Building Communication And De-escalation Skills With Kerry Mensior & Diane Halfman

 

Communication and de-escalation skills are among the many things that transfer really well from the world of law enforcement into family relationships, but it’s a skillset that many still have to master in both fields. Kerry Mensior and Diane Halfman spent much of their careers in fostering awareness and helping people build the communication and de-escalation skills that make a big difference in both law enforcement and family life. Kerry is the CEO of the International De-Escalation Association (IDEA) while Diane is the owner of SpaLife. Together, they join Matt Kelley on the show to discuss how mastering communication and de-escalation can lead to harmonious relationships within the family. They also talk about the balancing act that they had to be intentional about while serving as police officers and raising a family at the same time. Join in and take away some important lessons that you can start applying in your own situation now!

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Listen to the podcast here

Building Communication And De-escalation Skills

Interview With Kerry Mensior & Diane Halfman

Our lives are healthier, more gratifying and fulfilled when we’re in the comforts of sustained positive energy and support from the people we love. Receiving positive energy and support is the key element to us having the freedom to live our best lives. It’s safe to say we all face challenges. Nobody gets through life unscathed. Positive energy and support from loved ones are what allows us to overcome difficult times, dream big and excel in life. I’m Matt Kelly.

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One of you, go ahead and start. Please introduce yourself and tell us what you got going on.

Thanks, Matt for having us here and highlighting couples. It’s so nice to know that we can do business, be in the same house and have many things together. My name is Diane Halfman. I have a business called SPALife. The SPA in SPALife is for Seek Power Always. It’s that power within you. I was a San Diego police officer for ten years. I worked uniform patrol as well as undercover. In those assignments, I learned how to hone my intuition and noticing of things that were happening around me and I’m not second-guessing myself. Those same skills have now transferred into doing consulting and training for either entrepreneurs or corporate leaders to allow them to utilize those same skills in their life.

Kerry, please.

My name is Kerry Mensior. Like Diane, I was a San Diego Police Officer. Retired as a Sergeant. I spent 30 years as a law enforcement officer. Prior to that, I was a firefighter, EMT, I worked on an ambulance. I was in the Navy on submarines for nine years. I’ve worked every first responder occupation that there is. Now what I do is train primarily first responders in how to communicate better with the public in order to reduce violence.

I’m going to expand a little bit on that with both of you. Diane, in our previous conversation, people should understand what you did for us when you’re on the police force. You went undercover dressed as a prostitute in order to find and get to the point of arresting murder suspects. That was so unbelievable when you told me that. I can’t thank you enough for what you did and for putting your life in harm’s way in that type of situation. That’s extremely amazing and admirable. That’s incredible.

Kerry, thank you for your service in the military, first and foremost. I greatly appreciate that very much. I understand you’re on the submarine service, which is a cool experience. I have to ask, as far as in relationships and communication, I’d imagine when you’re with a group of people on a submarine underwater for months at a time, I would imagine everybody massages that communication to a level so that everything is harmonious down there because if there’s any tension, there’s nowhere to go. Would that be accurate?

I would say you’re about 90% accurate. If you are 100% accurate, there is nowhere to go. The type of submarine I was on, we would make underwater deployments where we would not surface for well and excessive 2.5 months at the time. A hundred and twenty-five men, all with varying degrees of ego and self-esteem are thrown together in a working environment that’s high stress. It was during the Cold War.

We were constantly looking for the Russian submarines and the other countries and working together with intelligence in a lot of different secret ops. The tools that I use now were birthed out of that experience because I watched human nature kick in and people would change as time went on. The guys that you would get along with great and they were even-keeled at the beginning of patrol by about halfway night, tensions would start to rise and tempers would grow shorter.

You’re working in a fatigued state. You’re working with very young men also. At nineteen years old, I was a supervisor in the Sonar divisions, which are the eyes and ears of the ship when you’re underwater. Think about this. You’re putting a nineteen-year-old in-charge of the unit that is providing the primary intelligence to the CEO of a multibillion-dollar submarine carrying sixteen nuclear missiles. I look back at that and it boggles my mind. You learn to navigate personalities, what works and what doesn’t for communication. That was my first training ground. Of course, law enforcement, interacting with the public, with other law enforcement officers, at home and your relationship with all the stresses that go along with that. All of that works into what we teach now for Communication Mastery skills.

