May 12, 2025 • 32 mins
Communication powerhouse Jefferson Fisher (whose strategies have revolutionised how millions communicate) shares his innovative approach to workplace conversations that gets results without the drama.
Discover why trying to "win" arguments is actually sabotaging your professional relationships, and learn his game-changing "conversational framing" technique that career coaches are calling the fastest route to a promotion this year.
Listening to this ep will teach you:
- The exact phrases that make you sound instantly more confident (without being arrogant)
- How to replace apologies with something that makes people respect you more
- The perfect way to start any difficult conversation (that gets people on your side instantly)
- A foolproof method for connecting with senior leaders that makes them want to help you
- The simple mindset shift that turns confrontation into collaboration
This isn't just another episode about "speaking up more" – it's the communication blueprint that might completely transform how people perceive you at work.
We are obsessed with Jefferson’s book ‘The Next Conversation’ which you need to buy here. You can also listen to the audiobook read by Jefferson on Audible or Spotify.
Jefferson has over 1 billion Impressions across media platforms, follow him on insta or tiktok.
Sign up to the BIZ newsletter here
You might be interested in our episodes on:
How To Talk So People Listen To You
How To Be More Productive (Without Trying Too Hard)
Time Blocking Doesn't Work (Until You Do It Right)
How To Ask For More Money (Without Dying From Awkwardness)
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Follow the Biz Instagram, Michelle’s startup Sunroom and Soph’s career coaching business Workbaby.
Got a work life dilemma? Send us all the questions you definitely can't ask your boss for our Biz Inbox episodes - send us a voice note or email us at podcast@mamamia.com.au. You can remain anon!
HOSTS: Michelle Battersby, Soph Hirst and Em Vernem
EXEC PRODUCER: Georgie Page and Sophie Campbell.
AUDIO PRODUCER: Leah Porges
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to a mother mea podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hi, it's so first and I'm hijacking the start of
biz today. We've never done this before, but we have
something very special for you. So this topic that we're
talking about is arguably the one that has the most
impact on how you're perceived at work and therefore your success.
But it's also the topic that people tell me they
(00:33):
struggle with the most at work. So the topic is
conversations and speaking. And the expert we're talking to is
blowing up the world right now. He's just been on
the Mel Robins podcast. He has ten million followers on
social which is double Brene Brown by the way, you know,
so if you haven't heard his name, you've probably watched
his videos.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
These three responses will keep somebody from getting defensive. Here's
how to stand up for yourself, how to handle insults.
My name is Jefferson Fisher. I'm a trial attorney and
I teach people how to argue and communicate.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Now, because he's a personal injury, his words in court
can make or break lives, so the stakes are real
and he's just totally mastered it personally. He's been one
of my greatest teachers and there was so much good
advice in this interview that we wanted to make it
a double episode for you guys. So the intention I
set for this conversation was to create a resource for
(01:24):
you that you can bookmark and keep coming back to.
I really want to land this one point before we
get started on why this is so important. Conversations are
the main way that people perceive and experience us. So
what people here think and feel when we're interacting, that
is their reality of us. Now, I want you to
(01:45):
think about leaders at your company who are making decisions
about your career. When do you interact with them. It's
in meetings and conversations. In terms of the actual work
that they see, they probably see about ten to twenty
percent of your work, but when you're in rooms with them,
they form a disproportionate understanding of you. It's just so
(02:06):
much more memorable and there's so much more emotion in
those moments. So it can really help if you feel
confident and beyond those leaders at work. There's so much
that can be fixed if we are more clear in
how we talk. So in part one of this double episode,
you are getting the three foundations that everyone needs to
know when it comes to communication, the single biggest technique
(02:29):
for speaking succinctially at work, and how to be assertive
and direct without feeling weird. The crazy part is that
you're going to learn some of these things and you'll
realize that some of it can be an almost instant change.
A lot of it is definitely more simple than what
you think. So let's go learn this together.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
God true, confidence, God true.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Jefferson on behalf of all the women listening. Thank you
for giving us your time and wisdom today. Thank you
so much, so, Jefferson, I wanted to start with foundations
because something interesting happens to me when I listen to
your book, and that is I thought that I'd learned
everything I could possibly learn from you because I've watched
all of your content, and the opposite turned out to
be true. And what struck me is how important it
(03:18):
is to understand sort of the why behind a lot
of these behaviors we're having, so that the things that
you actually teach in your sixty second videos stick. So
I wanted to start by giving our listeners some foundations,
and I've picked out three themes that I think are
essential for women in a work context. So The first
one is what is sent is not what's received, and
(03:39):
everyone's having a conversation in their head that you're not
invited to. Can you expand on this concept for us?
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, when we face communication externally, when we're talking to
somebody else, we expect that exactly what comes out of
our mouth is exactly what goes into the ears of
the other person. And there's a difference between hearing and listening.
I got you hear noise. You listen to understand a
(04:08):
lot of the times when somebody's not paying attention, you know,
they're working, They're like, oh, yeah, what do you have,
and they're they're working on something. They're hearing you, but
they're not really listening. So often we only focus on
what is said, not as what is received. And to
put that into some context, let's say you and I
are in an argument, Sophie. Now I would never want
to be in an argument with you, but if we were,
(04:30):
you were telling me what I said at dinner the
other night, and I just responded, that's not what I said. No, Sophie,
that is not what I said. And yes you did,
that's exactly what you said. It is no good for
me to argue that is not what I said. The
question is, Sophie, what did you hear? But what did
you hear? Instead of that's not what I said, it's
what did you hear? Because what you'll find is what
(04:51):
they heard is more often than not very different than
what you said. You go, no, no, no, that's not what
I meant. No, that's not what I said at all.
That wasn't my intention. Because we have this thing in
our mind that talks to ourselves, but we don't share
it with the other person, whether it's it's triggers or
faults or fears or shame or struggle, whatever it is,
we have that internally within us, and we don't voice those. Instead,
(05:14):
we raise our voice, we use ugly words, we throw
something out that cuts, and that leads to a lot
of problems in communication.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Yeah, I feel like that's especially true in a work
context when everyone's coming from different places, whether that's different
departments or different levels, and they're carrying around with them
sort of the opinions and the experiences of maybe they're
manager or you know, a project that hasn't gone well before,
And so I think when we're trying to communicate with
each other, maybe you're trying to share an idea, like
pitching new idea you have, there's all this context that
(05:46):
people have that you don't have, and I think sometimes
it makes it really difficult. You're trying to deliver your message,
but they're actually picking up something completely different. They've got
all these contexts that they're not sharing with you. So
I think that's a really important one.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, And I think it works the other way too.
Of Let's say you're in the workplace and you want
to talk to somebody and you don't want to feel
like you're being too aggressive or too strong, and so
you might come into the conversation with, hey, do you
have a little bit of time. I don't mean to
bother you here, but so what I was thinking was,
and you can totally tell me if I'm wrong, I'm sorry.
