659: Habit Formation for Personal Growth and Development: Building Positive Habits for a Better Life with Charles Duhigg

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For protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Jason Hartman.

It is my pleasure to welcome Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of the Power of Habit, as well as a couple of other great books. Charles Duhigg is here with us today and he is a listener to the show. So it's a real pleasure. When he reached out, said that he enjoys our show and wanted to come on and I'm like, absolutely. Of course. We're also going to talk about his latest book, Super Communicators. And Charles, I might even ask you to reference the political environment when it comes to communication. I think that's pretty timely. But Charles Duhigg, welcome. Great to have you.

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

Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about the power of habit first, because, you know, habits really just run all of our lives and so many of us are suffering from various addictions. Certainly dopamine addiction, I think would be a fair one. Probably everybody has been affected by that to some extent. But what is a habit? How do we make one? Can we really control this? Let's just take a dive.

And particularly for investors, this is really critical, right, because so much of, of being a good investor, being a good business person is relying on your habits to help you make decisions. So a habit has a very specific definition. A habit is a choice that we made at some point that we stop actively making that decision, but we continue acting on it, right? We continue the behavior. One of the really critical things to understand about a habit is that every habit has about three, has three parts. And about 40 to 45% of what we do every day is a habit. Right? All those things that we think about as decisions, most of them are actually occurring without us making a choice. We're just automatically doing it when you back your car to the driveway, when you order a sandwich for lunch instead of A salad, even though you wanted to eat healthy today. If you're fast twitch looking at investment opportunities, the ones you set aside and the ones you pay attention to. And every single time that happens, there's three things that are occurring. First of all, there's a queue. There's some kind of trigger that causes this automatic behavior that's encoded into your brain to become activated. The second thing that happens is that there's a routine. Right. And that routine is the behavior itself. It's me ordering the sandwich or back in my car to the driveway, or taking this portfolio and setting it aside. And the third thing that happens is that when I do that activity, it delivers to me a reward. Now, I'm not. Might not be aware of that reward. Right. When I back my car to the driveway, I'm not aware there's not like.

A reward for that.

Yeah, right, exactly. But there actually is inside your brain. Like if we. If I could see inside your brain, what I would see is, as you're back in the car, out, and you successfully do it, there's a small dopamine reaction, a reward sensation. And the reason why that reward sensation exists is because there's a part of our brain that the basal ganglia that exists in every single animal, and it essentially exists, or every single mammal, and it essentially exists to create habits. Habits are critical to how we evolve, because if you had to decide every single time you took a step whether you should take a step.

Yeah.

Or, you know, you see a rock versus an apple on the ground, you have to decide which one to pick up and eat. You just don't have any time for anything else. So habits allow us to chunk behaviors, make them automatic, and then act on them almost unthinkingly.

Charles, as you say that, you're making me think of my long ago learnings about what's known as the reticular activating system. Right. And this is this filter that is in all of us that filters out all of the extraneous noise stimuli, you know, everything. Is this related to that?

Yeah, very much so. I mean, what you're talking about, that screening tends to be very sense specific. So it's interesting is like if. If you're in a room full of crowded people talking and someone says your name, you can hear them say your name.

It's amazing.

Then you can actually hear that what they're saying to you afterwards. Right. Our brain has this amazing ability to screen out information that it deems unnecessary. And developing habits is certainly part of that because for the exact reason I mentioned that, that constant vigilance and constant maintenance is very, very taxing. And our brain is what's known as a cognitive miser. It wants to spend as little energy as possible. And so this reticular screening that you mentioned, or that, or the building of habits that's designed to help us conserve energy.

Yeah, excellent. And so it as a cognitive miser, because the brain is the biggest energy suck in our bodies. You know, I guess unless you're an athlete and you're really taxing your body a lot, maybe, maybe it's different for them, but for most of us, the brain is like 20 watts. You know, it's a lot of, lot of energy. You know, there's a good reason we're kind of mentally lazy, isn't there?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think anyone, you know, they. They often say, if you want to get a task done, give it to the smartest, laziest person in your company because they're going to figure out the fact.

I heard give it to the busiest. Right, Right.

It's the same basic thing, right? You give it to someone who, like, who doesn't. Who, you know, is going to figure out how to streamline this, how to make this efficient, how to do this as fast as possible and pay attention to the right details. And so I think what's important there is to recognize that we build habits all the time and there's no such thing as a good habit versus a bad habit. Right. We decide that a habit is something we like or something we want to discourage. But to our brain, all habits are exactly the same thing. It's just a routinization of a cue, routine, and reward so that that behavior becomes easier the next time.

But we have to more logically decide outside of that loop what is a good or a bad habit.

Yeah, we have to. We have to step in and make decisions. Right. Because a habit that involves going for a jog every morning where it gets easier and easier and easier, and I think about it less and less, that's a great habit. A habit where I eat a jelly donut on the way to work every single morning, that's a less good habit. And so I have to decide which habits I wish to encourage and which ones I wish to discourage. And in doing so, I have to pay attention to those cues and rewards because that's where my leverage is. That's where I can fiddle with the gears.

