In this episode I talk with Dr. Ron Riggio about social skills, what they are and how to develop them. I also talk with Dr. Ron about my severe lack of conflict resolution skills.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/cutting-edge-leadership
https://www.risingphoenixdivorcecoach.com
Michael 4:20
Joining me today is Dr. Ronald regio. Dr. Ron, let's just jump right into the ones tell us a little bit about yourself.
Dr. Ron 4:45
Okay, well I'm a I'm a professor and I, I'm a psychologist and but I teach more Organizational Psychology around leadership and but I've also kind of an expert in nonverbal communication. That's how I started out and interpersonal skills social skills. So actually how I got to leadership is I was studying relationship skills. And then I realized leadership was a very complex relationship, right that we have relationships with our national leaders with our bosses. And so that led me into that kind of on a personal level. I've got two daughters from two different mothers. So I've been through that and then I have two stepkids so so I have some experience in that world, and I'm in California, and I've taught in all the California systems University of California, Cal State I'm now at a private liberal arts college Claremont McKenna College and, and I really liked the liberal arts atmosphere that broad learning
Michael 5:50
Nice. Well, it's, it's so you didn't say specifically, but it sounds like maybe you've been through a divorce yourself. Couple alright. So that I mean, it's everywhere. And I didn't know that prior. I mean, I'm not surprised right, because it does seem like it's everywhere, but and there's some of the things I think we may touch on too. We definitely going to have some rabbit holes here because I'm I'm experiencing some I'll say some leadership issues on my end all say failings, maybe even. And that's perhaps an avenue that we could explore. But before we get that any of that type of stuff. One of the reasons I you know, the main reason I had you on is is you wrote an article about social skills about loneliness and how you know, the, the need for social skills. And so that's what I want to talk about today. So as I like to do is define things. So let's first define what what are social skills and I think there's a few of them that we'll we'll cover.
Dr. Ron 6:53
Yeah, so, you know, think of this social skills. It's pretty complex. But it's basically people's ability to, to navigate and to, you know, behave in social interactions and, and that obviously relates to relationships. And let me kind of relate this to some things that are sort of more in the popular psychology press. So you might hear a lot about emotional intelligence and this idea that people can communicate non verbally they can communicate, you know, emotionally and that's, you know, unlike verbal communication, nonverbal communication, you know, we don't have words to describe it. And but that's a big part of connecting with people. So we connect it with people at the emotional level. And so that's one area, the area that I think doesn't get enough attention, you might kind of call it social intelligence. So motional intelligence is about the nonverbal side. Social intelligence is about the verbal side, and kind of understanding what's going on in social interactions. So I actually divided into the two sides although there's overlap. But if you think about skills, social skills, there's sort of just three basic ones. There's ability to send messages to communicate to other people to and at the emotional level that's getting our feelings out at the verbal level or the social level. That's really saying the right thing at the right time or carrying on conversations, that kind of thing. So, so expressing ourselves. The other side of that is like called sensitivity. So it's being sensitive to other people's emotional and nonverbal cues. So knowing that somebody's upset or or getting angry or in a good mood, and again, that's the nonverbal side, but that sensitivity is being able to pick up on those emotions, those emotional messages from other people. On the on the sort of verbal social side, that sensitivity is kind of reading other people being able to listen well to what they're saying. Extract the meaning, but in a social situation, it's also knowing about kind of how we navigate social situations, including relationships. You know, what it was sort of the, the unspoken rules, right? Psychologists call those norms, the unspoken rules, knowing what we call scripts, knowing how to behave in certain situations, and just simply, you know, you attend a wedding. There's certain things that you do at a wedding we know like what the script is, you know, on a first date, we know there's a script, there's things that you don't, you know, bring up, there's things that you might bring up that kind of thing. And then last is that ability to regulate all of this. So if we think of the emotional level, we need to regulate our emotions, you know, not fly off the handle. And at the at the social level, that regulation is kind of, you know, I worked with a couple of people and one of them coined the term savoir faire or the term Saba, knowing how to be being able to control yourself in a social setting, so that you behave in a way that presents yourself well, so think about impression management. So there's a lot going on there. But basically, think of it as expressing yourself. The sensitivity listening to other people, and then regulating and controlling your own behavior and so that that encompasses general social skills.
Michael 10:36
There is going to be some very large rabbit holes that we're going to go down because of my own personal situation. Okay, so but I don't want to get too far off track just yet. I'm gonna I'm gonna skip over this rabbit hole. But we're coming back to get there. Oh, yeah. So so how do you develop these things? And they sound sort of, I don't want to say abstract but in a way, right. Like, how do you and I struggle with this again, this is the rabbit hole. It's coming. I think, but I struggle with these types of things. How do you practice how do you practice on reading someone's emotional intelligence types, or, you know, reading someone's feelings like how do you I guess, let me go back to the first question is how do you develop these things first? Yeah, it seems it seems sort of nebulous, kind of, you know what I mean?
