All right, hey y'all. So I'm trying to get the energy down.  But something that I gotta tell you that just it kills me. It kills me, it kills me, it kills me. There's a few things that kill me, but there's one thing that really gets me that I've hated here in my entire career. And that is this, is that the number one thing to help you live a longer life is to stop eating, like fasting, like do fasting. And I'm like, I don't wanna go without food. I like food too much to go without food. Like no way, hang on. We're telling more people. It says, hey, share this out. We're gonna do some anti-aging. If you're into like longevity anti-aging, really fun, just for fun. You don't have to do this, but you should. How old are you? Put your age in the chat. I'm just curious. I'm 46, 46 years old. I'm very blessed that at my early ages of my 20s I got messed up and I kind of put my life back together in my 30s and 20s, late 20s and 30s. So I'm very blessed because I get to appreciate the world a little bit differently.  Most people come to us because they wanna lose weight but what, and that's great.   So that should go together, right? That should actually go together. But I'd love to help you understand some of the principles. And I'm gonna give you my number one secret of longevity. And it's gonna be surprising to you all because it won't be what most people think. Just for fun, in the chat, put down what do you think my number one tip for longevity is? Just for fun, I'm gonna take a second. I'm gonna have a drink, a swig of my ketones, hint, hint, hint, that may and may or may not be it. But what do you think the number one tip for longevity is? And when I talk about longevity, it's not just living a long time. That's part of it. It's living the long time and enjoying your life is the other part of it. As I get into this, I'm gonna let some more people come on. But as I get into this, in my life, my grandmother died in her 60s. I got to know my grandmother, she died at 63. My grandpa died at like 62, 64. My other grandmother died at 73. My grandfather, my mom's dad, I didn't ever met. He died way before I was born. He died when my mom was 11. My dad died at 48. My stepfather died at 56 or 57.  She's thriving. My uncle's alive at 63 or 64.  Uncle Duane, if you're there, appreciate you for being older. So for me, I didn't get to be around a lot of long-term longevity. So for me, I'm very fascinated by this conversation. I spent a lot of time in the anti-aging world now because I'm fascinating. When you watch everybody in your family die young, you kind of want to live longer. You're like, I'm missing out on some stuff. But I'd like to give you a few of the tips of what, like the number one tip. First off, in the chat, hit me up. What's the number one tip that you're gonna need that you believe that I'm gonna share with you? What do you think it is of how to live the longest, healthiest, happiest life? Like what's the number one tip? Okay, more sex, somebody says. Well, that's actually not a bad idea. There's actually, that could be relatively correct. But it's not eating, it's not taking ketones daily, it's not exercise, it's none of those. Do I think this should be a part of that? All those are good, Jeff. Those are all good tips. And we're gonna talk about each one of those because when it comes to anti-aging, the first thing, mindset, fasting. Ooh, this is good, mindset. Can you dig into the mindset? It's something very specific of our mindset that is true. But I wanna show that one last. I'm gonna show that one last because that is something that's deeper. That's something that is, that's gonna, it's a layer in some stuff. Now for my health guy, I'm a health guy. Right, I got my keto, my keto clothes on. I got my drink ketone hat on. I got my Provid Champion shirt on. Where are my promoters at? Where are all the promoters at that wanna build a business, make some extra money? Give me a little shout out down below. You know, hey, that's important too. Actually it is. But here's the deal. What we know is for anti-aging longevity is fasting and the reducing calories is actually really important for longevity. They did a study based off of the Holocaust study of yes, the extreme of that fasting starvation world. But people that eat less, smaller people live longer. I hate that. I know, you know, even if you're just the larger person in your leaner, it's still against your odds. Smaller people live longer than bigger people. Number one. So what does that mean? Fasting is a really cool technique. Where we do a lot of intermittent fasting with Provid so you spend maybe only eat from 12 to 8 p.m. We've been teaching that for about eight years. The problem with fasting is most people can't do it or don't sustain it. That's why we introduced ketone. So these have two positive effects for anti-aging. Number one, it helps you fast. So if we can get you to fast more, better.  So you drink this for breakfast. It doesn't break your fast. You get the longevity. Well, that's gonna help with fat burning, right?  Number two, fasting. We have some really cool fasting kits too that helps accelerate the fast. So those are the two biggest benefits. The other thing about ketones that are really important for anti-aging is they improve cognition. So a lot of people come for fat loss, right?  I'm smaller. Jeff, you're way smaller, dude. Jeff's down. How much are you down? How much weight are you down, Jeff? Jeff is killing it. Very proud of you, man. I just finished an 18th consecutive 60 hour fast thanks to ketones. That's huge because you're gonna live longer. The studies are really clear. Now, here's the thing about fasting. Fasting actually increases human growth hormone. Now, it doesn't necessarily that means that you get all of those growth hormones, but it does have a trickle of fact. Jeff is down 140 pounds. Congratulations, brother. I know he's not done yet. He's got like 60 more to go or 55 more to go before he's done. But the thing is he and I are changing his narrative away from the fat loss to performance because at the end of the day is how does he live his life when he's down 200 pounds? Like, how does he live his life so that he can accelerate it? Because that's the last tip I'm gonna give you. So, here's what I wanna suggest. Ketones, if you're over the age of 30, you're really fun. If you're over the age of 30, give me like a jazz hands or some smiley faces or give me emoji or something. I'm gonna wave to everybody. Wave, wave, wave, wave, wave, wave. If you're over the age of 30, let me know how old are you?  After the age of 30, your brain slows down and it doesn't uptake energy the same way. This is my example, right?  They get energized.  Why? Rachel, sorry, Rachel, you're 32. You're 32. Christy, Janus is 39. Darlene is 59. Tanya is 51. I'm 46. Jeff's 48.  I mean, because Jeff doesn't look 48. He actually looks older before I met him. Now he's looking like a young little spring chicken. So here's the deal. After the age of 30, your brain slows down and doesn't uptake energy very well. Now remember, I'm talking about anti-aging, right? If you're into fat loss, listen to this because this is the long-term benefits of becoming a good fat burner is you're going to age better, okay? Now there's a lot of ancillary components to this but here's the deal.   I give an adult sugar, they get tired because you're not using the same energy the same way.   So why ketones are so vital.   It gets to start to do everything. Everything that you've been wanting to do it can now do better, okay? Does it solve all your problems? No, but it gives you the ability to do that.  There isn't an alternative. People are drinking like energy drinks and all this other stuff trying to get energy. You're not feeling your brain. What I'm talking about is fuel to the brain. I'm talking about energy to your brain. That's just, it's different than anything else in the world. You want that in your system, right?  It starts to replace or replenish cells better. Your topology, you can fast better. You can metabolize better. You can activate a transporter called the blue blue four transport that deactivates itself over time and become a better fat burner. That's what's happening to Jeff right now. That's why this is so important. So ketones are vital to cognition and anti-aging of the brain. The alternative is you slow down you get more free, forgetful, you're less active and basically you exist without enough purpose. That's the alternative, right? Dr. Kenneth Ford, former chairman of NASA talks about this all the time. He goes, if you want to be happy, happy, happy, happy dead without ketones, you're happy, happy, happy existing until you perish. Like that's not a good alternative. Okay. So that's number two. Number one is fasting. Number two is you want to be in ketosis. You want to drink your ketones every day. This is anti-aging longevity. Number three for longevity. It's not about diet. I think exercise is important. I'm going to be talking more about exercise in 2023.  Name the oldest fit person you ever heard of. How many people that lived to 100 were super fit? I'll wait. There's only one that I can think of that lived into the 90s, Jacqueline. Outside of him, I don't know of any single person that's huge in the fitness industry that lived into their hundreds. Arnold Schwarzenegger is not in his 90s. I don't know how old he is. I'm guessing he's somewhere in his 70s. Maybe touching 80. But I'm talking about longevity, right? How many people in there, in the fitness industry or the health and wellness professional sports, whatever you want to consider, whatever you consider super fit, live really long. So do I think exercise is important? Yes, do I think it's the key to longevity? Absolutely not. I think activity is. I think people that have an active life, I think is kind of a secret weapon in there. People that do a little bit of lot all the time, I think are more prone to live longer. Not necessarily the person that goes and really pushes themselves really far because exercise is a stress. So I shock a lot of people by this because right now we look at these professional athletes as like the key to health and wellness. And it's not true. Most professional athletes don't live very long in retrospect of longevity. They actually live probably less than the average of the, because they put a lot of demand stress on their body that breaks them down. I know what it's like to be broken down. So I'm defying this because I'm one of them. I didn't necessarily play professional sports, but I could have, right? I had the ability and I pushed my body like I did. So I had to give myself a little shout out. I don't know why, I needed to perk the ego a little bit. So the number one reason, the number one thing key to living a long life, a longevity life is purpose. It's purpose. So yes, I think being fasting, eating less food, yes, really important. Science has proven that and it pisses me off because I like food too much. But eating less food live longer. People that eat less live longer. If you have a emotionally relationship with food and I'm not talking about the extreme cases of food deprivation. So that's why I like fasting in a minute fasting. I do fasting because it's the longevity tool for me. I'm an old father. What I mean by that is I'm 46, I have a newborn, right? So I'm gonna be nearly 65 when she graduates high school. Most people are grandparents by then. I might be a grandparent by then. Alexander will be 27, 28, so who knows? But that's, for me, it's really important.  