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Host: Hello and welcome to the Lifelong Wellness podcast, where we talk to wellness professionals from around the world to gain their insights into healthier living. I’m your host, Wes Malik. Alongside the standard subjects that we broach each and every week, we also like to talk to professionals who talk about different things, such as the power of control and the relationships around us that keep us healthy or well. To talk about this in particular, our guest today is Dr. Clete Bulach who’s a social psychologist, specializing in human relations. Dr. Bulach is a retired Ohio school superintendent and Associate Professor Emeritus at the University of West Georgia. He’s the author of numerous articles and educational journals and is the co-author of the two books, School Climate and Culture vis-à-vis Student Learning: Keys to Collaborative Problem Solving and Responsibility. The second book is Enhancing A High Performing School Culture And Climate New Insights For Improving Schools, which focuses on human relations problems that interfere with creating a positive school culture and climate. To talk more about well-being in relationships, let's invite Dr. Bulach to the show. Dr. Bulach, welcome to the Lifelong Wellness podcast. How are you doing today?
Clete: I am fantastic.
Host: Now, we wanted to talk to you about wellness and how it relates to your career and what you learned and, you know, what you have… what you have been teaching people, and what kind of a climate and culture that you been promoting for the longest time. And we want to talk about, you know, all the things that you are an expert in but I'd like to relate them to wellness. And before we begin, what does living a healthy life or being well mean to you personally?
Clete: Well, I get to play golf twice a week. This weekend. Last weekend we had a 2-day tournament and there was a senior to them and at age 82 I came in first.
Host: That's fantastic. Congratulations!
Clete: Yes, $180.
Host: That’s even better.
Clete: I do fishing. We have a condo at Gulf Shores. I like to surfcast, catch fish and we have another hurricane coming right at us. We haven't recovered from Sally yet down there. Our unit is right on the beach. It got hit pretty hard but our unit is on the 6th floor so it didn’t hurt. Yes, what does it mean? You know, my only problem so far, I had a hip replacement, that was a piece of cake. Wellness is very important and eating right, exercising, doing your push-ups and your sit-ups and 15-lbs weights. And of course, the most important thing about wellness is human relations. How do you relate to other people? I’ve done seminars on that and of course my two books. The biggest problem with schools today is poor human relations and I’ve gotten into that pretty good. And at the heart of human relations is levels of openness and trust. In any marriage, for example, are you open with your wife? Do you trust your wife? Does she trust you? Is she open to you? If openness and trust is not in a relationship, then you have a relationship that is doomed. And in most schools today and in most organizations levels of openness and trust, you just think of that the politics in Washington. The levels of openness and trust. The Republicans don’t trust the Democrats, The Democrats don't trust the Republicans. Openness has two dimensions. It has a telling dimension and a listening dimension. Now, many people are very open to the telling dimension but not on the listening dimension. If you saw the town hall meeting with Biden last night, he is very open to the listening dimension. He wants to call all these people, women listen to them, give him advice but he didn’t tell you where he stands. So Trump on the other hand is very open on the telling dimension and I think he's pretty open on the listening dimension, too, but a healthy person is open on both. Listening is I'm often asked, “What is the most important human behavior?” And I say, “It’s listening”. They say, “Oh! Why do you say that?” I said, “Well, what does listening convey?” It conveys that you care about the person who’s talking. It conveys that you are open to what they're saying. It conveys that you trust them. It conveys that you want a relationship with them. So listening is very important. Then you get to trust. This is a chicken and egg kind of thing.
Host: Right.
Clete: Which comes first? Do you trust someone who is open to you? Or are you open with someone that you trust? I’m kind of thinking and in my opinion, would be that openness comes first.
Host: Right.
Clete: So, if you are open to other people, the trust relationship begins. But trust is a very complicated construct. It has five factors. Five. Openness only has two. Here are the five trust factors. There’s an overall character dimension of trust. It goes with authenticity and caring. “Who are you?”, is the question with authenticity. Probably Trump is very authentic. He knows where he stands most of the time.
Host: Yes.
Clete: President Obama, on the other hand, lacked authenticity. You know you didn’t know where he went to college, you didn’t know what kind of grades he went, you didn’t know where he’s born, you didn’t this, you didn’t know that. There are also a lot of things you didn’t know about him.
Host: Right.
