How To Handle High Conflict Conversations Without Losing Control | Ed Mylett

The Real Test of Your Character Is Not in Calm Moments, It Is in Conflict. In this mashup episode, I bring together three of the most powerful voices on communication and human behavior I have ever had on the show: Jefferson Fisher, Chuck Wisner, and Charles Duhigg. What we unpack in this conversation can literally change your marriage, your leadership, your parenting, and your business. Because the truth is this: most people do not lose opportunities because they lack talent. They lose them because they lose control in crucial conversations. Jefferson breaks down why trying to win an argument often means losing something far more valuable. He shares practical language you can use in heated moments to de-escalate tension and maintain your authority without overpowering someone else. Chuck goes deeper into the emotional layers of conflict and explains how most disagreements are not about the surface issue at all. They are about identity, safety, and being heard. When you understand that, you stop reacting and start leading. Charles Duhigg takes us into the science of conversations. He explains how high conflict exchanges are often driven by unseen scripts running in the background of our minds. When you learn to identify those patterns, you gain leverage. You stop being hijacked by emotion and start asking better questions. And when you ask better questions, you get better outcomes. What I love about this mashup is that it is not theory. It is tactical. You are going to hear exact phrases, exact strategies, and exact mindset shifts that allow you to stay calm when someone else is not. If you want to become more influential, more respected, and more effective in every area of your life, you must master the ability to handle high conflict conversations without losing yourself in the process. This is about control. Not controlling other people. Controlling you. Key Takeaways: Why trying to win an argument usually costs you influence The power of saying less and listening more in heated moments How to respond without escalating tension The hidden emotional drivers underneath most conflicts Practical phrases that instantly lower defensiveness How to maintain authority without overpowering someone Why calm energy is the ultimate competitive advantage in communication If you can stay composed when others lose control, you separate yourself instantly. The world is full of loud voices. The leaders are the ones who remain steady. Also don’t miss out on MAXOUT2026: Once a year, I open my home for an intimate one-day experience unlike anything else I do. This year, I’m making it even smaller, just 15 to 18 people. Together, we’ll dive deep into the exact strategies I use to plan, visualize, and design the best year of my life and yours. If you’re ready to Max Out your future, join me at ⁠Maxout2026.com⁠ for a life-changing day you’ll never forget. ⁠👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠INSTAGRAM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ➡️⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FACEBOOK⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LINKEDIN⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠WEBSITE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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?

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• 0:42Ed Mylett?

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• 1:03Speaker 01

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• 1:40Ed Mylett?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow The Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Here's our first guest. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. I try to make it a practice not to have a lot of attorneys on the show. It's just sort of a rule of thumb. I'm just kidding to all my attorney listeners. But in this case, this man's work is so good. And I mean this. I sought him out. I like when I see a relatively new Face on the scene that is doing work that is not like everybody else's. That it's his own and then I believe his work can dramatically impact your life from a productivity standpoint, a peace of mind standpoint, an influence standpoint.

• 2:25Ed Mylett?

  And he's got a book out right now called The Next Conversation, Argue Less, Talk More. And I consider him, and I don't say this often, to be a communication expert. And you will see that reveal itself throughout the next hour. You are going to learn so much and take so many notes today. From Jefferson Fisher. Jefferson, welcome to the show finally, brother.

• 2:45Jefferson Fisher?

  And thank you so much for having me. I'm truly honored to be here. It's a, it's a pinch me moment. It's great to meet you.

• 2:51Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, likewise. I, I have to tell you, my two kids, my son's a professional golfer, my daughter's a junior in college. And I sort of had three things I wanted them to leave my house with when they were little. I wanted them to leave with their faith because in there's sort of their morals and ethics and values. I wanted them to leave with a bunch of self-confidence. Which I think under that, if you get confidence, you'll work hard. But the third thing that surprises most people is I wanted them to leave me with world-class ability to communicate. I believe it's a separator in our world today. And what you teach and the way you teach it is as good as I've ever seen it before, brother. And so I kind of want to get into this. The book's awesome, by the way. I read it in about a day and a half. It's awesome. Uh, my note version of it, by the way.

• 3:36Ed Mylett?

  But I want, let's just start out kind of like with argument stuff. Okay. You're, you're an attorney by trade. First off, are you still practicing? That's A. And then inside that answer, kind of one of the big rules of the book is never win an argument. But I'm like, isn't that sort of the job of an attorney? So help me navigate those two things at once.

• 3:56Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah. Well, one is I am still practicing. I am slowly learning how to transition out of that. I have a wonderful team. I'm able to delegate a lot of my cases. But right now I'm almost more of a, a leverage chip in settlements. It's kind of this weird thing where. Jurors know me and so judges and court staff know my content. And so being involved is also advantageous in certain ways, but slowly learning to develop and be in this space like we were talking about. So it's, it's getting there. Second of all, what do attorneys do? You're supposed to win every argument. You're an attorney. Oh, you must win a lot of arguments. It's an absolute lie and I'll tell you why. You may get to choose your client. Do I sign this person up? Do I not sign this person up?

• 4:41Jefferson Fisher?

  But you don't get to choose your facts. You don't get to choose the law. You don't get to choose the evidence. And so what you have to do is it's really more about giving the facts a voice. You're being an advocate for your client's story, for their position, for their perspective of how something happened. And so is the other side doing the same thing. I don't get to choose the facts, the evidence. Instead, what I have to do is advocate and then it is up to the judge to apply that law to the evidence for the jury to determine. So to say we win arguments, it's just not true. A lot of the times the law is what does it for us. You just follow what the law says. You might be on the good side of it and the losing side of it, so to speak, but it's not a win-loss thing.

• 5:22Ed Mylett?

  Hmm. What about with another human being? Why would you write a book about communication and argue less, talk more, but then really rule one is don't win? Is that more of a mindset thing? Is that what you mean when I approach a conversation with somebody? Or is that you literally mean that? Don't try to win an argument.

