December 19, 2025 • 29 mins
Conflict is unavoidable but doing it well is a skill that separates healthy relationships from dysfunctional ones, strong leaders from weak ones, and mission-driven men from passive drifters.
In this episode of The Impossible Life Podcast, Garrett and Nick break down how to handle conflict like a leader, not a reactor. They explore why conflict isn’t a sign something is wrong, it’s a sign something matters.
You’ll learn how to pick your battles, protect your mission, separate personal offense from real problems, and create clarity instead of chaos.
This episode is packed with practical tools, biblical insight, leadership principles, and real-world examples from marriage, family, business, and spiritual life.
Apply for the Mindset Mastery Scholarship by January 6th
Join a group of likeminded Impossible Life listeners in our FREE Skool community by clicking here.
Get the Purpose Playbook by clicking here
Get the FREE Basic Discipline Training 30 Day Program by clicking here
Join us in Mindset Mastery by clicking here
If you're a man that wants real accountability and training to be a leader, click here.
Level up your nutrition with IDLife by clicking here
GET IN TOUCH
Social Media - @theimpossiblelife
Email - info@theimpossible.life
In this episode of The Impossible Life Podcast, Garrett and Nick break down how to handle conflict like a leader, not a reactor. They explore why conflict isn’t a sign something is wrong, it’s a sign something matters.
You’ll learn how to pick your battles, protect your mission, separate personal offense from real problems, and create clarity instead of chaos.
This episode is packed with practical tools, biblical insight, leadership principles, and real-world examples from marriage, family, business, and spiritual life.
Apply for the Mindset Mastery Scholarship by January 6th
Join a group of likeminded Impossible Life listeners in our FREE Skool community by clicking here.
Get the Purpose Playbook by clicking here
Get the FREE Basic Discipline Training 30 Day Program by clicking here
Join us in Mindset Mastery by clicking here
If you're a man that wants real accountability and training to be a leader, click here.
Level up your nutrition with IDLife by clicking here
GET IN TOUCH
Social Media - @theimpossiblelife
Email - info@theimpossible.life
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
That's impossible.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Let me tell you what I believe.
Speaker 3 (00:03):
It's your weakness, it's not your technique.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Don't think you know.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
The Impossible Life Podcast and yes, sitting on a winning lottery.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Second, an idea that is fully formed, fully understood.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
That sticks. This is the Impossible Life Podcast because Nick
and I are attempting to live impossible lives. What we
know is that nothing is impossible. So instead of using
impossible as an excuse to not try, we'll use the
pursuit of impossible as an accelerant for greatness. If something's
(00:41):
never been done before, that just means it's unexplored. If
they tell you it's too hard, it's just waiting to
be simplified. Impossible as a default label used by uncourageous
people unwilling to take a risk. The real truth is this.
The solution to any impossible task starts with this question,
(01:03):
if I had to what would it take? What would
it take?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Welcome to another episode of the Impossible Life Podcast. I'm
your co host, Nick Surfis, and I'm looking across as
a man who can't use his own name as a
password because it will be rated as too strong. That's right, friends, Garrett,
unkleback a man who knows security, regardless of whether it's
physical or cyber. Sorry for you, Garrett, but also cyber
(01:30):
Sorry for anybody trying to hack you. I just eliminated
one of their top guesses.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Biological and nomenclap nomenclature encryption. My name is a perfect password, Nick.
I wish, I wish that were actually true, but it's not.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
But I just would love to. I would love to
clip that little piece and just have that be yere
about you section on your LinkedIn bio. It just plays
that over and over again. Anyways, Okay, you.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Want to write a biography of my life, I'm making
sure that you're the top contributor.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Oh I think much.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
It might become a work of fiction, but it'll be good.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Look, it's like we're going to blend. If there's there's
such a thing as a half blend between nonfliction and fiction,
we're going to find that place. Anyways, today gee is
we're going to be uh covering how to do conflict well.
And I think this is the reason we're doing this.
As you know, this is tools and tactics. We talk
about not being passive and one of the things we
said on that podcast was we don't want to We
(02:25):
don't want to like unleash people to just go around
and have every conflict because they're like, well, I don't
want to be passive. So now I'm just going to
be like anybody that I think needs to hear something,
they're going to hear it. We need to be skilled
in conflict, and so that's what today's episode is is
how to do it well, how to be skilled in it.
So first and foremost, we always define things, and you
gave a definition of it that I think contains a
(02:46):
lot of what we're going to cover. We're going to
give you a very clear rules for engagement, talk about
where conflict comes from, and I give some specific examples
in business and personal and otherwise. So I think this
is going to be a really helpful episode for a
lot of people out there. But you said in the beginning,
you said that we said your definition of conflict was
basically we said, we want to do this together and
(03:06):
now we're coming up against each other, which is so
much of conflict that we have. But there we also
looked at the Good Book whenever we were doing this
as well with the Good No Webster.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
If you look if you look at history, Unfortunately, there
is no way around conflict because at the center of
every conflict in history, the center of every conflict in
our lives is people. Because the truth is we are
all flawed and sinful. So jib, we're just going to
start there as you come into this episode. I hope
(03:37):
as you're walking into your next conflict or maybe you're
in the middle of one, that you're not starting off
with I'm perfect, I've never done anything wrong and the
other person's the problem. Right, You are also part in
every conflict. You are party to it. There, we are
all sinful, right, There's only one man who's walked this
earth sinlessly, and even he had to deal with conflict.
(03:58):
So it's not what you don't want to do in
life and with with with marriage, business, family relationships. We're
going to talk about all those things today. What you
don't want to do is figure out how to never
have conflict, how to avoid conflict. It's about proper conflict resolution.
If you you know, one of the one of the
businesses I'm in today, we're trying to like make America stronger,
(04:21):
which will help prevent conflict. What's what's interesting is like
the more you run from conflict, the mortal find you,
and if you run from it, it'll find you unprepared. Right.
But what we know is the truth is it is,
and is this unfortunate state of humanity. When you study history,
conflicts are going to happen, war is going to happen.
Marriages are going to face conflict. Your life is going
(04:43):
to face conflict. Everything you get into there's conflict. So
it's not about avoiding it. Right. The the noun for
conflict is strife. Right, It's two parties coming up against
each other. It's waves craft crashing against each other, it's
two armies crashing against each other. Right. But what we're
to talk about is how to do conflict conflict as
a verb, and it's to how do how do I
(05:04):
do these battles? How do I come up against my opposition?
So let's divege.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Yeah. Yeah, And what I loved about the definition that
you that when you were just kind of summarizing, is
the prerequisite. What you said was we said we want
to do this together. And what that intrinsically means, or
I should say that the implications of that is that
you're not just going to go out and fight like
we said, you don't fight every battle. Pick your pons.
