Rising to the Challenge: Leadership in Probate and Inheritance with Leadership Coach Jim Herrington

In this episode, Jim Herrington explores the role of leadership in navigating the probate process and managing family dynamics during times of transition and stress. Drawing from his extensive experience in coaching and organizational consulting, Jim shares valuable insights on personal development, communication strategies, and the principles of family systems thinking. From dealing with disagreements to practicing self-leadership, you’ll gain practical tips for better communication, collaboration, and compromise in challenging situations. 

If you need, help hop over to https://willowwoodsolutions.com to contact Sherri Lund.

🌟 Tips for Quick List of Tips for Being a Leader in Tough Situations:

1. Practice self-awareness: Recognize physical reactions like a burning chest or knot in the stomach during challenging situations, as Jim did.

2. Communicate calmly and assertively: Use "I" language ("I see that differently") and make requests calmly, like Jim did when apologizing to the attorney.

3. Show compassion: Understand the burden of executors in probate and empathize with family members facing emotional turmoil.

4. Practice active listening: Listen without judgment, paraphrase, summarize, and reflect back what you've heard during probate discussions.

5. Apologize when necessary: Take responsibility, apologize, and make amends, as Jim did after a tense interaction with the attorney.

6. Foster collaboration: Seek win-win solutions, finding common ground and compromises in disagreements.

7. Seek support: Don't hesitate to reach out to mentors, coaches, or trusted friends for guidance and advice.

🤝 Contact Jim Herrington, Transformational Leader, Author, and Co-Founder at The Leader’s Journey.
Website: https://theleadersjourney.us
Email: jim@theleadersjourney.us

🤝 Contact Sherri:

Sherri invites you to explore her toolbox of resources on the Willow Wood Solutions website and encourages you to reach out to her through the contact form. For direct assistance, call or text Sherri at (832) 640-2997

📍 Website: https://WillowWoodSolutions.com 

📞 Contact: (832) 640-2997

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Disclosure: The information shared on The Probate Podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. We strongly recommend consulting with a professional for advice specific to your situation. If you need help finding a professional, feel free to reach out to us at www.willowwoodsolutions.com/contact.

