How to Connect With Anyone | Charles Duhigg

0:00Jonathan Fields: So you know that feeling when you're just trying to tell someone maybe you like or love or work with about a hard day and they immediately jump in with a list of ways to fix it. It's frustrating, right? It feels like you're just speaking two different languages and instead of feeling supported, you just feel kind of alone and frustrated. I have definitely been there and I have also been the one causing that conversational friction and pushing people away. As it turns out, there's a scientific reason for that disconnect and it doesn't have to be that way. Today, we're deconstructing the mythology of, quote, natural communicators to show that connection is actually a skill that anyone can learn.

0:38Jonathan Fields: Joining me is an old friend, Charles Duhigg. Charles is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and the author of the massive hit, The Power of Habit, and his latest book, Super Communicators, is a masterclass in how we connect with other people. We talk about this thing called the matching principle that can save a marriage or a business partner or close a big deal, the three specific types of conversations that we all have that we don't actually know we're having, and a wild story about how the CIA uses vulnerability to recruit assets, you learn how to ask these deep questions that can turn strangers into friends and why the fact to get to the feeling is a total game changer.

1:19Jonathan Fields: So excited to share this best of conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.

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3:54Jonathan Fields: So, really excited to dive into this topic because, you know, it touches on so many different domains of life right now. You can look at communication and how, you know, there seem to be people who move through life and really struggle to just connect with anyone else. And then there are these other people who seem to move through life and somehow be anointed. Yeah. Like, they can just walk into any room. They can sit down across the table from any person. and this magical thing unfolds. And I feel like there's so much mythology around this and also misinformation and assumptions that aren't true.

4:32Jonathan Fields: So I love that you sort of like took on this topic and said, let's actually deconstruct this a bit and look into it. You know, like these people that we hold up and say like, these people just have something about them. They're able to connect with others in a way that is, you know, almost God-like, it's not necessarily something that you're just born with or not.

4:55Charles Duhigg: No, not at all. And that's a really good way of putting it, right? Is that we all know those people who are on both sides of the spectrum. And we've been ourselves on both sides of the spectrum, right? There's times when you like walk into a meeting and you just know exactly what to say or what to say to a friend to make them feel better. And other times that you're hanging out with someone and you really want to connect with them and you just can't, right? And what's interesting is there is this myth that this is an inborn characteristic, that good communicators are born knowing how to communicate, and the bad communicators are socially awkward.

5:27Charles Duhigg: And that's not right at all. Like what we've learned, particularly in the last decade, because we're kind of living through this golden age of understanding communication because of all these advances in science, is the people who are good at communication, it is a skill that anyone can learn. And the reason they're good at communication is because they've simply learned how communication works. Like they've sat down and either through intuition or through coaching or through experimentation, they figured out that there are these rules, right, that, that help us connect with other people. And that if you, if you observe the rules, your conversations go really well.

6:05Charles Duhigg: And if you don't know the rules, you get fouled up, even though you don't intend to.

6:10Jonathan Fields: Yeah, I mean, that lands so strongly with me. And this is also speaking as somebody who has made a living creating or co-creating conversations with people for over a decade now. um but when i look at my younger life i was not somebody who ever would sit down and and feel comfortable with a complete stranger um and and then just like in minutes going deep and having like these incredible conversations about topics that you know really care about um i was the opposite out of the spectrum um and in different situations and circumstances i still am so what's interesting to me is I think it's also it's context sensitive.

6:54Charles Duhigg: Yeah, no, it absolutely is. And my guess is if you look at people who are great communicators, oftentimes there was something in their childhood or their youth that made it hard for them to connect to other people. And so they, they basically had to learn how to do it. They had to, to work on recognizing skills. And for me, this, this project kind of started with a situation that I think I I'm assuming is probably familiar to you and everyone is listening, which is there would be these times that I would come home from work and I would be in a bad mood and I would like start complaining to my wife, like, oh, like, you know, my boss is a jerk and my coworkers don't understand me and nobody's like giving me enough credit and yada, yada, yada.

7:32Charles Duhigg: And, and my wife would say something very, very rational and reasonable and practical. She would say like, look, why don't you take your boss out to lunch? And you guys can like get to know each other a little bit better. And she was very well-intentioned in doing so, right? But instead of hearing what she was saying, my reaction was to get even angrier and to be like, why aren't you supporting me? Why are you taking their side? And we're married and we love each other and we're usually pretty good communicators. And I couldn't figure out why this would happen again and again. And it wasn't just with her, obviously.

8:07Charles Duhigg: This happens all the time, right? And so I started calling up neurologists and others and saying, what do we know about communication? And what they said made a lot of sense as soon as I heard it. What they said is, look, most of us, when we think about a discussion, we think it's one thing, right? It's about one topic. And that's not right at all. Actually, every conversation is usually three different kinds of conversations. And they're happening in sequence, and they're mixed together. And so there's usually a practical conversation, right? A conversation about like, how do we solve this problem, which is what my wife was saying.

8:42Charles Duhigg: And then there's an emotional conversation, a conversation where the goal is not to solve a problem. It's just to learn how each other feels, to express our emotions. So that's the conversation I was having. I was upset. And then there's also a social conversation, which is a conversation about, you know, how we relate to other people and how other people see us. And all three of these conversations are equally legitimate conversations. But the thing that happens, what's known in psychology as the matching principle, is that if two people are having different kinds of conversations at the same time, then they miscommunicate.

9:17Charles Duhigg: They fail to hear each other. It's like two ships passing in the night. So when I would come in and I was having an emotional conversation and my wife would respond with a practical conversation and all these, this good advice, the reason why I couldn't hear what she was saying was because we were literally speaking different kinds of languages. We were using different parts of our brains. And so one of the things that we know is that in order to really connect with each other, we have to be able to recognize, A, what kind of conversation is happening right now. And B, we have to learn how to invite each other to have the same kind of conversation at the same time.

9:53Charles Duhigg: Because if I say something emotional and my wife responds with an emotional conversation, and then she says something practical, then I'm ready to come back and get into a practical mindset. But if we're having these two different conversations at the same time, that's when everyone walks away frustrated.

