Managing Pushy Clients: Conflict Strategies for Business Owners and Coaches

In this episode, Simon Goode explores strategies for managing pushy clients, particularly those with unrealistic expectations or disruptive behaviors. He introduces tools such as types of conflict, the Thomas-Kilmann conflict modes, and adjusting one’s perspective, using a real client situation as an example. By reflecting on emotional triggers and structured options, Simon  demonstrates how to respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively.


TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Benefits of a structured process

04:43 Understanding relationship conflict with clients

07:29 Reflecting on email communications

13:39 Addressing workshop coordination issues

15:28 Pricing strategy and client communication

19:24 Handling client payment issues

24:15 Discussing collaboration and promotion options

27:40 Reflecting and planning for the future

30:04 Understanding Thoughts and Feelings

33:39 Managing stress through self-care

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Hello, welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, professional mediator, Simon Goode. I set up this podcast to provide free resources and tools for dealing with conflict. So if that sounds like the kind of thing that's useful to you, please consider pressing subscribe. Now, a lot of clients that I do coaching with and particularly training workshops struggle with pushy clients. These clients that have unrealistic expectations, and it might even be the kind of dynamic where you give them an inch and they take a mile. I don't know about you, but I find those kind of clients very challenging to deal with myself as well. There's the frustration, the feeling like it's not a two-way street, like it's not a 50-50 collaborative kind of arrangement, and there might be practical implications to that. For example, these pushy clients might be over the top in requests that they make, or they constantly change their mind and want to make variations to something midway through a project. It could interrupt your cash flow. Like there's actual business consequences as a result of all of this. But there's also the emotional layer, which for me is also what I notice and I don't like. The sense of being pushed around, being walked all over the top of, that kind of thing. And we're all going to have different aspects of our work life that push our buttons and we find easier or more difficult to deal with. Some people are just the kind of go with the flow kind of people and they don't mind just being accommodating. Getting walked all over the top of isn't something that they particularly care about. As long as they can get this and this and this, like they might have reasonably clearly articulated priorities. Some people get very upset when something's not fair, some people get very upset when a box isn't checked and someone's not following the right process, etc. For me it's when people aren't treating each other well, and of course that's a subjective definition that I've got in my head of what I think is an okay way to treat people. But when that's breached, when the boundaries are crossed, I notice that I often have sometimes it's fear and distress, but a lot of the time it's more like anger and resentment and feeling bit hard done by or something similar. And then I wonder if this all comes back to my childhood and having siblings that I needed to compete with, blah blah blah, or maybe there's a genetically inherited component, like who knows. But I've noticed that this is the way that I am for whatever reason. And I've got some different reactions that are going to come up, and sometimes there's not a whole lot I can do about that. But I don't need to act on those impulses, those initial urges or whims. Sometimes for me, using a structured process for reflection is helpful so that I don't just run with that first reaction that I can pause and consider, well, what's the best way to respond here? So I'm going to explain some of the ways that I do that myself. Like I'm going to talk through a real client that I'm dealing with at the moment that's being a little bit pushy right now, again, just in my subjective definition of what pushy is. And I like to use the structured process for two reasons. First, it helps me to develop options and come up with a solution and something that actually might work, rather than the knee-jeck reaction which might have some sort of a negative effect inadvertently. The other benefit though is that I think once I've clarified what I'm dealing with, figured out the definitions, the texture of all of the different experiences that are going on for me, it also inherently helps me to create distance from it. I can differentiate more clearly from the threat that I can measure, from the threat that I can clearly articulate. Whereas in my mind initially, when I get that email that comes through from the client or that phone call or something, that initial emotional reaction is all that seems to be there. It's very easy to get swept up in that. So that structured process of reflection, it's not just about coming up with a solution. For me, there's a benefit of just pausing and considering what's happening, even just for my own stress levels. So I'm going to do it live as I'm recording now, and there's three different tools that I'm going to be referring to. These are all included in my essential foundations for managing workplace conflict course on my website. So the first is the types of conflict and just pausing and thinking about what might be going on. The