S2 Ep1: How to STOP Getting Defensive, Handle Difficult People & Take Back Your Power! Jefferson Fisher

If you're feeling nervous before a hard conversation, this is a framework of how to have a difficult conversation. What I teach is let your breath be the first word that you say. We typically hold our breath far too often. Well, 2, it's a self-talk. Some of the first conversations you really need to have are conversations with yourself. If you say, ah, I can't do it, I'm nervous, your body thinks I'm nervous. 3 would be the most useful technique of all the things that I teach, and it's those little 3 things that you can implement immediately to sound more in control.

What is the tools we can give to people to come across as authentic and truthful? Yeah, so let's start with Jefferson Fisher is a board-certified trial attorney, communication expert, and author of the New York Times bestseller The Next Conversation, and is best known for helping people resolve conflicts and improve their communication.

What you say is who you are. Some people feel insecure, so they have to talk a whole lot to make sure you know that they're intelligent. People who have ego issues feel like they have to yell. You ask me a question and I say, um, yeah, I mean, uh, uh, okay, yeah, I mean, uh, and you're always creating noise. Because you're afraid of the silence.

And how can someone argue less and say more?

When you're in a fight with your spouse and you say the mean thing and they say the mean thing, the only person who wins is the person who says the worst thing, who said the ugliest thing.

How can you be okay with not winning arguments?

Don't make this the hill you want to die on.

So how do you deal with a narcissist?

This is such a power move.

Well, Justin, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Chris.

Thanks so much for coming on. I wanted to start with you know, your background and how you became such a great communicator. So could you tell us about how, I suppose, in growing up you were around so many influences that, you know, had such a positive effect on your communication style?

I am a fifth-generation trial attorney. So my dad is an attorney, a lawyer, his dad, and his dad, my great-grandfather, and then his father, and then his father. So like, it's just nothing but— you don't want to hire me to remodel your kitchen, you know? I don't— you don't want to hire me for really anything other than law. And that's just what I was, I was raised in. So I had a very unique perspective in childhood where, where other kids might be watching their parent do any other job, I'm watching my dad in the courtroom. I would get taken out of school to go watch his closing arguments. I probably saw more closing arguments by the time I turned 12 than most actual practicing attorneys, just because there's so many. I mean, I have cousins, I have uncles, great-uncles all in, in law.

Oh wow.

And so my dad would pick me up from school, my mom would pick me up from school. I'm the oldest of 4. And so say my dad picked me up, he would put me in the corner of his deposition while he finished it, and he would give me a yellow notepad and a pen and just be like, I need you to be quiet, let me finish. And so of course I don't know anything what they're saying, but I can watch how he's saying it. You know, I can kind of pick up on these, uh, little bitty things. A lot of it is— I don't know if it's just osmosis. Yeah, I don't know if you just— I naturally— I felt more comfortable in law school than I did in any other grade.

Oh wow.

Because I just, I felt like I, I knew the materials. Like, oh, I know this language.

And a trial lawyer is, you know, for people who don't know it particularly well, always thinking like Harvey Specter in Suits in the courtroom.

Something like that. I've never seen Suits, but I know enough of it. But yeah, so you take any TV movie where you see somebody in the courtroom, where there's a judge, an opposing attorney, you know, the "you can't handle the truth" kind of moments.

Is that Tom Cruise?

Yeah. I forgot what movie that is.

Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, yeah.

That's kind of the rhyme and rhythm to it.

And that is by default quite a combative Yeah, position, right? You know, you're, you're trying to get people to say things and they're trying to not say things.

Yeah, I'm not sure if it's combative as much as it, as much as it is adversarial. Like, uh, you can represent one side and I can represent another side and we can still get along. We can still work out resolution. Let's say you're a trial attorney and I'm a trial attorney. We both represent a client. We will actually get more done if you and I are on good terms. And I could say, yeah, Chris, look, I know your guy, that makes a lot of sense, but here's what you're not looking out for. Here's what my guy says, here's what your guy says. And we lay it out and you go, oh, okay. And then you try and resolve it. The problems come when it's like, you don't want to go to trial against me, Chris, because if we go to trial, this is what's going to happen. And then people get ego and then they start getting defensive, and then, okay, I'll see you in the courtroom. We'll see. We'll see what the jury says. And then it becomes a clash.

So why did you start sharing your, your journey publicly? Because it seems like you started sharing your journey around like leaving the corporate world and doing your own thing.

You kind of— I, so I had been a partner at a big law firm for several years, and I felt that I wasn't really happy there. I didn't feel like I was in a creative space. I felt like I was being really stagnant, and I knew I wanted to start my own law firm. So I assume you understand this world where you just have this feeling of, now I want to do something new, and I know I can build it. I know this is what I want to do. And I felt that passion, and my wife supported me. And so I left my law firm to start my own, and I went from a corner office with like 3 legal assistants, 2 paralegals, to buy myself with a laptop. I didn't have a printer, and, um, and I, and I loved it. I just, I was, I still had the adrenaline of a new business owner, and I was just so excited. And I thought, well, I need to get on social media to start promoting the law firm. That was the first time I had ever really used social media outside of, you know, you remember when Instagram was just, you take a picture of your latte, put an X-Pro filter on it, yeah, call it a day. Instagram was just pretty pictures. That's, that's all it was. And they just had started moving to video. I thought, well, I'll talk about the law firm. And when I did that, I didn't really like it. Start talking about legal things. God, this doesn't feel like me. I feel like it feels kind of cheesy trying to just sell my service. And so that evolved to this question of what's my purpose here? What's my legacy? What do I want to leave for my kids? Should I not exist on this earth tomorrow? And so I thought I'd help teach people how to communicate. So that's how I started my videos.

And one of the things you want people to realize is that their words and what they're saying has such a huge influence on where they will end up. And so what do you, what do you mean by that? What's, what can people take away from that?

Most people don't realize this, Chris, and it's that what you say is who you are. They might see that act of kindness. They might see you open the door for somebody, let them cut in line. That's usually not the case. They only know you by what comes out of your mouth. You say nice things? Congrats, you're a nice person. You say mean things, rude things? You're now a rude person. If you say funny things, you're a funny person. Mm-hmm. So it's just simply what comes out of your mouth, how you treat people with your words is the only evidence of what they have based on who you are, what they think about you, how other people talk about you when you're not in the room, what your reputation will be, what your legacy will be, how many people come to your funeral is simply by how you touch them with the words that you, you use. You can't be a kind person if you don't say kind things. And so if you want a better life, I believe that you have to choose your words better. Use better words. Think about who you want to be 10 years from now. What kind of life do you want to lead? Start using those words of what that person would use, and the words will do it for you.

I feel like a lot of people struggle with being very truthful in life, but also with themselves. And I feel like that often results in people not necessarily lying the whole time, but I suppose not, not saying the truth, you know, not being honest with themselves and those around them. And I feel like what you said there, like, you sort of become what you say. I think if you can't believe what you say yourself, I think you do lose a bit of your own, like, control on reality. Because I think if people are, you know, not being truthful with those around them and themselves, then they almost start believing their own lie.

Yes.

And I know I was reading your stuff and I was thinking to myself, it's so important to be truthful with people around you, but also what you say is what you start to believe.

Yeah, I think that's spot on. Yeah. Some of the first conversations you really need to have are conversations with yourself. That self-talk. Not only who are you listening to, but also what are you saying to yourself? Because when you talk to other people, the other people are not the only ones listening. Mm. So are you. If you say, "I can't do it," you know what your brain thinks? You can't do it. If you say, "I'm nervous," your body thinks, "I'm nervous." If you say, "I'm excited," all of a sudden your body becomes excited. There's so much in control of the conversation you first have with yourself of who you want to be, what are your values, what you stand for. And we all know people who try to be somebody they're not. And what we mean by that is they say things that don't align with who we see they truly are. Mm-hmm. People who fake nice. Jurors in trial have a sixth sense about this, and we all do. We have a unique ability to hear somebody on the witness stand and go, I don't believe them. Just something about it, I don't believe them. People who try to fake sympathy in trial, the jurors will absolutely cut them off the list. Somebody who's trying to like fake cry, yeah, get up to you and they go, ah, no. Why? Because it goes, we can tell that there is misalignment in who I see and who I'm hearing. You ever heard or felt somebody go, that person is really genuine? You can tell that they're genuine. Why? Because there is alignment with what they're saying and what we perceive are. And when there is that incongruence, we don't— we can— it's like a dissonance. We can hear it. We don't— we don't like it. That's why sometimes even people who we say they're trying too hard—

yeah, yeah, it's so obvious to you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're trying too hard to make you like them, saying too many nice things, right? There is— there's— there is, uh, you can— you can kind of have too much weight on one side, too much weight on the other side, it's, it's a, it's a scale, it's a spectrum, right? And so it's funny how we can tell when somebody is trying too hard to make you like them. Go, I don't like that either, because we can tell that's not aligned with who they are.

So how can people then make good first impressions? Like, how can you come across positively?