 

I had no idea that at such a young age, you could be put in a position like that but that’s amazing. That sets you up for life, didn’t it? After doing that, your confidence level and you’re like, “I did this.”

I got out at about 9.5 years. My dad is such a hardworking man. He was both an entrepreneur and a blue-collar worker working in auto plants in Detroit, Michigan. At 9.5 years, he’s going, “Why don’t you stay another ten and get a pension out of it? Don’t you feel like you’ve lost something?” I told him and I said, “I wouldn’t trade those 9.5 years for anything because I’ve learned so much.” Even at that time, when I told him that, little did I know what it would later lead to on the communication and of training skills.

We’ll get to your communication stuff in a minute. Diane, I saw on SPALife as I was doing a little bit of homework here, your mission at SPALife is clarity, consciousness and contribution. Obviously, those are three very powerful words. Can you elaborate on what you’re working on with that?

My business is SPALife is also the name of my podcast, Live Your SPALife. People who are looking at their disempowering moments and how they can stand into utilizing at as a foundation to empower themselves and to have more confidence. The foundation of that is to have clarity and I saw this in the police department quite a bit was the people that we were getting calls from the 911 calls where there were so much chaos and craziness in people’s lives that they had to call the police to have some intervention. One of the things that I noticed is I coined a term called the Clutter to Drama Ratio that the more clutter people had in their space, the more drama they had in their life and how much the environment affects you.

A lot of times, when I work with people and when I first retired from the department, I was helping people clear their space so they could have more clarity. When you have clarity, you then open up the ability to be more creative, conscious and deliberate about the life that you want to live. We believe in all of our businesses that we’re here to give back. We have 10% of our business, at least, in gross that goes out to charities particularly to help save children, different efforts in that and different charities that we feel that there’s something energetically about when you give back into the world. It fuels us. It gives us a deeper reason for what we’re doing. That’s the cycle that comes back around. It allows you to be more clear about what’s the next step you need to have. You can then be more conscious and deliberate about what you do. There’s always that give back that you have and that fuels not only the relationships that you have with people but the impact that you have as well.

Does that tie into your work with sex trafficking? You mentioned children there, you have a serious love for children and it seems like that would have put you in the direction of the work you’re doing in that space.

We’re particularly big advocates of OUR, which is the Underground Railroad, which is led by Tim Ballard. He is a retired CIA. They have rescued over 4,000 children at this point. It is such a near and dear thing. We want to bring awareness out there because people don’t realize how many children go missing and they get caught up in the human trafficking trade, which is the number one illegal industry higher than drugs, gangs, narcotics, any of those things. It is the highest money-making industry. These are our children. These are our assets that are here. How we treat our children is such a reflection of who we are in society and what that looks like.

It’s a big passion of ours to support. We’re abolitionists with them, which means that we have monthly donations to help support these efforts. One of the things with my podcast, we also have a theme every year. We’re going into the 2021 season, where the theme is to be a Force for Good. We’re interviewing people who are being that force for good, who are impacting the lives of children, who are making a difference in their neighborhoods, who are having that. For us, we do consulting and training with our clients and help them in their immediate life. We also look at how can that ripple out and help society in a bigger picture.

The communication side of things is so huge in relationships. I love how you two brought up that. You’re not only lived together. You’ve been married for a while now and you work together. It’s interesting. Missy, my wife and I started a business a few years ago and work together. We’ll be meeting people at a social engagement or a trade show and we’re talking about our business and they’re like, “Are you guys married?” We’re like, “Yes.” All of a sudden, the business side of things drops and they’re flabbergasted that we can work together. It becomes the topic of, “How do you guys spend that much time together?” Could you elaborate on that too? That is one of those interesting things. When I get a couple that works together, it’s cool in my mind.

