Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - The Art of Communication: How to Stay Calm, Connected and In Control During Life’s Toughest Moments with Jefferson Fisher #571

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

Most of us spend our lives in conversation - yet very few of us are ever taught how to communicate well. Whether it’s with our partners, colleagues, family or friends, we often assume that being heard is the same as being understood. But true communication isn’t just about the words we use - it’s about the tone, timing and energy behind them. This week’s guest believes that better communication can transform not only our relationships, but our health and happiness as well.  Jefferson Fisher is a trial lawyer, a sought after public speaker and the author of the brand new book, The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More. In this conversation, we explore: Why good communication is about more than just words The three essential principles to better communication How to shift from reaction to reflection by making your first word your breath What it means to “control the moment” How to use the “I can tell…” framework to defuse tension  Why silence can be a superpower, when used correctly How ego, fear and unspoken emotion are often the real reason for arguments This isn’t just an episode about talking. It’s about how to listen better, show up with more intention, and move from conflict to connection – one breath, one moment, one conversation at a time. I hope you enjoy listening. Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com.   Thanks to our sponsors: https://drinkag1.com/livemore https://timeline.com/livemore https://join.whoop.com/livemore http://www.vivobarefoot.com/livemore   Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/571   DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

Whenever you set out to win an argument, you lower the quality and connection of that relationship. What you've really won, instead of trying to win the argument, you look to unravel them. You find the knots in the conversation and get really quick and really proficient at loosening them. Hey guys, how are you doing? I hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr. Rongan Chatterjee and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Live More.

When was the last time an email landed the wrong way? Or you had a disagreement with your partner or friends? Or you had to have a difficult conversation at work. You see, most of us spend a huge part of our lives communicating, yet very few of us are ever taught how to communicate well. But have you ever considered that communicating better could improve every aspect of your life, not just your relationships, but also your health and happiness. This week's guest is Jefferson Fisher. Jefferson is a trial lawyer, a sought after public speaker, and the author of the brand new book, The Next Conversation, Argue Less, Talk More.

In our conversation, we explore why good communication is about more than just words, the three essential principles to better communication, how to shift from reaction to reflection by making your first word your breath, what it means to control the moment, how to use the I can tell framework to diffuse tension, why silence can be a superpower when used correctly, and how ego, fear and unspoken emotion are often the real reason for arguments. Whether it's with our partners, colleagues, family or friends, we often assume that being heard is the same as being understood. But as you'll soon learn, what people say is only the tip of the iceberg. So this is not just a conversation about talking. It's about

how to listen better, show up with more intention, and move from conflict to connection, one breath, one moment, and one conversation at a time. In your view, what are some of the common things that get in the way of people communicating effectively? Mmm, a lot. The number one would be they assume that what is said is what was received in that instance. So if I were to tell you something and we felt this in relationships, we felt this at work,

you send a message and they hear and they feel something very different. Maybe in an email you wrote something and all of a sudden they go, why are you mad at me? You go, I'm not mad. Or you're talking and somebody says, why are you yelling? You go, I'm not yelling. Or I'm not upset. And so we feel these instances where

what we thought we said is not as what is received on the other end. So there's that kind of miscommunication. Now there's also just the difficultness of being open and receptive in the moment, or we don't want to listen. So we're the ones not wanting to receive anything. We're the ones that are getting defensive. And on top of that, we often feel that conversation,

especially disagreements, instantly become a competition where we want to win, we want to dominate, we want to compete. And those are recipes for a bad conversation real quick. Yeah. You know, it's interesting, the last couple of days, I've gone deep into all of your online content and your wonderful new book and you've got great information to share. But it's not just what you're sharing, it's how you're sharing it. There's a calmness, there's a friendliness.

And I think, going back to what you said about what are the obstacles to good communication, basically what you're hearing is the tip of the iceberg. There's something going on beneath that. Yes, the person you see is often Basically what you're hearing is the tip of the iceberg. There's something going on beneath that. Yes. The person you see is often not the person you're talking to. Meaning, I'm talking to you right here, but I don't know the struggles you're having.

I don't know if you had a difficult time this morning with the wife or the kids or anybody. And that's the same for anybody we meet. And how we talk to them in that moment, how we hear them in that moment, often is a reflection of a lot of other influences rather than just saying, how dare they say that to me? Without ever questioning, why would they say that? Where is this coming from?

There's always a surface and a depth to anybody. Yeah. Your personal story deeply fascinates me. So I wonder if you could tell me about eight year old Jefferson and that weekend when you fell asleep with beef built on in your hands. Yeah. So I am a fifth generation trial attorney and I'm talking my great grandfather was a federal judge his father was an attorney Grandfather was a DA County attorney dad's an attorney. I have cousins great uncles cousins. You name it trial attorneys

I mean, there are people I know that have lots of doctors in their family. There's not a doctor in our family There's nobody I mean mean, we can't, we couldn't build a shed to help our lives. You know what I mean? So all we do is know how to blow hot air. And yeah, so that's, I grew up in that kind of lifestyle. So every year we go on a trip and I was the oldest of my generation.

So I was the first great grandson of the judge. And of course, when you're there, it's you don't be talking, don't, it's still the men's retreat here. So it was much better if I was just quiet, which I had no problem. I was just- That's the first one you'd been invited to.

Yeah, that's the first one I was invited to. And I thought I was on top of the world. I mean, I thought I was so big. I thought I was so grown. It was about a seven and a half hour car ride with my dad, which that in and of itself was the most alone time I'd ever had with my dad. Wow.

And so being able to have that, because always my siblings, as an oldest child and having siblings, you never really had one-on-one time with your parents. And so to have that trip with him, those are some of also my very, very special memories. And getting there, being in that space, yeah, I like to say,

I thought I was called up to the big leagues. I mean, I thought I couldn't have been more of a big kid. And you were eight. I was eight. I was eight. And so I will never forget the first night we're there. And I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if we're going to turn on the TV.

I don't even know what was going to happen. So we're eating dinner and then we're all in this main room. It was kind of a combined kitchen and living room space. And I'm in the corner, just eating my, I get you called it, we call it beef jerky. Okay. Yeah. And I'll never forget my grandfather, my dad's dad,

just kind of sat down his plate and goes, not too long ago, I was having this guy who came over and this client of mine, and he starts telling a story. And I just remember stopping and going, oh, he's telling a story. Okay, I'm kind of listening. This is the first experience I've ever had of that. And then everybody at the punchline erupts in laughter.

And then somebody else, another cousin, you know, I had this another client, there's one time, or one time I had this case, or one time I was in front of this judge and he said, and they start telling stories. And it was courtroom story after courtroom story. And I'm just in awe. I mean, it felt like I had seen a magic show.

It was like going to the movies for the very first time of like, what is this? And in some sense, it felt like, as these are all family, these are all fishers and I'm going, oh, this is my life, this is my inheritance, this is my family, this is, and it immediately became that a part of our identity

as a family was the storytelling, this advocacy of using their voice. And they're wonderful storytellers, all trial attorneys. And so to be able to just see that as a young kid, I mean, that's all they did every night was tell stories. Yeah, I think you say something really powerful in the introduction about that weekend. Yeah, here it is.

I realized with each year gone by that law was only the family profession. Communication was the true family passion. I found that just so evocative. You paint that beautiful story in the introduction and I was trying to imagine you in this old building and just you all gathered around and your eyes just in awe with your granddad in awe, is your granddad's, was it your granddad, your great granddad? It was my great grandfather first and then eventually was my great grandfather

but they all just traded stories and it was, you know how in certain styles of music, every instrument kind of takes a turn, right? Of like a solo, maybe in jazz and lots of different styles of bluegrass. It was very much like that. Everybody kind of began to share their own story and it became natural.

It was without pauses and it was still laughter. And it was, I've never experienced that just eyes opening wonder of seeing that. Looking back now as a successful trial lawyer, as a successful podcaster, as a bestselling author, what do you think that weekend taught you? It taught me the magic and power of words in a way I've never felt or seen before

of how one word can really shift an entire outcome. You've ever heard somebody tell a joke and it was simply the way they told it, just wasn't that funny? But you have other people who could retell that same joke and maybe it's their timing, maybe it's their inflection, their tone, the way they can use their voice

like an artist would use a paintbrush that paints an entirely different picture. And there are great artists and there are artists that just, they couldn't draw you a house. And so it was a masterclass through every year that I went of the power of words and the art of communication and how you can capture people and create outcomes that lead to better things. Yeah.

Is communication something that is innate in human beings? All right, let's imagine human beings 500 years ago, a thousand years ago, 10,000 years ago. Is our ability to communicate one of the things that makes us human? And if so, why is it today so many for struggle and hence need a book like yours to teach us how to do it. Communication is what creates the connection in humans. You can communicate with words, you can communicate with no words. You might have the absence of sound, but that's not always the absence of communication.

I say that our ability communicates what separates us. And I have a show, this is probably my guilty pleasure show. When I'm reading, I like to have something on and it's the show alone on Netflix. It's like they send people out to the wilderness out in Alaska or something and just see how long they can do. And these people who have survival skills that can last for months out there if they want,

but they always tap out, meaning they go, I don't wanna be here anymore. Not because they don't have the ability, it's because they miss humans. They miss the sound of other humans, the people in their life. Even people that they may not even have that great of a relationship with when they left, they start to miss.

They start to, we're not meant to be alone. It's not healthy. It is not good. It wasn't good for man to be alone. It's not good for humans to be alone. And I feel very compelled in that the words that you use is what's determinative of the life you want to lead. If you wanna change, if you're listening,

you go, I don't really like where I'm at in life right now. You can change it. And you don't need to buy a new software. You don't need to have a new company slogan. It is just the decision to have a new conversation with yourself and with others. You choose the words you want to choose the life that you want to lead. It really just begins with the power of what you say.

Yeah. You say you can change any relationship at any moment by changing the way that you communicate. Yeah. Okay. And I really love the idea that it's about that next conversation. Just change the next conversation. Don't worry about the one next week or next month. Just focus on the next conversation.

Now your book has these three core principles of how we can communicate better and have better conversations, right? Say it with control, say it with confidence and say it to connect. Can you go through those three things step by step and help us understand what exactly they mean and also how we can start to apply them when we're having conversations? Rule one is say it with control. And what that is in a nutshell is rather than trying to control the other person when you're having a difficult conversation, which is typically the default.

That's our gut urge is to control you. Where you actually find success is controlling yourself. So instead of trying to control them, what you do is control yourself. That's gonna begin always a better conversation too, is saying it with confidence, meaning how to find your assertive voice. People often feel like confidence is something

they need to have before the conversation. They're saying, well, I'm kind of working up the confidence to say this, that's wrong. Confidence is not what you have before the conversation. Confidence is the outcome. It's a feeling. It's the same thing if I said, hey, look, I need you to be sad right now,

sad as you've ever been with me right now. There wouldn't be anything to trigger that, to force that. Or if I said, I need you to be mad right now, there's nothing to do that. But if I were to hit you in the shoulder out of nowhere, you might be, now you can be mad. Why? Because it came from something. How you create the confidence is using your assertive voice.