Dr. Ron 11:30
Yeah, it is. I mean, it is but here's the thing. So think about this. Anything you want to develop you want to become you know, you want to be buff? You know, you want to be in good shape and all that kind of stuff. And you know, it's going to take hard work and you're going to have to work at it over time. So that's the first thing you should realize that you know, that this to really become an expert at, you know, expert level of social skills really, you know, being able to impress people to navigate all kinds of complex social situations. It takes time right now, we've been developing this, you know, over our lives, but the first thing is to so sort of commit commit that this is going to take a lot of work. Okay. So let's look at sensitivity first. Okay. So if we're talking about the emotional side of the equation, right. We've got to be able to read people's expressions, and people are very good sometimes in managing their facial expressions, and you know, so we have to pay attention to those subtle cues. And so one of the things we do is just say, you know, become a watcher, people watcher, so spend some time you know, you know, maybe in a you know, in a park or something where people are interacting and see if you can read their their emotional expression, see if you can see what's going on. You know, a long time ago when that when I don't know if they're still popular but soap operas. I use where we used to train students to pick up on nonverbal cues. We used to have them watch soap operas with the sound off and then try to predict what was going on in the social situation. And if you think about it, that you know, people are overactive on TV or overacting soap operas, so it's actually a good way to sort of pick up on the cues and then you can kind of turn the sound on and test yourself you know, if you can see this like in movies you know, are these two people going to get together romantically? Is there going to be a fight you know, so, you know, working on those kinds of things and then doing in your everyday life. So, one of the things to be a good watcher and listener is you got to put your own expression on hold. And so you know, we always kind of want to talk or whatever. So let me give you an example. We're meeting somebody, it's a party or a social situation or whatever and you're meeting them. Very often what we do is we think about what we're going to say next, in this interaction. And what I'm arguing is, if you want to develop sensitivity, you've got to be much more of a listener, and much less of a talker. So you know, so you say, Well, tell me about yourself, and then you do what you do. You kind of interview the person and gives you a baseline on, you know, like, where they're coming from, and helping you understand. So paying more attention to the other person paying attention to the subtle cues, and then checking whether you're accurate, you know, so if you encounter somebody they seem to be a little distraught, say, you know, I'm picking up some cues here, that you're not feeling so well. So tell me about that. And then that helps you develop empathy. And empathy comes from that, that sensitivity that ability to to kind of read other people's people's cues. So so that's the way you have to approach it. If we talk about being a better at expressing yourself, so some people have difficulty expressing themselves, you know, being articulate as we say, you know, there's a lot of things you can do there are there are speaking groups, there are there's Toastmasters, there's these kinds of groups, where you get to public, you know, publicly speak and you know, and you can and the other thing too is be prepared. So if you're if you want to, if you're going to a mixer or something like that, be prepared have a few things you want to talk about beforehand. So you know, that works on your expressive skills. And then then the other thing too, is get some feedback, you know, you want to a lot of guys, so one of the sex differences in this, okay, so women tend to be more sensitive than men, okay? I mean, just as a group, right? They're better at picking up on emotions. Men tend to be better at controlling their emotions, right? Whereas if we think about it, that's the way we're raised. Right? You know, stop crying, you know, son, you know, take it like a man, that kind of thing. And so what we, over time, many of us, not everybody but But men generally, to control our emotions to control our emotional expressions. So one of the things you have to do is sort of stop that and start to you know, express your emotions a little bit and and you know, getting feedback really helps. So, you know, we hear this all the time you know, that your your significant other says, you know, you're kind of cold, you're kind of distant or whatever. So work on trying to, you know, put the put the feelings out there, you know, this idea of kind of like they say wear your heart on your sleeve, you know, you know, try to make an effort to, to do this and if you can't do it non verbally, you can just verbally do it and say, you know, in cash, I'm not feeling so good today, and I'm down because of this and, and overcoming that resistance to get letting your feelings out there because the only way you're going to connect with people is through through feelings is through feeling like hey, we're we understand each other at an emotional level.
Michael 17:17
So, I mean, it really is about I mean, I always like to make it simple because I'm a simple fella, but it's really about intention, right? It's like identification and attention. I have a problem in social situations. And a lot of so what I think a lot of men that are going through divorce deal with is their social life is in torpedo blown up Hiroshima, whatever the fuck you want to say. And so they don't know what to do and because they're there, they're left to their own devices. They're there. They have to go out have to but I mean, they're Yeah, in a way you have to go up by yourself like, I mean, obviously you can put up around friends and stuff but like it for a lot of guys, what happens is, like I said, things get blown up. And friends choose sides and suddenly they don't have as many options or you know, they don't have that comfort level of having that person with them. And so, so they just kind of feel lost. They don't know what to do, certainly in a social setting. Maybe in general, but certainly now that that's that's just them and so they have to you have to be set the attention right like I need to or maybe need is not the right word, but I certainly want to get out and be around people I can't stay in my house, my apartment or my whatever for ever right I have to get out and so, but I'm really but it makes me very uncomfortable. I feel very awkward. It's very weird. It's just me people are gonna think I'm weird. But if your intention is to get to heal, I think from this part of it, I think has to be to get out into social settings and be around folks. And so if you know that knowing that, then you have to set the intention. And and and work on it and do these types of things. Right. I mean, it can't it's not going to magically happen. So you
Dr. Ron 19:05
have to go out and try and practice you know, it's like it's like the gym membership. You know, if you never go to the gym, you're not going to you know, you're not going to build yourself up and so you've got to go to the gym, and the gym now is a social situation and you know, get yourself out there and you can start slow you don't have you know, you can start off at you know, find some group that you can identify with that's relatively non threatening. You know, I, one of my colleagues here, you know, she's always posting on Facebook that she has a book club, you know, and that's kind of a women women's thing, or it seems like there's more women doing that. But there's nothing wrong with having kind of, you know, joining a discussion or something like that. And that allows you that that practice right to practice things. The you know, the other thing too is start off slow and work on the sensitivity work on the listening skills. Don't feel like you don't necessarily have to participate and you can be straight with people. You can say, hey, you know, I'm going through a divorce. I don't feel really safe sharing a lot of myself but I'm here and I really want to learn from you all and I want to you know, experience it. And so I'm not going to talk a lot I'm going to really listen I'm going to I want to try to work on being a better listener. You can be straight with people. And I think that's the thing too. We're so concerned about our self image a lot of times and I think you got to have a little courage and say, Look, you know, people are going to judge you you can't do anything about that. But, you know, they it's not always going to be negative. I think people think you know, worst case scenario. And I think what happens one of the things we find when we do you know these these programs where we try to develop people social skills, we find that over time as they start to develop this they get a sense of what we call self efficacy, the belief that they can do it that they can perform in a social situation. And it's that confidence that really helps them and so you start to build up a con a confidence and, and so you've got to start off slow but a good way is to start off with the listening skills, the sensitivity skills, and then work on the expressive skills and you can do those in different scenarios. Like I said, you could join up speaking group like Toastmasters. You know, they said the number one fear of college students is public speaking which I find extraordinary because I'm at a college where we make the students present all the time. And you see it, they're way more confident. You know, when I was in the State University, I'm in a small college and we see these kids they are forced to do it because they're in small classes. But when I was in the State University, 150 people in a class, they're afraid to raise their hand and speak up because they're afraid they're gonna embarrass themselves. But you know what, 149 other people there. No one's gonna remember what you said. Yeah. So I think a lot of it is you have to get the mindset of feeling, a sense of confidence, a sense of security, that you know, people are gonna judge me but not gonna be the end of the world and probably, they're going to be more positive than they are negative.