So ketones will be a vital part of antigen. It's the number one anti-aging product in the history of the world. And you can quote me on that. But number three is purpose. Number three is about having a purpose. So I couldn't quantify this, it took me a long time. It was actually an FBI agent. I was on the East Coast, an FBI agent, and I had this conversation. And that's who actually, he and I had this conversation. Unfortunately, he passed away, which was really a weird scenario. We're talking about purpose. He lost his purpose. He couldn't find anything. And then magically, not magically, but unfortunately, he dies within a year after we had this conversation. It was really weird. I got really close to him. Mostly because he was an FBI agent. I'm very fascinated. I wanted to be in the agencies when I got the Marine Corps. So it was something I spent a lot of time studying. But he thought it wasn't the life for me. I didn't want that lifestyle. So I chose a whole different path from my career. Another conversation, another day. But purpose. My brother-in-law, who is 36 years old and his grandmother raised him and he special needs. And it was interesting is that she had 11 kids. And the last thing that she kind of had a purpose for was him. And as soon as he no longer needed her, she magically passed away. And it was really interesting how that just kind of coincided or kind of how it happened.   It has to do with this purpose. And I don't want to get too deep in here. That wasn't the point of my whole thing. But if you don't find a purpose to work towards or move towards, they've done studies of the brain. They've literally done studies of Alzheimer's brains. And they literally look at a person's brain and it's completely just decrepit like it has Alzheimer's, right? And after they die, they look at the brain. But then they look at a brain that didn't have Alzheimer's but it looked kind of the same. They're very similar brain. They look very similar. In reality, this person over here should have had the same physical symptoms based off of the physicalality of the brain, right? But why didn't they? This person lived this outgoing life where this person kind of lived as a zombie in a nursing home or just in a controlled environment. What was the difference? The difference is this person had something that they were working towards. They're actively pursuing. This person didn't. And it's hard to quantify that because it's different for everybody, right? So the number one key to longevity is finding something to believe in, finding something to work towards, finding something to move towards, finding something to pursue. And so if you don't find that then your body slows down faster. You don't realize it but you move more. When you have a purpose or an idea or something that you're working towards, you naturally move. An object in motion wants to stay in motion and an object at rest wants to stay at rest. Right? So if you're sitting inside, you guys gotta remember, I literally spent many years of my high school career and literally sitting in hospitals watching people pass away.  It made me who I am today because I was like, what am I gonna do that's not gonna be like that? I ask everybody on their exit plan. I'm a true story. I just did conversations I have. As I was sitting in the hospital rooms in hospital beds and I would literally look at people and I'd be like, what would you do different? I would take care of myself. But I didn't understand the idea of a purpose back then. I didn't know what that meant then. None of them have ever said I wish I had a bigger purpose. They said I wish I had more time. Like interesting, but they really need to go together. And so but what's really interesting is I would ask the loved ones, my sisters, my cousins, my friends, the people that I spent time with and I go, what are you gonna do to prevent yourself to be like this? And they say anything. But then they don't as soon as they go home, they don't do it. They don't do what they need to do. Now remember back then I was really into health and wellness. So it wasn't like I understood this idea of purpose. So I'm like, I see them eat crappy, drink a lot of alcohol. I see them not active, not working out, doing nothing that's gonna lengthen their life. More importantly, most of them don't have a purpose to work towards. They exist in their life and have a purpose. I know this got really deep. It wasn't my intention. Damn it. Dang it. So this is the outcome of the Zoom. I was gonna, the live I wanted to do today is this, is find your purpose. That'll be the ultimate quest of your life. What is that? And remember, you might accomplish. Dr. Kenneth Ford says this. You always are trying to reinvent yourself. I've been very blessed to live a unique life. I've had multiple lives. You know, I have my military career, which is that can hold on their life. People that meet me, they're like, first off, are you in the military? Cause I don't seem like a military guy. Like you can be a lot of military guys. And I'm like, yeah, I was. And then I had this crazy high school, this college career.  And now I have this crazy, you know, my wife and I travel a little bit and I describe this crazy, you know, community-based marketing, network marketing, presenting, but then not done. Like there's so many more steps into my life and my career. I'm gonna have to reinvent all of that in three to five years. It's gonna evolve into more than that. So that's number one. I want you to put that on your shoulders and don't let it overwhelm, but know that you gotta work towards something. Find that thing. Whatever that thing is. You know, man, I ran into a guy at the school and it was funny because he was drawing. He was an artist. And that's not what he does. That's what his passion was for a long time. He was drawing this picture. It was beautiful. I was like, man, that's an amazing picture. I go, how often do you drive? And he goes, I never go. Like, why not? I go, you and I need to go out to coffee. I go, you need to start drawing. I go, you obviously like it. Like you spent 15, 25 years that you were getting of your life drawing most of the time. And now you don't draw at all. Whatever you do probably isn't as enjoyable as drawing. I go, that should be part of your life. But maybe his purpose is to be an art teacher. You know, like he financially does pretty well. He doesn't need it for the money, but like find that purpose, whatever that might be for you. Anyway, number two is drink your ketones every day. Listen, if you don't have this in your hands yet. Holiday, I talk a lot about fat loss because that sells, yeah, people want to lose weight.   That's why they're losing fat.  The story should actually be how did they lose the fat and maintain it? And the only way that happens is they have tools, people, and they ultimately change their life, right? And that takes time. Jeff is down 140 pounds, but he's creating a lifestyle. He has to create a new lifestyle for himself to maintain the 140, then to get to the 140. Does that make sense? So use ketones to improve cognition, improve energy, prove focus to allow your body to become a better fat burner. And the last thing you're gonna wanna do is find different ways to fast with us. We have a new technique that's coming out in the year fasting. It's called the IFAS, where we will be rolling that out very extensively next year. We're gonna be doing more energy around fitness and exercise, which I think is really important.  People think we're a keto company or a keto diet company, we're not. Like I don't follow a ketogenic diet anymore. Most people can't. I love the ketogenic diet. If you can follow it, you'd plan on a year, a year to learn it. If you wanna be a vegan, plan on a year. Whatever diet you wanna follow, like you have to learn that diet lifestyle. But what I do know is that if we can eat whole foods, healthier foods, be car conscious, drink ketones, your life will change. And then yes, we have to fine tune that for every individual person based off their goals. My Olympic athletes aren't following a ketogenic diet. Most of them are. Most of them are not. Most of them have like a carb appropriate. We do some loading, situational. It's very dynamic, but they all use ketones to perform better. Same thing my mom does, right? So if you haven't got ketones yet, get your hands on some. Now what I'm gonna tell you is that we have a huge team, a global team around the world, and a lot of them follow me. So I'm just gonna tell you right now, get back to whoever invites you to follow me and say, listen, I need to get these ketones in my hand. Do it before the Christmas, before holidays are over, start now, don't wait. It's insane that people wait to feel better. Like, oh, I'm gonna start my diet and this isn't a fricking diet. This is a change in your life forever. That's what this is. It's changing your life forever. It's not a diet, it's changing your life forever. It's creating a lifestyle for you. Start today, don't wait till tomorrow. Anybody that waits till tomorrow, I'm just gonna tell everybody the New Year's resolution, I'm gonna go like, listen, start now, it's a new year, it's a new beginning. No, the people that start now get the biggest changes because they're committing a journey of better when they know life isn't perfect because that's the reality of our world. That's how it's gonna be anyway. So start now, get on and grab our best bundle or our better bundle, whoever invited you. If you are following me to follow me, then hit me up and let's go change your life. Now I'm gonna add a couple more things. If you are hungry, you know, I'll tell my wife, it's like, I work with, I'm very blessed to have a neighborhood of people that are financially extremely stable and they have good careers and lives and I didn't have that when I started Provid. So I was a person that was hungry, we had money but not freedom in any capacity. And I'm looking for people that are hungry, people that are winners that haven't won yet. Who's that person out there right now that wants to create more in their life? They want more financial abundance, they wanna travel more, they wanna pay off more debt, they want to help more people, they wanna be part of something freaking cool that's gonna change the world. If you're that person, whoever invited you, tell them to talk about our promoter community. I mean, I just spent two and a half hours with our CEO and all the leaders of the company and what we're creating is special. It's never been done before and it's neat. It's not perfect, it's neat though. And it literally is changing the way the world's doing business. It's changing the way the world's doing entrepreneurship. It's changing the way the world is doing nutrition and health and wellness because we're not trying to put you in a diet. We're not trying to tell you that we're perfect. We're trying to tell you that we're gonna figure it out that there is a better plan. We're gonna provide you with the right tools to become more successful. And it's up to you to finish the race. We're gonna get you started in the race and we're gonna be there to support you in the race but you're gonna run your own race. And that's important. We have systems and plans that keep you in guidelines, analogy was this is like, we're gonna be the banks of your river but we need you to run the river. We're just gonna keep you in boundaries so that you can keep moving down the field so you can be more successful or down to water the lands. I don't know if I just made that part up. But anyway, if you wanna be a promoter or if you're looking for a freaking opportunity to tax breaks, financial gains, change more lives, like have a real conversation with myself or one of our teammates, like legitimately have a real conversation with it. And you have to figure it out. You have to find your niche. You have to find your groove. But there's a huge opportunity here. The number one product in the history of supplementation is in our hands. You have access to that, to use it and to share it. We have a business model that you can do from anywhere. What else do you need? And systems that work and it pays. That's the cool thing is as long as you put the work in. So I need to go. I'm gonna be on another Zoom with the buddy of mine, Dr. Derek Smallman. I'm gonna be hopping on a Zoom with him in a second, talking some shop with him. But thanks for listening in. The three keys to longevity are fasting, ketones and a purpose. Fasting, ketones and a purpose. You gotta fast with your ketones anyway. So the one and two just go together. There's no reason you would fast without ketones. It doesn't make any sense if you wanna have optimal results. So just the way it is. Steve for ketone. I like that Steve, man. Nice to see you buddy. Y'all, I gotta go. Hope you have a good night. I feel like David Letterman. God damn. Cheers.


