Michael Reddington - Disciplined Listening

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🎙️🎙️🎙️Aloha, and welcome to an episode that promises to challenge the way you think about leadership, persuasion, and human connection.

Today, we are diving into the fascinating world of high-stakes communication with Michael Reddington, a master of interrogation turned leadership consultant. Throughout his career, Michael has explored one of the most profound questions: Why do people willingly share sensitive information under vulnerable circumstances—sometimes even in the face of dire consequences? His insights, born in the interrogation room and refined in the boardroom, reveal a deeper truth: The cognitive processes that lead a suspect to say, “I did it,” are the same that lead employees to commit to action and prospects to say, “I’ll buy it.”

Michael has taken these revelations to create the Disciplined Listening Method, a powerful framework that teaches leaders how to ethically observe and persuade with precision. As the founder of InQuasive, Inc., Michael is now on a mission to help businesses, universities, and organizations uncover the critical information they’ve been missing and turn missed opportunities into concrete commitments.

Get ready for a conversation that will reshape how you think about influence, decision-making, and the delicate art of truly listening.

www.inquasive.com

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www.disciplinedlistening.com

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Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we made it. Friday. It's Friday, everybody. Hope the sun is shining. Hope the birds are singing. I hope the wind is at your back. I got a banger today. I think you guys are going to love it. I know that I am going to love it. I've got some fascinating questions, too. talk to our guests so let me just uh go ahead and say this aloha and welcome to an episode that promises to challenge challenge challenge the way you think about leadership persuasion and human connection today we are diving into the fascinating world of high stakes communication with michael reddington a master of interrogation turned leadership consultant Throughout his career, Michael has explored one of the most profound questions. Why do people willingly share sensitive information under vulnerable circumstances, sometimes even in the face of dire consequences? His insights born in the interrogation room and refined in the boardroom. reveal a deeper truth. The cognitive processes that lead a suspect to say, I did it, are the same that lead employees to commit to action and prospects to say, I'll buy it. Michael has taken these revelations to create the disciplined learning method, a powerful framework that teaches leaders how to ethically observe and persuade with precision. As the founder of Inquasive Inc., Michael is now on a mission to help businesses, universities, and organizations uncover the critical information they've been missing and turn missed opportunities into concrete commitments. Get ready for a conversation that will reshape how you think about influence, decision-making, and the delicate art of truly listening. Michael, thank you so much for being here today. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. Happy Friday. Yeah, it's a beautiful day, and it's a beautiful morning, and I feel like we're diving into a beautiful conversation. I gave a little bit of an introduction there, but what is it about persuasion? How did you get to be where you are today? I don't think anybody wakes up with a master's degree in influence or wakes up with the ability to thoroughly understand the human relationship. How did you get to be where you are today? A series of happy accidents, to be completely honest. Like you said, it wasn't it was never the plan. It just sort of worked out this way. So super long story as short as possible. You know, I've got to give credit to my family for how I was raised and taught to think and those kinds of things. And a lot of just diverse experiences that I had growing up, which allowed me to meet different people from different backgrounds and different situations that started developing curiosity. But my first career was supporting special needs children and adults. So learning how to evaluate communication and connect and help people there, then getting into customer service and all kinds of different industries before accidentally landing my first job in investigations, which literally I told a friend at a bar I needed a part time job. He's like, come work with me. And then fast forward twenty five years or whatever it is later. Here we are today. So it was a part time job that turned into a full time job. And then they must have been woefully short on qualified managerial candidates. So they asked me and I stepped in. And that's really when the interview and interrogation piece of my career started. And for me, and I love how you phrased it. For me, I was really astonished with the fact that when approached properly, people would consistently share sensitive information under vulnerable circumstances in the face of consequences. because we break it down. That's all a confession is. Whether you're asking a kid why they didn't do their homework or an employee why they're late on a project or a suspect why they stole two hundred thousand dollars, it's sensitive information under vulnerable circumstances in the face of consequences. So the early success that I had fed that curiosity, that need for the research and the greater understanding, which just led for more threads to pull and more mentors to meet and Culminated at one point more of a plateau with earning the certified forensic interviewer designation, which then kicked open a whole new set of doors where I got to work for the interrogation training and advising company and travel the world teaching and using the techniques. And then that's where I started spending time with the executives who helped me realize, wait a minute, man, what you're doing over there can really help me over here. Which led to publishing the Disciplined Listening Method and where I am now. So like I said, man, happy accidents. I love it. It's such an interesting story of language and curiosity. You had mentioned that in the book and in the introduction, we mentioned that you were fascinated why somebody would do that. Like, can you run us through that? Like, were you, did it, did a, did a bell or a whistle go off? Like when you get a confession, like, like, were you thinking like, why did he do that? Like, why is that fascinating to you? Yeah, there were times. Because early in my career, like in the earliest part of my career, most of the time I had evidence. But as my career progressed, I almost never had it. And then I got to a place where people were only calling my teammates and I when they had multiple suspects, no evidence. Everyone had already been interrogated. Nobody confessed. That was a couple months ago. It's time for you to come in. So, yeah, there were plenty of times where I'm walking out of a building going, I can't believe he told me that. And it... It honestly comes down to, I don't want to oversimplify it because there's nuances, layers, everything. But in many ways, people will tell us the truth when they believe the truth is already known or will imminently be known, like one or the other. There's three factors. So the first is the truth either is known or will imminently be known. The second is the person asking the questions is credible. And the third is, and this is the most important in my experience by a long shot, they have the chance to save face. You talked about dire consequences in the intro. The single biggest consequence that will stop most people from sharing sensitive information under vulnerable circumstances in the face of consequences is embarrassment, right? But we overlook that in nearly all contexts in nearly all situations. So if we can connect with people in a way where we're building rapport, we're respecting their dignity, we're embracing the universality of the human experience, we're allowing them to save face. If while we're doing that, we're establishing our credibility, not by bragging or boasting or forcing or bragging or threatening or making false promises, but by just illustrating through our conversation, our credibility and overlapping on that, allowing people to convince themselves that the truth is already known or will already be known. Now, the information that they'll share is significant. Because we're chipping away at that vulnerability and we're helping them make their own decision, rationalize, justify their own decision to be open and honest with us. And I kid you not when I say that exact philosophy is the strategy behind my conversations with my young son, negotiations that I have in my business and personal life, and investigative interviews. It's the same across the board. In your opinion, what is the difference between persuasion and influence? You're asking a bald man to split hairs. I love it. So to me, my honest, in a lot of ways, I don't think that there is one. But if we wanted to parse the terms, influence, especially in today's world's we are influenced by things that we connect with around us. And we are generally influenced by them in a positive or negative way. So I see somebody who I identify with doing something of interest to me, okay, that's probably going to influence me in that direction. I'm seeing somebody who I don't really identify with, but doing something that could be important to me, then maybe that something influences me. But if I see somebody who I identify with not doing something, I might avoid it. You know, so there's different ways to break that down. As I'm talking my way through this answer, I think here's a way that I can actually parse it with some clarity for an audience that's now thinking, Mike, you can't influence me because you're talking in circles. So here's a random example. Years ago, not years, maybe two years ago, a good friend of mine who is an extremely healthy individual was trying to persuade me to start cold plunging. And so here's where I'll start making the difference between persuading and influencing potentially. He was actively persuading. So he was saying things. He was sending me information. He was giving me examples. It was an active process where he had a goal in mind and he was trying to move me towards that goal. And I've said this to him, to his face. I was like, dude, of course you do cold plunges. Look how healthy you are. You measure the avocados you eat. Like, I'm not surprised that you do cold plunges. So while I agreed with all of the good things he was telling me, I didn't make the switch. About a year or so ago, a very good friend of mine who I have lots of things in common with had very demonstrably gone through a series of life changes, lost seventy pounds, got off of medication. His approach to many conversations had changed. You could see a new person forming. and so one day I was just sitting with him up against the wall and I was like hey man dude you look awesome you're doing great what have you been doing and he's telling me all these changes that he's made doesn't drink anymore has made some dietary changes he and his wife made some changes in their relationship but then he gets to you know what honestly My wife got me to start cold plunging. And I honestly believe it is the linchpin that has driven all of these other things. I feel so much better. I'm doing so much better. So for anybody really quick that thinks