Adam Grant: How to Feel Less Lonely and Build Deeper Connections

BUY THE BOOK! Vibe: The Secrets of Strong Connections in a Lonely World https://link.amazon/B0cQd5ZWG Adam Grant, bestselling author and organizational psychologist joins the Podcast to talk about his new book Vibe: The Secrets of Strong Connections in a Lonely World. Adam Grant explains the science behind human connection and the surprising secrets about what it means to create a “vibe” with another person. He shares why some people instantly click, while others struggle to connect. Oprah and Adam talk to NASA astronaut Cady Coleman who explains how she learned to vibe and ultimately trust members of her crew before a near shuttle disaster in outer space. NBA Legend Joe Dumars explains how he creates a vibe on his professional basketball team, even though he’s known for seeking out the most difficult and volatile players. Adam Grant talks about the “snap judgements” we all make in our lives, including one he made with vulnerability researcher Brené Brown that caused a four year rift between them. From marriage, family and friendship Adam Grant offers some surprising discoveries for anyone looking for deeper connections, stronger bonds and healthy ways to Vibe. 00:00:00 - Welcome Adam Grant, author of “Vibe” 00:05:00 - Human connection is missing 00:06:00 - Pebbling definition 00:08:38 - Rapid high-quality connection 00:10:20 - Welcome Astronaut Cady Coleman 00:15:45 - Connection saves their lives in space? 00:17:47 - Vibing with coworkers 00:20:00 - Welcome NBA legend Joe Dumars 00:22:30 - Joe on working with difficult players 00:25:20 - Friction can be good 00:27:30 - Finding genuine friendship 00:30:45 - Happier with friends than family 00:31:30 - Judgements can block connection 00:32:30 - Adam Grant and Brene Brown 00:34:50 - Adam’s marriage Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Oprah Winfrey?

  This episode of the Oprah Podcast is presented by our partner, AT&T. You say, "Human connection is one of the most pressing problems in our world."

• 0:09Speaker 01

  We have a lot of people spending more time alone than they ever have at any point in their life, and they feel like their relationships are empty, their interactions are missing something, and the evolutionary purpose of loneliness is actually to signal that we're being excluded, and that's supposed to prompt us to reach out, to connect, to reconnect. But a lot of people don't know how.

• 0:28Oprah Winfrey?

  So you say that a little friction in a relationship can actually be beneficial.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Brene Brown and I, we had a public feud, and I swore Oprah that I would not talk to her ever again, and we didn't communicate for the next four years.

• 0:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Really?

• 0:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Hello and welcome. I'm glad to be here with you on the Oprah Podcast, and I know y'all are glad because y'all love Adam Grant. How do we know? Because he had-- y'all looked at that last show, I have to tell you, so many people, like 4 million people, watched that last show that we did together. So he's written a new book about trying to have good vibes. He's a New York Times bestselling author, renowned organizational psychologist. Is that how you define yourself?

• 1:10Speaker 01

  As far as I know.

• 1:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay. Adam Grant is out with his ninth book now, Vibe: The Secrets of Strong Connections in a Lonely World. Love that title, and I welcome you again.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Thank you, Oprah. Can I just take you everywhere? I just want to export your vibe to every interaction I have.

• 1:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, I think we have a good vibe together, but what would make you come up with this idea? What-- how did this come to you? I was asking you before we even started, like, what is your process? You're one of the smartest thinkers on the planet. You are, and you know it, so don't even try to act like, oh, no, not me. So you're one of the smartest thinkers on the planet, and so are you just thinking all the time? Do you-- are you writing things down on your computer when they're-- or you're on your iPad? Are your notes filled with ideas? How does it work?

• 2:01Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm definitely thinking and writing all the time. In fact, I carry a little notebook everywhere, and I can't read half of what I write, but--

• 2:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, so you're not doing it on your notes?

• 2:11Speaker 01

  I'm scribbling usually first--

• 2:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  --and then typing. I think this book really came out of just having this whiplash experience of I go into an interaction, and it's with somebody I know really well, and we get along great, and I just stumbled my way through it. And it was awkward, and I felt like I was off. Why am I so bad at this? And then later that day, I met a stranger, and we had instant chemistry. And it just-- it struck me that this is a big puzzle. Like, why is it so easy and effortless to vibe in certain situations and not in others? And how can we vibe with more of the people more of the time?

• 2:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, this is what struck me, that on the very first page, prologue even, you write, "I love people, but for a long time, I struggled to connect with them." But something opened up for you when you were in a class with a professor, Brian Little. What happened?

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Well, I was definitely a very shy, nerdy, introverted kid, and I think in a lot of my interactions, people would just roll their eyes. And actually, growing up, my friends called me Mr. Facts, Oprah. And this-- I don't think that was a compliment.

