Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
Speaker 1: and today we're talking super Communicating with Charles Dohig.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, think about any great relationship that you have,
Speaker 2: So whether that's with your partner or a friend, even.
Speaker 3: Like a boss or a supervisor.
Speaker 2: I'd say that in each of those examples, there's a
Speaker 2: really good chance that you're both pretty dang good at
Speaker 2: talking or communicating with each other. And you know, at
Speaker 2: the core of any healthy relationship is the ability to
Speaker 2: feel heard and to be understood, and that's what we're
Speaker 2: going to be discussing today. We're joined by Charles Dohig,
Speaker 2: the author of new book Super Communicators is coming out
Speaker 2: next week, where he explores everything from how marriage counselors
Speaker 2: teach couples to hear what it is that unsaid, to
Speaker 2: how NASA psychologists look for astronauts who are emotionally intelligent.
Speaker 2: He gives some incredible examples in the book, but inter personally,
Speaker 2: in our lives, deep meaningful connection to other people like
Speaker 2: it is vital to living a fulfilling life, but practically speaking,
Speaker 2: it's also really important when it comes to discussing money
Speaker 2: with a partner, for instance, and so we're gonna get
Speaker 2: into that as well. Charles, We're excited to have you
Speaker 2: on the podcast again.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me on. This is a real treat
Speaker 3: of course.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: The first question we ask every guest, even returning guests, Charles,
Speaker 1: is what they like to splurge on. And last time
Speaker 1: we spoke, I believe you had just bought an e
Speaker 1: bike and that was that was your big splurge and
Speaker 1: we could I can identify. I love my e bike,
Speaker 1: my rad wagon that throw the kids on the back
Speaker 1: of occasionally.
Speaker 4: What do you like to splurge on? Now?
Speaker 1: Has that been updated for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: So it has a little bit And I will say
Speaker 3: the e bikes worked out really really well. I was
Speaker 3: very very happy with the we got the rad power
Speaker 3: bikes also. But the I think the thing I splurge
Speaker 3: on now is I started paying for the fancy credit cards,
Speaker 3: not because like I want to impress anyone with a
Speaker 3: credit card that I'm caring, but because it gives me
Speaker 3: so many points and other benefits. And in particular, I
Speaker 3: I pay for the American Express Platinum card, which and
Speaker 3: the reason I like it is because what.
Speaker 4: Is that six andey five dollars.
Speaker 3: It's like something crazy. I mean, it's like every time
Speaker 3: they charge it once a year and I'm like, why
Speaker 3: am I doing this? But then I remember why I'm
Speaker 3: doing it, which is that I'm able to book things
Speaker 3: through their their travel website. And so whenever I check
Speaker 3: into a hotel, if you book it through their their
Speaker 3: travel website, they give you like free breakfast every morning,
Speaker 3: and like free valet parking, you know, one hundred dollars
Speaker 3: to spend at the risk on the property. And I
Speaker 3: will say that like it feels like such an indulgence.
Speaker 3: But when when I wake up and I'm like, you
Speaker 3: know what, I can go eat breakfast and have whatever
Speaker 3: I want because it's free.
Speaker 4: It's kind of a smart move. It's kind of the
Speaker 4: thing they're luny the way you get to right, Like.
Speaker 3: You said, you asked for a splurge. This is what
Speaker 3: I slurrege on. It's honestly, it's not.
Speaker 2: It's it's almost less of a splurge because it's just
Speaker 2: a smart financial move. If you know you're going to
Speaker 2: take advantage of the different benefits, it's less like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is something that has some sort of I.
Speaker 3: Think it's true except that it's the same way that
Speaker 3: like having a cost Co membership, you're like, well, i'll
Speaker 3: definitely save money on toilet paper, except that whenever you
Speaker 3: walk into Costco, you walk out with like three hundred
Speaker 3: dollars worth of stuff, right toilet paper. And so I
Speaker 3: think that's the thing that happens with the Amic Platinum
Speaker 3: is that I'm like, oh, it's a free breakfast, so
Speaker 3: I guess I'll stay at that slightly more expensive hotel.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So in that way, you're able to honestly enjoy travel
Speaker 2: a little bit more when you are going to do that.
Speaker 2: I can get behind that. Yeah, Charles, So, I guess
Speaker 2: the last time we had you on we were talking
Speaker 2: about the Power of Habit. Some of your other books
Speaker 2: you discussed accomplishment. Why did you pivot to writing about
Speaker 2: communications specifically here in this book.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, it's a great question, and the answer is that,
Speaker 3: you know, when I was writing The Power of Habit
Speaker 3: and Smarter, Faster, Better About Productivity, both of those books
Speaker 3: were really like focused on the individual, right, they were
Speaker 3: focused internally about how to become more successful. But the
Speaker 3: truth of the matter is that, like most people's success
Speaker 3: is not reliant just on themselves most of the time.
Speaker 3: If we managed to achieve our goals, or we managed
Speaker 3: to be a lead a happier and a healthier life,
Speaker 3: it's because we are working with other people, whether they
Speaker 3: be our spouse or coworkers, in ways that allow us
Speaker 3: to do that. And at the core of that is communication, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, we all know people who are masters in
Speaker 3: wonderful at communication and we see the benefits that they
Speaker 3: get from it. And the thing that I learned is,
Speaker 3: you know, in the last decade we've learned a lot
Speaker 3: about the science of communication, and anyone can become one
Speaker 3: of those people. Anyone can become a super communicator. And
Speaker 3: so I thought that was something important to share with readers.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you mentioned the term already. What is a
Speaker 1: super communicator at? Like, what's the goal we're aiming for here?
Speaker 1: We try to become the next Tony Robbins Philly have
Speaker 1: packed out stadium or something in getting people to jump
Speaker 1: up and down, or like, what are we going here
Speaker 1: for with the super communicator thing?
Speaker 3: What we're going for is we're going for connection. And
Speaker 3: here's here's the best way to think about what a
Speaker 3: supercommunicator is. Let me ask you guys. This So if
Speaker 3: you've had a bad day and like just and you
Speaker 3: need to talk to someone who you know is going
Speaker 3: to make you feel better, Like just talking to them
Speaker 3: is going to really help. Does that person pop into
Speaker 3: your mind immediately? Like, do you know who you would
Speaker 3: call right away?
Speaker 4: Yep? Yeah, for sure?
Speaker 3: Who? And who is it?
Speaker 4: Wife? Same here? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So your wife for you is a super communicator,
Speaker 3: and you are probably a super communicator for your wives. Right.
Speaker 3: You have the ability to connect almost effortlessly, to make
Speaker 3: each other feel genuinely listened to and heard, to speak
Speaker 3: in a way that the other person doesn't have trouble
Speaker 3: understanding what you're trying to tell them. And this is
Speaker 3: what super community. Now, there are some people who can
Speaker 3: do this consistently, who can do this with almost anyone, right,
Speaker 3: And we've all met those people before. And what they're
Speaker 3: doing is they know a couple of skills that are
Speaker 3: really important. They think a little bit more about communication,
Speaker 3: and so they've taught themselves a few skills, either through
Speaker 3: practice or through intuition. But most importantly, super com communicators
Speaker 3: are people who show others that they want to connect
Speaker 3: with them. And it's that demonstration of wanting to connect,
Speaker 3: wanting to understand that makes us and this is hardwired
Speaker 3: into your brains, makes us feel closer and more trusting
Speaker 3: and to like the other person more and ultimately to
Speaker 3: feel happier. I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So one of those skills is actually question asking,
Speaker 2: Like that seems to be a really pivotal part of
Speaker 2: healthy communication. I think there's a study that you cite
Speaker 2: in the book that found that supercommunicators tend to ask
Speaker 2: something like ten to twenty times more questions than normal
Speaker 2: folks and conversations. Why is it that these questions are
Speaker 2: so essential to good communication?
