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Work Besties Who Podcast
Stoic Empathy : How to Navigate Difficult Conversations
Stoic Empathy with Shermin Kruse: How to Navigate Difficult Conversations
In this episode, we sit down with the brilliant Shermin Kruse —law professor, TEDx producer, author, and total powerhouse—to explore the concept of stoic empathy. What does it really mean to be both strong and compassionate in today’s workplace? How can leaders show up with emotional intelligence without losing their edge?
Shermin drops incredible insights on:
- Leading with integrity while setting strong boundaries
- What stoicism actually is (hint: it’s not just suppressing emotions!)
- How empathy can be your superpower—even in tough corporate environments
- Real stories from her life that shaped her journey from revolutionary Iran to U.S. boardrooms and classrooms
If you’re a leader, a team player, or just trying to show up better at work and in life, this conversation is for you.
👀 Bonus: Hear about her upcoming book Stoic Empathy and why it’s the personal development read you’ll want in 2025.
Find Her on LinkedIn, Youtube and her book at any location that sells books!
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Work Besties! Theme Song Written by Ralph Lentini @therallyband
Hello and welcome WorkBesties. What if the key to handling the workplace stress, the difficult coworkers and your high-pressure situations wasn't just about empathy or logic, but mastering both? I know that seems confusing, right, but it's not. So. We're so excited today to have Sherman Cruz on our podcast. Sherman Cruz is globally recognized as a negotiation consultant, a law professor author and a recognized TED Talk producer. If you have not watched her TED Talks, we highly recommend it because they are amazing.
Jess:She is very transformative in work and empathy, stoicism and complex negotiations. She's influenced audiences from all levels, from corporate boardrooms to university classrooms. To us.
Shermin Kruse:Sharing Bechamel recipes right.
Jess:We'll explain that later. Stay with us, because by the end of this episode, you yourself, work besties are going to hear directly from the source. What's that? One sentence that you can say that will instantly shift the power dynamic into your favor. You're not going to want to miss it. Hi, I'm Claude, and I'm Jess.
Claude:We are corporate employees by day, entrepreneurs by night and work besties for life.
Jess:Join us as we explore how work besties lift each other up, laugh through the chaos and thrive together in every industry. Work besties.
Jess:Welcome, Sherman. We're so excited to have you.
Shermin Kruse:Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here and I have to say that you guys are making me really miss my former work bestie. We haven't worked together for a few years but I miss her so much. Her name is Chris, and also Claude. You also look a lot like my high school bestie. Her name is Shana A lot. And the second. I saw your photo I thought my gosh. I feel a spiritual connection to this amazing French person.
Claude:She's going to start crying. Now I'm going to say I'm sorry, I'm Charmaine's bestie. Yeah, very close.
Shermin Kruse:Yeah, I'll take Claude for Shaina.
Jess:Thanks, I didn't know, it was so easily replaceable.
Shermin Kruse:It's only for a minute.
Jess:Charmaine, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are?
Shermin Kruse:Okay, sure, it is so amazing to be here. Thank you so much for having me on. It's such a privilege and a pleasure and I love this show and I loved prepping for this appearance because I love the dynamics between you two, and so much of the dynamic between the two of you, jess and Claude, is what I would really love to talk to you about today, and really what that is is the work I've been interested in my entire life really, since I was a child in Iran, throughout my years of debating in high school and then studying in university and law school and then practicing law and now teaching law. I've been fascinated by this conflict between the internal and the external, and I've heard you guys talk about this so much, for instance, in the context of wellness and this balance that you find right, this conflict that can also present itself as a balance, this idea of being healthy emotionally and able to regulate and control your own feelings and your own approach to a particular situation, while still having deep awareness of the people you're around, so that you can develop those long-term relationships with them and build on them, because, at the end of the day, that is what brings life meaning. It's also what helps you gain influence and control and power in a particular situation.
