In this instructional interview, Jefferson Fisher outlines a practical framework for becoming a more effective conversationalist. He begins by identifying the physiological fight‑or‑flight response that spikes during disagreement and introduces the "conversational breath" – a short physiological sigh (2 seconds inhale through the nose, a quick top‑off, then exhale) – as the first word to reset the nervous system. Fisher demonstrates how to use the breath silently as a shortcut before responding, keeping the analytical part of the brain engaged and preventing emotional reactivity. He then explains the power of intentional pauses: allowing a brief silence after a question signals genuine listening, builds trust, and makes the responder’s answer feel more considered. Fisher illustrates this with a simple "How was your day?" exchange, showing how a pause changes the listener’s perception of honesty and intrigue. Next, he teaches slowing speech pace, arguing that rapid, emotionally‑charged delivery conveys low control, whereas deliberately slowed articulation (even without emotion) projects confidence and authority. He applies these techniques to high‑stakes contexts such as legal depositions and leadership under pressure, sharing a case study of a client named Elizabeth who, after learning the breath technique, could defuse a probing attorney’s question. Finally, Fisher notes that lack of emotional awareness, low self‑esteem, and unrecognized triggers are common obstacles, and that cultivating breath control, pause, and speech pacing can overcome them. The session includes live breathing and slow‑speech exercises to model the methods.
Chapters
Where do we have to start to understand this? Like, I want to be a much better conversationalist, and I want to be a much more effective communicator. I want to argue less, I want to talk more, yeah, I want to be heard more. This is probably reflective of most people listening right now. So if, if I was a student of yours coming in to be trained by you, where is the first place you would start with me?
Number one, yeah, you say it with control.
Okay, what do you mean by that?
Yeah, so When you're in an argument with somebody, what happens automatically is your fight or flight starts to take over, even in a little argument, even in the very, especially even in the small ones. If I disagree with your opinion, your fight or flight kicks in because your body's saying, hey, I'm being undermined. Your mind is telling you, hey, I didn't like that. What he's saying is different from what I'm saying. You know what, we're gonna think of some other things that's going to put that down. Immediately what I wanna do is say something that is going to fight In other words, I'm gonna hurt you. I wanna say something that's gonna cut you. I wanna say something that is hurtful. Or we run from it. You ever had somebody been on the phone and go, you know, I'm over this, and they hang up? Or they go, I'm outta here. You know what, forget this, and they go and slam the door. That's their flight. They're leaving. It's, I feel threatened in this current moment by this conflict, by this differing view, so I need to get out of it. When you decide to say it with control, you make sure that that doesn't happen. And it all begins with your breath. All right, that's the key. So what I teach every one of my clients is let your breath be the first word that you say. So we'll run through it right now. That's cool. All right, so let's do it, an exaggerated one. And what this is called and it takes advantage of is a physiological sigh. So we're going to do is 2 seconds in through the nose. One more at the top and then go, oh yeah.
Okay.
How do you feel after you do that?
Very relaxed.
Yeah. All right, cool. So what we're going to do is get a shortcut to that exact result. This time we're going to do it same thing, but don't make the noise. One more at the top. Through the mouth again. Now, instead of the mouth, only through the nose. Ready? Now, that was a— now we did that almost a little— that was very intentional. So let's do it again, but give it a haircut as if, like, you don't even— you're not even going to get me to notice. Ready? That right there. Now, that is your go-to whenever somebody is telling you something that you disagree with. That is your go-to before you even say your first word, because it is going to make sure that that fight or flight never kicks in. It keeps that analytical side, that logical side in it the whole time. Instead of going, oh, but wait, they can't yell at me like that. No, no, that's a dumb idea. Can you believe that you said— instead of that, that's your fight or flight. You never even gave yourself a chance to breathe. When you breathe and use that, what I call a conversational breath, now it allows you to go, huh, I wonder where this is coming from. I wonder why they said it like that. Now it allows you to kind of stay detached from that current moment because you're injecting your breath into it. When you allow yourself to breathe, then it's going to keep you much calmer. And so anytime I have a client that maybe is getting a question from an attorney that would be triggering to them or upsetting to them, it's always the training of use your breath while they're asking the question. And start getting really curious as to why they're asking that. What's the point that they're trying to prove? Don't look at the surface of the question. Look at the intent behind it. Where are they trying to take you? Whenever I can teach them that, it's a very powerful result.
