How to Better Handle Conflict, Even as a Former People Pleaser || with Kwame Christian

After 15 years of marriage, I was reflecting on the conflict between my husband Brad and I, and it's not what you might expect. Our problem was a lack of conflict due to our people pleasing tendencies. With awareness, time, and work, we learned to face our fears and get good at conflict. Today's eye-opening interview taught me another word for this: negotiation, and it's not just reserved for business and law.

Though he is a lawyer, my conversation with Kwame Christian is not what you might expect from one. He shares his own story as a recovering people pleaser and how he navigates relationships now. Kwame has really practical tips, such as using his compassionate curiosity framework, that you can implement right now. Plus, he advocates for having a strong relationship with yourself, including questions you can ask to make valuable improvements.

About a few other things...

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TRANSCRIPT

Monica: Kwame welcome to about progress.

Kwame: Monica, thanks for having me.

Monica: I was telling you, I'm a coach and a lot of the women that I work with are recovering perfectionists just like you and I are. And as we're learning to not be such perfectionists, we're also learning how to get away from people pleasing, and then people don't like that.

Especially the people we're in close relationship with because they're accustomed to us being people pleasers more. So we're gonna be talking about conflict, especially as you know, recovering people pleasers, is kind of what we're calling it. But I wanted to start with you because I love how your story has inspired your work.

And what you do and your wisdom that you have to share with us today. So can we start with your own experience of conflict growing up and what that was like for you, how you handled it, and how you've learned to change and how you handle it.

Kwame: Yeah, it's, it's really interesting, Monica, for me, I grew up in a house where open communication was, was valued and I think for me, my people pleasing came from my, my childhood, not from the family side, but more so from like growing up as the, as an other in a community. So I'm a first generation Caribbean American.

My dad's from Dominica. My mom's from Guyana. We moved to a small town in Ohio called Tiffin. And so we were very, very different. I, I have the statistics in my book, but I think out of 18,000 people in Tiffin only, 200 of them were people of color, and then we were the we, we had accents and everything like that, so we really stood out.

And so I remember on the playground. I was the only black kid in my school. And one time in first grade, I went to one kid during recess and I said, Hey, can I play with you? And they said, no. I go to another kid on the playground, say, Hey, can I play with you? And they say No. And then I go to another one, same thing.

And then the bell rings and I tried to keep it together. But then when I got in, I just started bawling. Just started bawling. And my teacher said, what's wrong? I said, nobody would play with me. And so that day, at that age, at six, I said, this will never happen again. I will never feel this way. So I said, all right, I'm going to make sure that everybody likes me.

I'm going to befriend everybody. And so when I was growing up, I was always the most popular kid in school. After that, there was a strategy I executed and it seemed like I was winning, but I was compromising all the time. I wouldn't speak up when I wanted to, when I needed to, and it didn't feel good.

And so I thought this was just how I was going to live my life, how I was doomed to be forever. But then when I got to law school, I stumbled upon negotiation and it was the first time I realized that this is a skill, not a talent. I can actually learn and improve and, and grow. And so we had negotiation competitions at the, at the law school, and my partner and I, we won the law school competition.

And then we were able to represent the school at the American Bar Association Competition in Ottawa, Ontario. And we won that competition as well. And I was hooked because every single time I stood up and did it, it was like a vote in confidence for the man I ultimately wanted to be. And so for me, I knew that the negotiation, conflict resolution was gonna be something that I wanted to do.

But more so it was gonna be something that I wanted to share with other people. And it just speaks to the, the motto of the American Negotiation Institute. We believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And so for us, we want to help to make the world a better place one difficult conversation at a time.

Monica: When I initially hear that word negotiation, I mean, I jump to business people who are making things happen or, yeah, law, like what's going on in our congress or, or not, you know, and it's, it's one of those things. I never would've thought that that could relate to my own personal life. And you know, what I'm kind of hearing you say is after 20 years, maybe, maybe more, maybe a little less of, of compromising yourself, negotiation became a key to stop compromising.

