The Jefferson Fisher Podcast - How to Handle Defensiveness

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

Defensiveness can shut down a conversation before you ever get close to resolving anything. But sometimes it’s not just what you’re saying—it’s how you’re approaching the conversation. In this episode, I’m giving you three simple ways to lower someone’s defenses without avoiding the hard conversation. We’ll talk about why words like “always” and “never” immediately put people on guard, how to use “when you, I feel” instead, why finding something you can agree on changes the tone, and how turning commands into “we” questions can keep you on the same team. Join me on Supercast for ad-free episodes, bonus content, and AMAs: https://jefferson.supercast.com/ Leave me a voicemail to be featured on the show! https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/ask-jefferson  Order The Next Conversation Workbook: https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/workbook Thank you to our sponsors: AG1. Visit https://drinkag1.com/jefferson and get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and a FREE bottle of Vitamin D3 + K2 in your Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order. Factor. Head to https://factormeals.com/jefferson50off and use code JEFFERSON50OFF to get 50% off and 1 free breakfast item per box for 1 year. BetterHelp. Click https://betterhelp.com/jeffersonfisher for a discount on your first month of therapy. Order my book, The Next Conversation, or listen to the full audiobook today. Like what you hear? Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review! Suggest a topic or ask a question for me to answer on the show!  Want a FREE communication tip each week? Click here to join my newsletter.  Join My School of Communication Watch my podcast on YouTube  Follow me on Instagram  Follow me on TikTok Follow me on LinkedIn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Defensiveness is the number one killer of your piece, of resolution when it comes to fights and arguments. How do you keep somebody from getting defensive? You might say Jefferson, there's no way. That's not a thing. We can't happen. I say differently. And today in this episode, I'm going to show you how. Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher podcast.

Wherever you're listening, please do me a favor. And on whatever platform you're listening, find that button that says subscribe, whether it's YouTube or Spotify. or Apple, it does not matter. If you don't mind pressing subscribe, that would mean a whole lot to me, and it doesn't cost you a dime. Also, if you're watching this, you might be seeing a little different angle. It's because I have this little, like, magnetic stand that goes on my windshield, but it requires a magnetic piece on the back of my phone, and it's gone. And I've no idea where it went, so there's no magnet. So I'm putting you here. All I can think of is my kids. My kids, those rascally kids took it.

That's what I'm thinking of. But anyway, that's not going to stop me from talking to you. All right, how do you keep somebody from getting defensive? There's some things I first want you to think about before we start working into the tools. And the word of the day is approach. What is your approach? You can talk about it in golf. You can talk about it in gymnastics.

You can talk about it in lots of different sports and mentalities of chest to anything else. What is your mental approach when you go into? this conversation because it's really easy, really easy, really tempting that when you say something, we don't really think about the approach of how we said it. We only start to get really upset about whether that other person gets defensive or not. And as soon as they get defensive, they're getting defensive, it's all their fault, they're so defensive without asking for a moment of what is our approach. And I need you to think about a plane for a second, a plane. when a plane approaches and it's going to land it's on it's on its approach right what does it do

right before it touches the ground it's almost what even with it it comes down low all right not a steep angle and it starts to level out and continue to coast until what it can match be parallel with the ground and touch down the plane does not come at a 45 75 degree angle heaven forbid a 90 degree angle means it's just dropping out of the sky and just bam landing there that's you're going to crash every time so here what are we talking about we're talking about angles for a second that means we're talking about approach here's the takeaway you have to avoid the acute angle if you don't want this person to get defensive and you know that they have a tendency of getting defensive, you have to avoid the acute angle, meaning that the sharper you come down there,

the sharper you come down, the greater the chance is that the other person is going to get defensive. And maybe some of you, math people are like, oh, Jefferson, that's actually not acute, that's up to us. I don't, don't do that to me. You know what I'm talking about. Let's just go. Let's go. Don't get defensive with me. All right. So, approach. Approaches the word of the day. Meaning, when somebody gets defensive with you, what I need you to first think of is, okay, I need to first take a moment to retool

how I approach that question. Because how you approach it can mean all the difference if that person is going to be receptive to what you're saying and open, or if they're going to claim up and their spears are going to be out and they're going to be sharp and they're ready for the battle

because they feel like you're being defensive. What do I mean by that? Let's take number one. Number one is rather than focusing on how poorly and defensive they are, I need you to listen to the difference of these two things. Listen to the difference. I want to illustrate this first. I want you to put yourself, you and I are in an argument, okay? Bam, you're welcome. You and I are in an argument right now. And it could be about, I don't know. Let's say how often you're around in the office or at home or whatever. Let's just say how often you're around. And I use phrases like this. I say, you're never here. You're always looking to be gone. You just don't care. You know, you don't care to be here. You don't, you don't want to be here, right? You hear what I'm saying? How are you going to feel about this? How are you going to feel? How are you going to feel? How are you feeling hearing that? Are you going, well, yep, that's true, Jefferson. I really don't want to be here. No, I really don't care. Well, you got me nailed.

