The Art of Communication: How to Stay Calm, Connected and In Control During Life’s Toughest Moments with Jefferson Fisher #571 | Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee

Whenever you set out to win an argument, you lower the quality and connection of that relationship.

What you really want, instead of trying to win the argument, you look to unravel them.

You find the knots in the conversation and get really quick and really proficient at loosening them.

Hey guys, how you doing?

Hope you're having a good week so far.

My name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Live More.

When was the last time an email landed the wrong way or you had a disagreement with your partner or friends or you had to have a difficult conversation at work?

You see, most of us spend a huge part of our lives communicating, yet very few of us are ever taught how to communicate well.

But have you ever considered that communicating better could improve every aspect of your life, not just your relationships, but also your health and happiness?

This week's guest is Jefferson Fisher.

Jefferson is a trial lawyer, a sought after public speaker, and the author of the brand new book, The Next Conversation, Argue Less, Talk More.

In our conversation, we explore why good communication is about more than just words, the three essential principles to better communication, how to shift from reaction to reflection by making your first word your breath, what it means to control the moment, how to use the I Can Tell framework to diffuse tension, why silence can be a superpower when used correctly, and how ego, fear, and unspoken emotion are often the real reason for arguments.

Whether it's with our partners, colleagues, family, or friends, we often assume that being hurt is the same as being understood but as you'll soon learn what people say is only the tip of the iceberg so this is not just a conversation about talking it's about how to listen better show up with more intention and move from conflict to connection one breath one moment and one conversation at a time In your view, what are some of the common things that get in the way of people communicating effectively?

A lot. The number one would be they assume that what is said is what was received in that instance.

So if I were to tell you something and we felt this in relationships, Relationships, we felt this at work, you send a message and they hear and they feel something very different.

Maybe in an email you wrote something and all of a sudden they go, why are you mad at me?

I'm not mad. Or you're talking and somebody says, why are you yelling?

You go, I'm not upset.

And so we feel these instances where what we thought we said is not as what is received on the other end.

So there's that kind of miscommunication.

Now there's also So just the difficultness of being open and receptive in the moment, or we don't want to listen.

So we're the ones not wanting to receive anything.

We're the ones that are getting defensive.

And on top of that, we often feel that conversation, especially disagreements, instantly become a competition where we want to win.

We want to dominate.

We want to compete.

And those are recipes for a bad conversation real quick.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting the last couple of days, I've gone deep into all of your online content and your wonderful new book, and you've got great information to share.

But it's not just what you're sharing, it's how you're sharing it.

There's a calmness, there's a friendliness.

And I think, going back to what you said about what are the obstacles to good communication, basically what you're hearing is the tip of the iceberg.

There's something going on beneath that.

Yes. The person you see is often not the person you're talking to, meaning I'm talking to you right here, but I don't know the struggles you're having.

I don't know if you had a difficult time this morning with the wife or the kids or anybody.

And that's the same for anybody we meet.

And how we talk to them in that moment, how we hear them in that moment often is a reflection of a lot of other influences rather than just saying, how dare they say that to me without ever questioning, why would they say that?

Where is this coming from?

There's always a surface and a depth to anybody.

Yeah. Your personal story deeply fascinates me.

So I wonder if you could tell me about eight -year -old Jefferson and that weekend when you fell asleep with beef biltong in your hands.

Yeah. So I am a fifth generation trial attorney and I'm talking, my great grandfather was a federal judge.

His father was an attorney.

Grandfather was a DA, county attorney.

Dad's an attorney. I have cousins, great uncles, cousins, you name it, trial attorneys.

I mean, there are people I know that have lots of doctors in their family.

There's not a doctor in our our family.

There's nobody, I mean, we can't, we couldn't build a shed to help our lives.

You know what I mean?

So all we do is know how to blow hot air.

And, uh, yeah, so that's, I grew up in that kind of lifestyle.

So every year we go on a trip and I was the oldest of my generation.

So I was the first great grandson of the judge.

And of course, when you're there, it's, you don't be talking, don't, it's still the men's retreat here.

So it was much better if I was just quiet, which I had no problem.

That's the first one you'd been invited to.

Yeah, that's the first one I was invited to.

And I thought I was on top of the world.

I mean, I thought I was so big.

I thought I was so grown.

It was about a seven and a half hour car ride with my dad, which that ended up itself was the most alone time I'd ever had with my dad wow um and so being able to have that because always my siblings and as a oldest child and having siblings you never really had one alone time with your with your parents and so to have that trip with him those are some of also my very very special memories and getting there being in that space yeah I like to say I thought I was called up to the big leagues and I thought I couldn't have been more of a big kid.

And you were eight.

I was eight. I was eight.

And so I'll never forget the first night we're there and I don't know what's going to happen.

I don't know if we're going to turn on the TV.

I don't even know what was going to happen.

So we're eating dinner and we're all in this main room.

It was kind of a combined kitchen and living room space.

And I'm in the corner just eating my I get you called it uh we call it beef jerky okay yeah and I'll never forget my grandfather my dad's dad just kind of sat down his plate and goes not too long ago I was having this uh guy who came over and this client of mine and he starts telling a story and I just remember stopping and going oh he's he's telling he's telling a story okay I'm kind of listening this is the first experience i've ever had of that and then everybody at the punchline erupts in laughter and then somebody else another cousin you know i had this another client there's one time or one

times i had this case or one time i was in front of this judge and he said and they start telling stories and it was courtroom story after courtroom story and i'm just in awe i mean it felt like i had seen a magic show it was like going to the movies for the very first time of what is this and in some sense it felt like as these are all family these are all fishers and I'm going oh this is my life this is my inheritance this is my family this is and it immediately became that a part of our identity as a family was the storytelling this advocacy of using their voice.

And they're wonderful storytellers, all trial attorneys.

And so to be able to just see that as a young kid, I mean, that's all they did every night was tell stories.

Yeah, I think you say something really powerful in the introduction about that weekend.

Yeah, here it is. I realized with each year gone by that law was only the family profession.

Communication was the true family passion.

Correct. I found that just so evocative.

Just, you know, just you paint that beautiful story in the introduction.

And I was trying to imagine you in this old building and just you all gathered around and your eyes just in awe as your granddad's.

Was it your granddad?

Your great granddad?

It was my great grandfather first. And then eventually was my great grandfather.

But they all just traded stories.

And it was, you know how in certain styles of music, every instrument kind of takes a turn right of like a solo maybe in jazz and lots of different styles of bluegrass it was very much like that everybody kind of began to share their own story and it became natural it was without pauses and it was still laughter and it was it i've never experienced that just eyes opening wonder of seeing that looking back now as a successful trial lawyer as a successful podcaster as a best -selling author what do you think that weekend taught you it it taught me the magic and power of of words in a way i've never

felt or seen before of how one word can really shift an entire outcome you've ever heard somebody tell a joke and it was simply the way they told it just wasn't that funny but you have other people who could retell that same joke and maybe it's their timing maybe it's their inflection their tone the way they can use their voice like an artist would use a paintbrush that paints an entirely different picture and there are great artists and there are artists that just they couldn't draw you a house and And so it was a masterclass through every year that I went of the power of words and the art of communication and how

you can capture people and create outcomes that lead to better things.

Yeah. Is communication something that is innate in human beings, right?

Let's imagine human beings 500 years ago 1 ,000 years ago 10 ,000 years ago is our ability to communicate one of the things that makes us human and if so why is it today so many for struggle and hence need a book like yours to teach us how to do it communication is is what creates the connection in humans you can communicate with words you can communicate with no words you might have the absence of sound but that's not always the absence of communication I I say that our ability communicates what separates us and I have a show um this is probably my guilty pleasure show when I'm reading I like to

have something on and it's this show alone on Netflix it's like they send people out to the wilderness out in Alaska or something and just see how long they can do and these people who have have survival skills that can last for months out there if they want, but they always tap out, meaning they go, I don't want to be here anymore.

Not because they don't have the ability, it's because they miss humans.

They miss the sound of other humans, the people in their life, even people that they may not even have that great of a relationship with when they left, they start to miss, they start to, we're not meant to be alone.

It's not healthy. It is not not good.

It wasn't good for man to be alone.

It's not good for humans to be alone.

And I feel very compelled in that the words that you use is what's determinative of the life you want to lead.

If you want to change, if you're listening, you go, I don't really like where I'm at in life right now.

You can change it. And you don't need to buy a new software.

You don't need to have a new new company slogan.

It's, it is just the decision to have a new conversation with yourself and with others.

You choose the words you want to choose the life that you want to lead.

It really just begins with the power of what you say.

Yeah. You say you can change any relationship at any moment by changing the way that you communicate.

Yeah. Okay. And I really love the idea that it's it's about that next conversation, you know, just change the next conversation.

Don't worry about the one next week or next month.

Just focus on the next conversation.

Now, your book has these three core principles of how we can communicate better and have better conversations, right?

Say it with control, say it with confidence and say it to connect.

That's right. Can you go through those three things, step by step and help us understand what exactly they mean and also how we can start to apply them when we're having conversations rule one is say it with control and what that is in a nutshell is rather than trying to control the other person when you're having a difficult conversation which is typically the default that's our gut urge is to control you where you actually find success is controlling yourself so instead of trying to control them or what you do is control yourself.

That's going to begin always a better conversation too, is saying it with confidence, meaning how to find your assertive voice.

People often feel like confidence is something they need to have before the conversation.

They're saying, I'm kind of working up the confidence to say this.

That's wrong. Confidence is not what you have before the conversation.

Confidence is the outcome.

It's a feeling. It's the same thing if If I said, hey, look, I need you to be sad right now, sad as you've ever been with me right now, there wouldn't be anything to trigger that, to force that.

Or if I said, I need you to be mad right now, there's nothing to do that.

But if I were to hit you in the shoulder out of nowhere, you might be, now you can be mad.

Why? Because it came from something.

How you create the confidence is using your assertive voice.

So I teach confidence is as assertive does.

Three, rule three, is you say it to connect.

Connection is two components.

There's understanding and acknowledgement.

I can understand you if you say something, but if I don't acknowledge you, you're not going to feel connected to me.

At the same time, if I can acknowledge you, but I don't really understand it, I'm not going to connect with you.

And so you have to have these two components of understanding and creating connection in conversation by saying what you mean and meaning what you say.

Yeah. You know, as you were describing control there, for me, looking at it a different way, it was internal v.

external, right? So in general, in life, we have limited control on externalities.

We've got a lot more control on what's going on internally.

And therefore, if we apply that to what you just said, if you're trying to control somebody else or manipulate what they say, that is actually outside your control.

