The Power of Good Conversation, with Jefferson Fisher (Part Two)
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Welcome back to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Cirenti. Today we're bringing you part two of our conversation with communication expert Jefferson Fisher. If you missed part one, we recommend going back an episode to hear Fisher lay out his framework for transforming how we talk, and more importantly, how we listen. Now let's return to the discussion live on stage.

Respect is a really important part of the advice that you give. Respect for yourself, respect for the person that you're talking to. But what if the person that you're talking to does not respect you? How do you handle that? Oh, I like that. You want to talk about that kind of stuff for a second? You're like, yeah, let's get to the mean stuff, Jefferson. Come on, come on, get to the mean stuff. So let's turn it a little bit. How do you deal with somebody who's belittling you?

Somebody's disrespecting you. What I don't want you to do is say, "Nuh-uh." What I don't want you to say is, "No, let me tell you something." Like back in Texas it might be, "Listen here, buddy. I gotta remind you who you're talking to." That kind of stuff, that's trying to win.

We want to unravel it. We want to make it feel like they have zero control, which they don't. So the more you yell, the more you feed it, the more control you give up. So that's the basis. So how do you handle it? Number one, what I want you to do, if you've watched the video, you know that's all I do is one, two, three. Number one, what I want you to do is use silence. Somebody's disrespecting you.

Truly disrespecting you and they want it to disrespect you use about five to second seconds of Silence, so I want you to imagine right now you saying something mean to me things think of something mean and instead of responding I just did this and I'm imagining it you throwing it out and it's just falling on the floor and in that silence is gonna get a little awkward and

And I look at it and I look at you as if, is that really what you want to say?

You sure you don't want to pick that up? Because a lot of people do. A lot of people say, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I went too far. You don't have to say a thing. Five to seven seconds. Again, why? Because it's giving you the control. You're slowing things down. You're the one who's staying grounded. You're not feeding a festering. They're not getting that sense of dopamine from you. So when you give them that silence, number two, what I want you to do is make them say it again. Make them repeat it.

You're going to say something like, after this silence, you're going to say, I need you to repeat that. So let's say you just said that mean thing and I just gave you that silence and I said, I need you to say that again. Most people won't. They won't. Most reason people won't. Why? Because they're too exposed. They have a big spotlight on them. Now it's not fun for them. Now they feel bad that they even said anything at all. Now they're wishing they said nothing, I promise, when you've exposed them in that sense. Three, I want you to use questions of intent. Intent.

These are very applicable to many different situations when we talked about not taking things personally, but they're wonderful and using things when somebody's belittling you, disrespecting you. And it sounds like this. Did you mean, did you mean for that to hurt me? Did you mean to embarrass me? Did you mean to offend me? Did you mean for that to sound disrespectful? Or even how did you want me to feel when you say that? Or better, how do you feel when you say that?

Nobody wants to answer those questions. Why? You're talking to their intent. Recognize you have not responded. I have not responded to the disrespect yet. All I've done is silence and instead I'm asking questions. I'm not responding. I'm using questions to talk about why they said it in the first place.

And the whole point of it is you're not giving them anything else to go on. They can't do anything with it. They can't continue to grow. You see how much control that takes instead of festering it and feeding it and getting into this argument. And now you're having to win. And now you're trying to yell. And now you're trying to assert dominance only to lose. But when you stay grounded, use questions of intent, I promise you, I promise you it's not going to happen again.

I wanted to ask you about ghosting, about not responding to people. Because I know there's a chapter in the book about boundaries and maintaining boundaries. Is it a form of communication that you would ever use? The absence of communication? Yeah. The absence of words is one thing, but it's not the absence of communication. If I don't respond in five minutes to your text, that's one thing. If I don't respond in five days...

That's a different message. Imagine me taking a little bit of a pause of you saying something important to me. Maybe you texted, I really like you a lot, and I just didn't respond. That's a message right there. I've said nothing, but it's still a message. How do you deal with people who are ghosting you? Or should you ghost people? Is there ever a time when you can? Yes, there is. And that's when there are people that are in your life that you need to

You got to put the fence around. There are boundaries in your life for a reason. Let me tell you, there are some people right now who are not meant to be in your life. And you know it because they're coming to your mind right now. You already have the person in your head. And there are some people who are not meant to go where you're going. A spaceship has thrusters for a reason. They can't take them. They drop. There are layers. Just because somebody shows up on one page of your book

does not mean they're going to be in the end credit scene. You take the value, they're there for a purpose. It doesn't matter if they're positive or negative. It is a purpose to teach you something, have something to learn, not something to prove. And you realize that every conversation is still teaching you something, either about that person or about you. So yes, there's certainly a time when you ghost.

