Imagine living a life of fluidity, transforming conflicts with insight, caring, and skill. Join us as we talk to Denise Blanc, a senior OD consultant, mediator, and emotional intelligence coach, who introduces us to the concept of River Logic and shares her two decades of experience in the field of organizational development. Denise teaches us that leadership is about the ability to manage relationships, navigate social networks, influence, and inspire others. She also discusses her book River Logic, which brings together the best thinkings in neuroscience, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and more.
We delve into the importance of deep listening, legacy building, and conflict transformation with Denise. She shares how we can move from a life of resistance to a life of fluidity by focusing on building bridges and connections between individuals. Denise also explains the concept of emotional intelligence – being smarter with our emotions and making better decisions as a result. So, tune in and learn how to live in conflict fluidity with expert guidance from Denise Blanc, and discover her advice to always trust your gut and be yourself. You don't want to miss this insightful and thought-provoking conversation!
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Imagine living a life of fluidity, transforming conflicts with insight, caring, and skill. Join us as we talk to Denise Blanc, a senior OD consultant, mediator, and emotional intelligence coach, who introduces us to the concept of River Logic and shares her two decades of experience in the field of organizational development. Denise teaches us that leadership is about the ability to manage relationships, navigate social networks, influence, and inspire others. She also discusses her book River Logic, which brings together the best thinkings in neuroscience, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and more.
We delve into the importance of deep listening, legacy building, and conflict transformation with Denise. She shares how we can move from a life of resistance to a life of fluidity by focusing on building bridges and connections between individuals. Denise also explains the concept of emotional intelligence – being smarter with our emotions and making better decisions as a result. So, tune in and learn how to live in conflict fluidity with expert guidance from Denise Blanc, and discover her advice to always trust your gut and be yourself. You don't want to miss this insightful and thought-provoking conversation!
With 4Freedom, all your communications, internet activity, and app usage are encrypted using multiple layers of robust, military-grade encryption algorithms that surpass the standards used by the NSA.
You can start your secure account today:
https://www.4freedommobile.com?ref=bridgebuilders
My guest today is Denise Blank. Denise is a senior OD consultant, mediator, emotional intelligence coach, has seen that what defines great leadership changes over time Once basic threshold skills are met. the best leaders are seen as those with high emotional intelligence EQ. With over two decades of contributing to the field of organizational development as an executive coach, facilitator and internal senior leader, Denise teaches that leadership is about the ability to manage relationships, navigate social networks and influence and inspire others. She has coached CEOs, executive directors and managers in healthcare and business. Her key focus areas include leadership development, emotional intelligence, DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion, and conflict transformation.
Speaker 1:Denise teaches leaders and their teams to communicate courage, candor and authenticity using the latest information from most of intelligence, neuroscience and cross-cultural communication. Her tools provide the leadership skills leaders need to tackle tough conversations and harness a growth mindset and create high trust and high performing collaborative cultures. Her book River Logic tools to transform resistance and create flow in all of our relationships brings together some of the best thinkings in neuroscience, mindfulness, emotional intelligence and to a single work. She teaches how to live in conflict fluidity with insight, caring and skill. We welcome Denise to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Powered by Riverside.
Speaker 1:Well, it's so good to have Denise on the show today. How you doing, Denise, I'm good Keith.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 1:We're going to dive in as your book River Logic today, but I want to ask you some questions to kind of get to know you a little bit better. First, give me the best advice you've ever received.
Speaker 2:The best advice for me is be yourself, Literally fully be yourself.
Speaker 1:I love that. I just had another guest say that to me there. The best advice to be yourself, because you can't be anybody else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like if you've got that like from the beginning, i think you've gotten a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. So tell us something about yourself that most people don't know about you.
