Something You Should Know - Why We Have Tip-of-the-Tongue Moments & How to Make Better Conversation

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

If you enjoy eating nuts – good for you! Nuts are healthy. But you might be surprised to hear just how healthy they are - and you don’t have to eat very many to get the benefits. This episode begins with a look at a fascinating study on nuts that has been going on for decades. https://www.herbazest.com/news/nut-consumption-may-prolong-life “It’s right on the tip of my tongue!” We have all had that experience of not being able to recall a word but feel like it is just out of reach. It’s different than simply not being able to recall something because you have forgotten it. This phenomenon is something people actually study and since it is something that has happened to you, I am sure you will find this fascinating. My guest is Anne Cleary, a professor of psychology at Colorado State University. Her research examines odd memory phenomena like déjà vu and these tip of the tongue experiences. She is author of a book called Tip of the Tongue States: Retrieval, Metacognition, and Experience (https://amzn.to/4eLbuST) Are you good at making conversation? Do you know how to assert yourself without being argumentative? Do you tend to talk too much when less would be better? Do you really listen to the other person or just wait for your chance to talk? Being good at conversation is a critical skill and one of the real experts at it is here to help. Jefferson Fisher is a lawyer and sought after speaker on the topic of verbal communication – and he is author of the bestselling book The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More (https://amzn.to/3IpnddR). There is a pretty good chance that you are watering your lawn too much and doing it incorrectly. At least that is according to Consumer Reports. Listen as I reveal their expert advice that will save you time and money and still give you a beautiful green lawn. https://www.consumerreports.org/home-garden/lawn-care/lawn-care-tips-to-get-yard-ready-for-summer-a2730228925/ PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! SHOPIFY: Shopify is the commerce platform for millions of businesses around the world! To start selling today, sign up for your $1 per month trial at⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠ INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ right now! QUINCE: Stick to the staples that last, with elevated essentials from Quince! Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns! HERS: Hers is transforming women’s healthcare by providing access to affordable weight loss treatment plans, delivered straight to your door, if prescribed. Start your initial free online visit today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://forhers.com/something⁠⁠⁠⁠ DELL: Upgrade your learning experience during Dell Technologies’ Back to School event with AI PCs starting at $749.99! Discover a smarter way to learn at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Dell.com/deals⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since you're a listener to something you should know, you are, by definition, the curious type. You like to discover new ways to improve your life. And if I've got that about right, there is another podcast I want you to check out called The Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. It's a podcast that can help you think sharper, feel better, maybe even live longer. Dave Asprey is a best-selling author. He's the guy who created the biohacking movement. And his podcast explores how to optimize

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search for The Human Up upgrade with Dave Asprey wherever you get your podcasts. Today on something you should know, the excellent reason why you might want to eat more nuts. Then the strange phenomenon of having a word that's right on the tip of your tongue, but you just can't retrieve it. One thing you have to keep in mind is that there is a fundamental distinction between

simply failing to retrieve a word and feeling like it's right there on the tip of your tongue about to come to mind at any moment. Also, a better way to water your lawn that will save you time and money. And some of the biggest mistakes we make in conversation and how to fix them. Biggest thing that I see people doing wrong in communication is they think that just because they said it, that's exactly how the other person heard it. It's the only way they could ever receive it, and that is a recipe for disaster. All this today on Something You Should Know.

Hi, I'm Adam Gitwitz, host of Grim, Grimmer, Grimmest. On every episode, we tell a grim fairy tale. Not the cute, sweet versions of the fairy tales that your children have heard so many times. No, we tell the real Grimm fairy tales. They're funny, they're weird, sometimes they're a little bit scary. But don't worry, we rate every episode Grimm, Grimmer, or Grimmest. So you, your child, your family can choose the episode that's the right level of scary for you.

Tune in to Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest, and our new season available now. into Grim, Grimmer, Grimmest and our new season available now. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. You know, I've always thought that eating nuts must be good for you. Human beings have been eating nuts forever. But it turns out, eating nuts is healthier and can help you live longer than I even imagined. Hi and welcome to another episode of Something You Should Know. The fact is that men and women who eat at least 10 grams of nuts per day have a lower risk of dying from several major causes of death Than people who don't consume nuts

the reduction in mortality was strongest for respiratory disease Neurodegenerative diseases and diabetes followed by cancer and Cardiovascular diseases the effects are equal in men and women cardiovascular diseases. The effects are equal in men and women. Peanuts, which technically are not nuts, show at least as strong reductions in mortality as tree nuts, so you can include them in the mix. There are a couple of interesting things about this study, which has been running since 1986, over 120,000 Dutch men and women.

