Susan Chestnutt interviews Matthew Brickman: Marriage, Parenting, Relationships are a Business

Sydney Mitchell:

Hi. My name is Sydney Mitchell.

Matthew Brickman:

Hi, I’m Matthew Brickman, Florida Supreme court mediator. Welcome to the Mediate This! Podcast where we discuss everything mediation and conflict resolution.

Matthew Brickman (00:13):
I’m a tour guide. I’ve walked this path myself. I’ve walked it. Thousand, you know, a couple thousand times with other people I know which pits to stay out of and which holes you need to jump into for protection. That’s really handy because there’s certain things that you need. This, this is a, this is a pit. You don’t go in here, this is a hole. Go in here for protection and then climb outta your hole and continue down your path. Mm-hmm. And it’s one of the things that, you know, which is also why I, you know, wrote my book. I’ve got my podcast and, and stuff, is I almost feel like, okay, Matthew, you figured this out. You cannot keep this information to yourself. Like, what’s the point? Like, you figured it out. And I, and I’ll tell you Susan, in a way, yeah. I made it to the top of the mountain.

Matthew Brickman (01:16):
I survived. My kids are doing great. I was divorced. I got remarried. I have a great wife. Okay, fine. I survived. I, I’ve even thrived. I created an entire company out of what was miserable and what was difficult. What was hard. I created a company. Okay, so fine, I made it to the top. It’s lonely at the top. You know where the fun is? The fun is, I’m coming back down off the mountain and I’m gonna help you get to the top and I’m gonna come back down off the mountain and I’m gonna help you get to the top. And I’m gonna come back down the, that’s what I do every day. I’m a tour guide and I love it. I love being able to watch, like I was a guardian ad litem when I first started, before I was even a mediator, cuz I was like, I barely liked my kids.

Matthew Brickman (02:01):
And I tell them that all the time. Like, I mean, like, when my kids were little, I really didn’t care. They just sat in a and they, they just sat in there stroller and drooled. You’d make funny faces. You, they, they might recognize you. I, I remember the first time I loved having a kid, my daughter was two, walking down the hallway, my ex, and I would turn out the lights, she’d be in the bathroom, I’d be in the, in the bedroom, and we’d jump out and scare her and she’d laugh and fall down. I’m like, okay, having a kid is cool. This is fun, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> as they got older, okay, this is a little bit more fun. This is a little bit more fun. But before I was, you know, you know, when I was like, okay, you know, before I’m a mediator, I’m like, let me do guardian ad litem work. Oh, that’s tough. I mean, you know, it is,

Susan Chestnutt (02:48):
It is tough. That’s one of my specialties. Yeah. Child welfare is my thing, so know it is tough. And that’s, but how often do you get the opportunity to use that? Well, so when you’re creating these things now, I mean, there’s all kinds of parenting plans we can talk about, but

Matthew Brickman (03:03):
Yeah, so, so I did that first cuz I’m like, okay, I barely liked my kids. Let me see if I like other people’s kids to help as a mediator, right? So I’m like, okay, I’ll do, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll get certified as a guardian ad litem. So I did the certification and, and I don’t know about you Susan, but like, when, when I did my certification class, everybody in there wanted the, the little kids. They wanted the two year-old, the three-year-old. Nobody wanted the teenagers. Right? Okay. Remember I barely liked my own kids. Do I do, do I want to deal with somebody else’s two year old now? I don’t care about the two year old

Susan Chestnutt (03:40):
<laugh>.

Matthew Brickman (03:41):
Okay. Who could I potentially relate to the forgotten and unwanted the teenagers?

Susan Chestnutt (03:48):
Mm-hmm.

Matthew Brickman (03:49):
<affirmative>. So I was living in Jupiter at the time, white America, um, for the most part, right? <laugh>, I mean, right. I, I’ll, I’ll just call it right out. Oh

Susan Chestnutt (04:01):
My gosh.

