How To Handle High Conflict Conversations Without Losing Control | Ed Mylett

18:39Ed Mylett:And it was really intentional. And I was thinking, how can I get ahead, you know, on my fitness? Because I'm already pretty fit and worked out. And it was how I'm eating. And that's where Factor came in. Factor doesn't ask you to meal prep or follow recipes. It just removes the entire problem. Two minutes, real food, bam, done. And so once I started eating healthier and using Factor, not only did I get a lot leaner, but I built more muscle. And the truth is, guys, I had more energy. So one other thing I like is I got to tell you, you can rotate the meals every single week. There's like 100 different meals.

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19:33Jefferson Fisher:That I can see just says, hey, I took a second to walk over to where you're standing and I turned to look the same way that you're looking. and I can confirm, yeah, what you see is reasonable. What you see is justified. You know what? That makes sense. I can see that. That right there just goes, boo. It naturally takes down the aggression, this I have to win. You have to see it what I see. Anytime you can do that and use words of perspective, like view, perspective, see, that is going to help somebody go, oh, I feel heard. Oh, I feel understood. And by that, they're gonna be more receptive to the progress.

20:13Ed Mylett:This is so good. You guys, just so you know, when you're listening to this, the reason I wanted Jefferson on, and the reason I think there should be more work in this topic is there's like only two or three people in the world that even discuss this stuff. And it, it may be in the top three most important things in life to be able to communicate your point and to be able to overcome adversity and a conversation and a difficulty and maintain or extend relationships. This is not stuff that's taught anywhere yet. It should be. And what do you do? Gosh, I, I, I'm thinking of a situation I have with a friend who, and I don't remember this being in the book, so this will be a tough one.

20:51Ed Mylett:They go, they go silent on you. In other words, the conversation is going a particular way. And I don't know, maybe it's me. I do start to win and maybe they can feel it, you know, like, and they just get quiet. And I'm like, are you still there? Hello? Is there something you would say to re-engage somebody who's given you the silent treatment or gone cold on you? Or every time a conversation gets to a certain point, they just disengage completely. Or is your suggestion, don't let it get to that point by using some of these tactics and strategies. But is there a way when they disengage and go quiet that you can bring them back in.

21:30Yeah.

21:31Jefferson Fisher:Here's where you go wrong is when somebody has given you that silent treatment, there's this temptation that we started to say ugly things. Like in romantic relationships, you'll start to kind of say hurtful things in hopes that they buy it back because all you're wanting is just to feel like you're not alone. So you're wanting that engagement. That happens sometimes in toxic relationships. Now, there are techniques that we can use to not get to that point. But let's say you're already there. Let's say you're already there. They're, um, they're distance from you. There's nothing you're going to be able to say, nothing you can do physically to just grab that person and say, come back to the conversation highlights the importance of not letting it get to that point.

22:10Jefferson Fisher:But what I would recommend is if somebody is giving that distance, you give them that distance. So maybe it's a day, maybe it's two days, because what it's highlighting for you is that you're wanting the conversation just to hear yourself. You have not been in the conversation to hear the other person. And when they are taking the time, sometimes that is needed. Sometimes there's wisdom in that of taking the time to think and disengage and give it a break. And if you need to, then what I would say is you message that person, you leave a We smell it for that person if they don't respond to your call and say, hey, I feel like we're miles away.

22:53Jefferson Fisher:It's important to use distances. I like using distances in conversation. So you feel a mile away from me right now or I feel like we're 50 yards apart. Whenever you use distances, it's a great way of saying, hey, of saying you can feel that we're off instead of saying, hey, what's wrong with you? Or, hey, you seem off or you what's going on? What's wrong? When you can use distances of, I feel like you're far away from me right now. At least I do that even in my life. It's a great way of not getting them defensive. But you call them, say, hey, I feel like we're far away. I'd really like to get closer.

23:34Jefferson Fisher:I want to find a way that we can talk again. Or, hey, just letting you know I'm here. I want to talk to you. I hope to hear from you soon. Any way that you just say, I'm not trying to pressure this at all, because you need to give them that space to continue to think about it. Or you can also say, hey, I think it was smart of you to give this conversation some space. You're right, I needed that and we'll love to touch base with you soon. So you're giving them credit for their choice. So when you're saying, almost like a, hey, good job, thank you for trying to get us back on track, they will take that and go, okay, yeah, that was my intentional choice to help us rather than you saying, hey, you know what?

24:13Jefferson Fisher:You're not talking to me. If you don't want to talk to me, that's fine. That kind of stuff is going to further pull them apart. So good, Jefferson. When I'm in a conversation that I feel like I'm, it's getting away from me.

24:27Ed Mylett:Let's say that. That could be a sales negotiation. It could be a conversation with a friend. You name it. I feel like in my case, most of the time, it's speeding up faster than I want it to. You talk about this in rule one, number six is control the pace. And as I listen to you, I mean, you're very cognizant even of your pace in the way that you communicate, even on the show today and even in your content. You do. You're actually a little faster when you do the content from your car than you are right now on the show. You're even a pace slower today than you are in your car. So I watch that like tonality and pacing.

25:04Ed Mylett:yeah let's talk about that in a conversation because with my when emotions run high oftentimes for me i feel like the conversation is speeding up where my my uh intellect is now not quite as sharp as my emotions are running if that makes any sense so what are strategies to control the pace

25:24Jefferson Fisher:and what does that even mean yeah i love that you picked up on that the anytime you are getting that fight or flight. And I know all of your listeners, highly educated, they know fight or flight. Whenever you're getting emotionally flooded like that, it is, that's why you're having trouble finding your thoughts and connecting things. And that's why the quicker you get, maybe you've felt it where you're, you're either nervous, same thing when you're really mad, you might stammer and you might go like, no, no, no, that's not, and you're having trouble getting words out. It's because you're just flooded.