• 3:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  They were making fun of me. And, you know, I think that--

• 3:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, they were making fun of you, but they really-- there was a level of envy and respect in there, too.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  If that's true, I did not see it at the time.

• 3:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, okay.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  But I'll take your word for it. But, you know, I got to college, and I think I had a bunch of friends, but it was sometimes hard to make a deep connection with other people. And then I wandered into Brian Little's personality psychology class, and Brian is the most charismatic speaker I've ever seen. He electrified us with his knowledge. And then he revealed that he was an extreme introvert, so introverted that he would run to hide in the bathroom after lectures so he didn't have to interact with students.

• 4:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Because he was going to get overwhelmed. And I saw that, and I said, okay, if Brian can learn to do this, maybe I could, too. And I noticed that he was creating an electric charge in our classroom. He was getting us so excited and so curious--

• 4:13Oprah Winfrey?

  How many people in the class?

• 4:14Speaker 01

  There were over 100.

• 4:16Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, okay, so this is a big class.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was giving lectures, and I made more good friends in that class than I had pretty much the rest of college.

• 4:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Because of the vibe he created?

• 4:26Speaker 01

  The vibe he created, but also the way that he changed our interactions. So he would come into a lecture and say, "Did you know it's physically impossible to lick your elbow?" And then people would start trying, and he'd say, "Oh, well, the extroverts are trying to lick their neighbor's elbow." And we'd burst out laughing, and he gave us the freedom and the courage to have deeper conversations with each other and to really connect in a way that we hadn't before.

• 4:50Oprah Winfrey?

  And so when you were in that classroom, were you thinking, I want to be like that, or I want to somehow figure out what that thing is?

• 4:59Speaker 01

  Both.

• 4:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Both?

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Both. I wanted to try to figure out how to be more like Brian, but I also wanted to reverse engineer, what was he doing to create that magical vibe?

• 5:07Oprah Winfrey?

  And you say, "Human connection is one of the most pressing problems in our world." For anyone listening, they're just, I have to say, trying to get through their own day. We know that. So how can they recognize what they're missing from human connection? I think if you don't have it, do you know you don't have it? How is it, do you think, impacting just the everyday person?

• 5:33Speaker 01

  I think some people are acutely aware of it.

• 5:35Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  We have a lot of people spending more time alone than they ever have at any point in their life, and they feel like their relationships are empty, their interactions are missing something, and the evolutionary purpose of loneliness is actually to signal that we're being excluded, and that's supposed to prompt us to reach out, to connect, to reconnect. But a lot of people don't know how. And I think that's the real challenge that I wanted to take on with Vibe.

• 6:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, this is what you do, and early on in the book, you do that so well. You say, "Being personal says I see you." You say, "A powerful way to be personal is something you call pebbling." So let's describe that for us.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  I love pebbling.

• 6:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  So it's named after a mating ritual that some penguins do. What they'll do is they'll collect these smooth, shiny stones and then present them to a potential mate. And it's sort of a way of signaling, look, I'd be a good partner if we could build a nest together. And I think the digital equivalent of pebbling today is when you send somebody else an article you loved, a reel you watched, a meme that struck a chord with you.

• 6:39Oprah Winfrey?

  We're pebbling.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a little pebble. And I want to be clear, Oprah, I'm not saying you should go and spam people with random junk from the internet, right?

• 6:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  A great pebble is you watch a show, and it reminded you of somebody you haven't talked to in a few years, or you realize somebody you just met would love it, and you send it to them. And that is a little bid for connection. It's a gesture of care, and you're flexing your memory. You're showing, look, I paid enough attention to you to see what you would find interesting, and I wanted to take the time to share that with you.

• 7:08Oprah Winfrey?

  And isn't it even better if you actually say that? If you actually say, "This reminded me of you," or "This inspired me because you did blah, blah, blah, blah, blah for me," right?

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Much better.

• 7:20Oprah Winfrey?

  That even helps the vibe.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, the research on this shows that if you send somebody a pebble and you just say, hey, you know, I noticed this, and I was thinking of you, it brings you closer together, and it can help you get back in touch if you've been out of contact.

• 7:33Oprah Winfrey?

  I love that.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Are you a pebble-er, Oprah?

• 7:34Oprah Winfrey?

  I'm a pebble-er, but more often, people are pebbling me. I get a lot of pebbles.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Too many?

• 7:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, because I can't keep up with all the pebbles. I'd never heard of pebbling before, but it makes sense, because so many of us, we do it. It's a reminder that even the smallest gesture can create a meaningful connection, something our partners at AT&T believe in, too.

• 7:59Oprah Winfrey?

