A passionate instigator and dynamic problem solver. Doctor Kevin ross Emery, the host
of the Doctor Kevin Radio Show, will be taking you outside the box,
behind the curtain and identifying the load of bs we are fed every day.
And now Doctor Kevin Hello, Hello, Hello, and welcome to the Doctor
Kevin Show here on own Times where we're changing the world. Wait for it,
one oh of a time. Oh good, I have been promising you.
Uh, we have some changes and upcoming changes for the Doctor Kevin Show
and we're going to be releasing a new format and a new lineup coming in
January. Part of this new lineup and new show is going to be including
by co host today Ashley Ashley Olstein. Ashley, Hello, Hello, how
are you today? Well, you know, I'm only fabulous, but I'm
kind of trying to work towards fantastic. You know, it's a stretch.
Yeah, I understood. But how are you today, miss ash You know
I'm doing pretty well. Today. It was a I woke up to a
little bit of snow, which was nice. I liked it just a little
bit, and then it went away, which is how I like it.
Yeah, I mean it's been a little I didn't even really see it.
And you know, I've been actually with clients since eight point fifteen this morning.
I'm on my twelfth mile of walking today and it's been miserable and rainy,
but no snow. No snow. Well it was early. It's been
miserable and rainy for the rest of the day too, but I kind of
liked it. It fell cozy. So uh, we're going to be seeing
ash Ashley on a very regular basis that all of you have been part of
the Doctor Kevin experience, the Doctor Kevin Joe experience for the last several years.
Here has known that Laurie, who was doing some co hosting with me,
had to step away, and we miss her. Dally and miss ash
you have big shoes to fill. I know, I know I will never
fill them. I will just change them. But I am I miss hearing
LORI too. Good. Good answer, good answer. I like that.
I'm not going to tell them, going to change them somehow. I suspect
your heel might be a little higher. You know me too well. But
for our listeners, I'm going to have Ashley to produce tonight's guest in just
a moment. But do remember this is a live call in show and you
can be part of the conversation. You know, everybody wants to complain and
moan and do all of the what's wrong with the world or why blah blah
blah, but ask them to call in and actually maybe participate, maybe be
part of the change. No, no, no, no, Well,
we give you the opportunity on the Doctor Kevin Show. You can call in
at two O two five seven O seven oh five seven two O two five
seven oh seven oh five seven and you can be part of the conversation.
We just asked that it's respectful because we do have a disconnect button, Ashley.
We do like to introduce tonight's guest. I sure would. Tonight we
have Chuck Whisner. Hi, Chuck Hi Hi. So. Chuck is the
president of Whisner Consulting. His client list includes companies such as Google, Rivian,
Asked, Apple and Tesla, Harvard Business School, Ford, and Chrysler.
I'm sure many of us have heard of some of those. Chuck Whitner
was a senior affiliated mediator with a Harvard Mediation program and was among the first
to be certified through the Mastering the Art of Professional Coaching program at the Newfield
Institute. So welcome, Chuck. Thanks for being here, Thank you,
thank you for inviting me. I'm happy to be here. So, Chuck,
I want to talk to me about certified through the Master of the Art
of Professional Coaching program. I'm gonna I'm gonna claim ignorance here. Can you
tell me a little bit about Newfield Institute and like how long ago the program
was and what the program entailed, because you know, coaching is a really
overused term these days, and a lot of people are out there, and
so I would love to have you fill in for our audience some of that
life. Great, So let's start there. Okay, great. I couldn't
agree more that coaching is an overused term and probably somewhat abused. The last
few years, I've been calling myself a trusted advisor that people can talk to
me about almost anything, especially senior leaders who often don't have someone to let
their hair down with and say, what the hell do I do about this?
