EASY STEPS TO BECOME A SUPER COMMUNICATOR (THAT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND)

How to become a SUPER COMMUNICATOR! In todays' episode of The Ed Mylett Show, you’ll learn EASY steps to become a MASTER COMMUNICATOR with me and my phenomenal guest, Charles Duhigg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning genius whose work has revolutionized how we understand habits, productivity, and the art of communication. I've always said that the ability to communicate effectively is a major component of what separates the good from the great. Whether you're leading a team, building a business, or just trying to make meaningful connections, how you express yourself and connect with others is crucial. Charles is here to share his groundbreaking practical steps on not just how to talk better… but how to truly CONNECT with anyone. It's about making every conversation count, making sure you're not just heard, but that you're truly engaging the person on the other side of that conversation. Here's a sneak peek at what you’ll learn: ACTIVE LISTENING and how it can change the way you relate to others. Understanding the real PURPOSE of conversations and how to deepen them beyond the surface level. Tailoring your communication style for different scenarios Special tips for INTROVERTS to shine in their interactions. The magic of asking the RIGHT QUESTIONS to create a two-way street of genuine connection. Handling tough conversations with grace, setting boundaries, and choosing the perfect moment to engage. The importance of teaching our kids the subtleties of effective communication from an early age. Deciphering and leveraging non-verbal cues for a fuller understanding of every interaction. The technique of MIRRORING to build instant rapport and trust. If you're ready to boost your confidence, forge stronger relationships, and unlock a new level of connection, then honing your communication skills is non-negotiable. It's all about being mindful and intentional with your interactions, every single day. If you want more confidence, connection, and success, become a SUPER COMMUNICATOR! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

  So hey guys, are you frustrated with where you're at right now? Maybe stunted in your progress? Well, if you are, I want to recommend a place for you to go called Growth Day. GrowthDay.com/Ed. It is the number one personal development app on the planet. It's got all kinds of high-performance techniques in there. Courses, accountability, journaling, live speeches from some of the top influencers in the world, including me. It's an overall environment to change your life. GrowthDay.com/Ed. I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 p.m. And my third day, 6:00 p.m. to midnight.

• 0:45Ed Mylett?

  I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time too. And you definitely can't afford to waste it waiting weeks on a big bank for capital. Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender, and for good reason. Over 20 years in business, over 12 billion deployed to small business across America. Stop letting bank delays slow down your momentum. Head to Cardiff.co/Ed. That's Cardiff.co/Ed. Cardiff.co. Real growth, fast funding.

• 1:27Ed Mylett?

  Cardiff, borrow better.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an Ultra. Because it's not just a superior-like beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit MichelobUltra.com/SuperiorAccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser-Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 2:04Ed Mylett?

  This is the Ed Meyer Show.

• 2:08Ed Mylett?

  Hey, welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm honored to have this man here for the second time. The first time he was on the show, I sought him out saying, "Please come on the show," because his book had made such an impact on me. And now he's got a new book out, by the way, before I introduce him, called Super Communicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. And it's a topic, as you all know, that I am fascinated by, because I talk a lot about it on the show, except he's way more qualified than me. And the reason he's way more qualified than me is this guy is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, he's a New York Times bestselling author, and he's a renowned expert on habits. And also, now, after reading his work, he's an expert on communication. So, Charles Dewey, welcome back to the show.

• 2:45Charles Duhigg?

  Thank you, Ed, for having me on. This is such a treat for me.

• 2:47Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I love you, brother.

• 2:48Charles Duhigg?

  Thank you so much.

• 2:49Ed Mylett?

  You're gonna listen to a big brain today, everybody, on a topic that you need to know more about. I gotta tell you why I love your book so much. We were just talking about kids off-camera.

• 2:56Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 2:58Ed Mylett?

  There's a few things I want my kids to have left my house with. One, I want them to have some faith, which is their morals and ethics. I want them to have some work ethic, self-confidence. And if I could give them a fourth thing, it would be the ability to be an outstanding communicator. And I just think it's one of the things that is the most important elements of life. I'm sure you agree.

• 3:15Charles Duhigg?

  I think that's absolutely right. And I think the things that you mentioned before that are really important, because if you, you could be a great communicator, and if you don't have values, if you don't have discipline, then it's not necessarily gonna get you anyplace. But the difference between people who have those first three things, and then don't know how to communicate, is that they stall out at some point, right? They like, they have trouble in their marriage, they have trouble, like, communicating with their spouse or their partner. They oftentimes stall out at work, because the thing that made them successful at work, once you become a manager, it's not just doing that, it's about helping other people learn how to do that. And also, there's a huge amount of self-discovery that comes from conversation, right? Like, when I talk to you and you talk

• 3:58Charles Duhigg?

  to me, we learn things about ourselves through what we say. And it takes someone talented, a super communicator, to draw that out, to know how to, how to make the space for that.

• 4:09Ed Mylett?

  That's interesting. You learn about yourself through, I didn't even think about it that way, but you're right. You know, I- I almost feel like after I was reading your book, and by the way, everybody, it is outstanding. This man does not write average books. He just doesn't, and he sells a lot of them for a reason. And I almost feel like after reading it, I think I thought this before, but almost your ability to communicate will be the cap on your life to some extent. It's the cap on your rela- the intimacy level in your relationship, for example, to some extent is limited or enhanced by your ability to communicate non-verbal cues, verbal cues, your ability to lead and move people in business, your family environment, friendships. I mean, the cap on your, your success level in those areas is almost directly correlated to communication.

• 4:51Charles Duhigg?

  I absolutely, so my, um, my father passed away about six years ago, and I went to his funeral. And there were so many more people there. There were people that like, I hardly remembered, like people, I was so surprised. And I was talking to them and I was like, you know, like, thank you for coming. And they would all say the same thing. They'd say like, "I loved talking to your dad." Right? That's why they showed up, is because they had, they had this rela- they had a connection with him.

• 5:14Ed Mylett?

  Do you think it's because of, I think one thing human beings have, Charles, is you're always making people feel something.

• 5:20Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 5:21Ed Mylett?

  Yet, I think most people are oblivious to that fact. They're feeling something from you in a moment. Your interest level, your energy, your frequency, your trustworthiness, your ability to elevate them. So do you think with your dad, for example, it wasn't just, you know, talking with him, but it's how he made other people feel?

• 5:38Charles Duhigg?

  That's exactly what it was. So, so sometimes when people ask me like, who, how do you define a super communicator? The easiest answer is to say, okay, think of the person you would call if you were having a bad day. Right? Like you're having a terrible day, there's someone you call, you know they're gonna make you feel better. Like, like who would that person be for you?

• 5:55Ed Mylett?

  It would have been my dad, for sure, before he passed away. That was, it came right to me. Call my dad.

• 6:00Charles Duhigg?

  And my guess is that if I met your dad, what I would see is, he's not the funniest person in your life. He's not the most charismatic person in your life, but what he did is he proved to you that he was listening to you, that he heard what you said. And then he reciprocated your vulnerability, or your joy, or your sadness. He shared it with you, and as a result, you walked away feeling like, what I'm experiencing, what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, this is like, this is profound and this is real.

• 6:31Ed Mylett?

  You're right.

• 6:32Charles Duhigg?

  And it's been validated, and you don't need your dad to validate it. Like, it's still real to you, but to have someone else feel like, have them feel like they genuinely want to understand you.

• 6:41Ed Mylett?

  That's right.

• 6:41Charles Duhigg?

  That feels wonderful. In fact, it's hardwired into our brain to feel wonderful.

• 6:44Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. I just did this, and I did a podcast on it, so I'll ask you this. How much of communication do you think is actually the ability to listen correctly?

• 6:52Charles Duhigg?

  A huge amount, a huge amount. So, and, and, and let me say that, that there's this thing about listening, which is, when I'm talking, whatever you're doing, I'm probably not going to pay attention to it, because I'm so, it's so cognitively intense to try and speak, that even though I'm going to make eye contact with you, and, and I'm going to kind of notice if you're frowning, or smiling, or whatever it is, I'm really not going to pick up on the signals you're sending me. So, listening is not just hearing what the person is saying, it's what you do after they finish talking. Because if you do this thing where you prove to me that you've been listening, and, and in the psychology literature, this is actually referred to as looping for understanding.