  I've always believed that one of the greatest gifts we can give another person is our full attention, to really listen, to show up, and to let them know they've been heard. Genuine connection is something I believe in, and so do our partners at AT&T. It's not just attention to the words that someone is saying, but what they're really trying to tell us. Because I've said this for years, true communication is that moment when somebody knows they've been heard and seen. That's what I value in every conversation here on the Oprah Podcast. We talk, we listen, we ask the questions that can lead us to

• 8:40Oprah Winfrey?

  something deeper, an exchange of ideas that I hope resonates with you. What we do with that connection is what matters. And sometimes, that kind of connection begins with something very simple, picking up the phone to share good news, to hear the voice of someone who's made a difference in your life, or just to say, "I'm here," because AT&T is there when the connection matters. And connecting changes everything.

• 9:13Oprah Winfrey?

  You write that when we don't manage to vibe, we make mistakes and a vibe can become a matter of life and death. How so?

• 9:21Speaker 01

  I think the most striking study I've seen on this is Huckman and Pisano. What they do is they study cardiac surgeons and they want to know, do you get better with practice? And most of us would assume the answer is yes.

• 9:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  But what they see is it doesn't seem to help a lot to have, you know, a dozen or 100 surgeries under your belt. And they're trying to figure out why. What they realize is that surgeons operate at different hospitals throughout a week. And when they break down their data by hospital, what they see is every surgery you do at hospital A will reduce your patient mortality rate by about 1%. But then tomorrow you go to hospital B and it's as if you've never practiced before. You are starting over. You're a complete novice. And what's happening is at hospital A, that shared experience you have with nurses, anesthesiologists, technicians, you've had a chance to build up a vibe. You've learned each other's strengths and weaknesses. You've developed effective routines. And when you have to go to hospital B, you're missing that vibe with a new team. It's as if you're a rookie all over again.

• 10:16Oprah Winfrey?

  Starting all over.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 10:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, you have a ritual to help people light a spark of connection in just 60 seconds. So how does that work?

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Okay, this was invented by my mentor, Jane Dutton.

• 10:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  She calls it a rapid, high-quality connection exercise.

• 10:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  And she says, okay, you have one minute. Turn to the person next to you and try to build a connection with them. And that's it, 60 seconds. And then when I do this, I ask people to close their eyes and raise their hand if they think they vibed. And about three quarters of people will raise their hands.

• 10:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Really?

• 10:47Speaker 01

  It's kind of magical.

• 10:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes. And are they saying anything in particular? Are they doing anything in particular?

• 10:53Speaker 01

  I think the most important thing is it's mutual. They know that the other person is also looking to vibe. And I think that's missing in a lot of our interactions. We're trying to strike up a conversation with somebody we see as a potential friend. We don't know if they reciprocate, if they also want to bond. And so we hesitate, we resort to small talk. We chat about the weather or sports.

• 11:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  I hate that.

• 11:15Oprah Winfrey?

  I hate it.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm glad it bothers you too.

• 11:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Whoa, I hate small talk. It just, your eyes glaze over. I don't know what to do. Do I look at my shoe? What do I do?

• 11:24Speaker 01

  It feels like a complete waste of time in a lot of cases. And I think what happens is when you only have 60 seconds, you don't waste time on small talk. You jump right to deep talk. You start to ask, instead of what do you do? You ask, what do you love to do?

• 11:39Oprah Winfrey?

  I think people should stop saying, what do you do? People should just go to, what do you love to do? Or what is inspiring you right now? Or what's opening you up right now?

• 11:47Speaker 01

  Let's ask a question that lights the other person up.

• 11:50Oprah Winfrey?

  That's right. A great example of a vibe is one that Adam gives in the book. He studied astronauts like Katie Coleman. And Katie's story is in the book Vibe and she joins us. Hi, Katie. I read that you were traveling at how many miles per hour is in space headed toward disaster when you had to rely on the vibe?

• 12:10Speaker 02

  Well, it's certainly true. Our launch, before our launch, it was well-known for two things. One, we had the first woman commander, Eileen Collins, be the commander. And second, we were launching a simply amazing telescope that was going to let us, the whole world, see black holes. But after we launched, in the end, the electrical short that happened six seconds after liftoff, it made us the most dangerous mission in the history of the space shuttle program that did not end in an accident.

• 12:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow, what year was this? When was this?

• 12:42Speaker 02

  This was in 1999 that we launched that telescope.

• 12:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  And I mean, the punchline is that, you know, we really, the first thing I thought about is that we just did that. We did that in the simulator just last week. We can do that. And, you know, if something breaks, we always have several of them, right? And so we had enough to be going, just we're on course, we're on speed. But we are in the cockpit, we are all doing our jobs, playing our roles, watching everything. And there's a lot of unspoken communication. And in those simulations, we have learned how to listen, how to talk, how to understand when somebody needs some more time to figure out what they're looking at and then they're going to report. And I would say that it is that kind of vibe, so to speak,

• 13:29Speaker 02

  that we save lives in dangerous situations with.