We’ve talked a lot about it. One of the things we do is what we call walk and talks. This is wherein the evening we have clear boundaries around when our businesses open and when it closes because one of the traps that couples can get into is being open 24/7. Since we worked both shift work in the police department, we can get that second wind and work into the wee hours of the morning. We’ve got to that cycle at different times. We reprioritize to be as time is our most precious resource. We have to know what time that we’re putting into our business.

When we’re all in with the business, we’re all in with the business. We also have almost as a joke. I got an open and close sign on Kerry’s office about when we are open and when we are closed within our home of which we work. It’s a visual to be like, “The business is closed.” In order to help instill habits is the business closes at 5:00 and then we go on a walk and talk in our neighborhood. I set my alarm. It goes off at 5:00, we are out the door and we do our walk. Usually, about half the time, we discuss some things that are happened in the day at work but then we always evolve into other things.

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“What’s the next trip that we have planned?” We always have a trip on the calendar. We always have something to look forward to that is not work-related because we love our work so much. We can have that be our conversation 24/7. We want to make sure that we’re talking about other aspects of our life, the time we want to spend with the grandkids, our extended family, our friends and all those different aspects. We believe that having a successful, wealthy life is that you look at all different aspects. “Are you spending time in nature? What is your relationship with God, your spirituality? What are you doing spending time having a date night? Are you getting out in nature? What’s the state of your finances? Who is the community of people that have similar values that lift each other up?”

When you look at all of those different aspects, that is a quality life that you have together. Many times, people identify their work-life as their whole life or you’ve seen times too where they talk about the emptiness syndrome where their kids are everything about their life. When you look at things as being a percentage of your life, if something is shifting or evolving, it’s only a small portion of your life when you look at the totality of where you’re putting your energy and how you’re looking at that. When we look at how we’re spending our time together and what we’re doing as far as being together, we’re making sure that it’s not all about work.

It screams to me in my mind that you are preaching to people to have balance as a couple whether you work together or not. If you are a couple, take that work environment, put it to the side, be together and go do the stuff that you enjoy to free your mind and enjoy each other. The work will be there when you come back to it.

Matt, I want to take what you said and I want to shift it a little bit. I did a talk on this on the show called The Proof. You can watch it on WitnessTheProof.com and I talked about balance. I use a slightly different word. Same base concept and same foundational. That is harmony because balance can imply the children’s playground teeter-totter thought. When you think of an orchestra with drums, tubas, woodwinds and brass, everything is going together. That, to me, is descriptive and also to balance works. I’m not saying to toss that out because it’s a great foundation. When you talk about loving relationships especially when the couples working together, I find that harmony, the word for me anyway, works really well.

Whether you use harmony or balance, they both work whatever sticks in your head and whatever helps you at that moment because there are some days where it is balanced. It is an either/or and you have to be able to not be all one thing. Another analogy is going to the gym. If all you do is go to the gym and you do only bicep curls, you have great-looking arms but you won’t have any cardio, legs, back muscles, chest muscle, you have great arms. That’s not who you are as a person and that’s not what supports your body. When we look at how do you take this relationship and not have it all be about work or it’s all about the kids. Diane mentioned the emptiness syndrome. A lot of couples go through that like law enforcement officers or any first responders and quite frankly, for any entrepreneurs. It’s the same dynamics. If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re dependent on bringing the money into the household.

For Missy and I, with our business that we started, I have a very deep feeling that everything that we do keeps the people that we’re paying employed and all of that.

You feel responsible for them. They could find another job but you don’t want them to have to do that because you feel a responsibility to support them. They become a member of your family, I believe and any heart-centered entrepreneur, ultimately, your team. I don’t care if they’re a virtual assistant in a different country. They still ultimately become part of the family because you’re interacting with them on that level. You can become sucked into almost like a black hole of, “I have to make this work,” so you have that drive.

First responders have the drive to protect people. To be there when people call 911 and expect us to show up. What can happen is it can become all about the job. You don’t have to be an entrepreneur or first responder to do that. A lot of people have that. Sometimes, it’s the outside forces. You’re fearful of losing your job. For anybody who was working in corporate, you’re wanting that next promotion or partnership. When it becomes that, you lose the relationship with the person at home.

