If I were trying to earn your respect throughout this conversation, if I were to want to come across as somebody that I know what I'm talking about, if I was somebody that wants to come across as being high value, what do you think is the biggest thing that I should focus on for me to portray that to you? It's a feeling, and that feeling is warmth. If you really want to portray confidence, there's the temptation to feel like you have to be big.
You need to be right in their face. Hey, high energy, high impact all the time. That does not convey confidence right away.
It conveys desperation. It might convey eagerness. It might convey too much.
So if somebody is just, you're sitting with me or with anybody and you come on super strong, that might throw off the equilibrium of the conversation where it's going, oh, this is too much. I'm just getting to know you. So it's much more easier if you think about the feeling of warmth and what that is and how that sounds and how that resonates with you. So if I want to portray confidence, it's to slow down my words, to make sure that I don't up talk with things.
It's to make sure that I am pausing correctly with you and making eye contact and having that intention. I'm not looking around the room. I'm focused right with you. My chins.
up. I'm not looking down. My shoulders are back. And I'm just wanting to engage fully with who you are and who I am and making sure that we match the same frequency rather than coming in hot and heavy. Why do you think people come on too strong in conversations?
A desire to be loved, a desire to be liked, a desire to feel like they are special and they're different from somebody else. It's just overcompensating most of the time. If somebody is, you're wanting to project high energy.
It's different if you're performing in front of a whole bunch of people, you're speaking to a bigger audience. Got it. You need to have that energy because it has to be spread over a much bigger number of people. But if it's just one person, you don't need to come on that strong. It's much easier just to meet them where they are.
In other words, I don't have to come parachute into the conversation. I just need to walk up and shake your hand. And they need to feel that in your voice and your tone and your tenor.
and how that operates. Yeah, I mean, I've noticed with myself that the lower my self-esteem was at the time, the more I needed to fake it in a conversation and try to show up in a way that wasn't who I was because I was so miserable with the person that I was. I felt that the other person would automatically know that there was something wrong with me because of the way that I was feeling. And then what I realized is, most people aren't really paying attention to that.
You actually look more unconfident. when you're trying to fake it to somebody throughout the course of a conversation. I'm wondering, I know for me, it helped me a lot to work on myself through other mechanisms, fitness, my relationship to myself, my personal relationships, purpose, and so on, that that allowed me to be able to, I think, sit here and be able to have these conversations like this.
Do you think that for you personally, Is that the way to appear more high value, high level of self-respect, et cetera? Or is it just exposure therapy through practice, through having conversations like this? It's a comfort with yourself. Exposure helps just by repetition.
You can only know so much. It has to have application. But it comes from within. I see this a lot of time in a jury trial. So as a litigator, I go to court.
And often I will have a witness or I'm cross-examining a witness who is trying to be somebody they think the jurors and the jury want them to be. They want to need to portray some, maybe they need to portray sympathy, hoping to gather sympathy from the jury. But people have a sixth sense about them.
We can just tell. There's no way to really put words to it, but it's very easy to go. That person. is not being true to who they are.
Something is off. Something is, I can't describe it, but I can just feel it. I can hear it.
You know it when you see it. And so there's that temptation to be something different than who you are, but that typically draws away. It doesn't, it rarely, if ever gives you the outcome that you want.
Authenticity is being exactly who you are on the inside as you are on the outside. People, it's... leave the window fronts for shopping, but don't make it your home base of who you are and your personality, because eventually it's going to either hurt the relationship that you're trying to have, which is based upon a falsity, or it's going to eventually grind you down. Because after a while, it's just going to be friction. And that's going to have a rub and that's going to get worn.
And that's going to be hard to, you're going to have that identity crisis further down the road. Much better to be who you are now. Yeah, we often have that problem with overcorrection, right? Where if we're feeling a lack of self-esteem, we want to overcorrect it by trying to portray that we have a higher level of self-esteem than we actually do.
And people can pick up on that right away. But I will say, I think on the opposite end of that. I can tell a lot by somebody when they shake my hand.
If they have a weak handshake, I can just tell like they're struggling. They got something going on. They have a low level of self-esteem. Maybe this is me overgeneralizing, but for the most part, that's just maybe my perception and my bias and people who walk with and looking at the ground when they're walking, because I did all of that and I wasn't very confident.
So do you think in situations like that where people are feeling less confident? passive. They're maybe not an extrovert, but they're trying to appear confident.
How, in your experience, like what's the best way for somebody to bridge that gap so that they're not turning somebody off by being too passive, having a weak handshake, looking down, but they're also not coming out as this over charismatic person, which can be easy for people to pick up on right away. It's a, it's a balance. And that balance is specific to you. context.
It's specific to the situation and a lot of different factors. There's this fear, and it's a type of psychological threat of identity. And that makes you question, what if they don't like me? What if they don't like who I am?
Is who I am enough in this moment? And that causes you to have, maybe not the weak handshake, but it causes you to feel down, to have that negative energy. Whereas on the opposite end, if you're always, always needing to be the person to say something, often the person who says the most knows the least. You've been in those boardroom meetings and the person who's always chiming in is typically the person who's least connected with what's going on. But the confident person, the authentic person knows that they don't have anything to prove.
So the advice is understand you have nothing to prove. Your value is exactly what your value is. You don't dilute it by saying too much. You don't undervalue it by not saying enough.