• 13:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Had you all vibed before? Like, one of the things that I was fascinated with the Artemis 2 crew when I interviewed them here, they were sharing that they spent three years building the team so that they had a really great vibe by the time they, you know, were launched into space together. So did you all have a vibe before?

• 13:55Speaker 02

  We certainly did over time. But when you look at us, Eileen had a daughter. Jeff is a Navy person, our French astronaut, French flight test engineer and pilot. And then there's me. And then there's Steve Hawley, that's actually older than all of us, but actually wiser too. And so we had so much to learn together. We were five very different people. But we had about a year and a half to learn about each other and to understand each other and what we each were going to bring to the mission. And in fact, at one point I said to Eileen, I said, you know, I know that I'm in charge of the telescope, but, you know, I'm really supposed to have a backup.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  And I still, you know, I worry that the way our crew is configured, I worry that I don't have one. And she said, well, you know, you know that Dr. Steve has done on a mission just like this before. And he may not act like he's listening and he will never, ever help you in the simulator, but he is there for you. And helping understand that that was Dr. Steve's way of being there for me really helped me then just get right into my job and do it.

• 15:05Oprah Winfrey?

  What did you learn from Katie and the astronauts?

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Well, one of the things I, hi, Katie. Great to see you.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  Hello. I love the book.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Thank you. Well, one of the things that I learned from Katie and her crew, a different crew actually, was they had huge differences, Oprah. It sounds like a bad joke.

• 15:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  An American and Italian and a Russian are going to go to outer space together.

• 15:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  And I don't think it was easy for them to bond. And one of the things they did was, across their differences, they found an uncommon commonality. They shared their origin stories and they opened up about, what was the defining moment when each of them knew they wanted to leave planet Earth? And all of a sudden, they realized, we share something

• 15:46Oprah Winfrey?

  The common.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  that very few people can relate to.

• 15:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah. You have that common bond of all of you wanting to have that one goal. Yes. And did that make the shift, make the difference, finding the common bond?

• 15:58Speaker 02

  Absolutely. But also the story behind, you know, looking, as Adam says in the book, looking to the past, perhaps for clues to how to relate to each other.

• 16:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  Is that understanding that for Dmitry, that moment to go wanting to go to space didn't happen for a long time. And he talked about being born in Siberia and the kinds of work he'd done that he cared about. And I realized that in all of that work, in all of that time, he had literally never worked with a woman before. And so it was really just that we had to figure out that because it was new for him. So it was invaluable to do that experience.

• 16:33Oprah Winfrey?

  You're out in space with somebody who's never worked with a woman before? Wow.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Well, we know we're, it's actually, I think, like any endeavor here on Earth, we don't pick our teams.

• 16:45Oprah Winfrey?

  No.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  And NASA does not exactly pick those teams, certainly for their personalities or they'd probably do it all wrong, according to Adam's book, right? If they were doing it. But which country, whose turn it is, within that country, which astronauts' career progression or skills, and certainly skills come first, should be on that mission.

• 17:05Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  So we don't pick our crews and I, people look up to us. And so I like to try to help them understand that we make things work. And even though we're really different, we make them work because the mission that we have in common is actually what focuses us together and helps us not prioritize the stuff that doesn't, that we don't actually have in common.

• 17:26Oprah Winfrey?

  So the way it's described in the book, it feels like the vibe that you had created helped you avoid a disaster. Does that feel accurate to you? Yes?

• 17:37Speaker 02

  It does. Adam actually told, in a way, some different parts of our story. And one of them was that, so there's Dmitry, the Russian. We've talked about Dmitry Konradew. Palanestally Italian.

• 17:49Oprah Winfrey?

  The Russians seem very difficult to get along with. I mean, I don't, I think I'm really good at vibing, but I think I'd have had a hard time with the Russian, I would have to say. Yeah.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  But then with Paolo, we're kind of different. And the instructors, in fact, I was in charge of the capture of this big school, a school bus sized supply ship. And the instructors said, Katie, are you sure you want to do that with Paolo? Wouldn't you rather do it with Scott Kelly? And I said, you know, Paolo and I have a great relationship. I mean, we, even though we're really different, it's working. You know, he understands me, I understand him. And then we actually had a situation on orbit when we're about to, it's the second time ever to do this. I mean, it's like having a school bus approach something the size of a factory and we're going to grab it with the Canadian robotic arm. Well, it's, everything has to be just right. And as I start to go in and actually grab that thing, I am used to Paolo saying, good

• 18:42Speaker 02

  rate, I see you, two pins away. And Paolo says nothing. And all of a sudden, I realized I haven't heard anything. And I don't have time to say, Paolo, what's up? And meanwhile, he, who can always do this, we'd never seen the real visual from orbit of what this looks like to have, you know, this arm approaching and you're looking from this way. And so he couldn't, couldn't tell me how far away we were at first. And so, once he figured it out, he started, and that's a long way to say that there was sort of like a little stop where the whole world just stopped. And then we each, we each knew where each other was and completed the capture together safely.

