The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – How to Say What You Mean Without Being Mean by Jan D Thomas

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

How to Say What You Mean Without Being Mean by Jan D Thomas https://www.amazon.com/How-What-Mean-Without-Being/dp/1964362792 Jandthomasbooksandpaint.com Your relationships are important and how you communicate with people will determine most aspects of your life. W hen your final word is spoken and your last breath is drawn, nothing will matter except God and those people whom you have loved. Only that love will last an eternity. You will see them again if they are in a right relationship with Christ, but all of those things that you thought were so important to you will be dust and ashes. Nothing more. About the author Jan D. Thomas is a New Mexico native. Born at the Santa Rita copper mine near Silver City, he heard the blast of the first atomic bomb test at Trinity Site. Moving later to Los Alamos, the birthplace of the atomic age, he lived for a few years as a child in northern New Mexico, but returned to his birthplace, where he graduated from high school. After four years in the United States Air Force, he returned from spending nearly three years in Spain to attend the University of New Mexico. He also has an MDiv degree and retired from a career in the New Mexico Corrections Department, where he was a warden. He has worked with prison ministry groups, helped found a faith-based program in New Mexico, and became the first National Director of Celebrate Recovery Inside, the prison application of the program. He was married to his late wife, Fern, for 54 years before she passed away in 2019. He has three children, six grandchildren, and fourteen great-grandchildren. Having lived in the Mesilla Valley for over thirty years, he spends much of his time painting and writing. As an artist, he has painted over 200 paintings and has published a number of books, poems, and essays.

You wanted the best... You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

Because you're about to go on a monster education role. rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks, Voss here from the Chris Voss Show.com. And you got to love it. And ladies, young in there, I only things that makes official, welcome to the big show. As always, Chris Voss show is a family that loves you, but the judge is harshly as the rest the world because we're kind of nice that way.

Plus, we know you're here to improve your life and improve lives of others and make the world a better place because, you know, that's what we do here in the Chris Voss show. We talk to these amazing authors and minds that we have on the show that tell their amazing stories. And you can sit there and go, wow, I can make my life better. I mean, at this point, most of you are probably perfect after 16 years of this show in 2,800 episodes. But, you know, there's always room for improvement. That's what I say. And that's what my girlfriend says.

Anyway, especially when it comes to me, I need to improve. So whatever that means. Go to goodreads.com, forces, Christfos, LinkedIn.com, 4th, that's Chrisfoss, YouTube.com, before it says Chris Foss at Chris Foss 1 on the TikTokity. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind.

Today, an amazing young man who's going to be joining us on this show. And we're going to get into it with him. Find out what his stories are and all that good stuff, as it were. He is the author of the latest book to come out called How to Say What You Mean, Without Being, Mean. April 24th, 2024 came out by Jan D. Thomas. We'll get into a hymn. He is a New Mexico native.

Ooh, I love those green chilies down there in New Mexico. That's my favorite to go down there and buy a big bag of roasted chili peppers. He was born in Santa Rita, Copper Mine, near Silver City. He heard the blasts of the first atomic bomb test at Trinity site. Moving later to Los Alamos, the birthplace of the atomic age. He lived for a few years as a child in northern New Mexico, but returned to his birthplace where he graduated from high school. After four years in the U.S. Air Force, he returned from spending nearly three years in Spain to attend the University of New Mexico. He has an MDIV degree and retired from a career in the New Mexico Corrections Department where he was a warden.

He's worked in prison ministry camps and groups. Helped found a faith-based program in New Mexico and became the first. first national director of Celebrate Recovery Inside, a prison application of the program. He was married to his late wife for 54 years before she passed away in 2019. He has three children, six grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren. My God. Welcome to show, Jan. How are you? Fine. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for coming. We really appreciate it. And you live quite the life. I think, you know, the atomic life, as it were, from the sounds of of your youth. Very bright, radioactive youth. Yeah, and I live in Las Cruces, which is right across the mountain from the, what says, missile range. Oh, wow. I know a lot of a rocket scientist as well.