second tool that I'll refer to is the Thomas Killman mode, and I'll explain how this can help to develop different options for responding to a client that's being a bit pushy. And the third tool that I'm going to talk about is different methods or protocols that we can use to zoom in and zoom out. How we can shift our focus and maybe even calibrate our perception to focus on what actually matters instead of what might be most loud or most threatening in the moment or whatever else it might be. So let's start with those five conflict modes to begin with. Now, when we think about pushy clients, a lot of the time the tip of the iceberg that you'll notice is what's called relationship conflict. That's the first category. The hint here is often like, I'm so sick of the way they keep dot dot dot. Like what's the thing that you would put there in terms of dealing with this particular client? That's often a key that gives us a bit of a clue that maybe relationship conflict is going on here. It's the reciprocal interactions, it's the way that they're interpreting your communication and the way that you're interpreting theirs. So you feel angry, you feel upset, you feel hard done by, or maybe you're worried about what if they cancel and then I've got all of these dates held in my diary tentatively, and now I won't be able to book other clients to take their place kind of thing. So that's there, but and it is the tip of the iceberg. You notice the frustration first. I'm so sick of the way they keep doing this. It might be like, I told you so, you should have listened to me, or those kind of areas. But I often suggest that it's worth just pausing and reflecting on it before leaving that one until last to deal with. I would usually usually suggest dealing with the other four types of conflict first. So maybe take stock of what's happening, what are you sick of that they keep doing? What is it about them that's rubbing you the wrong way? What is it about their approach that's grinding your gears, so to speak? We're not going to resonate with everybody that we meet in the same positive kind of way. Some people will rub us up the wrong way, but putting some definition around that can help, like in which circumstances is this happening? How bad is it out of ten? What specifically are they doing that you feel is over the top or unprofessional or whatever? And then that's it. There's probably not a whole lot of option generation needed for that one. The second category is what's called data. This is the facts. So where are there disagreements going on? For me, with this particular client that I'm dealing with right now, it's a very positive relationship that I've had over a number of years. They have an external administration team, like they subcontract some of the organizing functions. And so I think that now I'm liaising with the different set of people that they're hiring to manage the bookings for this training workshop, if that makes sense. So the relationship conflict that I'm feeling of being annoyed that they're telling me they can't pay the invoice until the last minute or something, that's even helpful to clarify, well, who am I actually angry about here at here? Is it this person that's writing me the message or is it just some other decision maker that's not there? As soon as we can pause and just consider that, immediately we realise that it doesn't make sense to be angry at this person that's writing us the message. It's the shoot the messenger kind of thing. And not even that we're at risk of shooting them, it's like it doesn't even make sense to be angry at them. It's not their decision, it's really got nothing to do with them. They're just going through the motions, they're following the steps that they've been asked to do. So I don't need to hold a grudge. Do you know what I mean? Like all of a sudden that helps me then to clarify what I'm actually dealing with. So when it comes to the data, what I like to do is just to reflect on what's happened until this point. I often go back and reread the emails, and a lot of the time there is a slightly different nuance in their wording than I had originally interpreted. Or when I'm rereading my messages to them, I might realize that there's typos or I've been a bit more ambiguous than I could have been or something else. So what are the facts? This could be the factual kind of stuff, like the contract, the scope of work, the terms of reference, these kind of areas. But even like in the email trails, what was promised, what was agreed to, who indicated that they were going to do what by when. So I have a current client, I've got a training workshop next week, and they're saying that they can't pay it because they're on the edge of whether or not they've got enough participants. So the data aspect of that is what did I ask them to do? When I sent them the invoice, what was the um what's it called? The payment policy kind of conditions that I included there. And it's possible that either I didn't clarify things ahead of time or I left something ambiguous. So if I were going to deal with this particular client, I might refer back to previous policies or I might say to them, we've left this up in the air, but could we organize a time to get on the same page moving forward? It sounds like you're indicating this based on this. On our end, we're interpreting it more like this based on this. What do you think would work? Let's organize a time. I really love that language. Let's organize the time to get on the same page, let's organise the time to clarify, let's organise a time to talk things through and maybe we can prevent