How to communicate better (w/ Charles Duhigg)

What makes some people supercommunicators? How can you become one too? This is the central lesson in Charles Duhigg’s bestseller Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret of Communication. Charles and Chris dissect what makes messy conversations so great, how to ask deep questions, and whether women and men communicate differently. They also discuss the different rules for different technologies — from telephones to Facebook to Signal — and how cautious politeness may be the best method to communicate effectively online. Follow Host: Chris Duffy (Instagram: @chrisiduffy https://www.instagram.com/chrisiduffy/?hl=en | chrisduffycomedy.com https://chrisduffycomedy.com/) Guest: Charles Duhigg (Instagram: @charlesduhigg https://www.instagram.com/charlesduhigg/ | LinkedIn: @charlesduhigg https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesduhigg/ | Website: https://charlesduhigg.com/) Links Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection https://bookshop.org/p/books/supercommunicators-the-power-of-conversation-and-hidden-language-of-connection-charles-duhigg/20112446 The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-power-of-habit-why-we-do-what-we-do-in-life-and-business-charles-duhigg/7843601?ean=9780812981605&next=t Subscribe to TED Instagram:@ted https://www.instagram.com/ted/?hl=en YouTube:@TED https://www.youtube.com/@TED TikTok:@tedtoks https://www.tiktok.com/@tedtoks?lang=en LinkedIn:@ted-conferences https://www.linkedin.com/company/ted-conferences Website:ted.com https://ted.com Podcasts:https://www.ted.com/podcaststed.com/podcasts http://ted.com/podcasts For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts https://go.ted.com/BHTranscripts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:01Chris Duffy?

  You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. One time in college, early in my relationship with my now-wife, we went out to dinner with her roommate's parents. And at this dinner, I was chatting up a storm. I told all my best stories. I had everyone laughing. I felt like I was absolutely crushing it. And then afterwards, I said something to that effect to my girlfriend Molly. And I thought that she would say something like, "That's right, you're the best." And instead, she was like, "That was awful. You did not let anyone else speak. You just talked the whole time." And you know what? She was right. It turns out that there is a big difference between talking and communicating. And that is a difference that I had to learn, and that honestly, I am still learning.

• 0:46Chris Duffy?

  After all, you might notice that right now, I am currently in the middle of giving a monologue. You know, communication is this incredibly important foundational skill of being human, and it's also an art. And today's guest, Charles Duhigg, has been studying the masters of the craft of communication. He's the author of the book, Super Communicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. And here's a clip from our conversation where Charles is explaining what exactly it means to him to be a super communicator. Okay, so everyone who's listening, I want you to think for a second. If you came home from work and you just had like a tough, terrible day, and you want to call someone because you know, just talking to them is just going to make you feel better. Most people listening, someone just popped into their mind. They know exactly who they're going to call, right?

• 1:31Chris Duffy?

  It's my friend Greg or my friend Dawn, and I'm going to call them up because I know just talking to them is just going to make me feel like, feel at least like 10% better. The person that you call is a super communicator for you, and you are probably a super communicator back for them, right? There are these things you do in your conversations. You, you know how to ask the right kinds of questions. You prove to each other that you're listening. You know when to empathize and you know when to try and solve someone's problem. Same thing probably happens with your parents. Same thing probably happens with your wife. Now, what's interesting is those are just a set of skills. And once we recognize them as skills, we can say, "Look, I'm going to practice these skills until they become habitual,

• 2:11Chris Duffy?

  and then I can actually use them with anyone, with my boss, with my coworkers, with a stranger on the bus. I can get that same level of kind of connection and meaningful dialogue with anyone once I understand that there's just a couple of skills behind it."

• 2:29Chris Duffy?

  We are going to talk to Charles about those skills, how to master them, and why they matter, right after this break. But first, we have to communicate a few ads.

• 2:49Speaker 01

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• 3:18Chris Duffy?

  This episode is sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Here's a question this show asks a lot. What can one person actually do? Take protecting the environment. When the task feels so big, it's hard to know where to even begin. Turns out, the answer isn't doing it alone. It's teaming up with people who care as much as you do. With the help of 3 million supporters, the Natural Resources Defense Council is in court to defend ancient forests, pristine coasts, and the wildlife that depend on them. None of these places or species can be replaced. They're still here because people fought for them, in and out of court. And that fight needs your support today. Donate at NRDC.org/human, and your gift will be matched five times.

