Speaker 1: This episode was recorded on Cameragle Land. Hi guys, and
Speaker 1: welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura,
Speaker 1: I'm Brittany.
Speaker 2: Okay, we've said it a hundred times. We say it
Speaker 2: on every gas Gun Cut episode. We say it pretty
Speaker 2: much on every episode ever, every episode, six hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty episodes we've said it. Yeah, So, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: nice that we're like touching based on this again, but
Speaker 2: communication really is everything when it comes to relationships.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: When we go to school, we get taught so many
Speaker 2: different things. You get taught how to do algebra. No
Speaker 2: one teaches you how to communicate properly with people around you.
Speaker 2: Some people seem to be innately good at it. Some
Speaker 2: people seem to be quite terrible at it. And I
Speaker 2: think that we often think we either a just skilled
Speaker 2: at this or we're not skilled at this, not that
Speaker 2: communication is a thing that we can learn and we
Speaker 2: can become better at if we know what it is
Speaker 2: that we need to focus on. Joining the podcast today
Speaker 2: is Politzer Prize winning reporter and author Charles Jewig. Now
Speaker 2: charles most recent book, it's titled The Super Communicators. So
Speaker 2: if anyone knows about communication, he is the man. Charles
Speaker 2: is investigating the simple and tested methods for communicating and
Speaker 2: connecting with anyone, and he also went very deep on
Speaker 2: what exactly makes someone the person that everyone wants to
Speaker 2: talk to in a room, the person that everyone wants
Speaker 2: to have a conversation with, whether it be in a
Speaker 2: romantic relationship, at work, with friends, or even with strangers.
Speaker 1: Charles, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. It's such a joy to
Speaker 3: be here.
Speaker 4: We're so excited to talk to you today because, as
Speaker 4: we mentioned, it is one of those thrawaway comments that
Speaker 4: we make but everyone makes that's constantly like just communicate.
Speaker 1: But we don't ever really break down what that is.
Speaker 4: So I am excited that we're going to get into
Speaker 4: the nitty gritty of that today.
Speaker 1: But before we do, we love to throw our.
Speaker 4: Guests under the bus, and we start with an accidentally
Speaker 4: unfiltered Which is your most embarrassing moment? Do you have
Speaker 4: one for us today?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I was thinking about this. So our last year
Speaker 3: in high school here has got named senior year. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you guys use the same terminology. During
Speaker 3: my senior I took a girl to senior prom and
Speaker 3: as we were driving back from the prom. My car
Speaker 3: caught on fire, and it yeah, yeah, it was. I
Speaker 3: would love to say it's because there was so much
Speaker 3: heat being generated inside the car, but that's not what happened.
Speaker 3: What happened was that literally it was an old car
Speaker 3: and we're driving down and my date Lexi Lexie Patronas
Speaker 3: is her name. She's great. She was like, she's like,
Speaker 3: you know, it sort of smells like smoke and like
Speaker 3: maybe like burning rubber or something is something going on outside.
Speaker 3: And I was like, nah, we're good. And then suddenly,
Speaker 3: like the smoke starts coming through the vents. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: was not great.
Speaker 1: At least it was on the way home and not
Speaker 1: on the way there, like that would.
Speaker 3: Have been far worse, exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but there was some solid opportunities there for like,
Speaker 4: you know, this is just because you're so hot.
Speaker 1: We most of it.
Speaker 3: I would have loved to been that suave in high school.
Speaker 3: But the truth of matter is I was like, ah
Speaker 3: ah ah ah, I had no game whatsoever.
Speaker 2: How did I mean, talking about communication in general, how
Speaker 2: did this become an area of focus for you and
Speaker 2: something that you wanted to research and thought, you know what,
Speaker 2: I'm going to write a book about this.
Speaker 3: It's actually because of a pattern I fell into with
Speaker 3: my wife, who is not Lexi a completely different way.
Speaker 1: We all wonder where Lexi is now.
Speaker 3: She has kids of her own, she's great. But I
Speaker 3: married a woman named Liz, who I like a lot.
Speaker 3: She's a marine biologist. I like her a lot.
Speaker 1: I'm glad.
Speaker 3: So I got into this bad pattern, which I'm going
Speaker 3: to put it out there, and I'm going to guess
Speaker 3: that maybe you guys are familiar with this pattern, and
Speaker 3: everyone is listening as familiar with this pattern, which is
Speaker 3: I would come home after a long day work and
Speaker 3: I'd be like super frustrated or worked out. But you know,
Speaker 3: I'd be telling my wife, like, you know, my boss
Speaker 3: doesn't appreciate me enough and my coworkers don't realize what
Speaker 3: a genius I.
Speaker 1: Am and I don't have that problem.
Speaker 3: Well my wife, Yeah, my wife would offer me this
Speaker 3: really good advice. She would say, like, why don't you
Speaker 3: take your boss out to lunch? And you guys came
Speaker 3: out to know each other better, And instead of being
Speaker 3: able to listen to her advice and hear it, I
Speaker 3: would get even more upset and I'd be like, you're
Speaker 3: supposed to be on my side, you're supposed to be
Speaker 3: outraged on my behalf. Then she would get upset because
Speaker 3: I was attacking her for giving me good advice. Does
Speaker 3: this sound familiar?
Speaker 1: Absolutely?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting though with some of these conversations,
Speaker 2: because sometimes you don't want someone to give advice, you
Speaker 2: want someone to just listen and be a sounding board.
Speaker 2: That gets old very quickly, like people don't want to
Speaker 2: play the role of just being a sounding board to
Speaker 2: the same problem on repeat. But sometimes I think it's
Speaker 2: interesting to almost ask the question of like do you
Speaker 2: want a solution or do you want me to just
Speaker 2: listen to you?
Speaker 3: That is a great, great way of handling it, because
Speaker 3: when I went to experts, I went to all these
Speaker 3: neuroscientists asked them like why am I making this mistake
Speaker 3: again and again me and all my friends, And they said, well,
Speaker 3: look what we figured out is when you're having a discussion,
Speaker 3: you think you're talking about one thing, but actually every
Speaker 3: discussion is made up of different kinds of conversations, and
Speaker 3: those conversations they tend to usually fall into one of
Speaker 3: three buckets. Right. There's these practical conversations where we're like
Speaker 3: solving problems or making plans together. But then there's a
Speaker 3: conversations where I don't want you to solve my emotions.
Speaker 3: I want you to listen, and I want you to
Speaker 3: empathize exactly what you just said. And then there's social
Speaker 3: conversations about how we relate to each other in society.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it sounds like and it happens a lot,
Speaker 4: but it sounds like you were just seeking validation. You
Speaker 4: didn't want an answer. You wanted her to say, yes, baby,
Speaker 4: you are a genius.
Speaker 1: He doesn't.
Speaker 3: That's exactly.
Speaker 1: They don't deserve you.
Speaker 4: And you're like yes, and let yes, queen, And that's
Speaker 4: how you wanted that conversation to go.
Speaker 3: That's exactly. I'm not sure yes Queen totally would have
Speaker 3: been right for me, but you're exactly right. That's what
Speaker 3: I was looking for, as I was looking for like
Speaker 3: this empathy in this And this is what the researchers
Speaker 3: said is they said, look, if you're having different kinds
Speaker 3: of conversations at the same moment, if you're having an
Speaker 3: emotional conversation and your wife is having a practical conversation,
Speaker 3: you literally cannot hear each other fully and you definitely
Speaker 3: don't feel connected to each other. But if if you
Speaker 3: take a moment and you start having the same kind
Speaker 3: of conversation you say something like, look, do you want
Speaker 3: me to solve this problem for you? Or do you
Speaker 3: want me just to like hear you out and like
Speaker 3: empathize and offer you support or exactly what you just said.
Speaker 3: At that moment, you become what's known as neurally entrained,
Speaker 3: and it's the core of communication. This neural and trainment.
Speaker 3: Our brains actually begin looking more and more similar, and
Speaker 3: that's when not only can we hear each other much better,
Speaker 3: but we feel connected to each other.
Speaker 4: So that's a learned character trey that you can have
Speaker 4: in a relationship that you might not necessarily start with,
Speaker 4: but you can work to connect further.