And to do that, I have to kind of be comfortable with the fact that there will be a pause between my response and their question.
Yeah.
Which is quite uncomfortable for a lot of people.
You'd think, but the more they do it, the better it becomes. In fact, I like it because it tells you that I actually listened. So let's say, for example, ask me about my— just say, how was your day, Jefferson?
How was your day, Jefferson?
It was good. It was good. My day was great. You know, it was a day. Ask me again.
How was your day, Jefferson?
It was good. It was a good day. I liked it. You see how one says, I didn't even think about what you asked me. The other says, no, I actually thought about the question. I considered it, and then I chose my answer. And so that you can do that even when, especially for leaders, they go into a very busy work environment where there are problems right on the floor, they have to address this right at that current moment. The bad leaders will get very hectic and rise to that same level of energy. The great leaders will capture the calm energy. They inject that breath and go, okay, What's next? Have you ever— my grandfather, for example, I can ask him. One time I was like, hey, do you know where your screwdriver is? And he goes, yeah. I mean, like, you know what I mean? But I mean, it just— but there's something about it where these kind of people in your life that you're looking and drawn to the calm energy, the anchors, in your relationship, in your conversations, the people that just to be near them calms you down. Just to be around them, you go, okay, great, Stephen's here, I feel better. Good, okay, he's here, all right, things are gonna go all right. Because they're looking for the person who is going to be the lead, not just in the conversation, but the frequency of the room. It's a calm energy that you have to capture.
When you took that pause when I asked you how your day had been, 2 interesting observations I had. The first is whatever you were about to say next, I trusted more. Because you'd had some time to think, and you weren't just spewing out your automatic response. So I thought, "Oh gosh, what's he gonna say here?" There was this element of, "He's really thinking. He really cares about giving me the honest answer." And the second one is I was just so much more intrigued. Right. Because I could see you thinking, so I thought, "This is gonna be an interesting response." Yeah. And that was all in that one second where you took a breath.
You can see that a lot in interviews, right? The person who you go, oh, this person is smart, is when you ask them a regular interview question and if they, if they give a breath before they answer, you go, oh, they actually are listening to me. The ones that have this rapid fire of— let's say for example, and this uses another technique that we'll talk about— is if you were to say, would you bring some value? Do you think you bring value to this company? And if I automatically said, oh yeah, yeah, I mean, I think, I think I would, I think I'd bring a lot of value to this company versus I'm confident I bring a lot of value to this company. Like, you hear all of a sudden you go, that's, that's my person. They actually heard me, considered it, and I'm really curious about what they're going to say next.
There was something— is there something in the contemplation which means that I believe you checked?
Yeah.
Like, it's a simple way to describe it. In that second example where you paused and said Yeah, I bring a lot of value to this company. I was like, he actually checked.
Exactly.
He like checked. He believes it. So I believe it.
Right. And that's why every time I teach a client and I'm preparing them for their deposition, what they call a depo—
when you say client, who do you mean?
