0069 - How to Use Simple Conversations to Get Others to Change ft Haesun Moon

Join host Ben Owden on a transformative journey through the art of conversation with communication scientist, educator, and author Haesun Moon. In this heartfelt episode, we delve into the healing power of dialogue and discover how intentional communication can lead to profound changes in our personal and professional lives. Haesun shares her insights on the significance of celebrating progress, the importance of listening over speaking, and the transformative potential of adopting a 'suppose, not impose' approach to our interactions.

Through personal stories and professional experiences, Haesun illuminates the path to curating curative narratives that empower and uplift. Prepare to be inspired by the life-changing impact of words well-spoken and learn how to wield the power of conversation to heal, motivate, and connect deeply with those around you.

Important Links
*Join Thrive in the Middle Today!
*Book WhyLead to Train Your Teams
*Explore Our Services

Social Media
*Ben Owden's LinkedIn
*Ben Owden's Twitter 

Transcript

Haesun Moon

Oftentimes, on a scale. On a scale of one to ten, we often ask the question and we have this push of get closer to the ten. Get closer. Go do. Do more, be better so that you can get closer to the ten. But we forget to celebrate. Let's say I'm at a seven today. Whether the topic is productivity or kindness or whatever it is that you really want to sort of focus on. And let's say I'm on a scale of one to ten, where are you? I think I'm at a six on kindness today. And then people actually make this face. They're like, ooh. They judge the answer. If I say four, it's like, ooh. If I say nine, they're like, oh, wow. So first of all, we not only judge their answer, but then we are like, so how will you get a little bit higher on the scale? It's almost like a default next question, isn't it? We have this idea of, you're almost there. What's your next step? Let's go there versus. How did you get to a six already? What got you to a. So how come you're not a three or four now? That's the space of already, and we don't hear that a lot. When kids come from school with 60%, we don't ask about, hey, how did you manage to get 60%, not 50? We immediately judge the number by saying, like, what is going on here?

Haesun Moon

Mambo? This is Ben Owden, the leader. Mr. Miyagi. My hope is that this conversation will help you find the clarity and conviction you need to lead a more meaningful and impactful life. I have curated some of the best thinker practitioners from all over the world to help you get to your leadership nirvana. So sit tight, and let's go on this journey together. Greetings to you. I hope you're at peace and are having a meaningful and productive day. Welcome to another episode of the Wide Lead podcast. I am your host, Ben Owden. Do you wish you had superpowers and you could use those powers whenever you wanted? I know I do. When I was introduced to the guest today, I was happy that this dream of mine is actually possible, that I, too, as Ben, can have superpowers. In today's conversation, we will be exploring the healing and transformative power of conversations. We will learn how to curate better life stories with ourselves and those around us. And if you are seeking an indispensable tool to harness the magic of hosting conversations that matter, this episode is for you. And so to have this conversation I am joined by a communication scientist, educator, and author of several collaborative books, including Thriving Women, Thriving World, and foundations of brief coaching, a shorthand book for professional coaches. She cares about people experiencing better conversations at home and at work, and she believes that conversations can change the world. This belief eventually led to the development of a simple coaching model, the dialogic orientation quadrant, Doq. The DoQ has transformed the way people coach and learn coaching worldwide. She's the author of a book that was recommended to me by a previous guest, Amichi. The book is coaching a to z the extraordinary use of ordinary words. Ladies and gentlemen, Hyun Moon. Hyun. You're welcome.

Haesun Moon

My goodness, thank you so much for that wonderful introduction.

Haesun Moon

Now, there are a lot of books on communication and coaching, I think probably more than many other domains. Why was it important for you to write this book, and what makes this book your gift to the world?

