MSU Extension 4-H Adulting 101

 So Hi, everyone, and welcome to the November Adulting 101 session, Navigating Tough Talks: Conflict Resolution and Civil Discourse which is being presented by Janelle Stewart, who is an educator with Michigan State University Extension, housed in Lenawee County. So this also happens to be our last Adulting 101 for the 2025 year, so we're excited that you're joining us to end out our year. I'm your host for tonight, Laurie Rivetto. I am an Extension Educator based in Wayne County, so where Detroit is located, that's the county that Wayne County's in, or Detroit is in Wayne County, and I get to work with youth helping them become Beyond Ready for their future. So tonight's topic is a really, really important one about navigating tough conversations. It's really important in today's world where we know topics and issues can get heated really quickly. We hope this will equip you with the communication skills that you need to handle real-world challenges and relationships, in workplaces, and basically everyday life. And these tools can help foster competence, emotional intelligence, and resilience, which are key traits for a successful adulthood. As a reminder, if you registered for this workshop in a registration system, you are going to receive an email after the webinar with resources that should come out either tomorrow or early next week. So you don't need to necessarily note anything down. You'll have most of the stuff sent to you. And the recording of this will also be available for one year on our website. So you can go back and refer to it or share it with others. Also, as another reminder, this is webinar format. So we don't have any videos for all of you or the ability to talk or unmute. But you can use the chat and we will be using Q&A for questions so that we can keep an eye on the questions and make sure we respond to those. Feel free to ask questions throughout the presentation and Janelle will respond to those or I'll make sure she's aware of those or I will help respond to those. But we will also have time at the end for you to ask questions of Janelle as well. So feel free to utilize that time if that makes more sense. So first of all, I just want to remind everybody that all of our programs are open to all at MSU Extension. We know that human differences enrich our lives, our work in our community, and we embrace our responsibility to be a resource for all and are committed to providing programs to all segments of our community. We're very happy that all of you are joining us tonight. And it's also really important to understand the long-standing history and legacy of colonialism that brought us to reside on this land, and that land acknowledgement on the screen is one step in that process. As we continue, again, we're going to shift right into communicating through conflict and conflict resolution and civil discourse. Just use that Q&A and chat. We like to have interactive and engaging presentations, so there will be chances for you to reflect personally. So if you do not have a pen or paper nearby, you should probably grab that so that you can jot down ideas, put down thoughts. You're going to need to think about a situation that you can kind of work through. So please grab pen or paper or scrap paper. It doesn't have to be anything important to use during this presentation and use the Q&A for questions, use chat. We will also have polls. So please participate fully. That will be the best way for you to learn the most and get the most out of our time together, whether you're watching this live or the recording. So without further ado, I will turn it over to Janelle. Thank you, Laurie. So as Laurie said, my name is Janelle Stewart, and I'm an Extension Educator with MSU Extension. I'm based in Lenawee County. So I'm at the very bottom of the state. One of those counties that I say we border Ohio and we keep Michigan from falling into that Ohio state down there. So my roles for MSU Extension, it involves managing the local 4-H program in Lenawee County. And then I also across the state, I do leadership and civic engagement trainings, programs, and facilitation. So we know that communication and communicating through conflict is one of those important leadership skills. And so it's something that we've dove into as far as our work team goes to really look at the skills that we feel that is important for individuals that's interested in enhancing their leadership skills, but what we need in general. So we're going to really jump into a program that came about several years ago, about five, six years ago for us in Extension. And it really just resonated with me. So I'm super excited to talk more, share with it. And it's really one of those conflict resolution through communication that's just kind of really easy to navigate through. And I've just found a lot of success with it. And so we're going to jump in here and look at a little bit and get started with it. So as we set the stage here, just want to look and see, have you ever stayed silent when things get tense or maybe you explode when someone disappoints you? You maybe let little frustrations build up until you snap. Maybe we get defensive during feedback or just hope conflict will resolve itself and go away without ever addressing it. If you're thinking yes or even sometimes to any of those scenarios right there, just know you're not alone. These are common. They're human reactions. It is something that we all experience when things get a little bit tense in a conversation or in people's actions and behaviors. So tonight we're going to focus on practicing new ways to communicate through the conflict, not avoid it or bulldoze through it. We're going to work with a system that allows us to methodically work through it. We will also explore how the strategies we talk about today can help when having difficult conversations. Or as Laurie said, those conversations of discourse and how it's so polarized right now of one side versus the other side. And so these strategies will help us look at how we can come together a little bit and civically talk with each other and possibly use these strategies to have conversations with individuals when we disagree. Trying to get back to that we agree to disagree, right? So when you