So it's this understanding of, I don't have anything to prove, not with my words, not with my actions. I know exactly who I am. And that allows you to be able to use pauses more effectively. It allows you to have stronger conversations because less is often more.
when your words are more concentrated, when you say less, confident people know they don't have to have an answer to everything. They don't have to say every little thing that comes to their mind. The person who's the most knowledgeable in the room, typically in that board meeting, is the one who says the least. And so it's always the reverse of what we originally think. Speaking of practicing the pause, if you will, I know that that can be a very valuable technique.
when you're in the midst of a high conflict situation. You're in the midst of a high conflict conversation is learning to take a step back, look at things objectively, instead of just reacting in the moment. You know, I talk a lot about relationships on the podcast, and it's pretty obviously well known at this point. One of the biggest things that destroys relationships is the couple's inability to navigate conflict.
What are some of the things that you've used throughout the course of your marriage and in your relationships that have really helped you use conflict as a way, as a mechanism for growth? There's several different tools that I use that I have developed over time. My favorite and most used is what I also train my clients in, in litigation, is let your breath be the first word that you say. So you think of...
your breath as where a word would be. You just put a breath and you lead with that in your sentence. So if somebody is going to say something that's going to make you defensive, instead of going, I didn't say that.
That's not what I said. And you immediately just, boom, boom, boom, boom. You've now ratcheted up five levels.
Instead, when you have a breath where they say something ugly and you, I did not say that. Now you have way more control. Now you have a much more firmer grasp. So that helps you control.
yourself. Another tool or thought that I allow myself to use is I just picture words that are not helpful. I just let them fall to the ground.
I, you, you picture as their words coming out, they're not helpful. They just fall. We have this fear that we have to catch every single thing that somebody says, as if it's tennis, we have to hit it right back. It's a baseball.
We got to catch it. We got to swing. Some pitches are balls.
Not everything is a strike. And so if you're just swinging at every pitch that's thrown, it's going to tire you out. It's going to frustrate you.
It's going to frustrate the other person. And you're going to hit a foul. You know, if we're going to go with the baseball metaphor here. And so when you have the ability to understand just because you said something does not mean I have to say something.
Not everything you said deserves a response. You don't have to attend every argument that you're invited to. There is a wisdom and a peace and a comfort and a confidence that comes with knowing I don't have to say anything that I don't want to say.
And often that gives you an immense sense of confidence going into the conflict. I know you're a big fan of Chris Voss as well. He's been on the podcast where he talks a lot about tactical empathy. I know you're a fan of that as well.
For people who aren't as familiar with that term, maybe they didn't catch that episode. Why do you think that's so effective when trying to dissolve not only just conflict, but to bridge relationships closer together? Well, I know Chris could. explain it better than me, but what I understand tactical empathy to be is really informative empathy.
Let's say it that way. By understanding the other person's struggle, by being who you are as a human, it makes you easier to relate to them and be curious to create that connection. So if he uses that a lot by labeling and by mirroring. So if you were to say something to me, And, um, I don't know, let's, let's, uh, let me come up with a sentence. If somebody says, you always talk that way to me when we're in front of people, I could respond with in front of people.
Yeah. In front of people. And they, and they will give you a whole nother paragraph and then you do it again and you continue to listen.
And while you're listening, you are having that empathy of that must not feel great. No, it doesn't feel great. And they keep on talking to you and you, I bet that that probably makes you feel bad.
Like if I were you, I'd feel, I'd feel rough about that. I apologize. And they'll use that you use as a way to continue to roll with it. But the word tactical is really, um, I think just kind of a, a sexy word for it, but it's, to me, it's just, it's a way that somebody's feeling informs you of the empathy that you can use in that given situation.
Right. Because at the end of the day, I feel like when people are in some sort of argument, the other person just wants to be felt and heard. Yeah, they just want acknowledgement. That's mostly it.
You don't even, as long as you acknowledge somebody, you don't have to agree with them. Agreement is typically not what they want. They just want to feel like you understood them.
I think one of the biggest problems with some of this stuff that we're recently talking about is people want to feel like they're. they're respecting themselves and they're standing up for themselves. They're not letting people walk all over them in conversation. And some of the stuff that we've been talking about over the last few minutes is really how to make the other person feel heard, how to not pour gasoline on the existing fire with our words.
In the context of speaking with authority and conviction and standing up for yourself to somebody, what have you found to be an effective way to do so? Without being disrespectful. Well, I see two sides of that question.
You know, there is what we just talked about, the person's desire to feel acknowledged, to feel heard. And you can do that with phrases like, that's helpful for me to know. I've learned that X is important to you, or I understand that this is important to you. And you can lower their barrier that way.
But to continue to stand up for you. There's got to be a boundary. There's a lot of, I'm going to use the word peace, that in clarity that comes with putting a frame around your life and around the conversation. That means you are focusing what is in it and excluding what is not.
Just like you would put a piece of frame, a frame around a piece of art, you are enhancing what's inside it. So if you want to put up a boundary, with somebody. Somebody's pushing your buttons.
You need to say no. You need to stand up for it. You're using assertive language.
So what I like to give it for people is you're giving them a manual. rather than giving them a remote. So instead of letting them control your behavior by pushing all your buttons, you're telling them, I don't accept the way you talk to me.
