The Jefferson Fisher Podcast - How Your Inner Circle Shapes Your Communication

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Who you're around shapes how you speak. In this episode, I walk you through a personal communication audit—looking at who’s influencing your voice, what words no longer serve you, and how to raise your standard by surrounding yourself with people who lift you up. This is about breaking old patterns, speaking with purpose, and setting the tone for how you show up in the world. This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. Upgrade Your Every Day. Get 40% off at cozyearth.com/jefferson or use code JEFFERSON at check out. Order my new 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 TikTokFollow me on LinkedIn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who you're around is how you'll sound. Today we are taking a deep dive. We are having an audit of ourselves Asking who in our life influences how we talk. Today we're gonna break some generational curses Yeah, we're going to ask and and see how not only we communicate how we were influenced by those who came before us, how they communicated and how that shaped us. And we are going to decide today in today's episode that we are going to do better for the next generation so that they can do better in the next generation. You ready? Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher podcast. I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything.

If you enjoy podcasts like this and enjoy this kind of content, I'm going a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything if you enjoy Podcasts like this and enjoy this kind of content I'm gonna ask you to please subscribe and follow this podcast if you have any topic suggestions Just throw them in the comments. I'll be sure to give them a look my book The next conversation is five times New York Times best-selling book. It's incredible I've been so excited about it. The book tour is finally done. You can get yours wherever you like to get books I'll have the link there in the show notes as well as my membership if you're looking to continue to learn tools to practice To train I'm gonna encourage you to join the membership I have two live Q&A's and hot seats in there as well as master classes to continue your learning and training as a

lifelong learner. Today's episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. I love Cozy Earth. I like talking about them. I like having them as a sponsor because I wear their stuff. I am wearing Cozy Earth pants right now. It is raining cats and dogs outside. And these are athletic type pants that I really, really like.

So if you know anybody who works in the office and you're always wanting to wear something on the go, Cozy Earth has clothes. It's really great for any kind of weather. I wear these to the office. I wear these at home, wherever it is. CozyEarth.com slash Jefferson. Use the code Jefferson for 40% off.

CozyEarth.com slash Jefferson. Use the code Jefferson for 40% off. Today I want us to look and take a moment. And this is something I don't think we talk about nearly enough, that how I communicate, I sound a lot like my dad. If you remember the first guest we had on the podcast, my parents, you heard my dad and you probably thought, oh my gosh, Jefferson sounds just like him.

Well, that's how genetics work. I have a lot of his mannerisms as well as my mom, and I sound a lot like him. And most likely you sound very much like one of your parents, even though you may or may not want to admit it. That's just the way life happens. But there's another element, right, of who is in your vicinity, who is in your environment, who you are around. They also influence how you're going to talk. My dad was somebody who, when I brought something up to him and I had an

issue, he would like to say, well, we'll see. It was always kind of this hopeful, positive, let's just just wait. It was always kind of this hopeful positive, let's just wait. I can't, there's nothing you can do right now, Jefferson. There's no decision. It's kind of what the signal he was giving. It's not what he said. But it was this idea of you can't change it right now,

so there's no sense worrying about it. So he always kind of had this, well, we'll see, type of attitude. If there's somebody who I was afraid to bring something up because they're gonna be disappointed, I go, I go oh well they're gonna be really mad and goes yeah well I guess I guess they'll be mad or I guess they'll be disappointed. I mean it was just this mindset that he had of just keep rolling with the flow that I also got and I was very blessed that way. I'll be the

first to say extremely blessed that way. There are other people I know who have wonderful communicators in their life and other wonderful environments. You will look at how different places you've been have shaped how you talk to people. I know attorneys that I knew in high school, excuse me, not in high school, in law school, and they go on to a firm and they change their entire way of speaking. Or I know friends that I do know from high school who went on to go work on Wall Street or corporate or finance, and you know their whole binocular changes, their whole vocabulary. People go in real estate or teachers or whatever it is.

We have acronyms, we have different terms, we have all these sales optimization strategy words that we use for particular influences in our world and that shapes how we talk if you're in sales or HR or whatever it is. Take an audit right now. So number one, number one today's podcast is take an audit that means ask yourself the question How and who is influencing? my communication And let's let's go even deeper. Who am I around? For the vast majority of my day. Let's put it in a pie chart and a pie chart yet percentages all around it pie chart is a circle

Who am I around most of the day? It's usually not your kids and it's not your spouse or your family. It's work It's work or maybe you work from home and you're mostly by yourself Or maybe it's the cat. I don't know There is somebody you're around that is influencing how you speak Put it differently Who are you listening to? Let's go to music. What kind of Who are you listening to?

Let's go to music. What kind of music do you listen to? How is that influencing how you think about things, how you communicate things? My grandfather, uh, he was a district attorney for a long time. And he used to not be, he was in private practice. And then when he went to go to district attorney, his whole vocabulary, of course, started to change. And everybody at the courthouse was what? Cursing? What did he start to do?

He started to curse and he never did that before. And as soon as he left that area, he never did again. That's the way it happens. I know friends that have terrible ways of communicating because that's how they're doing it at work. They have ways that it's just weighing on them in some sense because there's that peer pressure or this maybe the sense to fit in. This is my point in this part of the episode is just to take an odd of who are you around? Who are you around?

