Charles Duhigg on Unlock the Secret Language of Connection | EP 680

What if the distance between you and the people who matter most isn’t measured in miles—but in missed conversations? In this week’s episode of Passion Struck, host John R. Miles sits down with Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author Charles Duhigg to explore how extraordinary conversations rebuild connection and trust. Duhigg’s book, Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection, decodes why some discussions deepen relationships while others quietly drive people apart. Together, we explore the neuroscience of belonging, how to reconnect when you’ve drifted apart, and why the key to stronger relationships starts with listening differently. This conversation marks the fourth installment in our series The Forces That Shape Us—following episodes on gravity, doubt, luck, and defiance—by uncovering the invisible force that binds us together: communication. Read the full shownotes here!🎧 Listen + Watch + Go DeeperAll episode resources—including guest links, my books You Matter, Luma and Passion Struck, The Ignited Life Substack, and Start Mattering store—are gathered here: 👉 linktr.ee/John_R_MilesTo learn more about Charles Duhigg, visit charlesduhigg.com.🎯 Fuel your body with purpose. Get 20% OFF BUBS Naturals Collagen — clean, NSF Certified, and veteran-founded. Use code **PASSIONSTRUCK** at [bubsnaturals.com] After checkout, tell them our show sent you!⚡️ Feel younger, sharper, and stronger — from the inside out. Get 20% OFF Mitopure Gummies from Timeline, powered by clinically-proven Urolithin A. Head to [timeline.com/passionstruck]Your cells will thank you.🧠 About the EpisodeDiscover The Secret Language of Connection—and why some conversations transform relationships while others divide them. Learn practical tools to rebuild trust when communication has broken down. Explore The Matching Principle—the art of speaking the same emotional language as others. Understand how to reconnect when you’ve drifted apart and create psychological safety through presence and empathy.✨ Join The Ignited Life CommunityIf this episode stirred something in you, The Ignited Life is where the transformation continues. Each week, I share behind-the-scenes insights, science-backed tools, and reflections to help you turn intention into action.🔗 Subscribe free at TheIgnitedLife.net💡 Support the Movement: Everyone deserves to feel valued and important. Show it. Wear it. Live it. Visit StartMattering.comConnect with John Pre-Order The Mattering Effect: https://matteringeffect.com/Book John to Speak: https://johnrmiles.com/speaking/Keynotes, books, podcast, and resources: https://linktr.ee/John_R_MilesChildren’s Book — You Matter, Luma: https://youmatterluma.com/Substack:

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

• 0:00John R. Miles?

  Coming up next on Passion Struck.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  There's this important distinction between inviting someone to talk to you and mandating that they talk to you. If you call someone up and you say, hey, there's this thing that happened and I'd love to discuss it with you. If it's something you're interested in, that's very different from calling up and saying, hey, look, there's this thing between us and I want to talk about it right now. I want to resolve this and get this out of the way. The first feels like an invitation. So I might say yes, but I might also say no. The second is a demand. It's a demand on my time and it's an attempt to control me, even if that's not your intention. It feels to me like you're trying to control what I'm allowed to talk about and how I'm going to talk about it. And that never feels good, right? That puts you in a fight or flight response, which means you're probably not going to have a productive conversation.

• 0:44John R. Miles?

  Welcome to Passion Struck. I'm your host, John Miles. This is the show where we explore the art of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters. Each week, I sit down with changemakers, creators, scientists, and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning, heal what hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming. Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection, and impact is choosing to live like you matter.

• 1:32John R. Miles?

  Welcome back, friends, to Passion Struck, episode 680. I'm John Miles, your host, and I'm so glad you're here. Whether you're joining us for the first time, or you're part of our growing community of listeners, more than a third of you who come back week after week, welcome. You're not just supporting a show, you're part of a movement to create a world where people feel seen, valued. And like they truly matter. If this show has ever inspired you or helped you take a meaningful step forward, here's how you can help it grow. First, share this episode with someone who will find it valuable and leave a five star rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the single best way to help new listeners discover these conversations.

• 2:14John R. Miles?

  We're continuing our series, The Forces That Shape Us, an exploration of the unseen dynamics that influence how we live, lead, and connect. Earlier this week, we examined the force of defiance with Dr. Sunita Saheb. How the courage to say no can realign us with our values. Today, we turn to another invisible force, connection. In an age defined by endless communication, so many of us are still struggling to feel heard, understood, or close to the people who matter most. Our relationships, whether with parents, partners, friends, or colleagues, can quietly drift until one day, we realize how far apart we've

• 2:54John R. Miles?

  become. But what if the way back isn't through grand gestures or perfect timing, but through the conversations we choose to have and how we have them? To explore this, I'm joined once again by Charles Duhigg, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Super Communicators. Charles first joined us in episode 420, where we unpacked the three conversations beneath every exchange, practical, emotional, and social. Today, we pick up where we left off, diving deeper into how to repair trust, rebuild connection, and rekindle relationships that have gone quiet. In this conversation,

• 3:35John R. Miles?

  we'll explore how to safely start the hard talk you've been avoiding, how to recognize which conversation you're actually in, and why that changes everything, why invitations heal relationships while mandates fracture them, and how asking deeper questions without trying to be right Can transform awkwardness into alignment. This isn't just about communication. It's about mattering because to matter is to be seen, valued and relied upon. And the way back to it almost always begins with the quality of our conversations. Before we begin, a quick reminder, my new children's book, You Matter, Luma, the first story in the mattering verse is now available for pre-sale at Barnes and Noble.

