Winning the Moment, Not the Argument with Jefferson Fisher

0:28We always recommend Shopify. Hey, I need you to pause right now. We've been taught the wrong thing when it comes to argument. You should actually never want to win an argument. And I'm getting that in this conversation with one of the best attorneys in the world. In this episode, we break down, number one, why the goal should not be to win an argument. Number two, how you should speak less, but say more. And then we go into how to control yourself, how to control moments, and how to control pace. Ladies and gentlemen, make sure you buckle up. I present to you my good friend, Mr. Jefferson Fisher.

1:05Jay, how are you doing today, brother? I'm good, Mick. It's so good to hear you, man. What an introduction. I got to get you to send that so I can frame it somewhere. That's awesome, man. It's so good to talk with you and share some stuff with your audience, brother. So I'm blessed. Man, I'm the honored one. I'm the blessed one. And Jefferson, you know, on the show, we like to talk about your because, that thing that's deeper than your why, right? Like I, I believe when I ask you what's your why, you're going to give me an answer. And then I'm going to say, but why? And that usually starts with because blah, blah, blah.

1:39So I like skipping all that. And it's like, tell me your because. So if I were to say Jefferson, man, today, what's your because? Why do you do what you do? What's that?

1:52Because there will be a time where I am not on this earth and I want two little kids of mine to be able to know what I stood for and that things will still exist that I created that can still teach them along the way. I love that dude. I love that. So grounded in that. And again, I'm a huge fan of you. You started your podcast journey like March of last year, right? That's when I started mine. And you were someone that I truly looked up to. And most people that know me know, I don't listen to a ton of podcasts just because I never want to like take ideas or take questions or, you know, follow guests.

2:38And that way, when my guests come on, we can be truly authentic. And I'm not asking something I heard, but yours is one that I actually listened to, subscribed to, have left reviews for because I love what you represent because you're giving insights. Your solo episodes, it's like, hey, I'm going to talk to you for 12, 15 minutes and here's something you can do right now. And then when your guests are on, man, like you really get something out of them. So my first question truly is, why did you know that that was what you needed to do at the time? Being start a podcast, get that voice, get that out there.

3:18because I knew that I had to do what was authentic to me. We see a lot of podcasts out there and I'm like you, Nick, where I, before starting my podcast, I didn't really consume hardly any, you know, I just, I just didn't. I don't ask me why I just, I saw ones that were like four hours and I'm like, who has the time? There's no way I can't even, I don't even have time for an hour. There's, there's no way. And so I thought there has to be some kind of market for people who just want to hear 15 minutes during their commute and just get a little bit of something that they can apply, keep in their mind, help focus and frame their day.

3:59And I thought, well, why don't I just do that? And it was also something that fit my life. I think there's so many times people like you and me or other creators out there feel like we have to mold our life to fit the expectation rather than taking the expectation and dissolving that down, washing it down, purifying that and making it fit your life. And so when I make my podcast, they're short because that's the time I got. You know, so not trying to make it into something, even like this room. And I'm sure with yours, it's not nearly as fancy as it looks like it's a small little small little space.

4:39And I just this is the first time I want to start this podcast that I had an actual real camera and I had to Google every setting possible on the thing. So that's that's how it started. Probably same as yours, man. Oh, absolutely, man. And obviously it's not about me. about you today, but very similar. Just like, I want my message to be out there, but not even my message, the power of because. I wanted that out there. And I know that everyone has a unique story or something they've overcome or a place that they've been mentally, physically, that they had to go out and say, I'm going to do this.

5:16I'm going to fight through. And I think that's what the viewers and listeners appreciate with what I do. And I know with what you do as well, too. Like, hey, cut through the fluff. Let me choose the right words and say the right word, which is where I want to lead to. You teach the power of words and why they're so important in communication. Talk us through that journey a little bit of why words matter and not just words, but the right word.