So the Newfield Institute was one of the earliest programs that certified coaches,
and they had a program called the Ontology of Language, and they fundamentally were
coming from a philosophy of language as how it shapes us as human beings,
and that sort of the foundation, this language and conversational sort of deep dive,
that was the structure around their coaching program. So this was happening in
the late eighties nineties before there was a mass certification of coaches all over the
world. So I was an early adopter. I would say, well,
you and me both. I didn't go to the institute, but I started
when I started to try to describe what I did in my practice, and
I felt that counseling was too limited of a term because it didn't expand into
tools and skill sets and things like this. That I think it was about
ninety two that I started using that as a spiritual coaching council. Wow,
you know, you know I'm I'm there to hold that energy and I'm there
to help you feel safe, but I'm also wanting to get the tools and
skill sets to get up off your ass and move forward, like let's go
somewhere. Yeah, right, let's move it. That's good. I like
it. So we had similar paths. Yeah, yeah, So I remember
because I didn't never heard anybody using the coach and then suddenly they were three
day, we'll see you everything you know, need to know, and you
know, the running joke in the professional world for because I was a teacher
at an NBA level boot camp for entrepreneurs, and the running joke was coach
meant somebody that got fired, that couldn't find a new job and needed to
make money. And there's all kind of promises out there. Just do this
and you'll have one hundred clients within a month. Yeah, and no system
in place and no idea what to do with them. And you know,
and then you can come back and talk to me, because I'll spend the
rest of your money and your life telling you why it wasn't my fault you
failed. Yep. So I'm going to start with this question, which is,
well, I've already started with the questions so that it didn't correct use
of language. But where do you want to take this concept of coaching and
what people may think outside the box? What would you like to expose our
listeners to that may give them a different perspective of what somebody likes It's like
For me, I'm a spiritual coaching counsel or catalyst. Those are my three
terms, coach, counselor, and catalysts. But I'm sure, you have
a very different approach, so take us outside the book. Yeah, so
I too have a very rich philosophical, psychological, spiritual background. So it
informs my work quite a bit. I think in my work, in my
studies around language and conversations. I really don't like what I see in social
media these days, where there's plenty out there that says, just do these
three things and you've changed your life. Because really, when we're talking about
people changing patterns, I like to call our habits patterns, we're talking about
changing patterns. We're messing around with people in people's neurons and their brain,
the one hundred million billion that we have, and it takes effort and there's
work involved. There's no magic switch, and so part of this is number
one. In fact, to be better a conversations with others, the individual
has to do their work. We have to look at our own ways and
our own emotions and our own conversational patterns, where we get triggered, how
we react automatically when we're on autopilot, and so I think we have to
take an inside look before we can actually even think about, well, how
can I better that conversation or how can I be a better listener, et
cetera. So, so there's in you know, if you don't if you
don't go inside, you can't find out. There's an inside look that we
have to take and and that can be for some people that can be a
little scary to really, uh take take an honest look at at some of
our thought patterns and some of our private conversations. But that's where it has
to begin for me. Ask any questions or thoughts you'd like to share.
Well, I am fascinated by all of this. And you know, doctor
Kevin and I we've talked a lot about communication skills and the like. So
and I think that one of the things you touched on was about listening and
that I think that's a part that a lot of people kind of skip over,
that part. I don't feel guilty of it sometimes too, you know,
thinking about as somebody else is speaking, thinking about what you're going to
say and responding before you've actually even absorbed what they're trying to get across.
And so I think that we're living in these little bubbles that interact a little
bit, but they're really isolated. Yes, And part of that, A
big, big reason for that is we actually are never really taught u interactive
conversational skills. We picked them up from our families, from our cultures,
from our experience, every experience we've had, from from a good leader,
from a bad leader. We pick up these patterns of communicating and and often
they're self centric. Uh. And that's why the notion of the pattern that
you mentioned about are listening, we're thinking while we're while we're trying to listen,
there's an incredible amount of noise that goes on in our brain trying to
make sense of the world. That's a good thing. Our brain takes all
these buillions of bits of data and helps us create a story about what's happening.
But if we are just taking that and operating on autopilot and not able
to sort of be more aware of our own thinking patterns which are running underneath
the conversation, then you know, that's what's happened. That chatter just sort
of the community, the committee up in our heads sort of is running all
the time. And there are ways to sort of quiet that committee down so
we can be my present and more aware. So so there are practices that
we can do, and and it takes a little bit of work. Does
that make sense? What does that sound like? Ash? Does that make
sense? Yeah, you're out a million times. Yeah, if I had
a nickel, well, you know, and you you talked about the committee
and I've myself have used that kind of reference as well. But sometimes isn't
it just to help if we could start by identifying whose ears we're listening with?
M hm, I like that? Now, go ahead, go ahead?
