The 3 Second Rule That Ends HIGHLY Emotional Argument | Jefferson Fisher

You are not a target. You are not somebody's punching bag. You are not somebody's outlet for all of their frustration and their anger and their insecurities that have been built up all their life. This episode is a little bit different for the podcast. One, it's very early on a Saturday morning, and I wanted to record this so that I had the full day with the kids. So if it looks like my face hasn't woken up yet, it's because it hasn't. It's— we're in the middle of the book tour, which is going fantastic, but I wanted to make time to tell you what is on my heart. You ready? So my book has been out for a little over a week now, and it's been fantastic, amazing. The book tour is going wonderful. And as any new debut author, I, for good or for bad, have been looking at reviews online because you want to know, are people going to like the book? That's the whole— you get very nervous. Are you going to deliver on the message? And the reviews have been so kind and wonderful. And there was one that hit me yesterday that I randomly saw that I wanted to share with you. It's very short. I know you can listen to it. Just bear with me. I know you can do it. Listen, you are not a target. I was once told by my husband, you are an easy target and everyone knows it. Time and again, I walked away defeated, even with my children. Jefferson showed me what I lacked was communication skills. From his social media, I started applying these answers to difficult situations. Let me be clear, this is not a book of his social media quips. That's what I thought it would be. No, it is learning to understand where people are and to adequately communicate with them. It's teaching to deepen relationships by way of strong communication skills. You are not a weak person for purchasing this book. You are strong and courageous for recognizing there is a better way to bridge a gap, create healthy boundaries that work, to not get sucked down a rabbit hole, to not think you've lost your mind. I highly recommend, and I'm starting my second read-through. Kindle edition is an easy read. Bless you, Jefferson, for exhibiting love for people. I was just taken aback. I was totally blown away by this. I have no clue who this person is. In fact, they didn't even leave their name. It just says verified purchaser. This is my point with this, is I want you to know where to go in your mind when conflict comes your way. You are not a target. And if you felt like you've been your whole life, this is where it stops. Rule number 1 in my book, there are 3 rules. It's rule number 1, say it with control. Number 2, say it with confidence. Number 3, say it to connect. And the whole focus of rule number 1 is you can't say anything about what I teach you, whether it's my phrases, my quips, my little words, everything that I can give you, none of it matters if you do not say it with control. If you do not first regulate yourself. So we're going to talk about in this episode what I want you to think about when conflict comes your way. Anytime that somebody says something that you weren't expecting, your body naturally, through its biology, reacts. People think that fight or flight is something that has to happen when you come with physical contact. No, that's not true. It happens every day in these little micro moments. Even when somebody just flatly disagrees with you, when somebody disagrees with your opinion, or they say something you don't like, or they call you an ugly name, your body goes, hey brain, I didn't like that. And the brain goes, give me a second. Yeah, no, we definitely didn't like that. And it naturally reacts. You have a scowl on your face. You want to say something back. You get heated. Your neck and jaw get tense. All biological, all normal, all natural. So what do you do with that? Rule number 1 in my book is you use your breath as the first word that you say. And the reason why is because it adds a distance between what they say and how you respond, which gives you time to regulate yourself, to think of the quips that I give you and the sentences I give you. And it also— the other benefit is it allows the other person to calm down theirs as well, gives time for that analytical side to take over. Every day, there are little things that tell your body, I am threatened. Somebody cuts in front of you in traffic, somebody merges, somebody's riding on your bumper. Your body goes, I am threatened. That's where road rage comes from. I feel threatened in this environment. When you're talking with your kids, when somebody says something to you that they disagree with your opinion, they dismiss your idea, you don't like that. Your body's saying, hey, that feels threatening to me. I want you to do something for me right now. Now, if you're driving, don't worry about it. If you're walking on the treadmill, don't worry about it. You can do it later. Do it in your head with me right now. I want you to think of behavior that somebody does that really, really upsets you. And we're going to put a label on it. For example, maybe it's disrespect, dismissive, condescending, belittling, rude, whatever it is, make it yours. What is a behavior that somebody exhibits that really just, just feels like it sets you off? That just, you just explode when somebody does this to you. You got it? You find that word. Now write it down, and right next to it, I want you to write, does not threaten me. Does not threaten me. So the sentence would be: dismissiveness does not threaten me. Rude comments, backtalk, insults do not threaten me. This is the mindset I want you to have when this kind of stuff comes up in your life. Why? Because it is telling your body of, hey, when somebody raises their voice, that doesn't threaten me. When somebody calls me that, the way I'm reacting and telling my body is, hey, this does not threaten me. That's what you're doing with your breath in that moment. That's why we give it time to tell your body what is happening in front of me is not a threat, right? It's this idea that you have— you've seen the big animals, whether it's a lion or an elephant or something, they have like some maybe a little dog or something, they just go, what is this? It's like a little animal coming up to a big animal. They're not threatened in any way. That's the whole mindset here of, hey, what you're doing is— this isn't threatening to me. I'm seeing right through it. Cool. I'm going to tell you a quick story right now that I haven't— I don't think I've ever shared. This was, I don't know, maybe 3 weeks ago or so. And where was I? I might, I think it was in San Diego Airport. I was in the San Diego Airport. It may have been San Diego. Everything's blurring, blending together at this moment. And it's early. Give me a break. Is I got through security at TSA and went and I was looking for my gate, looking for my gate. And I kept following the signs. And then all of a sudden I was outside of it. Outside of the security, the gate, the terminal. It wasn't the terminal. The gate was actually in a separate terminal. And I just walked myself all the way through. I had already gone through security. I had already gone through all the check and the getting your stuff out and ready and giving your ID. I had— I started walking out and I passed this exit where it goes, you know, the point of no return. Where it has a red line there at the airport. And I walk out of it, and all of a sudden, this is me by myself, and I look and I go— I say this out loud— I go, oh my gosh, I gotta do this all over again. Because I have to know I'm going further down where a separate terminal is. And I say, oh my gosh, I got to do this all over again. And a voice that I had no clue where it was coming from Female voice goes, "That's why you should read the signs, sir." And I'm trying to find who that is, and I turn and look, and as I'm looking, she goes, "You have no one to blame but yourself, sir. That's why we have signs." I don't know if you're feeling this, just hearing it to me, just the way the tone came across. Was so condescending and unexpected and unnecessary. You ever had that? That's why we have signs, sir. You have no one to blame but yourself. And I remember being just taken aback. Who, who are you? And it was a TSA agent. Now, if you're a TSA agent, I know not everybody is rough and can be terrible. And I— hey, I'm an attorney, for crying out loud. Not all attorneys are bad. There's some TSA agents that are wonderful. There are some people that are bad. We all have bad apples in every profession. This one right here, this lady, she was middle-aged lady, uh, just looked so smug when soon as she said that. And this is what my, my body wanted to come back with some really good zingers in that moment. I wanted to say a few things to her because it was really rude. It was kind of— it was unnecessary. And this is what I did. Of course, I have to practice what I preach, right? I gave it— I looked at her for like 5 seconds trying to figure out, is this— did she say that? And I just give it time. And now she's sitting back and blinking and looking at me. Her smile is gone. And this is what I asked her. I said, how do you feel when you say that kind of thing to someone? Does it give you joy? That's what I said, verbatim. And immediately She got red, like, um, and just got red in the face and apologized right there. I don't have to prompt anything. She goes, I'm, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sir, you're right, that wasn't kind, you're right, sir, I'm sorry. Yes, you, you can find the terminal if you go straight down. And now she was in helping mode. Now she's in helping mode. You can go right here and this is where it's going to be. I would say, oh, well, thank you very much, I appreciate that. All right, you have a wonderful day. You are not a target. You are not somebody's punching bag. You are not the outlet for somebody to release all of their frustrations and their angers and their smugness on you. These tools work. This is why I talk about them. That's why I feel so passionate about sharing these. You had the choice right in that moment when somebody says something ugly, when they're the TSA agent in your life, how are you going to react? What are you going to say to that person? Are you going to allow them to just press your remote control and manipulate all your emotions? I had a choice. You have a choice. Is that going to ruin your day? I just can't believe you'd say that. Excuse me, is that what— excuse me, are you talking to me? You see how it easily could go the other way when you give in to that fight or flight, when you don't use your breath? When you don't regulate yourself. If you do not say things with control, it doesn't matter what kind of tip I can give you. It's not going to work. It ain't going to work. You have to say it with control. You are not a target. I hope that this is a good reminder for you wherever you are. I can give you lots of tools and tips on what to say, and we have different podcast episodes on that, and I'm going to continue to give you podcast episodes on this. And I want to make sure that you know and you hear, and really the message is very simple for today: you are not a target. When that happens, I want you to go to your breath, regulate yourself, and then use the questions that I've taught you. These are questions like, did you mean— did you mean for that to be rude? Did you mean to insult me? Did you mean for that to embarrass me? Or you give it time and then you ask somebody a question of intent. How did you expect me to react to that? I could have said that to her. How did you want me to respond to that? How does it make you feel? Imagine being the person who would say that to someone. These ways of responding to rude behavior that is actually not a response, it's a question. You're not giving them matters of substance. I'm not saying, let me— you, you spit in my eye, let me spit back in yours. No, it is a reflection of their own behavior and character. And 9 times out of 10, the other person sees that because they— because you're giving them time to— are seeing. It's like, uh, the, the blood, the, the red— it's not blood the red comes out of their system, you know, or somebody's seeing red, you have to give them time for that to go away, come back to normal. Come back. I know that's not who you are. People are not— people are far better than we give them a chance to be. Why? Because we know that in ourselves. So when you have the patience and the discipline to get to that, you're going to have better communication and a better relationship and a better life because of that. Cool. All right, you are not a target. Hope you have a wonderful day.