• 5:40Jefferson Fisher?

  I literally mean that. If you go into it always just wanting to win the argument, you will lose something else that is far more valuable every time. When I'm arguing in front of a judge and the other side's arguing, again, there's case law, there's statute, there's a law that is applying to this. And they just, I might have more precedent than the other person and they can't compete against that. It doesn't mean that their argument wasn't any better, but you get into, especially in the courtroom, this feeling of, well, I have to win a lot of trials. Listen, if you haven't lost trials, you haven't tried enough trials. That's just the way it goes. If you want to spot somebody who's inexperienced, they haven't lost enough. But the mindset to it is much more.

• 6:23Jefferson Fisher?

  Impactful in every listener's world right now. That if you find that every book you read, every blog that you see is something that how to win every argument. It's is lying to you because what you're going to do when you have that mentality is you're going to lose the relationship. You're going to lose their respect. They're going to close themselves off from you. You're going to be less approachable. You're going to lose quality of your reputation if all you seek to do is win every argument.

• 6:51Ed Mylett?

  What if you're with someone who does try to do that? So let's start out with his content. You guys is so specific is what I like about it. It's not just general principles. There's actually real phraseology, real words. Where perhaps you are the secondary person is what I would call it. So you could be husband and wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, friend, boss, and personally supervise. But one has sort of asserted the superior position in a conversation, if that makes sense. Almost like they're always teaching you a lesson or they're in the control position. Is there a way to sort of wrestles the wrong word? But reestablish pecking order or at least equality in a commerce. You know what I mean when I say that?

• 7:35Ed Mylett?

  That you have the people that in your life that talk to you as if they're the expert on everything. You're not. They're in charge. You're not. They're picking the restaurant. You're not. Is there a way when someone has that dynamic with you to change that dynamic? I started with one of the hard questions first because I think more people find themselves in visible pecking order conversations almost than maybe they realize.

• 7:56Jefferson Fisher?

  Let's split the dynamic too. Let's say it's if it's one on one, much harder. Because this person has constructed their whole identity, most likely to this facade. If it is, let's say you're in a meeting and that person's trying to establish the pecking order. The other people will change the dynamic for you. You don't have to push back. You just can't be pushed over. Let's say one on one with this conversation with somebody who feels like they're more dominant. Biggest thing you're going to do is just not be. Pushed over, meaning you're not going to continue to chase everything that they say. You're not going to push back because they're looking for that threat. We call it water off a duck's back, where anything that somebody says, you can just say, okay, noted, I got it.

• 8:40Jefferson Fisher?

  No, if I have any questions, I'll ask. This ability to kind of be in the, in the pocket in your communication. The temptation is we want to compete with them. Oh, you just went skydiving? Oh, that's great. I just went twice. Oh, you know, Ed, it's great. Yeah, you need to. And they start to compete with one another of how many names they can drop, uh, how many experiences they can share. But all that does is show more and tells more about their insecurity than it does really about any kind of true substance. Let's say, let's just use the word alphas or the people that are very confident in the communication, the conversation typically say much less. You've been in those meetings where the person who always has their two cents, the person who always has something to say, is the person most likely the least removed

• 9:25Jefferson Fisher?

  from the actual true conversation of what's happening. They have to tell you so much so that you can know how smart they are. The real top dog is the person that's the most quiet. And when that person speaks, everybody's quiet and everybody listens. So insecurities are very loud. Confidence is very quiet.

• 9:43Ed Mylett?

  You say that about leaders too. It struck me where you said, actually, great leaders learn to say more with literally fewer words than the non-leader. You believe that's one of the traits of a great communicator of a leader, correct?

• 9:57Jefferson Fisher?

  Correct. Good leaders respond in conversation. Great leaders leave room for conversation. So when there is this mentality that the leader has to say, I'm captain of this ship and everybody should know it. Oh, who do you think you're talking to? And they need to correct and, and drive traffic and go, go, go. The best leaders are ones that they don't have to prove everything. Insecure people feel like they have to prove, they have to say a whole lot just so you believe that they're smart. Confident people know that. Great leaders already know that. They're the ones that have this calm energy. In my view, the, the best leaders have a calm energy about them.

• 10:40Jefferson Fisher?

  When they're on the floor of whatever is happening, instead of this erratic, you know, what's going on? Okay, we need to do this. And, and they start shouting and getting mad and yelling at people versus the person who comes on the floor and goes, okay. What do we need to do next? What's happening next? Instead of the blame, it's where are we moving forward? So driving the conversation in a way that sets authority? People are looking for anchors in conversation. Same thing in their everyday business. Employees, supervisors, whoever it is, they're looking for the anchors in their organization and same in everyday conversations. So you have to find the way to be confident enough to be the anchor.

• 11:19Ed Mylett?

  Brother, so good. You by the way, you exhibit that, by the way, from the minute we flipped the camera on, even before we went live. There's a deliberate calmness to the way in which you listen. You actually listen calmly. It's one of the things I noticed about you instantaneously when the camera went on. Mostly you don't know this because I'm an entrepreneur, but my major in college was actually broadcasting. And so it's amazing that God had this way 30 years later to create podcasts. And then I was able to take advantage of that background. But one of the things you have to learn in broadcasting, when you write your copy is to write things with fewer words because you have to deliver segments in these little bites of time. And that taught me to communicate with fewer words,

• 12:01Ed Mylett?

  saying the same thing other people take more words to do. And I do believe that that's an effective use. If you watch communicators, there are fewer words they use. It's almost like someone watching on broadcasting. I want to make sure everybody gets the book too, because we're going into a lot of stuff. It's the next conversation, argue less, talk more. What if you're with somebody who? I used it earlier, but I want to go a little bit deeper. They pick on you. They kind of gnaw at you a little bit. You know, everything is almost passive aggressive in the way they say things. And you find yourself almost being put down subtly when you communicate with this person. And I find this

• 12:43Ed Mylett?

  an awful lot lately with couples that are friends of mine, married couples. There's this subtle dynamic where they both are a little bit.

