Conversations with Difficult People, Beginning Difficult Conversations and Communicating with Narcissists: According to Jefferson Fisher

In this episode of The Aware Mind, host Sarah Vallely reviews Jefferson Fisher's new book, "The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More". Sarah covers five tips for conversations with difficult people, five more tips for beginning difficult conversations and even five more tips for communicating with narcissists. Learn how to better manage your emotions during charged conversations, how to create a container for conversations so you and the other person do not derail the conversation, and learn how to respond to gaslighting in a way that keeps the conversation on point. Whether you need support communicating at work, with your partner or even your own children, this episode is for you. These tips are also excellent for anyone wanting to learn how to better commuicate with emotionally immature people and others you need to set boundaries with.

Fisher's bonus chapter about communicating with narcissists. https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/bonuschapter

The Aware Mind's host, Sarah Vallely has been teaching meditation for over 20 years and is a private coach, helping clients heal from a narcissistic parent, abusive partner, trauma from growing up with ADHD, intrusive thoughts and overwhelming anxiety. 

Important links:
Sarah's Mindfulness Coaching website: https://www.sarahvallely.com
TSD Mindfulness Coach Certification https://www.tsdmind.org

This episode is a meditation for beginner mindfulness meditators and anyone interested in learning supports for a variety of mental health challenges, including overthinking, trauma, intrusive thoughts and self-worth.  The Aware Mind produces content that supports stress reduction, anxiety relief, better concentration and focus, and trauma healing.

Transcript

Welcome back to the show today. It's just me and I'm doing another book review and what I've learned over the last year or so is that y'all like the book reviews.

They're usually some of my most popular episodes, so I'm trying to keep doing them, especially when I read a, a really good book. So this last book that I read is called The Next Conversation Argue Less, talk More. It's by Jefferson Fisher, and this book is a real phenomenon, overnight success kind of thing.

It was just published in March, this past March, and so in the past five months, it's uh, done extremely well. I think maybe in the first month it became a best seller. And when you read it, you know why? Because he does such a fantastic job of really explaining these concepts about having good quality conversations that normally would be really difficult with difficult people or difficult topics.

And he gives so many example. To back up what he's explaining, it's so accessible. Uh, so I'm not surprised that just overnight it was such a sensation. Uh, I'll also say that he has a, a really huge social media presence, so I'm sure that really boosted his sales quickly. But just a little background on Jefferson Fisher.

He started out as a trial lawyer, uh, in Texas, and he also runs a pretty large firm today. And in 2022, he dabbled in social media and the story goes that he posted his first video titled How to Argue Like a Lawyer, and it went viral with over a million views in just its first day. He continues to record short, practical videos about communication in his truck after work every day.

So he's, he's still at it. If you wanna check him out on social media, I think he's on TikTok and Instagram. The three main principles that Fisher really drives home in his social media and in his book are say it with control. Say it with confidence and say it to connect. So when I go through all of these tips and suggestions for communicating, they're all based in one or more of these principles.

Sometimes when I do these book review episodes, I think to myself, my podcast episode is a little bit more accessible than the actual book, meaning the book is maybe more scientific than lends to. Really understanding, well, a lot of jargon, or maybe the author kind of goes off on tangents and rambles, but this is not so for this book, I would have to say that I'm not gonna be able to do this book justice in this episode.

And so really I would, I would read the book as well. But I'm gonna go over five tips for having conversations with difficult people today. In this episode, I'm gonna go over five tips for beginning difficult conversations. So we're talking about conversations with difficult people, and then we're also talking about just plain difficult conversations because of the topic.

And I'm gonna go over five tips for communicating with narcissists. And so this is all from his book. One thing that I really like about Jefferson Fisher is his reliance on the breath and what he says about the breath isn't. Steeped in mindfulness. So I wouldn't really put Fisher in this like mindfulness category because he talks a lot about controlling the breath.

And in mindfulness we don't control the breath. Instead what we do is we notice the breath, we take a pause and notice what's going on with our breath. And the idea behind that is if we do that, then our breath will naturally lengthen. Uh, but what he, he says about the breath is more about purposefully breathing in a certain way, especially breathing out, really making sure that we breathe out.

