Charles Duhigg: Asking Questions That Build Instant Connection

1. 0:00 – 1:30

   Show kickoff: communication mission, book launch, and learning resources

   1. SPSpeaker0:00

      Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher Podcast, where I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything. If you enjoy learning tools to improve your communication, I'm gonna ask you to please follow this podcast, and if you would, leave a review or a like or a star. It really matters, and it means a lot to me, and I look at it also. If you have any topic suggestions, just throw them in the comments. My new book, The Next Conversation, is officially out. You can find the links down in the show notes. This is a book that's gonna give you not just what to say, but how to say it, and give you tools immediately to help give you the power to change everything about your life simply by what you say next. I'm really proud of it, everything's going well, and I'm excited to share it with you. Also, if you're wanting to continue to practice your new communication skills, I'm gonna encourage you to go to the Jefferson Fisher School of Communication, where a lot of exciting things are happening. I, I have a whole library of resources. I have an AI that can help answer texts and emails for you from that, uh, difficult coworker, and on top of that, we have live classes. Been a whole lot of fun. You can also find that link down in the show notes. If you've ever wondered how the great communicators become great communicators, well, you're in for a treat on this episode. Today, we're hearing from Charles Duhigg. This guy is not only a, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, he is a, an amazing author, and somebody I am actually geeking

2. 1:30 – 2:37

   Meet Charles Duhigg and the core premise: persuasion through questions

   1. SPSpeaker1:30

      over to talk to about as somebody who loves communication, because he has a book out, uh, that is called Supercommunicators. And I just can't wait to get into it and, and talk about it. He's a dad of two, I believe, and, uh, I know you're over in California. Charles, thanks for coming on.

   2. CDCharles Duhigg1:49

      Thank you for having me. This is such a treat.

   3. SPSpeaker1:51

      Yeah. It has been so cool. When... As soon as your book came out, um, I immediately ran and got it, because I just don't find that there's that many resources on-

   4. CDCharles Duhigg2:01

      Yeah

   5. SPSpeaker2:01

      ... communication. I want to make sure that I hit this question that I've... It stuck out with me in the book, and is that the most per- persuasive people don't argue their point, they ask great questions.

   6. CDCharles Duhigg2:17

      Absolutely.

   7. SPSpeaker2:17

      And if I could write that down and put it on my mirror every day, I'd... That's exactly what I would do. Can you tell us more about what that means to you, and how people can, people listening to it right now, how, how can they apply it in their every day from the kitchen to the living room to their workplace?

   8. CDCharles Duhigg2:35

      Yeah.

   9. SPSpeaker2:36

      Asking great questions.

3. 2:37 – 5:12

   Why supercommunicators ask 10–20x more questions (and what “deep questions” are)

   1. CDCharles Duhigg2:37

      No, it's a, it, it... What's really interesting is, you know, when researchers started sort of identifying these folks that we, that we call consistent supercommunicators. Because we're all supercommunicators at one time or another, but, but some people can essentially kind of connect with anyone. The number one behavior that they found was that these people tended to ask 10 to 20 times as many questions as the average person. And, and, and what's interesting, though, is, and we all know people like this, some of the questions you don't even register as questions. They'll say things like, uh, you know, "Oh, what'd you think about that?" Or, you know, "What'd you say next?" It's these little essentially invitations to share with them. But then some of the questions that they are very comfortable asking are what are known as deep questions, and a deep question is something that asks someone about their values or their beliefs or their experiences, and that can sound kind of intimidating, right? When I'm like, "Oh, you should ask people about their values or their beliefs-

   2. SPSpeaker3:30

      Yeah, yeah

   3. CDCharles Duhigg3:30

      ... or their experiences." Except that it's as simple as, you know, if you meet someone who's a doctor, instead of saying, you know, "Oh, what hospital do you work at?" You could ask, "Oh, what made you decide to go to medical school?"

   4. SPSpeaker3:40

      Mm.

   5. CDCharles Duhigg3:41

      Right? That second question, that invites the person to tell you something real, right? That invites them to tell you sort of what they believe in or what their experiences were as a kid that sort of led them to where they are.

   6. SPSpeaker3:52

      Yes.

   7. CDCharles Duhigg3:53

      That's a really powerful question. And, and so I think that the most persuasive people, they recognize, the best communicators, supercommunicators recognize asking these deep questions is just as easy as asking shallow questions. But when I ask a deep question, I'm inviting you to have a real conversation with me. And when you know that I'm listening to you, you start to listen to me, and then, and then we're persuading each other.

   8. SPSpeaker4:18

      Yes, absolutely. It's, um, what I hear is it, this everyday small talk that people feel, most people feel anxious about. I, I don't wanna ask the question. I don't wanna be too much. You can have surface questions and, and deep questions, and the great communicators have a wonderful skill at making the deep questions sound just like the shallow ones.

   9. CDCharles Duhigg4:40

      That's exactly right.

   10. SPSpeaker4:41

       Uh, to where you're not having to, you know, feel like, "What is your deepest desire? Tell me about your childhood." Like, [laughs] these things that-

   11. CDCharles Duhigg4:47

       Right

   12. SPSpeaker4:47

       ... you're like, "Whoa, whoa, I don't, I don't know you." Um, is that, is that the way you feel about it? Like, if you're gonna conversation and instead of this, what else, question mark, versus what else. Like, you finding ways of sounding them, make them sound like a statement. So I'm trying to give the-

   13. CDCharles Duhigg5:04

       So I think that's, it's-

   14. SPSpeaker5:04

       ... the listener right now some tips on that

   15. CDCharles Duhigg5:06

       ... Th- that's definitely half of it, right?

   16. SPSpeaker5:07

       Yeah.

   17. CDCharles Duhigg5:07

       Is that half of it is I can ask you a deep question that sounds like a shallow question.

   18. SPSpeaker5:12

       Mm-hmm.

4. 5:12 – 6:25

   Make deep questions feel natural: shift from facts to feelings

   1. CDCharles Duhigg5:12

      So, and oftentimes that's just a matter of asking you... Here's, here's the big tip, is instead of asking you about the facts of your life, ask you a question that would prompt you to talk about how you feel about your life.

   2. SPSpeaker5:24

      Mm.

   3. CDCharles Duhigg5:24

      So instead of just asking, you know, "Where do you live?" "Oh, I live in the Heights." "Oh, what do you like about the Heights?"

   4. SPSpeaker5:30

      Mm.