• 4:07Chris Duffy?

  Today, we're talking about the art of communication with Charles Duhigg. Hi, I'm Charles Duhigg, the author of Super Communicators and the Power of Habit. Charles, I sometimes think about communication as just the words that we say to each other. But your book really makes the point that communication is actually so much more than that. In fact, the words that we say to each other might, in some ways, be the least important part of communication. Right? They're clearly important because those words are information. But oftentimes, we think of communication as this thing where it's an information exchange service. And it's actually so much more than that. If you think about it, communication is Homo sapiens' superpower. But the goal of communication is not just to exchange information. The goal of communication

• 4:51Chris Duffy?

  is to feel connected to each other.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Because when we feel connected to each other, then we start trusting each other more. We start listening to each other more. All those pro-social instincts that have made our species so successful, they're all reliant on communication and connection. And so creating that atmosphere is sometimes the most important thing you can do.

• 5:11Chris Duffy?

  I wonder have you felt a lot of pressure in so much of the post-writing of a book is like communicating about the book? You must feel a lot of pressure to be like, I gotta communicate my book well because it's about communication.

• 5:22Speaker 02

  So one of the things that you learn about the science of communication when you're looking at the studies is that really great conversations, they are messes, right? If you think about the best conversation you've ever had with your wife or with your best friend. If I looked at a transcript of that, it would look like a disaster, right? You're like, people are changing topics, they're making little inside jokes, they're getting halfway through an idea and then suddenly having a new idea. Great conversations, if you look at them on paper, they do not look eloquent and erudite. Those are, those are great monologues, competing monologues, right? Great conversations are messy. But what is important in that conversation is a couple of things. There's these basic skills I talk about. And at the core of them are, is this idea of vulnerability.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  That when we connect with each other, it's oftentimes because we've expressed some type of vulnerability. Now, we tend to misunderstand what vulnerability means. We think that vulnerability is like, you know, talking about your parents or crying on someone's shoulder. That is not vulnerability. Vulnerability in neuroscience has a very specific definition. It is a neural cascade that happens in our brain. When I tell you something, you could judge. Now, I might not care about your judgment, but the act of me telling you something that you could judge, it sets off this neural cascade in my brain. And then at that point, I pay very close attention to how you react. And if instead of judging me, you withhold judgment,

• 6:48Speaker 02

  and even more importantly, if you tell me something about yourself that I could judge in return, then suddenly, and we're almost powerless against this, we will feel closer to each other. We will feel a little bit more trusting of each other. We will feel more willing to listen to each other. And so what's important to me in a conversation is not saying exactly the right things. Because the conversation should be messy. It's trying to tell you things about myself that are meaningful and deep. And when you withhold judgment, Returning that favor when you share things about yourself.

• 7:22Chris Duffy?

  You also talk in the book about this idea of neurological synchronization, right? That like when we get in these moments where we are vulnerable and when we connect, we start to quite literally be on the same wavelength.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Absolutely. Our bodies and our brains start to change, even in a conversation that's, that's just a mildly good conversation. In fact, in this conver- I mean, this is better than a mildly good conversation, but in this conversation.

• 7:44Chris Duffy?

  Mildly good. Listen, mildly good is good enough for me.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  If we were measuring our bodies, what we would see is that you and I are starting to breathe at the same rate. Our heart rates are starting to match each other. And even though we're talking over the internet and you're in a different city than I am, as long as there's relatively similar lighting, the dilation of our pupils is starting to echo each other. But even more importantly, if we could see inside our brains, what we would see is that my neural activity and your neural activity are beginning to look more and more similar. It's what creates that sense of connection. It's known within neuroscience as neural entrainment. And the reason why it's so important is because when you and I become entrained, it actually causes a dopamine reaction within our brains. We feel good. That's why you feel so great after having a really good conversation.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  Your brain is literally creating pleasure, you know, transmitters in order for you to feel that way. When we want to connect with someone, when we want to show them that we want to connect with them, we start matching them. That's at the core of empathy. It's at the core of neural entrainment. It's at the core of connection.

• 8:48Chris Duffy?

  I wonder about the idea of building these skills, of getting more able to have like neurological synchronization, neural entrainment, what, all of these really technical terms, but also just at the core, like having a real connection. I think a lot about humor. And I think that sometimes the hard part is that people who think they have a great sense of humor are often the people with the worst sense of humor.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  The worst sense of humor. Absolutely.

