You don't need to win or attend every argument you're invited to | Jefferson Fisher
In this interview, Jefferson Fisher and the host discuss why it’s healthier to decline many arguments, especially those sparked on social media. They argue that constantly engaging in online debates drains mental and physical health and often serves no constructive purpose. The conversation emphasizes emotional awareness, self‑regulation, and the importance of prioritizing relationships over winning. Fisher describes how social media amplifies both negative trolling—driven by anonymity and dopamine‑seeking likes—and positive community building, noting that the energy a creator projects influences the tone of comments they receive. They explore the concept that offense is a choice, not an inherent property of statements, and that taking offense can stem from personal identity and perceived threats to deeply held values. The dialogue shifts to strategies for changing minds: setting low conversational bars, asking questions, investing in long‑term dialogue, and focusing on understanding rather than proving oneself right. Finally, Fisher outlines the principle of “never win an argument,” explaining that seeking victory erodes relationships, while aiming to unravel knots in conversation preserves connection. Throughout, practical advice is offered for navigating disagreements, both online and offline, and for maintaining personal well‑being.
Chapters
You don't have to attend every argument you're invited to. Yeah, that's brilliant.
Thank you. It is a mindset of instead of the default where somebody is engaging in opinion with you, we're opinion-making machines. Something happens in the world, where does everybody turn to? Social media to share their opinion. To who? Their audience of 6 people that are on their Facebook or something, and they go and they flood all the comments of how much they agree, they disagree, and who's attacking who, and who's a snowflake, and who's the whatever. And that kind of behavior solves nothing. And in fact, it's very draining. In fact, if we want to say that's a symptom of a very bad health, a lot of the times those kind of people are unhealthy. Not just physically, but mentally unwell, all right? So if you want to make sure that you stop attending every argument you're invited to, you need to understand that there's a priority of what's important in your life. There are people that disagree with you, and there are people who maybe don't even like you. Most likely, if they don't like you, they're not that important. You know, who do you wanna keep in your life?
Yeah.
Yeah, who do you wanna surround yourself with? And I feel like anytime somebody gives you an invitation to an argument, we go, Oh, yep, absolutely. Check. Yes, I will be attending. And that's a, that's a one-way ticket to, um, bad health.
It comes down to emotional awareness, self-awareness, emotional regulation, doesn't it? Because when you are more self-aware and emotionally regulated, I think it becomes easier to not attend every argument. When your nervous system is in high alert, when you've been busy with work all day, you didn't take a lunch break, you're in sort of that stress mode. Yeah, it's sometimes harder to separate, right? And I think sometimes fear is also what gets in the way of many things in our life, but also our ability to communicate well, right? And I think the more we're better to emotionally regulate, the more better able we are to go, hey, you know what, I didn't— I don't want to get involved with that. You know, something I've learned being online sharing information for about 12 years now is I don't have to have an opinion on everything.
Yeah. Yeah. Or you can have an opinion and not share it.
Yeah. I certainly don't need to have a public opinion on everything. Now people can expect me to.
Right.
I should be commenting on this event. Great. No problem. I don't think I should.
Right.
I don't want to. And ultimately, so to me, what I, what I will and what I won't communicate on, right? It's kind of interesting. What have you learned? Right. So this is interesting. You were already An exceptional communicator. You started sharing things online in 2022, so about 3 years or so. You've had a lot of experience with comments on social media. So what, what has being on social media and reading comment sections taught you about other human beings?