How is it then? This sounds so simple. It sounds so easy to just understand this loop of the three. The three Elements, right? And then just manipulate that to change a habit. But this is life threatening, life destructive for many people in bigger or smaller ways. These habits just run us.

Just because something is simple doesn't mean it's easy, right? I mean, we all know how to be in better shape, right? Spend more time exercising, right? It's not, it's not like I've told you something in like. But we walk past it, we're like, I really want some dessert. That ice cream looks really, really good. So what are the things that make it easier? Well, first of all, focusing on those cues and rewards, right? Because when we tend to think about habits and changing our habits, we tend to focus on the behavior. But if we don't recognize the cue and the reward that's driving it, then we're putting ourself at a, at a disadvantage. And there's something known as the golden rule of habit change, which says rather than trying to extinguish a habit, what you ought to do is change that habit by choosing a new routine that corresponds to that old cue and that delivers an old reward. A great example of this is when I was writing the Power Habit. I got into this pattern where every afternoon I'd like go get a cookie at the cafeteria at the New York Times where I worked at the time.

And that sounds like I would just add a coffee to that, but.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so I would actually put like post its on my monitor saying no more cookies. And yet it, you know, in the afternoon I would sort of manage to ignore that and go up and get a cookie. And so, so I talked to researchers about it. They said, okay, look, let's figure out what's the cue and what's the reward. Most cues fall into one of five buckets. It's usually a time of day, a particular place, a certain emotion, the presence of certain other people, or a preceding behavior that's become ritualized. And so whenever I felt the cookie urge, I would just write down those five things. And it was pretty clear that the cookie urge, the thing that was consistent from day to day was that the cookie urge always hit at like 3:15 to 3:45 in the afternoon. Like it was pretty time specific. So my cue was a time of day. And then I had to figure out what the reward was. Now you might think that the reward of buying and eating a cookie is the cookie, but that's actually a cookie is like a bundle of like 15 different rewards in one little package. So the question is, was it the taste sensation that I was craving, in which case just actually taking some Splenda and putting it on my tongue should have satisfied that. Was it that I needed to get up and stretch my legs. In which case going for a walk around the block rather than going up to the cafeteria might work just as well. Right. Was it that the cookie provided me with like a burst of energy because there's sugar in it? In which case having a coffee should do the trick. And so every day when I got got up and I felt this cookie urge, I'd do something different to see if it satisfied that urge. And what I figured out pretty quickly was when I was going up to the cafeteria, I'd buy a cookie and then inevitably I would see a friend sitting in the cafeteria and I would go over and I would.

It was a social experience for you.

Exactly. It was a social experience. And that was the reward for me was the social. Sociality. So once I know the cue and the reward, now I can say, okay, I'm gonna set my alarm at 3:15 in the afternoon. I'm gonna stand up, I'm gonna look around for someone to go gossip with, I'm gonna go talk to them for 10 or 15 minutes, and then I'm going to go back to my desk. And when I did that, the cookie urge basically disappeared.

Right.

But it's only because I diagnosed the cue and the reward in.

In that example, though, I mean, I think you're telling us to replace one habit with another. Am I correct on that?

That's right. To change the habit. Yeah. To change the routine, the behavior.

Right, but with that example you just mentioned, with the cookie, you didn't really replace the habit. You just sort of unbundled one thing, and that was the cookie. You still.

That's exactly right.

You know, should you have literally replaced the cookie with something and also socialized?

No, no, because. Because I think that the. The reward was tied to the socialization. So the cookie was actually not the habit. The habit was going up to the cafeteria and talking to people. The cookie was like a free writer on that. Right. Once I recognize that, then I could just change the routine a little bit to say, instead of going up to the cafeteria to see people, I'll walk across the room to see people, and then the cookie won't be within reach. And so I won't. I won't crave it.

Okay, so let's, let's take this into the example of more serious things. I mean, actually a cookie is pretty serious. If you get diabetes and, you know, obesity and all that, which is a huge problem, sadly, in this country. But let's take like a drug addiction or something, you know, more serious that is really disrupting someone's life. Alcohol, whatever.

Yeah.

What do you do there? And I know you gave an example about AA in.

Yeah, in the book, but I'm not.

Sure I really understood that fully.