n you know, like I I like doing that stuff in In in legion right now and and I expect to do that in bfa But uh, classics definitely got to be my main focus, you know It's cool Yeah, I think in a weird way I think if bfa is successful if they have that crossover sub I think it will make classic wow more successful. I want both games to be very successful I want both games to be very good Yeah, it's just good for it's good for the game. It's good for wow. Yep. Yeah Cross-marking Yeah, there you go Uh, let's see. I uh There was a question about wall mode in in classic as much as I kind of like the idea of wall mode I don't think it has a classic Yeah, I don't think uh, I that that's not something that's like in the That's not vanilla, right? That's that's just something that's not vanilla That's changes Yeah, I think uh, I do think I do think war mode is is a great idea for bfa from what I've seen I haven't really done much of it. It looks good war mode and bfa looks good But it's something that's totally like that's just not vanilla like that's not that's not That's not what vanilla is right along with sharding as well phasing Um And it will be in the client, but don't think they're gonna use it. Yeah. Yeah, for sure Uh, is there is there anything else you guys see anything else you guys see that you want to hit on? I kept seeing this question. What are the chances that 1.12 classical? I have actual digging and pvp I have no idea what that means That's the guy he comes to my chat and asks about digging Digging Digging to be yeah, like digging holes Taking souls The digging guys. Yeah, just just a role player.  Is there anything else you guys want to hit on? Um I think we've been going for a while right? I think this has been pretty good. Uh, it's been very good Yeah, uh, one thing just kind of like wrap it all up here. Um Just kind of my my own take on it in a nutshell from the news. I think the news is very good I think they generally want to go Generally and genuinely seem to want to go with a no changes-esque type of approach There's going to be some technical limitations. There's going to be some things that they have to hit on That, you know, it may deviate a little bit. Some people consider is 1.12 a change is 1.12 not a change Uh, but they are going with a 1.12 base It's going to be, uh, you know, they want the authentic vanilla experience There's going to be some things like battle net integrated Modern anti-cheat botting detection modern customer service it seems Um But they don't want to do anything that's going to affect the core gameplay experience in a nutshell Um Other than that, I think I think we're good.  I think you guys want to share it Thank you guys for watching and tuning in. Uh, mr. GM. Thank you guys today Yeah, it was a lot of fun a lot of fun So again, please if you guys haven't already, uh, please follow mr.  GM or mr. GM yt for youtube


Therefore, the Honorable Mike Johnson of the state of Louisiana, having received a majority of the votes cast, is duly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives for the 118th Congress. After a couple of long, hard weeks, House Republicans have decided to grab hold of Johnson and ride him all the way to the finish line. That's right, House Republicans have elected Mike Johnson of Louisiana as Speaker in a unanimous vote, meaning that a lot of them had to swallow their pride and come together. Which is surprising to me, because when eight other Republicans announced their candidacy for Speaker, I really expected Johnson to slip through the cracks. But to my surprise, he stood tall in a field of limp competitors. Now, unfortunately, his lovely wife, Kelly, who's also the co-host of his Christian podcast, Truth Be Told, couldn't make it, and he explains why she wasn't there for this special moment. She spent the last couple of weeks on her knees in prayer to the Lord, and she's a little worn out. Damn, Kelly, let's go. Imagine like walking in on your spouse, and they're on their knees, and they're out of breath, and they're sweaty, and you're like, what are you doing?  Come back in like 10 minutes. Okay, it's a little bit sus, but whatever. So the question is, how did we get to this point where this dick is elected of all people? Well, before we get to that, I first want to go back to Monday, where we left off with Republican Tom Emmer as the most notable candidate. I didn't call him the frontrunner because I knew then that there was no chance he was going to become Speaker, but he was the most notable. And 90 minutes after he was officially nominated by House Republicans as Speaker Designate, Trump dropped the hammer on him, calling him a global astrino, and encouraged Republicans to vote against him. So that, in combination with fears from his GOP colleagues that he doesn't hate gay people enough, ultimately led to his quick demise. And as CNN's Christie Wilson points out, he became Speaker Designate at 12.16 p.m. on Tuesday, but by 4.26 p.m., he already dropped out. Yeah. So needless to say, his bid to be Speaker ended very quickly, which was pretty predictable. Now, other candidates also quickly started to drop out, and a consensus started to quickly form around Johnson, with Ken Buck explaining why he was a good choice to CNN's Dana Bash. Why Mike Johnson? You know, probably because he has the fewest enemies of anybody in the Republican Congress. That's a ringing endorsement. Well, it's the reality of where we are right now, with four-vote majority. Mike is one of those people who gets along with everybody, and he's well respected. And I think those two factors played a big role in this. So it's not necessarily a particular policy or relevant expertise. They chose him because he has the fewest enemies. Cool. Now, the question is, what are the reactions to this from Republicans? I'll tell you my reaction in a moment, but what do Republicans think after battling for weeks? Well, Matt Gaetz, who started this entire shitstorm, is pretty happy. In fact, he feels vindicated. It is going to be a great moment for the House. And you know what? At the very end, when some people didn't know, if they could still even bring back McCarthy, a few of them just left the room and didn't vote. And the swamp is on the run. MAGA is ascendant. And if you don't think the movement from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies, then you're not paying attention. But they are crying. They are hand-wringing and bedwetting over on K Street because we have an honorable, righteous man who is about to take this position. He's going to do great things for the country. So he thinks that Johnson's victory has proved that the MAGA movement is ascended. And I think he's correct. And you'll kind of see why once you see who Mike Johnson is. But what are people like Mike Lawler, who was very critical of Gaetz saying about Johnson? Well, here's what he said and what a couple of other Republicans said last night when it became pretty clear that Johnson did have the votes needed to become speaker. Obviously, I did not support the removal of Kevin McCarthy. I think it was arguably the stupidest move ever made in politics. But we have to move forward. And so we're going to rally around Mike Johnson and elect him speaker tomorrow and get back to work. It's a different situation now. There was a trust factor with leadership last time. So you can tell that there's still some bad blood there, but they've all found a candidate to settle for. Maybe they're not 100% happy, but they picked them. And unanimous consent for this caucus is pretty surprising, honestly.  And I know that most liberals and leftists who are watching this probably aren't going to be satisfied with any Republican. Don't blame you. But understand that there is a spectrum of Republicans. So in the House, on one end of that spectrum, you have the more moderate economic conservative Republicans who focus disproportionately on tax cuts for corporations and deregulation. And on the other side of that spectrum, you have actual demons who pose a threat to democracy and require human blood for sustenance. Mike Johnson represents all of that, the entire spectrum. He is the worst of the worst. He's essentially an amalgamation of every Republican, the so-called moderates, the fascists, the Austerians, the populists. He is, I think, the worst case scenario or about as close to the worst case scenario as you could get, much worse than McCarthy and certainly worse than Jim Jordan as well arguably. And first and foremost, the main thing that you should know is that this man is an election denier. We must vote to sustain objections to states of electors, submitted by states that we genuinely believe clearly violated the Constitution and the presidential election of 2020. So that was a snippet of him objecting to Arizona's slate of electors in particular, but make no mistake about it. He went on to vote against certifying the 2020 election. But it gets so much worse because he's not just one of the many Republicans who voted against certifying the election. He actively promoted lies about the 2020 election. Take what he said about Georgia in this radio interview, for example. I was on the floor of the house last night talking with my colleagues from Georgia and they are so frustrated they want to pull their hair out because they feel helpless in the matter. But they know that in Georgia, it really was rigged. It was set up for the Biden team to win. So he's just straight up denying the results of the 2020 election. But it'd be a mistake to characterize him as just another election denier because he was one of the ringleaders. As he put it in a tweet that he wrote on December 10th of 2020, proud to lead over 100 of my colleagues in filing an amicus brief to express our concern with the integrity of the 2020 election and our election system in the future. So he's not just an election denier, he also spread lies about the election. But believe it or not, it gets even worse. Now let me explain why. So do you all remember the infamous press conference that took place on November 19th of 2020 where Trump attorney Sidney Powell falsely claimed that the software for Dominion voting machines were actually engineered in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chavez? Well, here's what Mike Johnson said just a couple of days before that press conference took place. And no, in every election in American history, there's some small element of fraud, irregularity, error. We just know that you just accept that that's the case. But when you have it on a broad scale, when you have a software system that is used all around the country that is suspect because it came from Hugo Chavez as Venezuela, when you have testimonials of people like this, but in large numbers, it begs to be litigated and investigated. And the problem is it's exceedingly difficult to do that in a 45 day time window. And that's the problem that we're up against and that's why the president is so frustrated. And that's why so many, so many 71, 73 million Americans around the country feel like that the election was stolen from them.  But just let that sink in for a moment. One of the most outrageous lies told about the 2020 election was made by him before it was made by Sidney Powell. Sidney Powell, the Trump attorney who pled guilty over her efforts to overturn the 2020 election, whose own attorneys claimed that her election lies were so outrageous that quote reasonable people would not take them seriously.  So the question is, did Sidney Powell get the idea from him? Are there going to be any consequences for him?  