So I teach confidence is as assertive does. Three, rule three is you say it to connect. Connection is two components. There's understanding and acknowledgement. I can understand you if you say something, but if I don't acknowledge you, you're not gonna feel connected to me. The same time, if I can acknowledge you,

but I don't really understand it, I'm not gonna connect with you. And so you have to have these two components of understanding and creating connection in conversation by saying what you mean and meaning what you say. Yeah. You know, as you were describing control there, for me looking at it a different way, it was internal

the external, right? So in general in life, we have limited control on externalities. We've got a lot more control on what's going on internally, right? And therefore, if we apply that to what you just said, you know, if you're trying to control somebody else or manipulate what they say, right, you're, you know, that is actually outside your control. Now you may argue that if you can communicate well and calmly and in a grounded fashion, you are actually influencing what they say, which is very clear from your work. But I love the idea that it's about gaining control over ourselves.

Because I guess another way of looking at it, or I'd love your perspective on this, is it's clear to me that we see the world through the state of our nervous system. Right? So if we're stressed, we're going to interpret emails a certain way. Right? we're going to interpret emails a certain way. So people, for example, if they've had a well rested weekend, where they've not worked and they've switched off and they've done whatever with their family, they can read an email on Monday morning

and be pretty calm when they read it. They could read that same email on a Friday afternoon after a busy week at work and interpret the email completely differently. The email hasn't changed. What's changed is the state of their nervous system. And I kind of feel that applies to communication whereby you're going to communicate and you do write about this. You're going to communicate in a way that reflects the state of your nervous system. So if you're busy, stressed, tired, that unless you have a high degree of self-awareness, it's gonna come out through your voice.

So that thing about control, it's like this is about self-awareness and controlling ourselves, right? Right. It is this sense of anytime we have disagreement, have that friction, the dissonance in a conversation, we quickly return to this state of competition. We wanna win and we see it as a threat.

Any little opinion that is different from our own, our body likes to treat it as a threat. We go, no, no, no, no, that's not, they need to agree with me. Because if not, then it doesn't feel comfortable. If not, then it feels like they're trying to undermine me. They're saying I'm wrong. I don't like to be wrong, I'm not wrong.

And we start to try and control that narrative. No, no, no, I need to say something so compelling that you're gonna have to agree with me. Or I'm gonna say something that is so snappy, so clap back, so powerful that you're gonna go, oh my gosh, you're so right. How could I ever imagine any other opinion than the one that you have?

And so we try and force that. That's where we go wrong, is we try and force and control that conversation. Instead, when you start to control yourself, you also sound like you're in control. And those who sound like they're in control are the ones that are listened to and the ones that lead is the ones that have the calm energy

that people will go, I don't know what they have, but I like it. That sounds more reasonable. That's what's wild to me is you say, what sounds reasonable? It's typically the person who just sounds with their voice more reasonable versus somebody who... The words matter far less to me than the way that you sound

and the way that you make people feel. That's the heart of the communication. Yeah. Now, what you just said was super powerful, right? So I imagine some people are going to hear that and be thinking about the last disagreement they had with their partner or their spouse, right? That's often where people go to all their parents, whatever it might be, right? And what I love about how you teach this in this chapter is you talk about this three-step process, right? Your first word is your breath, your first thought

is a quick scan and your first conversation is a small talk. Can we focus a little bit on breathing through the lens of conflicts and communication and the importance of the breath when we're communicating? Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to the brand new formulation of AG1, who are one of the sponsors of today's show. Yes, you heard it correctly. AG1, the daily health drink that has been in my own life for over six years now, has updated and improved its formulation based upon the latest science. And to celebrate, they are giving my audience a very special, exclusive summer offer.

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And of course, the most important levers we can pull are those to do with food, movement, sleep and relaxation. But I do think that there are certain supplements out there that can play a useful role. What I really like about this company is their dedication to ongoing research, including randomised control trials in humans, many of which you can see on their homepage. Some of the potential benefits of taking Mitopur include increased strength, energy, endurance, and a slowing down of the aging process. If you do have the resources, I think that Mitopur is a supplement that is well worth considering.

I myself have been taking it for several months now. And for listeners of my podcast, Timeline is offering 25% off your Might Appeal order. To take advantage, go to timeline.com livemore. That's T-I-M-E-L-I-N-E dot com forward slash live more. Anybody who's listening and loves your podcast, which you have an amazing podcast, by the way, is that the breath, they're familiar with that. They know the benefits of it. What I'm going to encourage them to do is understand the benefits of your, your actual conversation, how you can use the breath in your communication to lead to better outcomes.

What happens in disagreements is we tend to hold our breath. In fact, I would even be willing to say that a lot of people hold their breath more than they think. They might be very stressed out, maybe they're overwhelmed at work, they're scrolling through emails, listening to, you might be listening to us right now while you're driving and you're worried about your workday

and you're holding your breath without you thinking about it. What happens, it puts you in a low grade state of anxiety. You might all of a sudden go, you realize, oh, I'm not breathing. And your body's telling you that you're feeling like you're drowning in some sense, because in a way you are kind of suffocating yourself. Well, breath and communication slows things down.

If you wanna control the moment, if you wanna sound like you have more control and you wanna have more better control over the outcome and the influence of it, let your breath be the first word that you say. Meaning wherever your first word would be in your response. Let's say you said something to me that I didn't like, or really it could be anything,

but something that's gonna require actual thought, something above just the casual, how's it going, what's going on. We often just feel like I have to have that rapid response. I need to be right there, I need to step on the end of your sentence and I need to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Where the actual power is, is where the first word would be.

I put a breath in its place. Why? Because it gives us time. When you slow things down, it controls the moment more. Which one sounds like somebody who's someone who you want to listen to and follow? Somebody who says, reacts and goes, look, I already told you, I'm not going to do that.

I already told you, I'm not going to do that. Same words. Yeah. Which one sounds like somebody you don't want to mess with? Which is one somebody who sounds like, you know, I could follow that guy or girl. I could follow this person. This is somebody who sounds balanced, grounded and control. Yeah.

There's a gravitas. Absolutely. Yeah. The first voice sounds like I'm grasping for control. I need it. Give it to me. I'm not in control. I need it.

The other person sounds like, no, no, no, no. I have, I've never lost it. I'm right here. This also speaks to nonverbal communication, doesn't it? Because it's, it's what is the energy that I'm giving off as I'm having this conversation? Because people respond to energy, don't they? They respond to stress. Like people, you know, humans are a social species. We, we can mirror what's going on around us. Our nervous systems kind of respond to the nervous systems of the people around us. And so, you know, when you're able to, I guess, master your nervous system, you know, maybe mass

is too strong. I mean, if you can, amazing, at least gain some degree of control over it. Your communication is automatically going to get better. Yes, because you never get emotionally flooded. I mean, we've had these arguments with people in our life, typically the ones we love most, where they become shouting matches. And to where you're shouting, and you don't even really know what you're saying at some point, it doesn't matter if it's logical or not.

It doesn't matter if it makes sense. You just know you're reacting because there's a threat. You either want to, I mean, that's why our fists clench, because your body's ready to swing. You may not throw a punch, but you're gonna say a hurtful word. You want it to cut, you want that word to sting. Same thing, or people who want to,

if you've been on the phone and somebody just hangs up while you're talking, they instantly wanna leave the room. That's the flight. You find that in every conversation that you have. And the person that controls their nervous system, which to me is the number one way to do that in conversation is your breath, because it slows things down.

It keeps the analytical side engaged, you know this. And a lot of your listeners, of course, know this. It is something that can improve their conversation because it never sounds like you're lost and never sounds like you're unsure of yourself or that you're grasping or desperate or that you've lost your sense of control. And I'm very curious, I'll be asking you as a doctor,

a lot of the doctor friends that I have, they see things as kind of this triage of like, if then, if this of like a bunch of, at least this is my very simplistic version of it. They see it as kind of the roots of a tree of how if you can't go here, you go here, you're finding the symptoms. Do you find that kind of mentality helpful in communication or hurtful in communication? Because I know doctors that some are good at conversation.

There are others that are not at all. Yeah. I mean, there's a couple of ways to answer that, Jefferson. So firstly, one of the things that I really resonated with when reading your book is you saying that in law school, you don't really learn how to communicate. You learn the rules of law, but not actually how to do it in real life. And my wife, who, when I met her, was a criminal barrister in London, she said the same thing here. They don't teach you actually how to do it,

how to be a good advocate in the courtroom. You gotta figure that's about yourself. The same thing in medicine. I don't think they really teach us how to be a good communicator, you know? And I think some doctors are pretty poor at communicating. Some are exceptional, right? Yeah, everyone's passed their medical school exams.

Right. But everyone's smart. Yeah. Yeah. By those metrics, but not everyone can, I guess, communicate effectively or influence their patients positively because of their communication skills. Right. So when you were talking about this sort of flow charts,

I don't know if that's in terms of communication or to get to a diagnosis. Yes, diagnosis. Diagnosis. So my view on medicine is perhaps a little bit different. Okay. So I think one of the problems with the way we practice medicine,

especially given the health landscape of the countries around the world today is that, you know, too much of what we're taught about is literally what are the symptoms, what bucket can we get them into so we can make the diagnosis. Once we've got the diagnosis, we can get onto the treatments. And the treatment is usually, not always, but usually pharmaceutical medications. Today 80 to 90% of what we see in medicine is related to our collective modern lifestyles. So what I'm interested in most when I have someone I'm talking to about the health is what is going on in their life? What are their behaviors? What are their lifestyle habits that are resulting in those current symptoms? And if I can accurately identify that and help them change it, I'm

going to help them relieve a variety of different symptoms. Does that make sense so far? It does, because what I hear you saying is there is the tendency to only address the symptoms, not address the causes. I feel it very much the same. So we're at a wonderful point in time, and it's a wonderful time to be alive, of that we're starting to realize,

hey, we're only addressing the symptoms of things. I'm not addressing the causes of things. Same in communication, symptoms of communication sound like, I don't understand you. Why would you say that to me? And we're only yelling, we're only shouting, we're only saying things, or the symptom could be, oh, I'm so sorry, no, no, no, that's okay,

you just tell me, and I just feel like, no, no, no, and they're being extra polite, they're being people pleasers, they're either being super aggressive or they're being completely deferential. One says, I don't respect you, the other says, I don't respect myself. And they're both symptoms of the same type of thing

of the cause is really inherently what's going on behind the surface when you communicate. It's not that you left the dish in the sink. It never is. It never is. It's something that happened earlier that morning or something that happened the night before. It's hardly ever the issue.

My dad would teach me often, the issue is rarely the issue, is what he would tell me. It's not, your mom's not mad about this. She's mad because she's afraid of X, Y, and Z. That's what you're not hearing. And so when you can realize that a lot of the causes are fears, insecurities, things that happened long before they ever met you and walked in your door. Those are the causes to be addressed.

