Diffuse Tension And Resolve Conflict During High Conflict Divorce With Hesha Abrams

I am thrilled about today’s conversation with Hesha Abrams, a brilliant mediator, negotiator and author of “Holding The Calm,” a book jam-packed with strategies to minimize conflict, settle disputes and create a safe space for the thorniest of individuals to feel heard and seen, so they can find their way back to the negotiation table.

I've asked Hesha to join us to custom tailor some of her advice for our JBD listeners who have made the courageous decision to leave their high-conflict spouses and now, after being bullied and intimidated by them, need to develop the skills necessary to navigate their divorce conversations & negotiations skillfully and successfully. You don’t want to miss this one!

Hesha Abrams is an internationally acclaimed master attorney, mediator, negotiator, and deal-maker who, for 30+ years, has been renowned for her success in resolving high profile or difficult matters, including mediating the case over the secret recipe for Pepsi. She has worked with Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, IBM, Verizon, and other large multinational companies, as well as individuals, inventors, and small businesses, creating deals and solving disputes.

She has distilled her experience into a popular new book, “Holding the Calm: The Secret to Resolving Conflict and Defusing Tension”, an insightful, practical, and easy to use toolkit to guide anyone to defuse tension, eliminate conflict, and make deals in their own lives.

More ways to connect with Hesha:

• Book: holdingthecalm.com
• Follow on Facebook: facebook.com/HeshaAbramsHoldingTheCalm

Journey Beyond Divorce Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Book a Free Rapid Relief Call: http://rapidreliefcall.com
• Reclaim Your Mind: Evict Your Spouse from Your Mental Space: jbddivorcesupport.com/reclaimyourmind
• Divorce 101: The Roadmap Your Need to Prepare for Your High Conflict Divorce: jbddivorcesupport.com/divorce101

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Listen to the Podcast here

Diffuse Tension And Resolve Conflict During High Conflict Divorce With Hesha Abrams

In this episode, we're talking about how to diffuse tension and resolve conflict during high-conflict divorce. I'm thrilled about this conversation with Hesha Abrams, a brilliant mediator, negotiator, and author of Holding the Calm, which we're going to be talking a lot about. It's a book jam-packed with strategies to minimize conflict, settle disputes, and create a safe space for the thorniest of individuals to feel heard and seen so they can find their way back to the negotiation table.

I've asked Hesha to join us and custom-tailor some of her advice to our audience who have made this courageous decision to leave their high-conflict spouse, and after being bullied and intimidated by them, to develop the skills needed to navigate their divorce conversations and negotiations skillfully and successfully. I'm so glad that you're here with us.

Before we dive in a little more about Hesha, she's an internationally acclaimed master attorney, mediator, negotiator, and deal maker who, for 30-plus years, has been renowned for her success in resolving high-profile or difficult matters, including mediating the case over the secret recipe for Pepsi. That's a story.

She has worked with Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, IBM, Verizon, and other large multinational companies, as well as individuals, investors, and small businesses, creating deals and solving disputes. She's distilled her experience into this book, Holding the Calm: The Secret to Resolving Conflict and Diffusing Tension, which is so insightful. She shared that she, too, has been down the divorce journey. With no further ado, welcome, Hesha. Thank you so much for joining us.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

I have to ask. I've been reading the book, highlighting, underlining, and thinking of all the things I want to bring to my clients and to this conversation. How did you end up down this path of being this super powerful, successful negotiator?

Hesha's Path to Mediation & Real Conflict Tools

It's very interesting. The actual story is that I was very aggressive. We don't train women to know how to do things at an hour's speed. Either you're not taken seriously, or you're super overaggressive. In one week, I won a case in which I knew my client was wrong and I outlawyered the other side, and then I lost a case that was a pro bono eviction thing where I got good-old boy down to the courthouse. I had a crisis of faith. I went, “This cannot be what this is.” Mediation was still very nascent and new.  I met this woman who was a mediator at a bar meeting of lawyers. She said she's a mediator. I went, “What's that? You talk to people for a living and solve problems? This is fantastic.”

We don't train women to know how to do things at an hour's speed. Either you're not taken seriously, or you're super overaggressive.