Speaker 2:It's interesting to say that because, you know, i just read a book and I kind of revealed a lot of things. You know, one of the things that a lot of people don't know is I make my decisions big decisions, really by my gut, and so I feel like I'm moving through life from informed by my body and those kind of impulses, and so I don't know that. People know that, you know, so I make sometimes pretty big, radical decisions coming from that place.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, trust your gut sometimes. Sometimes the place is where that's the deepest part of you understands kind of the emotional aspect of decision making.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's more and more information that there's like a brain in our gut. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm always curious for especially writers like yourself in your journey, who are some people that you maybe want to think about right now, who come alongside you and serve as an inspiration for you.
Speaker 2:I've been studying with a woman named Diane Musho Hamilton and she, she is probably one of the best facilitators I've ever met, but she also is a kind of renowned mediator, but she, she kind of pulls together some of the best, most skillful training that I've ever had. So when I'm about to do a gig, sometimes I listen to her YouTube's to just get informed, because my background is around conflict, it's around meditation, it's around facilitation. So there's, you know, not that many people have all those kind of same kind of threads She does.
Speaker 2:So she's been a really big teacher for me.
Speaker 1:Interesting, so I'm going to dive into your book a little bit. What led you to write verbal logic, tools to transform resistance and create flow, and all of your relationships.
Speaker 2:It started. So I mentioned Pema children. It started, actually, when I listened to her give a talk This was a long time ago, maybe 15 years And she talked about how sometimes we operate from what she called rock logic, where we become really stuck and fundamentalists in our thinking and rigid, kind of like a rock. And then she contrasted this with when we're more fluid and she called it water logic And I just went being you know like it was sort of like this huge thought in my mind, like that is powerful, and I was just coming up with trying to come up with a name for my consulting And I was looking at domain names and I started playing with water words and I came up with river logic versus water logic.
Speaker 2:And then I went on a search of like I spent 10 years really writing blogs about what is river logic to me? And so when you ask what prompted me to write the book, it was all these blogs 20, some odd blogs. I thought I could, i could, they could become a book, but it wasn't that easy. And so six years into it you know it took that long for me to write the book And during that time we were looking at what was going on in the US, and so this idea of how do you move from rock logic, from stuck, to more fluid has been the inquiry I've been in And that's what the book is about, and it became more and more important given the times we're living in right now.
Speaker 1:So, for those who pick up the book, what do you hope they learn from reading this book?
Speaker 2:Well, i use the language of tools, tools to transform resistance, and I really hope that people will have some new tools. Some of them are things maybe they have heard before. They're all grounded. Grounded is an interesting word because I'm using the river as a chapter, it's an each chapter. So there, i don't know if there's a word watered, they're watered by the. But I really do hope that they are inspired and that they have some tools and realize that we can all become more fluid and become aware that, like I mean, we all get stuck and rigid at times. I mean, that's just the truth. And so to realize there's an option with some of these basic tools, to shift that, especially when you're in that kind of challenging conversation with someone, and you can feel it, you can feel the resistance And I'm calling that resistance, you know, sometimes it's an eddy, meaning you have a story that you can't let go of about that other person and that you can check yourself and interrogate those, or it's I'm calling it a rapid.
Speaker 2:You're in the rapids, where it's turbulent, and you're really, really in the challenge, and either case, there's a way that you can shift, and that's I don't know. There's something about the river that I have discovered. You know, even with all these years connected with it, i'm still in love with it, because the river's beautiful and people seem, who have a hard time with the word conflict, to really lean in to the language of the river. I've noticed it with even really sophisticated mediators and attorneys that I've been working with. They seem to really get excited by the language, and so I feel like I'm starting to discover maybe a methodology for talking about conflict in a way that's a little more invitational.
Speaker 1:I love that. So when I think about conflict and river, I think about the illustration that what a dam does is kind of stop the river from flowing. So how do you get people to get beyond the wall that's been built up by conflict to get to the place where the river flows again?