Now, you may argue that if you can communicate well and calmly and in a grounded fashion, you are actually influencing what they say, which is very clear from your work.

but I love the idea that it's about gaining control over ourselves because I guess another way of looking at it or I'd love your perspective on this is it's clear to me that we see the world through the state of our nervous system right so if we're stressed we're going to interpret emails a certain way right so people for example if they've had a well -rested weekend right they've have not worked and they've switched off and they've done whatever with their family they can read an email on monday morning and be pretty calm when they read it they could read that same email on a friday afternoon after a busy

week at work and interpret the email completely differently the email hasn't changed what's changed is the state of their nervous system and i kind of feel that applies to communication whereby you're going to communicate and you do write about this you're going to communicate in a way that reflects the state of your nervous system so if you're busy stressed tired that unless you have a high degree of self -awareness right it's going to come out through your voice yeah right so that thing about control it's like this is about self -awareness and controlling ourselves right right it is this sense

of any time we have disagreement We have that friction, the dissonance in a conversation.

We quickly return to this state of competition.

We wanna win and we see it as a threat.

Any little opinion that is different from our own, our body likes to treat it as a threat.

We go, no, no, no, no, that's not, they need to agree with me.

Because if not, then it doesn't feel comfortable.

If not, then it feels like they're trying to undermine me.

They're saying I'm wrong.

I don't like to be wrong.

I'm not wrong. wrong.

And we start to try and control that narrative.

No, no, no. I need to say something so compelling that you're going to have to agree with me, or I'm going to say something that is so snappy, so, um, clap back, so powerful that you're going to go, oh my gosh, you're so right.

How could I ever imagine any other opinion than the one that you have?

And so we try and, and, and force that.

That's, that's where we go wrong is we try and force and control that conversation.

Instead, when you start to control yourself, you also sound like you're in control.

And those who sound like they're in control are the ones that are listened to and the ones that lead.

These are the ones that have the calm energy that people will go, I don't know what they have, but I like it.

You know what? That sounds more reasonable.

That's what's wild to me.

You say, what sounds reasonable?

It's typically the person who just sounds with their voice more reasonable versus somebody who the words matter far less to me than the way that you sound in the way that you make people feel that's that's the heart of the communication yeah now what you just said was super powerful right so i imagine some people people are going to hear that and be thinking about the last disagreement they had with their partner or their spouse, right?

That's often where people go to all their parents, whatever it might be, right?

And what I love about how you teach this in this chapter is you talk about this three -step process, right?

Your first word is your breath.

Your first thought is a quick scan and your first conversation is a small talk.

Can we focus a little bit on breathing through the lens of conflict and communication and the importance of the breath when we're communicating?

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Anybody who's listening and loves your podcast, which you have an amazing podcast, by the way, is that the breath, they're familiar with that.

They know the benefits of it.

What I'm going to encourage them to do is understand the benefits of your actual conversation, how you can use the breath in your communication to lead to better outcomes.

What happens in disagreements is we tend to hold our breath.

In fact, I would even be willing to say that a lot of people hold their breath more than they think.

It might be very stressed out.

Maybe they're overwhelmed at work.

They're scrolling through emails or listening to it.

You might be listening to us right now while you're driving and you're worried about your workday and you're holding your breath without you thinking about it.

What happens? It puts you in a low grade state of anxiety.

You might all of a sudden go, you realize, oh, I'm not breathing.

Your body's telling you that you're feeling like you're drowning in some sense, because in a way you are kind of suffocating yourself.

Well, breath and communication slows things down.

If you want to control the moment, if you want to sound like you have more control and you want to have more better control over the outcome and the influence of it, let your breath be the first word that you say.

Meaning wherever your first word would be in your response.

response let's say you said something to me that i didn't like or really it could be anything but something that's going to require actual thought something above just the casual how's it going what's going on we often just feel like i have to have that rapid response i need to be right there i need to step on the end of your sentence and i need to talk talk talk talk talk talk where the actual power is is where the first word would be i put a breath in its place why because it gives us time when you slow things down it controls the moment more which one sounds like somebody who's someone who you

want to listen to and follow somebody who says reacts and goes look i already told you i'm not going to do that i already told you i'm not going to do that same words yeah which one sounds like somebody you don't want to mess with which is one somebody who sounds like you know i could follow that guy or girl i could follow this person this is somebody who sounds balanced grounded in control yeah there's a gravitas absolutely yeah the first voice sounds like i'm grasping for control i need it give it to me i'm I'm not in control.

I need it. The other person sounds like, no, no, no, no. I have, I've never lost it.

I'm right here. This also speaks to nonverbal communication, doesn't it?

Because it's, it's what is the energy that I'm giving off as I'm having this conversation?

Because people respond to energy, don't they?

They respond to stress.

Like people, you know, humans are a social species we we can mirror what's going on around us our nervous systems kind of respond to the nervous systems of the people around us and so you know when you're able to I guess master your nervous system right you know maybe mass is too strong so I mean if you can amazing yeah at least gain some degree of control over it your communication is automatically going to get at Batza.

Yes, because you never get emotionally flooded.

I mean, we've had these arguments with people in our life, typically the ones we love most, where they become shouting matches.

And to where you're shouting and you don't even really know what you're saying at some point.

It doesn't matter if it's logical or not.

It doesn't matter if it makes sense.

You just know you're reacting because there is a threat.

You either want to.

I mean, that's why our fists clench, because your Your body's ready to swing.

You may not throw a punch, but you're gonna say a hurtful word. You want it to cut.

You want that word to sting.

Same thing. Or people who want to, if you've been on the phone and somebody just hangs up while you're talking or they instantly want to leave the room, that's the flight.

You find that in every conversation that you have. And the person that controls their nervous system, which to me is the number one way to do that in conversation is your breath because it slows things down.

It keeps the analytical side engaged.

You know this. and a lot of your listeners, of course, know this, it is something that can improve their conversation because it never sounds like you're lost. It never sounds like you're unsure of yourself or that you're grasping or desperate, that you've lost your sense of control.

And I'm very curious, I'll be asking you, as a doctor, I love the doctor friends that I have, they see things as kind of this triage of like, Like if then, if this of like a bunch of, at least this is my very simplistic version of it, they see it as kind of the roots of a tree of how if you can't go here, you go here, you're finding the symptoms. Do you find that kind of mentality helpful in communication or hurtful in communication?

Because I know doctors that some are good at conversation.

There are others that are not at all.

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of ways to answer that, Jefferson.

And so, firstly, one of the things that I really resonated with when reading your book is you saying that in law school, you don't really learn how to communicate.

You learn the rules of law, but not actually how to do it in real life.

And my wife, who when I met her was a criminal barrister in London, she said the same thing here.

They don't teach you actually how to do it, how to be a good advocate in the courtroom.

room. You got to figure that out about yourself.

The same thing in medicine.

I don't think they really teach us how to be a good communicator, you know, and I think some doctors are pretty poor at communicating.

Some are exceptional, right?

Yeah. Everyone's passed their medical school exams. Right.

But everyone's smart.

Yeah. Yeah. By those metrics.

But not everyone can, I guess, communicate effectively or influence their patients positively because of their communication skills right so when you were talking about this sort of flow chart i don't know if that's in terms of communication or to get to a diagnosis yes diagnosis diagnosis so my view on medicine is perhaps a little bit different okay so i think one of the problems with the way we practice medicine especially given the health landscape of the countries around the world today is that too much of what we're taught about is literally what are the symptoms, what bucket can we get them

into so we can make the diagnosis.

Once we've got the diagnosis, we can get onto the treatment.

And the treatment is usually, not always, but usually pharmaceutical medications.

Today, 80 to 90 % of what we see in medicine is related to our collective modern lifestyles.

So what I'm interested in most when I have someone I'm talking to about the health is what is going on in their life?

What are their behaviours?

What are their lifestyle habits that are resulting in those current symptoms?

And if I can accurately identify that and help them change it, I'm going to help them relieve a variety of different symptoms does that make sense so far it does because you what I hear you saying is there is the tendency to only address the symptoms yeah not address the causes I feel it very much the same so it's we're at a wonderful point in time and it's a wonderful time to be alive of that we're starting to realize hey we're only addressing the symptoms yeah of things I'm not not addressing the causes of things.

Same in communication.

Symptoms of communication sound like, I don't understand you.

Why would you say that to me?

And we're only yelling, we're only shouting, we're only saying things.

Or the symptom could be, oh, I'm so sorry.

No, no, no, that's okay.

You just tell me. And I just feel like, no, no, no. And they're being extra polite.

They're being people pleasers.

They're either being super aggressive or they're being completely deferential.

one says I don't respect you the other says I don't respect myself and we they're both symptoms of the same type of thing of the cause is really inherently what's going on behind the the surface when you communicate it's not that you left the dish in the sink it's never it is it's it's something that happened earlier that morning or something that happened the night before it's it's hardly ever the issue my dad would teach me often the issue is rarely the issue as what you would tell me.

It's not, your mom's not mad about this.

She's mad because she's afraid of X, Y, and Z.

That's what you're not hearing.

And so when you can realize that a lot of the causes are fears, insecurities, things that happened long before they ever met you and walked in your door, those are the causes to be addressed.

Yeah. I mean, it's just amazing to hear that you were getting taught that stuff by your father, right?

Because yes, you're from a family of trial lawyers.

It's kind of what you guys do, right?

But the golden life, I believe in most things is when you get behind the words, behind the symptoms. So I reflect on my entire medical career.

And I realized that from a very early stage in my career, I was always trying to read read what was going on behind the words.

The patient comes in and they're saying certain things with their voice.

And of course I'm listening and I'm interested into the words that they're saying, but I was always interested more in what's behind these words.

Why is this person ended up here today?

Right. Right? This has been going on for years.

What has happened that they've decided to take half a day off work, wait in a reception area for like an hour when when the doctor's running late, turn up.

Why, why, why? The other thing I realized about communication is how often I would see one side of a patient.

So the receptionists would say, oh, this patient's really rude, that really, really pushing, right?

Yeah. But when I was with them, they were lovely.

Right. Interesting, isn't it?

It really is. I teach in communication.

The number one mindset to have in communication is this, have something to learn, not something to prove.

Meaning, instead of saying they have to agree with me, they have to hear my point, they have to say why I'm right, and they have to say that they're wrong, rather than pushing that, rather than saying, I don't think you know who you're talking to.

Instead of that, something to learn says, huh, I wonder why they said that.