Shermin Kruse:So I've actually seen the two of you master that so beautifully in your relationship with one another. You're so each authentically yourselves and yet you are still so deeply connected to one another. And that's really the work that I'm interested in. If I were to apply it to the workplace, then it would literally be in the context of how do you master emotional regulation in tense situations, or how do you navigate office politics, or how do you receive and give recovery or feedback and handle difficult colleagues, etc. Etc. And that is where my method of stoic empathy comes in. It essentially captures what you two have already mastered in your interactions with one another in two simple words right stoicism, which is the emotional regulation piece, which is control over yourself, and empathy, which is the awareness piece, awareness of the other, which is also a means of gaining influence over the other, thereby gaining influence over yourself and the other in the process of building and fusing those amazing relationships together that last a lifetime.
Jess:Wow, that is amazing and I appreciate you recognizing what we put into this, because it's fun, for sure, but it is also a lot of learning, as we really respect each other. And the thing that you talk about really well is how. Yes, there are going to be negotiations where you both try and call it win if you want, but at the end of the day, leveraging empathy will help, no matter what. Yes, there are going to be negotiations where you both try and call it win if you want, but at the end of the day, leveraging empathy will help, no matter what, even if, in some sort of situations, one of us has to give more than the other. It's a showing of understanding without you're providing an understanding of where they're coming from Not necessarily feeling their emotions, which is about distinct difference that you talk to.
Jess:That I had not really heard in any other business class that I've ever been in.
Claude:Can you explain a little bit more to our audience? It's so incredible when I was researching you like this empathy that you have two kinds of empathy and how do you use them, depending on the situation. I love it.
Shermin Kruse:So, you guys, what Jess and Claude are talking about Work Bestie audience is this understanding by psychologists that empathy is really divided into two parts. And I'm going to start by saying it's divided into two parts and then I'm going to end by saying it's actually not divided into two parts at all. So please bear with me. So it's divided into two parts, right. On the one end you have the cognitive, cognitive empathy and on the other end, you have the emotional. The emotional empathy is how most of us understand and experience empathy on a daily basis. So, emotional empathy and, by the way, no matter how cold hearted you are, you have experienced emotional empathy in, for instance, the following circumstance you are watching your favorite television show, right? Your favorite character in your favorite TV show has just had this amazing thing happen to them after a season of difficulties. They get in their car and they're driving and happy, music is playing and the sun is shining. They look down at their phone because they receive a text message and suddenly you know that this is going to be a disaster. The music shifts, a car t-bones them, their car swerves out of control, the glass shatters. What do you do? You recoil. And what's incredible about. That is, the glass isn't cutting your skin. Nothing has happened to you. It has happened to someone else, and, in fact, not even to a real person, but to a fictional character on a television program, but one that you've gotten attached to. So this is emotional empathy. The idea is your pain in my heart, right? I don't feel the kind of pain that I would feel if glass was cutting my skin, but I feel pain in response to your pain. That's emotional empathy, right? So then, of course, translate that into really meaningful real-life situations, as opposed to fictional interactions, and think about how incredibly powerful that type of connection can be Over.
Shermin Kruse:Here, we have something very different we have cognitive empathy. With cognitive empathy, it's more like I'm not walking in your shoes, but I'm sinking my steps to your steps, so I'm able to see where you walk, when you pause, what you hear, right, what it feels like, how cold it is. I'm able to experience your experiences without feeling your emotions. A really great example of this is one that, in fact, I give in one of my TEDx talks, which is my mom and I, when I was a kid in Iran, encountered a member of the morality police when we were on the street in Tehran. I wasn't covered up properly With that guard. We were in serious trouble and we had no power at all, but we didn't necessarily want to be feeling what the guard is feeling. So we could develop a long term relationship with this guard, right, we just wanted to understand where she's coming from so that we could get out of being in trouble, and that was what our ethic required us.
Shermin Kruse:But it's not just that. It's not just when you meet a perceived enemy or encounter someone who is hostile towards you. It's also trauma surgeon, right, or counselor working at a refugee camp encountering victims of mass rape, right. These individuals, in order to help the person whom they are working to heal and I know you guys are doing a whole thing about wellness in 2025, in order to help the person that they are looking to heal, they need to maintain a certain amount of objectivity and emotional distance. Or, if they were to experience this person's feelings, they too would be so traumatized they might not be able to help them anymore or help anyone else, and so they literally would be ineffective at doing the work that the other person requires them to do. If they were feeling everything they were feeling.
