Are you? And, we are going to dive into this content talking about how to navigate these conversations with confidence, and as Anna said, with some ease as well. Okay.Let's see. And my mouse is not letting me click when you put the slides up there. Oh, there we go. My mouse disappeared. So we're gonna take a short time to introduce a really big topic to you, and some of the things that we're gonna cover in our time have to do with how to approach hard conversations with more clarity, having more confidence, bringing in that element of compassion and empathy, and how to strengthen your workplace relationships and collaboration.

One of the things that's so interesting right now, regardless of where you are in your career journey, if you were just starting out, if you're dreaming about your career, if you're well into your career, one of the things we know to be true is that communication, conflict resolution, and navigating difficult conversations are in the top 10 skills that employers are looking for.

They're critical to collaboration, and we know how much we collaborate these days online and offline. I'm gonna skip this slide because Anna did such a beautiful job of introducing me. We're gonna dive into content and I'm gonna get you queued up to do some typing in the chat box. When I say the word conflict, difficult conversation, struggling in difficult conversation, what is the word or emotion that comes up for you in your mind when I say conflict, difficult conversation, hard conversation, please type that in the chat box and know there is no right or no wrong to this question, and I'm looking forward to seeing your answers.

So I say conflict, you feel or think what? If you're like many people, what people think about is things like and the answers are coming in now. Oh, wonderful. Inevitable. Oh, thank you for that. That's that's so true. We have to have conflict in our workplaces. It's how we manage them. Seeing some things around necessary. This is a very positive mindset group of people here, and lots of emotions like fear and confrontation and anxiety, seeing quite a few fears, negative stress, relationship breakdowns. These are all this list that you're putting here are all some of the things that we experience when we think about or talk about conflict. They happen in our body and they happen in our mind. So what's really important to understand is that the way that we think about conflict and conflict resolution really shapes how we show up in it.

For example, if we are thinking, oh, this is a conversation I'm absolutely dreading. I wish I could avoid it. I wish it would go away. If that's our mindset, that's the energy we bring into the conversation. We bring in that fear, that dread. And what I hope you'll take away today is what if we replace those thoughts? Instead of I'm dreading this conversation, this is gonna be a confrontation, to something like I got this. I can do this. I've got some skills. This is a chance to understand one another. This is a chance to resolve this important issue. So that importance of mindset shifting is really critical. Now when we experience things that feel like a threat, for many of us conflict feels like a threat.

We have different responses and some of you will be very familiar with some of these fonts responses. Fight, flight, fear, freeze, and fawn. We're gonna talk about four, fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. Many have heard the first three, and the one that's highlighted on the end might be new for some of us. So let's look at look at what are these responses. How do they happen for us? Sometimes in the midst of a threat, such as conflict, we go into what we call fight mode, and we might become a bit combative or confrontational. We might have the surge of anger. We might notice our body is changing. It becomes tense. Our jaw might become tense. Our body might feel tense.

We might kind of be clenching our fists. Our breathing increases. Our temperature increases. And this response is one where we're just wanting to tackle that conversation. We just wanna get that problem resolved. But our approach might be, too amplified, too escalated. The fight is the the flight is complete opposite. So we go into more of that fear mode. We wanna avoid that conversation at all costs. We wanna avoid the risks that are associated with it. And what we might be noticing within our body, and we've probably all been in fight or flight before. We start noticing that we are looking for the exit, so our eyes are kind of darting around. We are, feeling nervousness. We might be feeling like, we want to just escape. Our mind might become very busy with other things distracting us from the actual conflict at hand.

When we go into freeze mode, what's happening here is it almost feels like we're paralyzed, like we're stuck, like we can't move. Some people describe this as being like in a movie where you're watching things happen around you, and you're in it, but you're watching it happening. And with freeze, this can be a real challenge for us because we're indecisive. We have a hard time making decisions, and this feeling can be overwhelming. Again, we notice some changes in our body such as we are noticing that our body might feel a little numb, our temperature might be changing, our heart rate might be going down, it's decreasing, and we're just really feeling stuck. When we go into fawn, this is something that all of us have probably experienced at one time as well, that in the in the midst of discomfort, what we wanna do is make everything better. We people please. We over apologize. We take on responsibility that isn't ours to take on.