Clete: So, he lacked authenticity but Trump, I think he’s authentic. Then you come to ability. Ability is a very important trust dimension. President Clinton, for example, was high on ability. He was a good president. He had a lot of things done. Trump is a good president. He’s got a lot of things done. Then you get to the third dimension, which is truthfulness. Truthfulness is very important. If you believe someone is not telling you the truth, you don’t trust them. So on that dimension, President Clinton lost big time. I won’t go into any of the other presidents because I don’t want to go political with this thing, but truthfulness is very important. If you believe what someone says, tells you, then your openness increases, your trust increases, then you get to the final two which are very important. So we had authenticity or character dimension, we have truthfulness and we have the ability. Those of the three I mentioned so far. Then we get to predictability. If you are predictable, people will bring their problems to you because they know how you're going to act. But if you are not predictable, they bring a problem to you and you say, “Oh, yes. I agree with you. Tell you what, let’s work together on that and we’ll take care of that”. Then the next time you come to them with their problem, they say, “Well, I see what’s so bad about that. Why won’t we just let that slide?” So if they’re unpredictable, you don’t take some of your conflicts and problems to them. You don't trust them to deal with the way you want to be treated. Then you get to the fifth one is confidentiality. If you tell someone something in confidence and a little maybe a day or two or week later you find out that what you told him in confidence, they’ve told other people, well that blows trust big time. Confidentiality in politics is a very big thing. It’s a very big thing at anything in any human relationship. So you see where I'm saying that openness and trust are the foundation for wellness because it determines how you relate to other people. How you relate to other people determines how you heal about yourself and about others. Now, does that makes sense?
Host: Oh, yes. Absolutely. Now, you mentioned living a healthy life. I believe you're 82 years old and being active is a great part of it.
Clete: Absolutely.
Host: You go out golfing, fishing, you’re outside. You've got two seasonal gardens as well in Georgia and you’re living a good and well life, eating right, etc. But you also work on your relationships with openness and trust. Now, has trust declined? As, you know, as time moved on I'm sure you've, you know, you’ve seen many generations of students because, you know, you are a school superintendent. So I'm sure you interact with students all the time. Have you seen trust rise or fall in different generations?
Clete: I don’t trust the way I used to. I'm no longer as open as I once was. I am more cautious now because I’ve gotten burnt too many times. When I used to interview for the superintendent, one of the questions that they always asked is, “What’s your weakness?” And I said, “It’s openness”. They said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, sometimes I’m too open. I listen to people and I change my decision and sometimes that was the wrong thing to do. I suspect openness is also my strength”. And they said, “Oh! What do you mean?” I said, “Well, it’s my weakness. Sometimes a person's weakness is also their strength and that's my case. I say because I'm open, I hear things. I listen to people and they trust me. So that makes my openness a strength”. I say, “The weakness is when I listen too much to people giving me the wrong advice”. So I'm more cautious now with how open I am and how trustful I am. I need a little more verification on those five dimensions and the biggest one for me is authenticity and caring. Do they care about me? Who are they? Do I really know them? One of my golf buddies is someone I don't know who this guy. I mean he’s always teasing me, he is always conning me, he was always… He was a professional negotiator and of course as a professional negotiator for unions, for business against unions, you never let them know where you are.
Host: Right. Poker face all the time.
Clete: So, he always keeps them guessing and he’s still doing it. So I really can't trust him. Anyway, we get back to, that’s at the heart, the foundation for human relations but here’s the other thing on wellness. How are your needs being met? And of course, Maslow's hierarchy identified his needs with regard to learning in the school. My five needs deal with life itself. What are your needs, Wes? They're the same as mine. Every human being has the same basic needs. Even crazy people have the same basic needs and here they are. You can go back to the 18th century when philosophers start talking about these things. And the first time I ran across a discussion of those on the web when I look up Nietzsche. He’s a famous late 19th-century philosopher.
Host: Yes.
Clete: He said he agreed with the early philosophers who said one of life’s five basic needs is life itself. They want to be alive, they want to be free from stress, anxiety, and fear. That's a basic need. Does that make sense to you, Wes?
Host: Absolutely.
Clete: Okay. That was the early philosopher in the 18th century. Along comes the next guy he says, “Yes. You’re right”. And I don’t have the names of these people. I’m only looking at what Nietzsche reviewed. He didn’t give names either. He said this. The next philosopher came along and, “Oh, yes. Life, itself, and freedom from fear, stress, and anxiety is very important but happiness is also, well life’s 5 basic needs. Life with no happiness is no life. Of course, you can’t be happy all the time, but moments of happiness in life are critical”.
Host: They are.
Clete: Makes sense?
Host: Oh, yes.
