483 - "Can We Talk?" How to Handle Tough Conversations in Business and Life

0:00Marie Forleo:Sam Horn founded the TongFu Training Institute more than 30 years ago when she saw the need for stronger communications in corporations, government agencies, industry associations, schools, and nonprofits. She's also the founder of the Intrigue Agency, which consults with business leaders. She's a keynote speaker for numerous Fortune 500 companies, and Sam lives in Austin, Texas. Her newest book, Talking on Eggshells, is available wherever books are sold. Sam, I love this frigging book. So I have my uncorrected galley here, and I can't wait to actually get my hands on like the real version and share it with so many people.

0:37Marie Forleo:I think it's probably one of the most practical, useful books on modern communication that's ever been written. And I'm not hyping. I'm like every single page of this book, I'm like I'm learning something or I'm reminded of something. Or I'm like, oh, yeah, I've got to print that out. Or, oh, yeah, I've got to share that. And the title is killer. are like so good talking on eggshells. So tell us what it means to talk on eggshells and why is it so common that we feel that way and it's so difficult to get through? You know, I was giving a tung fu workshop a few years ago and I started by asking people what we could focus on to make the most of our time together.

1:15And a woman put her hand up and she said, I work at a law firm for a very volatile boss. She said, we never know what's going to set him off. We worry we're going to say the wrong thing. It seems like we can never say the right thing. It's like we're just walking on eggshells all day long. It's so stressful. We're just exhausted. And I thought, you're not just walking on eggshells, you're talking on eggshells, right? And I bet we all have someone in our life. It could be at work. It could be a coworker, could be a VIP customer, could be someone in our family. And it seems like we are always on edge.

1:51We never know what will set them off. They have a hair-triggered temper or they're very sensitive or they get triggered. So that's what this book is about is how can we think on our feet and seat around those kind of people so we say the right thing instead of the wrong thing.

2:07Marie Forleo:Yeah. And I loved it too because it's so much about compassion and connection. And I love that you said in the kind of early parts of the book, you say the purpose of this book is to teach how to be a force for good and learn how to fight fire with water. and I of course like you've got so many great quotes and I love the Elvis quote which made me laugh and it's so true it's like when things go wrong don't go with them and I feel like I've certainly been there so many times in my life where like we joke because I have an alter ego it's really even not that alter Jersey Marie and so especially like with family or with loved ones you know when you start getting into it you know it's like you did this or you said that it's like no you did it's just all the defense like all my defensiveness can come up so easily and I feel this book is brilliant for any of us who find ourselves in difficult situations.

2:55Marie Forleo:So early in, you talk about something called interpersonal situational awareness. What is it and why is it so important for our success both at home and at work? You know, Desmond Tutu has a wonderful quote about that. He says, we've got to stop pulling people out of the river. We've got to go upstream and find out why they're falling in. And that's what interpersonal situational awareness is. It's the ability not just to read the room. What's appropriate? What's the tone? Why are people resisting already? You know, what's the subtext? And if we read the room, we can lead the room. You want a wonderful example of this?

3:34Yeah, please. Well, I had an opportunity to speak for Cisco. So this is their learning channel, their top 430 executives. And one of them got in touch with me on a Wednesday. He was having an all hands meeting on a Friday. and he showed me his PowerPoint slide. And I asked, all right, at the end of this, how do you want people to feel? Blink, blink, blink, blink, feel. He's a Cisco guy, right? A techie. It never occurred to him. He wanted results, tangible outcomes, but feel. And he said, well, I guess I want him to feel proud. You know, we really hit all our numbers, exceeded all our numbers.

4:11I said, great. What else? And he said, well, I guess I want him to feel excited. I said, great. I said, you think you might want to put some pictures of people in your PowerPoint? Because Marie, it was all graphs and grids and numbers. And if we want to connect with human beings, no, we ask, how are they feeling? How do we want them to feel? And we bake it in. One other quick thing. I asked him what time the meeting was. It was at 4.30 on a Friday afternoon. Oh, gosh. Everyone was going to have one foot out the door. Yes. This is how we read and lead the room. The first words out of his mouth, he actually wore a watch.

4:52He put it on. He said, the first words, he said, I can only imagine you're thinking it's 430 on a Friday afternoon, you know, so we're going to keep this to a half an hour. I promise you're going to be out of here by five. Rock and roll. Let's go. He won the Met Hello because he read and led the room. That's interpersonal situation awareness.

