The Secret Skill of People Who Never Feel Lonely | Charles Duhigg

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Okay.

I saw this quote about the current loneliness epidemic. That's happening in the world, but specifically in, in the US. And this was from the, I believe the general surgeon who said the lack of social connection poses a significant risk for individual health and longevity. Loneliness and social isolation increase the risk for premature death by 26% and 29% respectively. More broadly, lacking social connection can increase the risk for premature death as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Poor or insufficient social connection is associated with increased risk of disease, including 29% increased risk of heart disease and 32% increased risk of stroke. Furthermore, is associated with increased risk for anxiety, depression, and dementia. And I wanna start by asking you to reflect on that. And I'm curious, how can the principles in Super Connectors, Super Communicators, how can these principles really help put an end to the loneliness epidemic that we are seeing in the US but also in the world?

It is a fantastic question and probably the most important question to be thinking about right now, right? So there was this study that was done called, they now call it the Harvard Adult Happiness Study.

You're probably familiar with it. The longest longitudinal study that's ever been done.

And it started over 100 years ago. It was actually called the Grant Study at first 'cause this guy named Grant gave money to start it. And they started following all these people, originally just students at Harvard, but then people who lived in tenements in Boston. And as everyone got married and had kids, they started following them. And they had these hypotheses. And what they wanted to figure out is what is the correlate with future success and happiness and most importantly, longevity, health? Mm-hmm. And they had these hypotheses. Again, this is like the 1910s, 1920s. They were like, you know, if you have a two-parent family, you're probably gonna live longer than if you have a one-parent family.

Mm-hmm.

If you go to Harvard, you're probably gonna live longer than if you didn't go to Harvard. And they studied all this stuff, you know, what careers people have, what they eat. And they found ultimately there was only one overwhelming thing that determined whether people were, happy and whether they lived long, a long time, longer than average, how many connections they had to other people, particularly when they're 45. So it's not, there's nothing magical about 45 except that they would look at people at 45 and they found if you had twice as many friends, like people that you're actually engaged in a relationship with.

Like meaningful relationship.

A meaningful relationship, right? If you have twice as many of those people in your life, on average, you will live up to 20 years longer.

Wow.

And by the way, you'll end up being more financially successful. So then the question becomes, okay, so if we know that loneliness is a killer, it's equal to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and we know that we need to have connections with people, how do we form connections? And part of it, as you know, we were talking about sports, you're an athlete. Like part of it is you can go and do things with people. You can be on a team together. But the number one way that we create relationships, that we create connections, is through conversation.

Yes.

And what's interesting is you don't have to have a conversation every day. One of my closest friends is a guy I talk to every 6 to 7 weeks, but every time we talk, we have a real discussion. And I feel as close to this person as anyone on earth.

Yeah.

And so then the question becomes, okay, so what is it? And we're living through this golden age of understanding communication 'cause of advances in neuroimaging and data analytics. And so now we know what has to happen in a conversation for people to feel close to each other. And that's the answer to the loneliness epidemic is empowering people.

But why do people struggle so much with, I guess, building relationships? Is it they don't have the skills of, Communication? Is they don't have the courage to communicate? Is it they're afraid of rejection or embarrassment or not being liked or loved by someone? Why are so many people isolating, you think, more than ever?

I think there's two things. First of all, you know, just the internet has made it easy. Like you can stay in your house now, right? Whereas before it was more boring. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's part of it. But I think the other thing is exactly what you just said, which is people don't know what the first step is. Right, it used to be that you were in public school in America and they taught you how to have conversations. Yeah.

There was classes. Debate club.

Debate club, home ec, right? They would send young women off to finishing schools where basically you learned to be a conversationalist. I'm not saying we should return to those days, but it was something that people saw as a virtue.

That's teaching social skills.

That's exactly right.

We don't really teach social skills unless as parents, like you were talking about before we started, creating those environments and exercises and experiments or games for your children to put themselves out in public at a restaurant or ask someone for a favor or, you know, just put themselves out there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's, and so the thing is that I think most of the people, they are scared and they are anxious and they are uncertain. And the answer is that there's actually, so nobody's born a super communicator, right? What is a super communicator? A super communicator is, The easiest way to say it is it's the person you call when you're having a bad day who you know will make you feel better, right? Like for me, it's a guy named Greg. Like I give him a phone call and like, I just know he's gonna make me feel better. He's gonna like make me feel listened to. He's gonna make me feel happy. Another guy named Donnan.

Uh-huh.

And you, do you have someone like that?

Like when I— Sure, Matt.

Okay, Matt, right.

Exactly.

And like, so, so for you, Matt is a super communicator and Matt is probably a super communicator for other people.

Yeah, super.

And you're a super communicator for other people. That is not an inborn trait. It's not like Matt was born under a different star or he has some special charisma. It's probably that Matt has learned how to communicate, oftentimes by failing to communicate, or oftentimes by feeling like he's left out and paying attention to how other people behave and sort of just noticing a little bit more what's going on. What we know is that anyone can become a super communicator because it's just a set of skills.

Mm-hmm.

That any of us can learn the same way we can learn to read. But as a society, we have not said that's an important set of skills for a little while. And I think that with the Surgeon General and others coming out, we're beginning to say, right, actually this is critical.

Is there a difference between super communicators and super connectors?

So I think that there's some people, the answer is yes, depending on what you mean by super connector. There's like, Sometimes there's super connectors who are like kind of transactional, right? Oh yeah.

They're super surface level, like, or transactional or—

Or they just know everyone and you're like, I need a favor. And they're like, oh, this guy can help you out. Now that being said, when we communicate, and this is one of the things that we've learned in the last 10 years, you and I having this conversation right now, we're totally unaware of this, but our pupils are dilating at the same rate. Our breath patterns are actually starting to match each other. Most importantly, if I could see inside your brain and you could see inside mine, what you would see is our brainwaves start matching each other.

Really?

This is what communication is. Communication is I have a feeling or an idea, I describe it to you, and you experience to some degree that feeling or that idea, and it's actually reflected in your brain.

Literally the neuroscience, the neurochemicals, you feel what you're feeling. That's exact.

It's called neural entrainment.

Huh.

And it's the core of communication. Really? So when that happens, and again, evolution has hardwired this into our brain, when we're neurally entrained, we feel closer to each other.

We feel connected.

We feel connected. So you could be a super connector because Matt is a super connector 'cause he's so good at making you guys feel like you're in sync.

Right, interesting.

But the way he's able to do it is through—

Through communication.

Through communication, yeah.

That's interesting. And it probably, you know, the better you can learn to communicate and someone feels understood with your communication, the stronger the connection and the stronger ability to create together or to make things happen together as well.

Oh, absolutely.

And the more surface level the communication, I'm assuming, or the less alignment that you have with one another, the more unlikely you will create something unique or special or powerful together. That's exactly.

And so let's talk about what super communicators do. Like when you're talking to Matt, let me ask you a couple questions about Matt. And is he like a friend who lives here? Oh yeah, yeah. Okay.

Okay. COO of the company, best friend.

Okay. Yeah.

So— Played college football together. Yeah.

So when you talk to Matt, does he laugh a lot? Do you guys laugh together?

Laugh a lot. We play a lot. I play more with him. I'm more jokey, but yeah, he laughs with me.

Yeah. But is he the funniest guy? Like if you were like, who's going to be a standup comedian?

He's not the funniest guy.

Right.

He's the middle child. So he's kind of like always learning to navigate both sides.

Yeah.

You know?

Okay, so here's another question. I'm certain if you ask him advice, he gives you good advice. But if you were like, is he your most genius friend? Is he the guy who like—

He knows a lot about it. He knows a lot about everything, like a little about a lot.

Right, right, right.

But he's probably not the smartest person I know, but he's the most rational person I know.

Which is, that is key. And my guess is, and, and tell me if I'm getting this wrong, I'll bet you if I watched you guys talking, What I would see Matt doing to you and you doing back to him is that when you say something to Matt, he proves to you that he's heard you. He proves to you that you're listening. Yeah, for sure. And there's this thing called looping for understanding that's actually like a formalized way of doing it.

Looping for understanding.

Looping for understanding.

What does that mean?

So looping for understanding has these 3 steps and it's particularly useful if we're in a conversation where we're in conflict with each other. So they teach it in the Harvard Negotiation Program and in law schools. And what you do is if you want to prove to someone that you're hearing them, which is critical if you are in conflict, is first of all, ask a question. And there's specific kinds of questions that are powerful that we can talk about.

