A Blueprint For Mastering Every Conversation - Jefferson Fisher

Jefferson Fisher is a trial attorney, legal educator, and content creator. Why are the conversations that matter most the hardest to have? When something meaningful needs to be said, we often avoid it, only making things worse. So how do you structure a difficult conversation the right way, and connect with someone not just logically, but emotionally? Expect to learn why we fear conflict in communication and why it’s so scary but necessary to navigate, how to deal with conflict more effectively, the best ways to respond to an insult, why being right feels so good, what’s realistic and true about working out if someone’s lying to you, how to properly connect in any communication and much more… - Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get up to 20% off Timeline powered by Mitopure (now at a lower price) at https://timeline.com/modernwisdom Get up to $50 off the RP Hypertrophy App at https://rpstrength.com/modernwisdom Get 15% off your first order of my favourite Non-Alcoholic Brew at https://athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom Get ChatGPT to explore ideas, solve problems, and learn faster at https://chatgpt.com - 0:00 Why Communication Feels Harder Than Ever 0:41 Is Conflict Really Something to Fear? 1:45 Why Are We So Quick to Lose Control? 2:56 What Actually Triggers Us? 7:57 We Need to Learn How to Hold Space For Others 14:59 The Best Ways to Regulate Any Conversation 17:34 Simple Tricks to Stay Calm in Difficult Conversations 25:22 What Is Your Anger Really Hiding? 31:39 Are You Making This Mistake During Conflict? 33:24 Why Setting Boundaries Feels So Difficult 36:56 How Do You Handle Passive Aggression? 39:55 Does Childhood Shape Passive Aggressive Behaviour? 42:20 The Best Way to Deliver Bad News 52:28 Are You Carrying Other People’s Emotions? 56:45 The Shame of Small Fears 01:06:02 How to Avoid Frustration When You’re Being Misunderstood 01:09:15 How Much Does a Divorce Raise Your Heart Rate? 01:13:50 Is Silence the Best Response to Insult? 01:26:32 Why Do We Hide Behind “Just Joking”? 01:28:51 Do Certain Phrases Make You Sound Weak? 01:31:15 Where Does Self-Assurance Come From? 01:36:09 What Makes Someone Sound Truly Composed? 01:38:17 Can You Be Assertive Without Being an A**hole? 01:41:33 Why We Need to Be Intentional With Our Words 01:47:04 Is Being Right Overrated? 01:52:29 Why We’re Obsessed With Winning Arguments 01:53:06 The Biggest Clues Someone is Lying to You 01:56:42 The Best Way to Repair After Conflict 01:59:33 Why Tough Times Build Stronger Relationships 02:01:08 What Really Makes a Great Partner? 02:02:56 Lessons From a Trial Lawyer 02:06:47 The One Rule Behind Great Communication 02:10:02 Find Out More About Jefferson - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

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

• 0:00Chris Williamson?

  Why do you think people are struggling with their communication?

• 0:02Speaker 01

  Because it's something that wasn't taught to them. It was only modeled. And a lot of people didn't have good models. They had people in their lives that saw conflict as something that they had to have in order to feel close to each other. They saw how yelling was the only way to possibly stop something, or maybe get physical was the only way to prove a point. And so there's a lot of people who haven't had communication modeled well in their life. And there's a lot of books you can read and there's a lot of things you can do, but not until you've actually done it, can you ever start actually improving in it.

• 0:36Chris Williamson?

  It's like that Mike Tyson quote, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Until you get popped in the mouth.

• 0:40Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lots of people fear conflict, but in communication especially. Why is it so scary? Why is conflict so hard to navigate?

• 0:50Speaker 01

  It takes courage. People feel like yelling and being aggressive, that's strength.

• 0:57Chris Williamson?

  It's not.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  Being somebody who can handle conflict calmly and know that you're going to get through it and there's going to be an end to it, that takes a lot of courage. I think a lot of people are afraid of that vulnerability. That's a word that men in particular find that that's something that is some kind of no-go zone, when actually that's the one thing they probably most need. You know, some people, instead of just a shouting match, they really just need a hug. And so it's this unknown for a lot of people. And how do you, how do you not say the wrong thing? And so there's that fear and fear often is masked in forms of anger. So it's a lot easier to get defensive and yell than it is to actually lean across and work through something hard.

• 1:45Chris Williamson?

  Why do you think people lose control so quickly in conversations?

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Because it takes no effort. It takes zero.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Effort to yell and get defensive and raise your voice that there's no struggle in that. It takes a whole lot more strength to be able to take a breath, slow things down, say things more calmly. And so it's, it's just an easier path. That neuropathway is a lot easier and it's, it's just something that's organic in our bodies. It's part of the fight or flight. Every time you hear a disagreement or something that's a different opinion that you don't like, we naturally, our whole body goes, no, I don't think I like that. That doesn't sound good to me. That conflicts were something I believe that conflicts were something I grew up knowing because my dad believed this, my mom believed this. And all of a sudden, that's why facts and evidence typically don't matter when it comes

• 2:40Speaker 01

  to changing somebody's mind. It has a lot to do with how you've communicated in a way that how you've made them feel about it.

• 2:45Chris Williamson?

  I've always thought that facts don't care about your feelings line could not be more backward.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:51Chris Williamson?

  Feelings don't give a single shit about the fact.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, they don't. They don't care about the facts.

• 2:56Chris Williamson?

  What is happening in your body when you get triggered?

• 3:00Speaker 01

  It's the same thing of physical danger. Like our bodies don't do well at deciphering between a social danger, meaning are they confronting me, offending me, coming into my space as my autonomy being questioned? Does my authority being questioned from a physical danger? So it's the same thing. Your, your pupils dilate to take in more light, meaning it's kind of like that portrait mode on Apple to where your, everything kind of goes fuzzy in the background, your, your, your fist clinch, your jaw clenches. That's why a lot of the times you start yelling and people go, why are you yelling? And you go, I'm not yelling. It's because your breath is like, your breath has nowhere else to go, right? It's, it's because you've been holding, you've been holding your breath because you're ready. Like your body doesn't know, is there a bear behind the bush? It's like, it's like

• 3:41Speaker 01

  the same, if I were to text you, I said, if I, if I texted Chris and I said, we need to talk, period. First thing he goes, what'd I do? What's wrong? What happened? It's that anxiety. It's that fear.

• 3:54Chris Williamson?

  Have you seen some reels floating around of people saying amazing ways to connect with your partner? And it's all stuff like that.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:01Chris Williamson?

  We need to talk.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 4:03Chris Williamson?

  What did you do?

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:04Chris Williamson?

  All of these weird open loops. And when I think about it, I think a lot of it is the openness. It's the fact that there is the potential for things to go wrong, but as yet no conclusion.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:16Chris Williamson?

  And in that vacuum is where all of the speculation gets sucked.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:20Chris Williamson?

  Typically, especially if there's a little bit of activation or agitation with that. That is where.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:26Chris Williamson?

  Everything just gets pulled in.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Oh, because it expands. I mean, it can be just like a bomb. That's what happens when you usually start with context first or a lot of unknown first that we need to talk, period. Or if you just respond, K. You know what I mean?

• 4:44Chris Williamson?

  Dude, mine, the fucking thumbs up reaction emoji.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  That's.

• 4:49Chris Williamson?

  Is the most passive aggressive shit.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's more harmful often than like giving them the middle finger on the emoji.

• 4:57Chris Williamson?

  Like it would rather you tell me to fuck off.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  Like that thumbs up is just the worst thing you could have possibly done. It's like you have a K in there. It's like, I didn't care enough about you to put an O right in front of it. That's how little, that's how little I care about you in that moment. So it's like, you know, you're creating that unknown and that fear. And the same way often we know what it's like when somebody starts a story with the context and they'll say something instead of getting to the point. Meaning starting with their end first, they'll be like, so you remember the other day when we did this thing? And you probably don't remember, but and they start going, you're like, what's, what's happening? Okay, what's, are they upset? Are they not upset? Have I done something wrong? Have I not done something? And we go often into fixing mode. We want to try and fix it. And usually we start to kind of, oh, you want to go there? And like, no, no, no, no, that's not it.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  That's not what I'm, and then it gets really, really frustrating. And then you go, okay, so you want me to, well, okay, you just totally missed it. I mean, I gave you the whole, it just, it's because they're not being clear about it.

• 5:53Chris Williamson?

  Well, we don't have theory of mind and good storytelling saves the exciting twist for the end.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:58Chris Williamson?

  But I guess good emotional storytelling buries the lead in the headline. Right? They say, hey, I'm not mad at you and this is nothing to be worried about. But.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:12Chris Williamson?

  Some degree of, I love you and I just really wanna have this conversation. I think it's, I think it's super important and I, I know that, what was one that I got from Connor Beaton, who I work with the other day?

• 6:26Chris Williamson?

  I need to have a difficult conversation with you and I know that you can handle it and I know that we can handle it as well.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 6:33Chris Williamson?

  Fucking great, dude.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:34Chris Williamson?

  You're like, oh, let's go.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:36Chris Williamson?

  Like, this is good.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, and see, that's what, that, that makes you want to get into it, to say, hey, we're gonna grow, we're gonna grow through this.

• 6:42Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  And so rather than, when somebody comes into a conversation, what, what I call, you know, labeling the difficult conversation, rather than, let's say, I need to give you bad news about something and I'm already feeling anxiety about it, I don't know how I'm gonna say it, I've been thinking about it while I brush my teeth, while I drive here, god, how am I gonna have this? And then I just start with the, hey, Chris, how's it going? You're good. Have you, you been playing pickleball lately? Yeah, I mean, have you seen that? It's like, it's like ping pong, but not, it's crazy, you know? And then you're like, what's going on? And then I go, so, so listen, ah, and that's when you know.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Like, you, you can already tell in the tenor of my voice, like, something else is going on and that's the, you're, you're trying to see what, what else is happening, cause you know something else is going on, but when you're able to say, this is gonna be a hard conversation, this isn't gonna be fun to talk about, this is something that is gonna be hard for us, it's almost like we kind of ready them and to be emotionally resilient, they're kinda nod and go, okay, I'm ready, let's talk about it. But saying, I'm telling you this because I know we can handle it, this isn't a conversation that you and I can't get through? Like, let's go, we can do that all day.

• 7:57Chris Williamson?

  One of the other lines that I've heard a bit, there's two situations that, over the last couple of years, have been very formative on how I see communication. The first one was Theo Von with Shawn Strickland. You see this clip?

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Mm-mm.

• 8:11Chris Williamson?

  Shawn and Theo, Shawn Strickland, MMA fighter, UFC fighter, you know who he is?

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Oh, is this where he goes, I'm just gonna sit with you?

• 8:16Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  That was so good.

• 8:18Chris Williamson?

  Bro, it is one of the most beautiful examples of space holding.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:26Chris Williamson?

  That I've ever seen and was something that I'd never seen done before. And then my friend Charlie from Charisma on Command did a breakdown of it and fully explained what was going on. He goes through the body language of Sean. So Sean's gripping this water bottle. He's got some fucking bottle of Evian, which he's getting ragged around while he's having this conversation. He's grasping with one hand. He's looking for control. He can't find it. He's looking for control. He's looking for control. And then Theo makes a joke that pulls him out and then puts him back in. Yeah, here we go.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  Dude, I remember like laying in bed, like I remember I stopped believing in God, man, like fucking like I had fucking, um, yeah, it's crazy shit, dude.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Crazy shit, man.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's okay, man. It's a lot of that sad, dude. I used to be scared at night, like, uh, I used to stand up like I heard when I was a kid that like, if you peed around your like animals could pee somewhere that other animals would come. You know what I'm talking about? You know what I'm talking about? Huh?

• 9:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, man, I got it.

• 9:21Speaker 03

  Have you ever heard that?

• 9:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm sorry, bud.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  So, ah, man.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  I'm sorry, buddy.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  It's all good, dude.

• 9:44Speaker 03

  We don't have to talk, man. I can just sit here with you for a minute.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Oh, fuck. Ah, fuck, six seconds.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  I can just sit here. We can just sit here.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  Nah, it's all good. You six seconds, I'll just process it.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, man. Like.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  It's so good.

• 10:08Chris Williamson?

  Talk to me, when you see that, what do you see going on?

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Well, one, you see from him having a much bigger position than his leg goes up.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  And he's, which is already like, kind of coming more into yourself, right? Because probably if he would, if he could have on that couch, that's the position that he really wants to be in is like when you're, you're trying, I mean, there's a reason why they call it the fetal position when you're trying to like get yourself more regulated. And he's doing this right here, which is in a lot of different therapies, this is very regulating. Because it's allowing you to have a lot of tension and then a lot of release. And so for people who are having a really hard time and they feel like they're going to have a panic attack or they're really trying to process things to like grab a pillow. Like those plushy toys, they have a purpose, right? It's like you squeeze, squeeze, squeeze and it's release. And so in that moment, that's, that's exactly what he's gripping for. And that's probably what he was trained to do.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  But you can tell he's, he's, he's looking for control and I love how, that's the perfect way of just saying, you, you said a minute ago, space setting. We're allowing people to say, just hold space for somebody. And that sounds like therapy talk of like, what does that exactly mean? Well, Theo does it right there. It's just, hey, man, we don't have to talk about anything or solve anything. We just, just sit, just let me sit with you. And that right there is, I mean, who, who doesn't look at that and go, I have, that's strength right there. How courageous is that? Rather than, and you can tell Theo starts to like try to relate to him and go, yeah, yeah, when I was a kid, man, and tries to like, and that, he was already, he was already coming back to when he was, you know, in fifth grade and the desk being taken away. And he was, all of a sudden, he was 11 years old again.

• 11:49Chris Williamson?

  There's a, a couple of moments where Theo makes a couple more jokes, pulls him out.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:55Chris Williamson?

  And then he goes back in and he sits with him again. And Charlie breaks this down, the video he did was like,

• 12:01Speaker 01

  I'll have to check it out, that's exciting.

• 12:02Chris Williamson?

  It was so formative to me, dude. And it's crazy to be friends with someone that's able to, genuine friends with this guy for like six, seven years. And he's able to just put a piece of content out that maybe a hundred thousand people have seen, 150,000 people, it's not a massive video.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:18Chris Williamson?

