Episode 40:
Rachelle Brockman
In the Season 2 finale of The Extensionists, hosts Jay Whetter and Toban Dyck sit down with Rachelle Brockman, principal of Eureka Experience, to discuss mastering conflict as a learnable skill.
Listen here:
Transcript
Toban Dyck 00:03
This is The Extensionists. Conversations with great thinkers in agriculture. I’m Toban Dyck,
Jay Whetter 00:08
and I’m Jay Whetter. Hey, Toban.
Toban Dyck 00:14
Hey, Jay.
Jay Whetter 00:15
Did you want to start this time?
Toban Dyck 00:17
Like,
Jay Whetter 00:18
Just say, hey, Jay.
Toban Dyck 00:20
Hey, Jay.
Jay Whetter 00:20
Hey Toban.
Toban Dyck 00:22
It’s like unfamiliar to me. I don’t know what to do. I feel so nervous. Put on the spot. So, the studio is going to change. Why?
Jay Whetter 00:32
What?
Toban Dyck 00:32
Yeah.
Jay Whetter 00:33
You never tell me anything.
Toban Dyck 00:34
Yeah, well, you just come in. Yeah, you come in and things change and things happen.
Jay Whetter 00:39
I’m so comfortable over here, sitting just as you.
Toban Dyck 00:42
Just as you’re getting comfortable, but now we’re going to change it. I am a little, I’m a little concerned about, again, in the new plans, this couch doesn’t really factor in, but I really like this couch.
Jay Whetter 00:51
Well, could you, could we sit on these cushions on their new chair? Chairs, what are we doing by the way?
Toban Dyck 00:57
Well, you seem to know why don’t you tell us? No, it’s gonna be.. it’s gonna be different format. We’re not like.. I think maybe our..
Jay Whetter 01:08
Shattered the illusion of you not telling me anything.
Toban Dyck 01:10
I know you said our viewers aren’t gonna see our socks anymore. How do you.. how do you feel about that Jay?
Jay Whetter 01:15
I only have five pairs of socks, and I feel like they’re getting worn out.
Toban Dyck 01:19
I know, I know, I’m looking forward.
Toban Dyck 01:22
What do you goton there today?
Toban Dyck 01:23
These are Keystone Ag Producer socks.
Jay Whetter 01:25
Oh, there’s a cow and a pig, and what is that? A fish?
Toban Dyck 01:29
No.
Jay Whetter 01:29
It’s a thing in the middle? It’s a stretched out chicken.
Toban Dyck 01:32
That’s right, that’s right.
Jay Whetter 01:35
Anyway, yes, but away with the socks. I think we’re ready. I think we’re mature enough now to hide the socks.
Toban Dyck 01:40
Yes, yeah, we’re gonna hide the socks. We’re gonna be sitting behind a desk. We’re gonna get a desk made, or I’m gonna make it. Or maybe, maybe you, maybe you and I should make it. That should be, that should be.
Toban Dyck 01:54
It’ll be like, oh yeah. So I went to this live taping of Now or Never, which is a CBC radio program, and they were talking about these. It was at the gas station theater during the comedy festival. Oh,
Toban Dyck 02:06
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jay Whetter 02:07
So, they brought these two hosts together who had never worked together before. I’m not even sure they knew each other. So the first thing they did was gave them an IKEA bit of furniture to put together together to see how they functioned, so that’s what we could do. We, you could buy an Ikea desk. No, I know you won’t do that, because he likes woodworking, but but I could come and help you sand.
Toban Dyck 02:32
We could do it in like the theme of like this old house from like those PBS, those PBS.
Toban Dyck 02:39
Bob Vila, and this is my,
Toban Dyck 02:41
Like, really kind of, we could dress like sweater, sweater mess, and like,
Toban Dyck 02:45
oh, I’ll get, so you be Bob Vila, and I’ll be Bob Ross.
Toban Dyck 02:49
Oh, you could do with your hair,
Jay Whetter 02:51
I could almost, yeah,
Toban Dyck 02:52
And you need to grow it out a bit.
Jay Whetter 02:52
I don’t even need to get a wig.
Toban Dyck 02:55
Oh, I like this.
Jay Whetter 02:56
And then I’ll have our little ASMR voices.
Toban Dyck 02:59
Yes.
Jay Whetter 02:59
Pretty little clouds.
Toban Dyck 03:01
Yeah, these little, like, this beautiful workshop with, like, fine, fine tools and hand chisels, just kind of lightly whittling the wood, and we would create
Jay Whetter 03:13
All these euphemisms.
Toban Dyck 03:14
We would create, we would create this beautiful new studio. I do, I do like it? I do like it.
Jay Whetter 03:23
I do too. Yeah, let’s just do that.
Toban Dyck 03:25
Yeah, anyways, I’m very excited for, for the colours are gonna change. I’ve never, yeah, not.. I shouldn’t say never, I shouldn’t be so categorical about things, but I’m looking forward to the change. Yeah, anyway, yeah.
Jay Whetter 03:38
What just so we visualize what’s going to happen, so people, when they tune into season three, they won’t be scared. What, what are we going to be looking like here?
Toban Dyck 03:48
So, the two windows behind us, and if you’re not watching, you’re listening. Jay and I are sitting on a couch. There’s two windows behind us that are, that are, that have blinds, and these will be gone. This will be kind of a wood panel wall, and then we will be Jay, and I will be sitting behind a desk, so very
Jay Whetter 04:07
The news anchored like weekend update desk. Hello, I’m Jay. Are we going to be across from each other?
Toban Dyck 04:13
So, I’m thinking, I’m thinking, so I haven’t fully designed it yet, but I’m thinking kind of a like a solid flat front to the desk, but then a circular kind of half circle back, so we could, we could sit across from each other still, and there’s room for a third from we have in studio. Yes.
Jay Whetter 04:30
Good.
Toban Dyck 04:31
That’s what that’s what I’m thinking.
Jay Whetter 04:32
I like that. I like your vision.
Toban Dyck 04:34
Yeah, so we’re gonna try to, I think I, me and my father-in-law are gonna work on this on this together and and build this thing, so yeah, I’m and then there’ll be some colour changes, some some painting going on, so that’ll be
Jay Whetter 04:51
And then are we going to have this on?
Toban Dyck 04:54
I don’t know, so with the with the wood slab wall, we’ll be able to post stuff. Too, like, we’ll be able to put, like, you know, art or various things, maybe for sponsors, or, oh, good idea, who knows, yeah, yeah,
Jay Whetter 05:07
Maybe we could get an extensionists neon sign,
Toban Dyck 05:10
Yeah, maybe season four silhouettes of us massive floor, floor to ceiling.
Jay Whetter 05:21
Well, that’s exciting. Well, that’ll be fun. In the meantime, we have Rachelle.
Toban Dyck 05:25
Let’s get to it.