The optimum amount of nuts was 15 grams per day. That's about a half a handful. Eating more than that did not reduce your mortality risk. And peanut butter doesn't count. The benefits only came from eating actual nuts and peanuts. No reduction in mortality came from eating actual nuts and peanuts. No reduction in mortality came from eating peanut butter. And that is something you should know. How many times has this happened to you? You know you know something. Usually it's a word.

You know you know it, but you just can't pull it out of your brain and say it. It's what's called a tip of the tongue moment. In fact, that's what people often say, oh, it's right on the tip of my tongue. Why does that happen? It's different than knowing that you don't know something or don't remember something and you just don't remember it. This is when you know you know it it But you can't recall it and it turns out people study this and what they've learned about it is really interesting One of those people who studies this is and Cleary. She's a professor of psychology at Colorado State University

And her research examines odd memory phenomenon like deja vu and tip of the tongue moments She's author of a book and tip of the tongue moments. She's author of a book called Tip of the Tongue States, Retrieval, Metacognition, and Experience. Hi, Anne, welcome. Hi, thanks. Thanks so much for having me. So I'm assuming, and I probably shouldn't assume, but I'm assuming that everybody has those tip of the tongue moments. I don't think I've met anybody who has told me they have not had this experience. So I think it's a pretty common experience that just about everybody has.

And what is it? What is it that you know you know something but you can't seem to know it? Well, that's the million dollar question. There are a lot of theories about what gives rise to it, but essentially it's a feeling, basically, a feeling that you're really close or right on the verge of accessing this word that just won't come to you at this moment. Is it always a word? Well, that's a good question. So there are a lot of

similar experiences. For example, there's the French term presqu'e vu for feeling right on the verge of a discovery or an epiphany. And that can be similar seeming to feeling on the verge of retrieving a word. And it's a really good question, are these other seemingly similar experiences the same or do they result from different mechanisms? That's something that researchers are actually trying to disentangle. Well, I guess you would include in the definition of a word would be somebody's name, or that's a word, right? Oh, yes.

And as it turns out, proper names are the most common elicitors of tip-of-the-tongue states. Well, I find it interesting that it is such a universal experience, but it's kind of a tongue states. Well, I find it interesting that it is such a universal experience, but it's kind of a quirky experience and I didn't realize that people actually research this. So it's an entire field of its own, in fact, that researching the tip of the tongue state. It gets abbreviated TOT or TOT for tip of the tongue state. So, since there's research on this, then there probably would be some answers to these questions of first of all, does it tend to happen at similar situations, times of the day, certain

kinds of things you're trying to recall, certain kind of words? What, if anything, do these tip of the tongue states have in common? So they tend to occur most commonly for very low frequency words that are harder to retrieve. So a high frequency word like money is very unlikely to elicit a tip of the tongue state for most people. But a very infrequent word, maybe something like artvark, might be more likely to elicit a tip of the tongue state because it's a harder word to retrieve. And along those same lines, proper names are very common elicitors of tip of the tongue states. So people's names in particular often elicit tip of the tongue states. In fact, a common method of studying tip of the

tongue states involves showing people famous faces and having them try to produce the names for each of the faces. And in that type of method, you can often elicit many tip of the tongue states in people in research. Anything else that they have in common? Is it more men than women? Does it happen more in the morning than the night? I mean, anything else that... It definitely varies with age. So, as people grow older, they'll tell you that they subjectively feel like they're having more and more of these tip of the tongue states. And there are whole lines of research centered on aging and tip of the tongue states.