Were you doing something hear how like you're very hesitant
(06:21):
in your language. You feel like you're being very deferential.
What they're going to hear is this is somebody who's
being apprehensive. This is somebody who is unsure of themselves
and uncertain, and so what you say is not exactly
what the other person hears. That's a wonderful concept and
I think you're exactly right.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Thank you. And then the second one is if you
respond with curiosity instead of judgment, you open a door
instead of building a wall. Sometimes at work we forget
that a company is just a big collection of messy
humans and we all are emotional. So could you teach
us about these concepts.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
I like to say that we're just all one big
high school. It's the same people. We're just all a
little older where maybe thinner, heavier, more gray, less hair, whatever,
it's the same person. When you get in to this
mindset of feeling, like when somebody tells you something, you
have to bark something back. In other words, just because
(07:14):
they said something, you have to catch it, hold it,
throw it right back at them. That often is going
to diminish how you feel about yourself and what you
think of the other person. How often you take something
personal instead of a feeling like you have to come
up with that zinger or that clap back, whatever that is.
I like to use the word curiosity, and sometimes it
(07:35):
can be overused, but it's just using questions as a
not a weapon, but as a really efficient tool. Like
there's no sharper blade in my mind than a very
well placed question at the right time, and when you're
in the face of confrontation or conflict, whatever it is,
(07:56):
it is this mindset that you have that I teach
of have something to learn, not something to prove, instead
of trying to in the work place, trying to push
your point on the other person, have this mindset of
whatever they say, you think, where is this coming from?
Why would they say that? What is behind the person
behind the words? And that is a much more emotionally mature,
(08:20):
emotionally intelligent way to go about how you're going to communicate.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
I feel like if we can all remember that and
approach things with curiosity not with judgment as the first
place we start, we're all going to be so much better,
more happy in the workplace, but also just like working
more efficiently together as well.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
People say, how do you leave with curiosity? It's questions,
ask more questions than the responses you give.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
The third one is arguments aren't something you win, there's
something you unravel. What do we need to know about this?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
There is this default that we all have inside of
ourselves that we're very competitive and when we argue with somebody,
we feel like we have to win. What does winning
look like Usually it means the person that's left standing,
the person who had the last word because you said
too much, and the other person's left the room, they've
hung up the phone. You said that one thing that
took it too far, and somebody else started crying. What
(09:13):
I teach is that when you set out to win
an argument, you often will lose the relationship you've really
just won to be the first person to apologize, you've
won their contempt. You've now won awkward silence as the
stuff to pass them down the hall or the next
time they email you and you're not really sure if
they hate your guts or not, or maybe you still
live with this person, you work with this person if
(09:34):
you haven't helped yourself. So it's easy to feel like
you can win in the moment, but you're the one
left holding on to the things that were better left unsaid.
And I teach it it's better off to unravel it
see them as not In conversations, an argument is a
window into another person's struggle, and when you can leave
with questions, that curiosity of finding out where is the snag?
(09:57):
Where's the knot in the conversation? Because Sophie, if you
pull your way and I pull mine. That knot is
going to get harder and harder to undo. It's going
to get tighter. And we have people that they have
pulled so long and so hard that they can't untie
their knot for a week or a month. And we
know people that haven't talked to their parents or their
(10:19):
family member in years because of how hard they pulled
on that not. So instead you need to see them
as something to unravel with each other.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I love that visual analogy so much because this is
one of those interesting things where I learned it from you,
and I thought about it first in a work context,
but I've used it so much in my personal life
as well, and I just think of like that unraveling
of the knoel. Every time I'm trying to get in,
you know, to the point where I want to win
a conversation with my partner, I think about this note
and I think about it either unraveling or tightening. It's
(10:48):
super powerful just to drill down on this in a
work context. I think the place that a lot of
us get into is we think short term. At work,
we think, you know, I just want to be the
person that comes across looking really great in this meeting,
and I want to be right. But what we forget
is that at work in particular, that we're really looking
(11:09):
at long term relationships with people. And so what I
like about what you said, you said arguments are a
window into someone else's struggle. And so to put that
in a work context, you are going to be better
at your job if you try to understand all the
other teams, all the other people that you're working with,
what are things like for them, what are they struggling with,
(11:30):
what are their priorities, And instead of trying to win
that argument all the time, use that as like signals,
use that as inputs you can be gathering to help
you understand, and that's going to help you work better
with them. And also like probably get your own way
if you want to eventually, because you'll be you'll know
how to sort of frame things and pitch things to
them in the right way.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yes, absolutely, I find that, especially in work, we feel
like we're in a vacuum and that everybody else is
experiencing things different from you and it is their job
to really cater to you or your feelings. When so
much much what I see in the workplace is people
all share a lot of the same struggles. We have
(12:10):
family members that are dealing with things our own traumas
and shame and things that we don't want to talk about,
or I mean, we're just tired, you didn't sleep well
the night before, you're irritable, you're hungry, you have your
mindset on a million other things. When somebody passes you
in the hall and they don't say hi, you're going
to think, oh, what a jerk. It's easy to just
think about me, me, me, me, me, when you know they'd
(12:31):
even see you or their minds a thousand miles away.
And when you get in this mindset of asking, like
we said, the questions and finding ways to be more
often than not, giving people that benefit of the doubt
in conversation, particularly in the work context, I find we
(12:51):
take a lot of things personally, like you read an
email and you go, oh, that's the rude, and you
don't even second guess what the other person said, what
they really meant by that. So there are very quick
ways you can clear that up. But yeah, that's a
quicksand especially in the workplace, those.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Are the foundational things. And then I really want to
talk about there's some things that I've learned from you
that I think are absolute game changes, and if people
learn them, it's really going to set them apart in
the workplace and make them stand out. So the first
one is this concept of conversational framing. I fully think
if Pipple learn this, they're like getting promoted this year. Honestly,
(13:27):
it's so powerful, and I think particularly powerful in the
workplace because we're all trying to communicate with each other.
There's a lot of information we're filtering through and we're
trying to communicate it in a pretty short amount of time,
and everyone's got a lot going on, as you said before,
So can you teach us about this idea of conversational
framing and how it can create clarity in how we
communicate our.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Work Frames are probably the number one tool that you
can use at your disposal to solve difficult conversations or
really any conversation. This is how you do it. Number One,
you're going to start with telling them what you want
to talk about. Too, You're going to tell them how
you want to end the conversation. That's the critical ingredient
right there. And three, you get there buy in into
(14:09):
this frame. The reason why frames work is because it's
this idea if you talk about everything, you really talk
about nothing. If you've been into those meetings where somebody
sits down, they go, all right, everybody, we have a
whole lot to talk about. Got a lot of things
in the agenda. Do you ever feel like you left
that meeting achieving anything? Do you ever feel like it
was productive? Probably not. But instead, when you can focus
(14:31):
on one or two issues and go really deep on them,
then you're like, Okay, this is great. So let's put
it in a regular context between me and you, and
let's say we're just talking about something that's going to
happen in the future. It can be as simple as, hey, Sophie,
I like to talk with you right here. That's number
one about tomorrow's budget number two, and I want to
(14:51):
walk away from that conversation feeling like we're on the
same page three. Sound good? Or does that work? Now?
