The Gaslighting & Conversation Expert: This Is A Sign You’ll Divorce in 10 Years!

Trial Lawyer and leading communication expert JEFFERSON FISHER reveals how gaslighting and narcissism work, why people don’t listen to you, and the courtroom tricks for respect and power! Jefferson Fisher is a Texas trial lawyer and leading communication expert. He is the founder of Fisher Firm, creator of The Jefferson Fisher School of Communication, and author of the book, “The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More”. He explains: ◼️The fastest way to spot a narcissist in under 30 seconds ◼️The phrase that instantly exposes gaslighting ◼️Why people stop respecting you mid conversation ◼️The courtroom trick that makes people listen ◼️How to control any conversation without raising your voice 00:00 Intro 02:56 These Communication Skills Will Change Your Life and Career Trajectory 09:40 How to Have Control Over Conversations 12:14 The Psychology Behind Feeling Comfortable in Any Conversation 15:42 How Your Body Language Can Influence Others’ Opinions 20:38 The Traits of Confident People 22:40 Dealing With Difficult Conversations and Gaslighters 24:38 The Words Gaslighters Use Against You 31:00 The Attachment Style Most at Risk of Being Gaslighted 39:19 This Is What Manipulators and Narcissists Do 42:55 How to Stop a Narcissist 49:15 Your Reactions Reveal So Much About You 51:21 How to Stop Being Easily Triggered 55:00 How Being Honest With People Can Help You 01:00:34 How Our Parents’ Arguments Shaped Our Love Relationships 01:15:19 Find Your Priorities and Set Your Boundaries 01:17:20 People Pleasers 01:23:01 Relationship Arguments: Can They Be Good? 01:25:24 A Big Indicator That Something Really Matters to Your Partner 01:33:19 The Secret to Spot Anyone Being Fake 01:34:58 The Fake Laughs 01:42:05 These Small Moments Will Have the Biggest Impact on Impressions 01:53:30 Top 5 Things to Become the Best Communicator at Anything 02:03:02 Phones Have Become Our Pacifier to Relieve Anxiety 02:04:25 Stop Overexplaining 02:08:11 The Power of Taking Pauses to Think 02:10:50 One of the Best Traits of Leaders 02:17:43 How to Help Someone Grieving 02:27:09 The Counterattack to Bullies: Expose Them 02:34:22 Huge Relationship Unlock: Energy Checking With Your Parent 02:40:16 The Predictor of Whether a Relationship Will Last Follow Jefferson: Instagram - https://bit.ly/4pzxZ21 Facebook - https://bit.ly/4rUhTS6 TikTok - https://bit.ly/4aihiDv YouTube - https://bit.ly/3YplSIG You can pre-order ‘The Next Conversation Workbook’, here: https://amzn.to/3XSHOvH The Diary Of A CEO: ◼️Join DOAC circle here - https://doaccircle.com/ ◼️Buy The Diary Of A CEO book here - https://smarturl.it/DOACbook ◼️The 1% Diary is back - limited time only - https://bit.ly/3YFbJbt ◼️The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards (Second Edition) - https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb ◼️Get email updates - https://bit.ly/diary-of-a-ceo-yt ◼️Follow Steven - https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Adobe - https://Adobe. Ly/OneBetter Wispr - Get 14 days of Wispr Flow for free at https://wisprflow.ai/DOAC Stan: NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. For Official Rules, visit https://DaretoDream.stan.store

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Steven Bartlett?

  What are the five most important things for anyone who's striving to be a masterful communicator, to get what they want out of life?

• 0:07Speaker 01

  The first is authenticity. And presence is the highest form of authenticity.

• 0:12Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, so on that point, I'm gonna play this video on the screen that went viral of Miley Cyrus and Amy Campbell.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  I haven't seen this.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  That's painful to watch.

• 0:20Steven Bartlett?

  Number two.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  Reduce the amount of distraction. Three, stop over explaining.

• 0:25Steven Bartlett?

  Number four.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  Know how to deal with their sadness. And I'll go through all of these in detail. But number five is, you have to know how to handle the narcissist and the gaslighter. What do I do? Let me show you. First, you need to...

• 0:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, for a lot of people, that kind of blows their minds. Jefferson Fisher is back, and the board-certified trial lawyer is using his expertise in conflict resolution and communication to teach couples, friends, employees,

• 0:52Speaker 02

  and everyone in between, how to master difficult conversations.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  Here's the truth: you have to invest in your communication. If I don't say what needs to be said at work, I'll lose that promotion. Same thing in relationships. Most relationships don't fall apart because they fell out of love. They fell out of communication because of 100 moments where repair could have happened and it didn't. Because you said, "Ah, this is so stupid. This is so small." Like, there's a recent study showing that the biggest predictor of the child's well-being within the parental relationship is not whether they were married or divorced. It was how they dealt with conflict. But people are definitely afraid of the conflict that they're in because they don't know what to say. And so I want to help them feel controlled enough, feel confident in this. And it's knowing things like being right is overrated. Or if I respond first with frustration, I'm gonna lose every time. Or if you want to know how to handle the insults, the patronizing, the dismissive,

• 1:40Speaker 01

  the first thing you have to do is...

• 1:43Steven Bartlett?

  That's the mistake I've made multiple times.

• 1:47Steven Bartlett?

  Just give me 30 seconds of your time. Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week. It means the world to all of us, and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started. And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the 24% of people that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app. Here's a promise I'm gonna make to you. I'm gonna do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future. We're gonna deliver the guests that you want me to speak to, and we're gonna continue to keep doing all of the things you love about this show. Thank you.

• 2:31Steven Bartlett?

  Jefferson Fisher. What you do professionally? What is your, how do you sort of characterize your profession?

• 2:38Speaker 01

  Well, I'm a trial attorney by trade.

• 2:40Steven Bartlett?

  What does that mean?

• 2:42Speaker 01

  That means I help clients with legal needs. I'm board certified in personal injury. It's when people get hurt. I have trials. So that means there are other attorneys that don't ever go to a courtroom. I go into a courtroom.

• 2:56Steven Bartlett?

  And you stand before a judge?

• 2:57Speaker 01

  A bailiff, yeah. You have a judge, you have a jury, you have a court reporter, a bailiff, you have opposing attorneys. There are people in the room.

• 3:04Steven Bartlett?

  And you try and convince those people of your point of view to get a particular outcome?

• 3:08Speaker 01

  I advocate my client's facts in order to get the result that they want.

• 3:12Steven Bartlett?

  So why did you think it was important to write a book about conversation, talking, getting what you want from the conversations we have with people we care about?

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Because I have seen time and time again that when I am training a client, is what I call, I'm preparing them for cross-examination, for deposition, they really don't know how to engage in conflict. And so I can't think of any other profession that is more entrenched in conflict, maybe outside of a boxer or some UFC something, that deals with actual conflict and sits there and listens to it all than in the legal world, in a trial attorney. And so, yeah, it's my job to advocate, based on my client's facts, to get them the result that they want. The reason why I wrote that book and how that book applies is I took a lot of the lessons that I teach every one of my clients and put them in that book because I'm sitting there

• 4:08Speaker 01

  preparing them for cross-examination and realizing, oh, wait, they are deathly afraid of the conflict that they're in. Because most of the time, it's the most emotional, stressful, overwhelmed they are ever in their life. They're in a place they've never been. They don't know what it's like. They've only seen it on TV. And so it's my job to kind of take their hand and say, this is how we're gonna, this is how we're gonna do it.

• 4:33Steven Bartlett?

  And how does that apply to the average person in their life?

• 4:36Speaker 01

  People think that... The goal of any argument or any conversation is to win. And same for a trial. They say you want to win a trial. I've seen it so many times where I've gotten the result that they want and I've realized they still have the problem. They still wanted the apology. It all would have been resolved. There'd be no case if somebody just said, "I'm sorry." And so you find that for the everyday person, it's my job now and passion to be able to help them get into conflict and say, "I feel controlled in this. I feel confident in this. Now I know exactly where I'm going in this because I've been there before." And it is not a skill that comes naturally.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  It is a skill that is learned.

• 5:24Steven Bartlett?

  And what do you think is the sort of variance in outcome? How would my life change if I became an absolute master in this? You know, if I started from zero in this regard and then I became a master in dealing with conflict and dealing with difficult people and dealing with people that gaslight me and dealing with narcissists and all these kinds of things, why would my life be different? And in what domains?

• 5:47Speaker 01

  It's quite a lot.

• 5:47Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  First would be you would be equipped for, outside of necessary expertise, anywhere you wanted to be in life. People feel like communication is zero cost. It costs you something. If I'm not speaking up in that relationship, it costs my own sense of worth. If I don't say what needs to be said at work, well, I might have lost that promotion. Everything, the bill always comes due. If you can think of every time you didn't say the thing as like a receipt at a restaurant, every time it's it's a bill of what I am not putting into my life because I chose to either say something or not say something at the right time.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  And when you realize that if I can speak with confidence, well, that's me gaining a little bit more. If I can say things with control, that's me gaining just a little bit more. A second benefit of it is that you realize being right is overrated.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  If you tell me the sky is purple, knock yourself out, Stephen. They don't have to touch anything with me on who I am or any of my opinions. We're opinion-making machines. I feel that's all on social media. It's to be set up to give your opinion on things that most of the time will rarely ever touch you. And if you can have the peace of mind of knowing, I don't need to agree with you to understand you. If you have an opinion, I don't have to give one back. If you say something, I can choose not to say anything at all. And for a lot of people, that kind of blows their mind of, you mean, I don't have to respond? No, you don't have to say anything. If somebody's talking really fast, you can talk really slow.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  They forget that you have full autonomy in it. And when you realize that it's you who's taking the wheel, you take the wheel of your life.

• 7:42Steven Bartlett?

  But what about justice, Jefferson?

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:45Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know, justice, like, this person has wronged me. They've said something wrong. They've, I don't know, they tweeted at me something which is incorrect. I need to correct the record, justice. I think we all have a sort of innate sense of justice. We want things to be fair and right.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Yes. Justice is an inherent value that is high priority for a lot of people, for good reason. You might say, well, they've wronged me. This isn't right. That's all well and good. The question is going to be, how long do you want to carry it? How long do you want to carry that feeling? Because I can either choose to let it go. I can choose to say the thing. It's not at all my position that you should be stepping on eggshells and not say the thing and be a wallflower. No, it's the opposite. I'm saying you say what you need to say in a way that is controlled, in a way that is signaling, I'm saying this because it needs to be said, but not because I have to say it. There's a lot of people who feel like, well, something needs to be said.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  But am I, maybe you're not the one to say it. Maybe you're the one that needs to, it doesn't need to be said right now. Because if they're not willing to listen, well, then what good does it ever do? What I like to say is, you know, For you to learn how to stand up for yourself, you first have to learn who's worth getting out of your chair for. I'm not gonna be making big moves for something that is not at all worth my, my time. So yeah, justice is absolutely worth it. But when you go, I'm the one that has to be carrying this. A lot of the times, people do things to you and it's nothing to them. But yet it's everything to you.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  And now you're just, you're walking around for 20 years with a comment that you could have said something way long ago and decided to drop it, but you, you chose to, to carry it. And now you're the only one that has the, the weight of that.

• 9:40Steven Bartlett?

  If I'm dealing with someone who's in a position of power, someone who's a, I don't know, a senior to me at my company, or even someone who in my social group is a bit more higher up in the sort of social pecking order, and they're continually putting me down or being difficult, or even a partner that I'm romantically involved in. What are the hallmarks of someone who has control over their communication? And what are the hallmarks of someone that doesn't? Like, what is it that makes? Cause when you speak, it's very, feels very composed and controlled. What are you intentionally doing to achieve that effect?

• 10:10Speaker 01

  I'm wanting you to match my rhythm. I'm wanting you to come to my frequency. People get it wrong when they go big time to an 11, big emotional reaction. If I have a big emotional outburst, am I signaling that I'm somebody who's trustworthy, reliable and confident? Or am I signaling that I am out of my depth? I don't know what I want and I am not to be believed. Right? Because it's, when you have an emotional outburst, everybody thinks this is, you're just being emotional. And they don't, all of a sudden, you're not credited for the truth of what you're saying. So sometimes emotions can get in the way of what needs to be said because of how you're delivering it.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  So when I say, I'm gonna talk to you in a way that's gonna sound more controlled. It's, I'm slowing down my words. I'm lowering my volume. Why? Because I want to pull you down here. And if I can pull you down here, well, then we can talk about a lot harder things rather than feeling like I have to, to rush. So if you wanna talk to somebody in your relationship, or somebody that's kinda higher up on the pecking order, so to speak, when you can show them that- Change doesn't bother you. When you can show them that you don't have to rush through this situation. People feel that you are giving them a sense of comfort. In other words, in conversation, everybody is looking for an anchor.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  When you go to a meeting, we listen to the person who's the anchor. They're usually the person who says a lot less. The person who's observing and listening rather than always giving their opinion about what you should be doing. Those are the people you don't listen to. As soon as you, if you've ever heard somebody say, you know what I think you should do? Does that ever make you wanna do what they said? No, it's because they, they've made it their idea. Now they're telling you what to do. If I were to say to you, you can't do that. What's the first thing you think of? Yes, I can. You know, it's, it's the same kind of concept where it's me lowering to be the anchor in the conversation.

• 12:14Steven Bartlett?

  And when you're in a case in front of a judge, is, is there anything else that you're intentionally thinking about with, I don't know, your body language or the eye contact or any of these other things that you've learned over time are really important to get your message heard?

• 12:27Speaker 01

  I'm speaking like I've been there before.

• 12:29Steven Bartlett?

  Explain that to me.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  Walk into a room like you've been there before. As if everybody else is just visiting. So what I do before every trial is I will go in there before the jury comes in. The judge comes in, everybody comes in. And I say to myself, this is my living room and everybody else is just visiting. And so I will touch the chairs. I will put my hands on the banisters. I will walk around. I will fill that space and, and feel it in a way of saying, I have been here before. And when I can exude that kind of confidence that every juror that watches, all of a sudden it calms them down. They go, who can I rely on here? Who's more trustworthy? Who's more credible? Because that's what it is.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  When you're, when you're persuading, when you are advocating your case, it's who, ultimately it comes down to who is more credible. And so when I can not get emotionally flustered, like I've seen it so many times where a judge rules against me.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  And I act as though that's exactly what I wanted. You know, I'm acting as though, "Thank you, Judge." And the jury is never gonna know really any different. But I've seen on other attorneys where the judge rules against them and they go... Or they roll their eyes, or they act frustrated. And what does the juror think? "Oh, they must not have wanted me to hear this information." "This must have been bad for their case." So if you are always reacting to situations in which you have to be emotional with, in a sense that you're not paying attention to who's watching you.

• 14:10Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, on that point.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:11Steven Bartlett?

  So when you say "rules against you," you mean during the trial, there's something you request.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 14:16Steven Bartlett?

  The judge might say, "No," and you say, "Thank you, Judge."

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:18Steven Bartlett?

  You act as if you're not defeated.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  You act as though that's exactly what you expected. It's the whole idea of, "That's not gonna shake me." So a lot of the times you'll see in real court, not TV, the judge will say, "Council, can you approach?" And both attorneys come up and they play some kind of noise cancellations where only the attorneys can hear the judge. And the judge is making a decision at that time that we don't want to let the jury know. Why? Because it's information that might sway the case in some way and not be as objective. And you have to pay attention to how the attorneys are walking away after that meeting's done. If somebody looks defeated, it just signals, "Oh, this is information that they must not want." Or they're objecting.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  I've seen so many cases where there's one attorney who objects to everything. It's my rule if I really want to have one objection the whole trial. Because to the jury, an objection is me keeping evidence out. So if you always object, always object, always object, you're just signaling there's information I don't want you to hear. But if I have the confidence of knowing there's really one objection, I know that's gonna be material to my case. The way they know I've been there before. This is not something that's going to be making or breaking my case. It's all of credibility. If they don't trust me, they're not going to trust my client or my client's case.

• 15:42Steven Bartlett?

  I think also it illuminates to me how much of communication is non-verbal. Because in that example, you're just talking about how they're watching your body language and how you've received something.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:51Steven Bartlett?

  And if you were defensive with all those objections, or if you were defeated in the judge's ruling, that would work against you, even though it's really nothing was said, like nothing significant was said.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a balance of knowing, am I going to choose to react because of personal ego if I didn't get my way? Or am I having the better mindset of I'm advocating on behalf of my client? Like, I've been, let's say you're a witness and you're opposed to me and I'm asking you a question. And I think you said something that's contrary to the evidence that I have right here. Rather than me getting messed up saying, are you sure about that, Mr. Barlow? Let me go, you know, I have this piece of paper here and I get really worked up. Versus me putting, you said something and I put my hand on the paper and I said, you sure? Like, all of a sudden, it's a moment of, it kind of piques their interest of like,

• 16:49Speaker 01

  what's happening? Oh, this attorney knows. This attorney is somebody who's confident and has this, what I call in the pocket presence. I'm not trying to be too forward. I'm not trying to be too back. I'm just in the pocket, like a jazz band. Like, everybody is on, everybody's on beat. And so I'm not rushing. I'm not slowing down. I'm just right in the pocket.

• 17:11Steven Bartlett?

  In the pocket. Is that what people call aura?

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Swagger, maybe is some people call it. Yeah, aura. You could have it for anything in any context. I like to say in the pocket because it just reminds me of.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  The right timing is my timing. And that is, I'm gonna match how I need to be of what's most authentic, what's most genuine to me. If you were to ask me to read something really fast, it wouldn't sound that great because that's not, that's not my personality. And so if I know that I am acting and speaking in accordance with the values that I hold, and I'm saying, everybody here is just, is just visiting. This is, I've been here before. Let me, y'all don't know where to go? Let me show you. And I have that kind of mentality. People will listen to you forever. They'll, they'll find that attractive of saying, how does this person know where they're going? I can, I can follow them. It's just, it's natural leadership to speak in a way that says,

• 18:08Speaker 01

  I know where I'm going, I've been here before.

• 18:10Steven Bartlett?

  I think that's probably good advice for people who have important meetings or are going on dates.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:16Steven Bartlett?

  To maybe get there ahead of time and familiarize yourself with the location.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:20Steven Bartlett?

  Just so you, you know, you don't have the added anxiety of like stumbling through the physical environment, like looking for the thing or trying to find the toilet or.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 18:28Steven Bartlett?

