#158: Three Practical Steps to Stop Getting Defensive and Improve Your Relationships

I wanted more time with my daughter Emerson. On Father's Day. We spent three hours together. We had a great time. I had a great time. It was really fun. And once the whole outing ended, I was thinking we'd go and do something else we wanted. I wanted to go to a movie or hang out by the pool, do something different. And I could feel this defensiveness welling up in me. And I even could see sense myself being tempted to say something that would put pressure or guilt on

her to spend more time with me. I didn't, luckily, because I recognized it. But it took me down for a little bit. I wasn't being grateful for the time that I got. I wasn't recognizing her as an 18 year old who wanted to go hang out with her friends. And that's the thing about being defensive. We make things worse. We add to drama. If you interact with people at work or at home who get defensive often it adds stress to the interactions. We end up being focused on things that aren't

important because we have to actually deal with the defensiveness. We don't feel the freedom to share ideas. It creates some damage. We don't address core issues. This is where the term walking on eggshells comes from. Because you feel people can react to trust is impacted, we waste time. Today we're going to talk about this. How to stop getting defensive. Here's how. All right, so this is the Decide youe Legacy podcast. Welcome today's

episode. You're going to learn three ways you can work on not being defensive. I'm sure you can think of people at work, at home who can trigger you and you may even have to brace yourself. Even the word defensive, well, I have to protect myself. From what? From what? So if you learn to let that down and actually see today, you're going to see how impactful that is and how much stress you can relieve from your life when you have a different approach,

a non defensive approach. In these difficult interactions that you may have at work and at home and with your family and friends and different people in the community, you're going to feel as if you can take that guard down and have tools to do so and tools you can implement today to start practicing. You can learn this through steps and it will take practice. So I faced a fear recently and I share a fear that I faced in most episodes. Because nothing is more important to your mental

health than facing your fears. And nothing is more damaging than playing it safe. We're in the business of courage here. And the fear that I actually Faced was I have started to. When we at Decide youe Legacy are potentially gonna work with a business or an individual one on one client to give them some steps that they have to actually take before we're going to give them a proposal. So we need to see if they're gonna take action because action is where

change happens. And if they can't do that, then we really can't help. It isn't the right time. It doesn't mean it won't be in a month or two months. But that's been scary for me because I like to help everybody. I'm a people pleaser and I can struggle with that and it's my own mindset, perspect, perspective, but it's scary. What's something scary that you have done over the last week?

I challenge you to put some time into thinking about that because you probably have done something and if you have not, plan it into the rest of your day. Today, I'm your host, Adam Gragg. I'm a legacy coach. I'm a corporate coach. I founded Decide youe Legacy in 2012 and our purpose is to help organizations and people live with courage, rise above, live with courage. That's it. So I often struggle with getting defensive and actually people who can get defensive.

I brace myself for interactions that I know could and I will receive some pushback. That doesn't mean I shouldn't say what I want to say to help them. It's not about me, but it doesn't mean it's easy either. Here's what I do to go into interactions and I've had a number of them over the last week to go into interactions prepared for a potential defensive response. It's

painful to deal with this. I believe that a lot of people get defensive because they're afraid of being looked at as incompetent. They're afraid of somebody taking advantage of them. So if I don't tell them the truth about this situation, they're going to use that against me. They're going to see me as not doing my job. They're going to judge me. I'm not going to have opportunities when the opposite is true. Your defensiveness actually makes the

problem worse. And collusion is a word I want you to grasp. Collusion, the definition, and I really like this because it motivates me to not be defensive is it's. I mean, this is the definition. A secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy in order to cheat or deceive others. Wow. So when we're engaging in defensiveness, and there's a big difference between defensiveness and just making a point, pointing out facts. And it's the heart.

It's the heart. And that's something I'm going to challenge you to consider. Where's my heart? Why am I doing this? What is my objective? Is it guarded or is it open? That's going to give you some indication. But we collude. We actually engage in deceptive activity when we're getting defensive. Do you want to do that? That's the problem. So here are three steps that you can take to prepare and to go into these interactions when you may have a tendency where you

may have a tendency to get defensive. Okay, the first one is to remember

it's not about you. If you can grasp and make that kind of shift to say it's really not about me. Their behavior is a reflection of them and what's going on inside of them. Their behavior has potentially nothing to do with what we're talking about here. It can go and be stemming from way back in their life. And I may perceive it as it being about me, but it's not about me.

That makes you. Helps you to step back and see the big picture and realize that everything you say is probably not going to sink in, even if you say it in this situation. And defensiveness to recognize it. It comes in many different forms. You may thinking about somebody who's loud and obnoxious and they just have to get the last word. And that is one form of defensiveness. But defensiveness also can be from avoidance,

passive aggressive behavior. They're defending through not addressing anything at all. It can come in the form of distraction. I'm defensive in the form of not actually being willing to talk about the core issues at hand. You're bringing up other issues frequently rather than facing the one main one. And a key indicator of somebody being defensive is this flavor of avoidance. I'm going to avoid through excuses, through negativity, through passivity.