  And it just completely introduced me to Joe Hudson, who's now a guy that coaches me, who taught Charlie all of the stuff that he used to break it down and grasping. And so that was the first one. The first one was, it's okay, buddy. We don't need to talk. We can just sit here if you want.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:33Chris Williamson?

  That was the first one. Then the second one is from Connor Beaton from Man Talks. And he used this line that I'd never, ever heard anybody else use before. He said, your emotions aren't too big for me.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good one.

• 12:47Chris Williamson?

  Oh, my God. Your emotions aren't too big for me.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:52Chris Williamson?

  There's space for you to just be you.

• 12:56Chris Williamson?

  And in both of those situations, it's reassuring. There's no performance needed, no nothing.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I think in all relationships, especially romantic relationships, there can be this feeling of somebody is afraid there being too much. Like, that's why we may not want to express all of our emotions. We're afraid they're going to be too much. Then the other person's not going to be able to carry it, hold it. They're going to dismiss it. They're going to see it as all the things that we're telling us in our head is it's not going to be there. They're not going to be able to support me. I'm going to be too much. I'm going to be left by myself. I'm going to have to carry this by myself. But that kind of, that kind of language to say my emotions are big enough for this moment. Or even, you know, I, I've said to my kids, which we love to say is like, my love for you is big enough to handle this.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Like, my love for you is big enough for even this little outburst. Or are you doing something wrong? Yeah, my love for you covers all, all of this. And you don't have to worry about having to perform or having to have the right answer. Or, you know, like my son right now, he's eight. And so he's finding his way through, like, a lot of school boys during recess or right after pickup. They throw the football just back and forth into like crowds of boys. And it gets really easy of like, who can throw the best? Who can kick the best? And like they, they're choosing who's most dominant. You know, who's the coolest of, of all of that? And I remember him coming home. And he's really down about it.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  And he was like, they didn't, I played, but nobody used me. Like in other words, he didn't get thrown to in that game that really, he was like, is that like, I'm, I'm sorry. And he was like apologizing to me and I had to, I mean, like this was dad moment right here. I could have been like, yeah, next time I want you to go ahead and elbow a kid. Um, I was like, dude, my little's bigger than that. You're good. You don't have to have any of that. And I think that's the kind of model of things that more men can do.

• 14:59Chris Williamson?

  What are some of the other lines that you love to use in a conversation? Conversations becoming dysregulated or you know that this person needs reassurance. Someone needs reassurance in a conversation that you're having. What are your favorite lines to show them that you're there with them?

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  The, the one that I like to use, and it's going to sound cheesy, but it, but it works. I promise is if we're not okay, then nothing's okay.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Like it's if you and I aren't okay, like this is why I say this to my, to my wife. If, if we're not okay, then nothing's okay. In other words, it's really easy to go, we're fine, we're fine. And then just all of a sudden focus on the kids or finances or whatever it does. And it's easy to kind of switch over to getting busy with something else and it gets swept under the rug. But you, you miss that chance. Then it becomes this little bitty paper cut. And then you'll have another little paper cut and you have another little paper cut. And so eventually those become big ruptures over time. The one I also like to use, um, is something else is coming up. I'm not sure yet. Like if, if we're in a conversation and I can tell that there's more to it for me.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Like I'm, I'm, I am having a bigger emotional response than what's called for. I can invite her into that conversation. Let me put that differently.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  If, let's say we're having a level three conversation. In other words, nobody's mad at each other, but something happens and all of a sudden I'm at a seven or eight and I'm just, something's really got me upset. It's much easier if I say, I can tell something else is coming up for me, I'm not sure yet. Rather than me trying to hold it in, avoid her, go distance and try and fix it myself. When it's actually me inviting her into this is what's happening to me in that moment is the very conversation and connection that is going to make her closer to me, to be the person that I, I need in that moment, rather than thinking that I have to present her with somebody who's 100% whole and fixed and has it all together.

• 17:09Chris Williamson?

  And you're a part of this, you're a part of the team, we're working together.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Exactly. And that's, and, and that is the vulnerability side of it. You, you can't, you can't strengthen alone, like self-improvement is, if, if you're just in it for,

• 17:25Speaker 01

  if it doesn't help you connect with anybody else, then self-improvement's just self-worship. There's, there's nothing else to it. Like you, you have to, it's, it's to improve you around others as well.

• 17:34Chris Williamson?

  So going back to the triggered in the body, conflict in a conversation.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:39Chris Williamson?

  How can people interrupt that reaction in real time? What are the best ways to stay composed when a conversation gets animated?

• 17:46Speaker 01

  When things are starting to get ratcheted up, you, you have to find a way to slow it down. You have to find a way to elongate the process. Like you don't get extra points for having a very quick comeback. It looks good on social media, right? It doesn't work in real life. They just don't. You have to be able to slow it down. So what does that look like? It means you have to use your breath a lot. What I teach is have your breath be the first word that you say. I teach this to every one of my clients before they go into deposition or cross-examination. It's, it's your breath. That's the only way you're really going to slow things down is if I choose my timing in this conversation and not let somebody else press their timing on me.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Like in the home, for example, if I, if we wait to have a conversation when the kids are in the bath and we're trying to do dinner and everything is stressful and we've already had a tired day, my battery's already at 20%, chances are not going to go great in conversations, not going to be that awesome. But if we're able to slow things down and I'm able to pause. And use my words to let them know a better time and be better. That's gonna do a lot better for me. So what does that do in the process? How do you do that? Aside from using your breath in conversation, you need to say it out loud. I can tell I'm getting defensive. I'm gonna be better for this conversation here in a little bit. I can tell I'm not saying things as well as I want to, and I don't want to approach the conversation this way.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  It's if you were rather than trying to get defensive. If you were able to say, listen, I can tell this moment is a big one. And you're saying a lot of things that are really important. I want to make sure that I take the time that gives my part what this deserves. And that's gonna take, that's gonna take some time.

• 19:34Chris Williamson?

  We're a team.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 19:36Chris Williamson?

  Even in disagreement, we're a team, even in conflict, we're a team.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  All the more, yeah, especially when it's conflict. Because it's when you find that you're only.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Nobody wants to be in it alone, like nobody. We know what it's like to be in a relationship with somebody where you're the only one in the boat paddling.

• 19:56Chris Williamson?

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• 20:40Chris Williamson?

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• 21:11Chris Williamson?

  A check out. So breath, first word.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  Breath.

• 21:15Chris Williamson?

  Space if.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Timeouts.

• 21:18Chris Williamson?

  Battery is low and I need a little bit more room. What else?

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Get quick to timeouts. The timeouts are something that you can't really be overused in some sense. If you find that things are really, really frustrating, they say, I think the data was like, you need to have 20 minutes to kind of regulate yourself. Again, in other words, don't try and say, you know what? Let's just, I need a moment. And then it's not two minutes later and they're like, you know what? And then you're right back at it again. That's not near enough. That's not near enough time. You need any more time with that. So we got pausing, using your breath, giving time to elongate it. So two timeouts and then three, set aside actual time for the conversations that matter.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Like you'll, we'll set aside time for me time, you know, to do what I want, go work out, go do whatever. But we won't set aside time for some of the most important conversations we're ever going to have. And so if I were to say, even to you, I'd say, hey, I'd like to talk to you about something really important to me. And I'll make sure that we have time for, when's, when's a good window sometime next week? Like I'm, you see how much better that is than me going, hey, do you have five minutes for me to tell you about something?

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Like, you know what I mean? And that's, that's what happens. It's, and it just, it comes right on you to where nobody is, nobody's prepared.

• 22:34Chris Williamson?

  There's a book that my housemate was reading, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. And Stephen Covey. And one of his lesser knowns.

• 22:44Chris Williamson?

  In How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, he says, one of the most important things that he used as a tactic was to have worry time.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, schedule it.

• 22:53Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:54Chris Williamson?

  This is something that I probably should worry about. I'm going to wait until Sunday, Sunday, 2pm. That's my worry hour or worry afternoon or whatever.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:03Chris Williamson?

  And there's something about saying, I don't need to do this now. I will do it, and this is when that closes the loop a little bit.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:12Chris Williamson?

  Pop it in a note. You have a nice schedule. Get a nice schedule for your worry Sunday, your worry Sabbath.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:19Chris Williamson?

  It means that I am going to deal with it. So it doesn't quite, you've given it the love that it needs. And it feels almost like a relational equivalent of that.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think you should also put pen to paper. I mean, we, a lot of the times, we, these things sound good in our head until we actually say them. And we realize that that didn't hit like I thought it would. When you actually put pen to paper and write out what you want to talk about, why you want to talk about it, and when's the best time to bring it up? That gives a different sense of clarity as to, is this something I really need to say? Does it need to be said right now? And am I the one to say it? And so when you're able to actually write down, what am I asking them to do? What am I asking them to do for this information? Am I just venting to vent? Or am I asking them to act? Or am I asking them to listen? Next would be, what am I, would I want to walk away from this conversation? Why do I need this conversation? Maybe that's all there is to it.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  But if you actually take the time to write it down as part of whatever habit tracking you're doing, your conversation is going to go better than if you just kept it all in your head and then got upset that they didn't react the way that you thought they would.

• 24:27Chris Williamson?

  A good rule is, I write things down so that my brain can rest. This is something about, I'm going to keep this in working memory because I'm worried that I'm going to forget it. I need to bring this thing up, and it's emotionally charged.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:40Chris Williamson?

  And currently, it's endlessly unresolved.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:42Chris Williamson?

  So I'm just going to lock those neural pathways in. I'm going to say that thing like a fucking mantra.

• 24:48Chris Williamson?

  This slight, this concern, this worry. Whereas if it's, and it sounds so dumb to have a worry list, which is what is advised. To have a worry, I'm going to worry about these things. Oh, and at this time, on this day.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:02Chris Williamson?

  At least I don't need to keep it in working memory because then I'll worry that I forget my worries.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:08Chris Williamson?

  And infinite regress of worrying about worrying.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then it's just living in your head rent free. You know, then, then it's taking up all the space that you could be using towards something else. But, I mean, worries are good, but being able to get them out of your head, I'd say that's even better.

• 25:22Chris Williamson?

  What does anger usually hide?

• 25:26Speaker 01

  There's a quote that I heard once, it's something along the lines of, "I sat beside my good friend anger, and he turned to me and said, 'My name isn't anger, it's grief.'" And I think a lot of the times anger is hiding fear, it's hiding sadness, it's hiding grief. All these things that are really the true bottom of that emotion. They say in therapy where it's hysterical, it's historical, meaning that it comes from something else. And often, our emotions, which are extremely complex,

• 26:10Speaker 01

  we use the most basic language a caveman would use. "I'm sad, I'm mad, I'm angry, I'm tired." When there's a whole emotional vocabulary to use that's out there of if you sift and you sift and you sift and you sift and you ask, "Where is this, where is this coming from?" You find that what comes across as anger and yelling and injustice usually comes from a deep place of sadness.

• 26:42Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, when I look at an emotions wheel, you see the sort of the more surface level ones. And then you split them out into, well, there's different components of anxiety or sadness, even grief. Like those aren't the bottom. There's things that are more precise than that. And it makes me think about how much diet advice for people that want to lose weight. They think that they need a huge number of different recipes, maybe. But you probably have 70% of your calories coming from the same six meals. Like you're eating the same stuff over and over. So what you need to do is just take the small bucket of things that you usually do already.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:23Chris Williamson?

  And just get a little bit better at that. And I think. With emotions, certain people's predisposition, conditioning, life situation, current environment, et cetera. It channels them into grooves of emotions that they typically default to. Some people get mad, some people get sad, some people get wistful, some people feel grief.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:44Chris Williamson?

  Some people get depressed or anxious or whatever. But if you look a little bit deeper and if you can try and break them apart, if you can spend a little bit of time with them, you go. It's actually not that, it's not those five meals. If I look a little bit more closely, it's these.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:58Chris Williamson?

  And yeah, anger is really effective at what it used to do, right before we had law enforcement. Before we had law enforcement and you crossed the line with me, I needed a sufficiently animated response to tell you. You crossed the line, you're not going to do that again, and I'm going to show you how formidable I am. By being loud and big and scary, and it's also going to warn everybody else in the tribe that's watching. That they can't do it to me too.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:25Chris Williamson?

  Because if they do that, this will happen and they don't want this to happen.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 28:29Chris Williamson?

  But now that response isn't needed in the same way. You can actually bypass that because presuming that there's no physical threat. You can actually communicate it to somebody in a way that's way more effective because anger doesn't usually get responded to with behavior change.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Then rarely if ever does getting angry at somebody lead to the changing their behavior. I mean, the more, the harder you push, the more hardened they become, the more you tell somebody they're wrong, the more convinced they are that they're right. And it wasn't that long ago that we did like duels. Like you disrespected my honor in some way. If we're going to go shoot it out and one of us may be standing or not. And thankfully, we don't do that anymore. We have increased some emotional capacity there. But I do think that anger is one that.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  You find, especially in relationships, if you're really mad at your spouse or partner or whatever, if you just go a little bit deeper, it didn't take long for that anger just to turn into sadness. That's why a lot of times yelling turns into tears.

• 29:35Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, you see that with people.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:37Chris Williamson?

  I saw this on the front door of nightclubs a lot. So these girls would have been kicked out. Maybe they were too drunk. Maybe they'd been doing something that they shouldn't have done or whatever. And they get kicked out outside. And it happened more with, maybe because guys were ashamed of allowing their anger to turn into sadness. Or maybe that's not an emotion that comes up. I'm not too sure. But these girls would get kicked out. They'd be outside. It's Newcastle, the most northernly city in England. It's fucking freezing and it's like November or something. And they're outside in some tiny little part and dress. And they were just having fun with their friends. And then they did something and they're feeling injustice. And they'd be shouting and screaming. It's so funny. Door staff that are inside of a venue come and deposit a problem that the door staff outside of the venue now have to deal with.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 30:18Chris Williamson?

  Right? Something happened inside. And the guys outside are now justifying what happened. And the girls would be shouting and screaming and like, I've got to go. My friends are in need. They've got my bag. I'm good. What about my coat? You can't do that. That's not fair. She's a bitch. And then very quickly, that would, it would turn into tears.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Sadness.

• 30:37Chris Williamson?

