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Why Is Everyone So Emotionally Detached? - David Brooks

David Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times, a commentator, and an author. We’re often told to control our emotions, but is that actually what we want? Or do we want to be confident enough to feel them fully? Instead of becoming too detached, how can we reconnect with our feelings and embrace life more fully? Expect to learn why men have been conditioned to be so emotionally cut-off, why being stoic or aloof is perceived to be attractive, why so many people are repressed, how to accurately see people and make them feel comfortable, how to open up without triggering your fear, how to improve the energy you enter a room with and much more… - 00:00 We Are Ignoring Our Emotions 05:34 Emotions Allow Us to Experience Life 11:09 The Vulnerability of Being Open 16:16 How to Balance Rationality & Emotion 21:11 Society’s Lack of Earnestness 24:17 Reacting to Sean Strickland & Theo Von 27:40 Seeing Each Other More Deeply 33:48 How to Be Comfortable With Feelings 41:42 The Powerful Use of Silence 44:44 How to Notice People Who Are Down 49:06 The Bravery of Being Open 52:26 How to End a Conversation Better 57:43 Questions to Make a Conversation Deeper 1:00:59 Where to Find David Brooks - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Chris WilliamsonhostDavid Brooksguest
Apr 13, 20241h 1mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 5:34

    We Are Ignoring Our Emotions

    1. CW

      There's a lot of people in the world who find something, I think, attractive about being stoic, or aloof, or rational, or cynical. Emotions don't really get much room or honor.

    2. DB

      Yeah, I used to be that guy. (laughs) Uh, and so I'm gonna tell you a quick story. I love baseball, and I've been to a th- thousand baseball games, and I've never caught a foul ball. So about 10 years ago, I'm at Camden Yards, uh, with my son, and the batter loses control of the bat, it flies into the air, lands in my lap in the stands. So I've got a bat, and getting a bat is a thousand times better than getting a ball. And so any normal human being is holding th- his trophy up in the air, high-fiving everybody, hugging, getting on the jumbotron. I put the bat at my feet and stare straight ahead, like I have the emotional reaction of the turtle.

    3. CW

      (laughs)

    4. DB

      (laughs) And I, I look back on that guy and I think, "Show a little joy." And I, I was, uh, through the early part of my life, even w- when I was four, my nursery school teacher apparently told my parents, "David doesn't really play with the other kids. He just watches them," which I guess is good for a career in journalism, but it's just an emotionally detached way of living, and I found it, um, that I was a s- I had emotions, but they were, I, I was a little str- they were strangers to me, and there was certainly no highway between my heart and my mouth, so I couldn't express them. Uh, and I just found it a cold, uh, lonely, uh, and detached way of living, uh, and so, uh, I've set out on a journey for 10 years to become a, a little more emotionally vulnerable, a little more emotionally available, and a little less of a complete emotional idiot.

    5. CW

      What do you think compels people to not feel feelings?

    6. DB

      I think, A, uh, grew up in a certain culture where feel- feelings are not acceptable, especially if they're guys. Two, fear. Feelings are sort of hard to control. Fear of vulnerability, uh, desire for mastery. Uh, if you can reduce the world to systems and logical systems, then it's a world you can control. And people are just afraid of intimacy. I mean, the thing we want most in the world is to be seen in our fullness. The thing we fear most in the world is to be seen in our fullness, and so it's terrifying to open yourself up, uh, to people, and I've found moments of real, you know, scariness 'cause, you know, who knows how much to reveal? Who knows... It's scary to face yourself, but, you know, over the years, I've become better at it, I think, and I, I've come to just totally appreciate this way of life. I was at a conference about two years ago in Nantucket, and, um, we're at some venue, and the speaker passes out these sheets of paper, uh, and on each sheet of paper is a s- lyrics to a love song, and the speaker tells us, "Find a stranger, stare into their eyes, and sing the love song into their eyes." And if you had asked me to do that 10 years ago, I would have spontaneously combusted, but, uh, but I did it, and I, uh, you, um, I wouldn't wanna do that every day, but, um, I'm glad to be a little more loose (laughs) than I used to be.

    7. CW

      Yeah, describing the desire for mastery, control, uh, fear, uh, lack of safety around expressing emotions, if I managed to get you in the first statement, then you've managed to get me in that one-

    8. DB

      (laughs)

    9. CW

      ... because it's just, uh, I'm in therapy at the moment prop- properly for the first time, and-

    10. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    11. CW

      ... dude, it's so hard. Like, it's fucking rough.

    12. DB

      (laughs)

    13. CW

      And because you're no longer able to hide all of the things that you have glossed over with competence, and-

    14. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    15. CW

      ... a- a- achievement, and reputation, and, uh, willful ignorance or, or, or negligence or coping strategies or whatever it might be, and, you know, and like I'm not an alcoholic, I'm not dependent on any- like, it's st- I'm not coping in any extravagant way other than all of my mental faculties trying to come together to not have me be in a situation where I'm not in control. Must be in control. Always me. I'm the guy. I'm the one that's got the competent, I know the plan, I know the itinerary, this is what's gonna happen, and so on and so forth, and, uh, then you, you step into a relationship, like a therapeutic relationship or one where you see somebody else deeply or they see you, and it's not as predictable. You don't, you don't know where it's gonna go. You don't really know what you're going to say. The sentences that you say aren't always tied up with some nice bow. They don't come in to land gently. Sometimes they nose dive and crash. Sometimes they bail out and you just lose them, and you're like, "Where, where did that airplane go?" And you don't know.

    16. DB

      Yeah, well every relationship, right, involves a loss of control. Uh, if you wanna get married, have a good friend, you're putting your heart in the hands of another, and that person has the power to, to really hurt you. So I, I think it's sk- it's important to be skilled at this process. I tell my students, my college students, "You know, one of the most important decisions you're gonna make is, is who to marry," and the studies show that marri- that the quality of your marriage is four times more important than the quality of your career to make, to, how happy you are, uh, and so you, you should spend a lot of time having boyfriends and girlfriends (laughs) so you, you get in practice. Now, I had a therapist tell me, um, that therapy is story editing, that people come to her, uh, because their story sort- the story they tell themselves about their life isn't working, and her job is to go back over and over life and get, h- help people find a more accurate story. I don't know if that resonates with, with your experience.

  2. 5:34 – 11:09

    Emotions Allow Us to Experience Life

    1. DB

    2. CW

      Y- yeah, certainly in, in part, and that's also a problem, right, that you think or you thought that you knew how the, the arc of you worked. "I know where I began. I know where I was. I know where I am now." And, "Oh, isn't that nice and smooth?" It's like this sort of wonderful idea, and then you go, "Well, if, if that's the story that's true, why does this thing exist? And why does that thing exist? And why is that here? And why do I have that thought? And why do I cope with people in that particular way? Why have I got this particular..."... pathology or dependency or thought pattern or loop or whatever. And that, uh, uh, very much kind of starts to tarnish this lovely smooth round ball that you've created, which is a narrative. And then you try and roll it, and it sort of jangles along a little bit. And you go, "Ah, yeah, fuck, I don't think there's..." And the other, the other reason, the main reason for me is that I just kept, I, I kept on seeing the same patterns come up-

    3. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    4. CW

      ... in my personal relationships, in the way that I deal with my business, in how I feel when I record the podcast, sitting in discomfort, especially emotionally, uh, displeasing people, um, uh, uh, a lot of these things. And I was like, "If the same problems continue to show up in your life, the problems aren't the problem."

    5. DB

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      You are the problem.

