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What Would Sabrina Say
"Welcome to What Would Sabrina Say, your trusted companion on the journey to mental health and well-being. Join Sabrina, a seasoned mental health professional with over two decades of experience, as she expertly navigates the complexities of mental wellness with a genuine and evidence-based approach.
In each episode, Sabrina invites guest hosts who are experts in their respective fields to delve into trending topics within the realm of mental health and wellness.
But that's not all—tune in for engaging book recommendations that provide fresh perspectives on mental health and self help literature, as well as informative discussions on available resources to support your mental wellness journey.
Whether you're seeking guidance, inspiration, or simply a deeper understanding of mental health, What Would Sabrina Say ,is here to accompany you every step of the way. Let's embark on this journey together toward a healthier mind and more hopeful tomorrow.
What Would Sabrina Say
Stop Arguing, Start Negotiating With The Power Up Method Created By Joe Dillon
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Sabrina sits down with divorce mediator and negotiator Joe Dillon to unpack why couples slowly slide from “we” into “you versus me,” even without a big blowup. We share practical tools from Joe’s Power Up Method so your next hard talk sounds like teamwork instead of a fight.
• how long marriages fade through small missed conversations
• positional arguing versus interest based negotiation
• why repeating fights are often the same issue in disguise
• how early choices about kids, careers, and caregiving turn into later resentment
• the marriage bank idea using deposits of goodwill and withdrawals of requests
• the seven Power Up steps including preparing the connection and expressing a real why
• the importance of reward with value and why it changes defensiveness
• using patience, silence, and curiosity questions after a no
• bulldozer, ghost, and diplomat negotiation styles and how to shift them
Be sure to purchase Joe's book, Power Up Method, and learn about it, communication styles, how you can negotiate, and learning about that goodwill bank.
Episode Welcome And Purpose
SPEAKER_01Welcome to What Was Sabrina Say? I'm Sabrina Dawn, and I'm excited you're joining me today. In this podcast, I dive into mental health topics, topics on relationships and overall well-being. With over 20 years of experience as a licensed clinical social worker, I share insights and invite expert guests who are passionate about making a positive difference. I started this podcast because I was frustrated with the often misleading or recycled information in social media involving self-help and in the mental health field. My goal is to provide you with genuine, useful content that's educational and informative. Thanks for tuning in. I hope you find our conversations both enlightening and empowering. I'm glad you're here.
What Divorce Mediation Reveals
SPEAKER_01Today with me we have Joe Dylan, and he's a seasoned divorced mediator and author with over 30 years of experience in negotiation. Joe works and aims to help couples build lasting relationships by addressing common pitfalls that may happen in marriages or relationships. And Joe's developed the power-up method. So he's here to talk about that today and how it addresses communication while offering conflict resolution. Thanks so much for joining me today, Joe.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for having me. I look forward to it.
SPEAKER_01So, Joe, you spent decades working and negotiating and conflict resolution. I was wondering what that was all about and what did you learn from sitting with couples at a point when their marriage is breaking down?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so my private practice is in divorce mediation. So helping people peacefully end their marriage without lawyers if they so choose. And a lot of the patterns that crop up, as you would appreciate from your line of work as well, is there are there are certain we call them kind of personas and these archetypes of people. But there's one thread that pulled through all of them is that people stopped going from being a couple to being two individuals. So instead of it's like we, it's you and me. And when you think of you and me, you start to think of you versus me. And then all of a sudden, right? Oh, and it happens slowly, Sabrina. It happens over time where you know you get married, you're out of the gate, you're having all that energy, all those good vibes, and you're like, yeah, this is terrific. And then little by little, somebody decides this or somebody does that. And then, you know, you turn around five, 10, 20 years later, and you're these two independent entities who are now just basically fighting for what you want, not necessarily what the common good would be. And that's where a lot of folks where they'd come to me in mediation. A lot of our clients were married 20, 25 years because they just faded slowly over time. There was no big like explosion. There was no infidelity. It was just really a simple function of losing that partnership. So that's what I've really seen. And that's what I'm trying to help people do with this power-up method is to say, look, there's a lot of ways you can have productive conversations that'll get you outcomes that'll bring you closer together. And it's it's meant to be really practical and tactical because as we were joking before we jumped on, I'm not a mental health professional. I'm a professional negotiator. I was in corporate, you know, mergers and acquisitions and contract negotiations. So I come from the MBA finance world. That's my background. And I apply that to couples because I feel like, hey, you know, if we could get something more practical with better outcomes, people will then say, hey, you know, we we can do this, right? We can we can actually talk. How about that?
SPEAKER_01I and I think back to our own experiences in life, childhood growing up, it's like, where do you find those tools, right? How do we understand what negotiating uh and and conflict resolution is? So I'm wondering, couples may know how to argue, but perhaps very few know how to negotiate. And I was wondering what's that fundamental difference?
