Speaker 1: Pushkin. I once went on a riverboat cruise with my
Speaker 1: husband and some friends. As we chugged along the Connecticut River,
Speaker 1: we enjoyed some picnic food and talked and laughed together.
Speaker 1: But I was also a bit distracted by an elderly
Speaker 1: couple sitting nearby. They just seemed kind of uninterested in everything.
Speaker 1: They didn't seem to take notice of us, their fellow passengers,
Speaker 1: or the gorgeous scenery along the river banks. But what
Speaker 1: was most disturbing was that they also seemed really uninterested
Speaker 1: in one another. I don't think they shared a single
Speaker 1: word the entire trip. When we finally talked, I saw
Speaker 1: the couple's daughter waiting for them on land. She seemed
Speaker 1: excited to know if they'd had fun. You see, she
Speaker 1: explained to the boat captain, this was their wedding anniversary.
Speaker 1: On the drive home, I couldn't stop thinking about that couple.
Speaker 1: Could any couple fall mute like that? Could it happen
Speaker 1: to you or me? How do we keep the conversation going?
Speaker 1: That's the question I want to address in this next
Speaker 1: installment of our short season on Happiness and Love. I
Speaker 1: want to explore how couples can communicate better to build happier,
Speaker 1: healthier relationships, and so I tagged in journalist Charles Duhigg,
Speaker 1: author of a recent book entitled Super Communicators, How to
Speaker 1: Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. Charles is a Pulitzer
Speaker 1: Prize winning author and reporter, someone who has made an
Speaker 1: entire career using words to express complex ideas. But Charles,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, wasn't always a super communicator, particularly
Speaker 1: when it came to talking to his wife.
Speaker 2: So I got into this terrible pattern where I would
Speaker 2: come home. My wife and I met each other in college.
Speaker 2: We've been married for almost twenty years now, and I'm
Speaker 2: supposed to be a professional communicator because I'm a journalist,
Speaker 2: And I would come home from work after like a
Speaker 2: hard day, and I would like start complaining about my
Speaker 2: boss or my coworkers, and my wife, very reasonably would
Speaker 2: say something like, why don't you take your boss out
Speaker 2: to lunch so you can get to know each other better,
Speaker 2: which is good advice, But instead of being able to
Speaker 2: hear her advice, I would get even more upset, and
Speaker 2: I would say, like, you know, why aren't you supporting me?
Speaker 2: You're supposed to have my side on this, and be
Speaker 2: outraged on my behalf, and then she would get upset
Speaker 2: because I was acting irrational. And so this pattern, we
Speaker 2: could recognize it, but we couldn't stop it from happening.
Speaker 2: And so I went to these researchers and I said, look,
Speaker 2: tell me what's going on here, like what's happening? And
Speaker 2: they said, well, we're glad you asked, because we're living
Speaker 2: through this golden age of understanding communication in ways that
Speaker 2: we never have before because of advances in neural imaging
Speaker 2: and data collection. And they said, the biggest problem here
Speaker 2: is that most people think of a discussion as being
Speaker 2: about one thing, right, it's about where to go on
Speaker 2: vacation or what happened today, But actually each discussion is
Speaker 2: made up of multiple different kinds of conversations, and most
Speaker 2: of those conversations they tend to fall in one of
Speaker 2: three big buckets. There's practical conversations right where we're solving
Speaker 2: a problem or coming up with a plan. There's emotional
Speaker 2: conversations where my goal is to tell you how I feel,
Speaker 2: but I don't want you to solve my problem. I
Speaker 2: want you to empathize and understand. And then there's social conversations,
Speaker 2: which are about how we relate to each other, how
Speaker 2: we relate to society and society relates to us. And
Speaker 2: they said, the key here is if you're not having
Speaker 2: the same kind of conversation at the same time, then
Speaker 2: you're not really communicating with each other. So when you
Speaker 2: came home from work and you were upset and you
Speaker 2: started complaining to your wife, you were having an emotional conversation,
Speaker 2: and then she responded with a practical conversation. She gave
Speaker 2: you advice, but you couldn't hear that. And when you
Speaker 2: said you couldn't hear that, she couldn't hear you. And
Speaker 2: so the key here is what's known as the matching principle,
Speaker 2: that we need to have the same kind of conversation
Speaker 2: at the same moment if we really want to connect
Speaker 2: with each other.
Speaker 1: And what seems super interesting is that you know, you
Speaker 1: were talking about how you struggled with this, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I can totally relate. But it also seems
Speaker 1: like there are people who are really good at this, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there are definitely people in my life that I can
Speaker 1: call up and whichever mode I feel like I'm in,
Speaker 1: whether I'm you know, kind of really looking for some
Speaker 1: practical advice, or just want to, like, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of moan about something, they kind of instantly recognize it.
Speaker 1: And this was something that you figured out in your
Speaker 1: work too, that they're like these important individual differences there.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. So these are folks who are
Speaker 2: super communicators. And what's interesting is that we're all super
Speaker 2: communicators at one time or another. Some people just can
Speaker 2: do it more consistently than others. So if I was
Speaker 2: to ask you, you know, if you were having a
Speaker 2: bad day and you wanted to call someone who you
Speaker 2: know would make you feel better, Like, does someone pop
Speaker 2: into your mind right away about who you would call?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's either my good friend April or Ryan, who's
Speaker 1: my producer who's also my very good friend.
Speaker 2: There you go. Yeah, So for you, they are super communicators,
Speaker 2: and you are probably a super communicator back to them.
Speaker 2: You guys know how to prove to each other that
Speaker 2: you've been listening. You know how to intuit what the
Speaker 2: other person needs. Now, you're exactly right, though, there are
Speaker 2: some people who are super communicators on a more consistent basis.
Speaker 2: They're that person for everyone everyone loves to call in them,
Speaker 2: And one person described it as there's someone who is
Speaker 2: my best friend who everyone else thinks he's their best
Speaker 2: friend too, right, And it's interesting. And what we know
Speaker 2: about these people is that they are not like super charismatic,
Speaker 2: They are not extroverts, They are not people who are
Speaker 2: born with this. Oftentimes exactly the opposite. There're folks who,
Speaker 2: if you ask them, they say, I had trouble making
Speaker 2: friends in high school, or or my parents got divorced
Speaker 2: and I had to become the peacemaker between them. There
Speaker 2: are people who had to think just a little bit
Speaker 2: more about how communication works. And it's that thinking about
Speaker 2: it just half an inch deeper that makes us into supercommunicators.
Speaker 2: But it's skills that anyone can learn, their skills that
Speaker 2: we're going to discuss on this podcast, so we can teach,
Speaker 2: and if anyone learns them, anyone can connect with other people.
Speaker 1: And so let's do a deeper dive, kind of neuroscientifically,
Speaker 1: into what happens when super communicators are at work, when
Speaker 1: people are really connecting with one another. I know in
Speaker 1: your book you talked about this form of kind of
Speaker 1: neural entrainment of what is that and how does it
Speaker 1: show that communication is working so well?
Speaker 2: I love this and this is something that we've all experienced,
Speaker 2: which is communication. Is Homo Sapien's superpower, right. It is
Speaker 2: what has caused our species to succeed so well, and
Speaker 2: it's what allowed us to build families and then cultures
Speaker 2: and societies and eventually cities and countries. And the way
Speaker 2: that it evolved is that we actually developed little pleasure
Speaker 2: centers that get activated when we connect with someone else.
Speaker 2: So what's actually happening there, Well, what we know from
Speaker 2: experiments and this a lot of this comes from Talia
Speaker 2: Wheatley who's at Dartmouth, and Uri Hassan who's at Princeton,
Speaker 2: is that when we actually connect with each other through communication,
Speaker 2: our bodies and our brains reflect that connection. So right now,
Speaker 2: even though we're separated by thousands of miles, if we
Speaker 2: could measure it, our eyes are probably dilating at similar rates.