• 9:12Chris Duffy?

  I feel like you have a great hilarious quote from George Bernard Shaw in your, in your book, "The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place." How do you deal with the fact that often people who are not good at communicating, not good at connecting, they're not aware that they're not good at communicating and not good at connecting?

• 9:30Speaker 02

  So humor and laughter is a really good example. When I laugh in a conversation, what I'm showing you is I want to connect with you. And when you laugh back, the most natural reaction, what you're saying is, I accept this, I want to connect back. So laughter has become this really important part of how we communicate with each other, completely absent humor. And the same thing happens with emotional displays, with practical displays. And this kind of gets to this underlying theory that there's these three kinds of conversations. I should actually context this. So for me, writing super communicator started when I got into this bad pattern with my wife where I would come home from work, and I was working at the New York Times at that

• 10:15Speaker 02

  point, and I'd complain about my day, and she would, she would basically try and solve my problems. She would say something like, why don't you take your coworkers out to lunch? You guys can get to know each other a little bit better. And instead of being able to hear her very good advice, I would get even more upset. And I'd be like, why aren't you supporting me? You're supposed to be outraged on my behalf, you know? Tell me that I'm right and they're wrong. I think probably everyone listening has some version of this in their own relationships.

• 10:39Chris Duffy?

  Yeah.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  And so I went to these researchers and I asked them, what's going on here? Like, I'm a professional communicator, why do I keep making this mistake? And they said, well, first of all, we're glad you showed up because we're living through this golden age of understanding communication. But secondly, one of the things we've discovered is that when you're having a discussion, you think you know what that discussion is about, right? You're talking about your day, or you're talking about the kids' grades, or where to go on vacation. But actually, they said, inside that discussion are many different kinds of conversations. And in general, these conversations fall into one of three buckets. There are these practical conversations where the goal is for us to make plans or to solve problems together.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  But then there's emotional conversations where I tell you what I'm feeling, and I don't want you to solve my feelings. I don't want to plan for feeling better, I want you to empathize with me. And then finally, there's social conversations, which is about how we relate to each other and how we relate to society, the identities that are important to us. And what they said is, All three of these conversations are all equally legitimate. And in fact, in a discussion, you'll probably have all three. But if you are having different kinds of conversations at the same moment, you cannot hear each other fully. And so this has given rise to what's known as the matching principle within psychology, which says that successful communication requires having the same kind of conversation at the same moment. And then, once you get synchronized,

• 12:06Speaker 02

  you tend with your partner to move from conversation to conversation together.

• 12:10Chris Duffy?

  It's one of those concepts that if you just apply it to your own life, it becomes really clear that there's truth to it. Like, for me, it's really funny to imagine if I go to the hardware store and I say, I'm having trouble getting up to my roof to fix something. And I'm wondering if you have a recommendation for the right kind of ladder, right? Like, if I go there, try and have a practical conversation, and they go, "That sounds so hard." I hear you, and you are seen. I'd be like, "What is happening?" And similarly, if I'm going and hanging out with a friend and I say like, "Oh, I'm really excited to watch the new Star Wars movie." And then they go, "The way you could make time to see the Star Wars movie is by clearing out your calendar in these five ways."

• 12:54Chris Duffy?

  It's like, "What? Okay, I want to have a social conversation now." So this actually just tracks in like such a funny and clear way in my own life.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  You know, when I talk to those neuroscientists, the reason they said we're living through this golden age of understanding communication is because, for the first time, we can actually see inside people's brains as they're having conversations. We get confused about what good communication is, right? A great example of this is if you ask super communicators, consistent super communicators, people who can connect with almost anyone, if you ask them if they've already always been good at communication, they almost inevitably will say no. They'll say things like, "I had trouble making friends in high school, so I had to really study how kids talk to each other." Or, "My parents got divorced, and I was the peacemaker between them." Right? It's the act of paying attention to communication that makes us better communicators.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  There is no one who is born with a gift of the gab. There's no one who's born a super communicator. We learn how to be super communicators by identifying these very basic skills, which we can talk about, and then just practicing them. Because if you practice them, your brain will make them into habits very, very quickly.

• 14:04Chris Duffy?

  We are going to take a quick break and then we will be right back with more. So don't go anywhere.

