Why We Have Tip-of-the-Tongue Moments & How to Make Better Conversation

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Speaker 1 Today on something you should know, the excellent reason why you might want to eat more nuts.

Speaker 1 Then the strange phenomenon of having a word that's right on the tip of your tongue, but you just can't retrieve it.

Speaker 2 One thing you have to keep in mind is that there is a fundamental distinction between simply failing to retrieve a word and feeling like it's right there on the tip of your tongue about to come to mind at any any moment.

Speaker 1 Also, a better way to water your lawn that will save you time and money. And some of the biggest mistakes we make in conversation and how to fix them.

Speaker 3 Biggest thing that I see people doing wrong in communication is

Speaker 3 they think that just because they said it, that's exactly how the other person heard it. It's the only way they could ever receive it.
And that is a recipe for disaster.

Speaker 1 All this today

Speaker 1 on something you should know.

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Speaker 1 Something you should know, fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, something you should know with Mike Carruthers.

Speaker 1 You know, I've always thought that eating nuts must be good for you. Human Human beings have been eating nuts forever.

Speaker 1 But it turns out, eating nuts is healthier and can help you live longer than I even imagined. Hi, and welcome to another episode of Something You Should Know.

Speaker 1 The fact is that men and women who eat at least 10 grams of nuts per day have a lower risk of dying from several major causes of death than people who don't consume nuts.

Speaker 1 The reduction in mortality was strongest for respiratory disease, neurodegenerative diseases, and diabetes, followed by cancer and cardiovascular diseases. The effects are equal in men and women.

Speaker 1 Peanuts, which technically are not nuts, show at least as strong reductions in mortality as tree nuts, so you can include them in the mix.

Speaker 1 There are a couple of interesting things about this study, which has been running since 1986, over 120,000 Dutch men and women. The optimum amount of nuts was 15 grams per day.

Speaker 1 That's about a half a handful. Eating more than that did not reduce your mortality risk.
And peanut butter doesn't count. The benefits only came from eating actual nuts and peanuts.

Speaker 1 No reduction in mortality came from eating peanut butter. And that is something you should know.

Speaker 1 How many times has this happened to you? You know you know something. Usually it's a word.
You know you know it, but you just can't pull it out of your brain and say it.

Speaker 1 It's what's called a tip of the tongue moment. In fact, that's what people often say.
Oh, it's right on the tip of my tongue. Well, why does that happen?

Speaker 1 It's different than knowing that you don't know something or don't remember something and you just don't remember it. This is when you know you know it, but you can't recall it.

Speaker 1 And it turns out people study this and what they've learned about it is really interesting. One of those people who studies this is Anne Cleary.

Speaker 1 She's a professor of psychology at Colorado State University and her research examines odd memory phenomenon like deja vu and tip of the tongue moments.

Speaker 1 She's author of a book called Tip of the Tongue States: Retrieval, Metacognition, and Experience. Hi, Anne.
Welcome.

Speaker 2 Hi, thanks. Thanks so much for for having me.

Speaker 1 So I'm assuming, and I probably shouldn't assume, but I'm assuming that everybody has those tip-of-the-tongue moments.

Speaker 2 I don't think I've met anybody who has told me they have not had this experience. So I think it's a pretty common experience that just about everybody has.

Speaker 1 And what is it? What is it that you know you know something, but you can't seem to know it?

Speaker 2 Well, that's the million-dollar question.

Speaker 2 There are a lot of theories about what gives rise to it, but essentially it's a feeling, basically, a feeling that you're really close or right on the verge of accessing this word that just won't come to you at this moment.

Speaker 1 Is it always a word?

Speaker 2 Well, that's a good question. So there are a lot of similar experiences.
For example, there's the French term presqué-vous for feeling right on the verge of a discovery or an epiphany.

Speaker 2 And that can be similar seeming to feeling on the verge of retrieving a word. And it's a really good question.

Speaker 2 Are these other seemingly similar experiences the same or do they result from different mechanisms? That's something that researchers are actually trying to disentangle.

Speaker 1 Well, I guess you would include in the definition of a word would be somebody's name, or that's a word, right?

Speaker 2 Oh, yes. And as it turns out, proper names are the most common elicitors of tip of the tongue states.

Speaker 1 Well, I find it interesting that it is such a universal experience, but it's kind of a quirky experience. And I didn't realize that people actually research this.

Speaker 2 So it's an entire field of its own, in fact, that researching the tip-of-the-tongue state. It gets abbreviated T-O-T or TOT for tip of the tongue state.

Speaker 1 So since there's research on this, then there probably would be some answers to these questions of, first of all, does it tend to happen at similar situations, times of the day, certain kinds of things you're trying to recall, certain kind of words?

Speaker 1 What, if anything, do these tip-of-the-tongue states have in common?