Jay Whetter 05:45
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Toban Dyck 06:03
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Jay Whetter 06:09
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Toban Dyck 06:18
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Jay Whetter 06:42
So, our guest today is Rqchelle Brockman. Hi, Rachelle. Rachelle is the principal of Eureka Experience, which is a company based out of Saskatchewan that specializes in getting people to talk about their needs and managing conflict. Is that, is that the gist of the business, or Rachelle, how would you describe the raison d’être for your eureka experience?
Rachelle Brockman 07:05
You’re getting to the core of my business. I’d say the umbrella of it is leadership and communications, and I design and deliver workshops. I do public speaking engagements and work one on one, sometimes, or with small teams, mostly in helping them with their interpersonal issues and development, and it’s funny because I know in the past I reject the soft skill analogy that people like to say, and they kind of say it with a little bit of a roll of the eye, oh, the soft skills, but I have since coined them the essential skills.
Jay Whetter 07:46
Oh, yeah,
Rachelle Brockman 07:46
and so under this umbrella of leadership and communication, I believe there are many essential skills for all people in all walks of life, in all industries, and of course into their personal lives. It trickles into everything we do.
Toban Dyck 08:04
The connection between leadership and communications, I think, is an interesting one, and it’s not.. I think it comes up often in the, in the industry, in the ag industry, maybe, maybe in any industry, but there’s a kind of a confluence, there’s a direct relationship between the two, you know. We, Jay and I, do a bit of communications training as well, and it’s. We get, you know, I get asked to do leadership training as well. I.. there’s a way of looking at it that seems very different, leadership and communications, but I.. there’s also a way of looking at it where they’re actually one in the same, so I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on that relationship.
Rachelle Brockman 08:47
You know, I have this habit of looking at everyone that I encounter as a leader, and I think of all of us as leaders in some capacity or another, whether formal or informal, and I think that when I go into my work and I go into the world giving people that respect and hopefully having it in return, where I see you as a leader and I see everyone that I come up with or against, sometimes sadly, and seeing people as a leader, then just helps me to elevate people into a place, hold them accountable at this place to work on their communication skills as a foundation for whatever work it is that they’re doing, so whether they’re little league soccer coaches or they’re a community member or they’re running an organization or an enterprise, they’re a leader to me, so I do see them going perfectly hand in hand, and it’s a philosophical kind of paradigm shift to put the two together, and my experience with people is that as soon. As I call them that, and as soon as I hold them to that standard, they rise to the occasion. Almost always.
Jay Whetter 10:09
At the workshop, Rachelle, you had us get up and go to each of four corners of the room, depending on our personality style. Or can you, can you walk me through that again? Because I think it was a really good exercise.
Toban Dyck 10:24
And I wasn’t there, so yeah,
Jay Whetter 10:26
Because, because it’s, I mean, you talked about everyone’s a leader and has that responsibility to to exercise their leadership skills, but, but there’s different types of leaders, and I really like that exercise, so please walk me through that one again, or walk us through that one again.
Rachelle Brockman 10:44
Absolutely, so I have a background as a certified facilitator with the Myers Briggs tool, and for anyone listening that doesn’t know that tool, it’s basically an inventory of preferences, personal preferences. Some people liked, you know, you just said is like personality, but really our personalities are so complex and they’re ever changing, and whether people really buy into a tool like this or not, I find it really helpful when I’m working with people to even just have in the back of my brain, because I have bought into it, and so essentially the Myers Briggs tool says that there are certain personality preferences that are innate, inborn to us, and that we will be influenced by our environments very greatly, but those innate, inborn characteristics would likely be our preference. It doesn’t mean we can’t operate in a different way, we can learn lots of things, and we can do anything we set our minds to. I’m a firm believer in that, but if we can operate with those innate, inborn preferences, and we understand them, and we know they’re our go-to, we will create a lot of efficiencies in our communication, in our decision making. Under stress, it’s a big one to know and understand. I feel like that’s a really big one for people, and so the tool that I used in that workshop was a really super condensed version of Myers Briggs, so that we didn’t have to go through the actual tool and pay for it, yada yada yada, not that there’s a problem with that, but it does put people into the forming, they call them functional pairs, and so if you’re familiar with Myers Briggs, there’s four letters you get, and the functional pairs are the two middle letters, and it says this is how I get her done, and this is the way I interact with people when I’m getting her done, and so I’m going to really, really generalize them, but essentially you’ve got one type of communicator leader who is very much about details and present tense details. You get a second one who is focused primarily and has a preference for focusing on present tense people, so they’ll notice, oh, it’s so and so’s birthday in the team, and we didn’t even say happy birthday to them this morning, right. Whereas, that first leader might not recognize that as being as important on that particular day, but they’re focused on the tasks that they, that we need to accomplish in the team that day. The third type would be a future-oriented things person, so they’re focused on systems and structures and possibilities for the future that have to do with things, and the fourth one would be a future-looking people person, so they’re building the team based on succession personality skill competency, and they’re really thinking about the future of the team relating to the people, so present tense things people, present tense people people, future oriented things people, and future oriented people, people, and so that was the activity. Once I find people are really amazing at putting themselves into what they believe to be their preference. It doesn’t mean they can’t operate in the other areas, but that’s their go-to. That’s the one that satisfies them the most, and if they’re problem solving, they know that that’s the detail that they would like first or most, and then they can attend to the rest, and I find that this, the best teams have a bit of everybody, but the key, if you remember, is that they have to understand each other, they can’t do the general eye roll when they hear somebody asking about today’s plan, you know, how much is it going to cost? What’s the timeline? Those are your present tense things, people, and they’re going to start speaking about those needs, and, and I might be going, well, wait, wait a second, like, we’ve got a couple retirements coming up, because I’m one of those future-oriented people, people like, okay, we got some retired. Environments coming up, or or grandpa is going to leave the farm, and we’ve got a, we’ve got a gap to fill in this people space, and why aren’t we thinking about that? And so I’m not going to be satisfied unless the team is talking about that a little bit as well. And so those four roles are really crucial in a, in a high functioning team, and they understand each other, they might not like it all the time, they might not get it, but it’s they’re all four areas very important.
Jay Whetter 15:27
Oh yeah, so you’re a future-oriented people person, Toban. Do you, what’s your inkling? Well,
Toban Dyck 15:34
I think I think a people person, so you mentioned like a birthday being very important in a team meeting, right, so I run a company, and we have a, we have a team of people, and I think I recognize all the types among my team, which is, which is, which is, which is really, really interesting, actually. But yeah, I would be the person who would find it valuable to call out a birthday and think that that would be an important thing in a meeting to talk about, more important than the than the tasks of the day, you know.
Rachelle Brockman 16:08
Yeah.
Toban Dyck 16:09
Yeah, that’s that’s so, yeah,
Jay Whetter 16:11
You need people on your team who are all put a priority on the tasks as well.