  I don't know, trying to figure out how to make the PowerPoint presentation airdrop onto the screen and all those kinds of things, which we've all seen before.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I always, anytime I go to speak, I spoke this past week in Santa Barbara. I went ahead of time before my speaking time to go. I wanna see what the room looks like. I wanna see, how can I touch and say hi to the people that are working AV? How can I meet them? How can I? If you really wanna be better as a professional speaker, talk to people in the crowd before you speak. Get to know people's names. It's gonna naturally lower you. Get to know their names. Ask them why they're here. Say, I'm so thankful that you're here. I'm really looking forward to the message and getting to talk to you today. When you, when you can go in and touch people, it's a different sense than if I'm going into a room totally cold because you don't really have the vibe. You don't really know how that is.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  So yeah, going into a restaurant ahead of time, that's great. Not bringing your phone, even better. You know, getting able to be a sense of knowing, I've been here before. I wanna welcome you to my space.

• 19:31Steven Bartlett?

  When we talk about people that have aura, you must have met a lot of people in your career and your life generally that you felt had a sense of aura.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:39Steven Bartlett?

  What was it about them that gave them that aura? What is it?

• 19:45Speaker 01

  It's a frequency of peace for me.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  I think of people, and you think of people in your life, who you have felt most comfortable with. The person you feel like, I can just be myself. I can finally let everything down. And for me, it was my grandparents' house. As soon as I walk in, it's a different feeling of time kind of stands still. They want to know about me. They want to know how am I doing? It's that feeling. I could talk about people who seem like they have aura and they just have a glow about them. It's usually of, they're not trying to prove anything to anybody. They just naturally exude that kind of charisma

• 20:32Speaker 01

  because of the security of knowing who they are and what they can do.

• 20:38Steven Bartlett?

  And I guess, what's the opposite of that then? Sometimes it's easier to understand something by understanding the opposite. What would that look like?

• 20:45Speaker 01

  I would say that authentic people, authentic aura, as you said, doesn't come from people securing themselves to you. That's for insecure people. The people who are authentic know that I am good exactly where I'm at. Oh, you want to rush? I'm really no rush. What happens today, happens today. Is it really due today? Or could it be done tomorrow if I had to? If it's a slower pace, I find that there is so much kind of what they call cowboy wisdom on these kind of things where, and I'm from Texas in the south,

• 21:27Speaker 01

  so it's kind of this knowing that the right time will come when that time is right and not having to push that. So if you want to look at the opposite, it's the opposite of aura is insecure. It's name dropping. It's having to be friends immediately. It's having to prove to you how much money I have. Or it's everything else being everything to everybody else except myself.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  People who have a sense of style, their own sense of style, naturally have an aura. Why? Because they don't care what in the world anybody else is wearing. This is what I like. My daughter, alright, she's six. We tried setting out clothes. Forget it. She can come down in a leopard print tutu and her sunglasses and whatever she wants. And you know what? She thinks she is the flyest thing in the world. I mean, that's... I never want to take that out of her. The people who have a sense of fashion, the sense of who I am. And they didn't have to look cool to anybody, social standard. But it's, do they really care what anybody else thinks? Usually, the people with aura do not.

• 22:40Steven Bartlett?

  And sometimes when you come up against, I mean, we were talking before we started recording about since this book's publication, what have been people saying to you and what have the chapters, what are the chapters that have stood out the most to people? And you mentioned that it tends to be things around dealing with difficult conversations, dealing with difficult people.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:58Steven Bartlett?

  And one of the phrases that's been arguably overused a lot in society is this phrase, "gaslighting."

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:05Steven Bartlett?

  And the definition of gaslighting that I managed to pull was, "Gaslighting is psychological manipulation where one person purposefully lies or manipulates the other to make them doubt their own reality, memory, or sanity." Do people talk to you about gaslighting a lot?

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:20Steven Bartlett?

  Now that you've written this book?

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:22Steven Bartlett?

  And what do you think gaslighting is? It's one of those things that's been used so often that we almost have to like pause for a second just to define it again?

• 23:27Speaker 01

  Yes. Let me put it this way. The difference between gaslighting and lying. Lying is a surface level of,

• 23:39Speaker 01

  I could tell you, instead of having a silver cup, this is a red cup. Well, that would be a lie. Gaslighting is, I'm trying to alter your reality into mine. I'm trying to make you question how other people perceive you, including myself, how you perceive yourself. If anybody's ever questioned, "Am I crazy? Am I the crazy one? Is it me? Is it everybody?" Most likely, you're probably being gaslit. And here's the truth. I have been the gaslighter. Everybody has been the gaslighter, whether they intentionally know it or not. Because it's all that feeling of...

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Preservation of defensiveness of I don't want people to know the truth of of what's happening in my life, so I'm going to mislead. And gaslighting the intent is to alter your reality, to make you question what is real and what is not.

• 24:37Steven Bartlett?

  So I might do something wrong and then I might come home and know that I've done something wrong and intentionally try and sell my partner a version of reality that makes them fundamentally question what they know to try and spare me the critique or to control them?

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Yes, to protect yourself. It's it's it's self preservation. Say, let's say you and your partner had come home from a dinner. All right, and you're just in a very critical mood. And maybe you're trying to to distract from something else that's going on in your life. And you're being critical of a story that she shared at dinner. And you're like, why did you, why would you ever say that? And she goes, everything was fine. You're like, fine, no, it was not. Did you not see how they reacted? No, no, no, no, listen. I know you don't want to hear this, but everybody feels that, you know, you're a little bit much. And I'm, I'm the one that needs to tell you this. You see how you're all of a sudden starting to alter how she feels in that moment?

• 25:37Speaker 01

  And I've seen the the other side of that. And it is, it is not at all something that you can come back from without serious relationship work to be able to find a way to say, OK, what's, how are we really walking in truth? Because you get so far away from radical honesty in conversation. So gaslighting is, is, is not something to be taken lightly. But I will say people often apply to the wrong thing. They'll use it as a sense of saying, you're saying something I don't like, so you're gaslighting me. You know, we're in an argument and you're pointing out something that hurt your feelings. Oh, that's gaslighting. And they, they use it as an excuse.

• 26:16Steven Bartlett?

  It's almost a form of gaslighting.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Exactly. That's exactly right. And in a weird way, it can reverse that way. But imagine me saying something hurtful to you and you go, that really hurt my feelings. I go, that's just my boundary. Let's just have a boundary about everything. Or this is, you're just. Gaslighting me, you know, I've never met somebody who talked about their ex without saying my narcissistic ex, you know, I finally just got out of a narcissistic relationship. It's never us, right? It's always the other, it's always the other person. And so there's these words that we can kind of pepper and salt in the sentences that are also still another form. If we look at it, a form of self-preservation, look at all their bad and don't look at mine.

• 26:54Steven Bartlett?

  Why is it important that we don't gaslight others? And I ask this question because everybody listening now is probably going to want the answer to the question, which is what, what do I do about a gaslighter?

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:04Steven Bartlett?

  But again, this is avoiding the responsibility that we all have a, like a tendency or at some point in our life have gaslighted somebody else.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:13Steven Bartlett?

  And, you know, I don't think my audience is just the gaslighted.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 27:20Steven Bartlett?

  Statistically, clearly you're also all the gaslighters.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:24Steven Bartlett?

  So how do, um, why is it important that we don't gaslight other people? And is there a way for us to avoid, you know, getting into a situation where our backs against the wall and we end up gaslighting someone?

• 27:34Speaker 01

  It's important not to gaslight somebody because every time you do, you're moving yourself further and further from the truth, the truth of how you feel, the truth of your relationship. You are withholding reality from that other person rather than having radical honesty about what's, what's happening. So it degrades the relationship. It degrades another person's self-worth. And in many ways, gaslighting steals their reality. It's not something you can give back without a lot of work. It's, it's taking in some sense.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Now, it can be absolutely intentional and it can also be unintentional as a form of self-preservation. And if you feel like you are being gaslit, the secret to knowing is slowing down the conversation. If I am staying still in the conversation, meaning you could say something to me, that's a form of gaslighting, making me question, did I, oh my goodness, did I really say that? Did I really hurt their feelings? No, I, did I? And get into my head and I start kind of jumping around and trying to change what I did. But if I were to say,

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Stephen, I remember that differently. And that's where I stop. Then you can try other things and I'm gonna repeat. Yeah, I remember that differently. It's standing in the truth of what you know, rather than being concerned and misled by giving someone the reins and the leash to drag you around.

• 29:15Steven Bartlett?

  And if I am, if I think about, I think it's thinking about all the times where I've, I think I might have gaslit someone, you know, in relationships, backs against the wall, and you're having an argument with someone, or it's quite difficult in my head to know the difference between the word, like, just saying something that isn't necessarily true, or is that, is your perception of things versus, like, gaslighting. Is the, is the difference in your mind intention? Like, is if I, if I give my version of reality?

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:45Steven Bartlett?

  We were at that party, you said this thing, I saw the person roll their eyes, and then they walked away, I think they're really offended, I think you offended them.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:52Steven Bartlett?

  What's the difference between that and me gaslighting someone?

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Of, between lying and gaslighting, or it's?

• 29:58Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, like, I'm trying to understand, in that context you gave about going to a party, someone said something, and then they walk away. What's the difference between if that's how you saw reality, and you're communicating it, versus gaslighting someone?

• 30:08Speaker 01

  It, to the intention.

• 30:10Steven Bartlett?

  It's the intention part.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  And the tension is, I'm the one in control, not you.

• 30:15Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  So you are trying to control the narrative. You are trying to be both director, producer, and actor.

• 30:22Steven Bartlett?

  For your own agenda.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  That's right, for your own film.

• 30:25Steven Bartlett?

  And for control.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm the character in my own movie. I'm the main character. And you need to behave this way, you need to believe this, you need to act upon that. And so the more I can try to manipulate that reality, and what's so wild is, it becomes so manipulated that you believe it too. Now, now that, that falsehood has now become your fact, in some sense, that the really good liars convince themselves that that lie is, is the truth.

• 31:00Steven Bartlett?

  Is there a certain type of person that's more susceptible to being gaslit, or to being victimized in any way with conversation, in your view?

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Anxious attachment. The ones that are, they...

• 31:12Speaker 01

  People who can't regulate by themselves, they have to co-regulate. Meaning, most of the time, men are good self-regulators. Just give me some time by myself. Give me an evening. Give me an hour. Let me walk outside, and I'll regulate myself. Most of the time, it's been my experience, women are not like that. They co-regulate, most of them. They need you to also make them feel good. They can't be good if you're not good. We're not good. I'm not good if you're not okay. So it's that whole, I'm not okay if you're not okay.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  And so, in many ways, they need you to be able to calm down themselves. And they don't self-regulate as well. And so, the people who are most susceptible to gaslighting are ones who need co-regulation. People who are anxious attachment, meaning they need, are you okay? Are you good? Do you need anything? Are you sure you're not okay? And versus the people who are more avoidant. And three, the people who are typically more insecure.

• 32:24Steven Bartlett?

  So do you think women get gaslit more than men?

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:30Steven Bartlett?

  But women still gaslight women, right?

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 32:32Steven Bartlett?

  But just men are more...

• 32:33Speaker 01

  When you're talking relationships, that's my personal opinion. Is because, from my feedback, from the people that have read my book, and the people who give me feedback on my book, yeah, it's majority, vast majority are women. I'm not saying that's some empirical study on it, but what I will say is, women are just as capable of gaslighting. And women can certainly gaslight women. And it's, I'm saying this with the mindset of... Everybody gaslights, whether they know it or not, and they have in the past. Most likely, they can think of a time in the past where they did without knowing it.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  But it is, that would be my opinion, that most of the time, men are the ones that do it to women.

• 33:22Steven Bartlett?

  I was reading some research here that says multiple studies on emotional abuse in heterosexual relationships show women report higher rates of gaslighting in coercive control than men. Men do report gaslighting too, but less frequently and usually in different forms. And as it relates to workplace data, surveys from management and organizational psychology show women are more likely to have their competence questioned, their memory doubted, or their experience dismissed. Women in male-dominated fields report the highest rates of gaslighting, and women of color report even higher rates of being told their perception is wrong or misinterpret, or that they're misinterpreting things.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Sounds like that tracks.

• 34:03Steven Bartlett?

  And also, in medical settings, women are less likely to be believed about their symptoms. Women's pain is underestimated. Women get later diagnoses for multiple conditions like heart disease and autoimmune disorders, ADHD and autism. And the list goes on and on and on.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  If I had to say, who does more, you know, I'm not trying to put some kind of like headline of men do it more than women. In my experience, it tends to be the guy. And, you know, what does that, that information show me? It shows me that that sounds about right. I do think, from the people that follow my content, listen to my content, because I stay very connected to my community of so many women say, I feel like I'm in this workplace, and they are doubting my competence. They're doubting my ability to make decisions. I'm not being believed. I'm putting, I'm, I'm being put down. I'm, whether, it's not even their experience, it's just because of their gender.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  And those are real, those are real questions. Does that mean that that's gaslighting? Probably not all the time, but for me to say, ah, that's, that's a dumb complaint. You know, that's just complaining. In many ways, when you start denying that reality, then you have the same problem.

• 35:19Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know what? I am, I've hired thousands of people over the last decade and I have to say, sometimes it's hard, it's difficult to understand the plight of someone else when you haven't lived their experience. Like you haven't been a woman or whatever.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  It's impossible.

• 35:33Steven Bartlett?

  It's like very difficult. So you kind of just have to take them for their word sometimes, because you've not lived it yourself.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:37Steven Bartlett?

  Or you can look at data or whatever else. And I do have to say that I have experienced male executives who were extremely dismissive of their female peers in a way that was a hundred percent inconsistent as it relates to genders. What I mean by that is I can think of several male executives over the years who I observed dismissing or diminishing or not giving the woman in the room the same credit, really for no other reason than she was a woman. And so it's a very real thing. And it's not every man, I have to say this, but there is a certain particular type of person who, for some reason, in my experience, would see a woman in the, in the workplace

• 36:21Steven Bartlett?

  or in the high sort of upper echelons of the professional environment as being less than them just because of her gender. So when I hear, you know, what you're saying about women are predominantly, you know, coming to you, talking about these issues of gaslighting, it does kind of track with what I've seen.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  I'll tell you this, I've never had a man come to me in all this time that I've been, from my book to my content, this number of years, ever say, I think I'm being gaslit. It is, it has always been the woman.

• 36:49Steven Bartlett?

  Never?

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Never.

• 36:50Steven Bartlett?

  What about the conversation around like dealing with narcissists? Because this feels like it's kind of one in the same. The words are used in the same sort of vernacular, but.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:59Steven Bartlett?

  Do you have men coming to you saying that I think my partner's a narcissist?

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:02Steven Bartlett?

  You do?

• 37:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that I do have. Yeah, it's always, it's always they're married to one or just got out of a relationship with one. But it's never them.

• 37:11Steven Bartlett?

  And what do you say to someone who is dealing with a narcissist, who is dealing with someone who repeatedly gaslights them? Let's say it's in the context of work.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:18Steven Bartlett?

  What are they meant to do? Quit their job?

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Well, that is an option, so let's not rule that out.

• 37:24Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 37:25Speaker 01

  If it's worth it to you. Because that's the question of what's your purpose here? And this is where you're gonna be forever? Then there's some things we need to put in place. But what are you to do? You are to limit the interaction. Like, limit the exposure. Talk less. Neutral statements. So if you can, in many ways you can, just limit the amount of physicality of, I don't have to see you. I don't have to communicate with you. I know you work three doors down, but I don't have to be your best friend, and you certainly don't have to be mine. Two is understanding the game that you're in. It's a game for narcissists of praise or provoke.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  Meaning if I am not showering you with praise, then the narcissist will turn to provoke in order to create an argument for the same effect. They delight in frustration just as much as they delight in your praise. Because they get the same type of control. I've seen so many expert witnesses in my field that are, what I would term, are narcissists. They can never possibly be wrong. They don't do empathy. And again, this is me with the understanding of, hey, we all have narcissistic tendencies. You know, we all have narcissistic traits. And narcissism is a diagnosable condition that you can have.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  I think more people would qualify more than they think. But how do you handle it day to day? Is knowing what kind of game you're in, and it's a game you're just not gonna play. I know I don't have to say anything to that person. Two, I'm gonna limit my distance to them. And three, I'm gonna use neutral statements. I'm gonna use neutral statements like, "That's good to know." "Thanks for sharing." "Noted." Things that they can't grab onto and continue to have in a conversation.

• 39:19Steven Bartlett?

  When you think of the hallmarks of a really, really, one of these types of people, what are the characteristics that I should be looking out for if I'm dealing with one such person who is gonna try and manipulate me? Is gonna try and gaslight me? What do they do?

• 39:37Speaker 01

  They can never be happy for anybody but themselves.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  They can't be happy for you, they can't be happy for other people. These are the types that if you were to say, "Hey, did you see that Stephen just got this award? Isn't that so great? She's just nominated for whatever." And they go, "I mean, that's, I guess that's fine. You know, when I did this," and they start talking about themselves. They can never be happy for somebody else. They can't be happy for you. It's, they have to find some way to turn the conversation of why the world is so hard and so pitiful for them, that the world was against them and they couldn't get it. But they were just as deserving. I mean, I guess that's fine. I mean, you know, I do this, but nobody, nobody listens, nobody really cares. They find that they have a very victim mentality. So two is a victim mentality. Everything happens to them in some way. And three, they can't feel for other people.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  They don't do emotion. It's, it's always about the perception of what others would think. They're very, very sensitive to how others might portray them. So they're going to give you a different view than they give other people. And so the couple might be terrible. But for a narcissist, they're going to put on a face that the relationship is perfect to everybody else. And everybody goes, "You, you must be so blessed to be married to that person." And you're going, "You kidding me?" They're, they're fooling everybody. And it's a very helpless position. Have you ever had a narcissist try and prey on you? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm in the legal field, man. Expert witnesses have opinions to them that are unquestionable.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  You can't, this is their opinion and nobody else could ever argue with it. When I have another expert who says just the opposite. So a lot of the times, they are very condescending. You know, that's fine. And they have their opinion and this is all there is. And how dumb of you to ever question me. And usually what gives it away is if I feel like this is somebody that, okay, they're, they can't be reasonable. They're never going to give an inch on what's reasonable. I will ask this, I'll say, this is typically in a deposition. I'll say, "And you think the jury's going to like that?" Or you think other people are gonna agree with you. And all of a sudden, they kind of change in an instant to be able to match what the jury is going to think.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  So if I were to say, and you think, and you think that's okay, and you think others are gonna find that okay. And you think that the jury, when they hear this, they're, they're all going to agree with this very hard line opinion. I've seen it every time. Or they, that's, it's only when I reference other people, the presentation of themselves to other people, that they kind of put on a, a show.