I'm going to avoid. When you recognize that it's not about you, then it's not an attack. It's not personal. It's something you can actually feel some empathy for. And you can see them as a person who is struggling rather than somebody who is trying to bring you down. Because your mindset is like, they've gone through a lot of stuff. They had a bad day, they don't feel great about themselves. They don't feel like they contribute. There's something else in that

situation. This not about me attitude makes you check your own perspective about why you may be feeling defensive. What is it about you that is occurring in this situation and what has happened in your life that leads you to interact with this defensive person in a way where you have to guard yourself. That is going to give you some clues. Maybe. Maybe you want to be a person who is always looked at as smart, or the person who has the answers or the person who

has the ability to contribute in every situation. I mean, it's a humbling thing to say. I don't know. I don't have the answer, but I'll research it and I'll find out. When it's not about you, you're willing to do that. That's where the stress leaves. Because you have more time and opportunities. It doesn't have to be fixed in this specific moment. You can listen and understand when you're defensive.

You're formulating your response even before you're actually listening. That's one of the costs of being defensive. You don't actually understand. You stay in a guarded place. You aren't even able to build relationships because of that wall between you and somebody else because you're not willing to put it down. Their defensiveness does not mean that you have to be defensive as well. In fact, the likelihood of them not interacting in that way is directly is influenced greatly in a direct

fashion. If you can stay calm and you can

remember that it's not about you. So real client conversation that I had recently, a lady who can get defensive with her husband, and there are certain things that her husband will say that trigger this defensiveness. And I asked her, well, what are those things? And as we talked about it, and it wasn't really the easiest conversation. They were things related to managing time productivity. And I don't think this husband was being a control freak or

anything like that. Her answer, as we discussed it was, he says things that are actually true. He points out things in my life. He shines light on it in a way. And she described it as in a compassionate, caring way. But I get defensive because I don't like the fact that I spend time on these specific activities. They weren't necessarily time wasters, but they were things that weren't as productive and encouraging in her life. They weren't helping her at the same level that other activities help.

And that was insightful. That was stepping back and seeing that her defensiveness was rooted in her not wanting to change these parts of her life where she isn't using her time wisely. Her words, not her words. So. And she even said, you Know, he points out the ways that I can be selfish. Whether or not she's being super selfish, I don't know. I don't have the details. But our defensiveness, their defensiveness can easily be related to things that they don't want revealed that are true.

And if you remember that it's not about you, you can have empathy for it being hard to shine light on areas that are dark. The darkness can't hide anymore. It can get into more darkness, and that's sometimes what happens. But it can't hide for that moment in the darkness. So the second step thing to focus on here, one is to remember it's not about you. I'm going into this interaction. It's not about me. It's not about me. And the second thing is you can get

curious. And I'm. You've heard me say this. All my corporate, all the Decide youe Legacy clients, I mean, they know this. Be curious. Be

curious. So. So by curiosity, you're taking the focus off of you and you're putting it towards some kind of production productive interaction where you're getting to know somebody better, you're understanding the situation better. There's loads and loads and loads of opportunities to learn about

somebody else. When you see somebody, even when they're difficult as having value and counting the same as you and somebody you can learn about and get to know and understand, then it's going to lead you to want to interact in a way that's productive, where it's moving the needle and where it's not destructive. And which, by the way, productive meetings for businesses. And I get this all the time. In fact, I'm going to do a podcast in the next few on how to have a great meeting. Something that I

hear a lot. But as I've talked about this today, it reminded me that meetings where people get defensive, they don't move the needle on solving a problem. They just use that as a distraction to not actually address the core issue. That defensiveness guards them from actually making progress and it makes meetings suck. And that's why people don't like meetings, because they don't make progress. I see meetings that companies

have where they're excited to go. I had one last night with a company leadership team. They're excited to engage because they're making progress. And the structure and the leadership and ownership of how we can get defensive adds to that progress. It makes that environment fun. And who shouldn't have fun at work. I know Troy likes to have fun. We like to have fun. Okay. Fun is good. So another client, Real Situation, had

talking about some difficult interactions at work. He was able to identify that his defensiveness often comes from not knowing the answers and wanting to appear as if he does know the answers. So his heart is. Isn't in the right place, his motive isn't in the right place. He's new in his position, he's very competent, he's very smart. He, he's around other very competent, smart people. So bunch of architects and newer in that kind of role.