Shermin Kruse:So remember, in the beginning we said that we say there's two parts, but there really isn't two parts. Okay, so this is where there really isn't two parts. Unless you are a psychopath, you are never going to experience pure cognitive empathy without any emotional connection at all. Right, it's just not human. Once you start to understand the other person, you start to experience an emotional reaction of sorts. So it's really more of a spectrum how much of this versus how much of this, depending on the situation. Not just so I can serve myself me and my mom getting out of getting in trouble with the morality guard but also so we can serve others trauma surgeon versus this, your child, your husband, your integrated merger, where you want to have a long-term relationship with the company that you are merging with so that you can work together and be productive in the future. So this is a spectrum. There's some things that are going to be closer to here, some things that are going to be closer to here, but most of it is going to be in the middle.
Shermin Kruse:Really, the goal in the work that I do is helping you gain the control that you need in any given situation so that you can decide where on the spectrum you want to be, which is situation dependent, and even within a particular context or situation, you might feel one way at the beginning of the conversation and something totally different at the end of the conversation or toward the middle of the conversation, and then modulate your level of emotional connection while maintaining that cognitive empathy the entire time and reaping the benefits of it.
Shermin Kruse:So that's really the goal of the work is how do I get better at understanding the spectrum, because you all already have done it, you've done it a million times. You're all already thinking of examples of times where you've done things like this, right, but how do I get better at recognizing what is it that I'm doing so that I can be more intentional about it, so that times when I shut myself off way too quickly when I shouldn't right, or times when I get attached when I really shouldn't to serve myself, to serve others, to serve my community, to be true to who I am how do I grasp this so I can be more intentional? And then, how do I actually do it? How do I get to here? What if I'm someone who just is always here? I'm always here. I could never be a trauma surgeon.
Claude:So you were saying you know about those empathy, but when do you know which one you should go more in the emotional and then which one more in the cognitive?
Shermin Kruse:That's such a great question, by the way, claude, and it is difficult to know, and sometimes you get it wrong, which is exactly why being able to shift is so important, because, as you might have the incorrect information, you might go into a situation fully trusting, ready to connect emotionally, and then you gain access to information that tells you, you know, red alert, red alert, red alert. I'm going to need to adjust the way I'm connecting to this person, but I'm not ready to terminate the relationship, but I want to adjust the way I'm connecting to this person, but I'm not ready to terminate the relationship, but I want to adjust the way I'm connecting to them. And and then I go along my spectrum. So so one of the answers to your question is you might not know when you step in, and that's why it's so important to be able to transition as you move through. But to answer your question more directly, let me give you a couple of examples, a really good one. I know the three of us are moms. I know not everybody that watches this show is a parent, but probably a lot of you have, at one point or another, been responsible for someone more vulnerable than yourself. Now, whether you're a leader, leading a team in a workplace setting, or you are a parent responsible for your children, so you'll relate to this story.
Shermin Kruse:I was at home. This was about 10 years ago. My kids were still quite young and I had four, four and under. I might be getting some of those ages wrong because I'm old and my memory is going, but I had a bunch of young kids at home. They were young. They were young, they were little, and there was a lot of them. And so I get a phone call and the call is traumatic. There's traumatic news being conveyed on the telephone. I'm in the middle of mothering my children.
Shermin Kruse:Now, if I was all alone, the level of freedom that I would have to express my emotions in that moment would be fundamentally different than the fact that I wasn't alone and I was with people who were vulnerable, than the fact that I wasn't alone and I was with people who were vulnerable. And if I were to behave in a way that would traumatize my kids, I would be making an already difficult situation worse right. So suddenly, my ability to absorb this traumatic information and manage it in a controlled manner began to exceed my own wildest expectations, precisely because of my empathic understanding of the needs of those more vulnerable than me my children, who are in the room, right, it's like what CEOs did during COVID, and it doesn't mean that you display a lack of authenticity or a lack of vulnerability. Even in that moment, you could tell your kids mommy just got some really bad news, I just need a minute to drink some water or something like that. You can still be honest, you can still reveal your vulnerability, but you're certainly not going to react emotionally the way that you might have if they weren't there.
Shermin Kruse:You find this power within you, this sense of control.
Shermin Kruse:That's almost superhero-esque, right?