Over the years, I've refined it because so many of the books out there that talk about conflict are garbage. They're academic. They’re like, “Let's all get to yes and be nice with each other.” That works in 10% of the cases, let's say even 20%. What about the 80% where it is like, “I hate you. I'm afraid of you. You scare me. You are evil. You are selfish. You want to hurt me.” There's a power imbalance. There's betrayal.

What are those? That's the majority of stuff. Even in the business and corporate world, it's the same kind of thing. In divorce, I wish we could make decoupling an easier process, but for the vast majority of people, it is not. You need real tools, not fake, “Kumbaya. That's what it should be.” Chocolate cake is fattening, even though I don't want it to be. You need real, live stuff. That's why I wrote this book.

The book has so many great tips on how to deal with the stubborn personality and the value of validating. I love WOWD, Way Out With Dignity. I was reading, and every page was filled with pearls. I do want to say that when it comes to mediation, while I've had numerous mediators saying, “You can mediate a high-conflict divorce,” what you said is key.

If you don't have the right mediator or you have a mediator who's used to mediating reasonably-minded, transparent couples who are saying, “We don't want to spend a lot of money. We can figure this out,” that's very different than mediating with someone who's been traumatized for years and somebody who might have a personality disorder, might be stubborn, or might be passive aggressive, or might have some other addiction but who seems almost incapable of coming to the table, hearing, and compromising and pivot.

Mastering Communication & Diagnosing Personalities

I want to have two conversations with you. One, I do want your advice for our audience on if you want to mediate, what are you looking for in a mediator? You are the person who can answer the question. For all of the conversations that you either do or don't want to have that you have with your soon-to-be ex, how can our audience do that with more grace and dignity?

One of the things I want to say to everybody is, for God's sake, give yourself some grace. This is very hard stuff. If it were that easy that we could wave a magic wand and go, “You're done. Take a pill,” it would be fine. You have to give yourself some grace. Everybody has some differences that they have to deal with. Chapter one of my book is Speak Into the Ears that are Hearing You. That's number one.

For God's sake, give yourself some grace!

A lot of people have heard about The 5 Love Languages, which I love. It's a terrific book. It doesn't matter if they're right or not. What matters is that I don't treat everyone the same. Why would I say, “What is wrong with you? Why don't you eat pizza? Everyone eats pizza. It's an American food. Are you ridiculous?” without finding out you're gluten intolerant and you can't eat pizza. It's so simple because people don't volunteer their vulnerabilities.

The first thing is that in any situation, you've got to identify the ears you're speaking into. I'm going to give a couple of different analogies here because our brains will remember analogies more than what my words are. There's a bomb in the town square. That guy waddles out in his Michelin suit. He then starts cutting stuff. He looks at the nooks and gives a diagnosis. He’s like, “What is the pressure switch? What's the chemical thing? What do I do?”

It's the same thing. When you're dealing with a high-conflict person, you cannot assume that logic, reason, rationale, and good communication are good tools. They are not. They are bad tools to use because nobody likes to be explained to. Think about this. Ever in the history of the world has someone said, “I heard your arguments. I'm wrong. I'm stupid. I didn't think about this correctly. You are right.” It's idiotic, and yet it's what we do. The first thing is to look at the other person.

When you're dealing with a high-conflict person, you cannot assume that logic, reason, rationale, and good communication are good tools. They are not.

Let me give you a couple of easy things. Some of the people tuning in know what a Myers-Briggs is, the DISC, or that those are all very complicated psychological evaluative tools. I don't have time to give you a test and say, “Take three hours. Take this test.” You have to have something that works quickly and fast. Let me give you three things to check on before you're going to talk to somebody. This works in divorce, but this works with a boss, a coworker, a teenager, the homeowners association, and your religious organization. There are high-conflict people everywhere where you bristle against each other.

Before I  decide to talk to you, I'm going to look at you and think to myself, “Are you an introvert or an extrovert?” That's pretty easy. Everybody can generally do that. Think, “Are you an introvert or an extrovert?” in your head. Wouldn't you talk to an introvert a little differently than you talk to an extrovert? Everybody intuitively knows that. How about we go a little deeper? Think, “Are you a thinker or are you a feeler?” Do you know how you figure that out? Listen to their verbs. They’ll say, “I think this is a good idea. I feel it in my gut.” It's not hard.