• 12:53Ed Mylett?

  Passive aggressive with one another and the way they communicate. And I, I feel empathy for the one that I think is the one receiving most of the aggression. Is there something you can do when you feel like someone's communicating with you that way? Is there a phraseology or a, or a strategy for that?

• 13:08Jefferson Fisher?

  Let's separate it into two different categories. So one, let's say is kind of this more just passive aggressive bucket. The other is, let's ramp it up to somebody being a little bit more overtly disrespectful, rude. So in this first bucket, this passive aggressive, these are people that most likely just have grown up that way. This is what they saw mirrored conversation and arguments throughout their life. And they don't know how to express that kind of thing. So when they slide in that negative comment, that you know, there's something to that. A simple question of like, should I read into that? Or is there more to that? Or I, and this goes for Chris Foss, a dear friend, and I love his, his question is, "Sounds like you have a reason for saying that." I love that phrase.

• 13:53Jefferson Fisher?

  I, I also love, "Sounds like there's more to that." So anytime you can just quickly ask, "Sounds like there's more to that." Or ask them, "Should I read into that?" That tends to draw out the passive aggressiveness because they're not expecting you to kind of call them to the floor. On the flip side, if somebody is saying more aggressive things towards you, my recommendation is begin your question with, "Did you mean? Did you mean for that to sound rude? Did you say that to embarrass me? Did you say that to hurt my feelings? Did you say that to offend me?" And when you say, "Did you mean?" It is twofold. One is giving them the grace of perhaps they said it in a way they did not mean,

• 14:37Jefferson Fisher?

  and it's going to allow them to fix it. Like, uh, at least with me and my wife, if we're texting and something seems like it's off, instead of it saying, you know, "Why are you being so short? What's wrong?"

• 14:50Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:51Jefferson Fisher?

  The question, ask the question, "Did you mean for that to sound short?" Instantly, almost every time, my, you know, it is like the, oh, no, no, no, no, sorry. I'm picking up the kids or I, you know, I was checking out the grocery store or getting gas. You know, you, you get that, that K or okay. And you're like, oh, okay. I guess, I guess they hate me right now. All right. Like, I guess they're in a mood. And then you naturally get in a mood and then you respond defensively, which causes them to respond defensively. And now you're convinced, you've convinced yourself you're under attack. So it's this, um, this feedback loop that's not helpful to you. So when you begin with, did you mean, it's a great way to, it sets somebody to one, give them that grace of fixing it. But two, it's calling attention to what they were wanting to do. Did you say that to, and to embarrass me?

• 15:36Jefferson Fisher?

  Did you say that to offend me? It is, uh, or did you mean for that to sound rude? Like that is a very quick way to address it out in the open. And if they're going to double down on it or not.

• 15:49Ed Mylett?

  Will you do that in reverse? By the way, this is so good. Will you do that in reverse if you feel that what you've said has been misinterpreted? In other words, if you feel like you're, I do this better in business than I do personal life. To be honest with you, in personal life, I think I just let everything out the window that I know that are tools, which is so stupid. When it comes to business, I'm pretty good at this with friends and family. I devolve into the most emotionally immature person sometimes. But so let's say we have gone back and forth and maybe I've said something the other way that they're hurt by. Will you slow a conversation down, for example, and say something like, what did you hear me say? How will you handle that if the person is now coming back at you for something they believe you said that's passive aggressive or demeaning or rude?

• 16:34Jefferson Fisher?

  Awesome question. This happens all the time, especially in relationships, but I'd say even work too. When somebody tells you something, you've been in that situation where somebody is going, that's not what you said. You said this. And they kind of give a voice that doesn't even sound like your voice and gives a intonation and you're like, I didn't even say it like that. And all of a sudden now you're going, that's not what I said. I didn't say it like that. You're just pushing what you thought you conveyed. And nine times out of 10, it is inaccurate. Because what is said is not always what's received. So instead of this, that's not what I said. You are going to ask the question, what did you hear? What did you hear? Because now it's not about what I am putting out.

• 17:18Jefferson Fisher?

  I am now getting curious of what you heard because that's what matters. Anytime you have that kind of confrontation or that miscommunication, instead of going, no, no, no, that's not what, that's not what I said. And kind of dismissing their whole experience or their perspective. By the way, it's very hard to the judge. It's like making your own movie, but not having an audience and going, no, no, that's not how the movie goes. It's like nobody else has seen it. Only you're the one who thinks it's that way. So when you ask the question, what did you hear? And they explain it, that's when you can say, that was not my intent. Or I apologize for that impression. Or I would recommend is begin your sentence with, I can see. Like, I can see how you feel that way. I can see how that come off.

• 18:00Jefferson Fisher?

  You know, whenever you say, um, you know, I can, I can see why you'd feel that way. I can see why that would upset you.

• 18:07Ed Mylett?

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• 18:50Ed Mylett?

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• 19:34Ed Mylett?

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• 20:10Jefferson Fisher?

  That I can see just says, hey, I took a second to walk over to where you're standing. And I turned to look the same way that you're looking. And I can confirm, yeah, what you see is reasonable. What you see is justified. You know what? That makes sense. I can see that. That right there just goes boo. It naturally takes down the aggression. This I have to win. You have to see it what I see. Anytime you can do that and use words of perspective, like view, perspective, see. That is going to help somebody go, oh, I feel heard. Oh, I feel understood. And by that, they're going to be more receptive to the progress.

• 20:49Ed Mylett?

  This is so good. You guys, just so you know, when you're listening to this, the reason I wanted Jefferson on and the reason I think there should be more work in this topic is there's like only two or three people in the world that even discuss this stuff. And it, it may be in the top three most important things in life. To be able to communicate your point and to be able to overcome adversity in a conversation and a difficulty and maintain or extend relationships. This is not stuff that's taught anywhere, yet it should be. And what do you do? Gosh, I I I'm thinking of a situation I have with a friend who and I I don't remember this being in the book, so this will be a tough one. They go they go silent on you.

