Alison Wood Brooks: Cracking the Conversation Code

27:20And everybody can develop that skill. Okay. Myth number two, I think a lot of people would say it's kind of tacky to prepare a topic list in advance of meeting people that, you know, you shouldn't pre-plan the topics you're going to talk about. So bust this myth. I'm so happy to bust this myth. I love the word tacky. When we, when we survey people, when we say, imagine prepping topics before a conversation, especially with someone you know well, like your spouse or your lover. Yeah. Look at your topic list. Let's go. I love it. So a lot of people are very averse to this idea. They're like, I shouldn't have to brainstorm topics.

28:00I'm going to know what to talk about once I'm in a conversation, especially with people that I know well. In the experience of it, in reality, once you get to a conversation, having thought ahead about it is incredibly helpful, not just for a podcast interview or for a work meeting where you brainstormed an agenda, but even for conversations with people that you love and know well and see every day, because it forces you to just think about them. It's a perspective taking nudge where you're like, oh yeah, what's going on in my partner's life? What do I need to remember to ask them? It's a way to show them that you care and that it helps you remember to raise the topics that you should be raising with them.

28:40Make things more enjoyable, less anxiety inducing, smoother, more productive, all the good things. You know, there is no one who is more positive about AI than Guy. And I often do this and I think AI is smarter than me. There's no doubt in my mind, chat GPT is smarter than me. Oh yeah, smarter than all of us for sure. I mean, by definition, it's like as smart as the masses, right but one thing ai absolutely cannot do that i can do is come up with questions and topics for a podcast because before every podcast i usually ask what should i ask katie milkman or angela duckworth or steve wolfram and they always come up with really boring questions like what was the most exciting part of your career what do you look forward to etc etc and if there is ever a day where I asked, what should I ask Allison in a question in a podcast?

29:35And the LLM says, Guy, ask her why she talks so much about licking. That's the day that AI has arrived. Why do you think that is? Do you think it's a unique skill set that you have as an individual? Or do you think it's a broader human ability? We're just better at knowing or anticipating what will be fun and interesting to talk about with other people. I think it's because using your vernacular of system one and system two, I'm about system 10. That's why. Okay, wait, more mids. I got two more mids. Oh yeah, that's right. Keep going. Sorry. Don't let me derail you. So myth number three, it's bad to ask too many questions.

30:21Oh, I love busting this myth. Everybody can think of a person. They can think of a person or think of a conversation where they were annoyed that somebody asked too many questions. It felt like an interrogation. That memory is so salient that it leads us to believe that you can ask too many questions when in most contexts, for most people, it's either impossible to ask too many questions or the number of questions that you would need to ask to get to that annoying point is so extremely high that you almost can't possibly get there. This is true, particularly in cooperative conversations where you're collaborating or you're on a date or you're just there to have fun, connect with people.

31:01That's a big chunk of the conversations we have in our life are cooperative conversations. And even in competitive, conflictual conversations where you need to negotiate something. My fourth myth is that it is bad to ask sensitive questions. It's bad to not ask sensitive questions. It's terribly bad. It means you're going to get stuck in small talk world, mundane, meaningless, unproductive world forever. We have all kinds of fears about asking sensitive questions. We don't want to hurt people's feelings. We don't want to seem rude. We don't want to seem intrusive. We don't want to seem incompetent, right?

31:41Sometimes we worry that asking a question will make it look like we should already know the answer to it. in truth, asking sensitive questions is the most direct pathway to connection, to learning, to teaching, to ironically, even to privacy, right? Because only by asking a sensitive question, can you learn where somebody's personal boundary is where they can say, actually, I'm not comfortable talking about that. Otherwise, you'll never find it. And you can never learn how to, you know, where are their boundaries? What are they comfortable talking about and not talking about. So yes, we need to ask more sensitive questions.

32:17So how much do you make as a Harvard Business School professor? That's such a good question. I love it. I'll tell you what, book deals help you earn a lot more. And I think that's why a lot of professors are writing these trade books. I need a number here. I'm still not tenured. I'm a junior faculty member. So I actually don't know what my tenured faculty colleagues make. I'm asking you, not your tenured faculty colleagues. You think you can just avoid my sensitive questions. Guy, can I be real with you? My husband is a financial advisor and I don't even know how much money I make. Okay. The money flows I learned from your book that you have to learn when to switch topics.