Haesun Moon

My goodness, what a question. Yes, that's so true. The business, communications and coaching and so on. Actually, up until 2015, I was pretty sure that I'm not going to write a book because there are so many things out there I don't want to actually add to that flood of things. So it was really interesting to notice some things change in me because I think one of my pastor friends actually told me that every Sunday. I used to think that, oh, now I have to say something. But then one day he said it changed to, now I have something to say. So there was a very interesting shift for me as well, because back then I was doing a lot of research in communications and meeting people and all these different things. And then especially in coaching and the therapy, I knew that some sessions are much better than other sessions. Also, talking to a lot of people, I realized that their home conversations are much better than how some other people describe it. And I'm like, what is the difference? So when I was watching these so many thousands of hours conversations, I realized that there are some patterns that you can see. And it started with a simple words that I could actually see in coaching conversation when somebody's just complaining and then just by this practitioner inviting them to talk about, so what would you like? So clearly you don't want that. So what would you want instead? And then all of a sudden, this client is talking about what they want. And I thought that's such a simple shift with just one little word instead. So I started to collect those words, and this was back in 2014, and I knew that I was going to do something like this, but I didn't know that it was going to turn out to be this book. And it was interesting when the first question any publisher asks you is, who is your reader? And I said the word that publishers dread the most. I said, everyone. Like what? You can't write a book for everyone. I said, watch me. And it was supposed to be a business book and so on. But then when my father passed in 2020, it became very clear to me that I wanted to tell stories of my life with my parents, especially my dad, who had a gift of conversation. So it turned out to be stories with my clients, but also I added my personal stories in it. So this book was not planned this way, but it just turned out to be this way, which I am very grateful for.

Haesun Moon

Yeah. And I definitely recommend it to pretty much everyone. And I know you think you've shared that even little kids read this book as well with their grandparents. So people from all walks of life, it's written in such a simple language that anyone at any level can read and connect. And the use of stories. Right, personal stories, coaching stories, also really helps and makes it very easily and digestible for a lot of people. Something else that you say in the book is not all narrative is curative. Right? So how can we begin to be more intentional in developing curative narratives in our own lives? Because you also speak about intentionality.

Haesun Moon

And I think, Ben, there is this belief that even in leadership trainings, that you probably have seen so many of them, and we actually teach leaders how to speak so that people will listen, but we don't really teach leaders how to listen so that people will speak. And that's a tiny shift that I often wonder about. So we teach people to talk. Not necessarily. We don't teach people to listen. So for me, when we look at narrative or narrating as a form of therapy, I think that's very useful, although I also find that not all narratives lead to cure. So I have a personal example of actually someone when I was 16, and he asked me, he was very well intending, well meaning person who actually thought he wanted to have a conversation, this helping conversation with me. And I was being very 16, right? So I just came to a new country and so confused and being very 16 and sensitive, and I know that he wanted to have a chat, and I said, sure. And he sat down with me, and his first question to me was, tell me about your childhood. And I was ready to tell him how a wonderful childhood I had. And then he changed his question to, so what were some of the most difficult memories from your childhood? And after he switched his question I realized, wait a second. What? And then all of a sudden, all these memories, whether it's real or constructed, they started to flood in. Because I am asked a question, I am invited to consider that request to bring up these memories. And then, what are some of the most traumatic events of my childhood? And I'm not kidding, Ben, with that one question. You can ruin somebody's childhood. So if I ask you that question, all of a sudden you're going to construct different childhood? Because you're answering my quest, so to speak. So, one of the things that I realized very early on is that not all narratives are useful. Then what is useful? How do we actually get ourselves to curate, not narrate more useful stories that are around what we truly want, what we care about, what's important to us? Right. So I think that's a small intention, but that's the small difference that makes the difference in conversations.

Haesun Moon

Yeah, that's something that we'll talk about as well, because I think the way you talk about the word recent and how we have the ability to go back and revise the stories. So something that I've been meaning to ask you. So we'll get to that. But speaking of DoQ, dialogic orientation quadrant and the four possibilities. Right. The preferred future, the resourceful past, the troubled past, the dreaded future of these four, where do we need to dwell more frequently?

Haesun Moon

Well done. You remember that?

Haesun Moon

Yeah.