Speaker 2: Our breath patterns are starting to match each other, even
Speaker 2: though we're not in the same room together. Most importantly,
Speaker 2: what's happening inside our brains is becoming similar. As I'm
Speaker 2: describing something, you're experiencing the same emotion or idea that
Speaker 2: I'm describing, and vice versa, and our neural activities beginning
Speaker 2: to look more and more similar, and the more similar
Speaker 2: or it gets, the better we understand each other. That's
Speaker 2: what neural entrainment is. And when it happens, it feels wonderful.
Speaker 2: Everyone knows that experience, Right when you've had a great
Speaker 2: conversation and you just feel like you're on cloud nine afterwards.
Speaker 2: That's actually a biochemical reaction. Your body is having to
Speaker 2: encourage you to try and have those conversations because they've
Speaker 2: been so successful at helping our species succeed.
Speaker 1: So what did neuroscientists learn when they started looking at
Speaker 1: who's better at this neural entrainment? Were there some particular
Speaker 1: characteristics of people who did it better? Like what did
Speaker 1: they figure out?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, a guy named Bose Ivers, who working with
Speaker 2: Talia at Dartmouth, did this really fascinating study where he
Speaker 2: would bring strangers into a room and put them into
Speaker 2: groups and have them watch these movie clips that were
Speaker 2: totally confusing and in fact, they were in foreign languages
Speaker 2: and there was no subtitles and the sound was off.
Speaker 2: And then you'd have them talk to each other and
Speaker 2: you'd scan their brains while they were watching it, and
Speaker 2: then also scan their brains afterwards. And he found that
Speaker 2: when people talk to each other, the way that they
Speaker 2: reacted to the movie clips became very similar. Right that
Speaker 2: they achieved neural and trainment in talking about the movie
Speaker 2: clips that allowed them to connect with each other. But
Speaker 2: some groups became much more entrained, much more synchronous than others,
Speaker 2: and in those groups with someone special in those groups
Speaker 2: was a supercommunicator. And one of the things that supercommunicators
Speaker 2: do is they tend to ask more questions, like ten
Speaker 2: to twenty times as many questions as the average person.
Speaker 2: But many of them are things like, ah, that's interesting,
Speaker 2: what'd you think about that? Or oh yeah, would you
Speaker 2: say next, Like these little questions that we don't even
Speaker 2: really register as questions, but they invite us into a conversation.
Speaker 2: They also did this thing where they would repeat back
Speaker 2: or positively reinforce what other people said. So someone would
Speaker 2: say here's my idea, and they'd say, oh, I really
Speaker 2: like that idea, or they'd say, you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 2: What I hear you saying is this, like tell me
Speaker 2: if I'm getting this wrong, you said X and Y
Speaker 2: and z. This is known as looping for understanding, and
Speaker 2: it's this amazing technique, particularly in conflicts. But most importantly,
Speaker 2: what supercommunicators did in those groups that caused everyone else
Speaker 2: to become synchronized, helped other people speak up and hear
Speaker 2: each other, is that they showed that they wanted to connect.
Speaker 2: They did things like laughed when other people laughed, or
Speaker 2: got serious when other people got serious. They changed how
Speaker 2: they were communicating to match the kind of conversation that
Speaker 2: others brought up and invited them to match back in return. So,
Speaker 2: in one conversation, one of the participants brought up they
Speaker 2: were talking about this movie clip where a kid looks
Speaker 2: like he's abandoned, and this participant says something that makes
Speaker 2: you think like, probably he knows abandonment firsthand. He knows
Speaker 2: what it's like. And the conversation was really jovial up
Speaker 2: to that moment, and as soon as he says that,
Speaker 2: the super communicator says, huh, yeah, that can be really
Speaker 2: really hard, like tell me what you think about that,
Speaker 2: Like he gets serious. He matches that solemnity, and within
Speaker 2: forty five seconds, everyone else in that group was being
Speaker 2: supportive and empathetic was talking about the seriousness of this.
Speaker 2: That's what super communicators do. They match others. They invite
Speaker 2: them to match back, and they show they want to
Speaker 2: connect and it's really powerful.
Speaker 1: And so this must have huge implications for the kinds
Speaker 1: of things that happened to superper communicators, Like they're so
Speaker 1: good at this, Like do we know anything about what
Speaker 1: happens in their real life too?
Speaker 2: You won't be surprised to learn they're very popular and successful, right,
Speaker 2: Like we have data on what supercommunicators are like outside
Speaker 2: of the laboratory. And of course they are the people
Speaker 2: who are asked to run for office or given leadership roles.
Speaker 2: They're the people everyone turns to when they have a
Speaker 2: problem or or they're always invited along because they just
Speaker 2: know adding them to the conversation will make everyone feel better.
Speaker 2: Because of the Harvard Adult Health study that was done,
Speaker 2: the Harvard Adult Health Happiness Study, I guess is what
Speaker 2: they're calling it. Now, we know that the folks who
Speaker 2: do this, who tend to have a lot of connections,
Speaker 2: They live longer than the average person, They're happier as
Speaker 2: they get older. They tend to be more successful because
Speaker 2: people just bring them opportunities. As I mentioned, communication is
Speaker 2: our superpower, and super communicators have that superpower. It is
Speaker 2: something any of us can learn to do, and its
Speaker 2: dividends are enormous.
Speaker 1: And one of those dividends is the ability to quickly
Speaker 1: build bonds with new people. To the break, we'll learn
Speaker 1: how adopting the habits of supercommunicators can help us navigate
Speaker 1: the minefield that is dating. The Happiness Lab will be
Speaker 1: back in a moment. Before we start swiping on a
Speaker 1: dating app, we usually set up a profile that makes
Speaker 1: us look really cool. We upload pictures of us wearing
Speaker 1: nice clothing, living the high life, maybe even traveling to
Speaker 1: exotic locations. We try to share all our accomplishments and
Speaker 1: interesting activities, so it seems like we should want to
Speaker 1: keep that vibe going when we get to the dat itself,
Speaker 1: sharing stories that make our lives look fun and adventure filled. Well,
Speaker 1: according to Charles Douhig, that's not what a super communicator
Speaker 1: would do.
Speaker 2: It's all about the interaction. And my guess is, and
Speaker 2: tell me if I'm getting this wrong, is that when
Speaker 2: you and your husband met each other, it's kind of
Speaker 2: like when me and my wife met each other, that
Speaker 2: we walked away from the conversations feeling special because the
Speaker 2: other person told us we were special, not because they
Speaker 2: were special, but because they told us we were special.
Speaker 1: So give me an example from your early like how
Speaker 1: you guys met and how you got first get together,
Speaker 1: first date conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we met in college and I was studying
Speaker 2: intellectual history at Yale, and so I was super into
Speaker 2: like postmodernism, and I just babbled about postmodernism for like
Speaker 2: ten minutes, and she said, she's the kindest woman on earth.
Speaker 2: She said, that's really really interesting. I've never heard that before,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't make any sense to me, but I
Speaker 2: like to learn more. Of course, she was just being nice,
Speaker 2: but as a result, I felt like the smartest person
Speaker 2: on the face of the planet. Like I felt like
Speaker 2: I was. I was so special. And here's one of
Speaker 2: the things that we know so we know about when
Speaker 2: it comes to romantic relationships, particularly at the start of
Speaker 2: romantic relationships. There are two things you can do that
Speaker 2: is more powerful than anything else, and then a third
Speaker 2: thing that's really effective. The first thing you can do
Speaker 2: is ask questions, and some questions are more powerful than others,
Speaker 2: and these are known as deep questions. A deep question
Speaker 2: is something that asks us about our values, or our beliefs,
Speaker 2: or our experiences and Oftentimes a deep question doesn't appear deep. Right.