Okay.

Step number 2 is repeat back what that person said in your own words.

Not what they said exactly, but how you interpreted it.

How I'm hearing you, what I'm hearing you say. And then step number 3, and this is the one we always forget, ask if you got it right.

Interesting.

Now I'm guessing, and tell me if I'm wrong, that if I was watching you and Matt, that you say something to Matt kind of meaningful and Matt is like, "You know, man, like I totally hear you 'cause it sounds like you're feeling down and it's been a tough day and that you need to make it through this." Like, did I get that right? Like, is that, does he do stuff like that?

Yeah, I mean, I guess when you're that close you don't need to, know that you got it right. Exactly.

You just get it right.

Right. Now you're just so in sync that if he didn't get it right, I'd be like, no, that's not how I feel.

That's exactly right.

I would correct him because we have that type of relationship. But that makes sense. And I think that's what a lot of therapists do too.

Yeah.

It's almost like they'll ask a deeper question. Let me understand deeper. What I'm hearing you say is this. Does that sound about right to you?

And I know that you've spent some time in therapy. How does it feel when that therapist does that?

It feels incredible. It feels magical. You feel heard. You feel like someone finally understands you. Yeah, and being understood allows you to feel, it's a safer feeling. Now, my friend Jay Shetty says that learning to be misunderstood is like, has been a superpower for him, not having people understand him. Not everyone's gonna understand you, but I think when you have relationships where people do understand you or see where you're coming from, it makes you feel safer with them.

Yeah.

That type of communication.

Evolution has developed a reward sensation from feeling understood and feeling connected because that's what helped our species survive, right? The early ancestors who said like, "I want to take care of my young because I feel a bond to them," or, "I want to pair off with this community and invest in this community," they're the ones who made it.

Right.

And so we have this inborn need and desire and sense of reward when we feel understood. That being said, if I'm saying something, even if you're listening closely, I might not pick up on it unless you tell me.

Repeat it back in your words and say, "Did I get this right?" Yeah, and that's kind of formal.

It can be more casual like it is with Matt, which is to say, "I hear what you're saying. That's so interesting. It reminds me of this thing." Yeah, yeah, yeah. To show that I'm hearing you, which you're very good at. I've watched the show a number of times. You do this almost automatically. Practice it. Yeah, yeah, practice it.

What's also like, you know, we were talking off camera a little bit about how if you, I mean, I speak for myself, I grew up feeling like I didn't have any friends, right? That was the feeling, whether that was 100% true or if it was the story I was telling myself, it just felt like I didn't have friends for a long time until I was like 14 and I started to get more athletically like confident and have like skills and, you know, add value to teams. Like then I started to feel like I had friends. It was almost like because I didn't have this, I wanted to find any way to feel like, okay, what's it going to take for this person to connect with me?

Yeah.

Oh, I heard that they're having a bad day. Let me check and ask them what's going on and how can I help them? Oh, this is what you're going through. And then you see, oh, someone's listening to me. So I became really good at listening.

That's interesting.

Because I didn't have a lot of friends. And so I would just ask people questions. I also never felt confident being like the center of attention and having all the funny stories or like knowing what to say or knowing anything to say because I didn't feel like I was intelligent. So I would ask questions because that was the easiest way to build relationship.

Right.

Not by having all the answers, but having the right questions built the deepest relationships for me. Not by being the smartest, funniest, best looking or whatever, But by being interested in other people made me more interesting to them. And just being an attentive listener.

Yeah.

Like you said, this goes into looping for understanding. I didn't know this was a thing. I was just like, oh, it's working. Let me ask more questions.

Yeah.

Let me get deeper. The deeper I would ask the question, I really rarely ever asked surface-level questions. If it is, it's like I quickly go deep just because I can't stay there.

It just doesn't feel right.

So the deeper I go into more questions, people feel like, wow, no one's really asked me these things.

Right.

They must care in a different way.

Yeah.

They must be curious about me. Wow, that feels good for someone to be interested in what I really think or feel about this situation.

Yeah.

And I did it out of necessity, out of like,, you know, survival mechanism essentially as a kid, but it ended up being a superpower as an interviewer now.

And probably as a human, right?

Sure.

Yeah. And by the way, the fact that you weren't good at it is something you have in common with most other people who are consistent super communicators. This is one of the reasons we know it's not an inborn characteristic is because if you talk to people who are the best communicators and you say, "Have you always been a great communicator?" They'll tell you, "No. Like, as a kid, I felt lonely. I felt like I couldn't connect with people. I felt like I didn't have friends. Or my first job, they made me a manager and I completely screwed up." Bombed. The reason they become a super communicator consistently is because they've just thought a little bit harder about it. Usually because they have to, usually because they screwed up and they're like, "I don't wanna screw up again." And it's just thinking a little bit more about how communication works that allows us to really connect with other people.

So how does communication really work? Are there different styles of conversations?

Yeah, so this is one of the big insights. And then I wanna get back to questions 'cause I think it's really important. One of the big insights from the last decade is that we tend to think of a discussion as being about one thing, right? We're talking about my book or we're talking about, you know, whether we should send the kids to this school or that school or where we should go on vacation. But if you look at the conversation that happens, the discussion, what you'll see is that there are multiple different kinds of conversations in that same discussion, in that same dialogue.

Really?

And most of them fall into one of three buckets. There's usually a practical conversation, which is a conversation where we're trying to figure out actually what we want to talk about and how to talk about it. But also maybe we want to fix a problem or make a plan. It's practical. It's using the, the frontal cortex of our brain. There's a second kind of conversation, which is an emotional conversation. And if I come into you and I'm telling you about where I am emotionally and you suggest a solution to me, I'm gonna be like—

People don't like that.

You're a jerk, right?

Right, yeah.

Because when you're having an emotional conversation, you want to share how you feel and hear how other people feel. You do not want to necessarily solve the problem.

And this is where you hear all the, you know, the stereotypes of how men in married relationships struggle to relate or connect to their wives because they're more solution-oriented. Not everyone, but it's what you hear. The stereotype is they're more trying to fix the problem of an emotional feeling that someone's having versus being comfortable sitting with the discomfort and just saying, I'm here for you.

Yeah, it's saying, I hear you.

Yeah.

Right?

Which is, that's like solving the problem. That's exactly it. If men understood that you just doing that is solving the problem and sitting in the uncomfort of that, but that's a hard skill to learn.

It's a hard skill to learn. It's a hard skill to learn. And then the third thing—

So that's the second one, the emotional conversation.

That's the second. So yeah, there's a practical, emotional, and the third one is a social conversation. And that's about how you and I see ourselves in respect to society, how we think society sees us, how we get along with other people. And so one of the things that we've found is that exactly what you just said, that what's known as the matching principle within psychology, that if I'm having an emotional conversation and you're having a practical conversation, they're both legitimate conversations, but we won't hear each other. Like, I'm gonna hear, I'm gonna say something emotional to you, you're gonna try and fix my problem in a practical way, and I'm gonna be like, A, you don't hear me, and B, I don't hear you. Like, I'm not paying attention to your solution. It's gonna create more miscommunication.

So how do you know which one you're in?

So through deep questions. And what super communicators do is they match the other person and they invite them to match back. And so how do we do that? These deep questions, which is exactly what you just said. A deep question is a question that asks me about my values, my beliefs, or my experiences. And as you mentioned, like a deep question might not seem deep. So if somebody says, What do you do for a living? Oh, I'm a lawyer. Oh really? Like, do you love practicing the law? Like, did you always wanna be a lawyer? Like, what made you decide to go to law school? Those are easy questions to ask, but all three of them are deep questions.

Right.

'Cause what I'm asking you is I'm asking you like, what are the experiences that led you to where you are today? What are your beliefs that motivate whether you, that motivate, you know, going into the law? What are the values that your work means to you? And when you answer that question, you're going to tell me so much about yourself. And then if I'm prepared for this, I can listen. Because if someone says, oh, I went to law school because it was really important to me to have a steady job and I knew lawyers, there's always work for lawyers. And so I, okay, so this person is in a practical mindset. And if somebody else says, oh, I went to law school because I saw my dad get arrested and I wanted to fight for the underdog.

Wow. That's emotional.

That's emotional, right? Wow. Interesting. So just by, and by the way, By the way, the same person might answer that question both ways depending on how they're feeling at that moment. But now I know like, oh, I can match this person emotionally or I can match this person practically.

