 You're listening to barbell logic brought to you by barbell logic online coaching where each week We take a systematic walk through strength training and the refining power of voluntary hardship Welcome to the barbell logic podcast. I am here again for another principles episode with my brother Chris Reynolds Hello, I'm coming from the Midwest. You're out there on the East Coast in Boston and You know, I saw a tweet this week and I wanted to talk about it that the most sought after Job skill life skill personality skill for the foreseeable future is the ability to de-escalate and When I read it, I sort of hate to admit this by the way, I was like, that's what Chris is good at You're very good at de-escalation far better than I am Really is the principles. Do you feel like the principles series is really just we just talk about all the things are important to both of us, but I'm shitty at and you're good at is that what these things are with the principles I think you're driving it enough that you're like, hey, let me get in your head a little bit I think if we did the reverse roll and I was like, I mean, you know, I there are all sorts of areas where you shine far more than I do It just happens to be Yeah So yeah, you've you've always been very good at de-escalation and and Again, we've been careful about what we talked about on the on the show with everything that's going on In the country right now. We want to continue stays apolitical as we can certainly the ability to de-escalate in some really heated situations is So incredibly needed right now in our culture however This is a skill for people that must be learned and I have watched you over the course of your life learn how to de-escalate first among your friends and among your family members and then among the people that you worked for and Then the people who worked underneath you I've watched you de-escalate with children very well, right? You have you have Three kids two boys who you know love to murder each other on a daily basis And so you spend a lot of time in De-escalation mode and I just wanted to talk about it a little bit today Like what that looks like to you and how much you actually think about it and have worked on it versus how much of it feels natural Man, I've thought about this so much Over the course of my life. I it is true That I am I am particularly good at de-escalation I like it on most of the most recent podcasts. You also come across as incredibly arrogant Yeah, I mean it's I should I should come across as arrogant because I am to some degree I think you're far less arrogant than I am and yet I love it when you're like I am particularly good at this thing Yeah, I really I don't think false humility is a is a thing that I value So if I think I'm good at something I'll let you know that I'm good at it and otherwise there's a bunch of stuff I'm terrible at no, so we can have whole That make a really good future principle series is Things that are important to us that we're really awful at These are principles that that would make no make a good show. Okay, so de-escalation. Where did this kind of start? What are you right? So I Actually, I feel like to talk about where it started you have to start with a little bit of a story part of this is you know when we grew up under what I would consider We're fairly stressful circumstances for our family Because we didn't know it mean we talked about this. I think in the last podcast You know we had a good time. We're out playing baseball and hanging out and you know doing kid stuff but the truth is you know our father was in the middle of a major career change from being an engineer to being a pastor and that life was a life that was Very very very difficult and I understand now as an adult just how difficult and stressful it was I did not understand the way I found out a few years ago that dad's salary in 1986 as a pastor was $8,000 That was his annual salary. So to put that into perspective. I don't know exactly what that is in today's dollars But it ain't 40 grand right 86 I mean thousand dollars We were barely scraping by you know and so anyway the reason I bring that up. It's just because as a kid I think it's fair to say while dad was I think dad was an exceptional father Especially in his later years in his early years He was very very volatile. He's a volatile person And we learned later that a lot of that was related to his own anxiety That that he struggled with for his entire life our grandmother struggled with for her entire life And thank you pops pass that along to us Yeah, I didn't really learn about it until the stress in my life became you know to the point that it was overwhelming to me And then I could really relate to it considerably better But I think because dad was it was such a volatile character In my early life It was really a way to cope with stress de-escalation was a weapon for me or maybe better stated It was a shield. Yeah, I Figured out very very young that in order to feel safe in our house I had to figure out how to de-escalate as quickly as possible and And so I think you know Matt and I you know, we grew up in the same house For a very long period of time in the same bedrooms, right? I mean like we had bunk beds and we were in the same room but I think because of My personality and we've talked about this a little bit that I'm a very very I'm a highly sensitive person or otherwise known as an introvert I'm just collecting insane amounts of information from what's going on in