Arguing Versus Negotiating For Needs
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so arguing is what we call positional. So I want this, and the other person's like, Well, I want that. And of course, think about when you were a kid, and I think of the example of you go in and you ask your mom, can I have a cookie? And she says, No, and you say, why? And she says because. And that was the end of the conversation. I had a position. I wanted a cookie. She did not want to give me a cookie. That was very simple. But in in a negotiation, you would say, well, what's the underlying, what's the underlying interest here? And in that case, keeping with the simple example is, hey, maybe my child is hungry, right? So how about an apple? And and I might walk away and say, okay, right. So I got something, I got to eat something, and my mom in this case got to say yes to me with something healthy. And so that's where a lot of couples, when they come into these situations, especially you know, when you were newlywed, you didn't have anybody you had to answer to. You could just go out when you wanted, spend money how you wanted, do what you wanted. You didn't need to consult with your spouse. Not let your spouse need to give you permission per se, but as a as a partnership, you might want to let your spouse know, like, hey, my wife is Cheryl. I'm like, Cheryl, yeah, by the way, I'm going with my friends to London for two weeks. Uh, we're leaving in an hour. I just sort of let you know, right? You should have that conversation. And that's what we're trying to get people to understand is that there is usually a shared interest underneath that people can focus on where they both get what they want and they both feel good about it. And they're like, wow. And then you look at your spouse and you're like, well, hey, thanks for agreeing for this. And the spouse might love you and say, Hey, thanks for asking. That's what we want to build, what I call the marriage bank, that goodwill, that those good vibes. That's what keeps people going through the good and the bad times.
SPEAKER_01And I know you mentioned newlyweds, and we talked earlier that there might be different phases of a marriage or stages in life where it might be helpful still to explore ways to negotiate or communicate more effectively, like empty nest time and where maybe roles are to have changed or where there's perhaps more pressures, career or helping supporting caregivers, that revisiting tools would help as well.
Hard Talks That Prevent Resentment
SPEAKER_00Yeah, one of the things we see in our practice with divorce, a common trigger, if you will, it doesn't show up until very, very far down the road, is the decision to have kids and then have someone stay home and raise them. And typically that decision isn't necessarily born out of a conversation. It's usually like I've decided or we've decided. And I I always joke, if I had a dollar for every time somebody said, well, typically it's the mom, and we're we're getting into a conversation about alimony, for example, and the guy says, Well, you wanted to stay home with the kids. And she's like, No, I didn't. You wanted me to stay home with the kids. I have an MBA, I had a career, I wanted to go to work. You thought that was bad, so I didn't want to argue, right? And then that conversation happens over and over and over. And you look at people and you go, like, man, I could have predicted this 15 years ago. Where were you in this? That's what I'm trying to also get people to understand is look, have the hard conversations up front. Don't avoid them because they're gonna fester over time. And then instead of winding up on your 25th anniversary in Hawaii or some exotic location, you're winding up in my office getting a divorce. So I'd rather have the former than the latter. But you do have to have those difficult conversations and you have to have them all the time, unfortunately. So right.
SPEAKER_01And when you're thinking from a psychology lens and the Gottmans talked about there are some arguments that couples can problem solve around, but there's always this pattern or, like you said, a bigger conversation that perhaps there is some tension or avoiding because of just not being able to get to a solution.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Couples don't have don't fight a lot, or couples don't have multiple arguments. They have the same argument over and over. It's I always say it's the same argument in different clothes, right? And and it boils down to either I gave up my career for you, or you don't appreciate what I do, money spending styles. It's all the same pattern. Even as I said, as a non-mental health professional, you still sit in that same room and you you're like, there's maybe four or five buckets that people typically fall in. And I can tell pretty much within the first hour. I know Gottman says in the first three minutes he can figure out whether couples are going to divorce or not. But with me, it's about an hour, and and you look at it and you say, okay, this is a spending styles couple, got it. And then you make your note and use those tools to try to get them to appreciate and understand each other. Yeah. So that's not fun for me, but that's part of my job is to say, if I get a couple and they walk into my office and I don't know if they and you know hypothetically speak French, Spanish, Italian, or German, I need to figure that out pretty quickly so I too can speak French, Italian, German, right? And and communicate with them in the way they need me to.
SPEAKER_01Sure. So it sounds like as part of this method or components kind of understanding about communication styles, what's important to a person, when there is this argument and there are different perspectives as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and my philosophy as a negotiator. So here's this is a this is a tidbit that a lot of people don't seem to understand. When you go in, go back to my cookie example. My mom, in that example, has no reason to give me a cookie, right? She doesn't want one. I can't reach the jar, right? There's so many things that are stacked against me as the person asking. That's when you go into a conversation with your spouse or with a significant other. You have to recognize that what you're asking for is what you want. It is not what they want. And you need to be able to go in and not just like in my cookie example, say, because I want one, why and throw a tantrum. You need to have a genuine why, and that's that W and power up, right? So we we kind of talk about, you know, W and E. So with that, it's way their perspective, meaning, okay, what reason do they have to give me this or why wouldn't they give it to me, right? I got to go in knowing this so that I can use the letter E, which is express my why, and explain really what it is that I'm asking for and why I want it. In the cookie example, it's not I want one, I want one, I want one. It might be, wow, I love your cookies so much. And every time I eat one, it makes me really happy. And I think of you, right? That's a not a five-year-old is going to process that. But when you're talking to someone and you say to them, I want to do X, Y, and Z, and you give them a real reason, not that first or second level, that third level reason, that's when they can look at you and go, man, this this really must mean a lot to you for you to ask me and talk to me about this and and in a way be vulnerable and share something with me. And and then that's gonna favor a more positive response from the individual. It's not just gonna be like, here they go again, they want to buy this thing now, right? And and if you have that reason, your spouse in the what I in my world is far more likely to say, all right, I'm listening, at least I'm considering it rather than shutting it down.