10:09Jonathan Fields: Yeah, that makes so much sense. And yet it's one of those things I think nobody pays attention to, let alone realizes, oh, there are three different contexts we could be having here. Totally. And if we don't meet, there's just nothing good is gonna come out of this. You tee up a really interesting story about a guy in the CIA, Jim Lawler, and how this notion came in when recruiting intelligence ops.

10:36Charles Duhigg: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And Jim Lawler is like, so Jim Lawler ended up being one of the most successful CIA recruiters in history, right? He like, he turned, he got thousands or not thousands, he got dozens and dozens of people to basically become CIA assets overseas. And he was terrible at it when he started. Like he was in his thirties, he sent to Europe and he's just, he literally, literally like is incompetent at trying to have conversations with people. And what he discovered was that like, well, he actually told me the story. That's kind of a great story, which is that before he had joined the CIA, he'd been working for his dad in sales and he was like a terrible salesman.

11:13Charles Duhigg: His dad had this, um, they sold metal Joyce and stuff in West Texas. He was just a terrible salesman. And so he would, he would go to places and then try and make his pitch and they'd, you know, businesses would just brush them off. And then he went to this, see this one woman who's a, her son was in the office with her and she was on the phone when Lawler got there and he was waiting for her to finish. And then, you know, she finishes her phone call and he kind of makes his pitch and she's like, look, I'm not interested in buying any of your Joyce. But then she just starts talking about her life and she starts talking about like how hard it is to be a mom and a business woman.

11:45Charles Duhigg: And she always feels like she's like, you know, letting someone down. And Lawler, who's like, you know, at this point, like 26, he has no idea what to say, right? He's like the deer in the headlights. And he's like, okay, because he doesn't have kids. He doesn't know what to do with some adult suddenly unloading about their life. So he just does the same thing. He starts talking about how he's not getting along with his brother because his brother's a better salesman than he is. And it's caused all this tension. And Lawler feels really bad about himself. And they just connect because they're having the same kind of conversation.

12:18Charles Duhigg: Inadvertently, he had matched the kind of conversation that she is having. he had matched her emotionally she had shown vulnerability and he had reciprocated that vulnerability which is an important an important part of how conversation works and and then he like says like do you want do you want to buy any steel and she's like no i still don't want any steel but two weeks later she calls and she places one of the biggest orders in the company's history and lawler's like i why you like i don't think we can give you the pricing that you're looking for and she was like that's okay i feel like we have a connection like i feel like you and me were going to work together for a long time.

12:50Charles Duhigg: And this is what we know. And that's how exactly the strategy he used with overseas assets is that he learned that if he speaks the language they are using, if they're talking about how they're concerned and they feel uncertain of themselves and they feel worried that rather than being saying like, it's all going to be okay, I promise I can take care of this. I'm going to keep you safe. If he turned to them and he say, look, I know I feel the same way all the time like I'm worried I'm going to get deported from this country I'm worried someone's going to I'm worried I'm going to get fired I'm worried that my wife is going to leave me if he's as vulnerable with them as they are with him then they feel like they have a connection they feel like they can trust each other or if they come in practical and they say look the reason I don't want to give you secrets is because you know you're not paying me enough and I'm worried I'm going to get caught and he gets practical and he says look let me take you through all the steps we're going to take to make sure that you don't get caught.

13:44Charles Duhigg: If he matches them and invites them to match him, that's when we connect.

13:49Jonathan Fields: Let's say somebody wants to really better understand how to identify which of the three types of conversations are happening at any given moment. What would be tells for somebody to basically be able to pick up fairly quickly, oh, this is actually what the person is. This is what's happening here. And let me step into that same mode and meet them there.

14:09Charles Duhigg: So it's actually pretty easy once you start looking for it, right? So if you just listen to what someone's saying and ask yourself, are they talking to me about emotional things? Are they talking to me about how they feel? Are they talking to me about practical problems? Or are they talking to me about a social issue, like how other people see them or how they see themselves because of their background and their identity? you all we really have to do is draw our attention to it and we tend to notice pretty quickly and i'll get in and i'll give you an example in our conversation the other thing i'll mention though is that oftentimes you can just ask right like like if i come home so you don't have to hide it you don't have to hide it you don't have to see what's going on here yeah you don't have to look for a tell you can say like if when i come home and i'm upset my wife now says like do you want me like do you want me just to listen to you and understand how you're feeling or do you want to try and solve this.

15:02Charles Duhigg: And sometimes, sometimes that's enough for me to be like, actually, I need you to listen until now. And now that you've asked that question, I'm ready to start solving it. One way that, um, another thing that people use sometimes is, do you want to be heard, hugged, or helped? They actually use this a lot in schools. Like when a kid is upset, the teacher says to them, do you want to be heard, hugged, or helped? Right. And Heard means you're having an emotional conversation. Like you just need me to hear what you're saying. Hugged is kind of a social thing, right? Like you need to know that I, another person care about you and that I'm comforting you.

15:40Charles Duhigg: And helped is a practical conversation. Like you're asking me to help you solve this problem. And, and so, so a good example is like, I think in our conversation, um, or let me, let me ask you this, like you do a ton of conversations like this. when you when you want to help nudge a conversation into an emotional place what do you do in order to signal that to the other person to invite them to join you in an

16:09Jonathan Fields: emotional conversation yeah i mean it's such an interesting question um and to me there's something that happens before i would do anything to invite someone into it which is creating safety you know to me one of the things that i always try and do is create a container of psychological safety um and in any number of different ways it's going to be different for different people um but you know then if i want to invite them into something which is deeper or more emotional um i might share something that's emotional myself to telegraph that this is a safe space to share on this level and in this context.

16:47Jonathan Fields: I might also just, you know, so there's one of the models that I live by when certainly deepening into conversations is often shorthand the fact to get to the feeling. So it's not unusual for folks to kind of want to tell their story in a very factual way. Like this happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened. Which is like, there's value in that, right? But what I'm always more interested in, And I think a lot of what you're often interested in is like, but what's underneath that? So oftentimes the simple question, tell me more, bridges the gap. It gives somebody the opportunity to move beyond the fact and opens the door to feeling.