25:56Jefferson Fisher:Your emotions are there. Your logical and analytical side is not. And so what I teach every one of my clients before they go cross-examination and I'm just offering them up to the wolves is a constant reminder of you control the pace, not them. That means no matter how fast somebody is peppering you with questions, the conversation cannot happen any faster than you respond. So whenever they ask you a question and you give a rapid fire answer back or worse, you start to step over their question because you already see where it's going. Bad things happen. You say things you don't mean. You say things that are not fully thought out.

26:37Jefferson Fisher:That's why even in romantic relationships, all of a sudden you blurt something out and you go, oh, that's, oh man, that's not what I mean. And you already knew as soon as it came out of your mouth, you put your foot in your mouth and you messed up. It's because you weren't controlling the pace. That means you need to slow down your words and that you need to leave space between what they said and how you're going and when you're going to respond. There's a difference if you were to ask me, if you said, hey, Jefferson, how was your day? And I said, good. It was real good. I mean, it was really good.

27:11Jefferson Fisher:Thanks. Versus, hey, Jefferson, how was your day? And I said, it was good. It was a good day. Like you can just hear the difference in which one listened to the question, which one thought about the answer, which one makes the other person feel acknowledged or heard. Same thing with, that's why rule number one is say with control. If you go down and let's say you're at work and all of a sudden you go, what's wrong? What happened? What's going on? And you, all you're sensing and telling the other person is you're grasping for control versus you come in, take a breath. And then you're saying, all right, what happened?

27:50Jefferson Fisher:Give it to me. Like people are looking like we said for those emotional anchors. So what I teach is let your breath be the first word that you say. That's how you set the pace of a conversation. So where your first word would be, put a breath in its place. And what's I going to do is keep your analytical side engaged into where you do not allow yourself emotionally to get emotionally flooded. And the second benefit is neither does the other person because now you are also injecting the time and forcing them to slow down.

28:25Ed Mylett:Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. All right. Welcome back to the show, everybody. You know, today was a very important episode for me in terms of scheduling this today because I think it's such an important topic for a couple reasons. Number one, one of my great concerns in our culture right now is the way we talk with one another, the way we have conversations. It just seems to me over the last 20, 30 years in our culture, we've lost the ability to have a conversation with somebody that we might not agree with in a productive way.

29:02Ed Mylett:And I'm sure you all agree with me as well. It's become very difficult in our times to dialogue with somebody that you might have a disagreement with or have a difficult conversation with. The art and science of learning to have a conversation is one of the most important skills you can have in life. Even with my kids, one of the things I hope they leave our home with is the ability to communicate, the ability to have a conversation with somebody. And it is a skill. And there are insights in how to do it better. And I just feel like it could change our world if we talk to one another better. And I think you'd agree with me too, whether it be your personal relationships, a political discussion, a religious discussion, as a leader in your company, having a conversation about creating ideas or a new direction, whatever it might be, learning to be a better conversationalist.

29:47Ed Mylett:And I have the perfect guest. His name is Chuck Wisner. Chuck's got a book out right now called The Art of Conscious Conversations, Transforming How We Talk, Listen, and Interact. And I'm really excited to get into this topic. So Chuck, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me.

30:02Chuck Wisner:It's a pleasure to be here.

30:03Ed Mylett:It really is for me. You know, a lot of times of all these people on my show that have these huge followings or guests that have major notoriety. And I've always found that oftentimes it's the topics on my show that really move people. And more and more, people are concerned about the way we talk with one another. And so I want to get right into it. How do you talk to somebody if it's a difficult conversation? One of the things I saw that you said is you ask in your writing, do your patterns of judging others reflect behaviors you don't like or want to recognize or won't recognize about yourself?

30:37Ed Mylett:So when we're in a difficult conversation with somebody, maybe we disagree with them. I want to go to the hard stuff first. Like I'm a Republican and someone's a Democrat or I'm a Democrat and someone's a Republican, something like that. These hard conversations. What are some of the keys in being better at doing it so it's actually a productive experience?

30:54Chuck Wisner:There are definitely keys that we're going to talk about. And it's also important to know that when you're in a difficult conversation, both parties have to be willing to start with truth. And if we can't have a foundation of truth, then you're going to have a very, the conversation will remain difficult. There's opinions and there's facts and there's emotions. And we get all of those mixed up, right? And they all get discombobled and jumbled up in our brain. But if we realize that my opinion is just my opinion and it's not the truth, then we can slowly, we can say, okay, what's driving my opinion?

31:32Chuck Wisner:And we sort of can open our hand and go, this is why I'm thinking how I'm thinking. This is what my standards are. There's four archetypal questions in the book. this is what I'm worried about this is my concern here's what I'd like we can start to just open our hands and say okay I have an opinion let's dance with that let's see what we can learn from each other that's a very different conversation with fists and fists coming at each other yeah you also say in the book that I've learned to do this myself is to fall in love with asking questions

32:05Ed Mylett:right you're talking with somebody whether you're a business leader and trying to create change in your company or whether you're in an argument with a spouse or disagreement or you got to talk about something different like I've used I've used politics as an example because it's the big one right right like they're good we're bad I'm right you're wrong and the idea of making statements all the time and telling stories as opposed to asking questions right right and and the the idea of

32:30Chuck Wisner:whether I'm doing it to myself and asking myself what's driving my opinion what's driving my judgment and why am I so hooked on the thing, right? We can also, the questions help us, like each question can help us open someone else's hand because we can ask, well, what do you really want? What do you desire here? What do you want out of this? What are your standards for measuring this opinion that you have? So our questions can literally help other people unlock and unfist, right yeah and and but we aren't trained to ask questions we're trained to have answers that's one of the major dilemmas and then we get into school and we're rewarded for raising our hand and then we get into business and we're rewarded for being the smartest person in the room right right and that's a counter to the the opposite effect is asking questions well this

33:23Ed Mylett:notion of raising your hand was my next thing so you're reading my mind and i think one of the art forms of being a great conversationalist is actually the art of listening. And that's why questions matter so much. And you're precisely right. In school, the teacher's still talking and asking the question. We're taught. We're rewarded. Raise your hand while they're still talking. And what that does to me, I want you to speak to this. To me, what that does to me is it means I'm really not listening to what you're saying. I'm already thinking about what I'm going to say back to you in my answer or my judgment or my assessment about you.

