The Laws of Connection | David Robson

27 May 2024 · 1 h 2 min

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Podcast Summary: The Art of Charm - The Laws of Connection with David Robson

Podcast Overview Title: The Art of Charm Hosts: Johnny and AJ Description: The Art of Charm helps individuals master human dynamics and relationships through insights from expert coaches. The podcast focuses on personal development, human behavior, and actionable strategies for enhancing performance in various aspects of life.

Episode Overview Episode Title: The Laws of Connection Guest: David Robson Description: David Robson, an award-winning writer specializing in the psychology and neuroscience of human relationships, discusses the secrets behind building stronger social connections. He shares insights from his book, *The Laws of Connection*, exploring how social ties impact health, strategies for overcoming barriers to connection, and techniques for fostering deeper relationships.

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Key Takeaways

  1. Importance of Social Connections
  2. Health Impacts:
  3. Strong social ties can protect against diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer's, and cardiovascular issues.
  4. Social connection is as crucial for overall health as exercise and avoiding smoking.
  • Ambivalent Relationships:
  • Recognizing the nature of relationships can help manage stress. Ambivalent ties can be particularly damaging due to the uncertainty they create.
  1. Overcoming Barriers
  2. Liking Gap:
  3. The "liking gap" refers to the tendency to underestimate how much others like us after initial interactions.
  4. Awareness of this psychological barrier can help recalibrate perceptions and encourage connection.
  1. Building Deeper Connections
  2. Effective Questions:
  3. To foster meaningful conversations, use follow-up questions that encourage self-disclosure. This contrasts with trivial small talk.
  4. Examples: "What made you passionate about your career?" or "What do you find most challenging?"
  • Shared Reality:
  • Creating a sense of shared reality can strengthen connections. This can be achieved through shared interests or feelings, even when experiences differ.
  1. Rebuilding Social Skills Post-Pandemic
  2. Daily Interactions:
  3. Regularly engaging with strangers can help rebuild social confidence and skills that may have diminished during the pandemic.
  4. Set specific goals for social interactions to practice and reinforce skills.
  1. The Benjamin Franklin Effect
  2. Asking for Favors:
  3. Asking someone for a small favor can strengthen your bond with them, as it implies trust and admiration.
  4. This effect can be utilized to enhance personal and professional relationships.
  1. The Power of Appreciation
  2. Expressing Gratitude:
  3. Regularly expressing appreciation can improve relationships and foster a positive work environment.
  4. Both the giver and receiver benefit from acts of appreciation, leading to reduced stress and increased happiness.
  1. Maintaining Relationships
  2. Reaching Out:
  3. Don't hesitate to reconnect with old friends or acquaintances. Small gestures, like a text or sharing a memory, can rekindle relationships.
  4. Nostalgia can be a powerful tool for bonding.

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Discussion Highlights

  • Self-Reflection: Recognizing one’s own behaviors in relationships is crucial for improvement.
  • Cognitive Biases: Common biases can prevent connection with others, and challenging these assumptions is vital for personal growth.
  • Experimentation: Treat interactions as experiments to alleviate fears and build confidence in social situations.

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Conclusion David Robson's insights in *The Laws of Connection* highlight the intricate dynamics of human relationships and the importance of social connectivity for well-being. By adopting strategies to overcome psychological barriers, express appreciation, and foster deeper connections, individuals can significantly enhance their personal and professional relationships.

For more information, visit David Robson's website at [davidrobson.me](http://davidrobson.me).

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Transcript

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2:55Welcome to the Art of Charm podcast, where we break down the science of powerful communication and winning mindsets so you have the cheat code to succeed with people. Every episode is jam-packed with actionable steps to unlock the hidden superpowers inside of you. Level up with us each week by listening to interviews with the best in business, psychology, and relationships. We distill thousands of hours of research in the most effective tools and the latest science so you can start winning today. Let's face it. In order to be seen and heard, your communication needs to cut through the noise. And we're going to show you how.

3:27I'm AJ, successfully recovered introvert, entrepreneur, and self-development junkie. And I'm Johnny Zubak, former touring musician, promoter, rock and roller, and co-founder here at The Art of Charm. And for the last 15 years, we've trained thousands of top performers and teams from every background. We have dedicated our lives to teaching men and women all they need to know about communication, networking, and relationships. You shouldn't have to settle for anything less than extraordinary. All right, let's kick off today's show. Today, we're talking with David Robson, an award-winning writer who specializes in the psychology and neuroscience of human connection.

4:04David is the author of the book, The Laws of Connection, a book that dives deep into the science of how we as humans create lasting bonds. For this book, he went over 300 high-quality studies and explains both the latest cutting judge findings as well as very prevalent myths that I'm sure hold you back. David is a return guest of the show. We had him last summer talk about his previous book, The Expectation Effect. And today, we break down the personality myth and how to build deep connections fast, how the pandemic has shifted our relationships, why appreciation is so powerful when connecting with others, and he shares his favorite strategy, the Benjamin Franklin effect.

4:41Welcome back to the show, David. Great to have you. Yeah, it's completely my pleasure. I loved the last conversation and I've been looking forward to this one. Yeah, I know Johnny and I are excited to talk about the laws of connection. What piqued your interest in this subject for this latest book? As kind of a couple of different factors, I guess, like as a teenager, and even like quite, quite a long way into my 20s, I was pretty shy. So kind of meeting new people always felt a bit, bit of a challenge. And you know, that's especially the case being a journalist where I was having to do this all the time.

5:14So I've been super interested in how we can make that process easier. And then also, you know, we've just seen so much research over the last 10 to 15 years showing just how important social connection is for our health and well-being. There's been a huge meta-analysis of over 100 studies that showed that social connection, like that feeling of being supported and understood by the people around you, is pretty much as important as kind of factors like exercising, your weight, your BMI, whether you smoke or not, whether you drink or not, you know, all of these things that we know are important for mortality, and social connection is right up there with all of them.

5:55So that seemed pretty profound to me. But you know, it also didn't seem obvious how we could use that information to our advantage if we do feel shy, or, you know, even if we've got lots of connections, but we don't feel fully understood and supported by them. And then I was looking into the literature from social psychology, and there have just been so many new and exciting studies that have shown what the psychological barriers are that can prevent us from connecting and how to overcome them. So I just wanted to share that with as many people as possible. Yeah, I know we've talked a lot on the show about the impact that social connection has on your health.