  Because it felt like this is injustice. I'm indignant. This isn't fair. That shouldn't have happened to me. And I'm drunk.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that too. Well, it works the same way with like shame, right? It's usually shame is met with defiance and defensiveness and anger and unfairness. When behind that is usually some type of self-loathing sadness underneath it.

• 31:00Chris Williamson?

  I don't want people to see.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. It's, you know, there's a difference between shame and regret. And usually, whenever you're getting in that cycle of, I can't show my emotion, that's the same reason why you hide what you hide. It's the same reason you have the secrets you have, because you couldn't imagine life with people knowing and knowing you have those emotions and feelings. And I think, especially for guys, like, we still feel the same things, but a lot of us have a problem with showing it. You know, we'd just rather go static, rather go stoic. And that's, it's expressing it, that's a whole lot harder.

• 31:39Chris Williamson?

  What are the biggest mistakes that people make when they're on the receiving end of aggression?

• 31:47Speaker 01

  That the other person doesn't want to be understood, where that's all there is to this person. If you're on the receiving end of aggression, one, I think that's you need to lay some boundaries to make sure that you're not. Like assertiveness is good. Aggressiveness says, I don't care about you. Then that's not, that's not okay. But I think that if you find that you're on the other side of aggression, you're dealing with several different levels of how you want to lay a boundary of how I want to be spoken to. So we could talk about how do you respond to something like that? If it's somebody who means something to you, then usually that's very telling.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  Like we talked about a three, a conversation. If somebody comes in at a seven, well, it's very telling. That means they're having a conversation in their head that you weren't invited to. You know, and so it's rather than coming at it with, they have to agree with me. It's this mindset of have something to learn, not something to prove. And if I can think at the outset of, I wonder where that's coming from. I wonder why they're responding that way. I wonder what's happening. I wonder what would cause that response. Then you're going to be in a whole lot better position to keep yourself from getting emotionally wrapped up and responding in kind with aggression. Aggression would, matching aggression doesn't really go anywhere.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  It just, any time that somebody comes at you with aggressiveness and you respond, all you've done is just told them that you're exactly what they said that you were. You know, you've, you've just proved their point and now they're just going to want to ratchet it up.

• 33:24Chris Williamson?

  How do you think about setting boundaries well?

• 33:28Speaker 01

  You have to focus on the consequences and be okay with it. That's one of the hardest parts of boundaries. People are okay with saying, I'm not good with this anymore. But their bark is, doesn't really have any bite to it. They're not willing to accept the consequences. For me, in simple boundaries and conversation, and I know boundaries get talked about a lot. It's just simply saying, one, what you're not going to do. Two, if they continue to do this. And three, what you're willing to walk away from. So for example, let's say you're saying something that's offensive to me.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  I'm gonna say, I don't engage in conversation with people that are gonna disrespect me. Respect me. If you continue to disrespect me, Chris, this is the end of the conversation. I have to be willing to get up and walk away, rather than saying, you can't yell at me. If I were to turn it to, I don't respond to that volume. That's a whole different power move that says, I'm the one that's gonna be much more in control and confident in this conversation. The more controlled and confident I feel, the less in control you're going to feel.

• 34:36Chris Williamson?

  Suppose the difficulty when you're the person who is at a three and somebody else is at a seven, is that the person at a seven doesn't usually want to listen to somebody that's at a three. They need time to come back down.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 34:52Chris Williamson?

  And if you want to fix, if you're in the mindset of fixing, the only way that they're going to be able to hear you, even if it makes it worse, is for you to go to a seven, which puts both of you at an eight.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 35:05Chris Williamson?

  But yeah, the time away, but the time away without feeling like you're amending the conversation, which is, I suppose, where the clear communication comes in, why that's so important.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a difference between just saying, I'm out of here, slamming the door and leaving, versus saying, I'm not leaving this conversation. I am going to make sure that we take some time because I can see you need some space. I'm good with that. You good with talking about this later this afternoon? Usually they'll nod their head, yeah. Or sometimes, I can tell you when I feel like my wife and I are on the same team, is if I'll ask something and she'll go, I'm fine. And I know she's not. And I might ask, you good with talking to me about it later? And she'll go, yeah.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? But that, like, you have to be able to give that, you know, to say, hey, I'm not, I don't want to leave this conversation. I'm not, I'm not, this matters to me. If it matters to you, it matters to me.

• 36:02Chris Williamson?

  Chris Voss has a slammer for getting people who seem like they have something on their mind to speak up when they don't want to.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:10Chris Williamson?

  And it's just...

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Seems like there's something on your mind. Yeah, he's the best. I love Chris. It's the seems like, sounds like. Seems like you have a reason for saying that, but it's also Chris Voss's voice like. Yeah, of course. I mean, you hear his voice and he could be like, you know, I think you should give me that couch. And I'd be like. He could tell me to suck his dick and I'd probably.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably. He's that good. His voice is that good. He's a handsome man and also the voice. Yeah, yeah. Also the voice, you know, uh, yeah, he's, he's got a voice that naturally just calms you down. This is seems like, sounds like. So if you, somebody says something and you go, it sounds like you have a reason for saying that. It sounds like that really matters to you. That seems like a really big deal. They go, yeah, yeah, it was a big, really big deal. But it's the same thing with like passive aggressive people. You can use that same tactic. Okay, tell me how to deal with passive aggressive people. So if somebody's being passive aggressive, it's usually something that was taught in childhood. Meaning they, they've learned that their needs weren't going to be met right in that moment. So they would rather kind of expect you to solve it for them.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  In other words, they want you to, um, they don't want to be direct. They just expect you to find the answer. So it's the people that say things like, you know, it should be nice if I was invited to something like that. Like they, they're, they're not going to voice it. So they would rather kind of, they're not going to use the front door. They're always going to use the backside exit. And instead of

• 37:36Speaker 01

  meeting that, you can say, it sounds like you have a reason for saying that. It sounds like there's more to that. Usually they have an answer for that. Or if you were to say, if they're being passive, you can say, I'm what's coming up for you?

• 37:55Speaker 01

  That's the one I like to use for a lot of different things is what's coming up?

• 38:00Speaker 01

  So it has a way of disarming people in a non-defensive posture, rather than saying, what's wrong with you?

• 38:08Speaker 01

  I'm gonna say, what's coming up for you? Meaning that I'm signaling that there's something else going on in here that I'm trying to help you bring to light. But that sounds like, seems like, it sounds like you have a reason for saying that. Seems like there's something else that you're not saying. As a way of getting the passive aggressive people. But I mean, if it's entrenched in them, they're, all they're gonna do is really double down. I mean, if it just be nice, you know, if somebody were to invite me to something, but no, that's fine. I mean, you can't, you can't help the victim mentality that's not gonna switch by just a few sentences.

• 38:39Chris Williamson?

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• 39:20Chris Williamson?

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• 39:53Chris Williamson?

  And modern wisdom at checkout. Digging more to the genesis of the passive aggressive person in childhood. I thought that was interesting.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you think of, like we just saw on that Theo clip and how we, we respond to everything, how we were modeled in communication and how we were treated in children, what they call, you know, your childhood trauma, shows up all the time. And so it comes into these, these filters that you apply. So maybe you're in an argument with. Your wife or your girlfriend or whatever. And you felt controlled in that moment because she made some snide comment about what you can or can't do and what she didn't want you to do. And you didn't like that because you get to, you're a guy who gets to decide your own thing. And all of a sudden you're voicing and yelling at what could have been a level three, you're now to level 11.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  But really, deep down, what your body felt was you were back to that eight year old boy whose mom wouldn't let him go outside without first doing X, Y, and Z, or a dad that made him do, that didn't make him feel safe. And so you're responding based on old scripts. And so we all have these old scripts, like old tape cassettes that we play anytime we feel these big feelings of I'm being controlled, I'm being pressured, I'm being caged, I'm not my own person, I don't feel safe, I'm never going to feel safe, I'm too much, these old scripts that we've been playing in our head. And so we, we show those all the time in the language that we're using. So it's not that you're seeing the person and talking to them.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  It's usually, it's a reflection of something that happened in your past that's showing back up.

• 41:34Chris Williamson?

  And the passive aggressive person had needs that weren't reliably met?

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it could have been, I mean, the, well, here's the takeaway though, is that at one point in time, that passive aggressiveness had a utility to it. There was a time when maybe they didn't, they weren't safe to say what they actually needed.

• 41:53Chris Williamson?

  Their aggression wasn't safe?

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Their aggression wasn't safe. Voicing anything wasn't safe. And so it was, they found that their life went better when they didn't have to voice it. Yeah, they, they held it in. And so they found some way to cope and expect somebody else to read their mind rather than something else. But there's a lot of different things that, you know, that show up from childhood that we're just big kids.

• 42:18Chris Williamson?

  Hmm, hmm. What about when it comes to delivering bad news to people?

• 42:25Speaker 01

  It's a required life lesson. It's impossible to not get around that and people get really uncomfortable with it. And usually it's because they're feeling other people's feelings for them. Like I don't want to say that, that's not nice. They feel like they have to be nice. The real takeaway is being, choosing to be kind. Nice says it's focused all on the surface, the pleasantries. I can't say that. I can't tell you the truth, Chris. That's not nice. All right. Kindness says, I care enough about you to tell you the truth. Because I care about you, I need to give you this, this really hard news of what it's going to. This is what it's going to be.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  And you can use labels, simple as what we just talked about a minute ago. This is going to be some hard news. You're not going to like what I have to say. Give them a moment and then deliver the news. But what you can't do is twist a knife where you start to blame them first. All right, if you need to give bad news. Like imagine if I was just going to break up with you right now. The worst thing to do about it is all of a sudden go.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  You know, I just think you're so great, Chris. And I've really enjoyed a lot of time. We start talking in past tense as if like, what do you?

• 43:44Chris Williamson?

  I was enjoying that stuff.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, they just keep, they just keep going.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  To where you know you're not, you're not being straight up and being honest. And often that's, sometimes the kindest thing you can do is be as direct as you can be when it comes to sad news.

• 43:57Chris Williamson?

  Let's say that you need to break up with a partner and you're feeling super nervous about it. How would you guide that person through the conversation?

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Well, I would use a label. That means rather than, and this is assuming you set aside time and you're not trying to do it through a text message. Or, you know, while you're.

• 44:17Chris Williamson?

  Apparently that's gauche now. That's looked down on to do it over text.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's probably not a good idea. Or you're doing it in the middle of, you know, a movie or something. Let's assume you've already put good time around this to have a good conversation. It's to say, I need to have a hard conversation with you.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  And then you need to, first words out of your mouth need to be.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  This isn't a relationship that I can see myself continuing in. Like you see all of a sudden, I'm getting right to the point rather than saying, I need to have something hard. You've just been great and you know, it's not you, it's me and you know, we've just been, we've had all these memories. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Instead of all that, get right to the point and it's, it's much easier. People can take bad news, it's gonna have a harder impact, but the rest of it is gonna be a whole lot better for you. Rather than trying to sound nice and be like, I don't wanna upset, it's all me, it's not, it's not you at all. Even though that's softer in the moment, that long-term impact is gonna be a whole lot worse because, because you weren't really being honest with me.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  And so even if you were need to fire somebody, bring them in. This news is probably gonna shock you. I need to let you go. And that's where you get to say, I've enjoyed having you as a a person, you've done great with the company, or maybe it's in a relationship. I, I, I need to be out of this relationship. I need to move on. This is relationship isn't working for me, whatever it is. And that's where you get to say, I've

• 45:56Speaker 01

  I've learned a lot from you, I've learned and whatever it is, the nice stuff, but don't start with the pleasantries and then in with the hard.

• 46:03Chris Williamson?

  I think Chris has another one, which is if you're saying that you can't go to an event, say, I can't go. Or I can't make it.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:15Chris Williamson?

  First.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:17Chris Williamson?

  Don't say things have got so hard recently and this chaos came up and I've got this thing and the ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, and then that at the end.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:24Chris Williamson?

  Just don't bury the fucking lead, dude.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:28Chris Williamson?

  Put it up top.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  I very much align with that. So what I, I teach is you start with the no first. Most people start with the, the thanks first. They start with the gratitude and they go, thank you so much, I'd love to, but I can't. And but, the word but has a way of deleting everything that came before. Like, I love you, but. You're crazy, you know, whatever.

• 46:52Chris Williamson?

  That might be true.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:53Chris Williamson?

  Both of those things might be true.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  Sure, sure they could.

• 46:56Chris Williamson?

  However.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, you want to start with the no first. So I can't, period. Then the gratitude, thank you so much for inviting me. Then add in some kindness. I'm sure it's going to be a great time. Hope you have a wonderful time. Knock yourselves out, whatever it is. But don't, don't, that compliment sandwich is a little hard to chew.

• 47:21Chris Williamson?

  Dude, I've got a fucking fantasy going on in my head of me, you, Chris Voss, and James Sexton doing an episode together. I'm going to try and make that shit happen before the end of the year.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  We probably could.

• 47:31Chris Williamson?

  I think that would be straight fire. I think that would be so much fucking fun.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:37Chris Williamson?

  Put something in the middle of the table that's remotely valuable or that most people, most of you guys want. And I'm like, hey, negotiate over this.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 47:43Chris Williamson?

  See, it's like a gladiatorial fight to the death.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 47:47Chris Williamson?

  Somebody, somebody gets to fucking, I don't know, I don't know. So you're having a difficult conversation. You're firing a member of staff or you're breaking up with somebody or something similar.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:57Chris Williamson?

  And during that conversation, the emotions begin to come up. And there is always this temptation to almost even bail out of the conversation. Like poly ejectacy to see that somebody begins to get upset. And then the employee comes into work tomorrow and you go, I thought you were firing them.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:17Chris Williamson?

  Well.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 48:20Chris Williamson?

  What about that? Because I think that a lot of people enter into conversations with the intention of doing the thing and leave a conversation having had this weird spaghetti junction mess. Do you know what I mean? Like when people have difficult conversations, often they do not, they do not finish what they meant to start.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:40Chris Williamson?

  How would you navigate through that?

