The Jefferson Fisher Podcast - The Next Conversation Starts Here

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

Today is a big day, y’all. It’s book launch day. The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More is officially out in the world, and I could not be more excited (or honestly, more emotional) about it. If you’ve ever gotten something valuable from my content—if even one thing has stuck with you—I'm asking you to grab a copy of this book. Because this isn’t just a book. It’s an investment in your next conversation. And if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that the way we show up in conversations shapes everything—our relationships, our confidence, our success. Order my book. The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More 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. Buy The Next Conversation on Audiobook   Come meet me on my book tour! Like what you hear? 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? 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

Today is a big day y'all and it's going to be probably an emotional episode for me and I'm okay with that Today my book the next conversation. Are you less talk more is released today is publication day my very first Publication day and I cannot be any more excited Thrilled and honored to give a piece of myself to you If you've enjoyed any of my content at all, at any point in time, and I'm assuming you have if you're listening to this podcast, I'm going to ask you to buy and purchase this book.

You can go to thenextconversation.com, you can find a link there, or you can go to jeffersonfischer.com slash book, and you can find it there, or you can just go in the show notes of this episode, and you're going to find the link. Go to your favorite retailer and buy it. And let me tell you why.

Because you are investing in your next conversation. There's lots of reasons why I titled it this way. We're going to talk about that today. But most of the time you've invested in things that you just don't even think about. You've invested in every time that caffeine habit. You've invested in that mental health. You've invested in your own fitness. You've invested in work efficiency tools. But rarely, if ever, have you invested in your communication

and how you communicate and you show up in the difficult conversations. And this book is not going to tell you just how to do it. It's going to give you the words of exactly what to say. And you will be amazed at the way you're going to show up in conversations and bring more positive and bring more of what you want in your life. You can go to thenextconversation.com to get a copy of this book. I'm honored for it. Thank you for letting me put this out into the world. 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 please follow this podcast And if you would leave a review give it a star give it a like give it a heart Whatever it is it helps it really does and I'm very appreciative for it Please know that if you have any topic suggestions, you can just throw them in the comments. This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. The reason why I love Cozy Earth as a sponsor is because I actually use their products. And I like them, but my wife loves them. Their towels, their bed sheets, anything cozy and comfortable from the tops to pants, sweatshirts to sweatpants are awesome, love them.

You can go to cozyearth.com slash Jefferson and use the code Jefferson for 40% off. And on that site, there's a whole list of my favorite things that I personally like to wear. So I encourage you to go check it out. You can go to cozyearth.com slash Jefferson and use the code Jefferson for 40% off. In today's episode, we're gonna go over three things.

One, how I even got here, how a book even happens because if you're like me listening, you have no clue how a book goes out into the world. I didn't either. And this has been a whole entire process and a learning process. In fact, every day is still a learning process. So for those of you who are curious,

I'm gonna share a little bit of the background of how I even got here. Next, we're gonna go through the framework of the next conversation, are you less talk more, in the three-part framework that I set out to help improve your next conversation. And I'm gonna talk about why it matters.

So today's episode is all about the book. About two and a half years ago, I was getting comments in all of my content about you should write a book, please write a book, please write a book. And I thought, well, I guess I gotta write a book. I've never, listen to me, never in a million years was a book on my bingo card.

I never thought about it ever once. I never thought, oh, I wish I could write a book. That was in anywhere in my whole mindset. So when people started asking and leaving comments saying you should write a book, they're like, well, okay. So I Googled, I went to Google and typed in, how do you write a book?

So I spent an evening one night just kind of surfing, seeing, hey, how do you write a book? Lord knows I didn't know. And I saw things about you should self-publish. So I started researching on how to self-publish a book. And I thought, well, I'll just kind of create a little bit of something and then share it with my followers and be done.

I didn't care a lick about making any money from it. I just wanted to give people tangible things that they could mark up, write down, highlight that they could have and make their own. That sounded awesome to me. And over time, while I was jotting down ideas, I started getting emails from literary agents. These are people, agents that connect authors to publishers, people who print books and distribute books.