Matthew Brickman (04:02):
It’s white America. Like, if you want white, rich, wealthy, it’s inside. Yeah. I mean, for the most part, for the most part, like, I mean, my kids went to Independence Middle Lighthouse, they went to Beacon Co. Honestly, I don’t remember there being a big ethnic mix there. I mean, I lived in a bubble. I really did mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, it wasn’t until my kids went to high school and Riviera Beach, it’s like, oh, there’s other ethnic cultures out there. Like, so, so I was there, but my first guardian case was a 16 year old young black man in Riviera Beach, hardcore. His, his dad was in jail. His mom had abandoned him, and he was living with his aunt and his two other siblings, and like her three or four kids in this house on like J Street, I mean mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, and, and of course at the Guardian department, they said, well, we would like you to show up, you know, once a month, check in with him, and I’m going once a month. What kind of impact can I have once a month for an hour zero? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I’m like, no. I showed up weekly every Thursday after school. And for the first, now for about the first month, he sat there, arms crossed, not really saying much. He did have a really great afternoon snack that I adopted, and it’s one of my favorite snacks. You know what? He, you know, you know what he did. Susan,

Susan Chestnutt (05:40):
I can’t wait. Okay.

Matthew Brickman (05:41):
Yeah. This is awesome time. Oh, this is awesome. I know you’re on pins and needles. I can see it. I’m ready. So, so he took ro he, he took the ramen noodle soup package. Okay. He, he made ramen noodle soup, dumped out all the liquid <laugh>, and then just had the noodles and took Tabasco sauce. That was it. It was amazing.

Susan Chestnutt (06:07):
That’s how we make it at my house.

Matthew Brickman (06:08):
No?

Susan Chestnutt (06:09):
Yeah. Oh my gosh. Whatever season. Tabasco more butter. Whatever you want it

Matthew Brickman (06:14):
Tell. Okay. Look, keep, keep in mind

Susan Chestnutt (06:16):
We dump out the broth.

Matthew Brickman (06:17):
Make the noodles. Yeah. Okay. Remember, I, I, I was in Jupiter. We follow instructions. You add water, you have soup. It’s ramen noodle soup. It’s what you buy it for. No, you don’t deviate. No, no. Yes, Susan. No. So, so I had to get down to Riviera Beach to find out, you dump out the broth of ramen noodle soup, and it’s not soup. It was amazing. Right? So for the first month, he would sit there and, and make his ramen noodle non soup. And it smelled really good too. Like he would use like the chicken flavor and then had the Tabasco sauce. It was really, it smelled really? Yes. Yeah. Yes. So, so for the first month, he would do that, arms crossed and would not almost say a word. I had to, I had to show him that I was not going anywhere. I’m committed. So you, I’m here, you

Susan Chestnutt (07:07):
Waste some of those noodles.

Matthew Brickman (07:07):
Yeah. And, and, and you know what, now <laugh>, we never, we never got to the level where he made me some or shared his noodles. But after about a month, he started to open up and talk, and eventually we would sit and have great conversations on his couch. Um, I got, I was able to, you know, help get him Christmas gifts, you know, through, through the, uh, court program. Um, got him on the football team, was able to get a tutor. Um, it was an amazing experience all the way through to handing him off then to, um, the dependency mediator who then, you know, dad was outta jail. They got the case plan, reunification, saw it all the way through, was with him over a year. It was rewarding. Love it. Like to actually get a conclusion. Like not just, okay, I’m gonna do something, get a conclusion.

Matthew Brickman (08:10):
Which is also what I like about mediation is a lot of times we get finality, we get a conclusion, the parties choose a new way, a new path. And that’s so rewarding. Um, so I’ve had three guardian cases ever. Um, and they were all very, very good. But that really was a launch for me into mediation, going, yeah, I do care about other people. I care about their kids. And it has, I th I don’t know if I say it morphed or I had a revelation. I think I probably had a revelation. And I don’t know if I’ve had the chance to do this with you. Um, cuz you, you are one of the attorneys where I would say you actually do your job <laugh>. Um, and you know, I know I,

Susan Chestnutt (09:07):
I dunno why, how to take that, but I’m, I’m, no, well, no,