Checked No, Well for me, the first point of being more aware
about our listening is to realize that we aren't radio transmitters. We aren't like,
you know, signal scent, signal received. When our ears are picking
up the signals, there's a whole filtering process that goes through before you know,
while we're while we're listening, there's a whole filtering process. And there's
actually a part of our brain that makes sense of it all and creates a
story based on our beliefs and based on our experiences. And so we have
to start realizing that our our initial intake isn't always correct and often that sometimes
the best way to stop that is to take a pause and rather than react
to people, is to ask questions to better understand, or to even repeat
back what you heard to say is this is this? Am I am?
I getting the right signal here? Because there's this whole filtering is on to
our beliefs in our sort of the our pattern thinking that has us ready to
do the automatic response. So our ears are just receivers, but then it
goes into our brain and that's where all the magic happens for the good and
for the bat Well. You know, when I say what ears are we
listening to? Listening with? Is when you know, at such a young
age, we take on the belief systems of our parents, of our older
siblings, of the TV we watch, and sometimes it's you know, we
always hear that horror story when the when you know in the situation comedy where
the person goes, I've become my mother or I've become my father. And
and but you're looking at saying are you listening with your ears or are you
listening with your father's news to that story? Right exactly? And yeah,
and our parents' ears and all our experiences that are in that filtering system,
so we lived that. You know, a story in my book The Art
of Conscious Conversations is about I was told when I was a young man I
had three sisters older than me who could do all the girl things and have
emotions and cry, but all the things I didn't like to do. I
was always told you're not a big enough man, and I adopted that story.
I adopt that story for twenty five years of my life until I was
able to bust it. And that's because if my grand the grandfather's words that
he said time and time again stuck in my brain and that became a belief
that I adopted as an innocent child. Didn't do it consciously, but because
I gave his voice authority, I adopted that story and that lived inside me
for a long time. So I think that's great. And you know,
I think we all when we get to the point that we break the myth
sometimes, you know, in my practice, I call them the big lie.
You didn't know the big lie. They might not have known it was
a big lie, but it's breaking the big lie, right, and you
know, and so I think that's great. I as you're telling the story,
I'm thinking, I remember. The big lie for me was that I
was stupid, and I went well into my twenties telling people I was stupid
and people are like, you are not stupid. It doesn't even cute.
And I'm like, yeah, but that's what I heard growing up. I
was stupid, and so that's what I repeated, so I get it right.
Yeah, yeah, the messages are I mean, that's the power of
the power of parenting that if we aren't realizing how powerful a voice is.
You know, you can give messages like you'll never turn into anything, not
worth anything, you're you're not as smart as your girlfriends, your boyfriends.
Those those are critical things that stick because we unconsciously give those voices so much
power. Absolutely, And I also think that our parents learned it from their
parents too, so they're just right and using the mouth to the ears that
they you know, heard their parents say it right and the and the difference
is in the work you're doing and I'm doing is they were asleep, they
were on automatic pilot, just just projecting their pattern that they learned. We
have an opportunity to go, wait a minute, I can make a choice
here about what I want to believe and what I don't want to believe.
What stories do I want to live by? We that's the that's the point
of waking up, that's the point of becoming more aware, and then the
journey begins because we no longer are just running on autopilot. Oh my god,
talk, don't tell me you want to know, don't tell me you're
woke? Yeah, you know. I'm trying to write an article of writing
an article about that for for Psychology Today. And what's interesting is the origination
of that term is from a black gospel song down South, which was a
warning because these four men were uh, accused and found guilty of murder,
and it was a total, you know, sham. But there was a
song where it says, be you know, be woke because they're they're you
know, you have to be careful. They're going to come after you.
And so interesting that that original term, which really didn't mean wake up because
you're in danger, has gotten adopted by the radical, radical right wing,
uh. And what could be better than to have people be more awake and
more tolerant and more accepting and more compassionate than in being awake. So it's
quite an interesting twist that we have going on. And that's a perfect segue
into the next question that I like to ask is through through your work and
through your book The Art of Conscious Connections, Conversation sorry, conversation through the
art of conscious conversation? Where would you like to expose what's behind the curtain
today? And I always like to ask my guests this, So when I
bring up this segment, which I don't always do, but I am with
you, which is, so, where did this come from? Ignore the
man behind the curtains. It's a good old wizard, right, wizard of
odds? Yeah, like here we go os. Yes, I've had clients
say, oh no, I've been wisnerized. But the whole thing is the
great and powerful Oz was a you know, was a shuckster sham who's balloon
blew away? And so what you see today that is doing more damage to
the art of having conscious conversations, that's trying to be portrayed as actually facilitating
it. What would you say that is? What? What? What would
you like to expose that's actually behind the curtain of what people are hearing today
about how to have conscious conversation? That's what are you doing? Well?