There’s a disconnect.

It’s less than the equation. I teach something called relationship math. We’ll talk about that.

As far as harmony, your word is ultimately, that’s what we all want. It’s harmony in every aspect of our life. There are so many different ways and different methods to get there. Many couples do it however it works for them and that’s what we’re doing. It’s getting the ideas from the couples that do have it working for them. All the different ways, they do it. In a database of a podcast where people can go, they can learn and they can say, “That was a cool idea.” You guys are throwing out a ton of great stuff for people to take and implement into their relationships. Kerry, you’re currently CEO of IDEA which is the International De-Escalation Association, which offers a revolutionary series of Communication Mastery courses and you’re part of a rapid report for first responders and communication skills.

 

I saw a quote on the top of your website. It says, “Any problem, big or small, within a family, always seems to start with bad communication. Someone isn’t listening.” I throw that to both of you because this is where both the Spa work that you’re doing, Diane and the work that you’re doing, Kerry meshes together in a nice way. The communication within a family and sometimes, it’s tough to get through things. It’s a rocky road when you’re married. Sometimes, there are decisions that need to be made and two people are not going to be on the same page.

When you say de-escalation, that is a wonderful focus on giving people an idea of, when you get into a situation where things are not as exactly as you had hoped or you’re not seeing eye-to-eye, it goes back to your years in the police force when you’re speaking with people in the street that you don’t even know. This takes two parts to it. Is there a certain go-to that you would tell people? “Try this and see if you can’t come to some common ground to start building a conversation then in a new direction where you can work out, whatever’s going wrong.”

I would say one of my favorite phrases and it’s simple to remember. The concept behind it is this. There’s listening and there’s hearing. Hearing is passive. Listening is not a spectator sport. Hearing is a spectator sport. Listening, you’re in the game, you’re in it. If you remember one phrase out of anything that comes out of my mouth which is, “Tell me more.” Three simple words. If you want to add on tell me more about that, that’s fine. What immediately happens as soon as the person that you’re speaking with, there are those words. A magical thing occurs.

The amygdala, tiny less than 1% of your brain that controls our reactions of primarily fear and danger, calms down. When it calms down, the person now knows that you’re there, you’re in the game, you’re participating and you want to understand them. Nobody says, “Tell me more,” who doesn’t want to understand better. The amygdala recognizes that. We have functional MRIs and research that proves this. Simply saying, “Tell me more,” calms the amygdala down. It brings us out of the fight or flight syndrome where adrenaline is pouring in and we’re losing fine muscle control and find mental control. Now, we can start to communicate. It’s a magic phrase.

In those three words, it immediately says, “I care.”

It’s tactical empathy, strategic empathy or just empathy. It does all of that. That’s why it’s so magical and it’s easy. That’s one of many different techniques that we could give you in our training. All of them are simple and easy to remember things that if you don’t have in the front of your mind when your fight or flight syndrome kicks in and you start to get emotional, it’s easy to do for all of us. We’re human. We don’t want to live with a robot. We’re going to be emotional creatures.

The one I was thinking about is if it’s predictable, it’s preventable. That is such a huge thing to remember because we all have our patterns. A lot of them are unconscious patterns that we don’t even recognize until we bring them into our awareness. When we start being predictable about, “How we respond, what it is that we do, what’s the go-to,” and Kerry can talk a little bit about the relationship math that we talk about as well, where when you know certain patterns and certain ways of behaviors have a predictable way of being, you can then stay ahead of it and then you can prevent them from escalating and looking to see what you can be doing.

To always remember, many times when people talk about relationships and communication, it’s always about what that person is doing and what’s happening on their side of the fence. We always talk about that you only need one person to shift and elevate the relationship because all we can control is our behavior and actions. When we take that personal responsibility, that changes the game because then you can’t be looking at the other side of the street and be blaming over here. It’s like, “What’s going on this side of the street? What can I shift and change?” When we change one thing, it changes everything. When we look at it from that bigger picture, it has people look in a different perspective in some of the everyday interactions that they have that are very unconscious.

