When somebody is belittling you, or being rude, or being disrespectful, what we typically want to do is throw it right back, because now we've got to win. Instead of that, here's what I would want you to do: one, you're going to have 5 to 7 seconds of silence; two, you're going to ask them to say it again, because a lot of time in arguments, people take it back; and three, this is where it gets fun. I want you to say, "That's where your real power is," because it shows that you're the one in control, and they're the ones that are not.

I'm Jefferson Fisher. I'm a board-certified trial attorney, and I help people resolve conflict, resolve problems. I can change two words and change your life, just by what you decide to say next, because what you say truly has the power to change everything. For example, I teach that you never want to win an argument. When you look to win an argument, you will often lose the relationship—that's your prize. Congrats. So, instead of seeing arguments as something to win, see them as something to unravel. And if you can just ask them the question, "What am I missing?" I promise you that is the most effective tool that you can use for difficult conversations.

But what about when you're dealing with someone that you don't like? The secret to dealing with someone you don't like is to… and then could you explain to me this image here? So this is all about how to say no, and how does one learn that? Start with… then end with… Really, that right there is very, very effective. They've got so many questions. This has always blown my mind a little bit: 53% of you that listen to the show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the show. So could I ask you for a favor before we start? If you like the show, and you like what we do here, and you want to support us, the free, simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the Subscribe button. My commitment to you is, if you do that, then I'll do everything in my power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better for you every single week. We'll listen to your feedback; we'll find the guests that you want me to speak to; and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so much. [Music]

Jefferson Fisher, I'm incredibly intrigued by so many of the things that you produce content about, but also this phenomenal book. So if we… if we start from the beginning, who… who are you, and what is the mission that you're on?

I'm Jefferson Fisher. I'm a board-certified trial attorney, and I teach people how to argue less and say more. Um, and I'm on a mission to help change everything about someone simply by what they decide to say next.

What is a trial attorney? Is that a lawyer?

Yeah, it's a lawyer—attorney, same thing.

And what do you do as a trial attorney?

So I help people resolve conflict, resolve problems. So if you have a… a problem with someone, you have a choice: do you go and just punch them in the mouth, or do you sue them? A lot of times it's something that somebody is hurt you that they cannot give back to you. So the only way they do that in the law is to compensate them with money. And so you… you can sue just about anybody. So that's how we resolve conflict here in a lot… in America, same for the UK and litigation. So what we do is we advocate on behalf of other people.

So you're in the courtroom, and you're against another trial attorney, essentially trying to make the case for your party.

Exactly, yes sir.

But isn't that… doesn't that come down to your ability to articulate yourself, and to persuade, and to convince someone of your… isn't wholeheartedly?

Yeah, right, yeah. What I say, the words that I give… are… give… mean the difference between somebody getting their piece of mind back or losing everything.

And how does one learn? Like, how did you learn that? Where did your skill come from in that regard? Because you're regarded as one of the very best of what you do. So where did you learn?

So I am a fifth-generation trial attorney. So I grew up, and while other kids were… were maybe playing when they got home, I got picked up and taken to my dad's deposition, because… my dad was the only one who could get me at that time. And so I sat in the corner with a yellow notepad doodling while he is finishing the rest of his deposition, or I'd go to watch his… uh… trial. I saw lots of closing arguments. And so I got to see firsthand courtroom stories. I mean, any of these people who've been in trial education, they're all wonderful storytellers. So you get to hear that and hear how they ask questions before they say… they give an answer. And so you get to really add a first-row view of how litigation happens and how to persuade, and what are the levers in conversation that… that push that forward progress.

You've written the book on conversation, *Argue Less, Talk More*. Why does it matter to the average person listening now that's just clicked on this conversation? Why does it matter to them?

Yeah, where some people would teach you how to play an instrument, I tell you what chords to play. I give you the sheet music. And so once you know where you are, even in your voice, what matters are the actual words that you say. And I can change two sentences, two words, and change your life, just by what you decide to say next, because where you've been in your whole life comes down to your communication, and how you handle conflict. Where you left one relationship because of, most likely, some type of communication led you to another, or where you are in your job, or where you are in a podcast—it… it's all comes down to what you've communicated and where you are in the conversation at all times.

Do you really think it's that pivotal to your outcomes in life?

Oh, absolutely. So if I… if I became a 10 out of 10 communicator—like, I became the best communicator in the world—what outcomes in my life, what areas of my life do you think will radically improve?

I think you could almost get to… to wherever you wanted to go if you were a 10 out of 10 communicator. You can… how you get hired for jobs, let's say in your career, comes down almost exclusively to how you communicated right there in that interview. You know, people have a wonderful resume, but they have no ability to communicate that. And without the ability to say anything and say it at least effectively, then they're not going to get what they want. Or you have people who have been in those relationships where they've continually been stepped on. They're wonderful people inside, and if they were only with the right person, or if they could express how they wanted and what they needed at that time, their whole world would really change.

I think a lot about this because of podcasting, and it's one of the… slightly unfortunate, unfair elements of running a podcast is sometimes you come across people who have done the most extraordinary work ever. They could be a scientist in a lab in Boston in America, or they could be, I don't know, some exceptional expert in some niche field. But the reason why they often don't get the platform, the stage on podcasts or on TED Talks, whatever it might be, isn't because of their sort of merit; it's purely because of their ability to communicate the ideas. And I think the more and more we head into this sort of like content, YouTube, podcasting world where that's like the dominant form of media, it's so un… it's such an unfair advantage.

Yeah, if you can communicate… like you can be 50% as good in terms of skills or experience, but if you can communicate effectively, the unfair advantage you will have in your life, I think, is just completely disproportionate.

I couldn't agree more. You have a huge head start in the space. You can… if you're somebody who… you may know more than anybody else in that class, but if you don't have the ability to take up the room, if you don't have the ability to capture somebody's attention and hold it and communicate what you need, nobody will listen. And it is an unfair advantage.

It's a great way to put it. And what's the downside then? So if I'm a terrible communicator, if I'm a one out of 10 communicator currently, a… what does that look like? But B… what does… what do the outcomes look like in my life?

The outcomes are you're going to start to be negative on yourself; you're going to start to talk to yourself in very negative ways, and… and really it's a hopeless feeling. You're going to run into relationships where you're running into the same problem; you're going to go into jobs where you start to run into the same problem, where it's almost cyclical where you're not being able to say what you need to say that makes a huge difference. When you say, "Look, I'm not going to… I'm not going to allow myself to be treated this way anymore," when you don't even know how to voice your own boundaries, or enforce those boundaries, or things of how you want and where you want to go in your life, what you're going to find is you're just going to be unhappier more often and more unsatisfied, and that's a… a really hopeless feeling.

How many followers have you gotten online now across all your channels?

I think we're close to 12 million.

It's crazy. Yeah. You're telling me… is there… is there an attorney that has that many followers on Earth?

No.

What is it you're doing for those 12 million people at the very core of it?

Yeah, they come to me, and they watch my videos not to fix or learn from what happened in the last conversation; they're coming to me because they want to know how to handle the next conversation. And what I do is I give them these snippets, the same way I would in an opening argument or a closing argument. I go with three main points; I try to condense a whole lot of information into something that has very little. So you take what would be 40 pages and you turn it into two sentences; you turn that into one sentence; you turn into seven words. And what I do is I give them the sense of, "Hey, I can do that. I can do that. All I have to do is switch this word, or I can see the impact of just flipping one little word or reversing the way I'm giving that sentence, and it creates a very different outcome every time."

So let's get into that then. You said you help them focus on the next conversation. Yeah, what do you mean by that?

So often we think of first impression versus the next conversation. So you and I meet the first time, or you meet… your date, or somebody… first job interview, and everything's great; everybody's has their best face on; everything's wonderful. But it's typically that next conversation where something's different. You get to learn if the first impression is the lasting impression; if somebody was really who you thought that they were. You put it in terms of an everyday argument, let's say with a spouse or a friend. You have friction; that friction ignites, and then you start to both yell at each other, and then you throw insults at each other, and everything gets louder and louder and louder. Eventually, somebody crosses the line and says something they don't mean, and it dies… go… forget this; I'm out of here; gone. They leave. Then there's a next conversation, and that one sounds a lot different than the first one. Sounds a lot quieter, a lot slower. People say, "I… what I meant to say was…" or, "Yeah, I shouldn't have said that. What my intent was…" Then they start to clarify; then they start to apologize; then they reframe: "Oh, I can see how you take it that way. No, no, no. What I meant was…" What they care about in the next conversation is always much different than what they focused on in the first conversation. So the key is, how do you take that next conversation and get it there to be the first one?

And where do… where do we have to start to understand this? Like, I want to be a much better conversationalist, and I want to be a much more effective communicator. I want to argue less; I want to talk more; I want to be heard more. This is probably reflective of most people listening right now. So if… if… if I was a student of yours coming in to be trained by you, where is the first place you would start with me?

Number one… yeah, you say it with control.

Okay. What do you mean by that?

Yeah, so when you're in an argument with somebody, what happens automatically is your fight or flight starts to take over. Even in a little argument, even in the very… especially even in the small ones. If I disagree with your opinion, your fight or flight kicks in, because your body is saying, "Hey, I'm being undermined." Your mind is telling you, "I didn't like that. What he's saying is different from what I'm saying." You know what we're going to think of some other things; it's going to put that down immediately. What I want to do is say something that is going to fight—in other words, I'm going to hurt you. I want to say something that's going to cut you; I want to say something that is hurtful. Or we run from it. You ever had somebody been on the phone and go, "You know, I'm over this," and hang up? Yeah, or they go, "I'm out of here. You know what, forget this," and they go and slam the door. That's their flight; that's their… they're leaving it. It's… I feel threatened in this current moment by this conflict, by this differing view, so I need to get out of it. When you decide to say it with control, you make sure that that doesn't happen, and it all begins with your breath. All right, that's the key. So what I teach every one of my clients is, let your breath be the first word that you say. So we'll run through it right now.

That's cool. All right, so let's do it… an exaggerated one. And what this is called, and it takes advantage of, is a physiological sigh. So we're going to do is… two seconds in through the nose, one more at the top, and then go… Yeah. Okay. How do you feel after you do that?

Very relaxed.

Yeah. All right, cool. So what we're going to do is get a shortcut to that exact result. This time we're going to do it… same thing, but don't make the… the noise… one more… stop… through the mouth again. Now instead of the mouth, only through the nose. Ready? Now… that was a… now we did that almost a little… that was very intentional. So let's do it again, but give it a haircut, as if like you don't even… I'm… you're not even going to get me to notice. Ready? That right there. Now that is your go-to whenever somebody is telling you something that you disagree with. That is your go-to before you even say your first word, because it is going to make sure that that fight or flight never kicks in. It keeps that analytical side, that logical side in it the whole time, instead of going, "Oh, but wait, they can't yell at me like that. No, no, that's… that's a dumb idea. Can you believe that?" You say, instead of that… that's your fight or flight. You never even gave yourself a chance to breathe. When you breathe and use that what I call a conversational breath, now you… it allows you to go, "Huh, I wonder where this is coming from. I wonder why they said it like that." Now it allows you to kind of stay detached from that current moment, because you're injecting your breath into it. When you allow yourself to breathe, then it's going to keep you much calmer. And so anytime I have a client that maybe is getting a question from an attorney that would be triggering to them or upsetting to them, it's always the training of: use your breath while they're asking the question, and start getting really curious as to why they're asking that. What's the point that they're trying to prove? Don't look at the surface of the question; look at the intent behind it. Where are they trying to take you? Whenever I can teach them that, it's… it's a very powerful result.

And to do that, I have to kind of be comfortable with the fact that there will be a pause between my response and their question, yeah, which is quite uncomfortable for a lot of people… you think. But the more they do it, the better it becomes. In fact, I like it because it tells you that I actually listened. So let's say, for example… ask me… ask me about my… just say… "How was your day, Jefferson?"

How was your day, Jefferson?

It was good. It was good. My day was great. Um, you know, it was… it was a day…

Ask me again. "How was your day, Jefferson?"

How was your day, Jefferson?

It was good. It was a good day. I liked it. You see how it… one says, "I didn't even think about what you asked me," the other says, "No, I actually thought about the question; I considered it, and then I chose my answer." And so that you can do that even when… especially for leaders. They go into a very busy work environment where there are problems right on the floor; they have to address this right at that current moment. The bad leaders will get very hectic and rise to that same level of energy; the great leaders will capture the calm energy; they inject that breath and go, "Okay, what's next?"