Speaker 3: Is that what you're saying absolutely, And in fact, what
Speaker 3: we've learned is that people who are supercommunicators, and by
Speaker 3: the way, all of us are supercommunicators at one time
Speaker 3: or another, usually during a week. But people who are
Speaker 3: consistent supercommunicators, they have learned how to diagnose what kind
Speaker 3: of conversation is going on and match the other person
Speaker 3: or invite them to match them. And within psychology, this
Speaker 3: is actually known as the matching principle that successful communication
Speaker 3: requires having the same kind of conversation at the same moment.
Speaker 2: Charles, I want to back it up a little bit
Speaker 2: because I think it's so interesting how some people seem
Speaker 2: like they just intuitively good at this, or some people
Speaker 2: seem to have cracked the code with aun't having to
Speaker 2: go through the turmoil of all the trenches of figuring
Speaker 2: out what it is that they're doing wrong. Are there
Speaker 2: certain personality types that are better at communicating or is
Speaker 2: it purely just a kind of a lucky deal with
Speaker 2: how we're brought up and socialized.
Speaker 3: So I'm really glad you brought this up, because there
Speaker 3: is this like kind of cultural bias, right, like some
Speaker 3: people are born with the gift of the gap, or
Speaker 3: they're like so outgoing, And what all the research tells
Speaker 3: us is that that's not true. Communication is a set
Speaker 3: of learned skills, and some people learn those skills a
Speaker 3: little bit earlier, and they might have grown up in
Speaker 3: environments where their parents or their teachers kind of habituated
Speaker 3: them to recognize the skills. But what's interesting is if
Speaker 3: you talk to super communicators and you ask them, were
Speaker 3: you always good at communication, they inevitably say no. They
Speaker 3: say things like you know, when I was in school,
Speaker 3: I had trouble making friends, and so I really had
Speaker 3: to study how kids talk to each other or or
Speaker 3: my parents got divorced and I had to be the
Speaker 3: peacemaker between them. Yeah, indication is simply a learned skill
Speaker 3: skills that any of us can learn, and nobody is
Speaker 3: born knowing how to do them. But some people practice
Speaker 3: them a little bit more, and when we practice them,
Speaker 3: they become habits very very quickly.
Speaker 1: What is it that you define make someone a super communicator?
Speaker 3: Here's a good test of it. Okay, I'll ask you
Speaker 3: guys this question. When you come home from a long day, right,
Speaker 3: you're exhausted, you're you're going to a kind of bad mood,
Speaker 3: and you want to call someone who you know just
Speaker 3: talking to them on the phone is going to make
Speaker 3: you feel better. Do you know who you would call? Like,
Speaker 3: does that person pop into your mind?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: My husband?
Speaker 3: Yeah, your husband, yeah, your sister and your husband. So
Speaker 3: for you, your fiance fiance, right, well we don't want
Speaker 3: to go Yeah, for you your sister and your fiance,
Speaker 3: they are super communicators and you're super communicator. Back to them, right,
Speaker 3: You know how to ask the right question. You know
Speaker 3: what the right question is. You know how to show
Speaker 3: them that you're paying attention, that you're not distracted. You
Speaker 3: know when they want empathy and when they want a solution,
Speaker 3: and how to sometimes give them a kick in the
Speaker 3: pants and sometimes just say, ah, man, that sucks, I'm
Speaker 3: so sorry that happened to you. Yeah, we know how
Speaker 3: to be super communicators with the people who are closest
Speaker 3: to us. What consistent super communicators have realized is those
Speaker 3: same skills that you use on your sister and you
Speaker 3: use on your fiance, you can use them on anyone,
Speaker 3: and when you do, you have very close conversations.
Speaker 4: I feel like it may be a common misconception when
Speaker 4: we talk about communication super communication that it's entirely default
Speaker 4: back to the person that's delivering the dialogue. How important
Speaker 4: in being a super communicator is actually the quiet?
Speaker 1: The listening?
Speaker 3: Oh h incredibly important? Right? Like, I mean we all
Speaker 3: know people who like they just talk and talk and talk.
Speaker 3: Nobody's like that guy is really a super communicator. Instead,
Speaker 3: you're like, I want to avoid that guy at the party,
Speaker 3: like the plague. Right, Listening is an enormous part of communication,
Speaker 3: but you have to listen the right way, right, not
Speaker 3: all listening is.
Speaker 2: I think that this is so interesting because so much
Speaker 2: of the conversation that, especially when we're talking about relationships
Speaker 2: or in workplaces, when you do talk about communication, it
Speaker 2: is about voicing what you want and voicing what it
Speaker 2: is about how you feel and telling people and setting boundaries.
Speaker 2: And there is so much information out there around how
Speaker 2: to be better at speaking what it is that you
Speaker 2: are experiencing or your own personal moments. You know that
Speaker 2: there's very little information out there as to how to
Speaker 2: be a better listener and how to process what's being
Speaker 2: said to you and how you respond to that. I
Speaker 2: really think that that's kind of where we're let down
Speaker 2: a little bit and how we navigate these sort of
Speaker 2: situations and these conversations.
Speaker 3: I absolutely agree. And there's some skills we can talk
Speaker 3: about that make you a better listener, and one of
Speaker 3: the first ones is paradoxically is asking questions, asking more
Speaker 3: questions and asking the right questions. The first step of
Speaker 3: listening is very active. It's asking someone a question, but
Speaker 3: not all questions are as powerful as others. Some questions
Speaker 3: work better, and within psychology, these are known as deep questions,
Speaker 3: and a deep question is something that asks about your values,
Speaker 3: or your beliefs, or your experiences. And that can sound
Speaker 3: a little bit intimidating, but it's as easy as like,
Speaker 3: if you meet someone who's a doctor, instead of saying, oh,
Speaker 3: what hospital do you work at, saying to them, oh,
Speaker 3: what made you decide to go to medical school? Right
Speaker 3: that second question, what made you decide to go to
Speaker 3: medical school, I'm asking them how they feel about their
Speaker 3: life rather than the facts of their life. That's a
Speaker 3: deep question and it invites that person to say something real.
Speaker 3: So that's step one. Ask deep questions.
Speaker 4: And is this to form also like to find a commonality,
Speaker 4: to form a connection with them, to bring you closer.
Speaker 3: Absolutely all the better because let's imagine I say, like,
Speaker 3: what made you decide to become a doctor and they say, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, when I was a kid, my dad got
Speaker 3: sick and I thought I saw those doctors, and I like,
Speaker 3: I wanted to be a healer. I knew I wanted
Speaker 3: to be like them. So they're in a kind of
Speaker 3: social or emotional mindset right at that moment, it's really
Speaker 3: natural for me to say like, oh, you know what
Speaker 3: that's interesting because I'm a lawyer, and I became a
Speaker 3: lawyer because I saw my uncle get arrested when I
Speaker 3: was a kid. Yeah, now, all of a sudden, and
Speaker 3: you wouldn't necessarily think that being a lawyer or doctor
Speaker 3: is similar, or that seeing your uncle is similar to
Speaker 3: your dad getting sick. But when we ask those deep questions,
Speaker 3: we see the opportunities for things that we have in common,
Speaker 3: and that's really powerful.
Speaker 4: You did specify that not all listening is created equal.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
Speaker 3: So the first step of listening is asking these questions right,
Speaker 3: asking deep questions, learning and getting comfortable with asking questions.
Speaker 3: The second step is that once someone has said something
Speaker 3: to you, it's really important to prove that you're listening,
Speaker 3: particularly if it's a tough conversation. If you're having a
Speaker 3: disagreement with your sister, you're having a disagreement with your fiance,
Speaker 3: and there's like a little bit of tension there, or
Speaker 3: maybe there's something that you don't necessarily see eye to
Speaker 3: eye on. There is this sneaking suspicion in the back
Speaker 3: of all of our minds that the other person is
Speaker 3: not actually listening, they're just waiting their turn to speak.
Speaker 3: So how do we overcome that. There's this technique known
Speaker 3: as looping for understanding that they teach in law school
Speaker 3: and business schools and has these three steps. The first
Speaker 3: step is ask a question. The second step is, once
Speaker 3: the person has answered the question, restate what they said
Speaker 3: in your own words. And the goal here is not mimicry.
Speaker 3: The goal is to prove that you're paying attention, to
Speaker 3: prove that you're kind of processing what I heard you
Speaker 3: say is this and that reminded me of something you
Speaker 3: said last week and then and most of us do
Speaker 3: step one and two somewhat intuitively right. But step three
Speaker 3: is the step I always forget because after you say
Speaker 3: here's what I heard you say, ask if you got
Speaker 3: it right? Yeah, Say like, oh, did I hear you correctly?