   5. CDCharles Duhigg5:30

      Right? Or, you know, it, you can do it with almost anything. It's very, very easy. Now, the thing is that that's a great way to start a conversation, and there's a guy named Nick Epley at the University of Chicago who's basically spent, studied deep questions his whole career. I think that once you ask an easy-to-ask deep question, it's actually much easier and much more welcome to ask a deep question that seems like a deep question, right? If I ask you, you know, "What do you like about the Heights?" And you say, "Well, the sense of community is amazing up there." "Oh, yeah? Wait, like, what, like, tell me about it. Like, what's the community?" "Well, you know, my wife passed away a year ago." And my neighbors have been there for me. Then suddenly it's totally okay for me to say, "Oh, I'm so sorry. Like, tell me about your wife. What was she like?"

   6. SPSpeaker6:15

      Mm.

   7. CDCharles Duhigg6:15

      Right? What research shows is that we don't have a resistance to deep questions. We have a resistance to deep questions that move a little bit too quickly. But you can actually-

   8. SPSpeaker6:25

      Yeah

5. 6:25 – 8:02

   Spot and accept conversational invitations (funerals, graduations, and missed opportunities)

   1. CDCharles Duhigg6:25

      ... move fast if you ramp up the intimacy. And so if I ask you a question, and this is the other thing that supercommunicators do, and I, I think you talk about this in your own work a lot, that they look for opportunities where people are trying to tell them what they want to talk about, right? So let's take someone passing away. This is the most-

   2. SPSpeaker6:47

      Mm

   3. CDCharles Duhigg6:47

      ... my, my own... My father passed away about seven years ago.

   4. SPSpeaker6:51

      Mm.

   5. CDCharles Duhigg6:51

      And I went back to work. I was working at The New York Times at that point. I went back to work, and I had this, this experience that I think everyone has had, which is, you know, people say, "Oh, where were you last week?" And you say, "Oh, I was at my dad's funeral." And they all say the same thing. They all say, "Oh, my condolences. I'm so sorry." And then they move on to whatever you were talking about before, right?

   6. SPSpeaker7:11

      Yeah.

   7. CDCharles Duhigg7:11

      Because, like, they don't know what to say. But anyone who's been through that experience knows that if somebody were to say, like, "Oh, like, I'm so sorry. Like, tell me what your dad was like. What was..." 'Cause that's all you've been thinking about for the last two weeks, right? Is you've been thinking about your dad and the funeral and the eulogies and how much they touched you. And so I think what supercommunicators do is they look for people to offer them invitations, and then they accept those invitations.

   8. SPSpeaker7:36

      Mm.

   9. CDCharles Duhigg7:36

      Even if accepting that invitation means I'm gonna ask you something that maybe is not something that, that I normally would ask, right? Maybe, maybe I sit down next to you in a, in a meeting, and you tell me about you, the fact that you went to your kid's graduation that weekend. And instead of just saying, "Oh, congratulations. That's awesome. Let's get down to the agenda," I say, "Oh, congratulations. That's awesome. What did it feel like to watch your kid walk across that stage?"

   10. SPSpeaker7:59

       Yeah.

   11. CDCharles Duhigg8:00

       That's when suddenly we're connecting with each other.

6. 8:02 – 10:52

   Jefferson’s legal lens: cadence, cliffhangers, and how people signal what they want to say

   1. SPSpeaker8:02

      I love that. Not asking about facts, ask about how they feel. That's something that's immediately applicable and that somebody could apply right now. And I... What I see, too, is in my line as, in work of, as an attorney, in cross-examination when you're asking somebody questions, you know, a lot of the time, you can tell what they're wanting to talk about based on how they end their first sentence, or they end-

   2. CDCharles Duhigg8:28

      Oh, that's interesting

   3. SPSpeaker8:29

      ... when they end their answer. They might end it, their answer just a little bit short because they are trying to invite you to let them in just a little bit more, to talk just a little bit more. So it's very telling how they end their answer. They might end it on, like, a cliffhanger, or somebody might say, you know, "Yeah, and so..." They might s- they might end it with a, "Yeah, so y- you know, that's..." And they just, they, they've kinda hit a dead end. They're not sure how to get there, and so they're inviting you to kinda help me-

   4. CDCharles Duhigg9:02

      Yeah

   5. SPSpeaker9:02

      ... walk me through that door.

   6. CDCharles Duhigg9:04

      I think that's huge. I... And I think that's such a, such a great insight, that, like, just by paying attention to the, to the cadence of how they speak-

   7. SPSpeaker9:12

      Mm-hmm

   8. CDCharles Duhigg9:12

      ... or they're telling us stuff. Because the truth of the matter is sometimes when we're communicating with someone, we assume that they are communicating by accident, right? Oh, you mentioned, you mentioned your kid's graduation, but you don't wanna talk about your kid's graduation. You mentioned that you were at a funeral, but you don't wanna talk about the funeral. That's not how communication works.

   9. SPSpeaker9:28

      Yeah.

   10. CDCharles Duhigg9:28

       We mention things that we wanna talk about, right? [laughs]

   11. SPSpeaker9:30

       Exactly.

   12. CDCharles Duhigg9:31

       We d- we avoid things that we don't wanna talk about. So if somebody has brought something up with you, that shouldn't be like, "Oh, no, I kinda touched the third rail there." That should be, "Oh, this, this person, like they want me to ask about that."

   13. SPSpeaker9:44

       That's so funny. Yeah, so my, uh, my grandfather would have this habit of when we- we'd be, like, at, at a restaurant all together, [laughs] and he'd ask you, you know, "Jefferson, is that, uh... How, how's that, that fish?" And I'd say, "Well, it's, it's great." And it was an invitation for me to say, "Would you like a bite?" Like, that was-

   14. CDCharles Duhigg10:07

       [laughs]

   15. SPSpeaker10:07

       ... that was always his, like, go-to if... He s- would say, "Yeah, how, how's that, how's that chicken right there?"

   16. CDCharles Duhigg10:15

       [laughs]

   17. SPSpeaker10:15

       And it's his way of saying, like, "That looks good." And I... It would invite me to go, "Would you like a bite?" And he goes, "Yeah, I think I would." Yeah. [laughs]

   18. CDCharles Duhigg10:22

       Sounds like a supercommunicator. I think you knew what he wanted out of the conversation.

   19. SPSpeaker10:25

       Exactly, yeah. That's, that's the invitation right there is, is what you're hearing. I love that. The takeaway is instead of trying to push your point, or even in the small, little everyday conversations, you find ways to ask more questions. Supercommunicators ask m- much more, uh, than the average person on questions that they can put into somebody else's life.

   20. CDCharles Duhigg10:48

       Yeah.

