How To Stand Up For Yourself If You Hate Conflict

Have you ever had a tough conversation in front of you you weren't sure exactly how to handle? Could have been with a boyfriend or girlfriend, a friend, a roommate, family, even work. They happen all the time and unfortunately we're not really taught how to do them well. And if you blow a high stakes conversation, you can irreparably damage your relationship or even your career. So today I want to talk about some strategies for what to do before and during a tough conversation to make it easier and make sure it goes as well as it can. And I'm also going to talk about at the end how to de escalate a conversation that kind of got off track and isn't going so well. So the first thing to think about before a tough conversation is your outcomes. You need to draw your line not just for your ideal outcomes, but what's acceptable and what's unacceptable. Sometimes, especially in a tough conversation, you can't get your ideal. I think of a great example from my own life was a really tough breakup I had. I was dating this girl for a long time, I really liked her and. But I didn't see a future for us. So I wanted to break up. But my ideal would have been stay friends, keep talking every day, keep texting every day. The thing is, that's not what she wanted, right? And so we tried to break up and then she would start to cry and she'd get very upset and I would just go, okay, I take it back, let's keep dating. Because I didn't want to make her sad for even an instant, which is totally unrealistic. So I sat down, I thought, what do I actually want? What is a acceptable outcome for me and what is an unacceptable outcome for me? So I said, okay, what I actually want is to break up and stay friends. But what's acceptable is to break up and we can be sad, we can miss each other for a little bit. What's unacceptable is to keep dating someone that I don't want to be dating and eventually get married because I'm too scared to break up with her. So I wrote it all down and it was the thing that I think gave me the inner strength and conviction to go through with it, even though it was really, really hard to hurt someone I cared about so much. And you know, years later, we're friends now it's totally fine, it doesn't have to be permanent. But I truthfully don't think I could have done it if I hadn't written down the acceptable and the unacceptable and gotten clear with myself that it was okay if we were both hurting for a little bit because it was the best thing for us. That brings me to the second thing before a conversation. Put your mind in the other person's body and, and think what's good for them, right? Because you don't want to just be this selfish bulldog that's running through life and not thinking about other people. And also a conversation is going to go better if you think about what is going to help this person achieve their goals, what motivates them, what are their values? So the best story I've ever heard for this is Charlie. Charlie wanted to move to New York City, but his job was in Washington D.C. he could have just quit. He could have just put in his two weeks notice. He could have done it via email because he was really scared to have this conversation. But instead he got some time with his boss, sat down and said, hey, I really like it here. I really like the people, but I'm unhappy in dc. All my friends are in New York. My best friend's in New York. It's important to me to be happy. I need to move, but I want to do this in the best way possible for you. So does that mean working remotely? Does that mean you guys hire my replacement and I train them and it takes a couple months for me to go get my ideal outcome, which is to go to New York, like, how can I do this? So it's good for both of us. And they had a great conversation. They ended up with Charlie working remotely, first person of his position to do it. And he got a 50% raise because he switched from employee to contractor. So that incredible outcome couldn't have happened if he hadn't thought about the other person. The third thing is just set the tone, right? Don't blindside the person. Don't come in and start screaming. They don't know what's happening. But also don't make things that aren't a big deal a huge deal. So if you want to give feedback to a significant other or a roommate, you don't have to say, hey, we really need to talk, right? You can just grab something. Hey, can I, can I talk to you for five minutes? By doing that, you set the tone that this isn't necessarily a big deal when it isn't. And you save the really draconian grave tone for when it is a big deal. Now that's the before. What about during? One really, really tough thing to do is to give someone feedback or criticize them or share how you're Feeling about something that's bothering you without the other person becoming really defensive and blowing up on you. And the best way to do this that I've ever come across is by only speaking in things that can't be refuted. So facts and feelings. If you come in, you start to label people or generalize, you're sunk. And that's what most people do, right? So if a roommate is leaving dishes in the sink, what most people do is go, oh, God, Ted, you always leave the dishes in the sink. Yeah, that's not true. Unless Ted is literally leaving every single dish he's ever used in the sink. That's not true. And now he can get defensive and go, that's not true. What about yesterday? Now it's escalating. You guys are at each other's throats. Or let's say you have a friend that makes jokes at your expense. You don't like it. If you go, oh, my God, Jerry, you're such a dick. You're always putting me down. Now you've labeled and generalized. It's what everyone does, and it just leads to a fight. So instead, only talk about two things that really no one can tell you aren't true. Absolute facts and your own feelings. So dishes in the sink. Example. You go, hey, man, I saw you put your dishes in the sink. I just want to let you know that that makes me feel a little aggravated because now I have to