• 7:30Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 7:31Charles Duhigg?

  That particularly if you have a conflict with someone, the best way to, to sort of bring the tension down is, ask a question, repeat back what you hear the person says in your own words. And then step number three, which is the one we usually forget, is ask them if you got it right. And if I do that, so when you think about it, so I'm listening to you, I have to listen closely to you, because I need to, I'm thinking I got to repeat back what you're saying in my own words, I got to process it. But most importantly, you know that I've been listening based on what I say after you're done speaking. And that's really what active listening is. It's about not just passively receiving. It's about amplifying.

• 8:11Ed Mylett?

  Very good. That is really good.

• 8:14Charles Duhigg?

  It's, I mean, and the thing is, it's so easy to do. Like, once I learned this, like, I find myself doing it all the time without even realizing it. Like, I'll be like, "What I hear you saying is, and tell me if I'm getting this wrong." And like, it just feels so natural.

• 8:25Ed Mylett?

  It feels so good to have somebody say that back to you.

• 8:28Charles Duhigg?

  Right?

• 8:28Ed Mylett?

  Because you do get the feeling with most people, I think they do two things. One, they're really more concerned with what they're about to say back to you.

• 8:34Charles Duhigg?

  Yes.

• 8:35Ed Mylett?

  And two, I call them verbal nudges, where they're interrupting you too often, or uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, which you think is a form of agreement, but I think to some extent, sometimes you're almost saying, "I got it. Okay, can I say something now?"

• 8:46Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 8:47Ed Mylett?

  And you're almost nudging them to finish, rather than letting them finish.

• 8:50Charles Duhigg?

  That's, I think that's exactly true. And I think that part of this is understanding what the goal of a conversation is.

• 8:57Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 8:57Charles Duhigg?

  So, it's easy to go into a conversation and think the goal is to convince this person I'm right, or maybe even the goal is just to come to agreement on something. That's wrong. The goal of a conversation is simply to understand what the other person is trying to tell you. So that means that if I'm listening to you and you say something that I think is crazy, you wouldn't say this, but lizard people run the world, or whatever it is. It, if I, I'm not gonna agree with you, and I'm probably not gonna convince you that you're wrong, but as long as I understand how you see the world, as long as I ask you a question, it's known as a deep question, where I say like, "Why is this important? Like, what is it about this that seems really meaningful and important to you?"

• 9:37Charles Duhigg?

  You're gonna tell me something about who you are, I'm gonna repeat back what you've told me about like, I care about lizard people because I really think the elites of this world

• 9:46Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 9:46Charles Duhigg?

  are like, are like having this pernicious effect on, on the working class. I'm gonna repeat that back to you, I'm gonna ask you if I got it right. I'm not gonna agree with you and you're not gonna agree with me, but simply understanding each other means we have succeeded. And it feels good, right?

• 10:01Ed Mylett?

  It does. I'm just thinking of like, political discourse, you know, like. Just really understand where they're coming from. I'm not gonna win this. I have to tell you, your work's so good because it's actually the part of conversations, I think it's why I have a podcast. I really enjoy not only understanding what somebody's saying, but also like why they're saying it. What's this come from? I'm in an Uber. I basically interview almost every Uber driver I ever have, right? But I, I love that by the end of a good 20 or 30 minute ride, I find out where these belief systems stem from, too. I met a, I was in one recently where this guy was way right, like way, way right. And, uh, no matter what you believe politically, but I mean, I was like, whoa. And I'm like trying to understand and trying to understand and I've also had this conversation with someone who's way left, but

• 10:46Ed Mylett?

  it ended up that at the end I found out that he had come from a communist country. He had actually had family that were murdered by communists. And it, whether I agreed with him or not, that's not the point of this show, but I actually had a much deeper understanding of the basis from which he's formed these opinions and I really felt connected with this person.

• 11:02Charles Duhigg?

  Absolutely.

• 11:03Ed Mylett?

  So you're right.

• 11:03Charles Duhigg?

  Okay, so let me ask you a question if you don't mind.

• 11:04Ed Mylett?

  Sure.

• 11:05Charles Duhigg?

  So when you're in that Uber, when you're having that, what's the second or third question you ask? Cause, cause you could be like, hey, you know, where are you from? Oh, I'm from Europe. Like, what are you asking next to, to get you from the shallow to the deep?

• 11:18Ed Mylett?

  Oh, that's a really good question. I usually ask them, I, I open them up a little bit. I say, give me your craziest story.

• 11:23Charles Duhigg?

  Oh, interesting.

• 11:24Ed Mylett?

  So I actually ask them to give me one of their crazy ride stories. I'm actually fascinated by that. So it kinda opens them up and they get loose. I didn't do it tactically, but I found that like, wow, you're kidding me, that, that. And then typically for me, just cause I'm most intrigued by it, I love to know about people's families. And I actually also think people love to talk about their families typically too. So usually I'll ask them, are you married? Do you have children? And I know that sounds like basic stuff, but I find for me that that's an entree into learning an awful lot about these folks.

• 11:52Charles Duhigg?

  What I love about that is that what, and I think you got this by intuition, is, is that, so these deep questions, if we ask people deep questions, deep questions are things that ask us about our values, our beliefs, or our experiences. So what's the craziest ride you've ever given someone is asking this guy about his experiences.

• 12:10Ed Mylett?

  Very good.

• 12:11Charles Duhigg?

  Right? Like, tell me about your kids. Like, what are your kids like? Is, at some point, he could just be like, I have two kids. But at some point, you're probably gonna say like, oh, you know, do they like school? What do they like? Where do they go to school? Are you, are you worried about their future? You're gonna ask something that's gonna get him to reveal to you who he really is.

• 12:28Ed Mylett?

  You're right. And by the way, I always look at people like, I, I, this is an overall belief system. This person's a gift. I want to open them up. It's really how I look at them.

• 12:38Charles Duhigg?

  I love that.

• 12:39Ed Mylett?

  I just got to tell you, in this guy's case, really quick, just an interjection. This dude was amazing. It turns out that the reason he's driving Uber is he has a daughter at Harvard and a son at Stanford, right? And he's putting them through school. And if you knew where this man came from, it was remarkable. And the pride he had in his children and his wife, that they had raised them, that they were there. And it became this, like, really beautiful conversation where not only did I admire, I was like, whoa, this is incredible. The life you've built, the sacrifice you're making. And he had a full-time day job, drove. And it became kind of this conversation. We talked about our children and by the time I was done, I actually really had a connection with this man. That I probably won't, I'm talking about him on my podcast now.

• 13:19Charles Duhigg?

  Right.

• 13:19Ed Mylett?

  So let me ask you this.

• 13:20Charles Duhigg?

  Okay.

• 13:21Ed Mylett?

  The details of the work, guys, we're going to get into now. There are really three conversation types, okay? I didn't know there were. I was kind of oblivious to this. But I think just this alone would enlighten people so they know which conversation they're in and they can identify. So share us some of that.

• 13:37Charles Duhigg?

  This is a big discovery from the last decade. And we're kind of living through this golden age of understanding communication. And for the first time in a new way. And what, what, the first thing that researchers have found is that we think of a discussion as being about one thing. We're talking about my book, or we're talking about your kids. But actually, every conversation is made up, every discussion is made up of different kinds of conversations that ebb and flow. And most of those different kinds of conversations fall into one of three buckets. There's a practical conversation. Where we're talking about plans or making decisions together, or we're fixing problems. Politics is often this. There's an emotional conversation. Where if I tell you how I'm feeling about something, I do not want you to fix it for me.

• 14:19Charles Duhigg?

  I want you to acknowledge that you've heard it, and I want you to tell me, to, to sort of be vulnerable with me. And then there's a social conversation. And a social conversation is about how we relate to each other in society. How we think other people see us. How our identities, right? How our identities shape how we see the world in different and interesting ways. And the key is, there's this thing known as the matching principle, which is if I'm having an emotional conversation and you respond with a practical conversation, even though both of what we're saying is legit. We're not gonna hear each other.