In other words, Not compromising in a healthy way, like compromising in a really unhealthy, damaging way. So can you make that connection for us, for people who are like, how does negotiation work for me if I similarly have years, if not decades, of compromising myself in a damaging way? What does that look like?

Kwame: Yeah, I think first of all we have to do is get a definition for negotiation. And so when I use the term negotiation, I'm trying to rebrand negotiation, change the way that everybody thinks about it. So anytime you're in a conversation and somebody wants something, that's a negotiation. And so it's not a question of whether or not you negotiate, it's just a question of whether or not you're doing it well.

We're all negotiators, and so I really want to change the way that people think about it, and it's just like anything else. We have to have that growth mindset and believe that we can improve through diligent application of the the practice. But one of the things that I realized, Monica, and this is, this is what led me to write the first book, finding Confidence In Conflict, is that in the negotiation industry, a lot of times what we're doing is we're just giving recipes to people who are afraid to get in the kitchen. So people would ask me, Hey, I'm a people pleaser. How do I negotiate? How do I stand up for myself? But that doesn't, that's not the issue.

The, because I can tell you exactly what to do. That doesn't mean that you'll actually do it. And so the, the first book, probably about 80% of the book, is just about how helping people to overcome their psychological and emotional barriers. That's the key. That's where we have to start. Everybody has there, there's, there's something that leads to their performance gap.

There's something that hold, that's holding you back. There's some kind of belief that you have that you might not even recognize that's operating beneath the surface and controlling the decisions that you're making. So the first negotiation we have to have is with ourselves. We have to look inside of ourselves and figure out what's holding us back.

Address that, and then we can get to the skill.

Monica: So how did that look for you? I'm thinking about your own gap because that clearly that that moment of, of, of winning this negotiation. I'm, I'm already getting the terminology wrong. There's a conference

Kwame: Yeah. Competition.

Monica: Competition. There we go. I was like, it starts with a C. So you won this negotiation competition, right?

Like that's a huge moment, but I'm sure there was this still like this huge professional gap, but also personal gap. How did you begin to realize I need to start with myself internally? What did that look like for you?

Kwame: Well, for me it was,there were layers to this because I studied psychology, that was my undergrad degree. And I think a lot of people are surprised when they hear my approach to negotiation because they're like, Hmm, that's not what I thought a lawyer would sound like when they're talking about negotiation.

But then when you understand like, psychology is my base, it makes a lot more sense. And so I started to think about it as a phobia, a social phobia, and reverse engineering it using cognitive behavioral therapy, self-directed C B T. So what we do is you have to identify your thought patterns that are holding you back.

What is it? And then you need to be mindful about replacing those thought patterns that are both true and more helpful. And so for me, it was the fear that if I stand up for myself, if I say what I believe that I, I'd lose friends. And then I realized, no, number one, standing up for yourself does not necessarily mean that you will lose friends.

And number two, if that does lead me to lose friends, then they weren't friends in the first place. And so I started to think about conflict as relationship tests. Every single conflict is an opportunity. It's an opportunity to solve problems. It's an opportunity to learn, connect, build relationships, but it's also an opportunity to test relationships because the unfortunate reality is, is that sometimes the friend that we have, Is not the friend that we need them to be, and the relationship needs to be either downgraded or maybe even removed.

But conflict is a tool that helps us to ascertain whether or not this is the right relationship for us and either make the relationship better or remove the relationship with minimal damage if that's the necessary route we need to go to

Monica: I already know this is an episode I'm gonna have my daughter listen to. I see, I see this being super helpful because there's this fine balance of advocating for yourself, but also knowing when it's time to let go, when it's not gonna go anywhere, which is I'm now realizing a huge part of people pleasing is wanting that end product of someone being happy with you, and you have to kind of let that go.

