The Dr. John Delony Show - Handling Conflict Like a Pro With Jefferson Fisher

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

On today’s show, John talks to friend, influencer and attorney Jefferson Fisher about how to take the emotion out of hard conversations. To pre-order John's new book Building a Non-Anxious Life click here. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Hallow Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Anxiety Test Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. I looked at my phone and it went over a million. Next notification I got it said, like, The Rock. Like Dwayne Johnson, The Rock. Yeah, yeah. Like, The Rock. Yeah, I just, I looked at it and then immediately just like put it down like that didn't happen. So it turned out I had my first panic attack. That was terrible. I thought I was dying.

What is going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. The show where we talk about your mental health, your emotional health, what's going on in your marriage, what's going on in your bedroom, what's going on with your kids, whatever you got going on in your world.

My promise is I'll walk alongside you and we'll figure out the next right step. For two decades, thousands and thousands of people I've sat with when the wheels have fallen off, talked to groups across the country. What do we do next? And I don't know much, but I do know how to sit with folks and say, all right, let's figure out what to do next. I'm so grateful for you all just giving up your time to sit with us and say, all right, let's figure out what to do next. I'm so grateful for you all just giving up your time to sit with us and listen to the show and apply some of these things into your life. Yesterday, I was in Arkansas speaking at a university. And after I spoke, I came and sat down and the president of the university followed up and was on stage. And I won't embarrass him because I know it would, but an extraordinary man showed up,

walked all the way down the aisle in front of everybody, wearing his facilities and maintenance shirt. And he was sitting next, and he just leaned over and said, I listen to this show every single day, and it's helped my marriage. It's helped my family. It's helped my family. It's helped me. Thank you so much.

And I just – I was almost – I was trying not to weep as I was able just to receive his hug. It was such a gift. But that's what this show is for, folks who are just trying to do a little bit better in their home, just trying to figure out what comes next. So if you want to be on the show, go to johndeloney.com slash ask A-S-K. And if you don't want to be on the show, thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing it and for your fancy reviews. All right, today, very special episode, incredible episode. If you are an Instagram person, surely you know who the Kardashians are. And right after the Kardashians, you know who Jefferson Fisher is. Jefferson Fisher is a law school. Now, I say that, I came in and he was already a third-year student who basically, him and a couple of others ran the law school. And he already was brilliant, already was an incredible scholar,

an incredible about-to-be licensed attorney. So when I say like, he was one of my students, you know, I can take no credit for his nunchuck skills, but I do like to walk around and tell everybody he was one of my students because he has become one of the most followed people on Instagram. He is an attorney who has decided to take the skills that attorneys learn on how to deconstruct, have hard conversations, how to make people annoyed, how to get people to say certain things. And he's taken those skills and he gives very simple bite-sized lessons

on how to be a better dad, how to be a better husband, how to be a better wife, how to be a better neighbor and community member. And as you can imagine, they've just blown up. The other day I was texting him back and forth because the number one comment on his post can imagine. They've just blown up. The other day, I was texting him back and forth because the number one comment on his post was from The Rock. The Rock. You know, that guy who I have about the same upper body. So anyway, Jefferson was here in Nashville, somebody that I just care

a lot about, I have high respect for, and I've just been amazing. It's been amazing to watch him grow up, if you will, from a law student to somebody who now has a team of attorneys Working for them and more importantly or as importantly Is now taking his message. Um Global which is just just powerful what we talk about on the show. We talk about deconstructing hard conversations how to have them What does anxiety and panic look like in somebody that's not a mental health professional? Somebody that's got it all together. Somebody that would tell you, this doesn't happen to me. And it does. How to be a better dad, how to be a better husband. We

talk about all of it. He's incredibly well-spoken. It's embarrassing to talk next to him when you're a mumbler like me. And he's so clear and concise because he's clear and concise for a living. But he's also an incredible dad, an incredible husband to his amazing, also attorney wife. I just can't wait for you to be a fly on the wall of this conversation. My time with my good friend,

former student and guy who I'm now in awe of, Jefferson Fisher. Stay tuned. It's not uncommon at all. Over the last 20 years, I've thousands of students I've interacted with. And so over the last few years, as I've transitioned into this wild new world, students will reach out and say, hey man, it's good to see you, or it's so weird seeing you, whatever. And that's all awesome right so you reach out and i get this note and it's like uh hey man it's on instagram on instagram proud of you you're doing

awesome it's great to see you and i was like ah thanks yeah yeah but i treated it kind of like no that's cute and like kind of patting jefferson on the head like and i felt that i was like hey you go you go man go buddy yeah and you mentioned something like i'm kind of dipping my toes into this world. Yeah, yeah. Then I send that message off, and then I go to it. And I'm like, two million? Who is this guy? He's like super famous. And so I started going through your stuff, and it's extraordinary, right? Oh, thanks, man.

The main reason I want to have you here, one is almost all of the people that reach out to our show are facing boundary issues with their in-laws or facing a husband who's hasn't hit them yet but it's abusive right or they're staring at their seven-year-old and their 14-year-old they don't know what to do right or their two-year-old and three-year-old yeah or their sex life falling apart and they don't know how to have a conversation about what happens next what you have emerged like like overnight, which we all know is decades of practice, is like really a world-class teacher on, hey, say it like this instead of like this. And it's so countercultural that it's such a gift to people and you've got to clear away. And I'm always telling the folks who watch the show, if you get pissed off at your wife or husband, there's not something wrong with you, right? You probably got a generation of

wiring and genetics and the way your parents treated you. You've got all these things. What you don't have is a set of skills or set of tools. Correct. And so I thought this would be awesome to run some scenarios by you and you can teach me. This is not my family because I'm perfect at it. This is clearly for everybody else. So a person X grows up in a home whose mom was real domineering, dad was real quiet, just hid behind a newspaper or behind his iPad. And there's this inner rage that happens.

