The Next Conversation Starts Here

Today is a big day, y'all, and it's going to be probably an emotional episode for me, and I'm okay with that. Today, my book, The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More, is released. Today is publication day, my very first publication day, and I cannot be any more excited, thrilled, and honored to give a piece of myself to you. If you've enjoyed any of my content at all at any point in time, and I'm assuming you have if you're listening to this podcast, I'm going to ask you to buy and purchase this book. You can go to thenextconversation.com. You can find a link there, or you can go to jeffersonfisher.com/book. You can find it there, or you can just go in the show notes of this episode and you're going to find the link. Go to your favorite retailer and buy it. And let me tell you why, because you are investing in your next conversation. There's lots of reasons why I titled it this way, and we're going to talk about that today. But most of the time you've invested in things that you just don't even think about. You've invested in every time that caffeine habit, you've invested in that, that mental health, you've invested in your own fitness, you've invested in work efficiency tools, but rarely, if ever, have you invested in your communication and how you communicate and you show up in the difficult conversations. And this book is not going to tell you just how to do it. It's going to give you the words. Of exactly what to say. And you will be amazed at the way you're going to show up in conversations and bring more positive and bring more of what you want in your life. You can go to thenextconversation.com to get a copy of this book. I'm honored for it. Thank you for letting me put this out into the world. Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher Podcast, where I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything. If you enjoy learning tools to improve your communication, I'm going to ask you to please follow this podcast. And if you would leave leave a review. Give it a star, give it a like, give it a heart, whatever it is. It helps, it really does, and I'm very appreciative for it. Please know that if you have any topic suggestions, you can just throw them in the comments. This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. The reason why I love Cozy Earth as a sponsor is because I actually use the products and I like them, but my wife loves them. Uh, their towels, their bedsheets, anything cozy and comfortable from the tops to Pants, sweatshirts, the sweatpants are awesome. Love 'em. You can go to cozyearth.com/jefferson and use the code Jefferson for 40% off. And on that site, there's a whole list of my favorite things that I personally like to wear. So I encourage you to go check it out. You can go to cozyearth.com/jefferson and use the code Jefferson for 40% off. In today's episode, we're gonna go over 3 things. One, how I even got here, how a book even happens, because if you're like me listening, You have no clue how a book goes out into the world. I didn't either. And this has been a whole entire process and a learning process. In fact, every day is still a learning process. So for those of you who are curious, I'm going to share a little bit of the background of how I even got here. Next, we're going to go through the framework of The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More, and the 3-part framework that I set out to help improve your next conversation. And I'm going to talk about why it matters. Today's episode is all about the book. About 2 and a half years ago, I was getting comments in all of my content about, you should write a book, please write a book, please write a book. And I thought, well, I guess, I guess I gotta write a book. I've never, listen to me, never in a million years was a book on my bingo card. I never thought about it ever once. I never thought, oh, I wish I could write a book. That wasn't anywhere in my whole mindset. So when people started asking, and leaving comments saying, you should write a book. I thought, well, okay. So I Googled. I went to Google and typed in, how do you write a book? So I spent an evening one night just kind of surfing, seeing, hey, how do you, how do you write a book? Lord knows I didn't know. And I saw things about you should self-publish. So I started researching on how to self-publish a book, and I thought, well, I'll just kind of create a a little bit of something and then share it with my followers and, and be done. I didn't care a lick about making any money from it. I just wanted to give people tangible things that they could mark up, write down, highlight, that they could have and make their own. That sounded awesome to me. And over time, while I was jotting down ideas, I started getting emails from literary agents. These are people, agents, that connect authors to publishers, people who print books and distribute books. So it's kind of like a middleman, and they're able to take percentages of things. A typical agent, just like a real estate agent, they connect the buyer to the seller. And so I have an amazing literary agent, and through that you write something called a proposal. It's a document that lines out what you think the book is going to be and what you think the book is going to be about. It's kind of like a business proposal about a book, because when you go to these big publishing houses, they kind of