Kwame: You have to let that go. You have to let that go because I, I think bringing in a little bit of the stoic philosophy here is helpful because we have to focus on the things that we can control. And a lot of times what we're trying to do is we're trying to place our worth into things that are outside of our control and we have one tool because for whatever reason, maybe it worked for us in the past, maybe we have these cognitive distortions like I described, but whatever it is, we think people pleasing is the path to our version of happiness.

And the thing that's really frustrating is that over and over and over again, we are shown that it is not the path, but we don't know any alternative way of living. And so for me it was really eye-opening that there is an alternative and it's within our control and it is attainable. The solution is simple, but it's not easy. That's the thing. It's uncomfortable, but it's necessary, and so we have to take that step. There's no way to make this super easy, but ultimately it's worth it.

Monica: And I can see one of the hardest parts is that worthiness piece you brought up because you know, with that end product of someone being happy with us, what we're also wanting in that end product is a reflection of self and we're putting that on someone else to show us this is who I am. I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on that.

I mean, I know that's kind of like a big idea there, but.

Kwame: Oh yeah, no, it, it makes a lot of sense because essentially what we're looking for is validation, social validation in some kind of way. I want Monica to like me. If Monica likes me, then I'm a good person, then I have value. But what I started to focus on is, do I like me? Cuz at the end of the day is if everybody likes me and everybody's having a good time, but I'm not, then there's something wrong with that.

And so what I started to do was shift from the fear of failure to the fear of regret. Would I regret not having this conversation? So a lot of times what I, I, we have to recognize that our emotions are signals, but it's ultimately up to us to determine what that signal means.

So imagine, imagine you're on a, in a car ride and you're, your hand always needs to be on the wheel. Your emotions are in that car. You will hear them, you can listen to them, but they cannot have their hands on the wheel. Right? But sometimes our fear will put its hand on the wheel and say, Hey, you know, there's a problem.

There's, there's a problem that you are only experiencing. They're not experiencing it. The only way that we can address this problem is by saying something. But our fear will say, but don't say anything because it's not worth the risk. And so what we have to do is shift from short-term thinking to long-term thinking.

because our emotions will lead us to make decisions that satisfy us in the short term. But then what ends up happening is we regret not standing up for ourselves and having the conversation. And so when I get that signal, that fear, it doesn't go away. By the way, Monica, I still feel it today. I stop and I have to shift my perspective.

And so I ask myself, Kwame in 10 years, what would he respect right now? I don't wanna disappoint him because at the end of the. I am gonna be spending a lot of time with me, and if I do not respect the man that I am today, then that's, that's a major problem. And so a lot of times, Kwame in 10 years directs me to have conversations that Kwame of today does not want to have.

But it doesn't change the fact that I need to have it. And so, regardless of the outcome of the conversation, I need to make him proud. And once I started to focus on getting validation from the right person, which is myself, then it started to help me to make better decisions.

Monica: So, and this is where I feel like I'm now gonna contradict myself , because in like many ways we do, like, I want some ways, ways for the, the listeners who are ready to shift from the fear of failure driving, how they're handling the conflict to more of that bigger picture, more fear of regret. Oh, how can we help them know where to start? I mean, first we're like, go deeper, right? But let's kind of break down what this looks like when you're working with people,

Kwame: Yeah. So let's focus on the internal side first. I think what would be interesting to, to do first is have people describe the feeling that they have before the conversation. What is it that I'm feeling when there's a conversation that you avoid? What is it that you feel? And then break down, break it down.

Because a lot of times we haven't done that process, so the. My approach to conflict resolution is called Compassionate Curiosity, and so it's a three step process. First step is acknowledge and validate the emotion. Second step is get curious with compassion. Third step is joint problem solving. And so it's pretty clear how that operates in a conversation with somebody else.

And it was specifically designed to not only be valuable for the external conversation, but also for the internal conversation, exact same framework, so acknowledge and validate our own feeling. And beliefs and emotions. Then get curious with self-directed compassion. And that self-directed compassion is really important because a lot of times our internal critic is so judgmental that it stops the introspective process short.