Have you ever… my grandfather, for example… I can ask him… um… one time I was like, "Hey, do you know where your… your… um… your screwdriver is?" And he… he goes, "Yeah…" I mean, like… you know what I mean? Like… but… that… I mean, it just… but there's something about it where these kind of people in your life that you're looking and drawn to… the calm energy… the anchors in your relationship and your conversations… the people that just… to be near them calms you down. Just to be around them, you go, "Okay, great. Stephen's here. I feel better. Good. Okay, he's here. All right, things are going to go all right," because they're looking for the person who is going to be the lead, not just in the conversation, but the frequency of the room. It's a calm energy that you have to capture.

When you took that pause when I asked you how your day had been, two interesting observations I had: the first is, whatever you were about to say next, I trusted more because you'd had some time to think, and you weren't just spewing out your like automatic response. So I thought, "Oh gosh, what's he gonna say here?" And there was this element of like, "He's really thinking; he's like… he really cares about giving me the… the honest answer." And the second one is, I was just so much more intrigued right, because I could see you thinking. So I thought, "This is going to be an interesting response."

Yeah. And that was all in that one second where you took a breath. You can see that a lot in interviews. The person who you go, "Oh, this person is smart," is when you ask him a regular interview question, and if they… if they give a breath before they answer, you go, "Oh, they actually are… are listening to me." The ones that have this rapid fire of… let's say, for example… and this uses another technique that we'll talk… talk about is, if you were to say, "Would you bring some value? Do you think you'd bring value to this company?" And if I automatically said, "Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think… I think I would. I think I'd bring a lot of value to this company," versus, "I'm confident I'd bring a lot of value to this company…" Like, you hear how all of a sudden you go, "That's… that's my person. They actually heard me, considered it, and I'm really curious about what they're going to say next."

There was something… there's something in the contemplation which means that I believe you checked… yeah, like… it's… it's simple way to describe it.

In that second example where you paused and said, "Yeah, I'd… a lot of value to this company," I was like, "He actually checked."

Exactly. He like checked; he believes it. So I believe it, right? And that's… way… every time I teach a client and I'm preparing them… uh… for their deposition—what they call a depo…

When you say client, who do you mean? You mean…

Yeah, so… uh… people that hire me in my law firm, right? Uh… and now that's translated to me doing it on my phone and teaching… teaching people in my own membership is… I would say, "Okay, let your breath be the first word, and once you do that, you're… are… going to be… the other person's going to go, 'Oh, man, they really listened to my question.'" See, attorneys, we want to get you… we want to get you in a rapid fire; we want you to answer very quickly. Even better is when you start to step over my question, answer the question that you think I'm already going to ask. When you do that, that means you're not listening; you're not listening. But when I can get a client to stop, breathe, and go, "Yeah, you know what? That's… that's not… not fair…"

I had a client, Elizabeth, who… one time when I was prepping her… I would kind of… I would act as the other attorney. So I do that often to help get them and simulate what's going to happen. I would say, "All right, Miss Carson, come on. I need you to answer this question. That's true. It's fair to say you didn't see that other car, did you?" And I kind of start to push him; that gets them really nervous, you know, "Oh my gosh!" And their nerves get up; it's because they're not breathing. When people start to shake, it's not breathing. And so she didn't know what to say. And I'm prepping her… come time… after I taught her about her breath… same question… somebody said… and I knew this attorney; I knew he was going to ask that question. He said, "It's fair to say you didn't see that other… the car…" She took a breath. She goes, "No, that's… that's not fair to say. I mean…" I just left it at that. I mean… and he just couldn't really do anything with it. But the bigger thing was, it gave her the confidence… I was saying, "No, I listened; I see where you're going with this; I'm not going to go there." And so it… it helps you navigate and empower you really with the tools of making sure you're always saying it with control.

Another part of saying with control is slowing your words down. When people talk really fast without thinking about it, it gets us kind of anxious. When somebody is talking really, really fast, you're… okay, I'm trying to understand you; it's harder… let's say… I mean, I like hip hop; I like rap music. If you listen to somebody who's rapping really, really fast and you can't understand a word they're saying, you kind… kind of like, "Okay, I'm lost in this song. I like the beat; that's great, but I can't understand what you're saying." People that slow their words down shows a lot more effectiveness when you communicate. So let's illustrate this. I want you to say, quickly, with some almost… some exasperation… "I already told you I'm not going to do that." Say that real quick.

I already told you I'm not gonna do that.

Say it louder.

I already told you I'm not gonna do that.

Perfect. I want you to do is slow it down; slow it way down; each word… you don't have to have the disdain with it; just slow it down. Say it again.

I already told you I'm not going to do that.

Say you're even slower.

I already told you I am not going to do that.

Oh, man, that's awesome. Yeah. So you see how without the emotion… yeah, you sounded even more control. Yeah. Somebody who goes, "I already told you I'm not going to do that," says I have maybe 5% control. But if I slow it down, same thing, and I say, "I already told you I'm not going to do that," now I sound like I have 100% control. This is the person you go, "Whoa, okay. They're not moving off their spot; they're not somebody who's… I can't press their buttons and control their emotions that way."

What type of person struggles with this?

Somebody who… um… would be not aware of their emotions, not aware of their triggers; somebody who… just… let's put it… has a lack of awareness of certain things.

Does one's self-esteem and one's insecurities play a role in this?

Yeah, I mean, they play a role with anything. My counter to that is, we can overcome it. It's… it's not your self-esteem that's talking; it's the words. The words do it for you. Have people who have a hard time saying what they want; it's the words that they need to say. So when somebody's having a hard time with self-esteem, what I find is all I need to do is get them to start beginning their sentences with certain words, and it's always a different outcome. They just don't know how to begin it. So it's very curious on how… like somebody who rarely… people with self-esteem issues say, "I need…" for example; they typically don't like to say that because it feels too forward. Somebody who has self-esteem issues will typically begin with, "So, you know, maybe like… uh… and I was thinking this, and you can… you can totally tell me if I'm wrong, but…" Uh… that's the kind of thing that you typically hear. They're just using the wrong words to begin their sentences. You have to find words that push the progress of the sentence. For example, if someone says, "Like, all the time…" I mean, I… when you said that like… it… it just really upset me… that doesn't push the sentence forward. If you trade out the word "like" for the word "because"… well, I mean, "that just hurt, because when you said that, that… that hurt me." I'm pushing the sentence forward rather than letting it drag. And so it's just these little bitty tweaks that one or two words make a big, big difference.

So that was the first point, you said control… yeah, control. Say it with control. Okay. Is that a second point?

Number two… say it with confidence.

Confidence. Okay. How do I say something with confidence?

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

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

It's a balance; it's a balance between sounding almost passive and sounding aggressive. Assertive says, "I'm willing to be direct with you, even in the face of it not going well, but I'm at least going to give you my truth," or…

Going to say what I need to say without sounding rude. Whenever you work direct with someone, it's also very kind to someone. If I were to tell you and prep the sentence with, "Stephen, I'm going to tell you this because I know you can handle it," that's different than me going, "Hey, look, this is, you know, probably gonna upset you, and I don't mean to upset you, but you just let me know." Like that is a lot, a whole lot harder. The assertive voice is, "I'm going to be very direct, at the same time I'm going to say it with a sense of, 'This is doesn't have to do with me trying to push my way; I'm just letting you know where I stand.'" You don't, you don't have to always play nice; that's not what I'm saying. There are times when somebody says something that's, that's terrible to you; you don't have to push back, you just can't be pushed over. And so when you learn your assertive voice, that's where you find ways to speak your truth more easily and more readily.

So one of the first words, or the lessons of, "say it," uh, and using your assertive voice, is that every word matters. The number one culprit of that is the word "just." We use the word "just" a lot. It's probably one of my, my weaknesses that I have is using the word "just" in common conversation. No problem; it's nobody cares. But when it comes to having to push a boundary, say something at work, be a little bit more on your toes, "just" has a way of making you sound hesitant. The most common way we hear that is if somebody goes, maybe an email or a text, "Hey, just wanted to check in with you," "Hey, do you have five seconds, just wanted to touch base with you." It sounds like you're hesitant, as if like, "I don't really want to bother you." If you remove the word "just," now you're leaning into it. So instead of, "I just want to check in," "I wanted to check in with you," that's a lot more forward, a lot more forward progress rather than just using the word "just." But every little word matters. You've had those texts where somebody gives you like a whole paragraph; I don't, I don't know what, how to respond to this. What I teach is that the longer your answer, the more questions you're going to get, the longer that conversation's going to go, the longer the argument is going to go. So you have to find ways to say more with less. You have to find ways to say more with less. So does the amount that I speak have consequence? Yes, there is this, it's this idea of the more words it takes to tell the truth, the more it sounds like a lie. Like the more you have to say to explain something to me, the more I start to assume you don't know what you're talking about. And we have this way of, what they, I guess they call it "word vomit," where you just, you talk a whole lot, people get lost in your sentences.

And also when you choose to speak makes a very big difference. Like, have you ever been in one of those meetings, and there's always that one person that has to throw in their two cents? They always have to throw out their idea or be the Devil's Advocate, have something to say at every single issue that gets brought up. Most of the time, those are the people that are honestly the least connected to what's actually happening or least part of the conversation, because they want you to know how smart they are or how many people they know. These are the same people that name-drop like every other sentence, uh, the person that is like, "You know, oh, I was talking with Stephen the other day," "Oh, you know Stephen, right? Oh, he's a great guy," uh, you know, and they start to name-drop just so you know how many people that they know. Insecurities are, are very loud; confidence, on the other hand, is very quiet. Insecure people have the, the need to say everything so that, "I sound more believable, so you'll know how much I know and how smart I am." Confident people have the urge to say nothing because they have nothing, nothing to prove. Like if you disagree with me on something that I know to be true, I, I wouldn't be nearly as affected. Let's say, uh, like we both have on a black shirt, if you were like, "Jefferson, this is a dumb purple shirt you have on," okay, like I don't need to convince you what I already know the color of my shirt is. It's like if you know that about yourself, what you have internally, inside you, don't have the need, the insecurity to prove it to everybody else that they're wrong. The confidence is very quiet. The people that are typically the most looked to are the people that say the least; they listen a whole lot more. Do people capitalize on, on that? So if you're triggered by me saying that you have a purple shirt on, have I got the power now because I can like play you like a fiddle? If that's you're so easily triggered by something that's so obviously like provocation, surely I, like, I have the power over you now, right? No, I mean, I mean the people that are not emotionally intelligent, the people that don't have the emotional awareness, yeah, you can, you can press their buttons and play them like a fiddle, because what they've done is they've, that would be like me giving you the remote, say, "Here, here's the remote to my emotions, go ahead, play them, press that button," "Oh yeah, oh you made me angry, how, how dare you." Instead of handing out remote controls, you get in the habit of giving out manuals. And so if you want to yell at me and press my button and me to say, "You can't yell at me like that," versus me handing you a manual and go, "Hey, I heard you yell at me, if you don't mind, go to page 72, you can look on paragraph 3, I don't respond to that volume." Like you're giving a whole different mind shift of, "This is what I tolerate, and this is what I don't tolerate."

Do you have a lot of, um, people pleasers coming to you? You know, yeah, yeah, yeah. People pleasing is very hard, and I mean, the thing is you can, you can please people, just make sure that you're one of them. And that's the harder part is, I'm always, people say I'm always saying yes to things, I don't know how to say no to things, I don't know where to go with this. That's a whole lot harder. Using your assertive voice helps with that in a lot of ways, and it is about trying to make sure that when you people please with people, you have to find a way to set a boundary that is going to protect yourself, and that's, that's easier said than done. It's, it's interesting being, um, I started my first business when I was, my first proper business when I was about 18 years old. And when you're 18 years old and you're dealing with people that are like double your age, and you're different because your skin color is a little bit different, you have no experience, you, I reflect, I was talking to the guy was cutting my hair yesterday because he's a, a young black man starting in business, and you were aware that every conversation you're having to some degree is a test. Yeah, it's like a test of how much you value yourself, how much you believe in yourself, and how much you believe in what you're building and what you're saying. Like it's an interesting way to think of life that like every conversation is actually a test, a test of your conviction. And I was just, I was talking to my barber about how I've changed over time and how business has made me become more direct and more assertive than I was when I was 18 years old, because like I wouldn't have survived in some of the rooms that I'm in with like very eccentric billionaires who have done this 40 years before me, if, if I didn't have that assertive voice, if I wasn't able to look them in the eye and say with calmness and a slower pace what I believe to be true. Um, it's so interesting like just thinking about how so much of our life is about developing this ability to assert what we believe without the "just" or the caveats or the excuse.