You should tell people, being near the bomb when it exploded gave me this beautiful radio glow that I have. So give us your dot-com. your websites. Where do you want people to find you on the end of web, sir? You can find me at Jan D. Thomas, books and paint.com. N.D. Thomas, Booksandpaint.com. Okay.

Both an author and an artist. All right. Do you do stuff other than books? Do I what now? You said you were an artist. Do you do something other than books? Is there another art form you use? Oh, yeah. I paint pictures. When I get tariff. of writing, I paint. When I get tired of painting, I write. Ah, that's good. That's good. I don't watch television.

Yeah, that'll rise your brain watching television. But listening to podcasts is fine. So, Jan, give us a 30,000 over you. What's inside your book? Inside my book, it's about a 40-year work. When I was the warden at the Radical Correctional Center, I was asked by the New Mexico Correction Academy to design a program, or at least a class, to teach correctional officers who were being promoted to Sergeant, lieutenant, captain, and so on, how to communicate better so that they didn't get themselves into trouble with inmates. Sometimes, you know, they get into arguments with inmates, so that escalates into where somebody gets hurt.

And so I did that for several years. And then when I retired, the material was redone in a format for inmates for a faith-based program that we started about 28 years ago. And we did that in the prisons now for a while. And then I decided it was of some value. And so I decided to put it in a book form. so that we could get it out to everybody else. I think we need to know how to make friends rather than make enemies.

I wish our people in Washington could learn that one. Yeah, that definitely would. Learn how to make friends instead of enemies. I think we're all guilty sometimes of sometimes not thinking through what we say and we say something that sometimes can be mean and hurtful to other people. And, you know, if we have a conscious or emotional intelligence, we regret those things. But give us some samples of how we can say things that we mean without being mean. You know, one of the things, you know, you mentioned that we sometimes just blurt things out and we don't think about them.

But there are four words in the English language that are pretty healing if they're met in a right way. And that's, can you forgive me, please? that's that's something that will heal a lot of a lot of things and you know you have to back it up and say look I was wrong and you know be be honest I think is the way that we come across to people and then not not do it again those are things I think I've learned pretty much how to keep from doing all that but I mean where's the fun in that not doing it again I like doing bad things and then apologizing and then just keep doing them. Just keep doing it.

After a while, is somebody going to get Matt and go away and throw something. That explains some things. That might explain why I'm still single after all these years. But yeah, that would make sense. So, yeah. I've been around prisons for almost 53 years. And I only had one time that an inmate almost laid hands. on me, but he just reached through the bars and I could have broken his arm and I didn't do it.

So after that many years, I think I got along pretty well. I mean, you know, we need to think a little bit more. I think social media, I don't know if you talk about that in the book, but I know people sometimes can be really mean on social media and sometimes they just think that's how social media is supposed to be used. And I think it's good to be used by people. try to make friends. I've sold some artwork that way, and I think I've sold the books that way, too. Yeah. I mean, I remember one time there was, I was on Twitter, and we were kind of a big deal back in the day,

and this guy just started trolling me, and there was something I was sharing that just kind of had a truth that was hard to argue with. You know, it was like one of those eternal truths. Like, you know, they have a lot of books and tones, like, do good unto others, so they do good on to others, so they do good to you. It was something like that. It wasn't like, you know, something bullshit I was trying to put over on people. And this guy started arguing. I was just kind of stunned.

I'm like, you're arguing with an eternal truth. And he just kept getting nastier and uglier with me. And so I did this thing that my dad used to do to people. And they were like that. They go, man, you really aren't behaving well. Did someone hurt you? Who hurt you? And it would kind of hit people between the eyes

because then they start realizing how they were behaving. And so I asked him, and he goes, this is social media. You're supposed to troll and abuse people and hit people over the head. And, you know, this is how it is. It's a game. And I'm like, no, it's not a game.

You're playing a game that you've just made up or gotten sucked into. This is not an appropriate way to deal with people in a social setting. And, you know, I mean, if you disagree with me, that's fine, but you don't have to call me names, you don't have to be ugly. And he took it to heart, too.