Speaker 2: If we're on a first date and I say what
Speaker 2: do you do for a living? You say I'm a lawyer,
Speaker 2: And I say, oh, that's really interesting, Like what made
Speaker 2: you decide to go to law school? Like what's the
Speaker 2: best case you ever had? Those questions are asking you
Speaker 2: to tell me about your experiences, the values that brought
Speaker 2: you to law school, the beliefs that you carry into
Speaker 2: your work. And when you answer those questions, you're going
Speaker 2: to tell me something incredibly valuable about yourself. You're going
Speaker 2: to tell me something meaningful. So the first step that
Speaker 2: we can do is teach ourselves not to ask about facts,
Speaker 2: but instead to ask essentially about feelings about people's values
Speaker 2: and beliefs and their experiences.
Speaker 1: And there's some really cool experiments to show the power
Speaker 1: of this. One was a study that was actually about
Speaker 1: speed dating and like what you can do in the
Speaker 1: context of speed dating, So tell me a little bit
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I love this study. And there's been
Speaker 2: a couple of times that they've collected this data. So
Speaker 2: what they did is they had all these speed daters
Speaker 2: come to and they kept track of which speed dates
Speaker 2: were successful and which weren't. Basically, do people say that
Speaker 2: they want to have a follow up date, And what
Speaker 2: they found is that the number one thing that made
Speaker 2: a speed date successful is if one person asked a
Speaker 2: question within like the first thirty seconds, and asked a
Speaker 2: deep question, then when the other person would respond, something
Speaker 2: important would happen. The asker would oftentimes answer that same
Speaker 2: question for themselves, Oh, it's interesting. You became a lawyer
Speaker 2: for that reason. I became a doctor because I also
Speaker 2: love helping people. Right, it was very natural to share
Speaker 2: something about themselves, to engage in emotional reciprocity or vulnerability reciprocity,
Speaker 2: and then they would inevitably do something to prove that
Speaker 2: they had been listening to what the person had said.
Speaker 2: Sometimes that was asking a follow up question. Follow Up
Speaker 2: questions are incredibly powerful because they show that I'm paying attention.
Speaker 2: They show that I'm curious in you. Sometimes it's what's
Speaker 2: known as looping for understanding, where I peep back what
Speaker 2: you said in my own words and I ask if
Speaker 2: I got it right. These behaviors of proving we are
Speaker 2: listening are incredibly meaningful, particularly if we're in a stressful
Speaker 2: situation like a fight or a first date. Part of
Speaker 2: what we're wondering in our head is like, is this
Speaker 2: person actually listening to me? Or are they just waiting
Speaker 2: their turn to speak? And speaking is such a cognitively
Speaker 2: intense activity. We don't notice if the person is staring
Speaker 2: into our eyes, we don't notice that they're nodding their head.
Speaker 2: We're focused on the words coming out of our mouth.
Speaker 2: So it's what they do after we stop talking that
Speaker 2: proves to us that they've been listening to us. And
Speaker 2: that's really powerful.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting because I feel like we get this
Speaker 1: advice of like, to show that you're listening, really look
Speaker 1: someone in the eyes or kind of nod, you know,
Speaker 1: while they're speaking. But the evidence seems to suggest that
Speaker 1: that's not really doing anything because people can't pay attention
Speaker 1: to that in the moment. What they have to pay
Speaker 1: attention to is after you're done and you've told your story.
Speaker 1: Is how people follow up is what they say afterwards.
Speaker 1: That seems to really that's.
Speaker 2: Nice, exactly right, that's exactly right, And that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: you shouldn't not and you shouldn't look people in the
Speaker 2: eye because because it's oftentimes encouraging to get that. But
Speaker 2: next time you're talking to like a small group of people,
Speaker 2: and after you finished speaking, try and remember who was
Speaker 2: looking at you and who wasn't. And you'll have no idea,
Speaker 2: right because we just don't pay attention. But that person
Speaker 2: who says, oh, that's so interesting what I heard you say?
Speaker 2: Was that person we remember?
Speaker 1: And so broadly, it seems like what you're trying to
Speaker 1: do to kind of in an early conversation is to
Speaker 1: really make sure you're actually listening and learning about somebody.
Speaker 1: If you sort of set up this goal that the
Speaker 1: conversation is really for learning about the person and specifically
Speaker 1: learning not facts, but their values and their beliefs, that's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that can get communication off the ground.
Speaker 1: That's what super communicators seemed to be doing.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, and that was an excellent looping for understanding.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I totally conversation, I totally totally.
Speaker 2: I totally believe you're listening to me. But it is
Speaker 2: super interesting in that once we get in the habit
Speaker 2: of this. So once I was exposed to this idea
Speaker 2: for looping for understanding, and there's these three steps, right,
Speaker 2: ask a question, a deep questes, repeat back what you
Speaker 2: just heard in your own words. Then, and this is
Speaker 2: really helpful in a conflict, ask if you got it right.
Speaker 2: Once we start doing that, it almost becomes habitual, like
Speaker 2: it was for you right to sort of repeat back
Speaker 2: what you've heard. And what it shows the other person
Speaker 2: is not only do I want to connect with you,
Speaker 2: which is what's important, but also it creates trust, and
Speaker 2: it creates a sense of intimacy because if you believe
Speaker 2: that I'm listening closely to you, you'll want to listen
Speaker 2: back to me. It also helps me be present in
Speaker 2: that moment, because you're exactly right. If I realize the
Speaker 2: point of this conversation is to have a learning conversation,
Speaker 2: to understand you and to help you understand me, not
Speaker 2: to convince you of something, not to change your mind,
Speaker 2: not to convince you that I'm the greatest thing on earth,
Speaker 2: but just to understand you and help you understand me.
Speaker 2: Then it doesn't matter if we walk away still disagreeing
Speaker 2: with each other, or if we walk away and say, ah,
Speaker 2: I'm not interested in the second date. The conversation has
Speaker 2: been a success if we understand each other.
Speaker 1: The best way to understand each other differs from what
Speaker 1: we often think. You know, these days, we hear a
Speaker 1: lot about perspective taking, you know, not just in relationships,
Speaker 1: but I think even in times of conflict in things,
Speaker 1: you know, we have to perspective take on what the
Speaker 1: other side thinks or what the other person thinks. But
Speaker 1: the research shows that there's something better than perspective taking.
Speaker 1: Explain what this other thing is because it seems to
Speaker 1: fit really well with the kinds of strategies we're talking
Speaker 1: about here.
Speaker 2: And this work comes from Nick Appley at the University
Speaker 2: of Chicago, who's just wonderful and just for anyone who
Speaker 2: hasn't heard that phrase perspective taking before, there's this theory
Speaker 2: in psychology that the best way to communicate is to
Speaker 2: put yourself in someone else's shoes, right, to try and
Speaker 2: take their perspective on a problem. You know, I'm a man,
Speaker 2: but like I'm going to try and put myself in
Speaker 2: my wife's shoes and see the world from her perspective.
Speaker 2: The truth of the matter is, and study after study
Speaker 2: shows us I can't do that. I have no idea
Speaker 2: what it's like to be a woman in today's world, right,
Speaker 2: and if I think I do, I'm kind of fooling myself.