5:13Marie Forleo:Sam, come on, Sam Horn, laying it down. But it's, you know, you give so many beautiful examples for every strategy in the book. And I love that because there's so many times, and I've experienced this quite frankly, as someone who runs a company, right? I've been doing this for 22 years. And there have been times historically where, you know, there's been a person who asks for something or like makes a request at the raw, I'm like, how can you have not known that was like the really wrong time to do it? And a person who is otherwise so competent and so wonderful at the skills of what they do. And when this notion of interpersonal situational awareness, I think it's so important.

5:52And for me too, I try my best,

5:54Marie Forleo:way not perfect at it, but try my best to think into how other people are feeling before I go and make a request or you know what I mean? Ask for something. I'm like, oh, wow. I actually know someone in their family just had a big health scare and their whole thing is falling apart and it's stress. I'm going to wait a couple of weeks. I'm going to wait a couple of weeks. I'm going to put my needs over to the side and know what's bigger is the long-term relationship. And you go into so many examples about that. So I just, I wanted to highlight that because I think for anyone watching, whether you're a boss or you're on a team, to be able to contextualize your requests, the things that you want in the spirit of what else is going on.

6:35Marie Forleo:It does a lot. You know, what you're saying is, is it my agenda or is it their agenda, right? Yes. And just because it's important doesn't mean it's welcome. And if we ask ourselves, Marie, just like you said, is this good timing? Yes, I deserve this raise. You know, yes, I'm putting in long hours and so forth. But are they in the mood to say yes? Because if they're impatient and rushed because they've got 10 minutes and they got to get out the door, they're not hearing what we're saying. They're resenting us. Now we got to know. And it was because we didn't have ISA. We didn't read the room. So what you said, yes.

7:12Marie Forleo:No, it's a tip. It's honestly a tip because I even think about it when I'm working with outside vendors or outside teams, like nothing to do even with my company, but even in my personal life with designers, our contractor, our builder, same thing. I'm like, I'm not going to ask for this on Friday at 3 p.m. even though I had this great new idea for a thing that I want to do because it's like they're burnt. They're toast. It's like end of the week. I can write that email. I can pre-schedule it to go on Monday or even better, Tuesday morning because Monday mornings are a lot for most of us. It's like just that intentionality I think makes a huge difference.

7:45Marie Forleo:All right. I want to talk about something. This was like such a moving story to me. The power of proactive grace and the quote that you have in the book by Joyce Meyer, I think is everything. I'm going to read it. Being negative only makes a difficult journey more difficult. You may be given a cactus, but you don't have to sit on it. That was another one. I'm like, Sam and I, I feel like you and I share so much DNA of stuff that makes us laugh. Can you share the story about Aunt Kay? Is this a rhetorical question, Marie. No, please do. You know, my Aunt Kay is 84 years old and she volunteers at a hospital.

8:23Five days a week, she drives to a local hospital and she helps out at the help desk. Now, she was doing this through COVID and I asked her what it was like and she said, it's very stressful. And I said, can you think of a situation, especially when instead of reacting, you were able to respond and help the person in the moment instead of make things worse. And she thought about it. And then she lit up and I knew we had an example. And she said the week before she was at the help desk and a woman blew in through the front doors. She was holding her phone up. She said, my daughter is in the ER. She was in an accident.

8:59She said, I've got to get in to see her. Well, now the policy during COVID was no visitors or one visitor per person. So Aunt Kay called the ER, there was someone already with the daughter. So she had to deliver the bad news to this distraught mother that she couldn't get in to see your daughter. Well, of course, the woman lost it. She's screaming. She's crying. Now here's the crux. Here's where the cactus is, and we don't have to sit on it. Over on the left, if we say there's nothing I can do, it's not my fault. I didn't make the policy. Don't blame me. We go down the rabbit hole of being adversaries.

9:37Instead, Aunt Kay asked herself these four words, how would I feel? How would I feel if that was my daughter in the ER and someone had told me I could not get in to see my daughter who is in trauma? And it moved her from there's nothing I can do to let me see if there's something I can do. She called the ER and she asked a simple question. She said, who is with the daughter? It was the Uber driver who had brought her daughter in. Well, Kay explained the situation to him, thanked him. He left and the mother was able to be with her daughter. And it was because of those four words, how would I feel, which moved her from impatience to empathy.

10:24Marie Forleo:That's so beautiful. There are like four magic words. How would I feel? How would I feel? I often try and think about that, you know, living in New York City. And I've gotten better at this over time, but it still flares up if I get impatient. Or I'm like, you know, I can feel myself kind of going there, right? And then I try and think about it, whether it's with an Uber driver, a taxi, like whatever's happening, traffic stopped up. I try and go like, there actually might be an accident up there. There actually might be someone, something's going terribly wrong and I just need to sit with myself and calm down.

