How to Kill Someone with Kindness | Jefferson Fisher
Trial attorney Jefferson Fisher explains how slowing your pace and asking calm questions can defuse tension. He compares effective communication to keeping rhythm in music, and argues that speaking less makes people listen harder. Fisher learned these tactics growing up around courtroom cross-examinations in his family of trial attorneys.
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How do you kill someone with kindness?
There's a theory that I like to put, and it's just being in the pocket. Like, if you— with music, you have people that are rushing the tempo and people that are dragging. But when everybody's in rhythm, everybody's— the drummer's on the beat, everybody's in line, piano's good, everybody's bass— everybody starts to nod their head like, I got this, I feel good, I'm not rushing. Same thing with your personality. If you're somebody that, let's say I sit down and I'm really, really anxious, like I just love things, I love talking so much, and you're going really fast, it's easy to feel that rise up. But when you're somebody who slows down, it's a lot easier to calm down. You just kind of kill them with kindness to where if whatever they say, okay, it's not like I have to be direct with you, have to battle you. It's this kind of weird martial arts, just Be like water, that kind of thing.
Well, you kind of did it right there. You know, when he says something that could be kind of incendiary and you could have defended against, which is, "I can't get mad at you. Like, I hate trialing you." And your response was fascinating. You just said, "Oh, is that right?" Yeah. "Is that right?" Is that what you do to deflect sort of villain-like behavior? You just get curious and ask questions?
Yeah. People would say, You hear a lot in communication advice, you gotta get curious. And I find that word, it can be kind of overused. I think it's right, it's spot on. But curious is often something that suggests that you have to really be interested. And sometimes it's just not the case. I don't have to be interested in their bad behavior. It's more of this mindset that you go into of water off a duck's back, where you can say whatever you choose to say. I can choose what I want to say. And a lot of it, people have a lot of opinions. You can keep it all inside your head without sharing any of it. So a lot of people were just these, all we do is create opinions and opinions and opinions. We want people to go with us. But I think the real power is just understanding you need to have fewer opinions and even fewer that you share. I feel like on social media, that's all we tend to do. But yeah, making yourself an easy target also making yourself a villain for somebody's behavior. They want to blame it on you for making them behave a certain way or something like that. So it's really being able to not mind because people feel like just because you said something, I have to have an opinion on it. Or just because you said something, I have to throw it right back. And it's not baseball. It's not tennis. It's not volleyball. I don't— I can just— if you say something ugly to me, Cody, and I could just let it fall. As if I look at it and go, is that really what you wanna say? Did you say the same thing I think you said? Versus me catching it, taking it personal. How dare you? That's when you get into the, that's when you lose track of who you are.
You've like kind of accepted their frame then basically. It's like now you're defending against a frame which allows you to sort of step into their world as opposed to if you just question it back.
Yeah.
And then you call it like you switch the power tables or you switch the power law?
Yeah, yeah. They like the, people say you flip the script or you flip the tables. For me, when somebody's acting poorly, you're kind of digging a hole. And when they're acting ugly towards you, you have the choice. Do you wanna jump in the hole with them and start saying all the ugly things? Or do you just wanna say, how's it going down there? You know, it's okay, I'm up here anytime you wanna come up. But you enjoy that down there. But you can tell, I mean, even how you and I are talking, we naturally, because I've been going a little bit slower, you go slower. And it happens in everyday conversation with all of it. I watch your, the videos. I love the videos that you have of you in the car of like content on the go.
Yeah.
Which I think is so cool.
You do those. You're the famous content in the car guy.
Yeah, but there's a difference. Somebody's filming you.
Yeah.
Like mine's like I'm looking like I'm FaceTiming my grandma, you know, like something like that.
It's very endearing though.
Well, thank you.
Yeah.
That's what you want. You want people to feel the authenticity in the communication. Yeah, and you do the same thing. Like, the content you put out is 100% you, and people know the difference.
Yeah, I'm always yelling at people though. You're very good at not, you're not so much of a yeller, huh?