So it's kind of like a middleman and they're able to take percentages of things, a typical agent, just like a real estate agent, they connect the buyer to the seller. And so I have an amazing literary agent and through that you write something called a proposal. It's a document that lines out what you think the book is going to be and what you think the book is going to be about. It's kind of like a business proposal about a book because when you go to these big publishing houses, they kind of treat the book as an investment, so to speak. They see it as something of, okay,

is this something that's gonna have legs, not have legs? Is it gonna help a lot of people or is the message not right? It's kind of why this book and why now? That's really the main theme of what they're curious about. And so I was able to get a wonderful book deal with Penguin Random House. And you have big houses like Penguin Random House,

it used to be Random House and Penguin, now they're together. You have Simon and Schuster, you have HarperCollins, and underneath them they have all little bitty things called imprints. So think of like a big overarching company and then a bunch of little sub companies underneath it. My imprint is called Tarture Perigee

and they're the sister to Avery and wonderful, wonderful people, wonderful editor. It's fantastic, they're just great. And they really helped pull a lot of my message out and I used a book coach, his name is Blake Atwood, fantastic guy. You can see all of my acknowledgments of everybody who helped.

And what a book coach does is kind of just help you stay disciplined. They don't write the book, they just help you organize things and be disciplined because who knows how to write a book? I didn't know, I didn't go into writing like this. So you know, every part of my book I wrote and that was important because I wanted to sound like my voice. That was very, very crucial to me is that it sounded like my voice. And that's where

you're going to get in this. I also narrated my audiobook. That was very important to me because I wanted everybody to hear the voice on how I say things. Because of all I do on social media, people have recognized my voice and sometimes my voice is more recognizable than my face to some people. And because they only see me like this, they don't see me standing up, they don't see the sides of my face, Just not that common. So they recognized my voice, narrated my audio book. That was a three and a half day process in a studio in Houston. It was cool.

It was different, way harder than you think it was. But I narrated the audio book. This book is also available on Audible, anywhere, Apple books, anywhere you wanna get your audio book. And I have had a lot of people say they get both, which I've never heard before, but that's awesome. You can get it wherever you want to listen to it. So if this voice doesn't bother you that much, you can get the audio book.

So that's how this process got here, how I went from making the videos in my car, to people saying, hey, you should make a book. I got hit up by different agents. They're the ones that helped tell me how this process went. And then now I am here. And before you know it, this book is published. And I helped design this cover.

And I have wonderful people who designed this cover, who helped give ideas for things. It's a very collaborative process when you're going through a traditional route, aside from self-publishing. So that's how I even got here. This book is lined out in three different parts, and of course you knew it was gonna be three, I always give three. There are three rules for how to have a better next conversation. Rule number one, you're gonna say it with control. You

can't go forward in conversation without controlling yourself before trying to control the other person. Number two, you're going to say it with confidence. Rule number two is say it with confidence, meaning you're going to find your assertive voice, we're going to pull it out of you, and the result is going to be a much more confident you. And three, you're going to say it to connect. You're going to find ways to reach that difficult person

and improve the way you're having difficult conversations to make them just a little bit easier in your life. And on top of that, I have a bonus chapter, all right? It's not, everybody doesn't know that. There is a bonus chapter in this book specific to narcissists and gaslighting and toxic people. The reason why it's a bonus chapter is because, mean it could really be its own it could be its own book it could be its own book and it just might be because there's a lot to

go into that. I wanted people in the book I have out right now to see that this is the essentials framework. This is what I want to leave my kids. This is how I want to be remembered if I somehow don't exist tomorrow. This is something that I'm very proud of and it is right to the point. Maybe later we're gonna have, maybe there'll be another book where we go deeper and deeper into things

and we're gonna talk more about narcissists and gaslighting. For now, I just put it in a bonus chapter and so I'm gonna issue that. And I think what we're gonna do actually is release aists and gaslighting. For now, I just put it in a bonus chapter. And so I'm going to issue that. And I think what we're going to do actually is release a part of my audio book for you listeners. I think that's going to be a whole lot of fun. So rule number one is say it with control.