Speaker 3: Because what you're actually doing in that moment is you're
Speaker 3: asking for permission to acknowledge that you were listening.
Speaker 2: You used a really great example at the very start
Speaker 2: of this conversation around how you'd come home, you'd vent
Speaker 2: about your day, and then you're in this loophole about
Speaker 2: getting and receiving a great advice and then not being
Speaker 2: at a place where you could receive that great advice.
Speaker 2: Where did you two come to? Like how did you
Speaker 2: find your resolution to that?
Speaker 3: So now when I start complaining about my day, my
Speaker 3: wife will often say, do you want me to help
Speaker 3: you brainstorm solutions? Or do you just need to like
Speaker 3: kind of like get this off your chest? Right, She's
Speaker 3: asking me, like do you want to have an emotional
Speaker 3: conversation or a practical conversation? It's like magic, right, I
Speaker 3: always know what the answer is, and like it's so
Speaker 3: nice to be asked that way. And they teach teachers
Speaker 3: to do this too. They teach teachers that when a
Speaker 3: student comes up and they have something important they want
Speaker 3: to discuss, the first thing the teacher should say is
Speaker 3: do you want to be helped, hugged or heard, which
Speaker 3: is of course the practical, the emotional, and the social.
Speaker 3: And kids know what the answer is. They'll be like, oh, no,
Speaker 3: I don't I don't need a hug. I just want
Speaker 3: you to know what Jimmy's doing to me. I'm just
Speaker 3: what kind of conversation, thank you? I just wanted to
Speaker 3: get in trouble.
Speaker 4: It's interesting And I think let's sitting in that for
Speaker 4: a second, because I don't think many people, and in
Speaker 4: such an emotion fueled argument, like we go back to
Speaker 4: saying you're fighting with your partner, most people, I think,
Speaker 4: in that situation are already planning the retort. They're planning
Speaker 4: their counter argument, whereas they're not even it doesn't matter
Speaker 4: what that person is saying for the next fifteen seconds.
Speaker 4: And I'll openly admit that I've done that in the past,
Speaker 4: and they're thinking about what they're going to openly admit
Speaker 4: I do it now. Well, they come back at them
Speaker 4: with something else. But when does it cross a line?
Speaker 4: And I am guilty of this. I am really guilty
Speaker 4: of doing exactly what you said. When I say, let
Speaker 4: me just get this right, Like I just want to
Speaker 4: confirm I've heard you're right. I say that when I
Speaker 4: know I've heard them right, and it almost becomes.
Speaker 1: A manipulation technique.
Speaker 4: And I hate to say that, but I'm like, I'm
Speaker 4: not asking you for confirmation because I know, and I
Speaker 4: say it in a way and I shouldn't, but I'm like,
Speaker 4: just let me get this right. What you're saying is
Speaker 4: and I use it as a way to almost come
Speaker 4: back at them.
Speaker 1: So where does that manipulation?
Speaker 3: You shouldn't use it as a rebuttal. You shouldn't be like,
Speaker 3: you know, when you ask a deep question. The deep
Speaker 3: question shouldn't be like, I'm just wondering, were you born
Speaker 3: this stupid or did you just grow up? Like we
Speaker 3: shouldn't We shouldn't take an argument and hide it as
Speaker 3: a question. Yeah, but imagine that you give yourself. Next
Speaker 3: time you're having like a tiff with your fiance, imagine
Speaker 3: that you gave yourself this assignment. I want to repeat
Speaker 3: back as accurately as I can what I think he's
Speaker 3: trying to tell me. Yeah, when that's your assignment to yourself,
Speaker 3: it's really hard to get into that pattern where you
Speaker 3: just start coming up with retorts in your head because
Speaker 3: like you're paying so much attention just so that you
Speaker 3: can be like, look, what I heard you say is this?
Speaker 3: Am I getting this right? As opposed to what I
Speaker 3: heard you say was really stupid? Am I right that
Speaker 3: it's really stupid?
Speaker 4: Well, I don't say that, but I guess that's the passiveness, right,
Speaker 4: Like that's the message in the way I deliver it.
Speaker 2: But also, I think it's a tricky thing to only
Speaker 2: talk about it in terms of conflict, because when you're
Speaker 2: having conflict with someone already, you also have it loaded
Speaker 2: with this idea of wanting to be right or winning
Speaker 2: the argument, or making sure that like you are the
Speaker 2: one who is correct. I guess at the end of
Speaker 2: the day and that they come around to see your
Speaker 2: point of view. That's probably almost the trickiest space to
Speaker 2: get good at communication. I think there's so many smaller
Speaker 2: ways that you can practice at first, so that the
Speaker 2: next time you're in a blow up with your partner,
Speaker 2: you're not like, oh cool, I'm going to use those
Speaker 2: communication skills, but I'm really fucking angry, I'm super overstimulated,
Speaker 2: and it's probably not a great platform for me to
Speaker 2: be an incredible communicator in this moment. But I think
Speaker 2: if you've done the groundwork and you know it and
Speaker 2: you know that you're able to do it, then you
Speaker 2: can kind of step back from it a little bit.
Speaker 1: When you get to that point.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's really smart. And think about when
Speaker 3: you guys talk to your sisters. I'm guessing if I
Speaker 3: was to eavesdrop on those conversations, you'd be shocked. You
Speaker 3: would be You're proving to each other that you're listening
Speaker 3: because you're asking follow up questions. You're laughing, you're saying,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, that reminds me of the time that
Speaker 3: you did X. You're proving that you're paying attention, and
Speaker 3: you're right. In conflict conversations we need to get a
Speaker 3: little bit more formal sometimes, but in just everyday conversations,
Speaker 3: if we build this habit of showing someone that we're listing,
Speaker 3: then they believe that we're listening. They are much more
Speaker 3: likely to listen to us. They feel closer to us.
Speaker 2: Talk me through, because I mean, we can speak about
Speaker 2: the way in which we actually speak or the way
Speaker 2: in which we listen, but I know that there's so
Speaker 2: many other factors that influence how we're received when we're
Speaker 2: speaking to someone, like our body language, our eye contact.
Speaker 2: Are there a set of other contributing factors that make
Speaker 2: us good at this or bad at this?
Speaker 3: Yes, the answer is yes, But it's not consistent from
Speaker 3: person to person or culture to culture. Right, interesting, What
Speaker 3: is consistent is that when we use nonverbal communication, we
Speaker 3: should use it to show that we want to connect
Speaker 3: with someone. So let's take laughter as an example, and
Speaker 3: this is true almost across like the spectrum, from cultures
Speaker 3: to people eighty percent of the time when you laugh,
Speaker 3: it is not in response to anyone saying anything funny,
Speaker 3: right like, and you laugh right now, but what I said,
Speaker 3: wasn't that funny? It's not, But it's not like I
Speaker 3: told the joke. Like, most of the time when we
Speaker 3: laugh in a conversation, we're laughing to show the other
Speaker 3: person that we want to connect with them, to show
Speaker 3: them that we're listening, to show them that we like them.
Speaker 3: And when they laugh back, the most natural thing we
Speaker 3: can do, they're showing us that they want to connect
Speaker 3: in return. Now, think about how we apply that to
Speaker 3: the other things we do. You're right, like, sometimes they
Speaker 3: tell you don't stand with your body closed off, But
Speaker 3: why why shouldn't we stand with our body closed off?
Speaker 3: Because there's lots of people who can cross their arms
Speaker 3: and still look really welcoming. It's about how we're conveying
Speaker 3: our energy to the other person, whether we want to
Speaker 3: connect with them or not. And there's so many small
Speaker 3: making eye contact there's another great example. You know, in
Speaker 3: some places making eye contact is considered kind of rude,
Speaker 3: like you shouldn't do it, But if you're doing it
Speaker 3: in a culture, and to try and show the other
Speaker 3: person you're paying attention.
Speaker 1: Then they feel that it's fascinating.
Speaker 2: This idea of how different cultures receive and understand it differently.
Speaker 2: There was information that came out about the Olympics when
Speaker 2: the Olympics was in Russia and they were trying to
Speaker 2: teach people smile, that it's not rude, that if someone
Speaker 2: smiles at you passing you on the street, and it
Speaker 2: was because it's culturally just not what you do. You
Speaker 2: don't smile at people passing by, it could be seen
Speaker 2: as though you were laughing at them, You're mocking them. Culturally,
Speaker 2: it was a different way of communicating. And when the
Speaker 2: Olympics went there and there were so many tourists in Russia,
Speaker 2: they were like, well, if people are smiling at you,
Speaker 2: it's not because they're mocking you. You know, there's just
Speaker 2: a different barrier here for how we engage with people
Speaker 2: we don't know.