So there are some addictions that are actual physical addictions. Opioids is a great example where your body becomes dependent on them. We also tend to think of, for instance, as nicotine as a physical addiction. And it is. But what's interesting is you are no longer addicted to nicotine a hundred hours after your last cigarette. Like all the nicotine has cleared itself out of your system at that point. And yet we all know people who five or ten years after they gave up smoking, they crave a cigarette in the morning. That is not a physical addiction. After 10 years of no exposure to nicotine, you don't have a physical addiction to it anymore. What it is, is it's a habit dysfunction. And in fact, the dsm, which is the guide that they use for psychological diagnoses, categorizes addiction as a habit dysfunction. The fact that it's a habit dysfunction as opposed to a physical addiction doesn't make it feel any different. Right. Because the parts of our brains that react to physical addictions and to habit habits are very, very close together and very closely tied to each other. So it feels like a physical addiction. But AA is a great example. So what does AA do to help people quit drinking? Well, what it does is it recognizes that you have a habit in your life. There's a cue, you're feeling some stress, and there's a routine. I'm going to go to the bar because I know if I have a drink, it's going to relax me a little bit. But also I'm going to see other people. I'm going to be able to socialize. I'm going to be able to think about things besides work or whatever stressing me out. And there's the reward, right, that it's providing to me. And AA says we are going to create that exact same cue and that exact same reward and just change the routine. So now, if you're having a really bad day, if you're stressed, rather than going to the bar, come to an AA meeting. And what happens at the AA meeting, you're going to see a whole bunch of other people. You're going to social communities, you're going to talk to them, you're going to Stand up and you're going to talk about your own story, right? That's what happens at an AA meeting. You stand up, say, I am an alcoholic. Here's my story. And that's actually a sort of cathartic experience. It feels very relaxing, very relieving to be able to share that. So it's the same basic reward that the bar is providing, except that you're doing it in a place without alcohol. Now, does that mean that, you know, you go to one AA meeting and you never have a craving for another drink? No, because what happens in our brain when we have that Q routine reward is that the neural pathways that connect the cue, the routine and the reward become thicker and thicker, so it's much easier for an electrical pulse to travel down them. What we're trying to do is we're trying to slightly rewire that to a different behavior, a different routine. And the first time you do it, it's going to be tough, right, because you're building a new neural circuit in your brain. But the 10th time you do it, the hundredth time you do it, it's going to get easier and easier and easier. And eventually you're going to get to a place where you feel stressed. You're like, oh man, I'm going to go, I'm going to go to a meeting. And you're not even going to notice that you didn't even think about going to a bar. Change happens slowly.

Okay? Okay. So, so there's a great long standing organization for alcohol problems, but opioids, heroin, you know, really, like really serious things.

Well, I mean, first of all, you have to get off the physical addiction to them, right? And that, that can be very painful. And so usually a medical intervention and getting through, ridding your system of the drug itself, but then it's basically the same thing. If you go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, if you go to a rehab therapy or a rehab center, they're doing the same basic thing. They're saying, look, what is the thing that triggered you to do drugs? Well, I would feel bad about myself, or I'd feel bored, or I'd feel anxious. Okay, what's a new behavior that we can, that we can link to, to that cue? And what was the drugs providing as a reward? Well, it was letting me like just stop thinking about things like I just basically turned my brain off. Okay, so what are other behaviors that help you turn your brain off? Well, meditation, exercise, et cetera. It's not, it's not a coincidence that many people who have drug Addictions and recover become, for instance, endurance athletes, particularly endurance runners. And it's because they're looking for something that delivers a similar sensation to drugs.

The runner's high, the endorphins.

It's not just the runner's high. It's also the distraction. Right. That oftentimes like I'm turning to drugs because I'm so stressed about my work. And when I'm running, what we know is that I feel endorphins and endocannaboids and those, the, the, the runner's high that we talked about. And one of the things that happens when I'm running is that I. It's really hard to think about work. I don't have work in front of me. My mind just wanders and I think about other things. So it. Again, just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy. Yeah, but understanding how your own habits work gives you the tools to start changing them.

Okay, so I want to, I want to talk about two more kind of negative things, if you will, and then I want to talk about how to use this to just be more productive on a daily basis. You know, you're not struggling with any big addictions, any big problems, just how to be just better. Right. So we'll get to that in a moment. But the negative things I want to ask you about is two very common addictive behaviors that are really affecting society. I, you know, of course, the food thing we already talked about. But if it's women, especially younger, I think social media addiction is a serious, serious problem. And sadly, companies are just making bank off of our addictive behaviors. And they're, you know, they're catering to them and they're, they're hiring teams of psychologists to make us more addicted. Right. You know, that's a. Gambling psychology and so forth, and then for men, pornography. Right. So, you know, both of those things. Right. Are common. And I think they're not looked upon as very serious. And I don't know, maybe they're not too serious. But it seems a lot of our.

Lives, it's up to people if they're serious, if they feel like it's serious. Right. Like, if, if it's a behavior that you don't feel like is interfering with the things you care about, then it's not a negative habit. Right. I know lots of people who check social media and, you know, they're like, oh, this is kind of fun. It's a way to, like, spend some time when I'm standing in line, but let's say, let's say you think that it is a problem that you feel like it's affecting.

I mean, it's just. It's not. It's not. Neither of those two negative, what I call negative addictions are real life. Right. They're not real life. They're not engaging with people. They're not having like the traditional interactions that we have evolved to have. Right. They're.

Sure. And for. They're not inherently bad. Right? Like, there's, there's nothing inherently bad about pornography or social media.

