have to be very clear on what our deal breakers are, because sometimes in the conversation, we get clouded with emotions again. And as a result, we might try to blow past the deal breakers. We might, it's a clear red flag, we're seeing all green. And a lot of times it's because number one, we have not given ourselves the authority to recognize that we have more paths to happiness than what's right in front of us, where we say, no, I need this. and now you're going to sacrifice inappropriately in order to get this thing. That's one thing. The other thing is dealmakers bias.

14:45One of the things that started to hold me back, Trent, was as I started to get better at this, my ego started to get wrapped up in this. And the worse people would behave, the more of a challenge it became. Because I could say, okay, no, I can calm them down. I know I can. I know I can understand them better than anybody else. And I know I can get this deal done. And what would happen is I would go into the conversation. I would calm them down. I would understand them better than other people do. And I would get the deal done. And then you know what would happen? It'll break down later. So, think about this.

15:17Imagine if you're in a relationship with a toxic person and you have all of these incredible communication skills. What you end up doing is you just keep this broken relationship on life support for an extended period of time, putting both of you in pain. Because at the end of the day, again, when we're talking about negotiation, the way that I use this word is that it's any conversation where somebody wants something. And I want to generalize that too, because it's not, maybe, let's say, in a romantic relationship, let's say you're dating and you're deciding whether or not this is the right person.

15:48It's not necessarily, I want a relationship with this person. I want a healthy, loving, romantic relationship. And my question is, is this the person, right? So, when it comes to managing conflict and having these conversations, Effective conflict management allows us to repair and strengthen relationships of value. And it also helps us to identify how we can remove malignant relationships with minimal damage. The same conversational skills could be used to do both. Have you ever walked out of a meeting feeling really good about it? And then 10 minutes later, someone's messaging you saying something like, wait, what did we actually decide in that meeting?

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17:02It just fits nicely into the tools you already use. You can stay focused on the conversation and still walk away knowing exactly what decided and who's doing what next. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai.com. That's granola.ai.com to get your time back. three months free at granola.ai slash kwami. The first thing that I ever got from Quince was this pair of really nice formal pants, but they were stretchy and made for travel. So for me as a lawyer and businessman, as I travel and I do these keynotes all over the world, it's really nice to be able to know that I could wear something that looks good in the airport, that's comfortable on the airplane, and I could wear comfortably if I have to roll into a meeting or an event right after getting off the plane and it was only$60.

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18:30They carry that same quality into bedding, bath, kitchen essentials, and furniture, all designed with the same care. I use Quince and so should you. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to Quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was me. That's the best way to support the show. What? Cause my brain is, is all over the place right now, man. I mean, so much great information. Thank you for sharing this. And I know my listeners are like, man, this is, this is insane in a good way, but I'm wondering, like, I know to be so masterful, right?

19:14It takes a lot of inner work on thyself to be able to approach negotiation, to approach anything that you do in a masterful way for you. Is there, what type of inner work do you do? I'm just curious, like do a lot of meditation? Is it, you know, a lot of conversation with yourself? Like, how have you got to a place where, you know, you can stay calm in the midst of chaos where, you know, you can still have peace in the midst of, you know, chaotic situations? Like what type inner work have you done to be able to be so masterful at your craft? Yes. Thank you. First of all, I appreciate that. And then let me give a general point and then a specific point to me.

19:53So the best way to manage your emotions in a tough conversation in general is to get a better baseline of emotionality. If you're already triggered at rest, you're going to be very triggered in this conversation. Sometimes the reason you blew up in this conversation was because it's something that happened a couple of days ago that you didn't address. Right? So doing the things that help you manage your emotions before the conversation even begins is going to be very important. So for me, the self-work that I do, it's not really meditation. I wish I could be one of those Zen thought leaders like, oh, I meditate seven hours a day.

20:27No, I don't. It seems boring. I lift heavy. That helps me a lot. I also realized that I love music with a lot of bass. I saw this post where this guy was saying that sometimes specific music triggers specific neurotransmitters. And if you are like really feeling and vibing with a song, there's something about that music that's triggering the right neurochemicals. So I'm like, okay, sweet. I'm listening to incredibly loud music with a lot of bass. That just, it makes me feel good. The other things I do too, I do an infrared sauna and red light therapy. That's good. But the biggest thing by far, the biggest thing I do is journal.