But one thing you have to keep in mind is that there is a fundamental distinction between simply failing to retrieve a word and feeling like it's right there on the tip of your tongue about to come to mind at any moment. And so this has been a challenge for the literature, including with regard to this general finding that tip of the tongue states increase in their frequency as people grow older. I think it's important to distinguish between, is it just getting harder to retrieve words

as people get older? Or is it really the case that this subjective feeling of being right there on the verge of retrieving a word is increasing as people age? Well, if you think about it, and not being a researcher, this is kind of how I would think about it, or how I do think about it, is that the word is, you know, traveling the highway of wherever it travels

to get to your mouth to say, and something holds it up. Somewhere along the highway, something held it up. Is that roughly what's happening? That is a really great analogy to a dominant theory of tip of the tongue states, known as the transmission deficit model. So in the transmission deficit model, it's along the lines of what you just described, that there's a disruption along the highway of getting from one place to another and the networks of various components of word representations in our minds that causes a sort of a halt or a holdup in getting there to your mouth. That's exactly what the transmission deficit model posits. Now, again, I think there are other theories of tip-of-the-tongue states, and one argument

is that there's a fundamental distinction between simply failing to retrieve a word, having a holdup along that highway, so to speak, and feeling like it's right there, as if it's right there about to be retrieved. So there's this fundamental difference between failing to retrieve a word and having the subjective sensation that you're about to retrieve it. And it may be that the transmission deficit model is a great model of why we fail to retrieve words sometimes, but is it really telling us why does it feel like it's so close? What leads to that subjective sensation that it's almost

there? It's almost gonna come to us. So I've always found it interesting that, and I think it's related maybe to this is for example, let's just say you, you're trying to remember your, the name of your high school principal and you, it's right. I can see his face. I it's right on the tip of my tongue. It's, and you can't, but if you could magically transport yourself instantly back into your high school,

that name would come to you instantly, because you would have all these cues from high school that would bring his name right to the tip of your tongue. A key aspect to accessing a memory is having the right cues. And so I think you're exactly right, that if you could transport yourself back to that original context, you would increase the likelihood that you would be able to retrieve this name by virtue of those cues. In fact, one of my graduate students right now is exploring this idea as a means of helping people to overcome tip of the tongue states. So if people experience a tip of the tongue state in a particular context, can you reinstate an original context, for example, or put them in a different context? And does changing the context that they find themselves in

change the likelihood of accessing the word and, as we say, resolving the tip of the tongue state. Well, and the reason I bring that example up is because it works kind of in a similar but different way in that if you were to walk into your high school, you would start remembering things without you wouldn't even be able to control it because I want me and I wasn't one of this happened to me. You would start remembering things that have happened, people's names, people's that you have haven't thought about forever just by walking into your high school. Yes. Yes, there's a term for that in memory research to known as encoding specificity that when you reinstate the original context in which you experienced something,

that context reinstatement serves as a powerful set of cues that will cause you to conjure up memories that took place in that original context. And so that's a very powerful way to get hold of memories, even if they happened a long time ago, is to reinstate the original context in which those memories occurred. We're talking about those times when it's right on the tip of your tongue. My guest is Anne Cleary. She's author of the book Tip of the Tongue States, Retrieval, Metacognition, and Experience. Hey, it's Hillary Frank from The Longest Shortest Time, an award-winning podcast about parenthood

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Tuesday Thursday and Friday So and I've heard that if you're having one of those moments where it's right on the tip of your tongue The best advice is to stop trying so hard, walk away from it, and it's more likely to come back faster. Is that true? You know, I can't think of a study that's actually examined that specific method, but there may be some validity to that idea

insofar as it's kind of similar to the idea, an idea that we're exploring in my lab right now, which is that it could be kind of the opposite of what you just noted about reinstating an original context serving as a powerful set of cues. If you're failing to access the word because for whatever reason the current context is causing you to think of the wrong words and they're kind of getting in the way of you accessing the right words, well then maybe there's a benefit to changing your context, right? Working into another room or going and walking outside instead of staying in the context that you're at.

That may free your mind from the grip of the wrong representations. An analogous finding has been shown in the creative problem-solving literature where researchers have found that when people attach, they can't think of a solution to the problem or they get incorrect cues on purpose by the researchers to kind of trip them up and make it harder for them to retrieve the solution to a problem, if they change their context, they're more likely to then attain the solution to the problem, presumably because the wrong solution was attached to this previous context.

And so we think in my lab that something similar may happen with tip of the tongue states, but we're in the process of investigating this now. It hasn't yet been investigated, but it goes along with the idea that you just mentioned that maybe if you stop trying, right, you're giving your mind a break in the problem-solving literature.

People would call that incubation. You're kind of letting it incubate. You've stopped intentionally working on the problem. You're gonna give it a break, and often giving it a break does facilitate coming up with a solution to a problem. So, in an analogous way, there may be something to that idea with regard to tip of the tongue states. If you just give it a break and the right word will then come to mind. Though that hasn't really been directly investigated yet. Well, it must be hard to investigate this

because tip-of-the-tongue states don't happen predictably. They happen whenever they happen, and then they're gone. So it's hard to catch somebody having one. So, but I would love to see an experiment, although there's no way to do it, to put somebody in a hot shower when they're in a tip-of-the-tongue state and see if that word doesn't pop right out.