• 14:52Ed Mylett?

  That is outstanding.

• 14:53Charles Duhigg?

  This happens at home, like, I, with my spouse all the time. I come home, I've had a tough day at work, I'm complaining about my boss. My wife says, she solves the problem. She says, why don't you go and like, take him out to lunch, you get to know each other better? And instead of being like, that's really good advice, I'm like, you don't understand, you're not listening to me.

• 15:11Ed Mylett?

  Very good, Charles.

• 15:12Charles Duhigg?

  So, so if she matches me, and then invites me to match her, then we're having the same kind of conversation. Then we can hear each other.

• 15:22Ed Mylett?

  You just explained 25 years of problem.

• 15:26Ed Mylett?

  No, because I'm coming home to an emotional conversation, and I'm, I'm not in one, sometimes. What about, what advice would you give to somebody who, I ca, we were talking about socially, I just moved and you were asking about the move, and I said, you know, I kinda revert back to myself socially, and, uh, I think I would categorize myself, it would surprise most people who listen to the show, but I'm very quiet, and very shy, and I find a lot of public speakers are, by the way, a lot of entertainers privately are very, I'd call an introvert.

• 15:54Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 15:55Ed Mylett?

  Do you have any advice for an introvert as it comes to communication like this?

• 15:59Charles Duhigg?

  So, I think, one of the things I heard you just say when you were talking about that Uber driver, is, you got into the car,

• 16:05Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 16:06Charles Duhigg?

  and he had one identity, which is right wing.

• 16:09Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 16:10Charles Duhigg?

  And you asked him some deep questions, that were easy to ask, like, they didn't seem intimate, and he started telling you about his other identities. And once he, once he complicated himself, once he said like, look, I'm not just one thing, I'm three and four and five things. All of a sudden, it's easy to feel close to that person, because some of those things he is, you are too. And so I think when it comes to introverts, or when you move to a new place, like, one of the things that I like to do, is you meet someone at a party, or a barbecue, or whatever it is, and like, I often ask them, you know, what do you do for a living? And then I'll often say, you know, they say, I'm a lawyer, and I say, you know, do you love practicing the law? Like, did you just, did, what, what made you decide to become a lawyer? Like, when was the moment you decided to become a lawyer?

• 16:54Charles Duhigg?

  What inevitably they say is something that tells me about their other identities, which is, I became a lawyer because I saw my dad get arrested, and I wanted to fight for the, for the underdog, or I became a lawyer because we were poor, and I wanted to always have enough money. Or I became a lawyer because I love intellectual stimulation. Like, think of those, those three answers just told me so much about those different people. And at that point, I can say to them, I grew up poor too, like, I understand what that's like. And now, suddenly, we feel safe with each other. I think, this isn't necessarily true for introverts, but when we're in new social situations, and we were talking about how hard it is to make friends when you don't have friends in a place.

• 17:37Charles Duhigg?

  The thing that often stops us is just a little mild anxiety.

• 17:41Ed Mylett?

  You're right. Oh, I at least smiled with me.

• 17:44Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:44Ed Mylett?

  At least smiled with me.

• 17:45Charles Duhigg?

  And, and how are we gonna start the conversation? How are we gonna get out of the conversation? How, like?

• 17:49Ed Mylett?

  Okay, that's mine.

• 17:50Charles Duhigg?

  Okay.

• 17:51Ed Mylett?

  That's mine. And candidly, I love that we're going there.

• 17:57Ed Mylett?

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• 19:25Ed Mylett?

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• 20:08Ed Mylett?

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• 20:21Speaker 03

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• 20:24Ed Mylett?

  I'm okay opening a conversation. How are you? You know, for me, it's, how does this end? How does this end? I bet everybody driving or listening to this right is like, no, that's something I would like to know more about. If I'm on this bus next to... I have the most awkward finishes of conversations of any dude you've ever met in your life. I'm like, okay, well, hey, and I usually end up the conversation with some sort of BS or something, you're like, I'm gonna use the restroom.

• 20:50Charles Duhigg?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 20:51Ed Mylett?

  I don't know how to get away from you.

• 20:52Charles Duhigg?

  I have to go refresh my glass, but you're still half-full. So, okay, so, so actually, Daniel Gilbert at Harvard actually did an entire study trying to figure out how people end conversations.

• 21:03Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 21:04Charles Duhigg?

  And do, does the other person want to end at the same time you do? And what he found was two things. Number one, he found that you think I want you to end the conversation because I'm, I'm getting bored and actually I am enjoying this conversation. We do a difficult job of gauging the other person's interest in the conversation. But then sometimes we want to end the conversation, right? And so this is, this is what super communicators do. They forecast it without committing to it immediately. So they say something like, ah, man, this is so interesting. I totally gotta go like freshen up my drink. But before I do, like, let me ask you like X. Because oftentimes, the, the end of the conversation feels hard because it feels awkward.

• 21:42Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 21:43Charles Duhigg?

  But if you've already set the table and you're like, you're like, I gotta step away, but this is so fascinating. Let me ask you one more thing. Then when they're done answering the question, you're like, oh, man, thank you so much. And you just turn away. That's not awkward.

• 21:54Ed Mylett?

  I love that. That's, that's, that's pre-framing the conclusion.

• 21:57Charles Duhigg?

  That's exactly right.

• 21:58Ed Mylett?

  Very good.

• 21:58Charles Duhigg?

  That's exactly right.

• 21:59Ed Mylett?

  A lot of what you're saying, I'm listening, is it has to do with the questions you're asking. I think a lot of people look at conversations or communication like, what am I telling somebody? What am I saying? And I'm sure there's an element of that that we'll get to in a minute too. But so far, a lot of the things you've been suggesting involve questions you're asking somebody. And I have to say this to you. I'm amazed how, how many people I talk to in social environments and business environments that don't ask.

• 22:25Charles Duhigg?

  That never ask you questions. I know. I know. And, and I can't figure out, I think that for some of them, they're just not practiced at it. And it is, it like, that's the thing about super-communication. Anyone can be a super-communicator. It's literally just a set of skills. Like, you just have to practice the skills and make them into habits. Nobody's born knowing how to do this. But I have the same, it drives me crazy. I ask question after question and then they, they answer and then they stop talking and they're waiting for my next question. I'm like, like, does there any? So here's the thing, here's the thing that you're exactly right. Fifty percent, if not more, of a good conversation is asking good questions. But then something happens. There's a difference between a conversation and an interrogation, right? Or an interview.

• 23:07Charles Duhigg?

  And thi- this gets into what's known as emotional reciprocity. And emotional reciprocity is basically one of the strongest impulses that all humans have. If somebody engages in emotional reciprocity, we can't help but feel a little bit closer and a little bit more trusting of them. So emotional reciprocity says, if you say something vulnerable.

• 23:26Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 23:27Charles Duhigg?

  And then I recognize, I acknowledge that vulnerability, but I also show that I can be vulnerable. Then we're going to feel like we can trust each other. And so, and that's about speaking. So, that doesn't mean if you say, "My dad passed away," I should be like, "Oh, I understand completely because my aunt passed away 12 years ago." Like, that's stealing the spotlight from you, right?

• 23:48Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 23:49Charles Duhigg?

  But if you say, "My dad passed away," and I say, "Oh, man, I like, I know how hard that can be." Like, "Tell me about your dad. What was he like?"

• 23:57Ed Mylett?

  Oh, gosh, that was good.

• 23:58Charles Duhigg?

  Right? And then like, and then, and what I'm signaling to you is, A, I'm interested in you. I want to hear from you. I want to understand you. But B, you learned something about me. And if you're interested, you can, you can say like, like, "Tell me, tell me how you know about this." Like, "What happened?"

• 24:14Ed Mylett?

  What about being, being the server first, serving the vulnerability first?

• 24:19Charles Duhigg?