Speaker 2: But what I can do instead is this thing called
Speaker 2: perspective getting, which is when I ask you what it's
Speaker 2: like to be you. When I say, and I can
Speaker 2: say this to Laurie, like, you know, my wife is
Speaker 2: an academic and you're a woman in science, I'm just wondering, like,
Speaker 2: what's it like? Like what are the challenges that you
Speaker 2: face that I might not understand about being a woman
Speaker 2: at a university. What are the challenges of being a
Speaker 2: mom of you know, being someone who has outside interests.
Speaker 2: Instead of trying to assume that I can stand in
Speaker 2: your shoes, let me just ask you what it's like
Speaker 2: to be in your shoes. This is where if I
Speaker 2: can repeat it back, it becomes really powerful. It's not
Speaker 2: only to show you that I'm listening, It's to force
Speaker 2: myself to listen. Because the truth of the matter is, sometimes
Speaker 2: even if we want to listen, we just get in
Speaker 2: our own way, right. We start coming up with counter
Speaker 2: arguments in our head. We start thinking about what we
Speaker 2: should say next so that we seem smart. But if
Speaker 2: my assignment is I need to listen closely enough that
Speaker 2: I can repeat back what you just said, I'll actually
Speaker 2: listen closely enough.
Speaker 1: And that kind of close listening also contributes to the
Speaker 1: second thing that I think could be so powerful about
Speaker 1: perspective getting, which is it increases people's trust. Right, there's
Speaker 1: a kind of emotional contagion and an emotional bond that happens.
Speaker 1: Can I explain with some of the research shows why
Speaker 1: that's so powerful.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that happens when we engage
Speaker 2: in perspective getting is that oftentimes people will reveal something
Speaker 2: vulnerable about themselves. Now, when I say vulnerable, it doesn't
Speaker 2: mean like they're crying or they're admitting that they killed someone.
Speaker 2: It can be something as small as saying, you know,
Speaker 2: I became a doctor because I like helping people. I
Speaker 2: might not care about your judgment, but I'm giving you
Speaker 2: an opportunity to judge me. You could be like, look,
Speaker 2: money matters more than whether you should help people. Right,
Speaker 2: offering you an opportunity to judge me, even if I
Speaker 2: don't care about it feels vulnerable. And there's this thing
Speaker 2: that happens of emotional contagion, which is vulnerability is the
Speaker 2: loudest form of communication. If I say something vulnerable, you
Speaker 2: will listen really, really closely, to what I'm saying, and
Speaker 2: then if you say something vulnerable in return, if you
Speaker 2: share something about yourself, I will listen really closely. And
Speaker 2: that emotional contagion, once it occurs, makes us feel more
Speaker 2: trusting and liking of each other. It's hardwired into our brains.
Speaker 2: We almost can't even overcome it. I'm sure everyone has
Speaker 2: had this experience where it's someone you really dislike, you
Speaker 2: disagree with them, and then they say something so real
Speaker 2: and honest, and you just find yourself sympathizing with them
Speaker 2: or liking them a little bit more. That's because we
Speaker 2: can't fight this emotional contagion, and so we should use
Speaker 2: it to help us bond with other people and connect
Speaker 2: with them.
Speaker 1: Explain this sort of fast friends experiment. I think this
Speaker 1: is something that's even entered the public consciousness. People have
Speaker 1: heard about these thirty six questions. Talk about what the
Speaker 1: science really shows and how increasing vulnerability can be powerful
Speaker 1: for like maybe even romantic connection.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love this study. So these two researchers who
Speaker 2: are married I'm Elaine and Arthur Aren went and they
Speaker 2: did this experiment. They wanted to try and figure out
Speaker 2: if they could make strangers into friends. So they would
Speaker 2: bring all these strangers into a room, just pairs of them,
Speaker 2: you know, one by one, sit down with someone else
Speaker 2: you don't know, and they gave them this list of
Speaker 2: thirty six questions to ask and answer right back and forth,
Speaker 2: and it would usually take about forty five or fifty minutes.
Speaker 2: And this is all pre internet, and then people would
Speaker 2: just go their separate ways. So then seven weeks later
Speaker 2: they tracked down everyone that had come into that room
Speaker 2: and they asked them, did you ever talk to that
Speaker 2: person again? And they found that seventy percent of the
Speaker 2: people who had participated went and they found the other
Speaker 2: person so that they could go out to beers with
Speaker 2: them or go see a movie together because they felt
Speaker 2: so close to them. And this is back when it
Speaker 2: was hard to find other people right you had to go.
Speaker 2: Some people would like go through the phone book and
Speaker 2: call everyone with a similar name until they found the
Speaker 2: right one. They would wander up and down dorms looking
Speaker 2: for the person that they had talked to, because after
Speaker 2: forty five minutes of asking and answering these questions, they
Speaker 2: felt really close. In fact, more than one couple ended
Speaker 2: up getting married who met each other through this experiment. Now,
Speaker 2: what's special about those questions? Each of those questions was,
Speaker 2: in its own way, a deep question that asked people
Speaker 2: to reveal something about themselves, and then, because they had
Speaker 2: to go back and forth answering them, the other person
Speaker 2: could reciprocate that vulnerability. So some of them were simple,
Speaker 2: like if you were having a dinner party and you
Speaker 2: could invite anyone from history, who would you invite? Well,
Speaker 2: that tells you who I admire, right, it tells you
Speaker 2: a little bit about my beliefs. Some of them were
Speaker 2: really deep, like described the last time you cried in
Speaker 2: front of another person. When I do that, I'm obviously
Speaker 2: exposing something really meaningful about myself. And if I expose that,
Speaker 2: and then you answer the same question and you expose
Speaker 2: something about yourself, we are going to feel closer to
Speaker 2: each other, even if we have nothing in common. If
Speaker 2: you do that in speed date, you're definitely going to
Speaker 2: get another date.
Speaker 1: But the key is that we have to respond to
Speaker 1: those emotional moments. Well, that's exactly, and this is something
Speaker 1: you've also talked about in your book. And some of
Speaker 1: the great science on this came from a domain that
Speaker 1: I didn't expect. You know, when I was reading your
Speaker 1: Super Communicators book. I was expecting to see all these
Speaker 1: cool social science studies, but I didn't think i'd be
Speaker 1: hearing about scientific work that came out of NASA on
Speaker 1: super communication. But it's actually something that folks at NASA
Speaker 1: are pretty worried about how to do this emotional connection right,
Speaker 1: So tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2: So it's interesting. So starting in the nineteen eighties, NASA
Speaker 2: realized that they're going to start having these longer space missions, right,
Speaker 2: people going into space for six months to a year.
Speaker 2: And it became a real problem because they figured, if
Speaker 2: you're stuck in a tin can, like surrounded by vacuum
Speaker 2: for a year six months with five other people, you
Speaker 2: really have to have good emotional intelligence. You really have
Speaker 2: to be able to connect with other people. The problem
Speaker 2: was that when they interview astronaut candidates like these men
Speaker 2: and women, they are at the top of their game.
Speaker 2: They know that right answer to every question, They know
Speaker 2: how to expose a vulnerability, so it seems admirable they
Speaker 2: can fake in emotional intelligence better than anyone else, and
Speaker 2: so they couldn't. NASA couldn't figure out who actually has
Speaker 2: emotional intelligence and who who's faking it really well until
Speaker 2: they were up in space, and the ones who were
Speaker 2: faking it ended up being huge problems. So there was
Speaker 2: this one guy who was a psychologist there and this
Speaker 2: was really bothering him, and so he spent a lot
Speaker 2: of time listening to recordings of old interviews, and he
Speaker 2: noticed the people who went on to be really good
Speaker 2: ass astronauts, really good at emotional intelligence. They laughed differently
Speaker 2: than everyone else. They would laugh with the same kind
Speaker 2: of energy and at the same intensity as him, regardless
Speaker 2: of what that intensity and energy was. So he changes
Speaker 2: how he says his interviews. He starts coming in and
Speaker 2: he's carrying up a stack of papers and he accidentally
Speaker 2: drops them as soon as he walks in, which is
Speaker 2: actually on purpose. And he's wearing this garish yellow tie,
Speaker 2: and he says, my kid made me wear this tie today,
Speaker 2: and now I drop my papers. I look like a
Speaker 2: total clown. And then he would laugh really, really uproariously,
Speaker 2: and then he would pay attention to see if the
Speaker 2: astronaut candidate laughed back with the same energy and intensity
Speaker 2: or if they just politely chuckled and it's not just laughter, right.