He went, oh, and I go, you know, honestly, the stuff that I share isn't meant to offend people or troll people. It's for education and to help people and to make the world a better place. And I mean, you still can disagree with me, but, you know, when you're being ugly and mean, you know, it's not helping anybody, including yourself. That might have been a good example, what you talk about. the book. You know, one example that I had, and that was, I'll talk about that guy that tried to reach me through the bars. His mother called me up one day, and she said, why is my son locked up in

segregation again? And I said, mainly he's got a bad attitude. He can't get along with staff, and he can't get along with him. And so we just can't work with him out in the population, so we have to keep him locked away. I went down to see him in the segregation. in it and he was laying on his bunk. This was where they had the old bars years ago. And he saw who I was. He sat up. He got a piece of paper off the floor and he stood up and he said, what do you mean telling my mother that I have a bad attitude? And I said, you mean to tell me you don't think you've got a bad attitude? And he got on the cell door and he just yelled out, hell no, I don't have a bad attitude.

And I told him, I said, I wish I had a camera to take this picture right now. Got to prove the point right there. And the whole cell block went off. And so I had to stay another guy. And I took off. And when I came by him, he tried to reach me through the bars. And I thought about breaking his arm. But I'm a Christian.

And God said, don't do that. No, I didn't. And plus it's more pay. Someone had to write a report. Yeah, you had to write a report. Exactly, yeah. If I was ever a police officer, the pedophiles would never make it back to the station. And my boss would be like, how come your gun always accidentally goes off in the car when

you ever you have a pedophile you're bringing back the state? I did catch him with the kid. But also, you know, it seemed like it was going to be a lot of paperwork. That's why I'm not a cop. And yeah. And so what are some other techniques or some maybe some. examples that you've seen in addition to, you know, the prisoner, where you've seen people be mean. And was there a proponent? Do was someone really mean to you? And you're like, I'm going to write a book,

you know, this sort of thing. Or what was the instance that gave you the catalyst to want to write the book? No, I don't think I had any of one catalyst, but I did have a, I had an incident when I was six years old, a drunk caught me and he put a knife to my throat, a pocket knife to my throat. And the neighbors around were laughing at me. They happened to be Hispanic and I happened to be a gringo. And where I was, that was not a good thing. Where I am now, I get along very well with Hispanics, but they didn't like anybody who was an outsider. And so I went home and I, I told my mother, he didn't believe me. And, you know, there's things like that that you really begin to hone in on, you know, that I could either get mad or dislike everybody that wasn't like me or anybody that looked like they were going to hurt me.

Or I could decide I'm going to try to do something to keep or to help people to not be in that kind of a mode. You know, it's, you can't let, you know, one bad person can really taint our value of other people or stuff. I wasn't sure if you were going to kick in there. You know, so we can't have that shape, but, you know, we do have to think, I think we have to be conscious some, a lot of times of what we say, how it's going to be received. You know, I've been guilty of being pretty blunt and sometimes I want to throw a jab in or sometimes I'll look at what I write when I edit it. So, okay, you don't need to throw that punch in there. We don't need to use a name call. Let's see if we can finesse and be a little bit more professional.

You know, sometimes with me, the first response is not the response to send. So how can we do better at being conscious of what we're about to say and, you know, keeping from being mean? One of the things is try to listen to yourself as you talk. You know, like you said you were, you know, kind of looking over what you were writing, but you can also look over what you're thinking. And you think, how would I receive that if somebody were to say that to me or do it in that way? You know, sometimes the tone of voice is enough to really set things off. It doesn't matter what you say sometimes.

It's how you say it. And you can tell people the truth. We call it truth in love rather than, you know, just, you know, to bash somebody over the head with it. And usually if I get bashed over the head, I don't like it too much. That's true. And another thing is to listen to people. What?

And ask them a lot of questions about what's going on with them. I was just having fun with you there when I said what. And he says, you don't listen, Chris. I go, what? What? What? Anyway, but yeah, we need to, some people, you know, there's some people that don't have an inner dialogue with themselves. Have you ever heard of that?