Actually, there are ways to study it, and so it's interesting that you mention that. The most common method of studying tip-of-the-tongue states is to give people a set of trivia questions, basically, like, what is the name of the inability to sleep? Or what is the name of the famous geyser in Yellowstone National Park? And so you have a large set. They may be over a hundred of these types of trivia questions.

And for just about every person, a fraction of them. You can't ever predict for any person which exact items are going to elicit the tip of the tongue state, but a fraction of them will. And that is how researchers typically go about studying tip of the tongue states. Other pointers can be pictures of celebrity faces. That's another very common type of pointer stimulus. So if you showed me a picture of a celebrity,

maybe a minor celebrity or a celebrity from a while back that hasn't been in the public eye a lot lately, but somebody whose face I recognize, I might say, yeah, I know who that is. It's right on the tip of my tongue, but I can't recall it. But if you gave me a list of 20 names, I'd be able to pick that person's name out once I saw it. Yeah, it's so interesting that you mentioned that,

because that's exactly what researchers tend to find. So in this pointer methodology that I mentioned, the way that you could examine that in a research study is to give a person, say, the pointer stimulus, whether it's a picture of a celebrity or a trivia question, and see if they have a tip of the tongue state. And then for those questions or celebrity images

for which a tip of the tongue state was indicated, what you can do is present a list of multiple choice options afterward and say, can you identify what the correct answer is? And when you do that, what you find is that if you compare those pointers for which people indicated experiencing a tip of the tongue state with those pointers for which people indicated that they were not experiencing a tip of the tongue state, you'll find that people show a higher probability of choosing

the correct answer out of the multiple choice options for those trials in which they reported experiencing a tip of the tongue state. In that way, tip of the tongue states really are indicative of some increased ability to access the answer. In that way, they sort of have some validity. They really do indicate a heightened probability that you'll be able to recognize the answer if you see it. When people have tip of the tongue states and it's just not coming to them, has anybody studied whether or not

when it's all said and done, they eventually do or they eventually don't? Yes, there's a whole domain of research centered on that very question. Researchers like to call what you're describing resolution There's a whole domain of research centered on that very question. Researchers like to call what you're describing resolution or tip of the tongue state resolution, resolution of the tip of the tongue feeling. And it's the idea that somewhere down the road you do come up with the word.

There are a lot of studies to support this idea that when you have a tip of the tongue state, it's pretty predictive of eventually arriving at the word. And so research does support the idea that that happens, that eventually the word does come in a lot of those instances. Not all of them, but a lot of those instances. Is there any sense, when you have a tip of the tongue moment and you do recall the word, that then it is somehow more cemented that you will never forget it again than it would have been if this had never come up in the first place?

That is such a great question. There's actually a line of research by a researcher named Karen Humphries who has looked at what the researchers refer to as recurring tip of the tongue states. And so it examines this line of work, examines the likelihood that you'll have a recurrence of a tip of the tongue state for that same word later on. What that research has shown is that if people resolve the tip of the tongue state on their own, so basically if you're able to eventually arrive at the word on your own somehow, then that reduces the likelihood that you'll experience on a different subsequent occasion

a tip of the tongue state for that same word. So it's kind of along the lines of what you're asking is that if you resolve it on your own, does it sort of help cement it? That's exactly what this research suggests. But interestingly, what these researchers have also found is that if you try to give people the answer, so if the person is in the tip of the tongue state, they don't succeed in resolving it on their own, and then you give them the answer,

that doesn't help later. There's something about arriving at the answer on one's own that helps to reduce the likelihood of a recurrence of a tip of the tongue state for that answer. And the same researchers have shown that if you cue people, so if you give them like the first letter or a cue that can help them arrive at it as long as they can Still arrive at it on their own They have a reduced likelihood of Subsequently experiencing a tip of the tongue state you did an experiment. I thought this was really interesting

So I want you to tell how you did this where you designed a test for people that gave them Some control over the answers when they took the test, when they couldn't think of the answer on their own. And the way that we did this was to give people basically trivia kinds of questions, what we might call general knowledge questions. In academic terms, like testing terms, you'd probably call it short answer. You have to try to come up with the answer to a question and type it in. And what we did was we allowed people, if they failed to come up with the answer, they could make a decision.