treat the book as an investment, so to speak. They see it as something of, okay, is this something that's going to have legs, not have legs? Is it going to help a lot of people, or is the message not right? It's kind of why this book and why now. That's really the main theme of what they're curious about. And so I was able to get a wonderful book deal with Penguin Random House, and You have big houses like Penguin Random House. It used to be Random House and Penguin. Now they're together. You have Simon Schuster, you have HarperCollins, and underneath them they have all little bitty things called imprints. So think of like a big overarching company and then a bunch of little subcompanies underneath it. My imprint is called Tarcher/Parigi, and they're the sister to Avery. Wonderful, wonderful people, wonderful editor. It's fantastic. They're just great. And they really helped pull a lot of my message out. And I used a book coach. His name is Blake Atwood. Fantastic guy. You can see all of my acknowledgments of everybody who helped. And what a book coach does is kind of just help you stay disciplined. They don't write the book. They just help you organize things and be disciplined because who knows how to write a book? I, I didn't know. I didn't go into writing like this. So, you know, every part of my book I wrote, and that was important because I wanted to sound like my voice. That was very, very crucial to me is that it sounded like my, my voice. And that's what you're going to get in this. I also narrated my audiobook. That was very important to me because I wanted everybody to hear the voice on how I say things. Because of all I do on social media, people have recognized my voice, and sometimes my voice is more recognizable than my face to some people. And because they only see me like this, they don't see me standing up. They don't see the sides of my face. Just not that common. So they recognized my voice, narrated my audiobook. That was a 3.5-day process in a studio in Houston. It was, it was cool. It was different, way harder than you think it was. But I narrated the audiobook. This book is also available on Audible, anywhere, Apple Books, anywhere you want to get your audiobook. And I've had a lot of people say they get both. Which I've never heard before, but that's, that's awesome. You can get it wherever you want to listen to it. So if this voice doesn't bother you that much, you can get the, you can get the audiobook. So that's how this process got here, how I, I went from making the videos in my car, people saying, hey, you should make a book. I got hit up by different agents. They're the ones that helped tell me how this process went. And then now I am here and before you know it, this book is published and you've I mean, I helped design this, this cover, and I have wonderful people who, who designed this cover, who help give ideas for things. It's a very collaborative process when you're going through a traditional route, aside from self-publishing. So that's, that's how I even got here. This book is lined out in 3 different parts, and of course you knew it was going to be 3. I always give 3. There are 3 rules for how to have a better next conversation. Rule number 1, you're going to say it with control. You can't, you can't go forward in conversation without controlling yourself before trying to control the other person. Number 2, you're going to say it with confidence. Rule number 2, say it with confidence, meaning you're going to find your assertive voice. We're going to pull it out of you. And the result is going to be a much more confident you. And 3, you're going to say it to connect. You're going to find ways to reach that difficult person and improve the way you're having difficult conversations to make them just a little bit easier in your life. And on top of that, I have a bonus chapter. All right. I, it's not everybody doesn't know that there is a bonus chapter in this book specific to narcissists and gaslighting and toxic people. The reason why it's a bonus chapter is because, I mean, it could really be its own. It could be its own book. It could be its own book, and it just might be because there's a lot to go into that. I wanted people in the book I have out right now to see that this is the essentials framework. This is what I want to leave my kids. This is how I want to be remembered if I somehow don't exist tomorrow. This is something that I'm very proud of, and it is right to the point. Maybe later we're gonna have Maybe there'll be another book where we go deeper and deeper into things, and we're going to talk more about narcissists and gaslighting. For now, I just put it in a bonus chapter. And so I'm going to issue that. And I think what we're going to do actually is release a part of my audiobook for you listeners. I think that's going to be a whole lot of fun. So rule number 1 is say it with control. Rule number 2 is say it with confidence. And rule number 3 is say it to connect. Now, do I include my details in here? Yeah, you're going to find little bitty snippets of my viral videos that have most resonated with you over time that I'm going to give you a lot of how-tos, but it's not just that. So you can say, yes, he's going to give me a lot of the how-tos that I can mark up, highlight. It's more than that. I'm wanting to give you the behind. I'm wanting to give you the context, places where you can take your mind in difficult conversations that