Shermin Kruse:We see people be capable of this In a physical form.
Shermin Kruse:It might be lifting a car because your kid's under it. This is the emotional version of it, right, and what we want to do is we want to take that capability, which everybody already has, and we want to make it more intentional, and then we want to try very hard not to judge, because it isn't up to me to tell you how emotionally connected you need to be in a particular situation. This is work that you need to do for yourself, and I can help you get there by helping you ask the right questions, pause, evaluate the situation, teaching you tricks on how to be able to tolerate discomfort so that you could properly evaluate that situation. But at the end of the day, it's not up to me to tell you that, and different people struggle with different things. Some people automatically get overly emotional, some people shut down, and you've met both types right and you could probably tell them where they could use some work, right. So then the trick is doing that work yourself, and I'm happy to help give people the tools to do that work.
Jess:So, sherman, you're bringing up an example where it's a very tense situation, right? So that's probably not the place you want to start the practice of learning how to deal with that. What would be some recommendations for people to help starting the practice now and maybe in a less tense situation, so when those traumatic ones or things where you do feel a little bit more stressed, let's say, you might have an ability to be more level-headed?
Shermin Kruse:100%, and you're absolutely right. And the reason I bring up that example is that folks can relate to it and find within themselves the capability and the power, even in the most stressful of circumstances, to be able to do this. So, on a much lesser note, and, by the way, any work that you do, any improvement that you make, is an improvement. Right, it's like anything else. It's like physical exercise or exposure to height. I'm afraid of heights, so I'm going to go up one step and then I'm going to go up two steps and I'm going to go up three steps. Eventually I'll be able to go up the Empire State Building and look down and everything is actually.
Shermin Kruse:I personally am not afraid of heights. I just jumped off the Andes with my kids in paraglides, so it was pretty, pretty epic in Colombia, yeah, but I'm afraid of a bunch of other stuff, you know. But we all have our thing. And so that gradual exposure it's really, really important to keep in mind. Just because you are not jumping off the Andes in a paraglide, it doesn't mean that you're not accomplishing what will eventually be literally jumping off the Andes in a paraglide.
Shermin Kruse:And so, to get that exposure, there's a variety of stoic mechanisms, and this is when we go back to ancient stoicism, 2000 years. But you guys, it's also Buddhist mindfulness, it's also samurai Japanese warrior training, is also the breath techniques that we are taught during labor to use during labor in order to control our pain, right? It's all kind of part and parcel of the same thing, and it all comes down to recognizing what we can control and then recognizing what we can't control, right? So this is what we call the dichotomy of control. This is what we can control, this is what we can't control. Maybe there's some stuff in the middle here. What can we control?
Shermin Kruse:And the theory behind cognitive behavioral therapy, emotional regulation and stoicism and Buddhist mindfulness, or the theory behind all of these, is you can control to a large extent your emotions, not just the way you experience them, but also the way you express them. And one way of being accustomed to tolerating emotional discomfort is to expose yourself to emotional discomfort in small amounts and habituate yourself to it, right? So, for example, think about a CEO taking ice baths in the morning. I mean, there's tons of research out there about the benefit of cold plunge therapy, but what's more interesting to me anyway, is the benefit of getting yourself accustomed to tolerating the uncomfortable cold right.
Shermin Kruse:And for me, that type of practice actually furthers my ability to retain my composure and control in a situation. Another thing that I've done in the past, which is also physical, is this is going to sound really strange, but fighting have you guys ever done? Street fighting, physical fighting?
Jess:I did keep up saying, yeah, I've done kickboxing. I grew up with two brothers, so I did fight them.
Shermin Kruse:You know, man, you grew up with two brothers. You've been hit, you've been hit. So if anyone who is listening watching this show has ever been hit in the face, okay, you get hit in the face. It's extremely discombobulating. Okay, you are suddenly completely disoriented. But you've got these boxers, man. They get in the face over and over and over again and their whole ability, these champions. They have this ability to maintain their calm and evaluate their strategy, their fighting strategy going forward.