• 48:42Speaker 01

  Okay, it's, to me, it's like. People have no problem three minutes in a cold plunge, but give them two seconds having to be honest with somebody in a conversation terrifies them. It's like, okay, think of it as like a cold plunge. You start it and at the beginning, what is it? You're trying to catch your breath. You're trying, I can't do this. And then all of a sudden, what? You have some clarity and you realize I can do this. And you realize your body's going through this and there will be an end to it. Same way in difficult conversation. Yeah, it's gonna be a splash. They have, I have what I teach is cold, cold shower conversations as, as example of those of like, it's gonna, it's gonna be a shock to the system at the beginning,

• 49:24Speaker 01

  but we're gonna see our way out of it to where you, you start to have the hard words. You've already said, we need to break up. This relationship isn't for me, or I need to let you go.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  Whatever it is, you say the hard news and then you realize, okay, I did it. Like, okay, I had, I said the thing and now we can have a lot more clarity. Now you've kind of gotten over, it's way easier to crest the mountain when you just like go right up and then it gets down. It's when you have a slow go up.

• 49:52Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, bail out.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:53Chris Williamson?

  I haven't got there yet.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:54Chris Williamson?

  I haven't done it yet. There's still time for me to avoid this mountain.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. And so it's, it's just like that. So you find ways, for me in my world as an attorney, I mean, I grew up in courtrooms and depositions and watching this. So I've seen a lot of emotional fighting and yelling and all sorts of hard tactics against each other. Super adversarial. I've seen a lot of fights of arguments. Don't put me in a ring. I'm not, I won't be any good in a, with boxing gloves.

• 50:29Chris Williamson?

  Sean Strickland's gonna eat you alive.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no doubt. I'd, I'd bail out. That's why I'd bail out. But whenever you increase your capacity to hold other people's emotion, meaning you can feel all your feelings without me holding them.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  And I know that I'm in control of myself and I'm going to continue to breathing through it. And I'm not going to be holding what you're presenting, the better it gets. Like the more I realize that disappointment is part of the game. Like to be a great leader, to be a great, um, to be a good person in my world, you have to learn the art of disappointing people. In other words, telling them sometimes what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.

• 51:14Chris Williamson?

  Makes me think about when the parents of missing children go on the news. What is it that they always say? We just want to know.

• 51:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:25Chris Williamson?

  We just want to know. Because the open loop is the worst thing.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:29Chris Williamson?

  The open loop is where the most pain is. And I'm sure that no parent would say this, but logically it kind of makes sense that

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:38Chris Williamson?

  Finding the child dead in some ways would be emotionally preferable to living for decades

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:45Chris Williamson?

  in the uncertainty.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 51:47Chris Williamson?

  And I mean, no, no parents are ever going to come out and say that, obviously. And they actually probably don't want that. But you understand what I mean?

• 51:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:53Chris Williamson?

  That closing, closing that loop is exactly what people want.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Even though it's what your body is telling you absolutely not to do.

• 52:01Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  So when you're able to break up with somebody and not leave them guessing why, or you need to fire somebody, whatever the hard news is and not leave them guessing why, that is you acting in alignment with integrity. That's you acting in alignment with your values. It's, it's you going from nice guy to a good man.

• 52:25Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 52:28Chris Williamson?

  One of the things that you mentioned there was somebody else's emotions not permeating you, not, not being absorbed by you. You're holding yourself here.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:40Chris Williamson?

  Many people that are empathetic, people that are highly sensitive, people who seem to absorb the emotions of those around them, find that really difficult.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:50Chris Williamson?

  To keep the you are there and I am here. What's your advice for people to keep that emotional sovereignty when somebody else is getting sad?

• 53:00Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 53:01Chris Williamson?

  With them?

• 53:02Speaker 01

  Well, I, I'd, I'd want to first say that.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  Having empathy and being able to feel other people's emotions like that, that is a superpower. I don't think that's something to decrease. What I don't want you to do is to feel so much of their feelings that you don't allow them, the other person, to feel their own. In other words, I'm afraid of disappointing you because you're going to be so upset and for you to be upset at me makes me upset. And that's going to get into my system and I can't possibly share them, do that because they're going to be disappointed in me and I can't take them being disappointed in me. That's more of the fear there, but if we're somebody who goes, I feel a lot of feelings and you can feel yours. It's, don't pick up what any, nobody asks you to carry.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  Like, don't, don't start to feel the weight and burden of somebody else's feelings. Like, for example, you might have, I don't know, this could be a silly example.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  You have your in-laws coming into town.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  You don't really want them to stay at your house, right? How do you, how do you do that? And you start to feel like, oh, well, I'm going to have to, I, I need to, they're going to be so upset. And where they're going, it's going to cause such a, a thing. Well, if you also understand that you have agency and they get to choose what to do with those feelings, you're going to come out of a much healthier place. And I think a lot of times we don't give the other person the choice of what to do with their feelings. We have to, we want to fix it all. We want to tell them what to do with it.

• 54:31Chris Williamson?

  So how would you navigate that situation? What would you say?

• 54:34Speaker 01

  If I were going to, if somebody like my in-laws or something were coming in,

• 54:41Speaker 01

  I would simply say, I need, beginning with the phrase, I need, I need to make sure that here in this, whether it's this holiday season or whatever, that we're prioritizing a lot of slowing things down and trying to keep things quieter in the house. And I'm going to need y'all to find, maybe I found another hotel that you can go enjoy that instead of having.

• 55:05Chris Williamson?

  Enjoy the hotel house?

• 55:06Speaker 01

  Exactly. A lot of the times you, we fall into the habit of people pleasing. You know, which I, I think is, people pleasing to me is not a bad thing. It's just, you need to make sure that you're one of them. You know, you need to be able to also do what's acting in alignment with what you're wanting.

• 55:31Chris Williamson?

  In other news, I've been in the gym for nearly two decades now and it wasn't until the past few years that I had the best training run of my entire life and a huge part of that was the RP Strength app. Actual scientists built this thing around one obsession, having a science-backed path to maximizing muscle gain. It tells you how many sets, how many reps, the amount of weight that you need to use. So all you have to do is show up and do the thing. It adjusts automatically every week based on how you're actually progressing and there are over 45 pre-made training programs and more than 250 technique videos built in. So you're not just lifting, you're lifting optimally to get the most out of your workouts. A lot of the time I have less than an hour to be in the gym and what I love about the RP app is that it takes that into account and adjusts my workout on the fly.

• 56:15Chris Williamson?

  So I know that I'm going to maximize how much time I've got available. For me, following a proper evidence-based plan has made a huge difference and if you're serious about training and the gains that you want to make, I'm pretty sure that it'll do the same for you. Right now, you can follow the exact same training plan that I use and get up to $50 off the RP hypertrophy app by going to the link in the description below or heading to r p strength.com/modernd wisdom and using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. That's r p strength.com/modernd wisdom at modern wisdom at checkout. I had this essay that you've kicked the tripwires off about 10 times so far today. So I'm going to read you a little bit of this. Okay. I thought it might be interesting. I called it "The Shame of Small Fears." Oh, okay. Imagine explaining modern fear to a caveman.

• 56:59Chris Williamson?

  You see, Gruck, people today get terrified when they have to send a message. Gruck blinks. Message carved on stone? No, it's sentenced on a glowing triangle. Enemy tribe see message? No. Sabre-toothed tiger smell message? No. Then why fear? Well, because the other person might think badly of me.

• 57:28Chris Williamson?

  Groot cries laughing. And yet, that's the whole point. We inherited a nervous system calibrated for lions, and we're using it to navigate awkward conversations and underwhelming careers. Evolution never updated the software. It just repurposed it. Your ancestors needed courage to keep their bodies alive. You need courage to keep your identity intact. It's almost comic when you zoom out. The same species that once stared down hungry predators now breaks into a sweat trying to say, "Something needs to change." But it's not because we've become pathetic. It's because the monsters changed shape. Old dangers could kill your body. The new ones threaten your belonging. Your whole biology gears up for exile from the village that now only exists as a group chat. Your body still thinks you'll die alone in the wilderness if you tell the truth.

• 58:13Chris Williamson?

  It's the residue of a limbic system designed for a world that no longer exists. And that seems to be... It's not about the fear. It's about the shame in your fear a lot of the time, I think. Yeah. People realize, "I am the progeny of people who survived Ice Ages." Mm-hmm. "And I'm getting worried about having to tell this person that they crossed the line with me." Or having to enforce a boundary. Yeah. "Hey, I've had a long year. I'm stressed and I love your mother, but she's a lot, okay? And, and, and so her house is really great this time of year." Yeah. "I got a discount, okay?" Yeah. "But..."

• 58:58Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. It really is the case. It's like, um, the sensitivity on a system. It's the same reason that we have gyms. We have gyms because we have removed the need to pick up heavy objects from our normal daily life. Right. So we have to artificially create this thing. And if it wasn't for the gym, everybody would be flabby messes, right? And purposeful physical training. Because the whole stress on our system, the whole hormesis has got turned down. Yeah. It's kind of the same here, too.

• 59:25Chris Williamson?

  Your limbic system will attenuate itself to the maximum amount of discomfort that you have, which means now that a hard conversation might be the most difficult thing that you do that year.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:36Chris Williamson?

  Like that one conversation, firing that one member of staff might be the most. So yeah, you're gonna feel it. And I think what I'm trying to get at, what I tried to get at with that incredibly long essay, which I spared you the rest of, is there's a lot of shame that people have around. This fear is so small. Why, why do I feel like this? You go, well, because it's still a big deal. Because yeah, you have a limbic system that was made to avoid bears and is now worried about your belonging.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think most people,

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  they don't have a hard time with fighting. They have a hard time being honest.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  And it's funny how honesty can sometimes be the hardest thing that, that you're going to do, because you're laying bare your wants, your needs, whatever it is, for your relationship, for your business, for the home, for your friends, whatever. And it's the same, same exact thing as what the essay says. Like, I, I may not throw a punch, but I'm gonna throw a word that's gonna hurt. Like, I'm not gonna pick up a rock and throw it, but I'm gonna want a word to cut. You know, I'm gonna want, my words can either hurt you or heal you. And if I self-improve everything about me, but I don't improve what comes out of my mouth, that's, that's a Formula One car without a steering wheel.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  Like, it's, looks great, that's awesome, but where are we gonna go with it? And so I think if you don't apply the same type of mindset of improving your body as you do the words. When we talk about emotional vocabulary, when we talk about actually working through how to have conversations and being honest, being, dare I say, vulnerable with things. There's a lot of people who it's just they're an empty house, but have a great looking landscape. You know, like you just can't, you, you have to understand that the conversation, like you said, like you're gonna have all year long, those are much harder and take a lot more courage than anything you can do at the gym.

• 1:01:49Chris Williamson?

  I agree, I agree. And I think a lot of the time, people are going there precisely for that reason. People will spend years in misery to avoid a few minutes of pain.

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. They say that the, the, like, the conversation you're avoiding is the result you're choosing. Like, if you, if you, if you choose not to have that conversation, well, you're getting that result, then you're going to live with that result. But it doesn't have to be that way. And I think it's in therapy, they say, like, the, the breakthrough you're avoiding is the work, or, yeah, the, the breakthrough you're needing is in the work you're avoiding, the being able to get through that, that conversation. Like, you, you can have, you can be the fittest person, but still the same on the inside. It's not

• 1:02:42Speaker 01

  like it's improved anything about what you're gonna, how you're gonna have in your, in your life. And there's no metric. That's the wildest thing. It's like, we're able to watch our HRV, make sure you're in all the zone two cardio and all the other stuff. I gotta whoop too. Like, to be able to do all that physical discipline, that's all great, but there's no metric on sitting on the couch with your son in your lap and also having your phone in your hand, you know what I mean? Or being able to say something really hard to the person that you love, to mend relationships with family members you haven't seen in a long time. That, that's a whole lot different metric that there's just no number for.

• 1:03:27Chris Williamson?

  It's a quiet victory, a boring success.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:30Chris Williamson?

  And, yeah, we trade observable metrics for hidden metrics all the time.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:03:36Chris Williamson?

  All the time. You know, you'll take a job that

• 1:03:41Chris Williamson?

  Pays ten grand more a year, but is a forty five minute commute instead of fifteen. You go, okay, well, you can't really see the commute in quite the same way.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:51Chris Williamson?

  What does that mean? And how much more stress do you? Yeah, I'm gonna have to miss a couple of evenings with the kids and I'm gonna spend less time with. Or you move to a new area and a house that's bigger. But the stress of being there puts strain on your relationship and it means that you go to bed and the texture of your mind's a little bit more agitated.

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:10Chris Williamson?

  For a decade while you live there. Hidden metric, observable metric. postcode, very observable. Peace of mind, very hidden.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:19Chris Williamson?

  And because there's this idea, the McNamara fallacy, do you know that? So Robert McNamara during the Vietnam War, he was charged with trying to make sure that the wall was moving in the right direction. And what he was focusing on were enemy combatant deaths and US forces deaths. But that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was the sentiment at home. Issue is very hard to quantify the sentiment at home in the US. And obviously, the Vietnam War was hugely unpopular domestically in the US. And it ends with this line, which is, we intend to

• 1:05:00Chris Williamson?

  measure what matters, but instead, we only matter, what matters to us is only what we can measure. So this weird inversion of us supposedly trying to focus on the quantifiable and pull it in.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:13Chris Williamson?

  Instead, whatever is quantifiable is what gets pulled in.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah, it's, it's, um, I think there's a lot of different paradoxes like that in life. Like for me, what I've learned through this transition from full time lawyer, being able to talk on communication is.

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  I thought it was what's best for the business is what's best for the family. Like I could look at these hard metric numbers, whether it's more money, more time, or whatever, however, the increase, more, more, more, 10x, whatever, is best for my family. When in reality.

• 1:05:53Chris Williamson?

  What's best for the family is what's best for the business.

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  Best for the family is what's best for the business. And like, that's not something I can track, but that's something.

• 1:05:59Chris Williamson?

  Like the Maro fallacy.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's something I can feel.

• 1:06:02Chris Williamson?

  Unreal. What about if you're having a conversation with someone and it feels like they're not understanding you? It's getting frustrating.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. If you go, okay, I'm trying to, I'm not saying this the right way. And you feel like there's the butting up against that in that time, then I would take it piece by piece. So I would, one, are you giving them the takeaway? Are you giving the headline at the beginning? Or are you putting it down in the footnotes? So one is, how are you approaching the conversation? How are you framing the conversation? Because if you've buried the lead, like you said, that is typically going to lead into a lot of miscommunication.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  Next, I would question.

