How To Have The Hardest Conversations Of Your Life - Jefferson Fisher - #1093

27:39Some people get mad, some people get sad, some people get wistful, some people feel grief, some people get depressed or anxious or whatever. But if you look a little bit deeper and if you can try and break them apart, if you can spend a little bit of time with them, And we go, it's actually not that. It's not those five meals. If I look a little bit more closely, it's these. And yeah, anger is really effective at what it used to do right before we had law enforcement. Before we had law enforcement and you crossed the line with me, I needed a sufficiently animated response to tell you, you crossed the line.

28:12You're not going to do that again. And I'm going to show you how formidable I am by being loud and big and scary. And it's also going to warn everybody else in the tribe that's watching. that they can't do it to me too. Yeah. Because if they do that, this will happen, and they don't want this to happen. But now that response isn't needed in the same way. You can actually bypass that, because presuming that there's no physical threat, you can actually communicate it to somebody in a way that's way more effective, because anger doesn't usually get responded to with behavior change.

28:46Jefferson Fisher:Yeah, rarely if ever does getting angry at somebody lead to changing their behavior. I mean, the harder you push, the more hardened they become. The more you tell somebody they're wrong, the more convinced they are that they're right. And it wasn't that long ago that we did duels. Like, you disrespected my honor in some way. We're going to go shoot it out. And one of us may be standing one not. And thankfully, we don't do that anymore. We have increased some emotional capacity there. But I do think that anger is one that you find, especially in relationships, if you're really mad at your spouse or partner or whatever, if you just go a little bit deeper, it didn't take long for that anger just to turn into sadness.

29:32Jefferson Fisher:That's why a lot of times yelling turns into tears. Yeah, you see that with people. Yeah. I saw this on the front door of nightclubs a lot. So these girls would have been kicked out. Maybe they were too drunk. Maybe they've been doing something that they shouldn't have done or whatever. and they get kicked out outside. And it happened more with, maybe because guys are ashamed of allowing their anger to turn into sadness, or maybe that's not an emotion that comes up. I'm not too sure. But these girls would get kicked out. They'd be outside. It's Newcastle, the most northerly city in England. It's fucking freezing, and it's like November or something.

30:03And they're outside in some tiny little party dress. And they were just having fun with their friends, and then they did something, and they're feeling injustice. And they'd be shouting and screaming. It's so funny. Door staff that are inside of a venue come and deposit a problem that the door staff outside of the venue now have to deal with. Right? Something happened inside. And the guys outside are now justifying what happened. And the girls would be shouting and screaming and like, I've got to go. My friends are in there. They've got my bag. What about my coat? You can't do that. That's not fair.

30:29She's a bitch. And then very quickly, that would turn into a tea. The sadness. Because it felt like this is injustice. I'm indignant. This isn't fair. That shouldn't have happened to me. And I'm drunk.

30:43Jefferson Fisher:Yeah, that too. It works the same way with shame. Usually shame is met with defiance and defensiveness and anger and unfairness when behind that is usually some type of self-loathing sadness underneath it. I don't want people to see. Yeah, exactly. There's a difference between shame and regret. And usually whenever you're getting in that cycle of I can't show my emotion, that's the same reason why you hide what you hide. It's the same reason you have the secrets you have because you couldn't imagine life with people knowing and knowing you have those emotions and feelings. And I think, especially for guys, we still feel the same things, but a lot of us have a problem with showing it.

31:32Jefferson Fisher:We'd just rather go static or rather go stoic. It's expressing it that's a whole lot harder. What are the biggest mistakes that people make when they're on the receiving end of aggression?

31:47Jefferson Fisher:that the other person doesn't want to be understood where there that's all there is to this person if you're on the receiving end of aggression um one i think that's you need to lay some boundaries to make sure that you're not like assertiveness is good aggressiveness says i don't care about you then that's not that's not okay um but i think that if you find that you're on the other side of aggression you're dealing with several different levels of how you want to lay a boundary of how i want to be spoken to so we could talk about how do you respond to something like that if it's somebody who means something to you then usually that's very telling like we talked about a three a conversation if somebody comes in at a seven well it's very telling that means they're having a conversation in their head that you weren't invited to you know and so it's rather than coming at it with, they have to agree with me.

32:44Jefferson Fisher:It's this mindset of have something to learn, not something to prove. And if I can think with the outset of, I wonder where that's coming from. I wonder why they're responding that way. I wonder what's happening. I wonder what would cause that response. Then you're going to be in a whole lot better position to keep yourself from getting emotionally wrapped up and responding in kind with aggression. Aggression would, matching aggression doesn't really go anywhere. It just, anytime that somebody comes at you with aggressiveness and you respond, all you've done is just told them that you're exactly what they said that you were.

33:20Jefferson Fisher:You know, you've just proved their point and now they're just going to want to ratchet it up. How do you think about setting boundaries well? You have to focus on the consequences and be okay with it. I think that's one of the hardest parts of boundaries. People are okay with saying, I'm not good with this anymore, but their bark doesn't really have any bite to it. They're not willing to accept the consequences. For me, in simple boundaries in conversation, and I know boundaries get talked about a lot, it's just simply saying, one, what you're not going to do, two, if they continue to do this, and three, what you're willing to walk away from.

33:55Jefferson Fisher:So for example, let's say you're saying something that's offensive to me. I'm going to say, I don't engage in conversation people, they're going to disrespect me. If you continue to disrespect me, and Chris, this is the end of the conversation, I have to be willing to get up and walk away. Rather than saying, you can't yell at me, if I were to turn it to, I don't respond to that volume. That's a whole different power move that says, I'm the one that's going to be much more in control and confident in this conversation. The more controlled and confident I feel, the less in control you're going to feel.

34:34I suppose the difficulty when you're the person who is at a three and somebody else is at a seven is that the person at a seven doesn't usually want to listen to somebody that's at a three. They need time to come back down. Exactly. And if you want to fix, if you're in the mindset of fixing, the only way that they're going to be able to hear you, even if it makes it worse, is for you to go to a seven, which puts both of you at an eight. Exactly. But yeah, the time away, but the time away without feeling like you're abandoning the conversation, which is, I suppose, where the clear communication comes in.

35:12Exactly. That's so important.

35:13Jefferson Fisher:Yeah, there's a difference between just saying, I'm out of here, slamming the door and leaving it, versus saying, I'm not leaving this conversation. I am going to make sure that we take some time because I can see you need some space. I'm good with that. You good with talking about this later this afternoon? usually the other head yeah or sometimes i can tell you when i feel like my wife and i are on the same team is if i'll ask something and she'll go i'm fine and i know she's not and i might ask you get with talking to me about it later you should go yeah

35:51Jefferson Fisher:you know what i mean but that like you have to be able to give that yeah you know to say hey I'm not I don't want to leave this conversation I'm not this matters to me if it matters to you it matters to me Chris Voss has a slammer for getting people who seem like they have something on their mind to speak up when they don't want to and it's just seems like there's something on your mind yeah he's the best I love Chris it's the seems like sounds like seems like you have a reason for saying that but it's also Chris Voss's voice like yeah of course I mean you hear his voice and he could be like you know I think you should give me that couch.

36:26Jefferson Fisher:And I'd be like, you could tell me to suck his dick and I'd probably... Yeah, probably. He's that good. Look, his voice is that good. He's a handsome man. And also the voice. Yeah, yeah. Also the voice, you know. Yeah, he's got a voice that naturally just calms you down. This just seems like, sounds like. So if you, somebody says something and you go, sounds like you have a reason for saying that. Sounds like that really matters to you. That seems like a really big deal. They go, yeah, yeah, it was a really big deal. But it's the same thing with like passive aggressive people. You can use that same tag.

36:57Jefferson Fisher:Okay, tell me how to deal with passive aggressive people. So if somebody's being passive aggressive, it's usually something that was taught in childhood, meaning they've learned that their needs weren't gonna be met right in that moment. So they would rather kind of expect you to solve it for them. In other words, they want you to, they don't wanna be direct. They just expect you to find the answer. So it's the people that say things like, Like, you know, it should be nice if I was invited to something like that. Like, they're not going to voice it. So they would rather kind of, they're not going to use the front door.

37:29Jefferson Fisher:They're always going to use the backside exit. And instead of needing that, you can say, sounds like you have a reason for saying that. Sounds like there's more to that. Usually they have an answer for that. or if you were to say if they're being passive you can say i what's coming up for you that's one i like to use for a lot of different things is what's coming up so it has a way of disarming people in a non-defensive posture rather than saying what's wrong with you i'm gonna say what's coming up for you meaning that i'm signaling that there's something else going on in here that I'm trying to help you bring to light.

38:17Jefferson Fisher:But that sounds like, seems like, sounds like you have a reason for saying that. Seems like there's something else that you're not saying as a way of getting the passive aggressive people. But I mean, if it's entrenched in them, all they're going to do is really double down. I mean, it would just be nice, you know, if somebody were to invite me to something, but no, that's fine. I mean, you can't help the victim mentality that's not going to switch by just a few sentences. Before we continue, most people in their 30s are still training hard. Their protein is dialed in. They sleep better than they did in their 20s.

