Empathy-Driven Mediation with Amy Mariani

Catherine A. Wood  00:02

Amy, welcome to the podcast.

Amy Mariani  00:05

Oh, thank you for having me.

Catherine A. Wood  00:07

I am you know, I’m excited to have you on the show today. I don’t know, I got to share with you previously that I’ve worked with a mediator before with a prior business partner. So I’m so excited to kind of ask you all the things that I would have loved to have known when I was in the hot seat,

Amy Mariani  00:27

all the behind the scenes stuff.

Catherine A. Wood  00:31

Well, I’d love to just start us off by inviting you to share a little bit about your story and how you got to be here.

Amy Mariani  00:38

Sure, well, I’m a lawyer by training and practice law for a number of years and converted my practice about seven years ago, over from litigation, which is full on adversarial, you know, constantly in the trenches, lots of conflict, and permanently thinking about ways to win, and switch my career over to mediation in 2016. In large part, because I was looking for a different lifestyle, not necessarily immediately, but longer term. So my kids are teenagers right now, one is about to go off to college next year. And I wanted to live life differently. Once they’re in college, I wanted to be able to travel and not be on a trial calendar. And mediation has always been something that I really enjoyed as an attorney, it was terrific to see the level of resolution and clarity that it brought to my clients. And I thought it would be really cool to be able to deliver that kind of clarity and closure to other people. So I got trained as a mediator and have been doing that for the past seven years on a full time basis.

Catherine A. Wood  01:50

I can appreciate the desire for a different lifestyle that pulls people into career transitions. I’m curious what your experience has been, as a consequence of that change in your work and comes in the impact on your lifestyle.

Amy Mariani  02:10

It’s been a really good transition for me, because everyone thinks that when your kids are little, they need you more, I’ve actually found that my kids need me just as much as a teenager as they did when I was little as when they were little, but in a different way. So being present for them when they are in need of me now is just as important as being around for them when they were little and taking care of them and giving them their baths and doing all that sort of stuff, the emotional presence that I need to have for them now is is tremendous, and having the grace and the ability to be there for them. Because I don’t have to worry about filing a brief at 10 o’clock at night or whatever. If they’ve had a tough day at school, I can talk to them about the tough day at school and really be there for the conversation, and not have at zillion things running through my head. The other thing is, you know, my parents are now in their 80s. And they’re starting to deal with some health issues and some other related things. My bandwidth for dealing with my parents is far greater than it would have been if I were still trying cases. So for me, it’s really been a terrific move, because it’s allowed me to balance the personal and the professional a little bit more than I was able to do when I was in court all the time.

Catherine A. Wood  03:33

I think that’s such a beautiful reminder, you know, a lot of our my audience is geared around building a business that supports your desired lifestyle. And you come from a field where that is very challenging. So I so appreciate the modeling of redefining your career on your own terms. And it also sounds like an alignment with your values. Like, it sounds like you really get to employ more of your values, and qualities that are core to who you are in the work you’re doing. Now.

Amy Mariani  04:08

I agree with that. But don’t get me wrong. I loved being in the courtroom. And I love winning. I don’t think there’s a human being out there who doesn’t love to win, whether it’s a card game or whatever it happens to be. I think that’s innate part of our DNA in many respects. But by the same token, I also like to create and litigation is not about creating litigation is about destroying. In many respects, it’s about undoing something that that needs to be undone for whatever the reason happens to be. And mediation in turn allows me to help people walk away from a difficult situation without necessarily having to destroy everything that underlies that particular conflict. So that’s a really nice thing.

Catherine A. Wood  04:57

I I love that idea. that you get to create now, Martha Beck talks about this idea that we’re AI, we’re either reactors or creators of our life. And I’d love I’d love to hear like, in what way do you see yourself creating through your mediation work?

