Speaker 1: The goal of supercommunicators is to say not that you
Speaker 1: have to have conversations constantly, but that when you do
Speaker 1: want to have conversations, you have the tools and the
Speaker 1: skills to make them easier, to make them better.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 2: ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 2: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 2: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 2: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 2: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 2: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 2: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 2: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 2: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2: Our guest on this episode is Charles Dohag, an author
Speaker 2: and reporter for The New Yorker magazine. When he previously
Speaker 2: worked at the New York Times. He won a Pulitzer
Speaker 2: Prize for a series about Apple called The I economy.
Speaker 2: He's also written about the two thousand and eight financial crisis,
Speaker 2: how companies take advantage of the elderly, and has reported
Speaker 2: from Iraq, for which he has won many other awards. Today,
Speaker 2: Eric and Charles discuss his newest book, Super Communicators, How
Speaker 2: to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection.
Speaker 3: Hi, Charles, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: I'm really excited to have you, Charles. We're going to
Speaker 3: be discussing your latest book, Super Communicators, How to Unlock
Speaker 3: the Secret Language of Connection. But before we do, we'll
Speaker 3: start like we always do, with the parable. And in
Speaker 3: the parable, there's grandparent who's talking to their grandchild and
Speaker 3: they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 3: us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 3: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 3: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 3: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops. They
Speaker 3: think about it for a second and they look up
Speaker 3: at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins?
Speaker 3: And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 3: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 3: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 3: that you do well.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you mentioned this because in writing Supercommunicators, one
Speaker 1: of the things that I came across in the research
Speaker 1: really clearly, which speaks to the parable you just shared,
Speaker 1: is that we all know how important connection is, right.
Speaker 1: We know that talking to people and connecting with them,
Speaker 1: that calling someone an old friend you haven't talked to
Speaker 1: in two years and catching up with them would feel wonderful.
Speaker 1: That's I think the good wolf right, the instinct to
Speaker 1: connect with others. But oftentimes what stops us is, as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, fear, the thing that the bad wolf symbolizes,
Speaker 1: and that we become anxiously you know, what's it going
Speaker 1: to be like the first ten minutes That conversation is
Speaker 1: going to be awkward. I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: If I start talking to this uber driver, if I
Speaker 1: start talking to someone at a party, how am I
Speaker 1: going to get out of the conversation when I'm ready to, like,
Speaker 1: you know, do something else. And that fear, I think,
Speaker 1: stops us from making those connections. But what we know
Speaker 1: from study after study is that it's actually much easier
Speaker 1: to have those conversations, and we think they're going to
Speaker 1: be we end up being delighted by them much more
Speaker 1: than we anticipate. The awkwardness and the difficulty of it
Speaker 1: is much less than we think it's going to be.
Speaker 1: And so I think when we feed the good wolf
Speaker 1: by reaching out to other people, by having conversations, by
Speaker 1: calling that person we haven't spoken to in a year
Speaker 1: and a half, we make the world a better place.
Speaker 3: That's a beautiful way of thinking of But you end
Speaker 3: the book with referencing this Harvard study that doctor Robert
Speaker 3: Woldinger did, and he was a guest on the show recently,
Speaker 3: and you reference a very particular part of the study,
Speaker 3: which is between two men, right, and tell us a
Speaker 3: little bit more about those two guys.
Speaker 1: This is the Harvard Study of Adult Development, as many
Speaker 1: of your listeners know, and it's been going on for
Speaker 1: almost one hundred years now, following thousands of people around.
Speaker 1: And one of the fundamental questions is what determines who
Speaker 1: is healthy when they hit the age of sixty five,
Speaker 1: and who's happy when they hit sixty five, and who's successful. However,
Speaker 1: you define success at age sixty five, and researchers looked
Speaker 1: at a bunch of variables and what they found was
Speaker 1: the single best determinant of your health, happiness, and success
Speaker 1: at age sixty five is having at least a handful
Speaker 1: of close relationships at age forty five, which of course
Speaker 1: means you've probably started making those friends before you were
Speaker 1: forty five. And to your point. In the book, we
Speaker 1: tell the story of these two figures that appear in
Speaker 1: these studies back from many, many years ago. They started
Speaker 1: the study in the nineteen twenties, and both of these
Speaker 1: gentlemen enrolled at that point, and one of them seemed
Speaker 1: like he was destined for greatness. He came from a
Speaker 1: very prominent family, he was good at school, he'd won
Speaker 1: lots of awards for scholarship. The other student that enrolled
Speaker 1: was exactly the opposite. This guy had real trouble making friends.
Speaker 1: He was unpopular. He actually at one point was hospitalized
Speaker 1: and his doctor said, he didn't use these words. He said, basically,
Speaker 1: I think this guy's a loser. And so the researchers
Speaker 1: follow them over the next couple of years and pay
Speaker 1: attention to them. The prominent guy ends up going into
Speaker 1: the military and coming out with honors. The other one
Speaker 1: also goes into the military for World War Two and
Speaker 1: does not come out of the military with honors, and
Speaker 1: they assume that one of them, the prominent one, is
Speaker 1: going to do really well in life, and that the
Speaker 1: other one's going to end up directionless, perhaps you know, friendless.
Speaker 1: But what they found when they find these guys again
Speaker 1: in their fifties and in their sixties and in their
Speaker 1: seventies is exactly the opposite. The prominent one. He had
Speaker 1: focused his entire life on his career. He was a lawyer,
Speaker 1: and he really invested in making his law practice the
Speaker 1: best possible. But as a result, he was not close
Speaker 1: to his wife. In fact, he ended up getting married
Speaker 1: a number of times. He was estranged from his children
Speaker 1: because he was never at home to spend time with him.
Speaker 1: When researchers asked him who he would turn to if
Speaker 1: he had a problem or something he wanted to talk about,
Speaker 1: he said no one. That there was no one in
Speaker 1: his life that he thought he could trust. That way,
Speaker 1: where's this other fellow, the one who had had trouble
Speaker 1: making friends, who had not done well in the military.
Speaker 1: He sort of has a second birth, a reawakening, and
Speaker 1: he decides to start investing in his community, and he
Speaker 1: becomes involved in a church, and he basically goes to
Speaker 1: the church every day and participates in pot lucks and
Speaker 1: student classes, and then he finds community organizations and he
Speaker 1: becomes involved with And when the researchers found both of
Speaker 1: these men at age sixty five and seventy, what they
Speaker 1: found was at the first one, the prominent one, he
Speaker 1: was financially enormously successful and miserable, just unhappy about his
Speaker 1: work and his life. He had been kicked out of
Speaker 1: his own law firm. His bank account was full, but
Speaker 1: nothing else in his life was full. And that other one,
Speaker 1: the person who had invested in his community, had made connections.
Speaker 1: He was delighted to be alive. He was surrounded by
Speaker 1: people who loved him and whom he loved in return.
Speaker 1: And this is what Waldinger and and all these other
Speaker 1: researchers have found is that we tend to think about
Speaker 1: life as something where the goal is rewards that we
Speaker 1: can measure. But actually what we know from study after
Speaker 1: study is if you want to be happy, if you
Speaker 1: want to be healthy, if you want to be successful,
Speaker 1: investing in other people. Investing in those relationships is the
Speaker 1: most important thing you can do. And the way that
Speaker 1: we often do that is through conversation So.
Speaker 3: Something I'm going to be doing a little more often
Speaker 3: is ask you, the listener, to reflect on what you're hearing.