SPEAKER_01Right. So shutting down or or perhaps getting defensive too, that could be another coping strategy that happens in arguments as well.
SPEAKER_00And when people are asking for something, then this is the this is as I say, it's kind of like the the follow-through when people think about when they're asking for something. You not only need to be asking for it in a certain way, you need to explain what it is that you're you're you know wanting. And then here's the kicker that this is where everybody falls down, except folks like me who know this stuff. You now also need to, the letter R in power up is reward with value. You now need to offer something at or above value to the person you're negotiating with. And ideally, it's something I call it the sleeves off your vest. It's something that means nothing to you, but means everything to the other person. So let's say, for example, I want to go away with my friends for a long weekend. And I say, look, Cheryl, I want to go away for a long weekend. I realize it's a lot to ask you to take care of the house and the kids and the dog and this and that, and that I know also whatever XYZ, the plumber is coming this weekend and you're gonna have to manage that yourself. I understand that. But my friend is moving to Australia, and this is probably the last time I'm really gonna get to spend time with him. So it would really mean a lot for me to have one last guy's trip, like a real reason. And I'll tell you what, if you're agreeable to do this, I know you've been talking about going to that spa with your girlfriends up there in wine country or whatever. I'll hold down the fort for four days while you and your girlfriends go up to that spa retreat, no questions asked, you pick the date and count me in, right? So that's the last step that people forget the last one because it's like, well, you're asking a big thing, Joe. I gotta banned the plumber and the dogs and the kids in the house. You're gonna go away with your friends to Las Vegas or wherever you're going. But not only are you acknowledging that that's a that's gonna be challenging for me, but you're also rewarding me with something pretty significant because I've been talking about that spa trip for a long time and I've never pulled the trigger on it. So that's how you do it, Sabrina. That's really the last step. Then the other person, it's like, it's sort of the whole an offer you can't refuse, right? They understood me, they know what my issues are, so they're not just trying to steamroll me. Wow, this is really important. Yeah, he's known that guy for 20 years. He's moving to Australia. Well, that I feel bad for Joe. And and then I get to go to the spa. Wow, that that's quite a package right there. You know, hard to say no to that.
SPEAKER_01Right versus going and leaving it up to the wife to figure everything out that weekend with all the responsibilities, that's less appealing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I call that the I've decided pattern, right? Like you deal with it. I I'm going, right? Well, I and you know it's funny. I know with my wife and I we had a conversation about this the other day. This is a true story. So I like to work out and I like to work out at home. And I don't like going to a gym like you. Probably I talk to people all day, and I don't want to get in a conversation with someone in a gym. I just want to be quiet. And so previously, the most expensive item I had ever bought for my home gym was probably around $500. And just it literally came yesterday. I wanted to buy one of those big pieces of gym equipment, and it was like $3,000 plus dollars. And even me, I'm like, what am I doing? But I'm like, I work out four to five days a week. If I had a gym, they would have this kind of equipment. So I went in and I did the talk, and she's adorable about this. She's like, she knows I'm doing it, right? So she's just sitting there patiently listening for the steps. And and so when we had this conversation, it was exactly the same thing. I know that you're probably concerned it's a lot of money. You're probably worried I'm gonna get hurt because it's this big piece of machine, and if I fall under it, nobody's gonna be there, right? And we had the whole conversation and she smiled and she laughed, and and and I got the machine. As I told you, it showed up yesterday. And and in that case, I said, look, if there, and I didn't have something specific for her, but I said, if there's something that you also want that is of significance, because I realize how significant this is, it's yours. Just let me know. So you kind of almost put a credit in the bank, if you will. It's like she's so she's got kind of a chit, not that she's using it as tit for tap, but now I know if she comes to me and says, Hey, I want to do X, Y, or Z, I will have to look back at what I just did and say, Yep, okay, yeah, no, no questions asked. And that that's a real goodwill moment, right? A real, a nice moment where the two of us, where she's like, Hey, I realize you're you're feeling like, okay, you want to work out, you're getting older and you don't want to give that up. And I appreciate that. So that's what I'm trying to tell people is that those opportunities for connection, those matter. All those little things that, you know, the the the pleases and thank yous matter, but also these kinds of conversations. Because when you have a conversation like that where it goes well, what you're saying to the other person is, I'm a safe person to talk to. And if you come at it come to me with a problem, I'm not gonna jump down your throat. I'm gonna listen to you, I'm gonna try to help you. Or if you ask me for something, I'm not gonna be like, why do you want that? And I say, okay, well, explain to me, right? Talk to me. What why is this so important? And and those conversations stack on top of each other. It's like exponential. And then you turn around and you're like, wow, we really do this pretty well, you know, which is a good feeling to have when the inevitable crisis comes. And they they always do, whether we want them to or not.