17:29Charles Duhigg: And what I hear you saying, and I think this is what the literature says, and I think it's really, really wise, is that there's something important about vulnerability. right that if you say something emotional you're exposing a little bit of vulnerability it invites the other person to reciprocate that vulnerability and in doing so you create this trust this psychological safety or simply saying to someone like tell me more about that is showing them i'm interested in what's going on and in the literature there's this thing called known as deep questions um and and deep questions are actually really really interesting there's a guy named nick epley who's a psychologist and one of the things i love about nick is he has studied conversation and questions most of his career and he comes to it pretty honestly when he was in high school he um he was pulled over twice for for driving while intoxicated and he was like the you know the quarterback of the football team and mr popular on campus and the second time he's pulled over his parents are super freaked out they're like look man there's a problem here and he didn't hear them at all.

18:33Charles Duhigg: They were like, tell us what's going on. Like, why are you feeling this way? Like, why do you feel like you need to drink and drive? Why are you being, why are you being a jackass? And he's like, you guys don't understand me. I hate you, et cetera. And so they're like, look, you got to go talk to a therapist. So they sent him to this therapist and the therapist, instead of lecturing him or interrogating him or anything like that, just says, look, I just want you to tell me why do you think this happened like what were you feeling right before you had that drink and got into that car not like I'm going to judge you for it just literally like I'm just curious what you're feeling and then Nick would answer that question and she would ask another question a follow-up and again again and eventually Nick started listening to himself and he realized what he was saying was I drink because I feel uncomfortable and then once I then And I have to get home and I don't have another option.

19:28Charles Duhigg: And at that point, Nick says, like, actually, like, now I understand why I'm doing this thing. Not because the therapist told him what he was doing, not even because she led him down like a garden path towards it. She just asked questions that asked him how he felt. And this is what we know about deep questions is that deep questions invite us to expose vulnerability because they ask about something about our beliefs or values or experiences. And what's crazy is they don't have to seem that deep, right? Like if you meet someone and you ask them instead of what do you do for a living? You say to them, what do you love about your job?

20:04Charles Duhigg: That's a deep question. You're inviting them to tell you something about how they see the world and what they enjoy about life and how they see meaning in their own work. And then when they answer that with a little bit of vulnerability, when they say like, what I love about it is it lets me help people's lives. And, you know, not all my coworkers are the best. If you reciprocate that vulnerability and you say what I, I like, I totally understand what you're saying. And I feel the same way because here's what I love about my work. You can't help, but trust each other, right? It's almost impossible not to build that psychological safety because we've both, both exposed a little bit of who we are to the other person.

20:44Jonathan Fields: And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

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24:21Charles Duhigg: Yeah, it's a great question.

24:23Jonathan Fields: And nobody asks questions in conversation every day. People are like, somebody just shares this thing. And we rarely ask that question. And I wonder sometimes if we don't ask questions like that of friends, of family members, of coworkers, because we're afraid of what the answer is going to be. Because if it's not awesome or great, but actually I'm really struggling, we feel like that would then place a burden upon us to then respond to it in a way that was meaningful and thoughtful. And we don't know how to do that. So we just decide not to go there entirely, which keeps a level of separation between us.

24:59Charles Duhigg: I think that's really smart. I think it's a really, really smart insight. And of course, that sense of obligation that we feel, that worry that something will be, that we won't perform, live up to it. That's actually totally incorrect, right? Because if we ask someone, how do you feel? And they say, I'm actually feeling kind of down. All we have to do is say, tell me more about why you're feeling down. And we have fulfilled their need. They're signaling to us like they actually want to talk about what's on their mind. And that doesn't mean we have to solve the problem for them. In fact, we shouldn't solve the problem for them.

25:34Jonathan Fields: That's a different conversation. That's a different conversation. Right.

25:37Charles Duhigg: And sometimes our instinct when somebody says, I'm feeling really down, is to try and pick them up, right? To try and give them all these reasons why they shouldn't feel down. You're so great. But that's not what they're asking for. That's a practical conversation. That's us trying to solve the situation. what they're saying to us is i feel down and i want someone to hear why and sometimes just by explaining it to you i'll figure out more about myself in doing so and the more that we seek to match them where they are and then invite them to match us like sometimes like one of the best things that i think you can say to someone after you've asked them like why do you feel that way tell me more about it is if you say to them like can i tell you can i tell you like how i've handled this situation in the past ask for permission to change the conversation to a practical conversation oftentimes people are like hell yeah like like thank you thank you for inviting me to change the conversation from this you know pity party for myself into something else but the point is that we have to invite them we have to open up the door to that not force it on them yeah i mean In this same vein, you make a really interesting point in the book, which is that we're often taught that perspective taking is the most effective way to actually build this bridge.

27:02And it can be, but it's not always the best way.

27:06Jonathan Fields: And sometimes there are different ways in. I mean, I remember talking to somebody recently about empathy and conversations and who was sharing, you know, like we feel this human compulsion to say when somebody shares something, we want to then reciprocate on a similar level. And that can be a mechanism to build this mutual progressive vulnerability. But sometimes it turns into something different, which is a little bit of like a competitive sharing type of thing. and that they're simply, you know, being able to respond differently. Like that's not the only path. That's exactly right. To deepen the connection and let somebody feel seen, heard, and held.

27:49Charles Duhigg: That's exactly right. So, and I think this is a really good point. So reciprocity is a really important part of conversations, right? Like giving back and forth. But there's a difference between reciprocity and stealing the spotlight for yourself. So we've all been in this situation, right? Somebody, you know, we come to someone and we say like, you know, I'm kind of bummed. I'm feeling down because my aunt is sick. And they say, oh man, yeah, my dad was sick last year and this is how I felt about it. And it's kind of like, okay, like, I mean, we have this experience in common, but I'm not, I'm talking about myself here.