• 42:20Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Because they know that the perception of the crowd is everything. They need everybody to like them, to fawn over them. They, they want their idea to, to be the best. And so they will manipulate the situation to be the chameleon, to, to make sure that everybody loves them, at least in, in their mind. It's not a, it's not a reasonable thought. So they will typically change their opinion to sound more palatable, even though they could have admitted to that, you know, two hours into the deposition.

• 42:55Steven Bartlett?

  Do they tend to talk more or less than the average person in the room?

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Much more.

• 42:59Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm. Is there a thin line between just being insecure and being a narcissist? Because, you know, one of the things I was thinking about is, you said earlier that they tend to bring everything back to themselves. And I was thinking about all the people that I know, that if we were having a conversation about your book doing really, really well, the first response to that would be their mention of their own book. Like, they would immediately bring it straight back to something about them. And I was wondering, some of those people I just have in the category of just being a little bit insecure, and that they just, you know, they're in a search for validation. So I'm wondering where, where you think the line might be between sort of narcissistic behavior and just like extremely insecure. Maybe there's not a line. Maybe extreme insecurity is narcissism.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Both can be true. You know, I'd, I'd say that not all insecure people are narcissists, but all narcissists are insecure.

• 43:45Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  I would, I would say that if I had to give some kind of line, it would be the interest for growth.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Insecure people are looking for ways to grow and to secure and attach. Narcissists, they're not looking for anybody to attach on to. They're looking for people to support them, you know, to please them. And so they have no interest in growth. They, to them, they've learned all they have to learn. I am the best. I cannot improve anymore. That, to me, would be the difference.

• 44:21Steven Bartlett?

  When you dealt with narcissists in your own life and in the courtroom, what is the reason why they couldn't prey on you? What did you do as defense to stop their games, their typical games, working on you?

• 44:34Speaker 01

  I don't chase their words. Often, one of the biggest things I see wrong in conversation is a narcissist will, same for a gaslighter, they'll dig a hole, all right? And then they expect you to fill it. Meaning, they're gonna say something to frustrate you, and you go, "No, no, that's not what happened. Don't you remember?" And you just start chasing it. And then they just dig another hole. And then you keep going, and you keep going, and you're exhausted. Because all you've been doing is trying to plug holes. You're not having a real conversation. And when I can give it a very clear definition, a very clear signal of noted, you know, I'm just gonna stay right there.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  I'm gonna see, I'm gonna put down the shovel and stay right there with them. And maybe I'll say something as neutral as, "Got it." I don't have to chase it. I don't have to say anything. And to me, the people that have those narcissistic traits, once they realize that they can have no game with you, that you're not going to play, they find somebody else. They find somebody else. If you've ever had somebody come to you and they're the more emotionally toxic type of person, they always have some kind of problem. They come with you and they have this problem, and you go, "I just, I can't right this moment. I will." And 10 minutes later, what's happened? They don't have that issue. They've already gone to talk to somebody else.

• 45:59Steven Bartlett?

  I was watching Dame Dash on The Breakfast Club. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's really.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Another Breakfast Club.

• 46:05Steven Bartlett?

  But Dame Dash is on that because he filed for bankruptcy. And Charlamagne has sat there. And Charlamagne is, I've actually interviewed both of them, both Dame and Charlamagne. And Charlamagne is very relaxed. And every once in a while, just tells Dame Dash that he thinks he's broke. And then Dame Dash is like very like hot headed and like trying to prove all the reasons why he's not broke and like really like, you know, gassing himself. And it was, it was an interesting, it's an interesting video to watch, I think. It's the more recent one that came out within the last year. Because it does show, in my view, how to deal with someone who has a very, has a significant ego.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:46Steven Bartlett?

  Which is, Charlamagne just never changes state. Like no matter what the volume is, no matter how much emotion, no matter when he starts calling him some quite personal insults, Charlamagne's demeanor, his tone, his posture.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:02Steven Bartlett?

  Doesn't change.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  Unbothered.

• 47:03Steven Bartlett?

  Unbothered. And you can see it's super triggering, but you just can't get to this guy. Like it looks like Dame is like really annoyed that he, and he tries to say more offensive things. He goes, you're a, you're this, you're that, the other. And it's funny because I was watching it this morning and for me, it kind of tracks a lot of the stuff you're saying about like just not going with them.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:21Steven Bartlett?

  Just not following them because they want you to go somewhere. And then there's a certain conflict they want to get in with you. And if you just kind of refuse and just stay anchored to whatever your point of view is, it's funny to watch.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  They want to push you.

• 47:33Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Yep, my dad, I can remember growing up, I'd be in the passenger seat, he's driving. And you ever had it where somebody, you're in the passenger seat and somebody's just rearing the bumper right on them? And I'd be looking in the side mirror and I'm like, I kind of start stressing out for him, you know, had somebody's really riding the bumper, you know, right behind him. And I mean, just like clockwork, what he would do, we have shoulders on our, on the roads there in Texas. And rather than trying to speed up or get mad, he would just kind of pull over to the shoulder. And he would say this every time. He'd say, go on with your bad self. Every time he'd go, go on with your bad self in the rearview mirror. Like, that's how unbothered he was by that of,

• 48:17Speaker 01

  I feel like so many people get road rage. And so many people talk out loud to the cars while they're, while they're driving. And he, it just never got him worked up. And realizing, my value, in my worth of knowing who I am, is not at all determined by where you feel I should go. It goes back to that idea of, if you want to tell me the sky is purple, knock yourself out. Now, I, I don't have to be right. And you don't have the ability to, to push me. I can move and you have your own. I, I know my lane. I know my speed. I don't have to match anybody else's. So when there's somebody is unbothered, it's not because they don't care.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  It's not for lack of care. It's an understanding. It's discernment of knowing, I know who I am in this moment. And why in the world would I try to be anybody else?

• 49:15Steven Bartlett?

  Wouldn't life be amazing if we could all be untriggerable?

• 49:18Speaker 01

  It'd be more peaceable, that's for sure.

• 49:21Steven Bartlett?

  It's interesting because, again, just reflecting on that interview I watched this morning, when Dame Dash calls Charlamagne something really, really offensive, I noticed that as a viewer, I immediately look at Charlamagne to see his reaction to figure out if what Dame Dash just said was true. And do you see what I'm saying? So he, he turned to him and said, you're a X.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:41Steven Bartlett?

  And then Charlamagne just kind of laughed.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 49:45Steven Bartlett?

  It just, it was like water off a duck's back. So immediately as the viewer, I go, well, that can't be true then, because Charlamagne doesn't seem to care.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  Exactly. Well, it's, it's not the lack of care. It's, it's just the opposite. It's all the more care of knowing who he is. So if I were to tell you right now, I hate your purple shirt. It's the most ugliest purple shirt I've ever seen, Stephen. Like, your shirt is so ugly in that purple. Does it affect you whatsoever?

• 50:18Steven Bartlett?

  No, because I'm not wearing a purple shirt for anyone listening on Apple's podcast.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  That's a good point, right. But you see how you already know the characteristics of you. You already know what you're wearing. And it's not just your clothes. I'm wearing my confidence. I'm wearing everything that your parents, your loved ones have instilled and put on you. I'm wearing the armor of my faith. I have all these other things that I'm wearing. And if you want to say my shirt's purple, that doesn't affect me at all because that's not who I am. And so, so often, people get mixed up of arguing about, no, I don't have a purple shirt on. When, why would you ever argue with that?

• 51:03Speaker 01

  They, it's that quote by Abraham Lincoln that I love. If, never argue with a fool, because an onlooker can never know the difference. Right? And so, it's knowing, no, I know exactly who I am and what I'm wearing.

• 51:21Steven Bartlett?

  And this sort of speaks to the fact that your reaction determines how onlookers will interpret everything that's happening. Like, you know?

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Oh, the worst thing you could do to somebody who insults you is laugh. I mean, what does it do? It, I mean, it infuriates them, right? But when, same thing with a bully. A bully says something to you that they know is meant to hurt you. And if I were to turn around and say, did you say that to embarrass me? I mean, what are they gonna do? They could say yes, they could say no. But either way, you're realizing, I'm not gonna get any reaction. What you're showing them is, for you to do this, it's just not gonna be fun for you. It's gonna be zero fun whatsoever for you. And so, they'll find that with somebody, somebody else. It's always your reaction that's going to determine how the conversation goes forward.

• 52:13Steven Bartlett?

  There's a lot of people listening right now that are a long way away from that. Very easily triggered.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:18Steven Bartlett?

  Seeking justice, you know, whatever it might be. For those people, is it like a muscle they have to build? Or is there, what is the journey to getting to this level of sort of mastery?

• 52:29Speaker 01

  It's a discipline. It is, in the same way that people... Invest in so many other things in our life. We invest in our health. We invest in self-help books. We invest in the podcasts that we listen to. It is the same. You have to invest in your communication. We don't get taught in school. We don't, you know, I went to law school. People think I learned this in law school. No. Law school teaches you how to read the law. It doesn't teach you how to read people. You had to, to me, if you are somebody that is in a position of expertise and to share something, it either came at great personal cost or you're making it up. Like it, it, it is something that you have learned, right?

• 53:10Steven Bartlett?

  It's true.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  And so, I mean, whether it's through skill, knowledge, training, it's I've, you want to know how that I know these things? Cause I've lived it. You know, I have been on the bad side. I've been on the good side and it's, it is not, it's never something that's just gonna come to you.

• 53:30Steven Bartlett?

  We are emotional creatures and we're hormonal creatures.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 53:33Steven Bartlett?

  So how do, how do you think about our emotions, our hormones, our health, our physical cognitive state? As it relates to like walking into the courtroom and being ready? Like how much of the, you know, cause if I've had zero hours sleep and I'm, I don't know, hungry and whatever else, and I had an argument and I'm stressed about something, it's gonna be significantly harder to show up and be a great communicator and win the argument against somebody.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:55Steven Bartlett?

  So do you think about these things?

• 53:57Speaker 01

  All the time. I mean, the emotions are, are right, they're connected to the words.

• 54:02Steven Bartlett?

  And what do you, how do you prepare to be ready for battle?

• 54:07Speaker 01

  It's an emotional awareness of how I'm feeling and also how the other person is. Because if I just respond, yeah, if I respond to their emotional reaction, I'll miss it every time. Same thing in relationships. If I respond to the reaction, I'll lose that moment to actually speak to the need. So even in the courtroom for me, if I know that I'm a little sleepy, I know I'm a little hungry. I'm a little grumpy. You know what? I can either try and pretend that I'm not, or I might get up, friend the jury and say, good morning, everybody. I have to admit to you, I'm a little grumpy. I didn't eat all that much this morning. Anybody else grumpy? And then everybody starts to kind of nod.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  And now, hey, we all kind of relate, not to my words, but now to the feeling. And now you trust me more. I trust you more because I'm being more authentic.

• 55:00Steven Bartlett?

  And do you think people should do that in their own interpersonal relationships, which is just call out their state?

• 55:05Speaker 01

  Absolutely, because perfection is not relatable, struggle is, emotions are. If I were to come to you and say, and you say, how are you? And I go, good, everything's good, when it is not. Am I being authentic or am I being fake? But if I were to say, let me tell you, I've had a morning and it's tested me in a way I was not expecting. And my mind is just not here. Does that make you trust me more or trust me less?

• 55:32Steven Bartlett?

  Trust me more.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  Every time. So when you can share your struggles with people, I'm not talking about your deepest inner desire struggles. I'm saying, let me put it this way. Ciara and I check in with each other every morning, it's my wife. And it's only about 10 minutes after she drops the kid off, kids off. And we kind of run through how we're doing. And the number one thing she asks me or tells me goes, you told me a lot about what you're doing. You haven't told me about how you're feeling. And that's, that's the truth of the default. I think of a lot of men and a lot of people. I'm going to tell you what's going on, what's on my agenda, what I'm doing. I haven't told you a lot about how I'm feeling. And we store all that stuff up because it's still there.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  But if I can share with you, what is my struggle? What's happening? Not just the good, but more importantly, the, the bad. I mean, it's always going to bring that authenticity into the play.

• 56:33Steven Bartlett?

  Women and men are very different in many ways. And we're very different in many ways. Men are, I don't know, it feels like men just, you know, again, I'm, I'm stereotyping here. So it's not all men and

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 56:45Steven Bartlett?

  People are different. But just speaking generally, the stereotype is that men are typically a bit more emotionally composed. Or shall I say, flat? And women have more emotional fluctuations. One could look at hormone changes throughout the month and talk about why that might be, et cetera, et cetera. I had many scientists here talk to me about hormone fluctuations and how that impacts how someone feels. But what this means in our romantic relationships is sometimes we meet each other on very different wavelengths.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:16Steven Bartlett?

  So in my relationship, my partner's probably seen me cry once

• 57:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:21Steven Bartlett?

  In seven years, maybe twice, but probably once. I've probably seen her cry. Five hundred times, maybe more.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:32Steven Bartlett?

  So it feels, it almost feels like, I'm just gonna be completely honest because I just think it's helpful. So you can fuck me up online if you want to. I sometimes feels like

• 57:42Steven Bartlett?

  we're a different species. Like the way that I interact with my guy friends and the way that the sort of wavelength that my romantic partner, my girlfriend operates on are very, very different. So it's very easy to like misunderstand. And we spend a lot of time talking about how men need to be more emotional and more, I don't know, men need to change how they are.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:04Steven Bartlett?

  Because it's the problem. But what about the, like, what about the other side of that? Which is,

• 58:14Steven Bartlett?

  do, do women also need to think about, do we need to meet in the middle? Is what I'm saying.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  There certainly is space to meet in the middle.

• 58:25Steven Bartlett?

  Like he's right in that, I don't know, is, is, is there a person that's right in this configuration? Am I meant to be way more emotional and be, or is she meant to be way more composed? Because I think that's often how both sides feel. They feel like, why aren't you coming to my wavelength on this issue?

• 58:40Speaker 01

  But I think here's what you're missing. She would be much more composed if you would be more emotional.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  And so a lot of the times, what I find in my own marriage is when I show emotion, the more composed she is.

• 58:56Steven Bartlett?

  I mean, if I start screaming and crying, I think my girlfriend's gonna.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  I'm not saying screaming, I'm saying show emotion.

• 59:01Steven Bartlett?

  What kind of emotion?

• 59:03Speaker 01

  Of being in it with her.

• 59:05Steven Bartlett?

  And what does that look like?

• 59:07Speaker 01

  That means you're gonna say things that make her feel it. There's a difference if I just go static. That's what happens to me a lot, truthfully, is let's say we're in an argument about something or something came up. And so you're as emotional about it. If I dismiss it, okay, this is so dumb, really, right now? This is, because arguments never come at the most opportune time, they come at the worst possible time. Yeah, that's hello, that's all relationships. If I dismiss it, right, does that make her come closer to me or further away from me? And if I'm pushing her further away from me, why would she not be more emotional? Why would she, why would she not be further away from me if I dismiss that?

• 59:51Speaker 01

  For every woman to be more emotional as a man, tears are not necessary.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  Connection is being in it is saying things that make her feel that you're genuinely feeling it. The difference I find with men and what I struggle with is I can say that I'm sad. I have a hard time expressing sad. I can say that I'm really regretful. I have a hard time expressing that. I think that is something that happens a lot with most relationships and I think that happens a lot with men of we were emotional and we got taught early that you are not to cry. I couldn't even tell you how many times I ever saw my dad cry.

• 1:00:34Steven Bartlett?

  I think this is it. The modeling we had as well is my dad was either angry or completely static. And when I say angry, he was very, very rarely angry.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:44Steven Bartlett?

  But when I saw him engaged with my mom on an emotional level.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:48Steven Bartlett?

  It would be him yelling back.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:51Steven Bartlett?

  If he wasn't yelling back, he was completely just like, he was just very calm, static, unemotional. There was no in-between.

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. It all comes down to repair. How quickly you get to repair. That means can I validate the feeling that she has? Validation is, it's not weakness, it's repair. In my world, relationships don't fall apart because of one big failure. They fall apart because of a hundred moments where repair could have happened and it didn't, where you just chose not to, or you could have said, I'm sorry, but you withheld it. I could have chose to validate how you're feeling, but I said, that's stupid. And it's those, the hundreds of those little bitty moments where all of a sudden, no wonder

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  your world's apart because you chose in those little bitty moments not to do the repair because you said, ah, this is so stupid, this is so small. Yeah, it is small. All the more reason why you should repair it pretty quickly. And so when you can validate those concerns, even when you say she's being emotional, you're not. When you go into that static mode, when I go into that static mode, it's a choice by me to do something different. Not say the thing I always say, not be dismissive, not find ways to try and convince her that she shouldn't feel this way. But if I validate, if I say things like, I can see how you feel that way. If that's how you interpreted it, you know what?

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  I don't blame you for feeling that way. I can see that. That sounds scary. That sounds frustrating. If I can choose that, it's this, like, this isn't the key for me. And trust me, I'm talking to myself here.

• 1:02:40Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:41Speaker 01

  All right? Because every guy, I feel like, can be like, okay, this is right in. If I can make the hard choice in that moment to put aside my frustration, just for a moment, put aside my personal frustration and validate the feeling and say words that speak to her need, the need to feel heard, the need to feel safe, the need to feel like she's not being too much, then all of a sudden, it all shrinks. And you know what? My frustration kind of goes away. Why? Because everything's better now. We've had moments of repair. And then if I still am really frustrated, then I can bring it up. Hey, can I bring up something to you that you said that's really bothering me? And then you do.

• 1:03:26Steven Bartlett?

  How, as a man, do you know that you're not setting a bad precedence for the future? And what I mean here is, if I constantly justify how she's feeling and I seek repair, and then when she's happy, I just let it go. There's, I think sometimes there's a worry as a man that if you just lay down and take everything, then you're just going to get more stuff in the future, like you're setting a bad precedence for the future of this relationship, where though, sometimes actually, no, I wasn't in the wrong. Or, no, I do disagree with this.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:59Steven Bartlett?

  And I think I've observed a lot of relationships, especially with some of my guy friends, where because they like never stood up for themselves, then I like living in a prison.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:09Steven Bartlett?

  They like never stood up for themselves.

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:12Steven Bartlett?