  Absolutely. Absolutely. There's a guy named Nick Appley at the University of Chicago who's in the book. And like, Nick is so good at this. Every conversation I've ever had with him, he says something in the conversation, near the start of the conversation, that feels so intimate. And as a result, I'm just like, "I love this guy. Like, I just want to talk to him." And again, when I look at the transcripts, because I'm oftentimes talking to him for reporting, and when I read the transcript, it doesn't seem too intimate. It doesn't seem overly intimate. But he says things like, you know, "Hey, Nick, how are you doing?" Like, instead of saying, "Oh, fine," says something like, "Yo, it's great. I like, went to my son's soccer game this weekend." It was, and like, we adopted these kids from Ethiopia.

• 24:59Charles Duhigg?

  And like, just watching them now as these like, strong young men. Like, it was, it was a great weekend.

• 25:07Ed Mylett?

  Brother, you're on it.

• 25:09Charles Duhigg?

  Right. And he's offered that up. And at that point, I'm like, "Man, I'll tell you all about myself."

• 25:12Ed Mylett?

  Let me tell you about me. I think I also trust you more when you do that.

• 25:16Charles Duhigg?

  Absolutely.

• 25:16Ed Mylett?

  I think when someone's so surface all the time, and by the way, this applies for a lot of you that are in sales, too.

• 25:21Charles Duhigg?

  Yes.

• 25:22Ed Mylett?

  Being willing to be a little bit vulnerable, not always the expert, but a little bit vulnerable, a little bit transparent, a little bit revealing. I believe it's, well, no, I think it's just a better way to live, but it does bond and connect you. It makes you human. Oftentimes, when you're in sales, people look at you like you're almost their adversary. Like, "I can't trust this guy or this lady." But when you begin to show some vulnerability and some authenticity, I think that's when you start to break down the barriers. And I've found that in my own life, over and over.

• 25:49Charles Duhigg?

  Trust is huge, right? I mean, so, so we have... Communication is humans' superpower. Like, it's the reason, as a species, we have been so successful is that we can talk to each other and we can build, we can share knowledge, we can build families and communities. All of that is based on communication. And communication over the millennia has been hardwired into our brain. And so, as a result, when, when somebody communicates well with me, I trust them because I literally have two million years of evolution in my head that says, "Trust the guy who it seems like can, wants to understand you and that is sharing with you."

• 26:29Ed Mylett?

  I agree. This is so good. This is probably gonna go a little longer than normal.

• 26:33Charles Duhigg?

  No, I love it.

• 26:33Ed Mylett?

  I really love this, right? Um, I just think, I hope those of you that are listening or watching understand the importance in your life, as I said earlier, of getting good at this because it's the cap on your bliss. It's the cap on your laughter. It's the cap on your intimacy. It's the cap on your influence and persuasion.

• 26:50Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 26:51Ed Mylett?

  What if, what about difficult conversations?

• 26:55Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 26:55Ed Mylett?

  Are those different in nature? And are they, I mean, having to, you know, say, "Hey, listen, your job performance isn't very good." Or, "I'm frustrated with you." Or, you know, something that's, you know, you're going into it and going, "Gosh, I wish I didn't have to have this conversation, but I do."

• 27:11Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah, or sometimes they catch you off guard, right? Where like, "I'm talking about one thing and all of a sudden I realize you're furious at me." Like, "I didn't pick up on that until just now." And so, the answer is, they abide by the same rules, but the fact that you're in conflict changes the context enormously. Because we were just talking about trust, right? I can establish trust by, by sharing something about myself. But if you go into a conversation where there's conflict, trust is already out the window, right? Like, you're, you are, you're fighter flighters going off in your head like crazy. You can't trust someone easily just because like, they ask you a question. So, and this has been a focus of a lot of study. How do we make conversations in conflict better? And there's basically two things.

• 27:53Charles Duhigg?

  The first one is, I mentioned this looping for understanding, right? Asking a question, repeating back what you heard, and then, and then asking if you got it right. That's enormously powerful in conflict. Because the first thing, the first suspicion I have, if you disagree with me and we're in conflict with each other, is you're waiting your turn to speak. You're not hearing what I'm saying, right? You're just waiting there, and like, I'm gonna tell you my piece, and then you're gonna just bulldoze over me, and I'm gonna bulldoze back. So if you interrupt that by proving you are listening, using looping for understanding to prove, I really wanna understand what you're saying, help me understand. I'm taking a huge amount of mistrust off the table. The second thing that often happens in conflict, and this happens a lot in marriages, this actually comes from marriage therapy,

• 28:38Charles Duhigg?

  and studies of marriage therapy, is that it is natural when we feel threatened to want to control things. And the easiest thing to control is the other person. So you tell me your thing, and I'm like, no, no, no, you don't know the evidence. Let me show you the evidence. You say something, and you're like, I'm not even gonna listen to this. I try and control you. I try and tell you what you should believe, what you should feel. That's toxic, right? In a marriage, that is the thing that destroys a marriage. The alternative is, I have a need for control, you have a need for control, we feel threatened. Can we find things to control together? So for instance, can we control the timing of this fight?

• 29:20Charles Duhigg?

  Instead of having it at 2:00 in the morning, can we wait till it's 10:00 a.m. and we're both a little bit more rested? Can we control ourselves? Can I let you know, I'm gonna take a second before I speak, and I'm gonna think about what you just said? Can I show you that I'm trying to control myself and invite you to control yourself? And the third thing is, we can control the boundaries of the conflict itself. So, one of the most toxic patterns in marriages is this thing called kitchen sinking, where we start arguing about like, where we're gonna go for New Year's? And then, like, five minutes later, it's like, and your mother hates me, and you don't earn enough money, and like, why are you such a jerk all the time? Right? So, a fight about one thing becomes a fight about everything.

• 30:05Charles Duhigg?

  The healthy way to do that is to say, we need to have a fight, like we have a disagreement on something. Let's control the boundaries of it. We're talking about New Year's Eve. If my mother comes up and your money comes up, like, we're just gonna set it aside. That's another conversation, another day.

• 30:20Ed Mylett?

  Very good.

• 30:21Charles Duhigg?

  But then, when we're controlling these three things, we're controlling, we're controlling ourselves, we're controlling the conversation, the environment, and we're controlling the boundaries of the fight, or the conflict. We're controlling those as partners. Right? We're on the same side of the table. We might not agree on the topic we're discussing.

• 30:38Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 30:39Charles Duhigg?

  But you and I are partners now in controlling the right things in this fight, instead of trying to control each other.

• 30:45Ed Mylett?

  That's outstanding. When you're talking about relationships and family, where my, first off, I've made those mistakes.

• 30:51Charles Duhigg?

  Me too.

• 30:51Ed Mylett?

  I'm a pretty good kitchen sinker, now that you term it that way.

• 30:54Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 30:54Ed Mylett?

  And so, I think I've gotten better at it. I also think the longer with you, you're with somebody, you have more stuff in the sink. And so, it's even more important to avoid that and have that control of the parameters around the conversation.

• 31:07Charles Duhigg?

  Right. How long have you been married for?

• 31:09Ed Mylett?

  Twenty-six years.

• 31:10Charles Duhigg?

  Okay, so I'm coming up on twenty, and I'm sure this has happened to you, but tell me if I'm getting this wrong, which is, there, there are these things, literally, I can say two words, and I know the entire fight in my, in my wife's head. Right? It's like, it's like, and sometimes I don't even mean to say them, I'm just like, I like, I'm like, I'm like, well, you know, it's because like, I earn more money than you. And then I'm like, oh, nuts.

• 31:32Ed Mylett?

  There we go.

• 31:33Charles Duhigg?

  I just stepped in it, like, all, to kitchen sink it, all I had to say was literally three words.

• 31:39Ed Mylett?

  You brought the whole sink?

• 31:39Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah, and so, the immediate thing I do is, I'm like, I'm like, I'm sorry.

• 31:43Ed Mylett?

  Whoops, alright, exactly.

• 31:44Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah, I did not mean to do that.

• 31:45Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 31:46Charles Duhigg?

  Like, tell me what you're feeling, because I wanna, I wanna give you a chance, but like...

• 31:49Ed Mylett?

  You know what? I've gotten better at that, Charles, with my kids, too, of saying, you know what, I'm sorry, let me take that right back. Whereas before I'd almost double down or they didn't really feel it that bad. It'll it'll be brushed under and no, sometimes you just have to in the moment go, I'm gonna yank that one back.