Haesun Moon

Ben, I think often we notice that, including all of us who are even trained to have better conversations and so on. But then, naturally, I think we are in quadrant three and four, which are the bottom quadrants. Resourceful. I mean, see, you remember better than I do. So, troubled past and dreaded future. And in this society, for some reason, in our days right now, people see it as a bad thing when we are in trouble past, when we consider trouble past and dreaded future, people see it as be happy or you don't look on the bright side. And we have this push towards happiness and lightness. And I'm not sure if that's necessarily healthy or natural, actually, because naturally, we are very good at detecting and remembering and reciting and recalling all these things that happened in the past that are not so pleasant. And also, we're so good at detecting things that may go wrong. And I think they serve us really well. But oftentimes in therapy or coaching, when clients actually bring up these things, novice practitioner, they feel like, oh, they're so negative. We got to move towards the positive. And that ends up being not useful, because then clients are not acknowledged. People need to be acknowledged. I remember when I was grieving after my father passed, and grief, I guess, in modern society, is seen as something that's sadness, negative and whatnot. And then I think, for me, when somebody actually asked me, so, when will be a good time to move on, I was utterly offended. You don't move on from grief. And I was like, how dare you? You are trying to push me. But this quadrant actually is not being positive or negative. This is really paying attention to what people say that they want or they don't want. And how do we increase that clarity, increase that maybe even frequency or even that magnitude of what people want different? And what happens is, if we can do that, then we will be moving ourselves closer to that. And right now, my dogs are in the background, biting me and playing with my hand. I'm not sure if there's any area we should be in, but we often find ourselves in quadrant three and four, the bottom quadrants now. The push to get people up on the preferred future and resourceful past. I'm not sure if it's useful if clients are not feeling acknowledged. That's why so many seasoned master practitioners like Insukimberg, they will always take the time to acknowledge first before they get into exploring. So coaching people might assume that, oh, yeah, we definitely talk about preferred future, but what is the preferred future, anyway? What does a client want? What would you do if the client want is they want to die? That's their preferred future. How are you going to work with that? Right, where should we be? All the quadrants are very useful if you know how to host conversations in each of those spaces.

Haesun Moon

Yeah, I like that, how they're all useful, which is true, because I think toxic positivity, as it's been dubbed, I think it's the constant stubbornness to be on the preferred future aspect, where you avoid the reality of probably your present, your past, just focusing on this ideal future. And sometimes that's useful, especially people who are in extreme environments that are just negative and maybe toxic. And the only way to survive is to dream of some sort of a utopia of the future. But eventually it works against you. It might keep you alive, so to speak. It might keep a dream alive. You see this with a lot of innovators and people who are starting businesses. You work every day because of this preferred future, but at some point, it stops serving you. So I like the idea that all four quadrants, the preferred future, the resourceful past, the troubled past and the dreaded future, are all useful and it's understanding how to navigate all of those different spaces. Something else that comes up quite a lot is the word suppose in a lot of your examples. It comes up and you say suppose rather than impose. And I'll do a quote here, right, where you say, suppose our conversations, which is a question that you're asking, suppose our conversation somehow turns out to be useful, how might you know things are moving in the right direction for you? Right? And there are so many examples of these types of questions throughout your book. Why should we aim to have this posture of suppose in most of our conversations, rather than just imposing, especially when we feel like we have prior knowledge, we have some understanding of the subject, and we feel like, I probably know the way. How do we resist that temptation to impose?

Haesun Moon

I particularly love that you just said the word posture. It's definitely a posture. It's posture. The word suppose has pose in it. Like, as in posture, it's a stance that you take. And as a word, suppose actually means that you take it sup. As in super. Like, you go over something and you place it. So you suppose. What I love about that is that many times when people come, and especially, let's say, they give you this impossible desire. So, not that it's impossible, but when somebody says, I want to die, or when this young guy comes and say, well, I want to be any CEO of this company within next two years, and it could sound impossible. Now, then, instead of trying to fix them or trying to, hello, like, okay, let's come back to the reality and do some reality check and problem solve versus, okay, suppose. Suppose actually just takes away all these barriers that we think there are. So we're just supposing ourselves above those barriers and those things like that. And this actually question was very useful when a client in a therapy situation came in and she was in such a dire situation, and she said, you know what? I don't think anyone or anything can help me. It will take a miracle for me to just have a little bit better day. Now. Then we could hear it as, wow, there are so many barriers, there are so many difficulties. Or we can hear that as, okay, so it will take a Inza Kimberg. And actually when she was in session, she says, so suppose. Suppose a miracle happened and that you are having a better day. What would that look like? How will you know that you are having a better day tomorrow? And that's how this miracle question was born, actually, out of this interaction with a client who actually is like, it's going to take a miracle, meaning it's not possible. And then now, because we use suppose now, this became possible, suppose you have that. So in a way, we also say that it's a means to an end, because I think the whole coaching field and leadership field, we are confusing ourselves by using this word, goals and outcomes. It's just thrown out like, what's your goal? And set your goal, and so on and so forth. It's just so nauseating even to hear this goal oriented and outcome oriented because when you sit down with people in conversation with your friends, your family, especially teenagers, if you ask them about their goal, you will get one of these three answers. Whatever. I don't know. So when you ask them about goals, they're like, what? But if you actually ask about what do you want different in your relationship with your brother, instead of asking, what's your goal? Or what's your preferred future with your brother, they're like, what? But if I ask them, what do you want that's a little bit different? They will say, well, I need him to stop bugging me. But they have clear idea. So I wonder if we can change this idea of goals and outcomes in leadership literature to difference. I wonder what that might happen, because I think difference is just another name that's way more practical than goals and outcomes. Right?