5:44And even the timing of words and the tone of words matter. So let's just say the word okay. Like what is almost universally accepted in most languages. Okay. Okay. Like we get that. It's a thumbs up. It's a sign of approval, maybe understanding, some type of quick connection. But imagine if your child, instead of saying okay, said okay, right? Like now all of a sudden you feel different. Or maybe your spouse or your boyfriend-girlfriend goes, okay, just the difference in the sound of the word communicates something entirely different. Whether it's okay or okay. There is all kinds of ways that we can communicate different things without changing the word.

6:46So that's one. Second of all, the impact of your words is that they cement in memories. I'm willing to bet that anybody listening right now can remember a time when they were on the playground. And there was a kid that came up to them, maybe a group, and they can probably still remember that person's name, who said something to them, made fun of their shirt, made fun of their glasses, called them a name, made fun of their hair, their skin, their shoes, whatever it is. And it created an insecurity in them that they have remembered throughout their entire life. And there's so many things that we forget in life.

7:31I don't remember what I have for breakfast. I don't remember all kinds of things that happened in my childhood. But I remember the person who said one thing to me, that it kept with me and created an insecurity. And everybody, I think everybody has that. And so not only can you communicate different things and just keeping the same word, any word that you choose has the power to last long after you exist, which is a wild thing. You can remember things that teachers told you that you've kept with you or a grandparent told you that you've kept with you and they're no longer on this earth. And yet the memory of their words live on.

8:13So the ripple effect of words will always last longer than we'll ever live to see. And that's why you are who you are. I know as an attorney, you're never going to use the word expert or guru, right? Because that can get you in trouble sometimes. but Jefferson you are the guy you are the person when we talk about effective communication and why words matter you're the person that I look up to and usually when my guests come on that have written books I usually kind of wait towards the middle or the end of the episode this book the next conversation matters or the next conversation argue less talk more is so impactful that I want to go right into it because number one, it is now New York Times bestseller.

9:02So kudos to that. That speaks volumes of what the book is. Again, the next conversation, argue less, talk more. I'm going to have links in the show notes and description. But this book, especially for a trial lawyer, right, for a trial attorney, stopped me at just the title because by nature, you should argue more, right? You being an attorney, right? Right. Right. So talk to us about just the title, why you chose the title. And again, it grabbed me because I knew who you were. And I was like, oh, I argue let's talk more. I've got to go into it. So talk to us about the title. The people who watch my content and the ones that I am just incredibly blessed to be able to share a passion and a gift of mine.

9:51is they watch my content not to handle the last conversation. They watch it to figure out how to handle the next conversation. And I saw that time and time again in comments and messages on my, it doesn't matter what social channel. Yeah. And people saying, hey, I just used this thing that you taught. it totally worked or oh my gosh i used this word and had a totally different outcome and this really worked this i can't believe this really worked and they were just continually to dig and digest the content to handle the next situation the next conversation so that's how i i got there and the argue let's talk more is something that i've i've always said that i help people with it was one of the first things i i did when you kind of put in your where they call it kind of your heading your bio is like what what do i really help people with it helps to distill that into for me a help statement what do i help people with and i came up with well i i help people argue less and i help them talk more which is very contradictory like you mentioned for an attorney because we people feel like we get hired to argue and we argue a whole lot which is partly true that you do have to have a lot of written and legal arguments throughout the profession.

11:16But yeah, that, that is something that I like contradictory things and, and contradictions peaks a lot of curiosity in people. Here's a guy who's an attorney. I could be wearing a suit and tie. I could be doing it with all of my degrees and my, my, my law books, everything behind a desk. Or here's this guy who's in his vehicle in a t-shirt with his kid's car seat in the back. And he says he's an attorney and he's talking about helping me not argue with people. Like there is that sense of what's going on here that I really enjoy. Man, and we're going to go into a lot of the book and I'm going to go into some of my mentors because a lot of the topics that you discuss in the book are lessons that I've learned from mentors.

12:06And so I want to start with, one, how you set the book up. So again, for everybody that's watching or that's listening, the next conversation, by far one of the best books you'll ever read is something that you can go to literally daily. But you started out with breaking the book down into the essentials and then the application. So I know as a reader, OK, the first three chapters are the first three parts. You're just going to show me, hey, these are the essentials that I need to have the next conversation or to set everything up. And then I've got the application. So I've learned it. Now, how do I put it into use into what I do?