Shermin Kruse:Now, all I want you guys to do is to convert that to an emotional feeling. What is it that makes you uncomfortable, right? For someone like my husband, for example and this is not me dishing about him, I love him, he's a cool guy, okay, but he's not super comfortable with vulnerability and he doesn't like coming face to face with other people's vulnerability it makes him upset, right. So, for instance, if we go to the homeless shelter and cook, it's much easier for him to just stay in the kitchen, do all the cooking he's happy to put in the time, but it's harder for him to serve the guests and sit with them and interact with them and be essentially juxtaposed, sitting neck to neck and serving someone who is in a significantly more vulnerable place in their life, not just from a socioeconomic standpoint, but also from an emotional point of view, than you are. Right, that feels shitty. I mean I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on your show that feels really. That feels bad. Okay, it's not a good feeling. It's why we don't. We turn away from these situations. Right, it's too much, it's a lot, it's a lot to handle. And some of us experience complete empathy collapse when we're exposed to these situations. We just can't handle it. So we stop caring and move on to the next thing, not because we're monsters, but because it's too much, right, too much right, so, exactly. So how do we increase our tolerance to that? And that doesn't mean again that we need to go be a trauma surgeon or work in a refugee camp, but it does mean that we should be able to enter uncomfortable conversations with our war colleagues, family members. Right, folks, we're negotiating against and maintain that discomfort. This is a great way. You're doing a community service, you're helping others and you're exposing yourself to that level of vulnerability.
Shermin Kruse:Okay, now there are some people. They have no problem sitting down next to the homeless individual and having a conversation with them. They have no problem. They think it's wonderful and lovely and they leave feeling fulfilled and amazing.
Shermin Kruse:What they don't like is being in a confrontational situation that makes them very uncomfortable and upset, and they'll do anything to get out of it right. Walk away. Give in to the person. Anything to get out of it, right, walk away. Give in to the person, avoid the situation whatever it might be, but sometimes you need to confront these situations.
Shermin Kruse:It's an unfortunate reality of life that confrontation is something that must be confronted, and so these people can simulate that for themselves, whether it's literally, through a scripted interaction or a fun debate.
Shermin Kruse:I'm going to choose side A, you choose side B and we're going to debate one another for five minutes, right, or engaging someone who is different than you or has very different opinions than you do for a very short period of time.
Shermin Kruse:It doesn't have to be an extended conversation, but whatever it is that you're finding that confrontation to be, try to last a little bit longer and, during the time that you're lasting, try to rationally evaluate what would make sense for you to do in this situation, and the answer might be walk away. By the way, I'm not saying it is right, but the answer might be. Stand your ground and assert your position, because what if it's over your salary, or what if it's over membership benefits, or what if it's over your partnership, or who gets to lead the team, or whatever the case might be, or who whose family's house? Stand your ground, and then how do you do that while preserving that relationship. I don't want to lose my marriage because I was too tough on holiday destination negotiations. You know what I mean. So I don't want to lose my job or lose all my friends at work, because I don't want to be too confrontational, but I also don't want to walk away from a conversation that needs to be had because it's just too hard for me.
Jess:So, yeah, you still have to be somewhat authentic, and I think what you bring up is some interesting things.
Jess:We talk about a lot with our WorkQuesty community is that you can't walk away from those difficult things. You do have to find a way, and if it's small ways, that's great. That's how you kind of will eventually be able to not necessarily overcome it, but be comfortable in the uncomfortable is really the way we look at it. And then the other thing that you bring up too, which we do a lot ourselves, is, once you do commit to having those conversations and work through it, it's okay to take a step back and assess it after, but don't overdo that right. Just take your kind of empathetic approach on your own self right, like what could I have done differently? And then move forward. Don't dwell, because that's something we see in our work bestie communities. There's a lot of dwelling about, well, I didn't do it right, or I didn't get it right this time and now I'll never do it, and that is worse. So just give yourself the pause that you tried it, make the adjustment and understanding and then move forward.
Shermin Kruse:Yeah, I love that. Claude, were you going to say something?
Claude:Yeah, there was also something at some point that you were saying. You know, depending on if you are more on the, you have the upper hand.
Shermin Kruse:Yes.
Claude:Or actually you're coming as more of the I don't want to say the weak one, you know, but on the negotiation level, Exactly, that's where, like, for example, with your mom right At the market, if you're lower, you're going to use more of this cognitive empathy. Yes.