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Transcript

0:21

Hi there, welcome to the Probate Podcast my name is Sherri Lund. I'm so glad you're here. Today, I'm going to be talking to you... going to be talking with a change agent. I don't know if Jim Herrington considers himself a change agent or not, but in the Houston area, he has had a profound impact on our community and on the people here. I'm excited to introduce you to him in a little bit. The Probate Podcast is here as part of the company that I started a few years ago, Willow Wood Solutions. I help families through the end of life transition when they're deciding to put someone in senior care, walking through probate and dealing with property, a lot of emotional, overwhelming stuff comes up during that time. and actually, I think part of this work that I do is impacted because of my work that I did with you and Tricia years ago. So kind of coming back into that. So that's kind of neat. yeah, let me tell you a little bit about Jim. Jim's had more than 45 years of experience as a pastor in nonprofit leadership. For more than 20 years, he and Tricia Taylor his business partner. Have been helping individuals and organizations in the U. S. and Canada and beyond, right? Right. I've been in some of your classes and I think there were people from Spain on the call. Yeah. they offer three key services through their business, the leaders journey, they coach, they offer leadership development, organizational consulting, and they also have a podcast. In 2007, they founded Faith Walking, which is a spiritual formation ministry equipping people congregations to live missionally. Faith walking is an active ministry in the US, Canada and Central America. He speaks regularly in conferences on the topics of spiritual formation, leadership, family systems, missional theology, and he lives in Houston with his beautiful wife and best friend, Betty. They've been married over 46 years. They have 5 children, 6 grandchildren. It's closer to 50 years now, isn't it? Actually, it's 51 this past January. Okay. Okay. So this is a little outdated. Yeah. Yeah. I had to go. I had to go around a couple of different sources to piece this together. But Jim, thanks so much for being here. Tell me about who you are as a person, Jim outside of work. Well, 1st, let me just say, thanks for having me and for all the kind things that you have said, people talk about stuff like that. And I look around to think, who are they talking about? But I'm really grateful for the acknowledgement and for the opportunity to be here. I probably, I mean, there's 2 ways that I would answer that question. 1 is I'm a, A husband and a father and a grandfather a pastor, an author. I mean, the roles that I carry, I would describe it in that kind of way. I think the way that I would describe myself is that I was a guy, I was a little guy. I'm five feet, eight inches tall. I weighed 119 pounds when I married Betty. I had the Barney Fife body type and I, and my dad was an All American College football player, 6'2 240 pounds in the prime of his life. And so there was this from the very get go of my formation, the sense of not measuring up of not being masculine, like my dad was.. Not being good at the athletic stuff like my dad was.. A really significant part of my journey has been the journey of finding healing for those wounds and the finding of healing for those wounds, then becoming an instrument in the hands of God for helping other, particularly men who have been wounded along the way to find healing for themselves. I think a third way that I would describe myself is I am a real adventurous learner. Like I can look back from my earliest young adult years, To today, and there are about 5 different turning points where we weren't getting what we thought we ought to be getting in terms of results. And rather than throwing up my hands or working harder at what we were already doing, I got real curious about, so what does the fact that we're not getting good results mean? And that curiosity opened up doors that led to something that actually changed the trajectory of my life. Faith walking that you mentioned would be one of those things. There was never a moment where I had any sense that faith walking was something that I was supposed to be doing. We were working with local congregations through my work at Union Baptist Association, and a vast majority of the congregations were not getting the results that they wanted. And ultimately, We came to the conclusion that the reason they weren't getting the results that they wanted was because almost all the ways that they had done church up until that point in time had been formed in a context that no longer existed. 1950s, homogenous world, slow pace of change. All of a sudden, all of that has changed. And so faith walking is a spiritual formation process that actually grew out of our saying, so churches aren't doing this. How do we do this? Yeah. It's a big, exciting, beautiful conversation to have about you because. you're not someone who just says, this is how I did it. Do it this way. Like, you encourage other people to be curious in themselves and find their own way. And there's probably some sense that you're on this podcast because you had the courage to follow that description of being curious and following, the leadership of God, wherever that curiosity would take you. Actually, Jim it wasn't curiosity for me because I never wanted to have a podcast. But I'm here because of the principle that I learned from y'all through faith walking and that's integrity. And to help the ones that feels vulnerable and marginalized and all alone. Out of the faith walking work where there was a coaching component, we just discovered that the people who had a coach got much better results than those who didn't. Trisha is a licensed counselor in the state of Texas. I had been doing this coaching work for nearly 20 years. In 2017, we decided we were going to take the risk of