    7. DB

      Right.

    8. CW

      And, and it was the same things. And I just don't like... There's this really phenomenal quote I took from, um, Robert Wright's Why Buddhism is True. And he says, uh, it's a quote from Khenpo Rin- Rinpoche, and he says, uh, "Ultimately, happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of becoming aware of our mental afflictions and the discomfort of becoming ruled by them."

    9. DB

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    10. CW

      And for me, I wanna be aware of every single one of them. I wanna know all the dark corners. It's like this morbid curiosity about the dark corners of yourself. Uh, and that's good. It makes you grow.

    11. DB

      Yeah. Yeah.

    12. CW

      But on the other side, it pushes you into sort of difficult places. And yet this sort of, you know, bowing at the, the feet of cerebral horsepower and cognitive effort and rationality, and we're gonna optimize, and all, uh, which I'm a massive fan of. I've done a series called Life Hacks on this podcast. But it, it can pull you away from, okay, and what are we here for? Like, are you here to just complete your to-do list and die? Or the f- the option that you have of the, the experience of being an experiencing machine. Like, you can feel a thing, the phenomenon of being alive, and being sad, or happy, or elated, or in dread, or whatever, that you get to feel that, and that's kind of color.

    13. DB

      Yeah. Uh, one of my heroes is a guy named Frederick Buechner, a novelist. And when he was nine, his dad committed suicide. And his mom didn't even stick around for the funeral. She just took her kids and they split to Bermuda. And so he never had a chance to mourn, never had a chance to have any kind of closure. He just walled himself off, and he walled himself off for the first 35 years of his life, until he realized that if you close yourself off from the hazards of the world, you're closing yourself off from what he said was the holy sources of life itself. And, you know, our greatest joys are relationships, and, and that involves that level of, uh, emotional openness and vulnerability. I'm recording this, I'm sitting here on my dining room table at home. And I was sitting here about two years ago at this very table, and my wife walks in the front door, which is over to my right. Uh, and she's standing there, the door is open, it's summertime, and the light is coming in behind her. And she just pauses in the doorway. Uh, and she doesn't notice I'm there, um, 'cause that's the kind of charisma I have.

    14. CW

      (laughs)

    15. DB

      Uh, and, and, and so she, her eyes rest on an orchid, which we keep by the table.

    16. CW

      (laughs)

    17. DB

      And I look at her, and I say to myself, uh, this thought comes to my consciousness, "I really know her. I know her through and through." And if you'd asked me to describe what I knew about her at that moment, it wasn't like the traits of her personality or career or anything she'd achieved. It was sort of the whole ebb and flow of her being, just the harmonies of her music, the w- the, the incandescence of her personality, the occasional flashes of fierceness, the, um, just the, the way she sees the world. It wasn't as if I, it was like I wasn't only seeing her, it was al- almost as if I was seeing out from her. And when I think of the how I was observing her at that moment, I wasn't, uh, like, inspecting her. I was just, the only word in English language I could think of is I was beholding her. I was just, like, it's a warm appreciative gaze. And it was a great feeling, 'cause it's someone you, you really know and love. And you've, you've built this relationship through the trials and tribulations of any relationship. And you have these moments of just joyous encounter. And a couple weeks after it happened, I told it to two older friends of mine, and they said, "Yeah, that's how we look at our grandkids. We just behold them." And so I would fi- I found the highest and the lowest points (laughs) in my life have involved, um, relationships. And so, you know, I mentioned I've tried to loosen myself up. I've become a lot more joyous. I've also become a lot sadder. (laughs)

    18. CW

      (laughs)

    19. DB

      So, uh, I, I used to be like Mr. Eddi- Steady Eddy, uh, and so I'm not, I'm not... When you touch this piece of yourself, you're almost making yourself, um, a v- uh, dependent upon your own heart, which you don't really control and you don't really understand (laughs) and it does all sorts of crazy shit. Uh, and, um, but it, it's living (laughs) . It's living.

    20. CW

      I often think

  3. 11:09 – 16:16

    The Vulnerability of Being Open

    1. CW

      about, you know, the Overton window, the concept of an-

    2. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    3. CW

      ... Overton window? So, uh, um, I guess, uh, an interquartile range that sits within all speech of acceptable speech. And I kind of think about the way that we experience emotions and comfort and discomfort, especially in the modern world, as kind of like that. We have-

    4. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    5. CW

      ... a personal Overton window within which we... And some people have it up here and you go, "Oh my God, they're so fiery and they're so depressed and they're so happy and they're so sad."

    6. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    7. CW

      You know? And at the absolute extreme, that's manic. Um, well, actually, you know, that's the, that they just have naught to 25 and 75 to 100. They just, they don't have-

    8. DB

      (laughs)

    9. CW

      ... the middle section.

    10. DB

      Right.

    11. CW

      Um, and I, I know ex- precisely what you mean. And this is, I'm, I'm gonna talk to Ryan Holiday about this the next time that he comes on, you know, this whole sort of stoicism movement, I'm a massive fan of it. Art of Resilience by Russ Edgley, uh, Ryan's book, Ego Is the Enemy, Obstacle Is the Way, both been really formative for me. I think that appeals to a lot of people because it protects them. Some parts of that philosophy, if you don't go the whole way, appeal because it sounds like I can armor myself against the world, but I think you also armor yourself against the beauty of the world as well. And I, I think what you're talking about there is, like if you're going to crack yourself open, you will feel highs but you're also going to feel lows. Um-

    12. DB

      Yeah. The- there's a- therapists have a phrase, some people need tightening and some people need loosening. Uh, and some people who are manic, they need tightening. (laughs)

    13. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    14. DB

      I needed loosening. Uh, and so that was my process. But the problem, my- one of my problems with Stoicism, and I too have great admiration for it, uh, in general. But one of the great myths of Western civilization is that reason is separate from emotion. And that if you're more, it's like a teeter-totter, the more rational you are, the less emotional you are. That is a complete myth. There's a neuroscientist at- at US- USC named Antonio Damasio, and he studied people, uh, who couldn't feel emotion. They'd had lesions in their brains, and so they literally could not process emotion. You could show them the most horrific images, they had no reaction. And so were these people super smart Mr. Spocks? No, their life fell apart, because what emotions do is they assign value to things, and they tell you, are you moving toward your goals or are you moving away from your goals? And if you can't assign values to things, then you can't rationally calculate because you have no criteria upon which to make a decision. And so Damasio, one of Damasio's patients, uh, couldn't process emotion, and so Damasio said to him, you know, "Do you wanna come back next Tuesday or Wednesday? What would be better?" And the guy spent 30 minutes on the advantages of Tuesday and the advantages of Wednesday, and Damasio calls his team over and they just watch the guy think it through. He can't render a decision because he has no emotional valuation process. And so finally Damasio said, "How about Wednesday?" And the guy said, "Fine."

    15. CW

      Wow.