Before we jump ahead, can I use a personal example with you? Would that be okay?

Yes.

When your daughter crossed behind you for a quick glance, teenage daughter?

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Yes. She is a teenager. We’re climbing up in Copper Mountain, Colorado because she’s on the ski team in Park City. With COVID, they aren’t allowed to travel with their team for the pre-season training camps. Each of the parents rented a condo, drove our child up here and she skis. It’s her day off. They were there for ten days and this is their one day off out of all of it. She’s hanging around and I said, “Please, listen in. It’s all good. This is family stuff.” That’s what we got going.

If you don’t mind me asking a personal question here. I’m sure that sometimes as a parent, you wanted especially at 14, 15, 16 years old, for her to change something about her behavior. When you’ve tried to make her change something, how did she do that?

You know how she is and so does all the audience. When you try to make them, it doesn’t go well.

What’s cool is you might be able to accomplish it with 5 or 6-year-olds but even still, you’re going to meet resistance but within another adult or any child who’s over about the age of eight, think about when someone tried to change you, it doesn’t go very well. Rarely does it go well. As Diane talked about we can change ourselves and it changes everything, the other part of that is it often draws the other person, you want them to change something but you can’t make them. You’re going to meet with resistance probably. The change might take longer when you try and force it. When you change yourself, it tends to draw them toward that change.

It shows an instinct compromise. That’s what’s going through my mind as you say that. It shows that I’m here with open ears and I’m going to try and do this instead of telling you, “You have to do that.”

It’s not easy. I’m not going to stand here and tell you in any way, shape or form, especially when you’re in the middle of a disagreement. You’ve got a lot of emotions going on. Your amygdala is getting hijacked. It’s pumping chemicals through your body that your body doesn’t like. Funny it doesn’t like adrenaline and cortisol. It doesn’t like any of those chemicals. It wants doses like dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins. It loves dose. It doesn’t like those other chemicals. When those other chemicals are flooding through your brain and body, it’s hard and it’s very challenging to be able to shift those things. That’s why, as Diane said, “What’s predictable is preventable.” It’s a quote from a good friend of mine, Gordon Graham. He’s an amazing man. He’s literally the smartest person I’ve ever met. If you know it’s happened before, it’s predictable, it’s going to happen again, so let’s work at preventing it or mitigating it. Making it a little bit better.

Let’s move in with both of your expertise in what you spent. What I love is that through your being on the police force for so many years, both of you, this mindset has developed for you and you have the experience. It’s not like you’ve read books to get to where you are. You’ve been out there, you’ve experienced this, you put your life on the line over and over. Now you’re taking in everything that worked and giving it out to people to help them in their relationships. I’m going to use that and segue into a topic that is disturbing to me and it’s domestic violence.

Thinking about I’d imagine you all have been on numerous calls in that situation and the work that you do as far as to de-escalate situations and teach people about relationships, this is a twofold question whereas when you go in to try to break up the domestic violence, figure out what went on and if there was such a thing that happened, arrest the individual that’s guilty. There’s that part of your life that you’ve had that and that was the de-escalation, thinking on the spot and what’s going on here. The second part is once that individual is arrested and now is in police custody, are there courses for them? Is there stuff for them to learn about the relationship stuff and how to say, “Maybe I should look inside of myself and with my partner, when they are doing this, I should react more like this?” Try to train them to do, get the mindset that you are now sharing with so many people. Did you get that two-part question there?

I’ll let Diane take the first.

Immediately what happens is that you want to separate the two people because when they’re in each other’s face and energy is high, they’re going to say things that they’re going to regret. There may be some physical blows that are happening or it may be emotional but those are considered priority one call. It’s mandatory to have two officers, whether they’re riding in the same car together or two cars that meet up together so that they can be with the people individually. There is something about the physical space or the energy of when you separate two people and you position them so they can’t look at each other because sometimes looking at each other at the moment, that can trigger them to start fighting again.