Speaker 3: Well, it's so questions are really really powerful, and you're
Speaker 3: exactly right. They ask ten to twenty times as many
Speaker 3: questions as the average person. Now, some of those questions
Speaker 3: are quite like hey, what you make of that? Or like, oh,
Speaker 3: what'd you say next? Right, they're questions that are so
Speaker 3: slight we hardly even register them as questions. But what
Speaker 3: they do is they invite us into the conversation. They're
Speaker 3: showing that this person is listening, they're showing that they
Speaker 3: want to learn more, they're showing that they're interested in us,
Speaker 3: and that feels really good. But then The other types
Speaker 3: of questions that the supercommunicators ask are what's known as
Speaker 3: deep questions. And deep questions can sound intimidating, But what
Speaker 3: a deep question is is it simply something that asks
Speaker 3: someone to talk a little bit about their values, or
Speaker 3: their beliefs, or their experiences. And it can be as
Speaker 3: simple as you know, you bump into someone and you
Speaker 3: say what do you do for a living and they say, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm a lawyer? And you say, oh, oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 3: What made you decide to go to law school?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: Do you do you love practicing the law? What's the
Speaker 3: most interesting case you've handled recently? All three of those
Speaker 3: are easy questions to ask, right, they don't seem like
Speaker 3: they're deep or overly intimate. But what I'm really asking
Speaker 3: that person is tell me about who you are, tell
Speaker 3: me about the experiences that led you to this career.
Speaker 3: Tell me about what you love about your work, Tell
Speaker 3: me about what makes you passionate. Those are really really
Speaker 3: powerful things to ask someone. And what we know is
Speaker 3: that if somebody answers those questions, they will expose inevitably
Speaker 3: a little bit of vulnerability. They'll tell you something meaningful
Speaker 3: about themselves. And if you reciprocate. If you show something
Speaker 3: meaningful about yourself, you'll feel close.
Speaker 1: Can asking too many questions ever be a negative? Like so,
Speaker 1: for instance, Charles, I was at a hang with some
Speaker 1: people I didn't really know very well. I'm used to
Speaker 1: working in like radio for so many years, and you
Speaker 1: know what the enemy was dead air, right, and so
Speaker 1: you fill every space with question or conversation. And so
Speaker 1: I'm pretty good at this point at asking people questions
Speaker 1: and pulling them out. But then sometimes I'll walk away
Speaker 1: from that conversation and I'm like, I don't know if
Speaker 1: they know me at all. So I guess can asking
Speaker 1: questions ever become can never backfire if you're maybe like
Speaker 1: me and you're just on the question asking offensive all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 3: Yes, So it's a really really good question because we've
Speaker 3: all been in that situation where it feels like we're
Speaker 3: asking question after questions and it feels more like an
Speaker 3: interview or an interrogation than a conversation, right, And that's
Speaker 3: not what we want to go for. As I mentioned
Speaker 3: this back Joel, exactly, this reciprocity thing is really really important.
Speaker 3: And so oftentimes what we find when we ask a
Speaker 3: deep question is that it's very natural for us to
Speaker 3: answer the same question even if it's not asked, because
Speaker 3: some people, some people are not good at asking questions, right, Like,
Speaker 3: we ask us a couple of questions and then we
Speaker 3: kind of wait for them to ask us a question back,
Speaker 3: and they don't. But one of the nice things about
Speaker 3: deep questions is that we can say, oh, oh, you
Speaker 3: went to law school because like, you had this experience
Speaker 3: as a kid seeing like you know, injustice. It's interesting.
Speaker 3: I went to medical school for kind of a similar reason.
Speaker 3: I like saw, you know, parts of my city that
Speaker 3: we're getting medical care. The thing about deep questions is
Speaker 3: that they set us up to answer the same question ourselves,
Speaker 3: even if it hasn't been asked, And that's what gets
Speaker 3: us out of that interrogation interview format. That's the thing
Speaker 3: that allows us to start connecting with each other. Because
Speaker 3: this our brains are actually hardwired to pay attention to
Speaker 3: anything that looks like vulnerability. And this actually makes sense,
Speaker 3: right because in the past, if if an individual was vulnerable,
Speaker 3: that meant that they were the weakest part of your tribe,
Speaker 3: or that if you were attacking, that that's the person
Speaker 3: to attack. And so our brains evolved to pay really
Speaker 3: close attention to anything that seems like vulnerability. That's the
Speaker 3: loudest form of communication possible. Now, vulnerability can be as
Speaker 3: small as saying, oh, I went to law school because
Speaker 3: you know, I saw like an uncle of mine get
Speaker 3: arrested once. And the reason why that's vulnerable is because
Speaker 3: it opens me up to your judgment. Now, I might
Speaker 3: not care about your judgment. I might not care at all,
Speaker 3: but simply opening myself to judgment it triggers those parts
Speaker 3: of my brain that make me pay close attention to
Speaker 3: how you react. And if you react by saying something
Speaker 3: equally meaningful, something equally vulnerable, then it'll it helps us
Speaker 3: feel closer to each other. In fact, we're almost powerless
Speaker 3: not to feel closer and more trusting of each other
Speaker 3: when someone engages in this reciprocity.
Speaker 2: That makes sense. Yeah, and you you outline in the
Speaker 2: book too how that it is very different than mimicry, right,
Speaker 2: and so, like a small example might be if we're
Speaker 2: talking about money, Let's say you are starting to set
Speaker 2: some financial goals. It's still pretty early on in the year,
Speaker 2: so maybe you're like, hey, what if we're able to
Speaker 2: achieve this we're not talking about just saying yeah, let's
Speaker 2: achieve that, right, and just being just parroting whatever it
Speaker 2: is that they maybe your partner's saying, but it might
Speaker 2: mean Okay, man, that's awesome, Like let me share with
Speaker 2: you what my hopes and dreams are. Yes, and hope
Speaker 2: obviously hopefully they align. But there's there's something there that
Speaker 2: goes beyond just imitation.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's exactly right, that's exactly right. And you know
Speaker 3: in improv they have this phrase yes and that whatever
Speaker 3: someone says, you have to say yes and to them
Speaker 3: and play building on it. And the same thing is
Speaker 3: kind of true in conversations, which is that when somebody
Speaker 3: brings something up, it's not enough to simply say It's
Speaker 3: not enough to simply listen or say that's interesting. What
Speaker 3: you have to do is you have to show that
Speaker 3: you're listening and then build on it. And in fact,
Speaker 3: when we have conversations in conflict, and oftentimes conversations about
Speaker 3: money involves some degree of conflict, right because we're might
Speaker 3: be feeling heated, or we might be feeling scared, or
Speaker 3: there's just a lot of emotions in conversations that involve
Speaker 3: just a little bit of conflict or a little bit
Speaker 3: of tension. There's a technique known as looping for understanding
Speaker 3: that has been shown to be incredibly powerful that does
Speaker 3: exactly what you just said. And what's important is that
Speaker 3: this technique works because it proves to the other person
Speaker 3: that you're listening to them, that you want to understand.
Speaker 3: And there's three steps to it. The first is ask
Speaker 3: a question, preferably a deep question, if you can. The
Speaker 3: second step is repeat back in your own words what
Speaker 3: you just heard them say, right, exactly what you just said.
Speaker 3: Don't mimic them, but if you have to take a
Speaker 3: couple of seconds to think about what you're going to say,
Speaker 3: that's okay, because what we're doing is we're proving that
Speaker 3: we're processing, we're proving that we're listening. And then step
Speaker 3: number three, and this is the one that most people
Speaker 3: forget but is a particularly important in conflict, ask if
Speaker 3: you got it right, because it might be that you
Speaker 3: didn't actually understand what the person was trying to tell you.
Speaker 3: But also by asking if you got it right, you
Speaker 3: give you're asking them for permission to acknowledge that you
Speaker 3: understand that you're listening closely, and as a result, they're
Speaker 3: going to want to listen closely back to you and
Speaker 3: understand what you're saying.
Speaker 1: You're using some therapist techniques here too, Charles in this book, right.
Speaker 1: And I know because my wife is currently in grad
Speaker 1: school to become a therapist, and we're talking about a
Speaker 1: lot of these concepts at home and how she's implementing
Speaker 1: them in the therapy room.
Speaker 4: I have a question too. We talked to the.
Speaker 1: Before we started recording about kind of COVID and the
Speaker 1: impact that that had. We mark our world now pre
Speaker 1: COVID and post COVID in so many ways, and how
Speaker 1: do you think that change the dynamics of communication for
Speaker 1: so many people as we maybe were treated more into ourselves,
Speaker 1: into our families. And Yeah, it seems like your book
Speaker 1: is so necessary right now as we're trying as getting
Speaker 1: back to normal and trying to figure out what it
Speaker 1: looks like to communicate in the real world again.