   21. SPSpeaker10:48

       Right? The takeaway is invest in the questions. I think that's-

   22. CDCharles Duhigg10:51

       That's exactly right

7. 10:52 – 11:38

   Sponsor break: Cozy Earth

   1. SPSpeaker10:52

      ... um, exactly it. I love that. I wanna tell you about a sponsor of this podcast called Cozy Earth. The reason why I went with Cozy was 'cause I already use their products. Their sheets are on my bed right now. My wife loves their pajamas. I love their hoodies, their sweatshirts, their blankets. If you're like me and you just wanna be comfortable, look no further than Cozy Earth. You can go to cozyearth.com/jefferson and use the code Jefferson for 40% off. That's cozyearth.com/jefferson. Use the code Jefferson for 40% off. If you're a blanket person, if you're a sheet person, if you're a towel person, they're who you want. Go to Cozy Earth. In your book, Supercommunicators, which is fantastic, I encourage everybody right now while you're listening to this episode, just go run and buy it. It's, it's, it's wonderful.

   2. CDCharles Duhigg11:38

      Oh, thank you.

8. 11:38 – 14:31

   The 3 conversation types: practical, emotional, and social (and why couples miss each other)

   1. SPSpeaker11:38

      You talk about three types of conversations that people could be in really at any given time, and that to me, when I read it, was just going, "Oh, that's really cool." And kind of breaking it up into... I'm very visual, of like a- anytime you're in a conversation, you have, like, a yellow wire, a blue wire, and a, you know, a green wire.

   2. CDCharles Duhigg11:58

      Yeah.

   3. SPSpeaker11:58

      And you never really know which one to pull. And what you do so well is you synthesize these and, and to say, "Hey, really, anytime you're in a conversation, you're in one of these three boxes." Can you t- tell us about that?

   4. CDCharles Duhigg12:08

      Yeah, absolutely. And this actually started, um, a couple years ago before I wrote the book because I got into this bad habit with my wife, which is I'd come home from work, and I'd start complaining about my day, you know, like My boss doesn't appreciate me, and my coworkers don't realize what a genius [laughs] I am. And, and she would give me this really good advice. She would say, "Why don't you take your boss out to lunch and get to know each other a little bit better?" And instead of being able to hear what she was saying, I would get more upset, right? Which I think every couple has ex- experiences this. And so I went to researchers and I was like, "Look, I'm a professional communicator. Why do I keep falling into the same trap? Like, why do, why do I try and solve her problems when she just wants me to listen and empathize? Why does the exact opposite occur?" And they said, "Well, here's what we've figured out." It just ac- actually in the last decade with neural imaging, is that when you're in a discussion, you think you know what that discussion is about, and you usually think it's about one thing. You think it's about, uh, where to go on vacation next year-

   5. SPSpeaker13:01

      [laughs] This is so good

   6. CDCharles Duhigg13:02

      ... this budget, right?

   7. SPSpeaker13:03

      Yeah.

   8. CDCharles Duhigg13:03

      And they said, "What's actually true is that if we could see inside your head, what we would see is that that discussion is made up of different kinds of conversations," right? And, and all these conversations are all happening during one discussion, and they tend to fall into one of three buckets, as you pointed out. So in general, our conversations are either practical conversations where we're making plans or solving problems together, or they're emotional conversations where I'm telling you what I'm feeling and I don't want you to solve my feelings, I want you to empathize, or they're social conversations about how we relate to each other and how, what, how we relate to society and the identities that are important to us. And they said all three of those kinds of conversations are all equally legitimate, and all three of them will probably happen during a discussion if it goes on long enough. But the key is, if you and the person you're talking to aren't having the same kind of conversation at the same moment, you will not feel connected to each other. In fact, y- you'll have trouble actually hearing what the other person is saying. And so that's what was happening with me and my wife, right? I was having an emotional conversation. She was having a practical conversation. They're both equally legitimate, but because they weren't the same kind of conversation at the same moment, we couldn't hear each other.

   9. SPSpeaker14:09

      Yeah. That's where somebody says, "You're not listening to me." And you're like, "Yes, I am."

   10. CDCharles Duhigg14:12

       That's exactly right. Right. Right. And you're like, "I can repeat back exactly what you just said," but the truth is you're not actually listening. You think you're listening, but because you're not in the same mindset as this other person, because you're not hearing that, oh, this is an emotional conversation, this is an practical conversation, you're missing the important parts of what they're saying.

9. 14:31 – 16:56

   Reciprocal feeling and social reciprocity: connection even when you disagree

   1. SPSpeaker14:31

      Yeah. I f- I find that in those moments it's, um, the person is not looking for reciprocal words, they're looking for reciprocal feeling.

   2. CDCharles Duhigg14:42

      That's exactly right.

   3. SPSpeaker14:42

      If you're having that emotional conversation where you're complaining about your day, you're looking for a feeling from that other person, the, the acknowledgement. Words don't do it. Words don't give it. It's the f- the emotion, the feeling that you go, "Okay, now we've connected the, your white wire with my white wire, and now I, now we're connected."

   4. CDCharles Duhigg14:59

      Well, and what's amazing is that our words can actually disagree with us and we'll still feel connect- So, like, let's say we're talking about politics and we're both voting for different people. Uh, but you say like, "You know, the thing that's most important to me is security because my own family has been threatened by crime in my area." Now, I could say like, "Oh, but crime's down across the nation," right? You're sa- you're making an emotional statement. I could say, respond with something practical. But if I say, "You know, I totally, I, I feel that fear. I know what that fear is like. Now, my solution is, I think, a little bit different from your solution, but, but I think that we have this thing in common." Even though we're, our words will disagree with each other, we will feel more connected. There, there's actually something that has evolved in our brain, social reciprocity, that makes it impossible for us not to feel a little bit more connected when we're having the same kind of conversation at the same moment.

   5. SPSpeaker15:48

      That's wild.

   6. CDCharles Duhigg15:49

      Yeah.

   7. SPSpeaker15:49

      That's wild.

   8. CDCharles Duhigg15:50

      It's really fun.

   9. SPSpeaker15:51

      Isn't it fun, like, the, that we can be excited [laughs] about communication like this?

   10. CDCharles Duhigg15:56

       [laughs]

   11. SPSpeaker15:56

       We're part of the weirdos, man. This is our-

   12. CDCharles Duhigg15:59

       [laughs]

   13. SPSpeaker15:59

       Definitely.

   14. CDCharles Duhigg16:00

       Well, and yet, at the same time, everyone communicates all day long, right?

   15. SPSpeaker16:05

       Yeah.

   16. CDCharles Duhigg16:05

       This is the number, this is the most important skill you can have. As an attorney, you could be the... I, I'm s- you tell me, but I imagine you could be the finest legal mind on the planet, and if you can't communicate, it doesn't matter, right?

