How to instantly improve your communication without needing to win | Jefferson Fisher

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, to 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 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 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 U.S. 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 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 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 gonna 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 gonna 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, to do the bigger concepts. I always give practical takeaways, and I'm gonna give that to you here is I want you to, 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 that 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 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 default. 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 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. You can also join my newsletter there in the show notes. I have 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 shed some light onto you. What would you say are the biggest mistakes that people make when communicating with others? Biggest mistakes that people make in interpersonal communication? They're communicating to win, not communicating to understand. Too often they feel like they have a point that they want to make, and you have to understand that point. You have to take and adopt that point. Not tomorrow, now. And there's this urge of control of, I need you to lose to me. I need to win the argument. When really, conversations, especially the difficult conversations and arguments, there's something to unravel, to find the knot in the heart of the matter, rather than finding that everything about it is conflicting. Because as soon as you win an argument, you lose a lot more. I mean, you lose your credibility, you lose that connection, that relationship. When, if you and I are in a bad argument and I throw that cutting word at you so I can win just for that moment? I mean, what'd I do? You won. Congratulations. I've now won awkward silence. I've now won contempt. I've now— I mean, we still have to probably communicate with that person in some way. You have to work with them, live with them. And that feeling of, oh, I finally gave that good zinger, it lasts 10 seconds. The next day you're going, why'd I say that? And now you regret. Now you have to apologize. And so that win you thought you wanted isn't what you needed after all. You're so right. One of my favorite videos of yours, you share with people how to best apologize, which sounds like it would be so self-explanatory, you know, something just like hardwired into, you know, our psyche, but there's actually like a method to it. So how do we best apologize? Well, it's It's more difficult than you think to do it in the moment. That's the hard part. And I break it down really into 3 bite-sized steps that anybody can implement. And 1 is, it's the apology. This is the easier part of, "I'm sorry, I apologize." It's as simple as that. 2, it is telling them how they feel is reasonable and justified. For example, let's say the first part is, "Hey, I'm sorry that I said that." Second part is, "I understand how that could be upsetting," or, "You're right to be upset by that." You're acknowledging how they're feeling because that's really the key, is you have to kind of agree and acknowledge of, "Hey, how you feel is absolutely okay. It's not the 'can you just get over this?'" It's the acknowledgement part. And the last, third, is showing some kind of future step. In other words, you're showing that, "Hey, we're going to switch this in the future," and it might be that I understand now that this is important to you, or I'm, I'm going to make sure I don't bring up this topic again, or in the future I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. That's the only way you learn, because there's all— there's always those people, Max, that when you apologize and they apologize to you, you know it's— they're going to do it again. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's— they don't really mean it. Uh, but when you have some kind of future plan of action, it's showing that there's kind of a Completion of the circle. Yeah, and also I love how you break it down where, you know, it's important to apologize by saying, 'I'm sorry I,' as opposed to, 'I'm sorry you,' or, 'I'm sorry that.' I thought, yeah, yeah, yeah, the, the— or, 'I'm sorry if.' So a lot of times they have people that, um, 'I'm sorry if, if that upset you.' To that, you respond, 'It's, it's not if, it's that.' It's a lot of times they want to make it conditional. 'I'm sorry if' I hurt you, as if they don't know that it did. Or I'm sorry that you— that's a terrible way to apologize. If you always say, I'm sorry that you— I'm sorry that you were offended, you don't apologize for their feelings. Apologize for what you did, you know, apologize for what you said. So it's always, I'm sorry that I— it's taking that extra step of accountability.

A lot of people don't like losing in life. They don't like losing games. They don't like losing anything, anything, right? And they don't like losing an argument. But you say in chapter 1 to never win an argument.

Why is that? When you win an argument, you lose a lot more. Meaning if I say that thing that I know is going to smash, it's, it feels great.

Man, your ego feels freaking like a zing.

You feel like you just got you. Attaboy.

Oh, you're the just home run.

Oh man.

You're high-fiving everybody down the hall when you finally hit that zinger. Oh, this is so sweet. Like, and you text it and you want to show the friend like, oh, you see that? Man, that's so good.

Yeah.

Um, and then that lasts for a glimmer. Yeah. I mean, and then you wake up the next day and you look at it and you go, what an idiot. What'd I think was going to happen? What'd I think was going to happen?

Yeah.

Just, they're going to love me more. Exactly. This is all going to be wonderful. So whenever you try to win in an argument, what you really win is their contempt. You know, you, you, you, you win another awkward conversation. Congrats. You know, it's, it's, you, you've won now awkward silence when you pass each other in the kitchen. Congratulations. That's, that's the prize. You know, it's so when you try to win a conversation, you lose the connection, you lose credibility and you lose their trust. And so that's, that's not the point of an argument. It's something to unravel.

What's the best way to create a win-win from an argument?

Often when I can immediately come outta the gate and say, if you can either ask, is this an argument? They'll almost never say no. I mean, I mean, they'll almost always say no. They'll say, no, this is just a conversation.

But if they're yelling or raising their voice, they're getting frustrated.

Even they'll flip it. Almost always they'll flip it. If you say, is this an argument? They don't want to have, they never, nobody wants to admit they're having or stirring or stemming an argument. They'll say, no, no, I'm just, I'm trying to have a conversation with you. And that's when you bring it down. All right. Can, can we have a conversation with you? And now you're like slowly bringing them down in that moment. So when you want to win-win, it is one, you need to slow down the time when you can add distance between what they said and how you respond. Like some conversations we're, we're dealing with conversations that cost $100. That's a big conversation, but yet we're giving it a penny of our time. That's just not— you have an imbalance there. Or when I'm trying to have a conversation with you on my timeframe, not yours. Hey, you got 5 minutes? I have this, I have this huge thing that's been on my mind for the last 12 hours and you haven't thought about it for a second. I want to talk about it right now. Ready? Go. Like, you're not even at the same playing field. When that happens. So the win-win is when you can balance out. Don't, don't try to have you're at 80% and I'm at 20% feeling in my energy, and yet I'm still expecting you to show up and carry the load. That's not fair.

And how can someone communicate with someone else to get exactly what they want without being manipulative?

Hmm. Getting exactly what they want. You know, one thing that you said in the first episode that I loved, which I love that this is my second time here, so much has happened since.

That's crazy, man.

What's the chance?

Oh yeah, that's so good.

It is so good. It's so good. And, um, I—

Paul Evans taught me that like 15 years ago.

It's such a good one. Um, and it's one I've definitely added to my list of just like, man, that's so— it's, it's just asking If there could ever be the possibility.

Yes.

Of this to happen. I'm not trying to manipulate you. I'm not trying to do anything. And the thing is, people will find a way to do it. Another one that I love, again, this is Chris Voss. I just, once you find like collection of people, they're like, I love what they're doing, is I need, I need, I need a miracle.

I need a miracle right now. I need a miracle.

That's good. And, uh, I did that. Um, I used this, uh, I was at Target. And we were shop, uh, shopping and, uh, I, I wanted ice cream so bad. So we got little bitty pints of ice cream, but there's no spoon. They didn't sell spoons. And so, but we passed the Starbucks at Target and she was like, no, no, no, you need to buy some. Uh, it's my wife saying you need to buy something before, you know, like steal that spoon. You can't. Yeah. The spoons are back there. And so I, I went up and I was like, I need a miracle. She goes, well, I don't know what I can do for you. I said that, but I'll try. I said, I got ice cream, no spoon. And she said, I got it right here. Answered a prayer and gave me two spoons. And that was just playful.

But yeah, that's cool, man.