    16. DB

      Uh, and so you're not thinking, you're not turning ... Mr. Spock is a myth. (laughs) Uh, humans need emotions and- and intelligent emotions on which to think rationally. And there's this neuroscientist named Lisa Feldman Barrett at Northeastern who has a concept of emotional granularity. Some, like kids, they can't distinguish one emotion from another. So if you take a toy away from the kid, the toy will scream, "I hate you, Mom," because the kid doesn't understand the difference between hate and anger. "I'm angry with you, Mom." (laughs) And some of Barrett's patients, uh, they can't tell the difference between anxiety and depression, even though anxiety is an up state and depression is a down state. They just don't have the- the, wh- what she calls the granularity to distinguish. But some people are emotional geniuses and they can tell the distinction between all sorts of emotions that are adjacent to one another, stress, anxiety, impatience, frustration. And they can clearly understand, they just have a finer tuned understanding of what they're feeling. And that's just a very helpful thing to (laughs) have in life to know that you're feeling stress but not frustration or- or whatever it is. Uh, and so it's- it's I urge people to educate their emotions through reading literature and things like that. The going to plays is a fantastic way to educate your emotions, and experiencing other cultures. Like lots of cultures have names for emotions we don't have. Um, the- the French have a name for a I was- I walk on a ... I was taking a hike near a cliff and I don't trust myself not to throw myself off. Like that's an emotion for them.

    17. CW

      (laughs)

    18. DB

      Uh, somebody told me, I've never been able to check this out, that the Danes have an emotion for, "I feel badly for you because you just showed too much emotion in public." (laughs) Like that's one of their emotions.

    19. CW

      Wow, I mean, that should be a British word. That should-

    20. DB

      Yeah. (laughs)

    21. CW

      Uh, this sort of a second order, uh, like proxy cringe for someone else.

    22. DB

      (laughs)

    23. CW

      There's a- there's a word in German that describes the sensation that migratory bro- birds feel when they are prevented from migrating.

    24. DB

      (laughs) Wow, that's a good word.

    25. CW

      (laughs)

    26. DB

      (laughs)

    27. CW

      Um...

    28. DB

      I should say the culture of my family, I grew up in this Jewish home in New York, and they always say if- if you saw that movie Fiddler on the Roof, you know how emotional, warm, and huggy Jewish k- families can be, and I grew up in the other kind of Jewish family. And so the cult- phrase in our culture was, "Think Yiddish, act British." And so we were very stiff upper lip reserved.

    29. CW

      Yes. Yes. Um, just rounding

  4. 16:16 – 21:11

    How to Balance Rationality & Emotion

    1. CW

      out what we spoke about there, this, uh, blending of rationality, and, you know, a lot of people, m- myself included and a lot of the audience, will love their capacity for executive function. You know, they like the mastery and the competence that they feel about being able to make s- stuff happen in the world. They're not an emotional mess. They're not going through each day just at the mercy of whatever comes and sideswipes them. But they also want to feel life more richly.

    2. DB

      Yeah.

    3. CW

      How have you or other people learned to bring this balance in?

    4. DB

      Yeah, I- I found it just by, uh, getting closer to people every step of the way. Uh, and so I now, one of the things, I- I have a friend named Nick Epley who teaches at the University of Chicago, and he was commuting to his office, and because he's a psychologist he understands the things people enjoy most is talking to other people. And so he's on the commuter train, and he's looking around and he says, "Nobody's talking to each other, they're all on their screens." And so he pays them (laughs) on the, for about a month to find a stranger on the train and talk to them. And then he interviews them later, and everybody, introverts and extroverts, say, "This has been a great ride, much better than looking at my screen." And people just take pleasure from each other. And so I've found, uh, the skill of seeing others deeply and being deeply seen is a skill that n- is a natural emotional education. And so for example, one of the things I try to do is make every conversation, not every conversation but a lot of conversations, uh, memorable conversations. And the quality of your conversations determines the qual- is determined in part by the quality of your listening skills and how good you are at the skill of conversation. And so I asked conversation experts, "Tell me, s- give me some pointers on how to get better." And they're, these are things like, treat attention as an on-off switch, not a dimmer. Like if you're gonna pay, if you're gonna be with someone, give them 100% attention or 0%, but not 60%. Don't be a topper. If you say, "Oh, I just had this horrible flight. I, we were on the tarmac for two hours," my instinct is to say, "I know exactly what you're going through. I had a terrible flight, we were on the tarmac for six hours." And it sounds like I'm trying to relate-But what I'm really trying to do is let's turn attention away from your inferior experiences and onto my superior experiences.

    5. CW

      (laughs)

    6. DB

      So, don't be a topper. Um, be a loud listener. I have a buddy who, when you talk to him, it's like talking to a Pentecostal church. Uh, he's like, "Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Amen. Amen. Preach." And I love talking to that guy. And you don't have to... use all those sounds. You can just nod, you can, like, show you're really into the- the conversation. And so you have deeper conversations. And the most important conversation- conversational skill is the ability to ask good questions. I sometimes leave a party and I think, "You know, that whole time, nobody asked me a question." And so, I've co- I've come to think that, like, 30 or 40% of humanity are question-askers. And the rest are nice people, but they're just not curious about you.

    7. CW

      (laughs)

    8. DB

      And so, like, I... when I meet someone, I start them off, sometimes... I always ask about their childhood. People love to talk about their childhood. And then when I get to know somebody and there's- some trust has been established, I ask, uh, slightly bigger questions, like, I asked a guy once, "What's your favorite unimportant thing about you?" And it turns out this guy, who's a scholar and a theologian, he loves watching reality TV, trashy TV.

    9. CW

      (laughs)

    10. DB

      He's like, "That's my favorite reali- un- thing." And I told him, "Yeah, my favorite unimportant thing about me is I like early Taylor Swift better than later Taylor Swift." So, like, it's unimportant, but it's a thing.

    11. CW

      Yes.

    12. DB

      Um, and then as you really get to know somebody, you ask questions that they don't have the answers to about themselves. But if they think about it, they can come up with an answer. So, if the next five years is a chapter in your life, what's this chapter about? If we met a year from now, what would we be celebrating? What would you do if you weren't afraid? I had a friend who was being interviewed for a job, and at the end of the interview, he turned to the interviewer and said, "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" And she started crying, 'cause she wouldn't be doing HR for that company (laughs) , but she's afraid to leave. Uh, and so these are questions that are- are just big questions. And then there's a guy named Peter Block who asks really deep questions. You really have to know somebody well to ask this question. But it's like, "What commitment have you made that you no longer believe in? Uh, what skill do you currently hold in exile? What talent do you have that you're not using?" And so, you know, these are questions that get you to explore. I was at a dinner party and I asked the group, "How do your ancestors show up in your life?" Like, we're all affected by our heritage, by our ancestors. And so there was a Dutch family, couple at the table, and they talked about Dutch heritage. There was a Black, uh, couple, they talked ba- A- African American experience. I talked about 5,000 years of Jewish history. And it was fun. It was just fun, and... m- we had to sort of figure it out together. How- how do our ancestors show up in our life? And, uh, we learned each other- learned about each other and we learned about ourselves.

  5. 21:11 – 24:17

    Society’s Lack of Earnestness

    1. CW

      I'm not sure how familiar you are with British culture, and I don't know how much this ports across elsewhere. It- it can't be none, but it's very strong in- in the UK. There is a, um, like a lack of earnestness-

    2. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    3. CW

      ... especially amongst young people. Um, and I always struggled. I always used to... I- I like- I like being earnest. That's- I have to work harder to be, like, more jo- like, playful or silly or whatever.

    4. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    5. CW

      Um, and maybe part of that's because I want to be seen as, uh, like, intellectually or academically sophisticated, and there's something about not... d- d- that's like, "Oh, that's not what a- someone of, uh, a good academic standing would say," or whatever. "That's not someone who's insightful would- w- w- would do things." So, I'm, like, both learning to loosen up whilst doing that but, yeah, I- I remember a lot of the time... There's a- a term, banter, in the UK, which is n- not the same as just crack back and forth. It's usually this sort of jibbing, jibing, uh, u- usually sardonic sort of cutting back and forth between often guys, but I'm... girls probably have it too. And I've found that that actually shut down my ability to open up, because I think a lot of the time, I wanted to have a deeper conversation about things, but if you try to do that in the wrong context, you get burned, because it's that (scoffs) gay. Like, who says that?