Speaker 3: Now. In fact, that's one of the reasons I wrote
Speaker 3: the book is I felt like I felt like post
Speaker 3: COVID we had forgotten a lot about communication. I also
Speaker 3: felt like we're living at a time and I don't
Speaker 3: think this is even controversial to say that a lot
Speaker 3: of people feel divided, right that we feel like we
Speaker 3: can't have conversations with people who who believe different things
Speaker 3: or come from different backgrounds, and that's really hard because
Speaker 3: we want to connect with those people. We want to understand.
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that happened during COVID
Speaker 3: is that people just fell out of practice of having conversations, right.
Speaker 3: I remember I was so I live in California now,
Speaker 3: but I was living in New York at the time,
Speaker 3: and I would read the subway every single day. So
Speaker 3: I was around, you know, hundreds to thousands of people,
Speaker 3: and then COVID happened, and suddenly all of that stuff.
Speaker 3: In any given day, I might see literally just my family, yeah,
Speaker 3: for a week or a month, and everyone who's listening,
Speaker 3: you've had this experience. And even now that COVID, COVID
Speaker 3: isn't over. But even now that the pandemic is done,
Speaker 3: I still see that there's fewer barbecues, there's fewer get togethers.
Speaker 3: We forgot how to talk to each other in an easy, conversational,
Speaker 3: fun way for some settings. And so the key there
Speaker 3: is literally just to practice it. Because our brains are
Speaker 3: designed to push us to talk to other people. Our
Speaker 3: brains are designed to push us to connect. That's communication
Speaker 3: has been Homo Sapien's superpower. The thing that allows us
Speaker 3: to succeed far better than any other species is that
Speaker 3: we can talk to each other. We can share ideas
Speaker 3: and feelings, and so learning reminding ourselves of the skills
Speaker 3: of how to do that can be really really valuable
Speaker 3: because that's where most of us find our meaning and life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: Also in the book, you talk about some of the
Speaker 2: different kinds of conversations.
Speaker 4: That we have.
Speaker 2: Charles, right, So how do we determine which kind of
Speaker 2: conversation with somebody?
Speaker 3: And there's actually a story involving me and my wife
Speaker 3: and money that kind of visit the core of this.
Speaker 3: So my wife and I we had this is like
Speaker 3: years ago, we went on this vacation to Florida and
Speaker 3: it was just the two of us, but we found
Speaker 3: a babysitter for the kids and we went to this
Speaker 3: like spa. We were in some resort and for some reason,
Speaker 3: money came up in our and like and we started
Speaker 3: arguing about money, like literally in the hallway of the spa,
Speaker 3: and it just and like we neither of us could
Speaker 3: let it go like like I was, like, you know,
Speaker 3: I was, I was. I was telling my wife that
Speaker 3: we need to budget more, but really I was really
Speaker 3: really angry. And she would come up with these these solutions.
Speaker 3: She would say like, look, here's a budgeting way, and
Speaker 3: here's a budgeting way. And I would say I say no, no, no,
Speaker 3: you're not listening to me, like like I don't. I
Speaker 3: don't want to solve this problem. I want you to
Speaker 3: understand like what I'm feeling. Yeah, And and like we
Speaker 3: argued for I don't know, an hour and a half
Speaker 3: in a spa. It totally it was terrible.
Speaker 4: It was the worst relaxed. Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 3: That great. So afterwards I started calling these researchers and
Speaker 3: asked them like what is happening here? Like why did
Speaker 3: why did why couldn't we stop this conversation? Why couldn't
Speaker 3: we hear each other? And they said, well, look, here's
Speaker 3: the thing you need to understand is that what the
Speaker 3: one of the big things we've learned in the last
Speaker 3: decade is that we think of a discussion as being
Speaker 3: about one thing. Like you thought your discussion was about money,
Speaker 3: but actually every discussion is made up of different kinds
Speaker 3: of conversations, and if people aren't having the same kind
Speaker 3: of conversation at the same moment, they won't really hear
Speaker 3: each other. So when you went into that conversation, you
Speaker 3: were having an emotional conversation and your wife, your wife
Speaker 3: was responding with a practical conversation, and those actually used
Speaker 3: different parts of our brains, And if you're not using
Speaker 3: the same kind of brain at the same moment, you
Speaker 3: can't really connect with each other. And most conversations fall
Speaker 3: into one of three buckets. There's usually practical discussions, which
Speaker 3: is what my wife was having, Emotional discussions, which which
Speaker 3: where you want to share how you feel and you
Speaker 3: don't want the other person to solve your problems, you
Speaker 3: want them to empathize. And then social conversations where we
Speaker 3: talk about how we relate to each other into society.
Speaker 1: So if we're both having the wrong conversation right then
Speaker 1: we're just kind of talking past each other. And she's
Speaker 1: coming up with suggestions because she thinks the problem is, hey,
Speaker 1: our budget isn't on track and we need to fix like,
Speaker 1: we need to fix that part of things, and you're
Speaker 1: saying no, like money is stressing me out, and it's
Speaker 1: got this more emotional component. How do we get on
Speaker 1: the same page that we're not talking past one another
Speaker 1: near the beginning of that conversation. Yeah, so that we're
Speaker 1: not wasting all that energy and you know, creating more
Speaker 1: relational emotional turmoil.
Speaker 3: Well, the first thing is just to recognize that you
Speaker 3: are having different kinds of conversations, right, just to just
Speaker 3: to kind of understand that they that that's why you're
Speaker 3: feeling to connect. And then this is where questions become
Speaker 3: so important, because the way that we figure out what
Speaker 3: kind of conversation is occurring, the way that we align
Speaker 3: with each other, is by asking questions. And sometimes it's
Speaker 3: as simple as asking a question like what does this
Speaker 3: mean to you. There's a story in the book about
Speaker 3: this guy, doctor Beifar, a guy who's a surgeon, a
Speaker 3: cancer surgeon, who kept on telling his patients that they
Speaker 3: didn't need to get surgery, and they would insist on
Speaker 3: getting the surgery even though he advised against it. And
Speaker 3: so he tried to figure out what he was doing wrong,
Speaker 3: and he talked to these professors at Harvard Business School,
Speaker 3: and what they said is they said, look, you're going
Speaker 3: into this conversation assuming you know what the other person
Speaker 3: wants that they want your advice. But what if you
Speaker 3: start by saying, what does this cancer diagnosis mean to you?
Speaker 3: To find out what they actually want a need out
Speaker 3: of this conversation. And so that's what he started doing.
Speaker 3: A patient came in. He said, tell me the first question, like,
Speaker 3: what does this cancer diagnosis mean to you? And the
Speaker 3: guy starts talking about how his own father had died
Speaker 3: when he was young and how that had really impacted
Speaker 3: him and his mom and he didn't want to do
Speaker 3: that to his wife. And Doctor Dy realized, oh, this
Speaker 3: guy isn't asking for medical advice. He wants to talk
Speaker 3: about the emotions of being worried for his family, trying
Speaker 3: to protect his family. So doctor Dye matches him what's
Speaker 3: known as the matching principle in psychology, and once they
Speaker 3: have that emotional conversation, then they can move onto practical
Speaker 3: topics and then they can talk about treatment options together.
Speaker 3: But the key is if you ask a question first
Speaker 3: and you listen, you figure out what each person actually
Speaker 3: wants out of that conversation.
Speaker 1: It's almost like the bedside manner needs to be there,
Speaker 1: not only in the doctor's office, but then also in
Speaker 1: our homes and in our friendships, like, yeah, we can't
Speaker 1: just address the optimization problem or you know, maybe this
Speaker 1: specific pointed thing, but we have to be able to
Speaker 1: identify with the person who's speaking to so we can
Speaker 1: have a conversation that actually lands us where we want
Speaker 1: to go and we want to get to. We've got
Speaker 1: more questions for Charles. We want to specifically talk about. Okay,
Speaker 1: what if we're having a budgeting conversation, how can we
Speaker 1: make those maybe more effective?
Speaker 4: Get a few more questions. We'll get to with Charles
Speaker 4: right after this.
Speaker 2: Right we are back from the break, We're talking about
Speaker 2: super communicating with Charles Douhig. And honestly, Charles, part of
Speaker 2: the reason we wanted to have you on is because
Speaker 2: money conversations they can just be fraught with peril. Like
Speaker 2: Joel mentioned just before the break, like a budgeting meeting.
Speaker 2: You gave an instance of how you and your wife, right,
Speaker 2: this is a trap that y'all kind of fell into.
Speaker 4: Make your hair stand on edge.