Haesun Moon

Yeah. Wow. Now, at this point, I think I would like to get into some of my favorites as far as the different words that you've chosen throughout your book, and I think already is one of them, but we'll get to that in a minute. But I would like to start with notice because of something that you just mentioned. Now, in this particular chapter, you share a story of Judy, who I think was a client who was the leader of an organization, and things weren't moving in the way that she was hoping things would be moving. And she was talking about the situation as if nothing good is happening. And then you ask her a question. Suppose you have the power to change anything that you want at your work, even with that power to change everything. Could you please make a note of what you might keep as is? And as I read this, I was like, is this inverse suppose? And if it is, is inverse suppose the cure for, I guess, emotional or mental hyperbole when people are maybe exaggerating a situation. I don't know. It's just something that I thought when I read this part.

Haesun Moon

Wow. Thank you for noticing that part. Actually, that was one of my favorite moments, actually, because I was still working with this idea of goals and outcomes at the time when I actually had a conversation with the Judy, and she's like, oh, and everything needs to change. And this needs to change. Everybody needs to change. And she even said, these are like old boys club, and I come from outside. And when you look at it, everything needs to go. And then what was so interesting is we often do this too. We still do this. Whenever you do training, let's say you do speaking engagements or training and things like that, and you send out evaluations to participants, what do you ask on that evaluation? It's kind of like a smile sheet. So what did you like? How was the session? How was a Haesun Moonnd how was the room? And they always ask this weird question at the end. You know what that is, Ben? They ask you, what is one thing that we can improve for next time? And we think we're doing ourselves good by asking that question. So that's how questions work now. Then they are invited to look in that area of what we need to do better next time. What does that do to the session that they just experienced? It's not that good anymore when you ask that question. So for me, when we work with our clients, getting them to look at what needs to be different sometimes backfires because then they are looking for things that are not working well right now. That needs to change. In relationships. If I actually ask a couple to point out the things that you really wish that your partner was doing different, that's going to slowly eat away in their relationship. But if I actually then ask a couple, pretty much saying, even if you can do a complete makeover, including character and everything about your partner, what would you actually keep as is because you just love it. Now we are doing this shift in our perspective that you are looking for something that you would like to keep, something that's working, something that you love. And I've seen a lot of teams having this kind of conversation and they're like, wait a second, we're not that bad, actually. Well, actually, we are not such a bad team after all, because there are so many things that are working well already. Confirmation bias. All of a sudden you get a white car and you realize there's so.

Haesun Moon

Many white cars, so many white cars everywhere. Yeah.

Haesun Moon

Now you're looking, shifting our clients perspective to now notice, look in that direction. What's working well, that you would like to keep. That was a very intentional choice, and that made all the difference, actually, for Judy and her team. And she's still there. She's still working in that area. And she's one of the best leaders.

Haesun Moon

Actually wow, that's good to know. Another one of my favorite words was already, and at the beginning you say, focus on the efforts a person has made in the desired direction rather than on the next steps. In a world where it's always about the next step, new year resolutions, things that need to change goals and outcomes. Like you said, does this mean looking in the past is a better source of motivation? Because you speak about motivation in this chapter as well, than looking into the future, specifically when it comes to getting, I guess, to a desired state.