And then the third step is joint problem solving. And here it's reconciling the differences between our hearts and minds. So what would satisfy me emotionally? And then substantively, what should I actually do? What's the change in the world that I want to have? So if we use that same process, As an introspective tool here saying, Hey, what is it that's holding you back?

This is what that internal dialogue could look like. What I, what am I feeling? I'm afraid, okay, what else am I feeling? I'm feeling a little bit insecure. All right. Insecure in what? I'm a little bit insecure in my skills. Okay. Anything else? I'm insecure in the relationship. I'm not feeling really safe right now in the relationship.

All right. What else? I think that's, I think that is about it. And so it's important to keep asking. What else, because usually we feel multiple things at the same time. Now we're getting curious with compassion. So what are you afraid of? I'm afraid of losing the relationship. What else? I'm afraid of being the labeled as the bad person.

like the instigator, it seemed like everything was going okay. I don't wanna be the person who's causing problems. What else are you afraid of? Well, I don't want this getting out that I, I am difficult to work with. Okay. Anything else that's causing that fear? No. Okay. What about the insecurity?

What's driving that? Well, I haven't taken the time to practice negotiation or learn anything about it, so I don't really even know how to navigate this conversation. All right. What about the insecurity and the relationship? Well, I've never actually stood up for myself in this conversation in this relationship, so I've always gone with the flow.

So I don't even know how this person's going to respond. Do they just like me because I'm a people pleaser, or do they really like me for me? Okay. Anything else? Nope. Okay. Next step. Reconciling our differences between our hearts and our minds. So what would satisfy me emotionally in this situation? Well, let me run away and not have this conversation then I'm not afraid anymore.

All right. But does that address the fear and solve the problem? No, it doesn't. Okay. So that's not a solid answer. All right. Well, I want to do something that I would. I would respect in the future, I would regret not having this conversation. And well, what should I do? Well, I should have this conversation, but I should also make sure that I, I do a little bit of research on how I should structure the conversation.

I should prepare and write out what I'm gonna say beforehand, and I should. Also make sure that I give myself a timeline because fear masquerades and over overthinking a lot of times. So I could just think myself to death and not have this conversation. So I'm gonna have this conversation by tomorrow at 5:00 PM and I'm gonna prepare as much as I can before then.

And so that's an example of what that introspective process could look like as we're breaking down what those internal barriers could be.

Monica: So we start internally. You know, it's interesting and that last point in particular where you're pointing out how we can belabor just the, the preparation going into it. I, I was just literally coaching someone about this, the yesterday about a, a conflict, you know, within a relationship and, and her trying to plot out what she needed to say coming into it.

And the thing we kind of came to the conclusion was it was less about exactly what she said and how she said it, it was more about who she was arriving to the conversation as like her being her true self, which comes back to a lot of, thankfully, your psychology background and how you were able to use that to better do that internal work so that you can bring that radiant self to these hard conversations.

I love that internal process, and I heard you say we, this is also the same externally, like when we are talking to the other person

Kwame: Exactly. Yeah. So we should assume in many cases there's gonna be some level of emotionality. So we're gonna label that emotion by saying things like, It sounds like, it seems like, or I can tell that. And then we're gonna provide a label, an emotional label. So it seems like.

Monica: Reflecting back how they are feeling?

Kwame: Exactly. Yeah. So it, it seems like this is having a, a significant impact on you, or it seems like you're a little bit surprised by this, or I can tell that this is really frustrating to you.

Whatever it is, you label it and then you validate what they're saying. They're going to vent for a little bit. You listen, you summarize. You don't counter what they're saying. Not at this point. You just listen and summarize and reflect that back, reflect back that understanding. It's all about empathy at this point.

Then when you see the emotional temperature in the room start to drop, then you shift to getting curious with compassion. You're asking open-ended questions with a compassionate tone to get the other person to share. What are they thinking, how are they feeling? What are, what's their perspective and. as you feel, as you get to that point where you feel like you have a full picture of what's happening, then you shift to point number three, which is joint problem solving.