You cannot ever underestimate a genuine smile, like a genuine, heartfelt smile. Yeah, because that is how we connect with people. You can see— I've seen these videos where they take— it's like a mom and a child or a family to a foreign country and they speak no language and they're filming it and people see a baby. And naturally, again, there's no— there's a total language barrier, but they see the baby and they smile. Right. There's something about— you cannot help. You ever seen a video where people start laughing and just by the sound of their laughter, you start laughing? You're like, I don't know why I'm laughing, but it's because they are. Yeah, there's something about it that we, we can— it's like a vein you can tap into with people. You can feel that we're on the same frequency, matching the same frequency. So if you want to have better first impressions, you need to send the signal of warm, this warm energy. You're able to slow things down, you're able to give a warm, genuine smile, you use their name. There's nothing people like more than, than the sound of their own name and just to be truly who you are instead of faking it and trying to impress them. That generally has the opposite effect when you try to do too much to impress someone.

And I think people have a lot of anxiety and stress about making a good first impression or about dealing with, you know, high-pressure situations. So like one of the things you talk about quite a lot is how to deal with like high-pressure situations and how to control yourself. And so what's like a good, you know, process for someone who is feeling pressure in the moment, whether it's like a keynote or it's a— what, keynote's quite a big thing, but giving a, you know, giving a talk or just being a bit stressed by the situation.

Yeah. So if you're feeling nervous before a hard conversation or some major issue, number one, I want you to use your breath. What I teach is let your breath be the first word that you say. When you use more of your breath rather than holding it, you're able to slow things down. That's calming your nervous system. If you want the fastest way to regulate your, your system is using your breath. We typically hold our breath far too often throughout the day. I bet people even listening to this right now don't realize that they're probably even holding their breath without them even knowing it. It's very natural, especially for people who are high performers, high stress, high stress jobs. They're in charge of a lot of things. They're managing a lot of things. They're trying to scale build their company. They are, they are living on the line, and so they know every day matters. So that stress gets them in their, in their breath. So you need to make sure you breathe and keep that as regulated as possible. Two, it's a self-talk, this conversation with yourself. Instead of, oh my goodness, I'm so worried, I'm so nervous, you change it to tell yourself that you're so excited, you're so excited about what's happening. Why? Because you believe in what you're doing. You believe in what you're doing. So that's— three would be Be excited about what you know works. So like, let's say you're giving a keynote. If you are about to talk to a crowd, even if it's a crowd of strangers, but you believe in your product, you know that what you have is there to help people. You actually truly, authentically, genuinely believe in your mission that what you're going to say is going to help people. That's something to be excited about. And you naturally become so energized at being able to share that knowledge with them. And then it becomes something to where you're just giving. And when you're giving and when you're being generous with your thoughts and your time, that's some of the best ways to actually get fulfilled, is when you are in a state of, of serving, in a state of just being generous, to be generous. That's going to help you not be as nervous.

One of the things I've noticed about you just talking to you there is that you never have, uh, ums or uhhs. You pause, but it's not like you're lost on what to say. You're just pausing. Yeah. And I feel like for others watching, you seem so natural doing that. Have you always been like that?

No, it's— You have to— I mean, I have certain defaults because of my upbringing and what I like to do and how I communicate. That I have more natural tendencies to, let's say, cut out all the fillers. But when I'm just with my friends, I think y'all call them mates. Yeah, yeah. When, of course, you can have ums and ahs and all of that. Now, what we're talking about are fillers. When you and I are talking and I might go, you ask me a question and I say, um, yeah, I mean, uh, okay, yeah, I mean, uh, and you're always just you're creating noise because you're afraid of the silence. You're afraid that silence conveys confusion, uh, silence conveys ignorance. But what you learn, and the people who truly invest in their communication and invest in leadership, is that the silence is such a power move. Like, silence, the power of the pause, is one of the greatest assets that a leader can have. People feel like they have to continue to float the conversation by using noise because the quiet makes them uncomfortable. But pauses, it might be the absence of sound. It's not the absence of communication. You could ask me a question and I could have a rapid-fire response. So, Chris, if you say, how are you, Jefferson? And I just went, yeah, I'm good. I'm good, Chris. It was good. It was really good. What does that convey to me? Yeah, what does that convey of me? That I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm anxious. I'm kind of nervous. I'm a little bit jittery. I'm not, I'm not really— I'm a little shaky. But if you were to ask me, how are you? And I just took a breath, I went— I'm not filling the space with anything. And then I said, I'm good. Yeah, I'm good, Chris. Now that conveys something else. I didn't make noise, but I said, hey, I actually thought about it. I actually was intentional about it. I heard what you said, I analyzed it, I checked with my body, and then I gave you a very thoughtful response.

And I suppose that has an impact therefore, and like speed, tone, everything to do with how you communicate. And so if you're— if someone is watching us talk now, how can they take that away tomorrow? Like, how can they start implementing, you know, slower speech, less mistakes Like, what are the exercises they can, they can practice?

Let's highlight it as an example, and then we'll teach them how to do it. So let's say, for example, okay, let's compare two different people. One voice says, look, Chris, I already told you I'm not going to do that. Chris, I already told you I'm not going to do that. Now, which one sounds Like somebody who's more in control. Which one sounds like the leader?

I'm so terrified of the second one.

Which one sounds like somebody you don't want to mess with? Yeah, you know what I mean? Somebody, somebody who's, who's unshakable. Somebody who's grounded. Somebody's the leader. Somebody who says, you know what, I'll follow that person because they sound sure of themselves. How much of it, of what goes on in your world, do we follow people simply by how they make us feel? That second voice sounds— makes you sound a little bit more secure, a little bit safer. Somebody you go, they know where they're going. They sound more confident. I'll follow that person. So one says that first voice is grasping for control. Give me, give me. Nobody's listening to me. I have to threaten. The other voice says, no, no, no, I never lost control. I'm the one that's going to be in control of this. I'm the one who's confident in this, and I'm the one who's going to connect with you in this. So how do we apply this to every day? For everybody who's listening, number one, what I want you to do is use your breath. Like we talked about a second ago, let your breath be the first word that you say. So where your first word would be in a response, put a breath in its place. It's going to slow down the pace of your conversation. People who speak slower naturally sound more in control. You can't do anything with it. Number two, I want you to lower your voice. People who have ego issues feel like they have to yell. When somebody is talking, they have to out-yell the other person. It's, it's really out of fear. Like with a wild animal, you see it and you go, hey, get out of here, you know, to that animal. You want to get it out. Yeah, what you're saying is, I'm threatened. That's what's happened when you're yelling like that. Instead, lower your voice. You ever, like, been disciplined by a parent and instead of yelling, they kind of just talk really low at you and how disappointed they are. You would almost rather them yell at you. You know, you're just like, okay, I don't— I feel so bad. So lowering your voice is a great way to do it. Also, in your tone, have inflection that goes down, not up. So for example, let's, let's take it as if I'm going to ask you to pass the salt, I wouldn't say, Chris, can you pass the salt? As if I don't— as if I'm not sure what it is.

What is the salt?

Yeah, what is salt? I don't know. Instead, I'm going to say, can you pass the salt? You see, it's a question, but I said it made it sound like a statement. And so you find that instead of ending on the upward inflection, you're adding on the downward inflection, and that makes it sound a lot more concrete. It sounds like you're grounded. It sounds like you're landed. So all of those little 3 things, there is a great way that you can implement immediately to sound more in control.

One of the other things you said is the more words it takes to tell the truth, the more it sounds like a lie.

Yeah.

So what do you mean by that? Is that trying to explain something in too much detail?

Yeah. Imagine you asked me a very basic question. You said, where were you last night? Mm-hmm. Right. And the truth is, it would be one or two words. But if you ask me and I said, well, that's an interesting story. You see, I first left and I start kind of explaining a lot, a whole lot. You're going, you're not just answering my question. I feel like you're avoiding it. You're not really being honest with me. Some people have this need that they're not going to be believed, so they have to talk a whole lot. It's typically insecurity. Ever been in a meeting with somebody and there's always this one person who has to put in their two cents on every single issue. They always have to play the devil's advocate. By just adding that person to your Zoom meeting, you know, you've extended the meeting 30 minutes. You know, like, do we have to add in Greg? Do we really have to? You know, because you know they're going to extend it. But the truth is, typically that person is least removed from the actual decision-making. They just feel insecure, so they have to make sure you know that they know the answer or that they have some more questions that's going to in some way highlight that they exist. They're there. I— let me, me, me, me, my, my, my, and everybody listen to me. The people who are like name droppers, the people who are like, so I was with Chris the other night. You know Chris, right? Great guy. So anyway, he just took his company to about $28 million last year. And like the people who just have to make sure that you know that they're there. But we do that in our sentences. Too, that if you want to sound more confident, sound more concise rather than filling your sentences full of ice and fillers. Just serve your words neat. Like, you take people who, uh, if you want to know who's the most confident in an organization, typically look at their emails. Like, people lower on the totem pole have everything to say. They have, they have like 4 paragraphs in an email. The people higher up, they don't even have complete sentences. You know what I mean? Like, uh, people, um, who are more insecure, a little bit, uh, more nervous, put in lots of exclamation points. When everybody happy with them, just know I'm being polite, throwing some emojis, and they talk a whole lot. People higher up, really efficient, more confident, they don't even use grammar. Like, one time One time when I was starting out as an attorney, uh, really young, I, I sent an email to this much more experienced, older, uh, CEO of a Fortune 500 company. And I wrote out this beautiful email, Chris. This— I thought it was just— it was perfect. I wrote several paragraphs of every legal issue, and I was nervous sending it. You know those emails where you're like nervous of what they're gonna be like when you send it? And I sent it and you know what he said? He said, "Thanks," and like he didn't even capitalize the T, you know, he didn't even put a period on it, and I was just like, "Okay," and so there is so much to be said there of people who feel confident that they don't have the urgency to add a lot of context, and so the takeaway here is instead of being a waterfall, in your conversations. Be a well. In other words, when you're always giving, talking way too much, way more, disproportionately so, your message gets swept away. But when you're a well, you have confidence in the depth of your knowledge, and if somebody has a question, they will ask. And when they ask, you will always provide them exactly what they came for, right? So that's a wonderful mentality to where be very choosy, selective with your words. It's like that quote, "I would have written you a shorter letter if I had had more time." Yeah.