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39:55Digging more to the genesis of the passive-aggressive person in childhood, I thought that was interesting.

40:00Jefferson Fisher:Yeah, well, you think of, like we just saw on that Theo clip, and how we respond to everything, how we were modeled in communication, and how we were treated in children, what you call your childhood trauma, shows up all the time. And so it comes into these filters that you apply. So maybe you're in an argument with your wife or your girlfriend or whatever, and you felt controlled in that moment because she made some snide comment about what you can or can't do and what she didn't want you to do. And you didn't like that because you're a guy who gets to decide your own thing. And all of a sudden you're voicing and yelling at what could have been a level three.

40:43Jefferson Fisher:You're now at a level 11. but really deep down what your body felt was you were back to that eight-year-old boy whose mom wouldn't let him go outside without first doing x y and z or a dad that made him do they didn't make him feel safe and so you're you're responding based on old scripts and so we all have these old scripts like old tape cassettes that we play anytime we feel these big feelings of i'm being controlled. I'm being pressured. I'm being caged. I'm not my own person. I don't feel safe. I'm never going to feel safe. I'm too much. These old scripts that we've been playing in our head.

41:23Jefferson Fisher:And so we show those all the time in the language that we're using. So it's not that you're seeing the person and talking to them. It's usually, it's a reflection of something that happened in your past that's showing back up. And the passive aggressive person had needs that weren't reliably met. Yeah, it could have been. I mean, well, here's the takeaway though, is that At one point in time, that passive aggressiveness had a utility to it. There was a time when maybe they weren't safe to say what they actually needed. Their aggression wasn't safe. Their aggression wasn't safe. Voicing anything wasn't safe.

41:58Jefferson Fisher:And so they found that their life went better when they didn't have to voice it. Yeah, they held it in. And so they found some way to cope and expect somebody else to read their mind rather than something else. But there's a lot of different things that show up from childhood that we're just big kids. What about when it comes to delivering bad news to people? It's a required life lesson. It's impossible to not get around that. And people get really uncomfortable with it. And usually it's because they're feeling other people's feelings for them. I don't want to say that. That's not nice. They feel like they have to be nice.

42:44Jefferson Fisher:The real takeaway is choosing to be kind. Nice says it's focused all on the surface, the pleasantries. I can't say that. I can't tell you the truth, Chris. That's not nice.

42:57Jefferson Fisher:Kindness says I care enough about you to tell you the truth. Because I care about you, I need to give you this really hard news of what it's going to be. and you can use labels, simple as what we just talked about a minute ago. This is going to be some hard news. You're not going to like what I have to say. Give them a moment and then deliver the news. But what you can't do is twist a knife where you start to blame them first. If you need to give bad news, like imagine if I was just going to break up with you right now. The worst thing to do about it is all of a sudden go, you know, I just think you're so great, Chris.

43:39Jefferson Fisher:and I've really enjoyed a lot of time. We start talking in past tense as if like, what do you? I was enjoying that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me just keep going. To where you know you're not being straight up and being honest. And often that's sometimes the kindest thing you can do is be as direct as you can be when it comes to sad news. Let's say that you need to break up with a partner and you're feeling super nervous about it. How would you guide that person through the conversation?

44:07Jefferson Fisher:I would use a label. that means rather than and this is assuming you've set aside time and you're not trying to do it through a text message or while you're... Apparently that's gauche now. That's looked down on to do it over text. Yeah, that's probably not a good idea. Or you're doing it in the middle of a movie or something. Let's assume you've already put good time around this to have a good conversation. It's to say, I need to have a hard conversation with you. And then you need the first words out of your mouth need to be

44:41Jefferson Fisher:this isn't a relationship that I can see myself continuing in like you see how all of a sudden I'm getting right to the point rather than saying I need to have something hard you've just been great and you know it's not you it's me and you know we've just been we've had all these memories yeah yeah exactly instead of all that get right to the point and it's much easier people can take bad news it's gonna have a harder impact but the rest of it is gonna be a whole lot better for you rather than trying to sound nice and be like i don't want to upset it's all me it's not it's not you at all even though that's softer in the moment that long-term impact is gonna be a whole lot worse because because you weren't really being honest with me and so even if you need to fire somebody bring them in, this news is probably going to shock you.

45:35Jefferson Fisher:I need to let you go. And that's when you get to say, I've enjoyed having you as a person. You've done great with the company, or maybe it's in a relationship. I need to be out of this relationship. I need to move on. This relationship isn't working for me, whatever it is. And that's when you get to say, I've I've learned a lot from you I've learned and whatever it is the nice stuff but don't start with the pleasantries and then end with the hard I think Chris has another one which is if you're saying that you can't go to an event say I can't go or I can't make it yeah first right don't say things have got so hard recently and this chaos came up and I've got this thing in and then that at the end.

46:24So just don't bury the fucking lead, dude. Yeah. Put it up top.

46:30Jefferson Fisher:I very much align with that. So what I teach is you start with the no first. Most people start with the thanks first. They start with the gratitude. They go, thank you so much. I'd love to, but I can't. And but, the word but has a way of deleting everything that came before it. Like, I love you, but you're crazy. You know, whatever. That might be true. Both of those things might be true. Sure, sure they could. However. Yeah, you want to start with the no first. So I can't, period, then the gratitude. Thank you so much for inviting me. Then add in some kindness. I'm sure it's going to be a great time.

47:10Jefferson Fisher:Hope you have a wonderful time. Knock yourselves out, whatever it is. But that compliment sandwich is a little hard to chew. dude i've got a fucking fantasy going on in my head of me you chris voss and james sex and doing an episode together i'm gonna try and make that shit happen before the end of the year we probably could i think that would be straight fire i think that would be so much fucking fun yeah i put something in the middle of the table that's remotely valuable or that most people most of you guys want i'm like hey negotiate over this exactly see it's like a gladiatorial fight to the death.

47:46Yeah, exactly. Somebody gets to fucking, I don't know, I don't know. Yeah. So, you're having a difficult conversation, you're firing a member of staff, or you're breaking up with somebody or something similar.

47:56Jefferson Fisher:Yeah. And during that conversation, the emotions begin to come up. And there is always this temptation to almost even bail out of the conversation. So, like, polyeject to see, to see that somebody begins to get upset, and then the employee comes into work tomorrow. I thought you were firing them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well. Exactly. What about that? Because I think that a lot of people enter into conversations with the intention of doing the thing and leave a conversation having had this weird spaghetti junction mess. Do you know what I mean? Like when people have difficult conversations, often they do not finish what they meant to start.

48:39Yeah. How would you navigate through that? Okay.

48:43Jefferson Fisher:To me, it's like people have no problem three minutes in a cold plunge, but give them two seconds having to be honest with somebody in a conversation terrifies them. It's like, okay, think of it as like a cold plunge. You start it. And at the beginning, what is it? You're trying to catch your breath. I can't do this. And then all of a sudden, what? You have some clarity. And you realize, I can do this. And you realize your body's going through this. And there will be an end to it. Same way in difficult conversation. conversation yeah it's gonna be a splash i they have i have what i teach as cold cold shower conversations as example of those of like it's gonna it's gonna be a shock to the system at the beginning but we're gonna see our way out of it to where you you start to have the hard words you've already said we need to break up this relationship isn't for me or i need to let you go whatever it is you say the hard news and then you realize okay i did it like okay i had i said the thing and now we can have a lot more clarity now you've kind of gotten over it's way easier to crest the mountain when you just like go right up and then it gets down it's when you have a slow go up yeah i haven't done it yet there's still time for me to avoid this man exactly exactly and so it's it's just like that so you find ways for me in my world as an attorney i mean i grew up in court rooms and depositions and watching this so i've seen a lot of emotional fighting and yelling and all sorts of hard tactics against each other super adversarial i've seen a lot of fights of arguments don't put me in a ring i'm not i won't be any good and uh with boxing gloves sean strickland's gonna eat you alive oh no no doubt i'd i'd bail out that's what i'd bail out but whenever you increase your capacity to hold other people's emotion meaning you can feel all your feelings without me holding them and i know that i'm in control of myself and i'm going to continue to breathing through it and i'm not going to be holding what you're presenting the better it gets like the more i realize that disappointment is part of the game like to be a great leader to be a great, to be a good person in my world, you have to learn the art of disappointing people.

51:07Jefferson Fisher:In other words, telling them sometimes what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. Makes me think about when parents of missing children go on the news. What is it that they always say? We just want to know. We just want to know. Because the open loop is the worst thing. The open loop is where the most pain is. And I'm sure that no parent would say this, but logically it kind of makes sense that finding the child dead in some ways would be emotionally preferable to living for decades in the uncertainty. And I mean, no, no parents ever going to come out and say that, obviously. And they actually probably don't want that, but you understand what I mean?

51:53That closing that loop is exactly what people want.

51:57Jefferson Fisher:Even though it's what your body is telling you absolutely not to do. So when you're able to break up with somebody and not leave them guessing why, or you need to fire somebody, whatever the hard news is, and not leave them guessing why, that is you acting in alignment with integrity. That's you acting in alignment with your values. It's you going from nice guy to a good man.