So there's a difference in saying, you can't talk to me that way. I don't allow people to speak to me that way. So, um, or even stronger, somebody says, you can't speak to me that way.
I don't respond to that. I guess just this. shift of this reactive versus responding in a way that keeps you grounded by having a boundary of what's important to you and how you're going to speak and how you're going to assert yourself in the conversation.
So in real time, if you and I, let's just pretend we're actually having coffee right now. Oh yeah. Coffee sounds good. I need some. And you say something to me about something and I go, that sounds really stupid of you.
What would be the, instead of you, what would be like the real time, like response to me in that situation? There's two that come to mind. Let's assume that we are friends, that we know each other. We're good. My immediate reaction would be, was, was that meant to be hurtful or were you just being funny?
Get that to clarify. I'm giving them that grace of, I know you didn't mean to. I know you didn't mean to insult me.
Now, if we're not friends, I'm going to let that linger, give it five seconds of quiet, and then repeat what you just said or ask you to repeat what you just said. So if you said something, and for example, if I just had quiet, I could say, so that sounds stupid to you. All I'm doing is repeating it. And then they go, well, what I meant was, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what you're doing is saying, hey, I'm standing here.
I'm standing right here. And I'm not moving. So understand if I don't like something, I will push it back rather than me continue to carry your words and me feel less and less and less of myself. So we talked about how the biggest asset you can have is using your breath and practicing the pause before saying anything in the midst of high conflict situations or conversations like we just went over.
Is the opposite also true? Because you hear a lot of people, and I've definitely been guilty of this, is like the tick for tack. Like somebody says something to you and you try to one up with them with something else.
And it's just this never ending battle to the bottom, right? Right. It's a race to the bottom is exactly what it is. Is that the biggest mistake you see people make is just this tick for tack approach when they're-Yeah. It's this perception that you have to win the argument.
When my advice is always never win the argument. That winning an argument is not a thing. If you win an argument, you've, you've won contempt. You've, you've won regret.
Uh, you've won resentment. It's there's, it's a lose, lose game. Um, what you've really lost is that person's respect.
You might've lost the relationship, the connection that you once had, because you thought that saying that hurtful thing was going to make you win. It was going to end the conversation. Like in a negotiation, the advice is the person who speaks loses, right? Well, in a relationship you want to build, it's typically the person who speaks last loses because you went too far.
You ratchet, you ratchet. So as soon as, let's say you said something to me, Doug, that was at a louder tone. If I go louder than you, in my mind, I'm winning.
I need to beat you. Well, I've now just done two things. I've justified your ability to go even louder.
I've also just confirmed every fear that you had about me. I've now confirmed every thought you had. I am rude.
I am ugly because I haven't denied it. I've just given you all the tools and resources to feel even more afraid. So it's like, it doesn't make sense to me that how would you respond to a threat with a... bigger threat often that just, that does not create connection with the other person.
It doesn't, it just makes them not like you more. So that's, that's, that's kind of the advice that I always fall back to is that if you win an argument, your priorities are in the wrong place. It is a, it is a race to the bottom.
Whenever you just ratchet it, eventually it hits a tipping point. you know the the sympathetic turns into the parasympathetic the ratchet the fight or flight you did something too you fought too hard you threw that very hurtful word and now it's the cooling point where you feel regret you feel dread you feel sad and you go i just feel bad about the whole thing and then you focus on what matters but you should have done it in reverse yeah there's nothing that drives somebody more nuts like in the midst of a high conflict conversation is when when the other person says like nothing you know they kind of walk away and it really drives that i can't believe they're not reacting and responding yeah how i am right and it's like it's like sometimes when you send like a hurtful text another person just doesn't respond you just send more and more and more it's killing somebody yeah because you wanted that dopamine right you wanted that like you wanted that like yes they are fighting back with me and you feel powerless now because you feel like that person has gained authority over you because they're not giving in exactly to what you want like why are we so driven to not walk away from arguments, even though deep down we know that that's how we gain respect, authority, value through somebody else's eyes is by knowing when to walk away. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. What's worth your time?
And exactly right. You can shoot that text that you thought was a zinger, right? You thought you just sent that zinger of a text and then they don't respond to it. And all of a sudden... When five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes go by, it feels less and less like a zinger and more and more like you're wearing, you know, the dummy hat.
I'm like, why did I send that? Ah, this doesn't make, and now you're frustrated. Now you realize, oh, they just have full control over my emotions.
Now I feel like I'm, you know, I'm not anywhere where I need to be. You know, meanwhile, they look like they're calm, cool, and the bigger person. And do you think that's like an ego thing that like people, they just.
their ego gets in the way, their self-esteem gets in the way, and that's why they feel they just can't walk away. And they feel that if they're not winning this argument or being quote unquote right, that it's just a reflection of how they feel about themselves. That's part of it. I think it's part of the bigger picture.
It has a lot to do with your upbringing, I think, and just what you saw as conflict. Some people, I grew up in homes at my house. My parents didn't really argue in front of us. They went in another room.
needed to have some words. There are other people who had it all out right there in the open. Didn't matter where they were. It could be at a restaurant. It could be at the house.
It could be in front of other kids. So conflict looks different to other people. And some people have grown up in that very toxic argument behavior where they do say the terrible things, where they understand the really bad arguments as a process of feelings or to get it out. So it's relative, really, to how they grew up. So ego is part of it.