I'm quite excited by the idea that hundreds of people watching this show tomorrow, instead of writing detailed emails, are going to start sending one-liners to their bosses.

That would be hilarious. A default rule is if you can't say it in 3 sentences, you have to rethink it. Yeah, yeah, rethink, rethink what you're trying to say.

I think underpinning it in what you're saying though, it's like it— communication is just a communication of your preparedness in many ways. Like, you have to be— yes, in your example, you have to be sort of subject matter expert so that when they ask you the deeper question, you have the answer.

Exactly.

You can't just shoot off the, the one-liners.

Exactly. Yeah, it's, it's, it's speaking to the idea that some people feel insecure, so they have to talk a whole lot to make sure you know that they're intelligent. Mm-hmm. When actually it's the reverse is true, that you can be very selective and choosy and specific with your words and how much words you give. So it's just when people write down a whole lot, it's often lazy communicating because they're just not really putting much thought into their words. They're putting all the words rather than being selective. With their words? Are they pulling out the excessive adverbs, the words that don't push their prose, the words that throwing in a lot of justs and so and very and the words that tend to water down your, your sentences? So it's just being really intentional with what words you, you choose, because again, what you say is who you are.

And how can someone argue less and say more? Oh yeah.

So in the book, I have 3 rules that I line out. Rule number 1 is say it with control, many of which we talked about right here already. Rule 2 is say it with confidence. And rule number 3 is say it to connect. If you want to argue less and talk more, I'm going to challenge you to change the way you see arguments rather than seeing them as a, a negative conflict. See them as a hurdle to get over that leads to success. Now, in the business context, and I know, Chris, you have an amazing LinkedIn presence as well as this podcast. Where you're teaching people when you're helping them every day to scale. You're saying, look, you're going to run into failures. If you don't run into failures, it's a problem, isn't it? If you're not hitting, if you're not learning from mistakes, it's almost more uneasy of going, what if— are we sure we're doing this right? Exactly. Yeah. You want to have problems. That's going to help lead to solutions. Same thing in your conversations. If I— if you and I never have one single disagreement, one single argument, do we really have a deep relationship? You take your spouse, for example. That's a person who most likely you've had the hardest conversations with, the deepest conversations with, some of the biggest struggles. And what happens when you come out of it? You're closer together every single time because you've been willing to work through the struggle and work through the hard. And we tend to see conflict as something that's to avoid. I, I suggest you welcome the conflict. Instead of seeing arguments as something to win, see them as something to unravel. You loosen the knots in conversation. That leads, that leads always to, to, um, a better communication and a better conversation with the other person. So you try to find ways— it's what we talk about— of if you want to argue less, talk more. You see conflict as something good that can happen in your life because you've had to leave one company to form another. You've had to leave one relationship to find the person you're supposed to be with. It's always, it's always the problem and the solution every time.

I think it's honestly such a good message because so my wife would say that like I'm impervious to conflict, as in like I don't mind it. Yeah, I like, I never shy away from it, and it's because I feel very comfortable in it. But because I've had so much in my life, right, you know, I've had so much unbelievable conflict in company building and, and, and what have you that comes with it. But you do learn that it doesn't have to go nuclear. Yeah, you know, if you're— if you become very good at managing the, the relationship, and like you said at the beginning, when someone threatens and when you get threatened nowadays, I don't— I now know not to go, okay, and then I now go, okay, so they've threatened. If anything, I need to sort of take a step back to lower the energy here. Yeah, to let everyone just calm down for a second so we can de-escalate. Because the worst thing in business is escalation just does that until you end up in court.

Exactly.

It's like the last thing you want in your life and your business and your mental peace is to end up in court.

Yeah.

And so I love this, a lot of this stuff.

I mean, let's say there's a place for court, that's all I'm saying. If you needed to, if you need the help, you know, I mean, it's not all bad.

Okay, but you know, if you were talking to a lawyer, you're like, you've already, in many ways, you've already, yes, you know, you've got to a bad place. I love what you say about like finding in the conversation, asking about like, uh, like finding the knot, as you said, like, yeah, like what is the problem here? Like how can we— and I quite love that because it sort of puts the challenge on the table to be like, okay, let's try and, let's try and resolve it.

Yeah, that you take any time there's what we would call in Texas a snag. Like, anytime you have a little snag in the conversation, maybe it's you didn't like their tone, maybe it's, ah, you didn't like— that's a weird word choice. And your body's like, I don't like that word that you just used. You just— the way you just said that. Like, uh, if I just said okay, your body go, I didn't like that. Yeah, I didn't like that at all. There's all these little snags and conversations, and so problems happen when let's say you have one end of the line and I have another, and I'm going, no, you have to agree with me. And you go, no, you have to agree with me. Just like you said, that, that leads to the courtroom. That's where you come see me. But if you want to really improve your communication across your organization, you get really good at finding the snags and loosening them as quick as you can. That often means you're very quick to apologize. You're very quick to clarify. You're very quick to try to understand their motives and intents rather than going, "I can't believe they would say that to me." You get in this mindset of, "I wonder why they would say that?" Right? So it's a shift of what I call— rather than having something to prove, you have something to learn in every conversation that you have. So it is, it's a great way of smoothing out the the knots in the conversation that's going to lead to better things every single time. And the reason why, like, conflict doesn't bother you is because you've been there before. Same thing with anywhere. Let's say you go to a new city. All right, I'm here in London for the first time. You put me here the first time, I'm going to feel a little bit more anxious of where should I go.

Yeah.

The next time I come here, I'm going to be a little bit more comfortable.

Why?

Because I've been here before. Yeah, I know where I'm going. And so anytime you get put in a place of conflict in communication, somebody's yelling, threatening, saying something, rather than getting defensive, it's that same mindset of I've been here before. And that gives a different sense of peace. So that is the downfall of always avoiding conflict, is that you will always feel like you're anxious and brand new on your feet.

I honestly think it is such a challenge nowadays especially the world went remote, and so everyone's behind their computers, there's less conversations. When people are back in the office, people feel more anxious having in-person conversations, more so with conflict than ever before. So how do people lean into conflict? Because when you do, you will find that you can achieve so much more if you're able to take conflict and leave on a positive rather than shy away from it.

One is the mindset of understanding that conflict can be healthy. Sometimes conflict is something that you want in a positive way. I'm not talking the negative conflict, the ones that may always make you feel like you're less of yourself. It's simply a mindset of understanding good things can come out of it. Yes, it might be difficult. Yes, it might be hard, but I know on the other side it's going to lead to a better productive outcome. Same thing with people who, who think in, in business terms of, yes, we are going to have problems, there's going to be bug fixes. Like, why do we feel like It's totally okay on our phone, our software, to have bugs and updates. My phone updates, I feel like, every week, but yet I don't feel like, as a human in my relationships, I don't need upgrades and fixes, and I'm gonna have things that go wrong that I need to fix and go, oh, I just spotted that issue. Let me— that's a good point. Let me— I can change my attitude here. That's a really good— I see where I've gone wrong. Okay, let me— next time that happens, I'll make sure that I communicate with you. Rather than always feeling like we are the model of perfection and everybody has to agree with me. Two, if you want to lean into more conflict, understand that you can be more wrong.

Yes.

There is such a wonderful strength about you when you realize you don't always have to be right. And in fact, most of the time you aren't right. And it's such a relief, really, in a way, when you realize I don't have to know everything. I don't always have to be the one that has every single answer. I can lean on other people. I can look it up. I can learn. I can continue to upgrade myself and evolve in my different annual installments, whatever it is. There is such a relief and understanding. I don't have to be right because more than likely you're not.

Yeah.

Another way to lean in more into conflict is using words that involve other people. And phrases that instantly remove their defensiveness. So if, let's say, you and I already know you're probably not going to like this on something, I— here's one way it could go wrong. If I say, look, I don't know what you're thinking here or why you think you're right on this. Let me tell you why you're wrong. What's that going to do? Is that going to do anything? It's going to— you're going to bristle. You're not going to like that. Now it becomes a competition. Yeah. Like, guard is up.

Yeah.

Now, now all You're not listening to me anymore. Now you're just thinking of all the things as to why I'm wrong. But if I began my sentence with, like, Chris, you don't have to agree with me here. You're free to disagree with me. And then I tell you, now what? Now you actually want to listen. Now you're kind of offended almost that I— you're going, wait, wait, wait. I don't have to disagree with you? Okay, I'm— well, let me listen now. So when you find ways to reframe tweak your sentences to allow more contrast to it, you will always lead to a better product.

