Charles Duhigg - Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist & Author | Master the Art of Influence + Communication

There's this thing in marriage therapy known as kitchen syncing that is literally the number one signal of real problems in the relationship which is that fight about one thing because of fight about everything what can we control the fight. Let's control the boundaries of this conversation. Today's guest has transformed the way we think about habits, productivity and connection. A Pulitzer prize winning journalist and bestselling author, his book The Power of Habit, change how millions approach their routines. Communication is literally just a set of skills. Anyone can become a super communicator, but the people who do it consistently, they understand that it's just a set of skills you practice until they become habits. Once you have the skills in place, basically you can connect with anyone you want to. Better redefine productivity, and now with super communicators, he's unlocking the science of meaningful conversations. He's written for the New York Times and the New Yorker, investigated tech giants like Apple, and uncovered the hidden forces shaping our lives. To learn to ask the right questions and then ask them. If you look at really good negotiators, you will notice that one of the things they do is that there's these weird, almost unnatural pauses. Because what they're doing is they're just slowing things down so they can think more. Kindness and self-discipline always contain their own rewards. In this conversation, we dive deep into habits, communication, and what it really takes to change. Welcome to success story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. HubSpot not only supports the show, but they support entrepreneurs. That's why it's such a huge fan of HubSpot. And I'm very grateful for HubSpot for supporting the show because they help entrepreneurs. And as a fellow entrepreneur, I know it takes a lot to grow your business, a lot of audience attracting, a lot of sales, a lot of marketing, a lot of leads for a lot of channel management, a lot of content, a lot of long days, late nights, a lot of weekends, a lot of wishing there wasn't easier way, but there is with breeze. This is HubSpot's new collection of AI tools. It's easier than ever for marketers, for entrepreneurs, to attract audiences, to increase leads, to score customers, and to close deals fast, which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate. Visit HubSpot.com slash marketers to learn more. Charles, you spent years studying how people communicate. Yeah, in your books, you confess that you were terrible at it yourself. So what made you realize that you needed to change? Well, terrible is a strong word. I think I was not as good as I wanted to be. Hopefully I wasn't terrible. I'm a journalist, so kind of a professional communicator. But yeah, I mean, that was part of it was that I felt like I should be really good at communication. And I fell into this bad pattern with my wife that was happening, and I think it happens in lots of relationships. Versions of this happened at work as well, where I'd come home from a long day. I was at the time a reporter at the New York Times. And I would come home from a long day, and I started complaining to my wife about like, you know, my boss doesn't appreciate me and my co-workers don't realize what a genius I am. And she would have this really good advice. She would say something like, what, you know, why don't you take your boss out to lunch and you guys can get to know each other a little bit better. And instead of being able to hear her advice, I would get even more upset. And I would say things like, why aren't you supporting me? What he is supposed to be outraged to my behalf? She would get upset because I was attacking her for giving me good advice. And I think this is pretty common. Like I'm assuming that this is familiar to literally everyone listening, right? Where one person has a problem. The other person tries to solve it. Those solutions are not appreciated. And so I was just confused why this kept happening to me and to everyone else. And so I went to a neuroscientist and I was like, look, tell me what's what's happening like in my brain. And they said, actually, it's a really good thing you can't buy right now because we're living through this golden age of understanding communication. Like for the first time, because of advances in neuroimaging and data collection, we know what's happening inside your brain when you're talking to someone. And what we've discovered is that when we have a discussion, we tend to think that it's about one thing, right? Like we're talking about our day or we're going vacation or. But actually, every discussion is made up of different kinds of conversations. And in general, these conversations, they tend to fall into one of three buckets. There's these practical conversations where we're solving problems together, making plans. But then there's emotional conversations where I tell you what I'm feeling. And I don't want you to solve my feelings. I want you to empathize. And then there's social conversations, which is about how we relate to each other and society and the identities that are important to us. And they said, what we've discovered is all three kinds of conversations are equally legitimate. But if you're not having the same kind of conversation at the same moment, you will not fully hear each other. You will not connect with each other. And of course, that's what is happening with me and my wife, right? I was having an emotional conversation. She was responding with a practical conversation. We were like ships passing in the night. But from that has been this real explosion in understanding how to be better communicators, how to be super communicators. And a lot of it is built around what's known as the matching principle and psychology that successful communication requires figuring out what kind of conversation is occurring. And then matching the other person or inviting them to match you. You know, sort of making a joke at the beginning of, oh, you were a terrible communicator. You were not as refined a communicator as you are now. But the majority of people, let's just, let's just generalize the majority of people I'm assuming do not understand what kind of communication they're having with another party. I think that most people fall into this trap that you were just describing with your wife. Yeah. And sometimes it's just a matter of like pointing out the different kinds of conversations and helping people come up with like a scaffold in their brain for figuring out. I mean, what's interesting is so humans are actually amazing communicators, right? If you think about it, communication is our superpower. It's the thing that like has allowed our species to succeed above every other species. And so our brains have evolved to be really, really good at communication. However, in contemporary society, not only are there a lot of distractions. There's a lot of ways to get in our own way of being a bit communicator. And so one of the things that I wanted to do with super communicators is to explain communication is literally just a set of skills. Anyone can become a super communicator. In fact, most of us are at one point or another during the day or the week. But the people who do it consistently, they understand that it's just a set of skills you practice until they become habits. And once you have the skills in place, basically you can connect with anyone you want to. What is the, what, walking through how this even impacted your work? So when you, so now at this point, this is sort of like the first phrase. I know you go through a couple different frameworks in the book, but this is the first framework. So three types of conversations. You have the practical decision making, you have the emotional, you have the social identity. Maybe first explain them a little bit more so that people can wrap their minds around them. But then talk to me about how this impacted your day today. When you, I