SPEAKER_01Right. So I think one of the examples is great of sharing like the difference between confidentially communicating a decision and announcing a decision that your partner was never included in, right? It wasn't like, I'm gonna go buy this gym equipment on Monday. Yep. And that might set us back, but we'll we won't go on vacation. And then your wife would be like, What?
SPEAKER_00Right, yeah, right. Huh? Exactly. And yet it's a great example because my wife doesn't work out at home. She goes to classes, she likes live aerobics classes. So this is doing nothing for her. This is all me. And then your example's perfect, Sabrina. It's like, well, wait a minute, let me get this straight. You get a piece of equipment you want that I have nothing to do with, and I don't get to go on vacation. What? And that's that's a withdrawal from the marriage bank. That's definitely a debit, right? That's not a credit.
SPEAKER_01So I'm wondering if you can explain a bit more about the marriage bank and withdraws and deposits.
Building Credits In The Marriage Bank
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure. So, one of the things that's interesting, I've been married 21 years, and one thing that Sheryl and I do well is we never keep score. And part of that is we're always aware that there's this what I call marriage bank sitting in the background that's building up this balance. And you know that at some point one of us will ask for something or want something or do something, and it might not even be an item that we're negotiating over. It might be something where one of us does does something not so great. And when sometimes you're looking at your partner and you want to be mad and you want to get angry, but then you flash back in your brain and you say, Man, they they've built up a lot of a lot of credits in my bank here, a lot of goodwill. And so I'm gonna look at them with a different lens. I'm gonna look at them and say, you know what, they're probably just having a bad day. And I'm gonna let this slide and I'm gonna move past it, and we're gonna fix this or repair this. And like Gottman calls it, a repair attempt, right? So, you know, you've got these things where you say to yourself, all right, this person has done a lot of goodwill. They built up a lot of credits in my bank. So I'm gonna let them withdraw today. On the other hand, you get people who just take and take and take, and that's a common pattern, by the way, in my practice. You get what I call basically, I call them the clueless taker. Is there's there's people who are givers, right? They're people pleasers, givers, but some people just give out of the goodness of their heart. There's no, there's nothing deeper other than, well, I'm married and of course I want my spouse to be happy. Like it's just simply who they are. And the other person, which is a common pairing, is like, well, this is great. I can do this and I can do this and I can buy that, and I can go here and I can do X, and and they, my spouse never says anything. And then 20 to 25 years later, they snap because all that one person has been doing is withdrawing from the marriage bank. They've never made a deposit, they've never even thought to make a deposit. And that's when the account hits zero, and somebody makes an appointment with me to close their account, and they're the that's what happens, right? So if you're each kind of making those deposits along the way, when, you know, and I use like guys' weekends as a good example, when you go to your wife and say, I want to go to Vegas with my friends for four days, she's not gonna look at you and say, absolutely not. She's gonna say, Well, you know what? He he gets up with the kids, he works really hard, he does all the landscaping on the house, he cooks dinner when he can. Like, all right, you know what? He's built up a lot of you know, a lot of credits in my bank account. Go ahead, go have fun. Even though I my initial reaction might be no. So that's what I mean, right? You've got to be cognizant that you've got this bank account. A lot of people are aware of that. You've got this bank and you've got to be making deposits into it, whether they're big or small, they all start to add up so that when the future comes and you want something, you can withdraw from it without it having to be closed in someone's office like me.
SPEAKER_01I think too, it's also mindful of like the purpose isn't isn't also I'm gonna go do this so I can get this. Right. Right.
SPEAKER_00There's still negotiating coming up. Sure. And like we and my wife and I, we always, we always still, we always believe, right, that please and thank you are still magic words. And when you're married, it doesn't mean that you can stop saying that, that you still and Cheryl and I are both very good at, oh wow, you emptied the dishwasher. Thanks for doing that. And the other one looks at you, sure, yeah, of course. Like it's no big deal, but it's that acknowledgement and that little moment where you make that deposit where nobody did, it wasn't a negotiation, it wasn't a big deal. It was just simply an acknowledgement of I see you and I appreciate you. And those things start to add up too, right? They're not just, I want to go to Vegas or I want to buy gym equipment. They're also, hey, here's your coffee. Right. And and we think of those as just simple acts of kindness, perhaps. But as in a negotiation lens, that's how I view things. I don't view them necessarily as manipulation. It's not something insidious. It's just someone's building up credit with me so that if in the future they ask for something, I'm more likely to say yes. That's just that's negotiation 101, right? You want to be likable and friendly and you know, seem like you're giving and giving and giving so that when you ask for that thing, when a corporate say corporate negotiations are the same way, that. will it will be you know far better received by the person who you were asking it up.