This like a side caveat social media squaks are you
(05:30):
are are like ninety five percent of those are not
going to be your battle?
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And so I want to what I want to separate
out from this, Right, the focus of conflict we're talking
about today is between mutual parties. Right when when if
someone breaks into my house in the middle of the night,
that's not a conflict. It's not that's not a conflict.
Did we did not have some sort of joint agreement prior,
we were not party to something together, We were not
(05:55):
going in the same direction. You have endangered my family
and you're going to very nearly take your last breath, right,
that's not a conflict. Well, right, Well, what we're talking
about today is you know, this is marriage, family, relationships, business.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
We said we were going to do this together and
now there's a struggle. Yeah, and that and so I
just want people to hear that very clearly. What we're
not saying is that, like you just go out and
just this is for the people that you've agreed to
go on, because there are times when you have to
fight people that you haven't agreed to go with. But
that's a whole separate podcast. So as always, we're going
to look at the great book. We're gonna look at
the word to understand battles, and who else are we
(06:33):
gonna look at with the man after God's own heart
who was also a warrior? But David, right, I mean
it's one.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Of my favorite. Yes, I mean, there's only one person
written about in the Bible more than David, and that's Jesus.
He is the he is the leadership figure, he's the
standard of the Old Testament. He's written about the most.
And yes, he's the one person that the Bible says
was a man after God's own heart. Despite his mistakes,
despite his flaws, he is someone that you can absolutely
(07:00):
learn from, model from in the Bible. We've talked about
him a bunch on the podcast, but as it specifically
relates to conflict, I did a message on this one
time called the Heart of a King, and I pulled
apart different matters from David's life, and one of them
was how David did conflict. Now, there's one occasion in
(07:20):
the Bible, and this is Second Samuel chapter six I'll
just or Second Samuel chapter sixteen, I'll just summarize the story.
David is on his way back to the palace and
Saul's family. This is later on in David's life where
he's killed many of Salt's family members there, and you know,
David's had his conflict with Saul's family. One of Saul's
(07:41):
family members is just throwing rocks at David, and David's
got some great men around him. One of David's men says,
let me cut off this man's head. Who is he
to oppose the king? And David's posture towards this is
what the heart of a king is supposed to look like.
Is such the nature of humility? He says, You know,
(08:02):
who am I to say this man's wrong?
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Right?
Speaker 4 (08:04):
Because at the same time, David's son Absalom is warring
against him. What David says in the very very beginning
of this, because David had his reasons for his conflict
with Saul. Saul started it just to be fair, right,
But David's son Absalom is worrying against him. And what
he's saying is, you know, David says, you know what,
I'm not perfect, right, don't I'm not gonna I'm not
(08:27):
going to be I have the ability to execute this man.
I'm not going to do that because that would mean
that would be me saying I'm perfect. This man is
assaulting me personally, and I'm going to shut him down.
When you make conflicts personal, you take them in the
wrong direction. So what David does in this instance is
he says, he tells the man he don't cut off
(08:48):
his head and just takes his ridicule, throwing rocks at him,
throwing dirt on him. And David just walks onto the
palace with his head held high and then dusts himself
off and cleans himself off. Didn't go back, didn't say
throw that man in jail. And then there's a and
let's important juxtaposition here. Second Samuel, chapter six David is
(09:10):
dancing before the Lord. And I'm going short on these stories.
You're welcome to go read them. Second Samuel sixteen with Samae.
Second Samuel sixteen with McCall, one of David's lives. She's
Second Samuel six She's ridiculing David. She says he looks
like a fool dancing before the Lord in front of
his servants. Right, both of these could sound like personal attacks,
(09:33):
but when McCall says that David speaks out against her,
because in that instance, he says, you're not ridiculing me,
You're ridiculing God. Right, David's heart stays the same from
beginning to end. First Samuel seventeen, David says to Goliath,
I will kill you and the whole world will know
that there's a God. From beginning to end, everything and
(09:55):
about everything in David's life was about serving God, was
about promoting who God was, was about following God. And
David made his mistakes along the way, but his source
of truth was was God. His source of truth was
advanced in the Kingdom. And so in this coin like,
that's a great foundation for any marriage relationship situation. What
(10:15):
is is this a personal like? Did you hurt my feelings?
Is this a personal matter? Or is this a mission matter?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Right?
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Because God is the following God ultimate mission. But even
in a business or in a marriage sometimes it's not
necessarily a following God issue, but it is a principal
or mission based issue. And you've got to bring it
back to what is the what is the real thing
that we're after here? When you make things personal attacks,
you'll turn the assault into something that it's not supposed
(10:43):
to be. What is supposed to guide you and how
you resolve your conflict is what matters most, what matters
most his relationship with God. What is second to that? Right,
this is this is an understanding of priorities. What matters
second to that is what's the mission? Right? What did
we agree to do in the beginning, Because if you,
if you did a marriage correctly, the beginning of that
marriage was was was not hey, we're just going to
(11:05):
make each other feel good. Right, if you if you
started off a marriage correctly, it was, hey, we're going
to honor God. And there was also probably some measure
of joint vision of we're going to start a family,
We're going to love and serve other people. We're going
to live our lives this way some you know, and
I'm going real quick on joint mission here, just giving
an example.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
No, well, that's huge because if you I think the personal, uh,
if you can differentiate between what's personal and what's mission based,
that is literally the filter for which battles you should pick.
And we're as we you they're always going to feel personal, right,
because anything that can come against you can feel very
very personal, especially if you care about the mission, and
of course you're going to care about the stuff that's
personal to you, I mean in your marriage, family and friendships.
(11:46):
Having discernment between what the mission is and what's personal
is going to be so key, or you'll fight the
wrong battles quick example in family. So if my kids,
for don't want to do what I want to do
and like, look I like and my kids are not
into sports, I'm using a very simple one. If I
can't be like, why don't we ever get to do
what I want to do and start fighting that battle,
(12:07):
that would be honestly a waste of time. And honestly
it's a battle I've never fought with them and never
will now. The things that I absolutely will fight for.
If my kids are disrespectful to my wife, if they're
if they're like, oh, we don't want to go to church,
I'm going to fight that battle a hundred times out
of one hundred, because it's about who we're becoming. It's
about the mission of my of why God put us
on this earth as a family, and what meat he's
given me and my wife to do, which is to
(12:28):
steward our kids well and to raise them to be
the people that God's made them to be. So when
I when those things come across, it's never like, oh,
it's not a big deal, she's just tired today. It's like, no,
I don't care how tired you are. This is literally
never acceptable, Like there's certain things that absolutely cannot happen
for us to be the family that God's made is
to be because they're mission based, so so so so key.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Point the points you're making there, Nick, is you got
to pick your battles, right, Yeah, and what that's what
we're talking about today essentially, like just to nail the
first point to the wall, don't pick battles based upon
personal conflict, right, Conflict should be about mission. You don't
you don't want to you don't want to risk the
most important things you have for something that's about how
(13:14):
you feel it on a matter.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, very good. All right, Gee, So I want to
get from where conflict comes from and also touch on
the rules of engagementcause I think that'll really help people.