33:12I actually want to answer your question. I think the sincere answer to your question is more than enough. Too much. I mean, too much. Speaking of tactics, so do you think it's better to switch too many topics or what's worse, too fast or too slow switching? We know this. I know this answer, not just based on my personal hunches or preferences. Of course, I love rapid topic switching. I think because I have an ADHD sort of inattentive brain. I think you do too. But we also actually have data on this. This is a huge data set that was collected from BetterUp, which it's just amazing conversations.

33:53After their conversations, like hundreds of thousands of conversations, they ask people, did you cover the right amount of topics? and most people say, yeah, I think we covered about the right amount of topics. But of all the people who said, no, we did not cover the right amount of topics, people are much more likely to say that they covered too few than too many. So the most common mistake is moving too slowly through topics. And we see that when we manipulate the speed with which people move from one thing to the next. So we've run experiments where we tell people, move faster. As soon as things start to lag, we want you to move to something else.

34:32And those conversations are much more enjoyable. Okay. So now let me ask you. So what about when people who are hesitant to ask sensitive questions start with the question like I did? May I ask you a sensitive question? Do you think that is a cop out? Do you think that is a waste of time? Or do you think that is a good social grace? I think it's a nice signposting. It's a little bit of a warning like, hey, something's coming. Pay attention. It at least gives the veneer or the veil of politeness and caring, right? You're also saying, I'm going to ask you something sensitive. If you don't want to answer it, I understand, right?

35:11That's a nice disclaimer. The same is true when you switch topics. You can note, like, is it okay if I take a hard left turn here? Is it okay if we smoke bomb and move to something else? It's almost like you're asking permission of your partner, even though they're sort of required to say yes because they don't know what's coming next but yes I think it's lovely or you can just do it just ask how much money do you make guy you know like just go for it and see how people my wife is my financial planner I really don't know and everything is a direct deposit I don't check my balance but can I tell you a really funny story yes you can use this story I think I get to decide if it's funny but okay go ahead Oh, I guarantee you when I tell you something is funny, it's funny.

35:55All right. So when I was at Apple, I used to work with some of the executives in outside companies who are Macintosh users. And one very famous person was a woman named Sandra Kurtzig. She started a computer company called Ask Computing. It was manufacturing software. She was the first woman in Silicon Valley to take a company public. So she was very, very rich. and she had this Ferrari Testarossa, which I love Ferraris. Not that I ever own one. So anyway, she reaches out to us. She says, I'm having problems with my Macintosh. So Guy goes over to her house to help her with her Macintosh, right?

36:34And she shakes the mouse and the screen wakes up. And the window in the front is Quicken. And I know how to use Quicken. I know exactly where the current balance of your checkbook is. And I, as soon as she wakes up quick and I look down, I was like, holy shit, she has a quarter million dollars in her checking account. And ever since that day, it's been one of my goals to have a quarter million dollars in your checking account. And I have achieved that goal, Allison. Yes, guy. Yes. I love that you were, your eyes darted so quickly to the balance. It's like, it's such a lovely measure of your like inner curiosity.

37:13I love it so much. And you've done it. Is that it? You can drop the mic. You've achieved all the things you wanted in life. Quicken, you're 250 in your checking account. Tell that to your husband. I will. So if you ever need help with your Macintosh, be sure you have quick books closed when you call me to your house or I will know. I love it. I love it. I hope you're not tracking my screen right now. we're talking now i'm like oh god does he have access to on my computer what do you want what is this what is this what does this even do it's too late i already posted it on threads how much money you have clayton christensen is up there laughing at us like guy you're really taking it to her go guy go he's cheering you on i can't decide if he's what would be cheering you on more or cheering me on i think he's cheering us on together he's saying i'm gonna write a new book called the conversationless dilemma.

38:16Exactly. When you love both people so much, what do you do? So, okay. Another question, what happens or what's the impact or the value? If somebody gives you an inappropriate, mean, or destructive answer, and the person then says, I was just being honest. Does that excuse you for being an asshole? There's a really great Taylor Swift lyric that says, casually cruel for the sake of being honest. Ooh, that line will cut you like a knife. And I think it cuts you like a knife because it really captures something that we all feel torn about. This tension between benevolence or kindness or politeness and honesty, because often the true contents of our minds are not kind.