starting a new company where what we actually, what we thought all we would do is, was coaching that out of the faith walking mission, Houston, UBA, all those communities that there would be people who'd want us to be coaches. So we do that. The second thing we do leadership development. There was a day where the world was so stable that leaders could read the maps that somebody else made, but the pace of change that we're living in today requires that leaders have the capacity to make maps. Rather than a choreographer, you're a cartographer. And even today in seminaries and in graduate schools, they're not teaching that so much. And so over time, we began, we've worked with hundreds of congregations and some companies across the country who are trying to figure out how you lead in a pace of really rapid change where the context is just evolving and evolving and evolving. And then the 3rd thing we do is organizational consulting at the denominational level, both with the Vineyard USA and with the reform church in America with some, with some Methodist districts and conferences across the Southeast. We help them ask and answer the question. What is our context and then what are the, what does it look like for us to be on mission in this particular context, which when we were in, when I was in Montrose was 1 context. I'm in Southwest Houston. Now that's another context. And the context you're in matters a great deal. And so helping them. Figure that out is the 3rd thing we do individual coaching leadership development and and organizational consulting. And as you said, we do that all over the country, all over the all over North America. Yeah. And so can you explain missional living? people have heard about living on purpose driven life, things like that. So talk about that and missional living. And is it the same or is it different? One, one way that some people will say it is that we used to say that the church has a mission. Today they say God has a mission, and God has a church that joins God on that mission. And so what does it look like for you to in your workplace? Where is where the broken places? Where is the hurt where the people who are marginalized and cast out? And what does it look like to be in relationship with them? The big difference is that becomes the church, in that workplace, it becomes the body of Christ, and that's just a whole different way of thinking about what it means to be a faithful follower of Christ. Yeah, demonstrating the church in your workplace or in your neighborhood. Exactly. So we're on the probate podcast. Yeah. And not a lot of leadership happening here. One would think you usually, I mean, people think about probate if they get involved at all only, 30 some odd percent of us have a will or a plan in place. And most people would think that the attorney would be the leadership in that directing the ship or whatever, but I think that there's leaders in every, or an opportunity for a leader to rise up, whether they're recognized or not, every time there's a probate situation and the, my podcast Jim has evolved. I started out helping people with probate. But then I had daughters calling me whose mom was getting out of rehab and they were like, how do I find help for her? I don't know. I thought I could do this and I can't and then people that are going into hospice and they're looking for resources for that. And so now I'm also helping people find places to go. to have the assistance that their loved 1 needs, whether it's in their home, or whether it's assisted care. So what I think would be interesting would be for us to talk about those family members who are finding themselves in a leadership position. They didn't maybe ask to be here. They didn't expect to be here. They may not even be the named executor. Maybe the executor is not doing a stand up job. And so a leader needs to rise up within the family. I know you do a lot of work with organizations and churches and all of that, but you're also really impactful when it comes to the individual leader, right? Right. Yeah. So can you talk a little bit about maybe those reluctant leaders and where they're finding themselves? Well, before I do, let me just tell you that part of the reason I was excited to do the podcast is that I wish that I had known you. I wish you had been doing this a couple of years ago. Betty had a cousin. Who uh, was kind of a reclusive guy, one of five first cousins. And he, he at 71 years of age fell and hit his head and died in his apartment by himself. They found him about a week later. And when they found him when we found him, we also found a will that made Betty the executor of his estate. We had no idea. Oh, my God.. We had no idea we had any conversations with him about that. And it was like what does this mean? Who do we talk to? We know nothing. The service that you're providing is invaluable because I can just imagine that there are a ton of people out there Who have never done any of this, didn't know they were going to be called on to do this, find themselves in a place where, as you say, where they have to step up in ways that they didn't ask for and didn't expect. So, Where were you 2 years ago? When I needed you? Right here! Right? Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I think the place that I would start and trying to answer your question is that, that every person has the capacity to lead and in the world of power dynamics, they talk about people having power over me about me being under power. They have to talk about having power with and then they talk about having power within. And so if you think about your inner life, like a set of muscles. Right? Like it, my, my external life is like a set of muscles and I can lift a certain amount of weight and I can do a certain amount of manual labor and I can, all of that stuff is true. And if I want that to be stronger, then I know how to make that stronger. I know how to, you know, go for walks. I know how to lift weights. I know how to run. I know how to do all those things. Well, I think about internal leadership as you have internal muscles and whatever level of like, whatever weights you can live with your internal muscles. You have the capacity to increase that. And what most of us want is we want to have a new challenge and I need some stronger muscles. And let me get the stronger muscles and then I'll meet that challenge. Actually, I think the way the internal muscles are built is you take on that challenge. You take on the challenge and you begin to realize, oh, this is like, some days it feels like you've worked out at the gym. And the next day you're really sore and you think, gosh, this can't possibly be good for me. When actually, the pain that you're experiencing is a reflection of your, Of your progress, and so not just with probate and all the things that go with end of life stuff, but just any challenge that we face in life. When we internally make the decision, I'm going to step into this challenge, learn, grow, develop. That's where those muscles get grown. Yeah. And what do you do jim? When you are just overwhelmed, you know, you come with that in the executive part of your brain is gone. Yeah. And you've got to come to grips with finding your footing again. Yeah, well, that's why I collaborate and all of my life. That's why I collaborate. I mean, the 1st thing I say about that is that you get overwhelmed. There's no shame in that. Right? I mean, that's just what it means to be human. Anytime we human, right? Anytime we face a new challenge that we've never faced before the way your body and your brain react is that it just floods you with a lot of, I can't do this with a lot of Hormones and chemicals that go flooding through your bloodstream that really what they're designed to do is to pull you back and make you safe. And so it's the reason we do coaching. It's the reason you do what you do is that when you find yourself in that overwhelmed position, using whatever energy you can muster to say, I've got to find a colleague. I've got to find a mentor. I've got to find a coach. I've just got to find a good friend. Sometimes it's just an older family member who's been through this and knows what you're going through but making the decision, I don't have to do this alone, I'm going to find somebody to do it with me. Well, actually there's some brain science that says that'll turn the volume down on your overwhelmed. If I say, Oh, I feel really overwhelmed right now, but Sherri's with me in this and I can call her that just turns the volume down. So then if we can deescalate, find our footing again, then we can create that space so that we've got a little more margin to know, or maybe know what our next step should be. And maybe it is to call that person. Yeah. Let's back up 1 more step. I mean, there's a whole world of work out there. If I don't have the wherewithal to think I need to call for some help, there's a whole world of work out there around meditation around deep breathing. There, there's some brain science that says that if you can just like, in the moment you feel overwhelmed, if you can take 4 deep breaths. On count of fours breathe in for a hole for 4. I breathe out 4, I hold for 4. I repeat that 4 times that the volume on your anxiety will go down 20 to 25 percent scientific research. It says that. So if you find yourself being overwhelmed, taking on some practices now, it helps a lot. If people listening to this podcast and aren't yet at a place where they're going to need help if they'll practice that now uh, then when the, when the overwhelm comes, your brain will say, oh, here's a way that we can calm ourselves. Yes, and that's how.. You can do that. You can do that in the post office. You can do it anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. You mentioned principles.. Can you talk a little bit about principles and practices as it pertains to caregivers and executors of estates? Well, I mean, you know this because we've known each other for quite a while, but I see the world through the lens of what we call family systems. When you're not in the world of family systems, what you tend to do is you tend to think of problems to be solved as cause and effect. And so there's this problem out here and cause and effect thinking leads me to say, so let me locate the problem out there and then let me go fix that problem. And so then we start trying to change somebody or some circumstance often that's beyond our control. And so then we're spending a lot of energy that's not getting any result. And what cause and effect thinking does is if it doesn't get any result, then we work harder at that. I have a friend, I have a friend who says cause and effect thinking has you doing what you've always done and then working harder to get to a result faster that you don't want. I think that's brilliant. I think that's brilliant. In family systems, what we would recognize is that that it's not the individual that's the molecule and the problem is not out there. The problem or the challenge is in here. And so any problem that exists, I'm contributing to it: what I do or don't do, by what I say or don't say by how I say what I say or don't say. Even a two person system. And when I first started learning this Betty and I were young adults and neither one of us had learned how to manage money very well. And so every time a money management problem would come up, she would say some version of, if you would do different, I would, we would be better. And I would say to her, no, if you would be different, we would be better. and through some family systems. Coaching, we both began to look at what I was contributing was, waving my arms and talking about how terrible it was and how quickly we needed to get this fixed. And what she was doing was saying, oh, gosh, this is all my fault. I'm so sorry. Let me go fix this. And it's a long story, but both of us began to learn to 1st of all, see our behavior and then to work on