Wow.

And there's a kind of hear it, and you can sometimes just ask. In schools, they teach teachers that when a student comes up and they're upset, they should ask them, do you want to be heard? Do you want to be helped? Or do you want to be hugged?

Mm.

And those are the three kinds of conversations.

And it just feels—

yeah.

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That's exactly right.

And if you have trained yourself to understand how to be a super communicator and practice it, and you're going to feel like a hero to everyone you connect with. You're gonna feel like, wow, Charles really understands me and really gets it. And he's just so easy to talk to. Every time I talk to him, it's gonna make you more likable.

Yeah.

More opportunities are probably gonna flow your way. You're gonna be more top of mind for people in the future when something comes up in a positive way. They're gonna come to you. You know, all these different things are gonna happen. I guess you're gonna have to learn how to, create certain boundaries if they're coming to you too much or using you or whatever it might be.

Yeah, but those are good problems to have. Yeah, exactly.

Everyone wants my attention.

I'm too popular.

Yeah, exactly.

And I find that it's also when somebody asks you what you want out of a conversation, it feels really good. Like I might come home and sometimes I come home and I'm like upset about work and I'm complaining to my wife and she'll say, okay, do you want me to solve this with you or do you want me just to listen? Right.

So you can vent or whatever.

Yeah. And until that moment, I didn't know what I wanted. But when she asked the question, I'm like, "Oh no, I want you to listen. I don't want a solution." Suddenly now I know, "Oh, the way I feel better is just by venting." Right.

Exactly. I can be that way too sometimes. You say in the book that all conversations are negotiations. Can you explain what that means?

So they're what's referred to, particularly at the beginning of a conversation, we usually have what's called a quiet negotiation. And it's important. Oftentimes people hear negotiation and they think of a negotiation where the goal is to win. A quiet negotiation is very, very different. The goal is not to win. The goal is simply to understand what the other person wants.

That is the win, I guess. Yeah, that's the win, right? That's the win.

I don't have to defeat you, but we can win together. So when I came in today and I sat down with you and we were kind of chatting about, about how our lives are going, we signaled to each other a bunch of stuff. Like we signaled that we were casual with each other, that we like each other.

Yeah.

We signaled that it was okay to interrupt each other. We signaled that we didn't have to be, we didn't have to do looping for understanding. Like you can hear that I'm listening to you and I can do the same. There's all these small cues that we pick up on. Now imagine if we had come in and I had sat down and you were like, hey man, what's going on? And I was like, Well, it's good to see you today.

Right.

Like, oh, allow me to tell you about myself, right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and we've had that, like people, I had this last week with someone who was here. I won't say who it was, but I was trying to be, you know, more playful and open and, you know, flexible. And they eventually got there. But in the first 10 minutes, I like, not intentionally interrupted, but I just kind of added to something and, you know, followed up with a question while they were still finishing something. But it's kind of how I do a lot of things.

Yeah.

And he goes, you know, make sure you don't do that with the next person. He kind of like cued me, like, let me finish first.

Right.

I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna make sure I let him finish.

Yeah.

Before I add something.

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

I know what the rules are now, right?

Yeah, I know the rules.

Yeah.

And he was kind of like, hey, you know, it was like, which we, right. It was kind of playful, but it was kind of like, okay, like. I don't know him, so I was like, okay, all right, let me, I wanna make sure we get a good interview. So I'm gonna play by your rules.

Well, and oftentimes what happens at the beginning of a conversation, even without us recognizing we're doing it, is that we conduct experiments.

Uh-huh.

Right? I might say something casual to you and then I pay attention.

And what?

Do you, right? Do you laugh back? I might interrupt you.

Uh-huh.

And if you say like, don't do that again, I'll notice, right? And the thing to remember is that I don't think it was a, It was not a mistake that you did that. It was not even a failure because the whole point of a conversation at the beginning is to work out those rules. Experiment with it. Experiment with it. And if some, and if every, like my wife is a scientist, if every experiment is a success, you're a terrible scientist, right? You want to do experiments that fail and succeed. That's when you're learning. And the fact that this guy told you that, it means that he actually told you something about how he, See, communication.

He likes, yeah. And as an interviewer, I don't know if you do this when you're doing research or interviewing people as well. For me, I like to tell people when they ask me about interviewing or podcasting, this is my 11th year now of doing this show.

Wow.

It'll be 11-year anniversary probably when this episode comes out. I always tell people that the pre-show is the show. Us talking for 10 minutes before we turned on the camera.

Yeah.

Really determines a lot of how successful or unsuccessful the episode will go, or the energy or the flow is based on the connection when someone enters the door, the experience and the environment you create for them, whether that's you or the actual environment, your ability to see them.

Yeah.

Before going on, and if they feel heard and seen.

Yeah.

That is the show.

And vulnerability, right?

100%.

And I think what, so there's another idea that's really critical in the book and that is critical to what we've learned in the last decade, which is known as emotional reciprocity. That when I show you something vulnerable, you need to show me that you've heard it. But if you share something vulnerable in return, we will feel closer.

Really?

We really can't even, we can't, it's like hardwired. We can't not feel closer.

So one person shares something vulnerable and the other one, does not at least show empathy, even if they don't share something vulnerable about them, but if they show some type of—

Well, so showing empathy is a form of vulnerability.

Okay.

Right? So if you say like, you know, my dad passed away and I say, oh man, I totally understand. My aunt died 12 years ago. Right.

That's not empathy.

That's not empathy. That's not, I'm trying to steal the spotlight from you. I'm not trying to share it. But if you said, you know, my dad passed away and I said, oh man, I like, I know how hard that is. I'm really sorry. And like, I've struggled with it. I'm sure you are if you wanna talk about it.

Right.

That's all it takes for me to reciprocate that vulnerability and to say to you, like, I welcome your vulnerability. I am trustworthy with it. And more importantly, like, I'm willing to go there with you.

Right.

That's when all of a sudden we know the rule. We know the rules of this conversation. We know that And when we were talking before the show and I asked about Martha and I asked about your life and like, you're very open and you're very easy with your vulnerability. And just hearing that, like, it tells me the rules, right?

That like— Like, you can be open.

Yeah, it's safe space. This is a conversation where we can be honest with, where we can be honest and real. And once you have that, you're exactly right. The rest of the conversation's so much easier.

Absolutely, yeah. A lot of it is the first interactions you have with someone and kind of experimenting so you can understand the rules, the quiet negotiation. What are the rules of this dialogue going to be?

Yeah.

Speaking of honesty and challenging conversations, how can a super communicator that might be avoiding hard conversations with someone that as a friend or a business colleague or their partner, their intimate partner, How can a super communicator, I guess, navigate conflict, disagreement, or challenging conversations? It's a, to create a win-win.

It's a great question, right? And, and, and there's a couple chapters on it and it is sort of one of the biggest questions. And this is particularly in the last couple years. There's a, there's a chapter about the story of what happened at Netflix because there was an executive at Netflix couple years ago in a meeting used the N-word and very quite rightfully the rest of the company was like, this is totally unacceptable.

Wow.

But it threatened to actually divide the company 'cause this was a popular executive. Some people were like, look, he didn't mean it as a slur. He was using it as an example. And other people were like, this is unacceptable. You can't like—

He's gotta be gone. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, and it took 4 months for them to fire him. But at that point, the company was on the brink of civil war. And so they—

The culture wasn't good.

The culture was just tearing them apart. So they hired this woman, Vernée Myers, who's an amazing woman to come in. And the first thing that she did is she said, "Okay, look, instead of avoiding conversations about race, we're gonna have conversations about race, but here's how we're gonna do it. We're gonna start each conversation by acknowledging this is gonna be awkward." And by the way, I'm gonna make a mistake. You're gonna make a mistake. We're gonna say things that like don't really come out the way we intended. It's gonna be hard. And number 2, everyone at this table deserves to be at this table. So simply, you know, obviously someone who's Black belongs to this table, but if you're white, you also have a racial experience. And like, we need to hear that experience.

You—

Right. You can testify, you can witness how your life has been as an expert. And everybody at the table has an equal right to talk about their own experiences. And that worked at Netflix. I mean, it actually worked really well. It brought the company back together. Now, when that tough conversation you were having with an intimate partner or with a business partner where there's some conflict there, think about how differently it goes if you sit down and you say, "Something serious I wanna talk about. Let me just acknowledge this is gonna be like awkward and I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say some things that like I don't, they're gonna come off dumber than I mean them." Right, yeah. "And I'm just gonna ask for your forgiveness in advance. And my goal here is to like really understand where you're coming from 'cause you belong at this table as much as I do." Yeah, there's like 3 things that happen there.