and I can still be friends, you and I can still have relationships but disagree on things. So a few things we ask of you is that we hope that you engage throughout this presentation. As Laurie said, you're not able to unmute and talk with us, but we will be watching chat. Laurie will watch it super closely for me. But if you can jump in, put things in the chat when we ask you questions, ask you to participate. And at any point that you have a question that's burning and you want answered, put that in the Q&A. I'm going to challenge you Tuesday night. Laurie and I did a program together with a group of young people, and the chat was flying so fast, I'm not sure we could keep up with it at all. And we had three of us trying to keep up with it. So you can, we'll challenge you, see if you can keep us going like the young people did on Tuesday night. But so we're going to utilize, as Laurie said, the chat function, the Q&A function, and then we will have some, we're going to have some videos that we're going to share with you tonight, as well as we're going to do polls in order for you to interact that way. So the more engagement we have, the more we all will learn from each other. And that's really important for me as an educator is that I'm always learning as much when I'm doing a presentation as I hope that I'm giving you when I'm teaching. So we also hope that as we go through tonight, that we have respect for each other's experiences. So as we all have different lived experiences, and we hope this training is a safe place for us to learn and make changes in how we approach difficult situations. And we hope that you will try things on. Be open to new ideas and like trying on a jacket -See if it fits. Is it a little tight there? Is it a little tight here? A little big on us? How do we fit into that jacket? So try things on. See how they work for you. So hopefully those are things that we all can agree with as we move through tonight's training. So with that, let's get started talking about conflict. While I've been trained in conflict management, and I often teach it through MSU Extension, both with young people and adults, most of my learning has come from real life experiences. Just like many of you that I'm assuming in the room that your life experiences have taught you a lot of things about conflict management, either how to do it or how not to do it, as well as being able to think back on how maybe you would have wished things had been changed or you'd handled things differently. In my role as program coordination for our local 4-H program, we have a super large program in Lenawee County, over a thousand families or a thousand young people, 700 families involved. We can't provide programming for everyone that's 100% happy with how the things come, especially when we have competitions. And so there's always a lot of working through, communicating, and trying to figure out people and how they handle things and doing exactly as we're talking here, working through those conflict and those feelings. So on a personal level, I've experienced conflict with my siblings, with my parents, my friends, not you, Laurie, we haven't had that yet, with classmates, co-workers, and believe it or not, my spouse. We have, we've, excuse me, I apologize for that. The list can just go on and on. And I'm sure that you have your own list of when you have experienced different conflicts. So that's why I feel comfortable talking and working through this program tonight. It's because I know I'm not alone as we all have that. So there's a lot of lived experiences and insight in this Zoom room. I do know that. So while I'll be sharing tools and strategies tonight, I'm just as excited to hear your thoughts and reflections. So again, to keep this interactive can't say this enough please join me in the zoom in order to um keep this keep this exciting so we're going to go to the chat first thing here thank you for blessing me for my sneeze there I apologize for that but you found the chat and that we have been able to um work with our names and introductions so our first chat is word one word that comes to mind when you hear the word conflict. So what is one word that comes to mind when you hear the word conflict? We have anger, disagreement, argue, disagreement, fighting, disagreements, opposing opinions, experiences, and viewpoint, stressful, cringe, anger, resolution, unsettled, disagreement, fight, fight. crying or caring sorry caring caring yep disgruntled differences misunderstanding people who care about something will always fight for it so so passion coming in right a little bit with that differences I see there yeah absolutely so so let's do this and let's talk a little bit about because all of those things are thoughts that people have when it comes to conflict so let's we're gonna Laurie's gonna start a poll here and so let's talk about the nature of conflict. So what do you think about conflict? Is conflict good? Is conflict bad? or is conflict somewhere in the middle? (waiting) I see people coming in with, some is good, some feel it's bad somewhere in the middle seems to be gaining a lot of traction there. I think it looks like Laurie that most have answered so we're gonna end it and share our results 86% conflict is somewhere in the middle we've got 9% saying conflict's good and 5% saying conflict is bad yeah so this is a this is a common um results when we ask this question I'll actually say that you guys have hit a little bit more on the mark of conflict is somewhere in the middle um because often we will see the younger that we have and we teach this with young people um the more we hear that conflict is bad um and it seems to be the older we do get, we hear and see it to be more in the middle or people even recognizing that conflict can be, it can be good. Again, that's how it's all handled, right? And I appreciate Danielle there. It depends, right? It does absolutely depend. So the truth is conflict isn't good or it's not bad. It's human. It's just something that shows up in families, workplaces, and communities. And for example, I value collaboration while a co-worker prioritizes efficiency, right? So we're in conflict there. It doesn't mean that it's bad or it's good. It's just an example of a conflict that's pretty simple