28:22Charles Duhigg: Or even worse, they're like, oh man, my dog was sick last week. And you're like, you're like, my aunt being sick and your dog being sick. It doesn't seem like the same to me. So the question is, how do we show what's known as conversational receptiveness, this reciprocity in a situation like that? What reciprocity means is not matching woe to woe. What it means is showing the other person that you have heard them. So sometimes if someone says, I'm feeling really down because my aunt is sick, all that they really need to hear is us saying, it seems like this is really bothering you and I'm sorry that it's bothering you.

29:01Charles Duhigg: Tell me more about it. Right? We've reciprocated. They've showed us that they're upset and we've reciprocated that by saying, I recognize that you're upset. I, and it's valid that you're upset. It's totally valid that you're upset. Not because I have an aunt that got sick myself, but because I hear you in pain and I just want you to know that I see that and tell me more about it, that is reciprocity. And it's a form of reciprocity that doesn't steal the spotlight. And as that conversation gets deeper, you might very well say, like, you know, what I hear you saying is that you're feeling really down about this.

29:35Charles Duhigg: And I understand that because, you know, I had a parent who, or I had a family member who got sick a year ago. But instead of trying to force my story on them, simply by showing them that I hear what they're saying, that's what reciprocity is.

29:50Jonathan Fields: Which can be so powerful. I mean, and I know, you know, I've had friends who have been in deep grief or friends who are dealing with who have cancer. And they're not looking for reciprocity and they're not looking for the practical conversation either. Like all they want to do is not be ignored. Yes. Because so many people don't know how to respond in those situations. So they just back away. That's exactly. And like the simple, I mean, I literally asked a friend of mine once, like, what should I say to you or to anyone else? It's like in this, in this history, she's like, honestly, just anything like that must be so hard.

30:28Jonathan Fields: Yeah, that's it.

30:30Charles Duhigg: You know, my dad died about five years ago. And the interesting thing for anyone who's had a parent pass away is it's obviously sad and it's hard and it brings up all these emotions. It's also really interesting, right? It's oftentimes the most interesting thing that has happened that month because it does bring up all these new emotions and these new experiences. And I would come back and people would ask me, hey, where were you last week? And I'd say, my father passed away and I was at the funeral. And nobody ever asked me anything about the funeral. They never asked me anything about my dad.

31:04Charles Duhigg: And I was like, if somebody had said, what was your dad like? I would have loved to have told them about that. right? Like I would have loved to have told him about this thing I just experienced that was so like meaningful and profound. And that doesn't mean that they have to say, you know, my dad died too. So I understand what that's like, but simply showing curiosity in someone else's experiences. That's, that's the thing that helps us connect. Um, and it's interesting. I'll mention, and this is like on a completely different tone in the book, there's this, the story about, um, the big Bang Theory, this TV show, the biggest sitcom.

31:44Charles Duhigg: One of the things that the writers of that show found, which is why it succeeded so well, is they found that when they have characters obviously try to connect with each other, then it almost doesn't matter what the character is saying, the audience likes them. So there's something about our psychology, and this is a product of evolution that when someone shows that they want to connect with us, we tend to, to see that as a very trusting, trusting gesture. And laughter is a great example of this. Um, if there was, there's been all these studies that I've looked at, um, when people laugh and you would think that people laugh in response to something that's funny.

32:27Charles Duhigg: And that's not true. That's only true for like 20 % of the time. Like, just like I laughed when people laugh, it's usually because they're showing someone that they want to connect with them. And then the other person will laugh back to show that that desire for connection has been acknowledged. It's like an evolutionary trait that's developed within our brains. And in fact, NASA uses this to try and figure out who will be good astronauts. They pay attention to how astronaut applicants laugh when they're in interviews, because they found that the people who laugh genuinely, who match the laughter of the interviewer, those people are signaling that they want to connect.

33:07Charles Duhigg: And it's the signaling that we want to connect that matters as much as the connection itself. We tend to think that the other person is trustworthy because they're showing us they want to connect with us.

33:20Jonathan Fields: That research around laughter is so fascinating. I remember years ago reading research that said, we rarely laugh in solitude. And so this syncs completely with that because it's not just like, yeah we can think something's really funny and maybe a little chuckle but like it it is it's a social signal it's an absolutely social and that's a huge part of laughter which we don't really think about we're just like if something's funny we laugh like that's just the way it is but no actually if you're sitting on a couch alone and watching like something you're probably not gonna laugh even if you think it's funny but if somebody your bestie is next to you you guys may be cracking

33:55Charles Duhigg: up next to each other totally or or just notice like what next time you're talking to a friend and they laugh, ask yourself, did you just say something funny? Probably the answer is no, right? You didn't say anything that funny. They're just trying to, and, and so one of the interesting questions is how do we operationalize this? Like, how do we make this something that like that? And, and one of my favorite examples about, about how to do this, um, is around listening and particularly this, this concept known as, um, looping for understanding. So, So most of the time when people are listening, the way that they try and show that they're listening is that they do things like they nod while someone is speaking or they make eye contact.

34:36Charles Duhigg: The problem is when we're talking, we're so focused on our own words that we tend not to notice what other people are doing. So when we talk about active listening, about proving that we're listening to someone, very often what matters is what we do after they stop speaking. and in particular there's this technique known as as looping for understanding which is it just has three steps it's like the simplest thing on earth ask someone a question tell them what you just heard them say and then ask them if you got it right right so like somebody says like you know i i think that none of us should vote in the presidential election say like you know why do you think that way?

35:21Charles Duhigg: And then repeat back to them in your own words, what they just said, and then say like, am I understanding you correctly? Did I get that right? That's how we operationalize this reciprocity, this, this reset, listening receptiveness. And it's very, very simple, right? It's stuff that we learned to do. Like when our parents told us to do when we were like five years old. And it turns out if you do this in a conversation, it transforms hard conversations. It's basically impossible to have conflict. When people are looping for understanding, because what we're doing is we're proving to the other person we want to hear them.