If you say, “Are you a thinker or a feeler?” You won't get a good answer because people don't know themselves very well. Listen to their verbs. Verbs are everything. If you're a feeler, I'm not going to give you data and information, and I'm not going to talk logically with you. If you are a thinker, I'm not going to talk about feelings, intuition, and gut. It's pretty simple when you say it like that.

Third is a big-picture person and a detailed person. A big-picture person talks about how it would work. Detailed is, “I'm balancing my checkbook to the penny.” If you’re like, “Round it off,” they’d be like, “It’s calculated exactly.” Do you see how simple that is? It's not some big fancy test. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Are you a thinker versus a feeler? Are you a big-picture person versus a detailed person? That's it.

It makes sense to me. I could have a conversation and read those three tells. What do you do with that?

I shape my message. What happens is that we always say, “You should be a good listener. You should listen and communicate.” It's very hard for people to do that when what you're saying is stupid or wrong, or I disagree with it, or I can't believe you have the absurdity to tell me that. Your brain shuts down. If I give my brain another diagnostic tool, I'm looking at you and listening. I'm hearing whatever content you're telling me, but I'm diagnosing those three things.

When it comes time to meet to talk, if you're an introvert, I'm going to speak more quietly, more softly, more slowly, and more gently. If you're an extrovert, I'm going to speak faster, a little more intensely, and a little stronger. If you're a big-picture person, I'm going to talk about the large thing, which is what we are trying to accomplish.

If you're a detailed person, what are the steps we need to start with to try to accomplish something? If you're a thinker versus a feeler, I'm going to use thinking and feeling verbs, like, “What do you think about this? How do you feel about that? What do you think would be the right approach? What do you think would be the fair approach to take?”

If you think about this, it's very easy. What I gave everybody was a two-hour training, or they probably do a whole day training on you. Write down what I did and practice it. If you practice what I gave you for a week, it's like you didn't have glasses, and all of a sudden, you put on glasses and went, “I thought there were only three colors on the rainbow. There are so many more.” That's all that happens. It is not hard. The cherry on the sundae is that you will feel powerful, you will feel empowered, and you won't feel powerless and fearful because you have tools. You got magic beans in your pocket.

It's fascinating. I love the speak to the ears that are listening to you. You started off with that. We can't talk to everybody the same, or we can, but it doesn't necessarily serve us. It's going and speaking a foreign language to somebody who can't hear it if you're not speaking their language.

If you don't speak my language, I don't think, “We're not speaking the same language.” I think, “You're stupid. You're an idiot. You're evil. You hate me. You don't respect me.” Our amygdala reacts quickly, which I guarantee you is 80% wrong. When our amygdala is triggered, things are moving so fast, and you can't see it. Having this diagnostic ability to step back gives you a moat around what you're feeling and how you choose to react. It's the number one thing to make you feel powerful.

It goes back to the question you had asked me earlier. I grew up in a very dysfunctional family with lots of conflict and lots of difficulty. Hence, I've had lots of therapy and done a lot of work on myself. It has taken me decades to finally understand. Can I still get triggered? That's why I called the book Holding the Calm. I say that to myself. I want to make a joke for everybody. Never in the history of calming down has anyone ever calmed down by being told to calm down.

Never in the history of calming down has anyone ever calmed down by being told to calm down.

It incites you.

We all know that, but isn't that what we do? We’re like, “Calm down. Take a deep breath.” All you're saying to the other person is, “You're out of control and powerless. I'm in control and powerless.” All you do is make the amygdala go crazy more. I don’t find taking a deep breath works because it says, “You're out of control.” I want to say that to myself. I want to say empowering things to myself.

I close my eyes for a second and say, “I'm holding the calm.” That took two seconds. That says to my amygdala, “We have tools. We have choices. We have options. You are not powerless.” The amygdala goes, “Okay.” What do I choose to do? What do I choose to say? It is incredibly empowering to then not make everything worse in whatever you're having to deal with.