Speaker 2: And because of that, though, I think a lot of
Speaker 2: couples tend to tend to avoid some of these conversations,
Speaker 2: but then when they do that, they miss out on
Speaker 2: all the positive benefits of getting on the same page
Speaker 2: financially making progress.
Speaker 4: With their goals.
Speaker 2: So do you have any tips for those couples who
Speaker 2: might be avoiding the conversation because they're worried about the
Speaker 2: relational consequences?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: They don't want to fight, and is the first step
Speaker 2: maybe identifying what kind of conversation that you are about
Speaker 2: to have, sort of like you talked about just before
Speaker 2: the break.
Speaker 3: I think that's part of it, and I think even
Speaker 3: before you do that. So a lot of what we
Speaker 3: know about having conversations about money is also true about
Speaker 3: having conversations about topics like race and gender, which is
Speaker 3: really interesting, right because we don't think of those things
Speaker 3: as being similar, and yet they all tap into a
Speaker 3: lot of anxieties when we tell someone you need to
Speaker 3: talk about this. And so what happens with money is
Speaker 3: that oftentimes the thing that's preventing us from having the
Speaker 3: conversation and the thing that's ruining the conversation is that
Speaker 3: we have an anxiety about what's going to be said
Speaker 3: and how it's going to be heard, that we're afraid
Speaker 3: to voice the anxiety itself, and as a result, the
Speaker 3: anxiety pushes us to say to say things we might
Speaker 3: not completely want in the way that we don't want
Speaker 3: to say them, and it pushes us to hear things
Speaker 3: in the way that the other person isn't trying to communicate.
Speaker 3: So what's the first thing that we should do before
Speaker 3: we have a conversation about money. We should say, Look,
Speaker 3: let's have a conversation about money, right, Like, let's find
Speaker 3: the right time to do this. It's we're not going
Speaker 3: to do at two o'clock in the morning. We're going
Speaker 3: to do it at ten after the kids are left
Speaker 3: for school. But let's set aside half an hour and
Speaker 3: let's start by just saying, I want to acknowledge this
Speaker 3: is a hard conversation and it's going to be awkward.
Speaker 3: I might say the wrong thing, or say something in
Speaker 3: a way that I don't intend. You might misunderstand me,
Speaker 3: or you might say the wrong thing, and I want
Speaker 3: you to know I am not going to hold that
Speaker 3: against you, and I want to ask you not to
Speaker 3: hold my mistakes against me. So let's just acknowledge at
Speaker 3: the outset this is potentially an awkward conversation. Then the
Speaker 3: next thing that we can do is we can decide
Speaker 3: what kind of a conversation we want to start with. Now.
Speaker 3: The truth is that most of the time when we're
Speaker 3: talking about money, we think that we should start with
Speaker 3: that practical conversation, right. We think we should talk about
Speaker 3: making plans and creating budgets together and how that's going
Speaker 3: to work. But the thing that's happening in money conversation
Speaker 3: is that emotions are so pitched that they can ruin
Speaker 3: that conversation because I'm going to react with fear or anger,
Speaker 3: or I'm gonna hear something you're saying and not understand
Speaker 3: it because it taps into some anxiety that I have,
Speaker 3: and so oftentimes after saying this is going to be awkward,
Speaker 3: the first thing we can do is to say, let's
Speaker 3: start with an emotional conversation. Tell me, like, how do
Speaker 3: you feel about the money in our life right now?
Speaker 3: Are you worried, are you satisfied, Are you feeling okay?
Speaker 3: Are you feeling kind of uptight? Just tell me about
Speaker 3: how you feel, and then I'm going to tell you
Speaker 3: how I feel, and we're gonna loop each other. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna repeat back what I hear you saying to show
Speaker 3: that I'm proved, to prove that I am listening and
Speaker 3: also to make sure I'm getting it right. And then
Speaker 3: once we're aligned, once we've sort of gotten this emotional
Speaker 3: thing on the table, then we can start having a
Speaker 3: practical conversation.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think people often think that money and
Speaker 1: money conversations are about the spreadsheet, but so much a
Speaker 1: massive percentage of how we think about personal finances has
Speaker 1: to do with our background, our history. You know, how
Speaker 1: our parents handled money. There's so much emotional and historical
Speaker 1: kind of stuff we have to dig through. It's not
Speaker 1: just dollars and cents in spreadsheet stuff. And when we
Speaker 1: treat it like that, we're often at the risk of
Speaker 1: being misunderstood or not having a productive conversation, or maybe
Speaker 1: like overshooting and not really seeing what our spouse, our
Speaker 1: partner is going through.
Speaker 4: I want to talk to you. You say that the
Speaker 4: goal isn't.
Speaker 1: To win the conversation, right, but you also say that
Speaker 1: it is a negotiation of sorts. So how does taking
Speaker 1: the win loss approach set us up for failure and
Speaker 1: how does negotiation it make us actually have better conversations?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So, in psychology, what they refer to the starts
Speaker 3: of conversations. They refer to them as quiet negotiations, and
Speaker 3: you're exactly right that the goal of this negotiation, that's
Speaker 3: quiet negotiation, it is not to win, right, And oftentimes
Speaker 3: we go into a conversation thinking my goal is to
Speaker 3: get the other person to agree with me, or my
Speaker 3: goal is to convince them of something, or my goal
Speaker 3: is just for them to think I'm smart, But actually
Speaker 3: that sets our conversation up to be a failure. The
Speaker 3: real goal of any conversation is understanding each other. Simply
Speaker 3: understanding what the other person is trying to say, make
Speaker 3: sure that they understand you. And if you walk away
Speaker 3: disagreeing with each other, but you both understand each other,
Speaker 3: then that conversation is still a success. So this quiet negotiation,
Speaker 3: instead of trying to negotiate where I win something, my
Speaker 3: goal is to negotiate to understand what you want a
Speaker 3: need out of this conversation and to share what I
Speaker 3: want to need out of this conversation. That's how we
Speaker 3: create what's a win win negotiation. Right, whether it's it's
Speaker 3: a conversational negotiation or if you're trying to close a deal,
Speaker 3: the best deals are the ones where there is a
Speaker 3: win win, where everyone walks away happier, than they were before.
Speaker 3: And if we go into that beginning of the conversation
Speaker 3: and we say, look, my goal is to figure out
Speaker 3: what we both want to need and to understand, then
Speaker 3: what you'll start doing is you'll start doing these little experiments.
Speaker 3: And most of us do them without even realizing we're
Speaker 3: doing them. Right, we might we might make a joke,
Speaker 3: and then we'll look to see if the other person
Speaker 3: laughs along or if they're still serious. If this is
Speaker 3: a formal conversation, we might interrupt each other a few
Speaker 3: times at the beginning of the conversation to figure out
Speaker 3: is this a conversation where we pingpong back and forth,
Speaker 3: or is it one where you talk and then I talk.
Speaker 3: We conduct these experiments without actually even thinking about them.
Speaker 3: But super communicators, people who can do this consistently, they
Speaker 3: pay a little bit more attention to how the other
Speaker 3: person reacts. They try a little bit more, they experiment more,
Speaker 3: and most importantly, if they try something and it doesn't work,
Speaker 3: they don't see it as a failure. They don't see
Speaker 3: it as an awkwardness. They see it as a piece
Speaker 3: of data they can use.
Speaker 2: That's I mean, that's a part of why it's been
Speaker 2: so hard, I think for folks to communicate online. But right,
Speaker 2: like you talk about the body in the facialist comments
Speaker 2: are great now, but just like like you said, just
Speaker 2: picking up on like a sigh or a shifting in
Speaker 2: the seats, or like a waiver in someone's voice, like
Speaker 2: you talk a lot about that, and even how like
Speaker 2: babies that they're able to like there's a certain amount
Speaker 2: of hungry cry or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you got that.
Speaker 2: But even just the reciprocity that a baby exhibits when
Speaker 2: when they're looking at their mother.
Speaker 4: You talk a good bit about that in the book.
Speaker 3: That's that's exactly true. Now that being said, that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean you have to have that visual element right. In fact,
Speaker 3: one of the interesting things is that, again, because our
Speaker 3: brains are designed to be good at communication, they often
Speaker 3: adapt to the situation that we're in. So so one
Speaker 3: of my favorite examples of this is that when telephones
Speaker 3: first became popular about one hundred years ago, there were
Speaker 3: all these articles and studies saying telephones will never be
Speaker 3: used for meaningful conversations because you can't see each other.