And then your wife comes home 20 years later and that same story just kicks up again. So husband gets home. He drives up the driveway like real fast dinner was at six they had just had like a marriage retreat a few months before where he was gonna work really hard on being on time because it she felt his wife felt disrespected right he drives up he's 45 minutes late and he's already preparing the story right and he was at work but he's also just kind of scrolling on crap and joking around and laughing or whatever. And he actually feels bad that he's late, but then he also feels

pissed that she's going to get mad that he was late because I've been working so hard and I can't just spend 15 freaking minutes talking to my buddies, right? So he walks in, the two kids are there already halfway through the meal. And then he gets that mix of anger and shame. Like, I should be here with my family. And how dare they start without me? It happens at the same time. Yeah. Right?

And he looks at her. And she just has that look. Like, I thought things were going to be different. And he launches into a story. Dude, I was walking out the door. And then so-and-so came by. Clearly making this up. Yeah. And she knows he's lying. And she's at a breaking point. I was walking out the door and then so-and-so came by, clearly making this up.

Yeah. And she knows he's lying. And she's at a breaking point and she thinks, I got him. And suddenly we're at a proxy war over here and we're fighting about you lied and you never tell the truth. Like this whole thing happened. Yeah. What are some ways that A, she can diffuse that situation and B, actually get to a place of where we can interact? Right.

It's a hard spot to be. You find yourself on the same battlefield that you felt like you had already won. Yeah. You know, you have this kind of this one-on-one that's, hey, we had this meeting of the minds. We had an understanding. And then something happens, and you fall back into ordinary life, and all of a sudden you realize we don't even know each other again it's almost a sense of betrayal very much so in this the sense of i thought we had a pact i thought we had a baseline

connection and all of a sudden you realize that connection is is broken like in a like a light switch and if you're gonna have a light on there's that circuitry that connects them but if it's switched off then it's then it's broken then then it's dark and then you're going i can't see where are you where am i and you have that sense of i'm just feeling around and and that's scary for both people and if i'm sitting in that room, you know, at a thousand foot view and I'm looking at this family that is going through the same thing, both of our family,

I mean, everybody's family. Yeah, I mean, I can, anybody can relate to that. What comes to mind is three things. One, you can't have that conversation in front of the kids. I believe you're in the similar mindset of there are certain things you talk about

in front of your kids and certain things you don't. And from what I recall, I mean, growing up, if my parents got in an argument, I thought my life was over. You know what I mean? Like, if they were in an argument, I mean, even with my kids, if my wife and I are just doing something easy, they're like, what's happening? Yeah, that shakes them. They don't need that. Second of all is there is a power in timing and a power in discernment and knowing when to have that conversation. So you know it's not then and you know it's later. This guy's coming in. She already knows that he's late he knows what he did wrong is there's no question right and so whenever he comes in she has a choice

at that moment do I become the attacker hmm or do I choose later in that moment to have a conversation to connect again to see if this is something he's willing to fix and you have that hard man very hard yeah it's hard i want to hit him there's nothing easy about it but but but you play it out you play it out that what's she gonna do she stands up oh really you're gonna be late oh okay yeah i guess it's gonna be cold uh go ahead and do it in the microwave hey kids guess dad didn't want to come home for dinner you And there it's off. And then all of a sudden, you are the bad one. Yeah, you've already ruined it. And if somebody is a

scolded dog coming in, there's no use kicking them right then. I mean, they already know. And so what I would tell that mom is you enjoy time with your kids. You finish dinner. Let's do bath time. Let's say prayers. Let's get them in bed. And then you come back and sit down and say, how was your day? That's a power move. Oh, man.

That's the flex of, like, you saying that even makes me go. Yeah, yeah. But imagine the strength that you would also show. Oh, yeah. But imagine the strength that you would also show. Oh, yeah. When you sit back and you go, how was your day? I mean, that husband's going, it's a power vacuum, right? Yeah, can you just please yell at me? Yeah, yeah. Can you yell at me?

I already know what I did wrong. Can we just, what's up with you yeah but that ability to sit back and um have that bird's eye view of i can i become more confident and i become stronger the less that i put out i mean in the scenarios i give is it's very much if I add ice cubes to the water, or ice cubes to the drink, you dilute it. And many times we add way too many ice cubes. We want to start off being angry. We want to start off saying all the wrong things.

