Reinterpreting "Fighting Words"

Most of what feels like an attack is something else entirely: fear dressed up as aggression. In this episode, Matt unpacks why we're so quick to read hostility into other people's reactions, even when nothing personal is happening.

Drawing on a misunderstanding from a walk in the park, Matt walks through what's actually happening in the brain when someone goes on the defensive. He calls it the threat-processing continuum, a sliding scale that runs from calm to combative, and one that almost everyone moves along faster than they realize.

The conversation turns practical fast. Matt breaks down how leaders, partners, and parents can catch themselves mid-escalation and choose a different response, one built on curiosity instead of retaliation. It's a short, useful reframe for anyone who's ever snapped back at someone who wasn't actually trying to hurt them.

If you've ever walked away from a conflict wondering how it got so heated so fast, this episode will change how you see the next one coming.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to today's deep dive. I am so glad you're here with us today because um we're going to explore this core communication trap that honestly trips up almost every single one of us.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Yeah, it really does. And I'm just super excited to get into it with you today.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Same here. So our mission today is based on this really fascinating post by Matt Norman. It's titled Reinterpreting Fighting Words. And I'll jump right in with a story from the source material.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

So picture this you are out for an early morning walk in a massive wooded park.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Sounds pretty peaceful.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Right. It's quiet, it's peaceful, and you have your dog with you. And you know, this isn't some guard dog on high alert. This is a gentle 12-year-old golden retriever named Happy.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Oh, Happy.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Yeah. So because the park is basically empty, you decide to let him off the leash just to, you know, enjoy the woods. He trots a little bit ahead, rounds a bend, and suddenly he encounters a woman who is outrunning the trails by herself.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Okay, setting the scene.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

So you catch up to the two of them, and this stranger just entirely unloads on you. I mean, she aggressively screams right in your face, you need to keep your dog on a leash. There are coyotes here.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Wow. Which just completely shatters the piece of the morning right there.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Completely. And it you know, if you're anything like Matt, the author, your initial reaction is probably this weird mix of social politeness and just deep private annoyance.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

So Matt forces a smile, he thanks her, and he just keeps walking.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

But internally, he is bristling at the sheer audacity of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yeah, I mean, who wouldn't be?

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Right. He's thinking, like, I'm just letting my old dog walk freely. You really don't need to scream at me about the local coyote risks as if I'm some sort of terrible pet owner.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Yeah, he processes her screaming as this direct, completely unprovoked attack on his judgment. He essentially assumes she's passing this harsh, aggressive verdict on his character.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Okay, let's unpack this because here's the twist. The realization that hits him as he walks away completely flips the entire narrative.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Oh, I love this part.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

That runner, she wasn't scolding him for endangering his dog. She wasn't worried about what a coyote might do to Happy. She was terrified for her own safety because she thought his golden retriever was the coyote.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

That is just wow. That single shifting perspective changes the entire reality of the interaction.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

It really does.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

And you know, when we look at this through the lens of human behavior, it reveals that core communication trap we mention, which is really the whole mission of our deep dive today. Exactly. We constantly, constantly misinterpret other people's fear as a fight. We see the bared teeth, we hear the elevated volume, and we just immediately assume we are under attack.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Aaron Powell Yeah, we take it so personally. But you know, the million-dollar question for me is why our default setting is to assume aggression rather than terror.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

I mean, it seems like a massive biological oversight to confuse someone running for their life with someone like trying to start a brawl.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Well, to understand that, we really have to look at how our brains are wired. Specifically, this framework neuroscientists call the threat processing continuum.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Okay. The threat processing continuum.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Yeah. So culturally, we tend to put fear and fight into two completely different behavioral buckets, right? You probably picture fear as someone um cowering in a corner, shrinking away.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

And fight as someone puffing out their chest, getting ready to throw a punch. But neurologically, fear and fight are not distinct, separate events. They exist on a seamless, overlapping continuum within the brain's threat processing system.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

