Connecting with Hard Conversations

Alex Cullimore  0:00 
This week on Uncover The Human we are addressing hard conversations. And I will have to say that is one of the easiest conversations I've ever had about hard conversations. So please join it. Welcome to Uncover the Human where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives,

Cristina Amigoni  0:15 
whether that's with our families, co workers, or even ourselves,

Alex Cullimore  0:18 
when we can be your authentic selves magic happens.

Cristina Amigoni  0:21  
This is Cristina Amigoni.

Alex Cullimore  0:23  
This is Alex Cullimore.

Both  0:24 
Let's dive in.

Guests  0:27 
Authenticity means freedom. Authenticity means going with your gut. Authenticity is bringing 100% of yourself, not just the parts you think people want to see. But all of you. Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself. It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep rooted and true. Authenticity is when you truly know yourself, you remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be. Its transparency. relatability. No Frills, no makeup, just being.

Alex Cullimore  1:04 
Alright, welcome back to Uncover The Human. We are here this week to talk about hard conversations.

Cristina Amigoni  1:10 
When we were trying to come up with a topic for today, Alex, you mentioned hard conversations. It's something that's been on everybody's mind. And it's been on our minds a few times. So what made you want to do an episode on it?

Alex Cullimore  1:22 
I was thinking about authenticity being the core of the whole podcast, and we wanted this to be about how to live authentically. But really, you can't continually live authentically, if you don't end up running into hard conversations, I mean, you're going to have certain opinions that may or may not match with the people that are around you, you may want to say something that doesn't necessarily jive with the vibe of the room, you may want to say something at work that maybe either some of the leaders of a project or something are not totally on board with. And so if you do this, you are going to end up having to have a hard conversation at some point. And if you want to live authentically, in personal relationships, with friendships, there's going to be some amount of disagreement. So if you have some amount of disagreement, you're probably going to end up having to have a hard conversation or you avoid it. And you start to separate more and more. Either you start to put on more of a mask, and you're not being authentic to yourself, or you start to feel a little frustration because somebody is not meeting you where you want to be.

Cristina Amigoni  2:18 
It's interesting, because as you were talking about all those examples, excellent examples of different situations or when hard conversations may or may not be needed. It made me realize, I wonder what the definition of a hard conversation is.

Alex Cullimore  2:33 
Oh, that's actually a good point. I'm gonna Google that right now. Let's see what hard conversation, if they even just have like a dictionary version of that

Cristina Amigoni  2:41 
Maybe there's an urban dictionary, or here's examples of hard conversations or something like that. I know, I kind of ran into those when I was looking at gaslighting. What's the definition of gaslighting, it was not just straight dictionary definitions, but also like, here's some examples. Here's, you know, the 10 ways somebody  is gaslighting you.

Alex Cullimore  3:00 
That's a good teaser for another topic, we're gonna talk about gaslighting a little bit too, which actually rolls into hard conversations a little bit because we can end up sometimes even inadvertently, doing a little gaslighting as we try and avoid hard topics. So just one quick definition that came up here: a difficult conversation, a difficult conversation is one in which at least two parties are engaged in which there is differing opinions, perceptions and needs or want,  feelings or emotions run strong, or see consequences or stakes for us are significant. So we start to feel the pressure of the extra stakes added to a conversation. I think those are all good summations of where we end up running into hard conversations.

Cristina Amigoni  3:40 
Yeah, definitely. It's a nice big umbrella. And I like the fact that it includes the emotional piece because I think that's where that's where a conversation goes from a normal conversation to a hard conversation is when emotions can now dictate how we react, what we say, what we don't say. And the emotion that come to my mind when I think about having hard conversations is fear, fear of disappointment, fear of failure, fear of being excluded if I say something. Ffear of not being good enough, shame, guilt, and anything that really relates to, I guess, my own humanity.

Alex Cullimore  4:23 
That's exactly where I go to too, when it comes down to your own personhood and your own humanity. Because when you feel like something more core to you is under threat, whether you may be risking something to tell somebody something you find difficult, or you find that somebody is fighting back on something that you hold as a core value, something that is important to you as a person. That's where it can very easily become very emotionally charged. And fear, I think definitely is the first one and it can become anger, which I think is mostly just a wrapper around fear. There's something we're afraid of when we're coming out with anger.

Cristina Amigoni  4:59 
Yes. Definitely, I just heard that in one Brene' Brown's latest podcast, and how, when you see anger out there and lashing out and hatred, the curiosity way to look at that is, what's the fear behind it? What's the fear that's causing that type of reaction?

Alex Cullimore  5:21 
And that's a great way, I think, a good framework, if you happen to find yourself in a hard conversation you weren't expecting, when somebody else comes up to you, and they say, "Hey, I have to tell you this hard thing", or they just you end up in a situation where emotion starts to come into it. That can be a great framework for being like "Well, where are they coming from? What is making them come out with this amount of anger?" Because if we don't take that step back, it becomes easy to fall back into? "Well, I have to respond with anger. Or, oh, this is not good. I'm going to react to this." And I say react because it becomes a very reactionary thing. You feel like you have to come back with anger, because you feel under attack.

Cristina Amigoni  5:58 
And usually, that's what happens, we attack back when we feel under attack, and when we're threatened. And so we have really two choices, we run or we fight.  The hard conversations could be the fighting that happens. They don't have to be as long as you remember, when you walk into it, that it's not really about the conversation itself. It's not about agreeing. It's not about always being polite, even though you shouldn't be disrespectful. But if there's a level of trust, you can have hard conversations, you can say, "hey, I messed up, and I apologize for that, or something's changed and we can no longer do this as we had planned" with a fear that there will be disappointment. But I found on the receiving end, at least of things, which I'm sure we touched in some of the other podcast,  I would rather be told the truth, no matter how hard it is, no matter how not negative because it's a judgment, but no matter how disappointing, it could be that something didn't work out as expected. And then that's it, you move on.  We can't control 99% of what happens around us, we cannot control and that can be part of the 99%. But when that the truth is avoided, the white lie is told, the gaslighting happens, where our own reality is put into question, because of the avoidance of saying whatever potentially disappointing truth it is, then that's very hard to recover from.