some of these issues from coming up moving forward. But it's about clarification and we need to tread a little bit carefully in the data conflict, especially when the other person's wrong. Like in this particular instance, I do have the fee policy stuff on my website. I probably did ask them to tick the box to acknowledge that they've read it or something similar. I probably could deal with this in the data layer of just saying you're doing what you're not meant to be doing. The challenge there though is that I don't want to get their backup. I don't want to trigger defensiveness and resistance. Oops, just as I press record immediately, there's a guy on the right on Lawnmower outside the window, so apologies if any of that background noise is coming through. So we've talked about the relationship conflict, what's going on between us. The data conflict would be about the facts, what was actually agreed to, what was requested, what was promised. The next area that we've got to potentially deal with the conflict is what's called interest conflict. This is what I want versus what you want. So with this particular client who's not paying, I could say to them, look, you're outside of the cancellation period, or this is our policy, or this is the Australian standards, or this is the legislation or something. Or I could deal with it at the interest layer, which is what they want versus what I want. So I might say to them something like, Could you please make sure it's paid by the end of the week? That would make sure that I can get the information ahead to you with enough time to distribute to the participants or something. Like I'm going to do something to you, like rush the organization here. If you can do something for me, pay the invoice. It might even be saying to them, look, is there something that I can do to help with the promotion? Maybe I can collaborate and that would help to advertise it to your staff, and then you might get a few new people that register. So those kind of options could be there, and it's just at the interest layer, it's what they want. Sometimes this is thought of as just the carrots and the sticks. What can I threaten them with? Like if they don't pay by this date, I'm going to cancel it, and what can I reward them with or offer? And I really like that mutual obligation contract. Like if you can do this for me, then this is what I can do for you. I'm happy to do this for you. In order for me to do that, this is what I need from you, etc. So there's three different categories that we've already talked about, relationship, data, and interest. The fourth type of conflict is what you call value conflict. Here I think a number of different factors might be going on. Like for me, I don't think that it's okay for a client just to decide that they're not going to pay. If I'm booking a plane flight, there's a time when that's just not refundable anymore. If I'm booking a hotel room, if I'm registering for an open seminar or something similar. Like we do probably need reasonably clearly articulated fee policies. But for me, it's just this has to be a give and take kind of relationship. I just don't run the kind of business where I try to take advantage of people. And so when I have the sense that that's what's happening to me, it it's very hard for me to deal with it. So that's the value. My value is that you shouldn't treat people like this. Now, if I can pause and consider it, very obviously there's a whole range of different values that could be applied to this same situation. Some people would say that that's fair enough for the client not to pay. Why should they bear the risk of potentially paying for a workshop that only has half of the number of staff that they expected or something similar? So it's not that either of these values is wrong, neither of these perspectives needs to be corrected, but I could talk to them about how we can reconcile these differences. I can appreciate where you're coming from, you're dealing with this challenge on your end, it's difficult to confirm up until the last minute because you've got a few people that aren't responding to you. At the same time, it's challenging for us in our cash flow or in terms of the preparation or something similar. So it's not that you're wrong, it's not like why are you being so disrespectful here? I'm saying, look, that's fair enough. If I was in your position, I might very well feel the same way. This is my perspective here, this is my side of things. How can we organize this? How can we sort this out? What's going to work moving forward? So we've got relationship, data, interest, and values. The final type of conflict that I often consider is what's called structural conflict. And again, I can immediately see some factors that might be contributing, and that leads to some immediate options becoming apparent. For example, I mentioned that I think that they're now subcontracting a different group of a different team that's helping them organise the training workshop. So I'm no longer dealing directly with the people who are the decision makers effectively. So maybe I don't need to deal with the data of telling them that this isn't what we agreed. Maybe I don't need to deal with it with the interest of punishing them or something. It might not even be about the value kind of discussion. I might just suggest a change in structure. Could you put me in touch with a decision maker? Or I might say, next time round, could we organize a time a week ahead to meet? We can review the participant numbers at that stage, and you can make a final decision as to whether or not it's going