I need a miracle.

That's great.

People love to, um, give more than you expect.

They want to be the hero. Yeah, that's when I, you know, when I said that, it was— I feel like these 3 words are the most powerful words to get anything you want besides I love you. And that's what's the chance? Like we talked about, what's the chance? And the more you can come from a mindset of what's the chance you can help me out with this? What's the chance I can get an upgrade in this hotel? What's the chance you can get me to first class? What's the chance I can get a discount on this right now? What's the chance you can give me half off? You may not get exactly what you want, but you're creating a playful, open connection with someone. Like you said, what's, what's the chance? Or I need a miracle. Can you help give me a spoon right now so I can eat this ice cream with my kid? You're creating an open heart and a playful way of being to allow for goodness to come to your life. It's not being manipulative, but it's creating an opening for miracles to occur. Even those little mini miracles that just make life enjoyable.

Yeah, just a little bitty thing.

And if you can say, what's the chance? Or I need I need a miracle. Can you help me out?

Yeah, man, you're setting yourself up for success every time, and you're allowing the other person to rise up to, you know, be a hero. Well, to fulfill that. I mean, they, they'll make them feel, uh, it's just, it's a mutual sense of giving. It's the givers like you talked about. And the reason why what's the chance works too is that it is easy to say without feeling like you're being oppressive. Easy to say because it's like, uh, You know, it's not demanding something and it's not super direct. It's just a little bit left of center that allows, allows it to feel okay.

You know what Chris Voss told me after this? I said, I said, say, what's the chance? And I go, what else should I say? And Chris Voss said a really interesting one that's like, it could be a little manipulative. Like it could be like, ah, you're like teetering with manipulation, but it is extremely effective as a next step is saying, what's the chance you can get me 10% off this right now? If you're at a store, Target, Starbucks, whatever, can you give them 10% off? What's the chance? If they say no, this is what Chris Voss told me. He said, you can reply with a follow-up. So you're telling me you're powerless? So it's a little— I don't know if it's manipulative or what, but it's like, so you're telling me you're powerless right now in helping me?

Yeah.

And it's kind of like, because he said no. Yeah. No one wants to say I am powerless. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, when you sound— when you have the voice of Chris Voss, you know, you're powerless. Yeah, I'd probably go bury my head in the sand, right, if you tell me that.

But it's almost like another level of, okay, we created playfulness. Now this is like you're putting pressure on the playfulness, right? From what's the chance, or I need a miracle, to you really need something. You're putting that pressure on. Yeah, you're saying, so you tell me you're powerless right now. Then the person behind the counter is like, Am I powerless or am I powerful?

Yeah, sir, this is Smoothie King.

But it's like, uh, it's, it's interesting though, because if you try it— I don't know if you'd want to try this, but if you try it, so you tell me you're powerless right now. It's interesting the responses you'll hear from people, because people do not want to be powerless. They want to feel powerful and empowered.

Yeah, I could see that. And if you, if you said it from like a playful place, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But shout out to Chris Voss.

Shout out to Chris Voss, man. It was a good one.

If you go into it always just wanting to win the argument, you will lose something else that is far more valuable every time. When I'm arguing in front of a judge, uh, and the other side's arguing, again, there's case law, there's a statute, there's a law that is applying to this, and they just— I might have more precedent than the other person, and they can't compete against that. It doesn't mean that their argument wasn't any better, but you get into, especially in the courtroom, this feeling of, well, I have to win a lot of trials. Listen, if you haven't lost trials, you haven't tried enough trials. That's just the way it goes. If you want to spot somebody who's inexperienced chance they haven't lost enough. But the mindset to it is much more impactful in every listener's world right now, that if you find that every book you read, every blog that you see is something that— how to win every argument— it's, is lying to you. Because what you're going to do when you have that mentality is you're going to lose the relationship, you're going to lose their respect, they're going to close themselves off from you. You're gonna be less approachable. You're gonna lose quality of your reputation if all you seek to do is win every argument.

Hmm. What if you're with someone who does try to do that? So let's start out. His content, you guys, is so specific is what I like about it. It's not just general principles. There's actually real phraseology, real words where perhaps you are the secondary person is what I would call it. So you could be husband and wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, friend, boss, and person they supervise. But one has sort of asserted the superior position in a conversation, if that makes sense. Almost like they're always teaching you a lesson or they're in the control position. Is there a way to sort of— wrestle's the wrong word— but reestablish pecking order or at least equality in a conversation? You know what I mean when I say that? That you have the people that in your life that talk to you as if they're the expert on everything. You're not. They're in charge. You're not. They're picking the restaurant. You're not. Is there a way when someone has that dynamic with you to change that dynamic? I started with one of the hard questions first because I think more people find themselves in visible pecking order conversations almost than maybe they realize.

Let's split the dynamic too. Let's say it's, if it's one-on-one, much harder because this person has constructed their whole identity most likely to this facade. If it is, let's say you're in a meeting and that person's trying to establish the pecking order, the other people will change the dynamic for you. You don't have to push back, you just can't be pushed over. Let's say one-on-one with this conversation with somebody who feels like they're more dominant. Biggest thing you're going to do is just not be pushed over, meaning you're not going to continue to chase everything that they say. You're not going to push back because they're looking for that threat. We call it water off a duck's back, where anything that somebody says, you can just say, okay, noted. I got it. No, if I have any questions, I'll ask. This ability to kind of be in the pocket in your communication. The temptation is we want to compete with them. Oh, you just went skydiving? Oh, that's great. I just went twice. Oh, you know Ed? It's great. Yeah, you need to— and they start to compete with one another of how many names they can drop, how many experiences they can share. But all that does is show more and tells more about their insecurity than it does really about any kind of true substance. Let's say, let's just use the word alphas, or the people that are very confident in the communication, the conversation, typically say much less. You've been in those meetings where the person who always has their two cents, the person who always has something to say, is the person most likely the least removed from the actual true conversation of what's happening. They have to tell you so much so that you can know how smart they are. The real top dog is the person that's the most quiet. And when that person speaks, everybody's quiet and everybody listens. So insecurities are very loud. Confidence is very quiet.

You say that about leaders too. It struck me where you said actually great leaders learn to say more with literally fewer words than the non-leader. You believe that's one of the traits of a great communicator, of a leader, correct?

Correct. Good leaders respond in conversation. Great leaders leave room for conversation. So when there is this mentality that the leader has to say, oh, I'm captain of this ship and everybody should know it, oh, who do you think you're talking to? And they need to correct and drive traffic and go, go, go. The best leaders are ones that they don't have to prove everything. Insecure people feel like they have to prove, they have to say a whole lot just so you believe that they're smart. Confident people know that. Great leaders already know that. They're the ones that have this calm energy. In my view, the best leaders have a calm energy about them when they're on the floor of whatever's happening. Instead of this erratic, you know, what's going on? Okay, we need to do this. And they start shouting and getting mad and yelling at people versus the person who comes on the floor and goes, okay, what do we need to do next? What's happening next? Instead of the blame, it's where are we moving forward? So driving the conversation in a way that sets authority. People are looking for anchors in conversation. Same thing in their everyday business. Employees, supervisors, whoever it is, they're looking for the anchors in their organization and same in everyday conversation. So you have to find the way to be confident enough to be the anchor.