But when we were going this, you said, the point
of conflict is to discover the cause of what has
caused it. You either need to remove the thing or
remove a person.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Yeah, because Ultimately, conflict needs to come to some sort
of resolution, right, And if you want to solve the problem,
you need to understand the problem. And there's really two
you can You can oversummarize and over categorize, which we
like to generalize and categorize on here a lot because
it helps us think clearly. Conflict really comes from two
(13:52):
major issues, right. And remember this is in the type
of conflict we're talking about today, where there was an
initial joint agreement, Conflict is going to come from either
out of order or out of alignment. Okay, And so
just really click really quick on those out of order
happens a lot people do people you know, Hey, out
of order for example, is you know, two people get
(14:15):
into a relationship together, Hey, we're going to do business together,
and they just take off running and never get any
contract down on paper. And then and they both had
the best heart, best intention in a situation. And then
they get a couple of years down the road and
it's like, well, I thought you said this, and I
thought you said that. No one was dishonest, no one
(14:35):
really was malicious. They started with the right intent, but
through people's you know, miscommunications and stories in their own head,
they started going in different directions. A conflict came about
because there was a lack of order. Right, you should
have there should have been contract, there should have been documentation.
I've been in the middle of so many situations like this,
and three years later, five years later, people who used
(14:58):
to be so close, they're sitting in front of an attorney,
ripping their business in half. But simply because they didn't
get contracts in place correctly in the beginning, they just
handshaked and verbalized right, there's a reason you need to
document things. I could give a lot of examples of
out of order, but order is really just there's a
process to things. If you get if you get pulled
into the legal system in America. What's really great about
(15:21):
the legal system in America, despite its flaws, is that
there is a consistent and standard process. There's a way
of doing things right. And what that creates is the most,
potentially the greatest outcomes because there's a standard process. If
you just go willy nilly all over the place, you're
going to start having issues that you didn't want to have,
and that was in neither party's heart right. So order
(15:44):
is that's what it is. Order Its process. Out of
alignment is the second source of and so now what
We'll set these up and we'll talk about how to
resolve them. Out of alignment is the second source of conflict.
And a lot of people will jump straight to this, right,
They'll accuse out of alignment was essential. Out of alignment
would be like, okay, so Nick and I have a
(16:05):
business relationship right with the impossible life, and out of
alignment would be you know, me accusing Nick, or Nick
accusing me and saying, well, you this was the original mission,
and now you want to do this. Right, If Nick
all of a sudden said well, I'm want to make
our business you know all about selling X y Z product,
I could say, well, that's out of alignment. That wasn't
(16:26):
our original intention. Nick and I wrote a vision and
mission together for this business and agreed upon it. If
he did try to go in a different direction, or
I tried to go in a different direction, that would
be an out of alignment issue. Right. So order, usually
there's a lot of people get into out of order problems.
There's not necessarily malice in it, but out of improper sequence,
(16:50):
improper documentation, miscommunication. You come to a conflict from out
of alignment. That sometimes there's not even malice in this issue,
but people go in a different direction. And that's why
and mission and are documented. That's why contracts exist. It's like, hey,
maybe you have a great idea, but we're going to
have to come to a new agreement in order to
go in that direction. Doesn't mean we can't ever go
(17:11):
in that direction, but there is a process in which
we would go in this direction because it's not the
original stated intention. And so two similar but very different
sources of conflict. Out of order and out of alignment.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And I didn't know is not a great excuse for
I'm being serious because I was thinking about when you
sat out of alignment. I mean, in business, a lot
of people don't really state the intent. They just see
an opportunity and go for money. In marriage, we have
the vows, and as we've covered on this podcast before,
so many people make their vows funny or they don't
take them seriously. That when you say till death do
(17:47):
us part and for better yes.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
I'm getting up and walking out of your ceremony. If
you do that, well, I'm not going to be part
of no.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
But you get my point. It's because people will be like,
that's what happens in marriage, is like, oh, one side changed,
that's what you hear A lot is like you know,
this person changed, and it's like, well, you did you
really take seriously what you signed up for because there's
a very clear statement, like there's legal requirements for what
you say. But I think that's where because we don't
take into count what we're getting into, we don't count
the costs, we don't take our words seriously. That's why
(18:16):
it's easy to be like, oh, well this person changed,
and that's a reason to just kind of we're going
to have conflict, but this can't be resolved. It's like,
hang on a minute, you didn't realize what you were
signed up for in the beginning. But anyways, let's get
into rules for engagement GE and just remember, guys, as
we're talking about this, as always, it's always to remember
the point the point of conflict is not to avoid
it is to deal with it correctly. And if you're
(18:36):
repeating the same conflicts, it's because you're not dealing with
it correctly. Okay, it's that is foolishness, and we're going
to cover that in these rules for Engagement get's watch.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Well in there on the rules for engagement on how
to not get into the same conflicts again. But we
don't want to be running from conflict. It's that we
do conflict, right. So rule number one for engagement is,
here's where you're like, when you don't know what to
do in your life, you should return to the source
of truth, return to the word. And that is a
(19:07):
great template for how to resolve a conflict. Return to
where you started. How did we again? Right? The conflict
we're only talking about today is where there was some
form of mutual agreement. Right, Return to where you started,
return to the foundation. If your marriage is busted and
you sit before a counselor, they're going to do this
with you. At some point. They're going to bring you
back to Hey, how did you guys feel about each
(19:28):
other in the beginning? What did you guys say to
each other in the beginning? What was the context in
the beginning? Sometimes people are fifteen years down the road
in each other's marriage and want to choke each other out,
and a counselor just has to walk them back to hey,
where did this start? Right? So very simple at the
beginning of a conflict, zoom out. Right, we talk about
zoom and zoom out's an important tool. Zoom out on
(19:48):
this and say, hey, where did this begin. Let's return
to the foundation as we're going to walk through this conflict.
How do we do conflict? Return to where you started?
Return to the foundation in a business, what was the
original state admission? In a marriage, what was the purpose?
What did we say to each other when we began
this situation?