    6. DB

      (laughs)

    7. CW

      And that... What does that teach you? And- and I'm d- not gonna lay my, like, performative autist emotional retardation at the-

    8. DB

      (laughs)

    9. CW

      ... feet of, like, my British culture.

    10. DB

      Queen Elizabeth, yeah. (laughs)

    11. CW

      Yeah, exactly. Go, "Damn you." Um, but, uh, I... you know, you've got your predisposition, you've got your fears that come about naturally from not wanting to be too open or vulnerable. You've got blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then culture washes on top. And, um, yeah, I- I... again, so much that you've just said there is something that I've learned through the show, which, you know, you're episode 760-

    12. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    13. CW

      ... or something like that, in six years. So, I've had a lot of time talking to people. And i- it's interesting what you said about the "Mm-hmm. Yeah, keep going." The power of a nod is so insane. And people can go back and listen to the first ever episode I did on this show, and it's- it's painful, because I wasn't able to give a non-verbal confirmation that I was still paying attention, because I hadn't learned the power of a nod. And then I watched a bunch of Oprah, and there's even a meme about Oprah where she has, like, different categories of nods, and there's, like, the, "Yes, I'm still listening," nod, and there's the, "Oh, that's interesting," nod. And then there's the, "Hmm, yes, that must have been difficult," nod. Like, you know-

    14. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    15. CW

      ... there's all of this different repertoire, and for a conversation like this, where a lot of people just listen, you don't want to interject. You want the person to just keep going, they're in their flow-

    16. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    17. CW

      ... but you want them to know that you're still paying attention. But when you do it in person, it really works as well. You get people to be... you know, their sentences are 50% longer because they know that you're just there, nodding away.

    18. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    19. CW

      So, I feel like I- I'm- I might, um, get my editor to look at all of the non-me angles of episodes and try and create this glossary of different nods that I've got. But yeah, non-verbal, yep, continue to nod. "I'm here with you. I see what you're saying," and da-da-da-da-da. Uh, and then the topping

  6. 24:17 – 27:40

    Reacting to Sean Strickland & Theo Von

    1. CW

      thing, I really wanted to bring this up to you. I've been excited to bring this up since I knew that you were coming on. Sean Strickland and Theo Von had a conversation. Sean's a UFC champion, Theo's a comedian. Sean has a- a really difficult-... emotional moment where he's, he's really, really, really grasping. He's sort of crying, shaking. He's got this bottle of water in his hand. This bottle's sort of shaking all over the place. And Theo says, "It's okay, buddy. We don't need to talk. I can just sit here for a while if you want."

    2. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    3. CW

      And it's like the most insane... It's the most you. It's like David Brooks synthesized into a sentence. Like this most recent book of yours synthesized into a sentence. Doesn't try and one-up him, doesn't try and rip him out of it, doesn't try and say stop, doesn't minimize, doesn't try and... "I- I once had this thing," or whatever. And he just holds space for this guy-

    4. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    5. CW

      ... and it's phenomenal. And, uh, Charlie Hooper, one of my friends, did an amazing breakdown, and I watched it, and it just... Yeah. Between your book, Therapy, that video, I'm just like... I'm, I'm all in. I'm all in on feeling feelings.

    6. DB

      Yeah. No, the... I used to think wisdom was like the ability to be like Yoda, to say smart maxims. Now I think it's the ability to receive the stories that people are telling you (clears throat) in a way that holds space for them. Uh, I had a, a student, uh, named Gillian Sawyer. I had her as a grad student. When she was in college, um, sh- her dad got pancreatic cancer. And so, um, he died after college and, and she was then invited to become a bridesmaid of a- a friend of hers, and so she's a bridesmaid at the wedding. And she watches the father of the bride give this beautiful toast to his daughter. And then it comes time for the father-daughter dance, and Gillian thinks, "I just can't take this. I'm, I'm just gonna go to the ladies room and have a cry." And so she's goes to the ladies room, has a cry, comes out in a few minutes, and every single person at her table and at the joining- the adjacent table was standing in the hallway. And she said, "They- they didn't try to validate my grief. They didn't say a word. Just all of them in succession gave me a quick hug, even the b- new boyfriends who I knew less well, and it was exactly what I needed." And that- that's just the art of presence. Uh, I- I have an- another friend, an old friend who, um, lost a daughter in Afghanistan. And I said like, "How do I talk to you about that? Like what- what do I say?" And she said, "Some people don't want to raise Anna with me because they think they're bringing up a bad subject, but they should know that Anna is always on my mind. And so you should raise her, and if I feel like talking about her, I will. If I don't, I won't. But you've- you've- you're not introducing a bad subject to me." So that's just being present. Mm-hmm. And then she had another daughter who had a horrible bike accident, and she was nursing her to health, and she said, "Do you know what was the best thing that happened to me from- that a friend did for us? They came, and they brought a casserole or whatever, and then they went to the bathroom, and while they were in the bathroom, they noticed, um, there was no shower mat. And so they went out to Target, they bought a shower mat, and they put it in, and they didn't even tell me. And it was just like a practical thing that I needed done."

    7. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    8. DB

      And so sometimes you- you can be a profound friend not- not by having the deep heart-to-heart conversation, just by j- the mere act of presence.

    9. CW

      If

  7. 27:40 – 33:48

    Seeing Each Other More Deeply

    1. CW

      this is so important, why are we not all doing it already? Why are we not seeing other people deeply if the rewards are as great as you say?

    2. DB

      Yeah. Uh, some of it is cultural. You mentioned British culture. I- I mean, I- I think we- we built up defenses 'cause it is vulnerable, and it is a little scary. And I know British culture reasonably well. I remember... I used to watch this show, I don't know if it's still on, called Have I Got News For You. Uh, and it w- the- the people on that show were so quick and so funny, spontaneous wit. Uh, and I think British culture doesn't get enough credit for being a very comically gifted culture. The people are just genuinely funny. But it does become a defense mechanism, and I've seen it again and again and again. It becomes a way... So there's that cultural thing. And then, you know, we, um, we evolved to live in bands of 150 people. When you were... And you really got (laughs) to know people, I'm assuming, in, you know, hunter-gatherer bands. Uh, now we- we live with lots of like- hundreds and hundreds of people, it's much easier to slide by and do the surface aloof thing and just sort of like cheery bonhomie. Second, getting to know someone takes time, and I'm trying to be a very efficient person. And I've got a little clock in my head so that when, um, somebody, uh... When I'm- I pull over to the gas station to pump gas in my tank, I'm thinking, "Oh, I got 90 seconds here. I can get two emails done."

    3. CW

      (laughs)

    4. DB

      And, and (laughs) , and if you g- ... you have that clock in your head, then the- the patience of building a re- a relationship just doesn't seem worth it. Like when I leave a party, I leave in like 30 seconds. When my wife, who's very relational, leaves a party, it takes her like an hour 'cause she has-

    5. CW

      (laughs) Did you see... There was an article that came out recently that said, uh, people who do Irish goodbyes at parties save themselves up to two days per year.

    6. DB

      (laughs) See, that would be-

    7. CW

      (laughs)

    8. DB

      ... that would be me. That would be me.

