Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is going to be a longer one part of
Speaker 1: the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
Speaker 1: take their days from great to awesome and their advice
Speaker 1: for the rest of us. So today I am delighted
Speaker 1: to welcome Charles Duhig to the show. Charles is the
Speaker 1: author of several books, including the Power of Habit and
Speaker 1: his latest Super Communicators, which is about how to unlock
Speaker 1: the secret language of connection. So, Charles, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I live in Santa Cruz, California. I have
Speaker 2: two kids, both of them teenagers, both boys, And I'm
Speaker 2: a writer at the New Yorker magazine And as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: the author of a couple of books, and Super Communicators,
Speaker 2: the one that came out earlier.
Speaker 1: This year Awesome. And do you consider yourself a good communicator?
Speaker 1: Are you learning better at it now?
Speaker 2: You know, this book actually started because I fell into
Speaker 2: this bad pattern with my wife, which I'm imagining many
Speaker 2: people listening can relate to which is I would come
Speaker 2: home after a long day at work and I would
Speaker 2: sart complaining about my day, and you know, my boss
Speaker 2: doesn't appreciate me, and my coworkers don't understand what a
Speaker 2: genius I am. And my wife would offer this really
Speaker 2: good advice. This is something like, why don't you take
Speaker 2: your boss out to lunch and you guys can get
Speaker 2: to know each other a little bit more, And instead
Speaker 2: of being able to hear her advice, I would get
Speaker 2: even more upset and say, like, you're supposed to be
Speaker 2: supporting me, why aren't you outraged on my behalf? And
Speaker 2: then she'd get upset because I was attacking her for
Speaker 2: giving me good advice. And so that's kind of how
Speaker 2: the book began, is me calling researchers and saying, I'm
Speaker 2: theoretically a professional communicator, right, I'm a journalist. Why do
Speaker 2: I keep falling into this pattern again and again and
Speaker 2: again of miscommunicating?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we all have different ways of communicating, it
Speaker 1: turns out, and one of the interests things about super
Speaker 1: communicators is you talk about how there are three kinds
Speaker 1: of conversations, and most of us don't necessarily think about
Speaker 1: what kind of conversation we are having sounds like you
Speaker 1: and your wife were having two entirely separate conversations.
Speaker 2: In that case, that's exactly right. Yeah. So what researchers
Speaker 2: have found, and we're actually living through this golden age
Speaker 2: of understanding communication for really the first time because of
Speaker 2: advances in neural imaging and data collection, And what they
Speaker 2: found is that when we have a discussion, we tend
Speaker 2: to think of it as being about one thing, right,
Speaker 2: We're talking about my day, where to go on vacation,
Speaker 2: or the kids' grades. But actually every discussion is made
Speaker 2: up of different kinds of conversations, and those conversations they
Speaker 2: tend to fall into one of three buckets. As you
Speaker 2: just mentioned. There's these practical conversations where we're talking about
Speaker 2: making plans or solving problems together. But then there's also
Speaker 2: emotional conversations where I tell you what I'm feeling and
Speaker 2: I don't want you to solve my feelings. I want
Speaker 2: you to empathize and relate. And then there's social conversations,
Speaker 2: which is about how we relate to each other in
Speaker 2: society and the identities that are important to us. And
Speaker 2: what researchers have found is that if you're having different
Speaker 2: kinds of conversations at the same moment, it's very, very
Speaker 2: difficult to completely hear each other and it's almost impossible
Speaker 2: to connect. And you're exactly right, that's what was happening
Speaker 2: with me and my wife. I was having an emotional conversation,
Speaker 2: she was having a practical conversation, and they're both equally
Speaker 2: legitimate conversations, but because we weren't having the same kinds
Speaker 2: of conversation, we couldn't really hear each other. It's within
Speaker 2: psychology this has become known as the matching principle. The
Speaker 2: successful communication requires having the same kind of conversation at
Speaker 2: the same moment, and then you can move from conversation
Speaker 2: to conversation together as long as you're aligned.
Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like then, in order to kind of
Speaker 1: be a better listener, which I'm sure many people would
Speaker 1: like to be, one of the first things you need
Speaker 1: to do is figure out what kind of conversation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the person you're talking with is hoping to have.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, and one of the best ways to
Speaker 2: do that, well, so I'll tell you how how to
Speaker 2: do it. With kids. They actually teach this in schools,
Speaker 2: is that when someone comes up to you, a student
Speaker 2: or one of your kids with a problem, you say, look,
Speaker 2: do you want for this thing that you're talking to
Speaker 2: me about? Or not even about a problem, just about
Speaker 2: anything they want to talk about.
Speaker 1: You say, do you.
Speaker 2: Want me to help you? Do you want me to
Speaker 2: hug you? Or do you want me to hear you?
Speaker 2: Which are the three kinds of conversations, right, the practical, emotional,
Speaker 2: and the social. And what you'll find is kids can
Speaker 2: tell you right away like no, no I don't. I
Speaker 2: don't I just need you, like I don't need your help,
Speaker 2: I just need a hug, right or or no, no,
Speaker 2: I don't need a hug. I just need you to
Speaker 2: hear what's going on and listen to me, because it's
Speaker 2: important that I get this across. Now. For adults, you know,
Speaker 2: in the business world, for instance, it's hard to say
Speaker 2: do you want to be helped, hugged or heard because
Speaker 2: they might go to HR so.
Speaker 1: The hug might not work so well exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: So the better way to do this is to ask questions,
Speaker 2: and in particular to ask a kind of question that's
Speaker 2: own as a deep question, which asks about our values
Speaker 2: or beliefs or experiences, which can sound a little intimidating,
Speaker 2: But it's as simple as like, if you meet someone
Speaker 2: who's a doctor, instead of saying, oh, you know what
Speaker 2: hospital do you work at, asking them, oh, what made
Speaker 2: you decide to go to medical school? That invites them
Speaker 2: to tell you something about who they are.
Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like, you know, you're asking deeper questions.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the opposite of small talk. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know you have a section in the book about
Speaker 1: taking some shallow questions and making them deeper. I wonder
Speaker 1: if you could give some examples of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's anything that basically asks people, instead of
Speaker 2: the facts of their life, asking them about how they
Speaker 2: feel about their life. Right, So let small talk questions
Speaker 2: just shallow questions would be like, you know, and these
Speaker 2: are the easiest things to do. Oh you meet someone
Speaker 2: at a party and you're like, oh, you know, what
Speaker 2: part of town do you live in? You know, do
Speaker 2: you know my friend Jim he lives up in the
Speaker 2: heights too. A better question would be like, oh, you
Speaker 2: live in the heights, Like what do you like about
Speaker 2: the heights? Like is there a real sense of community there?
Speaker 2: What drew you to that? Or were you find out,
Speaker 2: you know, you bump into someone who's from your hometown,
Speaker 2: and an inevitable, shallow question is you know, where'd you
Speaker 2: go to high school? But then the next question, if
Speaker 2: it's a deep question, could be what was high school
Speaker 2: like for you? Like did you enjoy it high school?
Speaker 2: I was at a meeting where I was sitting next
Speaker 2: to a guy and we were like just making conversation
Speaker 2: before the meeting started, and he mentioned that his I
Speaker 2: asked him when he did that weekend and he said, oh,
Speaker 2: I went to my kids graduation, and he was like
Speaker 2: it was fantastic. Now the easiest thing to do and say, oh, congratulations,
Speaker 2: that's great, But instead I asked him a deep question,
Speaker 2: I said, and it doesn't seem like a deep question,
Speaker 2: but it just seems like an interesting, interested question, which is, oh,
Speaker 2: that's amazing. What did it feel like to watch your
Speaker 2: kid walk across that stage? Like like were you proud
Speaker 2: or like sad? That's the kind of question that invites
Speaker 2: someone to share who they are. And more importantly, when
Speaker 2: someone talks about their kid going to graduate, going to
Speaker 2: their kids graduation, that's probably a somewhat emotional topic for them,
Speaker 2: and instead of simply saying graduate. I matched him and
Speaker 2: I said, oh, tell me about that. What how did
Speaker 2: it feel to watch your kid walk across that stage?