Uh, so what he says is that you wanna have your breath be the first word when you're responding in a conversation, especially responding to something that's difficult. So before you start talking, you take a breath. And then he says, have your first thought. Be a body scan. That is mindfulness. Body scan is mindfulness.

That means we check in with our body, we see how it feels. We might start at the top of our head. Notice physical sensations going down and our face, our neck, our shoulders down, our arms, down to our chest and abdomen, down our legs, maybe even getting to our feet. That is a body scan. So again, Jefferson Fisher says, let your breath be your first word when you respond and let a body scan be your first thought.

So simple and so huge. Just really allows you to take that pause. So that's a big part of what he is suggesting in his book. And he says that the breath control is important because that helps you control your emotions. So you're more calm and you're less emotional. So he does say that in these difficult conversations to try to keep your emotions minimized.

And one of the reasons he says that is he points out that for some people. Your emotional response gives them dopamine. So whether it's a positive emotional response or a negative emotional response, that they're gonna get a dopamine hit off of your being emotional. Not everyone, certain people, uh, especially people that are trying to manipulate your emotions.

He also talks about using self-talk to keep you focused, and so what he means here is to choose a few verbs that you speak to yourself at different points during the conversation. To accomplish certain approaches within yourself. So here's some examples. So that makes a little bit more sense. So here are some of the verbs that he uses.

Breathe, right? So that's a verb. Breathe. So he might be in the courtroom, cross-examining a witness, and the tension might get a little bit high, and so he might say to himself. Breathe. And so that will help him to remember to engage in that control, breathing some deep inhales and exhales. Another verb that he might use is pause.

So you can imagine yourself, you're in a difficult conversation, you say to yourself. Pause, just to remind you to take that moment, to create some space before you respond, which really helps set the pace of the conversation. It really puts you in a place of control according to Fisher. Uh, when you're in the, in the conversation.

That pause is really important. Another verb, observe. So this would mean to observe any subtleties that you can identify in the person that you're talking to. This might be observing their tone of voice, might be observing any emotions that they're going through, their facial expressions, body language.

Another verb is reset. When you say this to yourself, you're letting yourself know, I need to take a step back. I need to re-center my approach. What, what is gonna be my approach? Another verb is think, and basically that's just a reminder to think about something on purpose versus just having this unconscious response type thinking.

You might follow that up with, you know, what would be the most effective response right now? You don't have to be speaking the entire time. It doesn't have to be someone's talking, and then you talk right away. There can be these moments where you ta take these pauses to reflect and think and come up with a game plan.

And then one more example here, a verb focus. And when you say to yourself, focus, that might help you recommit to your conversation goal. And we'll get into that. And a little bit here about conversation goals, which is also something that he highly suggests is in every conversation you come up with a goal of what you want out of the conversation.

Jefferson's tips with these verbs that help you have an intentional approach in your conversation are, one, choose verbs that feel natural and represent what you most need in a conversation. So you might. Take a moment right now. You know, when you're in these difficult conversations, what is it that you most need?

Do you most need to calm your emotions? Do you most need to really observe what the other person is doing? What is it that you need? He also suggests to rehearse them quietly when you feel calm. So don't just wait until there's a conflict. This will help you just get comfortable with them, um, before things get heated.

And then he says, you know, when you're ready, use the verbs in the moment. You can say them silently in your mind, or you could even say them. Under your breath. And so doing this will create a moment for you to breathe, create some distance, emotional distance perhaps, and proceed with control is how he words it.

I'm gonna go into the five tips for conversations with difficult people. Number one, Jefferson says if someone is lying. Take a pause, don't respond right away. And a lot of times what will happen is the person who's lying will actually backstep and will back up on their lie before you even respond. He gave some examples of him doing this in the courtroom and then doing this during depositions.

And you, you know, an unusual lengthy pause will, um, induce this behavior in someone. And I would imagine that's because the person who's lying can take a moment to reflect and realize that since the other person isn't responding right away, that maybe they know they're lying, uh, and then they might reword what they're trying to get across.

Number two. Fisher says if someone is condescending or saying something really judgmental, ask the person to repeat what they said. He might say, can you say that again? I didn't hear that. And he says that they will likely reword what they said because they have some time to think about it. He also says that this will take the dopamine hit away from some people, so.