39:08Our brains are built for judgment and social evaluation and negative evaluation of other people and their work. And as you can tell from the book, I think a lot about what kindness means. Sometimes being honest in the short term, maybe giving feedback that someone needs to hear is kindest in the long term. But still, you can deliver that honesty in a way that hopefully, and I think there's some nice ingredients in the book to do this, in a way that isn't even hurtful in the moment so that we can navigate this conundrum between benevolence and honesty even there with more kindness. Up next on Remarkable People.

39:51They are on a Zoom call, but emailing at the same time. And so you get to see how overlapping and twisted and braided our conversations are these days. And what you realize is it's not just about choosing topics and asking questions. It's doing that while you're also engaged in like six other conversations at the same time that have their own unique topics and their own questions. And sometimes a human mind on the other end synchronously and sometimes not. And this new conversational world that requires us to toggle like this can feel quite overwhelming.

40:27Thank you to all our regular podcast listeners. It's our pleasure and honor to make the show for you. If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate, and review it. Even better, forward it to a friend. A big mahalo to you for doing this. Welcome back to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki. What's your advice when you have to converse with someone that you just completely disagree with? if I went to some dinner and I had to sit next to Elon Musk, like how do I approach a conversation with someone I completely disagree with? You want to think about what your goals are, right?

41:09So we have goals in the short term, like to survive the dinner and not have it be miserable, not get in such a heated argument that you cause a scene or probably like ruin a potential relationship with Elon Musk forever. Those are kind of inhumane. Maybe that's your goal. That's okay if it is. But then you have longer term goals. If you are thinking about how could I leverage a meaningful relationship with Elon Musk, if you're playing the long game, your goal in the short term should be to have a great conversation with him. And the way that persuasion actually works between people is that you have to be in a good relationship.

41:50And if you have very differing views, they may slowly over time. Come to bend to the gentle pressure of your differing viewpoint, but you're not going to persuade him over a correspondence dinner at the White House in one conversation to change all of his views that you agree with. So I think the odds of me being invited to the White House are zero. So, yeah, you know what I mean? I think a lot of us have this instinct. You are seething. We hate the guy. We don't agree with almost anything that someone else stands for. And therefore, we have this need to be right and say something that really puts them in their place.

42:28But that's not how to pursue. If you really have goals to persuade someone, you got to play the long game. Okay. I'll tell him that I think Starlink is very well done. How's that? That's a good start. Compliments are a great start, Guy. That sounds nice. Yes. I hope it's a short dinner. Right? so if you yeah that's one i'm gonna have to ask chat gpt what topic should guy discuss with elon at dinner in the white house to avoid getting into immediately into a shouting match yeah next question also tactical how do you end or divert a conversation where someone is hitting on you or sexually approaching you?

43:13I don't want to brag, but this was much of my life. So I have an experience. It's a 1 % problem. Yeah. You don't have to end it, right? A bit of flattery is nice no matter what, as long as it doesn't feel threatening. And as long as it's not disrespectful to someone else, to your partner, if you're in a relationship or if it's inappropriate in the context, if it's someone in the workplace who's coming and sort of coming on to you sexually in a way, so much of conversation is about reading your own needs, reading the other person's needs, and then reading the context. So if you're at a bar and somebody comes up to you and is hitting on you, that's appropriate, but you should probably say, oh, actually I'm married, or I'm in a relationship, I'm unavailable.

44:01If you're in the workplace, things get trickier because then you have power dynamics and other goals and outcomes at play. That one gets harder. Most organizations have an anonymous line where you can contact a sort of Title IX or mandatory reporter type of line to seek advice, especially if it's someone who comes to you who has actual power over you in terms of your work. And hopefully you feel comfortable confiding in some sort of mentor to ask for advice about what to do. But in general, if somebody makes an advance towards you, and certainly outside of the workplace, I think you can take it as a compliment and just be honest with them.

44:42Thank you so much, but not available in that way. I know. I hate when women treat me as an object, but okay. Oh, that surfing guy. You're like a surfing stud. You got into a whole discussion about NPR and how great their questions are. But I have a question for you. It seems that when I'm listening to NPR, they ask a lot of closed-end questions. And just let me parody that. Like, some of these interviews on NPR, they say, well, you saw your mother kill your father when you were eight, and there was blood all over the kitchen floor, and then you had to testify against your father. Can you tell us more about how that affected you?