Amy Mariani  05:18

The biggest thing is, I can help folks see opportunity where they don’t think opportunity exists. So one example that I can share with you is, I’m currently working with a an academic institution where two sets of people within the institution are not getting along and haven’t been for quite some time. They’re very valued by the institution. And the institution has made a commitment to try and see both of them succeed. So in a litigation setting, the two of them would be dividing, you know, say the the assets that the two of them had shared in their work before, it would be very much win or lose, you’re getting this I’m getting this in the situation that I’m in where I’m a mediating between the two of them, we can start thinking about other possibilities. We don’t have to limit ourselves to what’s on a singular piece of paper, we can start talking about, well, what do you envision your business looking like in five years or 10 years? How do we get there? What’s essential to you that you have now to bring forward to help you in that work? What don’t you really need, and we can have a more fulsome and more robust discussion. And that allows them to start thinking about not just what’s in front of them, but also, what are other paths, how can they get to that same destination that they have in mind, for the next five to 10 years, without necessarily adhering to the path that they had thought was the only way to get there. So that’s a really nice, a nice thing about the work that I’m doing.

Catherine A. Wood  07:00

I am here, like the idea of being able to see new possibilities outside of your perspective, or new ways of thinking or responding or, I mean, that sounds very rewarding.

Amy Mariani  07:13

It’s extremely rewarding. And the other thing that is really helpful is it allows people to look at a situation with a measure of peace, because they they get a better understanding not only of their own needs, but of the other side’s needs as well. So they may end up still disagreeing and still not liking one another. But they have a better understanding as to why the other person is doing and saying the things that they have done and said, and that allows them to sort of close the door on a chapter of of life and move forward with a little bit better sense of peace about it.

Catherine A. Wood  07:50

So can we talk about impartiality for a moment? You know, for any of my audience who’s worked for our audiences worked for with a therapy couples therapist, or a business coach for their company. You know, there’s typically one party who brings in the consultant or the support professional and I have experienced personally varying levels of impartiality from those professionals. So how do you how do you maintain that sense of impartiality? And what do you do if you have a personal opinion in the matter?

Amy Mariani  08:33

That those are really great questions. It’s human nature to connect with certain people more deeply and more authentically than you do with others. So in order to prevent that from influencing, in a negative way, the the way I’m driving my process, it’s really important for me to be in check with my own biases and in check with my own reactions. So if I feel like we’re having a conversation, and I all of a sudden have a visceral reaction to something that you’re saying, I need to take a step back. And I need to ask myself, why am I having that reaction? Once I’ve triaged why I’m having that reaction that then allows me to come back into the conversation in a way that’s not going to do harm to my ability to stay out of it, and stay out of the issues that you and the other party are trying to work through. So that’s super important. Maintaining a sense of calm and an identification of my own self and my own reactions, is, you know, that’s that’s part one. If you cannot do that, in the mediation process, you’re probably not destined for a long term career as a mediator. You just start. The other thing is acknowledging to folks when I’m What kind of relationships I have with both sides so that the air is clear at the beginning of the day. So everyone knows that, you know, I’ve met you before, but I may not have met the other person. And then taking the time to make sure I establish rapport and a relationship with both sides, figuring out where my connection is to somebody that I haven’t met yet is super important. Because there’s a way for me to connect with every other human being on this planet, it may not be the same thing I connect with you about and that I connect with the other person about you. And I may talk about, you know, a love of nature or a love of being on the ocean, and the other person that I might talk about football. But there’s, there’s something that I have in common with just about everybody. And once I figured out what that is, and started to develop a relationship where we can connect, that helps me narrow that partiality and create a the ability to relate in different ways with different people. So it’s not always going to look the same for each side of the relationship. But finding that human connection is really integral to the work that I do.

Catherine A. Wood  11:18

So I hear number one, being able to check your biases, check them at the door, and to creating that human connection. But I just want to go back to the first one, because I think the ability to check your biases in the moment, especially if they’re activated is a Jedi mind trick of sorts. So what does that actually look like in the moment for you?

Amy Mariani  11:44

So yeah, for me, I generally I get this sort of icky feeling. And it could be, you know, all of a sudden, I’m just sitting up differently, or my stomach is uncomfortable, or I just feel like every nerve is on fire. And I’ve learned what my cues are, and those, those are a couple for me. Or I feel like I have to say something. And if I feel like I have to say something, that’s usually an emotional response on my part, it’s not, it’s not necessarily the right thing to be doing. So when I recognize those things happening, using breath, for me is huge. I just take five good deep breaths. And it may seem like something that’s so simple, but it works, it really helps to calm down the parts of my brain that are acting in a less rational fashion and allows me to recenter my thinking and my processing to the parts of my brain that are more rationally centered. And that makes a huge difference in my ability to respond and reply to people.