   17. SPSpeaker16:18

       No. It doesn't matter a lick. No, it doesn't matter a lick.

   18. CDCharles Duhigg16:20

       Yeah.

   19. SPSpeaker16:21

       I mean, and, and it, um, it's so funny that you might have these brilliant minds, but then the clients don't wanna work with them because they don't feel like there's that service, like they can talk, but this person's yet brilliant. And there's so, such a difference between your trial litigators and the people that are, let's say, more transactional. Uh, and so it's just so funny to, to hear that and, and experience that. But yeah, communication's a wonderful, wonderful thing. Now, I know that you also, um, you've done so much research. In fact, have a whole separate book on just habits, the power of-

   20. CDCharles Duhigg16:54

       Yeah

   21. SPSpeaker16:55

       ... habits.

   22. CDCharles Duhigg16:56

       Yeah.

10. 16:56 – 19:36

    A simple habit: prove you’re listening with ‘looping for understanding’

    1. SPSpeaker16:56

       Uh, and of course, everybody's looking for better habits. What would you say to the person listening right now is one habit that they can work towards in their life right now to simply improve their communication?

    2. CDCharles Duhigg17:09

       So, eh, so asking those deep questions is a great habit, right? That's one thing, and it's, and it literally is a habit. If you just kind of practice it, you get it, you start doing it without thinking about it.

    3. SPSpeaker17:19

       Mm-hmm.

    4. CDCharles Duhigg17:19

       But there's another habit that's really, really useful, which is proving that you are listening. So one of the things that the research tells us, and I'm sure you know this as, as an attorney, is that oftentimes simply listening is not enough. Because the other person, they have this sneaking suspicion, particularly if this is a tough conversation, if this is something we disagree about-

    5. SPSpeaker17:40

       Mm-hmm

    6. CDCharles Duhigg17:40

       ... they have this sneaking suspicion you're not actually listening. You're just pretending to listen and you're waiting your turn to speak, right? [laughs] Like-

    7. SPSpeaker17:47

       Yeah, yeah. Yeah

    8. CDCharles Duhigg17:48

       ... like, y- you're just, you're just staying silent until I shut up for a minute and then you're gonna jump in. So one of the things that we found is really important, particularly in what are known as conflict conversations, right? Where we just might, we might disagree with each other or we might be talking about something that's hard to talk about, like politics or religion. In those conversations, it's really, really powerful to prove that we're listening, and actually the proving part is, is a habit. So there's a technique for it known as looping for understanding that they, they teach basically in every law school now, and it has these three parts. The part one is to ask a question, preferably a deep question, right? Pa- uh, part two, step two is when the person has answered that question, try and repeat back in your own words what you heard them say. And you've actually already done this a couple times in this conversation, right? "What I hear you saying is..."

    9. SPSpeaker18:36

       Yeah.

    10. CDCharles Duhigg18:36

        And I'm gonna prove to you, not only am... 'Cause the goal here is not mimicry. I'm gonna prove to you that not only am I paying attention, I'm actually processing what you're thinking. Right?

    11. SPSpeaker18:45

        Right.

    12. CDCharles Duhigg18:45

        Or what you're saying. I can, I can put it into different words, and maybe even give you a little insight on it that you didn't have when you said it. And most of us do step one and step two intuitively. Step three is the one I always forget, and this is where the habit comes in, is once I repeat back what I heard you say, ask if I got it right. "Did, did I hear you correctly?" Im- emit- Because when we do that, what we're actually doing is we're asking for the other person permission to acknowledge that we were listening.

    13. SPSpeaker19:16

        Mm.

    14. CDCharles Duhigg19:16

        And if I believe you are listening to me, I become much, much more likely to listen to you in return. Y- So when I ask you permission to acknowledge that I was listening, and you say, "Yeah, I think you heard what I was saying," you suddenly become much more likely to listen to me, even on a subconscious level. And that looping for understanding, that's entirely habit.

11. 19:36 – 23:18

    Sponsor break: BetterHelp and the “ask one question” takeaway

    1. SPSpeaker19:36

       Yes. I, I, I could not agree more. Listen, I care about you. If you're listening to this podcast, I care about you. And because I care about you, as somebody who also loves communication and conversations, I know that you can't just have all these conversations in your head. Yeah, I can give you advice, but sometimes you need more. You need to talk to somebody else who's trained in helping guide you through this, and that's where therapy comes in. I go to therapy. It's incredibly helpful. And a sponsor of this podcast is BetterHelp. What they do, it's an online platform where they can connect you with online therapists. All you have to do is fill out a quick questionnaire, and they match you with a therapist, and if it doesn't work out with somebody else, they can easily switch you to somebody new. But the point is, you're getting it out and diving deeper for better answers, because conversations come with questions, therapy comes with answers. You can go to betterhelp.com/jeffersonfisher for a discount on your first month. That's betterhelp.com/jeffersonfisher. Uh, to put it in a nutshell, uh, how I interpret this is that, for anybody listening, number one, if you can, ask a question instead of the response. So any time somebody's sharing something with you, we make a mistake when we all of a sudden start talking about ourselves. Like, like Charles was saying, you're just kinda waiting to be like, "No, actually, you know what I did the other day?" In- instead of actually listening to somebody. You can cure all that simply by asking one question. One that I like to ask is asking them, "What was your favorite part?"

    2. CDCharles Duhigg21:14

       Hmm.

    3. SPSpeaker21:14

       Because everybody has a favorite part. Like, I do this with-

    4. CDCharles Duhigg21:16

       Yeah

    5. SPSpeaker21:16

       ... with my kids, and I'm sure you have the same thing with yours. A day's done, and if I say, "How was your day?" "It was good." Like, they're not gonna-

    6. CDCharles Duhigg21:23

       "It was fine." Yeah.

    7. SPSpeaker21:24

       Yeah. "What'd you learn?" "I don't know." Like-

    8. CDCharles Duhigg21:26

       Nothing.

    9. SPSpeaker21:27

       Exactly.

    10. CDCharles Duhigg21:27

        How was school? It was okay.

    11. SPSpeaker21:28

        It, right.

    12. CDCharles Duhigg21:29

        Right, yeah. [laughs]

    13. SPSpeaker21:29

        But if I ask, "What was your favorite part?" they almost always come up with something that was like, "Ah, this is the thing that is my favorite part." And if you can just ask that one question, it makes them feel like you're actually, what they said has value-

    14. CDCharles Duhigg21:44

        Yeah

    15. SPSpeaker21:44

        ... instead of trying to step on their, their story, or step on what they're trying to share. 'Cause you're really trying to be relatable, but in some sense, you're, you're taking that away. So asking just one question, and then almost repeating back what they said to make you feel that connection, is just a brilliant strategy. And it, and it works every time. I mean, I've seen it work every time.

