Well, you Wild + Brave Humans have spoken about the “turkeys” in your holiday (AKA the “challenging” friends and family you might be slightly dreading.)

89% of you on Instagram voted that Yep - you’ve got turkeys around your table this Thanksgiving.

100% of you on Facebook voted Yep.

So here we go, the promised survival guide for dealing with it all. Or as I like to call it, a recipe for the turkeys at your table.

So what is it about Fall that makes us FALL? We fall back an hour (YES!), we fall back in time (#nostalgia #tradition), but sometimes we fall back into old habits and relational patterns that no longer serve us (#12YearOldMe #NotCool.)

And when all of our senses are engaged like they are with a change of seasons, we can more easily get re-enmeshed in a sort of fog. Which is totally fine if you’re happily crunching through leaves to get one-too-many seasonal lattes with a buddy or perhaps staying up later than you otherwise would watching holiday movies (#HomeAloneMarathon.)

But when “falling” sends you hurtling back Marty McFly style to how you used to think and feel, when it mires you back in old ways of relating and reacting to family, deadlines, yourself, the looming New Year...well, that can be a problem!

Stress and anxiety start swirling around, mixed with a good dollop of doubt and rising expectation:

Am I doing enough to create good memories for my kids?

Should I just go with my spouse’s traditions this year?

What about work? Is it OK to need/want to keep building my business during the holidays?

And hey #SocialLife and #GivingBack! What about the extra hours and projects and parties that this time of year brings?

And self-care? How do I not go insane? Is it OK to need/want alone time while people I love are off/home/traveling here?

Is it balance I’m looking for, or is it something else? Maybe happiness? Peace? Connection? Space?

Well, just like in life, just like in relationships, just like in business, the holidays are all about Negotiation: Negotiating with Yourself & Negotiating with Others.

And here’s a little newsflash: You don’t have to do it all and you don’t have to even do it really well.

Just engage the Negotiation process to let you deal better with the turkeys at the table this year (including yourself 🙂

We’re going to do this RECIPE STYLE and in 3 parts:

Part 1: Prep

Part 2: Set

Part 3: Serve

Part 1: Prep

There are some presuppositions of Negotiation that it is impossible to continue without. And I’m just going to Prep you for the Prep….it’s not gonna be easy. You might even hate these presuppositions. They weren’t what I expected when I started studying Negotiation. And to throw myself under the bus, these presuppositions are the hardest part of Negotiation for me. And they are the trickiest part for most of the people that I coach.

But here’s the good news: if you can accept these presuppositions, there’s NOTHING about Negotiation that you can’t do. Everything is easier after this!

But first, I want to share a Caveat that applies to everything I share about Negotiation. This assumes a healthy, normative population. It assumes physical and emotional safety being present and lack of abuse or harassment. We would never encourage you to negotiate in those settings or situations. Think of those things as gunfire in any relationship. There are no hostage negotiators who negotiate in the middle of a firefight. That seems counterintuitive because of the movies we’ve watched and how we imagine that negotiations work.

Negotiators try to make sure that things do not turn into showdowns and they will not and cannot work in gunfire.

That’s important to remember…you can always and should always take yourself out of situations where you feel unsafe.

So safety first. Always. I know you know this, and you also know that we are coaches and consultants, not counselors or therapists. So we are staying in our lane here and we encourage you to always seek out advice and help from a therapist or psychologist to deal with mental health issues or if you’re unsure if the situation you’re in is healthy enough to warrant negotiation. And negotiation - like life - is a fluid situation. There may come a point where a situation you felt comfortable negotiating in changes and you no longer feel safe. That’s your gunfire, stop negotiating and remove yourself.

Thank you for bearing with me on that…it truly is important.

Now, back to those Negotiation Presuppositions:

1. The other person is not the problem. They are the key to the solution. Your goal? To show up and create the space so you both feel safe enough to co-craft a positive, mutual outcome. That outcome can be as simple as calmly enjoying dinner together without too much terror and as profound as having massive breakthroughs in your relationship.
2. You don’t know what the other person is really thinking. Period. No matter how many times you feel like you have had the same conversation, no matter how many Thanksgivings you’ve spent together. Your goal as the Turkey Negotiator is to create the space for that person to open up to you, to share with you, to let you know what they are actually thinking and feeling.
3. You aren’t going to save Thanksgiving. You are not the sole solution. Don’t be the hero of this story...be the curious observer, be the caring friend, be the person that shows up, calms down, and carries the situation forward. Your goal isn’t to tolerate the other person...it’s to make them feel like you See, Hear, Understand, and Accept them.
4. Things aren’t always the same. Just because you’re falling into old patterns doesn’t mean things are the same, that you are the same, that they are the same. Change is constantly happening and possible.
5. Checking out emotionally or running around fulfilling tasks for others or even holding back is NOT the way to ride out the holiday with as little damage as possible. (And BTW, I know you don’t need me to tell you this but hitting the holiday cocktails too hard isn’t the solution either.) And those coping strategies are certainly not the way to create the kind of holiday memories you want. Being fully present is what gives us the ability to be well and create positive change within and around us. If we’re not engaged in the moment, we miss it. No amount of Instagram-ready images salvaged from the wreckage of frantic tasks or holding back can make up for missing the moment!