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  The biggest like myth in communication is what is sent is what is received.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  I, all the time, I can, in my own relationship. She could say, no, you said this. I go, I didn't say that. You said, yes, you did. I went, no, that's not what I said. She goes, I wish I had a video camera in here. So I could have seen exactly how you said that. So you could see and, and instead of this mindset of that's not what I said. And trying to push that miscommunication, instead ask, what did you hear? What did you hear? And if I can ask the question, what did you hear? And them to actually explain, what I'm hearing is X, Y, and Z. You get to stop, okay, that, right there. That's not at all my intent. I think that's where we're going wrong. So it's.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  It's the ability to, one, slow down, two, find the actual breaking point. And that, that usually requires a, okay, here is what I'm trying to convey. I'm not asking you to fix anything. I just need you to hear that this means something to me. And sometimes the other person's like, oh, okay. So you want me to do this? Oh, you want me to do this? So you want me to fix this? I'm like, no, no, no, no, I don't, no, I need, let's go back again. Okay. What are you hearing? And they go, well, I hear that you need me to go, I guess I'll never be able to do this again. No, no, that's not at all. Right? Usually when people are going to extremes or absolutes, the always and never's is a very clear sign that they're not engaged in the conversation. Instead, they're playing an old script that is, well, then you just, you just want me to do everything you want me to do.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  And so if you're able to actually break it down and go piece by piece, okay, what did you hear at this moment? This here, this is, this is the miscommunication. Okay. When I bring this up, what's coming up for you? Cause I can tell something else is happening. Like then you get into a little bit of the emotion of it of where, where are you feeling defensive? So when I can voice that, so the person's voicing, I can tell I'm getting defensive. I can tell I'm not ready for this conversation. I can tell I'm getting worked up. Like that's really helpful information. I think I saw some study on if it was like, if somebody's heartbeats over a hundred BPM, like it's almost impossible to like bring somebody back down very quickly. Like it's not a good time to have a very, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:03Chris Williamson?

  Over a hundred BPM, your front brain is basically turned off.

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  It's gone. Yeah. And, and you're, you're having to make sure that the other person's, they're going to quickly be dysregulated in that moment.

• 1:09:15Chris Williamson?

  Have you seen, Jared, can you pull that up? Just search Reddit divorce heart rate on Google. And um, this guy, I think he was wearing like a garment or something. And he tracked his heart rate through the conversation.

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:09:36Chris Williamson?

  That he had with his wife. And the reason I say it is, you're going a hundred BPM, a hundred BPM is heart rate in five second intervals when wife asks for a divorce. I love how he's put via Fitbit charge too. It's like, it's a sponsored post.

• 1:09:53Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, resting BPM. So dude, he's got, he's got a nice resting BPM. He's down at 60 and he's away.

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:59Chris Williamson?

  He's a fit guy.

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  He's doing great.

• 1:10:00Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, well, he's got a Fitbit charge two on, so he's obviously been tracking it for a while. Can we talk? Can we talk keeps him quite, uh.

• 1:10:07Chris Williamson?

  He's regulating.

• 1:10:08Speaker 01

  He's doing good.

• 1:10:09Chris Williamson?

  So hang on, what are the interval? That's five minutes, five minute intervals at the bottom.

• 1:10:12Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:10:13Chris Williamson?

  Is this 115 in the fucking morning? I think that's 115 in the morning.

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  Unless it's on, it's 24 hour, yeah.

• 1:10:19Chris Williamson?

  It should be on military time.

• 1:10:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're right.

• 1:10:21Chris Williamson?

  Um, and, uh, okay, can we talk? He manages to hold on to it.

• 1:10:25Speaker 01

  Timing has a lot to do with this.

• 1:10:26Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, there's a spike just before. I don't think this is healthy for either of us. So she's, can we talk and a full, what's that? Six minutes later, she's still not given the lead.

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:10:43Chris Williamson?

  Unless he's, well, there's no way. That's got to be the spike.

• 1:10:45Speaker 01

  Now, look, yeah, you see the spike right before the dip, before, I don't think this is healthy for either of us. Most likely, that's like his anxiety.

• 1:10:51Chris Williamson?

  He's realizing.

• 1:10:52Speaker 01

  What's going on? I could tell something's wrong.

• 1:10:54Chris Williamson?

  Cause he's kept regulated there, right?

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:56Chris Williamson?

  Bro, he, he hits 155, 160. He's in zone three or four, depending on how old he is.

• 1:11:04Speaker 01

  And then he has a huge drop.

• 1:11:05Chris Williamson?

  And then back up again. Mm hmm. I wonder if that's just a release of.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:12Chris Williamson?

  Fuck.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  He just got the news and now he's like, what am I gonna do?

• 1:11:16Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:16Speaker 01

  I think there is that release of like, knowledge of now I know.

• 1:11:20Chris Williamson?

  Cause I mean, maybe it came out of.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  But look, he comes right back at it. I mean, he's right there close to 150 again and.

• 1:11:26Chris Williamson?

  How long does the whole thing take? 115 resting BPM, can we talk 120? 20 minutes, dude, 20, 20 minutes, they're in and out and he's off on a walk. So, yeah, yeah, anybody that thinks that 100 BPM is, uh, is hard to hit in a difficult conversation.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  It's not hard.

• 1:11:43Chris Williamson?

  Homeboy managed to get 150% of that.

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  Yep. Went off for a walk. Good.

• 1:11:48Chris Williamson?

  Good. That's a good one.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  It's gonna hit last call somewhere real quick.

• 1:11:52Chris Williamson?

  Exactly. Dude, I remember the first ever Thanksgiving that I did in, uh, America. I was living at Airbnb on South Congress. And it's directly opposite the Red Rose, Austin's premier adult establishment. And it was, I'd been to, I'd been to Blair White's house, if you know who Blair White is. He's an uncomfortably hot trans influencer. And Lex Friedman was there with Michael Matt. It was a very strange Avengers, autistic Avengers assemble. And then we got back to where I was staying, the Airbnb.

• 1:12:30Chris Williamson?

  This is 10pm, 10:30pm or something on Thanksgiving. And the entire car park was full, all of the street outside was completely full. It was like, it must have been standing room only in the strip club. And I remember thinking, how bad your Thanksgiving had to be.

• 1:12:51Chris Williamson?

  At 10pm to go, that's it, I'm sick, are your parents, I cannot any longer be, I'm going, I'm going, I'm going to the Red Rose again, are you? Off to see Crystal, I hope she'll cook your fucking dinner and wash your socks. And I was like, okay, here we go. Well, I just. The British mind cannot comprehend what level of freedom Americans have apparently around Thanksgiving, including being able to go to the Red Rose.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  Holidays are hard for people and Thanksgiving's hard, Christmas is hard usually because it can be sometimes a reminder that they're alone.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  And I mean, there's no place lonelier.

• 1:13:30Chris Williamson?

  Than a strip club.

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, you can be surrounded by people and still feel very alone. And that's why, what, you're looking for some very illusion of companionship? You know, so they, they, they're, they're in pain and they're looking for some way to find a salve.

• 1:13:50Chris Williamson?

  How should people respond to an insult?

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  With a lot of silence. You say something ugly to me, I'm going to give it about five to seven seconds on nothing.

• 1:14:01Speaker 01

  Meaning I'm gonna allow your words as if I see them just to fall to the this table here and give you a moment of like,

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  you give that like you still you still proud of that right there? You can take it back if you like, but I'm not taking it. And it's that it's that that mindset of I'm not taking it. I don't have to pick it up. That's not mine. Because we get so used to catching just because somebody threw. We feel like we automatically have to catch. It's like it's not it's not tennis. It's not volleyball. You don't have to hit it back over a net. You can just let it be there. So five to seven seconds of nothing in that silence. Two, what I like to do is usually ask them to repeat it.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's I usually will say, I need you to I need you to say that again.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  I've yet to have anybody who could do it.

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  Because it's like they they they don't want to show they're ugly. They don't want that highlighted. They don't they know what they just said. And now what they were expecting was that hit a dopamine of me giving it right back to them and feeling that sense of control. I've now put a big spotlight on their behavior. And then it's just it's not fun at that point. They're like, I gotta get out of here. Like that was that that wasn't the hit that I was expecting. And when I say, I need you to repeat that or I need you to say that again. They're gonna have to remember their words and regurgitate them. And that usually it's people don't like to extend past this feeling of being reasonable.

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  Now, I know people will go, oh, I know lots of people are unreasonable. Listen, I have deposed probably thousands of people. I've seen lots of liars and manipulators. They never want to come across as unreasonable. Yeah, people who are like manipulating you, they're not afraid of.

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  Of anger, they're afraid of calm. And whenever I can show you that I'm not rising and going, how dare you? Like getting this, who do you think you are kind of bow up?

• 1:16:19Speaker 01

  It's almost more scary to them if you, I need you to say that again. Now, most of the time what they do is they try and like, well, I mean, what I, I mean, and they try to like justify. Exactly. Uh, and try and adjust in some way, or I guess they could double down. If they do double down and repeat it, then you get to say, I thought so, thanks. Like just let it go because at that point you're still just leaving them. They're, they're going to remember what they said. And you're not going to be the one to remember it at all. So it's that. Another that I like to ask is it's this, did you mean? Did you mean for that to sound as insulting as it did? Did you mean for that to embarrass me in some way?

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  Did you mean for that to offend me or hurt me or belittle me? Or did you, did you want me to feel less when you said that? Whenever you talk about intents, the did you mean? Did you intend to? Did you say that in order to?

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  It questions the very root of their heart in that moment. I'm like, why did they really say that? And they said that to hurt you, to, to cause that pain. And at the same time, maybe you just took it the wrong way. Like in text message, usually we have a way of reading everything negative in a text message. We never read things positive, right? You, I, I could text you, we need to talk. And nobody gets that and goes, yeah, like sick. Yes, let's go, let's, Chris wants to talk, let's, let's get after it, let's go. Uh, we always read the negative. And so did you mean is also a great way of double chicken? Did you mean for that to sound like my wife and I?

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  If I sometimes reply really quickly, she'll say, did you mean for that to sound short? No, no, I didn't mean to, I was just in the middle of pickup or I was at a grocery line or whatever. It's, you're allowing that, that benefit of the doubt for a second.

• 1:18:13Chris Williamson?

  In both of those situations, uh, where it's not ambiguous about whether or not that was a mean message or not.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:18:23Chris Williamson?

  What you're doing is bringing the person's ugliness to the front.

• 1:18:28Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:18:28Chris Williamson?

  Because yeah, you're right.

• 1:18:31Chris Williamson?

  Even when people say mean things, they feel justified in their meanness.

• 1:18:37Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:18:37Chris Williamson?

  You deserved it.

• 1:18:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:18:39Chris Williamson?

  Or I'm righteous somehow. And with enough room for the heat to die down a little bit.

• 1:18:52Chris Williamson?

  Three, four, five, six, fuck, seven.

• 1:18:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:18:58Chris Williamson?

  It's a long time, dude.

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, very, yeah.

• 1:19:00Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And to then basically say, do the thing again, but without the heat that powered it when you did it the first time.

• 1:19:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:19:11Chris Williamson?

  Like you, you've run out of fuel.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:19:13Chris Williamson?

  And you're now gonna have to look at it in a more sterile environment.

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:19:19Chris Williamson?

  More plain environment.

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:19:22Chris Williamson?

  And I'm just gonna ask, I'm not gonna infer, I'm gonna ask whether the outcome that happened after you said that thing was what you meant. And that is you admitting to your own intent around this.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's like you, um, like imagine having to ask a girl out and she's like, well, I didn't hear you. Oh, never mind. Like you don't wanna, you don't wanna ask it again. It's that feeling of like, I already, I already said it.

• 1:19:50Chris Williamson?

  Said you're so hot.

• 1:19:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's right.

• 1:19:56Speaker 01

  And then all of a sudden, you, you realize, no, that, that didn't feel good at all. And now it's, now they just, they don't want the cheese. They just want out of the trap, you know? They just get me, get me out of here.

• 1:20:07Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  And they're not, they're not gonna wanna do that because the making them say it again is just, it's just revealing they're ugly and darkness hates light.

• 1:20:15Chris Williamson?

  Hmm. You know, you were talking about inviting someone to, what are you hearing? What are you hearing from me? What is it? What, what did you just hear me say?

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:25Chris Williamson?

  How are you interpreting that? You know, the idea of a steel man.

• 1:20:28Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:20:29Chris Williamson?

  And a straw man.

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:30Chris Williamson?

  So straw man, representing the weakest version of someone's argument. Steel man, me saying, so.

• 1:20:37Chris Williamson?

  We're in a debate, but what I think you're trying to say is, and I put across the best version, the best possible version of your argument.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:20:46Chris Williamson?

  That's good. What you're doing with the invitation is like a reverse steel man.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:20:51Chris Williamson?

  Or an invited steel man.

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:53Chris Williamson?

  Saying, can you tell me?

• 1:20:55Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:20:55Chris Williamson?

  What you're hearing me say?

• 1:20:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:59Chris Williamson?

  And then, ah, okay, so no, not quite. And the same thing with the reason that you do the steel man is so I go, okay. So, Jeffson, what I'm hearing from you is this and this and this, is that right? And you go, well, actually, no. You're just saying, hey, come do the steel man thing for me.

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:17Chris Williamson?

  And then if there's anything that's not fully understood, and you're doing the same thing with the insult to a degree. It's like inviting this person to almost steel man the own, the nuclear warhead that they just dropped on you.

• 1:21:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:21:31Chris Williamson?

  You know, and probably more like a septic tank than a nuclear warhead. You know?

• 1:21:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:21:38Chris Williamson?

  You know, this big puddle of shit that's in front of us?

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:41Chris Williamson?

  Is that shit?

• 1:21:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:42Chris Williamson?

  Or is it soup?

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:43Chris Williamson?

  Cause I can't, to me, it looks and smells a lot like shit. And, uh, just making sure that we're not confused, I'm not confusing what this is.