But a lot, I think, too, is what they learned and imitated to see as their measure of this is how to handle conflict. They weren't taught or equipped better ways. What do you think gets in the way of that?
Is it when somebody wasn't raised in a way that modeled healthy conflict, they get into conflicts as adults. A lot of times there's physical. symptoms that come along with the conflict because you're in fight or flight mode. Do you think that is harder for people to deal with or is it the lack of understanding on healthy conversation tactics in the midst of something like that?
Well, I think the behavior is learned. I mean, I don't think, you know, we're born, we're born to say no, you know, to not like. I got two kids.
I didn't need to teach them how to argue with me. They just did it. You want them to have this certain food. No, I don't want this. It's their favorite word growing up.
No, that doesn't need to be taught. It's just within our system. But the people who that's what they grew up with are these toxic behaviors, I think are much more prone to not knowing how to handle it. Now, on the other side, there are people that were taught it. They just find that when they behave a certain way, they get their sense of power.
They get their sense of ego. They think this is what success is. They think this is what it is to achieve and to overcome and be machismo with it all. I think there is a fine line between using what you know and falling back to what you think works. Speaking of being charged, I know throughout the course of your life you've struggled with anxiety panic attacks etc it's recent It's been like the last few years.
Yeah. Well, I mean, over the last, I mean, I know it exacerbated for you, I believe, right? When you started your Instagram channel and things start to really pick up, right?
Yeah. When it started blowing up. Where did that all come from and how did you begin to diffuse it in a way where it wasn't bringing you down so much?
I'm one of these people, Doug, that I will, I'm a thinker. I'm a internal processor. So I think a lot on things.
Whereas my wife. Talks all the time out loud. That's how she processes. I'm the opposite. And when social media was starting to take off, totally unknown to me, because this is not why I got into this space.
I never had ever the goal still of gaining followers or this is what I want to be. It just started happening. And that was overwhelming in some sense, terrifying because this time last year, I didn't. I might have had maybe 200,000 followers, which I thought was just absolutely bonkers. And then within a course of a week, I was gaining, I had gained over a million.
I was gaining over a hundred thousand followers a day, just randomly about this time last year. And I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't, I just, the number just kept going.
But I felt extremely exposed. That's what did it. I felt very alone and very exposed.
because I was not prepared for this. I did not expect this and nobody in my life can relate to it as much as my family, my best friends, they don't get it. They it's, it's not, it's not happening to them. And we don't see, you know, I don't see a million people in a room all of a sudden, but they're there. So that just felt very alone.
Um, that night at the kitchen table. Yeah. I mean, I'll blame it on The Rock. That's fine.
But he'll take it. Like when I saw that he started following me, it was commenting on my stuff. It was like, I just, I kind of got dizzy for a second.
Like, what is happening? I make videos in my car. What are you talking about? And it was late at night at the kitchen table.
And then that's when it just... All of a sudden, the way I explain it is I felt like somebody just wafted a sheet of paper in front of me. Like I felt a cool breeze almost. And then all of a sudden, my ears started thumping.
I mean, you know it. And I had never felt that feeling before. I was convinced I was dying. I told my wife I was absolutely dying. And the way I've dealt with it is to, one, recognize when it happens.
It's a very familiar feeling. Like you know when it's happening. Once you've had it once, you know.
And then. breathing is the number one thing that helps for me. I started therapy for it and I've worked through that.
I did that for about eight months and breathing is the biggest thing that helped. I just felt alone. I didn't know anybody anywhere around me where they've called themselves an influencer, even though I don't even like that word.
And I just, I couldn't talk to anybody like, Hey, what do you do? How do I, what do I do with this now? There's a lot of that. Do you think if you had had other people in your life that were in the creative space at that time, you would have still felt alone? Or do you think because a lot of people, when they get to that point, when they have a lot of success, fame, et cetera, they talk about this, how they feel way more alone than they ever did before.
Yeah, it's it's different in the sense of I'm not really I'm I'm followed in the social media world, but I'm not a celebrity. It's like this hyper reality of like, I'm not I can go out to wherever I want. And. Some people might recognize me because of social media, but most of all, I'm not, I don't got paparazzi around me.
I'm not that kind of type. It's not, I'm not even anywhere close to that. So it is, I could see how that could be much more lonely versus in my life.
I still go to law firm. I still work cases. I still do regular stuff. Nothing in my life has changed.
Zero. Aside from the number that was on my phone, the digits and pixels that showed a number show a different number. That's much bigger.
But it was just that if I had known other people who had large followings, then yeah, I could probably feel better about it. But there's not like a blog. It's like, oh, hey, you blew up and now have millions of followers.
Here's what to do next. You know, there's just no, there's no, none of that for me. But so who was a big, still has kind of been a a big brother type to me was Andrew Huberman. So he, he started following my stuff and we got to talking. I was like, man, can I just.
like use five minutes of your time. He's like, absolutely. Within like 30 minutes, he and I are on the phone and he's honestly just making me feel more normal.
Like what's, what's happening. And so I'm always, I will always be grateful to him for that. Yeah. I know Andrew. He's a great guy.
Super great guy. What was it that made your account take off? Was it a specific reel? Was it a specific couple of reels? Like, do you, are you able to pinpoint anything?