Speaker 3: And it's how we get how we get habituated. Right.
Speaker 3: If you live in a place where people smile at
Speaker 3: each other, smiling becomes a habit it's very easy. And
Speaker 3: if you live in a place where people don't smile
Speaker 3: at each other, you don't totally You're exactly right.
Speaker 2: You go to some places where people are like morning,
Speaker 2: and then you've got other places where you're like if
Speaker 2: you did that, you're the weirdo.
Speaker 1: Australia is exactly Yeah, we're a very morning country. Yes,
Speaker 1: say hello to everyone that you pass.
Speaker 4: Physiologically, Charles, what happens to our brains when we are
Speaker 4: speaking to someone that is a good communicator?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I mentioned this neuralin trainment. Here's what happens
Speaker 3: when you're having a good conversation. You're breath pattern starts
Speaker 3: to match each other, your heart rates start to match
Speaker 3: each other. You're, of course not aware of this, right,
Speaker 3: The rate of pupil dilation will become similar. Our bodies
Speaker 3: actually become like each other when we're in a good conversation.
Speaker 3: And what's more important is if you could look at
Speaker 3: people's brains, which some scientists have done, what you would
Speaker 3: see is that as those two people or three people,
Speaker 3: or however many are having a conversation within their brains,
Speaker 3: their brain activity is becoming more and more similar, more
Speaker 3: and more alike. And that kind of makes sense when
Speaker 3: you think about it, because if I tell you about
Speaker 3: an emotion I'm feeling, you kind of experience that emotion
Speaker 3: a little bit right, or or if I tell you
Speaker 3: about an idea, you kind of experience that idea. So
Speaker 3: it makes sense that our brains become similar. But what
Speaker 3: researchers have figured out is this is actually the goal
Speaker 3: of communication. The reason we evolved to be such good
Speaker 3: communicators is because when our brains become similar, not only
Speaker 3: can we understand each other much much better, but we
Speaker 3: just automatically feel closer to each other. We feel like
Speaker 3: we're connected, and that sense of connection is really important
Speaker 3: to how humans exist, how we succeed, how we build
Speaker 3: families and nations and villages. So when we talk to
Speaker 3: each other, in fact, right now, we would see that
Speaker 3: our brains look more similar now than they did when
Speaker 3: we first started this conversation.
Speaker 4: I think that's a very fascinating You're an award winning everything,
Speaker 4: so I'd love.
Speaker 1: My brain to make sure, yes, it is fascinating them.
Speaker 4: The more you think about it now and even as
Speaker 4: we're discussing it, my brain is going to these places.
Speaker 4: But so many arguments are based around not what the
Speaker 4: argument started at, but the fact that people are not
Speaker 4: understanding what they're trying to say because they're that clarification,
Speaker 4: isn't there, So like the argument started at a but
Speaker 4: it became about f because you've miscommunicated the whole way
Speaker 4: and the argument's turning to something else, And I thought
Speaker 4: you were you know, four days later when you do communicate,
Speaker 4: it's like I thought you were trying to say this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that happens a lot, right, And it kind of
Speaker 3: gets to this thing about like, what's the goal of
Speaker 3: a conversation. The goal of conversation is not to convince
Speaker 3: you that you're wrong and I'm right, or that like
Speaker 3: I'm smart and you should listen to me. It's not
Speaker 3: even to convince you that you should like me. The
Speaker 3: goal of a conversation is actually just to understand how
Speaker 3: you see the world and to speak in such a
Speaker 3: way that you understand how I see the world. And
Speaker 3: so you're exactly right. If we go into a conversation
Speaker 3: saying my goal is to win, and it's really easy
Speaker 3: to do that, right, I do that all the time.
Speaker 3: We get worked up and we get angry. But there's
Speaker 3: this saying when you're feeling furious, get curious, which really means,
Speaker 3: you know, start asking questions, because if I can understand
Speaker 3: what you're trying to tell me. If that's my goal,
Speaker 3: you become much more likely to listen to me and
Speaker 3: try and understand what I'm saying, and that understanding helps
Speaker 3: us resolve the issue.
Speaker 2: So fascinating because we speak about it genuinely, we answer
Speaker 2: listen to questions, right, and so like I would say
Speaker 2: ninety percent of those like you.
Speaker 1: Just have to have that conversations about X.
Speaker 3: Y Z.
Speaker 2: But it's really easy to say that to people. But
Speaker 2: if they're not equipped or don't know how to have
Speaker 2: those conversations, that's then the next biggest hurdle in terms
Speaker 2: of establishing, like what makes a good communicator? I also
Speaker 2: think it's pretty important to establish like what are the
Speaker 2: key things that make someone quite terrible at communicating? What
Speaker 2: do you think are the biggest red flags when it
Speaker 2: comes to someone who is a bad communicator.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question, And so let's go over
Speaker 3: the three skills that we've like kind of learned, because
Speaker 3: the opposite of them sort of tell us what's bad.
Speaker 3: Number one, just pay attention to what kind of conversation
Speaker 3: is happening right just as you're talking to someone, are
Speaker 3: they talking about their feelings? Like is this an emotional conversation,
Speaker 3: or are they asking you for advice. That's a practical conversation.
Speaker 3: And whatever it is, match them and invite them about you.
Speaker 3: That's step one. Step two, ask questions, Ask deep questions. Right,
Speaker 3: it's easier than you think it's going to be. And
Speaker 3: then step three is prove that you're listening, sometimes by
Speaker 3: looping for understanding and repeating it back, sometimes just by
Speaker 3: smiling and asking follow up questions or telling a funny
Speaker 3: story about yourself. So that's what good communicators do. They
Speaker 3: have those three skills. Bad communicators kind of do the opposite. Right,
Speaker 3: bad communicators, it does not matter what kind of conversation
Speaker 3: you want to have. I'm going to tell you all
Speaker 3: about me. I'm going to tell you about what I
Speaker 3: want to talk about. And when they ask questions, the
Speaker 3: questions aren't genuinely curious. They ask you, oh, where'd you
Speaker 3: go on vacation? And you realize pretty quickly they don't
Speaker 3: care where you went on vacation. They just want to
Speaker 3: tell you about where they went on vacation, and like
Speaker 3: the big fancy yacht that they rented. Yeah, another really
Speaker 3: bad sign of that someone's on a great communicator is
Speaker 3: that they just are not practiced at asking questions. And
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean that they don't want to be a
Speaker 3: good communicator. It just means that they don't have enough practice.
Speaker 3: And there's actually a way around this. I imagine you
Speaker 3: guys have been at parties where like, you find yourself
Speaker 3: becoming the person who asked question after question and the.
Speaker 1: Other person that's literally the story of my life.
Speaker 2: It also tends to be the case because of what
Speaker 2: we do for a living, now come that person. So
Speaker 2: you're always mining for information and sometimes you get to
Speaker 2: the end of it and you're like, oh god, I mean,
Speaker 2: they didn't ask a single thing, but that conversation would
Speaker 2: have been way easier if they at least asked something
Speaker 2: about me, like I could have, right, It would have
Speaker 2: been a two way, not a job interview.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just have a moment that comes to mind. Recently,
Speaker 2: I ran into someone who I've known from a past life.
Speaker 2: We were at a thing together, so we're kind of
Speaker 2: stuck with each other for a while, and it was
Speaker 2: two hours of just me basically catching up on the
Speaker 2: last ten years of their life. And I think also
Speaker 2: probably because they've seen on Instagram or whatever, that you
Speaker 2: know X y Z that I've been doing, but not
Speaker 2: a single question was asked, And I was so exhausted
Speaker 2: by the conversation because I had to keep on otherwise
Speaker 2: it just stopped.
Speaker 1: And I was like, wow, imagine dating that.
Speaker 2: Imagine dating someone who only responds and doesn't isn't curious,
Speaker 2: isn't inquisitive.
Speaker 3: So I'll give you, like this technique that I learned
Speaker 3: when you're in that situation, help, which is run. It
Speaker 3: might it might not be. It might not be that
Speaker 3: the other person doesn't want to ask you questions. It
Speaker 3: might be that they're just really unpractice to ask you questions.