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38:15Jonathan Fields: I have been in some way trained in that methodology in different contexts. Years ago, when I was a kid, I spent a hot minute as an outside salesperson. And that was, you know, they sent all the new people to this place outside of D.C. and for a week at sales training. And they were teaching you all these, quote, techniques. And we were like cold sales. We literally knock on doors of offices, walk in and say, like, I'm here to talk to the CEO. Terrifying. And I was horrible at it. But I remember one of the things they said to do was exactly this. They're like, basically ask a question and then reflect back.

38:53Jonathan Fields: You know, like what I hear you say is this. Did I get it right? And keep going. Because the person is probably going to say, look, well, kind of mostly, but there's this one other thing. Exactly. That actually it's not quite right. And then they're going to share it. And then you say, oh, OK. Okay, so then what I'm hearing you say, so like you keep it going around until that person is nodding like, yes. And I've also heard a variation of this offered by therapists, especially dealing with family and relationships where people are just really talking through each other. And this is like this really core therapeutic modality to get people to start to legit, especially when there's some sort of resentment or anger built up in a relationship to break through it.

39:40Jonathan Fields: Because once the resentment and the anger is there, you really no longer hear or see each other. You hear or see the representation of what you feel has been built over sometimes years or decades. And it breaks through the fiction of what you think is going on to get to the truth of what's going on.

39:56Charles Duhigg: That's totally. And this brings up a really interesting thing, which is like, how does communication work within our brains? So there's been these experiments, again in the last decade that have shown that when you and I connect in a conversation as we are now, if we had the ability to measure all these things, what we would see is that our eyes are starting to dilate at the same rate. Our breath is starting to match each other, even though we're not aware of it, even though we're not in the same room, our heart rates are starting to match. If we could measure it, the electrical impulses on our skin are similar.

40:28Charles Duhigg: And most importantly, and the reason why this is happening is because if we could see inside both of our brains, what we would say is our brains beginning to synchronize, right? That's what communication is. Communication is me having a thought, saying it, and you basically experiencing the same thought, understanding it. And this is known as neural entrainment in the psychological and neurological literature. And so the point that you just made, when we're having a conflict, when we're having a conversation in conflict, we're not entrained, right? Because instead of hearing what you're saying, what I'm doing is I'm, I have a story inside my head.

41:09Charles Duhigg: I have, I have a series of thoughts or brainwaves within my head and I'm investing in those ones instead of listening to what you're trying to tell me and you're doing the same thing. And so the question is, how do we break through if communication is about us becoming entrained about having the same thought at the same time, really clicking, right? That's why we call it clicking. How do we do that? The number one step is to disrupt that story that's inside our head, like to put us in a place where I can actually listen to you. And if I say to myself, instead of like my job being to respond to the attacks you're making, or my job being to defend myself, if my job is to just listen as closely as I can and try and repeat back in my own words, what you just said, I'm going to entrain with you.

41:56Charles Duhigg: And more importantly, I'm going to invite you to entrain with me. Because if you feel like you're being listened to, almost automatically, we start listening more closely back. Again, this is reciprocity. When someone listens closely to us, when it's clear they're making an effort, we feel an obligation to listen closely to them. And then we become entrained. And even if we don't agree with each other, at least we understand what the other person is trying to say yeah i i just think that's so

42:26Jonathan Fields: important it's funny like this is elements i've used this phrase exquisite attention for years now talking about almost like the spell that can be cast between two people when they are in sync on a level where it feels like the world outside of that interaction falls away um and so you're describing sort of like this is the physiology of some of what's actually happening inside of that state, like inside the spell and why it's so powerful. Because I would imagine, even if we're not sitting across from somebody and like measuring, you know, like their brain waves and their all these, but there's gotta be something about our sensory system beyond the words that are being said that picks it up.

43:12Charles Duhigg: Absolutely.

43:13Jonathan Fields: And that knows that this is unusual in a really powerful and beautiful way.

43:16Charles Duhigg: Absolutely. And if you think about it, that's evolved within our brains, right? We basically have this ability to pick up on that stuff that I just mentioned without even realizing it, because that is the thing that makes a species survive. Like the ability to communicate with each other, the ability to trust each other and build trust. Without that, you can't build families and societies and families and societies and cultures. They help people do better. And so the people who are good at this stuff, they end up surviving and others don't and it evolves. But here's the important part of it is that all of us have this capacity, right?

43:54Charles Duhigg: It can feel very overwhelming for us to tell you like, you know, there's three kinds of conversations and you should match each other and you should ask deep questions. All this, it almost seems like too many, too many instructions, right? It's too much to remember. But the important thing to know about this is all of us know how to do this. It's literally an instinct that we're born with because of evolution. And so the goal of this book, Supercommunicators, and the science in many ways is just to remind people of what they can do. because sometimes we can get so deep inside our own heads that we stop paying attention.

44:31Charles Duhigg: We stop paying attention to other people. We stop, we stop remembering to listen and to show that we're listening. And part of the goal of, of super communicators is just to say, look, let me just remind you of how communication works because you know, this, you know, this on an intuitive level. And the more you listen to your intuition, the more you let go and trust yourself in a conversation, the more that conversation is going to, the better that conversation is going to go and the more you're going to connect. What's your take on how technology plays into all this?

45:06Jonathan Fields: Because on the one hand, we're having this conversation, you know, we're like, we are not in the same place. We can see each other. We can see our body. I can hear your breathing. I can see your facial expressions, but we're not physically present in the same room, which we used to do for six years and like the earlier part of the podcast and that all got blown up um and overnight we had to say and and part of our ethos was we we only recorded in person in our own studio in new york city um because i didn't feel like i could get the depth and level of connection um in a virtual or a remote environment 2020 hits you know we basically have to make a decision we're either shutting down or we're tap dancing and saying, let's try this whole new world and see if we can recreate that same sense of safety and intimacy and nuance that would let conversations be real and deep and rich.