Speaker 3: So it's basically going to be like the telegraph, where
Speaker 3: we use it to send you know, short messages or
Speaker 3: orders to the grocery store. And that was actually true
Speaker 3: when they wrote that. They have transcripts of people during
Speaker 3: that early period, and what you hear is that people
Speaker 3: have these very stilted conversations. They didn't know how to
Speaker 3: talk on the phone. Now, by the time you and
Speaker 3: I and everyone else listening was a teenager, we could
Speaker 3: talk on the phone for like seven hours in a stretch,
Speaker 3: right and have these real, meaningful conversations. And it's because
Speaker 3: we learned how to use the phone the same way
Speaker 3: that our kids today and ourselves are learning how to
Speaker 3: use online communication now. The key, though, is to pay
Speaker 3: attention to how different channels require have different rules. That
Speaker 3: when I'm I'm texting you, that's need to I need
Speaker 3: to communicate differently than when I'm emailing you, than when
Speaker 3: I call you, than when I see you. And most
Speaker 3: of us know this intuitively, but then sometimes we forget
Speaker 3: because everything's so fast moving. We jump online, we type
Speaker 3: a note to someone, we can hear the sarcasm in
Speaker 3: our own head of what we're saying, but when they
Speaker 3: read it, they don't read it as sarcastic. They read
Speaker 3: it as serious, and they get upset and so the
Speaker 3: key is just to remember our brains can adapt to
Speaker 3: new channels of communication, but we have to remind ourselves
Speaker 3: that the rules are different from channel to channel.
Speaker 4: That's true.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I want to go back to, like, as
Speaker 2: you were talking about the negotiation, the quiet negotiation process.
Speaker 2: I love how you wrote about the fact that like
Speaker 2: it's a creative endeavor. Yeah, you use language and similar
Speaker 2: language to kind of describe that, but basically what you're
Speaker 2: doing is by having that sort of quiet negotiation by
Speaker 2: sort of pingponging back and forth, especially when you are
Speaker 2: talking about something like again when it comes to money,
Speaker 2: is I think if you can go into something with
Speaker 2: an open mind, go into a conversation with an open
Speaker 2: mind and not necessarily having a fixed and goal, you
Speaker 2: both both partners might end up at a goal or
Speaker 2: result that neither one of them could have come to
Speaker 2: on their own, where there's maybe a little bit less
Speaker 2: sacrifice than either one of them could have ever imagined.
Speaker 2: And how that's just such an important part of the
Speaker 2: communication process.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, And think about how think about how
Speaker 3: powerful creativity can be in finding new ways to talk
Speaker 3: about things that are hard. So one of the things
Speaker 3: that I find. I've been married for about twenty years now,
Speaker 3: but when I talk to friends who are dating, they
Speaker 3: say that, you know, one of the hardest conversations and
Speaker 3: usually happens on like the third or fourth day, maybe
Speaker 3: the fifth is talking about money because they want to
Speaker 3: figure out are they aligned? Right? Are they are? They?
Speaker 3: Do they both do? They both like to save in
Speaker 3: similar ways? Do they both like to spend in similar ways?
Speaker 3: Because if you're if you're not aligned on money, it
Speaker 3: can be hard and not everyone is perfectly aligned, but
Speaker 3: but you should at least know. And so one of
Speaker 3: my friends what he does is he try. He says, like, look,
Speaker 3: I'd like us to talk about money, and I know
Speaker 3: this is really emotional. It causes a lot of anxiety.
Speaker 3: So instead of talking about actual money, I want to
Speaker 3: talk about like how what we have spent on that
Speaker 3: has been really meaningful to us and what that says
Speaker 3: about us.
Speaker 4: The old craft beer equivalent.
Speaker 3: I like it exactly, exactly, And the reason why I
Speaker 3: love this is because it's really creative. Right, It's a
Speaker 3: creative way to talk about wealth, but it also asks
Speaker 3: the other person to be creative to explain aspects of
Speaker 3: themselves that I might not know if you tell me. Look,
Speaker 3: the best thing I spent money on last year was
Speaker 3: that vacation I went on because I got to see
Speaker 3: I got to hang out with this one friend that
Speaker 3: I only see usually for an hour or two at
Speaker 3: a time. Now I'm beginning to learn, like for you,
Speaker 3: money is about experiences. Money is about connecting with people
Speaker 3: that you don't have a lot of time to see otherwise.
Speaker 3: And that helps me understand how you feel about money
Speaker 3: in general. And that's really powerful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that you said that, because there are ways,
Speaker 1: and that's what Matt and I really strive to do
Speaker 1: here on the show too, to optimistically endeavor into that
Speaker 1: conversation instead of like the pointed question that puts people
Speaker 1: on their back heels, right, And that's what the craft
Speaker 1: beer equivalent is. It's like, let's lean into the things,
Speaker 1: the positive ways that we think of money making an
Speaker 1: impact on our happiness and on our relationships, instead of
Speaker 1: like the shame that comes along with I spent too
Speaker 1: much on that thing. And we can get to that
Speaker 1: later on down the road, but let's first think about
Speaker 1: the way money lights us up and the way that
Speaker 1: it can actually produce a certain amount of happiness in
Speaker 1: our lives if we spend it intentionally versus the other
Speaker 1: side of the equation.
Speaker 3: You know, absolutely, And I think in some ways, I've
Speaker 3: always felt like money is a language, yeah, right, the
Speaker 3: same way that like when you first learn French, it's
Speaker 3: really hard and you have to think about every single
Speaker 3: thing that you're saying. And then at some point it's
Speaker 3: not like you get fluent right away, but at some
Speaker 3: point you just kind of you know enough of the
Speaker 3: language that you can fall back on things and you
Speaker 3: feel a little comfortable with it, and as a result,
Speaker 3: you feel less anxious going in to talk to a
Speaker 3: conversation in French. And that's exactly the same thing that
Speaker 3: I think, and that doesn't and you're gonna make mistakes,
Speaker 3: you're gonna say things wrong, but the other person's gonna
Speaker 3: understand and they're going to forgive you. That's kind of
Speaker 3: what the conversation with money is like. Is that I
Speaker 3: want to get to a place where I know that
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say something wrong and I know I'm this
Speaker 3: is gonna be kind of awkward, but I know enough
Speaker 3: to feel confident to try and explain how I feel
Speaker 3: about money, and I know that you're going to listen to.
Speaker 1: Me well, And I like what you said too earlier
Speaker 1: about acknowledging the hard and being willing to voice some
Speaker 1: of those anxieties and letting your partner know or your
Speaker 1: friend know whoever you're talking to in advance. Hey, guess what,
Speaker 1: this isn't going to be a perfect conversation. Please forgive
Speaker 1: me in advance. And that sets up the table for
Speaker 1: I think, the ability for everyone to feel a little
Speaker 1: vulnerable a.
Speaker 4: Grace filled conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I've heard well, and you talked too about
Speaker 1: prepping before an important conversation. So let's say we're having
Speaker 1: that budget combo. What sort of preparation would be helpful
Speaker 1: in order to get the most out of it. So
Speaker 1: part of it is just saying, listen, like having that
Speaker 1: pre combo conbo. But then other things too, like what
Speaker 1: else do we need to do to be able to
Speaker 1: be fully prepared to have a really good productive combo.
Speaker 3: It's a great question. And there was actually a really
Speaker 3: interesting study that was done where some researchers went into
Speaker 3: an investment bank. And this was a place where like
Speaker 3: people like got in fights all the time. They would
Speaker 3: just scream at each other. They would all like, you know,
Speaker 3: they were all masters of the universe, and they all
Speaker 3: wanted to dominate. And of course many of the conversations
Speaker 3: were about money, right because they're bankers. And so what
Speaker 3: these researchers did, they said, look for the next week,
Speaker 3: before every single meeting, what we want each person to
Speaker 3: do is write down, on like an index card, one sentence.
Speaker 3: We want you to write down your goal for this
Speaker 3: meeting and the mood that you hope to that you
Speaker 3: hope will be established. And so people did this before
Speaker 3: every meeting. It would take like ten seconds. They would
Speaker 3: sit down, they would write this sentence, then they would
Speaker 3: stick the card in their pocket. They never showed each
Speaker 3: other the cards, they never even discussed the cards. But
Speaker 3: the incidence of conflict in that week went down by
Speaker 3: eighty percent in those meetings. And the reason why is
Speaker 3: because once people knew what they wanted to accomplish, and
Speaker 3: once they had an idea of the mood that they
Speaker 3: were hoping to establish, it made it much easier for
Speaker 3: them to communicate that to other people, and those other
Speaker 3: people could communicate back. So before we have a conversation
Speaker 3: about money, the same tactic is really really valuable each person.