It's 50% of the American population of humans doesn't have an inner dialogue. Sometimes they see in pictures or videos or sometimes they just blurt, I guess, whatever comes out of their mouth. Any remedy for those folks? Yeah. You know, actually, it's a skill. It's something that you learn. I don't think we learn how to communicate sometimes in our first. families, my gosh, you know, some families all they're doing, yelling at one another, throwing

at each other, insulting each other, arguing with each other. And, you know, if you grow up in that kind of a situation, you know, you have to unlearn some of the things that you've learned before. Most of the things that we argue about have no meaning at all. I can remember my parents, they got into a big argument one time over brown gravy, for gosh sake. My mother had cooked a roast in the oven, and she used the drippings to make gravy. My father looked at the gravy and he said, you burn the gravy. And what she didn't hear was you burn the gravy. She heard, you don't like my cooking.

And so they got into argument. My dad got so mad he left the house that my brother and I were sitting, trying to figure out who we were going to live with. If they were the divorce. it never happened it was over you know brown gravy yeah well I guess if

I mean gravy is brown so how do you know when it's burnt I don't know this is for another podcast probably what are some other tips or comments to share with people on the books on how not to be mean and communicate effectively

I think I'd like to read at least one little little paragraph that I had have. Sure. And I think it kind of sums up the whole book. It says when your final word is spoken and your last breath is drawn, nothing will it matter except God and those people whom you have loved. Only that love will last in eternity. You will see them again if they're in a right relationship with God. But all those things that you thought were so important to you

will be dust and ashes, nothing more. And I think that's the bottom line for. I think you muted. I don't know how I muted myself. But anyway, yeah, I'm unmuted now. I don't know how I got, you know, touched up. But anyway, that, I think, you know, if we can have a life where we, at the end of the life, have a family that cares, friends around us, I've got, I have one friend I've had for well over 60 years, and we still communicate.

and it's those those kinds of relationships that I think are really important relationships matter they certainly do they certainly do and you know learning to communicate better I mean sometimes I mean there is still a way I think you know like you say sometimes we we feel that we feel that we're speaking our truth and being honest with somebody but something you know that can fall funny it can fall weird. I mean, there's times where, you know, I've, I've said things that I didn't intend to be mean, but, you know, in thinking about maybe some of the keywords I used, they were mean, like, you know, hey, stupid, you know. I've always found that sometimes I, you know, I always sets them off. I don't know what that's about, but, but yeah, I mean, I've kind of found a lot of times when I

edit my emails and stuff and I know when I try and self-edit and when I'm interacting with people you know I try and think about it and I and I usually look for keywords you know I'm known for I'm known for if I want to punch hard I can punch hard I can

get the people I'm surgical that way when I'm when I've you know when I'm pissed off and I got to fix something and sometimes I can really go overboard like I can beat people of the head for too long like they've gotten it they've asked for forgiveness and I still keep and I still keep doing body blows. And so I have to watch myself.

Yeah. But, you know, keywords of being, what's the word I'm looking for? Key words that, you know, you're being insulting, you know, you're talking more about them and their character as opposed to addressing the behavior that you're trying to address, you know. You guys always do this. Yeah. You sometimes become a bully with your voice. Yeah. And I'm, I'm, I'm, um, I'm a bully bullies, and so sometimes I can bully the wrong, and the nice people, too. I didn't talk about you necessarily. I'm just trying to shine examples of where I've been. Don't make me come over there, Jan.

No, I'm just kidding. See, I'm being a bully now. But no, I've kind of learned that sometimes, you know, you have to stick with the behavior of a person. And that person's value is not their behavior that you're trying to fix. And so you've got to make sure that you're focusing on how do I speak true to somebody and get them to correct their behavior. Yeah. And a lot of times, you know, if you try to change somebody, I think that's one of the biggest problems we have is we try to change somebody to make them be more comfortable for us. You know, we want them to be more like us so we don't have to put up with whatever their behavior.