I'm trying to get you to cold plunge, do whatever you want. That's your call, not mine. I'm not a doctor. I'm in no position to tell you to do it. But now he is influencing me. Because he's not trying to talk me into cold plunging. But here is somebody who I have a little bit more in common with, I believe, who is not trying to get me to do it. But as he's walking me through the difference it's made to him, now I'm layering everything I'm hearing from friend number two on top of everything I've already heard from friend number one. I'm like, I guess I really need to start doing this. And so I did. I bought one and I started doing it and I thought I was going to die the first time, but I lived and I've been doing it pretty consistently ever since, except for when I got poison ivy. So to use that as an example, I feel like in that particular situation, my friend Aaron was really trying to persuade me, Mike, you should do this. My friend Miles influenced me. by sharing his experience with me in a way that caused me to see a situation differently and change my behavior accordingly. So if we want to, for the purpose of this conversation, say that being persuasive or using persuasion is a more active endeavor, Typically a goal in mind and I'm saying or doing something to achieve that result. And influence is more of a passive endeavor where my actions, something I'm doing, something I'm saying is creating the behavioral change in somebody else. But without that goal, that intentional effort necessarily, I think that might be a decent place to draw the line. But I would say that they can be layered on top of each other. If you put them on a Venn diagram, they overlap. They can be used in concert. So I definitely would not say that there's a clear differentiation between the two. But that would be how I would parse them. Twenty minutes after you asking me the initial question. Yeah, I like that. it's the application of the technique seems to be the, the, that which differentiates them. It's, it's interesting because some of them on some level, I feel like persuasion has a negative connotation to it. You know what I mean by that? Like if someone's trying to persuade me to do it, I suddenly have lost a little bit of trust for him. Like, Oh, you're trying to persuade me. And maybe, maybe that's already layered into, into these ideas that we have today and, and different sort of, you know, um, ad agencies or Madison Avenue. And, and what about if we, if we just stay in this vein for a minute, what about if I think influence or if I think that, um, persuasion has a negative connotation, manipulation has even a more of a negative connotation. How would you drop? Where would you drop manipulation in between those two? Dude, I'm so glad you asked. This has been a hot topic of conversation all week for some reason. I guess the universe has decided that this is manipulation week. Shark week can step aside. So for me, manipulation is a completely neutral term. It is not good. It is not bad. We manipulate people and we are manipulated all day long, every day. And most of the time, not only are we cool with it, but we expect it and we participate in it willingly. Nobody goes to a new restaurant that they've never been to before and doesn't expect to be manipulated by the server based on what the server likes to eat or what the new specials are or what's new in the kitchen. Or quite honestly, maybe even which one the server thinks they'll get the biggest tip on if you really want to take a negative spin. But we expect that. I have a young son. I have to manipulate my son every morning to get him out of bed on time, have breakfast on time, get dressed and brush his teeth on time and get out the door on time. He's just not going to do it without being manipulated to do so. So we could go on in a matter of minutes. We could come up with hundreds of examples on how human beings manipulate each other all day, every day. And it's ethical. It's acceptable. We participate in it for one man's opinion. The difference in positive or negative manipulation comes down to intentions and methods. So are my intentions ethical? Are my intentions moral? Are the outcomes I'm trying to achieve positive? Well, then if that's the case, manipulation is not a bad thing. If my doctor is trying to manipulate me to take my cholesterol medicine so I'm healthier and I live longer, he's doing the right thing. Now where it takes a left turn towards the bad or the unethical is now are my desired outcomes good for me and bad for you? Am I using unethical techniques? Am I lying to you? Am I making false promises? Am I threatening? Am I disingenuous? Am I using like a foot in the door technique where what you're doing today isn't so bad, but I'm setting you up for something worse sometime down the road. So, yeah, I think when we look at manipulation, it can come down to it does not that it can't. It does. It comes down to intentions and techniques. And without getting political, I will not get political. I have a very young son. He's in elementary school as a parent. What a time it's been talking to my son about political commercials. Hmm. Because pick Republican, Democrat, I don't care, right? Pick a candidate. This time of year, you see one commercial that takes a quote and paints them in a bad light. Then the very next commercial takes a similar quote and paints them in a good light. And so with an extremely inquisitive young son who I want to foster that sense of curiosity in, when he starts asking me why does that commercial say person A is bad and why does that commercial say person A is good, Well, the people who created those commercials are manipulating us to try to take action in a way that supports their preferred outcomes. So what that requires us to do is more research, more due diligence, more fact gathering, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, to make what we believe is the best decision based on our value system. Try having that conversation with an elementary school student. Um, but so we, we experience it every day and it comes down to intentions and outcomes and techniques. Yeah, it's really well said. I know. A good read besides another good read with your book and another book other people should read is Propaganda by Edward Bernays. And like the first chapter, like the first paragraph in that book is something I'm paraphrasing, but it's something along the lines of the minds of men are made up by other men whom they will probably never, ever see or meet. And if you don't make up your own mind, there's lots of people paid lots of money to make up your mind for you. And once you pull back that curtain a little bit, you know, everybody's own curiosity. Curiosity is a curtain you can pull back and begin to look at the machinery of how things work on some level. And it's so fascinating. You're right. I have my daughter's in she's in elementary school as well. And we have up that chart of like logical fallacies. You know what I mean? Like the one that goes up to like straw man argument and ad hominems, all this stuff on there. And when something like that kind of commercial comes on, I'll be like, okay, what happened here? You know, this is a false choice. You know, I often tell her like, you can have anything you want for dinner. Do you want orange carrots or purple carrots? And she'll just look at me and be like, dad, I know what you're doing. But it's such an incredible thing. time we live in to be aware of the language and the words that you use in order to paint pictures not only in your own mind but in their mind so if I sorry I was kind of bird walking and when you think about these techniques persuasion manipulation or just fact gathering in your personal opinion how have you had to change your inner dialogue in order to navigate the world you live in That's another great question. So for me, it all comes back to outcome orientation. Okay. And it's something that I honestly learned in interview and interrogation because in that world, there were times, not every time, but there were times where I had to sit down across from somebody who I viscerally disagreed with what they did or what they said. It gets an emotional reaction going. So if I allow that emotional response to dictate what I say or do next, this is going to end bad for everybody. So I've got to step back in that situation and understand that I am an independent fact gatherer, that my role in this situation is to gather the truth in as much detail as possible so that people who make the final decisions, who adjudicate the situation one way or the other, can make the best decision. So by focusing on the outcome, I can compartmentalize my emotions and I can create new alternatives to show people empathy and understanding just from one human being to another. Not that it's okay what they did, but that human beings find themselves in difficult situations and make difficult choices. And sometimes they'd like to have those choices back. We can share that type of empathy with people in order to create that. So now moving forward, really for me, it starts with that outcome orientation. Because if I can really stay focused on what I'm trying to achieve, then I can make better decisions underneath that. So to go back to my family, and I'll promise I'll use some other examples as well. No, that's perfect. For me, my goal for my wife and I is to have a happy, healthy, loving, supportive relationship for the rest of our lives. So when things start to go sideways like they do for every couple, handling that has to be framed under that goal. Because if I just handle that situation under how does it make me feel right now in this moment, that is a short term tactical response to a long term strategic situation. And it's going to make it worse. I bet my wife is thrilled. I just referred to our marriage. But the same is true for my son. So the goal for my son is to raise an adult who is a happy, healthy, well-adjusted, positive contributor to society. Okay, cool. So now when these things start happening, how I handle them has to be framed around that long-term goal. We can take it into business. If I'm trying to develop a business, obviously my long-term goals are the success of the organization, the reputation of the organization. Let's be honest, the profit and those things along the way. And now if I've got people working for me, those relationship goals probably shouldn't be too very dissimilar from my son. Right. I'm trying to develop these employees and make them the best people they are, the best contributors they are. So now if I handle something, a project is behind or a customer is upset or something didn't get done. If I handle that in the emotion of the moment, it's going to make me feel better. But as a general rule, if it makes me feel better, it's probably going to make the other person feel worse. Now, if I handle it under the umbrella of the long-term strategic goal I'm trying to achieve, I can make better decisions. So it starts with the outcome focus. I'll pause there because I don't want to take command of all that talking time on your show. But then I can go down and file a few lines under that too. It's awesome. For me, like... There's a very interesting crossroad that we come to when we begin talking about business and developing employees. Most people work for – maybe not most people. I worked for a Fortune-Five hundred company, and I got to see some incredible cognitive dissonance taking place that took an incredible – It took it took a devastating punch to the people that were subjected to it, like life altering, like