52:28One of the things that you mentioned there was somebody else's emotions not permeating you, not being absorbed by you. You're holding yourself here. Many people that are empathetic, people that are highly sensitive, people who seem to absorb the emotions of those around them find that really difficult to keep the you are there and I am here. what's your advice for people to keep that emotional sovereignty when somebody else is

52:59Jefferson Fisher:getting sad with them well i i'd i'd want to first say that having empathy and being able to feel other people's emotions like that that is a superpower i don't think that's something to decrease what i don't want you to do is to feel so much of their feelings that you don't allow them the other person to feel their own. In other words, I'm afraid of disappointing you because you're going to be so upset. And for you to be upset at me makes me upset. And that's going to get into my system. And I can't possibly share and do that because they're going to be disappointed me and I can't take them being disappointed me.

53:38Jefferson Fisher:That's more of the fear there. But for somebody who goes, I feel a lot of feelings and you can feel yours. It's don't pick up what nobody asked you to carry. Don't start to feel the weight and burden of somebody else's feelings. For example, you might have, I don't know, this could be a silly example. You have your in-laws coming into town. You don't really want them to stay at your house. How do you do that? You start to feel like, I need to, they're going to be so upset and it's going to cause such a thing. Well, if you also understand that you have agency and they get to choose what to do with those feelings you're going to come out of a much healthier place and I think a lot of times we don't give the other person the choice of what to do with their feelings we have to we want to fix it all we want to tell them what to do with it so how would you navigate that situation what would you say if I were going to if somebody like my in-laws or something were coming in um i would simply say i need beginning with the phrase i need i need to make sure that here uh in this this holiday season or whatever that we're prioritizing a lot of slowing things down and trying to keep things quieter in the house and i'm gonna need y 'all to find maybe i found another hotel that you can go enjoy that instead of having yeah exactly um a lot of times you we fall into the habit of people pleasing you know which i think is people pleasing to me is not a bad thing it's just you need to make sure that you're one of them you know you need to be able to also do what's acting in alignment with what you're wanting Mm.

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56:40That's rpstrength.com slash modernwisdom at modernwisdom at checkout. I had this essay that you've kicked the tripwires of about 10 times so far today. So I'm going to read you a little bit of this. Okay, I'm ready. I thought it might be interesting. I called it the shame of small fears.

56:56Jefferson Fisher:Oh, okay. Imagine explaining modern fear to a caveman. You see, Gruk, people today get terrified when they have to... send a message. Gruk blinks. Message carved on stone? No. It's a sentence on a glowing triangle. Enemy tribe see message? No. Saber-toothed tiger smell message? No. Then why fear? Well, because the other person might think badly of me. Groot cries laughing. And yet, that's the whole point. We inherited a nervous system calibrated for lions and were using it to navigate awkward conversations and underwhelming careers. Evolution never updated the software. It just repurposed it. Your ancestors needed courage to keep their bodies alive.

57:44You need courage to keep your identity intact. It's almost comic when you zoom out. The same species that once stared down hungry predators now breaks into a sweat trying to say, something needs to change. But it's not because we've become pathetic, it's because the monsters changed shape. Old dangers could kill your body, the new ones threaten your belonging. Your whole biology gears up for exile from the village that now only exists as a group chat. Your body still thinks you'll die alone in the wilderness if you tell the truth. It's the residue of a limbic system designed for a world that no longer exists.

58:18That seems to be... it's not about the fear. It's about the shame in your fear a lot of the time, I think. People realize I am the progeny of people who survived ice ages. And I'm getting worried about having to tell this person that they crossed the line with me or having to enforce a boundary.

58:40Hey, I've had a long year. I'm stressed. And I love your mother, but she's a lot, okay? and Soho House is really great this time of year. I got a discount, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it really is the case. It's like the sensitivity on a system. It's the same reason that we have gyms. We have gyms because we have removed the need to pick up heavy objects from our normal daily life.

59:09Jefferson Fisher:Right. So we have to artificially create this thing. And if it wasn't for the gym, everybody would be flabby messes, right? And purposeful physical training because the whole stress on our system, the whole homesis has got turned down. It's kind of the same here too. Your limbic system will attenuate itself to the maximum amount of discomfort that you have, which means now that a hard conversation might be the most difficult thing that you do that year. Like that one conversation, firing that one member of staff might be the most. So yeah, you're going to feel it. And I think what I'm trying to get at, what I tried to get at with that incredibly long essay, which I spared you the rest of, is there's a lot of shame that people have around this fear is so small.

59:54Why do I feel like this? You go, well, because it's still a big deal. Yeah. Because, yeah, you have a limbic system that was made to avoid bears and is now worried about your belonging. Yeah. I think most people, they don't have a hard time with fighting.

1:00:16Jefferson Fisher:They have a hard time being honest.

1:00:21Jefferson Fisher:And it's funny how honesty can sometimes be the hardest thing that you're going to do because you're laying bare your wants, your needs, whatever it is, for your relationship, for your business, for the home, for your friends, whatever. And it's the same exact thing as what the essay says. I may not throw a punch, but I'm going to throw a word that's going to hurt. I'm not going to pick up a rock and throw it, but I'm going to want a word to cut. My words can either hurt you or heal you. and if I self-improve everything about me but I don't improve what comes out of my mouth that's that's a formula one car without a steering wheel like it looks great that's awesome but we're gonna go with it and so I think if you don't apply the same type of mindset of improving your body as you do the words when we talk about emotional vocabulary when we talk about actually working through how to have conversations and being honest being dare i say vulnerable with things there's a lot of people who it's just they're an empty house but have a great looking landscape you know like you just can't you you have to understand that the conversation like you said like you're going to have all year long those are much harder and take a lot more courage than anything you can do at the gym.

1:01:49I agree. I agree. And I think a lot of the time people are going there precisely for that reason. People will spend years in misery to avoid a few minutes of pain.

1:02:02Jefferson Fisher:Yeah. They say that the conversation you're avoiding is the result you're choosing. Like if you choose not to have that conversation, well, you're getting that result, then you're going to live with that result. But it doesn't have to be that way. And I think it's in therapy, they say like the breakthrough you're avoiding is like the work, or yeah, the breakthrough you're needing is in the work you're avoiding, the being able to get through that conversation. Like you can have, you can be the fittest person, but still the same on the inside. It's not like it's improved anything think about what you're going to, how you're going to have in your, in your life.

1:02:49Jefferson Fisher:And there's no metric. That's the wildest thing. It's like, we're able to watch our HRV and make sure you're in all the zone two cardio and all the other stuff. I got a whoop too. Like to be able to do all that physical discipline, that's all great, but there's no metric on sitting on the couch with your son in your lap and also having your phone in your hand. You know what I mean? Or being able to say something really hard to the person that you love, to mend relationships with family members you haven't seen in a long time. That's a whole lot different metric that there's just no number for.

1:03:27It's a quiet victory or a boring success. And yeah, we trade observable metrics for hidden metrics all the time. All the time. You'll take a job that pays 10 grand more a year, but is a 45-minute commute instead of 15. You go, okay, well, you can't really see the commute in quite the same way. What does that mean? And how much more stress do you? I'm going to have to miss a couple of evenings with the kids, and I'm going to spend less time. Or you move to a new area in a house that's bigger, but the stress of being there puts strain on your relationship. And it means that you go to bed and the texture of your mind's a little bit more agitated for a decade while you live there.

1:04:13Hidden metric, observable metric. Postcode, very observable. Peace of mind, very hidden. Because there's this idea, the McNamara fallacy, do you know that? So Robert McNamara during the Vietnam War, He was charged with trying to make sure that the war was moving in the right direction. And what he was focusing on were enemy combatant deaths and US forces deaths. But that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was the sentiment at home. The issue is very hard to quantify the sentiment at home in the US. And obviously, the Vietnam War was hugely unpopular domestically in the US. and it ends with this line which is we intend to uh measure what matters but instead we only matter what matters to us is only what we can measure so this weird inversion of us supposedly trying to focus on the quantifiable and pull it in now instead whatever is quantifiable is what gets pulled in.

1:05:17Jefferson Fisher:Exactly. Yeah, I think there's a lot of different paradoxes like that in life. Like for me, what I've learned through this transition from full-time lawyer, being able to talk on communication is I thought it was what's best for the business is what's best for the family. Like I could look at these hard metric numbers, whether it's more money, more time or whatever, the increase, more, more, more, 10x, whatever, is best for my family. When in reality - What's best for the family is what's best for the business. What's best for the family is what's best for the business. And that's not something I can track, but it's something - Of course, McNamara fallacy.

1:06:00Jefferson Fisher:Yeah, but it's something I can feel. Unreal. What about if you're having a conversation with someone and it feels like they're not understanding you it's getting frustrating yeah if you go okay i'm trying to i'm not saying this the right way and you feel like there's the butting up against that in that time then i would take it piece by piece so i would one are you giving them the takeaway are you giving the headline at the beginning or are you putting it down in the footnotes so one is how are you approaching the conversation? How are you framing the conversation? Because if you've buried the lead, like you said, that is typically going to lead into a lot of miscommunication.