That's wild because I always just thought of the fight or flight response as this literal fork in the road. Like you perceive a threat and your brain just flips a coin to decide whether you run away or throw hands.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Yeah, that is a super common misconception, actually. But the biological mechanism is much more linear than that. You should really think of it as a sequence.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Okay, a sequence. How does that work?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Well, fear is the internal assessment of danger. It's the amygdala, which is basically the brain's alarm system going off and just flooding the body with adrenaline and cortisol. Fight is simply the resulting physical action deployed to conquer that danger. So you cannot have the fight response without the underlying fear assessment driving it.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Oh wow. So the hostility is really just the vehicle for the panic.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Exactly. What's fascinating here is how evolutionary biology dictates this. Like, think back thousands of years ago, right? A threat meant a literal predator.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Like a bear or something.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Yeah, like a saber-toothed tiger stepping out of the brush. When that happened, your amygdala hidnitster brain. It actually shut down the prefrontal cortex, which is the part responsible for logic and nuance.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

So no time to overthink it.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Right. And it instantly prepared your body for survival. Your heart rate spiked to pump blood to your muscles, your vocal cords tightened to produce louder, more intimidating sounds, and your posture became really rigid so you'd appear larger. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Just purely physical survival tactics.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Exactly. And the thing is, today, your brain still uses that exact same biological hardware to process threats.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Aaron Powell Man, I want to make sure we're visualizing this right for everyone listening. Because reading through the source text, an analogy popped into my head.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Oh, let's hear it.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

It's like imagine you are walking down the sidewalk, right? And you see someone frantically swatting their arms, stomping their feet, just making these chaotic, erratic movements toward you.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Oh, yeah, you'd think they were crazy.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Right. Your brain immediately says, This person is aggressive, they're attacking me. But in reality, they just walked face first into a massive spider web.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Oh, that is spot on.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

The physical action looks incredibly violent to someone watching. But the internal driver behind those thrashing arms is just pure panic. I mean, they aren't trying to hurt you at all. They're desperately trying to get a spider off their face.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Aaron Powell, that analogy captures the disconnect perfectly. When a person's internal threat alarm goes off, their external physical response changes in ways that mimic aggression. Their tone of voice becomes super sharp, their facial expressions harden because their jaw is physically clenching, their body language gets rigid, the words they choose become very abrupt.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Because they're in that survival mode.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Right. And to you, standing on the receiving end, all of those biological changes look and sound exactly like an unprovoked attack. You are reacting to the swatting arms, entirely unaware of the invisible spider web.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Aaron Powell That makes so much sense. So the runner yelling about the coyote, she isn't launching an offensive strike on mass character as a dog owner.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

She is simply terrified and aggressively trying to protect herself from a predator.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Okay, so the spider web analogy makes total sense for a physical threat, like a coyote or a venomous bug. But I want to bring this out of the literal woods and into an environment where honestly most of us probably experience this dynamic every single week.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

The workplace. Well, it happens because the brain's threat processing system, the amygdala, doesn't actually differentiate between physical danger and social or professional danger.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Wait, really? It treats them exactly the same.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

It does. The amygdala processes a threat to our status, our livelihood, or our ego with the exact same chemical flood of adrenaline and cortisol as a literal threat to our physical safety.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

That is wild. Let's use the specific scenario from the text to ground this ability. Imagine you were in a meeting, a junior colleague is presenting a new proposal, and out of nowhere, a senior executive jumps in and just aggressively shoots the proposal down in front of the entire team.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Ouch. Yeah, we've all been there.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

The tone is harsh, the words are super dismissive. On the surface, it just looks like a cruel, ego-driven power trip.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Right. And everyone in that room will interpret it as an attack. They will absolutely see the executive as the aggressor. Yeah. But if we apply the threat processing continuum to this, we have to look beneath the surface of that harsh tone.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Very often that executive is operating out of a place of deep professional fear.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Aaron Powell See, I struggle with this a bit. I struggle to see the executive as the victim here.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yeah, it's counterintuitive.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Because they hold all the cards, right? They control the budgets, they control the salaries. What could they possibly have to be afraid of in a standard Tuesday morning status meeting?