Speaker 2 So they tend to occur most commonly for very low-frequency words that are harder to retrieve. So a high-frequency word like money is very unlikely to elicit a tip-of-the-tongue state for most people.

Speaker 2 But a very infrequent word, maybe something like Artvark, might be more likely to elicit a tip of the tongue state because it's a harder word to retrieve.

Speaker 2 And along those same lines, proper names are very common elicitors of tip-of-the-tongue states. So people's names in particular often elicit tip-of-the-tongue states.

Speaker 2 In fact, a common method of studying tip-of-the-tongue states involves showing people famous faces and having them try to produce the names for each of the faces.

Speaker 2 And in that type of method, you can often elicit many tip-of-the-tongue states in people in research.

Speaker 1 Anything else that they have in common? Is it more men than women? Does it happen more in the morning than the night? I mean, anything else that...

Speaker 2 That definitely varies with age. So as people grow older, they'll tell you that they subjectively feel like they're having more and more of these tip-of-the-tongue states.

Speaker 2 And there are whole lines of research centered on aging and tip of the tongue states.

Speaker 2 But one thing you have to keep in mind is that there is a fundamental distinction between simply failing to retrieve a word and feeling like it's right there on the tip of your tongue, about to come to mind at any moment.

Speaker 2 And so this has been a challenge for the literature, including with regard to this

Speaker 2 general finding that tip of the tongue states increase in their frequency as people grow older.

Speaker 2 I think it's important to distinguish between is it just getting harder to retrieve words as people get older? Or

Speaker 2 is it really the case that this subjective feeling of being right there on the verge of retrieving a word is increasing as people age?

Speaker 1 Well, if you think about it,

Speaker 1 and not being a researcher, this is kind of how I would think about it.

Speaker 1 or how I do think about it, is that the word is, you know, traveling the highway of wherever it travels to get to your mouth to say,

Speaker 1 and something holds it up. Somewhere along the highway, something held it up.
Is that roughly what's happening?

Speaker 2 That is a really great analogy to a dominant theory of tip of the tongue states known as the transmission deficit model.

Speaker 2 So in the transmission deficit model, it's along the lines of what you just described, that there's a disruption along the highway of getting from one place to another in the networks of

Speaker 2 various components of word representations in our minds that causes a sort of a halt or a holdup in getting there to your mouth. That's exactly what the transmission deficit model posits.

Speaker 2 Now, again, I think there are other theories of tip of the tongue states.

Speaker 2 And one argument is that there's a fundamental distinction between simply failing to retrieve a word, having a holdup along that highway, so to speak, and feeling like it's right there, as if it's right there, about to be retrieved.

Speaker 2 So there's this fundamental difference between failing to retrieve a word and having the subjective sensation that you're about to retrieve it.

Speaker 2 And it may be that the transmission deficit model is a great model of why we fail to retrieve words sometimes, but is it really telling us why does it feel like it's so close?

Speaker 2 What leads to that subjective sensation that it's almost there? It's almost going to come to us.

Speaker 1 So I've always found it interesting

Speaker 1 that, and I think it's related maybe to this, is, for example,

Speaker 1 let's just say you're trying to remember the name of your high school principal. And it's right, I can see his face.
It's right on the tip of my tongue.

Speaker 1 It's, and you can't, but if you could magically transport yourself instantly back into your high school, that name would come to you instantly because you would have all these cues

Speaker 1 from high school that would bring his name right to the tip of your tongue.

Speaker 2 That is true. Yes.
So a key aspect to accessing a memory is having the right cues.

Speaker 2 And so I think you're exactly right that if you could transport yourself back to that original context, you would increase the likelihood that you would be able to retrieve this name by virtue of those cues.

Speaker 2 In fact, one of my graduate students right now is exploring this idea as a means of helping people to overcome tip of the tongue state.

Speaker 2 So if people experience a tip of the tongue state in a particular context, can you reinstate an original context, for example, or put them in a different context?

Speaker 2 And does changing the context that they find themselves in change the likelihood of accessing the word and as we say,

Speaker 2 resolving the tip of the tongue state.

Speaker 1 Well, and the reason I bring that example up is because it works kind of in a different in a similar but different way in that if you were to walk into your high school, you would start remembering things without, you wouldn't even be able to control it because

Speaker 1 I wasn't when this happened to me. You would start remembering things that have happened, people's names, people that you have haven't thought about forever just by walking into your high school.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 Yes, there's a term for that in memory research too, known as encoding specificity, that when you reinstate the original context in which you experienced something, that context reinstatement serves as a powerful set of cues that will cause you to conjure up memories that took place in that original context.

Speaker 2 And so that's a very powerful way to

Speaker 2 get hold of memories, even if they happened a long time ago, is to reinstate the original context in which those memories occurred.