But he gets to become speaker. Seems a little bit weird, don't you think? Now the question is, what do Republicans have to say about his election denialism? Well, don't bother asking because this was the response from House Republicans when a reporter tried to ask. All right then, I guess they're not concerned. Now the old lady who yelled shut up was actually Congresswoman Virginia Fox who also voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But she wasn't the only Republican to hiss at the reporter for daring to ask a very reasonable question because right now the GOP caucus doesn't want to hear any of this. There's election deniers and non-election deniers, but right now there's a moment of harmony and they don't want a question about our democracy to get in the way of that. So they were very outraged at the idea that a reporter would dare ask this question. But it's a pretty important question, don't you think? Now, let's not pretend like the only bad thing about Mike Johnson is his election denialism because he's seemingly a Christian nationalist with genocidal anti-LGBTQ plus policy positions and unsurprisingly he also happens to be a forced birther who's currently cosponsoring three different pieces of legislation that would ban abortion nationwide. And when a total abortion ban went into effect in his state of Louisiana last year, he celebrated on Twitter and reminded doctors that they could be sentenced up to 10 years of hard labor and given a fine of up to $100,000 if they performed an abortion in his state. And he recently stated that his forced birth position was necessary to produce more people to help pay for social security. He said this, listen. Yeah. Now, on the subject of social security, he's also expressed interest in cutting it. It's difficult as somebody dedicated to principles of limited government to see the ballooning out of the deficit and a complete abandonment of entitlement reform. Your thoughts? We'll start with Mike and we'll go to Mark. We have to get back to it as a number one priority. The CBO says that entitlement spending, which they define as Medicare and Medicaid Social Security interest on the debt, right? Those four obligations, we've got Eclipse GDP and what it does in years or something. I mean, this is not, this can can no longer be kicked down the road. You can't wait eight years to address this. It hasn't happened yesterday. So we have to have our hand at the wheel and do this. We are completely derelict in our duty. We're rearranging furniture on the Titanic if we don't get this problem under control. So one way to address it isn't to lift the cap on taxable income. Let's just force women to have more babies. Also, let's cut it. Amazing. But there's more because he also authored the Stop Sexualizing Children Act of 2022, aka the national version of Florida's Don't Say Gay Bill, which would censor all LGBTQ plus content in classrooms and even go as far as to designate quote unquote transgenderism as sexually orientated content on par with porn. As Alejandro Carbio points out, which means that exposing kids 10 and under two quote transgenderism would be banned, which in practice could result in the mass firing of trans teachers, trans pediatricians, trans social workers, and so on. I don't know how this policy would even be enforceable, but trans existence would be classified as inherently sexual under this legislation that he supports. Not on top of that, during his tenure as an attorney for the ADF, he supported the criminalization of homosexuality and wrote editorials calling it dangerous and claimed that it could lead to pedophilia and also the end of democracy, which is ironic given his lack of support for democracy itself, given that he voted to overturn the 2020 election. But on top of that, he unsurprisingly is also against same sex marriage in the year 2023. Oh, and he also thinks that weed is a gateway drug. So he's not very bright. And on top of that, he's a climate denier and he's skeptical of the COVID vaccines to put it charitably. And he's just an unhinged lunatic overall, who doesn't represent people named Mike very well. As a Mike, I denounced this Mike and all other Mike should as well. So in the end, I think it was clear that Matt Gaetz was vindicated. He got what he wanted. He wanted a more conservative speaker than Kevin McCarthy, and he got it. But regardless of what you think about him, he is the new speaker now. We're stuck with him and the saga is officially over. And his first test is coming up in November when the government is set to shut down on the 17th unless it gets more funding. So beyond the lookout for that, he's saying that the first order of business is to give money to Israel so they can continue their genocide against Palestinians. So he seems like a really nice guy overall. But I just have to admit that I am a little bit disappointed that this entire debacle is over because I did find the GOP's dysfunction a really nice distraction from all the other terrible things happening in the world right now. But I think that the best case scenario is that he pisses off Republicans in some way and they'll lead up to the next government shutdown and we get a season two of speaker roulette.


So I think we're ready to get started. You guys all ready? Talk about some conflict management today. OK, just to warn you, we will have a Q&A session. We're not going to have all the answers, unfortunately, to those Q&A sessions. But I would like it if you could be thinking about your questions and your situations and the things that you want to ask about. Because obviously, we are experts. I'm being very sarcastic for those of you who can't see me right now. I myself am not an expert. But we want to be able to give you the opportunity to ask questions and have people answer those questions. So be thinking about that during the session. So this is, we had a title change, from troubled waters to water under the bridge, conflict management strategies. And it used to be called, oh, no, you didn't, in case you're wondering which room you're in. But we decided that was a working title. We'd like this title better. So we went with it. Here today are my lovely panel mates. You can introduce yourselves. My name is Jen Sramic. I work at Aquia in partner delivery management. I have been in many conflicts in my life, both work and personal conflicts. And in my professional life, many different types of conflicts. I'm hoping that that experience can lend itself to you and your own conflicts. You're next. You're second on the slide. I'm second, OK. I paid attention. My name is Shannon Vates. I work alongside Jen in delivery enablement at Aquia. And I too have had my fair share of conflicts, which led me to propose this session, because I was like, bleh. And I brought these two smart ladies along with me. And I'm Angie Byron. I go by WebChick online. I have basically inadvertently been the chief conflict resolver up until 2014 or so when the community working group got off the ground. And so I have a lot of experience, particularly in the area of community conflicts. And so we'll be talking a little bit about that. Excellent. So Jen is going to start us off after I go through the agenda here. We're each of us going to tell a story, conflict from our lives. We're going to talk about what was in the conflict. We're going to ask you what you would do. And then we are going to talk about some management policies that we either did or should have employed to solve it or resolve it. And then we're going to do some takeaways. And then we're going to throw it to you guys for questions that you want resolved. So here's Jen. Bon faire, c'est l'autre. Hell is other people. This is a famous line from No Exit, a book by Jean Palsart.  And they just basically go around and around and each one offends the other two, and then they resolve it. And another one offends the other two, and they resolve it. It's a very good book. And it sort of captures my story today. So my story begins in a discovery workshop that took a deep, deep dive. The conditions on the site were that there were a lot of new people together in a room. The room was warm, too small. We were there for a week together. So we were starting on day one. Everyone was under a lot of pressure for a new big project that they were building. The agenda was already set, so it didn't have a lot of flexibility. We were just there to just get through this agenda. There was little time for conflict if we had it, if we wanted to complete everything that we needed to complete. And there were a lot of distractions. So people had their laptops for, in some cases, necessity. And they were also checking their emails and instant messages. And there was work that they were neglecting for the week. So there's this anxiety and pressure. And then there's, of course, the need to shine and all their glory, because all those new people are in the room. Also, specific deliverables were expected out of the workshop. And so really, everyone was under a lot of pressure to get this stuff done. So what happened in this deep dive? Because of this larger team was meeting for the first time, I think everyone was kind of like at a high performance level, what I call on it, is when your high performance level goes over the line to 11, and it becomes dysfunctional. So a project manager might get micromanagy and controlling, and everybody's like, whoa, back away. The project manager's gone to 11. So the way that that manifested in the room was just conflict and disagreement the entire day. Individuals versus individuals, groups versus groups. Everybody was butting heads, and it was really slow. They were trying to stop each other. And it was anxiety provoking for the team that was there to do the discovery, because we were like, oh no. The agenda just keeps getting more and more derailed. How can we get on top of this? One example of how this showed up is, and I'm sure any developer or technical architect in this room will recognize this experience, but the testing technical director, when you're doing a discovery and they're playing Stump the Chump, trying to figure out how they can ask you a question that they know the answer to, but you don't. And it was just going on into railing the progress of the conversation. So it was not progressing the way we expected. So just a quick poll. If this were your experience and you had a discovery that went this way at the end of the first day, what would you do? Options are had a meeting with the whole team in the morning just to kind of address the conflicts and get through it. B would be addressing that conflict as they arose in the moment. C would be addressing them privately with individuals, and D being something else. So how many would go for A? How many B? How many C? How many something else? OK. So what actually happened, we can talk about what your decisions were to later. So what actually happened was after the day was done, we tried to get as much done as we could in the daytime. But every hour was booked, so we didn't have a lot of time to kind of pow out and get clear and then retake the day. So at the end of the day, we met over some drinks. We talked about each person who was in the room from the customer, and what exactly what their needs and wants were. What were they trying to get out of this day or the week or whatever portion of the week that they were present. And we talked about each person and how we can move them toward productivity. Like what is going to keep this person on task and get them what they want out of the workshop? And then we tried to call those things out. When we went to the workshop the next day, we just were very explicit, like Fred, I know you need to get this out of this meeting. Let's just make sure you can do that. And then Fred gets really engaged with that meeting, and then he's helping us protect the agenda. So we also address individual issues right when they happened. So if somebody were sniping at someone