  And so they've kind of lost all of their autonomy and agency and control. And they You know, even when you're listening to this, there's probably people you can think of in your life where the guy has always opted for an easy life in the short term. And now, over the long term, he has a really hard one.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:26Steven Bartlett?

  And again, men and women.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:04:28Steven Bartlett?

  So this is the balance I'm trying to understand in your view is, you know, when do you pick the fight? And when do you say, no, that's not? Versus just laying down and taking it. This is quite, this is quite personal to me as well, because I think my dad did that a bit too much. I think my dad, he never, he never chose the fight. And then I look, I look at how that played out over 20 years and I'm like, damn. It's completely changed me because it means that I will now go through the conflict and stand up for myself when I hit a place where I'm like, hmm, I'm not going to be able to honor that few for the next 30 years. I will stand my ground. Do you know if there's like an area where we might, my, so my girlfriend's unhappy about a certain thing I do?

• 1:05:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:11Steven Bartlett?

  If I don't think that I'm, I'm going to be able to promise to not do that for the next like 10, 20, 30 years. If I, if I'm unwilling to change.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:19Steven Bartlett?

  I have to stand my ground because if I concede today, it's hell tomorrow.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, what, what I'm hearing, what I'm hearing is fear of autonomy. Fear of my rights.

• 1:05:33Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  Fear of my dominance.

• 1:05:36Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, like my freedom being.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:38Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  Well, it's, it's, you want to hear the, probably the number one word you'll hear with relationships that are on the brink, it's caged. Man feels caged. You know, the man feels caged. And really, all that is, it's a lack of confidence of knowing

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  if I am willing to do something different,

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  then I can't have anything else. So it's, it's, it's thinking in terms of.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  Zero sum. See, both can be true. I can, you can still validate how she's feeling and not at all touch what you still know to be true. So you can still disagree with her. But every time we go into a conversation, we walk in with a need, a need to feel loved, understood. It is always depth. Like you think of, like a kid, right? My son, my daughter, if, when she was small and she screamed or she cried or told me no, still tells me no, you know, of all these things. And I just said, no, are you kidding me? You're gonna tell me, and I, you're crying right now, really? And I get all upset when she screams.

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  But with kids, we don't do that. We go, she's hungry, she's tired, she's scared. And we just forget that we're all just big kids. And we all have those like hidden needs underneath us. And so you still can stand your ground and say, so let's run it. So let's say, for example.

• 1:07:15Steven Bartlett?

  An example, a specific example from my ex-girlfriend. I was on my phone in bed and I was sending a message because there's something going on in my business back in the UK. And I was in, I was in Asia at the time.

• 1:07:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:24Steven Bartlett?

  And she said to me that she wanted to make a rule where there was never any phones in bed, ever. I could never touch my phone in the bedroom.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:33Steven Bartlett?

  And as I thought this through, I thought, God, I thought about all the scenarios where I might need to touch my phone in the bedroom. And what would, I realized that what would end up happening is I just wouldn't come into the bedroom. I'd like go and do it in the, in the toilet or the shower, or I'd just like, I wouldn't come to bed if I needed to do something on my phone.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:49Steven Bartlett?

  And so the conversation went where I was like, I, I realized in this moment that I had to kind of like, not lay down on this issue because I would disappoint her in the future. I was setting myself up to fail in the future. If I, if I accepted this and made her some kind of promise that, you know, agreed that I wasn't gonna touch my phone ever again in the bedroom. And so that was one such example where I'm like, I think I actually need to stand my ground a bit here, or I'm setting myself up for a future expectation I can't meet.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  So in that moment, what did you think her need was?

• 1:08:21Steven Bartlett?

  Her need was connection. And she was interpreting me being on the phone in that space as a disconnection in some way.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  And could it possibly be perceived as that?

• 1:08:30Steven Bartlett?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:08:32Steven Bartlett?

  But it wasn't the phone. It was the, it was the, it was me not, it was her not feeling connected. In my view, it, at that moment in time, in that particular week, because I was so busy in that particular week that I think she was trying to find a symptom, or a tool, or a guarantee, or a promise to express the feeling of disconnection. So that's why I look back on it and go, it was actually something else. That was just a symptom of a feeling she had at that moment in time, probably.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:08:59Steven Bartlett?

  But that was an example where I like, I, if I'd conceded, it would have, it would not have been sustainable. There would have been more arguments in the future.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  I'm not saying you concede. I'm saying there are times that if you want the key to the relationship, it is putting her comfort over your inconvenience.

• 1:09:17Steven Bartlett?

  So what should I have done in that situation? Give me some advice, do you think?

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  Well, you've already kind of named it. One, she's, it's not you saying, well, the wrong thing to say is, well, you were just on your phone. I mean, you just, I mean, you're on your phone all your time. You're on the phone all the time. What are you talking about? And you start arguing, because now you're responding to the reaction. You're not addressing the need. If you were to slow down and say, "Look, I still want to be connected with you. Is there any kind of place where I can still take care of what I need to take care of and also be connected to you?" Or if there's a situation where you say, "Well, what about this? Before I just get my phone and grab it, I'm going to tell you what I'm doing ahead of time. Or I'm going to ask."

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  Maybe that's where it is, you don't want to ask. "Hey, I..." Greg is supposed to email me some slides or a deck or whatever. Can I check that out real quick? You hear how, she's probably gonna say yes. But the fact that you are saying, hey, I'm acknowledging our connection right now. It might make you uncomfortable saying, I don't like anybody telling me what to do. I don't have to, I don't wanna report to anybody. Okay, that's, that's fine. Well, then you just know that connection is always gonna be weak. And so you're signing your name to that. I don't think, I mean, there's, I have lots of thoughts on phones in houses and where they should go. But if you were to have, instead of arguing the, what are you talking about?

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  You're on your phone all the time. And instead said, I can see how that would make you feel like I'm not paying attention to you. And letting her respond to that. And you saying, look, I don't wanna, me being on this, this is not at all me trying to signal that I'm not trying to be here with you. I'm trying to escape on you and have that conversation. And that's where you could say, it is important to me that I have these things. And for me to be able to connect with you and kind of rest my brain, I need to take care of these things. What's the best way that I can do that? I think then that's when you actually are able to have a conversation of like, let's make a game plan that makes sense.

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  Because if you, you put your inconvenience over her comfort, she will always discredit that to you. Your bank account will always continue to go low. And if, but if you say, look, I'm willing to do a little bit of inconvenient things to make you feel better, make you more comfortable. I mean, that, that only grows your account. I mean, that, that when, when you have a relationship that can last a whole lot longer.

• 1:12:00Steven Bartlett?

  I think I'm slightly traumatized because I, I think the model that I had of relationships meant that someone can increasingly sort of encroach on your freedom.

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:12:11Steven Bartlett?

  Until you are virtually powerless.

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  I think that's a lot of guys. I've felt that, I've certainly felt that.

• 1:12:17Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, so I try and fight back and sometimes I think I overdo it. And this is, this is one such example where actually objectively, when I hear myself say, she asked me not to. Like being on my phone in bed, I'm like, well, it's kind of a reasonable request, to be honest. Like, the bedroom can be a place where we just like go on the phones. I could just do it at my office and then come to bed when I'm ready.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:36Steven Bartlett?

  But I think I get my back up because I've just got so many examples of men who like didn't stand up for themselves.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:12:43Steven Bartlett?

  And then were rendered powerless down the line. So it's like, if I give you this, then tomorrow you're gonna say, maybe you can't be on my phone in the kitchen.

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:49Steven Bartlett?

  And then maybe I can't be on my phone in the bathroom.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:51Steven Bartlett?

  So I just thought, well, if I just stand up for myself here, then I just hold off.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  What I'm not all saying is that the guy go, yeah, sure, that's fine. And then she asks for something, I go, yeah, sure, that's fine. And you're just, you're super passive with everything. That's where I think you do feel like you're just, you look around, you've given up everything to where you don't feel like I have anything to grab on to.

• 1:13:11Steven Bartlett?

  I want to throw in another example that a lot of people relate to. A lot of men have like a hobby with their guy friends.

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:13:17Steven Bartlett?

  Like, watching the football, talking shit in the group chat. I think it's so important to defend those things.

• 1:13:23Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:13:23Steven Bartlett?

  Even for her attraction to you. Like, I think, I have no evidence to say that this is true, it's just a feeling. I think to some degree that my partner likes the fact that I'll stand up for myself in certain areas.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  No doubt.

• 1:13:34Steven Bartlett?

  And that I'll say, no, no, no, no, this is me time, this is for me.

• 1:13:37Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:13:37Steven Bartlett?

  And I can imagine the opposite, the passivity, or kind of rolling over as being a really like unattractive thing.

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I think where you are laying yourself down and just rolling over, that is, that can be very unattractive. It's, you need to have a backbone. At the same time, you can't be so extreme that your way is the only way. But when you choose to say, no, no, this is, I'm willing to take a stand here, then that's, I think, to me, it sends a signal of strength. Right? Strength of mind, strength of will. But for me, when you have those things that are your hobbies, the things that you really like, a sign of a good relationship is that she's gonna be happy you get to do those. Because they make you happy, even though she might hate it and think it's annoying and it's weird. And, you know, you're taking up that space in the garage and whatever.

• 1:14:25Speaker 01

  But if it makes you happy and they know that this is your space and this is your time, because I, you have to have those things that fill you up. Right? And the truth is, the marriage isn't enough, the kids aren't enough, your job's not enough. You have to have things that personally, for you, by yourself. If your thing is to go to a pond and go feed ducks, go do it. You know, to be able to fill yourself up. If.

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  I know for parents, early parents, there's this mindset of I have to be with my kid all the time. I can't ever leave my kid. I need to just be there. But what you find is you'll be so much better when you actually go take care of yourself and go on that guys' trip, go play that round of golf, or whatever it is that's actually going to feed you and fill you up, and then I can be there for you all the more.

• 1:15:19Steven Bartlett?

  I think some people's partners, they're not like that. Some people are in a relationship where their partner cuts out as much of these things as they possibly can, so that they can control their partner. I mean, I think we've all got a friend in the group chat

• 1:15:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:15:35Steven Bartlett?

  who has kind of like, seems to have lost all their freedom and their autonomy and agency since they've been in that relationship.

• 1:15:41Speaker 01

  They'd say they're on a leash.

• 1:15:42Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, they're on a leash. Like, they can never come to the thing.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  That's not okay.

• 1:15:47Steven Bartlett?

  And it appears to be a consequence of boundaries, like not reinforcing your boundaries early. It appears to me to be a bit of a slippery slope, boundaries.

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:16:01Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know what I mean? Like, where you like, you kind of make a concession, and because you've made a concession, they're more likely to pursue another concession.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:16:08Steven Bartlett?

  And then before you know it, you're behind bars, alone.

• 1:16:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and frustrated and wondering how you got here. I know we've spoke about boundaries in the past. To me, it ultimately comes down to, am I protecting the priority? So if I know that my marriage is the priority, I'm going to set boundaries that protect that. I mean, for me and my life right now, whether I'm working on a book, or speaking, or a podcast, or whatever, it's, am I setting the boundary up to be protecting my family and my relationship? So you have to first define what is the priority here. So if the priority is knowing that

• 1:16:54Speaker 01

  We want to be, you and your partner want to be in a relationship and you know, make sure that Thursday is date night. Okay, that's, nothing gets scheduled on date night. There are certain things that just aren't movable. The answer is no. And when you can have those really hard no's, it makes filling the time of everything else all that much easier. But that's, I mean, it ultimately comes down to, are you being real about it? Or are you being fake about it?

• 1:17:20Steven Bartlett?

  In your view, you talk about being nice and being kind. I've heard you talk about this on your podcast. What's the difference between being a nice person and a kind person? And which one should I aspire to be?

• 1:17:31Speaker 01

  Stop being nice at the expense of being real. So, nice is something that we got taught really early on. Hey, be nice, play nice. And if you believe forever and always that being nice serves you well, you will ultimately serve it. You will people please, you will only choose to say the nice thing. You will, nice is very surface. If you went on a date with somebody and I was like, how was the date? And you said, she was nice.

• 1:18:04Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yuck.

• 1:18:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, does that mean that was good? No, of course, but you're wanting to say the nice thing. And so it becomes very much about pleasantries of what's, something that is politically correct or whatever it is. Kind is very deep. It's related to the word kin, it's connection. So where nice is concerned about surface, kind is worried about connection. So, nice people say, oh, I can't tell them the truth. That wouldn't be nice. That wouldn't be nice. I can't say that. Kind says, I care about you enough to say the truth. I care about you enough to tell you the truth.

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  So when you have the chance, don't choose nice at the expense of being real. Choose the kind thing. Like if you and I were in a conversation and I was like, oh, I could really, I could just go, yeah, man, that sounds great, with the decision you're gonna make. Because I just, I don't want to upset you. That wouldn't be nice. Versus me saying, Stephen, I have to tell you, man.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  This doesn't feel right to me. Which one's the kind thing of telling you the actual truth? It's being authentic to it. So a lot of people, they look back and they're just people pleasing. That's all they've been because they've always chosen what's nice, not what's kind.

• 1:19:26Steven Bartlett?

  You must get a lot of messages from a lot of people pleasers.

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  All the time.

• 1:19:31Steven Bartlett?

  And what is it they want from you?

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  They're wanting to know how to stop pleasing other people and to start pleasing themselves. Like how to, I always say that there's not a problem with people pleasing as long as you're one of them. You know, of, it's okay to do things that other people ask you to do and you want to serve other people. I'm not saying it in a servitude way of I can never have any of my own voice. It's, it's where you constantly are, put yourself in inconvenient places for the sake of other people, hoping that they will see your true value. So they conflate the pleasure of others with the value of themselves.

• 1:20:17Speaker 01

  And so, meaning, I mean nothing to myself if you're not happy with me. I mean nothing to myself if I can't please you. You want this? Oh, okay, I'll go get it. You need this? Let me do this. Oh, I already thought about this. You love this. And they've forgotten their own sense. And so I've met people that have, you know, a lot of it's also early childhood. They learned that to save the marriage between mom and dad, they need to be everything to everybody. They have to give up. They've missed childhood in order to please everybody else. And so it becomes a pattern of safety. It's a survival skill of knowing for me to have, to survive in this, for me to have worth,

• 1:21:01Speaker 01

  well, I can't do it unless everybody else is happy with me.

• 1:21:05Steven Bartlett?

  Are there any case studies that come to mind of people that have read your work and have made real transformations that have shocked you or made you happy or proven to you the profundity of being able to take control of conversation?

• 1:21:18Speaker 01

  We took a survey poll within my membership. And it was already, I think it was like 93% of people with, even in the first... Three chapters of my book, it had already significantly impacted them in their job, their family, and exactly what they were reading the book for. Because everybody picks it up for the conversation they have in their mind. You know, they, people don't watch my content to handle, to know how to handle the last conversation. They watch to know how to handle the, the next one. And so to be able to provide the results that they're wanting is a, is a blessing.

• 1:21:57Steven Bartlett?

  I've just finished writing my third book. I haven't firmed up the title yet, but I have started mocking up some different designs. And I've been doing this with Adobe Express, which is one of our sponsors. What I love about Adobe Express is that it makes it so easy for me to obsess over the tiniest details, the typography, the font, the color, the text placement, the stuff that might sound petty to most people, but actually compounds to create something that stands out, something that's one better than the rest. And designing my cover art has reminded me of how many creative things I've learned over the year. But it's also reminded me that there are so many creative minds around me that are also sitting on their own secrets. So I've created the One Better Guide in Adobe Express to bring those tips to you. And in it, you'll find principles from the very, very best

• 1:22:41Steven Bartlett?

  in their industry turned into quick and easy practices for you to apply. So you can train yourself to create exactly like the best performing teams in the world do. Just head over to adobe.ly/onebetter to download Adobe Express now. And make sure you visit the Learn tab to discover how you can become one better than the rest. Is there a particular moment of conflict which you, stays with you the most when you think about a difficult conversation in your life?

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was one that I, I talk about in my book, that was probably the most gut-wrenching at that time, was me leaving the law firm where I was at, having to talk to my dad about leaving that firm. But that's, let's say that's in the, the book. What's fresh for me now, you want to talk about that? I mean, what's fresh for me now is conversations that I've had with my wife, with Sierra. And I'm having a hard time.

• 1:23:40Speaker 01

  Reaching, and she's having a hard time reaching for me where I kind of just go static. Where I do feel sad, I do feel remorse for, I'm trying to, and I have a hard time expressing it. So the best thing I can do in that mind is I use my words to be able to say, you know, I feel regret for what's happened or what I've done. And I may not be showing it right now, but I, this is not something I'm proud of. To be at least able to show in my words how I'm feeling. So let's say, for example, it's about anything related to, it could be any argument really with a husband and a wife, or a spouse, or partner, or whatever it is.

• 1:24:24Speaker 01

  But we had one not too long ago where we knew we were going to be traveling for a bit. And sometimes if it's just the two of us, what's going to happen? You're gonna, you're gonna have some spats. About probably the dumbest things you could probably have a fight about, but that's what happens. And I said to her, I was like, well, you know, if we do this and do that, you know, we'll probably, we're not probably going to argue about it, it's going to be fine. And she said to me, she said, well, either way, it's good. Meaning if you don't argue about something, great. But if we do argue about it, that's good too. To be able to see it as a chance to understand each other a little bit more, to know each

• 1:25:09Speaker 01

  other a little bit more. And it's not without being radically honest with the person you want to be with. And that's, that's hard for a lot of people.

• 1:25:22Steven Bartlett?

  I had a friend of mine say to me the other day that the thing that annoys him most about his wife is just like how long she takes to get ready. And he like really like offloaded it to me in a way where I'm like, this is a problem for him.

• 1:25:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:34Steven Bartlett?

  She just takes so long to get ready. And she's like, which means they're always late to things. A lot of guys can relate to this, including myself. But the way he said it to me was, was surprising. And I remember thinking, should he just go and have this conversation with her? Or is this like an illegitimate concern to raise? And I think that sometimes with, you know, because you were talking about your experience with Sierra and her saying like, either way, it's a good thing. Are all arguments warranted? Like, is that argument, you take too long to get ready and it's pissing me off?

• 1:26:04Steven Bartlett?

  Is that a valid thing to raise with your partner?

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  In therapy, they say if it's hysterical, it's historical. Meaning if it's really that big of a deal, then there's probably something deeper going on. If it's really affecting you that much, it's like those people who say, well, he's always pushing my buttons. I ask, well, why is there a button? You know, it's if if it's always getting you worked up, there's probably something deeper that you're not noticing. It's probably related to something that happened when he was a kid or something that maybe it's. Here, let me give a good example. You know, in in our marriage, I'm the spender, she's the saver.