And that is when that person you know is not somebody you need to be around. And they're so toxic. Y'all know people in your life that are just toxic? Doesn't matter what you say, they're going to twist it. People that show narcissistic behaviors, doesn't matter what you say, they're going to twist it around. It is much better to not respond to anything. Or, or, when you know that you need the time for yourself.

That people are going to take it, they might see it as rude if you don't respond right away. But if you were to text to say, I need a moment. I need to process this. I need to take a step back. Give me some time to think about this. As long as you're letting them know you're not ignoring them, that's a much healthier conversation.

In a moment we are going to go to your questions, but before we do, I wanted to ask you, because obviously a large part of what you do, it's not about talking, it's about listening, and I wonder how your advice and your perspective has changed in the few years, not many years, but in the few years since you made that first video and have amassed this huge following. - How my life's changed? - How your life's changed and how your advice has changed, how your outlook has changed.

I'll tell you, I was surprised at how much the contents resonated. Y'all know I make this in my car, right? And you know, this is my first time I've been out of the States, and I make these videos in my car. And you know how wild it is that you're here, and I make these videos in my car. I can't express...

If it sounds weird, I promise you it feels weird. And I go, what are all y'all doing here? You know, when I'm by myself making these things. My outlook has changed of that. There is a need in the world and there is, and that need is for people to learn how to communicate, to be able to talk more and argue less. And the truth is, I'm not the only person who talks about this. You can all talk about this. You've seen the videos, you can do it.

I believe, Jenny, I really do, that a better world begins with a better conversation. You don't need a new workout routine. You don't need a new company slogan. You need a new conversation. That's what you need. You don't like where your relationship is? You need another conversation. You don't like where your business is? You don't like how your family is? If there's something you don't like in your life, stop looking for the external things to satisfy it.

You have the power. What you say is who you are. You can't be a kind person if you don't say kind things. You want to be a nice, you say nice things, congrats. You're a nice person. People who say funny things, they're a funny person. Somebody who says something rude, they're a rude person. It's all of what comes out of your mouth. It's simple as that. So if you want a better life, you have to choose words that get you there.

I find it so crazy that people are totally okay with the idea of if they're going through failures, they know that that's going to ultimately lead to success. I think we all agree on that. You've seen plenty of success stories with that. But they don't see it like that in communication. We expect one conversation. If I don't like the person, they're gone. You argue with me, we're gone.

And we think that we can solve everything we have in life with just one conversation. You talk to somebody, a new stranger for the first time, you talk to them once, ah, their opinion didn't match mine, meh, I'm out. It's very easy to do that. What I'm asking, what I'm challenging is that you do the hard thing, have better conversations, and in turn, you're going to have a much better life. And now over to you. This...

person here in this row. Yes, thank you. Thank you very much for an excellent talk and thank you also for coming all the way to talk to us. We've talked a lot about how to salvage poor conversations. What I would like to ask you is

a couple of ingredients to preempting bad conversations. So you seem to mention showing the best of ourselves. What other ingredients to make good conversation? Do you hear how she asked that? What are the ingredients? I love that. I need to start using that. That was great. Can we make a video real quick? The question was, what are the ingredients for preempting bad conversation?

One would be, don't begin the question with why. Why sounds very accusatory. If you, let's say you made something at home, whatever it is, and I walk up and I go, why'd you do like that? Does that feel good or feel bad? You're not going to like it. You're going to bristle. You're going to say, why? Because I wanted to. That's why. Why? Because this is what I did.

Anytime you begin a question with why, it brings and raises that level of that defensiveness that I don't like. Two, if you want to preempt negative conversation, begin with phrases that are going to show the end result.

Often we get into this idea where we want to tell them a story. We want to lead with the beginning of the journey, but we hide the end for the very end of the conversation. Have you ever been in a conversation with somebody and they bring up a topic and they go,

So I have something to say, and anyway, it's a long story, and you can tell me if I'm wrong about this, but so essentially, and again, no, no, no, sorry, I need to go back. So there's this guy, and actually, no, that's not true. And you're going, what is happening here? Why are you telling me this? Get to the point, please.