You position them where they’re almost back-to-back to each other and the officers are looking at each other and they’re paying attention-getting what’s going on. In a lot of cases, it’s better if you take one of them outside or into another room. The physical separation is the first step for safety for them and for us because it’s a very volatile situation. They can grab a knife if they’re in the kitchen or something could be happening where it re-escalates what’s going on. There’s also a re-escalation of something that’s happening when one of them realizes that the other is being arrested.

 

Even if they have physical injuries or they are even the one that called, if this is something that’s been going on for a long time, when they realize that the person that they’re in a relationship with that they love is being arrested, a lot of times, that triggers them to fight again. They will sometimes attack the officers at that point for arresting that person. You have to be aware of where are you in the cycle of violence and the interaction that’s happening during that time. This is a skill you develop over time of being able to know your environment and be able to look at multiple things at the same time while also being able to concentrate and focus on the person that’s in front of you. There’s a lot of diffused awareness as well as focus awareness that’s happening in that. That’s the initial coming in and de-escalating from the moment. You can evolve into more long-term tools that you jump in with that.

The other thing that goes along with it and techniques that we use, now you got a peek into the law enforcement world on that end. One of the things that work well that people can do. Say your audience is in a situation where they’re arguing with their child. They’re maybe arguing with their loved one. We got the holidays coming up and I have always been amazed to this day after 30 years how people can come together for Thanksgiving dinner. Everything is great until about 6:00 or 7:00 at night. The alcohol has been flowing some sports team has lost the game and all of a sudden, the family baggage comes out and the dirty laundry gets aired. We call them 415, California Disturbing The Peace Call. Family 415s left and right, call-after-call. I’m like, “This is Thanksgiving. It turns around and happens a month later at Christmas.”

I want to interject before you go in with this. We’re talking in 2020, where there have been lockdowns, pandemic, fears and the things that have happened. The level of domestic violence, child abuse and suicide is at an all-time high because people are feeling unsure. They’re feeling scared. There have so many things rapping in their head that they don’t know what to do. When you’ve got that ongoing pressure cooker that’s happening, one thing can trigger people being upset and not getting along. A lot of people are not used to being together 24/7.

Kids not going to school and people not going to work. Now people are together all the time and sometimes the littlest thing that the kid is like, “He touched me.” It’s the littlest thing that can trigger people. You have to be aware of what is the dynamics, what’s the environment, what’s going on, what’s contributing to what’s happening because if it’s predictable, it’s preventable. We know if people are together for two close of quarters and you add in some of the other factors whether it’s drinking, high tempers, bringing in the past or whatever is going on there, that is a match redding to get lit. Looking at where are you in time and space when you show up for those things.

This Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year are going to be potential powder kegs. Simply because there’s already that tension that’s built and now, you’re exacerbating it even more. It’s a simple, easy thing to do. If you find that you’re getting into conflict with someone, a really simple thing to do is you notice that your voices are getting raised, drop yours down a notch and drop it down so low. I know you’re going to drive your podcast people trying to level out the volumes crazy on this. As I drop my voice down, what ends up happening is there something in our brain called mirror neurons.

The awesome thing is you can’t control them. As soon as I smile at you, your brain picks that up. That’s a friend signal versus a foe signal. A simple thing like smiling and then lowering your voice. It’s like a stage whisper, loud enough that they can still hear you but almost so they have to lean in and strain to hear you like, “What did you say?” You’re at about the right volume. What it does is that mirror neuron is firing off on multiple levels. You’ve got the visual of the smile and it’s not a mocking smile. We can torment each other like Diane was saying like, “He touched me.” This is a genuine smile and a lowering of the voice. Try if you can’t throw in some humbleness of, “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.” Don’t even go to I’m sorry because it gives them the excuse to go. “You’re not sorry.” You can’t argue when somebody says, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Lowering the voice, a smile fires off those mirror neurons and 2 of the 3 major pathways, the visual and the auditory. That’s one way. The other thing is if someone is going on, they’re yabbering at you forever and they won’t be quiet. Sometimes, that’s okay. Letting them vent is a good thing to do. What you might notice though is some people, as they continue to talk, work themselves up. When they’re getting more animated, you can tell that they’re getting more upset. The more that they talk, if you can talk, lowering your voice down to almost a whisper, the third thing that you can do really simple, easy to remember is to do this.