lose your families. And let me explain what it is. And I would love to get your opinion on this. Of course, on a piece of paper, a CEO or a board of directors wants to develop all their employees. But the truth seems to be, or something that is true enough seems to be, that productivity is the holy grail of profit. And so I would deal with high middle managers. And what I would see happen is that the people in the C-suite were like, listen, You're going to do this fucking job the way I told you to do it. If those people below you don't perform, you fucking fire them. Cut them. They don't deserve to be here. We know how much money we're paying these people. They got to get it done. End of story. You don't do it, you lose your job. And I would, as a union representative, I would go in and I would talk to the, you know, like a district manager or something. And this person, you know, it wasn't as abrasive as the CEO talked to him, but it wasn't as least abrasive as it would talk to a low level employee. And you can point out the flaws in their argument. I would say, listen, you want this production. However, the problem that you're talking about, you're not measuring all the variables. So if you're not going to marry, if you're not going to measure all the variables in the equation to get productivity, we're not talking the same language. Like you can't get what you want because you're not measuring all the variables. And you would see a light flick off on this middle, like on a manager's head, like, holy shit, this guy's right. How can we possibly tell this guy to be more productive if we're not going to measure all the variables they're doing? Then you go, oh, now this person is a middle manager is stuck. Oh my God, I'm going to lose my job. I'm going to lose my livelihood unless I can get this person to do it. But I'm telling them to do something that I know is wrong. Like that kind of cognitive dissonance can ruin relationships, not just with the employees, but that internal combustion that happens with there is like it's mind blowing. So I guess how do you help people deal with cognitive dissonance on a level like that? Like how would you help that middle manager? Like what are they supposed to do? The best I can. They're supposed to get the guy to do the job. Now, so many layers there. And I promise I'm going to get to answering your question. Yeah, no problem. Take your time. If we were to look at this almost like an hourglass and we laid that hourglass on its side. So on one end, you've got the CEO or the board that say you've got to get all this stuff done because they're making that decision based on the goal they have in the limited information they are being presented in relation to achieve that goal. Right. Yep. Yeah. we could parse what's a reason and what's an excuse at another day and another time when people have had more coffee and want to get into that conversation. But that's what they're seeing. Now, as you get to the middle of the hourglass, that is where we start to parse out, okay, what's the reality of the situation? What are the obstacles our goals are truly up against? What's the maximum productivity that's currently available? What are some adjustments we can make? But the problem is for the people at either end, there's no motivation for them to get to the middle of the hourglass. The people at the top fall into the entitlement trap. Damn it. This is what I need done. And I'm the one that signs your paycheck. So get it done. And the people at the other end of the hourglass, they're the ones who are saying, well, I shouldn't have to do this. I've got all these other challenges. I've got all these other things that I'm dealing with. And to be honest, Each of their perspectives is valid based on their position in this scenario. So that poor middle manager is the guy who's sneaking through the skinny part in the hourglass going back and forth to either side. So what I would coach that middle manager to do is have a Guinness. Guinness should start giving me promotional money. But in all seriousness, what I would encourage that guy to do is start tying preferred outcomes together. So the preferred outcome on the executive side of this hourglass is more production, more results, less excuses, less problems. The long term outcomes, the more important things on the hourly end, if you will, or the front end of the hourglass on this side is more support, more resources, more empathy, more understanding. So in order to help connect those, oftentimes I have to do a better job asking questions and sharing resources over a period of time. One of the things that I'm sure many people run into when they're working with different clients and customers in different scenarios is I just told you this today. I want the change tomorrow. Well, if you've got a time machine, I might be able to make that happen. But outside of that, it's not the world we live in. We're dealing with human beings with entrenched behavioral patterns that we need to be able to influence or persuade them out of over time. So on the executive end, as they're saying, we need more production and we need it now. My initial response is, yes, sir. Roger that. So now they feel heard. They feel respected. Now I can ask them questions. If I start by saying, well, I don't know, sir. Well, ma'am, I don't think that's possible. Well, you don't understand. Get your mouthpiece. Because now they're going to come back as hard as they can to prove to you why they're at the top and you're underneath them. And when they say jump, you say how high and jump even higher. So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to lower their guard. So I'm going to say, yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Roger that. Got it. Now, as they're feeling good, I can come back and say, I just want to make sure that my communication is in alignment with your expectations. So I would be grateful for you to please walk me through how this increased production ties into whichever outcomes we know that they're looking to pursue. So now what they're doing is they're tying the production to the outcomes. As they are tying the production to the outcomes, that's where I'm taking mental notes. Because the production is likely not the most important thing. It's the outcome they want to achieve. And right now they perceive that this production is what's going to unlock that for them. And again, at this point, I'm probably not challenging them. It's probably going to be, thank you. I appreciate you sharing that. That helps. That adds clarity. So we like to say illustrate before you investigate. So as I make those little illustrative. That's beautiful. I will write that down. I mean, the questions I ask, they feel really good. The questions can be perceived as invitations or attacks. And this is especially true when we're going up the chain of command. So now as I'm creating these illustrations, my questions feel like invitations. They don't feel like attacks. And now I'm building layers into this tie from production to outcomes. Now that I've got that, I understand the bigger picture. Now I can crawl back through the hourglass to the other side and I can sit down with whatever the next level of management employees or whatever. And instead of telling them, hey, this is what the brass wants us to do. Because as soon as I say that, they're going to be like, no way. F that. Can't do it. That's unreasonable. They don't know us. They don't trust us. I know you mentioned being in the union, so I don't say this to make a joke. Get your picket signs. Get out front. Totally. It's not going to happen. Right. So instead of taking that approach, now we sit down and we say, hey, listen, with any organization, they're going to want increased production. The curse of doing a good job is they want us to do it better. That's going to be true in any job anywhere on the planet. So let me ask you this. As we take a look at our current employee base and resources, equipment, whatever it is, as we look at our current employee and resource base, What do you think would be the top three obstacles that could limit our ability to boost our production by thirty five percent over the next six months? And now as they come back and say, well, I mean, come on, half our machines are broken down and we've got three open positions and two new hires and Sally's already overworked. Johnny's smoking two packs a day now, whatever it is. But as they're walking through this, again, now I'm earning the right to ask more questions. Thank you very much for sharing that. I really appreciate it. For somebody who's not here every day, there's no way for me to know this without people telling me. So I'm curious, how long has that machine been broken down? What's the current ETA on the parts? Is that because the machine is obsolete? And so there's only so many places in America and we're waiting for some guy in Iowa to ship that part to us. So now I can start asking these questions. And now in my own mind, I'm the one bridging the allegories. Because I know that people at one end, the executives, are naturally going to value production. I know the people at the other end are naturally going to prioritize obstruction. Because that's just how it works at either end of the hourglass. So now I can tie the process to the outcome on the executive side. with the process to overcome obstruction on the bottom side. And now I can start creating new alternatives in the middle for how can I coach the people beneath or underneath me on the org chart. Beneath me sounds like a really terrible way to say that. Below me on the org chart, I can start working for ways to motivate, reinforce, appreciate them to help them overcome at least some of the challenges that they're facing. And then I can go back and re-educate the executives where necessary on the process to achieve the outcome, as opposed to telling the people on one end, suck it up and get it done. And the people on the other end, it can't happen, you're unreasonable. Because both of those things- are going to cause just more fires. And the last thing I'll say to wrap up this answer later is for the guy in the middle, I'm going to, the first thing I'm going to do is acknowledge that he or she is stuck in the middle. So one of my favorite things to do when I run programs for middle groups of middle managers is I'll kind of make a joke about it in the beginning. And I'll say, how's it feel to be besieged from all sides? Yep. Yeah. And they'll start laughing and they'll start talking. Either you've got the executives, you've got the employees, you've got the customers, you've got the vendors, you've got all these people and you are stuck in the middle and you've got nowhere to go. And so we'll go through that. And that is how we build rapport and we get their guard down and then we can start working through these other opportunities. So even acknowledging that I think can be important. Like just kind of making a joke. Oh, this is kind of a sucky position to be stuck in, huh? Yeah. Yeah. It is. All right, well, let's work through it together. We're not going to change it, so let's work through it together. Even those kinds of things can help open that middle manager's mind to implementing these types of processes to create the outcomes in the long run. man, that's a beautiful answer. And I think that anybody in my audience of, I think I'm coming up on forty thousand if there's and I know there are to all my friends that work at UPS, you should all buy Michael's book right now today. Go down, buy it and then reach out to him and have him