Yeah. I mean, it's just amazing to hear that you were getting taught that stuff by your father, right? Because yes, you're from a family of trial lawyers. It's kind of what you guys do. But the golden life, I believe in most things, is when you get behind the words, behind the symptoms. So I reflect on my entire medical career and I realized that from a very early stage in my career, I was always trying to read what was going on behind the words. So the patient comes in and they're saying certain things with their voice. And of course I'm listening and I'm interested

into the words that they're saying, but I was always interested more in what's behind these words. Why has this person ended up here today? Right. Right. This has been going on for years. What led them here? What has happened? That they've decided to take half a day off work,

wait in a reception area for like an hour when the doctor's running late, turn up. Why, why, why? The other thing I realized about communication is how often I would see one side of a patient. So the receptionists would say, Oh, this patient's really rude. That really, really pushing, right? Yeah. But when I was with them, they were lovely patient's really rude, that really, really pushing, right? But when I was with them, they were lovely. Interesting, isn't it? It really is.

I teach in communication. The number one mindset to have in communication is this, have something to learn, not something to prove. Meaning, instead of saying they have to agree with me, they have to hear my point, they have to say why I'm right. And they have to say that they're wrong rather than pushing that, rather than saying, I don't think you know who you're talking to.

Instead of that, something to learn says, huh, I wonder why they said that. I wonder what's going on. I wonder why would they have that reaction? These inner conversations you're having with yourself that's getting to the deeper meaning, the causes, the same type of similarities there. Yeah, so therefore for me, following on from that,

how often then do you think it's actually our egos that are getting in the way of our ability to communicate well? Ego is certainly part of it. I think our fear drives it more, right? And I think that can work in tandem. Fear that you are losing credibility, fear that you are falling behind, fear that you're falling behind, fear that you're not being respected in some sense. That's where the ego comes in.

I think a lot of it drives from the fear, which goes to the fight or flight. Again, and I'll, there's so many nuggets that I got taught, and I know that's a blessing for me and a gift to me. My dad, when I would come to him with problems, he would, and I mean this positively, I would complain about something and he'd go, so?

And I'd say, well, yep. And I'd start continuing to explain and he'd go, so? And I mean, it continued to push the, why does it matter? Why does it bother me? What does the end goal? Instead of him getting very upset with me and agreeing with me and you're so right, even if I was right about the issue,

why am I behaving this way? So why did they say this? Where did this come from? And so he was always find the so. So, so, so in terms of a patient, patient coming in, somebody's upset about something. Okay, you don't feel good? So what are you feeling about that?

Okay, so what are you wanting to do? So what is the outcome here? So what would make you feel best? You always continue to follow that chain and where it typically goes is some type of fear or insecurity. Yeah, it reminds me of something we got taught at medical school where someone comes in

with a certain problem or they're describing a certain problem or a symptom. But that's not really why they came in. And what often will happen, I don't know, a guy, a middle-aged guy will come in with a little, I don't know, mark on their leg or something, or a slight ankle sprain from playing sport or something. And you deal with it.

And then on the way out, as they're closing the door saying, bye, oh yeah, doc, you know, also I was just worried actually, my uncle once had a tumor in their bone, in their foot. You know, it's not that is it? Or whatever it might be. So the real reason they were there

is because they were worried they might have cancer. But for whatever reason, they didn't feel able to say that. They didn't, maybe they didn't want to say it. Maybe the doctor didn't create the right environment for them to say it, whatever, for whatever reason, they didn't feel able to say it. But on the way out, as you think you finish and you're going, you know, in your head,

you're just trying to, you know, make the notes. We want some of that space. It's kind of interesting, isn't it? Yeah, it is, it is. And it's, I find from the friends that I have that are doctors, they tell me that so many people just want to be told, you're okay. Yeah.

At the end of the day, they just, they have a fear and they, it's, oh, I, you know, I have this kind of pain in my arm and it comes and goes and am I okay? Am I gonna be all right? And it's the same way in communication. We find that, at least what I hear when I am having my conversations,

especially in my profession, you have people who say things and have certain opinions of things, and they just want to be told that's okay, even if I disagree. So let's say you and I are, we're at odds over an issue. And instead of me going, now, I don't, look, I don't get your opinion.

Like why in the world would you do, that's one way to handle it. Now what's gonna happen? I'm telling you, you're not okay. That's what I'm communicating in that conversation. But what if I started it with, Rangan, I don't need you to agree with me. You're free to disagree with me.

And I give you my point then. Now what's gonna happen? Now you're actually listening to what I said. Now you don't feel the pressure. Now you don't feel, now you're, what I'm communicating is you're okay, just as you are in this conversation. Your opinions, how you feel, totally okay.

I'm gonna tell you something of what I see. And that kind of stuff is going to instantly smooth things out rather than the feeling and telling them you're not okay in the conversation. That feeds the fear. Yeah. Man, it's so interesting this stuff. It's fun.

Yeah. It's really fun because, you know, going back to the start, why do I think the quality of our communication improves the quality of our life in every single aspect? Yeah. I think it's obvious to people intuitively, yeah, that's going to improve your relationships, right? Your relationship with your partner, with your work colleagues, if you can communicate better, clearly that will help your relationships.

But also make the case that it will help improve your health because, and again, I don't know if anyone's ever put this to you before, Jefferson, that your book may well be a health book. Okay. Awesome. I'll be a health book. Okay. Awesome. I'll be honored. Right. And I'll explain to you why I believe that to be the case. 80 to 90% of what we see these days as doctors is in some way related to our collective modern

lifestyles. Okay. So the natural sort of follow on from that is that if we can change the way that we are living with certain behaviors and habits, it's going to have an impact on our health. Right. But why is it that so many people, despite knowing that too much sugar, right, is not helping them, they still continue to do it? Everyone says you just need more knowledge.

Well, the knowledge is out there, right? Most people are trying to give up sugar or reduce their sugar intake, kind of know already that they should be doing that, right? Or a lot of people do. It's not necessarily more external knowledge they need. I believe they need more internal knowledge. So how does that relate to communication? Well, I believe using the example of sugar, that sugar is often used to help people cope with stress. What is one of the biggest sources of stress? Our relationships. What is one of the biggest problems with our relationships?

We are unable to communicate well, even with the people that we love. Right. Right, so I make the case, and I really, really do believe this strongly that, because that's the other thing about your book, right? If you don't know how to communicate well, I think the tools are going to help you start doing that. But there seems to be this very close relationship between our ability to regulate our nervous system and the way that we communicate. So yeah, you can either become a master in your nervous system and then hopefully that will naturally

lead to better communication, which I think can work. Or you can apply these tools, which will automatically help you regulate your nervous system better. Does that make sense? It does. Yeah. So if you want better health, instead of treating the symptoms, we're gonna treat the causes. One of the causes is the communication in your life. Exactly. Period. How, because if you ever question that, ask this question, have you ever had an argument with your spouse?

How do you perform that next day? And you haven't resolved that conflict yet. You're emotionally up and down. How do you sleep? Yeah, you don't. I mean, you just, yeah, poor sleep. How many times you've had bad conversations that have led to depression?

I'm talking not just communication with other people, we're talking communication within yourself, not the conversations you have externally. How do you talk to yourself? What's the communication that you have with yourself? That negative self-talk leads to a state of depression. It says, I am not worthy enough. I am less, I am hesitant.

I am an inconvenience to everybody. That is a place that is only going to lead you downwards. That all affects your health in some way. So I absolutely agree with this hypothesis that if you want a better health, if you want a better life, one of the causes of that is a better conversation. Yeah. Wow.

I love it. Done. I think we just wrap it up. It was a great podcast. It should be in there. We should put it in the health section of the bookstore now. There we go. Move it away from, I don't know, smart thinking, put it in the health section.

You have these powerful life lessons, okay, in the book for our communication. I want to go through some of them. Now, some of them you've kind of touched on already, but I'd love to go through some of these bit by bit to really get practical take homes for people. Okay. Now, one of the lessons is that silence is power. Right. Why? This episode is brought to you by Whoop. Now I've been wearing a Whoop band for about a

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Go to www.mooji.org. Go to www.mooji.org. Go to www.mooji.org. Go to www.mooji.org. Go to www.mooji.org. Go to www.mooji.org. Silence is not something that you can, somebody can create anything out of, so to speak. Silence gives you the power to choose, gives you options. Is this somebody I wanna talk to? Is this something I want to respond to? Is this something that's worth my time? Is this person worth my time?

The first thing to know about standing up for yourself is knowing is this person worth getting out of my chair for? It is silence that puts things on pause because you can't make me say anything I don't want to say. I can physically grab you and I can physically manipulate you, but I cannot do that with your words. I cannot force you to say something

without forcing you physically. Silence is your tool that you can have. And it's wonderful in the sense of you use it for difficult conversations, you use it for meaningful conversations. Let's say you're sharing something with me that's very deep and you've had a very hard day. I don't need to fix it. I just need to sit with you.

And in that silence, holding that, what the therapy world would say, holding that space for you, just sitting in here with you. I don't have to say anything, but at the same time, I'm saying everything. Now let's say you're saying something mean to me and you say something that really hurts and rather than responding, I just say nothing.

That sends another message. That's another option that I get to have. And now you have to hear those words echo back and you have to do something with it. That's why silence is such a powerful tool. Could it be deemed as being aggressive if we use silence? I can weaponize it. Yeah, so you could, that turns into stonewalling.

That turns into people ghosting for no reason. Stonewalling, in my opinion, is weaponized silence. You are doing it as a punishment. It's punitive. It's a sense of control. If you try to, I'm not talking about the gray rock type of stuff where you have to protect yourself. I'm talking, the gray rock type of stuff where it's you have to protect yourself. I'm talking, you're dealing with somebody

who's a toxic personality and they just go silent on you and as a term of punishment, they want you to come groveling back, not until you say, oh, I'm so sorry, can you please come back to me? Will they, you know, graciously in their mercy go, yes, I guess you can talk to me again. So there is absolutely a way

to be taking it too far as with anything. Yeah. It kind of sort of relates back to a couple of things we've already touched on. One was when you were talking about maybe you're in a difficult conversation before you start reacting and just blurting out words, you're saying that first word is your breath. Okay. So you're what is that an inhale? Yeah, so it's, you would know this as a physiological sigh. It's where it's a double inhalation, where it's about three seconds in through your nose,

two seconds in again at the top, and then all out through your nose again. Now we can do that in a sense of very exaggerated. I'm not talking about the sigh of like what my five-year-old would do if like, uh, like not that type of, not that type of breath. But you want to be able to use it and you can do it silently anytime

or before you say something that you need a catch a moment. Or if somebody is saying something that's, you can tell you it's, you don't like, and you're getting worked up. You ever heard somebody like making an opinion or saying something you don't like, you're getting worked up. You ever heard somebody like making an opinion or saying something you don't like and what happens, our bodies go, everything we don't like it, we kind of start to seize up.