And so sometimes what happens is we're putting the other person's needs in front of our own, and it's really hard to set boundaries in this place. So these are some of the things that come into those hard conversations with us. Now remember, mindset shapes everything. So if we wanna change some of what we're experiencing, pay attention to what's happening up here, asking yourself, what am I noticing right now? What is it that my body is telling me? What am I feeling? What is that emotion? These are all part of a mindset check-in, and they're that first way that we can navigate hard conversations. Because wherever we are in our career, we're going to have hard conversations, whether it be feedback, resolving an issue, brainstorming gone sideways.

And so when we have the right mindset, it's easier to choose the right actions. And so some of those actions, some of those navigating difficult conversation skills that we can put into our toolbox, and some of you might be doing these already. You can identify in the chat box if you're already using some of these confidently and, and calmly so that you feel in control of yourself. So one of them is certainly bringing in care and compassion in resolving hard issues. It's sort of like teaching other people how to treat us, so we may get that empathy back from them, which is wonderful. Connection. Connection is at the core of difficult conversations and resolving conflict. When we connect with people, it's a little easier to have those hard conversations with confidence.

We always want to be paying attention to our mindset, not just going into the conversation, but what's happening in our thoughts during the conversation. We want to prepare for these. And one of the best tips I can share with you is to just take a blank piece of paper and a pen or a Sharpie. And before you go into that hard conversation, write down some of the words you want to say, the questions that you have, the comments or information that you need to bring forward to that person. And then this might feel a little awkward and weird, but I want you to practice it in front of the mirror. So you're gonna go into a room by yourself, and you're just gonna practice in front of a mirror.

What you're doing through that mirror work is that you are getting rid of some of the drama that you've attached to the issue. You're formulating a more clear and concise way of bringing your information forward. You're building confidence. You get to see what the other person's gonna see in the real live conversation. I do mirror work all the time, and this is where it gets really impactful, is to practice in advance at least 10 times in front of the mirror. Sometimes when we get into hard conversations, we forget what we want to say, don't we? And if we practice in front of the mirror, it's up there. It's up there, and your brain will kind of go through the filing cabinet and pull out those words that you practiced at least 10 times.

We also wanna know that communicating, is such a vital part of navigating difficult conversations. So we really want to be paying attention to how we communicate to ourselves. What are the stories that we're telling ourselves? And what are the words or language that we're choosing to use in our conversations with others. And then of course we really want to look at collaboration. How do we work better together with people? How is it that we can collaborate? And how is it the communication can help us collaborate? So maybe we minimize the risk of those really hard conversations where things kind of turn into a deeper, more difficult conflict that has to get resolved. One other strategy is to be aware of the important skill sets, and you can see them here. Asking open ended curious questions.

This is the one I want to focus on here. And emotional regulation, the ones towards the bottom. Open ended curious questions start with who, what, where, when, why, and how. Who, what, where, when, why, and how. And when we can be curious about what's happening in the dialogue, what occurs is deeper understanding, trust starts to form, connections are being built, and most importantly, we find out what's really happening, what really matters to the other person, and then you get to share the same about you.

The other piece is going into conversations, being emotionally regulated. This is so important, being able to manage our emotions beforehand as we prepare, as well as right there in the moment. If we have just come from a meeting that was difficult, we're running late, we've got to get to that next meeting, we're feeling unprepared, That's the energy we bring into the next conversation unless we self regulate. So sometimes what I do is I just roll my shoulders. You can do that with me if you want. Just release the tension out of your body, kinda flick your fingers, squish your toes around in your shoes, release some of that energy. Take a few deep breaths, start to regulate your emotions because the more we feel in management of our emotions, the easier time we'll have navigating them and dealing with them if they pop up in the meeting.

As well, if we're in management of our own emotions, it's a little easier for us to deal with the big emotions that might happen with the other person that we're talking to. Couple of final tips before we close for questions. Remember to deal with the little pebbles first. Now what do pebbles have to do with communication? Imagine for a moment you are going out for a walk. You've double laced those running shoes. You're out there to get your steps in. And as you're walking, you you just kind of feel like there's a little tiny pebble in your shoe, but it's really small. And you keep walking. So let's hear in the chat box what happens to the size of that pebble? How does that pebble feel if you don't stop, unlace your shoes, and take the pebble out?

If you keep walking on that little pebble in about ten minutes, how does the pebble feel in your shoe? Let's hear from you in the chat box. I actually had this happen the other day, so this is a real to life for me. So for many of us, when we are walking, what you will feel I can see the comment here, painful. Absolutely. That little that little pebble in your shoe is going to feel like a boulder. It's painful. It's probably the only thing you're focusing on now. You're walking, and all you can be focusing on is this annoying pebble. The same thing happens in our real life at work, our career, and in our relationships. If we don't deal with things when they're little pebbles, they grow.