I don't want to. Of course you're not. Of course you're not going to think that. You're going to be like, hey, hold up. That's not right. And just because you have an opinion of, hey, that's not right, that doesn't necessarily in that moment feel like you're being offensive. But to them, to me, in this scenario, I'm going to be like,

oh, how defensive are you by disagree? with me. You see the convolution here? So it's convolution a word? Let's make it a word. Number one, avoid telling people what they want and don't want and feel and don't feel. If you don't want them to get defensive, don't tell them what they want or what they don't want and what they feel and they don't feel. Remove that language. Well, I'm going to call this as permanent language, meaning there's a permanency about it where you're glit. glossing with a broad brush of deciding for them what they think about things, what they want about things, and how they feel about things. If you're approaching it from that acute, sharp angle,

which who wants to be told what they want, think, and feel? You're going to be having a really hard landing every single time. That's a bad approach. So instead of telling them, beginning with your words, so what could this look like? I want to be having a really hard landing every single time. I'm you to think if you've been using this in any of your arguments or your big conversation where you say something as simple of you know you don't you don't care you don't care or um you never are you always right you hear those absolutes you never you always where you're saying that whatever you're telling them is a permanent nature permanent nature rather than it being temporary okay and Instead of that, I need you to soften the approach, and I'll give you a really easy one.

Easy, easy, easy, simple, simple, simple method. And it is when you, I feel. All right? You get to say the same thing. It's the approach. You can say all the same stuff. It's just your approach. Hear what I'm saying.

Instead of, you know what, I, you just don't care. You don't really care to be here. You don't want to be here. versus when you don't show up on time, when you look for ways to avoid, when you choose to do other things than be here with me, I feel as though you don't care. You hear the difference? When you, I feel.

Use that framework. It is simple. It is one of the most basic I could teach. when you, I feel, rather than going straight to, I know that you don't. I know you always. When you do this, I feel why? Much softer parallel approach that they're not going to get mad about. Why?

Because you're saying, when you do this, I feel this way. You see, it's a temporary state rather than a permanent one of, saying you, you never, you always, you don't care. Big, big, big difference. Okay, so we're going to soften our approach by not using permanent statements, but rather a framework of when you, I feel. Before we keep going, I want to take a moment to tell you about AG1. Here in my world, school has finally started up and going, which is great that my wife and I finally have some time to get things done. It's also where we have to get a lot of things done. What makes it easier and what we eat and make sure we fill in those nutritional gaps is AG1. It comes in a little bitty packet that

I can tear off, put in some water, shake it up, mix it up, and I'm going to know that I'm going to get energy, I'm going to feel good, immune health, good gut health, good brain health, good mood. It's something that I can digest easy, quick, and fill a lot of gaps that I know I'm really not going to get into when we're going fast pace and I'm not having a big huge lunch or not doing nearly as good of what I want to do for my diet day to day. Ag1 is where it's at. I definitely take these as a pack when we're traveling and it helps a whole lot. And one of the things I really love about AG1 is that they back it all up. It's all clinical trials, AG1 next gen. It's good stuff. They really put a whole lot of effort to make sure that what they're putting into your body

is something that is best as it could possibly be. And I believe it's the gold standard of what you're looking for in good nutrition. Right now you can go to drinkag1.com slash Jefferson and they say you can get a free morning person hat. So in case you're not that morning person, but you still want to be a morning person, just put on this hat. Free AG1 flavor sample and your welcome pack with your first AG1 subscription. I need to get me this morning person hat. I'm going to record the next episode in that. It's an $82 value. That's drinkag1.com slash Jefferson. And now let's keep going. Number two, this is going to sound a little funky, but it works. Okay?

