What's up, big dog?

This is your host, Neal, and I am fired up that you joined us for today's episode.

What would you think if I told you that the fastest way to win a conflict is to stop caring about who wins?

Whoa, man, That's a knowledge bomb right there.

I'm going to tell you that what we're talking about today is conflict management through emotional detachment.

Guys, we've got a just an absolute amazing show today, and I'm excited about it, and I hope you are, too.

Get ready.

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Sit back, relax, get hyped, or do whatever you do.

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What's up?

What up, Champion?

This is your host, Neal Reyes, and.

I want to welcome you to the Executive Perspective.

For years, I struggled to answer the question, what do you do for a living?

Why?

Because most people who ask only expect to hear one thing.

I'm an executive with a deep level of understanding of business, operations, leadership, and technology.

I'm also the president and founder of a worldwide ministry and CEO of an executive coaching and consulting firm.

My number one passion is people, and I receive significant gratitude in life from sowing into others and encouraging them as they grow to achieve their fullest potential.

If you're a high performance individual like me, or you're simply ready to take your business leadership or inner potential to the next level, then strap in because I'm locked in and all in.

This is the Executive Perspective.

Hey, what's up, Champion?

This is your host, Neal, and I want to welcome you back to the Executive Perspective with Neal Reyes.

Man, we have a fireball for you today.

Today I'm going to be talking with you about a specific topic and it's the most effective way to handle conflict, but specifically within an office environment.

Now, I believe that this actually can help you in any area of life where you have conflict with people.

Another way of Looking at conflict resolution, but specifically within an office environment.

This is one of the ways that I've discovered within my career on how to win with people.

You know, sometimes you hear those different topics about how to win with people or winning with people.

I'm going to tell you that this is one of the ways that I have found is the most effective way to help resolve conflict, but also to be more effective within the business office or the business setting.

This is something super, super important.

It took me a while to understand this, but I will tell you that once I did, life has become much simpler and much easier.

The other thing I'm going to tell you is that, you know, you can never make another person like you.

You can never cause them to respect you.

You know, those are things that they're either going to do or they're not going to do.

Now, while there are certainly things you can do to cause people to dislike you, and there are certainly things you can do to cause them to disrespect you, or maybe not disrespect you, but to not have respect for you or lose respect for you, maybe that's a better way of saying it.

What you can do is you can control your own self.

And I will tell you that when you learn what I'm about to teach you today, there is freedom in this because it brings peace to you.

What would you think if I told you that the fastest way to resolve any conflict, to not care who wins, I know that that might sound different, but the fastest way to resolve any kind of conflict you have is to basically take the idea of caring who's right or who's wrong or who's winning out of that equation.

And when you do, you will find you become a very, very effectual, but at the same time efficient leader.

Because oftentimes the people who you have the most head butting with or the most conflict with, they're usually not your subordinates.

Well, sometimes they certainly can be.

We've been through there as leaders before, but it's usually your counterparts within the organization, people who feel that they have to compete with you.

You know, I will tell you that a while back, I say a while back, years ago, I had a conflict with someone who I respect very much.

But for whatever reason, we were just butting heads.

And it was the.

What helped me to understand how to resolve that situation was to help them to understand that I wasn't competing with them, I was trying to complement them.

But I had to take ownership over my own stuff first.

What was it that I was doing that was contributing to that situation.

Because real change always starts with us first.

In fact, I'm going to tell you, and the Lord showed me this years ago, decades ago, in marriage.

You know, my beautiful wife Katie and I, we have been married for 26 years.

And when we started off about three years into our marriage, we had some challenges.

And there were times where I'm like, lord, change your daughter.

And he.

And she's probably saying the same thing, too, on her side, right?

But he's like, yeah, all right.

I'm like, lord, will you please talk to Katie?

And he's like, I will.

Let me talk to you about this.

I'm like, fair enough, sir.

If you want to talk to me, I'll talk to you about whatever you want.

But Lord first, please go change Katie.

He's like, absolutely.

Okay, let's talk about this.

And what he showed me through that was that whenever you want to see change in another individual, change always has to start in here, inside you, in your heart.

It has to start with you first.

And when you do that and you focus on what he wants to do in you, then it gives him the freedom for him to work in others.

But sometimes the best way for him to work in others is by him working through you, by working in you first.

Man, I'm telling you, that's a truth bomb right there.

And if you listen to these things, they're not always easy to swallow.