else because they said something and they disagreed, we just said, it's just brainstorming. There's no attachment to what's right or wrong. Let's just let everyone's ideas out and we'll move forward. And then the third thing we did was with a couple of people, we addressed the issue privately. And then there was one person in particular who was very problematic and we addressed it with their manager because we figured after talking about it that it seemed like a conflict between two people in the room that were employees with each other and we couldn't work that ourselves and we needed somebody to intervene. So we kind of did a couple of those different options. After going through the second day and kind of figuring out what went right after we made those adjustments, one of the things that we learned was that we didn't, I didn't as the project manager managing the thing, didn't because we had such a packed agenda allow enough time for an ice breaker in the beginning and ice breakers are kind of like, you know, a lot of people think they're lame and whatever but when you're meeting with a lot of different people from different groups, they help each individual show up for their own expertise if you do it right and they don't feel like they have to constantly remind everyone what they're here for and why they're important during the meetings because you've already established that. Yes, we're important Fred. You're the technical director of course. Here's what you need. We know that. And then even after we did that, there were still some ongoing challenges that in particular dealt with specific difficult personality traits. Not like the people are difficult. The choices they were making about their behaviors were difficult. So after that experience, I also actually took a workshop on dealing with difficult personality types because I was so flummoxed by the whole thing and it was really challenging. So a couple of techniques that I learned in that workshop that I want to pass on to you. One is first, if you're dealing with difficult personalities, the first is just identify what are you dealing with? What's the type that you're dealing with? And in the workshop that I took, it was tanks, downers, passives and better thans. And I'll get into those in a second, who those are. But the key thing in identifying is that you're not trying to change the person into a different kind of person. You're just trying to work with what they're already doing and bring it toward a more productive place. So tanks, and again, these are very stereotypy. I'm not trying to be that way.  It's more like how I mean it. So tanks are known as being explosive. They can be bossy. They can be a handful. They come into the room very alpha personality and they want everything to go their way and they do anything to get it to go their way. Passives, also known as pushovers, yes men or women, weaklings, people have all kinds of words for people who are passive. They may not contribute as much to conversations or the people around them.  Oh, you know, Ginger can decide. Oh, you know, Susie always does that.  Better thans, also known as nodals and one-uppers are people who tend to, that technical director was one of those people. So just like, how can I quiz you and oh, you know something about that? I know more. It just trying to one-up you and it sort of becomes distracting because you're like, are we here to figure out what you know more than I do or are we here to do discovery for a workshop? And then downers are also known as negative Nancy's, Derek downers, Debbie downers, not to have all them be female. They always have something bad to say, they complain, they critique, they judge, they point fingers at others. They're almost impossible to please. And the important thing to know about all these people, these personality types, is that they're all, they can all be productive people, people who can exhibit these personality types, we all can at times, like I've been a tank, I'll tell you, I've been a downer, is that you don't wanna cast the person as like this is who you are permanently. You wanna just like treat it as a behavior and then help correct the behavior and just move on because people can change and like I said, every day we're a different one of these if we turn it all the way up to 11. So the second thing after you identify the person, the personality type you're dealing with is to try and redirect this energy. So try to understand where they're coming from and then try to direct their energy into a more productive place. This requires curiosity about the people that you're working with because you have to be curious to figure out what's gonna change their behavior. So figuring this out though and figuring out what we call their value language can help you better predict what their likely choices are gonna be if you really understand what's driving them. You can understand why you and other people might be getting triggered by their behaviors in the ways that they act. And you can also, to do that, you find the difference in what people value. So if Jeff and I are triggered, like we just have different values and we just have to figure out what those are and find a shared one and then we won't be triggering each other anymore. And appeal to what they value instead of what you value. Especially if you're there for them, you wanna make sure they're getting what they want. It's not so important that you get what you want in the way you want it necessarily but we wanna make sure that they're getting what they need, that's the ultimate goal. And then third thing is to detoxify.  What some ways to do that, you ask them specific questions. So for the person who's trying to stump the technical person, you could say, you know, what specific areas are you concerned about our expertise? And we'll just put those out there right now and if we can, tomorrow, we'll bring forward all of our expertise on this and we can just put this issue to bed and you can be with the discovery. You can also find the right situation to include them. So some people do not do well in groups and to include them in groups is gonna be not your best option at any time and so deal with those people in one-on-one situations or in very small groups. Maintain boundaries for yourself. So if someone's just being a downer and they're being mean and saying nasty things, you don't have to tolerate that.  So make sure that you're having boundaries for yourself and then escalate or get support if you cannot turn the situation around by yourself. Sometimes people have learned coping mechanisms with certain people and getting their assistance in how do I deal with this person can be really helpful without obviously making it a gossip or a office discussion topic. So just a little couple of hints, I'll go through these really quickly of the different types of personalities and how you can recognize them and diffuse them. So, okay. So tanks, resist discussion, adapting to new ways of doing things and want to make themselves a linchpin or a gate.  I have to be the one to make that decision because I know more or I have information that he doesn't have and I can't share it with him. So they can be argumentative, take control of situations and some ways to diffuse them are working with them to figure out what they can own that makes sense. So like find a place for them to own something, that's what they're looking for and make sure that they do. Ask them actively in discussions like, what do you think Fred? What do you think Sue? So they feel included. So they don't feel like they have to push themselves into conversations, you're just inviting them in and then work with a team member who's worked effectively with them and figure out what techniques worked. Passives, the pushovers, they can be the silent stakeholder, keep their opinions to themselves.  I know I didn't mention them in the discovery but they were in there. So you have to get those people to talk. They, in terms of diffusing them, interacting them from one on one. So they don't have the pressure. Sometimes passives are being dominated by someone in the room and that has put them into this passive place. It's not how they always are but once you get them out of the room then they're suddenly opened up. I'm gonna have to hurry so I'll let you guys read the rest of those. Better than the ones who are always one-upping. That's that technical director example. They're asking testing questions. They're sort of giving the resume when they're talking.  So you can find a way for their expertise to shine. So if there's like a thing they can own or a piece of the investigation that needs to be done that they can really do well, better than anyone else, get them to do that and just distract them with it. Sometimes it's like, people are looking at an audience that have this experience where they didn't agree that it was a decision to go to Drupal and so the whole time they're just like lobbing bombs at the technical decision and just can't get them to move forward. Just acknowledge that something did not go their way. We get that and we just need to be productive and let's just figure out a way to be happy about it going forward. And then finally, downers. Very critical even of brainstormed ideas. They just kind of like don't want to get happy. Their interactions can seem to increase anxiety in other people and diffusing them, you can basically discuss their concerns in detail, figure out what's going to get them happy. You can sometimes put people in charge of something that can work if it's something that they're enthusiastic about but if you put them something they're not enthusiastic about, it's going to make it worse. So I will move on to Shannon. Thank you, Shannon. Thank you, Jen. Can you hear me? Yes. No, we're good. Do we need to go woo again? Okay, so today I'm going to tell you a story about a love-hate relationship. And Angie, thank you for doing my side, for your answers. So our story starts like this. Yay! It's a new project. Everyone's happy. We all love each other. We're so excited. We're all going to do this cool new thing. And there's what I have coined after some discussion with Angie, new project energy. It's like new relationship energy. The trust is high and the pressure is low and we're all very great and jazz-handsy. So a few mistakes later. I noticed this started happening. Like people were kind of looking at each other, some side-eye going out of the table. Like I'm not so sure I love you anymore but we're just, we're gonna fill this out. And then a little seed of doubt started to form. I could see it happening. There was maybe like one mistake where the schedule slipped one day in the sprint and then in the next sprint it was two days and the next it was three and then the next, the scope wasn't quite what they were expecting. In the next one it was totally not what they were expecting and pretty much by the end of sprint four it was basically murder. People were not happy. There was a lot of, well I remember and this and this and this and we said that and you said this and there was a lot of back and forth and it pretty much sort of turned into a situation where they were just not communicating. So I sat down and I said, okay, how can I help this situation? So I talked to the vendor first because he was our partner in this situation, the company that I was in. It was not Aquias as many years ago. And they basically said like, oh watch out for these guys. They're just, you know, they're a total jerks and you can't trust them. They're just, they have this bad attitude and they're just not flexible and they don't really want to find solutions and so they were really categorizing the group of people and not the problems. And so I talked to the customer and the customer was like, oh yeah, they just want more money. They're just trying to screw us out of everything.  