6:32And I think some of the findings that you discuss in the start of the book are pretty shocking for those who aren't aware of just how great of an impact social connection has. So was there any research that was really surprising for you around just its impact on our health? Yeah, I mean, I think like what surprised me the most was, I guess, like the impact on physical health, and in particular, just the range of diseases that it can be protective against. So everything from catching the common cold. There have been studies where you literally try to infect a group of participants with the cold virus and how socially connected they felt prior to that experiment predicted pretty much how likely they were to actually catch that infection.

7:16Right through then to diseases like diabetes, Alzheimer's and cardiovascular disease, stroke, you know, all of these things that threaten our life. It's just so, so powerful. And we know the kind of mechanisms now which also made this much more compelling to me. So we kind of know the human body kind of evolved certain physiological defences when we felt that we were being excluded from our group. And the reason seems to be that, you know, when we lived in these kind of hunter-gatherer communities in our prehistory, if you were excluded from your group, you were at a much greater risk of injury.

7:52You might be attacked by an animal or by a rival group or even members of your own group. So you had to kind of developed these defences to help wounds to heal. So things like increasing the blood clotting factor or increasing inflammation in your body so you don't get a bacterial infection. Those things are brilliant in the short term when you are actually injured. But if you're feeling like that every day for years and years, they can cause long-term damage to your body. And, you know, they're kind of very general risk factors for all of the diseases I've described. So when you combine, And, you know, the longitudinal studies, the studies looking at these mechanisms, you know, experimental studies from animals.

8:33It just seems to me now that you can't really deny the connection is fundamental for our health. Yeah. And I think what's really interesting is the idea that maybe not all social connections are good for your health. So we've talked broadly about the impact that social connections have. But you talk about three categories of social connections in the book that we might want to be aware of, and maybe some social connections that we want to spend less time investing in because they can be negatively impacting our health. Right, exactly. So, I mean, I think we kind of know the people who we just love being around and who we can rely on pretty much all the time.

9:12So those are the purely supportive ties. Then you have some people who are just like super unpleasant and they're consistently so. Like it could just be a relative you just really don't get on with and you don't want to spend any amount of time with them. But then there are these kind of ambivalent relationships in the middle. People who have this kind of Jekyll and Hyde quality where they might be super kind and supportive one day and then, you know, lash out at you, say something sarcastic, belittle you. I'll just ignore you, just like they're too busy for you. But it's the uncertainty that really gets to us.

9:46So these ambivalent ties, as we call them or frenemies, they are just very stressful to be around. It's the uncertainty that makes them stressful. And you can see this in laboratory experiments, like thinking about these ambivalent ties, knowing that you're going to have to interact with them. You know, it does things like raise your blood pressure. And, you know, that can have a long term impact on your overall health if you have too many of them. so learning about this is I think is really important just to kind of to recognize that if someone is an ambivalent eye like that's quite a common experience and it doesn't say anything about you I know personally I would kind of really crave the approval of these frenemies but as soon as I learned about this research I realized actually the responsibility isn't necessarily on me and that you know maybe I'm better to kind of defend myself from them a bit by just kind of keeping an appropriate distance.

10:37I don't have to eliminate them from my life completely because they can be like fun to be around but I don't have to rely on them so much for my sense of self-esteem. I can actually try to cultivate other relationships that are more purely supportive. It's also really important for us to like recognise when we might be acting in this way because you might not realise the ways that you could be disappointing to someone. You know maybe it is just something like that I'm guilty of which is being late to meeting up or you know not responding to messages very quickly you know things that give the impression that you're not as invested in the relationship as the other person and it's all about interpretation like I don't mean it to come across like that but that's definitely how some of my friends might interpret that and you know I don't want to make them feel that stressful uncertainty so you know from this I just realized that we have to try to be really consistent in the way that we behave to the people who really matter to us.

11:34Yeah, I think it is important to recognize through self-reflection, maybe how you're showing up in relationships, not just how others are showing up in your life. And can there be behaviors in your life, as we call it, to give value to others, to be more supportive, to be more cooperative, to be timely, to be responsive, to create a space for emotional support, whether it's through the highs or the lows that someone else in your life is going through. And I think we've all encountered those frenemies that give us that unease and create that stress in our life. It's not to say, as you said, that we need to cut them out of our life, but creating some space and distance and maybe exposing ourselves to them less frequently could be a great self-defense mechanism around the negative impacts to our health that they cause.

12:21Yeah, I mean, that's exactly how I I see it. And yeah, it is like self-defense, essentially. You know, maybe it's also a question of honest communication that maybe you just have to tell someone, like, I really don't like it when you act like this. And you might be surprised, they might be surprised to hear that they're causing you to feel that way. Now, in hearing all of this, our question is typically, well, why aren't people investing more in social connections, recognizing that it's so good for your health and recognizing that at the end of the day, having great relationships can be really fulfilling, can create opportunities, can make your life overall better.

12:56But there are some cognitive biases that we have around strangers, others, connection, how we show up, how they experience us, that I'd love for you to unpack with our audience, why we ourselves create these barriers between us and connecting with others. Right. And I think this is super important. And it's been a shift in the research, actually. So previously, I think sociologists had looked at the levels of loneliness that we see in our society, which are quite high. You know, I think roughly 50 % of people feel lonely pretty regularly, if not all the time. And, you know, like the explanation had often been that there must be something wrong with the way society is constructed, like people are living alone, they're living far away from their families, you know, we're kind of dispersed, living in a city doesn't always make it easy to meet up compared to if you live, like in a village where you see people every day as you're going to the shops.

13:47And, you know, I'm not denying that that's important but I think what has changed is the idea that actually even if we constructed the perfect environment people would still often feel lonely because you can be surrounded by people who you know very well but you just don't get the sense that they understand you and that's where these psychological barriers come in. My favourite example of that is a phenomenon called the liking gap and this is simply the fact that when we meet someone we can have a great rapport, but we tend to underestimate how much they liked us. So it's quite likely you go away really liking and respecting that person, wanting to build on that connection, but you assume the other person doesn't feel the same way.

