Special Episode – The Permission Principle: How to Read, Increase and Sustain Permission With Jurors

There’s this quiet habit so many of you have…

AND it’s costing you in the courtroom.

You’re waiting.

Waiting to be liked.

Waiting to be approved of.

Waiting for some signal that it’s safe to lead.

But here’s the truth: Nobody hands you authority in that courtroom, you CLAIM it.

In this episode, I’m diving into what I call the Permission Principle. 

So many of you are holding back without even realizing it.

📣 You don’t need to be louder. 

😇 You don’t need to be nicer. 

💸 You don’t need to earn it. 

You just NEED to SHOW up like you already belong… BECAUSE YOU DO. 

Tune in NOW! 🎧

Love,
Sari 💖

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“You don’t need the jury to approve of you before you lead them. You don’t need to wait until you’ve earned the right to take up space. You are the authority in that courtroom — not because someone gave it to you, but because you showed up ready to lead.”

sari de la motte

Transcription

Sari: The permission principle, how to read, increase, and sustain permission with yours. Permission is my most favorite thing to talk about ever. Once you get this concept, you will never ever look at communication the same way again. Today's training is going to blow your mind. Let's talk about permission. It's not a verbal thing. That's what I want you to get, is that, when we were kids, we had to ask permission, and either get it or not, and then make our decision from that place, "Am I still going to do it or not?"

What we don't understand or tend to understand is that permission still exists in adulthood, but it's now a nonverbal thing. You have to know what to look for in order to increase it, read it, grow it, know what to do when you lose it, the whole shebang. Here's what I want you to be thinking about. Permission, when we think about it, we think about the golden rule. Treat others as you would want to be treated. This is a great rule when it comes to kindness. It's not particularly a great rule when it comes to permission or communication.

Now, when I think of permission, I think of that time, and many of you who follow me know this story because I've said it in podcasts, but when I was at the gym and I'm on that rowing machine, and this guy, he comes on over and he's like, "Hey, do I have your permission to show you something?" What did I say? I said, yes. Did I mean yes? No. I was like, "Get away from me," but out of politeness, I was like, "Okay." He's like, "Well, see, the thing is the way you're doing it," or whatever bullshit thing he said, the point is, I said yes, even though he did not have my permission. We do that, don't we? Out of politeness.

I remember when we were having Thanksgiving, and my brother-in-law, Kevin's brother, had just gotten engaged to a Russian woman. I'm from Finland. Maybe that's the problem, but she comes over and she's got all of her Russian dishes in her hands, and women will get this right away. When it's a big event, the food is important, yes, don't get me wrong, but the table is also very important. We had the napkins and we had the things and we had all the-- The way that I wanted my table.

She comes in, arms full of dishes, and she starts just moving shit around, and saying to me, "Hey, do you have a spoon for this? I need this warmed up." I sat there watching this whole thing thinking, "She does not have permission to do this." Now, I don't mean she didn't ask for permission, because had she asked for permission and said, "Hey, can I destroy your table and boss you around?" I would've been like, "Sure. You're family," while grit my teeth. It's not that she didn't ask for permission, she just didn't have permission.

The point that I want to make and I really have you get in today's training is that even when we ask, we don't always get permission. Many times we cannot ask. When we try to get permission, what most of us do is we try to be nice. As many of the 8th to 8th crew members can tell you, we try in voir dire to be clever. We've learned very-- in the last couple of months, the crew has been operating clever never works in voir dire. Jurors can smell clever away. We try to be nice.

I always remember there was this woman who I worked-- When I first started working in nonverbal communication, I worked in the school districts. I would go in and I would teach teachers on how to manage their students using nonverbal techniques and cues. This one secretary just hated me. She was just rude to me. What I thought I would do is I would treat her the way I wanted to be treated.

I went to Starbucks and I got the mug and I put the candy in it and the thing and I put it in this nice little basket and I bring it to her and I give it to her, and I'll never forget what she did. She picks up the bag, she put it on the floor and she was like, "Here's your contracts." This is what happens oftentimes, when we're trying to get to permission, we try to be nice because we want to use the golden rule and it doesn't work.