Bro, that's so good. You, by the way, you exhibit that, by the way, from the minute we flipped the camera on, even before we went live. There's a deliberate calmness to the way in which you listen. You actually listen calmly. It's one of the things I noticed about you instantaneously when the camera went on. Most of you don't know this because I'm an entrepreneur, but my major in college was actually broadcasting. And so it's amazing that God had this way 30 years later to create podcasts, and then I was able to take advantage of that background. But one of the things you have to learn in broadcasting when you write your copy is to write things with fewer words because you have to deliver segments in these little bites of time. And that taught me to communicate with fewer words, saying the same thing other people take more words to do. And I do believe that that's an effective use. If you watch communicators, they're fewer words they use. It's almost like someone watching on broadcasting.

I would love for all those people at home who are either in partnerships or friendships where arguing happens. Yeah. Jefferson Fisher. You and your wife being attorneys, being phenomenal communicators, right? Having sometimes your job depending on it. And then you, of course, becoming now one of the most well-known communicators in the world, tens of millions of people going to you for this. How do you and your wife argue? And like, let us in on all the secrets that we all need to be doing differently.

Are you ready for the tea? Yes. Okay, my wife, no, I'm kidding. She's a fantastic communicator. Law really teaches you to be concise. And what I like to compare it is I'm a lot slower, she operates a lot faster, but often we have to communicate the same level. When you have two kids and you're raising a family and everything, it's a lot. Our arguments are very short. And the reason because of that is we operate on this very quick to apologize, very quick to resolve. If you want your argument to be shorter, with your spouse, with your partner, with your friend, be quick to apologize. So often it is the continual circular arguments that just tend to roll on forever because you can't really sleep when you're having that bad argument with your spouse or a significant other. It keeps you up at night. It begins to live and seep, and now you're having to put on an act for your kids when really you're irritated at each other and you want to lash out. Being quick to apologize and quick to resolve, that makes our arguments very short because we're fast to say, "That's not what I meant," or, you know, "I can see how that's how you would take it. I didn't mean it that way. I didn't intend it that way." Whenever you can push out your intentions rather than pushing how they should react, That's a big difference. What I mean by that is, here I am taking the accountability of, "I could have done better communicating that," versus, "Why would you behave that way? Why would you even behave that way when I said this? Who reacts like that?" So, when you take the responsibility for being understood, radical things can change.

Even if you think they're completely at fault, they don't get it, they should do different, they should do better, but that's gonna go to an argument forever, 'cause I've tried that. So, you're saying, that you're not saying they're right by apologizing or by, you know, you're saying, "Oh, wait, maybe I could have communicated that differently." You're doing your part to try to make the argument shorter.

There are times when— and again, I'm not pointing to where people are in toxic relationships, people with narcissistic tendencies. Yes, that can be circular and terrible. I'm not saying you should just apologize to apologize. Yeah. What I'm communicating is whenever there is a friction in the conversation, we make sure that it doesn't get heated. In other words, it doesn't combust and turn into flame. It is trying to draw it out by unraveling the knot and going, "Okay, this is how I understood it. What did you hear?" "Okay, that's not what I intended at all. I'm sorry. What I meant to say was X, Y, and Z." So the quicker you can get to that, the better.

That's so good. Okay, so this is what I intended. What did you hear? Yes. And then, oh, okay, well, that's not what I intended. Here's this, right? And, you know, I want to just share something that I think is so, so profound, because every time I was growing up, when I knew my parents were arguing or this or that, you know, they didn't argue much. My parents actually just didn't talk about hard things. Yeah. When they did argue, and I knew, I knew that they were, I would go in And I would say, "Is everything okay?" And they're like, "Absolutely." And you know, they cover it up. And we think we want to protect our kids and hide it. But if the argument's getting drug out and we're actually hiding it, you know, I read something where children are learning to not trust their own intuition. 'Cause they're saying, "Is everything okay?" We're like, "Oh, it's fine, it's fine." They know it's not.

[Speaker] Yeah, they can sense it.

[Speaker] They sense it. And we're saying, "Don't trust your senses," or, "Your senses are off," or something like that. The idea of, you know, the stronger you become at communicating and learning how to respond in an argument with someone you love in a way that diffuses it, just has so many ripple effects beyond just that particular thing. So, I love that.

I wanna make sure I tell you, right along with that, this happened sometime last year with my son, who's now 7. And I got home, long day, suit and tie, and I'm starting to make their lunches for tomorrow. Son asked me, "How your day was, Dad?" And I said, "It was fine, buddy. It was good. It was good. It was a good day. How was your day?" And I'm continuing to make the sandwich. And he doesn't bring it up again. We go on about dinner and bedtime, bath, everything. I'm sitting on his bed. For prayers and song. And first thing he asked was, "Why'd you tell me it was a good day when it wasn't?" I kid you not, that is exactly what he said. So I said, "What did you mean?" He said, "You didn't say it like it was good. You said it like you were sad." And I mean, it was such a slap in the face of, I'm never going to say it was just good again. I need to He needs to hear that from me, even when the day's been bad. He needs to hear when it's been tough. I mean, that's— and it was just this moment of, how dare I try to just gloss over the fact that he needs to know that I have hard days too. And that hit me just like a ton of bricks. So yeah, no hiding from him.

Yeah.

Wow.

You know, you say, I think this is something really, really powerful because a lot of people don't, they don't wanna get in an argument. A lot of people don't even wanna have a conversation, especially if there's like anything hard or difficult or challenging or, you know, any of it. And you say that when you align your conversations or your arguments with your personal values, that you're sort of aligned then ahead of time with your goals before you go into it. Can you explain to us what that means and how we all do it? Right now, today, in our lives?

So values are intrinsic to everybody. What I value is gonna be different than what you value. They might be similar, but we all take it different ways based on how we've been raised. What values do is guide you like a north star when there's— you don't have any kind of compass. What I do, what I encourage, is that people have conversational values, because when you do, decisions become easier. Take it, for example, with a company. Your major Fortune 500 companies, like your company, there are ones that have values. And when you have a value, decisions become easier because you don't have to question it. You follow the value. If my value is I only work with clients who align with me, comes easy. I don't have to make that decision. I know that that's who I'm going to work with. Same thing in your conversation. So one of my values that I hold dearly is where there is kindness, I will use it. Where there is room for kindness, I will use it. Doesn't matter what they did, doesn't matter what they caused. The question is, is there room for kindness? And that comes from my mama. I would complain about something that someone happened at school expecting her to buy into the tea. Let's get some, you know, how dare they kind of thing. And what my mom would say is, "Or were you kind?" I can hear it in my head. She'd say, "Well, were you kind?" And I would always go, "I mean, probably not, Mom." And she'd go, "Well, I think you should be kind." I mean, that was just her thing. And that became such a value of me of when I'm talking on the phone to an opposing attorney and he says something snide, I know that he's trying to jab me. Is there room for kindness? I'll use it. And I'll say something like, well, you know what? I know you really care for your clients. I know you really care for your clients, Matt. And that really shows. Any way that I can just share a little bit of kindness, I don't have to worry about the next zinger. I don't have to worry about what can I say to impress them. Is there room for kindness? And that's what I'll do. But I have others.

Maybe you feel like that works to your advantage. Every time. You don't want a snide attorney on the call.

Yes, because—

They don't mistake it for weakness.

Because how they interpret it, is going to be how they interpret it. I'm the one that has to be left with it. I'm the one that has to walk away and go home to my family. And if I'm carrying that conversation that I had with that opposing attorney home, why? They don't deserve that. That's not what that conversation was for. That's not why they said it. And so having these values, another that I love to use is, if I can't be a bridge, be a lighthouse. If things burn down and don't work out with other people, well, that's okay. They'll always still know where I'm at. They always know where to find me. So when you have these ideas in your head of what my value is—

Explain that a little bit more. If I can be a bridge.