come into the building and start talking to you guys. It was a beautiful that was a masterclass in communication that is meaningful. And I think that that meaningful communication is the antidote to everybody living a life with a little bit more meaning to it. It's not that simple. I get it, but my heart goes out to some of the middle managers that are stuck, you know, in, in, Stuck between money and meaning. You know what I mean? Like if you're making two hundred and fifty or something like that's pretty good. How do you walk away from that on some level? But you see your life deteriorating. I saw families being ruined. But getting back to it, I love the the the hourglass analogy. I've never heard that before. And getting stuck in the middle of it. It's powerful, man. Beautiful imagery there. Thank you for doing that. Do you see conversations – when you were speaking about the conversation, I almost see it like a martial art. In some way, you're watching for telegraphs. In some ways, you're coming with a jab. In some ways, you're throwing a front kick because you know that that person is going to retaliate with a left hook or something like that. Is there – Is that how you see conversations? I guess it doesn't have to be that abusive or that much of an attack, but do you use, how do you see the conversation when you begin to find yourself in those situations? Man, now I got to be careful how bad I nerd out on both the martial arts side and the communication side. So my one passion left outside of my work is jujitsu. So now here we go. But so as we go through it, for me, starting on the conversational side, I truly believe that in most contexts, the best way to stay in control of any conversation is to allow the other person to feel like they are in control. Because when they feel like they are in control, their guard is down, their defense is down. They're willing to share more. They're more vulnerable. They're more like, I want somebody to be overconfident. To use the jujitsu analogy, I'm not that big. I'm not that strong. So when I'm going with bigger, stronger opponents, I want them to feel like they're passing my guard. Because when they are, I'm getting underneath their center of gravity. So at that exact moment in time where they feel like they're progressing to a dominant position, that's when I can sweep them because now I'm under their center of gravity. So for me, in a conversational standpoint, oftentimes I want to get underneath somebody's proverbial center of gravity. They feel like they're in control of the conversation. They feel like they're leading the dance. They feel like it's going where they want it to go. But I've been nudging it in a certain direction the whole time. And because I've been nudging it and they feel like it's theirs, their guard is down and they walk right into where I want them to be for my next question or my next illustration or whatever it is. So whether it's the capturing momentum, you know, any of the things that we can do. But for me in a conversation and this I'll tie this all the way back to the question you asked me about my internal dialogue is for me, I never approach. Never is a tough word to use. I can't tell you the last time I approached the conversation by thinking, why should somebody do this? Because if I do, what I'm really doing is projecting my biases and assumptions onto you. And then when it doesn't work, I'm going to get frustrated and blame it on you, even though there's a strategic shortcoming in how I approach this entire conversation. So instead, and this comes from a particular investigation I did a long time ago, I approach it by asking myself, why shouldn't? This person say or do what I want them to say or do. And it's not about expecting failure or being negative. It's like, let's be honest. Most people are motivated to say and do what they want and resist what I want them to say and do. All right, cool. If I just accept that as an operational fact of the conversational environment I'm operating in, now I can embrace it. And I can say, okay, here's all the reasons why Johnny shouldn't say or do what I want him to do. Cool. Got it down. I'm a caveman. I'll actually write those down. Then I'll ask myself a sister question. Why hasn't he already done this? And I'll think about all the reasons why if he's had opportunities in the past, here's why he hasn't done it. Then I'll look at those two lists. Why shouldn't he do it now based on his perspective that I have to make some assumptions on, I get it. And then why hasn't he done it before? I'll look at those two lists. And now the question I ask myself is based on all of these factors, what does he need to experience before he does? That's a great question. So now instead of me going in thinking, I'm awesome, my business is awesome, my product is awesome, my service is awesome, my idea is awesome, I just have to convince this person about the awesomeness in their presence and they'll jump on. It doesn't work. Instead, if I look at it as these are all the reasons why this shouldn't work, which now that I know them, I can use them. So now that I've embraced this reality, How do I use these reasons why it shouldn't work to create an experience? Well, this person will make the decision I want them to make. And when we think about excelling in conversation, it's all about creating experiences for our counterparts. My bias is often when listening and communication is taught, it's taught by this is what you need to do to be a better listener. And this is what you need to do to be a better communicator. And while those things to a large degree contextually are true, I'm the only person on the planet who cannot say that I'm a good listener. That's somebody else's decision. I'm the only person on the planet who cannot say I'm an effective communicator that's somebody else's decision and depending on the day the person the time the topic the conversation your experience may vary so for me if I can start by considering what are all the reasons why they shouldn't why haven't they done it already what do they need to experience to change their mind how do I create that experience that might be one conversation that might be multiple interactions that might be multiple people I honestly might pull myself out of the process and let somebody else go do it you've got a better chance of creating the outcome so now I'm prioritizing outcomes like we talked about before I'm building my strategy based on why they shouldn't instead of why they should and I'm entering this in a experience creation mindset based around that outcome Now we can be far more successful in some of the contextual opportunities we've talked about so far. You have been doing this for a long time. It's amazing to me how you can hold all of these particular strategies and know them so well in and out. And that only comes from experience. The only way you could recite this stuff and teach it so well is from a long life of experience. That's impressive, man. I can't help but see the paralinguistics. I can't help but see the movement of the body, the tone, the cadence, the word choice. Very careful with everything, man. It's poetry. Can you tell me a story about maybe one time where you got into an interrogation and you second guessed yourself or, or like you got into trouble or you maybe met like an equal and match and how that felt when you were in the midst of it. I can do stories for all of those and more. Okay, please do. So I'll go to the mistake one first because I'm not going to shy away from that question. Okay. And I will do, I'll do this one. Okay. So by the way, I've made lots of mistakes. Me too. I've got more examples. But in this particular one, I was called to, and this is kind of going back a little bit. So I don't really do interrogations anymore. I do the executive education, leadership, business development, negotiation now. But at the time I was called out to an organization to conduct a safety and security evaluation. So basically I'm out. They don't think there's any dishonest activity going on at the moment, but I'm out there just to help them kind of sure up the situation. So we limit exposure, that kind of thing. And so while I'm there, their head of security, we walk by there. So they got two people, security people on duty, the head and one of his employees. These are armed security, by the way. And so I'm walking with the head. We walk by the other one. And the head of security, he honestly makes a disgusted face. And I'm like, OK, well, there's cracks in that relationship. Totally. So later on, the conversation continues and the head of security shows like a little bit of exasperation. And so with that, I asked him, I said, well, what's what's the long term problem that hasn't been resolved? And he comes back and eventually tells me that he has smelled marijuana smoke on the part time security guard multiple times and no one's done anything about it. Now, I know in twenty twenty four, this I'm going back a little while with this example. I know that in twenty twenty four, the world view on smoking marijuana has changed without getting into politics. My personal view is everybody makes their own decisions. And as long as adults are participating willingly and nobody is getting hurt, who am I to judge? But I think you've got to draw the line at getting high on the job somewhere before carrying a loaded weapon and driving a vehicle and responding to safety scenarios. Somewhere before that is where we should draw the smoking marijuana line. People can choose wherever they want to draw it. I just ask that is before carrying a loaded gun and driving a truck. That's the only place I ask for it to be drawn. So I call the owners and they said, dude, yeah, find out. So I'll be a hundred percent honest. My ego kicked in. And I thought to myself, well, statistically speaking, if this guy is blatant enough to get high at work with a gun on his hip, he's got to be stealing. Like he's got to be doing something else. And so because we audio video recorded all of our interviews and interrogations, I thought to myself, I'm going to make a movie. I'm going to get this guy to confess to this stuff that I didn't know anything about. Then I'll get the drugs. And then when I go back to my office and show all my teammates this video, I'm going to be awesome. It was one super, super, super enormous problem with that strategy. My man wasn't a thief. And I found out the hard way. Because as I was going through the interrogation, I started accusing him of stealing and his denials are getting clearer and stronger and clearer and stronger. And now I've been sitting in front of this guy for maybe twenty five minutes thinking to myself, I've got a really big problem on my hands. This guy is angry at me. He's not a thief. And now how the hell am I going to get him to confess to doing drugs on the job when he hates me for accusing him of something he didn't do? And so here's where we get to the second part of your question. How do we handle it? What do we do? So I took a deep breath and I looked at him and I said, I just want you to confirm for me really quick that you've never taken anything from this organization. And he yells at me, no, I haven't. And I looked at him and said, great. I appreciate you confirming that for me. At which point he kind of takes a step back. Now, I've got to I've got to create a buffer because I can't just ask him about the drugs while he's pissed. So I create a buffer by asking him to walk me through his normal daily routine. And I'm doing that for multiple reasons. I want to get actionable