I wonder what's going on i wonder what's why would they have that reaction these inner conversations you're having with yourself that's getting to the deeper meaning that causes the same type of same type of similarities there so yeah so therefore for me following on from that how often then do you think it's actually our egos that are getting in the way of our ability to communicate well ego certainly certainly part of it i think our fear drives it more right and i think that can that can work in tandem you fear that you are losing credibility fear that you're falling behind fear that you're

not being um respected in some sense that's where the ego comes in i think a lot of it drives from the fear which goes to the fight or flight again i and i'll there's so many nuggets that i got I taught.

And I know that's a blessing for me and a gift to me.

My, my dad, when I would come to him with problems, he would, and I mean this positively, I would complain about something and he'd go, so, and I'd say, well, and I'd start continuing to explain and he'd go, so, and I it continued to push the, why does it matter?

Why does it bother me?

What does the end goal?

Instead of him getting very upset with me and agreeing with me, and you're so right, even if I was right about the issue, why am I behaving this way?

So why, why did they say this?

Where did this come from?

And so he was always find the so, so, so, so in terms of a patient, patient coming in.

Somebody's upset about something.

Okay, you don't feel good.

So what are you feeling about that?

Okay, so what are you wanting to do?

So what is the outcome here?

So what would make you feel best?

You always continue to follow that chain and where it typically goes is some type of fear or insecurity.

Yeah, it reminds me of something we got taught at medical school where someone comes in with a certain problem or they they're describing a certain problem or a symptom but that's not really why they came in and you know what often will happen i don't know a guy a middle -aged guy will come in with a little i don't know mark on their leg or something or a slight ankle sprain from playing sport or something right and you deal deal with it and then on the way out as they're closing the door saying bye oh yeah doc you know also i was just worried actually um my uncle once had a tumor in their bone

in their foot you know it's not that is it or whatever it might be yeah so the real reason they were there is because they were worried they might have cancer yeah but for whatever reason they didn't feel able to say that they didn't maybe they didn't want to say it maybe the doctor didn't create the right environment whatever for whatever reason they didn't feel able to say it but on the way out as you think you finish and you're going you know in your head you're just trying to you know make the notes it's kind of interesting isn't it yeah it is it is and it's I find from the friends that I

have that are doctors they they tell me that so many people just want to be told you're okay yeah at the end of the day they just they have a fear uh and they it's oh I I you know I have this kind of pain in my arm and it comes and goes.

And am I okay? Am I going to be all right?

And it's the same way in communication.

We find that at least I, what I hear when I am having my conversations, especially in my profession, you have people who say things and have certain opinions of things, and they just want to be told that's okay.

Even if I disagree.

So let's say you and I are, are, we're at odds over an issue.

And instead of me going, no, I don't look, I don't get your opinion.

Like why in the world would you do?

That's one way to handle it.

Now what's going to happen?

I'm telling you, you're not okay.

That's what I'm communicating in that, in that conversation.

But what if I started it with, Rangan, I don't, I don't need you to agree with me.

You're free to disagree with me.

And I give you my point then.

Now what's going to happen?

and now you're actually listening to what I said.

Now you don't feel the pressure.

Now when I'm communicating is you're okay just as you are in this conversation.

Your opinions, how you feel, totally okay.

I'm gonna tell you something of what I see.

And that kind of stuff is going to instantly smooth things out rather than the feeling and telling them you're not okay in the conversation.

That feeds the fear.

Yeah. Man, it's so interesting this stuff.

It's fun, yeah. It's really fun because, you know, going back to the start why do I think the quality of our communication improves the quality of our life in every single aspect yeah I think it's obvious to people intuitively yeah that's going to improve your relationships right your relationship with your partner with your work colleagues if you can communicate better clearly that will help your relationships but also make the case that it will help improve your health because and again I don't know if if anyone's ever put this to you before, Jefferson, that your book may well be a health book.

Awesome, I'd be honoured.

And I'll explain to you why I believe that to be the case.

80 % to 90 % of what we see these days as doctors is in some way related to our collective modern lifestyles.

So the natural sort of follow -on from that is that if we can change the way that we are living with certain behaviours and habits, it, it's going to have an impact on our health, right?

But why is it that so many people, despite knowing that too much sugar, right, is not helping them, they still continue to do it?

Everyone says you just need more knowledge.

Well, the knowledge is out there, right?

Most people who are trying to give up sugar or reduce their sugar intake kind of know already that they should be doing that, right?

Or a lot of people do.

It's not necessarily more external knowledge they need.

I believe they need more internal knowledge.

So how does that relate to communication?

Well, I believe, using the example of sugar, that sugar is often used to help people cope with stress.

What is one of the biggest sources of stress?

Our relationships. What is one of the biggest problems with our relationships, we are unable to communicate well, even with the people that we love.

So I make the case, and I really, really do believe this strongly, because that's the other thing about your book, right?

If you don't know how to communicate well, I think the tools are going to help you start doing that.

But there seems to be this very close relationship between our ability to regulate our nervous system and the way that we communicate.

So yeah, yeah, you can either become a master in your nervous system and then hopefully that will naturally lead to better communication, which I think can work, or you can apply these tools which will automatically help you regulate your nervous system better.

Does that make sense?

It does, yeah. So if you want better health, instead of treating the symptoms, we're gonna treat the causes.

One of the causes is the communication in your life.

Exactly. Period. Period.

How, because if you ever questioned that, ask this question, have you ever had an argument with your spouse?

How do you perform that next day?

And you haven't resolved that conflict yet.

You're emotionally up and down.

How do you sleep? Yeah, you don't.

You, I mean, you just, you, you, yeah, poor sleep.

How many times you've had bad conversations that have led to depression?

I'm talking not just communication with other people.

We're talking communication within yourself, not the conversations you have have externally.

How do you talk to yourself?

What's the communication that you have with yourself?

That negative self -talk leads to a state of depression.

It says, I am not worthy enough.

I am less. I am hesitant.

I am an inconvenience to everybody.

That is a place that is only going to lead you downwards.

That all affects your health in some way.

So I absolutely agree with this hypothesis that if you want a better health, if you want a better life, one of the causes of that that is a better conversation.

Yeah. I love it. Done.

I think we can just wrap it up.

It was a great podcast. We should put it in the health section of the bookstore now.

There we go. Move it away from, I don't know, smart thinking, put it in the health section.

There we go. You have these powerful life lessons, okay, in the book for our communication.

I want to go through some of them.

Now, some of them you've kind of touched on already, but I'd love to go through some of these bit by bit to really give practical take -homes for people.

One of the lessons is that silence is power.

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It is the one thing that someone cannot throw back in your face.

It's silence can never be misquoted.

Silence is not something that you can, somebody can create anything out of, so to speak.

Silence gives you the power to choose.

It gives you options.

Is this somebody I want to talk to?

Is this something I want to respond to?

Is this something that's worth my time?

Is this person worth my time?

The first thing to know about standing up for yourself is knowing, is this this person worth getting out of my chair for?

It is silence that puts things on pause because you can't make me say anything I don't want to say.

I can physically grab you and I can physically manipulate you, but I cannot do that with your words.

I cannot force you to say something without forcing you physically.

Silence is your tool that you can have. And it's wonderful in the sense of you use it for difficult conversations you use it for meaningful conversations let's say you're sharing something with me that's very deep and you've had a very hard day I don't need to fix it I just need to sit with you yeah and in that silence holding that with the the therapy world would say holding that space for you just sitting in here with you I don't have to say anything but at the same time I'm saying everything yeah now let's say you're you're saying something mean to me, and you say something that really hurts,

and rather than responding, I just say nothing, that sends another message.

That's another option that I get to have, and now you have to hear those words echo back, and you have to do something with it.

That's why silence is such a powerful tool.

Could it be deemed as being aggressive if we use silence?

I can weaponize it.

Yeah, so that turns into stonewalling.

That turns into people ghosting for no reason yes uh stonewalling in my opinion is weaponized silence you are doing it as a as a punishment it's punitive it's a sense of control if you try to i'm not talking about the gray rock type of stuff where it's you have to protect yourself i'm talking you're some you're dealing with somebody who's a toxic personality and they just go silent on you and as a term of punishment they want you to come groveling back not until you say oh i'm so sorry can you please come back to me will they you know graciously in their mercy go yes i guess you can talk to me

again so there is absolutely a way to be taking it too far as with anything yeah it kind of sort of relates back to a couple of things we've already touched on one was when you were talking about maybe you're in a difficult conversation before you start reacting and just blurting out words right you're saying that first word is your breath right okay so you're what is that an inhale yeah so it's um you would know this as a physiological sigh it's where it's a double inhalation where it's about three seconds into your nose two seconds in again at the top and then all out through your nose again now

we can do that in a sense of very exaggerated i'm not not talking about the sigh of like what my five -year -old would do of like like not not that type of not that type of breath but you want to be able to use it and you can do it silently silently any time right before you say something that you need a catch a moment or if somebody's saying something that's you can tell you it's you don't like and you're getting worked up you ever heard somebody like making an opinion or saying something you don't like and what happens you our bodies go like we everything we don't like it we kind of start to seize

up we start we take a big breath we're like okay i don't i'm i don't i gotta i gotta get ready because why we're about ready to unleash all of our words.

And so when you hold your breath, that's why your breath has really nowhere to go except to yell.

Yeah. Often it decreases communication.

It's the same way of, you know, how, uh, at least if you're trying to find directions and you're trying to find a house and you have blaring music, you have to like turn down the music so you can, you know, like, let me turn on this music so I can see.

It's kind of that same mentality of when when somebody's yelling, you can't really listen.

Yeah. It's this whole, we see the world through the state of our nervous system, right?

That person said that thing that you didn't like.

And if you start to react and hold your breath, which may be understandable, right?

You're changing the state of your nervous system.

So, everything is coming inward. Your focus is coming inward. You are getting prepared to fight.

So, of course, the next words you say are going to come out with with a certain energy.

So I love that sort of idea that you make it.

And that whole section that in that chat, so you do sort of walk people through how you can practice this breath and get to the point whereby you're doing it naturally in conversation where the person doesn't even know that you're doing it.

Yeah, and I'm happy to do it right now, if you wanna - Okay, all right.

So if you're listening right now, let's practice this.

I call this a conversational breath and it's a breath that you can use and nobody's really gonna know that you're doing it.

There's nothing special.

It's just the choice to be intentional with your breath.

And let's do it together.

So it's all going to be through your nose and it's going to be a double inhale, meaning we're going to inhale twice.

Ready? So if you're listening, we're going to go three seconds in through your nose, two more at the top, and then all out through your nose.

Now, just listening to us right now, your shoulders should have dropped just a little bit.

You're going to feel just a little bit calmer.

That's your go -to when somebody is saying something you don't like or you're about to respond.

So right now, I want you, Ranga, to continue to do the conversational breath and I'm going to continue to say some things to you.