33:56Ed Mylett:Most people are already raising their hand, you know, metaphorically when most other people are still talking. And they wonder, why am I not connecting with this person? Why can't we find common ground? Because while they're talking, you've got your hand raised already. I got the answer. I know the truth. I want to say something and rather finishing and letting them finish their statement. So you know how when you're doing something that's good for you and then you stop doing it, all of a sudden you feel, what the heck changed? So here's what happened to me. I've been feeling great for like a year and a half.

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35:06Ed Mylett:These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

35:13Charles Duhigg:We're leaving today and entering a world of Mickey Mouse waving, princess meeting and greeting, lightsaber clashing,

35:22Ed Mylett:The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror dropping! Banshee flying! Space Mountain launching! Galaxy rewinding! What's the whole death of galaxy rewinding? Fireworks igniting! World of Other Worlds. For whatever you love, infinite worlds await at the most magical place on Earth. Walt Disney World Resort.

35:43Chuck Wisner:Yeah, so our brain is spinning our answer. uh and so there's no space actually to absorb what's coming at us from the other person right and and part of that that actually the main reason that is we are we get addicted to our position our ego and our identity gets addicted to i believe this and if i believe this is true then that is that defines who i am and that that is often why we enter with fists or why we enter, you know, defensively, you know, and can't just say, okay, I do have an opinion. I'm going to set that aside, and I'm going to see if I can explore really what's driving this other person's thinking.

36:26Ed Mylett:That was a great conversation, and if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow The Ed Milet Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. Hey, welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm honored to have this man here for the second time. The first time he was on the show, I sought him out saying, please come on the show because his book had made such an impact on me. And now he's got a new book out, by the way, before I introduce him, called Super Communicators, How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. And it's a topic, as you all know, that I am fascinated by because I talk a lot about it on the show, except he's way more qualified than me.

36:59Ed Mylett:And the reason he's way more qualified than me is this guy is a Pulitzer Prize winning writer. He's a New York Times bestselling author, and he's a renowned expert on habits. And also now, after reading his work, he's an expert on communication. So, Charles Dewey, welcome back to the show, brother.

37:13Charles Duhigg:Thank you, Ed, for having me on. This is such a treat for me. Yeah, I love you, brother.

37:17Ed Mylett:You're going to listen to a big brain today, everybody, on a topic that you need to know more about. I've got to tell you why I love your book so much. We were just talking about kids off camera. There's a few things I want my kids to have left my house with. One, I want them to have some faith, which is their morals and ethics. I want them to have some work ethic, self-confidence. and if I could give them a fourth thing, it would be the ability to be an outstanding communicator. And I just think it's one of the things that is the most important elements of life. I'm sure you agree.

37:43Charles Duhigg:I think that's absolutely right. And I think the things that you mentioned before that are really important because if you, you could be a great communicator and if you don't have values, if you don't have discipline, then it's not necessarily going to get you any place. But the difference between people who have those first three things and then don't know how to communicate is that they stall out at some point, right? They like, they have trouble in their marriage. They have trouble like communicating with their, their spouse or their partner they oftentimes stall out at work because the thing that made them successful at work once you become a manager it's not just doing that it's about helping other people learn how to do that and also there's a huge amount of self-discovery that comes from conversation right like when i talk to you and you talk to me we learn things about ourselves through what we say.

38:30Charles Duhigg:And it takes someone talented, a super communicator, to draw that out, to know how to make the space for that.

38:37Ed Mylett:That's interesting. You learn about yourself, too. I didn't even think about it that way, but you're right. You know, I almost feel like after I was reading your book, and by the way, everybody, it is outstanding. This man does not write average books. He just doesn't, and he sells a lot of them for a reason. And I almost feel like after reading it, I think I thought this before, but almost your ability to communicate will be the cap on your life to some extent. It's the cap on your relationship. The intimacy level in your relationship, for example, to some extent is limited or enhanced by your ability to communicate nonverbal cues, verbal cues, your ability to lead and move people in business, your family environment, friendships.

39:13Ed Mylett:I mean, the cap on your success level in those areas is almost directly correlated to communication.

39:19Charles Duhigg:I absolutely... So my father passed away about six years ago, and I went to his funeral, and there were so many more people there there were people that like i hardly remembered like people i was so surprised and i was talking to them and i was like you know like thank you for coming and they would all say the same thing they'd say like i loved talking to your dad right that's why they showed up is because they had

39:39Ed Mylett:they had this relation they had a connection with them do you think it's because of i think one thing human beings have charles is you're always making people feel something yeah yet i think most people are oblivious to that fact they're feeling something from you in a moment your interest level your energy, your frequency, your trustworthiness, your ability to elevate them. So do you think with your dad, for example, it wasn't just, you know, talking with him, but it was how he made other people feel.

40:06Charles Duhigg:That's exactly what it was. So sometimes when people ask me, like, how do you define a super communicator? The easiest answer is to say, okay, think of the person you would call if you were having a bad day. Right? Like you're having a terrible day. There's someone you call. You know they're going to make you feel better. Like who would that person be for you? It would have been my dad, for sure, before he passed away.

40:26Ed Mylett:That came right to me. Call my dad.

40:27Charles Duhigg:And my guess is that if I met your dad, what I would see is he's not the funniest person in your life. He's not the most charismatic person in your life. But what he did is he proved to you that he was listening to you, that he heard what you said. And then he reciprocated your vulnerability or your joy or your sadness. He shared it with you. And as a result, you walked away feeling like what I'm experiencing, what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, this is like this is profound and this is real. You're right. And it's been validated. And you don't need your dad to validate it. Like it's still real to you.

41:04Charles Duhigg:But to have someone else feel like have them feel like they genuinely want to understand you. That's right. That feels wonderful. In fact, it's hardwired into our brain to feel wonderful. Yeah.