Alex Cullimore  7:37 
And I think we've all personally had the and I am definitely, I'm projecting, I'm definitely asking the world to agree with me on this one. But I am assuming a lot of people have had this experience, I can remember a lot of times growing up in grade school and middle school in high school, where you maybe have to break some bad news or maybe have to break up with somebody or something, and you feel yourself backing into the conversation instead of having it outright. So you start to maybe hint at it or you start to drive a little bit of a wedge and you're kind of like tiptoeing your way into this conversation. And sometimes the other person will pick up on what you're tiptoeing towards, and they either will see where you're going and decide to confront you on that or they will start to push back against it, because it's something they don't want to have happen. And now you start to build the stakes inadvertently for both of you, because you're not being straightforward with them. So they're starting to compensate for what they detect you might be drifting towards. And now you're in this gray area where emotions have gotten larger and larger. And it was all because you didn't take a larger stance up front. I've definitely felt in my own personal experience, walking backwards into a larger situation, because I was trying to avoid having that hard conversation up front.

Cristina Amigoni  8:49 
It can escalate pretty quickly, things will spiral out of control. And then everything is in jeopardy. That's the heartbreaking part of avoiding hard conversations of saying anything from, "hey, this is not working out anymore, or we are taking a different direction, and we don't see you being part of it, or whatever it is. Or like what happened with me with my son at one of his birthday parties last year, pre-COVID. When, I lost one of his friends gifts, which was an envelope with cash in it. And I accidentally threw it away. And so then I had to make a decision "Am I going to try and cover it up and somehow recreate something that I never even looked at to begin with? And pretend that it was the original? Or do I just tell my son, hey, I accidentally threw it in the trash. And I'm really sorry and will replace what was in it." But that's what happened.

Alex Cullimore  9:46 
And so when you told him, how did it go over?

Cristina Amigoni  9:48 
He didn't care. It was really interesting. My heart was racing, my throat was closing, I couldn't figure out the right words until I realized "what if I just tell the truth?" And then I don't have to figure out the right words. And so when I told him, he looked at me, he's like, okay, whatever.

Alex Cullimore  10:07 
I love those moments when you end up confronting some difficult reality or whatever, and then you've backed into it and you get this enormous wave of both relief and almost feeling ridiculous that you were that worried about walking into that conversation. And I think it's especially hard when it's when you have a close personal relationship with especially within a family, if it's your child, if it's your partner, if it's your parents, siblings, whatever it is, it can be especially difficult, because while these tend to be the people that maybe we feel they're not going to walk away from the relationship, they also are the people who know us best. And if they also know a lot of our history, and you can feel like "Oh, man, they know that I've either maybe made a mistake like this before."  Maybe you have a habit of accidentally misplacing things. And now you're worried because you've misplaced something like that birthday card, and they know it, they've been with you for long enough that they know this has happened before. And now you're fighting. Again, it kind of goes back to your personal humaneness and your personhood, because then it's like, "man, is this a comment on my character? Is this a comment on who I am as a person more than what this one action or one time would be?" And when you're around people who know enough about you, it can either go very well, because you've established a significant layer of trust, or it can be much harder, because they know too much about you at that point.

Cristina Amigoni  11:34 
I love the definition, or the distinction that you started bringing up, which is "Is this a definition of who I am? Or is this just a mistake I made?" Those are two very different things. And I think when there's truth and honesty, and that courage to have that hard conversation, then it can just be "this is just something that happened, this is just a mistake I made, not who I am".  What I find challenging, honestly, in relationships of any kind, business, friendships, or whatever is when things change, to the point where, you know, you go through whatever, building up of the relationship and there's trust, and you can make mistakes, and you can have the hard conversations and, you always land on your feet after you have them. Because there's that underlying importance that the relationship always comes first. And there's underlying trust and "I mess that up, and I mess up all the time. But I also don't mess up a lot of other times. And you know, you can always count on me and I am reliable." When that for some reason changes. And all of a sudden, it's one little mistake or medium mistake becomes the reason why everything ends. You were wondering what happened.  Wait, but what happened to all the times that I didn't mess up? What happened to all the times where I was supportive, where I bent over backwards, where I did things way above and beyond?  Those don't count?  Because of this one time, this one medium size thing?

Alex Cullimore  13:06 
I know exactly what you mean. And that becomes, again, it falls back to trust, because that starts to erode the trust from both sides, you may have messed up, or you may even be owning up to something. But when somebody comes back at you in a way that to you feels like they are ignoring your entire shared history. When that happens for me personally, then I don't have the trust going forward, that they're not going to make what would feel like a bigger deal than it needs to be out of something that comes up. And so the trust, even if I may have made a mistake, even if I may have been part of the inciting incident. I then have lost trust from my side, because I don't trust that they're going to allow for me to make mistakes in the future. And everything suddenly starts to feel higher stakes and the trust is eroded on both sides.

Cristina Amigoni  13:55 
Yeah, exactly. And I mean, to give a totally ridiculous example, but let's say like you forget to run the dishwasher one night. And that's it. While usually you hand wash the dishes and you clean everything and somehow at some point in the relationship, and I'm not saying this has happened to me, I was just trying to find a stupid, tiny little example. But at some point, why is it that the one time of forgetting the dishwasher now becomes the reason why the friendship is over, the relationship is over, especially when the comparison to other people doesn't even add up, meaning you know that Oh, but you're still working with,  or are friends with this person that consistently has not only not wash the dishes, but has dropped them and broken them and expected somebody else to pick them up. So that's okay to still be friends with them and still work with them and still keep a relationship, but because I forgot to run the dishwasher once then our relationship is over.

Alex Cullimore  15:00 
Yeah. And that's why it's so important to be explicit, because we're all gonna have a bad day where we overreact to something and we might be the dishwasher, you might be like, "you know what, this is just the straw that broke the camel's back," maybe you're upset about something else. Or maybe you've been mulling over thinking that the you know, cleanliness was an issue for a long time when this specific relationship with a roommate or a partner or whatever. And so that pushes you over the edge. And now  you overreact. So it becomes incredibly important to explicitly state after the fact even if you feel like, "Well, they've got to know that I had a bad day, it's much, much safer for the relationship to explicitly state. And I'm sorry, that was definitely an overreaction. I was having a bad day for these reasons." And  you don't want to obviously venture into the realm of making excuses. But you do want to explain, "I realized this was inconsistent with how our general patterns of behavior that we would have shared up to this point."

Cristina Amigoni  15:56 
I like that. It's the inconsistency and inconsistency is human, it's okay to be inconsistent. And it's okay to have been inconsistent in the past and have been forgiven for it. So again,  what really destroys the trust? And what makes it hard to now have hard conversations from now on? And now we're in this realm of "Oh, well, I can't be myself, because I have to figure out how to not disappoint this person, again, because who knows the next time maybe if I forget to put the spoon in the dishwasher, it's going to be the end of the world." And so when you get to that point, I don't know how you earn it back.