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. 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. That's their— 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, ah, 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. Stop. 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 the analytical side, that logical side, in it the whole time instead of going, oh, wait, they can't yell at me like that. No, no, that's, that's a dumb idea. Can you believe that you say— instead of that, that's your fight or flight. You never even gave yourself a chance to breathe.

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 that question.

Yeah.

Which is quite uncomfortable for a lot of people.

Yeah, you 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 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 and 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, two interesting observations I had. The first is whatever you were about to say next, I trusted more because you 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? And there was this element of like, 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. The person who you go, oh, this person is smart, is when you ask 'em a regular interview question, and 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'd 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. And now that's translated to me doing it on my phone and 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 'cause they're not breathing. When people start to shake, they're just not breathing. And so she didn't know what to say, and 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 gonna 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 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 of saying, "No, I listened. I see where you're going with this. I'm not gonna 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, um, 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 what you do is slow it down Slow it 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. Yeah. 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. There are people who have a hard time saying what they want. It's the words that they need to say. So when somebody's 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, and I was thinking this, and you can totally tell me if I'm wrong, but 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. I mean, 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.

So that was the first point. You said control.

Yeah, control. Say it with control.

Okay. Is there a second point?

Number 2, say it with confidence.

Confidence.

Okay.

How do I say something with confidence?

You have to first understand what it is. And I don't mean that in like a woo-woo setting. A lot of people come to me and go, how do I have the confidence to say this. I'm getting up the courage or confidence to say that. It's the wrong way to look at it. Confidence is not what you have before. Confidence is the outcome. And you get to that by saying things that are assertive. What I teach is confidence is as assertive does. So when you learn how to use your assertive voice, the result is feeling confident. Like, if I were to tell you right now, Stephen, I need you to feel sad. You have a hard time feeling sad. If I said I need you to be afraid right now, you're like, I don't know. I mean, what is there to be afraid of? Like, you just can't conjure that feeling. Now, if I, for whatever reason, just gave you an elbow to the chest, I mean, you'd be like upset, right? You don't have to wonder what it's like to feel mad. You're going to feel it. It's the same with confidence. You can't just conjure up the feeling of of confidence. You only get it by doing assertive things. And the people that are most confident, I find, are the people that have done the thing already. So they have already said the assertive thing. They've already used their voice because the more assertive they are, the more confident they're going to feel. That's the way it works. So you do it. You find confidence by using your assertive voice.

And what is my assertive voice? And how is sort of an assertive voice different to like disrespecting someone. I've got this graph. I think it's taken from your book. Okay. Which shows the sort of middle ground. Yeah. I'll put it on the screen for anyone that can't see, but respecting others sort of versus respecting yourself. And in the middle there, you have your assertive voice. Right. What is my assertive voice?

It's a balance. It's a balance between sounding almost passive and sounding aggressive. Assertive says, I'm willing to be direct with you, even in the face of it not going well, but I'm at least gonna give you my truth. Or I'm going to say what I need to say without sounding rude. Whenever you are direct with someone, it's also very kind to someone. If I were to tell you and prep the sentence with, Steve, I'm gonna tell you this because I know you can handle it. That's different than me going, hey, look, this is, I'm probably gonna upset you, and I don't mean to upset you, but you just let me know. Like, that is a whole lot harder. The assertive voice is, I'm going to be very direct. At the same time, I'm going to say it with a sense of, this doesn't have to do with me trying to push my way. I'm just letting you know where I stand. You don't have to always play nice. That's not what I'm saying. There are times when somebody says something that's terrible to you. You don't have to push back. You just can't be pushed over. And so when you learn your assertive voice, that's where you find ways to speak your truth more easily and more readily. So one of the first words or lessons of Say It and using your assertive voice is that every word matters. The number one culprit of that is the word just. We use the word just a lot. It's probably one of my weaknesses that I have is using the word just. In common conversation, no problem. Nobody cares. But when it comes to having to push a boundary, say something at work, be a little bit more on your toes, just has a way of making you sound hesitant. The most common way we hear that is if somebody goes, maybe an email or a text, hey, just wanted to check in with you. Hey, do you have 5 seconds? Just wanted to touch base with you. It sounds like you're hesitant, as if like, I don't really want to bother you. If you remove the word just, now you're leaning into it. So instead of, I just want to check in, I wanted to check in with you. That's a lot more forward, a lot more forward progress rather than just using the word just. But every little word matters. You've had those texts where somebody gives you like a whole paragraph. I don't know how to respond to this. What I teach is that the longer your answer, the more questions you're gonna get, the longer that conversation's gonna go, the longer the argument's going to go. So you have to find ways to say more with less.