1:06:44Jefferson Fisher:Next, I would question the biggest myth in communication is what is sent is what is received. All the time I can, in my own relationship, she could say, no, you said this. I go, I didn't say that. He said, yes, you did. That's not what I said. She goes, I wish I had a video camera in here so I could have seen exactly how you said that. So you could see. And instead of this mindset of that's not what I said and trying to push that miscommunication, instead ask, what did you hear? What did you hear? And if I can ask the question, what did you hear? And then to actually explain, what I'm hearing is X, Y, and Z.

1:07:27Jefferson Fisher:You got to stop. Okay, that right there. That's not at all my intent. I think that's where we're going wrong. So it's the ability to, one, slow down, to find the actual breaking point. And that usually requires a, okay, here is what I'm trying to convey. I'm not asking you to fix anything. I just need you to hear that this means something to me. And sometimes the other person's like, oh, okay, so you want me to do this? Oh, you want me to do this? Oh, you may fix this? I'm like, no, no, no, no, I don't. No, let's go back again. Okay, what are you hearing? and they go, well, I hear that you need me to go, I guess I'll never be able to do this again.

1:08:03Jefferson Fisher:No, no, no. That's not at all. Usually when people are going to extremes or absolutes, the always and nevers is a very clear sign that they're not engaged in the conversation. Instead, they're playing an old script that is, well, then you just want me to do everything you want me to do. And so if you're able to actually break it down and go piece by piece, okay, what did you here at this moment, this here, this is the miscommunication. Okay. When I bring this up, what's coming up for you? Because I can tell something else is happening. Then you get into a little bit of the emotion of it, of where are you feeling defensive?

1:08:39Jefferson Fisher:So when I can voice that, so the person's voicing, I can tell I'm getting defensive. I can tell I'm not ready for this conversation. I can tell I'm getting worked up. That's really helpful information. I think I saw some study on if it was like, if somebody's heart beats over 100 BPM, like it's almost impossible to like bring somebody back down very quickly. Like it's not a good time to have a very, yeah, yeah. Over 100 BPM, your front brain is basically turned off. It's gone, yeah. And you're having to make sure that the other person, they're going to quickly be dysregulated in that moment. Have you seen, Jared, can you pull that up?

1:09:17just search Reddit divorce heart rate on Google. And this guy, I think he was wearing like a Garmin or something. And he tracked his heart rate through the conversation that he had with his wife. And the reason I say it is 100 BPM. 100 BPM is heart rate in five second intervals when wife asks for a divorce. I love how he's put via Fitbit Charge 2. It's like it's a sponsored post. That's awesome. Yeah, resting BPM. Right around here. Dude, he's got a nice resting BPM. He's down at 60 and he's awake. He's a fit guy. He's doing great. Yeah, well, he's got a Fitbit Charge 2 on, so he's obviously been tracking it for a while.

1:10:03Can We Talk? Can We Talk keeps him quite... He's regulating. He's doing good. So hang on, what are the intervals? That's five minutes. Five minute intervals at the bottom. Okay. Is this 1.15 in the fucking morning? I think that's 1.15 in the morning unless it's on it's 24 hours yeah it should be on military time yeah you're right um and uh okay can we talk he manages to hold on to it timing has a lot to do with this yeah it's true yeah yeah yeah um there's a spike just before I don't think this is healthy for either of us so she's can we talk and a full what's that six minutes later she's still not given the lead yep unless he's well there's no way

1:10:44Jefferson Fisher:that's got to be the spike now look yeah you see the spike right before the dip before i don't think this healthy for either of us most likely that's like his anxiety he's realizing what's going on i could tell something's wrong because he's kept regulated there right yeah bro he he hits one 155 160 he's in zone three or four depending on how old he is and then he has a huge drop then it picks back up again i wonder if that's just a release yeah fuck you just got the news and now he's like what am i gonna do yeah i think there is that release of like knowledge of now i know because i mean maybe it came out of but look he comes right back at it i mean he's right there close to 150 again and how long does the whole thing take 115 resting bpm can we talk 120 20 minutes dude 20 20 minutes they're in and out and he's off on a walk so yeah yeah anybody that thinks that 100 bpm is uh is hard to hit in a difficult conversation homeboy managed to get 150 of that yep went off for a walk good good that's a good one it's gonna hit last call somewhere real quick exactly dude i remember the first ever thanksgiving that i did in uh america i was living at an airbnb on south congress and it's directly opposite the red rose austin's premier adult establishment and um it was i'd been to i'd been to Blair White's house, if you know who Blair White is.

1:12:13He's an uncomfortably hot trans influencer. And Lex Friedman was there with Michael Matt. He was a very strange autistic Avengers assemble. And then we got back to where I was staying, the Airbnb. This is 10pm, 10.30pm or something on Thanksgiving. And the entire car park was full. All of the street outside was completely full it was like it must have been standing room only in the strip club and i remember thinking how bad your thanksgiving had to be at 10 p.m to go that's it i'm sick are your parents i that i i cannot any longer be i'm going i'm going to the red rose again are you uh off to see crystal oh i hope she'll cook your fucking dinner and wash your socks and i was like okay here we go well i just the british mind cannot comprehend what level of freedom americans have apparently around thanksgiving including

1:13:15Jefferson Fisher:being able to go to the red rose tempia holidays are are hard for people and thanksgiving's hard christmas is hard usually because it can be sometimes a reminder that they're alone and um i mean there's no place lonelier than a strip club yeah yeah you can be surrounded by people and still feel very alone. And that's why, what, you're looking for some very illusion of companionship, you know? So they're in pain and they're looking for some way to find a salve. How should people respond to an insult? With a lot of silence. You say something ugly to me, I'm going to give it about five to seven seconds and nothing.

1:14:01Jefferson Fisher:Meaning I'm going to allow your words as if I see them just to fall to this table here and give you a moment of like, you good with that? Like you still proud of that right there? You can take it back if you like, but I'm not taking it. And it's that, it's that mindset of I'm not taking it. I don't have to pick it up. That's not mine. Because we get so used to catching just because somebody threw we feel like we automatically have to catch it's like it's not it's not tennis it's not volleyball you don't have to hit it back over a net you can just let it be there so five to seven seconds of nothing in that silence two what i like to do is usually ask them to repeat it

1:14:47Jefferson Fisher:yeah that's i usually will say i need you to i need you to say that again

1:14:55Jefferson Fisher:i've yet to have anybody who could do it because it's like they they they don't want to show they're ugly they don't want that highlighted they don't they know what they just said and now what they were expecting was a hit of dopamine of me giving it right back to them and feeling that sense of control i've now put a big spotlight on their behavior and then it's just it's not fun at that point, they're like, I got to get out of here. That wasn't the hit that I was expecting. And when I say, I need you to repeat that, or I need you to say that again, they're going to have to remember their words and regurgitate them.

1:15:38Jefferson Fisher:And that usually, it's people don't like to extend past this feeling of being reasonable. Now, I know people will go, I know lots of people are unreasonable. Listen, I have deposed probably thousands of people. I've seen lots of liars and manipulators. They never want to come across as unreasonable. Yeah. People who are like manipulating you, they're not afraid of anger. They're afraid of calm. And whenever I can show you that I'm not rising and going, how dare you? Like getting this, who do you think you are kind of bow up? it's almost more scary to them if you I need you to say that again now most of the time what they do is they try and like well I mean what I mean I mean and they try to like justify exactly and try and adjust in some way or I guess they could double down if they do double down and repeat it then you get to say I thought so thanks like just let it go because at that point you're still just leaving them.

1:16:45They're going to remember what they said, and you're not going to be the one to

1:16:49Jefferson Fisher:remember it at all. So it's dad. Another that I like to ask is, did you mean? Did you mean for that to sound as insulting as it did? Did you mean for that to embarrass me in some way? Did you mean for that to offend me or hurt me or belittle me? Did you want me to feel less when you said that? whenever you talk about intense, that did you mean, did you intend to, did you say that in order to, it questions the very root of their heart in that moment. I'm like, why did they really say that? And they said that to hurt you, to cause that pain. And at the same time, maybe you just took it the wrong way.

1:17:31Jefferson Fisher:Like in text message, usually we have a way of reading everything negative in a text message. We never read things positive, right? I could text you, we need to talk. And nobody gets that and goes, yeah, like sick. Yes, let's go. Chris wants to talk. Let's get after it. Let's go. We always read the negative. And so did you mean is also a great way of double checking. Did you mean for that to sound like my wife and I, if I sometimes reply really quickly, she'll say, did you mean for that to sound short? No, no, I didn't mean to, I was just in the middle of pickup or I was at a grocery line or whatever.