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a lot of, there's actually this like hidden power around, tell me what I'm missing. Tell me what I like, I'm missing something here, something else is going on. And then you tell me what I'm missing. So lots of times I'll be in a deposition and I'll have somebody who is,

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  I know I've caught them in a lie. There are lots of people lying under oath all the time and they have no problem with it. And, cause I know, cause I have the evidence right here and they just don't know that I have it. And so it's often the people who, it's most blatant, like they, it's just an easy, they didn't have to lie about it. Like they could have just fallen on the sword, but they're, they're so contradictory that they can't possibly not. So if it's like, if I were to tell you, I feel like you're really upset. And they go, I'm not upset, I'm just like, it doesn't matter what emotion I said, they're gonna always tell me, I know, it's not that I'm, I'm, I'm okay. It's just I'm, it doesn't matter what it is, they're always gonna contradict that.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  And so when I know I'm up against that kind of person, you have to do this.

• 1:23:05Speaker 01

  Searching with like where questions matter a whole lot more than statements. Meaning if I'm going to ask a question that is more open ended.

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  I'm getting, I'm signaling to this aspect of what am I missing here? I hear you telling me this.

• 1:23:24Speaker 01

  I'm missing where you're getting to that. Same way with the insult.

• 1:23:29Speaker 01

  What am I? You say that I'm, you know, the whatever, the worst thing. I need you to say that again, because something's missing. Because it's not hitting me the same way you want it to hit me. So where is that coming from? And, and, and that right there is the, the wamp feeling, you know, the blanket, wet blanket of exactly sad emoji for them of like, I've, it didn't, it didn't work. What was missing was they were actually intending to cause pain because they're in pain. And it felt better for them to cause you pain than actually deal with their own emotions.

• 1:24:03Chris Williamson?

  It's a much more sophisticated approach than even trying to lean into empathy immediately. If you'd say, it sounds like that, it sounds like you're really upset when someone says something mean. Cause that feels like an elevated kind of communication.

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it could be sarcastic. Yeah.

• 1:24:21Chris Williamson?

  But yeah, but, but even if you say it, you know, genuinely go, feels like you're upset when you're doing that. Also like, uh,

• 1:24:33Chris Williamson?

  you're putting a kind of interpretation on this person's language as opposed to just allowing them to clarify it for you. And I, I keep on having this image in my head of giving somebody a ton of rope. You're just giving them as much rope as they want and they can choose to climb up it and get out. Or they can fucking hang themselves with it.

• 1:24:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, I see this a lot in depositions or cross examination where I know that they're lying. I know they are. And I could just say, you're lying.

• 1:25:03Speaker 01

  You think that's going to get them to admit it? No, never. They're gonna, they're gonna double down. How dare you accuse me of whatever? Cause they don't, but if they tell the lie and I slow it down and I open a folder and I look and I close and I give that five to seven seconds and I say,

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  I need you to tell me that again. I mean, they just go, uh, uh, I mean, I mean, why would you, why would you think I would do this? Like they start questioning things that don't really. Why, why you think that I would do something like that? What, what do you think? Like they're asking you to like solve the, solve the problem.

• 1:25:40Chris Williamson?

  I'm gonna get done that. Give me a suit. You come a pen.

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's, um, it's liars, manipulators. They, they want the anger, but they fear the calm. And so when you're able to, in those moments of somebody doing something offensive,

• 1:25:59Speaker 01

  to show a calm, controlled

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  approach, that's what they don't like. Like imagine you saying something that's a lie and I'm saying,

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  yeah, I'm gonna need to come back to that later. Like it's the worst because they want you to swallow hook, line and sinker. They, they like the fast, rapid. They took it. That's also closure for sure.

• 1:26:23Chris Williamson?

  Right. It's open loops. So much of this is, there's the loops that have been left open for small amounts of time or for even longer amounts of time. They're the ones that, the things are going on the insult thing. British people have a trend of pushing and pushing and then saying, only joking, mate. It's only a joke. How do you deal with someone who pushes you and then retreats to, I was just joking?

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  It depends how well you know them. I think if, if for some of these responses, like if somebody says, I was just joking, I usually like to say, then I need you to be funnier. That's what I usually say.

• 1:27:01Speaker 01

  Or I'll say that I need you to find new material. You know, you, then we need to re, let's workshop that one then a little bit. But if it's something that you feel like they are,

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  maybe you don't know them that well and they say, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just, I'm just joking.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  I don't let it, I don't like it to slide. Meaning you just go, oh, okay, that's, that's fine. And then, you know, they're just gonna walk over you. Again, like that's, we're not gonna walk on eggshells with that. But if you were to say, I know that wasn't a joke. Or it's not, it didn't sound like a joke. Sounds like an issue. Like, that's a lot. So much of this is being the bigger person in conversation. And that often means to be the most courageous in the conversation. And that's a hard thing to do.

• 1:27:47Chris Williamson?

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• 1:28:31Chris Williamson?

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• 1:28:57Speaker 01

  Usually beginning with, like, I'm sorry, but. That's one, the I'm sorry, but you don't really mean it.

• 1:29:08Speaker 01

  I don't mean any disrespect, but I don't want this to sound rude, but.

• 1:29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do. Or else you wouldn't be saying it like that. You just delete those and say what you need to say.

• 1:29:21Chris Williamson?

  From after the but.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  From after the but, exactly. That's it's it's just hedging. Another is where people, they cut out the legs underneath their sentences before they even get them out. Like, I hate to bother you, but I could be wrong about this, but I mean, you probably know better than me. But it's all of these like hedging that makes them sound really, really weak in the conversation. That is something that's it's it's it's unnecessary. A lot of the I thinks, I believes.

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  I think in casual conversation, it's not a problem. But if you're wanting to sound assertive, the I thinks and I believes, you can just replace them with, I'm confident that.

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  Instead of like, I believe I'd be a good asset to this company. It's, I'm confident I'd be a good asset to this company. And they'd write down, man, he sounds so confident, you know? It's it's just, it's pure language choice, you know?

• 1:30:17Chris Williamson?

  I learned from my academic friends, I hedge sometimes because I'm wholly unqualified to talk about pretty much everything I talk about. And it's important to caveat, especially if you're like.

• 1:30:29Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:30:30Chris Williamson?

  I'm in bro science territory here.

• 1:30:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:33Chris Williamson?

  I learned that academics have an equivalent for that. They say, it's directionally correct that. Directionally correct, dude, is the fucking, hey, fifty one forty nine or ninety nine one. I'm directionally correct either way. If I know that this is at least in this side of the fence, I got it. I love I it's directionally correct that men are stronger than women on average.

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:01Chris Williamson?

  Their upper body strength on average as well is wonderful. You hide so many things in.

• 1:31:07Speaker 01

  Say anything on.

• 1:31:07Chris Williamson?

  On average.

• 1:31:08Speaker 01

  On average.

• 1:31:08Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, well, I mean, on average, you just literally need to be better than fifty percent right.

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:14Chris Williamson?

  It's a it's a good start. You mentioned assertiveness.

• 1:31:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:19Chris Williamson?

  Where does self assurance come from, in your opinion?

• 1:31:22Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:31:25Speaker 01

  It's tied a lot to confidence. So I teach that confidence is as assertive does. I mean, if you want to feel more confident, you need to say more assertive things. And most often, we get taught and seen that the most confident people are the loudest, the, I don't know, the bro-est of any of it, when it's actually the person who's the most controlled, the one who's the calmest. Careful derogating the bros. Exactly. Yeah, no, not at all. Not at all, would never. If like, being able to say who's going to be the most emotionally reactive when things hit the fan, because they will hit the fan. Yeah.

• 1:32:07Speaker 01

  And making sure that, how do you know if you're, who's the captain of the ship? It's who has the highest threshold for conflict. You know, that's, that's going to be one of the biggest markers right there. Like, confident people don't need to say it to know that, for you to know it. Like, I don't have to say it to make sure that I know it or you know it. I, um, I think my grandfather told me once, like, little dogs yip at everything, but big dogs only have to bark once. Like, it's that kind of mentality of knowing that I don't, I don't have to have a comment for every little thing. The most fucking Texan quote of all time. Little dogs and big dogs. Yes, right. Little dogs yip, big dogs bark.

• 1:32:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Have you heard the term vagal authority? No, but it sounds like something I would learn and... It sounds like something that you would love. So Joe Hudson, who Charlie introduced me to, has got this idea of vagal authority. And what he means is, in a room or in your interaction, whose nervous system is dictating how everybody else moves? Everybody's in different levels. Some people are at eights, some people are at threes.

• 1:33:24Chris Williamson?

  Where does the room go? Especially in a one on one. Who's got the vagal authority between the two of us?

• 1:33:30Speaker 01

  Interesting. So who's, who's the thermostat?

• 1:33:34Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Who's dictating this?

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  Who's the thermostat? Oh, I mean, you're, you're the host. So.

• 1:33:39Chris Williamson?

  Oh, well, fuck me. I'm not going to, I'm not going to dick measure you in who's got more, more vagal authority. Cause I am going to lose. Um, but I just love that term. The first time that he ever said it, I thought vagal authority is.

• 1:33:52Speaker 01

  I think that's right.

• 1:33:53Chris Williamson?

  Is such a wonderful way to think about what it is. We talk about nervous system capacity or emotional resilience. And that sounds great, but it's very abstract. Vagal authority and just defining it as in an interaction. Who's nervous system is in charge?

• 1:34:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:34:12Chris Williamson?

  Are you both going to compromise and meet in the middle?

• 1:34:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:34:15Chris Williamson?

  Are you going to stay where you are? Are you going down to where that? I mean, obviously you could have vagal authority innate and be like, hey, come up to me.

• 1:34:26Chris Williamson?

  But assuming that you're coming at this from the right side of the fence.

• 1:34:32Chris Williamson?

  It sounds like a lot of what you're talking about is your version of vagal authority.

• 1:34:38Speaker 01

  That's probably right. There's a lot of conversation. Same way they say, show up like you've been there before. Same way in conversation. Meaning you can, you can say something and have an emotional reaction. And like we talked about at the very beginning, those, that beautiful moment of like, my capacity is large enough to take any of this and all of this. And so if you're in a meeting and you walk in, who, who's the thermostat? Who's going to be controlling the temperature of the room? And if you're the one that has to chime in on every single thing, who's emotionally reactive at the slightest, the smallest little inconvenience. Somebody who it's, it's usually.

• 1:35:21Speaker 01

  If, if somebody like cusses a lot. There's, it's usually a sign of emotional reactivity of like, I'm, I'm getting really hyped or low on something.

• 1:35:31Chris Williamson?

  Oh, the British?

• 1:35:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, or the British. Yeah, sure. And to be able to.

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  Versus the person who has a very high threshold to where they don't say everything they could say, like they have an opinion, but they don't need to voice it. In other words, for it to have any validity. They know that they know it. They don't have to name drop. They know that they have value. They don't have to talk about how much their company sold for, like they, they don't need to say it. They know what kind of car they drive without having to be flashy. Like it's, it's the, it's the understatement of knowing that, you know, walk silently with a big step.

• 1:36:09Chris Williamson?

  What is it that makes someone sound composed?

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  A calm voice. There's a voice that sounds warm, voice that sounds in a lower register. Words that are spaced out more. If I talk really fast all the time and you can't really catch up with my message and I'm really like, just, it's gonna naturally make you more anxious. And we all have those people in our life that just to be around them, you feel a little bit more anxiety.

• 1:36:39Speaker 01

  Those tend to be people who are, the sky is falling. We have to have, they're very, very fast when they talk. They're very quick to make judgments and choices and decisions about how they're gonna feel and how this is gonna go. Versus slowing it down, weighing and knowing that the best type of choices are ones that have been intentionally thought of. Like it's say, for example, if you ask me a question and I immediately just have an answer right off the bat. Versus you ask me a question and I

• 1:37:13Speaker 01

  take a breath and I think about it. And then I answer, which one sounds more composed? It's not gonna be the one that's all hyped up. It's gonna be the one that's a little bit more slower. Like you think of people that.

• 1:37:29Speaker 01

  Who are the most composed in your life?

• 1:37:34Speaker 01

  The generally the people that make you feel the most comfortable. And to me, I like the aspect, I've always compared it to just a feeling of warm. Feeling of you're welcome here. Yeah, you can disagree with disagree with me, that's welcome too. No, I I I see it between nice guy and good man. A nice guy wants to be liked. A good man wants to be worthy. Like, how do I, how do I show you my words? That you're worth my time and this conversation's worth my time. I do that not by trying to rush you out the door. Or look for the next person to talk to while I'm talking to you at the networking event or small talk. So I'm, I'm choosing to give you my time.

• 1:38:17Chris Williamson?

  What's the difference between being assertive and being an asshole?

• 1:38:21Speaker 01

  Assertiveness says, I can respect you and I can respect the other person or respect myself. Let me say that differently. So there's like a spectrum of somebody who's passive versus somebody who's aggressive. And then assertiveness is in the middle. Aggression aggression says, I don't respect you.

• 1:38:39Speaker 01

  Somebody passive says, I don't respect me. Assertiveness saying, I can respect both of us. Meaning I can lay out my boundary and I can still like you. Like, I mean, my dad would say all the time, you know, I'm gonna need to discipline you, dude, man, I love you. Now, I I need to, I need to do this. I need to have this conversation. And it's because I love you that I'm going to have this conversation. And when you come to terms with, I can

• 1:39:09Speaker 01

  want all the good things for you and also say, I'm not going to tolerate that. Both things can be true.

• 1:39:16Chris Williamson?

  What about being an asshole?

• 1:39:18Speaker 01

  What about it?

• 1:39:21Chris Williamson?

  I think a lot of the time when people think they're being assertive. They are leaning into assholery.

• 1:39:29Speaker 01

  Is that a word?

• 1:39:30Chris Williamson?

  Correct.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:39:31Chris Williamson?

  Of the two of us, I'm aware that you've done a thousand plus 2000 depositions, but it's our language.

• 1:39:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:37Chris Williamson?

  We'll remind you, it's our language.

• 1:39:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:40Chris Williamson?

  Although it is my taxes and your country, so I better be careful.

• 1:39:47Chris Williamson?