Toban Dyck 16:16
Yeah, but I mean, to your point, it takes, it takes all four to be to be highly functioning, right, and I think
Rachelle Brockman 16:22
As long as they’re respecting each other’s differences, because that’s where the conflict comes in, right, and we talked about conflict management, a lot of it just boils down to I’m not listening to you because I don’t get that perspective, I don’t think or believe that that that that avenue or that route is important, especially not today or in this moment, and so then the conflict starts.
Jay Whetter 16:45
Right?
Toban Dyck 16:46
So, do you think that exercise of just, of just people self-identifying, or kind of coming, you know, putting themselves in those camps, or however that works, is there like an inherent respect that happens in the room when they see each other in those, in those very occupying those various roles.
Rachelle Brockman 17:06
Absolutely, my experience is that there’s a lot of eureka moments.
Toban Dyck 17:10
There you go, Matt Jay.
Rachelle Brockman 17:11
What about you? What area are you in? And what did you think when you saw it? Did you to answer Toban’s question, did you see that people were receptive to the differences?
Jay Whetter 17:19
I did. Oh yeah, wow, it was easy enough to say in the room, but then getting out into practice is a whole other thing. But I think, yeah, I think right. So, in practice, are people as receptive as they say they are when they’re in a real positive energy kind of space, like that meeting that we had with you, I did something similar with a class at U of M. I was helping with this one class, and we did this, the disc analysis, which is, which is just a rival, similar, maybe you would, wouldn’t say similar, but and I divvied the class into the into the same kind of four quadrants, and said, okay, if you’re this kind of person, go there. If you’re this kind of person, go there. And then, and then I said, now with your family, you need to recognize that maybe your mother or your father needs two weeks to make a decision, because they’re future-oriented things people. And, but you’re right now people person, and you think so. If you know that this is what their preferences are, that’s not the word I use, but I’m going to try to use that from now on. If you know what this with who your close coworkers or your family’s preferences are in practice, then if you’re, if you’re cognizant of that, it should help reduce conflict, but, but not necessarily, I think, is what you’re telling us.
Rachelle Brockman 18:42
Well, I am never a fan of eliminating conflict. I’m always a fan of managing conflict.
Jay Whetter 18:48
Yeah,
Rachelle Brockman 18:49
And so there’s a huge difference in what your goal is there, and a lot of people are just afraid of conflict, or they don’t know how to engage in conflict, and I think that’s one of the saddest parts about what I, it’s not sad in the way that it can’t be resolved, but it’s sad in the way that we are raised with habits and we’re formed with communication habits that are less than effective a lot of the times, myself included, and the thing that I love talking to people about when I see them as leaders is that communication is a skill, just like any other skill, and it can be developed if we focus on it, but for some weird reason, we get all weird, and it gets so personal, and we start to feel bad if we’re not the best communicator, or we’re frustrated at the other, we blame the other, and there’s so many dynamics that start to happen that we all are capable of as humans, and depending on the habits that we have in our communication skills, we don’t often see it as something that we should develop or need to develop.
Jay Whetter 19:52
I think that is so refreshing. It will be so helpful for people to hear that their communication skills is something you can develop. Because they feel like no, I can’t handle that. I don’t want it’s conflict avoidance, which I think is a big thing in my family, but I mean, like you said, sort of running towards the conflict, mean at the end of it, I mean it’s hard in the moment, but boy, you could, the relationship is probably that much stronger, and the so your, your family and your business objectives or goals, if you, if families and businesses have that are clearer, and you’re not, you’re moving towards in a more positive way, I suspect. Is that a fair interpretation?
Rachelle Brockman 20:37
if you’re willing to do it well and push through, for sure. It, it almost always has a better outcome than avoidance, and avoidance will be beneficial for some people, like your typical aggressors. You know, there’s four main kinds of communicators that we build habits around, and aggression, aggression, or aggressors are one of them, and I always feel for aggressors, and I’ve encountered a lot of really senior leaders, maybe of sometimes an older generation. They were taught that type of communication. It’s also, you know, seems to be more common historically for men to have that more aggressive communication style, and they get stuff done, and they, they’re proud of that. And when I encounter some of those people in my work, I love working with them in my heart. I have a lot of empathy there, and they’ll, they’ll get to a point almost always when we work through some of this where they go, okay? Rochelle, okay, I get it, I see it, but I don’t know how to be a better communicator. I don’t know how to change these habits, and freak habits are so hard to change.
Jay Whetter 21:54
How does an aggressive communicate? How does that? How does that sound, Rachelle? The aggressive communicator, what does that, as it comes out of their mouth? What does it sound like?
Rachelle Brockman 22:04
Well, I mean, it can be the stereotype of someone who’s literally yelling and hollering and barking demands and not listening, but it can also just be somebody who has power, who is used to getting what they want. They might be very respectful and polite about it, but they’re making no bones about it. They want you to do what they want.
Jay Whetter 22:25
What’s the problem?
Rachelle Brockman 22:26
And so they’re not really leaving a lot of open space for dialog or for listening to another perspective.
Toban Dyck 22:31
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I know, I know. I think we probably all know people who are aggressive or aggressive or communicators. Yeah, I know one very close, not gonna say who he is, but obviously, but you would, you would think that this person knows everything about everything, just because the way this person talks, he talks with authority on things, I know him well enough to know that he actually has no idea what he’s talking about 90% of the time, but people follow him, people like, and they will, 100% they’ll just be, they believe most of what he says, and, and he kind of has that gravity around him, that pull, and and people are drawn to it, they want it, they want the security, they like, they like the confidence he exudes, but it’s yeah, it is very much an aggressive approach to communications. Yeah, it’s interesting
Rachelle Brockman 23:29
What happens with that person when someone disagrees, or when, yeah?
Toban Dyck 23:35
shut down, like it’s.. I know him well enough to know that when I hang out, let’s say, to be very, very, it’s walking on eggshells. Be very careful how I disagree, because it can be a case where that, that, that event is done, like he, and he will, he’ll, as much as he’s brought up the room, he’ll bring it down, like just, just as easily. So it becomes very much a man, I have to manage it, you know, or I feel like I do. Maybe, maybe I wrongfully put that on my shoulders, but I do feel like I have to manage that situation, that scenario, in terms of how I interact with him. Yeah,
Rachelle Brockman 24:14
And what’s interesting to Toban about what you’re saying is, if I go back to your self-declaration about being a people person, and you have a need to satisfy or to manage that, and you’re putting that on yourself because you are a self-proclaimed people person, whereas the more things person might not be as phased by the aggressor,
Toban Dyck 24:39
Right.
Rachelle Brockman 24:39
Especially if the aggressor is a things person as well, and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, well, okay, water off a duck’s back when they yell at me.