We take a big breath. We're like, okay, I gotta get ready because why? We're about ready to unleash all of our words. And so when you hold your breath, that's why your breath has really nowhere to go, except to yell. Often it decreases communication. It's the same way of, you know how, at least if you're trying to find directions and you're trying to find a house and you have blaring music, you have to like turn down the music so you can,

you know, like, let me turn on this music so I can see. It's kind of that same mentality of when somebody's yelling, you can't really listen. Yeah. It's this whole, we see the world through the state of our nervous system, right? That person said that thing that you didn't like. And if you start to react and hold your breath, which may be understandable, right? You're changing the state of your nervous system. So everything is coming in with your focus is coming in, you are getting prepared to fight.

So of course the next words you say are gonna come out with a certain energy. So I love that sort of idea that you make it, and you know, the whole section in that chat, so you do sort of walk people through how you can practice this breath and get to the point whereby you're doing it naturally in conversation where the person doesn't even know that you're doing it.

Yeah. And I'm happy to do it right now. If you want to. Okay. All right. So if you're listening right now, let's, let's, let's practice this. I call this a conversational breath and it's a breath that you can use and nobody's really going to know that you're doing it. There's nothing special. It's just the, it's the choice to be intentional with your breath and let's do it together. So it's all going to be through your nose, it's just the choice to be intentional with your breath and let's do it together. So it's all gonna be through your nose and it's gonna be a double inhale, meaning we're gonna inhale twice, ready?

So if you're listening, we're gonna go three seconds in through your nose, two more at the top, and then all out through your nose. Now, just listening to us right now, your shoulders should have dropped just a little bit, you're gonna feel just a little bit calmer. That's your go-to when somebody is saying something you don't like or you're about to respond.

So right now, I want you, Rangan, to continue to do the conversational breath and I'm gonna continue to say some things to you. So Rangan, yes, I understand you have a podcast and yeah, it's a health podcast, in fact, it's the number one health podcast in the world. But you know what, I don't know if you're doing as well as you need to, I yeah, it's a health podcast. In fact, it's the number one health podcast in the world. But you know what? I don't know if you're doing as well as you need to.

I mean, you could be these lights. Have you seen these cameras? I don't know if I even really like these microphones. Now see, as you're talking to me right now, I see I didn't even realize that you're breathing any differently than anybody else. And so anytime somebody's saying something that's agitating to you in that sense,

it's allowing you to see the depth, right, it's allowing you to see the depth. It's allowing you to see the cause rather than getting worked up and holding your breath to fight the symptoms. Yeah, it's amazing because you're slowing everything down. So using that analogy of being in the car again, if your car is going fast down the streets,

you're not going to be able to take everything in because everything's going back quickly. You slow down your car and go down the street, you're not going to be able to take everything in, right? Because everything's going back quickly. You slow down your car and go down the street, you can suddenly see everything clearly. Oh, I saw that number, I saw that number. You know, that's what going on. There's a cat coming, whatever it might be, right? So when we slow everything down, our perspective is different. We see more clearly. So clearly in a conversation, especially a conversation that perhaps isn't going the way that you want it to, if you're able to slow things down, you're going to be more present. You're going to have that separation between the stimulus, the words

you don't like and the response you're about to give. Exactly. Time has a way of sifting out priority. We all know we've had these moments in conversations that feel really intense with that friend at the cafe. The next day, you know what? That conversation really didn't matter all that much. Or a week goes by and you go, why did I ever react that way? But in the moment, you felt that it did. In the moment, it was everything.

Or you get that email. you read that email at work and you want to, it gets you all worked up and you're ready to send that nasty response back. But something happens and you go, you know what? I'm just going to, I'm just going to put this down. You read it again the next day. That's not even worth my response. Exactly. That's the power of silence.

Absolutely. Of course, right? Yes. It's kind of interesting. You are teaching people how to have better conversations, but at the same time, I would imagine, and I think you've hinted at this already, that you've always been pretty good at communicating.

Yes. Yeah, okay. I would probably say a similar thing about myself. I think as a doctor, I feel that's always been one of my strengths with my patients, my ability to really listen, pay attention and then communicate effectively with them. I don't think I was taught how to do that. Maybe I picked it up from the people around me, but although I feel I was intuitively quite a good communicator, I feel I've got better over the years. Okay. So I feel it's a skill that although I was pretty good at,

I think I've got better at it. Now, what does help me get better at it? I think if I think about my marriage, you know, I'm as we're having this conversation, I'm almost, it's almost 18 years since I was married. Since I got married. Yeah, and you know, our marriage is fantastic. And I think one of the things that has made it more fantastic now than maybe in the early days is collectively our ability to communicate as a couple has got better. And certainly

on a personal level, I feel I've really learned some new skills about how to communicate better within my relationship. But I also believe that this podcast has helped me become a better communicator. Okay. So, as you know, this is a long form podcast. Okay. It's long form intentionally. I'm not interested in quick fancy sound bites. I want deep, meaningful conversations with people that I'm curious about. That's always been the name of the game on this show and it continues to be today. And every summer I stopped the podcast for six weeks. Okay, it's the children are on summer holidays. My wife is the producer of the podcast. And so for us, it's really important to have some time away from this show.

Even though the whole world is saying you can't stop, you need to keep going. That's a separate matter, right? But we take a break every summer. And every summer, whilst I'm on break, I reflect on what can I improve? What can I do differently? How can I make the show even better? How can I become a better communicator? And a few years ago, the insight I had over the summer break was to embrace silence more.

Right? So you talk in your book about how silence can be a superpower. And I would say maybe three or four summers ago, I came back and intentionally started to utilize silence much more. And I think that's enhanced the quality of the conversations. And so my thinking was very much wrong. You don't have to rush, right? There's no time pressure here. You've got all the time in the world in a natural conversation, because I never regard these as interviews, right? Yeah.

If you want to interview, I'm the wrong podcast, right? These are all about conversations. And I realized that when in real life conversation, there are sometimes pauses. Sometimes the next thing to say isn't there at the tip of your tongue. Sometimes you have to kind of pause and reflect and let what was just said land. You also have to trust yourself, right? You're okay, I don't need to think about the next thing I'm going to say. I can just pay attention to what Jefferson is saying. And then when he finishes, I need to trust

that the right thing to come next will come out of my mouth, right? So that's where the long winded of me trying to say that when I read you write about Son That's Been a Superpower, I thought I love that because I feel that's one of the things that I've really embraced on this show. And I think it's one of the things that has've really embraced on this show and I think it's one of the things

that has really improved the quality of conversations on this show. I think that's spot on. For your listeners, I would ask two questions. Number one, have you ever really given thought to how you're communicating, to how your voice is representing you. Not just how you sound, that's personal to you,

but the words that you choose. More than likely, you've spent some amount of money on a better health. Maybe you've changed the diet. Maybe you've read some books. Maybe you've gone to some conference. Whatever, we invest a lot in a lot of things. But have you ever actually invested

in the thing you do every day? And that is getting disciplined about how you communicate, actually asking yourself, how do you communicate? That's question number one. Question number two is why are you rushing? Why are you communicate? That's question number one. Question number two is why are you rushing? Why are you rushing? I feel like we rush all the time. I mean, I know I rush my son sometimes.

All right, come on, get your shoes on. Come on, get your shoes on, we gotta go. To what? A kid's birthday party that you don't have to be on time for? I mean, it's not the end of the world. Why do we always feel like we have to rush, rush, rush? There is something so beautiful about having a conversation with your best friend

that has no time constraints, that has no rush. And you can say something and just like you said, you're able to just sit with it, land, let their words sit and just appreciate the moment that you're able to connect with someone. And beautiful, wonderful things happen when you simply slow down the conversation. And that's exactly, if you wanna have better conversation,

you slow it down. If you want to deal with difficult conversation, if you're really worried about a conversation you're about to have, slow it down. If you want to deal with difficult conversation, if you're really worried about a conversation about to have, slow it down. I promise you, you're going to end up having a better outcome. Yeah. I love that. Let's just, while we're talking about silence, right? And the incredible power of silence and communication. Going back to those three tools to stay in control of the moment, I kind of feel that all three of them in some way speak to the power of silence. I don't know if you would

necessarily agree with that, but those three tools were your first word is your breath, your first thought is a quick scan, and your first conversation is a small talk. Let's just go through that and maybe we can go through that in the context of an individual who's maybe just about to enter conflict with their partner. It's super common, right? Because if we can do it through that, I'm hoping that someone can, you know, next time to win that scenario, maybe in an hour's time, maybe tomorrow, hopefully they can go, okay, all right, let me just remember what Jefferson said, right? Because I think they kind of speak to silence as well.

Each one does. Yeah. And they're simple, quick tools in different ways of regulating your nervous system. So let's put it in two different scenarios for the listeners. One, we can have a personal relationship with your significant other. The other is a workplace where somebody is asking you something of an important project, whatever it is. It's gonna be the same outcome either way. So these tools that I provide in the first how to say things with control, ultimately are different ways

of regulating your nervous system. First word being your breath. In either context, it allows you to, where somebody's accusing you of something, you're able to slowly use your breath and kind of understand, keeping yourself from getting emotionally flooded. It's nothing more simple than that.

You're using your breath to feel a little bit more grounded in the conversation, just like we did a minute ago. Now, a quick scan of what is what I call a quick scan, it's nothing than asking yourself, what am I feeling in this moment? And I like to use the phrase, I can tell. So let's say you're in a conversation

with your significant other, maybe it's over the dishes and all of a sudden it blends into the laundry and who does what, and you don't keep up your fair share or whatever it is. Instead of leading with you and you never, and you always, which I promise you is only going to add another layer of argument about whether you always or never do it. And then somebody is gonna say, well, give me an example,

name the last time that I, and then it's just a competition of who can, has the better memory. And of course you have the better memory, I don't remember. So instead a quick scan is saying, I can tell I'm getting defensive. I can tell I'm getting upset. I can tell I'm not ready for this conversation.

So many times we push conversation on our timeframe and not the other person's. And so if you're feeling pressured in a conversation, say instead of reacting and getting defensive and emoting on that, it's to be able to say, I can tell I'm getting upset. I can tell I'm feeling sad. I can tell that's making me angry.

So step one is you take that slow intentional breath, which helps to calm things down and regulate your nervous system. Step two is this quick scan that you're just going through your body, where's their tightness, what am I actually feeling? And then you use that scan to say, I can tell I'm feeling something. So that's a way of communicating with the other person. So for example, it might be, I can tell that I'm feeling a bit wound up at the moment. So I don't think it's the best time to have this conversation. I can tell I'm not feeling myself. I mean, that right there is a powerful tool

in marital relationships. Instead of saying, what's wrong with you? Instead of forcing that, it's the, I can tell I'm feeling off right now. I can tell I'm tired. So, okay, so if you just say that phrase, could your partner then not go, okay, but what's that got to do with what I just said?