• 14:17Chris Duffy?

  This episode is brought to you by Planet Visionaries, a podcast in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. What connects a hidden laboratory in the Amazon, giant pandas in China's mountain forests, research relating to the ocean, and communities living alongside wildlife in India? That's what you'll hear on season six of Planet Visionaries. Stories from the explorers, scientists, and conservation leaders whose work addresses research, biodiversity, and conservation issues in specific locations. Planet Visionaries, hosted by environmental advocate and professional climber Alex Honnold, brings you real stories of discovery, determination, and research and initiatives relating to environmental change.

• 15:01Chris Duffy?

  In partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, this is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts.

• 15:10Speaker 03

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• 16:08Chris Duffy?

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• 16:50Chris Duffy?

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• 17:09Chris Duffy?

  We're talking with Charles Duhigg, author of the book Super Communicators, about skills that we can all develop that would help us to communicate better.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Let's talk about those very basic skills. And I also do want to talk about the mindsets, which I think are very related to skills.

• 17:23Chris Duffy?

  The first big important skill is asking questions. So one of the things that we know about consistent super communicators is that they ask more questions than the average person. They're like, oh, what'd you think about that? Or, oh, you went there, what, did you like it? Right, they're just kind of invitations to come into a conversation. But some of the questions that they ask are what are known as deep questions. And a deep question is something that asks about my values or my beliefs or my experiences. And that can sound kind of intimidating, like you have to ask deep questions. But it's as simple as if you meet someone who is, for instance, a doctor. And instead of saying to them, you know, oh, what hospital do you work at? If you ask them, oh, what made you decide to go to medical school? That's a super easy question to answer, but think about what it does. It invites that person to talk about their experiences growing up, right?

• 18:08Chris Duffy?

  It invites them to talk about their values and beliefs that brought them into medicine, that get them excited every day.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  And that's the first important skill is that when we ask deep questions, it creates the environment that allows us to have a real conversation.

• 18:22Chris Duffy?

  One example of a deep question that I know you've used in the past is like, when's the last time you cried? And that is a really clear, deep question to me, but it's also, in some ways, it's a scary question to imagine asking, right?

• 18:34Speaker 02

  It can be super intimidating. And now I will say, I give a lot of speeches about communication, including like audiences of, you know, like five or 10,000 people. Sometimes five or 10,000 like engineers, good software engineers. And what I tell them is we're going to do an experiment. In 30 minutes, I'm going to ask you to turn to the person next to you and ask and answer one question, which is, when is the last time you cried in front of another person? And then I ask, who's excited about this? And like, nobody raises their hands, right? For exactly the reason you just said, nobody wants to do this. They did not come to a conference to have this like impromptu therapy session. But then I spend the next 30 minutes explaining to them, this question, this kind of question, has this magical power. It does something magical.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  Now, that being said, when we're at work asking someone, when's the last time you cried? That might be a little uncomfortable, right? When we are asking deep questions, we should think about the difference between an invitation and a mandate. And there are times when that mandate is okay. But most of the time, particularly when we're just meeting someone, what's really useful is to have in questions that invite someone to share, but don't mandate that they share.

• 19:47Chris Duffy?

  I love that distinction because I think the idea of like invitational, deep questions, it doesn't feel at all intimidating to ask someone one of those.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  The thing is, any question or any topic can be a deep question, right? Like, oh, where do you live? Oh, I live in, I live in the Heights. Oh, yeah. Do you like the Heights? Like, what made you decide to move up there? Right? That's a deep question. Suddenly I'm invited to talk about, oh, there's this community that I love and I actually work downtown and I love to ride my bike to work. Now we're talking about real things. The other thing that's really important about a deep question is that when I ask it, it's very natural for me to answer my own question. Oh, you became a doctor because you saw your dad get sick as a kid? That's really interesting. I became a lawyer because I saw my uncle get arrested when I was a kid. So skill one is practice asking questions and in particular, practice asking deep questions.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Skill number two is after we ask those deep questions, one of the things that's really, really useful and oftentimes important in tough conversations, in conflict conversations, is to prove that we're listening. Right? Because we've all been in that conversation where we think we're having, we're talking to someone and we're realized like, oh, this person isn't actually listening to me. This person is just waiting their turn to speak. And so, so the way that we get around this suspicion, which exists in all of our heads, is that we prove that we're listening. And there's some fairly easy ways to prove that we're listening. One is just to ask follow-up questions. So there's something about follow-up questions that makes the other person feel really good, like you're really interested in them.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  So that's one thing you can do is ask follow-up questions. The other thing you can do is you can think about how you're reacting. Right? So like, are you leaning in towards the person? Are you making eye contact? Are you making little noises like, oh, that's interesting, huh? Are you laughing when they laugh? And finally, there's actually a technique for this for the hardest conversations, what are known as conflict conversations, where you and I might disagree about something or we're talking about something like race or religion that's, that's very tense or, or just where like we might disagree with each other. It's really important in those settings that we prove that we're listening to each other. And there's this, this technique known as looping for understanding, which has three steps. First, the first step is you ask a question, preferably a deep question. The second step is that after the person answers that question,