So if you feel like you're about to have an argument, what should your first words be then? What are the most disarming things that you can say?

Oh, I like that. Um, this ties into how I'd say remove some defensiveness from people. So if you feel like there's about to be an argument, let's, let's take it there. Some phrases that help remove defensiveness. Is if I begin with, I agree. I agree. Now, here's the kicker. I'm not saying I have to agree with what you said, Chris. It could be I agree with something much bigger. So instead of thinking on the micro level, think macro. Yeah, it could sound like, I agree this is worth talking about. And you know what? All of a sudden you're going to instantly go down that you don't have to feel like we're about to be in an argument, a fight.

Why?

Because I just agreed with you. You don't really care about what I just used the words. I agree. I agree. This is an important discussion. I agree. This is a topic for us to talk about. I agree that we should do something about that. Yeah. Just hearing that phrase or what's been helpful. That's helpful to know. Thank you. They go, oh, because why? Everybody loves to feel helpful.

Yeah.

Like they've, they've actually invested in their own mutual understanding. Or you can use a phrase. What I've learned, we could have a conversation, we're about to have an argument, and I say, well, what I've learned is this is really important to you. And they're going to go, yes, like, yeah, absolutely, because you're making them feel heard, you're making them feel acknowledged in that sense, and they're not going to get nearly as worked up. Another quick little trick is if you feel like there's about to be an argument, ask the question, is this an argument? Mm. Nobody ever says yes. They will always, most always say, no, no, we're just having a conversation. You go, okay, I want to make sure we're having a conversation.

That's a good one.

And then now from then on, everybody's very clear. Everybody, we're just having a conversation.

This is not an argument.

This isn't, this isn't, this is not an argument. And then people be very cognizant of they're not, they're not arguing. But, um, except for my son. This was probably like 3 weeks ago. My son's 7, and, uh, I needed him to go upstairs and brush his teeth, and he didn't want to do that. He had, he had other thoughts about it. And I said, are you arguing with me? And he kind of like summoned himself and goes, yes, yes, I am. And I was so— and I was like, I was like, nice. This is what I said. I was like, nice job, man. Like I said, give me, give me some. Like, we pound that. I said, give me some. Okay, let's keep talking about it. On the way to brush your teeth, you know, this is what's going to happen. But yeah, I was so proud in that moment of, you know, kind of just summoning himself. But that's, that's a great little way to be able to say, yeah, I want to— are we— is this an argument right now? They'll say, no, no, no, we're just— this is a conversation. Yeah, I just want to make sure we haven't—

it's so funny about what we're talking about. We're kind of talking about in many ways like priming the, the landscape, you know, priming the conversation. When I was 29 or 30-ish, I sold my first company. And I'd never had a boss, so I'd never had a job before. And so I'd worked for myself from 16 through 30. And for the first time ever, I sold the company. We had like, I don't know, nearly 100 employees. We sold to a company that was bigger than us. And so I had a boss for the first time. I had never really played office politics. Anyway, Monday morning— I always think Monday morning is a bad time to have a company meeting because everyone's a bit tired from the weekend, but that's when they had it. It was Monday morning at 9:30 AM. The boss was always late, and he always came in so angry, so fired up, that obviously I'm not conflict avoidant.

Yeah.

And so I don't, I don't shrink away from that. I'm happy to talk immediately. But I noticed the whole senior team in this business, the moment he walked in, they just became non— not themselves.

Yeah.

Their personalities disappeared. They didn't have an opinion, they just agreed with him. And I remember thinking, like, you're getting the worst outcome in your company ever because you're getting no opinions. Everyone's terrified of you. Uh, and I, I took away from that that you should be intentional about how you carry yourself, you know, like maybe you have to take a step outside the door and take a breath and be like, okay, I'm gonna go in so that I bring a great energy into the room. And I feel like that's a great bit of advice to— if you want to have good conversations and good, you know, if you know that you're close to an argument, set the scene with like good happy energy.

Yes.

Because again, if you go in in this sort of combat, high-energy, angsty, you're going to get the same thing reflected at you.

Yes, we, uh, we mirror other people. If, if I came in here and I was just really hyper, I was just really hyped up and I just said things, I mean, you're going to feel a little bit more anxious. Yeah, but because I talk a little slower, the other person's naturally going to talk a little bit slower, a little bit more at ease. We mirror each other's energy. So for every leader out there, people mirror your frequency. They want to match your frequency. And so often the voice of the the brand is reflective of the voice of the leader. That's just how it— that works. And so another wonderful skill is to slow things down. I know we talked at the beginning, but if you want to avoid the argument, or at least have less arguments, have more conversations on a time frame that is yours, not theirs. So too many times people come in and try to force a conversation on you right now. When you're not ready, you're not mentally prepared for it, you're not emotionally prepared for it. Maybe it's the very end of the day when you're tired. Maybe it's brand new in the morning where you're just trying to get a lay of the landscape. When people try to force conversations on you on their time frame, we often kind of resent it. Like, I don't really want to talk about this right now, but yeah, I will. And then you, you start to get in a negative, negative space. How different is it too You might get an email one day, and in that moment, maybe it's an email that you read to be really snarky, and you just want to reply and get it all out right then. But if you wait to the next day and you read that email again, you go, I don't even need to respond to this. Time has a way. It is. Time has a way of sifting out what is important. So time is a wonderful thing, and that's That's a great way to avoid an argument.

I would really like, for everyone watching, I would take that as, as like the, the most practical tip I think for avoiding modern conflict. Conflict over email. Yeah, you know, if you get an email from someone— I was so fiery in my 20s that I would bite back immediately at anything, whereas now I have the rule that if an email upsets me, I will, I will write the response because I find it therapeutic. Yeah, but I'll write it in a Word document. There we go. Then I'll give it 24 hours, I'll come back, so I wouldn't even I'm not going to care anymore.

Yep. Isn't that wild? Almost every time you won't care anymore. Yeah. You just realize it's not worth— it's not worth your time. It's not worth the emotional energy because it doesn't stop when you send it. When you send the quick biting response back, you're still thinking about it. You're waiting. You're checking to see if they respond. You're waiting to bite back again. And it's just emotionally— it's emotional drainage. I mean, it's just— you're wasting it. You're wasting energy on something that could be a lot more productive and more effective. In your life.

One of the things you've said is if you win the argument, you lose the company. And I thought about that, yeah, uh, a huge amount, because I feel like winning the argument very rarely ever gets you what you want.

I, I can't imagine ever really getting what you want by winning an argument. No, it's— when you win an argument, you will lose the relationship, you will lose the company, certainly the company that you deep. You know, there is something about it where, you know, who listening here wants to be around somebody who always has to have the last word, always has to be right, always will just beat their head against the wall until they're the last one standing? And you find that that's not somebody you want to be with. That's not my— I mean, you're now the person that people complain about that they don't want to be around. And it's such a half glass full mentality. All you've won is their contempt. All you've won is people who want to avoid you, and that means people who don't want to tell you the truth. You're surrounding yourself with people who are not making you better because you're just— you're listening to your own song play over and over. You're just listening to your own words, and nobody's going to want to be around that person. Oh, you know, when you're in a fight with your spouse, let's say, and you say the mean thing and they say the mean thing, and the only person who wins is the person who says the worst thing. Yeah, who said the ugliest thing, who yelled the most, because eventually the argument has to stop or stall. And the person who said the ugliest thing last, which we might consider a win, is now the first person up to apologize. You know, that's all— that's all you've won is the— you've won the awkward silence when you have to and move past them in the kitchen to get that bowl that they're standing right in front of, you know. I mean, what have you really done? You haven't accomplished anything. Certainly not a win.

For all the people listening who have like conflict and arguments with family members, I find like that is often even more challenging than work and so forth because it's very hard to see eye to eye with family, and you will go the distance in an argument with family. Yeah, more than you will with, with people that you're not close with, for sure. But I suppose that to your point there, like, if you win an argument with a family member, you often can risk the relationship. But how can you be okay with not winning arguments? How can you be okay with taking the high road, as it were? You know, like knowing that your family member thinks that they're right and you're okay with that even though you know that they're not.

Yeah, it's It is a mindset of making sure your ego doesn't get in the way. My dad would do this thing where I would, I would come in and complain about something maybe my mom had said, you know, a decision she had made about something, and he'd say, so? I was like, no, you don't understand. And I'd rephrase it a different way.

Did I not say anything?

So? Like, what he was doing was he was trying to say, and your point? Is? What are you trying to make? And he would always say, you know, don't make this your Alamo. In other words, don't make this— that's in Texas— say, don't make this the hill you want to die on. Is this really the point? Is this really the most important thing in the world to you? They want to believe this about this political party. And are you really going to personally take this to make this your single mission in your life? Really? Is that really what you want to do instead of just loving the person, just trying to be there with the person. It's a switch of mindset of, okay, instead of trying to win the argument, find out what is winning. You know, keeping your peace.

Yeah.

Keeping your mental health.

Keeping the relationship.

Keeping the relationship.