Speaker 3: It's just not it doesn't. I mean, you guys get
Speaker 3: a lot of practice, right you have a show where
Speaker 3: you ask questions. So here's what I do. After I
Speaker 3: ask three or four questions and the person has asked
Speaker 3: me anything in response, I say, oh, man, I apologize.
Speaker 3: I've been peppering you with these questions. You probably have
Speaker 3: some questions for me. Let me take a break and
Speaker 3: give you a chance to ask me whatever you wanted
Speaker 3: to ask.
Speaker 1: That is so putting someone on the spot, though, And they're.
Speaker 3: Like, the thing that's amazing is that the floodgates will open.
Speaker 3: Like these people your friend will be like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you about this one thing you
Speaker 3: posted on Instagram. Right, they just need permission to ask questions,
Speaker 3: whereas if you're more practice at it, you don't wait
Speaker 3: for the permission.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So yeah, you speak about a few different scenarios
Speaker 4: or examples in your book that I found really interesting.
Speaker 4: I'd love you to explain. But one in particular is
Speaker 4: the example you give about.
Speaker 1: The jurors and how one dura tried to get the
Speaker 1: other juror on their side so that there wasn't a mistrial.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, this is this guy named Leroy Reid got
Speaker 3: arrested for carrying a firearm, which in the US, if
Speaker 3: you're a felon, if you've already been convicted of a crime,
Speaker 3: you're not allowed to own a gun. And so he
Speaker 3: gets arrested, and the guy like, he has no idea
Speaker 3: what's going on, Like he didn't he never actually touched
Speaker 3: the gun. He bought it because he a magazine told
Speaker 3: him if you go buy a gun and you jog
Speaker 3: every day, you can become a private investigator. So he like, yeah,
Speaker 3: and so the jury is because he's clearly he clearly
Speaker 3: broke the law. But the jury is debating, like should
Speaker 3: we convict this guy. And there's this one guy on
Speaker 3: the jury who's a super communicator to this guy named
Speaker 3: John Bowley, and he recognizes that one half of the
Speaker 3: jury is having a conversation about justice, which is kind
Speaker 3: of a social conversation, right, it's talking about like what's
Speaker 3: fair and what's right, and the other half of the
Speaker 3: jury was having this practical conversation where all they were
Speaker 3: talking about was whether the guy broke the law or not, right, like,
Speaker 3: here's what the statute says, and did he violate it
Speaker 3: or not. And so as a result of these two groups,
Speaker 3: they just literally couldn't hear each other. It was like
Speaker 3: two ships passing at a night. So what he does
Speaker 3: is he starts coaching them without even being obvious about it,
Speaker 3: coaching them to talk in each other's language. Like he
Speaker 3: starts asking the practical folks who just want to talk
Speaker 3: about the laws, Like he starts asking them, you know,
Speaker 3: what's the case when you wouldn't want to apply the
Speaker 3: law where you think it'd be unfair. Right, He's getting
Speaker 3: them into this social mindset. And then he's talking to
Speaker 3: the other guys. The guy's talking about justice. He's saying
Speaker 3: to them, you know, if you were to write a law,
Speaker 3: a statute that you think would be fair, that would
Speaker 3: be fair at work, how would that statute read? What
Speaker 3: would it say? He gets them talking each other's language,
Speaker 3: and that's how they come to a verdict, and they
Speaker 3: end up setting the guy free. But it took them
Speaker 3: hours and hours because they literally couldn't hear each other.
Speaker 3: And we do that all the time, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: We also don't want to be proven wrong, Like you
Speaker 4: were pretty emotionally mature to be in a position where
Speaker 4: you can say, oh, you know what I'm wrong, and
Speaker 4: I can see what you're saying now, and I'm going
Speaker 4: to change my opinion.
Speaker 1: Like it's not every every one has that capability.
Speaker 4: So I think that if you can get to that
Speaker 4: situation where you can literally listen and have your mind changed. Also,
Speaker 4: not that we need to go into it now, but
Speaker 4: I think that's a big problem with society today is
Speaker 4: we don't want to change our mind and if no
Speaker 4: one else agrees with us, we want to cancel everyone.
Speaker 2: Like it's I guess that that kind of links into
Speaker 2: like how imperative is having a high EQ in order
Speaker 2: to be someone who can communicate well.
Speaker 3: I mean, EQ is really important. But what's interesting is
Speaker 3: that EQ is also a learned skill, really right. One
Speaker 3: of the things that we know, yeah, is that if
Speaker 3: you look at people with high EQ, it's oftentimes because
Speaker 3: they've practiced trying to determine the emotions that they're hearing.
Speaker 3: All of us are basically basically born with the same EQ.
Speaker 3: Unlike IQ, which is very genetics dependent, somewhat genetics dependent,
Speaker 3: EQ is even much more environmentally determined. If your parents
Speaker 3: raised you talking about emotions, teaching how to listen for emotions,
Speaker 3: then you have a lot of EQ. But just if
Speaker 3: you're if your parents didn't do that, that doesn't mean
Speaker 3: that you can't develop that skill. It just means you
Speaker 3: have to be a little bit more aware of it.
Speaker 3: You have to sort of remind yourself, like, oh, that guy,
Speaker 3: just like that guy was talking about his son's graduation
Speaker 3: and he kept on talking about how he felt. I'll
Speaker 3: bet you that guy he's like kind of feeling emotional
Speaker 3: about this. I'm going to ask him, like, how did
Speaker 3: it feel to watch your kid walk across that stage.
Speaker 2: As a parent though, saying that this is something that
Speaker 2: you can teach. How can we build really strong communication
Speaker 2: skills and also EQ in our kids.
Speaker 3: So the number one thing we can do is we
Speaker 3: can ask them to tell us what they're feeling. Because
Speaker 3: when they see that we are patterning for them that
Speaker 3: talking about feelings is okay, then it becomes something that
Speaker 3: they become habituated in. So that thing that I mentioned,
Speaker 3: the help hugged or herd, that's really really powerful to
Speaker 3: use with your kids because what you're saying to them.
Speaker 3: As you're saying to them, tell me what kind of
Speaker 3: conversation you want to have. And one of the kind
Speaker 3: of conversations is that you just need a hug, like
Speaker 3: you're just feeling bad and you want to tell me
Speaker 3: that you're feeling bad. That's okay. That's a whole conversation
Speaker 3: in itself. You don't have to have anything else you
Speaker 3: want to talk about. And by the way, when I'm
Speaker 3: talking to you, you can ask me, mommy, do you
Speaker 3: want to be helped, hugged, or heard? Because what you're
Speaker 3: asking me is if I want to talk about my feelings.
Speaker 3: The more we talk about feelings and we invite kids
Speaker 3: to talk about their own feelings. The more it just
Speaker 3: seems like something normal, it becomes a habit. Can I
Speaker 3: ask you guys a question? Yeah, you both seem like
Speaker 3: you have very high EQ. Is that fair to say?
Speaker 1: Can you right yourself like that?
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to say it.
Speaker 3: You could be a hot mess and still have a
Speaker 3: high IQ.
Speaker 1: Well, I would say that I do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So let me ask you why, Like, what was
Speaker 3: it about experiences you've had that has made you want
Speaker 3: to pay attention to other people's feelings and emotions?
Speaker 2: Personally, I think you hit the nail on the head
Speaker 2: at the very beginning.
Speaker 1: My family.
Speaker 2: There's been a lot of divorce in my family, and
Speaker 2: I think I constantly was scanning as a kid for
Speaker 2: how everyone was feeling about everything. I always just said
Speaker 2: I was very, like intuitively good at like reading people,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it would get me in trouble because I'd
Speaker 2: be like, oh, I know what's going on because I
Speaker 2: would feel like I could read people's minds, especially in relationships.
Speaker 2: But that is because I felt like now looking back
Speaker 2: on it, as a kid, I did have to read
Speaker 2: people's minds because I didn't know whether I was going
Speaker 2: to get into a lot of trouble or it was
Speaker 2: quite volatile at times. There was a lot of having
Speaker 2: to just read people's body language for peace and harmony
Speaker 2: in a household.
Speaker 3: And there was probably part of your brain that felt
Speaker 3: like this was important for survival, right, and and our
Speaker 3: brains are designed to help us survive really really well.
