The Jefferson Fisher Podcast - How to Handle Unwanted Conversations

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

You’re stuck in a conversation that you wish you could escape. Maybe it’s office gossip, someone oversharing, or a topic that doesn’t interest you.  But you’re not sure how to get out without seeming rude. In this episode, I’m sharing my top 3 strategies to exit unwanted conversations—without being rude. You'll learn how to calmly disengage, acknowledge without agreeing, and even directly express that you want to avoid certain topics. These simple techniques will help you navigate tricky conversations with ease, saving you time and patience. Like what you hear? Subscribe to this podcast and leave a 5-star review! Pre-Order my new book, The Next Conversation Subscribe to my Newsletter Watch my podcast on YouTube Follow me on Instagram Follow me on LinkedIn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You don't like them and you definitely don't want them, but sometimes no matter what you say, you find yourself getting sucked into them anyway. But with what I'm about to show you today, you're going to handle them like a pro. Today's episode is all about how to handle unwanted conversations. Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher podcast, where I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything. If you enjoy learning tools to improve your communication, I'm going to ask you to follow this podcast and please, if you would, leave a review. It really makes a difference. I'm excited to share with you that my book, my new book, it's called The Next Conversation,

is officially out for pre-order. If you'd like to order a copy, I'll put links down in the show notes where you can order it from your favorite retailer. It's a book that is going to teach you how to say things with control, say it with confidence, and say it to connect. And that you can change everything in your world and in your life simply by what you say next. If you want to avoid an unwanted conversation, number one, don't fight them. Because the more that you do, the more you're going to find yourself in one. Instead, just let it go by. You do that by making yourself sound, well, disinteresting. This is what I mean. When somebody's pushing an opinion onto you, any controversial topic, whether it's religion, politics, whatever, they're trying to push something onto you and you say, yeah, I don't know. Simple as that. Yeah,

I don't know. Or, you know, I'm'm not sure you know i'm not sure about that you're finding ways to communicate to them of if you're looking for a fight you're not going to find one here number two this one is the easiest but it's the most critical you are making them feel heard it's just simply acknowledging their point and it's very simple to do this is what it sounds like i agree that's an issue. Period. Somebody's wanting to get all worked up and they're telling something to you. All you need to respond is, I agree that's an issue. I agree that's an issue.

You're not saying whether you agree with it or disagree with it. If anything, they just feel acknowledged and heard and they say to themselves, oh, okay, they understood and heard what I said. And number three, if you need to be a little bit more direct, you need to tell them that you're not interested in this conversation. If they're not getting the point, here's the way I suggest to do that. You say, I typically avoid this topic. The key word is typically. Yeah, I typically avoid this topic or I typically try not to talk about X, Y, and Z. The key here is when you say typically, you're communicating of I've had this conversation before. It's not really stimulating to me anymore. So I just avoid this topic altogether. You're not saying that they're wrong.

You're not giving them a fight. You're not giving them anything for them to bear their teeth on. You're just simply saying, I tend to avoid this. I typically don't do this. And I'm going to give you a disclaimer on this episode, particularly when it comes to political topics. I'm all in favor of educating yourself and making sure that you know about the issues out there. I think you should absolutely exercise your right to vote. No questions asked. That's a

different question on whether or not somebody is allowed to force their opinion onto you and say whether they're right or wrong. Or if you're supposed to push your opinion back and always have these discussions where you know it's just beating your head against a wall. If this person is open-minded and it's a discussion that you enjoy having and people have political discussions all the time and there's no issues but other people it's not so much about change they don't care about the change they care about the competition it's like a sport to them it's like arguing over their favorite sports team who's going to win who's going to lose day to day the ultimate consequence of the discussion of who wins makes no bearing,

no change on their life. It's just something that they feel like a team on. So they want to have this discussion of intellect to intellect or just issue to issue. And they just want to talk it out. All kinds of different reasons why these kind of topics should or may come up in your life. The key is how do you balance them? The reason why I have number one be to pass it by is because it's that idea of don't attend every argument you're invited to. Just because somebody pushes their opinion onto you to talk about any controversial topic does not mean that it's an invitation for you to mandatorily give your opinion right back. Whenever you decide, you know what, I want to push against you. Actually, I don't agree with that. You can disagree all you want. Just know you're walking right into the conversation. It's no

longer an unwanted conversation. It is a desired conversation now that you're giving your opinion. If you want to avoid these, then you need to just let them pass by. I say disinterested or be disinteresting because in many ways you're taking all the oxygen out of the room and their fire can't burn. They have nothing to get upset about because you're not giving them anything to jump on to. You're finding ways to say, you know what, I don't know about that. You know what, that's a good question. I'm really not sure. I'm not sure. It's not that you don't have your own opinion. It's not that you're uneducated.

It's just you're not in a mood to say, I don't want to get in this conversation right now. And there's nothing wrong with that. When it comes to agreeing with them, understand nobody can make you agree to something you don't want to agree to. Nobody can force you to say something you don't want to say. But it's critical that these kind of people, when they're pushing these unwanted conversations, just feel heard. Often if they just feel acknowledged in some way, they're going to go away. Not only have you made yourself disinteresting, they know they're not going to get anywhere with this. They know that you're not going to give them that fight and that excitement that they're looking for. They just want

to feel acknowledged. So when you can say things like we mentioned in number two of, I agree, that's an issue. I hear you. Simple as that. I hear you. I agree. That's an issue. I agree. That's all you have to say. Even if you disagree with them, you're just making them feel heard. But if they continue to push and press on you to make you feel uncomfortable in some certain way, don't hesitate for one second to say, I prefer, or I typically. You're talking about what you do in the past. I prefer not to talk about X, Y, and Z. I typically try to avoid topics about blah, blah, blah. You can make it even situational.