Okay, So I think a lovely book by Yvall Harari called Sapiens has an
interesting take on history, and what I love about it and how it aligns
with my book is that he goes through and says how civilization came to be
Because our brains, at some point, you know, five hundred thousand years
ago or I don't know how bright that number is, we learn to create
stories, and we learned to create myths. And when we have a myth
that many, many, many people can buy into, then our civilization grew.
So we can have more than tribes, but we can have cultures,
and we can have cities, and we have et cetera. And in my
book I talk about the parents. The main the fundamental conversation is how the
stories we live in, the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we tell
about others, and the stories we tell tell others. And so to look
at our stories means we have to take them apart. There's the emotional part,
there's facts, which are crucial for society, and then there's our opinions,
which is where everything gets messy, because our opinions contain all of our
beliefs and all of our patterns and all the things we adopted from our families
and our cultures. And so what I like to say is we have to
deconstruct our stories, the ones that are serving us well. I think you
know, enjoy. But the ones that are holding us back, are the
ones that are keeping us to get where we want to go, or the
ones that are keeping us and stuck in a relationship. We have to deconstruct
them, take them apart, and really try to transform them to something positive
and something that we can act on. Does that make sense? He's making
fun of me as you answer the question, I am getting it. Yeah.
So so one thing, one tool that I've done with hundreds of people
is and this is something that was created by Chris Arduis at the Harvard Business
School, probably thirty years ago, but it was too early. It was
he was before his time. And that is to simply take a tough conversation,
Take a conversation that you walked away from frustrated or angry, or you
know, you really upset about the other person who has a lot of judgment
involved, and take a piece of paper and on the right side of the
paper, write down what you were thinking, what you were saying. I
said, what do you think of the project? She said, it's too
soon to tell. I said, well, we have two months until we
have to do a report. She said, X, So just write down
four or five exchanges of that conversation, take a breath, and then on
the left side, write down what you were thinking and feeling when both parties
were speaking. So when I was speaking, what was I thinking and feeling?
When she was speaking, what was I thinking and feeling? And it's
remarkable how many people, when they actually write it down and get it out
of the noise in their head. I actually realized that, oh my gosh,
my private conversation, which is what's happening on the left side of the
paper, is really toxic. It's very judgmental. Their curse words, I'm
defensive. Yeah, I'm defensive on this and this is fairly universal. And
so that's an eye opener to do. And then the question is how do
we take that talk judgment, which is like, you've got to do something
with it. Because my analogy is if you keep stuffing a toxic waste into
an oil drum, sooner or later it's going to be two things. These
are going to leak out because it's so full, the scenes will burst and
it'll just leak out, or it's going to explode. And for people that
hold in their private conversations and their private judgments, eventually it'll leak out,
either your body will be telling the story or you'll explode, and that's neither
of those options are good. So if we take the time to say,
Okay, I had a really bad judgment about that person, or I yesterday
I had an encounter with a friend and I caught myself making it an automatic
judgment, and I just have to stop and go, Okay, let me
ask you where questions here to see what my judgment is about. Because under
our judgments, we have concerns, we have standards that we're measuring by,
we have give different people's voices power, and we have desires and what do
we want to have happened? What do they want to have happened. So
this process of a catching our our private conversation, writing it down, I
open that eye opening experience and then we get to say, okay, what
do we do with toxic waste? We process it, and so we get
to process some of our private toxic work. And that's the beginning of changing
changing our ability to have better conversations real time without so much noise in our
head. So I know at any moment, our music for break is going
to come on, and there it is. Okay, We'll be back in
just a Moment with Chuck Wisner and the author of the Art of Conscious Conversation
right here on the Doctor Kevin Show. Conscious Media for Conscious Minds, Home
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Council. Welcome Mile Shoes Hio. Hello, Hello, and welcome back to
the Doctor Kevin Show here on od Times. Remember that we are a live
calling show and you can call in at two O two five seven oh seven
oh five seven two oh two five seven o seven oh five seven. Tonight's
guests has wrote the book The Art of Conscious Conversations, and I was listening,
Uh, I'm sorry, Chuck Weisner, and I was listening to the
ads which said that, uh, you know, conscious media, Conscious Times
consciousness that I got. We're making Chuck Faille right home, aren't we Jee's
right, very very happy here with my tribe of conscious people. I was
gonna say, you know when you've when you've reached your tribe. So now,
one of the things you said about writing down, and I love that
exercise, I will freely admit, I'm I'm It's not one that I am
familiar with. But let me ask you this question. I often find because
I do a lot of couple's work, and I know you do. I
mean, I do some stuff in with businesses still because that was really my
gig at the beginning of my life back in the last century. But I
do more like a lot of one on one work, you say, for
most of my stuff, And what I find so interesting is how much the
memory gets altered to support how the person needs to perceive that they are.