Haesun Moon

I think when you ask about, is this one better for what will be, what I will be actually asking. So there are some studies that show when you're focusing on preferred future and you have this visualization of this preferred future, and you're less likely to take actions because it relaxes you. Right? So Gabriella Etingen, she talks about that, how positive fantasizing may backfire for us not to actually take actions, but when we actually think about, oftentimes on a scale, on a scale of one to ten, we often ask the question and we have this push of get closer to the ten, get closer, go do more, be better, so that you can get closer to the ten. But we forget to celebrate. Let's say I'm at a seven today, whether the topic is productivity or kindness or whatever it is that you really want to sort of focus on. And let's say I'm on a scale of one to ten, where are you? I think I'm at a six on kindness today. And then people actually make this face, they're like, they judge the answer. If I say four, it's like, oh, wow. So first of all, we not only judge their answer, but then we are like, so how will you get a little bit higher on the scale? It's almost like a default next question, isn't it? We have this idea of, you're almost there, what's your next step? Let's go there. Versus. How did you get to a six already? What got you to a six? So how come you're not a three or four now? That's the space of already. And we don't hear that a lot. When kids come from school with 60%, we don't ask about, hey, how did you manage to get 60%, not 50? We immediately judge the number by saying, like, what is going on here?

Haesun Moon

Yeah, how come your friend John got 90? You own 60.

Haesun Moon

Exactly. And I think that already is something that I learned from my especially young clients, who actually, by the time they actually book the appointment and then somehow it's booked by somebody else, booked by school, booked by social workers, and by the time they come to see me, some time has passed, maybe a couple weeks has passed. So then when I see them, that's my first question. And we call the pre session change because the appointment was booked two weeks ago and you lived two weeks. So I want to know what they did with their life in the past two weeks already. What have you done in the last two weeks already? And they have so many stories to tell. It's almost like when you actually have somebody who's coming to clean your office or clean your house, you clean it before they come. So pre session change. So there are so many things in that word already that we can probably consider a little bit more as well. Thank you for asking about these ones.

Haesun Moon

I think on the same word you say, motivation starts with why delight continues as one discovers how much they have already moved in their preferred direction. So what sort of practices can we implement in our own lives to harness the magic of already? Because as I was going through this, I was thinking on a personal level, maybe journaling is a practice that can keep track of the already in our life. Right? Documenting the progress towards those micro goals and whatnot. And maybe on a corporate level, probably putting a lot of emphasis on reinforcing feedback versus redirecting feedback, which is what usually is seen as useful feedback. As I was looking at this, I was like, how do we implement them on a day to day? These are the two things. Am I on the right track? But at the same time, what other things can we add to the mix?

Haesun Moon

Such a great idea, Ben, to actually incorporate this entire idea into feedback, not redirecting. I love how you phrased it, actually. But how do we have conversations about what they have already done, not what they have yet to do? You forgot to do that. Forgot to that. You know, that's coming up. I mean, how boring are those conversations?

Haesun Moon

And I think it's part of the reason people dread performance appraisals, because, you know, that whole conversation is what you have not done versus what you have done already.

Haesun Moon

Absolutely. I mean, I personally make to do list. I don't do to do list because it scares me. So I do have done a list. So after I have done something, I write it then and check off my personal delight. But when it comes to feedback conversation, what becomes interesting is we have some misunderstandings or myth about people's performance. People think that, oh, they're high. When you say high performance, people think that, oh, the high performer who's always like this or even like, going up, they're way over the baseline and they're doing this, or they're always high performing or that low performer people always have the names for, they're like, oh, my gosh, I have this one employee, and then they start talking about that person. Their perception, once again, it's the noticing, because you're not noticing when they're doing well. So our perception is their performance is always on the low level. It's kind of like this. And I'm like, why are we even keeping that right now? The reality or more accurate picture of every single one of us and how we perform throughout our day, weeks and months, and even years, it's this up and down, up and down, up and down. Now then, when you meet with your staff members, let's say, and you have conversation, what do you talk about? Do you talk about the time when you were doing so well in July, but then it went down in September? What went wrong? Do you talk about that? Or do you talk about, it went down in May, but you went back up in July. How did you create that upward movement? Do you talk about that? Now, that's the already space because they've done something already to move back up. And are we curious about that? Are we curious about how did you do that? What helped? What did you do? Seriously? Like, wow, you were down here, but you did this curve up. How did you do that? And also expecting that. That curve up and down is very natural for us. What if leaders have the conversations with their people? Simply say, I expect that your performance will dip again. But how can I support you when that happens? Not if that happens, but when that happens, what do you find really useful? What can we do? Now, that's a totally different type of conversation that you can host because your employee or your staff member might come and tell you that, oh, I know, I need to work on this and this. But then imagine your leader points out all the things that you have done, right, that you actually forgot about, and then you're like, oh, yeah. Oh, you remember that? Oh, my. Yeah, I did that. That's going to change the dynamics. If your leader can tell you, remind you, I know it's tough right now, Ben, but remember, like, last May, the same thing happened, but they remember that you did this. You're like, oh, yeah, I forgot about that. What would that to you? If your leader did that with you, right? And that actually put a little bit more work on the leaders to notice those moments when employees actually do that movement up and having that frequent conversations about how are you doing, how did you do that? And what are you finding that's useful for you to cope, especially when things are really difficult? Do not avoid conversations. That's when you have to have conversations. Right? So when things are most difficult, or as we say in healthcare, when it matters most, how do we have conversation that really emphasizes what matters to them, not what's the matter with them? So then when we have this conversation, especially in the most difficult times, are we having that conversation about, so how are you managing all this? What support do you need instead of do more, be better healthcare people? In the last five years it's been like that. But can we just sit and have these kind of conversations that's much different than the usual feedback? So, yeah, that's my take on that.