But as you learn how to cultivate this type of character within your life, the type of effectual leader you're going to be is going to go up exponentially.

Now, what I want to talk to you about, and this is our core principle that I want to carry through today's teaching.

And this is what I tell my employees all the time.

I've done this for many years.

And one of the things that I always tell them is, I don't have a dog in that race.

Now, understand what I mean by that?

Because there are so many times where my employees will come to me, you know, if I've learned how to guard myself around conflict from other people.

And first of all, let's start with this.

I guess conflict does not have to be unhealthy.

The reason why conflict has such a negative connotation with it is because most people who have conflict don't know how to do it in love.

They don't know how to walk in love.

And so, as a result, conflict usually represents arguing, sometimes getting mad, sometimes raising voices or yelling, saying disrespectful or hurtful things, trying to undercut other people or trying to point out people's faults.

But that's not what true conflict is supposed to be.

The fact is, sometimes you have conflict, but conflict is merely something that presents itself within side of relationships and it's settled, usually through healthy communication.

But healthy communication and healthy understanding happens when you learn to walk in love.

In other words, like what I told you in the beginning, take the idea that someone has to win, or that you have to win, or that you're right, or that someone's right and someone's wrong.

Take that out of the equation.

And once you take out of the equation the thought or the mindset of someone has to win, conflict starts to be getting resolved very, very quickly.

And so one of the things that I've taught my employees is the phrase, I don't have a dog in that race.

But it has to be more than a phrase.

You know, if all you ever do is say it, then it's just topical, Meaning it's like a lotion you wipe on your hands or something.

It's just topical.

It's on the outside.

But if you have a really good lotion and you put it on your hands, well, what happens?

It absorbs into your skin.

And if it absorbs into your skin, then it brings nourishment to those deeper layers within the skin.

Sometimes there's ointments you can rub on, and they might have minerals or vitamins in them, and then they absorb into your system.

So when you say a phrase, I don't have a dog in that race.

That's great.

But it's topical until it gets on the inside of you.

But sometimes it takes you repeating that phrase over and over before it gets down on the inside of you, deep down inside you.

I say that when I'm teaching my faith teachings.

I minister all the time, you got to get God's principles deep down inside of you.

And this is a God principle without a doubt.

So I don't have a dog in that race.

What do I mean by that?

Well, oftentimes, even though I know how to guard myself against others with conflict, there are other people that I have to give my attention to, and those are my subordinates or my employees, my support structure.

And when those people come to me, but they're having conflict with others, man, that can ruin your day real quick if you let someone else's problems jump on you.

You know, sometimes you hear the phrase, not my circus, not my monkeys.

Well, you need to make sure that you don't allow them to give you some of their monkeys.

And so that being said, what you do is when they come, I've taught them, hey, whatever that situation is, if you're trying to put forth your opinion or you're trying to win, you don't need to do those things.

Take emotions out of the equation.

That's what I mean when I say I don't have a dog in that race.

When you learn how to take your emotions out of the conflict, all of a sudden you don't have a dog in that race anymore because it's your emotions that try to anchor you in that situation by saying, there must be a winner, someone must be right and someone must be wrong.

But when you take your emotions out of that equation, you're able to see things a whole lot clearer.

I used to work for this CEO and she is an absolute wonderful lady, but when it came to her email etiquette, it was awful.

If she's listening to this, please forgive me.

You know I love you, but she probably knows who she is if she's listening.

That being said, though, here's why I said her email etiquette was awful.

This woman loved to write emails with caps lock on.

Oh, man, we've all seen those emails or those texts, right?

What does it mean when someone writes with the caps locks on?

It infers that they are screaming at you or they are yelling at you.

Especially when they do some bold or some underlines, maybe some italics in there.

But the real kicker is if they do it with a bunch of exclamation points.

Holy cow.

Well, I used to have a CEO and she was an amazing woman, but unfortunately, sometimes she'd run hot and when she did, you better have a thick skin because you were going to learn a lot from her and she was a strong businesswoman.

I learned a lot from this lady.

But you better have a thick skin because you're going to get some flaming emails sometimes.

And the flaming.

Maybe I need to do a podcast on flaming emails.

But anyways, flaming emails, man.

Here's what the deal, though.

You were going to get those whether you actually deserved them or not.

That's just how it was.

Well, with this person, what the Lord showed me in that situation is take your dog out of the race.

Every time you read one of those emails, take your dog out of the race, I'm like, what in the world does that mean?