45:28Well, the answer is yes or no, right? But what happens when you ask a closed-end question like that? Yeah, I think especially for an outlet like NPR or for many people when they're asking closed-ended questions, it's a sort of way, it's a leading question and it's a way of almost fact-checking. It's literally saying, I know this about you already and I need you to confirm or deny that it's true. Or some people use closed-ended questions to help set context for a new topic to judge how much you know. So if I were to change and say, Guy, have you seen the TV show Silo? Nope. Right. So I just need that information quickly in order to guide how much what I'm going to say next.

46:09Am I going to continue down that path? Or like, this isn't going to be interesting to you because you haven't seen the show, so I'm going to pivot. So closed-ended questions do have an important purpose, but they're a completely different animal than the lovely open-ended launch pads that we were talking about before. Or open-ended launch pads, by the way, good questions that inspire real information exchange and authenticity and connection often start with the word what. As opposed to I say, what is your favorite TV show right now? You'll give me an answer and then we can go from there. So I will learn more than twice as much information by asking that question than saying, have you seen the show Silo where I get a yes or a no?

46:47As opposed to open-ended questions that start with the word why. Why haven't you watched Silo yet? Or why don't you watch more TV? Those questions are open-ended in theory, but they feel accusatory. So the relational part of that kind of question asking a little bit goes by the wayside. Okay. Just for the record, my favorite TV show was Yellowstone. And I'm the only person in Silicon Valley who liked Yellowstone. Yeah, that is surprising. Oh my gosh. Wow. And my favorite character was Rip. oh he's a great character i get it you know what there's another topic for you to talk to elon musk about okay at the white house dinner you cannot talk about your share of yellowstone and rip hamilton is it a rip to rip hamilton i don't know rip now i have a lot less hesitation to accept the white house dinner in the next four years okay you've already got two topics we'll find some more I want to know about the differences you've noticed between men and women in conversations.

47:55And when I read this section about your friend calling you up and asking you about a vaginal mesh, I said, I cannot imagine a man calling up another man. So is there a difference between men and women? Okay, agree to disagree because the number of conversations that I have overheard men talking about getting snipped after they've had their children, like more than 15 conversations have I eavesdropped on men talking. Really? When are you getting snipped? Are you snipped? Are you going to do it? Are you going to do it on master's weekend so you can lay around and watch golf? Truly, it's like so many, so many.

48:34So I think that's the male version of the vaginal mesh conversation. As scientists, we have a lot to learn about gender similarities and gender differences in terms of communication. You see a lot of hypotheses and hunches thrown around in the public about gender differences in conversation that are not yet substantiated by scientific evidence. And in fact, the stuff that we do know is like, actually, men and women talk in a lot of the same ways. So there's this great study by Matthias Mel, they had people wear badges that just recorded ambient noise on people every two minutes or so in their lives.

49:15And so you get this full sample of somebody's auditory life. And through that method, they found that men and women speak exactly the same amount of words on average per day, about 16 ,000 words per day on average. Now, when you start to look at, well, when are they talking and what are they saying? That's where you can get into, well, are there content differences? Are women more likely to talk about vaginal mesh than men? Yeah, probably, but men are more likely to talk about their vasectomies. But science really hasn't gotten to a point of how a fine grained figuring out, are there gender differences?

49:48Are there racial differences? Are there age differences? And what are they? What are the topics that different demographic groups are discussing? And what does that mean for how they relate to each other, for how we see each other as similar and different? That's, I think, a very exciting area for scientists to pursue is looking at the content of what people are saying. I want you to know today that between sets as we surf, I'm going to go asking all the men if they've been snipped so that I can come across as a sensitive man. But again, you're probably beyond that phase of life where it's irrelevant anymore.

50:24actually this is another topic i can have with elon elon yes don't you think you should be snipped by now yes vasectomy i'm adding i'm literally compiling your your list for elon this is so fun guy i didn't anticipate this but i'm really enjoying it all right so you brought up the topic of academic research so as i was reading your book i thought to myself So there's a lot of dependency in this book about speed dating experiments. Are you at all worried that speed dating may not extrapolate to everybody in the real world? Yes, of course. This science of conversation is very new. It is very important for people to realize this.

51:08People have been studying language, human language, the development of language. They've been studying public speaking. So one way where one person just says something and nobody responds for a very, very long time. We know a lot about language. We know very little about dialogue because only in the last 10 years have we come across a technology that allows us to record real conversations at very large scale, the tools to analyze those conversations at large scale. And so we're at this phase right now where we're learning things very, very quickly, but we are still quite limited by the data sets that we have access to that are of the gold standard of academic rigor that you would rely on.