Here's how we've defined permission. This is a definite write-one-down if you don't have the handouts. Permission is how receptive someone is to you or your message, or to us or our message. Permission, and this is why I put it in doorway, is not trust, but you have to have permission before trust. It's the doorway. If you want to think about this, because we talk a lot about trust in trial, you want to be thinking about this as trust is on the other side of that door. Your verdict is on the other side of that door. Everything you want is on the other side of that door, but the first thing that needs to happen is the door needs to be open. That's permission.

Permission does not mean agreement. It doesn't mean they agree with you or we won't vote for you. By they, I mean jurors or anyone else. It just means they're receptive to you. It's the first place we need to go when it comes to communication. We have to have permission from people to even get across what it is we hope that they understand or receive. This is what we're after, receptivity. In today's training, we're going to talk about how do you get permission, how do you increase permission, how do you have permission, and what do you do if you lose permission. That's what we're going to be talking about today.

When we're talking about what the permission principle is, here it is, it's not the golden rule, it's the platinum rule. To increase permission, treat others as they would want to be treated. Now, the thing that comes to mind is how do I know how other people want to be treated? The question or the answer to that, my friends, is that nonverbals. People will tell you, yes, finally, Sari's going to tell you how to read nonverbals.

If you've been following me for a while, you know I am not the body language expert. I do not do the, "Let's look--" You can't hire me to go read your body language and tell you who to pick off and who's good and who's bad. I don't do any of that shit. I don't believe in any of that shit. I do believe in nonverbal intelligence, which is what we're going to cover in depth next month.

Here's what nonverbal intelligence is in a nutshell. It's three things. The first thing is awareness. You have to be aware, acutely aware, of, first, what you're communicating nonverbally. I have this backwards because we're going to do that in depth next month. Second, once you're aware of what you're communicating nonverbally, we'll talk a little bit about that today, but today's focus is really on the other person, you need to be aware of what other people are communicating nonverbally, and not just other people, but groups. Individuals and groups.

If you've been in the crew or you've heard me speak, you know I'm all about groups because that's what juries are. They are groups. They are a group that is going to have to do a group activity and we've got to start treating them like groups. You have to be aware of yourself nonverbally and you have to be aware of what other people are doing both individually and in groups.

Now, once you have that awareness, which we're going to help you increase today, then you have to adapt. This is the part where you decide, "Here's how I'm now going to behave nonverbally based on what I'm observing happening with the other person or the group." Now, oftentimes when I teach this training, people will say, "Well, why do I have to adapt? I say, "Well, the minute you figure out how to get somebody to do something you want them to do, let me know, because last time I checked, we cannot control other people. We can only control ourselves." We adapt to ensure that good communication happens.

Now, this is not mirroring. We're going to talk about that a little later. It's about adapting. It's about something happen in the moment and you go, "Ah, that's what that means, here's how I'm going to respond to that." That's what today's training's all about. When you do that, you increase permission. Now, we're going to do this all with authenticity, of course.

Now, authenticity in itself, I almost hate to say authenticity, because this is the moment that people go, "Oh, great, I don't have to do anything uncomfortable. Yay, sorry, it's not going to have me do anything uncomfortable because that's inauthentic. She said I need to be authentic, and so I'm off the hook." No, everything new will be uncomfortable. That does not mean it's inauthentic. Being inauthentic means that you are mimicking someone or trying to be someone else or do things that do not align with who you are ethically, morally, or otherwise.

Now, even that said, there is a time to mimic. I mimicked my nonverbal master for years until I developed my own style. You can definitely go to a CLE and see a trial attorney do something and mimic them, but the point is to make it your own eventually. This is not your excuse to not do things that are going to be uncomfortable. How do we know what people want? We get it from them nonverbally. That's what we're after.

Let's talk about this concept that I think will change everything in your world once and for all. When you understand that every single communication situation falls into one of two buckets, you will understand communication. We are either tending to the relationship or dealing with an issue, every single communication issue ever of all time. We're talking about when we're with our kids, we're talking about with our spouse, we're talking about ordering our coffee in the morning, we're talking about when we're communicating with jurors. You are either tending to the relationship or you are dealing with an issue.

Now, when it comes to jurors, what bucket are jurors in when they get to trial day one? Who would like to answer that? Are they in the relationship bucket or are they in the issue bucket? Issue. Where do we want them to be? At least what you've been trained.

Participant 1: You want them in the relationship bucket.

Participant 2: Relationship.