Speaker 2: These are known as non linguistic expressions. Later in the interview,
Speaker 2: he'd often tell a story about someone who had died
Speaker 2: in his family, and he would pay close attention to
Speaker 2: see did the candidate try and comfort me or did
Speaker 2: they kind of just step back and say, I'm going
Speaker 2: to give him his space to have this emotional moment.
Speaker 2: I don't want to get too deeply involved. What they
Speaker 2: were looking for is that people who matched him. Now,
Speaker 2: some people might laugh loudly and they might laugh quietly.
Speaker 2: It didn't matter what kind of laugh they had. It
Speaker 2: didn't matter how they comforted people. What mattered was when
Speaker 2: he displayed an emotion. Did they try and match that emotion,
Speaker 2: show that they were hearing it, engage with it, and
Speaker 2: create space for him to discuss that emotion. When we
Speaker 2: try and prove that we are listening, this is what
Speaker 2: supercommunicators do. When we show that we want to connect,
Speaker 2: which is what laughter is, then we start to actually
Speaker 2: connect and it makes all the difference.
Speaker 1: And the work seemed to show that there were two
Speaker 1: particular ways that it worked well when emotions were matched, right,
Speaker 1: So tell me about those kind of two moments of matching.
Speaker 1: I like this in particular because it seemed like the
Speaker 1: mood and the intensity were ones that like telemarketers use too,
Speaker 1: So that's why.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So the two ways that we need to
Speaker 2: match other people, and the two ways that we oftentimes
Speaker 2: pick up on other people's emotional signals are through mood
Speaker 2: and intensity. So if somebody is negative and they're high energy,
Speaker 2: they're probably angry. But if they're negative and low energy,
Speaker 2: then they're probably sad. And the difference between interacting with
Speaker 2: someone who's angry and someone who's sad is very significant, right,
Speaker 2: we want to treat them differently. So our brains have
Speaker 2: become designed to pick up on these two things. On mood,
Speaker 2: either positive or negative, and on energy or intensity, which
Speaker 2: is either low energy or high energy. And so we
Speaker 2: notice this almost immediately when we see other people. When
Speaker 2: you're walking down the street or you walk into a
Speaker 2: coffee shop and you see someone who is positive and
Speaker 2: high energy, then there's part of you that says, Okay,
Speaker 2: this person is like really like they're enthusiastic, like it's
Speaker 2: all righty, Like I'm gonna go over and i'm gonna
Speaker 2: talk to my friend and we're gonna have a great time.
Speaker 2: If they're positive and low energy, you think Oh, they're
Speaker 2: in sort of a contemplative state of mind. They're calm,
Speaker 2: and they're relaxed. And so when we are trying to
Speaker 2: match with someone, it's key to try and pay attention
Speaker 2: to that mood and that energy and sort of align
Speaker 2: with it. And in fact, the TV show The Big
Speaker 2: Bang Theory, this most popular sitcom in history, was actually
Speaker 2: a big flop until they figured out that if they
Speaker 2: had the actors match each other's mood and match each
Speaker 2: other's energy intensity, then they could show the audience that
Speaker 2: they were connecting with each other. And when you think
Speaker 2: about it, take laughter. So we know from studies that
Speaker 2: about seventy percent of the time when we laugh, it
Speaker 2: is not in reaction to anything funny. I laugh because
Speaker 2: I show you I want to connect with you. You laugh
Speaker 2: back to show me you want to connect with me.
Speaker 2: But imagine for a minute that we're talking to each
Speaker 2: other and I laugh like that, and you go, h yeah,
Speaker 2: I know that we're not connecting with each other, right,
Speaker 2: I know because your intensity is very different from mine,
Speaker 2: that we're not actually on the same wave of length.
Speaker 2: That you don't necessarily want to be on the same
Speaker 2: wave of length. And that's really powerful.
Speaker 1: And what's so cool is that so many of these
Speaker 1: kind of munication strategies are really ones that are just
Speaker 1: like built into us as primates. Right in theory, this
Speaker 1: is the sort of real basis of how we've been connecting,
Speaker 1: you know, for thousands and thousands of years. But in
Speaker 1: the dating world, these days, we're connecting over media that
Speaker 1: look really different than the normal in person communication that
Speaker 1: we've used forever. Like, these days in the dating world,
Speaker 1: people are connecting over apps or over a text message thread,
Speaker 1: and so talk about where communication can go awry, how
Speaker 1: we might be able to become super communicators when we're
Speaker 1: first meeting people in these new kind of domains that
Speaker 1: maybe our whole supercommunication system wasn't really built.
Speaker 2: For very well, No, you're exactly right. When I met
Speaker 2: my wife, we were in college together, and that seemed
Speaker 2: like the most natural way to meet your spouse, right, Like,
Speaker 2: you get to spend a lot of time with them,
Speaker 2: you know, people in common. And now if I was
Speaker 2: suddenly single and having to use apps, I would be
Speaker 2: disastrous of this. I would have no idea what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: But what's interesting is I would learn. One of my
Speaker 2: favorite examples of this is that if you go back
Speaker 2: to when telephones first became popular, there were all these
Speaker 2: articles that came out that said, no one's ever going
Speaker 2: to be able to have a real conversation on the phone, right.
Speaker 2: It's going to be useful for sending over grocery lists
Speaker 2: or stock orders, but if you can't see the person,
Speaker 2: you can't really connect with them. And what's really interesting
Speaker 2: is they were right at first. There were all these
Speaker 2: studies where they would transcribe phone conversations and they were
Speaker 2: stilted and weird and awkward because people didn't know how
Speaker 2: to use that channel of communication. Now, by the time
Speaker 2: you and I were in middle school, of course we
Speaker 2: could have conversations for like seven hours a night. They
Speaker 2: were the best conversations of our life on the telephone.
Speaker 2: And it's because people tend to learn how to use
Speaker 2: different channels, and what they learn is different channels require
Speaker 2: different approaches. So you and I can see each other
Speaker 2: right now because we're on zoom, But if we turned
Speaker 2: off our cameras odds are, we would both even without
Speaker 2: realizing it, we would both start enunciating our words a
Speaker 2: little bit more. We would start making the emotion in
Speaker 2: our voices a little bit stronger because we know that
Speaker 2: the other person can't see us, so we know that
Speaker 2: we need to do that. Now. The problem is, as
Speaker 2: you pointed out, is we've been online for like twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five years now, right, Like it's like a millisecond
Speaker 2: elationary time a second. Right, There's no evolution that's happened
Speaker 2: in our brain around digital communication, and so as a result,
Speaker 2: we haven't learned how to use these different channels differently.
Speaker 2: And sometimes because it's so fast and we're not thinking
Speaker 2: hard and we just are busy, we assume that sending
Speaker 2: a text is like sending an email is like making
Speaker 2: a phone call. We don't think about the different rules
Speaker 2: that different forms of communication require, and so as a result,
Speaker 2: I send you a brusque email that you think seems
Speaker 2: really like just a short email that you think is
Speaker 2: brusque because I'm thinking if I told you this in person,
Speaker 2: like you would understand it's not brusque. I'm just busy.