Toban Dyck 24:47
Yeah,
Rachelle Brockman 24:47
They might not love it, they might not want to wish it to be that way, but perhaps that category of preference would say, ‘Okay, no, I’m I’m getting past that part, and I’m going to the need that that person wants, and they just. Want me to get this job done, so I’m just gonna go do this job, whereas other people might be left like the people. People are usually left spinning a little. They’re like, okay, I need to put a band aid here, and I need to get a cold compact here before I can proceed with the task. And at the end of the day, I’m in business, like I love people, and I think people are fascinating, and I think people have a lot of skills that can be improved in this manner, but at the end of the day, we need to get stuff done too, and the bottom line is highly important. So I always love when we encounter people like that, and I say to them, Do you want your team and your staff or your family to be reeling and to be hurt and to need time to recuperate, or do you want them to get to work, and they’re like, well, of course, I want them to get to work, and I’m like, okay, then you need to be aware of these other preferences, and the fact that they might be lingering, and they might be hurting, or that they might be gossiping behind your back, or doing things behind your back because you’re an aggressive communicator, they just don’t want you to know it, or worst thing ever, they’re afraid to make mistakes, and they’re so afraid to make mistakes that they don’t innovate, they don’t try new things, they, they don’t make change when change needs to happen, so this all these, these kind of.. when, when you take people to the outcomes, and then they go, “Oh, yeah, I don’t want that, I don’t want that messiness, I don’t want that lag or that delay, I want efficiency, I want to get it done, and I’m like, “Okay, then communication skills are going to help you get there. And then they see it, and they’re like, “Ah, okay, I see it, but I don’t know how”
Jay Whetter 26:42
This reminded me. This reminds me of a conversation I had, actually, at your session with Stephen Froese, who’s the oilseed specialist for the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture. It kind of just makes me think of, like, the managers as coaches, and having to recognize what motivates each, each player, each staff person, each family member, because everything, every person is motivated differently. As Steven surprised me, because he said, “Yeah, like, actually, I need someone to say, ‘Stephen, get your head out of your ass, and get like he needs one of those coaches who like actually yells at him. And I thought, “Well, really, like I didn’t think anybody liked that, but Steven said, “No, actually, I.. I need that kind of thing, and it really.. it kind of wakes me up and gets me going. So,
Rachelle Brockman 27:26
It’s habit busting, because when we all – any one of us falls into our habit, it’s pretty hard to see through it, right?
Jay Whetter 27:36
Yeah,
Rachelle Brockman 27:37
It’s pretty hard to see what we’re doing or saying when it’s just habitual, and this is the way we’ve always done it, and that kind of thing, and it’s hard to take a step back and say, is this really working for me, for the bottom line, for the family, for the organization, or is it working against us in some way?
Toban Dyck 27:54
Yeah, you, when you were talking about when Jay asked you about that Learn to Lead event, and you were walking through that process, you mentioned something about being under stress, and then you said that’s a big one, and I feel like I feel like I want to come back to that, because that stood out a bit to me. So, can you talk a little bit about that?
Rachelle Brockman 28:15
Yeah, well, we all know stress is a big one, and when I work with people in this capacity, I like to differentiate between little stress and big stress, which is hard for some of us to distinguish between, because it depends on our, our, you know, our reaction or our belief about what’s happening that creates it to be either big or little, so when I talk about big stress, the stuff that can really take people down. We want to watch what our preference behaviors are, because if we know what our preferences are, and the way we work most efficiently, and the way we’re most satisfied, and our needs are being satisfied, and we know we’re being productive in that manner under deep stress, there’s actually literature in that Myers-Briggs community that shows we will behave in the opposite way. So I’ll use myself as an example. I often, if I look at my category of being a future-oriented people person under deep stress, I actually revert to the opposite, which is that detail, that present tense detail person, but what’s interesting is that the present tense detail person, in who’s living in preference, they’re beautiful, they’re doing amazing things in that area, but when I jump into that area, which isn’t my own, it’s ugly, and so they actually call it the ugly opposite, and it’s me being nitpicky, it’s me not thinking about the future. I, you’re gonna laugh, I get like I’m a sticky note junkie, all of a sudden there’s lists everywhere, there’s to-do lists. And I’m barking orders to people, and it’s not me, it’s not who I am, and the people around me are quite confused by it, and so we can see those things, especially in our teammates, and we can help them, and the way in which we help them is by giving them jobs or roles or tasks that fall into their preference, and it launches their brains back into that space.
Jay Whetter 30:24
Do you have someone who recognizes that in you, and you’re in post-it mode, mode, post-it mode, and say, okay, mom’s in, or whoever is an ugly opposite mode, that’s we need to help.
Rachelle Brockman 30:37
Yeah, and so really it might sound oversimplified, and of course, under big stress, we often need a far more support than what I’m talking about, right? So I don’t want to diminish that. Often we need counseling, often we need bigger, more professional things, but in the moment, for me, in that example, if my family member were to say to me, “Hey, Mom, or, “Hey, Rochelle, why don’t you like maybe we should take a holiday next year? I wonder what kind of holiday we should take, you know? If it could launch my brain into this, oh, now I’m going to dream about a future-oriented event for my family. If I can allow myself to take that invitation, it will bring me down, it’ll relax me, it’ll help me, it’ll help everybody around me.
Jay Whetter 31:33
Sometimes, you know, our, our businesses or our passions are based on personal experiences. And are you, can you tell us about your relationship with your dad, and that, that 30 seconds, that yeah, because that is, I just loved hearing that story from you, because it was you being vulnerable as an instructor or as a facilitator, but I found, like, that it’s so memorable, and I think, I mean, I guess there’s two, there’s two messages in this, because I want to hear your story about you and your father, and how, how you worked through that, but I mean, I think, as a manager, as, or as a facilitator, the of these vulnerable moments when you kind of let your guard down and say, you know, this happened to me, I think that is so powerful from a, from a, in terms of an instructional message point of view. So, I guess I’ll just let you talk now, Rochelle. I’m sorry, that was a long setup.