You know exactly what I want to talk about, and
you know the goal of the conversation. You know when
we're done, you know where we're both going. Because what
happens and regular conversations, it sounds more like this, Hey,
do you have a few minutes. We have the meeting tomorrow,
you know, and you're going, Okay, what's happening, What's what's
(15:13):
going on. When you can say immediately what you want
to talk about, how you want to end, it's going
to be a lot better. But let's say that you've
done something wrong, Sophie, which I'm sure you do. You
know you definitely you're in trouble today and I say, Sophie,
I need to talk with you about some comments you
made it yesterday's meeting, and I want to walk away
in that conversation understanding that can't happen again. All right,
(15:36):
Right there, you know exactly what's going on, you know
where the conversation is headed. Using frames is a wonderful
way to get directly to the point, get on page.
When you get your buy into that frame, meaning when
they say okay or yes, that sounds good, then you
kind of have this implied contract, this nonverbal contract with
(15:56):
them of they're going to commit to that conversation with you,
rather than feeling like you have to talk about everything.
They're very powerful tools.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah, Instantly you feel more at ease because you know
what's going on, you know what they want to talk
to you about versus either thinking like what the hell
is this person talking about? Or like are they going
to say something bad? Like what's what's happening now? So
I think that's incredibly powerful.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah, they're just waiting for that hammer to drop if
you don't use it. I mean they're just waiting if
you go, you're so great and I've really enjoyed our
relationship together, and you're going are you breaking up right now?
Is this something we always think to the negative every
single time? So when you can come out front, yeah,
be straight with them, nobody feels like they have to
step in and fix anything.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
There's something that I think is probably related to this,
which is this idea of setting sort of a conversational goal.
And even there's something that you teach around small talks
with yourself before you go into the conversation. Can you
just tell us about that.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah, small talks are nothing fancy. It's just a small
talk that you have with yourself of how you want
to progress in the conversation. What is your north star
in the conversation. So if you're somebody that's a little
bit timid, maybe your small talk is clearly or if
you feel like you can't be hesitant. You find ways
of using words that begin with verbs to maybe it
(17:13):
stand tall, or say it don't show it. I mean
different things that you could say to yourself. Is just
all in your head. It's not like you get graded
for it and have to be written up anywhere or
put on a billboard. It's just you in yourself and
making sure that you feel like you're showing up in
that conversation as yourself. And when you're able to use
those efficiently, it kind of just helps ready you calm
(17:35):
to yourself. It's enroll one of the book, it's say
it with control, and those are one of the tools
that you can use to just kind of go all right,
I feel little bit more regulated. I feel like I'm
calm and I know where I'm going to go in
this conversation. You feel just a little bit ready.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
It's so good because I think so much at work,
we're just jumping from meeting to mating and we rush
in there and then it's like, wait, what am I
doing here? Just taking ten seconds to think like how
do I want to show up in this meeting? What
do I want to get out of it? What do
I want to contribute? To the mating. Just doing that
and having a little small talk with yourself, I think
can be so helpful. I actually had a little small
(18:10):
talk with myself before this interview. Don't mat to tell
you what mine was.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, I want to hear it. Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
It's about the listeners, not about you. So so that
was a reminder that conversation isn't it about.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Me, it's about Yes, it's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
And then the second one was let him talk. I
have a tendency to talk a lot, and I wanted
to give you no.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Yeah, I love those. I love those. The whole point
of small talks is you know your own intention for
it is you're thinking after the conversation. We go into
communication often thinking of just what we want to say
in that moment, but we don't think about what comes after.
You think of the first date, you think of the
second date, you think of the wedding. You don't think
(18:51):
about what happens after that. Right there is that's your
whole mindset of where you should think in conversation. How
do I want them to feel? How do I want
to feel when we walk away? How do I want
them to feel when we walk away? When we leave,
when we go to our homes and houses, how do
I want to feel? That happens a lot with people
who say things they don't mean. They get emotionally flooded
(19:14):
and they blurt it out and they don't think about
how is this going to weigh on me two years
from now. I can remember that thing that I said
to that person that still haunts me, and I'm embarrassed
by it because I was just thinking about the moment,
not the moment that comes after it.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
So true, it's like linking back to that first point
that we talked about in terms of the foundations. What
you say is not what is heard, and so you
really have to be thinking about the other person, not
just about what you want to say. Love it all right.
This is probably the biggest one that the community of
people listening struggle with, and so I wanted to spend
some time on it, which is how to be assertive
(19:52):
and direct but still be warm. I mean, you just
absolutely nail this. It's something we all struggle with, but
we know it's really important. As if we were your students,
how can we get better at being assertive?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I want you to flip the side idea of what
confidence is and what assertiveness is, because a lot of
people find that they wish they had more confidence to
say something, a lot of building up the confidence to
say it, but that's not it. Confidence is not something
you get before the conversation. Confidence is the outcome. Confidence
(20:25):
is which you get after you said the assertive thing.
So if you want to be more confident, you're going
to choose words that serve you better. You're going to
choose mindsets that serve you better. One, you have to
get over the idea of disappointing people. We have this
feeling of people pleasing and that's very, very common because
(20:47):
you want to be liked. I'm not saying you can't
be liked. There's absolutely a healthy balance. For example, over apologies.
People have a tendency to get into those a lot
where you say I'm sorry and every other sentence, hey,
so sorry, I just missed this, so sorry, I'm two
minutes late, so sorry, I'm just now getting back to you,
when really you're just apologizing for having priorities doing other
(21:09):
things that are more important in that time than them,
And what you're better off at is you turn them
intowards a gratitude like thank you for the time to
think on this. Thank you for your patience. Whenever you
speak that to them, you're giving them the quality of patients.
You're giving them that gratitude. You know what they're gonna think,
you know what they're gonna think, they're gonna go. You
(21:30):
know what, you are so welcome. I am so patient,
You're so right, Yes I am. It totally transformed that
relationship and you're not having to apologize for having priorities,
little things like I hate to bother you. But and
then you say things, and you know what they're thinking
the whole time you're saying it, God, this bothers me,
or you say, now, I could be wrong about this,
(21:51):
or this might be a dumb question, and all they're
thinking is this is such a dumb question. You find
phrases that are just undercutting, undervaluing what comes out of
your mouth. Stop stop doing that. You just eliminate those Instead,
assertiveness adds on to things, So, for example, instead of this, hey,
I hate to bother you, instead it's I like to
(22:12):
add something to what you've said, or I'm thinking of
something and I think it's going to add a benefit
to what we're talking about here. Whenever you use words
of addition that says I'm interested in asserting forward progress.
So words of addition are wonderful. I want to add
on to this. It's not taking away, it's adding on to.
I want to build upon what you just said, Sophie.