Catherine A. Wood  12:52

I love that reminder that when there’s this part of us that feels the need to say something, that’s likely the exact thing not to say, exactly. I mean, even thinking of how this plays up, plays out in our primary relationships, you know, like, in my, in my marriage, the part of me that feels the need to correct how my husband is taking care of the dogs or making the bed or doing these simple things, you know, and it’s typically that knee jerk thing that I want to say, that’s the very thing that I should keep my mouth shut about.

Amy Mariani  13:28

Right. And there’s a fine line there. Because if you don’t say anything about it for too long of a period of time, and it’s it’s an irritant to you, then it ends up coming out in a in a negative way down the line. So it’s figuring out how, when and where to have the conversation. Often in the moment, it’s not the right time to address whatever the issue is too far down the line. And it’s going to create a negative emotional response, that will be a trigger to the 10th or 12th time that the dishes aren’t putting the dishwasher the right way or whatever. But if you can figure out how to say, Hey, is it a point in a time where the other party is going to be more responsive to what you’re saying and more receptive to what you’re saying. And you’ve had some time to think about how to position and posture what you want to say, in a way that’s not not critical, not demanding. That makes a huge difference in the ability of the other person to receive the message. 90% of my job is translating between two sides who can’t listen to one another because their remote emotional responses are heightened to one another. I’m the translator I’m the person who takes the information from side a that side b simply can’t hear because they they’re on reflex response. And I help side b understand what side a is saying and once and I do the same for each of the sides. So, posturing and positioning that conversation in a way where both sides can hear one another is really what matters.

Catherine A. Wood  15:11

What a beautiful reminder to, you know, have our eye on when our nervous systems are activated. That’s typically not the moment to say whatever’s on our heart or whatever we’re feeling rented by. And I’m also reminded of the idea that we typically listen to respond rather than listen to understand. And it sounds like an A lot of your work is about not only listening from that place of understanding, but then ensuring the other party understands.

Amy Mariani  15:43

Right. Right, one really simple technique that people can use to listen to understand. And to make sure that other people understand them in conversations, is reflecting back. So if I were to say something to you, one thing that I might do is, you know, either check in with you and say, Now, you know, I just want to make sure you understand what I said, and that your understanding in mind are the same. Do you mind repeating back to me, what you think it is that I was communicating, because I may not have communicated effectively. And if you repeat back to me something that’s not what I intended to communicate, we’ve identified that we are, we’re missing a step. And we can go back and we can create that step that’s necessary for both of us to be on the same page.

Catherine A. Wood  16:38

And even in that example, I really appreciated your use of the framing, I might not communicated correctly, really speaking from that, that place of eye and self ownership versus pointing the finger speaking about the other party over there, making it their, their fault, their challenge their problem.

Amy Mariani  17:04

It makes a huge difference when party parties in conflict, accept responsibility for their portion of the conflict. And there could be a debate over who’s more at fault until the end of time. But if each side is willing to step up and say, Yeah, I did something that made the situation more difficult. That goes a tremendous way toward getting the situation resolved.

Catherine A. Wood  17:34

You know, one thing I appreciate is that many of the people listening to our episode are likely ambitious, empaths, which, you know, ambitious empaths are often highly driven, highly perfectionistic and have very high standards. And I think that, when we’re driven by those high standards, they can oftentimes result in poor communication skills, thinking that we’ve, you know, communicated exactly what we want. And then we feel, you know, just wildly, our expectations are, you know, wildly shot when when the we don’t meet those standards. So I really am curious, for, you know, for our audience who might be willing, how can they? How can they practice? What is it that I want to say like, when you have high standards, how can you bring those into conversation in a more responsible and self kind of I perspective?