Rachelle Brockman 32:30
No, that’s good. So, I can jump back to something we said we talked about a few minutes ago, and those four main habits of communication, and I talked about one being aggression. Well, another one is passive aggressiveness, and that’s my go-to under stress. That’s my bad habit that I learned growing up, and I subscribe to no blame, no shame, no guilt, where possible. So this is the kind of the heart intention I’m coming forward with this story with, so as a learned passive aggressive communicator, my wheels are always turning, I’m a thinker and I’m an observer, and I think I know a lot of things that I’m seeing and hearing, I’ve historically made a lot of assumptions about things that I’ve heard and seen, but on the outside you’d get this from me. Oh, okay, sure, but on the inside I’m like, you’re shitting me, they’re lying, this is ridiculous, blah blah blah, and so thus the passive aggressiveness, and so I had a nickname once upon a time, when in my teenage years, it usually required a couple drinks, and then all of a sudden it was my nickname was Time Bomb, and it didn’t happen very often. Only my closest friends would see it, where I was just like, take it, take it, happy, happy, go, go with the flow, but then a line in the sand would occur over something, usually a value-oriented issue, which is also very common with those future-oriented people, people. And then I would just be like, done, enough was enough, but I would lose my cool, then, and I’d get aggressive, and I would maybe storm out, or I would be upset, and people were quite confused by that, so that’s a little bit of history on my bad communication habit that I’ve had historically, and that I’ve been trying to unlearn, and will continue to try unlearning for my whole life, and so to go to my father, my father, who is an amazing, strong, gregarious, charismatic guy. He was a prison guard, blue-collared, union-loving NDP voting prison guard who had an opinion about everything, was usually quite joyful and happy, but was still in that way an aggressive community. Hater, he pretty much got what he wanted all the time. It wasn’t tense or negative or harmful, but it was what he wanted, and so everyone around him just went with the flow, and I didn’t know how to talk to him about my truth and the things that were important to me or that were my needs, because of this passive-aggressive style. I never ever had the line in the sand with him, either. So, I never lost my cool with him. I just always stayed a little bit more internal, where I’d be frustrated a lot, but never knew how to talk to him, so he smoked his entire life, and sadly I’ll say this now, he’s sadly in stage four COPD. So give him great respect for the journey that he’s on now at the end of his life, but he would hop in the car no matter where we went, right from my birth all the way through all these years, and he would know he didn’t crack the window initially. It was the 70s, you know. So he light up the smoke the second we got in the car, and I could tell my mom would be upset, and the three of us are just like, you know, didn’t like it. And so, for years, especially as a teenager, I thought, oh, I’m just not going to get in the car with my dad, I can’t believe he’s still smoking in the car, and how disrespectful. And there’s that passive-aggressive thought process that I would have. I would just be angry inside, but get in the car and go to point B with him every single time. So, fast forward to I’m married, and I now have my first baby, and my husband and I drive up to PA to visit my folks, and I said to my husband in the car, he’s there’s no way he’s going to smoke with the baby in the car, there’s no way he’s smarter than that, there’s no way it’s not goingto happen, and so now conflict avoidance, I’m just assuming that he will change all these years of smoking in the car because there’s a grand baby, so we hop in the car to go for coffee one day, and this time he pulls out his cigarettes, he pulls out his lighter, and he goes, “Oh, and he cracks the window like this much, and I’m like, “Oh my god, like I could have, I could have just lost my mind, and I still didn’t say anything, and it’s the stupidest thing I think about it now, and I’m like, oh my gosh, and I feel so much empathy for people when they talk to me in my work now about these kinds of situations. There’s sometimes the silliest situations, there’s. they seem so easy, but they’re so damn hard. I went away. I was practicing this type of work already in my career, and I thought to myself, holy smokes, what a hypocrite I am. There’s no way I can go ahead and I can teach or facilitate this work unless I can resolve this issue, so I started drafting a conversation in the manner in which I help other people with now, and I was terrified, I was shaking, I was just like, oh my gosh, you know, you, I asked people to think about the risks involved, and what are the risks, I asked myself that question, what are the risks of having this conversation with Dad, and I knew he wasn’t going to lose his mind, I knew he wasn’t going to, you know, do anything violent or outrageous, but it was just these habits, these old habits and these old relationships, so, so now fast forward, I gave myself maybe a month or two. We went back to PA, and I’m like, okay, I’m going to set the scene. We’re going for coffee, we’re going in his car, he’s gonna light up the smoke, and I’m gonna do it. And so I did, and the conversation lasted 30 seconds. It took every single ounce of energy I could muster, and at the end of it all, my dad – I shouldn’t even say this, that is true – he threw his cigarette out the window, he kept driving, and he said, Well, shit, Rachelle, you should have told me this a long time ago.
Jay Whetter 39:15
Yeah, yeah, amazing, amazing, that was incredible,
Rachelle Brockman 39:22
And I learned that day so much about myself and how much I owned that problem because of my lack of communication skill, and I’m not saying that in a shameful blame kind of way, it’s just I realized this equation when we’re communicating, a plus b equals c, and I’m a and he’s b, and we both form the outcome. But I was dismissing my role in that equation before, I was putting it all on him. He certainly has a role to play in that story, but the. Real area that could be influenced, or the variable that could be influenced, was me, was a, and when I worked on that, I realized, holy smokes, I just impacted the outcome. You can’t guarantee what the outcome is going to be, because people are people, and maybe he wouldn’t have replied that way in some scenarios, but we can at least risk manage it out and think it through, and we can try, and if it did, if it doesn’t work, we can go back and try something else, but I would suggest to people to keep trying, unless of course they’re unsafe, and there’s that category of, you know, there’s people that maybe do get aggressive in a way that makes you feel unsafe or puts your job at risk, or whatever the case might be. So that risk management is really important to think through, but I do recommend if the risks aren’t severe that people give it a go.
Toban Dyck 40:57
Well, yeah, that’s that’s you probably by now realize how much purchase and that that that story that anecdote has right in in kind of what you do in training and in agriculture, right? I mean, I think I think most people who have sit on a family farm will be able to relate to that 100% right? Just like there is, there’s a conversation that they actually, they’ve been putting off that they need to have that they haven’t been having, and that they should, or I think I think it’s a very powerful, very powerful anecdote, and I think I, yeah, I mean, I can certainly relate to it, for sure. I could offer similar, similar anecdotes. One thing I think is interesting, and I’m sure you have a great comment on is, is how often we, we, when you visualized, or when you, when you thought about having that conversation with your dad, did you, did you kind of really catastrophize the outcome of it in your head before it happened, right? Did you, did you think that A plus B equals C, and that C was catastrophe, right? Like, you know, but, but, but, how often do we assume it’s catastrophe, but when we do it, it actually isn’t
Speaker 1 42:19
All the time if it’s done well enough.
Toban Dyck 42:22
Yeah.
Rachelle Brockman 42:23
It doesn’t have to be perfect, and I always tell people, don’t wait until you think it’s perfect,
Toban Dyck 42:28
Right?
Speaker 2 42:29
But if you at least draft or frame or prepare that conversation so that it’s done well enough, and it’s done probably different than your habit, then the outcome will likely be better incrementally, maybe straight out the gate, like I was lucky enough, but if we fall back into our old habits, like maybe we just storm off, or maybe like my lovely mother, who has a passive style of communication, she just accepts it. She just accepted his smoking in the car. Did she like it? No. But did she get angry inside, like I did? No. She just had a passive approach and accepted, but she too could benefit from that if she were to unlearn that passive communication style, so yes, to answer your question, it will impact C in a positive way if done well enough, and it’s different from your normal habit, especially if your normal habit isn’t this type of assertion, this positive, respectful, simple assertion.
Toban Dyck 43:42
Yeah,
Jay Whetter 43:43
What do people do if they’re not confident they can do it well enough? Like, is there? Do they hire you? Like, are there people who are there people who can help when they feel like I really need to have this conversation? I don’t have the confidence I can do it well enough. What do I do?