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

In this regard, what do the most successful people in the world, the leaders, the prime ministers, the presidents, the CEOs have in common as it relates to the stuff we're talking about right now? So you know what I'm saying? So like, are they, are they assertive, are they people pleasers? Like what do they have in common here? What I find that people are people, so it's going to, most often it's just going to come down to, to their personality. But overall, your most effective leaders find ways of taking a lot of ideas and words and saying them very concisely. The bigger leaders, they don't write long emails. Yeah, they, so true, they don't write long texts. Rich people don't even say, "Hello," in, "Kind regards," on [ __ ] emails; they just, they literally, they, they send emails like text messages. Yeah, I have, I have found in my own life that the richer somebody is, they could care less about an email signature; they're not, if they even have one, and they might give you two sentences, maybe, is very, very quick and to the point, um, because it's either they really don't have the time, it's not really that it's, they, they want to have the appearance of being very direct, and they don't see that as a, an offense, they don't see that as an insult, they see that that is the way that I'm going to operate. They don't write long emails; they don't write them in a way that's going, "Hey, uh, just want to put this on your plate, and if, if I'm wrong about this, you can totally let me know," and, "I have a question about this, what's number three then? So you've given me two."

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

And then is there anything I need to be aware of when I have that difficult conversation with them so, so that I don't, so that I'm successful in getting to that outcome? Number one would be set the goal of knowing where it's going to end; that, that is the hardest, probably the biggest downfall of the difficult conversation. People expect them to go how they had it in their head; they want the conversation to happen just like they had it while they were brushing their teeth that morning or driving on the way into work. They're like, "Okay, I'm going to say this, and they're going to say this," and you expect everything to go just how you had it in your head. But as soon as I say that one thing you weren't expecting, all of a sudden they disagree with you, and you go, "Wait, that's not how it's supposed to be; they were, they were supposed to say this, they were supposed to say I'm right, they were supposed to say they're wrong." I mean, uh, "How's this going to go," and then it begins to drown, falter like that. Because when we go into those sort of difficult conversations, whether it's with a colleague or our spouse or whoever it might be, much of the objective, I think for some of us, is to, is to win the conversation. Yeah, in whatever definition of winning one might have, is endeavoring to win a conversation a good idea? I teach that you never want to win an argument, and this is why. When you look to win an argument, you will often lose the relationship. Like if you set out to only prove people wrong, yeah, you might win the point, but you will lose the person. You know, being right doesn't keep you company, let's put it that way. When I look at arguments as only something to win, all I've won is really the first step to, to apologize. Typically when you set out to win it, because most arguments aren't really won, it's just, they're won by forfeit. Somebody goes, "I, I'm over this," or you said something that was really hurtful that makes them say, "I don't want to, we're done, I don't want to talk about this." An argument eventually burns out; that's what happens. But when you set out to win, you will lose the relationship. Like if you, you and I are in an argument and I say something that's really hurtful and then you leave, you hang up the phone, what have I won? Yeah, I mean, what, I, I've, I've won awkward silence now when we pass each other in the hall. I've, I've won that awkward feeling now I have to pick up the phone and apologize; I still have to find a way to probably work with you or live with you. What have you proven? When is ever you go on social media and disparage somebody's political belief ever changed their mind? Ever? There's been so many arguments I've had with like my girlfriend where I have quote-unquote won, and I felt like [ __ ] Yeah, you will, cuz I, cuz she, like she might come to me and say, "You know what, I understand your point, and I'm, I'm sorry," and there's part of me that just feels like [ __ ], and I, it's, it's because I thought that's the outcome I was looking for, but actually the outcome I was looking for was resolution, and I actually love this person so much that a concession was not like, was actually not, I, it's not what I wanted; I actually wanted to be happy with them. Yeah, so I, to, you know, I was thinking of so many, some, some recent examples where my girlfriend came to me and apologized for something where we were like disagreeing about it, and I just felt like [ __ ] that she apologized. It's not to explain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, no, it's not an uncommon experience whenever you feel like you had to always be right, and that's what we really want; we want the last word. When you have the last word, you are typically first up to apologize; that's all you've, that's all you've bought yourself; that's the, that's your prize, congrats. And when that happens, you find a way of going, "That's not really what I, I wanted; why did I say that? That was just, that was just hubris; that was just me; I just had a feeling of being right." And sometimes we have that feeling of, when, especially in terms of people that are in charge of other people, um, we expect others to do what we say. When you're in work mode and you say, "I need this done," people get it done; you set the tone, "This is how we want to do it." And sometimes we translate that into our own romantic relationships. "Oh no, I said it needs to be this way, so you know what you to do, you need to do it this way," MH, and it's a different shift when you're doing something that's romantic versus something that is, you have to be captain of the, the ship. And so whenever you're in those difficult conversations, you only seem something to win, you're going to have a hard problem. What I teach is instead of seeing arguments as something to win, you see them as something to unravel. Meaning what we want to do is pull my way, and then you pull it your way, and it just makes it worse, makes it worse. We have to give up, and it's not until that next conversation that we actually try and care of what happened. I will often tell someone, "Help me find the knot," and what I'm doing is encouraging them to say, "I'm not saying what's wrong with you; I'm not saying, can, can you be any more stupid?" I'm saying, "Help me find the knot." It's a way of detaching the issue, detaching the problem, saying, "This is something for us both to look at, help unravel, where's the, what am I missing?" That phrase right there is very, very effective. If, if you can just ask them the question, "What am I missing?" they will always tell you, CU, most likely it's not something that you're focused on; you're only focused on what you're saying; you're not focused on what they're hearing; big, big difference.

I have, um, two glasses on the floor here. Yeah, um, try not to spill it, nice. Since I've been a waiter, um, so I have these two glasses of water in front of me. What is, I know there's an analogy you have for having a good, effective conversation that can be demonstrated with these two glasses of water. Yeah, so let's say that this glass right here is all of my thoughts and knowledge, and your glass is all of your thoughts and knowledge, and not just what you think now. These are things that you've known throughout your entire life. So if I were to tell you something about, I want to get your thoughts, maybe a political opinion or something that's a religious belief, I'm talking like deeply held beliefs that you grew up with, that's what's in that cup right there. When we go into a conversation with someone, often what we find is, especially if it's like a stranger, that what I say in our first conversation should convince you automatically, that if I were to take all of my knowledge right here and I pour it in there, should be no problem. But what, but what happens when I start to pour into here? It overflows, meaning you have no, no room, you have no room for what I want to share whatsoever; it's going to just, it's overflow. Instead, what you have to find ways to ask questions and get really curious, meaning instead of me pushing my point, instead of saying, "Why do you believe that," beginning your question with "why," I start to get really curious about, "How did you come to believe that? Where did you learn that? When did this happen?" Ways that I get to ask questions every day, like I do as a trial attorney, to find ways of getting to the issue of, "What's that deeply held belief? Where does it come from?" Because only then, let's go ahead and pour yours into mine, there you go, perfect. And so it's only then until you have space that I'm asking questions. When every I ask questions, you start to answer just a little bit more, and then you answer just a little bit more, to where you actually have space to care at all to what I'm going to tell you. Like you can't, f, I can't fill a glass that's already full with new thoughts; it's not going to happen. It's not until I can get you to pour it all out till you'll ever be receptive and have room for what I want to share with you. So that's the key in difficult conversations, that you have to find ways to get really curious about who's the person behind the words, because the person you see isn't the person you're talking to. I might be talking to Stephen right now, but there are things that happen in your life that you believe that happen long before I ever talked to you, and we have this huus about us that we think that just because I told you you should believe something right at this moment, you're going to automatically change your mind. Minds don't get changed in one conversation; they happen over a year, of a hundred conversations, a thousand conversations before anybody will ever be receptive to what you have to say.

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

Like, turned to me and said, "Um, it's people that are young and healthy that are ending up in the hospital beds." And I remember saying to him, "I was like, I was living at his house. I was like, no, I don't think that. I think the NHS website says it's people that are like out of shape and slightly older that are ending up in hospital beds." And he like, was like, really, really triggered by that. And I remember he's like a good friend of mine, so we had a conversation about it, and we dug and dug and dug, cuz we like really good friends. Like, why, why is it that all of us as like boys we know in like the group chat, when we're bantering, all we've got to do is say like, "Now you're wrong, wait one, one thing," and it's like Red Mist, yeah. And we had like a really open conversation about it over, really over the last like year and a half. And he said, "Um, when I was younger, all of the teachers thought I was stupid, and also I then got bullied on the playground because people thought I was stupid. And then I found text messages from my grandmother to my mom where they said I was stupid. And then I found on my report card they'd basically written me off." So 30 years later, when we're having a conversation, just a trivial conversation about the pandemic, when I go, "No, I don't think that's right," and I like pull up the website and stuff, and he gets like sees the Red Mist, as he means to call it now, it all stems back 30 years to this experience of on the playground. So like you said, it could be proving, proving someone wrong, but in that case, it's actually like proving the bullies right; it's proving all the people that hurt him right, and it's showing up 30 years later as this Red Mist. The story ends with him going to a therapist and speaking about it, and he's resolved it now to the extent to which he can, where now when he feels that feeling, he's able to point it; he knows what it is, and so it doesn't make the decision. Right? Knowing your trigger is one of the biggest ways to defend against that, to know your trigger. And it's funny how just like your friend is telling you so many things in everybody's life goes back to the playground. MH, like we can remember that thing that that one kid said, like, right now you probably remember it, somebody said in high school came straight to mind, and and it's it's been years, years, but you remember it, and it lives with you for that long, um, just simply what they had said in that moment that you've created that identity that's that's a trigger. And if you tend to hit somebody with a trigger, it's different, like you can always, it's very telling in the courtroom when somebody takes a level one conversation and they ratchet it up to a level 10; it's very dispor, disproportionate, and it tells you that there's a conversation happening in their head that you weren't invited to; it tells you that something else is is going on. And when you have the patience and the discipline to find that person rather than just fighting the surface, it, you will always have a deeper connection with that other person.

If you're dealing with someone in your romantic relationship, ship at work, whatever that is, easily triggered in that regard, what advice would you give to the person dealing with that person who is like continually easily triggered? They see the Red Mist all the time; it's almost impossible to talk to them because they immediately just flip to 10. Yeah, they avoid the difficult conversation; you feel now that you can't even have that conversation with them because they're immediately going to gaslight you, or they're just going to go straight to 10, and they're going to be flooded. Right? You know that phrase that I've heard before about like when the brain gets flooded, like they just get overwhelmed in there? Yes. What do you do with that kind of person? You just curious, or well, it's, I don't want to just say curious because I don't, I think that doesn't do it justice. One would be, you have to delay what you, what they said from when you respond; you have to add a lot of distance there because if you continue to engage and go, "Why, why can't you talk about this? What's wrong with you?" That will only spiral it more. What they're going to hear is, "Something is wrong with me; something I am feeling is bad," when in that moment their body is fighting; their body is going, "I feel threatened; I feel anxious; I got to get out of here," and it's happening in micro, minutes that you, there's nothing you're going to be able to say that's going to help that trigger aside from you allowing them the space to have it. So that means you're going to find ways to approach conversations with that in mind. So one would be adding distance and not addressing it in that current conversation because they're triggered; you don't want to do that. You want to find it in the second conversation. So in the first one, you can easily end it with, "Hey, we can drop it; not a problem; we can talk about it later," because problems happen, Stephen, when you try and push people into having conversations on your timeline; in other words, when they're not ready. Ever had somebody come up to you and go, "Hey, I need to talk to you right now," and and you're like, "You want to talk like that's the last thing you're trying to control my time; this is not what I want to talk about right now, and I'm not ready for this conversation," and that, that causes a big problem when somebody's trying to push their timeline on you. Um, we can talk about ways to to deal with that, but it is, that's what happens. And when you do it with somebody going, "What's wrong with you? Let's talk; why can't you talk about this right now?" You're just pushing them into a corner, and you're making them harder, I mean, you just, they become hardened; they'll totally shut off from you; then they're gone; then they won't come back for several days, most likely. So when you start to push on them, things will go wrong. So that's when somebody's feeling triggered, that second conversation, that next conversation is the, I like, "Let's put a frame on it. I like to talk about what we began talking on on last Monday, and I I'm not trying to solve anything; I just want to understand where you're coming from so that I can do better; can we do that?" Like, right there, that's going to be a much better way to set up and frame that difficult conversation rather, rather than going, "Hey, so um, question for you, uh, what's up with you? Because something's, something's off," all right? Like that's the way that it's gonna, you're gonna trigger them again.