of what myself and my co-worker may value. So maybe it's someone that has different goals or different styles and how we achieve things. intention sometimes happens. So it doesn't mean that there's something wrong. It just means that we're different. And the key to learning to respond in a healthy intentional ways is to recognizing that difference, realizing that we can't control others, but we can control how we show up, how we show up to conversations and how we show up to handling situations. And that's really truly only thing that we can control so. So as I prepared for tonight's training I decided to look up the definition of conflict so that we'd be all working from the same page so believe it or not I would have to say the internet has conflict when it comes to a definition of conflict because there's many different definitions so two of them that I found that kind of resonated with me said that conflict is a state of disagreement or opposition resulting from incompatible needs, goals, or interests between two or more parties. It can range from a simple argument to a more serious struggle, and it can occur between individuals, groups, or even within a single person. So we will not be talking too much about interpersonal conflict, but recognizing that it is one of the ways that conflict does occur. So at its core, it involves a clash or a collision of some kind, which is perceived by at least one of the parties involved. Another definition that I'd really like much shorter, and that was conflict is generally defined as the internal or external discord that results from differences in ideas, values, or feelings between two or more people. And that really kind of like lies where the underlying current, the underlying need or underlying issue of conflict is really in that the difference between my idea, and I'm just going to keep picking on Laurie as we go through because we're co-workers, right? My idea and Laurie's ideas, or my values and Laurie's values, or the feelings that I have about something and the feelings that she may have about something don't match up. And so those are really truly underlying the core things regarding where conflict generally will start in people. So as we navigate learning about conflict and communication, we will focus on responding instead of reacting. Because again, we can only control how we show up, as we said. So we're going to talk about responding instead of reacting. We're going to try and look at understanding root causes. And then we're going to also look at communicating through those challenges So although conflict sometimes feels bad when it leads to resentment, defensiveness, or broken relationships, conflict can become good when it sparks ideas, deepens understanding, and strengthens relationships. So as we do teach conflict resolution to young people as well, I have to go back to our chat earlier as it resonates with me too, as we see that conflict is Fight. We have on here. We have disagreement, unsettling, all of that. And a conflict can result definitely in a fight. But I think as we work with young people, we try not to use that word because that's really an action that comes from people having a conflict. And hopefully we can communicate through this before that we come physical in the nature of our disagreements or our ideas, values, and feelings. And so I have that chuckle here as we talk about this taught it to this to a group of second graders and I said to him one time I said we're going to we are no longer going to use the f word meaning the fight word so needless to say um there was some unhappy parents when the kids went home and said we're not allowed to use the f word in school anymore and the parents were like well whenever were you allowed to use it oops now right a conflict that was created because of just some miscommunication and all of that. So we're going to challenge ourselves not to use the F word, meaning the fight word, as we go through here, because hopefully what we're going to look at with the PAL system that Laurie has already pulled up here. Thank you, Laurie. We hope that we can communicate through this before it becomes a fight. So when navigating conflict, we set a practice, and this is what we're going to work through tonight, called PALS. so we are going to look at Pausing - Ask - Listen and Speak so um this is how we're going to think of it as pals all together like Laurie and are pals so it's worth our relationship to work through things um in order to not have a conflict but it does set it does separate if you're looking at it it's P separate A L S and you do not work this system as linear you can do the pause you may be in listening then you may go to ask and you may have an opportunity to speak but then you're back in like oh I need to pause and think about this so PALS is not that you work through one two three and four you can skip around and work through many things so it's a very flexible toolkit and we hope that we can learn it enough and feel comfortable enough that we can skip around and go from place to place. This model comes from Dr. Donna Kapowitz. She's a conflict expert who worked on everything from personal agreements to the international tensions that have occurred over the years. This course will help us to apply the strategies for communicating through conflict to prevent the de-escalation conflict part of it. So we don't want it to get to the word, the F word, the fight word. We want it to be de-escalated prior to getting to that type of status that is. So the best way to learn this tool is by practicing it with real life situations, be it big or small, personal or professional. We're going to have you think about a situation where you have been involved in a, um, in a conflict with, with someone, or you've watched two people experience conflict with each other. Maybe it's your children at home. Maybe it's you and a coworker. Maybe it's your friend at school, whatever it could be. Um, and so just watch- the take a minute to sit down and, um, write down that conflict so that we have it in our mind as we work through this. So I'm going to be quiet for a second. Just think and reflect on which scenario you would like to work through tonight with us. (waiting) If you are stuck, It could be something like a