Michael 22:19
Is it a matter of also perhaps, like having like, I think you mentioned earlier like scripts, like having something like, I'm going to talk about this and and and you know, focus on that sort of storytelling, or, you know, I guess storytelling is kind of the right way, right? You're kind of essentially telling a story. If you meet someone and they start asking questions, you know, you have a story to tell certainly. So it isn't a matter of would you would you recommend like somebody like writing out some things or what how does
Dr. Ron 22:47
Yeah, I think I think you would want to have a little bit, you know, prepared beforehand. Now, there's a guy that was actually good friend and colleague, and unfortunately passed away a few years ago, but his name is Bernie Carducci and he was an expert and shyness and one of the things that he did is he developed you can actually, I still think pick these up on Amazon. He developed pocket guides, like Pocket Guide to small talk, and it's just a few tips, you know, and you can probably find these things too. You can probably Google it, you know, but but that's a good strategy, have something prepared that you want to talk about and, and then the other side of it too, is that sort of that idea of knowing how knowing what to do. So you know, you want to assess your, your little pocket guide and say, okay, am I getting to personal care, or is it just a right you know, you want to sort of assess the level of of what you're doing, you might disclosing too much too quickly. You know, that kind of thing, because, you know, it is that is a common situation. I mean, but basically we develop relationships through showing more of ourselves showing more of our sort of authentic selves to people, but you can't just blurt it all out, right so well. So when I talked about impression management, I talked about this delicate balance between controlling your impression so that you make a socially acceptable presentation and being authentic, showing your your true self but not being like, you know, just laying it all out there. So, you know, it's, it's a little bit like fly fishing, you know, you want to just give them enough, you know, sort of out there but but don't don't throw the whole thing out, you know? Yeah,
Michael 24:38
yeah, it really is a skill, right? You really have to practice right? I mean, for some people it comes natural. I mean, I I feel like in general, socially, I'm fairly fairly decent. I don't mind public speaking as long as I know what the topic is, you know, someone were to throw me in a room full of people and say, talk about the solar system. I'd be like, yes, like planet that's,
Dr. Ron 25:01
that's the deal. Be prepared, you know. Yeah. But look, look, I mean, if that was the situation, you can turn that around, and they said, Well, you know, we're talking about the solar system, or you know, I mean, you say, Yeah, you know, and then you then you think of a bridge and you say, Well, I was here to talk about movies, but hey, maybe I can bridge that, you know, have you seen any movies that relate to you know, you know, did you guys see what's that? Well the Martian right or something like that. So I mean, try to make that connection so that you can bridge into the conversation. That's interesting.
Michael 25:39
Okay, so we're gonna dive into something and I, how do you I mean, you mentioned leadership. You mentioned sort of social intelligence and emotional intelligence, I would guess, and I speak from some really, really recent experience that conflict resolution is a huge part of leadership, correct? Yes, it is. Yeah. I am fucking really bad at it. Help Help me.
Dr. Ron 26:05
Yeah. Okay. Okay. So the goal of conflict resolution, think of this in in a conflict, you got two people with incompatible goals. Okay. And, and the idea is, we go into this in a competitive way, and we think it's going to be a win lose situation. You know, I'm going to win, or I'm going to lose. All right. Get rid of that thinking and think about this way. How can we get to a win win? Now win wins may be difficult, right? If you know if you're trying you know, you're trying to get a raise from your boss, you know, and the boss is saying, hey, financially, I can't do it. You're not going to get a win win because he doesn't want to spend more money and you want to get more money, right? And so, but when it comes to interpersonal things, we can sometimes get to a win win situation. And so that's your goal. That's the ideal. You get what you want, and they get what they want. All right. Now may not always happen, but don't think of it as a win lose situation because if the other person loses, they're going to have resentment. And if you lose, you're going to have resentment. So the next level, the Win win, we call that collaboration is compromise. Now compromise is a lose lose situation, but you're not you're losing at a much lower level. So each of you gets a little bit of your goal, but not all of your goal. And if you think of it that way, it's sort of a partial win, right? It's a, you know, it's not a win a true win, but you gave up a little bit of something too. And so I think that's the idea is to first come in with the mindset of, we've got to make this work, ideally, Win win, but at best compromise, how can we compromise? So I think I think partly it's the mindset. Now, you may encounter another person who is hell bent on, I'm going to win and you're going to lose and at that point, you have to say, hey, this doesn't work for me. And either you're going to compromise, you know, or you know what, you can start by saying the positive maybe we how can we make this a win win situation? They say that's impossible. Okay. How can we compromise because other than that, I'd say move away from that situation. If that other person is hell bent on making you lose, then you need to remove yourself from that situation.
Michael 28:40
So in my scenario, and I don't, I don't. By the way, I my last episode, I said I'm going to stop being so vulnerable. I think I lied, because I don't think I can do that. It's just not in my nature. So I want to because I feel like I had to protect myself, because I've had some hurts recently. And I know that there are probably people and I'm, I know I'm being kind of vague here but there. There are some folks that probably feel the opposite of what I'm feeling right now. In terms of they probably feel the way that I I feel and so my conflict resolution skills are I shut down and I go away. Right. And Mike my my my biggest issue is, is I can't have difficult conversations because I'm so afraid of, of words, hurting me because words do hurt. They hurt me. I'm a very sensitive dude. I know I'm six foot two bald tattoos but I'm a sensitive fella. And words hurt. And so I avoid words I assume and I know this is some inner child stuff outside of you around but I assume that a lot of it is I'm that that little fella if he can't take those words. I can't take that hurt. And so he tries to avoid it. I try to avoid it. And I don't know how to get past that. I don't know how to. I just assume everyone's good. ventually gonna go like Well, yeah, well you're a fucking idiot and your podcasts sucks and you're a moron and you shouldn't you deserve to be divorced. And so I don't want to have conversations. I just want I just want to walk away from it. And I know that that's not the right way to do it. I know that that hurts people's feelings. I know that probably led to my divorce. And I'm at least nothing I'm at least conscious and aware of it. But how do I get past that piece where I am just so afraid even have a conversation and these are not not with? Like if you and I had a disagreement, we could have a disagreement. I've had disagreements on this podcast, not many of them. I don't like to see my earlier comments, but especially someone that is, like close to me, or you know, I know fairly well. How do I get past having those difficult? Like, how do I how do you practice that?