41:12Ed Mylett:I just did this and I did a podcast on it. So I'll ask you this. How much of communication do you think is actually the ability to listen correctly?

41:20Charles Duhigg:A huge amount. A huge amount. So, and let me say that there's this thing about listening, which is when I'm talking, whatever you're doing, I'm probably not going to pay attention to it. Because it's so cognitively intense to try and speak that even though I'm going to make eye contact with you and I'm going to kind of notice if you're frowning or smiling or whatever it is, I'm really not going to pick up on the signals you're sending me. So listening is not just hearing what the person is saying. It's what you do after they finish talking. because if you do this thing where you prove to me that you've been listening, and in the psychology literature, this is actually referred to as looping for understanding, that particularly if you have a conflict with someone, the best way to sort of bring the tension down is ask a question, repeat back what you hear the person says in your own words, and then step number three, which is the one we usually forget, is ask them if you got it right.

42:16Charles Duhigg:And if I do that, so when you think about it, so I'm listening to you. I have to listen closely to you because I'm thinking I've got to repeat back what you're saying in my own words. I've got to process it. But most importantly, you know that I've been listening based on what I say after you're done speaking. And that's really what active listening is. It's about not just passively receiving. It's about amplifying. Very good. That is really good. I mean, and the thing is it's so easy to do. Like once I learned this, like I find myself doing it all the time without even realizing it. Like, I'll be like, what I hear you saying is, and tell me if I'm getting this wrong.

42:51Charles Duhigg:And like, it just feels so natural.

42:53Ed Mylett:It feels so good to have somebody say that back to you. Right. Because you do get the feeling with most people, I think they do two things. One, they're really more concerned with what they're about to say back to you. Yes. And two, I call them verbal nudges, where they're interrupting you too often or uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, which you think is a form of agreement, but I think to some extent, sometimes you're almost saying, I got it. Okay, can I say something now? Yeah. That's exactly right. them to finish rather than letting them finish.

43:18Charles Duhigg:I think that's exactly true. And I think that part of this is understanding what the goal of a conversation is. So it's easy to go into a conversation and think the goal is to convince this person I'm right, or maybe even the goal is just to come to agreement on something. That's wrong. The goal of a conversation is simply to understand what the other person is trying to tell you. So that means that if I'm listening to you and you say something that I think is crazy, you wouldn't say this, but lizard people run the world or whatever it is. If I, I'm not going to agree with you and I'm probably not going to convince you that you're wrong.

43:55Charles Duhigg:But as long as I understand how you see the world, as long as I ask you a question that's known as a deep question where I say like, why is this important? Like, what is it about this that seems really meaningful and important to you? You're going to tell me something about who you are. I'm going to repeat back what you've told me about like, I care about lizard people because I really think the elites of this world are like having this pernicious effect on the working class. I'm going to repeat that back to you. I'm going to ask you if I got it right. I'm not going to agree with you and you're not going to agree with me, but simply understanding each other means we have succeeded.

44:27Charles Duhigg:And it feels good, right?

44:29Ed Mylett:It does. I'm just thinking of like political discourse, you know, like just really understand where they're coming from. I'm not going to win this. I have to tell you, your work's so good because it's actually the part of conversations. I think it's why I have a podcast. I really enjoy not only understanding what somebody's saying, but also like why they're saying it. What's this come from? I'm in an Uber. I basically interview almost every Uber driver I ever have, right? But I love that by the end of a good 20 or 30 minute ride, I find out where these belief systems stem from, too. I was in one recently where this guy was way right, like way, way right.

45:06Ed Mylett:and no matter what you believe politically but I mean I was like whoa and I'm like trying to understand and trying to understand and I've also had this conversation with someone who's way left but it ended up that at the end I found out that he had come from a communist country he had actually had family that were murdered by communists and it whether I agreed with him or not that's not the point of this show but I actually had a much deeper understanding of the basis from which he's formed these opinions and I really felt connected with this person absolutely so you're right okay

45:31Charles Duhigg:so let me ask you a question if you don't mind sure so when you're in that uber when you're having that what's the second or third question you ask because because you could be like hey you know where you're from oh i'm from europe like what are you asking next to get you from the shallow to the

45:45Ed Mylett:deep oh that's a really good question i usually ask them i open them up a little bit i say give me your craziest story oh interesting so i actually ask them to give me one of their crazy ride stories i'm actually fascinated by that so it kind of opens them up and they get loose i didn't do it tactically but i found that like wow you're kidding me that do that and then typically for me just because I'm most intrigued by it I love to know about people's families and I actually also think people love to talk about their families typically too so usually I'll ask them are you married do you have children and I know that sounds like basic stuff but I find for me that that's an entree into learning an awful lot about these folks what I love about that yeah is that

46:21Charles Duhigg:what I think you got this by intuition is is that so these deep questions if we ask people deep questions deep questions are things that ask us about our values our beliefs or our experiences Okay. So what's the craziest ride you've ever given someone is asking this guy about his experiences. Very good. Right? Like tell me about your kids. Like what are your kids like is it at some point he could just be like I have two kids But at some point you're probably gonna say like oh, you know, do they like school? What are they like? Where do they go to school? Are you are you worried about their future?

46:52Charles Duhigg:You're gonna ask something that's gonna get him to reveal to you who he really is. You're right

46:57Ed Mylett:And by the way, I always look at people like I This is an overall belief system this person's a gift i want to open them up it's really how i look at them and in this guy i love that i just got to tell you in this guy's case really quick just an interjection this dude was amazing it turns out that the reason he's driving uber is he has a daughter at harvard and a son at stanford right and he's putting them through school and if you knew where this man came from it was remarkable and the pride he had in his children and his wife that they had raised them and they were there and it became this like really beautiful conversation where not only did i admire I was like, whoa, this is incredible.