So many people are so interested in understanding how to deal with disrespectful people, yeah, like being disrespected, right? So if I'm being disrespected, is there a playbook for me to handle that? And why is it that so many people are so obsessed with like dealing with disrespect? I find that people are really attracted to comebacks of things, and I find that so funny, but it's it's a big part of communication for an important reason. When somebody is, let's say, belittling you or being rude or being disrespectful, there's kind of, I teach is a little bit of a different method for each one, and how you handle it makes a very big difference. What we typically want to do when somebody's being rude to us or disrespectful, we want to throw it right back at their face; we want to ratchet it up because now we gotta, now we got to win. So, "Oh, you think I'm stupid? How about let me talk about how you're stupid." I mean, so we want to throw it back at the other person; all that does is ratchet it up, and then again it's, it becomes to who's going to apologize first; that kind of is where the game starts to lead. Um, what you, I was curious what you have on the book now. Well, I was just looking at this section in your book about dealing with difficult people. Yeah, that's probably my favorite. It's your favorite? Yeah. It was also probably the most popular part of the book because it outlines a specific manual on how to handle these kinds of people, and I've developed it from these people specifically that I've had in depositions and cross-examinations in the courtroom, that very competitive people that you find ways to, you think that the power, power is in having a direct response back of them that's going to uppercut them, like smart people, people like you, Stephen, people like all your listeners, we have this desire that when somebody says something ugly, we want to send the zinger; like we want to have, we want to craft something so poetic that it's not going to hit them until the two days they go like, "Oh my God, she totally got me," and that's just not going to happen. But the true power is this kind of Be Like Water mentality; it's instead of direct with them, you're just avoiding it; you're pushing it out of the way to where you're going, what you're saying is not threatening to me, and you do that in several different ways. This would be how I'd say how to handle people that are belittling you or giving you disrespect: one, you're going to add silence, five to seven seconds of nothing; two, you're going to ask them to say it again; let's say it's insults; those insults are very direct; you're asking them to repeat it; and three, you're going to just let that sit; whatever they say. For example, um, let's put it in terms of somebody who, let's give it an example; this would be somebody who's giving you just a straight insult; insults are different from a disrespect or something being rude; insults are very direct; saying somebody saying like, "You're ugly," right? Um, how I, if I were to say, "You're ugly," how would you respond? And you're not, by the way, un, let's just say, so it's so hard because it's like the context-dependent, like you laugh, but if it was like, it depends on the context, doesn't it? Yeah, I was, I was like, "Oh, that's, that's the shirt you went with, I guess," all right, okay. Like that's whenever somebody is insulting you, yeah, we have this ability to get really mad and on it and get angry, but the best way to do it is, let's say if you told me, you know, "I, I really think you're an idiot, Jefferson," give it a a little bit of silence, and I would repeat, "I'm an idiot, Jefferson." Now it's going to put it spotlight right back on you for you to confirm it, double down on it, or you're going to apologize. A lot of time in arguments, people take it back, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have, I shouldn't have said that; my head was, I got to in front of it." But if they double down on it, what all you need to do is just thank them, "Thank you," in other words, "Thank you for showing me who you are; thank you for making sure that I'm not going to be with you uh, anymore; and this is who you are in my life." Very different from, let's say, with somebody who is belittling you, uh, patronizing you, being condescending to you; this is where uh, it gets fun; this is one of my favorite ones. So let's, let's give this a um, a test. "Oh, Stephen, I see that uh, you lost some weight; that's, that's great, man; good, good for you." How would you typically want to respond to that? "Thank you." Yeah. Now if I had said something that was um, a little bit more ugly, if it was like, "Oh, you finally lost some weight; I was wondering when you would," yeah, uh, "That's, that's good on you," would you still say "Thank you" again? No. Yeah. What would you say? "That's rude." Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, "Oh, okay; that's, that's a little offensive." So here's what I would want you to do: add silence; we're going to have five to seven seconds of silence, MH, and what that does is allow them their words to fall, so it's going to one, tell you that their words aren't threatening; you're adding that space in there for two reasons: one, to calm you down because you're gonna be using that breath we talked about; second of all, allows them to hear their words back because it's like they walk their words out onto a plank, and now they're all alone. So if you, if you had said something ugly to me, and um, you said something like, "Oh, well, um, Jefferson, great to be here, I guess; I, I guess we'll include you; I guess you just came," it's something that made me feel like I wasn't wanted, and if I just let that hang for a little bit, and then I asked a question of intent, these are what I call questions of intent, where it says, "Did you say that to upset me? Did you say that to hurt me? Or did you mean," if you begin your phrase with, "Did you mean, did you mean for that to offend me? Did you mean for that to be rude?" I do this a lot in uh, email correspondence or texts when somebody sends something to you and you feel like all of a sudden it's rude, but really, if you just text, "Did you mean for that to sound short," like it cures up almost instantly because it's not exactly, a lot of the time people don't mean it that way, but they're going to say something to you that is going to respond in, most likely they're going to say no; they're not going to know how to handle that; they're not going to do with that. If you can respond with, um, "Imagine, imagine being like, imagine being the person who would say that," or, "How did you want me to feel?" Or ask them, "How did you feel when you said that? How does it make you feel when you say that?" You're going to say something ugly to me, and I give it a big pause, and I would respond, "How does it make you feel when you say that to me?" Or, "I'm surprised you said that out loud." Can you just tell them how it felt? Can you just say, "That was really hurtful?" Yeah, you can, but that's, that's giving them what they want; you're giving them the dopamine; that's what they wanted; they said that so that it would hurt; they're saying that for, because in their mind they wanted you to have that sense of pain; they wanted to grab that from you; they wanted that sense of control. So when you say, "Oh, that hurt," often that's exactly what they wanted in that moment. Now it's going to take them some time to realize, "Oh, I was really a jerk about that," but in that moment what they're wanting is that hit of dopamine from you; they're wanting that sense of control. So when you ask them a question, so if I were to say, "That was, that was rude," they're, you're giving them what they want; that's a direct statement. But if I asked, "Did you say that, did you say that to be rude? Did you mean for that to sound rude?" Now they have to admit; that's very different; now they have to admit what their intent was with that; now they have to say yes or no; most what they, most of the time what they do is they kind of fumble over their words and they go, "What, I, I mean, what I meant to say was," or, "No, no, no, no; I'm sorry; what, what I meant was," they don't want to, they don't want to hurt; now going to hurt the reputation; now they're going to, they put themselves way too far out on a ledge, and that's much harder.

On page 166 of your book, the next conversation you say, "When you hear someone say something rude or insulting, understand that they're wanting something from you; that something is dopamine, the feel-good hormone; that something is dopamine." Yeah. So when they, when somebody says something to be ugly, what they're wanting is your emotion; they're saying, "I'm unhappy; I'm only going to be satisfied if I can make you a little bit unhappy too; that's where I'm going to feel justified in this; I'm only going to feel justified when I've caused you pain." And when that happens, your best defense against that is to be like a wet blanket; like be a soggy piece of bread that they can't do anything with; they can't move that; they can't control that; and what you're telling them in that moment is, "It's not going to be that fun for you." You, that's the best way to handle a bully; bully does something, and you ask them, "Did you say that to hurt me? Or does it feel good for you to say that? Or how did you want me to respond when you said that?" Let's say I came in and I go, "Oh, I guess we're, you know, I guess this is okay; yeah, I guess we can talk in here; that's fine," right? I mean, that's kind of condescending, yeah, wouldn't you say? And if you had asked me in that moment, um, "Did you mean for that to sound rude?" I'd be like, "Oh, no; oh, no, goodness." Either, either I'm calling it out, or you'd say, "That's, that's an odd thing to say out loud; can you say that in all contexts?" I'm thinking if you can, you say that to your like the CEO of the company; you're an intern, MH, and they say something to you and that they look at a piece of work you've made and they go, "I mean, I guess that's okay," yeah; do you know what I mean? Does context matter here? Well, I, I still think you could say it; I mean, it depends how you're going to, yeah, yes; it just depends, uh, yeah; context certainly matters on some level, but I mean, if, if it is a position of just, I think if there's such a huge power dynamic, something like that, if you're an intern and you're like, "Look, this guy's just having a bad day; I don't think I need, this is not the time for me to choose to try and have a uh, a way of making him feel bad," or if it's like, "Okay, I can, I'll accept that, or I can do better with that," there's ways that you can try and diffuse the the rudeness. Another that I really like to to use, this would not be in in that context, but that's below my standard for response; those are really bad arguments. So I've had it where really, really bad arguments where you've used, "That's below my standard for response," and they really don't know what to say after that. A lot of times when I'm in depositions and somebody has a snarky comment towards me, I'll ask them, "Now, how, how did you want me to respond to that?" They don't know; they don't really have an answer; they kind of just go, "I mean, what, I mean, what I meant was," and they, and they fix it. But the signal you're sending, the whole point of it all is to show them that the next time you choose to do this, it's not going to be fun; this is not what you're getting; that's the whole point of getting them to repeat. A lot of the times if I say, "You know what? I didn't, I didn't catch that; can you, can you say that again?" They can't bear to say that again; it's like conversational boundaries; that's what saying, yeah. So one time I had a case between two sisters, and it was about as fun as it sounds, uh, two older sisters having fighting over our company; their dad had passed away; I had one sister; another attorney friend of mine had another sister; and my client was, let's say, very levelheaded; she wanted to preserve the legacy of their family and the company; the other had very different life choices, let's say; and the other one wanted to sell the company. Well, they eventually came to almost an agreement on how they were going to divvy up, uh, buy the sister out; we're at mediation, and I knew that we knew that this other sister was, there's no telling what she's gonna, she's gonna say out of her mouth, and I had already prepared my client for, "If she insults, if she says anything ugly, you're going to ask her to say that again," all right? So sure enough, we get at the mediation table; we have a a opening discussion, and the sister, the, let's say, the the more fiery sister goes on this tirade and and says how everything's against her; she hates everything; and then she looks at her sister and says, "And I've never, I, I've never loved you; you're dead to me," anyway. Now that's sister to sister; that's like terrible; it was, it was super sad to watch. My client goes, "I need you to say that again to me." The other sister couldn't do it; she didn't say that again because it, it puts them out on on a ledge where they, they can't really, they're not going to get the effect; it's not nearly as effective when you say it the second time; the first time was through emotion; it was the amygdala; you get it; and the second time was you're forcing them to into the prefrontal cortex to make like a a logical, you got it; yeah; now, now they have to think, "Does this make sense for me to say again?" Yeah, because the first, it, the first effect isn't there; it's not as uh, it's not as powerful. The first time when somebody gives you an insult and you say, "You know, I didn't, I didn't catch all that; I need you to say that again for me; can you repeat that?" Most of the time they won't because they know at now I look bad because you all you did about with that question has put the spotlight right back on them, and they can't, they can't take that, so they don't know what to do with it.