either clean up after you or we have to have a messy house. Someone putting you down with jokes. Great example. I went on vacation with, like, 10 friends, and some I knew really well, Some were friends of friends I didn't know that well. One was this guy Tom. And Tom was so bad when he was drunk at putting other people down. He was super fine sober. I'd met him before and liked him, but he. He got drunk and was just rude. He'd just make jokes at everyone's expense, putting them down to elevate himself or to make himself feel better. So instead of saying, you're a dick, I just said, hey, man, you have made a couple of jokes today that did not make me feel good. And if you keep making jokes like that, I'm not going to want to hang out with you. Now, it's not a threat. That's just a true acceptable outcome for me. But I've also painted the doorway for Tom to be able to stop. For Tom to be able to go, I didn't realize that, and I'll stop making those jokes, which he did, because I didn't say, hey, you're being a dick. I don't want to hang out with you. He said, you keep making these jokes that I don't like, and if you keep doing it, I'm not going to want to be your friend. Now, this is incredibly powerful when you combine it with the second thing, which is going on the record early. So dishes, example, joke, example, it doesn't matter. The first time it happens, most people let it go because they're conflict avoidant. The second time, the third time, the fourth time, they keep letting it go. They bottle it up, they just sit on it and they fume and the other person has no idea that something's bothering them. And then all of a sudden they snap and then they freak out and they're yelling and the other person is completely blindsided. And now you're both kind of in the wrong because that person is doing something you don't like, but you've exploded in a very, very intense way with no warning. And so now you can say the person's messy, but they can say that you're crazy. The flip side of this, if on the first offense you go, hey, man, saw dishes in the sink. Just wanted to let you know, kind of bogs me. I really like keeping a clean apartment. Would you mind cleaning it? Second time, hey, there are dishes in the sink. Would you be able to clean your dishes when you're done? Now by the fourth, fifth, sixth time, they're ignoring you. You actually have a right and you're on the record to be mad. And then you can decide, acceptable, unacceptable. Are you willing to move out over this? Are you willing to not be friends with them over this? Are you willing to split a cleaning lady over this? You can decide what to do, but at least you're on the record and you have mutual understanding. And that's the third thing that's really important when you're going to have a difficult conversation is you want to make sure that they understand you, but also you want to make sure you understand them. Don't ascribe intent. Don't just create a story in your head that's based on nothing but your own interpretation. People leave dishes in the sink because they just don't care. The mess doesn't bother them. They aren't necessarily disrespecting you. They aren't necessarily thinking, ah, I hate my roommate so much that this is gonna piss him off. They're just not really thinking about it. So if you get on the same page, you share your facts and feelings, you give Them a chance to say, oh, sorry, I didn't realize I was bothering you. You guys can get on the same page, and then you're very likely to move forward in a way that is good for both of you. Now, this leads me to the flip side, which I know we all do, which is sometimes we screw up, right? Sometimes someone's giving us feedback or criticizing us, and we're the one that left the dishes in the sink. There's two things that really make a conversation go better. If you're the one who screwed up, or if you're the one who's made a mistake, or if you're the one receiving feedback or criticism. That is, make the other person feel heard and understood and own it again. What most people do when they're criticized, they get defensive and they push back. And when someone pushes you and you push back, things escalate. Now, if somebody comes to you and they say, hey, man, it's really pissing me off, you always leave your dishes and think they do everything wrong. They generalize. They label this and that, and you make them feel heard and understood. You go, hey, I didn't realize that I was doing that. And I had no idea that that's how that made you feel. I get it. And in the future, I won't do it. How do you stay mad at someone like that? How do you stay mad at someone that says, I've listened to you. I totally understand now that I get what you're feeling. I won't do it again. You can't keep yelling at that person. But if they fight back, you. You can. And that's why so many small things in relationships just blow up into huge arguments out of nowhere. Because it's these bottled tensions, and then no one wants to hear the other person. And everyone gets defensive to make sure they're not wrong. It's not about who's right and wrong. It's just about a mutual understanding and then going forward in a way that makes both people happy. And the second thing to do is own it. Great example from work. I have a friend who was putting together a presentation, and he screwed up some numbers. We all do. I've done it for sure. He screwed up some numbers, gave it to his boss. Boss didn't find it, gave it to the partner. Partner didn't even look at it. Probably they all went, present it to a client. Client found a mistake. So what do you do now? You're in the meeting, the numbers are messed up. They go over it as quickly as possible. They just Blow past it. The next day there's a 10 person call. It's the three people that were in the meeting and the rest of the team. My friend knows what's coming, so he's thought about ahead of time, how should I handle this? Partner brings it up. He goes, hey, that was not cool. That was not okay. You messed up the numbers and you made us look bad in front of the client. At