Shermin Kruse:Yes, both of those are spot on. So first, with respect to Jess's point yes, absolutely don't dwell. It's perfectly fine to evaluate, as long as you also give yourself the pat on the back for the things by the way that you did right. Otherwise I don't actually know how useful it is. You have to maintain the things you're doing right and then improve on the things by the way that you did right. Otherwise I don't actually know how useful it is. You have to maintain the things you're doing right and then improve on the things that you could have done better. But there's no point in dwelling. And then with Claude's point, that's absolutely right.
Shermin Kruse:So if you're in a relatively powerless position in a negotiation and again in negotiation we've come up with examples today during this conversation that have to do with you know whose house we're going to go to for Christmas. So it doesn't have to be a big negotiation for you to be powerless in that particular situation. And it's really up to you to make that determination of like, how much power do I have? But the less power you have in the dynamic right, the more you should consider at least going toward the cognitive empathy end of the spectrum. And the reason I say that is that if you have less bargaining power, you're already in a position where the emotional aspects are potentially interfering in the way you are negotiating. And what's worse than that is the emotional aspects I mean in terms of your emotional aspects, they could be slowing down how the other person, the person with more power in the relationship, is emotionally relating to you. So, for instance, what my mom and I wanted from the guard is we didn't want to emotionally, we didn't want to feel sorry for the guard. It would not have served us in that scenario. Now we could have an intellectual discussion about what it's like to work for a dictatorial state as an employee and the negative aspects of that, but in that moment, when you're faced with the option of jail or worse for you and your child, that's really not what you want to be thinking about.
Shermin Kruse:You want to be thinking about hey, why is this person so frustrated? And what can I say that will be effective with this person, given their feelings and where they are today? What can I say that will be effective with them in getting me out of trouble? That's what you want to be focused on, right? But also, what can I say to make them connect with me on an emotional level, right? So, even though I'm not connecting with them, what am I saying? What am I doing that is helping them connect with me, right? So they're aligning themselves emotionally with my interests, even though they perceived those two things to be completely distinct a minute ago, and that cognitive detachment really allows you to engage in that analysis on a much deeper level.
Shermin Kruse:But if you're in the same power position or if you have a long-term relationship with this individual and you start to coldly evaluate what their motivations, thoughts and feelings are for the purpose of manipulating them to doing what you want them to do, without emotionally caring about their best interests, that is going to be harmful to you, to your overall relationship, and okay, maybe you'll, you'll win that battle, but you'll lose the war, you will. You will completely be leading your life in a way, at least, that I don't now. That's a way of doing things right, people do it.
Claude:You would go more to the emotional part.
Shermin Kruse:For the emotional right.
Shermin Kruse:So it's sort of the spectrum is the more more interconnected you are, the more you have a long-term relationship where you want a long-term relationship, and the more even your power is, or let's say your power position is, superior to that person, the more you can give yourself the freedom and flexibility to engage in that emotional connection. And the less power you have and less likely you have of an ongoing relationship or desire for an ongoing relationship. One time encounter in the street or in the marketplace, right or hostile takeover of your company or random person on the street looking to assault you I mean, there's a lot of examples here the more you want to quickly and somewhat more coldly evaluate the wants, interests, needs of this person, while controlling your own emotional state, but getting them to align themselves with you so that you can succeed in that situation, whether your motivations are to buy a rug for a cheaper price at a Persian bazaar, or whether your motivations are to escape from the bad guy on the street, or there's a million work contexts as well, right, right.
Claude:I think that, like you were saying at the beginning, you know it's, we might do it without thinking about it, but really put into words. That's where you can even really make it better and be stronger in your negotiation right, because it's now you have this stoic empathy and this whole learning that you can apply a lot more. And this whole learning that you can apply a lot more, and by giving those examples, I think it really helps with our audience. You know which one do you need to navigate for which situation?
Shermin Kruse:Yeah, absolutely.
Shermin Kruse:And the other thing I want to tell your audience is you guys are already doing this, so this work is just about being more intentional about it.
Shermin Kruse:That is all it is, and you can absolutely do this and you can improve a little bit every day.