ahead. Or I could ask for more frequent updates so that I'm not left in the lurch and in the dark kind of thing about where things stand. Or maybe there is that kind of collaborative option, like they could book differently, like do it through my website or something similar. I could even consider options like charging them per person instead of a flat fee, because for them, they're probably thinking that they don't want to invest the thousands of dollars in getting me in if they've only got a few different people that can attend. Obviously, per person then it becomes reasonably cost ineffective. On the other hand, I could change my pricing structure, which would mean that even with a smaller group, maybe there's some benefits to me, like we finish early or something similar, but I could make this more affordable to them. So as I'm pausing right now and considering it, one of the things that I was angry about was that I thought that this client was passing on the risk to me, and obviously my value in that is that that's something that shouldn't happen. But when I think about the structure, that's a two-way street as well. And maybe in the way that I'm charging, which is just a flat dollar amount per session, that's actually passing some of the risk on to them. It's interesting, isn't it? Like just that nuance and the way that it changes the connection that we have and you know all of those emotions that come up then as a result of feeling like you're being mistreated or something similar. So what would I do? Let's think about those, the data, the relationship, the interest, the value, and the structure. Where should I begin? I don't think the value conversation is going to get me very far. Saying, I don't think this is the way that you should treat people that you're hiring, or my other clients pay me more, more consistently or something. You know, given the fact that I'm not even dealing with someone that's effectively one of the decision makers, there's probably not a whole lot of benefit of that. I might be might be warranted thinking about data. Let's clarify the actual cutoffs here. As things stand, how many people have you got registered? What's the minimum number that you need? When would you be able to come back to me with another update, etc.? That I think would hold a lot of benefit. I do think in this situation there might be interest conflict that I could leverage. I mean, the most obvious thing would be to say if you don't pay by this date, then I'm gonna cancel the dates, like I'll remove it from my diary or something similar. That's the the stick, the carrots and the sticks, that's the threat that I'm making to them. If this doesn't change, this is what the negative consequence is going to be to you. For me, I tend to like to do that more as a choice. If you don't confirm by Friday, then I'm gonna cancel the dates. Or if you can let me know and give me an update and you can get to the minimum number that's needed, I can get things organized and I'll have that sent through to you on Monday morning or something similar. This is the bad option, don't pay me. This is the bad consequence, I'm gone, I'm not gonna work with you. Or pay me, that's the good option. Here's the good consequence, I'll get stuff to you ahead of time, it'll mean that I've got more time for customising, whatever it might be. Another very popular tool amongst mediators is what's called the Thomas Killman instrument. Sometimes this is referred to as conflict modes or conflict styles. The idea here is that we've kind of got these five different options for dealing with most of the conflicts that we encounter in life. And it's not that there's a right and a wrong way to deal with the conflict, but each of them have different positive aspects or benefits as well as drawbacks. So the five different categories that they identified in their research was avoiding, and then we've got accommodating, they're the two least assertive options. In the middle there's compromise, meet in the difference, split the difference. Then we've got competing, or sometimes it's referred to as directing, and uh collaborating, sitting down and see if we can come up with a win-win kind of option. So with this particular example, I've got the client who hasn't paid the invoice, it's now overdue. I've kind of got those five options that I could consider. First, I could just do nothing. That's the avoid kind of option. They will come back to me with an update at some stage, so maybe I just need to go and do a workout or something similar so I'm not ruminating and obsessing over it. There's some benefits to that, it means that I don't have a lot of time needed to deal with the issue, I suppose. But obviously avoiding it isn't going to lead to much long-term resolution and it's not going to prevent from the same problem from coming up next time, is it? So probably I'm not going to do that, but that's my first option that I've got to consider. Then I could just accommodate. That's where we basically just say yes. I could passively say, can you give me an update or something similar, but there wouldn't be any pressure, there's no threats, there's no deadlines, that kind of thing. There's benefits of that accommodating kind of approach. Obviously, clients that you deal with in this way really like you. You're doing more, you're chucking in something extra without charging them, or something similar. The downside though is that there's often a price to pay, and when you take the accommodating approach, you're the one that pays it. You're staying back late doing the extra work, fixing it for somebody else, or you're