Sari: Yes, all of you come into my studio [unintelligible 00:12:34] "But I need to be friends with them. We need to connect. We need to have this moment together of beauty and flowers and tool." This is how you've been trained. Love you, Jerry Spence, but I disagree on this part. Here's the thing. You can leave the training right now, please don't. If you do, here's what you need to know. The minute you meet people where they are, permission increases. That's how easy this is. If someone is in the issue bucket and you go to issue, permission starts to increase.

Likewise, for those issue-oriented individuals here, I know you're here. Most lawyers are issue-oriented. If someone's in the relationship bucket, you need to go to relationship, even though maybe you want to get to the issue. We're going to talk about that in just a minute. That is the number one be-all end-all when it comes to permission, is that you have to meet people where they are. There is not a single juror in this universe. Okay, maybe there's a single one, but most jurors do not wake up the morning of trial and go, "I cannot wait to have a relationship with Mr. and Mrs. Attorney." It just doesn't happen.

They're in the issue bucket. They're thinking, "Why am I here and what do I have to do? Is someone going to tell me how I do this? Is someone going to tell me why I'm here? The minute that someone shows up and they stop with all the bullshit of blueberry pie and lemon pie and bias and, "We're so glad you're here," and "You're so important," and they just stand in front of the group and say, "Thank you, this case is about a car crash," boom, permission starts to increase. You can feel it in the room.

Now, I get it. I get why you stand in front of the jury and you do all the relationship building stuff, because it's uncomfortable to be in front of the jury. What I'm saying is that all of that stuff is for you. Hear me now and hear me good. All of that stuff is for you. It's to make you feel better. It does not make the jury feel better. What makes the jury feel better is there's someone here who's going to tell me what my job is. Relationship comes later.

You may have heard me tell the story about being a lawyer in town. In fact, the first lawyer that ever had me work with juries, he's the one in the book, at the very beginning of the book that I do the introduction, where he said, "I have a jury Monday morning and I want you to come help me pick the jury." He says, "I want you to meet my friend, the HR director here at City of Portland. She's a former lawyer." I said, "Oh, great." I emailed her and I said, "John thinks we should know each other. Would you like to have coffee?" She said, "I don't do coffee." Okay, that should have been my first thought. She said, "Why don't you just come to my office?"

I go up there. I'm still thinking it's a social call. I'm in the relationship bucket. "You should know my friend Anna." I go see Anna and I lean back in my chair and I say, "How do you know John?" Now notice my nonverbals, very relaxed, very relationship. We're going to talk about what all these things mean in just a minute. She is across her desk and she's like this. She says, "We went to law school together. Now I understand that you have a training called Don't Shoot the Messenger. How long is that and how much is it?"

Now, in that moment, I had a choice. I could have been like, "We can talk about that later. No, really, tell me about John. How do him?" Permission would have gone down, but in that moment, I straightened up and I said, "Yes, we do." In my mind, I'm thinking, "I didn't know I was here to talk about our training." I told her the training, blah, blah, blah. We talked about it, got all the details worked out. Then notice what happened, she did this, she went, "How do John?" Ah, now she's telling me I'm ready for relationship. I'm going to show you how to do this in just a minute.

This is what I'm talking about. You don't get to decide. If you want to be an excellent communicator, you will recognize that you base everything you do on what other people are doing. You're constantly managing and working with that. That's how you get permission. That's how you get receptivity. That's how you get people to listen to you and want to be on your team. That's how it works.

Let's take a look at this in depth. Issue versus relationship. We're going to look at eye contact, body language, voice pattern, and breathing. The first one, eye contact, we have a lot of stuff around eye contact. I'm not going to get into all of it right now. We're going to talk about eye contact next month in depth in the crew, but what does eye contact actually represent? We tend to think, in Western society, that eye contact represents respect. Therefore, you must make eye contact if you want to respect someone. No, it does not. This is why we are overusing eye contact.

Here's what eye contact actually means. Engagement, period. If someone's looking at you, they want to engage with you. If someone's looking at something else, they want to engage with that. It's that simple. Don't make up any other stories about it. It's about engagement. Oftentimes, I'll tell the story in a training, where you have two people walking down the hall. One is issue-oriented, and they have a piece of paper or their tablet in front of them, and they're on their way to a meeting, and they're looking at the tablet.