21:04And so when I'm really working through something, it could be over a hundred thousand words of journaled notes a month. And so what I'll do is I'll go through those notes. I like to dictate verbally. And then I would go through and not just make the notes, but also review the notes. So I'm hearing myself. So whatever I'm feeling, if I feel something that's good and I want to feel more of it, I want to journal that, understand where that came from. If I feel something and it's bad and I want less of that, then I'm going to journal it, understand it, where did it come from. If a conversation didn't go well, I'm going to analyze what I did poorly.

21:40What could I do differently? What was the dynamic? All of that stuff. So I'm understanding. Any decision that was good, I'm going to understand that so I can make more good decisions. Any decision that's bad, I want to understand what I was feeling and thinking that led me to the bad decision. Because my thought process is we live our life decision to decision. So if I can just elevate the level of my decision making incrementally, I'm going to elevate the level of my life, you know? So the journaling has worked incredibly well for me. And then as an added bonus, one of the things I started doing, this was a bit controversial, but stick with me.

22:14So what I do now is when I'm really, really struggling with something where I'm like, I'm recognizing a pattern of thought that is problematic that I want to shift. What I do is I'll take all of my journal notes on that topic. I put it into AI and like ChadGBT and I'll have ChadGBT turn it into song lyrics. Take those song lyrics, put it into an AI music generator called Suno. And then I create a soundtrack for my life. And I'll just listen to these songs and create a soundtrack for the challenge that I'm facing until I feel what I want to feel and believe what I want to believe. because at the end of the day, a belief isn't right or wrong.

22:52It is just something that we feel as a result of thinking a thought repeatedly. So I recognize, okay, there's a pattern of thought that's leading me in the wrong direction. So whenever I see myself going in that direction, I play my song that makes me think the things that I want to think. And it's been really, really helpful for me. Wow, man. I'm a music lover, man. And just a creator, like I've never heard that. And I think that's mind blowing. And it makes a lot of sense to be to create your own soundtrack to what you need in your moments, you know, instead of having just a curated playlist, but you have like a, a true life playlist that comes from you.

23:27Um, so I love that bro. And you know, it, while you were talking, I was even thinking about this because I know the beginning of this conversation is about like, you know, negotiation with another person. And I know it's top of the year, um, when this will release, um, around this time. And I I know the greatest negotiation conversation that we have is with ourselves, right? There's going to be a lot of people that say, I want to do this with my life. I want more for my life. And there's always going to be that what I would call blockage. There's always going to be that brain that wants to go back to what's safe and not create what's new.

23:58And so when it comes with negotiation within yourself and conversations within yourself, like what advice do you have to navigate that when you're so used to having debilitating, conversation in the brain or limited conversation where it's always, yeah, I want to do these things, but I'm trusting my circumstances or I want to do these things, but every time I go do something, I'm met with the same type of result or the same type of quote unquote failure. What advice would you have to the person listening to this right now where they need to have better negotiation skills with themselves? Yeah.

24:34So really what this comes down to is metacognition, which is thinking about thinking. And the better we get at this, the better we're going to be at understanding ourselves and crafting the right solution. And again, I don't think this is taught enough. It's not intuitive. You're not going to see this in school or anything like this. And it takes a lot of internal work. It's not a fun process. But again, that's why I wanted to create compassionate curiosity so you have a structured approach to it. Because here's what ends up happening a lot of times the conversation becomes kind of almost either a mix between abusive and um unproductive like a lot of times when you if i remember one of the most loving things my wife said about me or said to me she said i i want you to stop being mean to kwame because i love him and you're really mean to him you know said that to me because i can be really hard on myself so that's why again the word compassion is built in that because we have to have self-directed compassion.

25:35And then the other thing too, when it comes to the more unproductive side, a lot of times what ends up happening is we think that we're thinking a lot and we are, but we're not thinking deeply. We often just rehash the same surface level thoughts over and over. I can't do this because they'll make fun of me. I can't do this because my family's never accomplished this. I can't do this because I'm not smart enough. And then we just keep on replaying that. There's no depth to it. But with, again, compassionate curiosity, we're going to get curious about that. What makes you believe that? Well, when I was younger, my parents said this to me, okay, and have your parents ever been wrong before?