mean, you've interviewed more people than me. So when you're interviewing people, when you're doing investigations, when you're talking to your wife, when you're talking to your boss. Yeah, and it's, and it's worth noting in interview isn't necessarily a conversation, right? Like like in this, what in this interview that we're doing right now, you're going to ask me a lot more questions that I'm going to ask you. And so it's not necessarily back and forth. But when we're having a conversation, oftentimes what, what happens? Well, let me explain what happens when we're having a conversation that works. When we are, when we connect with someone through conversation or through any type of communication, our bodies and our brains actually change without us realizing it. Like even in this conversation, even though we're separated by a continent, our breath patterns are starting to match each other, our heart rates are starting to match each other. The dilation of our eyes is starting to become similar. And more importantly, if we could see inside your brain in my brain, what we would see is that our thought patterns are becoming more and more alike. And that actually makes sense when you think about it. Because if I tell you about an emotion, I'm feeling you actually experience that emotion a little bit. Or if I tell you about an idea I had, you experience that idea. And so it would make sense that our brains would become more similar, but it turns out that similarity, what's known in neuroscience as neural entrainment is at the core of communication. When we communicate and we feel like we've actually heard and understood the other person they've understood us and we feel connected to them, we trust them more, we like them more, even if we disagree with them. It's because we achieved that neural entrainment because our thoughts became very similar and trained with each other. And so what's interesting is that these two kinds of conversations that practical the social, the emotional and the social, they use different parts of our brains. So a practical conversation is when we're thinking about logical, when you're thinking about logical systems in any respect, right, we're using the prefrontal cortex. So we're making plans for a vacation. We're setting a budget. We're deciding where to go to dinner tonight by sort of saying like, oh, like I like Chinese, but I had it last week. Anything where there's what's known as a logic of costs and benefits is using your prefrontal cortex. An emotional conversation uses a very different structure or brain. It uses the deep interior structures that are brain, the basal ganglia, the amygdala. And in those cases, the logic of costs and benefits tends not to be as persuasive as what's known as the logic of similarities. Sometimes when I'm confronted with a situation where it's I'm feeling an emotion, someone's discussing an emotion, it's clearly an emotional conversation, I try and figure out what to do next by not by asking myself costs and benefits, not by comparing alternative paths. But by looking for something similar, like, oh, you just stubbed your toe. When I stepped up to my toe, what I really needed was someone to like say like, it's okay or like, I have a friend, as I was mentioning that they just lost his house in the fires and Los Angeles, right. And like he doesn't need me coming in and being like, okay, here's what you should do about like insurance next in Y and Z. What he needs is someone is like, oh my, I'm so sorry, man, that sounds so hard. And in order to figure out what to say, I'm going to think about those moments in my life when I've had some tragedy and what I needed and what people did for me. So that's the logic of similarities. And then the social conversation is kind of different because it doesn't rely on a logic as much as it relies on evidence that the other person is acknowledging who I am. So a social conversation happens when I come to you and I say like, look, you know, as someone who grew up in New Mexico or as a journalist or as a man or as a father. And I tell you something about myself based on how I see myself and how I believe society sees me. At that moment, what I, what I'm looking for from you without even realizing it is not empathy, like an emotions, it's not logic, like in the language of the practical conversation, it's simply acknowledging that you've heard me. If I come and I say, you know, I see this differently as you and here's why the best thing that you can say in response is to say, oh, I totally, like, I totally hear what you're saying, you see this differently than I do. And that's, that's legitimate. So when you, I'm just thinking through now you have me thinking about all the conversations I have in my life and now I'm mapping out when some things just seem to not click and now it makes a lot of sense as to why. The three kinds of conversations that you just mentioned, I feel like I feel like when we go into a conversation, the reason why we could not pick up on the type of conversation that the other person is trying to have could be because we have our own agenda going into that conversation and we want our own outcomes. And I don't even know if that's a conscious thought, I feel like in my case, if I'm going into a conversation, I've had this conversation so many different times, I just have this subconscious outcome that I'm looking for and I'm not even, I'm not, it sounds cliche, but I'm not stepping into the other people's shoes, right? I'm just saying, I'm having this conversation, I'm feeling this emotion, this is what I want out of it. If I don't get that, I'm not happy with the interaction, but I'm not consciously doing that. That's almost like a subconscious entrained. Well, and there's a way, there's a way to sidestep this, right? So this is, this is one of the first big skills is how do we figure out what kind of conversation we're in and how do we get ourselves out of our head? Because oftentimes before we have a conversation, we might think about it, like if it's an important conversation or something we're kind of uptight about. Well, think about it and what we think about is what I want to say, like here's what I want the other person to know, here's what I want to say. That's not really a conversation, right? That's a monologue. That's what most people are willing to. That's totally natural. So what do we do when we start that conversation to make it an actual conversation? The first and most important thing we can do is to ask a question, but not all questions are created equal. Some questions are much more powerful than others. And within psychology, these are known as deep questions. And a deep question is something that asks about your values or your beliefs or your experiences. And that can sound a little bit intimidating, but it's as simple like if you met someone who's a lawyer, you know, instead of asking them, oh, what law firm do you work at asking them, oh, what made you decide to go to law school? But do you like being a lawyer? Like what do you love about it? When we ask those kinds of questions, when we ask people not about the facts of their life, but how they feel about their life, what we're doing is we're inviting them to tell us what kind of mindset they're in. Because that person who's a lawyer, you know, at one party, he might say, oh, you know, like I just I wanted to study job and I knew that there's always going to be demand for lawyers. And so, so he's in a practical mindset, right? At another party, the exact same person might say, oh, like I actually saw my uncle get arrested when I was a kid. And I felt like it was really unjust and I wanted to help fight against that. Okay, so that's that's much more of an emotional, maybe even a social conversation. Asking a deep question allows us to not only figure out what's happening in the other person's head, but it interrupts that subconscious thing that you're talking about. Because instead of just barreling in and being like, here's what I want you to know about me, I'm asking you a question, we're starting a dialogue. And