Alex Cullimore  16:33 
And that can be really destructive. in the workplace, we've definitely seen that happen on places where there's a project or there's multiple projects, and maybe there's a small, small error in the beginning. And it might irritate the project manager, but they're not going to say anything, because they don't want to disrupt the boat. Everybody was getting along, well, everybody's going forward. But they don't have the hard conversation. They don't say much, they just say okay, well, we're moving on. But those starts to pile up a little bit. And there may be somebody on the team manager or not, for whom that is slowly just taking away, adding a little bit of stress, adding a little bit of anger, adding just a little bit of frustration, they start to feel that and then at some point, and it tends to happen towards the end of projects, because that's when stress is so high that people are not able to immediately rein in their emotions. And they know there's a lot to get done. And they know there's a tight timeline. That's when it can blow up over something as simple as like, wait, you didn't send out the meeting invite or you didn't add the notes or you didn't respond to somebody within 24 hours, like we said we would or something like that, that then suddenly there's this eruption of over something that in any other circumstance would be tiny. And not only is that obviously very difficult, between the relationship of the two people who were involved the person who may have forgotten the meeting, and the person who's yelling about it. But if you're on a team, that team is watching exactly what's happening. And that is a very human thing to watch what's happening, feel either empathetic for what's going on, or just nervous for when that it might be their time on the chopping block, when they may come up and accidentally make a mistake. And if they see something as simple as a lost email or something that can be really destructive, because now they wonder what is the actual threshold before there's going to be a blow up? And that's when people start to spread rumors about? Well, it's because that person is the favorite or "Oh, well, this person, they just don't get along." And then the person who was yelled at over the email starts just, once again defending their own personhood and self worth. Now they're like, "Look, I messed up this one thing, I can't believe they'd yell at me about this."  And now they've got to go, they feel like they have to go to the rest of the company and tell everybody that this was just a simple mistake. "I can't believe they overreacted at me." And they're looking for justification that they didn't deserve that. And they're looking to save their own face. If you don't address that quickly, that can spiral out of control, not only for the two people involved, but the team.

Cristina Amigoni  19:01 
It's so amazing. All I kept thinking about what you were talking about is the ramification of the lack of psychological safety, not only for the people directly involved, but everybody watching it. And also the consequence to the relationship and the productivity after that just gets really destroyed. The lack of consistency. I mean, we were human. So no, we're not gonna treat everybody the same way. And I don't know that that's really the point, either. I think the point is more "How about we treat everybody with respect?" However, we give everybody the chance that they deserve, and everybody deserves a chance unless they've proven otherwise multiple times over. And so when you look at that, and you think, it almost goes back to legacy and what we were talking about last episode, as you're reacting to something, remember that it's never just this one instance right now, it's gonna stick, it's gonna stick in people's mind it's gonna stick in the future interactions.

Alex Cullimore  20:11 
And it's important to remember that I think from both sides, if you happen to mess up and have an overreaction, or you mess up is a strong word that sounds like a judgment. If you happen to just have that bad day where you did have a reaction that  you feel like is an overreaction, you want to go correct tha.  If you understand that, what you were just saying, that it's connected to all the other moments, then it gives you more impetus to go fix that and be very explicit and open about  "this was an incident that I'm not proud of, I want to change, I would love to be able to change that. But all I can do right now is just tell you that I realized that may be a total anomaly in how our general relationship has gone. And I want to state that that is an anomaly. I'm sorry, it happened".  Whatever you do if you understand that connective tissue, you're less likely to tell yourself, "oh, this is just a one off, I don't have to address it, they'll understand that this is just this clearly just a bad day, they'll get it, they'll get it." If you tell yourself that there's a chance you may be working with people who are generous, and maybe there's enough history that there doesn't have to be much said, but when there's enough history, generally it wouldn't cost you much to say anything anyway. So the real trick is saying it when there isn't that much history. And on the flip side, when you are the person who maybe was yelled at or there was some broken trust, or there was some hard conversation, it's okay to understand that it will also have a ripple effect in your life, that's not just going to be this one off incident, you're going to either, you'll be detecting patterns in the future that might feel similar, and you'll be nervous, or you will just that one instance is not going to be tied alone and boxed off in your mind, it will still impact you down the line. And that's okay to just be aware of it. We can start punishing ourselves when we're like, "oh, man, I was just yelled at one time and I fell to pieces like surely I can. Surely I'm better than that." But that's a self judgment that's creating a bad standard for yourself. But it's not really fair to assess it that way. It's never just this one off time. We exist on the full timeline of our lives.

Cristina Amigoni  22:20  
We do. And we have relationships on the full timeline of our lives. And it's not that hard to get passed the hard moments in a relationship when there is that transparency and openness when those hard conversations happen. And  they don't have to be hard arguments, they don't have to turn into big deals, a hard conversation is even being as honest as saying, "Okay, I'm really having a hard time right now, this is what's going on. And so I may or may not have taken it out on you or be taking it out on you." But I can at least give you a glimpse of what's happening in my world, knowing that it impacts how I show up. And that's a hard conversation, because one of the things that we've seen is this, especially in the workplace is this still, unfortunately, myth that we have to be super human, that we can be vulnerable, that we can be people that make mistakes and have bad days and get anxious and get fearful and, and sad and whatever else other emotions. Especially leaders you're supposed to be perfect. You're supposed to know exactly what's going to happen when it's gonna happen. And you have to have control over every single thing that happens out there.

Alex Cullimore  23:35 
That's a dangerous myth to buy into, on your own for yourself, you're gonna put yourself at a standard that you will never meet.

Cristina Amigoni  23:41 
I just read a quote. And I can't remember what it was that said, there's one thing that you can count on it is the fact that plans will change. The only plan that's really sure is that it will change. And so share what changed. It's interesting to me, because I think we all have a spidey sense. And a lot of us either ignore it, or pretend that it's not there or pretend that if we have it other people don't actually have it, so they can't really read through us. But it is so obvious when somebody is not being 100% honest.