26:10Yeah, they've been wrong a lot. Okay, cool. So, could they be wrong about this? Yeah, they could. So, you can see how very quickly we could get to a level of depth where we're starting to question these core beliefs, you know? And so, I think we need to just start getting in the habit of not just accepting things. We have to recognize, depending on the study, pick your study. You could be thinking between like 2 ,000 to 6 ,000 things a day. Do we recall those things? No. A lot of thoughts just happen. A lot of times it's just random electrical signals in our brain. Think about times where you're sitting there and you just remember something embarrassing you did 15 years ago and you feel that again.

26:53You didn't choose to think that. We can't just let our brain just willy-nilly dictate how we think and feel and act. We have to control it just like anything else. I can't just like look at my bicep and hope it gets bigger. There are certain protocols that I have to go through in order to build my body. Same thing with your mind. There's certain protocols that we need to go through in order to create the life we want to live. And it comes from the thoughts. So we need to start thinking the things that we need to think in order to live the life we want to live. That's so powerful, man. Thank you for sharing that.

27:23And everybody listening to this right now, that's a thousand percent correct um i love the compassionate part but i also love the responsibility part to be able to make sure you're putting in the right systems or frameworks or whatever you want to call it um to to make sure you grow that that bicep and so i love that i appreciate you for sharing that one thing that that was it's on my heart right now and i think about this because i know a lot of people have brought this up i know i've had situations in my marriage with this or even just relationships or friendships where you know and you already touched on this foundationally, but I want to ask this question specifically.

27:57So the audience, you know, really gets it. I think a lot of times, man, when it comes to conversations, hard conversations, you know, I've realized that even if you win, which it shouldn't be thought like this, but even if you win an argument or a conversation, especially in a marriage, it's still losing, right? If somebody feels disrespected, if somebody feels not seen, as you said, it's like, man, and then there's this still disconnect. So how do you balance between, I don't want to use the word winning, but I'm going to use it for the sake of this question, but like winning versus protecting a person's integrity, you know, in a relationship.

28:35Yeah. I think if you, if you're thinking about it and winning and losing, you were already lost, right? I think we have to understand what is required to win an argument. Okay. So let me look at it from a legal perspective. If I'm a lawyer and I'm arguing, I'm arguing to convince a jury in order to convince a judge, there is some arbiter of judgment that will proclaim me winner or loser. Who is that in a relationship? It's nobody. That's right. It's nobody, right? Nobody has that ultimate authority. So what does it take for you to win an argument? The other person needs to give up. What does it take for a person to give up in an argument?

29:15You had to beat them down emotionally or intellectually. They weren't convinced. They aren't on board. They aren't feeling closer to you. They just stopped arguing with you because they gave up on the conversation and you, or you made them feel so bad. They're like, the thing that I wanted to accomplish in this conversation, I'm choosing my piece, right? That's not a win. That's not a win. You could win the argument and lose the relationship. That's really what it is. And if you feel like you got some zingers in, I guarantee you they didn't like that. And at the end of the day, really what it is, is we are approaching these conversations from a perspective of intellectual or moral supremacy.

29:57And my goal is to impress upon you how much better I am or my thoughts are or beliefs are than yours. It's an act of domination. That's what our argument is, right? So when we think about this, that is the path of most resistance that's guaranteed to end up in a bad place. Because I always hammer down this, this really, really important point, another really sophisticated psychological concept, and it is called revenge. Okay, cool. Okay, good. You want that? I'm going to get my get back. I'm going to get it back one way or another. Might not be today, might not be tomorrow, but I'll remember this very moment and I'll bring it up at a very inconvenient time for you.

30:43So again, when we think about winning versus losing in an argument, if you're using that paradigm, then you've already lost. That's why I always focus on negotiation, conflict resolution, and relationship building. That's really what it is. We have to use future-focused problem solving. So with compassionate curiosity, we are orienting everything to the future. Pain, resentment, anger, judgment, that lives in the past based on what has already happened. If you see your conversation starting to orient to the past, then it's really almost impossible to get to a good outcome. Even thinking about what the mechanics of memory are, that's important to recognize.

31:18Memory is profoundly bad, and no matter how bad you think it is, it's worse than that. And so, really what ends up happening is every time you go back and try to recall a memory, it gets warped every single time. It gets less concrete. So, at the end of the day, as more time passes, we just have two people feeling incredibly emotional about their imagination. Who knows what happened in the past? So trying to relitigate the past is incredibly unproductive. The really the sole question is, what do you need to do and what do I need to do and what changes do we need to make to make the future better for both of us?

