High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 675: Detox from Drama: Elevate Your Communication and Success with Robyn Hatcher, CSP, Keynote Speaker

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Robyn Hatcher is a powerhouse keynote speaker and communication expert who once created drama for a living as a soap opera writer and actor. Now, she’s on a mission to eliminate drama from the workplace and help leaders and professionals communicate with clarity, confidence, and purpose. With a rich background that includes writing for All My Children and One Life to Live, acting on TV and stage, Robyn brings a unique perspective to communication and leadership. She’s a Certified Speaking Professional, a Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner, and the author of Standing Ovation Presentations, where she introduces her transformative ActorTypes communication-style system. In this episode, Robyn and I talk about:  How to Own Your Power Her Drama Triangle,  Why we Experience Drama Her LOVE Formula for Reducing Drama Other Strategies to Reduce Unnecessary Drama  HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE REQUEST A FREE MENTAL BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH DR. CINDRA AND/OR HER TEAM CONNECT WITH ROBYN TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MENTALLY STRONG INSTITUTE Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode.  

Welcome to episode 675 of the High Performance Mindset. This is your host, Dr. Syndra Kamboff, and I'm so grateful that you're here, ready to listen and to help you be your best even more often. That's what we're all about here. Today's guest is someone who knows exactly how to capture a room and teach you how to do the same. Robin Hatcher is our guest today,

and she's a Powerhouse keynote speaker, a communications expert who once created drama for a living as a so proper writer and actor and now she's on a mission to eliminate drama from the workplace and help leaders and professionals communicate with clarity, confidence, and purpose. Robin has a really cool rich background that includes writing for all my children and one life to live as well as acting on TV and on stage. So she really brings a unique perspective to communication and leadership. She's a certified speaking professional and an author of the book Standing Ovation

Presentations where she introduces her transformative actor types communication style system which we talk about in today's episode. So in this episode Robin and I talk about how to own your power. She describes the drama triangle and why we experience drama. I love her love formula for reducing drama and she shares with us other strategies to reduce unnecessary drama that gets in the way of your potential. You'll leave this conversation with powerful tools to strengthen your presence and communication and how to help you be a high performer even more often. So let's welcome Robin Hatcher.

Robin Hatcher, thank you so much for joining us on the High Performance Mindset. I'm so excited that you're here today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited too. Did you know for those people who are listening, I want to share with you three fun facts about Robin. Robin once wrote for two daytime dramas, One Life to Live and All My Children. Robin also was in a TV commercial she starred in for the New

York Times that ran for eight years and it was parodied by on Saturday Night Live with the only the Hal Berry playing her. That's incredible. It's so bizarre. And she once judged a Miss Montana and a Miss Teen Montana USA pageant. I love it. So today we're focusing on drama and what a great person to have on in terms of on our podcast of who has created drama for different soap operas. So tell us, Robin, why do we want to care about drama? Drama seeps in everywhere. And I love, you know, and it's like, those fun facts are very dramatic. And it's so interesting that when I say seep, because we don't realize that it's creeping

into our work life. it creeps into our personal life, it creeps into our mindset. I feel like we're kind of wired for drama. When you think back on it, stories created humanity and civilization in our culture. Without the stories, humans probably wouldn't have evolved the way that they have. So, our mind is wired to listen to and hear stories. And the unfortunate part is now we are making up

our own stories, we're creating our stories, we create the drama, and in the workplace, we think everything is going cool, and then all of a sudden, somebody will say something and it will of a sudden, somebody will say something, and it will trigger a reaction, and then that reaction triggers an assumption, and then that assumption triggers a judgment,

and then it creates gossip or creates a mindset, and all of a sudden, two people aren't getting along, two people are talking about each other behind their backs, and then drama has seeped into your workplace. Absolutely. I love the word seep. And I think about two things you just said that I think is really important is that we can create the drama in the workplace, you know, outward drama, but we also create our own inward drama. And I like that you included that in your conversation right there because so many times as I was listening to you, I was thinking about the ways that I might end up creating drama with

my family or my friends or my coworkers and it's not even there. Right? It's just my perception of it. Oh yeah. Yeah. I came up with this saying just the other day, most of the time it's not about communication, it's about speculation. We don't communicate, we speculate. And especially in this generation, as the workforce gets younger and younger and more used to tools like Google and AI, they're so used to being able to find everything that they need, you know, and we all are.