And so that was the story that I was getting on both sides and I found myself in the middle of this. Go ahead, nope. And I'm like, what do I do? Just not compute these two things. Obviously I've talked to them both. I understand both sides. This does not seem to make sense. And what I realized after some time was that it doesn't even matter because nobody's talking to anybody. And regardless of who I believe, nothing is gonna get fixed because nobody was at the negotiating table basically. Nobody wanted to see the problem fixed. They were just trying to prove that the other one was wrong. And so basically the way that I break this down, there was a big old conflict around trust. There's a crisis of trust. Nobody believed anything the other one was saying. We had issues around styles. We had issues around expectations. We had issues around culture. There was tons of things. We also had communication and cultural problems. So people in some one part, the customer part had a way of being and doing. That was very, very French, which did not mash up so well with the very, very British attitudes and the two sizes of the organizations were different. So they had problems adjusting to each other and their methods and the level of professionalism that the one had and the other didn't supposedly. And then finally we had really poor negotiating skills so it was very, very adversarial. I must win and you must lose is what I mean by adversarial. And then understanding really what was supposed to be in the doc, like we had documentation issues that weren't keeping track of what was said and done. So finally, I'm gonna ask you guys now that you understand the problem, what would you do? First, oh, did you have a question? Can you say it till the end? She'd run, run away, it's another option I did not put on here. Would you tell the team, this is too effed. I'm just gonna walk away. Tell them that you're gonna help the customer because they're the one paying the bills at the end of the day.  Or would you try to stay impartial and mediate? So A, walk away, who would do it? Raise your hand. Okay, nobody, good. B, some people, couple people, customer. C, partner, couple people with the partners. D, oh, that's almost everybody. Okay, well you're all very smart people. And I will tell you how I should have handled it. Didn't have all these skills at the time. But screwed it up, no I'm just kidding. I fixed it, it was fabulous. What are you talking about?  Try and understand what is in the conflict and why you're feeling this way about it or why these parties are feeling about it. But don't go straight into it like, we got a problem, we're gonna fix it right now when I'm all mad at you. Like, don't do that. Walk around the block and don't sit there ruminating while you're thinking about this, all the things that they did wrong and why you're so mad. You just make yourself madder, so don't do that. Find your calm down strategy, basically. Your happy place, you know, like in Happy Gilmore, the little guy. Find that, and it came out of nowhere. Just try to find the place where you feel good and better about yourself so you can work on this. First step, next step, work on the trust issues. So there's lots of exercises you can do to generate empathy, to try and understand motives of the other people, to understand why something is an issue. But one of my favorite pieces of advice came from a book called Conflict, no, I put it in the resources, it's like tough challenges or something like that, having the conflict conversation. And basically what they said was find the third story, and I really liked that. So I was like, your story is this and my story is that, and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. That's a really good way to sort of diffuse that adversarial situation. And then the Harvard Negotiation Project also says separate the person from the problem.  So separate the person from the problem, I thought was really good advice in this whole trust situation. You change your mindset. Finally, you gotta focus on the goals. You gotta try to have a sort of mind meld with the people at the table, which is extremely difficult to do when you're in the middle of conflict, it's very heated. But if you can do those first two steps, those first two barriers will get you closer to this because you can say, look, we all are here for a reason. Let's try and get back to that reason. What are we trying to accomplish and where are we aligning and where are we not is also another interesting one to try and work through that. You gotta try and find what they call the win-win strategy. Finally, one of the problems that we had was in the communication styles. So I would say using nonviolent communication is really useful. That whole I message thing. I know it sounds really lame when you say like that. Well, you saw my messages. But really it works well because what it does is it takes the other person or the other group out of the equation and lets you focus on what you're the expert on.  You know nothing about anyone else in their feelings. Don't try and talk about that. And also do as I say and not as I do because I have work to do on that one. But nonviolent communication is when you do or when this happens, I feel blank, I feel in the blank and try not to use expletives. And I would like blank to happen. Give them a roadmap of where you want to see this go or how you want to see it change. And be ready to listen to their statements because listening is really big part of this. Finally, be ready to listen the right way. That was my little segue. So there's a few things that you could look for when you're listening. The meaning obviously is the key one but also the way they're saying it, what they're saying, like the words, the tone, the intention. But meaning I think is key, trying to get to what is the actual message and its urgency and what are they trying to get at sometimes behind the words and behind the tone. I've do this a lot with people that I work with, not at AQUI again, where they'll say something and be like, what does that mean exactly? That's a good question to ask yourself when you feel yourself feeling annoyed by something. Just pause, what does that mean? What are they actually intending to say? That's another good tip, separate the intention from the way they're saying it. And finally, once you've done all those things and you understand the goals and you've listened to each other and you've found some common ground, then you want to do it. You got to actually follow through. One of the first slides had that trust is earned when the actions align with the words. And I really feel like this is a key step here that we all kind of sometimes gloss over. Like we'll find solutions and we'll figure out later. You've got to have some quick wins, especially in a trust crisis situation like this one that I was in. When there's no resolution, you can't see the stress level drop. It just kind of hovers. And the longer it hovers, the worse it's going to get. And so I really like to see this happen early on in the resolution process. When you find something that is aligned that you can work on together and that is feasible in the near future, that's a sign that you should be going and doing something. So that's my story and I will pass it over to Angie. All right. I'm gonna go boop. And if someone could align my size when I go boop, that'd be great. All right. So I'm here to talk about community conflicts where you take all of the average conflicts that you have with loved ones or with coworkers, then ramp them up to 11. Boop because there's all kinds of specific challenges with community stuff.  You don't have any of that. It's all text-based communication. Most of it's in short little snippets, a lot of ESL or English as a second language or cultural barriers that make that communication even tougher to do. And then you also have the added benefit of one-on-one conflicts can quickly snowball to many-on-many conflicts.  And it's really easy to forget that that little blue nickname on the screen is a real person with real feelings. So yeah, we have a lot of stuff. Boop. I like to lay out the quadrant of community participation in something like this. I borrowed this from Dries a few years back. I call it the Quadrant Graph of Awesomeness. And everybody in this room fits somewhere on this quadrant. You might move around to different quadrants, but the two axes are basically, on this side we have awesome people to work with. So people who are near the top are really funny and nice and enthusiastic and good communicators, good listeners, all that kind of stuff, right? And then people are awesome at what they do. And the people who are awesome at what they do are very smart, intelligent, they're very effective, all these kinds of great adjectives, right? And in a community like ours, usually the people who are really awesome at what they do, this also correlates to a power imbalance. So people who are better at what they do tend to have more power in the community than people who are less awesome at what they do in general. So, boop, people in this quadrant who are both awesome people to work with and also awesome at what they do, they're awesome. And we love them and we want everybody to kind of be like that because that's the holy grail, right? It's like we're getting stuff done, we're really good at it and we're nice to each other and nobody's getting their feelings stomped on, it's wonderful. Boop, people in this quadrant are people who are really awesome people, but they don't know enough yet to be really effective, so we have a great solution for them as well. We mentor them, we mentor them at DrupalCon, we mentor them at user group meetings, we mentor them online, we have many different ways to get people who are already awesome people over the skills gap to make them really effective contributors as well. Boop, people in this quadrant, we don't really care about people in this quadrant.  