Like, so I'm trying to just play devil's advocate. Yeah, no, I love it. So you're using that to tell your partner or your work colleague or whoever it might be that you have a certain emotional state. But then do you need to go the next step and then say, what is the implication of that emotional state? So it depends.

Maybe that is the goal of saying, let's say you just got done with a full busy day. You've done a bunch of podcasts, you're doing work and you got the kids in bed and you're finally at home and all of a sudden your spouse wants to have the most important conversation ever, right? In that moment. And you're just, you're drained, you're tired.

And instead of going, you know what, I don't really want to talk about, can you just, and you're starting to react negatively in that conversation. You're starting to really just be negative on the whole moment. Instead saying, like, I can tell I am not ready for this conversation.

If we can talk about this in the morning, I'm going to be a whole lot better for it. Or if we can push this just a few minutes, or let's say it's in the work context and you can say, I can tell that I'm feeling uncertain about this. Or I can tell I still need a little bit more clarity here. It's not saying, I don't wanna have conversation.

And I'm not saying you need to have that every time you have a conversation. This is simply a tool of, if you feel like you're having an emotion in that moment, when you claim it, you control it. And so whenever you can say it out loud, it's much better than behaving on that.

So let's say you say something that gets me defensive. I can tell, rather than me going, me, no, no, what about you? Oh, you think that, and I'm starting to react on that defensiveness. Rather than me going, me? No, no, what about you? Oh, you think that, and I'm starting to react on that defensiveness, rather than me saying, you say that same thing and I go, I can tell that's getting me defensive.

That right there is a wonderful way of just like writing it down and putting it on a piece of paper. Now we know that that is not something I'm gonna be talking about. And in fact, it's at least more information for the people who you're talking to. So it's not a one, two, three. It's not you have to, first where's your breath,

then you have to do a quick scan, then you have to do a small talk. These are all different tools that if you're feeling something overwhelmed in that moment, it's much better to say with your spouse, I can tell I'm feeling overwhelmed than reacting on that overwhelmed feeling. Yeah, I love that.

It's so powerful. And I would say that that alone is possibly one of the most influential things I've changed in my marriage. In terms of the way I communicate with my wife is, it's really about self-awareness, isn't it? And the example you gave actually was not an uncommon scenario in the sense that my wife and I have some, have quite different body cloths. I love to go to bed early and get up early. She would rather go to bed late

or wake up a bit later. Right. And so I'm team wife. Okay. So it did not used to be uncommon that when I'm trying to wind down for beds, that Vid wants to go through something deep or important. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And so, I would say one of the things that I've learned to do is be able to now calmly, I hope, and I think say, hey, listen, I know this is super important. I'm so tired at the moment.

I actually don't think we're going to get a great outcome from this conversation right now. Well, something know this is super important. I'm so tired at the moment. I actually don't think we're gonna get a great outcome from this conversation right now. Well, something to that effect. And actually it is game changing that kind of stuff because if you don't say it, right? Or you get frustrated or not, you know, A, you can't expect the other person to mind read, which I think is the biggest problem in relationships.

It's like, no, why don't I just tell you calmly, hey, can we fix the time tomorrow to go through this? Because I can see that it's important or whatever it might be. Yes. Now you got it. Yeah. How many times, I mean, even in my own marriage, I'm like, I am in bed closing my eyes and she will go, so I was just thinking and I'm like, what are we, oh, you want to talk about this now? Like, you kind of have that. And yeah, what I like to teach is don't wait until you have 10% of yourself for 100% of a conversation. You each have a battery.

And what happens a lot is we lead to negative consequences when we're each in the red, we're in low battery modes. So you're more agitated. You're hungry. You're tired. You don't feel good. You want, and so certain conversations, it's not like it's a simple,

hey, let's remember to buy more milk tomorrow. We're not talking about that stuff. I'm talking like the real conversations that are outcome determinative of what's happening with the kids, the kids' schedule. And she might be telling me something where I am fading into the night and that's when she wants to lay out the,

we need to agree on every where you're gonna be, who's gonna pick up who, and I'm not gonna remember this right in this moment, but sure, go ahead and say. So yeah, what's most important is one, you don't dismiss it. You can't be dismissive of it because if you're like, can we just talk about this later? That's gonna feel very dismissing.

Because to them, whoever you're talking to, it's on their mind. It doesn't mean that is wrong. And sometimes they need to get it out so they can sleep. And so, and I felt that way before, but if you ask somebody to push a conversation because it's going to lead to a better outcome, they will always say yes. If you say, is this something we have to agree on right now? Most of the

time the answer is no. You will always push it. But if you tell them that you're going to have a better conversation, better outcome, if we postpone this 30 minutes, an hour to the next morning, they will say yes, they won't say no to it. Yeah, no, I love it. What about this lesson? I love this one. You don't have to attend every argument you're invited to. That's brilliant. Thank you. It is a mindset of instead of the default where somebody is engaging in opinion with you, and we're opinion making machines, something happens in the world, where does everybody turn to?

Social media to share their opinion, to who their audience of six people that, you know, are on their Facebook or something. And they go and they flood all the comments of how much they agree, they disagree, and who's attacking who, and who's a snowflake, and who's the whatever. And that kind of behavior solves, is nothing,

and in fact it's very draining. In fact, if we wanna say that's a symptom of a very bad health, you know, a lot of the times what kind of people are unhealthy, not just physically, but mentally, unwell, all right? So if you want to make sure that you stop attending every argument you're invited to, you need to understand that there's a priority

of what's important in your life. There are people that disagree with you, and there are people who maybe don't even like you. Most likely, if they don't like you, they're not that important, you know? who do you wanna keep in your life? Yeah. Yeah, who do you wanna surround yourself with? And I feel like anytime somebody gives you an invitation

to an argument, we go, oh, yep, absolutely, check yes, I will be attending. And that's a one-way ticket to bad health. It comes down to emotional awareness, self-awareness, emotional regulation, doesn't it? Because when you are more self aware and emotionally regulated, I think it becomes easier to not attend every argument. When your nervous system is in high alert, when you've been busy with work all day, you didn't take a lunch break. You're in sort of that stress mode

Yeah, it's sometimes harder to separate right and I think sometimes fear is also what gets in the way of many things in our life, but also our Abilities communicate well, right and I think the more we're better to emotionally regulate the more better able we are to go Hey, you know what? I don't want to get involved with that. Something I've learned being online, sharing information for about 12 years now is I don't have to have an opinion on everything.

Or you can have an opinion and not share it. Yeah, I certainly don't need to have a public opinion. Now people can expect me to, I should be commenting on this event. Great. No problem. I don't think I should. I don't want to. And ultimately it's up to me what I will and what I won't communicate on.

It's kind of interesting. What have you learned? Right? So this is interesting. You were already an exceptional communicator. You started sharing things online in 2022. So about three years or so, you've had a lot of experience with comments on social media.

So what has being on social media and reading comments sections taught you about other human beings? You know, I'll tell you, I'm blessed with a wonderful audience. to support you about other human beings? I'll tell you, I'm blessed with a wonderful audience. I can probably count on one hand, truly, the amount of times I've had a negative troll type of just nasty comment, which is just wonderful. And most of the time they're bots, they're not real.

But what I have seen, of course, because I'm on social media like you are, I have seen people leave negative, horrible comments in YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, you name it, where the quick little clap back that's ugly, maybe on somebody's weight, appearance, looks, what they said, and it gets a lot of likes, like a crazy amount of likes,

because there's this anonymity of being behind the keyboard. And you almost in some sense get rewarded for it. When somebody is liking your comment, what do you encourage to do? Say more ugly things to get more like and appreciation and that dopamine hit of you're doing something well. So what I have seen is that people in comments can be, I've seen it both ways.

I've seen the negative side of it and that's detrimental. I've also seen the very positive side of people can create a community in the comments. And you take something like TikTok, for example, sometimes the comments are more entertaining than the actual content itself. People immediately, what they would say, run to the comments because there's so much interaction

or things that are funny. People are hilarious. I mean, one thing about social media is that there's so many talented people and so many funny people that you would never know. They're total introverts, but they're funny and creative and things you would never be able to see in the world

and environment that you're in. So I've been blessed with be able to see in the world and environment that you're in. So I've been blessed with being able to see the positive. I've been blessed with being able to see the negative of it in social media. And I find, I'm certainly a product of it. I wouldn't be here with you today had people not resonated with the content that I make. I would bet that one of the reasons you don't get many negative comments is because of your energy. People respond to energy.

They do. You know, we all respond to energy and the vibe of the people around us. And so if you're putting out content with a really warm, compassionate, grounded energy with a real desire to help people, it's just not going to lead to that many people, you know, trying to meet that energy with division and criticism. Do you know what I mean? Whereas some people, their whole brand is about calling out or this is what's toxic or whatever it might be. So of course that energy is going to attract more energy like that, which is super interesting.

I mean, I also very rarely get negative comments, but I've always had a rule actually, an internal rule with myself, which is, which maybe I didn't follow in the early days of being, you know, online sharing information, but I've learned through the process, which is, it comes back to some of your teachings in this book, right? Which is, if I'm not feeling calm, do not respond to a comment. Yeah, that's so true. You know, don't do it. It's never going to go well, you know, only respond. So sometimes it's like, I think actually that's worthy

of a response, like I feel that'd be good to interact with that, but only do it when you're feeling calm. And calm doesn't just mean my internal state, it also means what's going on in my life, right? It's more important that I'm gonna spend quality time with my children or my wife or going around to see my mom. Actually, you know what? That is more important than a random comment on my Instagram page.

Absolutely. And probably the truth is that's one comment out of 200. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so you have, you might have 199 wonderful comments and we see that one and we kind of go, and we want to comment right there. And you know, it does nothing. I get questions. I know you get questions of people. When I post, I get

negative comments and are, you know, how do you handle it? And I go, do you have to? What do you, I mean, the algorithm doesn't care if it's happy or sad. It's a comment. At the same time, do you know this person? Are you going to actually sit down and spend time with this person? What's going on in your life? Yeah. I sort of, in my last book, Jeff said, make change at last, there's a chapter called take less offense. Okay. I think you'd really enjoy it actually.

And in that chapter, I make the case that offense is something we choose to do, right? Nothing is inherently offensive because if it was, we'd all find the same thing offensive. Yeah, I love that. The fact that we don't means it's not the comment or the thing that was causing the offense. It was something within us that was being activated. Right. I'm not excusing poor behavior here.

I'm just saying that nothing is inherently offensive. We're choosing to take offense, right? And I sort of also made the case in that chat, sir, that on some level, taking offense is actually, or could be argued to be a little bit arrogant. And the reason I say that is because if you think about it rationally, there's 8 billion people on the planet, right? Is it reasonable to believe that every other human being on this planet is going to have the same view and perspective on the world as I do? No, right?