• 22:08Speaker 02

  you repeat back what you heard them say in your own words. You prove to them that you were paying attention. And most of us actually do step one and two somewhat intuitively. Step three is that after you summarize what they said, you ask them if you got it right. Did I hear you correctly? Am I understanding you? Because what I'm doing in that moment is I'm asking you for permission to acknowledge that I was listening.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  And if you acknowledge that I was listening, you become anywhere from 10 to 80% more likely to listen to me in return. It's that social reciprocity again.

• 22:46Chris Duffy?

  Yeah, I love that part in your book where you say that the goal of when you're looping is for them to say, wow, I never really thought about it that way. That's a good point in my side. Like you're making an argument for my side. But the other thing that I think is really powerful about that looping idea that I hadn't anticipated before I did it is it also allows me to have a real conversation in a high conflict area without endorsing the other person's side.

• 23:15Speaker 02

  That's exactly right.

• 23:16Chris Duffy?

  I don't have to say, I'm going to convince you or you're right. All I have to say is I want to make sure that I actually understand your side, not that your side is correct. And that really changes the interaction.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  It changes everything. The goal of a conversation is not for me to convince you that you're wrong and I'm right, or you're dumb and I'm smart, or even to impress you, right? The goal of a conversation is to understand each other. And so we could have a conversation and if I walk away from it, understanding how you see the world and if I speak in a way that you understand how I see the world, that understanding means the conversation was a success. We do not have to agree with each other. The goal of conversation is just to understand and to show the other person that you understand. And when we do that, even if we are still going to vote for different people or we're going to put different signs on our lawn, if we feel like the other person understands us and that we understand them,

• 24:13Speaker 02

  we will feel connected to each other. That doesn't mean we agree with each other, but it means that we can, we can live peacefully side by side.

• 24:21Chris Duffy?

  And also I think when you do this, if you say, I'm going to say back what you said, and I want to make sure I understood it, then it's very fair for you to say, I would like to make sure that you're understanding what I'm saying too.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And they're going to be willing, in fact, you don't even have to say that. They're going to do it automatically. Like this is the thing, again, the social reciprocity that we were talking about. When we ostentatiously demonstrate that we are listening, other people become more likely to listen to us and to show us that they're listening to us.

• 24:49Chris Duffy?

  So obviously people who are listening to this podcast or who read your book, the vast majority of them are going to be using this in personal and professional settings, but they're not going to be like, Hosting a podcast where they're interviewing people like I'm holding up your book right now. I have it. There are pages that are marked and to quote from the book to show you that I actually do the research to know what you're saying like that changes the conversation because a lot of times when people are interviewed, someone says, so let's start by you telling me the book. And then they say back a question based on what you said. And I think the reason I bring this up is not to say like, oh, look at me, Chris. What a great interviewer. But it's to say that I think that is the exact same thing we're saying here, which is to actually show that you're listening

• 25:33Chris Duffy?

  to the person to demonstrate their respect for what they're saying.

• 25:37Speaker 02

  That's exactly right. And this is why it's the second skill is because it's so important is because a conversation is about speaking and listening, but we tend to think of listening as a passive activity. We tend to think like, if I close my mouth and open my ears and I'm listening. And that's the first step of listening, but that is not sufficient on its own. What's important is that after you close your mouth and open your ears is that you open your mouth back up and you prove to the person, oh, I'm actually paying attention to what you're saying. I'm not just thinking about what I want to say next, because I'm asking you a follow up question, or I'm saying like, oh, that's so interesting, or I'm looping for understanding. It's really, really powerful and it's key to how we connect with each other.