Speaker 1 We're talking about those times when it's right on the tip of your tongue. My guest is Ann Cleary.
She's author of the book, Tip of the Tongue States, Retrieval, Metacognition, and Experience.

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Speaker 1 So Ann, I've heard that if you're having one of those moments where it's right on the tip of your tongue, the best advice is to stop trying so hard.

Speaker 1 Walk away from it, and it's more likely to come back faster. Is that true?

Speaker 2 You know, I can't think of a study that's actually examined that specific method, but there may be some validity to that idea insofar as it's kind of similar to the idea, an idea that we're exploring in my lab right now, which is that it could be kind of the opposite of what you just noted about reinstating an original context, serving as a powerful set of cues.

Speaker 2 If you're failing to access the word because, for whatever reason, the current context is causing you to think of the wrong words and they're kind of getting in the way of you accessing the right words.

Speaker 2 Well, then maybe there's a benefit to changing your context, right? Working into another room or going and walking outside instead of staying in the context that you're at. That may free your mind

Speaker 2 from the grip of the wrong representations. An analogous finding has been shown in the creative problem-solving literature, where researchers have found that when people

Speaker 2 attach, they can't think of a solution to the problem, or they get incorrect cues on purpose by the researchers to kind of trip them up and make it harder for them to

Speaker 2 retrieve the solution to a problem.

Speaker 2 If they change their context, they're more likely to then attain the solution to the problem, presumably because the wrong solution was attached to this previous context.

Speaker 2 And so we think in my lab that something similar may happen with tip of the tongue states, but we're in the process of investigating this now. It hasn't yet been investigated.

Speaker 2 But it goes along with the idea that you just mentioned that maybe if you stop trying, right, you're giving your mind a break.

Speaker 2 In the problem-solving literature, people would call that incubation. You're kind of letting it incubate.
You've stopped intentionally working on the problem. You're going to give it a break.

Speaker 2 And often giving it a break does

Speaker 2 facilitate coming up with a solution to a problem. So in an analogous way, there may be something to that idea with regard to tip of the tongue states.

Speaker 2 If you just give it a break and the right word will then come to mind. Though that hasn't really been directly investigated yet.

Speaker 1 Well, it must be hard to investigate this because tip of the tongue states don't happen predictably. They happen whenever they happen and then they're gone.
So it's hard to catch somebody having one.

Speaker 1 But I would love to see an experiment, although there's no way to do it, to put somebody in a hot shower when they're in a tip of the tongue state and see if that word doesn't pop right out.

Speaker 2 Actually, there are ways to study it. And so it's interesting that you mentioned that.

Speaker 2 The most common method of studying tip of the tongue states is to give people a set of trivia questions, basically like what is the name of the inability to sleep or what is the name of the famous geyser in yellowstone national park and so you have a large set they may be over a hundred of these types of trivia questions and for just about every person a fraction of them you can't ever predict for any person which exact items are going to elicit the tip of the tongue state but a fraction of them will and that is how researchers typically go about studying tip of the tongue states.

Speaker 2 Other pointers can be pictures of celebrity faces. That's another very common type of pointer stimulus.

Speaker 1 So if you showed me a picture of a celebrity, maybe a minor celebrity or a celebrity from a while back that hasn't been in the public eye a lot lately, but somebody whose face I recognize.

Speaker 1 I might say, yeah,

Speaker 1 I know who that is. It's right on the tip of my tongue, but I can't recall it.
But if you gave me a list of 20 names, I'd be able to pick that person's name out once I saw it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's so interesting that you mentioned that because that's exactly what researchers tend to find.

Speaker 2 So in this pointer methodology that I mentioned, the way that you could examine that in a research study is to give a person, say, the pointer stimulus, whether it's a picture of a celebrity or a trivia question,

Speaker 2 and see if they have a tip of the tongue state.

Speaker 2 And then for those questions or celebrity images for which a tip of the tongue state was indicated, what you can do is present a list of multiple choice options afterward and say, can you identify

Speaker 2 what the correct answer is?

Speaker 2 And when you do that, what you find is that if you compare compare those pointers for which people indicated experiencing a tip of the tongue tongue state, with those pointers for which people indicated that they were not experiencing a tip of the tongue state, you'll find that people show a higher probability of choosing the correct answer out of the multiple choice options for those

Speaker 2 trials in which they reported experiencing a tip of the tongue state. So, in that way, tip-of-the-tongue states really are

Speaker 2 indicative of some increased ability to

Speaker 2 access the answer. In that way, they sort of have some validity.
They really do indicate a heightened probability that you'll be able to recognize the answer if you see it.

Speaker 1 When people have tip-of-the-tongue states and

Speaker 1 it's just not coming to them,

Speaker 1 has anybody studied whether or not when it's all said and done, they eventually do or they eventually don't?