I typically avoid topic X at dinner or at home or at work. You make it situational where you are in your environment. Simple as that. And if they continue to press the button, it's absolutely okay to say, I'm not going there. Period. I'm not going there. You're saying, I'm not going into this conversation. I've given you plenty of lead-ups. I've given you signs that I'm not interested in this. That means I have to be explicit with you. I'm not interested in this conversation. I typically don't enjoy talking about topics of X, Y, and Z.

This subject matter isn't for me. That subject isn't for me. You find ways that if they're not going to be taking the signs, be very direct with them to say, I have a boundary here. I'm not going to be goaded into this. I'm not going to be led into this conversation. I'm not going there. Now we're at the part that's one of my favorite parts, and that is I'm going to answer a question from a follower. If you're not already part of my weekly newsletter,

I send one email once a week right to your inbox on a communication tip, and those that are on the newsletter can email me questions, and I'm able to answer it here on the podcast. So I have my other phone here, and this one that I picked is from Sammy. Sammy is in Florida. He says, hey, Jefferson, love your tips. I have an issue with work. There is a boss that I have who always likes to talk about whether it's gossip or politics,

whatever it is, he's always wanting my input on it and I'd rather not give it. It's not that I don't have an opinions. I'm just not that much of a social person and it makes me uncomfortable. Love to hear your thoughts on this. Sammy, I feel you, man. So anytime, let me give you an example of what's making me think of in my own world is I'd have these conversations with my grandfather. I'd go up every summer to see him, and it never failed. And this happened definitely in the last five, ten years or so, where I'd start to come talk to him,

and every time he'd turn the conversation to politics or some issue that I did not want to talk about. It's not that he and I agreed on some things. We also disagreed on some things. But that's all he ever wanted to talk about. It just kind of consumed his mindset. This is what I'm going to encourage you to do, Sammy. Often the issue that you hear is not the real issue.

It's not the political issue that they want to talk about. Or that, let's say, maybe he's oversharing or there's gossip or something else. It's not that. It's an underlying layer. Continue on with my grandfather example. My grandfather is the type that he doesn't see a whole lot of people day to day. And so whenever I'm coming around and I'm giving him my full attention, I might be the first person he's really been able to talk to that day. And he wants to get out everything that's on his mind. There's also that element of, he kind of wants to, you know, there's people out there who want to feel impressive with their knowledge, regardless of what side of the fence anything is on.

It doesn't mean it's political, not political or religious or any other controversial topic. They just want to share that they're knowledgeable about a given topic. So I'm going to encourage you to look behind the issue. Why does he continue to come to you with this, this boss or manager saying, why does he continue to come to you with this? Is it that he's just to come to you with this? Is it that he's just looking for other conversation with you? Maybe it's he just wants to have some kind of interaction with somebody, especially if it varies. If it's always the same issue every

single time, that's a little bit different. But if he always comes to you with something different, that might be a suggestion that, well, he just wanted to interact with somebody. Like we talked about at the beginning of this episode, some people, it's not about who's right, who's wrong. It's just the competition. It's like, it's a hobby for some people to find out, hey, can we just kind of feel alive for a second if we get up and angry about things, even though nothing in our world is going to change. So when that happens and you feel like you need to set some boundaries in this discussion, I would, number one, I'd encourage you to continue to indicate to him that you're not going to give him any kind of fight.

You're not going to be on his side or against his side. You're just going to be disinterested. You're going to be disinteresting by saying things like, you know, I don't know. You know, I'm not sure about that. Or, man, if I had an opinion, I'd give one. Simple as that. I don't know enough about it. Or it's, hey, I agree this is an issue. Yeah, I agree. That's definitely an issue. You're simply just acknowledging something that they said. Or if you need to be really, really clear that this is not something you're interested in and you don't like this, it's okay to say, I'd prefer not to discuss this kind of stuff at work. Simple as that. You have to do things that sound authentic and genuine to you.

What you can't do is start to engage. If you start to engage or you begin to just agree and be a yes man to everything and go, yep, you're exactly right. You're exactly right. Then he's going to continue to come to you with things. But if you continually show that you're not going to be that much fun, you're not going to be his person, or you just find that these aren't the kind of topics that he's going to get with somewhere. If you were able to say, you know, I'd rather talk about you. That was the key of how I kind of had to fix my grandfather in our conversations. I had to tell him anytime he got into this rut, this continuous repeat of a hamster wheel conversation,

I'd say, you know, I'd much rather hear about you. That was it. I'd rather hear about how you're doing. Nobody gets mad. Say me, nobody gets upset if you want to move the conversation about them. Nobody's like, oh, no, I don't want to talk about that. Everybody likes to talk about themselves. So when you just kindly say, genuinely say, I'd rather hear about you. How's everything going? We're good? How's everything? It shifts the mindset. And then I can be like, oh, you change the topic. Everybody likes talking about themselves, especially if it's genuine, this social connection that you're creating.

So that's the way I'd handle that, Sammy. Best of luck. Thank you for watching the Jefferson Fisher podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, I'm going to ask you to please follow this podcast. And if you would leave a review, I am in a suit today because I had a hearing earlier, earlier this morning. So I'd make sure that I spent a moment and said hi to you and said, thank you for listening to this podcast. It really means the world to me. Also my new new book, The Next Conversation, is out for pre-order. Very excited about that. I wish you all the best.

And as always, you can try that and follow me.