    9. CW

      (laughs)

    10. DB

      But on the other hand, people really like my wife, and me, I'm- they're okay with me, but, uh. Uh, so, uh, I think that's the thing. And then it's... There's always a s- a sensation that, uh, this person will think I'm prying, that I'm- I'm getting too personal, too vulnerable, too fast. And of course that is a danger. Like if somebody's really vulnerable right off the get-go, then you're like creeped out. On the other hand, I interview people for a living, like you, and how many times in my life have I seriously asked somebody to tell me some piece of their life story? How many times have they said, "None of your damn business"? The answer is zero. Zero. People love to tell their story. Uh, uh, there's an academic at Northwestern University named Dan McAdams, and he studies how people tell their life stories. So he pulls them into his lab for four hours, "Tell me your high points, your low points, your turning points." At the end of the four hours, he gives them an envelope with some money to compensate them for their time. And a lot of the people say, "I'm not taking money for this. This has been one of the best afternoons of my life. No one has ever asked me these questions." And so people have a need to tell their story, uh, and- and you're giving them a great gift by asking.

    11. CW

      I think we assume...... that other people have got their life together more than we do. Or at least, I- I certainly did for a very long time. You know, I always presumed that anybody else's judgment of me was because of some perfect insight into my malignant, broken programming, and they were perfectly rational, and I was deficient in some sort of relative way.

    12. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    13. CW

      And what that means is that you assume that they- they talk about their life all the time. They've got friends that... Or, you know, someone... I don't know what it is. Maybe they've been on a Netflix documentary or whatever the, whatever the fuck it is that they've done. They have conversations like the ones that I'm yearning to have all the time. And if I bring it up to them, that highlights to them the fact that I have a scarcity of that, and them, being someone who has a surplus-

    14. DB

      Hmm, interesting.

    15. CW

      ... of that will see me in a deficient light somehow.

    16. DB

      Yeah, I... Well, of course it's a truism, but it's a true truism, like a lot of truisms, that even when we know someone, we're only seeing 10% of them, uh, and that everybody has demons, everybody has something, uh, deep down that, uh, you don't know anything about, and everyone's going through some struggle you don't know anything about. But I have found, um, that I've never met somebody who said, "Yeah, I have too many people to t- to talk about important things with." (laughs) I've never met that person.

    17. CW

      (laughs)

    18. DB

      Uh, and- and so, there was a... There used to be an or- a journalist named Studs Terkel who did th- these oral histories, and he said, "If you listen, if you listen, they will talk. They will always listen 'cause no one has ever asked them their life story." Uh, and so I think there's way more people who never have the chance because there's a bit of a social stigma. And again, I don't want people spilling their guts. I was at a party and, uh, there was a journalist, and she was grilling me about my spiritual life, and she was giving me nothing, (laughs) like nothing about her.

    19. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    20. DB

      It was just like, I felt like I was on try.

    21. CW

      Interrogation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    22. DB

      Yeah, and so that was awful. But, you know, a conversation that moves halfway, halfway, halfway, uh, uh, is a beautiful conversation. In the book, I draw this distinction between diminishers and illuminators, and diminishers are people who are not curious about you. They stereotype you. They do a thing called stacking, which is, I learn one fact about you, and then I make a whole series of assumptions about you. And so illuminators, on the other hand, are people who just make you feel seen. They really care about you, and they make you feel lit up. And one of the stories I tell is of, uh, Jennie Jerome, who would go on to become Winston Churchill's mom. But when she was a young lady, she was at a dinner party in London, in Victorian England, and she's seated next to William Gladstone, the Prime Minister, and, uh, she leaves that dinner thinking th- that Gladstone is the cleverest person in England. And then, uh, some time later, she's at a different dinner party, and she happens to be seated next to Gladstone's great political rival, Benjamin Disraeli, and she leaves that dinner thinking that she's the cleverest person in England. And so if you can make other people feel entertaining and funny and clever, you've done a little noble service for the world.

    23. CW

      I wanna

  8. 33:48 – 41:42

    How to Be Comfortable With Feelings

    1. CW

      talk about the felt sense of you as an individual, not the art of seeing others deeply, but the art of being deeply seen.

    2. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    3. CW

      Talk to me about going from this protective autism, th- th- th- rational, hyper-rationality world, the... Step by step, there will be people listening, there will be a lot of people listening, who think, "This sounds like me. The control, the order, the- the... I- I like to be competent and to get things done. I don't like to be out of control." What is the felt sense that you went through of beginning to open up, and, uh, how do you cope with the discomfort of that rising, and, uh, how can people also do that? How can people become more comfortable with feeling feelings?

    4. DB

      Yeah. Well, I- I went through... You know, I was a reasonably ambitious person, so I went through a phase that a lot of us go through called the c- career consolidation phase of life. You're trying to build your career, build your identity, achieve things, make a difference in the world, and in my experience, uh, a couple things happen. One, you achieve success, and it's not as great as you thought it was gonna be. (laughs) Uh, and you know, I remember the first time I got a call from my agent saying one of my books was on the bestseller list. Like, I had sort of dreamed about writing a bestseller, and I felt nothing. I just felt nothing. And I've had way more career success than I thought I would, but... And I've- I've found that it spares for me th- from the anxiety I might feel if I thought I was a failure. But as far as positive good, it doesn't lead to that much, so there's... It's created this dissatisfaction to have a deeper life. Or you don't achieve success, you fail, in which case you're in the valley, or something happens in life that wasn't part of the original plan. You get cancer, you lose a child. And so there's a theologian in the 1950s named Paul Tillich who says moments of suffering, uh, interrupt your life, and they remind you you're not the person you thought you were. And he says they carve through the floor of the basement of your soul, and they reveal a cavity below, and then they carve through another floor, and they reveal a deeper cavity below. So in those bad moments, you see deeper in yourself than you do, uh, in normal life when you're happy, and you realize only spiritual and relational food will fill those cavities. And so in my case, I went through a bad period. I had a divorce. My kids were leaving home. I, uh, I had under-invested in, uh, intimate friendship and good friendships, so I had- I had work friends, uh, but I had no weekend friends, like the people I really wanted to hang around with who I could call at 2:00 in the morning. And so I- I just realized this gap in my life. Um, and I'm- I'm a little eccentric. I'm sort of a super University of Chicago intellectual, so I wanted to learn about emotions, so I wrote a book about emotions called The Social Animal years ago, so like I did it the Chicago way. I wrote a book. But more it was a... And then I- I found when you're- you're in one of life's valleys, you can't pull yourself out. You have to rely on somebody else to reach into the valley and pull you out. And so around about 2014 or so, uh, I'm in DC...... reasonably lonely, and I get invited over to, uh, this couple's house. Uh, their name are Kathy and David, and they have a kid in the DC public schools who's got a friend who's got... His mom has some issues, and he has some... Often has nothing to eat and no place to sleep. So they said, "James can come over to our house." And then James had a friend, and that kid had a friend. That kid had a friend. And by the time I go over to their house in 2014 or so, uh, there were 14 mattresses in the basement, and there were 40 kids around the dinner table. And so I visit and I sh- hold out my hand. I meet a kid at the front door the first time, and he says, "We're not really allowed to shake hands here. We just hug here." And I'm like not the huggiest guy, but I joined this little extended family, this sort of chosen family. And those young people who were 17, 18, um, they like beamed emotional openness at you and they demanded it back. And I think that, getting into that kind of culture was part of my education-

    5. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    6. DB

      ... of knowing how to, to really be open. And so you join a different culture where, where being emotionally available is the norm, and by process of osmosis, um, I think you, you do... You, you don't even notice. I wouldn't say I noticed the change. I wouldn't say like, "Oh, I've eight- I've gotten 60% more emotionally available." (laughs) Like-

    7. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    8. DB

      ... it's... But the spirit is opened. And I wrote in the book, I, I can prove it to you, but I have to name drop. So I've been interviewed by Oprah twice in my life. And the first time in 2014 (laughs) and the second time in 2019. And after the taping in 2019, she pulls me aside and said, "David, I've rarely seen somebody change so much in middle age. You were so blocked before." And she should know, she's Oprah. Uh, and so I... It's... There's just a fruit, a, a, a flowering of the spirit that happens to people. And I think it often happens as people get older, that career consolidation phase ends, and another phase, uh, called generativity, the de- the desire to really be of service to the world, that sort of kicks in. I, I think when people hit... Especially if they hit like 50 or 60, I say, "Remember when you were 13 or 14 and horniness entered your life?" Well, around 50 or 60, generativity enters your life, this intense desire to give. And I'm, I'm over simplifying it, but you don't have to be 50 to experience this. You can experience it when you're a parent at 25. But, um, I do think that desire to be of service to the world and, and to just be more, um... To cry more easily.