31:52That's really the way that these conversations should be oriented. to. Oh, I love that, man. That's, that's something that took me a few years to learn. Even with me, you know, growing up, avoiding conflict. And I feel like a lot of that is learned, which is kind of going to my next conversation just with trauma and realizing where those things come from. But I realized like, you know, it's not about winning or losing. You know, I go into every conversation, you know, most times, of course, I'm not perfect, but it's always, you know, how can I listen more? How can I make this person feel seen?

32:22How can I take eye out the situation and be able to give them what they need. Because I think a lot of times, man, we disrespect how someone feels, even if we don't agree with how they feel, right? It's like, I feel like this. I feel like I'm not seeing it. We'll be like, well, I'm doing this and I'm doing that. And it's just like disrespecting somebody's feeling that thing is the worst thing that you can do. So thank you for sharing that and bringing clarity. I want to kind of go back into how you feel about just trauma and how that shapes us. Because I know in me doing just some inner work over the years.

32:53Like I realized a lot of things in my life came from a childhood, you know, it wasn't anything bad, but it's just like, I had two older brothers and, you know, just to share this, I know my podcast listeners know this story, but, um, I was very dismissive on compliments, very dismissive on like attention. And, um, I'm always a humble person that nature, but it was like overly because growing up, you know, my two brothers made me super successful in sports. I always say like, it's because of them, because it was two versus one all the time. I had to be tough. And it's like, I had to be it. But when we would go around family functions and things like that, the tension was always on me.

33:27And so I created this story like, oh man, my brothers are going to be jealous. And that was never the case. Even to this day, they're my biggest supporters. But I created this narrative and I realized I held onto that throughout, man, prior to like 28 years old. So I realized, man, this came from way back then. You know, I didn't know how to take compliments. I was very dismissive over everything. And so I say that because I just know a lot of times trauma affects a lot of adulthood, especially trauma in childhood. What's your take on that when it comes to, you know, even negotiating conversations, even navigation?

34:04I mean, if you grew up and this is how you saw people conversating, you know what I mean? like sometimes it was abuse, emotional abuse, and you've now determined this in your brain as the norm. Have you like, what's your take on that? And how would you help a person be able to navigate that situation? Well, first I want to give people hope and let them know that you can change the way that your brain works. I also want to be real and let them know that it's work, right? It is work. So a couple of things. So first let's think about the nature of the brain. So, there's a concept called neuroplasticity.

34:36So, your brain changes its shape and its functionality with time. And it's fascinating. They did this test on London cab drivers because back prior to GPS, though, you had to pass a test in order to become a London cab driver called the knowledge, where you had to memorize every street in the city of London. And so what they found is that when they looked at the brains of these cab drivers, the hippocampus, the part of the brain that is primarily utilized for memory, was actually bigger and thicker than in the average person because they had to commit so much to memory. And so it was the first time they realized that the brain can shape with time even past childhood.

35:16So when we go back to trauma, what's happened is we have these learned behaviors and learned beliefs and patterns of thinking from childhood. And so think about it just like walking a path in grass. If you walk the same path in grass, it'll get beaten down and it'll become a little bit more of a clear groove, right? That's the same way the brain works. So you have these grooves in your brain just because of the repetition. And so now what happens is that the things that you might have done in childhood as a result of trauma in order to survive and get past it that were adaptive at that time, now that you've gone into a new environment, those same behaviors now have become maladaptive.

35:56They no longer work. They no longer serve you. So, what we have to do is, again, have that internal negotiation with ourselves to get real about it. Yes, I might feel like this is the right way to speak, the right way to act, the right way to do things. But now I'm going to have a conversation and say, what are my goals? Is this helping me to get to my goals and be real about it? Because the answer might be no. So, now you want to pay attention to those thought patterns. Because again, a belief is just a thought that we've thought a number of times. When you think about cognitive behavioral therapy, which is one of the most effective kinds of therapy, all that you're doing is you're identifying unproductive thought patterns and you're replacing them with thought patterns that are productive, real, and true.