You have to find ways to say more with less. So does the amount that I speak have consequence?

Yes. There is this, it's this idea of the more words it takes to tell the truth, the more it sounds like a lie. Like, the more you have to say to explain something to me, the more I start to assume you don't know what you're talking about. And we have this way of, I guess they call it word vomit, where you just, you talk a whole lot. People get lost in your sentences. And also when you choose to speak makes a very big difference. Like, have you ever been in one of those meetings and there's always this one person that has to throw in their two cents. They always have to throw out their idea or be the devil's advocate or have something to say at every single issue that gets brought up. Most of the time, those are the people that are honestly the least connected to what's actually happening, or at least part of the conversation, because they want you to know how smart they are or how many people they know. These are the same people that name-drop like every other sentence. The person that is like, you know, oh, I was talking with Stephen the other day. Oh, you know Stephen, right? Oh yeah, great guy. You know, and they start to name drop just so you know how many people that they know. Insecurities are very loud. Confidence, on the other hand, is very quiet. And so you hear people have the need to say everything so that I sound more believable. So you'll know how much I know and how smart I am. Confident people have the urge to say nothing, because they have nothing to prove. Like, if you disagree with me on something that I know to be true, I wouldn't be nearly as affected. Let's say, like, we both have on a black shirt. If you were like, Jefferson, that's a dumb purple shirt you have on. I'd be like, oh, okay. Like, I don't need to convince you what I already know the color of my shirt is. It's like, if you know that about yourself, what you have internally inside, You don't have the need, the insecurity to prove it to everybody else that they're wrong. The confidence is very quiet. The people that are typically the most looked to are the people that say the least. They listen a whole lot more.

Do people capitalize on, on that? So if you're triggered by me saying that you have a purple shirt on, have I got the power now? Because I can like play you like a fiddle if that's— you're so easily triggered. By something that's so obviously like provocation, surely I like, I have the power over you now, right?

No, I mean, I mean, the people that are not emotionally intelligent, the people that don't have the emotional awareness, yeah, you can, you can press their buttons and play them like a fiddle. And because what they've done is they've— that would be like me giving you the remote. So here, here's the remote to my emotions. Go ahead, play them. Press that button. Oh yeah. Oh, you made me angry. How dare you? Instead of handing out remote controls, you get in the habit of giving out manuals. And so if you want to yell at me and press my button and me to say, you can't yell at me like that, versus me handing you a manual and go, hey, I heard you yell at me. If you don't mind, go to page 72. You can look on paragraph 3. I don't respond to that volume. Like, you're giving a whole different mind shift of this is what I tolerate and this is what I don't tolerate.

Do you have a lot of people pleasers coming to you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. People pleasing is very hard. And I mean, the thing is, you can please people. Just make sure that you're one of them. And that's the harder part is I'm always— people say I'm always saying yes to things. I don't know how to say no to things. I don't know where to go with this. That's a whole lot harder. Using your assertive voice is helps with that in a lot of ways. And it is about trying to make sure that when you people please with people, you have to find a way to set a boundary that is going to protect yourself. And that's easier said than done.

It's interesting being— I started my first business when I was— my first proper business when I was about 18 years old. And when you're 18 years old and you're dealing with people that are like double your age and you're different because your skin colour's a little bit different, you have no experience. I reflect, I was talking to the guy that was cutting my hair yesterday 'cause he's a young Black man starting in business. And you were aware that every conversation you're having to some degree is a test. Yeah. It's like a test of how much you value yourself, how much you believe in yourself, and how much you believe in what you're building and what you're saying. And it's an interesting way to think of life that every conversation is actually a test. A test of your conviction. And I was just— I was talking to my barber about how I've changed over time and how business has made me become more direct and more assertive than I was when I was 18 years old. Because like, I wouldn't have survived in some of the rooms that I'm in with like very eccentric billionaires who have done this for 40 years before me if I didn't have that assertive voice, if I wasn't able to look them in the eye and say with calmness and a slower pace what I believe to be true. It's so interesting, like, if it's just thinking about how so much of our life is about developing this ability to assert what we believe without the just or the caveats or the excuses.

Yeah, where they also go into trouble is when people— what I see a lot are people that over-apologize. I find that that is big with people pleasers, where they say, I'm sorry, in every single sentence. Hey, so sorry, I'm just now getting back to you. Sorry, I'm just now seeing this. Oh, I can't come. So sorry. Like, they start to apologize for things that are not a mistake. They apologize for things that are not errors. And when you start to over-apologize with every little thing, without you knowing it, it's slowly, drip by drip, corroding your sense of self-esteem, your sense of self-worth. Your self-worth is not tied to how little of an inconvenience you can make yourself by always saying, so sorry, I don't mean to bother you, I just have a quick question. Instead of the over-apologies, what I teach is use words of gratitude. So instead of the, so sorry I'm late, even though you're like 1 minute late, thank you for waiting on me, or thank you, let's say it's an email, thank you for giving me the, "Thank you for giving me the time to think on this. Thank you for giving me the time to reply. Thank you for giving me the patience." And you know what the other person's gonna think? "I am patient. Why, yes I am. You're so welcome." I mean, you're using words of gratitude to press that. And that's a whole lot easier than the problem of people pleasers, and that's just over-apologizing to just about everything. Or they undercut their words, where they say like, "I hate to bother you, but," and then they have to, say what they need to say.

In this regard, what do the most successful people in the world, the leaders, the prime ministers, the presidents, the CEOs, have in common as it relates to the stuff we're talking about right now? So, you know what I'm saying? So like, are they assertive? Are they people pleasers? Like, what do they have in common here?

What I find that people are people, so it's gonna most often it's just gonna come down to their personality. But overall, your most effective leaders find ways of taking a lot of ideas and words and saying them very concisely. The bigger leaders, they don't write long emails.

Yeah, that's so true.

They don't write long texts.

Rich people don't even say hello and kind regards on fucking emails. They just, they literally, they send emails like text messages.

Yeah, I have found in my own life that the richer somebody is, they could care less about an email signature. They're not— if they even have one. And they might give you 2 sentences, maybe. I mean, it's very, very quick and to the point, because it's either they really don't have the time— it's not really that— is they want to have the appearance of being very direct. And they don't see that as an offense. They don't see that as an insult. They see that as, that is the way that I'm going to operate. They don't write long emails. They don't write them in a way that's going, hey, just want to put this on your plate. And if I'm wrong about this, you can totally let me know. And I have a question about this.

What's number 3 then? So you've given me 2.

Yeah, we said say it with, say with control, say with confidence. And 3 is say it to connect. These are how do you have, how do you have these difficult conversations with somebody? How do you find ways to say what you need to say in one of the most difficult times. That gives a lot of people anxiety if they know they have to have a difficult conversation, even in weeks ahead, especially the day ahead, they're just dreading it.

So how do I say something to connect?