Speaker 2: And we had a great conversation for just like five minutes,
Speaker 2: and then we went on and we did the meeting,
Speaker 2: but we felt more connected to each other because we
Speaker 2: had become aligned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I mean I think it's it's partly. You know,
Speaker 1: small talk gets this reputation as being incredibly dull, and
Speaker 1: it often is, but that's because the questions don't invite
Speaker 1: further conversation. Whereas you know you're passing the time talking
Speaker 1: about a deep emotional issue, it going to make the
Speaker 1: time go a lot faster. Yeah, we're going to take
Speaker 1: a quick ad break and then we'll be back with
Speaker 1: some more tips on being a better communicator. Well, I
Speaker 1: am back with Charles Douhig, who is the author of
Speaker 1: the book Super Communicators and also the book The Power
Speaker 1: of Habit. He's been sharing some tips on having better conversations.
Speaker 1: Although I think one of the issues a lot of
Speaker 1: us have with having good conversations, and you could tell
Speaker 1: me if this is you know something a lot of
Speaker 1: people do. We're always thinking about what we should be
Speaker 1: saying next, which means that your brain isn't necessarily on
Speaker 1: what the person is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, absolutely. And in the book, we have a
Speaker 2: bunch of stories, right the Supercommunicators is really built. There's
Speaker 2: a story about a guy who's a CIA officer as
Speaker 2: to recruit overseas spies that is just terrible at the
Speaker 2: job until he learns how to how to genuinely listen
Speaker 2: to other people. There's another story about the making of
Speaker 2: The Big Bang Theory, the TV show, where they think
Speaker 2: the show was not a hit at first. It was
Speaker 2: a total flop until they figured out how to show
Speaker 2: that the characters were listening to each other. And one
Speaker 2: of the things that we know about listening is that
Speaker 2: you're exactly right. Oftentimes in a conversation, we get a
Speaker 2: little focused on what we're going to say next, because
Speaker 2: we want to sound smart, right, We want to we
Speaker 2: want to sound clever, and we want to sort of
Speaker 2: share something about ourselves. But the the more we listen,
Speaker 2: the more we automatically sound clever and share with ourselves,
Speaker 2: even if it's not premeditated. And there's a trick to
Speaker 2: getting yourself to listen closely to another person, and it's
Speaker 2: called looping for understanding the goal of looping for understanding
Speaker 2: is not only to listen closely, it's to prove to
Speaker 2: the other person that you've been listening to them. And
Speaker 2: there's three steps to it. Step one is to ask
Speaker 2: a question, preferably a deep question. Step two is to
Speaker 2: repeat back in your own words which you heard them say.
Speaker 2: Don't mimic them, but like really try and prove to them, Oh,
Speaker 2: I hear what you're saying. I think what you're saying
Speaker 2: is this. And then step three, and this is the
Speaker 2: step I always forget, ask if you got it right?
Speaker 2: Because when you ask if you got it right, what
Speaker 2: you're actually asking is can I have your permission to
Speaker 2: acknowledge that I've been listening to you. Now, think about
Speaker 2: what you have to do in that conversation instead of
Speaker 2: thinking about what you're going to say. You have to
Speaker 2: pay enough attention to the other person that you can
Speaker 2: repeat back what they're going to tell you in your
Speaker 2: own words, and you're hopefully going to get it right
Speaker 2: when we put.
Speaker 1: Ourselves because if they tell you you're wrong, what do
Speaker 1: you do?
