The Exact Words to End Any Relationship
CChris Williamson
ManagementMarriageWeight Loss/NutritionMental Health
Transcript
00:00:00what about when it comes to delivering bad news to people?
00:00:02It's a required life lesson. It's impossible to not get around that and people get really
00:00:12uncomfortable with it and usually it's because they're feeling other people's feelings for them.
00:00:16I don't want to say that, that's not nice. They feel like they have to be
00:00:22nice. The real takeaway is choosing to be kind. Nice says it's focused all on the surface,
00:00:30the pleasantries. I can't say that. I can't tell you the truth, Chris. That's not nice.
00:00:34Kindness says I care enough about you to tell you the truth. Because I care about you,
00:00:43I need to give you this really hard news of what it's going to, this is what it's going to be.
00:00:49And you can use labels, simple as what we just talked about a minute ago. This is going to be
00:00:53some hard news. You're not going to like what I have to say. Give them a moment and then deliver
00:00:58the news. But what you can't do is twist a knife where you start to blame them first.
00:01:04If you need to give bad news, like imagine if I was just going to break up with you right now.
00:01:10The worst thing to do about it is all of a sudden go, "You know, I just think you're so great,
00:01:18Chris. And yeah, I've really enjoyed a lot of time." We start talking in past tense,
00:01:22as if like, what do you- I was enjoying that stuff. Yeah, yeah, let's just keep going.
00:01:26To where you know you're not being straight up and being honest. And often that's sometimes the
00:01:33kindest thing you can do is be as direct as you can be when it comes to sad news. Let's say that
00:01:37you need to break up with a partner and you're feeling super nervous about it. How would you
00:01:41guide that person through the conversation? When I would use a label, that means rather than- and
00:01:50this is assuming you've set aside time and you're not trying to do it through a text message or
00:01:55while you're- Apparently that's gauche now. Let's look down on to do it over tech. Yeah,
00:02:00it's probably not a good idea. Or you're doing it in the middle of a movie or something. Let's
00:02:05assume you've already put good time around this to have a good conversation. It's to say,
00:02:11"I need to have a hard conversation with you." And then you need the first words out of your mouth,
00:02:17you need to be, "This isn't a relationship that I can see myself continuing in."
00:02:25Like you see how all of a sudden I'm getting right to the point rather than saying,
00:02:30"I need to have something hard. You've just been great. And you know, it's not you, it's me. And
00:02:34you know, we've just been- we've had all these memories." Yeah, yeah, exactly. Instead of all that,
00:02:39get right to the point. And it's much easier. People can take bad news. It's going to have a
00:02:49harder impact, but the rest of it is going to be a whole lot better for you. Rather than trying to
00:02:54sound nice and be like, "I don't want to upset- it's all me. It's not you at all." Even though
00:02:59that's softer in the moment, that long-term impact is going to be a whole lot worse because you weren't
00:03:04really being honest with me. And so even if you need to fire somebody, bring them in,
00:03:11this news is probably going to shock you. "I need to let you go." And that's when you get to say,
00:03:18"I've enjoyed having you as a person. You've done great with the company." Or maybe it's
00:03:23in a relationship. "I need to be out of this relationship. I need to move on. This relationship
00:03:31isn't working for me." Whatever it is. And that's where you get to say, "I've learned a lot from you.
00:03:37I've learned." And whatever it is, the nice stuff. But don't start with the pleasantries and then end
00:03:40with the hard. I think Chris has another one, which is if you're saying that you can't go to an event,
00:03:49say, "I can't go." Or, "I can't make it first." Don't say, "Things have got so hard recently and
00:04:00this chaos came up and I've got this thing." And then that at the end. Just don't bury the
00:04:06fucking lead, dude. Put it up top. I very much align with that. So what I teach is you start
00:04:14with the no first. Most people start with the thanks first. They start with the gratitude.
00:04:20They go, "Thank you so much. I'd love to, but I can't." But the word by has a way of deleting
00:04:26everything that came before it. Like, "I love you, but you're crazy." You know, whatever.
00:04:31That might be true. Both of those things might be true.
00:04:34Sure. Sure they could. However.
00:04:36Yeah. You want to start with the no first. So, "I can't." Period. Then the gratitude. "Thank you
00:04:42so much for inviting me." Then add in some kindness. "I'm sure it's going to be a great time. I hope you
00:04:50have a wonderful time." Knock yourselves out. Whatever it is. But that compliment sandwich
00:04:56is a little hard to chew. Dude, I've got a fucking fantasy going on in my head of me, you, Chris Voss,
00:05:07and James Sexton doing an episode together. I'm going to try and make that shit happen before
00:05:10the end of the year. We probably could.