• 26:18Chris Duffy?

  Several of the things that we've talked about in this conversation, they apply to everyone. But I do think that because of the way that our society works and the way that we're socialized, they can be uniquely challenging for heterosexual men. Right? Like, for example, I think men are really socialized to look for solutions rather than say to go to that practical conversation rather than to go to the emotional conversation. Most men that I know, when someone says like, I'm really sad, here's all the issues, it's easier to go to, I'm going to fix that than to say, I'm going to validate that. And I think that I would be really surprised if, at least if

• 27:03Chris Duffy?

  you're in North America, in the same culture that I am in, I think I'd be really surprised that if I, when I ask you to picture someone who is bad at communicating in the way that they talk too much and don't leave enough space, I would be surprised if that wasn't a man that you're thinking of. So, and that's not to say like, this is biologically determined, but I think that there are some like socialization pieces that need to get broken in order to have someone become a super communicator too.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you're right. It's not biologically based. I'll tell you what the science says. And you know, there's stories in the book about like a CIA officer who like is sent overseas to recruit foreign spies and like has to learn and it's a man. He has to learn how to communicate. He has to learn how to connect with people. So here's what we know from the science. Men and women do not communicate differently. What is different is that we end up usually getting habituated in slightly different kinds of communication. And so we become more comfortable with a certain approach. That does not mean that men are less emotional than women. It does mean that when men want to talk about emotional topics,

• 28:11Speaker 02

  sometimes they will revert to language that sounds practical, but in fact is emotional language. It's just that they're habituated. Their habit is to kind of talk about, you know, talk about it a certain way. And, and women who are often, who are often grow up in environments where they're much freer to talk about emotional topics, they're habituated slightly differently. You know, let's say I come home and I say like, hey Liz, Liz is my wife. I say, Liz, like I really, we got to talk about like the, our family budget. Cause like, I think we're spending too much money and I really want to go through the numbers and figure out what we're spending it on. Cause I'm really, really worried, like it just, it feels like we're spending too much and I don't know how we're going to afford the kids' college if we don't start saving

• 28:56Speaker 02

  right now. That sounds at first glance like a very practical conversation, right? I'm talking about numbers. I'm talking about budgets. But pay attention to the words that I used. This is how we match each other. I'm worried. I'm looking to the future and I'm concerned about paying for the kids' college. This is making me anxious. This is for me, first and foremost, an emotional conversation. We have to have an emotional conversation before we can get down to practicalities. And I'm signaling to you, even though I'm using all these practical words and I'm very businesslike, I'm signaling to you through the words that I use. That I am in an emotional mindset. And so the best thing that Liz can do is say, listen, let's talk about this because I hear that you're worried.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  And I, I don't think, I, I don't want you to be worried. I want us both to be really confident about what we're spending on. And I'm, I want to be your partner in this. I want to make this happen together so that we both feel really confident and really calm about our finances. Okay. So what she's done there is she's matched me emotionally. She's acknowledged and empathized with my emotions. And at that point, she could actually even say, since I understand how you're feeling, can we talk about some solutions? Like, can we talk about better, better ways to spend money? In other words, can we move from an emotional to a practical conversation together? And if that happens, we're going to be in sync and we're both going to feel good.

• 30:19Chris Duffy?

  This perfectly ties into the, the next thing that I wanted to ask you about, which is these three types of conversations, right? They also relate to mindsets. So yeah, sometimes you, you've explained in the book, like the three kinds of conversations are like, what is this really about? How do we feel and who are we? Those are other, other types of conversations. And they can be a decision-making mindset, an emotional mindset, or a social mindset. So we've kind of talked about like practical, the emotional and the social. Let's talk about those, that other piece, the like, what's this really about? How do we feel and who are we?

• 30:51Speaker 02

  And those are sort of the questions that correspond to each kind of conversation, right? When we're having a practical conversation, what we're really talking about is, what's this really about? Like, what are we trying to do? Why are we having this conversation? What's our goals in this conversation? When we're having an emotional conversation, what we're really asking is, like, how do we feel about this? And when we're having a social conversation, what we're asking is, who are we? Like, what is it about my background or my beliefs or the way that I see myself that influence how this topic I'm talking about and influence both how I speak and listen? So those are sort of three questions that help us understand what's going on in each of those three different kinds of conversations.