Okay.

If. If people don't feel like it's negatively impacting them, then they should continue doing it. It's not like it's hurting society or hurting them. But let's say that they feel like.

It may be an outlet too. It may be a pressure release valve too. Either. Either one of those. So, you know, that may be. Perhaps.

Or perhaps they just enjoy like. Do you ever check social media?

Yep, of course.

Do you feel like you have a problem with it? Like, is it like, like you're. You're not able to, like.

I don't know. Sometimes, you know, I'll be laying in bed trying to go to sleep, and it's like, you know, another hour just went by, I could have been sleeping.

Okay, so there's a moment that's a specific case where we say you are falling into this trap of a habit around social media that you'd like to change. Okay, so what's the most effective way to change it? I mean, you could do the whole thing where you figure out, like, what's the cue and what's the reward, and that would probably be useful. Or you could just not take your phone into your bedroom.

Right.

And that's, that's.

That's what my ex girlfriend does. She leaves her phone. She charges it in a whole nother room.

So do I. Yeah, that's exactly what I do.

I don't think that's what.

That's what most people recommend. It's. It. There's never going to be anything that's so important that you have to have your phone right next to your bed. If it's really important, they'll call you. And you, you'll hear the phone and you can get up and go check the ringing. But equally, in addition to not having my phone inside my room, I also have close by most of the time apples. So that if I do feel like that urge for a cookie and I'm hungry, rather than going and getting something unhealthy to eat, I just grab an apple, because it's literally right there. Sometimes oranges, because I like oranges too.

Okay, so.

So for these things that are, for instance, social media, pornography, probably my first piece, bit of advice would be create more barriers to easily fulfilling that behavior. Right. And there's like, there's like literally thousands of options that can do this for you. You can uninstall the apps from your phone. There's a program called Freedom that you can download onto your computer that basically limits when you're allowed to use the Internet for anything that's not work related. And the key is another one is.

Put your phone on grayscale. I've heard that one. Yeah. But you know, there's lots of things less interesting if it's not in color.

But the point here is just because you're doing something and maybe society says, oh, nowadays you shouldn't do that thing, that doesn't mean it's actually a bad habit. It's a bad habit if you feel like you're powerless over it, if you feel like it's intruding on the things you care about. And for understanding the cues and rewards that drive that is helpful. But the easiest step is literally just don't sleep with your phone next to your bed. And again, there's literally no reason on earth you need your phone next to your bed. Like, people survived for thousands and thousands of years without having a phone next to the bed.

You're reminding me of Stephen Covey's famous line, you know, the main thing is to keep the main thing. The main thing.

Yeah.

And so I think that's the point. Yeah.

And here's the other thing I would point out is if this really is something you feel like is not. Is a negative part of your life, if you go to sleep with your phone next to your bed tonight, it's because you don't actually believe yourself. Like, you might tell me, like, I really wish I went to bed, you know, an hour earlier instead of spending all that time on social media. But within psychology, there's a thing known as stated preferences versus revealed preferences. Your stated preference is that you wish you weren't spending time on social media. Your revealed preferences is that there's a really easy solution to it and you're not availing yourself of it. And so the revealed preference is, this is actually not a priority for you. And again, that's fine.

That's a really good distinction. I'm glad you mentioned that. Yeah, yeah.

You just have to decide like, is this actually a priority or am I saying It's a priority because like I'd love to have a, you know, a six pack abs. And so I'd say yeah, that's preference. That's a stated preference. But, but I don't do any, like I don't do many crunches every single day. So my real preference is it's a kind of fantasy stated preference. I don't really care that much.

Yeah, so how do we use this throughout the day just to be better people, to be more productive, to be more successful, you know, anything.

I think the first thing to do is an inventory. Right? Just pay attention to yourself. Like what are the things that I'm doing habitually every day? Are those things that are helpful towards me achieving my goals or do they detract from each achieving my goals? This isn't hard. Like literally everyone who's listening, if I ask them what's two good habits you have and two bad habits, they would know them off the top of their head. And then the things that they want to change just start analyzing what are those cues and those rewards if they want to create a brand new habit. Right. Create a good new habit. I want to go running in the morning. So the first thing you got to do is you got to figure out what's the cue. Okay, I'm going to put my running clothes next to my bed so I see them when I wake up and I put them on right away. Or I'm going to plan on meeting my friend Matt and we're going to go for a run on Wednesday night at 6:00'. Clock. Okay, I'm creating a deliberate queue. And then when you're running, give yourself a reward. Let yourself have a nice long shower or a smoothie or give yourself, you know, a cookie. Something that, something that tells your brain this is a behavior I want to reinforce. I want to make this behavior easier. And when we do that, that is when we begin to create new habits. When we deliberately pair a behavior with a cue and root and a reward, it becomes easier and easier and easier to do.

How about getting the work done? You know, if, if anybody listening who's in sales of some sort, and everybody's in sales of some sort really at the end of, you know, or an entrepreneur, you know, you need to be the rainmaker, you need to prospect, you need to do outreach. Cold calls, let's say there's a tremendous call reluctance, like they won't pick up the phone and call someone.