14:31The fact is, according to the research, there's a good chance that they're going to feel the same way about you. They really like you, but they don't trust that you liked them. And there's this kind of asymmetry in our perceptions. And that's one of these psychological barriers because it's just going to prevent you from kind of capitalizing on that instant rapport in my own personal life I've felt this you know even when people have been super friendly to me I've kind of assumed they were being just being polite just being nice maybe that's just the kind of person they are like they must be so popular they don't want to kind of they don't need like another friend and so I would you know not reach out with an email if they did invite me to a party, I would kind of assume that was just, you know, them being kind of kind rather than them really wanting me to be there.

15:18So I just kind of let those ties kind of remain quite distant rather than actually reciprocating the kind of behaviour. And so that's quite common. That's one of these psychological barriers that I think just with awareness, we can immediately start to recalibrate our perceptions and maybe just have that bravery to be the first person to kind of reach out after you've had a good conversation? Yeah, I think the real problem with the liking gap is it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? Because both of us leave that interaction feeling that way, like maybe that liking of the other person wasn't genuine from their side.

15:53So I'm not going to reach out, the other person feels the same, so they don't reach out. And now we have this missed opportunity for connection, because both of us were feeling that liking gap. And of course, we bring our own insecurities and past experiences into these interactions. But when we're meeting new people, they have very fond feelings just experiencing us as a complete stranger. And I think that's often one of those gaps that we struggle with, where we're understanding of, okay, in the past, maybe I've been judged this one time, I hold on to that experience too much. And now I bring that into all these future experiences.

16:28Or maybe in the past, you tripped over your words. So you feel that, oh, that person's not going to like me as much. But now we've created a barrier where both parties aren't reaching out. when they really want connection and they really feel good after that interaction. Right. And, you know, like you said, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And what I kind of think is like the most tragic part of this is that the fact that we're not reaching out to the other person afterwards, we're kind of reinforcing this perception that they weren't very likable. So they're going away, not realizing how great they are and vice versa.

17:01And then they'll carry that and will carry it to the next interaction as well so yeah I think there's a lot to be said for just you know like raising awareness of this one phenomenon something that I do do try to do recognizing this fact is just like after the end of a conversation I've really enjoyed I just really try to make that explicit and tell people you know like I genuinely loved meeting you because often I think we just go away assuming that that was understood but without saying it explicitly we're quite egocentric people who believe that our inner feelings are kind of more transparent than they really are.

17:37We assume other people can know how we're feeling, but obviously they can't, they can't see inside our heads. And so just articulating those kind of warm emotions can be very powerful in and of itself. We certainly see it with our clients. They discuss a lot that they're missing opportunities because of that liking gap. And because, well, they hadn't seen any signs to proceed, so they just let that go, whether it be in dating, whether it be a career advancement. And it's getting them to shift their focus on rather than looking for the signs that it didn't go well, that they need to be interpreting everything that it is going well until they find out otherwise.

18:21And we want them to capitalize on that high that we're both coming off of that interaction with. So the sooner you can reach out after that great interaction, you solidify with that reach out that you enjoyed yourself. You close that liking gap for the other person in a way that's really meaningful. And you create momentum towards connection, which is a big part of what a lot of us struggle with. We had Cal Newport on the show talking about the rise of pseudo productivity and just how we're so busy with notifications and work 24-7, 365, that if you're not being proactive and breaking through and using these scientific principles and psychological biases to your advantage, you're falling prey to everyone's inbox and everyone's Slack and all the notifications that are distracting us.

19:07so the sooner you can reach out after that great connection solidifying that you enjoyed it and that you are interested in connection you close the gap and you make it a lot easier for the other person to want to connect further with you yeah totally and you know like i think this is so important kind of just in our private lives like if you meet someone call it a party but i mean you know it's also been observed in like teams of engineers for example where you know people the liking gap can linger after the first meeting like even after you've met up a few times you can still just have this sense the other person you know finds you a bit irritating when they probably don't you know that they they're not that invested in kind of maintaining this connection and that prevents you from building on your connection to collaborate professionally it stops each of you giving honest feedback because you don't feel like you know that person well enough and that they respect you enough to actually want to hear you be uh be honest about what you think of their their contributions um so it's yeah it's like very counterproductive in the workplace and privately too well it's it's the natural phenomenon but we have to and understanding that compensate for that and it's building our own confidence in ourself who we are in our communication and leaning into that so that we do reap the rewards of that and not held to victimization of the liking gap where our own thoughts.

20:33Yeah, totally. And, you know, I think sometimes we worry about being a bit too pushy with people too, and that's totally understandable. Like you don't want to, you know, sometimes people just aren't, you know, maybe in the right place in their life to kind of build a new friendship with you or build a new collaboration. But I think like you can send like very respectful messages that just kind of let them know how much you enjoyed the conversation, you know, that kind of reaffirm how much rapport you had. And, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. And as long as you kind of accept rejection gracefully, I can't really see any issue with kind of, yeah, with making the first move, with being a bit braver.

21:10And the statistics really speak for themselves. Like we're much more likely to have a positive response than we expect. I know one of the biggest myths that we bust for our X Factor Accelerator members is this idea that you need common interests, shared hobbies, experiences to really connect with someone. And oftentimes they'll join the program feeling, well, maybe they don't like things that are in pop culture, or maybe they do things that others might consider boring. And because of that, they don't even try to connect. They look as in a way to back away from interactions or maybe not share that part of themselves.

21:47But what you talk about in the science is really clear is this idea of connection around a shared reality and how we can create this with anyone outside of commonalities, outside of common interests. Doesn't mean you had to go to the same college, doesn't mean you have to have the same hometown in order for this connection to happen. So can you unpack what shared reality means and how we can use this to our advantage to create these connections? Sure. So, I mean, I think kind of the basic definition of shared reality is that it's this kind of common understanding of the world. It's the sense that you share the same thoughts and feelings, the same beliefs, you know, all of these things that really matter to you.