Matthew Brickman (09:10):
I’m both, well, no, I’m gonna explain what that job is. I’m gonna explain what that job is, and then you’re gonna be like, oh, absolutely. And then you’re gonna have a rush. I guarantee you’re gonna have a rush of name, name, name, name, name, name, name, name of attorneys that are, that, you know, that do not do this. Okay. Okay. So your, the reason why I probably have not had the opportunity to tell you this, and it’ll be new to you, is because you actually do your job, your job, first and foremost. And I remember they told me this when I went first year law school, so I remember this. So your job, number one, is to manage your client’s expectations. That’s your job. Manage their expectations. Also, your job is to provide your client with legal direction. Give them good sound, legal advice. Now, if you have given your client good, sound, legal advice, and you have managed your client’s expectations, then by the time you end up in mediation, you do not have a client that walks in going, all right, Matthew, I want primary custody. Uh, you do realize that we haven’t had primary custody since 2011, and it’s 2023 <laugh>. And then Susan and I get that, I get that sometimes going, and I’m looking at the attorney going, did you not tell him the custody is not a term we have, and there’s no primary or

Susan Chestnutt (10:38):
Second Yeah. You didn’t tell their kids aren’t in prison. What are you talking about?

Matthew Brickman (10:40):
Yeah. Like, so you probably haven’t heard this because I haven’t had to use it with your clients because you’ve done your job. Okay. So a lot of times when the parents and, and look, it’s natural. Like I said, you know, a parenting plan is there to transition them out of a place of emotion into a business like relationship. Now that does not mean that we’re robots. You can’t just flip a switch. And now you’re not emotional anymore. No, we are human beings. Emotion is part of who we are. But what I, but what I mean by this is a business now is you put think, think of you as a human being. You are a four burner stove. You take your emotions and you can’t take it off the stove. It’s part of who you are, but you put it on the back burner and you become a front burner thinker. We are thinking with logic and reason not emotion, because today you’ll like your parenting plan, and tomorrow you will not. And then next day you’ll understand it. And thank God you had it because he tried to do this. And you, you’re on this emotion, logic and reason. Let’s talk logic and reason. Let’s talk logistics. Like a lot of times it’s not even what you want or I want, it’s logistically, can you do this logistically?

Susan Chestnutt (11:57):
Oh, abso absolutely. People tell me they want something that they absolutely cannot do themselves. It’s so unrealistic.

Matthew Brickman (12:05):
I had two parents, they lived over a hundred miles away from each other. And they both said, we, we both want to do 50 50 with our child. I tried every way under the sun using every holiday, every weekend, every everything. I’m like, logistically, it’s not possible. People, they’re like, but we want to do it. I’m like, it can’t happen. They want the impossible, but it again,

Susan Chestnutt (12:30):
Closer. Yeah, it can’t happen. Move closer.

Matthew Brickman (12:33):
But again, but again, this is, this is you as an attorney managing their expectations mm-hmm. Saying mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that’s not possible. Move closer, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and so, and so I tell, I tell people, okay, look, we’re gonna take your emotion, put it on the back burner. We’re gonna be front burner thinkers. We’re gonna talk about, you know, logic, reason, what works, logistics, all of this stuff. But sometimes as we talk through logic and reason, because we’re human beings, sometimes we can hit that button. Like, we’ll talk about babysitters and all of a sudden they’re like, oh, I don’t want anybody watching my kids. And because it, it, it triggers something in the emotional side, right?

Susan Chestnutt (13:18):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm.

Matthew Brickman (13:19):
<affirmative>, my job as a mediator is to manage expectations just like yours, but also to control the atmosphere. And I have to see these emotions as they start. And I can read faces, I can read body language. There’s so much that I can read and I can read it online. I can read it in person. Like that’s, that, that’s my job. Like, is, is to read that and be able to sort of try to address it and be like, okay, are you okay? Like we just talked about just a babysitter. Is there something that I need to know? Like, you know, and be able to then talk through it. That again, is not, Hey, you’re choosing a babysitter, or, Hey, come on, we’re doing this. This is really locking arms and walking down this path going, all right, are you scared? Because I’ve been here.