• 1:26:47Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 1:26:47Speaker 01

  She she can turn a penny into a dime, right? You can pinch a penny into a dime. And she got really frustrated with me of like, why do you always need the nicest thing? All right, and that's typically if she's has an option of several things. Even if I don't know the price tags, I typically end up going with the one that's most expensive and that infuriates her. Because she she wouldn't do that. She's going to wait for it to go on sale. It she could have something she really wants and she's just going to track it forever in her mind until it goes on sale. And that's that gives her satisfaction. Me, I'll just go buy it. And I'm not saying I'm crazy. What's what I'm not like some crazy spender. But this is an issue that has always bothered her and bothered me.

• 1:27:31Speaker 01

  And what we had come to find out, we had actually used this with my AI, actually. But what we had come to learn is that

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  the reason why it affected me so much of like, why do you always use the the nice thing? Is related to when I was a kid. As the oldest, I I didn't get much of the the nice thing. My my stuff was typically hang me down from a friend or something else, or I I didn't get the nice thing. And at some point along the way, you equate that to your sense of worth. And so when I first had the ability to pay for anything for myself, yeah, I bought the on-brand cornflakes, you know, I bought the on-brand medication. Because to me, that was equal to how I wanted others to perceive me.

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  And so when she realized that, oh, it's not just me wanting a splurge, or have some kind of, you know, you just think you have to buy the best. It was like, no, that's actually, it's a reflection of when you buy me something nice, I feel like you equate that to how much value I hold, I'm not worth buying something nice for. And so it was related a lot to my stuff. And we got to talk the same about her stuff of why she doesn't want to buy the thing. So it's like that, having these super conversations with your friend of why does it bother her when she gets, takes forever to get dressed? Well, most likely, it's related to something in his past that's bothered him that he's not seeing yet.

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  Are the conversation worth having? Yeah, I think it's absolutely worth having. If it's bothering you that much, yeah. If it's hysterical, it's historical.

• 1:29:18Steven Bartlett?

  I think that's a really good point, which is we're all just dealing with other people's inner child, like we're all dealing with, it's just like me as a child facing you as a child. I know we look like adults now, I have gray hair, but it's really still us just playing out the stories and narratives from our childhood oftentimes.

• 1:29:35Speaker 01

  You're exactly right. They say in therapy, the worst thing about parents is that they had parents. You know, I mean, they, it's so easy for me just to look at my mom and me forget that she had parents, you know, that what they did to her, rather than me just looking at what my parents have done to me, you know? And that's the definition of the generational cycle. And it's choosing to do something different with who you are and who you want to be and how you want to raise the next generation. But it's all survival skills. It's all childhood trauma that's related to. And when people, I have a section in my book of having people define out their own

• 1:30:23Speaker 01

  The communication skills they saw growing up. Because most of the time, if you feel like arguments have to be this big shouting match and everybody's yelling and it's also typically cultural, you know, of how certain cultures, how they argue and how loud it is and if everybody versus there's some cultures and families that's very quiet. Like I, I'll never forget going to a friend's house when I was about seven and his parents, while we're eating cereal, like just had at it. And I was mortified, like

• 1:30:57Steven Bartlett?

  Arguing.

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  Arguing, arguing. And I mean, yelling at each other. And I am like bow and hand mortified. And my friend is just eating cereal like, hey, I'm bothering him whatsoever. This is just another Tuesday, you know, and whereas I grew up with, if my parents argued, it was gonna be in their bedroom. You know, I knew if they were gonna, they went to close the door and they were gonna have a conversation that they didn't want us to hear. And so everybody's been modeled something different where like there's, I've seen it on the negative side where people feel like you don't really love me unless you want to fight with me. It's because that's all they've been modeled, fights.

• 1:31:40Speaker 01

  They have to say the most hurtful thing. They need to be in tears. They need to be saying horrible things to each other for them to feel any kind of love. And I've also seen it where people are wallflower. They don't want to say anything. They want to be really hesitant because bad things happen when they spoke out at home. They realized that telling the truth wasn't good for them. They, they learned that lies protected them.

• 1:32:06Steven Bartlett?

  It's interesting when you have one parent that conducted themselves in a certain way and the other parent was the opposite.

• 1:32:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:11Steven Bartlett?

  What then happens to you? Like which communication style you then adopt?

• 1:32:16Speaker 01

  Which parent takes more of an interest in you? Is where it typically goes. The one you're most of the time with. And see, I know people who their parents are kind of absent, but they spend a lot of time with their grandmother. And so I know a guy who he sounds just like his southern grandmother from Kentucky. You know, because that's who he spent most of his time with. And so it's, it's who takes the most interest in you. It's, it's where the parents

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  What I find so interesting in communication, we talk, everything is learned from how we were raised, is at one point in time, there was utility to what you were doing. There was a utility to lying. It protected you, protected maybe your mom, it protected maybe your dad. There was utility to it. There was a utility to manipulating, to be able to say things weren't this way in order to keep the family together. So there was a utility to the very skill that you still have, and eventually it catches up with you.

• 1:33:19Steven Bartlett?

  What is it about our communication, do you think, that makes us accidentally disliked by other people?

• 1:33:24Speaker 01

  It sounds fake.

• 1:33:25Steven Bartlett?

  It sounds fake. And how does it sound fake? Give me, give me some color.

• 1:33:30Speaker 01

  Hmm, if you want to know the secret, if somebody's being fake with you, there's really three things that you gotta know. Number one, it's what I call bestie bombing.

• 1:33:42Steven Bartlett?

  Bestie bombing?

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, so instead of like love bombing, it's bestie bombing. I have people who come to me all the time. I feel like somebody's being fake with them. And what they're doing is, it's, oh my gosh, I just, we're literally the same person. Oh, I think we're best friends. And we just met. Like I just, we, or you talk, we're just standing next to each other at the same party. And they're like, oh, we've got to go. Oh, my gosh, you're my best, you're my soulmate. And it's like, they, they give way too much right out of the gate of how much they love you.

• 1:34:09Steven Bartlett?

  Ah, yeah.

• 1:34:10Speaker 01

  And it's, it's nothing, it's not what secure people do. Secure people don't attach to you instantly.

• 1:34:17Steven Bartlett?

  Is that a form of manipulation?

• 1:34:19Speaker 01

  No, it's a form of insecurity. It's, it's a form, because if, it would be manipulation if they actually meant it. But they don't. It's, it's these inauthentic relationships that all of a sudden, it's like, oh, my gosh, we, we're gonna be best friends. I, I love you so much. And you're like, I, I'm, I don't even know, I don't even know your last name. What are you, what are you talking about? So you see that a lot. Two is the over compliments. We all have this sixth sense to be able to sniff out if that's real or not. Like, nobody needs to teach you if it's a fake laugh or not. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. I don't know, was that really a laugh?

• 1:35:02Steven Bartlett?

  It's so funny, yeah, because we think we can spot everyone else's fake laugh and they can spot us.

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's like, but nobody had to teach that to you. Nobody had to say, hey, if you hear it like this, it's a fake laugh. No, no, no, we all, as humans, it's, we have an ability, a sense to go, nah, that didn't sound real. That's not a real smile. You know, people have their like photo smile and their real smile.

• 1:35:26Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:27Speaker 01

  And the same with the laughter, or like, that's not, that wasn't that funny. Or they over compliment something. They compliment your shoes. I mean, and then they have really, they go, oh, my gosh, I love that outfit. And then all of a sudden, they've turned their head. You know what I mean? They're not really truly engaged in what it is. It's just, it's, it's a ritual to them of that's how they have learned. Because to me, if you have to perfectly curate yourself, this sense of perfection, you're not getting the real human. You're getting a person and character. You're getting them in and seen. You know, they have to like get into it.

• 1:36:07Speaker 01

  And so it's, it's, it's something that's so, so fake every, every single time. And then I'd, the third that you have to watch out for are the people that aren't willing to actually have an interest in you. Meaning they never ask anything about you. They're only wanting to talk about themselves. Like, have you ever been in a, I know you have, and you're networking in a big room and somebody's looking at you and all of a sudden they're looking at the room. Like, they're, they're looking for who they're gonna talk to next. And you've lost them. And so it's like, why, we're both just kind of here saying things. We're gonna slow down our words so it's not as awkward. And you say things like,

• 1:36:48Speaker 01

  yeah, that's, that's crazy. Yeah. And like, while you're both looking for somebody else to talk to. But that's what happens. You realize you stay, you come out of focus and they, they're looking for the next person.

• 1:37:00Steven Bartlett?

  A really surprising point of feedback or compliment someone gave me once. And it's surprising because I never considered it to be something that people were noticing, is when I do like meeting greets, and you're meeting, say, a hundred people before or after a talk or whatever, and they're coming up one, one at a time. I will get DMs in the preceding days of people telling me that they liked the way that they watched me pay attention to someone else.

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:37:26Steven Bartlett?

  Do you get this?

• 1:37:27Speaker 01

  All the time.

• 1:37:28Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  They're watching.

• 1:37:29Steven Bartlett?

  They're watching how interested you are in the person that's talking to you. And I didn't, I didn't, obviously, it's not something I'd thought about before until probably had about 20 messages over the last year or two from people saying, and do you know what I noticed, Stephen? How much you were paying attention to the person that spoke to you.

• 1:37:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:37:46Steven Bartlett?

  Not to them.

• 1:37:46Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:37:47Steven Bartlett?

  They were in the line waiting. But it's the, and I just thought that's so interesting that we judge

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:37:51Steven Bartlett?

  other people by how they interact with other people while we're watching as well.

• 1:37:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:37:57Steven Bartlett?

  And that being interested is seen as, makes you likeable, I guess.

• 1:38:01Speaker 01

  Presence is the highest form of authenticity. I can talk to you, but am I here with you? If I, do I have my eyes with you? Am I, am I interested in you? Am I gonna, am I easily distracted? Am I have my phone? Am I, am I really paying attention? Or am I making sure that you know you are the most important thing that's happening in this moment? Even if it's a glimmer, even if it's for 30, 20 seconds and you're doing a meet and greet and you're saying hi or you're signing their book. Do you ask them their name? Do you use their name? Do you look at them with intent of true, genuine, thank you for being here? None of this would happen if not for you.

• 1:38:43Speaker 01

  People are watching the whole time and they, they, they know. I mean, it's, it's, it's such a, it's like what you know it when you feel it

• 1:38:53Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:53Speaker 01

  kind of thing. And to me, it's, it's presence. Am I, am I truly here with you? Because even at the house, you know, you can say, well, I'm home all the time, but are you, are you just like on your phone? Are you just sitting on the couch? Are you always reading? Are you? That's not presence.

• 1:39:09Steven Bartlett?

  I'm gonna play this video on the screen for anyone that's watching the video.

• 1:39:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:39:13Steven Bartlett?

  But it immediately made me think of this clip that went viral of Miley Cyrus and Naomi Campbell.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  Oh, I haven't seen this.

• 1:39:20Steven Bartlett?

  They were doing a meet and greet together and they were just chatting to each other and kind of ignoring the fans. And you can

• 1:39:38Steven Bartlett?

  I just remember thinking, this is like the antithesis of what we've just said.

• 1:39:43Speaker 01

  It's painful to watch. I know it's painful for the people. I mean, it's several layers of where, one, it's an area of really little forgiveness. You know, if you think of somebody of her caliber, so to say, of like her celebrity, right? Seen thousands, millions, it's happened and is there really room for just having a conversation with somebody? Like if you're her, how do you, what would be the justification, right? If you could just pause and say, what is it? Maybe you say, well, there isn't any. Okay, that's fine. But let's say, one, when it comes to presence, there's really not any room for

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  forgiveness. It's either you're present with them or you're not, because this kind of thing can last forever. Second of all, people will forget what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. And people will remember you, Stephen, of, they will tell their kids and their grandkids of the time that they met you, and how nice you were, how present you were, and how you were genuinely interested in them. And that makes all the difference. If you have one slip up, that's when I say it's not very forgivable. When you have one slip up, it's showing, applied to all. Because if you can do it to them, you can do it to me.

• 1:41:07Steven Bartlett?

  The slip up will also travel much further.

• 1:41:10Speaker 01

  Faster too.

• 1:41:10Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, faster.

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  Because I guarantee you, you know, you think of all the meet and greets that somebody like that has had, and has had genuine, real interest. They mess up one time, they get tired one time. Well, then all of a sudden, that's what travels way faster. So, but the thing is that, that's why I say, presence is the highest form of authenticity. Because if you can take that moment to be truly interested in somebody, because who am I? You know, I'm a guy from a small town who made videos in my car, and you're gonna come to my book signing? And you traveled and you flew in two hours? Like, why would I not? Hold up, take the line, let me spend three minutes with you. Can I give three minutes of my life to talk to you? What are you doing here? And so, when you have...

• 1:41:56Speaker 01

  That humility, and there's several people, I know you know many names, of they forgot how they got what they got.

• 1:42:05Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, yeah. I have a really interesting example of this recently where we appointed a new chairman to our company. He's called Nicky and incredible guy. He's been at like even proctoring gamble, doing product for, I don't know, 12 years, then went to Boston Consulting Group and was one of the senior figures at Boston Consulting Group for 25 years. And, you know, he's in the home stretch of his career. And he joined our company and he is, you know, he's achieved so much. He's worked with the biggest, the best in the world globally.

• 1:42:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:42:42Steven Bartlett?

  So he's got the right, one would say.

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  I like that word.

• 1:42:46Steven Bartlett?

  To be a certain way. That's what someone might say. But I'm over here in Los Angeles. He joins the company as chairman. And the interesting thing, the interesting feedback I got, I don't know, 5,000 miles away, was a very junior member of the team came up to me and said, I love Nicky. And I was like, explain. And he went, he sat down with me and gave me an hour of his time. That was the reason he loved him.

• 1:43:13Speaker 01

  That was it.

• 1:43:14Steven Bartlett?

  That was it. It was presence. And what I later found out was that Nicky went into the company and there is hundreds of people. And he sat down with every single one of them, regardless of whether you're an intern or whether you're the CEO. And it always, it's always stayed with me, how much that has mattered? How much that has shaped his perception? Just, he's brilliant and everything, but disproportionately shaped his perception just by giving someone the most valuable thing, which is just their time.

• 1:43:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:43:41Steven Bartlett?

  And I'm, I mean, maybe it's a story of how to be a good partner. Maybe it's a story of how to be in the public eye.

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:50Steven Bartlett?

  Maybe it's also a story of how to be a great colleague or team member or leader.

• 1:43:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, or just a great human. Yeah. I think there is, when you're always in the habit of giving, giving then feels a lot like receiving. So when I'm giving my time, it also feels like I'm receiving that time back. When I can continually have that spirit and you have that knowledge of.

• 1:44:17Speaker 01

  Humility. They say, what does humility mean? It means you realize that you are just as weird and terrible as everybody else. When you realize, I'm the chief worst person there is. I'm not better than a single person that is in line to do or attend something or sit in an audience. I'm no better. I've just been through a lot, still been through a lot, and so I know a lot. And when you have that mindset of, I want to meet and touch every single person. If I were to come in here and only talk to you, but not talk to your team? What do you think that's gonna do?

• 1:45:00Speaker 01

  When you can go somewhere and not just talk to who's the most popular, but also talk to who's the least? Like, it is a, you will always get way more, and for yourself and for the other person, when you can lower yourself to say, hey, we're just humans in a room. How's it going?

• 1:45:22Steven Bartlett?

  It's interesting that we're figuring people out by how we observe them vicariously. We were talking about it in the context of like a meeting greet a second ago.

• 1:45:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:30Steven Bartlett?

  What you said there tracks perfectly with that, which is, when you walked in the room, you didn't just speak to me, you also asked Berta, who's recording the podcast today, what her name was, and then you said to Berta, you said, thank you for doing this.

• 1:45:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:45:44Steven Bartlett?

  Now, isn't it funny that I remember?

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:46Steven Bartlett?

  Isn't it funny that that was like two and a half hours ago? And I remember, because it was really memorable to me that you did that, because not everybody does that. Not everybody will, you know, notice that Berta's in the room with us, and she's running all these cameras, and she's putting it together. But for some reason, just before we started recording, you made a point of asking her what her name was, and then thanking her for doing this today.

• 1:46:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:04Steven Bartlett?

  Most people don't do that.

• 1:46:05Speaker 01

  Isn't that funny?

• 1:46:06Steven Bartlett?

  And as you walk away from today, I'm not gonna remember like that you walked in and said something nice about me or whatever. The most shocking thing, and therefore the most memorable, because it is the most unusual, because it is typically the most overlooked, is you acknowledging the other people.

• 1:46:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:23Steven Bartlett?

  And...

• 1:46:26Steven Bartlett?

  I've noticed this is a paradox that I almost need to put words to. But I remember in something I wrote a long time ago, saying how useless absurdity will define you more than useful practicality. And what I mean by that is the example I was giving was in the context of my old gym, where they have this massive climbing wall in the entrance. And I came home to my girlfriend and said, this incredible gym, it's massive. They even have a hundred foot climbing wall in the entrance. What I'm doing is I'm pointing at the most absurd thing to give you a shortcut that tells you everything about that gym. Now, if I put in the most absurd thing, you know, the gym is big.

• 1:47:02Speaker 01

  Oh, I got chills. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:47:03Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 1:47:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:47:04Steven Bartlett?

  If I say there's a hundred foot climbing wall, you know, there's lots of running machines.

• 1:47:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:47:08Steven Bartlett?

  So if I, if I, when I leave here and go, he was so nice. He even spoke to Berta and thanked her for doing the podcast. I'm using that as a shortcut because it's the most standout absurd thing to tell other people everything about.

• 1:47:21Speaker 01

  Yes, I love that.

• 1:47:22Steven Bartlett?

  And this is why we should value the seemingly petty and seemingly small and seemingly inconsequential, because other people don't. Therefore, it creates maximal impact.

• 1:47:30Speaker 01

  Yes, that's why the big conversations rarely matter. The small ones do. It's the small ones with strangers. It's the conversations you don't have on the stage. It's the conversations you have in your driveway. It's the conversations you have in your backyard at the coffee shop. It's the conversations you have to somebody passing by in the elevator. Like, it's those, that's what defines the human experience. If I were to text you a compliment, right? That's one thing. But if I were to say, hey, I just finished lunch with so and so, who you also know, I got to tell you, this person loves you so much. And I share with you what they said about you, you're going to take that differently. If I wanted to give you, let's say, if somebody wanted to give me a gift, right? But instead, they didn't give it to me, they gave it to my kids.