Be a lighthouse.

Be a lighthouse.

Yeah, so let's say you and I been friends and we have a big fallout. Despite what I say, and I'm really trying to mend this relationship, "and it's just not happening. You've written me off. It's not working out. The bridge is really burned." Well, that's okay. I'm still going to be a lighthouse. Maybe I'll see you in 5 years. Maybe I'll see you in 15 years when life has happened to both of us. But I'm not going to change the light that I'm going to put out into the world just because our bridge was burned.

Or the light you wish that other person.

Yes, yeah, absolutely. And so when you have these these values, and every one of us has a value, and you, you— that's how you handle your conversations because it allows you to— I don't have to worry about decisions. The values make the decisions for me.

That's so good. I love that too, because I've had to do this. I wish I've never had to do this. I had to do this even recently where a friend just, oh, just like completely wasn't the friend I thought they were. And I think parts of our humanness want to, you know, tell them all the reasons they're wrong or this or that or all the things. And it's like, I think when you can just be a lighthouse and go, okay, so it's a different friendship than I thought. And I'm just gonna pray for them and love on them. And I feel like what happens then is you meet the vibration also of attracting great friends. Yes. You know, when you—

when you— and that's your gift.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that's where it comes back. Whenever you send that zinger, that clapback, that sense of, "Oh, man, I just put together the perfect paragraph that's gonna punch them in the mouth." Yeah. It always has a bad aftertaste. Yeah.

Always.

Yeah. It may not be right within that moment, but it'll probably be the next morning. And it'll definitely be a week from now. And I mean, it's— the longer it goes, the harder it is to come back together.

I even think about that when I see comments online. Someone just like, you know, it can feel like a temporary relief or something when you just, you know, get that hateful comment out or attack someone, but then you're meeting the vibration of that in your life. So it just comes all around you in different areas. So that's so beautiful. Be the lighthouse. Even if you're not the bridge. Even if you're not the bridge. What role does self-love play self-worth play in communication with others and with ourself?

Self-worth matters of who you're listening to. It's the question of who are you listening to when it's, say, I have the confidence, or I can be assertive, or I shouldn't have said that. It is the line of who are you listening to in your life that's driving your own value. So much of what we put in self-value is a lie. Often it's doubt. We sow a lot of doubt into ourselves, and that can grow over time to where when you get that one comment from a troll, all of a sudden you feel like they're telling you the truth when really all they're doing is speaking to your doubts. And self-worth is something that you can grow into. And I don't want to say lean into— it's something you step into. Because when you can learn how to communicate effectively, to stand up for yourself just a little bit, you have that self-worth. When you can tell somebody no and it works, you feel excited about it. You feel worthy. Hey, you feel like, hey, I have that within myself of good, good job. Okay, now you feel a little bit better, and then you continue to grow in that step by step by step. But self-worth is very much tied to your communication, because again, how you communicate is who you are and how you feel about yourself.

And how you communicate with yourself, right?

Oh, yeah. Yes. No doubt. Because it's— remember, who are you listening to? Am I listening to my own doubts? People who are negative say negative things. And people who are positive say positive things. It's as simple as that. When you start to doubt yourself, it's because you're listening to your doubts. You're not listening to the positivity. When you feel anxious, you're listening to the anxiety-inducing thoughts of what-ifs, of what-ifs, rather than the comfort in knowing, I knows, I knows, I knows.

These are such powerful tools that we can apply to our life right now.

Right.

And what I love is they're free.

They're free.

Yeah.

And they're not always easy, but we can get in the habit of them and we can apply them right now.

You know, what's interesting is this is so good for negotiation too. You talk a lot about just communication and conversations in general, but so much of this, it just reminds me of a mixture of like Robert Greene and also Chris Voss. And have you talked to Chris yet? Yeah. Oh yeah. He's got— you guys have that same voice too. Like, has he done his radio operator voice for you yet?

Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah.

Is that like step one?

Yeah.

Oh my goodness. And his stuff is— mine, I guess we came at it totally different ways. Mine's more of this like good old country, you know, whatever. And his is this more northern vibe, mob boss type of like, he could, he could, he could convince me to give you, me to like give him my couch while I sit on it. Like that's just what his voice can do. So I'm very curious what the actual statistics would be about the importance of voice.

Oh, it's gotta be high.

It has to be so high of what it does. Cause he would be like, I agree. That's a, it is a great couch.

I agree.

I just, I need your couch.

Dang. All right. You seem It seems like he needs it. Yeah. Well, you know, what's funny is him in particular, I think I've learned a ton from watching his stuff. And people are going to learn so much from reading your book because I— one of my favorite mentors of all time said, if you're not capable of having difficult conversations to the point where you start to enjoy them because you learn from them, you'll probably never be very successful.

Oh yeah, that's a good— that's very true. I love that.

I think it is true. It's the more that you can learn. You say it somewhere. You say something along the lines of it's an opportunity to uncover.

Yeah, yeah. It's this idea that if you want to have a deeper relationship, then you have to have a deeper tolerance for difficult conversations. Like, if you only want to have surface-level conversations, well, I'll show you a surface-level relationship. You're not going to be able to go deep. Like, you and your husband have had some probably the toughest conversations. Out of that, you have the closest bond. People that have gone through the hardest moments together and come out of it will always be stronger. So it's this idea that if you shun difficult conversations, life is not going to be any easier. It's not, it's not the way it works. It's almost the opposite.

Do you find that this generation, let's call it millennials and younger, are having—

who are we, by the way?

I think we're millennials. Are we really? Yeah, we're, we're actually like right in the middle. Uh, isn't that like 32 and below? 31 and below? Nobody knows. It's impossible to determine, but they're younger than us. That's what we know for sure.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Rizz?

You have rizz?

Look at us.

Aura.

Aura?

I don't know.

I don't think that's related. That's unrelated. But so does this younger generation, do they have a more difficult time having difficult conversations? That's something lots of people talk about today. Young people don't know how to talk to each other anymore. Young people don't want to have difficult conversations. Young people only want to text. Is that true?

I think some of it is we're just getting older, so we're getting more persnickety and grumpy about things of this other generation that know what it's like. Another part of it is I do believe that there's so much transactional communication, from text to kids on Snapchat that only communicate by emojis, and you have TikTok, and you have every other app that you and I never had, and coming up to see that— I've seen the consequence of that is they don't know how to perform in the headlights. They don't know how to bring up that very difficult conversation. They have a hard time opening up. Mental health will always continue to be something. I do think we talk more— the good news is we talk more about mental health than we ever have. I feel like we talk more about communication than we ever have. And I mean, all the wonderful things that you put out on your platform of encouraging people to go out on their own, how to take the most out of not just the wealth of money, but wealth of their life and really grow. All the wonderful, wonderful work that you're doing. It's wonderful in the sense of you're able to talk about it, and it's now part of the conversation where 10 years ago, 20 years ago, not a part of it. It was never a part of our parents' upbringing. I mean, it was just, there was no manual, there were no blogs. And so we're able to share the kind of things that we're able to share truly out of the blessing of the same thing of social media.

Yeah, it's definitely a two-sided, you know, it's a two-sided blessing and curse for sure.

It's a beast.

But, but also I think that comes down to the point that you just talked about, which is we've talked about this stuff more than ever. I feel like there have to be categorically more narcissists out there than they've ever been because everybody's talking about everybody else that they've ever dated was a narcissist. Yeah. And so part of me wonders, do you think that Sometimes we are too quick to label people villains or victims, or to say they're toxic or they're a narcissist and we're not. What have you found? You engage with hundreds of millions of people a month.