(22:35):
And then everybody goes, oh, yes, I'm listening now. It's
not like you're going, hey, I could be totally wrong
about this, guys, but and you're trying to be hesitant
about it. So you find ways to use your assertive voice,
and once you say it, you're going to feel the
confidence afterwards, and that in turn is going to give
you more confidence to say more assertive things.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I feel like when you're talking like that, you're respecting yourself,
and so it makes me want to respect you too
and listen to what you say. God, that's powerful. And
confidence is a feeling, and it's something that you get
from respecting yourself and being assertive and thing clear.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Oh my god. So if I am obsessed with that interview,
can you imagine if you lived with him?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I know I was actually thinking about this in context
of like you know, at school, when you learn maths
or geography, imagine if they taught communication in high school,
I know, and I feel like if they did, then
his book would probably be like the textbook we would
all be using.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
One hundred percent. Just imagine communicating with someone with that
level of expertise and skills in this domain or having
him as your mentor, Like, Wow, there was so many
aha moments in.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
That for me. And to your point when you said
he has these like amazing one liners, so many of
them stuck out to me. But specifically I have down
here when you're communicating and when it comes to arguments,
like have something to learn, not something to prove. Arguments
aren't to be one there to be unraveled, and you
(24:17):
need to identify where they're not is in the conversation.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
I just felt like that was a really.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Big unlock for me in terms of how you engage
and interact when maybe things might be a little bit
tense or you're not necessarily saying eye to eye.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
If you try to win every argument with someone, you'll
actually leave that conversation making them feel worse, and that
long term makes that relationship bad, Like you're actually making
that person feel bad when they're interacting with you. That
means that you yourself are not actually winning that. So
your goal is not to make someone else feel bad.
(24:55):
Your goal is actually to you know, communicate, have an understanding, whatever.
So I often will actively say to myself, unravel the
not and walk away from certain arguments with my partner
or with people at work, because it's actually not worth
making them feel bad.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And I just don't think you'll
end up being the kind of person that people look
forward to working with or want to even have, you know,
conversations with, or maybe you'll end up being avoided or
not someone's like safe space or the place people come
to for you know, additional advice or guidance. So I
think there are pretty big compounding effects to yeah, like
(25:35):
being on the opposite end of that. I just have
one other thing to bring up, and it was around
where he said, we expect what comes out of our
mouth is exactly what the other person here is, and
it often isn't the case. And it reminded me. Lucy,
my co founder, and I we did co founder therapy,
which is big business in California, specifically in Silicon Valley.
(26:00):
There are co founder therapists everywhere, and it was one
of the things we have ever done, and I always
recommend it to people because in any partnership you are
going to have these moments where things may come to
a head, you might not see eye to eye, and
especially in business, you can be in really high pressure,
(26:20):
high stress environments where you might not be communicating in
the most effective way. And so Lucy and I did
co founder therapy and it was just so amazing. But
one of the things our therapists taught us, and it
was something similar to what Jefferson was saying. I think
it's an exercise in active listening. So when Lucy and
(26:40):
I would communicate with each other, we would kind of
speak about, you know, what was going on or where
the tension might exist. And if Lucy was explaining to
me how she felt or what it was from her perspective,
I would say back to her, that's everything. She'd be
like yep, and I'd be like, okay, I heard a,
B and C. And then I would recite back to
her exactly what I heard to make sure I have,
(27:04):
you know, perceived it in the right way. I haven't
forgot any of the critical details. Because people also hear
what they want to hear. So just saying back to
someone I heard this, and then once you've wrapped it up,
is that right? Did I miss anything? Give them the
opportunity to respond back to you, and that also really
(27:24):
helps just keep the conversation moving in the right direction,
regardless of what side of the conversation you might be
sitting on. So that was kind of his tip in
real life, and it truly helped Michelle.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
That is the most incredible example, because I think whether
you're a co founder or you are someone who's working
with your manager, replaying what you understood of what they're
just communicated with you is probably one of the most
effective things you can do to clear up so many
misunderstandings and save yourself a bunch of time. So what
I wanted to do, you know, the intention for this
(27:57):
episode is to give you a playbook that you can
keep coming back to, but I really want you to
be able to go into work today or tomorrow and
see genuine change for yourself. So what I've done is
got three pieces of homework for you and Michelle and
I are going to do this as well, by the way.
So the first one is, did you notice how much
Jefferson talked about asking questions instead of responding with something
(28:21):
that you already assume, or responding with a statement, or
responding with a reaction and an emotion. His guidance was
to start with questions. So I've got some questions here
for you, and I want you to try and break
the patterns that you have and put your assumptions aside
and first start by asking more questions. So something I
like to do is first I ask myself, you know,
(28:42):
why is that? Why might that be? And I'll ask
myself why questions. When you are asking other people questions,
it's good to ask what and how questions. So an
example of that would be, you know, if someone seems
a little bit confused about something you said, or you
think the've misinterpreted you, you can say, what did you
hear just now? Or what's your take on what I
just shared? Can you help me understand what you just
(29:04):
took from that? So kind to your founder therapy thing
you were saying, if someone maybe is resisting a project
that you're working on together, you can say, you know,
what is making this hard on your side or what
are you up against? What would make this easier for you?
And then if someone you know does something that maybe
surprises or confuses you. You can say, is there something
that I'm missing here? Is there something that I've missed?
(29:26):
Number two piece of homework for you is to try
a conversational frame. So I honestly mean it when I
say this has been one of the most transformational things
for me. And all this is is really about thinking
about how you want the conversation to go and sharing
that with the person so they sort of understand a
bit of a frame around what the conversation is before
(29:47):
you get into all the details and all the weeds.
So the really basic formula is what you want to
talk about, your intention or sort of how you want
it to end, and then something to kind of get
their buy into that. So an example, I'd love to
talk about timelines for this launch. My goal is to
leave with a clear understanding of the next steps. Does
that work for you? There's three more that we're going
to put in the newsletter because I think you can
(30:08):
adapt these slightly to the situation and the context. And
then he's got heaps more in the book as well.
But I honestly think that trying out conversational framing is
going to transform the way you communicate at work. And
then the third piece of homework is to make small
changes to be more assertive and direct. So I really
want you to think about what are your wasted words.
He talks about using fewer words and saying more of
(30:31):
what you mean. So I just want you to try
this out and see how it feels. It might feel
a little bit different, but if you try this, you'll
actually notice that you still come across as a warm
people still think you're a great person, but you are
being a lot more clear. So the first one is
stop overapologizing, and you can just switch the word sorry
for the word thank you and show up with gratitude.
So instead of saying sorry for the delay, you can
(30:52):
say thanks for being patient. Instead of saying sorry, I'm
just following up, you can say thanks for your help
on this. Can I answer any questions you have to
move this forward? Instead of saying sorry to bug you,
you can say, can I give you some more information
that you need? That is stop overapologizing. And then another
one that I really loved on this assertive piece that
you can use is use words of addition not subtraction.