• 4:16John R. Miles?

  It's a story for ages four to eight about courage, kindness and the ripple effect of knowing you matter. Now let's step into episode 680, How Extraordinary Conversations Rebuild Connection and Trust with Charles Duhigg. Thank you for choosing Passion Start and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now let that journey begin.

• 4:43John R. Miles?

  I am absolutely thrilled and honored to welcome back one of my favorite authors in the world, Charles Duhigg. Welcome, Charles. How are you today?

• 4:51Speaker 01

  I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.

• 4:54John R. Miles?

  For those of you who tune in week after week, you probably remember that Charles was here on the show in February of 24, when he first launched this incredible book that I'm holding right here, Super Communicators. He reached out to me and the paperback, which I'm holding here is now releasing again to follow up his hard copy. But to take the listener back, last time we unpacked the matching principle and three kinds of conversations that you outline in the book, practical, emotional and social. And in that discussion, we talked about how super communicators spark alignment by asking better questions and naming what's really going on.

• 5:38John R. Miles?

  I wanted to start with this. This book really caught on fire. When I looked at some of the reviews, there were like 45,000 of them and it became a New York Times bestseller. Congratulations first, but what do you think made this take off so much wildfire?

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Well, I think one of the things is I don't think it shocks anyone for me to say that we're living during a polarized time. Right? Not just in our politics, but also in our lives. I think there are people who disagree with their neighbors. They disagree with family members. They have differences and those differences feel so big and insurmountable that sometimes it just feels easier not to communicate with each other than to confront the difference or to ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist. And what's interesting to me is it's not as if America has not been a nation that's had many opinions on many different things for years, right? If you think about the Constitutional Convention, when they got together to write the Constitution, what they essentially did is they brought together a room full of people, many of whom hated each other,

• 6:38Speaker 01

  and they had them disagree with each other until they could forge out a constitution. If you think about the times that we've been most proud of our country during World War II, during the Civil Rights Movement, it is not that the country all agreed with each other. They were all walking from the same set of instructions. It was that we knew how to disagree with each other, but still stay connected, still stay like we felt like we had something in common. And I think the reason why people are so interested in the book right now is because they want to get back to that. They want to get out of this spiral of division and fighting and feeling like, I don't understand you and you don't understand me and you're wrong and I'm right. Because the truth of the matter is that we are all at our best not when we agree with each other, at our best when we know how to disagree with each other and still live peacefully side by side.

• 7:22John R. Miles?

  I think that's really important, and you're right. It's not just America that we've got polarization. It's really around the world we're facing this issue. And I think in many ways, technology is giving us more ways to communicate, but in other ways, we're not having the deep level conversations that people had for millennia. And things that should be discussed in person are being done by text message and other electric means where you lose so much of the person's emotion behind the words. You can't see them oftentimes, so you don't really understand. I wanted to ask, when a relationship starts going quiet,

• 8:04John R. Miles?

  what signals do you find tell you it's a repair conversation? And not a logistical catch-up type of one?

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Right. Well, I think that in most cases, when there's been something that has come between us, we've brought back together. The best thing that we can do is we can simply ask. I know that we had this kind of tiff a couple of weeks ago. I'm just wondering, you want to talk about it? Is that something you think we should talk about?

• 8:27John R. Miles?

  Yeah, let's talk about it.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. Like when someone says, yes, let's talk about it. I think then you're in a repair conversation. And you know that there's an invitation for that. And what I like about that, this is often known as meta-conversation. When we're having conversations about what kinds of conversations we should have, right? Is this an emotional conversation? Is it a practical conversation? And these meta-conversations are really important because what they do is they help us orient what's going on. Otherwise, sometimes it's very easy to get confused. And so one of the best things that we can do in a repair conversation to figure out if it is a repair conversation is simply to ask, is this something we should talk about? Is this something we should hash out? Or is it water under the bridge and you're fine and we can just move on with things?

• 9:10John R. Miles?

  That's the question for me. Sometimes you want to have one of these repair conversations. And the other person may be really wary to do so. If you're the person who's trying to initiate this type of conversation, what should you not say in the first 60 seconds, which are very important?