The relationship-oriented person is walking by, and they go, "Hey, Sarah." Sarah's looking at her thing, and they make up this big story about Sarah. "Oh, what's her problem? Why is she looking at me?" Sarah never even saw you. She was just looking at her piece of paper. It has nothing to do with respect. She was engaging with that when you wanted to engage with her.

Here's what you need to learn, when it comes to reading people and permission and figuring out whether they're more in the relationship space and they need some relationship, or in the issue space and you need to tend to the issue, where are they looking? If they are looking at you, in general, there is a caveat to this, they are wanting relationship. In general, they are wanting relationship. If they are looking at something else, they want issue.

The caveat to that is if they are a high-issue person, like myself, and we're now in conflict, they'll be all about eye contact with conflict. Issue-oriented people have no problem looking you in the face, and that's where relationship people tend to avoid eye contact. "Oh, well, I didn't mean to upset you." Neither right or wrong, that's just where it gets switched. In straight up relationship issue, if they're looking at you, relationship. If they're looking at something else, issue.

Now let's talk about body language. We've got the first piece. Where are they looking? That's going to tell us what they need. Remember, when we meet people where they are and give them what they need, we get permission. If we have-- You stand. Everybody stand and adopt this body position. Just wherever you are. Okay, this, or you can just have the hands down. Basically, this is your authoritative body language on steroids. Drill sergeant. You don't have to be super drill sergeant, we can just be halfway.

Now let's go to valley girl. If you [unintelligible 00:20:45] valley girl, then you're way too young. Valley girl. The opposite. Notice what happens to your weight. It shifts over to one side. This is like if we were to do approachable all the way pushed to its limits. Now, we don't want to be either one of these things, so let's try them out and be your authentic self.

What does your authoritative look like? Get your weight even over both feet. Look down, make sure your toes are pointed. Head is still. Get your palms in front of you and just have them face down. Whatever that looks like for you. Some people, they'll be facing each other a little bit more. Some people more toward the floor. Some people totally flat. Just, what's your authoritative? Just try it on. Yes, so this is your authoritative body language.

Approachable body language. Now get your weight over to one foot. Just shift over. Notice toes automatically splay outward when you do that. Now, you may bob your head or tilt it to the side. Your palms now are going to be facing up. Let's go back and forth. Let's try authoritative again, and approachable. Notice how we need both. Which one do you think is issue and which one do you think is relationship? Which one's issue? Authoritative, you got it. Which one's more relationship? Approachable.

Here is your second clue. You can all have a seat. Your second clue-- [crosstalk] First clue is, where are they looking? The second clue is, what's their body language doing? Notice in my story with Anna, the HR director, she was in authoritative body language, "I understand you have a training called Don't Shoot the Messenger." She was in authoritative. That tells me she wanted to go to the issue. Then when she leaned back and said, "Tell me, how do John?" Notice now we're in approachable. Palms are up, voice, we'll talk about voice in just a minute, the head is tilted.

Voice is the third piece. Your authoritative voice tone, because that head is still, the voice is flat and curls down at the ends of statements. The way that I like to think about this is Bond, James Bond. Oh, how did that get in here? Sorry, there he is. Okay. Everybody say it with me, let's try and chip the chin down, let's do, "Bond, James Bond." Here we go, together.

Participants: Bond, James Bond.

Sari: Yes, that is your authoritative voice pattern. People tend to think, "How can I do this over the phone?" Hello, you can hear the voice. You know if someone's issue-oriented. Does the voice curl down at the ends of statements? Is it mostly flat when speaking and curling down? That's your authoritative voice. That's what you're also listening for of what people need or want.

On the flip side, we have the approachable voice pattern. Now, because that head is bobbing, notice how the voice gets a little bit more rhythmic and tends to curl up at the ends of statements. You're going to hear a little bit more of this when you are in relationship mode. Three things now. I'm looking for eye contact, where are people looking? I'm looking at body language, how are they standing or sitting? I'm listening for voice, are they more authoritative and voice curling down? Are they more approachable in voice and curling up?

Now, this is not vocal fry. We use both of these all the time. When I'm standing in front of a jury, which, of course, I never do, because I'm not a lawyer, but when I'm standing in front of a mock jury and I'm teaching, I'll say something like, "This case involves a car crash." Authoritative. I'm sending information. I'm telling them this is a car crash. Who here has ever been in a car crash? Now I'm approachable because I want them to talk to me. You're going back and forth constantly. Right now when you're listening for other people, this is telling you either relationship or issue, relationship or issue.