the great thing about deep questions is that as soon as you ask that question and they answer it, it's very natural for you to answer your own question, right? Oh, you became a lawyer because you saw your uncle get arrested. That's really interesting. I'm a doctor and I became a doctor because I saw my dad get sick when I was a kid. So, that's the that's the first and most important step is their skill is learn to ask the right questions and then ask them when you ask these first of all. It's sort of a two-pronged question to this. The first part is when you ask these or how practical is it to ask these deep questions before every interaction that you have because that's what you're alluding to. This is what you this is what your team up before you have any kind of conversation. You have to get almost a barometer reading of where that person is at to a degree. You can add well sometimes sometimes like like I mean sometimes you walk up and like you're in gyms your co-workers like we got to discuss the budget. And you're like, okay, let's discuss the budget. Like you know that he's in a practical mindset, right? He's announced it. Sometimes people just announce what what mindset they're in. I think it's a situations when you're not when it's not announced. And those moments that's when asking this deep question. And I think what you're really asking is like, man, that seems like so much work. But actually asking a deep question usually takes a couple of seconds and the reply usually takes no more than 20 or 25 seconds. Right? Like like you mentioned that you lived in Miami. So like a deep question I would ask you would be like, oh you know what made you guys decide to move to Miami. Like what like what was going on that like and you're going to answer that question and you're going to tell me something about yourself. You're sick of the cold or you wanted to get away from your in-laws or whatever it is something. Something was going on that gives me some insight into who you are what kind of mindset you're in right now. But it's not going to be a big like cry on each other's shoulder moment. No, in fact in schools they teach teachers to do this by saying look if a student comes up and they want to have a conversation with you. Start the conversation by asking them, do you want to be helped? Do you want to be hugged or do you want to be heard? Which are the three kinds of conversations of practical, the emotional and the social. And if anyone listening has kids at home, try this with your kids, they will tell you exactly what they want immediately. They will say like, no, I don't need your help. I just want you to hear what's going on or I need a hug. The second part to that question that I was just asking was when you ask these deep questions, is there a greater degree of connection made with that person? Is there some sort of deeper level of understanding or empathy, like some bond that's formed? Well, so you're starting to entrain, right? Like if I say to you, you know, why'd you come a lawyer? I saw my uncle get arrested and they say, oh, I became a doctor because I saw my dad get sick. Now, we're both having the same kind of conversation, right? We're finding something that we have in common. We are starting to entrain with each other. And the thing that's interesting about entrainment is you can't help but feel closer to the person when you entrain with them. Like literally like even if you dislike each other, even if you disagree about everything on earth, entrainment doesn't mean you're going to change your mind. It doesn't mean you're going to you're going to walk away saying I agree with you. Entrainment is something that we achieve with another person that makes us feel connected. And when we feel when we are entrained with someone, we like them more, we trust them more, we're more persuaded by them. And that doesn't mean that we really like them or that we really trust them, but it does mean that we feel connected to them in some way. I just want to take a quick break and thank the HubSpot podcast network for supporting success story for the past two years. Now the HubSpot podcast network has other incredible podcasts like my first million now. If you are an entrepreneur or you are ready to turn your entrepreneurial dreams into millions, you have to listen to my first million. It's a show that is revolutionizing business podcasting. It's hosted by Sam Parr, Sean Perry. This is a HubSpot podcast network original. It brings you unfiltered conversations with self-made millionaires who actually tell you how they did it. If you want to learn how Alex from Mozi built his fitness empire or how Sophia Amaruso turned nasty girl into a fashion phenomenon. These aren't just success stories. They're the blueprints for your own journey to the top. Each episode breaks down the exact strategies and hidden opportunities that you can use right now. Don't just dream about your first million. Learn how to make it. Listen to my first million wherever you get your podcasts. Today's episode is brought to you by Taylor Brands. Now here's a wild stat. 60% of Americans dream about starting their own business, but less than 20% actually take the plunge. Now why is that? Let's face it. Building a business feels overwhelming. But what if I told you there's a way to make it simple? This is where Taylor Brands comes in. Your complete business building companion. They've turned the intimidating process of starting a business into something you can actually handle. If you need an LLC done in minutes, if you try to protect your personal assets, they've got you covered. The whole key up with everything from legal documents to licenses to permits even a personalized business plan. Plus their business coaching program will guide you through your crucial first 100 days. And the best part is you get all the tools you need to build your brand, manage your invoices, handle your bookkeeping, basically everything you need to launch with confidence. And there's an exclusive deal for all success story podcast listeners. You get 35% off when you visit Taylorbrands.com slash podcast 35. Don't let your business dreams, stay dreams, get started today with Taylor Brands. Fresh books is supporting today's episode. And if you've ever wondered how successful entrepreneurs stay on top of their finances while growing their business, the answer is fresh books. The numbers don't lie. Over 30 million people have chosen fresh books processing more than 60 billion in invoices and saving an incredible 192 hours every year on accounting tasks. Think about it. That's nearly eight full days. You can get back to focus on what really matters growing your business. Fresh books is more than just accounting software. It's your all-in-one financial command center, create professional estimates, track time, automatically build clients, and capture expenses on the go. Plus it integrates seamlessly with over 100 business tools you already use all backed by award-winning customer service. If you're ready to stop drowning in receipts and you're ready to stop chasing down payments, here's what I want you to do. Head over to freshbooks.com to start your 30 day free trial, no credit card required. And for all you success story listeners out there, I've got something special. Get an exclusive 60% off for six months when you visit freshbooks.com slash pricing dash offer. Transform your business with fresh books today at freshbooks.com slash pricing dash offer for 60% off. You went between the work you've done as an investigative journalist and then you moved into I think habit formation for a period of time as well. And then you moved into communication and you were, I guess initially a little bit skeptical of some of these topics is as things to go and research and to build a body of work around to a degree. I was just curious what changed your opinion about researching some of these sort of softer topics. Oh, I think so, so when I wrote the power of habit, it was just about 12 years ago now. I had been a reporter in a rack and I'd been embedded with the military and one of