It's like, you know, I'm just gonna Google that. I'm not gonna ask a question. And so therefore I feel like curiosity has gone really low. You know, people aren't as curious as they used to be. And at the same time, so we'll just make it up. We'll just make up what's going on in this other person. You know, I do a lot of executive coaching and this comes up all the time.

I'll have somebody sit in front of me and they'll say, well, she did this because she feels this, this, and this. And I'm like, are you sure? Yeah. Do you have any facts that are proving that? And then when you uncover it, and this is what I love about what I do in drama,

and also how it relates to writing for soaps, but when you uncover it, there's oftentimes a history of someone having done that to them in the past. And so that story becomes huge. You know, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. And just like they do with, you know, the biases, like you start looking for evidence that supports the story that's been in your head for a long time.

Yes. And that's where that inner drama happens, and then it starts to externalize, because you have decided that that other person is actually doing that bad thing. They're actually doing that same thing that whoever else did it to you in the past. It makes me think of this idea of, like, selective attention when you buy a car and let's say

... And then you start seeing all the cars that are like your car because that's what you're looking for. And I think about the clients I work with as well. It's like we talk about, is that capital T truth or lowercase truth? And I know you talk about something similar, but it's like, is that, do we know this 100% for fact? Or is this smaller T truth like your truth, like what you think? I love that, I love that.

And I was just listening to somebody who called it, like you can either have truth and you can have fact. You know, so they're both, you know, because your truth and my truth are our truths, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're facts. And so it's really discerning. And sometimes the point of the matter is a fact doesn't matter.

It's only what matters is our personal truth. So Robin, one of the things that you talk about is this drama detox. And I was just kind of curious what you mean by drama detox and why would that be important for leaders or coaches or athletes or anybody who's listening today to help us think about how can we detox the drama in our life? Yeah, yeah. One of the things about detoxing is like when you think about the word detox

and how we use it normally now is like when you go on a fast or detox your system of all these pathogens or stuff that's not good for you, you detox the body. We talk about gut health and so what can you eat or what do you stop eating to detoxify your system so that you can be healthier and happier? And that's what I believe we need to do in the workplace is detoxify it. Now, the thing about trauma is you're never going to get 100% rid of it, but you can detoxify it by observing it, knowing it, nipping into the bud and identifying it. And so it's important because it's so, I it, nipping into the bud and identifying it. And so it's important because it's so, I mean, going back to the word seep, it's so insidious. What happens is, and just like with our bodies, like we can drink as much Pepsi or Coke or

whatever it is as your soda or drug of choice as you want in your 20s and your 30s, or you can have like five in the morning. By the, if you had like five every hour, your body is gonna start to break down. If you've been drinking that way for the past 20, 25, 30 years, your body's gonna start to break down. And so if you leave these little tiny drama moments, fester in your workplace for too long, the entire culture starts to break down.

And when that breaks down, when that culture breaks down, then everybody you hire starts to smell the rotting culture. They either turn into the culture or they quit. And so then where's your productivity? Where's your engagement score going to end up? Where is your potential for growth? So what is the ways that you would suggest that we start identifying drama? You know, like I can think of, sometimes as a leader, you might not be in the conversations and you might just kind of feel the drama,

but you don't actually even know what's really happening. So how would you tell us to identify it in the first place? I love that you said that because one of my pet peeves is as a leader, you need to be in the drama. It's like, I know you have a lot. I mean, you need to be observing it. And I know as like CEOs and people have a lot on their plate, but what happens a lot is I will go into organizations, I go into these larger organizations, smaller organizations, and I'm asked to work with the middle managers to fix the drama and to fix the engagement

and to fix all of those issues. And I got in there and I start to do it. And if it's not replicated by the senior leaders, if it's not seen or acknowledged by the senior leaders, then what's going to happen is those middle managers aren't going to follow through or they're not going to think that it's important enough. So I'm not like, like want to bash these senior leaders who are really busy, but as a leader, one of the things you want to know is

where is that drama coming from? And how might I be the cause of it? Now, when I think about the soap writing, when I think about the soap writing and as it relates to drama, it's really interesting because most people don't realize about writing for soaps is there were actually two teams of writers who write every single episode. I think that happens in network TV as well.