It's not reasonable at all. Clearly some people in the world are going to see the world definitely from me. They're going to have different ethics, different religion, a different way of being brought up, different levels of trauma, whatever it might be, they're going to see the world differently. So they may actually disagree with me on certain things. They may see things completely differently. It doesn't mean that they're wrong and I'm right or I'm right and they're wrong. Just means they see it differently.

And I kind of feel bringing it back to your book, one of the things I love about it is I think there's a real deep compassion behind the tools, which relates to what I just said, which is you don't know what's going on with that person. What the person you see is not always the person you're talking to. And that's, I think, one of the things I love the most about it. Yeah. Well, thank you very much. I think you're absolutely right on, That's about it. Yeah, well, thank you very much. I think you're absolutely right on,

you choose to take offense to certain things. And I'm of the mindset of anytime you just hear change, you hear about change, it makes you uncomfortable. You hear about change in the world or somebody having a different political view than you, that's change, your hearing that makes you go, I don't like that. So whenever you find and hear that change

that's being communicated to you and it makes you uncomfortable, that creates a lot of that fear because we like what is safe, we like what is known. Let's say I want to change your mind about something and you have this political view. Let's say it want to change your mind about something and you have this political view. Let's say it's a religious view, for example. And I say that as something that's typically very

crystallizing as part of somebody's identity. Well, if I just expect in one conversation, I'm going to entirely disprove everything that you've ever believed, problems are gonna happen. Because what's most likely is I'm not just saying you're wrong, I'm not just saying you're wrong. I'm saying your parents are wrong. I'm saying your grandmother's wrong.

I'm saying that thing that you learned when you were a kid and you've known your entire life is all wrong. And people will do anything far past the point of just deciding not to listen to you in order to preserve what they know. And it is so easy for people. That's why a lot of times in a political climate, they're okay with one candidate doing it.

They're not okay with another candidate doing it. They're okay if it's the side I am comfortable with. I'm not good with if it's a side I don't agree with. Why? Because we feel comfortable with what we know because it's comes down from the people that put their value in us. And we will defend the people in our lives

that have contributed to that view. So in other words, you can say I'm wrong, but if you're saying my dad's wrong, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You don't get to say my dad's wrong. I'm the one. And so we get defensive on behalf of the people that help shape our identity.

And so we will do anything to the point of just refusing to listen, even to logic, even to evidence, even somebody presents you with evidence of saying something of why your position is wrong on it. We will both face just disagree with it in order to protect the values that we've been raised with. Yeah. It's a great point. I mean, obviously you are an American citizen and you know,

American politics is very interesting. That's a great word. Yeah. Let's keep it to that word. Yeah. It's very interesting. And I think 12 months ago, the statistic that I came across was that one in six US adults are not talking to another family member because of a difference of opinion over politics, which I found utterly remarkable. And really just speaks to what you just said, right? And I guess that in many ways highlights why a book like yours is so important, right?

Because it should be possible for two people with completely different religions or completely different political beliefs within the same family, it should be possible to have a conversation with them and still love them and still respect them. Of course, people will argue that there are extremes, there are certain things that people can't get over.

Okay, but as a general principle, you should be able to get on with people who see the world differently than you do, which is something you don't see online much. But if I think about even my best mates from university, like there's four or five of us, and we'd be there for each other, we could rely on each other for anything. Doesn't mean we all see the world the same way. We have differences of opinions of those,

we're still best mates, but it seems as though the world, at least online, well, I say online it's getting more divided, but that statistic would suggest that actually offline as well, it's getting more divided as well. Yeah, I definitely believe so because we're not allowing real conversation.

We expect that we can solve all issues in one conversation. In fact, I'll give you more. We feel like we can solve all issues in one conversation. In fact, I'll give you more. We feel like we can solve everything and change someone's mind by saying one sentence. And we just think, because I said it, well, then they have to wholeheartedly swallow it, agree with it, take it and say, I'm the most amazing genius they've ever heard.

Yes, of course you're right. And that's just never going to happen. And instead you have to see that if you want to change someone's mind, you better be ready to have multiple conversations. I'm talking conversations over years. Things that you're gonna have to invest in asking questions and finding out why someone believes what they do.

When you actually take the time, rather than fighting the opinion they have, you take the time to find out why they have it and how they learned it and where they picked it up and when they learned it. All of that information is gonna give you way more knowledge and realize it's not the symptom, it's the cause. Yeah, is it even possible to change someone's mind? It's like, maybe the goal is never to change someone's mind.

Maybe the goal should be to learn. Yeah, I like, well, I would reframe that. Yes, you can change someone's mind, but what you said is right. You have to change the goal. Too often, we put a bar on conversations of, and that bar is, they have to admit I'm right. We put a bar on conversations of, and that bar is they have to admit I'm right.

They have to say they're wrong. That is rarely, if ever going to happen. I can't get my child to say that. I think I'm gonna have someone who's a grown adult say that who's had a year or years, a whole life of experiences. And I think just because I uttered sound into the air, they're automatically just gonna go,

the scales have fall from my eyes, how wrong I am. That's not going to happen, right? And so you can absolutely change someone's mind, but one, you have to live it. You can't just say it and there'll be misalignment in how you're living. Two, yes, evidence helps, but sometimes when you're trying to push your opinion,

that makes me come closer more. So for example, the more I tell you you're wrong, the more convinced you're going to be that you're right. You're gonna protect what you know, because this is the one thing you feel like you do know that you're going to be that you're right. You're gonna protect what you know because this is the one thing you feel like you do know that you're sure about. Why? Because your dad told you about it when you were five. So you will wrap yourself onto that memory.

So can you change someone's mind? Yes, 100% you can, but you cannot do it when you raise the bar as I'm right, you're wrong. Instead, I'm telling you to lower the bar. That's what the book does. It tells you to lower the bar. Instead of saying, I need to prove that I'm right,

my goal is to understand where you're coming from. My goal is to ask more questions than I say things. My goal is to, am I showing appreciation for the time that we're spending in this conversation? When you set the bar really low, I'm just making sure you feel understood and they feel understood and they feel acknowledged. Set a bar of how can I show that I acknowledge them in this conversation? That's going to lead to more of what you want rather than setting that bar that's that you can never meet.

Yeah. Some of what you just said there speaks to one of the other life lessons in the book, which is never win an argument. Yeah. What does that mean? Whenever you set out to win an argument, you will lose the relationship over time. If I were to say, do you know anybody in your life

who always has to be right? They always have to have the final say. They always have to have the final say. They always have to have the last word. Those kinds of people are not someone anybody wants to be around. It's typically an audience of one. And the more you try to win and prove, you lower the quality and connection of that relationship.

What you've really won is their contempt. Let's say you and I are in an argument. Rather than me trying to understand you, I have to win. Win often sounds like I'm the last one to talk. That's what we typically have in conversations. The one who says something last is the one who somehow wins. Maybe you said something really ugly

because you and I have been personal friends for forever and I know that one button that I can say that speaks right to your insecurity and all of a sudden you shut down. Does that mean I win? Probably not, but that's the feeling. Or if you and I are in a conflict of opinion and I'm the one that says, no, I have to be right.

And you go, you know what, fine, you're right, you're right. Is that really winning? Over time, they're gonna feel contempt for you. What you really want is to be the first to apologize. And that's kind of the procedure of arguments. The person who said the worst thing last, that's typically the one who has to apologize first. What I like to teach is instead of trying to win the argument,

you look to unravel them. You find the knots in the conversation and get really quick and really proficient at loosening them. Why do you think so many people take things personally when they're having a conversation? Our default is to make things about me, make things about I, not so much you.

And it's just a shift of perspective that we make everything, everything about us. Like as me, as a young associate at the law firm, us associates would complain about the partners. We go, the partners don't care. Partners don't listen to us. All they do is think about themselves. When I made partner, I got a,

within probably five minutes, I got an email and I thought, these associates, all they do is care about themselves. You know, it's very us versus them mentality. When you're the employee, you hate the management. When you're the employee, you hate the management. When you're the management, you hate the employee. You always find a way to make it about you. It's our default.

It's why we take things personally. It's why when you, if I were to text you okay, you're not gonna be, look at that. Look how nice Jefferson is. He said, okay, in the happiest way possible. Instead, you're gonna go, okay. What kind of okay is that? Is that a okay, okay? Or way possible. Instead, you're going to go, okay, what kind of okay is that? Is that a okay, okay? Or is that like a okay? Like we find ways of reading

the negative in texts and email, any transactional correspondence like that. How much of what you teach then can be applied to electronic communication, because that is a way that many people converse these days, right? So sure, when we're face to face in a room with someone, we can apply certain things, we can pick up on nonverbal communication and get a sense of what they're saying to us. But on a text message or an email, things start to go wrong very, very quickly. Are there any tips that you have for us to use in that form of communication? Yeah, so there's absolutely a place

for the electronic communication. I'm talking text and email specifically. It's efficient. It does not mean it's effective all the time. Now I can communicate with you face to face, and in a text, it's gonna be very different. For example, this was a few years ago. My mom decided to text me out of the blue.

She was asking me about the family car. It was a white Nissan that I had had through college and law school, and had passed down through my siblings. I had no idea where it was. Out of the blue, my mom texts me and she said, do you know the mileage to the white Nissan? I said, no, ma'am. She said, you don't know the mileage to the white Nissan?

I said, no, ma'am. This is all through text. She goes, okay, I just thought you would know the mileage to the white Nissan. I said, mama, I don't know how else to tell you I don't know the mileage to the white Nissan. Immediately she replied, that's fine, Jefferson. I just don't like your attitude.

Like she just read everything of, she thought I was being disrespectful simply by text. And so what do I do? I instantly pick up the phone to call her. So if you want some tools on how to improve the text or emails would be one, when you can get on the phone with them. If you find that there's any type of dissonance,

if you find that there's some kind of friction, hear their voice. Text does not convey emotional nuance. There's a difference between seeing the warmth of someone's smile and reading it in an emoji. I like to compare it to, you can describe a sunset. It doesn't even compare to seeing a sunset. A very, very different thing.

So they need to hear your voice. So if you find yourself right into conflict, use your voice. Number two, there's a phrase that I like to use, really for a lot of different concepts, but if you find that you're taking something personally, meaning you're assuming someone's intent, for good or for bad, usually it's for bad.

Begin with, did you mean? In text, I would say the biggest culprit is we, especially in relationships, you use very short language. Okay, sounds good, cool, all right. And you read the negative into that. Maybe you didn't put an emoji in it. And so they just automatically assume that you're upset, you're mad, or you get an email from somebody, a boss or somebody you work with,

and they send an email and you feel like it's kind of rude. If you respond with, did you mean, did you mean for that to sound short? Did you mean for that to sound upset? Did you mean for that to sound curt? Like whatever it is, whenever you say, did you mean, it allows the other person some benefit of the doubt to allow them to go, oh, no, no, no, no, sorry.