The narcissist is never them. Yeah, the difficult person is never them. It's always the, oh my goodness, your content helped me so much with my narcissistic ex-husband or my narcissistic cousin or whatever it is. It's just funny how the person they're having a problem with is never themselves. Now, that's not to say there are people that truly have narcissistic tendencies. And you're exactly right. There is. I've certainly seen it. I know you've certainly seen it, that people are very quick. If you disagree with me or we have a little scuffle or we have a breakup, well, you're just a narcissist. All you do is care about yourself. Well, a lot of it too is just self-preservation. I'm going to say things that benefit me. I'm not going to say things that benefit you. And out of that, we find that to be narcissistic. Now, there's certainly tendencies of somebody being manipulative, people lying, people gaslighting. That is a problem. I'm not a psychiatrist. I don't know if anybody here is a psychiatrist. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I'm not one to say if somebody is a, a diagnosed narcissist or not. I can say 10 years ago, I don't think anybody said the word. Uh, now all of a sudden they've popped up everywhere. It's all the same people. We've just decided that's how we're going to label and categorize it. So you have to be really careful with how you categorize people.

Yeah, it does seem like that to me because I think these days we're so quick to judge whatever the other side is on every side of the issue. And what I love about your content and what you put in the book is that it's really not so much about the other person being bad. It's almost everything is super reasonable in how you respond. You're not Ari from Entourage trying to make the other person feel bad, actually, which I wanted a little bit of. You're the opposite of that. You're just saying, I'm going to downregulate. And like, if you decide to continue to act in a way that I don't like, that's okay.

When it's time for that difficult conversation, number one, don't begin with, how are you? How are things? Difficult conversations are not the time for small talk. The only thing that should come out of your mouth is, thank you for making the time to talk with me. Number 2, follow that up with, I need your help. I need your help knowing how to feel about this. I need your help knowing what to do about this. When you say, I need your help, it takes it from opponents to teammates. And number 3, end with how you feel about the conversation. I feel better having talked with you. I feel more settled after discussing this. And the key is you then end it with, So how about you? When you say, how about you, you are getting them to connect with you to say, how do you feel about this conversation? Do you feel better about it or do we need to continue to talk? Now, when I get questions about how to have a difficult conversation, it typically revolves around having to deliver bad news, meaning there is something negative that you need to say to someone and you know they are not going to like it. You know they're going to get upset. It's going to bother them. It's going to ruin the mood. It's going to ruin the atmosphere or possibly ruin the relationship. Or you see it with how to address a sensitive topic. Maybe it's something that's been laid heavy on your heart and you don't know how to start, or something that's been bothering you and you know it's for the best that you talk to this other person about it and you just don't know where to begin. You remove the difficult. From difficult conversations when you break it down into bite-sized pieces that are going to connect you to that other person. Now, typically in my life where I see difficult conversations is when I have to deliver bad news to a client. You know, not every case is perfect and not every client is a good client and not every case is a good case. The law applies to the facts. So sometimes you have to tell them I'm sorry, but the law doesn't allow this, or the law is against you on this case. So that just is part of normal life and how you handle that conversation, meaning not just what you say, but more importantly, how you say it, can mean the difference between making what comes after the difficult conversation easier or just more difficult. Now, the strategy does change slightly depending on whether you need to deliver bad news or simply discuss a sensitive topic. When it comes to strictly bad news, the faster you get that bad news out, the better the conversation is going to go. For example, if you have to fire someone, the first thing out of your mouth should be, "I have bad news." Or you need to say something that's hard for them to hear, you tell them that. "This is going to be hard to hear." "This is going to be a difficult conversation." This is not going to be fun for us to talk about. You give them a pause and then you deliver the bad news. In that moment, directness is also kindness. All right. And when it comes to sensitive topics, it's much easier to follow steps 1, 2, and 3 where you're going to say, thank you for talking with me. I need your help. I feel better about this. So let's go through an everyday typical conversation where you need to say something that's hard for them to hear. So let's assume you need to have a difficult conversation with someone, and let's make it about something they said, a comment they made at a dinner with friends last week. You've tried to let it go, but it's just not happening, and you know that you need to talk with them about it. If you're following rule number 1, what you're not going to do is begin with, so how was this work? How was this work today? When you know good and well that's not at all what you really care about, because what's worse is when you make them talk about work And then you just drop the hammer and say, oh, that's nice. Listen, you remember what you said last week? That's a safe way to set this up for failure. Instead, what you're going to do is set aside time and say, hey, when you have a moment, can we talk about something? Next, you're going to go to rule number 2. I need your help. I need your help knowing how to feel about a comment you made at dinner last week. I've tried to let it go. I have dealt with it and and just kind of simmered on it in my mind, and I need your help with it. Then have that conversation. Tell them what they said. Tell them how it made you feel. And that's the difficult part, is that you have to express your own thoughts and nobody can do that for you. But what makes it easier is when you lead with, I need your help. People love to be helpful. They want to be helpful rather than coming in and making them defensive and going into attack mode. When you can say, I need your help, it doesn't feel like you're sitting on two separate sides of the table, right? It makes you feel like you've instead scooted up a chair beside you and said, let's sit together and look at this problem that's on the table in front of us and let's work through it together. And when you're able to have that conversation and say what you need to say and get it all out, or maybe you just need to hear their perspective of what they meant by their comment last week. It's going to make it better and bring you closer together because it's the difficult conversations that allow you the chance to dive deeper into your relationship and grow and build. And then after you've had that conversation, number 3, you're going to end with, I feel X. I feel better. I feel relieved. I feel more settled. I feel better knowing your perspective or where you are coming from. In it. And then you ask, how about you? Or how are you feeling? What do you think? Get that connection just a little bit closer to, to, to wrap it up in a bow and say, hey, we just went through something that, that was a little difficult. We went through something that was not easy, and let's walk out of it hand in hand. Let's walk out of it together. Whatever it is, you have that meeting of the mind to say, I feel okay about this. You feel okay about this? Got it.

Good. Lots of questions going through my mind of what I wanna ask you next. You have a very calming demeanor, by the way. I mean, we just, we just met, you know, 10 minutes ago, 15 minutes ago. And I, I came on to the recording, I was like, super frazzled, was a couple minutes late. And just the first few words out of your mouth, I was like, oh, he's a calm presence. He has like a very soothing voice and felt my, you know, felt my frustration and anxiety decrease a little bit just with that. Is that intentional? Like, have you intentionally learned how to present yourself and how to show up in a certain way in order to just deflate a situation?

The answer is that comes naturally from what I have, what's been modeled for me. I have, I will absolutely say that I have been blessed in a way to see models of diplomacy in my family and how they handle and address conflict. I'd grow up, I'd get so mad. I mean, I'm a teenager, I'm getting mad at my mom. She's trying to control me. She's trying to do this. And I'd come to dad and dad go, so? But dad, I got this. This is— you don't understand. He'd go, so? You know, I mean, and it was like, man, what? Yeah, he's, he's, he's right. And so his whole thing was, you know, hey, don't make that your Alamo. In other words, don't— is that the hill you're going to die on, really? And he was just so good at like deconstructing a lot of the ways I would, I would feel that. And it became very natural to me in my demeanor to slow down. And as an attorney especially, I very much honed that behavior because my sole job is to send my clients into just intense conflict. So I have to train them and teach them and calm them down in very significant ways. And a part of that is what I've learned now, now that I've like working backwards of why, why is that, that my lower voice or using a calming voice, a slower register, which comes very natural to me, actually makes other people's, their sympathetic nervous system, like it matches their energy and the frequency to calm them down. So they oftentimes, it would be different if I came on and I just started yelling, or I was really intense, you're going to also feel that intensity. So we tend to mirror each other. And so when I come in, I'm a lot more calming and talking about our day and how's your morning gone. Then your body's like, oh, I like— okay, I can match this frequency.