• 32:04Charles Duhigg?

  And not only are you connecting with them, but but think about the modeling you're doing.

• 32:07Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 32:07Charles Duhigg?

  You're teaching them how to communicate with other people. Like, I'm absolutely certain your kids are gonna copy that without even realizing it comes from dad.

• 32:15Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. You're making me think of young people when you say that. I want you to give you, can we teach this to young people? I'll tell you why I ask.

• 32:20Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 32:21Ed Mylett?

  I have great conversations with my kids. Bella, don't take this the wrong way sweetheart when you're listening to this. But lately with my daughter, I love doing kind of dates with my daughter and I. She's a she's a sophomore in college. And I watch her with other people. She's quite the conversationalist. But with me, and she's not disinterested, but when we're talking, there's a lot of, yep, yeah, right, uh huh. And at one point, we were taking a walk on the beach over Christmas and I said, Bella, this is kind of a serve and volley type thing here. Like I serve and you return the serve and then I hit the ball back to you and you hit it back to me. To your point of ask me something.

• 32:56Charles Duhigg?

  Right.

• 32:56Ed Mylett?

  You know, so so it made me wonder, is there anything different? And maybe she's not even quite at that age I'm talking about, but if I have an eight, a nine, a 10 year old. I I'm always blown away when I meet a child who is a tremendous communicator, makes eye contact, shakes your hand. Mr. Mylett, how are you? What do you do? Like when they ask, I'm like, automatically what I think, these are great parents.

• 33:18Charles Duhigg?

  Yes.

• 33:19Ed Mylett?

  I think immediately, these are tremendous parents. So is there anything with young people that can that these skills can be taught? Anything unique that you would say that goes with young?

• 33:28Charles Duhigg?

  Absolutely. So I think that there's two things. Let's talk about the older kids first, like your daughter's age. So I I had a friend whose daughter just went to college and he had a conversation with her before he left, which I've now imitated and I love. He sat down with her and he was like, look, you're definitely gonna call us when something important happens in your life. But if that's the only time you call, then by definition, you're not calling us that frequently. Like, we're gonna lose contact with each other. So what I want you to do is I want you to call me for the unimportant things. You had a you had a bad day, but it's not a big deal. You ate something good for lunch. You're working on this paper and it's kind of interesting. You know, we don't have to talk for more than five or seven minutes, right? But I want you to call me and tell me about the unimportant stuff, because the important stuff will take care of its of itself.

• 34:14Charles Duhigg?

  And that, and, and so my son went off to boarding school. He's at boarding school right now, um, here in California and it's his first year there. He's in 10th grade and I told him this. He calls me every day.

• 34:25Ed Mylett?

  Very, very.

• 34:26Charles Duhigg?

  I actually talk more to this kid with him at boarding school than I did when he was at home.

• 34:30Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 34:30Charles Duhigg?

  So for older kids, that's the thing is to, is to say, this is a priority. Like, conversation is something, none of us are born super communicators. We can all learn how to do it. This is a skill you should practice and it's because it's important.

• 34:44Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 34:44Charles Duhigg?

  For the younger kids, it's a little bit harder, right?

• 34:46Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 34:47Charles Duhigg?

  But I think for them, this is where the deep questions become so powerful. So my younger one, same thing. How was school today? Good. What'd you learn? Nothing. Right? Like, so, and, and so some of the advice is like, be like, oh, well, you know, did pirates show up today? And you can do that a couple of times. But at some point, if you ask them a question where, where you're asking them to tell you who they are, like, like, like, uh, I know that you said that you like science more than you like math. I'm just wondering, like, why? Like, what is it? Was it about science? Like, I mean, is science important to you? Like, you, you told me you wanted to hang out with your friend and I'm just wondering, like, what is it? What do you like about that friend? Like, what is special to him?

• 35:29Charles Duhigg?

  What's great about that is that, first of all, it's clearly not judgmental, right? Whereas if I'm like, what'd you learn today? I'm kind of judging.

• 35:37Ed Mylett?

  Good point. Yeah.

• 35:38Charles Duhigg?

  You better, should have learned something today.

• 35:40Ed Mylett?

  Very good point.

• 35:41Charles Duhigg?

  But second of all, I'm, I'm matching him and I'm allowing him to set the stage. It's not that he's playing on my ball court. I'm saying to him, tell me your ball court.

• 35:52Charles Duhigg?

  And that's powerful.

• 35:54Ed Mylett?

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• 36:39Ed Mylett?

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• 37:22Ed Mylett?

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• 37:56Ed Mylett?

  You do a lot of gestures when you talk.

• 37:58Charles Duhigg?

  Oh, yeah?

• 37:59Ed Mylett?

  I don't know if you noticed that. Well, you're expressive in your face. This is, this may not even be in the book, but I want to ask you about it. So you're expressive with your face, you use your hands. And I'm wondering if nonverbal cues are part of being a super communicator? Cause I've had people say, I'm really excited to be here. And I'm like, you should tell your face. You should, you should email your face and let them know that you're excited to be here. So I think a lot of it is I'm reading things you're not saying when I talk to somebody as well.

• 38:25Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah, and I think that's exactly right. And, and to be a super communicator, you don't have to have nonverbal, right? Cause there's people who like on the phone are fantastic. If you're good at one thing, you're usually good at everything.

• 38:35Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 38:35Charles Duhigg?

  But, but similarly with you, like you, you clearly should telegraph nonverbally or non-linguistically, you telegraph your interests. You telegraph what you're hearing. And that's very, very powerful. And there's a kind of a, a science behind it. And we've learned a lot of it from looking at laughter. So the interesting thing about laughter is, studies show that about 80% of the time when all of us laugh, it is not in response to something funny.

• 39:00Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 39:00Charles Duhigg?

  Right, so we've laughed a couple of times in this, in this interview. But I haven't said anything that funny, right? Like, you just laughed. I'm not that funny a guy. So what happens when we laugh? What a laugh actually is, is it's saying to the other person, I want to connect with you. I'm going to show you that I want to connect with you. And then when they laugh back, and 90% of the time when I laugh, the person I'm talking to will laugh back. They're saying, I want to connect back.

• 39:27Ed Mylett?

  That's tremendous.

• 39:28Charles Duhigg?

  So that's a non-linguistic communication. And what I love is actually NASA for a time.

• 39:33Ed Mylett?

  I was gonna ask you this, I'm so glad.

• 39:34Charles Duhigg?

  So, they were trying to figure out how to find emotionally intelligent astronauts.

• 39:39Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 39:40Charles Duhigg?

  And, and like, the problem is, everyone who applies to be an astronaut, if you make it to the final stages, you're, you're like a golden boy or girl, right?

• 39:46Ed Mylett?

  Thousand percent.

• 39:47Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah, you know how to answer every question. You've practiced everything. And they're like, we can't figure out who's actually emotionally intelligent and who fakes it really, really well. But when they're in space on a six-month mission, the difference is gonna matter a lot.

• 40:00Ed Mylett?

  Huge.

• 40:01Charles Duhigg?

  So, this one psychologist, he started realizing, if I pay attention to how people laugh, most importantly, do they match my laughter? So he would come into a room and he would accidentally spill papers accidentally. He actually did it on purpose. And then he would laugh uproariously and he would watch what that candidate would do. Some candidates would be like, haha, because you know you're supposed to laugh, right? And then other people would be like, haha, that's, let me help you with that. Like, I, the astronauts who matched him, not just on laughter, but he would tell a sad story and see if the other person, if the other person empathized, if they, if they engaged in reciprocity, if they asked him questions about it. So that's non-linguistic.

• 40:44Charles Duhigg?

  But it tells us whether that person wants to, to connect. And that's ultimately, I think when I'm making gestures, I'm inviting you to, I'm inviting you in, right? I'm saying like, like, here, here I am, like, I want you to see what I'm seeing.

• 41:00Ed Mylett?

  I hope what everybody's getting out of this is like, these are skills that can be learned. There's an art and a science to this. You said, I'm glad you asked, I was gonna ask you about the NASA thing. You also said emotional intelligence, so. I just feel like that's at the root of what we're talking about here.