the things that you learn spending time with the military is that like it's a giant habit change machine. Like that's what they do really, really well. They essentially teach all of these like new recruits, new habits and they and I thought that was fascinating. And so you're right, a lot of the work that I did at the New Yorker area at the New York Times and now at the New Yorker is like hard hitting investigative work, right. And I like doing that work. I think that work is important. I think it like helps people understand the world. But what it doesn't do is it doesn't really help people understand themselves, right. Like the truth of the matter is I wrote this big series about Apple and like the global economy through the lens of Apple, the Winnipeg's surprise. And it's really interesting like I'm really proud of the work. But I would say most people think about Apple probably at most one percent of their lives unless they work there. It's like it's like the global economy is not something that's top of mind for me on a daily basis. On the other hand, whether I'm eating healthy, how I feel about my body, whether I can get along with my wife because we can communicate with each other. Those are things that take up a lot more than one percent of my life. And so I wanted to I wanted to find the science and the research that illustrated those things that actually matter on a day to day basis. This is not like your field of expertise. You never did a PhD in this. So what was the what was the path to understanding what science is valid, what the brain. Is this stuff that's been around for a while that you basically just aggregated into a body of work or is this all net new stuff that you had to sift through. So it's kind of synonymous those two things right because so I spent about three years writing super communicators writing a full time about the same amount of time writing the power of habit. And and the thing that you find as a journalist like what my job is is to go out and find all of the information that's out there and figure out which which of it is trustworthy. But be how do you present it to people in a way that they can remember and absorb it. So to answer your question some of this stuff some we've been doing research on communication for thousands of years right like that's part of being human. But there's a lot of research has happened in the last 10 or 15 years and I spent a lot of time looking at that research and making sure that it was scientifically valid. I talked to I don't know 320 researchers like just a huge number of people and part of the job is collecting the information like understanding you're right I don't have a PhD but actually getting a PhD is essentially very similar to being a reporter. You go and you read other people's work and then you try and figure out how to do a new version of it how to build on it. Being a journalist is very similar in that you go and you read every piece of literature out there and scientific manuscripts and elsewhere on the topic you want to write about. And then you figure out how do I take these ideas and how do I take what look like disparate ideas because the researchers don't understand some of the connections between them. And bring them together in a way that the reader can use it. And more importantly you know the super community is filled with all these stories like how the CIA recruits overseas assets and how the TV show the big bang theory became a hit. And and part of it is that like I can have the best suggestions on earth for you. And if you're super bored learning about them you're not going to remember them you're not even a finish. But if I can take these suggestions if I can take the science and I can embed it in these stories then you're going to remember them for you. I mean that's I think that's the way you teach the stories or everything. Now that more more communication lessons right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when you're doing all this research and what was the most counterintuitive idea about communication that you came across. So I think the most counterintuitive is that there's this. This like kind of cultural belief or bias that some people are born as great communicators right they have like the gift of the GAB or XORZ. And actually almost none of the research bears that out basically people who are really good communicators. If you ask them have you always been good at communication they will tell you know they will tell you like in high school I had trouble making friends. And so I really had to study how kids talk to each other or or my parents got divorced when I was a kid and I had to be the peacemaker between them. Right. People who are good at communication are simply people who think a little bit more about communication. And so when you see someone who you think is a fantastic communicator. If that someone big like Bill Clinton or you know or nowadays Donald Trump I think that you can. Donald Trump is clearly a super communicator and in how he's connected with with the American population. Or even like those people that you know in your own world right like friends or co workers who just seem so charismatic. The crowd just revolves around them naturally yeah yeah yeah that is not that is not because of some inborn skill. That is not because they have something you don't have. That is because they have a skill that they that they were recognized as a skill and they practiced and developed. And you can do the exact same thing it's a skill that anyone can learn. What would be a misconception about good communication then to say somebody looks like they are a good communicator. What would be something that actually doesn't add or benefit them. I'm assuming just being loud and boisterous is not really a sign of good communication but would be like another. Or maybe it is I don't know you're the you're the expert. So what's interesting is that there's sort of two things that tell you if a conversation is going well. The first is what's known as equality and conversational turn taking. So basically both people need to be speaking like we've all been to those dinner parties where there's someone who's so charismatic and so entertaining. And they just will not shut the hell up right they just like tell story after story and at first you're like oh my god this is so amusing. And by the end of the night you're like I never want to like be the dinner party with that guy again. So part of it is are we are we actually encouraging reciprocity what's known as conversational reciprocity or authenticity reciprocity. Am I saying something real are you hearing what I'm saying are you saying something real in response. And again this is like a weird setting for it because it's an interview. But if you and I were having dinner together I would be asking you a ton of questions about like what how you do what you do and why. So that's the first thing is that you want to you want to have that back and forth and just because one person is super entertaining if they're talking all the time that does not mean that they are good communicator. The second thing is oftentimes we think that the best communicators are the most eloquent communicators. But if you think back to the best conversations you've ever had if I looked at a transcript of them they would look like a mess right in a great conversation. You're interrupting each other you're cutting each other off you're starting some idea and then getting distracted by another idea and then getting excited about something like good conversations are not like good speeches or good plays or good dialogue in a movie. Good conversations are a mess and it's the people who are present in the mess who are paying attention to what's going on are showing are asking deep questions are proving to people that are listening to them. That's when we have a great conversation not because if you were to print it out it would look like you know Churchill. So okay so let's so now we know our three kinds of conversations we understand some misconceptions about what good communication