"Holding The Calm": Slowing Down And Curving Conflict

I want to hone in on holding the calm. We have a twelve-step program where we talk about the pause and curbing the conflict to take that pause. Am I understanding that holding the calm is both slowing things down and taking a pause as well? When you say, “I've been working with Karen. She is so great at holding the calm now. What does that look like?”

Diagnostic ability. That's what I would say. Think of going to a doctor. You don't want to go to a doctor who says, “I gave the blue pill to the guy before you. Maybe it'll work for you, too.” How about another analogy? How about someone's covered in blood, and they go into the ER. The doctor doesn't start cutting them. You wipe the blood away. The doctor asks, “Where's the gunshot? Where's the knife? What do I have happening here?”

In any sense of conflict, the first question has to be, “What is happening?” Could it be a real issue? Is someone angry, hungry, or having a bad day? I got a lot of stuff in the book about how to handle those kinds of things because very often, people will backpedal and go, “I didn't mean it that way. That came out harsher than I thought.

There are plenty of things to do for what I call the low and middle conflict. High conflict is a little more intense. You need a life raft. You have to diagnose first, “What am I dealing with?” If you're triggered and you do something, you always do that, and then we are off to the races. Think about this. To everyone reading, when you have fights with some of these people, isn't it the same fight?

Over and over again.

That's because we pick up the bait. If you take a moment to diagnose, first of all, who's in charge and who has power, you can say, “We're not going to play basketball. I'm not going to throw that ball back to you. We're going to play golf, and I'm going to hit it that way.” You have the power to change how it's going to be. All that's going to happen is something better.

When I first started mediating, I was very naive and idealistic. I wanted everything to be running through the meadow, hands holding each other, and it is all so great. Now, I'm a realistic gal. You get what you can get. If all you can get is a cold piece with a cessation of hostilities, that is fine. If it can get better, that's marvelous. I have a whole chapter in the book called Creating Small Winnable Victories. You don't do things big. You do things in little, small incremental pieces. You erode conflict, conflict from the outside. Is it hard? Of course, it's hard, but is it better than the alternative? Yeah.

As I'm listening to you, I had a little interaction with my son when I dropped him off at the train. We have a great relationship, and there was a misunderstanding. I had been reading your book right before I got in the car to take him there. As soon as I pulled away, I was like, “You did not hold the calm.” What I realized was that he was trying to get his point across, and I was trying to get my point across. I heard his point and I said, “I hear you,” but that's where I stopped.

Did he feel heard? It doesn’t matter what you said. That's always the key. If the other person doesn't feel heard, it doesn't count.

He was then able to articulate to me. He was like, “I know you said thank you, but,” and then he told me what he needed to hear. It was fascinating. I was reading your book. I was like, “Ah.” I'm pretty good at this, but I have a long way to go. This was not high-conflict, but it was still an unnecessary rub. It could have been a lovely conversation.

Every time this happens for any of you, go, “Yay me. I was aware. I saw something. I'm going to do it better next time.” Good for you because most people go, “I didn't do anything wrong. He did this.” Intelligent wisdom came out of your mouth. Everyone else here, give yourself grace when that happens to you, too.

The point I want to get to is, even in this interaction, I had a point I wanted to get across, but to your point, if I go straight out, it's not going to be received. My readers are finally finding their voice, and they've got a point they want to get across. Direct is not going to work. It's almost like we have to learn how to bite our tongue and shift from getting my point across to diagnosing first, so that I get further. Can you say that more eloquently than I?

Think of it this way. Anybody who has planted anything, you don't dig a hole and shove it in the ground. You prepare the soil so that the plant isn't going to die. Anybody who's a fisherman or a fisherwoman, you don't shove any old thing on your hook. You put the right bait on the hook for what it is you're trying to fish for. It's basic preparatory stuff, and we tend not to do that. We’re like, “I'm going to get my point across, but if it's not received, I'm taking dollar bills and lighting them on fire.” I'd rather put the dollar bill in the bank.

We are all going to screw up. I'll tell you something I do in my own family. I want everybody to have permission to screw up. If you strive for perfection, you will fail, and that sets up a bad dynamic in our country. Think about how we vivisect our leaders because they're not perfect. I wouldn't want to be a leader and get attacked like that. You don't get quality people as your leaders. You get sociopaths and narcissists who can handle that kind of junk.