It's interesting because some of the things you, as you were talking, I was thinking, "Is this like advice for dealing with really toxic people, or is this also advice just for dealing with like couples arguing?" Because it sounded the type of person that would not respond to, "That really hurt me," yeah, sounds like a bit of a monster, right? Like a narcissist. When, when somebody is, so if my girlfriend turned around to me and said, "That really hurt me," I'd like, it would kill me. Yeah, some people, yeah, let's put it in, well, one, it's because you love the person, right? And she loves you, and so that's, that's a little bit different when you're dealing with people that are everyday rude at the workplace or the office, or maybe you are in a relationship with somebody who's a narcissist or somebody who is toxic, or you have that bad relationship; I think it's perfectly okay to use these kind of sentences that are going to put somebody back; I mean, like, even let's say in my own relationship, okay? I certainly use, we both use, wife and I, the, "Did you mean for that to sound short?" I've also said something and said something I didn't mean, and she's come back using my own things, "No, that's not okay," yeah, and she, oh my gosh, yeah, and, and, and she'll say, you know, "Did you, did you say that to upset me?" But, and you're like, "But, but at the same time, understand that when you say those kind of things, some sense of it is giving grace to the other person of not accepting that what they meant to say or what they say was what they meant to say, because maybe I, I'm giving you the chance here to clarify." If I were to say, "Did you, do you mean for that to sound rude?" And you're like, "Oh, goodness, no; that's not what I meant," I'm giving you the the grace of a second chance rather than just deciding to to take it personal. We do that a lot on text message, like somebody sends you a text, and all of a sudden you're feeling like, "Oh my gosh, this is the rudest thing ever," and then you find out they didn't give it with that kind of inflection or tone at all; I was thinking of two things at the same time; I was thinking when we approach these difficult conversations with difficult people, is there a certain priming that we need to do to ourselves to make sure that we're in the right frame of mind? Because even as a podcaster, I see huge variance in my ability to like speak and articulate myself based on things that happened in the last 24 hours. Yeah, so is there, do you ever think about like when you've got those big cases coming up, how to prime yourself to make sure that your brain, your mouth, everything is working in unison, and you feel like emotionally ready for that conversation? Yes. So one, I, I do, one is, I, let's put it in terms of work and home because everybody listening right now, us included, we have a a work life and then we have a home life, and sometimes it's really easy to switch those up; is never allow myself to be put in a conversation when I'm not ready, especially important conversations; like you don't want to wait until you have 10% of your battery left for 100% of a conversation; it's just not going to go well when you wait till you finally put the kids to bed and you're both drained and exhausted, or you've had a really hard stressful day and you're mad, and like that's the time when it's right before bed that you're going to decide to have the most important conversation between you two; it's never going to go well, like, because you're aggravated; you're agitated; you're probably hungry; and so you, you don't set yourself up for failure; and that would be, "Don't have a conversation when you're not ready." Ways to, and this goes same for your triggers, is part of that self-awareness is saying that out loud, meaning, "I'm going to begin my sentence with, 'I can tell, I can tell I'm not ready for this conversation,' or you say something that's triggering to me; I can tell I'm getting defensive; I can, can tell that's upsetting me," like when you say it out loud, when you claim it, you control it rather than me starting to act defensively and being defensive and saying defensive things; I say, "I can tell I'm getting defensive," like that; now I've said it out loud of that feeling; I'm not becoming the feeling; I've said it; and so there's a big, big difference in how when you're in those difficult conversations when you want to prepare yourself; you find ways to one, have self-awareness of, "I can tell when I'm ready; when I'm not ready;" second of all is if you know your triggers and you know what's going to upset you, you try and like curb that as best you can when you're, when you're not in the fight or flight; you're not going to put yourself in a bad position; so that, that would be the biggest takeaway is, don't you put, don't put yourself in position to fail. And I've also heard you say that when um, you're being disrespected, I mean, this was the first of the three points you said a second ago, is to create that silence again. Uhuh. Why is, why does that matter? What you mean by that? Yeah. So pauses, though they are the absence of words, they're not the absence of communication; meaning there's a difference in pauses between somebody saying, "I love you," and a really long pause before somebody says, "I love you too," or somebody, your girlfriend asked, "Where were you last night?" And you take one second to respond instead of seven seconds to respond; they each say different things. So pauses are wonderful at getting the other person and yourself to fill in blanks, and when you're dealing with people who are, let's say, toxic or ugly or just not being nice, they will fill in that silence for you, and it, it does two, it does two things: it allows you with the breath and the pause to make sure you keep the analytical side pushing the emotion down; you're not getting flooded; next, it's also doing the same thing for them; when I add silence, I'm making you almost repeat your words back in your head; and often you've been in those arguments where somebody already apologizes for what they said without you having to say anything; you've seen it too on a text; somebody says something ugly in a text, and you don't respond for a few hours; most often they will reply back; at least in my world, they say like, "I shouldn't have said that," or they'll try and reframe it, or they'll edit the text; you now you have the benefit of uh, hindsight when, "Oh, that didn't, that didn't sound good," or they'll twist their word again to to fix it.

So, like, for example, I see this a lot with liars, people who who lie on the stand and in litigation. You always have people lie, even in deposition; it's just part of it. You don't really get surprised by it. But silence is the number one, like, killer of liars because they have conversations in their head for you. So if you're going to tell me a lie, for example, and instead of me going, "That's not true, that's not true," and then you're going to—it's like you like that, okay, good, they're engaged now. I can start to manipulate the narrative, and you'll tell a lie, and then it forces me to try and fix it: "No, no, no, that's not true; remember you did this and you did this," and you're trying to get around them. That's exactly what the liar is wanting—the more engaged, the more conversation, the more believable it feels to you. So then you start to doubt yourself, like, "Oh, maybe they did." Silence, like, just destroys them.

So if you were to tell me a lie and I waited five to seven seconds and I repeated the question to you, or I repeated your answer—let's say I know that you were at the store last night and you're trying to lie to me and say, "No, I was home last night"—and let's say I think you weren't—not to no good at the store—and you go, "Uh," just say, "Jefferson, I was at the store last night. I was um, I was at the store last night. 7-Eleven, at the store last night at the [Music] 7-Eleven. Yeah." I'm going to come back to to this conversation in a bit, right? So all of a sudden the liar is like, "Oh, no, no, no, don't, don't do that, don't do that," like, "Oh, now you're now you're thinking about it, now you're thinking about it," like, "You you know I was at the strip club." "Yeah, yeah, yeah." It's like, "I I know you weren't where where you say." So if you can say you add in time, like, "Um, I want I'll come back to this conversation," or if I were to say, "Something feels off," they don't like that; liars don't like that at all because they want you engag—they want more conversation. So when you slow it down and you go, "It's not not even saying I don't believe you," don't say that; that's that's getting them—that's more engaged in conversation. But when you slow it down and get quieter, of "I'm thinking, I'm just thinking," liars will start to have the conversation in their head with you; they'll start to say things like, "I mean, what what do you—I mean, what do you—" Let's put myself in your position: If you said you're at the store and I didn't really believe you, you'd be like, "I mean, where where do you think I was? I mean, why why would I be there?" Like, they start to try and get into your head so that they can fix it, I'll try to twist the narrative to to place the pieces in a way of—they're not going to fill in every piece of the puzzle, the jigsaw puzzle, but just enough, hopefully you get the rest of the picture. But silence, pauses—that's where your real power is because they can't do anything with it, and it shows that you're the one in control and they're the ones that are not. And I guess you want—if you're lying in that context—you want certainty that the other person believes you. So the issue with the big pause you gave is: If I was at the strip club last night, I now don't have certainty that you believe what I'm saying, so I need to like keep going until I can convince you yes that I was at, you know, the 7-Eleven. So I now I need to push back on you and say, "What what you mean? Exactly, why why you asking this?" "Yeah, yeah, exactly why you asking me this?" "Yeah, yeah." You're wanting more, give me a conversation; we need conversation, I need it now, cuz the uncertainty is not good to deal with. "No, oh, no," they get in their head about it. But it's this that same concept we talked about of people who tell the truth; they don't—they have all the patience in the world. If uh if you really were at the store and I was like, "I I need to think about this for a minute," you'd be like, "Okay," you know, it wouldn't bother you because the those that have told the truth, they have they have nothing to hide. If you need to think on it, you something feels off, okay, well, "I'm I'm here to talk about it," but that's that's where I was. And you do know you know that like regardless if they think about it or regardless of whatever they do next, I know where I [ __ ] was. So you're only going to uncover evidence that I was at the 7-Eleven last night. That's exactly right; you're going to look at my bank statements, you're going to see I was at the 7-Eleven last night. So there's a certain confidence that comes with that where you don't need to prove yourself. Yeah, it's a relief; it's a confidence of going, "No, I know I know exactly where I am." It's that that inner confidence we talked about at the very beginning. But the people who don't tell the truth—oh, I mean, I I can—if I had a dollar for every time I've seen it where I've asked somebody the question back, they said "um"—usually it's texting while they drive: "I never text, I never text when I drive." Let's say I asked somebody—you asked me the question, you know—um, here we'll run it through. So ask me the question: "Were you texting while you were driving that day?" "Were you texting while you were driving that day?" "No, I never text, never text when I drive." Now notice I said a big word, I said "never." Never is an extreme; extremes are dead giveaways that they're usually not telling the truth. Everybody texts when they drive at some point in time, even in your car. Never and always or never—it's always or never true. So that's a big one. Second of all, I answered really quickly; I didn't breathe or really think about it and try and actually show you that I was trying to remember in time, give you a really immediate response. So um what you're going to do, we're going to replay it again. I'm going to say the same exact thing, and I'm going to ask you to give me about five seconds of time, and then I want you to repeat what I said slower. Cool. So ask me if I was um if I was um texting while I was driving that day. "Were you texting while you were driving that day?" "No, no, never. I I never text when I drive." "You never text when you drive?" Well, on—so even that I didn't I didn't even like that. So what they'll do most often is they'll even go, "Well, I mean, I mean, I mean, sometimes I do," because now they—you just hinge on that word "never," so now they know, "Oh, that's a risk word," and they'll kind of come out of it and go, "I mean, I mean, sometimes I do. I mean, maybe, but but but hardly, hardly ever." When that happens, what you typically want to do is give them an out. Now they've they've put themselves into a corner, and now they're looking for an out, and a way to do that is go, "If you were texting, it's it's okay."

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You think about how your body language is communicating. Yeah, I have 12 jurors that are watching every bit of me as soon as I come into the courtroom. I mean, oh yeah, you you have the judge, you have the bailiff, you have a court reporter, you have uh people in the back, and you have two benches, you have attorneys—probably lots of attorneys, they're paralegals, you have your clients, and 12 jurors who all they do is watch you like a hawk. So the good attorneys are pretty emotionless when they hear—are almost near-emotionless when they hear bad information—bad information being information that goes against your case. Exactly, a client says, a witness says something that hurts their case, and they just keep on writing, or they just kind of sit back and read. The really bad attorneys go, "Stop flopping," exactly because all it is—you're telling the jurors—the jurors go, "Oh, they said something that that hurts their case." Same thing with uh objecting; bad attorneys object a lot: "Objection, your honor, that's leading. Objection, your honor, that's already been ruled on," uh, you know, there's there's all kinds of lots of objections and the Rules of Evidence. But if a juror says they watch and go, "Oh, they're hiding something from me; they don't want me to learn this information," "Objection, your honor, that's irrelevant. Objection, your honor, that's hearsay." Oh, there's something that's happened that they don't want me to hear. Why would they do that unless it hurt my—their case? But the good attorneys object maybe one or two times, and they do it in a way that encourages the discussion a little bit more, of almost explaining it. Uh, so yeah, it's—you always have to watch your body language and how something is affecting you or not. Like if you have a—sometimes sometimes you'll see attorneys go up to the bench and have a quiet little meeting with the judge, and the one—the attorney who looks defeated, you know, because they feel like they lost—all the jurors think is, "Oh, they must have not gotten what they wanted; oh, something's wrong." It gets it gets in their head. Same thing, I mean, jurors are—I mean, they're just people, but we have a sixth sense about us that we can sense things about if someone is telling the truth or or not. At the end of trials—most people don't know this—we get to talk to the jurors; he had to ask them questions if they want, but you can—after the trial's done—I can go up—if you were a juror, I can go up and ask you, "How'd you think of the trial? What was your favorite piece of evidence? What, you know, what really made the decision for you?" And you're amazed at what you thought was a huge piece of evidence; they didn't even care about it. It was like this one little thing. You're like, "You thought about that?" I had it once where uh the other attorney—during—they call it voir dire in the west side of the world; we call it a v—in south—I mean, you're asking questions of the jurors, and one attorney—it was just a really hot room, but we learned that afterwards—she didn't really like that attorney at the end of the jury because while he was talking, he was sweating a whole lot, and it made him look really nervous, and so she didn't think that he was really believed in his case. So you find like these little bitty things; you're like, "How does that happen?" But it's it's seriously that critical; someone thinks that a witness on the stand is not really being—not really crying, they're trying to put on an act—oh, the jury will hang them; the jury will just absolutely destroy their case if they think somebody is putting on a show.