One is, courage and vulnerability. It's like, hey, I want to have a challenging conversation with you. So it's like you're being vulnerable and you're being courageous.

Absolutely.

Talking about something challenging. The second thing is really saying, I'm going to— it's going to be hard and I'm going to make some mistakes. I may not say everything. So asking for forgiveness, which is also vulnerability. And then I guess really the third thing is like, I really want us to come to a good place at the end. I want there to be a win-win from this challenging conversation. I think Chris Voss talks about some, a similar concept around that, the former FBI negotiator.

Yeah.

His book, I think, "Never Split the Difference," where he's like, the best way to negotiate something challenging is to say, this is gonna be a hard conversation.

Yeah.

You're not gonna like it. Starting with something around saying it as it is, as opposed to skirting around the challenge, is at least setting an expectation. And then people would rather know what the expectation is gonna be. It's like when a doctor says, "Ah, it's not gonna hurt that much," but then they pinch you and you're like, "Ah, that was really painful." Right. It's like I did a, I had to do like an implant surgery, like with a fake tooth, right?

Oh, wow.

And 'cause I had teeth removed when I was younger. And so they put these teeth in me last couple years. And I asked the, the doctor, I go, "How painful is this gonna be?" And he's like, "It's gonna hurt." He was like, "It's not gonna be comfortable." He's like, "There's going to be pain." As opposed, I really wanted him to say like, "Yeah, it's not gonna be that bad.

You're gonna be fine." You walk through the front.

He goes, "It's gonna be uncomfortable. It's gonna be painful." And I was like, "Ah, this, I don't like knowing the anticipation of the pain." But when the pain was happening, it wasn't as bad.

Yeah.

It was painful, with the expect— I met the expectation because he communicated clearly.

Exactly.

And so it made me trust him more. It made me feel safer because I knew what to expect. And so when you're talking about this, like having this, uh, I guess, directness of like, hey, this is going to be a hard conversation for me, maybe for you, but I want us to win at the end of this.

That's totally— and that's key. And I mean, you know, the last 5 years, like there's been a lot of conversations about race, right? And the difference between going in and saying, I wanna acknowledge upfront that you as a Black woman have had very different experiences than me as a white man. And I wanna, I wanna really understand you versus having a conversation about race that we've been forced into where we never acknowledged that actually we're talking about race. That first conversation goes so much better. And the same is true of gender, of religion, of politics. Like, you know, when you sit down with your crazy uncle at the Thanksgiving table, like if you say to them like, "Mike, like we have a difference of opinion, but like I really want to understand where you're coming from," it changes the entire dialogue.

Yes. When you were doing the research for "Super Communicators," what was the thing that stood out to you the most? That you either were doing well and it was a confirmation to what you were doing or something you realized, oh, I've had this whole thing wrong and a lot of people have this thing wrong. And if we just started doing more of this, there would be a lot more harmony in relationships.

I think the biggest thing, two things. The first is listening for and engaging with people's emotional conversation. So think about how frequently like you're at work and you talk to someone and you're like, how was the weekend? And they were like, they're like, oh man, my son graduated and I was just so proud of him. Or actually it was a tough weekend. Like it was just like some stuff came up. And our instinct is oftentimes to go straight to the practical, be like, sorry to hear that. Like, let's talk about next year's budget, right? Let's get down to work. That's not Patrick. But if you just take a beat and you match that person and you say, like, ah, like, tell me about your son. Like, I can't wait. Like, tell me, like, tell me what he's like. Or you say, like, I'm, I'm sorry that it was like a tough weekend. Like, I've definitely had tough weekends. If you want to, if you ever want to talk it over with me, I'm here for you. That engaging that emotional conversation, allowing yourself to recognize it and saying, like, this is actually an important part of communication, that I think has been super powerful. Really? Yeah, just because I think I, in 2017, I was at the New York Times and they made me a manager.

How was that?

Well, I thought I would be great at it. I was like, you know, I have an MBA, I've had bosses before.

Yeah.

And I was okay at the logistics part of it. I was a terrible manager. I was so bad because of the communication part. And usually what it came down to is—

But you're a writer, you're a journalist, you're this.

I know.

—award-winning expert at this.

Believe me, I like, it caught me off guard too. And again and again, the thing that happened was that somebody would come and they would basically say, "I want to talk to you about something emotional," and I would treat it as something else.

You went right to practical or something.

Or social or like problem solving. Yeah. And if I had just slowed down and said, "Okay, look," "Just tell me how you're feeling. Like, I just want to like understand how you're feeling and hear it." It would've changed everything. I would've been such a better manager.

Mm-hmm.

So that's the first thing that has really shaped how I communicate. The second thing is, so we, human superpower is communication, right? The reason we survive as a species is because we can communicate. The reason why we've thrived. And we have instincts on how to communicate. And the other thing I've learned is to be a super communicator means learning some stuff, right? Learning tools or skills. But the goal of those tools or skills are actually just to remind us of what our instincts are.

Ah.

Because our instincts are really, really good. Yeah. And when we screw up, it's usually 'cause we don't listen to our instincts.

When all this dark got—

Yeah, yeah. Instead we're like, well, you know, I'm supposed to behave this way. I'm supposed to be a macho or I'm supposed to be X or Y or Z instead of like stopping and saying like, what am I authentically experiencing right now? Because if you share that, you're probably gonna connect with the other person.

Yeah.

So I've tried to indulge that more.

Wow, that's cool.

Yeah.

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Yeah.

I'm curious about how to have a conversation that turns into abundance of opportunities for you. Is there a way to draw from your work in this book that people could say, if I just started doing this thing, it would unlock a level of abundance, financial abundance, better opportunities for me. Is there a certain style of conversation I should be having, a way I should be listening that unlocks abundance? Is there anything from your research?

Yeah. So, so let me, let me ask you a question because I know that this podcast started with you looking for mentors, right? You going out trying to learn. Yes. So when you approach someone before, before you're a known, you're like a young guy, you're reaching out to these like very successful folks. What do you do that gets them to take some time to tell you their insight?

You mentioned something in this book that I, that I think you're gonna be referencing here in a second, which is about really creating relatability on different things from either the past or whatever it might be. And so originally I would reach out to people through LinkedIn. This is in 2007, '08, and '09. From my other business that I had, and I would reach out to them, leaders in kind of like the local community in Columbus, Ohio, CEOs and executives. And I would email people originally and just say, "Hey, I'm inspired by what you've done. Can you help me with some advice?" Type of conversation.

Yeah.

And I wouldn't get many responses, maybe a couple of like, "Hey, I have no time for you," or, "Not right now." And then I started just experimenting other things. And I started really researching the person I was going to be messaging and emailing. And on LinkedIn, you could see where they went to school, different clubs and associations they're a part of, awards, hobbies, interests, also different connections that they had with you.

Yeah.

Second and third degree. So I started saying, well, let me try to find different things we have in common. And in the first sentence or two, I would say, you know, Hey Charles, I see we both live in New York City, you know, whatever it is, any commonality at all.

Right.

I see we—

We and 9 other million people, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. We're both, you know, we're both authors. I've written a book and I see that you like running half marathons and I just ran my first marathon last year. Whatever it would be, I would try to find 3 levels of commonality.

Yeah.

And when I started to do that, it was almost like every person was replying to me. And everyone would give me an hour to either jump on the phone, meet in person, like whatever I asked, they would give me time. Now, based on that conversational time and how I showed up and my gen— being genuine and asking the right questions, that determined what was gonna happen next. But it was got my foot in the door to at least have a conversation by creating that level of common interest from shared experiences of past. Yeah. And the better I got at researching and understanding based on a profile and able to communicate our shared interests, the more people wanted to connect with me.

So here's what I hear you saying.

Yes.

And tell me if I'm getting this right. 'Cause if you email me and you're like, we both live in New York.

Yes.

