Friendship Expert: 3 Types of Friends Every Person Needs

Making friends as an adult isn't easy. And sometimes, the people we consider friends aren't the ones we can actually count on. In this episode, I'm joined by organizational psychologist and bestselling author Adam Grant to talk about the science of human connection, why friendships change as we get older, and what it really takes to build meaningful relationships. We discuss the three types of friends everyone needs, why you don't have to talk every day to stay close, and how having difficult conversations can actually strengthen your relationships. Adam also shares practical ways to move past small talk, connect with people on a deeper level, and approach conflict with honesty instead of fear. Buy Adam's new book, Vibe: https://adamgrant.net/book/vibe/ Join me on Supercast for ad-free episodes, bonus content, and AMAs: https://jefferson.supercast.com/ Leave me a voicemail to be featured on the show! https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/ask-jefferson Order The Next Conversation Workbook: https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/workbook Thank you to our sponsors: Seed. Go to https://www.seed.com/jefferson and use code 25JEFFERSON to get 25% off your first order. Cozy Earth. Upgrade Your Every Day. Get 20% off at https://cozyearth.com/jefferson or use code JEFFERSON at check out. BetterHelp. Click https://betterhelp.com/jeffersonfisher for a discount on your first month of therapy. Order my book, The Next Conversation, or listen to the full audiobook today. Like what you hear? Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review! Suggest a topic or ask a question for me to answer on the show! Want a FREE communication tip each week? Click here to join my newsletter. Join My School of Communication Watch my podcast on YouTube Follow me on Instagram Follow me on TikTok Follow me on LinkedIn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Sociologists have found repeatedly that about half the people you name as friends do not see you as a friend back.

• 0:05Jefferson Fisher?

  Really?

• 0:06Speaker 00

  I thought this was depressing at first.

• 0:07Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, that would crush me.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  But what I've realized is we have different ideas of what friendship means.

• 0:12Jefferson Fisher?

  Tell me more about that.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  Well, let's break down pals, allies, and companions.

• 0:15Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 0:15Speaker 00

  So allies are people you are pursuing goals with. Pals are people you have fun with. And then companions are the people you go deep with. But I wouldn't want all your relationships to be companions. There's now a growing body of research showing that if you go to different friends for different things, some as allies, others as pals, others as companions, you actually are happier on average. What's interesting is the kinds of questions we ask people are gonna look different depending on what kind of bond we're trying to form. So if you want to make an ally, one of the first things you could do is ask them, what's one of the biggest goals you're trying to achieve this year? If you're trying to make a pal, the first thing most people do is they ask, what do you do? Instead, try asking people, what do you love to do? And watch them light up. But what tends to be much more powerful is to skip the small talk and go right to deep talk. There's a whole series of questions that have been studied that actually help with

• 1:00Speaker 00

  accelerating deep talk.

• 1:01Jefferson Fisher?

  How important is friction in friendships? Is constant contact good for a relationship? Should you make friends at work? How do you reconnect with a friendship you feel has gone stale?

• 1:10Speaker 00

  I have three go-to habits for reconnecting. Number one is...

• 1:16Jefferson Fisher?

  Is it harder to make friends than when we were kids?

• 1:19Speaker 00

  I think it is.

• 1:20Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:20Speaker 00

  What do you think?

• 1:21Jefferson Fisher?

  I think it's so much harder, man. Like, it is hard at this age to make friends, period.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  You don't seem like someone who would be lacking friends, though, Jefferson.

• 1:32Jefferson Fisher?

  Well, I think there's a big difference between acquaintances and friends. That's, to me, is the hard line. I have a lot of acquaintances. I don't know if I'd say I have a lot of, like, friends that are going to be there in those hard moments.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  I'm sorry to hear that.

• 1:48Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:48Speaker 00

  I'm here to help if I can.

• 1:49Jefferson Fisher?

  Right, thank you. All right, exactly.

• 1:52Speaker 00

  Do I extend the offer of friendship now?

• 1:53Jefferson Fisher?

  Can I get your number now? That's right. But I think it was, um, who did I, I overheard this the other day of, maybe it was Simon, of, of, of how you celebrate friends, right? The question is not, you know, the people you'd reach out when you're having a hard time, the people you'd reach out to when you're having a, you have a good win, you know, who you're gonna give your good news to. And I'd say I have very, very few.

• 2:20Speaker 00

  Why is that?

• 2:22Jefferson Fisher?

  Um, I think I'm on your podcast now. I'm on his podcast now already.

• 2:28Jefferson Fisher?

  Because there is a sense of all these wonderful things that have happened in my life really quickly. I'm talking like, three years, and I feel like I'm, I do know based on experience that I've, I've gotten judgmental reactions, and either jealousy, or resentment, or I'm either traveling more, or I have this other good thing and this other person doesn't, and it just becomes, you don't want to share the good, and that's hard.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  That is hard, I'm sorry to hear it. So I think there are two layers to this. One is, for most people, particularly men, it becomes harder to make friends as we move from childhood to adulthood. And a lot of that is just about no longer being part of a big cohort of shared experiences. So you go through school with classmates, you sit through the same classes, you're on the same teams, in the same clubs, and there's just a foundation of events that are gonna happen that, that bring you closer together.

• 3:30Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 3:30Speaker 00

  And then, as you get older, your cohort gets, it gets smaller and smaller, right? For you, it was probably much bigger at UT for college than it was in law school.

• 3:38Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 3:38Speaker 00

  And then you start your career and the cohort is even smaller, and now you're kind of doing a, like, an N equals one thing.

• 3:44Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 3:45Speaker 00

  You have no cohort.

• 3:45Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 3:46Speaker 00

  And I think the success you've achieved, obviously, has compounded that. And it sounds like you've, you've run into your, more than your share of envy.

• 3:56Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 3:56Speaker 00

  Which isn't always bad. There's a, there's a difference in psychology between benign and malicious envy. So benign envy is people looking up to you and saying, hey, I want that, I admire that, I aspire to that. Malicious envy is people wanting to take you down a notch and saying, you don't deserve that. And I think if you run into that, that's gonna be a major barrier to friendship.

• 4:18Jefferson Fisher?

  Has it been that way for you and your, I mean, I know that you've been in thought leadership for 13-plus years. Have you, has it been the same kind of experience for you?

• 4:28Speaker 00

  I think probably less so because I came from an academic world, and I'm still in that world.

• 4:36Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  And I knew a whole bunch of people who had written books and given TED Talks and hosted podcasts when I started. And so that, I think, there was just, like, there was a group of people to follow in their footsteps and to feel a sense of camaraderie with.

• 4:53Jefferson Fisher?

  What's the ingredient that we lose in friendship between when we're kids to when we become adults?

• 5:00Speaker 00

  I think the biggest change is, is fear. Fear of awkwardness, fear of rejection. And it's, it's not for, it's not for a lack of, like, it's for good reason.

• 5:13Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  Because sociologists have found repeatedly that if you make a list of people who are your friends, and then they go to those people and ask them, who are their friends? About half the people you name as friends do not see you as a friend back.

• 5:29Jefferson Fisher?

  Really?

• 5:30Speaker 00

  In adulthood. Yeah.

• 5:32Jefferson Fisher?

  No way.

• 5:33Speaker 00

  And I, I thought this was depressing at first.

• 5:36Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, that would crush me.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  You have all these asymmetric friendships, these people that you, you think are in your life and they don't want to be in your life. But what I've realized is, we just have, we have different ideas of what friendship means. And so for some people, they won't call you a friend until you, you have exchanged cell numbers and you're texting all the time, and they can call you without scheduling a time, and they've met your family and they know your kids. And other people will say, anybody who's more than an acquaintance, like, if we went, if we went for drinks one time, we're friends.

• 6:12Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  And so I think that we need to get much more nuanced about, well, what kind of relationship is this? What purpose does it serve? And I think kids do this naturally, and unfortunately, adults, we kind of lose this skill.

• 6:25Jefferson Fisher?

  Do you, is there, um, I'm curious, is there a definition for you of, like, what's an acquaintance and who is a, let me ask it differently. Is there a definition for you of who is an acquaintance versus who is a friend?

• 6:38Speaker 00

  For me, a friend is somebody that, it doesn't matter how much time has passed, we can pick up right where we left off.

• 6:43Jefferson Fisher?

  Okay.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  Could be months, could be years. Nobody puts, we don't put pressure on each other to, like, but I haven't heard from you in a whole week, where are you?

• 6:52Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 6:52Speaker 00

  It's like, no, we, we know that this, this bond is solid, and we're there for each other if we need each other.

• 6:57Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah. I had this thing, um, at least that I've kept in my head for a while that I tried to apply is, like, if I can't go deep with you in conversation, we can be friendly, but we cannot be friends. Of, like, if I can't really say the hard stuff of what's really happening outside of the, you know, uh, you're picking up kids from school and you see another dad, and all the other dads are in quarter zips and, you know, and they're, you know, well, how's it going? Oh, yeah. And all you talk about is kids or the weather, and then life goes on. And I know that's the same way for Sierra. And it's like, if I can't tell you what's really happening, we can be, I'll be friendly to you, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're gonna be friends.

• 7:41Speaker 00

  I'm really glad I didn't wear a quarter zip today.

• 7:43Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  It would have been disqualifying immediately.

• 7:46Jefferson Fisher?

  Right, exactly.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  So that's interesting. So tell me if this is accurate. It sounds to me like, at least in my worldview, you've got, like, you go really quickly to wanting to see if somebody could be a real companion. And you're less oriented toward allies and pals.

• 8:03Jefferson Fisher?

  Ooh, yeah. I think I've changed in the last two years in particular, and through this whole experience, I've changed. Because it once thought was, if I know your name and we can smile when we see each other, then hey, we're, we're, we're pals, we're good, you know? And I feel like now, I'll still have that, but I may not consider you one of my, like, my top five, my three of, like, not like the MySpace top five, but like, the, you know, if something is really happening in my life, then, then I want to, or make sure I'm, I'm good with you, you know? How can I, I check that? You have this thing in your book.

• 8:47Jefferson Fisher?

  Your book is Vibe: The Secrets of Strong Connections in a Lonely World, which is, I really liked it. One thing I love about your writing is that it keeps it fresh, like every other. One, you have the sections out, laid out really well, but then I feel like you hit just enough, like, deep enough on each little topic that makes you feel like, like, you're not droning on one area. It's like you're a professor who's done this for a long time.

• 9:14Jefferson Fisher?

  But you have this one that I love. It was a pie graph of making friends. And as a kid, it's like, I don't know, 15% are you at the playground, 15% are you playing sports, and 15% are you at the school? And then the whole rest of it is noticing that someone nearby is about the same size as you. And then as an adult, it's, you have 50% through work, 15% through kids, all the other is just a bunch of question marks. Like, who knows of what's actually gonna make us friends? I know you have, I've guessed it would be shared life experience, uh, in this sense, but there's definitely, like, my kids, my kids are, like, as I was telling you, are six and eight, and they are so good now.

• 9:56Jefferson Fisher?

  I just, the wait and see, if somebody looks roughly about this, their same size, I'm like, yep, that's gonna be my friend. And so, um, oh, you like this? Even last, this was last week, we were randomly at a speaking thing, and I got to bring them. And my kids were making eyes with these other two kids on a different table, and they were kind of being silly with each other, kind of like making faces and, and giggling over it. And Ruby was like, can I go see my friend now? And I said, that's your friend? And she goes, I said, how are you friends? She goes, well, we looked at each other and now we're friends. And I was like, okay, that's, that sounds good.

• 10:34Speaker 00

  The bar used to be very low.

• 10:35Jefferson Fisher?

  Right. We, we looked at each other, we smiled, we're friends now. And, uh, now I feel like that's such a big... Uh, big difference in, in our life. Are there different types of friendships that we need to? Let me ask it differently. Should we consider everybody as either your acquaintance or friendship? Or is it really more nuanced than that?

