What's up ladies today today today we are tackling something that I think every single woman needs to master How to stay cool calm and collected and totally in control in any Conversation now think about how many times you've walked away from an argument thinking damn I should have said that or found yourself actually explaining or found yourself over explaining and then apologizing or even when you weren't in the wrong. Mahomi no more losing your power in a conversation again. And that's why I've got Jefferson Fisher in the house. Now guys, he's a trial lawyer, a communication expert and the guy who is about to hand us the playbook on how to say freaking confident and in control no matter who you're talking to This episode is one of my all-time favorites so in part one Jefferson is breaking down why confidence isn't just something that you feel It's something that you actually do now the question is how do you do it? Well he talks about the power of the pause and why staying silent can actually be your most bad-ass move. There's definitely something that I need to take into a gown. And he also talks about the sneaky ways that people will manipulate you in an argument and how you can shut them down in real time with damn grace. It's so good, guys, if you've ever felt dismissed, talked over a court of freaking God in tough conversations then this episode is about to change and God damn life. So grab your coffee, grab your notebook, I'm telling you this episode is gonna be damn informative and fight is literally gonna change the way that you show up and talk in your conversations. So let's just dive in right now with Jefferson Fisher right here on Women of Impact. Calm down. You're too sensitive. You're overreacting. Most of us women have felt completely invalidated and dismissed by those words. So how on earth can we respond with confidence without losing our cool? If you want to feel confident, then you have to do assertive things. You have to assert yourself. Confidence is more of a feeling. Like if I were to say, hey, I need you to feel scared right now. You have a hard time doing it without me being scary. Same thing to say, I need you to be confident. You have a hard time feeling it without doing something that's going to trigger that. So it's the assertive statements that you can use right into your sentences. So for example, if it's that idea of you're being so sensitive, it's the having the patience to know, okay, I know I can say something assertive right here and that is, no, I'm sensing you're being a jerk. You know, if somebody says, it's just a joke. I'm just sensing you're not that funny.

It's that idea of you flipping their words and having the wherewithal in that moment to say something assertive that will then in a positive feedback loop give you the feeling of confidence. And then with that confidence you want to say more assertive things. But when someone's being dismissive of your feelings, if you don't know how to be assertive, you absolutely may say something that they can then use to either weaponize against you, or they can just then use that same statement again to prove their point. As in, I told you you're too sensitive. Right. In those situations, with any kind of personality, they often tease something up for you to grab. So they say something ugly. What they're doing is offering you something and saying, once you go ahead and take it, go ahead. And once you take it, once you have that response of that emotional, I can't believe you, I can't, and you have that big reaction, now they got you. You fell for the trap. And now all of a sudden, they kind of take the joy in that response that you gave, that hit a dopamine that they received in that control. And so now when you react, you are giving away your power. Often it's the silence in the very small steps that say, I'm in control and you aren't. It's a weird mindset. We have to flip the idea of when you are sending that zinger right back at them, you're actually weakening

your position, not increasing it.

Okay, so because that is exactly what we do. We go, okay, well, I'm going to give as good as I'm going to get. And that feels sometimes in the moment, quite empowering. As a woman, it's like, I've got my own back. I can stand up for myself. But to your point, what you end up doing is weakening your position. So you say we have one of the best great secret weapons of pausing.

Yes.

So talk to me about in that moment, if you start to fill the heat, you start to boil, your blood's boiling because someone's being disrespectful to you, they're dismissing you, take me through the exact steps of Harry Paws, how do you collect your mindset and then come up with a good response. Yeah, so what I'm talking about is a difference between short pauses and long pauses. And when somebody says something disrespectful, what you want is a long pause that's somewhere between about five to eight seconds. It's just a few seconds of allowing the other person to hear what they said. Because let's say you said something negative to me. Visually one's going to give me the feeling of confidence when I see that word come and just fall to the ground. I'm understanding that I'll have to pick that up. And it's kind of in that silence you're looking at it going, is that what you wanted to say? Does that feel good? That right there? Are you looking at what I'm looking at? And that right there automatically makes some feel more powerless and you feel more control. And that pause, you are being their echo, you're being their mirror. So often, if somebody were to say something ugly and I say nothing at all, often what they do is they say it and hear it back in their mind. Often people might apologize and go, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Or they they rephrase it. Or you can ask the person a, was that supposed to? These are questions

of what I call intent. So was that supposed to hurt me? See how a question doesn't respond in the way of sending that zinger back at them. It's a way of answering without answering. Did you mean for that to hurt me? Was that supposed to embarrass me? And you see how the power is not sending the zinger to say, I'm going to make you hurt even worse. The power is when they throw a punch, you go, that didn't hurt. So that's the control that you have in that moment. And I seemed to home matters because even just the way you said it was so calm, I assume that was supposed to hurt me. Why did you say that?