Rachelle Brockman 44:00
Yeah, absolutely. There are tools that are fairly simple out there in the world that could probably be sourced on on your own. I’m not going to brush by your opportunity to say sure you could hire me, but at the end of the day it takes practice, Jay. Like, it’s about practice, and so for myself personally, I started with some small stuff. One of the key things you want to do is speak from your position, from your observation, from your need, from your emotion, and so you want to completely avoid any finger pointing, and the word you, but you want to understand what am I experiencing, what do I need here, and you want to speak from that position only. That’s really hard for a lot of people to do, and so that part that to build the confidence to go back to your question, I think I would say. Just to people who are watching or listening, to just start with some small things in the world, maybe with your kids, or with your partner, or with somebody, a stranger, you know, sometimes with strangers is way easier to practice, notice something, and then practice saying it out loud, so for example, the person who maybe has a piece of toilet paper on their, the bottom of their shoe, when they walk through the restaurant. Ask yourself, what, what could I do or say to help that person to affect the outcome, so that they’re not totally embarrassed, and so that I don’t walk away feeling ashamed that I didn’t say anything. Practice on those situations, and so I actually took a sharpie for a week, and I wrote the word I on my hand, and I just went around my world, and I thought, what am I experiencing when I notice that, when I see that, when I hear that, what am I experiencing? And then occasionally, when I was brave enough I would share that I would, I would force myself to have a conversation with somebody and share that my experience of what I saw or heard, and the results were powerful. They also include positive things too, by the way, and I always think those are the easiest ones to start with a compliment that’s really meaningful, that’s not just, oh, you were a great server in the restaurant, you, you served me well, you were delightful, that’s a compliment, but it doesn’t really give that person good feedback, so instead, to, to my point of what I’m trying to share, here is that I could say to that server, instead, I really enjoyed this experience, and I really loved it, that you were so pleasant, and that I felt listened to, and that I felt like I was the only person in the whole restaurant, because your service was so exceptional in your communication, and that it does, so I’m doing a little bit of I and you in that example.
Jay Whetter 47:05
Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3 47:06
But it’s mostly speaking from my vantage point. And I’ll tell you a true story. I did this once, I went into a really nice restaurant in Saskatoon that’s no longer open, and I thought I’m going to give my server feedback no matter what the service is like. This is part of my practice,
Jay Whetter 47:23
yeah.
Rachelle Brockman 47:23
And so this young woman was amazing, and I was super relieved and grateful, because it wasn’t the opposite. And I said to her at the end of my meal, and I was lying there all by myself just to practice this, and I said, would you have a minute so that I can share my, my experience with you, and she’s like, um, sure, and of course she was nervous,
Toban Dyck 47:45
of course, yeah,
Rachelle Brockman 47:46
and I said it’s positive, and she goes, oh, okay, and she actually sat down in the booth with me for a second, and I told her all these things that I experienced, and I was really focused heavily on myself for a second, because I was really thinking about the way I was providing this feedback and the communication skills that I was developing, and I didn’t even notice right away until I kind of looked more closely. She was crying, and she said to me, I have never had anybody give me such a gift in my whole life.
Jay Whetter 48:22
Wow.
Rachelle Brockman 48:24
That’s the power of this skill development that I’m still working on. It’s so powerful.
Toban Dyck 48:33
That’s pretty, that’s pretty cool. Yeah, that’s yeah, the toilet paper on the on the shoe is a great one, because how often have I been in a scenario, or we all, where you have like you’re talking to someone who’s got a piece of like lettuce in their teeth, or like, or something, right, and you’re like, I know the right thing to do here for them is to tell them about it, but I don’t want them to feel embarrassed, or you know, all this, so you just kind of let it go, and I mean, I’ve been in scenarios where, like, I look around the table and I’m hoping somebody else does say something, and you know, and eventually someone will, and then I always feel like, oh man, it should have been me, I should have just been, I should have just done it right, just rip the band aid off, just say it, and yeah, no, I think that’s that’s another strong, it’s a strong analogy.
Jay Whetter 49:25
A couple, you talked, Rachelle, you talked about writing things down or planning out what you’re going to say with the conversation you had with your dad, and I don’t know whether you did that with the server, like, did you take notes, and is that an important step, is to sort of think through your thoughts before you have these conversations,
Rachelle Brockman 49:47
Initially for me. Yes, and I would suggest that to other people who are at the beginning stages of practicing this skill development, and I’ll keep repeating that, because it’d be no different if I became a new keeper. In a soccer game, football, soccer, and I, and I decided that I didn’t have the skill I needed to have to be on this team, so I want to do something about it. I want to develop my skill, and so I would probably make some notes, I would probably watch some videos, I might hire a coach, I might, I might do all of these things, so in many other skills we do take notes, we do make plans, we draw diagrams, etc. So I highly recommend it for this skill as well. And then over time I’ve noticed that I don’t need those notes as often, and that I have developed the skill to the point where I feel confident in the moment to just proceed, but not always. Not always. I am still a note taker at times. I still will walk away and say, well, that didn’t go the way it should have gone, or could have gone. I’m going to work on that, and so I’ll go home, and I’ll think it through, and I’ll write a few things, and then I’ll find an opportunity to go back to that conversation.
Toban Dyck 51:07
Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. That’s come up in other interviews, actually. We’ve had that idea of conceiving of or thinking of a difficult conversation that you need to have on the farm or business or whatever, and then, and then, and then making notes, and rehearsing it, and like kind of practicing it before you walk into it, and I think it’s, I think that it’s being repeated today is speaks to, speaks to its, its value, for sure. I’m glad, I’m glad you did. Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome.
Rachelle Brockman 51:39
And you know, here’s another personal vulnerable story. One of my best friends, I actually met her husband first. We grew up together, and so he knew me through those time bomb phases that I was telling you about. And then his wife became my best friend, and every once in a while he, he likes to poke the bear a little bit, and oh, Rochelle, then this isn’t who you are, you know. I knew I knew old Rochelle, and so I often tell people that’s going to happen to you when you develop a skill like this. There are going to be people around you that go, what? Who are you? What are you doing, especially if you have a few notes, and you’re vulnerable enough to even say, I made some notes about this conversation, because I’m working on it. I’m working on this skill, and what’s fascinating is that’s exactly how honest that I am with people, and with him, I had said to him, yep, this isn’t the old me, because the old me was less effective in a conversation, and I’m working on it. Thanks for noticing, trying to get me. This is still me with better skills in this area.
Jay Whetter 52:59
Excellent.
Toban Dyck 53:00
Oh, that’s amazing. Yeah,
Jay Whetter 53:01
well, I just.. I mean, obviously you are skilled in this area, but I just like.. I like the message. The other message that I’m getting from you, Rachelle, is that I mean, we’re not seeking perfection, we’re just seeking sort of steady recognizing where you might improve and steady through your lifetime improvement towards that goal, you may not get there, but at least you’re working towards it.
Rachelle Brockman 53:28
Yeah, I have summed up my goal. Do you want to hear it?