But we have one team writes the breakdown or the outline. So what is supposed to, and that's led by the head writers. So the head writers and their whole breakout team get together and they write what's supposed to happen in that week, month, year. Then we've got the script writers who then implement whatever is in that outline or breakdown. Now to me, the senior leaders are like the head writers and the breakdown writers. They set the tone for the whole show. They set the tone for the whole organization, the whole business. And then they give out, they tell you who your leader is, they tell you your org chart. They tell you your job description.

They tell you what team you're on, what room you're in, and all that. That's all set up like the breakdown writers. And then these employees write their own scripts. And so as they write their scripts, those scripts are based on what the breakdown writers or the senior leaders have put out. So as a senior leader, you need to know what is in your breakdown. Is it still working?

Is that outline still affected? Is it serving all of your people? Can you then like really look and say, so are we, do we have the right people in the right roles for the right output? And continually revisit that. It's great to keep being innovative and it's great to have to keep the lights on and think about where the money is coming in and if the money is coming in and dealing with your

board of directors. All those things are wonderful and extremely important for senior leadership to do. And what's almost more important is to make sure that the outline that you're putting out every day is still effective in getting you to where you wanna go. So I think that's a, I don't know if I answered your question, but that's the beginning part of the question, because as leaders, you need to be self-aware.

And the other one is once you're self-aware, then we can go deep down into how to recognize it and then what to do about it. So what would you tell leaders to do to kind of avoid drama in the workplace? Like one of the things I heard you say or not even the workplace but among teams or among families, right, I think it all applies. But one of the things I heard you say is, he really intentional as a leader to understand the culture you're creating and be self-aware. What other things do you think that people can do

to avoid drama? Yeah, make sure that communication is a key point of your managerial skill sets. Really helping people know how to communicate and create psychological safety. And that is so, so critically important these days. And when you don't really dig into psychological safety is such a buzzword these years, but when you really dig into what it is, it's not rocket science. It's stuff that we've been talking about for years.

It's like, are you safe to contribute? Do people actually feel safe to have their voices heard? Are they actually being encouraged to continue to grow and not just given a cookie cutter and say, do this? Because when people feel like they just have to do this one thing, they're not told the why behind it, that's when they start getting very frustrated. They don't feel like they're producing anything. They don't feel like they're making a

difference. And when you're feeling like that, then you start resorting to, how can I make myself feel more important? Oh, I can create drama. Because the more drama I create, the more attention gets on me, and then I feel important. And so that is a key component to actually valuing and making sure that people are seen and heard. The biggest mistake I see leaders make of all sorts is not talking about the why behind what it is they're asking their employees to do. So many leadership works on transactional things. Okay, this is what we do.

This is what we do. This is what we need. These are the data points. These are the KPIs that I'm looking for, whatever. Okay, you got it. Okay, so okay. It's like, yeah. And we got all these things. And then nobody actually explains what the why is that these points or this data is about.

Why is that going to move that business forward? How is that helping that individual's life or their livelihood or the society or the world or whatever they're caring about? Without that why things get very small and again we resort to making your life more interesting by creating drama. Yeah absolutely I think about you know for people who aren't familiar with the topic of psychological safety, I think about the study done called Project Aristotle with Google, where they looked at, right? Like the highest performing teams and they looked at like what predicted the highest performing teams performance and what they were surprised by was this idea of psychological

safety that, you know, people could make mistakes and openly talk about mistakes and I could imagine that's like one also way to decrease drama is to just be open with when things don't go great as well so people don't create their own story about it. Exactly it's like instilling a growth mindset into the workplace because when people don't have don't feel comfortable or safe to make mistakes, that's when they start covering up their mistakes. And if they cover up their mistakes, they're going to go to great lengths to cover up those mistakes, which then creates a snowball effect of people hiding things, people siloing themselves

because they don't want another department to find out what went wrong. All of those things are what I call also insidious pieces of drama making activities, you know, really. I suggest you said that about, yeah, the safety of learning and mistakes and education. And it's hard because it starts again with the leaders. Leaders have to be vulnerable and talk about stories about mistakes that they've made. And that's one of the biggest things that can help with psychological safety is a leader who's vulnerable enough to say, yeah, you're not going to be perfect. And, you can make mistakes and not get fired because this is what I was thinking of, you know