Clete: This is common sense, right? Okay. That Nietzsche says, “Yes. Well, those needs are important but there’s a certain need that you’ve forgotten, it’s power. Everybody wants power”. I equate power with control. So, my third basic need is control. In my books, I described the nine forms of power. Five are freeing forms where when these forms of power are used, the people you're using it with or on are free to do it or not do it. For example, information is power, right?
Host: Yes.
Clete: What we’re doing right now but when people hear this information about what we are talking about right now, they are free to agree or not to agree, free to try it or not try it. And the other freeing forms we probably won’t get into them once we have time later on. All of the freeing forms of power allow the other person to have control. Now there are four controlling forms of power, position, rewarding, coercion, or controlling forms of power. That's when you control people and unfortunately, many teachers and people leaders use the controlling forms of power and control the people underneath them to make them do what they want them to do and that creates resistance. So every person has a need for some control over their life and that varies across the spectrum of people. Some people are control freaks. And you’ve probably met some others, Wes, haven’t you?
Host: Yes, I have.
Clete: And you don't like them do you?
Host: Not at all.
Clete: No. Well, that's one of the reasons why President Trump is not more well-liked than he is, because he is very much in control all the time. But he does give control, too. I’ve seen him do it many times in his meetings where he is out there and probably giving control to the Senators and people who work in the government and so forth. So he does give control, but life with no control… You are miserable. Now your needs vary. Some people have a very small need to control and others have a great need to control but every individual has a need to control. So we get now to the fourth need and it’s very important. It’s caring. People need to know that other people care about them as a person. For example, Wes, if you were to wake up tomorrow and then realized, “Oh, my gosh. Nobody in this world cares about me as a person. Nobody”. Wouldn’t that be an awful feeling?
Host: Yes, it would.
Clete: And that's very important. Many kids go to school believing the teacher doesn't care and the other kids don't care. And they may be in a dysfunctional household and believe their divorce and believe that the person who has custody doesn’t care about them either because there’s a problem to get through life and put food on the table, don’t have time to care about. So caring is a very important thing and that's why I say listening conveys that you care. So that need gets fulfilled by listening and by trusting and so forth. Care. Then you come to the fifth basic need. It’s purpose. Life with no purpose is no life. Dr. Mehmet Oz, Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life, and Mahatma Gandhi all say, “Life with no purpose is no life”. Many people retire and they no longer have a purpose in life. And they slowly wither away and die. Well, I have a purpose in life. I have my garden, I have my friends, I have my golf, I have my condo at the beach, I’ve got lots of friends and my purpose is I want to make schools better for kids, better for teachers. And that's my goal and that’s why I do these talk shows. I don't do many on how to improve the schools but human relations is the biggest thing in schools that cause test scores to be below. Many kids go to school with no purpose. I had a contract. I was a successful bidder to evaluate every school district in the state of West Virginia. You talk about Diggy, one of my life's most important events, that was it. That was one of my highlights. Five months I spent going around the state of West Virginia asking kids and teachers what do you like about your schools and what don’t you like about them? And based on that information I found out that life's basic needs are not being met. Many kids go to school with no purpose. I asked them,
“Why do you go to school?”
“Oh! I have to. It’s the law.”
“You mean if you didn’t have to do it, you won’t go?”
“No! I hate school”
About 50% of the kids told me that they wouldn’t go to school if they didn’t have to. They said, “The teacher didn’t care about me and the other kids don’t care about me”. And all they do is tell you what to do, they tell you what the rules are, you must sit in your seat, they tell you what to study, you’ve got no control over what happens in school. There are many authors out there who have written that schools are the least democratic institutions next to our prisons. That people in prison had more rights, more control than students do in the school. So many kids go to school, their control needs are not being met and they're not happy. They’re not happy at home, they’re not happy in school and some of them are being bullied. They have no friends and they’re scared. They fear. Now, how’s that kid going to learn? It’s impossible for that kid to learn because their needs aren’t being met. Now if you think that's bad, a lot of teachers’ needs aren’t being met. They’re being controlled by the administration, they’re being controlled by the Federal government, they’re being controlled by the textbooks that are written, they’re being controlled by the tests that they have to give, they have to meet test scores. They’re afraid that they’re going to lose their jobs. They don’t like the administrators. I asked teachers, “What do you like about your schools?” More of their answers were the administrators. And I said, “What don’t you like about your schools?” and they said the administrators. So I said, “Tell me about them” and they said, “They don’t care about us. They’re self-serving. All they want to do is get on to a better position and out of the school district. They don’t care about us”. Then I said, “What else do you like about your schools”? They said, “The parents”. I said, “What don’t you like about your schools?” and they said, “The parents”. I said, “Tell me about them?” They said, “Well, some of these parents care about us. They will do anything in the world to help us. And then you got these other ones, they think they’re better than we are. They don’t care about us. They’re just using us as babysitters for their kids”, and on and on. You know, I found with my thousands of interviews of teachers and kids. So those are the five basic needs and of course the foundation for human relations. If in a marriage your wife's five basic needs are being met and as a husband and your five basic needs are being met and you have openness and trust between you, you got a very successful marriage.