SPEAKER_01Right. For someone hearing about power up method for the first time, I was wondering if you can walk us through the seven steps.
The Power Up Method Steps
SPEAKER_01I know you've talked touched on a few, like weighing their perspective and your works, but yeah, I thought it might be helpful for people to know about those steps.
SPEAKER_00Sure. That's great. So let's start, we'll start with the first P, right, which is prepare the connection. One thing that happens in a lot of conversations is that one person has been thinking about this thing, whatever it is, for days, weeks, months. They've had their inner monologue, they've workshopped it. It's been in their head for rent-free for, you know, however long. The other person is completely unsuspecting, has no idea what's coming their way. And party A walks in and says, hey, can I ask you a question or can I talk to you about something? And the other person is immediately caught off guard because chances are they're probably not just sitting there waiting for the other person to say, okay, let me know when you want to talk to me about I don't know what. And so as the person asking, you need to prepare the connection. You need to tell them something like, hi, hey, I'd like to talk to you about our plans this weekend. Do you have 10 minutes? So you've kind of telegraphed a little bit because that's the oh, that's the outline your request. So those two things kind of happen. And how long do you need right? I always joke my wife loves to say, can I ask you a quick question? And with great drama, I turn around Sabrina I'm like, how long is this going to take? Because for her a quick question is like an hour, hour and a half maybe like for me a quick question is do you want cream in your coffee? Yes or no, right? That's quick. A quick question for her is like, hey, I'm thinking of taking the bushes out in the backyard and I've got three choices I want you to look at with me for this plant and what we're going to replace them with. I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is not a quick question, right? So that step, you have to prepare that connection and give them a little bit of a telegraph about what it is you want to talk about. Now here's the hard part for the person asking you need to be prepared if the person says no, I don't have 10 minutes right now. And you need to respect that. You can't get mad. That's what happened. People are like, well, fine, I'm not important. You never listen to me. No, no, no, no, no. This is not some tree style on I don't want to listen to you. It just means I'm in the middle of something right now. And if you continue to insist and talk, now you've got an unwilling participant, which is even worse because now the person is mad. Fine. And then they put down their sandwich or whatever they were doing of what do you want? Now you're adversarial, right? So now you've blown up the connection and there's no way this conversation is going well. So prepare the connection, be ready if the person says, I can't, and then you've just said, no problem, when would be a good time, right? Just you, you're trying to engage. So you get through that. Maybe you'd be surprised they say, sure, yeah, I we could talk about weekend plans. I'm mentally prepared for that. And then you move into what we talked about. So when somebody you say weigh their perspective, you might say to them, and we'll stay with the weekend plans, look, I know it's a really busy week for you at work, but and you probably don't want to go out to dinner. You probably just want to sit at home, you know, and watch a baseball game. I get that. So you see what you've done is you've basically made their argument for them. And what this does, you know, in the spirit of helping people and and being, you know, this is what negotiators do, is what I've basically done is I've taken away all your arguments. You have nowhere to go now. Now I've got your core, right? Because there's there's nothing for you to push back on me. Because now you're like, huh, wait a minute. How did they know that? Right? How did they know I was going to say that you have to think about that, right, as the person asking going in. But now that you say, I understand all that, you're expressing your why, but I've been home all week. The kids have been sick. I've been going stir crazy. I really need a break from these these kids because they've been crying and on top of me all week. I would like to just dress up like an adult, not in spit up clothes. And there's this really new new restaurant I've been really wanting to try. So you see you gave them a real reason to get out of the house, not just because I want to and then the reward with value is listen, if we go out on Saturday, I'll tell you what, Sunday you sit in the chair, you watch baseball all day, you don't have to do a single thing. I'll take care of the kids all day long. You don't lift a finger I'll make breakfast, lunch, and dinner, right? How does that sound? So you gave them something that you probably know they want because they've been working and busy all the time. So that's the power. Now here's the hard part. And folks like you and I, you know, where we talk for a living, this tends to be particularly difficult, definitely for me. As you would imagine in mediation, a lot of people when they come in for divorce, they don't know how divorce works. They need you to tell them how it works. They're not really on good speaking terms. So they need you to talk for both of them. You need to ask a lot of questions, offer a lot of options. So you is use patience. Now at that point, when you pitch, you need to stay quiet. People hate silence, but silence is your best tool in this case because at this point now you use patience, you give them time. What that does is it says, look, I respect you enough to let you process what I've just asked. I've told you what I think I know about you, that you're tired of worked all day. I shared with you really why I want this. I shared with you what I want and what I'm going to offer you. That's a lot of information, right? That's not just a I can say yes to right away. So give me five, 10, 20 seconds, a minute, two minutes to process everything you just said. And as you know from your line of work and mine, some people are real quick. They're real quick on their feet. Others are like, well, hold on a second. Where is this restaurant? They want more information. How much does it cost? Do I have to dress up, right? There's probably more information that they need. And in that case, then get let into that next letter, that last P, which is proceed accordingly. They may have said yes or they may have said no. And as negotiators, what we know is that no is where the negotiation begins. It doesn't end. Most people think no is a slammed door. And now what they do, and here's the mistake, they start to get defensive. Why not? You get to go out all week. You're in the office. I'm sitting home, right? You're you're digging a deeper hole. You're not getting what you want. This is where in the book actually I call them weapons of curiosity. And I say what you really do is now you have to start to get curious. And then you start asking these are classic negotiation questions. They're