36:40So now what you want to do is now just start to be a little bit more mindful, more self-aware of when those thought patterns are coming up. Learn to challenge them and force yourself to do something different. It's like learning any other skill. When you learn something new, it's going to be very clunky and it's going to feel effortful. But the more you do this with consistency, the better you're going to be. You know, so I think it's just recognizing what the psychology is. This doesn't make you broken. This makes you human. There's a path forward, but it will take work. It will take constant focus and dedication.

37:11But there is a path on the other side. Man, masterful, bro. Thank you so much for sharing that and bringing clarity. You know, as you were talking, I was thinking about this. and I don't know if you deal with this, but I know I have in, you know, my past and it comes up every now and then, but you know, my organization is called Rehab Time, right? And obviously a mindset guy, obviously a guy that, you know, talks about some, some similar things to you, especially with the brain and mental health and all these things. And, you know, I always get this question from people and they're like, how do you, how do you handle being you around like your peers where it's like, oh man, Trent's trying to rehab me or here comes Trent with the motivation.

37:54Right. And so I'm curious, like with you, I'm having this knowledge and being so being an expert in your field, like how does that work with your conversation with your peers and your friends where they're not thinking like, how can I even, I know you're not coming in as winning, but like how somebody might come to you, how can I even win this conversation and approach this conversation with somebody who's so masterful at that crap? Yeah, man. Honestly, it's a legit question. And I've learned that, and this is something one of my law professors told me before. She said, you have to remember, you're a trained lawyer.

38:28You cannot lawyer your family, your friends. It was so funny, bro, because I work hard to get this law degree past the bar just for my wife to use the word lawyer as an insult. you know like man that one just hurts you know so i have to recognize that um i'm trained in a different way and i need to make space for people i think that's very important and i want to make sure that people feel seen and heard and so i think a lot of people are really surprised when they have these conversations with me because they're like i didn't expect to have so much space in this conversation i didn't expect you to be here talking to you i've heard that before so many times they're like oh well you're like a ceo and a lawyer and i love your show but i'm I'm just sitting here talking.

39:07I'm supposed to be listening. I'm like, no, man, I'm just, I'm here to listen to you. This is about you. And I think it's about being a generous conversationalist. I want to come from a place where I am in control of my own wellbeing. I don't need to extract validation from other people for my own wellbeing. I don't need you for that. I can be that light because I can pour into myself. And I think one of the big things is just recognizing that you want to control the things that are within your control and you want to learn how to fill your own cup. Because if you can fill your own cup, now you're not always trying to be an energy vampire from other people.

39:44So I can be very generous in these conversations and share in the conversation that makes space for people, mainly because I've gotten to a point of feeling very good on my own without the necessity of validation from other people. So it took a lot of internal work to get here.

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42:53Even if a universal truth, I can be like, hey man, I know if you do this, it'll help you. I think you hit the nail on the head where giving people the space and even the space to have them learn. You know, I had to come to a point where it's not my job to fix people. You know, it's not my job to, and sometimes we have an idea of, you know there's people in my life over the years where it's like I I but I know that you can be a better you but my idea and how this has helped me is like maybe you know what God has for you isn't what I want for you and so it's given me the space to come to conversation where like you know what let me just listen let me not try to be right even though I know it might help and just be a space for people so thank you for sharing that because I know a lot of people that are into a certain type of work where, you know, it's more expertise.

43:42It's like, man, like how do I navigate this? And so you shared that so masterly. So thank you for that. Yeah. And I got something else too, man. Cause I realized for me, I, this is just, it's fun for me. So I'm not trying to like, and I know it's fun for you too. You feel this passion. So I'm not trying to like fix somebody because I think they're deficient. It's like, I care so much that I want them to be better. But then I also recognize that a big bit of that is ego. Whereas like, hey, listen, you've been living your life for 30, 40 years. You haven't gotten it right, but I bet I can fix you.

44:09It's like, wow, even your generosity is about you. So, I had to start to question my own motives in that. And then I just started to pay people the respect of giving them a choice where I'll just say, hey, listen, if you ever want help with your business, let me know. We can chat and leave it at that. Hey, if you ever want advice on fitness, I can help. I'm not a doctor or anything, but I can tell you what worked for me. So, I'll open the door and if they want to walk through it, they can walk through it. But if they don't, I respect it. And I think it's important to recognize that both parties have some level of autonomy when it comes to what type of relationship that we have.