changing our behavior. Well, that's a principle. The principle of no matter what the problem is, I'm contributing to the problem and I love the phrase by what I do or don't do. And so for me, it was by what I was doing, waving my hands and talking real loud for Betty, what she wasn't doing, what she wasn't doing was coming in and saying, let's work together to solve this problem. She was just saying, I'll take care of this and you go keep doing what you've been doing. And as we both began to see what our part was, then it it gave us access to some things that we didn't have access to otherwise. And in the probate process, in the end of life process there are going to be all kinds of issues that you're going to face. And when you can when they're not, things aren't going the way you want them to go, then you have to ask the question, what am I contributing? Let me tell you, let me tell you, just a quick illustration. We got connected to an attorney with Betty's. We didn't know what we were doing. And so we called an attorney and said, could you help us? And they said, yes. And and what happened with the, so Jim had a biological dad who he had lost contact with. And he was about three, but he had, he didn't know this, but he had seven, he had three siblings and seven. Grand siblings, and all of those people had to be contacted and we didn't know where they were. And so the attorney, we hired this attorney who's working on all that, by the way, all of that, that I just told you, I didn't know when we started we didn't know where these people were, how to find them and and 1 day we were kind of coming up on a deadline and the person at the attorney's office who was working on this was had reached out to me to say. Okay. We're not getting there as fast as we want to get there and I just, I was just at my wit's end and I called and got him on the phone and I mean, I'm not proud of this, but I raised my voice. I talked real fast. I told him some version. I didn't use the word incompetent, but some version of your incompetent and, he was very. Professional and ended the conversation with me. And when I got off the 1st thing that I thought, what I got was physician healed myself, but you teach me all the time. And the 2nd thing that I thought was, did you really think by calling and, raising your voice and becoming real judgmental with this guy, you were going to get a better outcome. Well, the answer and what I'm thinking calmly and sanely with the answer was clearly no, but in the moment, I'm all stirred up and and I'm saying this is your fault and you need to fix this. And yeah, I mean, that's just an illustration of the principle is I'm contributing and that's just a practical illustration of how that gets worked out. And so then what I did was call back and apologize. So look, I was just real stirred up. I'm really sorry. I know you're doing the best you can. I know this is a really complicated kind of deal. What do you need from me? How can I help? And that changed the outcome. It does. Yeah. So you became a contributor then instead of someone that was stirred up and those things are naturally human conditions that come up all the time. And when you have a family system that's stirred up, everybody's lost someone, and the dynamics of the family are changing. Sometimes that relationship was good. Sometimes it was non existent. Sometimes it was downright hostile. And so people are are adjusting to all of that and stuff gets stirred up. Yep. You said something a while ago about shame. Part of the challenge when we're stirred up like that is coming to grips with ourselves and recognizing where we are. What are some things that you that could help us for people that are not familiar with your work like, you are like, for those of us that are just absolutely green. What are some places or some things that we could become aware of and begin to notice be curious about within ourselves? That's a terrific question. And uh, and I want to say in answering it that you have to answer it developmentally. Uh, In other words, I'm not going to answer this and you say, oh, okay, I'll start doing that. Right? The primary resource that you have is your body. Like, when you get stirred up, your body, your brain begins, before you're even aware that it's happening, your brain gets into action. It's asking the question, have we dealt with this in the past? What did we do? And they begin to pour chemicals and hormones and all that stuff, cortisol and adrenaline and all that stuff into your body to get you ready for action. And you may be a person who's so shut off from your body that you can't notice that. But if you can grow your capacity to notice that, then over time, your body is the best signal that you have. Now, let me tell you how you grow your capacity. I'm coaching this guy, a business guy up in Chicago, and I'm asking him the question. So when you get anxious, what where do you notice that in your body? And he thought, I mean, he said. I don't think I feel anything in my body. I said, okay, no problem. That's fine. I said, here's what I want you to do between now and the next call. Anytime you find yourself having a conflict or you're working with a group of people and you're not achieving what you want to achieve, or something doesn't go the way you want it to as soon after that experience, as you can reasonably do this, just reflect on what happened. And to the degree you can pay attention to what's going on in your body. About three weeks later. We had a call scheduled, and before I could say hello, he said Jim, I grind my teeth all the time. Great. Now you see that. I mean, people grind their teeth. They clench their fist. They'll notice that their pits or their palms are sweating, their thoughts are racing their cheeks get flushed, their shoulders get tightened. And if you've lived your whole life without any awareness of that, then you have to do some work. Get present to it, but with just a little bit of practice, usually after