• 9:27Speaker 01

  I think what's more important is what you do say. So I think that what we know from the research is that there's two things that make these conversations much easier. The first is just to acknowledge upfront that it might be uncomfortable. To say, look, I want to talk about this thing with you. And I know that we have a difference of opinion on it. And I know that this might be a kind of awkward conversation. And so if I say the wrong thing, because sometimes my lips move faster than my brain, and it comes out the wrong way and it seems offensive to you, I want to apologize in advance. And I promise you, if you say the wrong thing, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. And I'll try and make sure that I understand what you're saying before jumping all over you. So that's the first thing is to acknowledge that this might be uncomfortable.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  This might be awkward because acknowledging it makes it actually less uncomfortable and less awkward. But then the second thing we can do is to very clearly state what our goals are. Right? We don't often do this in a conversation, but every conversation has a set of goals that's driving it, whether we're aware of them or not. And in a repair conversation, one of the things that we want to do is we want to establish at the outset what our goal is. My goal is to, there's this issue that I feel like has been dividing us. My goal is to talk it out. I'm not going to try and convince you I'm right and you're wrong. I doubt you're going to convince me that you're right and I'm wrong. But my goal is that afterwards, we feel like we've really listened to each other and we feel connected to each other because our friendship is more important to me than this one issue.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  When you say your goals and then ask the other person for their goals, say, I'm just wondering, what's your goal in this conversation? What you're doing is you're orienting both of you towards something that's often very positive. You'd ask what you shouldn't say. What you definitely shouldn't say is, hey, I've been really pissed for a long time because I think you're totally wrong about this thing and I want you to know what I think. Right? That's not really an invitation to a conversation. That's a demand for that they listen to a monologue. But if we start by saying, look, my goal here is to really have a conversation and to understand each other, it's going to go a long way to bringing down the temperature of the discussion.

• 11:27John R. Miles?

  I think those are really helpful. I have had friends who have had relationships with people in their lives for decades and then all of a sudden those people distance them and in some cases refuse to talk to them anymore, even though a person is trying to have a repair conversation or trying to figure out what caused the flare up to begin in the first place. If someone's in a deep hole like that, is there a way for them to get out of it? Or sometimes do you just have to let it take its course and hope the person will come back to you?

• 12:06Speaker 01

  I think sometimes you just have to let it take its course. But let me ask you, when you've been in institutions like that, what have you done? What have you found that's effective and ineffective?

• 12:14John R. Miles?

  Well, I think what's been ineffective is trying to push too hard for them to reengage because it tends to just reignite whatever reason it is that they're trying to stay away from you. The other thing I try to do is a lot of introspection on what's my part. In causing this and trying to isolate, was there something I did, something that I said? Was there some way I was repeating habits that they were bringing up that that were causing them angst? And I didn't listen to them intently enough and was repeating the thing again and again. So that's one thing.

• 12:56John R. Miles?

  The other thing I've done is sometimes given it the space or season of time. And then tried to go back to them and reopen the dialogue. And sometimes not trying to do it in a cold way, but hoping that they'll be in an event that I'm at. Or if it's a family member, maybe a family reunion or around a holiday. Where it gives you the opportunity to run into them and have the conversation.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  And what I like about what you're saying is there's this important distinction between inviting someone to talk to you. And mandating that they talk to you, right? If you call someone up and you say, hey, there's this thing that happened and I'd love to discuss it with you. If it's something you're interested in, that's very different from calling up and saying, hey, look, there's this thing between us. And I want to talk about it right now. I want to resolve this and get this out of the way. The first feels like an invitation. So I might say yes, but I might also say no. The second is a demand. It's a demand of my time and it's an attempt to control me, even if that's not your intention. It feels to me like you're trying to control what I'm allowed to talk about and how I'm going to talk about it. And that never feels good, right? That puts you in a fight or flight response, which means you're probably not going to have a productive conversation.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  And so one of the things that's really important is to think about invitations versus mandates. A great example of this is deep questions, which I think we talked about last time. When you ask a question, when you ask a deep question, which is when you're asking someone about their, how their values or their experiences or their beliefs. What we're really doing is we're inviting them to speak with us. Now, the wrong way of doing that is a mandate, right? If you go up to someone and you say, hey, I was just wondering, when's the last time you cried in front of another person? That's not really an invitation. That's a mandate, right? You're telling me that I have, but if you come up to someone and you say, hey, I'm just wondering, I saw that you live up in the heights. And I was wondering, what's it like to live up there? Do you like living up there? When I do that, what I'm doing is I'm inviting you to share with me. And you might say, yeah, it's great. I love it.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Or you might say, no, I miss the valley so much. I used to be down there and I have these great friends and up in the heights, I don't have as many friends. I don't know why. So making that invitation rather than a mandate is really important.

• 15:04John R. Miles?

  It's interesting. Where I live here in Tampa Bay, I actually live within a few miles of a person I've known since second grade. And there was a period of time where he and I really drifted apart. And it started like when we were in middle school and we lost touch. We went to the same high school, but we weren't necessarily hanging out together. And now, decades later, we've found a common ground and rekindled the friendship. But it's interesting how sometimes it takes that long for bygones to be bygones and to move on. Where do you think, because it's such an important element of my work, that mattering shows up in trust repair?

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Explain to me what you mean about mattering.

• 15:53John R. Miles?

  Well, I think, so you probably are aware of who Alison Woodburks is, the Harvard professor. So Alison and I had this conversation about her book when it came out. And we had this discussion about mirrors. Oftentimes, we look at ourselves in the mirror, the mirror work like Louise Hayes talks about. But we were talking about conversations is a way that if we're really listening to someone, we're really validating them. And when we do that, we're almost holding up a mirror to ourselves, because in that person and in their life, we see ourselves in their stories. So when I talk about mattering,

• 16:37John R. Miles?