No, I wasn't raised to be a yeller, but also I was also raised that if you really wanna feel, you really wanna make somebody feel bad, Don't yell. There are people that wish, you've been in those situations where people wish you would yell. Like they feel like they're in the doghouse so bad that they just wish that you showed, you yelled at them. They need that 'cause they'll do it to themselves. But also if you're a yeller, if all you do is stay like a level 8 or 9 all the time and you're always angry, people don't know the difference between what's a level 10 threat and what's still just your norm threat. So what's, what really is the difference? Now, if I'm always at a 3 and then I need to raise to an 8, you can better believe they're going to listen because they go, whoa, this is out of the blue. This isn't his normal. This is different. If you're always up there at the top, nobody's going to know the difference and they really won't listen to it. It's the same thing with just people who say less. You know, when people are in the habit of saying less and choosing their words, more people actually listen. It's like the economy of words. The less you give, the more they will listen. The more you say, the less they will.
Yeah, it's true. I was just interviewing Robert Greene the other day.
Yeah, how was that?
Oh, amazing. I mean, I was very nervous for that one because he— Why? I love the book.
I love the book, "48 Laws of Power." Yeah, I haven't met him, but I've heard he's cool.
I mean, he's in his 80s and he had a stroke and he moves real slow, but he has this huge brain and he's very thoughtful on each word. And he's not playing any games. He's not really trying to make you like him. He's not.
Well, he's 80. I wouldn't either at that age.
We hope not. I hope by then I kind of don't care. But he has— what I like about him, but you do a lot of it in just your own style, is he says sort of the quiet part out loud. And he's honest about human nature. And then he uses all of these examples through history in order to overlay it. I don't know, have you ever read his book, the hard copy of The 48 Laws of Power?
So I have it and I know enough of it, but I haven't like studied it.
If you open it, I wish I had, he gave me his like example of it, but in all the margins are sort of like these notes that he writes. It's cool in the book. It's almost like if you had taken your book and then everything that was in your book, you had put your thoughts thoughts about your writings in the book. Yeah.
And like actually written it in there.
And it's all in red and it's these quotes. Like there'll be a little Machiavellian story. There'll be a little story of Churchill.
Is that the one where like the binding of it has like one side it says face, the other is Machiavelli?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay. Very, it's very thoughtful.
I just left, I just got here from Bastrop from Ryan. Ryan.
Yeah.
And he showed me that book in his library.
Oh, that's wild. Yeah. That's one of my favorites.
How small world. Yeah.
The world's weird.
The biggest thing to know about standing up for yourself is knowing when to do it. There's a lot of people that you— if you always get out of your chair to stand your ground on every little issue, your legs are going to get tired. Like, you just— some people are worth getting out of your chair for, and some people aren't. There are some people that if you really feel like an injustice— like, for me, a driving principle is justice. If I feel like something is unjust, I'm much more, I guess it's unjust, then I'm much more prone to get out of my seat and say, no, no, this is not, this isn't cool. That's not fair. This isn't equal. You don't talk, you don't treat people that way. But if you, if you're the, the yippy dog that always barks at every car that goes by, it's that same principle of really nobody's gonna, nobody's gonna listen nearly as much. It's, it's the walk quietly with a big stick kind of mentality. I mean, when you wanna stand up for yourself, it is this truth of knowing that I can choose to say nothing, and a lot of the times that is far more powerful than anything I could say. If you're gonna say something ugly to me and then I just let it hang, oh, it's one of the most powerful things you can do. Is to look at them as if there's nothing that you've said that could ever harm me. And then they just don't do it as much. You're telling them it's not gonna be fun for you if you go down this road with me.
Interesting. Where did you learn that?