I can't explain nearly as well in a short 40-second 47-second clip. At the end, there's also a, um, part that I really liked. Probably I got at least— I got a kick out of it, uh, is I write in the very back of 47-second version, meaning if I had distilled everything in this book into a social media clip, this is what it's going to be. And I'm going to read it to you right now. Cool? Wherever you are, if you're listening to headphones in your car, workout, rule number 1: Never win an argument or you'll lose a lot more than you gain. When you regulate your reactions before responding, you keep a clear head and a calm mind. Rule number 2: Confidence isn't an act, it's an outcome. Use words and short phrases that assert your needs and protect your values without fear of disappointment. When you embrace your assertive voice, you make a pathway for more positive change in your life. And number 3, don't worry yourself over how to change your entire relationship. Focus on changing just the next conversation. When you frame a conversation as something to learn rather than something to prove, you take out the difficulty in building connection. So try that and follow me. This, uh, is something that I cannot be more proud of in this entire experience of everything that I have put together for you. And the reason why I find so much joy out of making this is because I get to share my voice with you just a little bit more. If you have purchased this book, and once you read this book, it would be my greatest honor if you leave it a review wherever you buy the book from. Maybe it's Amazon, Barnes Noble, Books-A-Million, wherever you get it. Wherever you listen to it on audiobook, leave a review for me if you don't mind. That's the only way that people know if something is good or not, is they just look at the, the reviews. So that really makes a big difference to me. And if you read it and you get the book, post it on social media, make your own video that I can tag. If you tag me, tag hashtag The Next Conversation, I'm able to look at it. I'll be able to grab it and share it on my platform, which is a thrill for me to be able to share more of what my followers in the community have put out, and then I can put it on, on mine. So that would be a, a huge honor. I'm also going on a book tour. So my book tour starts very soon. If you have not bought tickets, I think we already have Chicago and LA, I believe, are sold out. Um, so that's really cool. We're going to 10 different cities. You— I'll put the link down in the show notes for my tour. I'm going to 10 cities. I think we're going to I know we're going to New York, LA, we're going to South Carolina, North Carolina, we're going to Tempe, Arizona, we're going to Houston, Austin, Dallas, and a few more. So that's awesome. And for any of you UK listeners, I'm going to the UK, going to London for a week in the beginning of June. Very excited about that. Gonna have an event there. So this whole world is just all part of it. As if you're still listening to me right now, you know that I, I'm just experimenting a lot with what's happening in my life. I made these videos in my car last season, were all videos in my car, and now I have this studio where I'm still going to be making some solo episodes, and I'll still mix it up and go do it in the car. I don't want you to feel like anything has changed. I'm experimenting with these interviews. I was totally honored to talk to Mel Robbins, Chris Voss, Charles Duhigg, a few of these others that are— these episodes are probably going to be coming out right around the same time. And others that I have lined up that are really just friends of mine that I have developed in this space that I'm just honored to bring them to you. But that doesn't mean I'm only going to always do that. So we're just going to try it out. And I love, love, love when you give me feedback in the comments. You go, hey, look, I'd rather— I like the microphone, or I like the studio, or even if you say, hey, I prefer the car, that's all good for me to know. I want to bring content that you're going to like in a way that I can share what is on my heart and what I like to talk about to you, every single person. So in this book, The Next Conversation, make your next conversation the one that changes everything. I had endorsements from Andrew Huberman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Mel Robbins, Chris Voss, and Dr. Becky Kennedy, all heavy hitters and wonderful friends of mine that I was thrilled to have their endorsement recommendation for this book. I can't believe it, y'all, that this is all happening so fast, and it'll be over before you know it. We'll have the— today's release day, we're gonna start on the tour tomorrow, and I think that's— it's about 3 and a half weeks, nearly 4 weeks of that. And yes, family's good. They're going to come with me to as many events as they can, and I'm still going to be back in time to make kids at T-ball games and coach pitch games and as many practices as I can. I'm not missing any of that. My family's all good with me. So still keeping my priorities there and just finding the balance as much as I can. So if you need me, you can find me probably talking to you through my phone or here in your, uh, your headphones. The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More. Go get it if you're interested in making your next conversation the one that changes everything. Talk to you soon.