3 Communication Truths That Will Change Every Conversation

Hey, y'all, it's Jefferson. On today's episode, I'm going to be sharing with you 3 must-know truths that are going to change the way you communicate and how to leverage those mindsets to improve your life for the better. Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher Podcast. In fact, Season 2 of the Jefferson Fisher Podcast, where I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything. If you enjoy learning tools to improve your communication, I'm going to ask you to please follow this podcast. And if you would leave a review, give it a like, a star, anything helps. It really does. I want to also let you know that my new book, The Next Conversation, is officially out on pre-order. And if you like anything about this podcast, I promise you, you're going to like the book. And for the first time, I have the Jefferson Fisher School of Communication that is now out and ready. All you have to do is just look in the show notes. I'll have all the links posted right there. Before we go into the 3 things that I want to dive into, you might notice something a little bit different. The sound quality might be a little bit different. I now have a microphone. I'm in a studio and not in my car. Now I want to tell you, don't worry, I'm still going to be making car videos, those daily car videos that you see and that I enjoy making for you. But when it comes to podcasting and more longer form content, I can't always make it in the car. I'll still keep the episode short. I'm hoping to keep it at the 12 to 18, 20 minute mark right in there to where it's, it's something that you can listen to right in your commute. But I don't want to have super long form content right now. I just want to keep it in the sweet spot until I get more comfortable with it and see what works in my life. So this is a change with everything that's coming up with the book launch. And I'm also going to be bringing you guests for the first time. I'm going to have solo episodes too. You're still going to hear from me, but I also want to bring you some guests that I know that you love and people that I love that are going to also just continue to pour into you as much as they have poured into me. All right, 3 things that I want you to know that are going to change the way you communicate. Are you listening? Are you ready? Number 1: Never win an argument. Whenever your goal is to win an argument, you lose So much more every time. And it gets me frustrated, tell you the truth, of how much I see out in the world— videos to blogs to books and magazines and articles on how to win every argument. Let me tell you right now, it is a lie. It's snake oil. It's clickbait. It is— it's not true. It has nothing to do with the real world. That's why it does not work. When you've ever seen, like, why am I not winning this argument? Because the idea of winning it does not work. It never has. It never will. People like to say, well, Jefferson, aren't you an attorney? Isn't this kind of your day job? You're— this is what you do for a living. You win arguments. Absolutely not. No, that's, that's not how it works. As a trial attorney, any trial attorney who is in the courtroom You do not choose your client's facts. When a client walks into my door and they have, hey, I've been in an accident and here are my facts, I can't create new facts that will help my case, and I can't get rid of facts or delete facts that hurt my case. I am stuck with the cards that are dealt. Same thing applies with the law. I can't choose— I'm here in Texas— I can't choose what laws I'm going to follow or not going to follow. They apply to everyone here in the state. Same at the federal level or any state in the US. I can't choose any of that. And so when it comes to arguing as an attorney, it's more about giving the facts and evidence a voice. How can I persuade you based upon my facts and what I have in the law? And then it's ultimately up to the, the finder of fact is how they call it. You have the judge or you have the jury, and it's going to be— those are the people who decide what's persuasive and what's not. And are they following the law? At the end of the day, they have to follow the law. Has nothing to do about who's winning an argument. The other attorney might have better facts. The other attorney might have better law. Has nothing to do with me winning it. So it's not even the same thing in the courtroom or as an attorney. You cannot win every argument. When you do, when you set out to say, I want to win this argument, you will lose the relationship with this person. It may not be the first time, may not be the second time, but over time and time and time again, the value and quality of that relationship is going to continue to go down. Here's what I mean. When you and I are fighting and we're trying to win an argument, what I've really won is your contempt. You're now mad at me, most likely. I've won your ability to have awkward silence now every time we pass each other in the hall. I still have to probably work with this person, probably have to live with this person. What have you won? You've really probably won the first chance. You're now the first person up to have to apologize. Often we win arguments because we said something that was over the top, went too far, below the belt, anything that made the argument stop. Just because you're the last one who speaks does not mean that you're the one who won the argument. It is just not true. So every time you try to see yourself as winning an argument, you're going to lose the relationship. You're going to lose their respect. You're going to