intelligence that can help me with the safety and security evaluation. I want to create new opportunities for me to potentially go down the path of drug use. And I also need him to calm down. We don't need to be friends, but we got to get along again. So I need him to calm down. So he starts going through his daily routine. And there were some wooded areas on this property. And he was talking about how when it gets really hot in the summer, we're here in the southeast, that oftentimes he'll go sit in the shade. And when he said that, I reinforced it. I'm like, well, that makes sense to me, man. When it's over a hundred degrees and ninety percent humidity and you're out here wearing a uniform, I go sit in the shade, too. And now he's, well, of course, because it's hot and I need a break. And yeah, man, that makes sense to me. I got no problem with that. And so now we start building the bonds back up. I'd rather be lucky than good. The night before I went out with the owners and they were talking about where to hang the game cameras because on the backside of their property, they would allow people to hunt during hunting season. And as the security guy, I know that he knows that they have the game cameras. So I said, so you typically go in the woods where it's shady, right? He's like, yeah. So it wouldn't make sense to take a break out in the field. He goes, no, I go sit in the woods. I said, you probably find a good tree, make sure there's no fire ants underneath and just lean up against the tree and drink some water, right? He's like, yeah, I definitely drink water. I said, it's what I would do. He said, let me ask you this. The game cameras, are they generally out year round? He's like, Well, I don't think so. I mean, I know we use them for hunting season. I said, but you know, you got them. He's like, oh, yeah, I'm well aware that we have the game cameras. I said, great. And let me ask you this. Is there any reason you can think of that one of those game cameras may have captured footage of you smoking marijuana while you were taking breaks on a hot summer day? Yeah. And his eyes get big and he looks like he was seeing a ghost. And he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I mean, it's not like I was drinking. And here we go. And he ended up confessing to smoking marijuana three times a day, every day for over three years, which means it was probably longer than that and probably more than that, but we'll never know. And again, I know we're talking about marijuana. He's carrying a loaded pistol. So let's keep that in mind as we're having this conversation. So that would be one example of me making a grave misjudgment and using the wrong approach for the wrong reasons and then having to recover from that. And thankfully, by the time that conversation ended and he wrote his written statement, not only did he shake my hand, but he gave me a hug on the way out the door because of building rapport and respecting people's dignity and embracing the universality of the human experience and all those things we talked about before. Man, the idea of building rapport and isn't it interesting that sometimes in those crucial conversation, you may be the only person that the person you're talking to is actually listening. You know what I mean? It sounds to me like you were the only guy that had listened to that guy in a long time, man. He was like, hey, thanks for fucking listening. Sorry, I shouldn't cut. Thank you for listening. You're not a friend of me, man. Okay, good. Okay. But it's interesting to me to see how these heightened states of awareness become a release and they release this tension and they build something between us. Even if we're at odds, we still had a moment like, you know, sometimes you get in a fight with somebody and that person can become your best friend. It almost sounds to me like that's what these conversations are doing in some sort of strange way. You're a hundred percent right. And when I mentioned that the why shouldn't they decision-making framework, that came from a case that I worked where two guns had been stolen eight weeks prior to me getting involved. And the suspects had already been interviewed by federal agents and local law enforcement and hadn't confessed. I commit eight weeks after get a full written confession. Both guns recovered. The employee also gave me the name, address, phone number and turn by turn directions on how to get to the house of the guy he sold the second gun to. So by the end of the day, both guns are recovered and both guys are in jail. And. And I built that entire strategy off of the framework we discussed earlier. It was the first time I thought that way. And obviously based on that success, I've adapted it, but continue to use it ever since in all high impact conversations. But in that scenario, I'm one hundred percent convinced that outside of using a different technique, the number one reason why he told me the truth and he didn't tell the other people the truth is I was the only one who cared to listen. And not like just care to listen because that's what it takes to get the truth, but care to listen because I'm talking to another human being. And I would, from my experience, I would bet all my money that over ninety percent of the people I ever interrogated would have made a different decision in a different set of circumstances. That doesn't absolve them of accountability. That doesn't absolve them of responsibility. I'm not saying that they shouldn't have consequences. None of that. But just acknowledging that as a human being, we play the hand we're dealt and we don't always make the best available play. So if I can just keep in mind that I'm more than likely talking to a good or at least a decent human being. that made a regrettable decision that they wouldn't have made if they perceived the context of the situation to be different. Now I can engage with them as another human being and I can care enough to do so. And taking that mindset into all of these conversations that we have. Is it an employee? Is it a manager? Is it an executive? Is it an investor? Is it a teacher at your son's school? Is it your daughter's softball coach? Is it The person you're buying a car from, negotiating an insurance deal with. I don't care what it is. Earlier this week when I was in Chicago and I needed to get an unnecessary fee taken off my bill before I checked out, I could have gone the I'm the upset valuable customer route and watched them tell me to pound sand. But instead, I used all of the principles we're talking about today and then gladly took it off my bill with no metaphorical shots fired. Yes, Mr. Reddington, we'll take care of that for you. So taking that approach often is the key that creates the results we need. sometimes people are like a victim of their own success. And you had mentioned in that previous conversation that like your ego got in the way. I could imagine that being sought after on some terms and having people come and say, Michael, listen, man, we got these guys, this is what's happened. And we need you to go in there and investigate him. Like, how do you, how do you center yourself and how do you hold yourself accountable for achieving a rightful outcome? Like you, You know, you went in there and you said, listen, this guy's probably guilty. I saw his face. I saw all these little signs that were pointing to this. This is it. Like, I would imagine that once you get momentum and once you get the desired results that you want of winning, that sometimes that can be detrimental because you start losing the ability to come to the purpose of an outcome, which is to solve a problem. Sometimes you want that desired outcome. How do you mitigate that? Great question. And there's a couple of pieces I want to tie into it. It's all about problem solving. Okay. And one of the things that I learned along the way is you can't solve a problem that's not on the table. And so if I need somebody to put the problem on the table, I need to help them save face and protect their self-image to put the problem on the table so we can now solve it collaboratively. I just lost the ability to speak English. As opposed to me dictating the solution to them. So using that as the springboard to work backwards. I'm grateful that from the very outset of my interrogation career, I had mentors, I had bosses, I had people around me who emphasized the truth is the only thing that matters. Whether they're guilty or not doesn't matter. Whether they did it or not doesn't matter. What they did or didn't do doesn't matter. The truth is what matters. Can you define that real fast in this case? I'm sorry to interrupt you, but can you define truth in this example? Yeah, what really happened. So if I go into a scenario and like, let's use the guy, either one, the drugs or the guns, like either one. If I go in there and I say, okay, this has to be the guy that did it. To your point, I've now got my blinders on and I'm looking for anything that confirms my expectation. I'm going to pounce on it. So in the gun case, thankfully, I didn't run into that problem. But in the drug case, I created it for myself. Statistically speaking, somebody that's doing drugs at work is more likely to steal than somebody who's not. I'm not making a judgment of that person. That's a math problem, right? Yep. So I said, okay, well, if that's the case, it's probably easier for somebody who's into stealing than doing drugs just based on societal expectations. So I'm going to go for the theft first, what I don't know, instead of the drugs, which I can be more reasonably confident on. And I didn't waste your time going through the details that the first guy had shared with me and why I felt confident. Like it wasn't just, hey, I think homeboy over there is doing drugs. There was more to the story than that. But I used a statistical likelihood to frame an ego or justify an ego driven decision. And thankfully, I recognized it at a point where I still had time to correct because at the end, I still was prioritizing the truth. I wasn't prioritizing the confession. So even if we bring that over to a business context, How many times do we convince ourselves of somebody else's intentions when we have no real data to back that up? How many times do we convince ourselves before a conversation that this person is going to be rude? They're going to be disrespectful. They're going to be resistant or equally as unproductive. There's just going to be a pushover and they're going to do whatever I want. And then the opposite happens. But we don't recognize it because we've already convinced ourselves of what's going to happen. And now this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And then, by the way, as this conversation falls apart, we blame it on the other person. Because how could I possibly create the problem that I'm dealing with now? I mean, I'm too smart. I never would have let that happen. So I think for me personally, I can thank great mentors. Yeah. I can thank a life of mistakes that I've survived and learned from that keep me humble. I can also thank a wonderful support system with my family and friends, which I ever developed a string of arrogance, they would beat the shit out of me for it. And that's literally true. Like if I went back to my brother or some of my friends and started acting like I was cool, like there would be a fight. There'd be a physical altercation. That's the quality of our friendship. So all of those things help me create a humble base along with just accepting the fact that people are more motivated to withhold information than they