And the decision was, would they like to take a risk and have the multiple choice options presented to them? The risk is that if you select the wrong multiple choice option, you're going to lose some points. Whereas if you select the correct multiple choice option, you'll gain a point. And so when people failed to retrieve the answer on the short answer component,

they could either decide to just not have, if they know they don't know it, then the thing to do is decide to not have the multiple choice questions presented because then you just stay the same point-wise. But if you think you feel close and you think you would recognize it if you're presented with the multiple choice options, that gives you an opportunity to possibly gain a point, but at the risk that if you pick the wrong one, you're going to now lose a point where you could have stayed the same if you hadn't tried. And so in doing that study, what we found was that when people

felt like the answer was on the tip of their tongue in the short answer component of the test, they could actually use that feeling to make good decisions about whether and when to have that multiple choice set presented to them. And they actually were able to get higher overall point scores when they were given that opportunity than people who were not given that opportunity. And so what that suggests is that this is a way that we can really put to use in an academic type of situation the usefulness of a tip of the tongue state.

That it really does indicate an increased likelihood that you'll recognize the answer if you see it later. And so if we designed tests that way, students can capitalize on that to know at a metacognitive level how to proceed and when to ask for the multiple choice and when to not, which can enable them to basically show that they do have some knowledge

that wouldn't have shown up on a simple multiple-choice type of question format. Well, I think like most people, I certainly have had those moments when it's right on the tip of my tongue. I had no idea people researched this and dug deep as you have done, and it's really interesting to hear. And Anne has also done a lot of research on deja vu. And she was a guest here a while back. If you'd like to hear that discussion, it's episode 968. I know it's hard to find episode numbers on most podcast apps.

But on our website, you can search by episode number. It's real easy, 968. It'll come right up. And the website is somethingyoushouldknow.net. Anne Cleary is a professor of psychology at Colorado State University, and the name of her book is Tip of the Tongues States, Retrieval, Metacognition, and Experience.

And there's a link to her book at Amazon in the show notes. Anne, thank you. OK, great. Well, thanks so much. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial.

And I'm the dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever

you get your podcasts. So here's the problem. What you say is not necessarily what someone else hears. And after all, you said it, you know what you meant to say, you said it. But the other person knows what they heard. And they're often not the same thing. That's just one of many ways that we miscommunicate. Sometimes we talk too much when less would be better.

Or we try to win an argument and convince someone else they're wrong, which is seldom a good idea. So many things go wrong in our day-to-day communication, and they don't have to, if we pay attention. And here to explain how to do that is Jefferson Fisher. He is a lawyer and frequent sought-after speaker on the topic of communication, and he is author of a book called The Next Conversation, Argue Less, Talk More. Hi Jefferson, welcome to Something You Should Know. Hey Mike, thank you so much for having me.

So of all the potential missteps that can happen in a conversation or communication, what's the one that you see trips people up the most? The biggest thing that I see people doing wrong in communication is they think that just because they said it, that's exactly how the other person heard it. They think just because they said the words and it sounded like it did when it was in their head, they were saying it out loud, they think that's exactly how the other person interprets it, how they, it's the only way they could ever receive it. And that is a recipe for disaster.

I love that. When you get into these fights. Yeah, you get into these fights. That's not what I said. And they go, yeah, that's exactly what you said. That's not what I said. You get into this tit for tat. And then what does somebody say?

Somebody says, I wish I had it recorded. I wish there was a video camera where I could have seen exactly, you could have seen how you made that face at me. Yeah, well I see that. Well, I have that happen to me all the time. And as you say, it's not always the words, you know, if you wrote them down and read them, okay, that's what you said. It's the tone of your voice. It's the volume of your voice. it's the volume of your voice, it's the way you, it's the total communication, not just the words you said. I took it one way, you may have meant it another way, and now we're disconnected. Exactly. So what's a better way? I mean, how do you, how do you prevent that? Or do, or do,

does it happen first and then you fix it or what? Instead of this fight over, that's not what I said. Instead, begin with the question. The question is, what did you hear? Rather than, that's not what I said. Simply ask the question, what did you hear? And it allows the other person to go, what I heard was you were upset about this. What I heard was you were saying, I'm a bad mom.