• 10:57Speaker 00

  Well, let's break down pals, allies and companions.

• 10:59Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 11:00Speaker 00

  Cause I, I think, I think a lot of people run into trouble because they mistake one for another. I found these are the three important roles that people can play in your life. And they're, they're not all the same.

• 11:10Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  So allies are people that you basically are pursuing goals with. So a great ally is a reliable collaborator. It's somebody who has complementary skills to yours. You would love to start a company together or volunteer together, or basically say, yeah, I want to be on a team with you.

• 11:28Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 11:29Speaker 00

  Pals are people you have fun with. These are people who share your interests and hobbies. Uh, you might play pickleball with them, go to karaoke with them. Might, might even invite them on vacation because you think it would just be a blast to, to do whatever they decide would be exciting to do together. And then companions are the people who you confide in. These are the people that you go deep with.

• 11:50Jefferson Fisher?

  Okay.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  These are the people that you'd seek emotional support from, that you might celebrate your big wins, but also would console you if you had a major loss.

• 11:58Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  And I think that like kids actually learn about these early on. They don't necessarily have the language for them. But you make allies when you do a group project together. You make pals at recess together. You find companions when you confess that you have a crush on a classmate to somebody, right?

• 12:15Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  And I think to your point, the bar has just gone higher and higher for, okay, wait, but I really have to put myself out there if I want an ally. And, and actually propose that we commit to something together as opposed to the group projects in school, which was over in a week.

• 12:29Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  And we can move on if it didn't work out. If I want to be pals, like I, I kinda have to ask you to go and do something together. And if we don't have fun, it's extremely awkward. And I, I don't want to go out on a limb. And companions, I have to show some vulnerability. I have to disclose something personal that's going on in my life. And if you're not ready for it, or if you don't respond supportively, then I feel like I have just, I've made a big mistake.

• 12:52Jefferson Fisher?

  Hmm. So really there are, it's way more nuanced than how you consider a friend. It's, are you an ally, somebody you can go long-term with, or a goal, some goal-oriented thing? We're doing something together.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 13:04Jefferson Fisher?

  You have your pal of let's, let's go do something fun, laugh, go to a show, whatever. And then you have somebody who's a companion, who is more like what I had said earlier of somebody to go deep with. Do you recommend of like how many people should be in what category? Like, would it be a bad sign if everybody was a companion kind of thing?

• 13:25Speaker 00

  I don't know if it would be a bad sign. It might be exhausting. Cause companion, companion relationships tend to be a little bit more emotionally taxing. Uh, you, you know, sometimes you're taking on the other person's burden.

• 13:38Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  As your own. And so I wouldn't want all your relationships to be companions. And in fact, uh, there's, there's now a growing body of research showing that if you go to different friends for different things, some as allies, others as pals, others as companions. You actually are happier on average than if you put all your eggs in one basket.

• 13:56Jefferson Fisher?

  And one friend.

• 13:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Cause then you are putting a lot of pressure on that friend to be everything to you all the time.

• 14:02Jefferson Fisher?

  What's the downfall of if you make one friend, everything to you?

• 14:06Speaker 00

  Well, one, they may not be there when you need them because you just need too much from them.

• 14:10Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, too idealistic.

• 14:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, or they move and then you lost your best friend. And then, well, what, what do I do now?

• 14:17Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 14:18Speaker 00

  I think the other thing is though, that sometimes it's, it's really hard to know what you want from each other. So psychologists find over and over again, that a recipe for disappointment and even betrayal in a relationship is, I think we're allies, pals and companions, but you think we're only one or two. And then all of a sudden, this, this happened to me not too long ago. We had some, uh, some difficult health news in my family. And I shared it with somebody that I thought I was pretty close with. And his response was, oh, I'm really sorry. That sucks. And then he never mentioned it again. And yeah, I, at first I felt like immediate unfriend.

• 14:54Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 14:55Speaker 00

  You are not friendship material. I'm going to ghost you.

• 14:57Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 14:58Speaker 00

  And now with the benefit of hindsight and having done all this research on the different kinds of connections we can have. I realized he was not good companion material for me, but it turns out he's a great pal. We have a blast playing tennis together. He's also been a really good ally. We've hosted a few events together and he's extremely dependable. And I didn't have to ghost him. I didn't have to cut him out of my life. I just had to realize I don't need you to be a companion. There are other people who I think are probably better in terms of providing compassion to me.

• 15:27Jefferson Fisher?

  Are we expecting too much from our friends?

• 15:29Speaker 00

  I think we might be. It sounds like you might be.

• 15:31Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, I, I think a lot of people are. Uh, if, um, based on your research, I can see how, yeah, there's certain people that, you know, maybe I'm setting the bar too high or, um, I don't, I think it also depends on like what stage and phase of life are you in? Like, I know for me, I'm navigating a lot of new. And so that's scary.

• 15:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:53Jefferson Fisher?

  That requires me to be more vulnerable and I'm not going to be that vulnerable with that many. And so I think maybe it just depends what season you are in of, I'm really looking for these. I'm looking for what I call seats at my table, like to fill seats at my table. Those are, to me, I guess would be more companions. Of, uh, people that I know I can reach out to and they can reach to me and we can talk about stuff.

• 16:20Speaker 00

  I, I think that's probably a healthy stance. I think my best, my best read of the data is anthropologists find that you're probably only going to have about five close companions at a time. But there's no limit to the number of pals and allies you could have, right? There are, there are probably hundreds of people you've met in your life that if you happen to run into them, you, you'd enjoy hanging out with them.

• 16:41Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  And there are also, we can have lots of collaborators. We can have, we can be part of multiple teams at a time. We can go on missions together. We can solve problems with, you know, a whole range of people. And I think that if you, if you expect everybody you call a friend to be a companion, then you're probably limiting the number of people that you can actually have great interactions with.

• 17:04Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 17:04Speaker 00

  And still say, you know what? I don't need you in my life every day. I don't necessarily need you in my life in all of these very personal, emotional ways. But I, I sure know I can count on you for fun or for collaboration.

• 17:17Jefferson Fisher?

  You know what I don't like is when, it's usually some kind of school event or maybe some kind of, uh, public, I don't know, you could call it a gala, reception conference or something, and you're talking to somebody and they go, oh yeah, we should totally get the kids together. And we should totally, oh yeah, let's, we should definitely do this. And you know, there's no intent, like, that's not going to happen. They just say that knowing that you're probably never gonna see each other again, or never get together for, for that thing.

• 17:51Speaker 00

  It feels disingenuous.

• 17:52Jefferson Fisher?

  It feels so disingenuous. And I'd rather you just say, hey man, it was so good to see you.

• 17:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:57Jefferson Fisher?

  Hope, have a great rest of the night. You know, I would rather that.

• 17:59Speaker 00

  Well, I think people, they believe that it's, one, it's polite and they would be violating some kind of norm of decency if they didn't offer.

• 18:07Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 18:07Speaker 00

  But two, they think that there needs to be a natural ladder of connection that they climb up. Most people believe this, right? We, we think, okay, I met somebody. I had a pleasant conversation. Now, how do we take this to the next level? There doesn't need to be a next level. A great interaction does not mean you need to have an ongoing relationship.

• 18:25Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  And some of those people, I think what's awkward about it is they're more than acquaintances now because you're going to see them again. If they're, you're, if they, if they have kids at the same school that you do, or if their kids play the same sport you do, right? You're going to run into them repeatedly.

• 18:40Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 18:41Speaker 00

  And they think, well, that means we need to be allies, pals or companions. I would say, no, some of those people can just be associates.

• 18:48Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 18:49Speaker 00

  That's okay if it's a transactional relationship. You can enjoy each other's company. You can have pal-like interactions. You can feel like allies if you're, if, if your kids are teammates and you're rooting for the team together.

• 19:00Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  But the, the fact that you interact that way does not mean you actually need to have an ongoing bond.

• 19:06Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 19:07Speaker 00

  Outside of the activity that's bringing you together.

• 19:09Jefferson Fisher?

  If you want to go kind of to the next level of a friendship of, you know, this is, I think I want to see them or talk more often or be better buddies, pals, whatever. Is it on you or should you wait for them?

• 19:21Speaker 00

  I think it, it depends on how much courage you have, right? What I, what I like a lot is to recognize that the kinds of questions we ask people are going to look different depending on what kind of bond we're trying to form. So if you want to make an ally, one of the first things you could do is ask them, what's one of the biggest goals you're trying to achieve this year? Or what's a problem you're trying to solve right now? And then you'll immediately gain an understanding of what they're trying to accomplish and you can look for ways to help them. And that's, that's a step toward allyship, right? We don't have to commit to doing something together. Um, I'm now trying to, to help you get where you're trying to go. And that's a little bit of a test of, are we compatible as allies? If you're trying to make a pal, the first thing most people do when they meet a stranger is they ask, what do you do? What an alienating question.

• 20:07Speaker 00

  Do you want to talk about work outside of work? You better love your job.

• 20:10Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  No, instead of what do you do, try asking people, what do you love to do? And watch them light up. They'll tell you about their passions. You might hear about their favorite movie or book or, um, or a musician. And then you've got an immediate opportunity to find common ground.

• 20:25Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 20:26Speaker 00

  And then if you want to become companions with someone, I think it's much easier to actually make yourself vulnerable than to impose on them. And so you might, the, the research on this shows that if you tell somebody a mildly embarrassing story, uh, they feel trusted. And then they tend to reciprocate with one of their own.

• 20:43Jefferson Fisher?

  Okay.

• 20:43Speaker 00

  So that, that tends to work pretty well. I think another thing that, that people really naturally become companions around is favorite childhood memories. Or what was a, what was a family tradition that you loved?

• 20:54Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 20:54Speaker 00

  You end up getting pretty real when you do that. And comparing notes on traditions, you think, oh wow, like I'm, I'm now getting a window into your values. And I can see whether you're somebody that I, I might want to have a deeper interaction with.

• 21:06Jefferson Fisher?

  Do you have to see? Do you have to see a friend all the time for there to be a close friendship?

• 21:15Speaker 00

  No.

• 21:15Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 21:16Speaker 00

  No, we should kill. I think it's time to kill the myth that the frequency of interaction is what tells us how strong a connection is. Like closeness is not about how often we see each other, talk to each other, or text each other. It's not about the frequency of interaction. It's about the depth of connection. Those are two different things.

• 21:36Jefferson Fisher?

  You talk in your book, that vibe on the burstiness of a friendship. What is burstiness? I love, I love that word.

• 21:44Speaker 00

  It's such a great image. So burstiness is a term that Anita Woolley and her colleagues coined. And it's, what it captures is that feeling that we, we have when we're in a, well, actually, let me, let me back up a step and say, you will know burstiness as the feeling of energy and connection you have when you're on a great first date, or when you're in a, an electric brainstorming session. And it just literally feels like the interaction is bursting with energy and ideas. So what better term than burstiness for it?

• 22:13Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 22:14Speaker 00

  What I think people overlook is when you study how bursty people's interactions are, burstiness does not happen in continuous streams. It happens in sporadic interaction. So the burstiest software teams, for example, and sales teams, they're not in contact every single hour. They will have a great meeting or a great exchange, and then they might go several days or weeks without communicating at all. Because what's happening is they're going off and they're learning new things, they're solving problems, they're getting focused on deep work. And then when they come back needing their teammates' help, or when they have an idea, they're, they're recharged and they're ready to go and they're focusing their shared attention in one direction. And this is not limited to work teams. Friendship,

• 22:59Speaker 00

  I think friendship works the same way. Right? I think that there's actually such a thing as catching up too often. It becomes mundane.

• 23:05Jefferson Fisher?

  Catching up too often?

• 23:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. Think about the people you see every day. Right. Well, what are your highlights of yesterday? Well, since I last saw you, I walked the dog, I made dinner, and I put the kids to bed.