    16. CDCharles Duhigg22:05

        Yeah. And what I love about that question is, what, what's your favorite part, is that what you're actually asking is, how do you feel about your day?

    17. SPSpeaker22:11

        Yes.

    18. CDCharles Duhigg22:12

        Like, what was the part of your day that made you feel good? What was the part of your day that, that didn't make you feel good? Right?

    19. SPSpeaker22:16

        Right.

    20. CDCharles Duhigg22:17

        That's, that's why I think that question's so powerful. With my kids, I try and, um, I have a 13-year-old and a 16-year-old. You know, when I ask them about their friends, I ask them questions like, "What do you admire about Jasper?" Like, "It seems like you like him a lot."

    21. SPSpeaker22:29

        Oh, that's good.

    22. CDCharles Duhigg22:29

        Right? Because at that moment, what I'm actually asking them is I'm asking them, how do you feel about friendship? How do you feel about this particular guy? How do you, what are the things you look for, you value-

    23. SPSpeaker22:39

        Mm-hmm

    24. CDCharles Duhigg22:39

        ... in another person? And we like being asked questions like that, right?

    25. SPSpeaker22:43

        We really do. We really do.

    26. CDCharles Duhigg22:44

        Yeah.

    27. SPSpeaker22:44

        Any time we get to, um, I think talk about the emotion behind the words, we're really searching for that. I, I-

    28. CDCharles Duhigg22:52

        That's exactly-

    29. SPSpeaker22:52

        I, I hear you on that 1,000%. 'Cause when you, when you say, "What's your favorite part?" it's not something practical. It's not saying what-

    30. CDCharles Duhigg23:00

        Right
12. 23:18 – 25:53

    Share without stealing the spotlight: self-disclosure in service of connection

    1. CDCharles Duhigg23:18

       And it's exactly right. Now, I did wanna address something that you had said before, 'cause you're, you're exactly right. Asking these questions can be really powerful. And, and there's a w- there are times when sharing about ourselves can feel really selfish, right? If somebody says-

    2. SPSpeaker23:34

       Mm-hmm

    3. CDCharles Duhigg23:34

       ... you know, "Oh, you know, I..." If, if we ask, "Where'd you go on vacation?" And they say, "Oh, I went to, [laughs] you know, I went to Spain." And then you realize pretty quickly they only asked 'cause they wanna tell you about their vacation and the fancy yacht that they stayed on, right?

    4. SPSpeaker23:46

       Exactly, yeah.

    5. CDCharles Duhigg23:47

       That's not great. But there are times when looping for understanding, proving we're listening, does call on us to share something about ourselves. But the, the takeaway here is when you share something about yourself, it should be because you want to connect with the other person, you wanna show them that you wanna connect, as opposed to I wanna steal the spotlight from you.

    6. SPSpeaker24:09

       Yes.

    7. CDCharles Duhigg24:10

       And so oftentimes what we'll see is, you know, someone will say, "Oh, you know, my aunt passed away last week." And someone will say, "I know exactly what that's like. My dog died seven years ago, and I still think about him every..."

    8. SPSpeaker24:20

       Yeah. [laughs]

    9. CDCharles Duhigg24:20

       Like, that's not, I'm not trying to share to connect with you, I'm trying to just steal the spotlight from you and, and-

    10. SPSpeaker24:25

        Yeah

    11. CDCharles Duhigg24:26

        ... aim it on myself. But to say to someone, "Oh, I, you know, I was really close to my aunt too." And it, she was such an important part of my life. Like, tell me a little bit about your aunt. Like, like what was she like?

    12. SPSpeaker24:38

        Yeah.

    13. CDCharles Duhigg24:38

        In that case, what I'm actually doing is I'm sharing of myself. I'm engaging that social reciprocity-

    14. SPSpeaker24:44

        Right

    15. CDCharles Duhigg24:44

        ... which feels really good and meaningful and trustworthy. But I'm doing it in the service of trying to connect with you, show you that I wanna connect with you, and learn from you.

    16. SPSpeaker24:55

        I find that even if somebody's telling me, let's say, about their hard day, you just say, "How was your day?" And they go on and on and on. And you simply just say, "That sounds hard." [laughs]

    17. CDCharles Duhigg25:05

        Yeah. Right.

    18. SPSpeaker25:06

        They're like, "Oh, yo, that, yes." Um, like-

    19. CDCharles Duhigg25:08

        [laughs]

    20. SPSpeaker25:08

        ... that's all they needed. That's all they needed was, "Oh, that's, oh, that's r- " uh, for if they're complaining about what somebody did to them, you go, "Yeah, that sounds rude." They're like, "Isn't it?" Like, and the, it's just-

    21. CDCharles Duhigg25:18

        Yeah

    22. SPSpeaker25:18

        ... it, that's all they're, they're wanting-

    23. CDCharles Duhigg25:20

        It's-

    24. SPSpeaker25:20

        ... the feeling.

    25. CDCharles Duhigg25:21

        I was just gonna say, they teach teachers to do this by telling them that if, if a student comes in, they wanna have a, you know, a conversation, start the conversation by asking them, "Do you wanna be helped? Do you wanna be hugged?"

    26. SPSpeaker25:32

        Yeah.

    27. CDCharles Duhigg25:32

        "Or do you wanna be heard?" Which is the, the practical, this emotional and the social conversation. Because to exactly your point, if a kid says, "No, no, I just need you to, like, I just need you to know what's going on," then you can say, "Oh, that sounds really hard. Like, that's all that you need. You've told me that's all that you need to feel-"

    28. SPSpeaker25:48

        Yeah

    29. CDCharles Duhigg25:49

        ... to feel good about this."

    30. SPSpeaker25:51

        That sounds difficult. That sounds hard.
13. 25:53 – 30:07

    Jury deliberations, teachers as foremen, and reading the room in voir dire

    1. SPSpeaker25:53

       Yeah, I mean, yeah, all of that, it is much more powerful than just the words themselves. In, in your book, uh, you have a, a section, in fact, several different parts, where you talk about jury deliberations.

    2. CDCharles Duhigg26:06

       Yeah.