the environment around me So I think things that were maybe only a minor threat Or maybe no threat at all to someone who doesn't feel that way felt like a major threat to me So I had to figure out a de-escalate dad very very quickly and You know, you think about his from his perspective. It was You know struggling to make ends meet Dealing with phone calls at three o'clock in the morning. Somebody's died. He's got to go He's a pastor. He's got to go show up and gonna take care of it I mean just chaos all the time and then I've got three little kids You know, I know what kind of chaos they can create on their own So it's just chaos on top of chaos and and I understand that now as an adult and certainly don't hold that against him but it gave me an opportunity to figure out how to Get into a space where I could feel safe And the way that I did that was when dad was particularly amped up about something I I could play him like a fiddle And we talked about it in later years on on our fishing trips and uh, and dad would even know that I was doing it Dad told me he's like, you know, I usually knew you were playing me But it was nice to be played I was like, okay, you're good um, so I think a combination of a personality trait in there that You know, it was was um a requirement in order to master some of those skills early in life But then man, they became so valuable and And I built on them so as as time went on And it was you know related to my friends. It was related to you know school Later to work later to my employees, you know, whatever I continued to read and try to refine that skill because it did become a skill that I I felt like was So valuable. I mean you think about the circumstances where things are starting to go off the rails And if you have the ability to bring it back from total destruction Well, yeah, that's that's a pretty valuable thing to be always been a pretty valuable thing to do, but it feels Like an extra valuable thing today, right? Where it it sort of feels like everyone is volatile no matter where you are, right? Like no matter where you land politically or religiously you're like where all this You know, but that the combination of of all of the things that have occurred especially in in 2020 in the year 2020 Has sort of made everybody kind of walking on Kind of thin ice or pins and needles or they're you know heads on a swivel all the time Yeah, and the ability to de-escalate in those situations I I don't know that there's ever been a time in in certainly certainly not in this century Where it was more valuable was incredibly it's incredibly valuable and by the way, I just want to say too I don't believe this comes naturally to you and here's why I say that I probably remember better than you do That because I was older that when you were really young you were very stubborn And there were some really intense discipline sessions with With dad with mom and dad, you know and where you just stood your ground and you're like I don't care how How many times you spank me or how many you know what what sort of discipline you hand down? I will not give in And at some point you figured out how to play the game Probably because of it. I mean, I mean There's a there's a particular One of those episodes you and I are both thinking of and I won't get into the specifics But I will say that I think that as a little kid, especially if you've been Through that You find other coping mechanisms. You find other tools So that you don't find yourself on the other end of of you know That comes down to that. It's like the dot, you know, the to be trite It's like the dr. Phil thing like how's that how's that working out for you? How's being stubborn working out for you? You just got 37 spankings in a row like well, that's not what I wanted Well, can you play the game a little better than that? I've had this conversation with with my kids I'm sure your kids are the same way. They're like, they're so different My my youngest knows how to play the game She totally gets it. Yeah, and my oldest is so fiercely independent And stubborn and and by the way and a great leader I mean if she's in a group of Of teenagers like she's the it's pretty clear who's leading the pack. It's my kid But she doesn't know how to deescalate. She doesn't know how to play the game She'll stand her ground no matter what And so, you know, she's she's grounded every other day And the and the younger one Knows and the older one it just it just incites anger in the older one to watch the younger one Play the game and play the like I can be sweet and I can be Kind and I can be you know, and it's and we just tell our kids much in the same way Dad did you in the later years like listen if you want to play if you want to play me for deescalation I'll let you do that all day If you want to play me to like make me more stressed out and make my make my face turn purple In stress like you're going to lose that game You will lose right so I think as I got older the So many of the things that I had put into play when I was young Uh, I could kind of understand the mechanics of it a little better and the more I would read about it and I would learn about you You start getting into a lot more complex situations. For example, let me talk about already It's different the way you interact with your parents than the way you interact with your peers And it's also different than the way that you interact with your employees when you are Just superior or whatever in that circumstance All