1:18:08Jefferson Fisher:You're allowing that benefit of the doubt for a second. In both of those situations where it's not ambiguous about whether or not that was a mean message or not, what you're doing is bringing the person's ugliness to the front. Yep. Because, yeah, you're right. Even when people say mean things, they feel justified in their meanness. You deserved it. Right. Or I'm righteous somehow. And with enough room for the heat to die down a little bit, three, four, five, six fuck seven yeah exactly it's a long time yeah yeah yeah yeah uh and to then basically say do the thing again but without the heat that powered it when you did it the first time right like you you've run out of fuel exactly and you're now gonna have to look at it in a more sterile environment right more plain environment and i'm just gonna ask i'm not gonna infer i'm gonna ask whether the outcome that happened after you said that thing was what you meant and that is you admitting to your own intent right around this exactly it's like you um like imagine having to ask a girl out and she's like well i didn't hear you never mind like you don't want to you don't want to ask it again it's that feeling of like i already already said it said you'd so hot yeah yeah yeah exactly that's right um and then all of a sudden you realize no that that didn't feel good at all and now it's now they just they don't want the cheese they just want out of the trap you know they just get me get me out of here and they're not they're not going to want to do that because the making them say it again is just it's just revealing they're ugly and darkness hates light.

1:20:17You know, you were talking about inviting someone to, what are you hearing? What are you hearing from me? What did you just hear me say? Yeah. How are you interpreting that? You know, the idea of a steel man and a straw man. So straw man representing the weakest version of someone's argument, steel man, me saying, so we're in a debate, but what I think you're trying to say is, and I put across the best version, the best possible version of your argument. That's good. What you're doing with the invitation is like a reverse steel man or an invited steel man saying, can you tell me what you're hearing me say?

1:20:58Yes. And then, ah, okay. So no, not quite. And the same thing with the reason that you do the steel man is so i go okay so jeffson what i'm hearing from you is this and this and this is that right and you go well actually no you're just saying hey come do the steel man thing for me yeah and then if there's anything that's not fully understood and you're doing the same thing with the insult to a degree it's like inviting this person to almost steel man the own the nuclear warhead that they just dropped on you right you know and probably more like a septic tank than a nuclear warhead uh you know yeah exactly you know this big puddle of shit that's in front of us yeah yeah is that shit yeah or is it soup because i can't to me it smells and smells a lot like shit and uh just making sure that we're not confused i'm not confusing what this is

1:21:54Jefferson Fisher:Yeah, there's a lot of, there's actually this like hidden power around, tell me what I'm missing. Tell me what I like, I'm missing something here. Something else is going on. And then you tell me what I'm missing. So lots of times I'll be in a deposition and I'll have somebody who is, I know I've caught them in a lie. There's lots of people lying under oath all the time and they have no problem with it. and because I know because I have the evidence right here and they just don't know that I have it and so it's often the people who it's most blatant like they it's just an easy they didn't have to lie about it like they could have just fallen on the sword but they're they're so contradictory that they can't possibly not so if it's like if I were to tell you I feel like you're really upset and they go I'm not upset I'm just like it doesn't matter what emotion I said, they're going to always tell me, I know it's not that I'm okay.

1:22:53Jefferson Fisher:It's just, it doesn't matter what it is. They're always going to contradict that. And so when I know I'm up against that kind of person, you have to do this searching where questions matter a whole lot more than statements. Meaning if I'm going to ask a question that is more open-ended, I'm getting I'm signaling to this aspect of what am I missing here I hear you telling me this I'm missing where you're getting to that same way with the insult what am I you say that I'm whatever the worst thing I need you to say that again because something's missing because it's not hitting me the same way you want it to hit me so where is that coming from Yeah.

1:23:43Jefferson Fisher:And that right there is the womp feeling, the blanket, wet blanket of exactly sad emoji for them of like, it didn't work. What was missing was they were actually intending to cause pain because they're in pain. And it felt better for them to cause you pain than actually deal with their own emotions. It's a much more sophisticated approach than even trying to lean into empathy immediately. If you'd say, it sounds like you're really upset when someone says something mean. Because that feels like an elevated kind of communication. Yeah, it could be sarcastic, yeah. Yeah, but even if you say it genuinely, it feels like you're upset when you're doing that.

1:24:28Also, you're putting a kind of interpretation on this person's language as opposed to just allowing them to clarify it for you. And I keep on having this image in my head of giving somebody a ton of rope. You're just giving them as much rope as they want. And they can choose to climb up it and get out, or they can fucking hang themselves with it.

1:24:53Jefferson Fisher:Yeah. I see this a lot in depositions or cross-examination where I know that they're lying. I know they are. And I could just say, you're lying. You think that's going to get them to admit it? No, never. They're going to double down. How dare you accuse me of whatever? Because they don't. But if they tell the lie and I slow it down and I open a folder and I look and I close and I give that five to seven seconds and I say, I need you to tell me that again. I mean, they just go, I mean, why would you think I would do this? Like they start questioning things that don't really, you think that I would do something like that?

1:25:36Jefferson Fisher:What do you think? Like they're asking you to like solve the problem for you. I'm going to get done then. Give me a suit. You come up in. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's liars, manipulators. They want the anger, but they fear the calm. and so when you're able to in those moments of somebody doing something offensive to show a calm controlled approach that's what they don't like like imagine you saying something that's a lie and i'm saying

1:26:11Jefferson Fisher:yeah i'm gonna need to come back to that later like it's the worst because they want you to swallow hook line and sinker they like the fast rapid they took it that's also closure for sure right it's open loops so much of this is there's the loops that have been left open for small amounts of time or for even longer amounts of time they're the ones that the things are going on the insult thing british people have a trend of pushing and pushing and then saying only joking mate don't joke how do you deal with someone who pushes you and then retreats to i was just joking it depends how well you know them i think if if for some of these responses like if somebody says i was just joking i usually like to say then i need you to be funnier that's what i usually say or i'll say that i need you to find new material you know you then we need to re let's workshop that one then a little bit but if it's something that you feel like they are maybe you don't know them that well and they say, hey, I'm just joking.

1:27:19Jefferson Fisher:I don't like it to slide, meaning you just go, oh, okay, that's fine. And then you know they're just going to walk over you. Again, we're not going to walk on eggshells with that. But if you were to say, I know that wasn't a joke, or it didn't sound like a joke, sounds like an issue. So much of this is being the bigger person in conversation. And that often means to be the most courageous in the conversation. And that's a hard thing to do. Before we continue, as you're probably aware, I'm not a massive drinker, at least not anymore. But even if you too are not drinking, sometimes you just want something cold, frosty, and tasty without the fear of a hangover the next day, which is why I'm such a huge fan of Athletic Brewing Co.

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1:28:42That's athleticbrewing.com slash modernwisdom and modernwisdom at checkout. Near beer, terms and conditions apply. Athletic Brewing Company, fit for all times. Do you think are the most common phrases that make people sound weak?

1:28:57Jefferson Fisher:Usually beginning with, like, I'm sorry, but. that's one that I'm sorry, but you don't really mean it. I don't mean any disrespect, but I don't want this to sound rude, but yeah, you do. Or else you wouldn't be saying it like that. You just delete those and say what you need to say. From after the but. From after the but, exactly. It's just hedging. Another is where people, they cut out the legs underneath their sentences before they even get them out. Like, I hate to bother you, but I could be wrong about this, but I mean, you probably know better than me, but it's all these like hedging that makes them sound really, really weak in the conversation.

1:29:44Jefferson Fisher:That is something that's, it's unnecessary. A lot of the I thinks, I believes, I think in casual conversation, it's not a problem. But if you're wanting to sound assertive, the I thinks and I believes, you can just replace them with I'm confident that. Instead of like, I believe I'd be a good asset to this company. It's I'm confident I'd be a good asset to this company. And they'd write down, man, he sounds so confident. You know, it's just, it's pure language choice. You know. I learned from my academic friends, I hedge sometimes because I'm wholly unqualified to talk about pretty much everything I talk about.

1:30:26And it's important to caveat, especially if you're like, for sure. I'm in bro science territory here. I learned that academics have an equivalent for that. They say, it's directionally correct that directionally correct, dude, is the fucking, hey 51 49 or 99 one i'm directionally correct either way if i know that this is at least in this side of the fence i got it i love i it's directionally correct that men are stronger than women on average yeah their upper body strength on average as well is wonderful you hide so many things in say anything on on average on average yeah well i mean on average you just literally need to be better than 50 % right.

1:31:12So it's a good start. You mentioned assertiveness.

1:31:17Jefferson Fisher:Yeah. Where does self-assurance come from, in your opinion? It's tied a lot to confidence. So I teach that confidence is as assertive does. I mean, if you want to feel more confident, you need to say more assertive things. And most often, we get taught and seen that the most confident people are the loudest the i don't know the broest of any of it when it's actually the person who's the most controlled the one who's the calmest careful derogating the bros exactly yeah not at all not at all would never if like being able to say who's going to be the most emotionally reactive when things hit the fan because they will hit the fan yeah um and making sure that how do you know if you're who's the captain of the ship it's who has the highest threshold for conflict you know that that's that's going to be one of the biggest markers right there like confident people don't need to say it to know that for you to know it like i don't have to say it to make sure that i know it or you know it i um i think my grandfather told me once of like little dogs yip at everything but big dogs only have to bark once like it's that kind of mentality of knowing that i don't i don't have to have a comment for every little thing the most fucking texan quote of all time little dogs and big dogs yes right little dogs yeah big dogs bark yeah exactly uh have you heard the term vagal authority no but it sounds like something i would learn and it sounds like something that you would love So Joe Hudson, who Charlie introduced me to, has got this idea of vagal authority.