Yeah, what you wanna do is get really curious about the other person, but not just so much that, there's a framework that I can even give you. So we can go a step further. There is a, frame, and I call them conversational frames. When to connect with somebody, it is a fancy word. I think connection can be overused at times. Just means I say something that you can understand and you acknowledge me. That's all we're looking for. It doesn't mean that everything's happy. It doesn't mean that's a hallmark, Carla. I can connect with you and still be upset at you. My dad used to tell me if I came, if I disagree with something, he'd say, He would go, "You don't have to like it. You just need to understand it." I mean, that right there was a great example of allowing me to connect with him and giving me the space to disagree. If you were to begin your sentence with, "I'm not asking to change your mind," or "I don't need to change your mind," it's almost like a relief before you say the rest of what you need to say. Now you're not in that combative fight or flight of, do I have to defend myself at any time? So connection is this way of setting up conversations that is going to get you more of what you want. We talked about the frame. Here's how to do it. And this is the most effective tool that you can use for a difficult conversation. Number 1, you're gonna begin with telling them what you want to talk about. Number 2, you tell them, and this is the most important, how you want to end the conversation, what you wanna walk away from. And 3, you get their buy-in into that conversational frame. This is what it sounds like. Let's say this is, I need to come to you and talk about something serious. So first I'm going to say what we need to talk about. Stephen, I'd like to talk with you about some comments you made at last Thursday's meeting. Two, I'm going to tell them how I want to walk away. It sounds like, and I want to walk away from that conversation with the understanding that's not going to happen again. Three, I'm going to get their buy-in. I'm going to say, that sound good? You're going to say, yeah. Now you know exactly where we're going. You know exactly what we're going to talk about. You know when that conversation is going to end and how it's going to end. And now I have your buy-in. And it's like almost an invisible contract when somebody goes, yeah, that's good, we can talk about that. They don't want to leave it. They don't want to break their word. So they, they know that they're going to be stuck in it.

And then is there anything I need to be aware of when I have that difficult conversation with them so that I don't— so that I'm successful in getting to that outcome?

Number one would be set the goal of knowing where it's going to end. That is the hardest, probably the biggest downfall of the difficult conversation. People expect them to go how they had it in their head. They want the conversation to happen just like they had it while they were brushing their teeth that morning or driving on the way into work. They're like, okay, I'm gonna say this, and then they're gonna say this, and you expect everything to go just how you had it in your head. But as soon as they say that one thing you weren't expecting, All of a sudden they disagree with you and you go, wait, that's not how it's supposed to be. They were supposed to say this. They were supposed to say I'm right. They're supposed to say they're wrong. I mean, how's this going to go? And then it begins to falter like that.

Because when we go into those sort of difficult conversations, whether it's with a colleague or our spouse or whoever it might be, much of the objective, I think, for some of us is to win the conversation in whatever definition of winning one might have. Is endeavoring to win a conversation a good idea?

I teach that you never want to win an argument, and this is why. When you look to win an argument, you will often lose the relationship. Like, if you set out to only prove people wrong, you might win the point, but you will lose the person. Being right doesn't keep you company, let's put it that way. When I look at arguments as only something to win, All of one is really the first step to apologize typically, when you set out to win it, because most arguments aren't really won, it's just they're won by forfeit. Somebody goes, I'm over this, or you said something that was really hurtful that makes them say, I don't wanna, we're done, I don't wanna talk about this. An argument eventually burns out, that's what happens. But when you set out to win, you will lose the relationship. Like if you and I are in an argument, and I say something that's really hurtful, and then you leave, you hang up the phone, what have I won? Yeah, I mean, I've won awkward silence now when we pass each other in the hall. I've won that awkward feeling now I have to pick up the phone and apologize. I still have to find a way to probably work with you or live with you. What have you proven? When has ever you go onto social media disparage somebody's political belief ever change their mind?

Ever. There's been so many arguments I've had with my girlfriend where I have quote-unquote "won," and I felt like shit. Yeah, you will. 'Cause she might come to me and say, "You know what? I understand your point, and I'm sorry." And there's part of me that just feels like shit. It's because I thought that's the outcome I was looking for. But actually, the outcome I was looking for was resolution. And I actually love this person so much that a concession was not like— was actually not— it's not what I wanted. I actually wanted to be happy with them.

Yeah.

So I'd say, you know, I was thinking of so many— some recent examples where my girlfriend came to me and apologized for something where we were like disagreeing about it, and I just felt like shit that she apologized. It's hard to explain.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, no, it's not an uncommon experience. Whenever you feel like you had to always be right. That's what we really want. We want the last word. When you have the last word, you are typically first up to apologize. That's all you've bought yourself. That's your prize. Congrats. And when that happens, you find a way of going, that's not really what I wanted. Why did I say that? That was just hubris. That was just me. I just had a feeling of being right. And sometimes we have that feeling of, when, especially in terms of people that are in charge of other people, we expect others to do what we say. When you're in work mode and you say, I need this done, people get it done. You set the tone. This is how we want to do it. And sometimes we translate that into our own romantic relationships. Oh no, I said it needs to be this way. So you know what you need to do? You need to do it this way. And it's a different shift when you're doing something that's romantic versus something that is, You have to be captain of the ship. And so whenever you're in those difficult conversations, you only see something to win, you're gonna have a hard problem. What I teach is instead of seeing arguments as something to win, you see them as something to unravel. Meaning what we wanna do is pull my way, and then you pull it your way, and it just makes it worse. It makes it worse. We have to give up, and it's not until that next conversation that we actually try and care of what happened. I will often, tell someone, help me find the knot. Help me find the knot. And what I'm doing is encouraging them to say, I'm not saying, what's wrong with you? I'm not saying, can you be any more stupid? I'm saying, help me find the knot. It's a way of detaching the issue, detaching the problem, saying this is something for us both to look at, help unravel where's the, what am I missing? That phrase right there is very, very effective. If you can just ask them the question, what am I missing? They will always tell you. Because most likely it's not something that you're focused on. You're only focused on what you're saying. You're not focused on what they're hearing. Big, big difference.

I have two glasses on the floor here.

Yeah.

Try not to spill it. Nice. First time since I've been a waiter. So I have these two glasses of water in front of me. What is— I know there's an analogy you have for having a good effective conversation that can be demonstrated with these two glasses of water?

Yeah. So let's say that this glass right here is all of my thoughts and knowledge, and your glass is all of your thoughts and knowledge. And not just what you think now. These are things that you've known throughout your entire life. So if I were to tell you something about— I want to get your thoughts, maybe a political opinion or something that's a religious belief. I'm talking like deeply held beliefs that you grew up with, And that's what's in that cup right there. When we go into a conversation with someone, often what we find is, especially if it's like a stranger, that what I say in our first conversation should convince you automatically that if I were to take all of my knowledge right here and I pour it in, there should be no problem. But what happens? When I start to pour into here, that overflows, meaning you have no room. You have no room for what I want to share whatsoever. It's going to just— it's overflow. Instead, what you have to find is ways to ask questions and get really curious. Meaning instead of me pushing my point, instead of saying, why do you believe that? Beginning your question with why, I start to get really curious about how did you come to believe that? Where did you learn that? When did this happen? Ways that I get to ask questions every day, like I do as a trial attorney, to find ways of getting to the issue of what's that deeply held belief? Where does it come from? Because only then— let's go ahead and pour yours into mine. There you go. Perfect. And so it's only then, until you have space, that I'm asking questions. Whenever I ask questions and you start to answer just a little bit more, and then you answer just a little bit more, to where you actually have space to care at all to what I'm gonna tell you. Like, you can't fill, I can't fill a glass that's already full with new thoughts. It's not gonna happen. It's not until I can get you to pour it all out till you'll ever be receptive and have room for what I want to share with you. So that's the key in difficult conversations, that you have to find ways to get really curious about who's the person behind the words, because the person you see isn't the person you're talking to. I might be talking to Steven right now, but there are things that happen in your life that you believe that happened long before I ever talked to you. And we have this hubris about us that we think that just because I told you you should believe something right at this moment, you're gonna automatically change your mind. Minds don't get changed in one conversation. They happen over a year of 100 conversations, 1,000 conversations before anybody will ever be receptive to what you have to say.