lose their trust, their confidence. And over time, you're going to lose the ability to connect with that person when you always set out to win an argument. So instead of winning an argument, this is what I want you to do. See the argument as something to unravel. See the argument as something to unravel, as in a knot. You have one side, I have the other, and when I'm pulling and we're pulling, it just makes the knot tighter and tighter. It doesn't go anywhere. Instead of seeing who's going to win this tug of war, you have to stop, put it down, and find a way to locate the knot. And when you do, that's where you have the heart of the matter, where you can start to unravel and say, I'm trying to understand where you're coming from. They're trying to understand where you're coming from. Then you can talk, then you can connect with the person. It is not winning an argument that is going to change the way you communicate. It is seeing the way that you can unravel unravel the knot. I, I really hope that resonates with you. It's one of the main pillars that I use every day in my communication and how I see things between two people and how we connect with each other. Don't look to win the argument. You want to look to unravel the knot. You just have to be patient enough. Truth number 2: Have something to learn, not something to prove. Now, this goes beautifully with the first point of never win an argument. Number 2 says, have something to learn, not something to prove. Struggle happens, difficulty happens, bad things happen in communication when I'm trying to prove something against you. But here's the, the fact of it: the harder I work to push against you, the harder I push to prove my point, the more hardened you'll become that I'm wrong. Because What you don't know is that behind everybody, as we're going to talk here in the third step, is there is a surface and a depth behind everybody. So if I were to say you're wrong, hey, you listening right now? You're wrong. Whatever opinion you have, I'm going to say that it's wrong. But what I don't know is when I tell you that you're wrong, I could also be saying that your family member is wrong, your grandparent is wrong, what you've known your whole life is wrong. We all come into circumstances with different life experiences. So if you've been raised, maybe let's say in a particular religion your entire life, or you've heard only a certain political party your entire life— these are big concepts I'm talking about here— or maybe you grew up in an area that is culturally a certain way and somebody says that that's wrong, what you're doing is just changing their whole paradigm, is saying everything about you is wrong. And we will get so defensive, even to the point of refusing to listen, to be able to preserve that identity that the other person has. They will fight tooth and nail. It doesn't matter. That's why logic does not work in these circumstances. Logic doesn't work because it is a part of their identity. It is their value in their life of, this is who I am. If you're saying that I'm wrong, that means my dad's wrong, my mom's wrong, my grandparents are wrong. And it ties to a whole lot more when somebody likes, let's say, a political candidate. It doesn't matter what party. And you say that they're wrong. Well, you get a lot of people that are fans of certain people get very defensive because they've tied their identity to that person. You have to understand that you come into it with something to learn, not something to prove in that conversation. I get really worked up about these truths because they hit so much at home for me. Like these, the points that I give, they're little quick, rapid things. I'm always gonna be giving you those. I want to start season 2 a little bit different. That does not mean I'm gonna continue to do the bigger concepts. I always give practical takeaways, and I'm gonna give that to you here is I want you to get used to this mindset of when you see struggle, when there's friction in the communication, ask yourself, Am I trying to prove something or am I trying to learn something? Here's a depiction of this, an illustration I want you to have in your mind. If I'm arguing with you, I cannot pour— let's say I have a glass of water— I cannot pour water into your full pitcher. I can't pour new thoughts into a pitcher that's already full. I have to let you get it all out. I have to ask you questions and get curious of, well, how long have you, you know, how'd you come to that conclusion? How long have you thought like this? How things that you're getting information out of the other person rather than just trying to splash the water in their face and saying, take this and whatever, everything I say is right. Instead, you need to ask questions. They get it all out. And only then is there space for you to fill it with your new thoughts. Have something to learn, not something to prove. Truth number 3. This is one of my favorites. The person you see is not the person you're talking to. The person you see is not the person you're talking to. Like we said in step 2, everybody has a surface and a depth. The person who's serving you coffee at the cafe, maybe they served it a little late. Maybe they had a little bit of attitude. That's the person you see. But the person you're talking to maybe should have been off 2 hours ago, or just got a terribly rude comment from a customer an hour before, and now it's weighing on them. Or maybe their kids are staying with their mom and they're in a bad mood because they don't like where they are in life. There's always a surface and a depth. People that you're driving behind— like, this