And when it's concentrated, you're much more potent. It's not easy. I also think you give somebody, well, two things I want to touch on. One, there's been some kind of some turning in the psychological literature of the last decade or so about it's really important actually to have some level of disagreement in front of your kids

because there's a generation taught, go fight in the back bedroom. And what you ended up with a group a generation of young people that started you know having getting married and then they'd have their first big fight and they hadn't they had no reference point right oh this is over yeah we're breaking up we're getting divorced we've only been married nine months but there's also you liar yeah like she's ready to come full force. Don't do that in front of her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so the husband comes in, and what he's wanting to do when he starts,

and he's already got a story. He's gone. So what he's wanting to do is control that narrative before she even has it out. You'll see that a lot when you have a disagreement with somebody. They'll back up and back up, and they'll say, okay, I came in, and when I came in, you did this. And then that made me say this. That made me say this. And so they then become a character in their story. And that's what they're doing. They've become the author and the lead you know and the victim all in one and that's where you have the chance to continue to pull apart if if they're really invested in fixing that and

owning that i mean because you're catching them in a lie essentially is what you're doing but there's also a moment where if you're truly invested and this is hard man especially if you've been in an abusive relationship over time if you're truly invested, and this is hard, man, especially if you've been in an abusive relationship over time. If you're truly invested in healing, there is a chance that at 4.48, as he was getting ready to leave, his boss came in and said, I have to have this for you while I got the door. And no text could have that happen. Even though y'all had said, hey, if you're going to be late, just shoot me a text. Like, that whole thing just avalanches on you. And you get upset and you get frustrated. That approach does give an avenue for humanity.

That's right. For me to say. Give it a chance. No, really. I was texting and driving because I was trying to catch my wife at the hospital. I wasn't just this out of control idiot, right? Yeah, yeah. So there's some humanity there.

And also, man, it just vacuums power oh yeah yeah you become you become the most credible in the room yeah when that happens and so a lot of the times you know as a as an attorney i might have somebody who makes a snide comment in the courtroom and one of my favorite moves is, let's say we're at a deposition right now. You're on the other side, and I'm cross-examining you just like Dustin kind of did. You said something like,

hey, all you attorneys are the worst. You know what? You're the worst thing that could happen in this society. My favorite move is for me to just kind of take it in and go, well, maybe so. That right there is just that little maybe so, okay? I give them nothing in return. I drop their words off a cliff. They go, but you were supposed to catch that.

I say, oh, it's on the floor. Yeah. I said, oh, it's on the floor. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, no, no, no. You were supposed to catch that and throw it back at me. I said, no, I don't. It's in the trash. I'm not going to go pick that back up.

And so it's that thought of you are completely within your own control of how defensive you get. So if you cannot measure your reaction, then you measure your response. And you do that in a way that always puts you as the most credible, the most confident in the room. But what a power flex every time because they're expecting me to say, oh, really? We're the worst in the world? What about you?

Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, me? What about you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah, me? What about you? Yeah. That's the classic. It's like a kid coming up and hitting an adult as hard as they can and just not moving. And the kid's like, that's all I got. Yeah.

Right? I mean, it's such a, I'm not going to push you back. I don't have to. Right. You're not going to react? Oh, that's even worse. Okay. What you've given us is, I think, one of the most important and poignant and hardest lessons in human relationships, which is nobody can truly make you do anything.

And man, that's hard to learn. Yeah. All right. We'll be right back. Great. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families. We even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self behind costumes and masks, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can

learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can be honest with yourself, and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist

anywhere so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapist at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. How do I learn? And I think it's a set of skills. But if you grew up in a house where your job was the emotional regulation of the adults, if it was your job to make sure dad didn't get mad, or mom was always saying, hey, y'all need to do this because dad's coming home and he's going to, you know how he

gets when, or dad's like, Oh dude, your mom's about to get set off. If you all don't get this, the kids learn, Oh, it's our job to make sure mom and dad are okay. Right. Which is a weight they can't, no kid can carry. That transitions to adulthood. Either you're a spouse who takes it on as your responsibility to make sure your husband or wife is happy at all times. Or there's such an inner rage that you circle the wagons around your own life and you're going to get the life that you want. Whether you got to borrow up to the hill, you're going to drive that car, you're going to live in that neighborhood, in that house, you're going to marry this person, You're going to do whatever you want. Ultimately, the grenades that are thrown back and forth are, well, you made me fill in the blank.

Or you said this thing, so I couldn't just sit there. And you did it. Everything is I have to or I'm in response of. The greatest flex I've ever heard in my life ever, ever, was somebody was having a conversation with Jocko, and they said, so you're walking with your family down the street, right? Former Navy SEAL, jacked human being. Just being in his presence is like. Yeah, I need to go do a few reps. He's a world-class, world-world-class jiu-jitsu player.

So a guy says, so somebody comes down the sidewalk and just confronts you and your family. And it's like, what's up, man? We had a problem. He goes, what do you do? And Jago said, well, I reach over and grab my wife's hand and my daughter's hand. And we would just go to the other side of the street and go that way and head home. And the guy was flabbergasted. It was like, what? But what about defending your wife's honor? And like your kids? And he said two really important things. Number one, he said, there are a handful of men on planet Earth who can defeat me in hand-to-hand combat.

And they do that for a living. And he goes, what honor do I get out of beating up some guy on the sidewalk? Yeah. And then he said something that was super powerful. He said, if I have to wait until that moment to show my wife that I honor her, I have failed her in every way. The smartest thing is to get my family home safely. I don't know if this guy's got a friend with guns or with bottles or with, like, I don't know.

I'm just going to go home. And I remember thinking that ability to step out of chaos at that moment, right? That's an egregious example on the street with a Navy SEAL. 99% of us are at home and our wife says that thing or a husband does that thing again every time. Our kids come in and say this thing and every defense mechanism we have gears up and here we go. You've had to cultivate over years, an attorney's job is just to get, and you're at a place now, I guarantee you, they're like, I'll get Jefferson. I'll get him. You know what I mean? I'll set him off. Oh, it's a challenge now. It's a game. There's so much ego in the legal profession. I'll get Jefferson. I'd set him off.