They become more complex, more challenging to deal with, they become more emotional, and we become so focused on it that we can't see everything else that's happening around us. So deal with the little pebbles first. As soon as you notice them, deal with those pebbles so that you can manage it effectively and calmly. There's a great quote by a judge. The judge's name is Judge Estie, and I don't know the judge. But Judge Estie says, conflict is not like wine. And you can fill in the blanks to that statement if you like in the chat box, but Judge Estee says conflict isn't like wine. It doesn't get better with age. So we need to remember to deal with those tough issues first, or as early as we can. We have to remember the importance of self care.

Just like when your battery on your phone is is losing its battery, the red line is on, and we are running looking for that electrical outlet in that plug to plug in and recharge, we have to recharge ourself too. Because if we are not managing our resilience, that impacts our communications and our conflict resolution as well. There are some free resources from for you on these three, QR codes, but what I'd love for you to do as I close this out is do a little exercise with me, if you will. I'd like you to, to sort of cross your arms in front of your chest as if you were cold. So sort of like this. I'm just standing on my tippy toes here. So cross your arms in front of your chest for a moment. Just notice how it feels. Notice how long it took you to put your arms in that position. And if you're like many of us, it kind of feels okay.

It was fairly easy to do. For some of you, it was instantaneous. Your arms just crossed. Why? Because you've done it thousands of times. There's a pathway. There's a pathway that's up there that helps you just put your arms in position when someone says cross your arms in front of your chest. Now for some fun, cross your arms in front of your chest, but reverse the positioning of your arms. So you might be sitting here trying to figure this out. You might go the first way and then you try and figure it out the second way. The second way, putting your arms in a different position than the first time, probably feels weird and awkward and uncomfortable. But with practice, it's going to become more proficient, maybe a little bit more comfortable, and this is exactly what happens when we deal with new skills, when we apply new skills in our life and in our career.

It'll feel weird. It'll feel uncomfortable. You'll sort of wanna go back to what you've always done. But I encourage you to dance in discomfort a bit. Just stick with the discomfort a little bit longer so that these tools and skills that you're using become part of your communication. Just remember, you never know who you were impacting. How you show up matters so much. You never know how someone's last five minutes were. And your presence, your smile, the way that you communicated calmly and confidently may have made the most profound difference in their life and in their future. Thank you so much for having me here today to talk about this topic, and I look forward to questions. Thank you so much, Germaine. I for you. And, we are going to dive into this content, talking about how to navigate these conversations with confidence and, as Anna said, with some ease as well. Okay. Let's see.

And my mouse is not letting me click when you put the slides up there. Oh, there we go. My mouse disappeared. So we're gonna take a short time to introduce a really big topic to you, and some of the things that we're gonna cover in our time have to do with how to approach hard conversations with more clarity, having more confidence, bringing in that element of compassion and empathy, and how to strengthen your workplace relationships and collaboration.

One of the things that's so interesting right now, regardless of where you are in your career journey, if you were just starting out, if you're dreaming about your career, if you're well into your career, one of the things we know to be true is that communication, conflict resolution, and navigating difficult conversations are in the top 10 skills that employers are looking for.

They're critical to collaboration, and we know how much we collaborate these days online and offline. I'm gonna skip this slide because Anna did such a beautiful job of introducing me. We're gonna dive into content and I'm gonna get you queued up to do some typing in the chat box. When I say the word conflict, difficult conversation, struggling in difficult conversation, what is the word or emotion that comes up for you in your mind when I say conflict, difficult conversation, hard conversation, please type that in the chat box and know there is no right or no wrong to this question, and I'm looking forward to seeing your answers.

So I say conflict, you feel or think what? If you're like many people, what people think about is things like and the answers are coming in now. Oh, wonderful. Inevitable. Oh, thank you for that. That's that's so true. We have to have conflict in our workplaces. It's how we manage them. Seeing some things around necessary. This is a very positive mindset group of people here, and lots of emotions like fear and confrontation and anxiety, seeing quite a few fears, negative stress, relationship breakdowns. These are all this list that you're putting here are all some of the things that we experience when we think about or talk about conflict. They happen in our body and they happen in our mind. So what's really important to understand is that the way that we think about conflict and conflict resolution really shapes how we show up in it.

