Lawyer Explains How to Take Control of Conversations

foreign and I think it's a set of skills but if you grew up in a house where your job was the emotional regulation of the adults if it was your job to make sure Dad didn't get mad or mom was always saying hey y'all need to do this because Dad's coming home and he's gonna you know how he gets when or Dad's like oh dude your mom's about to get set off if you all don't get this the kids learn oh it's our job to make sure Mom and Dad are okay right which is a

weight they can't no kid can carry no that transitions to adulthood either you're a spouse who takes [ __ ] on as your responsibility to make sure your husband or wife is happy at all times yeah or there's such an inner age that you circle the wagons around your own life and you're gonna get the life that you want whether you got to borrow up to the hill you're gonna drive that car you can live in that neighborhood in that house you're gonna marry this person you can do whatever you want ultimately the grenades that

are thrown back and forth are well you made me fill in the blank or you said this thing so I couldn't just sit there and you did it like everything is I have to or I'm irresponsive the greatest Flex I've ever heard in my life ever ever was somebody was having a conversation with Jocko and they said so you're walking with your family down the street right former Navy SEAL jacked human beings just being in his presence is like yeah yeah I I need to go and on top of it he's in world class world

world class Jiu Jitsu player so a guy says so somebody comes down the sidewalk and just confronts you and your family and it's like what's up man we got a problem he goes what do you do and jogger said well I reach over and grab my wife's hand and my daughter's hand and we would just go to the other side of the street and go that way and head home and the guy was flabbergasted it was like what but what about defending your wife's honor and like your kids and he said two really important things

number one he said there are a handful of men on planet Earth who can defeat me in hand-to-hand combat and they do that for a living and he goes what honor do I get out of beating up some guy on the sidewalk yeah and then he said something that was super powerful he said if I have to wait until that moment to show my wife that I honor her I have failed her in every way the smartest thing is to get my family home safely I don't know if this guy's got a friend with guns

or with bottles or with like I don't know right you're just gonna go home yeah and I remember thinking that ability to step out of Chaos in that moment right that's an egregious example on the street with a Navy SEAL 99 of us are at home yeah and our wife says that thing or a husband does that thing again right every time our kids come in and say this thing and every defense mechanism we have gears up and here we go right you've had to cultivate over years an attorney's job is just to get and

I you're at a place now I guarantee you they're like I'll get Jefferson I'll get it yeah you know what I mean like yeah I'll set them up oh it's a challenge now it's a game yeah like uh like and you know there's so much ego in the legal profession I'll get Jefferson I'd set him off what are some skills that people can practice to begin to back up detach as Jacob to disassociate to to take myself from in the middle of the hurricane to 30 000 feet where it's safe yeah what I tell my

clients when that happens because I train them because somebody's about to try and knock them off kilter like you started with I have to train them and how not to let that happen yeah and you you're training people who have been like oh yeah their kids are not alive anymore oh yeah or they they think they had a leg amputated like you're dealing with people who have are highly charged right extremely highly charged people who who do have a chip on their shoulder somebody who has been a victim of something but it's it's even more

than that I mean I am hired to handle other people's problems I get hired to handle somebody else's beef that's not even mine so somebody's other side's mad at me I'm like hey I didn't cause this there's a hundred bucks yeah but I'll be glad to step in right and then on the other side there's another attorney who's been hired to make me look bad like that's their sole purpose it's to ruin my case yeah you know and and that's and you have to coordinate and balance how I'm gonna have them communicate because how they

represent themselves is everything and how they communicate and so what I always tell them is let your first word be your breath the first word out of your mouth is your breath and so when I instead of just saying take a breath I say no make your first word I turn it into I mean the affirmative yes here's an action yeah that's that's what first thing you say is your breath and because so often I mean and you know this that our body's tight our shoulders it gets up in our ears like we're just a

dog with you know the back of the hair standing up ready to go but when you take a breath I just was you said it I did it and my body went yeah right it's physiologic right yeah oh yeah it's huge well yeah you're telling your body there's no threat oh gosh you know yeah and so too often when I respond to somebody in a way that is equaling their energy somebody comes in and makes a comment at me I have the choice in that moment do I do I try and man up I try

and oh you want to have this measuring contest but if if I'm able to take their power away without doing any of that because I'm I'm telling my body and I'm telling them you're not a threat to me and like I physically I'm telling my body they're not a threat and with my words you know just like saying maybe so or I'll say you know well maybe you're right oh hey they go uh what do I do with this what do I what do I say now if I tell them maybe you're right you know

they go all right uh they have no words they have no words I mean too often then then they come back and later apologize yeah because now that now they're thinking you know well why did I say then why'd I say that yeah but but had I responded defensively they got exactly what they want then then I've Justified their next step then so if I come back with something you know with a another comment that gets defensive that's offensive to them I've given them rules of Zinger I've just given them a stepladder that's all I've

