How To Be A Supercommunicator | Charles Duhigg

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1:05You've probably heard the headlines about all the different cuts to foreign aid and food benefits. This is having a profound impact on the world's poorest people and the world's poorest communities. But, you know, just hearing about that, that's not what stoicism is about. Stoicism is, to me, what you're going to do about it. And that's where GiveWell comes in. GiveWell is trusted by tens of thousands of donors each year because they provide free and independent research that helps you understand how to have a big impact. GiveWell has spent the last 18 years researching global health and poverty alleviation, and they direct funding to the highest impact opportunities.

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2:37Welcome to the weekend edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring.

3:30Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another weekend episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I squeezed this episode in, could not have squeezed it in any tighter. My guest got off a flight from Europe. There's like one, I think, London to Austin flight. Got his bags, took an Uber right to the painted porch. We recorded the episode and walked over to the bookstore. I handed him some of my favorite books. And then my wife pulled up in the car. The kids were in their pajamas. They ran in to get a snack, put them in the car. We left, I think, at 8.20 p.m. and drove all the way. I think we made it as far as Lake Charles, Louisiana before we stopped, crashed in a hotel, and then made our way to the beach for spring break.

4:21but I'm really glad I squeezed this conversation in because it's with one of my favorite writers, Charles Duhigg. He wrote The Power of Habit. He wrote Smarter, Faster, Better. Then he wrote this new book, Super Communicators, How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. Part of the reason my wife was willing to let us pivot our vacation around doing this little interview is that she actually grabbed a copy of this book off NetGalley or whatever. She read an early copy that she gets from, she gets access to because of the bookstore. And she kept going like multiple times throughout the last month and a half.

4:57I've been reading this book, Super Communicators. You know what he says in this book, Super Communicators? And I go, all right, all right, all right. I'm already talking to this guy. Okay, I get it. It's good. And it was lovely because usually she is, you know, reading stuff she's interested in and not people I'm about to talk to on the podcast. So I was looking forward to the conversation. I think it was a great conversation. And then there's a couple points in it. You might hear me pause, but I wrote stuff down because we talked about asking great questions. We talked about curiosity. And these are two themes I'm thinking about in the wisdom book, which I am writing now, the justice book coming out in June, by the way, you can grab that at dailystoic.com slash justice.

5:37But part of the reason I do this podcast, part of the reason it's so rewarding for me is that I learn things that go into my writing. And I love talking to people who can communicate ideas effectively, as Charles talks about in the book, who can make me see things a different way. They teach me things. And so even though I'm interviewing them to learn about what they do, I'm trying to learn things that help me with what I do. And the podcast has just been wonderful for that. And the Super Communicators book, that's really what it's about. you know, it's not about rhetoric necessarily, the words, but it's about how you create connection so people can hear what you're saying and you can hear what they're saying.

6:21I think it's a great book. He's a writer for New Yorker magazine and his books have sold a bazillion copies because they're quite good. He's won a Pulitzer Prize because he's quite good. And, you know, he knows what he's talking about when it comes to communication. I think you're going to like this interview, you can follow him at Charles Duhigg on Instagram and grab his books anywhere books are sold. We do have signed copies of The Power of Habit and Super Communicators in the Painted Porch. I'll link to those in today's show notes. Thank you, Charles, for stopping by, being accommodating, pushing through the jet lag.

6:57And thanks to my family for indulging me with a little extra work before we hit the road. Enjoy.

7:14Oh, my gosh. Well, thanks for doing this before you guys get on the road. That's, um... Well, we thought the kids would sleep in the car, so we're trying to sneak one by, and we'll see. How old are your kids? Seven and four. Oh, nice. Yeah. Do you have kids? I do. I have a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old. Nice. Yeah. Do they ever travel with you, like when you do? Actually, so my son is going to fly out on Monday and then. For South Bay? Yeah. That's fun. Yeah, that'd be really fun. Yeah. And then next week, he's on spring break, so he's coming to, I'm going to Arizona and then New York. So he's coming.

7:54Yeah, my dream is my kids will come with me on some of my talks and stuff, but they don't seem to want to. Yeah. Not quite yet. It's definitely, I mean, and the thing is that, like, if you did take them now, it'd be a little bit of a nightmare, right? Because you want them old enough you could leave them in the hotel room to go do something. Yes. I mean, what's even better is like at some point, and we've reached this stage, they can just kind of be on their own. Right. And that's amazing. So like I have to do like various things at South by. So Ollie's just going to go. Go do stuff. Yeah. Go sit down on panels and stuff.

8:26Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. You get a whole cast and then he gets to go. That's cool. So he's really, yeah, it's going to be fun. Well, speaking of which, my wife loved your book. Oh. She is normally not interested in any of the guests on this podcast at all, let alone reading the books. And she keeps, like, I would say at least five times she was like, so I was reading in this super communicator book. So she really liked it. Well, tell her. I really appreciate it. I find that's the test, right? Yeah. Like, the spouse. because like there's stuff that I'm interested in and then there has to be like a level of extra interested where I'm like, I'm going to use relationship capital on this recommendation.

9:06Exactly. Exactly. And I apologize. I actually got a cold while I was in. So if I cough, I apologize. All good. But no, she's been loving it. So can I ask you something? So did you grow up in Texas? No, I grew up in California. Oh, really? Where in California? Sacramento. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. When did you move to? I've lived all over, but I wrote my first book in New Orleans, and then we moved here. And that was the, what was your first book? The media one. Oh, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wrote that when I was living in New Orleans. I was living in L.A. when all the stuff in the book was happening, but I moved to New Orleans just to, like, write somewhere.

9:45Gotcha. And I really liked living in the south, but New Orleans is, like, a little too far south. Yeah. If you know what I mean. Yeah. Well, particularly in the summer. Well, no, it's more like you want the place you live to be laid back, but not too laid back. Yeah. Like you don't want a place that takes the whole month of February off for a giant party. Right. Yeah, that's a good point. And so how long ago did you move to Texas? Ten years ago. Oh, and then how did you guys decide to move here? Well, we lived in East Austin, and then we had a goat in our backyard. and we were like, this goat needs some space.