friend who never pays you back. Maybe a friend or acquaintance that steals your ideas or work or homework and takes credit for it. Or maybe it's a teammate or a classmate who misses deadlines and always affects you then or maybe a roommate or a sibling who plays music way too loud. A family member who avoids responsibilities or a supervisor a teacher who unfairly responds to your work with criticize criticism so again just take a minute to think through many of them um and then kind of settle on one that will be you will you will use and this will be personal work you don't have to share it as we work through the PALS system, so. We did have the comment about how pausing can be difficult. Janelle is going to give some strategies, so. I love Lisa how you have realized that, yes, PALS, PALS spelled backwards is slap. And so we truly do hope that we do not get to that again. That's that reaction that's physical, that we hope does not happen um but yes that's that's it's so funny because I did not ever put that together at all I was like oh it is , isn't it? So So I laugh too because as you finalize which communication which conflict conundrum we call it that you're working on, I always like to look at PALS as being like you can be p-a-l-s you work through it or maybe it's p-a-l-a p-a -l-a P-A-L-A. And then maybe you get to an S at the very end. So LAPS for successful conflict resolution. Yes. So yes, yes. So you guys are all seeing this, right? We may jump in right away to listening. Maybe you're not doing the pausing right away. But yes, there's different ways to use it. So, all right, we are going to look at that pause. And I appreciate the fact that we've already recognized that this is super hard to do, right? I have to say, when I really embraced and thought about PALS as a form of managing difficult conversations and communicating through conflict. This is the one that I have found to be, this is the one part of PALS that I find to be the most helpful. It's, yes, one of the most difficult things to do because human nature says that we want to either bicker, argue, you know, go back and forth, or we want to solve other people's problems when they come to us in conflict. And it's really super important that we pause, we stop and slow down. So our brains are wired to react quickly when we feel like we're threatened or we feel that somebody else is and we want to help them solve it. And we may fight by getting aggressive. Again, we're not using that F word, but we may flee by avoiding it or running away or our body naturally may freeze. And we just maybe don't know what to do in the moment. So be aware if you're starting to react. So if someone comes at you with a, with a conversation, you, you may want to know, or I shouldn't say you may want to, you need to know what those, what those trigger things are in you. So I always use this as example. A couple of years ago, I was at our county fair. A parent was very upset with a conversation that they'd had with one of my key volunteers and it was over a rule and they came at me just super aggressive and my first gut instinct that really truly was was to defend the person and I was like I can't do this I don't know what really truly happened I need to find out I need to hear both sides but I'm telling you my heart was racing so fast that I just thought literally I was gonna have a heart attack over the whole situation at that point and I really truly just took a deep breath and I said thanked them for their concerns and said, I need to take a moment to one, read the rules, to have a conversation with the person that you've said has reacted this way and find out what went on that escalated to your being this upset. I appreciate it. But can we agree that give me time to look at it and read the rules and then come back and I'll meet with you in hour two hours do a set time so that we can meet again to talk about it let me tell you that next hour so I spent running around finding the rules finding anybody was at the meeting or at the witnessed it and talked with the volunteer that the accusations were being and made at and and it really truly allowed me to settle myself in, be prepared for a conversation, as well as de-escalate the person that was very angry at that time. My response was wanting to solve it right then and there and be over with. But I really truly tried to pause it, the technique of stopping it and slowing down the conversations, especially because this one was going to be heated. It's crucial to pause and give everyone a moment in order to respond thoughtfully instead of reacting impulsively. And I know that if I continued with that conversation, I would have been reacting impulsively. I also would have been reacting defensively. And so I just really felt that I needed to have that time to do that. So often when tensions run high, people say things that they regret before they even realize it. So stress can spill over or spill out and sideways and unintentionally fuel the conflict. So by intentionally pausing the situations, we can slow down our own emotional reactions and respond rationally, as well as offering space for others to slow down as well. And I really needed to give that individual that time to to take that time. And and I really truly asked him, I said, just please go get a drink. Go sit down at your tack area by your animal. Just really, really cool off, sit in front of a fan because it was hot out. But I was trying to give him all the things that I needed him to do in order to come back with less emotions and less high feelings and emotions with it. So pausing does help us regain our self-control, show up as our best self in the conversations, and then stay focused and calm even in the middle of a heated argument. So remember, conflict doesn't always mean things need to be rushed or resolved immediately and it's human nature for us want to do it and do it immediately so we can't avoid it because that leads to other types of tensions and issues and hope that it goes away like most of us really truly would like to have but it just gives us that opportunity to really slow down um and don't you don't have to resolve it immediately so take time. Gather, do your homework those types of things in order to come back for being very thoughtful with our