47:33Ed Mylett:The life you've built, the sacrifice you're making. He had a full-time day job. And it became kind of this conversation. We talked about our children. And by the time I was done, I actually really had a connection with this man that I probably won't. I'm talking about him on my podcast. Yeah, right. So let me ask you this. Okay. The details of the work, guys, we're going to get into now. There are really three conversation types, okay? I didn't know there were. I was kind of oblivious to this. But I think just this alone would enlighten people so they know which conversation they're in and they can identify it.

48:04Ed Mylett:So share some of that.

48:05Charles Duhigg:This is a big discovery from the last decade. And we're kind of living through this golden age of understanding communication for the first time in a new way. And the first thing that researchers have found is that we think of a discussion as being about one thing. We're talking about my book or we're talking about your kids. But actually, every conversation is made up, every discussion is made up of different kinds of conversations that ebb and flow. And most of those different kinds of conversations fall into one of three buckets. There's a practical conversation where we're talking about plans or making decisions together or we're fixing problems.

48:38Charles Duhigg:Politics is often this. There's an emotional conversation where if I tell you how I'm feeling about something, I do not want you to fix it for me. I want you to acknowledge that you've heard it and I want you to tell me to sort of be vulnerable with me. And then there's a social conversation. And a social conversation is about how we relate to each other in society, how we think other people see us, how our identities, right? How our identities shape how we see the world in different and interesting ways. And the key is there's this thing known as the matching principle, which is if I'm having an emotional conversation and you respond with a practical conversation, even though both of what we're saying is legit we're not going to hear each other that is outstanding this happens at home like i with my spouse all the time i come home i've had a tough day at work i'm complaining about my boss my wife says she solves the problem she says why don't you go and like take him out to lunch and get to know each other better and instead of being like that's really good advice i'm like you don't understand you're not listening to me very good charles so So if she matches me and then invites me to match her, then we're having the same kind of conversation.

49:47Charles Duhigg:Then we can hear each other.

49:49Ed Mylett:You just explained 25 years of problems. No, because I'm coming home to an emotional conversation and I'm not in one sometimes. What advice would you give to somebody who, we were talking about socially, I just moved and you were asking about the move. And I said, I kind of revert back to myself socially. and uh i think i would categorize myself would surprise most people listen to the show but i'm very quiet and very shy and i find a lot of public speakers are by the way a lot of entertainers privately are very i'd call an introvert yeah you have any advice for an introvert as it comes to communication like this so i think one of the things i heard you just say when you're talking

50:30Charles Duhigg:about that uber driver is you got into the car yeah and he had one identity which is right wing yeah and you asked him some deep questions that were easy to ask like they didn't seem intimate and he started telling you about his other identities and once he once he complicated himself once he said like look i'm not just one thing i'm three and four and five things all of a sudden it's easy to feel close to that person because some of those things he is you are too and so i think when it comes to introverts or when you move to a new place like one of the things that I like to do is you meet someone at a party or a barbecue or whatever it is and like I often ask them you know what do you do for a living and then I'll often say you know they say I'm a lawyer and I say you know do you love practicing the law like did you just did what made you decide to become a lawyer like when was the moment you decided to become a lawyer what inevitably they say is something that tells me about their other identities which is I became a lawyer because I saw my dad get arrested and I wanted to fight for the for the underdog or i became a lawyer because we were poor and i wanted to always have enough money or i became a lawyer because i love intellectual stimulation like think of those those three answers just told me so much about those different people and at that point i can say to them yeah i took i grew up poor too like i understand what that's like and now suddenly we feel safe with each other i think this isn't necessarily true for introverts but when we're in new social situations and we were talking about how hard it is to make friends when you don't have friends in a place the thing that often stops us is just a little mild anxiety you're right oh i at least mild with me yeah yeah he smiled with me and and how are we going to start the conversation how are we going to get out of the conversation how like okay that's mine okay that's mine to be

52:20Ed Mylett:and candidly like so i love that we're going there my i'm okay opening a conversation how are you For me, it's how does this end? How does this end? I bet everybody driving or listening is like, no, that's something I would like to know more about. If I'm on the bus next to – I have the most awkward finishes of conversations of any dude you've ever met in your life. I'm like, okay, well, hey. And I usually end up the conversation with some sort of BS or something. You're like, I'm going to use the restroom or whatever. I don't want to get away from you.

52:49Charles Duhigg:I have to go refresh my glass. I'm still half full. So, okay. So, so actually Daniel Gilbert at Harvard actually did an entire study trying to figure out how people end conversations. Yeah. And do, does the other person want to end at the same time you do? And what he found was two things. Number one, he found that you think I want you to end the conversation because I'm, I'm getting bored. And actually I am enjoying this conversation. We do a difficult job of gauging the other person's interest in the conversation. but then sometimes we want to end the conversation right and so this is this is what super communicators do they forecast it without committing to it immediately so they say something like oh man this is so interesting i totally got to go like freshen up my drink but before i do like let me ask you like x because oftentimes the the end of the conversation feels hard because it feels awkward yes but if you've already set the table and you're like you're like i gotta step away but This is so fascinating.

53:45Charles Duhigg:Let me ask you one more thing. Then when they're done answering the question, you're like, oh, man, thank you so much. And you just turn away. That's not awkward.

53:51Ed Mylett:I love that. That's pre-framing the conclusion. That's exactly right. Very good. That's exactly right. A lot of what you're saying, I'm listening, is it has to do with the questions you're asking. I think a lot of people look at conversations or communication like, what am I telling somebody? What am I saying? And I'm sure there's an element of that that we'll get to in a minute, too. But so far, a lot of the things you've been suggesting involve questions you're asking somebody. And I have to say this to you. I'm amazed how many people I talk to in social environments and business environments that don't ask any questions.

54:23Charles Duhigg:I know. I know. And I can't figure out. I think that for some of them, they're just not practiced at it. And it is like that's the thing about super communication. Anyone can be a super communicator. It's literally just a set of skills. Like you just have to practice the skills and make them into habits. Nobody's born knowing how to do this. But I have the same, it drives me crazy. I ask question after question and then they answer and then they stop talking and they're waiting for my next question. I'm like, like, is there any, so here's the thing. Here's the thing that you're exactly right. 50 % if not more of a good conversation is asking good questions.