    9. CW

      Yeah, that's something that I'm quite ashamed about. I'm ashamed about how emotional I am. I think I've cried on this show maybe twice, maybe two or three times, usually when I'm telling some like quite happy story. It doesn't tend to be something that's sad. But if-

    10. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    11. CW

      ... it's me on my own watching a, a Christmas movie... Good example, I watched two quite sad Christmas movies. One of them is Klaus, uh, which is phenomenal, animated, children, kind of like children's thing, but it's really deep and meaningful. Uh, that's outstanding. And then there was another one which was an animated version of, uh, A Night Before Christmas. And at both of these, I'm like, you know, weeping, fully weeping at the end-

    12. DB

      (laughs)

    13. CW

      ... of it. And I find, I find that happens when I tell... Like when I think about stuff, when I reminisce, so on and so forth. But the discomfort that I feel and that desire to like clamp down on emotions, I totally... I, I totally understand what you mean. And there's something... There's another part. Y- You were talking before about how we're in different sized tribes and, and, and now we're in... There's more people, so we kind of flit through the conversations a little bit more. I think another element of it is, that has decreased our level of security, especially since social media, because if you only have 150 people to be open and vulnerable with, you... Fucking 10 of them are your kin, 20 of them are your extended kin. E- Half of them are older than... Are gonna die within the next decade, so who cares? Another half of them are babies, so they don't know... You, you know, there's just not that many people that would use... And also, it's not cemented on the internet for the rest of time. So I think that given that so much of our communication interpersonally, uh, and even, you know, people use, uh, video journals, diaries, vlogs, et cetera, writing, that, that is a very personal approach, that... I think there is a fear that that will be used as some sort of cudgel to batter us with at some point later in life by a person who isn't as earnest-

    14. DB

      Right.

    15. CW

      ... by a person who is going to be more cutting or sardonic or doesn't feel things so very deeply. There are people out there that I think just don't feel th- They don't, don't feel them, don't necessarily have the capacity to feel them, and don't have the desire to have the capacity to feel them.

    16. DB

      Yeah.

    17. CW

      Um, I'm not one of those people. And yeah, I, I've, I've, I've genuinely feel like I'm on the same train or similar train tracks to yourself, just a little bit further behind.

  9. 41:42 – 44:44

    The Powerful Use of Silence

    1. CW

      And, uh, one of the other things, again, and an Oprah bit, I haven't learned like everything from Oprah, but, uh-

    2. DB

      (laughs)

    3. CW

      ... two things that I did learn, uh, first being, uh, develop a nice repertoire of nods. Uh, and the second one is something that I know that you're a big fan of, is the use of silence.

    4. DB

      Yeah. No, I, I w- For researching this book, I would watch Oprah. Uh, I turn the sound off, I just watch her. Uh, and I, I noticed like she did this, uh, Harry and Kate famous interview and, um, when they're saying something happy, she's verbalizing, "Yes. Uh-huh." But when they're saying something sad, she goes quiet. And it's like creating an emptiness for them to continue, uh, their talk. And so I, I think that's part of the problem. But the other thing I'd mention is that doing this, being good at social skills, social life, it is a absolute skill. It's like... It's, it's, it's a skill like learning carpentry or, uh, learning to play tennis. And you can get better by learning the skills. I mentioned some conversation skills before. And so you just have to know what to say. Like, I tell the story in the book, uh, um, one of my friends got very terrible depression, and I d- just literally did not know what to say to a depressed person. I thought I was reasonably well-educated, but I didn't even know what depression was, uh, really. And I learned you can't understand depression by extrapolating from your own moments of sadness if you're, if you're lucky enough not to have experienced it. That a friend of mine, another, another friend said that a depression... Depression is a malfunction in the instrument you use to perceive reality.And so, depression, you're... Like my friend, who- the one who got depressed, his- he had th- these lying voices in his head. Like, um, "You're worthless. Nobody would miss you if you were gone." And he- he was literally seeing the world through lying voices. And I just made mistakes, which were just skill mistakes, not- nothing to do with my heart or anything, I wanted to do the right thing but I didn't know how. And so, the two mis- classic mistakes that I made, which I'm told other people make... is I tried to give them ideas on how to get outta depression. Like, "You used to d- go on these service trips to Vietnam you found it so rewarding, why don't you do that again?" And I learned if you're giving people who are depressed ideas about how to get outta depression, you're just showing you don't get it, 'cause it's not ideas they're lacking, it's a lot of other things they're lacking, but not ideas. And the second mistake I made was called cognitive reframing, uh, which is, um, trying to remind people how good- how many good things they have in their life. Great marriage, great career, great kids. And if you, to a- if you try to convince a person who's depressed that their life has all these positives, you're making them feel worse, 'cause you're just-

    5. CW

      Look at all of the things I'm taking for granted, oh, how much shame-

    6. DB

      Yeah.

    7. CW

      ...that I don't have these problems, and yet I still feel like shit.

    8. DB

      Right. And- and I'm not enjoying the things that are enjoyable. Why- why am I not enjoying these things? And s-

    9. CW

      Oh, there's something really broken with me.

    10. DB

      Yeah, right. And so, it's- these are just like knowing what to say, what not to say. And it- you- you could just learn how to show up for people in- in these circumstances, in ways that are more graceful than not.

  10. 44:44 – 49:06

    How to Notice People Who Are Down

    1. CW

      If that's what not to do with someone... I- I think this is probably quite specific to depression, but maybe we can broaden it out into people who are sad or have had to-

    2. DB

      Yeah.

    3. CW

      ...you know, uh, going through a- a tough period. How can people be better seeing others that are down?

    4. DB

      Yeah. First, um... And I learned this the hard way over three years. Um, first, acknowledge the reality of the situation. "This sucks. This really sucks." And so, just show that you're there with them. Second, just a burst of goodwill. "I want more for you. I want more for you." That doesn't mean that you'll make any difference, 'cause frankly I've learned that words have lim- very limited utility in these circumstance, but you can le- at least say, "I want more for you." Uh, and then constant touches. Uh, a lot of people who are depressed are terrified their friends will leave them, because they're not fun to be around. And it's just like, "I'm thinking of you, and I wish I'd sent my friend, uh, like more texts here and there." I read about a guy whose brother was depressed and he was a- a world traveler. He sent postcards from everywhere he went in the world. No response necessary. "Thinking about you." And that- it's just a constant set of light touches. And then there's a... I read about this later, uh, from a classic book which I hope everybody's read called Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl. And he's in the death camps, uh, the Nazi death camps, and he's confronted with a lot of people contemplating suicide. And so his advice, he- what he said to them was, "Life has not stopped expecting things of you. That you still have responsibilities to the world, there are still things you can contribute." Uh, and one of them is credibility with suffering. Uh, and, you know, I- I often think when someone tells me they're contemplating suicide, first thing I think is, "You're so brave, 'cause you're going through some horrible stuff and you're still here, and so I just admire the courage with which you're- you embrace life." Uh, and so, uh, these are things, I'm not sure it'll make any difference, but it's a way of being a graceful friend to the person, uh, and never asking why, just, "I'm here, I'm here, I'm here."