44:45The person might just want to have a relationship where we just watch college football and have a good time. That might be it. And that's good enough. That's good enough. And so I started to recognize that I felt better when I would help the people who actually want to be helped and give space to the people who don't because they, the relationship with the people who don't actually got better when I stopped trying to fix them. That's so good. Thank you for sharing that, man. And it's so necessary. I mean, even as parents, you know, I think, um, and leaders and yeah, even, you don't even have to, you know, be a expert at your field.

45:22I just think a lot of people try to navigate that. I know it's something I struggle with throughout the year. So thank you for bringing clarity to that. To kind of switch gears a little bit for the last, you know, six minutes or so, 10 minutes or this episode, this conversation that we're having, I always like to go like personal, not like in a weird way, but just getting your definitions on things. And one thing that always stands out to me and I'm curious about is like success. You know, I know over the years and I'm 41 now and I know over the years, my definition of success has changed. Growing up, I thought success was a certain thing.

45:53And I obtained those things and I realized like, man, I'm still missing everything. So for you at this point in your life, um, you know, being able to obtain what you obtain, you know, bestselling books, Ted talks, all these things, like what's your definition of success right now in your life? Hmm, man, it's such a good question. And, uh, I'm going to give an answer that will be annoying and inadequate, but still truth to me, right? It changes every day. And I hate that answer. I really do. Because I'm a competitive guy. I like getting targets, like hitting targets, knocking it down, right? But then I recognize that if my life is all about hitting these somewhat arbitrary goals, then at what point do I feel like I am enough?

46:37So, if I'm always operating in terms of some kind of deficiency, I will be happy when I this. Then how do I day to day feel sufficient, you know? And so, I recognize this pattern where every accomplishment led to feelings of dread and fear, where I'm like, oh my goodness, how am I going to top that? Now, what do I do, right? And so, for me, I'm allowing myself in this season, I'm allowing myself to say, listen, success looks different, different days. Sometimes success for me in this day is grinding, doing a ton of work. Sometimes success for me is recognizing, man, I'm burned out. I remember a few months ago, I was looking at one of your videos on essentially like functional depression.

47:18And I was like, that's what I'm feeling right now. I'm getting all these accolades from other people, but I'm just like feeling broken down. And your advice really helped just recognizing I had to do my own personal rehab, got to go back to work. That's success. Feeling good again was success. You know, so I think for you, for whoever it is that's listening, you have to recognize that whatever success is, it has to be your definition of success. And you have to have blinders on. And we have to recognize that every single day, we're being bombarded by messages from society, from social media, from well-meaning family and friends talking about what we should be doing.

47:56But at the end of the day, it's our responsibility to determine what success and happiness is for us and being okay with the fact that it'll probably look very different from the outside, but it's your job to figure it out for you. I love that I really appreciate that perspective because you're right why can't success change day by day and I think that's very important because you're right there's days where success for me is like knocking out the park I would say my athlete side is like let's go but then I have my protect your peace side it's like hey my success is like being off the grid being somewhere in nature chilling.

48:36So like, I really appreciate that because it's a perspective I haven't heard much of or explained like that, because I really think if you listen to your soul and honor what your soul needs that day or that week or that season, you know, that's success and it changes day by day. So thank you for sharing that. And you brought me to my next two questions I ask every guest and you, you talked about it briefly. And the question is, you know, not to give a backstory because my audience is tired of me telling the backstory, but there's a thing that I know that's a root issue and dealing with mental health for these last 16 years.

49:08And it's always people feeling like they're not enough, right? It's like, I don't feel like I'm enough for them, that, this, et cetera. And the question that I always ask them is, okay, well, if you don't feel like you're enough, then what's your definition of enough? And most people don't know. They don't know. They're like, well, like you said, I'll be enough when this or that, or they just don't know. And so the question I want to ask you is like, in this season of your life, or maybe this is just a permanent, you know, answer for you, what's your definition of enough? Yeah, this is a perfect timing, man.

49:44And quick note, what's funny to the point that you made about asking folks about what their definition of enough is, what I've started to do is ask myself, okay, Kwame, I'm 37 now. I'm like, okay, what was your definition of enough at 30, at 25, at 20? And what I realized is that I just keep on moving the goalposts, man. And so like today is way more than the enough that I wanted five years ago, but now I feel inadequate. So hold on. The dysfunction is not the state. The dysfunction is me. I got to figure it out. Like if you don't, if you like happiness isn't something that you chase, it's something that you cultivate from within.