  I'm really talking about how we validate another person, how we tell them in conversation that we're seeing them, that we're hearing them, that they're valued, they're needed, without overpromising or overstepping our role.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Well, I think the best way that we show someone that they're important, that they matter, is by proving to them that we're listening to them, right? And I think we tend to think of listening as a passive activity, that I close my mouth and I open my ears. But what all the research tells us, and I think Alison would agree with this, that's not enough. That's the beginning of listening, but it's not enough to actually show someone that you're listening to them. That oftentimes, what we need to do is we need to prove that we're paying attention, and more importantly, prove that we're processing what they're saying. What I'm hearing you say is this, and the reason why that's so important to me is because this is what you represent in my life. I really value that this role that you play. In those moments, what I'm doing is I'm saying, "Look, not only am I listening to you,

• 17:38Speaker 01

  I'm thinking about what you're saying. I'm trying to process it. I'm trying to understand how you see the world." And one of the things that we know about social reciprocity is that if I prove that I am listening to you, if you genuinely believe that I'm paying attention, then you become much more likely to listen to me in response and to pay attention to me. And so I think that the first thing when it comes to mattering is to not assume that the other person knows that you're listening, but rather see it as your mission to prove that you're listening. Because what you'll find is that you actually understand them better by describing to them what you think they've said. The second thing I think we can do is we can just be more open about why things matter to us, right? We can have

• 18:20Speaker 01

  conversations where we say, "Look, this is a tough topic. Our relationship means so much to me. I really want to talk this through because I think it's something that will bring us closer together ultimately." Oftentimes, telling people that they matter is what makes them matter even more.

• 18:36John R. Miles?

  I think about conversations back when I was doing my work in Fortune 500 companies. And if you're a leader, I think one of the things we often do, especially with an employee that we're having issues with, is we try to tell them what to do and control the situation instead of doing what you were just saying and leaning in more to understand their side of what they're feeling and why they might not be understanding or performing the way that you want them to. And I think it takes really some vulnerability for the leader

• 19:15John R. Miles?

  to do that because oftentimes, we don't want to show any weakness. But what's your recommendation in circumstances like that?

• 19:25Speaker 01

  I think the important thing to distinguish at the outset is this a conversation or not, right? Sometimes you go to your boss's office and your boss says, "Look, you're doing this wrong. I need you to change." They're not looking for a conversation. They're looking to just give you information and then you can take that information and work with it. And that's fine. Not everything has to be a conversation. But let's say it is a situation where your boss is saying to themselves, "I don't understand why this person isn't, isn't as successful as I'd hoped they'd be. I don't understand like why we keep on having this problem again and again. I really want to have a conversation with them and understand what's going on so I can help them get better." I think much like we said before, you probably want to start that conversation by stating your

• 20:05Speaker 01

  goal, right? So my goal, thanks for coming in today, John. My goal for today is I want to talk to you about your performance. And my goal is I want you to be as successful at this company as I think you can be. I want you to be the most successful and the best version of yourself. That's my goal. Now, the way that we get to that is there's some stuff that's going on that you're doing that I think doesn't work. But let me start by asking you a question, right? Whenever we start a conversation by asking someone else a deep question, what we're doing is instead of trying to control them, we're inviting them to become a participant in this conversation. So I'm wondering, I know that you've been struggling the last couple of weeks. Tell me a little bit about how you think you've been struggling and why you think you've been

• 20:47Speaker 01

  struggling. And that's going to give you a chance to give me your perspective. Now, I might disagree with your perspective. I might say, what I hear you saying is that you feel really overwhelmed and that you feel like you're not getting enough appreciation and that's really impacting you. From my perspective, what I see is that we've tried to give you a lot of positive feedback. And for some reason, it doesn't seem to be sticking with you. It seems like you're still really anxious about what's going on here, right? We don't have to agree with each other. But when I've already said what my goal is, that my goal is to help you be, be the best employee you can be. And then I've invited you to tell me your diagnosis of the problem and I've proved to you that I'm listening. I say, "What I hear you saying is, am I getting

• 21:31Speaker 01

  that right?" That makes you much more likely to listen to me in response. And in a case where a boss says, I needed the work done differently, or I need you to act a different way. The goal in many ways is to figure out how to get the employee to listen to you because the employee is often so freaked out and overwhelmed and their fight or flight is in high action. And so it's easier instead of listening to defend ourselves, to come up with all the reasons why our boss is wrong. But as a manager, our goal should be in part to get that person to hear what we're saying, to let them be less defensive, so that what we're trying to share can really make its way through.

• 22:09John R. Miles?

  I hope you're enjoying my conversation with Charles Duhigg. Now, a quick break from our sponsors. Thank you for supporting those who support the show. We'll be right back.

• 22:25John R. Miles?

  You're listening to Passion Struck on the Passion Struck Network. Now, back to my conversation with Charles Duhigg.