done I mean they they they're throwing it out hoping that I take a bite you know and if you if you don't bite it then what you do just kind of reel it back up and go home yeah nothing happened but there there is I mean not to generalize on multiple fronts here but I'm going to yeah you're a Texas male like I am right and there's a and I'm using that like broadly speaking there is a wired in response it's like you can't talk to me like that like yeah so for men and women

or I'm tired of taking this or I've been taking this my whole life or yeah there is a truth to I'm going to respond in in the in the moment like this because I'm playing a different game and I'm playing I'm I'm working towards an outcome right but there's also that very human I'm driving home and I can't believe that dude said that yeah man that made me mad yeah so going back to that previous uh the previous law experiment yeah there's a wife and her husband comes home and she's lying and she sits down

and immediately her first words are her breath [Music] just that was your day not in a it's a check-in yeah not in a sarcastic way but a genuine like how's your day there's still that you told me you're gonna be on time yeah and now you're gonna rattle off some story yeah yeah yeah right hey how do you on give a process on the way home I can release I can have them release that kind of frustration it's not the way you say it's what it's what your words are and for example so this woman

she takes a big breath husband sitting in maybe he's standing up by the sink he has he hasn't said anything he knows he's not right kids are in bed she's at the kitchen table and she takes a breath and goes so how was your day he goes all right blah blah blah blah blah blah can we talk about something this is something important to me you framed the conversation and so about her not him you guys just genius yeah yeah and then you say one she's she's not starting with you did it again it's gone

he has to go to war now yeah yeah he has no choice that's right but when you say you frame the conversation of I like to talk about something that's important to me and I know that it's important to you too and my hope is that it when we get done talking you know we're gonna be able to you're gonna be able to come back tomorrow and we're gonna all have dinner the right way and you you just have that that you say what do you do with that frustration it's not the emotions it's that

you need to get out it's the words because you feel like they don't understand me they're not acknowledging me they don't understand how important this is and you're not going to relay that message with your emotion when you when you come when you come at it strong like that they're not hearing your words they're hearing your tone well it's physiological yeah everybody's responding before they've even thought of you you got it so and most of the time we're I mean we're horrible predictors of what our message sounds like and looks like and the yeah yeah

you could say why are you yelling me I'm not yelling at you right right yeah but I'm going I'm looking for ways that you're hurting me yes and you can say hey you're late why are you yelling right and now yeah and oh yeah that and that's a very like classic it's you're just uh diverting the attention you're deflecting and all of a sudden it's uh and I know if I think maybe I've done something on this before it's like well I'm sorry that I'm such a horrible person I'm sorry I'm just trying to be

a good husband I'm sorry that I have to work so much and it's just straight manipulation yeah is what that is and the the way to back up is how so if somebody were to come in and say like some I'm just trying to think I'm thinking of a particular co-worker who would look at me and go sorry I'm just so dumb and I don't know everything that's just it's just such a passive weak move and I have the impulse to yeah be like no you know what man but it's backing out and me saying

that's that's that's some God on his life not mine oh and that's that's a perfect way to say it so whenever they put out that kind of apology it's not an apology it's it's um it's a bunch of slathering of sun lotion on their guilt and they're just trying to cover it up because your son is beaming right right so they're trying to protect 50 SPF yeah because they know that you could be coming in hot and they're wanting to deflect you anything else because once you say that sorry that I'm such a Negative quality

self-deprecating whatever they're hoping that you take the bait and go you're not terrible oh you always think I'm terrible I mean you always and then like remember that one time and boom is gone like that you've lost you've lost the moment but instead if you're able to say I don't need you to apologize for how you're you're feeling but you can't apologize for coming in late you know the the ability to to shift that because you're caught one you're calling it out second of all you're still maintaining control you gotta tell you the third thing

that it's a gift and this is doesn't feel like a gift in the moment but for especially for people in professional relationships or romantic relationships you're actually giving me a road map and we expect people especially when we're mad to read our minds and to know exactly what they did and why they did it and how you can make me feel better because it's your job right yeah by saying you don't apologize for how you feel right I do need to apologize because you were late I just gave you a laser path right and you

can choose to follow it or not but I have to have enough control over my emotions to know what the actual issue is here and what I'm going for here and is it to win is it to crush you is it to catch you yeah or is it to have dinner as a family around this table that's my long-term goal here yeah oh yeah you just give somebody a path yeah but man you got that takes a lot of humility to take that path but it's just not easy I think it's a gift it well

yeah it is not is not easy and even for somebody who practices it it's it's still it's it's not it's not easy because you you want that immediate you know just guttural reaction to yell to fight to get after it never ends well I mean it just doesn't because what happens let's here we go I like this so you you you and I get an argument or I mean we're after it we're saying terrible things to each other I'm my face looks mad I'm bowed up you're bowed up or husband or wife you're saying horrible