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, so good man. So that's number one is to
return to why you started the foundation. And then Garrett
gave a few different things. I mean, you talked about
in the marriage and the purpose and the business and
the mission. I think in business sometimes people haven't clearly
defined that and that's where this can get messy. But
number two is separating.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Well, that would be that would be an out of
order issue. Correct You set off in business with a
contract and an idea, but not with a state vision
and mission.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Right right, return to the why I started yep, yep.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Step number two is this is again where like steps
one and two, are preparing for the conflict resolution. Right
When before I deployed, before I went to battle, I
had to prepare for battle correctly. This is how you
prepare for conflict correctly. Number two is separate the personal
from the problem. Separate the personal from the professional. I
mentioned this at the very beginning of the episode. You've
(21:00):
got to take ownership for what and how you have contributed.
You are party to every single problem that you're in,
and the source of every conflict in life is people.
So take ownership every every problem that you're in, you're
in right, so own that part. That's what That's what
my dad always said to me. If the shoe fits
where you might be one percent of the problem, you
(21:20):
might be the ninety nine, but you're in it, and
you've got to own your piece, right. So that's step
one is not walking into a conflict saying I'm perfect
and you're the problem. And the second piece is humility. Right.
Once you've done step one and you're restating the intention
of why you're there, now you've got to listen to
hear what are the actual points of the conflict. Where
(21:42):
where have we where have we become a posed right
in this Maybe you don't understand yet where whether this
is an out of order or an out of alignment issue.
This is that you're preparing so that you can discern
correctly what is the actual You know, you've got to
know the problem before you can solve the problem. Humility
is going to allow you to listen, hey, I'm not perfect,
tell me what I said or that I did, state
(22:04):
the actual conflict that you have, and start to reveal
all the little pieces around it, because most of the
time in conflict, what everyone focus on focuses on is
how the conflict made them feel, but not the actual
parameter and the issue that the conflict is creating, just
how the conflict makes them feel.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah, and I think that step one helps with step
two because if you're going into somebody with conflict and
you say, hey, look, this is what we're trying to accomplish,
it removes a lot of like, It kind of naturally
removes a lot of the like. It makes it less
personal because like, wait, it kind of reunifies you. We're
trying to do something together and we're all in this.
By the way, we're assuming that it's two people who
(22:44):
want to continue on with the same thing, because that's
a whole other podcast. If we talk about people, if
there's one side that absolutely does not want I'm being serious,
who absolutely does not want to resolve it. But if
you've said here's what we're trying to establish now, I
think it becomes a lot easier for each person to go, like,
you know what, here's where I kind of lost sight
of that, And so it makes step two with part
of the prep better. So if you've got those two
g what's number three.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Number three is listen and prioritize. Okay, we separated the
personal from the professional. Because you climb any great mountain
in life, it is going to require sacrifice. When you
put your marriage first, when you put God first, when
you have a business partner, there are going to be
times where you have to make personal sacrifice. This is
(23:27):
why we've separated the personal and the professional. The reason
of a partnership is two people saying, let's come together
and make something that's bigger than us, more important than
both of each other personally, and serve and work on
that together. And there's great personal benefit that comes from that.
But you cannot put the personal in front of the professional.
You cannot put the personal in front of the mission.
(23:47):
So step three is to listen and prioritize. And the
unfortunate part is that you cannot always satisfy every single
person's complaint, every single person's issue. Right, people are going
to have their personal things and say, well, I wanted this,
I wanted that. And while there may not be anything
morally wrong with or ethically wrong with a person's request,
(24:07):
it has to be prioritized correctly. What must come first
is the mission. So once we can hear and understand
what the problem is, let's begin to order and prioritize.
I've talked about priorities a lot on this podcast. Where Nick,
what episode did we do priorities?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I'm going to find out.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
He'll tell us. He'll tell us in just a second.
But what priorities are is different than goals. Priorities is
the thing that I would least like to fail at. Right,
And just like I've talked about, my number one priority
in my life is my relationship with God. I'd rather
fail at everything else than fail at my relationship with God.
Then what comes after that, What two parties who have conflict,
(24:46):
who have a desire to move forward together must state
is whether it's the purpose of the marriage, the mission
of the business, that the mission comes first, that the
purpose comes first. And there's a great story in the Bible.
First King's chapter three, Solomon, the Wisest man who ever lived,
resolves a difficult conflict. Two women, right, and I'm gonna
(25:09):
tell the story quickly. Two women both claim to have
the same baby, right, one woman saying that's her baby
and another woman saying that's her baby. It's both claiming
that the other person stole the baby from them. They
stand before Solomon, the King is to judge and just
think for a second. Obviously this must have been a
serious matter that it made it past all the other
judges and no one knew what to do. So it's
(25:29):
making it all the way to the king's court for
the king to resolve this issue. The King thinks on
the matter, and he says, I know what to do.
I can't tell which of you is lying, So let
me cut the baby in half. I'll cut the baby
in half. Both women can take half of the baby.
And one woman says, fine, that sounds good to me,
(25:49):
and the other woman right. Obviously one of these women
is lying. The baby belongs to one of the women,
and the other woman's telling the same story as a lie.
Solomon says, cut the baby in half. One woman says
that's fine with me, and the other woman screams out
in Christ says no, don't, don't do that, give the
baby to her, and Solomon immediately knows who the mother
is because the mother was willing to sacrifice personally for
(26:12):
her right. I would rather like give up all of
my relationship with this child then than have the child die.
That's a mother's priorities. Mother's first priority is her children's survival, right,
And so that's where a great example of wisdom of
resolving a matter what's most important? What's the mission? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:32):
So sure, and real quickly it was episode one on priorities.
If anybody wants to go back and check out, because
that listener. Prioritize is so key. What you basically said
was you separate what's personal from what's the mission, and
you prioritize the mission actions because there's always going to
be some things that people have to lay down. So
step number four now.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
And then step four is the last step right establish
the path forward. You've got to clearly define Okay, here's
what changed, right here, here's what the conflict is. Maybe
the conflict came from disaster. Nobody did anything wrong. Maybe
the conflicts and out of order issue and out of
alignment issue. The point is we got to move forward,
and how do we do that correctly? We prioritize the mission.