Dr. Ron 30:46
Yeah. Well, I mean, the first thing when it comes to conflict is avoidance is is easy, right? I mean, we just avoid that. But we know that that's never going to resolve it's never going to lead to resolution. Right. So, you know, so the question is, so first, I mean, I think about courage, right? You've got to be courageous. And you've got to go out there you know, and I get it right. I mean, it's it's one thing to, you know, go out there physically and say, well, somebody he's gonna punch me in the face, but I can take it right. Right. But But now you're saying well, emotionally, the emotional punch I can't take because I have a sensitivity there. So first, I think you have to build up that, you know, the courage to say I'm going to take an emotional hit. And but I'm not going to let it you know, get to me. And I think a lot of that is to think of the worst case scenario kind of approach. I mean, a lot of psychologists talk about this, what's the worst thing that could happen the worst while your feelings get hurt, you know, but But and then play it all out and say, Well, what is that going to mean? Okay, well, I'm gonna hurt for a little while. I might have some resentment. But, you know, maybe I can get over the resentment and you know, so you have to kind of do that sort of worst case scenario. And what you'll find often is that if you picture a worst case scenario, what you're actually going to experience is far, far less than a worst case scenario. You know, rather than a major hurt, it's going to be a very minor hurt in the scheme of things. So you have to kind of do that. But I also think that one of the things that that kind of gotten into the last few years in the leadership realm is this idea of want to develop your character and part of your character is having the courage to go into these kinds of situations, these emotional situations and and do what needs to be done and take the hits. You know, the emotional hits, but realize that the other end you're going to come out stronger for it, you know, and build up that that that courage, that resiliency, that sort of emotional resiliency. And again, it's not easy, but you need to do it you need you know, because avoidance isn't going to help. And so you know about but the other thing too is, you know, a big part of this is perspective taking when it comes to conflict resolution, getting yourself in the other person's shoes and thinking about how they think about things and and and so that's the social level, what are they thinking? Well, they're thinking they want to win and they want to get this outcome and whatever. But then also put yourself in their emotional shoes and think about what are they feeling? What are they experiencing? And if they're experiencing this if they're experiencing threat, for example, I'm threatening to them. How can I be less threat? Right? So turn it around and say, Okay, I'm going to meet this person and understand this person. How can I get inside their heart, their emotions, and realize what's making them tick at an emotional level? And then how can I defuse that? How can I work on that? Right? And it's hard, I mean, but if you got the person you can, you can do that.
Michael 34:11
I think I get wrapped up in my own shit so much that I don't take the time sometimes to think about that. Like I don't consider other people's feelings because I'm so wrapped up by him and my own because I'm so sensitive and I'm so easy to hurt.
Dr. Ron 34:27
Yeah, well, then, you know, that's the that's what I've talked about that key to listening to the other person is we get so prepared. When we're in an interaction. We don't listen to the other person because we're thinking about what we're going to say next. Right. And you got to just put that on hold. You got to say, okay, um, you know, so think of it like, you know, you're the therapist. Or you're the counselor, tell me, you tell me more, tell me until you get enough that you understand it, because you can always share your side later. You know, so, so spend the time and the other thing too is, you know, it really works. So you know, we did this stuff with college students years ago and what we did was we worked with the guys on on enlisting to other people you know, getting in touch with the you know, the their partner's feelings the girl you know, this is boyfriends and girlfriends in college, you know, and the feedback we got after was, you know, the more I listened and the more i i was attentive to their emotional cues, you know, I got positive feedback. You know, my girlfriend said, Gosh, you become so warm. You kind of understand me, you get me, you know, you stopped being emotionally cold and distant, and then that was reinforcing to them. And then they did it more, you know, and so they got bigger gains, partly because they were getting rewarded from their partner, you know, so that's when you know, it's working when your partner says, hey, you know, you've changed in a good way. You know, now this is going to take time, it's not going to happen overnight or whatever. But
Michael 36:07
in terms of like, we were talking to leadership, and I felt like recently being being in a leadership position and being vulnerable. I felt like that was a misstep and a mistake, like in terms of like, I've coached men, I was coaching men the to get through this shit show that is divorce. And, and, and so that's sort of a therapist like I'm not I didn't wish I would have fucking I wish I would have went to therapy school and got got my psychology degree and all that stuff. But, but I went, I didn't and I was. So it's sort of like that sort of dynamic. And and sort of, I'm guessing sort of like in a professor role to like how vulnerable can you be in those roles and still expect a certain level of
Dr. Ron 37:01
prestige or Yeah,
Michael 37:04
because if I if I'm if especially a therapist, I would say more or or that we're a professor where it's like, you're you're like, guys, I don't know this problem is really tough or whatever, you know, that's the subject you're teaching and you're you're struggling with it. Like how much do you so I went through a program with it with a coach and I developed my own but the program I went through, the guy was very much above the fray. You know, he would lead meetings weekly, but he wouldn't dive into the daily nitty gritty. And I always felt like I didn't want to do it like that. I dove in, you know, and I started sharing all of my, my fuck ups and stuff, and I felt like, does that affect it? must affect perception. And I think maybe my expectation wasn't really getting into it here. My expectation was, I would have gotten the same level of support, and maybe it was given I just didn't see it, but I didn't feel like it. And then maybe I became resentful. I'm sort of getting off track a little bit here, but like, I guess, go back to my question, which is, how vulnerable can you be in a leadership position and expect to be seen as a leader?
Dr. Ron 38:13
Well, I think that again, it's that delicate balance, right? You have to maintain your authority or whatever you want to call it. But, but you can show vulnerability, and there's lots of research that supports this that that we want to see our leaders as human as caring about us, right? And you know, this goes back to the old thing they say by George W. He doesn't look much like a leader but he's the kind of guy you want to sit down and have a beer right? Right. Remember that? Yeah, sure. And so we want both of those things. We want our leader to be the you know, the strong, you know, person we can count on in a in a difficult situation, but we also want them to be personable, you know, and and gosh, I faced this as, you know, a faculty member, I'm supposed to be, you know, sort of positive role model. I can't, you know, I can't, you know, get get down and dirty or whatever, you know, or, or get too close, you know, you got to maintain that distance. But what I tried to do, and you know, is maintain that air of authority in kind of the classroom setting, but then encouraged the students to come one on one and there I can share things a little bit better when it's in a one on one situation. So, and you know, sometimes you can be straight with people too, because gotcha. I remember what to you so, when students go up to defend their dissertation, right, so this is they're going to become a doctor or whatever. We're, you get you have a panel of faculty members, and I remember this woman student going, God I walked into the room, and I thought you guys are going to eat me alive. You know, cuz I looked in you all look so serious and all that. And I said, You know what, that's our game face. You know? It's a test and so we have to have the game face. But think, you know, but we're not in our hearts. We're not that way. We want you to pass we want you to get done, you know, and, but don't just look at the surface. And so I think that's one of the things you want to say to people. If you're in a leadership role, or you're in a you know, I'm I'm doing this because of these reasons. I need to look professional I need to I need to maintain some distance. If you're coaching, I need to maintain that distance. Understand that. But I do feel for you. I do. You know, I talked about different kinds of empathy. There's a really good series of studies, that there's sort of really three types of empathy, empathy. Okay? The first is perspective taking. And that's purely cognitive. I get it, you know, you're going through a divorce, you're going to have negative, you know, feelings, you're going to feel hurt and all that, but I get it at an intellectual level. Okay. That's the that's just perspective taking and it's important, okay. Second is what's called empathic concern. Now I get it, I could put myself in your shoes and I could feel what you're feeling but I'm not feeling it right now. And that's what a therapist does. They they say, okay, I can get the wit you know, the distress you're feeling, but I'm not feeling distress. The third is what leads to emotional contagion. I'd literally feel your pain. And a third good therapist doesn't want to have that because they have to have that separation. But a good friend might have that and say, you know, kind of went through it too. But then they've got to move it away from that if they're going to be effective in counseling you back to the empathic concern. They've got to put their own feelings on hold, because what happens is, you know, think about it. If you go to a friend who's gone through the same negative experience, and you both start crying together, there's not going to be any healing, right? You're going to wallow in your in your misery, right? And so you have to get to that second level of I understand it, but to help you through it, I can't feel your pain, but I can understand it, and I'm going to help you deal with that pain. So you always want to stay in that level. Right?