things bring the stuff up in the past what happens there's a there's a break where everybody says I'm out of here different room whatever what happens when you come back your Tone's a little softer you're slower with your words you had I didn't mean what I said there I I was just I was frustrated with when you know our our son did X Y and Z and it just makes me feel like a failure that I I couldn't do I can't get him to and and all of a sudden you realize that what they were

initially mad about was nothing even close to what y'all were yelling about but I mean if you can just do that at the beginning at the beginning that's right yeah I always tell folks don't if you can now as an attorney you're getting paid to enter into an octagon together right yeah in a marriage I always tell like don't have that fight right now when you're mad that's not the time to dissect what just happened same thing with an email or a text yeah just don't time has a funny way of just clarifying yeah and

dissolving it yeah like if I hold off on a text or an email I said maybe I get an email that's snarky from an opposing counsel oh I have a response I'll type that out again all right delete delete and then within a day I got in I'll need to say that what I wish everybody like could really chew on is that there's so much power in that ability to be able to know your own strength inside of you that I nobody can make me say anything that I don't want to say and I have

the ability to not react if I if I so choose because what they said I put in the trash Oh you wanted me to put that on my plate that's funny no that's the dog's eating them probably the number one lesson I took away from working with attorneys for all those years was that phrase there's power in the pause and the person who speaks last loses and it was this like I don't have to say anything right now I had never heard it I love you you say it better like oh was that for me

because yeah is this supposed to hurt yeah yeah like oh I'm sorry like I was at your best uh my bad right um but there's something so powerful about I'm not gonna say anything yeah oh yeah I'm just gonna let it hang yeah it's it's a and once you get the hang of it it changes everything oh man it's it's it is a game changer in your life it really is and you know this when somebody put something out there well I had to do this and this and this and your first word I love

how you say that my first word is breath yeah just takes about 60 seconds before they start going well I mean yeah and then they'll you see that liar they'll reverse their their they'll reverse the car all the way down back the driveway oh yeah all the way up that's exactly right like people who who say something that some would have a lie I want you to believe something that's not true it's you just imagine them coming in hot in the house they Park up to the garage and then you don't respond and their weight

and go away it is he's not buying it I'm gonna actually put this in Reverse yeah yeah actually because they can't take that silence yeah they can't take that song I learned um doing student conduct all those years it became important for me to sit when I would call a student in and say hey I just got this report that you should actually assaulted somebody are you or selling drugs or whatever yeah I knew that by walking in my office every fight or flight mechanism that human had was set and so I used to always

walk them through everything and then I would always end it with you got 24 hours from this point you had 24 hours to come back and say Here's what actually happened here's my role in it and I'm gonna count it as though it happened here because my end goal was I was trying to teach students how to become functional adults yeah and had a field fight or flight and still tell the truth anyway how to feel like ah yeah yeah and then hang in there in the moment yeah and I think if you have that

same kind of Grace with your spouse like the goal here is not to win arguments the goal is to have a great life to make a great marriage and to race great kids and if we can always keep that thing in motion then it might be we're gonna Circle back tomorrow right I feel often in spouse relationships and and I see this on the legal side it's not that they just want to call it out they want you to they want you to know that you're bad they want you to know that you're not a

good husband so it's like they it's like they want you to download I think you're bad and I need you to know it you don't feel it yeah and they and nothing good comes comes out of that I mean I am if you take the position of I'm never gonna be the first to throw the first stone because when the Microsoft microscope you know turns on you yeah it's you want that same you get real quiet yeah that's right that's right but there's something even about if you if I'm sitting with a couple and they've

you know you got a Serial cheater just infidelity infidelity you're not making me leave I'm choosing based on my values that I'm not going to be with somebody who cheats on me I am taking full ownership that I'm ending this marriage that's right right you didn't make me do anything yeah and the more I can sit in that yeah there's like I'm standing up just explaining right right you just sit up taller right yeah um there's just strength and power and oh you you can't make me do anything but then you also have to choose

I chose to scream at that guy or I chose to try to make her feel really bad yeah which is just weakness and cowardice to be honest with you I wish it was a different language for it that's kind of weird no no that's exactly what it is it's a it's a reflection of your your lack of confidence because most of the time when we do have that that yelling reaction we do say something that's snippy if you're really honest with yourself you regret it every time yeah and it's not too long that you you

regret and go why did I say that and what you're going to do you apologize and so often especially manipulators kind of these people that have very strong narcissistic traits are masterful at getting you to make these kind of comments so that then you are the one who is now the offender you're the bad guy you're the bad guy yeah I'm the one who came in late through the door but you're the one who can't appreciate this who always nags about this and now all of a sudden you find yourself the one apologizing and also

it depends like how you say it well I need I I didn't like how you said it you need to apologized for the way you said your tone yeah your tone which is also very true but the the people who are masterful at it it was somebody who's not equipped for it they'll they'll they'll run that song a million times a little bit long yeah