You can preempt negative conversation when you begin with the end. Meaning you tell them at the outset what the point is. What the point is. A quick way that those of you who know my content, I use a frame. I use a frame. And this is how you quickly do it. One, you tell them what you want to talk about. Two, you tell them how you want to end the conversation. Three, you get their buy-in into the frame.

So the purpose of this is that it cuts out the negative conversation. It's not that there's not connection. You can have a difficult conversation and a hard conversation, deliver bad news, and still connect with them.

Connection does not mean it's just all happy. You can have the negative conversation. This is how you prevent the difficult bad stuff. So for example, if I'm using a frame and we need to have a hard conversation, I'm going to say something as simple as, "This is going to be a difficult conversation." I'm going to label it. I'm going to say, "I'd like to talk with you about what you said at dinner last night. I want to walk away with that conversation with you knowing how it made me feel. Can we do that?" You've made it very clear what you want to talk about.

When is the conversation going to be done? What's the finish line that you're both traveling towards and getting their buy-in into that frame? And when you make it that clear, they will almost always say yes. In a work context, you can say, hey, I'd like to talk with you about the budget meeting for tomorrow, and I just want to walk away with us being on the same page. Can we do that?

Easy as can be. It's going to be extremely clear. Maybe it's even negative in the workplace. I'd like to talk with you about some comments you made last week. I want to end the conversation with us knowing that that can't happen again. Something as simple as that, you're telling them what you want to talk about, you're giving them takeaway, and then you get that frame. Three, if you really want to stop the defensiveness of a negative conversation, tell people how they can help you. There's something in the UK that I've noticed.

about communication, a little different style. A little different style. There's a lot of, we can talk about it, a lot of I'm sorries, a lot of if you don't mind, a lot of things that are a little bit more passive. So, to answer your question, what's gonna help prevent a lot of the negative is you say, begin with I need.

The question is how often do you actually state your needs in conversation? How often do you begin a sentence with "I need"? I need to feel safe, I need to feel heard, I need to know this, I need to walk away with this. That's going to be a whole lot better for you, so try that. Lots of questions, yes. So, sorry Jenny, we've got a special question coming from two young people who are going to introduce themselves. Do you want to explain who you are?

Hi, my name's Jet Fisher. I have a question. What if you are in a conversation and someone uses a mean word that you don't like? If you cry, what's it like sucking up? What do you respond? That's my son. Jefferson. Yeah, that's my son and my daughter right there. That's Jefferson's son. Hey, Bubba. What's going on, man?

What a great question, Jet Fisher and Ruby Fisher. I see you all. If somebody says something, if there's somebody being a bully, right? And they're saying something that's upsetting you, instead of feeling like it makes you feel less, understand that when they're saying that, it's because they're typically not getting attention from somewhere else, right? So they're wanting to take it out on you, right?

So, if you want to come with a phrase that's going to help you anytime somebody says something mean, what I want you to say is, "That's disappointing. That's disappointing." And the reason why is because they can't do anything with it. What you're telling them is you hold them to a higher standard in your mind.

And people don't like to feel like they're not meeting that standard. So if somebody says something that is mean, instead of saying something mean back, what I want you to say is, "That's disappointing." Cool? Oh my gosh, yo. Thank you for that lovely question. Any questions in the gallery? You have a question.

Hello, thank you for the evening. I have a question about the pause and sometimes when the pause, you have the pause because you want to think and reflect but sometimes that pause might be taken away by someone who wants to hijack by thinking that you've lost the thought how to deal with that.

- Yeah, so I wanna make sure I understand your question. If you're taking a big pause and you feel like somebody might take that as you checking out or they're gonna fill that space for you. - Yes, for example in a tough, let's say it's a leadership meeting or somewhere where you want to have a think before you respond, but actually someone who wants to hijack that without really realizing that you just want to think before you respond. - Got it, we're gonna make this super easy. I want you to do one or two things.

You can say something verbal and it's something as simple as, I'm going to think about this or I need to think. So you're going to assert that right there and be comfortable with that silence. I'm going to think or I need to think. It's very confident when you tell somebody what you're going to do and you do it. So when you say, I'm going to think about this and give it that time, they're going to

Even if they try and step in on that, they will respect it, that you're actually trying to think about it. Second of all, I'm gonna do a non-verbal, is often if you just put up, I'm not saying in their face, I'm saying down here. You can put it even on the table.