    3. SPSpeaker26:07

       And I got into that, and I was like, "All right, here we go." Because I, of, of course, in my legal background, I love this kind of stuff. Uh, also, if you've never seen the movie 12 Angry Men, fantastic movie that I think illustrates a lot of the points that were being made. And what I took away from it is that any time you, if you take 12 people, they go back to do, uh, any kind of jury deliberation, whether it's civil case, a criminal case, there has to be a foreman, somebody who's kind of the ringleader. A lot of the times that happens to be a teacher, because teachers just naturally-

    4. CDCharles Duhigg26:39

       Oh, interesting

    5. SPSpeaker26:40

       ... are one... Oh, yeah, gathering people. Believe it or not, in trial, uh, when you're picking a jury, most people won't pick teachers.

    6. CDCharles Duhigg26:47

       Huh.

    7. SPSpeaker26:48

       Um, because most people tend to go the teacher's way. And so if a teacher is on the jury, they are very opinionated, and they're very good at teaching others to match their opinion. And-

    8. CDCharles Duhigg27:03

       That's amazing

    9. SPSpeaker27:03

       ... and so-

    10. CDCharles Duhigg27:04

        That's fascinating

    11. SPSpeaker27:05

        ... it's too much of a risk on a jury to have a teacher, because you don't know, are they gonna go for your side or the other side?

    12. CDCharles Duhigg27:12

        Right.

    13. SPSpeaker27:12

        If they're on your side, great. That means most people [laughs] are gonna be on your side. Uh, it's just so funny how a lot of the times teachers are very polarizing, because they are very quick, and they pick up on a lot of different things, and they're great at just teaching. And juries, they'll, the, and jury deliberations, they'll teach other people. Uh, and so some people [laughs] like that, some people don't. And that's funny.

    14. CDCharles Duhigg27:34

        Can I ask you something, actually?

    15. SPSpeaker27:35

        Yeah, yeah.

    16. CDCharles Duhigg27:35

        When you're choosing, when you're choosing your jury, you're going th- through voir dire, and you're asking-

    17. SPSpeaker27:39

        Yeah

    18. CDCharles Duhigg27:39

        ... them questions, and you're listening to what they're saying, how accurate do you think you can be in figuring out what kind of mi- like what, what frame of mind that person is in, what they're gonna bring to the jury room?

    19. SPSpeaker27:52

        Yeah. So, uh, first off, for anybody hearing me said voir dire, in Texas we call that voir dire.

    20. CDCharles Duhigg27:59

        [laughs]

    21. SPSpeaker28:00

        Uh, and it's, uh, what it is, it's the process of asking a jury questions. So, uh, if you ever got a jury summons, you go into the room, and there's a whole bunch of, uh, prospective jurors. They call the venire. And attorneys get to ask them questions, and then they, attorneys get to pick the people they want to be in the jury. It's a whole process that's supposed to push in fairness. Now, the question is, do you think that there's a way that we can kind of sense th- this person's personality, which way they're gonna go? What's their temperature? I would say yes. So what I like to do, and what I've gotten good at, is you use a prospective juror almost as an early witness. So I might ask a question, I've done it before, where, you know, the officer, let's say at a, at an accident, the officer really didn't pay attention to my client. He was going, uh, getting, talking to other people in the accident, but never really asked my client any questions. And so I ask the, the jury, you know, "Have you ever been in an accident?" Hands raise. "You have, or police officers involved?" "Yes." "You ever had it to where a police officer really didn't ask you anything?" Few people answer, so I get to talk to them. "Well, how did that make you feel?" "Well, I kind of felt dismissed by that." "Okay, noted. And so anybody else ever fe- felt dismissed, you know, in a, in a case where you felt like you, you weren't hearing your point out and you knew what you knew?" And some other hands were raised. And you kind of get to use that person as a, as a voice almost-

    22. CDCharles Duhigg29:27

        Oh, that's interesting

    23. SPSpeaker29:28

        ... a megaphone-

    24. CDCharles Duhigg29:28

        Yeah

    25. SPSpeaker29:28

        ... to influence the other people's opinion. And it's putting a temperature and tone to where my position is going to be. And then if, I'm gonna try and get that person on the jury, most likely they're not. If they answer-

    26. CDCharles Duhigg29:40

        Right

    27. SPSpeaker29:40

        ... if, you wanna get knocked out of a jury, uh, all you have to do is talk a lot in, in-

    28. CDCharles Duhigg29:45

        [laughs]

    29. SPSpeaker29:45

        ... voir dire. You're almost guaranteed to not be on, 'cause you're, it, you've already shown you're very opinionated. So s- that means one side isn't gonna like you. But that means when I'm asking my questions to the witness, I'm gonna ask those, "Have you ever felt dismissed?" You know what I mean? I'm, I'm-

    30. CDCharles Duhigg30:01

        Yeah
14. 30:07 – 34:11

    The ‘quiet negotiation’: deciding what kind of conversation you’re about to have

    1. SPSpeaker30:07

       Yeah. I, I love it. And what you do so well in the book is you put, pull together these concepts of how people interact, what you called, I believe it was like a quiet negotiation of-

    2. CDCharles Duhigg30:18

       Yeah

    3. SPSpeaker30:18

       ... who's gonna talk first? How are we gonna, how are we going to set the structure around how we are to communicate? And I was curious what you see as our daily application of the quiet negotiation.

    4. CDCharles Duhigg30:33

       So I think quiet negotiations happen all the time, and I, I love that story about the jury. Um, you know, I tried to... Throughout the book I tried to tell a bunch of stories just 'cause I think-

    5. SPSpeaker30:41

       Mm-hmm

    6. CDCharles Duhigg30:41

       ... it's more interesting. Like a-

    7. SPSpeaker30:42

       Yeah

    8. CDCharles Duhigg30:42

       ... story about a CIA officer recruiting overseas spies, and how The Big Bang Theory became such a big hit.

    9. SPSpeaker30:49

       Yes.

    10. CDCharles Duhigg30:49

        But in that story in particular, this idea of quiet negotiation comes up, which is, and research sort of shows this, that every time we engage in a conversation, the, at least the beginning of it is oftentimes a quiet negotiation. And a quiet negotiation, the goal of a quiet negotiation is not to win the negotiation. The quiet, the goal of a quiet negotiation is to understand what the other person wants.

    11. SPSpeaker31:11

        Mm.

    12. CDCharles Duhigg31:11

        Right? So when, when I sit down with my wife and we talk about where to go on vacation next year, I might start the conversation by saying, you know, like, "Tell me, like, what, what do you want out of a vacation? Like, like, what'd you like about last year? What do you like about next year?" And, and she's gonna give me some answers and I'm gonna respond to those, and I'm gonna tell her, "Oh, you know, I liked that, too, but here's something I didn't like." And what we're doing is we're engaging in a little bit of negotiation not just about where to go on vacation, but also what kind of conversation we're gonna have. Is this a conversation where, like, you tell me what you want and I... It's, it's your way or the highway? Or is this a conversation where we kinda go back and forth and we share with each other? Or is this a conversation where, like, we're just dreaming? Like, we dream as big as we want to and we know that there's no consequences. You, we're probably not gonna end up going to, you know, on three safaris in one year.