    5. CW

      What are some of the ways that we make ourselves less easy to see?

    6. DB

      Uh, well, A, by invulnerability. Uh, B, by egotism. Uh, 'cause we- we wanna... The reason a lot of people don't question is that they- they wanna perform, and the performance is a performance. I mentioned earlier Fred Buechner, the novelist. And he says, "It's important from time to time to tell some secrets about yourself, 'cause it'll remind you you're not the person you pretend to be for the world." (laughs) And he says, "It'll make it a little easier for others s- from time to time to tell secrets to you." And so we- we do that. We all- we all put on a show. And you mentioned social media. My view in- in social media, it's judgment everywhere, understanding nowhere. And so of course you put up walls. Um, you know, there's books out now, The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck, and- and Girl, Wash Your Face, and these are all books that say don't mind what other people are saying. Like, do not mind. Because so many people have that so consciously on their mind, "I'm being judged all the time." Um, and of course the truth is that people aren't thinking about you that much, so (laughs) be who you are. Uh, but, uh, I- I do think we have- we put on that show. Uh, and then finally, just, you know, I- I'm, um, I'm a practiced escape artist. And so if you came up to me with a problem 20 years ago, uh, I would, uh, look at my shoes and then pretend to have an important appointment with my dry cleaner's.

    7. CW

      Mm-hmm. (laughs)

    8. DB

      Like, you know? I- I- I was an escape artist. Uh, and it's just a way to, like, glide. 'Cause I- I was uncomfortable. If somebody was getting too personal I just was uncomfortable, and I guess a little fearful. And so that's one of the ways. And, you know, it's just a question of, um, you know, trust. And you- you'd mentioned trust earlier, and- and I have found that if you're open in the world with your friends and acquaintances, you will absolutely get betrayed, 'cause people will sometimes take advantage of your vulnerability and they'll use it against you. And look, I'm in political journalism, it's kind of a rough business. Uh, and yet I've found it's better to lead with trust and be betrayed occasionally than to not trust people and to wall yourself off.

  11. 49:06 – 52:26

    The Bravery of Being Open

    1. CW

      I think that is one of the huge trade-offs that people feel uncomfortable about. And I see this a lot, um, i- in comment sections. You know, I talk a lot about the problems of men, and there is a lot of advice, uh, for men, especially around vulnerability. How much should you show, how much should you not, if you do this to your partner, it's immediately going to make her unattracted to you, um, the full gamut. And then people saying that you can do this, you just need to find a partner that's, uh, you know, in the right place to be able to hold space, and so on and so forth. But there is this perennial, um, concern around-

    2. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    3. CW

      ... if I show my vulnerabilities, especially to a female partner, as a man, uh, but also to the world generally, that's associated with a kind of weakness, uh, it is a vector of attack that can be used in future, it is, uh, inadvisable for a whole host of reasons, and it makes you... (coughs) It makes you diminished in status, both to yourself and to other people. And, um, I grappled with that for a long time, y- 'cause that is me. I- my background is in, uh, running night clubs. Not exactly the most emotionally mature, um, environment to grow up in. And, uh, I- I've, I'm still playing with this idea, but I... You're still going to feel feelings, ultimately. You're still going to have these thoughts. And I- I really struggle to see how pretending that you don't feel them or not showing them is braver than actually doing it.

    4. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    5. CW

      Like, to me, the- the bravest thing that you can do is to... You- you don't need to tell everyone about everything about your fucking athlete's foot, or your chronic flatulence-

    6. DB

      (laughs)

    7. CW

      ... or, like, you know, whatever, like the- the door hinge that squeaks and annoys you. But, it's, that seems to me like the- the real hero's journey. It's that- that seems to be the thing where you think, "Wow, th- that person is not only sufficiently brave that they're able to verbalize this, but that they're doing it because they think that they can overcome it." Uh, and again, you know, do you wanna be ruled by your mental afflictions or do you- do you wanna become aware of them?

    8. DB

      Yeah, I've known a lot of women who dumped guys, and I've never had one tell me, "You know, I dumped him 'cause he was just too vulnerable." (laughs) Like, the moment, the main reason women dump guys is 'cause they don't communicate, uh, and they don't feel like it's a mutual, open, loving relationship. And so I do think, um, you know, that vulnerability is- is just, like, not only a good strategy for life (laughs) , but it- it's a good strategy for building a relationship. But of course, you gotta do it at the right pace. I remember when I was, uh, dating the woman who is now my wife. We were, like, emailing, and we were, like, emailing in ways where we would slightly cross a- a trust threshold, and it would, like, minute, and, like... And I remember, I- I'd sent her an email which was a little more intimate than the emails we'd sent before. It was just, like, 5% more. And then, so I get on a flight, a cross-country flight, and I think, "Okay, I- I can't wait to see what, how she reacts. Does she push me away or is she, like, welcoming?" And of course, the flight had no wifi, and so I'm like, for five or six hours (laughs) , I'm sitting there, I'm like... (laughs)

    9. CW

      (laughs) Wow, what a terrible open loop to have.

    10. DB

      (laughs) Yeah, yeah, so... But it turned out well. We're married.

  12. 52:26 – 57:43

    How to End a Conversation Better

    1. DB

    2. CW

      How can people end a conversation more effectively?

    3. DB

      Yeah, I think the... Oh, I sucked at this. So, I remember I went to my fifth high school reunion, and my only trick for ending a conversation was, "I've gotta go to the bar." And so, I was so hammered after 20 minutes of that (laughs) of that reunion that I had to leave the reunion. Uh, but I- I think the w- the way I've learned is, like, you have a conversation, uh, and I say, I- I say, uh, "I've really enjoyed talking to you. I particularly enjoyed your analysis of how British culture made it- might have made you more inhibited. Uh, and that was great." So in other words, a positive burst, "I really enjoy talking to you," and then mention a couple of things the other person said that s- particularly struck their interest, and then say, "It's really, it's been great," and then you can leave. But it- it's that positive burst with specificity.

    4. CW

      Mm.

    5. DB

      And then people leave thinking, "Wow, that was, that was good, like-"

    6. CW

      "He really listened."

    7. DB

      Yeah.

    8. CW

      Yeah, that's lovely. Uh, you also talk about improving the energy that you walk into a room with, and, uh, since moving to America, th- for all of the flaws that it has, I find myself flourishing here because you're an enthusiastic bunch.

    9. DB

      (laughs)

    10. CW

      Everyone is-

    11. DB

      Yeah.

    12. CW

      ... k- kind of, maybe not everyone, uh, but, uh, many people are, uh, like, excitable. And, you know, they- they- they- they want to s- to hear what you've got that's going on. Maybe it doesn't go particularly deep, but especially, you know, you've got something good. "Here's some good news I've got." "Dude, that's amazing." Because in the UK, they would be like, "Oh, all right. Like-"

    13. DB

      (laughs)

    14. CW

      "...you must think you're a little bit special."