Speaker 2 Yes. There's a whole domain of research research centered on that very question.

Speaker 2 Researchers like to call what you're describing resolution or tip of the tongue state resolution, resolution of the tip of the tongue feeling.

Speaker 2 And it's the idea that somewhere down the road, you do come up with the word. And there are a lot of studies to

Speaker 2 support this idea that when you have a tip of the tongue state, it's pretty predictive of eventually arriving at the word.

Speaker 2 And so research does does support the idea that that happens, that eventually the word does come in a lot of those instances, not all of them, but a lot of those instances.

Speaker 1 Is there any sense when you have a tip of the tongue moment and you do recall the word, that then it is somehow more cemented that you will never forget it again than it would have been if this had never come up in the first place?

Speaker 2 That is such a great question. There's actually a line of research

Speaker 2 by a researcher named Karen Humphreys who has looked at what the researchers refer to as recurring tip of the tongue states.

Speaker 2 And so it examines, this line of work examines the likelihood that you'll have a recurrence of a tip of the tongue state for that same word later on.

Speaker 2 And what that research has shown is that if people resolve the tip of the tongue state on their own.

Speaker 2 So basically, if you're able to eventually arrive at the word on your own own somehow, then that reduces the likelihood that you'll experience on a different subsequent occasion, a tip of the tongue state for that same word.

Speaker 2 So it's kind of along the lines of what you're asking is that if you resolve it on your own, does it sort of help cement it? That's exactly what this research suggests.

Speaker 2 But interestingly, what these researchers have also found is that if you try to give people the answer, answer.

Speaker 2 So if the person is in the tip of the tongue state, they don't succeed in resolving it on their own, and then you give them the answer, that doesn't help later.

Speaker 2 There's something about arriving at the answer on one's own that helps to reduce the likelihood of a recurrence of a tip of the tongue state for that answer.

Speaker 2 And the same researchers have shown that if you cue people, so if you give them like the first letter or a cue that can help them arrive at it, as long as they can still arrive at it on their own, they have a reduced likelihood of subsequently experiencing a tip of the tongue state.

Speaker 1 You did an experiment.

Speaker 1 I thought this was really interesting, so I want you to tell how you did this, where you designed a test for people that gave them some control over the answers when they took the test when they couldn't think of the answer on their own.

Speaker 2 And the way that we did this was to give people basically trivia kinds of questions, what we might call general knowledge questions.

Speaker 2 In academic terms, like testing terms, you'd probably call it short answer. You have to try to come up with the answer to a question and type it in.

Speaker 2 And what we did was we allowed people, if they failed to come up with the answer, they could make a decision.

Speaker 2 And the decision was, would they like to take a risk and have the multiple choice options presented to them?

Speaker 2 The risk is that if you select the wrong multiple choice option, you're going to lose some points.

Speaker 2 Whereas if you select the correct multiple choice option, you'll gain a point.

Speaker 2 And so when people failed to retrieve the answer on the short answer component, they could either decide to just not have, if they know they don't know it, then

Speaker 2 the thing to do is decide to not have the multiple choice questions presented because then you just stay the same point-wise.

Speaker 2 But if you think you feel close and you think you would recognize it if you're presented with the multiple choice options, that gives you an opportunity to possibly gain a point.

Speaker 2 But at the risk that if you pick the wrong one, you're going to now lose a point where you could have stayed the same if you hadn't tried.

Speaker 2 And so in doing that study, what we found was that when people felt like the answer was on the tip of their tongue in the short answer component of the test, they could actually use that feeling to make good decisions about whether and when to have that multiple choice set presented to them.

Speaker 2 And they actually, you know, were able to get higher overall point scores when they were given that opportunity than people who were not given that opportunity.

Speaker 2 And so what that suggests is that this is a way that we can really

Speaker 2 put to use in an academic type of situation the usefulness of a tip of the tongue state. That it really does indicate an increased likelihood that you'll recognize the answer if you see it later.

Speaker 2 And so, if we designed tests that way, students can capitalize on that to know at a metacognitive level how to proceed and when to ask for the multiple choice and when to not, which can enable them to basically show that they do have some knowledge that wouldn't have shown up on a simple multiple choice type of question format.

Speaker 1 Well, I think like most people, I certainly have had those moments when it's right on the tip of my tongue. I had no idea people researched this and dug deep as you have done.

Speaker 1 And it's really interesting to hear. And Anne has also done a lot of research on deja vu and she was a guest here a while back.
If you'd like to hear that discussion, it's episode 968.

Speaker 1 I know it's hard to find episode numbers on most podcast apps, but on our website, you can search by episode number. It's real easy, 968, it'll come right up.

Speaker 1 And the website is somethingyoushouldknow.net.

Speaker 1 Ann Cleary is a professor of psychology at Colorado State University, and the name of her book is Tip of the Tongue States: Retrieval, Metacognition, and Experience.