are to share information. And there's always things that I don't know, always. And it's always and never are words that are really difficult to use. In fact, most of the time I say, if you're listening to somebody teach you something and they say always or never, that's a great time to stop listening. There are always things that I don't know. I feel very confident saying that. So if I can keep those things in mind and prioritize the truth, now I can enter into conversations. Is this a scenario where I need to work with the CEO to change how they operate? Where I need to work with the customer to create an engagement? Where I need to get the truth from somebody involved with my son, sports, school, whatever. It doesn't make a difference what it is. If I have a clear outcome in mind, And I walk the middle path. I know what my outcome is, but let's think about it. I got to navigate New York City, right? I'm in lower Manhattan. I'm not in Manhattan now, but for the purpose of illustration, most people have seen a map of Manhattan at some point in their life. So I got to get from lower Manhattan to uptown. Well, there's only about a thousand alternatives for how I can do that. Am I going to take the train? Which series of trains? Am I going to take a cab? Am I going to take an Uber? Am I going to walk? Am I going to get a scooter? Am I going to, if I got to get over Roosevelt Island, am I going to take the tram? Like there's all kinds of things that I can do, right? So if we're going to make this analogy of conversation, if I decide that I'm just going to walk up Fifth Avenue the whole way, Well, if that's my decision, then as I'm presented with better alternatives, I'm not going to acknowledge them because I've already made up my mind. But now if I go in and say, well, I'm just going to take whatever the fastest route is. Now as roadblocks and train delays and maybe even which side of the street the sun is on and how hungry I am. As all of these things change, I can choose the best route to get from point A to point B. So now if I take that to a conversation, if I go in and say, I'm going to get the CEO to do X and here's exactly how I'm going to do it. I'm going to get this customer to do Y and here's exactly how I'm going to do it. I'm going to get my son's teacher to tell me Z and here's exactly how I'm going to do it. I'm going to get this guy to confess and here's exactly how I'm going to do it. It might work. But if it does, that's going to be more of an accidental success than my actual strategy working with me. Blind squirrels, broken clocks. If I do something wrong enough times, eventually it's going to work. Instead, what I want to do is I want to go in and engage with somebody and let them choose the path of travel. know where I want to go I know I have all these ways to get there do you want me to take the train which one do you want me to walk which streets do you want me to get a ride which service you want me to take the east side you want me to take the west side like so now we can do all of these things unique circumstances okay I'll take a ferry like all of these different options that are available to us so if I prioritize the outcome And then I prioritize the communication experience that I'm creating for the people who I need to partner with to achieve this outcome. Now I'm letting them dictate the path of travel. So now if I'm traveling down the route you want me to in this metaphor that I'm probably beating to death, you're more likely to lower your guard, be an open participant, share the information I need to help you achieve the final outcome. Have you, this is a two-part question. Have you always been an amazing storyteller or is this like, is this something you learned? I probably learned it. You think so? I've always been an amazing storyteller. Right after I tell you, my friends will kick my ass. If I become arrogant, I'm going to get my ass kicked. Um, but it's relevant, right? Like on some level, like storytellers throughout history are the ones who influence people. If you just look at mythology, if you just look at, if I want to tell you about something important in my life, I'm probably going to share a story that's personal to me so that we can build some empathy. But like, and I don't mean it as a pejorative. I mean, it as like, that's a phenomenal skill that I see in people that I admire. Like Being a storyteller is, in my opinion, a teacher. It is someone who can relate to you on a level that is meaningful. So I didn't mean it as like a pejorative. No, I didn't take it that way. And I do believe not only is it something that I learned, but it's very important to say it's something that I'm still learning. Yes. And it's something that I learned in like, it's something that there were times where I was instructed intentionally. This is how you do it. This is how you structure it. This is how people, but for me, I'm a big believer in connecting dots, intentionally working to create dots that other people don't see connect. So for me, I don't watch, like people ask me all the time. Have you seen Ted Lasso? Have you seen Game of Thrones? Have you seen whatever, whatever? And my answer is always no. And then they look at me, they're like, what do you mean no? I'm like, dude, I'm a busy man. I don't have time to watch that stuff. And I'm not telling you that I won't enjoy it, but I'm telling you that I'm gonna get sucked into it. And now I've gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate, I gotta dedicate they present something historical almost as like a mystery because they want to keep you listening and wondering and curious. So you'll go through this whole thing and get to what really happened a thousand years ago, even though you could pick it up on your phone and Google it right now and know. And so even like paying attention to those things, And okay, well, if that's how they tell a story and that's how they capture an audience's attention, how do I do that? And something that you mentioned earlier in passing, I think is extremely important as well. And that, you know, you use the words like power linguistics and body positioning and tone and cadence and pace and all those things. All those things are super important too. So to use another martial arts metaphor, he or she who controls the distance typically controls the fight. So- I don't want to fight anybody, but I do want to use the distance control. So quite literally how fast I approach somebody, the angle I approach them at, the distance that I keep, how much space, the angle that space is at, how long I maintain eye contact, when and how I shake their hand, like all of these things matter. When I speak louder, softer, faster, slower, pause, like all of these things, they matter in how somebody else interprets the message. And I want to be as intentional as I can. I'll take fortuitous anytime I can, but I'd like to be intentional as I can about everything I say and do should work towards helping me achieve a goal. Because if I keep that interrogation mindset, I'm trying to achieve goals that statistically I have no business achieving. So if I just keep that in mind, that every little thing I say and do matters to help create the opportunity to achieve these goals along the way. So I think it's learned. It is learning and is continuing to embrace the fact that there are always people out there who are better, who are more successful, who do it differently, who do it more appropriately. And if I keep my eyes open to learning in all contexts, I can pick up little things that will help me in whatever context I'm in now. I want to say one thing because I forgot it twice already and then I'll shut up, I promise. For me, anytime somebody comes to me and says, Mike, how do I get person X to do action Y? How do I get someone to say or do something? I will answer them, but I'm going to ask three questions first. What's your goal? Who do you have to achieve it with? And what is the context of the situation? Once I know your goal, the people you have to achieve it with in the context of the situation, now we can go into the toolbox and we can start pulling out the right combination of tools that will give us the best opportunity to be successful. But if I'm just go, oh, you wanna get a human being to talk about B topic, do this. there's a small percentage of time that's gonna work. So we've gotta separate the process from the results As we prepare and then also as we reflect, because there's plenty of times we just got lucky. And if I repeat a bad process, I'm going to get bad results. There's also plenty of times we do everything right. And based on a variable outside of our control, we didn't get our desired outcome. So I don't want to go away from a good process based on a variable that was one time out of my control. So if I can get to goal, people, context, now we can start building the best system to get us where we need to go. It's brilliant. You mentioned in the beginning of our conversation that you had worked with children with special needs. And it seems to me someone, if you spend time with people who may not communicate in the most verbal way or in the way society has taught us to communicate, you can learn a lot of really valuable skills on meaningful conversation and intention and frustration and honesty. Can you talk about how maybe that shaped your ability to be a good communicator? Yeah. And I probably don't even fully understand it. And don't get me wrong. I thought that's what my first career was going to be. And my first job was a sixth and seventh and eighth grade special education assistant and baseball coach. And that was it. Cool. I'm going to coach baseball and work with special needs kids. That's what I wanted to do. Here we are. It's not how it ended up. Um, but yes, in that role. To your point, I think tying it into what I do now, having no idea that one brick was going to lead to a foundation that someday a career house was going to be put on top of, it forced me to understand that we're all different. We all communicate different. Every time somebody looks one way or another, they're not lying. Every time they touch their nose, it might itch. Let's be honest here. But even getting beneath that, that as individuals, we all express ourselves differently. And as individuals, we all express ourselves differently depending on the context of the situation at that moment. So it really forced me to pay attention to small details and small nuances and build behavioral patterns and look for when that pattern is being followed or broken. And it caused me to find ways to show empathy with people when words just won't do. Like there is no way to say you understand. There is no way for you to say you know what that feels like. So how do you show empathy and how do you connect with people? And how do you build trust with people over time who their whole life has told them there's not another trustworthy person on the planet? And so, yes, those lessons unintentionally set the foundation for what my career has become. but in no way shape or form do I want that to come across as like intentional or like like that was a stop on the journey to be good at what I am now I had to do this first like no that's what I was dedicated to and that's what meant the most to me and then just some other opportunities came up and I bounced around a little bit and I ended up where I am but that that recognition or that observation on your behalf is spot on sometimes I feel it's like this weird paradox with language. Like it's such an amazing tool for us to be able to have meaningful