• 21:31Ed Mylett?

  In other words, the conversation is going a particular way. And I don't know, maybe it's me, I do start to win. And maybe they can feel it, you know, like, and they just get quiet. And I'm like, are you still there? Hello? Is there something you would say to reengage somebody who's giving you the silent treatment or gone cold on you? Or every time a conversation gets to a certain point, they just disengage completely? Or is your suggestion, don't let it get to that point by using some of these tactics and strategies? But is there a way when they disengage and go quiet that you can bring them back in?

• 22:07Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, where here's where you go wrong is when somebody's giving you that silent treatment, there's this temptation that we start to say ugly things, like in romantic relationships, you'll you'll start to kind of say hurtful things in hopes that they buy it back because all you're wanting is just to feel like you're not alone. So you're wanting that engagement. That happens sometimes in toxic relationships. Now, there are techniques that we can use to not get to that point, but let's say you're already there. Let's say you're already there there. They're distanced from you. There's nothing you're going to be able to say, nothing you can do physically to just grab that person and say, come back to the conversation. Highlights the importance of not letting it get to that point.

• 22:47Jefferson Fisher?

  But what I would recommend is if somebody is giving that distance, you give them that distance. So maybe it's a day, maybe it's two days. Because what it's highlighting for you is that you're wanting the conversation just to hear yourself. You have not been in the conversation to hear the other person. And when they are taking the time, sometimes that is needed. Sometimes there's wisdom in that of taking the time to think and disengage and give it a break. And if you need to, then what I would say is you message that person, you leave a voicemail for that person if they don't respond to your call and say, hey, I feel like we're miles

• 23:29Jefferson Fisher?

  Away. It's important to use distances. I like using distances in conversation. So you feel a mile away from me right now, or I feel like we're fifty yards apart. Whenever you use distances, it's a great way of saying, hey, of saying you can feel that we're off. Instead of saying, hey, what's wrong with you? Or, hey, you seem off, or you, um, what, what's going on? What's wrong? When you can use distances of, um, I feel like you're far away from me right now. I, at least I do that even in, um, my, my life is a great way of not getting them offensive. But you call them, say, hey, I feel like we're far away. I'd really like to, to get closer.

• 24:11Jefferson Fisher?

  I want to find a way that we can talk again, or, hey, just let me know I'm here. Want to talk to you. Hope to see you. Hope to hear from you soon. Any way that you just say, I am not trying to pressure this at all, because you need to give them that space to continue to think about it. Or you can also say, hey, I think it was smart of you to give this conversation some space. Um, you're right. I needed that. And we'll love to touch bases with you soon. So you're giving them credit for their choice. So when you're saying, you know, almost like a, hey, good job. Thank you for trying to get us back on track. They will take that and go, okay, yeah, that was my intentional choice to help us. Rather than you saying, hey, you know what? You're not talking to me. If you don't want to talk to me, that's fine. That kind of stuff is going to further pull them apart.

• 24:56Ed Mylett?

  So good, Jefferson. When I'm in a conversation that I feel like I'm, um, it's getting away from me. Let's say that. That could be a sales negotiation. It could be a conversation with a friend. You name it. Um, I feel like in my case, most of the time, it's speeding up faster than I want it to. You talk about this in rule one, number six is control the pace. And as I listen to you. I mean, you're very cognizant even of your pace and the way that you communicate even on the show today and even in your content you do. You're actually a little faster when you do the content from your car than you are right now on the show. You're even a pace slower today than you are in your car. So I watched that like tonality and pacing.

• 25:42Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, let's talk about that in a conversation because with my, when emotions run high oftentimes for me, I feel like the conversation is speeding up where my, my intellect is now not quite as sharp as my emotions are running, if that makes any sense. So what are strategies to control the pace and what does that even mean?

• 26:02Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, I love that you picked up on that. The, anytime you are getting that fight or flight, and I know all of your listeners highly educated, they know fight or flight. Whenever you're getting emotionally flooded like that, it is, that's why you're having trouble finding your thoughts and connecting things. And that's why the quicker you get, maybe you've felt it where you're, you're either nervous, same thing when you're really mad, you might stammer and you might go like, no, no, no, that's, that's not in your having trouble getting words out. It's because you're just flooded. Your emotions are there. Your logical and analytical side is not. And so what I teach every one of my clients before they go cross examination and I'm just offering them up to the

• 26:44Jefferson Fisher?

  wolves is a constant reminder of you control the pace, not them. That means no matter how fast somebody is peppering you with questions, the conversation cannot happen any faster than you respond. So whenever they ask you a question and you give a rapid fire answer back, or worse, you start to step over their question because you already see where it's going. Bad things happen. You say things you don't mean. You say things that are not fully thought out. That's why even in romantic relationships, all of a sudden you blurt something out and you go, oh, I, that's, oh man, that's not what I mean. And you, you already knew as soon as it came out of your mouth, you, you put your foot in your mouth and you messed up. It's because you weren't

• 27:26Jefferson Fisher?

  controlling the pace. That means you need to slow down your words and that you need to leave space between what they said and how you're going and when you're going to respond. There's a difference if you were to ask me, if, if you said, hey, Jefferson, how was your day? And I said, good. It was real good. I mean, it was, it was, it was really good. Thanks. Versus, hey, Jefferson, how's your day? And I said,

• 27:53Jefferson Fisher?

  It was good. It was a good day. Like you can just hear the difference in which one listened to the question, which one thought about the answer, which one makes the other person feel acknowledged or heard. Same thing with, that's why rule number one is say with control. If you go down and let's say you're, you're at work and all of a sudden you go, what's wrong? What happened? What, what, what's going on? And you, all you're sensing and telling the other person is you're grasping for control versus you come in, take a breath, and then you're saying, all right, what happened? Give it to me. Like people are looking like we said for those emotional anchors. So what I teach is let your breath be the first word that you say.