  A lot of the time, people mistake brusqueness and callousness, like socially acceptable callousness, it's the same as being assertive. I'm gonna say this thing in a way that's unnecessarily terse, or, or cutting, or unconsiderate, I think. And that's the same as being assertive. And a lot of the time, I see people who are assholes, that people see as unlikable assertive people. If that makes sense.

• 1:40:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:25Chris Williamson?

  I think a lot of the time,

• 1:40:28Chris Williamson?

  the boundary of asshole and assertiveness functionally can sometimes deliver the same outcome, which is, I don't wanna say you bully the person into getting what you want, but you, you sort of state, you, you state your intention

• 1:40:45Chris Williamson?

  without apology, right? That's something that the asshole and the assertive person have in common. But the difference is that the assertive person is doing it from a place of compromised pro-socialness. The asshole is doing it almost to show off, to look good, to be unconsiderate. One, that's it. One is considerate, and the other is unconsiderate, at least as far as I can see.

• 1:41:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I'd say one is selfish. The other can also be supporting. I mean, it's, I would say that the person who wants to be assertive has both people in mind. The other does not. So I think the considerate and considerate,

• 1:41:27Speaker 01

  the person who always has to win the argument is the person who typically loses everything.

• 1:41:33Chris Williamson?

  You've got 10 specific ways to practice assertiveness. What is the one that most people skip?

• 1:41:41Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:41:43Speaker 01

  Being intentional with your words, meaning they find that the more words they use, the more believable they'll sound. And just the opposite. It's it's this idea of the more words you have to use to tell the truth, the more it starts to sound like a lie. More it sounds like you don't really know what you're talking about. The more words you have to use to explain something that should be relatively easy to explain. So excessiveness, oversharing, saying too much. It's a very quick way to miscommunication because you're giving them.

• 1:42:17Speaker 01

  Do you know Golden Corral's, like buffets? Ever heard of those? It's not a place you'd probably go to, but.

• 1:42:24Chris Williamson?

  I look.

• 1:42:26Speaker 01

  Lubbies?

• 1:42:27Chris Williamson?

  Hold your thought on Golden Corral's and where you're going. Okay, I need to I need to make this statement to a person who's lived in the South of America for a good while.

• 1:42:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:42:36Chris Williamson?

  As a British person, I feel I have a more accurate understanding of American cuisine than Americans do.

• 1:42:44Speaker 01

  That's probably true.

• 1:42:45Chris Williamson?

  And this is because Denny's and IHOP and Cheesecake Factory are elite establishments.

• 1:42:52Speaker 01

  Good, thank you.

• 1:42:53Chris Williamson?

  Okay, you do understand. So many Americans look down their nose at what are objectively wonderful places to go and eat. Denny's, coffee at two in the morning, unlimited refills.

• 1:43:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:06Chris Williamson?

  Cinnamon pancake stack.

• 1:43:07Speaker 01

  Don't you dare.

• 1:43:08Chris Williamson?

  Fantastic. Very good. Very good. Very good. As Theo Von once said, you can see a woman giving birth in there sometimes.

• 1:43:18Chris Williamson?

  You just don't know what you're gonna get.

• 1:43:19Speaker 01

  You never know. Yeah, IHOP's either.

• 1:43:23Chris Williamson?

  So Golden Corral, as yet not been to. However, I did go to a Cracker Barrel. I really liked that.

• 1:43:28Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:43:29Chris Williamson?

  I want to go, I only want.

• 1:43:30Speaker 01

  Do you do the peg game?

• 1:43:31Chris Williamson?

  Peg? Pegging?

• 1:43:32Speaker 01

  Oh, no, let's not go there. It's the it's the game that's like a wooden triangle and you have the Ts that it's like.

• 1:43:38Chris Williamson?

  That's not the pegging that I'm.

• 1:43:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, you're you would be. I don't know.

• 1:43:42Chris Williamson?

  Again, British.

• 1:43:45Chris Williamson?

  What I did like, and I refuse now to go to any restaurant where I can't buy any item of furniture or art on the wall.

• 1:43:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, the little general store.

• 1:43:56Chris Williamson?

  I wanna go, I wanna go, I wanna be like, how much is that?

• 1:43:59Speaker 01

  That's the best.

• 1:43:59Chris Williamson?

  So that's, that's somebody's daughter, she's not for sale. Now, I don't care, she looks like she's pinned on the wall, that's gonna be, that's, that's, she would look wonderful about the fireplace.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can, you can have all the blankets and, you know.

• 1:44:10Chris Williamson?

  I don't take it all.

• 1:44:10Speaker 01

  Pop guns that you want.

• 1:44:11Chris Williamson?

  I don't take it all. Uh, Golden Corral.

• 1:44:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were talking about, um, where sometimes you're giving people too many options to choose in the conversation. Meaning the, the meaning's gonna get lost.

• 1:44:22Chris Williamson?

  Your Cheesecake Factory menu.

• 1:44:23Speaker 01

  You're absolutely, yeah, exactly. Any way we can talk more about the Cheesecake Factory, I'm all for.

• 1:44:27Chris Williamson?

  I'm so glad, I've found a kindred spirit. I knew I liked you, but now I really like.

• 1:44:32Speaker 01

  Okay, really, yeah, let's just talk about the cheesecake menu, let's just read that. Um, yeah, exactly, you're giving people too many options. Um, and that of- often will lead to miscommunication because they're picking and choosing what you're trying exactly to say. And so you don't wanna, don't leave what your intention is in the conversation up to the other person to guess. You need to be sufficiently clear.

• 1:44:55Chris Williamson?

  Too much.

• 1:44:56Speaker 01

  Correct. And that, and that is what will often lead to the most unassertive communication because you're, you can say a lot and still not say anything.

• 1:45:05Chris Williamson?

  Ooh, I've got one to add to your list of ways that people sound weak or at the very least imprecise and difficult to understand in a conversation. They ask a question, and I notice this with new podcasters when they begin because they're uncomfortable with sitting in silence. They're uncomfortable with asking a question, especially potentially a tough question, and then leaving it after the question mark. So they'll say something like, Jefson, you're a trial lawyer and that means that.

• 1:45:35Chris Williamson?

  Sometimes you need to represent people that have done bad things. How do you feel about that? Do you feel, and then immediately

• 1:45:42Speaker 01

  Jump on it.

• 1:45:42Chris Williamson?

  They give you a couple of options. The problem with doing that, especially as a podcaster, is that I am imposing a duality. I've compressed the infinity of answers that you could have given me down into two choices.

• 1:45:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:57Chris Williamson?

  And in order for you to pick the third one that might be true, you have to say, no, no, and this. And most people just go, well, yeah, it's kind of like that because it's easier.

• 1:46:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:46:09Chris Williamson?

  Here's two paths that I've carved for you. Pick which one. And they're usually relatively okay. It's an estimation of where I think you might go. You're like, it's your job. It's a very important service. Do you think, do you see it as your job as an important service? Or do you, do you not take that work home with you or whatever?

• 1:46:23Speaker 01

  That does sound very British when you're doing it. It sounds like a BBC interview. That's crazy.

• 1:46:26Chris Williamson?

  Oh, yeah. I like Piers Morgan.

• 1:46:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, nice.

• 1:46:29Chris Williamson?

  Piers Morgan, but with a functioning hip.

• 1:46:32Chris Williamson?

  You said earlier, I've got to bring this up. You said earlier on about people that duel. You know that the front benches in the House of Lords, the green benches where all of our politicians sit and talk, waffle.

• 1:46:45Chris Williamson?

  The distance between the two front benches is the same as a broadsword held out at arm's length.

• 1:46:51Speaker 01

  No way.

• 1:46:52Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. So if you do that again, and then on the other side, that's the, the distance between the two, which tells you everything that you need to know about how politics works.

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we're very, very, very sensitive.

• 1:47:03Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:03Speaker 01

  Top honor.

• 1:47:04Chris Williamson?

  Being right is overrated. What's that mean?

• 1:47:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. It means, you know, we've heard these phrases of, do you want to choose to be right? Do you want to choose to be happy? You know, do you want to choose to be the person who always has to be right? Usually that's a person who's also the loneliest. Like, if you have to be right in this one particular argument, like, and we all have these kind of silly arguments we might have. Like, my brothers and I might get into an argument about a movie. You know, whatever, who's, what's the best movie on, whatever, whatever. And you can sure that I'm not talking about that. I'm talking like a serious argument that you're having with somebody who matters to you. And you have to be right on it and you're refusing to back down. And then they eventually go, you know what? Have it. You got it. You're right. Congratulations.

• 1:47:52Speaker 01

  And that moment lasts for about a millisecond. And then you're just kind of left with feeling like an idiot. I mean, because you can continue to win arguments, but also lose the relationship. Because nobody wants to be with somebody who's always has to be right. It's it shows more of an insecurity than it does intellect. So what should we prioritize instead of being right? Connection. It's the ability to see perspectives and understand. I'd say appreciating somebody's perspective is an underrated skill. Meaning I don't have to agree with it.

• 1:48:30Speaker 01

  I can still hear it. So rather than saying, I don't, I don't agree with that. Which is me commenting on your point. I can say, I see things differently. That's me commenting on your perspective. Very different. And so when I'm able to use words of perspective, like huh, I see that differently. I have a different take on that. I look at that a different perspective. I get there another way. People go, huh, okay, then what do you, what do you see? What do you believe? Oh, okay. Rather than them having to, they don't have to have their sword and shield and defend their. Exactly. They don't have to defend it. Now they get to go, oh, okay, they're not trying to attack me. They just, they go about it a different way. How did they go?

• 1:49:14Speaker 01

  It's really inviting. Yeah. Perspectives are what allow you to have conversations of understanding. I mean, rather than, I can't stand it when somebody goes, I just don't understand how they could possibly believe that. Like, I don't, I just don't get how their mind could even under and it's like, did you try? Like, if you asked like, how? How they came to believe that.

• 1:49:35Chris Williamson?

  I don't think people mean that a lot of the time.

• 1:49:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:37Chris Williamson?

  People, what people are saying is I am sufficiently morally superior to that person that my theory of mind wouldn't even allow me to understand how somebody could vote for Donald Trump.

• 1:49:51Speaker 01

  Or do whatever.

• 1:49:52Chris Williamson?

  Yep, or Kamala Harris, or you support this, this perspective.

• 1:49:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's because they do. They feel this superiority of I'm obviously right. They're obviously wrong. How could they not see from my?

• 1:50:02Chris Williamson?

  Look at how right I am. I'm so right that they're essentially a different species in a different universe to me.

• 1:50:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:50:08Chris Williamson?

  It's like, you know what it makes me think about? It makes me think about empathy. So we're talking about the ability to feel and understand somebody else's emotions. But this is, a lot of people are able to do that, like type one empathy, we could call it. Uh, I can feel and understand your emotions whilst not having type two empathy, which is understanding how you arrived at your perspective.

• 1:50:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:50:31Chris Williamson?

  And believing that you arrived there too.

• 1:50:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:50:34Chris Williamson?

  You know, like, and I think a lot of the time people stop, type one empathy is similar to anger. There are a whole bunch of people who are kind of infected with empathy. There's an entire book, Paul Bloomrook, called Against Empathy. It's like, well, you shouldn't have it. He optimizes for something else, but

• 1:50:52Chris Williamson?

  it's funny to think about how you might be able to feel somebody else's emotions, either by choice or not by choice. But it's much harder to say, I understand why they arrived at that perspective. I understand how they arrived, even if I don't hold it myself. It's a different kind of.

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:10Chris Williamson?

  Maybe empathy is the wrong word, but it feels like a symmetry between those two things.

• 1:51:14Speaker 01

  Even when you share your opinion on something, the way we typically share it is very guarded. Because we're kind of gauging, if it's a new opinion or something, you don't know if the room's going to be friendly to it. You might, for example, hedge, you might try and add a lot to show this is a justified opinion. You have lots of evidence for it. So we, we come at it. Already from a very defensive position because we say this is my opinion, which I feel very special and this is my treasured opinion. And I'm going to do anything I can to protect it. So if you come at it with a different opinion that's unlike mine. Well, okay, how can I make sure that I preserve what I believe to the exclusion of what you believe? And so how do I do that? It's like juries and confirmation bias or all kinds of different sympathies that we have of,

• 1:51:59Speaker 01

  we usually stick with what we know first. And it takes a lot of time and a lot of conversations for us to change that outlook. And so a lot of the times you'll have a jury or juror who makes up their decision within the first three minutes and then all they're doing is filtering all the evidence that comes forward. If you know anybody that hears an opinion or a bad thing that's happened in the news about somebody political and they go, oh, well, they probably just, and they totally dismiss it. And because like we said, facts and evidence don't matter.

• 1:52:29Chris Williamson?

  Why do you think modern culture is so obsessed with being right, winning debates?

• 1:52:37Speaker 01

  Because what of, what is our worth if we're not right? If, because we, nobody thinks that they're on the side of wrong. Nobody goes into something thinking that they're the enemy or they're thinking about it the wrong way. Nobody wants to go, I'm thinking about this the wrong way. Yes, I am. And they just stick with that. They all think that they have their own way about it. And so I think we're obsessed about it because what value does one derive from if we don't feel that we're walking in accordance of either good or evil?

• 1:53:06Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I've had a lot of communication experts on talking about detecting deception. What's realistic and true about working out whether someone's lying to you or not?

• 1:53:17Speaker 01

  Evidence. I mean, if you don't, yeah.

• 1:53:20Chris Williamson?

  Like a fucking true trial lawyer.

• 1:53:22Speaker 01

  No, yeah, a nerd. Yeah. Yeah, let's say you don't have that. Let's say you don't have that. I think I, it is very hard. There are people who are excellent liars. I would say that liars cannot, they love rebuttals, they hate silence. And so if they've said something that's a lie and you allow that to sit, or you say, I need to come back to this, that, that feeling of not being able to accept it. Here's a cue that tells you if really somebody is lying. It's that they can't stand that you don't believe them. People who are telling the truth know it's the truth.

• 1:54:06Speaker 01

  And if you don't believe it, then, well, okay, I'm at peace because I'm telling the truth. But those who know that it's a lie usually will have this unproportional response of, how dare you not possibly believe me and how could you? Rather than having the confidence of the truth is the truth. Like, the truth needs no excuse, right? And so it's this element of those that are probably not saying all of the truth, show up in ways that are, they're going to question you. They're going to ask you what you think they should be doing. What do you think I'd, if I wasn't here, what do you think I was doing?

