Kris Safarova  00:45

Welcome to the Strategy Skills podcast. I’m your host, Kris Safarova, and our podcast sponsor today is StrategyTraining.com. If you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies. It’s a free download we prepared for you, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/overallapproach. You can also get McKinsey and BCG-winning resume, which is a resume that got offers from both of those firms. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf. And the last gift for today is a copy of a book we co-authored with some of our amazing clients. And it is called Nine Leaders in Action. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/gift. And today we have with us Joel Salinas, who is a behavioral neurologist and clinical scientist at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Founder and Chief Medical Officer at Isaac Health and former Harvard Medical School faculty. He is the Best Selling Author of Mirror Touch and co-author of the upcoming book, Conflict Resilience. Joel, welcome.

Joel Salinas  01:53

Thank you so much. Thank you for the invitation. Happy to be here.

Kris Safarova  01:56

Joel, so you had an incredible career. Maybe we can cover a few key lessons from your career so far, and then we will dive right into the topic.

Joel Salinas  02:04

Great. Yeah, I think in my career, I think would be easy to define as non linear. I have taken multiple directions, but I think one kind of beacon that I’ve followed all throughout was just having a strong focus on impact, always asking myself, How can I have the greatest impact on society or within the individual or across multiple individuals? And that’s what drove me to develop an interest in biology and in brain science, and then more specifically, within neurology and then behavioral neurology. I think this has also been driven by my own interest in kind of what it is that helps us kind of think what we do, feel, what we do, do, what we do as humans. And that also led me to not just see patients within the hospital system and within clinics, but also to do research in this area, to understand how it is that our social environment shape who we are and how we can shape our connections, and how that influences brain health overall. And it was, I want to say, almost four or five years ago now that my co author, Bob wardone, and I had connected specifically on the idea of conflict resilience, which is the book that we have coming out, which is in my own research, I’d seen a lot showing how social isolation, loneliness, these are things that are becoming more and more common over the last several decades and have really negative health impacts, and I was trying to figure out, how is it that we can help to address that? How can we improve the situation, even if by a little bit? And Bob’s background was around negotiation, mediation, conflict resolution, and just seeing that there was a lot of overlap in trying to address how we can better connect with each other in navigating these situations, and that’s what kind of led to us focusing on conflict resilience, where Bob had made some observations in at Harvard Law School with how students were having a harder time engaging in conversations with each other, especially really difficult ones, but also just the developing neuroscience on how conversations with other people, where there’s a sense of disagreement or distrust, tends to activate areas of the brain that we also see tied to pain, physical pain itself. And so yeah, that led us down kind of several years of research and figuring through this puzzle that I hope that people will enjoy.

Kris Safarova  04:45

Joel. After learning so much about how our brain actually works, how did that change how you manage yourself?

Joel Salinas  04:53

Yeah, I mean, it is really great to feel like you have got a an instruction book to. To our brain, which is the motherboard of reality. It’s helped me understand so much more about my own brain and behavior and how I perceive things, but also given me some insight into how others think and perceive things as well, to have a lot more humility about what our brain can do and what it can’t do, and a deeper awareness for all the ways that our brain can walk us down paths that we really don’t want to walk down. There’s so much that feels just so challenging in the world, and part of that has to do with this. This, this brain, right? It’s 100 billion neurons, 100 under, billions or trillions of connections between those neurons all involved in this very complex symphony of information exchange, and just having a little bit of an inkling in terms of how these systems relate within each other and what parts of your environment, whether it’s around you or inside of You, can influence how you perceive the world around you, and how that leads to changes in your action and how you respond to things, can be really powerful, but it can also just give you a better sense of calm about the world.

Kris Safarova  06:15

If anything, can you share with us a few things that you discovered about the brain that really change the way you manage yourself, and specifically, how did you change how you manage yourself based on what you learned?

Joel Salinas  06:26

Yeah, I think one big one was just so much of our experience as humans is just one great big hallucination, what we call reality, what we call consciousness, is just this very nebulous, very fragile kind of cloud that we have going on of information, and we ascribe to it so much, but a lot of it is existing within just the connection between a few neurons. I still think back to when I first really, really fell in love with the brain. Was this lecture on the single neuron theory of consciousness, but the idea being that, because our networks that are constantly active and information is being shuttled along those pathways at any given point, any single neuron could potentially dictate who we are in the moment, and that’s so transient, it’s almost like we are existing and unexisting within a fraction of a fraction of a second. And to me, that was just a really big insight to have a better appreciation for what it is that we call reality, interactions and consciousness, and when you when you have, when you feel less tied to kind of the concreteness of the world around you, you have a little bit more openness to new ideas, new concepts, and you have a lot more flexibility around kind of what, what comes your way.