You know, I, I'll tell you, I'm blessed with a wonderful audience. I, I can probably count on one hand, truly, the amount of times I've had a negative troll type of just nasty comment, which is just wonderful. And most of the time they're bots. They're not real. But what I have seen, of course, because I'm on social media like you are, I have seen people leave negative, horrible comments in YouTube. TikTok, Instagram, you name it, where the quick little clapback that's ugly, maybe on somebody's weight, appearance, looks, what they said, and it gets a lot of likes, like a crazy amount of likes, because there's this anonymity of being behind the keyboard, and you almost in some sense get rewarded for it. When somebody is liking your comment, what are you encouraged to do? Say more ugly things to get more like an appreciation and that dopamine hit of you're doing something well. So what I have seen is that people in comments can be— I've seen it both ways. I've seen the negative side of it, and that's detrimental. I've also seen the very positive side of people can create a community in the comments. And you take something like TikTok, for example, sometimes the comments are more entertaining than the actual content itself. People immediately, what they would say, run to the comments because there's so much interaction or things that are funny. People are hilarious.
Yeah.
I mean, one thing about social media is that there's so many talented people and so many funny people that you would never know that, you know, they're totally, totally total introverts, but they're funny and creative and things you would never be able to see in the world and environment that you're in. So I've been blessed with being able to see the positive. I've been blessed with being able to see the negative of it in social media. And I find, I mean, I'm certainly a product of it. I wouldn't be here with you today had people not resonated with the content that I make.
I would bet that one of the reasons you don't get many negative comments is because of your energy. People respond to energy. They, they do. You know, we all respond to energy and the vibe of the people around us. And so if you're putting out content with a really warm, compassionate, grounded energy with a real desire to help people right, it's just not gonna lead to that many people, you know, trying to meet that energy with division and criticism. Do you know what I mean? Whereas some people, their whole brand is about calling out, or this is what's toxic, or whatever it might be, whatever it is. So of course that energy is going to attract more energy like that, right? Which is super interesting. I mean, I also very rarely get negative comments, um, but I've always had a rule, actually an internal rule with myself, which is— which maybe I didn't follow in the early days of being, you know, online sharing information. But I've learned through the process, which is— it comes back to some of your teachings in this book, right? Which is, if I'm not feeling calm, do not respond to a comment.
Yeah, that's so true.
You know, don't do it. Yeah, it's never going to come— go well. You know, only respond— so sometimes it's like, I think actually that's worthy of a response. Like, I, I feel that'd be good to interact with that. But only do it when you're feeling calm. And calm doesn't just mean my internal state. It also means what's going on in my life.
Yes.
Right. It's more important that I'm going to spend quality time with my children. Yeah. Or my wife or going around to see my mom.
Yes.
Actually, you know what? That is more important than a random comment on my Instagram page.
Absolutely. And probably the truth is that's one comment out of 200.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? And so you have— you might have 199 wonderful comments And we see that one and we kind of go, and we wanna comment right there. And you know, it does nothing. I get questions, I know you get questions of people. When I post, I get negative comments and, or, you know, how do you handle it? And I go, do you have to? What do you, I mean, the algorithm doesn't care if it's happy or sad, it's a comment. But at the same time, do you know this person? Are you gonna actually sit down and spend time with this person? What's going on in your life?
I sort of, in my, In my last book, uh, Jeff said Make Change at Last, there's a chapter called Take Less Offense. Okay, I think you'd really enjoy it actually. And, um, in that chapter I make the case that offense is something we choose to do, right? Nothing is inherently offensive because if it was, we'd all find the same thing offensive.
Yeah, I love that.
The fact that we don't means it's not the comment or the thing that was causing the offense. It was something within us that was being activated, right? Right. I'm not excusing poor behavior here. Sure. I'm just saying that nothing is inherently offensive. We're choosing to take offense, right? And then I sort of also made the case in that chapter that on some level, taking offense is actually, or could be argued to be, a little bit arrogant. And, and, and the reason I say that is because if you think about it rationally, there's 8 billion people on the planet., right? Is it reasonable to believe that every other human being on this planet is going to have the same view and perspective on the world as I do? No, right? It's not reasonable at all. Clearly some people in the world are going to see the world differently from me. They're going to have different ethics, different religion, a different way of being brought up, different levels of trauma, whatever it might be. They're going to see the world differently. So they may actually disagree with me on certain things. They may see things completely differently. It doesn't mean that they're wrong and I'm right, or I'm right and they're wrong. Yeah. Just means they see it differently.