Speaker 3: Just sit down. You don't even have to write it,
Speaker 3: you can just say it to yourself. What do you
Speaker 3: want to get out of this conversation? Like, what's the
Speaker 3: number one most important thing? And then what kind of mood?
Speaker 3: Do you want this to be light and like joy filled?
Speaker 3: Do you want this to be serious? Do you want
Speaker 3: this to be something where like we're getting down to business.
Speaker 3: Simply deciding what we want and what mood we want.
Speaker 3: That helps us communicate to the other person what we need.
Speaker 3: That helps us match each other and have the same
Speaker 3: kind of conversation. And again it only takes ten seconds,
Speaker 3: but it can be transformative.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love that because you're also just being respectful, right
Speaker 2: because in a certain sense, what you're doing is you're
Speaker 2: preparing and you're thinking like a few steps ahead as
Speaker 2: to what it is that you want to accomplish. And I
Speaker 2: think that can keep keep couples in particular from getting
Speaker 2: sucked into some of these small fights that they might
Speaker 2: find themselves and as they start bickering over sort of
Speaker 2: the just the hard numbers and be like, well, all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, we're arguing over how much you pay
Speaker 2: to go to the gym, And really what this is
Speaker 2: about is just maybe about a conversation about health and yeah.
Speaker 3: Or control or any number of things, right.
Speaker 1: Or maybe I didn't get the thing I wanted because
Speaker 1: we didn't explicitly say I could spend money in this
Speaker 1: other way.
Speaker 4: Yes and yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's not necessarily, oh, you spend one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty bucks a month on your gym membership. It's we
Speaker 1: didn't actually set boundaries and rules for who gets to
Speaker 1: spend money on what, no questions asked.
Speaker 3: Right, it could be a conversation about fairness that you're
Speaker 3: exactly right, we can definitely afford that one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty dollars, we can afford three hundred dollars. But I
Speaker 3: feel like I'm sacrificing and it feels like you aren't,
Speaker 3: And does that feel fair? You know, there's a story
Speaker 3: in the book about About You mentioned this about how
Speaker 3: NASA chooses its astronauts, and one of the big changes
Speaker 3: is that they started paying attention to how the candidates
Speaker 3: to be astronauts would do things like laugh, because what
Speaker 3: they found is that the best, the people who ended
Speaker 3: up being the best astronauts, the ones who had the
Speaker 3: most emotional intelligence. If I laughed really big and loudly,
Speaker 3: they would laugh back at the same volume. And then
Speaker 3: there were other people though, who would basically would kind
Speaker 3: of politely chuckle. Like I would be like ah, they'd
Speaker 3: be like hah, that's funny, because you know you're supposed
Speaker 3: to respond right you know you're supposed to right back.
Speaker 3: But there was something about matching the other person, about
Speaker 3: matching their intensity, about showing them that you want to connect.
Speaker 3: And laughter is about showing we want to connect. Eighty
Speaker 3: percent of the time when we laugh, it's not in
Speaker 3: response to something funny. It's because we want to show
Speaker 3: the other person that we like them, that we want
Speaker 3: to connect with them, and when they laugh back, they're
Speaker 3: showing us the same thing. And the reason why I
Speaker 3: mentioned this is because think about in conversations about money,
Speaker 3: how often someone might tell a joke or might make
Speaker 3: a little side comment and then smile and laugh a
Speaker 3: little bit. That's an invitation, that's an invitation for us
Speaker 3: to connect with each other. That's saying like, look, this
Speaker 3: is a tough conversation, but we can still kind of
Speaker 3: like take a little break. And if we ignore that,
Speaker 3: if we say, oh yeah, that's funny. Let's get down
Speaker 3: to the budget. Then, what we're really doing is we're
Speaker 3: preventing that opportunity for connection, and so listening for these
Speaker 3: small emotional signals, whether they be light and happy or
Speaker 3: something unexpectedly serious, or something where someone says, I'm worried
Speaker 3: about this and you don't understand why they're worried. Those
Speaker 3: signals help us figure out what we ought to actually
Speaker 3: be discussing.
Speaker 2: Awesome, Well, Charles, We've got a few more questions we
Speaker 2: want to get to. Specifically, I think we want to
Speaker 2: dive into just vulnerability and what it means to really
Speaker 2: get to know someone as we're talking about relationships and
Speaker 2: conversation communicating. We'll get to all of that right after.
Speaker 1: This our We're back through the break, still talking with
Speaker 1: Charles Duhig about super communicating, and I want to kind
Speaker 1: of tap into what we were just talking about just
Speaker 1: a little bit there, Charles on laughter and you specifically
Speaker 1: write about humor. I'm the kind of guy who might
Speaker 1: overuse humor as a way to kind of you get
Speaker 1: that conversation going and flowing. And I don't know, so
Speaker 1: how do you find the balance maybe where you use
Speaker 1: too much of it you're not being serious enough. But
Speaker 1: it is like salt to a dish, where it's a necessity.
Speaker 1: And if you avoid it altogether, you can't maybe kind
Speaker 1: of come up for air with a little joke now
Speaker 1: and then then I don't know. And it depends on
Speaker 1: the conversation too. So how does humor maybe fit into
Speaker 1: having a productive, helpful, good conversation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great question, and humor is really really important.
Speaker 3: And I'll talk a little bit about what supercommunicators do.
Speaker 3: One of the things that we know super consistent supercommunicators
Speaker 3: do is that they tend to they tend to offer
Speaker 3: what's needed in a conversation. So if it's if we
Speaker 3: hit a moment where there's a lot of tension, if
Speaker 3: we hit a moment where the conversation lags, that's when
Speaker 3: they might make a small joke. And usually it's not
Speaker 3: very funny joke, right, usually hit something where like they're
Speaker 3: just they're just acknowledging something or they're just making some
Speaker 3: wry comment. But it gives everyone else a chance to
Speaker 3: take a break. But most importantly, the other thing that
Speaker 3: they do is they pay attention to how people react
Speaker 3: and then they match them. So Let's say that I
Speaker 3: tell a joke and you you don't respond by laughing,
Speaker 3: but you get really really well. At that point, I
Speaker 3: can either insist on being jovial, right or or I
Speaker 3: can say to you, or I can say to myself like,
Speaker 3: oh this.
Speaker 4: These guys are serious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this seems like we're gonna talk to some serious stuff.
Speaker 3: And I can match you, or I might invite you
Speaker 3: to match me. I might see that you got really
Speaker 3: really serious, and we talk about the serious stuff, and
Speaker 3: then and then it seems like we've talked about it,
Speaker 3: we've gotten it out of our system. Then I make
Speaker 3: a joke. I kind of lighten the mood so that
Speaker 3: we can get back to a more natural conversation. There
Speaker 3: is no one answer about when to use humor, how
Speaker 3: much humor to use, or when to get serious, except
Speaker 3: to say paying attention to the other person. And this
Speaker 3: is what supercommunicators do. They just pay half an inch
Speaker 3: more attention. They think half an inch about what they're
Speaker 3: about to say before they say it. That paying attention
Speaker 3: to the other person allows us to figure out what
Speaker 3: kind of conversation they are looking for, whether it's emotional
Speaker 3: or practical or social, and then to join them there
Speaker 3: and invite and invite them to join up.
Speaker 4: Is basically the response to the joke tells you everything.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, that's exactly right, ask the joke, and
Speaker 3: then instead of trying to figure out was it a
Speaker 3: good joke, just pay attention to how the other person responds, because.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's always a good joke. When I'm telling you
Speaker 2: what's funny is that? I mean, like you say that,
Speaker 2: it's not it's typically not that great of a joke.
Speaker 2: It's just I think he said, like a ry comment,
Speaker 2: except that in the moment it's the funniest joke ever
Speaker 2: because it's needed. I'm just envisioning an instance where everyone
Speaker 2: is super serious and there is a whole lot of tension,
Speaker 2: but you know what, you need to cut it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and like like Joel said, come afray.
Speaker 3: Well, and what's interesting is we've laughed a good amount
Speaker 3: on this podcast. I don't think anyone said anything that funny.
Speaker 3: You know what.