51:52And so you kind of have to make these sort of logical leaps of like, well, if things are going well in speed dating, probably some of those things are generalizable to real dating. And then, well, what about dating is specific to dating or versus it's actually translatable to all conversations? And so that's where we are right now is starting to figure out, well, what is context specific and what is generalizable across lots of areas where people talk to each other? I'm not saying that most people who listen to my podcast are in the dating game. But while I have you, do you have some tips for dating?

52:26I do. I do. Number one, it depends on if the person is a stranger to you. So if it's a first date, it's really important that you don't have long pauses. So long pauses are the death knell or conversations between strangers is very awkward. So just keep asking questions. Keep asking follow-up questions. Have your list of topics ready to go so you don't have to panic when you know you need to change the topic. You can use any of the topics that we've used here today actually on your date would be great. Really, I think on a date, whether it's with a stranger or with someone that you've been dating for a while.

53:02And with all people in all contexts, asking follow-up questions is a superpower because you don't need to have prepared at half time. You don't need to know anything about them or have any knowledge of anything. You just need to listen to what your partner is saying and continue to ask questions about it. We see people fail to do this a lot in our data, both in speed dating, but in other contexts as well, negotiating, sales calls, just normal conversations between family members. When someone shares something important with you, if they are courageous enough to share something about their life with you, you should follow up on it and ask more about it as a signal that you care, that you heard them and that you want to know more.

53:47So now another kind of dating is the job interview. So now you're trying to get a job. How do you have a good conversation as the applicant, not as the recruiter? Yeah, as an applicant, I think in our minds when we think of conversational job interviews, there's this very clear script of like, well, this employer is going to be asking me questions and I need to prove how great I am. I need to prove how interesting, smart, competent, and well-suited to this role I am. Anything you can do to flip that script is going to go great because a real conversation that's rewarding and actually makes you look competent is a give and take.

54:26So you can't just sit there and wait for an interviewer to hit you with question after question. They're going to get bored with that. They're not actually going to be impressed with almost anything you say, probably. So again, ask questions back, ask follow-up questions, try and learn about their perspective. Instead of trying to prove how great you are as an applicant, try and be interested in the work that they're doing and learn as much as you can about it so that you can actually judge whether you are a good fit for the role. You could ask, what do you think of your CEO going to the inauguration that'll definitely get you an offer?

55:01If you were giving him advice about the topics to raise with the people at his table, what would you advise him to say? And then you could brainstorm about it together. That would be so fun. And it would be such undeniable evidence that you're interesting and creative.

55:21I'm glad I'm not applying for a job anytime soon. So now, bring me up to speed, like your research, what are the implications of doing all this on Zoom instead of in real life? Yeah, I think about this a lot. I had written a whole chapter in the book about digital communication, and I took it out at the very end of the editing process. I know because I want the book to be timeless. By the time I had written it a year earlier, it was already outdated. I mean, while I was writing the book, LLNs, ChatGPT, AI, it all happened. And there's going to be more of that in the future. Whatever you say now is going to change dramatically.

56:05Most of what you could say now is going to change just rapidly and in exciting ways. But now I get to actually talk about it. So let me tell you what was in that chapter that I find so important. I think there's a lot of rhetoric in our culture about getting kids off their phones and letting them have a good childhood. I think what we need to talk about a little bit more is like, well, we're all part of this world. It's not just children. We are all toggling constantly between our phone and the computer and then turning and talking to someone in real life and then someone calls and then you're texting at the same time.

56:38So we're all doing this conversational toggling. And I think we don't have any idea what that's doing to our brains, what it's doing to our relationships, and certainly how it's affecting our conversational skills. So I'm interested to see what happens. In my class, I ask my students to do an audit of their conversational lives, where I ask them to take 20 minutes in your life, and I want you to write down every incoming and outgoing message, whether it's an email, a text, a phone call, a real life conversation, some reels and memes on TikTok. Well, I should say Instagram now. And so they write it all out and you get this really wild sample.

57:19It's a transcript, but it's all over the map, right? They're sending texts while they're talking to their mom on speakerphone. They are on a Zoom call, but emailing at the same time. And so you get to see how overlapping and twisted and braided our conversations are these days. And what you realize is it's not just about choosing topics and asking questions. It's doing that while you're also engaged in like six other conversations at the same time that have their own unique topics and their own questions and sometimes a human mind on the other end synchronously and sometimes not. And this new conversational world that requires us to toggle like this can feel quite overwhelming.