50:21So for me, when it comes to enough, I've really had to get down to the basics. And I'm like, okay, my relationship with my wife, is that good? She happy, healthy, loving, everything good. Kids, same, happy, healthy, feeling loved, good. Can I pay my bills? Do I still have my staff? I'm good. Everything else is just gravy beyond that. And once I started to just get really real about what it is that I really wanted out of life and what is enough, I realize that I have it every day. I just don't see it. And that's why cultivating an attitude of gratitude is so important, but not just like in a nebulous, oh, I feel grateful type of sense.

50:59I'm talking like, write it down. What are the things that you're grateful for with intentionality? So one of the things I would do with my son is when he was in a bad mood, I would just say, just write out everything that makes you grateful right now. Because mentally what I'm doing is I'm recognizing this bad mood has been triggered by a bad moment that he's allowing to seep into the rest of the day. And so I don't want him to practice and get bad reps of bad mental practices because the neuroplasticity, those grooves are going to be created where he's going to start saying, hey, listen, I'm 10 now, but now I'm learning for when I'm 30, when I have a bad moment in the day that makes my day bad.

51:39And I'm not in control of whether or not I can recover emotionally. So just like with him, what I do is as soon as I start to feel that negativity, I say, all right, cool. Let me get some perspective. Let me recognize and actually articulate the things that I'm grateful for right now. And then I'll realize I am enough. And I'll also recognize my humanity. Emotions, humans will experience emotions, whether we want to or not. And when we deny it, then we deny our ability to actually do something about it. Right? So if I'm off, I'm going to say, yeah, I'm off. I am seeing this the wrong way. And I'm going to do some mental work to reprogram my mind in this moment to get back on track.

52:17And so, again, it's just recognizing that you always are enough and have enough. We all have a 100 % survival rate on every difficulty we've ever experienced. Sometimes we just don't take the time to appreciate it. I always give a moment, especially when that question is answered. And the way you did it was perfect, man. like that's it you know recognizing you are enough and you've been given enough and I and I really believe as you articulated so well if you just get an appreciation and you realize like man like yeah there's a lot might be going wrong but even in the things that I've thought were going wrong in my life actually were setting me up for everything to go right and so I always tell individuals that you are enough and if you can fundamentally like really believe that then it allows you to play at a high level.

53:07You know, as an athlete, when I played sports, anytime, you know, and I train a lot of athletes and I just had a conversation with my son. There's a lot of pressures that we put on ourselves, not even just in the athletic realm, but just even in business. It's like, okay, performance anxiety, you know, pressure, performance, parent pressure for kids, coaches, all these pressures. And it's like this pressure to be perfect. And it's like, how can you play free when you're worried about these things? And so one thing that I always tell my son is you matter you're worth it and you're enough regardless like nothing no stat sheet nothing that changes that like i'm your father i love you i don't care of course yeah go ball out for sure but it's not gonna change the love i have for you and it's allowed him i feel like to play out of freedom where he crushes it because he knows my dad's gonna love me regardless and be proud of me which brings me to my last question of worth um if i was to call myself anything i I'll be a self-worth coach.

54:06You know, I'm big on self-worth. I feel like it's the foundation of life. And a lot of people struggle. I mean, we've done tests over 100 ,000. And from a scale from one to 10, most people's self-worth levels out of three. And most people, because it's tied to something outside them. You know, I'm worth it when, I'm worth it if, I'm worth it because. Not I'm worth it now. For you, where does your worth come from? is it, and not just like you said, like happiness. And I'm feeling even with happiness. I love that it's an inside choice, but most people think happiness is given to you. So for you, like, where do you get your worth from?

54:44Like where you can say, you know what, call me, I'm worth it. I know I'm worth it. Is it in achievements? Is it in, you know, is it in, you know, legacy building? like for you, like, what is that? Yeah, man. Great question. It's, it comes from a number of places, but I think when I am intentional about building my self-worth, when I recognize it has gone down is I look for the external evidence of what is within. So for instance, it's like, okay, you know, we all have our insecurities or questions about parenting. Okay, well, let me ask my mom, my wife, my kids, the teachers, the coaches, how are my kids doing?