Speaker 4: It makes me think very few jokes are said.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing some stats at one point Charles about
Speaker 1: the like the game the pregame show before NFL games,
Speaker 1: and how it's those guys are laughing all the time.
Speaker 1: If you think they're like I feel like they're laughing
Speaker 1: like forty percent of the time. It's almost absurd how
Speaker 1: much they laugh during those pregame shows. But that is
Speaker 1: really attractive to people who watch them. Watching Terry Brash,
Speaker 1: I don't even know who's on there anymore because I
Speaker 1: don't really watch football. But it's something about that conversation
Speaker 1: and the laughter and the kind of mutual enjoyment of
Speaker 1: each other that people are attracted to. It's not even
Speaker 1: just like, oh, give me all the breakdown analytics of
Speaker 1: the game that's coming up. So much is about how
Speaker 1: they relate to one another, and we find that enjoyable
Speaker 1: watching it as humans.
Speaker 3: And it's because they match each other because when one
Speaker 3: person laughs, the other people laugh as well. That you
Speaker 3: know that they're connected and the same thing can happen
Speaker 3: with other emotional expressions. I mean, think about it in
Speaker 3: your conversation when you do get serious suddenly yourself, when
Speaker 3: you say something that's meaningful that maybe like you're taking
Speaker 3: the conversation to another level. Think about how good it
Speaker 3: feels when the other person matches you, meets you there
Speaker 3: when they say, oh I hear what you're saying, Like Yep.
Speaker 3: When my dad passed away, I felt the same thing.
Speaker 3: And I totally understand how this has influenced everything you've
Speaker 3: done since then. It feels like we're heard and understood.
Speaker 3: And what's important is, again I mentioned that our brains
Speaker 3: have evolved to communicate, when when we were evolving, a
Speaker 3: part the way that communication was reinforced was that anytime
Speaker 3: we connected with other people, it felt wonderful. In fact,
Speaker 3: our brains are hardwired to feel good when we connect,
Speaker 3: because that's what led us to build families and then communities,
Speaker 3: and then villages and eventually cities and countries. Right, these
Speaker 3: things that helped make humans more successful, and so we
Speaker 3: all have this need inside of us. It's craving to
Speaker 3: connect with other people, to feel like we're understood, to
Speaker 3: let them know that we understand them. And when we
Speaker 3: listen to that craving, that's when we start to really communicate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes me think of one of the examples
Speaker 2: you give in the book is I think the guys
Speaker 2: the speaker's name was Epley, perhaps, but basically we had
Speaker 2: a bunch of like high power, really rich folks that
Speaker 2: came to this conference and he told them, Hey, you're
Speaker 2: gonna spend ten minutes really getting to know each other,
Speaker 2: and everybody like freaked out because basically everyone's afraid of
Speaker 2: being vulnerable. But I'm not gonna lie. Like by the
Speaker 2: end of that story, like I was almost tearing up
Speaker 2: myself because they like, seriously, these individuals were able to
Speaker 2: connect in such a short amount of time to each other.
Speaker 2: It just shows you how much of a need there
Speaker 2: is for some of this deeper connection. And I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess it leads me to wonder, like, do you
Speaker 2: think that we keep conversations just to surface too much
Speaker 2: of the time? Right, Like do you think that a
Speaker 2: lot of folks are afraid to get real and raw
Speaker 2: and emotional and that too much weather talk, that we're
Speaker 2: all just missing out.
Speaker 3: Well, I think they're missed opportunities. Now, I will say,
Speaker 3: not everything has to be a conversation, right, Like, sometimes
Speaker 3: you're on the bus and you just want to read
Speaker 3: your book, you know, you don't want to have a conversation.
Speaker 3: Or my kids come up and I say, like, I
Speaker 3: want to have a conversation about your rooms, and I
Speaker 3: don't really want to have a conversation about their rooms.
Speaker 3: I want to tell them they need to clean their rooms.
Speaker 3: But there are all these opportunities that we could miss
Speaker 3: where and it doesn't have to be deep, it doesn't
Speaker 3: have to be meaningful. It can just be a connection
Speaker 3: that like feels good because we both discovered that we
Speaker 3: went to the same high school and we you know,
Speaker 3: some people in common, and then we talk about like
Speaker 3: what we loved about high school and what was like
Speaker 3: less great about high school. Right, just connecting with another
Speaker 3: person just feels good. In fact, there's study after study
Speaker 3: that shows that people who connect with others, who have deep,
Speaker 3: meaningful relationships with it with at least two or three
Speaker 3: people at age sixty five, they are healthier than everyone else,
Speaker 3: They are more successful than everyone else, and they are
Speaker 3: happier than everyone else. Connections are what make our life rich.
Speaker 3: And so it's not like that you have to do
Speaker 3: it all the time. It shouldn't feel like a chore.
Speaker 3: But we should be able to recognize that opportunity and
Speaker 3: seize it when we're ready for it.
Speaker 1: Okay, last question, Well, I'm curious about introverts. I'm one
Speaker 1: hundred percent extroverts. So you're saying this, you're like preaching
Speaker 1: to the choir. I'm curious introverts feel very differently about connection,
Speaker 1: or maybe it's just specific times where they feel like,
Speaker 1: oh I can at this point engage in this. For me,
Speaker 1: it's like natural. I always want to engage, even with
Speaker 1: strangers on the bus, despite the book i'm reading. That's
Speaker 1: just my natural best bite the book that they're reading. Right,
Speaker 1: you're still talking. Yeah, hey, Bud, what you going about?
Speaker 1: And I'm not picking up that cue that they want
Speaker 1: to read their book and not talk to me. But
Speaker 1: so talk to me about introverts and then just tell
Speaker 1: me too, Charles, like, what has the act of writing
Speaker 1: this book? What does it meant to you? And how
Speaker 1: has it changed your ability to communicate effectively? How's it
Speaker 1: impacted your life?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really good question. So on the introverts thing,
Speaker 3: So I originally going into this thought that supercommunicators would
Speaker 3: all be extroverts, or they'll all be super charismatic, And
Speaker 3: what I found is exactly the opposite. Basically, your charisma,
Speaker 3: your natural extraversion or introversion, it has almost no impact
Speaker 3: whatsoever on whether you become a super communicator. Oftentimes. In fact,
Speaker 3: super communicators, consistent supercommunicators are people who, at some point
Speaker 3: in their life had trouble connecting with other people. Maybe
Speaker 3: they they they never found their friend group in high school,
Speaker 3: or their parents got divorced and they had to be
Speaker 3: the peacemaker, and as a result, that's what helped them
Speaker 3: think a little bit more about communication. And it's that
Speaker 3: thinking a little bit more about communication, about thinking about
Speaker 3: how to how to connect that makes them into a supercommunicator.
Speaker 3: So for someone who's an introvert, if you're not comfortable,
Speaker 3: you should definitely not do anything that feels uncomfortable. If
Speaker 3: you're on a bus, you shouldn't app you. I half
Speaker 3: the time I'm on the bus, I don't I mean
Speaker 3: most of the time I'm on the bus, I don't
Speaker 3: talk to the person next to me. I want to
Speaker 3: read my book. But the point is that anyone can
Speaker 3: become a supercommunicator. Anyone can learn these skills, and it's
Speaker 3: just it's just a set of simple skills that allow
Speaker 3: us to recognize what kind of conversation is happening to
Speaker 3: connect with other people. Anyone can learn those skills, whether
Speaker 3: you're an introvert or extrovert, and then you don't have
Speaker 3: to use them, but at least then you have them
Speaker 3: in your back pocket. For when you want to use
Speaker 3: them and to answer your question about how this has
Speaker 3: influenced me. You know. So, my wife and I do
Speaker 3: this thing where when we start a conversation, we will
Speaker 3: very often say you do you want me to do
Speaker 3: you want me to help you solve this problem? Or
Speaker 3: do you want do you just need to vent? Like
Speaker 3: do you want me just to listen because you want
Speaker 3: to get this off your chest? And like that is
Speaker 3: made things so much better now when I'm talking to
Speaker 3: my kids, instead of asking them about the facts of
Speaker 3: their life, these shallow questions like you know what you
Speaker 3: do in school today? Who did you have lunch with? Now,
Speaker 3: I try and ask just a slightly deeper question, like
Speaker 3: what was the best part of today? Like I you know,
Speaker 3: I know that most of the time you have lunch
Speaker 3: with Jasper? What do you like about Jasper? Like what
Speaker 3: do you admire about them? And those questions they are
Speaker 3: more real my kids. When I ask them fact takes questions,
Speaker 3: they say fine, nod, yes, no. When I ask them
Speaker 3: how they instead of asking them about the facts of
Speaker 3: their life, when I ask them how they feel about
Speaker 3: their life, they tend to tell me this incredibly rich
Speaker 3: tapestry and I learned things about my kids I wouldn't
Speaker 3: learn otherwise. I love that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you talk about that.