Speaker 2: Or I say something sarcastic because I can hear the
Speaker 2: sarcasm in my own head and you could hear it
Speaker 2: if we were on the phone. But when I type it,
Speaker 2: you don't realize it's sarcastic. You think that I'm being
Speaker 2: a jerk. And so a huge part of digital communication
Speaker 2: is just taking a second and so saying what are
Speaker 2: the different rules for this form of communication? Because texting
Speaker 2: is different from snapchatting is different from emailing. And what
Speaker 2: I noticed I have kids, a twelve year old and
Speaker 2: a fifteen year old. They do this automatically. Now there
Speaker 2: are things that they do on texting that is completely
Speaker 2: different from what they would do on email, which is
Speaker 2: completely different from how they talk to each other on
Speaker 2: snap which is completely different from how they talk to
Speaker 2: me at home. They're learning these different channels and the
Speaker 2: rules for these channels, and those of us are a
Speaker 2: little bit older. We sometimes have to remind ourselves.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the specific things we can
Speaker 1: remind ourselves, Because I feel like this comes up all
Speaker 1: the time, both in like my marriage and my relationships,
Speaker 1: but also just in friendships and with work colleagues and
Speaker 1: so on, What are some of the really specific strategies
Speaker 1: so we.
Speaker 2: Know that when you go online, basically everything that seems
Speaker 2: polite should be done a lot more. There was a
Speaker 2: really interesting study that looked at on Wikipedia editors who
Speaker 2: would like get in these fights with each other, and
Speaker 2: they found that if just one person started saying please
Speaker 2: and thank you, it lowered the temperature of the conversation
Speaker 2: by like fifty percent. Everyone else would suddenly become more
Speaker 2: polite and more understanding. One first thing is that you're
Speaker 2: more polite, like overemphasize the polite. It's never going to
Speaker 2: come across as obsequious. It's just going to come across
Speaker 2: as as understanding and comforting. And then the second thing
Speaker 2: you do is read back what you've written, not with
Speaker 2: it the words playing in your head, but actually looking
Speaker 2: at what's been said. So a really important thing that
Speaker 2: happens is I mentioned we tend to rely on vocal
Speaker 2: tone enormously when we're talking to each other. Right, you
Speaker 2: can tell if it's a joke or I'm serious based
Speaker 2: on the tone of my voice. But we can't do
Speaker 2: that in written text. And so sometimes just taking a
Speaker 2: moment to reread the thing without letting the voice in
Speaker 2: your head read it for you will tell you what
Speaker 2: you're about to send is going to come off sounding
Speaker 2: so different from what you intend. Really, the tips are
Speaker 2: basically just to kind of overdo it a little bit,
Speaker 2: and that's especially true for online dating.
Speaker 1: It's certainly not bad dating advice to make a point
Speaker 1: of being considerate and kind. But after the honeymoon is over,
Speaker 1: a lot of us stop being so careful around our partners.
Speaker 1: Charles says, that's not what we should do if we
Speaker 1: want to act more like a super communicator. More on
Speaker 1: that when the Happiness Lab gets back from the break.
Speaker 1: We often talked to dozens of people in the course
Speaker 1: of an ordinary day. We might order coffee, or buy
Speaker 1: a train ticket, or ask our neighbor to trim back
Speaker 1: their hedge. We have simple interactions and trickier ones. But
Speaker 1: if you think of a time when your own communication
Speaker 1: went awry, my guess is that it probably happened not
Speaker 1: with some stranger, but with someone who is near and
Speaker 1: dear to you. It was this realization that pushed author
Speaker 1: Charles Douhig to investigate the habits of so called supercommunicators.
Speaker 1: He hoped that he, too, could learn to interact better
Speaker 1: with the people whose feelings mattered to him the most.
Speaker 2: I was working the New York Times and they made
Speaker 2: me a manager. And when they made me a manager,
Speaker 2: I was like, oh man, I'm going to kill this.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be so good at this, Like I've
Speaker 2: had lots of managers, and I got an MBA from Harvard,
Speaker 2: and I was okay at the like the logistics in
Speaker 2: the strategy part, and it was terrible at communicating, Like
Speaker 2: people would come to me with problems and I'd try
Speaker 2: and solve their problems rather than listen. They would come
Speaker 2: to me and say this is really important to me,
Speaker 2: and I would downplay it and try and help them
Speaker 2: by showing them that it's not that important instead of
Speaker 2: actually listening to them saying it's important. And so one
Speaker 2: night I went home and I sat down and I
Speaker 2: wrote a list of all the times in the last
Speaker 2: year that I could remember being bad at communicating, like miscommunicating.
Speaker 2: It was shockingly long, particularly for someone who's a journalist
Speaker 2: whos supposed to be a professional communicator. And a lot
Speaker 2: of them were with my wife and my kids. And
Speaker 2: this happens again and again and again, where the people
Speaker 2: that we love the most are often the ones we
Speaker 2: communicate with the least and the worst because they're around
Speaker 2: all the time. Right, Because there's so many opportunities, I
Speaker 2: feel like we have to seize them. And so that's
Speaker 2: why I started writing supercommunicators, is I really wanted to
Speaker 2: learn how to get better at this myself. And it
Speaker 2: turns out that oftentimes that people we have conflict within
Speaker 2: our life are the people who are most important to us.
Speaker 2: We fight with our partners, and learning how to navigate
Speaker 2: through those is really really important because that's what makes
Speaker 2: a relationship long term successful.
Speaker 1: So one of the things you talk about in the
Speaker 1: book is that the first step to kind of doing
Speaker 1: conflict better is to recognize what the real goal is
Speaker 1: of conflict. And it's often not what we think, which
Speaker 1: is like I want to win, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to show my husband that he was wrong about the
Speaker 1: dishwasher or something like that. What's the real goal of
Speaker 1: conflict If we're trying to kind of act more like
Speaker 1: a super communicator, the real.
Speaker 2: Goal of conflict is to understand what the other person
Speaker 2: is telling you and to help them understand you. Right.
Speaker 2: There's oftentimes this thing that's owned as the quiet negotiation
Speaker 2: that at the start of a conversation, and the quiet
Speaker 2: negotiation sort of has two goals. The first is to
Speaker 2: figure out what we're going to be talking about, and
Speaker 2: the second is to figure out the rules for talking
Speaker 2: to each other. Right. Is this a formal conversation or
Speaker 2: a casual one? Can we interrupt each other or do
Speaker 2: we need to wait our turn? There are no right rules,
Speaker 2: but what's important is that we're on the same page
Speaker 2: about what the rules are. And the way to do
Speaker 2: this honestly, particularly when we're in conflict with someone, is
Speaker 2: most frequently simply to ask them. So when I come
Speaker 2: home now and I'm upset, my wife will often say
Speaker 2: to me, look, do you want me to help you
Speaker 2: solve this problem? Or do you want me just to
Speaker 2: listen to you? Because you need to get this off
Speaker 2: your chest. In schools, they often teach teachers when a
Speaker 2: student comes up with something that's really bothering them or
Speaker 2: something meaningful, to ask do you want me to hear you,
Speaker 2: do you want me to help you, or do you
Speaker 2: want me to hug you? Which, of course are the
Speaker 2: three kinds of conversations, right, the practical, the social, and
Speaker 2: the emotional.
Speaker 1: It also means that when we go to a conflict conversation,
Speaker 1: we ourselves probably need to know what our goal is.
Speaker 1: And this is something you saw in your research that
Speaker 1: like figuring that out ahead of time seems to actually
Speaker 1: be really helpful.