Tilt your head back a little bit, take a deep breath like you’re going to say something but don’t. Don’t interrupt them. Don’t say a word. My head is tilted back, the mouth is open and takes a deep breath in which is cleansing for your brain because your brain loves oxygen and you’re getting some good, fresh oxygen in and then you settle back down. That’s a visual signal that you’re ready to talk. Most people will do 1 of 2 things. They’ll either go, “Just a second,” then they’ll finish the thought.

I’ll go, “What?” You haven’t interrupted them. Their brain recognizes you haven’t interrupted them, they interrupted themselves because they did it, it’s okay. The smile, stage whisper, take a deep breath like you’re going to talk but don’t talk. When you notice that tempers are starting to flare a little bit, it’s a really good effective way to bring down the tension. If it’s appropriate, you could use the, “Tell me more,” or you can begin to shift things a little bit but simply telling the person, “No, you’re wrong,” rarely works well.

We’re trying to get relationship ideas and help out there. I can’t imagine anything more incredibly helpful than what you two shared in that segment. The second part of that question is back to when somebody is arrested for domestic violence or like you brought up, Diane, child abuse. If you’re in jail for this thing, do they repeatedly try to get the mind of these individuals changed to understand how you communicate better and don’t go to the physical side? Are there mental ways to do things?

It depends on the jurisdiction where they’re arrested. It depends on the ability of the area to be able to support that. There’s a lot of great, amazing people who are dedicated to the anger management type classes that you’re describing. Unfortunately, it’s not universal. It’s more local regionalized. There are varying degrees of that. I will say that the reason that I started IDEA, the International De-Escalation Association, was because over the past 40 years, 36 of which I’ve been a trainer, I’ve brought in more material that no one else is teaching.

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We weren’t taught when we came on.

If I had known this as a young officer, I would have loved that and so would the citizens that I interacted with. I learned by watching my trainers and I try to figure things out as I went. It wasn’t until I dove deep and curated all this material from every part from research studies, neuroscience, to personality science because I wanted to be able to support people with what I call Communication Mastery. Is anger management effective? The classes, by and large, are very dedicated people who are out there training in those areas. They don’t necessarily have all the tools that we share at IDEA though.

A lot of times, only if it’s mandatory if they are convicted and a judge assigned something that they will do it. A lot of times, people are not proactive about wanting to change it because a lot of times, they don’t recognize it in themselves that they think it’s the other person, so they don’t take that personal responsibility to seek out the tools and to do something different about it.

You two are obviously making as much difference as you possibly can with spreading this love and how to be harmonious. It co-exists at a level for everybody to learn from the people we’re talking to that get themselves into domestic violence situations and child abuse to the police force that’s currently working on all of our behalfs. That’s incredible. I thank you so very much for what you did while you were working on the service, Diane for ten years and Kerry for 30 years, to take what you learned from there and your beautiful minds that cultivate this and be giving to give it back out to everybody. It’s truly touching. We are getting towards the end of our time here and I want to be respectful of that.

I always like to end with this one question I keep consistent throughout each interview. This is when I was doing some homework and putting this show together and stuff. I learned that for statues that are prominently mounted around our country to be displayed and for people to enjoy, there’s quite an imbalance between the ones that are for men and ones that are for women. The last number I got from the Smithsonian was there’s 5,000-ish statues of men and about 400 statues of women. I saw that and thought, “I think there are more than 400 women that have been very effective in making change, doing good and being a positive influence role models across the board in every aspect of life.” I asked you, from any time period of history, each of you can have a chance to answer this. Who would you nominate to have a statue and why?