So what's like a real-world example of this idea that you might not be talking to Stephen, you might be talking to something he's dealing with?

Yeah, so let's put it in terms of, I've had a client before, uh, this is not a— let me rephrase that. I had a deposition before where I was talking to a witness and he was a huge mountain of a man. His name is Bobby Lapre. I'm talking, Steve, he was huge. His hands, I mean, he just looked— I looked like I was physically deficient in every way next to this guy. And it didn't matter what I asked him, Stephen, he got mad at me. I mean, I was asking him basic things like, where were you born, okay? And where'd you go next and what happened next? And every time he would just get angrier and angrier. And eventually I had to ask him, I said, do you need a break? And he said, no, but I got something to say. And I thought he was about to just flip the table on me. He was just so furious. And I asked him— well, once he even told me, he said, you can cut all this buddy-buddy stuff. Except he didn't say stuff. And he said, you lawyers, you attorneys, you're the worst thing to happen in this government. You're the worst thing to happen. So you can go on and ask your stupid questions, but I don't trust you as far as I can throw you. Well, instead of taking that bait, which most people wanted to do, I asked him a question. I said, I said, what am I missing? What are you struggling with right now in your life? What's been your biggest struggle? And they have to answer questions in a deposition. And what I learned was that he, big old Bobby LaPré, this huge guy, had just put his mother in a nursing home, and he was the only one to take care of her. His dad had died, his brother was off, and he had been getting letters for months about his mom and her home from lawyers about foreclosing, making demands, debt collection, all these things that he just didn't understand. And so right then in that moment, I represented everything he knew about the law and lawyers and everything else. And so the person I saw was an aggressive, mad witness. The person I was talking to was a worried son. And we got to talk that out, and I helped him, and it ended in a wonderful— we ended actually hugging. But every day you have these micro-moments of the person you see is not the person you're talking to. The waitress that looks like she's being rude and dismissive is actually worried because she should have gotten off 2 hours ago, and her mom is still keeping her kids. Or you have somebody who, even in the workplace, who seem like they're a little bit short on their their phone call with you, somebody who looks like they're aggravated, actually their day began because he and his wife are going through a divorce and they stayed up all night arguing. Everybody has a struggle that you can't see. They're having a conversation in their head that you were not invited to. And so when you have the patience to try and understand the person behind the words, it's going to go a whole lot better for you, and they'll feel that. When you just want to accept them for what they look like, it's always different. Like, if I were to tell you you were wrong about something, for me to change your mind, like right now, I most likely am not saying that Stephen's wrong. I'm saying your parents are wrong. I'm saying a grandparent's wrong. Something you grew up your whole life was wrong. That camp you went to growing up was all wrong. There's pieces and identities that have all combined into what you believe now. And we have this horrible habit of thinking, for some reason, that if I say it to you right in this moment, it's all going to change and you're gonna just immediately conform to what I want you to be.

Being triggered is a hallmark of that, isn't it? Like, being— when we say, oh, they're like easily triggered, it's really you're scratching at an open wound that might have been there many years ago. I was reflecting as you were speaking about a particular friend that I remember a conversation with him in the middle of the pandemic where he turned to me and said, "It's people that are young and healthy that are ending up in the hospital beds." And I remember saying to him, I was living at his house, I was like, "No, I don't think that. I think the NHS website says it's people that are out of shape and slightly older that are ending up in hospital beds." And he was really, really triggered by that. And I remember he's a good friend of mine, so we had a conversation about it. And we dug and dug and dug, 'cause we are really good friends. Why is it that all of us as like boys, we know in like the group chat when we're bantering, all we've got to do is say like, now you're wrong, one thing, and it's like red mist? Yeah. And we had like a really open conversation about it over really over the last like year and a half. And he said, um, when I was younger, all of the teachers thought I was stupid. And also I then got bullied on the playground because people thought I was stupid. And then I found text messages from my grandmother to my mum where they said I was stupid. And then I found on my report card they'd basically written me off. So 30 years later, when we're having a conversation, just a trivial conversation about the pandemic, when I go, no, I don't think that's right, and I like pull up the website and stuff, and he gets like, sees the red mist, as me and him call it now. It all stems back 30 years to this experience of on the playground. So like you said, it could be proving proving someone wrong, but in that case, it's actually like proving the bullies right. It's proving all the people that hurt him right. And it's showing up 30 years later as this red mist. The story ends with him going to a therapist and speaking about it. And he's resolved it now to the extent to which he can, where now when he feels that feeling, he's able to point at it, he knows what it is, and so it doesn't make the decision.

Right. Knowing your trigger is one of the biggest ways to defend against that, to know your trigger. And it's funny how, just like your friend's telling you, so many things in everybody's life goes back to the playground. Like, we can remember that thing that that one kid said, like right now, you can probably remember it. Somebody said in high school. Came straight to mind. And it's been years, years, but you remember it and it lives with you for that long. It was just simply what they had said in that moment that you've created that identity. That's a trigger. And if you tend to hit somebody with a trigger, it's different. Like, you can always— it's very telling in the courtroom when somebody takes a level 1 conversation and they ratchet it up to a level 10. It's very disproportionate. And it tells you that there's a conversation happening in their head that you weren't invited to. It tells you that something else is going on. And when you have the patience and the discipline to find that person rather than just fighting the surface, it— you will always have a deeper connection with that other person.

If you're dealing with someone in your romantic relationship, at work, whatever, that is easily triggered in that regard, what advice would you give to the person dealing with that person who is like continually easily triggered? They see the red mist all the time. It's almost impossible to talk to them because they immediately just flip to 10. Yeah. They avoid the difficult conversation. You feel now that you can't even have that conversation with them because they're immediately going to gaslight you, or they're just going to go straight to 10, and they're going to be flooded. Right. You know that phrase that I've heard before about, like, when the brain gets flooded, like, they just get overwhelmed in there?

Yes.