Speaker 3: We strongly believe that knowledge is power, but only if
Speaker 3: combined with action and integration. So before we move on,
Speaker 3: I'd like to ask you what's coming up for you
Speaker 3: as you listen to this. Are there any things you're
Speaker 3: currently doing or feeding your bad wolf that might make
Speaker 3: sense to remove, or any things you could do to
Speaker 3: feed your good wolf that you're not currently doing. So,
Speaker 3: if you have the headspace for it, I'd love if
Speaker 3: you could just pause for a second and ask yourself,
Speaker 3: what's one thing I could do today or tonight to
Speaker 3: feed my good wolf? Whatever your thing is. A really
Speaker 3: useful strategy can be having something external, a prompt or
Speaker 3: a friend, or a tool that regularly nudges you back
Speaker 3: towards awareness and intentionality. For the past year, I've been
Speaker 3: sending little good Wolf reminders to some of my friends
Speaker 3: and community members, just quick, little SMS messages two times
Speaker 3: per week that give them a little bit of wisdom
Speaker 3: and remind them to pause for a second and come
Speaker 3: off autopilot. If you want, I can send them to
Speaker 3: you too. I do it totally for free, and people
Speaker 3: seem to really love them. Just drop your information at
Speaker 3: oneufeed dot net slash sms and I can send them
Speaker 3: to you. It's totally free, and if you end up
Speaker 3: not liking the little reminders, you can easily opt out.
Speaker 3: That's one you feed dot net slash sms. And now
Speaker 3: back to the episode. I love that study and I
Speaker 3: love that example of those two guys, and it really
Speaker 3: does show this idea that connect is really important. And
Speaker 3: despite everything you've sort of taught us all through the
Speaker 3: book about how to be a super communicator, you say
Speaker 3: that the most important thing, or maybe not the most
Speaker 3: important thing, but a very important thing, is that we
Speaker 3: want to become a good communicator. We value communication, we
Speaker 3: value connection, and so if we start from that place
Speaker 3: of value in it, then, like anything else in life
Speaker 3: that we value, we tend to invest time and energy
Speaker 3: in the things that we value. So it's really about
Speaker 3: orienting in that direction first and then going, Okay, well
Speaker 3: that's important to me. I may not be as good
Speaker 3: at it as I want to be. How do I
Speaker 3: get there?
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, That's exactly right, And it's important to
Speaker 1: recognize that communication is a learned skill. Right when I
Speaker 1: started writing Supercommunicators, I thought that I would find these
Speaker 1: individuals who are supercommunicators, who were charming and extroverts, And
Speaker 1: it turns out that's not true at all. In fact,
Speaker 1: if you look at the research, it doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: you're charming or Curmudgeonally, it doesn't matter if you're an
Speaker 1: extrovert or an introvert. What super communicators have is they've
Speaker 1: learned a handful of skills that at the core of communication.
Speaker 1: And most importantly, as you just pointed out, they think
Speaker 1: about communication just half an inch deeper. They don't think
Speaker 1: about it all the time, but they just pay a
Speaker 1: little bit more attention to what's going on in a conversation,
Speaker 1: pay a little bit more attention to someone's body language
Speaker 1: and tone of voice, and in doing so, they see
Speaker 1: how to connect with them, and then they show them
Speaker 1: that they want to connect. And that's often the most
Speaker 1: important step, is simply showing someone that I want to
Speaker 1: connect with them is the first and most important step
Speaker 1: to making that connection become real.
Speaker 3: Do you find that some people are super communicators in
Speaker 3: one area of their life, but maybe not so good
Speaker 3: in other areas of their lives.
Speaker 1: I think that one thing that can happen is that
Speaker 1: there might be realms in which we take communication really seriously,
Speaker 1: like when we're at work, and then we stop taking
Speaker 1: it seriously when we get home. And that's where I
Speaker 1: think you get these situations that people at work are
Speaker 1: thought of as being sort of these like fantastic communicators
Speaker 1: are so charming, and then you talk to their or
Speaker 1: their wives or their kids and they say things like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: like he's been divorced twice or right, we have trouble
Speaker 1: connecting with him. I don't know that it's that some
Speaker 1: people are good in some forums and not in other forums,
Speaker 1: as much as sometimes we forget to think about communication,
Speaker 1: sometimes we forget ticket seriously. And now what's important to
Speaker 1: recognize is that our brains have evolved to be very
Speaker 1: good at communication. So when we practice these skills, even
Speaker 1: though they might be hard at first, our brain will
Speaker 1: make them into habits very very quickly. And so that's
Speaker 1: why these skills are so important is because they pay
Speaker 1: these huge dividends. And so when we're at home or
Speaker 1: when we're at work, we can fall back on those
Speaker 1: communication habits to really engage with others.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was thinking about this a little bit, I'm
Speaker 3: someone who has that tendency. And my tendency is I
Speaker 3: am a really good communicator in the work world, always
Speaker 3: have been. Most of my career was in technology, and
Speaker 3: I wasn't a great technologist, but I was a good communicator.
Speaker 3: I think it was what made me good at what
Speaker 3: I did. And yet I sometimes have had trouble outside
Speaker 3: of that. And as I was reflecting on it, I
Speaker 3: had a thought, and I had a conversation yesterday with
Speaker 3: a woman named a doctor and Nicole Lapara. She's the
Speaker 3: holistic psychologist on Instagram. Right, she's got like eight million followers,
Speaker 3: like she's crazy big, but she's actually really really good.
Speaker 3: But she was talking about how it's not new idea
Speaker 3: of we've heard it on this show countless times, how
Speaker 3: our earliest childhood experiences imprint upon us. And I was thinking,
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of times it's those closest relationships
Speaker 3: to us that trigger those most difficult habitual patterns. And
Speaker 3: so I may have the skills to be a super communicator.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'm being a little less than humble there. But
Speaker 3: let's just say I do, right, you know, Let's say
Speaker 3: I do. But when I get home and those relationships,
Speaker 3: the stakes are a lot higher. All of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I'm more likely to drop back into these pre conscious
Speaker 3: patterns of relating. And we do know that when you're
Speaker 3: more sort of limbically aroused, to use some neuroscience shortcuts here,
Speaker 3: you have less focus in your prefrontal cortex, which is
Speaker 3: where you need to be to do some of these
Speaker 3: skills you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right, And I think it's worth defining
Speaker 1: what a supercommunicator is. And sometimes the easiest way to
Speaker 1: do is just by asking this question, which I'll ask
Speaker 1: you Eric, which is if you were having a bad
Speaker 1: day and you wanted to call someone who you know
Speaker 1: would just make you feel better, do you know who
Speaker 1: you would call? Like, does that person pop into your mind?
Speaker 3: I'm really fortunate that I would have to decide between
Speaker 3: three or four people as to who I would call.
Speaker 1: You're really lucky. And what's interesting is that for you,
Speaker 1: those three or four people, they're super communicators, and you're
Speaker 1: probably a super communicator back to them. Now, there are
Speaker 1: some people out there who can do this with almost anyone, right,
Speaker 1: They can connect with almost anyone. These are the consistent supercommunicators,
Speaker 1: and what we know about them is, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: they're not born with this right. Oftentimes, if you talk
Speaker 1: to them and you ask them where you always go
Speaker 1: at communication, they'll say something similar to what you had
Speaker 1: just been talking about. In our youth, They'll say something like,
Speaker 1: when I was in high school, I had trouble making friends,
Speaker 1: so I had to really study how kids talk to
Speaker 1: each other, or or my parents got divorced and I
Speaker 1: had to be the peacemaker between them, so I had
Speaker 1: to think about communication. And it's that thinking about communication
Speaker 1: that often makes them better at it. But what we
Speaker 1: know is it's just a set of skills that we
Speaker 1: can talk about right now, that anyone can learn, anyone
Speaker 1: can make into habits, and once you do that, consistency
Speaker 1: of supercommunication becomes a part of your life.
