The Jefferson Fisher Podcast - 3 Ways To Avoid Manipulators

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

Manipulation works when someone convinces you that their reaction is your responsibility. In this episode, I break down how to recognize manipulative behavior, why it can be hardest to see in the people closest to you, and what to do when someone uses guilt, pressure, fear, or obligation to get their way. Order The Next Conversation Workbook: https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/workbook Want a FREE communication tip each week? Click here to join my newsletter. https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/newsletter Thank you to our Sponsors: OneSkin: Go to https://oneskin.co/jefferson and use code JEFFERSON to get 15% off BetterHelp. Click https://betterhelp.com/jeffersonfisher for a discount on your first month of therapy. Like what you hear? Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review! Order my new book, The Next Conversation, today! https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/book Suggest a topic or ask a question for me to answer on the show! https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/topic Join my School of Communication. https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/membership Follow me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jefferson_fisher Follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@justaskjefferson?lang=en Follow me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffersonfisher/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Manipulation only happens when you've decided that their reaction becomes your responsibility. When you've chosen to say, I need to manage every bit of how they are going to respond. But when you flip that, when you choose to say, hey, I'm not going to allow their reaction to become my responsibility, then there's no margin to manipulate. Then you've removed their entire leverage. Today, in this podcast, we're talking how to handle people that are manipulators, how to handle people. How to handle people who manipulate it, that person in your business, that person in your group, that person in your life, maybe that person you're related to who constantly seems to try to manipulate things. What's really happening? How do you spot it and how do you handle it? Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher podcast where I believe that the best way to improve your relationships in your life is to improve your conversations. If you enjoy this content, if you do me a favor, wherever you're listening and just find the button that says, subscribe. I mean a lot to me. It doesn't cost anything. And in exchange, my promise to you is to continue to provide good quality communication advice. Manipulators, what do you do with that? How do you,

spot that? Some things that I want you to know when it comes to manipulators. Typically, the person who's trying to manipulate you the most is also the person closest to you. I'm going to say that again. The person trying to manipulate you the most is also most likely the person closest to you. meaning the closer they are, the harder it is to see them, the harder it is to spot. See, it's by design, it's by intention. They know that the closer they get to you, the harder it is to see it. And so you start looking beyond everything. You don't see what's right in front of you.

So the person who's trying to possibly get closest to you in your life, meaning they're always trying to, I'm not talking about a friend who's trying to reach out and become good friends with you. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the person in business who's like, hey, why don't you tell me, hey, you know, you can rely on me, right? Well, you know, I'm the person that's in your corner, you know, and it's their words. They're trying to kind of snake their way in to get very close to you in a way that is going to almost

try to create some kind of obligation by you to them. here's what I mean the first thing to notice and to avoid is the triangle you know what I mean there's going to be a time where this person and it's set up by design to create a triangle between you and somebody else they're going to try to come between a situation and I want you to think of like a spider that knows every string of its web they want to be in control of every line, of every piece of that web. They don't want you talking to the other person. They want you talking to them for them to now communicate with this other person.

All of a sudden, they kind of become the broker of communication in your life. And what could have easily been a communication between you and somebody else is now is kind of this three-way triangle. Why are they doing that? Well, they're doing that so that they can control the messaging, that they can. put you on the outs and put themselves in, okay? Meaning somebody possibly who comes to the office and you're having a conversation and somebody comes up and they're like,

oh, you don't wanna talk to them. And you know what? Truthfully, and just, I'm gonna be honest with you here and I'm the only one who's really gonna be honest with you. I've already talked to them and what they said was and try and corner you out as if like, hey, no, no, just talk to me. No, I wouldn't bring it up.

to them, you know, but if you want, you know, I could possibly, and they start acting as if they're going to talk kind of on your behalf. And all of a sudden, you're outside of it, and they're on the inside. And they're the ones that kind of are the hedge, at least seeming to be the only person that can protect you, the only person that's going to understand you, believe you, be in your corner, support you and all the while, you go, why am I feeling so lonely about this? And, And you start to rely on them, and that creates the obligation. Because if you've ever heard this phrase, after everything I've done for you, heard that? After everything I've done for you, meaning things are going to start to go south.