For example, if we are thinking, oh, this is a conversation I'm absolutely dreading. I wish I could avoid it. I wish it would go away. If that's our mindset, that's the energy we bring into the conversation. We bring in that fear, that dread. And what I hope you'll take away today is what if we replace those thoughts? Instead of I'm dreading this conversation, this is gonna be a confrontation, to something like I got this. I can do this. I've got some skills. This is a chance to understand one another. This is a chance to resolve this important issue. So that importance of mindset shifting is really critical. Now when we experience things that feel like a threat, for many of us conflict feels like a threat.

We have different responses and some of you will be very familiar with some of these fonts, responses. Fight, flight, fear, freeze, and fawn. We're gonna talk about four, fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. Many have heard the first three, and the one that's highlighted on the end might be new for some of us. So let's look at look at what are these responses. How do they happen for us? Sometimes in the midst of a threat, such as conflict, we go into what we call fight mode, and we might become a bit combative or confrontational. We might have this surge of anger. We might notice our body is changing. It becomes tense. Our jaw might become tense. Our body might feel tense.

We might kind of be clenching our fists. Our breathing increases. Our temperature increases. And this response is one where we're just wanting to tackle that conversation. We just wanna get that problem resolved. But our approach might be, too amplified, too escalated. The fight is the the flight is complete opposite. Costs. We want to avoid the risks that are associated with it. And what we might be noticing within our body, and we've probably all been in fight or flight before. We start noticing that we are looking for the exit, so our eyes are kind of darting around. We are, feeling nervousness. We might be feeling like, we want to just escape. Our mind might become very busy with other things distracting us from the actual conflict at hand. When we go into freeze mode, what's happening here is it almost feels like we're paralyzed, like we're stuck, like we can't move.

Some people describe this as being, like, in a movie where you're watching things happen around you, and you're in it, but you're watching it happening. And with freeze, this can be a real challenge for us because we're indecisive. We We have a hard time making decisions, and this feeling can be overwhelming. Again, we notice some changes in our body, such as we are noticing that our body might feel a little numb. Our temperature might be changing, our heart rate might be going down, it's decreasing, and we're just really feeling stuck. When we go into fawn, this is something that all of us have probably experienced at one time as well, that in the in the midst of discomfort, what we wanna do is make everything better. We people please. We over apologize. We take on responsibility that isn't ours to take on.

And so sometimes what happens is we're putting the other person's needs in front of our own, and it's really hard to set boundaries in this place. So these are some of the things that come into those hard conversations with us. Now remember, mindset shapes everything. So if we wanna change some of what we're experiencing, pay attention to what's happening up here, asking yourself, what am I noticing right now? What is it that my body is telling me? What am I feeling? What is that emotion? These are all part of a mindset check-in, and they're that first way that we can navigate hard conversations. Because wherever we are in our career, we're going to have hard conversations, whether it be feedback, resolving an issue, brainstorming gone sideways.

And so when we have the right mindset, it's easier to choose the right actions. And so some of those actions, some of those navigating difficult conversation skills that we can put into our toolbox, and some of you might be doing these already, you can identify in the chat box if you're already using some of these confidently and, and calmly so that you feel in control of yourself.

So one of them is certainly bringing in care and compact in resolving hard issues. It's sort of like teaching other people how to treat us, so we may get that empathy back from them, which is wonderful. Connection. Connection is at the core of difficult conversations and resolving conflict. When we connect with people, it's a little easier to have those hard conversations with confidence. We always want to be paying attention to our mindset, not just going into the conversation, but what's happening in our thoughts during the conversation. We want to prepare for these, and one of the best tips I can share with you is to just take a blank piece of paper and a pen or a Sharpie. And before you go into that hard conversation, write down some of the words you want to say, the questions that you have, the comments or information that you need to bring forward to that person.

And then this might feel a little awkward and weird, but I want you to practice it in front of the mirror. So you're gonna go into a room by yourself, and you're just gonna practice in front of a mirror. What you're doing through that mirror work is that you are getting rid of some of the drama that you've attached to the issue. You're formulating a more clear and concise way of bringing your information forward. You're building confidence. You get to see what the other person's gonna see in the real live conversation. I do mirror work all the time, and this is where it gets really impactful, is to practice in advance at least 10 times in front of the mirror.

Sometimes when we get into hard conversations, we forget what we want to say, don't we? And if we practice in front of the mirror, it's up there. It's up there, and your brain will kind of go through the filing cabinet and pull out those words that you practiced at least 10 times. We also wanna know that communicating, is such a vital part of navigating difficult conversations. Conversations. So we really want to be paying attention to how we communicate to ourselves. What are the stories that we're telling ourselves, and what are the words or language that we're choosing to use in our conversations with others? And then of course we really want to look at collaboration. How do we work better together with people? How is it that we can collaborate? And how is it the communication can help us collaborate?