    13. SPSpeaker31:58

        [laughs]

    14. CDCharles Duhigg31:59

        The, the quiet negotiation is something that happens in every conversation, and it's how we figure out how to talk to each other. How formal am I gonna be? Can I make jokes, or is this, like, a serious conversation?

    15. SPSpeaker32:10

        Mm.

    16. CDCharles Duhigg32:10

        Like, what are-

    17. SPSpeaker32:11

        Feeling them out.

    18. CDCharles Duhigg32:11

        And we do... Yeah, you're feeling them out, and it's, we do this subconsciously, right? We do it almost without noticing it, but the people who do notice it just a little bit, they're the ones who end up being very persuasive and very good communicators.

    19. SPSpeaker32:24

        Yeah.

    20. CDCharles Duhigg32:24

        Because when we say, this person is telling me what kind of conversation they wanna have, we become a little bit more attuned to paying attention to what kind of conversation they wanna have. 'Cause they might-

    21. SPSpeaker32:35

        Right

    22. CDCharles Duhigg32:35

        ... give us a clue. They might, they might, they might sound really serious. We might be talking about budgets for next year. It seems like this is a practical conversation.

    23. SPSpeaker32:42

        Yeah.

    24. CDCharles Duhigg32:42

        They may say something like, "You know, I'm just really, I'm really anxious we're gonna have layoffs." If I'm listening to that quiet negotiation, I'm hearing you say, oh, this is actually an emotional conversation be- f- for you before it's a practical conversation. You're anxious and you're worried. Those emotions are driving your decisions, and until we acknowledge those and we kind of, like, put them on the table, we're not gonna be able to have a practical conversation about the numbers.

    25. SPSpeaker33:06

        Yeah. I love that point of there's this silence before the conversation, that you're looking for clues, you're feeling them out. Like, uh, maybe you meet somebody new for the first time, and maybe y'all spend kinda 10 minutes around each other, and you, you learned, uh, well, what they're like. That maybe they're somebody who has really dry humor.

    26. CDCharles Duhigg33:28

        Yeah.

    27. SPSpeaker33:28

        Or somebody that just kind of, you s- silently kind of start roasting the other people in the room, or maybe you start-

    28. CDCharles Duhigg33:33

        Right

    29. SPSpeaker33:33

        ... you know, um, you, you... Or it could be on the other side. Somebody comes into your office and they're in tears. You know, it's, it's about to be a very serious, confidential conversation. Or when somebody goes, leans in and is like, "Hey, uh, real quick, just, just between me and you." It's like, hey, all, all of a sudden we- we've now zeroed in on each other of, uh, how we're gonna communicate. So that feeling this person out, uh, it's funny how we almost do that programmatically. Just we-

    30. CDCharles Duhigg34:00

        Absolutely
15. 34:11 – 35:41

    Neural entrainment: why matching energy and conversation type creates alignment

    1. CDCharles Duhigg34:11

       And that's a really important word, energy, because we, we... Let's talk for a second about what's happening inside our brains at that moment. So when we're in a conversation and it's a good conversation, a conversation where we feel like the other person understands us, we understand them, what's happening is that our bodies and our brains are changing. So even in this conversation, even though we're, we're separated by many thousands of miles-

    2. SPSpeaker34:31

       Right

    3. CDCharles Duhigg34:31

       ... the, our heart rates are, are matching each other more and more. Our breath patterns are matching each other more and more. Even the dilation of our pupils will start to sync up. And most importantly, our neural activity, what's happening inside our brains, if we could look inside both of our brains, what we would see is that they are starting to look more and more similar. And within neuroscience-

    4. SPSpeaker34:52

       I hate that for you. Honestly, I hate that for you.

    5. CDCharles Duhigg34:54

       [laughs] I love it. I love it.

    6. SPSpeaker34:55

       [laughs]

    7. CDCharles Duhigg34:55

       I'm, I'm good with it. Within neuroscience, this is known as neural entrainment, and this is actually the goal of communication. The goal of communication is for our thoughts to become aligned. Because when they are aligned, I understand what you're saying and I feel connected to you, and you understand what I'm saying. And so when you mentioned before we're trying to pick up on their energy, what we're really trying to pick up on there is how are they expressing to us through not only their words, but everything around their words, which part of their brain they're using, how their brain is functioning. This is why the three different kinds of conversations, because they use three different parts of our brain.

    8. SPSpeaker35:33

       Mm.

    9. CDCharles Duhigg35:33

       That's why matching each other is so powerful, is it makes us easier for us to entrain with each other if we're having the same kind of conversation.

16. 35:41 – 38:57

    How the book changed Duhigg: conversation-type awareness and investing in relationships

    1. SPSpeaker35:41

       Absolutely. I love it. This, uh, this last question, I'll... It's really me. It's, this, I'm, this is a selfish question from me.

    2. CDCharles Duhigg35:48

       [laughs]

    3. SPSpeaker35:49

       How has your own communication changed in your life now having written an amazing communication book? Uh, you know, I mean, I'm familiar with maybe the, the personal side of, like, you might be like, "Oh, okay, this is the best you got? I think you wrote a book about this."

    4. CDCharles Duhigg36:07

       [laughs]

    5. SPSpeaker36:08

       "And y- w- we're now having this argument."

    6. CDCharles Duhigg36:10

       Yes. Right.

    7. SPSpeaker36:11

       Um.

    8. CDCharles Duhigg36:11

       You know, there's a book-

    9. SPSpeaker36:11

       And so I was just curious-

    10. CDCharles Duhigg36:11

        ... that my wife often says-

    11. SPSpeaker36:12

        ... what, what are your takeaways were

    12. CDCharles Duhigg36:13

        ... "There's a book you should read."

    13. SPSpeaker36:14

        Yeah.

    14. CDCharles Duhigg36:14

        Yeah. So, so I... [laughs] You get that from your wife, too? She's like, "You know, there's some videos you might wanna watch about your communi-" [laughs]

    15. SPSpeaker36:21

        Right.