Or so I'd say two things. First of all, if you do have that call Reluctance, like it's okay to be have that call reluctance. It just means you might be in the wrong job. So you need to think about that. But the second thing is, again, you need to give yourself rewards. If I make 30 phone calls in a row and I know that I'm going to get blown off on 29 of them, I know that there's going to basically be a negative reward there. So I need to have a positive reward. Every single time I do a call, I give myself a chocolate chip. Or every single time I do five calls, I give myself 10 minutes to go watch YouTube or whatever it is. I'm creating rewards for myself because the behavior itself is not delivering the rewards that I'm looking for. So I'm going to create rewards for myself. And again, it'll get easier and easier and easier. The thing is, our brain turns off when we're in the grip of a habit. And so the whole goal is to just make it easy to, like, dial that next number and have the phone call. Because I know once I do five of them, I'm going to be able to watch that TV show that I'm like, halfway through.

Yeah, that's a good point, because I've always noticed, and I've spent a lot of my career training salespeople, that there's this type of salesperson that's always sort of getting ready to get ready, and they're never doing. Right. They're not doing the thing. They're always getting ready to do the thing. And they rationalize that as though, oh, I'm going to do this great thing, because I've got all this infrastructure set up right, where you just gotta pick up the phone. It's not.

Well. And. And my guess is that they are rewarding themselves for building that infrastructure. They are rewarding themselves for getting ready to get ready. Right. I get. I feel a sense of accomplishment. I set up my desk. I cleaned off my desk. I feel a sense of accomplishment from that. But I know when I pick up that telephone. Yeah. When I pick up that telephone and someone's like, buzz off. Never call me again. It's not going to be as satisfying as when I just organized my desk and I felt a sense of accomplishment. So I need to say every time I make a column and make a check mark for myself, and that's going to be my sense of accomplishment. It doesn't matter whether they say yes or no on the phone. The thing is that I want to fill up this entire RO with check marks. And once I do that I'm gonna feel like I'm awesome.

That check mark is, like, on social media, it's a. It's a dopamine hit, right? Yeah.

I mean, it's the same thing with. With people who. Again, my wife is an endurance runner, and so I sort of watch her do this. But when people begin exercising, they tend to have a calendar. Right. They check off each day that they've gone to the gym.

Yeah.

And the check becomes a manifestation of a reward.

And back to AA that we talked about earlier, they do. They count the days of being stuck. Right. Yeah, exactly. Like, I remember I had a. A in. In my office years ago that was an alcoholic. And her license plate said, you know, 7-72. And I'm like, what. What is this on your license plate? And she says, well, that's the day I. I became sober. And, yeah, that was many years ago, obviously.

So the key is to manufacture those celebrations for yourself, manufacture the rewards if the behavior itself is not delivering it, because your brain needs those rewards.

Yeah, that's. That's a really good point. And also that became, in her example, kind of her identity. Right. She saw it every day. Her license plate. Yeah. Very interesting. Okay, Charles, anything else you want to say on habits? This is such a great topic.

No, I think we got. I think we got a lot of it.

Powerful on this. I just love it. Thanks. Thank you for sharing that.

Yeah, no, it's. It's the power of habit. If anyone wants to buy it, it's out there.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But I do want to have a little more time on Super Communicators because communication is obviously such an important skill. You know, just give us kind of a thesis of the book, if you will.

Yeah. So Super Communicators began because I fell into this pattern with my wife that I didn't understand, which I think is pretty typical in relationships, which is. I would come home from work sometimes, and I'd start complaining about my day. And. And my wife would listen. You know, my boss doesn't appreciate me. And my wife would give me this perfectly good advice. She'd say, like, why don't you take your boss out to lunch? You guys can get to know each other. And. And I would. Instead of listening to her advice, I would get even more upset. And I would say, like, you know, you're supposed to be supporting me. You're supposed to be on my side. Why aren't you outraged on my behalf? And she would get upset because I was attacking her for giving me good advice. And this Again and again. It happened at work too, right? Like I would get, I would miscommunicate with my employees or my, my direct reports. I didn't understand why. And so I went to researchers and.

I asked them what's going on?

And they said, well, actually we're living through this golden age of understanding communication. And one of the things that we've discovered is that we tend to think of a discussion as being about one thing, right? We're talking about my day or kids grades or where to go on vacation. But actually they said every discussion is made up of different kinds of conversations. And these kinds of conversations, they tend to fall into one of three buckets. There's these practical conversations where we're talking about making plans or solving problems together. But then there's emotional conversations where I might tell you what I'm feeling and I don't want you to solve my feelings. I want you to listen and empathize.

This is a common thing that women say about men, how they don't like communication styles. Women just want you to hear them. Right. They don't want you to solve the problem, but men want to solve the problem.

