How Your Inner Circle Shapes Your Communication

Who you're around shapes how you speak. In this episode, I walk you through a personal communication audit—looking at who’s influencing your voice, what words no longer serve you, and how to raise your standard by surrounding yourself with people who lift you up. This is about breaking old patterns, speaking with purpose, and setting the tone for how you show up in the world. This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. Upgrade Your Every Day. Get 40% off at cozyearth.com/jefferson or use code JEFFERSON at check out. Order my new 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 TikTokFollow 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

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.

• 0:12Jefferson Fisher?

  Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. Who you're around is how you'll sound. Today, we are taking a deep dive. We are having an audit of ourselves, asking who in our life influences how we talk. Today, we're going to break some generational curses. Yeah, we're going to ask and see how not only we communicate, how we were influenced by those who came before us, how they communicated and how that shaped us. And we are going to decide today in today's episode that we are going to do better for the next generation so that they can do better in the next generation. You ready? Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher Podcast.

• 0:55Jefferson Fisher?

  I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything. If you enjoy podcasts like this and enjoy this kind of content, I'm going to ask you to please subscribe and follow this podcast. If you have any topic suggestions, just throw them in the comments. I'll be sure to give them a look. My book, The Next Conversation is five times New York Times bestselling book. It's incredible. I've been so excited about it. The book tour is finally done. You can get yours wherever you like to get books. I'll have the link there in the show notes as well as my membership. If you're looking to continue to learn tools, to practice, to train, I'm going to encourage you to join the membership. I have two live Q and A's and hot seats in there as well as master classes to continue

• 1:36Jefferson Fisher?

  your learning and training as a lifelong learner. Today's episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. I love Cozy Earth. I like talking about them. I like having them as a sponsor because I wear their stuff. I am wearing Cozy Earth pants right now. It is raining cats and dogs outside, and these are athletic type pants that I really, really like. So if you know anybody who works in the office and you're always wanting to wear something on the go, Cozy Earth has clothes. It's really great for any kind of weather. I wear these to the office. I wear these at home, wherever it is. CozyEarth.com/Jefferson. Use the code Jefferson for 40% off. CozyEarth.com/Jefferson. Use the code Jefferson for 40% off.

• 2:21Jefferson Fisher?

  Today, I want us to look. And take a moment, and this is something I don't think we talk about nearly enough, that how I communicate, now I sound a lot like my dad. If you remember the first guest we had on the podcast with my parents, you heard my dad and you probably thought, oh, my gosh, Jefferson sounds just like him. Well, that's how genetics work. I have a lot of his mannerisms as well as my mom, and I sound a lot like him. And most likely, you sound very much like one of your parents, even though you may or may not want to admit it. That's just the way life happens. But there's another element, right, of who is in your vicinity, who is in your environment, who you are around.

• 3:05Jefferson Fisher?

  They also influence how you're going to talk. My dad was somebody who, when I brought something up to him and I had an issue, he would like to say, well, we'll see. It was always kind of this hopeful, positive, let's just, just wait. You know, I can't, there's nothing you can do right now, Jefferson. There's no decision. It's kind of what the signal he was giving. It's not what he said. But it was this idea of you can't change it right now, so there's no sense worrying about it. So he always kind of had this, well, we'll see type of attitude. If there's somebody who I was afraid to bring something up because they're going to be disappointed, I go, oh, well, they're going to be really mad. And he goes, yeah, well, I guess, I guess they'll be mad. Or I guess they'll be disappointed.

• 3:46Jefferson Fisher?

  I mean, it was just this mindset that he had of just keep rolling with the flow that I, I also got. And I was very blessed that way. I'll be the first to say extremely blessed that way. There are other people I know who have wonderful communicators in their life and other wonderful environments. You will look at how different places you've been have shaped how you talk to people. I know attorneys that I knew in high school, or excuse me, not in high school, in law school, and they go on to a firm and they change their entire way of speaking. Or I know friends that I do know from high school who went on to go work on Wall Street

• 4:27Jefferson Fisher?

  or corporate or finance and you know their whole vernacular changes, their whole vocabulary. People go in real estate or teachers or whatever it is, we have acronyms, we have different terms, we have all these sales optimization, strategy, um, words that we use for particular influences in our world and that shapes how we talk. If you're in sales or HR, whatever it is. Take an audit right now. So number one, number one today's podcast is take an audit. That means ask yourself the question, how and who is influencing my communication? And let's, let's go even deeper. Who am I around? For the vast majority

• 5:11Jefferson Fisher?

  of my day, let's put it in a pie chart, in a pie chart. You had percentages all around it, pie chart as a circle. Who am I around most of the day? It's usually not your kids and it's not your spouse or your family. It's work. It's work. Or maybe you work from home and you're mostly by yourself. And maybe it's the cat. I don't know. There is somebody you're around that is influencing how you speak. Put it differently. Who are you listening to? Let's go to music. What kind of music do you listen to? How is that influencing how you think about things, how you communicate things? My grandfather, uh, he's a district attorney for a long time. And he used to not be, he was in private practice. And then

• 5:56Jefferson Fisher?

  when he went to go district attorney, his whole vocabulary, of course, started to change. And everybody at the courthouse was what cursing? What did he start to do? He started to curse and he never did that before. And as soon as he left that, that area, he never did it again. That's the, that's the way it happens. I know friends that have terrible, um, ways of communicating because that's how they're doing it at work. They have ways that it's just weighing on them in some sense because there's that peer pressure or this, maybe the sense to fit in. This is, this is my point in this part of the episode is just to take an audit of who are you around?

• 6:37Jefferson Fisher?