Now the last-- and I didn't have him in his swimsuit. I couldn't find one, but you can think of Mr. Rogers. Let's go back. Right now start nodding your head and we're all going to say, "Won't you be my neighbor?" Here we go. Won't you be my neighbor? There's your approachable voice.

Breathing is the last piece. Now, this doesn't tell you whether someone is issue-oriented or relationship-oriented, but breathing will affect tone. That's what tone is. It's the voice pattern plus the breathing. If I'm not breathing well and I hold the breath up in my chest and I'm using my authoritative voice, now I sound angry and impatient. Same thing if I'm using the approachable voice and I'm not breathing well, now I sound dainty and stupid. It's all about breathing. That'll just give you another clue on whether the person is nervous or embarrassed, but it won't tell you about issue or relationship. It'll just tell you their emotional state. Breathing is that fourth piece.

Let's review it again. When I'm noticing, what do people need? Do they need issue or do they need relationship? First of all, in a jury situation, we know that they need issue to start because they're just in the issue bucket. If, let's say, you're meeting a client for the first time. Your client comes into the office, you're going to be looking for those first three things. Where do they look? If they look directly at you, you say, "Hi, thank you for coming. Did you find the place okay?" They go, "Yes, I did. Thank you so much." That's going to be your first indicator of, "Probably relationship."

If they're like, "Uh-huh, yes, I found it okay. Do you want me to sit over here? Wow, It's a big office." That's more issue. If you hear and see that they're more authoritative, they might do something like this, "Yes, thank you. Would you like me to sit here? Okay, thank you." Listen to my voice, very flat, curls down. Or that'd be, "Oh, wow, this is such a nice office. I'm so glad that you're able to see me. I've been terribly worried." Listen to the voice, relationship.

Now, you might think-- Well, my way always when I start a meeting is to go to small talk. That's not very nonverbally intelligent. If you have a high issue-oriented person that comes into your office and they're like, "Should I sit here? Sit here? Okay, great." You go, "All right, well, I know you're here to talk about your case," but before then, "How are you doing?" [unintelligible 00:27:15] going to go down. They want to get to it. "I've taken a look at your case and here's what I need from you." Get to the issue.

On the flip side, if you're more issue-oriented and you're like, "Small talk is not something that I want to do," and somebody comes in and they're very relationship-oriented and you're like, "Yes, well, here's what, I looked at your case," you're not going to get that client either. You've got to go where the client is.

Now, we have a whole other training on how to get the client into the bucket that you want them in, but that's not what we're talking about today. What we're talking about today is how to increase permission with that person. This is what I'm talking about, people don't get this. We are so socialized for relationship. I'm not saying that relationship is wrong or issue's right or issue's wrong and relationship's right, it's what do people need?

Now, let me give you some caveats here. It's not just about need. There are three things to increase permission. You need to give people what they need, but you also need to give it at the right time and in the right context. I share this story in the book, where I was at a different gym, I was at the gym, and I saw this guy walking around and he had the word trainer on the back. It was January, the gym was packed. I watched him and he would go up to people and tap them on the shoulder while they were working out and then try to sell them training, and he was having absolutely no luck. Why do you think that was? He was in a gym, that's the right context. He had the need, right?

Participant 1: Bad timing.

Sari: Bad timing? Why? Why is the timing bad?

Participant 1: Because you're in the middle of a workout, you don't want to talk to somebody.

Sari: Yes. This is what we're talking about, it's not just about what people need. You have to do it at the right time and the right context. For example, jurors need information, but we can't give them a lot of information in voir dire, it's not the right time. Jurors are the most important people in the room, but they don't feel the most important people in the room, so telling them that at the very beginning is not the right time. We have to do things at the right time and in the right context if we want to have permission succeed. It's not just about need.

Here's what I want you to remember when it comes to permission. It is not a fixed thing. I want you to think about permission like a thermometer of sorts. Your job is to raise the temperature of the communication gradually until it becomes warm and inviting. When you do that, it's possible that you say or do something that knocks everybody out, or the person you're speaking to, out of permission, and you have to know how to recover, and first of all, how to notice it's even happened.