We both run marathons. I'd be like—

I don't know, it's more direct to what the person's already—

Right, right. Let's say it is more direct. Let's say like, you know, I see that you're on a softball league. I played softball. That's actually not like, there's no reason that I'm necessarily gonna reply to your email because we do love softball. That's true. But what you're really saying is I'm proving to you that I want to connect. I'm making an overture. I'm not just dropping you an email because you're a famous person and you're like, I sent 30 of them today. I actually spent some time. I'm making what's known as a bid for connection. So one of the things that super communicators do is they make these bids a lot, oftentimes without us realizing it. When I asked if Matt laughed a lot, One of the things we know is that super communicators laugh much more.

I saw that in the book too.

Yeah. But they don't laugh in response to things that are funny. They laugh just because they want to show you that they want to connect.

Interesting.

And when you laugh back, you're showing you want to connect back.

I think you had some research in there or something. It was like, I can't remember what those percentages, but most people just are laughing not because there's something funny.

80% of the time we laugh not in response to humor, but to show someone else that we want to connect with them. And when they laugh back, they show us that we want to connect. The other thing about super communicators, and I love that you mentioned that when you got together with them, you asked the right questions. Super communicators tend to ask 10 to 20 times as many questions as the average person. But it doesn't feel like an interrogation because a lot of the questions are things like, oh, that's interesting, tell me about that.

Yeah, tell me more.

Yeah, tell me more.

How did that work like that?

Yeah, what did you think about that? Why did you do that? There's questions that are so fast that we don't register them as questions, but what they're doing is, again, they're proving that we want to connect.

Showing interest.

Showing interest, showing listening, showing that I am opening myself. There is this thing about vulnerability that vulnerability tends to be the loudest expression we can make. If someone is saying something vulnerable, we cannot help but listen to them. Wow.

Right?

All of reality TV is based on this principle, right? Like our brain is hardwired so that when we see vulnerability, we have to stop and listen.

Wow.

And when you say to someone, I see that we both love softball and like, can I have a couple minutes? You're exposing a vulnerability and they listen to it.

Interesting.

And it makes you seem trustworthy. So that's the thing that I would say is that the, The thing that creates abundance is to put those bids out there, to make that first offering and to laugh at someone's joke, to show them you wanna connect, to ask them a deep question, to say like, you know, like, I understand that you probably don't wanna talk to someone like me, but like, I've done a little bit of research about you and you just seem so interesting to me. Like, can I just ask you a couple questions? Right. That vulnerability, that authenticity, we hear that.

Yeah, I understand you're probably the busiest person. You probably have no time for someone like me.

Right.

But I would just love to be able to ask you like 2 or 3 questions.

Absolutely. And by the way, we both—

You're probably gonna say no, but you know, I'm just—

And by the way, we both went to this high school, right? Like, which is just something.

By the way. It's something.

It's something. By the way, the fact that we both went to that high school doesn't mean anything, but the fact that I looked up what high school you went to—

Exactly.

Shows that I genuinely want to connect.

And it's fascinating. I don't know if you're like, where did you go to college? I went to Yale.

Yale.

Yeah. I don't know if someone reached out to you who's like, I don't know, 24, who just graduated Yale, who's like wrote at the Yale newspaper or whatever, and they reach out to you and they're just like, you know, I know that you probably don't have time right now because you've got all these things going on, but I'd love to have 5 minutes of your time. You're probably, and we both went to Yale. You're probably more likely to reply to that person than someone at Harvard who said the same thing. Right. And it's not just because of the association.

And it's because they sought me out. They know enough about me to know that we have this thing in common. The fact that I went to Yale, I haven't been to Yale in 20 years, right?

It doesn't really matter.

It doesn't matter. It's not part of my identity. But the fact that they did the research to figure out where I went to college. So if they went to Harvard and they were like, or if they went to, Just recently. University of New Mexico. And they say like, I saw that you went to Yale and like, I've always admired Yale and I'm just wondering if I could ask you a couple questions. Literally someone did this 3 days ago.

No way.

And I got on the phone with them and I was like, don't become a journalist. Like the industry's disappearing. But it is. And it doesn't matter what you say as much as it matters what's behind what you say. The message I'm sending. The same way that like when I ask you a question and you respond vulnerably to me, and then I reciprocate that vulnerability, we're making an offer to each other.

Yes.

And we're seeing if that offer is accepted or not.

Right.

And asking someone for advice is not an offer. Saying, I researched you and I admire you. Can I just ask you a question? That's an offer.

That's interesting. I'm curious about this, Charles. You know, you, 10 years ago, your life really kind of changed in a way with "The Power of Habit," right?

Yeah.

Like put you on a map in a different way. You had a successful career, but it wasn't as big of a platform as when that book came out, correct?

No, it was transformational.

What is it like being a super communicator before a lot of success comes your way? Kind of when you're trying to figure out life or your career or developing yourself, skills and talents, versus boom, I want number one New York Times, Pulitzer Prize winner, 3 years on the Times list, 10 million copies of the book, like boom, an explosion of this world success. How does it differ to be a super communicator after and before?

So I think the thing that happened, I will say, so 2013, "Power of Habit" comes out and that's the same year I won the Pulitzer Prize for this work I was doing in the New York Times about Apple. Had nothing to do with with habits. And it was definitely the hardest and maybe one of the worst years of my life.

Really? How is that possible?

And the reason why is because it went to my head and I stopped listening to my instincts. Like, I just got like blocked from like leading up to that. I like, what I found was that like when people start telling you how smart you are, at some point you start believing them. And that's always like the path to ruin, right? Like, luckily I have a wife who like would tell me how dumb I was. So that, that helped a lot. But, but it was a really challenging time. And I think what happened is that—

You made, you had more success than ever before. You had more money, more fame, more opportunities.

Yeah. And all that stuff was great. I feel so lucky to have had that. Like, I feel so fortunate that this happened. And—

But it was the lowest time for you.

I like, you couldn't pay me enough to go back to that year and relive it. It was so hard. I felt like every single opportunity, like I felt like I was on top of the, like I had won the lottery and—

Twice.

Yeah, twice, twice. And if I, and the only future was downhill. And by the way, if I don't continue winning the lottery, it's because my fault 'cause I'm a dummy. Like, I squandered this opportunity. And so I got so inside my own head that I actually stopped. I stopped being a super communicator, to be honest. I just, I talked a lot more than I listened.

'Cause everyone wanted your advice or they thought you had all the answers or whatever.

Yeah, or 'cause they were giving me money to go stand on a stage and like, nobody ever says like, your idea is not a good idea when you're standing on that stage. It's when you're in a newsroom or when you're with your friends or when you're with your spouse, or they're the ones who are like, that's a dumb idea. Like, like you aren't thinking clearly. And so a lot of, a lot of, so the reason I wrote Super Communicators was because I had these experiences where I felt like I'm a professional communicator and, and I'm doing something wrong. And actually one night I wrote, I sat down and I wrote out over the past year, all the places where I felt like I had failed to communicate. So like fight with my wife that we could have avoided, manager at work and not doing a good job, not doing right by my team. My kids coming to me and like, you know, clearly wanting to like connect. And I'm like caught up in like some article I'm writing or something.

Right, too busy or whatever, yeah.

And it's not like I was a monster. Like I wasn't doing this all the time, but as I looked at it, There was like once every 2 weeks, once every 3 weeks, there was something. And I thought to myself, like, if I'm so smart, like, why am I failing at this? And so the way the book started was me calling experts and just saying like, I have this friend who's bad at communication.

Can you try?

Right, right. But I would say like, look, like, you know, this is a fight I had with my wife. Explain to me like what I did wrong. And that's when they started saying, actually, there's a science behind this. You can learn this science. Like, you can get better at this. And so a lot of recovering from that success was learning to re-listen to these instincts.

Wow.

That were there that the success had sort of made harder to hear.

Even the words you just shared there, recovering from the success. There's so many people that want to be successful. They wanna make more money. They wanna have their work or their message be a bestseller. They wanna get acknowledged for their work, their efforts. They want to win awards, they want bigger followings. But when you got those things initially, you had to recover from them.

Yeah.

It was the most challenging year of your life.

Yeah.

What is it about fame, money, and success you wish everyone knew about?

You know, and a lot of people, I mean, you've spoken about this eloquently. Tim Ferriss has written about this. The problem is that when you're chasing something and the chase is glorious, right? The chase is pure. It feels so good. Like, you know what to do every morning when you wake up. You start to think that the point of it is the thing at the end of the chase rather than the chase itself. Like, you're so focused. I was so focused on winning a Pulitzer Prize. Like, I like wanted it so bad. And the letdown was, I mean, I love having won it. I feel like it's a real honor. But like, once that was gone as a North Star, I was like, What do I write about for the New York Times now?