12:45And so I love that setup because one, it made it very easy for me to read because I knew how things were going. So I wanted to applaud you. Thank you. I told you offline the story of you and Bobby LaPrey that was so fire to start the book off with that story in that setting. I was captured from from moment one. So for the viewers and listeners, let's walk through that first chapter, not giving the whole book away, the whole chapter way, but let's set that up so that they understand you and Bobby. You know, Big Bobby is I've named him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I called him Big Bad Bobby LaPrey. Now, that wasn't his real name.

13:28I couldn't use his real name. Of course. It was very similar to his real name. Yeah. And for those listening, imagine a guy, you know, I'm 6 '1". I barely came to this man's chest. I'm talking the kind of human that you look at and you think, man, am I physically deficient? You know, I just, I paled in comparison to him physically. And usually when you sit down and I'm deposing Bobby, so for, if you don't know what a deposition is, it's a chance for me to ask questions, any attorney to ask questions of a witness or any person under oath before trial. Trial is not like you see on TV. There's no surprises.

14:12You know exactly what witnesses are going to be called and you know exactly what those witnesses are going to say. How do you know what they're going to say? Because you've deposed them and you've already had a chance to ask them questions. so that there are no surprises. So a lot of times you ask the same questions in deposition as you do a trial. And also you may not call that person to trial because you find out by deposing them, they really don't know anything. So it's a chance for attorneys to do some fact finding. Well, Bobby was somebody who was a witness to, let's just say a scene. And I was gonna need to ask him some questions about who was there, what time, what did he see?

14:50And that was the current situation. He's sitting across from me at the table and in the conference room. He's humongous. He's sitting there, elbows on the table. And imagine a man who looks very upset and unhappy to be there. That's the setup of Bobby. That's amazing. And the title of that chapter is never win an argument. Right. Yeah. And again, just hearing that, I sat there and I was like, I have to see where this is going. But then the practicality of that is true, right? Like you're, you're not setting yourself up to win an argument. You're, you're setting yourself up to connect, to, to show that you're listening, to get the empathy there.

15:37But then when we talk about the essential, some of the things like controlling yourself, controlling the pace, like you're setting everything up there, man. So again, that chapter is fire. So again, I had to tell you that to your face because it's, it grabbed me. My wife, even with her organization, she's ordered this book for her leaders. And it's something that they go through as well, too. So now I want to go into the application piece. And here's where I'm going to talk about some of my mentors. So control yourself. I want you to talk through the essence of what that means high level. Again, not to go deep into the book because everybody needs to buy the book.

16:14But when I read that chapter, I immediately thought of Robert Irvine. So celebrity chef, Robert Irvine, one of the greatest leaders that I know that talks about impact, but he always says, Mick, everything starts with controlling yourself first. So I'd love to get Jefferson Fisher's version of what it means to control yourself. yeah so i the application uh takes that story of bobby and outlines how i walked through that situation with him which ended with he and i hugging you know really learning that he's a human behind the surface and i broke the application into three sections one is how to say it with control two is say it with confidence and three is safe to connect and in control like Like you said, it always has to do with instead of trying to focus on how to control them, first deciding to control you.

17:10Because if I don't control my breath, if I don't control my tone, if I don't control my mindset and the questions and things that I'm doing, nothing else works. I don't care how many videos of mine you've seen. I don't care how many other tools you try to implement. Nothing is going to work. if you are not first grounded, settled, controlled, and regulated in a healthy way. And so that is the first outline of it where we talk and I teach, how do you control yourself? What's the best way to do that that we know of using neurobiology, using science, using what I've seen work time and time again in my own practice?

17:53How does that happen to where you can make sure that the conversation is going to end better than had it gone had you not. What are a couple of tips for the viewer listener right now that's like, oh, I need that. Mick talks a lot about emotional intelligence and the first two steps are, you know, knowing yourself and then self-regulation. Jefferson, what are a couple of things people can do right now to control them? What I teach is let your breath be the first word that you say, meaning when somebody says something to you that's that makes you prickle makes you kind of get bowed up so to speak let your breath be the first word so where your first word would be put a breath in its place and if you're listening right now we can do it together so it's what they call a double inhalation you're going to breathe through your nose twice it's not exaggerated it's not weird i teach all of my clients and prep my witnesses to do it and it works really well.