• 1:54:48Speaker 01

  You tell me what you think, usually question it, like a very basic question of, were you, you know, did you drink new tonic? Like, did I drink new tonic? Like, you've.

• 1:54:57Chris Williamson?

  The answer is always yes.

• 1:54:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, the answer is always yes, you did, of course. I'm just, I'm fueling my focus. And, and so they question it, they get upset about it, and they usually won't let it go. Because they, they want, they would rather harm you than be honest.

• 1:55:16Chris Williamson?

  Hmm, yeah, that makes sense. It's almost like, uh, it's almost like somebody is trying to lay down. It's similar to anger. It's reminding me the same of this outsized response.

• 1:55:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:55:32Chris Williamson?

  This overly dramatic, well, how could you? The indignation that comes with that. I can see times, I can imagine a lot of times where it goes, what do you mean? Yes, that thing happened. Yes, how do you not see it? Because indignation is a useful tool, right? Because it actually mirrors what you would do if you were telling the truth. So it's like, I really wasn't doing that thing. But, I mean.

• 1:55:58Speaker 01

  I find that indignation is very much related to fear. Like, it's all tied to something of I'm not enough, I'm not being believed, I have no I have no worth, what am I doing? And so it goes back to that idea of the truth is a truth for me. You can choose to take it or choose to not, but I can't, I can't make you believe that. But I know what I'm living with, and I'm living with a clear conscience here. And should you not believe it, that's your choice. But the ones who are not being fully honest, they know that they're not, and they know what they're living with, and they know what's true and what's not true. And usually, some little bit of signs is they'll start to question it and they have this very unregulated response.

• 1:56:42Chris Williamson?

  Ruptures hurt relationships a lot. What does gold standard repair look like to you? How do people come back together after an argument?

• 1:56:53Speaker 01

  This is big.

• 1:56:56Speaker 01

  My wife and I, we have kind of set up, we did this a few weeks ago, of like a system of, for us as a couple, how best can I show up for her and she show up for me when it comes to repair?

• 1:57:12Chris Williamson?

  You've been together for 15 years.

• 1:57:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, but still, even, dude, it's, it's, wait, just wait, all right? It has, time means nothing.

• 1:57:20Chris Williamson?

  I just assumed, given your professional career, that this might have been a year, three or four or five thing.

• 1:57:26Speaker 01

  What do you think I learned all of this? Because I made a lot of mistakes, man. Yeah, this is all part of, it's either, you know this information or any information, either because you learned at a great personal cost and risk, or you're just making it up. And like, I've learned all this because of my life experience.

• 1:57:44Chris Williamson?

  Research is me such, as they say.

• 1:57:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's exactly right. And so, yeah, we've done smatterings of things, but we decided to actually put something down. And I'd said, the number one thing you have to do to kind of come back from an argument is number one, ownership. You need to own what you said or own what you did. It's the element of I did that. I said this, not trying to, look, I did this because you did. That, that's, that gets no points, zero score. That doesn't, doesn't help you at all when you start to, you know, well, if you hadn't have said this, I wouldn't have like, that's toxic and that's no good. If it's a full, you gotta take it on the chin, ownership. Hey, what I said?

• 1:58:30Speaker 01

  Not cool. What I said, I own that, I did say this and it's a true apology.

• 1:58:36Speaker 01

  And then you have to too, go into this element of acknowledgement and affirmation, meaning

• 1:58:46Speaker 01

  I can only imagine that that made you feel hurt, that made you feel upset, that made you feel less than, that made you question, you know, my, my feelings, whatever it is, you have to kind of feel the feelings from their perspective of what you would assume. You probably

• 1:58:59Chris Williamson?

  Emotional state.

• 1:59:00Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It, this, this, I imagine that they made you feel like this, or of course you'd be upset about this. I could, why wouldn't you be upset about that? Yeah, I said something big. And then three, it's the element of we're still a team. I'm still working towards this. You kind of have to have this element of hope where it's, we're gonna still continue to work this out. We're gonna continue to get better at this. You gotta, you gotta keep working through it. And it's depending on what you did, there's gotta be apologies, of course.

• 1:59:34Chris Williamson?

  I wonder why the most relationship failure is just bad communication. Obviously there's incompatibilities, there's fundamental, fundamental problems that are insurmountable. There's a line from Visakhkanth Verasamy, he calls it the divorce paradox. Says, why is it that so many people separate from someone who seemed to be their favorite person? And it's because bad times are a far better predictor of relationship longevity than good times are. It's how you deal with disagreement, not how you enjoy wonder that determines relationship longevity. Very few people have ended a relationship. Because there were insufficient peak moments when you compare them to the number of people who've ended relationships because there were far too many bad ones.

• 2:00:20Chris Williamson?

  Too much rupture without repair as opposed to too little skydiving with a parachute.

• 2:00:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I I believe that the quality of the relationship

• 2:00:32Speaker 01

  doesn't depend on how good are the good times. It's can you be with them through the the bad times?

• 2:00:37Chris Williamson?

  How good are the bad times?

• 2:00:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. The hard, the really hard conversations because that's those are invitations to grow deeper together, to bond more, to get closer together, to be known, to be fully known with that person. You don't get that in the first few dates. You get that in the 15 year knock down, drag out, who am I, what am I doing conversations? That's where you get to see really what's what's there inside. I mean, you you have to find the bottom to know what's how far you can go up.

• 2:01:08Chris Williamson?

  What have you come to believe about choosing a good partner?

• 2:01:11Speaker 01

  That is hard work. Doesn't matter, even if you're somebody who talks about communication, or you're somebody for however long you've been married, it's it's hard work. I I don't know anybody that has been in a long term relationship or finding their person. Of course, you want somebody who you can be a friend with, and you can buy somebody you can be vulnerable with. But more importantly, you need to have somebody that you communicate well with. If you don't have communication right, to me, that's a that's a relationship that's not going to have longevity to it because it feels good in the moment, but in your six, your seven, your

• 2:01:56Speaker 01

  10, you had kids into the mix, that didn't help conversation. It's it puts conversation problems on steroids. Now every little fissure and crack gets highlighted and it's more stress. And then you've got kids' schedules and somebody's got soccer practice and somebody has a dentist appointment. And then things just get it's it's way, way harder in that element. And so you have to have somebody who communicates well with you. And honestly, Chris, somebody who can put up with your ugly, somebody who because you're going to have those just moments where. It's not a good look, just not a good look.

• 2:02:30Chris Williamson?

  It wasn't me at my best.

• 2:02:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And, and they know that. They, they're not going to punish you for it. They know it wasn't. And they're going to choose that their love is big enough for that bad moment. And know that it's not always going to be that bad moment. But at the same time, they're going to expect you to come out of it and go,

• 2:02:51Speaker 01

  yeah, I could handle that better. Not blame them for your bad moment.

• 2:02:56Chris Williamson?

  What's the most fascinating thing about being a trial lawyer that you've learned after spending so much time in it? That people from outside of your industry don't know or don't understand?

• 2:03:08Speaker 01

  It's different in the sense of you're having to have, like, you know, the movie Inception?

• 2:03:15Chris Williamson?

  Difficult.

• 2:03:15Speaker 01

  Okay, like, who doesn't? It's, it's like you're, you're having a conversation within a conversation. I'm having to prove a point within a point. And so I am hired to have problems with somebody I don't have problems with. Right? And all of a sudden, their problems have now become mine. And now I'm advocating on their behalf. I'm being their voice. And now this other person's hired somebody to have problems with me. Right? And so it's now attorneys arguing, secondhand removed from the people who are actually in the conflict. And then now I'm going to present this case to 12 people and a judge in a courtroom

• 2:03:58Speaker 01

  of what case should be left standing. Now, it depends on the facts and the case and everything else. But you're having to have a conversation that is not even being said. For example, as soon as you walk into the courtroom, all eyes are on you. If you hear a piece of evidence that's bad for you and I go,

• 2:04:20Speaker 01

  What does that tell the jury? You go, oh, this must be really bad for them. But if I stay calm and controlled as if like, yeah, I expected to hear that. Doesn't doesn't hit that way.

• 2:04:31Chris Williamson?

  Regardless of whether you did or not.

• 2:04:32Speaker 01

  Exactly. And then even when I've seen this a lot where if anybody's been in jury, they've seen attorneys approach the bench. Counsel approach the bench and they come up and they usually play some kind of noise. White noise, something to where you can't hear what the judges and the attorneys are saying.

• 2:04:49Chris Williamson?

  No way.

• 2:04:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:04:50Chris Williamson?

  Oh, that's funny.

• 2:04:51Speaker 01

  And so.

• 2:04:51Chris Williamson?

  They should put some tunes on instead.

• 2:04:53Speaker 01

  They really should.

• 2:04:53Chris Williamson?

  Play some Cardi B or something.

• 2:04:55Speaker 01

  I think that would be, that'd be pretty bother. That would be pretty cool.

• 2:04:58Chris Williamson?

  You're rough there and you're like.

• 2:04:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, just some Kendrick. Yeah. And so. You you're talking and they always say it's they watch who leaves and the reaction of the attorneys. Because usually the judge is ruling on something that the jury can't hear on some, it's a matter of law. That would sway the case. And if the attorney is walking away defeated, they go, oh, something must have happened. Or if the attorney is always objecting, that's the worst. You have to be really selective with your objections. So let's say a witness is about to say something and I, it seems like it'd be something big and I have seen up and I object. And the judge sustains it and they skip to the testimony, they go, oh, he. He's hiding something from me. He must not want me to know everything. So what is this? What am I teaching?

• 2:05:45Speaker 01

  I'm saying you are, you, you are having a conversation all with your body language, your whole presence, how calm and controlled you are. How can you be the most credible in the room without have nothing to do with the actual facts of the case? And you do that a lot by being the person who they go, that person's telling me the truth. That's the truth teller. I can tell by how confident, controlled, measured they are. They don't seem like they're worried and anxious about every little thing the witness is gonna say.

• 2:06:14Chris Williamson?

  Which is interesting because that can be taught and engineered to a large margin. So it's just levels of deception that are more sophisticated than the levels of detection.

• 2:06:25Speaker 01

  And the thing is, it exists in every conversation, not just in the courtroom.

• 2:06:28Chris Williamson?

  I mean, dude, look at UFC fights and boxing fights that go the distance.

• 2:06:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:32Chris Williamson?

  Both fighters put their hand up.

• 2:06:33Speaker 01

  Right. Oh, yeah, exactly. At the very end.

• 2:06:36Chris Williamson?

  It's the exact same as you walking away from the bench. You might as well, you might actually next time, do this for me.

• 2:06:41Speaker 01

  Let's do that.

• 2:06:41Chris Williamson?

  See if it works.

• 2:06:42Speaker 01

  Let's, I'll try it.

• 2:06:42Chris Williamson?

  Dude, if it works, I that.

• 2:06:44Speaker 01

  I'll give you all the credit.

• 2:06:45Chris Williamson?

  Thank you. That's, that's good. Okay, so.

• 2:06:49Chris Williamson?

  Lots of different techniques around communication. At least for me, the main thing that the main thing that I'm taking away, or one of the main things I'm taking away is a degree of consideration for the other person. That seems to be like a real through line with a lot of what we're going on here that

• 2:07:07Chris Williamson?

  holding your ground, being assertive, and also being understanding about what what we're doing here.

• 2:07:16Chris Williamson?

  That kind of consideration is important. If there's one principle that people should hold on to when it comes to good interpersonal communication, what would it be?

• 2:07:30Speaker 01

  One conversation is typically not enough. You need a lot of them. Meaning we put a lot of pressure on one single conversation and that that increases the anxiety, increases the the fear of the moment that I'm going to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing. And you're putting hype on a conversation that didn't need to have that kind of hype on it. Because really, it should be the opposite. It should be a, hey, I'm talking to you about this because you matter a lot to me. And at the end of this, we're still going to be best friends and we're still gonna go to dinner together tonight and we're still gonna do X, Y, and Z. I just, because I love you, I need to tell you this. This was on my heart. You see, that's rather than me trying to push everything at once versus

• 2:08:16Speaker 01

  if I were to say,

• 2:08:19Speaker 01

  I like to, let's say it's a big, big important thing that needs to take some time. I'd like to have a conversation with you over the next few weeks. I'd like to have a conversation

• 2:08:29Speaker 01

  over this month to talk about X, Y, and Z. Whenever you say that this is a conversation that's going to take some time, it automatically lowers everybody's anxiety rather than you having to decide, this is the moment right here, choose to be with me, not be with me. What are we doing? What are we not doing? It it hypes that what if I get it wrong feeling? And there's a lot of times there's more conversation that that needs to be had. Another I'd say is it's it's that element of having something to learn, not something to prove. When you feel like you have to

• 2:09:04Speaker 01

  Prove my point. People who have something to prove are the ones that always have to push their opinion. How dare you believe what you believe and not what I, how dare you have an idea that's not mine and go with something else versus questioning in a very curious way. That's like you said, which I like is that perspective seeking. How can I, how can I encourage the pursuit of perspective? Yeah. How can I get really disciplined on knowing where your thoughts come from? Where did you learn it? How long have you believed it? Where did that originate? That's something you taught yourself or is that something you came across from really hardship?

• 2:09:49Speaker 01

  And the more you give people time to share with that, the more they're going to open up to you and realize you are a safe place for to share these kinds of things and not harden up.

• 2:10:02Chris Williamson?

  Dude, you're great. Let's bring this one home. Appreciate the heck out of you. Where should people go to check out everything that you've got going on?

• 2:10:07Speaker 01

  You can go to Jefferson Fisher dot com or social media Jefferson Fisher.

• 2:10:11Chris Williamson?

  Beautiful. Thanks, man. Danny's Cheesecake Factory. What do you think?

• 2:10:13Speaker 01

  Let's, yeah, let's do that. So I think, um, you go Outback? You go Outback?

• 2:10:17Chris Williamson?

  Steakhouse?

• 2:10:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:19Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:10:20Speaker 01

  Okay, like a lemon onion or something?

• 2:10:21Chris Williamson?

  Cool. All right. Goodbye, everybody.

• 2:10:25Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 2:10:27Speaker 04

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