And then it kind of just starts to ease, to ease in, to ease down.

That's for sure.

Yeah.

Let's talk about the, the person who is angry, wants justice, believes they're right, wants their way. You probably deal with some of these people every day. Every, every day. Uh, what is your— what have you seen work? How do you get people to shift their mindset and shift their behaviors so that the other person can actually hear what they're trying to say.

Hmm. So let's put it in a context. Let's say, let's, let's put it, I assume for your readers, it's marriage, it's relationship. Let's put it, let's put it contextually, they come into the kitchen. What's, what's happening? Yeah.

Okay, they come into the kitchen. And let's say they're, let's say it's a wife, she's been working hard all day, getting the house clean, making dinner. And for the 5th night in a row, her husband is not home on time for dinner, like he said he was going to be. And it's not just the fact that he's not home. It's, he doesn't respect me, he doesn't love me. This isn't right. Right. And so he comes in, and he doesn't see what the big deal is. And she's upset and feels disrespected and unloved. And what she says to him is, Why are you never home? Why don't you want to be with me? You need to change. Like, we have to start spending more time together, so on and so forth.

Hmm, that's hard. And let's, let's make it even harder. Let's say kids are around.

Yeah, let's— absolutely, they're sitting at the dinner table.

Yeah, yeah, let's make it more— let's make it even harder. Kids are sitting at the dinner table, they're already finishing dinner, and husband comes in late. So mom has a choice at that moment. Do I, do I address this now? Or do I address this later? Now that I think the first part of it is personal preference, I would recommend that it is not addressed in front of the kids. That's just my, that's my personal belief. I grew up in a household that if you wanted to have a significant, you know, conversation, even if it was an argument, it needs to be done away from child's ears because they don't, they don't understand the context. And I don't, I don't believe that kind of behavior, should it turn ugly, should be modeled in, in front of kids if you, if you can't have it in a healthy way. But it sounds like under our scenario, it's not going to be had in a, in a very healthy, healthy way. So dinner goes exactly as it should. You can either choose to address, say, you know, hi, Dad's here, let's finish dinner, let's have bed, let them have a good night's sleep, let them have a good night's rest. Then you turn to address the conversation in, in the room. What you don't want to do is start off with a why, like pushing the why question. Yes, that's the question you want to know, but when you put it in terms of a why, very much feels like a challenge. So it pushes a threat to our body of challenging your autonomy. It challenges your competence. If I were to just say to you, Kimberly, let's say you did something, I said, why'd you do that? Our immediate response is because I wanted to. You know, who are you to question me? Yeah, yeah. Because that's what I wanted to do. What's right for you? So it works the same way. You have times where if you start with why, it is immediately going to put them defensive because it is a challenge. It is a trigger to people. So the first question, my style is very much a diplomatic, let's come to the root of the matter. Because if you just start complaining that they're late, they know that they're late. So you complaining that they're late does nothing in terms of resolving the real issue, right? It's just you venting. If you need to vent, tell them that you're going to vent. If you need to put a frame around it, I just need to vent to you for a second. I want to talk about this later. You know, I want to talk about it afterwards, but I need you to be a place to just vent. They probably aren't going to want to hear that. Bigger issue is going to need to be, um, you know, where is this coming from in terms of the repeated behavior? A very much more powerful way, I think, way to address this is, do I need to give up on the idea of you coming home on time? Um, because if you ask it that way, they will answer in the negative. I was like, no, no, you don't need to. I can do this. I can do this. At the same time, you need to be very mindful of what's happening in their day as to why they're late. And that means you're asking questions more along the lines of, what happened today? How was your day? Like finding out, because you really don't know, right? Most of the time, if you just Like typical scenario, right, Kimberly, is they come home late, kids are down. Great. So you're just going to be, I guess you're just never going to be home. Is this what it is? Like you said you're going to be home the other week. You have no clue what happened in his day. Who knows? It could be something where it's maybe something at work. Maybe it was traffic. Maybe it was, who knows? So you always have to have a pause to understand what's really happening in their world. If it is a complete sign of disrespect. That they know that they're being late, and they just don't want to be around. That's much more of a boundary that you, that you need to put up and be much more assertive and aggressive with it. That means that sounds more along the lines of, I'm interested in a relationship that shows up. If you're not interested in that, in being with us at dinner, I need to know that now. There are times where I think you need to ask them in ways that want them to talk to you rather than want them to close up to you. So often we feel like the answer is to attack when that just makes them clam up more, rather than trying to be understanding of what is it about, what is it about us that makes you not want to be here? And that starts to crack that a whole lot more.

And it also, I mean, the other part of that is being able and willing to hear what they might honestly say. Yeah. Because sometimes those answers back might be, well, then, oh, there is something about us that makes me not want to be here. And here it is. Right. And then that can lead to a cycle of poor interaction.

Poor communication. Yeah, you'll get in a circle. Yeah, how many times you get in a— it's cyclical where you're getting in an argument, you come to the same place, but it just gets worse.

It just gets worse. And, and Jefferson, I can imagine that, you know, with you having a history, a family history, a professional history, just the experience in your life, the, the the— what's the word I'm looking for? Like the importance that you have put on communication just in general for you, you probably tend to show up communicating well in your, in your conversations and in arguments. But there are probably people that you get in arguments with or disagree with, and they don't give the same kindness back, right? Like they don't think of not using, not saying it in a challenging way and saying why, right? So, how do you handle— so we can still continue to use the example of the wife who's mad at the husband. So, let's say the wife is doing all these things. She's approaching it in the right way, not asking why, but looking to see what the core issue is. But he is using all the wrong communication styles and blaming her and X, Y, and Z. And she's having to like keep her calm in the middle of a very difficult conversation. How would you recommend to continue on in that conversation when the other person is difficult to talk to?

Oh, yeah. Well, that's, that's just about any argument. They're going to be difficult to talk to, especially when you're trying to calm things down in a way. So what has been very beneficial for me is that I frame my arguments at the outset. So let's say I'm the wife in this situation. And I know deep down, he's a good dad, or that he really loves us. That's not the issue. You know, there's not a fear of like, are you going around? Do you not love me? And that's, that's not the issue. It's just he's not, he's not coming home when he said he's going to come home. To me, you can frame a conversation by one, acknowledging what you know, and a quality you want them to have. So if you and I can really— in a— maybe let's say you and I are in an argument, and I can start at the outset of saying, look, I know that being on time is important to you. I know that attention to detail is important to you. I know that respect is important to you. Whatever quality I want you to have at that time, I want you to show up in, I say it, I speak that over the conversation. So if I am the wife, I say, look, I know that you love us and you love our children. And so you get what I mean? At the outset, boom, you've set the tenor of they are now not going to be feeling threatened of, I have to show you how much I love you. But I do this, but I do that, but I mow the yard, but I did this, I paid the bills, I'm working like I know I know that you work hard for us and our family. Boom, I've already calmed it down. That's, that's, you've hit a fear that they could have. Then you frame it, you put an end to the conversation, and not an end, but you put a backstop to it. I want to have a conversation with you, a real conversation with you about you coming home late. And at the end of it, I want to know why you're not coming home late. In ways that we can think together of making sure you're home on time. I want to be a help to that. Boom, you've now put a backstop on it. Say, hey, we're going to have this conversation. Maybe it gets ugly, maybe it gets tense, but I've already claimed at the end of it, this is how I want this to go. Can you agree to that? And when you get their buy-in into the conversation on the end, that's always better. So a lot of times, um, You don't have to agree how to get there. You just have to be aligned on the goal. So if you can get them to buy in on, are you willing to engage in a conversation with me about ways we can get you here on time? They, they're down for that. Okay, then let's, then let's talk about it. What's, what's happening? You're going to find way more success than that in this just throwing darts game. Yeah, because that's typically— we just like to send zingers, things that can hurt. I'm here with the kids, you're not. I have this, you're not. And all you're doing is making— you're hurting them, you're making them defensive, and you're not at all addressing the true issue.