Alex Cullimore  24:19  
I love so much about what you've just said. There's a great few things in there. First of all, I've been talking about hard conversations as if the hard conversations were what started this ripple effect. But you've brought up a good point that there are secondary hard conversations to have in explaining yourself and your context of your life. Secondarily, I like the fact that when you explain something like that, you're leading by example of explaining that it's okay to have the context of your life. You're not doing it so that you can force forgiveness from somebody saying, "well, I had a bad day so you guys can understand that". It's coming in and be like, "Look, you know, I'm dealing with x XY and Z at home." Maybe it's a divorce or something,  maybe it's just you had, you skipped lunch that day, whatever it is, if you express that, it then creates this feeling that it's okay to have those moments and you don't have to then feel like you have to be the super human. And the last thing that I really liked from what you just said was the spidey senses thing. And if you can explicitly state that, or you can follow up with somebody and say, hey, look, you know, it just seems like maybe you're a little bit off today. Or, you know, I feel like something's a little different. Is there anything you want to talk about? You can dispel that myth that you were just talking about where we feel like, we might be the only ones with this spidey sense. I think that's very much a common feeling like, oh, something feels right. But everybody seems to be acting normally. So it must maybe it's just me that noticed it. It's great to have somebody who will call that out and have and just say, hey, this seems weird. Why do we all have that moment? Just now? Suddenly, everybody you'll oftentimes see, suddenly, four or five people? That seems totally fine a second ago, come out with "Oh, yeah, that does seem weird. Can we address that?"  Because they were just waiting for somebody to answer that question. Like, like a bunch of students in class, like one person asks the question that so many people wanted to ask, and they were all acting fine. They all would have just gone on without it. But the second someone asks it, it can calm the class, it can open up the idea, because finally somebody is like, oh, okay, yeah, someone else is having that thought.

Cristina Amigoni  26:23 
That reminds me so much of so many business situations where, you know, we're trying to do something and we're asking for people's opinions, or somebody is asking for the team's opinion. And then when you ask them "Okay, so what does the team need, say,you got some great experts in the team? What they think "well, they don't have an opinion."  Sure, they don't. Nobody ever has an opinion. My guess is that it's not a safe space. That's why they're not expressing their opinion. So how about we try it again. And I can create that safe space by being the guinea pig in the room that asks the, you know, quote, unquote, stupid question, or that challenges something and says, like, Yeah, I don't know that. I agree with that, or I don't know, did I understand that correctly? I see it in a different way. And that opens up the possibility for then everybody else to feel safe? Having an opinion.

Alex Cullimore  27:25 
And I think you just touched on a great way of approaching a conversation is having words like that in your back pocket where "Well, I'm not sure I understand. Maybe there's something I'm missing here. The way I think about it is x, this doesn't feel right to me, because have we considered this". Those are all fairly non-threatening ways to bring things up. And I think that goes back to the idea that hard conversations and emotions can pop up when we feel like there is that threat, or there's that feeling that somebody is attacking you personally. So if somebody has pitched some idea on a project, and you see the hole in it, and you say, well, that's a stupid idea. They're going to suddenly be really defending their whole worth. They're like, "Oh, you calling me stupid? Did I come up with something stupid is everybody in the room think that I'm stupid." Now they have to go defend against basically their own reputation, rather than you saying, like, "Well, the thing that gets me about this, or the old business buzzword, the thing that gives me heartburn about that is that x, y and z,". When you open it up without that threatening language, it's a great way to start that can oftentimes defuse the situation and stop it from becoming something where the emotion starts to override what you were trying to bring up in the first place.

Cristina Amigoni  28:37 
So very true.  It becomes an emotional moment when emotions take over, when you can't have the freedom. When all of a sudden you have to put on the mask and figure out "Okay, how do I say this without looking like I'm the only one in the room that doesn't get it?"  And then deal with the possible consequences of not having earned the trust that I was supposed to have earned by having been invited in the room to begin with.

Alex Cullimore  29:06 
And I feel like there's many conversations and it becomes difficult if there's something you maybe missed in the conversation early on. But if you have to correct many times, it starts to feel like it can be hard to keep pushing on that you're like "no, but really, that doesn't make sense, because, you know, the timeline is going to become an issue. No, the timeline is really going to become an issue. No, I really think the timeline is going to become an issue." If people keep either repeating their point of view, which might be, oh, we have to do it this way. And you say, that's going to be a timeline issue like, well, we have to do it. Well, it's a timeline. And if you go back and forth, and nobody has addressed the other one's concern, and nobody has said "Well, we have to do it this way. So let's talk about what that will change on the timeline, or, oh, I see or why do you think that's a timeline issue? What will that impact?"  You have to reach out and address the other person's point of view a little bit. Otherwise when you do those multiple steps of going back and forth, you start to get farther and farther away. And that's when emotion starts to take over too, because you're no longer thinking through things rationally, you're like "Is anybody hearing me? Am I saying the same thing? Am I crazy to think that this is going to be a problem? Because nobody seems to even address what I've brought up?"  And that can be very isolating and very immediately fear inducing.

Cristina Amigoni  30:23 
Yes, the "Am I crazy?"  is something that I have to battle with my own hard conversations with myself all the time. Especially when you're in a position where you see that we're gonna hit the iceberg way before anybody else sees it. I don't know what it is about it. I think it's just looking at different perspectives. I think it's looking beyond what's happening right now and the focus on today, because we have to think about today. And having that kind of foresight of " well, if today goes this way, what's happening tomorrow?" It's what I'm more concerned about, because we have to be prepared for tomorrow. And I'm sure that all sorts of thought leaders will cringe at the fact that I'm not living in the now by doing that.  To me, it's really that there's an iceberg, there's an iceberg, you're gonna hit the iceberg, right? And you hit the iceberg. And now you have to deal with the consequences, and all of that, and it's really, after a while, you just really just don't want to keep pointing that out.  If I'm gonna be ignored every single time I tell you you're gonna hit an iceberg, and you're not gonna believe me, I'm just gonna get on another boat.

Alex Cullimore  31:37 
Well, it also becomes something where you can start to feel pushed towards the side, or they can actively start to push you towards the side, because they're like "Okay, well, yeah, it's like Chicken Little saying the sky is falling. Well, this person always seems to have a bad idea of this, we're just going to dismiss the fact that they even have a concern."  And I like that you brought up the living in the now idea, because that's an interesting dichotomy. You want to try and live towards the now maybe, but I would argue that some of that is living in the now if right now is your one chance to avoid the iceberg. Maybe it's a good thing to both look ahead far enough and say right now is when we need to grab that steering wheel.

Cristina Amigoni  32:16 
Yes, exactly. I like that. It's like right now. It's, we have to realize that that's where we're headed.