is what it is what isn't somebody wants to improve their communication skills. Okay that's going to be the obvious next question so where do you start you said already ask these deep questions that sort of I guess step one but outside. Everyone practice asking deep questions and here's how to do it there's a guy named on Nicholas Appley at the University of Chicago he's a professor there who studies deep questions once a month he gets on a bus sits down next to a stranger and his goal is within three questions to get them talking about their hopes and dreams. And when he told me this I was like oh my god that sounds miserable first of all it sounds miserable second of all it sounds impossible and he's like actually it's the easiest thing I do every month it usually takes me two questions. Because I sit down next to someone I'm like oh what do you do for living they're like I'm an accountant. And he says oh did you always want to be an accountant is that what you dreamed of being when you're a kid and they say no I wanted to be an astronaut you know kid wants to be an accountant and now suddenly you're talking about like what real life is like the being an astronauts hard and this opportunity came up and had kids. And you're so proud of them so the number the first thing you can do is just set a goal for yourself of asking one deep question a day one deep question of anyone it doesn't matter who it is. And what you'll find is that the first couple of times you do it you'll feel kind of awkward and by the fourth time you do it you won't even think about it anymore it'll just become a habit because our brains turn communication habits into permit into automatic routines very quickly. That's the first thing to do the second thing to do is to develop another habit and this habit is to prove that you are listening to people. So one of the things that we found about communication is that we all know the importance of listening in a conversation. But that's not the only thing that's important because particularly if we are having a tough conversation a conflict conversation or you are an I disagree about something or it's just a hard topic. There is this sneaking suspicion in the back of both of our heads that the other person is not actually listening to us they're just waiting their turn to speak. So we have to we have to hijack that we have to short circuit that and the way we do it is we prove that we are listening and there's a really easy way to do this it's called looping for understanding has three steps step one is ask that question right preferably a deep question. Step two is when the person answers the question repeat back in your own words what you heard them say and this isn't mimicry the goal here is to show them that you're paying attention to show them that you're thinking about what they're saying what I heard you say was this thing and and that reminds you something you said last week. So most of us do that kind of intuitively it's the third step that I always forget step three is ask if you got it right did I hear you correctly am I understanding because what we're actually doing in that moment is we're asking for permission to acknowledge that we're listening. And one of the things that we know about how the human brain works is if I believe you are listening to me. You are much more likely to listen I'm sorry if I believe that you are listening to me I'm much more likely to listen to you in return and it's not enough just to make sure that. Let me figure out how to say this properly so this three step process it seems like a labor intensive process to to I'm just saying compared to I'll explain where I'm coming where I'm going with this. Because I know that I'm in the wrong that's the point that I know that I'm in the wrong so what happens in an argument is I make sure that I don't fear the conversation off in one direction after they have a point they want to get across I make sure that I directly address the point that they just brought up but I don't do it that way I'll just I'll just respond but it'll I'll make sure that the that I'm still responding to the point that they just discuss because I want to make sure that I'm not. I'm ignoring or sort of discounting their opinion but what you're saying is that's still not enough just to respond back to the point you're saying if they have a true issue they want to discuss and if I don't go through that three step process again subconsciously they're still going to feel like I'm not really paying attention to them. Even if you respond if you're like look I got something to say I got an argument to counter your argument and it's totally on point right you're not changing tax. There's no there's no evidence there that you actually heard what they said right you heard enough to know the topic they're talking about but there's no there's no evidence that you're trying to understand in fact you're doing exactly the opposite you're telling them why they're wrong. It's okay to tell them why they're wrong that's all right but before we tell them why they're wrong we have to prove to them that we actually heard what they said we're trying to understand what they're trying to say to us right so like so like I think and it's it can sound cumbersome but it's actually just as simple as like being like look what I what I heard you just say was that like you want to go to a rubah for vacation because you want to be on the beach is that right am I getting that right yes okay so I I totally appreciate that I feel like we went to the beach last time this time I'd like to go to Mumbai because I really want to be in a big city at that moment we're actually communicating you're 100% correct it is not cumbersome at all I think that we are just and listen I can just use myself as as the example I won't speak for anybody else I've gotten lazy in my communication I think a lot of people get lazy in their communication and it's fine to be late most of the conversations we have we don't have to do looping for understanding right like most of the time like we sit down with someone in the like they're like let's talk about the budget you say okay and you start working on the budget it's not that big a deal but there are times and sometimes you get in the Uber and you don't want to talk to the driver and that's okay too you don't have to have any conversations you don't want to have but there are times where you do want to have a conversation where you do want to like really like gets the bottom of something or flesh it out to try and figure out what's going on and in those moments it's really important to have the right skills the right tools in your toolbox so that you can have the conversation you want to have that was a learning conversation that's what you're just describing right yeah correct okay so explain to me what the difference between that is and a true hard conversation because you speak about hard conversations focus on controlling yourself your environment pulling out multiple identities so I'm trying to understand the difference in a learning conversation and a hard conversation and how you approach each differently they're not necessarily different they're not just because like a hard conversation can be a learning conversational learning conversation could be hard but what I would say is this there are some topics that when we start to discuss them all this other stuff comes up so merit a lot of this we know from studies of merit of of marriages one of the things that oftentimes think about a couple who gets married they believe that they communicate with each other very well they probably did at one point communicate with each other very well now they're at each other's throats in their contemplating divorce why what happened there oftentimes what happens is that in addition to trying to figure out like in addition to all the normal skills that I use in the conversation because this is something that's so emotional I have an impulse to control things right anytime anytime we're in in a fight anytime we feel threatened we have an impulse to control