Some people say things just to get this reaction out of you, which gives them a dopamine hit. But when you take this approach and say, can you say that again? Then they don't get that reaction that they want and they don't get that dopamine hit. Or in some cases you could have a genuine inquiry in into their intention.

Like did you mean for that to sound short? Did you mean for that to sound insulting or simply what did you mean by that? Try it out. That was the second tip. So this is tip number three, and this tip is for people who are dominating the conversation. So if you're in a conversation with someone and they're really taking over, he says to use their name when you respond, that will really get their attention.

I did a book review last year on the book called Chatter, and the author of that book cited research about negative self-talk. It wasn't about conversations, but it was about negative self-talk, and he said that the research shows that if you use your name. When you are responding to your negative self-talk, you will pay more attention to it.

So I would imagine this would be true in conversations too. When you use the person's name, you kind of get them into a place of more alertness. And this fourth tip about having conversations with difficult people, he addresses these situations when we set boundaries in these conversations with difficult people.

And he says to use I statements when you are setting these boundaries. So instead of saying things like, you keep interrupting me, you aren't hearing me. You shouldn't do that instead to word those in I statements. And so I'm gonna give some examples of those. There's a few here, but I think it's gonna be helpful.

Uh, so instead of using those you statements, you could say, I'm having trouble completing my thought when you interrupt me. I will listen to you when I'm finished. I don't respond to statements like this. I don't allow others to make me feel like I can't feel my emotions. I'm here to talk about blank filling in whatever it is that you're focused on talking about.

If you continue to blank. I will blank and an example there might be, if you continue to put me down, I will leave the conversation. So there's a lot of reasons why I statements are so helpful. One of them is puts them at a little bit more ease. Um, but also it's a little bit harder to argue with an I statement because you're your own person and you know what you're gonna do.

So yes, that's the fourth tip is to use I statements when you are setting boundaries in a conversation, and that could be a whole episode right there about setting boundaries in conversation. So important. And this is coming from me, not this book, but, uh, there's three aspects to a boundary. One is what is okay to happen around you in this certain situation?

Number two is what is not okay to happen around you in this situation? The third part is what you're going to do if the not okay thing. Happens, and that's about you not participating. The consequences that you use when you're setting boundaries usually involves how you're not going to participate, how you're going to walk out of the room, how you're going to end the phone call.

And the fifth tip that Jefferson gives for. Having these conversations with difficult people is to follow through with your boundaries that you set. That's usually the hardest part, right, is to definitely take that move to walk away when the person does something that crosses your boundary, but so important.

And he says, when you're implementing these approaches, you know in, in the conversation to observe the other person's actions. And if the other person is uncomfortable by how you are responding, that's actually a good sign. That means you are doing something correctly. All right, so that wraps up the five tips for having conversations with difficult people.

I'm gonna move into five tips for beginning difficult conversations. So what's the difference here is the, the topic that you are engaging in and is, is difficult. This is the difficult topic, whether you are, um, having the conversation at work and you need to give some critical feedback to someone at work or it's with your partner and you need to talk about something that's emotionally difficult to talk about.

So this first tip is to know your goal, your goal, what you wanna get out of the conversation. Uh, so here's a few examples of what you could set as your goal and, and you do this before you engage in the conversation. So this relates to conversations that you begin, right? Not the ones that, um, someone else begins, unless you can like kind of take a pause and say, okay, someone else started this conversation.

I didn't get a chance to set a goal for myself. Let me just take a pause and figure out what I want for the goal of this conversation. But here are some examples. Uh, one, I want the goal of this conversation to be that we, the two of us, build some trust. We wanna deepen the relationship by showing honesty, respect, and patience.

That's a great goal. Uh, another goal might be. You know, I really wanna feel seen and heard during this exchange. I really wanna express myself clearly. I wanna be vulnerable. I want to, um, feel acknowledged. Another great goal. Another one could be I wanna understand the other person better. I wanna go into this conversation with some curiosity, um, and not bring in as much judgment as maybe I normally would.