Haesun Moon

Wow. No, I think it's useful. Another word that, and I'll confess.

Haesun Moon

This.

Haesun Moon

Was the most challenging, probably for me, becoming, and you say radically accept another's truth. The radical acceptance of believing in the other's becoming is the very glue that mends and bonds many relations we hold dear. This was definitely the hardest for me to accept, radically accepting another's truth. And what I was thinking about is, what if I know their truth is not objectively true? What if I believe if they continue on this path, they'll fall off a cliff? How do I resolve this tension within myself?

Haesun Moon

Right, I hear you. So how did you do that then? How did you resolve it, resolved it? Or are you still resolving it?

Haesun Moon

I'm still resolving it. So I'm asking you, how do I resolve the tension?

Haesun Moon

I think the story that I introduced there is a patient who has diagnosis of schizophrenia and who comes to the session and clearly speaks about her hallucination or delusion, as we may call it. But what happens is that's her reality, that's her life, that's her logic. We often mistake our role as well. That's not logical based on my logic in the way that I do my life. So I'm going to impose my logic on you versus. She lives her life with this condition that she might hear different voices that we are not hearing. She may see some different things, but that's her life that she is managing with that condition. Now then we need to learn her logic, how she do her life, because she must have a good reason to do certain things, because it somehow works for her. So when clients, when small younger people, or when clients with all these different variety of diagnosis, whether they're correct or not, they come and they share their story. We need to somehow believe their logic of them doing their life. So that's the premise of that becoming. Because what happens is for me, it's much easier for when I actually watch the news right now, war is happening, right? And then, sure, you're fighting for your truth. Can I actually uphold that truth? I do not agree. I completely am upheld by it. What do we do in this situation? Right? So what I find very useful in times like conflict, because when I'm in conflict with somebody, I don't want to get to know you. I don't care about your truth, actually, and I'm sorry, you're wrong. How do I maintain that stance? So I actually had this argument with my brother once, and we rarely argue like this, but we were having heated argument in the middle of it and we were just like, shouting over, I do not shout, but we were on the phone shouting over each other and this and that. And I realized, wait a second, this is not working. And then he's fuming. I'm fuming. And I said, okay, listen, let's do this. So this is not going anywhere. Can we do this? He's like, what? I said, so you tell your story, I will listen. After you tell your story, I am going to summarize what you just said, and you tell me if I got it or not. And then if I didn't get it, I'll try again. You tell me more, and then I'll try again. But then if you think I got your point, then you got to listen to my story and you do the same after I tell you. You have to summarize what's important to me until I'm like, yes, you got me. And then we're going to actually take turns. He's like, this is so stupid. I was like, just, well, this is not going anywhere. He's like, fine. And I said, well, you go first. He's like, ra. Now my attention is, okay, what does this guy care about or what's important to him? And I started to actually listen to him because now I have to summarize because then I get to have my turn to speak. So I'm listening to him. And after he was done, I was actually, so you're saying that this is important to you. I summarize a few things, and he's like, yeah. And then as we were having just that much, my anger somehow subsided and he calmed down a little bit. He's like, yeah, that's exactly what I mean. He's not shouting anymore. I'm like, okay, can I tell you my story now? And he's like, yeah, go. So then I told him my story, much calmer. And after that he was listening. He interrupted a few times. The rule is you listen because I listen to you. So then after maybe a minute, I told him about my side of the story for a minute and he said, okay, two things. And he told me what he heard that was important to me. We didn't have to do that anymore because we felt heard. It was such a weird experience, so immediate to my family because with families that you think that, you know, it's hard to do. And this happened only a few years ago. And I find when I watch the news, the whole push of the society to they want us to take sides, right? So they want us to take either are you on this side or that side? And that actually is the root of so many human conflict, the division of us and them. There's so many different categories that we can use to divide us and them. But I want to challenge that because I think that's where I'm not talking about your truth and my truth that we disagree. We're talking about. Can we find what I appreciate and understand in your logic of how you do your life, especially if we are in a coaching conversation? Because oftentimes our expertise comes in and we want to stop it, we want to change it, we want to add to it. But I think our job is simply respect. We don't have to agree, but respecting and really upholding what they say is their logic. Do we believe that?