You're saying, I don't do enough around here. You're saying, and you go, no, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It allows you to clarify, allows you to go back to intentions. You say, let me start again, or I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention. What I meant to say was, and redo it. Most of the time we don't allow the redo.

We just force our interpretation and commit to it being the only interpretation that this person can have. And then we get into an argument with them that their interpretation is not your interpretation. And you just, you've, you riddle the conversation with these little mini arguments that are unnecessary. What's another good example of when conversation gets us in trouble? Let's say for example, you and I are in conversation and it starts to get heated and I use this phrase. I say, Mike, you always, or never, well, now we've changed it.

Now we've altered a new layer to the dynamic and that is whether you always or never do it, because you're going to say, no, I don't always do that. And you go, yeah, huh? You always do it. Okay. Name a time that I did this and we're just totally off base from where the conversation actually started. So when you, you fall to extremes, that's

the always and the never, easy, easy way to get off track in an argument. Whenever you find that in conversation, argument can be a good thing. We can advocate for positions. Where it goes wrong is where you instead see the argument as a competition between each other. And when you see arguments as something to win rather than something to unravel, if you can start seeing them as, hey, I need to step away from this competition, instead just listen to another point of view, better things are going to happen in your life. So there are many conversations, political conversations, father-son conversations, husband-wife conversations, where it seems as if the goal is to try to convince the other person

that whatever position they hold is incorrect, that that's not correct. I'm right, you're wrong. Should that ever be the goal of a conversation because it seems that's a hard one to win? If you set out to win an argument, Mike, you'll lose the relationship because nobody wants to be around the person who always has to be right. If you want a very quick way to scale back

a potential disagreement is to instead of saying, I disagree, which is me saying, I don't like your point. It's wrong. Your point is wrong. When I say, I disagree, if I said that to you, Mike, you have an opinion, I say, I disagree. And I start talking.

Are you gonna listen to me? Yeah, probably not. Most likely not. Yeah, what you're gonna do now is your mind is now racing to go, okay, buddy, let me find even better arguments. You're now taking in a big breath. You're now trying to size up.

You know, I'm just gonna, you start building your ammunition. You start building your wall. You start putting in your moat. You're not trying to listen to me more. Instead, you're trying to bolster your argument so that by the second time around, you hit me harder. And that rarely, if ever, works. Instead of this I disagree, what'll get you there is use words of perspective.

Either words that sound like words that are including the word perspective, view, see, look, vantage, take, approach. Any of these kind of words of perspective don't get people defensive. So instead of I disagree, what I would tell you to turn it to is I see things differently. I have a different perspective. I have another take. And what it does is you don't get upset by it. Instead, you almost get curious of like, oh, what do you, what do you see? It's me almost inviting you to say, hey, come over to my side and take a look and you'll, and do you see? It's me almost inviting you to say hey come over to my side and Take a look and you'll and and you'll see and it'll make sense

So when you you add in that layer of curiosity that you care to understand somebody else's perspective, they won't get defensive One of the things it seems that gets in the way of conversations is emotions and people get upset and you know I'm listening to you talk and you you have a very even keel. You don't sound like you're easy to upset in a conversation. Maybe you are, but it doesn't sound like it. But some people are really easy to upset. They get upset, and then things go off the rails. And I don't know if there's any simple advice for preventing that or dealing with that, but if there

is, I'd love to hear it. If you are somebody who's hotheaded and you frequently fly off the handle or you yell and say things, usually it's a, it's, it's not a word problem, it's a body problem. Meaning you haven't found a way yet to regulate your system. I sound calm because I typically am very calm

and I speak very slow. I speak pretty low. My pace is pretty even. I don't super rush. I don't super go extra slow. And people will mirror that and Calm down themselves. It's a body problem in the way that you're holding your breath So what I teach is when you go into conversations, especially a heated one