Matthew Brickman (14:11):
Let’s, let’s talk this through, you know? And being able to be there with them in that pain, in that scarcity. But sometimes the emotions can then just, they don’t, they don’t just start, they just explode and you can say something. And all of a sudden it’s like, I don’t trust them at all with any babysitter. They, they did this, that whatever. And, and all of a sudden it’s like, okay. And then the other one comes at it and they go back and forth. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Okay. How do you, how do you control that? How do you get everybody back on track there? Well, a revelation that I had once was this. And I think I got this from, you know, being a guardian and, and, uh, and even with my own kids seeing the collateral damage that their mom and I did with them, with the divorce, and then just mediating over and over and over again. So at that point, I usually start whispering because whenever anyone starts whispering, all of a sudden everyone’s like, what’d they say? So I’d be like, Hey, hey, are you guys listening? Let me ask you something. And all of a sudden everyone stops yelling because it’s like, Ooh, the mediator’s talking and I can’t hear ’em. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that gets everybody down. I said, okay, look, let me ask you a question. With all due respect, and Susan, you know, when that comes out, usually <laugh>

Susan Chestnutt (15:43):
One of my least favorite terms, but I find it is necessary in a lot of

Matthew Brickman (15:47):
Circumstances. Yeah. But, but, but I tell him, I say, look, with all due respect, you do want to re you. You both realize this has nothing to do with the two of you. That usually piques somebody’s curiosity because they’re in this yelling and fighting with accusations because it sort of, kind of is all about them in their own mind. Now, for me, as a mediator, I have a different view on what I do and why I do it. And this is it. As I, as I ask him, I say, okay, look, let me ask you, sir, you have grandparents. I mean, I’m asking rhetorical questions, but I’m going somewhere. So play with me. You have grandparents? Yes, ma’am. You have grandparents. Yeah. Your grandparents had your parents, right? Yeah. Your parents. A lot like your grandparents. I mean, good and bad, right? But they’re a lot like them. Yeah. You know? Yeah, ma’am. Yeah. All right. Your parents had the two of you obviously, cuz you’re sitting here and I can still do this with some humor while leading them down this path.

Matthew Brickman (17:08):
You guys, a lot, like I said, you’re a lot like your dad or you’re like your mom or, you know, good and bad pieces of both. Oh yeah. And you usually, Susan, I get, oh yeah, she’s just like her mother <laugh>. Oh right. Laws are in right. Laws in. Like usually get like, oh yeah, she’s just like her mother. Um, or Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And you guys have your kids, right? And your kids probably have, you know, good and bad personality traits of both of you, right? Yeah. Yeah. So you realize that what we’re doing actually has nothing to do with you. Right. Because if your parents are like your grandparents and you are a lot like your parents and your children are a lot like you, what we’re actually doing here is we are setting a new tone for your unborn grandchildren. Susan. Usually that’s

Susan Chestnutt (18:14):
A child welfare focus.

Matthew Brickman (18:16):
Exactly. Susan. Usually at that point, somebody, and I’ve had it both men and women, somebody starts to cry. That puts a whole new perspective. It

Susan Chestnutt (18:28):
Sure does. You know why? Cuz you just turn the mirror into their own face to see that their history is what they’re dragging with them. And they have the opportunity at that moment to structure a new future together. Yeah. With a different intention. Yeah.

Matthew Brickman (18:42):
And a lot of times I tell people, look, you know what? The windshield’s much bigger than the rear view mirror. Pay attention. Do not crash this car. Do not over direct pay attention. You can’t be looking behind and looking forward at the same time. And by the way, have you ever tried fighting while holding a child? Have you ever tried that? Something’s gonna be missed. Either you’re gonna get stabbed or you’re gonna drop your child. You can’t do both. So either you’re gonna fight with each other and you’re gonna neglect your children, or you’re going to put your swords down and actually co-parent and take care of these children. They need you and they need both of you.

Susan Chestnutt (19:32):
What do you think is the hardest part? I mean, I know studying aside the emotions is in the parenting plans when we are dividing and delineating whose responsibility is what? Most of it should be shared. I feel that’s usually the what’s in children’s best interest. Yeah. And also, you know, contact with both parents. But you get into the financial portions of who pays for extracurriculars. And then you get into the other portions of whose address is the special person that gets used for this, that, or the other. And there’s always just the section that gives the opportunity for one parent to have to be put in a different position than the other.

Matthew Brickman (20:14):
All right. There’s do you two, two distinct as you’re describing that. I’ll tell you the two I I call it the, the final frontiers of power grabbing. Okay. Or so they think

Susan Chestnutt (20:30):
Mm-hmm.