22:25Now, it's perfectly possible that someone with a common background to you might be more likely to have a shared reality with you in some way, but actually, you know, it's not guaranteed at all. And what the research really clearly shows is that we construct that sense of shared reality often from tiny little details that people say. It could be something as simple as kind of, you know, you're both in a meeting at work and you both laugh at the same joke or the same sentence that wasn't even intended to be funny. That kind of instant reaction. You know, there are studies that looked at, you know, just the minimum information that you need to form a shared reality.

23:02And so they asked these kind of, you know, that game, like, imagine if, where it's like, they're kind of nonsense questions. It's like, imagine if Jennifer Aniston, were a household object, would you be like a cocktail shaker, a toothpick, a drill, you know, like there's no right answer to that. But when people find that someone gave the same answer as they gave, they have this kind of sense of intimacy that makes them warm to that person a lot more. And often that matters more, that sense of an intimate connection matters more than, say you know differences it can override things like differences in sexuality or gender or political opinion like often the the knowing that someone's brain is somehow functioning in the same way of yours kind of overrides all of these things that might might just lead you to feel a bit more distant from someone and we can see there's a neurological basis for shared reality too so So shared reality is the sense that you're feeling the same thoughts and feelings as another person.

24:08Well, what you can see when you scan people's brains is that their neural activity is very similar when they're seeing the same stimulus. So you can give a class of students a series of YouTube clips of like a kind of mawkish music video, comedy routine, a documentary, all of these things. Scan their brains and you can predict who is friends with who based on the similarities in their brain activity. Hiring the right person with the right skills, that's what moves a business forward. If you want candidates who match what you're looking for, you need Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Hiring Indeed is all you need.

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28:03Go to mintmobile.com slash charm. That's mintmobile.com slash charm. Limited time offer. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12 months required. That's$15 a month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes when the network is busy. Capable device required. Availability speed and coverage varies. See MintMobile.com. Yeah, I think it's an important understanding that experiences might not be shared, but emotions are universal. So the more that you can communicate, recognize, validate emotions around you, the easier it is to create this shared reality where both of you are expressing similar feelings, even if it's completely different experiences that evoke those emotions for you.

28:48And when we share that wavelength with others, there's also that lingering after of like, wow, they really understood me. They validated me. They heard me. I really enjoyed spending time with that person. So that shared reality space creates, again, that momentum after the interaction, those fond memories that make them even more primed to respond when you reach out to them saying, yeah, I actually enjoyed that interaction. I would love to see you again. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, like you can witness this happening in people around you or you can feel it yourself. Because one of the signs of a shared reality is when you start saying the same thing at the same time or finishing each other's sentences.

29:27And that just that makes it so abundantly clear that your minds are on the same wavelength if you're doing that. And yeah, so, you know, within five minutes, you can often tell if you're likely to build this shared reality, you know, with complete stranger. But then what you can also look at is, you know, how to say married couples feel over years of living together. And what you find is that the more they report having those kinds of moments when it's really obvious that they're feeling the same things, thinking the same things, the more kind of solid their relationships are, the more committed they are to each other.

30:06I love that. It is beautiful to see when you're experiencing it with someone else. We can think of our best friend, our partner, our spouse in those moments. Just thinking about them right now make me feel warm inside. I know when we talk a lot about starting conversations and showcasing interests in others, we preach here at The Art of Charm that questions are really important to get the conversation started and to start to find those clues that we can connect on to create the shared reality. And in the book, you share that there are actually specific types of questions to highlight that are more impactful in creating connection than just regular old questions.

30:42So I'd love to walk through these different types of questions so that our audience can see just how profound of an impact they could have on creating that space for connection. Sure. So I'll start with the questions that maybe aren't so good. The kind of ice breaking ones are just like trivialities, like, hey, how are you? You know, fine. Like we have to kind of go through the motions there. That doesn't really count as a meaningful question. switch questions where you kind of just someone said something and you just immediately ask a question that moves to another topic it's like if you're on the day and you're like hey like where do you live they say where they live and then you're straight away like what profession do you do it's also not that flattering really like it's helping you to build a picture of the person and so you know like sometimes you do need switch questions to move the conversation on but if you're using that too often it's not really building the shared reality boomer asking this is like a terrible habit where you just ask a question so you can start talking about your own life so it could you know even if you're saying like a good friend you could be like hey how's work going anyway I had a promotion and it's like it shows such a little uh such a lack of interest in the other person I think that's actually doing more harm than good really you might as well just come out and say I'm really excited I've got a promotion but um the ones that do really work is the follow-up questions and so that's when you're just trying to probe you know a bit more deeply into what the other person said so they tell you you know like what career they do and you ask like you know tell me like why did you choose that career or what what makes you so passionate about this or what do you hate about that career you know what the highlights what are the worst moments you know those kinds of questions I think are much they're much more flattering because it shows that you have this genuine curiosity and it's helping you to have built enough details that you're going to develop that shared reality.

32:35Yeah, those evoke the emotional context of what's been shared. And I think what trips up a lot of our listeners and certainly our X Factor Accelerator members at the start is we get so focused on the details and orienting ourselves around the logical parts of conversation. As you shared earlier, almost resume building or job interview style to get all of this information. But in actuality, the more we can use questions to evoke emotions and paint emotional context, the easier it is for us to create that shared reality in a short amount of time. And I know for many of our listeners, they dread the idea of small talk.

33:11They feel it should be avoided. We've all been in those situations where you're talking needlessly about the weather or things that really don't matter. And you know the other person doesn't really care either. So unfortunately, with that feeling and dread of small talk, We avoid those interactions completely. And I know there's been a lot of great work around this idea that we don't have to engage in small talk for very long. We can actually move to deeper, more intriguing topics for both parties in a short amount of time to really create that connection. I think you're kind of referencing this research on the fast friendship.

33:47And basically, they were looking at, like, how quickly can you develop intimacy with someone? And they put together this set of questions. encouraged self-disclosure. So just rather than that kind of small talk, like just progressively you're kind of getting an insight into someone's deeper thoughts and feelings. Some of the questions are ostensibly quite bizarre, like when you read them you're like, it really makes you think yourself, it helps you to get to know yourself a little bit better. So you know it could be things like, how do you think you're going to die? Like do you have a strong intuition about what's going to kill you?