Amy Mariani  18:58

I think there are a couple of really easy tips there that, well, they sound easy, but they really aren’t. The first is you have to, you have to be willing to give yourself the benefit of the doubt. So many of the people that you’re talking about, have extremely high standards and therefore are incredibly self critical. When when they don’t meet their own standards. So you’ve got to give yourself the grace to, to mess up and to be wrong sometimes. So that’s, that’s step one. Step two is to always look at the situation from the other person’s perspective. And understand that none of us are perfect, and as a result, our communications aren’t perfect. And if we keep that in mind, and we keep in mind the fact that mistakes are going to happen in communication, it makes it much much easier for us to to think about how is the The other person hearing this, and then that allows us to continue the conversation in a more positive way.

Catherine A. Wood  20:07

I love that you knew the question that I was asking when I couldn’t articulate it.

Amy Mariani  20:17

Sorry about that my, my 16 year old was just making sure that I remembered something.

Catherine A. Wood  20:27

No worries. Um, well, I mean, I think that is a really beautiful segue, because, you know, you’re a mediator, I’m a coach, we know what we know, we have a very high EQ scale. And it can be really hard to employ what we know, in the moments or separate what we know from who we are in our personal lives. So how, how do you kind of walk though, that fine line between being a wife being a mom being a mediator and attorney, and a human with needs,

Amy Mariani  21:04

um, it’s funny because I actually don’t bring the skills that I have as a mediator to my personal life as often as I probably should. So for example, if my kids are driving me batty, instead of diving into why they’re reacting the way they’re reacting to whatever the stimulus is the way I would intermediation, my reaction is just mom, you know, it’s just Hey, guys, you know, enough, I’m on the phone, you know, quiet down whatever it happens to be. So I need to be more mindful in my own personal life about, you know, let’s, let’s figure out why. Let’s figure out what’s going on. But then when I do try to do that my kids sometimes are like Mom, enough, no, I don’t want the mediation stuff right now, just sit and listen. So it is, I have to take my cues from the people around me, I think is the best thing that I can, the best way I can describe it, because there’s a time and a place for me to bring those skills to the communications I have with my kids and my husband. And then there’s a time and a place to just, you know, be natural and not think quite so much about every word and every perception and read too much into things. Because it’s easy to do that too.

Catherine A. Wood  22:19

I really appreciate that. I mean, in my early on in my relationship, you know, my knee jerk response was to provide a solution, or give my husband advice, or, you know, offer my two cents, which is the exact opposite of what I am so naturally practiced in as a coach. So it was just interesting that it was like, I needed that outlet. But what I have come to realize with a lot of practice, and and grace to use your words is that when I withhold that, and just listen and allow him to vent or share whatever he needs to say, eventually he, he typically does ask for my two cents, and then he’s so much more open and receptive to hearing it.

Amy Mariani  23:05

And that’s actually a really interesting phenomenon in almost all of the mediations that I do. If I’ve got an if I have an eight hour mediation, usually that breaks down into an hour spent listening and asking a few questions with each side to start things off. So if you were on one side of the mediation, I would probably listen to you for 45 minutes or so with very little interjection on my part, maybe a clarifying question here or there. But for the most part, just listening to you tell your story. And then after that, we’d start talking for the last 15 minutes or so of that session, we start talking about what outcomes are you really looking for? What are your really your interests here, but the bulk of it is just allowing you to do that emotional dump, getting rid of all of the thoughts, getting rid of the random ideas that are running through your head, so that the next few sessions can be more focused, and more productive, because you will have already done that brain dump. And we can really start diving into what matters as opposed to what’s floating around in your brain that needs to come out, but isn’t necessarily going to be productive to the conversation. So it sounds like your husband’s doing something very similar with you when he gets home.

Catherine A. Wood  24:34

Oh, I love I mean, I love that framing. And it just has me curious if the emotional dumping if it’s shared in the presence of both parties, or if those conversations are held separately.