10:57Marie Forleo:But that how would I feel is just beautiful. The other thing I love, and I feel like this is so critical for all of us, but especially for anyone who works front-facing, customer experience, customer service, again, every human. But you say when people complain, don't explain. Explain that Sam Horton. You know, isn't it logical? We think if something goes wrong, if we explain why it happened, people will forgive us, right? Right. No, they get angry because explanations come across as excuses. So instead of explaining, which makes things worse because they feel we're not being accountable, take the A train, A, A, A, agree, apologize, and act.

11:46And here's one of my favorite examples. It's when we were talking about this in a workshop, a man did one of these. Oh, I said, what? He said, I wish I'd known this Friday. I said, what happened? He said, I was going to pick my wife up after work. He said, there was an accident on the freeway. It was gridlock. Couldn't move forward. He said, and my phone had died. I couldn't call my wife. He said, when I got downtown from a block away, I could see my wife pacing up and down the curb. He said, I pulled up. She yanked the carter open. And she said, you were supposed to be here an hour ago. He said, don't blame me.

12:19I've been stuck in traffic. She said, how was I supposed to know that? I didn't know if you were someone ditched somewhere or if you'd forgotten. He said, get off my case. He said, it ruined our evening. He said, if I'd known this, when I pulled up and she yanked that corridor open and said, you should have been here an hour ago, I would have said, A, agree. You're right. I was supposed to be here an hour ago. A for apologize. and I'm sorry I didn't pick you up on time. A for act. And in the future, if I'm going to try and pick you up on a Friday, I'm building in a cushion for Murphy's Law. When we take the A train, instead of explaining, we are commiserating with the other person so they feel seen and heard and understood.

13:02They're a lot less likely to kill the messenger. Now we're on the same page instead of side against side.

13:08Marie Forleo:Yeah. There's two things I want to kind of dig into a little deeper there. One was, I love you do this in the book, like all over the place, where you cite where you've had workshop participants or people that you're working with say, hey, but hold on. And in this particular instance, right, you had folks who, if they admit that they were wrong or say, I'm sorry, it could have legal ramifications, thinking about paramedics or first responders, right? And so can you speak into how there's actually the express train? Because there may be those A exceptions to the rule or instances where an apology may not be necessarily appropriate, necessary, or again, could put you in some type of legal jeopardy.

13:54Marie, I love pushback. And that's why hopefully these ideas are real life. They're not Pollyanna, pie in the sky, you know, like, oh yeah, right. You don't know who I work with. And so let's talk about if you're thinking, if I apologize, I'm opening myself up for liability. So here's the example, and we'll unpack it, is that I was speaking in Honolulu, and an emergency tech put his hand up, and he said, Sam, we've been told never to apologize because it can open us up for liability. And I said, well, what's an example? He said, last week, he said there was a drowning in Waikiki. He said, we left within 10 minutes of getting the 911 call.

14:34He said, by the time we got there, it was too late. And the wife of the husband who had just drowned grabbed me and said, if you had gotten here sooner, you could have saved him. I'm not going to say you're right. The express a train is just acknowledge and act say, ma 'am, I can, I am, I am, can only imagine how you feel in this situation. How can I support you? Are there family members that I can call? Are there belongings that we could collect? You bypass the you're right. We just acknowledge how they feel with, I can only imagine, not I know how you feel. That's presumptuous. I can only imagine how you feel and then immediately move to what we can do in that situation to help instead of just, hey, it's not our fault.

15:25Don't blame us. Yeah. That's how. Yeah.

15:28Marie Forleo:Oh, gosh. It takes such practice, but it's like these are life-changing skills, like life-changing. And I wanted to say something, not in the book, but it was really funny because it reminded me. I remember Josh and I, my partner, 20 years, we were on a trip in Italy once. And it's like our favorite place to go, Italy in general. And we were driving around and like on this particular trip, I think I was just like, I'm not easy. You know what I mean? I'm not an, sometimes I'm a really easy person and other times I'm not an easy person. And especially at the beginning of a vacation in those days, like I was so wound up so tight that it would take me a couple of days to unwind.

16:04Marie Forleo:Do you know what I mean? By the time I was like, oh wow, I'm actually on vacation. Like I can chill out. And so we're going to a new place, but we just kept having all of these bickering things where the GPS and which road are we on and this, that, and the other thing. And we're just like clashing. I'm like, this sucks. And then I looked up how to say in Italian, you're right. And it was like, a ragione, right? And so it actually became, Sam, this running joke that every five minutes we started screaming at each other, no, a ragione, a ragione, a ragione. And it was hilarious. But just even in partnership, the power of telling the person that you love, they're right.