• 19:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  And everybody was breathing on the ground and up on orbit after we were done.

• 19:23Oprah Winfrey?

  So Katie, what's your advice on creating a vibe between colleagues? I mean, you've done it on Earth and out there in space. What's your, what's your advice for how to do it well?

• 19:34Speaker 02

  I think connecting, finding a way to connect. And I love some of the suggestions that Adam has in, in his book where I show a series of pictures when I talk about different way, you know, there's some people it's easy to connect with and some people you have to look harder because it's so easy to say, boy, not like me and not going to be on my team or not somebody I'm going to reach out to unless I really have to. And that's the way that we lose. And, and on a space crew, I think we have a real luxury that like, there were six of us up there, three Russians, two Americans, one Italian. And we look around, it's, there's clearly no one else coming and the mission is critical. We cannot afford to ignore each other's strengths just because we have a hard time seeing what

• 20:19Speaker 02

  they are for each other.

• 20:20Oprah Winfrey?

  How long were you out there?

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Not long enough. I was up there almost six months and, and then I would have spent another six months in a minute. And that it just, when you're up there, it feels like every day, every data point, we're learning new things about what we need for all of us to be leaving the planet when we want to.

• 20:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Don't you see the sun rise like 17 times a day or something? It's like you see the sun.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  It does, 16, 16 times. You're, you're in the right ballpark, absolutely. And you're going around the earth and everyone, my, my overwhelming impression of looking down at the earth, when we go around like that, you know, every hour and a half, the earth is turning below us. Like, we literally see every human on the planet, you know, everybody's down there. And I just think, if only they could know how close they are and how easily they could connect together, we could, we could meet any challenge.

• 21:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, the thing that, when the astronauts, the Artemis just went there, and one of the things that stuck with me is they said, we are our own crew. When you look back and realize that we are our own crew, but we have set up all of our own boundaries ourselves. When you come back to.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Exactly, but all of us really are.

• 21:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah, we are.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  That crew of spaceship are.

• 21:33Oprah Winfrey?

  We are. Thank you so much, Katie. In Vibe, Adam tells the story of NBA legend Joe Dumars. And as a native of Michigan.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  We have to say, Joe Dumars.

• 21:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Joe Dumars. I read Joe is your favorite player of all time?

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Joe is my all time favorite player.

• 21:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, there he is.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Hey, Joe D.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  Hey, what's up, Adam?

• 21:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Joe Dumars. Hi, Joe.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  Hi, how are you?

• 22:02Oprah Winfrey?

  I'm good. So you're known for handling, you know, some of the more volatile players, I would say, in the NBA, raising them up to a higher potential, you know, that's one of my core beliefs. And so, how have you been able to do that?

• 22:19Speaker 03

  I think first and foremost, sports is one of those things where you, you bring in all different backgrounds, cultures.

• 22:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  Everything, you're bringing them together and you really have this one single goal to win.

• 22:34Oprah Winfrey?

  And create a vibe.

• 22:35Speaker 03

  My thing is always to meet people where they are.

• 22:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 22:39Speaker 03

  And not try to cook and cutter an NBA team. You can't do that. And so, some of my teammates, like Dennis Rodman, guys who I signed in Detroit, Rasheed Wallace, Ben Wallace, the outside world has looked at them as like some tough, difficult guys. My experience, and I shared this with Adam over the years, is some of the best teammates you could ever have.

• 23:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Really?

• 23:03Speaker 03

  And they're viewed as the most difficult guys, but they're the most selfless teammates you're ever going to see. And so, I just always found that you got to meet them where they are and you can't try to put them in this box. Because if you do, you can put them in there, but they're not going to be at their best then.

• 23:20Oprah Winfrey?

  How did you approach that? Because yes, a lot of the world looks at the people you've worked with as being challenging, difficult. And your approach was what, I'm going to have no judgment? I'm going to, I'm going to meet you where you are and how you are?

• 23:33Speaker 03

  What was very evident from the very beginning with those guys is that, two things. One, they were great teammates. And two, they really, really wanted to win. So all the other stuff, I just refused to allow the other stuff to get in the way. The other stuff was just their personality, what they like to do, what they don't like to do. And I just didn't put the importance on that. The fact that they were great teammates and they were.

• 24:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Wanted to win.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Obsessed with winning. That took precedent over everything else for me. So I could accept who they were, knowing that these guys will sacrifice anything.