It's like our brain is wired for survival. Yes, and That is the hundred percent focal point of all human interaction is how am I going to help this? Human that I this brain this human's body that I'm in? How am I going to help her survive? And I'm going to do whatever it takes. So if it's hiding my mistakes, if it's lying about something, if it is causing drama to get somebody else in trouble so that I look better, I'm going to do all that I can unless somebody says, you know what, you're great, Tindra. You're great just as I value your contribution.

And your contribution is individually just as important as this other person's contribution. Yeah. Amen. Yeah. And it's all about how people communicate and provide feedback. Hi, this is Syndra Kamboff and thanks for listening to the High Performance Mindset. Did you know that the ideas we share in the show are things we actually specialize in implementing? If you want to become mentally stronger, lead your team more effectively and get to your goals quicker. Visit freementalbreakthroughcall.com to sign up for your free mental breakthrough call with one of our certified coaches.

Again, that's freementalbreakthroughcall.com to sign up for your free call. Talk to you soon. One of the things I know, Robin, that you talk about is this drama triangle. And I'd love for you to share with the guests what that means and why the drama triangle is important to consider. Yeah, I meant to look up the person who first started talking about, but please look it up because it's not mine. But the drama triangle is so fascinating to me because what it talks about is there are three

roles that happen in the drama triangle. There's the persecutor, there's the victim, and then there's a rescuer. And I'm sure if you think about it, you have been one of these roles at one point in your life. And some of us gravitate to one role more often than we would like to admit. So the persecutor is the type, and that's usually like the senior leader type, that I can do no wrong. This is the way it needs to be done.

Go and do it. And if you don't do it, there's something wrong with you, right? Which then creates the victims. Like, oh my God, I can't believe I didn't do it, and if you don't do it, there's something wrong with you, right? Which then creates the victims, like, oh my God, I can't believe I didn't do it right. He hates me. It's like, oh, what am I going to do? It's like, oh, I'm so bad at this, this, this. And then you have a conversation between the persecutor and the victim.

It's like, do what I ask you to do. The victim's like, well, I'm trying. I really had so much to do, and I so-and-so didn't do their part. And then the rescuer comes in and is like, oh, I'm going to save the day. Yeah. Victim. Victim, you know what?

You have had a lot on your plate. You know, persecutor, you shouldn't really persecute her because she's done so, she works so hard. And it's not her fault because she's trying to rescue the victim. And then so a lot of things happen within that drama triangle. The victim has then become persecuted and the rescue, the victim can then look at the rescuer and say, why are you trying to help me?

I don't need this kind of help. And then they get upset with the rescuer, turn the rescuer into, then they start persecuting the rescuer. Rescuer starts feeling like the victim, and then as a victim, then they're upset with, and then the person who was the persecutor will then be the rescuer to that victim. It's like, oh, you shouldn't yell at me. It's like this triangle of sentences. So it just shifts.

It could happen in one conversation. That shift, we all shift back and forth from that. And it's funny. It's like a dance, but we all do it. And again, it's triggered by experiences that we've had before and roles that were comfortable playing in, you know, were comfortable in that position. And then it shifts because it's like, oh, I know this triangle, I'm going to shift to

this other role, then I'm going to shift to the other role. And one of the most important things about knowing and hearing about all these things is that now once you know it, there's a moment that you can then stop and say, am I in the triangle right now? Am I playing a victim? Because there's always this moment, I love this statistic about in one,

I think it's one third of a second or something, there is like this nanosecond before a thought happens between when a thought happens and when an action happens. So your brain has this feeling and then you have this nanosecond to react or not. You know, and within that moment, you can take a breath and say, I don't have to act like the victim right now. You know, I'm feeling like the victim, but what can I do to change? Yeah, absolutely. What would you tell us to do to gain more awareness of when we're the victim

or the prosecutor or the rescuer. How do we catch ourselves in those moments? And I'm thinking about myself when I might be in those, of course, not trying to be in one of those roles, but then also the people that I coach and the people I serve, how can I help them catch themselves? Right, right, right. Yeah, it's great. So with the victim, there are some questions that you can ask yourself. You know, with the victim, some of the questions are, and what else is true? Ah, love it. You know, so I love that question.