• 28:36Jefferson Fisher?

  That's how you set the pace of a conversation. So where your first word would be, put a breath in its place. And what's I gonna do is keep your analytical side engaged into where you do not allow yourself emotionally to get emotionally flooded. And the second benefit is neither does the other person, because now you are also injecting the time and forcing them to slow down.

• 29:01Ed Mylett?

  Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. All right. Welcome back to the show, everybody. You know, today was a very important episode for me in terms of scheduling this today, because I think it's such an important topic for a couple of reasons. Number one, one of my great concerns in our culture right now is the way we talk with one another, the way we have conversations. It just seems to me over the last 20, 30 years in our culture, we've lost the ability to have a conversation with somebody that we might not agree with in a productive way. And I'm sure you all agree with me as well. It's become very difficult in our times to dialogue with somebody

• 29:44Ed Mylett?

  that you might have a disagreement with or have a difficult conversation with. The art and science of learning to have a conversation is one of the most important skills you can have in life, even with my kids. One of the things I hope they leave our home with is the ability to communicate, the ability to have a conversation with somebody. And it is a skill and there are insights in how to do it better. And I just feel like it could change our world if we talk to one another better. And I think you'd agree with me too, whether it be your personal relationships, a political discussion, a religious discussion, as a leader in your company, having a conversation about creating ideas or a new direction, whatever it might be, learning to be a better conversationalist. And I have the perfect guest. His name is Chuck Wisner.

• 30:26Ed Mylett?

  Chuck's got a book out right now called The Art of Conscious Conversations, Transforming How We Talk, Listen, and Interact. And I'm really excited to get into this topic. So Chuck, welcome to the show.

• 30:37Chuck Wisner?

  Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

• 30:40Ed Mylett?

  It really is for me. You know, a lot of times of all these people on my show that have these huge followings or guests, you know, that, you know, have major notoriety. And I've always found that oftentimes it's the topics on my show that really move people. And more and more, people are concerned about the way we talk with one another. And so I want to get right into it. How do you talk to somebody if it's a difficult conversation? One of the things I saw that you said is you ask in your writing, do your patterns of judging others reflect behaviors you don't like or want to recognize or won't recognize about yourself? So when we're in a difficult conversation with somebody, you know, maybe we disagree with them. I want to go to the hard stuff first, like I'm a Republican and someone's a Democrat or I'm a Democrat and someone's a Republican, something like that, you know, these hard

• 31:25Ed Mylett?

  conversations. What are some of the keys in being better at doing it? So it's actually a productive experience.

• 31:31Chuck Wisner?

  There are definitely keys that we're going to talk about. And it's also important to know that when you're in a difficult conversation, both parties have to be willing to start with truth.

• 31:41Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 31:42Chuck Wisner?

  And if we can't have a foundation of truth, then you're going to have a very, the conversation will remain difficult. There's opinions and there's facts and there's emotions. And we get all of those mixed up, right? And they all get discombobled and jumbled up in our brain. But if we realize that my opinion is just my opinion and it's not the truth, then we can slowly, we can say, okay, what's driving my opinion?

• 32:09Chuck Wisner?

  And we sort of can open our hand and go, this is why I'm thinking how I'm thinking. This is what my standards are. There's four archetypal questions in the book. This is what I'm worried about. This is my concern. Here's what I'd like. We can start to just open our hands and say, okay, I have an opinion. Let's dance with that. Let's see what we can learn from each other. That's a very different conversation with fist than fist coming at each other.

• 32:35Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, you also say in the book that I've learned to do this myself.

• 32:40Ed Mylett?

  Is to fall in love with asking questions.

• 32:42Chuck Wisner?

  Right.

• 32:43Ed Mylett?

  When you're talking with somebody, whether you're a business leader and trying to create change in your company. Or whether you're in an argument with a spouse or disagreement. Or you got to talk about something different. Like I've used, I've used politics as an example because it's the big one, right? Right? Like they're good, we're bad. I'm right, you're wrong. And the idea of making statements all the time and telling stories as opposed to asking questions.

• 33:04Chuck Wisner?

  Right, right. And, and the, the idea of whether I'm doing it to myself and asking myself what's driving my opinion. What's driving my judgment and why am I so hooked on the thing, right? We can also, the questions help us. Like each question can help us open someone else's hand. Because we can ask, well, what, what do you, what do you really want? What do you, what do you desire here? What do you want out of this? What are your standards for measuring this, this opinion that you have? So our questions can literally help other people unlock and unfist, right?

• 33:40Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 33:40Chuck Wisner?

  And, and, but we aren't trained to ask questions. We're trained to have answers. That's one of the major dilemmas. And then we get into school and we're rewarded for raising our hand. And then we get into business and we're rewarded for being the smartest person in the room. Right?

• 33:54Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 33:54Chuck Wisner?

  And that's a counter to the, the opposite effect is asking questions.

• 33:59Ed Mylett?

  Well, this notion of raising your hand was my next thing. So you're reading my mind. And I think one of the art forms of being a great conversationalist is actually the art of listening. And that's why questions matter so much. And you're precisely right. In school, the teacher's still talking and asking the question. We're taught, we're rewarded. Raise your hand while they're still talking. And what that does to me, I want you to speak to this, to me, what that does to me is it means I'm really not listening to what you're saying. I'm already thinking about what I'm going to say back to you in my answer, or my judgment, or my assessment about you. Most people are already raising their hand, you know, metaphorically, when most other people are still talking. And they wonder, why am I not connecting with this person? Why can't we find common ground? Because while they're talking,

• 34:43Ed Mylett?

  you've got your hand raised already. I got the answer. I know the truth. I want to say something and rather finishing and letting them finish their statement. So you know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing like on repeat all the time? That sweater that kind of just goes with everything, or these perfect pair of pants? Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy. And that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high quality wardrobe staples with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for every day. It's what I'm wearing right now. They give you the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand without the price tag. Quince also makes premium pants, fitted tees and polos, and breathable activewear. Quality basics designed to work

• 35:25Ed Mylett?

  with your wardrobe and hold up to everyday wear. I love their cotton tees. I'm wearing one now. And I get a ton of compliments when I wear them on the podcast and when I speak. So find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers, or go to quince.com/ed for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Q U I N C E dot com slash ed. So you know, I've been trying to take my health and my morning routine to the next level. And I used to do a whole bunch of different stuff, tons of different supplements. And then I found all in one in a drink with IM8. IM8 is the way to simplify your supplement routine, finally, once and for all.