46:00Jonathan Fields: And I realized I was wrong. I realized that we can, and that on the one hand, and that the technology allowed me to do something that I never thought was possible. So that's on the give side, yay. but on the take side so much of a technology now um makes us no longer pressed in interactions that we're having absolutely and like no matter how much you know oh i want to do these things and engagement when we've got something that is you know every nine seconds there's a vibration going off in our front right pocket it's got to be brutalizing even if you really want to connect

46:38Charles Duhigg: with other people in some way yeah no it's a really great point and it's it's really interesting to hear that you guys had this look can i ask you one thing that realization that you can get as deep and as meaningful virtually as you could in person was that right away or was that something that kind of kind of look gradually yeah you learned we learned gradually but also i think

46:59Jonathan Fields: there was something that happened that um but for the pandemic um would have i think we still would have gotten there but maybe we've taken another 10 years which is that everybody the entire world was forced to get comfortable in the virtual space, you know, in a matter of weeks, rather than in a matter of years, because your very existence, often your livelihood like depended on it. So everyone was weird and fumbling and awkward in the beginning. And the platforms actually got a lot better really fast. So it was all of a sudden people were like, oh, like I actually, I can do this. Like the technology isn't a barrier.

47:36Jonathan Fields: Everybody knows how to use this. And like, I kind of know that the sound has to be okay and like i have to be in a well-lit room and what i didn't see coming was the potential for um the intimacy and safety of a person's personal space their home often would transfer into the virtual space and lend that sense of safety yeah and intimacy to to create a tether that often crossed continents that's really really that blew me away because i never saw that coming

48:07Charles Duhigg: So there's a story in the book about these two conversations. There's this group that wanted to try and figure out how to help people have conversations around conflict. And the conflict that they chose, just kind of by chance, was the guns debate. So they invited all these people who are pro-gun and all these people who are anti-gun to Washington, D.C. And they sort of at the Newseum, they met for three days and they trained them in communication methods. And even though these people basically were like enemies when they walked in, everyone walked away saying like, this was so meaningful. I learned so much about the other side.

48:42Charles Duhigg: This was so great. and then to keep the conversation going they move it online they had a private facebook page and like literally within 45 minutes well all these people who like walked away being like you know this is great i love you this is fantastic within 45 minutes once they were online they were calling each other like jack booted nazi thugs right like and like you know trying to own the libs and and and so there was this interesting question like what happened why why did this work so well in person, and then it fell apart once it went online. And what the researchers figured out was that we have been talking to each other for roughly about two millennia, right?

49:22Charles Duhigg: So we have worked out a whole series of cues and signals and ways of transmitting communication that are so subtle that we can't even notice them at this point that have to do with verbal communication or in personal communication. But, you know, a phone conversation is really rich, right? You can still get, you can get deep with someone on the phone. On the other hand, we have only been talking online since 1983. And so as a result, there's a bunch of like little things that like are still getting worked out about how to do this online. And as they're getting worked out, the problem is it's fine to work them out.

50:02Charles Duhigg: But the problem is that when we don't say, oh, look, we're at the beginning of this. We got to, there's going to be mistakes. We, I need to over explain to someone what I'm thinking or feeling when I'm typing, as opposed to when I'm talking, when we don't realize that we're, that we need to overemphasize that's when something bad happens. And so one of the interesting things I heard you say is that it's not like they flipped a switch and suddenly you went from in-person to virtual and you discovered, Oh, virtual is as good as in-person. It was a process, right? You, you learned how to communicate with people in a virtual manner.

50:41Charles Duhigg: That's a little bit different from in person. And, and all of us were learning because we were having these zoom meetings and the platforms were learning how to basically, how to make this even easier for us. And as we learn that we get better and better at it, but that doesn't mean we are an expert on day one. And so the same way that for instance, if I'm talking to someone in a foreign language language that I'm not very fluent in, I'm going to over-explain what I'm trying to tell them because I just assume that they're going to misunderstand some of what I'm saying because I'm not good at speaking this language.

51:16Charles Duhigg: When we're online, we should kind of make the same assumption. That's why, for instance, you know, when you say something ironic, if I was to say it, something to you ironic right now, you would know from the tone of my voice that I'm being ironic. And when I type something ironic, I hear that tone of the voice inside my own head. But you as the reader, you don't hear it. You think that I'm this, you think I'm just being mean, right? Or saying something weird. And so it's just part of this is just giving us ourselves permission when we're online to be a little bit more careful, to overemphasize a little bit more what we're actually trying to say.

51:53Charles Duhigg: With the full acknowledgement that like, it's just because we're learning a brand new language and it takes a while to do that.

52:00Jonathan Fields: I also wonder that what you just described, that experiment, you know, the other element there in my eyes would be the difference between a conversation that is private and the conversation that is going to be observed. Absolutely. And when you know that the conversation is going to be observed by potentially a group of people within whom you want to have a sense of belonging, and sometimes it is your primary group of people and a whole bunch of things may depend on you being a member in good standing of that community, that you're not just having that conversation with the one other person online now.

52:42Jonathan Fields: You're having a conversation with everybody else who you believe to be watching that conversation. So you're social signaling to everyone else. And that may profoundly change what you're going to say. It may even make you say things that you feel really bad about saying. But the desire to not be ostracized from the group overwhelms that.

53:03Charles Duhigg: And this is the social conversation. And the interesting thing about the social conversation is that it can happen when people are watching us. it can also happen when it's just one-on-one, but we're thinking of those other people inside our head, right? Like there's part of us that, that if I say something that I know would upset my mom or upset my grandmother, there's something inside my head that says like, even though my mom and my grandmother never hurt, didn't hear me say this and they never will. I kind of feel bad about saying it because I know that it would bug them. Right. And this social conversation is really, really important because sometimes our instinct is just to pretend it doesn't exist, right?

53:41Charles Duhigg: If we're talking to someone who comes from a different social background from us, a different race, a different ethnicity, a different gender, a different socioeconomic background, sometimes our instinct is to pretend that those differences don't exist because they can feel uncomfortable. But what we know is that when we're in a social conversation, when we're talking to them about society or we're talking to them about other people, even if we're just gossiping about like the office place, which is a social conversation that oftentimes by acknowledging those differences, we actually connect better.