Well, I think it's actually what's happening there. Wait and let me just. There's this third bucket of conversations which are social conversations about how we relate to each other. What's happening in that situation is that if you're not having the same kind of conversation at the same moment, it's very hard to hear each other and it's very hard to feel connected. In my case, I was having an emotional conversation. My wife was responding with a practical conversation.

Right.

So we were like ships passing in the night, and it turns out not to be gendered this way. It's basically kind of a myth that, that women have more emotional conversations than men do. But if it's the opposite, and you know, you come home and your wife is talking about her problems and you try and solve her problems and she doesn't like that. It's because she's having an emotional conversation. And instead of matching her, you're having a practical conversation.

So do all conversations have these three buckets going on at once?

Not at once, but they cycle through them. Right. So. So we might start in an emotional conversation and as, as long as we become aligned. It's called the matching principle in psychology. And the matching principle says good communication requires having the same kind of conversation at the same moment. You bring up something that seems emotional and I lean into that and I kind of respond and I empathize and what's going to happen is that as we move through this conversation, we're going to go from different conversation to different conversation. We might start emotional and then get practical and then go to social and then go back to practical and then emotional again. But as long as we're moving together, we're going to feel connected, and most importantly, we're going to be able to hear each other much, much better. And the reason why is because when we are communicating with each other, the reason we're communicating is because our brains start looking alike. Within neuroscience, this is known as neural entrainment. And it makes sense because if I, if I tell you about something I'm feeling, if I tell you about emotion, you actually experience that emotion a little bit. Right?

Right.

I tell you about an idea, you actually experience that idea. So the fact that our brains would start to look similar is not that surprising.

Like, like in an fmri, for example. You mean really look similar scientifically. Okay, got it.

Literally, they start to look similar. Your brain waves start to match each other.

That's when you're syncing up.

That's when you're achieving this entrainment. And if you think about it, talking about emotional topics versus practical topics uses different parts of your brain. So it would be very, very hard for me to have a practical conversation. And you have to have an emotional conversation and for our brains to look similar. So when we match each other, what we do is we begin allowing our brains to entrain, to synchronize, and then we're able to actually hear each other much, much better.

Okay, so is the advice here the action step, that when we're in a conversation, we should just be mindful of these three different phases of the conversation and try to stay in the same phase.

The other person, try to match the person or invite them to match you. Right. So let's say you're sitting in a meeting room and you're waiting for the meeting to start, right? And you turn to the guy next to you and you say, hey, how was your weekend? And they say, oh, it was great. I went to my kids graduation and it was just amazing. So the easiest thing to do would be to say, oh, oh, congratulations, that's great. Okay, let's get down to business. Here's the agenda. Right? But if you want to match that person, they just said something that's like a little bit emotional, not hugely emotional, but. But if you want to match that person, the easiest thing to do is to say, oh, that's amazing. What does it feel like watching your kid walk across that stage, like, was it. Was it fantastic? Like, now at that moment, what I'm doing is I'm saying I see that you've said something that's a little bit emotional. I'm gonna go ahead and match you. Right. I'm not gonna cry on your shoulder or ask you to, like, tell me, like, some sob story, but I'm gonna show you. And now we're aligned. And then I say, oh, man, that is. It's so great to hear that. Like, I actually think about my kids graduating and, like, kind of bittersweet, because, like, you know, I'm proud of them, but also, they're gonna be leaving home. Okay, now if you guys don't mind, let's. Let's go ahead and look at the agenda now. We're moving together from an emotional conversation to a practical conversation. We are all completely aligned, and we're gonna be able to hear each other and connect much, much more easily.

Okay? Got it. So the three buckets again, let's just rephrase them.

Is practical, right. Emotional and social. And social is about how we relate to each other and the identities that are important to us.

Okay, so you didn't give much example of the social in a conversation.

Well, let me demonstrate it with you. So you're a podcaster. Do you feel like that's. That's an important identity? Like. Like when you introduce yourself at a party, how do you introduce yourself? Like, in terms of your. Your work?

Yeah, I mean, I do think it's an important part of my identity because it. I like the reward of making impact. Right. Sharing great ideas and making impact. And I like getting. I like hearing from people that I've made an impact, you know?

Yeah. And it sounds to me like what you're saying is that, like, having a positive influence on the world is something that's important to you. Yeah, And I totally understand that because I'm a journalist. And it's the same thing. Like, when I write stories or I write books, I want lots of people to read them because I want to know that my. My work meant something to them, that it has some. Some effect. So that's a social conversation we just had because we're not talking about our emotions and we're not talking about practical matters. We're talking about how we see ourselves in terms of society. That, okay, you want to have an impact. That's how you see that identity is really important to you. And it's. It's something that I can match. It's it's important to me in a different way, in a different venue, but I understand why it's important. Yeah. So the key is that with it, with an emotional conversation, the goal is oftentimes to empathize, to show that person that you hear the emotion, that they're speaking.

Right.