Or maybe the moment that you go, hold up, I, you know, I can just talk to them and they're going to go, what? You don't, well, you don't believe me? But you don't trust that, like, I'm doing this for your own good. Yeah? you hear that it's it's the spider in the web they're trying to create this wall this barrier is say hey i'm going to manipulate your emotions and by doing that and how i do that is i'm going to set it up to where you're on the outside of things and the only connection you have to anything else is my own my reaction and i'm going to make it feel as though my reaction is your fault your responsibility

and through that, I'm going to be able to control you. I'm going to be able to manipulate a situation. That's what I want you to spot. First red flag to me is the triangle. As soon as you feel like you're out of the loop on something, and they become the everything for you. It's just emotionally draining. What does that also sound like in communication?

This is what I want to move to in number two. You're going to hear things like what we just said after everything I've done for you. What does that sound like? A clue is the guilt trip. The guilt trip. After everything I've done for you, I can't believe after everything I've done. Guilt trip. You're going to mess everything up for everything else. Everybody else. Now it's your responsibility for everybody else's feelings. Guilt trip. Number two, it's where they put a lot of pressure on you for their happiness. Everything has to be done right now, right now.

They're trying to push this immediate fast reaction when you're trying to put on the brakes. Go hold up that. This doesn't feel right. And they're like, don't worry about that. I just need you to listen to me. Focus on me. That's a big red flag. Number three is typically when they go into these personal attacks, these personal attacks. What they're trying to do is snipe you into focusing on making them happy first without looking at the bigger picture of things. They want to keep you in the weeds. They want to keep you focused making, you know, what they call a mountain out of a mowhill. A mountain out of a molehill, I think that's what it is, where they take these little bitty things and blow them up so huge and relate them to something that's totally irrelevant.

And you're going, how did you connect these two things? This doesn't even make sense to me. It doesn't make sense. It's all for their own leverage. A lot of different I mean, from the people I hear from in businesses and in life, you know what manipulation sounds like.

It feels like. Anytime where you feel like this, hold up, this, I feel like I'm kind of being used right now that they don't really have my best, my best interest. I feel like they're using fear on you, maybe an obligation on you.

maybe they're trying to use something that you did in the past and makes me think of this movie White Christmas, which is probably Sears' favorite movie. But at the beginning, it's an old movie, this guy saves another guy from a falling building. And by saving him, he broke his own. And he uses that as kind of to manipulate some situations later to get his way of whenever the other guy whom he saved was like, I don't want to do that.

He kind of go, you know, this arm's really bothering me as a guilt. I feel, make them feel obligated to do it from something in the past. That's a playful way of distinguishing that. And there's definitely much more harmful, toxic scenarios of that, all of which you know. But the point is, they're going to use fear, they can use obligation, and use guilt, pressure, they try and make you move. And to do so, they're going to create a big reaction out of that and want you to feel like it's your responsibility to fix it. Number three, what do you do? Jefferson, you've told me how to spot it. You've told me what are some patterns to notice this. How do we handle

this kind of thing? Here's my best advice. Slow it down. Slow it down. Slow it down. Anytime that somebody's trying to manipulate, same for like gaslighters, narcissistic type of traits. They want you to move fast, fast. Because the faster you go, the less you're thinking about it. When you slow things down and go, hold up, let me just, let me think about that for a minute. They go, no, no, no, you want to think about that. No, no, you're just, what are you talking about? What are you thinking about?

Let me fix it. Let me solve it. I need you to do this now. Big. Red flag alert. Red flag alert. slow everything down. When you make your choice, and that's for yours to choose, this gut feeling, and you go, I'm not going to manage their reaction. I'm going to make my choice. It's about sticking to it.

Sticking to it. What does that sound like? I need you to be able to say, I understand that you disagree. I understand you don't like it. I understand that you're frustrated. I hear that you're upset. I hear that you're frustrated. I hear that you're disappointed. You hear that? You're just naming it. You're not making it your responsibility to manage it. You're just going, hey, I see that.

I understand that you disagree. I understand that this is not how you, this is not the answer you want it. I feel that. I get that. But it doesn't make it my responsibility. I'm just seeing it. It's like I see that that t-shirt is red.

Yes, it is. That does not make it my obligation and I'll wear it. Right? You're noticing it. And that's when I want you to notice their reaction. And like having a pen and paper, okay? You're watching their reaction to your statement of saying, I'm staying still, I'm slowing it down.