A lot of it is my upbringing. So in the book, I talk about my— I'm the oldest of 4. I'm a 5th generation trial attorney. So I've seen a lot of trials, heard a lot of trials, and I just had a weird childhood. Where, a wonderful childhood where I get picked up from school, like get put in the corner of my dad's deposition while he finishes, or to watch the end of a closing argument. Then as the oldest of 4, had a lot of experience just resolving conflict, plenty of conflict between brothers and sisters. I'm the oldest, have my sister and then my 2 younger brothers. And then a lot of it is, you'd think it was law school, but it's not. You have trials, But it's— trial is probably one of the most important ones because it's— let's say you're my witness, and let's say you're opposing, you're against me, you're adverse, and I have to cross-examine you, meaning I have to prove that you're wrong on something. Now, as you already know, there's another attorney who's going to be ready to jump in and object to every question I have. You have a judge that's going to rule on the evidence of if my question passes. You have a bailiff, court reporter, and then there's probably 12 people if we're in district court in the in the state of Texas that are going to all be listening to everything that I do. And it's not so much the question I'm asking, it's how I'm asking it. So I could be saying something, and let's say the other person objects, judge rules against me. If I act like I'm really upset about it, they're gonna think, oh, that's bad for his case. If you say something and I act like it really hurts me and I get mad, like, oh, that's not true. They're gonna know, oh, this is actually bad for his case. It's this way of processing information with the understanding that there are other people in the room. Even if you don't know it, even if you're not seeing it, there are other people that are always paying attention to what you're doing.
Wow. So trial almost sounds like it's like communication poker.
Oh, that's a good way of putting it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to play the hands that you're dealt. So let's put it at that. You know, I can't, I can't choose better facts. I can't choose the law that I'm wanting to use. And the same way, it's not really winning. I mean, you might have a better hand than me, but it's just how I play it.
Yeah, and can I give it away or not?
Yeah.
It's fascinating.
Well, and the thing is, people think that trial is this whole gotcha game. It's not. Everybody knows everybody's facts before you go in. None of it's a surprise. None of it. I know all your bad facts. You know all of my bad facts. We all know each other's bruises. It's just who can, Who can play the fiddle better? And, uh, it's, it's a weird situation in which when I ask you a question, I'm also wanting the jury to hear what you say and how that compares with the facts that I have. So a lot of the tools that I teach about framing conversations, it's the same way of how I would frame a question, or how I give a big roadmap, or how I would kind of make you say what I want you to say, or how I have an open or closed-ended question. It's all kind of the same principles.
Interesting. Do you use the principles with your wife too?
No.
Does she call you out?
She's also an attorney. Oh, yeah, we went to law school together. Oh my goodness. Yeah. And she knows immediately if I'm trying— she'd say, don't cross-examine me. Like, it's very, very quick. She's very quick to say that. And so, um, it's— there's a certain style of cross-examination where if you start to just steam them out, it's like, nope, you can't.
What would that sound like?
Use short little statements. So typically in TV, you see the wrong stuff. TV is all so fake when it comes to questions. Isn't it true whether, you know, isn't true on or about December 21st, 2024, you were at the Buc-ee's in Bastrop, Texas? Yes or no? You're never going to get that, that kind of answer from somebody. And you've seen it like at the Johnny Depp trial, like people ask really bad questions, really the best cross-examination aren't questions. They're very short statements. And so maybe I'm wanting to draw out that the car that you saw that weekend was red. And so I'd say something like, you were out that weekend? He had to say, yeah. You see, I didn't say yes or no. I say, you were out that weekend? Yeah. Saw a car?
Yeah.
Car was red? And then sometimes they go, well, you know, I don't know. I really don't. And they start going on and on and on. So the witness is trying to run on you, trying to make you look bad. And all you do is just come back, red. The car was red. Yeah. So it's really easy to do that in, let's say, at the kitchen table if you're like wanting to make a point, but that'll get you in trouble.
Yeah, if your wife's an attorney.
Yeah, yeah, she doesn't allow any of that. She catches that real quick.
Yeah, my husband does the opposite. He does the CIA method, which is often saying things like, oh, Like, I'll be like, hey, you know, did you do X, Y, and Z? And he'll be like, X, Y, and Z? And then I'll be like, yeah, you know, did— when I said that we were going to do this. And eventually he'll just keep asking the question back, like, oh, did I do that? And finally I'll either just get annoyed and walk away because I don't think he's understanding me. And it works beautifully.
Like the mirroring.
Yeah, exactly. And except now that I'm onto it. Yeah, he got me for years with that.
Years.
Yeah, I think I was slow on the uptick. It was like, never mind.
That's funny.
I just, I'm just not gonna get engaged.
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