Speaker 2:So thank you, cause it's such a great question. I mean it's such a great question? Yeah, i mean the meta tool. There's a couple of them, but inquiry and listening are like available tools for us, and if we can actually, and even underneath those two is the quality of curiosity, like if we can get curious about ourselves and other people, we can start to interrogate the stories we're telling, that create the dam wall, be open to listening to another person, even if we don't agree, and that's really kind of a really important piece. So I love the name of your podcast, by the way Bridge Builders. I love it because what I started exploring were the people who were the Bridge Builders, who could lean in to, across the aisle or across differences and be able to build bridges where the dam walls start to come down a little bit, where people become open to hearing each other, and that is. It may not solve the conflict, but at least people are talking to each other, and I call then there's movement, the water's moving. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:It does it does make sense. I noticed that in our society there's just so much resistance between individuals, and I think COVID played a role in the amount of walls we built up during this time. So how can people really begin to transform their lives from a life of resistance to a life of fluidity Because I love that term conflict fluidity? How do we get to the point we can just flow through the conflict?
Speaker 2:Well, it's not as easy as I mean. Sometimes people, you know the Lord flow. It's like it has kind of almost seriously, you know, like maybe even woo-woo sound like how are we gonna go from that really tough place? But I think it begins with sort of the name of your podcast. The name of your podcast how do we start to build bridges? And a lot of it has to do with even connecting around, like what do we have in common? Where are those connections Before we get into all the divisions and many of the bridge building organizations that I explored, or the people that I know that are good at that, understand this that before we get into the tough issues, we start to build some relationship. It's a process And when we can find those connections it's a little easier to then talk about the areas that are really the difficult areas, where we're divided.
Speaker 1:It makes sense.
Speaker 2:So I think that's where it begins. Yeah, that makes sense. I was gonna say the other thing that I really have spent a lot of time and it's a very big component in the book is about our own nervous system. So when we're triggered, we the body goes into defense, as you know, and we get into that fight, flight, freeze kind of situation. That's a really difficult place to have a conversation. So if we don't know how to work with ourselves and our own nervous system, we're really not able to move into that kind of conversation and build the bridge. So that's a big component where we have to learn how to manage it, our nervous system, And so noticing when we are triggered and have some tools to work with, being able to kind of what we call regulate ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. You talk about a lot in your book Emotional Intelligence and you teach that. So explain that. for those who may have heard EQ but not sure what EI is, scott, tell us what emotional intelligence is.
Speaker 2:At its real base, basic, it's about being smarter with our emotions, and so for many people they have a very limited language, their literacy is very restricted They may be able to name maybe four emotions. So being able to name how we feel, dan Siegel, who's the neuroscientist and I quote him a number of times in my book he calls it name it to tame it That the ability to actually know how we're feeling and being able to identify it in other people allows us to be able to work with our emotions. Being connected with our emotions allows us to make better decisions. So it's being smarter with our emotions and being able to then be able to work with them to make decisions and function more effectively with ourselves, with other people, with choices we make in the world. That's, i mean. Yeah, that sounds great. How do?
Speaker 1:you teach that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there is a lot of skill building available and the cool thing about EQ or EI sometimes people call it emotional intelligence, ei is it's very learnable And even just beginning to name emotions like I work with people who I give them a chart and being able to say I'm disappointed versus I'm angry just the distinction of that allows you to respond very differently. I'm frustrated. There are many different forms of emotion and if we can actually name what's going on for us in the moment, we can make choices that are gonna probably be more effective for ourselves. So there's building some emotional literacy as a good first step, and a lot of what we're talking about with emotional intelligence like foundation is self-awareness, so people have to be on. There has to be a motivation to take this on. If people are motivated, the learning is endless.
Speaker 1:I love that cause. You make a distinction, because you can be angry or it could be the secondary emotion for what you're feeling, but what got you there could be disappointment, and that's a different thing to deal with than I'm angry, Cause angry is a little bit harder for us to process. You're angry, so what am I supposed to do with that? versus I'm disappointed cause. Then the next question is well, why are you disappointed? How can we deal with that disappointment versus you're angry? just get over it or go calm down somewhere.