This is just collaborative negotiation. We're just going back and forth, working together on how we can solve the problem. And so it's not me versus you, it's you and me versus the problem. We're working together to try to figure it out, but the emotions in the. Often are the thing that hold us back the most and we don't have tools to address it.

So this allows us to address the emotionality and flow during the conversation, and it makes it less likely for you to make a mistake because you're speaking less . You're giving them the space to speak. So I want them to speak about. 70% of the time, I'm only speaking 30% of the time, and that just makes it easier for it to flow.

But the nice thing about this is that you don't need to remember any lines. You don't need to come up with any zingers or have any like really robust negotiation tactics. Just flowing through this process helps you to know what to say and when to say it for maximum impact.

Monica: It also counters this fear I think a lot of us former people pleasers have that in order to not be a people pleaser, now I've gotta be like a shark. Like I have to like go after exactly what I want, never settle, have really strict boundaries. While of course a lot of that's. It is valid, you know, boundaries especially, I love that this is not binary.

It really, it really is that joint problem solving part to it. It's compromise but not compromising of self like you did for so long. It's, it's actually true compromising.

Kwame: 100%. And so when people listen to my podcast and read my books and things like that, I don't want people to, to say, I want to negotiate like Kwame Christian. I want them to say, I want to negotiate like myself, just a better version of myself. If you're not authentic, then it's not gonna be persuasive, and you're not gonna feel good while doing it.

If you're trying to pretend to be somebody else, then the conversation isn't going to flow because you're trying to remember what you're going to say and the character you're supposed to be playing. You just, you're yourself, but you're flexing different parts of yourself at different times, but always being authentic and true to who you are.

Monica: Just like wanna slow clap. That, that, that alone changes so much for me. It really does. Kwame,

 I'm really curious. I mean this, this framework, I love how it's both internal and external. That is such a great framework. Can you share an example of maybe someone who has gotten better at this because of the framework and the internal work they've done?

Even if it's yourself and I wanna, i, I know you are so like, good at the business stuff, but like maybe more of an outside of business example, just because most of the people listening aren't really ready to like maybe negotiate a salary necessarily, but more, something more personal.

Kwame: Yeah, there's so...there's so many examples. I think just. I think those, here's an example. So it, it starts businessy, but it isn't so I remember one time I was doing a, a training for the people in the army who are in the procurement department. So they buy all of the weapons systems for the army.

So like, billion dollar deals. Crazy. Right? And so in day two of that presentation, when I came back, I was just asking about some of the takeaways and we taught compassionate curiosity and one of the people said, you know, now I have an opportunity to rebuild my relationship with my sister. I didn't know how to do it before, but now I do.

Like somebody else in, in a sales training. When we talked about personality, he's like, oh, my son is, I'm just realizing now the difference between us is I'm an extrovert and he's an introvert. We're always clashing. And it was, it wasn't even like a, a topical clash. We were, we were just communicating very differently. And now I know how to break through, like for me, honestly, like the branding, the negotiation is a branding to the, that gets money in the door to get the business flowing. I can't do this unless I can sustain my family. Right. But for me, this is just a conduit for, for the like real change in the personal life.

Monica: What people couldn't see is my jaw literally dropping? When you shared that first example, like what was your takeaway? Oh, I can fix this relationship, and I bet that was like, well, I'm sure that wasn't surprising for you at that point because of all the work that you've done and, and how much you've helped people.

if there is one small way people can get started on everything we talked about today, what would that be?

Kwame: The next time you have a difficult conversation or the opportunity to have a difficult conversation, number one: have the conversation. And number two, use compassionate curiosity. That's really it. As we overthink it, we overthink it. You need to do it.

Monica: Yeah.

Kwame: and use the tool, and that's what I tell people all the time.

For me as a business lawyer, I use compassionate curiosity when I'm negotiating with opposing counsel. When I'm talking to my wife, I use compassionate curiosity. When I talk to Kai, my seven year old, I use compassionate curiosity. Dominic's only one, so you know, I don't really need to use it with him, but I'm using this.