• 22:33John R. Miles?

  I have always found that one of the most difficult things for me to do is diagnosing where the repair needs to happen. And I think when I look at it, there are really three things that come into play. There's the facts of the situation, the emotions or feelings that we have about it. But I also think that there is an identity piece to it, or an identity layer. How do you recommend that we diagnose where the real fracture is?

• 23:06Speaker 01

  I think that you're right. I think my answer is always coming back to the same thing, which is there is no magic bullet. There is no magical way to diagnose without talking to someone and asking them questions, what they're feeling or thinking. And so the key is that we have to ask them what they're feeling or thinking. We have to say, look, like, I see that when you talk to this one colleague of yours, it really rankles you. Tell me why. And they might say something like, they might say, oh, I feel like that person is mean to me. They're just really rude. Okay, that's an emotional conversation, right? At the core of the problem here is that you're feeling a certain emotion when you talk to this other person. But they might also say something like, I feel like that person doesn't respect me. I have a lot of background in this field. I

• 23:48Speaker 01

  have a lot of knowledge. And whenever I bring it up, they just disregard it. Okay, that's an identity conversation. That's a conversation where it's not so much that I'm feeling my, I'm feeling. I'm feeling bad, or I'm feeling like you're mean. It's that I feel like you're not acknowledging my identity. You're not giving me the respect that I believe my identity deserves. And those are different kinds of conversations. They require different kinds of skills. But the answer is, you're not going to figure out which one is happening unless you ask the person questions. And we're very, very good at detecting what category of conversation their answer belongs in. Right? Our brains have evolved to be great at communication. We are all, at one time or another, super communicators throughout our weeks.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  And so I think it's about asking those questions and letting your brain tell you, this is what this person is feeling. This is what's going on. This is how, this is the right way to start attacking this problem and to resolve it.

• 24:43John R. Miles?

  So we talked about a work situation. We've talked about friendships. But I know that many of the listeners might be involved in situations where they're strange from a parent, or maybe it's an adult child. And in those situations, the stakes can be even higher. From your standpoint, what's our first reconnection message? That's low pressure, but high signal.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  I think the first thing that you can do is you can just reach out and say, look, I don't need you to respond if you don't want to. There's no pressure on you. I'm not trying to control you at all. I just want you to know that I love you and I miss you. And if you do want to respond, I promise that I will do everything to make sure that is, we do that in the safest way possible. Right? So what I'm doing there is, again, I'm establishing a goal. The goal is, I just want to reconnect. I don't want you to agree with me. I don't want you to say that you were wrong. I just want to reconnect. That's all I'm looking for. And secondarily, I want you to know that I acknowledge, this is that meta-conversation again, I acknowledge that our conversations haven't gone well in the past. And in part, that's my fault. I play a role in that.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  But I want to do better. And if you choose to reach back out to me, I'll do my best to be as good as I can be. I think those are really important things, and I think that they often go a long way. The third thing that's there that I mentioned before is you're not creating a mandate. You're creating an invitation. I want to reach out to you. You don't have to respond. It's fine if you don't want to engage right now. I just want you to know that I'm thinking about you. That's an invitation for a conversation. It's not a mandate for a conversation. And I think there's a really big, important distinction there.

• 26:31John R. Miles?

  I wanted to just do a follow up. So I think one is the messaging, which we just talked about. I think the second aspect of this is the medium that you use. Do you recommend like a DM text, a voice memo, a handwritten note? And how do you know what to choose?

• 26:52Speaker 01

  To be honest, I don't think it matters. Different forms of communication have different rules. But if I'm talking to my kids, texting is a lot easier and a lot better than trying to have a phone call with them. Because they're used to texting, right? Instead of insisting that they use my comfortable means of communication, which is a phone call. I use their means of communication. Now, is it texting different from a phone call? Yeah, there's different rules, right? When I'm texting you, I know that you can't hear my voice. And so I probably need to over emphasize a little bit my emotions. I shouldn't use sarcasm because you can hear the sarcasm in my voice, but you can't tell sarcasm when it's written. And so you might think I'm being serious. So there's different rules for different channels, but no one channel is better than the other. The question is which channel is available to you?

• 27:37Speaker 01

  If it's possible to have a face to face conversation and everyone is comfortable with a face to face conversation, that's great, right? Because face to face conversations are the most information rate rich way of communicating. But that's not always possible. Sometimes they won't get together with you. Sometimes they won't, they don't want to see you. And so the only thing that's available to you is an email or is a text. And as long as we remember that those different forms of communication have different rules, then we'll figure out how to use that to connect.

• 28:05John R. Miles?

  Thanks for sharing that, Charles. And one of the things that I think plays into this, especially in a parent, adult, a parent-child aspect is boundaries. And oftentimes, those boundaries are what is causing the rift to happen. So if you take that same scenario, and the parent is intruding on the child's boundaries, and you're the child, how do you communicate to your parents what's off limits without making your parent feel like they're unimportant, or without sending them off?

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Well, give me an example. What are you thinking of when you think about boundaries?

• 28:46John R. Miles?