• 41:15Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 41:16Ed Mylett?

  So, how big of a component is just being sort of, I think also, let me say this. So emotionally aware is another word that I would use as well. Emotionally aware is a part of having emotional intelligence. You agree with that?

• 41:28Charles Duhigg?

  Absolutely. So, I, this phrase emotional intelligence is actually kind of a misnomer because it makes us think it's like IQ.

• 41:35Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 41:36Charles Duhigg?

  We're either born with it or you're not, but it's not. Emotional intelligence is emotional awareness. If I say to myself, and I train myself to say, a priority is noticing when someone else is feeling something. And matching that, and giving them the space for that. That is emotional intelligence. That's the thing that's gonna make, make it, make it feel like you understand them, that you can empathize with them. And it's, it's, it's not hard, right? It's just about making it a priority.

• 42:04Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. There's, there's in the book, a lot of examples of that. There's actually just great stories in the book. Give me one, because I want them to get the book, so I don't want to do the whole book. But, give me one story from the book, this sort of illustrative of just, you thought was one of the more interesting stories in the book. So they have an understanding, because what's great about the way Charles writes this book, is that there's like, points and tactics. And then I like the story to sort of reinforce it that may, and I, for me, facts tell, stories sell. I remember stories, and so I like the way that you weave these into the work.

• 42:35Charles Duhigg?

  And that's why there's so many stories in there, is because it's, they're so much easier to remember. So one of my favorite stories is, is early in the book, it's about Jim Lawler, the CIA agent. So Jim, Jim is this guy who I've talked to a number of times, he, he's, he's awesome. He, um, he became a CIA officer when he was in his 30s, and he wanted this so bad. He like, he struggled for the, like, he just ran after this so hard. It was like, he was desperate to be a CIA officer. They accept him, they send him off to training, and then they send him to Europe to recruit foreign assets. And he finds out, he's the worst recruiter on earth. Like, literally, he would go to like, parties, and he's, and like, he couldn't make conversation. He would like, try and buddy up with people, and they're like, you're a spy, aren't you? You're trying to get me to be a spy.

• 43:19Charles Duhigg?

  They're like, I'm gonna report you to the, to the authorities, you're gonna get deported. So he's like freaking out, because he's like, I'm terrible at this. And then someone in his, in his office says, look, there's this woman coming into town, she's from the Middle East, she works for the Foreign Ministry. Why don't you get to know her a little bit and see if there's anything there? So he bumps into her at a restaurant the next day, right? Bumps. Okay. And he introduces himself as an oil speculator, strikes up a conversation, takes her to lunch the next day, they start sightseeing together, sort of develops a little bit of a relationship. He goes and he says to his boss, "I think I'm recruiting this woman, I think she's gonna be an asset for us." And then he, and his boss is like, "That's fantastic, I'm glad to hear it." He goes, he has dinner with this woman, Fatma,

• 44:01Charles Duhigg?

  and he says, "I'm not an oil speculator, I work for the CIA." Now Fatma had been telling him, she comes from a, he never told me which nation, but it's pretty obvious which one it is. Right. She comes from a nation that recently had a religious theocracy revolution. And so the, the fundamentalists have all taken over, and she hates it. She's like, she's like, "They're making women wear hijabs, they're telling us we can't go to college, I wanna fight this, but I don't know how." And so Jim Lawler says to her, the most practical thing possible, he's like, "We want the same thing you do, like, we want, we wanna free the people of your country, we wanna empower women. Work for me for the CIA." And she grabs the table and starts shaking her head, and she starts crying, and she goes,

• 44:44Charles Duhigg?

  "No, no, I'm not gonna do it." And just has a meltdown. And she says, "They kill people in my country for doing this. I cannot believe that you have put me at risk simply by striking up a friendship, 'cause if they ever find out you're in the CIA, they're gonna think, 'I'm in the CIA.'" And she just, she just bolts. And Lawler's like, "Ah, I'm terrible at this, like, I'm such a bad recruiter." So he goes back to his boss and he tells him what happened. His boss is like, "Dude, I already told Washington DC you recruited her as a spy, like, like, you're gonna get fired if you can't close the deal on this. This is, this is your last chance, that's why we gave it to you." Mm-hmm. So Jim spends all this time trying to figure out, "How do I, what do I do?"

• 45:28Charles Duhigg?

  And he, he keeps on calling Fatma, and eventually she picks up and he invites her to go to dinner. A couple nights before she's gonna fly back home. And she says yes, 'cause he says he'd take her to a expensive restaurant. And he has a notebook full, full of ideas on how to convert her. And he knows, none of them are gonna work. Mm-hmm. Like, you cannot trick someone into taking a suicidal risk. Right. Right? It's just not gonna... So he goes to dinner, and she's in a, she's really down, 'cause she's like, "You know, I came to Europe, I thought I was gonna learn something about how to..." How to be more myself, or how to change the world, and I'm just going home and I'm the same person. And what he starts trying to do is cheer her up. He tells her little stories.

• 46:12Charles Duhigg?

  He reminisces about when they, you know, went sightseeing together. And she just gets more and more glum. And finally dessert comes and they're kind of by themselves at the table and Jim thinks to himself like, should I try to like, recruit her again? And he's like, if I do that, she's literally gonna stand up and walk away. So what he decides to do is he decides like, this isn't gonna work, I'm giving up. I'm just gonna have a real conversation, I'm gonna be honest. And he starts saying to her, "Look, I know how you feel because I feel exactly the same way. I like, I wanted this job my entire life and it turns out I'm terrible at it. I am so disappointed in myself. And I don't know how I'm gonna go home and tell my dad that like, I failed.

• 46:58Charles Duhigg?

  I got fired by the CIA." And he talks this way, now what he's doing, obviously, without even realizing it, is he's matching her. Matching. Right? She was, she was glum and he was trying to cheer her up. That's not matching. Yep. He was matching her and she's, she's listening to this and she starts crying and he's like, "I'm such a jerk." And in the CIA, you have to report every conversation. So he's gonna have to write up a memo and he's like, "Those guys are gonna fire me within seconds." Like, they're just gonna laugh. And he reaches over and he pats her arm and he's like, "I'm so sorry, I did not mean to make you cry, I am sorry." And she says, "No, no, I think I can do this." And then, and he's so inexperienced, he actually, the first thing that's out of his mouth is like, "No, no, no, you don't have to do that. Like, you don't have to, like," because he wasn't trying to manipulate her, he was just trying to- He finally wasn't.

• 47:43Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah, he finally wasn't trying to manipulate her and he's like, "No, no, I don't wanna put you at risk, you don't have to do it." And she's like, she says, "No, no. What you want is important. I, I think we can do this together." So for the first time, she was able to hear him. She was able to hear all those things that he had said over weeks and weeks and weeks about helping the women of her country. She couldn't hear it until he matched her. Next day, she goes to a safe house. She gets trained in covert communications and other stuff. She's the best source in the Middle East for the next 20 years.

• 48:15Ed Mylett?

  Unbelievable.

• 48:16Charles Duhigg?

  And Jim Lawler becomes one of the top recruiters in the entire CIA. He teaches it today.

• 48:20Ed Mylett?

  It's one of the best stories ever.

• 48:21Charles Duhigg?

  I love that story.

• 48:23Ed Mylett?

  Let's go, I'm gonna pick it apart a little, so people understand the dynamic in there. So when you say matching, was it that she was in an emotional conversation and he wasn't? Is that what you mean by that?

• 48:30Charles Duhigg?

  That's a huge part of it.

• 48:31Ed Mylett?

  Okay, he was also vulnerable.

• 48:32Charles Duhigg?

  But he was also vulnerable. So she was, not only was she in an emotional conversation, but he was listening to the type of emotion that she was transmitting, right? Instead of saying like, "Oh, you shouldn't feel bad, I'm gonna cheer you up." He was saying like, "Look, you feel bad. Like, let's just acknowledge that." And that matching feels good, because it feels like someone's hearing us.

• 48:51Ed Mylett?