• 24:11Oprah Winfrey?

  And so what struck you about Joe's method?

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Joe, I thought what you did was brilliant. And Oprah, I mean, we, we should really have Joe just describe it. But the, the principle I took away was he accepted their eccentricities and he set boundaries for their behavior. And I'd never thought about that before, that you can say, look, I accept that you might be the kind of person who's hot tempered or you might have a meltdown, but here are the behaviors that are okay and not okay. And I think, Joe, you did that.

• 24:39Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Brilliantly with Rasheed Wallace.

• 24:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Tell, tell us about that, Joe.

• 24:43Speaker 03

  So when we first acquired him, long ride from the airport in Detroit to, to the arena. And what I talked to him about was, look, I know you are going to get technical fouls. And you get two technical fouls, you're ejected from the game, right?

• 24:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 24:56Speaker 03

  So what I said to him was, look, you can get that person, the first three quarters of the game, have at it. You want to get attacked during that time, that's great, no problem with me. What you can't do is two things. One, you can't get it in the fourth quarter when it's critical time.

• 25:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 25:14Speaker 03

  And two, you can't get ejected from the game. So what he's hearing from me at that point is, I'm not, you know, wagging my finger at him and telling him, you must act this way. I just said, look, I know who you are, I know you're going to get attacked. Get them in the first three quarters. Don't get kicked out of the game and don't get them at crunch time. And so I think Adam was just talking about that, just, that's meeting a person where they are and not trying to put them in a box that you know that they're not going to fit in. And if you do put them in that box, you're going to get half of what he really is.

• 25:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. What else impressed you?

• 25:49Speaker 01

  I think just the patience that Joe brought to the table. I think, you know, a lot of people would have just written those guys off and said, I don't care how talented they are.

• 25:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  They're toxic to my team.

• 25:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, I'm not putting up with that.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Not worth the effort. And Joe looked at that and said, look, these, these guys have been frenemies to a lot of people. I can turn them into allies.

• 26:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. And the fact, Joe, that you could see that what they really want is to win.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 26:15Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 26:15Speaker 03

  Absolutely. I, I will say, I think part of this, I'm the youngest of seven kids. Guess what? When you're in a house full of kids.

• 26:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 26:23Speaker 03

  You have to learn how to make things work. You have to learn how to get along. Everybody's not going to have the exact same personality.

• 26:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  And so you, you know, it was instilled in me from a very, very young age, that everybody's not the same and that doesn't mean that it's all bad. And so you try to find the best in everybody to make it work.

• 26:42Oprah Winfrey?

  So at a young age, you knew how to make strong connections in your house, in your community, with the people you needed in order to survive?

• 26:51Speaker 03

  Absolutely, 100%.

• 26:53Oprah Winfrey?

  You could have written this book. Thank you, Joe. Thank you for joining us.

• 26:56Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 26:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Thanks so much.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  Thank you, guys.

• 26:57Oprah Winfrey?

  And good luck. Good luck this season with the, with the New Orleans Pelicans.

• 27:01Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 27:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you.

• 27:03Speaker 03

  Thank you very much.

• 27:04Oprah Winfrey?

  So you say that a little friction in a relationship can actually be beneficial also?

• 27:09Speaker 01

  I was stunned, Oprah, by the experiments on this. There have been over a dozen experiments where people are asked to think of somebody in their life that they have some tough love to give or a difficult conversation they're avoiding. Could be a friend, a family member or a colleague.

• 27:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  And they're just randomly assigned to go and have that conversation. And they've been avoiding it because they think it's going to destroy the relationship. What the data show is the exact opposite happens.

• 27:34Oprah Winfrey?

  It does.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Two weeks later, they feel closer to the person they've just confronted and the other person feels closer to them too. Because they've made an investment in saying, look, I care enough about you and our relationship to be honest with you. And they're not trying to be brutal, they're trying to be clear and kind. And doing that actually builds the resilience of the relationship. It's, it's basically a commitment to saying, look, we, we care about each other enough that we can tell each other the truth. And I think you know this well, that it's, it's surprisingly easy to have a hard conversation with somebody who is deeply invested in your well-being.

• 28:12Oprah Winfrey?

  It is. So on page five, you write this, you say, we're lonely because we're missing connection.

• 28:20Oprah Winfrey?

  And we're missing connection because we're struggling with its foundation interaction. So Tracy is joining us now from Connecticut. And Tracy, you are feeling exactly this. He could be writing about you. Yes.

• 28:35Speaker 04

  Yes. Hi, Oprah. Hi, Adam.

• 28:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Hi.

• 28:37Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me.

