Joel Salinas

And when you do that, whether it's through avoiding or blowing through conflict like a battering ram, that then trains your brain to assign some kind of a reward using the orbital frontal cortex, the system that kind of keeps tabs over how much reward you get for a behavior.

It makes it much more likely that you'll do it again.

we, from a very young age, develop a propensity to either avoid conflict or tackle it.

And it varies depending on the context and how you're feeling.

But it just makes it much, much harder to be able to bring on a much more thoughtful and deliberative approach to conflict.

Maybe I can start, Bob.

So I think one of the things that really is a good predictor of how effective you'll be at effective assertion is how good you were at the deep listening part.

So the more genuine you are in curious you are about the perspective of the other person really understanding what are the set of facts experiences beliefs that eventually kind of lead up to that headline of kind of what their what their position is or what their what their interests are.

the better you'll be able to articulate your own kind of perspective while still engaging in the conversation.

And the other thing that's really important here is that in that listening piece, it's really essential to be able to bring in tenets of really great listenings that includes kind of eliminating distractions, both external and internal.

It involves having a non-judgmental kind of position toward the other person and being able to reflect an understanding of what the other person is saying.

But all of that does not mean that you are endorsing their point of view.

And I think that's really essential.

It's really about getting as clear as you can about where the other person is coming from

So that way, when you have an opportunity to share your perspective, you're able to really speak to the concerns of the other person and your own.

Bob, I'll take on the unskilled position.

Okay, fine.

All right.

So, Bob, you know what?

I keep hearing about people wanting to cut COVID funding, and I just can't believe it.