Yes. You choose to take offense to certain things. And I'm of the mindset of anytime you just hear change, you hear about change, it makes you uncomfortable. You hear about change in the world or somebody having a different political view than you. That's change. You're hearing it makes you go, I don't like that. So whenever you find and hear that change that's being communicated to you and it makes you uncomfortable, that creates a lot of that fear because we like what is safe, we like what is known. Let's say I want to change your mind about something and you have this political view. Let's say it's a religious view, for example. And I say that as something that's typically very crystallizing as part of somebody's identity. Well, if I just expect in one conversation I'm going to entirely disprove everything that you've ever believed. Problems are gonna happen because what's most likely is I'm not just saying you're wrong, I'm saying your parents are wrong. I'm saying your grandmother's wrong. I'm saying that thing that you learned when you were a kid and you've known your entire life is all wrong. And people will do anything far past the point of just deciding not to listen to you in order to preserve what they know. And it is so easy for people— that's why a lot of times in a political climate, they're okay with one candidate doing it, they're not okay with another candidate doing it. They're okay if it's the side I am comfortable with. I'm not good with if it's a side I don't agree with. Why? Because we feel comfortable with what we know because it comes down from the people that put their value in us, and we will defend the people in our lives that have contributed to that view. So in other words, you can say I'm wrong, but if you're saying my dad's wrong, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, you don't get to say my dad's wrong. I'm the one. And so we get defensive on behalf of the people that help shape our identity. And so we will do anything to the point of just refusing to listen, even to logic, even to evidence. Even somebody presents you with evidence of saying something of why your position is wrong on it, we will boldface just disagree with it in order to protect the values that we've been raised with.
Yeah, it's a great point. I mean, obviously you are an American citizen and, you know, American politics is very interesting.
That's a great word. Yeah, let's keep it to that word.
Yeah, it's very interesting. And I think 12 months ago, the statistic that I came across was that 1 in 6 US adults are not talking to another family member because of a difference of opinion. Yeah, over politics, which I found utterly remarkable. Right, right. And really just speaks to what you just said, right? Yes. And I guess that in many ways highlights why a book like yours is so important, right? Because it should be possible for two people with completely different religions or completely different political beliefs within the same family, it should be possible to have a conversation with them. Yes. And still love them and still respect them. You know, of course, people will argue that there are extremes, there are certain things that people can't get over. Okay, but as a general principle, you should be able to get on with people who see the world differently than you do. Yes. Which is something you don't see online much. But if I think about even my best mates from university, like there's 4 or 5 of us and, you know, we'd be there for each other. You know, we could rely on each other for anything. Doesn't mean we all see the world the same way. Right. We, you know, we have differences of opinions on things. We're still best mates. Right. But it seems as though the world, at least online, well, I say online it's getting more divided, but that statistic would suggest that actually offline as well.
Yeah.
It's getting more divided as well.
Yeah, I definitely believe so because we're not allowing real conversation. We expect that we can solve all issues in one conversation. In fact, I'll go even more. We feel like we can solve everything and change someone's mind by saying one sentence. And we just think because I said it, well, then they have to wholeheartedly swallow it, agree with it, take it and say, I'm the most amazing genius they've ever heard. Yes, of course you're right. And that's just never going to happen. And instead, you have to see that if you want to change someone's mind, you better be ready to have multiple conversations. I'm talking conversations over years, things that you're gonna have to invest in asking questions and finding out why someone believes what they do. When you actually take the time, rather than fighting the opinion they have, you take the time to find out why they have it, And how they learned it and where they picked it up and when they learned it. All of that information is going to give you way more knowledge and realize it's not the symptom, it's the cause.
Yeah. Is it even possible to change someone's mind? It's like maybe the goal is never to change someone's mind. Maybe the goal should be to learn.