• 23:19Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  That is not going to be a life-changing interaction, and it might actually be a little bit boring. But that same friend, when you go a month without seeing each other, you have so much great material to catch up on.

• 23:31Jefferson Fisher?

  I even, that makes me think of, as Sierra and I will, we went through, I think we kind of learned this on our, on our own. We would do check-ins, kind of, how are you doing in the morning? How are you doing in the evening? And we would do that every day. And then it got to be where it would be like, we're not getting enough material, especially when we've been with each other, either throughout that day, or we've had the kids, and I know what she's done, and we know, you know, generally how we're doing. And so then we rotated it to where it was like, three times a week. And then we do it now just once a week.

• 24:04Speaker 00

  Once a week.

• 24:04Jefferson Fisher?

  You know, of just, hey, what's, even though we're here, and I know generally what you're doing, you know what I'm doing, then you can have that, that's how at least I hear it playing out in my mind in practice of this burstiness of, yeah, if you always are in close, constant contact. Let me ask this question. Is constant contact good for a relationship?

• 24:29Speaker 00

  I think it depends on the type of relationship a little bit, but the research on constant contact suggests that it can actually do more harm than good. Because people start to get sick of each other. They start to annoy each other and get on each other's nerves.

• 24:43Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 24:44Speaker 00

  And you see this, and you actually see this in all kinds of relationships.

• 24:48Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 24:48Speaker 00

  And probably my favorite evidence for it is when kids leave for college,

• 24:53Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 24:53Speaker 00

  they tend to become closer to their siblings.

• 24:56Jefferson Fisher?

  Okay.

• 24:57Speaker 00

  So they're able to reset the relationship, and they actually start to miss each other.

• 25:01Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 25:01Speaker 00

  You, you even see in romantic relationships that absence truly makes the heart grow fonder. If you and your partner spend a day apart, you actually feel more love for each other when you come back together.

• 25:13Jefferson Fisher?

  I'm with you. So when, and is that, let me ask this question. Is that just frequency? Or is it also like location? If you live, like, is there a hope for long-distance relationships?

• 25:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, there have been multiple studies of long-distance relationships showing that on average, people in long-distance relationships tend to feel a little bit closer emotionally than people who live together.

• 25:36Jefferson Fisher?

  No way.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  And there's a little bit of selection bias there, right? Because if your, if your relationship is on thin ice, you're probably not gonna, it's not gonna last.

• 25:43Jefferson Fisher?

  And you're not gonna do a survey on it. Yeah.

• 25:45Speaker 00

  You definitely wouldn't fill it out.

• 25:46Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 25:47Speaker 00

  But, you know, what happens is when people are living apart, they do miss each other more. And they also feel like our time together is precious. And so they tend to have deeper conversations. They tend to actually exchange, they tend to show more emotional intimacy, because it feels a little bit fragile, and they want to make the most of their time together. Now, this is not to say, like, if you live together, you should, you should just go a week without seeing each other.

• 26:14Jefferson Fisher?

  See ya.

• 26:15Speaker 00

  Then you're on a path to having a decreasingly significant other.

• 26:17Jefferson Fisher?

  Right, right, right.

• 26:18Speaker 00

  But I think there, there is something to be said for time and space to maintain healthy relationships. And I think this is just, this is part of the fundamental wiring of human psychology. There, there are actually some great experiments that, that speak to this in a slightly different way, which is, so Jefferson, you were talking about going from, like, you and Sierra have a check-in every day, to every few days, now it's every week.

• 26:38Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  Something very similar holds for gratitude lists. There, there have been experiments now showing that if people are randomly assigned to write down the things they're grateful for every day, they get less of a happiness boost than if they just do the gratitude exercise once a week.

• 26:55Jefferson Fisher?

  Oh, okay.

• 26:56Speaker 00

  It's a similar dynamic. You do the daily gratitude, and you're, you're kind of, you're grasping at straws. You're like, all right, I'm grateful for my socks.

• 27:04Jefferson Fisher?

  This guy, yeah, yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:06Jefferson Fisher?

  Food. Yeah, yeah.

• 27:07Speaker 00

  My socks.

• 27:08Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 27:09Speaker 00

  Pretty mundane.

• 27:09Jefferson Fisher?

  Right, right.

• 27:10Speaker 00

  Whereas you do it weekly, and something meaningful has happened to you over the course of the week. There are people that you appreciate, there are events and successes to mark. And I, I looked at that, and I said, okay, I even wonder if gratitude is not the best list to be keeping. Like, people love to count their blessings. I've actually found in my research with Jane Dutton, that it can be more motivating to count your contributions.

• 27:34Jefferson Fisher?

  Your contributions?

• 27:36Speaker 00

  So we randomly assign people to make a gratitude list, and write down the things they appreciate, or make a contribution list, and write down how they made a difference to others. And we found that a week later, people who had actually done the contribution journal, as opposed to the gratitude journal, they were actually putting more effort in at work. They were more motivated, because gratitude is passive. You're appreciating something you've received. Contribution is active. It reminds you that you matter, that you have something to offer to other people, and it makes you feel more helpful. And I don't think we should cancel the gratitude journal. I think we should add the contribution journal.

• 28:14Jefferson Fisher?

  I like that, because it, it is, it's definitely a much more active mindset of what are you striving? What are you doing? Where's your goal? Where, where's your time and attention? Rather than if you're just, I'm, I'm grateful for the same thing I was yesterday, because nothing changed in the day, and I did X, Y, and Z.

• 28:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:34Jefferson Fisher?

  And you find yourself kind of, maybe trying to scrape the barrel of like, okay, what can I, what can I be super grateful for that's more grateful than I was yesterday? Whereas the contribution challenges you in a much more intrinsic way of continuing to strive and.

• 28:52Speaker 00

  That's fascinating. I never thought about this, to mention of it before. So we, we published this research a decade and a half ago. And I thought it was all about the active-passive difference. I think you're adding a novelty component.

• 29:04Jefferson Fisher?

  Okay.

• 29:04Speaker 00

  That when you make the, when you, when you reflect on what you're offering to others, when you do the contribution journal, you're right, what you do for others varies much more than what you receive from others, or it can.

• 29:16Jefferson Fisher?

  Yes.

• 29:16Speaker 00

  It's easier to control that.

• 29:18Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 29:18Speaker 00

  That's fascinating. Okay, this, this needs to be studied.

• 29:21Jefferson Fisher?

  There we go. Okay.

• 29:22Speaker 00

  Doctoral dissertation, when you go back for your PhD, Jefferson.

• 29:25Jefferson Fisher?

  Let's do it. Let's do it. Absolutely. What does the science say in your research that makes people click or not click? When you vibe, so to speak?

• 29:37Speaker 00

  Well, I think that a big part of vibing is being on the same wavelength. And so you and I have the same idea about what kind of connection we have, or what kind of bond we're trying to form. And so if I'm trying to be your ally, and you want to be my pal, we're going to be like ships passing in the night.

• 29:51Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 29:52Speaker 00

  And I think a big part of being able to vibe with other people is we get on the same wavelength, and then we need to be in situations with emotional intensity.

• 30:01Jefferson Fisher?

  Tell me more about that.

• 30:02Speaker 00

  So a lot of people get together, and they're like, okay, we want to get to know each other better. Let's sit down for lunch or dinner. And that is not a high-energy experience for most people to have. What we should be doing instead is something a little more active, something that makes us a little bit more vulnerable, but also gets our hearts racing together in unison. So in the research on this, it might be we go for a workout together. Like, I want to get to know you, let's go for a run, or let's go to the gym and lift. And what's great about that is, if we don't hit it off, at least we still got a workout. It's very efficient, right?

• 30:34Jefferson Fisher?

  Right, right.

• 30:35Speaker 00

  We might want to go to a haunted house together. There's a hilarious experiment where, where people are just getting to know each other, and they go to a haunted house. And afterward, they feel closer, as long as they debrief the experience, because they're comparing notes on the jump scares. They're like, yeah, you know what?

• 30:49Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 30:50Speaker 00

  I really felt that. And now we feel like we have shared a unique experience together.

• 30:54Jefferson Fisher?

  For anybody who says, let's go to a haunted house, that's how I know they're not going to be my friend.

• 30:59Speaker 00

  You're out.

• 31:00Jefferson Fisher?

  Done. If they recommend a haunted house to me, I'm like, well, it's great to meet you.

• 31:05Speaker 00

  You will, you will not be going.

• 31:06Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, yeah. So is it, what I hear you saying is, let me, I want to get some context to it. So there was somebody who connected me with somebody else. He was like, oh, hey, you need to meet this guy. Immediately put us in her group chat. I go and have, he's, he and I text, he's like, let's do lunch. We do lunch, and we haven't talked since. I was like, I don't feel like I really got to know him. We talked about work, and then 45 minutes went by, and then, and then that was it. So. I'm saying that for the question of is there a better solution than hey, let's just go grab lunch or coffee?

• 31:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think there are two categories of better solutions. So one is let's do an activity side by side, supposed to just talking face to face. And then we're bringing in some movement. We're hopefully actually living something together that we haven't done independently.

• 31:56Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 31:56Speaker 00

  But then the other option is, I think, a big mistake people make when they do sit down for a meal is they just get stuck in small talk. And they do small talk because it's polite and also because it minimizes awkwardness. We know how to, we know how to do the ritual of talking about the weather and comparing notes on the Cowboys and the Eagles, right? We could do that. We could do that all afternoon and never get to know each other at all.

• 32:22Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 32:23Speaker 00

  What tends to be much more powerful is to skip the small talk and go right to deep talk. And that's where we start to have a much more meaningful conversation and we're on a better path toward becoming companions, if that's your goal.

• 32:35Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  A lot of people are afraid to go there because they think they're going to jump the gun. They're like, whoa, too much information.

• 32:41Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 32:42Speaker 00

  I think that there's a whole series of questions that have been studied that actually help with accelerating deep talk. And they might sound like they're a little bit too vulnerable, but people on average find them no more awkward and they actually feel closer after having the conversation. So what's something you're grateful for is an effective one. Tell me about your childhood is a great one. People love finding out what are the, like, what are the roots that you came from?

• 33:10Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 33:10Speaker 00

  And it helps us make sense of the different branches of each other's lives.

• 33:14Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  If you could live anywhere, where would you live and why? It's an easy one.

• 33:19Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 33:20Speaker 00

  But also people start to dream out loud and you realize, oh, like this person has a whole life in their head that could be their future. And you're kind of, you're starting to, to learn about that and build a bond around that. Before we keep going, a quick word from Seed. You and I both know that little things make a big difference. Well, one of those little things is your gut. If your gut health is off, then everything feels off. That's where Seed comes in. Instead of these shakes and drinks that don't taste all that great, Seed comes right in a little pill form. That's really easy. So I'll have one every single day, maybe with a meal. Seed is a daily probiotic and prebiotic that has been formulated in its 24 probiotic

• 34:03Speaker 00

  strains to improve your overall gut health. And the way they make it in that little capsule actually helps make sure that those probiotics get through your body and protects them to make sure they get where they need to get, which is in your gut. So if you're all about improving the way you feel and making sure that your health is in the best shape it can be, look no further than getting Seed Probiotic. Right now, you can go to seed.com/jefferson. Use the code 25JEFFERSON to get 25% off your first order. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. And now let's keep going.

• 34:43Speaker 00

  Another question that, that has some, some fun data behind it is, have you ever been convicted of a crime or committed a crime? And people have some crazy stories, it turns out.

• 34:55Jefferson Fisher?

  Not yet. You know, what did they say?

• 34:57Speaker 00

  I hope to never have an answer to that one.

• 34:59Jefferson Fisher?

  Right. Those are, okay, I can see how, depending on the level of friendship you want, that also goes into the level of questions you're willing to ask.

• 35:06Speaker 00

  Exactly. And also what you're willing to share.

• 35:08Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, certainly of what, and I think that really comes down to that level of comfort. And there's like little micro moments of those micro moments of being able to go, yeah, I think I can share this with this person.