10:24So we moved out here. We bought a little ranch. So then right before the pandemic, we got tired of commuting into Austin. So we drive to this little town, which is like the close, this is probably the closest town to Austin that's not in Austin. So how frequently do you go into Austin? A couple times a month. Okay. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's interesting. So I live in Santa Cruz and like that's probably about the same going up to like Berkeley or San Francisco. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have some family in Santa Cruz. Do you? I do. Yeah, Sacramento. People think California is all Santa Cruz and Los Angeles and San Diego.

11:05Yes. There's a lot of Sacramento. But there's a lot of Sacramento. That whole Central Valley is like a very different area. I was actually on the plane. I was watching Chinatown. Yeah. Which I hadn't seen in like a decade. Well, we have a great book in the bookstore about the making of Chinatown. Oh, really? Yeah, I'll give it to you. oh wow it's really good and but it's just funny like like watching i mean most of california is like a farming history right and yeah and people forget a friend of mine uh lives in this ghost town above uh the owens lake huh and it's funny because that movie is all about water yeah and he lives in a ghost town yeah on the top he's coming in in a couple weeks uh but he um he's actually my partner in daily stock he uh right above the lake was uh the biggest goal the biggest silver mine in california history really yeah like so much so like they would bring it down the mountain and then they would travel by boat across the lake like it was it would be if they hadn't drained that lake it would be one of the biggest resort destinations in the world because imagine where else where what's the closest like lake you can get to from los angeles yeah be like three hours from LA.

12:16It'd be this gorgeous, serene thing. That's super interesting. So he lives there. And so how much, so I, most of what I know about your background is from the stoicism stuff and which I love, but it's, but like, how, like you obviously do other stuff too. How does it like, how does the, are you like mostly a bookshop owner or are you mostly? I don't know. I just kind of do stuff that I find interesting. The bookstore thing is kind of a, it was like a fun side project my wife and i were sitting at this uh at the little cafe across the street and we had the idea to do the bookstore basically i needed like a podcast space i needed an office and so the thinking was might as well like build a bookstore around it yeah of course naturally no it was like instead of renting some boring office park and then you still have to do renovations and build out what you want we're like why not just like do it semi more permanent well i also think for like for writers like there's something about being close to the actual business of books yeah that just seems very intoxicating yeah it's also maddening because you kind of see how the business works oh really what do you mean you're out of this like like you get this like the things that drive you mad as an author you realize are also driving the people who are trying to sell your books crazy it's like you mean you just you got to zero on this title you have zero copies of this book in stock and now i have to wait for you to reprint it like Like, that happens all the time.

13:40That's very interesting. Well, I was thinking about your book, how it connects to what I was doing. One of the things that I was thinking about is, like, it's kind of crazy that in the ancient world, they used to train people in communications. You would be trained in rhetoric and oratory and logic. You had all, the idea that like getting your message across was not a given, was a given. Like you had to be good at this thing. It was a scene as a set of skills. And it's not just the ancient world. Like, so I went to Yale for undergrad and I think until the 1970s, they had a rhetoric major. Really?

14:23Yeah. So, like, so I was on the debate team in college, and we would go into all these rooms and buildings that was, like, so-and-so professor of rhetoric who spent his entire career at Yale. And, of course, in contemporary age, we're like, professor, like, what are you, like, are you just teaching people, like? Talking? Yeah. Yeah. But I think that's actually what they were doing is I think it was logic, and I think, like, a lot of it's gotten baked into. A lot of it's gotten segmented up now, right? It's, like, math, and it's, you know, humanities. Sure. history but yeah it this you like for a long time people realized that this is something important that you need to learn how to do totally yeah i there's this uh so marx really says a philosophy teacher and a rhetoric teacher and they're kind of like enemies like you can see a few of these letters uh survive from him and his rhetoric teacher and it's like rhetoric teacher is like jealous that the philosophy teacher's getting too much attention yeah there's letters between Mark Suleis and his teacher, Fronto.

15:21But like, I think Mark is, what I kind of make up for the letters is he's like, well, I need both, right? Because it doesn't, like, you have to know what's true and what you think and what the right thing is, and then you have to communicate it. And it seems, obviously, this day and age, people are either really good at communicating and there's nothing there. Right. Or the people who have the thing that everyone else most desperately needs to hear are totally incapable of communicating effectively. They're not trained. And we used to actually, even in public schools, so like you grew up in California and I grew up in New Mexico.

15:59I assume your parents are probably my parents' age. Like they had home ec courses. Yeah. Or there were human relationship courses. There was basically training in school recognizing that communication is hard. Yeah. And then what I think happened was that as schools became more technical, It just kind of fell out of the curriculum, right? It felt like something that wasn't essential compared to math and science and biology. And so I think it disappeared, but I think now we see the consequence. Well, people go like, oh, I want to get good at public speaking. And then everyone goes, have you heard of Toastmasters?

16:36And it's like, I mean, I've heard of it. I don't know a single person that actually does it. It's almost like one of those pieces of advice you would offer to someone else, but never actually follow yourself. And then it's like from there, no other options. Right. Like no other ways that you would get better at communicating as if it's not the most universal of skills. Totally. Or like when you and I debated in high school, like that was my whole like focus was debate. And then you graduate. Like there used to be – excuse me. There used to be debate clubs for adults. Sure. Right? You would like go down to the, you know, foreign legion or whatever it was, and you would have a debate and everyone would kind of like gather for that.

17:21And it's just, yeah, it's not. And I think that when you look at what's happening politically right now, we see the consequences of it. Yeah, of course, because it's not, it goes both ways. It's not just that a lot of people aren't good at communicating. but then audiences don't aren't used to good communication so they don't know the difference i think it was uh maybe daniel borston he has he sort of broke down the lincoln douglas debates and he was like really yeah he was he's basically saying like the lincoln douglas debates were like four or five hours and he's like these country people would come in listen to like two or three hours of oratory on highly technical issues from two trained lawyers slash orators go home have dinner and then come back then they would finish the thing and then the orders got on the train went to the next town did it again so fascinating and and then it was obviously printed in newspapers but he's just saying the level not just like when you read the debates you're like these are two very smart great communicators but also he's saying like think of how good the audience how proficient the audience was, like what they needed to be able to understand and comprehend at that level.