Jay Whetter 53:31
Yeah, definitely,
Toban Dyck 53:32
Of course.
Rachelle Brockman 53:32
So, my goal as an, as a respectful, assertive communicator, which is one, not one of those four styles. It’s the optimum style, is to be able to, and not all the time. This is, this would be exhausting, but when it matters, and when you feel like you can say what’s on my mind to anyone at any time in the moment respectfully, that’s my goal.
Jay Whetter 54:03
One more time. Say what’s on your mind.
Speaker 4 54:06
Say what’s on my mind to anyone, whether they’re the CEO of the company or my grandpa runs the farm. So say what’s on my mind to anyone at any time in the moment. That’s with practice. Respectfully.
Jay Whetter 54:22
Yeah, great.
Rachelle Brockman 54:24
And then the end of these conversations is always a question back to the other person, always. What do you think? And that’s when the real conversation starts. It’s that first piece, that first 30 seconds in the end is really the easy part, but it’s the part that requires the most practice. After that, it’s really listening, and it’s really continuing that respectful dialog, and asking good questions, and continuing to speak from your voice. And your truth, but never perfection. You’re right, day, never perfection. That’s unattainable. I think it would stop us in our tracks from even developing this skill if we ever thought that was attainable.
Toban Dyck 55:17
So we’re almost done, which is bizarre to think about, but these, these, these, these hours go by so fast, so I think you know we have an audience of, you know, extension specialists or people who kind of work in that communications field in, in agriculture, including leaders. That do you have some kind of, you know, advice for, for, for these, these practitioners.
Rachelle Brockman 55:43
Hmm, that’s a big question. So, I believe it or not, even though I can talk like nobody else, I’m a visual person, and so I’m going to leave you with my visuals instead of talking too much.
Toban Dyck 56:01
Sure.
Rachelle Brockman 56:02
I’m gonna pull them off my computer. I wasn’t planning to do this. I have visual cues and reminders for myself on a regular basis, and so I think maybe some of these could be duplicated out there, and they might work for you, but perhaps you might think about the weaknesses that you have in your communication skills, and what you could do to counteract them. So, here’s one: listen closely to everyone.
Toban Dyck 56:33
Oh, that’s awesome. So, it’s yeah, listen closely to everyone on a on a square piece. Is it like a sticky note or is it
Toban Dyck 56:39
A sticky note, and it’s just a card that I found in some script, and it says, “Listen closely to everyone. It’s written beautifully. It’s very comforting. It’s not a criticism, and it reminds me all the time. I put this on my laptop when I go to a job, when I’m working with people, whether they see it or not. I don’t mind, but it’s for me.
Rachelle Brockman 57:02
Okay, you ready for the other ones? I keep them right here on. I honestly didn’t even plan this. I just keep them here when I’m working.
Toban Dyck 57:10
Love it.
Rachelle Brockman 57:11
This is a push button, the red button, and it says push. It could also say trigger. I would give the advice of know what your triggers are, what makes you fall back into your bad communication habits, or your less than effective communication habits. What are those things for you? And then the other part of this is I say to people often, I show up sometimes into a conversation with this on my lapel, and I’m, I’m taunting people,
Jay Whetter 57:45
Yeah,
Toban Dyck 57:45
Right.
Rachelle Brockman 57:46
I’m hoping they, that they push it, and then it’s all their fault, right,
Toban Dyck 57:52
Yeah.
Rachelle Brockman 57:52
It’s all their fault, because they triggered me, they pushed, whereas if I know what these are and I put them in my back pocket, I don’t have to feel bad about them, but I’m not going to wear them front and center. I’m going to try to manage the A in the equation better. The next visual is a little illustration that I made of a gremlin, and it’s actually, if I’m dating myself, but it’s the old Gremlins movie, and half of the half of the face is Sweet Little Gizmo.
Toban Dyck 58:28
Yeah.
Rachelle Brockman 58:28
And the other half is Evil Spike, and this is my visual representation of my passive-aggressive communication habit, and so I tell myself, Are you managing your gremlins? Are you, are you being too nice and too, are you being a pushover or are you being aggressive? And then my, my counteract is to change that to a curiosity.
Toban Dyck 58:54
Oh, that’s it. So they’re both kind of in the shape of like a cloud or a speech bubble, or yeah, these are post-it notes.
Rachelle Brockman 59:00
Instead of having my gremlins talking to me about the person who cut me off on Circle Drive,
Toban Dyck 59:05
Yeah.
Rachelle Brockman 59:06
Instead of making assumptions about them from either a passive or an aggressive way, I’m gonna in turn it into curiosity instead. So, I would like to clear my brain and make it curious, and that would be, I wonder what’s going on? I holy crap. I hope they’re okay. I wonder if anyone’s hurt. If I’m in a fender bender, if they’ve cut me off, I wonder what kind of day they’re having. And it’s not to excuse any behavior, but it’s just to go into the conversation differently, to enter into it differently.
Jay Whetter 59:40
Well.
Rachelle Brockman 59:40
I think those, those four little visuals are my go-to, so I’m going to share those.
Toban Dyck 59:45
That’s awesome. Well, thanks for thanks for sharing those.
Toban Dyck 59:48
So, Rachelle, the last, the last question, going back to the tip that you just shared with us, what did you think of this experience? Like, would you, did we, I. Have an hour long conversation that is going to make people think. Did we achieve our goals?
Toban Dyck 1:00:09
I sure hope so. I really, really hope so. I came into this experience with some meditation for the audience. I do that all the time, because I talk about myself a lot, and I talk about things a lot. I talk a lot, and so I never want it to be a me show, even though it kind of is. And I appreciate the time you’ve given me, but I really try to have my intention be about the other and about the audience. And so, audience, when you’re listening, I hope you know that I believe that everything we talked about is attainable with practice and with perhaps some research or some guidance, and I genuinely came into today not to talk about myself or my business, even though I did, because I just wanted it to be about the audience finding value, so I hope that answers your question, Jay.
Jay Whetter 1:01:04
Yeah, for sure. And I, and I think I mean, because you’re a guest on our podcast, it just has to be about you, so it’s something you just have to accept.
Jay Whetter 1:01:12
Yeah, yeah.
Jay Whetter 1:01:13
For this time around, that’s okay. That’s right. Yeah,
Toban Dyck 1:01:16
That’s right. We, I loved it. Thank you. Great, great to meet you again, Rochelle. Thank you so much.
Toban Dyck 1:01:21
Absolutely.
Toban Dyck 1:01:29
Hey there, listeners. If you’re enjoying the conversations here on The Extensionists, you will probably love to get our newsletter.
Toban Dyck 1:01:36
Yeah, it’s the best way to stay connected with us, with Jay and myself. Yours truly, I’ve accepted. excited about the newsletter, to be honest with you, because I think, why you’re excited. Well, so many of our guests have,
Toban Dyck 1:01:47
Sorry, why are you excited about it?