• 35:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:23Jefferson Fisher?

  Nah, this doesn't just, it doesn't feel right because probably my nervous system is telling me that I don't feel very safe.

• 35:29Speaker 00

  I mean, that happens all the time, but there are ways to make it safe. So I think the easiest bond to start with usually is the pal bond because nobody, nobody will object to saying, yeah, we want to have some fun together.

• 35:41Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  And we can ask better questions. My favorite question is, do you think a hot dog is a sandwich?

• 35:49Jefferson Fisher?

  Ooh, that's a good one.

• 35:50Speaker 00

  I mean, people, people have strong views on this. Where do you stand on it?

• 35:53Jefferson Fisher?

  No, it's not. A hot dog is its own category.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  Why? Is it, is it the wrong shape? Or is it the fact that the bun is still attached?

• 36:00Jefferson Fisher?

  To me, it's just, I'm just going to put respect on its name. I just, it's a, it's a hot dog. It's not a, it's not a hamburger or a sandwich.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  Wait, you think a hamburger is a sandwich?

• 36:09Jefferson Fisher?

  No, I don't think it is. To me, a sandwich is two slices of bread that are separate, that has some kind of, something in between.

• 36:18Speaker 00

  Okay, wait, so.

• 36:19Jefferson Fisher?

  Whereas a bun, it's not a bun, it's, you know.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  Okay, so let me, let me, let me, let me take that one step further. So if I, if I cut off the connector in the hot dog and now the, the, the top and bottom bun are separate, does it meet your sandwich definition?

• 36:33Jefferson Fisher?

  What's a hoagie? Do we know what a hoagie is? I've known it.

• 36:37Speaker 00

  I think it's a kind of sandwich.

• 36:38Jefferson Fisher?

  Right. But now, now I'm in a different sphere.

• 36:41Speaker 00

  It's sort of a sub, right?

• 36:42Jefferson Fisher?

  And what's a sub? You know, I feel like.

• 36:45Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 36:45Jefferson Fisher?

  I don't know either, but I do know that you have a, a sub or I love, I'm a fan of Jersey Mike's, you know, and they have, I don't know, a hoagie sub cheesesteak?

• 36:58Speaker 00

  Those are subcategories of sandwich.

• 37:00Jefferson Fisher?

  There we go. Are you a cheesesteak fan, by the way?

• 37:02Speaker 00

  No, I'm not.

• 37:04Jefferson Fisher?

  I don't understand.

• 37:04Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't get the craze and I've been to Philly long enough that I think I've tried them all. It's not my thing.

• 37:10Jefferson Fisher?

  Well, we finally went not too long ago. We had a speaking deal and brought the family and I was like, I'm so jazzed to get a Philly cheesesteak. It's all I've ever heard about. I got one, man, it was the most disheartening experience. I don't know how anybody eats more than five bites of this. Like it was, yeah, anyway.

• 37:28Speaker 00

  I don't know why anyone would, would anchor, yeah, my, my favorite food has cheese whiz in it.

• 37:34Jefferson Fisher?

  Just Philly cheesesteak. No, are you a hot dog sandwich guy?

• 37:38Speaker 00

  No, I'm also anti-hot dog sandwich. And I've never known what a hot dog is until recently. So I was, I was hosting an event and I, I, I created, I actually created questions for each table because I wanted people to accelerate connection.

• 37:52Jefferson Fisher?

  Oh, nice.

• 37:52Speaker 00

  And one of the questions was, is a hot dog a sandwich? These two guys came up to me afterward and one of them said, I have never bonded with someone so fast. Like, okay, did you guys agree a hot dog is a sandwich? Hell no.

• 38:03Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 38:03Speaker 00

  Hot dog is definitely not a sandwich. We agreed it's a soft taco.

• 38:07Jefferson Fisher?

  Oh.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  And never crossed my mind, but I think I'm with them.

• 38:12Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, that is pretty good.

• 38:14Speaker 00

  But notice, I mean, we just, we, we probably could have gone another 10 minutes on like the hot dog sandwich, hoagie topic.

• 38:21Jefferson Fisher?

  For sure.

• 38:22Speaker 00

  I would much rather do that than talk about the weather.

• 38:24Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah. I mean, I don't, I feel like the older I get, the more I do love talking about the weather. I don't know what it is.

• 38:30Speaker 00

  Really?

• 38:31Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, I don't know what kind of early onset symptom that is, but talking about the weather, my dad, I feel like every dad I know busts out the radar. Or like just immediately, my dad can be like, yeah, we, it looks like we're going to have rain here in about 20 minutes or so, I can see here on the, and I mean, I don't know what it is about.

• 38:48Speaker 00

  Okay, wait, that's, that's a different thing though. That is no longer small talk. Now you're nerding out as pals who actually have discovered an obsession with meteorology.

• 38:55Jefferson Fisher?

  That's true. Yeah, that's probably right.

• 38:57Speaker 00

  If you, if you, if you could go into the app and you actually can read the radar, then that, I think that qualifies as an interest.

• 39:04Jefferson Fisher?

  You're probably right. It's, but I do think there's like certain patterns of interest. I'll tell you my top three apps that I use on a daily basis. We're going so off script and I love, well, we have no script.

• 39:17Speaker 00

  There's no script. That's what podcasts are for, right?

• 39:19Jefferson Fisher?

  This is what I've been loving truly, Adam, is one, there's this, I think it's called Merlin app. Okay, you identify birds and you can like collect their sounds. I will just sit out in the mornings and my son Jett will come sit because he, it's like collecting Pokemon kind of thing. And it identifies their noise and pops them up.

• 39:41Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 39:41Jefferson Fisher?

  All right. And then to give you of how hardcore I was with this app, when we were in Australia, okay, with the family I was telling you about in July, I was going around just praying I was going to hear a cuckoo bear. That's all I wanted to hear.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  Did you find one?

• 39:55Jefferson Fisher?

  I found one and I lost my mind. It was so good out in the wild because those birds just look crazy. The other one is stargazing. There's like this night sky.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  I have that one.

• 40:05Jefferson Fisher?

  Isn't it so good?

• 40:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, to just look up and immediately know, can I see Venus right now? What constellation is it?

• 40:12Jefferson Fisher?

  Like right there and, and it'll show you like the Starlink satellites, whatever that go through, that's a blow my mind.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  Incredible.

• 40:20Jefferson Fisher?

  And then the other one that we've, I've really enjoyed, I think it's called, it's like Flight Radar or FlightAware or something where I can look at a plane in the sky and I immediately pull out my phone. It drives you crazy. And I'll find it and I go, okay, that, do you know where that plane is? And that's the question I always ask. I know that's my dad thing already. And I'll say, you, guess where that plane's going?

• 40:49Jefferson Fisher?

  And they're like, ah, and I'm like, okay, well, it just, it just left Mexico City. It's, it's headed to Portugal. Like that's, is that not so awesome? Those are, those are my, like, my dad apps, man.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  If your kids are rolling their eyes now, just wait five years.

• 41:02Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, I can't ima, I can't imagine. Do you have an app that your kids are like, dad, you gotta stop?

• 41:06Speaker 00

  You know, I, I am, I'm trying to think of whether I have an app that I go to regularly. Here, let me look.

• 41:14Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  Cause it'll be on the home screen or the second screen.

• 41:17Jefferson Fisher?

  You know, you and I were talking about Will Goddare, who we love.

• 41:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:20Jefferson Fisher?

  You know what he came up with as an icebreaker one time with a group I was at? That you look at the past five things you ordered on Amazon and you have to name it out loud on the table.

• 41:31Speaker 00

  I like this.

• 41:32Jefferson Fisher?

  And like, you get a very clear picture. So if you ever want an icebreaker, ever get your Amazon order out and see the last five things that you ordered and you have to share it with everybody.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  That's very good. No, my, my apps are pretty pragmatic. It's mostly like, it's mostly social media and, but I guess the, the more fun apps, it's, it's word games.

• 41:53Jefferson Fisher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:54Speaker 00

  It's New York Times Spelling Bee especially and Wordle.

• 41:57Jefferson Fisher?

  I'm, I'm the crossword guy. I love, I do the New York Times crossword probably every day.

• 42:00Speaker 00

  I'm, I'm sporadic. I do it maybe once a week.

• 42:02Jefferson Fisher?

  Really? I think, I don't know why I love it, but that's given, there's a mini, a midi in the full and the midi is like where I, I love to make sure I get, I'm up to date, I'm telling you for, I have such a long streak.

• 42:14Speaker 00

  It's a small win.

• 42:14Jefferson Fisher?

  It really is.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  It's a jolt of accomplishment.

• 42:16Jefferson Fisher?

  It is. Friendships.

• 42:21Jefferson Fisher?

  Do you need, I'm gonna ask this, how important is friction? I just hit my mics, I'm gonna do it again. I'm not gonna do that again. How important is friction in friendships?

• 42:33Speaker 00

  Friction is underrated in friendships. Most people avoid it. Yeah.

• 42:37Jefferson Fisher?

  Okay.

• 42:37Speaker 00

  I mean, this is, this is how I think I first discovered your work, actually. Is my wife sent me a reel you did on Instagram about how to have a difficult conversation with somebody.

• 42:46Jefferson Fisher?

  Oh, cool.

• 42:47Speaker 00

  And she said, this guy is brilliant. And he talks about, like, he has figured out through experience what takes you years to learn through research. And I was like, wait, wait, what are you saying here? But, but I think that it's so interesting. Most people see conflict as harmful to relationships. They think that if we fight, it's going to damage our connection. And so we're gonna walk on eggshells, we're gonna keep the peace. We're gonna avoid doing anything that might, might even involve some disagreement.

• 43:19Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 43:20Speaker 00

  And that is a huge mistake. Because a relationship in which you can't have any friction stops being a relationship. It's a charade.

• 43:27Jefferson Fisher?

  Oh, that's true. I feel like in every area of our life, well, just as a general statement, like, your life has to have resistance. Like, you need resistance to, to work out the, the way you handle things. And friendships is one of those that you have to have resistance.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  Friendships, romantic relationships, collaborations at work, too. If you never disagree with someone, best case scenario is you're stuck in group think. You're in such a deep filter bubble or echo chamber that you're not even thinking for yourself anymore. And I think, you know, people, people talk a lot about wanting to have chemistry. And they forget that, like, well, actually, a better metaphor probably is harmony. Like, people, people think, I wanna have harmony with others. And that means we're gonna get along all the time. No, harmony is not you and me playing the exact same note on the exact same instrument. It is the pleasing arrangement of different tunes, different sounds.

• 44:25Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  And it's not easy to have friction and keep it pleasing, right? We wanna have, we wanna have good arguments. We wanna have difficult conversations that don't feel devastating.

• 44:36Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 44:36Speaker 00

  But what research shows consistently, there have been over a dozen experiments now testing this, that if you and I, well, actually, let's do it this way. So over a dozen experiments have shown that if you are randomly assigned to think of a friend, a colleague, or a family member, that you're hesitating to be honest with, and go and confront them with a hard truth, that afterward, a week later, you feel closer to them, and they feel closer to you, too. Having a little bit of conflict actually can bring us closer.

• 45:08Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 45:08Speaker 00

  It has to go well, of course, right? If you get into a fistfight, it is not likely to strengthen.

• 45:13Jefferson Fisher?

  Throw a stapler, probably not gonna go that way.

• 45:15Speaker 00

  Bad, bad call. But most of the time, we have the good sense to preface the conversation by being clear about why we're doing it. And I think our, most of our fears are unfounded. The, the conflicts that we think are gonna destroy our relationships are more likely to actually strengthen them. Because if we know we can get through a hard conversation together, we know that we care about each other, and we've had that conversation because we're trying to make an investment in the relationship. And I think people are afraid that the message is going to hurt. Or that, you know, the other person is, is going to be offended or threatened by what we say. But it's rarely what we say that matters. It's why we're saying it. It's their perception of our intentions and our motives.