  I think it's a huge thing. I don't ever like saying gender-specific stuff, because I don't believe it. But I do think by and large, those two elements, women are better at naturally. Meaning, I think they're more naturally vulnerable in a conversation than a man can be. I just, and I don't even like saying this, but I just, I think in general, most people would agree with me. And then secondly, I think men try to fix things often, more often, so that when there is an emotional conversation you're in, we just wanna fix it, or solve the problem, or be the savior, or be valuable, or be important, rather than just be with somebody and acknowledge their emotion.

• 49:24Charles Duhigg?

  It's not always men and women, right?

• 49:25Ed Mylett?

  Sure, it's not. It's definitely not, but it's more prevalent, I think.

• 49:29Charles Duhigg?

  And I think what's happening there is, we're falling, falling back on what feels comfortable to us.

• 49:34Ed Mylett?

  Right, it is for sure.

• 49:35Charles Duhigg?

  So, so if you're saying something emotional, and I get super practical and it pisses you off, it's not so much that like, I actually think we should be practical, it's that I'm uncomfortable with emotion.

• 49:46Ed Mylett?

  There you go.

• 49:47Charles Duhigg?

  And so I'm trying, I'm going back to my safe place.

• 49:49Ed Mylett?

  There you go.

• 49:50Charles Duhigg?

  And, and actually, that safe place is emotional, right? Like, like, like, the reason I'm trying to solve your problem is like, it really bothers me that you're upset. I don't know how to deal with the fact that you're upset. I wanna make you feel better, I feel like that's my job, and I feel like I'm letting you down and myself down. Like, that is emotional, right?

• 50:08Ed Mylett?

  You're right, a million percent.

• 50:10Charles Duhigg?

  I'm just, I'm just disguising it as a practical conversation, because that's my, that's my safe space.

• 50:15Ed Mylett?

  That's my pattern. That's how I hide.

• 50:16Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 50:17Ed Mylett?

  That's a zillion percent right. I told you we're gonna go a bit long, so we're gonna, so.

• 50:20Charles Duhigg?

  Absolutely.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior like beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 50:54Ed Mylett?

  Okay, let me ask you this. This is a hard one, and so I keep using the term non-verbal. I've used that. Let me, let me couch it a little differently.

• 51:02Charles Duhigg?

  Okay.

• 51:02Ed Mylett?

  Literally non-verbal.

• 51:03Charles Duhigg?

  Okay.

• 51:04Ed Mylett?

  So types of communication that are not done verbally. Meaning.

• 51:07Charles Duhigg?

  Email.

• 51:08Ed Mylett?

  Mail, written, email, text, whatever.

• 51:11Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 51:11Ed Mylett?

  I have found for me, if I'm transparent with people, I feel like I've, I'm a pretty darn good verbal communicator. I've also found my friends that are hyper-verbal people in general, again, in other generality, aren't so good in the written word. And for some reason, when I write or text, it comes across as harsh, curt, sometimes aloof. I, my writing style does not make the impact in text or email that my verbal style does. And I, I'm really not very good at that. So what about tips or keys on that?

• 51:46Charles Duhigg?

  So what's going on there? So, so it's interesting. If we were having this conversation about 100 years ago, a little bit under 100 years ago, when phones first became popular, what we would be talking about, and there were all these articles that said this, no one will ever be able to communicate on the telephone well. Because unless you can see someone, you're not going to figure out what's going on in their voice. You're, you're not like, like telephone communication is basically going to be for like sending over like grocery orders. Now, you and I are both Gen X, right? Like, when we were kids, we were on the phone for like seven hours a night.

• 52:16Ed Mylett?

  100%.

• 52:16Charles Duhigg?

  I can have, I have a friendship, I have friendships where I only talk to the person on the phone.

• 52:21Ed Mylett?

  So do I. And I, I still remember the phone numbers of my friends when I was a kid. I don't know anybody's phone number now, but I know Andy Querin's phone number.

• 52:28Charles Duhigg?

  Yes, right? Right, it's like in there.

• 52:30Ed Mylett?

  Right, it's true.

• 52:31Charles Duhigg?

  And so what's interesting is if, if we were to watch ourselves talking on the phone, what we would find is that we behave a little bit differently on the phone. When you're on the phone, people tend to over enunciate because they know that they can't see us, right? We tend to explain ourselves a little bit more, and when we make a joke, we laugh faster to let the other person know it's a joke. We know that they don't have the visual signal, and so we're trying to compensate by giving them more audio. So, now the thing is, we've been talking on the phones for over a hundred years. We've been communicating face to face for millennia. The first email was sent in 1982, right? Most people didn't get an email account until the late 90s. We basically have 20 years of learning how to communicate digitally.

• 53:13Ed Mylett?

  Good point.

• 53:15Charles Duhigg?

  We have not, though, the rules about how that channel is different have not become intuitive yet. So the solution is, we have to think about it more when we're texting or emailing. And we have to say to ourselves, okay, and these are the tips. When I am online and I'm communicating that way, politeness matters a lot more than when I'm face to face. And study after study has shown this, that if you say please and thank you in an email, there's like 70% higher response rate.

• 53:42Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 53:43Charles Duhigg?

  Because, because I need to signal it, right? If I'm, now, if I'm texting you, I can be short. But if I send you an email and I treat it like a text, unless we're good friends.

• 53:56Ed Mylett?

  That's my problem.

• 53:56Charles Duhigg?

  Like, it's gonna, it's gonna rub you the wrong way, right? So part of it is just saying, what are the rules for this particular channel? Because our instinct is to say, the rules for one channel is the rules for every channel.

• 54:08Ed Mylett?

  You're right.

• 54:09Charles Duhigg?

  So we treat email and text and Slack and everything exactly the same way. But the truth is, if you just take a second and you say like, oh, I don't have to say please necessarily in this text, because it could be short. But every email, I should like bend over backwards, be a little bit more polite. It works wonders.

• 54:24Ed Mylett?

  Brother, I'm such a bad emailer. I'm so lazy with emails, I sometimes don't even put my name at the end of it. You know what I mean? Never mind a thank you. I think I'm the worst emailer that's ever lived. And I've had a lot of people, even that I've worked with, you know, even like in the podcast space, with like, man, when I met you, you're so nice and kind, but I read your emails, you're scary. Really? I didn't mean it that way. I was just trying to get to the point so we could go do something else. I thought email was the faster way, but you're 100% right. The rules of engagement, so to speak, are something that I've been oblivious to. That right there was huge for me.

• 54:53Charles Duhigg?

  And sometimes you can establish new rules, right? Like if you say to your employees, like, "Look, I just want you to know, I'm gonna send you brusque emails, cuz like I'm moving a million miles an hour, you should not read anything into that."

• 55:05Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 55:06Charles Duhigg?

  Now we know the rule.

• 55:07Ed Mylett?

  Well, now I've pre-framed it, but I don't do that.

• 55:09Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 55:09Ed Mylett?

  And I treat everybody like they should know better. And they don't. And by the way, the worst thing I'll do is I'll get a nice, long, you know, six paragraph email and I reply with like seven words.

• 55:18Charles Duhigg?

  Right.

• 55:18Ed Mylett?

  And I wonder why they feel dismissed.

• 55:20Charles Duhigg?

  Sounds great.

• 55:20Ed Mylett?

  In a conversation, that's my daughter. Yep.

• 55:22Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 55:22Ed Mylett?

  Uh huh. Right? That's my, that's the extent of my emails to people. So you're 1000% right.

• 55:27Charles Duhigg?

  My son texts me "K." He doesn't even put "okay." He just puts "K." I'm like, "How much lazier can you get?"

• 55:33Ed Mylett?

  I relate to that.

• 55:34Charles Duhigg?

  But that, that setting the ground rules, setting, like figuring out the rules together, we can do that in a conversation too. So if we're talking about, say, race, right? Which is a tough, a tough topic. If I start that conversation by saying, "I'd like to talk to you about this, and I just wanna acknowledge, it's gonna, it will likely be awkward." I will probably make mistakes and say things that I don't really, not saying it the right way, you're probably gonna make mistakes. Like, I think just as a, as a ground rule, like, let's just say it's okay to say things and forgive each other for not getting it right. So now we've established that, now all of a sudden that conversation about race feels so much easier.

