 and welcome to Books, Books, Books, where we discuss reading, writing, and everything in between and beyond. I'm your host, Dr. Rita Forsythe, coming to you from Maui on the Think Tech Network series broadcasting from our studio in downtown Honolulu. The title of today's episode is When to Speak Up and When to Shut Up. Joining me today is my good friend Dr. Michael Sedler. Dr. Sedler is a behavior consultant who has written the popular book, When to Speak Up and When to Shut Up, with over 400,000 copies sold. His other book, now titled What to Do When Words Get Ugly, is a reprint of his popular book, Stopping Words That Hurt and Stop the Runaway Conversation. His books are faith-based and inspires people towards love, compassion, and relationships with others. Today, Dr. Sedler joins us from Idaho, but he calls Spokane Washington home. He travels to the United States and Canada, providing consultation services and seminars for schools, agencies, and businesses, and has worked for the Heritage Institute for over 30 years. Welcome, Michael. Oh, Rita, good to be with you. Thank you for joining us today. How did you get started writing these books? Well, inspiration. I actually was in a place where I actually heard somebody talk a little bit about the topic of gossip and the dangers of listening to gossip, etc. And it so resonated with me as I looked at my own life and realized how often I said things about people and I spoke about people and said negative things and passed along words of inaccuracy that I just got so inspired about it. I started writing and taking notes, and it eventually evolved into a manuscript that I sent in and was published. Excellent. And you call your books crossover books. What do you mean by that? Well, they're intended to be our faith-based books for your readers to know of it. I do mention the Bible. I have biblical scriptures. I give stories out of the Bible as part of some of the foundation, but I also talk about a lot of general topics and ideas, my backgrounds in counseling. I have a master's in social work, and so I bring a lot of that into my books. So the crossover books meaning that even if you aren't faith-based in your perspective in life, you can still glean lots of information from the books and be able to apply it to your life without feeling like you're being bombarded by a lot of religious rhetoric. So true because I've read both your books and I was able to see the difference between the faith-based parts and then how that leads into the parts in our everyday lives. So let's talk a little bit about when to speak up and when to shut up. I really enjoyed this book because it addresses the issues of kind of discriminating between speaking up and silence. So my question is, when is silence golden and what is it better to speak up? As I say in the book, we've all fallen into this trap of walking away from a conversation and saying, I should have said something and walking away from a conversation going, oh, why did I say anything? And that's what we're looking at. And so the idea of silence as golden is that there are times that really our silence speaks much louder than the words we could ever speak. And I'm just going to use the word right now for your listeners and that is the word timing, that timing has everything to do with when we say things and when we shouldn't. So funny that you say that because that was my father's favorite thing to say to me. He would say, Rita, timing is everything because obviously, obviously I wasn't being appropriate with my timing. Can you give us some examples about that? Yes. The idea that there are times where we're talking with friends or with people and they're saying that a topic or something that comes up that we may feel passionate about, we may feel strong about. And we need to decide, do I want to interject my thoughts right now in the conversation, which very likely is going to turn the conversation towards me and perhaps create dissension in our discussion or is right now not the right time? And maybe I need to speak to someone privately. An example being I had something happen not long ago where I was with a group of friends and somebody said some things that I thought were a little bias and prejudice. But I didn't bring it up in the group because I felt it wasn't the right place. But I did pull that friend aside later and said to them, you may not have intended it this way, but this is how I interpreted it. I just want to let you know that. And we had a very, very positive discussion about it, which I don't think would have taken place if I would have brought it up in the group. Oh, yeah, that's a good point. So when we were talking before, because we've visited each other quite a bit, I think you brought up something about Gorbachev and his recent passing. Yeah, I interesting, my wife and I, some years ago, had a chance to travel to Russia. We spent quite a bit of time there and heard quite a bit from the Russian people. And there was a bit of disagreement about Gorbachev because of what happened during the 80s when he separated Russia, the USSR into all these different places that they are now, the different countries. And so here a man has died. And even now, I know that there are some of the leaders in Russia are not speaking kindly of Gorbachev because of what transpired. And we know that we see that even in our own country, unfortunately, how often in politics, all we hear are the negatives and the lambasting of one another and nothing about the issues. Yeah, stick with the issues. So another thing that you and I have talked about is purpose, purpose in life. And I think that kind of comes up in this book. Yeah, see, the intent as I write really both of books, but specifically this book, which I would say is a very practical book. It's written from a very counseling perspective of helping us sort of know the ABCs and the one, two, threes of connecting with people. And the purpose behind our speaking or what I call our motives is very important. And so I often say even in the book that I say in my life, I have a little, you and I were talking earlier in the week, I showed you a little plaque I had on my desk, and it says what is my motive or what is my purpose? In other words, why am I saying this? Is this to further me? Is it to gain my own adoration? Is it for people to recognize me in my own thinking patterns? Or is it to help educate people? Is it to help bring out another perspective? Is it brought up so we simply take a moment to think? It's very important that we evaluate what our purpose is