Michael 42:15
Yeah, I I suppose maybe I wasn't ready, or I utilized the group in a way that I shouldn't have. And, you know, all I can do is learn and try and fix it and or, you know, be better going forward. But definitely the one thing and I'll go sort of go back to this a little bit. It's just this sort of my sensitivity, like, how do I get a thicker skin like because I feel like I'm incredibly sensitive. And like, I like that part of me in general. But sometimes it is not a strength. Yeah, sometimes it is a weakness.
Dr. Ron 42:49
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think you need to you need to, you know, work on that in terms of, you know, why am I why am I taking things so personally, why am I letting it get to me? And yeah, you do have to build up a little bit of a tougher skin you know,
Michael 43:05
how do you do that though? Like I people say that but how do you do like, I'm a man and I think I'll roll like this like you tell me the steps to take the instruction manual. I will I will actually read this one and I'll try it. Like what are the specifically and you know, I'm not I'm not gonna call you. Dude, I tried these. It didn't work. Yeah, like,
Dr. Ron 43:26
I mean, you know, I think in this case, yeah. That's where you you need to, you know, you need to like talk to a therapist, right. I mean, yeah, I've got this, you know, and, and I, I know you were well, anyway, I mean, I think, you know, it's it's okay to reach out for professional assistance. And yeah,
Michael 43:47
I mean, I have I have a therapist, but we haven't dove into this yet. It hasn't come up, right because I say this all the time. I was telling my buddy Chris this yesterday. It's like, if there was like a computer simulation program like a thing I could virtual reality and people would pop up in my life and randomly insult me and then I would be able to figure out how to navigate that shit. But that doesn't exist. And so these moments don't happen every day. Right? And how I just don't know how you practice something that's not seemingly not practicable.
Dr. Ron 44:18
Well, I think a good therapist would help you with that. A good therapist would say you know, okay, imagine this scenario. And this person says this hurtful thing to you and you go, yeah, that would really hurt. Why would it hurt and then they would work through that with you, and try to help you develop that. That so I
Michael 44:36
think that's what we're doing now. Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, thank you.
Dr. Ron 44:41
And, you know, the reality is, you know, what's the worst case scenario? You know, I don't know, man, a total fool of yourself. Hey, I'm a self calm. You know, it personally, I'm as self conscious as anyone else, you know, but you have to develop this, this ability to say, you know, what's the worst thing you have? So I embarrassed myself, okay. But I'm not going to die. I'm not going to I'm not going to be shut out of you know, you know, and and, and maybe you really offended or lead to an you know, some kind of breakdown in a relationship. And a friendship or something like that. You know, is it going to kill the friendship, you know, and you can always go to the person and say, you know, look, I did this. I think I wrecked our friendship. You know, and can you assure me that, you know, or can we talk about that? And you know, and you'll find out it wasn't that big of a deal person got upset. They thought about it. They're not going to, you know, it's not the end of the relationship necessarily. And if it is, then you want to say, well, you want to defend yourself and say it was that relationship we're saving if the person went off because I made one mistake. And hey, it's because of my own vulnerability. And if they can't handle my own vulnerability, then why the heck do I want to be associated with
Michael 46:02
Yeah, I think I you know, I just, I made some major. I know
Dr. Ron 46:05
it's hard. That's the thing. It's very hard to develop this. You know, I do a lot around leader development. And, and it's, it takes a lot of work to become a good leader, you know, and, in fact, the last book I wrote was, I did that during COVID. And it was called, it's called Daily leadership development. And it's What can you do? Just every day you don't like the idea is to put it on your, on your nightstand, read a page a day and say, okay, and because the end it tells you what can I do today to hone this leadership skill or to you know, to gain this piece of knowledge or whatever, and the idea is, got to do it. Every day, you know? So,
Michael 46:49
I, I always kind of fell into leadership roles, because I'm just going to be honest, I'm tall and white. So a
Dr. Ron 47:00
lot of people become leaders because other people look to them and say, Hey, step up. You look, you know, you're tall.
Michael 47:07
I mean, I think I mean, if you I know the average height for CEOs in America, six foot two, I'm six foot two. I mean, I'm not saying that makes me see you. I'm just saying I think that that's a component and I always felt like, you know, when I was a military when I went through boot camp, I was Sergeant Mattis master at arms, sorry, maybe fellas, mastered arms like that was a leadership position that I was sort of thrust into. And so it always sort of falls on my lap in sometimes absolutely positively because of my choices. Like I decided I was going to help people through divorce and I made that decision. And and but I hate fucking hate fucking up. I hate messing up. I hate this attorney into a therapy session clearly, but
Dr. Ron 47:52
I think I think a lot of that is is going through this process of learning that, you know, it isn't that bad. People make mistakes. We're human. And it needs to, you know, develop that resilience to say, messed up. I'm going to try to do better next time. I'm going to probably mess up again, but I'll always try to improve and look at it as you know, the sort of baby steps idea, you know, step by step. I'm getting better every day, you know, but But you know, and realize too, it's not this way. It's not a upward trend. There are times and this we know this from leadership development. My colleague who's a real expert in Leadership Development says if you track a leaders development, it there are times where they just dropped down to the bottom you know, again and then but then they have to work their way back up. You know, that it's it's not a straight upward path. It's peaks and valleys right peaks and valleys.
Michael 48:56
No, I'm certainly in a valley for sure.