it's very natural and if I'm not careful if I just let that impulse kind of run rough shot over me the thing I'm going to try and control is you the person I'm talking to like that's the most obvious target of my control so I'm going to say things like you're not allowed to say that or that's a stupid way to feel you shouldn't feel that way or it's not such a big deal I don't know why you're making such a big deal of this like it's it or we're I'm not going to talk about I'm just not going to talk about this like this is like this is like this is like something I'm not going to write what I'm really trying to do there is I'm trying to control you so what should we do instead what are the best couples do what are couples who stay married do it's not that they try and repress their need for control it's that they recognize that controlling the other person is toxic and instead what they should do is they can they should control other things together so one thing that we can control is the environment right if we start a fight at 11 o'clock at night I can say look this is really important I want to continue this conversation we're both exhausted what if we just pick this up tomorrow at 8 o'clock is that okay after getting a good night's sleep so together we're controlling the environment we can control the boundaries of the fight right so there's this thing in marriage therapy known as kitchen syncing that is literally the number one signal of real problems in a relationship which is that I'd fight about one thing because I fight about everything every single time so we start by like fighting about like or discussing where we're going to spend they spend Thanksgiving and within 10 minutes it's like well your mom hates me and if you own if you made more money this wouldn't be an issue and right but everything goes back to that yeah yeah everything so so what can we control the fight we can say like look let's control the boundaries of this of this conversation let's just talk about Thanksgiving we're not going to talk about moms we're not going to talk about money we're just going to talk about Thanksgiving or we can try and control ourselves like the thing that you'll notice about people who fight in marriages really well is they tend to pause a lot and they oftentimes restate themselves in different ways and what they're really doing is they're taking a beat they're thinking about like how is this person going to hear these words maybe even not even aware of it so almost subconsciously and they're trying to change how they say things so that it's easier to understand them rather than feel angry about what they're saying the the pausing and the slowing down that works obviously in marriages and fights is that also a hallmark of good communication when absolutely you slow yourself down okay if you go watch so there's this this saying when you when you feel furious get curious which is basically like when you're feeling if you're in a negotiation if you're in a meeting and you're feeling like yourself kind of rise start asking questions because two things are going to happen number one you're going to learn something right you might be misperceiving the situation and questions will help number two the question slows everything down it slows you down from saying you're a jerk you're wrong I'm going to I'm going to like you know walk all over your division if you look at really good negotiators you will notice that one of the things they do is that there's these weird almost unnatural pauses or sometimes they'll start speaking really slowly and it's kind of uncharacteristic because what they're doing is they're just slowing things down so they can think more because it's so like the gap between our brain and our lips is so short it's so easy to say the wrong thing I've even noticed it I've noticed it in how you communicate I've noticed it in great podcasters that that I look up to and then I sort of study there is there's almost a tempo to how they how they how they conduct themselves how they ask questions how they speak and you'll notice the maybe there's a couple edge cases that are not really concerned about what they say but the thoughtful ones and they do slow themselves down yeah yeah and it's interesting it's worth listening to some of those big podcasts sometime and like on a piece of paper just making a line about how fast or slow they appear to be talking speaking and what you'll see like Joe Rogan's a great example this you you think that Joe Rogan's like this like a straight line like is up here all the time but actually when you listen to him and he's like this gets excited and then he gets thoughtful and slower and then excited again and thoughtful like that variability is really important because if you if you're not you fill space with words yeah and people stop paying attention to them a big thank you to indeed for supporting success story because hiring people is one of the hardest things you're ever going to have to do as an entrepreneur as a founder as somebody who's trying to build a business it's important to hire well and find the right person but it takes so much time and it's so labor intensive because like most entrepreneurs you have a thousand things going on and there's a good chance that you just realized your business need to hire somebody yesterday so how can you find that great amazing right fit candidate fast it's easy just use indeed because you don't have to waste time struggling to get your job post seen on all these other job sites if you're using indeed you can just use their sponsored jobs to help you stand out and hire fast your post jumps right to the top of the page for relevant candidates so you can reach out to exactly who you're looking for faster and the results really speak for themselves according to indeed data sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs and you know what I love most about indeed it really just makes hiring so fast because everything is streamlined in one place no more juggling multiple platforms or waiting weeks for the right candidate and how fast is indeed in the minute I've been talking to you 23 hires were made on indeed according to indeed data worldwide there's no need to wait any longer speed up your hiring right now with indeed and listeners of success story will get a 75 dollar sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed dot com slash clary terms conditions do apply just go to indeed dot com slash clary a huge thank you to net sweet for supporting today's episode now what does the future hold for business if you ask nine experts you're going to get 10 answers bull market bear market inflation up inflation down honestly at this point you just need a crystal ball but until we get one over 41,000 businesses have found the next best thing they future proof their businesses their operations with net sweet by oracle which is the number one cloud ERP imagine having your accounting your financial management your inventory your HR all flowing together in one fluid platform and here's what makes net sweet different it gives you one source of truth for your business you get the visibility and control to make quick confident decisions while others are guessing you're working with real time data insights forecasting you're basically looking in the future of your business with actionable data whether your company earns a couple million or even hundreds of millions net sweet helps you respond to immediate challenges and helps you grab your biggest opportunities and speaking of opportunities they put together the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning and net sweet dot com slash Scott clary this is the playbook for understanding how to use AI for your business the guide is free that is net sweet dot com slash Scott clary a shadow to Nord VPN for supporting today's episode I have to tell you a story so I was actually in Toronto visiting family last month and I went to binge some of my favorite Netflix shows I forgot and I realized that half of my US shows weren't available in Canada super annoying flipped on