of those dynamics are different, but there there are Similar ways to approach it and I think at the heart of the whole thing is Um, there is definitely a bit of empathy that we you know, we've done a podcast talking about empathy and I think Empathy is a great place to start because if you can imagine yourself in the other person's shoes And it's not quite so black and white as I'm right and they're wrong And I want to be right Um, and I care most about being right not necessarily about ending this in the best possible way Um, you know You've got it. You've just got to do that. You've got to be in a position where you can Imagine what it would be like to be them now usually What is causing the conflict is some difference in values or Some totally different understanding them about what occurred Um, right and I think you can get to You can find yourself in a situation where As quickly as possible you have to change The conversation from being about me versus you To being about us versus the problem If you can do that The de-escalation takes care of itself It's absolutely fascinating how quickly it occurs you think about Like what it would take for most little kids can't do this, but if if the parent My oldest son actually is already pretty good at this And he will from time to time say We'll be in the middle of you know Carter. Why are you doing this? You know, you've got to stop whatever and you'll say guys This is the problem that we're working on. You know, we've got it. We've got to deal with this together figure it out And I'm like, okay. I'm in you know, and now I'll be where your youngest is the opposite Not your youngest. Sorry your your younger son Well, actually my younger son has gotten quite a bit better like me. He's followed a very similar path Which is that hard-headedness sort of you know that intensity But he shows a lot of emotional awareness at the moment. My daughter is probably the hardest one Along these who's the youngest and she's held the she she's turned Six right she just turned six. Yeah. So an interesting one one of the relationships. We haven't mentioned yet Which I think is the one that's taught me the most Is not in the There is an authority figure and someone underneath them But it's in the in my relationship with my wife where it's there isn't an authority figure We are we are co equals And in that situation it's it's it really magnifies What the end goal is for both is the end goal to be right and to win Or is the end goal reconciliation Like and and for most people for me in the first seven or eight years of my marriage the goal was to be right and to win And then then you learn and I celebrated my 20th wedding anniversary just you know last month month before last And it's because we've learned how to conflict. Well, my my wife and I were always best friends, you know, I mean I was I've been super close with my wife since I was in the eighth grade way before we were ever dating We were friends And and to get into a a cycle of Like our we did great together 95 of the time And then the five percent of the time we were in conflict it went awful Now it wasn't like we weren't throwing shit at each other like breaking vases in the house and stuff It wasn't that but it was just like We were both like refused to give in to the other and when you recognize that in in 99 percent of conflict The both sides actually think they're right occasionally a truly depraved evil person knows they're wrong And on on on stubbornness alone will fight even though they know they're wrong, right? It's that I watch the I don't know if you watch the Lance Armstrong documentary. Have you watched it yet? I don't think so. Oh, you should watch it It came out like the week after the Chicago Bulls one did it. It's a two bar series That guy's a douche Now I love him I mean he's amazing But that guy literally would incite drama about His innocence and PEDs while knowing that he was taking Performance enhancing drugs like we were against the rules, right? That's a that's a that's a We got a problem there now It was for millions and millions of dollars So it's not like what's weird is that occasionally you'll find the person who doesn't have that much on the line They're just like a sociopath and just they refuse to lose But when when I chose in my marriage to decide like hey Every conflict that I have in my marriage I play some part in this I may be a hundred percent responsible. I may be 90 percent responsible. I may only be 10 percent responsible But i'm something responsible And when I take ownership and responsibility for the part that I play in that and expect Nothing in return Not hey, I'm sorry for the part I played in this now. Don't you have something that you want to say to me? None of that That's not de-escalation It doesn't work well then the the ultimate goal is actually reconciliation Not in winning and so I think our our marriages or our our relationships with significant others Can teach us probably more about this than than anything and then the and then the next one for me is being a parent and understanding that I have Basically complete authoritarian control over my kids if I want that if I want it They're young enough I control everything but then I can also remember what it was like to be in their shoes wasn't that long ago Yeah, that's right And and and then that then you take those things because you interact in those situations more than any other And you start to take those outside the the familial relationships