• 36:04Ed Mylett?

  16 supplements replaced 90 ingredients across nine major organ systems in one drink. You can have all these supplements for $2.61 a day. I've changed my mornings. The whole IM8 routine has changed my mornings. I feel great and I bring energy to the entire day. Go to IM8health.com/Ed10 right now, or click the link in the description and use code ED10 for a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets plus 10% off your order. That's code ED10 at IM8health.com/Ed10. Code ED10 at IM8health.com/Ed10. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.

• 36:46Ed Mylett?

  This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

• 36:50Chuck Wisner?

  Yeah, so our, our brain is spinning our answer. Uh, and so there's no space actually to absorb what's coming at us from the other person. Right? And, and part of that, that actually the main reason that is we are, we get addicted to our position. Our ego and our identity gets addicted to, I believe this. And if I believe this is true, then that is, that defines who I am. And that, that is often why we enter with this, or why we enter, uh, you know, defensively, you know, and, and can't just say, okay, I do have an opinion. I'm going to set that aside and I'm going to see if I can explore really what, what's driving this other person's thinking.

• 37:32Ed Mylett?

  That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. 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.

• 38:14Ed Mylett?

  And also now, after reading his work, he's an expert on communication. So Charles Dewey, welcome back to the show.

• 38:19Charles Duhigg?

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

• 38:22Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I love you, brother. 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. 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.

• 38:49Charles 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?

• 39:31Charles Duhigg?

  Like, when I talk to you and you talk 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.

• 39:44Ed 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.

• 40:26Charles 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.

• 40:48Ed Mylett?

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

• 40:54Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 40:55Ed 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?

• 41:13Charles 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?

• 41:29Ed Mylett?

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

• 41:34Charles 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.

• 42:06Ed Mylett?

  You're right.

• 42:06Charles 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.

• 42:15Ed Mylett?

  That's right.

• 42:16Charles Duhigg?

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

• 42:19Ed 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?

• 42:27Charles 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.

• 43:05Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 43:05Charles 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.

• 43:46Ed Mylett?

  Very good. That is really good.

• 43:48Charles 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.

• 43:59Ed Mylett?

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

• 44:02Charles Duhigg?

  Right?

• 44:03Ed 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.

• 44:08Charles Duhigg?

  Yes.

• 44:09Ed 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?"

• 44:21Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah, that's exactly right.

• 44:22Ed Mylett?

  Nudging them to finish, rather than letting them finish.

• 44:25Charles 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.

• 44:31Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 44:32Charles 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?" You're gonna tell me something about who you are, I'm gonna repeat back what you've told me about like,

• 45:16Charles Duhigg?

  "I care about lizard people because I really think the elites of this world 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?

• 45:36Ed 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've had, I was in one recently where this guy was way right, like, way, way right. And 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

• 46:20Ed 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.

• 46:36Charles Duhigg?

  Absolutely.

• 46:37Ed Mylett?

  So you're right.

• 46:37Charles Duhigg?

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

• 46:39Ed Mylett?

  Sure.

• 46:40Charles 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?

• 46:52Ed 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.

• 46:58Charles Duhigg?

  Oh, interesting.

• 46:58Ed Mylett?

  So I actually ask them to give me one of their crazy ride stories. I'm actually fascinated by that. So it kind of opens them up and they get loose. I didn't do it tactically, but I found that like, wow, you're kidding me, that dude, 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.

• 47:26Charles 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.

• 47:45Ed Mylett?

  Very good.

• 47:45Charles 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 going to 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 going to ask something that's going to get him to reveal to you who he really is.

• 48:03Ed 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.

• 48:12Charles Duhigg?

  I love that.

• 48:13Ed 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.

• 48:53Charles Duhigg?

  Right.

• 48:54Ed Mylett?

  So let me ask you this.

• 48:55Charles Duhigg?

  Okay.

• 48:56Ed 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.

• 49:12Charles 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.

• 49:53Charles 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.

• 50:27Ed Mylett?

  That is outstanding.

• 50:28Charles 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.

• 50:45Ed Mylett?

  Very good, Charles.

• 50:47Charles 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.

• 50:56Ed Mylett?

  You just explained 25 years of problem.

• 51:00Ed 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.

• 51:29Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 51:29Ed Mylett?

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

• 51:34Charles 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,

• 51:40Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 51:40Charles Duhigg?

  and he had one identity, which is right wing.

• 51:44Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 51:44Charles 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?

• 52:29Charles 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, yeah, I told, I grew up poor too, like, I understand what that's like. And now, suddenly, we feel safe with each other. I think, I, 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.

• 53:12Charles Duhigg?

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

• 53:16Ed Mylett?

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

• 53:18Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:19Ed Mylett?

  At least smiled with me.

• 53:20Charles Duhigg?

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

• 53:24Ed Mylett?

  Okay, that's mine.

• 53:25Charles Duhigg?

  Okay.

• 53:26Ed Mylett?

  That's mine. To be, and candidly, like, so, I, well, I love that we're going there. My, I'm okay opening a conversation. How are you? You know, where you, you know, for me, it's, how does this end? How does this end? I bet everybody driving or listening is like, no, that's something I would like to know more about.

• 53:41Charles Duhigg?