And how do you avoid that happening in this exercise? Because I know you
know what I mean. I hearing a couple tell you each what happened,
and you go, we in the same room, we in the same year.
You're not even in the same country here because it was so different.
Do you think that ever could could get in the way or is there a
way to help that not happen by doing this writing exercise, because you know,
it takes a lot of self awareness, a lot of self honesty,
and a lot of courage to really write down what you said, and our
memory will oftentimes give us the shine job. What are your thoughts? Yeah,
so I think that if people do the exercise, and it can be
frightening at first, but if you do the exercise without thinking too hard,
you have to be very honest about writing the conversation as though it were tape
recorded, so you know, the I said, she said, or whatever,
you have to really be honest about that. You can't you can't editorialize
and then when you go to the left side of the paper and write there,
you're just asking what was I feeling, what was I thinking? What
was I feeling? And there you have to really just let that roll.
You can't self edit. You have to just let it rip. You know,
I said, what do you think about the project? And I'm thinking,
we are so far behind. I can't believe we'll ever make the game
deadline. And she says it's too soon to tell. And I'm thinking,
and I'm feeling this woman doesn't have a clue how far behind we are.
We're in big trouble. So you have to just let that rip because that's
that's where you're going to catch the things that aren't that that you know that
aren't you're not editorializing so much. And then and then that gives you material
to work with. And the other analogy I like is sometimes we get into
these conversations, whether it's in therapy with another person or whether we're just talking
in a tough conversation, we're often entering them with a closed fist, like
we have our position, we have our opinion, we believe in it,
we defend it to death, and that only makes for misunderstanding and a lot
of frustration. I like to say what happens when and I don't want to
take anyone's opinion away, but what happens when we open our hand and we're
able to share the thinking under our opinion? So I have an opinion.
I don't like how the meeting went well, I can I have four archetypal
questions that I introduce to people, like what are my desires? What are
my concerns for the future, what authority issues are playing out? What standards
am I using to make judgments? When we ask those four questions, we're
like opening our hand and we're revealing the thinking underneath our position or our opinion.
And that's like a a tied not a tied sheet. It's like a
taekwondo move or something wherever. It's almost like it takes other people sort of
by surprise, and we can actually change the energy of a conversation by showing
that bit of vulnerability and that bit of open mindedness and that bit of open
heartedness, and one person can stop the war. You know, that's the
old saying. And so this notion of I love these four questions because their
universal no matter what what what how we're frustrated or what our opinion is.
I love those full questions feasted along with making sure we're asking ourselves are their
facts that we can agree on, because it gives us a firm foundation to
stand on. Well, I think the tie you were looking for was my
tie. Give everyone three and you'll find there a lot that's perfect. Yeah,
that's right. Yeah. You know, in some cultures you don't get
feedback unless you go out and have multiple my ties or multiple sakes, you
know, and then then you get the real truth. Yes, truth sarum.
Yeah, well you know you're now when you're working with people. And
again, the day of the book is the art of conscious conversation. And
where can they find the book once we'll get to plug in now. Yeah.