the fact, usually you can't notice it. If you've not noticed it before, you can't notice it in the moment, but with a little bit of practice reflecting after the fact, you can say, ah, I mean, what happens to me? I can even tell you what the feeling is when I'm scared. My chest is burning. I mean, when I'm angry, my chest is burning when I'm scared. I've got this knot in the pit of my stomach when I'm sad. Yeah. I've got this thing in my throat and I feel like I'm just about to cry and I'm doing everything I can to just keep that thing from coming up. And so not only does my body tell me that you're experiencing some stirred upness, but like if I know I'm sad. Does this distinguish sadness from anger, from fear helps me to know. So then now, what do I need to do in light of what this feeling is trying to convey to me? Does that answer your question? Yeah, it did. So thinking about people that are in the situation of.. Well, before we even get to the leadership part, just the finance, the family systems part of it, right? You've got all these different personalities in whatever dimension shallow, deep, however, they related to the person who needs care or who has recently passed away. And all of these changes are happening and giving us an opportunity to respond instead of being present and incapacity to pause and think about what we want to do, how we want to be impact. So it's a mess. I mean, it's such a messy time. So I like what you said a while ago about practicing now so that you can get more familiar and more acquainted, more aware with these principles and practices before you just drop in the middle of it. but when there are, when you are faced with with a strong personality and the executor is someone who has the authority to carry this out and they're tasked with carrying out the instructions according to the will, and then you've got a strong personality that's trying to influence your role in that, is there something that you could suggest to that person who's trying to step up and be the leader in that situation? Yeah, yes, well, it's so complex and particularly when it's emotionally charged, the way your brain works is the more emotionally charged you get, the more you quit thinking and start reacting. Yeah. I mean, that's just the, that's the way God made us. And there's some circumstances in which that's exactly what you need. Right. Your house is on fire. You don't want to have to pick up the phone and call and say, Hey, Sherri, my house is on fire. Have you ever had that happen? What do you do? I mean, there's some places in which that's a really valuable kind of deal. But in, in the kind of human relationships where you're talking about, it's so complex and so emotionally charged. And When an executor is acting in a way that a strong willed person thinks is inappropriate or not fair, or they don't want them to act in that kind of way, that's going to be a highly intense and emotionally charged kind of circumstance. Again, you can talk about principles, but you have to keep talking about practices. I mean, the principle is is that when you see it differently than the executor does, you say, I see that differently. Now, you don't say you're wrong. If you say you're wrong, that automatically makes the other person defensive. Right. Instead, what you do is you say, I see that differently, or you make a request. Would you do that differently? Your brain experiences that different than you're wrong, and I don't want you to do that. And learning to, to talk in a way that turns the volume down on the anxiety Using eye language, describing what you want, what you need, what you see, what you think and to the degree that you can, doing that in a calm tone of voice. Part of what the family system stuff does is that executor is attuned to all the anxiety. And if you come in and say, you're a stupid idiot and why are you doing that? Their anxiety is going to go out the roof. They may still get anxious when you say, I want to ask that you do that differently. I want to ask that you talk to me in a different tone of voice. I want to ask that you consider this rather than that. If you can turn the volume down, your brain registers that differently than it registers somebody screaming at them or raising their voice at them. If you could just do that, like flipping a light switch, then I could just give a little advice and you could go do that. But the truth is that's a practice that has to be developed over time. It's like building muscles. I just want to keep emphasizing if I can see, that my wife has Alzheimer's and that we're we know that's going on and 1 of the things that I can see is that my practice of this work over the last 10 years is just a world of difference where I'm in a support group with a group of people whose loved ones are have dementia and it's amazing to me how much we spend in the support group with them talking about this person asked me the same question 20 times and it just infuriates me. Well, I get asked the same question 20 times, and it doesn't infuriate me, and it doesn't infuriate me because I'm some, amazing human being, and it doesn't infuriate me because I've practiced for 10 or 15 years and even now, with my kids, as this is coming, we're having conversations about, so how do you manage yourself in a moment when mom does something that's irritating or that's frustrating? The practice in being a calm presence and learning to define yourself is the language we would use learning to ask for what you want, to say what you think, to do use I language rather than you language, and to do that as calmly as you can. Here's an interesting thing. Anxiety is contagious. Calm is also contagious. I remember hearing that at 1 of my 1st faith walking events and it was profound and I've used it a lot. When I find myself in a tense moment, I'll remind myself that calm makes a difference. You know, What you said a while ago about first becoming aware and then you're like, Oh, I did it again. Oh, I