therapy questions, how questions, what questions, right? Instead of why. Why don't you want to go out immediately because I don't right? Well what makes you say that how can we how can we come to some agreement right? You have to work your way through it and you're eliciting information and what in effect you're doing is you're getting information that you can use now to come up with a more palatable alternative. Say with the restaurant example, someone says, well, how do you think I feel staying at home all day? What is it that I could offer you that would make you say yes to going to this restaurant with me on Saturday night. So that's a good question. And maybe the person says, you know, I just don't like crowds. Great. I'll make a five o'clock reservation. Okay. So now I got my dinner you I found out if you don't like crowds, how, you know, how does five o'clock sound? Yeah, that sounds good. Great. I'll book it now. So you see I I got information from you. I figured out what it was why you were saying no. I didn't push back and freak out. And I got the information I needed to now get what I want. Right. And and that's negotiation. That's not manipulation. It's it's simply you're you're trying to figure out what the win-win is and what is really the thing that you can both agree to. And in that case, you're home by seven, you're on the couch by 730, shoes off, maybe you got your cup of chamomile tea and you're watching you know your program on Netflix or whatever it is and then both of you had a good evening. So so that's really the process. And I know for me it runs on autopilot because this is what I've been doing for 30 years. But for people, you know, they really have to practice that Sabrina and that really is something that at first you you feel like a bad actor in a bad play. You're just very performative. But as you get at it and your spouse speaks that language too, then you can start going like my wife she's like well great this is good. I mean I don't know anything about you know handbags like pocketbooks, but she she just fired back and said, great then I can get a blank bag. And I'm like, okay, I don't know what that is. She goes that's $20,000 you know right. And I'm like, oh wait a minute that's part of that whole process, you know, walking you through a good example of how you can both get what you want and kind of walk through it and and and go through it each step by step so that you both feel good at the end of the day. I got to go out to dinner you understood that I'm tired so I got to get home early. Everybody there you go we both made a deposit and it's a win-win. So there you go. Start to finish.
Bulldog Ghost Diplomat Styles
SPEAKER_01Great. I know there's also negotiation styles you talk about like the bulldozer, the diplomat, the ghost wondering if you could elaborate on these these type of negotiation styles and perhaps why they may not work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah yeah absolutely so uh the bulldozer comes from an actual real thing that happened to me and you know we've all got that friend who thinks what they want to do is what everybody wants to do. And they decide. And so all of a sudden you find yourself at like some weird concert or some restaurant of food that you never eat or like just because at first that person you're like well I like this person that I want to hang out with them. So sure I'll go to this clog dancing concert or whatever it is. I don't know. And you think and then after a while you're like this person never asks me anything. They never care about what I want to do. They don't weigh my perspective they don't involve me in these decisions. That's the bulldozer they're like my way or the highway. And after a while it works at first but it gets old pretty quick because people start to see through you and that's where somebody eventually snaps. Even people of shall we say more gentle constitution right they're more like people pleasers go with the flow, don't want to upset the Apple cart. Eventually they snap. They do it might take them 25 years. Somebody like me it might take two weeks right but the bulldozer eventually drives off the clutch right so not good to bulldoze people in because I always say a reluctant yes is it's not a yes. It's it's a forced right it's a I didn't want to do this but I went along unwillingly never good. Now then you get the ghost who's the sort of the counterpart to this person where they avoid the conversations. They don't want to have them because they don't think they're going to go well or they don't think they're going to get what they want. And as soon as the other person pushes back, they're like, yeah, you know what, you're right. We don't have to go to dinner. Yeah you're right. No, no problem. It's like well they're not right. It's that they just share a different perspective and you have to figure out how you can get them to say yes. But you don't want to go into conflict because you think it's conflict. You think conflict is bad. This isn't conflict we're talking about we're talking about conversations. And sometimes conversations are hard to have things like are is one of us going to stay home with the kids? Are we going to have another child? Are we going to get a dog? Are we going to you know quit your job, right? And move, right? Whatever they are. But those conversations have to happen. So somebody who's a ghost I think part of the the fear and my wife is like this is she's not quick on her feet. And I oftentime find myself having both sides of the conversation for us because I know that like I want this to go well. And so she sometimes she'll she just looks at me like you know deering headlights and I say this is where you say that sounds like a good idea but I have some questions. You know and then she goes this sounds like a good idea I have some questions. So with the ghost having a methodology to follow allows them to have the conversation productively and have it go well. Right. So that way this way they can learn from that. And you're not going to start with should we sell our house, take our kids out of school and move to Indonesia. You're going to start with hey can we get pizza tonight? That's where you're going to start. The diplomat is as you would imagine that's somebody like me who's trying to weigh everyone's perspective who asks a lot of those questions who takes in all pieces of information and then is seeking out that win-win right the bulldozer and the ghost are win-lose. In the bulldozer case they are the winner in the ghost case they are the loser. And that's neither of those is sustainable in the long term because I've seen it in my practice spouses who come in and they're quiet as a church mouse and they're quiet and they're quiet and they're quiet and then my goodness boom like the lid pops off and you're like whoa what just happened right because that's X amount of years of pent up frustration where giving giving giving giving the other person taking taking so you got to be careful if you don't want to wind up in my office like that in my divorce mediation practice you need to be be aware of this and be aware of these behaviors about yourself so that you can be more either giving or taking as it were in the in my examples.