Let's talk about how to read permission, as one of the last things we're going to talk about. It really comes back to breathing. You can tell-- and breathing is really the only reliable indicator of permission. If you have permission with a group or an individual, they will be breathing low and slow. If you lose permission or you are starting out with someone or a group, the breathing you will notice will be high and held.

Think about this when you, for example, throw out the money in. You say, "In this case, we are asking for $10 million." You want to watch the jury very, very carefully. Watch the group now. I have you in gallery view, do I not? Yes, everybody can see each other? Okay, would everybody adopt, and just watch all the squares as this happens. Everybody adopt, on the count of three, what you would consider stiff body position. One, two, three. What are you noticing in all the squares, or not noticing?

Participant 3: Movement.

Sari: Movement, yes, you got it. What did you have to do to adopt a stiff body position with your breath?

Participant 3: Hold it.

Sari: Hold it, you're absolutely right. Let's do it again. Three, two, one. Notice how you have to inhale and hold. That's the little thing you'll notice. "We're asking for $10 million." The jury does that. You've lost permission. That doesn't mean you're not going to get $10 million, it just means you shocked the jury for a moment, and they can't hear you. You're going to have to do what we call decontaminate.

This is one of my favorite skills ever, and here's what it is. When you lose permission, there are four things you have to do. Whoops, I have these out of order. First, you're going to drop the eyes. Now, I don't mean drop the head. Notice the difference, dropping the eyes versus dropping the head. You say something, "We're asking for $10 million." I'm going to stop this here just so you can see what I'm doing. "We are asking for $10 million." Everybody'd be shocked. Go. I'm going to drop my eyes and my hands. I'm going to move, and as I'm moving, I'm going to breathe.

I'm not looking at the jury, and then I'm going to pop back up. That's a lot of money. I'm going to confirm their sanity. Now, notice how everybody'd be totally fine and breathe totally fine. "In this case, we are asking for $10 million." Everyone's just fine. In that case, I don't want to go, "Now that's a lot of money." The jury's like, "Well, we actually were fine with it." I'm watching for that reaction of permission. I'm watching for them to go, or just be like, great, "$10 million sounds good to me." I confirm what I see. This is the piece about permission.

That decontamination piece allows you to leave it where it was, not mention it, move away from it, breathe, breathe, breathe and start a new line of questioning. You can use decontamination for anything. When you're objected to, when somebody drops a loud book in the court and it gets the whole jury to breathe high, you need to decontaminate. Now, I want to be really careful. When you decontaminate, you do not take the eyes with you. Why? Watch. "In this case, we're asking for $10 million." Why doesn't that work? Tell me why that doesn't work.

Participant 3: That looked creepy.

Participant 1: You're challenging them, and it's a little creepy.

Sari: It's creepy?

Participant 4: That's what I was going to say too, it's just creepy.

Sari: I drag it all with me, right? I haven't separated anything. Notice the difference. "We're asking for $10 million." They have their reaction. I drop the eyes. I let them have their reaction. I move over. "That's a lot of money." I leave that there. The shock, I leave there. If they're shocked and they're looking at me and then I keep my eyes on them, I drag the shock with me. There's no reason for me to have moved in the first place. You shut the eye contact off, you breathe. Really, it's giving-- That's why we call it decontaminating. It gives you space between what just happened over there. You're saying, "In this case, the doctor--" "Objection." I'm going to drop the eyes. I'm going to deal with the objection, but I'm not going to come right back to the jury. What I'm going to do is, "Judge," blah, blah, blah. I'll drop my eyes. I'll move.

"In this case, the doctor," like it never happened. That won't work if I go, "Judge, all right, sorry about that, guys. Okay, let me get started again." Whatever. Now I've just dragged that all over here. The cutting off of the eye contact allows it to be like, that happened over there. That starts with something over here. I'll give you a great example. This came from the classroom. We used to teach teachers, you cannot teach and discipline in the same area, because this is what teachers would do. They would go, "All right, class, so we're talking about the Civil War." "Hey, that's too loud. That's five minutes off recess."

"All right, so the Civil War, who has questions?" The kids would be like: They're still thinking about five minutes off recess. We said, you can't do that in the same area. You have to actually move. What we'd have teachers do is we'd say, "All right, civil war," and they'd hear the class be really loud. They'd put down their pen. They'd walk over. They'd say, "That's five minutes off recess."