Matthew Brickman (20:30):
<affirmative>. The first one is, is whose address is being used for school boundary? That is the final frontier of power grabbing. That’s the primary. There’s a secondary, but that’s the primary. So let’s talk about the primary. So when people get divorced and, and, and, and a lot of parents are not paying attention when they’re married cuz they don’t need to. But every year when you do school registration in public school and you fill out the form, there’s a section that says, is there court ordered parenting plan when you’re married and everything’s fine, you don’t even pay attention to it, you breeze right over going, that’s not applicable. That’s not applicable. Right? But now, oh no, this is applicable. And so in the parenting plan, it says, for school boundary determination, registration, so-and-so’s address is being designated. Sometimes since there’s no primary secondary parenting, and since there’s no, you know, primary secondary custody, we don’t have custody and visitation anymore. And it’s shared. Well, somebody thinks, oh, this will give me that 51%. No, you have shared parental responsibility. You’re 50 50 CEOs of this company. So again, when we get to that section, and that does trigger something, I’m like, okay, hold on a

Susan Chestnutt (21:41):
Second. Cause you have to pick one. I don’t know why the, I don’t know why the form is set up. I understand the designation of the primary, but you force the parents to have to pick one over the other.

Matthew Brickman (21:54):
Well, but, but the statute’s good on that. The statute is good on that. And, and, and I use that to help direct the people again, to reflect away from the power. So, so I,

Susan Chestnutt (22:08):
And and I have to interrupt you to tell you that this is one of my favorite things about you is that instead of trying to change someone’s mind from their emotional logic, you educate them on what the statute is, what the statute intended, and what the unintended consequences are of whatever legal issue that you’re addressing. And you educate people and empower them to make the decisions based on education.

Matthew Brickman (22:32):
Okay. So we’re gonna come back to education in a moment, but I’m gonna tell you where that came from, okay? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So in the beginning when you did my, uh, intro, we talked about okay. You know, so how did I get started? But a lot people, okay, I’m, I’m gonna go back a little bit further. When I was a cosme, well, actually, I’m still, I still have my cosmetology license when I was, I’m not practicing. I know, I know. We just deviate.

Susan Chestnutt (23:03):
Well, and, and just for this, for all the listeners, you know, uh, I can see you and it doesn’t surprise me that you and I already knew this about you anyways. And when I found out, then it didn’t surprise me that you had this little, you know, this little mix, little flavor in your background.

Matthew Brickman (23:19):
Yeah, yeah. A little, little. That was the Tabasco on my ramen noodle, right? <laugh>?

Susan Chestnutt (23:27):
Yes, it was.

Matthew Brickman (23:28):
That was the Tabasco on my ramen noodle dumped out the, dumped out the juice. But what was left? Add a little Tabasco on that. That’s right. Okay. All right. So, so when I was in cosmetology, um, when I was teaching and whatnot, one of the things that they told us was, I don’t care how long you’ve been doing hair, I don’t care. When was the last time you educated? When was the last time you took a class? When was the last time you were updated on the new laws? Um, or, or rules or, or whatever it is. Because a lot of times, like, and, and as a cosmetologist, there’s not another industry that provides more continual education out there than a cosmetologist. Mm-hmm. They have classes every weekend. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> every single weekend. They

Susan Chestnutt (24:10):
Sure do. Like outta state too. You

Matthew Brickman (24:12):
Go numbers over place. Right. Everything. Everything. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> care shows everything. So that actually stuck with me and carried over when I became a mediator because Yeah. I could be like, oh, yeah, yeah. This is Matthew Brickman, he’s said I mediator. And yeah, he’s been, he’s been mediating since 2007. Okay, great. Okay. Other than you went and got your 40 hour training to become a mediator and did your mentorship, what have you done since, have you done any education? Have you gone to a conference? Do you, I mean, and yes, Susan, you know, as a mediator too, you know, we have our CMEs and, and, and, and as a an attorney you have cle. So we have our continuing mm-hmm. Education. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I’ll tell you, for the most part, and for the listeners, it’s a joke. It is an absolute joke. Like, I can download some audio files and because it shows that I paid and downloaded it, I don’t have to listen to it.