Kris Safarova  07:54

One very interesting thing I observed about the brain is that something really bad happens. Your brain tends to go back to that event and keep on playing different scenarios and how you should have handled situations differently. But of course, we know that we cannot go back to the past and change anything. Why do you think brain does it to us, and how to stop that looping?

Joel Salinas  08:19

Yeah, this is a great point about these brain loops. I mean that relates a lot of these systems that we have, and so much of our brain really evolved to be a fortune telling machine. And that fortune telling process is all about taking past experiences, which are encoded as memories, and trying to make predictions of what’s going to happen so that we can take action to better survive or reduce pain or negative experiences as much as possible. And this, there’s just kind of a thought around kind of anxiety and depression with these loops, so the thought that the constant looping of the past is more like depression, whereas constant looping of what’s possible in the future is more anxiety, and how those two things tend to be really linked together. But there’s this kind of looping of attention around trying to avoid danger, trying to reduce negative experiences, and so we’re there’s this inclination around trying to reduce the potential harms that can come our way. And so it’s just very natural for our brain to walk down these same pathways over and over again, trying to see if you can find some way to avoid it more. But of course, just thinking about the issue over and over again doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to develop a better outcome, but there is a certain reward or kind of reassurance or kind of dopamine kind of release that can happen with that kind of looping in that it can give you a sense of control. It can be self soothing in some situations, but it gets tricky because you. If you do it too much, then it becomes this dwelling or this rumination. And so I think one of the key things that you can do to help to break down, and this is one of the things that we talk about in the book, to help to be, almost be a circuit breaker in tough situations related to conflict, is really taking a moment to pause and take a deep breath. This piece of about the breath is just a little bit easier than really learning mindfulness meditation, but it helps to lower your heart rate, lower your blood pressure, and can help to take these parts of your brain that are much more focused on paying attention to, kind of what salient things that are potentially dangerous that you should be paying attention to and can start to turn back online areas of the brain that much more deliberative, that are much more focused on organization and judgment, and that alone can already begin to attenuate the kind of big, kind of emotional experience you might be having.

Kris Safarova  10:55

And another very interesting thing that I observed is sometimes, for some people, their reaction to danger is they freeze. So for example, they’re working on the street, and there’s a car coming out of nowhere, very fast, and instead of running away, which is normal reaction, you freeze right there. What is happening? Because it doesn’t make sense. We should be trying to survive in this situation. And how can someone break that type of reaction.

Joel Salinas  11:21

Yeah, when we in the book, we talk about the five F’s, these default reactions, the fight, flight, freeze, fauna, fester. All these are behavioral loops that at some point we we learned, or we’ve relied on as a primitive reflex to help to protect us from danger. And you can imagine that the freeze reflex is a way, if you’re kind of putting on our kind of like Neanderthal kind of hat on, it’s a way to kind of be quiet and try to avoid the saber tooth tiger and avoid making any potential action that could harm you. And it’s similar to kind of fleeing or fighting. These are all mechanisms that are really intended to help to eliminate the threat or to protect yourself in some way, but some of us rely more on one than the other, either because of our past experiences or certain pathways that we’re just much more attuned to. I mean, some people are much more prone to depersonalization or dissociation, which is essentially this feeling that you are kind of not in your body, or that the you begin to lose kind of touch with what’s around you, kind of the vividness of the senses, which makes it feel less real. But these are all things that are part of this primitive set of reflexes in the brain that are all intended to try to help you out.

Kris Safarova  12:40

It’s interesting. You mentioned disassociation that happens often with age. You stop feeling that it is your birthday, you stop feeling that it is New Year’s Day or New Year’s night. You stop really enjoying food as much. And you don’t see things the way you used to see them as a child. What is happening there? How with age, it’s very common for people to start becoming a little bit numb.

Joel Salinas  13:03

Becoming numb to things around you, yeah, so this way of numbing or dissociating? Yeah? These are, these are all related protective mechanisms. A lot of it relates to where you place your attention, whether, whether it’s done deliberately or unintentionally. And for some people, it’s a way of helping to relieve kind of past trauma or some of these negative experiences by immediately taking attention off of it. You know, there’s nothing inherently wrong with them, but if there is a particular issue that is potentially addressable through therapy or confronting a really difficult dialog, like we really focus on in a book, you miss that opportunity if you’re just kind of retreat into your own world and remove yourself from it and decrease the negative sensation that way. I mean, it can also have some benefit if you are overwhelmed by the experiences around you, or the potential threat of a tough conversation, it’ll be harder for you to engage in it. So being able to, I wouldn’t consider call it numb to but decrease the intensity of that feeling may actually suit you, so that way you can focus a lot more on making the best decision for you in the moment.