This quadrant, boop, there's dragons there. And pretty much any really nasty community conflict you can think of falls into this quadrant because these people are both really awesome contributors like amazing contributors probably contributed entire huge swaths of core or contrib or given hours or days or years or millennia of their life away to the Drupal project and yet there's a body trail associated with their participation in the community. And often the people who leave the community because of people like this are people in those first two quadrants who we want to keep and that is not good. So there's probably many different community scenarios we could think of that fall into this thing. There's probably one particular one people are thinking of that may have happened this year earlier. However, boop, I wanted to consult the Drupal archives to find a really, really, really old community conflict with people no longer part of the community to kind of like pick something we can analyze without adversely impacting anyone. So boop, I dreaded from the vaults of Drupal the jQuery teaser splitter issue. Does anyone remember this thing? A couple of people, okay. So this issue was right when we were trying to get Drupal 5 out the door. And the idea was before we had the teaser splitter, the JavaScript driven teaser splitter, you used to have to copy and paste a HTML comment that said break, which totally made sense to anyone with HTML experience, but your content officers would be like, what is that weird thing and why does it have an exclamation point there but not on the other side and just like very confusing. So we were like, hey, let's make it more usable. Boop, so Khaled is in here and he's leaving what looks like a fine review. He's saying, oh, this looks pretty good, but you know, I'm concerned. I have a couple of concerns about it being really late in the release cycle. You know, what if JavaScript is disabled and what if I have a third-party WYSIWYG editor, how is that going to affect it, right? These seem like fairly reasonable questions, correct? Yes, we're allowing. Okay, boop, here's how he was responded to. Boop, one more time for people in the back. So Stephen, sorry, could you boop me once? There we go. Stephen said, don't hesitate to stick your head in a microwave oven and grill until satisfied. So that's kind of funny, right? Ha, except boop, remember, this guy is a core committer. Ooh, and a hush falls over the crowd. Right, why is that a problem? Because this is one of four people at the time who could get your change into core. That's the first problem. Boop, the second problem is, pretend you're new to this community and you see this interaction take place. What are gonna be your takeaways? Well, your takeaways are, since leadership is setting the tone for everyone else. Oh, well, this community obviously condones insulting other people who are asking perfectly reasonable questions. Number one, number two, I am now terrified to participate in this community because someone's gonna yell at me and probably someone who is a core committer is gonna yell at me and that's gonna be really super bad. Or, the flip side of that, if I am a complete asshole and I think it's fun to yell at people, I would be like, this is a community for me, okay? None of those are good outcomes. Boop, and the really, really bad thing here is that this dynamic is not a meritocracy, okay, at all.  That's what you have left in your community at this point. You don't have the best, you don't have the brightest, you literally have people who either have the patience, the lack of empathy to understand or whatever, that they just stick around and wait for whatever, and you drive away everyone who does not fit that mold and you don't wanna do that. So, boop, what do we do? Who's for A, do nothing at all in this conflict? Their adults let them sort it out themselves, okay? Who's for B, reach out to the victim privately and show support? Okay? Couple people. Don't care about the victim?  C, call the attacker out, either privately or publicly. Few more people, yep. And D, report to the community working group, which you did not have at the time and to ask them to mediate. Nice, so most people think that that is probably a good idea, and that probably would have been a good idea at the time. I wanna talk real quick, reaching out to the victim privately, never a bad idea. Never a bad idea to reach out to them publicly as well and say, wow, that seemed over the top, not really cool, hey, Khaled, you're fine, don't worry about it. But the problem is that if you reach out to them privately, the kind of men is still in the public sphere and nothing is done to counteract it. When you call the attacker out, either privately or publicly, it puts them on the defense and I'll talk about why that results in all kinds of stuff, but people tend not to listen very well when they're super, super defensive, so just factor that in. The community working group is a good option because they're, well, they're not trained in this, but they are people who have the personality type that they're good at this kind of situation, so they're able to look at the facts objectively, they're able to get both sides to talk to each other and that's generally speaking the best thing. Boop, what actually happened was Khaled used humor in this case to defuse the situation. So we said, you have a point for the microwave, should I use form alter to turn it on before I stick my head in? Or, and it was funny because it was cool in a number of ways. One, it empowered him, the person who was attacked, to take control over how he wanted the situation dealt with. Two, it kind of called out the ridiculousness of what Steven had done in a way that wasn't directly attacking him, but it was like, come on, dude, that was over the line. And then Boop later on, other people, sorry, Boop again, were able to kind of play off of that, so this guy at number 112 says, you know what the risk of being forced to stick my head in the microwave oven and then he goes on with his patch review and stuff. So anyway, I thought that was a pretty decent way to handle it. I don't think that works in every situation, but it can be a nice trick to add to your books if it is not a case of an actual abuse situation, but someone who is just like completely over the line trying to rein it in and get everyone on the same page again. Boop, so what we're trying to avoid is getting into the dreaded drama triangle. Have people, are people familiar with this? Couple, yeah. So this plays out all of the time. Pretty much any issue you can think of where people got really messed around and stuff like that is because of this dreaded drama triangle. So it requires at least two roles, often three. There's gotta be someone who thinks they're a victim, either rightly or wrongly, feel a victim. There's gotta be someone to persecute them, that's the persecutor who's attacking them.  And then very quickly these people shift around and rolls and it gets very messy, so boop. So here you have the persecutor. These changed since the last time we looked at it.  But then what happens is that the boop, the, oh shoot, I didn't do that. Okay, well anyway, what'll happen here is once the rescuer enters the play, the persecutor suddenly feels ganged up on so they become the victim, right? Or the victim says, hey dude, I didn't ask for your help anyway and now all of a sudden the victim's the persecutor and the rescuer is the victim and it's just, it's an awful little cycle and it just goes around and around and around and you want to get out of that as quickly as possible. Boop, you can see one of these transitions happen when you see Stephen actually explain where he was coming from with that comment and where he was coming from is he's like, you know, I very clearly laid out in the issue summary all of these different concerns. It was right there for anyone to read. So I feel slighted that you didn't bother to read what I took the time to wrote and then secondly, when people bloat an issue with a lot of repeated comments and repeated questions, it makes the issue bigger and bigger and bigger and people get more and more intimidated to walk in and he's not wrong about any of that. It's just the way that he went about it was not the best way to do it. So boop, what you want to do is you want to change the game. You do not want to get stuck in the dreaded drama triangle, you want to get out of that game entirely and instead boop, switch to the empowerment dynamic which makes you want to throw up in my mouth a little bit but the idea of the roles is that it flips the triangle around on its head.  You are someone taking accountability and ownership for the outcome that you're trying to achieve. The persecutor becomes the challenger. So there's someone who does not just let you get away with whatever you're trying to do, they're there though to question you in a way that builds you up rather than tears you down. So a patch review is a good example of someone being a challenger. They're not trying to tear your code down but they are trying to make your code better by pointing out what's wrong and then giving you some good next steps to work from. And then the rescuer transitions to a coach.  You point out how they might do things differently or whatever but it's ultimately in the creator's hands how they behave and this keeps their agency and it removes you from having the responsibility to fix this problem you didn't cause in the first place. Boop, so one way that this could have gone a little bit better is, you know, Steven saying something like, hi Kaled, you should be able to find answers to those questions in the issue summary. If it's unclear, feel free to edit based on the previous responses. I'd really like to keep this issue focused on architectural reviews because that communicates the outcome that he's trying to achieve, okay? It also is a coaching in a way, it's pointing out to Kaled that both A, there is an issue summary and that's an adequate thing of a thing and also, hey, if you didn't know this, you can edit that yourself if it's not clear. And so this allows someone who, like Steven himself, saw himself as a victim in the previous interaction. It allows him to become a creator, it allows him to play the role of both a challenger and a coach to help make the entire situation better. So try to look for opportunities like that where instead of jumping in, because it's really easy to jump into one of those roles because they set themselves up so nicely, but if you jump in and just change it, flip it on its head, turn it into something productive so you're, I think, like Shannon said, you'd be really, really hard on the problem but very, very soft on the person, that's definitely the way to go, so. I think that's all I've got. So we're wrapping up, I think I'll pass it over to Jen. Okay. So we all took a little bit of a different focus on the part of our talk, so me dealing with individual conflicts, Shannon more like a team, and Nanji more like the whole community. So some of the key takeaways that we wanted to have you guys take away is using the right value language for each personality type. So finding what drives that person, what they need, diagnosing it, and then putting something in front of them that's gonna be more toward what they value. Using nonviolent communication, I feel when you do X or when something happens and I would like Y. Joint goal setting is key to getting a win-win, so when things are in conflict, figure out what the shared goal is, you're both trying to get something accomplished, that's why you're there together, so remind yourself of that and figure out what happens next. Conflict is both inevitable and natural, so it's almost like you should check yourself if you have no conflict, that maybe you're just being blind to it but it's really there because it is natural part of being human and being in relationship with other people. Having empathy for yourself and others, so not all of us have a best day every day, all day every day, and so making sure that we are recognizing that people might have stuff going on at home that's causing this behavior or causing this conflict and not that it's you or it's the particular situation that's at hand. Seeking the third story in any conflict, so there's your version, there's my version and there's the reality in the middle somewhere. Breaking out of the drama triangle and dynamics and moving toward the empowerment triangle. Dynamic, empowerment dynamic, the ED, and then be hard on the problem and soft on the people. We have some references and we'll share the deck so that people can get those. These are just the various resources that we use to draw from in this presentation and now if anyone has any questions, we will take those. I don't think we have a Q and A mic. We might not. Can we get a mic for Q and A? You can just scream from your seat. I don't have a question. Or else you can shout it out and we'll repeat it. That's maybe the way we'll do it. Who's got a problem? You've got a problem and you've got to know just kidding. All right, so the question was, what if you're dealing with someone higher up than you in an organization like your director or a VP? Okay, so I have a couple of ideas around that and I'm guessing. I have one short idea but could be yours first. You go first then. I was in the Peace Corps and I dealt with a lot of military people and one of the tactics they use is this quote, permission to speak freely. And so for me, that is really disarming and when you're dealing with a manager, you can kind of like, it's sort of a way of recognizing you're superior to me and I have something to share with you which might put the friendly way that we work together in Jeopardy and asking permission to do that so that they're not just blindsided by this mallet. But just saying, hey, permission to speak freely? Can I just say how I really feel here? Are you open to that? And then if they say no, then you know what to do. But if they say yes, then you're open to it and you can deal with it from there. The thing that's funny about power dynamics and there's a lot of things to read on this, so go check it out. One thing that I found very useful was the idea that the further the distance in power between the two parties, they did studies and they found the less likely they are to come to a win-win because of that power dynamic disillusionment. So the advice that I heard most often in this topic was try to find a way to balance the power. And maybe that means that you can reiterate your domain. So because you asked me to do blah, you're the one with the power but you asked me to do it. Remember, I'm in charge of this mission. That's one way that you can sort of address that power dynamic and try and balance the table. And you can also just sort of humanize your situation. I know you've got people to talk to but I have people that I'm accountable to as well and make them realize that the impact on you is such that you should be in control. So those are a couple of suggestions that I would give to try and balance that power dynamic and get them to recognize that you need to be on equal ground, on equal footing in order to find that solution.  