54:17Charles Duhigg: So for instance, um, you know, I know that you live in Boulder right now and that you have one kid who's, who's older. My kids are younger. I think that there's a difference there. That's interesting. And by acknowledging it, by saying like, you have some wisdom that comes from raising a child that I don't have yet. and I have some that's highly debatable it's highly debatable and I have some instincts that come from being in the middle of it that you maybe have forgotten like when we pose it that way it's not offensive to point out these differences it's actually recognizing and acknowledging that we that we have something unique to say and the same thing is true when it's a racial difference right when someone who's white and someone who's black is talking to each other And this is something that happened in the book that we talk about at Netflix.

55:07Charles Duhigg: There was this incident inside Netflix that kind of tore the company apart and they were trying to figure out how to have conversations to come back from it. And it was around race. It was a, a white executive used the N word. Um, and it, it just, it just became this thing that there was eating the company up and destroying it. That the answer was to say, like you, you as a, as a black employee at Netflix, you have a set of experiences that are different from mine as a white employee. And hearing those, recognizing those, validating that those experiences are real, that's really, really important because I want to learn from them.

55:49Charles Duhigg: And similarly, as a white employee, I have a set of experiences that are different from yours. And validating and recognizing that those exist, that lets us understand each other better. That helps us entrain. And so ignoring those differences, which feels sometimes like the easiest thing to do, oftentimes is not what lets us connect. Rather, acknowledging the differences, validating the importance of those differences, recognizing the virtues of those differences, how they give us perspectives that are really interesting and wonderful and worth sharing. That's the thing that makes us feel like we can all come to work or to home or to a conversation and be our full self.

56:33Jonathan Fields: to not just push that aside and say like, can we actually just center this and have a conversation about it with curiosity? Not saying what we're going to resolve this or show that one side is right or one side is wrong, but can we actually just get curious about our differences?

56:54Charles Duhigg: And the point is not to resolve it, right? Like resolving it is a practical conversation. And maybe there is a time then like, if there's something going on that we have to be practical about, we can have that conversation. But rather than saying like, the goal is to resolve this is just to say, I want to hear what your experiences are like. I want to show you that I'm hearing what you're telling me. And then, and then if it's okay, I'd like to share what my experiences are like. That's how we, that's how we get beyond those stories inside our heads that prevent us from hearing each other.

57:23Jonathan Fields: One of the things I'm curious about also, um, we've kind of woven the notion of safety in and out of this conversation today. And you write about this, you know, um, how do we make hard conversations safer. We were just talking about that a bit also. Do you feel like, and we talked about the difficulty of sometimes doing that when the conversation is happening at scale or in an observable way. Do you feel like there is a way to have a conversation at scale that in some way, shape, or form can bring enough safety into it so that the conversation can be what everybody wants it to be.

58:04Charles Duhigg: That's really interesting. That's a really good question. And when you say at scale, what do you mean? Like what, what are you thinking?

58:09Jonathan Fields: Within a company or, or even like a one to many type of scenario. You know, like you and I are just having a conversation, two people talking to each other. You and I also both speak from stages, you know, where it's one person speaking and there are sometimes thousands of people in the audience. um and and sometimes you have that feeling where you feel like as the speaker you're on stage but you feel deeply connected to everybody in that sometimes theater and then people will walk out who are in like the third balcony in the last row and feel like you were just speaking to them yeah and that to me has always felt like a bit of a superpower um to be able to do that and i've often wondered like what lets that happen so i think part of a big reason and there's a lot of

58:59Charles Duhigg: research that has looked at that and and the the most consistent finding is that two things are happening that that speaker is doing that the audience is giving the speaker permission to do the first is that they are the speaker is inviting the person to connect with them right And the way that they do that is by exposing a vulnerability. Now, when I say exposing a vulnerability, most people think of that as like getting up and being like, you know, my father beat me when I was a child. That's not, you don't have to do that to expose a vulnerability. Sometimes exposing a vulnerability is getting up and just saying like, hey, it is so great to be here.

59:42Charles Duhigg: Thank you so much. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. Right? When I say that, I'm signaling to the audience, like, I really want to entertain you. I really want you to enjoy this. I hope that you enjoy this. And that is a vulnerability because it puts the power in the audience's hand to decide whether they think I'm doing a good job or not. and when I do that I'm inviting them to connect with me I'm inviting them to to remember those times that they have given a speech and that they really wanted it to go well and that they tried hard it's also why when I think I'm giving a speech and I assume this is true for you and for a number of people the thing that makes it successful like what you didn't say is you didn't say, I was so polished.

1:00:35Charles Duhigg: I hit my lines so well. The timing was exactly right. That's why people connected with me. It's not about being polished.

1:00:43Jonathan Fields: Yeah. I've never had that experience, by the way.

1:00:46Charles Duhigg: It's about being genuine, right? It's about being real on that stage. It's about exposing something about yourself. And this is the thing that we know is that when it comes to conversations, particularly the emotional conversations, but all of them. Vulnerability is the most powerful tool that we have. And vulnerability does not mean that I need to tell you a sob story. Vulnerability does not mean that I need to ask you about all the trauma you've experienced. Sometimes vulnerability is just laughing. That when someone says something that isn't that funny, laughing to show them that you want to connect with them.

1:01:27Charles Duhigg: Because you're making an invitation, Like, I want to be your friend. And they get to choose whether they're going to laugh back and join you in that laughter or whether they're going to brush you off. And it's the act of exposing yourself a little bit. Talking about what you believe or what you feel or an experience you had. Asking someone about their beliefs or their values or their experiences. That's what creates that real sense of connection and safety. And it can be one-on-one or it can be one to thousands. does that does that correspond to your experiences does that yeah no it definitely does because i

1:02:03Jonathan Fields: think i spent probably the better part of the first part of my speaking career for like a better word um trying to be like literally like having every step every word everything every story dialed in and do you feel competent doing that sure do you feel like you're in service of an audience genuinely and connecting them and giving them what they like they showed up for not often and it's it's only when literally i remember being in the middle of a keynote going blank which is like every speaker does it at some point you completely forget i often don't use slides so there's nothing to prompt me what's coming next and i'm sitting on the stage starting to hypervent i'm not sitting i'm standing on the stage starting to hyperventilate you know this i feel like you know their sweat just exploding out of my body.