Speaker 2:Right. So you're really having more tools by being able to name it and also feel it. So there's feel it to heal it, name it to tame it. Some of these are great little quotes from some teachers of mine, and both of them allow us to work with the emotions, allowing ourselves to feel what's going on so that we could notice it, experience it and ultimately release it. So emotions do not have to run us. When we name them, we also can work with them. So when you can work with the emotion and the earlier stages, it doesn't have to escalate all the way to anger, rage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's always so important.
Speaker 2:At the earlier stages. It's so important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, i like what you were saying, cause you said when you can identify what it is and you dissect it, you can better deal with the issues that are there.
Speaker 2:Right, and you also have. You can articulate things better, like a little kid. Just, they just cry cause they're so upset and the parent is asking what's going on? Well, the kid can't articulate that. You have to guess, right? So this ability of like parents talk to their kids, use your words. Use your words. We could say that with adults as well.
Speaker 1:Exactly. You have a term that you write about river magic. Speak to us about what river magic means to you.
Speaker 2:I have been in this real inquiry about flow And the difference between pushing what we want. You know, i would say I have a lot of tenacity. I have, and I think anyone who like actually writes a book and goes all the way to completion has to have that. But there is maybe a different way of operating in the world that I'm really just beginning to explore And I'm calling it River Magic. And what is it like to allow and which is a very different quality if you think about the river, if you've been on a river and you feel the current and you just allow yourself to go with versus push against.
Speaker 2:And there are certain martial arts that are designed along these lines Tai Chi or Shigong, where it's a different kind of movement And there's a language called Wu Wei, which is effortless effort. So when I think about River Magic, i am really interested in a chapter next chapter of how do I do it with a little bit less effort, more flow. I don't know if that makes sense, but it's not that many people I see modeling it, but every once in a while I do, and I think that we may have all had moments of it where it just felt like there was a certain kind of ease, even the word flow And people have studied that, like that time where it feels like it didn't seem like I was doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get that, those moments where it just kind of happens you're not working so hard at it.
Speaker 2:Exactly exactly.
Speaker 1:I wanna talk about term So it's an aspiration. Yes, an aspiration. Yeah, I love this term you have. What is conflict transformation? Give me an example of that.
Speaker 2:The field used to be called, and still is called, conflict resolution in many ways, and resolution. You can resolve a conflict. I have been a mediator and so people come into mediation and we can actually hopefully, if we're successful, come to an agreement and they sign the agreement and there might be a momentary resolution to the conflict and we could feel like we were successful. I wonder, and many of us have wondered, if it's gonna be lasting. If a conflict took a long time to kind of develop, will it just end with this agreement? It's questionable. So conflict transformation is looking deeper at like what's the crux of it, and oftentimes it's really about some skill building, like I use a story in my book about these three sisters who came in to mediation because they had to split. They inherited three homes when their parents died And two of the sisters were living in these homes.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I won't go through the whole story.
Speaker 2:but there was the issue that they had to resolve. But what was underneath the issue is they had such a style of communicating with each other that made their relationship so difficult, to the point where, by the time they came into mediation, they weren't talking to each other. We could resolve the house situation, but we really couldn't resolve it very well unless we also resolved the way they communicated with each other, And so we started working on that. That ultimately could become if they were able to stay with it a conflict transformation. They had some skills that they could have for the long term, a way of being with each other that would transform any, even future conflict they would get into. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:It does. So how I interpret that is that it's not just solving it so we can just move on to the next thing, but really trying to heal a broken relationship. That's kind of how I understand that right.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and so the people who are in the field of conflict transformation will work more deeply. It's not just a transactional situation And personally I love the word transformation. My sister had said to me this is kind of maybe sort of new age thinking. She says you get more of what you focus on. She's saying to me. So it's kind of like, sister, why are you focusing on conflict? Right, and I remember saying to her I know I don't want more conflict, i am focusing on transformation And I don't see how we get to transformation unless we go through the conflict, because conflict just is. So that is a really strong focus of mine in life and I realize I Have been, even as a little kid, someone who could lean in to conflict, not skillfully, but courageously.
Speaker 2:So I was just saying this in a training a couple days ago. I had the courage without the skill, which is not a great combination. I spent a lot of years building the skills as well. Most people don't have the courage. they run from conflict. But we need, we need both. We need, we need the courage and we need the skills.