Wow.

And so I think what happens is that—

Was there a big hangover, emotional hangover for you? Like how long did the joy last when you won the Pulitzer Prize?

Oh, I don't know, 30 or 40 minutes.

Really?

Yeah, 'cause then I started stressing about like, what am I gonna say in the speech? I gotta thank this guy. Like, how do I navigate? Like, yeah, like, because this is the thing, the people, like everyone who's listening, they're listening 'cause they want to become better, not because they want to be best. Once you're best, like, that's less fun than improving yourself, right? I mean, frankly, they're already best. Everyone who's listening to this is probably a huge success at what they do. They are successful. And the reason they're successful though, and the reason they're happy is because they wake up every day and they know, I can get a little bit better. And if what you're saying is, here's the mountaintop, once you reach it, you don't know what to do next.

Right.

It feels like then you need to look for a new mountain. And the real answer is just to recognize actually the mountain is life. Like the mountain is like, I have a great relationship with my wife, but how much better can I be as a husband? And like, I love my kids and I'm close to them, but like, how can I know more about their lives? Like, how can I, How can I help them more? Like once you stop saying there is a goal I'm moving towards, then you start to recognize like the goal is actually what you do every day. And that's so much more rewarding. Wow. Do you think? And you think that's right?

I think so, yeah. I'm curious about right before, maybe the year leading up to that moment, if you could assess yourself on an inner dialogue or an inner feeling between 1 and 10, call it the self-love inner peace scale.

Yeah.

10 being you had lots of love and acceptance and peace and joy inside of you. 1 being, you know, you're miserable. Where were you that year leading up to that success and where were you, you know, the year or years afterwards?

So leading up to it, I would say I was like an 8.

Wow.

It felt great. Like I was like, I was operating on all cylinders. I felt like I was doing good work. And then I have the success and I feel, I just, I felt like, I felt anticipatory regret. Like I felt like I'm gonna make a mistake and I'm gonna feel like the stupidest person ever for not taking advantage of this opportunity.

Really?

And it took a couple years for me to get back to being an 8. And the thing that happened was I wrote another book that did not do very well. So I wrote a book called Smarter, Faster, Better, which I think is actually, I loved writing it. I think it's a good book. I mean, it was a good book to write. It's not a good book. It's not designed as a book. It's too random.

Okay.

And I wrote it because I thought that it's what readers wanted from me rather than something that I was really—

That you wanted to create.

That I wanted to create. And it did fine. It sold over a million copies, but it was nowhere near like "The Power of Habit." Nobody talks about it.

A million copies is a massive success.

It was great.

It was great.

Yeah, yeah. But afterwards I thought to myself, like, the next book I write, it has to come from a question I actually want to answer for myself, right? Like, again, like the journey is more important than the destination.

Yes.

Like, because the destination is one day and the journey is years leading up to it. Years.

Like you're gonna spend— You gotta be excited about it, interested in it.

You gotta be excited, you gotta be interested. You're gonna spend so much more time in the journey than you are in the destination. Yeah. So if you're only thinking about that destination, you're missing a lot that's happening around you.

Wow.

Can I ask you? 'Cause I know that your athletic career, your football career was cut short by an injury. When that happened, what was that like afterwards? Like was there—

It's pretty depressing for about a year and a half. Sadness. Well, I was in a, I had a surgery, so I was in a cast for 6 months in this position. We were like on a full arm cast where I couldn't straighten my arm. Couldn't turn it or straighten it for 6 months. Except for every 6 weeks, they'd take it off to replace it. And I was like, oh my gosh, you know, 6 months like this, living on my sister's couch, making no money. And this was in 2007 and '08 when the economy crashed.

Yeah.

Housing market crashed. So people weren't hiring. You know, I didn't have a college degree yet. I left early to go chase the dream of football. I had 5 credits left, but I was like, I didn't have, I didn't study in school though. So I didn't have confidence from school to get me a job or something. So I just felt like, what am I going to do the rest of my life?

So what pulled you out of that? Like what's the turning moment that like—

Well, I felt I had a lot of time alone and I felt I was listening to my inner voice that's saying that I was meant for more. Like there was something, there was something more that I was supposed to do. I didn't know what, but I knew I needed to just take action on something and course correct along the way. I, so I didn't know what direction. And I started with a list of my fears and I said, I don't want to be in fear anymore. I don't want to be afraid of my insecurities. So I started writing down a list of my fears. Public speaking was at the top of it. Salsa dancing was one as well. Learning a musical instrument, like all these different things that I was like, "I'm just not good at these things." Right. And the downside of getting injured is I couldn't practice my sport anymore. The upside is I had all this time.

Yeah.

I had unlimited time essentially to attack all my fears. And that year after that, I went to Toastmasters every single week for a year. I found my kind of a coach mentor that helped get me into Toastmasters that recommended it and would give me feedback on my little 5-minute speeches that were horrible. And I would study every single week. I would practice, I would rehearse, I would film myself and get better at that. I went salsa dancing 3 times a week. I was like obsessing about salsa dancing at night to go to the clubs. I did group lessons, private lessons, like anything I could do. I would beg people to teach me. I was listening on CD to like a CD of all salsa music and just practicing in my mind throughout the whole day, then practicing at night physically. Going to Toastmasters, I was being a super communicator and connector. I was on LinkedIn all day reaching out to people, trying to connect with people to find opportunities. Yeah. So I was building relationship skills. All these things that I was insecure about, I started to apply them. And it gave me an incredible gift. It gave me more skills. It gave me connections. And one connection led to the next opportunity.

Yeah.

And so I just tried a lot of things, which I might have been distracted, but it was a season of trying and experimenting. And that led me to my first kind of money-making opportunity, an online marketing company that I created. And I did that for many years until I transitioned into the podcast. Yeah. So it was kind of like, all right, let me just try a lot of stuff and then see where something takes me. Sometimes greatness feels far ahead of you, but in reality it's right in front of you. That's why Buick is here to help you make the most of this moment, to show up at your best today and to remember that now is exceptional. Whether you're making a statement in the Buick Envista with its sleek style that sets you apart on the road, or you're announcing your arrival in the Buick Enclave, where purposeful technology and sophisticated spaciousness keeps you present and in command, Buick delivers a lineup of premium vehicles that enrich the life you're leading right now. So keep pursuing what's down the road, but remember that today is its own reward. Visit buick.com to discover a design that inspires you to rise to any occasion. That's buick.com. Buick. Buick. Exceptional by design. This one's for all the TV lovers. My Entertainment from DIRECTV gets you over 60 channels and Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max all in one pack. Watch it all, but don't spoil it. Tell your friends to get My Entertainment too for $34.99 a month. Go to DIRECTV.com/genrepacks and sign up today. New customers only. Service renews monthly unless canceled. Credit card required. Conditions apply to apps. HBO Max Basic with ads begins after DIRECTV 5-day trial. Learn more at directtv.com. Restrictions apply.

And what I love about that story is that it was the things that you were bad at, you studied and you became not just good at, but really good at this. And that's why I say so many of these super communicators, they're people who have these periods where they were bad at communication. Uh-huh. So they felt like they had to pay more attention to it. They had to like study how it works.

Like, I, I mean, I say this confidently and with humility at the same time that I can go anywhere in the world to any salsa club in the world and walk in randomly and look for the best female salsa dancer and ask her to dance and have an incredible dance with this person.

That's amazing.

Anyone in the world, 'cause I've done it. I literally traveled the world doing this to give myself these experiments. I go, what if I do this in Argentina, in Mexico, in Ireland, in France, in Australia, in New Zealand? I went around the world 'cause I was afraid to do it.

Yeah.

And I was afraid of rejection. So I was like, I need to put myself in situations to be rejected. And it would be an experiment. I'm gonna go in, I'm gonna look for the best female dancer, and I'm gonna ask her to dance with me. Even if I don't speak the language and I would get rejected a lot and it was like, oh, that doesn't feel good, but let me just keep going. And I would make it a game. I was like, how can I get them to come up to me by the end of the night to dance with me?

To me, right? 'Cause they want, they see how good you are.

He can actually dance. It's just like experiments and games, right?

Yeah.

And the public speaking thing, you know, I'm going to Mexico next week to get a big paycheck to speak and I would've never been able to do this had I not had that time to practice every single week.

Well, and so what I love about that is that you've changed the definition of success.

Yeah.