And another excellent goal would be to create emotional safety. That's my goal for this conversation, is I want us both to feel emotionally safe. I wanna make space for the other person to be able to open up without feeling attacked and vice versa. And you wanna take a break from, you know, having the goal be about trying to win.

And this comes from me, not the book, but I, I would be careful of goals that have to do with trying to change the person's behavior or trying to change the other person's belief. That can be really hard to do, and as you think about the goals that I just shared, those aren't about changing someone's belief necessarily and not necessarily about changing behavior unless the behavior is about being more honest or being more curious.

Another tip that Fisher has for beginning difficult conversations. Is front loading, and this is my term, this is the term I use with my clients. Uh, he doesn't exactly use that term to define this, but it's this idea that when we go to start the conversation, we say something in the beginning that might help put the person at a little bit of a ease or help them really understand what direction we're going in.

And this is because people's nervous systems get triggered when they don't know where things are going. Fisher says that this front loading also helps the listener not check out. 'cause they write at the beginning. They know what's happening, they know where it's going, and helps 'em stay checked into the conversation.

So here are some examples of what you could say to front load your conversation. This is going to be a difficult conversation of just being really frank about it, that this is gonna be hard. Another example, I appreciate you making the time to talk, or this is going to be difficult to hear or even asking permission.

Can I share something with you? So you get that agreement right in the beginning. And this next tip is about framing the conversation, which is also a way to front load. Um, but this is a little bit more specific. When we frame the conversation, we explain the reason for the conversation, and we also explain what the conversation is about and what you do not want the conversation to become kind of creating this container, these guardrails for the conversation.

This helps keep both of you from derailing the conversation. So I'm gonna go over some examples how to frame conversations, and they're kind of lengthy, but I think this is really important so you really understand how you can go about framing your own conversations. So here's the first one I want to talk to you about how we've been handling plans lately.

What's inside this conversation is finding a better rhythm for both of us. What's outside the conversation is rehashing our past mistakes. So when you set that frame, then you can step in and acknowledge when either of you've gotten out of that scope. Another example, I'd like to give you some feedback on a project.

What's going to be part of this conversation is how we can make things smoother moving forward. What's not gonna be part of this conversation is criticism of your work ethic or value to the team that's not in question. Here's another example. I need to talk about how I'd like to be spoken to when we disagree.

So that's explaining the reason for the conversation. And then here's setting that container Inside this conversation is creating more respectful communication between us. What's outside this conversation is debating who was right or wrong last time. In One more example of framing your conversation before you officially enter the conversation is I want to check in about how we're doing emotionally.

What's part of this conversation is sharing how we've both been feeling lately. What's outside of this conversation is trying to fix or solve anything right now. This is just about listening. Give it a try. I think that this is a really great first step to engaging in some conversations that are gonna have some good outcomes.

And then here's a couple notes that Jefferson has for, you know, when the conversation goes outside the container that you set, you might say, I hear your point, but I need to focus on blank. Or you might say, I know that's important, but right now I'd like to address this. So you kind of bringing things back to what it is that you wanna address.

And then this fourth tip, and again, we're still at the beginning of the conversation. We're kind of like, at this point before you really engage in the conversation is you state how you would like to feel after the conversation. So you might say, I would like to know that we respect each other as a result of this conversation.

At the end of this conversation, I'd like to leave knowing we are committed to the same goal. I want us to move forward knowing we can show up for each other better. And the thing is, when you start implementing some of these structured ways to begin a conversation, it's probably gonna feel pretty weird.

Right. It's not how you would normally word things. It's not how you would normally go about these conversations, but that's what you want, right? You want something different. You want a a different outcome. So you're gonna start in a different way and it's gonna feel unfamiliar, and that's actually a good sign.

You know, you can breathe through that. You need to write something down. That's totally fine. And then this fifth tip for beginning difficult conversations. Uh, get a commitment from the person that you're having a conversation with. You know, you've, you've framed the conversation. You've stated what you would like to feel afterwards.

Maybe you've front loaded, uh, and get a commitment from the other person. Is this okay with you? See how they. Respond. So that's some ideas for beginning these difficult conversations. This last list here are five tips for communicating with narcissists. So this is actually not in the original book. Uh, this is a bonus chapter.