Cool. Two, I want you to write the names of people. You don't have to write them if you're driving or anything, you're working out on a walk. Just think in your mind. People are going to come up in your mind. Who are the people who have positive influences on you and the way they communicate? Names are going to immediately come to mind. These are people that put a smile on your face when you think about them. Who are the people in that sphere who have positive examples of how they communicate? Maybe it's they

just they make you feel happy. Maybe they speak kindness. The reason I use positive is because this is what this podcast is. It is a way to build positivity into your life. The good kind of healthy positivity. And right now we're taking a healthy look at what could be some bad factors in your life. Maybe you're having a hard time thinking of somebody. Maybe you're around what they call the negative nancies, the people who always see things as half glass empty, the people that are always doubting you, the people that are always putting

you down and therefore you're starting to think, well, I'm really not that cool, I'm not that great, no, don't worry, and you're starting to put yourself less and less and less. Find that person who you want to emulate. Of course there's gonna be people in your life that you just tolerate in your circle. You know, they're part of the friend group,

but they're not really your friend, they're somebody else's friend. or maybe you just placate them there. It's a Relative that they're there at the family get-togethers, but you really don't care that they're there They don't care about you and you really care about them. It's just it's part of the Exchange I want you to think of people who make a difference and how they communicate to you and how you want to emulate that. All right? Three, I want you to think of the words that no longer serve you.

That no longer serve you. Because what I'm asking you to do in this audit of this episode is at the end of it, I'm asking you to find people that raise your level of thinking, raise your level of conversation, raise the level of things that you talk about. There's somebody who's one of my oldest law school friends, she always had this little sign on her laptop, like on the bumper sticker. And it was, it says something along the lines of, I get high on intellectual conversations

or intelligent conversations. And I always really liked that because it's, yeah, me saying I like to meet people, make connections, friendships with people that raise my level, raise my standard of what not only I think about myself, but what I communicate, what I talk about. If I talk about small things, I will think small things. If I'm around friends that talk about big things, I will talk about big things. If you're around somebody who's always gossiping, always nagging, you know what you're going

to do? You're going to get negative and start nagging and get negative. But if you're around people who are always thinking positive, they're always thinking positive momentum, things they want to build, things that they're about growth. People about growth, they invest in you and you invest in them and you all go together. So this is a time that I want you to...maybe you haven't taken that time yet. So maybe this is the first time you're actually thinking about this.

And if so, that's wonderful. I'm happy to be part of it. I want you to think of the type of people that are gonna raise your level of thinking and raise not just the thinking, but your vocabulary. I'm not saying you have to learn new words. I am, we're going back to number three and that is choosing the right words. It's not saying you have to learn new words. We're going back to number three and that is choosing the right words. It's not about knowing fancy words. It's about

knowing the right words. Words that no longer serve you. Meaning, if you're always somebody that goes, I mean, maybe so. I don't know. I mean, I guess. No, we're going to scrap all of that. That's not building positive momentum in your life. You're using phrases like, I'm looking forward to, what I'm excited about, what I care about, what I need, things that are moving forward in your life. Can you hear the difference? Whenever you start thinking of phrases like, I'm confident that, instead of, I believe so, I guess so, I'm confident that, all of

a sudden you've built in confidence to it. These phrases that give authority to you, whether it's like words, like direction, direction is a great one. I don't like the direction of this conversation. No, I'd rather take this in a different direction. You are the captain of the ship when you do that. Start finding phrases that lead you to the captain of the ship more often if that's what you want to do. You can use any AI. You can Google what are words and phrases I can put in my life

that change my sentences to be more positive, more uplifting, less half glass empty and more half glass full in my life. And you're going to find words like fulfilling, you're going to find words like confidence, words like experience, words that build you up as part of that growth. And I want you to consider looking for other people in your world, in your sphere, that you can just prune your tree. Prune your tree of the people that bring the negative in your life and start, I was going to say fertilize, but Lord let's not do that. I barely just got this thing replanted, this fiddle leaf fig that I got. You want to find people that are going to add water. I'm removing the plant metaphor right now because

I'm not that kind of... I'm not there yet. You want to find people that are going to pour into you that are gonna help you grow. It's gonna help you grow. Like a tree. Okay, rule number one. I want you to take an audit. Audit of yourself of who has influenced how I speak. Is it my parents? Is it the people I'm around? Is it where I work? Two, I want you to find the people and focus on the people that speak positive language

around you. Be more like that and find out why they speak that way. What is it about them that speak that way? I'm not saying you have to mimic them. I'm not saying be exactly like them. That's not my point. It is that you want to remove the things that do not serve you and do not uplift you and things that are weighing you down and add more of the things that lift you up. All right? Three, find words that serve you better, that push you towards personal growth because what

you want to do is find people that raise your standard, raise your level of thinking. Raise your vocabulary and not just using fancy words or using very intelligent words. No, you just need to use the right words. And those are words that are going to bring light into your world, and light into the world of somebody else. Because after all, that's what we're all about. That's what I'm about. All right. Be good. If you have any questions, just put them in the comments. And as always, you can try that and follow me.