    15. DB

      Yeah. (laughs)

    16. CW

      Um, again, like banter. Um, talk to me about how people can improve the energy that they come into a room with.

    17. DB

      Yeah, well, we are, um... I noticed, like I used to live in continental Europe, and when you pass somebody on a hiking trail in a forest, nobody says hi in Europe. But here in America, we always say, "Hey, hi," and that was it. You know, this is just a small thing. I had a friend who moved here from Africa and she said, uh, "My first few years here, my cheeks hurt 'cause I had to smile so much. You- you people smile ridiculously."

    18. CW

      Resting smiling face.

    19. DB

      Yeah, right, yeah.

    20. CW

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    21. DB

      And so, when we first meet somebody, each of us is unconsciously asking a question, which is, "Is this person gonna be nice to me? Am I a person to this person? Am I a priority to this person?" And the answers to those questions will be answered by your eyes before any words come out of your mouth. And so, the power of that first gaze. And Simon Weil was a French intellectual in the World War II era, said, "Attention is a moral act. It calls forth people, things into being." And so the way you op- you- you treat each person as just this reverent creature. I'll tell a quick story that I put in the book. Um, I'm in Waco, Texas-... uh, which must be close to Austin. How big could Texas possibly be? (laughs)

    22. CW

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. It's only... no, it's, uh, it, it... Waco's, Waco's an hour from where I am right now.

    23. DB

      Yeah. So, uh, I'm having breakfast at a diner with a woman named LaRue Dorsey, who's, like, 93, and she's, like, a drill sergeant type. She had been a teacher and she said, you know, "I dis- I tr- loved my students enough to discipline them." And I'm a little intimidated by this, this lady who's, like, tough. Uh, and into the diner walks a mutual friend of ours, this pastor named Jimmy Dorrell. And Jimmy mat- pastors to the homeless in Waco, among others. Uh, and he comes up to our table, he sees us there, knows us both, and he grabs Mrs. Dorsey by the shoulders, and he shakes her way harder than you should ever shake a 93-year-old. And he says to her, "Mrs. Dorsey, Mrs. Dorsey, you're the best. You're the best. I love you, I love you." And in an instant, that formidable drill sergeant lady I'd been talking to turns into a bright, eye-shining, nine-year-old girl. And Jimmy, with the power of his attention, created, called forth a different version of her. Uh, and so if you see the world objectively, people will be objective.

    24. CW

      Mm.

    25. DB

      If you see the world, uh, critically, people will feel judged. And you'll se- you'll see judgment, you'll see flaw. But if you see the world humanely, you'll see people doing the best they can in difficult circumstances. So, the way you cast attention determines what you see.

    26. CW

      Yeah. I think... I, I, I find myself very much being a mirror to, uh, the energy of other people, but not so much the first mover.

    27. DB

      Yeah, I'm like that.

    28. CW

      And I'm trying to be, I'm trying to be more of a first mover with e- like, like, really stepping in. Uh, my friend George, actually the guy that first told me about your book, uh, that then resulted in this episode happening, um, he often, when I, when I sit down with him, we're... I, I hope for him too, I think for him too, we're just at our best. It's exactly what I want to be. It's open, it's about ideas, it's hopeful, it's funny, it's, it's all of those things. And I'm like, "Well, why am I not like that with everyone?" Because it's still me. I'm the common denominator between these things. And why do I need to wait for somebody else t- to determine, you know, are we doing foxtrot or salsa this evening? It's like, no. Like, you, you get to choose. You get to choose.

    29. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    30. CW

      And maybe they're waiting for you to do that, uh, not just being... It's different to holding space. It's not like being a vessel for them. It's, it's, like, folding around the weird conventions and it's not breaking step with stuff. Um, so just to

  13. 57:43 – 1:00:59

    Questions to Make a Conversation Deeper

    1. CW

      recap, let's say, again, someone listening, big on the cerebral side of things, loves the rationality and thinks, "I like the idea of stepping into this more emotional realm," what's your starter kit for good questions to break people out? It's the fir- it's maybe the first time with an existing friend that they've done this, or maybe it's the first time with someone that they don't know quite so well. And they're like, they wanna pivot the conversation towards something they think is a bit more deep or meaningful. What are your... what's your, your favorite run through?

    2. DB

      Yeah, I would say, the thing that comes immediately to mind is, is storytelling questions. Uh, people are just better when they're in story. Uh, and so as a political journalist, I no longer ask people, uh, "What do you believe about this?" Instead I ask them, uh, "How did you come to believe that?" And that way, they're telling me a story about their, uh, the person or the experience that influenced how they think. And so you wanna get them into this story mode. There's a classic example of this I read about in a book called You're Not Listening by a woman named Kate Murphy. And she's describing this focus group leader who's reading... uh, uh, uh, who's leading a focus group. She's been hired by so- supermarkets to figure out why people go to the grocery store late at night. And so she's, she could have just said to the focus group, "Why do you go to the grocery store late at night?" Instead she said, "Tell me about the last time you went to a grocery store after 11:00 PM." And there was some lady in the store who, um... in, in focus group, who hadn't said anything, and she said, "Well, I smoked some weed and I needed a ménage à trois with me, Ben & Jerry." And so you get a little glimpse into her life, and she gets them into story mode. I have a friend, um, named David Radley who started three successful businesses and, uh, owned for a time The Atlantic magazine, where I worked part time. Uh, and he, his genius is hiring people. And he, he hires f- on two basic criteria. The first one is spirit of generosity, and the second one is extreme talent. And so he defines talen- talent very narrowly. He doesn't know, are you a good writer... what kind of writer are you? Are you a synthesis writer, are you a narrative writer? So he defines talent very narrowly. But how does he find spirit of generosity? Is a method he calls the take me back method. He says when people are presenting themselves, especially in a professional circumstance or in a job interview, they start in the middle. They start at the beginning of their career. He says, "No, take me back to your childhood. Uh, tell me what your home life was like." And he has a theory which I'm not sure I agree with, but, uh, he says, "Everybody is who they were in high school somewhere deep down." (laughs)

    3. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    4. DB

      So if you were unpopular in high school, you still are carrying around those insecurities.

    5. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    6. DB

      And so he says... he wants to know, "Who were you in high school and how has that changed?" Uh, and so he... that method, take me back, suddenly is getting people into narrative mode. And the final thing I'd say is one of the tips I got from The Conversation Experts is, uh, make people authors, not witnesses. People don't go into enough detail when they're telling you about some event in their life. So if you ask them, "Where was your, your boss sitting when she said that to you?" suddenly they're deep in the scene and they're telling you a much richer narrative. So, I've, I've learned to try to make as many conversations possible storytelling conversations, and not argument-making conversations.

  14. 1:00:59 – 1:01:34

    Where to Find David Brooks

    1. DB

    2. CW

      David Brooks, ladies and gentlemen. David, honestly, I, I, I adored the book, I adore this transformation that you've been on. I think it's very aspirational in a, uh, very non-typical, aspirational way. And, uh, I love it. I really, really love it. Um, where should people go if they're gonna wanna keep up to date with everything you do? Where should they head?

    3. DB

      Uh, they can head to the New York Times webpage, and I'm, I'm there once a week when I'm at The Atlantic. And they can go to Amazon and buy my book. (laughs)

    4. CW

      Hell yeah. David, I really, really appreciate you. Thank you so much for today. Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, there is something else you will absolutely love right here. Go on. Give it a tap.

Episode duration: 1:01:34

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