And it's honest. I need you to agree with what they're saying. We're going to talk about, and we've talked about other episodes about this idea of affirmation, of affirming that feeling. Here in this argument, that's not really the context for it. So instead, I'm going to push it more towards agree with what they're saying. Now, do not mean. agree with the statement itself. So if you want to say something in response to what they've said,

and you want to in some way feel like you're about to say something defensive because you're about to disagree with them, and mind you, defensiveness does not equal disagreement. Like, defensive has nothing to do about whether or not you agree. or disagree, it's the posture that you're taking because there's plenty of people that agree with what you're saying. They're just, they're doing it from a very defensive posture and position. So what we're going to do is agree with what they're saying, but rather than the micro, I want you to think macro. And what I mean by that is instead of getting into the weeds of something

that you really don't care to argue about, but you know this is something that's important to them, rather than getting them defensive, more defensive about it. All you need to say is, well, I agree, that's worth talking about. I agree that's a perspective. I agree that's a perspective. See how I'm saying, they're just hearing, I agree. I agree that that's a subject that's important. I agree that that's an important subject.

I agree that this is something we should talk about. I agree that this is worth the discussion. I agree this is worth a conversation, right? You hear how just by saying that I'm not getting this defensiveness of saying, ah, I don't want to talk about that. That's stupid. Why would we even share? Why would we even talk about this? I don't want to go there. They're going to get defensive and the fact that they're offering information that you are shutting down and slamming down. Again, that's going to produce a very defensive result because they feel like they're not being heard, not being understood, and they're going to continue to fight you. until they feel in some way with somebody who's going to understand them more than you are. When you can say something as simple as, I agree, I agree this is worth talking about, I agree this is worth the conversation, as a way of keeping people from getting defensive because they feel like not only do you agree in some sense of affirming what they're feeling, that's what they're getting inside, but also they feel like they're being understood.

it. That's all that people are really wanting when it comes down to it. Number three, what I want to harp on is when instead of asking questions, we make statements. That's a problem. So what's the advice? Rather than turn our, the advice is turn statements into questions and make it a we thing. Right. Make it a we thing. Instead of saying, Look, I need you to calm down, right? Big problem there because you just said, I need you. You need to calm it down. You need to, hey, you need to calm it down.

Is that going to work? You need to do whatever. Nobody, this matches what we said in number one. Nobody wants to be told what to do or what they need. You know what? You need a nap. You know what? You just need to take a walk.

You need a time out. Who wants to hear that? Okay. Whenever you go into those statements of you need to lower your voice, the other person is going to get defensive because they don't want to be told what they need or what they should be doing. Instead, turn it into a question and make it a wee thing. So what I like to say is just flip it and make it a wee.

Oh, I think I need to rework that phrasing. That's funny. So we're going to turn it into a question and make it. make it an us thing maybe that's better a we thing and us thing so here's what it sounds like instead of you need to lower your voice it's can we lower our our voice in this discussion i'm making it a together thing instead of a just-to-them thing as if i haven't also been lowering as if i also haven't been raising my voice the whole time as if i have been totally free of any wrongdoing and it's all them If I make it a we thing and ask a question, then they don't get defensive.

Hey, can we take this step by step instead of telling them, you need to break this down and go step by step with this for me. That's me giving them instruction. People do not like instruction in these very sensitive conversations of telling them again what they should do and what they should not do, what they should want, what they should not want, what they need what they don't need. okay that's that's all me trying to control you and if the other person feels controlled good luck because they're going to get defensive about it every time that we don't we don't we don't like that

we will get very defensive not only of our ideas as we talked about in step two but also of you trying to control me so i'm going to want to protect things that are my autonomy i'm going to want to protect things that are my thoughts or my words feels like this is mine you can't take this from me so when we use language that are statements very pointed remember very harsh acute approach statements people are going to get defensive so how do you avoid that turn the statements into questions and make it a shared us thing so instead well you need to figure that out it's hey can we over the next few weeks can we can we try and figure that out apply it to both of you so much can be avoided in hard conversations when you make it about both of you. That way they don't feel

alone. They don't feel like they're the bad actor. That way they don't feel like you're saying I have everything figured out and I'm blameless and you're the problem there. They're not going to, they're not going to respond to that very effectively. And why would they? Why would they? So when it comes to keeping people defensive, there are true, real things that you can do that are going to lower the chances of people getting defensive. You might say, Jefferson, look, you don't know what I'm dealing with, what I'm living with. This person always gets defensive, no matter what I do. They always get defensive. Maybe so. I don't know them. Right. So you're going to have to make that decision for yourself. What I can tell you, right, is that you are going to significantly,

significantly decrease the chances of them getting defensive if you follow exactly what I'm telling you in this episode. And that is one, you have to soften the approach. Take care to consider how you're asking and how you're saying it. Big difference when you're trying to control them or trying to tell them what they should be doing or how they feel or what they want. When you do that, you're setting off alarms on their autonomy button. Okay? I say, hold up. You don't get to decide for me what I'm thinking and what I'm feeling.