54:58Charles Duhigg:But then something happens. There's a difference between a conversation and an interrogation, right? Or an interview. you and this gets into what's known as emotional reciprocity and emotional reciprocity is basically one of these strongest impulses that all humans have if somebody engages in emotional reciprocity we can't help but feel a little bit closer and a little bit more trusting of them so emotional reciprocity says if you say something vulnerable yes and then i recognize i acknowledge that vulnerability but i also show that i can be vulnerable then we're going to feel like we can trust each other and so and that's about speaking so that doesn't mean if you say my dad passed away i should be like oh i understand completely because my aunt passed away 12 years ago like that's stealing the spotlight from you right okay but if you say my dad passed away and i say oh man i like i know how hard that can be like tell me about your dad what was he like oh gosh that was good right and then like and then and what i'm signaling to you is a i'm interested in you i want to hear from you i want to understand you but b you learned something about me and if you're interested you can you can say like like tell me tell me how you know about this like what

56:11Ed Mylett:happened what about being being the server first serving the vulnerability absolutely absolutely

56:18Charles Duhigg:there's a guy named nick epley at the university of chicago who's in the book and like nick is so good at this every conversation i've ever had with him he says something in the conversation near the started the conversation that feels so intimate yeah and as a result i'm just like i love this guy like i just want to talk to him and again when i look at the transcripts because i'm oftentimes talking to him for reporting and when i read the transcript it doesn't seem too intimate it doesn't seem overly intimate but he says things like you know hey nick how are you doing like instead of saying oh fine says something like yo it's great i like went to my son's soccer game this weekend And it was, and like we adopted these kids from Ethiopia and like just watching them now as these like strong young men.

57:02Charles Duhigg:Like it was, it was a great weekend. Brother, you're on it. Right. And he's offered that up. And at that point I'm like, man, I'll tell you all about myself. Let me tell you about me.

57:11Ed Mylett:I think I also trust you more when you do that. Absolutely. I think when someone's so surface all the time, and by the way, this applies for a lot of you that are in sales too. Yes. Being willing to be a little bit vulnerable, not always the expert, but a little bit vulnerable, a little bit transparent, a little bit revealing. I believe it's one. I think it's just a better way to live, but it does bond and connect you. It makes you human. Oftentimes when you're in sales, people look at you like you're almost their adversary. Like I can't trust this guy or this lady. But when you begin to show some vulnerability and some authenticity, I think that's when you start to break down the barriers.

57:44Ed Mylett:I found that in my own life over and over.

57:46Charles Duhigg:Trust is huge, right? I mean, so we have, communication is humans' superpower. Like it's the reason as a species we have been so successful is that we can talk to each other and we can build, we can share knowledge. We can build families and communities. All of that is based on communication. And communication over the millennia has been hardwired into our brain. And so as a result, when somebody communicates well with me, I trust them because I literally have two million years of evolution in my head that says, trust the guy who it seems like wants to understand you and that is sharing with you.

58:26Charles Duhigg:I agree.

58:27Ed Mylett:This is so good. This is probably going to go a little longer than normal guys. No, I love it. I really love this. Right. I just think I hope those of you that are listening or watching understand the importance in your life, as I said earlier, of getting good at this, because it's the cap on your bliss. It's the cap on your laughter. It's the cap on your intimacy. It's the cap on your influence and persuasion. Yeah, absolutely. What what about difficult conversations? Yeah. Are those different in nature? And are they I mean, having to, you know, say, listen, your job performance isn't very good or I'm frustrated with you or.

59:01Ed Mylett:you know something that's you know you're going into it knowing gosh i wish i didn't have to have

59:07Charles Duhigg:this conversation but i do yeah or sometimes they catch you off guard right we're like i'm talking about one thing and all of a sudden i realize you're furious at me like i didn't pick up on that until just now and so the answer is they abide by the same rules but the fact that you're in conflict changes the context enormously because we were just talking about trust right i can establish trust by by sharing something about myself but if you go into a conversation where there's conflict trust is already out the window right like you're you are your fight or flight is going off in your head like crazy you can't trust someone easily just because like they ask you a question so and this has been a focus of a lot of study how do we make conversations in conflict better and there's basically two things the first one is i mentioned this looping for understanding right asking a question repeating back what you heard and then and then asking if you got it right that's enormously powerful in conflict because the first thing the first suspicion i have if you disagree with me and we're in conflict with each other is you're waiting your turn to speak you're not hearing what i'm saying right you're just waiting there and like i'm going to tell you my piece and then you're going to just bulldoze over me and i'm going to bulldoze back so if you interrupt that by proving you are listening using looping for understanding to prove I really want to understand what you're saying help me understand I'm taking a huge amount of mistrust off the table the second thing that often happens in conflict and this happens a lot in marriages this actually comes from marriage therapy and studies of marriage therapy is that it is natural when we feel threatened to want to control things and the easiest thing to control is the other person so you tell me your thing and I'm like no no you don't know the evidence let me show you the evidence.

1:00:52Charles Duhigg:You say something and you're like, I'm not even going to listen to this. I try and control you. I try and tell you what you should believe, what you should feel. That's toxic, right? In a marriage, that is the thing that destroys marriage. The alternative is I have a need for control. You have a need for control. We feel threatened. Can we find things to control together? So for instance, can we control the timing of this fight instead of having it at in the morning can we wait till it's 10 a.m and we're both a little bit more rested can we control ourselves can i let you know i'm going to take a second before i speak and i'm going to think about what you just said can i show you that i'm trying to control myself and invite you to control yourself and the third thing is we can control the boundaries of the conflict itself so one of the most toxic patterns in marriages is this thing called kitchen sinking where we start arguing about like where we're going to go for new years and then like five minutes later it's like and your mother hates me and you don't earn enough money and like why are you such a jerk all the time right so a fight about one thing becomes a fight about everything the healthy way to do that is to say we need to have a fight like we have a disagreement on something let's control the boundaries of it.