And you say okay, well, well, how do I handle this in in work and business in Either with with my boss if you have bosses or with my employees if you have employees You know one one thing for me that's been a big deal is I really struggle with even considering That there is a hierarchy in my business I I don't want there to be a high and I don't feel like I said at the time I don't I don't I don't act that way And I I I know that it's there And I know that there's a little something that changed that a lot of these Wonderful people who work for me We were all just friends five years ago and now Look, I'm the guy that owns the company and I'm the boss But like it still feels the same to me now it may feel a little different to them Yeah But the key is that I still treat them like they're my peers and my friends and my and my coworkers Not my employees, right well, I think if you if you think about What causes Conflict escalate It is almost always almost always at the base of it is the intention of both sides to win the argument and I think If you imagine it's always helpful for me to imagine what what does that look like? What do you actually after? Because if if what you're doing is you're trying to win by having You know whoever's on the other side of your argument or whatever say You know, oh, you're right, you know, you're right. I'm wrong, you know How many times is that ever happened ever in any conversation you've ever had with anyone where you approached it Where you're on one side and they're on the other and you're battling it out. It doesn't No one has ever convinced that way you might find out You might find out a month later That the more they stewed on it that they maybe were convinced possible But more than likely if what you want if the outcome is to convince Then the way to approach it is just totally differently And it's that we together are going to pursue, you know the answer on this I got through some of this in my mid 20s or early 20s. I guess, you know, I've I've I was on the opposite side of a majority view for where I lived from Uh within a religious context and and I felt like a extreme outsider um and What I've at first I wanted to convince people that I wasn't you know that I wasn't Something that they thought I was you're evil or you know bad person or something And so I was always trying to convince people of that and that didn't really work And so the way that I ended up approaching it when people wanted to have that conversation is I would say, hey look Here here's some facts Let's see how they fit into our world view And when you approach it that way You're just a you know two three people however many are having the conversation Trying to discover the truth about something And it's such an easier way to have a conversation and that way everyone's open to change a little bit move And grow in their understanding and and that's really the key To to de-escalate when you understand that the person on the other side actually thinks that they are right Morally right they're passionate about it, right? Yeah I think people tend to vilify the other side and like well that person is wrong and evil And they're the villain and so I must I must overtake them But they think the same about you they think they're the good guy Right and one of the things that gives me hope in culture right now is that is that like you and I We totally disagree about religion and politics And we've never had a fight about either And we've had great discussions about both But when the goal is to hear out the other side To try to put yourselves in the other to try to put yourself in the other person's shoes or the other side's shoes And to understand their worldview where they're coming from like this is the place where healing starts to begin right it's not about I'm not trying to convince you to see my way In religion or politics. I'm trying to understand your way and figure out like well, how can we How can we live together? Here's this crazy? We're doing a podcast about a value system where our values are in alignment about 99.9 percent And we disagree about religion and politics So right how's that possible because we respect each other as humans That's why that's right I think there's a there's a barrier that can pop up and this is where I think people can really This is where a little bit of internal work can can go a long way. So this is Maybe homework for everybody if they're listening to the podcast the the main barrier that can show up in these types of conversations when it comes to de-escalation is feeling attacked Okay, so the moment in which you feel attacked and everybody knows what that feels like When you're you have whatever physiological response you have heart racing Gut tightening, you know, whatever it is not in your stomach Whatever happens when you feel attacked It is the it is that is the worst barrier to de-escalating and the greatest Way to just pour fuel on a fire so You have in order to not feel attacked I think there's a lot There are a lot of tools that you can use the first one is Recognize that you do feel attacked. There's a feeling right nothing we can do about our feelings But there's a lot we can do about the behavior in response to feelings So when you feel it you need to come up with some way to interrupt that And the best way that I've found to interrupt it is to get a little bit of space, you know, breathe a little bit And and just give yourself some room Anytime you feel like someone's attacking