Speaker 2: Too oh enormously helpful. There's work done by a woman
Speaker 2: named Alison wood Brooks at Harvard Business School where they
Speaker 2: asked students, before having a conversation with a stranger simply
Speaker 2: to write down three topics that they might discuss in
Speaker 2: simple stuff. It took ten seconds, like the movie we
Speaker 2: saw last night and you know the game this weekend.
Speaker 2: And they found that doing that, people would write it
Speaker 2: down that stick it in their pocket. Those topics almost
Speaker 2: never came up during the conversation, but people felt so
Speaker 2: much less anxious because they knew what they could talk about,
Speaker 2: and doing that had forced them to think about what
Speaker 2: they wanted to talk about. This is, I think kind
Speaker 2: of the goal is that, again, this doesn't take much time.
Speaker 2: It takes like ten seconds. If we know what we
Speaker 2: want out of a conversation before we open our mouth,
Speaker 2: then we're in a position where we can communicate that
Speaker 2: to the other people, and when we do, it invites
Speaker 2: them to communicate with us what they want. Another study
Speaker 2: that I love was done at this investment bank. This
Speaker 2: was like a place where people like screen at each
Speaker 2: other all day long, and they told everyone before each
Speaker 2: meeting for a week, write down one sentence about what
Speaker 2: you want to accomplish in this meeting and the mood
Speaker 2: you hope to establish. So people would write down like,
Speaker 2: you know, I want to choose a budget together, but
Speaker 2: I want everyone to be on board and be happy
Speaker 2: with the result. And then people would like again, stick
Speaker 2: the cards with the sentence on it into their pocket.
Speaker 2: They would walk into to the meeting. Most people wouldn't
Speaker 2: say what was on their card, but because they knew,
Speaker 2: and they knew that everyone else in that room also
Speaker 2: knew what they wanted, they would just tell each other
Speaker 2: and the incidents of conflict went down eighty percent during
Speaker 2: that week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this act of just like knowing what you
Speaker 1: want ahead of time, even if it doesn't come to
Speaker 1: that is really powerful. Another suggesting you had in your
Speaker 1: book which I loved, which is to like acknowledge that,
Speaker 1: like the discussion might be awkward, like that there's conflict
Speaker 1: and obstacles might come up. You know, talk about why
Speaker 1: that can be so helpful.
Speaker 2: And this is particularly true conversations that, for instance, have
Speaker 2: to do with identity, like if we're talking about race
Speaker 2: or we're talking about gender, is something that we're scared
Speaker 2: about talking about, but it can also just be true
Speaker 2: for any tough conversation we're going to have, like in relationships,
Speaker 2: you know, in relationships, exactly, if I need to bring
Speaker 2: something up, like about the dishes, and I know that, like,
Speaker 2: you're probably going to not like hearing this. Oftentimes, one
Speaker 2: of the things that stops us from having that conversation
Speaker 2: is that we're worried about how awkward it's going to be.
Speaker 2: But of course the true of the matter is it's
Speaker 2: going to be awkward. So if we start the dialogue
Speaker 2: by acknowledging, look, this is going to be an awkward conversation.
Speaker 2: I'm going to say some of the wrong things. Also,
Speaker 2: I'm going to make some mistakes, Like I'm going to
Speaker 2: say some things in ways that I don't mean to
Speaker 2: say them. So I'm going to ask for your apology
Speaker 2: in advance, because I'm going to screw this up. And
Speaker 2: it's okay if you screw it up, it's okay if
Speaker 2: you have a tough time. Simply acknowledging that awkwardness is
Speaker 2: enormously powerful in helping us move beyond it, or recognizing
Speaker 2: that the awkwardness is actually part of the conversation. It's
Speaker 2: one of the reasons we're having it. Then you also
Speaker 2: mentioned that these obstacles right, that oftentimes in a conversation,
Speaker 2: these obstacles pop up and they create anxiety themselves because
Speaker 2: I said the wrong thing, or it's clear that I
Speaker 2: just said something that offended you, or you're getting defensive,
Speaker 2: or I'm getting defensive. These obstacles are oftentimes easy to
Speaker 2: anticipate if we think about them, but we usually don't, right,
Speaker 2: We just sort of jump into a conversation I've got
Speaker 2: something to tell you about the dishes, rather than sitting
Speaker 2: down and just thinking for ten seconds, like when I
Speaker 2: bring this up, is he going to get defensive? When
Speaker 2: he gets defensive, what am I going to do? So
Speaker 2: anticipating the obstacle and coming up with a plan for
Speaker 2: what to do when you encounter it is enormously powerful.
Speaker 2: The plan is usually obvious, you know exactly what to do,
Speaker 2: but in the moment of panic, when you hit that
Speaker 2: obstacle without having thought about it at all, you overreact.
Speaker 2: But if you just take ten seconds and say, and
Speaker 2: you can actually announce the obstacles, you can say, look,
Speaker 2: I'm going to bring this thing up, and in addition
Speaker 2: to it being awkward, I'm going to work really hard
Speaker 2: not to be defensive myself. If I'm getting defensive, please
Speaker 2: let me know. The thing about tough conversations and conversations
Speaker 2: and conflict is there is no magic bullet to make
Speaker 2: them easy. So just embrace that they're going to be challenging,
Speaker 2: and once you acknowledge those challenges, oftentimes the challenges become
Speaker 2: less scary and they actually become opportunities for us to
Speaker 2: connect and understand each other. So me and my wife,
Speaker 2: this happened like ten years ago. We went on this
Speaker 2: vacation without our kids to Florida, and we were staying
Speaker 2: at this spa, and like, this is supposed to be relaxing, right,
Speaker 2: I managed to screw it up completely by bringing up
Speaker 2: money and whether we're spending too much money or whether
Speaker 2: it's not going well, and like she got really like upset,
Speaker 2: and then I got super upset, and we were like
Speaker 2: screaming at each other in the hallway of the spa,
Speaker 2: like this is like the worst possible way to spend
Speaker 2: a relaxing vacation. And so when I look back on that,
Speaker 2: I think to myself, like, how different would it have
Speaker 2: been if I had said to Liz, like, you know
Speaker 2: what I think we're spending too much money. We need
Speaker 2: to talk about that. And she said, Okay, here's the
Speaker 2: things that I need to spend on, and I think
Speaker 2: we need to spend this much on food, and we
Speaker 2: need to spend this much on school. If instead of
Speaker 2: just responding and being like no, no, no, no, you're wrong, which
Speaker 2: is what I did, if I had said, Okay, what
Speaker 2: I hear you saying is there are some things that
Speaker 2: are priorities for you that might not be priorities for me,
Speaker 2: but that we have to listen to each other's priorities.
Speaker 2: And for you, being able to buy organic food is
Speaker 2: a real priority, even if it isn't for me. Am
Speaker 2: I getting that right? Then what she probably would have
Speaker 2: said is either yeah, yeah, I think you're hearing me,
Speaker 2: or she would have said, no, it's not actually the
Speaker 2: organic food. It's that I feel like you're trying to
Speaker 2: control how I spend You're trying to control the money.
Speaker 1: And that's the beauty of why this is looping. For understanding,
Speaker 1: you need the loop to come back to.
Speaker 2: You need the loop. So when she says no, no, no,
Speaker 2: you're got you got it a little bit. But let
Speaker 2: me tell you they're part of this. Then I just
Speaker 2: loop again and I say, Okay, what I hear you
Speaker 2: saying is and we do this again and again and
Speaker 2: again until we all agree that we understand each other.