1:02:53Jonathan Fields: And, and I, I literally, I, I look at somebody in the front row and I smile and I'm just like, I just completely spaced out. Where was I? And she, she, she shouted out a word, which brought me back. I giggled and kind of laughed at myself and the audience just went along for right. Cause all of a sudden they're like, wait, He's not a robot. You know, like he's one of us. And then at that point, it almost felt like they wanted to see me win and recover. And then like that was a moment where I was like, what just happened there? Because and can I do more of that? Not blank, go blank, but can I just like show up as me?

1:03:35Jonathan Fields: And again, like, you know, there's often this mythology that, oh, you've got to tell the big, horrible story and the redemption story. It's like, no, just, it's the, it just sharing your humanity is, um, is such a big part of it. Um, because that's like you said, vulnerability, that's where it really happens.

1:03:54Charles Duhigg: No, I love that story. And I do something kind of similar, which is, you know, sometimes I'll often talk about the power of habit and I've been talking about it for a decade now. And so I kind of, you know, so what I'll do is when I'm talking about the power of habit, I'll always try and tell a new joke. and the joke that I'll choose is a joke that I'm only 50 % certain is going to work. And the reason why I choose a joke is only 50 % certain is because when it bombs, it's even better. Right. When I tell a joke and it bombs and nobody laughs and then I, and then I'm like, okay, I guess that joke, I'm not using that joke again.

1:04:29Charles Duhigg: It reminds people like I'm trying, Like, like I'm not on autopilot. I'm up here trying to, trying to entertain you, trying to connect with you. And that trying is what matters. That's where the humanity comes from. And it's really powerful. And we can do it in conversations too, right? It's as simple as just saying to someone like, you know, what do you love about your job? That question exposes a vulnerability. Like when I ask that question, it's, it's a little personal. And it shows to the other person, like, I'm exposing something about myself. I'm the kind of person who's willing to ask that kind of question.

1:05:09Charles Duhigg: Will you play along and will you answer it? Because you could brush me off and be like, that's a weird question. I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore. But if you never ask it. But if you never ask it. You never open the door.

1:05:21Jonathan Fields: Exactly. And if somebody brushes that question off, chances are the openness or willingness for connection in the first place was never there.

1:05:28Charles Duhigg: Totally.

1:05:28Jonathan Fields: So at least it's almost like you've just pre-qualified the person. Now you can move on to someone else to maybe really have that connection.

1:05:34Charles Duhigg: Exactly. Or maybe they're signaling like, look, I see you trying to move this into an emotional conversation and I'm just not interested. I'm here for a practical conversation.

1:05:43Jonathan Fields: Yeah. Maybe there's just not a resource for it in that moment.

1:05:46Charles Duhigg: Totally. And sometimes if you're there to like, you want to buy a car and the car salesman is trying to nudge you and you're like, no, no, I'm not interested in telling you. Tell me about your childhood. Yeah. I'm not interested in telling you about my hopes and dreams, my friend. I want to know like what kind of discount you're going to give me. That's like, that's okay. It's okay to signal that the point is that you should be aware of the conversation you're having. Like that shouldn't happen by accident. That should happen because you're making a choice. And, and if you're on the other side of that, not the used car salesman, but if you're someone who's trying to connect, you should remember these in these skills that we all have that we can and actually have a deeper conversation with someone simply by asking them to.

1:06:33Jonathan Fields: I love that. And it feels like a great place for us to come full circle as well. So I started asking this question at the end of every Good Life Project conversation after we first sat down 12 years ago. So I'm gonna ask it to you, even though this is our second time recording a conversation for the first time ever, which is in the container of Good Life Project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life? What comes up?

1:07:00Charles Duhigg: That's a really good question. I wish you'd asked me this a decade ago and I could see how my answer has changed over time.

1:07:10Charles Duhigg: So the final chapter in Super Communicators is about the Harvard study of happiness, right? And most people are familiar with this. It's the largest longitudinal study that's ever gone on to try and figure out why some people end up being happy as they get older and others don't and successful. And what's interesting about it is that the language that those researchers have used, because it's been a long time now, has changed quite a bit over time. They talk about connection now. They used to talk about love. The secret was love. And they didn't mean romantic love. They meant the love between friends.

1:07:44Charles Duhigg: but the thing that's been consistent is that if you look at why people are happy they're happy because they have connections with other people and the connections that we have with other people it doesn't have to be a huge number of people the number of people doesn't matter but the depth of the connection does and the way that we create deep connections is through conversation right It's like, I love spending time with my wife when we're not talking to each other, when we're watching a movie together, when we're going on a walk. But the times that I remember most are the conversations that we've had.

1:08:22Charles Duhigg: And that's probably true for all of us. So when I think of like what the good life is, what I think of the good life is, for me at least, is having people around me whom I love, who I'm having conversations with, where we can actually connect with each other. And that gets harder and harder as we get older, right? Because we get inside our own heads and we start deciding that some people are worth talking to and others aren't and that person's never going to change and it doesn't matter what I say to that guy, he's not going to listen to me. but if we try if we understand how to have different kinds of conversations and to invite people to match us and to match them then we can have those conversations that make us feel really connected and if I can do that for the rest of my life I'm certain I'm going to die happy

1:09:15Jonathan Fields: thank you hey before you leave be sure to tune in next week for our conversation with Krista and Will Vanderveer we'll be talking about how to make the quote, invisible rules in your relationship visible so that you can stop walking on eggshells and start leading together. Be sure to follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss the conversation. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers, Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young. Chris Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts.

1:09:52Jonathan Fields: If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did because you're still here. Do me a personal favor, a seven-second favor, and share it with just one person. If you want to share it with more, hey, that's awesome. But just one person, even then, invite them to talk with you about what you both discovered to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter. Because that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.

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