discussion. So one thing to keep in mind, it takes two people for a conflict dynamic to continue, but it only takes one person to shift the dynamic. So by pausing for me and really, truly, intentionally using the pause, it allows me to hopefully, I have found to be shift that dynamics. So remember that it can be the energy and the direction of the conversation that you can manage that when given that opportunity and that space to do that. So, all right. So what do we do when we're feeling like we need to take that pause? I gave you an example where I had the person, we took a stop action. I gave a time where we were going to come back. And so that was, that's just, that was a way of breaking the tension and all of that. So, but there are different ways when that emotion, so when that emotions was running high in me, heart was racing and all of that, there are some things that we can do in order to manage our emotions and our feelings when we're going to have to address a difficult conversation. And so we're going to start off by looking at what we call the four square or a box breathing so that we can have that controlled breathing, that controlled atmosphere. So I think it's the next slide, isn't it, Laurie? Yep. And we'll, I don't know if we'll be able to watch the other videos, you know we're getting tight on time just to help them so well you know what Laurie we can skip this video okay that's not a problem box breathing really truly is four square breathing you're going to inhale for four counts you're going to hold for four counts and you're going to exhale for four counts you're going to do this in a vision of a box inhale outhale inhale outhale exhale so four types and types of breathing, bringing in, breathing out. So another form of breathing exercise, which is my favorite one to do, is what we call the five finger slide. I like this one because it also brings in like a textile touching. And that's where you go up your thumb and you slide down as you breathe. So as you breathe in, you're going up your hand, down the finger when you're exhaling. I just like that extra textile touch. So just think about what is the best way that you can actually control your breathing by taking deep breaths, holding it, and exhaling it. Another way to take a pause is to go and write things down. So maybe it's like note-taking. It's when you get upset or jotting things down can help you stay calm and focused. And so if you need to take a pause, you may say, thanks for sharing. I want to write this down so I can reflect and respond thoughtfully. And that gives you that pause. You don't even have to separate at that point. It just gives you a chance to write your feelings and emotions down as they were sharing things with you. You can take this scheduled break, as I said. That's my favorite thing is let's take a moment, let's break, let's come back at a specific time later in order to have this conversation so everyone has an opportunity to do their homework. So and then sometimes pausing means stepping away, especially for your well -being. So set boundaries like Like muting notifications, using do not disturb sign, or even logging off if you're on the computer and there's a heated conversation that you need to have. So, and I will have to always say this. This sounds like a cop out, but the classic, I need to use the bathroom so that we can have a long conversation. There's nothing wrong with that. It gives you that moment to control that situation. Works beautifully. So I know whenever I've taught this, people are like, so Janelle, when we've been talking and you said you had to go to the bathroom, did you really have to? I was like, never know. So it is an opportunity to control that. So when it comes to pausing, we want you to think about the following scenario and how we would handle it. So imagine, oh, it's a poll. So imagine you received a snarky response to a post on social media. What should you do? Should you respond to the snarky response in defense of your original post ignore the post or delete the comment? (Pause) I think they're all in Laurie so if you want to release yeah but it looks like we got some responses of respond a lot of people said ignore it and a few people said deletes yeah so social media , online keyboard warriors whatever we would like to call anybody who has experienced or been involved in a disagreement online is a fast and growing issue and concern with our youth population. We have a young person in our program right now doing a survey on young people and the effects of mental health on social media. So it's really exciting to see this young person taking on and tackling this. But with this, I'm going to tell you the best answer. I'm not going to tell you the right or the wrong answer, but the best answer would be to ignore the post. You can't really change a mind of or argue on social media. It's not going to end well. It really isn't a good way to have a conversation or try and create understanding by social media comments. And so we say that the best answer would be to ignore the post. If you know the individual, calling them, maybe having a direct conversation with them offline so that we can continue to understand where we're all coming from with those feelings, emotions, and things like that. But doing it online is not going to result in anything. Deleting or hiding a comment can create more issues than not. We do encourage you to delete or hide a comment when it comes to abusive language, foul language, or something that's very offensive. Then hiding or deleting can work for that sense. But most of the time we find that when you hide or delete a comment that someone has made reacting to yours, it just fuels them a little bit more. And I'm sure some of you, all of you have seen them come back and say, where'd that let it go? And they call it back and they try and post in that again. So really, truly, we're going to say that the best option is to just ignore it and then have a private conversation with the individual if you do know them. So pausing helps you slow down, regain control, and respond with intention, not impulse. So whatever method you use, identify where it's best for you. And when you need to take a moment to center yourself or walk away, so you're ready to take on the