Rule number two is say it with confidence. And rule number three is say it to connect. Now, do I include my details in here? Yeah, you're going to find little bitty snippets of my viral videos that have most resonated with you over time that I'm gonna give you a lot of how-tos, but it's not just that. So you can say, yes, he's gonna give me a lot

of the how-tos that I can mark up, highlight. It's more than that. I'm wanting to give you the behind. I'm wanting to give you the context, places that you can take your mind and difficult conversations that I can't explain nearly as well in a short 40 second, 47 second clip. At the end, there's also a part that I really liked,

probably I got at least, I got a kick out of it, is I write in the very back of 47 second version, meaning if I had distilled everything in this book into a social media clip, this is what it's gonna be. And I'm gonna read it to you right now. Cool, wherever you are, if you're listening to headphones in your car, work out. Rule number one, never win an argument

or you'll lose a lot more than you gain. When you regulate your reactions before responding, you keep a clear head and a calm mind. Rule number two, confidence isn't an act, it's an outcome. Use words and short phrases that assert your needs and protect your values without fear of disappointment. When you embrace your assertive voice, you make a pathway for more positive change in your life.

And number three, don't worry yourself over how to change your entire relationship. Focus on changing just the next conversation. When you frame a conversation as something to learn, rather than something to prove, you take out the difficulty in building connection. So try that and follow me. This is something that I cannot be more proud of in this entire experience of everything that I cannot be more proud of in this entire experience of everything

that I have put together for you. And the reason why I find so much joy out of making this is because I get to share my voice with you just a little bit more. If you have purchased this book, and once you read this book, it would be my greatest honor if you leave it a review wherever you buy the book from. Maybe it's Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, wherever you get it, wherever you listen to

it on audiobook. Leave a review for me if you don't mind. That's the only way that people know if something is good or not is they just look at the reviews. So that really makes a big difference to me. And if you read it and you get the book, post it on social media, make your own video that I can tag. If you tag me, tag, hashtag the next conversation,

I'm able to look at it, I'll be able to grab it and share it on my platform, which is a thrill for me to be able to share more of what my followers in the community have put out and then I can put it on online. So that would be a huge honor. I'm also going on a book tour. So my book tour starts very soon. If you have not bought tickets, I think we already have Chicago and LA,

I believe are sold out. So that's really cool. We're going to 10 different cities. You can, I'll put the link down in the show notes for my tour. I'm going to 10 cities. I think we're going to, I know we're going to New York, LA, we're going to South Carolina, North Carolina. We're going to Tempe, Arizona.

We're going to, uh, Houston, Austin, Dallas, and a few more. So that's awesome. And for any of you UK listeners, I'm going to the UK, going to London for a week in the beginning of June. Very excited about that, gonna have an event there. So this whole world is just all part of it. If you're still listening to me right now,

you know that I'm just experimenting a lot with what's happening in my life. I made these videos in my car. Last season were all videos in my car. And now I have this studio where I'm still gonna be making some Solo episodes and I'll still mix it up and go do it in the car. I don't you to feel like anything has changed I'm experimenting with these interviews I was totally honored to talk to Mel Robbins and Chris Voss

Charles Duhigg a few of these others that are these episodes probably gonna be coming out right around the same time And others that I have lined up that are really just probably going to be coming out right around the same time. And others that I have lined up that are really just friends of mine that I have developed in this space that I'm just honored to bring them to you but that doesn't mean I'm only going to always do that. So we're just going to try it out and I love love love when you give me feedback in the comments you go hey look I'd rather I like the microphone or I like the studio or even if you say hey I prefer the car. That's all good for me to know. I want to bring content that you're going to like in a way that I can share.

What is on my heart and what I like to talk about to you, every single person. So in this book, the next conversation, make your next conversation. The one that changes everything. I had endorsements from, um, Andrew Huberman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Mel Robbins, Chris Foss, and Dr. Becky Kennedy. All heavy hitters and wonderful friends of mine that I was thrilled to have their endorsement recommendation for this book. I can't believe it y'all that this is all happening so fast and it'll be over

before you know it, we'll have the today's release day. We're going to start on the tour tomorrow. And I think that's it's about three and a half weeks, nearly four weeks of that. And yes, family's good. They're going to come with me to as many events as they can. And I'm still going to be back in time to make kids at T-ball games and Coach Bitch games

and as many practices as I can. I'm not missing any of that. My family's all good with me. So I'm still keeping my priorities there I've been playing with my kids at T-ball games and Coach Bitch games and as many practices as I can. I'm not missing any of that. My family's all good with me. So I'm still keeping my priorities there and just finding the balance as much as I can. So if you need me, you can find me probably talking to you through my phone or here in your headphones.

The next conversation, argue less, talk more, go get it. If you're interested in making your next conversation, the one that changes everything, I'll talk to you soon.