55:33They're doing great. So, sounds like those thoughts are BS, Kwame. Sounds like that's kind of dumb. You would think such a thing when there's so much evidence to the contrary. So again, I'm going to write these things down, you know, and so a lot of times because I'm competitive too. There's that dark voice in my head that nothing's good enough. And I used to believe that I needed that in order to propel myself forward. But I think about it in terms of running on clean energy versus running on dirty energy, dark energy that creates pollution, right? I can move myself forward very quickly with dark energy, but I pollute the rest of my body, my mind, my emotionality.

56:10But if I can get to the same place or further on clean energy, then why wouldn't I do that? It feels foreign, but we can do that. So for me, I just look at those accomplishments, not just like, oh, I won an award. Sometimes it's that. But the things that are most rewarding in our lives often don't have awards attached to it. You know, like resilience, right? One of my good friends passed away this year and I had a busy time. Like people see me on the Mel Robbins podcast. I did really well, but they don't realize that like two weeks before I was dealing with a death, you know, they don't, they don't, there's no award for that, but I have to acknowledge that for myself.

56:51So, I think about the challenges that I've faced and overcome and create this

56:59unassailable, undeniable, just list of evidence of what it is that I want to be. So, if I'm feeling like I'm unworthy in a specific area, then I'm going to find evidence of the contrary. And then that external evidence is what helps me to see what's already inside. Masterful, man. Kwame, I appreciate you, bro. I appreciate your heart. I appreciate your wisdom. And as always, I give the honor to the guest to take 30 or 45 seconds. There's a person on the other side that's listening to us that might be, maybe there's a time in your life where you questioned a lot. I know I did, Like where, you know, am I worth it?

57:38Does God have my back? You know, are things going to get better? You know, just in a struggle, in a dark season. And if you had words to tell that person right now that's even struggling to give tomorrow a chance, like what would you tell that individual? You matter. I think that's a big one. Right. And then you can do it. Not going to say it's going to be easy, but it can be done. And it requires an accumulation of micro wins to get the big win. You know, think about how many times people say, so-and-so is an overnight success, right? But to them, they're like, I've been grinding for 20 years overnight, as you call me, overnight success.

58:19And so life is really just an accumulation of small wins that eventually manifest themselves into big wins. So if you're struggling, if you're stuck, just find what that win is for you. It might be so bad that taking a shower might be your win, right? It might be so bad that, you know, feeding yourself might be the win. Going outside might be the win. Whatever that win is for you, don't worry about whether or not anybody else will think it's impressive. If you recognize that it was hard and you pushed yourself to do that one thing, that is a win. Build on that. Because one of the things that we don't talk about enough is the magical power of momentum.

58:56It's this energy that we can all perceive and feel. We've all experienced it, but we don't think about how we can consciously utilize it in our everyday life. Think about you. You're an athlete. Think about it. Sometimes you could be winning the game and feeling like doom is coming your way because you have the points, but they have the momentum. You're just hoping that the clock could run out fast enough because if you know if they have enough time, they're going to get you, right? Right. And so you might be behind in your life right now. So just take those micro wins, build that momentum. Thank you, brother.

59:32Like day by day, moment by moment, y 'all. And man, I thank you for joining us. I thank you for your wisdom. Before we go, I do want to give you the honor to just, where can people follow you at? Where can people get more of you? Because the world definitely needs more of you. Go ahead and let them know. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it. So at Kwame Negotiates on all socials, but then check out the Negotiate Anything podcast. If you can manage to afford zero dollars, you get access to over 1700 episodes from the best negotiation and communication professionals on the planet. You know, so my goal is to be as generous as possible, you know, so just follow me online.

1:00:12And then, of course, I need to be a better businessman. man. As the CEO of the American Negotiation Institute, if you need negotiation training or a keynote, you know where to come to. But yeah, man, it's just about helping as many people as I can. So I appreciate the opportunity to be on your platform. You've crushed it with this. So thank you. Thank you, brother. Hey, y 'all go follow Kwame. Make sure you digest everything he has, as y 'all know today. I mean, so much great wisdom all across the board. You guys, I appreciate you find one person or 10 to share this with, find the actionable thing that you can take and apply it to your life because application without, I mean, transformation without application is pointless.

1:00:51All right. So make sure you find something you can apply to your life. And as always, it all starts with you. I appreciate you guys. I'll talk to you guys next week. It's rehab time. Let's get it.