18:55So you're going to go about two seconds in through your nose, one more at the top, then out through your nose. And just right now listening to me, I bet your shoulders softened a little bit. I bet all of a sudden you're realizing the breath that you're taking. When they say breath work, all it is is just simply a focus and realizing that you're breathing because throughout the day we hold our breath. If you've ever been talking to somebody and somebody goes, why are you yelling? And you go, I'm not yelling. It's because you've been holding and pressuring that breath was put you in a low grade state of anxiety because your body's saying, Hey, you're suffocating me here.

19:31I feel like I'm drowning here. And so that's why that air has nowhere else to go, but out and to yell and to say something is wrong when people have anxiety or panic attacks. And so use your breath to regulate yourself. And it always makes sure that you don't get emotionally flooded your listeners are are very intelligent and they they know all about the fight or flight and how you can you can get emotionally flooded and once that happens it's it's gone you know at that point it's jesus take the wheel because you don't know what in the world's gonna happen at that point um and it it it keeps that mindset so one's your breath that's the best thing to do to naturally regulate yourself there won't be anything better than that number Or two, it's simply your mindset to ask yourself questions.

20:17And this is what I teach. When you're in that difficult conversation, have something to learn, not something to prove. And I promise you that's going to end with a much better conversation. Because too many times, if you're listening and you've ever had this moment where somebody gets upset at you and they say something that's kind of challenging your authority and you have this thought of. I think you must have done forgot who you're talking to. I think you forgot who you're talking to. Let me remind you who you're dealing with here. I think you don't know. You don't need like as soon as you get into that mode, like you've lost, forget it.

20:56You have no control over where this is going to go because at that point, your emotions are controlling it. You have no, you have no train. But so instead of having that, how dare you say that to me? It's a flip of the mindset that says thinking in your head of, I wonder what's happening here. I wonder why they're saying that. I wonder what's going on. There's something I'm missing here. There's something else that's going on that you're starting to get to the root of the issue rather than just dealing with the symptoms, you know, of let's say the leaves of a tree, you're focusing on the roots, you're focusing on the true problem.

21:31And that always is what's going to shorten the argument and end up being a better conversation. I was writing some things down because I needed that too. Even though I teach emotional intelligence, it also doesn't mean that I'm not a student continuing to learn. So thank you for that, man. Like I need it. Absolutely. Hey, thanks, brother. Yeah. And I think that speaks to a really good point for all our audiences. And that is you and I, we're continually learning. I mean, that's the part of it. And that's anybody who says that they're an expert in something knows that the more you learn about it, the less you know.

22:05And so you just continue. And that doesn't matter what subject. So for me, I continually dig and absorb and notice interactions and go, oh, that's really cool. And same for you when you run into situations and you go, oh, okay, I see a bump in my kind of meter of my knowledge of emotional intelligence. We're always, always learning. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. The next two chapters in the application, I learned this through you and then also from my mentors, Damon, John and Chris Voss. And it's just so timely because I know Chris Voss did an endorsement for a really good friend of mine. As a leader, as a communicator, you also need to understand how to control the moment and control the pace.

22:55And if there's nothing more powerful in your book, Jefferson, it is those two chapters. Because when I told you that my wife, this is a part of what she does with her leaders at her company. It's those two chapters that they spend most of their time. How do you control the moment as a leader and control the pace for your organization? So talk through that from your perspective, controlling the moment, controlling. I love that you picked up on that. That brings me so much happiness because I absolutely agree. That section of that chapter to me is by far one of the most potent things you can do for your communication and you're leveling up your leadership.