(27:13):
Then we're going to define what has changed and what
are the actions. Right, we're gonna come to an agreement
based upon mission first, what are and this is this
is how to do conflict. Well, there's a lot of
ways to do conflict wrong, but when we're going to
we're going to find what's changed and what the actions
are for all parties going forward of how we continue
to serve the mission. Sometimes you're going to have to
(27:33):
stand before a judge, right, just like those two women did.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Right.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Sometimes people are gonna have to get involved in the
matter to help resolve it. But we're going to determine
what the actions are for everyone to go forward together
in serving the mission and serving the purpose. And what's
important in this last step is setting future structure so
that you don't avoid the same conflict.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Right.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
This is this is terms, this is rules, contracts, boundaries, standards. Hey,
we need to have these meetings all the time, when
you have this communication all the time. We need to
keep these records whatever it's going to be for your business,
for your relationship, for your marriage, that you stay mission aligned,
that you stay focusing on the same purpose. Because all
conflict comes from two places, either out of order or
(28:18):
out of alignment. You're not going to be able to
prevent every conflict, but you don't want to run into
the same conflict over and over in life. And make
sure that you solve your conflict correctly. Solve it based
upon the word of God. Resolve your conflict not serving yourself,
but in serving something that's so much, so much more
important than you.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Thank you very much for listening. Guys, remember to share,
like subscribe. If you think that this would be something
that someone would enjoy it, please send it to them.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
We appreciate it all.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
If you want to get in touch, you can follow
us on Instagram at the Impossible Life. You'll find us
on there. You can also email at Impossible Life Podcasts
at gmail dot com. You have any questions if you
want to get in touch and find out about it's
personal or business coaching, that's the way to do it.
Thank you again for listening. Go out there and think
better and live the impossible. To see you again soon.
That's impossible.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Let me tell you what I believe.
Speaker 3 (00:03):
It's your weakness, it's not your technique.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Don't think you know.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
The Impossible Life Podcast and yes, sitting on a winning lottery.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Second, an idea that is fully formed, fully understood.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
That sticks. This is the Impossible Life Podcast because Nick
and I are attempting to live impossible lives. What we
know is that nothing is impossible. So instead of using
impossible as an excuse to not try, we'll use the
pursuit of impossible as an accelerant for greatness. If something's
(00:41):
never been done before, that just means it's unexplored. If
they tell you it's too hard, it's just waiting to
be simplified. Impossible as a default label used by uncourageous
people unwilling to take a risk. The real truth is this.
The solution to any impossible task starts with this question,
(01:03):
if I had to what would it take? What would
it take?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Welcome to another episode of the Impossible Life Podcast. I'm
your co host, Nick Surfis, and I'm looking across as
a man who can't use his own name as a
password because it will be rated as too strong. That's right, friends, Garrett,
unkleback a man who knows security, regardless of whether it's
physical or cyber. Sorry for you, Garrett, but also cyber
(01:30):
Sorry for anybody trying to hack you. I just eliminated
one of their top guesses.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Biological and nomenclap nomenclature encryption. My name is a perfect password, Nick.
I wish, I wish that were actually true, but it's not.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
But I just would love to. I would love to
clip that little piece and just have that be yere
about you section on your LinkedIn bio. It just plays
that over and over again. Anyways, Okay, you.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Want to write a biography of my life, I'm making
sure that you're the top contributor.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Oh I think much.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
It might become a work of fiction, but it'll be good.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Look, it's like we're going to blend. If there's there's
such a thing as a half blend between nonfliction and fiction,
we're going to find that place. Anyways, today gee is
we're going to be uh covering how to do conflict well.
And I think this is the reason we're doing this.
As you know, this is tools and tactics. We talk
about not being passive and one of the things we
said on that podcast was we don't want to We
(02:25):
don't want to like unleash people to just go around
and have every conflict because they're like, well, I don't
want to be passive. So now I'm just going to
be like anybody that I think needs to hear something,
they're going to hear it. We need to be skilled
in conflict, and so that's what today's episode is is
how to do it well, how to be skilled in it.
So first and foremost, we always define things, and you
gave a definition of it that I think contains a
(02:46):
lot of what we're going to cover. We're going to
give you a very clear rules for engagement, talk about
where conflict comes from, and I give some specific examples
in business and personal and otherwise. So I think this
is going to be a really helpful episode for a
lot of people out there. But you said in the beginning,
you said that we said your definition of conflict was
basically we said, we want to do this together and
(03:06):
now we're coming up against each other, which is so
much of conflict that we have. But there we also
looked at the Good Book whenever we were doing this
as well with the Good No Webster.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
If you look if you look at history, Unfortunately, there
is no way around conflict because at the center of
every conflict in history, the center of every conflict in
our lives is people. Because the truth is we are
all flawed and sinful. So jib, we're just going to
start there as you come into this episode. I hope
(03:37):
as you're walking into your next conflict or maybe you're
in the middle of one, that you're not starting off
with I'm perfect, I've never done anything wrong and the
other person's the problem. Right, You are also part in
every conflict. You are party to it. There, we are
all sinful, right, There's only one man who's walked this
earth sinlessly, and even he had to deal with conflict.
(03:58):
So it's not what you don't want to do in
life and with with with marriage, business, family relationships. We're
going to talk about all those things today. What you
don't want to do is figure out how to never
have conflict, how to avoid conflict. It's about proper conflict resolution.
If you you know, one of the one of the
businesses I'm in today, we're trying to like make America stronger,
(04:21):
which will help prevent conflict. What's what's interesting is like
the more you run from conflict, the mortal find you,
and if you run from it, it'll find you unprepared. Right.
But what we know is the truth is it is,
and is this unfortunate state of humanity. When you study history,
conflicts are going to happen, war is going to happen.
Marriages are going to face conflict. Your life is going
(04:43):
to face conflict. Everything you get into there's conflict. So
it's not about avoiding it. Right. The the noun for
conflict is strife. Right, It's two parties coming up against
each other. It's waves craft crashing against each other, it's
two armies crashing against each other. Right. But what we're
to talk about is how to do conflict conflict as
a verb, and it's to how do how do I
(05:04):
do these battles? How do I come up against my opposition?
So let's divege.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Yeah. Yeah, And what I loved about the definition that
you that when you were just kind of summarizing, is
the prerequisite. What you said was we said we want
to do this together. And what that intrinsically means, or
I should say that the implications of that is that
you're not just going to go out and fight like
we said, you don't fight every battle. Pick your pons.
This like a side caveat social media squaks are you
(05:30):
are are like ninety five percent of those are not
going to be your battle?
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And so I want to what I want to separate
out from this, Right, the focus of conflict we're talking
about today is between mutual parties. Right when when if
someone breaks into my house in the middle of the night,
that's not a conflict. It's not that's not a conflict.
Did we did not have some sort of joint agreement prior,
we were not party to something together, We were not
(05:55):
going in the same direction. You have endangered my family
and you're going to very nearly take your last breath, right,
that's not a conflict. Well, right, Well, what we're talking
about today is you know, this is marriage, family, relationships, business.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
We said we were going to do this together and
now there's a struggle. Yeah, and that and so I
just want people to hear that very clearly. What we're
not saying is that, like you just go out and
just this is for the people that you've agreed to
go on, because there are times when you have to
fight people that you haven't agreed to go with. But
that's a whole separate podcast. So as always, we're going
to look at the great book. We're gonna look at
the word to understand battles, and who else are we
(06:33):
gonna look at with the man after God's own heart
who was also a warrior? But David, right, I mean
it's one.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Of my favorite. Yes, I mean, there's only one person
written about in the Bible more than David, and that's Jesus.