Speaker 3: So I want to change directions real quick before we
Speaker 3: go into the practical aspects of that. And I don't
Speaker 3: want to spend a lot of time here, but I
Speaker 3: feel compelled to mention two things. First, is I heard
Speaker 3: you describe a hobby you took up about ten years ago,
Speaker 3: surfing as embodying poetry. And I became a surfer two
Speaker 3: years ago when you said that. I was like, that
Speaker 3: just describes it. I just love it. You know, I
Speaker 3: live in Ohio. It's a stupid hot for in Ohio, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, it really is. But every chance I get,
Speaker 3: I go somewhere where there's water that I can get
Speaker 3: in and try and surf.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful. So I live in Santa Cruz, California. We
Speaker 1: moved from Brooklyn to Santa Cruz in twenty twenty, so,
Speaker 1: just about four years ago. And one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why is because Santa Cruz has like the most consistent
Speaker 1: swells in the continental US. I have never been a
Speaker 1: graceful athlete, like I've never even calling myself an athlete
Speaker 1: is probably a stretch I run, but like I look
Speaker 1: goofy running. I've never felt beautiful in how I move.
Speaker 1: But when you get on a surfboard, you have to
Speaker 1: pay attention to the waves, right, You have to pay
Speaker 1: attention to the water around you. You have to be
Speaker 1: in sync with this huge natural phenomena, this huge ocean.
Speaker 1: And when you do that, you start to allow this
Speaker 1: grace and this poetry into your life that suddenly you
Speaker 1: start expressing in your body. And I've looked at videotapes
Speaker 1: of myself surfing, and I do not look graceful. I
Speaker 1: do not look beautiful in the slightest But when I'm
Speaker 1: on that board and I'm popping up and I'm catching
Speaker 1: that wave, and I'm feeling the power of the ocean
Speaker 1: beneath me and propelling me forward, I feel like poetry.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful feeling. Yep.
Speaker 3: I surfed in Santa Cruz last fall. Okay, I was
Speaker 3: in the La area for a couple things, and I
Speaker 3: needed to make my way to San Francisco, so I
Speaker 3: went to Santa Barbara and then I drove from Santa Barbara,
Speaker 3: but I stopped in Santa Cruz for a night and
Speaker 3: I went out surfing. And I went out early in
Speaker 3: the morning and it was like as gray and cold
Speaker 3: and socked in as could be. And what a great
Speaker 3: day of surfing it.
Speaker 1: It was amazing.
Speaker 3: It was just so good.
Speaker 1: And when the sun comes out, so there's all these
Speaker 1: sea otters that live in Santa Cruz, so like, particularly
Speaker 1: at sunset, you'll be out on the water and you'll
Speaker 1: see the pelicans skimming over the water, like a couple
Speaker 1: feet from you. You'll see sea otters playing with their pups,
Speaker 1: and then the surface of the water will start reflecting
Speaker 1: the pink in the sky and it's like you're floating.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Yeah, it's wonderful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is wonderful when you're out there on
Speaker 3: a beautiful day. Okay, Topic two. You wrote a hugely
Speaker 3: influential book, I guess about twelve years ago called The
Speaker 3: Power of Habit, and we spend a lot of time
Speaker 3: on this show talking about the science of behavior change,
Speaker 3: and I really focus on how we can use behavior
Speaker 3: change to optimize for wisdom versus productivity or efficiency. But
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you twelve years later, is there
Speaker 3: anything in your mind that you have learned about habits
Speaker 3: in the last twelve years that you feel like would
Speaker 3: be really a valuable addition to that book or anything
Speaker 3: you've learned where you've thought, well, you know, I sort
Speaker 3: of oversold that point, and maybe I would change what
Speaker 3: in your mind is different than twelve years ago.
Speaker 1: There's not so much that I would change. There's been
Speaker 1: a little bit of emerging science. So in the book,
Speaker 1: in the Power of Habit, we mentioned this idea that
Speaker 1: willpower is like a muscle, and there's been some studies
Speaker 1: to show that willpower can get strengthened like a muscle
Speaker 1: can get strengthened, but that using the muscle as the
Speaker 1: analogy might not be the most apt analogy. So that's
Speaker 1: one thing that I might change, But it's such a
Speaker 1: minor detail in that BOOKOK. I think the thing that
Speaker 1: in the last twelve years since Power of Habit came out,
Speaker 1: that's really struck me is oftentimes changing our habits is
Speaker 1: very inward looking, and that's good. That's how we become
Speaker 1: the people we want to become. Right and building the
Speaker 1: right habits and changing bad habits is really healthy and important.
Speaker 1: But it is about a focus on ourselves. And I
Speaker 1: would get email after email from people saying thank you.
Speaker 1: I've been able to change my own habits. But there's
Speaker 1: this guy at work who's driving me crazy. How do
Speaker 1: I change his habits? And of course, you can't force
Speaker 1: someone to change their habits, right, That doesn't work. They
Speaker 1: have to want to change, And so then the question becomes,
Speaker 1: so what do we do? How do we convince them
Speaker 1: that they want to change? How do we explain to them?
Speaker 1: And that's where I came to communication, because I think
Speaker 1: when I was younger, I thought that much of our
Speaker 1: life was focused on improving ourselves. But a lot of
Speaker 1: our success and our happiness and our health depends on others. Right.
Speaker 1: When we go to work, we're a member of a team.
Speaker 1: When we're at home, we're a member of a family.
Speaker 1: When we're out in this we're a member of a community.
Speaker 1: And so understanding how to invest in the people around
Speaker 1: us as much as we invest in ourselves, that's the
Speaker 1: thing that I think is really really important. And so
Speaker 1: that's probably something I would have added to the power
Speaker 1: of Habit, But instead I just wrote a whole other
Speaker 1: book which hopefully gives people even more guidance on it.
Speaker 3: There's a phrase I don't know who said it, but
Speaker 3: it's basically, when you realize how hard it is to
Speaker 3: change yourself, you realize the near impossibility of changing someone else. Right.
Speaker 3: But it's interesting because when I started this show, I mean,
Speaker 3: I've been doing this show about a decade, and I
Speaker 3: would have told you in the beginning the primary thing
Speaker 3: that I would learn and the key to all this
Speaker 3: was sort of how to go within, how to change
Speaker 3: your thoughts and your mindsets and your habits and all
Speaker 3: all of that, and that is absolutely a huge part
Speaker 3: of the equation. But again and again, I've learned, and
Speaker 3: you just said it pretty eloquently that yeah, that's a
Speaker 3: big part of it. But so is the outside world
Speaker 3: an ability to connect with it. And I like to
Speaker 3: think of it as an inflow and an outflow, right, Like,
Speaker 3: there's things happening inside me, but I want those things
Speaker 3: to go out into the world, and I want the
Speaker 3: things that are out in the world to come inside
Speaker 3: me and change who I am, you know, like there's
Speaker 3: ideally some reciprocity that's happening, of which my internal world
Speaker 3: is a part of.