SPEAKER_01Right. And in your line of work and years experience was there sort of pattern you noticed or theme that led to writing up this book in terms of couples and how maybe these styles were coming into play.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that I've decided pattern. That's what I notice is it really boils down to skipping the whole we part and moving into me versus you. And that's like that and that's a word I hear a lot when I was telling you before about the decision to have kids and be a caretaker and work inside the home as I like to say when somebody says yeah well we decided you would stay home with the kids and immediately the other person goes we did not decide this. You decided it and now here I am 15 years later getting a divorce I gave up my career for you. You're now the CFO and like that's when the other person explodes you know and that's part of it. It's being aware of am I making a decision unilaterally on behalf of both of us or just in my own selfish way? Or am I at least engaging my spouse and trying to find a way. Now granted you might still make the decision you may have made the offers and you may have given them every opportunity to do X, Y, and Z. And if they still systematically refuse, it may still be something that you decide to do, but at least you can never have them come back in the future and say we never talked about this or you just decided this. Well you're right maybe I just did decide this however I offered you X, Y, and Z and I also explained why it's important to me. And I did expect you to support me in that. And that's that's the hard conversation that the fallout happens down the road and you know that's where you want people to to kind of cut it off at the pass and have the conversations up front and start with the small stuff so that they don't wind up in this pattern down the road. And it it's dangerous because it's real easy, right? You start to resent your spouse. Well well they went on vacation I'm going to go on vacation. Well they bought a new wardrobe I'm going to go buy one. And before you know it becomes tit for tat. And then that's where you start our you start, that's where you find your argument. So if you fight if your money styles are different, that's your argument dressed up in literally different clothes in my example well I'm going to go spend all this money on clothes. It wasn't the clothes it's well you spent money I wouldn't have spent that money right and so here we are now and to penalize you I'm going to go spend money rather than someone coming and say I've had the same clothes for 15 years. I really would like to have some some clothes that I feel good in is it you know can we talk about this?
SPEAKER_01That that's the conversation you need to have up some couples maybe not recognizing the importance of having that conversation or maybe needing to I'm wondering sometimes if you see perhaps people's fears of like being controlled versus like this is how you kind of share in a life with
Good Faith Boundaries And The We
SPEAKER_01a person.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, exactly. And if you go into it with the mindset as a negotiator where you're going in and saying I I'm looking for the win-win this is what I want and here's what I'm prepared to offer rather than I ask and you say no, you're not asking permission. You're sharing what it is that you want to do and actually perhaps might even will be doing however you're trying to build this marriage bank and you're trying to give this person some runway to get on board and to show them and to explain to them why it's so important to you and then to offer them you know that other piece that we talked about that reward. That's where you know you have to obviously you have to assume going into a negotiation that people are negotiating in good faith. And not everyone does by the way I see it all the time I know the I know where the pitfalls are. I can see the traps coming you you you can see them. There are people who are manipulative and narcissistic and that's not who we're talking about. We're talking about the couples where they want to have a good marriage. They want to have a good relationship. And even with those folks you know one of the things that crops up again not mental health professional as a professional this is like level 400 or 500 this is really you're getting into it but that's where you figure out who you're working with and then you play to that person. So if you've got someone who's narcissistic and you're trying to negotiate with them, now you're playing to their benevolence, right? So as a negotiator, I go back to alimony because that's a good hot button topic in divorce say, man, you seem like a really great person. And like boy oh boy, you know you just strike me as the kind of person who really wants the best for everybody and really cares about themselves and others. And by providing this level of support man you would just be a great parent. Your kids would be so happy they would really look it up to you and say man my mom or dad and whoever's paying the alimony is just the greatest person. That's what I'm doing. Right. And so I'm playing to them thank you so much for agreeing to this alimony. I got to tell you all my clients not my many clients would agree to this but boy I'm going to remember you in the future because you you're a shining example of just what a great person could be during a divorce right so sounds manipulative but really what it is you're rewarding them rewarding them rewarding them and you're getting what it is you want. In this case as the negotiator I'm getting for the other person. But the technique applies right you're you're you're countering their objections rewarding them and that that's what gets people to move in your direction.