18:36And like, yeah, you watch, you watch political communications now. It's like, you better be attractive on television. And that's like 95%. Yes. Well, and I think the other thing that's different now is from like the Lincoln Douglas times, and even from the 1950s, frankly, is that because people were engaged in debate more, you learned to bond with someone who you disagree with on some things, right? Sure. Nowadays, I think if you walk into a bar and you want to make friends and you're a Trump voter and you're in a blue state or you're a Biden voter in a red state, like this one difference becomes the magnifying glass that defines your identity.

19:21But I think people were a lot more practiced at being able to basically navigate that. To say like, I mean, because the truth of the matter is, there's all kinds of things that all of us disagree on, right? Yeah, sure. And being able to like have a friendship despite those disagreements is a critical part of being a human and an American. And so I think that that's part of, that same way that we've lost practice at listening to complicated arguments. We've gotten out of practice at knowing how to befriend people that we disagree with. That's true. Yeah, there's a funny story about sort of debate and disagreement at the beginning of Stoicism.

19:59So Stoicism begins in Greece, goes to Rome, and it comes in the form of actually this diplomatic delegation. There's like three different philosophers, one of whom's a Stoic, the other's a Sophist named Carneades, I think. Anyways, Cornelius goes and he speaks one day on one topic. And then the next day he argues the opposite, right? Like a great debater or what a sophist would do. And Cato, the elder, who would be the great, great grandfather of the famous Stoic Cato, he hears this and he's so appalled. Like the difference between Greek and Roman, like Greeks love ideas, love contradiction, love arguments, and then the practical Romans.

20:38He's so disgusted that someone could speak on one way one day and then the other that he recommends that all philosophers be banned from Rome for corrupting the youth. And the irony is that, you know, just a few generations later, his great-grandson would be this very famous philosopher. But the idea, too, I think there is maybe there is some frustration with debate and sort of, you know, even even like what pundits do where you go, oh, you're just telling people what they want to hear. There's this kind of suspicion of it being manipulative or intellectual. And so maybe we kind of just do away with that entirely as as an overreaction and we lose the ability to recognize good arguments, engage with arguments we disagree with.

21:25Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and we don't see it as a good anymore. We don't see it as a virtue. And so as a result, we don't, I mean, because the truth of the matter is, if you believe in something strongly, the best way to figure out how you believe in it is to hear the opposite. Of course. In fact, to make the opposite arguments, right? To steal man it. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so, but I think you're right that we don't see that as a virtue anymore. Like, we see it as actually inauthentic. Yes. When in truth, like testing an idea is the most authentic devotion to that idea possible. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

22:00And I found this with my work. I'm sure you have too. There's this, it's like people who come up with the idea or are experts in the thing, there's somehow some like purity in that. And then the person who can effectively communicate that to a large audience is somehow perverting it or that popularizing is used as a slur. and it's like, look, I would love for, I'd love to live in a world where the people who were the original creators of the work were effective evangelists for that idea, but they're not. Right. And it's interesting. So one of the things that I thought was really fascinating when I was researching super communicators is that if you look at the literature, people who are super communicators, what they tend to do is they tend to be incredibly influential, not because they have the best ideas themselves, but because they know how to repeat other people's ideas better than that person themselves.

22:57Yes. And so they're often seen as this person who's incredibly influential, this person who's incredibly smart. But even they would admit, if you look at like sort of what they're doing, it's not that they are having that idea. It's that they are listening and repackaging other people's ideas. And more importantly, they're listening to the feedback. Right. So there's a, there's a, you know, um, there's this experiment with both cybers. So, so there's, you know, all these people in a room, they're all are having ideas. And what the super communicators do is they basically cycle through other people's ideas, testing them out in different ways, and then they pay attention to how people react to them.

23:36So that's why you can, that's why consensus is easier to achieve when a super communicators in the conversation is because they're actually facilitating, not only restating things in a way that's easier to understand, but also testing how people are reacting to it. Well, I was thinking that, so there's obviously Darwin and Darwin has this great world changing idea, but it's not like Darwin that popularizes evolution. What's the guy? They call them Darwin's bulldog. I'm forgetting his name, but like most of the great ideas were popularized or articulated or made palatable to a mass audience by someone other than the original creator of that idea.

24:13I totally, well, I mean, and that's kind of our job. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah. Like when I look at like, so Malcolm Gladwell is a good friend and I love Malcolm. Like what he's done his whole career so brilliantly is he's basically taken ideas and said like, let me, let me package these in a way that you can remember them and you can absorb them and they seem applicable. And, and yeah, I think that's what we do if we're. Yeah. And look, I think he of all people would, he would love for, if you said, hey, Malcolm, everyone is going to develop the scientific proficiency that you have that allows you to read this information and understand it.

24:48The whole public is going to get to that level. And so you're going to be out of a job. Right. He would be like, deal. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I love what I write about and I love going off in the weeds, but I also am able to this other part of my brain go, that's not normal. and that's not where most people are because they have other things going on. And how do I take what fascinates me or the connections that I see and get them over here? That's the job. So I would even take the argument a little bit further and I would say that you're exactly right, that part of what you do and I do and Malcolm does is that we don't mind wading into the dense literature and sort of figuring out like the important parts.

25:31But I think the other thing that we do, and I don't know why science has moved away from this. My wife is actually a scientist, and I ask her, talk to her about this all the time, is we embed ideas in stories. And the story is the thing that you remember. So everybody could be reading those scientific papers, and very few of them would actually penetrate to how we live because the delivery device is this dry, easy-to-ignore delivery device. and when we embed it in a story, what we're doing is we're making it memorable.

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29:03No, I noticed, so obviously stoicism has been around for a long time. And then there have been books about stoicism. But what I noticed, so I would read the stoic text and be like, this is amazing. and then I'd read the text about stoicism and I'd be like, why don't I love this? And I realized I didn't love it because the book was just like, this person said this and then they said this and that's what this means. And I'm like, so I should just read the original because you're analyzing it, but you're not adding anything new because you're not a great ancient philosopher, right? And at the same time, you're taking it out of the original context, which is whatever it is.