Speaker 2: Then? Well, then you say, okay, I'm sorry, they explain
Speaker 2: it to me again. I missed something right, And the
Speaker 2: goal here is like, how do we how do we
Speaker 2: how do we get ourselves to listen more closely? We
Speaker 2: get ourselves to listen more closely by paying closer attention.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so lots of different tips here for being a
Speaker 1: good listener. But part of this is about treating conversations seriously.
Speaker 1: And one of the things you suggest in super communicators
Speaker 1: is actually doing some preparation for a conversation, and not
Speaker 1: just difficult conversations, because we're going to talk about difficult
Speaker 1: conversations in a minute, but even just like, let's say
Speaker 1: I'm going out to lunch with a friend of mine
Speaker 1: I haven't seen in six months, so obviously I'm probably
Speaker 1: looking forward to it. You know, it's a thing I've
Speaker 1: gotten on my calendar, probably had it there for at
Speaker 1: least a week or two, so I'm excited about it.
Speaker 1: How we should I prepare for that in order to
Speaker 1: make it more meaningful for both of us?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's a great question, right because and you
Speaker 2: probably already do. Some of this is that as you're
Speaker 2: anticipating seeing your friend, you're thinking to yourself, I'm really
Speaker 2: curious I'm going to ask her about this or I'm
Speaker 2: going to ask her about that. I wonder what's going
Speaker 2: on with her kids. Last time we talked, she was
Speaker 2: having some middle school problems, and I wonder if they've
Speaker 2: resolved that. You're already preparing for that conversation, and so
Speaker 2: the question is is how can we do that all
Speaker 2: the time? How can we make that a habit? Well,
Speaker 2: there was a study that was done by Harvard Business
Speaker 2: School where they brought in a bunch of students, Harvard
Speaker 2: Business School students, this was like in their first month
Speaker 2: of school, and they told them, Okay, in a couple
Speaker 2: of minutes, you're going to have a conversation with a stranger. Now,
Speaker 2: having a conversation with a stranger is like one of
Speaker 2: the most anxiety producing things you can ask someone to do,
Speaker 2: right like always, because we don't know what we're going
Speaker 2: to ask about, we don't know if we have anything
Speaker 2: in common. And they said, before you have this conversation,
Speaker 2: what we want you to do is we want you
Speaker 2: to do this just ten second exercise. Take out a
Speaker 2: piece of paper and write down three things you might
Speaker 2: want to talk about, or three questions you might want
Speaker 2: to ask, or just three topics that are interesting to you.
Speaker 2: They can be stupid, right, like, you know, are you
Speaker 2: going to the party this weekend? Did you catch last
Speaker 2: night's game? And they said, okay, take ten seconds, write
Speaker 2: down those three questions and then put them in your
Speaker 2: pocket and go have the conversation. So students did this,
Speaker 2: They wrote down their three things, they went and they
Speaker 2: had the conversations, and afterwards they pulled the students and
Speaker 2: they asked them, did you guys talk about the things
Speaker 2: you wrote down? And most of the students said no, like,
Speaker 2: actually it never came up. But on the other hand, like,
Speaker 2: the conversation was so much less anxiety producing for me
Speaker 2: and went so much better than I anticipated, because I
Speaker 2: knew that if we hit like an awkward silence, I
Speaker 2: had those questions in my back pocket, and the fact
Speaker 2: that they were in my back pocket meant that I
Speaker 2: didn't even have to I didn't even have to ask them. Oftentimes,
Speaker 2: when we're going to have a conversation with someone, particularly
Speaker 2: an important, meaningful conversation, one of the best things we
Speaker 2: can do is just sit down and ask ourselves, what
Speaker 2: is one thing that I want to tell this person about, Like,
Speaker 2: what's one thing that's important to me that I want
Speaker 2: to share with them, and equally, what is one question
Speaker 2: that you absolutely want to ask that person And you
Speaker 2: might get to that topic and that question in your conversation.