So Ranga, yes, I understand you have a podcast and yeah, it's a health podcast. In fact, it's the number one health podcast in the world.

But you know what? I don't know if you're doing as well as you need to.

I mean you could be – these lights, have you seen these cameras?

I don't know if I even really like these microphones.

Now see, as you're talking to me right now, see, I don't even realize that you're breathing any differently than anybody else.

And so anytime somebody's saying something that's agitating to you in that sense, it's allowing you to see the depth, right?

It's allowing you to see the cause rather than getting worked up and holding your breath to fight the symptoms. Yeah, it's amazing because you're slowing everything down, right?

Right. So, you know, using that analogy being in the car again.

Yeah. If your car is going fast down the street, you're not going to have to take everything in.

Right. Because everything's going back quickly.

You slow down your car and go down the street.

You can suddenly see everything.

Clearly, I saw that number, I saw that number.

You know, that's what we're going.

There's a cat coming, whatever it might be.

Right. So when we slow everything down, our perspective is different.

We see more clearly.

So clearly in a conversation, especially a conversation that perhaps isn't going the way that you want it to, if you're able to slow things down, you're going to be more present.

You're going to have that separation between the stimulus, the words you don't like, and the response you're about to give.

Exactly. Time has a way of sifting out priority.

priority. We all know we've had these moments and conversations that feel really intense with that friend at the cafe.

The next day, you know what, that conversation really didn't matter all that much. Or a week goes by and you go, well, why did I ever react that way?

But in the moment you felt that it did.

In the moment it was everything.

And then, or you get that email, you read that email at work and you want to, it gets you all worked up and you're ready to send that, that nasty response response back, but something happens and you go, you know what, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna put this down.

You read it again the next day.

Yeah, that's not even worth my response.

Exactly. Yeah. That's the power of silence.

Absolutely. Right. Yes.

It's kind of interesting.

You are teaching people how to have better conversations.

But at the same time, I would imagine, and I think you've hinted at this already, that you've always been pretty good at communicating.

Yes. Yeah. Okay. I would probably say a similar thing about myself.

I think as a doctor, I feel that's always been one of my strengths with my patients, my ability to really listen, pay attention, and then communicate effectively with them.

I don't think I was taught how to do that.

Maybe I picked it up from the people around me.

But although I feel I was intuitively quite a good communicator, I feel I've got better over the years.

So I feel it's a skill that, although I was pretty good at, I think I've got better at it now what has helped me get better at it I think if I think about my marriage you know I'm as we're having this conversation I'm almost it's almost 18 years since I was married okay since I got married yeah yeah and you know our marriage is fantastic and I think one of the things that has made it more fantastic now than maybe in the early days is collectively our ability to communicate as a couple has got better.

And certainly on a personal level, I feel I've really learned some new skills about how to communicate better within my relationship.

But I also believe that this podcast has helped me become a better communicator.

Okay, so as you know, this is a long form podcast. Okay, it's long form intentionally, intentionally.

I'm not interested in quick, fancy soundbites.

I want deep, meaningful conversations with people that I'm curious about.

Yeah, that's always been the name of the game on the show.

And it continues to be today.

And every summer, I stop the podcast for six weeks.

Okay, it's the children on summer holidays.

My wife is the producer of the podcast. And so for us, it's really important to have some time away from this show.

Even though the whole world is saying you you can't stop, you need to keep going.

That's a separate matter, right?

But we take a break every summer.

And every summer, whilst I'm on break, I reflect on what can I improve?

What can I do differently?

How can I make the show even better?

You know, how can I become a better communicator?

And a few years ago, the insight I had over the summer break was to embrace silence that's more right so you talk in your book about how silence can be a superpower and I would say maybe three or four summers ago I came back and intentionally started to utilize silence much more and I think that's enhanced the quality of the conversations and so my thinking was very much wrong you don't have to rush right there's no time pressure here you've got all the time in the world in a natural conversation because i never regard these as interviews right yeah if you want to interview i'm the wrong podcast

right these are all about conversations and i realized that when in real life conversation there are sometimes pauses sometimes the next thing to say isn't there at the tip of your tongue sometimes you have to kind of pause and reflect and let let what was just said land.

You also have to trust yourself, right?

Okay, I don't need to think about the next thing I'm going to say.

I can just pay attention to what Jefferson is saying.

And then when he finishes, I need to trust that the right thing to come next will come out of my mouth, right?

So that's a rather long winded of me trying to say that when I read you write about sun that's been a superpower i thought i love that because i feel that's one of the things that i've really embraced on this show and i think it's one of the things that has really improved the quality of conversations on this show i think that's spot on for for your listeners i i would ask two questions number one have you ever really given thought to how you're communicating, how your voice is representing you, not just how you sound, that's personal to you, but the words that you choose more than likely you've

spent some amount of money on a better health.

Maybe you've changed the diet.

Maybe you've read some books.

Maybe maybe you've gone to some conference, whatever.

We invest a lot in a lot of things.

But have you ever actually invested in the thing you do every day?

And that is getting disciplined about how you communicate, actually asking yourself, how do you communicate?

That's question number one.

Question number two is why are you rushing?

rushing. Why are you rushing?

I feel like we rush all the time.

I mean, I know I rush my son sometimes.

I'm like, all right, come on, get your shoes on.

Come on, get your shoes on.

We got to go to what?

A kid's birthday party that you don't have to be on time for.

I mean, it's not the end of the world.

Why do we always feel like we have to rush, rush, rush?

There is something so so beautiful about having a conversation with your best friend that has no time constraints, that has no rush.

And you can say something.

And just like you said, you're able to just sit with it, land, let their words sit and just appreciate the moment that you're able to connect with someone and beautiful, wonderful things happen when you simply slow down the conversation.

And that's exactly, if you want to have better conversation, you slow it down.

If you want to deal with difficult conversation, if you're really worried about a conversation you're about to have, slow it down.

I promise you, you're going to end up having a better outcome.

Yeah, I love that. Just while we're talking about silence, right, and the incredible power of silence in communication, going back to those three tools to stay in control of the moment, I kind of feel that all three of them in some way speak to the power of silence I don't know if you would necessarily agree with that but yeah those three tools were your first word is your breath your first thought is a quick scan and your first conversation is a small talk right let's just go through that and maybe we can go through that in the context of an individual who's maybe just about to enter conflict

with their partner yeah it is a super common right so because if we can can do it through that, I'm hoping that someone can, you know, next time during that scenario, maybe in an hour's time, maybe tomorrow, hopefully they can go, okay, all right, let me just remember what Jefferson said, right?

Because I think they kind of speak to silence as well.

Each one does. Yeah.

And there are simple, quick tools in different ways of regulating your nervous system.

So let's put it in two different scenarios for the listeners.

One, we can have a personal relationship with your significant other.

The other is a workplace where somebody's asking you something of an important project, whatever it is.

It's going to be the same outcome either way.

So these tools that I provide in the first how to say things with control ultimately are different ways of regulating your nervous system.

First word being your breath.

In either context, it allows you to, where somebody's accusing you of something, you're able to slowly slowly use your breath and kind of understand keeping yourself from getting emotionally flooded.

It's nothing, nothing more simple than that.

You're using your breath to feel a little bit more down in the conversation, just like we did a minute ago.

Now, a quick scan of what is what I call a quick, it's a quick scan.

It's nothing than asking yourself, what am I feeling in this moment?

And I like to use the phrase, I can tell.

So, let's say you're in a conversation with your significant other.

Maybe it's over the dishes and all of a sudden it blends into to the laundry and who does what and you don't keep up your fair share or whatever it is instead of leading with you and you never and you always which I promise you is only going to add another layer of of argument about whether you always or never do it and then somebody's going to say well give me an example name the last time that I and then it's just a competition of who can has the better memory and of course you have the better memory I don't remember remember?

Instead, a quick scan is saying, I can tell I'm getting defensive.

I can tell I'm getting upset.

I can tell I'm not ready for this conversation.

So many times we push conversation on our timeframe and not the other person's.

And so if you're feeling pressured in a conversation, say instead of reacting and getting defensive and emoting on that, it's to be able to say, I can tell I'm getting upset.

I can tell I'm feeling sad.

I can tell that's making me angry.

So step one is you take that slow, intentional breath, which helps to calm things down and regulate your nervous system.

Step two is this quick scan that you're just going through your body.

Where's that tightness?

What am I actually feeling?

And then you use that scan to say, I can tell I'm feeling something.

Yes. So that's a way of communicating with the other person.

So, for example, it might be, I can tell that I'm feeling a bit wound up at the moment, so I don't think it's the best time to have this conversation.

I can tell I'm not feeling myself.

I mean, that right there is a powerful tool in marital relationships.

Instead of saying, what's wrong with you?

Instead of forcing that, it's the, I can tell I'm feeling off right now.

I can tell I'm tired.

So, okay, so if you just say that phrase, could your partner then not go, okay, but what's that got to do with what I just said?

So I'm trying to just play devil's advocate there.

No, I love it. So you're using that to tell your partner or your work colleague or wherever it might be that you have a certain emotional state.

Yes. But then do you need to go the next step and then say, what is the implication of that emotional state?

So it depends. Maybe that is the goal of saying, let's say you just got done with a full busy day.

You've done a bunch of podcasts, you're doing work and you got the kids in bed and you're finally at home.

And all of a sudden your spouse wants to have the most important conversation ever.

Right. In that moment.

And you're just you're drained.

You're tired. And instead of going, you know, I don't really want to talk about can you just and you're starting to react negatively in that conversation.

You're starting to really just be negative on the whole moment.

Instead of saying, look, I I can tell I am I am not ready for this conversation.

If we can talk about this in the morning, I'm going to be a whole lot better for it.

Or if we can push this just a few minutes, or let's say it's in the word context and you can say, I can tell that I'm feeling uncertain about this, or I can tell I still need a little bit more clarity here.

It's not saying I don't want to have conversation.

And I'm not saying you need to have that every time you have a conversation.

this is simply a tool of if you feel like you're having an emotion in that moment when you claim it you control it and so whenever you can say it out loud it's much better than behaving on that so let's say you say something that gets me defensive i mean i can tell rather than me going me no no what about you oh you think that and i'm starting to react on that defensiveness consciousness rather than me saying, you say that same thing and I'll go, I can tell that's getting me defensive.

That right there is a wonderful way of just like writing it down and putting it on a piece of paper.

Now we know that that is not something I'm going to be talking about.

And in fact, it's at least more information for the people who you're talking to.

So it's not a one, two, three.

It's not you have to first, where's your breath?

Then you have to do a quick scan.