Speaker 3: And so paying attention to my parent doesn't sound angry,
Speaker 3: but I can tell that they're angry, and if I
Speaker 3: like push them, they're going to like get really mad
Speaker 3: at me. That's something that like we latch onto and
Speaker 3: we start paying attention to. That's really interesting.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I have an answer, really, I
Speaker 4: can't put my finger on it. As long as I
Speaker 4: can remember, since I was a small child, I've been
Speaker 4: a very empathetic person, like very empathetic. I really feel
Speaker 4: other people's emotions and animals, emotions like things make me
Speaker 4: really upset easily. But I had a very loving, safe,
Speaker 4: normal childhood. Like I didn't have trauma or nothing. Nothing
Speaker 4: was brought to me like that. I just so it's
Speaker 4: funny that you've asked me that, because I don't think
Speaker 4: I but you.
Speaker 2: Have an answer throughout with a very emotionally in touched
Speaker 2: father who speaks about his feelings.
Speaker 1: Your dad's true. Your dad will cry at the drop
Speaker 1: of the hat in a good way.
Speaker 4: My dad is My dad and my mom are very different.
Speaker 4: Mum is not a motive really, and my dad is like, yeah,
Speaker 4: the proudest. He'll tell me all his feelings. He cries.
Speaker 1: He's you know, like there's no roles in our family.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: He was also cook and he was okay for men
Speaker 1: to cry.
Speaker 4: He's always been like that, So maybe there was a
Speaker 4: big influence in them.
Speaker 3: See, I think, And you don't have to have trauma
Speaker 3: in your background, yeah to learn EQ right, Sometimes we do,
Speaker 3: and it teaches us to pay attention to emotions. But
Speaker 3: sometimes we just grow up in an environment that's very
Speaker 3: loving and it's modeled for us that like, part of
Speaker 3: part of showing people you love them and part of
Speaker 3: just moving through the world is listening to how people
Speaker 3: feel and reacting to it.
Speaker 2: We speak a lot about negative personality types. You know,
Speaker 2: we've covered narcissism on this podcast. Knowing that this is
Speaker 2: a learned skill that can be used. Obviously, it can
Speaker 2: be used for good, it can be used for evil.
Speaker 2: How do people who have like narcissistic personalities, disorder use
Speaker 2: these techniques to get what they want out of someone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's a really good question because I mentioned
Speaker 3: communication is just about learning some skills, right. Communication is
Speaker 3: just like a set of tools that we learn to
Speaker 3: use until they become habits. And much like other tools,
Speaker 3: it can be used for good or bad. You can
Speaker 3: use an axe to build a house, write chopped down
Speaker 3: trees and build a house. You can also use an
Speaker 3: ax to murder someone. It's up to the person whether
Speaker 3: they're going to use it for good or bad. And similarly,
Speaker 3: communication is the same thing that learning these tools and
Speaker 3: these skills doesn't necessarily mean that we're a good person.
Speaker 3: It means that we can connect with other people. Now
Speaker 3: that being said, one of the things that's really nice
Speaker 3: about humans, about how the brain evolved, is that, if
Speaker 3: you think about it, communication is Homo sapiens superpower. Right.
Speaker 3: It's the thing that sets us above every species and
Speaker 3: basically everything that we've done as a people like that
Speaker 3: we're proud of. There's some communication inherent in it. You
Speaker 3: have to be able to communicate, to build nations together,
Speaker 3: to create social change, even to make art pieces. Art
Speaker 3: is a fact of communication. And as our brains have
Speaker 3: evolved to be really good at communication, they've also evolved
Speaker 3: to notice when people are trying to manipulate us. Because
Speaker 3: if you think about it, back in a state of nature,
Speaker 3: back when we lived in villages, if someone came to
Speaker 3: town and they said, oh, I'm really friendly and safe,
Speaker 3: and it turns out they weren't be disastrous right right
Speaker 3: with their acts. With their acts. I'm sure that you
Speaker 3: guys have encountered men people are like no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I'm such a kiddy cat like and you're like, no,
Speaker 3: it turns out you are a jerk.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Our intuition can oftentimes tell us when someone is trying
Speaker 3: to manipulate us, and sometimes we ignore that intuition. Sometimes
Speaker 3: we we just he's so hot, and I want him
Speaker 3: to be good, and now I want him to be
Speaker 3: the guy he says he's being, So I'm going to
Speaker 3: overlook all these red flags. I pretend like I'm not noticed.
Speaker 1: We do have a name for that. It's called digmatized.
Speaker 5: For the I will say, for the record, I do
Speaker 5: not believe I have ever I wish I had, but
Speaker 5: I do not believe I've ever digmatized anyone on the
Speaker 5: though I really wish that I could have claimed that
Speaker 5: that's something I was capable.
Speaker 1: Conversation. So that's enough. That's enough.
Speaker 2: I think he's spot on, and and it's it's it's
Speaker 2: hard because no one wants to also like take responsibility.
Speaker 2: And I don't want to say that it is the
Speaker 2: responsibility of the person who's being manipulated, because it's not.
Speaker 1: No one should manipulate you.
Speaker 2: But I think anyone who has been in a narcissistic relationship,
Speaker 2: they will tell you fuck the red flags were there,
Speaker 2: Like I knew something was wrong. My intuition was screaming
Speaker 2: at me, and this push and pull of the toxicity
Speaker 2: was because I wasn't listening to it. That's a very
Speaker 2: hard place to get to because often there's many reasons
Speaker 2: why people stay longer than what they should. But the
Speaker 2: sign is on the wall more often than not, and
Speaker 2: it's the will to want to stay and the will
Speaker 2: to hope that they are the potential that you see
Speaker 2: in them rather than the person that they are.
Speaker 3: I think that's really really important. And another way of
Speaker 3: saying it is it's okay to be a bad communicator, right,
Speaker 3: Like nobody is born knowing how to avoid the jerks.
Speaker 3: Nobody is born knowing how to like connect with people
Speaker 3: in a real way. The only way we learn is
Speaker 3: the same way we learn everything. We make mistakes. We
Speaker 3: look back on something and we say, like, the red
Speaker 3: flags are there, and next time I see them, I'm
Speaker 3: definitely paying attention and running away. You are never obligated
Speaker 3: to out of conversation you don't want to have, and
Speaker 3: you are never bad because a conversation went poorly. It's
Speaker 3: just how we learn to be better communicators.
Speaker 4: I want to talk about the power of honesty and
Speaker 4: vulnerability in communication, and.
Speaker 1: I think it can be used for good and comus
Speaker 1: for bad.
Speaker 4: But a lot of people say, you know, just be honest,
Speaker 4: just be vulnerable. There's so much in that to connect.
Speaker 4: And then we know that sometimes people will say things
Speaker 4: like I fucking hate you because of this is an
Speaker 4: this sorry just being honest like that. That's not the
Speaker 4: way to use honesty and vulnerability. But you have a
Speaker 4: wonderful example in your book about this CIA agent and
Speaker 4: the way his honesty ended up being so beneficial for
Speaker 4: his job. Can you talk to us a little bit
Speaker 4: about this idea and how we can use it for good.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I think this is a really really good point.
Speaker 3: You raised, like the role of vulnerability, because because the
Speaker 3: truth of the matter is if I say, like, you
Speaker 3: know what, you do this and this and this, and
Speaker 3: it drives me crazy and I'm just trying to be honest,
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to be vulnerable with you. I'm not
Speaker 3: actually being vulnerable. I'm attacking you being a dick. And
Speaker 3: then I'm dressing it up as if it's like in
Speaker 3: this vulnerability.
Speaker 2: Language, yeah, or it's weaponizing honestly exactly to hurt someone
Speaker 2: exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: So Jim Lawler was this CIA officer. So he was
Speaker 3: hired and he was sent over to Europe and told
Speaker 3: to go recruit people to try and give him secrets.
Speaker 3: And he tries it for like a year, and he's
Speaker 3: literally the worst CIA officer on the face of planet.
Speaker 3: He is just terrible at recruiting people. Like people will
Speaker 3: say things to him like I know that you're trying
Speaker 3: to recruit me, I'm going to report you to the
Speaker 3: authorities and so you will get deported. And so he
Speaker 3: meets this one woman, Fatima, who comes to town and
Speaker 3: he like takes her out to lunch and dinner and
Speaker 3: he gets a knower, and then he asks her if
Speaker 3: she'd be willing to share information from the Foreign Ministry
Speaker 3: she worked in the Middle East with the CIA, and
Speaker 3: she was like, no, I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 3: I'm going to get Yeah, they kill people in my
Speaker 3: country for doing that Ki And so his bosses basically
Speaker 3: tell him, look, if you can't close this deal, you're
Speaker 3: gonna get fired. Like you've been here a year and
Speaker 3: you've recruited zero people. You need to recruit this one.