What are some skills that people can practice to begin to back up, detach, as Jocko calls it, to disassociate, to take myself from in the middle of the hurricane to 30,000 feet where it's safe? Yeah. What I tell my clients when that happens, because I train them, because somebody's about to try and knock them off kilter, like you started with. I have to train them on how not to let that happen. Yeah. And you're training people who have been like, their kids are not alive anymore. Oh, yeah. Or they had a leg amputated.

You're dealing with people who are highly charged, right? Extremely highly charged. People who do have a chip on their shoulder. Somebody who has been a victim of something. But it's even more than that. I mean, I am hired to handle other people's problems. I get hired to handle somebody else's beef. That's not even mine.

So somebody's other side's mad at me. I'm like, hey, I didn't cause this. Here's a hundred bucks, go kill that guy. But I'll be glad to step in. Right. And then on the other side, there's another attorney who's been hired

to make me look bad. Like that's their sole purpose. That's so great. It's to ruin my case. Yeah. You know, and that's, and you have to coordinate

and balance how I'm going to have them communicate because how they represent themselves is everything and how they communicate. And so what I always tell them is let your first word be your breath. The first word out of your mouth is your breath. And so when I, instead of just say take a breath, I say, no, make your first word.

I turn it into, I mean. Like the affirmative. Yes. Here's an action. Yeah, that's what, first thing you say is your breath. And because so often, I mean, and you know this, that our body's tight, our shoulders, it gets up in our ears. Like we're just a dog with, you know, the back of the hair standing up, ready to go. But when you take a breath.

I just, as you said it, I did it and my body went. Yeah, right. It's physiologic, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's huge. Well, yeah, you're telling your body there's no threat. Oh, gosh.

You know? Yeah. And so too often when I respond to somebody in a way that is equaling their energy, somebody comes in and makes a comment at me. I have the choice in that moment. Do I try and man up? I try i try and oh you want to have this measuring contest but if i am able to take their power away without doing any of that because i'm

telling my body and i'm telling them you're not a threat to me and like i physically i'm telling my body they're not a threat and with my words you know just like saying maybe so or I'll say you know well maybe you're right they go what do I do with this what do I what do I say now if I tell them maybe you're right you know they go all right uh they have no words they have no words I mean too often then then they come back and later apologize yeah because now that now they're thinking you know why did I say that yeah why They have no words. They have no words. I mean, too often, then they come back and later apologize. Yeah. Because now they're thinking, you know, why did I say that?

Yeah. Why did I say that? Yeah. But had I responded defensively. They got exactly what they want. Then I justified their next step. So if I come back with something, you know, with another comment that gets defensive, that's offensive to them, I've given them a rules zinger. I've just given them a stepladder.

That's all I've done. I mean, they're throwing it out, hoping that I take a bite. And if you don't bite it, then what you do is just kind of reel it back up and go home. Yeah, nothing happened. But there is, I mean,

not to generalize on multiple fronts here, but I'm going to. Yeah. You're a Texas male like I mean, not to generalize on multiple fronts here, but I'm going to. Yeah. You're a Texas male like I am, right? And there's a, and I'm using that like broadly speaking, there is a wired in response. It's like, you can't talk to me like that. Yeah. For men and women.

Or I'm tired of taking this. Yeah. Or I've been taking this my whole life. Yeah. Or there is a truth to, I'm going to respond in the moment like this because I'm playing a different game. And I'm playing – I'm working towards an outcome. Right. But there's also that very human I'm driving home and I can't believe that dude said that.

Yeah. Or man, that made me mad. Yeah. So going back to that previous thought experiment. Yeah. There's a wife and her husband comes home and she's lying she sits down and immediately her first words are breath jesus that was your day not in a it's a check-in yeah not in a sarcastic way but a

genuine like that's your day there's still that you told me you're gonna be on time yeah and now you're gonna rattle off some story yeah yeah yeah right a how do you do you have a process on the way home i can release i can have them release that kind of frustration it's not the way you say it's what it what your words are. And for example, so this woman, she takes a big breath. Husband's sitting in, maybe he's standing up by the sink. He hasn't said anything. He knows he's not right. Kids are in bed.

She's at the kitchen table. And she takes a breath and goes, so how was your day? He goes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Can we talk about something? This is something important to me. You frame the conversation. And so. About her, not him, which is genius.

Yeah, yeah. And then you say, one, she's not starting with, you did it again. It's gone. He has to go to war now. Yeah, he had no choice. That's right. But when you say, you frame the conversation of, I'd like to talk about something that's important to me,

and I know that it's important to you too. And my hope is that when we get done talking, we're going to be able to, you're going to be able to come back tomorrow and we're going to all have dinner the right way. And you just have that, when you say, what do you do with that frustration? It's not the emotions that you need to get out.

It's the words. Because you feel like they don't understand me. They're not acknowledging me. They don't understand how important this is. And you're not going to they don't understand how important this is and you're not going to relay that message with your emotion when you when you come when you come at it strong like that they're not hearing your words they're hearing your tone well it's physiologic yeah their body's responding before they've even thought of it you got it so and most of the time

we're i mean we are horrible predictors of what our message sounds like and looks like. And feels. Yeah, yeah. You could say, why are you yelling at me? I'm not yelling at you. Right, right. Yeah. But I'm looking for ways that you're hurting me.

Yes. And you can say, hey, you're late. Why are you yelling? Right? You got it. Oh, yeah. And that's a very classic. It's you're just diverting the attention.