communication. But I feel like on some level, we're just beginning to learn how to communicate. Like so many people, myself included, like we talk past each other or especially sometimes with people you love, like you got to, Hey, what's your wife's favorite color, man? Hey, what's your, you know, like you, you start thinking in real, if you're just honest with yourself and you start thinking about like, How well do I know the ten closest people to me? Do I really know them? And if I don't know them, what kind of conversations have I been having with them? Isn't it a weird concept, this idea of language? It's so powerful, but it's also so limiting in so many ways. yeah and the idea of taking this down like an esso at the risk not idea at the risk of taking this down like an esoteric path that nobody needs to go down in a lot of ways I think there are there are a curious and intentional subset of people who are unlearning how to communicate first because to quote yoda you must unlearn what you have learned um but when you think about the people that taught us to communicate It's going to vary slightly for all of us, but our parents, our teachers, our coaches, our professors, if you were heavily involved in church, maybe your church leaders, if you were in Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, maybe your Boy Scout or Girl Scout leaders, depending on how much fun you had growing up, there could be a police officer or two in the mix. But these are the people who taught us how to communicate. And for many of them, if not all of them, They taught us to communicate with a parental communication style. Do what I say, because why did you do this? Why didn't you do that? What's wrong with you? And I'm not saying it was all negative for many of us, hopefully lots of support and affirmation in there as well. But we were, when we're young, There's no like how to be an effective communicator class in elementary school, middle school, high school. There's not maybe somewhere you did a debate class or maybe somewhere you did a theater class or maybe somewhere you did a negotiation class growing up. And some of these principles got in there, but they got in there as like exceptions to the rule that we had already been operationally conditioned to follow because of how we'd been talked to for sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty five, whatever years prior to that. So now as we want to be more empathetic communicators, we want to be more curious listeners. We want to be better problem solvers. We want to connect with people on a different level. We want people to share sensitive information under vulnerable circumstances in the face of consequences. Let's break that down even further. We want people to trust us with their secrets. We've got to communicate with them differently. And often the way we were taught is counterproductive. And so for me, my teammates and I, I say this, it kind of comes across as a joke, but it's a hundred percent true. We were extremely fortunate that our job required us to talk to people who didn't want to talk to us. Hmm. And so because they didn't want to talk to us, we had to fine tune techniques and approaches that would encourage somebody to trust us enough to open up in these situations. And now if you take the approaches and techniques that were developed to connect with people who don't want to connect with you. And you use them to improve the connections of people who do want to connect with you. Now you can get much deeper. You can get much stronger. You can start achieving so much more. It's interesting to me the versatility of communication. Not only, I think, would your book apply to people that are in the world of business or in the world of communications. I think a lot of these techniques would apply to the people that are in... counseling professions. Like I talked to a lot of people with PTSD that are coming back that are trying to make sense of this incredible thing that happened to them and they don't have the right framework to do it. But so many of the topics we've talked about, about empathy or honesty or, you know, finding techniques to talk about things you don't want to talk about. Like, It would totally work for that too. Have you gone down that road and thrown maybe your hat into the ring of helping people with PTSD or applying your techniques to this book, to that particular field? Yeah, but I got to be real careful. So for anybody that's listening and that's a veteran, first, thank you. And second, I'm not. And so one of the most dangerous things I think we can say to another human being is I understand. Yeah. Because most of the time we don't, at least not to the level we're portraying. And even if we do, somebody who is emotionally vulnerable doesn't want to believe it and it creates more resistance. So I have, I'm the son and grandson and nephew to veterans. Some of my closest friends are veterans. And... Several have opened up to me, four in particular, have opened up to me about experiences that they had in combat and how it impacts them now. I've never once asked them. And I never would ask them. I will never ask a veteran about their combat experience or experience overseas. That is none of my damn business. I haven't been there. I haven't done it. That is a very personal set of experiences that affect people in profound and in different ways. And I have not earned the right to have those conversations. Now, I have had people share them with me. And when they do, those are probably the conversations I say the least about. because I'm not there I haven't done it like what do I say wow man I bet that sucked yeah obviously so or wow it's got to be tough yeah obviously so for me saying those things isn't going to make the situation better me just listening makes the situation temporarily feel like a relief for those people and then not offering a solution not offering a fix like because there there isn't one there certainly isn't one that I have but creating the open channel for them to feel safe and not embarrassed and respected recently I had a guy who I've trained with previously say you know you're probably gonna make fun of me for this no I'm not I never would. Number one, out of respect, and number two, you'd probably kick my ass. But no, I'm not going to make fun of you for that. So just being there for somebody in a way, and it doesn't have to be PTSD. Honestly, I use the same approach for my son when he gets in trouble at school and he's embarrassed and he doesn't want to talk about it. I use the same approach with my wife when maybe she made a comment at work. And by the way, I make comments at work all the time that I shouldn't have. I'm not judging my wife. But for the people who are closest with me, it's the same approach where – I'm not going to say I understand because I don't. I'm not going to offer a solution unless they ask for one. I'm just going to be here and I'm going to listen. To take this in a totally unexpected and partially unrelated way, I had a friendship would probably be too strong a word, but a relationship with somebody who had a serious heroin problem for many years. And that was driven by a very deep depression and other mental issues and whatever. And one of the things I recall him saying is that people go down that road. Not always. Everybody's story is different. But in his experience, people go down that road because there is a pain that they can't get away from. There is a hole that they can't fill. There's something that maybe they can't even label, but they don't even know how. And the addiction in many ways and sometimes culminating in taking their own life is because there is a pain that just can't be treated. It can't be solved. And so his recommendation was if you're talking to somebody who is deeply depressed or has a drug problem or something like that would not be to talk to them about the drugs, would not be to talk to them about the depression, but to try to talk to them about the pain. And if they have an opportunity to be open about, even if they can't articulate it, the pain and the problems that the pain causes and all that stuff, then we create the opportunity over time to potentially start addressing the depression and potentially start addressing the drugs and those kinds of things. And this is probably too late for me to say that I'm not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist and I have no legal right to be talking about these things. And if you're taking my advice on it, just know where it's coming from. But so for me, that's another example of a random conversation that happened in a bar in Boston, Massachusetts, however many years ago now that I apply to these conversations where it's not my job, nor is it my right to try to understand somebody's pain, but it is my responsibility to acknowledge that. And if somebody in to create a trusting environment where somebody chooses to want to talk about it and then continuing to reaffirm that trust through my lack of judgment to allow those conversations to take place, because those conversations can be in to some degree therapy in and of themselves. Well, that's well said. Thanks for sharing that. I'm always curious. It seems like so much of crucial conversations or learning or lived experience come from traumatic events, whether it's being in an interrogation room or being schooled by an authoritarian figure when you're young or the divorce of a parent or the death of a child. It's so interesting to me to see the source of some of these behaviors on some level. I guess my next question is, And the culmination of this book, like it sounds to me like there's so many incredible lived experiences that happen. Were there some people, maybe you could talk a little bit about some of the people that you looked up to. Like who do you read? Like before you wrote your book, you probably read other books that you liked or you probably listened to lectures or you've had mentors that you've looked up to. Who are the mentors and who are the people you look up to that you find interesting and you research and want to find out more about them and why? Yeah, well, the first one you're not going to be able to read more about, but it started with my dad. He never wrote a book. But just him teaching me how to think and how to stay curious and how to be situationally aware and how to work through different things. So he kind of grew up a city kid and then was a Vietnam veteran and then worked his way up from a loading dock to being a national enterprise level sales representative, making multimillion dollar deals in the tech space in the eighties and nineties. So So learning from him is where it really all started. And that credit has to be given. But then from there, you know, some of my early mentors in my interview and interrogation life, Adam Ostrowski being one who really kind of turned me into this direction. Again, he's just somebody, not just somebody I work for. Sorry, Adam, but he doesn't have a book. um but then really when I got to into the interrogation company so that's wicklander zelowski and associates the organization that I worked with and I would consider everybody that I worked with there both a friend and a mentor and by the way wicklander zelowski does have a textbook and you can't take their classes and my buddy dave thompson does have a podcast so you can listen to all that and you can look them up and learn more from them But from their extensive experience in interview and interrogation, which really comes down to building trust and establishing relationships in unlikely circumstances. So