Yeah, the book is on Amazon, Barnes, and Noble, ask
for it at your favorite bookstore. Get online has audio book as well as
you know, a for a real book ches versus the virtual book. Yeah,
so that they can go and hop get it there. And basically the
book breaks down to understand conversations better, uh so to learn the lessons we
never were taught. I break it down into four types of conversations and that
in each type has has different tools and different practices involved. So it's it's
you know, it's not a book you're going to sit down and read in
one night, but it's a book that you can use as a guide to
improve in how you think about it and how you can participate in conversations.
Oh, you don't know our athlete, she'll she'll read it all in one
night. You can highlight the bit she thinks I should look at. That's
great. So what so I to ask what are the four types? What
are the four types of communications? Yeah, so the first one is storytelling
conversation, and basically the byline on that one is your stories aren't the truth.
And when we hold our stories as we believe our stories as the truth
or our opinions as the truth, that's when we're we're operating with close fists.
So that conversation is really about looking internally and saying, let me investigate
my stories, let me be more vulnerable about how I'm thinking, let me
you know, let me open up a bit. Because when we do that,
the next conversation is the collaborative conversation. And the collaborative conversation isn't possible
when there's two close fists, closed fists, or ten close fists trying to
win an argument and meeting. We're in family gathering thanksgivings coming up. There
will be plenty of bad uncles appearing. But so the collaborative conversation is about
the art of of inquiring and the art of advocacy. So we learn to
be open advocates, not closed advocates, and open people asking open questions not
close questions have proven wrong. That's the collaborative conversation. If we do that
conversation really well, it sort of it automatically slides into a creative conversation because
if we're getting in sync and we're saying wow, I and I'm open to
say wow, I never thought of it that way, doctor Kevin. This
gives me a new window into how you're thinking. It makes me think differently.
When we get into that space of mutual learning and our hearts and minds
start synchronizing, then creativity bubbles up. It's like ideas start coming up.
And we all had that experience where ideas come and we you know, we
might claim them, but we are worded. The hell that come from it
came from that open space of creativity. And then the last conversation, which
is universal, is to commit the conversation. It's how business gets done.
It's who's promising to do what by when, And that's a crucial conversation.
And we actually do that conversation pretty poorly. So the book helps will say
how do we navigate and do that conversation much much better? But before in
a nutshell? You know what I love about that too, though, is
it doesn't take two people having to come to the conversation with open fists,
just one right and just one In that action, it disarmed the other.
As you said, you know, you kind of stop the war before it
begins. But in it it's just a bunch more powerful way to approach it,
because then you're kind of dictating how it will all go. I really
like it, and I love the part about the creativity and the intuition and
allowing that to come in and by stepping into the flow of it, allowing
that to flow naturally. Yeah, the creative conversation is really about reacquainting ourselves
with our right brain and trusting our intuitions. You know, we often have
doing intuitions, but the other part of our brains are less rational brain shuts
it down, and the collaborative conversation, that art of opening our fists.
It's amazing how not only do those four questions that I talked about desires,
concerns, power, issues, and standards apply to understanding our own thinking,
they become a template for asking good questions. So if you came to me
Ashley with like, well this is really a stupid idea. I think we
should be doing X, and I don't agree, one thing I can do
is really have open inquiry with you where I really really want to understand your
position. Why are you thinking this way? We have a position, but
what's under that? What's your thinking under that? And so those four questions
become a really good template for me to ask you good questions, help me
understand your concerns. Well, what do you want to get out of this?
And let me tell you what I want to get out of it best
desires and by the way you're you know when you say it shouldn't happen this
way, by what measure? By what standard are you are you basing that
on? And those kinds of questions, it's like it's like that kind of
question is like I'm taking someone else's assist and I'm just one by one sort
of taking each finger and opening it up to see if I can get them
to open their hand and reveal the thinking under their position. Right. That's
that's that's a really great way of practicing good questions, which has to be
done by the person who has a willingness to learn, is actively listening and
isn't just using it as a way to find the right way to get the
get whatever they want. It has to have to put the you know,
the agenda that we go into conversations with. You know, people are tend
to be very blind to their agenda a lot of times, but they strongly
have one, but they don't want to they don't they don't want to say
that because then that makes them go, well, you know, you know,
like it's a bad thing. And in a way it is a bad
thing. If you're doing a collaborative conversation and you've got an agenda and your
only job is to sell your agenda, then you're you're you're only just talking
at each other. That's right, that's right. That there's the fifth gift
bumps, right, and and from in the first part of the book,
I talk about awareness the ego and and and when people are at behaving that
way or speaking that way, or engaging that way, like you just talked
about, doctor Kevin, it's they're they're actually attached to their position. Their
their ego is attached to their and their identity is attached to that position.