• 45:59Speaker 00

  It is surprisingly easy to hear a hard truth from somebody who cares about you and is trying to make your relationship better. And I think when conflict doesn't go well, it's because we are forgetting to, to establish, yeah, here's why I'm doing this. Jefferson, I wanna have a conversation with you because our relationship is really important to me. Jefferson, I, I realize I have not done a good job being candid with the people who really matter to me in my life. And I'm trying to do more of that. Are you comfortable with me sharing something that has been weighing on me? Jefferson, this is not gonna be easy for you to hear. But I know you would say it to me, and I owe it to you as your friend.

• 46:42Speaker 00

  Right? Those, you, you can find your own language for it. But just being clear upfront, like, I am giving you tough love because you're important to me? That, I mean, that, that actually makes this a gesture of care as opposed to a full-on assault.

• 46:59Jefferson Fisher?

  Right. I, um, I'm a firm believer in all those, those openers. And I do think, from experience, of how you word the first sentence determines so much of how the rest of that conversation is going to go. I'm curious, is there any kind of research out there that you've seen of that, that first sentence?

• 47:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, my favorite experiments on this were actually with teachers, where this is originally researched by David Jaeger and colleagues. So a team of psychologists says, we're gonna randomly assign teachers who are critiquing middle schoolers' essays to just put a little, attach a little note to the front of their critiques. So teachers mark up these essays in red pen. Some of them are randomly assigned to attach a little note about why they're giving the comments. And it turns out if they write 19 words in that note, the students are dramatically more receptive to the constructive criticism that the teachers are giving. And those 19 words are roughly, I'm giving you these comments because I have very high expectations, and I'm confident you can reach them.

• 48:08Speaker 00

  Completely changes the interaction. Right? I am not attacking you, I'm not judging you, I believe in your potential, I care about your success, and I am trying to help you grow. So as soon as I read this research, I, I thought, I have to bring this into my classroom.

• 48:22Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 48:23Speaker 00

  So I taught a class on, you know, on how to communicate tough love and how to give honest feedback. And the students seemed really into it. And then three weeks later, I get my mid-course feedback forms, and three different students have written at the top, I'm giving you these comments because I have very high expectations, and I'm confident you can reach them. Like, no, no, no, you don't, don't be a robot.

• 48:42Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 48:43Speaker 00

  Don't quote the words verbatim, find your own language.

• 48:46Jefferson Fisher?

  Yes.

• 48:47Speaker 00

  To communicate, I'm saying this to help you because I care about you and I care about my connection with you.

• 48:53Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 48:53Speaker 00

  And I think there are so many different ways to do that, right? I've, you know, I've, I've even found it helpful to say to somebody, you know, I've, the people who have helped me the most in my life are the ones who have given me tough love, and I'm trying to pay that forward. And I noticed a couple of things that I thought might be useful for you to hear. Do you wanna hear them?

• 49:12Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 49:13Speaker 00

  And if you opt in, that's now a, it's now a dialogue as opposed to a monologue. I've realized, I have a lot of relationships in which I would like to, to be more candid. And I've just started saying to people, look, I think many people believe that there's a conflict between honesty and loyalty. I don't see a tension between honesty and loyalty. I believe that honesty is the highest expression of loyalty. The more candid you are with me, the more I will know that you are trying to help me grow. In toxic relationships, people bite their tongues to preserve a fragile tie. Whereas in healthy relationships, people can speak their minds, and it actually strengthens their tie. And I've just tried to make that clear to the people in my life.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  And it's amazing how well they respond. For me to just say, look, part of my view of a healthy relationship is, whenever you see something that you think could make me better, you just tell me. Don't worry about politeness. Being polite is saying what's gonna make someone feel good today. Being kind is saying what's gonna help them do better tomorrow. I always prefer kindness over politeness. And guess what? People open up, and they tell me things that help me, and I'm also then able to tell them things that will help them.

• 50:28Jefferson Fisher?

  Hmm, I love all of that. I, um, I love, of course, communication, but in particular,

• 50:37Speaker 00

  It's your jam.

• 50:38Jefferson Fisher?

  The, the first sentence starters, like this, I just love those. And I do love that I'm telling you this because. So if anybody goes, hey, I really want this kind of sentence start, I'm telling you this because. It's such a great, because you can really take it anywhere.

• 50:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:56Jefferson Fisher?

  I'm telling you this because you matter to me. I'm telling you this because you deserve to know. I'm telling you this because if I didn't, it wouldn't be right. Like these things that they make you go, oh, okay. Like I'm, I'm in, I'm in with you. And so often, and you, you, you highlight this so well in a book, especially in chapter six, where it goes into, you know, what you need in conflict and why you need this resistance, this friction is when you look at conflict as these hard conversations as this is going to make us weaker and instead this is going to make us stronger. I think you're right.

• 51:38Jefferson Fisher?

  Every single time they come out of it feeling closer together, every, all the friendships we have in our life are ones that there's been some kind of struggle together. If you think of people who are veterans or people that have been in these high intense sports or like this is my person, you know, arm in arm that I get to be with. What, is there a science behind that feeling of we've done something hard together?

• 52:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think Jane Dutton has called it the, she was, well, she has a couple of terms for it, but Jane Dutton talks about the tensility of a relationship.

• 52:16Jefferson Fisher?

  Tensility?

• 52:17Speaker 00

  Tensility. I think resilience might be an easier way to capture it.

• 52:21Jefferson Fisher?

  Like a pencil, yeah.

• 52:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, that when a relationship has been stretched and you've seen people under stress, when you have gone through a challenge together and overcome it, you believe in your carrying capacity to face other hard things and become closer through them. And, you know, a lot of people don't do this. They, they think they're going to pick their battles and they think they need to pick their battles. And so they avoid little conflicts until they blow up as big conflicts. And then those are, those are just disastrous to the relationship. They never practice having little disagreements. They never have the hot, is the hot dog a sandwich fight?

• 53:00Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 53:00Speaker 00

  Which is actually a great rehearsal for how do we disagree, but still enjoy each other's company as pals? And how do we make sure we're still allies at the end of the day? Because we want to align on what our definition is. And I think, I think that like we are, in some ways, we're a conflict illiterate society. We are like, I was, I mean, I grew up believing that like the more, more your parents fight, the more likely they are to get divorced. That's empirically false.

• 53:31Jefferson Fisher?

  Really?

• 53:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's just not true. If you want to predict the longevity of a marriage, it is not how often people argue. It's how constructively they argue that matters. And in fact, having frequent friendly disagreements is actually a recipe, not only for a healthy marriage, but also for raising creative kids. It turns out psychologists have studied what they call wobble, which is when a, a family is, is kind of like seeming like it's teetering on, on an edge because people like, you know, you sit down at dinner and there's a big debate about the news of the day. But what's happening is kids are learning to think for themselves and they can't just assume that their parents always agree because their parents don't have all their fights behind closed doors.

• 54:15Speaker 00

  Their, their parents, sorry. Yeah. Like a lot of parents say, we're going to fight behind closed doors because we don't want to stress the kids out. Guess what? You are teaching your kids then that arguing is bad for relationships. What parents should be doing is having constructive disagreements in front of their children and role modeling how to, how to say, look, we are two different human beings.

• 54:36Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 54:37Speaker 00

  We are not on the same page all the time and that is okay. We still respect each other. We still trust each other. We still love each other and we're going to disagree because we want to learn from each other.

• 54:45Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 54:46Speaker 00

  Sometimes we will argue and realize you were right and I was wrong. And other times we'll argue and we'll realize we were both wrong.

• 54:54Jefferson Fisher?

  Right. My daughter, who is definitely the conflict averse, she's the youngest. And so when Sierra and I might be having a disagreement in the kitchen, but it's just a, a plain talk. I mean, we're, we're disagreeing on something. There's no raised voices.

• 55:10Speaker 00

  Does she get upset?

• 55:11Jefferson Fisher?

  She'll go, are y'all arguing? And we used to say, no, baby, we're not arguing. We're just talking. And what we do now is when she asks, are y'all arguing? We'll say, yes, baby, we are. That doesn't mean it's bad. Like to be able to, to, to transform the way they see arguments as this is not something go, oh, are you arguing? That means something bad that y'all need to stop doing that because that's what she want, that's why she's asking the question. Are y'all arguing? Don't argue as if that's something to not be okay with. But if it's a, yes, we are, and that's okay. We're, we're discussing different opinions. We're discussing how we see things. Don't you think we should do that?

• 55:55Jefferson Fisher?

  And they're like, and so that's, I think that's how you teach them to be able to model that.

• 56:00Speaker 00

  That, that's so powerful. More parents should do exactly what you're doing. And I even think we need better vocabulary for how to talk about this.

• 56:07Jefferson Fisher?

  That's a great, yeah.

• 56:07Speaker 00

  Cause I think, you know, an argument or a disagreement, it sounds negative. It sounds divisive and destructive. Psychologists sometimes talk about great debates as like a dance where if you want to dance, somebody, sorry. Where if you want to dance with somebody else, you don't come in necessarily knowing the exact same moves. You don't agree on who's going to lead and who's going to follow. And so sometimes like you end up stepping on each other's toes and you end up running into a wall and that's okay. And so I will sometimes say to people who are familiar with the language, hey, do you want to dance?

• 56:40Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 56:41Speaker 00

  And that's a signal we're going to have a debate where we're very happy to disagree and we're, we're hoping that it brings us closer and makes us both smarter. What's, what's there to be afraid of there?

• 56:50Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, I, I love that. Let's, you want to go? You want to, you want to dance, big boy? Yeah. Uh, I do find that, that, that's great vocabulary, language around it because certainly when she's asking, are y'all arguing? It's, it's fear. It's that arguing is, is not a good thing. And what does that look like 30 years from now? And her whole life, she's been taught, you shouldn't be arguing with the person you're in a relationship with. That's not good. And I don't think that's going to do well.

• 57:22Speaker 00

  No, it's not. And I mean, we, we also need to encourage our kids to model this too. Right? So like, how many times have you heard a parent say, kids, stop fighting?

• 57:31Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 57:32Speaker 00

  No, I, I've had our kids in the car and they're, you know, they're, they're starting to bicker and I tell them, you're allowed to fight and disagree as much as you want, as long as you do it with smiles on your faces.

• 57:45Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, as long as you have the smile.

• 57:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, you know, then they start insulting each other and laughing hysterically at who can come up with the most ridiculous nickname.

• 57:53Jefferson Fisher?

  Right. Yeah. I, I, I think that's awesome. I saw some others in your book of, there are people who, when they get into an argument and they have to wear like big party hats.

• 58:04Speaker 00

  Oh, I love this.

• 58:05Jefferson Fisher?

  Dude, that would just crack me up. Or ones that if they, they say something that they don't like, they just boo.

• 58:14Speaker 00

  The friendly boo is a great way to keep it light, but also express some real dissent.

• 58:19Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 58:20Speaker 00

  I, I've had so much fun learning from people about what are the different rituals they, they use to try to remind themselves, we are allies and pals and companions when we're disagreeing. And my favorite one is a couple that they actually have a, a high court of petty grievances. So when, when they have, when they have a dispute about something seemingly trivial, but they're getting heated about it.

• 58:42Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 58:42Speaker 00

  They actually have a list of friends that they both agreed are neutral and reasonable. And they go to the friend to resolve it.

• 58:48Jefferson Fisher?

  Do like a PowerPoint slide of.

• 58:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:51Jefferson Fisher?

  You tell you what, well, given that Sierra and I are both attorneys, dude, we could, we could probably wreck that.

• 58:56Speaker 00

  You could go to court all day.

• 58:57Jefferson Fisher?

  Definitely. Well, then we threw in, we throw in some rules of evidence and procedure and then we'd appeal.

• 59:03Speaker 00

  You can take this to the next level. You could build a whole training program around it.