Host: When it comes to openness and trust and the basic needs, you also mentioned controlling power. And you also mentioned freeing forms of power, but you only mentioned one. What are the other forms of power that free you or other people?
Clete: Well expertise is a freeing form of power. You watch somebody do something. You watch out they swing the golf club, you watch out a pitch, you watch out how they put out the puzzle together, you watch as a teacher solve a Math problem on the board. They demonstrate their expertise every day and the kids are sitting there and then they say, “Oh, yes! I saw that. I saw how they do that. I can do that”. So they’re free to imitate what they saw someone demonstrate.
Host: So, a particular skill set or learning a skill set.
Clete: Right. So, that's expertise. Information is expertise as well but it’s usually language. Some form of communication. Expertise is a demonstration, a skill. Okay? Then you come to personality. Wes, I kind of think your personality is pretty good. The way you come across with me and the way we interact and so forth. Personality is very important because if you have a good personality and you want somebody to do something, all you got to do is ask.
Host: Right.
Clete: Right? If they like, what are they going to say?
Host: Probably yes.
Clete: Yes. Sure I can do that.
Host: Yes. (laughing)
Clete: So, they’re free. Here’s a fascinating one. Now when I first put this together, the original typology of power was done by French and Raven…
Host: Okay.
Clete: …back in the '50s and they had five. They had position, rewarding, coercion for the controlling forms and they had two others, expertise and what they call referent or personality. Those were the original five. I’ve expanded that to nine.
Host: Okay.
Clete: But not seeing that in any other book or word was written that there are five freeing forms of power. Here’s one that I coach. I told my students, “Anybody can know the other form of power. Let me know”. And this coach says, “I got one”. I said, “What is it?”. He says, “It’s ego”. I said, “Oh! Tell me about that”. He says, “I’m a coach. I stroke my student’s ego all the time”.
Host: Right.
Clete: He says, “You did such a wonderful job, was that? Why don’t you go out there today and do that again and we’re going to be a winner?” You know, he strokes his athletes’ egos. He says and there’s another form of ego. It’s a negative ego stroke. I say, “What?”. He says, “The negative ego stroke. It’s even better than the positive ego stroke”. I say, “Well, tell me about that”. He says, “Sometimes I will tell my students, why I don’t know whether we can beat that team across town. They’re pretty good. I’m not sure we can beat them”. That’s what I call the negative ego stroke and he says, “You know what my students do, my athletes do. They say, Coach, what are you talking about? We can whip their butts”.
Host: (laughing)
Clete: “We can just be as good as they are”.
Host: Right.
Clete: “And they go out there and they are going to prove me wrong”. So, the negative ego stroke is the most powerful form of power.
Host: So, ego boosters and ego busters.
Clete: Yes. These examples I used in my book are Mohammed Ali or Cassius Clay. He was a fourth-grader in class. His teacher told him, “Cassius, you will never amount to anything”. And when he won that gold glove in the Olympics, guess where he went as soon as he got back home?
Host: Don’t tell me this fourth-grade teachers’ house?
Clete: Yes.
Host: Wow.
Clete: He went to the teacher and says, “You told me I will never amount to anything. Look what I just did. I won the golden glove at the…”, what is it, Cuba Olympics. I forgot what year that was, but anyway, that’s the negative ego stroke. Now here’s the most important one. It’s called moral power. What is the right thing to do? Okay? In many families, moral power is not always in place because the kids don't know what the right thing is to do because the parents haven’t laid out the rules. So once the rules are in place, you know what the right thing to do is. And when a rule is not being followed, you say,
“Hey! See this rule here you’re not doing it”
“Oh, yes Dad, I’m sorry. I will do it”.