34:20Or if you had a crystal ball, like what would you want it to tell you about your life for your future and what they found was that as people went through these conversation prompts each self-disclosing so it can't just be from one side like we each have to self-disclose for it to work you know after 45 minutes people did feel just so much closer than the people who just engaged in more kind of superficial small talk so you know quite probably like reasonably interesting questions like they weren't bad questions but it's just like what did you do at halloween you know which isn't like really encouraging you to share something more profound about your life and so they felt closer when they did the fast friendship procedure and you know according to one measure of closeness they felt almost as intimate with that person as they did with like pretty old acquaintances so they've kind of made up a lot of distance um or kind of pulled pull together you know accelerated the friendship process and condensed it into a very short amount of time?

35:21Well, those questions are so thought provoking that naturally any response is going to start to evoke that shared reality. You're going to start to share a lot about your beliefs, your values, your hopes, your dreams, your fears in a short amount of time with these questions. And also it creates a memorable experience, right? We don't remember the exchange of small talk and pleasantries. It happens constantly almost every day, anytime you're interacting with new people, but we will remember those thought-provoking questions that really made us think, view ourselves differently, share a piece of ourselves that maybe we've never shared with anyone else.

35:58And we do crave more of those moments naturally because we all want to be seen, heard, and validated. We don't want to sit there talking about the weather. We don't care about a lot of the topics that get evoked in small talk. So naturally, we're not going to remember those interactions. And we're certainly, with the liking gap, not going to walk away from those interactions feeling like the other party cared about us. Yeah, exactly. And there is a kind of, it's not exactly a liking gap, but I think one of the psychological barriers that prevents us from doing this more often is the fact that we just assume the other person before the conversation, like we just assume they don't care.

36:33They're not going to find it interesting if we tell them like what a crystal ball would reveal about our lives or our future. And then afterwards you realize actually they really did care. Like they, you know, they latched onto that. There was something there that they could relate to. And there was something in what they told you that you could relate to. And I think that's something that we can always remember is that, you know, when we're talking to strangers, there's often just a lot more of these points of connection than you imagine there will be. Now, you share another concept in the book, the personality myth.

37:06And I'd love to hear a little bit more about this, because I know some of our listeners and X Factor Accelerator members have struggled with this themselves? I guess like the personality myth is this idea that our social behaviors are kind of hardwired. They're just, you know, they are who we are, and we can't change them. So you might think that you're just too introverted to ever be able to enjoy more social interactions. Like you just think you're going to find it exhausting, and it's going to be unpleasant. It's not, you know, you might as well just kind of stay, stay isolated. You might not be satisfied with being isolated.

37:42You might actually crave more connection, but you also just don't think that your personality type will allow that to occur. Or you might be very shy and you just think, I can't get over my shyness. I'm always going to be stuck for words and really struggle to kind of show that social grace that would make me likable. The research really shows that this isn't true. There's been a separate body of research showing that personality is malleable. Personality is almost like a collection of habits that we can kind of change with practice, rather than being something that, you know, is just so inherent, it's immutable.

38:16And, you know, that goes for, say, introversion, extroversion. There have been studies where they asked both introverts and extroverts to act more gregariously for a two-week period. The introverts were especially resistant to this idea. They tend to predict that it's going to come out pretty badly. But both groups end up enjoying the experience and benefiting from it. So, you know, extroverts can be a little bit more sociable as well, like it is actually good for them, but so can introverts. Their fears just weren't founded. The same with like shy people, like if you tell shyer people, people with social anxiety, that personality can change, then they find it easier to overcome those anxieties.

38:59They cope with those new challenges, is moving out of their comfort zone a lot more easily. I think it's important for people to understand that if they are saying those things, they need to look at what is it that they don't want to do and why are they putting this identity in front of them in order to get out of it and to accept responsibility for what they need to do, and which will then allow them to discard that identity and move forward rather than succumbing to their own thoughts. Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards, Watson and Crick, AJ and Johnny. What about the perfect duo when it comes to growing your business?

39:47Well, that's you and Shopify. That's right, Johnny. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. From the launch your online shop stage to the first real life store stage, all the way to the, did we just hit a million order stage? Shopify is there to help you grow. Whether you're selling your own fire merch or promoting your productivity programs, Shopify helps you sell everywhere from their all-in-one e-commerce platform to their in-person POS system, wherever and whatever you're selling. Shopify has got you covered. Shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers with the internet's best converting checkout up to 36 % better compared to other leading commerce platforms.

40:28And sell more with less effort thanks to Shopify Magic, your AI-powered all-star. What I love about Shopify is no matter how big you want to grow, Shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level. In fact, Shopify powers 10 % of all e-commerce in the US. And Shopify is the global force behind Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklinen, as well as millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across 175 countries. Plus, Shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the way. Because businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. And AJ, you don't have to just sell your stuff anymore.

41:07With Shopify Collective, you can curate products to sell from the brands that you love, giving your customers more variety and your business more sales. Shopify is your no excuses business partner. Sell without needing to code or design. Just bring your best ideas and Shopify will help you open up shop. Do you want marketing made simple? Shopify removes the guesswork with built-in tools to help you create, execute, and analyze your online marketing campaigns. We know running a growing business means getting the insights you need wherever you are. With Shopify's single dashboard, you can manage orders, shipping, and payments from anywhere.

41:44Sign up for a$1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash charm. Go to shopify.com slash charm now to grow your business, no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash charm. Just yesterday, we were on an X Factor Accelerator call and sharing how our clients had changed and working with us. And one of our clients, Nate, said joining the program, he self-labeled as an introvert. And a lot of that was due to negative past experiences and feeling the liking gap very strongly that kept him from reaching out and socializing as much. But through going through the program and recognizing some new strategies and frameworks that led to more lively conversations, people reaching out to him and showcasing that they enjoyed time spending with him, he actually realized that he might be an extrovert.

42:37And now he craves interacting with strangers. He looks forward to opportunities to meet new people. His friends have seen this huge change in him, where in the past he was a wallflower and maybe would avoid talking to new people. And now he's encouraging his friends to go talk to new people. And I think that is a really important mindset shift for a lot of us, that we are more malleable than we think. And if we view these skills as a set of habits that we can continue working on and growing throughout our life, then, of course, it makes the journey a lot more fulfilling and fun along the way. Right, exactly.