He is the he is the leadership figure, he's the
standard of the Old Testament. He's written about the most.
And yes, he's the one person that the Bible says
was a man after God's own heart. Despite his mistakes,
despite his flaws, he is someone that you can absolutely
(07:00):
learn from, model from in the Bible. We've talked about
him a bunch on the podcast, but as it specifically
relates to conflict, I did a message on this one
time called the Heart of a King, and I pulled
apart different matters from David's life, and one of them
was how David did conflict. Now, there's one occasion in
(07:20):
the Bible, and this is Second Samuel chapter six I'll
just or Second Samuel chapter sixteen, I'll just summarize the story.
David is on his way back to the palace and
Saul's family. This is later on in David's life where
he's killed many of Salt's family members there, and you know,
David's had his conflict with Saul's family. One of Saul's
(07:41):
family members is just throwing rocks at David, and David's
got some great men around him. One of David's men says,
let me cut off this man's head. Who is he
to oppose the king? And David's posture towards this is
what the heart of a king is supposed to look like.
Is such the nature of humility? He says, You know,
(08:02):
who am I to say this man's wrong?
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Right?
Speaker 4 (08:04):
Because at the same time, David's son Absalom is warring
against him. What David says in the very very beginning
of this, because David had his reasons for his conflict
with Saul. Saul started it just to be fair, right,
But David's son Absalom is worrying against him. And what
he's saying is, you know, David says, you know what,
I'm not perfect, right, don't I'm not gonna I'm not
(08:27):
going to be I have the ability to execute this man.
I'm not going to do that because that would mean
that would be me saying I'm perfect. This man is
assaulting me personally, and I'm going to shut him down.
When you make conflicts personal, you take them in the
wrong direction. So what David does in this instance is
he says, he tells the man he don't cut off
(08:48):
his head and just takes his ridicule, throwing rocks at him,
throwing dirt on him. And David just walks onto the
palace with his head held high and then dusts himself
off and cleans himself off. Didn't go back, didn't say
throw that man in jail. And then there's a and
let's important juxtaposition here. Second Samuel, chapter six David is
(09:10):
dancing before the Lord. And I'm going short on these stories.
You're welcome to go read them. Second Samuel sixteen with Samae.
Second Samuel sixteen with McCall, one of David's lives. She's
Second Samuel six She's ridiculing David. She says he looks
like a fool dancing before the Lord in front of
his servants. Right, both of these could sound like personal attacks,
(09:33):
but when McCall says that David speaks out against her,
because in that instance, he says, you're not ridiculing me,
You're ridiculing God. Right, David's heart stays the same from
beginning to end. First Samuel seventeen, David says to Goliath,
I will kill you and the whole world will know
that there's a God. From beginning to end, everything and
(09:55):
about everything in David's life was about serving God, was
about promoting who God was, was about following God. And
David made his mistakes along the way, but his source
of truth was was God. His source of truth was
advanced in the Kingdom. And so in this coin like,
that's a great foundation for any marriage relationship situation. What
(10:15):
is is this a personal like? Did you hurt my feelings?
Is this a personal matter? Or is this a mission matter?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Right?
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Because God is the following God ultimate mission. But even
in a business or in a marriage sometimes it's not
necessarily a following God issue, but it is a principal
or mission based issue. And you've got to bring it
back to what is the what is the real thing
that we're after here? When you make things personal attacks,
you'll turn the assault into something that it's not supposed
(10:43):
to be. What is supposed to guide you and how
you resolve your conflict is what matters most, what matters
most his relationship with God. What is second to that? Right,
this is this is an understanding of priorities. What matters
second to that is what's the mission? Right? What did
we agree to do in the beginning, Because if you,
if you did a marriage correctly, the beginning of that
marriage was was was not hey, we're just going to
(11:05):
make each other feel good. Right, if you if you
started off a marriage correctly, it was, hey, we're going
to honor God. And there was also probably some measure
of joint vision of we're going to start a family,
We're going to love and serve other people. We're going
to live our lives this way some you know, and
I'm going real quick on joint mission here, just giving
an example.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
No, well, that's huge because if you I think the personal, uh,
if you can differentiate between what's personal and what's mission based,
that is literally the filter for which battles you should pick.
And we're as we you they're always going to feel personal, right,
because anything that can come against you can feel very
very personal, especially if you care about the mission, and
of course you're going to care about the stuff that's
personal to you, I mean in your marriage, family and friendships.
(11:46):
Having discernment between what the mission is and what's personal
is going to be so key, or you'll fight the
wrong battles quick example in family. So if my kids,
for don't want to do what I want to do
and like, look I like and my kids are not
into sports, I'm using a very simple one. If I
can't be like, why don't we ever get to do
what I want to do and start fighting that battle,
(12:07):
that would be honestly a waste of time. And honestly
it's a battle I've never fought with them and never
will now. The things that I absolutely will fight for.
If my kids are disrespectful to my wife, if they're
if they're like, oh, we don't want to go to church,
I'm going to fight that battle a hundred times out
of one hundred, because it's about who we're becoming. It's
about the mission of my of why God put us
on this earth as a family, and what meat he's
given me and my wife to do, which is to
(12:28):
steward our kids well and to raise them to be
the people that God's made them to be. So when
I when those things come across, it's never like, oh,
it's not a big deal, she's just tired today. It's like, no,
I don't care how tired you are. This is literally
never acceptable, Like there's certain things that absolutely cannot happen
for us to be the family that God's made is
to be because they're mission based, so so so so key.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Point the points you're making there, Nick, is you got
to pick your battles, right, Yeah, and what that's what
we're talking about today essentially, like just to nail the
first point to the wall, don't pick battles based upon
personal conflict, right, Conflict should be about mission. You don't
you don't want to you don't want to risk the
most important things you have for something that's about how
(13:14):
you feel it on a matter.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, very good. All right, Gee, So I want to
get from where conflict comes from and also touch on
the rules of engagementcause I think that'll really help people.