And so it's only until we can sort of separate from the position and say,
well, it's just the story, it's not the story, it's not
the truth, that we can sort of disidentify and get a little space between
our ego and our position, so we can open our hand and be vulnerable.
So we can open our hand and go, you know, I don't
have the answer, but I certainly have some ideas. And if we can
go into a mutual learning space, that's form many many people. That's the
that's a good practice because we aren't trained to do that. We're trained to
have answers. Hell. In elementary school, we were rewarded we raise our
hands to have the answer, to get the gold star, and so through
school and through a business, we're pretty much rewarded to have the answer.
And there's nothing wrong with being an expert. But you can be an expert
and know that you can't know everything. So there's a there's a good amount
of practice there that we can all do. And believe me, I've been
doing this for twenty five thirty years and I still catch myself daily, especially
with my wife. I was just gonna say, that's just disheartening. Uh,
nobody gets better, you know. I like to think that, Yeah,
yeah, I love this image of a pendulum, that time zero is
your vertical. And then if I if we do something that, would you
know, two days later we go, oh my god, I really blew
that conversation. I never should have done that. I shouldn't have defended myself.
I shouldn't have told him he was a jerk. But if we catch
ourselves two days later, and then we do a little bit of personal work,
and then we do a little reflection, well, what was that concerned
about? Why did I do that? What was my thinking? That is
a moment of learning, and then we move that. Then the next time
it happens, maybe it's not two days but two hours, And the next
time it happens it is two minutes, and the next time it's real time,
we can go, you know, here's what I'm really concerned about.
And so this practicing is just making ourselves more able and more competent to be
tolerant and in a mutual learning space, real time. And one of the
things sorry, go ahead, god now you know well, one of the
things is is then I want our listeners to keep this in mind, which
is that weally never get rid of all of our triggers. We don't go
through life and reach some kind of nirvana of oh and you know, we
get better at recognizing we can get rid of some of them, we can
get rid of a lot of them, or we move them into a place
where you go, oh yeah, trigger. Excuse me, wait a second,
let me back that statement back up, let me go halfway back.
Or I work with my couples to take time to learn how to recognize a
trigger in their partner and a trigger in theirselves, and know that when a
trigger happens, they're not going to be rational, they're not going to be
able to hear you, they're not going to be engaged, able to engage
in a healthy way. So back off and just say, hey, you
know, I think there might be some triggering going on around here. Why
don't we both go kind of think this through and come back and instead of
saying, and you're triggered, let's take a big long breath here. Yeah.
No, I was trained in something called voice dialogue. In was doctor
hol Stone many years ago, and he was sort of ahead of neuroscience.
But his idea was we we aren't going to ever get rid of our triggers,
or even our demons, our ego, our negative ego demons. But
instead of trying to exorcize them and get rid of them, we need to
acknowledge them and befriend them, because they at some point in our life,
they came about to to help us, to support us, to make sure
we we we were safe in life. And so just sort of naming it,
naming the trigger, understanding it, and then saying, you know,
I'm not going to get rid of it, but let me understand why I
have this trigger. And that's the process where we can start transforming some of
the underbelly thoughts that are that are driving the trigger. So that notion of
let's not try to rid ourselves of everything, but let's try to understand them,
and through the understanding they get transformed. Well, yeah, go ahead
to ask, go ahead, Well, what I was going to say is
what I like also is sometimes when I'm triggered. Oftentimes I'm triggered, I
don't have the language, I don't have the ability to like process it through.
But I think through this practice it gives you that communication skill, the
words, the language and the definitions that they're a little bit easier to grasp
in those moments when you're feeling whatever, you know, unable to process it.