43:11and I think maybe some people are like very happy being introverted and you know like I certainly wouldn't put pressure on anyone to behave in any way that doesn't feel authentic but I think a lot of people do just feel a bit frustrated with you know their current social life if they're feeling lonely and they assume that they the their personality is the barrier that's gonna make it impossible and that's like you said we have we can change that mindset if you do crave social connection. You have much greater potential to create that connection than you realize. Now, there's a phenomenon that Johnny and I have been discussing coming out of the pandemic and everyone's fear around strangers because it had real negative health consequences based on what was happening around us.

43:56And we've all felt this shrinking of our social connections, our ties, our social circle to keep ourselves healthy and protect ourselves during the pandemic. but it also emboldened a lot of our fears that we have around strangers that hold us back from this connection. And do you think there are some new ways of looking at things coming out of the pandemic that we should really focus on to overcome some of these fears we have that were really stirred up during the pandemic around meeting and connecting with strangers? Yeah, I totally do. So actually there's this kind of evolutionary theory from psychology that, you know, it's a kind of it's a good response actually to when there's a big risk of infection in the past it would have made sense not to kind of interact with strangers because you know it's a way of naturally socially distancing and physically distancing is just something that we humans have always done essentially but you know when the when we're vaccinated when the threat is much less we don't have to continue that but I think a lot of people did really suffer from that lack of connection during the pandemic and social skills and social confidence is something that we have to practice regularly to maintain it and so I certainly found after the lockdowns here in London that it took me a while to kind of come back to my kind of former standpoint with my social confidence.

45:20It takes experience and repeated experience to recognise that people are often much nicer than you assume and you know like so there's research showing this that when we talk to strangers we just assume that the conversation is going to be super awkward and we're going to be stuck for words and we're just we're not going to shine like and then you know you talk to a stranger and you find that actually it's a much more pleasant experience than it really was you know lots of good research by people like Nicholas Epley have shown that but what seems to be the case is that if we only do that rarely confidence just drops straight back down we don't ever like recalibrate those expectations so what you really want is to do it daily one day after another and so there were studies very similar to those studies of introversion extroversion where psychologists just got people to make a habit of going out each day and talking to a stranger in the park or someone in line at starbucks but just doing that daily like picking out you know someone with cool hair or a cute dog and what they found was that even after just five days of cultivating this habit the participants expectations of those interactions were already much better they already felt more confident were less worried about rejection more open to the idea that they would enjoy these experiences and so after the lockdowns I really think that's maybe is what we need is to just push ourselves to kind of put that into practice and to keep on doing it and we need to make sure that we we don't just have a vague intention to do that like really set yourself goals like you know, an if-when implementation intention, we call it.

46:53So, you know, when I'm at this supermarket, I'm going to help someone who's struggling to carry their groceries. That kind of specific scenario that just makes it so much easier to enact this intention. I think that's what we really need to do to kind of overcome that particular barrier. I completely agree. And looking at all those opportunities around us, once we remove our AirPods, we put our phone in our pocket, they're more plentiful than we even realize. Right. Now, one of the core tenets we teach is giving value. And one of the simplest ways to give value is to actually appreciate those around you.

47:28And I was having this spirited conversation with one of our executive clients around a troublesome team member that he was managing. And he was really struggling to find anything good to say about the work that they were doing. And it had created an immense amount of tension in their relationship. And of course, as their manager, it was really important to him to have them drive results so that they can move forward on the project. And what I pointed out to him is this idea of, well, are there other things outside of the work itself that you can appreciate about this person? Maybe it's their values.

48:04Maybe it's some behaviors around things that they do outside of work that are really inspiring to you. And can you bring that into the conversation instead of just focusing so much on the task at hand? And it was fascinating. A couple weeks later, he hopped on a call with me and he shared that not only was he appreciating their discipline on a hobby that they do outside of work completely, but in their next two stand-up meetings, their demeanor completely changed. And in turn, he found that his demeanor changed and he started to actually look forward to their stand-up meetings. And I thought it was just a really beautiful illustration of just the impact of words of appreciation.

48:40And he shared with me, he recognized in himself that he actually loves words of appreciation. And I think it's so important for us to recognize that in order to receive those words of appreciation, it's important for us to start to build the habit of just appreciating those around us without necessarily looking for it in return. And when we set that frame and that tone in our interactions, we're going to find that those words of appreciation flow back to us. and I know you can share all the great benefits, scientifically speaking, that appreciation has on our relationships. You know, just like you described, like we have this kind of asymmetry where we love having words of appreciation, but we are quite stingy in giving it out to other people.

49:24And it's not because we're kind of miserly kind of scrooges, but it's more just because we, again, we have these kind of negative expectations. We're pessimistic about how it's going to be perceived. Like we're just worried we're going to seem clumsy that we don't have this social fluency to be able to phrase a compliment elegantly. And we don't understand just how much the other person is going to appreciate it. We kind of assume they already know how great they are, so they don't need to be told. All of these assumptions are wrong. People love to hear the compliments just as much as you love to hear them.

49:56Most people are perfectly competent at sharing compliments and words of gratitude. We all have the capacity to say these things without seeming kind of unctuous or creepy. so we should just be doing it more often it brings a well-being benefit to the person receiving the compliment but also the person dishing out the compliments of the expressor and you know when we say words of gratitude it can even do things like improve our physiological stress response so there's a study based on shark tank where kids like university students had to develop presentations for a product and then showed that to a team of judges.

50:35Like it was for a prize, they all felt kind of put on the spot, like quite stressed. But if just one member of the pair expressed gratitude to the other member, both of them, the expressor and the receiver, tended to show a much healthier stress response. So they were still energized, but they just weren't moving towards that kind of fight or flight panic response. Rather than our audience... listening to this and thinking about those assumptions or what would happen or my identity is this and that. I can't do that. It's more so of challenging yourself, as you mentioned earlier, David, with daily tasks, but looking at them as an experiment, right?