Then you have to do a small talk.

These are all different tools that if you're feeling something overwhelmed in that moment it's much better to say with your spouse I can tell I'm feeling overwhelmed yeah then then reacting on that overwhelmed feeling yeah I love that it's so powerful and I would say that that alone is possibly one of the most influential things I've changed in my marriage in terms of the way I communicate with my wife is it's really about about self -awareness isn't it and the example you gave actually was not an uncommon scenario in the sense that my wife and i have some have quite different body class i love

to go to bed early and get up early she would rather go to bed late i wake up a bit later right and so i'm team wife so okay okay so it did not used to be uncommon that when i'm trying to wind down for beds yeah but vid wants to go through something deep or important yes okay yeah and so i would say one of the things that i've learned to do is be able to now calmly i hope and i think say hey listen i i know this is super important i'm so tired at the moment i actually don't think we're going to get a great outcome from this conversation right now or something to that effect yes and actually it

is it is game changing that kind of stuff because if you don't say it right or you get frustrated or not you know a you can't expect the other person to mind read which I think is the biggest problem in relationships yes it's like no why don't I just tell you calmly hey can we fix the time tomorrow to go through this because I can see that it's important or whatever it might be yes now you got it yeah how many times I mean even in my own marriage I'm like I am I am in bed closing my eyes and she will go so I was just just thinking, and I'm like, what are we, oh, you want to talk about this now?

Like, I mean, you kind of have that.

And yeah, you, uh, what I like to teach is don't wait until you have 10 % of yourself for a hundred percent of a conversation.

You each have a battery and, and what happens a lot is we lead to negative consequences when we're each in the red, we're in low battery modes.

So you're more agitated.

You're hungry. You're tired.

You don't feel good.

You want, and so So certain conversations, it's not like it's a simple, hey, let's remember to buy more milk tomorrow.

We're not talking about that stuff.

I'm talking like the real conversations that are outcome determinative of what's happening with the kids, the kids schedule.

And she might be telling me something where I'm fading into the night.

And that's when she wants to lay out the, we need to agree on every where you're going to be this, who's going to pick up who.

And I'm not going to remember this right in this moment, but sure, go ahead and say.

So, yeah, what's most important is, one, you don't dismiss it.

You can't be dismissive of it because if you're like, can we just talk about this later?

That's going to feel very dismissing.

Because to them, to whoever you're talking to, it's on their mind.

It doesn't mean that is wrong.

And sometimes they need to get out so they can sleep.

And so and I felt that that way before.

But if you ask somebody to push a conversation because it's going to lead to a better outcome, they will always say yes.

this. If you say, is this something we have to agree on right now?

Most of the time, the answer is no. You will always push it.

But if you tell them that you're going to have a better conversation, better outcome, if we postpone this 30 minutes, an hour to the next morning, they will say yes.

They won't say no to it.

Yeah. No, I love it.

What about this lesson?

I love this one. You don't have to attend every argument you're invited to.

Yeah. That's brilliant.

Thank you. It is a mindset of instead of the default where somebody is engaging in opinion with you, and we're opinion making machines.

Something happens in the world.

Where does everybody turn to social media to share their opinion, to who their audience of six people that are on their Facebook or something.

And they go and they flood all the comments of how how much they agree, they disagree, and who's attacking who, and who's a snowflake, and who's whatever.

And that kind of behavior solves is nothing.

And in fact, it's very draining.

In fact, if we want to say that's a symptom of a very bad health, you know, a lot of the times, what kind of people are unhealthy, not just physically, but mentally unwell.

All right. So if you want to make sure that you stop attending every argument you're invited to, you need to understand that there's a priority of what's important in your life.

There are people that disagree with you and there are people who maybe don't even like you.

Most likely if they don't like you, they're not that important.

You know, who do you want to keep in your life?

Yeah. Yeah. Who do you want to surround yourself with?

And I feel like anytime somebody gives you an invitation to an argument, we go, Oh, yep, absolutely.

Check. Yes, I will be attending and that's a that's a one -way ticket to bad health it comes down to emotional awareness self -awareness emotional regulation doesn't it because when you are more self -aware and emotionally regulated i think it becomes easier to not attend every argument when your nervous system as in high alert when you've been busy with work all day you didn't take a lunch break you're in sort of that stress mode yeah it's sometimes harder to separate right and i think sometimes fear is also what gets in the way of many things in our life but also our ability to communicate well

right and i think the more we're better to emotionally regulate the more better able we are to go hey you know what i don't i don't want to get involved with that you know Something I've learned being online, sharing information for about 12 years now, is I don't have to have an opinion on everything.

Or you can have an opinion and not share it.

Yeah. I certainly don't need to have a public opinion on everything.

Now, people can expect me to.

Right. I should be commenting on this event.

Great. No problem. I don't think I should.

Right. I don't want to.

and ultimately it's up to me what I what I will and what I won't communicate on right it's kind of interesting what have you learned right this is interesting you were already an exceptional communicator you started sharing things online in 2022 so about three years or so you've had a lot of experience with comments on social media so what what has being on social media and reading leading comment sections taught you about other human beings?

I'll tell you, I'm blessed with a wonderful audience.

I can probably count on one hand truly the amount of times I've had a negative troll type of just nasty comment, which is just wonderful.

And most of the time they're bots.

They're not real. real um but what i have seen of course because i'm on social media like you are i've seen people leave negative horrible comments in youtube tiktok instagram you name it where the quick little clap back that's ugly maybe on somebody's weight appearance looks what they said and it gets a lot lot of likes, like a crazy amount of likes, because there's this anonymity of being behind the keyboard. And you almost in some sense, get rewarded for it.

When somebody is liking your comment, what are you encouraged to do?

Say more ugly things to get more like an appreciation and that dopamine hit of you're doing something well.

So what I have seen is that people in comments can be, I've seen it both ways.

I've seen the negative side of it and that's detrimental.

I've also seen the very positive side of people can create a community in the comments.

And you take something like TikTok, for example, sometimes the comments are more entertaining than the actual content itself.

People immediately, what they would say, run to the comments because there's so much interaction or things that are funny.

People are hilarious.

I mean, one thing about social media is that there's so many talented people and so many funny people that you would never know.

That, you know, they're totally introverts, but they're funny and creative and things you would never be able to see in the world and environment that you're in.

So I've been blessed with being able to see the positive.

I've been blessed with being able to see the negative of it in social media.

And I find, I mean, I'm certainly a product of it.

I wouldn't be here with you today day had people not resonated with the content that I make.

I would bet that one of the reasons you don't get many negative comments is because of your energy.

People respond to energy.

They do. You know, we all respond to energy and the vibe of the people around us.

And so if you're putting out content with a really warm compassionate grounded energy with a real desire to help people right it's just not gonna lead to that many people you know trying to meet that energy with division and criticism do you know what i mean whereas some people that whole brand is about calling out or this is what's toxic or whatever it might be whatever it is so of course that energy is going to attract more energy like that, which is super interesting.

I mean, I also very rarely get negative comments, but I've always had a rule actually, an internal rule with myself, which maybe I didn't follow in the early days of being online sharing information, but I've learned through the process, which is, it comes back to some of your teachings in this book, right?

Which is, if I'm not feeling calm, calm, do not respond to a comment.

That's so true. You know, don't do it.

It's never going to go well, you know, only respond.

So sometimes it's like, I think actually that's worthy of a response.

Like I feel that'd be a good to interact with that, but only do it when you're feeling calm and calm doesn't just mean my internal state.

It also means what's going on in my life.

Yes. Right. It's more important that I'm going to spend quality time with my children or my wife or or going around to see my mom?

Yes. Actually, you know what?

That is more important than a random comment on my Instagram page.

Absolutely. And probably the truth is that's one comment out of 200.

Yeah. You know what I mean?

And so you might have 199 wonderful comments and we see that one and we kind of go, and we want to comment right there.

And you know, it does nothing.

I get questions, I know you get questions of people.

When I post, I get negative comments.

And are, you know, how do you handle it?

And I go, do you have to?

what do you i mean the algorithm doesn't care if it's happy or sad it's a comment at the same time do you know this person are you going to actually sit down and spend time with this person what's going on in your life i sort of in in my in my last book uh jeff said make change at last there's a chapter called take less offense okay i think you'd really enjoy actually and um in that chapter I make the case that offense is something we choose to do, right?

Nothing is inherently offensive because if it was, we'd all find the same thing offensive.

Yeah, I love that. The fact that we don't means it's not the comment or the thing that was causing the offense.

It was something within us that was being activated, right?

I'm not excusing poor behavior here.

Sure. I'm just saying that nothing is inherently offensive.

We're choosing to take offense, offence, right?

And I sort of also made the case in that chat set that on some level, taking offence is actually or could be argued to be a little bit arrogant.

And the reason I say that is because if you think about it rationally, there's 8 billion people on the planet, right?

Is it reasonable to believe that every other human being on this planet is going to have the same view and perspective on the world as I do.

No, right? It's not reasonable at all.

Clearly some people in the world are going to see the world differently from me.

They're going to have different ethics, different religion, a different way of being brought up, different levels of trauma, whatever it might be.

They're going to see the world differently.

So they may actually disagree with me on certain things.

They may see things completely differently.

It doesn't mean that they're wrong and I'm right or I'm right and they're wrong.

It just means they they see it differently.

Yes. And I kind of feel bringing it back to your book, one of the things I love about it is I think there's a real deep compassion behind the tools, which relates to what I just said, which is you don't know what's going on with that person.

You know, what the person you see is not always the person you're talking to.

Yes. And that's, I think, one of the things I love the most about it.

Yeah. Well, thank you very much. I think you're absolutely right on you choose to take offense to certain things.

And I'm of the mindset of anytime you just hear change, you hear about change, it makes you uncomfortable.

You hear about change in the world or somebody having a different political view than you, that's change.

You're hearing and it makes you go, I don't like that.

So whenever you find and hear that change that's being communicated to you and it makes you uncomfortable, that creates a lot of that fear because we like what is safe.

We like what is known.

Let's say I want to change your mind about something and you have this political view.

Let's say it's a religious view, for example.

And I say that as something that's typically very crystallizing as part of somebody's identity.

Well, if I just expect in one conversation, I'm going to entirely disprove everything that you've you've ever believed.

Problems are going to happen.

Because what's most likely is, I'm not just saying you're wrong.

I'm saying your parents are wrong.

I'm saying your grandmother's wrong.

I'm saying that thing that you learned when you were a kid and you've known your entire life is all wrong.

And people will do anything, far past the point of just deciding not to listen to you in order to preserve what they know.

And it is so easy for people.