Speaker 1:Especially today. It just seems like there's so much conflict in our world and we don't really handle it well. I'm not even sure we're always trying to solve our conflicts anymore. We just kind of agree to disagree and walk away. So I kind of like the idea of Transformation and kind of the goal the podcast initially was how can we build bridges over our rivers of conflict so that we can bring about Transformation and healing to our land?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, i, i, i really believe it's possible and And it's not necessarily easy, and that's why I was constantly looking for people who were modeling it. I, i talked to a guy and I interviewed a few people in my book. This is a young man who decided during 2016 to Interview people and he was building a website for UC Berkeley and he has since written a book, but he decided to go in his Toyota Prius all around the country To places that were very different from him. So he's a young Japanese American progressive and he would go to NRA rallies and Trump rallies and a variety of places where people thought And acted very different from him, and his goal was to go and ask questions and listen, and What he shared with me after I talked to him while he was on the road and he was Discovering that many, many people, when you make any attempt, live in what he called the messy middle, and He was able to find and build bridges with a number of people in very unlikely ways by his willingness to really listen and and engage.
Speaker 2:Now, that's not with everybody and he sort of knew there are certain places that he would not be welcome, but He, he said that underneath all of this, that what is missing with most of us is curiosity. We don't ask questions. We certainly don't ask follow-up questions, and so I was very, i was very inspired by him and some of the other people that I interviewed in my book that we, with some skill building, have the Potential to really do this, to build bridges across our differences. So I you know, maybe call me an optimist I'm lately calling myself this word that I heard when I was writing my book, which is called a possible assist. I'm really some, but in fact I put it on my LinkedIn So I put author Possibilist. This is a new kind of identity for myself that I really do see that there are possibilities that I Sort of didn't see before.
Speaker 1:I love that. You said something in that story I want to drill down a little bit deeper on. You said What made his his journey interesting was that he learned to listen. So what makes a good listener and can that per? can you teach that?
Speaker 2:Yes and yes, there's a lot of things in our way. I Mean, i just you just look at the world we're in right now and you look at yourself. All you have to do is look at yourself And you realize where you know we're. We're constantly barraged by by, you know, media and digital stimulation. We're barraged by kind of What I call the hurry culture. You know where there's so much to do and we're just kind of multitasking. But the big thing we're barraged by is like our monkey mind. You know where we're thinking while other people are talking. So The intention to listen has to be there. It has to be starting with that, because there's just so many things working against us and For any of us in this field.
Speaker 2:You're a podcaster and other things. I'm a coach and a facilitator and a mediator. All these require listening skills. It takes work and It's a process, and sometimes I'm better at it than others, but I have become much, much better at it with kind of my intention to do so. And then there's all these other skills that we're building, which is We're not listening just with our ears, we're listening with our eyes, we're listening with our heart, we're listening with all the antenna of our body.
Speaker 2:So I I use certain language in my book, river words, like undercurrents, like sometimes we notice and we can feel it if we drill down There might be something like we can actually see visibly, but mostly they're imperceptible, their micro movements. Something's not in sync, the words and behavior are not in sync. There's some kind of undercurrent in the room, some kind of tension. Can we listen for that and respond to that? That's deeper listening, right, there's listening To what's You know, like, what are the words that people are using? What's the cadence? You know how is there, what's going on, you know, in terms of body language and the eyes, there's so much going on that if we actually build those skills, we are, we are deeply listening, i to another person.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's very helpful. So I'm curious, we talked a little bit before we started the podcast about your next project, so share with the audience, kind of, what your hopes for your next project are.
Speaker 2:Well you mentioned. It was really fun to hear you say something when you kind of said, oh, your book is called River Magic, and I said, wow, i can't believe you said that, because the very last line of my book and I think it is the very last line I was in a workshop. I was in a Zoom breakout room with somebody who just coincidentally happened to be in the book business And she was sharing what she did And I told her I was writing a book And there was something that she just like if you can really deeply look at somebody in a breakout room on Zoom, that's how it felt She looked at me and she said Denise, get that book, river Logic, written. The world needs it Because your next book is going to be River Magic. I did not even know her And I tell you I got the chills. I mean, i still do And so I have not stopped thinking about it since she said that.