Let your breath be the first word that you say so wherever your first word would be if your response You put a breath in its place because it's not only going to make sure you're regulated, it's also going to give enough time to regulate the other person because most likely they need it too. And when you use your breath to calm yourself down, what you're telling your body is, this is not a threat to me. This person is not threatening to me. Their position, their point of view, their opinion isn't threatening to me. And when you tell your body that, naturally your shoulders will not get nearly as tense. Most likely people listening

right now, you can go ahead and relax your shoulders. We hold our shoulders all the time without even thinking about it. So when you say you speak calmly, you speak low, that's very intentional or that's just who you are or both? Both. It's part of my, of course, how I grew up. If you listen to my dad, we would have pretty much the same voice, so a lot of some of that's just genetics of how I sound. We usually sound like a parent in some way or another, especially the older we get. And then a lot of it is intentional as well, especially if it's really heated argument. I have a very good friend of mine who his whole history is in crisis response and what they taught him is when you're approaching a scene or a crime scene walk don't run because you are giving

this sense of like yeah let's say there's some type of hostage negotiation going on you walk it's it's a sense of, nope, everything's under control. I got this, we're good. You know, a solution is coming, rather than running and getting everybody worked up and stirred up. So it's very much kind of that same pattern.

You can be intentional. So when I go into conflict, somebody's yelling and I lower my voice even more and I slow things down you know what they do they slow it down too. So how do you well maybe not well yeah how do you but also the recommendation for everybody who's been in that conversation with someone who's very intimidating very you know type-a tries to control everything talks over you and you and you know, you're the kind of the opposite of that.

You're not screaming and yelling. How do you handle it? And maybe that's how you would recommend other people handle it. Because the problem with that I see with that dynamic is once the roles are set, if somebody's being very dominating, and you're ending up being very submissive. It's hard to break out of those roles once they've been established in a conversation. Yeah, what I like to do if I know I'm going into a room with somebody who's kind of what we would say

is a bull in a China shop, is I like to do a technique called priming the room. I might sit down and rather than talking about them directly, I'm gonna talk about something bigger, more general that encompasses both of us. For example, I might sit down and say, I wanna make sure that we're in a room where we can both be super transparent.

Or I wanna make sure that we're in a place right now that you and I can speak freely. I want to make sure that this is a room where you and I are on level footing. I can speak and I'm going to be heard. They'll agree to that. They will always agree to that. But when you say it in terms of I want to make sure this is a room, a space, a place, you are signaling that we're both in this and these are rules that we are both abiding by. It's like an invisible contract.

And so when I prime the room that way, you see how much better that is to me saying, hey, okay, I'm gonna tell you something and I need to make sure that you're actually listening to me and not cutting me off, cool? That's, they're gonna, spikes are gonna come out. But if they are the bull in the China shop and they start the bullying, the bullying and the, how do you, how do you mitigate that?

How do you? They're very simple ways of showing someone the rules of engagement when it comes to communicating with you. So what I would say is, I'd use your name first, I'd say, Mike, I don't allow people to talk to me disrespectfully. If you continue to talk to me in that tone, this is going to need to be the end of the conversation.

So those are three different steps. One is I'm telling you what my boundary is. I don't allow. I don't allow people to do X, Y, and Z. Two is I'm giving you the condition. I'm giving you the chance. If you continue to, I'll make it contingent. If you continue to, then three, add the consequence. And this

is the biggest one, in my opinion, because you have to be willing to do it. This is the end of the conversation, meaning I'm willing to get up and walk away. If you're willing to do that, you got to be willing to do it. Same thing with people who you've seen in bad relationship problems. They say, you say that one more time, I'm out the door. I'm leaving. And of course, what happens? They do it one more time, I'm out the door. I'm leaving. And of course what happens, they do it one more time and they don't leave. They don't walk away. Well, now you've only reinforced the power dynamic. You've made sure that the other person knows you're all bark, no bite.

You really don't mean it. You can say whatever, and you're always going to stay exactly where you are. And you're just, you are deepening the power dynamic when you do that. So instead use three simple rules tell them what your boundary is, give the condition and the consequence. That's great advice and so where else do you find or what since you're the the expert on this what do people ask you about a lot else do you find, or since you're the expert on this, what do people ask you about a lot? Where do you see the problem, something that we haven't talked about yet that you think

could really help people in these situations, in conversation situations, to make things go better? I teach a framework for people to have difficult conversations, really any conversation, but they work particularly well in the difficult ones. And this is how it goes. Let's say I have to let you go in our company and you've come down to the office and you sit down and I say, yeah, Mike, how's it going? Yeah, it's good.