29:46But like, so when I decided to write my books, I was like, oh, I'll just illustrate the ideas via stories and I'll make analogies to other stories or events or personalities that people are familiar with. And that doesn't seem like much, but it unlocked this whole thing that made this specific philosophy accessible in a way that it wasn't before. Yeah, it may not seem like much, but it is actually everything. Of course, yeah. Because you could have the best idea possible, and if you can't grab onto it, if it doesn't stick in your brain, then it doesn't matter. Well, and if it was easy, you'd see a lot more of it.

30:21Yes, that is true. That is true. Like if what Malcolm Gladwell did was easy, there'd be, first off, there have been lots of copycats, but they haven't sold the same way. Right. Because even there's some chasm they're not getting across that he is getting across. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And actually, in his case, and I think this is true, one of the things I like about your stuff is that I actually think the brilliance that Malcolm has is asking the smart question. It's not necessarily coming up with a smart answer. But I think in many ways, like when I read his stuff, and again, in your stuff, I sort of feel like the same thing, is that the answer is satisfying and the answer is interesting, but it's posing the question in a way that hadn't occurred to me before that's actually the most revelatory.

31:11Yeah. Don't you think it's also like the, it's not just like the individual thing, but it's like the deciding, like all these things are related, or like this is the title of the, like, so, So, you know, it's coming up with a concept under which you're going to get people interested in the thing. The packaging is really the hard part that people don't do super well. I think that's exactly right. I remember there was this one piece that Malcolm did for The New Yorker about the difference between choking and freezing. I think that's what it was. Oh, like in sports. Or like actually, yeah, in sports or in flying a plane or whatever it is.

31:49And like until I'd read that, I was like, oh, it never even occurred to me to think that those are two different things. Yeah. But actually now that you say it is, that's kind of like revealing of how the human brain works. And then the thing that he would do is like, what are some really indelible examples of someone choking and freezing? Exactly. And what are the differences between them? Have you read David Epstein's book, Range? Which one? Oh, yeah. I think like to me, like when I'm thinking of concept, I'm like, okay, this guy wanted to talk about having a range of skills. But really the thing was he was like, who are the two examples on the extreme ends of the spectrum to illustrate this idea?

32:27And then everything like you could sentence by sentence is a very good book, but it could be a much worse book. And it would still largely succeed because he got this the big part right, which is title. And then like the the concept of like Tiger Woods versus Roger Federer. I totally agree. So this is, whenever people ask me about writing books, what I say to them is it's almost unfair because the two choices you have to make earliest in the process are the most important, which is what's the book about? Yeah. Right? Like you have to choose the right topic. Yes. And it can't be too big, but it also can't be too narrow.

33:04Yeah. And then number two, what's the structure? Yes. And oftentimes you read a book and you're like, oh, like the structure isn't working for me. But once you're halfway through writing a book, you can't change the entire structure, right? I think it's hard for writers to. Well, but see, to me, that's the skill is both the discipline to not start until you've cracked the structure and the ability ultimately to crack the structure and to care about it, right? To go like, how am I actually taking you through this thing? And so to me, that is an element of super communication. It's not just what you're communicating, but to do it at a high level is like, no, no, no, here's this way.

33:45Like books are obviously a great example of this. So we're probably going to overemphasize books. But I think another book, Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan. I want to write a book about uncertainty. And I'm going to come up with this little story, the idea that people were under the impression that all swans were white. And then you have one black swan and it disproves all of it. Or he tells the story of the turkey. Everything's good for the turkey until Thanksgiving. Yeah. Right? And so you just come up with, it's the idea of like, okay, what is this thing? What's my way of explaining this story?

34:19And if you can't do that, you're not ready to write it, even if you've got a deadline. I think that's exactly right. You know? Yeah. And actually, I basically, so for Power of Habit, sorry, I just got off the plane. So I'm like a little like jet lagged. All good. But for Power of Habit, like I had worked out the entire argument, the entire structure of the book before I started writing it. The proposal, the book basically ended up looking like the proposal. Yeah. And then for my second book, Smarter, Faster, Better, I basically, I didn't do the pre-work. Like I didn't actually figure out what my overarching goal was.

34:56And this is where it's, and as a result, it's, I like, it has great stories in it. Yeah. But it didn't sort of capture people the same way that Power of Habit did or that Super Communicators is. And I think it's because when you read something where the author has not thought through the structure enough for you, you feel it. You just feel lost. You feel lost in the text. And I think that actually – I think the link here with Super Communicators that's kind of interesting is they have all these skills that they do, right? They ask deep questions and they loop for understanding to show that they're listening.

35:33But more than anything else, they have a goal in mind, which is I want to connect with you. I want to show you that I want to connect with you. Right. And all those skills and all those tools exist to show you that I want to connect. And so that's the overarching goal of a conversation. It's not to convince each other of anything. It's not even to agree on anything. It's to find a way for us to commune. Yes. And then secondarily, like, what am I actually trying to say? Like, and actually knowing, like, I think writers sometimes think the job is stringing the sentences along, or the right word choice, which it's true, but that's all tactical in service of the strategic aim of whatever it is that you're trying to convince them.

36:19If you don't know the thesis, like the argument that you're making, it can't just be this general vague thing, which I guess we sometimes stop there. We have a sense of it, but you didn't do all the way to the end. So it's not sharp enough to support. Everything isn't in service of that point that you're just repeating over and over again from different angles. And I think it's an interesting question, like, why conversations are so important. Because they're clearly important. Or, like, why did they teach rhetoric? Why did they teach debate? Right? Because you could, I mean, if I was starting a school of philosophy, I could just say, like, just sit down and think really, really hard.

37:02Everything has to be in a logical proof. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Figure it out. Like, come back to me in three years when you've got – and I think some PhD programs kind of work that way a little bit. But I think it's because there is this interesting tension and this very rejuvenative tension between I know what I want to say, but I don't know exactly how I want to say it. And so the act of having the conversation teaches me what I mean as much as me going into the conversation knowing what I mean. Well, here's something interesting because Mark Manson was here. He wrote The Cell Art. He was here not that long ago, and we were talking about how podcasting is a really easy medium.