Speaker 3: And so he goes and he has dinner with her,
Speaker 3: and during that dinner, he's just as honest as he
Speaker 3: can because he basically gives up. He basically is like, look,
Speaker 3: there's nothing I can say that's going to convince you
Speaker 3: to work with me. And I totally understand that it's
Speaker 3: like suicidal for you. Yeah, and like I know you
Speaker 3: feel really bad about like going home and feeling like
Speaker 3: you're a loser. I totally understand because I feel the
Speaker 3: same way. Like they're gonna fire me. I'm gonna go
Speaker 3: back to Texas and it's gonna be you know, it's
Speaker 3: just gonna be awful. Like I'm so disappointed in myself.
Speaker 3: And he's just trying to be totally honest. He's not
Speaker 3: trying to manipulate her, He's not trying and at that moment,
Speaker 3: for the first time, she can hear what he is
Speaker 3: saying to him, which is he wants to help her country.
Speaker 3: He wants to help women in her country. And she says, look,
Speaker 3: I think I can help you. I think we can
Speaker 3: work together. But the only reason she was able to
Speaker 3: hear him was because he was genuinely honest and to
Speaker 3: your point, coming in and being like, oh, I want
Speaker 3: to be vulnerable with you. It's really hard because I
Speaker 3: I dignatize all these all these girls, and and you're
Speaker 3: I just wish that you were hotter. I could definitely,
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to be vulnerable and honest. Like like,
Speaker 3: that's not being vulnerable and honest, that's being a jerk.
Speaker 4: Imagine we've got use of the term, and that's not
Speaker 4: quite It really doesn't off the.
Speaker 3: Dignitize. Am I saying it right?
Speaker 1: Digmatized like hypnotize with a dick?
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, yes, no, I get I get what it is.
Speaker 3: It just it just doesn't roll off my time.
Speaker 2: I also think this is I mean, I love this
Speaker 2: example about the CIA agent. But I'm also like, is
Speaker 2: this the only person he ever recruited, because the only
Speaker 2: way to recruit someone is when he's on the border
Speaker 2: of being fired.
Speaker 3: No, it turns out he became one of the best
Speaker 3: recruiters in the CIA's history.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 3: And every time, every time you do the same thing.
Speaker 3: He would go in and he'd be like, look, I'm
Speaker 3: going to be as honest with you as I can.
Speaker 3: Sometimes he would cry, Sometimes he wouldn't cry. Sometimes he
Speaker 3: would just be like, look, I promise you I'm going
Speaker 3: to be as honest as I possibly can. And if
Speaker 3: you don't want to work for us, that's totally fine.
Speaker 3: But I just want to be honest about who I am,
Speaker 3: and I want you to be honest about who you are.
Speaker 3: And people loved him. Now it's interesting what vulnerability is, right,
Speaker 3: because we tend to misunderstand what vulnerability is. Vulnerability is
Speaker 3: just saying something that you could judge, Like if I
Speaker 3: tell you, oh, I like Sidney more than Perth and
Speaker 3: you're like, no, Perth's way better. I don't know why
Speaker 3: you would say that, But if you did say that
Speaker 3: the Perth is way better, it doesn't matter. I've actually
Speaker 3: been vulnerable with you because you had the option to
Speaker 3: judge me. And if you choose not to judge me,
Speaker 3: if you say something vulnerable in response, if you tell
Speaker 3: me something that I could judge about you and we
Speaker 3: choose to withhold judgment, that's real vulnerability and that makes
Speaker 3: us feel closer to each other.
Speaker 2: Vulnerability has been having a real moment though, in terms
Speaker 2: of like psychology speak and oh, I've listened to lots
Speaker 2: of podcasts on it. There's experts. Esteberel speaks about vulnerability
Speaker 2: Bretty Brown. But I do worry that we've almost swung
Speaker 2: the pendulum in the opposite direction now, especially when it
Speaker 2: comes to things like social media. I do think that
Speaker 2: there is an algorithm where people use vulnerability because they
Speaker 2: know that it gains favor. It's almost like the abuse
Speaker 2: of vulnerability, and it can be used as another tool
Speaker 2: to manipulate to get what you want. I mean, a
Speaker 2: very classical relationship example of this could be, for example,
Speaker 2: you're in a relationship, your partner cheats on you. You
Speaker 2: find out that this has been going on for a while,
Speaker 2: and then things in their life are so hard. It
Speaker 2: was because of how they're feeling about themselves. Like they're
Speaker 2: so depressed. All of those factors might be true that
Speaker 2: it's like using vulnerability as an excuse for the action,
Speaker 2: or using vulnerability to gain more followers, because it's the
Speaker 2: thing that binds people together.
Speaker 3: Because it's performative, right, it's performative vulnerability. It's not real vulnerability.
Speaker 3: And if you'll notice in the examples you just mentioned,
Speaker 3: what that person is doing is they're putting something out there,
Speaker 3: but they're not giving you the chance to judge them.
Speaker 3: What they're saying is no, no, no, you shouldn't judge
Speaker 3: me for having an affair because things were so bad
Speaker 3: in my life. In fact, you don't have the right
Speaker 3: to judge me. I'm just going to tell you, like
Speaker 3: what was wrong with me? Or I'm going to tell
Speaker 3: you my story on Instagram and it's going to be
Speaker 3: so sad and like if you're the type of person
Speaker 3: who's like, well, it's not that bad, then you're a jerk. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm actually not giving you the option to judge me.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you what you ought to feel. That's the
Speaker 3: opposite of vulnerability.
Speaker 2: How do we identify that when it's happening, Like, how
Speaker 2: can we be smart enough that we can sniff out
Speaker 2: what's real from what's performative.
Speaker 3: I think the thing to ask yourself is like, is
Speaker 3: this person asking me if I want to judge them
Speaker 3: and giving me an option to either judge or not judge.
Speaker 3: Right if I tell you about something that happened in
Speaker 3: my life where I made a mistake, and I say like, look,
Speaker 3: I am not perfect, and you might feel like I'm
Speaker 3: not perfect, and I totally understand that, but I was
Speaker 3: trying my best. What I'm doing there is I'm asking
Speaker 3: you do you want to judge me? And you have
Speaker 3: every right to say like, no, you are not perfect,
Speaker 3: you are a bad person. You could judge me. But
Speaker 3: it's that act of allowing you to judge that is vulnerable.
Speaker 3: And when instead of saying you are a bad person,
Speaker 3: you don't have to say I'm a good person. When
Speaker 3: instead of saying I will judge you, you say I
Speaker 3: don't know whether you're a good person or a bad person.
Speaker 3: But I know how hard that is because I've had
Speaker 3: a similar thing happen in my life and I don't
Speaker 3: know if I handled it well or if I handled
Speaker 3: it poorly. At that moment, you and I will feel
Speaker 3: closer to each other. We might not agree with each other,
Speaker 3: we might not have much in common, but we will
Speaker 3: feel closer to each other because that vulnerability, that withholding
Speaker 3: of judgment that bonds us. So let me ask you
Speaker 3: the last argument you had with someone who you care about,
Speaker 3: maybe your fiance, maybe your sister, maybe your parents. Tell
Speaker 3: me that they didn't go as well as you wanted
Speaker 3: it to.
Speaker 4: Tell me, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I had a big
Speaker 4: one recently. What I think happened there. My fiance is
Speaker 4: cliche of the person that doesn't listen in an argument,
Speaker 4: and he will. He's so stubborn and he will even
Speaker 4: if he knows he's wrong, and I can clock it.
Speaker 1: He'll know that he's said.
Speaker 4: Something or done something, but he won't be able to
Speaker 4: admit it in the in the moment, and then a
Speaker 4: couple of days later he will have thought about it
Speaker 4: and then he will come back.
Speaker 1: But in the moment, that doesn't work.
Speaker 4: For me because it frustrates me even more because I'm like,
Speaker 4: I know, you know that you're wrong.
Speaker 1: So that's why the conversations don't go well for us, because.
Speaker 4: I mean, maybe I'm just blaming here, and maybe I
Speaker 4: don't listen as well, But he definitely doesn't listen.
Speaker 1: In an argument, I love that you're like, it's not me,
Speaker 1: it was him, it's all him. I am still right, no,
Speaker 1: because I in an argument.
Speaker 2: You don't want to argue with Britt is what we're saying.
Speaker 2: Right now, we've been in a couple.