Yeah.

Keeping more positive things in your life. Feeling like you have less weight to carry. Like that, that's winning. I will gladly trade I've yet to find anybody who would trade money for more chaos. Like, there is such an unspeakable value around peace of mind. Simple is always so much better when you can just live simply, when you can have less chaos. It's always the same thing. More money, more what? Problems. You know what I mean?

So I wrote a song about that.

Yeah, yeah, just. Yeah, exactly. And so it's, it's that same, that same mentality of understanding that— stop bringing on more to your plate by attending every argument you're invited to.

One of the things you said at the start was you don't have to have an opinion on everything, right? And I think that is one of the most important things if you want to have a peaceful life. And I find, like, I find people will often try and hide from their own problems and their own challenges by having an opinion on everything. Like, I find that people's total obsession with politics and the, you know, what's going on in their countries when their own life is often a mess. Yeah, I find that maybe it's like they've put their head in the sand because they don't want to deal with their life, and so they have such intense opinions about politics. Yeah. Um, and I find like it's so much easier to have peace in your life, to have less conflict and less arguments if you try not to have an opinion on everything, right?

Yeah, they have. It's funny how people often try to have opinions and involvement around people they will never meet. Yeah. Versus opinions and involvement of the person who's sleeping right next to them. Mm. That we will create these scenarios around truly issues that will never really touch our lives, making big things about something that will never really affect them, and yet won't give that same attention and energy to the person sitting right across from us. And it's, it's an easy trap because we are— have now been trained to be opinion-making machines. Something happens in the world, the first thing that gets asked, you know, you get the same question, what's your opinion on one, there's a lot of peace in not having an opinion. You know, I don't have an opinion on it. Or two, not sharing your opinion. You could— did you know you can have an opinion and not share it? You know, it's crazy. Yeah, it's wild how that works. You could just not say it. Yeah, just keep it in your head. But we have this with social media, you know, Facebook. What was the first thing that Facebook started asking when we had it, when it was brand new? It would be, what are you thinking? What are you doing? And we felt that people should be interested. If I— remember how basic it was before even pictures? It would be like, Jefferson is eating spaghetti. You know what I mean? Like, it was like trying to— and you'd get likes off that.

People—

we feel like people should be interested in every single bit about our life. It doesn't matter what we do. We post a million pictures of our vacation that nobody was at, you know. And it was— we have this, in my opinion, a very slanted view that everybody is very obsessed with me.

Yeah.

With what I think, what I'm doing, what I have, and that so if I share an opinion to my 8 followers on social media that everybody has to agree with and everybody's interested in it.

Yeah.

Where Truly, the peace of mind is knowing that I don't have to share an opinion and I don't have to have an opinion on it. In fact, it's healthier sometimes if you don't. I'm not saying don't care about your world. I'm not saying not be interested and involved in being up to— I do think we have a responsibility to know what's happening in the world, but not at the cost of not knowing what's happening in your own.

Well, that's it, isn't it? Yeah, it's a priority. I think a good exercise for people would be when someone does ask your opinion, you can say, I don't know if I've researched it enough to have like a, a good opinion on it, but when I do, I'll let you know. And like, the funny thing is, I say that a lot in conversation when there's conflict around me, and my wife always says, the funny thing is, he genuinely, he genuinely doesn't know. Like, he, he has blocked it out to the point where that's not a priority for him. And I think you can I feel like— I don't know why, but I grew up being so obsessed with politics. I was a, um, my one and only job actually was I worked as a political correspondent for CBS News in Washington, DC, which is a bizarre job. Um, but I found like politics had just taken over my life, like it was more important than everything else that I was doing. And so forcing myself not to have an opinion on the minutia, I just had so much time back. In my own life to think about my own thing.

Yeah. And I find out that happens.

Yeah, it's kind of like people's obsession with sport. Like, I love sport, but when you make part of your personality it, you sort of, you know, you lose a bit of the, the time to focus on yourself.

What I've seen in that same kind of— and I think that's spot on. And so for people who, let's say, has a parent who's just obsessed with what's happening in politics and obsessed with having an opinion, and that's created own conflict in your own life, A lot of the times I find that people who are not fulfilled personally find a way to fulfill it in anything else. It can be the crowd, the music, whatever they're— whatever they're pulling themselves into is often a reflection of how empty they are. And so in that, in that particular aspect, I don't mean as them as a person. So it's often them feeling the need that they are in it, that they can have an argument, that they feel alive for a little bit. So like my grandfather, for example, you know, he, he has become extremely, uh, involved in a particular news outlet to where that's all he wants to talk about.

Yeah, yeah.

And so because— and he, all he wants to do is know my opinion on it, and sometimes they're at odds. And so he always wants to kind of create this sense of, of he's still in the world, he's still here, he has an opinion, he can— he, he's the one that writes it on Facebook and then wants to argue with everybody about it. Why? Because it makes him feel alive in that moment, that he's still relevant, he's still there. And instead of always arguing about it, if you kind of see what's happening on the other side of it— like, I have it with sometimes older attorneys, I might have a hearing with them, Chris, and the judge knows that this is an attorney who might be, I'm gonna say, set in their 70s, 80s, and they know they're kind of out of time. They're not up to date on the law. They're not online researching. They're still looking at books. You know, they know time has kind of gotten away from them in some sense. They will be the ugliest in hearings. They can have a hearing over something simple and they kind of get really worked up and they're kind of just, you know, and they start yelling and getting after it and the judge is just listening and he'll say, wonderful job, Mr. Williams, thank you very much. And they'll say, Mr. Fisher. And why? Because that attorney feels like I still got it. I still matter. I'm still like— he just needed to feel like he could stretch out and matter in that instant. So when you can see the person behind it, there's nothing personal. They're just wanting to feel connection. That, that will— that's the better mindset of understanding the people who so wrapped and raptured in that. Yeah. Are the people who are still wanting more connection with people.

It's a lot in that.

Yeah.

One of the things I didn't ask you earlier is that in an argument you actually have a framework. So you call it frame.

Yes.

That's about understanding what they're looking for in the argument.

Yeah, somewhat. So we have— this is a framework of how to have a difficult conversation. People often know they have to say something difficult or maybe something sensitive, but they don't know how to bring it up. And we have the tendency to lead with terrible stuff. We typically will lead with small talk. Yeah, yeah. So let's say, I don't know, let's say that this is my office and you just sat down and I had emailed you. I said, Chris, we need to talk.

Are you firing me?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we need to talk. Please come to my office. You think, well, this is my last day.

This is it.

You know, I think we think we immediately think the negative. Yeah, immediately go, okay, well, I guess I'm being fired, about to be sacked. You sit down and I begin with, so how are you, Chris? How are you? You good? How's your, how's your, how's your mom? You good? You guys, your family? Yeah, good. This weather, this weather outside. Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? Yeah. Did you see, did you see the TV last night? And you're going, what's happening here? What's, what's going on?

And of course, yeah.

And but you're going, yeah, I'm not. And you're pretending like everything's good. And on the inside you're going, something is terribly wrong. Everything, all your alarms are going off. Yeah. And I say this phrase, I go, so listen, like right there, you know, it's just, it's all going south. And then we start what we typically start talking in past tense. We say something like, well, you know what, you've been such a wonderful team member here and we've loved having you and we've just, you've been sitting like, why are we talking in the past here? What's, what's happening? Instead of that, which is what I teach, is just not kind. That kind of stuff is not very kind. You want to be direct. You— it's a 3-part framework for how to frame a difficult conversation. It's a structure of how to have them. This is how it goes. Number 1, you begin with what you want to talk about, the subject. Number 2, this is the key ingredient. You tell them how you want to end the conversation, how you want to leave the conversation. What I say, what you want to walk away with. 3, get their buy-in into that frame. So let's put it, uh, for example, we have to do the same thing. Instead of "we need to talk," I say, "Chris, when you have 5 minutes around 3 PM, do you mind stopping in the office?" We set a time for it. You come down, you sit down, and I say, "I need to talk with you about some comments you made at yesterday's meeting, and I want to walk away from that conversation with the understanding we can't have that again. Does that sound good? You're gonna go, yeah, that sounds good. Why? Because I told you exactly what we're going to talk about.

Yep.

Where the finish line is. And then I got your buy-in into that frame, like an implicit contract. You're going to want to— you agree to talk about this subject, and now you'll be in it with me. And there's so much anxiety that gets removed when you tell somebody where you're wanting to go, where do we get off, We often will start having these conversations and people, they'll wait until they're talking to figure out what they want to say. And that means you've ever been in a conversation and they just keep talking in circles and they'll, or they'll say something like, well, you know, long story short is, and you go, why'd you have to tell me the long story? Why can't you just, why couldn't you have just told me the short one? You know, why can we, I say all that to say, why'd you have to say all that? Why couldn't you say this instead? So it's a wonderful framework of, getting right to the point.

That's so funny. I haven't thought of this for so long, but when I did get fired from my own company, it took maybe 15 minutes to get to the point.

Yeah.

And because I'm so okay with conflict, I was like, should we get to the point of this conversation?

Yeah.