  Okay, so let's say you're starting to date someone new, and it's someone, maybe it's not new, maybe you've been in a relationship with this person for a year or 18 months, and you know it's a person that your parents don't necessarily approve of, and they might not like them, but this person is important to you, and you've gotten to this point where you've heard what your parents have to say, but you don't really care anymore what they have to say. How do you communicate to them that there's a boundary around this relationship that they can't cross, and that if they do, it can have ramifications?

• 29:25Speaker 01

  And what's your goal here? What are you trying to achieve by having this conversation?

• 29:30John R. Miles?

  I think the goal is you want to have a relationship with your parents. You eventually hope that they'll like your partner, and that maybe they'll let go of whatever's causing them to have the hangups that they do. So you're trying to find a way forward, but you don't want them continually bringing up this partner of yours and the relationship that you're in and their disapproval, because you just don't want to hear it anymore.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  That seems like a pretty good thing to say to your parents then, right? To say, look, Mom and Dad, I want to talk to you about something. I know that you don't like my girlfriend. You wish that I was dating someone else, but she's really important to me. And my relationship with the two of you is also really important to me. And I feel like for going forward, for us to maintain our relationship, and maybe you'll come around on my girlfriend, maybe not. But when you bring it up constantly, it makes me feel like you don't trust me and you don't respect me and that you don't want me to be happy. And that might not be your intention. I realize that's not your intention, but that's how it makes me feel. And so I'm going to ask, if you don't mind, that we not bring up all the things that are wrong with my girlfriend. I, I think I understand it. That's the first thing you can do.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  The second thing you can do is you can try and, and then as part of that, you can ask them a question. Tell me what it is that you don't like about my girlfriend. And they might say something like, well, she just seems too controlling for you. Right? It seems like every time that usually we used to see you twice a week and now we only see you once a month. And I think it's the girlfriend's fault. I think that she's, okay. So the issue here is I could say, look, I'm going to prove to you that I'm listening. Right? I'm going to say something like, what I hear you saying is that you want to spend more time with me. And for you, the girlfriend, my girlfriend, is the reason we're not spending time with each other. But I want to acknowledge, I, I love spending time with you and, and I've been really busy at work and there is stuff going on that's kept me away.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  But I hear what you're saying is that you want to spend more time with me. I'm going to make a commitment to do that. And, and the only thing I ask is that you make this a comfortable place for my girlfriend because she's going to be with me sometimes. And if I'm trying to see you more and she doesn't want to come because she knows that you guys don't like her, it's going to be, make it hard for me to spend more time with you. Right? So what I'm doing there is I'm using questions to try and figure out what's really going on. Now, it might be just be that they hate my girlfriend. They say something like, I can't stand her. Her voice drives me crazy. Okay, well, then we know that, right? And we know how to manage it. But my guess is that what's actually going on is that there's some deeper issue. Like you're not spending enough time with us or we're worried that, that we're religious

• 32:10Speaker 01

  and she's not religious and we're worried that she's going to pull you away from our faith. Right? There's underlying reasons. And the only way that we get to at those underlying reasons is to ask questions and then to prove that we're listening when people answer them.

• 32:24John R. Miles?

  Yeah, I, in my personal life, had a pretty extreme version of this where I was trying to work between the two parties and my parents had their set of views on the situation. My partner had their set of views on the situation and my partner eventually said, you have to choose. It's either me or them, which really becomes an impossible choice because who's really going to give up speaking to their parents?

• 32:54John R. Miles?

  But these things, like you said, can spiral and I, in my situation, I think what was causing the riff is my parents thought that she was trying to disrupt a lot of the family traditions that were happening because she wanted to implement her own family traditions. I also do think that religion played a role into it because she didn't come from the same faith that we did. She was a Christian like we were, but from a different denomination and didn't share some of the same value systems. So I had tried to get them to work on the same, at least agree to a value compromise, but it reached a point where that choice happened and then I was

• 33:39John R. Miles?