37:42It's hard to be, it's hard to do it well, but in the sense of like, there's a reason, for instance, I would say not a lot of successful podcasts have become books, right? Even though publishers often, especially early on, would line up to give book deals to people who had large podcasts. It's because on a podcast, you don't really have to have a point, right? It's kind of this meandering conversation. it's a very forgiving medium because people are a fly on the wall of two people just going wherever they go which is one skill to make that entertaining is very hard totally but then to be like and now I'm going to guide you from page one to page 300 and that's going to take several hours of your time require focus it has to be worth money all these other things that books are and then it has to stand the test of time that's a make a compelling argument that's a very very different skill i totally agree and i find as a journalist because i write for the new yorker now that when i do interviews for my books or for print articles yeah they are very different than when i used to be i used to have a podcast where i was the host i it's a completely different form of interviewing right because because what matters in this conversation is that we're on the same wavelength that we're talking with each other.

38:59Whereas when I'm interviewing someone for print, it does not matter if that's a good conversation. What matters more is getting to some interesting ideas and learning things I didn't know. Cause I can structure the conversation afterwards. Well, actually what's also interesting and you might like, this is a Joan Didion's table. Oh my God. Are you serious? This is Joan Didion's table. Yeah. And your chairs too. How did you like, did you buy that like an auction? Yeah. Yeah. Holy, wow. But, you know, her famous thing, she's like, I'm this little lady, and you think that we're friends. Like, she's basically saying journalism is fundamentally a hostile conversation.

39:39Even though you're couching it in friendliness, ultimately you have an agenda. You're trying to get something from them in service of what you're trying to do. That's exactly right. And we would hope in service of the truth. but that person's version of the truth is might be different than the truth or the truth you're making in the piece so podcasts very rarely ever become hostile there's no thing that's supposed to come out of them so i would imagine that's a very different conversation than when you're trying to get download information or get someone to go on the record about something yeah or actually i I find that, so when I'm reporting, my goal oftentimes is to basically get the other person to think for me and to say something that surprises them.

40:28Because this is what I've sort of realized, particularly for long-form pieces, is that if I call you up and I ask you a question and you know the answer to that question, I could have found that same answer in what you've already written. Sure. Right? It's polished. It's practiced. What I want is I want to figure out the question that when you're answering it surprises you. When you go, huh. Yeah. Yeah. And so actually, like one of the things I'll often do in interviews is I'll start the interview by saying, you know, I've read all of your work. I know all like, you know, I love this paper and I love that paper.

41:00But the thing is, I don't know enough to know what the best question to ask you is. So let me just ask you, like, I'm kind of a dummy. Like, what should I ask you about? What's the most interesting thing that I could ask? What do I not know about this? Yeah. And oftentimes, and again, this isn't good for podcasts because oftentimes they're like, oh, I don't know. Yes. And it feels very frustrating, but eventually they will say something that they have not said before. And figuring out the chain of events that get them to that place is oftentimes the most illuminating thing about how their idea works in the world.

41:38So what are some of the components of a good question? Like as you're thinking about a question that's going to make someone give an unpolished answer, what are you asking? Okay, so I think let's talk about conversations and then we can talk about interviews because those are different things. So in a conversation, and this is something that we know super communicators do, is they ask deep questions. And a deep question is something that asks you about your values or your beliefs or your experiences. And it often does it in a way that it does not seem intrusive. It does not seem overbearing. So like a good example is like somebody, you bump into someone and they're a lawyer and instead of asking where do you practice law, you can ask, oh, what made you decide to go to law school?

42:16Right. Or like what do you love about practicing the law? Right? And I find that what – Why do you hate practicing the law? Or why do you hate practicing the law? Right, right. Or like, you know, why did you go to law school and now you're a sports agent? Yeah. And I find that when you ask this question, where basically you're asking not about the facts of someone's life, but how they feel about their life. I think it's the same thing we were just talking about, which is when you ask me for the facts of my life, I know the answer, right? I know it immediately. But when you ask me how I feel about my life, I actually have to stop and think about it.

42:50Right. Because I might give you different answers based on where my head is at, at this particular moment, right? Like I could say, oh, I went to law school because I wanted to study job and I knew my dad was a lawyer. And so it's sort of this practical mindset. Yeah. Or you could say, The same person could also say, oh, I went to law school because, like, I saw my friend's dad get arrested. Right. And I wanted to, like, stand up for the little guy. Yeah. And those are – that's, like, more of a social mindset or an emotional mindset. And so I think that the questions that are the right ones are the ones that ask us these deep questions that ask us how we feel about life.

43:27Yes. Rather than the factual details of life. I think the reason my wife, Samantha, liked your book is that she does that. Like, she'll be like telling me about someone and she'll be like, did you know? And she'll tell me like the most insane personal details about this person. And I'll be like, you guys were in an elevator for six minutes. What are you talking about? Like, how could that person have possibly shared that with you? And I'm like, and it's never like, oh, I was interrogating them. It's more like what you said. It's usually, you talk about this in the book. it's usually some sort of disarming question or disarming, uh, volunteered bit of information about disclosure, something vulnerable.

44:10Okay. So let me ask that not having met your wife. So what does she do? Like when she's in that elevator for those six minutes, what does she do that gets the other person so comfortable to say something real? I don't know. You know, I was, I was telling her the other day cause I was going into physical therapy for something. And the person, it was funny. I had this weird, like sometimes you'd get a glimpse of somebody else's reality. And so like, I'm doing this thing and the person was asking me questions and, and then I was going, Oh, this is where you engage and get things from them. And I'm giving one word answers that is shutting the door over and over again.

44:52Like I was like, Oh, I, I was seeing for a second how how my method of communication or my sort of natural introversion is kind of its own self-fulfilling prophecy yeah and so there has to be i think probably the the main thing is like she seems to be genuinely interested and and not annoyed slash uh interrupted by it whereas like if you're i'm more someone who's going through the world working on stuff in my head. So like, I don't really care why you practice law. Right. And I, and I'm definitely not inquiring about it. Like, and if, if you're offering me the information, I'll, I'll give you the perfunctory replies, but I'm trying to get back to something.