And they were like, unfortunately, we're letting you know today. And I was like, okay, okay, now where the conversation stop, right? So I'm asking with my family when you're— you're gonna fire me in 3 seconds' time.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Another way is to label the conversation. So imagine had they, instead of giving these 15 minutes and then saying, "This is your last day," at the very end, which again isn't very kind, is it, for them? It's disingenuous. It's because they didn't really do it for you. That soft landing isn't for you, it's for them to make themselves feel better, right? And so instead, label the conversation. Had they sat you down and go, "Chris, this is gonna be a difficult conversation," We need to— we need to part ways. Or saying, this is— this might come as a surprise to you. And you kind of take a beat. It allows you to ready yourself, and then they deliver the news. So if you can frame the conversation, if you're about to— today, today, listening, if you're about to have a very sensitive conversation, it doesn't matter if you have to give bad news, you're going to have to let somebody go. We're giving you easy-to-use tools right now, and you label the conversation. So use— first thing out of your mouth should be This is going to be a difficult conversation. You're not going to like what I have to say. This is going to be hard to talk about. I'm not looking forward to this conversation, or this might come as a shock to you. Any of these little ways to frame, immediately label the conversation, give it a pause, and then give the news. Don't, don't wait until the very end.

So you're a career lawyer. You've obviously worked in corporate, you've run your own company. So what does it mean to argue like a lawyer?

Mm. Are you very specifically— in other words, you're choosing your battles. People have the tendency to want to pick a fight with every single little thing. A lawyer, an attorney understands at the very end of the trial, the jurors are given a very short list of questions, meaning a client comes to me. Let's say you're my client, Chris, and you might have 3 years worth of a case. 3 years worth of facts and evidence and documents and all this information. And it's my job to synthesize it into very small bite-sized pieces to what ultimately is going to be needed with that is the jury is going to have to make decisions on it. I'm talking, these are short questions like, who is responsible for this? Yes or no? So-and-so should pay X amount or percentages of what? And it's just yes or no percentage spots. I mean, you have years of information only for the jury to make 3 or 4 questions that they need to answer. That's it. So when you argue like a lawyer, what that means is to be very specific of what's worth your time, what really matters, and what's going to be the easiest way to convey that information.

And what you said earlier, like, you, like, you don't have to win wholesale.

No, you know, I just need to get the jury to answer that question. Yeah, and that's where I am able to win the case, is if I can convince, if I can persuade, if I can advocate my case to get them to answer that question that truly matters. Because we've been in conversations where people go, no, no, you have to understand, you have to have the full context. And you're going, that's— but that's not determinative. That's not relevant to the actual point that we're talking about. You're just saying that to make yourself feel better or to make yourself sound better. Attorneys have a way of scraping out what's irrelevant and getting down to the essence of what really is going to be needed. And you realize it's not just what you're saying, what you're saying, it's also how you're saying it. So I could be asking, let's say you're a witness on the stand and let's say you're adverse to me and I'm cross-examining you, right? We have the jury, the judge, whatever. Again, this is in the US. Y'all do it crazy here, is It's not just the question I'm asking you, it's how I'm asking it.

Yeah.

So even if you give me an answer that's not what I wanted, if I act like it's no big deal and I act calm and cool and collected, the jury's not going to know any different. The judge isn't going to know any different. But if I went, now, Mr. Donnelly, and I, and I got really upset, I'm telling everybody else, oh, he doesn't like this information.

Yeah.

Or somebody objects and the judge rules against me. And I act like I'm cool about it, like, that's fine, Judge, and I keep asking a question versus me getting mad where they're going to say, oh, this must be bad for his case, I better listen. So there's all this other inputs and outputs that are happening at the same time for trial attorneys.

Taking your experience as a lawyer, how can you help ordinary people to say no more in their lives and to set better boundaries with those around them?

Yeah. So let's start with how to say no more. And let's take as a very simple method of people who need to say— maybe you get an invitation today, or maybe yesterday somebody invited you to coffee. Mm. What do you— or tea. And yeah, tea. And you don't really want to. You don't really want to. Yeah. And so you do one of two things. You delete it immediately or you delay it. You know, or you avoid it, you left it on read, and then when you see them in person, you're like, oh, I didn't get that message. Darn, I didn't. Yeah, maybe next time. Or you respond with, I'd love to, but I can't, and you make up some excuse. Instead of that, what I'm going to teach you to do is flip it. All right, instead of beginning with the gratitude and ending with the no, I'd love to, but I can't. See, but has a way— the word but has a way of deleting everything that comes before it. Like if you talk to your wife and you say, I love you, but— and you, you've deleted all of that. It doesn't matter what she said about the love. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it's all the, the extra. So what we're going to do is turn that but into an and, and we're going to flip the order. We're going to start with the no and end with the gratitude and then sprinkle on some kindness. So let's say you need to say no to this person who's invited you to something today. Instead of the, oh, I'd love to, but I can't. I'm going to encourage you to say, I can't make it. Thank you so much for inviting me. Let me know how it goes. Or maybe it's a new coffee spot. You could say, let me know how you like it. Or maybe next time or whatever it is. If you can start with I can't, and then end with the gratitude, then they don't feel tempted to be like, oh, why, why can't you come? You're laying that very quick boundary of I've made a decision. So let's move this into now into some more boundaries. Here's a quick little tip: when you say I've made a promise to myself, people tend not to bother you about it because they almost respect you in a way. So let's say they've asked you to have a drink and you're going, ah, I can't, I, you know, I've, I'm kind of changing my lifestyle or whatever. Instead you said, I've made a promise I'm I'm going to try not to drink for the next 3 weeks or whatever. Or I've made a promise to myself that I'm gonna get really good sleep. Or I made a promise to myself I'm gonna make sure I tuck my, my child in and tell them good night. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Making promises to yourself, people don't argue with. So that's a very quick little trick there. Now, how do you lay a boundary in any type of situation? It's very simple. It is one, is telling them 1) what you don't agree with, like where your line is in the conversation, 2) the consequence if they continue to cross that line, and 3) being willing to accept the consequence. So let's say you're talking to me in an ugly tone, which that's all you've done in this conversation, Chris, is just horrible. Yeah, yeah. So let's say you're saying something that's really rude. I would say instead of saying, look, you can't talk to me that way, I would turn it, say, I don't respond to that kind of tone. And if you continue— if, yeah, if you continue to speak to me that way, this is, this is the end of the conversation.

Yeah.

Yeah. And then I have to be willing to walk away. You ever had somebody go, I swear, if you say one more thing, I'm hanging up this phone, and then you keep talking and they don't hang up? What's it convey? They don't really mean it. They can't. It's all— it's, it's fake. It's a, it's a, it's a all bark, no bite. It's all, it's all threat. It's empty threats. You have to be willing to accept the consequence. But that's— it's a mindset. See how it's a simple flip of if I say, "You can't yell at me," I'm giving away my control. I'm letting you push my buttons. Instead, get in the habit of seeing these moments as me handing you my manual of how to communicate with me. So instead of you pressing my remote and saying, "You can't speak to me that way," having a shift of, okay, so if you go to page 72 and you look at subsection A, paragraph D, you'll see I don't respond to that volume. You know what I mean? Like, that is such a— they have a much harder time doing anything with that. They can't, they can't control your moods, your attitudes, because they can't go up. Exactly. At that point, they can't. No. And, and there's nothing they can do at that point to make anything with it. They can't. They're not getting that dopamine. They're not getting that sense of control from you anytime you switch the you to I. Even if it was— you said something that was very disrespectful, let me go, ugh, instead of saying, that's— Chris, I'm going to tell you, that's below my standard of a response. All right. Yeah, that's below my standard for response. Or that's below my standard of respect. You see how instantly now I say I have a standard. Yeah, you're below it. And I haven't even done anything. I haven't had to say anything back. I haven't tried to put you down. I'm communicating with you of this is my manual. You want to communicate with me? This is how to do it.

You can just, you can just feel how the power of the conversation shifts at that point.

Yes.

I would love to see you in court.

Yeah. Yeah. Next time I'll give you, I'll give you a holler. Come on, man. But yeah, whenever you— even when you use standards, like the word standard, that's, that's below my standard for response, but that's below my standard. People instantly go, oh, he has a standard, and they instantly put that into terms of credibility. And now you're more grounded, now you're more present. And they go, oh, or if it's, um, the fact that you even say that's below, ah, that's, that's below the conversation I want to have right now, they instantly feel like you're up and they're down.

It's funny because a lot of what you say is sort of— it's arming people to, to not be people pleasers. It's arming people to, like, take control of themselves. Whereas I feel like a lot of people are innately people pleasers. So what's your view on people pleasing? I feel like it has a huge amount to do with, you know, self-worth and, and what you believe of yourself.

I like to say it's okay to be a people pleaser as long as you're one of them, you know, as long as you also understand you, you have to please what, who you are and where you want to be. There's nothing wrong with wanting to please other people. I like people to like me. You like people to like me. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying make everybody not like you. It's understanding of, yeah, the self-awareness, the self-esteem, the self-worth of who you feel like you can be in relationships and communication at work, a lot of that has to do with your language, meaning you are using words that make yourself feel less. Words like, like I've heard so many times here, sorry, I hate to bother you. Like that right there is like, okay, I've heard that here a lot. So much. So much, man.

It's a culture of apologizing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Excessive apologies.