1:33:09And what he means is in a room or in an interaction, whose nervous system is dictating how everybody else moves? Everybody's in different levels. Some people are at eights, some people are at threes. Where does the room go? Especially in a one-on-one, who's got the vagal authority between the two of us?

1:33:30Jefferson Fisher:interesting so who's who's the um the thermostat yeah who's who's dictating this who's the thermostat oh i mean you're yeah you're the host so oh well fuck me i'm not gonna i'm not gonna dick measure you and who's got more vagal authority because i am going to lose um but i just love that term the first time that he ever said it i thought vagal authority is i think that's right is such a wonderful way to think about what it is because we talk about nervous system capacity or emotional resilience. And that sounds great, but it's very abstract. Vagal authority and just defining it as in an interaction, whose nervous system is in charge?

1:34:12Are you both going to compromise and meet in the middle? Are you going to stay where you are? Are you going down to where that? I mean, obviously you could have vagal authority at Nate and be like, Hey, come up to me. Yeah, exactly. Like, you have to get up here. But assuming that you're coming at this from the right side of the fence, it sounds like a lot of what you're talking about is your version of vagal authority.

1:34:38Jefferson Fisher:That's probably right. There's a lot of conversation, the same way they say, show up like you've been there before. Same way in conversation. Meaning you can say something and have an emotional reaction. Like we talked about at the very beginning, that beautiful moment of like, my capacity is large enough to take any of this and all of this. And so if you're in a meeting and you walk in, who's the thermostat who's going to be controlling the temperature of the room? And if you're the one that has to chime in on every single thing, who's emotionally reactive at the smallest little inconvenience, somebody who, it's usually, if somebody like cusses a lot it's usually a sign of emotional reactivity of like I'm getting really hyped or low on something or they're British yeah or they're British yeah sure and to be able to versus the person who has a very high threshold to where they don't say everything they could say like they have opinion but they don't need to voice it in other words for it to have any validity they know that they know it they don't have to name drop they know that they have value they don't have to talk about how much their company sold for like they they don't need to say it they know what kind of car they drive without having to be flashy like it's it's the it's the understatement of knowing that you know walk silently with the big stick what is it that makes someone sound composed?

1:36:13Jefferson Fisher:A calm voice. There's a voice that sounds warm. Voice that sounds in a lower register. Words that are spaced out more. If I talk really fast all the time and you can't really catch up with my message, it's going to naturally make you more anxious. We all have those people in our life that just to be around them, you feel a little bit more anxiety. Those tend to be people who are the sky is falling. We have to have, they're very, very fast when they talk. They're very quick to make judgments and choices and decisions about how they're going to feel and how this is going to go versus slowing it down, weighing and knowing that the best type of choices are ones that have been intentionally thought of.

1:37:01Jefferson Fisher:Like it's say, for example, if you ask me a question and I immediately just have an answer right off the bat versus you ask me a question and I take a breath and I think about it and then I answer which one sounds more composed it's not going to be the one that's all hyped up it's going to be the one that's a little bit more slower like you think of people that who are the most composed in your life but generally the people that make you feel the most comfortable and to me i like the aspect i've always compared it to just a feeling of warm feeling of you're welcome here yeah you can disagree with disagree with me that's welcome too no i i see it between nice guy and good man a nice guy wants to be liked a good man wants to be worthy like how do I how do I show you my words that you're worth my time and this conversation's worth my time I do that not by trying to rush you out the door or look for the next person to talk to while I'm talking to you at the networking event or small talk so I'm choosing to give you my time what's the difference between being assertive and being an asshole assertiveness says I can respect you and I can respect the other person or respect myself.

1:38:27Jefferson Fisher:Let me say that differently. So there's like a spectrum of somebody who's passive versus somebody who's aggressive, and then assertiveness is in the middle. Aggression says, I don't respect you. Somebody passive says, I don't respect me. Assertiveness saying, I can respect both of us. Meaning I can lay out my boundary and I can still like you. Like, I mean, my dad would say all the time, you know, I'm going to need to discipline you does now I love you. Now I need to, I need to do this. I need to have this conversation. And it's because I love you that I'm going to have this conversation. And when you come to terms with, I can want all the good things for you and also say, I'm not going to tolerate that.

1:39:13Jefferson Fisher:Both things can be true. What about being an asshole? What about it? I think a lot of the time when people think they're being assertive, they are leaning into assholery. Is that a word? Correct. Okay. Of the two of us, I'm aware that you've done a thousand plus two thousand depositions, but it's our language. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will remind you it's our language. Yeah, yeah. Although it is my taxes and your country, so I better be careful. A lot of the time people mistake brusqueness and callousness, like socially acceptable callousness. It's the same as being assertive. I'm going to say this thing in a way that's unnecessarily terse or cutting or unconsiderate, I think.

1:40:11And that's the same as being assertive. And a lot of the time I see people who are assholes that people see as unlikable assertive people, if that makes sense. I think a lot of the time the boundary of asshole and assertiveness functionally can sometimes deliver the same outcome, which is, I'm going to say you bully the person into getting what you want, but you sort of state your intention. without apology, right? That's something that the asshole and the assertive person have in common. But the difference is that the assertive person is doing it from a place of compromise, pro-socialness, and the asshole is doing it almost to show off, to look good, to be unconsiderate.

1:41:05That's it. One is considerate and the other is unconsiderate, at least as far as I

1:41:09Jefferson Fisher:Yeah, and I'd say one is selfish. The other can also be supporting. I mean, I would say that the person who wants to be assertive has both people in mind, the other does not. So I think the considerate, inconsiderate, the person who always has to win the argument is the person who typically loses everything. you've got uh 10 specific ways to practice assertiveness what is the one that most people skip oh being intentional with your words meaning they find that the more words they use the more believable they'll sound and just the opposite it's it's this idea of the more words you have to use to tell the truth the more it starts to sound like a lie more it sounds like you don't really know what you're talking about the more words you have to use to explain something that should be relatively easy to explain so excessiveness oversharing saying too much it's a very quick way to miscommunication because you're giving them do you know how to do you know golden corrals like buffets ever heard of those it's not a you'd probably go to but i look hold hold your thought on golden corrals and where you're going okay i need i need to i need to make this statement to a person who's lived in the south of america for a good while okay as a british person i feel i have a more accurate understanding of american cuisine than americans do that's probably true and this is because denny's and ihop and cheesecake factory are elite establishments.

1:42:52Good. Thank you. Okay. You do understand. So many Americans look down their nose at what are objectively wonderful places to go and eat. Denny's, coffee at two in the morning, unlimited refills, cinnamon pancake stack. Don't you dare. Fantastic. Very good. Very good. Very good. As Theo von once said, you can see a woman giving birth in there sometimes you just don't know what you're gonna get you never sometimes yeah i hope so golden corral as yet not been to however i did go to a cracker barrel i really like nice i want to go i only want a peg game peg pegging oh no let's not go there it's the it's

1:43:34Jefferson Fisher:the game that's like a wooden triangle and you have the t's that's like that's not the pegging that I'm familiar with. Yeah, no, no, you would be. I don't know that one. Again, British. Yes. What I did like, and I refuse now to go to any restaurant where I can't buy any item of furniture or art on the wall. Yeah, the little general store. I want to go, I want to be like, how much is that? It's the best. So that's somebody's daughter. She's not for sale. They're like, I don't care. She looks like she's pinned on the wall. That's going to be, she would look wonderful above the fireplace. Yeah, you can have all the blankets and, you know.

1:44:10Jefferson Fisher:I don't take it all. Pop guns that you want. I don't take it all. Golden Corral. Yeah, we were talking about where sometimes you're giving people too many options to choose in the conversation, meaning the meaning is going to get lost. You're a Cheesecake Factory menu. You're absolutely, yeah, exactly. Any way we can talk more about the Cheesecake Factory, I'm all for it. I'm so glad. I found a kindred spirit. I knew I liked you, but now I really like you. Okay, really, yeah. Let's just talk about the Cheesecake Menu. Let's just read that. Yeah, exactly. You're giving people too many options. and that often will lead to miscommunication because they're picking and choosing what you're trying exactly to say.

1:44:46Jefferson Fisher:And so you don't want to, don't leave what your intention is in the conversation up to the other person to guess. You need to be sufficiently clear. Too much. Correct. And that is what will often lead to the most unassertive communication because you can say a lot and still not say anything. Ooh, I've got one to add to your list of ways that people sound weak or at the very least imprecise and difficult to understand in a conversation. They ask a question. And I noticed this with new podcasters when they begin because they're uncomfortable with sitting in silence. They're uncomfortable with asking a question, especially potentially a tough question, and then leaving it after the question mark.