I've told you no. It's not what I want to do. whatever it is, business, life, work. I understand you're frustrated. That reaction is going to blow up, huge. Here's the key. Don't move off of sinner. Don't, that reaction should just tell you,

and they have this disproportionate reaction, this unreasonable reaction. That should just scream to you. Manipulation. That reaction is going to look like pressure, like trying to put an obligation, like trying to put a guilt trip on you, right? All of those things. It's going to try to make it personal.

They're trying to find outside leverage to have control over you, to make it to where their reaction is now your responsibility. When that happens, don't move off center. Just repeat it. I hear that. I understand. it's it's not something for you to go I mean here here's the problem you know you just keep don't don't as soon as you get into those personal attacks boom you're you're in their zone now stop

as soon as you you get mad and go hey listen you're just trying to oh you're in their sandbox now now you're now you're giving into their leverage now now they want that mad emotion because now you're going to say stuff and what's I going to do add more to now you're going to to feel obligated because of your heightened emotion, your reaction, possibly there's the now an inside straight chance that you mess up. And now you're going to feel bad because you're the reasonable person. And you go, look, okay, listen. Okay, look, is this what's going to make you have? If I do this, will you just drop? And they're going to go, oh, thank you so much. Just what I want it. Thank you. And then they're going to go on to the next person to do that. It's just a game. It's a game.

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move off sinner. In fact, let me tell you something that really will get them in a way. Use the word that you think they're utilizing. This is what I mean. When somebody's trying to make you move and you can tell the buzzing is going in your ears, I think this is manipulation right here. They're trying to use their reaction and make me do something. Maybe it's obligation, pressure, whatever it is. Use that word in your response. For example, example. Imagine saying, I'm not going to make a decision based on fear. I'm not going to make a decision based on pressure. I'm not going to make a decision based on whatever. Try it. Whatever word it is, don't use manipulation. Don't use the word manipulate. I'm not going to make a decision just because you're trying to manipulate me. That's not going to work. That's not going to work. You've just created another thread for them to poke, poke, poke, and try and stir up more argument. Because Now you've made a personal attack on them. How dare you say that they're manipulating, right?

After everything they've done for you, all these things that you didn't ask for, that they've gone out of their way, to get so close to you. And they've done all of this, despite you not asking. And now they say you have an obligation to do things for them to make you, because you're a nice person. No. use whatever word you think that they're doing. I'm not going to, hey, look, I'm not going to make a decision based on pressure right now.

I'm not going to make a decision based on guilt. Ooh, yeah? You see the difference? Use the word you think is being implemented in that moment. I'm not going to make a decision based on guilt right now. I'm not going to move based on guilt. Whatever, whatever it is. You can construct that and paint that.

however you want. But the tool I'm giving you is use the word you think is being implied in that moment, being utilized, and send it right back. And what you're going to notice is they're going to draw back. They've already pushed. They've already made the big explosion. Nothing happened. It's nothing happened.

So what's going to happen quickly is it's going to die out. They're going to get frustrated. They're going to say something ugly. Fine. that's fine again that that's not your responsibility to manage their reaction is not your responsibility to manage let them have the reaction don't do anything with it just see it and what's going to happen is they will go on they will move on to the next person that they're trying to manipulate and it's going to take some time might take a little might take a lot but they will find somebody else

to try and manipulate. But that's what you did. You saw that. And it's possible. I'm going to leave open the possibility that this person, they may not have done it intentionally. I'll just say consciously, with the knowing intent ahead of time

that they have this master plan. Some people, it just, they don't realize that they're doing it. Or maybe it happened, you know what, that's the way their mom treated them. And so your mother's acts the same way. You know what I mean?

It can also be hereditary in a sense of this is how it happens. I've had more people say, you know what, my grandmother or my mother or my father throws out the biggest guilt trips on me. It's like, oh, you know, it'd be nice if somebody called me every once in a while. Like they're putting this trip on you. And you're like, I've called you plenty and you can call me. It's not they're trying to get you to take responsibility for their reaction. action. We're not going to do that anymore. Okay? Hey, just say with me, we're not going to do that

anymore, right? Right. Okay, we've talked about how to spot manipulative, manipulative behavior. We've talked about the patterns. We've talked about now how to handle it and what to do in it. Lots of different ways we can discuss this, especially in the business context, as well as in relationship. But these are the main foundations of it. Spot it, know what's happening. Do not allow their reaction to become your responsibility. Do not give them that leverage. Notice the feeling. Notice their reaction.

Do not carry it with you. Stay center. Cool. All right. Try that. Follow me. Bye guys.