Yeah.

These are, I would say, unnecessary. Apologies. Now I know it's part of the culture, so it's— yeah, it's not something that's just like—

but I mean, no one means it.

No one means it. Yeah, yeah, because you haven't really created some error, some mistake. And, um, like when somebody says, I hate to bother you, and you go, oh no, no, you're bothering me. But yet when they talk subliminally, you think, I think this kind of bothers me.

Yeah, they're gonna bother me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had somebody who was on my team when she first came on, she would always start her emails and sentences with this. Like, she would say, okay, so you can totally let me know if you hate this, but— and you know, the first thought in my head when she started talking was, I think I kind of hate that.

Like, just because she might, you know, might hate that.

Exactly. Just because she colored the conversation that way. So, and let's say if you want to feel like you stop people pleasing, there's some methods to do that. One is to stop undercutting undervaluing what you have to say. That's the, uh, sorry to bother you, I might be wrong about this. By the way, anybody who says I might be wrong about this doesn't think they're wrong. You know, it's like, I might be wrong about this, but, uh, they don't think they're wrong about it. They definitely think they're right about it. Or people who say, let me know if you hate this, this might be a dumb question, whatever that is. You're just adding insecurity into your sentences from the get-go. Instead, flip it to use words that build. So use words of addition, like, "I'd like to continue on with this conversation. I'd like to add to what you said. I'd like to jump onto X, Y, and Z." Then you're adding positive momentum into the dialogue rather than going, "Hey, are you sure? I don't mean to ask a dumb question, but sorry about the..." and like be really hesitant. Same for using the word "just." And people pleasing often has the word "just" in it a whole lot. "Hey, just wanted to check in with you real quick." Instead of saying, I wanted to check in, what's the status on X, Y, and Z? You're leaning into the words rather than taking away from it. And if you want to stop apologizing so much, this sorry, if you feel like that's too much of a habit, use words of gratitude. Instead of so sorry, I'm just not getting back to you, thank you for your patience. And you know what they're going to think? I am so patient. Or like, I appreciate you giving me the time to think about this. And they're going to think your email is the most well-thought thing you've ever, ever written. But using words of gratitude is a much better way to add positive momentum into your conversation.

So when someone does say something very negative towards you, yeah, how do you let that wash over you? How do you not let it affect you?

One would be the decision not to pick it up. Like, we, um, we have this tendency that if you throw something at me that's ugly, I naturally catch it and I hold on to it. Yeah, and I'll hold on to it forever. Like, you remember things that somebody said in grade school that you've kept with you probably your entire life. Things that really spoke to an insecurity or formed an insecurity. Things that, that you've told nobody, but you can remember in that moment in time when you got made fun of, when somebody said something and you felt Wait, wait, wait. I'm not everything my parents have always told me that I was, right? In that moment, I'm not the most handsome, the most perfect, the smartest. I realize I'm being made fun of, and that— it's a very crystallizing moment. What do you do with that? One, you're not going to catch it. Two, we're going to add silence. So if you don't want to catch it, you need to add a lot of silence. You say something ugly to me. So let's assume, Chris, you just said something really ugly.

Like I've called you ugly.

You've— yeah, let's say— yeah, let's say something like that. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to use about 5 to 7 seconds of nothing. I'm just going to let that hang and almost awkwardly so, because what I'm doing, it's like imagining your words falling to the floor and me going, are you sure you're good with that? That's what you— that's what you wanted to say, that right there. Why? Because it's like it's exposing your words. And it's allowing you to hear your words back, right? A lot of the people, when they say something ugly and you don't respond right away, sometimes they apologize for you. They go, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Or, I mean, what I meant to say was— and they'll tweak because they've heard it now and they realize that's not a good look and they'll fix it. Two, if you need to ask questions of intent, these are some of my favorites. You're asking the intention of why they said things. For example, did you mean for that to hurt my feelings? Right? Did you mean to embarrass me? Did you mean for that to upset me? Did you mean for that to sound rude? Yeah. Or how do you feel when you say that to me? How did you want me to respond when you said that? You see how I'm, I'm not even responding to what you said yet. I'm only asking questions about the intention and the motives of why you would even say such a thing. And that just makes people squirm because now their ugly is being shown. Like, people don't like for their ugly to show. It's just putting all the spotlight on their behavior. And then at that point, no matter what they say— for example, you said, did you mean for that to offend me? And they said, well, yes, I did, which most likely they won't, but they say that. You go, okay. You see how you do nothing with it? "Okay," or "Thank you," or you leave silence. Leave it with nothing, and then they just— they realize that wasn't fun because what they wanted was that hit of dopamine. They wanted you to react. They wanted that control. They wanted that feeling of you to say something ugly, and then all of a sudden they're the victim because now you have to apologize. It's that kind of play, but if they can't do anything with it, you're the one who always sounds more in control.

I had a mentor once who said, if someone disrespects you, ask them to say it again.

Yes.

So, you know, someone says something horrible to you and you say, can you just say that again?

Right.

And then you're forcing them to relive that moment.

Yes.

Again.

Yes.

Which is painful for them to rehear what they have to say.

Yes, you got it.

And I think that's a— it's an amazing disarming And I suppose what you just said there is, again, you're in the argument taking so much of the heat out, right? Immediately you're making that person sort of confront how awful they've been in the moment.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's the same. I teach the same thing. So you could have the first, the questions of intent, meaning how do you feel when you say that to me? But if you want to have a little bit more of a harder approach, it's that I need you to say that again. I need you to repeat that.

Yeah.

And they go, ah, you know, they're not going to— they're not going to want to. It's, it's all you're doing is when you do that, you're asking them to hear their words again. So it's the same thing of what silence does.

I feel like a lot of what you talk about is actually not, not obviously to simplify it, but I think one of the core messages is about leaning into pauses. Yeah, it seems to be like a thread through everything. And I think it's like, for most people, it's difficult to not fill that silence because you feel so awkward in the moment. But if you, if you listen to what you're saying, it's just often take a breath and just sit in the silence for a second. And again, it will just remove tension from everything that's, yeah, that's going on.

Time has a way of sifting, sifting it out. So the power of the pause cannot be understated. I mean, it is so much of communication because it communicates so many different things. If— imagine the different situations here. If I don't respond to you in 5 minutes in a text, that's one thing. If I don't respond in 5 days, I've communicated something else. If your wife says, "I love you," and you respond right away, "I love you too," that's one thing. If you say, "I love you," for the first time and she takes 10 seconds to respond, that communicates something else, right? There's the way that the timing of the words that we send plays to the same way in music. Uh, it, it captures our attention. It says things, it doesn't say things. It's a, it's a wonderful way of living in the world we do.

And one of the things you said at the beginning, which again I would say is so important in conflict and in arguments and in everyday life, is being able to apologize. Yeah, people aren't very well practiced at saying sorry quickly. And so how can someone How can somebody embrace that? Like, what are the words they should use to quickly say sorry or to meaningfully say sorry for something they have done wrong?

Yes. If you, if you struggle with apologies, this is a very simple framework. One would be to, I'm sorry that I— not I'm sorry that you— hey, I'm sorry that you don't understand. I'm sorry that you feel that way. That's the worst. I'm sorry that you— it's not a true apology. I'm sorry that I— I'm sorry that I said that. I'm sorry that I did that. I'm sorry that I did X, Y, and Z. You are taking accountability for what you did. Two, this is where you need to kind of relate and acknowledge what you did. This is where you're going to say, I can see. It's a wonderful phrase. I can say, I can see how that would upset you. I can see how what I said affected this or led to this outcome. You're simply saying, I can see that my X led to this Y. It doesn't matter if you agree with it or not. Can you see it? Can you possibly see it? That's enough of an apology. All right. And 3, you need to show the recovery. Lead with the next time. So a simple phrase is just to say next time. Next time I'm going to make sure to get your permission before this. Next time I'm going to lower my voice, or next time I'm going to make sure I talk with you before I decide whatever. It's a great little way of saying, I take accountability. I acknowledge how you feel. I show there's going to be an actual change in behavior. Those three is a wonderful recipe for a true apology.

And how does someone respond to a bad apology?

Oh, bad apologies are ones like, "I'm sorry that you..." "I'm sorry that you feel that way" is probably the number one culprit. It's, "I'm sorry that you feel that way." You're not sorry for anything. So how I would want you to respond to that is, don't apologize for my feelings. Apologize for what you did or apologize for what you said, because that's really what they're saying. I'm sorry you feel that way. Like, you don't need to apologize for my feelings. So I'll never forget the first time I did that with a guy who was being very rude. Said, well, I'm sorry that you feel that way. And I said, oh, you're fine. You don't have to apologize for my feelings. What I need you to do is apologize for the tone you just gave me. Like, that was— I mean, he couldn't do anything. With that. And so you're, you're removing the excuse. Same thing if somebody says like a conditional apologies. These are ones that they say, well, I'm sorry if— well, I'm sorry if that upset you. I'm sorry if you didn't like that. Quick way to respond to that is, it's not if, it's that. It's not if, it's that. Meaning, I'm sorry that you did X, Y, and Z. Instead of, I'm sorry if that hurt you, it's, I'm sorry that it hurt you. Or people who use what I would kind of call these toxic apologies, the ones that would say, well, I'm sorry, Chris, that I'm such a bad friend, or I'm sorry that you're so perfect. You know, this thing of like they're just trying to bait you so that they can be the victim, that you can always— I find that I hear a lot of like mother-in-laws, like mothers will do this, you know, I'm sorry that I'm such a bad mother or whatever. Instead of that, just, you need to ignore that. I'm willing to accept an apology. People are much more open to it if you tell them what you're willing to accept. I'm willing to accept an apology. You're making it very clean, like, clear that I'm not asking you to do anything crazy, but I, I do need an apology.