That you recognize why it's either good or bad. It's something that's easy or hard for them. In a social conversation, empathy is less important. Validation is important. So I see that you see yourself as X. I'm going to validate that. That I, that I, I recognize that. And if you think about identities that are even harder to talk about. Right. Race, gender, political affiliation.

Yep.

Coming up, to someone who says, like, you know, I love Trump. I think he's great. If you validate that and say, look, what I hear you saying is that you care a lot about security and you feel like Trump is better on security than the other candidates. I, I totally understand that. I disagree with you. Like, I think that there's other reasons to vote for other people, but I understand why you support this guy.

Right. Yeah. That allows them. They're an idiot.

Yeah. Yeah. The alternative is being like, you're, you're a. And he's terrible.

How can you like Kamala? You. She's. She doesn't say anything.

Right. Right.

Yeah. Well, speaking of which. Communication. Right. Look, this is a perennial episode, so we don't want to be too timely on election issues, but I see how you do it one on one. But how do you do it on one, on many? And you reminded me, when you said empathy, you reminded me of Bill Clinton's old saying, I feel your pain. You know, he used to say that.

Yeah. No, he's really good. He's really good. Right. Like, so what's happening when Bill Clinton says, I feel your pain or what's happening. I don't know if anyone listening to. Yeah. To a Trump rally or to, to a Harris rally, but what you'll see is, you'll see the candidates proving that they are listening to you and trying to match you. Trump in particular. At Trump rallies, if Trump says something and the audience applauds, they react to it. He'll lean into that.

Okay.

He'll say even more about the topic. That's why, that's why crazy things keep on getting said on the, the, on the podiums is because so much of his unscripted. Because he's reacting to the audience. And so it doesn't really matter if it's one on one versus One on many, it's the same basic principles. And the principles are, figure out what kind of conversation you're having, match the other person, or invite them to match you. Prove that you are listening to them. Listening is not enough. You have to prove that you're listening because they might not be aware that you're listening, even if you are. And then oftentimes asking a certain kind of question, which is known as a deep question, is very, very powerful. And a deep question is just something that invites me to talk about my, my values, like my, or my beliefs or my experiences, which could be as simple as if you meet someone and they say they're a doctor, instead of saying, oh, what hospital do you work at? Saying, oh, what made you decide to go to medical school? Right. When you ask that question, what you're, that's a deep question you're asking that person, you're inviting that person to say something meaningful. And as a result, they'll probably. And if you respond in kind, if you prove to them that you've been listening, they're going to feel close to you. You. It's actually hardwired into our brains.

Yeah, right, right. That's, that's a very good point. But back to the one to many thing, you know, that works if you're on stage, right. And you're, you get the reaction of a live audience. Can you do it when you're on a podcast or on TV or radio?

Yeah, I mean, I think that part of. Well, first of all, on a podcast, we're having a conversation, right? So there is that, there is that interplay. But oftentimes when you're writing something or when you're just speaking on a podcast, you're in dialogue with the audience and you're anticipating how the audience is hearing what you're saying and how they're reacting to it. Right. And the difference between a really good writer and a junior writer is that.

And a writer, for example, you're staring at a blank page on a screen, on a computer. You know, you have no reaction, but.

You do in your head, right? I type a sentence and I think to myself, how is the reader going to read this? Right? What, what questions is this going to bring up for the reader? Is this going to make them happy? Are they going to think it's funny? Are they not going to think it's funny? I'm constantly in dialogue with my readers as I'm writing. The fact that I can't hear them at that particular moment does not mean that I'm not aware of what I think they're going to say. And the difference between.

You have to presuppose it. Now, you may well have a track record, like when you write your next book. Right. You have a track record. So, you know, because you've heard a lot of feedback from your readers. Right. You know, you've been a journalist for a long time, but on your first try, if you don't have that feedback, you have to presuppose what it might be. Right.

And that's usually why people, when they're first starting to write, are not as good writers as when they're. When they're better went down the road. Right. Like, I mean, you do the same thing. I don't know. Are you married?

Single? Yeah.

Okay, you're single. But. But when you're in a relationship, you presuppose how your girlfriend is going to hear something you say.

Yeah.

And then you kind of test it.

And I've gotten better at it over the years.

Yeah, exactly. And you've gotten better because you've tested whether you're right or wrong.

Right.

Writing's the same thing. You're. You're basically presupposing. I think the audience is going to like this. I think they're going to think this is funny or interesting, and then it turns out they don't. Now, I'm updating in. In Bayesian speak, I'm updating my priors.

Right.

But we do this presupposition every time we communicate. It's at the core of communication. And so the fact that now if I'm having a conversation with someone, I get to, like, get feedback much, much faster than if I'm writing something. But it's the same basic process.

To be a good communicator, that really requires a lot of intelligence because, you know, you have to kind of do this presupposition. You have to be very aware of feedback. If you are getting feedback, you have past feedback. It's a complex process, isn't it?

It's a complex process, but it's a process that our brain has evolved to be very good at. So if you think about it, Homo sapiens superpower is communication.