• 31:32Chris Duffy?

  I felt like a lot of what I loved about super communicators was this took things that I've seen in my own life or that I've thought about, but never kind of like explicitly had terms for. And this, this explained them in a really clear way. So you cite this really interesting example where they had a very fraught conversation, people on opposite sides of the gun control debate, talking online on Facebook, which I would have thought is a recipe for the absolute most impossible connection imaginable, right? There's no way people are going to speak civilly. There's no way people are going to connect or feel like they're heard. And actually, the conclusion that you came to was the opposite. So can you talk about that a little bit?

• 32:15Speaker 02

  So we know a lot about how technology influences communication. So even setting aside the internet for a second, just looking at telephones. So when telephones first became popular about 100 years ago, there were all these studies that appeared that said, no one will ever have a real conversation on the telephone, right? Like, nobody's ever going to figure out how to have real conversations on the telephone, because up until then, almost all conversations had happened face to face. And people were like, look, if you can't see the other person, if you can't see their gestures and expressions, if you can't hear their voice with really high fidelity, you're never going to have a real conversation. And what's really interesting is we look at that, we kind of laugh now,

• 32:56Speaker 02

  but if you look back, they were right for like the first 10 or 15 years of telephone's use. If you look at early transcripts from the first phone conversations, people used them as telegrams. They didn't know how to have conversations on the phone. Now, by the time you and I and everyone listening, by the time we were in middle school, we could like talk on the phone for like seven hours a night, right? And they were like the most important conversations of our life. So what happened there? What made us able to talk on telephones? Well, what happened is, we learned the rules for phones. And there are specific rules for phones. There are rules that you live by without even realizing it. When you're on the telephone, you will overemphasize your words.

• 33:39Speaker 02

  You're not consciously doing it. It's just, you'll put more emotion into your voice than if you were talking to someone face to face.

• 33:45Chris Duffy?

  Wow.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  These are things that we've come to realize, when I'm talking on the phone, I have to behave this way. And they're so automatic that we don't even think about them. They're nearly subconscious.

• 33:56Chris Duffy?

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• 35:24Speaker 01

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• 35:40Chris Duffy?

  So let's think about like the internet. The internet has only existed for about, you know, the first email, the first widespread use of email was really in the like mid to late 90s. So it's only been like 25 or 30 years. And when you're talking about Facebook or Slack or Signal or all these other things, like it were, it's not a long time, right? We're still trying to learn the rules. We will learn the rules. Our kids are learning the rules faster than we are.

• 36:10Speaker 02

  But what's important is to recognize that different forms of communication have slightly different rules. And if you just take a minute to remind yourself of that, most of the problems go away. If you think about like, I need to tell this person something. And you think like, how would I tell them over text? How would I tell them over email? How would I tell them over the phone? How would I tell them face to face? You'll totally recognize that each form of communication requires something a little bit different. And some of them might be better than others, right? If it's something really important, if it's bad news, it's probably better to do it face to face or over the phone than over a text. So what happens is that when we forget to remind ourselves of those rules, when we're in a hurry and we're like, oh, I'm just gonna send off this text while I'm waiting in line.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  And I'm gonna be like, no, that's wrong. I'm not gonna think about the fact that the person's gonna gonna read a bunch of emotional content into that that I don't mean. Or if I'm sarcastic in an email, I'm not gonna think about the fact that they can't hear the sarcasm in my voice. So one of the rules for online communication is overemphasize politeness, underemphasize sarcasm. That's a pretty easy one.

• 37:19Chris Duffy?

  That is really interesting. And it also makes me think of another idea from the book that I thought was it was new to me, which is the idea that certain people in groups are, you call them high centrality participants. That like, having people in a group who are very good at communication in these ways that maybe aren't even conscious for them, right? Emphasizing politeness, asking a lot of questions. That can change the outcomes for an entire group of people.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And what's super interesting is, and this is from work from a guy named Beau Seivers, who was at Dartmouth and is now at Apple. When a high centrality participant is in a conversation, he's helping or she's helping all the other people become neurally and trained. But it's not obvious, right? If you were to ask someone, who's the most important person in that conversation? Oftentimes, they won't say, oh, it was Susie, the high centrality participant. But if you ask them, who did you really like talking to in that conversation? They'll inevitably say Susie. And the other thing that's really interesting is If you ask them, oh, how influential was Susie? Like, how much did she change your mind? They'll be like, oh, a little bit, but not that much. But then if you look at the data, if they have to make decisions together,