Speaker 3: Can I ask you something in those moments, because I'm
Speaker 3: sure that it feels like an attack that look to
Speaker 3: him that you might not be intended to be attacking,
Speaker 3: but when you're like, you know you're wrong and you're
Speaker 3: just not willing to admit it, that feels if you
Speaker 3: were to ask a genuinely curious question, like something like,
Speaker 3: I'm just wondering, Like I hear what you're saying. I'm wondering,
Speaker 3: do you think you're going to feel the same way
Speaker 3: four days from now that you feel right now? Like
Speaker 3: if we're throwing ourselves four days in the future, how
Speaker 3: do you think you're going to feel about this issue?
Speaker 1: He'll say, yes, do you feel the same, but yes.
Speaker 3: You did your best, then you you tried. I think yeah,
Speaker 3: I think sometimes asking that question instead of saying like,
Speaker 3: you know you're wrong, that when we feel furious, get curious,
Speaker 3: like sometimes just asking but It has to be a
Speaker 3: genuine question. It can't be at an argument disguised as
Speaker 3: a question. Don't you know that you're in four days?
Speaker 3: Aren't you going to feel bad for saying this? That's
Speaker 3: not a real question, But a real question is like,
Speaker 3: look a couple days from now, do you think you're
Speaker 3: going to feel the same way that you feel right now?
Speaker 3: Or is it possible you might feel a litle bit different,
Speaker 3: Like tell me that might be for some version true?
Speaker 1: What's in your brain?
Speaker 2: My husband is fucking He's a top notch bloke, he
Speaker 2: really is. The Only thing we really ever fight about
Speaker 2: is tone. And it's because like someone said something that's
Speaker 2: not offensive, but they've said it in a way that's
Speaker 2: been interpreted as offensive or like it's been just.
Speaker 1: And it's we spend so much time together. We weren't together.
Speaker 2: We obviously live together with parents, two children together, Like
Speaker 2: it's you know, we do a lot, so it's very
Speaker 2: easy to have said something in a dismissing way of
Speaker 2: the other person.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's usually.
Speaker 2: I mean, the one that comes to mind was we've
Speaker 2: just been through some really big stuff. We had a
Speaker 2: couple of deaths in our family last year, which we
Speaker 2: were like very very sad, and happened within short succession.
Speaker 2: And you know, they were on my side of the family,
Speaker 2: So my nana and my stepdad both passed away. But
Speaker 2: Matt's never had anyone pass away in his family, so
Speaker 2: he doesn't know what that's like. He's had a close
Speaker 2: family friend, but he's never had like a close family
Speaker 2: member that he sees all the time.
Speaker 1: And he's probably not.
Speaker 2: Necessarily the best person in those situations because I think
Speaker 2: he gives them an amount of time for it.
Speaker 1: But then it's kind of like, Okay, Las's back to
Speaker 1: normal NOWOG keep going.
Speaker 2: You know you agrieved last week, Like, yeah, the argument
Speaker 2: purely came from like not getting the emotional response that
Speaker 2: I wanted to something I said. I said something which
Speaker 2: should have I thought been a stop down and we
Speaker 2: should have had a moment to talk about something. And
Speaker 2: he was cleaning the house, so it was like he
Speaker 2: was kind of like, ah, in a second, and I
Speaker 2: look at that now. At the time, I got really
Speaker 2: fired up about it, but I'm like, well, I also
Speaker 2: chose a really dumb time to try and have a
Speaker 2: conversation about something, which I could have done in twenty
Speaker 2: minutes and he was like super distracted and not clocked
Speaker 2: in to have that conversation. So I expected probably more
Speaker 2: from him than what he could provide at that time.
Speaker 4: I think he can put the mop down in those
Speaker 4: in those times, so like cleaning wasn't the priority.
Speaker 1: Like, I don't think either are to blame. I totally
Speaker 1: gone by, you know, But I.
Speaker 2: Also think the easiest place to get to resolution is going, okay, Well,
Speaker 2: we both played our part in that, Like you could
Speaker 2: have listened and I could have waited fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: I didn't need to be like, hey, guess what, let's
Speaker 1: cry now, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, And one thing I hear you saying, which is
Speaker 3: a really good thing, is that you know, all couples fight,
Speaker 3: Like studies have shown that every couple has arguments. Having
Speaker 3: an argument is not the bad signal. Having an argument
Speaker 3: where both people walk away angry and then come back
Speaker 3: angry is bad. Yeah, And the fact that you guys
Speaker 3: can have this blow up and then you can go
Speaker 3: upstairs and you can you can both laugh about it
Speaker 3: or you or you can say like, look, I'm really sorry,
Speaker 3: Like I should have waited twenty minutes to tell you
Speaker 3: about this, and he says, I probably should have put
Speaker 3: down the mop to talk about this. Like, it's not
Speaker 3: having the fight that's worrisome, it's not being able to
Speaker 3: reflect on how to do it better next time.
Speaker 2: We have this one thing that we do which I like,
Speaker 2: really encourage if you're in a healthy relationship and you
Speaker 2: you know, you have like the inter and blow up,
Speaker 2: but you know you know that you're going to make
Speaker 2: up ten minutes later. We have this thing that if
Speaker 2: someone's gotten angry but the actual fight is stupid because
Speaker 2: they're all stupid, like they none of the fights are
Speaker 2: ever about anything important, then like one person will always
Speaker 2: be the person that is like, we're gonna hug the
Speaker 2: grumpies out, and it's annoying because you don't want to,
Speaker 2: but you actually can't stay mad.
Speaker 1: If someone's like, squeeze all the grumpies out and it works,
Speaker 1: it works.
Speaker 2: The other person very quickly stops being angry and then
Speaker 2: things are great.
Speaker 3: You know, see you're getting hug themptized.
Speaker 2: Okay, Chiles, back to you, though, what's the last big
Speaker 2: fight or big disagreement that you've had with your wife?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that's a really good question. Uh So
Speaker 3: we just bought a new house, and I was not
Speaker 3: super enthusiastic necessarily about buying this house. I wasn't unenthusiastic.
Speaker 3: I got enthusiastic, but it was really my wife's idea
Speaker 3: because we already have a house and it's pretty nice,
Speaker 3: and I wasn't certain we needed another house a more
Speaker 3: debt and by the way, it was like a good
Speaker 3: decision to make, Like I was worked up about it
Speaker 3: and instead, and so when she was like, no, no, let
Speaker 3: me prove to you, like this is why it makes sense.
Speaker 3: Here's all there, like like, let's go through the spreadsheet,
Speaker 3: and I was like I don't care, Like I don't
Speaker 3: know why you're doing this to me, at which point
Speaker 3: we both realized, like I was having an emotional conversation
Speaker 3: as an emotional place, and it's not about whether it
Speaker 3: makes sense in dollars and cents. It doesn't. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter if the spreadsheet works. It's about like does
Speaker 3: she hear that I'm anxious about this? And does she empathize?
Speaker 2: So it got better, you know what, Like you could
Speaker 2: never have an argument with Charles.
Speaker 3: I reckon.
Speaker 1: You couldn't either, Like he's like I know that you're
Speaker 1: emotional about this. He's like, let me, let me put
Speaker 1: it out of the emotional argument.
Speaker 3: If my wife was in this conversation, she'd be like,
Speaker 3: oh no, you can definitely have an argument. He has
Speaker 3: his head up his ass all the time.
Speaker 2: Charles, you being an absolutely july. Thank you so much
Speaker 2: for coming and having this conversation with us. We also
Speaker 2: thought it would be like something very fitting in the
Speaker 2: start of a new year. So many people have these
Speaker 2: like ideas that they're going to better themselves. Are they're
Speaker 2: going to you know, improve the way that they either
Speaker 2: function at work or function in their relationships. And I
Speaker 2: think these are such important literal conversations that help you
Speaker 2: to be able to be better and to just have
Speaker 2: a more peaceful life.
Speaker 4: And there's always so much room for improvement, like every
Speaker 4: if you, I think, when you get lazy and think
Speaker 4: that there's no more room for improvement, that's where the
Speaker 4: damage is done. But your book Super Communicators The Key
Speaker 4: to Unlock in a Secret Language of Connection is available
Speaker 4: audiobook and anywhere you can get a hard copy of
Speaker 4: the book.
Speaker 1: I thoroughly recommend it. I loved it. I've loved chatting
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 4: We're going to link everything in our show notes, but
Speaker 4: you've been a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Thank you. It's such a it's so so much fun
Speaker 3: to talk with you guys. Thank you for having me