  thrust into a situation of how do you repair what you've been trying to repair all along? So some of these things are very difficult, which is why I brought it up.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And look, there is no silver bullet. There's no magical thing you can say. If your parents genuinely dislike this, your partner, and your partner genuinely dislikes your parents and there's no way for them to be in the same room together. It might be that you do have to make a choice, right? It might be that there is no conversation because it sounds like neither of them want to have a conversation. Neither of them are looking for a conversation. Neither of them are looking for mutual understanding. But what you can do is you can tell people how this affects you and say, look, I love you, my partner. I also love my parents. And I'm in a situation where I'm being asked to make this impossible choice. And I know that you care for me. And my goal here, my goal is not for you to like my parents. My goal is not for you to agree with them.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  When you're talking to your parents, my goal is not for you to accept my partner and her religious faith as your own religious faith. My goal is just that I want both of you in my life. And I want you to tell me what we need to do in order that you guys can spend time in a room together without shouting at each other. Again, that might not work. Maybe they're not interested in it. Maybe your partner says, look, I don't want to have that conversation. I don't want to compromise on anything. And your parents say the same thing. But you've at least done the best job you can of trying to get to a place where they can understand and hear each other. And in doing so, you're setting up the environment where people can come together, even if they disagree. And honestly, I've seen it succeed far more than I've seen it fail.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Right? There are many interdenominational marriages in this country. There are interracial marriages. There are many sets of in-laws who, if given all their choices in the world, probably wouldn't spend much time with the other set of in-laws, right? They have different perspectives. They come from a different place. And yet they all manage to get along pretty well. And the reason why is oftentimes because they say, I don't need you to agree with me about my faith. I don't need you to believe that my version of Christianity is the right version of Christianity and yours is the wrong one. What I need you to, what I need is I just need to understand, need you to understand that my faith is important to me. And I want to promise you that in return, when you tell me about your faith, I won't assume that you're trying to convert me.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  I assume that you're trying to share with me who you are. And I acknowledge and I respect that you have a different faith tradition than I do, and that it's important to you and it's meaningful. And it creates value in your life. And I want to be part of creating that value, even if that means that we come from different faiths. This happens all the time, right? It happens literally every single day. And I think the key there is when you set that goal to be, I want to understand and I want to connect as opposed to anything else. And then you really live by it. You don't try and convert the person. You don't try and tell them why you think their faith is wrong. Then we can have some success.

• 36:40John R. Miles?

  Let's flip the same scenario and say that progress is happening.

• 36:48John R. Miles?

  How do you, are there key markers that show that a relationship is healing?

• 36:58Speaker 01

  I think you know if a relationship is healing or not, right? When you're in it, but if you go to bed and you have that like tight knot in your stomach and then you go to bed the next night and the knot's gone, then things are getting better. Right? There doesn't have to be external markers of these things because our intuition is very highly developed. Whether a relationship is going well or poorly is based on whether you think it is going well or poorly, not on some chart that you might get out of a self-help book. And so what's important is to spend time having conversations with yourself and try and figure out what's actually going on here. How do I feel about this? Do I feel like things are getting better? In general, when a conversation does start, when a relationship does start to heal and start to improve,

• 37:44Speaker 01

  there can be this giddiness, the sense that, oh, now all the problems are behind us. I can pretend that they don't exist anymore. And that usually doesn't work, as people know. It usually means that you're overlooking them for a moment, but that they might pop up again later. And so one of the things to do is to sit down with yourself or with your partner or whoever you're in this dispute with and say, look, when these issues come up again, what should we do? Should we do X? Should we do Y? How do we decide now that we're in a cold state? Let's decide how we're going to resolve this once we're in a hot state. Let's make the decision ahead of time. That's known in psychology as an implementation intention. And the reason why it's powerful is because in a hot state, we often act impulsively. Right? If you go grocery shopping while you're hungry,

• 38:28Speaker 01

  you buy a bunch of junk food that you don't need because you're in a hot state. But if you decide ahead of time, you have a big lunch and then you sit down and you write a shopping list and you say, look, I'm only going to buy the stuff that's on the shopping list. So you're making those decisions in a cold state about how to behave in a hot state. You're much more likely to do the thing that you intend to do. And so one of the best things we can do is when things are going well, when we're getting along with each other, when it seems like things are good to say, look, I don't want to bring up old bad memories, but. The next time we have a fight, let's decide how we're going to handle that fight. Because right now, it's really easy to have this conversation. And in the middle of the fight, it's not easy at all. But let's just decide ahead of time. Like, we're not going to interrupt each other.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  We'll always say please and thank you whenever we say things. I won't talk about your mother and you won't talk about my mother. Right? Let's set some ground rules now that we're both calm that we know will help us when we're not calm anymore.

• 39:27John R. Miles?

  So, Charles, one thing I wanted to explore is you were really known for your work on habits. And to me, habits and rituals share a lot of common characteristics. Are there small, repeatable habits or rituals that people can do that rebuild trust? Maybe it's weekly coffees, or catch-up phone calls, or micro celebrations that you do with your friends. Have you found that there are certain things that work?

• 39:57Speaker 01

  All of those are great. I would say at the core of them is the same thing that I would suggest is a habit that people should cultivate, which is asking more questions. We know that consistent super communicators, they ask 10 to 20 times as many questions as the average person. And the reason they're asking all those questions is because they're inviting people into the conversation. So why are we going to coffee together? Why are we having a telephone check-in? It's probably not just so that I can tell you my thoughts on the news and you can just sit there and passively listen. Rather, the reason why those gatherings are important and useful is because we're asking each other questions. If you and I go to coffee and I talk the entire time and I never let you say anything, then having coffee together isn't going to make anything better, right? It's probably going to make it worse.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  The goal of going to coffee, the goal of calling someone up is to ask each other questions and give each other a chance to understand how we see the world and to learn how you see the world in turn. That's at the core of conversation and communication. It's at the core of how we maintain all of our relationships.

• 41:00John R. Miles?

  So, asking questions.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  That's right, particularly deep questions.

• 41:06John R. Miles?

  Is there a counterintuitive skill you've seen, one that maybe people resist that actually unlocks reconnection?