taking a hit in terms of your dollar amounts because the client's saying that our our payment policy's changed internally, we're not going to pay your invoice, or something similar. Then we've got the option of compromise. I could say to them something like, When did you have in mind that you would be able to confirm? And they'd say maybe Monday. And I'd say if there's any option for it to be Friday, or I could say it more firmly, could you please let me know by Friday at the latest, or something similar. So I'm not fully saying you need to let me know right now, but I'm also not accepting the date that you've given me. Let's see if we can find a middle ground here. This could even be something to consider with the payment. Like I could say to them something like, Would you be willing to pay half now and then half on the date of delivery, something similar? Then at least it helps a bit with my cash flow and potentially from that risk mitigation perspective as well. So we've got avoiding, accommodating, or compromising. The last two options that we've got are competing or directing or collaborating. If I were to take a competing approach here, I'd probably say this I need the update by this date. If it's not paid, then we're going to remove the dates from my diary, something similar. That competing approach doesn't necessarily mean that you're rude or harsh or disrespectful or whatever, but you're very firm. It's one of the challenges for me is that when I take that competing kind of approach, I do think sometimes it comes across as it's my way or the highway kind of thing. Because I'm trying to just be respectful and say it's not flexible. That's not something that I can agree to. So then we've got that final option, collaborating. This would be where like maybe you would offer a solution. Like you could say, what if I write you an article for your newsletter? Would that be any help? So that might then help them to promote the course internally and then they'd get more registrations kind of thing. So this is a two-way street where collaborating, there's an interdependence here. I help you to succeed, and then I succeed in return. It's not always the ideal option though. If there's not much time, like you've you just don't have time to sit down and go through options or something, maybe the compromise makes more sense, or just be accommodating, or just be competing. It also depends to some extent on the person that you're dealing with as well, or the company that you're dealing with. Some clients, they just want to take advantage of you. And even if you're a collaborative minded kind of person, the risk there is that they would effectively just take advantage of. Take, take, take, and it's never give, give, give. The swings and roundabouts kind of idea never seems to occur to them. There are also some situations I think that there is no win-win that's available, like there's an unexpected cost of twenty thousand dollars that's come up midway through a project or something. They're gonna pay it, or I'm gonna pay it, but somebody's going to have to pay it. Unfortunately, there's often not a magic one that we can waive just to, you know, come up with that win-win kind of solution. So sometimes there isn't one. And so you've delayed and you've spent the time going through it, emailing back and forth, meeting, etc. And sometimes it would have been better in hindsight to be more firm or to be a little bit more accommodating depending on what was going on. So what do I make of this? I've got the client who's not paying me, I've got the workshops that begin next week. If I were to take that competing kind of approach, I'm not sure that there's a whole lot of benefit that I would gain. Probably I would push them to make the decision about cancelling earlier, and if they were literally on the edge of whether or not they could go ahead or not, it might mean that I lose thousands of dollars of work over the next few weeks just because I arbitrarily decided that I didn't want to get pushed around anymore. So immediately as I consider that option, I'm not sure, and if I do do that, I would want to tread pretty carefully, if you know what I mean. The compromise could work, I suppose, like I might just say, when will you be able to let me know? Like clarify the data in that previous tool that I referred to. Maybe it's also though thinking about uh that structural option, like could you put me in touch with a decision maker? That would be an example, I think, of taking the competing kind of approach, like I'm not going to let this stand, but I'm also not shooting down the messenger, going into a range, rage, even expressing emotion. I don't find that that's usually helpful. You can describe it, like the challenge for me is that I might not be able to fit in the preparation that's needed or something, but I wouldn't say this is so ridiculous or I'm so annoyed at this or I can't believe this hasn't been confirmed yet, or something similar. All of that kind of stuff I think often is interpreted as being more aggressive, and then you tend to get the defensiveness and resistance that comes up as a result. So that's helpful for me, thinking about well, what would those options actually look like? Does that collaborating, like helping to promote the course, for example, make sense? In this particular situation it probably does. I wouldn't mind doing a bit of pro writer kind of work if it means that the workshop goes ahead. I wonder though, maybe there's even some other options that I could consider for that. Like I could even do something like offer to do a free session for