What you do in your family is you say, “Everyone makes mistakes. We are not perfect. You have permission to do a do-over.” A do-over is the greatest invention ever. For example, in the story you said, when we get off this interview and you call your son and say, “I didn't like how I handled that, can I have a do-over?” He's going to be shocked.

A do-over is the greatest invention ever.

You don't have to say, “I was wrong, I was right.” It’s not that relevant. You say, “I didn't handle that as well as I would have. Can we have a do-over? Would you tell me again?” You do it the way you wish you had. I'm telling you, you get more credit for screwing up and then doing it better the second time than if you had done it right the first time. Isn't that marvelous?

First, I love that. When I was in the early stages of my divorce, my kids were in early grade school. Everyone was triggered to the hilt. We sat down and I said, “Everyone's allowed for do-overs.” There were times when they were screaming and yelling, and we'd pull over on the side of the road. I'm not moving, and then someone would be like, “Can I do a do-over?” It was this gorgeous gift. I love that you said that in the context of this conversation.

The Power Of "Do-Overs" In Hostile Situations

The other thing is that when you're in these hostile relationships and you've been told how bad you are, you're striving for perfection. There is no such thing as perfection. It's progress, not perfection. The do-over is a beautiful progress in the right direction. Thank you so much for that. I love that. I have a bunch of questions here. You're doing your best and diagnosing, but all of a sudden, the conversation is escalating. It’s like you're on this runaway freight train and you don't know what to do.

The biggest key is awareness. What happens is you'll be on that freight train, and you're not even aware you're on it. That's more dangerous. As soon as you are aware, you stop and say, “This is not helpful,” or, “This is not healthy,” or, “I don't want to play this game anymore.” If you can, say something validating, like, “You're a good person. I know you're trying your best. I know you don't want to hurt me. I know you have good intentions. I know you are hurt.” I don't care what it is. You say something validating because their amygdala is freaking the heck out. Do you know what validation does? It calms it down. That's what's so magnificent. That's step number one when things get out of control.

The reason I did this is that I wanted a book that worked. It wasn't with this theory and academic junk. I picked my favorite twenty techniques. It's 20 chapters and 20 techniques in a little $15 paperback. It's something that's super easy for people to access. I put sentence stems in there and stories. Why is the Bible, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Mormon, the Buddhist Dhammapada, everything in stories? Why? I can go, “Blah.” Everyone reading this is going to remember the bomb detection story. They're going to remember the person in the ER covered in blood story.

I'm going to tell more stories as we're talking here. Every story I put in the book is designed to be told in 30 seconds or less, and they work. I've battle-tested them in my laboratory. Every single story I put in there, I have used it at least a dozen times, and it works. Rather than me saying, “Karen, you need to calm down, and we need to look at things rationally,” I want to go out and claw your eyes out. Instead, I can sit and say, “Can I share a story with you?” You're not going to say no to me, and then I share this story. Each story has an insight into where you're going to go, “Ugh.”

I have a chapter in the book called Be the Grownup in the Room. Sometimes, you can, and sometimes, you can't. If you can, here's a great story. It's a story that I tell people where if I'm doing something and I need you to be the more mature one, I'm not going to say to you, “You need to be the more mature one,” because you're going to want to go, “Ugh.”

I’ll be like, “Can I share a story with you?” and then I tell you the story about mountain rams in the Himalayas. Every single time, the person goes, “Why do I have to be the mature one?” I smile and go, “Because you are.” It works every time. I'm telling you, this stuff is great. The stories work that way because the goal is to get something to happen, not to be right, not to educate, and not to explain. At least in my world, I'm very result-oriented. I don't care about your intentions. I care about your outcome. Did the thing you have work? If it didn't work, why are we doing that?

I do a lot of pharmaceutical cases. Did you know that a drug can get approved by the FDA if it is 52% effective? If it's 55% or 60%, then it's considered a blockbuster. A 60% effective rate is a 40% failure rate. That is shocking. I'm saying to everybody, “Give yourself some grace.” It's about getting a little bit better, a little more mastery, a little calmer, and a little stronger.