Kris Safarova  14:24

What do you think our listeners need to know about conflict resolution to be bad at it?

Joel Salinas  14:28

Yeah, one thing that’s really important with conflict resilience specifically, which is this ability to sit with and grow from the discomfort of disagreement, is that awareness is more than half the battle. So if you are, if you do any one thing to help to improve your ability to become more capable of engaging in conflict, it’s to become more aware of how you’re reacting to different conflict situations. We. All we’re struck onto it differently, depending on whether we’re talking to family or friends or at a workplace or we’re talking to an authority figure, versus somebody who’s they were romantically interested into. And that begins to give you a little bit of insight in terms of where you might struggle a little bit, but also that acronym of itself can decrease the intensity of those, those feelings that you might have, that feeling of aversion. I guess the other thing that I would highlight is beyond awareness, is really focusing on the bigger, better offer, or the BBO to something that Judge Brewer talked about with, but the idea is focusing on why you actually want to engage in the difficult situation or the difficult dialog, that you can gain something from that. Because if you don’t see any potential benefit from a difficult dialog, it becomes much harder for you and your brain to really align on engaging with it. So if it’s, if it’s a difficult conversation with a loved one, really thinking about the connection or the relationship can be really helpful. Or if it’s if you want to think about you know, what are the consequences if you don’t engage in the conflict, for example, like want to get a raise at work, what are the consequences of you not engaging with the negotiation about getting a raise or getting a promotion, those things can help to get your mind really focused on a very specific target, which can help to cut through a lot of that discomfort that we see that people often encounter with with disagreements.

Kris Safarova  16:43

What would you recommend to those of our listeners who don’t feel comfortable with conflict and they try to avoid it, and they try to adjust to the situation and please everyone, as long as somehow conflict can be avoided?

Joel Salinas  16:56

Yeah. I mean, it’s a very normal experience. I mean, I also relate with being typically conflict avoidant, and I would say, just really focusing in on what you can gain from the conflict, I think really does help quite a quite a bit. I think oftentimes when we think about conflict, we think of it as a sign of failure or a drawback, or we think of how it’ll displease somebody else, and that can be kind of harmful for the relationship. But the fact of the matter is, without conflict, there is no connection, and there’s a certain degree of authenticity that comes from being comfortable with conflict and being able to say no, because if you’re constantly avoiding conflict, you’re just kind of amassing this, this almost like debt of inauthenticity. You’re not really communicating exactly what you want, even if you disagree with it. And part of what we talk about in the book is finding ways to be able to still empathize with the other side and be able to listen without endorsing their point of view related to conflict.

Kris Safarova  18:07

What is the neuroscience behind grudges?

Joel Salinas  18:11

I love this question. So grudges, when we see it in nature, right? The ravens are one example of the birds that actually called the crutch for a long period of time. But we see a lot in humans, of course, and part of that is this mechanism, this fortune telling kind of machine that we have in our skull, and it’s a really strong memory being formed around a situation that happened, which then is constantly coming up to your to your mind to say, you know, this is bad, this is dangerous. Try to figure it out. And the more you think about it, the more you ingrain those pathways in your in your brain. So that way, it’s just very easy to slip into that well worn pathway of that rumination on the negative experience that you had, which is essentially this grudge that you have, this ill intent, or this resentment toward some other person for something that happened in the past. Our brain can be very good at remembering information that we think about a lot like very, very high frequency information. So the more you loop this information, the more and more you get into this grudge mentality.

Kris Safarova  19:21

That is interesting. It comes back to that question earlier today about looping. And let’s say something a mistake that you feel you made, then that the grudge will be against yourself. And the more you look, the deeper the grudge can you go a little bit deep on how to break this looping and deepening of the garage.

Joel Salinas  19:39

I think a big part of that is one always starting with that breath, kind of that pause, and then thinking about what the what you’re looking to gain from the relationship or the interaction with the other person. Certainly you can. To ruminate, but that’s certainly not necessarily going to be supporting whatever your goals are. If you really focus on whether it is a sense of security or whether it is bringing your family together, whether it is helping yourself to get a sense of success in the workplace, these these grudges are a distraction more than anything, because they’re not really helping you to introduce any new ideas. They’re they’re consistently warning you about what to do. And so the best thing that you can do is really focus on what it is that you want to accomplish, and then focus on the reward of following that alternative pathway. Do like finding ways to re to shift that spotlight of attention to to a new course, to a new path of what’s possible, which I would say generally does involve some degree of conflict. A lot of the time, when you engage in difficult situations, you’re much more likely to find a new path you didn’t have access to before, because before that, you were just thinking about or ruminating on the negative situation, as opposed to acting on it to try to improve the situation for yourself. And so I would say definitely the pause and then going back to this bigger, better off for the BBO, really focusing on what your purpose is and what you want to get by this alternative behavior. And sometimes you need somebody else to help you out, right? Sometimes, if it’s very hard for you to to keep your attention away from that negative thought or that negative memory, you may need the support of a therapist or a trusted friend or co worker who you can talk through, and I can maybe give you a new perspective, a new set of options, or at least to help you frame what it is you can do to kind of salvage kind of the relationship or the situation that you’re in. One of the things that we talk about in the book is that there are some situations where you do want to walk away from, from, from a situation that just isn’t helpful for you. And one of the things that we suggest there’s really understanding if the other, the other party is acting in good faith or not. Because if, if the other party is acting good faith, there may be something there to to, to build on, or at least to develop even if it means presenting new information and coming to a new understanding of reality that you know myself and this other person will never see eye to eye on this, and that’s okay, but let’s set some boundaries, some some expectations about what that means for how we work together going forward, so that we can both still accomplish what we want.