That's why a lot of times in a political climate, they're okay with one candidate doing it.

They're not okay with another candidate doing it.

They're okay if it's the side I am comfortable with.

I'm not good with if it's a side I don't agree with.

Why? Because we feel comfortable with what we know because it's comes comes down from the people that put their value in us.

And we will defend the people in our lives that have contributed to that view.

So in other words, you can say I'm wrong.

Yeah. But if you're saying my dad's wrong, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Don't you don't get to say my dad's wrong.

I'm the one. And so we get defensive on behalf of the people that help shape our identity.

And so we will do anything to the point of just refusing to listen, even to logic, logic, even to evidence, even somebody presents you with evidence of saying something of why your position is wrong on it.

We will boldface just disagree with it in order to protect the values that we've been raised with.

Yeah. It's a great point.

I mean, obviously you are an American citizen and you know, American politics is very interesting.

That's a great word. Yeah.

Let's keep it to that word. it's very interesting and i think 12 months ago the statistic that i came across was that one in six u .s adults are not talking to another family member because of a difference of opinion yeah over politics which i found utterly remarkable right right and really just speaks to what you you just said, right?

And I guess that in many ways highlights why a book like yours is so important, right?

Because it should be possible for two people with completely different religions or completely different political beliefs within the same family, it should be possible to have a conversation with them and still love them and still respect them.

You know, of course, people will argue that there are extremes, there are certain things that people can't get over okay but as a general principle you should be able to get on with people who see the world differently than you do yes which is something you don't see online much but if i think about even my best mates from university like there's four or five of us and you know we're we'd be there for each other you know we could rely on each other for anything doesn't mean we all see the world the same way right we we you know we have differences of opinions of those is we're still best mates,

but it seems as though the world, at least online, well, I say online, it's getting more divided, but that statistic would suggest that actually offline as well, it's getting more divided as well.

Yeah. I definitely believe so because we're not allowing real conversation.

We expect that we can solve all issues in one conversation.

In fact, I'll go even more.

We feel like we can solve everything and change someone's mind by saying one sentence.

And we just think because I said it, well, then they have to wholeheartedly swallow it, agree with it, take it and say, I'm the most amazing genius they've ever heard. Yes, of course, you're right.

And that's just never going to, that's never going to happen.

And instead, you have to see that if you want to change someone's mind, you better be ready to have have multiple conversations.

I'm talking conversations over years.

Things that you're going to have to invest in asking questions and finding out why someone believes what they do.

When you actually take the time, rather than fighting the opinion they have, you take the time to find out why they have it and how they learned it and where they picked it up and when they learned it.

All of that information is going to give you way more knowledge and realize it's not the symptom it's the cause yeah is it even possible to change someone's mind it's like maybe the goal is never to change someone's mind maybe the goal should be to learn yeah I like well I would reframe that the yes you can change someone's mind but what you said is right you have to change the goal too often we put the we put a bar on conversations of and that bar is they have to admit I'm right.

They have to say they're wrong.

That is rarely, if ever, going to happen.

I can't get my child to say that.

I think I'm going to have someone who's a grown adult say that, who's had a year or years, a whole life of experiences.

And I think just because I uttered sound into the air, they're automatically just going to go, the scales have fallen from my eyes, is, how wrong I am.

That's not going to happen.

Right. And so you, you can absolutely change someone's mind, but one, you have to live it.

You can't just say it and there'll be misalignment in how you're, you're living too.

Yes. Evidence helps, but sometimes when you're trying to push your opinion, that makes me come closer more.

So for example, the more I tell you you're wrong, wrong, the more convinced you're going to be that you're right.

You're going to protect what you know, because this is the one thing you feel like you do know that you're sure about.

Why? Because your dad told you about it when you were five.

So you will wrap yourself onto that memory.

So can you change someone's mind?

Yes, 100 % you can. But you cannot do it when you raise the bar is, I'm right, you're wrong.

Instead, I'm telling you to lower the bar.

That's what the book does.

It tells you to lower the bar.

Instead of saying, I need to prove that I'm right, my goal is to understand where you're coming from.

My goal is to ask more questions than I say things.

My goal is to, am I showing appreciation for the time that we're spending in this conversation?

When you set the bar really low, I'm just making sure you feel understood, and they feel understood, and they feel feel acknowledged.

Set a bar of how can I show that I acknowledge them in this conversation.

That's going to lead to more of what you want rather than setting that bar that you can never meet.

Yeah. Some of what you just said there speaks to one of the other life lessons in the book, which is never win an argument.

Yeah. What does that mean?

Whenever you set out to win an argument, you will lose the relationship over time.

If I were to say, do you know anybody in in your life who always has to be right.

They always have to have the final say.

They always have to have the last word. Those kind of people are not someone anybody wants to be around.

It's typically an audience of one.

And the more you try to win, improve, you lower the quality and connection of that relationship.

What you've really won is their contempt.

Let's say you and I are in an argument.

Rather than me trying to understand you, I have to win.

Win often sounds like, I'm the last one to talk.

That's what we typically have in conversations.

The one who says something last is the one who somehow wins.

Maybe you said something really ugly because you and I have been personal friends for forever.

And I know that one button that I can say that speaks right to your insecurity.

And all of a sudden you shut down.

Does that mean I win?

Probably not, but that's the feeling.

Or if you and I are in a conflict of opinion and I'm the one that says, says, no, I have to be right.

And you go, you know what?

Fine. You're right.

You're right. Is that really winning?

Over time, they're going to feel contempt for you.

What you really want is to be the first to apologize.

And that's kind of the procedure of arguments.

The person who said the worst thing last, that's typically the one who has to apologize first. What I like to teach is instead of trying to win the argument, you look to unravel them.

You find the knots in the the conversation and get really quick and really proficient at loosening them why do you think so many people take things personally when they're having a conversation our default is to make things about me make things about i not so much you and it's just a shift of perspective that we make everything everything, everything about us.

Like as me, as a young associate at the law firm, us associates would complain about the partners because the partners don't care.

Partners don't listen to us.

All they do is think about themselves.

When I made partner, I got a, within probably five minutes, I got an email and I thought, but these associates, all they do is care about themselves.

It's very us versus them mentality.

When you're the employee, you hate the management.

When you're the management, you hate the employee.

You always find a way to make it about you.

It's our default. It's why we take things personally.

It's why when you, if I were to text you, okay, you're not going to be, look at that.

Look how nice Jefferson is.

He said, okay. And the happiest way possible impossible instead you're going to go okay what kind of okay is that is like a is that a okay okay or is that like a okay like what we we find ways of reading the negative in text and email any transactional correspondence like that how much of what you teach then can be applied to electronic communication because that is a way that many people converse these days right so sure when When we're face to face in a room with someone, we can apply certain things.

We can pick up on nonverbal communication and get a sense of what they're saying to us.

But on a text message or an email, things start to go wrong very, very quickly.

Are there any tips that you have for us to use in that form of communication?

Yeah, so there's absolutely a place for the electronic communication.

I'm talking text and email specifically.

specifically. It's efficient.

It does not mean it's effective all the time.

Now, I can communicate with you face to face, and in a text, it's going to be very different.

For example, this was a few years ago.

My mom decided to text me out of the blue.

She was asking me about the family car.

It was a white Nissan that I had had through college and law school, and it passed down through my siblings.

I had no idea where it was.

Out of the blue, my mom texts me and she said, do you know the mileage to the white Nissan?

I said, no ma 'am. She said, you don't know the mileage to the white Nissan?

I said, no ma 'am. This is all through text.

She goes, okay, I just thought you would know the mileage to the white Nissan.

I said, mama, I don't know how else to tell you.

I don't know the mileage to the white Nissan.

Immediately she replied, that's fine, find Jefferson.

I just don't like your attitude.

Like she just read everything of, she thought I was being disrespectful simply by text.

And so what do I do?

I instantly pick up the phone to call her.

So if you want some tools on how to improve the text or emails would be one, when you can get on the phone with them.

If you find that there's any type of dissonance, if you find that that there's some kind of friction, hear their voice.

Text does not convey emotional nuance.

There's a difference between seeing the warmth of someone's smile and reading it in an emoji.

I like to compare it to, you can describe a sunset, it doesn't even compare to seeing a sunset.

Very, very different things.

So they need to hear your voice.

So if you find yourself self right into conflict, use your voice.

Number two, there's a phrase that I like to use really for a lot of different concepts.

But if you find that you're taking something personally, meaning you're assuming someone's intent, for good or for bad, usually it's for bad.

Begin with, did you mean?

In text, I would say the biggest culprit is we, especially in in relationships, you use very short language.

Okay. Sounds good. Cool.

All right. And you read the negative into that.

Maybe you didn't put an emoji in it.

And so they, they just automatically assume that you're, you're upset, you're mad, or you get an email from somebody, a boss or somebody you work with and they send an email and you feel like it's kind of rude.

If you respond with, did you mean, did you mean for that to sound short?

Did you mean for that to sound upset?

Did you, mean for that to sound, Kurt?

Like whatever it is, whenever you say, did you mean, it allows the other person some benefit of the doubt to allow them to go, oh, no, no, no, no. Sorry.

I was just, I was, I was in the middle of this.

I was running an errand.

I was, I just got out of the car, whatever it is, you're giving some more context rather than trying to take it personally every single time.

I find that that is something that's going to be very beneficial.

And three would be limit the conversation don't uh don't write in paragraphs that's that's not going to go well you want to write very concisely that makes it very much more clear so if you can't say it really in three sentences you need to rethink it that speaks to something i really wanted to talk to you about today on the show okay and it's from page 14 of your book so early on and it's all all about speaking directly.

Okay, now, let me just explain a bit of background to why I've underlined this paragraph and why I want to discuss it with you.

So, interestingly enough, as I think I've already shared with you, when I started going out with my now wife, she was a criminal barrister in London.

And one of the things that we both noticed very very early on in our relationship is that we communicate quite differently.

Vid is very concise and very particular with her words.

And she's very direct.

When we first met, I wasn't.

I wasn't concise. And I certainly wasn't direct.

I would go around the houses.

Right? Yeah. I don't know if that's an American phrase or not, but I wouldn't get to the point.

It was a beat around the bush.

Beat around the bush.

Okay. Right. Now, It's really interesting.

Initially, I would say because I wasn't used to direct communication, certainly not how I had communication modeled growing up, right?

It certainly wasn't how I did things.

And I think I had a lot of insecurity.

So I would mask those insecurities by overusing words, over explaining, over apologizing, whatever it might be, right?

I would say because of that, or a consequence of that was that I found initially, at least, Vid's direct communication.

Sometimes I found it quite blunt and that's quite harsh.