So maybe we minimize the risk of those really hard conversations where things kind of turn into a deeper more difficult conflict that has to get resolved. One other strategy is to be aware of the important skill sets, and you can see them here. Asking open ended curious questions. This is the one I wanna focus on here and emotional regulation, the ones towards the bottom. Open ended curious questions start with who, what, where, when, why, and how. Who, what, where, when, why, and how. And when we can be curious about what's happening in the dialogue, what occurs is deeper understanding, trust starts to form, connections are being built, and most importantly we find out what's really happening, what really matters to the other person, and then you get to share the same about you.

The other piece is going into conversations being emotionally regulated. This is so important, being able to manage our emotions beforehand as we prepare, as well as right there in the moment. If we have just come from a meeting that was difficult, we're running late, we've got to get to that next meeting, we're feeling unprepared, that's the energy we bring into the next conversation unless we self regulate. So sometimes what I do is I just roll my shoulders. You can do that with me if you want. Just release the tension out of your body, kinda flick your fingers, squish your toes around in your shoes, release some of that energy. Take a few deep breaths. Start to regulate your emotions because the more we feel in management of our emotions, the easier time we'll have navigating them and dealing with them if they pop up in the meeting.

As well, if we're in management of our own emotions, it's a little easier for us to deal with the big emotions that might happen with the other person that we're talking to. Couple of final tips before we close for questions. Remember to deal with the little pebbles first. Now what do pebbles have to do with communication? Imagine for a moment you are going out for a walk. You've double laced those running shoes. You're out there to get your steps in. And as you're walking, you you just kinda feel like there's a little tiny pebble in your shoe, but it's really small. And you keep walking. So let's hear in the chat box, what happens to the size of that pebble? How does that pebble feel if you don't stop, unlace your shoes, and take the pebble out?

If you keep walking on that little pebble in about ten minutes, how does the pebble feel in your shoe? Let's hear from you in the chat box. I actually had this happen the other day, so this is a real to life for me. So for many of us, when we are walking, what you will feel I can see the comment here, painful. Absolutely. That little that little pebble in your shoe is going to feel like a boulder. It's painful. It's probably the only thing you're focusing on now. You're walking and all you can be focusing on is this annoying pebble. The same thing happens in our real life at work, our career, and in our relationships. If we don't deal with things when they're little pebbles they grow.

They become more complex, more challenging to deal with, they become more emotional, and we become so focused on it that we can't see everything else that's happening around us. So deal with the little pebbles first. As soon as you notice them deal with those pebbles so that you can manage it effectively and calmly. There's a great quote by a judge. The judge's name is Judge Esty, and I don't know the judge. But Judge Esty says conflict is not like wine. And you can fill in the blanks to that statement if you like in the chat box, but Judge Estie says, Conflict isn't like wine. It doesn't get better with age. So we need to remember to deal with those tough issues first, or as early as we can. We have to remember the importance of self care.

Just like when your battery on your phone is is losing its battery, the red line is on, and we are running looking for that electrical outlet and that plug to plug in and recharge, we have to recharge ourself too. Because if we are not managing our resilience, that impacts our communications and our conflict resolution as well. There are some free resources from for you on these three, QR codes, but what I'd love for you to do as I close this out is do a little exercise with me, if you will. I'd like you to, to sort of cross your arms in front of your chest as if you were cold. So sort of like this. I'm just standing on my tippy toes here. So cross your arms in front of your chest for a moment. Just notice how it feels. Notice how long it took you to put your arms in that position. And if you're like many of us, it kind of feels okay.

It was fairly easy to do. For some of you, it was instantaneous. Your arms just crossed. Why? Because you've done it thousands of times. There's a pathway. There's a pathway that's up there that helps you just put your arms in position when someone says cross your arms in front of your chest. Now for some fun, cross your arms in front of your chest, but reverse the positioning of your arms. So you might be sitting here trying to figure this out. You might go the first way and then you try and figure it out the second way. The second way, putting your arms in a different position than the first time, probably feels weird and awkward and uncomfortable. But with practice, it's going to become more proficient, maybe a little bit more comfortable, and this is exactly what happens when we deal with new skills, when we apply new skills in our life and in our career.

It'll feel weird. It'll feel uncomfortable. You'll sort of wanna go back to what you've always done. But I encourage you to dance in discomfort a bit. Just stick with.