Are there any moments from famous trials that you think about and use as reference points for exceptional prosecution or exceptional defense um that we might know? I was recently watching the O.J. case. Oh, are you—you know—I—it's funny because we all know of the O.J. case, but I've never actually like watched the trials and all of those things because it was on Netflix, and there were so many moments in there where I was reflecting as you were speaking about like how the prosecution responded to evidence and how they responded to the glove and all those things. Are there any moments from famous trials that you you think about that are kind of supportive of your point? Or—yeah, I mean, a lot of—I wouldn't even say famous ones because I don't even—the famous ones to me aren't that great; it's just because of the high profile of the clients involved that made it famous. But I like—you take the Johnny Depp case; most other attorneys will watch that and go, "That wasn't that great; it was just juicy because it was it was drama," and some of the the the witnesses were hilarious, and it was just kind of a funny, but people got to see what a real trial is is like. But there's some things of like, you know, an attorney objecting to hearsay to his own question—like things that you go—us attorneys go, "What are you doing?" So I wouldn't even say the famous trials, but ones—let's say that I think of all the time that I grew up um watching—is it here—it was a case involving a um an old janitor who had gotten in an accident, and they were trying to prove that he didn't remember the events, and they were—other side was trying to prove they they were right; they were trying to prove that the other guy was wrong. And when the other attorney came up, gave the closing argument, he did such a good job of getting ramping up the dynamics of his voice. So you hear that a lot with like preachers and pastors; sometimes their highs are really high, and their lows are really low. And so he did this wonderful thing of the way he would smile at the jury and almost show them that, "Hey, you can believe them if you like, but I'm going to tell you the truth," and he did this such a way that he could convince someone—the way he was talking—that you go, "I just got to listen to this guy; I want to hear all that he had to say," where he he would do it, and he would make his words pause like and hang on every single word: "I don't remember. I don't—" I was a kid, but the reason I share it is because it was so fundamental to me at the time, going, "Wow, okay, this is how you tell a story; this is how you persuade," because I'm getting to watch not just the attorney, I'm getting to watch the jurors, I'm getting to watch how, you know, what they're appreciating and what matters to them. That was really pivotal for me to see those kind of dynamics at play. And is that like he's using inflections and pauses? Yes, yes, like—exactly. It's um it's the ability to use your voice um and Vanessa and Vin do wonderful jobs at this—how how do you play the instrument of your voice? What I encourage and what I like to teach is how do you how do you persuade even with vulnerability. So let's say, for example, in this moment you're an attorney and I'm an attorney, all right, we're against each other; we each have a client, and we're friends in real life, but this is business, and you know I got to represent my client, and here we go. We—a juror in front of us—have a jury in front of us, and let's say that I go up and I say, "Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you what you're going to find in this case is the other side is just totally wrong. Everything that my client's done has been 100% correct; they followed the law, they followed the rules, they followed every single policy, and what they're demanding from us is just absolutely insane. You're going to find at the end of this case, with all the evidence, I ask you to find for my client." All right, that's what I just said. Now you go up there, same jury, and you go, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to tell you right now, my client could have done better; they made a few mistakes; they're going to be things that you're going to see that they followed every rule the best that they can, and people are people, and why we're here is because what they're asking of you is simply unreasonable and it's just not fair, and we're only going to ask you to find what's fair. So at the end of this case, we're going to ask that you find in favor of my client." Now anybody who's listening right now, who do you think that they are naturally going to be more drawn towards—the case for imperfection, vulnerability, and fairness? You got it; they're going to hear me—my case of 100% perfectness—and go, "That's not real; that's not real; we know that experience; everybody has vulnerabilities; everybody could have done something better," and so they're going to naturally gravitate and go, "You—your case—you're the truth-tellers." And once you establish yourself as the truth-teller in the conversation, it is a hard position to leave. Once you establish—like, especially with judges—on—once a judge knows that you give him the case law even when it's against you, he will believe you for the rest of all time, for all your cases, because it—they know that you you follow the you follow the law, you tell the truth. So it's much easier when you think—I was thinking about it in the context of selling to my clients back in the day when I used to run a marketing business—the thing that I found to be most effective was when I told my clients the truth, I.E., I don't think so. What would often happen is my clients would develop a really good relationship with me. So my client might be a CEO of a big billion-dollar fashion company, right? And so they would have a relationship with me—the trust—the bridge of trust would be with me. My team would come in while I was sat with the CEO of this big company, and my team would pitch an idea to the brand, right? If I if I sat there and criticized and pointed out the faults in my team's pitch, the deal was done. How cool do that? So so we would sit there in his big glass office, and I'd say, "I don't love idea 3; I don't think that's going to work," even though—and and then I'd say, "Idea 1, though, I think that's the winner; idea 2 is okay, but it's not worth the effort; idea 3 is certainly not going to work, but idea 1, I think that's the winner." And because I was pointing out the flaws in what's my own company, yes, they trusted me for years, I'm telling you, and I was being honest; I was always being honest. So if I thought it was a bad idea, I'd say it was a bad idea. And this is the long game, yes, which feels counterintuitive, right? Yeah, and that's a that's perfectly said. And even when—let's say I was giving a closing argument, and let's say I was defending a company, and it was always better if I said, "Now I believe, after hearing the evidence, you should give their client this; I agree with that; they deserve this, but I can't—but it shouldn't be this number." Right? You see how all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, okay, well, I can agree with that." Way different if I said, "They don't deserve a penny." Like, very very different. Now in everyday conversation, it's that same way. If I stand by, "I did nothing wrong; I I couldn't have said it any differently; everything I said was perfect; I'm right," is the principle of it—whenever you always have—there's no way I could have said that differently; you were giving the same exact vibes. But if I came to you and began that conversation with, "I could have said that better," you know what happens—the other person goes, "I could have said that better." It's really disarming, and it's so better—"I could have done better"—like that is a magic phrase. I've seen so many relationships um get through conflict by using the phrase, "I could have done better," by leading with that right there—ultimate vulnerability—and the other person goes, "I could have I could have done better, too." Rarely do they say, "Yeah, you could have." They don't—they really don't uh—they they almost always take that down because it's much more—it it just—it brings down their offensiveness.

What about when you're dealing with someone that you don't like? Oh, yeah, well, a lot of life is like that, right? Yeah, the secret to dealing with someone you don't like: You treat them like they do—you treat them like they do like you—and that you do like them. It's hard, though, isn't it? Because your body responds. It is hard; your body starts to give it away. Exactly. Well, you've done harder things in life, you know. Yeah, but it—yeah, your body does. I mean, but there are some—let's put some parameters around it: One, you want to limit that amount of contact. If you're around them the whole day—a whole lot harder. If you can be in front of them for two, three minutes—easy. Second of all, is be mindful of who's around you because people are watching, and it's that uh—I forget how the phrase goes—but if you argue with a fool, onlookers don't know the difference. Yeah, yeah, it's like they don't—who's—so if you all of a sudden act rude to someone and they deserved it because of what they did two weeks ago—somebody in the room is—they're not going to blame the other person; they're going to put it on you. So don't give someone a reason to, you know, affect your integrity. So when you just act like they do—treat them like they like you—your life will go better because it'll make you feel better: One, it'll make you feel like the better person; two, let's say that other person is ambivalent on you—if you show that you don't like them, all you're doing is just confirming to them, "This person hates me," and you know what? "I don't like them either." Mhm. It's just reinforcing that feeling; now they're sure to not like you. But when you don't give them an enemy, there's nothing they can do. That's what happens in a lot of conversations—arguments—people are looking for an enemy; they're wanting someone to justify that behavior, and when you don't give it to them, it's very frustrating. I mean, in trial litigation, one of the most effective things you can do is just kill someone with kindness. Whenever you're not ugly or rude, you don't give them somebody to be the villain because that's what they want; that's how they want to justify their their bad behavior of how they're treating you. Mh, and when you just act like you do like them, you limit the amount of time, or you're very objective and very neutral, of like, "Hey, I'm I'm here to talk with you about this, and then I'll be on my way," like, as long as you can be very direct and you're not giving those snide comments—if somebody asks what time it is and you go, "I mean, you would know if you had a watch"—like that's what you want to do—and in just—instead of giving them the time, go about your day. Yeah, don't don't give somebody an excuse to lower your integrity.

What about um the subject of small talk, which we all—I mean, I think most people hate small talk—I especially—I don't like small talk—but many people hate small talk. Is there is there a skill at all to being a real master of small talk in your view? One would be: Don't ask questions that elicit a one-word response. These are what they call closed-ended questions. You want these for cross-examination because on cross-examination I just want yes or no questions: "Did you go to the store? Yes, no." I want you—on open—when I'm on direct examination, I want to open you up to discussion; I want you to talk more. So what you do is you take advantage of asking questions that open you up—ask open-ended questions. These are questions that begin with "how" or "what" or "when" or "where," instead of uh like, "Did you go to the store?" The same effect would be, "Did you have a good weekend?" I'm only limiting you to a yes or no. You talk about these conversational goals. Yeah, having a conversational goal in your small talk. You talk about on page I think 40, 45, and 46 of of this book. Yeah, so as a conversational goal—I'm a podcaster; I know I'm meeting you today—so I walk in here with a goal in mind that when I start speaking to you, I'm trying to get somewhere, right? Is that is that what you mean by conversational goal? Well, there's two separate sides: You want to have a conversational goal really for any conversation that you're going to have. Now that's different if like you're in your hoodie and sweatpants with your friend watching a movie, like you don't have to have a conversational goal, saying—if you're one-on-one with somebody at work, it's not a bad idea if you go into their office, you have a goal for where is the conversation going to end because otherwise it spins anxiety in the other person. Like if somebody texts you and says, "We need to talk," period, you're like, "I I automatically think it's the worst; it's like, oh, something's terrible; we're we're uh we're breaking up; something's terrible; something's on fire." It's the worst because it's that anxiety that that trigger of the unknown. So instead, you always want to have a conversational goal—like the frame we talked about—you're telling them how you want the conversation. Same kind of thing with small talk, but when it's much easier when you set a goal that's very low—like instead of saying, "I want them to be so impressed with me they don't know what to do"—what's more impressive is when you're curious about the other person: "I want to make sure that I ask at least three questions of this person and see what they have to say." That's a great goal. "I want to make sure that my goal is understanding where they're coming from just a little bit more." So with small talk, people love to tell them how they got there; people love to talk about themselves. Everybody knows that one question to ask is how they got to the present moment. For example, "How did you how did you learn that? Where did you come across this?" Yeah, "How did you how did you get in where you are today?" And people are like, "Oh, let me kind of talk about myself for a minute," and people love it because they get to tell a story. Very different if I said, "Hey, what'd you do this weekend?" "Oh, it was good; we you know, stayed at home." That's not—there's no story element to that; there's nothing you can do with that. But if you get them to talk about a story of what led them to their present moment—much better. Another tip is you get to talk to them about things that are happening in the future rather than looking at the past; the past is really not that great for people because they feel like it's boring; they don't feel like the past of something is that remarkable. But they typically find things that they will look forward to in the conversation: "What are you looking forward to doing this weekend? What are you excited about? What's coming up for you?" They'll find things that go kind of, "Oh, well, I'm kind of excited about this." Fine, Z, but if you ask about what's happening in the past, they kind of have this like, "Ah, you know, I just—it's in the past; I didn't really do anything."

What are the things that you admire the most in some of the peers you have as a trial attorney? Is there a particular trial attorney that you admire the most through history or through that you you've encountered? And if so, what is it about them that you admire so much? Oh, that's hard; there's a lot. I mean, I mean, it is very cliché, but I'm a huge Abraham Lincoln like nerd. Why? Uh, because of the way he was—

He was able to get people in his circle in the most unaggressive, unassuming way. So he, um, when he ran as a nominee for the Republican party convention, he was a no-name. I mean, he was, I mean, pretty much a noname. He had run for Congress a few times, but he was not the, the clear winner. All the other people that were involved, um, were the, the main Front Runners, the main Front Runners, the people that were big outs—William Seward, you had Mlen, you had Stanton, all these guys that, um, deserved the spot to be the Republican Party nominee for that time. And lo and behold, a lot of different reasons Lincoln won. Now what he did was, as soon as he won the nomination for president, he turned around and invited those men into his cabinet. Now that is like—that would be like President Trump turning around inviting everybody who ran against him, who criticized him for the last election cycle and saying, “Be on my cabinet.” That—that’s like any president saying, “Oh, all you opponents who said why I shouldn’t be me and why I should lose, come be part of my, my cabinet.” And it went from them hating him at the beginning of saying he’s so unqualified, trying to hurt him, hurt his reputation, to like sobbing at his funeral, like they couldn’t even imagine what the world was going to be like without him. And he did it so well in how he brought people in. Doris, I think it’s K. Goodwin, has a wonderful book called *Team of Rivals*. I love it, and it just goes into the all, all the details of each of these personalities and how he dealt with them. How somebody even went out to the newspaper and, and was trying, within his own cabinet, trying to cause problems. He didn’t even address it with him; instead, he brought him in even closer, made him feel important, gave him more jobs—like ways of just handling the dynamics, this very emotional intelligence. And so he was wonderful at telling stories. I, that was his main thing; people just loved to listen to the guy. And so I just, I think that is such a beautiful portrayal of how to handle life—that some of your enemies, all you need to do is just bring them a little bit closer and understand them a little bit more; you’re going to find you have a much better life.