Toban Dyck 1:01:49
Say that differently, Jay. So many of our guests are, they say so many things of interest, right? And I feel like the newsletter would be a great, will be a great way to share that with our listeners.
Toban Dyck 1:02:02
Like quick take homes.
Toban Dyck 1:02:03
Yeah,
Jay Whetter 1:02:03
Summaries.
Toban Dyck 1:02:04
Yeah. absolutely.
Jay Whetter 1:02:05
One liners.
Toban Dyck 1:02:06
Absolutely, absolutely. I think about each, each guest, we could probably write a whole bunch of articles from each of our guests, right? So to give our our newsletter subscribers like summaries of, you know, the key takeaways of these things, plus plus information on upcoming guests. All they got to do, all listeners have to do, is go to the extensions.com and follow the prompts to sign up for the newsletter. I think it’ll be, I think it’ll be great.
Jay Whetter 1:02:46
Toban, what did you think of that one.
Toban Dyck 1:02:48
I enjoyed it. It was that hour went by very, very quickly. I resonate with a lot of what of her personality, like that kind of future, like I, that’s.. I feel like that’s me, a people person, future.. I don’t know exactly the types, but, but, but I get it
Jay Whetter 1:03:10
Yeah.
Toban Dyck 1:03:10
But I get it, and I’m the same way when it.. when I’m under stress, I get very nitpicky, and, and, yeah, I become, I become that, I become that almost too
Jay Whetter 1:03:23
Equal opposite, or no, what was the word,
Toban Dyck 1:03:26
Ugly, ugly opposite.
Jay Whetter 1:03:27
Yeah.
Toban Dyck 1:03:27
So, for sure, like, I could 100% relate to that, and I, what I, what I really liked is the, the prompt to get out of it, right, like to give yourself a task or for someone who knows you to give you a task that kind of puts you back into that that kind of whatever visionary or that future looking space, right?
Jay Whetter 1:03:51
So plan, let’s go on a vacation next year. Where should we go? So what would be a good prompt for you that play that exact question for sure?
Toban Dyck 1:03:59
I’m really, I do love.. I was thinking about it. I’m like, so a couple things. So, I do like planning trips, yeah, but I also really like, like conceiving of wood, woodworking projects. I haven’t done that in a while, but I would take the time on draft paper to usually to kind of draft out kind of every element of this build, and I enjoy that process a lot.
Jay Whetter 1:04:21
We didn’t talk about her paintings.
Toban Dyck 1:04:23
No, we didn’t.
Jay Whetter 1:04:23
We talked about it before, but that, so the painting in back was, it was one of her paintings, and one of the things she likes to do is to paint, and yeah, I think so, could also, I mean, I like drawing as well, so I was thinking, like, if I’m in that, but that ugly opposite scenario, then someone could just tell me to go do a little scribble or go drop pictures
Toban Dyck 1:04:50
Once you’ve painted something. I like the idea of this, of this like these, it’s. It’s appreciation for difference, like, and finding ways to appreciate difference in a team, right? Yeah, and and finding ways for everybody on the team to recognize difference, and yeah, I think that’s a..
Jay Whetter 1:05:11
And being tolerant of that, tolerant of those differences, yeah, just frustrated by them, yeah, that’s right, that’s right, but you picked up on the fact that she, I mean, that the writing down of notes, and that a couple other guests this year said the same thing, like..
Toban Dyck 1:05:26
Ahead of ahead of difficult conversations, right?
Jay Whetter 1:05:28
Yeah.
Toban Dyck 1:05:28
Yeah, yeah.
Jay Whetter 1:05:29
Putting, putting your thoughts down on paper, it’s a great way to, like I said, it sounds like an old-fashioned exercise, but I think there’s a lot to be said there, thinking about what you might want to say, doing a bit of practice, and then you might get more out of those, those challenging conversations.
Toban Dyck 1:05:50
Yeah, I feel like we’re like, I feel like with this repetition of like that, we’re hearing from guests that that practice is important, or that writing down things ahead of a kind of potentially challenging conversation is important. I feel like we’re, we’re kind of glossing over some sort of central theme that we need to, might need to unpack at some point, like, what, what is that? Like, what is that?
Jay Whetter 1:06:15
The conversation.
Toban Dyck 1:06:16
No,no, or like the process of, of the practicing, and the writing it down, like you know, there’s something that’s probably deeper there, like tied to how we think and how we, you know, you know what I mean, like it’s not just practice, it’s not just the fact that we’re practicing, right, it’s there is something more, some
Jay Whetter 1:06:35
Guided practice,
Toban Dyck 1:06:36
There’s something, there’s something more there, we want to just,
Jay Whetter 1:06:40
Yeah, season three,
Toban Dyck 1:06:42
But anyways, quickly, we have like one minute, yep, your key, your key takeaways, you asked me, and that started the conversation, so I want to turn their favour.
Jay Whetter 1:06:52
I mean, these things can sort of eat in your head for a long time, I’m just thinking, these, this is this is a silly example in some ways, but you know, having those conversations with people and thinking, I wish she would have told me that 20 years ago. So, my grandma used to store bags and bags of flour in her attic, and her attic had a lot of mothballs, so, and that flour just absorbed that smell, so everything she baked for it, for my whole life, tasted like mothballs, but nobody ever told her, until I think my mom did, and I don’t know whether it went over well, but anyway, but I like this isn’t like the toilet paper under your shoe, in that she’s been walking around for 35 years with toilet paper under her shoe, but, but it is something that she could change, like she doesn’t need to buy all this flour and sort in her garage, she can buy one bag at a time. Yeah, maybe you’re paying an extra dollar or whatever. Yeah, I mean, it’s comes from frugal times. Everything she ever made was almost inedible for all this time, and I think she might have appreciated as hard as it would have been in the moment for someone to tell her that,
Toban Dyck 1:08:03
Right, right, yeah, yeah, I know.
Toban Dyck 1:08:06
Because you become nose blind or taste bud blind sometimes to your own practices,
Toban Dyck 1:08:13
For sure, for sure.
Jay Whetter 1:08:14
On that note,
Toban Dyck 1:08:15
Yeah.
Jay Whetter 1:08:16
Great conversation. So that’s my takeaway, is these these hard conversations, 30 seconds can change your life. Just don’t wait 30 years to have that 32nd conversation.
Toban Dyck 1:08:25
Yeah, no, it was a good one.
Jay Whetter 1:08:28
This has been The Extensionists Podcast. I’m Jay Whetter,
Toban Dyck 1:08:32
and I’m Toban Dyck.
Jay Whetter 1:08:33
Till next time. This has been a Burr Forest Group production.
Toban Dyck 1:08:39
Jay, did you know that the podcast couldn’t happen with the hard work of the people behind the scenes,
Jay Whetter 1:08:44
and I’ve got their names right here. They are Abby Wall, producer and editor, Ashley Robinson, researcher, and Michelle McMullen, marketer.