this point, my friend could have pushed back. He could have said, well, yeah, but Bob didn't check the numbers either. It's kind of Bob's fault. And I gave you the presentation. That would be a disaster. Because when you push, someone pushes back, right? Every equal and opposite force. So what he did instead was he just owned it. He said, you know what, you're right. I'm sorry, I screwed that up. I shouldn't have. It won't happen again. And there's really nothing I can say to take it back besides that. You're right, I screwed up. His boss immediately felt badly because he was owning it completely on his shoulders and he was taking it on the chin. And the boss actually said, you know what? It's not a big deal and it's not your fault. We, we should have checked the numbers. Don't beat yourself up about it. So now he's being comforted, told it's not a big deal because he owned it completely. All right, that is what to do when the conversation is tough and you need to give criticism. What to do when you're receiving criticism. What about those highly charged conversations? What about those conversations that don't necessarily have a huge weight to them, but they're just topics that, you know, tend to lead to a blowup. So this could be religion, it could be politics, it could be talking about someone else's relationship. Seen a lot of friendships end because a friend is trying to help someone see something in their relationship. But often with our boyfriends and girlfriends, we're blind to it and we're very defensive. In this case, the Socratic method is your best friend. Now, Charlie's going to do another video sometime in the next couple weeks about how to win any argument. If you want to see that one, just subscribe to our channel. For now, all I'm going to talk about is how to guide someone to a conclusion themselves. Because a lot of times these tough conversations, you want someone to act differently, but you don't know how to get them there. Or you want someone to feel differently about a certain topic, human rights issue, whatever it is, but you end up just screaming at each other. By only asking questions like the Socratic method, you can guide somebody in their own thinking so that they come to a conclusion on their own. And the only way to do this is to be open minded. You can't come in with an agenda. You have to come in and actually think, could this person be right? Could I be wrong? And then ask questions. And a lot of times if you keep things civil so that people aren't defensive and you're both open minded, you can normally come to agreement like that's what logical people do. But if you come in and said, and you say no, that's wrong. I believe this. You shouldn't believe that. You're going to have a screen match and no one's going to change their mind. Now, as much as I would love to say that this all works perfectly and you're never going to get into a situation that escalates. It happens. So how do you de escalate a conversation? The best thing I found is to de escalate their physicality, their body language and their tone. Because your physicality and your tone can be a virtuous cycle or a vicious cycle. If you're happy and smiling and laughing and then someone tells another joke, you're going to laugh again. That's why in comedy shows people always try to get the main act on after some warm ups. So you're in a good mood and you're laughing. Now the flip side of that is if somebody is shouting at you and yelling and their tone is aggressive, nothing you say is going to get hurt. They've gone into an emotional fight or flight state. Anything you say, no matter how right you are, it's just going to get blown away by their reptile brain. So just basically call a timeout, talk to someone. You said you're talking about politics or religion, atheism versus a religion, and you have differing opinions and the person starting to get heated just go, hey, you know what? This isn't a conversation that seems to be going very well. I can tell you're getting a little heated. Why don't we just drop it and talk about something else? And the person will either agree and you can talk about something else and avoid that blow up, or they'll go, no, no, no, I can talk about this. Let's keep talking. But they'll realize that they were starting to get heated and they'll take themselves in check, right? If you can just gently call out someone's body language and their tone and reset them to a more neutral place that feeds into their brain. They will literally be more open minded because they don't have aggressive or defensive body language and tonality. So that is it. I hope that that was helpful for you. If you guys want to talk about something that's a little bit more upbeat, which is how to meet new people and make a great first impression, Charlie has a great video on that. I will link to it and thank you for watching. You know, I got a couple comments last time that I didn't introduce myself and I should have in the last video. So my name is Ben. I co founded Charisma on Command with Charlie about four years ago. I left a job on Wall street working private equity so that I could create this company. Because working on this area of self improvement and my relationships has changed my life in an incredible way. I was a very average person who had friends but wasn't really a leader. I would feel out of place in group conversations. My dating life wasn't what I wanted it to be. And by focusing on my confidence, my charisma, my ability to work with people and talk to people, my whole life changed. And that's why we started this business. So that's me and Charlie's got a very similar story. But now you know a little bit more about me. And thank you for watching. You know, I have a lot of respect for you for being on that same journey. It's not easy to change. It's very easy to stay the same and complain. So the fact that you're proactively chasing this and trying to become better, I have a lot of respect for that. So that's all. If you've watched this far, you're a legend and I will see you in the next video.