But when we were going this, you said, the point
of conflict is to discover the cause of what has
caused it. You either need to remove the thing or
remove a person.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Yeah, because Ultimately, conflict needs to come to some sort
of resolution, right, And if you want to solve the problem,
you need to understand the problem. And there's really two
you can You can oversummarize and over categorize, which we
like to generalize and categorize on here a lot because
it helps us think clearly. Conflict really comes from two
(13:52):
major issues, right. And remember this is in the type
of conflict we're talking about today, where there was an
initial joint agreement, Conflict is going to come from either
out of order or out of alignment. Okay, And so
just really click really quick on those out of order
happens a lot people do people you know, Hey, out
of order for example, is you know, two people get
(14:15):
into a relationship together, Hey, we're going to do business together,
and they just take off running and never get any
contract down on paper. And then and they both had
the best heart, best intention in a situation. And then
they get a couple of years down the road and
it's like, well, I thought you said this, and I
thought you said that. No one was dishonest, no one
(14:35):
really was malicious. They started with the right intent, but
through people's you know, miscommunications and stories in their own head,
they started going in different directions. A conflict came about
because there was a lack of order. Right, you should
have there should have been contract, there should have been documentation.
I've been in the middle of so many situations like this,
and three years later, five years later, people who used
(14:58):
to be so close, they're sitting in front of an attorney,
ripping their business in half. But simply because they didn't
get contracts in place correctly in the beginning, they just
handshaked and verbalized right, there's a reason you need to
document things. I could give a lot of examples of
out of order, but order is really just there's a
process to things. If you get if you get pulled
into the legal system in America. What's really great about
(15:21):
the legal system in America, despite its flaws, is that
there is a consistent and standard process. There's a way
of doing things right. And what that creates is the most,
potentially the greatest outcomes because there's a standard process. If
you just go willy nilly all over the place, you're
going to start having issues that you didn't want to have,
and that was in neither party's heart right. So order
(15:44):
is that's what it is. Order Its process. Out of
alignment is the second source of and so now what
We'll set these up and we'll talk about how to
resolve them. Out of alignment is the second source of conflict.
And a lot of people will jump straight to this, right,
They'll accuse out of alignment was essential. Out of alignment
would be like, okay, so Nick and I have a
(16:05):
business relationship right with the impossible life, and out of
alignment would be you know, me accusing Nick, or Nick
accusing me and saying, well, you this was the original mission,
and now you want to do this. Right, If Nick
all of a sudden said well, I'm want to make
our business you know all about selling X y Z product,
I could say, well, that's out of alignment. That wasn't
(16:26):
our original intention. Nick and I wrote a vision and
mission together for this business and agreed upon it. If
he did try to go in a different direction, or
I tried to go in a different direction, that would
be an out of alignment issue. Right. So order, usually
there's a lot of people get into out of order problems.
There's not necessarily malice in it, but out of improper sequence,
(16:50):
improper documentation, miscommunication. You come to a conflict from out
of alignment. That sometimes there's not even malice in this issue,
but people go in a different direction. And that's why
and mission and are documented. That's why contracts exist. It's like, hey,
maybe you have a great idea, but we're going to
have to come to a new agreement in order to
go in that direction. Doesn't mean we can't ever go
(17:11):
in that direction, but there is a process in which
we would go in this direction because it's not the
original stated intention. And so two similar but very different
sources of conflict. Out of order and out of alignment.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And I didn't know is not a great excuse for
I'm being serious because I was thinking about when you
sat out of alignment. I mean, in business, a lot
of people don't really state the intent. They just see
an opportunity and go for money. In marriage, we have
the vows, and as we've covered on this podcast before,
so many people make their vows funny or they don't
take them seriously. That when you say till death do
(17:47):
us part and for better yes.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
I'm getting up and walking out of your ceremony. If
you do that, well, I'm not going to be part
of no.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
But you get my point. It's because people will be like,
that's what happens in marriage, is like, oh, one side changed,
that's what you hear A lot is like you know,
this person changed, and it's like, well, you did you
really take seriously what you signed up for because there's
a very clear statement, like there's legal requirements for what
you say. But I think that's where because we don't
take into count what we're getting into, we don't count
the costs, we don't take our words seriously. That's why
(18:16):
it's easy to be like, oh, well this person changed,
and that's a reason to just kind of we're going
to have conflict, but this can't be resolved. It's like,
hang on a minute, you didn't realize what you were
signed up for in the beginning. But anyways, let's get
into rules for engagement GE and just remember, guys, as
we're talking about this, as always, it's always to remember
the point the point of conflict is not to avoid
it is to deal with it correctly. And if you're
(18:36):
repeating the same conflicts, it's because you're not dealing with
it correctly. Okay, it's that is foolishness, and we're going
to cover that in these rules for Engagement get's watch.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
Well in there on the rules for engagement on how
to not get into the same conflicts again. But we
don't want to be running from conflict. It's that we
do conflict, right. So rule number one for engagement is,
here's where you're like, when you don't know what to
do in your life, you should return to the source
of truth, return to the word. And that is a
(19:07):
great template for how to resolve a conflict. Return to
where you started. How did we again? Right? The conflict
we're only talking about today is where there was some
form of mutual agreement. Right, Return to where you started,
return to the foundation. If your marriage is busted and
you sit before a counselor, they're going to do this
with you. At some point. They're going to bring you
back to Hey, how did you guys feel about each
(19:28):
other in the beginning? What did you guys say to
each other in the beginning? What was the context in
the beginning? Sometimes people are fifteen years down the road
in each other's marriage and want to choke each other out,
and a counselor just has to walk them back to hey,
where did this start? Right? So very simple at the
beginning of a conflict, zoom out. Right, we talk about
zoom and zoom out's an important tool. Zoom out on
(19:48):
this and say, hey, where did this begin. Let's return
to the foundation as we're going to walk through this conflict.
How do we do conflict? Return to where you started?
Return to the foundation in a business, what was the
original state admission? In a marriage, what was the purpose?
What did we say to each other when we began
this situation?
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, so good man. So that's number one is to
return to why you started the foundation. And then Garrett
gave a few different things. I mean, you talked about
in the marriage and the purpose and the business and
the mission. I think in business sometimes people haven't clearly
defined that and that's where this can get messy. But
number two is separating.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Well, that would be that would be an out of
order issue. Correct You set off in business with a
contract and an idea, but not with a state vision
and mission.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Right right, return to the why I started yep, yep.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Step number two is this is again where like steps
one and two, are preparing for the conflict resolution. Right
When before I deployed, before I went to battle, I
had to prepare for battle correctly. This is how you
prepare for conflict correctly. Number two is separate the personal
from the problem. Separate the personal from the professional. I
mentioned this at the very beginning of the episode. You've
(21:00):
got to take ownership for what and how you have contributed.
You are party to every single problem that you're in,
and the source of every conflict in life is people.
So take ownership every every problem that you're in, you're
in right, so own that part. That's what That's what
my dad always said to me. If the shoe fits
where you might be one percent of the problem, you
(21:20):
might be the ninety nine, but you're in it, and
you've got to own your piece, right. So that's step
one is not walking into a conflict saying I'm perfect
and you're the problem. And the second piece is humility. Right.