45:36Yeah. So, so really it's like curiosity is the core driver of all of this. Well, and I think you said something really smart, which is that oftentimes we can ask that question, that deep question, or, or we can lead by being a a little bit vulnerable with ourselves. And what's interesting, and there's this guy, Nick Epley, who's in the book, who's at University of Chicago. He's this fantastic guy. He's the master of this. He's the master of totally, totally authentically sharing something about himself in a way that makes you feel so comfortable. And so I was doing research trying to understand why he and other people are so good at this.

46:13And one of the things I came across is vulnerability is basically the loudest form of communication, which makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, right? Our brains have, so communication is homo sapiens' superpower. It is the thing that has set us apart from every species.

46:34And on the planes, when you're in a state of nature, if somebody says something vulnerable, it's very, very important to hear that, right? Either because you want to take advantage of that vulnerability or you want to protect against that vulnerability. Vulnerability or you just need to. We can form a relationship here, an alliance here. So vulnerability is if I say something vulnerable to you, if I start talking about going to my father's funeral, you literally cannot help but listen to me. Yeah. Right? This is like every single reality TV show. This is why they're addictive is because you can't turn it off.

47:09And so I think that when your wife does this or when Nick Apley does this, when they reveal something about themselves, we just automatically lean in. Yeah. And there's also kind of a societal obligation where it's like, I can't just leave this person hanging. Totally. And so it's kind of a, it's not manipulative, but it is loaded. Yeah. And I think it has to, I mean, I think the reason why it isn't manipulative is because it has to be authentic, right? So that's the other thing, is that our brains have this like very fine-tuned hair trigger to pick up on inauthenticity. Yes. And one of my favorite studies that's in the book is on these researchers created recordings of friends laughing together and then strangers laughing together.

47:53And then they would play one second clips of them for listeners and listeners with like 90 % accuracy could tell the difference between the friends and the strangers. Wow. Because we have this, again, in a state of nature, if someone's being inauthentic with us, they pose a huge threat. Right. So we have to be able to detect that. And so I think what happens is the reason it's not manipulative is because when we try and do it and it's and it's not genuine yeah the other person picks up on it then it's like creepy or right you know it's like you talk some like fbi and uh like stuff in the book where it's like that's that are you wearing a wire you know like immediately they're sensing it's like when you don't want the information it's very easy to get it yeah and then when you need it that the thirst is very suspicious well Well, and it's interesting.

48:42So you mentioned that – so there's a story of the CIA officer who goes over and has to recruit people and he's like terrible at his job. He's like – he's absolutely terrible at his job. And he figures out that the way to recruit this one woman is just to be completely honest and open and vulnerable with her. Yeah. And then she can finally hear what he's saying. Isn't he like, if I don't recruit you, I'm going to lose my job? It was even worse than that. He basically had given up and he was like, she was about to go back to her home country in the Middle East. And she was talking about how disappointed she was in herself because she hadn't figured out how to like fight the government.

49:20And he was, and he says like, look, I totally understand like you're disappointed in yourself. I worked for years to become a CIA officer. Right. And I'm terrible at it. Like I'm about to get fired. It's not even your fault. I'm just bad at it. Right. And so, and then she agreed to work with him. It ended up becoming one of the best assets in the Middle East for the next 20 years. But when I asked him, Jim Lawler, so I was like, okay, so you know this technique. Could you then kind of just fake it? And he was like, actually, for the next three years, it never worked again because I was trying to fake it, because I was trying to force it.

49:54Right. And what I learned is that when you're trying to be open and honest and vulnerable with someone, it has to be authentic. If you feel like you're doing it for some other end, it just won't work. It's like the dog rolls over and sort of gives you its belly. That's kind of what an expression of vulnerability or an admission of some kind of information that could get you in trouble or you wouldn't want everyone to know. Suddenly you have a connection as a result of that. Yeah. And the first time I called Nick Epley, so there's this experiment that he does, which is a lovely experiment, where he asks people in the audience to turn to their neighbor who's a stranger and ask and answer a couple of questions, one of which is, when's the last time you cried in front of another person?

50:43And so I was asking him about this experiment, and I was like, just out of curiosity, when's the last time you cried in front of another person? And he told me, it was like two days ago, and he told me this beautiful story about he has adopted kids, and they had adopted them from Africa, and they were so sort of undernourished when they adopted them, and now they're high school sports champions. And it was so authentic and it was so clearly meaningful to him. You just can't. We are hardwired to trust and like people who share something real.

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53:35Did you know the Ben Franklin effect? No, what is that? It was this story. I think he tells it in his autobiography. But basically, there's this guy he wants, like, to be his mentor, get votes from, some political ally that he needs. And this dude is a collector of rare books. And apparently, Franklin has no interest in these rare manuscripts whatsoever. But he knows he wants to connect with this guy. So he goes and he asks the guy just out of the blue if he can borrow, like, his rarest manuscript. He goes, like, I need it for something. Can I please borrow it? and the guys are kind of so taken aback by it that he doesn't have a good way to say no so he has to loan, he loans him this manuscript which Franklin takes and just like sits on the shelf until he returns it a couple weeks later because the point was by getting this guy to do a favor for him, they're now bonded.

54:27You would think now Franklin owes this guy but it's actually the other way around. What the mind does is goes, well, he must be a good guy or he wouldn't share this interest of mine And also, I wouldn't have given my most valuable possession to a bad person. Exactly. And now you're bonded because – and I think I would argue maybe when we share something vulnerable about ourselves or we make a disclosure, we've now given this person something and so we feel something towards them. And then they in turn give something to us. And now it's like we just committed a crime together. Yeah. Right, right.