them. Like I'll run a one-hour webinar for their members and they can promote it and let people register for free. But in doing so, obviously they would get to know me, and if they resonate with my style and my approach, then they might consider me to come to their local organization. So it might mean that I don't get this particular client, they're not paying me, I'm more or less doing it for free, but then there's this huge effect of promotion and then other flow and work that comes in as a result. So I do like that kind of a collaborative option. The challenge for me with this particular client that I'm dealing with is that I'm not connected to the decision makers directly. So if I did want to propose that, I would have to talk to the organizing committee kind of people, the senior managers, and they're very time poor, and I'm not sure they've necessarily got the same appetite for collaboration that I have, if that makes sense. So probably just thinking through all of that, avoiding isn't the worst option that I could use. Maybe accommodating makes more sense, like just confirming this is still the case, this is where it's up to, please let me know if anything changes. But no pushiness or pressure or that kind of thing. For this particular client, the last email that I wrote to them, I think I would probably call it competing. I said, look, the challenge for me is I might not have time to prepare. I've got other workshops on early next week. You might be assuming that I've got time necessarily to prepare then, but I need, of course, to plan it around the other things that I've got in my calendar. But I don't know if that actually achieved anything. It probably added a little bit of pressure and they went into a bit of a panic, like, oh my goodness, is Simon going to cancel the workshops on us, or we in trouble, or something similar. I think it would have been better to tread a little bit soft softer. So next time round, next email, or I might even decide to pick up the phone call and speak to them, to be honest. I might be more inclined to shift the approach down towards that accommodating end of the spectrum. Well, even for me, that's helpful already to begin to think about options for dealing with it, and I can find myself feeling less personally attacked, less personally confronted by the way that I'm being treated, or that kind of thing. The final tool that I often like to consider in structured reflection is adjusting the zoom level. There's an interesting way of thinking about that. It could be to do with time. Like I might ask myself questions like, how long has this been going on for? When was the first time that you noticed it? How long have you been dealing with this new subcontractor that's doing the administration? How were things back then? What was different? What was the same? I find even asking these questions like, what's happened that made me feel this way? Or what did I learn that's led me to feel this way? It helps me to understand that the way that I'm interpreting the current situation isn't necessarily the way that I always would have interpreted the current situation. All of our perception is affected by our thoughts and feelings, our physical body and our activity, what we're actually doing. So we're not seeing the world in this objective kind of way. And when I can pause and think, well, how has it changed? How was it before? And how is it likely to be moving forward? All of a sudden it adds some detail to those projections that I was making in my mind about what was going to happen. I might do some reality testing internally, even as I'm saying it's been going on for six months or something, and I might think, well, what else has been going on during that time? Okay, there were these other big changes that were going on in the sector or something similar. So again, it's not necessarily just to do with me. The way that I'm being treated is going to be connected to all of these other factors that's going on too. So I like adjusting the zoom level in terms of time. How has it been before? How is it likely to be in the future? What were the big milestone events where things shifted? Even like when did you write back to them last? What was the last message that you got back from them? We can zoom in to that level of detail as well. And then if you're worried about how it's going to be moving forward, what's the next time that you'll interact with them? What are the concerns that you've got about that? What could you potentially do if that concern comes about and it becomes true? How can you manage that? What can you do to look after yourself? Those kind of elements. That projecting into the future also means that I'm not getting as consumed and stuck up in the rumination in intrusive thoughts about how annoying this all is or whatever else it might be, how worried I am about it. So we can zoom in and out in terms of time. I like to zoom in and out in terms of the context. What were the other factors that were contributing here? And then also how would they interpret what I've done? How could they interpret the email that I sent them last? Is there any potential crossed wires that still exist between us? Where is the potential areas of ambiguity still that's going on? So I zoom out and I think about the other people that are involved, the other factors that they're dealing with, the other clients on my in my client list at the moment, all of those elements too. And then I can zoom in to the specifics, like what was the last words that we said? Maybe I'll read through my terms of reference and just make sure that I do have a cancellation