You can have a completely different experience of the holiday...no matter what the turkeys around you do. That’s because the heart of negotiation is emotional agility. And that’s what this first step of Prepping is all about.

This is all about you: deciding what you want and how you want to show up this Thanksgiving.

Start by making space for yourself with this simple breathing exercise. Pick a word that evokes the feeling you want to experience in the moment this Thanksgiving. Maybe “Peace” or “Calm” or “Joy.”

Say the word you’ve chosen silently to yourself and visualize that feeling filling you as you breathe it in through your nose. Visualize stress and expectations and conflict leaving your brain and body as you exhale through your mouth.

Repeat this process for three to five deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth

Then ask yourself the following questions:

How do I want to feel this Thanksgiving?

How do I want to act?

What are my pitfalls and pet-peeves and roadblocks?

If nothing else but this happens, what will feel like a positive holiday to me:

What’s my best case Thanksgiving scenario?

Part 2: Set

As those little turkeys are headed over, you gotta set the Negotiation space for them. This is where you allow yourself and every turkey around your table unconditional positive regard. This is a place beyond being right or wrong, fair or unfair. This is the unique space of Negotiation...and without it, you can’t progress with the other people up the Behavioral Change Stairway toward a better holiday.

Remind yourself that each of you are worthy and capable of connecting and creating positive change.

So you:

1. Set the Space of Unconditional Positive Regard: your whole goal is to make each person feel Seen, Heard, Understood, and Accepted. We do this with our attitude, with listening, and with the tools I’ll share with you.
2. Set the Face: smile calmly and kindly while looking those little turkeys in the eye.
3. Set the Pace: if in doubt, breathe, slow down, focus on the other person. Your goal isn’t to pepper them with questions, or lay down the law, or even keep a cheery round robin of chit-chat back and forth. The Pace of Negotiation is one of focus and flexibility. It’s all about the process and being in the moment. You will spend MOST of your time as the Turkey Negotiator LISTENING.

Part 3: Serve

This is all about your negotiation tools! Remember, if you don’t Prep yourself, and you don’t Set and Keep the Negotiation Space, you don’t get to Serve Up the Tools!

So you:

1. Set the Space: Unconditional Positive Regard with the goal of making the other person feel Seen, Heard, Understood, and Accepted.
2. Set Your Face: a calm pleasant smile while you look the other person in the eye and intently listen.
3. Set the Pace: breath, slow down, focus on the other person. LISTEN without needing to correct, interrupt, or add.
4. Serve up the Tools: use these tools to encourage each person to share more and to really learn what’s going on their world so that you can share a positive experience together:

Mirror: This is all about the words the other person uses and creating safety and rapport by repeating back the crucial 1-5 words the other person has said to you either as a question (with upward inflection) or as a statement (with a downward inflection.)

Label: This is all about putting a name on the underlying emotions of the other person with the purpose of amplifying the positive and diffusing/redirecting the negative. This isn’t the place to inject yourself into their narrative, so none of the “what I’m hearing” or “it seems to me.” Here are some common labels:

- It / That seems like

- It / That sounds like

- It / That looks like

- It / That feels like

What / How Questions (and NEVER Why): these open up the other person to us and allow us to tap them as the resource that they truly are for solving the problem in front of us or simply savoring a positive moment together. What / How questions are endlessly helpful in opening and connecting with the other person, and How is truly powerful in calming and redirecting the energy of aggressive people.

Here are some common What / How Questions:

- What would we like to accomplish?

- How can I do that?

- What would you do if you were me?

- How can I help?

SILENCE: the great activator of negotiation. Use it after EVERY tool! The whole point of each tool is to allow the other person to feel Seen, Heard, Understood, and Accepted enough to share what’s really on their mind and in their heart, without judgment. So don’t ruin a great question or Mirror or Label by not allowing the Silence necessary to let them share! (BTW - it will probably shock you how bad you are at Silence...but you can’t be worse than me when I started using the tools so take heart!)

Remember, you are building relationships and giving yourself and the other person space. You don’t need to solve or argue or rehash everything.

Odds are, if anticipating Thanksgiving is stressful for you with specific people in mind, creating the space of unconditional positive regard and really listening is the BIGGEST goal and GREATEST accomplishment you should aim for this holiday.

Especially during the emotionally charged end of the year, with people we don’t see often, it’s tempting to declare our truth in order to head off problems, make sure people keep their distance, or even with the altruistic hope that this is a kind of boundary setting that will keep them from hurting us the way they usually do.

But if Negotiation has taught me anything, it is that it’s not enough to be right. And if we want to be in harmony (or at least not at war) with any other human, we must first help the other person feel Seen, Heard, Understood, and Accepted. And to listen to them without judgment. To open ourselves to the other person and make that moment one we experience together. That’s not something from the Unicorn & Fairy Guide to the holiday….it’s straight from the FBI Hostage Negotiation Playbook. #HardCore

So whatever turkey at your table is holding you hostage, this is a powerful way to change the dynamic. And you don’t need to have an intervention. You don’t need to be all meta and declare what you’re doing as you do it. Just Prep Yourself, Set the Space, and Serve Up the Tools.

Give yourself space (and grace) to breathe and calmly, kindly Negotiate.

…and if all else fails, remember to Pardon Your Turkeys, at least until next year 🙂