And I think that gets back to why that year after "Power of Habit" came out was so hard for me, is that oftentimes when we go into a conversation, we think that the point of a conversation, the definition of success is to like convince the other person of something, right? Or to like win the conversation or to prove that I'm right or—

Look smart or something.

To feel smart, to look smart. And the real point of a conversation is simply to understand the other person. It's not to agree with each other. If you and I differ on gun control or abortion or something like that, we're not gonna convince each other. But if I understand what you're saying and you feel listened to, and if you understand what I'm saying and I feel listened to, then that conversation is a success.

Wow.

The same way that going into a club and trying to learn to salsa dance, the definition of success is, Not that the best answer in that place says yes right away. The definition of success is that you asked 7 different people and 6 of them turned you down and you persisted.

Yeah.

Right?

Kept going. Yeah.

Exactly. Or that like after writing a book and winning this prize, that my definition of success was doing work I'm proud of every day regardless of whether it's gonna win a prize or anyone's gonna read it, doing work that feels meaningful to me.

Right.

When we, find the right definition of success, it's not hard to align how to achieve it. It's just that oftentimes we haven't thought more deeply enough about what success actually means for us.

Right. If someone's in a, you mentioned kind of winning a conversation or trying to look right in a conversation, what's the best way super communicators can navigate or influence or resolve the conflict if it's just not going well. Maybe at a family holiday thing or a relationship or whatever it might be where it's just, "Oh, this is not going well." There is this power move.

And before I describe it, let me just say, not every situation has to be conversation. It's fine if your uncle is spouting off about some crazy lizard people are going to take over the world.

Just walk away.

Yeah. Or just be like, "Huh, that's interesting." And then just don't engage. You don't have to have a conversation with everyone. When I say to my kids, I wanna talk about your room, I'm not looking for a conversation. I'm looking to tell them like it's time to clean the room.

Yeah.

But let's say you do wanna have a conversation. So what's the number one thing you can do if someone has said something to you that's aggressive or crazy or offensive to you is to ask a deep question. And the easiest question, ask the deep question is, "Tell me, like, you're clearly passionate about this. Like, why is this so important to you? Like, what is it about this that's so important to you? Why?" And at that point, I'm not judging, I'm not offering any judgment, right? And what that person's gonna tell you is they're gonna tell you not about that topic.

They're gonna tell you about who they are, their values, their beliefs, their experiences. Mm-hmm.

That's exactly right. Like if you're saying something, you like the Eagles and I hate the Eagles, right? And I say to you, like, why are the Eagles so important to you? What you can tell me about is like me and my dad.

Me and my dad used to go and it's so meaningful, this relationship and these moments. Yeah, all that stuff.

And I know what it's like to have meaningful relationships with a dad, right? Like I had those moments, like that's something where we can connect. And the fact that I think that you're an idiot for liking the Eagles.

That's right.

Which let me just say, I love the Eagles, but as an example. But suddenly we're not talking about this thing that's a source of conflict. We're talking about who we are. And the truth is, you are an expert on who you are. I can't even question your expertise on your values, your beliefs, your experiences. So once I put you in a position where you can confidently talk about who you are, you're just much more relaxed.

Right.

And you're willing to listen to me.

That's cool. What if you know the person's wrong? Like, you're like, "Oh man, this person's just so emotionally irrational that they're not listening to me, also my side." Like, what if you just know like, "Nah, they are wrong." Yeah, maybe they're not, but you just feel, "Gosh, whatever they're saying, their just belief is just not the right belief." So there's been a ton of research on this because of COVID So when the COVID vaccine rolled out, there was a lot of people who were anti-vaccine, and the CDC basically said, we tried lecturing at them, and that didn't work, clearly.

So now we need to understand how to communicate with folks, not to try and necessarily force them to get the vaccine, but just to understand why they're saying no to us, and to understanding if there's another way to presenting this information. And so they did a ton of research and ton of experiments. And what they found was that the most effective technique is something called motivational interviewing, where I ask you that why question. So if someone comes in and they say, I'm opposed to vaccines and I'm a doctor, it'd be really easy for me to say, like, let me show you all the evidence about why vaccines are great, right? Let me show you. But a better way is to say, tell me why, like, A, why you're anti-vaccine, but B, tell me why this is important to you. Like, there's a lot of things you could have told me. The fact that you're telling me this means that it's meaningful to you. So they answer that question, and then I hear something that they say that indicates a value, a belief, or an experience. They say, look, I'm really worried about my kids. I've heard rumors that this vaccine can hurt kids. You know, it'd be fine for old people, but for my kids, I'm really worried about it. Then you can say, again, you're an expert in you and I'm an expert in me. You can say, I totally hear what you're saying. I have kids too. I'm really worried about the safety of my kids. The thing that's hard for me is that I see kids come in every day who are unvaccinated and they're sick and I can't help them.

Right.

And that's, that really, like, it's just hard for me to see that. Now I'm not telling you you're wrong. I'm not telling you you're dumb. I'm not telling you you don't know what you're talking about. I'm telling you about my experience because we have something in common. We both care about our kids.

Right, right. It's good.

And what's amazing is I've talked to dozens of doctors who have been taught how to do motivational interviewing. They say that again and again, what happens is that person starts the conversation by saying, I'm against vaccines, I'm never gonna get vaccinated. They feel listened to, they feel like the doctors heard what they said, reaffirmed what they said. Share their own experiences. And at the end of it, they're like, you know, like, I'm willing to try it. Right. Like, I trust you, so I'm willing to try the vaccine. And this technique of motivational interviewing, there's been a lot of experiments in politics around using this technique. And what they find is that around gay marriage was kind of the platform that was used to try and study this. The most effective way to get someone to support gay marriage who has said that they do not support gay marriage is to ask them what they think about marriage. Don't argue with them, don't disagree. And then say, you know, I think marriage is really important too. And I have a friend, James, who's gay and he loves his boyfriend. And what do you think we should do to let them experience, like to, marriage is really important. You and I, like we both like. Right. "Like, what do you think we should do? Help me understand where you're coming from." That actually is what changes people.

That works?

It worked overwhelmingly.

Wow.

It worked. It actually, it was like a 6% change in the people who were polled, which in politics, you don't change 6% of minds on anything.

Wow.

And it was because they didn't argue, they just listened.

Didn't say you're wrong, you're right, or whatever it is. He just said, what's a better solution? How can we make this work?

And like, we both believe in this thing. Like, we both think that marriage is so important. And like, I love this guy, James. And you know, maybe you know someone who's gay and like, if they came to you and they said, I love this person and I wanna show my love for them. And like, you just told me how important marriage is. Like, how do we give that to them?

Yeah.

Then suddenly it's, we're on the same side of the table. We're solving—

You're agreeing with something.

Yes. We're solving this question together. Interesting. Instead of at odds with each other.

Right. What do they say in like marriage conflict or relationship conflict that it's never you versus the person, it's you both versus the problem?

That's exactly right.

And it's approaching it, okay, the problem is this, how can we solve the problem together?

Yeah.

Not you did this thing that I, or I did this thing or whatever. Here's the thing, let's find a solution.

And when we're in conflict, particularly in a marriage, we have this instinct to try and control things because like we feel conflict's scary, right? You want to control. And the easiest thing to do is try and control the other person, right? You're wrong. You should believe this. If you say that, I'm going to leave the room. But what researchers have found is that the way that you say like we're going to focus on the problem is instead of trying to control each other, you try and control things together, like controlling when this argument takes place. Like instead of doing it at 2 o'clock in the morning—

Yeah, when you're both exhausted.

Yeah, we're going to wait till 10 AM when "Like, have some time." Or trying to control the boundaries of the fight, right?

Yeah.

Like instead of, "Where are we gonna spend New Year's? And your mother-in-law drives me crazy and we don't have enough money." Like both of you sitting down and saying, "Okay, the thing we're gonna talk about is where are we spending New Year's? Not about mothers, not about like money." Like, let's control the boundaries of this discussion together. Suddenly you're on the same side of the table and you might not agree with each other right away, but you feel like you are working together.

Absolutely. That's powerful. This is inspiring stuff. I want people to get the book, Super Communicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. I truly believe that the power, the quality of our life is related to the quality of our relationships. And the quality of our relationships is directly related to what you're talking about in this book, which is how to communicate more eloquently, more intentionally, and with better ease with other people and really understanding where people are coming from. So, if you want to have a higher quality life, make sure you get this book and understand this process. And again, this is powerful stuff, especially now when loneliness epidemic is at, it seems like an all-time high in the US.