challenge or having a difficult conversation, you're willing, you're able to do that. So, all right, we are going to go on to the Ask. Got about 20 minutes, Janelle. Less than 20 minutes. We will get it there. So the second part of PALS is ask. Asking questions is a key understanding for the whole picture. So not just what's happening on the surface but what's underneath. This means asking the other person thoughtful questions and asking yourself some hard questions too so especially if you are dealing with a conflict with yourself Laurie and I are having an argument . It's asking what I have to play with this and looking at myself is just as important as having those that other conversation with Laurie. So why is this? We all make assumptions. Our views are limited. And so if there's, there's maybe two. So we don't ask. If we don't ask questions, we don't clarify. We often get stuck in our own perspective. So to communicate well through conflict, sometimes you need to step back and separate yourself from your immediate thoughts and feelings. So it's kind of like being your own little detective, curious about really what is going on inside your brain and theirs. So try asking yourself questions such as, what do I believe actually is true? Is there another story that could be just as true or even truer? Where is your source of information coming from? And how accurate is that information? And what has been the impact of this conflict on me, on Laurie, and on these situations. So we really can't talk about assumptions or truth without talking about the internet and the social media blinders and how it feels when you want to, when you're out there searching things. So we just want to remind everyone that when on social media, using social media, when you Google something or when you search engine something, I don't want to pick on Google necessarily, search engine something, just know that your feeds are going to be all about what you searched. So it's really super important as the internet is an important source of our lives is that we look at both sides. So if I Google that Laurie Rivetto is the best person in the entire world and what a feed I'm going to get, I also need to go and say, what are the bad things about Laurie Rivetto so that we can get both algorithms coming in so that we have this. So just remember that when using the internet, it's not always our best friend as far as looking at and gathering information because it can be very biased and one-sided. So make sure that we're always being curious and open to new possibilities and deeper understanding and moving our conversations from conflict towards connection. So this exercise we're going to do just real quick here. take a moment to look at the image on your screen. How many black dots do you see? If you could drop that in the chat. Got a 12. Got a bunch of 12s. Awesome. So the right answer is 12. I'm just curious to know, did everyone see the 12 right away or did it take a little bit of eye movement, head, looking at the bigger picture? Because I know when I see it, I see the ones in the middle, right straight down the line pretty easily but I have to really work a little bit to see all of the full picture oh someone sees 13 oh someone sees 67 is that six or seven? Took a while kept disappearing on you yeah it took a second right so um so so just remember that there there's 12 dots in here so I will say this um it's just the thought here when we look at this and and try to see what we have here is the fact that it may take us a little bit to see the full picture. Things disappear on us. The dots did disappear a little bit. Your eyes have to shift. You may have to work a little bit at it. You may have to zoom in or zoom out to get it. But in reality, when having conversations and doing the Ask, that's what we need to do. We need to look at and find the bigger picture not make assumptions we naturally want to make assumptions on things how many of you ever been driving down the road and someone cuts you off and all of a sudden you're like angry and you create a whole story in your head about that person cutting you off right and then by the time that we release all of that upsetness it could have really truly been then they cut us off, not accidentally. I mean, unintentionally, it just happened. But we may create assumptions and our perceptions and our own feelings and emotions often will get in the way until we ask the questions and have the conversations. So it's important that we do that. So we're going to... I think I'm going to move to the next one. Yep. Yep. So it's always important that when we're doing the ask, that we are looking at the intention. What is someone meant to do? And then what was the impact of what they actually happened? so as we're having a conversation or if you think back real quickly about that conflict that asked you to write down from the beginning look at that conflict kind of feel it experience it again and think about what was the intent that was happening in that conflict what was the motivation maybe what it was and then really truly the impact of what actually happened from it? (waiting) And think about how the actions affected others. (waiting) So as we really want to change conversations from intent to impact because the impact is where we can really change things more. So an example is I didn't mean to offend anyone. It was just a joke. That's looking at things as intent. Where we could let it go to thanks for letting me know. I see how that joke wasn't okay. So this is a scenario where someone approaches you, has a conversation, and says something about the joke that you made. Your response, I didn't mean to offend anyone, it was a joke, or thanks for letting me know, I see how that joke wasn't okay. So I hope you can see a little bit of difference there. Another one would be someone approaches you about an issue, your response back is you're just trying to make me look bad. Instead of, I felt embarrassed when I didn't get a chance to speak. So again, reflecting on the impact of the situation versus you creating the intention already in your mind. So we're going to do an activity real quick here. Take that again, the intent versus the impact. Write it down. look at how you could consider that the how the the scenario