Nord VPN within seconds I got access to everything now it's not just about watching shows what makes Nord VPN a game changer really just imagine having this personal security guard for your entire digital life with just one click you're connected to one of their 7100 servers across 118 countries I mainly use it for accessing streaming services when I travel but I've also saved hundreds on flight bookings by checking prices from different countries and their new threat protection pro blocks all those endless pop ups and suspicious links before they even get to me and what I love most is how simple it is one account 10 devices so laptop phone ipad everything's covered and the speed honestly it's so fast that I forget that I'm even using a VPN and the best part I've got a special offer just for success story listeners so head over to Nord VPN dot com slash success and you'll not only get their best discount but they'll throw in an extra four months on the two year plan and don't worry about commitment because they offer a 30 day money back guarantee the link is in the episode description trust me it's worth checking out especially if you travel or stream content regularly that's nord VPN dot com slash success how do you use any of these communication skills to build a better emotional connection with somebody so a big part of it is literally just acknowledging an emotional conversation when it's happening right and and like let's take the workplace it's so easy to to oversee overlook this like you know you're sitting you're you're in a conference room waiting for meeting to start not everyone's there you turn to the guy next to you or the woman next to you and you say hey how is your weekend and they say oh it was great it was great I went to my kids graduation it was fantastic the easiest thing to do is to be like oh congratulations that's great so glad to hear that you know here's the agenda let's get down to business but if you just take a second and you're like oh that's that's amazing congratulations what did it feel like to watch your kid walk across that stage then that's actually a deep question right i'm asking you how you and and when i do that you're gonna tell me something amazing and it might only take you 10 or 15 seconds but you're gonna be like oh it's so great like my I thought i'm like dad coming to my graduation and and now we're having an emotional connection with each other now we're having an emotional conversation and that doesn't mean we have to cry or like say emotional things but it does mean that we feel connected with each other and so just listening for those opportunities where someone is talking about how they feel and then leaning into that that is how you get better at building emotional connections and it happens all the time right it happens all the time without us even realizing you obviously mastered these skills now how has this changed some of your personal connections with people in your life partners parents all of that yeah no it's so at the end of the book we tell the story of the the Harvard study of adult development which is probably people have heard of it's it's a very famous study for about 80 years researchers at Harvard have followed around thousands of people for their whole lives and they basically had this one question which is what what are the things that you need to do to be happy and healthy and successful however you define success at age 65 and because it was Harvard they had all these theories right like their original theory theory back in like the 1930s was well if you went to Harvard then that's the precondition that's gonna let you be happy helping successful turns out that's not true they thought okay if you get married early and you stay married you don't get divorced turns out very little very little on overlap with with later outcomes they go through all these things and eventually they figure out there's only one predictor of people's health happiness and success at age 65 and that's having at least a handful of close relationships at age 45 because if you have a handful of close relationships at age 45 means you probably had them for a while and you're probably going to continue to have them for a while and it's it's amazing how much it can improve your life like this urgent general has said that being lonely is equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day right that's a lot of cigarettes every single day so you're happier and you're healthier and you're more successful because you get exposed to opportunities you hadn't been aware of by people who make you aware of them so for me and then the next question is like so how do you actually how do you make those connections it's almost always through conversations right and that doesn't mean you're talking to these people on a regular basis they what they found and I have this in my own life is that people will have a very close relationship with someone that they talk to once or twice a year but they set aside an hour on a Saturday morning to call that person and catch up right they they set aside time to nurture the connections and so this has been the biggest change for me is that learning all these skills is great it helps me it helps me communicate with my wife and my kids and my co-workers but what's really been driven home for me is how important this activity is how important connecting with other people is how much happiness it can bring you and it's super easy to get like caught up in our lives and I have a thousand emails to respond to and like I just want to watch Netflix but when we make a little bit more time to connect with other people even if we know that the first couple of minutes of the conversation can be a little awkward but then we're going to like reconnect and it's going to feel great we're actually investing in our own future when you think about everything that you've learned in all these different skill sets and even all the all the ways you've used it to build stronger relationships with people in your life what do you what what area of communication do you still have trouble with what's the hardest one for you to consistently I don't want to say deploy because it sounds like a tactic but you get where I'm coming yeah no you always sort of like I'll age bad question but can I ask you the same one what like yeah where do you feel like you you fall down on communications sometimes I think I fall I think I fall down on communication in the way that I in the way that most things to me are our logical conversations that's how I want I want them to be logical conversations because usually I want an outcome I'm a very outcome driven person so even in an emotional conversation in my mind I'm like we still have to get to the outcome right right so we have some time like why are we so where are we and Gina got like all bless Gina she like she she's she's amazing and she she understands how I operate so we actually we never really fight but I could be better at understanding that not everybody needs the immediate logical outcome and sometimes just wants to bask in the emotion or bask in the social which is fine but for me it's always like this is a waste of time let's get to the end results what are we doing where we going yeah well so I so I don't I don't want to steam roll over people but I think that that's sometimes what I do and that's definitely yeah and and I would say that my biggest biggest failure is with my kids when my kids come to to me to talk about something that's bothering them I try and solve the problem for them rather than just empathize with them because again I'm also very like like goal focused and goal oriented now the thing is I would suggest you though I'm guessing if I was to ask you to tell me your top 10 conversations you've had with Gina very few of them were practical conversations where you were like okay where are we going to go on vacation we're going to go to this place you don't remember those conversations the conversations you remember the conversations that are the core of your relationship are the conversations where you