(31:15):
So I want to build on what you said by
adding this or building on what Sam said, could we
consider XYZ, So I really love that as a way
to build on someone or even sort of slightly disagree
with someone but not sounding combatitive and just feeling confident
and assertive.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Oh. I love this homework because I honestly think it's
a pretty simple playbook that will just make you, like
stand out as an all star type employee and operator
in the workplace. Like these are such easy, simple little
things that will make the biggest difference.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Also, you can go back and check out we did
a whole episode with doctor Kate Mason on how to talk,
So people listen and we go really deep on this
sort of assertive and warmth of peace. So if you
want more, definitely go back and listen to the episode.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
So everyone pick one of Soph's tips and then drop
us a DM on the beiers by Mom and Mia
Instagram account and let us know how it went for
you or maybe you've got some of your own bills.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
That is part one. We're so excited to share part
two with you. That episode is dropping next Tuesday. Make
sure to listen. Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of
land and waters that this podcast is recorded on
You're listening to a mother mea podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hi, it's so first and I'm hijacking the start of
biz today. We've never done this before, but we have
something very special for you. So this topic that we're
talking about is arguably the one that has the most
impact on how you're perceived at work and therefore your success.
But it's also the topic that people tell me they
(00:33):
struggle with the most at work. So the topic is
conversations and speaking. And the expert we're talking to is
blowing up the world right now. He's just been on
the Mel Robins podcast. He has ten million followers on
social which is double Brene Brown by the way, you know,
so if you haven't heard his name, you've probably watched
his videos.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
These three responses will keep somebody from getting defensive. Here's
how to stand up for yourself, how to handle insults.
My name is Jefferson Fisher. I'm a trial attorney and
I teach people how to argue and communicate.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Now, because he's a personal injury, his words in court
can make or break lives, so the stakes are real
and he's just totally mastered it personally. He's been one
of my greatest teachers and there was so much good
advice in this interview that we wanted to make it
a double episode for you guys. So the intention I
set for this conversation was to create a resource for
(01:24):
you that you can bookmark and keep coming back to.
I really want to land this one point before we
get started on why this is so important. Conversations are
the main way that people perceive and experience us. So
what people here think and feel when we're interacting, that
is their reality of us. Now, I want you to
(01:45):
think about leaders at your company who are making decisions
about your career. When do you interact with them. It's
in meetings and conversations. In terms of the actual work
that they see, they probably see about ten to twenty
percent of your work, but when you're in rooms with them,
they form a disproportionate understanding of you. It's just so
(02:06):
much more memorable and there's so much more emotion in
those moments. So it can really help if you feel
confident and beyond those leaders at work. There's so much
that can be fixed if we are more clear in
how we talk. So in part one of this double episode,
you are getting the three foundations that everyone needs to
know when it comes to communication, the single biggest technique
(02:29):
for speaking succinctially at work, and how to be assertive
and direct without feeling weird. The crazy part is that
you're going to learn some of these things and you'll
realize that some of it can be an almost instant change.
A lot of it is definitely more simple than what
you think. So let's go learn this together.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
God true, confidence, God true.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Jefferson on behalf of all the women listening. Thank you
for giving us your time and wisdom today. Thank you
so much, so, Jefferson, I wanted to start with foundations
because something interesting happens to me when I listen to
your book, and that is I thought that I'd learned
everything I could possibly learn from you because I've watched
all of your content, and the opposite turned out to
be true. And what struck me is how important it
(03:18):
is to understand sort of the why behind a lot
of these behaviors we're having, so that the things that
you actually teach in your sixty second videos stick. So
I wanted to start by giving our listeners some foundations,
and I've picked out three themes that I think are
essential for women in a work context. So The first
one is what is sent is not what's received, and
(03:39):
everyone's having a conversation in their head that you're not
invited to. Can you expand on this concept for us?
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, when we face communication externally, when we're talking to
somebody else, we expect that exactly what comes out of
our mouth is exactly what goes into the ears of
the other person. And there's a difference between hearing and listening.
I got you hear noise. You listen to understand a
(04:08):
lot of the times when somebody's not paying attention, you know,
they're working, They're like, oh, yeah, what do you have,
and they're they're working on something. They're hearing you, but
they're not really listening. So often we only focus on
what is said, not as what is received. And to
put that into some context, let's say you and I
are in an argument, Sophie. Now I would never want
to be in an argument with you, but if we were,
(04:30):
you were telling me what I said at dinner the
other night, and I just responded, that's not what I said. No, Sophie,
that is not what I said. And yes you did,
that's exactly what you said. It is no good for
me to argue that is not what I said. The
question is, Sophie, what did you hear? But what did
you hear? Instead of that's not what I said, it's
what did you hear? Because what you'll find is what
(04:51):
they heard is more often than not very different than
what you said. You go, no, no, no, that's not what
I meant. No, that's not what I said at all.
That wasn't my intention. Because we have this thing in
our mind that talks to ourselves, but we don't share
it with the other person, whether it's it's triggers or
faults or fears or shame or struggle, whatever it is,
we have that internally within us, and we don't voice those. Instead,
(05:14):
we raise our voice, we use ugly words, we throw
something out that cuts, and that leads to a lot
of problems in communication.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Yeah, I feel like that's especially true in a work
context when everyone's coming from different places, whether that's different
departments or different levels, and they're carrying around with them
sort of the opinions and the experiences of maybe they're
manager or you know, a project that hasn't gone well before,
And so I think when we're trying to communicate with
each other, maybe you're trying to share an idea, like
pitching new idea you have, there's all this context that
(05:46):
people have that you don't have, and I think sometimes
it makes it really difficult. You're trying to deliver your message,
but they're actually picking up something completely different. They've got
all these contexts that they're not sharing with you. So
I think that's a really important one.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, And I think it works the other way too.
Of Let's say you're in the workplace and you want
to talk to somebody and you don't want to feel
like you're being too aggressive or too strong, and so
you might come into the conversation with, hey, do you
have a little bit of time. I don't mean to
bother you here, but so what I was thinking was,
and you can totally tell me if I'm wrong, I'm sorry.
Were you doing something hear how like you're very hesitant
(06:21):
in your language. You feel like you're being very deferential.
What they're going to hear is this is somebody who's
being apprehensive. This is somebody who is unsure of themselves
and uncertain, and so what you say is not exactly
what the other person hears. That's a wonderful concept and
I think you're exactly right.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Thank you. And then the second one is if you
respond with curiosity instead of judgment, you open a door
instead of building a wall. Sometimes at work we forget
that a company is just a big collection of messy
humans and we all are emotional. So could you teach
us about these concepts.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
I like to say that we're just all one big
high school. It's the same people. We're just all a
little older where maybe thinner, heavier, more gray, less hair, whatever,
it's the same person. When you get in to this
mindset of feeling, like when somebody tells you something, you
have to bark something back. In other words, just because
(07:14):
they said something, you have to catch it, hold it,
throw it right back at them. That often is going
to diminish how you feel about yourself and what you
think of the other person. How often you take something
personal instead of a feeling like you have to come
up with that zinger or that clap back, whatever that is.