  If I'm on this bus next to-

• 53:42Ed Mylett?

  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.

• 53:54Charles Duhigg?

  Right, right, right.

• 53:54Ed Mylett?

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

• 53:56Charles Duhigg?

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

• 54:07Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 54:07Charles 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.

• 54:24Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 54:24Charles Duhigg?

  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. 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.

• 54:58Ed Mylett?

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

• 55:01Charles Duhigg?

  That's exactly right.

• 55:02Ed Mylett?

  Very good.

• 55:02Charles Duhigg?

  That's exactly right.

• 55:03Ed 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 many people I talk to in social environments and business environments that don't ask any questions.

• 55:30Charles Duhigg?

  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, 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. And thi- this gets into what's known as emotional reciprocity.

• 56:15Charles Duhigg?

  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.

• 56:30Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 56:31Charles Duhigg?

  And then I recognize, 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?

• 56:52Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 56:53Charles 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?

• 57:00Ed Mylett?

  Oh, gosh, that was.

• 57:02Charles 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?

• 57:18Ed Mylett?

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

• 57:23Charles 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. And like, just watching them now as these like, strong young men.

• 58:09Charles Duhigg?

  Like, it was, it was a great weekend.

• 58:11Ed Mylett?

  Brother, you're on it.

• 58:13Charles Duhigg?

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

• 58:16Ed Mylett?

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

• 58:20Charles Duhigg?

  Absolutely.

• 58:20Ed 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.

• 58:25Charles Duhigg?

  Yes.

• 58:26Ed 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, 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.

• 58:44Charles Duhigg?

  That's right.

• 58:44Ed Mylett?

  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 found that in my own life.

• 58:52Charles Duhigg?

  Absolutely. 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 2 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."

• 59:32Ed Mylett?

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

• 59:37Charles Duhigg?

  No, I love it. I love it. Yeah.

• 59:39Ed Mylett?

  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.

• 59:53Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 59:55Ed Mylett?

  What about difficult conversations?

• 59:59Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 59:59Ed 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."

• 1:00:14Charles 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're, you're fight or 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

• 1:00:56Charles Duhigg?

  basically two things. 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.

• 1:01:17Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:17Charles Duhigg?

  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 and studies of marriage therapy, is that...

• 1:01:46Charles Duhigg?

  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? Instead of having it at two in the morning, can we wait till it's 10 a.m. and we're both a little bit more rested? Can we control ourselves?

• 1:02:31Charles Duhigg?

  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. 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.

• 1:03:16Charles Duhigg?

  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. Very good. But then, when we're controlling these three things, we're controlling, we're controlling ourselves, we're controlling the environment and we're controlling the boundaries of the fight or the conflict.

• 1:03:37Charles Duhigg?

  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.

• 1:03:42Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:03:43Charles Duhigg?

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

• 1:03:49Ed Mylett?

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

• 1:03:55Charles Duhigg?

  Me too.

• 1:03:55Ed Mylett?

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

• 1:03:58Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:58Ed 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.

• 1:04:11Charles Duhigg?

  Right. How long have you been married for?

• 1:04:13Ed Mylett?

  Twenty-six years.

• 1:04:14Charles 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 are these things, literally, I can say two words, and I know the entire fight in my wife's head. Right? It's like, and sometimes I don't even mean to say them, I'm just 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.

• 1:04:36Ed Mylett?

  There we go.

• 1:04:37Charles Duhigg?

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

• 1:04:42Ed Mylett?

  You brought the whole sink?

• 1:04:43Charles Duhigg?

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

• 1:04:47Ed Mylett?

  Whoops.

• 1:04:47Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah, I did not mean to do that. Like, tell me what you're feeling, because I want to, I want to give you a chance, but like...

• 1:04:53Ed 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 be brushed under, and... No, sometimes you just have to, in the moment, go, I'm gonna yank that one back.

• 1:05:08Charles Duhigg?

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

• 1:05:11Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:05:11Charles 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.

• 1:05:19Ed 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.

• 1:05:24Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:25Ed 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 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.

• 1:06:00Charles Duhigg?

  Right.

• 1:06:00Ed 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.

• 1:06:22Charles Duhigg?

  Yes.

• 1:06:23Ed 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?

• 1:06:32Charles 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, 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.

• 1:07:18Charles 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.

• 1:07:29Ed Mylett?

  Very, very.

• 1:07:30Charles Duhigg?

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

• 1:07:34Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 1:07:34Charles 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. For the younger kids, it's a little bit harder, right?

• 1:07:50Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 1:07:51Charles 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?

• 1:08:33Charles 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.

• 1:08:41Ed Mylett?

  Good point.

• 1:08:41Charles Duhigg?

  You, you better, should have learned something today.

• 1:08:44Ed Mylett?

  Very good point.

• 1:08:45Charles 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." And that's powerful.

• 1:08:56Ed Mylett?

  You do a lot of gestures when you talk.

• 1:08:59Charles Duhigg?

  Oh, yeah?

• 1:08:59Ed Mylett?

  I don't know if you noticed that. Well, you're expressive in your face. This is, um, 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 non-verbal cues are part of being a super communicator? Because 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.

• 1:09:26Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah, and I think that's exactly right. And, and to be a super communicator, you don't have to have non-verbal, right? Because there's people who like, on the phone are fantastic. If you're good at one thing, you're usually good at everything. But, but similarly with you, like, you, you clearly should telegraph, non-verbally 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, 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.

• 1:10:00Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:10:01Charles 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 gonna 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."

• 1:10:28Ed Mylett?

  That's tremendous.

• 1:10:29Charles Duhigg?

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

• 1:10:33Ed Mylett?

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

• 1:10:35Charles Duhigg?

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

• 1:10:40Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, you're going to the girl.

• 1:10:41Charles 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?

• 1:10:47Ed Mylett?

  Thousand percent.

• 1:10:48Charles 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.

• 1:11:01Ed Mylett?

  Huge.