were not just trying to solve a problem you were trying to understand each other and here's the thing that I would say it's not that those emotional conversations are those social conversations it's not that you're not accomplishing anything it's just that you have to recognize a goal which is understanding like when your wife comes to you and she says like here's something that's really bothering me and you say I'm sorry like I I understand that I hear that I want you to know I'm here for you I support you you you you might not have a plan coming out of that but she doesn't need a plan she needs to feel close to you and you have actually accomplished something and I will say if you you know I because I'm a business reporter I talk to a lot of leaders and leader and I ask them like what's the biggest challenge you confront and they say the number one thing that makes a difference at work is people believing that they can come to me for things beyond problem solving because problem solving is a commodity it is so easy to find like if you guys want to figure out where to go on vacation it's not hard to solve that problem right but feeling connected to each other that's actually a better goal and better outcome for you to work towards because that means that when you go on that vacation you're going to actually like hanging out with each other you're going to feel good with each other yeah that's not very wise and actually what you mentioned with your children I've also experienced that when I was younger and and less mature in my business leadership where people would come to me with problems and I'd want to solve it for them because I know I could get it done so much quicker and easier but that never that first of all that person's never going to grow it's never going to be you're always going to be handling that person so if you want to grow in you know parenting if you want to grow in your business and you hire people like you have to be this this I don't know this guide to help them get to the end result that they have to find for themselves you can't be hand holding and you can't be you know a helicopter parenting or a helicopter hiring people right it's not it's never going to work and they're going to like they're they're going to not only like their job more but they're going to trust you more because because because you're someone who has a connection with them what would be one thing about communication that you still want to understand more that still is a little bit unresearched that you think would be useful for people to or maybe write another book about it so so there's a really interesting question which is what do we do about people who want conflict right like the so the polarization in the United States right now one of the things that's driving it is that people really take joy in the polarization because they like to see the other side lose right like so if you know you read some article about how Biden is is mentally like deficient or you read some article about how Trump is corrupt and it kind of gives you this like little burst of pleasure because you're like that's right like their side is wrong and my side is right and we're better and there worse one of the things that we don't totally understand is when somebody wants to to bypass that when we want to hijack that instinct which is a totally normal instinct by the way it's part of socialization is that like there's in groups and out groups and we want our we want we trust our group more and we want we want our group to do better when somebody is finding joy in polarization or in conflict how do we short circuit that to make those seek something more enlightened that's something that like everyone's working on right now and it's a really tough problem and and it appears that part of the answer is that we stop feeding that instinct and you know social media social media feeds that instinct yeah yeah the algorithm is actually designed because yeah because this like sort of righteous indignation is such a powerful force the algorithm is is designed to seek it out and to give it to you and what but what we find is that those kinds of meals righteous indignation and negative emotions they tend to create more hunger the more that you have them so you really have to interrupt the process it's almost like an addiction probably yeah I mean people logically probably it is a number of people sort of say that yeah it's it's a it's like an addiction um where can people get your book where can people connect with you all the website all the socials everything I would love to hear from folks my email is Charles or my my go my website is at Charles duhig.com that's DU HIGG or if you if you search for super communicators or the power of habit it will probably come up on a pretty high link I have my email on address on there I respond to every email I get from a reader I'm I have a newsletter that comes out regularly called the science of better about like how to take the the latest findings and academic papers and make them apply them to your life on and then in addition if people want to buy the book if they want to buy super communicators or the power of habit you know it's obviously available on amazon and audible and everywhere your barns and nobles but also your local bookstore probably has it and supporting local bookstores is a wonderful wonderful thing um I love your work if you ever want to come on again if you ever want to do another podcast on any of the the the scientific breakdowns that you do in your newsletter if you want to talk about something that you're going to write in the future because I'm sure there'll be more please come back thank you I really appreciate that no of course seriously I love these kinds of I love these kinds of conversations because to your point they help so many people just an hour of understanding how to communicate a little bit better that can change someone's life dramatic change someone's live and you're really good at this you're really good at drawing out like the interesting ideas and and shining a spotlight on them which is one of the things that I appreciate about your show and it's but you're exactly right like there is so much interesting research that's going on and it's oftentimes written for other scientists so it's really hard to get through but yeah absolutely I'd love to come back on okay uh last two quick questions before we wrap up a first question would be we've gone we've gone through a lot was there and you know floors open was there anything that I didn't ask you that you wanted to bring up or any maybe like a last words of wisdom that you want to leave the audience with about this yeah I think it's the only sort of thing that I would leave the audience with is it can seem daunting right it can seem daunting to like think about communication but the thing is anyone can be a super communicator when you call up your best friend and you know exactly what to say to make them feel better you are being a super communicator you are using those skills without even realizing that they're skills without even being aware of it you're using those skills we talked about and once you recognize it as a skill you can use it with anyone so anyone can become a super communicator you can connect with anyone you want to it's just a matter of recognizing what the skills are that allow you to do it and practicing them a little bit so they become habits amazing last question you had a great career you've spent different seasons of your life and journalism and had the formation and communication if you were only able to pass on one lesson out of everything you've learned to your kids what would that lesson be whoo that's a good question honestly and this is something that like I try and live that kindness all kindness and self discipline always contain their own rewards like there is never a time in this world where if you're kind to someone or you show yourself discipline for yourself that it's a waste of effort even if it doesn't result in the the what you're looking for the effort itself contains a reward