Speaker 2: But the fact that you've thought a little bit about
Speaker 2: what what your goals are for the conversations, that you've
Speaker 2: tried to envision what the other person's goals are for
Speaker 2: the conversations, that's going to make it so much more
Speaker 2: natural to find the things you actually care about.
Speaker 1: Wonderful a good idea for better conversation there. But you know,
Speaker 1: some conversations, you know, probably if you're just having a
Speaker 1: random conversation with another student at Harvard Business School, it
Speaker 1: might be just casual, you know, not particularly fraught. I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people, especially you know, charged political environments,
Speaker 1: lots of topics that are heeded for people these days.
Speaker 1: As you know, this will air after the election, but
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people are going to be
Speaker 1: visiting extended family, maybe people who have different political opinions
Speaker 1: than them. I mean, without getting into the politics itself,
Speaker 1: how do we have conversations with people that we know
Speaker 1: disagree with us on a lot. Yeah, if we're also
Speaker 1: trying to maintain the relationship. So maybe picture Thanksgiving dinner,
Speaker 1: aunts or uncle who disagrees with you vehemently on everything.
Speaker 2: How does that work well? So the first thing I
Speaker 2: would say is, it's not that this is unusual, right,
Speaker 2: There's lots of things that we disagree with our best
Speaker 2: friends on or our family members. In fact, if you
Speaker 2: think about like America, like what's made us strong, it's
Speaker 2: that we are really good at disagreeing with each other
Speaker 2: and then working together. The Constitutional Convention was basically a
Speaker 2: bunch of people coming together who hated each other, and
Speaker 2: all they did was yell at each other for three
Speaker 2: months straight, and then they wrote a constitution together. Having
Speaker 2: conversations with people who don't agree with us, that's an
Speaker 2: important part of conversation, and that's one of the nice
Speaker 2: things about communication. And so the question is how do
Speaker 2: we do it right? So the first thing I would
Speaker 2: say is that oftentimes when people go into that conversation
Speaker 2: they are feeling really anxious. They're not anxious necessarily about
Speaker 2: the topic of the conversation, They're anxious about what the
Speaker 2: conversation is going to be, Like, you know, is Jim
Speaker 2: going to say something that offends me so much that
Speaker 2: like it's really hard for me to continue having dinner
Speaker 2: with him. Am I going to say the wrong thing?
Speaker 2: And am I gonna set Susie off by saying something
Speaker 2: that offends her that I didn't even realize was offensive.
Speaker 2: And so one of the best things we can do
Speaker 2: for those conversations is we can start them by saying,
Speaker 2: I want to have a discussion about something, and I
Speaker 2: want I know that it's going to be awkward, and
Speaker 2: that's okay, Like it's okay for this conversation to be awkward.
Speaker 2: It should kind of be awkward, and I might say
Speaker 2: the wrong thing because in the space between my brain
Speaker 2: and my lips what I'm trying to get across sometimes
Speaker 2: it gets garbled. And I hope you'll forgive me if
Speaker 2: I say if I say things wrong, and I want
Speaker 2: you to know that if you say the wrong thing,
Speaker 2: I will absolutely forgive you. But talking about this and
Speaker 2: understanding how you see this situation it's important to me,
Speaker 2: and so if you're willing, I'd love to have a
Speaker 2: conversation with you about it. What study of the study
Speaker 2: shows is if you start a conversation by acknowledging that
Speaker 2: it might be hard, that it might be awkward, by
Speaker 2: apologizing and saying I go into this with the best
Speaker 2: of intentions, and I hope you do too. It can
Speaker 2: transform how difficult that conversation is. That doesn't mean everyone's
Speaker 2: going to agree with each other, but it does mean
Speaker 2: that it's going to go much easier.