• 1:48:16Speaker 01

  I mean, that's how much more would that define how much they care, right? It's anytime I go on a stage, I make it a priority that I know the guy who's or girl who's putting on my the AV system, the lapel mic, the everything. I want to know their name, I want to know how, how many times they've done this today, how they're doing, because it's so easy just to turn and keep talking to who's important while and act like they're just doing it like it's when you can truly talk to the people, that's just a regular person and forget that you you don't have to just stick to the somebodies. You don't have to look always for the somebodies.

• 1:48:56Steven Bartlett?

  I used to say that I again, this comes from employing a lot of people that we will have invisible PR and it's and it shows up in the moments that matters the most, but it's built in the moments that seem to matter the least.

• 1:49:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:08Steven Bartlett?

  And the example I always think of is being working in the New York office many years ago and getting a message from my team member just saying, oh, Jenny's so nice. She just Tim tripped over and Jenny immediately got up from her desk and ran across to the first aid kit and sorted him out. She's so nice. And I'd hear that 3,000 miles away. And then a year later, I'd be sat with Jenny during her promotion conversation.

• 1:49:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:32Steven Bartlett?

  And that one thing she did, that small thing she did was often the time where I'd go, do you know what? This person is a certain type of person and we should

• 1:49:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:49:41Steven Bartlett?

  double down on them. And then I've got the opposite as well. I've got the a little thing someone did to someone who was not necessarily their line manager or significant.

• 1:49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:52Steven Bartlett?

  And it, you know, and even things that happened to me

• 1:49:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:49:57Steven Bartlett?

  years ago, when I came up to, I walked up to someone famous, I've told this story before, it's so crazy. I told this during the podcast, like episode three, and no one listened. And then, um, like three, four years later, the podcast got bigger and people started listening to people go back to the old episodes. And this famous person tweeted me like four years later. I was like, I heard you're talking about me in the UK, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I was, I was just sharing it as an example for like invisible PR where someone I'd gone up to someone famous and asked them a question and they just like.

• 1:50:28Steven Bartlett?

  Bang.

• 1:50:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:29Steven Bartlett?

  Like laden to me.

• 1:50:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:50:31Steven Bartlett?

  And I, you know, I don't know what they're going through that day, but it always, you know.

• 1:50:35Speaker 01

  But that's, but that brings it around like full circle because like we just said, you can have those little moments where it's, it's the rock wall, right? Where little moments of connection, of presence, of real authenticity, of them being with you that you'll remember forever.

• 1:50:53Speaker 01

  And I bet if I had to guess, there's a moment in Steven at the playground, growing up, that a teacher, somebody in your life said something that was nice and you've remembered forever.

• 1:51:04Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:51:06Speaker 01

  But I would also venture to bet.

• 1:51:09Steven Bartlett?

  Yes. Before you even said, I could, I thought of the moment.

• 1:51:12Speaker 01

  That.

• 1:51:13Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:51:14Speaker 01

  Playground Steven, where somebody said something hurtful.

• 1:51:18Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:18Speaker 01

  Or rude, or said something about how you look or your appearance, maybe not even recess, but sometime in your life.

• 1:51:24Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:51:24Speaker 01

  And it was just something, maybe it was about, for a lot of people, it's like their weight or their appearance or their looks. And they've carried that around with them forever. And that, like, without knowing it, that person gave you an insecurity for the rest of your life. And so it's so wild to me how the positive is remembered, the negative is remembered much longer and travels a lot farther. And I mean, it's, when I ask that to a group that I'm talking to, there's hands that are always way more raised for the negative for the one thing, that the power of your words lasts way longer than you'd ever think. The ripple effect will affect people you've never met. I mean, you think, think of the

• 1:52:09Speaker 01

  people who you've touched and the people you've never met, but yet they have a perception of you based three persons down, right? And how I talk to my kids will affect how they talk to their kids and their kids, children I'll never meet. And when you realize that how I talk to the person behind the cashier affects how he or she talks to their kids when they go home.

• 1:52:36Speaker 01

  Based on what I said, we'll determine whether they come home and say, I had a really bad day, I had a really hard day. And it's because of what I said, because I was rude, or I was impatient, because they didn't get it to me fast enough. And all of a sudden, without knowing, just as much as the positive lasts, so does the negative. It's now, what I chose to say is responsible for how they're treating their own kids.

• 1:52:58Steven Bartlett?

  And that's what, how we are as humans, right? Like, the reason why we survived is because we're good at gossip.

• 1:53:04Speaker 01

  That too.

• 1:53:05Steven Bartlett?

  We're good at passing on stories. So, you know, I could tell people before they met you, if you were a risk.

• 1:53:10Speaker 01

  No, yeah.

• 1:53:11Steven Bartlett?

  I could, you know, don't go near him, don't go near that cave.

• 1:53:14Speaker 01

  The threat.

• 1:53:15Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Person in there that's gonna kill us, so.

• 1:53:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:53:18Steven Bartlett?

  It's a survival adaptation, I guess, in some respects, to be gossipy and to pass on people's reputations.

• 1:53:22Speaker 01

  But we've always asked, what's the news? You know, people going through town, from town to town, you didn't, you didn't really have a paper, it's, do you have any news?

• 1:53:30Steven Bartlett?

  So I'm gonna push you to close, to give me the five things that you think are most important for anyone who's striving to be a masterful communicator, conversationalist, to get what they want out of life, which is really what I think is the last domino, when we talk about body language, or communication tactics, all the things we're talking about. I think people are trying to get something out of life, whether it's to have a better relationship, or to be respected, or get a promotion, to be successful. I think that's probably the output we're looking for, ultimately. Do you agree with that? I don't wanna, like, what is it that, what's the last domino that people are looking for when they talk about this stuff up here?

• 1:54:12Speaker 01

  Self-worth.

• 1:54:14Steven Bartlett?

  Self-worth, okay.

• 1:54:15Speaker 01

  Am I enough?

• 1:54:16Steven Bartlett?

  Am I enough, okay. So what are the, what are the five most important things to summarize, if you had to give me five?

• 1:54:24Speaker 01

  The first is authenticity.

• 1:54:28Speaker 01

  If I cannot be genuine with you, if I cannot be real with you, then I can be nobody to you.

• 1:54:35Steven Bartlett?

  And on authenticity, you know, on your bad day, are you still authentic at work?

• 1:54:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:54:41Steven Bartlett?

  Like if you're, if you're really, you know, having a bad day, do you show up to work as your authentic self?

• 1:54:47Speaker 01

  I would say yes. I mean, there's obviously certain parameters that are within social norms of just because I'm having a bad time and in a bad mood, does that give me a right to rip you a new one, just because you said hello to me that morning? You know, no, but I, I think that there is certainly a space to say, don't act like you're happy when you're not.

• 1:55:08Steven Bartlett?

  What about lying? Is that a violation of authenticity? So a colleague comes up to me, they say, what do you think of my new haircut? And you think it's terrible?

• 1:55:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:18Steven Bartlett?

  What'd you, what'd you say?

• 1:55:20Speaker 01

  It's an interesting choice. Probably what I'd say.

• 1:55:23Steven Bartlett?

  So you wouldn't lie?

• 1:55:25Speaker 01

  No, I wouldn't. I would probably change it to where it's, I'm glad that they like it. You know, I, I don't have to like it for you to give it any type of worth. If you like it, that's awesome.

• 1:55:36Steven Bartlett?

  And authenticity, authenticity is a strategy builds trust over time. So that's a long-term game, I guess.

• 1:55:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I, I came across some research recently where it was in social settings, those that are more authentic are also the ones that are more trusted and the ones you want to be around more.

• 1:55:53Steven Bartlett?

  Why do people struggle with authenticity? It goes back to this point about people pleasing, I guess, but there is a certain type of person, I think, that probably struggles to just be,

• 1:56:04Steven Bartlett?

  you know, just to show up in all the ways that they, they are, to be themselves.

• 1:56:10Speaker 01

  They grew up in places that weren't safe, whether physically or emotionally. They, they grew up unsafe and so they're always tense. They're always anxious. They're always worried about the next shoe to drop. They can't rest.

• 1:56:29Speaker 01

  You see people that had come from very hard, harsh environments. You'll see the survival skills that have come out of that. It's because they simply didn't have a place to be safe.

• 1:56:47Steven Bartlett?

  Number two?

• 1:56:49Speaker 01

  Reduce the amount of distraction.

• 1:56:52Steven Bartlett?

  Reduce distraction. Is that the same as saying like increase presence?

• 1:56:58Speaker 01

  Well, that is the benefit of it. Yeah. If you want to increase your presence, you have to eliminate distractions. And that means eliminate how often you're on your phone.

• 1:57:08Steven Bartlett?

  I've got some thread here. Do you know why this is here?

• 1:57:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:57:13Steven Bartlett?

  Well, you explain.

• 1:57:14Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, so just a piece of very pretty red string. And this string is going to represent the connection between the two of us. So I'll give you the end of it. What I just gave you is a piece of string and it connects between your hand and my hand. And it's taut right now. So this string right now represents the connection between us in conversation.

• 1:57:38Steven Bartlett?

  It's tight.

• 1:57:38Speaker 01

  It's very tight. I'm going to ask questions throughout this that don't think about how, what the right answer is. Just go with what your gut instinct of how it feels. So right now it's tight. And if I look at you in the eye and I say, Stephen, how's it going, man?

• 1:57:55Steven Bartlett?

  It's going good.

• 1:57:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. What was something that frustrated you yesterday?

• 1:57:59Steven Bartlett?

  My haircut didn't go to plan.

• 1:58:00Speaker 01

  Tell me about it.

• 1:58:02Steven Bartlett?

  It's just not, it's not good. I don't like it.

• 1:58:04Speaker 01

  Do you find that some of the biggest struggles you had yesterday was mostly with business or personal or tell me something with business?

• 1:58:12Steven Bartlett?

  Um, struggles with business yesterday.

• 1:58:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, go ahead.

• 1:58:19Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, so you're on your phone now. And the connection has been reduced.

• 1:58:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I just pulled out my phone. And now I'm looking. And what did you feel in the line?

• 1:58:31Steven Bartlett?

  I felt like the tightness went, it went loose.

• 1:58:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it went slack. All right, but that's the physical. What is emotionally, how did that feel?

• 1:58:39Steven Bartlett?

  It felt disrespectful.

• 1:58:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. And see, if I had just both, had both hands on it like this. Now, let's put it taut again. And I'm talking to you. And I say, so what's, what are you looking forward to this weekend?

• 1:58:53Steven Bartlett?

  I'm looking forward to...

• 1:58:55Speaker 01

  No, go ahead. And this is me just turning, it's still tight. Don't worry, I still am connected to you, you know? Don't worry about it, I'm right here, go ahead. Yeah. Exactly. You see how all of a sudden you wanted to let go now?

• 1:59:05Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:59:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, for anybody listening. So you, we both had it tight. I look at my phone while still holding it tight. Where I'm saying, no, no, I'm listening, go, go right ahead. And all of a sudden, you are the one that let go of the line.

• 1:59:16Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:17Speaker 01

  Isn't that something? Because all of a sudden, you gave up on the conversation. You didn't wanna be in it anymore. What do you typically do if somebody's at dinner with you? And they pull out their phone?

• 1:59:27Steven Bartlett?

  I mean, you look away, or you could speak to someone else, or you...

• 1:59:29Speaker 01

  Or you pull out your phone.

• 1:59:31Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:59:32Speaker 01

  Exactly. You, it's like they've given you permission to now pick up their phone. Somebody gets on theirs, and you don't wanna look awkward or odd. So what, you, you only get out yours. And next thing you know, both of you are on your phones at dinner. We were supposed to be communicating with each other. And you're just staring at your phone.

• 1:59:50Steven Bartlett?

  I think, I sometimes think this with me being an interviewer, having this iPad in front of me. I'm like, should I get rid of the iPad? Maybe I should. Because I write things down while someone's speaking to me. And I, I do worry sometimes. That if I'm like looking at a particular point or fact or whatever, that I'm...

• 2:00:06Speaker 01

  It's a little bit different. So there's a part of this that is, it's, it's a production. We have cameras, we have lights. Like, this isn't a normal, just if you and I were having coffee. But let's say you and I were having lunch. And I'm talking like this to you, and I put my phone right here. Do you feel a difference?

• 2:00:25Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, I do, yeah.

• 2:00:26Speaker 01

  Do you feel I'm more connected or less connected?

• 2:00:27Steven Bartlett?

  Less connected.

• 2:00:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and if I-

• 2:00:28Steven Bartlett?

  I'm amongst priorities, not the priority.

• 2:00:30Speaker 01

  Do you feel any different if I flip it over?

• 2:00:33Steven Bartlett?

  Yes, I do.

• 2:00:33Speaker 01

  And my face is, it's down.

• 2:00:35Steven Bartlett?

  Yes, I do. It's a signal.

• 2:00:37Speaker 01

  Of?

• 2:00:38Steven Bartlett?

  That you think this is more important and you don't want to be distracted.

• 2:00:41Speaker 01

  Imagine, what would you feel like if you were on a date? Or got together with a friend? And you just said, "Hey, where's your phone?" And he said, "Oh, I just left it in the car. I just wanted to sit with you."

• 2:00:56Steven Bartlett?

  Yes, incredible.

• 2:00:57Speaker 01

  Does anybody do that?

• 2:00:58Steven Bartlett?

  No.

• 2:00:59Speaker 01

  No, nobody does that. But imagine, imagine if, right now, there was, let's say, a woman is about to go on a date. And she asks the guy, "Where's your phone?" And he goes, "Oh, I left it in the, left it in the car." I mean, what kind of what?

• 2:01:14Steven Bartlett?

  You'd think he was kind of weird.

• 2:01:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, almost like, what, you mean you want to be solely interested in me? I'm signaling that there is nothing else more important than what's going on right here.

• 2:01:23Steven Bartlett?

  So that's such atypical behavior. Some people might see it as a red flag.

• 2:01:27Speaker 01

  No doubt, that's probably true. But if I have right here, even if I've put it face down on the table and I'm talking to you, I'm at least still having my world, my business, my stress, my chaos. It's my, it's my pacifier. You're not going to ask me to take away my blanket, are you?

• 2:01:42Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 2:01:43Speaker 01

  And so I'm still, it's still there in the conversation with us. So even if I put it down, or I put it between my legs, or I put it in my pocket, which I think is much better of not letting it come out at all. But it's, what's the strength of the connection? Because we've all been that person, like we just showed with the string, where they get out their phone while you're talking and they're like, "Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, uh, right? Go ahead." And you go, "I don't want this."

• 2:02:07Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:08Speaker 01

  You let go, because it's like, this isn't real, this isn't real connection. So if you want to be a better communicator, you have to understand the definition of true connection. It's keeping it taut.

• 2:02:19Steven Bartlett?

  I'm so shocked when I go to restaurants with my girlfriend because we have a rule and this is actually a rule that I completely agreed with.

• 2:02:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:02:25Steven Bartlett?

  Which is like when we go on a date or we go to a restaurant, there's no phones.

• 2:02:28Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:02:28Steven Bartlett?

  We're not going to be on our phones in a restaurant.

• 2:02:30Speaker 01

  It's mind blowing.

• 2:02:31Steven Bartlett?

  Mind blowing.

• 2:02:31Speaker 01

  We went to, um, when we were, we've been here all this week and, and we went to a restaurant, uh, Sierra and I, and I saw so many couples and people and friends and that were just at the table and it was, it was dark evening and all you see is the glow of phones. It's everybody just sitting there on their phone. It's just, it's, it's crazy to me. Or, or the people that are on their couch with the TV on and both of them are on their phones and, and they're supposed to be watching a movie together.

• 2:03:02Steven Bartlett?

  You know, everyone, people watches a little bit.

• 2:03:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:04Steven Bartlett?

  Restaurants, yeah, so I'm not going to pretend we don't.

• 2:03:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, they just say, I'm not going to do that.

• 2:03:07Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But so we, we will be in a restaurant and we just sometimes play a little game where we kind of guess how long people have been together based on how they're behaving.

• 2:03:14Speaker 01

  Oh, I like that. Yeah, that's fun.

• 2:03:16Steven Bartlett?

  And so it's, it tends to be the case that it's the younger couples where there's a man and a woman and they're both on their phone and I just can't believe what I'm seeing.

• 2:03:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's pretty wild.

• 2:03:26Steven Bartlett?

  Look, I got my phone a lot, but if I'm on a date, I am not going to be sat there looking at a screen while she's sat there looking on a screen, just in total silence. Even if I've known this woman for 35 years.

• 2:03:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's become so much of a, an emotional pacifier when I don't like the angst of having to wait in line by myself. I don't like having to sit on the, the subway or the tube or the metro or whatever by myself. I, I get out, I get out my phone. I don't, it, it prevents me from having to have dialogue. So instead I'd rather just look at my phone and watch and scroll versus communicating. Like it, there's, imagine waiting for your haircut and everybody in the room is actually talking to one another like they used to and they'd just be wild to you. Everybody in a doctor's office in the waiting room, everybody's looking at their phone. So, yeah, to me it's such a distraction and that means even at the house too.

• 2:04:22Speaker 01

  I think even more so when it comes to the house.

• 2:04:25Steven Bartlett?

  So that was point number two, which was reducing distraction and therefore increasing presence.

• 2:04:29Speaker 01

  Three, stop over explaining. You have to invest in the right words, meaning if you are constantly just.

• 2:04:42Speaker 01

  Gushing words the whole time. Does it make you want to listen to that person more or less?

• 2:04:49Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, yeah, I mean, you just kind of discount it.

• 2:04:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, all of a sudden, it's it's kind of like the that story about the boy who cried wolf. Like, you you talk so much that the message gets lost. If I'm always talking a lot, it's easy to tune it out. It's like it becomes its own static. But if you choose your words, if I'm gonna slow down. So how do you how do you stop yourself from over explaining? Instead of being a waterfall, be a well. Meaning, rather than trying to gush out information, get them swept away in your message. You have a confidence in holding your knowledge. If they have a question, they'll ask. You're available for the question should they want to ask. But I'm gonna give you always exactly what you need if I choose to be a well

• 2:05:35Speaker 01

  with my information, rather than just gushing. Because when I over explain, all somebody's doing is indicating that I don't really know if I believe what I'm saying or you believe what I'm saying, so I need to say more.

• 2:05:46Steven Bartlett?