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Aaron Powell I get that. But the source material addresses this disconnect beautifully. The fears might be completely invisible to the team, but they are intensely real to the executive.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Aaron Powell Okay, like what?

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Well, leadership is often a highly vulnerable position, so that harsh reaction could stem from the fear of missing a critical quarterly target and facing the wrath of the board. Oh, sure. Or it could be the fear of a project spiraling out of control, which triggers their deep-seated imposter syndrome. Or, you know, maybe a fear that this new proposal exposes a flaw in a strategy the executive previously championed. I see. The proposal presented by that junior colleague somehow tripped a wire. It triggered that internal threat assessment. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

So the alarm bells went off, the logic-driven prefrontal cortex shut down, and the amygdala just totally took over.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Yes. And the executive's resulting action, that public harsh shutdown of the idea, was simply the fight response, trying to conquer that perceived danger to their career or their reputation.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Aaron Powell They're basically swatting at a professional spiderweb.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Okay, so what does this all mean? I can hear someone listening right now thinking, okay, the evolutionary neurobiology is super fascinating, but why should I care about the underlying feelings of a boss who is actively being a jerk to me or my team?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Aaron Powell Yeah, it's a fair question. It matters because of a very old, very true adage mentioned in the text, which is hurt people, hurt people.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Hurt people, hurt people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

When you are constantly on the defensive, assuming everyone who speaks sharply to you is deliberately attacking your character, you just end up living in a perpetual state of professional combat.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Aaron Powell And that is exhausting.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

It is entirely exhausting. But when you understand the underlying fear, you have the opportunity to replace your natural defensiveness with genuine empathy.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Let me play devil's advocate here for a second because I want to make sure we aren't gaslighting anyone listening to this deep dive.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Does understanding someone's hidden professional fear actually justify or rationalize the pain they cause with their sharp words? I mean, if a runner screams in your face in a park or a leader demeans a colleague publicly in a boardroom, isn't that still completely unacceptable behavior?

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Because we shouldn't just roll over and accept toxic behavior just because the person happens to be stressed out about a quarterly target, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:55

You are absolutely right to push back on that. It is a crucial, crucial distinction to make. The source material explicitly states that those behaviors are unacceptable. It is never okay for a leader to publicly demean a colleague. Just as it was an extreme, totally inappropriate reaction for that runner to scream at a stranger in a quiet prairie. Right. Understanding the neurobiology of fear does not excuse the behavior, and it definitely doesn't mean you shouldn't set boundaries.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Okay, so it's an explanation, not an alibi.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Well said. If we connect this to the bigger picture, reinterpreting the interaction isn't about excusing them or letting them off the hook. It's about fundamentally changing our response to the wounds inflicted on us. It is about taking back your own power in the interaction so you don't get swept into their adrenaline spiral.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

And here's where it gets really interesting, I think, because this is where the practical application comes in for all of us. By recognizing that their hostility is actually fear, you give yourself a choice.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

You no longer have to react purely on instinct. If you know the runner thinks your dog is a coyote, you don't need to reflexively defend your dog parenting skills. You don't need to launch this massive verbal counterattack in the boardroom.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Right, because that doesn't help anyone.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

No. You realize that doing so would just be burning your own relationship capital just to prove a point to someone whose logic setters are basically currently offline.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yeah, and trying to prove you were right to a panicked amygdala rarely yields a positive outcome. Seriously. The author of the source material actually offers some incredibly relatable, vulnerable confessions about this. He admits that auditing his own reactions has been a really difficult, ongoing lesson.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Yeah, he mentions falling into the trap repeatedly over the years.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

He does. He talks about um leaning on his car horn in traffic when someone cuts him off, or giving a piece of his mind to overwhelmed airline gate agents and dishing back sharp criticism to colleagues, and all of it in the name of self-defense.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Okay, the airline gate agent scenario is just so universally relatable.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Oh, completely.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