SPEAKER_01So yeah I think a lot of times couples get caught up in like proving why something shouldn't be done or why they should do something and it gets this right or wrong as the focus versus the we and and having some sort of win-win experience.
SPEAKER_00Yeah exactly and you got married for a reason I hope you got married to to be together and to support each other and form unit whatever you want to call it a family unit. So act like that that that takes time and I I joke in the book I tell a story I was 36 and my wife was 35 when we got married. We both owned houses on our own independently and she had a company and I traveled doing this negotiation. If there were ever two people who were going to have a hard time coming together it was the two of us and the first couple of years it was really difficult and trying to blend those two lives together but we we stuck to it we worked at it we had the difficult conversations and over time we've now developed into a we. It's a unit it's a I have your back you have my back and when the other one wants something it's not an argument. It's a I understand you I already know and that to me is a sign of a strong couple I have friends like this who are another couple that we're good friends with. They're like this when I asked them I actually interviewed them for the book I interviewed a bunch of couples and I interviewed them and when it came to that whole rewarding with value concept I asked them about it. And they both looked at each other and said you know what I know if they ask me for something it's important to them. And if it's important to them it's important to me and I'm already going to say yes. They can offer me something Joe and reward me with value but I just know that I'm going to go do something else down the road and they're going to support me and say yes to the thing that I'm going to ask for that to me that's like winner. That you're now you're operating at that you know peak power up level you're just seamlessly interacting with each other and supporting each other not necessarily tit for tat, just knowing that whatever you want is fine by me because I know whatever I want is going to be fine by you. And that I that is really nice to see when you when you talk when I was talking to some couples to see them like that.
SPEAKER_01No surprise they've been married 30 years, 35 years that there's a reason for that and that's why I was wondering Joe where people could find more information about you or where to purchase your book or if there's any other information or updates you'd
Resources Quiz Book Updates
SPEAKER_01like to share.
SPEAKER_00Sure. I have a website a personal website that is all about me and the book and my personal practice and my speaking and it's literally my name It's thejoe dillon.com. So, because apparently joe dillon.com was taken. So I had to become the Joe Dillon. So there's no other Joe Dillons out there. So just spelling it like, you know, J-O-E-D-I-L-L-O-N-Thejoe Dillon.com. And that's a good launching point for you. I do speaking, I do Zoom engagements, I do in-person speaking. I still do mediation, still have the practice, the book. The book is coming out next year, but you can sign up for updates for it. And I send out little weekly tips and things like that. And there's also a quiz that I have about your negotiation styles. That's actually on the powerupmethod.com website. But if you go to thejoehdillon.com, that's kind of a launch pad for everything that I've been doing. And that's really what I'm just trying to get people to understand is think conversations can go well. People can get what they need, get what they want. You can work seamlessly together. Start with the small stuff, recognize the goodness in people. And I tell you, I see it time and time again. If anybody can tell you, Sabrina, what's most rewarding in my line of work, not that I'm helping people end their marriage, but one compliment is really touching for me to hear over and over again. And I say this in all sincerity, and it's meant to sound as funny as it does, is people say to me, you know what, Joe? When we were thinking about getting a divorce, I'm like, man, but you know what? It really didn't suck as bad as I thought it would. And they say that with a straight face. And I'm like, you know, that's the nicest thing you could say to me. And they're like, no, really, you made it easy. It's not a and I was like, I get it. It's not a great thing. But I'm like, look what you two were able to do. You were able to get through a divorce without killing each other, without winding up in court, without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. Remember that when your kid comes home and has their eyebrow pierced and they shaved their head and they crashed your car. Remember when you talk to each other now, because you're going to now just be co-parents, that you can do this, right? You can communicate.
SPEAKER_01So that's great that people can find a quiz on your webpage and kind of get a better understanding of their communication style, perhaps uh where they're at in terms of negotiator or methods they use and how the book could help further free.
SPEAKER_00And what they need to do. And that's the thing, right? We're all learning. I I feel like life is just one big lesson. And no one comes into a marriage knowing how to be married, unless you've been married before, perhaps. But if you've been married before, you probably didn't know because you got divorced. Right. So the process continues. So you just a big experiment. You just have to be willing to say, let's try this, let's do this, let's do that, all in the interest of staying together. And and of course, again, for the right reasons with the right person, you know, in the good faith perspective. And that's that's really all I'm trying to share with people is that it's work. They say marriage is work for a reason. It is, but you need to be willing to put in the work in order to have a good one.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you so much for your time today, Joe, and and for listeners. Be sure to purchase Joe's book, Power Up Method, and learn about it, communication styles, how you can negotiate, and learning about that goodwill bank. So appreciate your time and sharing your 30 plus years expertise.
SPEAKER_00Thanks. Thanks for having me.