and our sharing. Yeah, very true. So would you spend a little time reading from when to speak up and when to shut up? I'd love to. And I'm going to share a section that I find is hardly ever talked about, but is one that really is so important in this whole topic. So we're going to talk about the idea of questioning or asking questions of the authority in our life. Okay, so I'm going to read from that. We're going to explore a very difficult topic, one that creates confusion in families, in businesses, in local churches, and the world at large. It involves relating to another person who's in authority in your life. It is one thing to challenge a friend, a co-worker, a peer, or when confrontation involves your supervisor, a parent, a teacher, or even a religious leader, we oftentimes have second thoughts about speaking up. After all, this person has the authority to fire us or ground us, that's your parents, take away privileges or even to stifle our personal growth. Who wants to upset that person? So instead of dealing in a godly manner with our misgivings, we fall into the trap of misguided silence, which often leads to gossip, resentment, murmuring, or anger. This presents its own unique and difficult problems. So in order to avoid the many pitfalls of failing to speak up when we should, let's examine the difference between questioning and asking questions. Questioning will be viewed as an attack and a negative interaction to the authority, whereas asking questions will be perceived as curiosity or desire to gain more knowledge or understanding. So first of all, what is questioning? Well, let's remember that not all forms of questioning are in the form of a question. It could be a statement even. When our motive is to create disunity or to override another person's opinion with our own to prove a point or to simply create confusion or dissension, this would fall in the category of questioning. Questioning is confrontational. It's a form that's filled with suspicion, a lack of trust, and an accusation that puts the other person on the defensive. One type of questioning I call persisting. Once an answer is given by the person, the questioner asks another question because they didn't get the answer they wanted, so they keep persisting and pushing towards the person. In fact, one of our sons had the habit of asking a question and then persisting if he didn't get the right answer. He would respond with comments like, and see if these don't sound familiar. You don't understand or you aren't listening or let me say it another way. One effective approach my wife and I found is to front load our answer. Before we'd answer and we'd say, now, are you ready for the answer that we're going to give you? And what if it isn't the one that you expect? Will you be okay with it even if it isn't in agreement with you? And we gave them a moment to think through this and often time to say, yeah, I'm ready. And then we would share and we'd be able to talk to him. And even if it didn't work, the ground rules at least have been established. Challenging is another form of questioning. We have our own agenda and plan to attack the other person's approach and decision. We come prepared to list areas of disagreement and we're really not interested in listening to the person. We have our own plan and know what we want to hear. So what is your motive in questioning another person? Now, on the other hand, we have the approach of asking questions. The situation may be identical to the one that we just approached in a questioning format, but the difference is our attitude and our desire to truly hear and answer. The Bible is filled with illustrations of both questioning and asking questions. Some people like the Pharisees approach Jesus to attempt to trap him in his words or to ridicule in front of others. While there are others like the disciples who wanted to hear information so they could grow and mature in their life. I firmly believe it is okay to ask questions of our leaders and authorities. But how do I approach them? And what is truly my attitude or motive? Do I want them to admit they're wrong? Or am I designed to be educated in their point of view? Am I okay if they don't see it the way I do? Or do I need to convince them that I'm correct? I like to ask questions and I like to hear other viewpoints to become more educated and to clear up confusion, to share another perspective and yes, help another person see another viewpoint. But if my motive is to become self-serving and focus on my rights and my point of view, this becomes challenging for the person and authority and will often turn out poorly. Now if I can read I'd like to just share a quick story that I think illustrates this. That'd be great. When I was working in the schools, I worked in a middle school and at one point our assistant principal let me know that one of the students that I had in class, Daryl, was going to be suspended for a week because of something he did in another class. Now Daryl was a young man that I knew who was difficult, challenging. I had him the year before but he was actually doing pretty well in my class and doing well in a couple other classes because, you know, we talked amongst each other as teachers. So I went to our assistant principal and my words were very close to this. I said, Julie, you're the assistant principal and you are in charge and you're the authority and I want to let you know I will support whatever you decide. But can I take a moment and give you another perspective about Daryl? At which point she said yes and I went on to share about how well Daryl was doing in my class and even maybe some other classes and I asked if there wasn't some way, then instead of him being suspended for the whole week and missing classes that he was doing well in, wasn't there a way that we could discipline him and instill being a part of the things he was successful in and maybe missing or having in-house suspension from the classes that he was struggling in? Well, I'm going to let you know that she listened but Julie came back and said, Mike, I feel at this point he needs to be suspended and I walked away and I felt fine because I felt like I was able to share what I believed. She listened, took it into account, had a bigger picture than I did as my authority but I felt like I could go to her and I want to say this over the years that I had Julie as my administrator, there were numerous times I went to her about different things and I would say more often than not. She listened to what I had to say. She put it within the bank