You're deflecting. And all of a sudden, it's – and I know I've – I think maybe I've done something on this before. It's like, well, I'm sorry that I'm such a horrible person. Oh, yeah. And that's like – It's so gross. It's so manipulative. But it happens all the time.

Well, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to be a good husband. I'm sorry that I have to work so much. And it's just straight manipulation is what that is. And the way to back up is how? So if somebody were to come in and say. I'm just trying to think. I'm thinking of a particular coworker who would look at me and go,

sorry, I'm just so dumb and I don't know everything. It's just such a passive, weak move. And I have the impulse to be like, no, you know what, man? But it's backing out and me saying, that's something going on in his life, not mine. That's a perfect way to say it. So whenever they put out that kind of apology, it's not an apology. It's a bunch of slathering of sun lotion on their guilt. And they're just trying to cover it up because your sun is beaming.

So they're trying to protect 50 SPF because they know that you could be coming in hot. And they're wanting to deflect you anything else. Because once you say that, sorry that I'm such a negative quality, self-deprecating, whatever. They're hoping that you take the bait and go, you're not terrible. Oh, you always think I'm terrible. And then like, remember that one time and boom, it's gone. Like that, you've lost the moment but instead if you're able to say I don't need you to apologize for how you're you're feeling but you can't apologize for coming in late

you know the the ability to to shift that because you're caught one you're calling it out second of all you're still maintaining control and can I tell you the third thing that is a gift, and this doesn't feel like a gift in the moment, but for, especially for people in professional relationships or romantic relationships, you're actually giving me a roadmap. And we expect people, especially when we're mad, to read our minds and to know exactly what they did and why they did it and how you can make me feel better because it's your job, right? Yeah. By saying, you don't need to apologize for how you feel. me feel better because it's your job right yeah by saying you don't need to apologize for how you feel right i do need you to apologize because you were late yep i just gave you a laser path right and you can choose to follow it or not but i have to

have enough control over my emotions to know what the actual issue is here and what i'm going for here and is it to win is it to crush you Is it to crush you? Is it to catch you? Or is it to have dinner as a family around this table? That's my long-term goal here, right? And you just give somebody a path. But man, that takes a lot of humility to take that path, but it's a gift. I think it's a gift.

Well, yeah, it is not easy. And even for somebody who practices it, it's still, it's not easy because you want that immediate, you know, just guttural reaction to yell, to fight, to get after it, never ends well. I mean, it just doesn't because what happens? Here we go, I like this. So you and I get in an argument.

I mean, we're after it. We're saying terrible things to each other. My face looks mad. I'm bowed up, you're bowed up. Or husband and wife, you're saying horrible things. Bring this stuff up in the past. What happens? There's a break where everybody says, I'm out of here.

Different room, whatever. What happens when you come back? Your tone's a little softer. You're slower with your words. I didn't mean what I said there. I was frustrated with when our son did X, Y, and Z, and it just makes me feel like a failure that I couldn't do. I can't get him to.

And all of a sudden you realize that what they were initially mad about was nothing even close to what y'all were yelling about. But I mean, if you can just do that at the beginning. At the beginning, that's right. Yeah. I always tell folks, don't, if you can, now as an attorney, you're getting paid

to enter into an octagon together, right? Yeah. In a marriage, I always tell, like, don't have that fight right now. When you're mad, that's not the time to dissect what just happened. Same thing with an email or a text. Yeah, just don't. Time has a funny way of just…

Clarifying. Yeah, and dissolving it. Yeah. Like if I hold off on a text or an email, maybe I get an email that's snarky from an opposing counsel. Oh, I have a response. I'll type that out. All right. Delete, delete, delete. And then within a day, I don't need to say that.

What I wish everybody could really chew on is that there's so much power and that ability to be able to know your own strength inside of you that I, nobody can make me say anything that I don't want to say. And I have the ability to not react if I, if I so choose, because what they said, I put in the trash. Oh, you wanted me to put that on my plate? That's funny. No, it's the dog's eating. Probably the number one lesson I took away from working with attorneys for all those years was that phrase, there's power in the pause. And the person who speaks last loses. And it was this, like, I don't have to say anything right now. I had never heard it.

I love, you say it better. Like, oh, was that for me? Yeah. Is that supposed to hurt? Yeah. Like, oh, I'm sorry. Like, oh, was that your best? My bad.

Right. But there's something so powerful about, I'm not going to say anything. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm just going to let it hang. Yeah. I'm just going to let it hang. And once you get the hang of it.

It changes everything. Oh, man. It is a game changer in your life. It really is. And you know this. When somebody puts something out there, well, I had to do this and this and this. And your first word, I love how you say that, my first word is breath. Yeah.

Just takes about 60 seconds before they start going, well, I mean. Yeah. And then they'll. You say that of liars. They'll reverse their, they'll reverse the car all the way down, back the driveway. Oh, yeah, they'll back it all the way up. That's so good. That's exactly right. Like people who say something that's somewhat of a liar back it all the way up that's exactly right like

people who who say something that's somewhat of a liar wants you to believe something that's not true it's you just imagine them coming in hot in the house they park up to the garage and then you don't respond and they wait and go oh wait he's he's not buying it i'm gonna actually put this in reverse yeah yeah because they to park it in the street. Because they can't take that silence. They can't take that silence. I learned doing student conduct all those years. It became important for me to sit down.