1:02:10Charles Duhigg:We're talking about New Year's Eve. If my mother comes up and your money comes up, like we're just going to set it aside. That's another conversation another day. But then when we're controlling these three things, we're controlling, we're controlling ourselves, we're controlling the conversation, the environment, and we're controlling the boundaries of the fight or the conflict. We're controlling those as partners, right? We're on the same side of the table. We might not agree on the topic we're discussing, right? But you and I partners now in controlling the right things in this fight instead of trying

1:02:41Ed Mylett:to control each other that's outstanding when you're talking about relationships and family where my first off I've made those mistakes me too I'm a pretty good kitchen sinker yeah you term it that way yeah and so I think I've gotten better at it I also think the longer with you you're with somebody you have more stuff in the sink and so it's even more important to avoid that and have that control of the parameters around the conversation right how long have you

1:03:06Charles Duhigg:been married for is 26 years okay so i'm coming up on 20 and there and i'm sure this has happened to you but tell me if if i'm getting this wrong which is there there are these things literally i can say two words and i know the entire fight in my in my wife's head right it's like it's like and sometimes i don't even mean to say them i'm just like i like i'm like i'm like well you know it's because like i earn more money than you and then i'm like oh nuts like i just stepped in it like all to kitchen sink it all i had to say was literally three words you brought the whole thing yeah and so the immediate thing i do is i'm like i'm like i'm sorry whoops yeah i did not mean to do that yeah like tell me what you're feeling because i want to i want to give you a chance

1:03:45Ed Mylett:but like you know what i've gotten better at that charles with my kids too of saying you know what i'm sorry let me take that right back whereas before i'd almost double down or they didn't really feel it that bad it'll it'll be brushed under and no sometimes you just have to in the moment go I'm gonna yank that one back and not only are you connecting with them but think about

1:04:03Charles Duhigg:the modeling you're doing right you're teaching them how to communicate with other people like I'm absolutely certain your kids are gonna copy that without even realizing it comes from dad

1:04:12Ed Mylett:yeah you're making me think of young people when you say that I want you to give you can we teach this to young people I'll tell you why I ask yeah I have great conversations with my kids Bella don't take this the wrong way sweetheart when you're listening to this but lately with my daughter I love doing kind of dates with my daughter and I she's this she's a sophomore in college and I watch you with other people she's quite the conversationalist but with me and she's not disinterested but when we're talking there's a lot of yep yeah right uh-huh and at one point we're taking a walk on the beach over Christmas and I said Bella this is kind of a serve and volley type thing here like I serve and you return the serve and then I hit the ball back to you and you hit it back to me to your point of ask me something right you know so so it made me wonder is there anything different and maybe she's not even quite at that age I'm talking about but if I have an eight a nine a ten year old I I'm always blown away when I meet a child who is a tremendous communicator makes eye contact shakes your hand Mr.

1:05:10Ed Mylett:Mylett how are you what do you do like when they ask I'm like the automatically what I think these are great parents yes I think immediately these are tremendous parents so is there anything with young people that can that these skills can be taught anything unique that you would say that goes with young absolutely so i think that there's

1:05:27Charles Duhigg:two things let's talk about the older kids first like your daughter's age so i had a friend whose daughter just went to college and he had a conversation with her before he left which i've now imitated and i love he sat down with her and he was like look you're definitely going to call us when something important happens in your life but if that's the only time you call then by definition you're not calling us that frequently. Like we're going to lose contact with each other. So what I want you to do is I want you to call me for the unimportant things. You had a, you had a bad day, but it's not a big deal.

1:05:57Charles Duhigg:You ate something good for lunch. You're working on this paper and it's kind of interesting. You know, we don't have to talk for more than five or seven minutes, right? But I want you to call me and tell me about the unimportant stuff because the important stuff will take care of itself. And that, and, and so my son went off to boarding school. He's at boarding school right now here in California and it's his first year there he's in 10th grade and I told him this he calls me every day very I actually talk more to this kid with him at boarding school than I did when he was at home yes so for older kids that's the thing is to is to say this is a priority like conversation is something none of us are born super communicators we can all learn how to do it this is a skill you should practice and it's because it's important for the younger kids it's a little bit harder right yes but i think for them this is where the deep questions become so powerful so my younger one same thing how was school today good what'd you learn nothing right like so and and so some of the advice is like be like oh well you know did pirates show up today and you can do that a couple times but at some point if you ask them a question where where you're asking them to tell you who they are like like what like I know that you said that you like science more than you like math I'm just wondering like why like what is it was it about science like I mean is science important to you like you told me you wanted to hang out with your friend and I'm just wondering like what is it what do you like about that friend like what is special to him yeah what's great about that is that first of all it's clearly not judgmental right whereas if I'm like what you learn today I'm kind of judging Good point You better should have learned something today Very good point But second of all I'm matching him And I'm allowing him to set the stage It's not that he's playing on my ball court I'm saying to him tell me your ball court And that's powerful

1:07:50Ed Mylett:You do a lot of gestures when you talk Oh yeah? I don't know if you noticed that Well you're expressive in your face This may not even be in the book but I want to ask you about it So you're expressive with your face You use your hands and I'm wondering if nonverbal cues are part of being a super communicator because I've had people say I'm really excited to be here I'm like you should tell your face you should you should email your face and let them know that you're excited to be here so I think a lot of it is I'm reading things you're not saying when I talk to somebody as well yeah and I think that's exactly right and

1:08:21Charles Duhigg:and to be super communicator you don't have to have nonverbal right because there's people who like on the phone are fantastic if you're good at one thing you're usually good at everything okay But similarly with you, you clearly should telegraph non-verbally or non-linguistically. You telegraph your interest. You telegraph what you're hearing. And that's very, very powerful. And there's kind of a science behind it. And we've learned a lot of it from looking at laughter. So the interesting thing about laughter is studies show that about 80 % of the time when all of us laugh, it is not in response to something funny.

1:08:54Okay.