did it again. But sooner or later you're like, Oh, I almost did it again, but I caught myself! Right. Yeah. Well, and my story about, the talking to the attorneys the person who worked in the attorney's office of the reason I tell that story is I don't think you ever as a human being ever get to a place where you're not going to get reactive. What you're going for is just being less reactive more often. Yeah! Right! If I can, if that can be my goal, then when I mess up, like I didn't shame myself for what I did. I recognize what I had done and what I didn't do is inject that anxiety into the family system. I didn't start. Call him Betty and call him with our kids and say, you won't believe what this attorney did. I pretty quickly realized what I'd done. I did the practices that I do to calm myself and within probably an hour, I called back and apologize. And so the goal is not perfection. The goal is just growing your capacity to be as calm as you can in the anxious moments where you can ask for what you want, say what you need, define yourself and to do that in as calm a manner as you possibly can. That's I think that's. That's as good as anybody gets, or if anybody gets better than if anybody gets better than that, I've not met them yet. Well, and I think that is self leadership. Yeah, you're not looking to anybody else. It's all about you and managing and leading yourself 1st, and then you can take the leadership in that situation and yeah, clean up your mess. well, that's the other thing that I would say is because you can't do this perfectly... I grew up in a home where my mother would say, apologize to your brother. Sorry. But learn, but learning to do a heartfelt kind of apology that says, I, I didn't do that conversation very well, and I want you to know that I, here's what I wish I had said. Here's what I wish I had done. Here's what I wish I hadn't said. Clean that mess up. Then that not only turns the volume down for you, but because we, when we talk about family systems, it turns the volume down for the whole family. Right. And that's just invaluable. Right. If we're not so confrontational, if we can come alongside someone and begin to ask those questions, then we're moving forward in the same direction. And if I want you to change your mind, if you're the executor that I don't agree with, if I want you to hear what I have to say because I really think my ideas has value to it, then I need to consider you and how you're going to hear me so that I can phrase it in a way that you will best receive it. Yeah. Yeah, it's not manipulation, but... no, it's I'm 100 percent And if my communication isn't getting through, what most of us do is we say it harder and louder or we go away and quit saying it, Right? Learning to do that. Well, so I'd repeat something we've said several times now, and that is the first thing is to get calm yourself. If you're all stirred up, and I don't mean you have to be on a scale of 1 to 100, you don't have to be at 0, but you have to calm yourself down to where you can get to your thinking. And I think the second thing is that you want to express compassion to the person who's the, the executor who's got you kind of stirred up, the things like I, I know this is a really challenging assignment that you have and I can't imagine how, tough it must be. And, and, And I realize maybe that I'm contributing to making it challenging and. And, I don't want to do that. I don't want to, I don't want to add to your load. The, The kind of things that just express compassion can help turn the volume down. The next thing I would say is I want to really understand why they see it the way they do. The question why never ever helps. Human beings are just geniuses at making up excuses and reasons for why they do what they do. When you can get calm and get into a conversation, questions like tell me how you came to this thinking. The questions are who and where and what and when and how did you come to this? What is it that's influencing your thinking about this? When did you come to this conclusion? I'm actually, I'm a brain science nerd is really what you've called me. I'm not, I don't have any brain science education. I just read it all the time. And in the brain science, what it says is. That your brain basically has two kinds of systems, a thinking system and a feeling system. And the more the feeling system is stirred up, the more the thinking system is pushed down. And so when I'm talking to you and I'm asking questions, what I'm doing is I'm getting this to happen because I'm getting you back over into your thinking and you, you can't have both of them stirred up. And then I'm doing the deep listing. I'm trying to say back. So here, let me make sure I understand. Here's what I think I hear you say. Let me see if I got that that, that kind of stuff, or boy, that sounds like a really complex set of stuff. I had a friend that I saw on a weekly basis for lunch and one still do and one day I got an email from him the day before lunch where he said I am so mad at you right now, I can't hardly speak, and I am not having lunch with you tomorrow, and then he said in the email, I'm going to tell you as soon as I can calm down what's going on, and he finally wrote me a two page email that was just scathing, and it was like, A magical learning experience for me. And I, like I had been growing my muscles around this rather than defending myself and getting reactive, what I did was I just wrote back to him and said, let me see if I understand what you're saying. And I just said back to him paragraph at a time in the email. And two things happened. One was I could tell by his next response that the volume had been turned down. He said, you got about 90 percent of it. There's this one thing that I want to make sure you got. I wrote back about that. And then we ended up having a conversation on the deck at my house down in Montrose when we lived down there. That was one of the most fruitful conversations that