is for me right here, I'm talking to myself— when you're driving in the left lane and somebody's in the left lane Here in the United States, you have the right lane, left lane. Our default is typically in the, the right lane through a single lane passing traffic, but it's two lanes. Left lane is for passing, the right lane is for those that go slow. So anytime you want to— somebody's going slow in the left lane, oh, it irritates me to no end, but I'm working on that. See, I can work on things too. Well, anytime you're going slow behind a car that's probably going the speed limit, let's be honest, You just automatically assume they are in your way. Get out of my way. How dare you be in my way? You don't know what in the world's going on with their life. You don't know what kind of news this person is dealing with. Same way when somebody's coming up behind you, like what we call, um, on, on your rear, when they are right up behind you, you think, what do you want? What do you want from me? And you get aggravated that they're trying to speed you up. So it just goes all into this thing of we like to think about ourselves. It's our, it's our default. It's, it's natural. I want you to see that the person you see is not the person you're talking to. So you have to get really curious about understanding that everybody has something going on that you don't know about. People you're related to, they have struggles they don't share with you. Your kids, there are things that are happening in their life that they may not share with you. Same thing with your work. You have a supervisor, an employee, there are things going on in their life that you don't know. They're having conversations in their head that you aren't part of. If for those that have been in relationships or in one right now, you've all experienced this concept where somebody comes into the house, the room, the apartment, whatever, and you can just tell they're in a bad mood. And it's not until 20 minutes into the conversation, you're like, is something wrong with you? Well, it turns out what happened to them happened 6 hours before, and they've been living with that long before. They came in contact with you. So things happen that you have no idea about. So when you go into this thing of exactly who I see with this person is exactly who they are, and you go into stereotypes and you say, oh, I'm gonna call a spade a spade— that's fine, do what you need to do. Understand that's not the real person. I've seen some of the toughest people, meanest looking people, be the biggest teddy bears and sweethearts. I've also seen the smallest, may say oldest, weakest people be the sturdiest, strongest humans I've ever come across. You cannot judge a book by its cover. Now, I also want to make sure and take a second to tell you about a sponsor of this podcast, and they're called Cozy Earth. And the reason why I said yes to Cozy Earth is because I already use their stuff. Their sheets are on my bed right now. I wear their sweatshirts. Shirts and their sweatpants. My wife loves their pajamas. I can't imagine using anything else. So if you are like me and you like to wear cozy things when you're home, you can go to cozyearth.com/Jefferson and use the code Jefferson for 40% off. That's cozyearth.com/Jefferson and use the code Jefferson for 40% off. 3 truths that I want you to understand when it comes to communication. You use these mindsets by thinking about them, taking them to heart. I want you to just take for a moment and see what has resonated with you in this conversation that we're having here. Yeah, it's a conversation. I know I'm talking to you and you're not talking back, but you are in many ways. When you leave comments, when you comment on any videos, you're— I, I get to hear from you. For those that are part of my newsletter, you're able to ask me questions and I'm able to field those throughout this rest of the season. I will be answering my newsletter emails. I have lots of them that I, I've starred, and I want to make sure that I, I get to do. You can also join my newsletter there in the show notes. I have a, a little link for it there. I want you to understand that when you go into communication, applying these will change the way you think. And when you use them, it will improve your life. When you, number 1, stop seeing arguments as something to win but something to unravel. Number 2, have something to learn. Not something to prove. And number 3, the person you see is not the person you're talking to. 3 things that are going to change the way you communicate. That's, that's real. Those are things that are on my heart, and those are things that are outlined in chapter 1 of my book, things that really, really mean a lot significantly to me. And I hope they've shown some light, shared some light and shed some light onto you. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'm going to ask you to again just follow this podcast. And if you would leave a review, I'd love to have you part of the newsletter. And again, my book, The Next Conversation, is currently still on pre-order. If you'd like, I would still love to have any kind of feedback that you have. So if you like or don't like this studio setup, if you like or don't like the microphone, just tell me. All this stuff is new to me. This is not super fancy. There's not some big huge team. This is me trying to talk to you and share what's on my heart. I'm looking forward to sharing season 2 of the podcast. Got a lot of things coming that we're still planning on that I just, I cannot wait to share with you. Thanks for being with me. And as always, you can try that and follow me.