Matthew Brickman (25:10):
They’ll be like, oh, Matthew, Matthew got five of ’em. So he’s got his CMEs. No, it is a joke. It really is. I mean, self-reporting and, and there, you know, Susan, we, we talked about this a little bit before we even started recording about just the lack of integrity, honesty, you know. But in any case, it’s a joke. But guess what, you know, what’s not a joke is I’m actually putting my money where my mouth is. I’m going to, I’m paying thousands of dollars. I’m getting continual education. So what I did was, okay, so some people have baseball trading cards, some people have basketball trading cards, some people have, you know, oh, uh, Pokemon cards. No, no, no. For me, I’m like, I’m getting mediation certifications. That’s what I’m collecting. Right. So, like I said, I started out with county civil, then did family when I was a guardian and handed off to the dependency.

Matthew Brickman (26:04):
I’m like, that’s the missing link to family mediation is dependency mediation. So I went and got certified as a dependency mediator. Then I actually got grandfathered in again, but I was one of the first of the f uh, first 50 mediators in the state of Florida to get certified as an appellate mediator. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and again, they said, uh, Matthew, no, you can’t, you, you can’t do this. You don’t have a law degree or a master’s degree. And the director of the program goes, but he’s a certified family and dependency mediator, which meets that qualification. Yes. You can let him in. Mm-hmm. So I did the, um, and so I’m also appellate certified. So then I really like Susan. You know, I mean, we, we talked about it a couple of times. I, I wanna educate, I want to help people. So I actually took the Train the trainer certification program in 2012, and I went and I actually took the program to become a trainer of the family certification 40 hour program. Wrote the, and I wrote my own 40 hour curriculum.

Susan Chestnutt (27:16):
Oh, man. You’re such an overachiever

Matthew Brickman (27:18):
Sometimes. I mean, that took a while. Uh, a long, I mean, you know, that binder is thick.

Susan Chestnutt (27:23):
That’s a big bite.

Matthew Brickman (27:25):
Yeah. But I mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I wrote the 40 hour curriculum. Um, and so I, so, you know, I did my county civil, then family, then dependency, then did general mediator training, then did appellate training, then did train the trainer program. And I got so busy that I haven’t had time to do that, because that was in 2012. And in 2012, I had 191 mediations. There’s only 151 work days in a calendar year. And then the next year I had 234 mediations, and then 279 mediations, and then 282, like, I don’t have time to teach. I’m busy actually helping people, like mm-hmm. <affirmative> not training others. And there are, there are there, there’s plenty of training programs out there. I just couldn’t do my own because I’m actually working. I’m helping. Um, I’m boots on the ground. So then fine, I did that. Then, um, then I got, um, I saw a Facebook ad of all places. It was a, you know, something, you get these stupid ads of papa. I don’t know why it came up. Somehow they know your, your algorithms of what you’re searching and looking for. Yeah. Right.

Susan Chestnutt (28:38):
It’s your, it’s the ai Yeah. Yon,

Matthew Brickman (28:40):
But I don’t know how this popped up, but I had an ad that popped up for Harvard Business School Negotiation Mastery Program. And I w and, and I was like, well, that would be interesting. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Now, I had not done the, like, the last training I did was in 2012. That was in 2019. So seven years had gone by that I hadn’t done any training. And I was getting, now granted I was busy. I mean, again, you know, I mean, I had done, you know, 282 mediations, two hundred seventy three, a hundred ninety two, two, a hundred seven. I’m like, I’m busy. Like, when do I have time to do education? And not just, Hey, I’m going to a seminar for two days. This was like three months. It was long. There was 40 hour weeks of education. And I’m like, I’m going back to school and not for a degree for a certificate. Oh. But my wife, big encourager that she is, is like, that would be amazing. And I’m like, okay, I’ll do it. Also, it was not cheap. I mean, I think it was five, $6,000 mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so I get signed up and I start, and I did not realize what I signed up for.

Matthew Brickman (30:05):
I primarily do family mediation. This is Harvard Business School, not family school.

Susan Chestnutt (30:15):
I thought. So

Matthew Brickman (30:16):
Susan, it’s nothing but numbers. Business transactions, corporations. I am a fish out of water. We have over 400 participants all around the world. You log in and there’s a map of flat map of the world with pens for all the students and all the countries, everything. And you know, when someone’s online because their pen is lit, it’s very cool online program. That

Susan Chestnutt (30:47):
Sounds neat.