I like to use the word curiosity, and sometimes it
(07:35):
can be overused, but it's just using questions as a
not a weapon, but as a really efficient tool. Like
there's no sharper blade in my mind than a very
well placed question at the right time, and when you're
in the face of confrontation or conflict, whatever it is,
(07:56):
it is this mindset that you have that I teach
of have something to learn, not something to prove, instead
of trying to in the work place, trying to push
your point on the other person, have this mindset of
whatever they say, you think, where is this coming from?
Why would they say that? What is behind the person
behind the words? And that is a much more emotionally mature,
(08:20):
emotionally intelligent way to go about how you're going to communicate.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
I feel like if we can all remember that and
approach things with curiosity not with judgment as the first
place we start, we're all going to be so much better,
more happy in the workplace, but also just like working
more efficiently together as well.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
People say, how do you leave with curiosity? It's questions,
ask more questions than the responses you give.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
The third one is arguments aren't something you win, there's
something you unravel. What do we need to know about this?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
There is this default that we all have inside of
ourselves that we're very competitive and when we argue with somebody,
we feel like we have to win. What does winning
look like Usually it means the person that's left standing,
the person who had the last word because you said
too much, and the other person's left the room, they've
hung up the phone. You said that one thing that
took it too far, and somebody else started crying. What
(09:13):
I teach is that when you set out to win
an argument, you often will lose the relationship you've really
just won to be the first person to apologize, you've
won their contempt. You've now won awkward silence as the
stuff to pass them down the hall or the next
time they email you and you're not really sure if
they hate your guts or not, or maybe you still
live with this person, you work with this person if
(09:34):
you haven't helped yourself. So it's easy to feel like
you can win in the moment, but you're the one
left holding on to the things that were better left unsaid.
And I teach it it's better off to unravel it
see them as not In conversations, an argument is a
window into another person's struggle, and when you can leave
with questions, that curiosity of finding out where is the snag?
(09:57):
Where's the knot in the conversation? Because Sophie, if you
pull your way and I pull mine. That knot is
going to get harder and harder to undo. It's going
to get tighter. And we have people that they have
pulled so long and so hard that they can't untie
their knot for a week or a month. And we
know people that haven't talked to their parents or their
(10:19):
family member in years because of how hard they pulled
on that not. So instead you need to see them
as something to unravel with each other.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I love that visual analogy so much because this is
one of those interesting things where I learned it from you,
and I thought about it first in a work context,
but I've used it so much in my personal life
as well, and I just think of like that unraveling
of the knoel. Every time I'm trying to get in,
you know, to the point where I want to win
a conversation with my partner, I think about this note
and I think about it either unraveling or tightening. It's
(10:48):
super powerful just to drill down on this in a
work context. I think the place that a lot of
us get into is we think short term. At work,
we think, you know, I just want to be the
person that comes across looking really great in this meeting,
and I want to be right. But what we forget
is that at work in particular, that we're really looking
(11:09):
at long term relationships with people. And so what I
like about what you said, you said arguments are a
window into someone else's struggle. And so to put that
in a work context, you are going to be better
at your job if you try to understand all the
other teams, all the other people that you're working with,
what are things like for them, what are they struggling with,
(11:30):
what are their priorities, And instead of trying to win
that argument all the time, use that as like signals,
use that as inputs you can be gathering to help
you understand, and that's going to help you work better
with them. And also like probably get your own way
if you want to eventually, because you'll be you'll know
how to sort of frame things and pitch things to
them in the right way.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yes, absolutely, I find that, especially in work, we feel
like we're in a vacuum and that everybody else is
experiencing things different from you and it is their job
to really cater to you or your feelings. When so
much much what I see in the workplace is people
all share a lot of the same struggles. We have
(12:10):
family members that are dealing with things our own traumas
and shame and things that we don't want to talk about,
or I mean, we're just tired, you didn't sleep well
the night before, you're irritable, you're hungry, you have your
mindset on a million other things. When somebody passes you
in the hall and they don't say hi, you're going
to think, oh, what a jerk. It's easy to just
think about me, me, me, me, me, when you know they'd
(12:31):
even see you or their minds a thousand miles away.
And when you get in this mindset of asking, like
we said, the questions and finding ways to be more
often than not, giving people that benefit of the doubt
in conversation, particularly in the work context, I find we
(12:51):
take a lot of things personally, like you read an
email and you go, oh, that's the rude, and you
don't even second guess what the other person said, what
they really meant by that. So there are very quick
ways you can clear that up. But yeah, that's a
quicksand especially in the workplace, those.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Are the foundational things. And then I really want to
talk about there's some things that I've learned from you
that I think are absolute game changes, and if people
learn them, it's really going to set them apart in
the workplace and make them stand out. So the first
one is this concept of conversational framing. I fully think
if Pipple learn this, they're like getting promoted this year. Honestly,
(13:27):
it's so powerful, and I think particularly powerful in the
workplace because we're all trying to communicate with each other.
There's a lot of information we're filtering through and we're
trying to communicate it in a pretty short amount of time,
and everyone's got a lot going on, as you said before,
So can you teach us about this idea of conversational
framing and how it can create clarity in how we
communicate our.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Work Frames are probably the number one tool that you
can use at your disposal to solve difficult conversations or
really any conversation. This is how you do it. Number One,
you're going to start with telling them what you want
to talk about. Too, You're going to tell them how
you want to end the conversation. That's the critical ingredient
right there. And three, you get there buy in into
(14:09):
this frame. The reason why frames work is because it's
this idea if you talk about everything, you really talk
about nothing. If you've been into those meetings where somebody
sits down, they go, all right, everybody, we have a
whole lot to talk about. Got a lot of things
in the agenda. Do you ever feel like you left
that meeting achieving anything? Do you ever feel like it
was productive? Probably not. But instead, when you can focus
(14:31):
on one or two issues and go really deep on them,
then you're like, Okay, this is great. So let's put
it in a regular context between me and you, and
let's say we're just talking about something that's going to
happen in the future. It can be as simple as, hey, Sophie,
I like to talk with you right here. That's number
one about tomorrow's budget number two, and I want to
(14:51):
walk away from that conversation feeling like we're on the
same page three. Sound good? Or does that work? Now?
You know exactly what I want to talk about, and
you know the goal of the conversation. You know when
we're done, you know where we're both going. Because what
happens and regular conversations, it sounds more like this, Hey,
do you have a few minutes. We have the meeting tomorrow,
you know, and you're going, Okay, what's happening, What's what's
(15:13):
going on. When you can say immediately what you want
to talk about, how you want to end, it's going
to be a lot better. But let's say that you've
done something wrong, Sophie, which I'm sure you do. You
know you definitely you're in trouble today and I say, Sophie,
I need to talk with you about some comments you
made it yesterday's meeting, and I want to walk away
in that conversation understanding that can't happen again. All right,
(15:36):
Right there, you know exactly what's going on, you know
where the conversation is headed. Using frames is a wonderful
way to get directly to the point, get on page.