• 56:11Ed Mylett?

  Right. We're both open, we're both vulnerable, we've both given ourselves some space to make a mistake and share our real thoughts. And the other thing is, if you don't create that space, then you're really not saying what you really think either, and it's not an authentic exchange.

• 56:23Charles Duhigg?

  That's exactly.

• 56:24Ed Mylett?

  I agree. When you ask for permission. Um, I'm gonna ask you two more things.

• 56:27Charles Duhigg?

  Sure.

• 56:28Ed Mylett?

  Okay. You said earlier something about repeating back to someone, "Hey, what I think I heard you say was, help me understand this."

• 56:33Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 56:34Ed Mylett?

  I love that and totally agree.

• 56:36Charles Duhigg?

  So, sorry, go ahead.

• 56:37Ed Mylett?

  No, go ahead. Well, I want you to reply with that, and then also, what about, the conversation's been over to me. What I think, what I feel the most listened to? You and I had lunch together, okay? And you did that. But 7:30 that night, I get a message from you. You're gone, I'm gone, and you say, "I just want to tell you something. I enjoyed our conversation so much, and the way that you spoke about your wife, or what you shared about blah, blah, blah. I just want to tell you, it was so meaningful for me." To me, that's like what you suggested on steroids, that actually, after the conversation has ended, I come back later and say, "Not only have I listened to what you said, but I've been thinking about what you said, and it made a difference to me." I just want to share that I do that, and I think that's a way of me saying, "I really value and appreciate what we discussed."

• 57:22Charles Duhigg?

  And it feels so good. I've gotten an email like that from you, and like, it felt really good to get it. And it was a great conversation.

• 57:29Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 57:29Charles Duhigg?

  But like, to know that it was meaningful to you, and it's much like laughing, it's you saying like, "I want to connect."

• 57:34Ed Mylett?

  You wanted to say something, and I think I jumped in front of it.

• 57:36Charles Duhigg?

  Oh, I was just going to talk about this looping for understanding, these three. So, so looping for understanding, there's three steps to it. You, you ask a question, hopefully a deep question, repeat back in your own words what you heard someone say. And then step number three, ask if you got it right.

• 57:52Ed Mylett?

  Ask if you got it right.

• 57:53Charles Duhigg?

  Because, and it's that third step that we often forget to do, and is the most powerful.

• 57:58Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 57:58Charles Duhigg?

  Because what I'm saying when I ask you if I got it right, and I, I do this all the time, I'm like, like, "Let me tell you what I hear you saying, and like, like, tell me if I'm getting this wrong." Is that we are saying to them, not only do I want to understand you, I acknowledge that I might have missed something, and you, you might have phrased it in a way that doesn't actually capture what you want. And so like, when someone says that to me, when they're like, "Tell me if I'm getting this right," and they repeat back what I just said, I actually find it valuable as the speaker, because I'm like, "No, no, no, you, like, I did a bad job of explaining, like, the, the thing that, like, I really care about, because you didn't pick up on it, and you were listening." I need to get better at that, and that feels good.

• 58:39Ed Mylett?

  That's outstanding. All right, last question. First off, let me say this. This is awesome.

• 58:44Charles Duhigg?

  Oh, thank you.

• 58:45Ed Mylett?

  And I, uh, both times we've had to interact together like this, it flies by for me, and frankly, that's because you're a super communicator.

• 58:55Charles Duhigg?

  As are you, as are you.

• 58:56Ed Mylett?

  Well, thank you. And the quality of your work, listen, guys, there's a lot of books. This man doesn't write a ton of them because they're so good when he writes them. There's so much in here, even in today's podcast, like, I hope you understand the value of getting good at these, what I would call almost nuances that make all the difference in the world. So this is a broad question, just framing it differently, I want to finish with it.

• 59:17Charles Duhigg?

  And thank you for that, by the way.

• 59:18Ed Mylett?

  It's true, it's true. And by the way, before I say it, super communicators, how to unlock the secret language of connection, depending on when you're listening to this, you'll preorder it or get it after it's out, February 20th, 2024. Here's the easy, easy one. I know when I've met, this is for you, you know when you've met a super communicator, when?

• 59:36Charles Duhigg?

  When you walk away from that conversation and you think like, oh man, I like that guy, or I like that woman. This is the funny thing about a super communicator, is that they do not stand out necessarily as like the most care, they're not Bill, Bill Clinton was a super communicator, but most super communicators don't look like Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama, or Donald Trump, or like all these people. When you walk away from a conversation and you feel better, exactly what you said at the beginning of this conversation, that like, I judge the conversation based on how I feel afterwards?

• 1:00:06Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 1:00:07Charles Duhigg?

  And, and particularly if they do it so gracefully, and again, anyone can learn to do this, it's just a matter of practicing it to get graceful at it. It's like, it's like pitch, like throwing a pitch, right? Like, first couple of times it looks pretty janky, and then like, you get graceful at it. You just practice it. When they do that, you just feel like this person took care of you.

• 1:00:29Ed Mylett?

  Very good. Very true. Very true. It's what you feel. I'm gonna tell you something else, guys, if you get good at this, your self-confidence level will be dramatically higher. This is one of the hacks, one of the roundabout hacks to developing tremendous self-confidence, is the knowing that you're a super communicator.

• 1:00:47Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:47Ed Mylett?

  And, and all the things we talked about, the listeners and the questions, you just absolutely operate your life with a higher degree of confidence, because this is one of those four required skills that you need in life, so.

• 1:00:58Charles Duhigg?

  And over 50% of people say that they feel anxious about talking to other people, right? I feel anxious talking to a stranger, I feel anxious going to parties, I feel anxious moving to a new place, and just saying like, oh no, no, I got this. There's actually a study that was done by this Alison Wood Brooks at Harvard, where she asked people to write down three topics to talk about, and then stick the card in their back pocket. Took like seven seconds, right? Then she had people have conversations with strangers. What she found is that those topics in people's back pocket almost never came up. Like they never, it was like, what do you think of last night's game? What TV shows do you like, right?

• 1:01:33Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:33Charles Duhigg?

  The topics never came up, but the fact that people knew that they were in their back pocket brought down their anxiety enormously. And so much of, so much of miscommunication is because we're anxious about it, right?

• 1:01:46Ed Mylett?

  You're right, brother. Here's how you write. You just described my podcast. I write down 18 to 20 questions that are in front of me right now. I've looked down at this sheet. I think once, I think I looked twice, once I didn't read it, and the second time I looked. Because it just gives me confidence that I'm prepared. But then it allows me to fully engage, I almost have a safety net. Fully engage and just have an authentic exchange that goes back and forth. And I don't ever rely on any of the questions that are written down. So you're completely right.

• 1:02:08Charles Duhigg?

  That's what these skills are, right? It's a safety net. Like, if there's a pause in the conversation and it's awkward, I know what to do. Ask a deep question. Just ask like, what do you make of that?

• 1:02:16Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:17Charles Duhigg?

  Like, why'd you decide to do that?

• 1:02:18Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:18Charles Duhigg?

  Like, once I have that in my back pocket, I'm like, oh, I can make it through this discussion. No problem.

• 1:02:22Ed Mylett?

  Thousand percent. I wish we didn't just make it through this. It was so good, I wish it was continuing.

• 1:02:27Charles Duhigg?

  Me too.

• 1:02:28Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I really enjoy you. Um, I'm glad we're building a friendship and, uh, any book you write, you're coming back on.

• 1:02:33Charles Duhigg?

  Oh, thank you. I really appreciate it. And, and thank you to your listeners. Like, I, I have benefited so much from listening from your show. Like, you bring these people on with these ideas that are so powerful and it just, they make them easier to consume.

• 1:02:45Ed Mylett?

  You're one of them, brother. Super communicators, go get it, you guys. Hey, listen, share this show. We're the fastest growing show on the planet for a reason, and it only grows when you share it. And I love doing it. It's an honor to be with you every single week, and I'd like to just be with more of you. So please share the show. God bless you. Max out your life.