Amy Mariani  24:49

Sometimes it’s shared most of the time in the work that I do, which tends to be pretty high conflict. It’s not so I do a lot of employment cases that includes Sexual harassment and discrimination claims, race discrimination claims, handicap and disability discrimination claims, all those kinds of things. business relationships that have gone awry personal injury cases where the emotional or physical toll on one party or the other is pretty significant. So there’s a lot of a lot of conflict there a high level of emotion, not to say that that’s not true in other situations as well. But they’re particularly heightened in those in those cases. And as a result, oftentimes, it’s easier for people to talk to me without the other person being present. So in those circumstances, I do what’s known as caucusing. And I will meet with each side separately, there are cases where it is very productive to have both sides in the room and have a back and forth. But there we have some very clear ground rules as to who’s talking and when. And, you know, I basically tell people that if we’re in a caucus, or if we’re in a joint session, everybody’s got a piece of paper, write down what it is that you feel you need to say, while the other person is talking. And then when it’s your turn to talk, take a look at that piece of paper and figure out, do I really need to say that? Or is that just my emotional reaction to what they had to say? Is it necessary to the discussion because if it isn’t, it can stay on that piece of paper. And then that piece of paper can be shredded at the end of the meeting.

Catherine A. Wood  26:29

That feels like a useful practice for anyone in conflict, regardless of whether they’re working with a mediator.

Amy Mariani  26:39

I think you’re right, I think people, people oftentimes have discussions before they’re ready to have them before they have really thought about what it is that they want out of the situation, what it is that’s bothering them about the situation. And as a result, we’re going back to DNA to the to the brain, they’re talking from the wrong part of the brain, they’re not talking from the part of the brain that’s going to allow them to resolve the situation with clarity and with focus.

Catherine A. Wood  27:16

I mean, one thing I appreciate about what you’re sharing is that it sounds like a lot of your work would pull at your heartstrings. It makes me wonder how you take care of yourself outside of the conference room that allows you to show up so grounded in the moment,

Amy Mariani  27:39

there are a couple of things that I do first, I limit the number of cases I do during a week. So I don’t mediate back to back to back to back. I simply don’t do that. Because especially in some of the employment and personal injury cases, the level of emotion involved is very high, you know, some of the some of the injuries that I see, both physical and psychological are significant. And as a result, yes, I need some time to process that and let it go before I can move on and really help somebody else. So I typically will not schedule back to back. The other thing is I make sure that prioritizing certain things in my life, like exercise and sleep are really high on my list. So making sure that I take care of myself lets me take care of other people in my work.

Catherine A. Wood  28:41

Yeah, I mean, I appreciate the simplicity of that. boundaries around scheduling, sleep exercise. I think so often, we can kind of forget the basics and the basics make a huge difference.

Amy Mariani  28:55

They really do. And I know when I’ve over scheduled because I get that frazzled feeling. And you know, we all get it from time to time, but when I’m over, you know, just over my schedule, and I know I need to cut back. That’s when I’m on like Wednesday or Thursday and it feels like a Friday. And I looked at my schedule that week and I go What did I do to myself and then I make sure that I go in and I get really good about blocking out my time in the way that I need to block my time out to work best. You.

Catherine A. Wood  29:34

Gosh, I feel like you have you have so much wisdom to share. And I’m wondering. So a lot of a lot of the people who listen to the podcast are small business owners, right who may be hiring their first full time employees have contractors bringing on partners. And I mean, hindsight is always 2020 We don’t know know what we don’t know. But I am curious if you have best practices for. For business owners who might be looking to bring on partners and employees who are likely at some point going to have some conflict that they’re going to need to work through.

Amy Mariani  30:23

Two things I can suggest the first is making sure you have a really good corporate attorney, someone who is professionally capable in a variety of ways somebody that understands your business, and understands your business’s needs, and can help you grow your business in a way that’s compliant with the law. Because when you hire an employee, there are legal responsibilities that come along with that. And if you fail to adhere to those legal responsibilities, you could end up in a world of hurt. So you want to make sure that as you are growing your business, you are talking to the appropriate legal counsel at all times, to make sure you’re doing it the right way. The same is true with if you’re bringing on a partner, you want to make sure your partnership agreement is drafted in such a way you want to have a partnership agreement. And B, you want to make sure it’s drafted in such a way that minimizes the risks to both sides as you move along. So those things are really key. The other thing is, I highly recommend people keep an eye on their relationships with coaches and consultants, who can advise them through the steps of these processes. There are some wonderful folks out there who work with business partners, when they start to encounter conflict, and can prevent those relationships from going south, or can help the party separate those relationships out in a way that’s not going to be damaging to the businesses been created, or to the individuals themselves. And people can literally walk away from a business relatively intact, both psychologically and monetarily in a way that you cannot if you let things build up. So you know, try to have those relationships established early on in the lifecycle of your business, they will make a huge difference to your quality of life, and to your launch to your long term success.