  Who are you around? Cool. Two, I want you to write the names of people. You don't have to write them if you're driving or anything. You're working out on a walk. Just think in your mind. People are going to come up in your mind. Who are the people who have positive influences on you and the way they communicate? Names are going to immediately come to mind. These are people that put a smile on your face when you think about them. Who are the people in that sphere? Who have positive examples of how they communicate? Maybe it's they just, they make you feel happy. Maybe they speak kindness. The reason I use positive is because this is what this podcast is. It is a way to build positivity into your life. The good kind of healthy positivity.

• 7:20Jefferson Fisher?

  And right now, we're taking a healthy look at what could be some bad factors in your life. Maybe you're having a hard time thinking of somebody. Maybe you're around the, what they call the negative Nancys. The, the, the people who always see things as half glass empty. The people that are always doubting you. The people that are always putting you down and therefore you're starting to think, "Well, I'm, I'm really not that cool. I'm, I'm not that great. No, don't worry." And you're starting to put yourself less and less and less. Find the person who you want to emulate. Of course, there's going to be people in your life that you just tolerate in your circle. You know, they're, they're part of the friend group, but they're not really your friend. They're somebody else's friend. Or maybe you just placate them.

• 8:01Jefferson Fisher?

  They're, it's a, a relative that they're there at the family get togethers, but you really don't care. That they're there, they don't care about you and you don't really care about them. It's just, it's part of the exchange. I want you to think of people who make a difference in how they communicate to you and how you want to emulate that. All right? Three, I want you to think of the words that no longer serve you.

• 8:31Jefferson Fisher?

  That no longer serve you. Because what I'm asking you to do in this audit of this episode is, at the end of it, I'm asking you to find people that raise your level of thinking, raise your level of conversation, raise the level of things that you talk about. Uh, my, there's somebody who's, one of my oldest law school friends, she always had this little sign on her laptop, like on the bumper sticker. And it was, it's something along the lines of, I get high on intellectual conversations, or intelligent conversations. And I always really liked that because it's, it's yeah, me saying, I, I like to meet people,

• 9:16Jefferson Fisher?

  make connections, friendships with people that raise my level, raise my standard of what not only I think about myself, but what I communicate, what I talk about. If I talk about small things, I will think small things. If I'm around friends that talk about big things, I will talk about big things. If you're around somebody who's always gossiping, always nagging, you know what you're gonna do? You're gonna get negative and start nagging and get negative. But if you're around people who are always thinking positive, they're always thinking positive momentum, things they wanna build, things that they're about growth. People about growth, they invest in you, and you invest in them, and you all grow together. So this is a time that I want you to, maybe you haven't taken that time yet.

• 10:00Jefferson Fisher?

  So maybe this is the first time you're actually thinking about this. And if so, that's wonderful. I'm, I'm happy to be part of it. I want you to think of the type of people that are gonna raise your level of thinking, and raise not just the thinking, but your vocabulary. I'm not saying you have to learn new words. I, I am, we're going back to number three, and that is choosing the right words. It's not about knowing fancy words, it's about knowing the right words. Words that no longer serve you, meaning if you're always somebody that goes, ah, I mean, maybe so, I don't, I don't know, I mean, I, I guess. No, we're gonna scrap all of that. That's not, that's not building positive momentum in your life. You're using phrases like, I'm looking forward to, what I'm excited about.

• 10:44Jefferson Fisher?

  What I care about, what I need, things that are moving forward in your life. Can you hear the difference? Whenever you start thinking of phrases like, "I'm confident that," instead of, "I believe so, I guess so," "I'm confident that," all of a sudden, you've built in confidence to it. These phrases that give authority to you. Whether it's like words like "direction." Direction's a great one. "I don't like the direction of this conversation." "No, I'd rather take this in a different direction." You are the captain of the ship when you do that. Start finding phrases that lead you to the captain of the ship more often, if that's what you want to do. You can use any AI. You can Google.

• 11:28Jefferson Fisher?

  What are words and phrases I can put in my life that change my sentences to be more positive? More uplifting? Less half-glass empty and more half-glass full in my life? And you're gonna find words like fulfilling. You're gonna find words like confidence. Words like experience. Words that build you up as part of that growth. And I want you to consider looking for other people in your world, in your sphere, that you can just prune your tree. Prune your tree of the people that bring the negative in your life. And start, I was gonna say fertilize, but Lord, let's not do that. I barely just got this thing replanted, this little leaf fig that I got.

• 12:13Jefferson Fisher?

  You wanna find people that are going to add water? I'm removing the plant metaphor right now 'cause I'm not that kind of, I'm not there yet. You wanna find people that are going to pour into you, that are gonna help you grow. Just gonna help you grow. Like a tree. Okay. Rule number one, I want you to take an audit. Audit of yourself of who has influenced how I speak. Is it my parents? Is it the people I'm around? Is it where I work? Two, I want you to find the people and focus on the people that speak positive language around you.

• 12:55Jefferson Fisher?

  Be more like that and find out why they speak that way. What is it about them that speak that way? I'm not saying you have to mimic them. I'm not saying be exactly like them. That's not my point. It is that you want to remove the things that do not serve you and do not uplift you and things that are weighing you down and add more of the things that lift you up. All right. Three, find words that serve you better, that push you towards personal growth. Because what you want to do is find people that raise your standard, raise your level of thinking. Not raise your vocabulary and not just using fancy words or using very intelligent words.

• 13:40Jefferson Fisher?

  No, you just need to use the right words. And those are words that are going to bring light into your world and light into the world of somebody else. Because after all, that's, isn't that what we're all about? That's what I'm about. All right. Be good. If you have any questions, just put them in the comments. And as always, you can try that and follow me.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.

• 14:13Jefferson Fisher?

  Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.