1:45:28So they'll say something like, Jefferson, you're a trial lawyer. And that means that sometimes you need to represent people that have done bad things. How do you feel about that? Do you feel, and then immediately they give you a couple of options. The problem with doing that, especially as a podcaster, is that I am imposing a duality. I've compressed the infinity of answers that you could have given me down into two choices. And in order for you to pick the third one that might be true you have to say no no and this and most people just go well yeah it's kind of like that because it's easier right it's some here's two paths that i've carved for you pick which one and they're usually relatively okay it's an estimation of where i think you might go like it's your job it's a very important service do you think do you see it as your job as an important service or do you do you not take that work home with you or whatever that does sound

1:46:23Jefferson Fisher:very british when you're doing it sounds like a bbc interview that's crazy oh yeah i like uh Piers Morgan. Yeah, oh, nice. Piers Morgan, but with a functioning hip. You said earlier, I've got to bring this up. You said earlier on about people that duel. You know that the front benches in the House of Lords, the green benches where all of our politicians sit and talk waffle, the distance between the two front benches is the same as a broadsword held out at arm's length. No way. Yeah, so if you do that again and then on the other side, that's the distance between the two, which tells you everything that you need to know about how politics works yeah exactly yeah we're very uh very sensitive yeah uh being right is overrated what's that mean yeah it means you know we've heard these phrases of do you want to choose to be right you want to choose to be happy you know do you want to choose to be the person who always has to be right usually that's person who's also the loneliest like if you have to be right in this one particular argument like and we all have these kind of like silly arguments we might have like my brothers and i might get into an argument about a movie you know whatever who's what's the best movie on whatever whatever and you can sure that i'm not talking about that i'm talking like a serious argument that you're having with somebody who matters to you and you have to be right on it and you're refusing to back down.

1:47:47Jefferson Fisher:And then they eventually go, you know what? Have it. You got it. You're right. Congratulations. And that moment lasts for about a millisecond. And then you're just kind of left with feeling like an idiot. I mean, because you can continue to win arguments, but also lose the relationship because nobody wants to be with somebody who's always has to be right. It shows more of an insecurity than it does intellect. So what should we prioritize instead of being right? connection. It's the ability to see perspectives and understand. I'd say appreciating somebody's perspective is an underrated skill. Meaning I don't have to agree with it.

1:48:29Jefferson Fisher:I can still hear it. So rather than saying, I don't agree with that. Which is me commenting on your point. I can say, I see things differently. That's me commenting on your perspective. Very different. And so when I'm able to use words of perspective, like, oh, I see that differently. I have a different take on that. I look at that different perspective. I get there another way. People go, huh, okay, then what do you, what do you see? What do you believe? Oh, okay. Rather than them having to, they don't have to have their sword and shield and defend their, exactly. They don't have to defend it.

1:49:07Jefferson Fisher:Now they get to go, oh, okay. They're not trying to attack me. They just, they go about it a different way. How do they go? It's really inviting. Yeah, perspectives are what allow you to have conversations of understanding. I mean, rather than, I can't stand it when somebody goes, I just don't understand how they could possibly believe that. Like, I don't, I just don't get how their mind could even under, and it's like, did you try? Like, have you asked, like, how, how they came to believe that? I don't think people mean that a lot of the time. What people are saying is, I am sufficiently morally superior to that person that my theory of mind wouldn't even allow me to understand how somebody could vote for Donald Trump.

1:49:51Jefferson Fisher:Or do whatever. Or Kamala Harris. Support this perspective. Yeah, it's because they do. They feel this superiority of, I'm obviously right. They're obviously wrong. How could they not see from life? Look at how right I am. I'm so right that they're essentially a different species in a different universe to me. Right. It's like, you know, what it makes me think about, it makes me think about empathy. So we're talking about the ability to feel and understand somebody else's emotions. But this is, a lot of people are able to do that, like type one empathy, we could call it. I can feel and understand your emotions whilst not having type two empathy, which is understanding how you arrived at your perspective.

1:50:31Yes. and believing that you arrived there too. You know? Like, and I think a lot of the time people stop. Type one empathy is similar to anger. There are a whole bunch of people who are kind of infected with empathy. There's an entire book Paul Bloom wrote called Against Empathy. It's like, well, you shouldn't have it. He optimizes for something else. But it's funny to think about how you might be able to feel somebody else's emotions either by choice or not by choice, but it's much harder to say i understand why they arrived at that perspective i understand how they arrived even if i don't hold it myself it's a different kind of yeah maybe empathy is the wrong word but it feels like a the symmetry between those two things even when you share your opinion

1:51:16Jefferson Fisher:on something the way we typically share it is very guarded because we're kind of gauging if it's a new opinion or something you don't know if the room's going to be friendly to it you might for example hedge. You might try and add a lot to show this is a justified opinion. You have lots of evidence for it. So we come at it already from a very defensive position because we say, this is my opinion, which I feel very special, and this is my treasured opinion, and I'm going to do anything I can to protect it. So if you come at it with a different opinion that's unlike mine, well, okay, how can I make sure that I preserve what I believe to the exclusion of what you believe?

1:51:53Jefferson Fisher:And so how do I do that? It's like juries and confirmation bias or all kinds of different sympathies that we have of we usually stick with what we know first. And it takes a lot of time and a lot of conversations for us to change that outlook. And so a lot of the times you'll have a jury or juror who makes up the decision within the first three minutes. And then all they're doing is filtering all the evidence that comes forward. If you know anybody that hears an opinion or a bad thing that's happened in the news about somebody political and they go, oh, well, they probably jest and they totally dismiss it because, like we said, facts and evidence don't matter.

1:52:29Why do you think modern culture is so obsessed with being right, winning debates?

1:52:36Jefferson Fisher:Because what is our worth if we're not right? Because nobody thinks that they're on the side of wrong. Nobody goes into something thinking that they're the enemy or they're thinking about it the wrong way. Nobody wants to go, I'm thinking about this the wrong way. Yes, I am. And they just stick with that. They all think that they have their own way about it. And so I think we're obsessed about it because what value does one derive from if we don't feel that we're walking in accordance of either good or evil? Yeah. I've had a lot of communication experts on talking about detecting deception. What's realistic and true about working out whether someone's lying to you or not?

1:53:17Evidence.

1:53:18Jefferson Fisher:I mean, if you don't - said like a fucking true trial lawyer. No, yeah, a nerd. Yeah. Yeah, let's say you don't have that. Let's say you don't have that. I think it is very hard. There are people who are excellent liars. I would say that liars cannot, they love rebuttals, they hate silence. And so if they've said something that's a lie and you allow that to sit, or you say, I need to come back to this, that feeling of not being able to accept it, here's a cue that tells you if really somebody is lying. It's that they can't stand that you don't believe them. People who are telling the truth know it's the truth.

1:54:05And if you don't believe it, then well, okay, I'm at peace because

1:54:09Jefferson Fisher:I'm telling the truth. But those who know that it's a lie usually will have this unproportional response of how dare you not possibly believe me and how could you rather than having the confidence of the truth is a truth like a truth needs no excuse right and so it's this element of those that are probably not saying all of the truth show up in ways that are they're going to question you they're going to ask you what you think they should be doing what would you what do you think Like I, if I wasn't here, what do you think I was doing? You tell me what you think, usually question it. Like a very basic question of were you, you know, did you drink new tonic?

1:54:54Jefferson Fisher:Like, did I drink new tonic? Like you've. The answer is always yes. Yeah. The answer is always yes, you did. Of course. I'm just, I'm fueling my focus. Correct. And, and so they question it, they get upset about it and they usually won't let it go. Because they, they want, they would rather harm you than be honest. Hmm. Yeah, that makes sense. It's almost like somebody is trying to lay down. It's similar to anger. It's reminding me of this outsized response. Right. this uh overly dramatic well how could you yeah the indignation that comes with that i can see times i can imagine a lot of times where we go what do you mean like yes that thing happened yes how do you not see it because this indignation is a useful tool right because it actually mirrors what you would do if you were telling the truth so it's like i really wasn't doing that thing but i mean i find that indignation is very much related to fear like it's it's all tied to something of i'm not i'm not enough i'm not being believed i have no i have no worth what am i doing and so it goes back to that idea of the truth is the truth for me you can choose to take it or choose to not but i can't i can't make you believe that but i know what i'm living with and I'm living with a clear conscience here.

1:56:24Jefferson Fisher:And should you not believe it, that's your choice. But the ones who are not being fully honest, they know that they're not and they know what they're living with and they know what's true and what's not true. And usually some little bit of signs is they'll start to question it and they have this very unregulated response. Ruptures hurt relationships a lot. What does gold standard repair look like to you? how do people come back together after an argument this is big um my wife and i we have kind of set up we did this a few weeks ago of like a system of for us as a couple how do how best can i show up for her and she show up for me when it comes to repair you've been together for 15 years yeah but still even dude it's it's wait just wait all right it's it's it has time means nothing i just assumed given your professional career that this might have been a year three or four or five thing what do you think i learned all of this it's because i made a lot of mistakes man yeah it's this this is all part of it's either you know this information or any information either because you learned at a great personal cost and risk or you're just making it up and like i i've learned all this because of my life experience research is me such as they say yeah that's exactly right and so yeah we've done smatterings of things but we decided to actually put something down and i'd say the number one thing you have to do to kind of come back from an argument is number one ownership you need to own what you said or own what you did it's the element of i did that I said this not trying to look I did this because you did that gets no points zero score that doesn't help you at all well if you hadn't have said this I wouldn't have that's toxic and that's no good if it's a full you gotta take it on the chin ownership hey what I said not cool what I said I own that I did say this and it's a true apology and then you have to too go into this element of acknowledgement and affirmation meaning i can only imagine that that made you feel hurt that made you feel upset that made you feel less than that made you question you know my my feelings whatever it is you have to kind of feel the feelings from their perspective of what you would assume you probably emotional still Exactly.