Speaker 1: And it seems that partly it's just about being polite, right,
Speaker 1: that use remembering our manners even when it is a
Speaker 1: heated conversation can go a long way. And that was
Speaker 1: one of the more fascinating studies you referenced in this
Speaker 1: book is that when people well you can describe it,
Speaker 1: and people use their manners online, they even manage to
Speaker 1: turn down the temperatural absolutely.
Speaker 2: It turns out that online if you say please and
Speaker 2: thank you, it can transform the tenor of the discussion.
Speaker 2: And I think the reason why is because you know,
Speaker 2: when you think about it, in these conversations that are
Speaker 2: tough conversations, what's the goal. If your goal is I
Speaker 2: want to give that person a peace in my mind,
Speaker 2: or I want to prove to them that I'm right
Speaker 2: and there wrong, it's not that surprising that the conversation
Speaker 2: is not going to go very well, right, But the
Speaker 2: goal of a conversation shouldn't be to prove to make
Speaker 2: the other person agree with you. It shouldn't even be
Speaker 2: to impress them that you're smarter get them to like you.
Speaker 2: The goal of a conversation is just to understand what
Speaker 2: the other person is trying to say and to speak
Speaker 2: in such a way that they understand you. And when
Speaker 2: we set that as our goal, when we go into
Speaker 2: a conversation, we say, look, I might disagree with you,
Speaker 2: but I genuinely want to understand why you see the
Speaker 2: world this way. All of a sudden, that conversation becomes
Speaker 2: much easier, and that politeness that you mentioned, that's a
Speaker 2: signal that we want to do that when I say
Speaker 2: please and thank you, when I say, you know, that's
Speaker 2: a really really good point. I disagree with you, but
Speaker 2: I think you made that point really really well. What
Speaker 2: we're really saying is it is my goal to understand
Speaker 2: you as my primary objective. Everything else is secondary to that.
Speaker 2: And when we feel like someone is listening to us,
Speaker 2: we become much more likely to listen to them in response.
Speaker 1: And I think partly it's just that when we're communicating,
Speaker 1: we were seeing each other, or we're using our voices.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can hear more of that, that it's calm,
Speaker 1: that it's respectful versus online, when you're just seeing print,
Speaker 1: it's probably easy to take the worst possible explanation for
Speaker 1: somebody's sayings. So they say give me your evidence, you
Speaker 1: imagine them shouting over you give me your evidence, as
Speaker 1: opposed to genuinely life. I'd like to see what you're
Speaker 1: basing this on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, And think about sarcasm, right, Like, if I
Speaker 2: said something sarcastic, you know immediately that I mean sarcastic
Speaker 2: because you can hear it my voice. But when I
Speaker 2: type something stark, you have no idea. You think of
Speaker 2: just being a jerk. And I think that that's really
Speaker 2: really important, is that different channels of communication have different
Speaker 2: strengths and weaknesses. And when we get into trouble, it's
Speaker 2: when we forget that there's different rules, different rules for
Speaker 2: different channels. Right that when I'm talking to you, I
Speaker 2: can say something sarcastic, but when I'm online, I shouldn't
Speaker 2: be sarcastic because you're not going to hear the sarcasm
Speaker 2: in my voice. It's not that these different channels of
Speaker 2: communication are better or worse, or that some of them
Speaker 2: are terrible it's that they each have a different set
Speaker 2: of rules, and we get into trouble when we forget
Speaker 2: those rules. But if we just remind ourselves and we
Speaker 2: all know this, right, we know that there's a difference
Speaker 2: between making a phone call and seeing someone face to
Speaker 2: face and sending them a text versus sending them an emoji.