You know, I still fell madly in love with her and married her, right?

So to be clear. Might have worked.

But it's funny that the way I now see communication, I think, wow, that was awesome, right?

Because one of the real benefits of the way Vid would communicate to me early on in our relationship was that you know she wasn't afraid to say what she thought i would be not not because of it just because because of my own personal insecurities i would beat around the bush yeah right and not get to the point and i've learned over the years that actually speaking directly you know i would say a compassionate directness i think it's just a a wonderful way to communicate because you're not imagining what do they really mean.

I know what she means.

If she's happy with me doing something, she'll say.

If she's not, she'll tell me.

I don't have to imagine.

Was she just saying that?

And so can I just read this section back to you?

It's your book, but I really liked it.

And I wanted to discuss essentially why you think speaking directly is so important.

Okay, here it is. Speaking directly doesn't mean you lack empathy or consideration for the other person's feelings.

Being direct means that you have the self -assurance that you can respect the other person as well as yourself enough to communicate your needs openly without fear.

Jefferson, I freaking love that paragraph, right?

I've been rereading it because I've been thinking, actually, that's something I still feel I could do better.

certainly in electronic communication I would say I still probably write quite lengthy emails yeah I still treat it like a card I was right you know dear whoever I hope you're well you know yeah you know which I guess I would argue is polite right but where's the balance right so it talks to me about speaking directly why is it so important do you think right so this brings us into rule two the the say it with confidence just because it's polite doesn't mean it's honest. Just because it's polite doesn't mean that it's kind.

Clarity is kind. And it can, I mean, being direct can be sometimes and oftentimes much kinder.

When we beat around the bush and we have trouble landing the plane in conversation, it creates anxiety.

It creates resentment.

It breeds miscommunication.

Why? Because what you feel like you said and you you made it so plain, totally lost on me.

Let me put it this way.

People who can be direct with you and tell you what they want.

It's very attractive in conversation, especially in relationships, because it says, this is somebody who's assured of themselves.

This is somebody who knows what they want.

This is somebody who knows where they're going.

And a lot of times you're removing the insecurity you're you're removing the uh the feeling of of not feeling safe so anytime you're you can be direct in conversation and we can talk every little tool about it what you're doing is using your assertive voice most likely and i would ask this of any of the listeners listeners, is how was communication modeled for you in your life?

Did your parents argue in front of you?

Did you even see your parents argue?

Or did they argue behind closed doors?

Did you feel like as a kid you could speak out and disagree?

Or did you feel you always had to be a little bit more quiet and let the other people talk?

Or when you wanted to disagree, you got squashed on and says be quiet you're you're you're to be seen not heard yeah uh and so understand that every bit of that and hopefully even listening there might be a light bulb moment where you go oh okay maybe that's where it's really come from maybe that's why i'm feeling that or it could be culturally i've definitely noticed a difference here in in england of there's a cultural shift in communication it is very polite it is a little bit more indirect a little bit softer that doesn't mean that it's wrong understand that you will get to a place where eventually

you feel like your voice is not being heard and that that can become again unhealthy yeah i love what you said there about cultures and your experience having been in the uk for just what two or three days now Yeah, three days, yeah.

And I would say that is a thing here, you know, where politeness is, you know, very much valued.

But it can go too far.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be polite.

No, for sure. But you can be polite and not say what you mean.

Yes. Is that really polite?

Right, yeah. Which I think happens a lot here.

Well, I've certainly fallen into this trap before.

Yeah. Well, I mean, let me tell you, as somebody who's an expert on the UK, that is, I've seen some episodes of The Crown.

I know that there is there is certainly I feel like in the culture a you need to put up a face of peace.

There is we're all together.

Everybody has the best face forward, even in times of internal internal conflict.

you have to keep it all together.

I don't know, it's post -war peace.

I don't know if it's wanting everybody to feel like their unity is one, we have everything in order and there's a time and a place and what's polite and what's acceptable, what's not acceptable.

So it's much more stringent in my opinion, versus if you look at people in New York and you walk down the street, you're gonna easily, within a few minutes, tell a very big difference in the way people communicate.

And even down in South where I'm in in Texas, people communicate very differently.

It doesn't mean that it's wrong.

It's cultural. But yes, there is certainly, you're right, a time and place where being polite can go too far.

I know, I read a study once on how much more people in the UK apologize and use, I'm sorry, than those in the US, especially women.

women. Um, and it was just wild to me of now I understand when I say apologies, I'm talking unnecessary apologies, not ones that you've actually made a mistake.

It's the, I'm sorry, what it's the, Oh, I'm so sorry.

I just not saw this.

Or I had somebody, uh, two days ago, I ran into them by accident and she told me she was sorry.

All right. So that is very, yeah, yeah, yeah.

She's like, Oh, sorry.

And I was like, no, no, no, it was me.

It was, it was me who did that uh don't worry about it um and so there's a lot of I find when I'm listening there's a lot of add -ons to sentences in the UK so it's like they'll say something and then it'll be like if you don't mind could we argue that it's cultural but it's also that these phrases that we absorb growing up and we just start using right so literally I think two days ago I was in my kitchen with my wife and I was I can't remember who I was sending a text message to I don't know why I'd be even reading it out in essence I started off with hey whoever sorry to bother you yeah and then

I was going to say what I meant and and Vid said to me are you pointing sorry to bother you yeah I thought that's a good point actually because if you really unpick that and just zoom out exactly was i really sorry to bother that person i don't think i was right so therefore is that polite or is it actually disingenuous yes great word yeah yeah so i didn't use it so i was like i was calling myself out going actually yeah anyway that's perfect yeah that's what i call undervaluing your words so this is how you would you would typically start with hey hate to bother you and it's like you don't hate

it or else you wouldn't be doing it uh you know I hate to bother you sorry to bother you um you can let me know if I'm I'm wrong by the way anybody who says I could be wrong about this never thinks they're wrong about this they always think they're right about it anybody who goes I could be wrong about this they don't think they're wrong about this they think they're absolutely right about it this is bonus stuff that's not in the book yeah yeah yeah or you know I had somebody on my team um last year I brought on and she always would begin with, totally let me know if you hate this.

And you know what? Once she started talking, the first thought into my mind was, God, I hate this.

You know what I mean?

Like you, that's what happens when you say, Hey, I hate to bother you.

And you go after a while, you go, Oh, this is, this has bothered me.

Or this is very common in the US that they might say this, this is probably a dumb question.

And what happens? The other person goes, Oh no, no, no, there's no such thing as a dumb question.

They're like, Oh, you're sure there's no, I'm not have to ask my question.

And then, and then all they do when you start talking is, you go, this is the dumbest question.

Oh, that's all you can think in your mind.

So you're, you're already undercutting your words.

Instead of that, what I want you to do is use language that builds, use language that adds onto.

So instead of saying, hate to bother you, you, you either remove it entirely, like in your text, great example, or it's, hey, I like to add onto a thought here.

I like to add onto what you said.

I like to continue the conversation or like to start a conversation about X, Y, and Z.

You see how you're using forward momentum?

Yeah, I love that. Yeah.

And that's a whole lot better of adding onto, continuing, building upon rather than the hesitant language that feels like, oh no, you sure you, is that okay?

I mean, you know, let me, let me know if I'm wrong here.

You're trying to be as inconvenient as as possible.

And that can be unhealthy.

When I write emails, perhaps to somebody who I haven't spoken to for a while.

Yeah. I will often say hope you're well at the start.

Right. So I've noticed that my email communication and some of my teams is quite different.

I guess you have to have a conversation about how are we treating email?

A lot of the problems come when we don't have clarity.

A lot of problems in relationships come from unmet expectations that were never expressed in the first place, right?

And so I've noticed that I can write some quite lengthy emails.

So I guess my question to you then, Jefferson, is not is there anything wrong, but how might you suggest I improve my writing style?

profile let's say i'm going to i don't know emily for a few months yeah right so i go hey emily um hope you're doing well was just wondering if we could right or whatever it might be yeah would you say that hope you're doing well is unnecessary because genuinely i do hope she's doing well right so i don't think i'm lying help me understand that we can throw this in a lot of different contexts.

So there are phrases that we use that we really don't mean a lot.

They don't mean anything.

Most of the time they're adverbs.

Like in the US, we have a problem with adverbs where we throw in just a lot.

I just want to check in.

Just eliminate the just. I wanted to check in.

You see how much more forward that is?

Just eliminate. You're eliminating the hesitant language, or adverbs of any word that ends in L -Y, really, essentially, so basically, literally, clearly, obviously, any of that stuff you just can remove.

What I like to teach is instead of filling your sentences full of ice cubes, you need to serve your words neat.

Find ways of eliminating the stuff that you don't need.

Now you say something like, I hope you're doing well.

Do you think, is she sick?

You know what I mean?

Are you just hoping to find you well?

I feel that that's also a very cultural thing.

Um, it's also a precursor of making yourself a little comfortable right before you say what you want to say.

Same thing with you saying, just wondering if blah, blah, blah, blah.

Instead of just asking the question, would you like to go out with me on whatever, whatever.

So anytime you are getting really fuzzy with your language, it creates a lot of miscommunication and it makes you sound more hesitant, makes you sound a little bit, or are sure and unsafe.

Now, let me say, how can we fix it?

Right. How can we fix that?

So one, you eliminate your adverbs.

Two, I would, for emails specifically, let's say, I tried, my general rule is if you can't say in three sentences, you need to rework it because it's lazy writing if they're long, meaning that you really didn't put as much thought into the the actual words, as in you're just trying to find a way to make yourself feel better in that communication.

It's the same thing with like small talk before having a hard conversation with somebody.

You feel like you have to kind of warm up the chat before you can actually say what you need to say.

So they're not going to be mad at you or disappointed with you in some sense.

There's that quote.

I think it was Mark Twain.

It said, if I would have written you a shorter or letter if I'd had more time.

Yeah. Yes. So we often are not we're not very choosy with our with our words.

It creates a lot of length, which, again, creates opportunities for miscommunication.

Yeah. I love that. It's something for me personally to reflect on.

You know, certainly with each subsequent book I've written, I have very much challenged myself to make them as short as possible.

You know, when I spend probably the the same amount of time as writing it as I do editing it because it's always like, no, you said that in five paragraphs.

Can you say that in three paragraphs?

Really make every sentence count, which just makes it such a better reading experience for everyone.

It's better writing.

It's easy to write 100 ,000, 150 ,000 word book, right?

Just blurt it all out onto the page, whatever.

It's hard to compress it down to whatever, 40 ,000 or 30 ,000.

But it's worth the effort.

Totally worth it. It's worth the effort.

You take me as an attorney, right?