So it was about this time last year that I was starting. I was just now starting to post once a week. I was doing it like once every two weeks. And then I started to slowly do it once a day. Well, out of nowhere, I had, this is what happened.
I had free videos I had posted two weeks before all just start going nuts and they were all feeding off each other. And then they are all in the millions of views. And then everything just started. It was all, it was, it was, my stuff was getting shown to.
whatever you call it, your for you page or your other stuff where it's your non-followers. And they were just following it like crazy. And I related to, I was like, there's been a mistake because all of my analytics went quiet.
I didn't see any more follows. I didn't get a single, it was all gone. I was getting notifications of just like follow, follow, follow, follow, but there was zero analytics. And then four days later, I saw it and it was like a huge spike where I gained like 120,000 followers that day. And then the next day it was like everything was over 100,000 followers for like a solid week and a half.
I just thought I thought Instagram messed up. I thought in my view, like, you know, that scene in a movie where like the security guard late at night, like has a bunch of screens and he falls asleep and his coffee pours on the keyboard. You know, it was like that. That's what I was confident.
I was like, somebody's made a mistake. That's what happened is all the same stuff. I think it just, it found the right message to the right people. Which videos of yours seem to relate most to your audience, to the algorithm, to the people that follow you?
The ones that seem to do most who, uh, to, to the, let's just say the algorithms form of success are ones that are conflict driven. So if I'm dealing with a bad argument, you're dealing with somebody who's narcissistic. You're dealing with somebody who is a difficult personality. The hard stuff, the ugly stuff, the difficult stuff, how to maneuver those types of things tend to go, tend to hit more.
But I'm hesitant to talk too much about narcissism. I'll do a video about that like every five weeks ago, you know, five, six weeks or so. I just feel like it's too much of a dynamite.
for some people you know it's just some people that they make it their whole page all about that like we didn't even have this word i feel like two years ago it wasn't even a real word so i gotta gotta be careful too many people are real quick to just paint somebody as a narcissist just because they said something they don't like so i'm very very cautious uh about using that word yeah it becomes desensitized now for the people that actually are dealing with somebody who's like a diagnosed narcissist, now their voice isn't heard as loud because the word's been so overexposed. I don't think I've seen any DM from somebody who just said, hey, I am going through something with a regular ex, a nice ex of mine. No, it's always a narcissistic ex. Every time it's whoever is not in my life anymore or who is anymore.
It's always a narcissist. I'm not going to say they haven't been diagnosed. I'm just saying there is a sense of discernment you need to come into that conversation with. And for somebody who has a lot of followers and gives advice, that's just all the more responsibility to be very careful with your words. And so for more difficult scenarios like the ones that you're talking about, harder conversations, people who are quote unquote difficult, is this the same playbook?
Take the breath. practice the pause it's the same thing yeah it's a lot of the same thing except you just you know when to walk away very quickly because their words can be much more harmful understanding that when you're dealing with somebody who's a narcissistic type it is a game in a sense they either want to provoke you or they want the praise from you and there's a a line that comes with that so it's more of informing them when they're in those situations and giving them a sense of Just because you walk away does not mean you're a bad person. Just because you need to step away from a conversation does not mean that you've lost. Often it's you've won. You've won that you're peace of mind.
What are you walking away from or what are you walking away with? And that's the difference. Obviously, in your line of work, it can be easy to feel manipulated, feel like your reality can be warped and that maybe your truth.
isn't your truth. You question whether or not what you're thinking is actually what's going on because of just the dynamics of a court case or maybe what another lawyer might be saying to you or whatever. And I think this also happens a lot in these more difficult conversations where because of the words of somebody else and what they're saying to them, the person could have started out great, felt confident, felt, you know.
Like they had a level of self-respect, but now they're like, oh no, like maybe is this person right? Like, am I really doing those things? How do you, how do you maintain that balance to where you are able to understand whether or not somebody's words to you are actually true and that, you know, you're not questioning your own reality in that situation?
Well, that touches on the elements of gaslighting, right? If somebody actually coming in and trying to take advantage of you by distorting your sense of reality and truth. What comes to mind is twofold.
Really, you maintain that balance by understanding who you are and loving who you are. Often we want to look to other people for that validation of love because we have a hard time loving ourselves. And the more you are good with who you are, The more you're okay with, I'm okay if you misunderstand me.
I'm okay. You know, if that's what you need to do, you go do it. I'll let you. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to take down anything else that I have.
So there's that sense of loving who you are. The second end of that is to be firm. Often when I talk about it in terms of people who want to.
break up your self-esteem, who try to gaslight you in certain ways. It's somewhat like the laser pointer with a cat, right? They want to jump you from place to place to place, even though you get there and there's no laser. It's all just distraction.
It's manipulation. In that sense, you need to stand still and be still. One of the best ways to do that is to use phrases that I teach are... I remember things differently. I see that differently.
I take another approach. It's often just using and repeating the same phrases. Repeating means that you're standing still because they might bring something up to you and you have that knee jerk reaction and go, that's not what happened. That's not what I said.
That's not true. You're just jumping around to where they want you. And it's not where that is. Versus. If I just repeat what I said, I see things differently.
They want to distract you. You just repeat. I see things differently.
You're standing still. It's like the person who's not responding to that text. You're saying, I got control over me.