What do you do with that kind of person? You just curious, or—

Well, it's— I don't want to just say curious because I don't I think that doesn't do it justice. One would be you have to delay what they said from when you respond. You have to add a lot of distance there, because if you continue to engage and go, why can't you talk about this? What's wrong with you? That will only spiral it more. What they're going to hear is something is wrong with me. Something I am feeling is bad. When in that moment, their body is fighting. Their body is going, I feel threatened. I feel anxious. I got to get out of here., and it's happening in microminutes, that you— there's nothing you're going to be able to say that's going to help that trigger aside from you allowing them the space to have it. So that means you're going to find ways to approach conversations with that in mind. So one would be adding distance and not addressing it in that current conversation because they're triggered. You don't want to do that. You want to find it in the second conversation. So in the first one, you can easily end it with, hey, we can drop it. Not a problem. We can talk about it later. Because problems happen, Stephen, when you try and push people into having conversations on your timeline. In other words, when they're not ready. Ever had somebody come up to you and go, hey, I need to talk to you right now. And you're like, oh, you want to talk? Like, that's the last thing. You're trying to control my time. This is not what I wanna talk about right now, and I'm not ready for this conversation. And that causes a big problem when somebody's trying to push their timeline on you. We can talk about ways to deal with that, but it is, that's what happens. And when you do it with somebody, going, what's wrong with you? Let's talk, why can't you talk about this right now? You're just pushing them into a corner, and you're making them harder. I mean, you just, they become hardened. They'll totally shut off from you. Then they're gone. Then they won't come back for several days, most likely. So when you start to push on them, things will go wrong. So that's when somebody's feeling triggered, that second conversation, that next conversation is the, I like, well, let's put a frame on it. I like to talk about what we began talking on last Monday, and I'm not trying to solve anything. I just wanna understand where you're coming from so that I can do better. Can we do that? Like right there, that's gonna be a much better way to set up and frame that difficult conversation rather than going, hey, so question for you, what's up with you? Because something's off, all right? That's the way that it's gonna, you're gonna trigger them again.

How do you handle somebody that kind of belittles you? They're like picking on your weight or their, constantly like, are you still single? Like, you know, like people, like especially people that you're close with, have a way of belittling you, right?

What do you do in those situations when somebody is belittling you or giving you an insult, that hurtful comment? You make them repeat it, because what they're hoping to do in that belittling comment is get that reaction out of you. And instead, you find a way to take all the fun out of it. So when you ask them to repeat what they said, you're not giving them that hit of dopamine that they're expecting from your reaction. They're not getting that, that response time from you. Instead, you're delaying that gratification for them. Then it's just not worth it. Then it's just not fun.

And so when you ask them to repeat it, to say, I need you to say that again, I'm thinking of like using this with a couple people in my life.

Yeah.

We need to roleplay this.

Sure.

I'm trying to think of a scenario.

Like you just said right there, you're still single. I need you to repeat that. Yeah, you—

so exactly.

And I'm not going to want to say that again because now that spotlight is on me. And then also what you lead up with that is you ask questions of intent. For example, did you say that to hurt me? And now it's this mirror that they feel like Why did I say that? Oh, okay. And then they start to backtrack. Then you don't have to say anything. But if often I can just repeat what they said. So if somebody says to you, oh, so you're still single? I need you to say that again. Most likely they're not going to say that again. But if they do, then you can even repeat what they said. I'm still 'Single? That's what you asked me?' And all of a sudden they realize this isn't fun. They're not going to ask that kind of thing again. Wow. Or you just ask that question of, 'Did you say that to embarrass me? Did you say that to offend me?' 'Oh no, no, no, no, I didn't say that. What I meant was—' And all of a sudden they're backing away because they know you're going to stand your ground.

Wow. This is like very eye-opening because I can see both situations where I need to use it, and I can see situations where I probably say things, and I'm thinking particularly to my adult kids, that probably feels belittling. I can think about like our daughter out in Los Angeles, and every time I see her, she's wearing a piece of clothing that I don't recognize. And so I think to myself, And oftentimes I will say, is that new? And I'm thinking in my mind, where do you get the money for this? You know, like that kind of thing. And then she's like, yeah, I thrifted it. And there's this little tiff thing. But if she were to say to me—

if she was to ask you— trying to embarrass me? Yeah, exactly. Are you trying to insinuate something? Are you trying to say something that you're not wanting to tell me?

Because you're right, the question is what I'm saying on the surface, but what I'm actually accusing her of is not being responsible with her money. It's that mirror. Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

And so it takes away the power of their insult. Wow. When you can take all the fun out of it, you take all the oxygen out of their room and they realize that they're not going to be able to control you with that reaction that they were hoping to get from you. Holy cow. How do you respond to disrespect? A lot of silence. So often, if you just wait 10 seconds, you're going to add distance between what they said and how you're going to respond. And that makes it very clear, because what they're wanting when somebody's disrespectful is the same way with belittling. They're wanting a reaction. They're saying this to get something out of you, because in that moment they're feeling something, whether it's a fear, an insecurity, whatever it is. You're understanding you're not going to deliver on that same plane that they are. You're not going to be on that same level. So if somebody says something disrespectful, you give enough silence to make sure that it's a little awkward. And then you're going to say something to the effect of, "That's below my standard for a response." And then all of a sudden, they feel like the dynamic has been flipped. That's below my standard of respect. Something as simple as that. All of a sudden, you're now making it clear that what you just said was beneath me, and I don't respond to things that are beneath me in that way. And so now you're taking control of it. Now you're leaning into it. What they thought was meant as a disrespect, they're now understanding that they're in the wrong place.

What do you do? I, I was with somebody yesterday who had just visited their mother. And I said to her, you know, like, how did it go? And she said, well, it was fine, but it's my mother. And the thing that drives me crazy is she is extremely disrespectful to anybody that is waiting on us at a restaurant. Like, so much so that the owner came over and said something to her. What do you— is there a way to respond when someone else is throwing a fit or is being disrespectful, you know what I mean? Like somebody's getting testy at the airport, or— and they're, they're with you, it's not a complete stranger. Is there something that you can say to somebody in that situation?

Depends how your relationship is with that person. I would advise that whoever they're disrespecting, you don't join in it, and you make it clear that that is not your behavior. So you're going to be person that is kind to this person. So I've had it before. My grandfather came with me to Walmart. This is a terrible time, uh, and he was, he was in a bad mood and he was crotchety to everybody we talked to. But I was the one that was, thank you so much for helping us, I appreciate it, thank you so much. Being overly, hey, I understand, thank you, making that eye contact with this other person if this other person's not having a good time. And then you have that conversation. I had to have that conversation with my grandfather. And how did you do that? I had to put a boundary. A very firm boundary of, if this is the way you're going to talk to people, I can't come with you. If you don't change the tone in which you're talking to people, Papa, I can't, I can't come. And so it very was, uh, what, what am I saying? You're not being respectful to people. Yes, I am. I would not be telling you this if you had been respectful to people. And, and it's just having this, this conversation where they need to— it's the people you love, and often you have to be their, their biggest mirror of protecting them also for how other people see them. And so I love my grandfather. I want other people to love him. And that means I also have to make sure that I need to put— I need to prepare him in a loving way of being very direct. This is how you're talking to people. Has he changed? He has. We also just don't go to Walmart.

So when someone is quote unquote attacking me or saying nasty things about me that I don't believe are true, or maybe it's just I don't like the way they're saying it and I don't want it to penetrate my heart and my soul. Yeah. And be reactive and defensive and right. Yeah. Yeah.