You mean— yeah. So people that hire me in my law firm. Right. And now that's translated to me doing it on my phone and teaching, teaching people in my own membership is I would say, okay, let your breath be the first word. And once you do that, you are going to be— the other person is going to go, oh man, they really listened to my questions. The attorneys, we want to get you, we want to get you in a rapid fire. We want you to answer very quickly. Even better is when you start to step over my question, answer the question that you think I'm already going to ask. When you do that, that means you're not listening. You're not listening. But when I can get a client to stop, breathe and go, Yeah, you know what, that's not, that's not fair. I had a client, Elizabeth, who one time when I was prepping her, I would kind of, I would act as the other attorney. So I do that often to help get them in, simulate what's going to happen. I would say, all right, Miss Carson, come on, I need you to answer this question. That's true. It's fair to say you didn't see that other car, did you? And I kind of start to push them. That gets them really nervous, you know, they're, oh my gosh, and their nerves get up. It's because they're not breathing. When people start to shake is not breathing. And so she didn't know what to say. I'm prepping her. Come time after I taught her about her breath, same question. Somebody said— and I knew this attorney, I knew he was going to ask that question— he said, it's fair to say you didn't see that other car. And she took a breath. She goes, no, that's, that's not fair to say. I mean, I just left it at that. I mean, and he just couldn't really do anything with it. But the bigger thing was it gave her the confidence I say, no, I listened. I see where you're going with this. I'm not going to go there. And so it helps you navigate and empower you really with the tools of making sure you're always saying it with control. Another part of saying with control is slowing your words down. When people talk really fast, without thinking about it, it gets us kind of anxious. When somebody is talking really, really fast, Okay, I'm trying to understand you. It's harder. Let's say, I mean, I like hip-hop, I like rap music. If you listen to somebody who's rapping really, really fast and you can't understand a word they're saying, you kind of like, okay, I'm lost in this song.
I like the beat.
That's great. But I can't understand what you're saying. People that slow their words down shows a lot more effectiveness when you communicate. So let's illustrate this. I want you to say quickly with some, almost some exasperation. I already told you I'm not going to do that. Say that real quick.
I already told you I'm not going to do that.
Say it louder.
I already told you I'm not going to do that.
Perfect. Now I want you to do is slow it down. Slow way down each word. You don't have to have the disdain with it. Just slow it down. Say it again.
I already told you I'm not going to do that.
Say it even slower.
I already told you I am not going to do that.
Oh, man, that's awesome. Yeah. So you see how without the emotion, you sounded even more in control. Somebody who goes, I already told you I'm not going to do that, says I have maybe 5% control. But if I slow it down, same thing. And I say, I already told you I'm not going to do that. Now I sound like I have 100% control. This is the person you go, whoa, okay, they're not moving off their spot. They're not somebody who's— I can't press their buttons and control their emotions that way.
What type of person struggles with this?
Somebody who would be not aware of their emotions, not aware of their triggers. Somebody who just Let's put it as a lack of awareness of certain things.
Does one's self-esteem and one's insecurities play a role in this?
Yeah, I mean, they play a role with anything. My counter to that is we can overcome it. It's not your self-esteem that's talking. It's the words. The words do it for you. That people who have a hard time saying what they want. It's the words that they need to say. So when somebody is having a hard time with self-esteem, what I find is all I need to do is get them to start beginning their sentences with certain words, and it's always a different outcome. They just don't know how to begin it. So it's very curious on how, like, somebody who rarely does— people with self-esteem issues say, I need. For example. They typically don't like to say that because it feels too forward. Somebody who has self-esteem issues will typically begin with, so, you know, maybe like, uh, and I was thinking this, and you can, you can totally tell me if I'm wrong, but, uh, that's the kind of thing that you typically hear. They're just using the wrong words to begin their sentences. You have to find words that push the progress of the sentence. For example, if someone says like all the time, "Like, when you said that, like, it just really upset me." That doesn't push the sentence forward. If you trade out the word "like" for the word "because," "Well, I mean, that just hurt me because when you said that, that hurt me." I'm pushing the sentence forward rather than letting it drag. And so it's just these little bitty tweaks that one or two words make a big, big difference. If you enjoyed that clip and wanna see the rest of the conversation, you can click right here. Or if you wanna see the latest episode of the Jefferson Fisher Podcast, Click right here and I'll meet you there.