Speaker 1 And there's a link to her book at Amazon in the show notes. And thank you.

Speaker 2 Okay, great. Well, thanks so much.

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Speaker 1 So here's the problem. What you say is not necessarily what someone else hears.
And after all, you said it, you know what you meant to say, you said it. But the other person knows what they heard.

Speaker 1 And they're often not the same thing. That's just one of many ways that we miscommunicate.
Sometimes we talk too much when less would be better.

Speaker 1 Or we try to win an argument and convince someone else they're wrong, which is seldom a good idea. So many things go wrong in our day-to-day communication.
And they don't have to if we pay attention.

Speaker 1 And here to explain how to do that is Jefferson Fisher. He is a lawyer and frequent sought-after speaker on the topic of communication.
And he is author of a book called The Next Conversation.

Speaker 1 Argue Less, Talk More. Hi, Jefferson.
Welcome to Something You Should Know.

Speaker 3 Hey, Mike. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 So of all the potential missteps that can happen in a conversation or communication, What's the one that you see trips people up the most?

Speaker 3 The biggest thing that I see people doing wrong in communication is they think that just because they said it, that's exactly how the other person heard it.

Speaker 3 They think just because they said the words and it sounded like it did when it was in their head, they were saying it out loud, they think that's exactly how the other person interprets it, how they, it's the only way they could ever receive it.

Speaker 3 And that is a recipe for disaster. I love it.
And you get into these fights. Yeah, you get into these fights.
That's not what I said. And they go, yeah, that's exactly what you said.

Speaker 3 And you go, that's not what I said. You get into this tit for tat.
And then what does somebody say? Somebody says, I wish I had it recorded.

Speaker 3 I wish there was a video camera where I could have seen exactly, you could have seen how you made that face at me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, I see that. Well, I have that happen to me all the time.

Speaker 1 And as you say, it's not always the words.

Speaker 1 You know, if you wrote them down and read them, okay, that's what you said. It's the tone of your voice.
It's the volume of your voice.

Speaker 1 It's the way you, it's the total communication, not just the words you said. I took it one way, you may have meant it another way, and now we're disconnected.

Speaker 3 Exactly.

Speaker 1 So what's a better way? I mean, how do you, how do you prevent that or do or do does it happen first and then you fix it or what?

Speaker 3 Instead of this fight over that's not what I said,

Speaker 3 instead begin with a question. The question is, what did you hear? Rather than that's not what I said.
Simply ask the question, what did you hear?

Speaker 3 And it allows the other person to go, what I heard was, you were upset about this. What I heard was, you were saying, I'm a bad mom.
You're saying, I don't do enough around here.

Speaker 3 You're saying, and you go, no, whoa, whoa, whoa. It allows you to clarify, allows you to go back to intentions, to say,

Speaker 3 let me start again. Or I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention.
What I meant to say was, and redo it. Most of the time, we don't allow the redo.
We just

Speaker 3 force our interpretation

Speaker 3 and commit to it being the only interpretation that this person can have. And then we get into an argument with them that their interpretation is not your interpretation.

Speaker 3 And you just, you, you riddle the conversation with these little mini arguments that are unnecessary.

Speaker 1 What's another good example of when conversation gets us in trouble?

Speaker 3 Let's say, for example,

Speaker 3 you and I are in conversation and it starts to get heated and I

Speaker 3 use this phrase. I say, Mike, you always

Speaker 3 or you never.

Speaker 3 Well, now we've changed it. Now we've altered a new layer to the dynamic and that is whether you always or never do it.
Because you're going to say, no, I don't always do that.

Speaker 3 And you go, yeah, you always do it. Okay, name a time that I did this.
And we're just totally off base. from where the conversation actually started.

Speaker 3 So when you fall to extremes, that's the always and the never, easy, easy way to get off track in an argument. Whenever you

Speaker 3 find that in conversation, argument

Speaker 3 can be a good thing. We can advocate for positions.

Speaker 3 Where it goes wrong is where you instead see the argument as a competition between each other. And when you see arguments as something to win rather than something to unravel,

Speaker 3 if you can start seeing them as, hey, I need to step away from this competition and just listen to another point of view, better things are going to happen in your life. Aaron Powell,

Speaker 1 there are many conversations,

Speaker 1 political conversations, father-son conversations, husband-wife conversations,

Speaker 1 where it seems as if the goal is to try to convince the other person that whatever position they hold is incorrect, that that's not correct. I'm right, you're wrong.

Speaker 1 Should that ever be the goal of a conversation? Because it seems that's a hard one to win.

Speaker 3 If you set out to win an argument, Mike, you'll lose the relationship because nobody wants to be around the person who always has to be right.