Kris Safarova  22:38

And is there a difference in how we approach conflict as we age.

Joel Salinas  22:43

I think there’s not anything inherent to age per se, but if you are with age, we often think about gaining a buildup of experiences, and so if you’ve developed experiences that were particularly negative with conflict, you might become more more averse. I mean, there’s, there’s just, it’s, there’s a there’s a propensity to get more stuck within our past, kind of default reactions, if we felt that they helped. But there are several people that might relate that as they’ve gotten older, they might care less about some of the hang ups that they had before, like fear of approval from another person, or fear that their lack of success at work equated to a lack of value in themselves, so they may become a little bit More more brave or a little less fearful to engage in conflict, they might have less to lose, and so they get less, less stuck on it. But I think each person is very different, and so it really depends on what they’ve learned through through conflict, and kind of what it is that specifically is holding them, holding them back.

Kris Safarova  23:58

Joel, and as you studied how brain actually works, did it change your perspective on life? I know we touched on it a little bit, but could you expand on that?

Joel Salinas  24:08

Yeah, I would say having an understanding about how plastic our brain is, how it’s constantly shaping and changing, it really has opened up my own mind to just appreciate how a growth mindset really is important, and how easy it is to allow our brain to change, because it’s just happening without your effort. Your brain is constantly changing, so a lot of it is figuring out well, what are the lessons that you want to incorporate in your life, what kinds of experiences you want to bring for yourself, and just like with with conflict is a big one that it takes a lot of practice to get better and more comfortable with conflict. And having been very conflict avoidant for myself, just knowing that my brain is becoming more capable of engaging with conflict, the more that I engage with that conflict, even if it’s a matter of starting with small conflicts. But. The my brain is doing the natural work of kind of unlearning things that weren’t helpful before, and rewiring and reprogramming. So that way, I’m more more adept the next time that I encourage a conflict. So that way can engage in progressively more and more challenging situations over time.

Kris Safarova  25:17

What do you want people to take away from the book?

Joel Salinas  25:21

I want people to take away that regardless of how comfortable you are with conflict, this is book is relevant for you, because conflict is everywhere, and I see it as a skill set, kind of like how we think about emotional intelligence. I think it’s something that is relevant to people in their own personal relationships, but also in the professional relationships. I think it’s a book for leaders in particular who are going to need to engage, especially now, with very, very challenging conversations and disagreements among people with the understanding that the conflict resolution, as much as we want, it isn’t always going to be possible. What’s more possible and is likely to be more fruitful is this conflict, resilience, the ability to kind of be with the disagreement and that discomfort and to find ways to grow from it, because there’s no other way that we can really find a path forward otherwise.

Kris Safarova  26:20

Joel, thank you so much for being here. I know we don’t have much time today, but it was very interesting conversation. And looking forward to future books you will be writing, and I would love to learn more and more about how our brain works and how we can manage ourselves and our teams better and achieve most leaders. Where can our listeners learn more about you? Buy your book? Anything you want to share?

Joel Salinas  26:40

Yeah, so you can find conflict resilience wherever they buy books. You can also go to conflictresiliencebook.com and if you’d like to learn more about myself, you can go to joelsalinasmd.com, or you can find me on any social @joelsalinasmd.

Kris Safarova  26:56

Our guest today, again, has been Joel Salinas. Check out his book. It’s called Conflict Resilience. And our podcast sponsor today is StrategyTraining.com. If you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies. It’s a free download to be prepared for you, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/overallapproach. You can also get another gift, McKinsey and BCG-winning resume, which is a resume that got offers from both of those firms. You can get it at firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf. And the last gift is a copy of a book I co-authored with some of our amazing clients, and it is called Nine Leaders in Action. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/gift. Thank you everyone for tuning in. And I’m looking forward to connect with you all next time.