• 1:11:01Charles 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, "Ha ha." Because you know you're supposed to laugh, right? And then other people would be like, "Ha ha." 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.

• 1:11:42Charles Duhigg?

  So that's non-linguistic, 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."

• 1:12:00Ed 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, uh, I'm glad you asked, I was gonna ask you about the NASA thing. You also said emotional intelligence, so...

• 1:12:14Ed Mylett?

  I just feel like that's at the root of what we're talking about here.

• 1:12:16Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:17Ed 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?

• 1:12:29Charles Duhigg?

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

• 1:12:36Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:12:36Charles 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, 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.

• 1:13:05Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. There's a, 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 that's 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.

• 1:13:36Charles 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.

• 1:14:19Charles 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,

• 1:15:02Charles 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,

• 1:15:45Charles 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?"

• 1:16:29Charles 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.

• 1:17:13Charles 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.

• 1:17:58Charles 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 at it. 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."

• 1:18:35Charles Duhigg?

  And then, and he's so inexperienced, he actually, the first thing'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. 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.

• 1:19:16Ed Mylett?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:19:16Charles Duhigg?

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

• 1:19:21Ed Mylett?

  It's one of the best stories ever.

• 1:19:22Charles Duhigg?

  I love that story.

• 1:19:23Ed 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?

• 1:19:30Charles Duhigg?

  That's a huge part of it.

• 1:19:31Ed Mylett?

  Okay, he was also vulnerable.

• 1:19:33Charles 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.

• 1:19:52Ed 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 your emotion.

• 1:20:25Charles Duhigg?

  It's not always men and women, right?

• 1:20:26Ed Mylett?

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

• 1:20:29Charles Duhigg?

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

• 1:20:34Ed Mylett?

  Right, it is for sure.

• 1:20:35Charles 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.

• 1:20:47Ed Mylett?

  There you go.

• 1:20:47Charles Duhigg?

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

• 1:20:50Ed Mylett?

  There you go.

• 1:20:51Charles 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 want to 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?

• 1:21:09Ed Mylett?

  You're right.

• 1:21:09Charles Duhigg?

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

• 1:21:15Ed Mylett?

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

• 1:21:17Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:17Ed Mylett?

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

• 1:21:21Charles Duhigg?

  Absolutely.

• 1:21:22Ed Mylett?

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

• 1:21:29Charles Duhigg?

  Okay.

• 1:21:30Ed Mylett?

  Literally non-verbal.

• 1:21:31Charles Duhigg?

  Okay.

• 1:21:31Ed Mylett?

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

• 1:21:35Charles Duhigg?

  Email.

• 1:21:36Ed Mylett?

  Mail, written, email, text, whatever.

• 1:21:39Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:39Ed 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, um, 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 tip, tips or keys on that?

• 1:22:13Charles Duhigg?

  So, what's going on there? So, so it's interesting. If we were having this conversation, um, about a hundred years ago, a little bit under a hundred 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 gonna figure out what's going on in their voice. You're, you're not like, like, telephone communication is basically gonna 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.

• 1:22:43Ed Mylett?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:22:44Charles Duhigg?

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

• 1:22:49Ed 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 Queran's phone number.

• 1:22:55Charles Duhigg?

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

• 1:22:58Ed Mylett?

  Right, it's true.

• 1:22:59Charles 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.

• 1:23:41Ed Mylett?

  Good point.

• 1:23:42Charles 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.

• 1:24:10Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:24:11Charles 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.

• 1:24:24Ed Mylett?

  That's my problem.

• 1:24:24Charles 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.

• 1:24:36Ed Mylett?

  You're right.

• 1:24:36Charles 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.

• 1:24:52Ed 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, were like, man, when I met you, you're so nice and kind, but I read your emails, you're scary. Like, 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.

• 1:25:21Charles 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."

• 1:25:33Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:33Charles Duhigg?

  Now we know the rule.

• 1:25:34Ed Mylett?

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

• 1:25:36Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:37Ed 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.

• 1:25:45Charles Duhigg?

  Right.

• 1:25:46Ed Mylett?

  And I wonder why they feel dismissed.

• 1:25:47Charles Duhigg?

  Sounds great.

• 1:25:48Ed Mylett?

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

• 1:25:49Charles Duhigg?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:50Ed Mylett?

  Uh-huh. Right? That's the extent of my emails to people. So you're 1,000% right.

• 1:25:54Charles 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?"

• 1:26:01Ed Mylett?

  I relate to that.

• 1:26:02Charles 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, I'm 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.

• 1:26:39Ed 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.

• 1:26:51Charles Duhigg?

  That's exactly.

• 1:26:51Ed Mylett?

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

• 1:26:55Charles Duhigg?

  Sure.

• 1:26:56Ed Mylett?

  Okay. You said earlier something about repeating back to someone, "Hey, what I think I heard you say was..." Help me understand this, right? I love that and totally agree.

• 1:27:03Charles Duhigg?

  So, so sorry, go ahead.

• 1:27:04Ed 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,

• 1:27:47Ed Mylett?

  "I really value and appreciate what we discussed."

• 1:27:50Charles 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.

• 1:27:56Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:27:57Charles 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."

• 1:28:02Ed Mylett?

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

• 1:28:04Charles 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.

• 1:28:16Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:28:16Charles Duhigg?

  And then step number three, ask if you got it right.

• 1:28:20Ed Mylett?

  Ask if you got it right?

• 1:28:21Charles Duhigg?

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

• 1:28:25Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:28:26Charles 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."

• 1:29:04Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 1:29:05Charles Duhigg?

  I need to get better at that, and that feels good.

• 1:29:07Ed Mylett?

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

• 1:29:12Charles Duhigg?

  Aw, thank you.

• 1:29:13Ed 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.

• 1:29:22Charles Duhigg?

  And, and... As are you, as are you.

• 1:29:23Ed 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.

• 1:29:45Charles Duhigg?

  And thank you for that, by the way.

• 1:29:46Ed Mylett?

  It's true.

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