Dr. Ron 48:59
Well, didn't get what I would say is work your way out of that figure out say, I'm not going to stay down here in this valley. How am I
Michael 49:07
know if you know if I'm not if there's a lot of things I am and I like a lot of parts of me and I am a resilient person for sure. I don't intend on not learning from this experience. And to be quite frank, I haven't learned enough from my divorce yet because this is one of the central reasons is I was unable to have difficult conversations because I'm fucking sensitive. And I don't want to get my feelings hurt so I'll just avoid and I need to fucking stop it. And I feel like I've made a lot of strides and understanding myself and and and I thought doing just just doing stuff like this like being vulnerable and being open and saying these things and you know, not just this topic, but many others that surround this divorce stuff. I thought that that was enough. Or, or maybe I'd hoped it was not I don't know, I just I felt like if I could just be open and honest. That that would be enough to sort of be a leader and to and to also heal because I'm expressing I'm talking but I haven't done enough of making fundamental changes of my personality. And I just, you know, and I hear you in terms of you know, I I think I got out sort of, I don't know get over it's such a I don't like the phrase but like I need to get beyond this, this fear of being hurt by people's words. Because that's it's not it's not embarrassment, or, I mean, I've said so many dumb fucking things on his podcast. You know, this is episode one. This is gonna be episode 120. If anybody wanted to take the time and comb through, I said some really dumb shit. I'm sure that so I don't care about that. But it's that it's that piece. Like I've had I've had people like, you know, people that that reach out negatively and like, you know, say really negative shit. That doesn't bother as much because I don't know them. It's the people that that are in my life that are able to just those words are like a you know a ship and
Dr. Ron 51:04
okay, let me give you an analogy. Okay, you know there are these guys that they work on their develop their six pack right their stomach muscles and they want to show you how strong their stomach muscles are. So punch me punch me in the gut. Right? You know, okay, what you're doing is you're you're doing the emotional equivalent of that. You're saying, Hey, I you know, punch me in the gut. Okay, but you haven't developed the this muscles to deal with it. And so your people have punched in the gut before you've developed your six pack to protect yourself. Right? And so that's really what you need to do. You need to work on developing that that thicker emotional skin and learning how and the only way you're going to do that is through cognitively reframing it and saying, I What's the worst you know, what's the worst things going to happen? You know, and get over that. You know, the hurt, make the hurt less, you know, because the guy getting punched in the gut. It probably still hurts, but don't do any damage. You know, and because he's he's got the resilience. And so it's always going to hurt a little bit, but it hurts less as you get stronger.
Michael 52:19
So I think I think you just I think you just called me out in the nicest way ever. You're right. You're right. You're right. I want to be somewhere and I sort of maybe I don't know, pretend is the right word. That's awfully harsh.
Dr. Ron 52:35
So I'll tell you something that that Bernie Carducci, this shyness guy taught me. He said, You know, there's really two kinds of shy people. There's people who are sort of so just really shy in a traditional sense. And they're the people who are over analyzing things. They're overly sensitive. They they don't put themselves out there because they're afraid of getting hurt. But if you don't put yourself out there, you're not gonna make any progress. Right? And so that's the deal and what they become is the social wallflower think of them at the big dance, right? And they're there and they're standing back watching, and they're picking out all kinds of things because they're so sensitive, and they're going, Oh, that guy is going to hit on that girl and you know, and boy, I'd sure like to go up and ask that girl to dance, but I fear the rejection. And it's that over sensitivity that's keeping you from engaging and going up and asking and the worst case scenario, they say no, get out of here, you creep. I don't think people are gonna go that far. But even if they did, what would it what would be the will that says something about how do you develop the resist resistance, their resilience? If they called you a creep that says something about them that doesn't say anything about you, because all you did was appropriately ask them if they wanted to dance, right? So you shouldn't feel you know, somebody oversteps on their side that's about them. That's not about you. And you got to develop that kind of thinking.
Michael 54:04
Yeah, and I do think that, you know, I wasn't the only one that made mistakes or I mean, I certainly you know, was the leader and I handled all very poorly but but there were absolutely missteps throughout it, but you know, as a leader, I there's some things that I you know, should have should have sort of nipped in the bud or,
Dr. Ron 54:21
you know, there's a truism about leader development leaders learn much more from their mistakes than they do from their successes. We do we do a post mortem, we do. You know, after review, when we fail. We rarely do an after review, and we succeed because when we succeed, we just think, oh, that's, that's normal, right? So the reality is, you know, you learn a lot more from your mistakes, but you can also learn from your successes. So do a post mortem for a success and say, Hey, that went really well. Why did it go? Well, well, because I said this, or I did that, you know. And so that's the other thing is really do these after action reviews and say how can I learn from this?
Michael 55:10
Well, I mean, that's definitely what I'm trying to do now. I mean, it's it's very recent, and so it's all sort of very, I'm not I'm not a religious fellow, but man, sometimes things happen and you go boy, that seems to line up like literally days ago and here you are being able to address some of these things with me and for me, and so thank you. I know that this definitely turned into a therapy session. But those to me are the good ones. That's why people listen, I believe it's because there is someone that can relate to what I'm saying 100,000% And they're gonna get something from this interview therapy session. That will help them for sure. Well,
Dr. Ron 55:44
you know, so let me kind of let me let me cuz you listeners might want some resources and things. And I think you found me through Psychology Today, right?
Michael 55:53
I yeah, I was I was thinking earlier on. I walked for lunch and I walked back and I was thinking, if psychology today.com Does ads, they really ought to contact me because I found that I nearly all of my guests come from psychology.com But anyway, yes, that's how I found you. Yeah,
Dr. Ron 56:11
so So what I'm at the stage of my career, where I'm trying to like I call it giving away the psychology right trying to you know, and so that's why I blog. You know, I do that I don't do this because you know, for the money or fame or whatever. I mean, I do it because I have a knowledge base. I'm trying to give it away the last book I talked about the daily leadership development book, I self published it purposely because I wanted to keep the cost low. I wanted to be out there for people. It's if you want to get the ebook which the day you can't put the ebook on your nightstand, but I guess you could put it into your phone and read it. I kept it at 999 which is as low as they'll go to anyone on Amazon. So the idea is I'm trying to get this, you know, what I've learned through this whole career out to people to try to help them because you know enough about what works and what doesn't work. Right. And so that's the point. And so if people are, you know, turn to a trusted source, I mean, I think I mean Psychology Today there, you know, there's some pop stuff in there and all that, but I think pretty much they've been monitoring things so you can find these these useful sites that can help you and so definitely, you know, it. It's like anything, it's like, I mean, I'm a college professor, you know, I tell the students you don't read the textbook. You don't prepare beforehand. You don't come with the right mindset of learning. You're never going to learn anything you can get through you can get Cs but you won't know anything. When you get out. You have a sheet of paper that says you got a college degree but you don't have any knowledge you know, so you know, you got to work at it.