• 28:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 28:39Speaker 04

  So the conversation about making meaningful connections in a lonely digital world really do resonate with me. I realize that my challenge isn't necessarily meeting people because I'm naturally social and I enjoy good conversation and I regularly attend events as well and do interesting things on my own. But I've noticed that when I'm actually out, I often forget how to connect with people. So I'll attend an event and I'll go home, but I don't actually make a friendship. And so recently I decided to make a conscious effort to meet more people and build a stronger local community. And so I went out by myself recently and afterwards I discovered that there was a poetry event in my building when I got home. And so I went in and I asked if it was open to residents

• 29:23Speaker 04

  or if it was invite only and I was able to attend. And I thought it was such a simple thing, but it made me realize how many opportunities for connection can exist around me if I actually look for them. And so the question I have for you, Adam, is in a world where we can constantly communicate online, you know, have hundreds or thousands of followers on social media and we're surrounded by people digitally, why can it still feel so difficult to develop genuine friendships?

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that question, Tracy. And I mean, I actually think going and joining a poetry group is a great example of what I would recommend. I think the reason that so many people are struggling with interaction is they don't really know what kind of connection they're looking for.

• 30:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  And I found that there are three kinds of people in all of our lives and we need them all.

• 30:15Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  So I call them allies, pals, and companions.

• 30:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  An ally is somebody who shares your goals. You're on a mission together. Pal is somebody who shares your interests and hobbies. You have fun together. And a companion is somebody who shares your values. You have deep care and affection for each other. And I think it's helpful to be really clear about what kind of bond am I trying to form?

• 30:36Oprah Winfrey?

  And not wanting an ally to be a companion or a pal to be that, to actually understand that. It's like the old adage about friends coming to your life for seasons and reasons, right?

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Yes. And Tracy, I think your example is so great because you took an interest of yours, poetry. And you said, okay, I can go to a group where other people share that interest and I will find instant pals.

• 30:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Instant.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  And maybe there are some potential allies there, too, because there are people who might want to write poetry.

• 31:04Oprah Winfrey?

  And isn't she speaking for just millions of people who feel this way right now? Yes.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  Maybe a billion.

• 31:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, maybe a billion. And so that process, that taking that action has done what for you?

• 31:16Speaker 04

  I think it made me feel a little bit more comfortable in my skin and talking to other people and just really trying to figure out like, okay, I need to connect. How can I do this? But it's given me the, I guess, the courage to do that.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  I think poetry is also really clever because it's vulnerable. It's emotional. It invites a level of companionship. When you've, when you're reading poetry with a group of people, you have the opportunity then to confide in each other, to console each other, to show compassion for each other. I think it opens up a channel of communication that we often don't have unless we know people really well.

• 31:51Oprah Winfrey?

  And I think poets speak their own language. I think poetry is, it's obviously its own vibe, if we may say so. Don't you think so?

• 32:01Speaker 04

  Yes, I agree.

• 32:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  I married a poet. I could not disagree with that.

• 32:05Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, yeah. It is its own vibe and poets, poets relate to one another in a way that other people don't. You all see the world in a way that other people don't.

• 32:14Speaker 04

  Yes. Oh, definitely, definitely. I agree.

• 32:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Well, thank you, Tracy. Thank you so much. Thank you for your question.

• 32:21Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 32:21Oprah Winfrey?

  This caught my attention on page 18, where you say people are happier with their friends than spending time with their partners or their children. Really?

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Uh oh. Yeah.

• 32:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, I can see that. But what did you find?

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Well, when I first read this evidence, I said, oh, no, people, you married the wrong person.

• 32:40Oprah Winfrey?

  No.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  You're really struggling to parent your kids.

• 32:43Oprah Winfrey?

  But I thought the reason for it was really interesting.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. The reason is that we do different activities with our friends than we do with our partners and our kids.

• 32:50Oprah Winfrey?

  You're more open to doing new things.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  We have way more pal interaction with our friends, right? We're usually trying to schedule fun, whether it's a karaoke night or a pickleball game. And unfortunately, a lot of our time spent with our partners and our kids is doing chores, nagging each other. And so if we want to have a better vibe with members of our family, we should actually spend our time more like we would with our friends.

• 33:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Hmm. So one of the things you also write about in Vibe is how quick we are to make judgments, snap judgments about people. Sometimes the second we meet them, and you see this online all the time, people are making judgments about stories they haven't even, they just read the headline and don't even know all the facts. So how did this show up in your life? And I thought what Joe was saying about not judging the players and understanding their traits and characteristics and personality, using that and then setting limits. But I would just have to say, how did this show up in your life?

• 33:48Speaker 01

  It showed up in my life over and over again. I've started out disliking somebody and said, you know what? That person is not for me.

• 33:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, this happened with Brene Brown.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  It did.

• 33:58Oprah Winfrey?