• 41:14Speaker 01

  I think the counterintuitive thing is to not try and be right, not try and convince the other person that you're right, not try and look at this conversation as them agreeing with you. Oftentimes, particularly when we're in a difficult conversation, we're so worked up about it, we're so anxious about it, we've been thinking about it for weeks. And what we've been thinking about is, I really want to say this, I want them to hear me say this. We don't spend usually as much time thinking about what we hope they say, what we want to learn about them. And so I think that people sometimes misunderstand what the goal of a conversation is. If you and I have a conversation about something we disagree about, and we both walk away still disagreeing with each other,

• 41:53Speaker 01

  but I understand how you see the world a little bit better, and have spoken in such a way that you can understand how I see the world a little bit better, then that conversation has been a success. Because although we might not agree with each other, we understand each other more. And so I think that's the counterintuitive thing is to say, my goal here, my purpose, the reason I'm having this conversation, it is not to share information with you, it is not to convince you that I'm right, that I know what I'm talking about. It is to help you understand how I see the world, and so that I can ask you questions that help me understand how you see the world. And as long as we understand each other a little bit more, even if we disagree, then we feel connected, and that conversation has been successful.

• 42:39John R. Miles?

  My last question is more of a legacy question. So you wrote Super Communicators to help people reconnect in life. So if we treated connection as a daily practice, something that is important to us as breathing or eating.

• 42:59John R. Miles?

  How would this change our life a year from now? What difference would we see? Especially when so many people today are faced with loneliness epidemics and helplessness and hopelessness and all this pervasive division that we talked about at the beginning of the podcast?

• 43:20Speaker 01

  I think, and we know this from studies, right? We know from studies that the surgeon general has said that being lonely is the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And 15 cigarettes a day, that's a lot of cigarettes, right? That's a good number of cigarettes. So I think what's really important is that we are happier the more that we have other people in our lives that we feel genuinely connected to. That doesn't mean we have to have a ton of people, right? You don't have to have 15 good friends. One good friend is enough. But we should invest in making that one good friend. And what we find is that if we have that one good friend, not only are we happier, we're also often more successful. We're more successful because that friend helps us see opportunities that we didn't perceive on our own. They help us see the world in a different way.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  They help us explore who we are. And having that relationship gives us some emotional ballast that allows us to feel centered and calm when the storms come. So I would say one of the best things that we know people can do, not only for their happiness, but also for their success, as well as their longevity, because people with friends live longer than people without friends, is invest in those friendships. Call that person up that you haven't talked to in six months. The first 10 minutes of the conversation is going to be awkward because you can't remember his wife's name, and that's fine. But if you stick with it, if you say, I'm going to talk to this guy for 30 minutes and the first 10 are going to be awkward, the last 20 are going to be fantastic. And you're going to feel so much better about yourself and the world and life by having that conversation and reigniting that relationship.

• 44:50John R. Miles?

  Charles, where is the best place for listeners to follow your work?

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Sure. So I have a Substack newsletter that you can find just by Googling Charles Duhigg Newsletter or Charles Duhigg Substack. I also have a website that has a bunch of links on how to contact me, and that's at charlesduhigg.com, D U H I G G dot com.

• 45:11John R. Miles?

  Charles, such an honor to have you back on Passion Struck. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. That's a wrap on today's conversation with Charles Duhigg. What I loved about this episode is how it reminds us that connection isn't built on the number of conversations we have. It's built on the quality of the ones that matter. It's not about talking more, it's about talking better. Here are a few key reflections to carry with you. First, communication isn't persuasion, it's understanding. Second, the hardest conversations often open the deepest connections. And third, when you approach someone with genuine curiosity instead of certainty, you create space for trust to return. If this episode gave you

• 45:53John R. Miles?

  a new perspective on communication, or helped you think differently about how you connect, then please share it with someone who needs to hear it. You can also watch it on our YouTube channels at both John R. Miles and Passion Struck clips. You can also find key takeaways, behind the scenes insights, and companion workbooks at theignitedlife.net, my Substack for Living with Intention. And don't forget to preorder Umat or Lima at Barnes & Noble. Next week, we continue The Forces That Shape Us with another returning guest, Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia, for a powerful discussion on her new book, Be Yourself at Work: The Groundbreaking Power of Showing Up, Standing Out, and Leading from the Heart.

• 46:35John R. Miles?

  We'll explore what it means to lead with empathy, build cultures of belonging, and bring more authenticity into how we live and lead every day.

• 46:42Speaker 02

  Go and stand on the stage and show everyone who you are. And if that means you like to juggle and sing at the same time, maybe not. But try to dip your toe in with one or two people by sharing yourself. Or here you are, and you have a coffee with someone, and they share they're having problems in their relationship, and maybe you share where you are in your relationship. It takes some vulnerability. It takes some vulnerability, but you're not going to know unless you try. You're going to assume, maybe from watching other people, that, oh, they're not accepted, they're not accepted. We have no idea what's going on with other people. But you can control you. And so what I would say is, try it.

• 47:23John R. Miles?

  Until next time, listen with empathy, speak with intention, and as always, live life passion struck.