Speaker 1: You could be the best life hacker on earth, right,
Speaker 1: You could be someone who like has the discipline to
Speaker 1: wake up at five in the morning and work out
Speaker 1: for two hours and only eat healthy food and never
Speaker 1: smoke and never drink. And that's great, Right, It's good
Speaker 1: to have good habits. But if you're that person and
Speaker 1: you don't have any friends, you're miserable. It does not
Speaker 1: matter how many reps you can do in the gym
Speaker 1: if you don't have someone to turn to and be like,
Speaker 1: hey man, did you see that that was awesome? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Then it makes life so much less meaningful yep.
Speaker 3: And I think what is sometimes tragic is that we
Speaker 3: think that all those habits and all those things that
Speaker 3: we do are the thing that's going to make us
Speaker 3: somehow worthy of connection or be able to have that
Speaker 3: deeper connection, whereas really that's not the case. And that's
Speaker 3: why I kind of started with and I like the
Speaker 3: way you ended with the story of these two men,
Speaker 3: because one of them sounds like he was a pretty
Speaker 3: disciplined guy when it came to his work life, right
Speaker 3: like dialed in, you know, yeh, but he died deeply unhappy.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 3: So now let's actually get into some of the practical
Speaker 3: aspects of your book, and sure, I think it's probably
Speaker 3: worth starting with one of the core ideas, which is
Speaker 3: that there are different types of conversations and that in
Speaker 3: order for us to communicate or connect with someone else,
Speaker 3: we all have to be having the same type of
Speaker 3: connection or type of conversation.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. And for me, before I started in
Speaker 1: this book, this really came home when I fell into
Speaker 1: this bad pattern with my wife. And we've been married
Speaker 1: for about twenty years, and she's a much better surfer
Speaker 1: than I am and a much better runner.
Speaker 3: Than I am.
Speaker 1: But I would come home and after a long day
Speaker 1: at work, and I'd kind of start complaining about my work,
Speaker 1: and my wife would offer me these very practical suggestions,
Speaker 1: which is like, you know, why don't you take your
Speaker 1: boss out to lunch and you guys can get to
Speaker 1: know each other a little bit better. And instead of
Speaker 1: being able to hear what she was saying, I would
Speaker 1: get even more upset, and I'd say, like, you know,
Speaker 1: why aren't you supporting me. You're supposed to be outraged
Speaker 1: on my behalf. And then she would get upset because
Speaker 1: I was attacking her for giving me perfectly good advice.
Speaker 1: And so I went to researchers and I asked them, like,
Speaker 1: what's going on here? Why do we keep falling into
Speaker 1: this pattern? Because I think a lot of couples fall
Speaker 1: into this pattern, right, yep. Sometimes the roles are reversed,
Speaker 1: but one person's talking about how they feel and the
Speaker 1: other person's trying to solve their feelings. And the researcher said, well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting you approached us because we're living
Speaker 1: through this golden age of understanding communication really for the
Speaker 1: first time because of advances in neural imaging, and data collection,
Speaker 1: and they said, one of the things that we found
Speaker 1: that's most important is we tend to think of a
Speaker 1: discussion as being about one thing. Right We're talking about
Speaker 1: my day, or we're talking about where to go on vacation,
Speaker 1: But actually every discussion is made up of multiple kinds
Speaker 1: of conversations, and in general, all these different kinds of
Speaker 1: conversations they tend to fall into one of three buckets.
Speaker 1: There's these practical conversations where we're talking about solving problems
Speaker 1: or making plans. Then there's emotional conversations where I might
Speaker 1: tell you how I'm feeling and I don't want you
Speaker 1: to solve my feelings, I want you to empathize. And
Speaker 1: then finally there's social conversations, which is about how we
Speaker 1: relate to each other and the social identities that are
Speaker 1: important to us. And they said, the thing that's important,
Speaker 1: as you just mentioned, is if you're not having the
Speaker 1: same kind of conversation at the same moment, you're going
Speaker 1: to have real trouble hearing each other. You're going to
Speaker 1: have real trouble connecting. And in fact, in psychology this
Speaker 1: has become known as the matching principle that in order
Speaker 1: to communicate, you have to be having the same kind
Speaker 1: of conversation at the same time. And once you do that,
Speaker 1: once I match you and have an emotional conversation, or
Speaker 1: I invite you to match me and have a practical conversation,
Speaker 1: once we become aligned, then we can move from different
Speaker 1: kind of conversation to different kind of conversation. We can
Speaker 1: start emotional and then moved to practical, and then moved
Speaker 1: to social, and then moved back to emotional. And as
Speaker 1: long as we're moving together, we're in sync, we'll hear
Speaker 1: each other. And so this is a really big insight
Speaker 1: is that super communicators are just a little bit better
Speaker 1: at asking themselves what kind of a conversation is happening here?
Speaker 1: Is this person in an emotional mindset or are they
Speaker 1: in a practical mindset? How can I invite them to
Speaker 1: join me? And in fact, my wife has become great
Speaker 1: at this. Now when I come home and I start
Speaker 1: complaining about my day, she'll say, look, do you want
Speaker 1: me to help you solve this problem? Or do you
Speaker 1: want me just to like listen while you vent? And
Speaker 1: I actually loved being asked that because sometimes I haven't
Speaker 1: thought about it until she asks, right and to be
Speaker 1: asked means that she's someone who wants to give me
Speaker 1: what I need. So figuring out what kind of conversation
Speaker 1: is happening is really really powerful.
Speaker 3: I don't remember the exact phrase, but it was something
Speaker 3: that teachers use with students, something to ask them, which
Speaker 3: is sort of like a very shorthand summary for this.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. So in schools they've started instructing teachers
Speaker 1: that when student comes up and there's something meaningful that
Speaker 1: they want to talk about, the first thing the teacher
Speaker 1: should do is ask, okay, do you want me to
Speaker 1: help you? Do you want me to hear you, or
Speaker 1: do you want me to hug you, which, of course
Speaker 1: are the three kinds of conversations, right, the practical, the emotional,
Speaker 1: and the social, And students understand immediately. Students usually say
Speaker 1: like I need you to hug me like I'm feeling
Speaker 1: bad about this, or I need you to help me
Speaker 1: I want to find a solution, or I need you
Speaker 1: to hear me like I just I just want someone
Speaker 1: to know what's going on. And the more that we
Speaker 1: do that in our own lives, and again, using that
Speaker 1: phrase is a little weird. If you're an adult in
Speaker 1: a workplace, you don't want to be asking someone do
Speaker 1: you want me to hug you? But there are other
Speaker 1: ways of essentially asking that question that help people explain
Speaker 1: to us what they're seeking out of a conversation.
Speaker 3: Here at the One You Feed workplace, I give my
Speaker 3: editor Chris the permission to ask me if you need
Speaker 3: a hug, go ahead, it's okay. So I have a
Speaker 3: question about these three types of conversations. I probably have
Speaker 3: a bunch of questions, but one of them is are
Speaker 3: there conversations that don't fall into that category? And I'll
Speaker 3: give you a very specific example. Maybe you can tell
Speaker 3: me how to do this. And this is for my life,
Speaker 3: and it happens on a semi regular basis. My partner
Speaker 3: will suddenly pick some story out in the news and
Speaker 3: she will share it with me, and oftentimes then she
Speaker 3: will share it again with me. She's sharing a different
Speaker 3: element of it later that day, or another piece of
Speaker 3: it the day after, and oftentimes I'm kind of like, okay,
Speaker 3: like it's just not yeah. So I thought about it
Speaker 3: and I was like, you know, after reading your book,
Speaker 3: I was like, well, I don't quite know what type
Speaker 3: of conversation this is she may just be sharing something
Speaker 3: she read and that's it. But it occurred to me
Speaker 3: perhaps I could ask, like, why is that.