  That you're now doing a podcast with.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  I mean, Brene Brown and I met once, speaking at an event, and then we had a public feud when I had quoted her in an article. I wrote an article, I quoted her. I thought it was a shout out. It was out of context. She felt it misrepresented her work. And, you know, we ended up having this, this kind of heated debate back and forth. And I swore Oprah that I would not talk to her ever again. And we didn't communicate for the next four years.

• 34:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Really?

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, four years. And then I was in a really tough situation where I was trying to help the US Women's National Soccer Team improve their vibe. And I decided I needed to bring in some outside experts to help convince them that culture and team camaraderie really mattered. And I asked them who they wanted, and the number one pick was Brene Brown.

• 34:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  And I reached out to her and to her credit, she said yes right away. She showed up with him.

• 34:50Oprah Winfrey?

  She said yes to you?

• 34:51Speaker 01

  To me.

• 34:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Whom she was not speaking to for four years.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I didn't know it, but she also had a lot of animosity toward me. But I think we had a common mission and that made us allies. And Brene is an extraordinarily generous person. And she went above and beyond to try to help me and them. And I saw a different side of her and I realized there are so many people

• 35:10Oprah Winfrey?

  That's so cool.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  who clash in one context but could click in another.

• 35:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. And now, so how did the podcast come about?

• 35:17Speaker 01

  One thing led to another. We basically, we had a surprisingly positive interaction with the soccer team. And then we ended up going on each other's podcasts. And our audience said, you two should do more together.

• 35:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. And so now you are. So you wrote this because you felt a need in the world to share the secrets of strong connections in a lonely world. And you want the reader and those of us in the world to come away with what is the great takeaway?

• 35:49Speaker 01

  I think for me, the biggest takeaway of Vibe is that we have choices in every interaction about what we ask and what we share. And I think so often people assume a vibe is about matchmaking. They think, okay, I need the equivalent of a dating algorithm to say, okay, are our traits compatible? Is my personality going to mesh with yours? And that's wrong. Our separate traits do not dictate our shared vibe. Whether we connect is much more about the vibe we build than the one that we've tried to select for. And I think that's good news because it means we can build chemistry with people that we didn't like. We can become close with people that we couldn't stand. And it's

• 36:34Speaker 01

  never too late, I think, to give people a chance at a second impression.

• 36:38Oprah Winfrey?

  So you've been married now, what, almost 20 years now?

• 36:41Speaker 01

  20 years. Yeah.

• 36:42Oprah Winfrey?

  And how do these principles that you're so wise about, how does this play out in your actual personal relationship in marriage, when you have a disagreement, for example?

• 36:53Speaker 01

  I mean, Alison is a master of this. So we have a perpetual disagreement about being late. I run five to 10 minutes late for pretty much everything on a good day.

• 37:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Because I'm trying to cram too much into my day. And also, I just get absorbed in a flow state and I think those are precious and I lose track of time. And Alison believes it's a mortal sin to be late to anything ever. So you can imagine how this goes. And after years of fighting about it, she said to me one day, she said, look, I know that you have a habit of running late. And let me just tell you, here are the situations where that is not okay. It's, you know, it's fine if you and I agreed we were going to watch a show together and you come upstairs 10 minutes late. It is not okay if somebody's hosting a dinner party and you make us late because the food is going to get burned or cold. And she did exactly what Joe Dumars was doing.

• 37:40Oprah Winfrey?

  I was just thinking, that's a Joe move.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  She accepted my tendency and she contained the damage.

• 37:46Oprah Winfrey?

  And she contained the damage. And it's working out for you.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  So far, so good.

• 37:50Oprah Winfrey?

  So far, so good. I thank you for coming again. Thank you.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Honored to be here. Thank you for having me, Oprah.

• 37:56Oprah Winfrey?

  The book is called Vibe, The Secrets of Strong Connections in a Lonely World. And it's available wherever you buy your books. And thank you to our partners at AT&T. Listeners, we're going to vibe together next time. Go well, everybody. Go well. We live in a time of such digital disconnection, something we talk about often here on the Oprah Podcast. It's causing many people to feel cut off from the real world. If you're looking to build more meaningful relationships in your life, grab a copy of Adam Grant's new book, Vibe, The Secrets of Strong Connections in a Lonely World, by simply scanning the QR code right there on your screen. Our listeners tell us that the podcast is resonating with you and is serving as

• 38:40Oprah Winfrey?

  a bright spot in your day. That means a lot to me. So here's the thing, I would really appreciate it if you like and subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube or wherever you podcast. It's just a quick tap of the subscribe button and that way you won't miss an episode in your queue. You don't have to pay anything. I know subscribe usually means you're paying something, but this time it means you just are notified when there's something new. There are many more to come that we're excited about. So thank you for watching and listening.