Michael 57:56
Is there is there a book? I mean, besides, you know, the one you just mentioned that you wrote, is there another book that was really helpful in your journey or that you know, people have recommended for sort of having difficult conversations, conflict, resolution, that kind of stuff. Is there anything that you would recommend
Dr. Ron 58:12
Yeah, I think I think they're, well, there's not there's not a single book comes to mind. But I would say, go and look at these, you know, do read reviews of some of the books that you know, that'll help you you know, I'm more in kind of the leadership areas I you know, I think about you know, books that helped develop leadership you know, which is probably not not for your audience but but go out and investigate and some of that and you know, read a little bit and you don't it doesn't have to be a book. That's why I bring up the site today. They typically are your two to five minute reads. I mean, it's not a big investment. Oh, yeah. No,
Michael 58:50
I love that website. It's a wealth of knowledge. And it's provided me with many folks that I've interviewed. So as you know, the last question that I asked everybody and we'll get to, you know, where people could find you and your books and stuff. But the last question I asked everybody is what words of wisdom would you impart to a man just beginning his divorce journey?
Dr. Ron 59:09
Yeah. So the first like, take care of yourself and take care of yourself physically, right. Do the right things don't you know, don't over eat, don't over drink, don't you know, physical well being but also mental well being, get your you know, and again, using the exercise analogy, it's going to take some work, you're going to have to work out you're going to have to work at it both the physical and the mental. Second, seek out support, okay, you don't have to do this alone. Whether that's professional counseling, and I think there's nothing better than professional counseling because these people are trained. Realize, though, you might have to shop around to find somebody who you're going to who's going to really help you. Or if you're a trusted friend, a trusted colleague, reach out to people and then the last thing is that motivation, get motivated. Don't, don't sit on your butt. You know, get motivated to make yourself better to work at it. realize it's going to be hard work. It's going to take some actual physical work like going out, joining us speaking group or whatever, or getting yourself out there into a social situation so that you can try things out. But you know, also maintain that motivation in your heart to keep keep getting better.
Michael 1:00:30
Dr. Ron, thank you so very much for doing this. Where can people reach you find you your books and anything that you do? Psychology Today?
Dr. Ron 1:00:37
Yeah, Psychology Today my blog. It's called cutting edge leadership but I talk about all this stuff. I don't you know, just stick with leadership. So, personal stuff actually might stuff on nonverbal communication gets the most hits and everything so often talking about that. So that's one way if they're interested, I have a website. It's a regio leadership.org. And I occasionally put up some of the blog posts there and that's also how you can get the daily leadership development book. Most of my rest of my books are pretty academic books. So they'd only be really for for an audience that was really seriously interested in the study of leadership. But you know, my daughter helped me with the daily leadership development book. She said, What's in this dad? I said, like everything I know, I put you know, it's, it's not a it's not a thin book. I know this is a podcast, but you know, yeah, it's a toll. But But, but it's in bite sized chunks. Okay. It's a page a day essential. Oh, wow.
Michael 1:01:43
Oh, that's cool. Definitely check it out. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you again, for doing this. I really, really appreciate it. You know, hopefully, we will do this again in the future. And I'll have a little bit. I'll have some growth to talk about. So yeah.
Dr. Ron 1:01:58
And feel free to reach out to me and keep me posted. How you doing?
Michael 1:02:01
I will thank you very much, sir.
Dr. Ron 1:02:03
Okay. All right. Take care.
Michael 1:02:04
You too. Bye. Alrighty, sir. I appreciate you very much. That definitely was a therapy recording stopped. Unfortunately, I can't pay you but I do appreciate your
Dr. Ron 1:02:17
time. That's okay. Like I said, I'm giving this away. You know, I mean, if we can reach some people and help some people, that's what that's what I'm
Michael 1:02:24
trying. That's, that's what I'm trying to do. You know. So hopefully we do. If I get any, you know, feedback, I'll definitely you know, send it your way. And, you know, hopefully we'll we'll stay in touch. Yeah, yeah,
Dr. Ron 1:02:34
let me know how you're doing. You know, so so give me the details. When were you divorced and, and
Michael 1:02:39
yeah, so it's been she left over four years ago. Okay. July 2019. Is when she left but the divorce process took forever. We actually weren't officially divorced until January of this year. And it's still not even 100% finalized because of a transfer of 401k. It's Brad. Sure. There's always there's always some little Wow. And she she told me she sued me because it wasn't that her lawyer couldn't figure out how to fill up. They sued me blaming me I'm like, anyway, so it was you know, it's been a while I went through I went through life coaching school. At the angry therapist, John Kim. He has his own life coaching school. I went through that I took a couple of different programs self help stuff, I read so many books and and I started this podcast and I you know, I thought I was in a really good place and for a long time I was and then I started a new job last November and it really has thrown me for a loop. And it's drained my resources might just end being a single father and just I'm exhausted and and I started
Dr. Ron 1:03:43
did you have in the relationship good to two, okay. So you deal with the kids right?
Michael 1:03:47
To nine and 14. They're both girls. That's, you know, they're great kids, but that's, you know, that has its own challenges.