That you can download from his website. I'm actually gonna put this bonus chapter in the show notes because this is a PDF that I can just link in. I think I'll link it to his website and you will need to put your email address in to access it. I just wanna honor his system there. Uh, but it's, it's a pretty short chapter and it's, it's pretty good about, uh, communicating with narcissists.

But my guess is what happened is the book was published and he doesn't address personality disorders at all in the book I was even thinking at, when I was reading the book, I'm like, well. This is probably not gonna work with somebody who has a personality disorder. Uh, so probably what happened is he got a lot of response after the book was published with questions of, you know, well, what about narcissists?

You know, what, what do you do with narcissists? So I think he probably wrote this extra chapter, but. I'm gonna go through some of what he shares in that chapter, and here's one of the, the tips here. Do not try to teach someone who's a narcissist anything. Keep your responses really short. So there's this other woman and her name is.

Escaping me right now, but she's the, the haystack burning. The haystack lady. She talks about dating, and she actually mentions this also in what she says is that one of the reasons you don't want to try to teach something to a narcissist is they'll actually use that to develop their manipulation, even more going on to the next person.

So when you try to teach them about, well, this doesn't really work because for this reasons then they will actually become a more powerful manipulator after understanding that. So she says, when if you're dating somebody and you realize they're a narcissist, just end it. Don't explain what they did that was hurtful.

Just end it and walk away. Uh, but why Fisher might be saying this. Is because they're not gonna change anyway, right? You're, you're wasting your energy, you're wasting your breath if you're gonna try to teach them to engage with you in a, in a different way. I read somewhere, I can't remember where it was, but they said, if you're trying to teach someone the definition of compassion, what compassion is, then there's a good chance that they do have a personality disorder, because your typical person is gonna know what compassion is.

You're not gonna need to explain that to them. But at any rate, this first tip for communicating with narcissists Fisher says, to keep your responses short without, you know, going into extra energy to teach them something. Your short responses might sound like noted, you know, they say something that really doesn't make any sense, and you might just say, noted.

Another response might be, that's good to know. Another response might be. I get it, or I can see that I talk to my clients about this. When you're interacting with someone with a personality disorder or someone who's really emotionally immature, it's gonna feel superficial when you're having these exchanges with them that are healthy and safe, it's gonna feel superficial.

So yes, these responses are superficial, and that's actually where you need to be. Second tip for communicating with narcissists according to Jefferson Fisher. Minimize what you share, which went into in this last tip, but also minimize your emotions. So don't share your opinion if possible. Instead, only share facts.

Their goal, what they're trying to do is manipulate your emotions, and one of the reasons that's their goal is they get a dopamine hit from your emotional reactions. So one of the reasons to minimize your emotions or not show your emotions, he says to stay silent at times. Fisher says, it is better to be quiet and be accused of indifference.

Versus the alternative, which might mean you get verbally attacked or you get hurt. So sometimes staying silent is the ticket. And he also really emphasizes staying disinterested versus getting kinda wrapped into it. Getting pulled into it with arguing and confronting that. Instead, just be disinterested in, in what the person is saying.

And again, that can feel superficial. What Fisher does not go into, which I like to work with my clients on, is still processing the emotions. That the person with the personality disorder brought up in you. So I don't think it's healthy to just suppress these emotions that come up. It's just being careful of expressing these emotions in your interactions with the person, with the personality disorder.

But it, it is gonna still be healthy to. Process those feelings of rejection process, those feelings of abandonment, of feeling deceived, what, whatever that is for you. And this third tip Fisher says about relating to narcissists is, and this is a little bit hard to hear, but this is what he says, A, a narcissist cares more about their reputation.

Then they care about you. I will say that this tip I've never done before. I have a little bit mixed feelings about it, but it may work very well. I don't know. But what he says in this tip is to say things that point out how their thinking or actions is going to negatively affect the way people perceive them.

This feels a little bit manipulative, but he really drives it home in this chapter. So I'm gonna share this with you. So here are some examples of how you would listen to something the narcissist is saying and then respond in a way that makes the narcissist consider how all of that could affect his reputation or her reputation.

So here's an example, how you might do that. And again. And the, the reason that he says this is important is it puts it on them where they have to kind of think about some accountability. 'cause that accountability's like virtually impossible for someone with a personality disorder. But apparently this is kind of like a, a backdoor to that.