Matthew Brickman (30:48):
Very, very cool. And we, I mean, we had writing assignments, we had quizzes, we had tests, we had group projects. I mean, all of this stuff. And boy did it stretch me, but boy did it give me a whole new point of view with negotiation, because it is Harvard Business School and it’s their negotiation mastery program.

Susan Chestnutt (31:17):
That sounds so cool.

Matthew Brickman (31:19):
It really stretched me, but it gave me tools again that I could bring into family that I didn’t know were even possible. So then my curiosity is peaked and I’m hungry for information. And I’m like, what else is out there? So I started to research who created this program? Like who created, like, this is a really cool program that Harvard has created. Who created this, this, this program? Well, so I find out that two men, William Urie and Josh Weiss, they’re the ones more William Urie, I think it was, that actually created the, uh, Harvard’s negotiation program. And so I was like, I gotta find out about this guy looked, I watched Ted Talk videos. This guy is brilliant. And this guy has written books, um, a number of books. And I see that they have another program, but it’s Harvard Law School, and this is their Mastery negotiation executive education program. Well, this one’s a bit harder to get into. First off this one. You have to have at least, I think it was 10, yeah, 10 years. I think it was at least 10 years of mediation or negotiation experience. Okay. You had to have, um, what else was it? I think it was a writing sample. You, you had to submit a writing sample, had to do an application process, and they hand select 50 people from around the world to fly to Boston to participate in their program twice a year.

Matthew Brickman (33:11):
Well, I applied and it was expensive. Like not just, okay, I gotta fly to Boston and I have to hotel. No, you have the program and if you can get into this program, you’ll pay top dollar for this program. I remember Susan, the day I got my acceptance letter, I started to cry. Oh. I was like, I got in. Um, and so I went, and this was at the end of 2019. It was the last time they did it in person. They haven’t done it in person since. Wow. It was life changing. Absolutely. Life changing it. And it was all business, but I had Oh, oh, that’s right. One of the prerequisites. You had to take one of Harvard’s other executive negotiation programs to get in. If you didn’t take one of their others, you couldn’t get in. Well, good thing I took the business one.

Matthew Brickman (34:02):
You had the family. I couldn’t gotten into this one. No. The business. Yeah. So it was similar to even good thing that I started my thing, because I didn’t know the journey and the other pieces that would fall into place. So I went up there absolutely amazing. Incredible. So then when I finished there, I was still hungry. 2020 happened. And of course the world shut down. You can be hungry all day long. You’re starving because nothing’s happening. Right. So then, so then I started to look around like what other programs are out there? What other universities? And really the only universities offering anything out there like this are the Ivy League schools. They’re the only ones that are, that are offering this. Right. And so, you know, I was, so I started looking out for all of them, but then at the same time, I was like, well, um, what about, you know, you know, I, I started to read William Yuri’s books and started to look into it and found that they actually had an experiential class. Oh, what’s that? So it’s, so we went from 400 participants to 50 participants. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> to 12 participants.

Matthew Brickman (35:31):
It’s called, I’ll Be Shy. Yeah. It’s called the Abraham Path. It’s an experiential course. So William Urie and Josh Weiss negotiated the Abraham Path. What they did was they went and they, they had an idea for tourism and peace in the Middle East. And they looked at religion, they looked at politics, and they looked at history and they said, what does the region have in common? Not much. They’ve got so much di differences. But if you can help people find what they have in common, which is what you and I do in mediation, and what you do in your practice is to find the commonality and build on the commonality, well then maybe, maybe we can achieve something. They actually, so what they found that everybody over there has in common is Father Abraham, he’s in the Bible, he’s in history, and he’s in the Quran.

Matthew Brickman (36:39):
Father Abraham. Well, why? Well, because Abraham had, and and I learned this in my terrorism class in my associates degree, this was my final paper. In my final paper, we were told, here’s your, here’s your, uh, here’s your final. You have a time machine. You can go back in history at any time You can, you’re there for one week, interact with one person and change terrorism as we know it today. Where do you go? When do you go? And who do you interact with? And what do you do to change terrorism? It was a great class and very interesting. All the answers people were going to, basically, I went to school with a bunch of assassins. They were Yeah. Sounds like it. We’re, we’re gonna go, we’re gonna assassinate Osama bin Laden’s mom, we’re gonna assassinate Hitler’s mom. We’re gonna assassinate Chavez’s mom, we’re gonna assassinate.