Versus like, I assume that was supposed to hurt me. Why did you say that? Exactly. So take me through how it can be perceived as you're losing control versus actually you have control of the conversation. Yeah, I mean, you can use just what we did as an example. So if I were to say, you can't talk to me like that. Are you kidding me versus you cannot talk to me like that?

Now which one sounds more control? Oh definitely. It's definitely the second one. And nothing changes except that you're speaking a lot slower, which shows I'm in control of my words. And it also shows I'm in control of my actions. Because when that fight or flight kicks in, which you know all about, you get that emotion, your heart starts to be, you get nervous, you start to shake, your voice might tremble a little bit, you get tears in your eyes, it's just an emotional flooding. You're telling your body in that moment when you're not taking a big pause and a big breath, you're telling your body, I have a lot to fear right now. I have a lot to be afraid of, I have to be extreme. I have to say that extreme thing. I have to go all out versus when

you slow down and you speak slowly and even at a lower tone, you're not only conveying control, you're also telling your body, there's nothing too fear here. There's no, nothing to threaten me. I'm safe. And that right there is an incredibly powerful move that you can flip that script on them to show that there's nothing here that's threatening me in some way. So that's what a lot of the pausing does is it gives a lot of space for them to realize that what they wanted is not what they're going to. How I see it is, when you say that ugly thing, you put it out on a ledge, and you exposed it, and you're hoping you're praying that somebody will take it. Have you ever thrown an insult, and then they didn't give it back? Probably. Yeah, and then you go, I kind of feel like a jerk later. You realize, oh, that didn't hit and then you feel kind of stupid because what you sent out it didn't get the response,

you didn't get the control and now you feel kind of silly because what you sent out, it didn't get the response,

you didn't get the control and now you feel kind of silly about it. So that's how you do that.

So if I had to break that down, if you want to add about a five to seven, seven second pause,

long pause, two, you want to do it long enough to make them hear their words back. Often you can

just repeat what they said back to them. So if you said something ugly, like Jefferson, you're an idiot. And I'll wait a five seconds. I said, I'm an idiot. Perfect. Three is you're allowing them to show, you can ask questions of intent. Did you mean for that to embarrass me? Did you say that to hurt me or offend me? And oftentimes that's all you really need to do to realize it's not going to be that fun for them this second time around.

Oh my God, that's so good. And then in talking about the pause in the power of it, you also talk about in your book the power of people forcing you to not pause and it's their way almost of asking your question like rushing you to Yes, as a way of them controlling you.

Yeah, so in legal depositions attorneys do it all the time.

We want to get you responding. like rushing you to a loss as a way of them controlling you.

Yeah, so in legal depositions attorneys do it all the time. We want to get you responding very quickly. And when you feel pressured, you often do. A lot of the clients that I have have to train them on, let them get all their question out, you have it applause, then you say something. Because otherwise you want to, hey, did you go the other day? Yes, I did. They like to cut in because they just want it over.

Same thing in any argument that you have.

You also want that over because you want the threat to go away. But where you find the moment of control and power for them is when you can add distance between what they said and your response. In that distance where you're able to show them that there's nothing here that's really going to defeat me in some way. And so what I like to focus on is when you are trying to rush your words, what you're saying then is you're afraid because when you get afraid you like to rush your words. And when you get to slow down, you're in a much better position almost every single time. Convinate people know they don't have have to say anything. Insure people always have something to say. Always have something to add. Insicurities are loud. Confidence is very quiet. There's a very big difference in that people in your community would want to grasp that idea of I don't have to say anything that I don't want to say. Should I not want to answer that text for 10 minutes? Maybe I don't want to respond to that text for the whole day, then don't. There's no pressure or obligation that you have to send it immediately. You don't have to send that full paragraph. You wait, wait a day. It's going to be a whole lot better. And you're the one that's going to feel more controlled and send the message that you're in more control of yourself.

I love that. I am often white Texas and I don't send them. Yeah. And I'm like, all right, if you still feel like there's a 24 hour send it. That's smart. I never end up sending them ever. Yeah. What I've done is I went deep into my community and I was looking at all the things that we women struggle with, here at Women of Impact.

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