you if you can give yourself Like you don't have to respond, right? Like this is like I think this is like the first thing that should be taught when by the time you're in junior high especially like Hey, if you ever feel like you're being attacked, you know, you don't have to say anything in response You can say this minute. Uh, I need I need a minute You started to walk away for a little while, right? You know and just and take it down a notch I think the other thing is there is We all know people who Seem to feel attacked more often than other people like they feel attacked almost all the time They're all the time being barraged with attack And I think for those people it is typically An issue of self-esteem and self-confidence. I think if your self-confidence is not um Is not where it needs to be you will find yourself Feeling attacked regularly because to some degree there's this voice in your head that's saying You know, you're not good enough or and now this person is confirming That you're not good enough, right? You know what? I've thought this all these years And now this person is they're making me feel like that's true They become the embodiment of this thing that you hate about maybe about yourself And I think there there so there are several areas where we can work to make sure that the environment That we're navigating is one of mutual learning Rather than one of a combative, you know experience. I I believe very strongly that emotion And reason lie on a spectrum on opposite ends And that the more emotional you are the less reason that you'll have Right now I want to be clear about something. I don't think it's wrong to have emotion I don't think it's wrong to be overcome with emotion We're both pretty emotional guys like, you know, one of the things that I think is sort of Odd for us and that people who know us know that we're fairly emotional We can get choked up about things we can we get we can get, you know, incredibly jubilant and we can also be Really crushed by stuff However, I think one of the things that you and I share is that we don't tend to let those emotions drive our actions because We don't make decisions and and and push actions forward when we're in the middle of it of an emotionally heightened state I don't think there's anything wrong with emotionally heightened state. There's times when you need that but but That is not a great time To have a debate or try to reconcile with someone else when you're emotionally It's okay to be that way But then once you calm down and talk and it's the same, you know, we learn this I've learned this in my marriage a lot like when we are In a conflict where both think that that we're right And we just and we're emotional about it Then we have to do exactly what you said We have to take a break if you take a time out with to take a breathe Like for 10 minutes 30 minutes an hour And then come back when the emotions die down and and attack the problem with logic and reason In a in literally a a Socratic method of doing the thing right the thing about the Socratic debate is that We're not debating each other In Socratic debate We're working together to solve the problem and while we may come up with different answers. It's okay The goal Together is to find the answer to the thing I mean, it that's the only way To to navigate such a complex world and there's so much going on. I mean right now obviously We're talking about so much um heightened sense of of emotions within Uh the world but certainly in the u.s. And I think this is a this is a great time actually to practice Like so this is this is really for everybody, right? Like you can One way to practice this is to find opposing views. We've talked about this before and I think I've talked about it Uh in maybe an almost every podcast. So I apologize, but find an opposing view from what you currently think and Make yourself read up on it, right? To find a book that you've been told, you know by all the people in your group Is like the worst possible book like the worst perspective on something And read it cover to cover now You might be mad throughout the thing and you might highlight and make all sorts of places like this is crazy This is and that's okay But what's interesting is Rarely will you find your way going through the entire book and having not learned something You probably will get some perspective and you will at least understand What the other side's perspective is So I think this is a great time to Dive in and start learning and then the other element that I think is really useful is Try having conversations with people that you know and love and trust Where you disagree Right like do that on purpose because one of the other things that I've noticed is I have a few people in my life that They like you just know if we have a conversation About something where there's disagreement and especially if it's got a strong emotional component. It's politics. It's religion and whatever They are going to explode or die of a heart attack or something like you just can't do it And for every one of those people In my life that I'm aware of I don't think they ever practice having conversations With people where they disagree So I mean this is something you can practice you can practice you can talk to people You know you can talk to somebody and come in two different from two different perspectives And watch closely for that heart starting to race a little bit for your blood pressure to increase your face start turning