Speaker 1: Important to you?
Speaker 3: But then that sounds a little bit not done right.
Speaker 3: It sounds like, well, why do you care?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: And that's not the message, right, So.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you how to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So what I love about this question that you've asked
Speaker 1: me is it gets to what the right way to
Speaker 1: figure out what kind of conversation is going on, which
Speaker 1: is to ask questions. We know that supercommunicators, for instance,
Speaker 1: consistent supercommunicators, they ask ten to twenty times as many
Speaker 1: questions as the average person. And some of those questions
Speaker 1: are special questions what are known as deep questions, and
Speaker 1: a deep question asks us about our values or our beliefs,
Speaker 1: are our experiences? A deep question basically asks like how
Speaker 1: do you make sense of the world, like why is
Speaker 1: this important to you? And so with your partner, if
Speaker 1: she brings up this story the third time about these
Speaker 1: kids in Ohio and you're like, I've never been to
Speaker 1: Ohio and I don't understand when she brings up the
Speaker 1: third time, I think it's as simple as saying, you
Speaker 1: know it seems like this story really touched you. What's
Speaker 1: important about this story to you? Why was this story
Speaker 1: meaningful to you? And what you're really saying is tell
Speaker 1: me how you see the world right? Tell me why
Speaker 1: you keep bringing this up. There's something there that seems
Speaker 1: important and I'm having trouble seeing it, but I really
Speaker 1: want to understand. I want to understand how you see
Speaker 1: the world now you see the story. This is what
Speaker 1: deep questions do. And it can seem intimidating to ask
Speaker 1: those kinds of questions, but it's actually very simple once
Speaker 1: you start looking for the opportunity. It's like if you
Speaker 1: bump into someone who's a doctor, instead of asking them
Speaker 1: where do you practice medicine, you ask them what made
Speaker 1: you decide to become a doctor? Like do you love practicing?
Speaker 1: Is it great? What's the best case you've ever had?
Speaker 1: When you do that, what you're doing is you're inviting
Speaker 1: them to say something real and meaningful to explain who
Speaker 1: they are. And I'm sure with your partner, if you well,
Speaker 1: let me ask you, if you were to say to her,
Speaker 1: I see that you love this story, like you've mentioned
Speaker 1: a couple of times, tell me what it is about
Speaker 1: this story that you like, What does the story mean
Speaker 1: to you? Do you think she would respond.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not sure. She might just be like, well,
Speaker 3: I just think it's interesting, and that would be that, right.
Speaker 3: But I think it's worth doing because I've realized that
Speaker 3: what is happening. What I'm doing is not a super
Speaker 3: communicator trait, which is I'm judging whether the story is
Speaker 3: important to me or not, right and engaging in that
Speaker 3: way and in the way that many of us often do.
Speaker 3: I think of, well, if it's not important to me,
Speaker 3: I don't know why this keeps coming up. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: not orienting towards her experience exactly exactly. I'm thinking, well,
Speaker 3: I don't see why that's important important to me, And
Speaker 3: of course we know that's not That is not a
Speaker 3: good communication skill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's worth noting. What you just said illustrates
Speaker 1: this beautifully. Sometimes we don't want to have a conversation,
Speaker 1: Like your wife or your partner might be telling you
Speaker 1: these things just because like she kind of wants to
Speaker 1: like tell you something. She doesn't want to have a
Speaker 1: conversation about it. She just wants to tell you something interesting,
Speaker 1: and like you being like, oh, okay, that sounds good.
Speaker 1: That's enough, right now. We don't have to have a
Speaker 1: conversation all the time. Sometimes we get into an uber
Speaker 1: and we just want to check our phone, right, we
Speaker 1: do not want to have a conversation with the driver.
Speaker 1: But the goal of super communicators is to say not
Speaker 1: that you have to have conversations constantly, but that when
Speaker 1: you do want to have conversations, you have the tools
Speaker 1: and the skills to make them easier, to make them better.
Speaker 1: And it might very well be because my wife does
Speaker 1: the same thing. She'll like mention something to me, and
Speaker 1: I like am listening out of the corner of my ear,
Speaker 1: and then I wonder, like, should I actually like engage
Speaker 1: with her about this? But she doesn't want me to engage.
Speaker 1: She just wants to tell me something funny that she
Speaker 1: saw on the internet. Right, it's not that big a deal, right,
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be a conversation. And I think
Speaker 1: you can even ask, like, when you tell me about
Speaker 1: these details, do you want me to engage or is
Speaker 1: it just that you want to share with me?
Speaker 3: So listener, consider this. You're halfway through the episode Integration reminder.
Speaker 3: Remember knowledge is power, but only if combined with action
Speaker 3: and integration. It can be transformative to take a minute
Speaker 3: to synthesize information rather than just ingesting it in a
Speaker 3: detached way. So let's collectively take a moment to pause
Speaker 3: and reflect. What's your one big insight so far and
Speaker 3: how can you put it into practice in your life? Seriously,
Speaker 3: just take a second, pause the audio and reflect. It
Speaker 3: can be so powerful to have these reminders to stop
Speaker 3: and be present, can't it. If you want to keep
Speaker 3: this momentum going that you built with this little exercise,
Speaker 3: i'd encourage you to get on our Good Wolf Reminders
Speaker 3: SMS list. I'll shoot you two texts a week with
Speaker 3: insightful little prompts and wisdom from podcast guests. They're a
Speaker 3: nice little nudge to stop and be present in your life,
Speaker 3: and they're a helpful way to not get lost in
Speaker 3: the busyness and forget what is important. You can join
Speaker 3: at oneufeed dot net slash sms and if you don't
Speaker 3: like them, you can get off a list really easily.
Speaker 3: So far, there are over one than one hundred and
Speaker 3: seventy two others from the one you Feed community on
Speaker 3: the list, and we love to welcome you as well,
Speaker 3: so head on over to oneufeed dot net, slash SMS,
Speaker 3: and let's feed our good wolves together. It's worth trying
Speaker 3: to figure out. But it may not actually be a
Speaker 3: conversation in the sense of like it has a goal.
Speaker 3: You know, when you talk about these three types of conversations,
Speaker 3: they tend to have a purpose, and it may not
Speaker 3: have a purpose beyond just I found this interesting and
Speaker 3: I'm sharing something from my interior world with you for
Speaker 3: a second.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, this happens with my kids all the time. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I will say to them, I want to have a
Speaker 1: conversation about your rooms, and I don't actually want to
Speaker 1: have a conversation about their rooms. I want them to
Speaker 1: go clean their rooms. Right, I'm trying to be polite
Speaker 1: and how I tell them to do it. But it's
Speaker 1: the same type of thing where it's okay not to
Speaker 1: have conversations. It's just that when you do want to
Speaker 1: have a conversation, you should have the tools available to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I want to come back to deep questions
Speaker 3: in a second. But before that, is there a type
Speaker 3: of question we can ask either externally or internally for
Speaker 3: us to try and determine what type of conversation we're in.
Speaker 3: So we talked about. If you're an elementary school teacher,
Speaker 3: you may ask, you know, do you want to be helped, heard,
Speaker 3: or hugged? Right? Yeah, what's an adult way of trying
Speaker 3: to figure out what type of conversation are we about
Speaker 3: to have here?