I would call a student in and say, hey, I just got this report that you sexually assaulted somebody or you were selling drugs or whatever. I knew that by walking in my office, every fight or flight mechanism that human had was set so I used to always walk them through everything and I would always end it with

you got 24 hours from this point you got 24 hours to come back and say here's what actually happened here's my role in it and I'm going to count it as though it happened here because my end goal was I was trying to teach students how to become functional adults

and how to feel fight or flight and still tell the truth anyway, how to feel like, ah, and then hang in there in the moment. And I think if you have that same kind of grace with your spouse, like the goal here is not to win arguments. The goal is to have a great life, to make a great marriage and to raise great kids. And if we can always keep that thing in motion, then it might be, we're going to circle back tomorrow. Right. I feel often in spouse relationships, and I see this on the legal side, it's not that they just want to call it out.

They want you to know that you're bad. They want you to know that you're not a good husband. So it's like they want you to download, I think you're bad, and I need you to know it. You don't feel bad. Yeah, and nothing good comes out of that. I mean, I am, if you take the position of, I'm never going to be the first to throw the first stone,

because when the microscope turns on you, you get real quiet. That's right, That's right. That's right. But there's something even about if I'm sitting with a couple and you've got a serial cheater, just infidelity, infidelity, infidelity, you're not making me leave. I'm choosing based on my values that I'm not going to be with somebody who cheats on me. I am taking full ownership that I'm ending this marriage.

That's right. Right? You didn't make me do anything. Yeah. And the more I can sit in that, I'm standing up ownership that I'm ending this marriage. That's right. Right? You didn't make me do anything. Yeah. And the more I can sit in that, I'm standing up just explaining that, right? You just sit up taller, right? Yeah. There's just strength and power in, oh, you can't make me do anything.

But then you also have to choose, I chose to scream at that guy, or I chose to try to make her feel really bad. Yeah. Which is just weakness and cowardice, to be honest with you. I wish there was a different language for it, but that's kind of what it is. No, that's exactly what it is. It's a reflection of your lack of confidence, because most of the time when we do have

that yelling reaction, we do say something that's snippy, if you're really honest with yourself, you regret it. Every time. Yeah, and it's not too long that you regret and go, why did i say that and what you're going to do you apologize and so often especially manipulators kind of these people that have very strong narcissistic traits are masterful at getting you to make these kind of comments so that then you are the one who is now the offender you're the bad guy you're the bad guy

yeah i'm the one who came in late through the door but you're the one who is now the offender. You're the bad guy. You're the bad guy. Yeah. I'm the one who came in late through the door, but you're the one who can't appreciate this, who always nags about this. And now all of a sudden you find yourself the one apologizing. And also it depends like how you say it. Well, I need, I didn't like how you said it. You need to apologize for the way you said it. Your tone. Yeah. Your tone, which is also very true. But the people who are masterful at it, with somebody who's not equipped for it, they'll run that song a million times a day. All day long.

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My family trusts Thorne. And you can trust Thorne too. All right, so I want to take a hard left turn here, okay? Wonderful. From like tactics and tools to just two guys who've known each other for a long time now. It's a decade now. It's wild.

Isn't that wild? And kind of the reality. You have reached a level of personal success. You own your own firm. You've got a team of attorneys that work for you. You've got a team of staff that work with you. And you guys have an extraordinary reputation for what you do, right?

You come from a long line of attorneys and there's kind of this sense that this is what Jefferson's going to do. Right. It's just in the air, right? You come from a long line of attorneys and there's kind of this sense that this is what Jefferson's going to do. It's just in the air, right? So you've reached level X financial success. You reach level X professional success. You reach level X with what I think is one of the most important credentials on planet earth, which is a Jewish doctorate, a JD, a law degree from a reputable American university. And then you go out in your car and you start making Instagram videos. And it goes from like 200 to 2,000 to 5,000 to a couple of million.

It goes from, dude, some lawyers are passing this around to, oh my gosh, this celebrity to this celebrity to the rock gets in touch right right and suddenly there's this moment when your body goes i've been warning you jefferson for a long time and we out yeah you're right there yeah so walk us through what's going on there walk us through what happened uh yeah i was telling you at this dinner. You know, I've never shared this with my audience before my followers. I never expected any of this, John, like ever, ever. And that was never the goal, just a guy making videos in his car. And when the account started growing, it's very easy just to say,

that's just pixels on your phone. That's not real. It's not a real number. And because they're not there. And as it grew, it still just felt fake. But when my account started to grow, I would tell my wife. And she'd go go that's great okay so are you able

to pick up daughter at swimming lessons and then okay we need to make sure we have this dentist appointment like that's real world that's here that's right in front of me

they don't see that but as it started to grow I remember working I put up my own little website it's still my own website that I just my Cracker Jack little box that I had.

Because I was like, I need to have something out. And I looked at my phone and it went over a million. And I just thought like, huh, that's funny. Like, you know what I mean? And then next notification I got, it said like The Rock, whatever. I remember looking at my phone and just like immediately just putting it down. Like I didn't even- Like Dwayne Johnson, the rock.

Yeah, yeah. Like the rock. Yeah. I just, I looked at it and then immediately just like put it down. Like that didn't happen. Like you just can't do that. So anyway, I was working on it. And like I told you, it was at 1230 at night. I'm like a night owl. I'm not great at that. And I felt like somebody just wafted a piece of like paper in front of my face, like a cold just flash. And I said out loud in my kitchen by myself, I said, what was that?