Uh, but anyway, some examples on that, ways that you might respond. Do you think people will like that? Another example. If you think that's a good look for you, that's fine. Or I'm curious how others might interpret that. I wonder how others might perceive that. So the shift here is considering that this is true, a narcissist cares more about their reputation than they care about you.

A response that's about, Hey, look at me, care about me isn't gonna really work. But if you have a response that. Says, Hey, do you care about you and your reputation? Then that might get their attention. And this fourth tip for conversations with narcissists use radical acceptance, and I'll explain this.

Super important. When you have this radical acceptance, you accept who they truly are. In that book, I've done another podcast episode on that about a year ago. Adult children of emotionally immature parents really drives this idea home about accepting who the person truly is. They have this emotional immaturity.

Also this radical acceptance involves letting go of the hope that you can fix this person or make them see things differently, realizing you can't help them see something differently. And when you have this radical acceptance, what Jefferson Fisher says here is that then you stop pouring yourself into them, um, that there's so much energy that you're probably expending.

Trying to get them to see things differently, and that's just, you know, a loss of energy for you. I think he even says to pour that energy back into you. He talks a lot about detachment, detaching from the narcissist is saying and doing. And he says that this detachment isn't a surrender, it's a strategy.

Doesn't mean you lost. And last tip here, tip number five, for having these conversations with narcissist. Uh, he addresses gaslighting. When I bring up gaslighting, I like to remind people that the word gaslighting is, is overused. It's often used when it's doesn't apply and, and he actually does the same thing, points out what gaslighting is not.

Uh, he says that gaslighting isn't just someone lying to you. That's not the real definition of gaslighting. I would add to that, gaslighting is not when someone disagrees with you. Often what we might call gaslighting isn't really gaslighting. It's just really bad communication. Um, but here is what gaslighting is, and it's definitely something that people with personality disorders do.

Gaslighting is a calculated attempt to make you second guess your reality. It's very intentional, manipulative, and a gaslight's goal is to gain control by undermining your confidence in your own mind. It's a pattern to make you doubt everything. Not a single thing. So that's another way to differentiate bad communication or maybe not great motives versus gaslighting.

So bad communication, maybe not great motives. They might want you to doubt like this certain thing, but gaslighting is like this broad approach where they want you to second guess everything, to really have them have more manipulative control over you. Here are a few examples of how you can respond to gaslighting.

What I shared was a fact, or I understand you disagree with me, or we remember things differently or that wasn't my experience. So again, I just wanna go back to this idea, and again, this comes from me, not the book. It's still important to process those emotions that come up because of your interactions with someone with a personality disorder.

And one of the reasons that's so important is when you process those, those emotions, which basically means. You truly feel them, like you feel that pain, you feel that rejection, you give yourself compassion around it. When you do that, you naturally are gonna be more confident and motivated to set boundaries because you don't wanna feel that pain.

You don't wanna put yourself in situations where you're. Feel that emotional pain. And so the more you allow yourself to feel that emotional pain, you're going to get to this point where you're like, I'm done. Like I'm done with that emotional pain. I'm, I'm going to implement these boundaries 'cause I don't wanna feel that anymore.

But if we get into these cycles where we just suppress it and suppress it and don't allow ourselves to really feel it, then we kind of keep subjecting ourself to that type of treatment because we're not really feeling the effects of it. So there you go. There are some tips for you for these difficult conversations, difficult people.

I really highly suggest you get a copy of Jefferson Fisher's book, the Next Conversation. He also has a nice quote in there somewhere, A Better World begins with a better conversation. So we can reflect on that for a moment. You know what? What does that mean to you that. What that means to me is if all of us across the globe were able to take pauses and make our first response, our breath, and make our first thought a body scan, you know, how might that transform so much of the, the difficulty and pain in, in our world.

Thanks for listening. I appreciate each and every listener, and if you know somebody who would benefit from hearing this episode, please share it with them. And also please consider leaving a review for the podcast. Thanks so much. The Aware Mind Podcast is A TSD Mindfulness production. Please check out our show notes for upcoming events and links to additional resources.

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