of her learning and she changed her mind on many topics because of more information from another perspective I was able to give her. So that would be the difference between me going and asking questions and presenting something versus me going and challenging her authority. Well, as a former administrator myself in schools, I loved working with teachers like you because I don't mind people asking me questions or pushing back on some of the decisions because we're all learners. Okay, so your next book, I found your book, What to Do When Things Get Ugly, really interesting because I want to learn more about the danger of gossip. So why did you decide again to write about gossip? I know you were inspired but let's talk about gossip and I don't know when you started writing this book but man with social media and things today gossip is really different today than it was 20, 30 years ago. I actually started writing this around that time that you just mentioned was probably in the early 90s and as I mentioned I heard some teaching on this topic but I happen to be going from where I was working at we were going through some things in our workplace and I get read as a principal, you and I worked together, I know my wife worked with you and so I'm very familiar with the things in the school settings. I love the setting. Yeah, the setting I was in there was lots of things going on, a lot of gossip about frustration with teachers, administration, superintendent and all sorts of things and when I heard this teaching I realized how I'd gotten sucked in to the topics that were being discussed and even though I didn't know some of the information I took what other people were saying as I'll use the word as gospel as truth and it began to permeate within me and I began to look at things differently than I used to because I had misinformation things that I didn't even know about and so it really resonated with me enough to where I started like I said started writing and I want to let you know that this topic I have talked about all around the world. I've been to Japan, I've been to Brazil, I've been to Aruba, I've been all around the United States, Canada, Mexico sharing this topic because it is a topic there isn't one person listening right now that either hasn't had something said negative about them or hasn't said something negative about another person. I just had my first episode of online bullying happen to me I never thought in my age that would happen and I was just shocked and you know it really made me realize what our teenagers and our young people are going through today with online bullying and the rampant gossip. Yes it's a and I do like as you mentioned in your intro I do a lot of training I work in schools all around the United States and Canada and other areas and do a lot of trainings and that's one of the topics that we talk about a lot is especially at that middle school or intermediate grades ages where kids are starting to move more into the media and social media and we talk a lot about cyberbullying and the dangers of those types of things and what we can do I just got an email from a principal in Montana wants me to come and do things with their secondary grades because there's a lot of cyberbullying going on it's affecting the school. Yeah it's really difficult for those kids and they've got enough to deal with. Yes. So one thing that you were talking about the other day was how gossip that we hear is even more dangerous to us and to our psyche than the gossip that we say can you talk a little bit about that? This is something that I sort of understood differently after I began writing and realized that so often we're worried about the words we say which please we should we should be very careful about that but I realized how by even listening to things I'd be in situations I wouldn't say anything but by hearing it I remember being around in the schools you'll recognize this Rita and hearing about a parent or a student and listening to other educators talk about them I did not have them in class I didn't know them but I listened and listened and listened and then if that student ended up being in my classroom I had a preconceived notion before I ever worked with that student or that family because of things that I heard and that's why it's so important sitting around the kitchen table and talking about frustrations with our boss or frustration with our children's teachers or frustration in our community with our neighbors it will impact your children as they listen to what you have to say and they will walk away with a tainted perspective one that's not from their own knowledge base but one is from your perspective and usually your perspective is a frustration and maybe in a week or two you have a different view you work through it and everything's healthy but not with the one that listened to it I had a laugh out loud when I was reading your book because you give little tips on how to deal with people who are gossiping around you and one of them was uh you say oh I'm gonna go check on that with the person you're talking about and I thought oh that'll shut them up exactly and imagine just imagine for your listeners imagine right now thinking of someone telling you about somebody that you both know a friend or whatever and somebody that they said or did and you're and you're thinking inside which happens all the time gosh I that just doesn't sound like them well imagine you turning to that person saying you know what that sounds really harsh that's hard I'll tell you you know I'm gonna go and check with Tommy a little bit and see what he has to say about that because that really doesn't sound like him it'll be interesting how that person backtracks pretty quickly I love that one so why do we gossip well there's a number of reasons I think we gossip that the primer ones that I see number one sometimes we get hurt and we get wounded by someone and because we're wounded or hurt we will end up saying something negative about them and share uh from our perspective our own wounds and hurts uh sometimes we do it and I see it we see it all the time in the media and I'm not picking on politicians but it's very prevalent with our politicians that they will say things negative about a candidate because they're wanting to build themselves up they're wanting people to respond to them and they want to get their votes they they put you know the old saying you put down another person to build your own self up so I think those are two primary reasons that we find for people gossiping but a third