Matthew Brickman (37:33):
Um, uh, I mean, we’re just assassinating everybody’s mom to try to prevent terrorism. I was like, where did it start? In the beginning? So where do you go? You go to Genesis, you have Abraham. Abraham is married to Sarah. They can’t have kids. He’s been promised to have a kid, but they’re in their nineties, almost hundreds not having kids. Sarah has a great idea. Hey, why don’t you sleep with my maid and hey, Gar. And they end up with Ishmael then. No, God’s promise comes true. They end up then with Isaac. Well, resentment is from Sarah to Hagar. Tells Abraham, send Ishmael away. Okay. Well, he does. God meets her under Tree, says, no, no, no, go back. It’ll be fine. So she goes back, they get along, get along, and then Sarah gets off another time and goes, tell him to go away.

Matthew Brickman (38:26):
So they go away. So God comes under a tree again to Hagar and says, luck. Your son will be very, uh, your, no, your son’s gonna, um, be the father of many nations, but every hand is gonna be against his descendants and his hand is gonna be against everybody goes to, uh, but, but the promise on Abraham was that Isaac is that, you know, through Abraham, he’ll be a father of many nations. Those that bless his son will be blessed. Those that curse, his son will be cursed. Okay, great. So there you have it. The Israeli Arab conflict. That’s it. I mean, that is it. So what I did in my paper was I went back and I convinced Abraham to wait, simply wait. Don’t take Hagar. Don’t create Ishmael. Just wait. Well, my mother was like, oh, that’s great, son. You just created genocide and wiped out an entire race before it ever happened.

Matthew Brickman (39:28):
I’m like, I’m like, you know, so, so while, while we had domestic terrorists or terrorists everywhere else, no, no, no. I’m all about genocide. We’re just gonna wipe out an entire people. Right. But I changed, but, but you know, if you look at terrorism and you go back through all of them, everyone copied the Israeli Arab conflict. Now what did Josh and what did William do? They said, Abraham is the father. Let’s find the commonality. And they said, okay. They traced Abraham’s entire path through the Middle East from birth until death. Then they started negotiating between the nations over there going, well, it’s Abraham. Right? He’s your father like Father Abraham. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s a very, you know, common figure. They traced this and created a safe passageway for tourism through the Middle East.

Speaker 4 (40:25):
It’s like amazing,

Matthew Brickman (40:26):
Brilliant people. So I’m like, I want to go walk a portion of this Abraham path and guess who the professor is? Josh Weiss, one of the two men. No way. That actually negotiated this. I’m like, and I’m like, I, and so I started training, I started walking all over Palm Beach Gardens and Jupiter. During, during, or leading up to Covid, because I’m like, because what it is, Susan is, it is a hundred mile rek through the Jordanian desert. You leave them on, you walk through the desert and you end up at Petra. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Oh, one of the few places in the world I want to go. And I’m like, and this is mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And it is a walk and talk and interact and learn. And you, there’s home stays and villages with the people, interaction with people. Tent stays. I’m like, this, sign me up. Right. Like, sign me up. Yeah. And there’s only, and there’s only 11 other people from around the world that you learn from. And you’re just wandering in the, well, I mean, you’re not wandering. There’s a path, but you’re in the desert. You’re in the desert talking, negotiation, peace tactics, and then in villages, like blows your mind. Right.

Matthew Brickman:
Occasionally Sydney and I will be releasing Q & A bonus episodes where we will answer questions and give you a personal shout out.

Sydney Mitchell:
If you have a comment or question regarding anything that we discuss, email us at info@ichatmediation.com that’s info@ichatmediation.com and stay tuned to hear your shout out and have your question answered here on the show.

Matthew Brickman:

For more information about my services or to schedule your mediation with me, either in person or using my iChatMediation Virtual Platform built by Cisco Communications. Visit me online at www.iMediateInc.com. Call me at 561-262-9121, Toll-Free at 877-822-1479 or email me at MBrickman@iChatMediation.com.