Speaker 3 If you want a very quick way to scale back a potential disagreement

Speaker 3 is to, instead of saying, I disagree, which is me saying, I don't like your point. It's wrong.
Your point is wrong. And I say, I disagree.
If I said that to you, Mike, you have an opinion.

Speaker 3 I say, I disagree.

Speaker 3 And I start talking. Are you going to listen to me? Yeah, probably.
Most likely not. Yeah, what you're going to do now is

Speaker 3 your mind is now racing to go, okay, buddy, let me find even better arguments. You're now taking in a big breath.
You're now trying to size up.

Speaker 3 You know, well, I'm just going to, you start building your ammunition. You start building your wall.

Speaker 3 You start putting in your moat you're not trying to listen to me more instead you're trying to bolster your argument so that by the second time around you get you hit hit me harder

Speaker 3 and that that rarely if ever works instead of this I disagree what will get you there is use words of perspective either words that sound like

Speaker 3 words that are including the word perspective view see

Speaker 1 look

Speaker 3 vantage take take, approach, any of these kind of words of perspective don't get people defensive. So instead of I disagree, what I would tell you to turn it to is, I see things differently.

Speaker 3 I have a different perspective. I have another take.

Speaker 3 And what it does is you don't get upset by it. Instead, you almost

Speaker 3 get curious of like, oh, what do you, well, what do you see? It's me almost inviting you to say, hey, come over to my side and take a look and you'll see. And it'll make sense.

Speaker 3 So when you add in that layer of curiosity that you care to understand somebody else's perspective, they won't get defensive.

Speaker 1 One of the things it seems that gets in the way of conversations is emotions. People get upset.
And you know, I'm listening to you talk, and you have a very kind of even keel.

Speaker 1 You don't sound like you're easy to upset in a conversation. Maybe you are, but it doesn't sound like it.

Speaker 1 But some people are really easy to upset. They get upset and then things go off the rails.

Speaker 1 And I don't know if there's any simple advice for preventing that or dealing with that, but if there is, I'd love to hear it.

Speaker 3 If you are somebody who's hot-headed and you frequently fly off the handle or you yell and say things,

Speaker 3 usually

Speaker 3 it's not a word problem, it's a body problem, meaning

Speaker 3 you

Speaker 3 haven't found a way yet to regulate your system.

Speaker 3 I sound calm because I typically am very calm. And I speak very slow.
I speak pretty low.

Speaker 3 My pace is pretty even. I don't super rush.
I don't super go extra slow.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 people will mirror that and calm down themselves. It's a body problem in the way that you're holding your breath.
So what I teach is when you go into conversations, especially a heated one,

Speaker 3 let your breath be the first word that you say. So wherever your first word would be, if your response, you put a breath

Speaker 3 in its place.

Speaker 3 Because it's not only going to make sure you're regulated, it's also going to give enough time to regulate the other person, because most likely they need it too.

Speaker 3 And when you use your breath, to calm yourself down, what you're telling your body is, this is not a threat to me. This person is not threatening to me.

Speaker 3 Their position, their point of view, their opinion isn't threatening to me.

Speaker 3 And when you tell your body that, you naturally, your shoulders will

Speaker 3 not get nearly as tense. Most likely, people listening right now, you can go ahead and relax your shoulders.
We hold our shoulders all the time without even thinking about it.

Speaker 1 So, when you say you, you speak calmly, you speak low, that's very intentional, or that's just who you are, or both?

Speaker 2 Both.

Speaker 3 It's part of my,

Speaker 1 of course, how I grew up.

Speaker 3 If you listen to my dad, we would have pretty much the same voice. So, a lot, some of that's just genetics of how I sound.

Speaker 3 We usually sound like a parent in some way or another, especially the older we get. And then a lot of it is intentional as well, especially if it's a really heated argument.

Speaker 3 I have a very good friend of mine who his whole history is in crisis response.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 what they taught taught him is when you're approaching a scene or a crime scene, walk, don't run.

Speaker 3 Because you are giving this sense of

Speaker 3 like, yeah, let's say there's some type of hostage negotiation going on. You walk, it's a sense of, nope,

Speaker 3 everything's under control. I got this.
We're good.

Speaker 3 A solution is coming. Rather than running and getting everybody worked up and stirred up.
So it's very much kind of that same pattern. You can be intentional.

Speaker 3 So when I go in a conflict, somebody's yelling, and I lower my voice even more, and I slow things down, you know what they do?

Speaker 3 They slow it down too.

Speaker 1 So how do you, well, maybe not, well, yeah, how do you, but also the recommendation for everybody who's been in that conversation with someone who's very intimidating, very, you know, type A, tries to control everything, talks over you.

Speaker 1 And, you know, you're the kind of the opposite of that. You're not screaming and yelling.
How do you handle it? And maybe that's how you would recommend other people handle it.

