S2 Ep5: Congratulations on Winning That Imaginary Argument

Do you do this, too? 

Something feels off, and before you say a word, your brain writes a full script about what the other person meant, why they did it, and how it’s probably not great. I call this the “shower lawyer” habit, where you're arguing a case in your head that no one else even knows exists. This episode is about interrupting that pattern, because those private narratives feel protective but quietly wreck clarity, repair, and trust.

This season is grounded in one hard truth: leadership starts with self. That means noticing when you’re spinning stories, regulating your own reactions, and choosing questions over rehearsed arguments. We talk about a simple rule—don’t knit the sweater—so you can catch yourself turning guesses into certainty. From there, I share a few practical ways to separate fact from assumption, name what you’re feeling without defending it, and open a real conversation instead of extending the mental movie.

Conflict doesn’t need to be pleasant to be useful. One honest exchange can save months of distance, but only if you’re willing to drop the storyline and show up. If you’ve been rehearsing that argument in your head, consider this your nudge to pause, get curious, and talk to the actual human in front of you. 

Transcript

Welcome And Season Focus

Dr. Jen Fry 0:00

Welcome to Five with Fry. I'm Dr. Jen Fry. This podcast is about conflict and what it teaches us when we stop trying to avoid it. This season focuses on leadership starting with self. In five-minute episodes, we look at the internal work of leadership, self-awareness, emotional regulation, accountability, and the patterns that show up when things get tense. You don't get to lead past what you won't look at. In some episodes, I'll ask a guest one central question: What is a moment of conflict that changed you for the better? Different formats, same goal. To help you lead with more clarity by owning your own stuff and using conflict as a tool, not something to run from. Hey friends, it's Dr. Jen Fry, and today we're going to talk about stories. More importantly, we're going to talk about the stories that we tell ourselves about conflict and also during conflict. And if you're like me, when you're mad, sad, disappointed, upset, whatever the emotion is, you will tell yourselves the most in-depth stories about the situation and the person. I am an excellent shower lawyer. I will be able to defend evidence. I will be able to go after the witnesses. I can do everything in the shower. But it ends up always being very different once I finally talk to the person. And I don't think we acknowledge or sometimes even recognize how in-depth the stories are that we tell ourselves and how, in reality, they can actually be affecting us when we have the conversation with the person. Sometimes we can tell ourselves such an in-depth story that feels so true and actually isn't, that we don't know how to distinguish real from fake. And we've all done it. We've all told ourselves this narrative. We have got in depth in our mind. Well, this is the reason they did this, and this, and I know it. And I checked their email or I checked their social media, I checked all these things, and I know for sure. And in reality, it can all be a story that we told ourselves. And there's a woman named Francesca Ramsey, and she has kind of this quote, this story, whatever you want to call it, that my chief of staff, Don and I always say whenever we start to tell ourselves stuff, we say, Don't knit the sweater. And Francesca talks about how, you know, you get into maybe a conflict with someone and then you start knitting a sweater. You start telling yourselves, yourself all of this information, and you start telling yourself all these things, and you keep knitting the sweater, and you add arms to it, and you add a body, and then you add buttons, and you've knitted this whole sweater and you've never talked to the person. And so whenever we start to kind of spiral, we tell each other, don't knit the sweater, just have the conversation. And it allows for more conversation because you start to understand and recognize that you're telling yourself a story. And so it's really important for you to start recognizing, am I telling myself a story? Or is this something that I know to be true? Because we can get so far in our head with these stories that we can't get out of it. And it's gonna affect the reconciliation, it's gonna affect the apologies, it affects everything because we go so deep into our heads. You know, we might be telling ourselves a story, and then the person apologizes and they want to reconcile, but we've already told ourselves this story. And so whatever they're saying, we just don't believe because of the story we told ourselves. And so the thing I'm gonna ask you whenever you start to spiral and tell yourself that story is to say, I'm not gonna knit the sweater. I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna have the conversation. And I'm not saying that the conversation is easy, by no means it's hard as hell, but it will always be better than knitting a sweater and making up a story and living by that, and then realizing when you actually see the person in days, months, weeks, years that what you believed was completely untrue. And it meant that you didn't get to have a great relationship with that person. So I ask you don't knit the story, ask the questions. If this episode resonated with you, take a second to follow, rate, and share it wherever you listened. And if this conversation hits closer to home and your work, I also do keynotes, workshops, and facilitation. My goal is to help one million people have a better relationship with conflict, and it starts with you. Well, that's this episode of Five with Fry. Y'all take what you heard, sit with it, and use it. Remember, growth lives on the other side of that conversation. Don't waste the conflict, and thanks for listening.