Catherine A. Wood  32:23

Makes me think of something you said earlier around when we don’t say what there is for us to say over time, it can really build up and create a sense of embitterment that can be hard to come back from it can

Amy Mariani  32:38

it can, yes, even if you establish a relationship with a cooperative coach or a business coach, and you and your partner only meet with them once a year, just to have an honest conversation once a year about your business, what you’re satisfied with what you’re not satisfied with how you want to grow, how you want to change it know whether there’s been an adequate allocation of resources, both financial and emotional, and physical. Those kinds of conversations held on a regular basis can make the difference between having partners grow and thrive in every aspect of their lives, or having one person feel like they’ve been put upon. And all of a sudden, the other partner sits there and goes, I thought everything was going great. And they’re blindsided by the fact that they’re their partner, just feels like things are not going smoothly. So it’s really important to have those check ins.

Catherine A. Wood  33:42

In my work, I offer a practice to clients who experience conflict in their marriage, whether it’s, it’s a really simple practice, it’s that invitation to have a weekly State of the Union, where they talk about the union of their relationship and how we are doing and what we need. And I think that, you know, when you create those clear lines of communication, where you can speak from a non judgmental, open hearted, assuming positive regard place that you can so often prevent what you’re talking about, like this just idea of catching, catching our partners, our colleagues or our spouses by surprise when we, you know, when we throw out this that we’ve been feeling for weeks or months or potential years and just haven’t communicated.

Amy Mariani  34:39

That’s so true. In most of the business divorce cases that I do, it’s because one partner feels like they’ve been, you know, rowing harder than the other partner for a very, very long time and they just haven’t said anything about it. That tends to be a significant part of the problem. In In almost all of the cases that I handle

Catherine A. Wood  35:05

so noticing that theme, I’m curious, I am going to understand that this isn’t your job in the moment. But I imagined that there’s this part of you that would love to offer your, your two cents or your best practices. So, you know, perhaps for our audience who’s listening that may find themselves in this similar place? What What would you what, what would you recommend that, if anything else than what you’ve already shared,

Amy Mariani  35:37

take care of yourself, you cannot be the best version of yourself without understanding and acknowledging that you need time for you. And I always went at warp speed. For many, many years, I went at warp speed and did not realize the harmful effects that was having on every aspect of my life. And when I stepped back, and just took a little bit of time for myself every day to exercise and just just sort of clear my head because that’s I don’t meditate. I lift weights. And when I’m lifting weights, that time between the sets, that’s my sort of downtime. And once I started doing that, I found it brought tremendous clarity and far less stress to my overall life. So take whatever that happens to be for me, it’s lifting weights for someone else, it’s a walk in the woods, whatever it happens to be, find that thing that brings you that little bit of clarity every day. And make sure that that is a priority in your life, because it will allow you to be a better person in every aspect of your life.

Catherine A. Wood  36:51

I love that. I mean, I think that’s a beautiful segue to my last question. You know, we’re really an audience of empaths here and I’m a huge stand for empaths thriving, financially and relationships, in how their health in every other area of life. So what what’s truly made the difference for you and thriving as an empath.

Amy Mariani  37:15

sleep and exercise there are two enormous priorities for me. If I don’t sleep, well, I can’t be at my best. And if I can’t be at my best, I can’t help others be at their best.

Catherine A. Wood  37:30

I love it. Amy, I feel like I’m going to be coming back to this episode. I took so many gems for myself. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on today. It’s been a real joy.

Amy Mariani  37:40

My pleasure. It’s been a great, great chat today. I love this