• 59:07Jefferson Fisher?

  We really should. And then, you know, and ultimately maybe we appeal and again to the higher courts and it's like our great grandparents or something like that wants to do that.

• 59:16Speaker 00

  I think the energy of that is obviously great. You, you can't, you can't go to court about petty grievances without having some fun with it.

• 59:24Jefferson Fisher?

  Exactly.

• 59:24Speaker 00

  But also it forces you to postpone the conflict until you're ready to deal with it. I, I was, I was told for a long time by people I trusted, never go to bed angry. And I think that is horrible advice because if you never, well, think about it for a second. If you never go to bed angry, it means you're always fighting when you're angry and when you're tired. And that's just a recipe for escalation of conflict.

• 59:50Jefferson Fisher?

  Okay, I see what you mean.

• 59:51Speaker 00

  Go to bed.

• 59:52Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 59:53Speaker 00

  And wait until you have a little bit of distance from the problem and you like the other person again. And then the argument is going to be much more pleasant.

• 1:00:01Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah. Ideally, you're able to calm down and communicate before you go to bed. Sometimes that's not going to happen.

• 1:00:06Speaker 00

  Not always doable.

• 1:00:07Jefferson Fisher?

  And so Sierra and I have this thing where it's like, we're in the red. If we're, we already know, we're, at, at this point, we're just saying things because we're exhausted, you know, and it's, we're tired and we've had a long whatever. And so I do agree with, it's going to be okay in the, in the morning. That's just hard because then, then, then you're not going to sleep that well and everything else. But I think that's kind of like, then's the break. That's, that's the hard part of conversation. But you know, I think it's different for me and different if, if we want to turn this relationally for a second. If I voice, hey, we're going to be okay. I know we're going to work this out. We're just exhausted right now and we're going to be so much better in the morning. Versus.

• 1:00:48Speaker 00

  Oh, that's good.

• 1:00:48Jefferson Fisher?

  Hey, hey, you know what? You do you and turn your shoulder and, uh, you know, go to bed and don't say anything else.

• 1:00:56Speaker 00

  Well, that's, I mean, that's something people forget to do in conflict, right? They dive right into the argument as opposed to making the larger statement, right? Sending the bid for connection or reconnection.

• 1:01:05Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:06Speaker 00

  And saying, you know, I love you, I care about you. And this is just one of those things we have to work through. I wonder, yeah, you're saying we're in the red.

• 1:01:16Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:01:17Speaker 00

  It's so hard for people to see it when they're in it.

• 1:01:19Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:01:20Speaker 00

  And find the right vocabulary to not escalate it. I wonder what would happen if you carried around a little red flag that you could just hold out to say, I'm not in a good place right now to have this disagreement.

• 1:01:31Jefferson Fisher?

  Probably, I need to keep it in the drawer.

• 1:01:34Speaker 00

  Before we keep going, I want to take a moment to tell you about Cozy Earth. And let me just stop by saying, you like what I'm wearing? Didn't realize it, but I'm already wearing Cozy Earth. That's how comfortable it is. That's how easy it is to throw on. If it's like, okay, you're doing something at the house, you're doing something on the go, or you want something that can even elevate at the office? I could easily put some pants on this and we're good. I'm not saying I'm not wearing pants. I'm just saying like, you know what I mean, slacks. Anyway, I love Cozy Earth because everything they make is top tier quality. I love it. It's nice. It's easy. It's smooth. So if you want to be like me and you'll enjoy cozy stuff, go to cozyearth.com. Used to go Jefferson and get up to 20% off. cozyearth.com/jefferson. Used to go Jefferson to get up to 20% off.

• 1:02:17Speaker 00

  And I just meant like, if you want to be like me, cozy me. All right, let's keep going.

• 1:02:23Jefferson Fisher?

  When you can make disagreements.

• 1:02:27Jefferson Fisher?

  I don't want to say more fun, but this

• 1:02:30Speaker 00

  Less miserable?

• 1:02:31Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, this aspect of the birthday hat that you have to wear or the cowboy hat, or you know, of anything that says, hey, this isn't a person issue. This is a problem issue.

• 1:02:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:45Jefferson Fisher?

  And let's do this in a way that is, is going to smooth things and not escalate things. You know, one thing that's helped me with, so my kids, if they are complaining, or if my daughter's upset and are like, she's mad about something and she's pouting. Of course she does the like, one of these and I'll be like, hey, can you, can you pout just a little bit more? That's what I'll say every time and it always gets a laugh.

• 1:03:20Speaker 00

  That's hilarious.

• 1:03:20Jefferson Fisher?

  Or my son, he'll, you know, he's disappointed about something. I'm like, hey, I need you to be more disappointed. Can you look more disappointed, please? And always it turns into a smile if I ask for more of how they're behaving. Can you be uglier to me, please? And they, and every time it kind of shakes them out of it.

• 1:03:39Speaker 00

  That is so clever. That is the best application I've ever seen of what psychologists call emotional acknowledgement.

• 1:03:44Jefferson Fisher?

  Oh, tell me.

• 1:03:45Speaker 00

  Well, normally when you, especially with your kids, but with anybody that you're in a relationship with, if you like them, if you care about them and you see them show an unpleasant emotion, the first thing you want to do is fix it or change it.

• 1:03:56Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:57Speaker 00

  But that usually, that's an immediate way to piss them off or to, to invite a lot of resistance. And so emotional acknowledgement tends to work better. It's where I say, hey, Jefferson, you look a little bit frustrated right now. Tell me more. Or like, I noticed, I noticed a scowl.

• 1:04:16Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, affirming that.

• 1:04:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. And validating that, which says, look, you know, it's okay to feel and even express those emotions. Now let's talk about a more constructive way to deal with them.

• 1:04:28Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:28Speaker 00

  But you're, you're acknowledging the emotion at the same time that you're neutralizing it.

• 1:04:32Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:04:33Speaker 00

  That's very clever.

• 1:04:34Jefferson Fisher?

  I, it just, it only worked because I started with my daughter giving me just really pouty, these sassy, you know, things. And I'd say, hey, can you, can you look more upset, please? I need you to look more upset. And always she starts cracking a smile, dad, you know, like, okay, now I

• 1:04:49Speaker 00

  So good.

• 1:04:50Jefferson Fisher?

  Getting you out of it.

• 1:04:52Speaker 00

  It reminds me of something that I learned from counseling psychologists who study motivational interviewing. So oftentimes we, we try to get people to change their attitudes or their behaviors by lecturing them, preaching at them, prosecuting the, the wrong way they're, they're doing something. And that just makes them defensive and sometimes they go on the offensive.

• 1:05:15Jefferson Fisher?

  Of course.

• 1:05:16Speaker 00

  What works much better is instead of arguing with them, you interview them. And here's an example of, of what I found worked with one of our daughters when she did not want to clean her room.

• 1:05:27Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:27Speaker 00

  I said, like zero to 10, like how motivated are you to clean your room in the next week? Or zero is this is the worst thing I could possibly do. And 10 is this is my dream and I can't wait. And she says, three. Oh, that's so interesting. Three, why is it lower? Like I, I thought you were going to say zero or one. And she was like, well, like I did trip over something yesterday. And also I couldn't find the, the shoes that I was looking for. And I was like, oh no, no, like tripping is fine. Like we're clutches in this family. Like we take pride in, in our tripping.

• 1:06:05Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:06Speaker 00

  And like, you have another pair of shoes. Why do you need that?

• 1:06:09Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:09Speaker 00

  And she's like, no, no, no, I really, like, I really wanted those shoes and I couldn't find them. And she is persuading herself that cleaning her room, cleaning her room is a good idea.

• 1:06:17Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:18Speaker 00

  And I think that one thing I've learned is like most, like this is true for kids as well as, as adults. Anything you might want them to do, they usually have some reasons for and some reasons against. And the harder you push in the direction they don't want to go, the harder they push back.

• 1:06:34Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:35Speaker 00

  And so you might as well just say, hey, here's this thing.

• 1:06:38Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:06:39Speaker 00

  Like, tell me where you are and give me your pros and cons and see if they talk themselves into the thing that you're excited about.

• 1:06:47Jefferson Fisher?

  I want to switch gears for a little bit and talk about work and vibe. Make sure, yeah, we're good on time.

• 1:06:57Jefferson Fisher?

  Should you, should you make friends at work?

• 1:07:02Speaker 00

  Should you make friends at work?

• 1:07:06Speaker 00

  It depends.

• 1:07:07Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, I'm going to answer this like any self-respecting social scientist would answer any question. The answer is it depends.

• 1:07:13Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, like any, any attorney.

• 1:07:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. I think, I would say that leaders shouldn't pressure people to be friends at work. I think this is a mistake that a lot of bosses make. They say like, we're all friends here, or this company is a family. No, a company is not a family.

• 1:07:31Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:07:31Speaker 00

  You would not furlough your kids. You wouldn't fire your kids. When you call a workplace a family, or when you say, we're all going to be friends, it creates an unrealistic expectation of unconditional love. It's not sustainable, right? A workplace, I, I think I know what, what managers are trying to do when they deliver that message. They are trying to convey that we're going to respect each other and care about each other. We are going to be a community.

• 1:07:58Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:58Speaker 00

  You're going to belong here. But the family and friend metaphors are the wrong ones because with family and with friendships, the relationship is the only priority.

• 1:08:07Jefferson Fisher?

  So we're not family, we're a community and you, and you're welcome here.

• 1:08:11Speaker 00

  Yes, and we're a community that cares deeply about strong relationships. We also care deeply about great results. And if you are building relationships but not getting results, you're not going to be welcome to stay in this community, right? That's, we have performance standards here. And so I think we need to be clear about that. And what that means for me is you do not need to be friends or family. You do not need to be pals or companions at work. You need to be allies first and foremost. That is, that's the, the basis of the bond.

• 1:08:43Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:43Speaker 00

  Is you and I are committed to a shared mission and we've aligned on what are our core values that are necessary to subscribe to in order to advance that mission? Which means we know exactly what behaviors are acceptable around here, what values uphold, excuse me. We know exactly what behaviors uphold our principles. We know exactly what actions would violate those principles. And once we're clear on that, then we can say, look, this is, uh, this is a collaboration where we are trying to bring out the best in each other. And if we like each other enough that we want to hang out as pals, that's potentially okay. If we are in a situation where we care about each other enough that we want to build a companion bond outside of work, that's okay too, but it's optional.

• 1:09:29Speaker 00

  It's not required.

• 1:09:30Jefferson Fisher?

  So there are, I'm, I know there are people who are managers of people, bosses, supervisors, listening and going, hey, I want the people that work for me to be friends. Because that's the mindset they have. I, I want everybody to be friendly and, and get along. Should everybody at work get along?

• 1:09:50Speaker 00

  The research on this, I think, is a little surprising. So if you look at the data, this is research on over 12,000 work teams and also sports teams. What you see is that what's called task cohesion is more important than social cohesion.

• 1:10:05Speaker 00

  So social cohesion is what most people think of when they think about cohesion. That's, do we like each other?

• 1:10:11Jefferson Fisher?

  Do we have happy hour?

• 1:10:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:12Jefferson Fisher?

  Is that working that?

• 1:10:13Speaker 00

  We're singing kumbaya.

• 1:10:16Speaker 00

  Task cohesion is, are we proud of the group and are we committed to the goal? And it turns out that social cohesion isn't always important for performance. We do not have to like each other. We don't have to feel affection for each other. We just need to be on the same page about what we're trying to achieve together and how we're going to achieve it together. And if you can align on that, friendship is not necessary. There is some research suggesting that friendship is a double edged sword. On the one hand, we will work harder for our friends because we like them and we care about them. On the other hand, we are often reluctant to challenge our friends. So what happens is we want to preserve the friendship.

• 1:10:58Speaker 00

  We tiptoe around conflict and then our results start to tank and the business falls apart. And then that damages the friendship too.