He's like, every time you read one of those emails, the reason why they sting, the reason why they hurt, the reason why they just have the way of being able to just disrupt your day and steal your peace or contend for your peace.

And because you're reading it with the emotion that she wrote it, and you're reading it through the lens of your emotions and how you're perceiving that.

But if you take your emotions out of that situation, and if you take her emotions out of that situation, if you disarm that email from her emotions, in other words, don't read it from the standpoint.

It's all caps.

Just read it, the text.

Don't worry about how it's written or the, you know, the bold fonts or ever.

Just read the text.

And the moment I did that, that was one of the largest breakthroughs I ever had in my life in that setting.

Boom.

Just like that, baby.

I had freedom because I was able to read her stuff, and I wouldn't react.

I just read what it was that she was trying to communicate, and then I would make sure to address whatever it was she needed done.

And if she felt that something wasn't done, and even though it already was, I didn't have to fire back with a sharp email.

It was just, yes, ma'am, here's where you go.

And you know what?

The moment I did that, man, I stopped getting a whole lot.

I stopped getting a whole lot of those messages.

But you know who was getting those messages?

My counterparts within the office.

See, I was an executive in the C suite at this point, but there were a lot of VPs in this office.

And these VPs, I remember I was sharing this with one person one day.

I shared this with numerous people.

Not just walking around saying, hey, guess what I learned?

But if I saw people, if I walked up and they were having a bad day, I'm like, hey, are you okay?

Everything all right?

You don't look right.

And if they tell me, oh, I got one of her emails, I said as I felt released to, I'd say, you know, let me share with you how I feel about that, and I'd help them and, man, change their world.

I remember I was talking to one of our VPs one day, and when I told him that you saw the lights come on on this guy's eyes.

And he told me, neil, that is brilliant.

And I said, well, thank you, brother.

No, no, no, Neil, you don't understand.

That is brilliant.

Oh, my gosh, that's brilliant.

And then he was a little colorful about it.

But all that being said, he said, that was brilliant because it helped them instantly.

And from that day, Forward.

Guess who was a little happier within their job?

I'm telling you that these things matter.

Take your emotions out of it.

What happens when you don't have a dog in the race or you don't have emotions and tied to that?

Well, one of the things is you begin to stay neutral within conflicts.

And if you begin to stay neutral within a conflict, all of a sudden you've created a safe place for others to voice their ideas and thoughts to you.

In other words, you created a safe space.

So when you stay neutral by taking your emotions out, one, it keeps you from reacting.

But if it keeps you from reacting, have you ever tried arguing with someone who doesn't argue back?

It's kind of hard to make an argument with someone who doesn't argue back.

I'm not saying be devoid of sympathy or empathy.

Not sympathy, empathy.

Sorry, I'm not saying to be devoid of empathy.

But when you take the emotion out, it's just easier because you create a safe space for others to communicate with you.

The other thing is, this doesn't mean you don't care.

I'm going to say this again.

This doesn't mean you don't care.

It simply means you're removing your ego from the equation.

Oh, guys, I'm telling you that was worthwhile you showing up today.

Just that alone.

And I've already dropped a bunch of truth bombs.

The email thing, Fire man, I'm telling you that will help you so, so much.

I know I gave people unlocks just off that and I'm happy to be able to share that with you.

Praise God.

That's all of him and none of me.

But when you remove your ego from the situation, things become a whole lot easier because you're not focused anymore on who's right and who's wrong.

When ego has left the room, life becomes a whole lot simpler and a whole lot more peaceful.

And also I will tell you that there's a certain level of humility within leadership or a humble heart when you recognize you don't have to win arguments anymore.

You just have to be able to communicate and help people be successful.

And if you do that, you'll find that that's a key to helping others help you.

Man, I'm telling you, we are dropping some bombs today.

Praise God.

Here's a leadership truth bomb for you.

You ready?

Here it comes.

When your identity isn't on the line, your wisdom can come to the table.

Oh, man, that is loaded right there.

When your identity isn't on the line, your wisdom has room to come to the table.

The next thing I want to talk to you about are emotional blocks.

Or let me rephrase this differently.

I want to talk to you about how emotion can block resolution.

Oh, man, this is a strong one.

Conflict escalates when people get defensive or feel personally attacked.

Remember the ego thing I talked to you about?

Well, understand that just because you may be learning now to take your ego out of the equation and take your emotions out of the equation, doesn't mean that those others are listening to this podcast and learning the same things.