Alex Cullimore  32:26 
That's actually what the entire climate debate feels like, we watch these crazy things happen. More and more hurricanes every year, we've got fires burning up the entire West Coast, Australia was on fire for half a year or something, most of Australia burned for a while. We have all of these disasters, we have lots of science pointing towards what the issue is, but because we're not really seeing, it's not like all the impacts happens at once, we keep pushing it off. And then the people who are shouting, saying this is bad. We have to do something about this. I think you're seeing that play out on the national scale. People like: "okay, well, those are just fear mongers. We don't have to listen to them.  They're upset about everything."  And, and then it becomes this really challenging hill to climb back up, where you're like "no, but this is reality." And somebody's saying that's not that's not reality. We don't have to listen to them. And there's a national hard conversation.

Cristina Amigoni  33:19 
Yes, that a lot of people avoid. Yeah, now it's like "well, let's not talk about it." I find it very interesting, especially coming from a country that has hard conversations all the time. And very openly, and it's kind a part of how you connect with people, is I'm still adjusting to the,  I'm not adjusting to not having hard conversations, because I don't really believe in that. But to the fact that the majority of the people that I find in the US avoid hard conversations. And so I have to be sensitive to that. Because I will talk about anything that needs to be talked about, with the underlying expectation that if the relationship is strong enough, we can disagree. And we're still going to put the relationship first. But when you get burned by that, then you start wondering, "what can I talk about? Why do I have to pick and choose the things that I talk about?"  Because all of a sudden, whatever disagreement of the moment becomes more important than the relationship.

Alex Cullimore  34:24 
I think that's a great way of thinking about hard conversations. In general, it comes down to the relationship. Like when you put that relationship first. And when there's trust on both sides that the relationship is first, the facts start to feel like second place and not because they're not important, but you can hear each other out. You can know there are different ideas, you can have that disagreement, but  as long as you have that shared relationship, as long as you both are invested in that and you have enough trust built up, that you're both invested in that, it's much easier to have that disagreement, because you're no longer seeing it as a disagreement between two people. It's a disagreement of ideas, and you don't have that personal attack and you're not, again, defending your own human and personhood.

Cristina Amigoni  35:08 
It's a disagreement of your perspective, which is based on our experiences or knowledge or mood at the moment, whether we slept well last night or not, or drank too much wine the night before, or we're having financial problems at the moment, whatever it is. The way we show up at the moment is, and the way we see the world at the moment is about what's going on with us. It's not the way the world actually is, or whatever the topic of the moment actually is. And so if you can separate that from the actual relationship, and really go back to "wait, but this is a person that if I were to break down, at night, in the rain on the highway, I could call and they would sprint at helping me" , that's really where the relationship comes in. You know, this is a person that has dropped whatever they were doing at the moment, when I had a moment where I needed help. If you can hold on to that, then the disagreement is just a disagreement, the disagreement becomes way more than that, when there was hidden information behind it, when it was avoided.

Alex Cullimore  36:15 
When you're trying to almost like score points on the other person's personality, like if you're trying to attack something that feels much more core to them, or you aren't respecting that relationship.

Cristina Amigoni  36:25 
Yes, exactly. One of the great principles from coaching that I like to always think about, especially for myself, when I'm having a hard time, is that if a button is being pushed is because there's a button there to begin with. And so when one of our own buttons gets pushed, if we stop and realize that we reacted, or we're feeling in a certain way, and we're having strong emotions, usually draining and negative emotions about something, it's not just because of what has happened, but it's because something was underlying with the within us anyway. Because somebody else could have said the same thing done the same thing, and we probably would have not even noticed.

Alex Cullimore  37:06  
That's a great point, both on the individual relationship, which again, falls down to the trust. But also, I love that idea of there being a button out there to push because the hard conversations, which boil sdown to when you're threatening self worth, or you feel threatened of self worth, you have to defend that. And I don't mean defend that, like in an argument, I think one of the best ways to approach that hard conversations and to be willing to have more of them, and to be willing to accept more of them. If people are having hard conversations with you comes down to feeling that inherent self worth, which is "do you have the button or not?" If I remember early in my career, somebody would be like, "Oh, this isn't done right." And I would spiral, I would start to think, "oh, are they saying I am not a good developer? Are they saying I can't do this? Are they saying is I shouldn't be a consultant? I shouldn't be on this project? I shouldn't be on any project I shouldn't be, you know, in the workplace at all?" It starts to build up immediately into this whole diatribe on your own personal self worth and what you are bringing to the table and the fact that maybe you don't have, maybe you don't have anything you're bringing to the table. And the other offense to that, thank you to there's a button out there that was pushed, the defense to that would be understanding whether you have that button and whether you're willing to have that button pushed if you have inherent self worth and you understand "well, I can do this,  maybe I made a mistake now".  Then, even if somebody happens to attack you even if somebody happens to go the wrong way on this dive right into shame dive right at a personal attack. If you have a foundation you can sit back on, you are less likely to go have to respond in an emotional way. And I think of that in terms of things like confidence, too. There's arrogance where you're just trying to push that you know things and there's confidence where you know that you know things and you don't feel like you have to push that on everybody else because it's just inherent and you feel it.

Cristina Amigoni  39:02 
Very good distinction I like the talking about like the difference between arrogance and confidence because I think that's also when the whole tangled web of avoiding hard conversations and shame comes into play. When the arrogance comes out when we have something that we feel is a gap and so we have to hide it. And so that's when we start hiding information, that's when we start pushing buttons that we know exist in other people.  Gaslighting, I find that if you know that somebody has a button and you push it in order to defend yourself or to I guess not end up being the one that has to feel the disappointment or the failure or whatever it's going on, the shame,  then that's gaslighting, you're twisting reality, you're making somebody believe that the hot tea is not hot.

Alex Cullimore  39:57 
You're directly attacking their version of reality and their feelings when you say "your feelings aren't real on this." That's why in so many conversations, they coach you to say things like, "I feel" statements. Well, I feel that this was harsh, because generally it's very hard to attack and "I feel" statements, because that was my reaction. I felt this way that and it's not to say that it's right or doesn't come with further conversation. It's just then you are coming from yourself. You're not saying, well, you made me feel bad. You're saying, "well, I felt attacked in this moment." And gaslighting then starts to erode that the truth of the "I feel" statement, when you start to feel that you don't deserve to feel that way. Or there's no way you felt that way. Because because X, Y and Z gaslighting argument, right? There's that "you don't, you don't feel that way, because I've seen you take personal insults differently in the past"  Or "oh, you don't feel that way, because I tie two things in my mind together that you're just not that kind of person." And now you're starting to try and to degrade the actual personal emotion that's coming out of that.