policy that says the clients are meant to pay and everything actually matches what I think that it does. So zooming in and out of the detail and the context is another layer I think that we can consider. The other zooming in and out that I like to do is about about my own experiences. Like for me as a business owner and I'm dealing with this pushy client, what's going on? And I like to think about myself in terms of my thoughts, like what's the interpretation that I'm making? Where did those assumptions come from? What's actually going on here? Maybe my feelings, if I'm worried, what am I actually specifically worried about? What else am I feeling? It's this emotional granularization as we can pull apart these experiences that we're having in terms of our thoughts and feelings. If you've ever done meditation, one of the things that you learn reasonably early on is that there actually isn't much qualitative difference in terms of thoughts and feelings. They're basically the same thing. And then within those categories of what's a thought and what's a feeling, there can be a huge variation of what that's like to have that thought. Sometimes it's like a rehearsing of a conversation that's coming up or replaying of something that happened in the past. Sometimes it's like a sick feeling in your stomach, sometimes it's like an urge that you just feel like stamping your feet or something similar because you're so annoyed or it's causing you difficulty in your concentration or you can't get back to sleep or whatever it is. Our thoughts and our feelings become affected by the conflict, our physical body becomes changed and affected by the conflict, our behavior becomes affected by the conflict, and our perception as a result becomes affected by the conflict. So there's this reciprocal pattern going on between our thoughts, feelings, physical body, what we're doing and our volition as well as what we're perceiving and focused on. So if I can pause and think about, well, what's going on in terms of this conflict with this pushy client, it might have caused my thinking to change. Maybe I'm a bit more worried about money at the moment, for example, that would be an ex one way that it's changed. I might have realized that I didn't do as much clarification as maybe needed early on with that terms of reference and scope of work kind of conversations. So to be honest, I'm feeling a little bit silly and a little bit guilty. I'm someone with an MBA, I've got experience running a business, I think that I'm some big professional, and here I am just using a handshake kind of agreement. But then if I pause and think about that, I think, well, actually that's the way that I want to operate. And of course, this is the downside that occasionally you'll get taken advantage of, maybe, but I've got so many other good clients that actually this is a tiny drop in the bucket. And even with this specific client, they're an organization that I absolutely love working with. There is good intentioned and good-hearted people all of the at all of the levels in all of the different locations. I might just be dealing with a temporary casual worker that's helping them with the organization. So it doesn't really make sense to me to get too caught up in what I've now realized is a lot of the relationship conflict that's going on between people who aren't the decision makers. So what will I do? I think right now, I wrote to them an email yesterday saying, can you please give me an update? And they did write back a very um professional and apologetic email. I'm sorry, I know it's putting you in a tough spot, etc. I think for now, probably the best approach is just to avoid it. I've got other things that I can get on with today and tomorrow in my work, so it's not like I'm losing the time in my diary completely. And I should expect that I might have a little bit of frustration that comes up as I think about the fact that I might lose this work next week. Maybe that's something that I can deal with though. Just feeling a bit frustrated isn't the end of the world, is it? And I should probably also prepare for if the response comes back and the workshop's cancelled, that that might trigger a little bit of distress for me or something similar. I like to think almost preemptively about self-care and if there's a potential trigger that's coming up that's going to be difficult for me to deal with, I like to kind of have my ducks in a row in terms of habits. So I like to have made sure I've exercised and we don't have too much beer in the fridge to save me from drinking it without thinking or something similar. Because when I'm stressed and the more worked up that I get, I'm more inclined to go and get the beer or skip the workout or open the chocolate bar that's sitting in the fridge or whatever the thing is that I'm trying to resist doing. But what do you think? Is that helpful hearing the way that I approach this structured reflection when it comes to conflict? Are you a reflective kind of person? Do you like to build reflective practice into your day-to-day? And if so, do you write it down? Do you use a particular structure? I'd love to hear from you. If you've got a question, feedback about the podcast, you can shoot me an email, it's podcast at simongood.com. If this has been helpful for you, I'd be incredibly grateful if you would consider pressing like, and if you'd like more resources for dealing with conflict, consider hitting subscribe. But otherwise, thank you very much for listening and hopefully see you again in a future episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast. Bye for now.