Speaker 2: You highlight that in the book by saying to ask
Speaker 2: those open ended questions because they do lead to so much.
Speaker 3: More in life.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Charles, thank you so much for spending some
Speaker 2: time with us to talk with us about your new book.
Speaker 2: Where is it the folks can learn more about you,
Speaker 2: what you're up to, and where they can purchase the book.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the books available on February twentieth wherever you
Speaker 3: buy books, and in fact, you can pre order which
Speaker 3: I would enormously appreciate right on Amazon and Bartons and
Speaker 3: Noble your local bookstore. And then if they want to
Speaker 3: find me, if you just google me Charles Dohig or
Speaker 3: the Power of Habit or super Communicators, my website will
Speaker 3: come up and and I'll mention that my email address,
Speaker 3: which is Charles at Charles Dohig dot com is on
Speaker 3: my website and I read and respond to every single
Speaker 3: email I get. I feel like I feel like connecting
Speaker 3: with other people and communicating with them. If somebody takes
Speaker 3: the time to write me, I owe it to them
Speaker 3: to write back. And so if you if you have
Speaker 3: thoughts on communication, I would love to hear them, and
Speaker 3: I promise you I'll be back in touch.
Speaker 1: That's impressive because we do the same. But I think
Speaker 1: you're getting more email.
Speaker 3: I think we've had like twenty eight thousand emails. Oh
Speaker 3: it's a lot of emails, but I mean again, like
Speaker 3: we've done twenty eight So it's a joy in life
Speaker 3: to be able to connect with people most nice.
Speaker 2: Well, Charles, thank you again so much for talking with
Speaker 2: us today.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: All right, man, that was a what a great conversation
Speaker 1: with Charles two hig. I mean nice to have a
Speaker 1: return guest, but writing something almost in the completely opposite
Speaker 1: vein of kind of what he's normally too. Instead of productivity,
Speaker 1: it's less about productivity. It's about having productive conversations. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, the book's so good.
Speaker 2: That's what's so interesting about relationships is that they aren't efficient,
Speaker 2: you know, like it takes time and it's not something
Speaker 2: that we can put on two x because that's that
Speaker 2: is not how relationships work, especially some of these bigger
Speaker 2: conversations that we might have with our loved ones.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that efficient efficiency optimization mindset comes back to bite
Speaker 1: us when absolutely when it comes to conversations and having
Speaker 1: really good ones. All right, So what was your big
Speaker 1: takeaway from this combo?
Speaker 2: So he talked about a lot, and I think my
Speaker 2: big takeaway though, is going to be just paying attention
Speaker 2: a little more than you might otherwise. What have when
Speaker 2: it comes to the other person that you're that you're
Speaker 2: speaking with, It's just about thinking a little bit more
Speaker 2: about what it is that they're thinking about. It's not
Speaker 2: just it's like it's less of a knee jerk reaction
Speaker 2: and it's more about what is needed right now in
Speaker 2: this conversation in order to facilitate the conversation in order
Speaker 2: for us to achieve our end goal. And it makes
Speaker 2: it sound super formal, right, and obviously there are times
Speaker 2: when we're just hanging out with the buddy.
Speaker 4: He chuckled, just as loudly as you're there.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: What's funny is that the whole time during the conversation
Speaker 2: I was a little self conscious of the laughter.
Speaker 4: After we started talking about the laughter part of it.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't have to be overly complicated. It's just
Speaker 2: about paying a little more attention to the other person, which.
Speaker 4: Is I mean, that's what it's about.
Speaker 2: That's what being selfless and caring and thoughtful is about.
Speaker 2: It's just about paying attention to the to the other.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean not having an opinion, but it means hey,
Speaker 2: maybe it means not being a freaking bulldog and bulldozing
Speaker 2: somebody when it comes to either their opinion or what
Speaker 2: their goals are, or maybe their idea for maybe a
Speaker 2: strategy to achieve whatever goals that you might have shared
Speaker 2: in common.
Speaker 4: But uh, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I like that as just like a simple practical takeaway
Speaker 2: for everyone.
Speaker 1: I've been guilty of being the guy who's just waiting
Speaker 1: to get his turn to speak and not paying attention
Speaker 1: enough to bounce off whatever the person just said. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like I've grown in that. But that's something
Speaker 1: I could say to growing more. Yeah, so yeah, thanks
Speaker 1: for bringing that.
Speaker 2: That wasn't your takeaway, it was your big one.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest one. Actually, it's kind of similar.
Speaker 1: He says, like Charles said, we're going for connection, and
Speaker 1: it takes wanting to connect, and I think oftentimes we're
Speaker 1: trying to get the conversation going somewhere to where it
Speaker 1: lands in our favor, or we're getting the desired outcome,
Speaker 1: but oftentimes, like yeah, you even mentioned this, like we're
Speaker 1: missing out on potentially better outcomes than we could have predicted,
Speaker 1: trying to push things, force things in the direction of
Speaker 1: our choosing instead of like desiring that connection with somebody else.
Speaker 1: And I think when we're having those money combos, man,
Speaker 1: there might be some like some goal line underneath the
Speaker 1: conversation we're trying to force to happen. And so maybe
Speaker 1: before like a little more interested in what our significant
Speaker 1: other or what a friend is trying to tell us,
Speaker 1: then we might unearth some cool combos that we otherwise
Speaker 1: wouldn't have.
Speaker 4: Absolutely did I could not agree more.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: But all right, let's interde our beer. So you and
Speaker 2: I during this episode we enjoyed another half beer. This
Speaker 2: is a triple mosaic daydream. What were your thoughts? I'll
Speaker 2: say the daydream is the perfect They've got the perfect artwork.
Speaker 4: On this can is just like pink clouds. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: do you enjoy it? I loved it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just wrote down glorious ipa perfection. I don't
Speaker 1: know there's much more to say about this. I was
Speaker 1: telling a friend the other day just how good other
Speaker 1: half is, and like he was like, oh, I've had
Speaker 1: this other brewery. They make great IPAs, and I was like,
Speaker 1: yeah they do. Other Half is just next level and
Speaker 1: this one's next level.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: With it being a triple, it certainly was a little
Speaker 2: bit higher on the sweetness scale, but it was also
Speaker 2: balanced with the aromatics that you get from the hop,
Speaker 2: the herbal nature, the sharpness that you get from some
Speaker 2: of those new England IPA brewed hops. But yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: glad you and I were able to enjoy this one.
Speaker 1: These are ones I brought back from the Other Half
Speaker 1: at Rock a Fellow's Center. So I've been sitting on
Speaker 1: our fridge for a few months and it still takes.
Speaker 2: Still maybe surprisingly so good. I'm glad you and I
Speaker 2: got to enjoy. But that's gonna be it for this episode.
Speaker 2: Head to the show notes up at how tomoney dot
Speaker 2: com and we'll make sure to link to all the
Speaker 2: different places where you can learn more about Charles.
Speaker 4: Well an email he wants to hear from me, he does,
Speaker 4: we'll say one too.
Speaker 2: We'll link to his old book as well, The Power
Speaker 2: of Habit, which is a little more productivity success kind
Speaker 2: of driven personality type a number one enneagram type of person. Yep,
Speaker 2: this is like the opposite kind of but we'll link
Speaker 2: to that old one as well because it is also
Speaker 2: really good.
Speaker 4: We need a bit of both in our lives to
Speaker 4: get that bound.
Speaker 2: We do, we really do to kind of be the full,
Speaker 2: well rounded, well balanced individual the best we can be, right.
Speaker 4: Rachel, I think you just have to join the army
Speaker 4: for that match.
Speaker 1: Army of one that their slogan. Yeah, but it was
Speaker 1: all used to be all you can be in the army,
Speaker 1: remember that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, And now they're all about it's all about
Speaker 2: the individual.
Speaker 4: I could even sing it, but I won't.
Speaker 2: That's gonna be it until next time. Best friends out,
Speaker 2: best friends out, be all that you can be in
Speaker 2: the Army.