23:38When it comes to controlling the moment and controlling the pace, they're related to each other. think of a time where let's say you're at the house and you and your wife or your spouse your husband y 'all are arguing right then they say something that gets you to want to react in some way the faster you go i mean the faster you go back and forth the less control you have but if i slow it down the more space i've added and the more we've regulated that's the power of pauses so when you control the the pace that is slowing everything down so specifically on pace what does that mean what i teach in prep a lot of my clients for because I'm sending them to the wolves, really, for people to try and discredit them, hurt their credibility, to call them out as a liar, whatever it is to help the other side's case, is I will continually say you were the one that controls the pace of the conversation, not them, meaning nobody, people listening, hear this, nobody can make you say anything that you don't want to say.

24:58Nobody can make you say anything on their time frame. You're the one that controls when you speak. You're the one who controls if you speak at all. And you control what you speak. And so when you realize that you're the one that has that power, you're the one that has that. So I don't care what the other person says. I get to choose if I respond at all and when I respond. And so what I will teach and what I've seen work so beautifully in heightened times of conflict is just a pause. A five-to-second pause totally changes the game. For example, let's say that somebody, we talk about this in the later chapters, we dig into this.

25:48Somebody saying something that's mean to you. I'm saying they say something that's rude or belittling. And rather than firing back and throwing something right back, which does what escalates it even more. You just imagine it drops like you just see it on a piece of paper and then you drop the paper. It just falls to the ground and you're looking at it. Imagine looking at whatever they just said and looking at them as if like, are you sure that you that what you wanted to say? You give that five to seven seconds of nothing, and all of a sudden, the dynamic changes. Now, you're the one who sounds in control, and the other person sounds desperate.

26:29And now, how many times have you been in that argument, and you're wanting somebody to say something else mean, and they don't? And all of a sudden, you're the one left holding it. There's nothing special. You just chose to add silence, which then controls the pace and then ultimately allows you to control that moment. Make sure that you're the one that's confident, controlled and not grasping for it. So the more when you say hurtful things, you give away your control every time you are. You're just giving it away. Jefferson, man, I could literally talk to you all day. Same, man. I'm loving this.

27:06I could pick your brain literally all day. So here's what I'm going to do for the people that are listening and watching. And my true followers know that I do this a lot. So the first 20 people that message me the next conversation, and I don't care which platform, and just know I get like a thousand of these, but it's the first 20, right? The first 20, I'm going to send you a copy of the book. So Jefferson, I'm going to order copies. And the first 20 that do that, I'm going to send. but everyone else, here's what I really need you to do. I don't care if it's Amazon, Books of Millions, Barnes and Nobles, whatever, go order a copy of the book online, but then do me a huge favor, go to a local bookstore and then go get a copy for someone on your team or someone in your family.

27:57And what I want to do in Jefferson, I'll figure out when I'm going to do this, but I want to have the next conversation, many virtual mastermind. And we're going to talk. So if you buy this book and then you also get another copy for a colleague, a family member, a peer, whoever, we're going to talk about the lessons learned. We're going to talk about strategies to implement things from this book because this book is that powerful. And everybody knows I don't do this, but this book is that important. I mean, everyone knows modern leadership is my thing. There are so many great principles and amazing principles in this book that I want this book.

28:34I don't know if I'm starting a book club, Jefferson or not, but I want this book to be the topic of, I don't know if it's going to be Q1, Q4, but my power circle, we're going to get together and we're going to break down this book as a team, as a family. You got to go purchase it first. Got to go purchase it first. Man, Mick, I don't have the words, man. That sounds so cool. I'm honored. I'm blessed. And I'm pumped. Let's do it. Can't wait. No, I mean it, man. And like, I don't do this a lot, but this book really is principles for modern leaders. I mean, it's it's conversations that we're not having that are so simply understood.

29:12And I think a lot of times simple we take for granted. We're looking for buzzwords. We're looking for complex theory. No, no, you don't. Because those things you can't implement. What Jefferson teaches you, you can implement today. And I promise you my wife's company, which I can't say publicly, but my wife's company is prime example that implementing this can change the culture and it can give you what you need as a leader, the blueprint, the strategy. So get this. That's awesome, man. Thanks, Vic. You got it. All right, Jeff. So I'm going to get you out of here on my quick five. Quick five, rapid fire.