I've got mad skills. I didn't get them right away. I've done this for 35 years. I'm 65 years old. I figured by the time I'm 70, maybe I'll know something. That's how I view it. I'd better be smarter in five years than I am now, or I'll have failed. If I am constantly improving, constantly learning, constantly growing, and constantly getting better diagnostic ability and sharper vision, this is why I don't burn out in my job. I'm curious.

What is interesting? What is different? What else can I learn? How can I get better? How can I get sharper? It's not about being the sharpest or the best. It's about me. How can I improve a little bit? Not get triggered as much, roll with it a little much, and have a better boundary? All that stuff is brick upon brick upon brick. You wake up one day and it's five years later, and you go, “Look at that. Pretty awesome.”

Handling Blame & Escalating Conversations Effectively

Let me ask you about 1 or 2 more situations, and then I want to pivot to what someone should look for in a mediator. A lot of times with these high-conflict personalities, there's a lot of blame. There's the deflect and defend game. There's the blame, accuse, and defend. When someone is trying to do these, what they keep getting back is, “Yeah, but you.” What is the best strategy for handling that? I'm sure we all handle it pretty sloppily.

You are completely correct. I have a chapter in the book called the Blame, Defend, Justify Death Dance. We all do it. If you start blaming me, I'm going to get defensive. It’s the natural piece of it. One, you want to try not to be blaming. You'll get a better reaction. We all do. Even I do. Every once in a while, I have to go, “I didn't mean it. Can I have a do-over? I didn't mean for that to come out blaming.” You use I statements, all the stuff in therapy, and people talk about.

The duke is you're going to screw up 7 out of 10 times or 9 out of 10 times. The do-over is, “That didn't come out right. Can I say that again?” That's one. Let's say your partner's blaming you. Instead of saying you're blaming me, you can say, “I'm feeling defensive because I'm feeling blamed. Would you do a do-over and try to say that differently so I can hear you?” Isn't that a game-changer? The other person then has to take responsibility to go, “Huh? What?” Who's got the power in that interchange? You. When you have power, what happens to your amygdala? It calms down.

The thing is, you may not pick it up in the first round. You may pick it up in the fourth round. Whenever you pick it up, you pick it up, and then you will get better at it. It is realizing that people, when they're hungry, are tired, cranky, fearful, or stressed. No one acts at their best. Everybody needs a, “Poor baby. Calm down, baby.”

It's different if you're afraid or if someone's dangerous to you. You have to handle that a little differently because boundaries come, and safety comes first. We tend to throw around labels like psychopath, sociopath, or narcissist. You have to see, “Is this person clinically impossible to talk to?” There are some people like that. You have to handle them differently. I'm sorry. You do. That's 20%. It's not 80%. We throw those labels around. The other person is acting the way they are because they're either immature, not skillful, fearful, childish, or stressed out. There are other reasons for what's happening there.

I have another trick that I like to use. Let's say I have to engage with you. This isn't going to work, quite frankly, for high-conflict spouses because it is a one-off. It's something you do when you have to deal with somebody, not all the time. It could be a lawyer screaming at you from the other side, a neighbor, or your ex's friend. There are all those kinds of things.

I don't want to deal with you because I don't like you. You challenge me and threaten me. You are not a friend. My brain will go, “Friend or foe?” You are not a friend. You are a foe, but I have to deal with you for some reason. I'm going to look at you and I'm going to ask myself one question. Would you pull my kid out of a burning car? If the answer to that is yes, there's something redemptive about you. 95% of the time, it will be true if the answer to that is yes. I have to look at you. What it does is it breaks the train flow of the sympathetic nervous system that runs like a runaway choo-choo.

It’s not completely bad. It's like, “Bad person,” and then it’s like, “There's something there.”

I read a ton of books on neuroscience. Neuroscientists have identified 147 cognitive biases. It's fascinating. I'll tell people at the end, when they're trying to connect with me on LinkedIn, that I post every single day. I post a lot about these little biases because they're so interesting. You're not even aware that you have it. It is being able to say, “That's what that is.”