Cristina Amigoni  41:09 
And what's even worse is when it's not even that direct, when it's not really attacking, whether you have the right to feel that way. But it's more about "oh, well, you feel that way, because you are incapable of doing this, you are"

Alex Cullimore  41:24 
There's a shame attack right there.

Cristina Amigoni  41:26 
Exactly. When it becomes about who you are, and not the struggle at the moment, or what you did at the moment, when it really becomes a more like you whatever statement, as opposed to the circumstances in this situation came out in a different way, or happened in different way.

Alex Cullimore  41:48 
It's such an interesting change when you go between cultures too. And you brought that up for a little bit a little while ago, you're talking about the differences growing up in a place where hard conversations were more common, and having to get used to the fact that we don't address things nearly so directly in America. In Italy,  they come at it a little more. Right to your face. And in America, where we have this weird reputation for being out there for being loud, maybe brash, maybe a little arrogant, I don't know. But then you get to meet day to day Americans, you have day to day conversations. And we tend to be very reserved. And I remember there's a David Sedaris book, and he's just very funny in general, but he had one where he's talking about learning different languages. And he took these audio tapes that were doing and they had the same sample conversation on his Japanese tapes, as on his German tapes, and the Japanese one, it was this very polite conversation of like, "Hey, how are you? I'm doing well, etcetera, etcetera".  And the German one, by contrast was "Hi, how are you? And the person responds, "oh, not so good". He talked about sharing that information with some of the German people he met. And they were like, "yeah, in Germany, we really can't get it through our heads, that you're just asking to be polite. We assume you're asking because you want to know." And that's definitely the exact opposite. Generally, in America, people say, Hey, how are you doing? And you say, I'm doing fine. Because you know, it's not really an invitation for a deep conversation generally. And that the convention says, "Don't answer that one openly, and honestly just say, Oh, yeah, I'm good. Oh, I feel a little bit tired today, but ready to get to work."

Cristina Amigoni  43:32 
We definitely tend to hide that. I try to find ways to, and I don't even know why honestly, I don't know why I'm not completely vulnerable to begin with. I just realized, but I tried to give people hints. And I think the people that know me well enough, that if I am doing well, I will actually say "yeah, everything is fine. I'm doing well." But if they asked me,  "how are you doing? And I say, okay",  the phone rings within two seconds. Okay, it's my SOS.

Alex Cullimore  44:03 
That's kind of funny is that that is the result of being very repressed and very quiet about it is that when somebody says anything that is not, I'm fine. It's like it is definitely like nuclear alarm, which things are not good. If you're willing to say anything, but things are fine. If things are not good.

Cristina Amigoni  44:26 
Yes, exactly. You know, and it's interesting. I wonder what drives me to not just come out and say, I'm struggling? Why do I have to passively aggressively hope that people will know me well enough to then investigate?

Alex Cullimore  44:40 
That's actually a good point, the hope that somebody knows you well enough. I think that might be some of it. And I'm speaking from personal experience here and doing definitely some projection on it. But sometimes there is that hope that somebody knows you well enough. And it's not really fair to put that on somebody because somebody might totally know you well enough, and they don't. They're just not in that mindspace today, they're not paying very close attention to the conversation that you happen to be having over text or something. Maybe they're distracted with something happening in their own lives. And it can become an unfair standard to try and put that on somebody. But I think it's pretty natural, at least for me. And it sounds like for you to want to have somebody just almost implicitly understand that you want to feel understood and seen at a level to where you don't necessarily have to be explicit about it.

Cristina Amigoni  45:26 
I definitely do. I mean, I somehow,  if I don't have a whole group of people that can read my mind or my very loud, nuclear warning of SOS? Then I definitely go immediately into "oh, wow, I really don't exist. People don't care."  When it really is about me not communicating, "Hey, I'm really struggling right now."

Alex Cullimore  45:53 
I'm really glad you brought up the existence portion, because that definitely feels accurate. In my personal experience, it feels like "Oh,  they don't know me, because who I am is not really on display. It's not really there." At some level, even if you know, it might be there internally for you, you feel like it is clearly so hidden from the world, that you, it does feel like you don't exist. At that point, you're like, "well, I've hidden away, whatever authentic piece of myself would have been expressed in this moment. So well, that, for all intents and purposes, from an outside perspective, it's not even there."

Cristina Amigoni  46:33 
Then you have this battle within yourself where you're like "it's gonna be a hard conversation to admit what's going on." Because it's not easy. It's not easy to be vulnerable. I mean, part of the definition of hard is also about ourselves, not just about disagreeing with somebody else. But it's about admitting "Yay, I am struggling right now, because of this, this and this. Again, I'm human, I am not perfect, you may be disappointed, you may not want to hear what's going on with me at the moment, you may think less of me, you may decide that this is not the type of friend I actually want to be around because she's always struggling."  And so there's all sorts of things that could be happening, which is why you hide behind the "Okay, or the fine or the good", hoping that somebody will know you enough and love you enough to reach out and also, at the same time, hoping that you're hiding well enough to not become this imperfect being. 

Alex Cullimore  47:32  
That's the definition of vulnerability,  the trying to hide that you might not be perfect, which is this weird thing that we all tell each other and often, I can immediately think of friends who would tell me like, "yeah, of course, you had a bad day." And we understand that we can be seen that way. And yet, most of the time, it feels like you have to defend that and be like, this perfect person that doesn't have those flaws.

Cristina Amigoni  47:57 
And connection happens when we show our imperfections. That's the contradiction that drives me crazy. Because I know I do it myself. I know even if we go back to when I hiked up the 14er, or even my friend Shante they told me "I had no idea how much you were struggling until we were actually down from the summit. You had a perfect poker face, you looked like you were just fine." And so it's interesting to me, because the connection that happened there wasn't my hiding my struggle, being we on the summit with fear of heights, the connection that actually happened at a deeper level between me and my friend was when she realized the struggle I was in because I finally showed it. That's when she was like, "Oh my god, you're an amazing person. And I can't believe what you just did". And of course, you know, we're now closer friends.

Alex Cullimore  48:51 
The vulnerability has been then rewarded. And now, again, you've opened up the door to be able to have those conversations a little easier the next time.

Cristina Amigoni  49:00 
And that trust you now have you had trust to begin with? And now you have a trust that it's way deeper.

Alex Cullimore  49:07 
Because now you can trust now you bond.