For example, have you ever told somebody? You go, man, you just, like, you just seem like really grumpy right now. Do they ever go, yeah, I'm grumpy? No, most likely they're going to go, no, I'm not grumpy. I'm just annoyed by this. See, they don't even want you to decide what feeling. their feeling. You hear me? They don't even want that because that that is pushing in on my autonomy button of I let me decide how I want to feel. That's what they're thinking. Okay,

that's how they're feeling. And so when you use the when you I feel method or you find ways to say this is, hey, I agree on X, Y, and Z. I agree this is worth us talking about. I agree. that you're right to be frustrated by this, boom, pull down the fences. Or when you say, you turn it into a question of, hey, can we go a little bit slower here? Can we speak a little bit kinder between each other? Has a way of not making them feel like you're putting the whole spotlight in their face and like as if they're in some interrogation and you're saying do better

because everything I'm doing is doing great because they're not going to feel like it's even. They're not going to go, I'm always the bad person and you're always the good person. The good cop, bad cop kind of stuff, right? They're going to reject that kind of approach. So when you are able to in real time,

again, I'm going to go back to that word approach. When you think differently about how you approach the conversation of the statement itself, think, hey, can I, let me redo that. Just even if you were to say, hey, can I restate that? I want to restate that better. When you do X, Y, and Z, I feel, or I think, or my brain tells me, or I feel inside that, you know, X, Y, and Z, much softer approach. Avoid the acute angle.

You want to avoid the crash and burn. Make it a wee thing together rather than just pointing them at you. You don't, you don't, you can't, you can't. If you go into what they can't do or they don't do or what they always or they never, life's more great than that. Nobody is altogether good. Nobody is altogether clever. Nobody's all that nice.

We're all in this together because you know what? It's really easy to flip position and we can get just as defensive. Before we keep going, I want to take a moment to tell you about Factor. Y'all, I was not expecting this. I get hit up by different sponsors for different things. And when Factor came across, I was like, yeah, I would love to try meals where they come straight to your door and factor they said, hey, these are dietitian-based meals. They're chef-inspired. And I was like, okay, okay. And I tried one. Y'all, I was on the floor. They were so good. I couldn't stop

talking about it. They tasted so good. I've had many. I'm not ashamed to say this. Why? Because you know what it's like when you're day and day out and you're in the middle of, I need something for lunch, but I want something good. And I really don't want to go get fast food. I don't want to have this factor takes all of that decision out excellent stuff yeah i tried their salmon you never know with people saying hey we're going to send you saying it was excellent had their chicken fracas awesome okay listen i'm not going to tell you it's good unless it's good it is so let's eat real head to factor meals dot com slash jefferson and use the code jefferson 50 off so jefferson 50 off that's their code they get 50% off and one free breakfast item

per box for one year while supplies last until October 31st, 2026. That's code Jefferson 50 off at FactorMeals.com. See website for more details. Listen, Factor makes eating healthy a whole lot easier and it's really that good. I'm probably going to have one today in just a little bit. That's how good it is. And now let's keep going. So do not take the fact that somebody disagrees with you. This is another point that I wanted to make before I leave you. Just because they disagree with does not mean that they're defensive. You can't take that... What would that say?

That if somebody were to disagree with you, they're automatically defensive, okay? There's this quote about if two people always agree on the same thing that one of them isn't necessary. One of them isn't necessary. You require different ideas and disagreement just because they disagree with you

does not mean that they are defensive of you. That is a scarcity mindset. that both things can be true. They can also have their opinion and disagree with you, and that means that they're defensive. So I want you to also remove that filter of simply because somebody has a different opinion or a different thought. And again, it's going to depend on how they approach it to,

approaches the word of the day. That's how you find peace faster. That's how you keep conversation in flow. That's how you stop not from appearing in the strength. of connection between the two of you. Cool. How to keep people from getting defensive and even yourself sometime.

All right, thanks for staying with me while we're a little bit lower and not on the other windshield. I don't know. Let me know how you like this. Maybe we'll just stay it right here. Does this feel a little bit more homey? I don't know.

I'm going to ask my kids where that magnetic pieces if we can find it. Try that and follow me. Y'all be good.