Haesun Moon

Wow.

Haesun Moon

So I feel very passionate about this topic because it's quite conflicting, as you say.

Haesun Moon

Definitely. It's definitely something to think about. And I like that the outcome is unity and rather walking away from that, being united rather than person standing on the other side and the other person on this side. Now, my last word for you would be, I believe this word is your favorite word and we'll get to it in a minute. But I want to share with you a question that we ask pretty much all of our guests. So I'll ask this towards the end and it's called the one, one, one. So I'm just sharing it with you. So you start thinking through it and this is how we typically ask it. What is the one book that you wish you read earlier in your career? This is the same question I asked Amici and then she shared your book. What is the one habit you wish you had developed earlier as well in your life? And what is the one personal value that you will not compromise, no matter the cost. And as I was thinking about our conversation, I said, maybe I'll ask it differently. Suppose you could time travel and go back 1020 years. What book would you take back with you? And suppose you could do the same with your habits. What habit that you practice now, that you would start practicing earlier in your life.

Haesun Moon

Great way to ask, Ben. My goodness.

Haesun Moon

Yeah. The student is slowly becoming.

Haesun Moon

Wow, brilliant. How would you change the third one?

Haesun Moon

Also using, suppose I couldn't figure out to do the third one. So that remains. What is the one personal value that you will protect? Yeah. So the last word that I wanted to talk about is hope. And it was definitely a very touching. It was emotional just reading the story and the word. And I think I've also heard you speak about how this was a turning point for you as well. And in the book, you share a story of a patient who's dying, and she knows that she's dying. And in those types of situations, usually hope is seen as healing. It's seen as a way out of the suffering to something else. But you write in this chapter, by the end of our conversation, she had her hand on my shoulder. I know it's not a happy ending, but I'm now dying with hope. And then you say two weeks later, she passed, surrounded by her loved ones. In what ways have these words dying with hope transformed how you define hope?