A key takeaway I took from what you just said is entering into the conversation with a goal.

Yeah.

Yeah. And how often do people not?

Every time. I mean, how many times have we been in an argument and you think to yourself, how did this start? Where was I going? Where was I going with this?

You go around, where am I wanting to end? Or even like, what's the point?

That too. You go, how? One, you say, how did we even, how did we start? And then how do we get out of this argument? Like, we've just, we've lost our way. How did this even begin? You started talking about ironing clothes. And next thing you know, you're be talking about, you know, something that happened in 2007 on a bad date that you had. Like, you just never know. Goals, goals, knowing what you want the end goal to be before you even start often cuts down a lot on the fluff.

So you and your wife, do you just have super effective communication, clear-cut arguments that have a goal in mind? Like, Or does she ever get frustrated that she's up against someone who's like a pro at communication? Or do you ever get frustrated?

Yeah.

Yeah. She's better at it than you.

Who knows? She's an attorney too.

Oh my.

Yeah. But we've known, we've known each other since we were teenagers. So, um, knew each other long before we were attorneys. Yeah. And all it means in terms of an attorney is that she just knows if I ever— if, well, either one of us ever go into cross-examination mode.

Explain what that means for the listeners.

Uh, that means I'm— I am asking questions to prove a point. Like, I'm using my questions to prove my point for me. And so if I wanted— let's think of a scenario— if I wanted to prove that, you know, you left the garage door open. I don't know, I'm just making something up. And she's saying, no, I didn't. My cross-examination mode is, um, you know, you had, you had carpool that day?

Yeah.

You, you left after I did? Yeah. I didn't get home before you, did I? No. You're the one who left the garage door open? Like, you, like, I'm, I'm poking, I'm using my cross-examination, my questioning to prove my, my point. I want to get into a topic, Aaron, that I know that anybody in the workplace has dealt with before and continues to deal with, and that's specific to interviews. Well, I know you're very, very versed in interviews. This is the question I want to ask: how do you handle the 'what's your greatest weakness' interview question?

Yeah, man, can you believe they're still asking that question?

I, I can't believe it.

I can't actually. Yeah. Well, there's a, there's a couple things. So the first thing is to understand the question behind the question is what I say. So when they're asking what is your greatest weakness, they're not actually asking like about what your greatest weakness is. Like mine is Ben Jerry's Half Baked ice cream. Like they're not really curious about that. What they're really asking is, What are your red flags? Are you going to reveal something to me that I might need to know? Also, it's kind of a signal of how professional you are, because if you're caught off guard by this question or if you answer it quote unquote wrong, it kind of signals to them that you don't like know that that was an interview question that people ask and you didn't know how to answer it. So it's kind of part of this hidden curriculum and secret language of work. Um, so there's that. So they're really asking like, How well can you professionally articulate yourself? So the question's about articulation, and then the second half of it is how to answer. And I always teach something called the 10-90 rule. So you should spend only 10% of your answer naming the weakness and then the remaining 90% talking about how you're working on it. So you're really talking about self-awareness. I'm aware of this weakness within myself. Here's why it's important and here's what I'm doing to address it. And you know what, it's really working. Working out so far. And you don't want to name something like, you know, a lot of people will say, oh, well, I'm a perfectionist, and you'll get an immediate eye roll. You don't want to name something that's a character trait. Like, you don't want to say, like, I'm a perfectionist, um, or, or this is just the way that I am. You know, you want to name something kind of tangible that you're working on. And something else that's really important is that it needs to be real, but don't have it be directly hindering, like it shouldn't hinder your ability to do the job, you know? So, you know, delegation is safe for a lot of people. Not if you're a manager, don't say delegation. But, you know, something that I'm currently working to improve are my delegation skills. So each week I try to delegate one task and, you know, I keep a sticky note next to my laptop and it's really helping me remember that.

So, so I think that brings up such a good point when Anybody, a supervisor, somebody interviewing you, is asking that greatest weakness question, what I hear you saying is you need to see the issue behind the issue. They don't really care about your weakness. They're wondering, where can, where are the problems with you? Where are those? Can you talk about those red flags? And I love how it's, you need to talk about something that's concrete and preferably something you're working on. So it's not like the My weakness is I'm just too honest, or, you know, I'm too much of a hard worker sometimes. Like, you try and use it as a compliment. I think that can definitely go wrong. I'm a perfectionist. Yeah, I just do everything perfectly. That's all you're saying. But if you can put it in terms of, like you said, the I have a hard time delegating sometimes, or I occasionally try to work too fast. And that might cause me to miss a few things. I think then what I also pick, take away from this, Erin, is when you can have that moment of honesty to say, it's not necessarily my weakness, but this is a thing I'm working on. As I think that shows a lot of self-awareness that that's what really employers are looking for.

Yeah, they're really looking. 'Cause I'll post an example and people will say, well, you shouldn't tell an employer that, you know, you don't have a sense of humor or that you're too blunt. And I'm like, well, that's kind of the point is that you tell them how you're working on it and how you're self-aware and how you understand. And also you're not telling them a deal breaker, you know? Don't tell 'em you're working on your sense of humor if you're applying to be a comedy writer, you know, read the room.

Yeah. I think that's a great point. And see, I, so I have a law firm and We have about 15 people. And then I also, most people don't know this, but I also have a restaurant and a coffee shop. No.

Yeah.

No way. And so, yeah, I've had it for, I think, 6 years now.

Oh my gosh.

How do you do this all? I don't know, Erin.

Don't ask me.

And you have kids. And I got kids and a wife and a family and everybody. And so, yeah, I've hired a lot of people. That being said, and I've also had to let go many people, and often what I find so valuable for people that are wanting to get hired is when they admit kind of the rougher edges of their personality, because I'd much rather them be honest with me up front and then later on than later on finding out, oh, they're not really who they said that they were. So if somebody can admit up front the thing that they're working on— so if it's working on slowing down my pace and working on paying more attention to detail, I'm paying attention to, you know, how sometimes maybe I'm a little bit too blunt, maybe I'm too direct— I think those are all things that are natural and normal. Go, okay, very cool. Well, now it also informs me how to interact with you and how you, some people like to be, need to be kind of coddled in a way, like to have the, you need to kind of hold their hand. And some people, they need the tough love.

Totally.

Yeah.

That's something else that I teach is just whenever you go into a job interview, you want to think of the desired result. So you want to think of what you want the recruiter to think after you're done answering and you just named it, you want the recruiter to think, oh yeah, I struggle with that too. That's fine. Like that's what you want them to think. So you need to craft your answer in a way where like it's just something that they can say, oh yeah, like that's, that's not a deal breaker.

That's fine.