57:58When they look back on their audit, the students often say that only the ones where they were synchronous, whether it's in person or on Zoom, felt real, that felt rewarding, felt like they had some sense of human connection. And I think that's not trivial. My phone is off. You're so kind. I just got six text messages. Sorry, guy. Okay, so two last questions, because I don't want to take up too much of your time on launch day. So I want to know who is in the Alison Wood Brooks conversation hall of fame. Oh, what a great question. My mom, my mom is your mom. Yeah. She's amazing. I talk to her every day.

58:48I'm going to cry just thinking about it. she's such a good listener. She's so funny and she cares so much about me and about all the people that she knows that I think she was an incredible role model for me my whole life. And I've never said that out loud before, Guy. Thank you for asking. I could give answers letter like celebrities that I think are amazing. Most of them are very good listeners and are good at levity so people like stephen colbert conan o 'brien nikki glazer in the book you i terry gross is a really amazing question asker really anyone who is in the public sphere and becomes successful for having conversations this is what their core skill set is right like that's why they've been successful is that they are good at preparing topics they are good at asking questions joe rogan right like whether you agree or disagree with him he's a terrific conversationalist he's great at asking questions.

59:45He's good at getting people to open up. Guy Kawasaki, great at bringing levity and moving topics quickly and asking follow-up. You mentioned Joe Rogan and Guy Kawasaki in the same sentence. I'm sorry. I know. I've arrived. I know. We can end the recording right here. You see, this is what's so beautiful about the world. You see examples of conversational greatness all the time. You also see examples of fumbles and stumbles all the time. And it's because we're all human beings. We're all just trying to do our best. Sometimes we strike gold and we find amazing moments of connection and information exchange and closeness.

1:00:27And sometimes we mess it up and that's okay. Speaking of messing this up, as I was reading your book and as we're having this discussion when we adopted our fourth child so we have two adopted children so we adopted him about 17 18 years ago i was at a dinner with my wife and a friend and his wife and he said you know we told him we're adopting another child right and he said something like aren't you concern about adoption because adoption typically these kids they didn't have good prenatal nutrition or they come from broken homes or drug drugs in the house adopted kids have a lot of problems and i have never forgiven him for that because he this is after we told him we have one kid we're adopting another kid not that we're thinking about adoption we have adopted kids and we're going to adopt this.

1:01:32And I thought that was such an insensitive thing to do. I have never forgiven him. And he probably has no idea why I've been pissed off for about 20 years with him, all this. Would you ever think about telling him? After reading your book and this discussion, maybe I will, because he probably from his side, maybe he was just thinking, I want my friend to make a really wise decision about adoption. I don't want him to go in with blinders on. Or maybe it was out of his own fear. Maybe he had been thinking about adoption and that's what he's afraid of for himself or for you. We make mistakes like that.

1:02:11That's an insensitive thing to say. It sounds very self-centered. It sort of reeks of being focused on what you know and what you're afraid of rather than asking a question of do you have any fears about this right like that would have been much more adaptive thing to just to do in that moment for them i would tell you what country he's from but it would immediately help some people identify who i'm talking about i could make guesses but i don't want to make i don't want to i don't want to stereotype All right. So my last question for you, Alison Wood, the queen of conversation is, ironically, how do you be a better listener as opposed to conversationalist?

1:02:58Yeah, it's so funny. The title of the book is Talk, but I think the secret sauce, the secret message of the whole thing is about listening. You can't talk well without listening. And it turns out that listening is really hard, especially for people who have attentional issues, but really for everybody. There's great research. The resting state of the human mind is mind wandering. It is not built to pay attention to another person continuously while you're engaging with them. So it takes effort to get out of our natural mind wandering state and actually listen to each other. That is effortful. It is worth putting in that effort.

1:03:36You need to do it in order to have good conversation. And when you do it, when you look at somebody else, you listen to what they're saying, you process what they're saying, you think hard about it, you try and really engage with it. You should get credit for it by showing them that you've heard them. And so many, many years of research on active listening have shown have told us to use nonverbals like nodding and smiling to show someone that we've heard them. That's good. That's a great start. That matters. But really, the advanced course on listening is using your words to show someone that you've heard them.