Speaker 1: So honestly, the best way to do it is to
Speaker 1: ask a deep question, okay, And the kind of key
Speaker 1: principle to think about asking those deep questions is don't
Speaker 1: ask about the facts of someone's life, ask them how
Speaker 1: they feel about their life, because the thing about facts
Speaker 1: is that they can often be a dead end. If
Speaker 1: I say, Oh, what neighborhood do you live in? Oh?
Speaker 1: I live in the heights. Oh do you know my
Speaker 1: friend Jim? Like, if you don't know Jim, pretty much
Speaker 1: the conversation we've hit a dead end. Yeah. But if
Speaker 1: I say what neighborhood you live and you say in
Speaker 1: the heights, and I say, oh, do you like living
Speaker 1: up there?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Why'd you move up there? What do you like about
Speaker 1: the heights? Then you're going to start telling me what
Speaker 1: you value, right, And you might answer that question different ways.
Speaker 1: You might say something like the same person might say
Speaker 1: this in different times. They might say, you know, I
Speaker 1: really wanted a place that was going to be a
Speaker 1: store of value, and I knew that home prices wouldn't
Speaker 1: go down up in the Heights, so I bought up there.
Speaker 1: So that's someone who's in a practical mindset right now, right,
Speaker 1: and like we can join them there and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: what do you think about real estate on the west Side.
Speaker 1: That same person might also, in that different moment, answer
Speaker 1: the question by saying, oh, you know, actually, we bought
Speaker 1: up in the Heights because like it has this wonderful community.
Speaker 1: Like we go to the park on Friday nights and
Speaker 1: we see these friends and there are people that I
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't know otherwise except that we just happened to
Speaker 1: live next to each other, and it's so kind of
Speaker 1: wonderful to have this diverse group of friends. So that's
Speaker 1: a person who's in a social mindset, right. Or they
Speaker 1: might talk about their kids and the opportunities for their
Speaker 1: kids to roam around outside. That's probably more of an
Speaker 1: emotional mindset. Once we train ourselves to listen for these
Speaker 1: three conversations, asking a question about how someone feels about
Speaker 1: their life will reveal what kind of mindset they're in,
Speaker 1: what kind of conversation they want to have, and that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean we have to match them, but we can
Speaker 1: or we can invite them to match us. And that's
Speaker 1: how we become aligned. In the language of neurology and neuroscience,
Speaker 1: that's how we become neurally entrained.
Speaker 3: Say more about neural entrainment, and maybe, as you're saying
Speaker 3: more about it, tell us about the study of guitar players.
Speaker 3: As a guitar player, I loved this, so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's wonderful. Right, So, there's been all these studies
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how do we actually communicate with
Speaker 1: each other. And there's some forms of communication like playing
Speaker 1: music together, playing guitar together, that is a nonverbal form
Speaker 1: of communication, but it's still a form of communication. Right,
Speaker 1: You're listening to your partner, you're playing with them. And
Speaker 1: what researchers found is that when two people were playing
Speaker 1: a score together but they weren't in duet, their neural
Speaker 1: activity looked very, very different from each other. And then
Speaker 1: as soon as they started playing a duet, as soon
Speaker 1: as they came together where they were actually communicating with
Speaker 1: each other. Here, you know, I'm gonna wait for you
Speaker 1: to finish that chord. Then I'm going to come in
Speaker 1: with this chord. Suddenly their brains started looking more and
Speaker 1: more similar, their neural activity became more and more synchronized,
Speaker 1: and then they would veer into solos and it would end.
Speaker 1: They're thinking we'd go back to normal. And what researchers
Speaker 1: found is it's not just playing music together. It's when
Speaker 1: we talk to each other. That happens right in any
Speaker 1: meaningful conversation like this conversation right now, even though we're
Speaker 1: separated by thousands of miles without us realizing it, our
Speaker 1: breath patterns have become similar, our heart rates have started
Speaker 1: to match each other in many cases, our pupils start
Speaker 1: dilating at the same rate. And most importantly, if we
Speaker 1: could see inside our brains, which we now can with
Speaker 1: some advanced neural imaging, but see that my thoughts and
Speaker 1: your thoughts are becoming more and more similar, more and
Speaker 1: more synchronized. And that makes sense when you think about it,
Speaker 1: because if I describe to you an emotion or an idea,
Speaker 1: you actually experience that emotion a little bit, or you
Speaker 1: experience that idea. That's why communication is powerful, is because
Speaker 1: it allows you to see the world through my eyes
Speaker 1: just a little bit, and as we do, our brains
Speaker 1: become entrained. Our brains become similar until we're having the
Speaker 1: same thoughts at the same moment and we're communicating with
Speaker 1: each other. And that entrainment is a product of evolution,
Speaker 1: and it's the reason why a good conversation feels so wonderful,
Speaker 1: Why you walk away from a good chat with a
Speaker 1: friend and you just feel great, is because our brains
Speaker 1: have evolved to crave this connection, to look for opportunities
Speaker 1: to train, and when we do, it feels fantastic.
Speaker 3: I often think about one interview I'm doing, like with
Speaker 3: the last couple I had, and I referenced the one
Speaker 3: I did the other day with this psychologist, and she
Speaker 3: talks about a phenomenon there of regulation in an emotional sense,
Speaker 3: and this sounds like a very similar concept. It's a
Speaker 3: way you know that you can co regulate each other.
Speaker 3: So if you're in a certain state and someone else
Speaker 3: is in a better place, yeah.
Speaker 1: That's why you love calling those three or four people.
Speaker 1: And in the book, there's a story of the CIA
Speaker 1: officer who's sent over to Europe to recruit spies and
Speaker 1: he's just terrible at the job. He's so bad at it.
Speaker 1: He can't recruit anyone, and he'll go to people in
Speaker 1: like embassy parties and they'll say things like, look, I
Speaker 1: know you're trying to recruit me, and if you don't
Speaker 1: stop right now, I'm going to tell the authorities and
Speaker 1: get you deported.
Speaker 3: Like should to a comedy on this if they haven't.
Speaker 3: It sounds like a great comedy setup.
Speaker 1: And he's a wonderful guy. His name is Jim Lawler.
Speaker 1: And it's not until he essentially learns this coregulation that
Speaker 1: he becomes good at recruiting other folks to help him.
Speaker 1: And you're exactly right. It's him matching the kind of
Speaker 1: conversation that they're having, him showing that he wants to
Speaker 1: connect with them. It's co regulating our emotions together. That's
Speaker 1: when we feel like we can really trust each other,
Speaker 1: when we can really hear each other, when feel a
Speaker 1: connection that this other person cares about us.
Speaker 3: So I want to go back to deep questions because
Speaker 3: I think they're so important and you've kind of laid
Speaker 3: out how to do them. I'm just going to read
Speaker 3: a very specific thing that you say, because I think
Speaker 3: this sort of brings it all together, which is a
Speaker 3: deep question asked about somebody's values, their beliefs, judgments, or experiences. Right,
Speaker 3: And I think having those four categories in mind is
Speaker 3: actually really helpful. Like, that's one thing I really want
Speaker 3: to take away, because in some cases I think I
Speaker 3: am a really good conversationalist, and there are other cases
Speaker 3: where I don't quite know the next move. And to
Speaker 3: your point, I think that just having that quick framework
Speaker 3: of like, well, ask them about an experience, ask them
Speaker 3: about a value or a belief is the way to
Speaker 3: go deeper. Yeah, it's the way to move the conversation
Speaker 3: in a new direction.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it's just as simple as saying, like why
Speaker 1: you know, what did you like about that movie? What
Speaker 1: do you like about where you live? Why did you
Speaker 1: become a doctor? And those are easy questions to ask,
Speaker 1: that's not hard. It doesn't feel intrusive, it doesn't feel probing.