What that means is, what typically give me a minute, right? That's the signal that you're giving. You don't want to do this. That's not, that's very different. That's very, not that either. We're not going to do that. So if you're at a table, right? Even if you point out a finger, that means you're still engaged. You're still there versus this. They don't know if you're just staring off into space. But if you're looking and you just go like this,

they're going to know right in that moment you're taking a minute. That's how to do that. Perfect. Thank you so much.

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Offers end June 30th, 2025. The front here. Sorry to make you run. That's sorry to make you run. Okay. Firstly, thank you for writing this book. Thank you. I've read it over and over in the last month and I find it so powerful. And I've already got six more copies on order to hand out to some difficult people. Yeah.

Happy birthday! But my question for you is, if you could hand a copy of your book to someone famous, maybe past or present, who really needs it, who would you give it to and what specifically would you want them to get from it? Yeah, oh yeah.

I would give mine probably to every single nightly news talking head is probably anybody that I see.

Any major, I don't know what y'all watch here. They have, is it BBC? - You might be talking about me here. - Oh yeah, I might have, yeah. - But I've read the book. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I've read the book and will change my behavior accordingly. - Yeah, I would give to anybody who's a talking head, the shows that are set up for the conflict. Now, you understand, that's also, it's commercialized. They know that it is, it's fake. It's so fake, but at the same time, I think we have,

a duty, a responsibility to model for people everywhere of how to handle conversation. How do you handle it? I mean, think about it as when you were growing up. Were you modeled how to argue? Were you modeled for how to have a difficult conversation? Did you learn that in school? Did you pick it up from your parents?

Everybody has a different way of how we were brought up and it's not until now that we're in the moment of having to actually have big things in our life where we actually think about it. But I would give it, I have a few names in my head, but definitely for positions of political leadership and news networks for sure.

I've got questions here from the live stream. I'm going to turn to them because I don't want them to feel neglected here. Some of them are really good. Angelica wants to know, how do you learn not to interrupt? How do you learn not to interrupt? Let's do it two ways. You want to do a two for one? Let's do that. How do you prevent yourself from interrupting? That's very difficult because let's admit some people are neurodivergent. They can't help it.

That's just that's what it is that that community needs to be considered. That's a real thing. All right second of all is there are people that you get in the habit of Needing to get out your thought without actually listening instead what I want you to add this is gonna take a lot of work, but you have to be very disciplined and preventing the thought it's like you have to hold yourself back and

for a second, just in your mind, imagine there's a little person holding your thoughts back so you can actually listen to what the other person is saying. So get in a discipline of almost creating a vacuum to where you are just, you're like this empty water glass. You can actually absorb the information before you respond.

That's how I would handle that. A lot of the silence. And then two, asking a question. It's very hard to interrupt if at the end of their statement you ask a question that gets them to talk more. So if you're going to interrupt, if you are, ask a question. Two, how do you interrupt someone? How do you interrupt someone? The right way and the wrong way to interrupt someone. Because sometimes you got to. Sometimes you got to. Tell them you're interrupting. This is what I mean.

Say, I know I'm interrupting you, or I need to interrupt. Whenever you say that, people don't take it nearly, almost, they don't take it offensively at all, as long as they know, you know, you're interrupting. But if you just start talking, they're like, and they're going to get all frustrated. But if you say, I need to interrupt you, they're not going to, they're not going to handle it like that. Isn't that funny?

I'm trying to get a good span of the room. Perhaps this person right at the back. You mentioned neurodiversity and that's great because my question is I think there's a lot of value in the tips you give, especially to those who are neurodivergent. Do you have anything additional or something very specific geared towards them to help?

Anytime you can show it to them, it's very hard to tell things sometimes. You have to show them sometimes. So it's better if you can write it out. It's also better for bullet points. Also, in communication, call them. Text is very, it can create a lot of anxiety sometimes.

especially if you don't respond right away because they will think, and I know I'm painting with a broad brush here, but I have several friends that I've talked to extensively about this subject and that I can text them something and they might read it in negative and they think, oh my gosh, Jefferson hates me, I'm in a bad place and all of a sudden they feel like they're losing the relationship. Or people that are actually in a relationship

and they receive a text the wrong way and they think that they're doing something wrong, they feel like they're being abandoned, and it starts to spiral. A phone call can really cure a lot of those things when you are being very precise, like be very precise with the bullet points. The big vague concepts are very hard. It's hard for anybody to chase and to follow to make sure that you understand their point.