Um, it's funny, I think that is so right, and yet I As you were saying that, I can remember a very challenging point in my own life when I said that to someone and they were like, I'm not effing apologizing for anything.

Right.

And nowadays I would just handle it so differently. Yeah.

Well, but that's the point is like you've— you now you have the confidence of being in a now because you've seen the other side of not. And so having been through these, I mean, that's the takeaway for anybody listening is that if you're not happy with how you're communicating now, You can change it simply by what you decide to say next. You don't like where you're at in your life and how you're showing up in communication? You can change it. You don't have to attend a conference. You don't have to buy it on Amazon. You don't have to download it. You just decide to say different words.

So how do you deal with a narcissist?

Oh, I see a lot of narcissists— well, let me put it this way— people with narcissistic behaviors and tendencies. When I am as an attorney, as I'm cross-examining people, people who are very tough to deal with, and people even in my own life. You handle a narcissist by one, understanding what you're in, that you're in a game, and it's a game that I call praise or provoke. Meaning if you're not showering this person with praise, if they're not the best thing you've ever seen or ever heard, everything they do is touched with gold, then they will turn to provoke you and create an argument with you out of nothing just to have that same sense of control over your emotions. They'll get that same satisfaction out of making you angry out of receiving praise from you. But the thing is, it's a game that's rigged like a carnival game. Do y'all like have carnivals? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where it's a game that they've set up that looks like, oh, this is easy. I just put the ball through the hoop or the ring over the bottle or whatever. It's like, this looks— it looks super easy, but it's rigged to where you cannot win. Same thing. This person looks normal. They look like if you could just get them to understand, if you could just get them to see, if you could just fix them, make them see how what they did hurt you, affected you. But they can't. The game is rigged. So what you do is you just don't play it. What I want you to do is to use neutral statements, statements that they can't do anything with, flat statements, statements like, noted, good to know, thank you. That's interesting. Things that they can't really do anything with. They can't make anything out of it, right? Like, the people who have narcissistic tendencies love for you to say things that they can take and go with. Like, if you were to say, well, I think that's kind of rude, and they're like, oh, rude? You want to talk about rude? And they start, yeah, taking it. You know, like, you can't give them anything to grab on to and climb with. They can't do anything with noted. Another trick that I, I like to implement with really bad behaviors is I get them to think about the world outside of them. So I do this with witnesses sometimes. Let's say it's an expert witness, and I know that this person is just drinking their own Kool-Aid, so to speak. They, they love the sound of their own voice. They, they can never be wrong about anything. If I say Well, if the jury— if you think the jury is going to agree with this, or if you think other— and you think other people are going to agree with this opinion, they'll go, oh, I mean, and they'll tweak and twist how they said it to make it sound more appealing to the masses, because they understand to a narcissist, the whole world is their stage. Everybody is here to praise them. This is, this is their spotlight. They don't care about you. They care about their reputation. And so if you're in a conversation with a narcissist, instead of trying to create this struggle, instead say, well, if you think other people will agree with you, or if you think that's a good look, or, you know, if you think so-and-so would agree with you, then they almost begin to reframe how they're saying things and adjust their behavior because now they're playing to their audience. Yeah, rather than worrying about you.

What are some phrases that you can arm people with, stop people from getting defensive? How can you get people to come into conversations positively with you?

I'll say this is probably the most useful technique of all the things that I teach, and it's this: instead of feeling like you have to say, I disagree, no, I don't agree, and that creates a lot of defensiveness with people. Why? Because you're arguing their point. Instead, talk and share perspective. So use words that hint at perspective. So instead of, I disagree, it's, I see things differently. I see things differently. And people go, oh, how do you see it? Then they're much more interested in your viewpoint. So if you use words that clue in on perspective, look, their take, their approach, however they see their world, they don't get defensive because you're only sharing a matter of perspective. So if you said something to me and I go, nah, I disagree, you're gonna go, you disagree with me? And then all of a sudden you, you're not listening anymore. You're only trying to think of more things to make me say I agree with you. That's all you're looking for. That's the objective you want. But if I say I see things differently, you're more intrigued. You might even come like mentally walk to my side and go, okay, what do you and be much more curious about what I am seeing in that, that argument. So if I say I see things differently or I take another approach or I lean a different way or I have a different perspective, that leads to a lot more curiosity rather than conflict.

And how can people deal with insults at work, disrespect at work?

Yeah, yeah. So let's say it's in an email. All right, let's say somebody sent an email.

Yeah.

Now you can do one of two things. You can just ignore it, right, like we talked about. Do your Word document, type it all out, and have that therapeutic moment. Or what's very— I find also productive is using the same phrase we talked about earlier: "Did you mean?" We have a very bad tendency of reading into the negative. If you were— let's say you responded to your wife and you just said, "Okay." Let's say she said something and you're in an important conversation and you just responded, "Okay." You tell me, you think that's going to go all that well? Or is she going to go, "What kind of okay is that?" You know, is that like a, "Okay." All right, I mean, like we tend to always read in the negative. It doesn't matter what gender, doesn't matter the age, everybody, we read somebody's email and we never read the positive intent. We like to read the negative intent, finding the snarkiest way they could have said that, the rudest way they could have said that. When you respond with, "Did you mean for that to sound short?" Like in my world, in my relationship, we sometimes will just respond only one word, two words, and we might think that's— that might feel in the moment as them being ugly. But if I say, "Did you mean for that to sound short?" It's, "Oh no, no, no, no, I was just running in between. I was dropping something off. I was picking up a kid. I was doing something." something. So at work, somebody says something and you read it and it feels a little bit snarky. So did you mean for that to sound upset? Did you mean for that to sound short? Most likely the response you're going to get is, no, no, no, no, I, I was just in the middle of X, Y, and Z. You see how you're giving them grace? Yeah, you're getting the benefit of the doubt rather than just deciding, do you see this email from Chris? You see this? You see what he said? How dare he say that? You know, I don't think I like Chris anymore. And then the next time you see them at the meeting, you treat them a little bit differently.

Yeah.

And meanwhile, Chris is just oblivious. Why? Because you were just— you were in a fine mood. But I decided to read the email ugly and in a negative context rather than giving a benefit of the doubt.

And when we take it a step further from email, we think about like body language and work. What is the tools we can give to people to have positive and good body language at work? What are the things that they can use to come across as authentic and truthful rather than being, you know, all standoffish.

Yeah, it's, it's nothing more complicated than being very aware of how open your stance is and how close your stance is. And as long as it's aligned with your behavior, like, you can disagree with someone and still have a closed stance or an open stance. So let's say, for example, I'm here in this chair with you and I have— I'm set off to the side. I'm like, go on, go talk, ask, ask your question, I'm listening. Do you feel like I'm listening? When I'm positioned this way? No, because everything about me is absolutely closed. Or the people that are at the, the, the table, and if you want to feel a little bit more confident, make sure you put your forearms on the table. You're feeling— you're leaning into the conversation a little bit more. You're more engaged. Ever heard somebody who kind of leans back in their chair and is talking far back in their chair? Does it feel like they're really engaged in the conversation? It feels like they're kind of checking out. Feels like they don't really care. So it's— you have to make sure that the message you're sending aligns with your body posture in a way that is going to portray you in a way of how you want to show up in your conversations.

The last thing I wanted to ask you about was, you obviously run your own business, and you're also an author and incredibly busy. How do you manage running a business and being often, you know, out of the office as much as you must be? Like, how do you manage that relationship with your team? Like, how can you be present for your team with all of your priorities?

I mean, I've, I've equipped them. I, I've given them the tools to make their own decisions. I mean, we've, we've scaled it to where I don't have to be the one that they go, what should I do here? I've already equipped them with that that knowledge. There is, as I think, certainly a learning curve of people downloading your, your brain and how to show up. Even the people that I have on my law firm and people that I have— I have a very, very small team on, let's say, the social media, author, speaking side of things— that I've trained them on how I communicate in emails, how I communicate on the phone, uh, how I handle my cases, how these things should run, X, Y, and Z. So there's a little bit of a learning curve to demonstrate and document those processes, but it's really empowering them to make their own decisions for them. I love, um, you know, the, the whole story of like at a Ritz-Carlton or lots of different places now that an employee has X amount of money to spend discretionary to do whatever needs to happen to have— make sure the client, the customer has a wonderful experience. The balance for me is I've empowered my people to follow what they think is, is best. I don't micromanage. Now we have, we have values, and it's following those values. That's as long as we're following the values, the values make the decisions for you. And I mean, I just have wonderful people that I'm able to delegate things to. And I just, like you, I'd really be nothing without my team of people that make it all work.

Well, thank you very much for coming on the show, man.

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