it really started getting turbocharged there. But now to finally answer your question the way I believe you wanted it answered when you first asked it, Robert Cialdini, for people who haven't read his work on persuasion, start now. His name is spelled C-I-A-L-D-I-N-I, Robert Cialdini. Influence... I'm forgetting the name of his first book, The Psychology of Influence, to his most recent book, Persuasion and Everything in Between. I think George Kohlreiser is a criminally under-recognized leadership resource here in the United States. Am I allowed to mention my podcast on your show? I don't want to be disrespectful. Are you kidding me? Of course, man, please do. So I have him on mine. And again, through a very lucky set of circumstances and mutual relationships, but his book hostage at the table and his other book care to dare are two of the best books I've ever read. And I'll go down swinging against anybody who says there's a better leadership book than care to dare. But here's a guy who started out as a, I'm going to say psychologist, but it might be psychiatrist. I always get confused, whatever. He was brought in to help police negotiations, not as like a SWAT team negotiator, but as a mediator. And in four situations, traded himself with the hostage. And then all four times walked out with the hostage taker, like walked out. Just nobody got harmed. Like, why don't you just hold me as the hostage instead? And we'll walk out of here holding hands. I trivialize it for humor, but when I interviewed him for the podcast, He as we were talking, he was talking about intervening in a domestic hostage situation where he was able to talk the hostage taker into swapping him out for the woman. And the hostage taker put a big pair of steel scissors to his neck. And I asked him, I said, how did you stay calm in that situation? And he said to me, it was simple. I chose to focus on the goal, not the weapon. And to this day, that's top five most powerful things anybody has ever said to me. Because think about that as a metaphor, right? We use words as weapons. We use behavior as weapons. We use all these things as weapons. So if I can focus on the goal and not the weapon, imagine how much more successful I can be. So read George Cole riser, damn it. So you got Robert Cialdini. You got George Cole riser. Those two rise to the top. Robin Drake, a former FBI spa recruiter is somebody that I've been able to build a relationship with. He's got several books. He's got a new book coming out. I'm forgetting the name of it already. He's going to kill me. Forging alliances. There's a word in there in between forging and alliances, but his book, the code of trust is phenomenal on how he built trust and recruited people to work for our nation, as well as getting people to confess who were working against our nation. So Robin Drake is another one. If you can see me looking, my bookshelf is right over here. Yeah. When it comes to like understanding behavior, Dr. David Matsumoto and his book on nonverbal behavior. Honestly, Paul Ekman gets some flack these days, but I think a lot of his seminal work on understanding how and why people are driven by their emotions, emotions revealed would be his book that I would recommend the most. For people who are looking to get the most out of themselves and their employees, Aaron Selko wrote a book, The Ninth Stratum, that not only is entirely based in research, but serves as a playbook as well, that I highly recommend. Everybody should be familiar with William Erie, I'm saying his name wrong, from Harvard, Program on Negotiation, Getting to Yes and Getting Past No, and those seminal books I would highly recommend. Kind of an off topic, The agenda recommendation is a book called The Gift of Violence by Matt Thornton, who has trained law enforcement, federal law enforcement, but he's one of the... You mentioned martial arts earlier, so this is your fault. He is one of the probably earliest second group of Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts here in the United States, and he's built one of the biggest international groups of academies on teaching how to apply actual martial arts. I'm forgetting the... What's the nerve? He's got a term for it that he uses. But I would highly recommend that book, The Gift of Violence, to change people's perspective on how they keep themselves safe and their families safe. And that's not just physically safe, of course, but psychologically safe. So that's another book that I would highly recommend. I could keep going, but that's probably a good enough list to get started for now. It's an excellent list. Are you okay on time? Because I have a few more questions, but you've been really generous with your time already. So I just wanted to make sure. If you don't mind, maybe another ten minutes or so? Absolutely. I got one more question and we'll finish up right here. So let me see here. I guess my last question will be on the idea of virtual presence versus the felt presence of the other. You know what I mean by that? Like when you're in a room with somebody, you have a lot more access to information, be it pheromones or just be at the felt presence of the other. And you are an incredible podcast or an author. So can you talk a little bit about some of the pluses and minuses about virtual communication that seems to be a big part of what's going on today versus being in the room with somebody? Yeah, focus on what you do have, not what you don't have. Okay, I'll go deeper. But seriously, when it comes to the virtual conversations, it starts similar to what you just said. Well, if I was there with somebody, I'd have all of these things. And now I don't, so I only have this amount of things. Yeah, so you should be more successful. I truly believe that success at any critical set of communications in many ways comes down to variable management. So now if you were in a room together, I got to manage spacing. I got to manage my nonverbal communication. I got all of these things on my half that I got to manage. Now for you, I've got to evaluate the totality of your verbal behavior, the nonverbal behavior. I'm going to be aware of all the contextual impacts that are going on. I'm going to be in tune to how I'm causing your behavior to change. I'm juggling a thousand chainsaws. You and I are talking virtually right now. I have no idea what's going on around you. You have no idea what's going on around me, which means that I have to render nearly all of my nonverbal evaluations useless because with certainty, I cannot tie the trigger to the response. So if I watch you look up and look away, Is that because I just said something that offended you or made you curious or caused you to think of another question? Or is that because somebody just walked through your room or a truck went by and caused a shadow? I got ADHD squirrel. I don't know. So for me, I'm going to focus on what I do have. And I'll give two examples. It's the same client. Earlier this year, the same CEO client that I've been working with, I had a conversation with him in his home office and I kept seeing him look up and look up and look up. Well, he happened to have, he was in his home office and the office door was cracked. Well, his television was mounted on the wall and I could see a shadow moving in the television. So now I know he's not reacting to me. He's reacting to somebody else. Same guy, two months later, he's on a business trip in Vegas and he's talking to me from his suite. He's sitting in the kitchenette and there's a black refrigerator behind him. He keeps looking up. I see a shadow moving in the refrigerator. So now I know for a fact it has nothing to do with me. He's got his wife on the road with him. So often we don't get that. You and I are sitting in front of opaque walls. There's no reflection. We're not getting anything out of that. So for me, I just have to assume that, you know what? With a high degree of certainty, I can't tell you why your nonverbal behavior is changing. So I'm going to largely... Disqualify it. Sometimes some things happen that are so obvious, I got it. So now I've got a greater control of my context. I can choose what my background is. I can choose what notes or reminders or things, ability to write that I have in front of me. So I can control all the, literally I can control all the variables on my side. So now I'm freeing up my cognitive resources to focus more on you. And there are fewer things I have to focus on. So now I'm gonna be more in tune to your verbal delivery. pauses, tone, volume, word choice, all of these things. I'm gonna be more in tune to that. And now I can do a better job with some of my verbal, like pauses, volume, all the same thing. Maybe depending on the situation, I can take a step back. Maybe if I really wanna make a point, I can lean in. So I can still use all the same spatial things and you're gonna react the same way. I just leaned in and you scooted back. Like we can rely on, we can create those same things virtually. But now when it comes to my evaluation, I'm evaluating a smaller subset of variables with a higher availability or larger availability of cognitive resources, which means I should be more successful at it. So to me, I think there's some very real advantages as long as we focus on what we do have, not what we don't have. It's a great answer. Thank you very much for all your time today. I took you way past the hour. And to everybody within the sound of my voice, go down to the show notes, check out Michael's book, check out his podcast. But before I let you go, can you please be so kind as to tell people the resources where they can find you, the name of the podcast, the book, the website, what you got coming up, what you're excited about? I appreciate you asking me. Thank you very much. So the podcast is I See What You're Saying, the Disciplined Listening Podcast. And it's all about communication. So from business leaders to military leaders, to research scientists, to athletes, to broadcasters, a wide range of people, families who raise disabled children. A broad array of people who can give us often unanticipated insight on how to be more effective communicators and build stronger relationships. It's on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon. You can find it there. The book is The Disciplined Listening Method, How a Certified Forensic Interviewer Unlocks Hidden Value in Every Conversation. That's at Barnes & Noble and Amazon. You can get it there. um if you're looking if you're with an organization I won't repeat the one that you mentioned earlier but thanks for the shout out I appreciate it if you're an organization who's interested in the types of programs that our clients ask us to facilitate for their senior leaders negotiators business development hr teams that's over at inquasive.com i-n-q-u-a-s-i-v-e If you're interested in more content from me, articles, interviews, those kinds of things, that's at michaelreddington.com. You can also find the podcast and you can sample chapters and learn more about the book at disciplinedlistening.com. So I appreciate you giving me the chance for all of that. Social media, really the only social media I'm on is LinkedIn, Michael Reddington, CFI. My email and stuff will be in the show notes, mreddington.com, reach out. I'd be happy to talk to anybody who would like to learn more. I love it. Hang on briefly afterwards, but to everybody within the sound of my voice, check out Michael. That's all we got for today, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you have a beautiful day and a beautiful weekend. Aloha.