Speaker 1 Because the problem with that, that I see with that dynamic is once the roles are set, if somebody's being very dominating and you're ending up being very submissive, it's hard to break out of those roles once they've been established in a conversation.

Speaker 3 Yeah, what I like to do, if I know I'm going into a room with somebody who's kind of what what we would say is a bull in a china shop, is I like to do a technique called priming the room.

Speaker 3 I might sit down and rather than talking about them directly, I'm going to talk about something bigger, more general that encompasses both of us.

Speaker 3 For example, I might sit down and say, I want to make sure that we're in a room where we can both be super transparent. Or I want to make sure that

Speaker 3 we're in a place right now that you and I can speak speak freely. I want to make sure that this is a room where you and I are on level footing.

Speaker 3 I can speak and I'm going to be heard.

Speaker 3 They'll agree to that. They will always agree to that.
But when you say it in terms of I want to make sure this is a room, a space, a place,

Speaker 3 you are signaling that we're both in this and these are rules that we are both abiding by.

Speaker 3 It's like an invisible contract.

Speaker 3 And so when I prime the room that way, you see how much better that is than me saying, hey, okay, I'm going to tell you something and I need to make sure that you're actually listening to me and not cutting me off.

Speaker 3 Cool.

Speaker 3 Spikes are going to come out.

Speaker 1 But if they are the bull in the china shop and they start the bulling, the bullying and the,

Speaker 1 how do you mitigate that? How do you...

Speaker 3 They're very simple ways of showing someone

Speaker 3 the rules of engagement when it comes to communicating with you.

Speaker 3 So, what I would say is,

Speaker 3 I'd use your name first. I'd say, Mike, I don't allow people to talk to me disrespectfully.
If you continue to talk to me in that tone, this is going to need to be the end of the conversation.

Speaker 3 So, those are three different steps. One is: I'm telling you what my boundary is.
I don't allow.

Speaker 3 I don't allow people to do X, Y, and Z.

Speaker 3 Two is I'm giving you the condition. I'm giving you the chance.
If you continue to,

Speaker 3 I make it contingent. If you continue to, then three,

Speaker 3 I have the consequence. And this is the biggest one, in my opinion, because you have to be willing to do it.
This is the end of the conversation, meaning I'm willing to get up and walk away.

Speaker 3 If you're willing to do that, you've got to be willing to do it.

Speaker 3 Same thing with people who... You've seen bad relationship problems.
They say, if you say that one more time, I'm out the door. I'm leaving.

Speaker 3 And of course, what happens? They do it one more time and they don't leave. They don't walk away.
Well, now you've only reinforced the power dynamic.

Speaker 3 You've made sure that the other person knows you're all bark, no bite, you really don't mean it. You can say whatever, and you're always going to stay exactly where you are.

Speaker 3 And you're just, you are deepening the power dynamic when you do that. So instead, use three simple rules.
Tell them what your boundary is, give the condition and the consequence.

Speaker 1 That's great advice. And so where else do you find, or what, since you're the expert on this, what do people ask you about a lot?

Speaker 1 Where do you see the problem, something that we haven't talked about yet that you think could really help people in these situations, in conversation situations, to make things go better?

Speaker 3 I teach a framework for people to have difficult conversations, really any conversation, but they work particularly well in the difficult ones. And this, this is how it goes.

Speaker 3 Let's say I have to let you go in our company and you've come down to the office and you sit down and I say, yeah, Mike, how's it going? Yeah, it's good to see you. Yeah.

Speaker 3 How's your, how's your family? How's everybody doing? You good? Yeah. Oh, yeah, this weather.
It's crazy. So listen,

Speaker 3 Mike, I then deliver the news. Not right away.
It still takes me a while. I kind of go in a circle.
You're sitting there going, where are we going with this? What's happening?

Speaker 3 That's how it typically goes in difficult conversations.

Speaker 3 And that's the worst way it goes in difficult conversations. I'm saying that small talk stuff not to make you feel better.
I'm saying it for me to feel better to kind of soften the landing for me.

Speaker 3 That's usually very unkind.

Speaker 3 What I teach is if you want to be kind, you need to be direct.

Speaker 3 It's one of the kindest things you can do.

Speaker 3 So instead, here's the framework. One, you're going to tell them what you want to talk about.

Speaker 3 Two,

Speaker 3 you want to tell them how you want the conversation to end.

Speaker 3 And that's the big one. And three, get their buy-in

Speaker 3 into the frame. I call this a frame, like you would put a frame around a picture.

Speaker 3 So instead of all this small talk stuff, I'm going to begin with exactly what I want to talk about. I'm going to say, Mike,

Speaker 3 this is going to be a hard conversation. I'm going to let you kind of take a break.
You're going to probably nod like, okay, got it. I need to let you go.

Speaker 3 And at the end of this conversation, we're going to walk away with a plan of how this is going to be and where we're going to go from here on out. All right.

Speaker 3 And you're probably going to go, all right.

Speaker 3 Or let's say you've done something wrong in the company. I might bring you in and say, Mike, I need to have a conversation about about some comments you made at last Thursday's meeting.

Speaker 3 And I want to walk away from this conversation with the understanding that's not going to happen again. Sound good? Very easy, quick, to the point.
There's no fluff.

Speaker 3 There's no questioning of what is going on.

Speaker 1 Lastly, some general advice for any conversation. When you're in a conversation with anyone at all,

Speaker 1 what do you need to keep in mind?

Speaker 3 I teach that the person you see isn't always the person you're talking to let's say in my own relationships my wife

Speaker 3 might come in and and there's she's upset about something before we know it boom we're we're having an issue about something that's minor that's something maybe on the kitchen counter or or whatever somebody accidentally spilled something

Speaker 3 and the issue is not that my dad would always tell me the issue is rarely the issue there's always something else come to find out, it's an email that she got at 8 a.m.

Speaker 3 from another client that got her in an upset mood. And I've done certainly the same thing.
Everybody has something else going on when you

Speaker 3 really take the time,

Speaker 3 take a minute to get curious and

Speaker 3 try to reach that other person. The person you see is not the person you're talking to.

Speaker 3 The waitress who's waiting on you and she brought your coffee just a little bit too late. And you could get all worked up or maybe maybe she was being you thought she was being rude to you.

Speaker 3 Well, you have no clue what's happening in her life and you're not aware of her struggles. Same thing with

Speaker 3 the guy who is coming to

Speaker 3 be a repairman at your house. Instead of seeing the person who's delivering you coffee as whatever her name is, it could be Sheila.
See it as your name.

Speaker 3 with your name tag on it. And I promise you, you'll treat that person with a little bit more grace.

Speaker 1 Well, communication and miscommunication, as we've been discussing, is so important to everyone because it happens all the time.

Speaker 1 And if we can avoid it or at least fix it when it happens, all the better. And I appreciate your advice.
Jefferson Fisher has been my guest.

Speaker 1 He's an attorney and author of the book, The Next Conversation. Argue less, talk more.

Speaker 1 And there's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Jefferson, thank you for being here today.

Speaker 3 Thank you very much, Mike. I appreciate it, man.
I wish you all the best.

Speaker 1 It seems as if conserving water has become more and more of a priority for people, because even if there isn't a drought now, there could be a drought tomorrow.

Speaker 1 And one way to conserve water is the way you treat your lawn. If you lightly water your lawn once a day, that's too much.
Daily watering encourages your grass to develop a very shallow root system.

Speaker 1 Turf experts say the best approach is to give your lawn one long soaking for about 30 minutes once a month. And this is according to consumer reports.

Speaker 1 Now, that might not sound like enough, but it is if you water it right. You want to be sure it's done early in the morning between 4 and 7 a.m.

Speaker 1 and you'll want to avoid watering in windy or breezy conditions. And stop cutting your lawn so often.
You should let it grow to about five inches before you mow it.

Speaker 1 Watering less will save water, money, and time because you won't have to cut it so often. And that is something you should know.

Speaker 1 Something you should know is produced by Jennifer Brennan, Jeff Havison, and the executive producer is Ken Williams. I'm Mike Carruthers.
Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

Speaker 1 The Infinite Monkey Cage returns imminently. I am Robert Ince, and I've sat next to Brian Cox, who has so much to tell you about what's on the new series.
Primarily eels. And what else?

Speaker 1 It was fascinating, though. The eels.
But we're not just doing eels, are we? We're doing a bit.

Speaker 1 Brain-computer interfaces, timekeeping, fusion, monkey business, cloud, signs of the North Pole, and eels. Did I mention the eels?

Speaker 1 Is this ever since you bought that timeshare underneath the Sagasso C?

Speaker 1 Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 5 Oh, the Regency era. You might know it as the time when Bridgerton takes place, or the time when Jane Austen wrote her books.

Speaker 5 But the Regency era was also an explosive time of social change, sex scandals, and maybe the worst king in British history.

Speaker 5 And on the Vulgar History podcast, we're going to be looking at the balls, the gowns, and all the scandal of the Regency era.

Speaker 5 Vulgar History is a women's history podcast, and our Regency Era series will be focusing on the most rebellious women of this time.

Speaker 5 That includes Jane Austen herself, who is maybe more radical than you might have thought.

Speaker 5 We'll also be talking about queer icons like Anne Lister, scientists like Mary Anning and Ada Lovelace, as well as other scandalous actresses, royal mistresses, rebellious princesses, and other lesser-known figures who made history happen in England in the Regency era.

Speaker 1 Listen to Vulgar History wherever you get podcasts.