And that's the only person who does. Do you think there's benefit to saying, one of the things I've used in the past is like, it's okay. Like you have your truth.
I have my truth. You have yours. perception of reality. I have my perception of reality, neither are right or wrong, but we're going to have to agree or disagree on this.
Like, do you think that saying something like that can be effective or am I not being assertive enough? It depends on the situation. You know, it depends how, how much this person matters to you. Often I like to use an opening of, is this something we have to agree on? I use that a lot.
I say a lot. I mean, I use that as a opening frequently is, is this something we have to agree on? Most always the answer is no, because then it keys you into priority. Is this something that matters?
Is this something we really want to fight over? The second answer is if it is something you need to agree on, the question is, is that something we need to agree on now, at this exact moment, at this exact second? Or if we wait until tomorrow or next week, is the world going to shut down? And so timing is a big aspect.
Because often people will try to push you into conversations. And the problem you fall into is when you agree to get into the ring, when you're not ready, you're tired, you're hungry, you know, you're not, you're not, you haven't worked out that day. You have, you have built up tension. You don't go into the match if you're not prepared for it.
So often you're just not ready. So you need to make sure that when you are, the conversation happens on your schedule, not theirs. And is there anything that somebody can do beforehand before entering into a planned discussion that may get heated? Like, for instance, if people who are dating get into some sort of argument, like, let's take some space, come back in an hour, two hours, whatever.
Is there any kind of best practices for being able to make sure you're coming together in a healthy way? What I try to tell people is use a frame around the conversation. You frame it, which is somewhat similar to others who talk about this, but it is calling your shot is what I say. Like an old baseball player, you're pointing into left field.
That's where we're going. So right at the beginning of the conversation. Say, I want you to know that before we talk about this, at the end of this conversation, that's key. At the end of this conversation, I still love you.
I still care about you. I still want to be friends. I still want to do this.
And then you go into, so here's what we want to talk about. So you make it very short and concise of what you are to talk about. But what you're doing is eliminating the unknowns.
How often somebody in a conversation you have to start to feel fear of like, if I say what I really want to say, am I going to lose this person? Well, you remove that barrier when you say, hey, I want to have a discussion with you about X, Y and Z. But just know at the end of it, I'm still going to respect who you are. We're still going to choose to love each other. And it's like you're getting their permission and their acknowledgement.
And now they know the parameters. Now they know the discussion. It's much harder when you go, hey, we need to talk.
Talk about what? Anything. You know, how does it end?
Who knows? Yeah, that's, that just, that all it does is bring anxiety of, I have no idea where we're going. And so that's what you're leaving an open pasture for you just to roam. That's what the conversation lasts forever because there's no fence. You just, you're just going wherever it goes.
And then you realize, wow, where did this even start? How did we even get to this point? So if you come in from a frame. you're going to be much stronger because you're giving people less choices.
Like if you're going to, I guess as a kid, you know, pick out a pair of shoes. If you have like 30 shoes on the wall, you're going to take a whole lot more time. But if I give you two, here's the two subjects we want to talk about, whether that's much easier to digest. And then it makes conversations feel a lot more productive once you've chosen one, you know? I know you probably don't want to be overly structured with some of these conversations.
especially if it's like in a romantic setting. But do you think that there's benefit to having some sort of time limit within that frame so that the other person makes sure that they're feeling heard too and they don't feel like the other person who maybe is setting the tone for the conversation is taking up a bunch of time to talk and then now an hour has gone by, somebody's got to go to work, somebody's got to take care of the kids, whatever the example is. Do you think there's an effective way to make sure that both people can hear each other out?
Yeah. I mean, one tactic is to say, okay, I'm going to let, I'm giving you five minutes. Here's my phone. We're going to agree. You get five minutes to say whatever you want to say.
And I'm not going to say a word. Whatever is on your mind about this, you get to say it all. And then I get five minutes and I get to say all that I want.
And then at the end of it, that's the end of it. We're not going to bring it up again. You know, I mean, you get to lay those parameters as a couple, as a relationship, if that works for you or not.
But what it does make sure is you get to say what you want and I'm not going to be defensive about it. We're both just going to vent, pour it out, get it out, because often that's all you needed to do anyway, is just to get it out. What about like non-physical cues, body language?
We talked at the beginning when somebody's trying to, in conversation, you know, gain. authority, respect, value from somebody, eye contact, chest up, shoulders back. I mean, you also hear a lot about people who like, you know, they cross their arms that can, that can give off a certain.
So what are some, some tips you have for body language? Well, again, it depends on the person, you know, who you, how familiar you are. Like, I know where my brother is mad, you know, way before anybody else knows, you know, I. You know of sisters who can come home from a first date and she hated them. As soon as she walks through the door, they just know.
So crossing the arms, yeah, that's a classic. Just close. Any closed position where either my body's turned away from you, my face is turned away from you, my eyes are looking away from you. Anything that says, I'm not wanting to directly engage.
Now, that doesn't all the time mean that you're not wanting to engage. Maybe you're thinking of something. Maybe looking at somebody's eyes bothers you.
I'll tell people typically try to. try to look at their eyebrows. People can't tell the difference. So if that, that really sets you off, you can look at their eyebrows and they really won't know.