Eventually he will be ready. Right. But I, I use this all the time. It's just a mental model, a really simple and smooth conversational framework that you can use in every single conversation. You just code switch based on who it is.

So when I, when I talk to Whitney and she says, you sound like a lawyer. That's not the right tone wrong, the brought the wrong tone to that conversation. So I adjust, but I still use compassionate curiosity. When I'm using compassionate curiosity with opposing counsel, I'm a little bit more assertive, but I'm still me, you know? So I think all, you don't need to learn any more tactics.

You don't need to learn any more tools. You just need to have the conversation and use the framework and treat every opportunity as a chance to practice. And one last thing, you can win every single one of these conversations. You can certainly win every single one. And this is how you need to reframe what winning is.

And so you're winning if, number one, you're putting yourself in the best position to succeed. You're doing your absolute best, you're using the skills and tactics that you have to put yourself in a winnable position. So if there is a win, you'll find it . And then the next one, After the conversation, replay the tape.

Treat yourself like your own coach. What did I do? Well, I want to do more of that. What did I do poorly? And your goal is to not make the same mistake twice. And so with every single time you're incrementally getting better. If you're doing those two things, you're winning regardless of the outcome.

Monica: Beautiful. I love every part of this. I'm, I, I'm gonna ask you one more personal question before I, I want you to, you know, tell people where to go because you have, you know, you have your books, you have your podcast, and we'll, and we'll do that next. But I'm just curious personally, like what, what your life is like now.

Like, where are you at with people pleasing perfectionism? What's, what's changed for you and what, what are you still working?

Kwame: I'd say this, I'm, I'm a lot better when I, when there's a conversation that needs to happen, I usually have it. But I think what's interesting is that it comes out in different places sometimes when you're not expecting it. And so, as I've leveled up in my career and my business, the difficult conversations with my staff has been more challenging. And so I think it's because when, when I do business, I try to become the person's friend, like I consider you a friend. Now we've talked a couple of times, right? That's just the way that I relate to people, but that vulnerability and connection makes it tough to, to make tough decisions sometimes.

So it's, for instance, if I have to, to lay somebody off, like that's a tough one. Like there's, there's just no way to make that easy like that. That's one that I struggle with, that I put off for a long period of time because I genuinely care about people. So I'm, I'm realizing that as a leader, that is challenging and I know that when it comes to making those types of decisions and having those types of conversations.

it would be a lot easier if I was more callous, but I don't want to become that kind of person. And so I think there's a a challenge when it comes to like vulnerable leadership because you connect with people and then there are some business decisions that will hurt people. And that's something that I, I struggle with.

And the, the interesting part about that, Monica, is that I don't want to ever NOT.

Monica: Yeah. And, and that's vulnerable leadership. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing.

Kwame this has been, this has been a real gift for. thank you. Thank you for not only your life story. My heart is still breaking about the first story you told us. Thank you for your hard work, you know, for your advocacy for others too, as part of that. I mean, that's really what you're doing. It's like it's advocacy work and the bigger picture, I think so I wanna make sure people know where to go, who want to learn more from you.

Where would you have them.

Kwame: Yes. Well, I appreciate the, the kind words to my so check out the podcast Negotiate Anything. We're seven days a week. We have amazing guests. Monica Packer, you might have heard of her. And then check out americannegotiationinstitute.com if you're interested in learning more about our trainings and workshops.

And in 2023, we're going to be coming out with something really exciting. It's going to be a a community. A learning community of like-minded people who want to get better. And we're gonna have different tiers, so it's gonna be inclusive. So if you want like the highest tier that has a course and things like that, it's gonna be a certain price point.

We haven't determined it yet. But if you just want to be part of the community and learn with others there, there's gonna be access. And, and I'm super excited about that too.

Monica: Awesome. We will link to all those things as well as your books and the Ted talk too, that, that you sent my way and I loved it so much. So Kwame. Thank you again. I appreciate you.

Kwame: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.