• 1:11:09Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, it's definitely a, um, two sides, double edged, double edged sword. I think particularly with friends and work because it's, you, you want to get along. You, you want to work with people you like, otherwise you're miserable. But at the same time, there are also people at work you don't like. And you also need to, you also need to, to work with them. How should somebody, how should leaders approach?

• 1:11:44Jefferson Fisher?

  Work. I ask this question differently. What I'm wanting to get to is how do, if you're a leader of a team, do you, do you want to, let me just ask you, if you're a leader of a team, do you want to inspire friendship? Or do you want to inspire something else?

• 1:12:06Speaker 00

  As a leader of a team?

• 1:12:08Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:08Speaker 00

  I don't want to inspire friendship. I want to inspire allyship.

• 1:12:11Jefferson Fisher?

  Allyship.

• 1:12:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, I want teammates to be allies first and foremost. I think.

• 1:12:16Jefferson Fisher?

  How is that different than friendship?

• 1:12:18Speaker 00

  Well, I think friendship is about, friendship is about wanting to interact outside work.

• 1:12:24Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:12:25Speaker 00

  It's not necessary.

• 1:12:26Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:26Speaker 00

  It's okay. Yeah, it can, it can be fun. It can be enjoyable. It is not indispensable to running a great collaboration or building a healthy team. And maybe, maybe an example will bring this to life. So let's, let's talk about the work I did with the US Women's National Soccer Team. So I was brought in during COVID to try to help them work on their vibe. And they had a major, I found there was a major divide between the senior and junior players. The senior players, some of them were seen as prima donnas, and the junior players felt like maybe they were, they were getting, not hazed, but like they had to earn their stripes.

• 1:13:07Jefferson Fisher?

  Rookies.

• 1:13:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. And the, there was a big debate when I came in about, like, some of the players said, like, wait, you're going to work on our, like, on our relationships and our, on our culture? We don't want to sing kumbaya. We don't necessarily all want to be friends with each other. And in fact, like, we should be working on, like, what we do on the field, not off the field. And I think I surprised them by saying, you know what? I don't want you to be best friends. I don't want you to be a family. I want you to be a great team. And what that means is you all need to agree on the mission, which they were clear on. They wanted to win the World Cup. They wanted to win an Olympic gold medal.

• 1:13:44Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:45Speaker 00

  And they, they actually had an even higher bar. They wanted to go down as the greatest team in history. And everybody was on the same page there.

• 1:13:52Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:52Speaker 00

  They said, we want to be the best ever. Great. I said, what values do you have to agree on in order to, to become the greatest team ever? And it was like playing buzzword bingo. I got, I got a list of cliches back. So the values were winning, excellence, collaboration, teamwork, integrity.

• 1:14:14Jefferson Fisher?

  All the posters that they have, like, in a, at us fieldhouse.

• 1:14:18Speaker 00

  Oh, and, or, or in an office. And your values are not the posters you put on the wall. Your values are not a bunch of cliched words that nobody thinks matter. Your values are, in organizational psychology in my world, your values are the principles that are distinctive, central, and enduring. So what are the things that you stand for that differentiate you from every other team, or every other organization, that are going to stick with you over time, that everybody is passionate about? You cannot just take a bunch of buzzwords and build a set of values around those.

• 1:14:53Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:53Speaker 00

  The best way to identify shared values to be allies around is to look at the stories people tell about what is something that happens in this team or this organization that would never happen anywhere else. So this is exactly what I did with the, with the soccer team. I asked them, tell me a story about the team when you were proudest of it. Or tell me a story about something that happens here that would never happen anywhere else. And I started hearing these extreme stories. I heard about a practice where players were bleeding and they still kept playing a scrimmage, because they were that committed to the team that they will play through blood, even when they're practicing and the stakes were low. And they said, this is different from any other team that we have been part of in our whole soccer careers. And so we said, okay, let's build the values

• 1:15:36Speaker 00

  around that language. One of their core values was bloodbath mentality.

• 1:15:40Jefferson Fisher?

  Nice.

• 1:15:41Speaker 00

  And you immediately know what that team stands for. And you can, as a new member of that team, you're going to be socialized into, okay, you bleed in practice, not just in the game.

• 1:15:50Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:51Speaker 00

  Another one, they had a principle around respect. And they said, we want to respect each other. And I was like, nobody gets fired up about respect. And so they ended up coming up with a no a-hole rule instead.

• 1:16:02Jefferson Fisher?

  Nice. It's a good rule.

• 1:16:04Speaker 00

  It's a good rule, but we had to codify it and say, what does it mean to be a jerk? And they said, oh, well, part of not being a jerk is you treat every player with dignity. And that means you don't give junior players the silent treatment until they've proven themselves. That means you carry your own backs and you're even kind to staff, as opposed to treating them like second-class citizens.

• 1:16:26Jefferson Fisher?

  Right. And creating a culture around it.

• 1:16:27Speaker 00

  Exactly. And then, you know, they, they ended up with a whole list of, they had do your stuff as another value and, except it was a, it was an expletive.

• 1:16:36Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:37Speaker 00

  And do your stuff, they codified that and they said, you got to test your own pee.

• 1:16:42Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:43Speaker 00

  Which sometimes the, you know, the star players felt like, well, we don't need to do that.

• 1:16:46Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:16:47Speaker 00

  But that's how you tell if you're hydrated. And you need to be doing that every day because otherwise you're potentially letting this team down. And that's what being good allies looks like, right? You've got a set of values. You've all bought into the language around them. You've agreed, here are the actions I will take to uphold those values. Here are the actions I will avoid to make sure that I don't stomp all over those values. And now we can work toward a common mission together.

• 1:17:12Jefferson Fisher?

  Sure. Should your friendships be high maintenance or low maintenance?

• 1:17:17Speaker 00

  Depends on the friendship, I suppose.

• 1:17:20Jefferson Fisher?

  If you had to pick.

• 1:17:21Speaker 00

  Look, I think we all want more low maintenance friendships. And I think that we walk around with a lot of guilt, feeling like if we don't spend enough time together, if we don't interact often enough, then we're, we're not being good friends and we're letting others down. And I just think we need to relax our expectations. It's not always feasible to be the perfect friend to everybody in your life. And in fact, I think great friends are the people who understand that we're just going through a hard thing right now. Or we're really busy with family and work. And it's just a season where we don't have a lot of time for, you know, our pals or our companions. And when the seasons change,

• 1:18:03Speaker 00

  we'll be there for each other. I think some of my best, some of my closest friends, I actually have a tradition with, with one of my best friends from college, Palmer, he started it. When we graduated, he said, okay, we're, we're going off to live in different states, eventually different countries. And we're just, like, you can't just walk over to each other's place anymore.

• 1:18:24Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:18:24Speaker 00

  What are we going to do about that? Like, we don't live in the same dorm anymore. We don't, we're not roommates anymore. How are we going to manage that? And he said, let's put a once a year or twice a year catch up on our calendar. And you can reschedule it as many times as you want, but you have to reschedule it. You can't cancel it.

• 1:18:41Jefferson Fisher?

  Oh.

• 1:18:41Speaker 00

  And we're just going to agree, it's always okay to reschedule, but we always have a future interaction that we've committed to. That, I think, has kept us close.

• 1:18:49Jefferson Fisher?

  That's awesome.

• 1:18:50Speaker 00

  For literally a quarter century. I haven't seen Palmer since before the pandemic.

• 1:18:54Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:55Speaker 00

  And I know I can call him, text him, or even drop in at his house, and he'll be happy to see me and vice versa.

• 1:19:01Jefferson Fisher?

  How important is it that our friends hear our voice rather than just sending the, the short text?

• 1:19:06Speaker 00

  Oh, I love the research on this. So are you familiar with oxytocin?

• 1:19:10Jefferson Fisher?

  Yes.

• 1:19:10Speaker 00

  Okay, so.

• 1:19:11Jefferson Fisher?

  It's like the caring, you know, portion.

• 1:19:13Speaker 00

  Exactly. So I think neuroscientists call oxytocin, the, sometimes it's called the love hormone or the care chemical.

• 1:19:20Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:20Speaker 00

  And it turns out that oxytocin is released when we hear other people's voices, but not when we read their written words. I think it's one of the reasons that people have such a strong parasocial relationship with you. If, if they listen to your podcast or if they watch you on YouTube, is they feel like they know you.

• 1:19:37Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:19:37Speaker 00

  Because your voice is literally activating bonding chemicals in their body. Whereas if they just read their words, excuse me, whereas if they just read your words, you're nobody to them.

• 1:19:48Jefferson Fisher?

  Right. It doesn't come across. I always tell people, when somebody asks for advice, like, well, let's depend, it depends if, let's say it's your ex and you're having to communicate, then let's do low emotion medium and just text that way. And keep it short, because you don't want to be in a long drawn out phone call with this person. At the other time, if it's a friend, these voice notes that you leave. Now, I will say, I have a buddy of mine who, he left me like a seven-minute voice note. And I was.

• 1:20:16Speaker 00

  That's a big commitment.

• 1:20:17Jefferson Fisher?

  I know. I was like, dude, I love you. But he can be like, you know how long seven minutes is? But, but hearing that voice, for people who haven't communicated in a long time, it makes all the, the difference in the world. I had a friend of mine, who you probably know, he sent me a voicemail. He was like, hey, buddy.

• 1:20:39Jefferson Fisher?

  I've, we've just been in and out. He goes, I am not checked out on this friendship. I just have to be checked in on something else just for a little bit. And want you to know, I'm, I'm still present here and I want, I want to have a friendship and, and continue to grow this. I mean, and that just made all the difference in the world.

• 1:20:57Speaker 00

  It takes all the pressure off.

• 1:20:59Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:59Speaker 00

  And just the idea of calibrating our expectations. We don't do that. Because again, we're, we're, I mean, that's a conflict we're afraid to have.

• 1:21:06Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:21:07Speaker 00

  I don't want to find out that you expect to be in touch every week and I only want to be in touch once a year.

• 1:21:12Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:21:13Speaker 00

  It seems like it would be catastrophic.

• 1:21:16Jefferson Fisher?

  Exactly.

• 1:21:16Speaker 00

  To our friendship. And yet, we do need to have that conversation because if we're that far apart, inevitably that's going to put strain on the relationship. And so if we align on monthly, then neither of us is going to feel let down or overwhelmed by our interaction. You know, it's interesting. You, you just, you sparked two things for me that, that I,

• 1:21:38Speaker 00

  I think people really struggle with. The first one is reconnecting. So we all have lots of dormant ties in our life. Your dormant ties are the people you used to know. And a lot of us will hesitate to reach out to them. In the research, even when people are asked to write a draft note to the person they would most love to reconnect with, the majority don't even bother to send it. They think it's going to be awkward. They're afraid the other person doesn't want to hear from them. They think too much time has passed.

• 1:22:05Jefferson Fisher?

  How do you reconnect with a, a friendship you feel has gone stale?

• 1:22:09Speaker 00

  Well, I think there are, I have three go-to habits for reconnecting. Number one is to send a pebble.

• 1:22:15Jefferson Fisher?

  Pebble?

• 1:22:15Speaker 00

  Pebbles, pebbling, the term originally comes from a mating ritual among penguins.

• 1:22:21Jefferson Fisher?

  Oh, nice. Nice. Okay.

• 1:22:23Speaker 00

  Some penguins go around and they court potential mates by collecting these smooth shiny stones and then they present them.

• 1:22:28Jefferson Fisher?

  Like, you like my pebbles?

• 1:22:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We could build a nest together.

• 1:22:32Jefferson Fisher?

  Right, for sure.

• 1:22:33Speaker 00

  The digital equivalent of pebbling is sending somebody an article, a link, a meme that reminded you of them. And you're saying, hey, Jefferson, I read this or I saw this. It reminded me of you. I think you'd love it. And you receive that. You're like, wow, you thought of me. You remembered my interests. This is not spamming people with random junk from the internet.