Um, especially if you're standing farther, farther away, people who have a bigger breath. So they, I mean, that's just that longer, big exhale that you can tell, okay, they're, they're not in a good, they're not in a good state of mind. Maybe their fins, fists are clenched or they're real fidgety.
But again, if you, maybe if you have ADHD, that's You're on a whole different spectrum. I mean, you're not going to be able to, yeah, that's much harder to, that's much harder to tell. So it's, it generally just goes with the vibe.
Like in my view, everybody comes into an argument or a conversation with a particular frequency, just like a radio station. Can you tap into that radio frequency, turn the knob and get there or not? So that's, that's the, that's the real cue. How do you show up in conversation?
Like, what are some things that, what's your body language like when you're? getting ready to sit down for an uncomfortable discussion with somebody? Smile. That's my, because it makes me happier.
It's not really so much for them. It's for me. I need, I want to feel like I am at all times positive, confident, and settled.
So you have to think in your mind, the values you want to portray. So there are things called conversational values that I'm a big proponent of. That is, every time you get into a conversation, what is the value that you're wanting to stand by?
Like a company has their own values. They have their own brand that people know them by because that is the corporate message that they have sent out for their company. The same way it applies to you as in your human body.
I apply my values to what I want to be. So one of my values is where there is room for kindness, I will use it. Any time, if there's space anywhere in that conversation for kindness, I will choose it, period.
I don't care if they've been ugly to me. Is there space for kindness? That's what I'm going to do.
Then it's not a question. I don't have to think about what I say. I know that my value drives my action.
So another one that I have is if I can't be a bridge, be a lighthouse. That's fine. If they need to go away from me, if we don't need to talk anymore, that's fine.
But you know what? I'm still going to be light. I'm still going to be positive. I'm still going to be somebody who you know is here in case you need me. So these values of conversational values help you show up more as you, because these values align with who you are as a person.
So you have to think, whatever I'm wanting to portray, it does not work unless it becomes you. That's who I want to be in this conversation. I know we talked earlier about like... somebody's portraying this false sense of confidence they're you know overly charismatic they're just talking loud you know for no reason all these things is there a way that the average person could pick up if somebody's being fake to them when somebody's just not telling them the truth other than let's just say that they're not overly charismatic is there like i mean there was that there used to be that thing where if they looked to the right or the left or something they weren't telling the truth i don't know if that's that's that's a thing or not like what are your thoughts on that Yeah, there's ones of like, if you look a certain direction, that means like you're thinking or trying to find information. If you look another way, trying to hide it.
I don't know how valid that is. But I know that typically you can tell if somebody is not being their authentic self is if you can just sense it in the little bitty details. So maybe it's the way their eye looks right after they say something.
Maybe it's. The way their inflection is, you know, if you ask somebody a question, they go, um, yeah. You know, like that makes it sound like you're not nearly as sure. Or maybe they laugh a certain way that they typically don't laugh. Or something feels forced.
It's often the cue. Now, that smile felt forced. That laugh, that word, that intonation in your voice felt forced.
And if anytime it's forced, it means it's not natural. And that just feels out of place with people. One way often you can... call out that kind of behavior, not really call it out, but inspect it a little closer, is to ask somebody to repeat what they said.
They usually will because they have to like, oh, I got to, okay, now I got to get in the mindset again. Now I got to rehearse. I just gave it to you.
Okay, now I've got to do it again. And then you're making them realize that there's a stark contrast in their behavior. So that happens pretty frequently, especially in my world in litigation. When you're conversating with somebody, do you lose respect faster when you can tell somebody is not respecting themselves or when somebody says something disrespectful to you?
When somebody says something disrespectful to you, if you don't respect yourself, that's a place for me to show you grace and kindness and patience. Like, yeah, I'll give you time for that. I understand. Yeah, you shouldn't have said that.
This is what I'm thinking. Yeah, you shouldn't have said that, but I'm going to let it go. You know you shouldn't have said it. Versus if they say something much uglier that was only meant to hurt, again, it depends on context.
But yeah, you can lose respect for them much faster when they choose harm over healing. Do you think conflict can be settled at all through text messages or online messaging? Or do you think when it comes to friendships? professional relationships romantic relationships it's always going to be best to hop on the phone video chat in-person meeting yeah i mean they can be if you and the person are mature and intelligent and give each other the benefit of the doubt and not make a you know mountain out of a molehill but if you're not or if you don't know each other that well always much wiser to just pick up the phone let them hear your voice uh that makes a a a big difference i i i do it count i mean i do all the time yeah text and text with my wife and oof i got a response that felt very cold uh you know it anytime you get the k texas okay oh well okay she they're ready to destroy me you know my life is over i just got a k or an mk and mk like there's all different ways that we go oh that doesn't sound that doesn't sound good It depends on the person. Like my dad, my dad will just text, okay, to anything really you send him.
I just know that's him. And I'll call him and he'll be like, oh, that's fantastic. But, you know, the text you got. So it just depends on the person.
But yeah, you're never going to go wrong getting to hear their voice. And besides, a lot of times hearing your voice can make somebody's day. We are meant to hear and connect and speak as humans.
It's not good for humans not to talk to other humans. I was always, there's that show. I forgot what it's called.
It's like they go, they send them to Alaska for like, say, spend a hundred days alone in Alaska. Oh yeah. I know what you're talking about. Yeah. And for, and at first they love it.