And it comes out as defensiveness. So he's bracing when asked questions to give a response that makes him look competent and it leads him into interactions where there's not an exchange of information because those questions oftentimes are just curious questions and people are trying to get to know him and understand. But that defensive response kills the progress and it's not what we actually want. We stay guarded. We don't grow. We let our guard down. We're open out of hope, we grow.

Hope versus fear. Big deal. So if you want to work

on this, I'll tell you. When you go into interactions potentially where you know, you might get defensive, it's really essential to recognize how your own personal, I don't necessarily like the phrase self care, but your own personal self care is impacting it. So if you didn't get enough sleep, if you're not eating healthy, if you're not getting exercise, and also if you're not going into those interactions prepared, so know what

you're dealing with so you don't give your power away and don't. That's exactly what you do when you get sucked into someone else's defensiveness. You're giving all the power and productivity to somebody else. In fact, it's not productive, but you're giving anything good that could have come out of that interaction is being thrown away because now you're just spinning in collusion,

making it worse. And you're going on a tangent which isn't leading you towards progress, which discourages everybody, including yourself. Don't want to do that. So what I like to do is have some questions prepared in advance if things go south. So what you can do is even somebody is defensive and you know and you can ask the question, can you tell me more? You're getting curious. So they have to give you specific examples potentially or even ask that question. Can you give me specific examples?

I can tell this is bothering you. I would really like to learn more. I'm curious. Can you give me an example? Or you can ask similar Questions in a defensive manner, which happens. And that's not what I'm talking about here. Crossing your arms and shaking your head and saying, can you tell me more? You know, opening your, your arms up, that's not a open posture. So it has to be a genuine curious question, right? There has to be, or else it's going to

collude. And you don't want to collude. If you go in knowing that if things go really south in that interaction and you're probably caught off guard with some of these defensive interactions, but you can always remember that other people in the situation, you can ask them questions and that can take people out of that emotional place into their prefrontal

cortex where they have to think. And that's what you want. Because defensiveness comes out of the part of the brain that's emotion centered, called the amygdala. And thinking doesn't come from that same space. You can see this in interaction. So people start to think and they start to let their guard down. So third action to take keep in mind when going into potentially difficult conversations is your time horizon. Okay, so what I mean by this is time is a big deal. It's

the way we orient ourselves to life. I had a client recently that interacted with me in a way where it seemed like he had to make every decision that day. Everything was urgent and important and just discussing things and his age and realizing in the conversation that he wants to be in this career that he's in for the next 30 years potentially, well, he's got lots of time to make mistakes and try new things and learn how to delegate. It doesn't have to

happen today. Now, when people bring up money, a lot of times there's urgency tied to that. Even that. If you think I have lots of time to make money and lose money, but get better at making money, that's expanding your time horizon and it's going to decrease your anxiety going into potential difficult interactions. Because if they get defensive, and if you get defensive and you collude, well, you're going to have opportunities to learn. I don't want you to do that, but you're going to have

opportunities to learn from that. If you are in an interaction and you don't feel like it goes anywhere because of their defensiveness, well, you have a longer term time horizon, that's okay. And you can still get a lot out of this interaction if, if you handle it, if you do your part, if you do your. So you can practice, that gives you the freedom to practice. You have lots and lots of time and lots and lots of chances. Seven up right

there. So my buddy Brent, who is good friend and he's a therapist, and I refer clients to him because that's not our world. It was my world in the past. But he, as I was talking to him, can talk about and be a little bit hard on himself. You know, I should have done this differently with this client. You know, I wish I would have known that before or when am I going to learn how to engage in a way where helps the client, you know, better, like other people help clients? I mean, that's not the

verbatim in our conversation. But I asked him, though, because he's a little older than me. I said, do you want to be doing this in 20 years? And his answer was, quickly, yeah, if I can get past some of this junk right now, is the gist of what he said. And, well, how

good do you think you'll be in 20 years? And he said, well, I'll probably be better than I am now. And then we talked about, well, if you're going to be doing this 20 years and you're going to keep getting better at it, then what are the actions you should focus on now over the next 90 days that are going to help you to keep getting better? And he had certain tasks and actions that he could engage, and one was working on his patience with himself, and another was related to some training

and application of that training. But he had some ideas. But I could see in him, at least my perception was it relieved a lot of the tension about from him going into these interactions, which you can deal with defensiveness as a clinician and other people. I mean, that is that resistance to change. It's the big fear people have. It's a big fear and loss of connection. And you risk, you risk, you go into a therapeutic interaction.