55:05Well, and it's interesting because this gets it. So this word vulnerability, I think, is used a little. It gets used a lot nowadays. But what vulnerability actually means, it does not mean that I tell you something. Like, it doesn't mean I cry on your shoulder. It doesn't mean. Rather, vulnerability is created when I tell you, when I express something to you that you could judge me on. Now, I might not care about your judgment at all. Right? if I tell you, and it could be something as simple as like, you know, I like Star Wars more than Star Trek. Yeah. Right. Saying that, saying is saying that is a vulnerable admission because you could very well say like, you're a moron.

55:47Star, like Star Trek is better than Star Wars. Let me tell you all the reasons why. And I might not care whether you judge me or not, but the act of exposing myself to your judgment is the vulnerable expression. Yeah. And when I do that and when you listen and when you reciprocate with your own vulnerability, again, it's costless because you don't care. Nick Epley did not care what I thought about his kids. It's his kids. But also it's like you have discussions with your friends about things that you might have differing opinions about. You get into debates, you get into discussions, right? But normally when you meet a stranger, there's this getting to know you process.

56:25There's this dance. There's all these perfunctories, et cetera. And so by putting out a vulnerable thing, you're essentially fast forwarding to like hour three of the conversation or month three of the knowing. And then you're just kind of in it. That's exactly. And at the beginning of a lot of conversations, there's this thing that happens called the quiet negotiation, right? In psychology, where the goal of the negotiation is not to win anything. The goal of the negotiation is to kind of work out the rules for how we're going to communicate with each other and what we're going to talk about.

56:58And I think when you are vulnerable, what you're doing is you're basically introducing a set of rules that become much more intuitive. So at the beginnings of conversations, oftentimes people will interrupt each other a little bit to see how do you react, or will laugh to see is this a formal conversation or a casual conversation. And when I say something vulnerable or when I say something real and authentic, what I'm basically doing is saying, like, look, here's like a set of norms that you are trained on that we can just agree. Like we, we can agree what the rules are that we're, we're going to be kind to each other in this conversation.

57:35We're both going to play along. If you say something dumb, I'm not going to be like, you are such a moron, right? And then similarly, I can say something and be a little in an eloquent or as I am now totally jet lagged and, and you won't hold it against me. And that's, I think, important. So how does it work as a journalist? Because you're, you're, there is something inherently hostile, I would say. You have a divergence of interest. Your interests are aligned to a point. There's also a divergence of interest. So how do you get someone to share or communicate when it's much more in their interest to not do so?

58:15So there's investigative stuff, right? And I've done a bunch of investigative work. And actually what you find is that the people who tell you things, tell you secrets about companies, they're not acting against their own self-interest. They're actually so passionate about this that they want to share. What's interesting is when it comes to whistleblowers, what I found is whistleblowers actually love their company that they're blowing the whistle on. They love the company so much that they want to see it get better. They love it more than the people in power who that's partly what's motivating them is that they feel there's some sort of betrayal happening.

58:53That's exactly right. That's exactly right. But that's investigative. So when it's more the kind of reporting I do for books and more easy reporting, not easy, but not aggressive in the same way. I think that the thing that I do is I try and be completely honest with them. That's why saying to them, like, I don't know the right question to ask you is actually a very honest thing for me to say. Because what I'm coming to them and saying is, like, I think your ideas are really interesting. I don't know exactly how to take your idea and present it to the world. But can we become partners in this conversation where you're going to help me figure out the best way to explain this idea to the world?

59:35I just mean, because you can just feel the difference when you're talking to someone whose guard is up and someone who's not, right? Like, I've written some stuff from a journalistic perspective, and then I've done a lot of ghost writing. And that's always a weird one for me, because I'm usually talking to people who are very experienced talking in public. And I can feel the reticence, right? Because they're thinking that I'm a journalist. And I'm like, we're on the same team here. Like, you have final cut of this. Yeah. You have zero reason not to just tell me shit because you can just edit it out later.

1:00:09So I kind of do some version of that. I go, like, look, like, you have all the power in this relationship. So, like, the idea that you're holding back from me, you don't need to think about that because there's no chance for me to screw you over here. In that relationship, I've never ghostwritten something. Do you find that over time they become less reticent? Like do they learn to trust you more? They just – they realize, oh, this isn't like an interview where I – like they're not going to see what comes out until it comes out. That's what you're trying to get through. And so – but the problem is you can just waste all this time talking to them and they're not saying anything.

1:00:51Do you know what I mean? They have these kind of rehearsed answers or they have these kind of platitudes that they're giving you. I find this is really true with athletes. So athletes are just used to, first off, the primary interaction they're having with the media is when they're at their most tired. Right. Or they've just had the worst thing happen to them, which is losing. Yeah. And so they're just, they've gotten really good at coming up with non-answer answers. That's so interesting. You know, we went out there, we did our best. Sometimes you don't win. You know, they're just used to that, right?

1:01:23And then oftentimes on top of that, there's kind of a race or cultural gulf that they've just gotten used to not being understood. So they're like, what can I just say to make this person go away, right? And yeah, the process of getting anything real is actually the laborious part of ghostwriting. Yeah, that's super interesting. So one thing that I do in my reporting that's a little bit similar is, and I say this to people when I'm interviewing them, you know, the standards of journalism are I will not show anyone sort of a pre-publication version of the story. Right. But what I do is I take every single detail in the story and I turn it into a question and I'm going to send you an email.

1:02:07and that doesn't mean that you get to like edit it or that you get to but it means that if you don't feel like i'm understanding something you're saying you're going to have every opportunity on earth nothing is going to appear in print that surprises you one time i said to someone i was like look this is the the difference i was like a journalistic uh discussion is like between you and a detective and this is like between you and a bodyguard like like do you know what i mean like That's interesting. My job is to help you. Right. I'm not trying to, I'm not hoping you say something that allows me to get you in trouble.

1:02:40Right. Because ultimately I'm working effectively for you in this situation. Right. And so, yeah, I think the way you would make this obviously more universal to people listening is just like realizing that people have this sort of these boundaries or these things they're comfortable with. And oftentimes a great communication or relationship is really only going to be possible once you get outside that or once you get within that. And so figuring out what that is is really the hard one. And I think one of the things that super communicators do really well is that they invite but don't mandate.