And, you know, when I was a teacher, many teachers have their rules placed in the classroom, and the kids they have to follow the rules. Well, I give the kids control. I give the kids control. I said, “What do you want the rules to be in our classroom?” They ask, “You want us to tell you what the rules are?” I said, “Yes. I like to know what you think the rules are to be in our classroom”. I give each kid three by five cards three and I said, “Anybody who needs more than three, write one rule on each card”. So the kids wrote one rule on each card and a couple of them ask for more cards. They have more rules.
Host: What did they come up with?
Clete: Well, the same ones I had.
Host: Really?
Clete: Yes. You wouldn’t be surprised.
Host: Interesting.
Clete: But, you know, if I didn’t post something, they wouldn’t know what my rules were.
Host: Right.
Clete: So they came up with the rules and I was sorting them in common piles which with one thing on each card that quickly sorted into common files and I will paraphrase each pile and come up with a rule that I thought was in that pile. And I would come up with 10. The 10 most common rules. And there was one rule that they seldom put in and I put it in and that was turning in your homework on time. So when I posted the rules, the kids would look up there the rules and I could hear them buzz “That’s my rule”, “I wrote that rule”, all around the classroom. Every kid saw their rule up there on the board. So now the right thing to do, more power is in place. When the kids didn't do what they were supposed to do, all I have to do is remind them of the rules and they would say, “Oh, yes”. So when the rules are violated, whose rules are they violating?
Host: Their own.
Clete: Their own.
Host: Right.
Clete: And who was working for the kids?
Host: I hope I get this answer right. They’re working for themselves?
Clete: The teacher who’s worked for the kids.
Host: Oh, right. The teachers working for the kids. I got that wrong.
Clete: I was like their servant leader. I was not a self-serving leader.
Host: That’s an interesting way to give up control and giving power to somebody. And of course, achieving your own purpose.
Clete: Yes. Right.
Host: I like the message you said about having a plan and having a purpose in life where kids don't have purposes. Adults, young adults might not know what their purpose is. Because the questions you asked those children in West Virginia, you know, why do you come to school, you know, and when you got their answer. If you ask somebody, “Well, why do you show up to work?” What do you think their answer would be? Do you think it would be similar to those children if you ask a bunch of random adults?’
Clete: So, for many of the people it’s the paycheck.
Host: Yes. Okay.
Clete: That’s the only reason they show up for work. They don't really enjoy their work. I have to say during my life, you know, I sold pots and pans, I sold wedding invitations, I’d paint their houses, I was a carpenter. Every job I’ve ever had, I’m kind of like Hannah to the young man. Fox News when he talks about all the stuff he did is a young person before he got to be famous like he is now, I’m kind of that way, too. I have always enjoyed every job I’ve ever had because I want to do everything the best that I could. So, you know, I want to be the best teacher, I want to be the best superintendent. Today, I want to be the best golfer, and of course this weekend, I was. So that's my goal. My purpose in life is to be the best that I can at whatever I do.
Host: That is a fine purpose and a fine plan. How do you suggest people find their purpose?
Clete: That’s a good one. And, you know, I've got seven grandkids and they are finding their purpose in life. And I tell them, I say, “Look, I can tell you one thing. You’re going to find out what you don't want to do first so you begin weeding out what you don't want to do to find out what you do want to do”. You know, when I started out, I started out I was going be a meteorologist. (laughing)
Host: Oh, okay. That’s a very interesting profession. Yes.
Clete: That’s what I was in the military. Well, I found out I didn't have the math and science background for it so I found out I couldn’t do. Then I decided I was going to be a hypnotherapist for athletic teams. Well, I was a hypnotherapist in one of my other lives and I was good at it but I couldn't find any team. At that point, society rest was my team. I went to the manager and I says, “I tell you what. I think I can make your haters better and favors better through hypnosis” and he laughed at me. So I found I couldn’t be that.
Host: Okay.
Clete: Then I want to be a personnel psychologist and I found out I couldn't do that because I got married and I needed a five. And on and on with what I found out that I couldn't do. And I took a German course at a college and I aced it. I got an A. I had perfect pronunciation because I grew up in a German family in my hometown. The whole town was Germans from the same part of Germany so I heard a lot of German.
Host: Okay.
Clete: I found out that I was going to be a German teacher. And I was a great German teacher but that didn’t make enough money. So I went into administration and so and on and on. Really find what your purpose in life is. It’s trial and error. You try this and you try that and you find out what you don't want to do and eventually, you’ll find out what you do want to do. That’s my answer.
Host: Actually the excellent process of exploration throughout life.
Clete: Yes. Don't settle on one thing right away, you know? You want to keep all your options open because you don't know what your real talents are. Now, I would suggest to everybody out there that at some point you take a test to find out what your abilities are. Now, when I took that test when I was in the military, I found out that spatial ability was my weakness, the ability to visualize how things should look in my head was my weakness. So architecture was out of the question. But it showed that I had, my strength was relating to people and that's what I ended up doing, becoming a teacher. And the crazy thing is, I was not going to be a teacher. It was my aunt that said, “Clete, you are too smart to be running a bulldozer”, which is what I want to do”. She says, “I want you to go to college” and that turned my life, you know? I have written a chapter in the book, “Is God in control?”. In my life, I think God has been in control of a lot of things that happen to me. And I had written that chapter to show, you know, how that was. And if you want me to I can attach that chapter to an email to you. But, you know, sometimes you have to pray for advice, for guidance with God. You know, your relationship with God I think is important that…Many people get that need for control met through church, through the Bible, through God. The church and the Bible tell them what to do. It gives them that feeling of control. Does that make any sense to you?
Host: Absolutely.
Clete: Okay. If it weren’t for that some people would not feel like they have any control over their lives, but they go to church religiously, they meet with other people in the church who cares about them and they got people there that listens to them. And for many people, religion helps them meet their five basic needs. They feel safe, they have moments of happiness there, they’re feeling control, they have other people that care about them and their religion is their purpose. Where do you want to go from here? Here’s the controlling form of, you know, position, rewarding, coercion when the teacher gets hired, they get position power and they get the ability to reward and punish the kids, right?
Host: Yes.
Clete: When a parent has a child, mother and father have position power over the kid, right? So they can control the kid. They can punish and reward. Now, here’s an interesting fourth form of controlling power. It’s called connection power.
Host: What is that?
Clete: Now how does that play out? Let's say your wife. Do you have kids, Wes?
Host: Three.
Clete: Your wife comes to you and says, “Do you know what your kid did today?” And she explains it to you. And you say, “Oh, my gosh. You know, I did that when I was a kid. I don’t see what’s so bad about that. Let’s just let this slide”.
Host: Yes.
Clete: What happens to your wife’s position of power?
Host: I guess diminished.
Clete: Yes. You put a big hole in it.
Host: Yes.
Clete: So, connection power. If you have position power, you have position power only if you have a connection. And believe it or not, some people use all nine forms of power. They will use the freeing form of power first. When that doesn’t work they take control back. So, I mentioned in my book, throughout my books, that a leader, here’s the secret to successful leadership. Give control to others but don't give it up. Once you give it up, you begin losing your leadership ability to lead. So give control without giving it up. That’s the secret. And you see parents in Walmart every day who had given up control, they let their kids control them.
Host: That’s true, yes. (laughing)
Clete: And it’s sad. It’s really sad.
Host: You see it sometimes. Yes. You see it sometimes.
Clete: Yes, when you see that happening.
Host: Dr. Clete, thank you so much for being on the Lifelong Wellness podcast with us today. We’ve learned very much from you. If we want to get in touch with you if our listeners want to get in touch with you or read your two books, where can we find them and where can we get in touch with you?
Clete: Well, they’re on amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. They were about $25 apiece. They’re not expensive. And they’re basically common sense. You don't need to be a…Everything I say is common sense.
Host: Okay.
Clete: Just what we have talked about. I haven’t said anything that you disagree with. I mean, it’s there in your brain but you just haven’t thought of it the way I said it, right?
Host: Yes.
Clete: That's basically the way my books are. They’re common sense. I also have a website with lots of manuscripts on there, surveys on there that are free. All of my materials are free. It’s www.westga.edu/~cbulach. You can log on to my website and anything there is free for you to use. Pleasure being on your show, Wes.
Host: Yes.
Clete: We can text sometime and talk about how to deal with conflict.
Host: Absolutely.
Clete: There are five conflict management styles and four ways to avoid conflict. And there are five communication style skills. Those two things, those two areas, how do you communicate and how you deal with conflict play a large role in your wellness in life. How you get along in life. Because a lot of people haven’t thought about conflict and how to deal with it. A lot of people don’t think that there are five different ways, five skills of communication. Most people just communicate the way they always do without thinking about the different ways they can communicate.
Host: Dr. Clete, once again thank you very much for being on the Lifelong Wellness podcast today.
Clete: Yes. Enjoy your winter up there in Toronto.
Host: (laughing) We surely will. Thank you, Dr. Clete.
Clete: Okay. Bye.
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