When you get your buy into that frame, meaning when
they say okay or yes, that sounds good, then you
kind of have this implied contract, this nonverbal contract with
(15:56):
them of they're going to commit to that conversation with you,
rather than feeling like you have to talk about everything.
They're very powerful tools.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah, Instantly you feel more at ease because you know
what's going on, you know what they want to talk
to you about versus either thinking like what the hell
is this person talking about? Or like are they going
to say something bad? Like what's what's happening now? So
I think that's incredibly powerful.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah, they're just waiting for that hammer to drop if
you don't use it. I mean they're just waiting if
you go, you're so great and I've really enjoyed our
relationship together, and you're going are you breaking up right now?
Is this something we always think to the negative every
single time? So when you can come out front, yeah,
be straight with them, nobody feels like they have to
step in and fix anything.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
There's something that I think is probably related to this,
which is this idea of setting sort of a conversational goal.
And even there's something that you teach around small talks
with yourself before you go into the conversation. Can you
just tell us about that.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah, small talks are nothing fancy. It's just a small
talk that you have with yourself of how you want
to progress in the conversation. What is your north star
in the conversation. So if you're somebody that's a little
bit timid, maybe your small talk is clearly or if
you feel like you can't be hesitant. You find ways
of using words that begin with verbs to maybe it
(17:13):
stand tall, or say it don't show it. I mean
different things that you could say to yourself. Is just
all in your head. It's not like you get graded
for it and have to be written up anywhere or
put on a billboard. It's just you in yourself and
making sure that you feel like you're showing up in
that conversation as yourself. And when you're able to use
those efficiently, it kind of just helps ready you calm
(17:35):
to yourself. It's enroll one of the book, it's say
it with control, and those are one of the tools
that you can use to just kind of go all right,
I feel little bit more regulated. I feel like I'm
calm and I know where I'm going to go in
this conversation. You feel just a little bit ready.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
It's so good because I think so much at work,
we're just jumping from meeting to mating and we rush
in there and then it's like, wait, what am I
doing here? Just taking ten seconds to think like how
do I want to show up in this meeting? What
do I want to get out of it? What do
I want to contribute? To the mating. Just doing that
and having a little small talk with yourself, I think
can be so helpful. I actually had a little small
(18:10):
talk with myself before this interview. Don't mat to tell
you what mine was.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, I want to hear it. Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
It's about the listeners, not about you. So so that
was a reminder that conversation isn't it about.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Me, it's about Yes, it's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
And then the second one was let him talk. I
have a tendency to talk a lot, and I wanted
to give you no.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Yeah, I love those. I love those. The whole point
of small talks is you know your own intention for
it is you're thinking after the conversation. We go into
communication often thinking of just what we want to say
in that moment, but we don't think about what comes after.
You think of the first date, you think of the
second date, you think of the wedding. You don't think
(18:51):
about what happens after that. Right there is that's your
whole mindset of where you should think in conversation. How
do I want them to feel? How do I want
to feel when we walk away? How do I want
them to feel when we walk away? When we leave,
when we go to our homes and houses, how do
I want to feel? That happens a lot with people
who say things they don't mean. They get emotionally flooded
(19:14):
and they blurt it out and they don't think about
how is this going to weigh on me two years
from now. I can remember that thing that I said
to that person that still haunts me, and I'm embarrassed
by it because I was just thinking about the moment,
not the moment that comes after it.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
So true, it's like linking back to that first point
that we talked about in terms of the foundations. What
you say is not what is heard, and so you
really have to be thinking about the other person, not
just about what you want to say. Love it all right.
This is probably the biggest one that the community of
people listening struggle with, and so I wanted to spend
some time on it, which is how to be assertive
(19:52):
and direct but still be warm. I mean, you just
absolutely nail this. It's something we all struggle with, but
we know it's really important. As if we were your students,
how can we get better at being assertive?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I want you to flip the side idea of what
confidence is and what assertiveness is, because a lot of
people find that they wish they had more confidence to
say something, a lot of building up the confidence to
say it, but that's not it. Confidence is not something
you get before the conversation. Confidence is the outcome. Confidence
(20:25):
is which you get after you said the assertive thing.
So if you want to be more confident, you're going
to choose words that serve you better. You're going to
choose mindsets that serve you better. One, you have to
get over the idea of disappointing people. We have this
feeling of people pleasing and that's very, very common because
(20:47):
you want to be liked. I'm not saying you can't
be liked. There's absolutely a healthy balance. For example, over apologies.
People have a tendency to get into those a lot
where you say I'm sorry and every other sentence, hey,
so sorry, I just missed this, so sorry, I'm two
minutes late, so sorry, I'm just now getting back to you,
when really you're just apologizing for having priorities doing other
(21:09):
things that are more important in that time than them,
And what you're better off at is you turn them
intowards a gratitude like thank you for the time to
think on this. Thank you for your patience. Whenever you
speak that to them, you're giving them the quality of patients.
You're giving them that gratitude. You know what they're gonna think,
you know what they're gonna think, they're gonna go. You
(21:30):
know what, you are so welcome. I am so patient,
You're so right, Yes I am. It totally transformed that
relationship and you're not having to apologize for having priorities,
little things like I hate to bother you. But and
then you say things, and you know what they're thinking
the whole time you're saying it, God, this bothers me,
or you say, now, I could be wrong about this,
(21:51):
or this might be a dumb question, and all they're
thinking is this is such a dumb question. You find
phrases that are just undercutting, undervaluing what comes out of
your mouth. Stop stop doing that. You just eliminate those Instead,
assertiveness adds on to things, So, for example, instead of this, hey,
I hate to bother you, instead it's I like to
(22:12):
add something to what you've said, or I'm thinking of
something and I think it's going to add a benefit
to what we're talking about here. Whenever you use words
of addition that says I'm interested in asserting forward progress.
So words of addition are wonderful. I want to add
on to this. It's not taking away, it's adding on to.
I want to build upon what you just said, Sophie.
(22:35):
And then everybody goes, oh, yes, I'm listening now. It's
not like you're going, hey, I could be totally wrong
about this, guys, but and you're trying to be hesitant
about it. So you find ways to use your assertive voice,
and once you say it, you're going to feel the
confidence afterwards, and that in turn is going to give
you more confidence to say more assertive things.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I feel like when you're talking like that, you're respecting yourself,
and so it makes me want to respect you too
and listen to what you say. God, that's powerful. And
confidence is a feeling, and it's something that you get
from respecting yourself and being assertive and thing clear.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Oh my god. So if I am obsessed with that interview,
can you imagine if you lived with him?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I know I was actually thinking about this in context
of like you know, at school, when you learn maths
or geography, imagine if they taught communication in high school,
I know, and I feel like if they did, then
his book would probably be like the textbook we would
all be using.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
One hundred percent. Just imagine communicating with someone with that
level of expertise and skills in this domain or having
him as your mentor, Like, Wow, there was so many
aha moments in.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
That for me. And to your point when you said
he has these like amazing one liners, so many of
them stuck out to me. But specifically I have down
here when you're communicating and when it comes to arguments,
like have something to learn, not something to prove. Arguments
aren't to be one there to be unraveled, and you
(24:17):
need to identify where they're not is in the conversation.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
I just felt like that was a really.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Big unlock for me in terms of how you engage
and interact when maybe things might be a little bit
tense or you're not necessarily saying eye to eye.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
If you try to win every argument with someone, you'll
actually leave that conversation making them feel worse, and that
long term makes that relationship bad, Like you're actually making
that person feel bad when they're interacting with you. That
means that you yourself are not actually winning that. So
your goal is not to make someone else feel bad.