They're working on it. I feel like I, I've probably been in more arguments than I wish in my life where I needed to apologize afterwards, where it's like an hour or a day later I was like, ah man, I was a jerk, or I reacted, or I, overreacted, right? I let my childhood wounds get the best of me and I responded from a fight or flight. So what's the best way to apologize to someone after you said something that you really didn't mean in the heat of the moment?

Hmm. The formula that I teach is one, the apology. This is the, I'm sorry. This is the, I apologize. 2 is acknowledging how they felt by it or how they would feel by it. That's as simple as, I can understand why that's upsetting. I can see how that hurt you. I can see that that was thoughtless of me. So it's relating it. It's acknowledging the feeling. What you're saying in that moment is how you feel is reasonable, how you reacted Justified. That is extremely comforting to the other person. And lastly, in 3 is the next step. The, I, next time I'm going to get your permission before I do X, Y, and Z, or I'm not going to bring this up again. I'm not going to bring that topic, that sensitive trigger, whatever it is up again, or now I know. It's showing that there's a future. Remedy that's been in place, that this isn't going to be continuing. Because we've all been in those situations where somebody has apologized, but you know they're going to do it again. They've apologized, best intentions, it's still going to fall into the same trap. And so it's just the apology, plain, genuine, authentic, understanding their emotion and finding acknowledgement in that, and then the future step. Those, those help you in many ways send the right apology. What you can't do is what we talk about in assertive statements in the book, is adding the word "but." Now, if you say, "I'm sorry, but you did this to me," or, "I'm sorry, but you said," you just— anything that came before the word "but," you just eliminate it.

You deleted it. You know what I like to do instead? It might be a little workaround, Do you feel powerless? Does that make you feel good? No, no. Because anytime you add "but," like you said, it kind of eliminates the apology or your acknowledgement of their feelings. And so I started to say my workaround— I can't wait for this— was, "I'm sorry, and I also want to talk about—" Just putting "and." Yeah, it actually is better.

It's better.

Yeah. I'm sorry. I acknowledge it. And I also want to bring this up as well. Yeah. You know, it's like, how can you—

it's kind of a workaround. Yeah. I know.

I think that's great. It's not eliminating something. It's acknowledging and including something else.

Well, what you might want to do is instead of including in the same sentence, you need to put a period, enter, enter, enter, enter, tab, then begin that. Wait like 30 seconds. Yeah.

Then begin that next slide. Exactly.

Not in the middle of it. Yeah. But the worst is the people who had the the bad apologies. Yeah. Yeah. That's the kind of stuff that can just water you down.

And what should we do or say when someone gives us an insincere or inauthentic apology?

I think you should call it out every single time. Don't let a single bad apology slide under your door. When somebody says, well, I'm sorry, I'm sorry that you feel that way. I'm sorry that you feel that way. It's don't apologize for my feelings. I apologize for what you said. Apologize for what you did. It's that don't feel sorry for how I feel. I got those. Those are my feelings, not yours. I need you to apologize for what you said. So it's taking ownership of that. When they say, well, I'm sorry if I upset you, it's the response of it's not if, it's that. I mean, you're having to correct them because it's, that's what it takes is a continued correction of people that um, understand that they don't want to apologize, so they're going to deflect. People who— a toxic apology that's kind of like, well, I'm sorry I'm such a bad friend, sorry I'm such a horrible mother. It's, it's— it doesn't feel good. No, because they know what they're wanting from you in that moment is, oh, you're not that— no, you're not that terrible. That's not what I said. Oh yes, you did. You always do. And they're trying to take you down that— I'm trying to blame you. They're trying to pull you down, and all of a sudden now you, you apologize. Yeah. And instead it's The key is the understanding of what they're doing, adding distance and saying, I'll accept an apology. Like just clean, simple, I'll accept an apology and understanding that what they said isn't, is not one. So it's understanding that definition.

Here's the challenge, I guess. I don't know if this is like a pushback to you or anything, but it's more of like, I feel there are some people in the world who have very thin skin and everything triggers them. Even when they're not trying to trigger them. And they almost become victims saying, you hurt me, you hurt me every single day or week or something that was said or not said. And everything is an attack where it can become exhausting for a friend, a family member, or a loved one to feel like, gosh, this person has such thin skin. I'm always needing to apologize. Yeah. And most people would never take this personally. And I'm not intending to hurt someone. Right. So what if you're dealing with someone who is a victim and always trying to get you to apologize for something when you didn't really do anything? Yeah, there is— I'm not talking about the intentional, these were really hurtful, you said something nasty to me, but just the weak, vulnerable, thin-skinned person who just likes the attention of making someone else need to apologize to them.

Yeah, there are definitely those that use apologies to manipulate. They use sometimes crying. To manipulate. They know. I mean, it's that my 7-year-old daughter, she knew when she was 2, she started crying, like, get your attention. Yeah. And she probably got what she want, like, you know. So, um, it's, it is an easy trap to fall into. And somebody has thin skin, you go, God, look, I didn't, it really didn't do anything. Here are my thoughts. One, you can't be the judge of if what you did was truly nothing. So it's a hard That's a hard, uh, row to hoe is what my grandfather would say. You gotta be careful with it. Um, two, if it becomes a continued habit where this person is always the victim, always everybody's against her, everybody's against him, the world is never— those are the type of people you just need to get your hands to form slowly away from your inner circle and distance. Um, between them, because there are people that at that point, it is a control tactic that is going to start to wear you down. So you gotta—

oh, it's draining.

People that are just emotional sand traps, that they just— they— it's always the 'you nevers,' 'you always.' And you go, 'We've already been through this. I apologize for that when it happened 3 years ago.' Um, so it's, it's a, it's a careful line to walk, but my advice is you need to start to distance yourself from those people. Now, if you really did something, of course, own up to that. And some people are just more sensitive to others in that way, but it's, um, it's, it's case by case.

Don't get it. What is it? The emotional sand trap? Is that what you call it? Yeah. That's a tricky one. And you can get caught up with either childhood friends or an intimate relationship you're in for a long time being caught in this emotional sand trap. It's addictive. And it's just like, yeah, okay, we make up and we're better for a couple weeks, but then if I'm not getting the attention I want, I'm gonna make you wrong for something and apologize and come give me that attention again.

And it's just this cycle. And I had friends that, um, you know, were with somebody who was like that and they found that they kind of secretly got some fulfillment out of always being the fixer, always being the, the crutch. And it most likely, I'm not a therapist, but probably started from their childhood. Of how they did that with their parents or their, you know, somebody in their life that they were always having to be there as the crutch and the scapegoat for everything. But it is a position of— and truly, to bring it full circle— powerlessness, you know, to feel like every time they're taking it away from me and I can't get any traction. I mean, my biggest pet peeve when I'm dealing with I'm kind of breaking up arguments as an attorney and having to deal with conflict, are people who are circular. They can't let it go. They want to bring up that same issue over and over, even in that same conversation or the next time you see them. And, um, you can't, you can't be stuck in that. You're just, you're just on their merry-go-round is what happens. So you have to have the decision. Um, one time I even advised a client that too. Sisters who are against each other. It was about as fun as it sounds. Uh, they were very against each other, and I had her lead with, I'm getting off the merry-go-round. I said, that's what I want you to start with when it comes for your time. I mean, that was the— it was more of a, a personal thing of like, I need you to let this person know I'm stepping off. You can step off with me, but we're gonna put this issue aside. Yeah.

Or you can keep spinning around by yourself. Exactly.

And I'm removing myself. Yeah, yeah. That's Now you got it. If you enjoyed that clip and want to see the rest of the conversation, you can click right here. Or if you want to see the latest episode of the Jefferson Fisher Podcast, click right here, and I'll meet you there.