They're so excited. They build their shelter. They're like, oh yes, I just, you know, got, I just harvested this rabbit and I'm doing all this. But by like 20 days, they're like, I haven't spoken to anybody.
I miss my friends. I miss hearing people's voices. It's the loneliness that gets them.
It's not their capability. I just found that really interesting. What are some subtle ways that people can sound more intelligent when they're speaking?
I think sometimes people want to say, when you'll hear people say, if somebody says like a lot or um, that they don't sound as intelligent. I say, I say like a lot and um, and I'm like, I think I still am pretty, pretty smart, but I know you get better. So what are your thoughts on just some subtle ways people can improve? Yeah, you want to try to eliminate filler words the best you can, but it depends on context.
So if you and I are just talking and I'm just being casual, say like and um as much as you want. But if you're in front of a presentation, a group of people, and you need to persuade, like and um become distractions. That's the problem. It's not that they're not comfortable, everybody uses them. It's that they're distractions.
And that distraction is telling you, I'm not confident. I'm not knowledgeable. I'm nervous.
And people start to pick up on those little bitty things. So all you need to do is just replace that filler with silence and you sound a thousand times more confident. Then it sounds intentional.
But yeah, it doesn't mean that there's something bad about them. I mean, I use them in just normal everyday speech, but it's when you want to, when you're on a different level of conversation with somebody that it makes a difference. So if you're like my boss or something. You see how I just said that? If you're like my boss, then if I need to approach you about a salary or whatever.
I come up to you and I say, yeah, okay. So like I am, okay, here's the thing. I like am really concerned about my, you've lost them. Yeah, you just wasted 12 seconds of them going, okay, whatever is coming out of your mouth, I'm already not wanting to hear it. Or if you say, hey, I hate to bother you.
Great, you just told them, what I'm about to do is bother you. So, so. buckle in. There's these just phrases and ways to talk that there aren't going to be the best foot forward if you want to come off with confidence. So the best way is just to be direct.
Like if you were talking to your boss and you wanted to raise saying something like, hey, I want to talk to you about something that's super important to me. I would even make it more specific. I'd like to talk to you about my salary.
When's the best time we can visit? Okay. Yeah. Just right out of the gate.
And there's no question. Because you have to think from their point of view. As somebody who's of the employer side, what are they thinking? They don't want to be blindsided either. So why do you make it to where you wait until you're face-to-face for them to have any clue of what you're talking about?
You need to be able to prep them for that conversation. You need to let them massage it, let them think about things. So the more specific, the better. And you think it's better just to leave with that out of the gate? Sometimes people will...
put a buffer at the beginning like hey hope you're doing well if you had a great weekend hope that blah blah blah yeah you just think it's just be direct with it yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah because it they know that's not that doesn't matter they know it it's the same way with delivering bad news right if you're going to deliver bad news same delivering bad news is the same way delivering sensitive i want to have a sensitive conversation with somebody if if you or i need to deliver bad news and i say hey so how how are you So how you been? I know, I know. Yeah.
You're doing good. You feeling all right. Okay. Okay.
Well, I got, I got some things to tell you. And I mean, you're just going, just making them twist off in the wind of going, okay, what's, what's happening. What's going on here. Are you, are you quitting? Are you not quitting?
What's, what's going on versus if you were to come out right out of the gate and with bad news, they say to you, just go, I got bad news and give it a two second beat. I need to let you go. Well, now, now they know. Great.
But if you need to have a sensitive conversation about something, it's much easier to say, hey, I need to talk to you about what you said at the party on Friday. When's a good time to talk? And be very specific.
And then they know. Then they're prepared. Instead of just the vague text, we need to talk, period.
Nobody likes that. Nobody loves that text. We need to talk. Talk about what?
Yeah. Be more specific. And if the other person doesn't respond to that?
do you give them any time window before like i mean like for instance like if it's a relationship situation you're texting somebody like hey i'd like to speak with you about what you said to me on friday and they don't respond to you about it or they beat around the bush or whatever do you follow up with him with them about it in a few days a few like a week like how does how do you handle that because sometimes that does happen yeah well it depends how much that person matters to you but the fact that they don't want to interact should mean maybe you've made a mistake on how high up that person is on your priority list or how important you are to that person. Because often people will want you for what you give them, not the other way around. And so if they're not willing to talk with you and reason with you and empathize with you and listen, they may not be your person. They might just want to use you for whatever. I feel like if they're not one to engage, that is a big red flag of they don't value you as much as you think they do, which is a hard realization.
How some people just might, they might miss the text. They might not get it. They might try and push it off.
But understand if it's, if it's important to you, it should be important to them. That's a great place for us to end our convo. So Jefferson, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciated this conversation.
Um, people want to learn more about what you're doing. If they want to follow along with you on social media, where's the best place to do that? You can go to Instagram, Facebook, wherever search Jefferson Fisher, you'll find it. I have a law firm where I help people in personal injury called Fisher firm.
Uh, but yeah, so I'm there. Awesome, man. Well, thank you so much once again for coming on the show.
Really enjoyed the conversation and I think my audience is going to love it as well. Awesome. Thanks for having me, Doug. I enjoyed it, man. You got it.
Thank you so much for watching. If you like this video, I really think you're going to like this video as well. I'll see you there.