Do you think there’s an element of like spirituality or religion that somewhat ties into this? I was thinking of like the Buddhist philosophies of, and just various religious and spiritual philosophies of, like forgiveness and, um, taking the higher ground and, right, and I for an i makes the whole world blind.

I agree. Yeah, I mean, mine is, “Be quick to listen, slow to speak,” same thing. I mean, if you look at the Bible, the Book of James is full of these wonderful little proverbs about how it’s the power of the tongue. I mean, it is to control who you are; it’s you control the power of the tongue. And so it is, it’s so fascinating how what we say really is tied to just our entire essence. Who comes into a room, I mean, it’s what you say is who you are, like for the vast majority of your life. Like what comes out of your mouth controls what they think of you, controls your reputation, controls where you’re going to go. I just, it’s simply what you say next. I mean, you can’t, you can’t call yourself a kind person if you don’t use kind words. I mean, it’s really what you say. When I go, “I don’t really like that person,” what you really mean is, “They say things that I don’t like.” And so it’s just the power of, of what we say that truly can change everything about your life. It’s a big deal.

Yeah, it is. It’s a big calling; it’s a really big calling. And I think that those who invest in their words, invest in using better words, will have a better life. They’ll find that they’ll have more peace, they’ll have more control, they’ll have more confidence. And it’s not something they can buy on Amazon; it’s not a, it’s not something that they can just get. It is simply by what they choose to come out of their mouth that can make the difference.

What does that process, that journey look like? Because some people will think, “I’ve listened to this podcast now, and I’ve, I’ve got the, the tips, the strategies, I’ve got some of the, the big picture ideas, but you know, I’ll implement that. I took notes, etc., etc.” But then next week their spouse rolls in, yeah, starts shouting at them, whatever colleague at work triggers them, whatever, and they just revert back and they go [ __ ]. Yeah, what is that? I want to give people some sort of like framing on the journey to be going from where you are now, which might be quite ineffective and breaking all of the rules that we’ve talked about today, to being a 10 out of 10 Master Communicator. What should one expect that journey to look like?

Yeah, so let’s say for people who listen to this podcast, read my book, would—there are going to be themes that naturally come out to them that speak to them more than others or versus another person. So it’s not like it’s linear, like all of a sudden you need to just, you know, do this one, two step, uh, and then you’re, and you’re done. There are going to be certain elements of our conversation that are going to appeal to somebody. What they need to do is grab onto that and study that, and they’re going to find ways to, um, focus and get a discipline on that. So let’s just focus on one rule that they want to improve. Don’t try improve your entire everything; just try and prove one thing. So if you have a habit of, let’s say, adding adverbs to every sentence—essentially, basically, literally, just so very—and you have all this fluff in your emails and you don’t want to do that, well, you’re going to catch yourself to do that. Use—I have an AI where that’s what I do. So somebody can put in a, a sentence and say, “No, remove all this stuff.” And so little bitty things like that where they can train themselves to eliminate the fluff. Same thing with maybe they find themselves over-apologizing; just focus on that and do one little better of time. And I promise you, just even the next sentence that they choose will be better than what they could have put out. This one change has transformed how my team and I move, train, and think about our bodies. When Dr. Daniel Lieberman came on the Diary of a CEO, he explained how modern shoes, with their cushioning and support, are making our feet weaker and less capable of doing what nature intended them to do. We’ve lost the natural strength and mobility in our feet, and this is leading to issues like back pain and knee pain. I’d already purchased a pair of Vivo Barefoot shoes, so I showed them to Daniel Lieberman, and he told me that they were exactly the type of shoe that would help me restore natural foot movement and rebuild my strength. But I think it was plantar fasciitis that I had, where suddenly my feet started hurting all the time. And after that, I decided to start strengthening my own foot by using the Vivo Barefoot. And research from Liverpool University has backed this up; they’ve shown that wearing Vivo Barefoot shoes for six months can increase foot strength by up to 60%. Visit Vivobarefoot.co.nz for 20% off—that’s Vivobarefoot.co.nz. Anymore, not only can you get perfect matcha in cafes, but you can now also make it at home much cheaper in seconds using our flavored matcha powders that I have here in front of me. Perfect Ted matcha is ceremonial grade and sourced from Japan. It is smooth; it is naturally sweet, not like those bitter, grassy matchas that I tried before. Perfect Ted, and if you are one of those people that have told yourself you don’t like matcha, it’s probably because you haven’t tried our Perfect Ted matcha. And you can find Perfect Ted matcha in the UK in Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Holland & Barrett, and in Waitrose, or Albert Heijn if you’re in the Netherlands, and on Amazon in the USA, or you’ll get the full range online at perfectted.com, where you can get 40% off your first order with code Steven40.

The last section of rule number two in your book is about boundaries. Yeah, what do you mean by boundaries in this context? And, and also could you explain to me this, this image here? Did you know that image? I’ll put it on the screen for anybody to see it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is all about how to say no, especially—let’s put it in a context of somebody invited you to, uh, anything. Let’s say someone invited you to grab a cup of coffee.

All right, let’s put it in terms of—that’s what this, this graph is. So the graph says when you have the chance to say no or yes to something and you decide not to say no, instead you go, “Oh, maybe,” and then it just lives in your head for the next, you know, week until they ask again. You’re like, “I just put it off.” But if you say no when you need to say no, then it doesn’t live in your head rent-free. So let’s, let’s put it in terms of—let’s say you and I, uh, work at the same place. Yeah, and I ask you for, “Hey, uh, Stephen, let’s go—want to go grab a, a cup of coffee at this new place that I saw?” And you don’t—you’re like, look, you’re thinking in your head, you’re like, “Look, Jefferson, you’re nice, you know, but you’re not—we’re not friends, friends; we’re just work guys. You know, I like you at work, but you’re not that cool,” like that’s—I don’t want to go have coffee with you. That’s what you’re thinking in your head. And besides, you’re so busy; you got too many things to do, uh, and you need to say no. And instead you go, “Oh, oh man, um, you know, maybe, maybe I—it just depends. I, I’ll let you know,” like, okay. And then I’m waiting the whole day to hear from you. And now in your head you’re like, “How do I tell them I don’t want to do this? How do I tell them?” And now you’re just thinking about it, and you’re just wasting your emotional energy and just instead of saying no when you needed to say no.

But what if I come up with an excuse? I say, “I, I just checked; I’ve got a meeting, Jefferson, so I can’t come for the coffee.” Well, if that’s real, but if it’s not real…

Yeah, well that’s a problem. Why is it a problem? Well, because one, there’s always a chance that they could find out; two, it’s just not genuine; it’s not, it’s not sincere. You, you owe it to yourself to, to be a truth-teller.

But we, we don’t want to offend somebody.

Yeah, that’s people-pleasing, right? Yeah, so like someone says to me, “Hey, Steve, I know you’re in Austin; me—this actually happens—Hey, Steve, I know you’re in Austin, um, would be great to, to get a coffee with you while you’re in town, right, um, on Monday?” And I look at my calendar and I go, “I’m free on Monday, but I just don’t want to go.”

Yeah, yeah. So what do I say to them? I just go, “I listen, I…”

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, no, no, I don’t…

Yeah… no thanks. Hard pass.

So here’s where the mistake happens, all right, is when it’s that feeling of, “I don’t want to disappoint them; I don’t want them to not like me.” That’s what we want—that’s what really it is. “I don’t want them to not like me; I still want them to like me.” The mistake happens when you go, “Oh, man, that sounds so great and, and wonderful. I love to, but I can’t; I have a, a full day of, of meetings,” um, and that’s, that’s all you leave it at, right there. Okay? Problem with that, aside from it just being not true, whatever the—put it is, “Hey, man, I love to, but…” All right, the word “but” has a magic of erasing everything that happened before. If I like, “Look, I love you, but…” and I have to say something else…

Oh, I think it was great. Yeah, I mean, I think being on your podcast was, was wonderful, um, but… like it just takes away—it feels less than what you said. So instead, starting with the gra—like we want to start with the gratitude. “Oh, thank you so much; that sounds wonderful. I can’t.” That’s what we wanted—is like that soft landing. Uh, reverse it; start with the no, then end, uh, with the gratitude. So it would be—if somebody said, “Hey, can you come to dinner, whatever, on—I know you’re in Austin,” “I can’t. Thank you so much for inviting me. I, I, I’d love to meet you or see you the, the next time around.” And if you can add some kindness, “I’ve heard that place is awesome; hope it’s a great time.” Like, uh, same thing—if, if you need to tell me no to having coffee, “I can’t, or I have bad news; I can’t. Let me know how it goes; I’m sure it’s going to be a great—I’ve heard wonderful things about it. Let me know how it is.” Like, it’s much easier if you tell them that you can’t upfront.

Have you ever had somebody tell you no to an invitation and they’re like, in a, in a text, they’re going, “Oh my gosh, thank you so much. I’ve been, I’ve just been so busy, and you know, I’ve have to go feed my cat, and it’s just been so stressful lately, and I’m, uh, I might be able to go; I’ll let you know if I can, and if anything changes I’ll definitely let you know.” Like, you’re like, “If, if you just—if you don’t want to go, just tell me no.”

Yeah, yeah. It’s that kind of feeling. We don’t know the—we don’t have the words, though. This is the problem.

Yeah. I was reflecting over, over, um, New Year’s. I was at a restaurant, and I was reading this book about—I think it was called *The Courage to Be Disliked*—and it was just developing my thinking on just trying to be a bit more sort of radically can—give more radical candor to situations. And we were sat in this, like, bar or whatever, me and my friend, and, um, the owner of the bar had come over, and he’s being really nice, and he likes the podcast and stuff, and we’re talking. And I was trying to practice this art of just being, being honest with, like, in those sort of people-pleasing moments. And my friend says to him, “Oh, we’ve got to, um, we’ve got something to get to,” blah, blah, and we hadn’t got anywhere to go. So I remember interjecting and going, “We want to leave in 10 minutes, so, um, if they can get here before then, then I’m more than happy to, like, sign the books and stuff, whatever they want me to do.” And it was so interesting how much better I felt about myself when I was just honest with this guy. Yes, like I was like, “No, I don’t have anywhere to be; I just want to go.”

Exactly. Yeah, but it’s not, it’s not easy on a day-to-day basis, cuz even when I did land here in Austin, there were people that texted me saying, “Of course, here in Austin, let’s go for a coffee.” And in reality, here’s what my brain is saying: My brain is saying, “I need to spend time with my partner. Yes, when I’m not recording this podcast, I need to do my bloody, like, my to-do list and my Slack and my emails, and then I need to go to the gym as well.” Yeah, so it’s not that I don’t want to go for coffee with you; it’s that, like, I have other priorities that are pressing. So how would I communicate to them in that moment that they’re just like not a high priority—like it’s not a high priority for me to go for a coffee?

Yeah, so what you want to do is, like we said, instead of beginning with, “Oh, I love to; that sounds terrific, you know, uh, but I’ve had, you know, I got so much to do, and I can’t do this,” they’re like, “H, okay.” Instead of that, just flip it and say, “I can’t make it this go-around. Thank you so much for inviting me. I look forward to hopefully seeing you soon, or the, the next time, or…” You know, if you can’t go to wherever they’re wanting to go, I, you can say, “Got bad news; I’m not going to be able to make that happen. Thank you so much for thinking of me,” or, “I appreciate you inviting me; hope it’s a wonderful time.” And you don’t even need to give them a reason. No reason, no, no, no. That’s where you make a mistake is when you give them a reason; you start to have to feel like you have to justify because you start—you’re very subjective. We’re all subjective in our head of a—that’s not a good enough excuse; I have to give something that is worthy enough of the excuse that I’m not going to be able to make it. And then that’s where the anxiety kicks in, and that’s where we just push it off.

What if the excuse is real? So I’ve been invited to this dinner in London; I actually can’t go, but it’s a very—someone that I care about a lot, um, I can’t go because of my calendar, and I haven’t responded to the email yet.

Yeah… um, I think in part because I’m like trying to figure out how to let them…

Even though you see how it’s taking up your energy? Tak[ing] up my [ __ ] energy. Yes. So I, in that situation, I should say, “I, I was going to say terribly sorry…”

Yeah, no, no, no. Okay. “I can’t make it on this occasion because I’m in the Middle East, um, but thank you for the invitation.”

Yes. And if this ever pops up again, please do let me know; I’d love to come.

Because all of that is true.