Good to see you. Yeah, how's your family? How's everybody doing? You good? Yeah, oh, yeah, this weather, it's crazy. So listen, Mike, I then deliver the news. Not right away, it still takes me a while. I kind of go in a circle. You're sitting there going,

where are we going with this? What's happening? That's how it typically goes in difficult conversations, and that's the worst way it goes in difficult conversations. I'm saying that small talk stuff not to make you feel better. I'm saying it for me to feel better, to kind of soften the landing for me. That's usually very unkind. What I teach is if you want to be kind you need to be be direct. It's one of the kindest things you can do. So instead here's the framework. One you're gonna tell them what you want to talk about. Two you want to tell them how you want

the conversation to end. That's the big one. And three get their buy-in into the frame. I call this a frame, like you would put a frame around a picture. So instead of all this small talk stuff, I'm going to begin with exactly what I want to talk about. I'm gonna say, Mike, this is gonna be a hard conversation. I'm gonna let you kind of take a break. You're gonna probably nod, like, okay, got it.

I need to let you go. And at the end of this conversation, we're going to walk away with a plan of how this is going to be and where we're going to go from here on out. All right. And you're probably going to go, all right. Or let's say you've done something wrong in the company. I might bring you in and say, Mike, I need to have a conversation about some comments you made at last Thursday's meeting and I want to walk away from this conversation with the understanding

that's not gonna happen again. Sound good? Very easy, quick, to the point. There's no fluff, there's no questioning of what is going on. Lastly, some general advice for any conversation. When you're in a conversation with anyone at all, what do you need to keep in mind? I teach that the person you see isn't always the person you're talking to. Let's say in my own relationships. My wife might come in and there's she's upset about something. Before we know it, boom, we're having an issue about something that's minor, that's something maybe on the kitchen counter or whatever,

somebody accidentally spilled something. And the issue is not that. My dad would always tell me the issue is rarely the issue. There's always something else. Come to find out it's an email that she got at 8 a.m. It is not that. My dad would always tell me the issue is rarely the issue. There's always something else. Come to find out it's an email that she got at 8 a.m. from another client that got her in an upset mood. And I've done certainly the same thing.

Everybody has something else going on. When you really take the time, take a minute, to get curious and try to reach that other person. The person you see is not the person you're talking to. The waitress who's waiting on you and she brought your coffee just a little bit too late. You could get all worked up or maybe she was being, you thought she was being rude to you. Well, you have no clue what's happening in her life and you're not aware of her struggles. Same thing with the guy who is coming to be a repairman at your house. Instead of seeing the person who's delivering you coffee as whatever her name is,

it could be Sheila, see it as your name with your name tag on it. And I promise you, you'll treat that person with a little bit more grace. Well, communication and miscommunication, as we've been discussing, is so important to everyone because it happens all the time. And if we can avoid it or at least fix it when it happens, all the better, and I appreciate your advice.

Jefferson Fisher's been my guest. He's an attorney and author of the book The Next Conversation. Argue less, talk more. And there's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Jefferson, thank you for being here today. Thank you very much, Mike. I appreciate it, man. I wish you all the best. It seems as if conserving water has become more and more of a priority for people. Because even if there isn't a drought now, there could be a drought tomorrow. And one way to conserve water is the way you treat your lawn. If you lightly water your lawn once a day, that's too much. Daily watering encourages your grass to develop a very shallow root system.

Turf experts say the best approach is to give your lawn one long soaking for about 30 minutes once a month. And this is according to Consumer Reports. Now that might not sound like enough, but it is if you water it right. You want to be sure it's done early in the morning between 4 and 7 a.m. and you'll want to avoid watering in windy or breezy conditions. And stop cutting your lawn so often. You should let it grow to about 5 inches before you mow it. Watering less will save water, money, and time because you won't have to cut it so often.

And that is Something You Should Know. Something You Should Know is produced by Jennifer Brennan, Jeff Heveson, and the executive producer is Ken Williams. I'm Mike Herothers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Hey, it's Hillary Frank from The Longest Shortest Time, an award-winning podcast about parenthood and reproductive health. There is so much going on right now in the world of reproductive health, and we're covering it all. Birth control, pregnancy, gender, bodily autonomy, menopause, consent, sperm, so many stories

about sperm, and of course, the joys and absurdities of raising kids of all ages. If you're new to the show, check out an episode called The Staircase. It's a personal story of mine about trying to get my kids' school to teach sex ed. Spoiler, I get it to happen, but not at all in the way that I wanted. We also talk to plenty of non-parents, so you don't have to be a parent to listen. If you like surprising, funny, poignant stories about human relationships and, you know, periods, The Longest Shortest Time is for you. Find us in any podcast app or at longestshortesttime.com.