1:04:10I can only call back to this story about adoption for your kids because I was listening to you and I care about it and I've been thinking about it. I can only call back to your surfing earlier in the conversation because I cared about that and I latched onto it and I heard it. I can only ask a follow-up question if I heard what you said and I care to know more. So these verbal signals like follow-up questions, callbacks, paraphrasing, just repeating what someone has said. Hey, I hear you saying that you were upset by this. And maybe you're thinking about contacting this guy again to reach out.

1:04:41Do you think you'll actually do that? So like, you know, repeating what someone has said can be really, really valuable and makes people feel heard and seen and loved. And it's really where so much of the conversational magic lies. This has been speaking of magic, a magical conversation. I agree. I can look forward to having dinner with Elon Musk. I never would have predicted that. Now you can get excited about it. We've got four topics brainstormed. We're going to get at least 10 more together, and then we're going to make it happen. Because I want to record this conversation and see how it works.

1:05:17You've changed my life. You've changed my life. I want you to get the transcript of this and do an analysis. And I want you to figure out this is like speed podcasting. If I wasn't doing so many podcasts for the book, I would honestly, so many of my students have done that. Actually, this year, two of my students did this creative thing. They took a real podcast recording of me and somebody, and then they created an LLM podcast of fake Allison and fake other person. And then they did a side-by-side conversation analysis of both to see like what are the pros of human-to-human conversation compared to LLM conversation.

1:05:58And your hypothesis, Guy, was definitely confirmed, which is humans are better at asking questions. They're better at laughing with each other. They're better at finding sparkly moments of levity and connection. So thank you. It's such a gift to do this together. You know what? I noticed, speaking of questions from left field, I noticed you had a podcast and I watched it. And on your side, on your shelf, you had his logo. Do you remember that? I don't. Oh, maybe Matt Abraham says, think fast, talk smart. No, it wasn't Matt Abraham. It was somebody else. And I thought, I wonder if he superimposed that on the video or that.

1:06:44Allison is so clever that when she is interviewed by a podcaster, she puts the podcaster's book on her shelf. And I said, that is why she's at Harvard Business School. I'm that ahead of the curve. I'm sure he superimposed it. But I will aspire to be the kind of person that would do that for sure. And I swear to God, I thought about it, but I didn't do it. I was going to put talk on my shelf. Yeah, where's your talk? But I forgot. Yeah, get it on your shelf, guy. Tell everybody about it. Our world needs it so badly right now and always. We need better communicators. Speaking of LLM, so there's such a thing as Kawasaki GPT, and we put the transcripts of every one of my interviews in there.

1:07:35so pretty soon people can go to Kawasaki GPT and ask Allison questions based on this interview well you let me know if you do an analysis of this conversation I would love the output I would love to see what you uncover about our connection no but I don't have the academic wherewithal to do this you should make this a project to like I should are you tired of listening to people talk on speed dates. You should listen to Guy and I do a podcast to see what great conversation is like. How many questions did they ask? How many times did they switch topics? How many times did they come back? How many sensitive questions about salaries did Guy ask?

1:08:17Well, it is, I mean, doing a book tour like this with lots of podcasts, it is a very interesting, natural sort of case study of conversation because I'm always there. I'm always constant. It's just that the host is changing. And in theory, it's the related topics. We're always talking about the book, but the variability is staggering what you end up talking about. My favorite is when they're more conversational like this, like where you, you know, you're talking about the book, but you're talking about other stuff too. I think everybody wants that. So in version two of your book, you can mention this conversation, but what's even more important to me in version two of this book is that you change asking to ask.

1:08:59I'll do it. I'll do it. I'm going to, you know what? I'm going to add, I'm going to make a footnote in the next edition, edition two, Guy Kawasaki says this should be asks. And I'm going to change the entire meaning of the word asks for him. Allison, I'm sure you have other important things to do. So thank you so much. This has been just a remarkable conversation. It's amazing to connect, Guy. I'm Guy Kawasaki. This has been remarkable. people and man what a remarkable conversation we had today this is going to go down in the annals of podcast history my thanks to matt for bringing us together and also for being in the same group of people with katie milkman and angela duckworth and bob cialdini these are all the people who lead behavioral research and thanks to madison nismar who is our producer tessa nismar our researcher Jeff C.

1:09:51and Shannon Hernandez. We've got a lot of people who make Remarkable People remarkable. So until next time, thank you very much and mahalo and aloha.

1:10:05This is Remarkable People.