16:44Marie Forleo:Like even in jest and even in joke, it was amazing how that acknowledgement of the other person's perspective, how it instantly like de-escalated. It got us to laugh, but just the power of saying you're right. It was, anyway, I just wanted to share that story with you because I thought you would appreciate it. And if you ever find yourself in Italy bickering with anyone you love, whip out an arraggone, arraggone. What would an extra quarter million dollars do for you this year? Pay off debt, buy a new car, finally take that dream vacation, or just stop stressing about money. If you're ready to create real financial freedom through your business, you only need one thing.

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18:12Yes. And so what you're going to, there's always reasons why we could get upset with someone, how we could blame them for something and complain about the circumstances. However, at the end of the day, results are, well, you know, Mary Morrissey, her favorite quote is, hold the vision, not the circumstances, right? Yes. So your vision was to enjoy this time with Josh in Italy. And, you know, is the GPS what you want to remember about that? Totally.

18:41Marie Forleo:me telling him like, you're not following it right. So I love this one too. I want to turn the tables, speaking of which, and let's talk about the fact that when we're the ones that know that we're frustrated or upset, what should we do when we know we're about to lose our temper? You know, we've already talked about, you know, how rude, what a jerk. I can't believe they're saying that, right? And turning contempt into compassion. And by the way, you know that at the Hoffman Institute, they have, and John Gottman have discovered that contempt is the number one precursor to divorce. And it's the eye rolling, right?

19:24Oh, here they go again. And that if we are feeling contempt for someone, we're othering them, right? They're the jerk. They're the one. and we talk about owning our response instead of othering people. And I'm going to tell a story on myself. Can I do that? Please tell all the stories you want.

19:42Marie Forleo:Great stories. There's a woman in the speaking industry who's an icon in our industry and we had monthly calls and we'd been doing that for 20 years. And in a phone call a couple of years ago, she said casually that she felt the president was the best president we ever had. Now, Marie, I didn't share that opinion. And I felt the exact opposite. And at the end of the phone call, I was thinking, I don't know if we're ever going to talk again. Because I couldn't believe that someone I cared about and respected, admired, believed something that was the polar opposite of what I thought. And then two things happened.

20:19I read a quote by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And she was asked on CBS Sunday morning that, wait a minute, you go out and see the opera with Justice Scalia, and you are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. How can you do that? And she said six words, Marie. She said, we are different. We are one. And I thought, wait a minute. Am I going to lose a 25-year friendship over what we have in conflict, or am I going to focus on what we have in common? What's more important here? And I thought, proactive grace. Now, how can we do this? Well, I grew up riding horses in a very small Southern California town, and there was quicksand in these dry riverbeds.

21:05Now, did we not ride our horses anymore because of that dangerous quicksand that can suck us in? And the more we struggle, the more we get sucked in. No, we avoided the quicksand. So this person and I decided that politics was a quicksand conversation. And we were just not going to go there because we valued our 25-year friendship and we realized we are different, we are one, and we chose to focus on what we have in common instead of what we had in conflict.

21:34Marie Forleo:I love that. It's so beautiful. Let's talk about handling an accusation. So for example, let's say somebody, you know, lobs a negative accusation your way, whether it's at work or at home or even online. you say you don't want to deny it or you're going to end up debating it. Tell us about that and what the heck do we do instead? What do we say instead? Oh, I will always remember the epiphany I had. I was speaking at a woman's conference and this was in the Q &A. A woman put her hand up and she said, Sam, why are women so catty to each other? Hoo-wee. I had heard that question so many times, I decided to Don Draper it.

22:14Don Draper of Mad Men said, if you don't like what's being said, change the conversation. Because look what happens if I said, I don't think women are catty to each other. We're debating her point. We're arguing it. And in a way, we're proving it. If someone says, now, don't get mad. And we say, I am not mad. If she said, women get so emotional. I am not emotional. Now we are. So do you see how denying a negative accusation actually reinforces it and sometimes proves it? So instead of deny it, we redirect it. For example, when I said, ladies, let's agree, we're never going to ask or answer that question again.

22:57We're not going to repeat it because repeating it reinforces it. We're going to change the conversation. Say, do you know what I found? women are real champions of each other. In fact, I wouldn't have the speaking engagement if a woman mentor hadn't recommended me for it. So here someone says, you don't love me anymore. I do too love you. What do you mean? Back and forth, right? We come back with these four words. What do you mean? They may say, well, we never go on dates anymore. Oh, now we know the real issue. What do you mean uncovers what's really going on? We can address that instead of reacting to the attack.