I have to take often what's years of a problem with my client, and I have to distill it into very bite -sized things for the jury.

They only have little questions on the jury verdict.

Yes, no, percentage, amount.

They have very short little things, meaning I have to take years of information.

I have to take five books and I have to find a way to give it to them in two sentences.

And so it's a habit of distilling words.

It's simply a habit that you create of eliminating the excessive apologies instead of the, so sorry, I'm just not getting back to this.

Use words of gratitude.

Thank you for your patience.

And you know what the other person's going to think?

I am so patient. Yes, I am.

Thank you. Thank you for that.

Thank you for your patience could mean, damn, I've been really late at replying to this.

Exactly. So you're sort of assuming in a nice way, thank you for your patience.

You don't know that they've been patient.

They could have been mad for the last 10 days that you haven't replied to their email.

You got it. So is that disingenuous, saying thank you for your patience?

No, because in some sense, I would use it really in that sense as the noun.

profound. I mean, like I, I find that anytime you're waiting for somebody's response, there's some sense of patience, whether or not it's conscious or unconscious, or you say it's, uh, thank you for the time for me to think about this, or thank you for the chance to reply, or thank you for allowing me some time to sit with this.

And whatever you're about to say next is going to sound very intentional.

Why? Because you, you taking time.

The biggest thing is you don't want to say, I'm so sorry.

So sorry. I'm not now seeing this.

So sorry. I'm just not getting back to you.

Why? Because you had priorities.

You have life. So this is really interesting.

So actually you're not sorry.

Right. Or you may not be sorry.

It may be that, listen, yeah, just because you sent me an email doesn't mean that that was my priority at that particular time in my life when you sent it.

Or ever. Or ever. Right?

Yeah. So therefore saying I'm sorry for the delay or whatever, you know, this is kind of interesting, isn't it?

It's one of those throwaway polite, polite or what we think is a polite phrase to at least acknowledge to that person right hey listen you sent this 10 days ago i'm only replying now but there is an undercurrent there where you are being disingenuous because you may genuinely not be sorry you may go right it could be that actually this is the first time i've had time in 10 days and the inclinations we've been address this email yeah so you why i'm pausing on these is Because I feel I've got much better at removing these unnecessary add -ons.

But they're still there, especially if I'm not paying attention, right?

So it's not my, like Vid, for example, my wife, she is naturally very succinct and concise.

We've always had a joke about this in our relationship, you know.

Why use unnecessary words say sort of, you know, because it's like, you know, she can say it in three words, she will say it in three words.

Yeah. You know, and it's not always I love you.

I'm more and more team wife right now.

Which is great. And I've learned from that.

But okay, that's pretty cool to be able to do that.

So yeah, I just find, I find this whole thing about unnecessary sentences really, really fascinating.

Yeah, there is, I love it.

And I also can't help it because when I hear people talking, here's another that a lot of people use.

And it is, does that make sense?

They will add that to the end of their sentence, right?

right? I know why they use it.

People use it because they want to make sure that what they are saying makes logical sense.

Those of you listening might use it with your patients.

If you're a doctor, you might use it with your clients, your customers, whatever it is.

You're using it to make sure that what you said makes logical sense.

Which is a good thing.

Now, what the other person hears is one of two things.

They either hear that you you don't think they're smart enough.

So you need to make sure they understand it because you don't think they got it.

You don't think they grasped it.

Or you don't sound like you know what you're talking about.

So you have to make sure that you know what you're talking about.

Does that make sense?

You know, I mean, that's, that's, that's what happens.

So a lot of the times, let's say for a doctor, they might be explaining something very, very, very high complex. And at the end, they go, does that make sense?

And the other person, they don't want to sound like they're dumb.

They're going to go, oh, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

And then inside they're going, no, that does not make sense at all.

Most of the time when people are asked, does that make sense?

We say yes, because we don't want to say no, because we don't want to seem like we're the dumb ones.

So what I would change that to is what are your thoughts or what do you think or do you have any questions that's really what that's really what you're asking for is engagement of if you have any input and if you don't really want their input it's better that you just don't don't say it yeah that one's really interesting because i do use that okay i i do yeah so you're yeah i do use does that make sense yeah and And it's not bad.

No, no. OK, so this is really interesting.

So maybe, you know, I would use it to ensure that because I am keen that what I say lands.

So I would make the case that I'm saying it out of respect to make sure that, hey, if it wasn't clear, please let me know and I can try and explain it a different way.

OK. But I agree with you also that if you really want to check understanding, for example, there are other ways to say it which could be better.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's exactly right.

Man, I love this stuff.

This is fun stuff. I love this stuff.

Before we wrap this up, I'm interested in the fact that you're a drummer.

Oh, yeah. OK. So as we were chatting about before, we're both key musicians.

We both played in bands for years.

I am the singer and the front man.

OK. Knew it. Yeah. And interestingly, you're the drummer, right?

And I'm thinking, OK, does that make sense to me from what I get from Jefferson, his groundedness, his self -assurance, his.

his, um, yeah, his persona.

I don't think it does.

Yeah. You're probably right.

I've never been asked that question, but I'm seeing some similarities.

So yeah. Why do you think you became a drummer?

I've always loved the drums. Um, probably cause I like to hit stuff with sticks, but it, um, if you look at the comparison of percussion and music, and we compare that to your words and communication.

The song can sound very different depending on the drums, the tempo.

Are you going to use more of a kind of a reggae beat?

Are you going to go halftime?

Are you doing it? Are you doing something where, you know these videos that you can find online of people playing different drums, different methods for different styles, and you get a different, totally different for an outcome.

My personality is that the drums set the tempo of the conversation or the music, same thing.

And so if I want to lead the communication, I know I have to set the tempo.

So I have to, if I want, if things are going too fast, I'm going to pull back.

If I want to make you feel comfortable, then I'm going to behave and act and communicate in the pocket, so to speak, where you're not going too fast, you're not dragging, you're not rushing, you're right exactly where everybody feels like they're not.

And that part, for anybody who's not familiar with In the Pocket, that's the part where you're listening in the music where everybody sounds like they're in sync, and you start to kind of bob your head.

Why? Because it sounds good to you.

It makes sense to you.

It's not something that's too much. It's not something that's too soft. It's just easy listening.

And so that kind of genre is probably about right, using the drumming analogy yeah it was funny I've been deep into your work the last couple of days and yesterday as part of my research when I found out you were a drummer I was like yeah I think that fits yeah I never thought I've never thought I kind of think that fits I mean one thing I've always said is that you cannot you can't hide a poor drummer in a band yeah you can't hide a bad drummer in the same sense of it's you have to lead with your your words and you have to set the the tone, the pace and making sure that it's all in the pocket.

I've always considered my personality as just always feeling like you're you're in the pocket.

You feel comfortable.

You feel confident.

You don't have to feel like you're overreaching.

You can feel like you can connect.

Yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's so awesome.

I love that. We could talk music.

We could. Well, that kind of actually brings us full circle back to the start when you were telling me about that weekend when you were eight years old, when you went away with all the guys in your family, the trial lawyers.

Yeah. Because what I really got from that was that you learned that weekend that your voice was a powerful tool.

Right. And if you learn how to use that powerful tool, you can do amazing things out there in the world.

Yeah. You can you can change your life.

You can change your life.

You know, as you say, you can change any relationship at any moment by changing the way you communicate.

Jefferson, I love what you do.

I think this book is absolutely fantastic.

I think the content you put out online is so helpful for people.

To finish this conversation off, for that person who feels that they're not a good communicator and feels that a lot of the problems in their life come from an inability to communicate effectively, effectively, you've shared a lot of tips already throughout this conversation.

Of course, there's a lot more in your book, but have you got any final parting words for that guy?

Yeah. For the person who feels like their voice is not something they're proud of.

One, I want them to understand where that comes from.

I actually do the work to understand where does that come from in your life.

Two, the fact that you're listening to this episode, all right that means you're already on your way to improving the way you communicate so hats off to you actually caring about your communication and choosing to invest in your communication three i promise you that when you begin to feel comfortable not just in your own skin but in your words and understand the legacy you want to leave the reputation you want to have the the person you you want to be in their life.

It truly comes from what you say.

Magical things can happen.

Understand that conflict can be used for good.

Conflict is both positive and negative.

Every decision you've made has been some sort of conflict.

You had to leave one relationship to find another.

You had to leave one job to find another.

So understand we are always improving.

I mean, you continue to improve as you tell me every four to six weeks you take with your family and you really think, how's this podcast going to change?

I take plenty of time to go, oh, how could I have improved that, that sentence?

I don't want you to hear this episode and go, I guess they got it all together.

And I don't, we're always, we're always figuring out better ways to improve our, our life.

There's one little quick trick that I'll give you.

And it's because this is probably one of the most popular when you feel like you have to disagree with somebody and you're a little little hesitant on it.

And you don't really feel, you need to feel like you tell them, hope, hope you're well, or you feel like you need to be a little soft about it.

You, um, what I would encourage you to say is instead of, I disagree, change it to, I see things differently.

I see things differently.

Ronan, you've already used this, uh, in our conversation today.

And I think that's, you already, you already did without even knowing you're doing it.

That's how good you are.

when you say I see things differently you're using words of perspective so words like look I look at it in a different way I take another approach I see things differently people won't get defensive and it's a great way to start to hear the power of your own voice if you want a better world it begins with a better conversation yeah Jefferson the book is The Next Conversation argue less talk more thank you so much for coming on the show thanks for having me really hope you enjoyed that conversation do think about one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life and also have a think

about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else remember when you teach someone it not only helps them it also helps you learn and retain the information now before you go just wanted to let you know know about Friday Five.

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[Mastering the Art of Conversation: Insights from Jefferson Fisher]-[The Art of Communication: How to Stay Calm, Connected and In Control During Life’s Toughest Moments with Jefferson Fisher #571]

📋 Summary

Mastering the Art of Conversation: Moving from Conflict to Connection

The Real Obstacle: The Tip of the Iceberg

The Three Essential Principles

The Power of the Breath and Silence

Addressing the Causes, Not the Symptoms

Practical Reframing for Daily Life

Conclusion

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[Mastering the Art of Conversation: Insights from Jefferson Fisher]-[The Art of Communication: How to Stay Calm, Connected and In Control During Life’s Toughest Moments with Jefferson Fisher #571]

📋 Summary

Mastering the Art of Conversation: Moving from Conflict to Connection

The Real Obstacle: The Tip of the Iceberg

The Three Essential Principles

The Power of the Breath and Silence

Addressing the Causes, Not the Symptoms

Practical Reframing for Daily Life

Conclusion

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🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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