I'd ever had. And it was just a powerful learning experience that when another person is all stirred up, all of us want to be understood. And if they actually think I understand them, they're going to be much more likely to hear me. And so then if you can, it's Stephen Covey's language of seek 1st to understand and then be understood. And after I've done that, I've calmed myself. I'm talking in a tone of voice and using body language. It turns the volume down. I'm asking good questions and then. Could I tell you how I'm thinking about that? Not, so let me tell you how you're wrong, or let me, not let me tell you how I see it differently, but could I tell you how I'm thinking about that? And generally, if you've actually listened, people will do that. They'll say, yeah. And then I think one other thing that I would say maybe a really powerful lesson that I've learned along the way is I want instant results. And when I say, here's how I see it, if the person doesn't change, then I go away making the meaning, well, that was not successful. So much of the really deep change in my life and my relationships has happened when I've done what I've just described to you, and then they go away, and I call this the work of the spirit, and the spirit keeps that conversation alive, and a day or a week later, they come back and say, I've been thinking about that. And they don't say, I see that differently today, but they're at a different place. And so, if I, if I do what I've been describing, seek first to understand and then be understood, and then I don't get what I want, and then I get ramped back up, I'm actually undermining my own process. Now, you may still not get what you want but the likelihood increases if you can give space and time for that other person to consider what they've heard and what you're thinking. And.. For sure. Yeah. And it's totally possible that what you want is not the best outcome either that in, the two of you chatting it out, you can come up with a third way. I have had so many occasions in coaching where I will say, let me tell you what I hear you saying. And I'll do that. And then the person will say, hearing you say what I think, what I've been saying, I don't think I agree with myself. I think that's hysterical. I don't think that's true. It's like, it's all in our head going round and round and we get it out here and it, it improves the communication. That's true. That's true. And the other thing you said was our tone of voice and our body language. I don't remember what the ratios are, how much we actually say, and our body language and all of that, but.. About 80 percent about is Only 20 percent is the word you use. Right. Zoom has been really helpful. Like, like, we don't, we can't see our face. And just being able to watch yourself every now and then I look at, I think, oh, gosh you're really frowning. Well, Jim, or just at least get a pleasant look on your face. Right? Yeah. Um, So building trust in family members that might be stirred up around a particular who's going to get mom's ring or whatever. So what I'm hearing you say. Is that if we can find a way to calm ourselves using practices, meditation or deep breathing or whatever it is going for a walk, doing something to, I think stirring, moving our body helps to move those emotions through and I would agree with you the work that I've done on emotional health, mental health, all of that.. Our emotions are important. They're, they're not speed bumps that we're supposed to get over in a hurry. They're there to communicate things. And so if we can acknowledge what we're feeling, and then manage our own anxieties, figure out what's ours and what's theirs, and then manage our tone of voice and our body language so that we can bridge the gap of communication and really move forward. I think Jim that people can come out families can come out better when they go through something as sad as probate can be the loss of someone. I think it can bring a family closer together when people are intentionally trying to do those kinds of things. So, Jim, as we're wrapping things up, if there's a listener out there that feels reluctant to be in. They're saying, I didn't ask for this. This is beyond me. And they don't know that they have the capacity for this just taking off your theology hat and all those other hats just from 1 person to another person. If you were having coffee with her right now, what would you say to her to encourage her with just 1 thing you can do this? You can do this. Like, I know this is hard let's don't pretend that this is not hard, but you've done other hard things in your life and that's going to serve the, which the lessons you learn there are going to serve you well here. You've got people around you who love you and care for you and you can do this. I think is the thing I'd say. Yeah, I agree with you. Okay, Jim, how can people reach you? So our website is the leaders journey dot U. S. and my email is Jim at the leaders journey dot U. S. and those are the 2 primary ways and we'd love if folks are looking for a coach or need some help with leadership development or those are the places they can find us. Great. And I did wanna say, I do wanna say, if I could, we have a podcast that's on the Yes. At the Leader Journey. Us. You can find you can find our podcast. We just did our hundredth episode about two months ago. And and all of what we're doing is about growing those internal muscles, growing, emotional spiritual health, becoming a better leader. All of all of them are. That's what we're all about. Yes, it would be really important for listeners to take a listen over there, too. I think it'd be really helpful. Thank you. Good to be so... yes, so so glad that you Jim, thank you so much for tuning in to the Probate Podcast today. Jim and I are both glad that you're here and we hope that you take some things away that will encourage you as an individual and as a leader within your family system until next time. Take care.