But maybe you should share it with them.

But anyways, that being said, man, when.

When conflict escalates, that's when people get defensive.

It's when they feel personally attacked.

And if someone feels personally attacked, whether it be in their work or their performance or their ideas, or maybe they feel like you're stepping on their to.

You know, sometimes we work with people and it's the land grab, right?

What does that mean?

It means that they have the area of responsibility, but it feels like they always want to take over yours as well, or they always want to compete and vie.

And sometimes it's just a personality deficiency, or it's a character deficiency, or it's a leadership deficiency because they don't know how to lead without trying to control everyone else around them.

Man, there's some real deep things there.

Remember, I taught before on the Legos on the floor.

If you haven't, go back and check out our earlier podcast.

We got some great ones.

And I have an amazing one where I help people through my coaching with identifying the Legos on the floor, the blocks or shortcomings that are in their life that prevent them from doing more and being more from connecting with their best self.

Now, when you remove emotion, here's some of the things that benefit.

People feel less threatened.

And anyone who feels less threatened in a conversation becomes more effectual with being able to communicate.

Even if it's just because they slow down enough to listen, logic and empathy can surface.

You know, sometimes you hear the phrase of let's cooler heads prevail.

That's because when people are mad or upset, sometimes they don't have time to have reason come in.

Logic's not there, Empathy is not there.

And they'll say or do things that they don't mean, and then they'll stick with those just to be right, because they feel that even though they knew that said something, they know that's wrong.

They'll fight it out just to make sure that they're right and that's why you got to take emotions out of the equation.

The next thing you have is you can become the anchor, not the storm.

Oh, man, that is fire right there.

I'm going to say that again.

When you learn to take emotion out of the situation, you.

I'm talking about you, listener, you striver.

When you learn to take emotion out of the situation, you now can become the anchor instead of being the storm.

Man, that's powerful.

Powerful right there.

You don't want to be the storm inside of a conflict.

You want to be the anchor.

Consider this a boat that's out on the water, and, man, this water is getting choppy and that things getting ready to throw you all over the place, and it's getting ready to knock you off your heading.

If you're the anchor in that situation, you hold that boat true to its direction.

You hold it rooted and grounded.

You're making it secure, you're making it safe instead of getting tossed around by the waves.

I'm telling you, this is powerful.

This is a big deal.

You want to be the anchor, not the storm.

Now here's another leadership truth bomb for you.

When you remove the emotion, you also remove the ammunition.

Whoa.

Fire.

I'm having so much fun with today's episode.

When you remove the emotion, you also remove the ammunition.

Man, that speaks right there.

You know where I wish I would have learned this a long time ago was in my marriage, in the early days of my marriage.

Let me tell you why.

Because I love my wife so much and she is so dear to me.

I wish I would have learned this earlier on in marriage so that I could have spent more time loving her and caring for her rather than trying to prove who was right or wrong.

And when you learn to do this, it doesn't matter anymore who's right.

It doesn't even matter if the other person's wrong.

And you know they're wrong because you stop viewing it like that.

It's not like you're mature enough to say, well, I'm going to be mature enough not to react.

But we both know you're the one who's wrong.

No, that's not how that works.

It's just, you know what?

I love you too much to have any angst against you.

I forgive you.

Will you please forgive me?

That's the attitude you show up with.

And when you can do that to the people who you work with as well.

Because understand, many people, sometimes they see the people they work with more than they even see their own families.

Man, that speaks right There, right?

I mean, you would think that you want to see your family the most, but that's not always the case.

If someone works a lot of hours, maybe they're out of balance or they just have an over demanding job.

Well, there's seasons where you got to do that in, but that should be the exception, not the norm.

But if you're always having to do that, well, then there's a good chance the people you work with you spend more time with than you do your own family.

And I'm just going to tell you to have peace in your life.

You don't want to have angst with anybody.

Learn to let things go.

And if you do, you'll be a whole lot happier.

The next thing I want to do is I want to take you to Benefits of Staying Objective first.

The benefit of staying objective is that conflict becomes about issues and not identities.

Man, that's powerful right there.

Conflict becomes about issues, not identity.

The other thing is that solutions appear faster because ego left the room.

When your ego leaves the room after a while, you may train people through osmosis.

They'll just get it by being around you because you are who you hang with.

They'll realize that if your ego doesn't come to the room, they can leave their ego outside the room too.

And when you do that, solutions will begin to appear faster.

Your model, you model.