And what else is true? Because they've said something, it makes you feel bad. You immediately go to either I'm a bad person or I did this wrong. I was like, then just take that bigger picture and say, what else is true? Huh, I've been at this job for 15 years and I was hired because I have this, this, this attribute. Then another question might be, what are my other choices? It's like I'm feeling the victim, but are there some other choices?

And similarly, what's the story I'm telling myself? Because as soon as you ask that question, what's the story I'm telling myself, that can trigger a memory like we said in the beginning, the memory of when you've been in a situation like this, different cast of characters, different situation, different plot line, and same feeling. Huh. So is this that same story? So those are some questions that you can ask yourself when you were the victim or you feel

that and a lot of times I mention this, you can feel it because I believe, and there's proof around it, our bodies hold our emotions and communicate through emotion as well. And so when we're feeling the victim, we're going to feel it in our bodies. We're going to feel that sort of solar plexus sink in. We're going to feel like our shoulders droop, we're going to feel like our gaze cannot hold the other person's gaze. Then you're feeling like, oh, I'm feeling like the victim. You can ask those questions.

Another thing to support that is just to change the body language, change your position. How can you sit up straighter? How can you make eye contact? How can you then tell your body, you know, change your position. How can you sit up straighter? How can you make eye contact? How can you then tell your body, you know what, I'm not afraid, I don't have to be in this position right now because it's a story that I'm telling myself. And then when you're the persecutor, there's a lot of times those persecutors,

we talked about survival, you know, the persecutors are trying to get something done. You know, they want to get something done. So the question you want to ask is like, what do I really want from this person? Because a lot of times we're asking for things or we're yelling about things that are not actually what we want. You know, we're yelling at you, telling you to do this, but what I really want is for you to respect me more. What I really want is for you to work to come in earlier than I do. What I really want is a day off. So what do you ask of that really deep in that person? What do I really want from that person? What do I really want from that person?

What do I want to be different in this situation? What is some things that I want to be different in this relationship? Because we're persecuting that person based again on an old pattern of what we were told to do. I have an exam. I had a client that was really getting the worst reviews and her boss asked me to work with her. And so I was talking to her and talking to her and she seemed really great when I was talking to her. And then we got to the stories that she, the way that she's used to, and she talked about, I mean, I'm not

a therapist, but she talked about how her family communicates and the way that she's used to, and she talked about, I mean, a lot of therapists, but she talked about how her family communicates. And the way her family communicates is just to yell and to speak really loudly and just to be super, super direct. And that's what she was doing with her peers in her direct reports. And so she was telling me some of the things that she would say. And so what I had to show, so she was telling me some of the things that she would say. So then I had to interpret, can you imagine what they are thinking? So I would tell them, tell her what they might be extrapolating from what she said and the way she said it. And she's like, well, that's not what I meant at all.

No, I noticed that you meant it all. That's how it's coming across. And so by just knowing that and then what you really want and then we talked about what you really wanted, you know, and then when you found out what you really wanted, then we talked about ways that she can communicate and get what you wanted, you know. So helpful. Yeah, I think there's so many times where our patterns, we need to interrupt them and maybe we're used to doing certain things or communicating a certain way kind of based on how we grew up. One of the situations Rob and I was thinking about is actually a client that I'm working

with right now who feels that someone in her company is like bullying her. And so would she be described as the victim and then the persecutor would be the person bullying, you know, she perceives as bullying her. Well, do you have any thoughts on like what maybe you'd suggest people to do who do feel like there's like a bully in the workplace or, you know, they haven't maybe put up the boundaries

yeah they could have you're so right because some so many times it is about boundaries and you the unfortunate thing is there are bullies in the workplace and what i tell people and my clients when this is going on it's like there's this analogy that you're walking in a woods and you hear this growling dishes dog and you hear it, it's really close to you. So maybe you have a weapon or something you're going to call and you're ready to like get rid of this dog. And then as you get closer, you see that that dog's foot is in a trap, bleating and really hurt.