For me, there are some everyday heroes that people don’t even know who they are. They may not have been in the media or they’re not a recognizable name but that would be my health mentor and her name is Maria Whalen. The thing that I love about her is she teaches you how to be your doctor. To know how your body works and to be able to recognize what you need. It is important for us to know that and we have much power over our body. Our body can heal anything of itself. When we understand the inner workings of that, we will be able to take care of ourselves to the ends of the earth.

She shifted and changes things for me. It comes back to that personal responsibility that we were talking about. This comes up over and over again of being able to be a sovereign being. To have true freedom is what’s freer than having health freedom to be able to take care of yourself. We’ve all heard that if you had many riches but you didn’t have your health, how successful or healthy of a life that you have. This happens a lot with entrepreneurs and people who are in corporate where they end up accessibly working, not taking care of themselves, not getting enough sleep, not getting some exercise and not looking at the totality of how that works for them.

People like Maria are such an inspiration to have people get the foundations they need to know that they can be their own doctor that they can learn how this machine works for us. If many people were out there building their immune systems, they would see a lot less illness. It’s so important for people to take care of their health. That’s what they say, put that oxygen mask on first. It’s such an important thing. It’s something I believe that all readers need to know is to take control of their health. It’s the one thing that affects everything.

I could do a better job on that. I’ll get her info from you and start that. You can’t go wrong with that. I flow on my own. I don’t take enough time to look at, “What’s going on inside of here with this.” Thank you. A lot of people are going to get a lot out of her work.

She’s a hero to both of us.

Kerry, do you have someone or you piggyback on that one?

I’ll piggyback on that one. Maria Whalen had a huge impact on my life and my health. I’m not diving into the weeds but years ago, I was told that I was not expected to live three years even at a 15% or 45% chance of making a three-year mark and that was a few years ago. Maria has totally changed things for me. It’s a good thing. I definitely do a statue of her.

I am so glad you’re still with us.

We’re talking about this place and time where people may not feel crisis and may not need the police to come to their home but there’s a lot of uncertainty and crisis may feel high for somebody but uncertain how to make decisions, how to be clear about that, is an important thing. For your readers, we have a link to go to. It’s under my name, DianeHalfman.com/crisis. That is something that in a few minutes, people can get some tools and resources to see where they are at. This is a part of that awareness and prevention that we were talking about. A lot of people don’t realize what stress they’re under, how their communication skills are and what’s affecting them and what’s not. When we have that awareness, we can do something about it.

Awareness is everything. You’re on the mission that you two are working on. I’m on the mission that I’m working on. I’m bringing awareness through my guests. The life experiences that they’re sharing with everybody. That’s what it’s all about. Thank you both very much. I wish you tremendous health in mind and body. I’m so appreciative of your time. Thank you.

Thank you, Matt. Thanks for having us.

Thanks for doing the work that you’re doing. It’s important and it’s wonderful to see. You’ve been such a gracious host to us. I wish you the best.

I appreciate it. Thank you.

Important Links:

• SPALife
• Kerry Mensior – LinkedIn
  
• Live Your SPALife
  
• OUR
  
• The Proof – Kerry Mensior The Myth of “Balance”
  
• WitnessTheProof.com
  
• IDEA
  
• Maria Whalen – LinkedIn
  
• DianeHalfman.com/crisis

About Diane Halfman

It was never Diane’s plan to walk the streets and become a prostitute, yet alone get involved with vicious gangs and narcotics, but her life choices put her in grave circumstances.

Diane worked Patrol and Undercover for the San Diego Police Department in Gangs and Vice.

Diane understands fear and survival instincts—she lived them and knows what it takes to find your grit, perseverance and power to push through any challenge.

After being medically retired from the police department as a result of a training accident, Diane took her years of experience, along with her Masters in Human Resources Management and Certification as a Life Coach, to pioneer the creation of her own company.

About Kerry Mensior

Kerry is the face of change in how First Responders communicate with their Community.

Rapid Rapport for Rapid Responders is the revolutionary set of tools Kerry has curated to allow First Responders to quickly develop rapport, effectively communicate, de-escalate and negotiate with people in all situations, including those in emotional crisis.