And frustrated and all these things.

When the brow goes like this. Yeah, exactly. One of the psychological or therapeutic strategies that I've learned is to imagine either a field, an energetic field around me that I can see it, but then it bounces off the words, the intention, the energy. It comes and then boink, it just goes around me and like water off a duck.

I feel like there's a Star Wars reference, but yes, that'd be exactly right. Yeah.

Or what I'll do is I will separate the ego from the self and I'll have the ego over here next to me psychologically and an image of it, the ego of me here. I'll just say, "Oh, they're just speaking to the ego." Yeah. And there's attachment. They're just speaking over here. I'm not actually speaking to me. They might be looking at me, but it's just redirecting right here.

And, "Oh, this doesn't affect me." Yeah.

They're talking about that guy. And I saw, I think I saw, I think it was Salma Hayek one time talk about this. She was giving examples somewhere online about how, you know, if someone spoke to you really poorly in Spanish and you don't speak Spanish, you're not going to get defensive. You're just going to be like, okay, I have no clue what this crazy person is saying to me. Okay, so just act like it's a different language. Right. At least it's different ways of like separating yourself from that. Yeah, I like that too.

Or the potential pain. Yes.

What have you learned to support yourself psychologically and emotionally and spiritually? Yeah. When this feeling of panic or stress comes your way or when potential attacks come your way emotionally?

So very similar to yours. In my mind, I visually have a trash can next to me. Oh, okay. All right. And I can see it. It's one of those big, huge gallon ones. Yeah, it's the black. Sure. Shiny. It's— you got it. Yeah. And I see what they're saying is just a shoot. So I can see the words coming and I'm sifting because the issue they're telling me is not the real issue. And so if I hear something that's offensive, that's not nice, I just, okay, that's trash. Let me just, I'm just, in my mind, I grab it with my right hand, lift up and throw it. Like that's what I'll do with my thoughts. And I'm sifting to where if they might have led with something that was snarky, which our inclination is to grab onto that and send it back to them. Yeah, send it back and be like, oh, I just, I got a good one coming. Instead, yeah, you got it. Instead, if I throw that one away, if I just trash it, and then I found the one word that they said at the very end, towards the end, that was, that was the one word. And then if I focus on that word, then it all starts to kind of crumble. But that's—

I just imagine a trash can. You talk a lot about how to respond to toxic people or bullies. What is the way as an adult to deal with a toxic person or a bully?

When you're dealing with bullies, we all know from growing up it's these people that have unmet needs from when they were growing up. Same thing in everyday workplace. When you're dealing with somebody belittling you or being rude or condescending, when they do that, what I want you to do is to ask them a question. And it's a question that they're not going to be used to. And it is, you're asking them to say it again. Whenever you ask them to repeat it, it's something they were not— number one, they weren't expecting it. Number two, they're not going to want to do it because the first effect is gone. You've already blown out the candle. They don't want to have to relight it. It's this idea of, I already said the bad thing. Oh no, they didn't— I didn't get the reaction what I want. I didn't get that hit of dopamine. I didn't get that, that self-gratification. Instead, if you were to say something ugly as a bully or somebody who's being ugly in the workplace, and I say, can you catch— can you say that again? I didn't catch all of that. Can you repeat that for me? It is not nearly as fun for them the second go around. And whenever that happens, if they have the guts, which they probably won't, but if they have the guts to repeat it, then you ask a question of intent. Like, did you, did you say that to embarrass me? Did you say that to offend me? Did you say that to make me upset? Did you want that to hurt me? You can begin with, did you? Or how did you expect me to respond to that? How did you feel when you, when you said that to me? I mean, these are things that, again, just like we talked about, you're not catching it and throwing it back. It hasn't even reached your doorstep yet because all you've done is just taken that spotlight that was on you and just go, look, put it right back on them because it's a mirror. That's all. That's all you're doing whenever you do that.

It's really good because I was looking up statistics prior to this, and I knew that there was a lot of I love a statistic. Although these days, who knows what's fact or fiction? But what the internet was telling me, which is always a dangerous place to start, is that for young people today, that there was a couple studies done by Boys and Girls Club that like 48% of kids under 20 experience bullying on a monthly basis. Yeah. Seemed like reasonable, maybe a lot. Then what surprised me is the number of adults that say that they get bullied, which is more like 30 to 39% based on two different studies. That surprises you? Yeah, I guess so. I, I can't imagine, uh, using the word bully. Maybe, maybe that's it. Maybe, uh, to me there's some usage of the word bullying as an adult that feels like, uh, you're almost giving them power. Like, you can't, you can't bully me. You could be ugly, you could be rude. Yeah, you could be inappropriate, but why would I label you because the way that I visualize a bully is like somebody big, kind of angry. Stealing your lunch money. Right.

Yeah.

Like, I don't know, I'm too old for that now. But, but then I saw how people reacted to your videos about adult bullying in the workplace. And it feels like a lot of people feel like they are bullied frequently.

Have you found that? I have. One would be it's you and I probably do not live the same life that they do. Not for sure. Let's put it that way. We're entrepreneurs. We own our businesses. A lot of people do not. And they work for other companies and peoples and hospitals and schools and you name it. And they are part of that structure and that infrastructure that does not encourage, let's say, growth. They know that the job they got, maybe they work at a refinery, it's a job they're going to have for the rest of their life. Nothing wrong with it. But that's not to say that there are people that that we can call bullies. They might not steal your lunch money, but they will steal your self-esteem if they can. There are people that you may not call a bully, but they'll certainly boss you around. There are people that they don't care about your feelings. It's not a punch to the face. It's a punch to the ego. It's a punch to your self-confidence. People have no problem stealing that and taking that away from you from condescending behavior. And it's sometimes the people you're related to. Especially the people you're related to. That makes it even harder. And so I think the biggest response from the bullying, which you— I agree, I think that's a fair question of, I thought we were kind of over this. I thought bullying was for, was for the kids. Is that we're all the same kids. We're just taller, look older, we got hair in weird places. Or not. Yeah. Or not. Or not. Do you?

Yeah.

You look great. There you go. I'm working on it. The That's the thing. We're the same exact people in high school. Rarely have they changed. There's some have in college, law school, wherever you went. Everybody's mostly the same person.

And so, so, so really, we shouldn't be surprised when there's bullying behavior in the workplace because we're all kind of just giant adult kids and people are struggling with this every single day.

The world is one big high school. Yeah, one big high school. And it's from the haves and have-nots. Who's the, the pretty get ready with me in the morning popular girls to the who let's go get our gains and eat a dozen eggs while we work out our calves? You know, I don't know. So nobody wants to see either of those from me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But maybe, yeah, you know, I'm working on it. But yeah, it's, it's, it's all the same spectrum. But there definitely is that segment of people who would say, yeah, in some way I am, I feel bullied, I'm pushed around and I don't feel good about it. And I can tell you from the amount of people that have been so wonderful and so kind and have given the messages of, I have a bully at the workplace, I have a mother who pushes me around, I have a sister-in-law who I don't want to have to see. There's all kinds of, behaviors that are the unmet needs. And it's so funny, Cody, to see that when we get older, how much of that's resembled from our parents, how much resembles of that from the people that we were around that we didn't know when we were kids.