Speaker 1: You're inviting this person to share and not mandating that
Speaker 1: they share with you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's the trick. Let's say somebody's a
Speaker 3: casual acquaintance. How do you ask the type of question
Speaker 3: that moves the conversation deeper but isn't too much. And
Speaker 3: that's why I like what you've got there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And oftentimes it's about inviting, right, not mandating, Not saying, oh,
Speaker 1: how did it feel when you learned that your dad died?
Speaker 1: That's a pretty deep question, right, You got to be
Speaker 1: on the same wavelength with someone already. Right. But to
Speaker 1: just say, like, tell me about your dad, what was
Speaker 1: he like? That's an invitation and someone can say like, oh,
Speaker 1: he was great and leave it at that, or they
Speaker 1: can say, oh, he was he was amazing, Like let
Speaker 1: me tell you about like what he did this one time.
Speaker 1: An invitation rather than a mandate, makes every question easier.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about cases where you ask somebody a question
Speaker 3: like that and you get back sort of what they said,
Speaker 3: like he was great.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Is that generally a sign like okay, let's not go
Speaker 3: that direction because they don't want to go that direction.
Speaker 3: Or is it just possible that they're a shy person, right,
Speaker 3: and it's taking them time to find their way in,
Speaker 3: you know, because I think a lot of people freeze
Speaker 3: or get intimidated in conversation a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I think that's totally fair. And so the
Speaker 1: answer to whether they're shy or whether this just isn't
Speaker 1: an avenue they want to go down is probably something
Speaker 1: that you can into it at the moment. So if
Speaker 1: you think about how our brains have evolved, communication is
Speaker 1: Homo sapiens superpower. Like, the reason our species has done
Speaker 1: so well is because we can communicate. That's what's allowed
Speaker 1: us to build families and villages and nations. It's what
Speaker 1: allows us to share knowledge without having to experience the
Speaker 1: learning of that knowledge firsthand. So throughout history, communication is
Speaker 1: the thing that has made our species succeed, and as
Speaker 1: a result, our brains have evolved to crave that communication,
Speaker 1: to crave connection, to crave outreach. And so one of
Speaker 1: the things that's happened is that our brains are very
Speaker 1: very good at detecting a number of things in conversation.
Speaker 1: When someone is shy versus when they are disinterested, we
Speaker 1: can usually pick up on it just by listening to
Speaker 1: how they respond to questions. When someone is inauthentic, they're
Speaker 1: not actually matching us, they're just mimicking us, right. They
Speaker 1: ask us things like where do you want to go
Speaker 1: on vacation? Because they don't really care where I want
Speaker 1: to go on vacation, but they want to tell me
Speaker 1: all about their vacation, right. We know that we pick
Speaker 1: up on that pretty quickly, and so part of it
Speaker 1: is just listening to our intuitions and listening to what
Speaker 1: we hear the other person saying, and then again making
Speaker 1: these invitations. So asking about someone's dad and they say, oh,
Speaker 1: he's doing great, and that's it. They don't want to
Speaker 1: talk more about their dad. Now, you know, we might
Speaker 1: try a different invitation, or we might say, oh, it's
Speaker 1: so nice to hear that. You know, my parents are
Speaker 1: doing really, really well too, although I'm getting a little
Speaker 1: bit worried about, like, you know, my dad and he's
Speaker 1: getting older, and sharing something about ourselves, and then just
Speaker 1: seeing if they accept that invitation, and they might not.
Speaker 1: They might not. They might say like, oh, I'm glad
Speaker 1: to hear that, or I'm sorry to hear that, at
Speaker 1: which point we can say something like you know, how's work,
Speaker 1: what's going on at the office. But the point is
Speaker 1: that you're exactly right that oftentimes we feel a sense
Speaker 1: of anxiety about conversations and that that anxiety stops us
Speaker 1: from having the conversation. And there's a lot of techniques
Speaker 1: to do this. There's a study at Harvard Business School
Speaker 1: where the professors and the researchers. They told a group
Speaker 1: of students, Okay, you're going to go have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a stranger, which is like the most anxiety producing
Speaker 1: thing you can tell someone to do. And they said,
Speaker 1: but before you have this conversation, take seven seconds and
Speaker 1: write down on a piece of paper, three topics you
Speaker 1: might talk about, like dumb topics like you know, have
Speaker 1: you seen doom? Two? Are you going to the party
Speaker 1: this weekend? And then they told everyone, okay, go ahead,
Speaker 1: your conversations. And what they found was that those topics
Speaker 1: that the students wrote down hardly ever came up during
Speaker 1: those discussions. But the students afterwards said, I felt so
Speaker 1: much more confident and so much more calm and relaxed,
Speaker 1: and the conversation went so much better as a results.
Speaker 1: And it's because I knew if there was an awkward moment,
Speaker 1: I had this thing in my pocket I could fall
Speaker 1: back on. I had three topics I could ask about
Speaker 1: or I could talk about. And so what's really interesting
Speaker 1: about that is that it acknowledges that there is this awkwardness,
Speaker 1: this anxiety that conversation produces. But it also shows how
Speaker 1: easy it is to disrupt that, which is just to
Speaker 1: think about this conversation for seven seconds before we start
Speaker 1: it can make a huge difference totally.
Speaker 3: I mean to apply that to myself. I am a
Speaker 3: diligent over preparer for interviews, but the best conversations I
Speaker 3: almost never look at my notes. Yeah, taking the time
Speaker 3: that I do ahead of time makes it just much
Speaker 3: more likely that I can disappear into the conversation. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: But then the notes you're there if I need them, right,
Speaker 3: And part of what.
Speaker 1: I think is going on, and tell me if you
Speaker 1: think this is wrong, is by writing those notes, you're
Speaker 1: figuring out what you want from this conversation. You're figuring
Speaker 1: out what for you is important. What are the kinds
Speaker 1: of questions that are important to you, What are the
Speaker 1: kinds of insights that you hope to get to, And
Speaker 1: just thinking about what we want that it can make
Speaker 1: all the different. Then we can stop thinking about it,
Speaker 1: we can just be in the conversation totally.
Speaker 3: I mean, as I've gone on, I don't write questions
Speaker 3: usually for whatever reason, that just doesn't make sense to me.
Speaker 3: But I found more and more less is better, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it is. I do have a sense of what in
Speaker 3: this person's work resonates.
Speaker 1: With me, that's exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 3: One idea in the book that I found really interesting
Speaker 3: is the idea of looping for understanding share more about
Speaker 3: what this is.
Speaker 1: It's a really important concept because even if we ask
Speaker 1: deep questions, even if we listen to what the other
Speaker 1: person is telling us, oftentimes in some conversations, particularly conflict conversations,
Speaker 1: particularly conversations where there's some tension or we disagree with
Speaker 1: each other, there's this thing that happens that makes it
Speaker 1: harder for us to connect, which is that as I'm speaking,
Speaker 1: there's this little suspicion in the back of my head
Speaker 1: that you're not actually listening to me, You're just waiting
Speaker 1: your turn to speak. And we've all felt that, and
Speaker 1: so what's really important in a conversation is that, particularly
Speaker 1: in a conflict conversation, is that we prove to each
Speaker 1: other that we're listening. And the way that we prove
Speaker 1: we're listening. It's not about how we act while someone
Speaker 1: is speaking, it's about what we do after they finished speaking.