I mean, it's like they can get defensive. So you got time, you got chances, which is a great, encouraging, exciting thing. And if you go in that way, like, for me, I made a shift about two years ago. A year and a half. Well, I would say a year and a half ago. And the shift was that because there were times in my life where I just wanted to make money fast in my career. I wanted a home run, like. And I do projects and sell courses and have tried new things. And I

want it to work at a high level right away. I have this urgency addiction. But I remember reading a book and having some conversations with some other business leaders, and it started to sink in that I'm going to be doing this for a long time and I'm going to make mistakes and it's okay. I like to think of myself doing this for at least 27 more years. Running

the side youe Legacy, doing coaching and doing more and more. What is fascinating and motivating to me most, which is coaching and which is creating content, which is. And there's some things that are just irritating for me and learn how to delegate that. But that time horizon is like, I can go into interactions and I can experiment and I can give myself some grace if it doesn't go well. Total shift for me. I mean, when I keep that mindset in place. So

you want to do that as you go into interactions. I mean, give yourself some grace as you go in and deal with other people's defensiveness. So I want to share a story that this is something that happened. This happened a couple months ago and I was. I had a meeting with a number of business owners. So they all own a specific business and one of the owners was very skeptical about engaging corporate development our services. And I knew that I had never

met him. I had met two of the owners. I had not met two of the owners. But I knew the guy had been in this job for over 30 years. He had been a big part of the success of the company. There had been a number of different changes. The organization wants to grow a lot of things that were good and positive. But this level of defensiveness, I knew it was going to be something I was facing that day. And I'll tell you what, I mean, for a long period of time, I was

dreading having that interaction. I was like, it's not going to go well. My inner roommate is, you know, he's not going to like me. One of those things. It. They're not going to want to work with me, you know, but do I want to work with them? I don't even want to have this meeting. You should cancel the meeting. It's not going to be useful anyway. I knew that was fear. I knew that wasn't healthy. When I could make the shift to say, I want to help these people and if I can,

let's see if we can move forward. But we got to have this interaction to even see if it's possible for me to help this company for decide your legacy to help them. And so sure enough, and this has happened to me many times. It's not like I haven't experienced this before, but I knew when I was going in that he was going to be Defensive. And he questioned my credibility. So it was more like, you know, who have you helped? You know, what's your education? Why are you qualified to help us?

You're not in our industry, which I'm not in that industry. I'm the only. I'm not in any of the industries of the companies that we actually work for. So that's fine. I mean, he knew the answer to these things. But going into that interaction, I ended up le. I ended up. It ended up being a very good interaction, so very defensive. And what I did is I said, hey, can you tell me more? I'd like to know more. What is the concern that you have?

And this has happened numerous times. But his response to that was to not answer that question and to let the other people in the meeting ask their questions. And he interacted at a higher level after that. Because I didn't collude and say, well, I've helped all these companies and I've got this education or whatever. That stuff didn't matter to him. And I'm not big on that kind of stuff either. As far as showing people's credibility,

I'm big on results. So this company has gotten this result, this person has gotten this result. Yes. And I believe training is valuable and experience is valuable. Don't get me wrong. There to him, to build trust. I asked a question, I got him to think. He didn't answer the question. And during the rest of the interaction, they were good times where he was engaged and there were times where he wasn't. I left that

meeting and I believe, even. I believe all four, although one individual, this individual probably wouldn't, I don't believe, would have admitted it at the end of the conversation. He will admit it now, but it was an interaction where we were energized. I was energized. I could tell they were energized because there was some action that could be taken based on that conversation. Defensive person, difficult interaction, but a really positive and productive one. So if, if you.

Just to summarize, you're going to go into interactions, you're going to have to face it. You're going to have situations. So you remember three things. This is your training. This is what you practice, what you leave with. It's not about you. It's not about you. It's about them. It's about them. It's about the issue at hand. It's about something bigger and better and. And greater. Not that you're not great. I know you're great. You can get curious and

Tap into that curiosity and expand your time horizon. Man. Cut yourself some slack. Is it really going to be the end of your life if you deal with a defensive person? It's going to help you to be calm because you don't have to defend because you have an expanded time horizon. So check out Shatterproof Yourself Light. Follow me and check out this content. It's free. You can download it on the app. You can go through the content on your browser, on

your computer. And one of the sections is on channeling hope rather than fear because defensiveness creates fear. It is fear. It is fear externalized right there. Watch the Hope vs. Fear cycle in the app in that course. Check it out and then we have the full version of Shadow Proof Yourself. Seven small steps to a giant leap in your mental health. Check that out. If you like Shadow Proof Light, check that out as well. Nothing will make my day more better.

That's not good grammar, but nothing will make me happier than knowing you took action on something based on this content today.

And I would encourage you to do something to take action by the end of the day because that will make it stick. Nothing's more important than action, and insight is less valuable. You're gaining insight today. Apply something you learned. To decide means to eliminate other options. Your legacy is the impact your life has on other people. There's no positive change until you decide to change. I want to close the way I always do. Live the life today that you want to be remembered for 10 years

after you're gone. You decide your legacy. Nobody else. I appreciate you greatly and I'll see you next time. Sam.