Speaker 2: We know that these different forms of communication require slightly
Speaker 2: different approaches. When we remember that we remind ourselves, it
Speaker 2: goes much much better.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Well, We're going to take one more quick ad
Speaker 1: break and then we'll be back with some of Charles's
Speaker 1: personal productivity tips. Well, I am back. This is one
Speaker 1: of the longer episodes of Before Breakfast. I am interviewing
Speaker 1: Charles Duhig about how to be a better communicator. He's
Speaker 1: also written about productivity topics in the past. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of people who love productivity tips listening to
Speaker 1: this show, So Charles, maybe you can tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about how you personally make to do lists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of this came from when I
Speaker 2: was writing The Power of Habit right about how to
Speaker 2: build the right habits that make you more productive. So
Speaker 2: one of the things that research has shown is that Oftentimes,
Speaker 2: when someone comes up with a to do list, when
Speaker 2: we write it to do list, and I used to
Speaker 2: do this myself, we're making a critical mistake. The goal
Speaker 2: of a to do list should be to help you
Speaker 2: figure out what your priorities are. The goals of a
Speaker 2: memory list are to write down all those things that
Speaker 2: it's hard to carry around in your brain. So I
Speaker 2: have a memory list that has twenty or thirty different
Speaker 2: tasks on it, all these things that like, over time,
Speaker 2: I want to get done, because if I don't write
Speaker 2: them down, I'm going to forget them. But that's not
Speaker 2: my to do list, and that shouldn't be my to
Speaker 2: do list because what will happen is when I look
Speaker 2: at that list, that memory list, the thing that I'm
Speaker 2: gonna do is I'm going to look for the easiest
Speaker 2: task to complete because it feels so good. It gives
Speaker 2: you what's known as a cognitive sense of closure to
Speaker 2: get to be able to cross that thing off. In fact,
Speaker 2: studies show that something like thirty percent of people when
Speaker 2: they write a to do list, they'll actually include on
Speaker 2: this to do list something they've already completed so that
Speaker 2: they can cross it off and feel good.
Speaker 1: About that, So that's your I've never done that, Charles, never, never,
Speaker 1: never done.
Speaker 2: So it's important to have a memory list. You should
Speaker 2: definitely have a memory list, but you should not make
Speaker 2: that your to do list. Your to do list is
Speaker 2: something that you come up with every morning. And what
Speaker 2: you do is you look at your memory list and
Speaker 2: you say, what is the number one most important thing
Speaker 2: for me to get done today? Okay, that's the first
Speaker 2: item on my to do list. If I get that done.
Speaker 2: What's the second most important thing to get done today? Okay,
Speaker 2: that's number two. Now, odds are you're only going to
Speaker 2: get those two things done, right, Maybe you'll only get
Speaker 2: one of them done. But just in case, just in case,
Speaker 2: what's the third most important? And the next day, when
Speaker 2: you wake up and you got one done and two done,
Speaker 2: number three might become number one on your to do
Speaker 2: list for the next day. What studies show us is
Speaker 2: that you should never have more than three things on
Speaker 2: your to do list, but those three things should be
Speaker 2: the most important things. And in fact, in some ways,
Speaker 2: having just one thing on your to do list is
Speaker 2: really really valuable if it's the most important thing, because oftentimes,
Speaker 2: if we have too many things on our to do list,
Speaker 2: we'll skip the most important thing. We'll skip the thing
Speaker 2: that we put number one in order to do the
Speaker 2: other things that are easier. So a to do list
Speaker 2: should be what is the most important priority for today?
Speaker 2: What will move the ball farthest today? What do I
Speaker 2: have to get done? And the memory list is where
Speaker 2: I dump everything I need to remember and I use
Speaker 2: those to figure out what goes number one, two and
Speaker 2: three on my to do list for today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have a saying around here that to do
Speaker 1: means today. Yeah that if you're putting it on the
Speaker 1: to do list, it means that you are doing it today.
Speaker 1: And there's a contract with yourself, so exactly.
Speaker 2: And there's some stuff that you can do today, right
Speaker 2: that like you really want to get done, but you
Speaker 2: know it's you're not going to get a chance to
Speaker 2: do it till next week. That's the thing that should
Speaker 2: go on the memory list to remind yourself next week
Speaker 2: that you want to do this, but that to do
Speaker 2: list should be today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely good advice. So, Charles, what is something that
Speaker 1: you have done recently to take a day from great
Speaker 1: to awesome? That is our tagline around here. We're always
Speaker 1: looking for ways to take our days from great to awesome.