Yeah, there it is. I think that’s perfect. There’s nothing wrong with saying, “Because I’m in the Middle East.” It’s when, when it’s more like that bar scenario; you don’t have anywhere else to go. You’re saying you don’t want to…

Okay. And don’t say “terribly sorry.”

Uh-huh. No.

Yeah, because there’s nothing to apologize for; you haven’t done anything wrong. Save your apologies for when you said something you should not have done; you’ve made an actual mistake. And I’m not terribly [ __ ] sorry.

Of course not. I’m not terribly sorry—not sorry at all. You’re very thankful; you’re very thankful about it. You know, you’re not sorry at all. So instead of the, so “terribly sorry” or “unfortunately,” it’s, “I can’t make it work.” You see how that’s—it’s when I say, “I can’t make it work,” I’m signaling to you that I have other things going on, and I cannot fit it in. It’s not that you’re not a priority; I just can’t make it work. And so anytime you get that out front and then follow it with the gratitude, “I appreciate you; thank you, so kind of you for thinking of me,” and then add on a little bit, like just a sprig of kindness, “I’m like, it’s—I know it’s going to be a wonderful time.” Perfect. That’s—I mean, that’s, that’s all you need right there. Instead of going, “I need to respond to that email,” and then you’re like, two weeks later, you’re like, “I got to respond to that email,” and you just get yourself worked up…

It’s so ironic that I started this with an, um, while I was holding this particular image. Nice. So what is this image I have in my hand for people that can’t see this conversation right now?

Yeah, so it, it looks like it’s verbal fillers. So verbal fillers—one thing we’ve come to learn from doing this podcast is that when a guest on the show uses a lot of verbal fillers, people get irritated in the comment section. It’s so interesting, but it’s, it’s, it’s really taught me a lot about how to speak better because if someone comes on the Diary of a CEO and the guest is constantly saying, like, “like, um, like, like, like, um, like, like,” it’s like the top three comments.

I just did it then.

Yeah, it’s the top three comments on the, on the video, right? “Should I be getting rid of these filler words?” They’re like, “like, I’m, uh…” If I want to be a more effective, impactful communicator, because the great communicators that I see on stages and stuff, they don’t use “like,” um… Right? If you’re on a stage, if you’re given a presentation, don’t use them. Yeah, that’s, that’s a real easy rule. In casual conversation, who cares? It’s the only makes thing that makes this different is because it gets posted, and people are going to pay attention to every single word that you say, and they’re going to want to put that up. Everybody has some kind of verbal fillers. If they don’t, they’ve been trained on it; that’s all—that can almost be guaranteed. They’ve had some kind of media training if they don’t use any verbal fillers, because verbal fillers are, are very common. But if you want to be an impactful speaker at a presentation, you don’t want to have the, um, the, a, the, “like,” um… Okay, add “okay” right after the sentence. Like, “Well, I’ll see different.” It’s a habit for very new attorneys to begin to ask a question of a witness and say, “Okay,” right afterwards. They’ll ask, “So do you see the red car?” Just give an answer, “Yes.” “Okay,” and they’ll write it, and then they’ll ask another question. And, but the record—so everything’s transcribed by a court reporter—reporter has “okay, okay, okay” throughout it. And so what a lot of senior partners will do—give the transcript to the junior partner, say, “Just review it; see how—what your verbal fillers are,” and all of that stuff. So it’s a great way to train. But yeah, verbal fillers—you don’t want to make, make a habit of them. They happen; there’s nothing wrong with saying “like” or saying “um”; nothing on its face wrong with it. It just has a way of cluttering up your sentences. If I was going to say, “Yeah, so, um, so anyway, I mean, and you can totally tell me if I’m way off base here, but like, so essentially I was thinking…” and it’s literally does not matter. Like, you see how we kind of like dip in and out and just like get to the point? You don’t want to do that on a—when you need to be very effective in your communication.

What is the most important thing we should have talked about that we haven’t talked about, as it relates to the work that you do, the questions that people ask you, and the value that you have to give to my audience? What’s the most important thing?

What they say—what people choose to say has a ripple effect that will reach far more than they ever thought it possibly could. It’ll affect people that they don’t even know exist. How they talk to people and what you say today affects how people think of you; it affects where you go in your career; it affects how your children will talk to their children; it affects how other people will talk to their kids. And without you even knowing it—another, I mean, example of that is the playground. Like we talked about, everybody has a memory of somebody’s words. It was probably very simple; the most simple words often are the most powerful. The small ones—they called my glasses big, huge glasses, and I remember being called “Four Eyes.” I crushed—I was crushed being called “Four Eyes.” If you call me that today, I’d be like, “So…” But at eight years old, I—something—oh, I—for something is wrong with me. Remember that being something that was very important. Words will last for a very, very long time. And the people that are in your life will say something to you, and you will remember it forever. People in high school—you think, “Oh, everybody forgets about high school.” No, they don’t. You go to law school—everybody forgets? No, they don’t. They remember exactly what you said and who you were. And even if it’s the person across the register or the person taking your order at the cafe, how you talk to them affects how they talk to their loved ones when they go home. If they—you’ve made their day difficult, they’re going to make sure that they reflect that in some sense, or it’s going to put them in a bad mood. So what you say truly has the power to change everything. So it’s the question and challenge of, “What will you choose to say with yours, Jefferson?”

Thank you. You’re a father, aren’t you?

I am. Yeah. You got two, two children—seven and five.

Seven and five. So how are you thinking about what you say to them, oh, all the day? I mean, I constantly—you, you want your kid to be the best of whatever—you want to try and raise a wonderful human. So you’re very conscious of what you say to them because they soak it all up. I find that the best thing that anybody, body can do as a new parent is to be a, a safe space for their kids and communication. One of the most terrifying thoughts anybody who’s listening who is a parent is that your kid is not going to come to you in their time of need. So they’re going to be in high school, and they’re not going to come to you with the problems; they’re going to go run and tell somebody else; they’re going to go deal with it in other ways that are not constructive because you have established a pattern of making them afraid to come to you and putting them down in a sense that they are afraid to come to you, uh, with their, with their struggles. You know, arguments are a window into another person’s struggle, and kids are no exception. And the way to think about that is to say things like, “Thank you for coming to me with this. I acknowledge you could have talked to someone else; I’m glad you talked to me.” When you can show them that you’re inviting them into that conversation, they’re going to be more receptive to coming to you again. I mean, that’s, that’s the main takeaway is what you say to your kids; they will repeat, and how you say it to their kids, they’re going to repeat. Like, you—you most likely—you saw your parents argue a certain way, and then I saw my parents argue a certain way, and that becomes our default of how we think other people should argue.

Have you ever been in those, those relationships where somebody—the other person wants you to fight with them?

Yeah. Oh, gosh, yeah. And they’re like, “I, I don’t feel like you care unless we’re yelling. I don’t feel like you care unless it’s almost to this very toxic, horrible level, and only then do I feel like I want you to, to argue with me. I want to feel like you’re in it.” That’s, that’s what they grew up with; that’s all they, they know. So to them, that, that is the default. And so it’s the choice of how, how do you want to show conflict to, to the generations that, that leave after you? What do you hope that people who read this book will walk away with it with in terms of value or a change in perspective?

I hope people will find that their words truly have power; that it, it’s within reach; that they will no longer have this sense of hopelessness of, “I never know what to say, or I never feel like myself; I always feel like I people-please; I always feel like I say less, or I feel less.” It’s the sense of, “I can teach you how to argue less and talk more by simply changing what you decide to say next.” And, and I, I believe that, uh, all the world needs is one better conversation at a time. I highly, highly recommend anybody who relates or resonates with the conversation we’ve had today to go and get this book because there’s very, very few like it that approach it from the perspective that you have—of someone who conversates for a living in many respects—and, um, where there’s so much relying on your ability to conversate effectively. So I highly recommend everybody who goes, gets this book. It has these wonderful illustrations in which are some of the graphs that I put on the screen today, but it’s an incredibly accessible book. It’s not a book that you have to be a PhD level in some sort of scientific degree to understand; it’s really, really relatable. It’s written by someone who understands their audience tremendously well, but also clearly someone who’s made a ton of content, but you…

You've 12 million followers online and understand exactly how to relate to people, so this is the book for everybody. And if you've struggled with conversation, if you feel disempowered because you don't have the skill of the tongue like some people do, if you feel like you're dealing with difficult people in your life and being manipulated, or don't feel like you have the tools to get your point across and to talk more and argue less, I highly recommend you get this book. I'll link it below for anybody that wants to check it out.

We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next, not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for. The question that's been left for you is: if you could go back in time 20 years and get a message from yourself today, what would that message be? Let's see. 36, go back in time to when I was 16. I would probably tell him, "You're doing a good job. Just have a real heart-to-heart: you don't have to always just keep chasing for what's next; just be really happy in the present moment." I think that started at an early age—of always wanting to, like, anything you want to, you want to be the best, you want to push yourself, you want to do that. And sometimes, as being the oldest child and the old soul, I, I, I don't think I allowed myself to feel the freedom sometimes of childhood. I just grew up really quickly, took a lot of independence and responsibility on myself at a really early age. I was 16; I was taking all of my kids—all of my—all of my siblings—yeah, all of my siblings—to school. And I was, while I was going, I'm, I'm going over spelling words with my youngest brother and dropping him off at first grade. So I, and I loved it. I have wonderful parents; I just wanted that responsibility. And I think that flew into college of is not enjoying things and saying no to things that could have been really awesome experiences because I felt like I, I feel like I just needed to always be a straight arrow.

Have you learned from that time? Have you changed in that regard a little bit?

I think I have, because I see it in my kids. My son's seven, my daughter's five, and I can already tell my son is just like me, which is cool and scary. And so I try, I find myself when I'm talking to him, it's like I'm talking to myself. And there's a part of it that's very healing when I can tell him, "Look, even if you"—he just did coach pitch—"hey, look, if you strike out, I love you just the same. You're good, don't worry about it. Like, hey, we'll keep practicing." Like, just little bitty moments where I didn't allow for myself, I didn't, I just kept pushing and pushing, and I don't think I ever stopped to do that. So seeing that with my son is very healing in that way, where I feel like I, I kind, I'm talking to myself just as much as I'm talking to him.

Jefferson Fisher, if I want to hear more from you, buy the book; where else can I find you?

Yeah, so you can find me on social media, Jefferson Fer, Instagram, JeffersonFisher.com, book for the book. Yeah, you can just search Jefferson Fisher on social media, and I'll be around.

Thank you so much for doing what you do. It's, it's an incredible gift to give people who feel like the lights are off, like they don't have, as we said a second ago, like the tools and the answers to be effective in their life. And it's, as we said, it's such an unfair competitive disadvantage in life to have all the skills, all the talent, all the potential, but it to be trapped behind an untrained tongue, yeah, or an untrained mind in the context of how we respond and taking a pause and just having some of those really sort of foundational tools. So thank you for doing what you do. It's so, it's no surprise to me that you're so incredibly resonant in this moment in time where so, so many of us, um, quite frankly, especially younger generations, just don't know how to communicate. We don't know how to have a conversation, how to resolve conflict, because we're living behind screens now. Right, so much of our, you know, the muscle of communication and conversation hasn't been trained in the same way. So highly recommend as well, if anyone's got any kids out there that are going off into the world and maybe have been glued to TikTok for too long, for them to listen to this conversation, to buy the book, um, and to get further into your work, Jefferson. Thank you.

Thank you very much. It's been an honor.

The hardest conversations are often the ones we avoid, but what if you had the right question to start them with? Every single guest on the DI Co has left behind a question in this diary, and it's a question designed to challenge, to connect, and to go deeper with the next guest. And these are all the questions that I have here in my hand. On one side, you've got the question that was asked, the name of the person who wrote it, and on the other side, if you scan that, you can watch the person who came after who answered it. 51 questions split across three different levels: the warm-up level, the open-up level, and the deep level. So you decide how deep the conversation goes. And people play these conversation cards in boardrooms at work, in bedrooms alone at night, and on first dates, and everywhere in between. I'll put a link to the conversation cards in the description below, and you can get yours at thediary.com.

This has always blown my, my mind a little bit: 53% of you that listen to the show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the show. So could I ask you for a favor? If you like the show and you like what we do here and you want to support us, the free, simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the Subscribe button. And my commitment to you is, if you do that, then I'll do everything in my power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better for you every single week. We'll listen to your feedback, we'll find the guests that you want me to speak to, and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so much. [Music] Oh, [Music]

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The Speaking Coach: The One Word All Liars Use! Stop Saying This Word, It's Making You Sound Weak!

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