1:03:15Huh. Which I think is an important distinction. And when you're a journalist, I think sometimes it feels like a mandate, right? It's like I'm going to write an article on you. I'm calling you up. You need to talk to me. And so that feels assertive. It feels like I'm being demanded to speak to you. But I think in the way I try and do my reporting, but I also think that something that super communicators do really well is that they post things in a way that if you want to go deep, you can, but you don't have to, right? That's why asking like, oh, what made you decide to go to law school? It's such a powerful question is because someone can be like, I was just always interested in law.

1:03:52Just thought it'd be a fun career. Yeah. Okay. You don't want to talk about like, that's totally fine. Like, like we'll find. You just try another door and another door and another door. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But if somebody does want to say something real and meaningful, you've shown that you're interested in that. Isn't that funny, though? Because people who have, and I imagine a good chunk of the people you've talked to in your stuff, they're not really public figures, right? No. So when someone's asking them a question, they feel like compelled to answer, right? And one of the things that's hard, politicians or very powerful people or sometimes like even like sociopaths, like people who have gotten to another level of understanding, like super communicators, maybe not always in the best sense, they realize that like all the rules are made up.

1:04:39You know what I mean? like politicians, one of the things you learn in media training is like, never answer a question you don't want to answer. And that like, if you have enough inner, like, I'll give you an example. I was interviewing a politician here a couple of weeks ago and I, we talked about something and then I came back to a question. Um, and I, and he was like, I think we already talked about that. And I was like, Whoa, you know what I mean? It was just like a very artful way to totally shut down a thing that he didn't want, like he didn't want to talk about anymore. And that's just something you learn.

1:05:11It's like another form of communication. How do you not say or walk into the trap that they want you to go in, you know? And so this gets to like one of the big insights for me from the book was that I thought that super communicators would be people who were born with certain skills or that were super charismatic or super extroverts. And basically what all the research says is that's completely wrong. Like super communicators come from all walks of life and all of us are super communicators at one time or another, right? Sure. It's just a set of skills. It's a set of tools that if you learn those skills and those tools, you know how to connect with other people.

1:05:49You know how to connect with anyone. Yeah. And the thing about a tool is an ax is a tool that you can use to build a house or to chop someone's head off, right? Like there's, there's like, and so a lot of it is not only learning these skills and these tools so that you can use them yourself, but also so that when someone is using them against you, you can recognize them. Yeah, yeah. When you can watch, yeah, it's the really artful dance of the subject that doesn't want to give something up, the journalist who wants to get it, but instead of spiraling further or getting further and further apart, they managed it.

1:06:23Yeah. Or even just like, I mean, I'm sure you've had this experience too. There's someone you meet that you actually really want to connect with or you have a new boss and you just want to like break through. You have a teenager? There you go. Yeah, you have a teenager. I have a 12-year-old and 15-year-old. There are many times that they do not want to let me in. And we think that making that connection is like some magical incantation or it's like some skill that only empaths have or that your wife is good at this but you're not good at it. But no, every single study shows it's just a set of skills.

1:07:00That's why I kind of wrote the book was because if you just learn some basic skills like asking deep questions, proving that you're learning, or sorry, proving that you're listening, showing someone you want to connect with them, then basically we are hardwired to want to connect with others. Even a teenager? Even a teenager. Even a teenager. So you said how? Seven and four. Okay, so it's a little bit. So this is this thing that I have with my sons. And are they boys or girls? Okay, I have two boys too. Yeah. And by the way, the three-year gap is, like, awesome. Okay. It's totally great. So my younger son is, like, totally in that place where I'm, like, if I ask him about the facts about his life, I'm like, you know, how was school?

1:07:46Fine. Did you learn anything? No. What did you do after school? Played with Jasper. Right? Like, I just cannot. Sure. But if I ask him questions that invite him to sort of analyze or, like, talk about, like, how he makes sense of the world. So, like, I talked to him the other day, and I was like, you know, I know you were hanging out with Jasper today. Like, what do you like about Jasper? Like, what do you admire about him? And suddenly, like, he starts talking for 15 minutes about how, like, Jasper's super courageous. And what does courage mean? Well, he rides his bike off the roof onto the – and I'm like, is that courageous?

1:08:22Is that crazy? Yeah. But I didn't want to be judged. And then it got to that Jasper's really good at talking to girls. And so this gives me so much insight. So I think that even teenage kids, they genuinely want to bond with their parents. And this is why driving them around in the car is so important. It's magical. Yeah. Because they're trapped. Yes. And so it's really just what is probably not going to be the first thing you ask them or the 10th thing you ask them, but there is something that unlocks. Well, I'm just sitting here. I might as well share something. Yeah. Yeah. There's some deep question that does not appear deep at all, that does not appear like, now we're going to have a meaningful conversation.

1:09:03Yeah. But that when you ask it and you're inviting them to say, I'm not prejudging what's the right thing to do. Yes. My kid knows when I say, did you learn anything today? There's only one right answer, right? Yeah. The right answer is, yes, I learned something. And that doesn't feel good. But if I ask this question where I'm not prejudging what the answer ought to be, Yeah. Then we're kind of on an equal plane. I tell the story in the book that I'm writing now about this scientist who, when he would come home from school every day, his mom wouldn't say, did you get good grades? How did you do on your math test?

1:09:39She'd go, did you ask any interesting questions? Oh, it's amazing. And I love— I'm going to steal that. I love, first off, that it's emphasizing questioning over outcomes or results. And then also, it's such a disarming thing to talk—yeah, I asked my teacher why it doesn't have any hair. You know what I mean? Or what? Right. Like it could be wildly inappropriate. It could be weird. It could be like, it's just, it's emphasizing the interest or the curiosity over anything else. And that that kid is an expert in the questions he asked that day. Like that's one of the things that I realize is at the core of communication is finding ways to talk to people where we are all experts.

1:10:23And the truth is we are all experts in our own experience, right? Nobody knows me and what I'm thinking better than me and myself. Right. And so when someone asks about that, it's a very natural place for me to be like, oh, yeah, I'm the expert. Right. Speaking of experts, do you want to go look at some books real fast? Yeah, yeah. All right.

1:10:46Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it, and I'll see you next episode.

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