Like, I just remember looking around going, what was that? And all of a sudden I felt like everything, my chest got tight. Everything just kind of hit all at once. And my body was telling me something, something ain't right. So it turned out I had my first panic attack. That was terrible.

Thought I was dying. And just for the audience, you are a world-class attorney whose reputation has been forged on, I'm unrattleable. You got it. This whole row of suits down here who all make seven figures a year come guns blazing, and on the other side of that table is just freaking Jefferson smiling at them. Right.

Okay. Right. Right? That's who you are. Well, I've had it. It was like me at the council table, five of them jury. I'm like, let's go. It's great.

You just have that kind of sense. And to be in your presence, it's like being in the presence of a walking Xanax. It's just like I come in hot. You know that. I'm like, hi, everybody. And it's like, phew. So it's awesome. And so for your body to be like, hey, you can't trick me.

I'll tell you, this is how wild that was. I've always been one my whole life. It's very family driven too, for reasons you and I know. But anxiety, that's for people who don't have their life together. That's what I always thought it was. I'm talking, this happened this year.

This year, like in February. And when they'm talking, I'm talking this happened this year. Right. This year. Yeah. Like in February. And when they told me, I was so convinced I was having, I was gonna die. I was like, anytime, Lord. Anytime, Lord. Like when something's like, come on, can you stop this? It was a horrible feeling.

Cause you had it several days in a row, right? Yeah, I had my first one. And when they told me that it was not a heart attack, but a panic attack. You went to the ER. Oh yeah. I thought I was dying. I was, I had my first one. And when they told me that it was not a heart attack, but a panic attack. You went to the ER. Oh, yeah. I thought I was dying. I was sure of it.

And when they said, this is how dumb I was. I was so sure that I didn't have anxiety or panic attacks or anything. I was like, I don't have panic attacks.

That's how strongly convicted I was that it was a heart attack. Yeah. Because in my head, I was like, I don't have that. Sure enough, my body said, oh yeah, you do. Oh yeah, you do.

And I was so wrong. And because of that, I go to therapy every week. And I mean, I've gone to therapy in the past, but now my body's like, no, you actually have some stuff on your brain that you're not telling people. And it's such a healthy thing that I would never be embarrassed to share. But after I had my first panic attack, I had one for like a week and a half every day.

But as that happened, I got better and better with them. Gotcha. How is that? Because I had a very similar situation where I was Johnny Rockstar. And suddenly my body says, hey, I've been trying to get your attention for a long time and you're clearly not hearing,

so we're shutting the system down. That's a great way to put it. That's exactly what happened. You can't. When I saw that The Rock, The Followers, and I put that down, in my head I was like,

that doesn't bother me. And then my body was like, It's The Rock! Yeah, my body's like, the hell it does. You know what I mean? All of a sudden it was just like, it's the rock. Yeah, my body's like, the hell it does. You know what I mean? Like all of a sudden it was just like, I don't have way too many eyes on what I'm doing.

Like for me to be in my club. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings

and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. You and I live not a traditional life, right? Not now. Right, not now. There you go. But I would say before this, I was good in my professional world. You're great in your professional world, right? Good what we did. And then this other thing happens.

And there's a perception that if you are a mom who's a counselor in a local community and you work 60 hours a week and you've got two kids and you're exhausted and your husband didn't help that much, but he's trying and you're just making it, right? And you are a plumber and you've got four plumbers that work for you and you have a small little business and you've got two kids who want a little league and you're trying to coach two, right? There's this at life. We're running, yeah the illusion is if i can just get here if i if this would just happen if i could get this dollar amount yeah the whole thing is ah yeah right then i can finally fill in the blank yeah and i've come to wrestle with over the last few years especially that if-then thing is a myth. I knew that psychologically. If you had come to see me like as a client or just like handy some help, I would have told you that.

Like that's not true. But I believed it. It's so funny you mentioned that. Like maybe this was maybe three weeks ago, talking with my wife. And we're at the kitchen on an island, and she puts her hands down and goes, I'm ready for life just to slow down. I'm ready for this to happen, this to happen, and these things, and life is going to slow down.

And I looked at her, I said, this is life. I said, this is it. I said, this feeling, this is what it is. It's never going to slow down. There's always going to be something, like you just need to enjoy. This is exactly what I told her. You just need to enjoy the present

of where we are at any time because there is nothing to chase. I mean, there's not going to be a, as soon as we get over this hill, we're going to coast. Yeah, if you got kids, if you got, for your family, it's constant. Yeah, it's on, it's on.

And it's on from the beginning to the end. But I was like, this is it. That's what I told her. I was like, this is it. There's no, we get here and it's gonna slow down. Well, and when you see that, okay, here's the calendar's got some space in it, that's when your kid breaks their arm.

That's when the teacher calls and says, your kid just called somebody a such and such, and you're like, my kid? It doesn't stop. Yeah, that one weekend that you're like, oh, we have it free, that's when somebody in your family gets sick. That's right.

Or your buddy calls and is like, hey, I need a lawyer right now. You're like, okay, here we go. Or something, like we had a major storm, power goes out for like three days. Oh, okay, I guess we won't be going anywhere. Because y'all's Texas power grids held together with duct tape and string. Yeah, yeah, and WD-40. And WD-40.