So I like the practicing. Yeah, and so more we practice and
processing some of the stuff that's that's setting us off, the less the less
noise the committee has. I mean so in my years of practice about the
committee, Yeah, in my years of practice, my internal dialogue is a
lot quieter than it was twenty five years ago. And even when it rears
its ugly head, I now have and this is true with my wife and
we've been married forty one years. You know, if one of us is
having a private conversation or we get triggered, we actually also and this is
really important, we also have learned to laugh at one another, laugh at
ourselves and sort of have fun with one another. And was like, oh,
there goes that little bubby puppy. You know, So the idea of
naming it and then sharing it, it becomes lighter. So it's not like
you realize. That's why I love calling these things patterns because it's less judgmental.
It's like, oh, wow, I adapted that pattern from my dad
or my wife thinking you know, she adopted that pattern from her nanny or
whatever. And so calling in patterns, we can step aside, step separate
from a little bit and go oh wow, look at that. I don't
I don't need to believe that, or I can change that, and we
can be a little more lighthearted about it. And it's good to have a
good laugh at ourselves every once in a while. Yeah, I'm a I'm
a big one of you know, if you can say something funny, it
can break the energy, it can snap you back into going, Okay,
the world is really not going to end, and I need to I need
to back off from the ledge. I don't really need to jump off right
and I can exactly what were you gonna You're gonna go ahead? Sorry?
I was great. So now do you have any you have the book?
Are you still working with individuals or companies or is really the book you're focused
are you teaching? Tell us a little bit about how you're bringing the art
of conscious conversation into the world. Okay, So I do have I still
have some corporate clients, but really one handful. I'm not actually taking on
new corporate clients unless they're really special uh and and really willing to do the
work I've I mean, over the years, I've turned plenty of clients down
that they don't want to do the work. They just you know, I'm
I'm fine and I don't need to help. So I have some of that,
but i also have one on one clients and I'm expanding that world.
And then I'm doing a lot of podcasts and I've just in Detroit giving a
talk about my book. So I'm saying I'm slowing down from the corporate consulting
and I'm doing more one on one work and advising, and I'm and I'm
also working to get the word and the book out in the world. By
the way, people, if people go to my website, Chuck Wizzard,
come, they can download a PDF of the introduction. Yep, So will
we can get that put in the comment if ash, do you mind putting
that into the comment under tonight's show, you don't, I don't take care
of that, so we had no You know, it's funny because I'm coming
up to my eighteenth year and I don't ever get a lot of call ins,
but I get a lot of feedback from people. And what I most
often hear is, you know what I most often here is I asked better
questions than they would have, like, like I would like to hear the
questions you asked, Like you asked things that we wouldn't think to ask.
Okay, so I which is why I try to be very, very interactive
and try to do that, you know. And I think one of the
things is, so we've got a couple more minutes and the music comes in.
When the music comes in, but it's going to come in the next
couple of minutes. Where do you, in the art of conscious conversations think
that the concept of faith plays out positive, negative, neutral, Go,
Okay, that's a great question. So I make a distinction between religion and
spirituality. I think there's a that's that's an important distinction for people to have.
I believe that, you know, there's so many religions in the world.
You just look at the state of the world and realize that a lot
of battle we're still fighting battles because we believe our religion is the religion.
So I think anybody can have the religion they want, and they do gather
faith from their religion. But I think there's a there's a dearth of tolerance
and that we should find we should find our our way that we want to
connect with the universe or God or however you wanted to find that. Sometimes
I like to call out the mystery and and for me personally, I believe
that I am part of a much I am part of the whole, which
is much greater than just my community and and and and my work and my
family is the whole of earth. And there's there are things that's so complex.
The mystery is so complex, and whether it's God's hand or however you
wanted to find that that I have faith that and I've been blessed. I've
I've been blessed in the sense that through many challenges, you know, and
I I've had faith. You know, life comes and delivers something to me
that I need it or that was good for me. So there's a sense
of just having faith that we're bigger than ourselves, our self focus and we
can sort of trust the larger, the larger universe and the larger wisdom of
the world. And there's the sign of the closing of music. Thank you,
Chuck Weisner, the art of conscious Conversations available everywhere. Next week is
Planetary Influences with Rob Stewart, where we'll see what's up in the skies and
how it's going to influence us as surely you've got to join us next week.
You're invited. I would love to join you. Thank you for inviting
me and Chuck, it was so nice talking with you. Yeah, great
to meet you. Thank you for taking the time and inviting me to your
show. And good luck when your book. Uh yeah, I