red like Do that and engage in it and notice that at the end of the conversation The world doesn't end You know you don't die And usually you walk away learning something even if you vehemently disagree with the other the other viewpoint You least at least understand the other viewpoints better Yeah, that's that's a good wrap up for this and I would just say that You don't have to fight The emotional visceral reaction that you have to some of these things that that's okay But I also think that that is best practiced privately And when it comes time to have the conversations You have to keep your emotions in check in order to Have a reasonable Logical discussion, which is what we all want to have In order for us to have a reasonable discussion. We have we can't Emotionally explode we can't have that Have an emotional explosions That's okay sometimes But do that in the privacy of your own home And not in the face of someone that you disagree with When it comes time to talk to the person that you disagree with Have a calm reasonable Logical discussion and try to try to put yourself in their shoes and see the way they see and then no Don't care about winning the discussion because you're not going to change your mind Listen listen to their perspective And try to understand where they're coming from and then You collect that data and you you put it against all the other data You've already collected and you get to start to say okay Like this maybe is making me change my thoughts about something or maybe it isn't Maybe it's confirming something. It doesn't matter The point is that we have a reasonable logical discussion about those things and so that's how we de-escalate In it and it works not just in you know We've kind of we've kind of moved this direction in the podcast the last few minutes But certainly in these big cultural situations these big political Racial religious sort of discussions it works, but it also works with your kids And it works with your parents and it works with your wife And it works with your boss and it works with your co-workers and it works with your employees But being able to put yourself in their shoes and understand where they're coming from and have having reasonable logical conversations with them Where you don't have to win is the key to True de-escalation because in the end The person will walk away. This is what I found when I do this well And there's times when I definitely don't when I do it. Well the other person walks away And says you know, I may disagree with matt about x But I really appreciate that he listened to everything that I said And then he and then he talked to me about it in a in a reasonable manner and I you know You don't get upset. You don't throw it back in their face because they think they're right They don't know you're right and they're arguing for evil Nobody's doing that And we recognize that and you start to see people as humans Which has which have Infinite amounts of value Regardless of where they're coming from regardless of the demographic by the way I think we're large regardless of their life choices, right? Like I don't care if you're a drug addict or a prostitute or like you still have inherent amazing value as a human As a human you have value and and that There is something that every single person can bring To the story To like to give their outlook and like a lot of times I just need to I just need to shut the f up and listen And try to put myself there, right? So we have this unique perspective. You and I we were raised in a poor southern Southern Baptist preachers home Little white kids. We were homeschooled. We're kind of protected Our our mom and dad loved each other. They raised us well, right? We had a good childhood even though we were broke And so there were places where we were kind of behind the eight ball there were places where We did well we we were we were dealt better cards than most And it gives us unique perspective on things But it also doesn't mean that our perspective matters more than someone else's I want to listen and and and beyond culture That comes down to talking to my nine-year-old My my when my nine-year-old is passionate about a thing. She's passionate about a thing for a reason When she thinks she's right or she cares or she's like Upset to the point of crying is because it matters to her and I need to stop and listen like okay Why does this matter so much? And um and and we would all do better to do that. So so there you go. There's uh, there's our there's our Discussion on de-escalation Can you imagine? Can you imagine? if we had across the board congressman a president leaders of this country media Who were skilled at de-escalation rather than Let's stir up controversy to get to get eyes on us Like what a better place we would live It's a there's a topic for an entire other podcast. I would guess Thanks, man. Uh, you've guys been listened to another episode of the principles podcast on barba logic Again mondays we change your schedule a little bit mondays are the heavy content episodes typically about barbell training thursdays are principles Uh, no show on sundays for the summer And uh, if you love this show and for some of you you're gonna love the content stuff more on mondays for some Of you're gonna love the the principle stuff more on thursdays Regardless if you if you like the show Share it with a friend share it with a family member And we'd love a five star review. 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