  I notice there's such power in when someone asks you a question, taking a moment to think. And actually, sometimes I notice some people will actually say, let me just think about that. And the minute they do that, I'm I'm immediately doing the opposite of discounting what they say. I'm now actually at baited breath to think about, to hear this very thoughtful, considered thing they're about to share with me.

• 2:06:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:06:07Steven Bartlett?

  Whereas you see a lot of people do the opposite. The minute they're asked anything, it's just like the floodgates open.

• 2:06:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:06:12Steven Bartlett?

  And they start filling the silence with, and they start thinking out loud.

• 2:06:15Speaker 01

  Exactly. They're they're external thinkers. What I teach is let your first word be your breath. Meaning, when you put a breath where the first word should be, everything else flows. If I start gushing, what I'm signaling is

• 2:06:36Speaker 01

  You know, I don't, most people wait until they're talking to figure out what they want to say.

• 2:06:41Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:42Speaker 01

  And so they say, well, what I mean to say is, well, I say all that to say, because they're still trying to figure it out. But if you were to ask me a really hard question, and rather than having that knee jerk reaction, I go, "It's a good question. Let me think." Then you're gonna be, you're gonna be in it. You're gonna know whatever is about to come out has actually been thought about, is actually gonna be something you want to listen to. Now you're gonna be more curious. Now you wait with bated breath of what's gonna happen. So when you think of business meetings, the person who goes, "Oh, actually, you know, I disagree with that." If you look at our latest studies and they just start, "La la la la la." Versus when somebody asks, you know, "Steven, what do you think?" And you go,

• 2:07:27Speaker 01

  and you just hold that silence. It's like a cliffhanger. Everybody wants to hear what you said. People who are confident, they don't have to say something to show they know something. They choose their moment. They choose their timing.

• 2:07:46Steven Bartlett?

  It appears there were also the people that are most likely to turn around and say, "I don't have the answer to that."

• 2:07:50Speaker 01

  Yep. People who are truly confident, know they don't always have to get it right. They know that they will get it wrong. Confident people, confidence does not mean you have to know all the answers. Confidence means you know that you don't. When you have the confidence of knowing I don't know everything, all of a sudden you sound a lot more real.

• 2:08:11Steven Bartlett?

  There's also something about you just being the type of person that's willing to sit in silence, but also just take up more space and time. That signals respect. The very fact that you would have the audacity to say, someone asks me a question and I go, "Hmm, let me just think about that for a second." It means that I'm not, you talked about rushing earlier. I don't rush. And there's something about, quite aura about that.

• 2:08:33Speaker 01

  Hmm, there we go.

• 2:08:34Steven Bartlett?

  About the fact that you, you're not the type of, you're the type of person that can just take seven seconds.

• 2:08:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:08:39Steven Bartlett?

  Because you are, it's, you're kind of stealing seven seconds from everyone there.

• 2:08:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:08:44Steven Bartlett?

  So that you can think.

• 2:08:46Speaker 01

  And you would think that the, the harder the issue, the more time that is necessary.

• 2:08:51Steven Bartlett?

  You would think, yeah.

• 2:08:52Speaker 01

  And instead, everybody's equated it to immediate. I think when, let's say we're on a, a ship and it, we're in the middle of a storm. Who's the person that they all look to to say, "I'm freaking out, I'm scared," but the captain isn't? You know, this person knows, she knows. And we're constantly looking for that person in times of emotional stress. We're wanting someone to, "I'm too anxious, but I can go to this person." Because in times of crisis, they say, "You walk, don't run." You know, when I act like I've been there before and I've seen this, I'm telling everybody else,

• 2:09:34Speaker 01

  "Oh, well, if he's not worried, I shouldn't be worried. If he's not upset, I don't have to be upset." A lot of doctors, a lot of professionals that deal with conflict and crisis management, it's their job to be as calm as could be. Because if they reacted in a way that set you off or set you on edge, then there's no anchor. And then it's a bad place to be. But yeah, just having that, let me think about that for a second, has a different tune of, "Oh, wow, this person, they know who they are. I don't rush. That's just not what I do."

• 2:10:11Steven Bartlett?

  It reminds me of every time I've had turbulence on a plane and I've looked at the flight attendant to see if this thing is going down.

• 2:10:17Speaker 01

  That's so good. Yes. I can't tell you how many times I've done that, where I'm looking at the hostess, like, just walking, still passing out snacks and not bothering. I'm like, "Okay."

• 2:10:27Steven Bartlett?

  We must be fine.

• 2:10:29Speaker 01

  We do that in conversation every day. We're looking for the calm flight attendants. We're looking for the anchors, the captains, the people who, in times of stress and turbulence in our life, we can look to and say, "If they're okay, and if they're good, then I can be good." And when you can be that person for others...

• 2:10:46Steven Bartlett?

  You're a leader.

• 2:10:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, always.

• 2:10:48Steven Bartlett?

  You are the leader. This is probably the defining trait of, I think, people that I have employed over the years that I would consider a leader or not a leader, is how different they are when shit has hit the fan.

• 2:11:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:11:00Steven Bartlett?

  And if there is seemingly no difference in the way they're conducting themselves, leader.

• 2:11:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:11:06Steven Bartlett?

  Emotional regulator. They bring the temperature down. And then you have the inverse. Where the minute any kind of sign of trouble, there's stress, there's, there's overwhelm and it's contagious. And what they need is the calm flight attendant to regulate them.

• 2:11:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:11:22Steven Bartlett?

  So I think, and people I think who want to be leaders in their professional lives should really think about this, like, how do you show up when things are hard? I, I always tell the story of one of my friends called Oliver, who, when I employed him, must have been seven, eight years ago, okay, he wasn't my friend when I hired him, but the defining trait of Oliver was that he would deliver me good and bad news, uh, the same.

• 2:11:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:50Steven Bartlett?

  With the same sort of nonchalant, calm demeanor. So he'd walk up to me and say, you know, we've just signed Uber across America, we're gonna be there, da, da, da, da. And then the days where everything was on fire, he'd walk up to me and say, Stephen, can I have a chat? I'd say, yeah, yeah, cool. He'd say, just so you know, and then he'd deliver some of the worst shit I've ever heard in my entire life. But he'd do it in such a calm way that I both, I was calm and I thought he had it under control.

• 2:12:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:12:19Steven Bartlett?

  And I remember always thinking, I need to put more people under this guy.

• 2:12:21Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 2:12:22Steven Bartlett?

  Because he's gonna bring us down. And so I just think as employers, I, I, I wouldn't have known that my boss or my employer is thinking this unless someone had said it to me. They're watching how I deal with, with things when shit hits the fan.

• 2:12:34Speaker 01

  They're always watching.

• 2:12:35Steven Bartlett?

  Always.

• 2:12:36Speaker 01

  I mean, you take people that are, are watching you and your team, you have a large team, when, when you are upset and anxious, everybody feels it. It spreads. But if you're the one that's calm, it, that spreads too. And so it's, and, and you have to get to the situation where if you're upset, then people know it's something to be upset about. Now, of, if, you know, I had a friend in college, he was upset about everything. I mean, he just was a hothead and he'd get upset about the smallest things. How can you possibly tell the difference between what is a small thing and a big thing? If you're always having the same level of reaction?

• 2:13:18Speaker 01

  But if you have a calmness, let's say then you have an explosion because it happens, because you're human, that's when people know, oh, this is something serious.

• 2:13:27Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:13:28Speaker 01

  Because if you're always operated at a 10, nobody's gonna appreciate it when it's really an 11.

• 2:13:33Steven Bartlett?

  When you think about like military generals and leaders, they also have this other side to them, which is they do also protect the standard. And I think this, there's a, there's a balance that's almost needed here between being nonchalant in those moments where something bad's happened, we can't control it now. And then how you defend the standard. It's like you watch the military barracks or whatever, when they're going through training, these leaders are like screaming at them about the standards, about the buttons, about iron your shirt, make your boots clean. And so it appears on one end that they are petty about something and they are, you know, they are, these leaders are emotional. You look at football managers.

• 2:14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:10Steven Bartlett?

  Or sporting managers.

• 2:14:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:12Steven Bartlett?

  They, they almost exist in a bit of a dichotomy, which is like knowing when to be controlled and then knowing when to be emotionally, seemingly emotionally irrational about something.

• 2:14:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think those, those specific situations are also part of a system. You know, this is a system that they've seen produce the outcome that they want. So they know that there's a utility to having that big reaction or there's a purpose behind it. What I find is the negative is when you have people who, there's not a utility. They just, they don't have the words. The leaders who, let's say curse a lot because they don't really have the vocabulary. You know, they, they would rather have big emotional reactions. But when you have that type of language that is not going to show that you're in control of your emotions, you're just less believable.

• 2:15:10Steven Bartlett?

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• 2:15:54Steven Bartlett?

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• 2:16:11Steven Bartlett?

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• 2:16:56Steven Bartlett?

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• 2:17:01Steven Bartlett?

  So that was number three.

• 2:17:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:03Steven Bartlett?

  Stop over explaining yourself.

• 2:17:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:17:04Steven Bartlett?

  The second one was reducing distractions and the first was authenticity. Number four.

• 2:17:09Speaker 01

  Know how to deal with their sadness.

• 2:17:18Speaker 01

  A lot of people are hurting that you don't know are hurting. And a lot of people are grieving that you don't know are grieving. Whether it's the holidays, whether it's an important date or event that you don't know about in their life and they're hurting and grieving. If you really want to be a top level communicator, you need to know, not to say, not only when the times are good, but also when the times are are bad.

• 2:17:43Steven Bartlett?

  And how does how does one be there for someone when they're going through their moments of sadness? Is there any principles that one should think about?

• 2:17:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, when somebody is grieving, what you do not do is begin with, let me know if.

• 2:18:00Speaker 01

  If you if what you are about to say begins with, let me know if, it's the wrong thing to say. Let me know if you need anything. Let me know if I can do anything for you. Just just let me know. Anything you need, let me know. All you're doing is giving them a chore. This person's already grieving at this moment. They

• 2:18:22Speaker 01

  They're going through something you don't even know how to feel. And you're now giving them a chore. They're supposed to be on their own to have the ability to pull out their phone, text their need to you. That's never gonna happen. Have you ever had somebody who say, "Let me know if you need anything", actually let you know that they needed something? Never. Never, because now you've made it more comfortable on you, and now more of an obligation on them. And we go, "Well, you know what? I said all I need to say. Let me know if you need anything. Let me know how I can help." When all you've done is just given them an obligation. You've burdened it even more. Of course, they don't want to burden you.

• 2:19:07Speaker 01

  They don't even want to live in some of these moments. They don't want to exist. They don't know how to do it. And saying, "Let me know if", isn't gonna help them. Instead, here's what you do when somebody's grieving. You do the thing. Whatever you thought about doing, go do it. If you wanted to bring them dinner, or said, "Let me know if you need any food", just go get them food. Go do the task. Go run the errand. Go show up and do their laundry. Go mow their yard for them. Go do the thing. If I really want you to be there for me, and you really want to be there for the other person, you don't have to ask. You just go do. And second of all, I find a lot of time, people who are with somebody who's grieving, they don't know what to say. They want to say something.

• 2:19:52Speaker 01

  Like, "I want to say something, but I don't really know what to say. I just, I feel uncomfortable. What I say is not gonna be enough." And so they just stare at their phone, and they kind of takes out a sentence, and they delete it, because they don't really know what to say. The best thing to say is just to validate how you would assume it's gonna be feeling for them. "Nobody deserves what hap-" "This is totally unfair. I can't believe that this happened. Nobody deserves this." Be able to express and confirm that what they're feeling is exactly what they should be feeling. Don't go in with the, "At least they're in a better place." "Hey, you know what? Everything happens for a reason." That's not the right time to say that, if ever.

• 2:20:33Speaker 01

  To be able to try and make them feel better of, "Oh, you know, I just, at least they're, you know, not... Is there anything I can do?" Any of that kind of stuff? It's like, "Yeah, I know what you can do. You can bring that person back. That's what you can do." But that's not gonna happen. You can't do that. And so you catch yourself in a corner where you genuinely have an interest. Like, how many times people say, "You're in our thoughts. You're my thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and prayers, you know, praying for you." And they haven't once sent up a prayer, right? They're just saying it. If you really mean it, text out the prayer to them. Text the prayer. "Dear God, I just ask that you be with Stephen right now." Send the prayer to them.

• 2:21:15Speaker 01

  Why not encourage them in that versus just saying, "Hey, just keeping you in my thoughts." If you are, then text them, "Thinking about you. No need to respond." You think just putting it in a Facebook comment is gonna do enough? Just, "Here, in our prayers." That's not connection and that's not authentic. That's the easy shortcut.

• 2:21:38Steven Bartlett?

  I think I've spent my whole life struggling with those moments where something bad has happened to someone or they've been through something and you've found out over text message and you don't know what to say. You're like, "I'm so sorry." And the amount of times I've written something and then deleted it and written something and deleted it. I actually got some feedback from Samir, who is a very well-known YouTuber, creator. And he's part of a YouTube channel called Colin and Samir. Their house is burnt down in the Palisades fire. And I'd say, what, four, five, six months later, he came up to me in New York and said, Thank you for the message you sent me because it was specific.

• 2:22:23Steven Bartlett?

  And I, and I, there's a, we have a clip of it because we were recording at the time. We were, I'd just come off stage and he was at his, at his event in New York and he'd come up to me and said it. And it always stayed with me that he remembered six months later. I didn't even really remember the message I sent.

• 2:22:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:22:35Steven Bartlett?

  But he remembered six months later that when his house had burnt down, they'd both just had, I think they both had like less than one year old kids and that both of the houses had burnt down. I sent him something specific I could help him with. I can't, I can't remember the details of what I said, but he came up and said, thank you for sending me something. Lots of people sent me messages, but I remember you sent me something specific.

• 2:22:58Speaker 01

  That hits the theme of when you stop trying to be what's most convenient to you

• 2:23:06Speaker 01

  and start doing what might be just a slightly, a little bit more uncomfortable, a little bit more work. The choice to do something different and be more specific in the thought. To, to not just say, so sorry to hear.

• 2:23:20Speaker 01

  Right? That's, that's, that's injustice to be, I mean, that's, that doesn't even touch it. But if you were to say, you were to say,

• 2:23:29Speaker 01

  what is happening is totally unfair. I agree with it, be specific with it. Same thing with, it's the same with compliments. The more specific it is, the more genuine it is. The person that you remember the longest is the person who's able to be right there with you and say exactly what you're feeling in that moment.

• 2:23:49Steven Bartlett?

  And make a genuine offer to, to support, a real.

• 2:23:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:23:53Steven Bartlett?

  And also not, as you said at the start, not an offer that they have to accept. Because no one accepts them.

• 2:23:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, or to make it a condition that they have to reach out to you in order to you consider giving it.

• 2:24:06Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:06Speaker 01

  Instead of just doing it. Or, or even when you feel that like, I don't really know what to, to say, but I'm, you know what? If I were them, this is what I'd want and go do the thing. Otherwise, don't say it if you don't mean it. I mean, that's just the, to me, that's a sign of. You're not their person because there's so many people that are just fair weather friends that they want to be there and be part of the success. But when your face is on the floor and you're at rock bottom, the people you'll remember are the people that show up.

• 2:24:44Steven Bartlett?

  Amen. I've heard that so many times from my guests on this podcast where they talk about their hardest moment. And it's always who showed up in that moment.

• 2:24:52Speaker 01

  Number five, if you want to be a better communicator, you have to know how to handle the insults, the backbiting, the dismissive, the belittling, the patronizing, the words that people use to try and inflict pain.

• 2:25:10Speaker 01

  What do I do?

• 2:25:12Speaker 01

  If you want to handle somebody who's trying to hurt you with their words, the first thing you have to do is have a bunch of silence. Or it's five to seven seconds of nothing. Make it enough to where it's uncomfortable where they know this is not going to be fun. Number two is you ask them to repeat it. I need you to say that again. I need you to repeat that. Most of the time, people can't do it. And number three, if I need to, I ask them, did you mean? Did you mean for that to sound rude? Did you mean for that to sound short? Did you mean for that to sound upsetting? And what it does is allow you to be able to

• 2:25:59Speaker 01

  operate in a way that doesn't allow their words to hurt you or to touch you or to cut you.

• 2:26:09Speaker 01

  Whenever somebody is saying something that's to belittle you or insult you, they're putting a big spotlight on themselves and they're hoping to throw it on to you to get your reaction. So they're gonna, I'm gonna say something hurtful to you. And then it's like, they're turning the spotlight right to you. And then when you ask a question, when you have a bunch of silence, it allows their words to kind of echo back to them. And a lot of people will, before they even have to say anything, they'll go, I shouldn't have said that. The more silence you have, the more awkward it becomes. And they kind of have to take it back. They realize you didn't take the bait. But when you put the spotlight and you ask the question, did you mean for that to

• 2:26:47Speaker 01

  embarrass me? Did you mean for that to sound hurtful?

• 2:26:52Speaker 01

  They can't bear the thought of saying yes to that. So they have to tweak it, they have to fix it, they have to go, oh, no, no, no. I mean, what I meant to say was, and they, they go a different way. Now, if they were to double down and say, yes, that's exactly what I meant. You could just say, thank you for letting me know.

• 2:27:09Steven Bartlett?

  I was thinking about like the neuroscience of what's going on there.

• 2:27:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:12Steven Bartlett?

  When you get someone to admit that they're hurtful. I remember interviewing some neuroscientists who talked about the side of cognitive dissonance, which is where like, we all have a perception of who we are. And I guess by what you're doing there, you're creating the cognitive dissonance, which is the cognitive mental discomfort by making me kind of look in the mirror at who I, who I just acted like. If I, I don't think I'm a hurtful person. If I say something super hurtful and then you ask me if I meant to be hurtful, you're immediately like speaking to my identity.

• 2:27:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:27:48Steven Bartlett?

  And I don't want to, I'm not a hurtful person.

• 2:27:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:27:50Steven Bartlett?

  And that's causing the dissonance, which is the sort of the disparity between who I think I am and how I just behaved.

• 2:27:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:27:56Steven Bartlett?

  And so I have to alleviate one of them, I have to make sense.

• 2:27:59Speaker 01

  Nobody believes they're on the side of bad. They always think they're in the side of good.

• 2:28:03Steven Bartlett?

  So you, by you saying that to me, I immediately have to confirm.

• 2:28:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:28:06Steven Bartlett?

  That I am a person who's intent on hurting others.

• 2:28:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:28:10Steven Bartlett?