Speaker 2: And the reason why this is so powerful is in
Speaker 2: a lot of this draws on the work of Sheila
Speaker 2: Heen and her colleagues at the Harvard Negotiation Project. Whenever
Speaker 2: we go into a tough conversation, whenever we go into
Speaker 2: a conflict, everyone involved has a story inside their head
Speaker 2: about why we're here. And the only thing that's certain
Speaker 2: is our stories are different. Right, They might be similar,
Speaker 2: but they're not the same. And I'm operating from my story.
Speaker 2: I'm saying, like, the reason we're talking about this is
Speaker 2: that you're spending too much money and you don't appreciate
Speaker 2: how hard it is for me to go earn that money.
Speaker 2: And from Lizz's perspective, it's I'm taking care of the
Speaker 2: kids and also I earn my own money, and I
Speaker 2: don't understand why you keep insisting that like you should
Speaker 2: have any say and how I spend when I'm not
Speaker 2: trying to control how you spend. We both have a
Speaker 2: story inside our head, and as long as we're operating
Speaker 2: from that story, it's really hard for us to hear
Speaker 2: each other. But when we start looping for understanding, what
Speaker 2: we're doing is really saying, here's the story that I
Speaker 2: hear you telling me, am, I getting that story right,
Speaker 2: And oftentimes it is a looping. Oftentimes they have to say, no,
Speaker 2: you didn't get it exactly right. Let me help you
Speaker 2: out understand. And once we understand the other person's story,
Speaker 2: that's when we can really hear what they want to say,
Speaker 2: and we know how to say our own piece so
Speaker 2: that they can hear it.
Speaker 1: So I'm guessing that knowing how to do this well
Speaker 1: has meant that there's like not more like SPA blow
Speaker 1: ups and tries, you know, but it does this really
Speaker 1: change your life?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it is. It is like magic. It
Speaker 2: has transformed not just with Liz and not just with
Speaker 2: my kids, but like with everyone. Because the thing is
Speaker 2: all of these skills, looping for understanding, asking deep questions,
Speaker 2: all of those are things that become instinctual once you
Speaker 2: start thinking about them. They become habits. And what you
Speaker 2: discover is that like all these problems that I used
Speaker 2: to create for myself have just disappeared. It's not like
Speaker 2: Liz and I agree with each other more. It's not
Speaker 2: like we're like suddenly on the same page about everything.
Speaker 2: But as long as we're like actually communicating about it
Speaker 2: and we understand our goal is to understand each other,
Speaker 2: not to win, then we end up feeling like we're
Speaker 2: both in control. And this control is really important because
Speaker 2: when we are in conflict with someone, when we're fighting
Speaker 2: with our partner, when we're having a tough time, when
Speaker 2: we're negotiating the start of a relationship, we have this
Speaker 2: instinct for control. It's very human, and so it's very
Speaker 2: natural to try and control the thing that's right in
Speaker 2: front of you, the other person. Right, if I can
Speaker 2: just get you to listen to me, you'll agree with me.
Speaker 2: If I can just get you to see things from
Speaker 2: my perspective, or when you say I'm really upset about X,
Speaker 2: if I can just convince you like you shouldn't be upset,
Speaker 2: that's not a big deal, Like you're making too much
Speaker 2: of it. Right, If I can control the importance you
Speaker 2: place on things, it feels like that will work, But
Speaker 2: of course it never does. All it does is create
Speaker 2: more conflict. So instead, if we can find things to
Speaker 2: control together, control the environment, for instance, like if we're
Speaker 2: having a fight at two am, to decide we're going
Speaker 2: to wait until we're both well rested in the morning
Speaker 2: to talk about this. If we can control ourselves by saying, look,
Speaker 2: I'm going to take a couple of minutes just to
Speaker 2: calm down before I answer, if we can control the
Speaker 2: fight itself and say, you know, instead of like arguing
Speaker 2: about where we spend Thanksgiving and it becomes a conversation
Speaker 2: about your mother and how she hates me, and we
Speaker 2: spend too much money you don't earn enough. If we
Speaker 2: just say, look, we're just talking about Thanksgiving, we're going
Speaker 2: to keep it to Thanksgiving, then we're controlling things together.
Speaker 2: In marriages, I know that you had talk to the Gotmans.
Speaker 2: There's this line that I love from one of John
Speaker 2: Gotman's studies, which is the key to success in a
Speaker 2: marriage is symmetry. And what he means is not necessarily
Speaker 2: we agree with each other. It's that we match each other.
Speaker 2: That when you get serious, I get serious, when you
Speaker 2: go light, go light. And part of that is saying
Speaker 2: I'm going to share control with you. We're going to
Speaker 2: control this together.
Speaker 1: So we've covered tons of ground in this conversation so far,
Speaker 1: but just as a final thought, like, why should we
Speaker 1: really copy what super communicators are doing when it comes
Speaker 1: to relationships, and just kind of generally so I.
Speaker 2: Mentioned before this Harvard study, this Harvard Sudy of Adult Happiness,
Speaker 2: and it's the largest and longest latitudinal study that we have.
Speaker 2: They've followed around thousands of people trying to figure out
Speaker 2: what determines future longevity and health and happiness. And the
Speaker 2: only real thing that they found that seems to be
Speaker 2: predictive is people who have deep and meaningful relationships when
Speaker 2: they are forty five will be healthier and happier and
Speaker 2: more successful when they're sixty five. And of course there's
Speaker 2: nothing special about forty five, right. If you can make
Speaker 2: it to forty five and you have some deep relationships,
Speaker 2: it means you've been building them for a while. You
Speaker 2: probably also had them when you were twenty five or
Speaker 2: thirty five. And so the lesson to take from that
Speaker 2: is it doesn't matter how many relationships you have, it
Speaker 2: matters how deep and important they are. And a huge
Speaker 2: part of that is just having conversations with them. Right.
Speaker 2: But when it comes to romantic relationships, I think the
Speaker 2: lesson here is it can get really discouraging, right, Like
Speaker 2: I have lots of friends who are on the apps
Speaker 2: and they go on date after date after date. Half
Speaker 2: the dates are terrible and then the other half they
Speaker 2: like them, but then they ghost each other. And like,
Speaker 2: it can be brutal out there. But the thing is
Speaker 2: that it's it's worth persisting in. It's worth spending that
Speaker 2: energy to find the right person because when we connect
Speaker 2: with someone, when we find someone that we can have
Speaker 2: conversations with, even if we don't end up mirroring them,
Speaker 2: if they just become a friend, that is the thing
Speaker 2: that gives our life meaning year by year by year.
Speaker 2: And the people who at forty five have deep, meaningful
Speaker 2: relationships and therefore it's sixty five, are happier and healthier.
Speaker 2: They are the people who spend time and energy and
Speaker 2: put up with the disappointment trying to find someone when
Speaker 2: they were younger. It's worth investing in. It's hard, but
Speaker 2: it works out in the end and it pays off.
Speaker 1: If Charles has helped to convince you that you need
Speaker 1: to invest more in your intimate relationships, then be sure
Speaker 1: to check out his book Super Communicators. How to unlock
Speaker 1: the secret language of connection. But we haven't finished with
Speaker 1: the topic of love and happiness just yet. In our
Speaker 1: next and final episode of this special season, we'll challenge
Speaker 1: some of the love rules we get from fairy tale romances,
Speaker 1: movie rom comms, and Instagram influencers. We'll even ask if
Speaker 1: it's about time that we settled for a good enough lover.
Speaker 3: You know, we don't need one hundred percent. We don't
Speaker 3: need our partners to be perfect. We need them to
Speaker 3: be there for us most of the time. We need
Speaker 3: a relationship that's good enough. That doesn't mean an unhealthy relationship.
Speaker 3: It doesn't mean an abusive relationship. It just means a
Speaker 3: relationship that's mostly satisfying.
Speaker 1: So don't miss the next episode of the Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: with me Doctor Laurie Santos,