That's why the dog is growling. So what I encourage people to do in those situations is to get curious about what that trap and what that bully is all about. And even if you don't know for sure, I encourage people to reframe what could be the problem. Is that bully so worn down because they never got a promotion? Is that bully having issues at home? Are they dealing with a mentally disabled child or family member? Are they in a sandwich generation or totally burnt out? Those are curious things. Have they been bullied from someone up above? been bullied from someone up above. So you may not have the answers to that, and it may not shift the situation or the behavior

of the bully, but when you get your mindset around, wow, that's a herd dog. I'm not going to go, I'm going to put up my boundaries because again, back to that analogy, if you got close enough to that herd dog, whether it's in a trap or not, it's going to bite you. So what you do is if you can't remove the trap safely, you stay away from being in a position where you're going to get bitten, but you understand now why that dog is crying and upset. And so I feel like in the workplace that sometimes what we can do is take that curiosity and say, huh, I wonder what's going on with that person.

It's not about me. It's- Yeah. You know, it's not about me. It's about them. They're hurt. And we've all heard not about me, it's about them. They're hurt and we've all heard that adage, hurt people hurt people. So they're hurt and then you can start even having empathy.

Now, I'm so sorry, you can even make up this story. I'm so sorry your wife is so unpleasant to you that you're doing this to me. That's really sad. Every time you look at that person, that's the thought that you have. And when you do that, you start behaving differently. And then they may start behaving differently towards you. I had a similar, I mean, it's like I love dogs, but there's a similar analogy. I was working with a woman who had just hired a younger direct report. She was in financial services, and this guy was just so eager to do everything.

He was on top of this, and he was asking all these questions and jumping in her office and doing things that he wasn't prepared to do, didn't know what he was doing, making huge mistakes. And she was complaining to me. And all of a sudden I saw this image. I said, you know what that reminds me of? It's almost like he's a large puppy who doesn't know that he's a large puppy. Like that.

Comes in, you know, destroy, you know how large puppies come in and their tails wagging and they're jumping on, Yes. And they're knocking them down and all that. comes in, you know, how large puppies come in and their tails wagging and they're jumping on you and they're knocking them down and all. We have a large puppy right now, so. I know exactly what you mean. So when you think about that, you know,

they're really, they're just trying to get loved. They're trying to like be themselves, but it's just really annoying and obnoxious. And it was so funny. So I put that image in her and she, the next time, every time she started working with him, she had this image of this large puppy and her whole demeanor changed

and she was able to deal with him and that relationship really sorted itself out because she started seeing him through different eyes. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. I think it's so helpful to think about putting yourself in the other person's shoes and realizing it's not about you. I actually have never heard someone say hurt people hurt people.

Oh really? Yeah. Oh, isn't that so true? And so when you can really think about what's going on with that person, it does help you really understand what might be motivating their behavior, impacting their behavior.

One of the things I really love that you talk about, Robin, is like your love formula. And maybe that would fit with our conversation. Yeah, totally. So far. Oh, before I forget, there's, I asked, I talked about the questions for the victim and the persecutor and the rescuer has questions

to ask those too. Tell us about those. The rescuer questions are, is this about like ego? Hmm, or am I really? Cause a lot of times rescuers get their value by saving other people. And so they jump in to try to help people because it gives them a sense of value. So you have to ask your question, is like, am I trying to help this situation or ease this situation because it's going to make me look better? And then the second question for the rescuer is, do I know what the real problem is?

Because a lot of times what'll happen is people will jump in to fix a situation before they even know what the situation is. They haven't even asked themselves the question, it's like, is this a situation that needs fixing even? I'm going to fix it. But anyway, my love formula definitely can help almost all these situations. In fact, I just realized that I was listening to a client and she had to give a talk to her supervisor because she felt like she was in trouble for

something. And even just creating that conversation was a love conversation. So the love is L-U-V-E. The L stands for listen. So you want to listen and you want to listen for what the other person's feeling or triggers are. So they may say something and you want to think, oh, how are they feeling? Are they sound upset? They sound frustrated. They sound angry.