For example, there's something called confirmation bias. I will see what I expect to see. That burning kid car thing shifts that. There's something called a bias of reciprocity. If I listen to you, it's more likely you're going to listen to me. If I give up a low power to you, you're more likely to give up a low power to me. I want to caution everybody. I live by the 80/20 rule. This is good for 80% of the time.

The outliers to where somebody is mentally ill, completely addicted, or psychotic, you have to handle those things in a more extreme way because those are extreme. It’s 10% on either side of the bell curve. The 80% is more normative than we should be able to handle. The ones that are on the more extreme, you have to handle them in a more extreme way, which is case-by-case.

You're Not Alone: Navigating The 80/20 Rule

I want to say to you, the reader, that even if you're sitting there and you're going, “Mine's an outlier,” you still have your children who were raised by you and him or her, and you still have all of the other situations in life that fall into the 80%. I have a lot of books. I'm a self-help junkie. I read this stuff all the time, anything that can support my followers.

Your book is fabulous. It's underlined on every page. I've got all these notes. You also give little clips of sentences, like sentence stems, to start or to cut conflict, and what have you. It's like a coach in a book on how to stay calm and negotiate successfully. Can you take a moment to talk about the book and where people can find it? I then want to ask you about vetting a mediator.

Sure. The book's available everywhere. It is on Amazon, Books A Million, Barnes & Noble, Target, Walmart, and all the normal places you get books. If you like it, I could ask you all to do me a favor and write a nice review on Amazon because that helps the algorithm do its algorithm thing. I also have a webpage, HoldingTheCalm.com, where I've been on about 150 podcasts. I put every podcast on there on every range of topics. There's some repetition if you're dealing with kids, divorce, workplace issues, or leadership issues. It's all around that.

I post on LinkedIn and Facebook every day. I have a regular job, so I'm not trying to make money with the book. It is not fair that only professionals know this stuff. It should be available for everyone. It should be taught in schools. You shouldn't have to take a master class or a master course, or do some fancy big something. You should have access to things to make your life easier and better. Our world needs it desperately.

There are so many people going into situations with conflict where having this in their toolbox would be so incredibly helpful to everybody involved. Thank you so much for sharing that.

My pleasure. I do want to add one quick thing before the mediator because it'll make everybody laugh. Everyone says, “Conflict is an opportunity to grow and learn.” I'm like, “Right.” Conflict is either like a root canal without anesthesia or a colonoscopy without anesthesia. It depends on which end you're going through. I wanted our audience to have something to laugh about when we're talking about it.

They’re like, “It feels like that, sometimes both at the same time.”

You asked about finding a mediator. That's a challenging question, not because it's a challenging question, but because lawyers control that process. Generally speaking, your lawyer is going to have people that they want to use and that they want to do, and generally speaking, you're a little bit stuck with that. If you can do your own research and if you have a good relationship with your lawyer to where you can have an opinion about it, research them.

I sure as heck would want someone who had done at least 1,000 cases because you're a baby. You don't know enough about what's going on. I'm not a huge fan of former judges because they're used to having power, and they tend to try to power through as opposed to negotiate through. That would be better. Look at their references and reviews, and then decide for your opposing person, is a man or a woman better? Is an aggressive personality or a gentle personality better? What is the bait you're putting on your hook? You want this to be effective.

A lot of lawyers say, “This is who I use. This is what I know,” and then you're stuck with that. That's how you would evaluate that, and you would look at it that way. The thing is, I'm a big believer that you should not be a piece of meat at a doctor's office. You shouldn't be a piece of meat at a lawyer's office. You should be an informed patient or an informed client as part of the empowerment and help you handle stuff a little better.

You shouldn't be a piece of meat at a lawyer's office. You should be an informed client.

We try to encourage people to be the CEO of their divorce.

I like that.

Take the position of hiring, managing, and overseeing. You are in that authority. You want to be wise and take counsel. Put yourself in that seat. So thank you so much. This has been fabulous. I can't say enough to everyone reading that this is such a great book. If you are on my show, you need this book, so please check it out. What an easy read. There are tips and tools throughout. Thank you so much for what you do. Thank you for writing this book. Thank you for coming and speaking to our audience.

My pleasure. Thank you, everybody.

We'll be back again soon with another episode of the show. Have a great day.

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