actually is sometimes people just like to hear themselves talk yeah that is true say would you read a little bit from what to do and words get ugly I'd be glad to I'd be glad to and and I want to just say if if anybody wants to find more information about myself or my books and you want to see some more I have a website uh that's just my name it's on the screen you can see that and feel free to go to that and check out a little bit more about what the books and other areas are about I've heard many teachings and presentations on the dangers of gossip, slander and murmuring what I would like to suggest that my desire like most people in life was to bridle my tongue for many years I was totally unsuccessful in that area time and time again I find myself speaking negative of others and being involved in critical conversations this was very frustrating and also confusing the world tells us that it's okay to speak negatively about one another newspapers television magazines and the media in general make millions of dollars exploiting individuals by sharing their misfortunes talk shows never tire of exposing people in order to create a scandalous atmosphere and I'll add to our pleasure reality shows are based upon embarrassing people and revealing negative areas of life and don't get me started on politics where the issues are no longer discussed and instead character assassination of all other candidates is condoned emails texts snapchat twitter facebook chat rooms and other social media outlets allow for fast delivery of information regardless of the consequences of the words we are so brainwashed in the believing that it's permissible to violate another person verbally that it takes a concentrated effort for us to have a new thought pattern our words I believe create injury and pain in life yet we seem oblivious to the results so in my book I talk a lot about not just what you say but what to do when others want to engage you in negative conversation now my goal is to bring compassion and love to others in a way that will assist them in developing positive speech patterns the topic of gossip is not one that people can ever take lightly it's an issue for everyone especially a personal faith and conviction unless action is taken early on gossip and murmuring will increase progressively in speed and potential damage like a powerhouse locomotive the negative report will take us down well-worn tracks of personal defilement and towards terrible destination that may sound too strong to you but I'll tell you as you begin to read about the issue of gossip criticism and negative reports I believe you will be firmly convicted of not only what you say but what you listen to I mean how often our words ramble casually and carelessly without any thought as to the repercussions in another person's life comments such as did you hear what Tom said about Carla or I'm really offended at Sally do you know what she did they may seem innocuous at first but what happens if we go unchecked other people hear those things and they begin to have their minds twisted and turned towards what we say it may degrade an individual and create an after atmosphere that provokes others towards feeling wronged and upset the fallout from persons person conversations leave a pattern of pain and relationship separation now I'll end with this like most of you I've been on every side of the issue making accusations hearing accusations and being the brunt of accusations how can I be a light to the world when I'm speaking negatively when I was a teacher I wanted my students and colleagues to feel the support of my words not the sting of my words and as a parent I want my children to feel encouraged by my comments not given license to have negative thoughts and make critical comments about others our careless ways of speaking cannot always be chalked up to I didn't know better or I was only kidding my desire is to walk a path of integrity purity and commitment in my relationships and interactions this book is about healing freedom caring compassion and love if we can control the words that we say with our time and the conversations are limited to more encouraging and positive things we will become a strong encouragement and testimony to the power of life through our words and that's the essence of the book well said I know people often say talk about things and concepts not other people but when is it okay to talk about other people great question and and I will add that is how the second book got written because I wrote this first book on what to do when words get ugly and I had a lot of people saying well Mike I understand I should not say things but for me that's like I'll never talk and so I began to say well it is okay like you said it is okay to say things but let's look at when it is okay so here are a couple guidelines that I'll give you number one is I think it's okay to share if your heart is to help educate someone into a situation not to prove a point not to make them believe what you believe but simply to bring up another perspective and another side of things I think it's first it's very very good to share those things I think it's okay to bring up a topic if you feel that you have certain information that personally impacts you and I know that oftentimes I will say you know here's how I see it or from my perspective or I might even say to another person I know you may not agree with me but this is how I see it and I preface a lot of my comments with that as I bring up topics that I know are going to be a little bit you know conflict oriented so I will do that a third area that I may use to make decisions as to whether I bring something up is is it any of my business how many times have I heard people say things oh I've got an opinion what's the old saying opinions are like belly buttons everybody's got one and I've got an opinion but who cares I mean why is my opinion so valuable and so that's that's an area to look at too is is it really any of your business oh well thank you Michael and that's all the time we have today I want to thank you Michael for being my special guest I want to thank our broadcast engineer our floor manager and Jay Fidel our executive producer a special mahalo to our underwriters and thank you for joining us books books books will be back in two weeks until then read write and create your world thank you so much for watching think tech hawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo you can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linked in and donate to us at think.kawaii.com mahalo