  That's not at all what I wanted to do, I just wanted to gaslight you a little bit.

• 2:28:14Speaker 01

  I just want to cause you pain. Yeah, and so at that moment, it's, what they're thinking and feeling is, I want you to hurt like I'm hurting. I want you, I want to feel the control, because I don't have a sense of control. Now I'm feeling a certain way, I'm upset. So if I can make you upset, well, then I can have, now I can feel better and we're justified about how I'm feeling. And so some people will, especially the manipulative ones, they'll be upset, say something to make you upset, and then turn around and go, I don't know why you're so upset. I'm, I'm fine, I'm just fine, I don't know why you're, you're so upset. And because they've just left you in it. Now, now they, all they've done is just pass it on to you. Like, I don't like this feeling, so now I'm gonna give it to you, and I'm, I'm totally good. What are you talking about?

• 2:28:55Steven Bartlett?

  I had a situation in a gym a long time ago where I was on a machine and a guy who said that these machines were his, so he wanted to use them all. And he just came up to me, this was a long, long time ago. And he was so like out of pocket, like he was, you talked about being in the pocket.

• 2:29:12Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 2:29:13Steven Bartlett?

  Super emotional within like fifteen seconds, this sort of slightly older gentleman. And basically like asked me if I wanted to have a fight. And it was so bizarre to me that I felt like an observer and I genuinely.

• 2:29:24Speaker 01

  Anybody else seen this?

• 2:29:25Steven Bartlett?

  No, it was just him in the gym. And I was so, I was, I felt like David Attenborough. Like I was just like, and I did, and I inadvertently did what you said, which is my tone didn't change at all. I spoke to him like this. I went, did you just ask me for a fight in the gym? I was like, and then the more, because I asked genuinely, like genuine curious questions.

• 2:29:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:29:44Steven Bartlett?

  And it immediately disarmed him.

• 2:29:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:29:46Steven Bartlett?

  Don't do that to strangers in the gym. Oh my God, my tone was so low.

• 2:29:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's what it is. It's, are you okay? You know, it's, you're having to like have the check on them for a second. Because most of the time when you're hearing them yell and say ugly things, what they're truly signaling is I'm not okay. It's, there's always something else that's going on. I've done it before where somebody said something hurtful and I said, how did you expect me to respond to that? Or how were you wanting me to respond to that? Or how did you think I was going to respond? And it's, I've never had it where they go, well, I expected you to say an insult. Like it's always them backpedaling and then trying to explain how they're feeling in that moment. Because they, they don't know, they don't know how to do it.

• 2:30:32Speaker 01

  But if I can stop, put aside like you did, your frustration and say, are you asking me for a fight right now? You know, is that what you're really asking for? That kind of, are you okay kind of thing? That'll, all of a sudden your frustration now goes away.

• 2:30:48Steven Bartlett?

  You've changed the frame completely.

• 2:30:49Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 2:30:51Steven Bartlett?

  Because the frame they wanted was aggression. Maybe that's the, the language or the frame that they know as the way to solve problems. But yours was like, in that scenario, changed to curiosity, which was like, what, how did that?

• 2:31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, anytime you actually have a mindset of, instead of having something.

• 2:31:08Speaker 01

  Well, don't have something to prove, have something to learn. And so in that moment, you could have easily tried to prove something. Who do you think you're talking to? Do you know what I? You could have played that card. Instead, you actually got curious of what's going on here? Are you asking me for? Questions are powerful that way. Questions are disarming for somebody who's trying to be aggressive with you because they're not looking for that type of mirror. They don't want a mirror. They don't want to see the ugly that they're putting out there. But anytime somebody has that very aggressive. I have so many people who go, somebody said this to me and was so ugly and said this horrible thing. And they're looking for a quick comeback, which I can give it to them.

• 2:31:52Speaker 01

  But if they really care about the relationship, I say, okay. I assume they said it at normal volume. What's their need? And what are they really feeling? Because if you just respond to the reaction, you're not going to hear the end of it.

• 2:32:06Steven Bartlett?

  And we all have triggers.

• 2:32:07Speaker 01

  Same. I definitely have mine. I can't, I can't, I can't say anything. I'll tell you, one of the biggest things that has helped me too in any, if anybody's wanting to improve their personal relationships with a partner or anything. It's one is understanding validate first. Frustration comes next. If I respond first with frustration, I'm going to lose every time. So it's validating. It's saying, of course, you feel this way. It totally makes sense. I can see how you feel that way. Acknowledging that it's okay for them to feel that way. Otherwise, the partner's going to feel like I'm being too much. And if I'm being too much, then you're going to leave. Right? It's the same sense of abandonment. So if I can hit that, you're not being too much.

• 2:32:52Speaker 01

  I have the capacity and I can be elastic in this relationship because I'm not going to be my best self all the time too. But if I can give you a safe space for you to be messy and me to be messy, then you're actually going to have that relationship. Number two, it's understanding that resets is your uno wildcard. Asking for a reset. For if I were to say, you know what? I didn't say that right. You know what, can I try that again? I didn't say that the best way, did I? You know, I could have done that better. As soon as I start and ask for a reset, I've never had anybody told me no. Nobody goes, "No, no, you have to stick with it right now. Go ahead, keep failing." Like, in a video game, we wouldn't... Why would you keep playing if you knew you were ultimately gonna lose?

• 2:33:38Speaker 01

  It's, you restart, you try again. And so, giving yourself the grace and the other person the grace to have the ability to start over again is a necessary part of communicating in relationships. And three is, slice it thinner. A lot of the times, if we're having a big conversation, we bring up, somebody might bring up the past, that past thing, and we just kinda add it on and climb it on when we start to kinda feel hopeless about it. But if I can slice each issue by itself and say, "I do wanna talk about this. I wanna address what's in front of us first." That makes everything go a whole lot better. But if I can slice each part and see the need and validate that, I've always seen that go better.

• 2:34:22Steven Bartlett?

  And on that first point about how you engage with your partner during conflict, one of the most useful things I heard recently was a clip I actually saw of Brene Brown talking about when she comes home after like a long day,

• 2:34:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:38Steven Bartlett?

  she will tell her partner how much she has in the tank.

• 2:34:42Speaker 01

  That's so good.

• 2:34:43Steven Bartlett?

  And so she'll turn to her partner and say, "Listen, I've got 10%. I can't do this today."

• 2:34:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:34:49Steven Bartlett?

  And I remember getting the clip and sending it to my partner because it's, that's some of the vocabulary that probably would have really helped a lot of my relationships, which is just first expressing where I'm operating from.

• 2:35:01Speaker 01

  So good.

• 2:35:02Steven Bartlett?

  And I don't think anybody is gonna be on the receiving end of, "Honestly, I've got like 10% in the tank today," and go, "No, I wanna do this now."

• 2:35:09Speaker 01

  Exactly. Well, using percentages in conversation is incredibly helpful, both in relationships, like Brene mentioned, of saying, "You know what, I got 10%. You got 40%. Let's put it together, we're gonna make it work. But I at least know where you're coming from." Same thing at work, right? I've seen, what I encourage is when people are in a meeting and they can put out an idea. Right, rather than going, what if, because what happens is everybody just starts to kill it, you know, they start pointing arrows at it because it's, because it wasn't their idea, so we need to take it down. But if they come out and say, look, I got 30% of an idea, then what happens magically is that everybody else wants to join in. So if I

• 2:35:50Speaker 01

  were to say, look, Steve, I got 20% of an idea, I need your help with the other 80. All of a sudden, you take it as a, oh, me, I can, I can do that. And then everybody else starts to build it up, rather than trying to tear it down. Or even if in conversation, if I say, look, I know I'm not going to have the right words, I'm going to have about 60% of it. Like, that at least is me confirming that I know what I'm saying is not going to always be the right thing to say.

• 2:36:17Steven Bartlett?

  I wish I did that more. This is, um, I believe this is the clip I'm talking about.

• 2:36:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:36:20Steven Bartlett?

  It was Tim Ferriss.

• 2:36:21Speaker 03

  Everyone says marriage should be 50/50. It's the biggest crock of bullshit I've ever heard. It's never 50/50.

• 2:36:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36:26Speaker 03

  Ever. And so what we do is we quantify where we are. So if Steve comes home and he'll be like, I got 20. Just in terms of energy? Just energy, investment, kindness, patience, I'm at a 20. And I'll be like, I'll cover you. I got you, brother. Like, I'll pull the 80. Sometimes we come home, which we have done a lot, my mom has been sick, and I'll say, I've got 10. And Steve would, like, two days ago said, I'm riding a solid 25. So we know that we have to sit down at the table anytime we have less than 100 combined, and figure out a plan of kindness toward each other. Ah, I love that. Yeah, because the thing is, marriage is not something that's 50/50. A partnership

• 2:37:07Speaker 03

  works when you can carry their 20, or they can carry your 20. And that when you both just have 20, you have a plan where you don't hurt each other.

• 2:37:16Speaker 01

  So good.

• 2:37:17Steven Bartlett?

  That's the mistake I've made multiple times.

• 2:37:19Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:37:19Steven Bartlett?

  Because I try and solve big problems with 10.

• 2:37:21Speaker 01

  It's the mistake we make every day. Yeah. I mean, for me and with Sierra and I, it's usually if we're in a part of an argument, typically our arguments end pretty quickly, but the ones that go long, it's, sometimes, you know, I just don't feel like it. You know, I could give an apology, you could give an apology, and so I just don't feel it. I don't feel like being sorry right now. I will later, but in the moment, I'm just, I, I, I just got this stuff in me and I'm not ready yet. And so what happens for me, and what's been so helpful, is when I'm aggravated at that edge, and I don't want to give a thing, is to say, My battery's in the red. Like, we say in the red because of iPhone. It's like, I'm, once I know I'm in that place, we know to time out.

• 2:38:04Speaker 01

  Because it's, or else you'd be two hours in and you're still, now you've just said way worse things, you know, that you're going to apologize for. And so often, when, the quicker you can get to a timeout, like, if you wanna know how well a relationship communicates, look how often they take timeouts. Because timeouts are, I mean, they're, the amount of value you get in just a pause, and then even five minutes, coming back to it, you have a different, like, okay, here we go. Like, a fresh, fresh start. Like, why would you leave somebody on the field for three hours and never give them a rest? And you think, I can't, we do it physically, but I'm not gonna do it mentally?

• 2:38:49Speaker 01

  Like, if you, if you want to know the key to the relationship, the metric that is the most valuable key to a relationship is that the measure, the quality of the conversation is equal to the quality of the relationship. Said differently, the quality of the relationship is equal to the quality of the communication. You look at all these couples that are divorcing, okay? Are the couples that are in bad states. It's because they were okay in the positive, but they don't know how to do, deal with the negative.

• 2:39:33Speaker 01

  So it's, it's the measure of not just, can we talk about the happy stuff? The, if you talk, I, I talk to these elderly couples that have been married for 50 years, and I say, what's, what's your secret? It's, it's not, can you be happy in the happy? It's, can you, how long can you sit with the hard? And how, how long can you be in the, in the sad times? Because those are gonna happen. And I see that so many with the people, there's so many people who communicate with me, or message, or, and they're going through a divorce, or they have been divorced. And you realize that it's, it's not often that they fell out of love. They fell out of communication. They, they stopped talking to each other.

• 2:40:16Steven Bartlett?

  This is, I think, one of the great myths we're sold when we get into our first relationship is we think that the sign of a good relationship is the lack of conflict. But if you've ever been in a long relationship, I think over time, you start to figure that it's not the amount of conflict, it's like, it's how one manages the conflict. I read a quote, which I've never forgotten, which said, "You can predict the long-term health of a relationship by whether each cut heals to 101% or 99%, i.e. does your conflict make you stronger?"

• 2:40:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:40:45Steven Bartlett?

  And if I look back through the conflict that I've had with like my partner, and I've been with a long time now, I go, it has actually deepened the roots.

• 2:40:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it has to.

• 2:40:54Steven Bartlett?

  Like, it's been productive conflict, you know, which has made us stronger. And that in part is because of many of the things that you talk about, which is like, trying not to win every argument.

• 2:41:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:41:07Steven Bartlett?

  And all the things in your book.

• 2:41:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's Sierra, that's what Sierra talks about, either way is good. Like, it's the conflict, you want conflict in your relationship for the growth. It is rare that you can have individual growth alone. It has to be relational.

• 2:41:23Steven Bartlett?

  Hundred percent.

• 2:41:24Speaker 01

  It has to be with other people. I can read a book on how to do something, but until I do it, it's a totally different game. So I learn relationally with things and with other people and places, but for sure, relationship, I mean, there's just no, there's no other way to go around it. You have to have the conflict if you want to be, if you want to be better. And I've seen so many times where the people, they face in their hands, they don't know how to talk to one another because they gave up on trying to repair, but they're all in on trying to blame. And so when you are trying to...

• 2:42:06Speaker 01

  Kind of undo what has to be done. That makes it all the more difficult because it's just so many years where there could have been repair, but there, there hasn't been. And in turn, that really hurts the relationship. I read a recent study that the biggest predictor of the child's well being within the parental relationship is not whether they were married or divorced. It was how they dealt with conflict. I mean, cause how many people have had parents that are still together, but fight terribly?

• 2:42:38Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, oh my God, yeah.

• 2:42:39Speaker 01

  And in fact, should probably maybe not be together.

• 2:42:41Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:42Speaker 01

  Or those that they're divorced, but communicate great.

• 2:42:47Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:48Speaker 01

  And they never put their child in the middle of it and didn't use the child as a mail carrier between the two. To be able to do that is, I mean, you're, you get to change the whole trajectory of a child's life.

• 2:43:01Steven Bartlett?

  At some point, we have to forgive our parents, right?

• 2:43:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's the truth.

• 2:43:04Steven Bartlett?

  Like you said, like they were, they were kids too, raised by parents that.

• 2:43:09Speaker 01

  This is their first time still doing it.

• 2:43:11Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. You have a workbook on its way in March 10th called The Next Conversation Workbook.

• 2:43:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:43:19Steven Bartlett?

  Practical exercises for arguing less and talking more, which really takes everything that you wrote about and turns it into an actionable blueprint framework for people that really want to embed these habits into their lives. I'm going to link that below. Is that available for preorder? Will it be?

• 2:43:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:43:35Steven Bartlett?

  There'll be a preorder link, so we'll put that in the description below. You're also working on some AI stuff, which I think is interesting.

• 2:43:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. So I'm about to release an AI of just my content. So it has my book, it has my podcasts, it has my, any of my social clips, it has it all. And so it's a small language model to where it's, everybody can have their own personal communication expert, you know, 24 seven kind of thing. It's what they have on it, but where people get to practice. So what I love about it the most is, let's say you, you say, I'm about to go into a important meeting and I want to sound really confident. What can I do? Or I'm about to have a, my spouse isn't listening or really upset. What can I do? You apply those right in that, that moment and gives you a different way of respecting,

• 2:44:21Speaker 01

  different way of seeing things from a different view. Or. What I definitely, what I've liked is to tell it to be a boss, be my boss who's really mean and arrogant. And let's do an exercise of how to respond to this situation. And you test, is that response gonna be the best response? And allow it to kind of have a different way of practicing things that maybe you need to be ready for. Because some people need to be ready for the hard response.

• 2:44:50Steven Bartlett?

  I'll link that below, too.

• 2:44:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44:52Steven Bartlett?

  So people can have a play with that and sign up.

• 2:44:54Speaker 01

  I'm excited.

• 2:44:55Steven Bartlett?

  We have a closing tradition where the last guest leaves a question for the next. Question left for you is, who are you most dying to meet and why?

• 2:45:02Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a great one.

• 2:45:07Speaker 01

  Person I would love to meet right now is probably Brene Brown.

• 2:45:14Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, really?

• 2:45:15Speaker 01

  It really, the fact that you brought her up. The reason why is because I know that she's been in this space a long time. And I feel that when she shares stuff, it's very genuine. Like, there's no guessing that she's real.

• 2:45:30Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:31Speaker 01

  She's about as real and raw, as authentic as you can get. She's also a Longhorn, Texas Longhorn fan, which I'm a fan of. But I feel like when, and this is just me personally, I kind of got pushed into this field. And you always look for people that are your own anchors in life of who you'd want to be a mentor, kind of thing. And that's somebody who's, I feel like, has been in the world and knows some things and has just some credible knowledge that's helped a lot of people.

• 2:46:03Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm. She's most certainly authentic. She's incredible.

• 2:46:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:46:08Steven Bartlett?

  Well, I, listen, if people haven't bought your book, which is almost nobody, but if there are still some people out there that haven't bought this book, I highly recommend it. I think I included it in my W. H. Smith collection as well in the UK.

• 2:46:19Speaker 01

  You did, thank you very much.

• 2:46:20Steven Bartlett?

  Such a smash hit success. It's a success in two dimensions. It's sales and it's impact.

• 2:46:26Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:46:26Steven Bartlett?

  And it's also incredibly accessible. So it's not like a complicated science book. And it's written for normal people that are going through very real, relatable, normal problems. And I think that's why it's been so successful. I think you approach these challenges from a very real place. And maybe that's in part why it's been. So wonderfully received and so relatable is because, you know, you're a trial attorney that's bringing this stuff to the masses, but you're not like a PhD scholar who might have thrown up the drawbridge because they they they've spent all their life in academia. And I think the way that you communicate is so relatable and resonant that it's no wonder that you're you've been on an absolute unbelievable tear over the last couple of

• 2:47:08Steven Bartlett?

  years. It's phenomenal, like crazy, crazy incredible. So congratulations and thank you from all the people that you've given. Thanks, man. A little bit of like to, a little bit of, um, you've empowered them with information so that they can live the life that they they deserve to live. That's a special thing, Jefferson. I appreciate that. Thank you, Steve.

• 2:47:28Steven Bartlett?

  If there's anything we need, it is connection, especially in the world we're living in today. And that is exactly why we created these conversation cards, because on this show, when I sit here with my guests and have those deep intimate conversations, this remarkable thing happens time and time again. We feel deeply connected to each other. At the end of every episode, the guest I'm interviewing leaves a question for the next guest, and we've turned them into these conversation cards. And we've added these twist cards to make your conversations even more interesting. And there are so many more twists along the way with the conversation cards. This is the brand new edition. And for the first time ever, I've added to the pack this gold card, which is an exclusive question from me. But I'm only putting the gold cards in the first run of conversation cards. So

• 2:48:13Steven Bartlett?

  get yours now before the limited edition gold cards are all gone. Head to the link in the description below.