(24:55):
Your goal is actually to you know, communicate, have an understanding, whatever.
So I often will actively say to myself, unravel the
not and walk away from certain arguments with my partner
or with people at work, because it's actually not worth
making them feel bad.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And I just don't think you'll
end up being the kind of person that people look
forward to working with or want to even have, you know,
conversations with, or maybe you'll end up being avoided or
not someone's like safe space or the place people come
to for you know, additional advice or guidance. So I
think there are pretty big compounding effects to yeah, like
(25:35):
being on the opposite end of that. I just have
one other thing to bring up, and it was around
where he said, we expect what comes out of our
mouth is exactly what the other person here is, and
it often isn't the case. And it reminded me. Lucy,
my co founder, and I we did co founder therapy,
which is big business in California, specifically in Silicon Valley.
(26:00):
There are co founder therapists everywhere, and it was one
of the things we have ever done, and I always
recommend it to people because in any partnership you are
going to have these moments where things may come to
a head, you might not see eye to eye, and
especially in business, you can be in really high pressure,
(26:20):
high stress environments where you might not be communicating in
the most effective way. And so Lucy and I did
co founder therapy and it was just so amazing. But
one of the things our therapists taught us, and it
was something similar to what Jefferson was saying. I think
it's an exercise in active listening. So when Lucy and
(26:40):
I would communicate with each other, we would kind of
speak about, you know, what was going on or where
the tension might exist. And if Lucy was explaining to
me how she felt or what it was from her perspective,
I would say back to her, that's everything. She'd be
like yep, and I'd be like, okay, I heard a,
B and C. And then I would recite back to
her exactly what I heard to make sure I have,
(27:04):
you know, perceived it in the right way. I haven't
forgot any of the critical details. Because people also hear
what they want to hear. So just saying back to
someone I heard this, and then once you've wrapped it up,
is that right? Did I miss anything? Give them the
opportunity to respond back to you, and that also really
(27:24):
helps just keep the conversation moving in the right direction,
regardless of what side of the conversation you might be
sitting on. So that was kind of his tip in
real life, and it truly helped Michelle.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
That is the most incredible example, because I think whether
you're a co founder or you are someone who's working
with your manager, replaying what you understood of what they're
just communicated with you is probably one of the most
effective things you can do to clear up so many
misunderstandings and save yourself a bunch of time. So what
I wanted to do, you know, the intention for this
(27:57):
episode is to give you a playbook that you can
keep coming back to, but I really want you to
be able to go into work today or tomorrow and
see genuine change for yourself. So what I've done is
got three pieces of homework for you and Michelle and
I are going to do this as well, by the way.
So the first one is, did you notice how much
Jefferson talked about asking questions instead of responding with something
(28:21):
that you already assume, or responding with a statement, or
responding with a reaction and an emotion. His guidance was
to start with questions. So I've got some questions here
for you, and I want you to try and break
the patterns that you have and put your assumptions aside
and first start by asking more questions. So something I
like to do is first I ask myself, you know,
(28:42):
why is that? Why might that be? And I'll ask
myself why questions. When you are asking other people questions,
it's good to ask what and how questions. So an
example of that would be, you know, if someone seems
a little bit confused about something you said, or you
think the've misinterpreted you, you can say, what did you
hear just now? Or what's your take on what I
just shared? Can you help me understand what you just
(29:04):
took from that? So kind to your founder therapy thing
you were saying, if someone maybe is resisting a project
that you're working on together, you can say, you know,
what is making this hard on your side or what
are you up against? What would make this easier for you?
And then if someone you know does something that maybe
surprises or confuses you. You can say, is there something
that I'm missing here? Is there something that I've missed?
(29:26):
Number two piece of homework for you is to try
a conversational frame. So I honestly mean it when I
say this has been one of the most transformational things
for me. And all this is is really about thinking
about how you want the conversation to go and sharing
that with the person so they sort of understand a
bit of a frame around what the conversation is before
(29:47):
you get into all the details and all the weeds.
So the really basic formula is what you want to
talk about, your intention or sort of how you want
it to end, and then something to kind of get
their buy into that. So an example, I'd love to
talk about timelines for this launch. My goal is to
leave with a clear understanding of the next steps. Does
that work for you? There's three more that we're going
to put in the newsletter because I think you can
(30:08):
adapt these slightly to the situation and the context. And
then he's got heaps more in the book as well.
But I honestly think that trying out conversational framing is
going to transform the way you communicate at work. And
then the third piece of homework is to make small
changes to be more assertive and direct. So I really
want you to think about what are your wasted words.
He talks about using fewer words and saying more of
(30:31):
what you mean. So I just want you to try
this out and see how it feels. It might feel
a little bit different, but if you try this, you'll
actually notice that you still come across as a warm
people still think you're a great person, but you are
being a lot more clear. So the first one is
stop overapologizing, and you can just switch the word sorry
for the word thank you and show up with gratitude.
So instead of saying sorry for the delay, you can
(30:52):
say thanks for being patient. Instead of saying sorry, I'm
just following up, you can say thanks for your help
on this. Can I answer any questions you have to
move this forward? Instead of saying sorry to bug you,
you can say, can I give you some more information
that you need? That is stop overapologizing. And then another
one that I really loved on this assertive piece that
you can use is use words of addition not subtraction.
(31:15):
So I want to build on what you said by
adding this or building on what Sam said, could we
consider XYZ, So I really love that as a way
to build on someone or even sort of slightly disagree
with someone but not sounding combatitive and just feeling confident
and assertive.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Oh. I love this homework because I honestly think it's
a pretty simple playbook that will just make you, like
stand out as an all star type employee and operator
in the workplace. Like these are such easy, simple little
things that will make the biggest difference.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Also, you can go back and check out we did
a whole episode with doctor Kate Mason on how to talk,
So people listen and we go really deep on this
sort of assertive and warmth of peace. So if you
want more, definitely go back and listen to the episode.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
So everyone pick one of Soph's tips and then drop
us a DM on the beiers by Mom and Mia
Instagram account and let us know how it went for
you or maybe you've got some of your own bills.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
That is part one. We're so excited to share part
two with you. That episode is dropping next Tuesday. Make
sure to listen. Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of
land and waters that this podcast is recorded on
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