Speaker 1: So what's something you've done recently that has made a
Speaker 1: day extra special?
Speaker 2: You know? So I'll tell you this quick story that
Speaker 2: comes from supercommunicators. There's this this study that's known as
Speaker 2: the Adult or the Harvard Study of Adult Development, where
Speaker 2: what they've done is for eighty years now that researchers
Speaker 2: have fall around thousands and thousands of people to try
Speaker 2: and figure out what are the things that make people
Speaker 2: most successful, make them healthiest, and make them live longest.
Speaker 2: And when this project started back in the nineteen twenties
Speaker 2: and thirties, they had all kinds of crazy theories. Right.
Speaker 2: It was being done at Harvard, so they were like, well,
Speaker 2: if you go to Harvard, you're probably going to be
Speaker 2: much happier in life than everyone else, which turns out
Speaker 2: not to be true, you know. And they said things like, well,
Speaker 2: if you come from a good family, if you get
Speaker 2: married early, if you have kids but not too many kids.
Speaker 2: And it turns out none of those things actually impact
Speaker 2: our health and our happiness and our success. There is
Speaker 2: one thing that does, though. You will be happy, healthy
Speaker 2: and successful at age sixty five if you have at
Speaker 2: least a handful of close relationships at age forty five,
Speaker 2: because of course you're just you're not just having those
Speaker 2: relationships age forty five, right, these are people that you
Speaker 2: can keep in touch with. What we know is that lonely.
Speaker 2: Being lonely is the equivalent of smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.
Speaker 2: It's terrible for you. And the cure for loneliness isn't
Speaker 2: having a thousand friends. It's having just a handful of
Speaker 2: friends that you actually keep in touch with that person
Speaker 2: that you haven't talked to and in a month and
Speaker 2: a half giving them a call and saying, hey, let's
Speaker 2: just catch up for fifteen or twenty minutes. So the
Speaker 2: way that I make my day from good to great,
Speaker 2: from good to awesome is I set aside some time
Speaker 2: to have a conversation with someone that I haven't talked
Speaker 2: to in a while. Because that feeling of connection, that
Speaker 2: feeling of hearing each other and being heard and learning
Speaker 2: something new about the world and renewing that connection that
Speaker 2: makes you feel amazing. And I think it's really really important.
Speaker 2: It makes us healthier and happier and ultimately makes us
Speaker 2: live longer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, excellent, Well, I am personally forty five years old.
Speaker 1: So I will take that to heart and looking around
Speaker 1: making sure I have good connections. Hopefully these people are
Speaker 1: sticking around for the next twenty years. But we'll see,
Speaker 1: we'll see. They mostly seem like they're good people in
Speaker 1: willbild you know, you never know, but this is a
Speaker 1: great stuff, Charles. So, where can our listeners find you these?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So my website is Charlesdohig dot com. Or if
Speaker 2: you google Power of Habit or Super Communicators, I'll definitely
Speaker 2: come up on Twitter and LinkedIn and Instagram. And the
Speaker 2: book Super Communicators. You can buy it at any bookstore
Speaker 2: right It's on Amazon. Your local booksellers are fantastic. The
Speaker 2: audiobook is really popular on audible dot com. I actually
Speaker 2: read it myself, but yeah, I would love to hear
Speaker 2: from folks and I'm easy to find excellent.
Speaker 1: So yeah, if you want to hear more of Charles voice,
Speaker 1: go check out the audiobook and Charles, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us. Everyone could go check out his
Speaker 1: book and to our listeners. If you have feedback about
Speaker 1: this episode or suggestions for future topics, you can let
Speaker 1: me know at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
Speaker 1: to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
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