Like why are you pushing this? To understand the power dynamics that are in play for them is key to helping you try and find the win-win solution. So that's what I would say. Nice. Any other problems, questions, challenges? Yeah. So let me reiterate your question which you understood. I heard when you hear, when you see a project, a problem forming, not a project. When the problem is forming, how do you address it early on before it becomes a huge thing? Your spidey sense is tingling. I guess some things that I try to do are, again I look for that drama triangle dynamic and when I see that starting to form, I'll actually use some of the tips that Jen suggested. So usually the person in the victim mentality is, and the challenger as well. The challenger can sometimes be the tanks and they can sometimes be, what they're honestly usually trying to do is control the situation because they don't wanna end up the victim. So that come across as overly harsh and then the victim might be a passive or might be a downer.  So trying to employ some of Jen's strategies for those personality types early on because if the person's obviously getting defensive because they feel like they're not valued then you say something that shows that their work is valid. Suddenly that can diffuse the problem. So a lot of those kind of tips are actually really good. Another thing I try to keep in mind is that even when someone is really, really frustrated and they're coming at you with rage or whatever, they normally are that way for a reason, like a rational reason. If you can try and figure out what that reason is and show, you know, it's a Shannon's point that you're gonna do action and your actions are matching your words, that can often diffuse the situation as well.  You can donate to their Patreon. You can try and get rid of all these duplicate support requests. You can do, you know what I mean? And I've done that before with people and it's actually turned it completely around because once you give them power to control their own destinies, they often are like, oh, oh, well, great then. You know what I mean? Because they just think that they have to ask permission from someone or wait for someone else to do a thing and that's often a source of their frustration. So yeah, so I'd say it differs by the conflict that's starting to brew, but in general, the tips that were shared earlier of like trying to meet people where they are, figure out what their needs are and meet those can preemptively cut off a lot of stuff before it becomes a whole thing. For me, I utilize my spidey sense and I would actually just call it out. If I'm in a room and it starts feeling like off, I'm like, it's starting to feel really tense in here. Is there something that's unsaid that I should know about? That's a good idea too. And if people are like, oh, maybe we're getting tense, I didn't realize and they feel like down a little bit, but sometimes it's like, oh, you know, Fred just broke up with Ginger and they're having to work in the same room together. So it's tense, you know. So it's nice to hear those things. And when I work with customers a lot and doing discoveries and we're sort of like, there's a lot of new personalities and we don't know each other. We will eventually, but we don't yet. And that kind of stuff is, it can be pretty important to know if you're like, oh, I'm navigating this like personal conflict between these two people and there's nothing to do with why I'm here, but yet I'm still dealing with it. So for me, I just, I'm just open about it. And I say, it's starting to feel tense or emotional or upsetting, like are people upset? How are you guys doing? And see how they act and respond from that. I'm just gonna tack on one last thing to that because I think those are great and I'm not gonna elaborate for 10 minutes, but just one thing about the approach in that situation, because if you're not sure that there is an actual conflict, like it might just be your perception of something seems off or whatever and you don't know, I would, here's what I don't want to happen because I am not a fan of this. Hey, I need to talk to you. Let's go. Please don't do that.  All right, let's go. They almost, they wanna run away and then that just completely closes down the conversation. But what I do like is when you approach the person you say, I think there's something that we should work on. I'm not sure if it's a problem or a challenge, but like, do you have time, whenever, to talk about it? I'd really like to have your perspective. And that opens the door to listening straight off the bat and doesn't create a sort of, what are you gonna accuse me of or like sort of situation? I've had that happen a ton of times.  Yeah, right. Ready to have a conversation with you. You turn into a football player before it even begins. Where's my shield?  I'm just gonna find out, what can I say to combat what you're saying? And I know I didn't. Yes, you did. And then it goes, yeah. Self, so. Did I answer your question? Yeah, cool. Yeah. Okay, so do you wanna? To get your rational. So like you're starting to kind of like go with it? Oh, I'll repeat the question.  Or you're captured in the conflict yourself and you're running with it and how do you get yourself out of it? Is it that you need to get yourself out of it so that you can mediate it from the outside? Or are you the person with whom the conflict is? And you're trying to figure out how to take some space. Okay, what I typically do, and I kind of learned this from my son's elementary school, he's in Montessori school and they use this really cool system of nonviolent communication. First of all, take some space and say that you need to take some space.  That's the expression they use, I need some time. And they go and have to separate physically. If they've gotten a fight and they're sort of not ready to come back together and like apologize to each other, they're just like, I just need some time. And then when they actually are ready, when they've taken some time, just to some distance from the problem so they can get their head straight, one of the tips that Shannon offered, they can get a little perspective. So let me observe this from the outside now that I'm not all heated and upset and challenged and see what's really going on. Maybe I can get a different rational perspective. And then when they come together, they have this little table.  So it's really easy signal for elementary school kids to understand whose turn it is. And what they say is, are you ready to check in? It's such a simple question, but if you are in conflict and you're agitated and upset, the last thing you wanna do is someone to just come with the mall and just be like, bam, I have to solve this now. If you're not ready for it and you're still polluted in the headspace, it's not fair to do that to somebody and you're gonna get a bad result period because they're not ready. So you just say, are you ready to check in? And if they say, no, okay, I'm gonna go play for another hour and then I'll come back and check in later. And if they say yes, they say they use the model of I statements that Shannon was saying. I felt this when this happened. Can you not do that again or you could do this differently next time? I feel this, I would feel better if you did it this way. And then they have to reiterate to the other person that they said it to said, I think I heard you say that when I hit you, I'd hurt and you prefer that I don't hit you. And then the person can say they agree and then they thank each other and then it's over. And so it seems very formulaic and easy, but there's those key pieces of asking permission, listening to each other and confirming that you've each heard what you're saying because that's like co-communication.  And then you thank each other because it's generous to come forward and be willing to resolve a conflict with somebody. And so thanking them can make a really big difference and make them more willing to resolve it with you next time. So basically what you're saying is six-year-olds can handle their conflicts much better than adults. If they're trained, they can. And I'm hoping that he carries that forward and do his adult life because it works really well. It was all complicated. I have a couple of, sorry, can I get the microphone? Oh, okay, good. So I had a couple of thoughts on that too. I'll just go through them really quick. If you're having trouble, if you're like me when you get mad and you kinda just wanna take time, I mentioned the thing, be careful not to ruminate. That's a problem that I have. Because I'll go, I'll be like, I need a walk. And then I'm walking and I'm like, and this happened, and then it. Now I was right about that and whatever. Just don't do that because that's only going to make it worse. I have personal experience in this domain. And so what helps me is to do a method that I read about called field theory. It's like basically imagine you're in a field with this person and the problem is sitting in the middle. Like what could each of you bring together? Like you're either gonna stop that person from solving their problem in some way. Like your goals are here and you're gonna stop.  Or you're going to help them get to their goal. Like you have a choice to make. And so when I'm in that position, I try and utilize empathy strategies, but I also try and think like, how am I behaving in this field right now? Am I just trying to stop them from doing what they want? Or am I really being a team player and trying to help achieve a goal that will advance both of us? And I just examine my own perspectives and I think of, I just check myself before I wreck someone else. And try and do that basically because it helps me get out of my own head of how I was wronged or how I was upset and get back into a productive mode. And we're out of time. All right. So thank you very much. So thank you everyone for coming. Yay. Thank you. We hope what you learned can help resolve these two conflicts while you're here this week.