Shermin Kruse:And getting back to Jess's point about not dwelling on the past, one of the things we want to do if we are working on improving our stoic empathy capabilities or even just our stoicism capabilities, but also our empathy capabilities separately is trying to take a moment at the end of every day to reflect on the day and reflect on the gratitude we feel for the day, reflect on the fact that it's not over, that we have a tomorrow, right, and really think about what is it that I could improve on tomorrow, but also what is it that I am grateful for today. As long as you're engaging in that analysis in a balanced way, you can leave that analysis empowered, as opposed to further weakened because you negative self-talked yourself to death. Right, you want to leave that analysis feeling strong and maybe with a little bit more information than you had before you went in, and then knowing that that information is power, that you are now more powerful than you were a minute ago, even though you just critically evaluated something that you did.
Jess:That's a great call to attention to our Workvesty community out there. I love that. That's something that I tend to do. I wake up early in the morning and that's like my 15 to 30 minutes to myself where I reflect, I try to meditate and do stuff, that I go back and give myself gratitude. So I love that idea for everyone else out there. I have one more question for you that I think will also help our WorkBestie community.
Jess:Go for it.
Jess:And that is this is a whopper of a question. Okay, what's that one sentence or thing you can do in a negotiation, whether it's with your boss, whether it's with your team, maybe even with your work bestie, that will instantly shift that power dynamic back into your favor?
Shermin Kruse:The one thing that you can do that will increase your power in the relationship I don't know if you can shift it entirely, it depends on the interaction I'm not prone to hyperbole as an author is invite collaboration rather than confrontation. So earlier we talked about how we need to be confronting our discomfort with confrontation right, but what I'm saying now is, if you invite collaboration rather than confrontation, that makes you appear both confident and open-minded. Keep in mind, you guys, with this invitation goes a recognition from you of the reality of the situation. What you are inviting from the other doesn't signify an ignorance on your part as to what actually is happening. But when you invite that collaboration from the individual across from you, you motivate them to work with you instead of against you, and you make them empathize with you. And that is where the power shift begins to take place.
Jess:So true. Yes, you know I'm a big fan of collaboration, so that could not be more beautifully stated I just like to get a little bit of the answer.
Shermin Kruse:It's like it's a teacher's pet.
Jess:Yes, sherman, you know us well, way too well already. Yeah, sherman, you know us well, way too well already. We did want to ask you the question of where can people find you and learn more about you, and is there any new news that we might want to share?
Shermin Kruse:Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, so here's the news my new book, stoic Empathy, comes out April 8. It should be available pretty much everywhere, so if you have a favorite local bookstore that you prefer to shop from, just ask for it there. If they don't have it in stock, they'll get it for you, and I would love for you guys to take a look at that. I should also add the audio book, for Stoic Empathy has 10 extra tracks of exercises, meditations and things like that, and so feel free to get both the hard copy and the audio.
Shermin Kruse:And you can find me. I am pretty prevalent, so it's pretty easy to find me. But the easiest place is my website, which is my incredibly difficult namecom, so it's wwwsherminkruzecom. Feel free to check me out there. You can join my newsletter there. Also, get back to every single person who messages me on LinkedIn. I will say sometimes it takes a few days or a week or two, but I do try to get back to every single person. So far I've been able to maintain it. So if you have any questions or follow-up comments or want to reach out, feel free to find me there as well, or just Google Stoic Empathy. I should pop up.
Jess:Yes, and we will put all of that in our show notes for everybody listening, of course.
Claude:But thank you so much, shemin, and we learned so much about stoic empathy. We really loved it and you know work best out there. It's your turn. Start using this awesome method and, of course, don't forget the book Stoic Empathy method. And of course, don't forget the book Stoic Empathy. And if you loved as much as we loved this show, please make sure to share with your work, bestie, or with your loved ones, and click subscribe and like and thank you very much. See you next week.
Jess:thank you, charm. See you next week. Thank you, charmaine. Thank you, charmaine. Thank you bye. It's a pleasure, remember, whether you're swapping snacks in the break room, rescuing each other from endless meetings or just sending that perfectly timed meme. Having a work bestie is like having your own personal hype squad.
Claude:So keep lifting each other, laughing through the chaos and, of course, thriving. Until next time, stay positive, stay productive and don't forget to keep supporting each other. Work besties.