Speaker 1: And this idea of looping for understanding. It's taught at
Speaker 1: Stanford and Harvard, a bunch of big fancy schools what
Speaker 1: it says is Okay. Look, here's the three steps to
Speaker 1: prove to someone that you're listening to them. The first
Speaker 1: step is ask them a question, preferably a deep question.
Speaker 1: If you can let them answer the question. Then step
Speaker 1: number two is repeat back what you heard them say,
Speaker 1: but in your own words, like show them that you
Speaker 1: were paying attention, show them that you're processing what they're saying,
Speaker 1: you're trying to you're trying to really understand what they mean.
Speaker 1: And then step three, and this is the step that
Speaker 1: most of us usually forget, ask if you got it right?
Speaker 1: And the reason why that's so powerful is because sometimes
Speaker 1: they say, no, you didn't get it right right, and
Speaker 1: it turns out you actually weren't listening as well as
Speaker 1: you thought you were. But even if you did get
Speaker 1: it right, when you ask them, did I get this right,
Speaker 1: you're asking them for permission to acknowledge that you were
Speaker 1: listening closely. And there's this thing hardwired into our brain
Speaker 1: again by evolution, that when we think someone is listening
Speaker 1: closely to us, we become more willing to listen to them.
Speaker 1: In the addition, you know, there's a couple of big
Speaker 1: skills figuring out what kind of conversation you're having and
Speaker 1: matching each other, asking deep questions, asking people how they
Speaker 1: feel about their life and rather than the facts of
Speaker 1: their life. And this is the third one, which is
Speaker 1: oftentimes we need to prove that we're listening. And sometimes
Speaker 1: we do that just by asking asking a follow up
Speaker 1: question or or sharing something about ourselves. But when we
Speaker 1: prove to other people that we're listening, what we're really
Speaker 1: saying is I want to connect with you, and showing
Speaker 1: that we want to connect is often the most important
Speaker 1: part of actually forming that connection.
Speaker 3: A conversation my partner and I have had before about
Speaker 3: this is that idea of saying it back kind in
Speaker 3: your own words. And she often believes that saying back
Speaker 3: some of the exact words that somebody used is important
Speaker 3: because those words mean something very specific or important to them.
Speaker 3: And so I think doing that without mimicking or you know,
Speaker 3: without sounding robotic. But yeah, does that make sense to you?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Absolutely, And I think you're exactly right. The key
Speaker 1: is you don't want it to send inauthentic. You don't
Speaker 1: want to say like what I hear you say is
Speaker 1: and then literally repeat word for word where they just said.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, it might be important to
Speaker 1: say what I hear you say. Is you said that
Speaker 1: you felt like I should be more caring with you,
Speaker 1: and I completely hear what you're saying, and that's important
Speaker 1: to me as well, and like, here's some ways that
Speaker 1: I can be caring. I think your partner's exactly right
Speaker 1: that sometimes words have a magic power for a certain person,
Speaker 1: and repeating that word back shows that you're paying attention,
Speaker 1: and that's part of matching. That's part of this symmetry
Speaker 1: that we talked about. But there's a difference between mimicry
Speaker 1: and matching. Mimicry feels inauthentic because it's not you doing
Speaker 1: any work. It's not you paying attention to the words
Speaker 1: I'm using. It's you just like keeping this like short
Speaker 1: term memory of like what I just said and then
Speaker 1: trying to say the exact same thing. That's what used
Speaker 1: car salesman's do.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Not to disparage use car salesmen, but we've all experienced.
Speaker 1: But I think your partner's exactly right that sometimes the
Speaker 1: way that we show that we're listening is to use
Speaker 1: the same language that the person has used, but to
Speaker 1: do it in an authentic way. Where we're saying. What
Speaker 1: I hear you say is this phrase. Here's what I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about this phrase, And here's the question that this
Speaker 1: phrase raises for me.
Speaker 3: So listener in thinking about all that and the other
Speaker 3: great wisdom from today's episode. If you're going to isolate
Speaker 3: just one top insight that you're taking away, what would
Speaker 3: it be? Not your top ten, not the top five,
Speaker 3: just one?
Speaker 1: What is it?
Speaker 3: Think about it?
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: I ask you, what's one tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little
Speaker 3: thing you can do today to put it in practice?
Speaker 3: Or maybe just take a baby step towards it. Remember,
Speaker 3: little by little, a little becomes a lot. Profound change
Speaker 3: happens as a result of aggregated tiny actions, not massive
Speaker 3: heroic effort. If you're not already on our Good Wolf
Speaker 3: Reminder SMS list, I'd highly recommend it as a tool
Speaker 3: you can leverage to remind you to take those vital
Speaker 3: baby steps forward. You can get on there at oneufeed
Speaker 3: dot nets slash SMS. It's totally free, and once you're
Speaker 3: on there, I'll send you a couple text messages a
Speaker 3: week with little reminders and nudges. Here's what I recently
Speaker 3: shared to give you an idea of the type of
Speaker 3: stuff I send. Keep practicing even if it seems hopeless.
Speaker 3: Don't strive for perfection, aim for consistency, and no matter what,
Speaker 3: keep showing up for yourself. That was a great gem
Speaker 3: from recent guests Light Watkins. And if you're on the
Speaker 3: fence about joining, remember it's totally free and easy to unsubscribe.
Speaker 3: If you want to get in, I'd love to have
Speaker 3: you there. Just go to one ufeed dot net, slash
Speaker 3: SMS all right back to it. I love that next
Speaker 3: step of asking if you got it right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: That seems like it's really key. I think a lot
Speaker 3: of people know the first two most any communication class
Speaker 3: you ever take will tell you the first two steps.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And once it becomes a habit, like I find
Speaker 1: myself constantly saying, Okay, what I hear you saying is
Speaker 1: and tell me if I'm getting this wrong. But what
Speaker 1: I hear you saying is right? Yeah, And it's that
Speaker 1: third step. It's the asking permission to acknowledge that I've
Speaker 1: listen to you.
Speaker 3: I went on an outward bound trip last fault. It's
Speaker 3: generally something that you know teenagers do.
Speaker 1: But yeah, my teenagers going this summer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they do them for adults too, and it was
Speaker 3: a great experience. And the end everybody was kind of
Speaker 3: joking around, kind of making up nicknames for people, and
Speaker 3: they didn't quite land on a nickname for me. But
Speaker 3: the basic thing was, you know, basically me saying, let
Speaker 3: me ask you another question about that. And then what
Speaker 3: I heard you say is, you know, like almost maybe
Speaker 3: to a point of a character I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, And they probably having you on that trip, right,
Speaker 1: You're you were a super communicator who made conversations easier
Speaker 1: among everyone. When we become a super communicator, that's actually
Speaker 1: the gift that we give the world and to ourselves
Speaker 1: and to our friends, is we make it easier for
Speaker 1: other people to connect, not just with us, but with
Speaker 1: each other. That is feeding the good wolf to go
Speaker 1: out and to make the world a better place. By
Speaker 1: helping people connect with each other. That's only something that
Speaker 1: can make the world a better place.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that is a beautiful place to wrap up.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Charles. Really happy to talk to you.
Speaker 3: I enjoyed the book and I really enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me on. This has been such
Speaker 1: a treat.
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