Yeah. You know, sometimes I think about, um, you know, have you ever met somebody who's just great at comebacks? Like, they're just like— sometimes I think— remember that show Entourage? Oh yeah, I always liked Ari because people would say terrible things to him. I think that was right when we were in I think we weren't probably similar ages.

Yeah, yeah, that was right in the middle of—

beginning of college, high school. Fuck, I don't know.

I was probably older. I don't know. How old are you? I'm 37. Okay, I'm 38. I'm 36. Oh my dang, I forgot.

I thought only us women do that. You went older. See, us women, I still feel 36, but I'm 38. I don't—

I'm cool with getting old, so I never— I always think, um, I have to scale back. Yeah.

Is what I typically have to do. Well, I remember watching Entourage and how he would respond, and he would always have these amazing comebacks. And I was never that type of human. I think, like a lot of us, somebody says something really terrible to you, and you think in your mind, "I'm gonna do all these things. I'm gonna say it back." What you actually do instead is nothing. That's usually what I do. I just, like, in my head, I'm saying everything, and in person, I'm collapsing and not saying anything very cute or smart back. And so, I was wondering, When somebody comes at you with an insult, how do you do quote-unquote comebacks as an adult?

Hmm, you give it about 5 to 8 seconds of nothing. I hate that. They'll hate that. I know, I know it feels uncomfortable to you, but it is one of the most powerful moves you can make when somebody is insulting you. Where you lose is you send the zinger right back. So let's say You're at a 3 and they send you something that puts you at a 5. We have a choice. Do I rise to the level of it or do I keep it there? Because if you rise to the level of it, then you just justify them to go to a level 7. And it, it ratchets itself up to where really the person who speaks loses. They're the first up to apologize. That's all. Like there's this unspoken rule of who has to apologize first. In any relationship, or who's expected. And it's typically the person who spoke the last because they're determined to say the worst thing because that's how they win. They have to say the mean thing. They have to throw it right back. So that's how they win the argument. But insults in particular are ones that when you give it 5 to 7 seconds of nothing, it just lets those words fall. A lot of the time that's all it takes because they have to hear their own ugliness out loud. They were hoping that you would catch it, Cody. That's what they're hoping. They're hoping you're going to go boom, boom, and just send it right back to them. And then when they get hurt, they're going to go, oh, that hurt me. How dare you? Like, that's what they're wanting. So it allows them to play the victim, allows them to play that card. But when you just let it go, that's the biggest thing. You talked about it earlier of this Whenever you can, it is a big power move when you can clue into somebody that what they say could not ever threaten you. It is such a move. It doesn't matter what you tell me. That's not a threat to me. You want to raise your voice? That doesn't impress me. It doesn't impress me much. It doesn't matter. Whatever it is. That they can't do anything with it. I don't care what you tell me, it's not going to threaten me, it's not going to make me rise up. And that's the person who's always controlled, and the other person will always look unreasonable.

Yeah, that is a real superpower. So, okay, so somebody says something ugly to you, you pause 3 to 5 to 7 seconds, something like that. And then what?

What if they come back? Cool. So when they insult you, number one, I want you to give it 5 to 7 seconds and nothing. Number two, you're going to ask a question of intent or outcome. What were you looking for when you said that to me? A lot of the times that does nothing for them. They're not going to do anything. They just will stammer over themselves. Number 3, it doesn't matter what they tell you or give you. Just walk away. That's that ending part we were talking about of just let it go. There's nothing that they can do with that anymore. They call you names. In hope that you will say something worse. That's generally what it is. But they say that for their own fight or flight. When they call you a name, it's because most of the time they're feeling something that they want to cause you pain. They want that to hurt. Same thing with somebody who's on the phone with you and they go, you know what, I'm out of here, click, or I can't, get me out of here, and they leave the room. That's their flight. It's the same thing. They say it's like picking up a, I don't know, picking up a pen and wanting to throw it at you. Mm-hmm. Instead of an object, I'm using my words. Same thing. I want the same exact result, same intent.

When I'm in a conversation that I feel like I'm, um, it's getting away from me, let's say that, that could be a sales negotiation. It could be a conversation with a friend, you name it. Um, I feel like in my case, most of the time it's speeding up faster than I want it to. You talk about this in Rule 1. Number 6 is control the pace. And as I listen to you, I mean, you're very cognizant even of your pace in the way that you communicate, even on the show today and even in your content. You do. You're actually a little faster when you do the content from your car than you are right now on the show. You're even a pace slower today. Than you are in your car. So I watch that, like tonality and pacing. Yeah, let's talk about that in a conversation, because with my— when emotions run high, oftentimes for me, I feel like the conversation is speeding up where my, my, uh, intellect is now not quite as sharp as my emotions are running, if that makes any sense. So what are strategies to control the pace, and what does that even mean? Yeah.

I love that you picked up on that. The anytime you are getting that fight or flight, and I know all of your listeners, highly educated, they know fight or flight. Whenever you're getting emotionally flooded like that, it is, that's why you're having trouble finding your thoughts and connecting things. And that's why the quicker you get, maybe you've felt it where you're, you're either nervous, same thing when you're really mad, you might stammer and you might go like, no, no, no, that, that, that's not, and you're having trouble getting words out. It's because you're just flooded. Your emotions are there. Your logical and analytical side is not. And so what I teach every one of my clients before they go cross-examination, and I'm just offering them up to the wolves, is a constant reminder of you control the pace, not them. That means no matter how fast somebody is peppering you with questions, the conversation cannot happen any faster than you respond. So. Whenever they ask you a question and you give a rapid-fire answer back, or worse, you start to step over their question because you already see where it's going, bad things happen. You say things you don't mean. You say things that are not fully thought out. That's why even in romantic relationships, all of a sudden you blurt something out and you go, oh, that's— oh man, that's not what I mean. And you already knew as soon as it came out of your mouth, you put your foot in your mouth and you messed up. It's because you weren't controlling the pace. That means you need to slow down your words and that you need to leave space between what they said and how you're going and when you're going to respond. There's a difference. If you were to ask me, if you said, hey Jefferson, how was your day? And I said, good, it was real good. I mean, it was really good. Thanks. Versus, hey Jefferson, how was your day? And I said, It was good. It was a good day. Like, you can just hear the difference in which one listened to the question, which one thought about the answer, which one makes the other person feel acknowledged or heard. Same thing with— that's why rule number 1 is say with control. If you go down and let's say you're, you're at work and all of a sudden you go, what's wrong? What happened? What's going on? And you All you're sensing and telling the other person is you're grasping for control versus you come in, take a breath, and then you're saying, all right, what happened? Give it to me. Like, people are looking, like we said, for those emotional anchors. So what I teach is let your breath be the first word that you say. That's how you set the pace of a conversation. So where your first word would be, put a breath in its place. And what's that going to do is keep your analytical side engaged and to where you do not allow yourself emotionally to get emotionally flooded. And the second benefit is neither does the other person, because now you are also injecting the time and forcing them to slow down. 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.