you're talking about could be flipped from intent to impact (waiting) Just because of our time I normally would have you share some out but hopefully you're working through that so we've had we've Paused: we've taken those minutes to take or that seconds those minutes hours whatever it is um in order to have working through a conflict. We're Asking questions in order to determine the impact, the intent to get a little bit deeper, understand where things are coming from in order to have the conversation. We're going to then Listen though. When we ask the questions, it's important that we are listening. So we do have time for another quick poll, Laurie, you think? all right so how do you know how good of a listener do you think you are? This is the question so you're a great listener good listener okay listener or have some work to do around listening we do have a question in the Q & A Janelle that we'll come to at the end. Okay. So we'll want to leave a few minutes for a Q & A time. all right we're at look you're there yeah pretty close 75 percent it looks like we've got um most people say they're a good listener something great a good chunk of people still say they're okay and then we've got some some people who are honest saying they have some work to do. Yeah. So I appreciate that. So when you look at listening, because most people listen to respond versus listen to truly hear what the other person is talking about. And that's really what listening is about when you're showing and demonstrating good listening skills. You have an open body. You're not distracted with other things. You're not playing on your phone while you're also listening. You're showing body language that says, I'm curious about what you're saying. I'm here to listen. And you're trying to remove from your mind how you're going to respond to them. Really, truly take in what they are saying and then give yourself that opportunity, again, to possibly pause at the end when they have really given you their story and then take it at that point and give your opportunity to possibly speak as we will get to the S or maybe it is nodding the head and allowing them to continue the talk. Maybe it's using those open -ended questions or open-ended statements. I'm here to listen. I hear, I understand. I hear what you're saying. It's also about paraphrasing back to them what they are saying so that they know that you are listening as well as they can clarify that you're hearing what they really wanna say. So open listening, listening to our understanding is about understanding, not winning. And so many times when we're in a heated conversation and discussion, we are trying to listen to win and listen to respond. And we need to move beyond that. As we said, like we showed here, what is important for us to listen and work on our listening skills. So when you are trying to, when you're listening, I love the flashlight scenario that we have here. When you're listening, it's like a flashlight. That's a really good beam. When your brain starts going to responding or thinking they've rattled on long enough or I'm super busy, and then that flashlight start just going all over the place. And so it's really super important that we stay with that single beam on what the person is saying when we're in the listening. So when you're talking with them, you want to pause, let them finish speaking. And then, and we suggest like even eight seconds after they're finished speaking, count in your head. You can count by twos, two, four, six, eight, if you want, or you can count for one through eight. And then maybe at that point, you're going to paraphrase back what they said. That way they know that they heard and you're clear or they feel that you heard it and you heard it correctly because sometimes we don't hear it correctly. And you can use those phrases. So you're feeling.. It sounds like... what I'm hearing... And then pause and wait quietly for them to clarify. So it's called the three Ps, Pause, Paraphrase, Pause. That is some things that shows that we are doing active listening. So pause, paraphrase, and pause. So listening, that's the part that we really need to work on. I agree. I think I'm a pretty good listener, but I also know that there's many times I'm really bad at it because other things are going on in my life. So I would have to say that I'm always working on it because it's just so hard with our distractions that we have in life. But PPP is a very important part to remember as far as listening goes. So we have Paused. We have Asked clarifying questions in order for us to get to the point that we feel that we have a better understanding of what is going on. We have Listened to the person, truly listened to them. And maybe we have to go back and ask. Maybe we have to go back and pause again. Maybe we have to step away because what you heard during the listening really requires you to find more information out or maybe your feelings are truly hurt and you need to step away again and pause in order to gather those thoughts so that you can clearly Speak and move to what, how and now framework so this helps us to speak with clarity and purpose some people enjoy writing things down before they're going to do the speak so that they do come back to they go back to the pause. Other people can just clearly articulate it very quickly off the top of their head. You just need to know yourself and what is best for you and how you can do it. So we encourage you before you dive into the speaking part that you think, think it through, think about what you want to say, how you want to say it. And now that I'm going to say it, and you're also going to be looking at your tone of voice uh what is your tone saying to the other person not just what the words that are coming out . So the what, how and now framework becomes the practical tool of speaking up . WHAT truly happened? HOW has this impacted as you? can see we're going back to other words um that we used in other in in the other um areas and NOW what do we need to happen next? So we often get through conflict resolutions and communications or having civic discourse, tough conversations, all of those things, and we forget what to do next. So it's important that we talk through all of this. And I may have this conversation with