Right. Like communication, consensus building. I'd say community is really a superpower of Homo sapiens too. Right?

Well, right. But it's not possible, like, without plenty of community. Yeah. Unless you can communicate, you can't consensus build. You can't build a community.

Right.

And so communication is the thing that has allowed our species to survive and succeed so.

Well.

Well, and so as a result, our brains have evolved to be very, very good at communication. There are plenty of people who are not book smart and would not score high on IQ tests, who are great communicators or super communicators because they've paid attention to it. That's the thing is that one of the biggest findings of the research that's going on right now is that anyone can be a super communicator. Anyone can become someone who can connect with any, almost anyone. It's not about having like some inborn skill like or it's not about being smarter than other people. Rather it's about recognizing that communication is a set of skills. And when you practice those skills and you make them into habits, you tend to be able to connect with people and hear them and speak in a way that they're willing to listen to you much, much better.

So you've, you've said them in our conversation, but do you want to just maybe give us a little checklist of some of these super communicator skills?

Yeah. So one of the biggest skills is to ask more questions, particularly deep questions, questions that, that invite you to talk about your values and your beliefs and your experiences. And one way to think about that is rather than asking someone about the facts of their life, ask them how they feel about their life. Right. Rather than saying like, oh, oh, you live on the west side. Saying oh, do you like living on the west side? You know, what do you like about it? So that's ask more questions. The second one is prove that you're listening. There's this technique known as looping for understanding that the book explains pretty well where it's three steps. You ask a question and then you repeat back what you heard the person say in your own words. And then you ask if you got it right. And for conflict and formal situations you can use that really helps a lot. But it could be just as simple as like asking a follow up question or saying oh, it's interesting that like you liked that, that movie, here's another movie I liked. Showing that you're paying attention, showing that you're in the conversation, right? And then the third thing is paying attention to what kind of conversation is happening and trying to match the person or invite them to match you, you. So if somebody says, oh, I went to my kids graduation, it was amazing hearing that. There's like a little emotional opportunity in there. And then you can, you can match them just by saying what did that feel like to watch your kid walking across the stage? If you do those three things, basically, your ability to communicate is going to exponentially increase, and people are going to feel very connected to you. Because this is the other part of how our brains have evolved. We are hardwired that when someone does those behaviors to trust them more, to like them more, to think that they're more intelligent, because we feel more connected to them.

Yeah, right. Right, Absolutely. That's really interesting. You talk about the power of storytelling, and I think I have a feeling the power of storytelling touches on a lot of these points you've already made. But did you want to say anything about that?

Well, I think the reason why stories are so powerful is because they give us a way to signal what kind of conversation we hope to have. Have. So if you think about, like, when I tell you an anecdote, oftentimes what I'm doing is I'm telling you, you know, this guy went to this place and this thing happened, and he got his heart broken. And then he went and he started working out, and he discovered that, like, if he was taking creatine powder, it really helped him work out. And then he ended up. He ended up finding a new girlfriend that was even better than his old girlfriend. Right. So what I just did is I was describing, like, sort of an emotional situation and then a practical situation and then an emotional situation again. And a story allows me to signal and announce pretty easily what kind of conversation we're having, and so you can follow along really, really well. It's also just more interesting. Right. Like, and. And in the surprise and interest or something that. That catch our attention and make it easier for us to pay attention and to listen.

Yeah. Really, Charles. Fantastic information. I don't want to keep you too long. I'd love to talk to you for another hour, but. But, you know, just wrap this up with anything. I haven't asked you anything. You just want to share with the audience. And, of course, the books are available in all the usual places with f. Fantastic reviews, by the way, and many reviews. So congratulations on your success and looking forward to seeing more of your work in the future. But, you know, anything I haven't asked you or we didn't talk about that you want to touch on.

No, I would say. I would say the thing that. That sort of. This, The. The thread that connects all of my books, Power of Habit and Super Communicators, is that there is science that can tell us how to make more choices that we want to make. Right. Any habit can be changed. Every single habit in your life is within Your control. Anyone can become a super communicator. Anyone can learn the basic skills of communication that make us better at speaking so that other people want to listen and listening so that we really understand what they're trying to tell us. There is a science that explains to us how to learn those skills and how to use them. Now, that doesn't mean that just giving you, like, a little aphorism is going to do the trick. Sometimes you have to read a book because the book will get into the nitty gritty of it, into the details, scales. This is how habits work. This is how communication works. But there is a science out there, and it is within everyone's power to become the person they want to be. You just have to learn what the techniques are and the skills that make it possible.

It's great stuff. Charles, do you have a website you want to give out?

I do. Yeah. So if you just Google, I'm Charles duhigg.com and you know, if you Google the Power of Habit or Super Communicators, it'll come up. It's being sold at Amazon and Barnes and Nobles and your local independent bookstore and Audible. There's a. There's audio books of. Of both. Both of them. And. Yeah. So I'd love to hear from people.

Excellent. Good stuff. Charles Duig, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

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