• 1:22:53Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:54Speaker 00

  Right? It's, it's sending something that's really personalized and tailored to them. And that's a really easy way to reconnect because you're not asking any of, anything of them. You're not putting any pressure on them. You're not imposing any demands. You're not saying, we need to have a call or a catch-up. You're just saying, hey, I thought of you. And then that might rekindle the bond. That's easy. I think another thing you do is you actually reach out and thank them. You show appreciation for something that they added to your life. People worry that that's going to be uncomfortable. It might be uncomfortable for you, but in the research over and over again, when people receive a note of gratitude, they feel gratified.

• 1:23:30Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:30Speaker 00

  Like, wow, you appreciated that thing that happened seven years ago? I didn't even remember that happened.

• 1:23:36Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:23:36Speaker 00

  Thank you. Like, thank you for thanking me. And then, you know, that brings you together. I've even found it powerful just to say, hey, I miss you. And here's why I miss you. Here's, here's why you were important in my life.

• 1:23:48Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:23:49Speaker 00

  I'd love to have you back in my life. Worst case scenario, you don't receive it well.

• 1:23:54Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:55Speaker 00

  You weren't in my life before. You're still not in my life now. I have lost nothing.

• 1:24:00Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah. I'll tell you, one of the most powerful things that's happened to me is I had a friend contact me and we hadn't talked for, I feel like probably two months. And he called me out of the blue and just said, hey, man, what are you doing? And I was like, I'm driving here. He's like, oh, okay. And we just, I mean, we caught up for maybe six minutes. And I was like, you need anything? He goes, no, I was just thinking about you. Wanted to give you a holly. That was it. I mean, just to let me know that, one, he called because he was thinking of me.

• 1:24:28Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:24:28Jefferson Fisher?

  Second of all, he didn't need anything from me. That was it. That was the point.

• 1:24:32Speaker 00

  Beautiful.

• 1:24:32Jefferson Fisher?

  And it was like, oh wait, you're not, you're not adding anything to my plate? You're not asking me to go anywhere? Or it was just a, I just wanted to call because I'm letting you know I thought of you. And so I try to, because of that, I try and do that with my, my close guy friends of, of, if I can send them a text every once in a while or give them a voicemail or a call, I think men end with them. Just the, hey, I don't need any, I'm just letting you know I'm thinking of you. Just something. I think that's a good pebble.

• 1:25:04Speaker 00

  I think it's a great pebble. And I think if you're specific about why you're thinking of them, even better. It's even more meaningful.

• 1:25:09Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:10Speaker 00

  And the research on this too shows that most of us, if we do try to reconnect with a dormant tie, we first have to overcome the hesitation of, in the original experiments, people are encouraged, make a list of the people you've lost touch with, that you would love to be back in contact with. And the first reaction from a lot of people is like, why would I reconnect with a dormant tie? Some ties are dormant for a reason.

• 1:25:31Jefferson Fisher?

  Right, right, right. Yeah.

• 1:25:33Speaker 00

  Actually, most ties are not dormant for a good reason. We didn't mean to fall out of touch. We got busy. We moved. We changed jobs. We had kids. And in the data, when people are given the extra nudge to reconnect, 90% of the time, they find it to be an enjoyable experience. Most people are still hesitant to take the risk of putting themselves out there. And so they will send a text or an email.

• 1:25:56Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:25:56Speaker 00

  And yet, if you pick up the phone and call, even if you're cold calling them, it ends up being a better connection and people don't find it awkward.

• 1:26:06Jefferson Fisher?

  How funny.

• 1:26:07Speaker 00

  So I think you're right. I think maybe the most underutilized technology of 2026 is the phone.

• 1:26:13Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:13Speaker 00

  We use our phones for everything but actually making phone calls.

• 1:26:16Jefferson Fisher?

  Right. Yeah. Actually connecting with the other person. I mean, that's so true. How many people do you think, a percentage of your contacts, do you actually stay in contact with, like in your phone?

• 1:26:27Speaker 00

  How do you define stay in contact?

• 1:26:29Jefferson Fisher?

  You've spoken to them in the last year.

• 1:26:31Speaker 00

  Spoken in person or by phone?

• 1:26:33Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:34Speaker 00

  Probably less than 5%.

• 1:26:37Jefferson Fisher?

  I would, yeah. I feel like I have so many numbers from college and even high school and law school of just people. I have people on my contacts. I don't even know.

• 1:26:46Speaker 00

  Who they are?

• 1:26:47Jefferson Fisher?

  I don't remember who they are. And everybody has a different way of saving, you know, this is Carl from, you know, the time we met at this, how they save the, to remember who it is. But I have a lot of people on my phone. I'm like, I don't know who in this world this is. And that's kind of a, I knew they mattered to me at some point in time, but I don't know if there's, I'm curious what kind of research there is on that of, on average, the percentage of people that you've actually spoken to in your phone contacts.

• 1:27:16Speaker 00

  This is your second PhD thesis when you're, when you had it for grad school.

• 1:27:20Jefferson Fisher?

  I'm going, guys.

• 1:27:21Speaker 00

  I, I think there's a, there's so much to look at here around, look, I think we, we all know that loneliness comes not from, oh, actually, sorry, let me try that a little differently. I think we, we live in a world where Americans are lonelier than people in most countries around the world. And I think most people realize that the antidote to loneliness is not having more interaction. It's having more meaningful interaction. Quality beats quantity over and over and over again. And you can see this actually in studies of, if you want to predict somebody's happiness in their 50s, if you rewind the clock and look at their friendship networks when they were younger, it's the number of friends in their twenties that's predictive of later happiness.

• 1:28:05Speaker 00

  But it's the quality of friendships in their thirties that matters. And so I think when we're young, it does make sense to meet a lot of people because you're not going to hit it off with everyone. You're not going to figure out how to vibe with everybody. And you're also not going to just end up in the same place as everybody. And so you kind of just need a, a critical mass of potential friends and just a bunch of people who could become part of your community.

• 1:28:26Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:27Speaker 00

  And then over time, you start to winnow a little bit and you choose the people you, you really want to prioritize.

• 1:28:32Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:28:32Speaker 00

  And it's, it's that move from, okay, I've gone wide. Now I'm going deep. That actually predicts your ultimate happiness.

• 1:28:40Jefferson Fisher?

  How fascinating. I can definitely know that. I've, I've certainly felt that because you go from joining all the groups. And then there's something that happens when you also have kids. And then, you know, you're in your mid to late 30s and you continue to age and you're like, that just sounds like a lot. Like all of a sudden, the energy that it takes to get over the hump of like, ah, do we really? And then all of a sudden, you find that friend group that are like, can we just actually hang out at your house in sweatpants and just order in like, let's, I think you're my people. You know what I mean? Of like that.

• 1:29:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. I don't have to host you. We don't have to bring a gift.

• 1:29:19Jefferson Fisher?

  Right. Yeah. And it's, it's definitely, you get to this element of, I'm so glad, like that period of my life of having to.

• 1:29:29Jefferson Fisher?

  Appearance and how many friends you have and

• 1:29:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:29:33Jefferson Fisher?

  Just all kind of fizzles out. And I think that happens naturally. But that's the

• 1:29:38Speaker 00

  That's

• 1:29:39Jefferson Fisher?

  That happens.

• 1:29:39Speaker 00

  It also sheds light. It's actually a different lens on a paradox that I've been thinking a lot about lately. So if you, if you look at studies where people are texted throughout the day and they're asked, who are you with right now? And how happy are you? On average, people are happier when they're with their friends than with their family.

• 1:29:57Jefferson Fisher?

  Really?

• 1:29:59Speaker 00

  Oh, this was, this was a little disturbing.

• 1:30:01Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:01Speaker 00

  We like our friends better than our family? Well, the original explanation from the research is that, no, you do different kinds of activities with friends and family. When you're with your family, you're doing chores. You might be disciplining your kids. You're trying to get them to bed or you're trying to get them to clean up after they threw their food all over the floor during dinner.

• 1:30:20Jefferson Fisher?

  For sure.

• 1:30:21Speaker 00

  Whereas friend time is almost always designed to be fun. You're interacting as pals.

• 1:30:27Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:30:27Speaker 00

  And so you've chosen something you both love doing together and you're having the time of your lives together.

• 1:30:31Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:32Speaker 00

  And so I think the, the lesson from that for me is we need to make our family interactions more like our friend interactions. We need to plan more fun events. We need to do more, treat your weekend like it's a mini vacation. Kinds of experiences.

• 1:30:46Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 1:30:46Speaker 00

  But I think you just added something that I'd never thought about, which is one of the other reasons why you're, you enjoy your friends so much is you kind of weeded out everybody you didn't enjoy. This person did not make the pal cut. We're not going to spend time anymore. Whereas with family, there's, you know, there's usually either they're blood relatives or there's some kind of perceived obligation. And so it's harder to do that winnowing with them.

• 1:31:09Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, it just like naturally sifts over time. And Adam, the secrets of strong connections in a lonely world vibe. I highly encourage everybody to get this book, read this book. Adam is awesome. And we're going to make sure all the, the links are there in the show notes. Vibe, I feel like we vibed. I feel like this is good. I don't think my daughter would like me saying the word vibe. Right now I get bruh about 50 times a day.

• 1:31:37Speaker 00

  Same, for sure.

• 1:31:39Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, say less. Oh, but

• 1:31:42Jefferson Fisher?

  that's, that's as far as my, um, my cred, my aura goes, or whatever it is.

• 1:31:48Speaker 00

  No cap.

• 1:31:49Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, no cap. On that.

• 1:31:52Speaker 00

  No, I really enjoyed the vibe. I'm going to say it too.

• 1:31:55Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:55Speaker 00

  And just honored that my work had piqued your interest. I, I think you are, you are such a clear communicator. And what I love, not just whenever, whenever I tie, sorry, let me try this. Talk much. One of the things I love about you as a communicator is I love the way that you explain ideas and communicate your message. I, I feel like every time I watch a video, like this is a masterclass in emotional intelligence.

• 1:32:21Jefferson Fisher?

  Oh, thanks.

• 1:32:22Speaker 00

  Which I think should be taught, like you, your work should be taught in elementary and middle schools. I don't want to wait, I don't want to wait until the people are adults to, for them to discover your, your work. But I think what's so interesting about your work is, it's not just the way you communicate. It's also the principles behind what you're teaching. I feel like every time, even with your, I'm telling you this because.

• 1:32:44Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:45Speaker 00

  That is a great conversation starter, but you're also clear about why you're telling people.

• 1:32:50Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:51Speaker 00

  Like, I want you to be a better person. I want you to have stronger relationships. I want you to not be misunderstood. And I think that comes through so clearly in the way that you communicate. And I think there are a lot of people who specialize in the art of connection and communication, who are almost, they're almost like giving you their version of a get rich quick scheme. They, they have a hack. Like here's how you, it's like, it's like they've taken one too many Dale Carnegie classes. And they've read how to win friends and influence people. They're like, okay, I'm going out and winning friends and I'm trying to have influence. And I, I read that you're supposed to say someone's name. And so I'm going to say like, Jefferson, it's so great to meet you, Jefferson.

• 1:33:30Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:30Speaker 00

  I would love to talk about like, what, what should we talk about this afternoon, Jefferson?

• 1:33:35Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:35Speaker 00

  And like, every person has heard that the most pleasing sound to them is their own name. And I'm going to work it in as often as possible. You don't, you don't teach people tricks. You don't teach people hacks. You don't teach people shortcuts. What you do is you teach people how to make their values more visible and how to communicate in a more transparent and authentic way. And I just have a ton of respect from that. I've learned a lot from you and I appreciate getting to, to know the person behind the message.

• 1:34:05Jefferson Fisher?

  Thanks, Adam. That means more than you know, man. That was a good pebble. That was a, that was a good pebble, brother. Thanks for coming.

• 1:34:11Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me.