things are. And so we want to change them. You know, you make you mad, makes them mad, and everybody goes away mad. So a lot of it is in learning how to just get along with other people's personalities and not

let it offend. Being offended is one of those things that gets in trouble a lot. Yeah. I don't have to be in this. What is it? Yeah. I don't use the

a lot of stoicism too. There's an old thing that says with stoicism that, in meditations and Marcus Aurelius, you know, you're going to wake up and you're going to meet people that are, you're going to meet all sorts of angry people and issues and yada, yada, yada, and you know, sometimes you have to ride through

those things and everything else. Let's talk about some of the other things. Do you have offers that you sell on your website, some of your paintings or some of those things? Do we want to get a plug up for you? I don't have an offer. I've got a new book that the first child's, children's book I were the Princess the Duck Killer.

Oh. And this one is being presented as a, getting an award for in the Pacific Book Fair. Here's another one. That's what I did with my friend George Pentar. George is 94 years old. He's retired from New Mexico State University. And he's got a guy by the name of Chili Charlie that he writes about. And his other one, slap happy Joey Smith.

Chili, Charlie, you know, and we have a collection of humor, culture, and heart in this book. And I've done a lot of poetry, and I have a short story in there. Blundered or Blessing is my autobiography. And I've done a lot of blundering in my life. I've had a lot of dumb stuff, you know, choices that I've made or didn't make. And so I've got a book that tells about all that stuff. George and I did this one. suppose trees could talk.

And suppose trees could talk is about chilly Charlie and slap happy Joey Smith, who are kind of the alter egos for he and I, about the value of old people and what old people can do with their lives. You know, a lot of people, he and I both have suffered the loss of a wife. And so we know what that feeling is like. And so there's a lot of adjustment that has to come along with that. So we have some ideas about how people can deal with it. I have another one that's called Messiah Traveler.

Messiah Traveler is about a man who fought in the Mexican-American War, gets out of the army. He comes up to this part of the world in Las Cruces. It was Las Cruces then. It was Messiah. Messiah was a place. I don't know what. Hang on a minute. Masea was a place where there was a lot of history done.

Billy the kid, for one, was convicted to be hanged in MESIA. It was also the capital of the Confederate territory of Arizona at one time. When the Confederates took over this area, they did it. But I have my character getting out. He gets shot. As soon as he gets to Mesaia. He kills the guy he shot who shoots him. And he's nursed back to health by a Mexican woman who just happened to be the wife of the guy he shot.

Really? And they get married. Yeah. But anyway, they deal with all of that. But they interact with actual historical people who were in that period of time and the historical events. That was a book that I enjoyed doing. I have a sequel that I'm working on right now, and I also have that translated into Spanish. Oh, wow.

As we can go any way that you want to know. But those are things that I've done. I have not sold that many books, but I've written a whole bunch of them. How many books have you written? How many books have you written? I've written four myself and then two with George Pintar. And we've had a good relationship with each other. He also got me involved in a writer's group here in Las Cruces.

We call Los Cruces writers, writers helping writers. And so we toss things around and, you know, read things to each other and say we don't like that or we like that or, you know, that sort of thing. That's good sounding. I have a good time. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm only 86, so I've got a lot of time to do stuff. I love your outlook.

So as we go out and round out the show, give people a final pitch out on where to pick up your book and get to know more about you. My books are on Amazon right now. You can also go to my website, and you can get some of the books there. I also have some of my artwork posted on my website that people can find.

I really enjoy doing both writing and painting. You can see these two paintings in back of me. Oh, yeah. Two paintings that I did. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But I've got a whole garage full of them. So give us the website again.

That's where I do. You know what I see. You know what I see? You can see it's the website again. Jan D. Thomas Books and Paint.com. Jan D Thomas Books and Paints And Paints and Pace

and Pets.com All one large A bunch of letters All right And there'll be a link for it folks In the Chris Foss show Thanks for coming by We really appreciate Jan

Thank you for having me Thank you for having me. Thank you And thanks, Your Honor I enjoy being had Thank you We enjoyed having you, sir I think we got a little internet delay.

So folks, order up the book for our final books are sold. How to say what you mean without being mean. April 24th, 2020. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed.