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Welcome to Episode 352 of The Non-Anxious Leader Podcast. I'm Jack Shitama, and I am back after over two weeks on vacation. And normally, I will do a little bit of work while I'm gone, but this time I did the very, very bare minimum. I really didn't work on anything while I was gone, and I am feeling very renewed. So it's good to be back with a new episode. If you're new to this podcast, you can connect with me at jack@christian-leaders.com thenonanxiousleaders.com, with your questions, comments, and suggestions for new episodes. In fact, this episode comes from a suggestion from a listener. You'll find out more about that when we get into the episode. You can also get more resources at thenonanxiousleaders.com, where you can find out about the books that I've written, the courses I offer, my speaking engagements, and my coaching practice.

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You can also subscribe to my two-for-thusday email newsletter at thenonanxiousleaders. Com or at the link that I will provide in the show notes. And finally, if you want to support my work, you can do so for as little as $5 a month. I will put a link in the show notes where you can get all the details. Thanks in advance for your consideration. And now, without further ado, here is episode 352, How Fogging Can Help You Be a Non-Anxious Presence. Thanks to long-time reader and listener Ken Brummel for providing the idea for this episode. He wrote me an email to tell me about how fogging helps him to be a non-anxious presence and actually gave me a really helpful example. The fogging technique is a communication strategy introduced by Manuel J. Smith in When I say no, I feel guilty. It involves calmly acknowledging any element of truth in another person's critical or aggressive remarks without becoming defensive or argumentative, that is, without becoming reactive. By fogging their criticism, that is, agreeing neutrally with what's accurate, you remove the emotional fuel they need to escalate the conflict. This can help diffuse the tension and prevent the expected hostile reaction.

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Ken encountered the fogging technique in, a communication course that was teaching laity to visit members who had dropped out. Lab 1 was started because in the first attempt, all the laity met very hostile people and were not able to protect themselves themselves emotionally. They stated they would never try this again. The pastor developed Lab 1 to help members protect themselves emotionally. According to Ken, in fogging, you picture yourself as a cloud with a seven 147 barreling towards you. Instead of panicking, you let the plane fly through you. It's a form of active listening that looks passive because you accept the truth of the statement without accepting any part that's untrue. I want to make several points about this. First, you need to be able to self-regulate your reactivity. That is, you need to be able to interrupt your automatic response that gets defensive or aggressive or adaptively just gives in. Second, fogging is a way to stay connected while avoiding a conflict of wills. Instead of withdrawing or emotionally disconnecting, or instead of fighting back, you respond calmly. Third, in my books, I write that one way to avoid a conflict of wills is don't argue, don't agree.

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Fogging is close to this in that you don't argue and you only agree with the parts of the statement that are true. This reminds me of a principle that Sherzad Shemim, who wrote Positive Intelligence, teaches, which is the 10% rule. In any situation, what the other person says is at least 10% true. There is at least 10% truth in what somebody else says. By agreeing with whatever is true in the other person's statement, even if it's a small percentage, you are avoiding a conflict of wills without agreeing with any untruth. How do you put fogging into practice? First, you listen to the aggressive comment and identify any truthful kernel in what has been said. Second, you respond in a calm, steady tone by acknowledging that element. Something like, Yes, I see that, whatever they said, without any excuses or counterattacks. Remain a non-anxious presence. Third, keep your answers brief and neutral, offering no emotional hooks for further criticism. Don't give them any reason to fight back. Finally, repeat this process as long as necessary until the aggressor either calms down and or gives up trying to provoke you. Here's an example of this conversation from a website called Revolution Learning.

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I'll put a link to this article in the show notes. Suppose a colleague says, You're over 15 minutes late for our meeting this morning. Where have you been? You respond, You're right. I am 15 minutes later than planned, and I can see this is frustrating. Frustrated? Yes, I'm very frustrated. I could have been working on something else. I recognize that you could have been working something else during the time I wasn't here. In the future, you better let me know when you're going to be late. Yes, I should have tried to let you know that I was running late. Why were you late? Is everything okay? Now, you can see at the end there, the colleague starts to calm down and actually starts to ask about what was going on with you. Maybe that will occur and maybe not. But the idea here is that you remain calm and you agree to any truth in their statements. In reality, what you're doing is you're taking responsibility for self. You're owning your part of whatever is going on here without giving in to the desire for a conflict of wills. They may be trying to pick a fight with you, but you are not going to give them the fight that they are looking for.

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I view Fauging as being halfway between the don't argue, don't agree position and Edwin Friedman's principle of paradox. The latter not only agrees with the other, but pushes it further, even to the extreme, often in a playful way. In this example, when the colleague says, You're over 15 minutes late for our meeting this morning. Where have you been? You respond, I would have been on time, but I was trying to think of ways to make everybody on the team mad. That's disrespectful. Yeah, that's me. Funny. My mom used to tell me that, too. In this case, I think you would agree that fogging is probably more helpful and easier to pull off than paradox. One way to think of this is to identify if someone is upset with something you did, rightfully or not, or when someone is triangling you with something else that's going on inside of them and has nothing to do with you. Even then, it's often hard to pull off paradox because it can often come off as sarcastic. In contrast, fogging avoids that pitfall while also avoiding a conflict of wills, even when someone else is triangling you. Here's the example that Ken sent to me, and I'm going to read it verbatim.

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My eighth grade class in a small rural community would go to three different high schools. This meant they were often bullied initially as they did not have a larger circle of friends. I decided to teach fogging to help them with high school. I taught the concept then said, For the next 10 minutes, I'm going to allow you to break the rules on how you speak to me. After the 10 minutes, the school rules will apply again. The first boy speaking said, You're gay. I responded, I could be more masculine. A second student stated, Your clothes look like they came from the reject barrel at goodwill. I responded, I could dress better. This went on for a time when the first boy who tried several insults was coming to tears. I had never had this reaction when teaching this, so I asked him, Are you okay? He said, Those are my best insults. They always get a reaction. Another boy stated, If someone talked that way to him, he would punch them. When you understand understand you are not passive but active, you do not need to punch the other person. Often, bullies will do this to get you to punch them so that you are reacting.

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The goal of teaching this is so you can choose your response. The important thing about fogging is to understand that it's one tool in your toolkit of responses to help you remain a non-anxious presence in anxious situations. The best way to get better this is to learn to practice fogging in less anxious situations. It's like any other approach to being a non-anxious presence. If you can learn to do things when things are less anxious, you'll be better able to do them when things get tense. Learning to find the truth in what others say, even when they aren't reactive, will help you to take responsibility for self, which is a key part of self-differentiation. The more you do this, the better you will at doing it in more challenging moments. That's how you grow as a non-anxious leader. That's it for episode 352. Thanks again to Ken Brummel for the information for this episode. Remember that you can send me your suggestions for future episodes, along with your comments and questions to jack@christian-leaders.com, and you can get more resources at thenonanxiousleader.com. If you have found this episode helpful, please share share it with someone who would benefit, and please leave a review on your podcast platform of choice. Thank you for your help. Now, until next time, go be yourself.