We're talking about the civil war. It's like, this is the teacher you want. Don't make me be that teacher. What teachers would end up doing is they'd do something like this. They'd go, "All right, that's five minutes off recess." Civil War, right? We'd say, that doesn't work. If you're going to use this technique of disciplining over there, teaching over here, you have to shut the eye contact off because the eye contact is what drags it over. It's the shutting off of the eye contact and the breathing. The teacher has to be breathing. The popping up as a new person that makes the two things be separate. Did that answer your question?

?Participant 5: Yes. Where does that come from? Because that feels like-- I can just feel the difference, especially in your first example. What is the psychological or physiological thing that is happening when you do that?

Sari: Two things. One is that location holds memory. Have you ever been in your living room and you get up to go get something in the kitchen and you forget what it is? What do you have to do?

Participant 5: Got to go back to where you were.

Sari: You have to go back. Location holds memory. Creating two different locations is one way that we separate. Disciplined teacher, regular teacher, or person who lost permission, person with permission, whatever, we've got the two different locations. The second one comes back to what we just learned about eye contact, what, 30 minutes ago? Eye contact equals engagement. If I keep eye contact, I'm continually engaging them with whatever negative thing I don't want them to engage with.

If I cut off the eye contact, then they have to go in their own Rolodexes. It severs whatever just happened. Eye contact keeps it alive. Keep that in mind. The eye contact keeps it alive. Do I want it to be alive? Sometimes. Other times I don't. When I'm telling a very impactful story, I may want that eye contact, but with the decontamination skill, I don't. Helpful?

Participant 5: Very much.

Participant 3: Location holds memory piece too. Remember how the teacher could just look or start to walk over to the spot and the kids would be like, "No, no, no, don't go over there. That's the discipline spot. Don't go there."

Sari: That's exactly right. After the teacher would do that a couple of times, and not even say it, they just have to start moving in that location and the kids would freak out. They'd be like, "Shut up. We're going to get in trouble."

Participant 5: This is hugely helpful. I'll tell you what it's bringing up for me is discussion about anchoring.

Sari: Yes.

Participant 5: It is exactly the same sort of thing you want to do when you anchor.

Sari: Absolutely. It is a form of anchoring. That's exactly what it is. Yes. That's how you decontaminate. Again, we're throwing this out. This is the thing, most of y'all, especially you guests, would come in and be like, "Okay, decontaminate, great. That's the skill." Then two weeks from now, you're never going to even remember that I said this again. That's what the crew is about. We're going to keep bringing this skill up. We're going to have you practice this skill. We're going to be doing this skill. That's the difference about the H2H crew, is that we give you a place to practice. We don't just throw training at you.

Right now it feels like you're having training thrown at you, because you are, but all of y'all who are in the membership or planning on joining, we're going to have you practicing these skills throughout the month. Okay. The other way that you can tell if you have permission is by tapping into what crew member wants to tell me, which level will tell us if we have permission, which level of listening? Three, you got it. There's three levels of listening. One is listening to yourself and your internal chatter. The second level of listening, we have a whole training on this in the back end, is listening to the other person and what they are saying. There's some of that, of course, that's one way to read if you have permission, if you're watching someone's reaction, their breathing, but the other way is that environmental or global listening, kind of, what's happening in the room. You all are experts in this. You have all stood in front of a jury and had it feel like you could do nothing right and you can't get them to talk and everything is awful.

You've also stood in front of a jury where you're like, "This is just going great." That is also a sense of permission. The level three feels amazing. That's how you also know you have permission. I can't go into it in much more depth because it's a much more in-depth training. For those of you who have not had the levels of listening training, but for you crew members, the level three will be singing when you have permission.

Here are the permission reminders as we end the training today, is that treat people how they want to be treated. That is the permission principle. Not how you want to be treated. It's not about you, it's about them. Watch nonverbal behavior to ascertain what is needed now. Do you need to go to the issue or do you need to tend to the relationship?

Match that body language and the intent. If you see someone is in issue mode, you need to use your authoritative nonverbals and go to the issue. If someone is in relationship mode, you need to use approachable nonverbals and tend to the relationship, and make sure you give what's needed in the right time and context. It's not just about need, but it's about timing and context.

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