Speaker 2:So I wrote that in my last line of my book And I have decided to explore what does that mean to live with River Magic, which sounds really kind of exciting as a journey, and so I am kind of tracking what I'm calling little moments of magic, and so you, saying that in the very beginning of this interview to me, have a little bit of magic to it. I will kind of do an inventory at the end of the day, like what were the moments of magic, and so I'm mostly on the journey right now. But if it actually turns into something and I feel like I can authentically live it, that will be a next book.
Speaker 1:I love it, i love it. I would like to ask my guest this question What is the legacy you want to leave in the world?
Speaker 2:I have thought a lot about why I wrote this book, because it took a lot out of me. It's a little book but it just takes a lot to go to completion And I realized that part of it had to do with the legacy that I wanted to distill, the learning that I have had in my life up to now. I also there's something I raised my son as an artist And I have kind of I think I've had an awe of the arts and the artists And I wanted to be, i wanted to create something, and even when I created the logo for River Logic, i just a little squiggle. It really was like my mark And that was part of, i thought, my legacy. So being able to create something and leave that behind, that's a way of living and being and being authentic.
Speaker 2:With that Like in the beginning, you said to me like what's the quote that somebody said to you Just be yourself. Learning how to truly be what I'm saying. It's an interesting journey. You think we should all just be ourselves, but that's I do think it's a journey of really becoming more and more attuned and self-aware, and so all of that to me, is a legacy of living a life that is authentic and of service And no regrets going for it, yeah that's good, i like that.
Speaker 2:It's fun to answer your questions. I'm enjoying it.
Speaker 1:Well, that's good, i'm glad you are. Is there anything I haven't asked you that I should have asked you?
Speaker 2:Coming up with anything. I think the thing that I leave the readers with in my book is the what's next, because for many of us, this has to be a constant learning journey that we're on, and so I give a website for starting to explore emotions. I give what I think are some of the basic practices And I have created on my author website, riverlogic Tools. Once a month, i am doing RiverLogic Tips, and so people could just go to RiverLogicToolscom And once a month, what I'm writing are some of the RiverLogic Tips, and so I'm just putting that out there.
Speaker 1:And, as you segue into that, give us where they can find your book and connect with you on social media.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they can find me at Denise Blanc on LinkedIn. Linkedin is my primary place in terms of social media And I write articles. Sometimes I'm trying to work with video. I'm trying to get braver and work with video. My website is RiverLogicToolscom And they can order my book right there. Just there's a book. I'm also on Amazon And I'm always really interested in people who are talking to me about. I have gotten a couple very wild calls or emails recently of somebody who was challenged with a relationship And they found the language of rock logic and river logic very useful, because they realized the person they're having such a hard time with is in rock logic And they wanted some ideas of how to work with this person. That's great.
Speaker 1:It's so good to know your work is connecting with people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's an experiment right now, and so I love it when people can talk to me and find a way for me to make this work practical and relevant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if my audience is your coach, and so people can find you to coach with you on LinkedIn or your website as well. Then right, Absolutely. Well, denise, thank you so much for this time, and may people stop running into rock people and become more river flowing people in their conflicts. So May it be so.
Speaker 2:May it be so. Thank you so much, Keith. Well, thank you, Denise. I really enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 1:I think you have so much to offer, And may people pick up your book. I got a copy myself. You sent me. Thank you for that So I appreciate having it to look at and read over myself. It was very, very inspiring. Well, it's been fun really fun to.
Speaker 2:There's a point where I'm not going to be really fun to I. There's a part of me that wants to interview you now.
Speaker 1:Well, we can talk about that.
Speaker 2:Okay, take good care You too, Denise.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for the conversation. Blessings on your work and your book that you're doing.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.