So I would take what we said a minute ago is begin with the end of why you're saying it. Let's put it even in terms of a frame. I'm going to tell you something and I want to talk about it and I'm not asking you to solve anything. I'm not asking you to do anything with it and I still love you. I just want to feel like we understand each other on it. You see how if you can just quickly put a nice filter on the beginning of that, it's going to ease a lot of that anxiety through the conversation and that would be my recommendation there.

this person has been waiting very patiently at the microphone up here. We live in a world where blatant lies abound from politicians. It's become kind of our language is just to bare face lie. How do you deal with lies? I get the concept of we don't always have to win and winning looks different, but what about a lie? Yeah, great question. How do you handle liars? I tell you what, as an attorney, you run into a lot of liars and a lot of them are attorneys. Let me tell you that.

Wonderful question. So liar lying comes from I mean all we do it as kids. We do as kids everybody everybody does it now How do you deal with it when it gets more serious? I'm gonna tell you from my point of view as an attorney techniques that I've I've seen and learned Again, it's the power of the pause. So when you're dealing with the liar number one use silence to your advantage because People who tell the truth they're not bothered by silence the truth speaks liars

they feel exposed. They would much rather create an argument and you start yelling. Why? Because when there's more smoke, there's fire. As in almost the angrier you get and the more you yell about it,

the more it almost makes the existence of what they said there, makes it almost more real. Or else why would you be arguing about it? So use silence. So even if you did seven seconds of quiet, make it really awkward, I can tell you they're gonna start twisting in their chair. They're gonna start going, why would I say something like that? I mean, what would you, you don't think I did that, do you? They start having conversations for you when that happens. Two, here's some phrases that I think you might like. One I like is silence.

Something feels off. Something feels off. Because that's what they're going to ask. They're going to ask, what are your thoughts? I mean, what do you think? You go, I don't know. I can't put my finger on it. Something feels off. That's going to bother them a lot. People who tell the truth are going to go, well, okay. Let me know when it feels on to you because I've told you the truth.

People who are lying, they will absolutely start to lose it. And what you're going to see, a good indicator, is a very big overreaction. You're going to see a big discrepancy. The conversation might go at a two, and all of a sudden they realize you're not taking the bait, and they jump it up to an 11. That's very telling, so don't forget that. Another phrase, three, that I would also try is, I need to come back to this conversation.

They really don't like that one. The reason why is because you're saying, I'm not going to talk about it now. You're choosing your timeframe, your timetable. See, people who are lying, they're ready. They have this stage set. They have the table set for you to buy into their lie. And when you go, actually, I'm not that hungry right now. And you say, I'll talk about it. I'd like to come back to this conversation or I need to think about this.

they're going to go, well, I can't, they can't control that. They can't control the later. And so that'll drive them crazy. That's how I would suggest you handle a liar. That's a great question. Thank you. One more question from the live stream. This is from Sam, aged 11, wants to know, do you ever get angry and shout?

Of course, yeah. Everybody does, I mean it's natural. It's natural. Now I'll tell you, I don't yell very much. Probably very, very, very, very, very, very little. Because I was taught that it's much scarier when you don't. Have you ever been in somebody who's older than you and you wish they would yell? Please just yell at me because you feel like they're disappointed and instead they're just using their voice.

to show disappointment without raising it, that almost makes it worse. But that also shows a lot of confidence. So, do I get mad? Of course I get mad. Do I get overwhelmed? Absolutely. Do I have overreactions? For sure. But what I'll tell you is I'm very quick to recognize them. You're going to make mistakes, I make mistakes, we're human. The key is where you start to win, if we want to bring it back to winning, you apologize quickly.

You show the recovery. That's when you can say things like, I could have said that better. I could have said that better. I could have done better. You know, I didn't, dad didn't say that very nice, did he? Yeah, I should have said that differently. That wasn't very kind, was it? Kids need to hear that. Your spouse needs to hear that. People in work need to hear that. Whenever they can hear that kind of recovery in your voice, regulating your emotions and getting quicker at that

That's the key to winning. You can only do that if you slow down and you say it with control, you say it with confidence, and you say it to connect. Thanks for listening to Intelligence Squared. This episode was produced by Leila Ismail and it was edited by Mark Roberts. To have a look at our full live events program, you can visit intelligencesquared.com forward slash attend.