51:22You listen to the show, you like what Johnny and AJ and our guests have to say, but what are you implementing? What are you putting into place? Are you going out and sharing trait compliments with three people a day to have an understanding of what that actually does rather than it's assuming, oh, they've already heard it or assuming it's not going to go, well, we can do that all day. But to challenge yourself and to see, do you have the world's largest laboratory out your door? So get to it. Right. Yeah, exactly. It's what we're taught in kind of cognitive behavioral therapy. It's like, do these things as kind of micro experiments and just kind of see how it works, like challenge those assumptions.

52:13That's so important. There's no way that someone could just wave a magic wand and make you an amazingly sociable, gregarious, likable person without you changing your behavior in some way. And not to be Machiavellian, but the science shows that it increases productivity. So when you actually appreciate the people you work with on a team, whether you're supervising them or you're simply peers with them, when you bring that appreciation forth, everyone benefits, It's not only mental health, physical health, but productivity wise. We all feel better in a culture that appreciates all of our hard work for showing up versus waiting for someone else to appreciate you, hoping that one day your boss or manager might appreciate you.

53:00We can bring that on the daily to these interactions that are so meaningful in our lives. Right, exactly. I mean, like a lack of appreciation is one of the biggest causes of burnout when you just feel like you're working and working and no one's noticing what you're doing. It's incredibly demotivating, stressful. It just makes the whole working day so much more of a drag. And it's also one of the biggest causes for people to leave their current position. So economically speaking, for managers to employ this research a bit more and to just demonstrate their appreciation for their employees, it's a no-brainer to do so.

53:42Because people are going to be happier. You're going to be more productive, like you said. You're saving a lot of money by doing that. Now, the pandemic showed us not only that meeting strangers can be a challenge, but also maintaining social connections can be a struggle. So as we were isolated and maybe not able to visit friends and family due to what was happening around us, some of those relationships may have frayed. So what can we do to maintain and strengthen relationships that maybe we've grown distant from or we felt that there's some tension in a relationship that was really meaningful to us in the past?

54:17so I think like one of the best things that we can do is just reach out and again we have these kind of negative assumptions that lead us to just we're reluctant to do so like we worry that the other person will have moved on with their lives and they don't want to hear from us we don't really expect them to feel much joy from us doing so and so we just put it off or another reason is that we we feel like to do so meaningfully we have to like actually go and visit that person physically and then maybe we can't find the time or we can't afford the travel or we're too worried that a physical encounter is also gonna you know it's like a big investment you go and visit someone in another city and then it's like a whole day wasted but actually the research shows that you know again these assumptions are unfounded that you people will appreciate any gesture that you make a lot more than you expect like even just sending a very short text message like a whatsapp whatever, to someone to say, like, I'm thinking of you, I care about you, I was wondering how you are.

55:20It's more likely to be appreciated than you think. You know, face-to-face encounters are better than a video call, and a video call is better than a phone call, and a phone call is better than an email, and an email maybe is better than a text, but all of them are appreciated. Like, none of them are meaningless, like, they all help in different ways. So we can use all of this technology that we have at our disposal to try to reignite and rekindle those relationships that maybe just fell by the wayside. One of my favorite strategies is actually sharing a video or photo of a shared reality moment that you both had.

55:57Maybe it was a trip you took, maybe it was a Champions League semifinal game that you attended together that was years in the past, just evoking that fond memory on that reach out creates that instant shared reality again, and reminder that that person was important in your life and vice versa. And just is heartwarming in these moments where again, we feel very busy, and the notifications digging our phone are stressful. It's great to brighten someone's day, even if you haven't heard from them in months or years even with a shared reality moment that you captured. And thankfully, we all have devices and social media feeds.

56:34We've been capturing all of these moments for decades now with technology and having that brief moment to share it with someone else, evoke the shared reality, is a great way to rekindle those relationships. I think any kind of gesture is appreciated, but I think you're totally right. We can bear in mind the concept of shared reality to make those interactions just so much more meaningful. So nostalgia is an amazing emotion for bonding people together. It's probably why it evolved. So we can capitalise on that, you know, look for our old photos, share a memory that maybe the other person hasn't brought up for a while, but just remind them of that and your closeness in the past.

57:15These are all things that we can do that will personalise the interaction. And, you know, even if you can't actually see the person face to face, it could be that just like, you know, showing that you appreciated those moments in the past in this way, maybe that will be just as significant for that other person. And it definitely gives you a starter for these conversations that maybe you can then build on that to arrange other kinds of encounters that will help you to strengthen the bond further. I know another great strategy is what's called the Benjamin Franklin effect. And for those in our audience who aren't familiar with it, what is the Benjamin Franklin effect and how can we utilize it to maintain relationships in our life.

57:56So it's called the Benjamin Franklin effect, because in his autobiography, he spoke about having this rival at the Pennsylvania's General Assembly, just someone who had taken an instant dislike to Ben Franklin. And so like Franklin considered maybe like, you know, like really trying to flatter the person, like maybe that would have worked. But his approach was quite different. It was, I'm just going to ask him for a favour. So he they both had an interest in literature. He asked if he could borrow this rare book that he knew the other guy had in his library. When he received the book, he returned it with this thank you note just saying how much he'd enjoyed reading that book.

58:35And he found the guy's attitude to him changed completely. And he went from being one of his rivals to being one of his greatest allies. And that sounds almost too good to be true, but there have been multiple studies that replicate this effect. There was a famous one from the 1960s. And then more recently, Japanese researchers have been interested in this phenomenon because in the Japanese language, there's this concept called amai that specifically kind of describes the idea that asking for a favor can actually increase someone's bond with you. and over all of these studies they found that yeah you know ben franklin had it right like it's a really good way of underlining your closeness to someone because why else would you ask someone for help unless you like actually admired and respected them and trusted them yeah exactly so it's a i love it it's a very powerful technique and we have to be a bit careful that we we don't use it too often because we don't want to become like an actual burden to someone but in general people are much happier to do favors for us than we imagine they would be.

59:39And as long as we give them plenty of opportunities to kind of to say no, you know, as long as we are mindful of their other responsibilities, I think it's a brilliant way of just, again, benefiting our well-being, benefiting their well-being, and just bringing us closer together. I love that. And it certainly works. And I've certainly benefited from it. And I think, well, everyone can. For myself, For our clients, I want them to detach from outcomes so that they are able to use the Ben Franklin effect. Because if you're afraid of hearing no, well, you're certainly not going to be asking people for things or for favors.