    16. CDCharles Duhigg36:22

        Um, I would say, so I think twofold. The, the first thing is I just pay a lot more attention to what kind of conversation is happening now. You know, when my kids come to me, it's so easy to, when your kids come up, to assume that they're just asking for help and to solve their problems for them. But You know, d- do they wanna be helped, heard, or hugged? And sometimes, sometimes they don't wanna be helped. They just want me to hear what's going on, and to understand, and be able to say like, "Look, it is, it is okay that you feel that way, 'cause I feel that way all the time." Or sometimes they just need a hug. You just need to say like, "Look, it's not necessarily gonna get better t- tomorrow, but today I can give you a hug," and I can... So I try and pay a lot more attention to what signals is someone sending me about what kind of conversation they wanna have. But then the second way it's impacted my life is that y- there's this study known as the, the Harvard Study of Adult Development, where they f- they followed thousands of people around for over 80 years, and they were trying to figure out what are the things earlier in life that make you healthy, and happy, and successful at age 65, however you define success. They had all these theories. Like, if you had a, if you... 'Cause it was done at Harvard, they were like, "If you went to Harvard, you're definitely gonna be happy, healthy, and successful." Turns out that's not true. They, that if you get married early and you stay married longer, that you're definitely gonna be happy, healthier, and successful. Not necessarily a lot of overlap there. The only thing that they found was a predictor at age 65 was if you had a handful of close relationships at age 45, and that the way that we maintain those relationships is through conversation, right? If I have people I feel close to by the time I'm 65, and I've been close to them for a while, then I'm gonna live longer. I'll live up to seven years longer. I'll oftentimes be more financially successful because I'm exposed to different kinds of opportunities. And most importantly, I'm just happier. Like, spending time with other people and communicating with other people is, as you've pointed out in so much of your work, that is the thing that gives life meaning.

    17. SPSpeaker38:25

        Mm.

    18. CDCharles Duhigg38:25

        And so I have s- tried very deliberately to think about maintaining those relationships. There's people who I feel close to who I talk to twice a year, but I make a point of talking to them twice a year, and I set up, you know, an hour, 90 minutes to catch up with each other. And you know the first five minutes are gonna be kind of awkward, right? It's gonna be like, "What's your kid's name again? How old are they?"

    19. SPSpeaker38:45

        Yeah. [laughs]

    20. CDCharles Duhigg38:46

        But then you're gonna be in it, and you're gonna feel close to each other, and that, that is an investment that pays off over the long term like you wouldn't believe.

17. 38:57 – 42:27

    Jefferson’s reflection and closing recap: questions, matching, and being heard

    1. SPSpeaker38:57

       That hit me like a ton of bricks, what you said about your kids, how so often we see it as when they come to us, we're assuming they're asking for help, and that is not always the case. 'Cause, like, my daughter, she's learning how to tie shoes, and so she really doesn't want my help. She's wanting me to watch.

    2. CDCharles Duhigg39:18

       Yeah.

    3. SPSpeaker39:18

       It's always-

    4. CDCharles Duhigg39:19

       Yeah

    5. SPSpeaker39:19

       ... "Hey, Dad, w- watch this. Hey, Daddy, watch this." S- same with my son. It's just they're wanting me to observe, and acknowledge, and be part of it, rather than me trying to be like, "What? What do you need? No, you're fine. You don't need my help." Like, yeah-

    6. CDCharles Duhigg39:31

       Right

    7. SPSpeaker39:31

       ... yeah, you're good. Oh, do you need me to do it for you? No, no, no, no, no. It's, that's not it.

    8. CDCharles Duhigg39:36

       Oh, man.

    9. SPSpeaker39:36

       Yeah.

    10. CDCharles Duhigg39:36

        That's, that's beautiful.

    11. SPSpeaker39:37

        It's really... Can I ask you? 'Cause you've-

    12. CDCharles Duhigg39:39

        Yeah

    13. SPSpeaker39:39

        ... been thinking about this stuff for a long time. How do you feel like your communication has changed as a result of thinking about it so deliberately and explaining it to other folks?

    14. CDCharles Duhigg39:49

        Oh, I got this weird habit that I've always had, Charles- [laughs]

    15. SPSpeaker39:53

        [laughs]

    16. CDCharles Duhigg39:53

        ... of hearing phrases and being like, "Oh, I like that." Even if it's somebody that's against me, if there's a way that they're going about the conversation, I have this thing where I can kinda see it. And so I, I like to visualize conversations and try to watch them happen, even when it's me being involved with them. And so I think-

    17. SPSpeaker40:18

        Yeah

    18. CDCharles Duhigg40:19

        ... having now invested in communication work, and written something, and hopefully joining this league of, you know, wonderful authors like yourself, is it's made me all the more conscious of the bigger picture, and that is the ways that I can slow down in my own life and listen a whole lot more. And it's a, it's kinda different because not everybody, nobody wants to be told to be a better listener. Like, one of my, the worst videos that ever performed ever was a video I made on how to be a better listener. [laughs]

    19. SPSpeaker40:54

        Really?

    20. CDCharles Duhigg40:54

        Like, nobody, nobody wants to be a better listener. But what I have found is that the more I have invested in saying, the richer I've become in learning how to not say anything and listen. And so that-

    21. SPSpeaker41:08

        Yeah

    22. CDCharles Duhigg41:08

        ... that just feels like much more of a, a strength that I did not anticipate going into this.

    23. SPSpeaker41:14

        That's really interesting. We got some great takeaways. The... So what we're gonna do for people who wanna be a super communicator, and you tell me if you agree with this, Charles. Number one, ask more questions. So when somebody tells you something, find a way to just as- create a habit, like we talked about, of just asking one, maybe two questions. Have one that talks about how they feel about something. And two, if you can, repeat exactly and paraphrase what you heard to make them feel acknowledged and connected. Another takeaway that we had is that anytime you're in a conversation, you're typically in three type of boxes. Is it something very practical? Is it very something social, uh, or for your reputation? Or is it something that's more emotion-based? And when you can match that person, there's gonna create connection in the conversation. And three, what I'm gonna personally take away is when somebody's coming to you, it's not always asking for help. It is simply asking to be heard. I love it. This has been awesome, Charles.

    24. CDCharles Duhigg42:09

        I love... Yeah, that was a, that's a fantastic summary. [laughs] You got it.

    25. SPSpeaker42:13

        [laughs]

    26. CDCharles Duhigg42:14

        I'm working on the listening.

    27. SPSpeaker42:15

        I'm gonna write all that down. [laughs]

    28. CDCharles Duhigg42:15

        Yeah. Working on the listening. Yeah. If you ever need a book summary, uh, somebody to help with your book summaries, uh-

    29. SPSpeaker42:20

        I really appreciate it

    30. CDCharles Duhigg42:21

        ... let me know. I volunteer. It's been a wonderful time talking with you. Thank you for your time on the podcast.

Episode duration: 42:28