Yeah.

And something that We really need to think about over the next decade of life, are we going to get lonelier? Are we going to have less skills and tools for communication? What's that going to do to our health, our opportunities, our lack of abundance, our safety, all these different things. Learning to communicate is going to be the difference between having a miserable life with your friends and families or being in conflict or having a beautiful life. Yeah. Based on your ability to learn these skills. So I'm really grateful that you decided to make this your last few years of curiosity and dive into this. And I want to acknowledge you, Charles, for continuing to pursue wisdom when you don't have to. You've made a ton of money, you've won every award, you've been on the top of every list, you've sold almost 10 million copies of your books. You don't have to keep being curious and keep adding value to people. You've done a lot. And so I want to acknowledge you for taking your time to craft, create, and curate information that can help all of us.

Oh, thank you.

And by putting this out there, and I want people to get a copy of this book, how can, how else can we support you right now? Where should we go to follow you or connect with you?

Well, and let me just start by saying thank you. Like, thank you for like— You're welcome. Having such an amazing conversation with me. Thank you for being so honest and vulnerable and real and authentic. If people do want to follow up, luckily my last name is Duhigg. I'm like the only Charles Duhigg on earth. If they Google me, they'll find my website and they'll find the books. Most importantly on my website and actually in the endnotes of the book is my email address.

Mm-hmm.

And every single person who emails me, every single reader who emails me, I read and reply to their email.

No way.

Yeah, yeah, it's over 28,000 so far.

Holy cow.

And the reason why is because like, you gotta live what you preach, right? Like if someone takes the time to send me a note that they've put time and energy into, you owe that a debt of honor, right?

And so like 4 hours a day just replying to people.

You let them build up.

Yeah, they just put like a couple days.

Then I spend a Saturday, it's sort of like going through and like reading them. But it's, I'm charles@charlesduhigg.com. If anyone wants to reach out, I'll definitely see your email. And I would love to hear people's stories about how they communicate. Like what they've found has helped them be a super communicator when—

That's cool.

When they've needed it.

Awesome. I love it. So they can follow you, get the book, email you. You're on social media a little bit, but you're not on there like too much, right?

Yeah, not as much as I should be. Yeah. Yeah.

I see you're surfing and I see you travel. We were both in Japan last year, I think. Oh yeah.

Were you in Japan at the same time?

I saw you with the arches. I didn't post my photos, but I saw your photos there. I was like, that's cool. Very cool. So people can do that. How else can we be of support and serve you?

You know, honestly, the best thing that you can do is if you read the book or you've heard an idea that you think is powerful, share that idea with someone else. I mean, we were talking before, like if I can change one or two people, if I can make one or two people a better communicator, It's relatively modest. But if all of us make 1 or 2 people a better communicator, that loneliness epidemic goes away.

Absolutely.

Right? If there's thousands of people saying, I'm willing to have a tough conversation with you, I wanna model for you how to do this. Like, I have a friend I haven't talked to in 6 months and it seems awkward to give them a call, but like, I'm just gonna do it 'cause they might be feeling lonely right now. That is the truest gift that I think someone can give me and themselves in the world is just to reach out and to try and communicate.

Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. I asked you this the last time we had a conversation, but it was a while ago. This is a question I ask everyone at the end called the 3 truths. So hypothetical scenario, you get to live as long as you want to live, but it's your last day on Earth. You've created everything you want to create personally, professionally, hobbies, you do it all from this moment until that day, but you have to turn the lights off and go to the next place. And for whatever reason, in this hypothetical question, you have to take all of your work with you. So no one has access to this book, any book, articles, interviews, it's all gone.

Yeah.

Hypothetical. But you get to leave behind 3 lessons either you know to be true, from your whole life's experience, everything you've learned, what would be those 3 truths for you that you would leave behind?

So, I think the first one just pops into my mind immediately is the more you invest in your spouse and in your kids or whatever your relationship is that's the closest relationships you have, every single ounce of that investment will be worth it.

Mm-hmm.

And it will be returned to you in like 10x. And there are so many times, particularly when we're chasing success, that we don't invest in the people around us. And whatever that prize is that you get, whatever that money is that you get, it's nice, it's freeing, but it's not as nice as like a wife who loves you or kids who enjoy spending time with you. Or a husband who like thinks the world of you, or just having like a great friend who you can call anytime.

That's a beautiful one.

So that's number one. Number two is—

I don't think I've ever heard that one. Oh really? That's— I don't think, I don't think I can remember hearing investing in people like that and, and, and how it will return in your investments.

So that's really cool. So the, and the second one I think is it is always worth betting on yourself. Like, you know, when I went to business school, I graduated with my MBA and I decided to become a journalist and I was the lowest paid member of my class for the next 4 years. Like, I went to Harvard Business School, everyone wanted to go make a ton of money. I was making, I think, $40,000 my first year after, and I had like 90 grand in student loans. And, but the thing is, I was like, look, I'm gonna bet on myself. Like, I think I can figure out how to make, how to make a career in this.

Wow.

And everyone I know who's succeeded, they've succeeded because they bet on themselves, not because they bet on the safe course, not because they bet on what the wisdom of the masses, it's because they bet on themselves. So bet on yourself. And then the third one is that as soon as you get something, you don't really enjoy it until you start giving it away, right? Like, I found I was lucky enough to make some money from "The Power of Habit," and I have tried to give to charity, and I've tried to support my friends, and I have never felt as rich in my life as when I give a check to someone who needs it. Like, otherwise, like, having a lot of money is great 'cause it frees you up, but it can also be a little stressful, right? You're like—

Managing all these things.

Yeah. Taxes.

Spending too much tax.

Taxes, X, Y, and Z. It's a good problem to have, but it's a problem. But then we started this scholarship for new writers who work at bookstores. And like when I sent over the check, I was like, "Man, this is like the richest I've ever felt in my entire life." So I, and I think that's true, not just of money, it's true of like influence and kindness, right?

Sure.

But like, as soon as you find something, it's when you give it away that you're like, "Oh, this is something I actually have." Wow, that's cool.

Those are great lessons, man. I love that. So wait, what are yours?

Can I ask, like, what are, do they change?

They've definitely evolved over time, but I would say my 3 truths in this moment would be to live in gratitude.

Yeah.

And to really have a perspective of life and look at the beauty and the gratitude of the things that are happening as opposed to the negative sides of things. Living in gratitude always makes me feel better. It always puts me in a state of appreciation. And when you appreciate something, it tends to appreciate in value even emotionally. So living gratitude would be number 1. Number 2 would be to make your health a, you know, a high focus daily, physical, emotional, spiritual health. Yeah. When you're sick, all you care about is being healthy. And it's like there's no other problem that matters in the world when you're sick except for that thing. When you're healthy, you can have lots of problems, but it's like when you're sick, you've got one problem.

Yeah.

Getting healthy again. So, stay healthy because I think that'll enrich your view of life, your relationships, everything. You'll be able to move with more ease in the world and have more energy. And the third would be to live in service. You know, this is really living in service in relationships. Being a great listener, a great communicator, I think is a service.

Yeah.

I remember when I was starting after football and starting to meet with these kind of mentors, I didn't know what value I could add to people. I didn't have skills, I didn't have money, I didn't have talent. I was just like, uh, they're meeting me, but what can I do for them?

Yeah.

And I started to realize that asking them the right questions where they could reflect and remember stories and share was a great service to them.

Yeah.

It opened them up. It got them excited. It's like they felt like they were empowering me by teaching. Like I was adding a service to that and therefore developing deeper relationships. And so living in service to the people around you. Is how I'd say is my third truth.

Those are really beautiful truths.

Gratitude, health, and service.

I'm gonna totally steal those.

I like yours though, I like yours. Final question for you, Charles. What's your definition of greatness?

Honestly, my definition of greatness is that when that day comes when we die, that people show up and they say, you know what? I just really liked knowing this person. My dad died about 6 years ago and, and I, we went to the funeral and all these people showed up, so many people. And they just said like, I like, like your dad brought some joy into my life. Wow. That's cool. And, and he did lots of other stuff, right? He, but like, I, I don't know what could be greater than when you're no longer there for people to say like, I'm so glad I knew that person.

Wow. That's cool. Yeah. That is greatness. Yeah. Charles, thanks, man. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you, and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now It's time to go out there and do something great.

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