They sound disappointed. So you listen for that. Then once you hear that and determine that, you can make it up. You're not going to know for sure, but the U stands for understand. You want to say something that shows that you understand their feelings or you understand their point of view. Then the V stands for validate.

You want to then tell them that there is some validation to their feelings. Want to validate their feelings, you want to understand their feelings and you validate their feelings. And one of the reasons I think people don't validate a lot is I think that if I validate, then that means that I'm agreeing with them. But you don't have to agree with them to validate. It's like, oh, you're right. That is a really awful situation.

Doesn't mean I agree with the way that you're dealing, right? Right. And then the E has two possibilities. The E stands for express your differing opinion or explore their reality. Okay. or explore their reality. Okay. So by expressing, then you say, this is how I feel after you've solved it.

I call the L, U, and the V like meat tenderizers. I was like, you don't give a baby a tough steak. You've got to chop it up and give it to you. Just like that's the same thing when you're having a conversation, you don't give your tough opinion, you're tenderizing it. You make them, you lower their cortisol level by telling them you understand them, telling them that you validate them, and then you express your differing opinion. Then the explorer is like you ask a question.

Because a lot of times asking a question will disarm them and also get them to think about what they actually are asking. So it's like I really understand that we need these budget cuts, makes completely sense. We haven't been meeting our numbers. I'm wondering since one of my priorities is X, Y, and Z, does it make sense for me to cut back on this when it's one of the CEO's priorities? By just asking it that way after you've agreed and stuff, the person you're talking to will then have this opportunity to say, oh, maybe it doesn't make sense, or

clarify themselves and say, yeah, it makes sense because. And this way you actually get more information and they get, and they've actually been able to communicate more clearly. And then the other, so that's the question part. And if you don't want to ask a question, you can express by saying, you know, I totally understand why we need to do this. Makes complete sense. You're right. We've been overspending. And I believe that the what we're spending here is going to make a huge difference in quarter four. Good. You know, and so you add that,

and the most important part of it, so many people here is like to butt out. You know, you can use the meat tenderizer, and then if you put the butt in. Oh yeah, not good. The meat tenderizer is out the door and it's tough steak again for you. Tough steak. Yeah, so use and instead of but.

Right. Because you just negated everything you just said. Exactly. But, yeah. Super great. Well, as I'm listening, I love your love formula because I think what it allows you to do is take a step back in such important communication skills, but things that could definitely decrease drama

just by validating and saying, that makes complete sense that you'd feel frustrated or however you feel and express differing opinions or explore their reality. I like that you mean. Yeah. One of the things I'm thinking about, Robin, as I'm listening to you, is leaders who maybe just wanna avoid conflict and they don't really

wanna address the drama. And so, you know, it's just easier to keep doing what they're doing instead of really having difficult conversations. Do you have any thoughts on how to have those difficult conversations? And maybe just using your love formula, but I'm kind of curious about,

you know, if you could speak to those people who might be listening that don't really love drama and don't love conflict, so they just wanna avoid it. Yeah, that's a great question, because it's so, so true, and it's so interesting. I was just talking about to someone yesterday and who talks about generations. And what she was saying is that, of course, all these all general generalizations, but she said that she's discovered that Gen Z and younger Gen Y really don't like confrontation. And so what happens when you don't have the confrontation or the conversation or the difficult

conversation is resentment starts to build and then you can either blow or burn out. And the other thing that will happen is it becomes passive aggressive. And again, with the analogy, it's like if you have a little test tube and you're keep putting these things in a test tube and there's not coming out and then it starts boiling up and boiling up and boiling up and then it explodes at some point. The other thing that can happen when things keep going into your system, you know, you start smelling different. You know, when people eat a lot of garlic, they start to smell like garlic, whether they're actively eating it or not. And so when you are holding back on feelings and resentment and

aggression that's not being communicated, people can smell it. They don't know where it's coming from. That I think creates more drama than we ever will know because the other person is reacting against something that they're feeling, that's something that they're sensing. They cannot put their finger on it, but they know it's coming from you and they're going to react.