You're at the airport, the flight is delayed, the line is a mile long, you finally get to the desk, you ask a simple question, and the gate agent just snaps at you. They are terse, dismissive, maybe even rude.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

And your immediate instinct is to snap right back because you feel totally disrespected. You demand to speak to a manager, you raise your voice.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

We all feel that instinct. But let's look at the biology of that gate agent for a second. They are standing in front of a mob of 200 angry, frustrated travelers.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

It's a nightmare scenario for them.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

It is. Their threat processing system is completely redlining. They are terrified of losing control of the crowd, terrified of the verbal abuse they are anticipating, and terrified of the logistical nightmare unfolding on their screen.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

So they snap at you as a preemptive strike. It's a fight response entirely driven by their fear of the mob.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

And when you snap back, when you lean over the counter and raise your voice to defend yourself, you are really just confirming their brain's assessment that you are, in fact, a threat. You are validating the panic.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Exactly. You become the exact predator they initially imagined you to be. The author really highlights the harsh reality of his own aggressive counterattacks in those situations. Yeah. Leaning on the horn, yelling at the agent, snapping at the colleague. None of those actions built equity. None of them built mutual understanding. Right. And most importantly, none of his aggressive counterattacks made the other person feel any less afraid. It only escalated the tension, spiked the cortisol levels in both people, and made the whole situation substantially worse.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

You're essentially throwing gasoline on a biological fire.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

You really are, which is why changing our interpretation is ultimately an act of self-preservation. It protects your energy and it protects your professional relationships.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

So bringing this directly to you, the listener, if you want to master the art of interaction, whether that is navigating highly charged office politics, dealing with complex family dynamics, or honestly, just surviving the holiday travel season at the airport.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Good luck with that one.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Right. You need to start actively auditing your interpretations of other people's behavior, specifically the behavior you instinctively deem is offensive.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

It really requires a deliberate, intentional pause.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

The next time someone sends you a terse, all caps email, or cuts you off mid-sentence in a meeting, or just barks at you from across a park, you have to remind yourself that your initial assumption might be completely wrong.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

You have to question what is actually driving their adrenaline-spiked reaction.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Right. Because most of the time, it is not a calculated, deliberate mission to humiliate or hurt you. It is simply because they are afraid of something you can't see.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

It's the swatting arms and the invisible spider web all over again. Once you see the web, the flailing arms stop looking like a personal insult and they start looking like a desperate plea for safety.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

That's a great way to put it. This raises an important question for everyone listening, a question you can apply the moment this deep dive ends.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Okay, let's hear it.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Whose actions do you need to pause and reinterpret in your professional or personal life right now? Like, who is that executive, that gate agent or that runner in your world? Whose fighting words have you been taking personally when really they are just terrified of a coyote you haven't even noticed yet?

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Oh, that is the perfect question to reflect on. We know from the science we've covered today that fighting back only validates the other person's fear, right? Right. It just keeps their amygdala in control and their logic locked away. So I want to leave you with this final thought to mull over and a really practical way to test this theory out in the wild. If someone comes at you with those fighting words and you choose to absorb that perceived attack without retaliating, you actually hold the power to reset their biology. Wow. But it takes more than just, you know, remaining quietly annoyed. How do you practically disarm the coyote in the room?

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Yeah, how do you do it?

SPEAKER_01 16:56

You have to send clear physical signals to their nervous system that you are not a threat. You consciously lower the pitch and volume of your voice, you uncross your arms and you relax your shoulders, you slow down your cadence.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Hmm. That's really powerful.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Think about the profound power in that choice. By refusing to escalate, by managing your own physical signals of aggression, could your radical calmness be the fastest way to turn off their internal alarm? By remaining gracious in the face of hostility, you effectively prove to their highly sensitive, panicking threat processing system that there is no danger at all. And once the fear subsides, the fight disappears right along with it.