Haesun Moon

My goodness. Wow. You chose that word. Well, this is a very personal story that I don't think I actually talked about. So. Wow. That chapter, I actually started with my father's story, and I had to stop. I had to stop for a week, three months, six months. I couldn't continue that chapter because it was just too overwhelming for me. So I remember just putting in other stories in there, but then that I started with my dad, so just maybe a week before his passing. Ben, this is. Wow. I'll talk about it. It's a personal experience. Anyway, he was having nightmares, so we had to take turns actually staying with him. So he was on a bed. He was downstairs in my house, and we had a hospital bed, so he was there. And then we also had this chair that you can sort of lounge chair that you can sleep in. So we had one of them there. So we were taking turns staying with him because he was just. He would wake up every, like, five to seven minutes. Like, he is tormented, which was so heartbreaking, because he couldn't sleep. And he was just so tortured. So we didn't know what to do. And we were having this conversation, and we were trying to sort of comfort him, but then he will just gasp and he will wake up. And a few days later, he was troubled for about a few days, and none of us could sleep. And then his pastor actually came to visit us, and he simply sat down. He didn't do anything weird. He just sat down and had a conversation with my dad. He had a conversation with my dad and about his life and gratitude and also confirming my dad's faith. And he was just having conversation. He said, can I pray for you? And he's like, yeah, please pray for me. And they prayed together. And I was there. My mom was there. We're all there. And I'm not kidding, after the pastor left, my dad slept like a baby. Then. Not only he slept like a baby, he just opened his eyes, and I was playing his favorite music in the background because that's what he asked us to do. He told us, playlist. Yeah, the playlist. So I was playing that because that's what he wanted. So it was actually playing in the background. And he opened his eyes. He looks around and he's like, oh, look, it's opening. And he pointed at the ceiling. We're like, what? What are you talking about? And he's like, oh, it's opening. It's beautiful. I saw a house up there, and then we got five rooms. And he's describing in such vivid detail with, he looks like a child. He's like, telling my mom, he's like, it's beautiful up there. And he fell asleep again. And it happened several times like that, that I saw what hope looked like. And he said he can't wait to go. And I just didn't know what. Just one conversation his pastor had with him. And now I saw my father dying with that hope. He couldn't wait. So I think what's interesting then is after seeing my father passing like that, I actually no longer have fear, actually, of what it means to die. So I think I can die with hope also. That means I have so much hope that I can live with. I think that's what actually that chapter, not only that chapter, but when you ask about what does dying with hope, what did it do? That's what it did to me, watching my father actually die with such hope. And his last words, actually, Ben, was because he lost ability to speak. But then he could still say these two words to people who came to shower him, clean after him, and all these people who are coming to my house, he never forgot to say thank you. That was his words. Thank you.

Haesun Moon

Wow.

Haesun Moon

Take it to my heart.

Haesun Moon

Thank you for sharing that story. What a beautiful story. It reminds me, I think in the Bible, there's a verse that talks about Jesus and how he went through the whole last days and suffering. And it says, for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross. That hope, that's ahead, right? Dying with hope. Wow. Beautiful words. Yeah. Once again, thank you for sharing that. So now for the last question. The one, one, one. Suppose you could go back in time 2015 years. What book would you take with you in this time travel machine? And what habit will you start practicing in that? But also, what's the one value that you will fight to protect?

Haesun Moon

My goodness. One book that I would. Oh, I returned it, didn't I? It was a library. Mean, I was studying psychology and all these things. There's this book called Humankind by. Oh, what is his name? Rutger. That's his first name. It's a dutch author. It's called Humankind. Amazing book. And the title is humankind a hopeful history. So he's a historian. So from historian's perspective, looking at all these popular experiments that are done and published and popularized, and he is actually looking at it with critical lens. Absolutely amazing book. I think everyone needs to read that book. Humankind. Habit that I would love to somehow. Habit. Oh, actually, you know what? I read and write every day, so that wouldn't be a habit. Wow. I don't know. Habit that I wish that I actually had 20 years ago. I actually don't have one. I actually don't have one.

Haesun Moon

Wow, that's a good thing.

Haesun Moon

Yeah, I seriously don't have one. That's so interesting. There you go, doggy, making all this noise. I don't have one, actually, Ben.

Haesun Moon

Yeah. And the personal value.

Haesun Moon

Personal value, as we talked about earlier about my dad being not a good businessman, but being an excellent leader, actually, I remember this story that he told me about this economy, and he talked about relational economy or relational ledger. And he said, there are so many people who actually keep track of what other people owe them. So people think that, oh, they owe me an apology. Oh, no, they owe me an appreciation. He said, if you live your life with that relational ledger, that other people owe you an apology or appreciation, you will be miserable. And he said, the relational ledger that we have is owing other people apology and appreciation, but more so appreciation. And he said, I really wish that you remember this, that you owe other people nothing but the debt of love. So I'm still thinking about what it means to owe other people debt of love.

Haesun Moon

Wow.

Haesun Moon

Maybe that's one value that I think about actually daily. What does that mean? How does that show up? That I owe them appreciation. Right? So, yeah, maybe that's one value.

Haesun Moon

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That's definitely something to think about. And I'm actually thinking of, how does that look like for my own life? I'm sure my marriage, my relationships, my world would be a lot better if I lived as if I owed people a debt of love. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. And thank you for this conversation. It's been a beautiful conversation. Now, as we're drawing to a close, any last words to our audience?

Haesun Moon

I really appreciated you as such an excellent interviewer and with your curiosity and kindness, seriously, you just brought such personal and precious stories into being. So I just thank you so much for doing that.

Haesun Moon

Thank you.

Haesun Moon