Dr. Ron 1:03:55
Yeah, and then there are those who are child you know, 14 is definitely a challenging age. And so I you know, hey, I'm on my fourth marriage. Holy shit. Yeah. Like, I'm like up there with Liz Taylor. Right. But yeah, and you know, my first one was got married too young, you know, made a mistake, you know, and we set you know, and she's great. And, you know, that was million years ago. And I, you know, I was drawn to damage women, you know, to, you know, and so first one I had a daughter with her. I mean, the first one were the first marriage was more like a girlfriend kind of thing. But that one was rough. She put our daughter in between she was a narcissist, you know, he had an eating disorder at all and, like, you know, why am I drawn to them? My next one was I come to realize she's borderline personality like a textbook, where when she's warm and good, man, she's exciting as hell. That's what got us together. But when she goes to the dark side, and that I got PTSD from I mean, I literally at one point, she clocked me. And I told her to back off and you know, and I might, you know, broke my glasses. My face is bleeding. I called I said get away or I'm going to 911 She got arrested right for domestic violence. Right. Wow. bail her out. So I had some ups and downs. But that one, I still have PTSD. The other morning I woke up in a nightmare because of you know, so, you know, it's rough. I mean, it's fortunate, but I'm just saying that the deal is I've dealt with, with both of those divorces. I've married a wonderful woman now. We're great, everything's fine. And she helps me with a lot of this. But but, you know, he happens in my sleep or whatever, you know. And so
Michael 1:05:57
that's, that's the one that's the one topic I haven't addressed yet his dreams and nightmares and stuff, because I hear it all the time. And I'm trying to find someone that specializes in that stuff. It's been I wish
Dr. Ron 1:06:07
I knew somebody but you know, it's always shaky stuff, right? Because there's people who are kind of charlatans,
Michael 1:06:14
right, they're woowoo and put a crystal up your ass and take away my marriage or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's tough man. It's and that's why I do this because you know, I I was suicidal for sure. Thankfully, I had a really really great friend who was also went through it and he has continues to this day to help me through any struggles I have. I run a Facebook group that's got 7000 men in it and then I started my own coaching group and that had a shut it all down. i I heard a lot of feelings. Walked away and because of a conflict i i think i i definitely hurt some feelings and there's some fractured relationships and you know, I'm I'm trying not to beat myself up. But it man is it's just I feel like I fucked up and I think it was probably doomed because of the job thing. I just I tried to hold on to it. I hired a guy to help me out he he went through my program and but he wasn't really trained. It was it was sort of a life preserver. And he did his best and he was okay and it just but it just I tried to hold on to it and I should have shut it down a long time ago.
Dr. Ron 1:07:24
Well, I mean, one thing is good, you know, try to get some resolution with that. You know, I mean, I mean you know, maybe it's a good mass apology and say, hey, you know, and admitting to it, and, you know, and then moving on, you know, because we made mistakes and you just got to move on from it. You can't you can't dwell, you know, the worst thing is rumination. Right? Yeah. I you know, I go How the hell did I get myself into these circumstances, right. I mean, you know, but But you got to you got to stop that you got to as much as you can. It's always there. Gotta stop it. And you got to say, you know, this is not doing me any good. I gotta move. Yeah.
Michael 1:08:02
I don't feel like you know, 100% I don't think it was all my fault but I definitely could have handled it better should have handled should, it would have been good if I handled it better.
Dr. Ron 1:08:12
What you learned and the next time you don't, don't you know, hopefully you learn you don't do it again. Yeah,
Michael 1:08:16
yeah. Well, I don't think I'll do like I said, I, I felt like I was so it was a Facebook group was a small and private one. I don't wanna keep it too. Long. But it was a small private Facebook group. And I would do live videos that was part of the process to you know, guys, you know, here's your assignment, come on and tell about you know, your Narrative Therapy assignment or whatever. And I would do the same thing. And so in terms of like, Oh, I'm struggling with this thing, and I'm struggling with that thing. And I think I feel like I brought myself down to their level and I don't mean that to sound like I'm above them, but you know what I'm saying like, Yeah, I think as a therapist, coach, whatever, I know, they're not the same. I'm not as all at all saying, but but I think I sort of lowered myself and I think when I did that I expected to support back and I think they didn't give it because they didn't either see that I really needed it or they didn't know how or the expectation was different. I don't know. But I became hurt. And I was like, Well, this is not I just doesn't feel like a safe place anymore. Because I feel like I'm saying things that I'm not getting support back. Instead, I'm getting sort of almost criticisms because there was one guy, he was my first paying client, and he was done with the program for months. And he would, he got very anxious because I wasn't replying to his comments or watching his videos or whatever. And it's just, some of it was he was annoying the shit out of me for another reason and some of it was just fucking busy. And he kept picking at me and picking at me and picking on me, and I just I fucking kind of blew up and just stuck and shut it all down instead of like having a conversation with him and say, this is you know, you need to stop this and that and this and that, but also, not for nothing. I'm I can't do this anymore, because I'm too. I'm too tapped out. Yeah,
Dr. Ron 1:09:57
well, that but you just you just did the analysis. You said you should oh, you should have done it one on one. You should have stopped that. But but on the other hand, you were taken on too much and Oh, yeah. Yeah. So don't have the, you know, the regret, sit and say, you know, I did this. It was a decision I made at that point in time. And this, you know, here's the positives, here's the negatives. Hopefully the positives outweigh the negatives because you don't have that ring around your neck, that burden around you
Michael 1:10:29
Yeah, well, that that's that's one of the positives. I don't have to deal with it anymore. But I guess you know, and again, I don't want to keep you I apologize, but I guess the only thing that I worry about is like what did I do any damage to this guy? Like Did I hurt him but in some kind of way? Yeah, but it's
Dr. Ron 1:10:45
water under the bridge. She can't do anything. No, that's true. I mean, unless you want to reach out to him and I wouldn't recommend that because it probably was not a great relationship with probably more his what's going on with him and going on with you?
Michael 1:10:57
Well, I definitely think that was a part of it. It was like it was like he was increasing his negativity towards me to get my attention. And I didn't give it I didn't give it and I was hoping it would go away. Right?
Dr. Ron 1:11:07
Yeah. Yeah, but when you have that many people, you're going to have an outlier. You're going to have he's going to, you know, not there's nothing you can do. You know, I mean, yeah, that's true. Think of it from a leadership. I mean, I we tell this all the time to leaders, you know, yes, you try to bring everybody in on the team or whatever. Sometimes you got to fire their ass because I mean, if you're not, if they just don't click, you're going to have problems and you got to get rid of the problems and you got to not have remorse and you got to pull the trigger on it. And that's that's part of the process, you know, because there are people out there who will totally disrupt things. And you gotta get over.
Michael 1:11:51
Yeah, I mean, what choice do you have, right? Yeah, sometimes Sometimes I hate that phrase. Get over it. But, but it's, I mean, what are your other options? Like I don't want to sit around all day stewing about this.
Dr. Ron 1:12:01
There's no good no good comes from that. No, good. Now, watch. Once you've analyzed it and learn the lesson. And you got the lesson. There's no you can't. You can't analyze it and find another lesson. Likely that's very unlikely. So drop it to the next thing.
Michael 1:12:19
Well, again, thank you. No problem.
Dr. Ron 1:12:23
Good luck with everything kind of keep in touch. Let me know how everything's going. Yeah,
Michael 1:12:27
well, and I'll definitely get your book and, you know, we'll definitely have you back on I appreciate you doing it.
Dr. Ron 1:12:31
Okay. All right. Take care.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai