Let's talk about breakups, business breakups, romantic breakups. Right. You're breaking up with me? No, no. But thanks for the hypothesis test. No, in fact, in fact, I'm enjoying this conversation so much, as I always do, I'm learning a ton from you, that if anything, I'd like to expand and deepen our relationship, Chris.

There, you got a lot of knowledge out of me. Platonic and professional, but expansive. What is the process of ending a relationship, and again, this could be romantic relationship, could be business relationship, could be employer-employee, could be individuals, could be telling a whole group, or an entire group telling an individual.

You know, the reason I raise this as a particular example is that I'm assuming that both sides don't want the same thing. One side wants to continue, the other side wants to end. I'll avoid the use of the word win-win, or the words win-win, excuse me, and just ask, is there a way to have that conversation in any of the contexts I just mentioned, in a, as you so beautifully described it, a straight shooter manner where it's direct, it's honest, but it lands soft?

Because what we're talking about here is feelings of rejection, and nobody likes feeling rejected. I don't know anybody that likes being fired, even from jobs they don't like. People's egos suffer. So is there maybe a more specific way of asking the question is, is there a way to encourage the person getting the bad news, to get their ego out of the way and see that if both parties don't want it, it's best for everybody involved?

I almost want to say no, but first, what are the caveats? Most of the time when people are struggling with this, they're not trying to save the other side, they're trying to save themselves. So who are you really trying to save? By postponing it, softening it, trying to act like it's something that it's not.

I don't know that anybody has ever been fired that didn't have a sense that it was coming. The person that was getting ready to fire them opens up by saying, how are you? They know how the other person is, and a person getting ready to get fired has got some gut instinct that things are going wrong.

Like you said, the gut's very powerful. So you got to lower the boom as quickly as you can, but also as gently as you can. I was involved in a nonprofit a number of years ago affiliated with a church, and we're struggling with whether or not to let the executive director go, I go to the minister of the church, Norman Vincent Peale's protege, a guy named Arthur Caliandro, one of the best human beings I've ever met in my life, phenomenal guy.

And I'm struggling with, I thought firing, letting this woman go was going to be bad. And I thought Arthur was going to counsel me a way out. And he looked at me and he said, you know, there's no gentle way to cut somebody's head off. And I thought, yeah, the humane thing here is how do you bring it to conclusion as quickly as possible, because there's no humane way to cut somebody's head off.

There's no humane way to terminate the relationship. Now what are the caveats? Maybe there are. First caveat, if you're going to fire somebody, never fire somebody on a Friday, fire them on a Monday. Fire them on a Monday, they got a work week to work their way out of it.

You fire them on a Friday, they got a weekend to be miserable and to feel horrible, and they can't do anything about it. Caught off guard or not, on a Monday, they can pick themselves up, they can start looking for a new job, no matter who you are. Fire them on a Friday, they can't start looking for a new job on a Saturday, it's two days of misery.

Yeah, if you're going to fire somebody, fire them on a Monday, not on a Friday. If you got bad news to give somebody, warn them it's coming. People are ridiculously resilient to pain if warned, and then that you lower the boom. You're not going to like what I have to say, it's going to be heartbreaking, you're going to hate me.

Dictate no more than three seconds, they got their guard up, let them have the bad news. That's the humane way to cut somebody's head off. Don't linger. Don't make them think that, "How are the kids? How are you? I care about you. You're a great human being." None of the stuff at the beginning.

Warn them bad news is coming and hit them with the bad news. Rip the bandaid off. The pain is not if you try to rip the bandaid off slowly. That's excruciating and you're trying to save yourself. If you got to terminate a relationship regardless of what it is, the quicker you do it, the less painless it is, the sooner people can move on.

Stop trying to save yourself. Realize how human beings handle pain. If anything, human beings are incredibly resilient if given the opportunity to brace themselves first.