Laurie. It may have been a difficult conversation. And we may wrap it up and say, now, Laurie, I hope that we can move forward it as friends, although we don't agree to, we agree to disagree. Or a scenario that I recently had involved, uh, a family that was very upset regarding our point system when it came to our horses. Um, she approached me, um, was very angry at this, um, the awards that were given out thinking her daughter had a better placing and should have been higher. I took that pause. I said, you know, the books are open. You can come and look at your daughter's points and everyone's points after the banquet tonight, make an appointment. We'll run through this. She followed through next day, called me, we made an appointment. I got the books in. I looked up all of the points systems, how they're awarded, how they work, things like that. We sat down, we went through all of our points. There was a discrepancy. I had to call in the actual judge's cards, found out the judge's card showed that there was no points. So the points she had was wrong in that sense. But I never used that wrong. I always used the words mistakes happen. You probably heard placings from another class. It's okay. But we had to schedule a second conversation because I had to call in the points. And we ended up in over a three-day period of the discussion with it being at the end with her apologizing to me for creating additional work in a workload for me. And my answer back to her was no problem. This is what we're here for. So everyone has a better understanding so that we can all work from the same page. I mean, she has sent me follow-up messages like you wouldn't believe just thanking me for taking time. And another family has since called and said, I hear that you were willing to talk through this and help us understand. I'm like, yes, absolutely um so really truly having a next step having a final stage um on how this one was we can always have these conversations at any time call me we'll have the conversation so important that we are speaking up and practicing bearing the responsibilities when we need to bear those responsibilities apologize, set boundaries respectfully when you have to and then brainstorm started to collaboratively think through things, , when we are trying to get to that Now stage of it. So last but not least, the conflict, remember that it's always in , it's a linear process. You might speak, you might pause, you might ask, you might listen, you may go back to pause. You may go back to ask. We hope that you don't SLAP. Um, you, you will absolutely do LAPS around when you are trying to have conversations. So about having difficult conversations. So let's look at the chat, see what we have here. So how do you support, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I was gonna say, while please put questions in the Q&A. Also, we'd love for you to share in the chat something you appreciate about this session, something you're gonna think more about in the future. so please add that into the chat now do some reflection that's how we apply things to our own life is through that reflection and application so maybe pick one of those questions on the slide that you can respond to and yeah Janelle we have a question how do you support someone important in your life who has negative feelings about your own boundaries while also holding true to yourself and I know we had one of the B's was boundaries so what are your thought. Yeah so yeah right. It's often very difficult when you're talking about your own boundaries being in a conflict with somebody that's important to your life and so I think that this for me is a conversation and this is really where the communication comes in where you have that conversation with that person that's important in your life to say "These are my core values. These are my boundaries. I hope that you can live with those. I hope that you can respect them. I know that you know, I accept you for your feelings. I hope you can accept me for my feelings. and, and we will continue to move forward with the, with the concept that we're going to agree to disagree on things." So, because again, we go back to that very, very first slide when we talked about the definition of conflict when it really truly is about um different of different thoughts, opinions and feelings and that's usually what creates the bound or creates the difficulty. If you can talk through them, be very clear to let them know let them know what's negotiable or not negotiable on those boundaries And being very clear with that, I find that there's usually a compromise in there. If you're not willing to compromise or they are not willing to compromise, then ultimately you have to look at the relationship and is it worth continuing on with or can it continue on? But hopefully by talking about what you have or what your feelings are, what you are willing or not willing to compromise on, or bend, or look at, you know, talking about, you know, compromising is the biggest thing, then often we can come to a conclusion on that. someone shared a book in the chat I have a book called maybe Boundaries by Henry Cloud I'm not familiar with it I don't know if you are Janelle but. I have not. I will have to look at it a lot of great comments on things people are taking away so continue to put those in the chat but I'm going to wrap us up as we're going just to let you know that uh we will have an email coming out with resources and reminders from today's webinar as shared. We are having the Adulting 101 webinar through 2026 getting scheduled as we speak. So stay tuned for registration coming out in probably December for the first one. It will be in January. So make sure that you register so that you can attend any or all of the ones that you wish to attend. We look forward to having you join us. We appreciate all of the interaction and engagement that you all had with us. That is what makes this enjoyable and a fun series is the learning and the application and the stories and engagement that you all have alongside us. So thank you for joining us. We will stop this recording and stick around for a little bit if there's any questions or additional things you want to share. But thanks again, and we hope to see you in January. Thanks, everyone.