1:59:01Jefferson Fisher:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I imagine that they made you feel like this, or of course you'd be upset about this. Why wouldn't you be upset about that? Yeah, I said something big. And then three, it's the element of we're still a team. I'm still working towards this. You kind of have to have this element of hope where it's, we're going to still continue to work this out. We're going to continue to get better at this. You got to keep working through it. And depending on what you did, there's got to be apologies, of course.

1:59:33I wonder whether most relationship failure is just bad communication. Obviously, there's incompatibilities, there's fundamental problems that are insurmountable. There's a line from Visakan Verasamy, he calls it the divorce paradox. It says, why is it that so many people separate from someone who seemed to be their favorite person? And it's because bad times are a far better predictor of relationship longevity than good times are. It's how you deal with disagreement, not how you enjoy wonder that determines relationship longevity. Very few people have ended a relationship because there were insufficient peak moments when you compare them to the number of people who've ended relationships because there were far too many bad ones.

2:00:19Too much rupture without repair as opposed to too little skydiving with a parachute.

2:00:25Jefferson Fisher:Yeah, I believe that the quality of the relationship doesn't depend on how good are the good times. It's, can you be with them through the bad times? How good are the bad times? Yeah, exactly. The really hard conversations. Because those are invitations to grow deeper together, to bond more, to get closer together, to be known, to be fully known with that person. You don't get that in the first few dates. You get that in the 15-year knockdown, drag out, who am I, what am I doing conversations. That's where you get to see really what's there inside. I mean, you have to find the bottom to know how far you can go up.

2:01:07Jefferson Fisher:What have you come to believe about choosing a good partner? That is hard work. Doesn't matter even if you're somebody who talks about communication or you're somebody for however long you've been married. It's hard work. I don't know anybody that has been in a long-term relationship or finding their person. Of course, you want somebody you can be a friend with and you can buy somebody you can be vulnerable with. But more importantly, you need to have somebody that you communicate well with. if you don't have communication right to me that's a that's a relationship that's not going to have longevity to it because it feels good in the moment but in your six your seven your ten you add kids into the mix that didn't help conversation it's it puts conversation problems on steroids now every little fissure and crack gets highlighted and it's more stress and then you've got kids schedules and somebody's got soccer practice and somebody has a dentist appointment and then things just get it's way way harder in that element and so you have to have somebody who communicates well with you and honestly Chris somebody who can put up with your ugly somebody who because you're going to have those just moments where it's not a good look just not a good look it wasn't me and my best yeah yeah and and they know that they're not going to punish you for it they know it wasn't and they're going to choose that their love is big enough for that bad moment and know that it's not always going to be that bad moment.

2:02:47Jefferson Fisher:But at the same time, they're going to expect you to come out of it and go, yeah, I could handle that better, not blame them for your bad moment. What's the most fascinating thing about being a trial lawyer that you've learned after spending so much time in it that people from outside of your industry don't know or don't understand? it's different in the sense of you're having to have like you know the movie inception difficult okay like who doesn't it's it's like you're you're having a conversation within a conversation i'm having to prove a point within a point and so i am hired to have problems with somebody I don't have problems with.

2:03:32Jefferson Fisher:And all of a sudden, their problems have now become mine. And now I'm advocating on their behalf. I'm being their voice. And now this other person's hired somebody to have problems with me. And so it's now attorneys arguing, secondhand removed from the people who are actually in the conflict. And then now I'm going to present this case to 12 people and a judge in a courtroom of what case should be left standing. Now, it depends on the facts and the case and everything else, but you are having to have a conversation that is not even being said. For example, as soon as you walk into the courtroom, all eyes are on you.

2:04:15Jefferson Fisher:If you hear a piece of evidence that's bad for you and I go, what does that tell the jury? You go, oh, this must be really bad for them. But if I stay calm and controlled as if like, yeah, I expected to hear that. Doesn't hit that way. Regardless of whether you did or not. Exactly. And then even when, I've seen this a lot where if anybody's been in jury, they've seen attorneys approach the bench, counsel approach the bench and they come up and they usually play some kind of noise, white noise, something to where you can't hear what the judges and the attorneys are saying. No way. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's fun.

2:04:51Jefferson Fisher:And so. They should put some tunes on instead. They really should. Play some Cardi B or something. Oh, I think that would be pretty baller. That would be pretty cool. You're up there and you're like... Yeah, just some Kendrick. Yeah. And so you're talking and they always say, they watch who leaves in the reaction of the attorneys because usually the judge is ruling on something that the jury can't hear on. It's a matter of law that would sway the case. And if the attorney is walking away defeated, they go, oh, something must have happened. Or if the attorney is always objecting, that's the worst.

2:05:26Jefferson Fisher:You have to be really selective with your objections. So let's say a witness is about to say something and it seems like it'd be something big and I stand up and I object. And the judge sustains it and they skip to the testimony. They go, oh, he's hiding something from me. He must not want me to know everything. So what is this? What am I teaching? I'm saying you are having a conversation all with your body language, your whole presence, how calm and controlled you are. How can you be the most credible in the room without having nothing to do with the actual facts of the case? And you do that a lot by being the person who they go, that person's telling me the truth.

2:06:04Jefferson Fisher:That's the truth teller. I can tell by how confident, controlled, measured they are. They don't seem like they're worried and anxious about every little thing the witness is going to say. Which is interesting because that can be taught and engineered to a large margin. so it's just levels of deception that are more sophisticated than the levels of detection and the thing is it exists in every conversation not just in the courtroom i mean dude look at ufc fights and boxing fights that go the distance yeah both fighters put their hand up right go oh yeah exactly at the very end it's the exact same as you walking away from the bench you might as well you might actually next time do this for me let's do that see if it works let's i'll try dude if it works i i'll give you all the credit thank you yeah that's good okay so lots of different techniques around communication at least for me the main thing that the main thing that i'm taking away or one of the main things i'm taking away is a degree of consideration for the other person that seems to be like a real through line with a lot of what we're going on here that yeah um holding your ground being assertive and also being understanding about what what we're doing here that kind of consideration is important.

2:07:17If there's one principle that people should hold on to when it comes to good interpersonal communication, what would it be?

2:07:30Jefferson Fisher:One conversation is typically not enough. You need a lot of them. Meaning, we put a lot of pressure on one single conversation and that increases the anxiety, increases the fear of the moment that I'm going to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing. And you're putting hype on a conversation that didn't need to have that kind of hype on it. Because really it should be the opposite. It should be a, hey, I'm talking to you about this because you matter a lot to me. And at the end of this, we're still going to be best friends. And we're still going to go to dinner together tonight. And we're still going to do X, Y, and Z.

2:08:06Jefferson Fisher:Because I love you, I need to tell you this. This is what's on my heart. You see, that's rather than me trying to push everything at once. versus if I were to say, let's say it's a big important thing that needs to take some time. I'd like to have a conversation with you over the next few weeks. I'd like to have a conversation over this month to talk about X, Y, and Z. Whenever you say that this is a conversation that's gonna take some time, it automatically lowers everybody's anxiety rather than you having to decide, this is the moment right here choose to be with me not be with me where are we doing what are we not doing it it hypes that what if i get it wrong feeling and there's a lot of times there's more conversation that that needs to be had another i'd say is it's it's that element of having something to learn not something to prove when you feel like you have to prove my point people who have something to prove are the ones that always have to push their opinion how dare you believe what you believe and not what I, how dare you have an idea that's not mine and go with something else versus questioning in a very curious way.

2:09:21Jefferson Fisher:That's like you said, what you like is that perspective seeking. How can I, how can I encourage the pursuit of perspective? Yeah. How can I get really disciplined on knowing where your thoughts come from? Where did you learn it? how long have you believed it where did that originate that's something you taught yourself or is that something you came across from really hardship and the more you give people time to share with that the more they're going to open up to you and realize you are a safe place for to share these kinds of things and not harden up dude you're great let's bring this one home yeah appreciate the heck out of you where should people go to check out everything that you've got going You can go to jeffersonfisher.com or social media, jeffersonfisher.

2:10:11Jefferson Fisher:Beautiful. Thanks, man. Danny's Cheesecake Factory, what do you think? Yeah, let's do that. So I think you go Outback? Steakhouse? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Okay, like a lemon onion or something? Cool. All right. Goodbye, everybody. Thanks for having me. Bro. I get asked all the time for book suggestions. People want to get into reading fiction or nonfiction or real-life stories, and that's why I made a list of 100 of the most interesting and impactful books that I've ever read. These are the most life-changing reads that I've ever found and there's descriptions about why I like them and links to go and buy them and it's completely free and you can get it right now by going to chriswillx.com slash books.

2:10:53That's chriswillx.com slash books.