Cristina Amigoni  49:10 
You have a trust, and now you have a bond. And again, like the difficulty comes when you have that trust, and then somehow and you're okay with being imperfect and you're accepted as imperfect? And then you're not, one day you're not anymore.

Alex Cullimore  49:29 
There's such a both external and internal fear of disappointment in that. Are you going to disappoint the other person? Because you have now shown yourself to be imperfect? And are you going to disappoint yourself? Do you feel like this was something that, which is of course the word perfect alone is a red herring, is a red flag, like, if you've used the word perfect, you've set a standard that will never be met. So you're going to create disappointment by having that label out there. But you can bet if you try and hold yourself to it, then you can start to disappoint yourself. Then you start to not trust your own reactions, which can be damaging too, just as much as you're afraid of disappointing someone else.

Cristina Amigoni  50:09  
And then it goes back to now you are definitely going to avoid hard conversations.

Alex Cullimore  50:13 
So the interesting thing is thinking about strategies around hard conversations, when to have them when not to have them. When it comes to things like romantic relationships, obviously, a lot of the advice is not to let things build up, because if you think about exactly in the terms that we've been talking about, up to this point, if you let it build up in your head, the person has no idea, the person across the table has no idea you've got this welling pool of anger. And maybe it's about the dishwasher, maybe it's about whatever, but the person has no idea. And so out of nowhere, one day, the straw will break the camel's back. And that entire built up pent up anger will wash over the conversation and the person is going to be blindsided, they're probably going to react very emotionally because they had no idea this was coming, there was no prep for it. And that's, obviously, one great framework for when to have difficult conversations. But the other thing is, if you have let something build up, understand your own reactions to it, and then try and understand what that might look like to somebody else. Are they just they totally oblivious that you have left your nightstand a mess for a long time. And you had no idea that was an issue and the person is like, "I'd really prefer that you clean that up." If that has been eating away at you, then you have to realize it, they may not even notice it. They may be totally oblivious to it even though in your mind, you're probably writing some narrative of they're they're doing this, personally, they know that this is this is not okay, because you know who would who would be okay with this? And so they should know.

Cristina Amigoni  51:49  
They should know!

Alex Cullimore  51:50  
Yeah, well, they should know this, or anybody would have that reaction. It's not a fair assumption. And so when you enter that conversation, it's good to know how much of it you've built up in your head to the point where they would have no idea this is about to be a thing. And I catch myself doing this all the time where I get upset about something. And I really have to dial this one back. Yes I'm upset about this. And yes, I can tie this to incidents in the past maybe or I can tie this to a pattern of behavior that I've created in my head. Or maybe it exists, but there's no reason that someone else would notice it. Then you have to go diffuse it yourself, so you can have the conversation,  because it's not about keeping it all to yourself, it's just about having the openness to be like, "hey, well, this is actually kind of upsetting to me, it would be great if we could change XYZ or Hey, this, do you notice you do this? And could we do something differently?" That's a very different conversation to have. And you never empty the dishwasher. And I'm now filing for divorce? I don't know, whatever it is.

Cristina Amigoni  52:54 
Yes, exactly. Some of the key words to listen for when knowing that things have gone too far without having the hard conversations are, well the whole notion of people should know, I know it's a big thing in a lot of business environments, where there is this attitude of "well, they should know, I shouldn't have to explain it to them. They should know better, or we've told them three times they should know."  Nobody should actually know anything. And unless you were there in your head, and have had your experiences and have been in the conversations you have been, they should definitely never know what you know. And so that's one thing. Let's eliminate the word should from how we relate to people what we expect from them. And the other one is, you know, it's the whole extremes. It's the "you never empty the dishwasher, or you you know, you always show up late to meetings, or you're incapable of doing this", that's an extreme when it's really just one episode or one incident or one item.

Alex Cullimore  54:03 
I really like that distinction that happens all the time. Because if somebody comes at you with "you always do this, your first reaction isn't? Oh, is that a pattern of behavior I happen to have sometimes? No, it's a well let me think as quickly as I possibly can about a time in which that was not true. So that you cannot throw always on me,  you cannot throw never on me." There's this one example, now that the entire conversation is definitely derailed because you're now defending against what has been thrown at you as a total absolute. And you're like, "well, it's not absolute",  that probably wasn't the point they were even trying to make when they brought it up.

Cristina Amigoni  54:40 
We all become very good lawyers. As soon as absolutes are in the room. "Let me just prove you wrong, you are." So then it never becomes about whatever you were talking about, like "yes, I was probably incapable of understanding what I was supposed to do in this situation. I will take that over "I'm just capable of doing this" full stop.

Alex Cullimore  55:03 
And well, you always say things defensively or something, "well, no, here's three times I didn't do that, soI have now to defuse the point, so the argument is over."  No, no, there's probably a basis in there, it needs to be addressed. But if you come out with that absolute, that's a great point. So there's two, two good points that we've come out with, on that, both the non-threatening language things like "that just doesn't seem right to me, or the thing that I'm stuck on is this".  When you when you center it on yourself, and you don't throw it as an accusation, there's more chance for that to be open, and not coming up with 100% absolutes. This always happens, this never happens. And then, of course, the dangerous words like should,  they should know this, or I shouldn't have to say this. When you're saying should, it's like when you say just in a business conversation? Well, it's just this or honestly, that's it really any conversation? Well it's just about that. It's not, it's it's tied to a spiderweb of other things. Always.

Cristina Amigoni  56:04 
Yeah, we definitely need to have a poster of not allowed words. Just, I've heard that quite a bit.  It's just that, they just need to know this. And "Okay, what about this? Oh, well, that too. And what about what happens in this case? And well, that too, so the first just was really just because within five minutes it has already tripled.

Alex Cullimore  56:24 
Youn can really imagine just pulling that just this one string "well, okay, did you see how the whole web moved? Did you see everything was tied to that?"

Cristina Amigoni  56:34 
It's very good point. So  the hard conversations are really back to, we have to have them. It's really for the sake of the relationship. If we can disagree and know that the relationship is not going to die because of the disagreement, we establish connections that I find make life meaningful, honestly.  And if we can't count on that, then are we really connecting? I don't think we are like, I can't feel that I can connect with somebody that I cannot disagree with. And I'm going to be punished for the disagreement.

Alex Cullimore  57:10 
No, I mean, there's no real connection to be had there, there's only putting up the mask of what you think will be acceptable to the other person. At which point, you're wearing a mask, you've lost the game as far as being yourself and feeling comfortable.