I was just, I was in the middle of this. I was running on the errand. I was, I just got out of the car, whatever it is. You're giving some more context rather than trying to take it personally every single time. I find that that is something that's gonna be very beneficial. And three would be limit the conversation. Don't write in paragraphs. That's not going to go well. You want to write very concisely. That makes it very much more

clear. So if you can't say it really in three sentences, you need to rethink it. That speaks to something I really wanted to talk to you about today on the show. And it's from page 14 of your book, so early on, and it's all about speaking directly. Okay, now let me just explain a bit of background to why I've underlined this paragraph and why I want to discuss it with you. So interestingly enough, as I think I've already shared with you, when I started going out with my now wife, she was a criminal barrister in London. And one of the things that we both noticed very early on in our relationship is that we communicate

quite differently. Vid is very concise and very particular with her words and she's very direct. When we first met, I wasn't, I wasn't concise and I certainly wasn't direct. I would go around the houses, right? I don't know if that's an American phrase or not, but I wouldn't get to the point. It was a beat around the bush. Beat around the bush. Okay. Right. Now it's really interesting. Initially, I would say, because I wasn't used to direct communication, it's certainly not how I had communication modeled growing up, right? It certainly wasn't how I did things. And I think I had communication modeled growing up, right?

It certainly wasn't how I did things. And I think I had a lot of insecurity. So I would mask those insecurities by overusing words, over explaining, over apologizing, whatever it might be, right? I would say because of that, or a consequence of that, was I found initially at least Vids direct communication. Sometimes I found it quite blunt and that's quite harsh.

Yeah. I still fell madly in love with her and married her. Right? Yeah. So to be clear. Might've worked. It might've worked, but it's funny that the way I now see communication, I think, wow, that was awesome, right?

Because one of the real benefits of the way Vid would communicate to me early on in our relationship was that, you know, she wasn't afraid to say what she thought I would be, not because of it, just because of my own personal insecurities, I would beat around the bush, right? And not get to the point. And I've learned over the years that actually, speaking directly, I would say a compassionate directness, I think it's just a wonderful way to communicate because you're not imagining what do they really mean.

I know when they say something, I know what she means. If she's happy with me doing something, she'll say, if she's not, she'll tell me, I don't have to imagine, was she just saying that? Yeah. Right? And so can I just read this section back to you? It's your book, but I really liked it. And I wanted to discuss essentially

why you think speaking directly is so important. Okay, here it is. Speaking directly doesn't mean you lack empathy or consideration for the other person's feelings. Being direct means that you have the self assurance that you can respect the other person as well as yourself enough to communicate your needs openly without fear. Jefferson, I freaking love that paragraph, right? I've been rereading it because I've been thinking, actually that's something I still feel I could do better.

Certainly in electronic communication, I would say I still probably write quite lengthy emails. I still treat it like a card. I was like, dear whoever, hope you're well. I guess I would argue is polite, but where's the balance, right? So it talks to me about speaking directly. Why is it so important, do you think?

Right. So this brings us into rule two, the say it with confidence. Just because it's polite doesn't mean it's honest. Just because it's polite doesn't mean that it's kind. Clarity is kind. And it can, I mean, being direct can be sometimes and oftentimes much kinder. When we beat around the bush

and we have trouble landing the plane in conversation, it creates anxiety, it creates resentment, it breeds miscommunication. Why? Because what you feel like you said and you made it so plain, totally lost on me. Let me put it this way. People who can be direct with you and tell you what they want,

it's very attractive in conversation, especially in relationships, because it says this is somebody who's assured of themselves. This is somebody who knows what they want themselves This is somebody who knows what they want This is somebody who knows where they're going a lot of times you're removing the insecurity you're you're removing the the feeling of of Not feeling safe So anytime you're you can be direct in conversation and we can talk to every little tool about it

What you're doing is using your assertive voice. Most likely, and I would ask this of any of the listeners is how was communication modeled for you in your life? Did your parents argue in front of you? Did you even see your parents argue? Or did they argue behind closed doors? Did you feel like as a kid, you could speak out and disagree?

Or did you feel you always had to be a little bit more quiet and let the other people talk? Or when you wanted to disagree, you got squashed on and says, be quiet. You're to be seen, not heard. And so understand that every bit of that, and hopefully even listening, there might be a light bulb moment where you go,

oh, okay, maybe that's where it's really come from. Maybe that's why I'm feeling that. Or it could be culturally. I've definitely noticed a difference here in England of there's a cultural shift in communication. It is very polite. It is a little bit more indirect, a little bit softer. That doesn't mean that it's wrong.

Understand that you will get to a place where eventually you feel like your voice is not being heard. And that can become, again, unhealthy. Yeah. I love what you said there about cultures and your experience having been in the UK for just, what, two or three days now.

Yeah, three days, yeah. And I would say that is a thing here, you know, where politeness is, you know, very much valued. Yeah. But it can go too far. I'm not saying we shouldn't be polite. No, for sure. But you can be polite and not I'm not saying we shouldn't be polite. No, for sure. But you can be polite and not say what you mean.

Yes. Is that really polite? Right. Yeah. Which I think happens a lot here. And I've certainly fallen into this trap before. Yeah. Well, I mean, let me tell you, as somebody who's an expert on the UK, that is, I've seen

some episodes of The Crown. I know that there is certainly, I feel like in the culture, a, you need to put up a face of peace. There is, we're all together. Everybody has the best face forward, even in times of internal conflict. You have to keep it all together. I don't know, it's post-war peace. I don't know it's post-war peace. I don't know if it's wanting everybody

to feel like their unity is one. We have everything in order and there's a time and a place and what's polite and what's acceptable, what's not acceptable. So it's much more stringent in my opinion. Versus if you look at people in New York and you walk down the street, you're gonna easily within a few minutes

tell a very big difference in the way people communicate. And even down in South where I'm in in Texas, people communicate very differently. Doesn't mean that it's wrong, it's cultural. But yes, there's certainly, you're right, a time and place where being polite can go too far. I know I read a study once on how much more people in the UK apologize and use I'm sorry

than those in the US, especially women. And it was just wild to me of, now I understand when I say apologies, I'm talking unnecessary apologies, not ones that you've actually made a mistake. It's the, I'm sorry, what? It's the, oh, I'm so sorry, I just not saw this. Or I had somebody two days ago,

I ran into them by accident and she told me she was sorry. All right, so. That is very precious. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's like, oh, sorry. And I was like, no, no, no, it was me. It was me who did that.

Don't worry about it. And so there's a lot of, I find when I'm listening, there's a lot of add-ons to sentences in the UK. So it's like, they'll say something and then it'll be like, if you don't mind. Could we argue that it's cultural, but it's also that these phrases that we absorb growing up and we just start using, right? So literally, I think two days ago, I was in my kitchen with my wife and I was, I can't remember who I was sending a text message to. I don't know why I'd be even reading it

out. In essence, I started off with, hey, whoever, sorry to bother you. And then I was going to say what I meant. And Vid said to me, are you putting sorry to bother you? Yeah. I was like, that's a good point actually. Cause if you really unpick that and just zoom out. Exactly. Was I really sorry to bother that person?

I don't think I was, right? So therefore is that polite or is it actually disingenuous? Yes, great word. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I didn't use it. So I was like, I was calling myself out going actually. Yeah, anyway.

That's perfect. Yeah, that's what I call undervaluing your words. So this is how you would typically start with, hey, hate to bother you. And it's like, you don't hate it or else you wouldn't be doing it. You know, I hate to bother you, sorry to bother you. You can let me know if I'm wrong.

By the way, anybody who says I could be wrong about this never thinks they're wrong about this. They always think they're right about it. Anybody who goes, I could be wrong about this, they don't think they're wrong about this. They think they're absolutely right about it. This is bonus stuff that's not in the book. I love it, this is a bonus content.

Or, you know, I had somebody on my team last year I brought on and she always would begin with, totally let me know if you hate this. And you know what, once she started talking, the first thought into my mind was, God, I hate this. You know what I mean? Like you, that's what happens.

When you say, hey, I hate to bother you. And you go, after a while you go, ah, this is bothering me. Or this is very common in the US, they might say, this is probably a dumb question. And what happens? The other person goes, oh, no, no, no, no. There's no such thing as a dumb question.

They're like, oh, you're sure? There's no, I don't have to ask my question. And then all they do when you start talking is, you go, this is the dumbest question. Oh, that's all you can think in your mind. So you're already undercutting your words. Instead of that, what I want you to do is use language that builds, use language that adds onto.

So instead of saying, hate to bother you, you either remove it entirely, like in your text, great example, or it's, hey, I like to add on to a thought here. I like to add on to what you said. I like to continue the conversation or I like to start a conversation about X, Y, and Z. You see how you're using forward momentum.

Yeah, love that. Yeah, and that's a whole lot better of adding on to continuing building upon rather than the hesitant language that feels like, oh no, you sure you, is that okay? I mean, you know, let me know if I'm wrong here. You're trying to be as inconvenient as possible and that can be unhealthy. When I write emails,

perhaps to someone who I haven't spoken to for a while, I will often say, hope you're well at the start. Right? So I've noticed that my email communication and some of my teams is quite different. I guess you have to have a conversation about how are we treating email. A lot of the problems come when we don't have clarity. A lot of problems in relationships come from unmet expectations that were never expressed in the first place. Right. Right. And so I've noticed that I can write some quite lengthy emails. So I guess my question to you then, Jefferson is, not is there anything wrong, but how might you

suggest I improve my writing style? Let's say,'m going to Emily for a few months. So I go, Hey, Emily, I hope you're doing well. Was just wondering if we could, or whatever it might be, would you say that hope you're doing well is unnecessary? Because genuinely, I do hope she's doing well. So I don't think I'm lying. Help me understand that.

We can throw this in a lot of different contexts. So there are phrases that we use that we really don't mean a lot. They don't mean anything. Most of the time they're adverbs. Like in the US, we have a problem with adverbs where we throw in just a lot. I just want to check in, just eliminate the just.

I wanted to check in. You see how much more forward that is? Just eliminate, you're eliminating the hesitant language or adverbs of any word that ends in ly really, essentially, so basically, literally, clearly, obviously, any of that stuff you just can remove. What I like to teach is instead of filling your sentences full of ice cubes, you need to serve your words neat.