So how has, even in a limited time, going and sitting across from somebody, a mental health professional, and saying, I'm not all right. And beyond that, not just the act of going to counseling, but for a guy that had all the answers. Yeah. And not only had all the answers, but people hire you for your answers. Right. And you are a very particular type of assassin. To be able to sit in that, with that skill set and go, that doesn't serve me here. Right. I need help here

yes how has that impacted you being a husband how's that impacted you being a dad because i would say arguably those are not arguably those are the most important roles ahead of lawyer ahead of yeah tiktok sensation but i know that what it has taught me is my mind can tell me pretty much anything that I want to know and what I want to say. My mind is like, it's very surgical in the way it will help me control my reactions and responses. But it is a terrible doctor of diagnosing what's going on in my body. And I've always been the type, and you know this, when you're in high conflict situations, your mind is what matters. Like your mind is what keeps you sharp.

I have to be listening to every word that they say. But my body, my mind is going, get out of here. Just, hey, no, no, no, no. You're not relevant right now. I need your mind. And it's, as Vanderkoek says, it's keeping the score, no, no, no. You're not relevant right now. I need your mind. And it's, as Vanderkoek says, it's keeping the score, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Every day. And that's what shut down. And so having these deep dives into where that's coming from. And where I found that was, and I don't mind sharing, it was just a sense of being alone. And I say that because at the time you and I weren't connected. And nobody in my world could like relate to what was happening in that space. At the same time, it's a privilege to even use the applications. They could flick, if Instagram wanted to,

they could ban me and kick me off. I have no free speech rights. They're like, thanks for using our app. You know what I mean? Making us a bunch of ad money. Yeah, yeah, that's it. And the continuous tense that I live in, I could tell myself, you're good. No, you're fine. And I realized I was not

giving myself a lot of that attention and permission, as therapists like to say, give yourself a lot of permission. I remember being like, permission or what? I didn't like that word. I was like, can we not use that word it turns out i was just that was just pride you know you were deposing yourself yeah yeah yeah so she was she was uh been great at when so you realize you you do have a mind you do have a body and your body is what is suffering um and you're not giving attention to that and that that's been great. And since then, I've been, it's made me a better father. To your question, it's made me a better husband in that I'm taking better care of myself.

Actually, you know what? You should probably go to bed. Yeah, exactly. How much of that is the answer so many times? You know what? Calling a friend and going to bed. Yeah, yeah. How about you just go to sleep?

You know what I mean? Because you probably need that. Yeah. And that's my evenings. It's either I need to have a conversation with my wife to check in rather than us just both going to bed. I need to go to sleep

or I need to go work out and work out that anxiety or whatever. It's not like there was a blog that was part of our education. It wasn't like somebody just said, hey, read this book. You're going to have a bad crisis in a little bit. You did have, if I remember correctly,

an extraordinary dean of students that tried to tell you some of this stuff. Yeah, he was a real pain. Guy's the worst. Yeah, yeah. At that time, we weren't ready. I wasn't either, man. Yeah, well, I mean, even as a student,

like so many times of like, man, if I went back to that class, I'd learn so much. I think in different parts of our life, we're just not ready to absorb. We're not a sponge yet. Or there's soil and those seeds get planted and it just takes the right environment for them to grow. I just wish they would all grow a lot quicker. Yeah, yeah. Maybe it takes them a long time to produce anything.

That's right. I can't tell you, I told you this at dinner last night, when I saw the success you're having, like my heart exploded. Like I threw both my hands up in the air. I was like, yes! Like I'm so,

anytime students, I've had the privilege of knowing that I can just mix my heart so full. So man, congrats. And more importantly, you're not just like getting famous. You're actually helping people. You're handing people tools like, oh man. And I think most of us think our marriages, our workplace, our relationship with our kids needs this grand sweeping thing. Usually it doesn't. Usually it needs, I'm just gonna start doing this a little bit different. I'm gonna start doing this a little bit different. I'm gonna start doing this a little bit different.

I'm gonna practice, oh, I feel myself about to say something. First words are gonna breathe. I'm gonna practice that. And then you wake up two years later and somebody says something that just, and your default setting is a smile, right? And it's a total, that's when you go,

oh man, I'm changing, right? I'm growing, I'm changing. I got a comment not too long ago, and I love this one, it was a wife, she was saying, "'Hey, I've been following your stuff for a while.' And I was in an argument with my husband, who was very stubborn and hardheaded, and we was knock down, drag out.

And she said, at the end, I took a breath and followed what you said, and I said, I can do better. And she said, without a beat, he said, I can do better too. She said, never in any of our like 20 years of marriage has this man admitted anything like that. Wow. And it's just like what you said, just those little tweaks. That's it.

It's usually the less words, the more impact. That's right. Yeah, that's awesome. Brother, you're awesome. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. Thank you all so much for joining me and my good friend, Jefferson Fisher. Please go to Instagram and follow him after you follow him. Follow me too, if you're not already. And check out some of his videos on how to communicate more clearly, how to communicate better on how to communicate more clearly how to communicate better how to communicate with your friends and family

I can assure you I'm trying to take some of those lessons into practice because as you may have noticed on this show I'm not always the clearest communicator but thank y'all for joining us if you like interviews on this show let us know reach out to Kelly reach out to Jenna

go to johndeloney.com slash ask and just put interview at the top us. If you like interviews on the show, let us know. Reach out to Kelly. Reach out to Jenna. Go to johndeloney.com slash ask and just put interview at the top. If you like hearing more, if you want to hear more interviews, great. If you don't, if you'd rather just hear from callers, let us know that stuff, okay? And, like always, I love you guys. I'm so, so grateful for you. Thanks for being with us.

Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Be nice. Be nice. See you later.