00:05:11I think that would be straight fire. I think that would be so much fucking fun. And I put something
00:05:17in the middle of the table that's remotely valuable or that most of you guys want. And I'm like, "Hey,
00:05:21negotiate over this." It's like a gladiatorial fight to the death. And somebody gets to fucking...
00:05:28I don't know. I don't know what you get. So, you're having a difficult conversation. You're firing a
00:05:33member of staff or you're breaking up with somebody or something similar. And during that conversation,
00:05:38the emotions begin to come up. And there is always this temptation to... I must even bail out of the
00:05:47conversation. So, like poly-ejectacy to see that somebody begins to get upset and then the employee
00:05:54comes into work tomorrow. And you go, "I thought you were firing them." Well...
00:05:58Exactly.
00:05:59What about that? Because I think that a lot of people enter into conversations with the intention
00:06:05of doing the thing and leave a conversation having had this weird spaghetti junction mess. Do you know
00:06:12what I mean? Like when people have difficult conversations, often they do not finish what
00:06:18they meant to start. How would you navigate through that? Okay. To me, it's like people have no problem
00:06:26three minutes in a cold plunge. They give them two seconds having to be honest with somebody in a
00:06:30conversation terrifies them. It's like, okay, think of it as like a cold plunge. You start it. And at
00:06:37the beginning, what is it? You're trying to catch your breath. You're trying, "I can't do this." And
00:06:41then all of a sudden what? You have some clarity. And you realize, "I can do this." And you realize
00:06:46your body's going through this. And there will be an end to it. Same way in difficult conversation.
00:06:51Yeah, it's going to be a splash. I have what I teach as cold shower conversations as example of
00:06:58those. It's going to be a shock to the system at the beginning, but we're going to see our way out
00:07:05of it. To where you start to have the hard words. You've already said, "We need to break up. This
00:07:11relationship isn't for me." Or, "I need to let you go." Whatever it is, you say the hard news. And then
00:07:18you realize, "Okay, I did it." Like, "Okay, I said the thing and now we can have a lot more clarity."
00:07:24Now you've kind of gotten over, it's way easier to crest the mountain when you just like go right up
00:07:28and then it gets down. It's when you have a slow go up. Yeah, bail out. Yeah, way easier. I haven't
00:07:33got there yet. Yeah, yeah. I haven't done it yet. There's still time for me to avoid this mountain.
00:07:37Exactly, exactly. And so it's just like that. So you find ways for me in my world as an attorney.
00:07:42I mean, I grew up in courtrooms and depositions and watching this. So I've seen a lot of emotional
00:07:51fighting and yelling and all sorts of hard tactics against each other. Super adversarial. I've seen a
00:08:02lot of fights, of arguments. Don't put me in a ring. I won't be any good with boxing gloves.
00:08:08Sean Strickland's going to eat you alive. Oh no, no doubt. I'd bail out. That's right. I'd bail out.
00:08:12But whenever you increase your capacity to hold other people's emotion,
00:08:18meaning you can feel all your feelings without me holding them. And I know that I'm in control of
00:08:25myself and I'm going to continue to breathing through it. And I'm not going to be holding
00:08:30while you're presenting, the better it gets. The more I realize that
00:08:33disappointment is part of the game. To be a great leader, to be a good person in my world,
00:08:45you have to learn the art of disappointing people. In other words, telling them sometimes
00:08:48what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. It makes me think about when
00:08:57the parents of missing children go on the news. What is it that they always say? We just want to
00:09:04know. We just want to know. Because the open loop is the worst thing. The open loop is where the most
00:09:10pain is. I'm sure that no parent would say this, but logically it kind of makes sense that finding
00:09:18the child dead in some ways would be emotionally preferable to living for decades in the uncertainty.
00:09:28I mean, no parent's ever going to come out and say that obviously. They actually probably don't want
00:09:31that. But you understand what I mean. The closing that loop is exactly what people want. Even though
00:09:38it's what your body is telling you absolutely not to do. So when you're able to break up with somebody
00:09:46and not leave them guessing why, or you need to fire somebody, whatever the hard news is and not
00:09:51leave them guessing why, that is you acting in alignment with integrity. That's you acting in
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