I'm sorry, you model emotional maturity when you do this.

When these are benefits of staying objective.

When you stay objective, you model emotional maturity and others will follow that energy or they'll follow that example.

This is what I refer to sometimes as EQ versus iq.

Man.

That's important right there.

EQ versus iq.

What is that?

EQ is emotional intelligence as how we measure emotional intelligence.

IQ is how we measure intellectual intelligence.

EQ versus iq.

When you model emotional maturity, others are going to be willing to follow that energy or follow that example.

It's EQ versus iq.

When leaders are willing to follow another leader, it's because usually you have a leader who doesn't just exhibit knowledge or wisdom or expertise around a situation.

It's because they also can keep their emotions in check.

They have strong business, emotional maturity, strong eq.

And I have a teaching a podcast I did a couple episodes ago where I talk about the difference of like the type of great leaders that are out there.

A great leader is someone that when they walk in the room, not just a room full of followers with follower mentality who are used to following someone.

But when you're a leader and you Walk in a room filled with other leaders when they're willing to follow you, you know you are a great leader.

And these are some of the things it takes to be a great leader.

Now, before we finish, I want to fire off what I consider are some practical tools and strategies.

So these are just some practical tools and strategies that I believe if you live by, they'll help you in this situation.

In other words, these are things for your tool belt.

These are things for your motion or for.

I'm sorry.

For your leadership tool belt.

All right.

It's practical tools and strategies for your leadership tool belt.

Use facts, not feelings, man.

That says something right there.

Use facts, not feelings.

When you learn to take your dog out of the equation.

What do I mean by that?

Well, your emotions, when you don't have a dog in that race, well, then all of a sudden all you're doing is presenting facts, not feelings.

In other words, you're not trying to shade the conversation a certain way.

You're not trying to steer towards the answer that you're really hoping to get.

You're just preventing the facts.

So the people who are involved with making decisions can make an educated and informed decision.

And your only goal in that situation should be to be a great steward to them and to help them have the right information so that your business makes the right decisions.

And sometimes those decisions will line up with your beliefs, and sometimes they won't.

But that's part of being a good steward, is supporting the greater good, even if you don't agree with it.

The next thing is asking.

Don't tell.

Here's a powerful phrase for you.

What do you think is the best solution?

You know, I will tell you that when I'm coaching, this is exactly how I coach.

As a consultant, people hire me to give them the answer, but as a coach, I'm actually there to help people connect with their own answer.

So ask, don't tell.

What do you think is the best solution?

Give them a place to speak.

Remember that safe space we talked about earlier?

The next thing is create common ground before presenting your perspective, man.

That's a powerful but simple one right there.

Create common ground before presenting your perspective.

In other words, don't just try to jump in and tell everybody the way it's got to be.

Create some common ground there and be willing to listen.

Because oftentimes the best ideas in the room may not even come from you.

They may come from others.

However, when you have effectual communication and you present your ideas, you may help spur in them other ideas.

That they can then present, and as a team, you're better for it.

And then also remember to take timeouts when necessary.

Meaning it's okay to take a break and step back from things.

It's okay to take a break and revisit things later on.

And remember, and this is the key thing I want you to remember, is you don't have a dog in this race.

Remember that you don't have a dog in this race.

Guys, if you focus on these things, I believe what you'll do is you'll have a more peaceful life, a more peaceful work environment, even if others don't follow, but simply because you're not taking the bait.

And if you do that, I believe you'll start to really stand out as a leader.

As a leader who thinks differently, who acts differently, who and knows differently.

Guys, before I let you go today, I want to do two things.

The first is I want to invite you to follow this podcast and at the same time, leave us a review, if you could.

If you follow and leave a review, that helps us reach more people.

Because our ratings go up and this podcast has taken off like wildfire.

But the more ratings and reviews we get and the more people you share it with, it goes up in the ratings.

And I know we have good information that a lot of people need to connect with us.

And I'm doing this podcast to give, not to get.

I want to get this information to people.

Help me do that, please.

The other thing is we want to invite you to go by our website@neal Reyes.com where you can find all of our teaching resources where you can connect with, which I believe will help you connect with your best and most successful life and version of yourself.

Guys, if I'm the only person you hear it from today, I want you to hear.

And please hear this clearly.

I believe in you, striver.

I believe in you.

And I believe in your promise and your ability that's inside of you to change this world and make a positive impact.

I believe in you guys.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.

Have a blessed day.