Once you've done step one and you're restating the intention
of why you're there, now you've got to listen to
hear what are the actual points of the conflict. Where
(21:42):
where have we where have we become a posed right
in this Maybe you don't understand yet where whether this
is an out of order or an out of alignment issue.
This is that you're preparing so that you can discern
correctly what is the actual You know, you've got to
know the problem before you can solve the problem. Humility
is going to allow you to listen, hey, I'm not perfect,
tell me what I said or that I did, state
(22:04):
the actual conflict that you have, and start to reveal
all the little pieces around it, because most of the
time in conflict, what everyone focus on focuses on is
how the conflict made them feel, but not the actual
parameter and the issue that the conflict is creating, just
how the conflict makes them feel.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah, and I think that step one helps with step
two because if you're going into somebody with conflict and
you say, hey, look, this is what we're trying to accomplish,
it removes a lot of like, It kind of naturally
removes a lot of the like. It makes it less
personal because like, wait, it kind of reunifies you. We're
trying to do something together and we're all in this.
By the way, we're assuming that it's two people who
(22:44):
want to continue on with the same thing, because that's
a whole other podcast. If we talk about people, if
there's one side that absolutely does not want I'm being serious,
who absolutely does not want to resolve it. But if
you've said here's what we're trying to establish now, I
think it becomes a lot easier for each person to go, like,
you know what, here's where I kind of lost sight
of that, And so it makes step two with part
of the prep better. So if you've got those two
g what's number three.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Number three is listen and prioritize. Okay, we separated the
personal from the professional. Because you climb any great mountain
in life, it is going to require sacrifice. When you
put your marriage first, when you put God first, when
you have a business partner, there are going to be
times where you have to make personal sacrifice. This is
(23:27):
why we've separated the personal and the professional. The reason
of a partnership is two people saying, let's come together
and make something that's bigger than us, more important than
both of each other personally, and serve and work on
that together. And there's great personal benefit that comes from that.
But you cannot put the personal in front of the professional.
You cannot put the personal in front of the mission.
(23:47):
So step three is to listen and prioritize. And the
unfortunate part is that you cannot always satisfy every single
person's complaint, every single person's issue. Right, people are going
to have their personal things and say, well, I wanted this,
I wanted that. And while there may not be anything
morally wrong with or ethically wrong with a person's request,
(24:07):
it has to be prioritized correctly. What must come first
is the mission. So once we can hear and understand
what the problem is, let's begin to order and prioritize.
I've talked about priorities a lot on this podcast. Where Nick,
what episode did we do priorities?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I'm going to find out.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
He'll tell us. He'll tell us in just a second.
But what priorities are is different than goals. Priorities is
the thing that I would least like to fail at. Right,
And just like I've talked about, my number one priority
in my life is my relationship with God. I'd rather
fail at everything else than fail at my relationship with God.
Then what comes after that, What two parties who have conflict,
(24:46):
who have a desire to move forward together must state
is whether it's the purpose of the marriage, the mission
of the business, that the mission comes first, that the
purpose comes first. And there's a great story in the Bible.
First King's chapter three, Solomon, the Wisest man who ever lived,
resolves a difficult conflict. Two women, right, and I'm gonna
(25:09):
tell the story quickly. Two women both claim to have
the same baby, right, one woman saying that's her baby
and another woman saying that's her baby. It's both claiming
that the other person stole the baby from them. They
stand before Solomon, the King is to judge and just
think for a second. Obviously this must have been a
serious matter that it made it past all the other
judges and no one knew what to do. So it's
(25:29):
making it all the way to the king's court for
the king to resolve this issue. The King thinks on
the matter, and he says, I know what to do.
I can't tell which of you is lying, So let
me cut the baby in half. I'll cut the baby
in half. Both women can take half of the baby.
And one woman says, fine, that sounds good to me,
(25:49):
and the other woman right. Obviously one of these women
is lying. The baby belongs to one of the women,
and the other woman's telling the same story as a lie.
Solomon says, cut the baby in half. One woman says
that's fine with me, and the other woman screams out
in Christ says no, don't, don't do that, give the
baby to her, and Solomon immediately knows who the mother
is because the mother was willing to sacrifice personally for
(26:12):
her right. I would rather like give up all of
my relationship with this child then than have the child die.
That's a mother's priorities. Mother's first priority is her children's survival, right,
And so that's where a great example of wisdom of
resolving a matter what's most important? What's the mission? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:32):
So sure, and real quickly it was episode one on priorities.
If anybody wants to go back and check out, because
that listener. Prioritize is so key. What you basically said
was you separate what's personal from what's the mission, and
you prioritize the mission actions because there's always going to
be some things that people have to lay down. So
step number four now.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
And then step four is the last step right establish
the path forward. You've got to clearly define Okay, here's
what changed, right here, here's what the conflict is. Maybe
the conflict came from disaster. Nobody did anything wrong. Maybe
the conflicts and out of order issue and out of
alignment issue. The point is we got to move forward,
and how do we do that correctly? We prioritize the mission.
(27:13):
Then we're going to define what has changed and what
are the actions. Right, we're gonna come to an agreement
based upon mission first, what are and this is this
is how to do conflict. Well, there's a lot of
ways to do conflict wrong, but when we're going to
we're going to find what's changed and what the actions
are for all parties going forward of how we continue
to serve the mission. Sometimes you're going to have to
(27:33):
stand before a judge, right, just like those two women did.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Right.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Sometimes people are gonna have to get involved in the
matter to help resolve it. But we're going to determine
what the actions are for everyone to go forward together
in serving the mission and serving the purpose. And what's
important in this last step is setting future structure so
that you don't avoid the same conflict.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Right.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
This is this is terms, this is rules, contracts, boundaries, standards. Hey,
we need to have these meetings all the time, when
you have this communication all the time. We need to
keep these records whatever it's going to be for your business,
for your relationship, for your marriage, that you stay mission aligned,
that you stay focusing on the same purpose. Because all
conflict comes from two places, either out of order or
(28:18):
out of alignment. You're not going to be able to
prevent every conflict, but you don't want to run into
the same conflict over and over in life. And make
sure that you solve your conflict correctly. Solve it based
upon the word of God. Resolve your conflict not serving yourself,
but in serving something that's so much, so much more
important than you.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Thank you very much for listening. Guys, remember to share,
like subscribe. If you think that this would be something
that someone would enjoy it, please send it to them.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
We appreciate it all.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
If you want to get in touch, you can follow
us on Instagram at the Impossible Life. You'll find us
on there. You can also email at Impossible Life Podcasts
at gmail dot com. You have any questions if you
want to get in touch and find out about it's
personal or business coaching, that's the way to do it.
Thank you again for listening. Go out there and think
better and live the impossible. To see you again soon.
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