• 38:27Speaker 02

  whatever opinion Susie ends up landing on becomes the opinion for the entire group. So it's almost this like crypto influence that these super communicators, these high centrality participants have. And part of what they're doing is, the reason why they're so influential, is that they're not pushing their own ideas, right? What they're saying is they're saying, they're echoing other people's ideas. Hey, Jim brought up this one idea and Andy brought up this other idea. And they're restating, they're looping for understanding those ideas, oftentimes more eloquently than the original speaker themselves. And then they're saying, you know, Jim's idea makes more sense to me. And everyone else is like, yeah, Jim's idea is really the one to go. And everyone thinks Jim was really influential, but it wasn't.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  It was that high centrality participant, Susie. She's the one who brought everyone around.

• 39:15Chris Duffy?

  You have a section in your book where you talk about how you used these. And I think what was good enough for you will probably be good enough for the listener. And I especially love that, um, it really made me laugh that you, you say, I'm getting better at these skills, though my wife just last week asked how a rambling dinnertime monologue might align with some of the advice in my book. That's, that's, I love the idea that you're like, I'm still not perfect. And that she's like,

• 39:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, not at all.

• 39:39Chris Duffy?

  Now a tool in her toolkit can be like, I wonder if you might want to check out this book. Super communicators. So how have you tried to use these lessons that you learned? And by extension, what could people listening use?

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, so actually, here's the number one thing I do every day. And this would be something I would challenge all the listeners to do. Today or tomorrow, try and ask a deep question that you normally wouldn't ask. Right? And that doesn't mean you have to ask someone like, when's you, when did the last time you cried in front of another person? It could be something just to say like, oh, you're an accountant. Like, did you always want to be an accountant? Was that your dream as a kid? Or, or, oh, you, you, what's it like working in that office? Is it, is it a really fun place? Like, what do you, what do you value about working there? Right? Those are easy questions to ask. But what you'll find is that The first couple of times you do it, it's gonna, you're gonna feel awkward doing it. It's gonna feel like it's not natural for you. And yet, when you ask it, the other

• 40:36Speaker 02

  person isn't gonna notice that awkwardness at all. And they're gonna love being asked that question. They're gonna like, tell you all about like, what, what's it like to be an accountant, that they wanted to be an astronaut when they were a kid, but they ended up an accountant, or that working at this place is so great, because the people are like, so kind to each other. And now I know something about you that you really value community and kindness. And you'll figure out pretty quickly that asking these deep questions is a lot easier than you think it is. And it's more rewarding than you expect it to be. So this would be, this is my challenge for myself every day. And my challenge for everyone listening is, try and ask a deep question today or tomorrow. Just one, just one deep question. Watch what happens. And when it succeeds, say to

• 41:21Speaker 02

  yourself, I'm gonna do this more. Because if you just do it a handful of times, it'll become a habit. And then it'll feel like the most authentic, automatic, natural thing on earth.

• 41:30Chris Duffy?

  Well, Charles Duhigg, this was such a pleasure. Thank you so much for super communicating with us.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me on. This is really great.

• 41:40Chris Duffy?

  That is it for this episode of How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to our guest, Charles Duhigg. His books are called Super Communicators, The Power of Habit, and Smarter, Better, Faster. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me, including my weekly newsletter and other projects, at ChrisDuffyComedy.com. How to Be a Better Human is put together by a team who are supernatural. On the TED side, we've got telepathic level communication going on between Daniela Bellarezzo, Banban Cheng, Michelle Quint, Chloe Shasha Brooks, Valentina Bohanini, Lainey Lott, Tenzica Sungman-Nivong, and Tonya Lei and Joseph de Brine. This episode was fact checked by Julia Dickerson and Mateo Salas. And they want me to be very clear that telepathic level communication is not a real thing. On the PRX side, we've got listening comprehension

• 42:24Chris Duffy?

  savants and audio superheroes, Morgan Flannery, Norgil, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn Gonzalez. Thanks again to you for listening, one of the most important skills of communication. And I hope that you will share this episode with a person whose communication you admire. We will be back next week with even more How to Be a Better Human. Until then, thank you so much for listening. Thank you for supporting the show, and please take care.

• 42:50Speaker 01

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• 44:34Speaker 04

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