Find ways of eliminating the stuff that you don't need. Now you say something like, I hope you're doing well. Do you think, is she sick? You know what I mean? Are you just hoping to find you well? I feel that that's also a very cultural thing. It's also a very cultural thing. It's also a precursor of making yourself a little comfortable, right before you say

what you wanna say. Same thing with you saying, just wondering if blah, blah, blah, blah. Instead of just asking the question, would you like to go out with me on whatever, whatever? So anytime you are getting really fuzzy with your language, it creates a lot of miscommunication and it makes you sound more hesitant,

makes you sound a little bit or sure and unsafe. Now, let me say, how can we fix it? Right, how can we fix that? So one, you eliminate your adverbs. Two, I would, for emails specifically, let's say I tried, my general rule rule is if you can't say in three sentences, you need to rework it because it's lazy writing if they're long, meaning that you really didn't put

as much thought into the actual words as in you're just trying to find a way to make yourself feel better in that communication. It's the same thing with like small talk before having a hard conversation with somebody. You feel like you have to kind of warm up the chat before you can actually say what you need to say so they're not gonna be mad at you

or disappointed with you in some sense. There's that quote, I think it was Mark Twain. It said, I would have written you a shorter letter if I'd had more time. Yeah. Yeah, so we often are not, we're not very choosy with our words. It creates a lot of length,

which again creates opportunities for miscommunication. Yeah. No, I love that. It's something for me personally to reflect on. You know, certainly with each subsequent book I've written, I have very much challenged myself to make them as short as possible. You know, when I spend probably the same amount of time as writing it, as I do editing it, because it's always like, no, you said that

in five paragraphs. Can you say that in three paragraphs? Right? Really make every sentence count, which just makes it such a better reading experience for everyone, it's better writing. It's easy to write a hundred thousand, 150,000 word book, right? Just blurt it all out onto the page, whatever. It's hard to compress it down to whatever, 40,000 or 30,000.

But it's worth the effort. It's worth the effort. You take me as an attorney, right? I have to take often what's years of a problem with my client and I have to distill it in the very bite size things for the jury. They only have little questions on the jury verdict. Yes, no, percentage, amount,

they have very short little things, meaning I have to take years of information. I have to take five books and I have to find a way to give it to them in two sentences. And so it's a habit of distilling words. It's simply a habit that you create of eliminating the excessive apologies. Instead of the, so sorry, I'm just now getting back to this.

Use words of gratitude. Thank you for your patience. And you know what the other person is gonna think? I am so patient. Yes, I am. Thank you for that. Thank you for your patience could be, mean, damn, I've been really late at replying to this.

Exactly. So you're sort of assuming in a nice way, thank you for your patience. You don't know that they've been patient. They could have been mad for the last 10 days that you haven't replied to their email. You got it. Right? So is that disingenuous, saying thank you for your patience. You don't know that they've been patient. They could have been mad for the last 10 days that you hadn't replied to their email. You got it. Right, so is that disingenuous,

saying thank you for your patience? No, because in some sense, I would use it really in that sense as the noun. I mean, like I find that anytime you're waiting for somebody's response, there's some sense of patience, whether or not it's conscious or unconscious. Or you say it's, uh, thank you for the time for me to think about this or thank you for the chance to reply. I thank you for allowing me some time

to sit with this and whatever you're about to say next is going to sound very intentional. Why? Because you, you taking time. The biggest thing is you don't want to say, I'm so sorry. So sorry. I'm now seeing this. So sorry. I'm just not getting back to you. Why? Because you had priorities. You have life. So this is really interesting. So actually you're not sorry. Right. Or you may not be sorry.

Maybe that, listen, yeah, just cause you sent me an email doesn't mean that that was my priority at that particular time in my life when you sent it. Or ever. Right? So therefore saying, I'm sorry for the delay or whatever, you know, this is kind of interesting. It's one of those throw away polite

or what we think is a polite phrase to at least acknowledge to that person, Right. Hey, listen, you sent this 10 days ago, I'm only replying now, but there is an undercurrent there where you are being disingenuous because you may genuinely not be sorry.

It could be that actually this is the first time I've had time in 10 days and the inclination to even address this email. Why I'm pausing on these is because I feel I've got much better at removing these unnecessary add-ons, but they're still there, especially if I'm not paying attention, right? So it's not my, like Vid, for example, my wife, she is naturally very succinct and concise. We've always had a joke about this in our relationship, you know, why use unnecessary words, say sort of, you know, because it's like, you know, she can say in three words,

she will say in three words, you know, and it's not always, I love you. I'm more, more, I'm more, more team wife right now. Yeah. Which is great. And I've learned from that. Okay. That's pretty cool. Yeah. To be able to do that. So yeah, I just find, I find this whole thing about unnecessary sentences really, really fascinating. Yeah, there is, I love it and I also can't help it because when I hear people talking, here's another that a lot of people use and it is, does that make sense?

They will add that to the end of their sentence, right? And I know why they use it. People use it because they want to make sure that what they are saying makes logical sense. Those of you listening might use it with your patients. If you're a doctor, you might use it with your clients, your customers, whatever it is. You're using it to make sure that what you said

makes logical sense. Which is a good thing. Which is a good thing. Now, what the other person hears is one of two things. They either hear that you don't think they're smart enough, so you need to make sure they understand it, because you don't think they got it, you don't think they grasped it,

or you don't sound like you know what you're talking about. So you have to make sure that you know what you're talking about. Does that make sense? You know, I mean, that's what happens. So a lot of the times, let's say for a doctor, they might be explaining something very, very, very high complex.

And then they go, does that make sense? And the other person, they don't wanna sound like they're dumb. They're gonna go, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And then inside they're going, no, that does not make sense at all. Most of the time when people are asked, does that make sense? We say yes, because we don't wanna say no,

because we don't wanna seem like we're the dumb ones. So what I would change that to is what are your thoughts or what do you think or do you have any questions? That's really what you're asking for is engagement of if you have any input. And if you don't really want their input, it's better that you just don't say it. Yeah. That one's really interesting because I do use that. Okay.

I do. Yeah. I do use, does that make sense? Yeah. And it's not bad. No, no, no. I'm saying, okay, so this is really interesting. So maybe, you know, I would use it to ensure that,

because I am keen that what I say lands. So I would make the case that I'm saying it out of respect to make sure that, hey, if it wasn't clear, please let me know and I can try and explain it a different way. Okay. But I agree with you also that it actually could, if you really want to check understanding, for example, there are other ways to say it, which could be better. Absolutely. Yeah, that's exactly right. Oh, man, I love this stuff.

This is fun stuff. I love this stuff. Before we wrap this up, I'm interested in the fact that you're a drummer. Oh, yeah. Okay. So, as we were chatting about before, we're both key musicians, we both played in bands for years. I am the singer and the frontman, okay? Knew it. Knew it. Yeah, and interestingly, you're the drummer, right?

And I'm thinking, okay, does that make sense to me from what I get from Jefferson? His groundedness, his self-assuredness, his... Yeah, his persona. I don't think it does. Yeah, his persona. I don't think it does. Yeah, you're probably right. I've never been asked that question, but I'm seeing some similarities. So yeah, why do you think you became a drummer?

I've always loved the drums, probably because I like to hit stuff with sticks. But if you look at the comparison of percussion and music, If you look at the comparison of percussion in music, and we compare that to your words and communication, the song can sound very different depending on the drums, the tempo, are you gonna use more of a kind of a reggae beat? Are you gonna go halftime? Are you doing it?

Are you doing something where, you know these videos that you can find online of people playing different drums, different methods for different styles, and you get a different, totally different outcome. My personality is that the drums set the tempo of the conversation or the music. Exactly. Same thing. And so if I want to lead the communication,

I know I have to set the tempo. So I have to, if things are going too fast, I'm gonna pull back. If I want to make you feel comfortable, then I'm going to behave and act and communicate in the pocket, so to speak. Where you're not going too fast, you're not dragging, you're not rushing,

you're right exactly where everybody feels like they're not. And that part, and for anybody who's not familiar with In the Pocket, that's the part where you're listening in the music where everybody sounds like they're in sync and you start to kind of bob your head. Why? Because it sounds good to you. It makes sense to you.

It's not something that's too much. It's not something that's too soft. It's just easy listening. And so that kind of genre is, that's probably about right, using the drumming analogy. Yeah, it was funny. I've been deep into your work the last couple of days and yesterday as part of my research, when I found out you were a drummer, I was like, yeah, I think that fits.

Yeah, I never thought I've never thought that. I kind of think that fits. I mean, one thing I've always said is that you cannot, you can't hide a poor drummer in a band. Yeah, you can't hide a bad drummer in the same sense of it's, you have to lead with your words and you have to set the tone, the pace and making sure that it's all in the pocket. I've always considered my personality as just always feeling like you're in the pocket.

You feel comfortable, you feel confident, you don't have to feel like you're overreaching, you can feel like you can connect. pocket. You feel comfortable, you feel confident, you don't have to feel like you're overreaching, you can feel like you can connect. Yeah, that's so awesome. I love that. We could talk music forever. Well, that kind of actually brings us full circle back to the start when you were telling me

about that weekend when you were eight years old, when you went away with all the guys in your family, the trial lawyers. Because what I really got from that was that you learned that weekend that your voice was a powerful tool. And if you learn how to use that powerful tool, you can do amazing things out there in the world.

Yeah, you can change your life. You can change your life, you know, as you say, you can change any relationship at any moment by changing the way you communicate. Jefferson, I love what you do. I think this book is absolutely fantastic. I think the content you put out online is so helpful for people.

To finish this conversation off, for that person who feels that they're not a good communicator and feels that a lot of the problems in their life come from an inability to communicate effectively, you've shared a lot of tips already throughout this conversation. Of course, there's a lot more in your book, but have you got any final parting words for that guy? Yeah, for the person who feels like their voice

is not something they're proud of. One, I want them to understand where that comes from. I actually do the work to understand where does that come from in your life. Two, the fact that you're listening to this episode, all right, that means you're already on your way to improving the way you communicate. So hats off to you actually caring about your communication

and choosing to invest in your communication. Three, I promise you that when you begin to feel comfortable not just in your own skin, but in your words and understand the legacy you wanna leave, the reputation you wanna have, the person you want to be in their life, it truly comes from what you say. Magical things can happen.

Understand that conflict can be used for good. Conflict is both positive and negative. Every decision you've made has been some sort of conflict. You had to leave one relationship to find another. You had to leave one job to find another. So understand we are always improving. I mean, you continue to improve,, you had to leave one job to find another. So understand we are always improving. I mean, you continue to improve as you tell me, every four to six weeks you take with your family

and you really think, how's this podcast gonna change? I take plenty of time to go, oh, how could I have improved that sentence? I don't want you to hear this episode and go, I guess they had got it all together and I don't. We're always figuring out better ways to improve our life. There's one little quick trick that I'll give you and it's because this is probably one of the most popular

when you feel like you have to disagree with somebody and you're a little hesitant on it and you don't really feel, you need to feel like you tell them hope you're well or you feel like you need to be a little soft about it. You, what I would encourage you to say is instead of, I disagree, change it to, I see things differently. I see things differently.

Ron, you've already used this in our conversation today, and I think that's, you already did without even knowing you're doing it, that's how good you are. When you say, I see things differently, you're using words of perspective. So words like, look, I look at it a different way. I take another approach. I see things differently.

People won't get defensive and it's a great way to start to hear the power of your own voice. If you want a better world, it begins with a better conversation. Yeah. Jefferson, the book is The Next Conversation, argue less, talk more. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. Really hope you enjoyed that conversation.

Do think about one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life. And also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else. Remember when you teach someone, it not only helps them, it also helps you learn and retain the information. Now, before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday 5. It's my free weekly email containing five simple ideas to improve your health and happiness.

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