Yeah, I like it. Well, I would reframe that. Yes, you can change someone's mind, but what you said is right. You have to change the goal. Too often we put a bar on conversations of— and that bar is, they have to admit I'm right. They have to say they're wrong. That is rarely, if ever, going to happen. I can't get my child to say that. I think I'm going to have someone who's a grown adult say that, who's had a year or years, a whole life of experiences? And I think just because I uttered sound into the air, they're automatically just gonna go, "The scales have fallen from my eyes, how wrong I am." That's not going to happen, right? And so you can absolutely change someone's mind, but one, you have to live it. You can't just say it and there be misalignment in how you're living. Two, yes, evidence helps, but sometimes when you're trying to push your opinion, that makes me come closer more. So for example, the more I tell you you're wrong, the more convinced you're gonna be that you're right. You're gonna protect what you know, because this is the one thing you feel like you do know that you're sure about. Why? Because your dad told you about it when you were 5. So you will wrap yourself onto that memory. So can you change someone's mind? Yes, 100% you can, but you cannot do it when you raise the bar as I'm right, you're wrong. Instead, I'm telling you to lower the bar. That's what the book does. It tells you to lower the bar. Instead of saying, I need to prove that I'm right, my goal is to understand where you're coming from. My goal is to ask more questions than I say things. My goal is to, am I showing appreciation for the time that we're spending in this conversation. When you set the bar really low, just making sure you feel understood and they feel understood, or they feel acknowledged, set a bar of how can I show that I acknowledge them in this conversation? That's going to lead to more of what you want rather than setting that bar that you can never meet.
Yeah. Some of what you just said there speaks to one of the other life lessons in the book, which is never win an argument. Yeah. What does that mean?
Whenever you set out to win an argument, you will lose the relationship over time. If I were to say, do you know anybody in your life who always has to be right? They always have to have the final say. They always have to have the last word. Those kind of people are not someone anybody wants to be around. It's typically an audience of one. And the more you try to win and prove, you lower the quality and connection of that relationship. What you've really won is their contempt. Let's say you and I are in an argument. Rather than me trying to understand you, I have to win. Win often sounds like I'm the last one to talk. That's what we typically have in conversations. The one who says something last is the one who somehow wins. Maybe you said something really ugly because you and I have been personal friends for forever, and I know that one button that I can say that speaks right to your insecurity, and all of a sudden you shut down. Does that mean I win? Probably not, but that's the feeling. Or if you and I are in a conflict of opinion and I'm the one that says, no, I have to be right, and you go, you know what, fine, you're right, you're right. Is that really winning? Over time, they're gonna feel contempt for you. What you really want is to be the first to apologize. And that's kind of the procedure of arguments. The person who said the worst thing last is typically the one who has to apologize first. What I like to teach is instead of trying to win the argument, you look to unravel them. You find the knots in the conversation and get really quick and really proficient at loosening them.
Why do you think so many people take things personally when they're having a conversation?
Our default is to make things about me, make things about I, not so much you. And it's just a shift of perspective that we make everything, everything about us. Like, as me, as a young associate at the law firm, us associates would complain about the partners. We go, the partners don't care. Partners don't listen to us. All they do is think about themselves. When I made partner, I got a, within probably 5 minutes, I got an email and I thought, these associates, all they do is care about themselves. You know, it's very us versus them mentality. When you're the employee, you hate the management. When you're the management, you hate the employee. You always find a way to make it about you. It's our default. It's why we take things personally. It's why when you— if I were to text you, okay, you're not going to be, look at that, look how nice Jefferson is. He said okay in the happiest way possible. Instead, you're going to go, okay, what kind of okay is that? Is that an okay, okay? Or is that like an okay? We find ways of reading the negative in text and email, any transactional correspondence like that. If you enjoyed that clip and wanna see the rest of the conversation, you can click right here. Or if you wanna see the latest episode of the Jefferson Fisher Podcast, click right here and I'll meet you there.