1:00:21In fact, you're going to avoid that at all costs. but you know challenging yourself to get a hundred no's over the month can certainly shatter that frame so that you're gonna not only that but the amount of yeses that you do get from that exercise only empowers you then to be asking for more favors everywhere just this just the not only see what you can get away with but it's it's such a wonderful way to connect as you've demonstrated through the research. Yeah, totally. And, you know, there's some lovely research by Vanessa Bones, and she had shown that in general, you know, like we, people are about twice as likely to help us than we expect.

1:01:09So if you're kind of looking to borrow someone's phone, because yours has run out of battery, you have to ask half as many people as you expect before someone will say yes. So you're going to receive a lot more yeses than you expect. And, you know, as long as we reciprocate and we're equally generous. It's a win-win for everyone. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. And I'm curious, based on your background and all the research you did for this book, what's the one biggest behavior change that's had the greatest impact in your life after looking at all the science? Yeah, I mean, so I do apply like every lesson that I learn in the book, just because I don't want to write about things I don't personally believe in.

1:01:49But let's see. Yeah, I think like Like for me, yeah, the Ben Franklin effect is something that I kind of do put into practice a lot more. Reaching out to kind of old connections, I'm much less shy about doing that. Just, you know, I think like what really all of this research has just told me is to just be a bit braver in these kind of all of these interactions, whether it's with someone who you barely know, whether it's a colleague you've worked with for years, even family members. we can have much greater trust that our social competency is good enough to create the connection that we crave and by putting this into practice by doing it regularly you just reinforce that message and so I've gone from being a very shy person to now feeling like pretty socially confident and just feeling so much love from the people around me that was probably there anyway But I just think like reading the research, practicing this has made it much more abundantly clear.

1:02:49I love that. And we highly encourage our audience to check out the laws of connection. Where can they find out more about your other books and all the great work you do? So my website is davidrobson.me. I'm on Twitter, D underscore A underscore Robson. And I'm on Instagram, David A. Robson. Well, thank you for joining us, David. It was a pleasure reading the book. and I'm excited for our audience to put these strategies into action. Thank you. Yeah, it's been a brilliant conversation and just, yeah, for the avoidance of doubt, like, you know, I really love the conversation. There's no liking gap here on my side.

1:03:24So yeah. Likewise, we enjoyed it thoroughly. Thank you, David.

1:03:37This week's shout out comes from Boris and I'll let Boris tell you himself. Take it away. Hi, my name is Boris. I'm a senior software engineer. I was born in Europe and moved to United States 10 years ago. There was a time when I was lacking sense of community and belonging. I chose the Art of Charm program because I wanted to advance my career and build a personal circle of people with similar values. The program made me view people around me as doors to new opportunities. That person at the conference can refer you to your next job. That stranger at the coffee shop is a gateway to your new hobby.

1:04:14That passenger on the train is your significant other if you make the move. I recommend to take a step and sign up for the Art of Charm program. I will see you at the AUC family reunion. Boris, it was a pleasure working with you too and congratulations on all your latest victories. It was great speaking to you the other day. Let me ask you, are you using these concepts in your life? What's stopping you? We understand you're busy. That's why we want to systemize our processes by speeding up the learning curve, cutting out the frustration and guesswork, and streamlining your efforts in our X-Factor Accelerator experience.

1:04:52Boost your social confidence, communicate powerfully, and build your social capital with easy-to-use framework strategies and tools straight from this show. We do this by short-to-the-point trainings, Q &A, Zoom coaching sessions, virtual implementation workshops, and a money-back guarantee. Hit the ground running with a personalized plan of attack. This is not a one-size-fits-all. Our programs are tailored to your skill level so that you can get the best possible training. Join an elite network of professionals, business owners, military special forces, and engineers, closing deals, winning friends, and influencing high-value people.

1:05:28People skills for analytical people. Don't put off your full potential any longer. Apply today at unlockyourxfactor.com. If you have gotten value out of any of our podcasts, please head on over to your favorite podcast player and rate and review the show. It means the world to us and it helps others like you find the show. All right, before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harold and Eric Montgomery. Go out there and have an epic, charming week.

1:06:26Yeah, but I remember you. Oh, yeah, I remember you. It was a bad day, but I found it a wrong way.

From the publisher

In today’s episode, we dive into the world of human connection with David Robson. David is an award-winning writer specializing in the psychology and neuroscience of human relationships. With a rich background in scientific journalism and a degree in mathematics from the University of Cambridge, David has dedicated his career to exploring the intricate ways we bond and interact with each other. His work has been widely recognized and featured in top-tier publications such as The Guardian, The Atlantic, and BBC Future. David is also the author of The Laws of Connection, a profound exploration into the science behind how we form lasting connections.

In today’s episode, David Robson reveals the secrets to building stronger social connections through the latest psychological research. He explains the profound impact of social ties on our physical health, the importance of overcoming the "liking gap," and how to effectively use follow-up questions to create shared realities. David also shares strategies for rebuilding our social skills post-pandemic, the power of expressing appreciation, and how the Benjamin Franklin effect can strengthen our relationships. 

What to Listen For

Introduction – 0:00

Who is David Robson, and how can his insights on human connection and psychology transform your personal and professional relationships?

How do social connections affect your health, and what diseases can they help protect against?

Why is it important to recognize and manage ambivalent relationships effectively?

What barriers prevent you from connecting with others – 10:40

What is the "liking gap," and how does it prevent you from forming deeper connections?

How can you recalibrate your perceptions to overcome these psychological barriers?

What questions can you ask to rapidly build deep connections? – 24:24

What types of questions are most effective for building deeper connections?

How can you move past small talk quickly to create meaningful conversations?

What overlooked expression can drastically improve your relationship with anyone at work and in your personal life?

How can you rebuild your social skills post-pandemic? – 47:51

How has the pandemic affected our social skills, and what strategies can help you rebuild them?

Why is practicing daily interactions with strangers crucial for maintaining social confidence?

What is the Benjamin Franklin Effect and how can it strengthen relationships? – 51:30

What is the Benjamin Franklin effect, and how can asking for small favors strengthen your relationships?

How can you apply this effect in your daily life to enhance your social bonds?

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