Yeah. So as painful as it is to have confrontation, first of all, it's like if you set a culture, again we started with psychological safety, where it's safe to make mistakes, where it's safe to offer your opinion, where it's safe to say that I'm continually willing to grow, then it's less likely that people are going to be holding on to their conflict points. I just was talking to someone today who had a coworker who was conflict-averse. This woman was so smart. I was just starting to coach her, and she was so smart because she sensed there was so smart. I was just starting to coach her and she was so smart

because she sensed there was something off. She said, I didn't do anything right away. But what I did was I went to her later and I said, I get a feeling that something is bothering me. Okay. You know, I really, you know, there's something and I'm open to knowing whatever it is because our relationship is more to knowing whatever it is because our relationship

is more important than whatever it is. I love that. Yeah. And that is exactly what you need to do. Make it that big and back to the why. Like I don't want to just fight with you. I feel like it's so important that we get these things out so that we can work better, so that our team doesn't pick it up, so that our productivity increases.

So whatever it is, it's like, this is the reason. Make your values, make your why bigger than your fear of conflict. Ooh, so good. Make your why bigger than your fear of conflict. Yeah. Because that's more important. And that's what happens because we value, when we're afraid of conflict, a lot of times we value our safety or what we perceive as our safety or other people's opinion of us, more than we value the actual relationship,

more than we value moving forward. You know, and I love that there's a quote from a book, Crucial Conversations, which is a great book on pain medication, yeah. Would you rather be right or move forward? Ooh, awesome. You know, and that's the thing that you want to have a focus on. It's like, are you ready to move forward?

And it may be that you're not right. And maybe you have to have a conflict or a discussion. And there's so much proof that innovation and growth comes out of conflict. The reason why soaps have been on the air for all this time is because there's so much conflict and that's why people tune in. But to be able to resolve it is possible

and to move forward rather than deciding on who's right and who's wrong. You just had some mic drop moments there, Robin. I love that. Be right or do you wanna move forward? And you said, let's see if I can even understand my notes, something bigger than the fear of the- Oh, right.

Yeah, man, your why is bigger than- Your why. Your why is bigger than your fear of conflict. Amazing. Well, this really helps us just take a step back and think about how we're communicating with the people that we work with or the people that we love.

Thank you so much for just giving us your expertise and sharing with us ways that we can avoid drama with the drama detoxes. I love your drama triangle. Today we talked about your love formula, listen, understand, validate, and express. How can people follow along, learn more about your coaching or your keynote speaker?

How can people follow along with what you're doing and get more information? Yeah, my favorite platform is you can reach out to me on LinkedIn, Robin with a Y, hatcher.com. That's my website. RobinHatcher.com is my website. Same on LinkedIn. And you can DM me or just comment on something. And I would love to hear from you and love to talk more about it.

There's just so many areas to explore in the whole drama business. And let's not let it seep in and start a flood in your office. No floods. We want you to keep the psychological safety and keep the high performance. Thank you so much, Rabba. Do you have any final advice or comments for people who are listening? Yeah. The other piece that's so important is to know that everybody's style is so completely

different. What's the umbrella and what feeds into everything that we've been talking about today is that we have the assumption that our way of conversation or our way of communicating and our way of thinking is the one way and the right way, and that you're going to be thinking and responding because that's the way I would think it would respond. But the most important thing for leaders to do is to learn to understand what each individual person's communication style is. And one of the ways I do this, I have a book called Standing Ovation Presentations, and I break it down to what I call, of course, actor types.

Yeah, I love that. Actor types are different types and different styles, communication styles. And knowing your actor type can really, really help to help you flex the style and how you ask for things. What you say when you're using a love formula, you wanna keep the other person's actor type in mind so that that's the conversation that I have for that type. But I might use it, say something completely differently to somebody else because this

is what they need and versus what somebody else needs. Excellent. So you can also check out Robin's book, Standing Ovation Presentations to learn more about those actor types. Thank you, Robin. Thanks for your incredible work around drama and helping people just be their best more often, which that's what I think is when you decrease drama in the workplace and in your life, you can just continue to be more effective and thrive and

be a higher performer. So thank you for all your incredible work around the topic. Thank you so much for having me, Zendaya. It's been a pleasure. So much fun. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Syndra for show notes and enjoy my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr.Sindra.

That's D-R-C-I-N-B-R-A dot com. See you next week.