Cristina Amigoni  57:24 
Then there's the avoiding hard conversations, because we are feeling guilty or ashamed, or we hid something in the past. And now if it comes up, it's going to be much bigger, or because we've done something that we're not proud of, and we know it may impact the other person, we avoid that conversation because of that. And again, it's kind of back to, before we decide to hide, before we decide to avoid, let's evaluate the relationship, let's look at the relationship and be like "is this a person that I want to keep in my life for more than the next 30 seconds when I'm going to avoid showing, you know, being transparent, because if it is, then let's trust that I can risk Let's trust that I can show my humanity, say what I have done, and really hope that there's a level of trust between the two of us where the relationship is way more important.

Alex Cullimore  58:23 
And that requires absolute psychological safety, you have to have the safety between the two, and you have to be willing to take the leap sometimes. And you have to be willing to reward that leap. If you notice somebody taking that with you, you have to be willing to be like, "okay, I even if I fundamentally disagree on that point." And it can be so hard to do that in action in the moment, because if there's something that somebody happens to toss out that you feel like you fundamentally disagree with, it can be so hard to take that setback and be like, "right, but this is more about the relationship, and I want that relationship to be good. And I see that this person is being vulnerable with me. And I should not punish that."  Because ultimately, the only way we move forward is if there is that allowed vulnerability.

Cristina Amigoni  59:10 
It would be a very sad life if we couldn't connect with people to that level. I mean, when I think about the connection between trust and hard conversations, they're intertwined. It isn't one before the other, it's one with the other, that causes the other, you know, that causes both of them to be able to continue. So there has to be a level of trust to be able to have conversations. And the more  hard conversations you have, the bigger the trust is, the more that trust gets built.

Alex Cullimore  59:39  
And that's why I think it falls back to trust and trust falls back to that personal relationship. It's kind of this self perpetuating cycle. You do have to have that shared, understanding of what the real goal here. The goal may be to convince somebody that "I believe this, and I think you should believe this too." But if you aren't honoring the relationship, you're going to lose both. You're gonna lose the relationship and you're gonna lose the argument. because somebody's going to decide you're attacking them personally, and write the whole thing up.

Cristina Amigoni  1:00:04 
Well, and are you really winning the argument if you lost the relationship?

Alex Cullimore  1:00:09 
Right? Then I would argue, no, it's not that you have to defend every relationship. Sure, there are toxic people, you might have to let go. But if you have a relationship that is important to you, you're going to have to put that one first, if you want to have a disagreement. And so how do we practice trust? Really? And how do we and I think, for me, I try to, and obviously, all of us. So much of what we discuss, so much of this is just practice. And something you just try to make front of mind when you're making choices in life so much of it as a practice.  You try and show up with every day.  Yo try to lead with trust, I want to lead with trust, I want to be the person that's both open enough to have that trust and to lead from that place to say, you know, "I don't think this person is going to have an adverse reaction here. So I'm going to lead with this one, and then see where it goes." If you take that first leap, you then get the chance to see what the reaction is going to be and decide for yourself. "Okay, where do we move from here?" But at least you know, you stepped out, and you did what you believe was the opening volley in an open relationship and something that is going to be open to conversation, and just a larger, more vulnerable. relationship.

Cristina Amigoni  1:01:31  
Yeah, lead with trust, I really like that. And it's about values, when we come back to values and we realize, okay "I have the same values as this person. And so this is a relationship that I want to maintain, but within my umbrella of values, I value the relationship above any type of disagreement." So as long as the relationship is really the most important piece, then I can keep risking, I can keep practicing vulnerability and trusting that when I jump, I won't be pushed down to smack my face on the ground. But I will land on my feet and I'll be caught if I need to be caught.

Alex Cullimore  1:02:23 
And that's one of the most important shared values to have, if you share the value that the relationship is important. I don't know what you couldn't disagree on. And when we start to think of values, I think that's where we fall over. In political conversations, we assume XYZ person has different values. And because of that, they are not this, they are not a person that's either worth talking to you. Or maybe they think they're entirely stupid, or they think that there's absolutely no worth to any of their experience, because how could they possibly think these things.  I think the second we attribute, the values we hold politically, to values we have as people, and some of those may be closely tied, some of them may feel like they're closely tied. If we hold on to those, we're setting ourselves up for a very difficult relationship. Because there we're saying your values are these things that I have ascribed to you. And that person might not even feel like that is core to their being, at which point now they're going to feel totally bewildered if you come at them with some personal attack, or what they consider personal.

Cristina Amigoni  1:03:23 
Hard conversations are hard for reasons, but they're hard because we show our humanity. And our humanity is really the only way we can connect. So it's practice, it's like you said, it's just like, the more we do them, the more we can keep doing them and they're never really going to get easy, but you just kind of get used to jumping.

Alex Cullimore  1:03:47 
And there's a huge portion of experience in that if you've jumped a few times, and you realize you didn't just splatter at the bottom of the cliff. Um, if you've jumped enough times to realize it's not going to be bad. Or at least if it is rough, you will still be alive. On the other side of that, it becomes much easier to have these conversations and approach that as a practice. And  that's actually the definition, I guess of practice, you're doing it enough times that it becomes more routine and becomes less of a push and an effort where we are so practiced at it. It doesn't feel like this overwhelming, difficult decision we have to make.

Cristina Amigoni  1:04:22 
Yes, so go out there and have hard conversations and trust

Alex Cullimore  1:04:26 
Have hard conversations. That's a great motto. Thank you guys so much for joining. This has been another very fun conversation.  This was not a hard conversation, I would say. This was an easy convesation.

Cristina Amigoni  1:04:39 
This is a fun conversation on hard topics. So one of the best ones.

Alex Cullimore  1:04:45 
It's always fun to explore these things in what is a safe environment. So we hope that helps everybody else also have some hard conversations. Thank you guys so much for listening in and join us next week on Uncover The Human.

Cristina Amigoni  1:04:55 
Thank you. Thank you for listening to Uncover The Human, a Siamo podcast.

Alex Cullimore  1:05:01 
Special thanks to our podcast operations wizard Jake law and our score creator Raechel Sherwood.

Cristina Amigoni  1:05:06 
If you have enjoyed this episode, please share, review and subscribe. You can find our episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.

Alex Cullimore  1:05:14 
We would love to hear from you with feedback, topic ideas or questions. You can reach us at podcast@wearesiamo.com or on our website www.wearesiamo.com, LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. 

Cristina Amigoni  1:05:33 
Until next time, listen to yourself, listen to others and always Uncovered The Human.