1:08:54Charles Duhigg:Right? So we've laughed a couple of times in this interview. But I haven't said anything that funny. right like you just laughed yeah i'm not that funny a guy okay so what happens when we laugh what a laugh actually is is it's saying to the other person i want to connect with you i'm going to show you that i want to connect with you and then when they laugh back and 90 percent of the time when i laugh the person i'm talking to will laugh back they're saying i want to connect back that's tremendous so that's a non-linguistic communication and what i love is actually nasa

1:09:26Ed Mylett:for a time i was gonna ask this yeah so glad yeah so they were trying to figure out how to find emotionally intelligent astronauts yeah and and like the problem is everyone who applies to be

1:09:36Charles Duhigg:an astronaut if you make it to the final stages you're you're like a golden boy or girl right like a thousand percent yeah you know how to answer every question you've practiced everything and they're like we can't figure out who's actually emotionally intelligent and who fakes it really really well but when they're in space on a six-month mission the difference is going to matter a lot huge yeah so this one psychologist he started realizing if i pay attention to how people laugh most importantly do they match my laughter so he would come into a room and he would accidentally spill papers accidentally he actually did it on purpose and then he would laugh uproariously and he would watch what that candidate would do some candidates would be like because you know you're supposed to laugh right and then other people would be like Like, that's, let me help you with that.

1:10:20Charles Duhigg:Like, the astronauts who matched him, not just on laughter, but he would tell a sad story and see if the other person, if the other person empathized, if they engaged in reciprocity, if they asked him questions about it. So that's non-linguistic. But it tells us whether that person wants to connect. and that's ultimately i think when i'm making gestures i'm inviting you to i'm inviting you in right i'm saying like yes like here here i am like i want you to see what i'm seeing i hope what

1:10:54Ed Mylett:everybody's getting out of this is like these are skills that can be learned there's an art and a science to this you said uh i'm glad you asked that i was going to ask you about the nasa thing you also said emotional intelligence so i just feel like that's at the root of what we're talking about here so how big of a component is just being sort of i think also let me say this so emotionally aware is another word that i would use as well emotionally aware it's a part of having

1:11:21Charles Duhigg:emotional intelligence you agree with that absolutely so i this phrase emotional intelligence is actually kind of a misnomer because it makes us think it's like iq right we're either born with it or you're not but it's not emotional intelligence is emotional awareness okay if i say to myself and I train myself to say a priority is noticing when someone else is feeling something and matching that and giving them the space for that. That is emotional intelligence. That's the thing that's going to make it feel like you understand them, that you can empathize with them. And it's not hard, right? It's just about making it a priority.

1:11:59Ed Mylett:There's in the book a lot of examples of that. There's actually just great stories in the book. give me one because I want them to get the book so I don't want to do the whole book but give me one story from the book that's sort of illustrative of just you thought one of the more interesting stories in the book so they have an understanding because what's great about the way Charles writes this book is that there's like points and tactics and then I like the story to sort of reinforce it that may and I for me facts tell stories sell I remember stories and so I like

1:12:27Charles Duhigg:the way that you weave these into the work and that's why there's so many stories in there is because they're so much easier to remember. So one of my favorite stories is early in the book. It's about Jim Lawler, the CIA agent. So good. So Jim is this guy who I've talked to a number of times. He's awesome. He became a CIA officer when he was in his 30s, and he wanted this so bad. He struggled for that. He just ran after this so hard. He was desperate to be a CIA officer. They accept him. They send him off to training, and then they send him to Europe to recruit foreign assets, and he finds out he's the worst recruiter on earth like literally he would go to like parties and he's and like he couldn't make conversation he would like try and buddy up with people and they're like you're a spy aren't you you're trying to get me to be a spy they're like i'm going to report you to the to the authorities you're gonna get deported so he's like freaking out because he's like i'm terrible at this and then someone in his in his office says look there's this woman coming into town she's from the middle east she works for the foreign ministry why don't you get to know her a little bit and see if there's anything there so he bumps into her to restaurant the next day right bumps okay and he introduces himself as an oil speculator strikes up a conversation takes her to lunch the next day they start sightseeing together sort of develops a little bit of a relationship he goes and he says to his boss i think i'm recruiting this woman i think she's going to be an asset for us and then he and his boss is like that's fantastic i'm glad to hear it he goes he has dinner with this woman fatma and he says i'm not an oil speculator i work for the cia now fatma had been telling him she comes from a he never told me which nation but it's pretty obvious which one it is right she comes from a nation that recently had a religious theocracy revolution and so the the fundamentalists have all taken over and she hates it she's like she's like they're making women wear hijabs or telling us we can't go to college i want to fight this but i don't know how and so jim lawler says to her the most practical thing possible he's like we want the same thing you do like we want we want to free the people of your country we want to empower women work for me for the cia and she grabs the table and starts shaking her head and she starts crying and she goes no ab no i'm not going to do it and just has a meltdown and she says they kill people in my country for doing this i cannot believe that you have put me at risk simply by striking up a friendship because if they ever find out you're in the cia they're gonna think i'm in the cia and she just she just bolts and laler's like ah i'm terrible at this like i'm such a bad recruiter so he goes back to his boss and he tells him what happened his boss is like dude i already told washington dc you recruited her as a spy like like you're going to get fired if you can't close the deal on this this is this is your last chance that's why we gave it to you so jim spends all this time trying to figure out how do i what do i do and he he keeps on calling fatima and eventually she picks up and he invites her to go to dinner a couple nights before she's going to fly back home and she says yes because he says he's taken to a expensive restaurant and he has a notebook full full of ideas on how to convert her and he knows none of them are going to work like you cannot trick someone into taking a suicidal risk right right it's just not gonna so he goes to dinner and she's in a she's really down because she's like you know i came to europe i thought i was going to learn something about how to how to be more myself or how to change the world and i'm just going home and i'm the same person and what he starts trying to do is cheer her up.

1:16:05Charles Duhigg:He tells her little stories. He reminisces about when they went sightseeing together and she just gets more and more glum. And finally dessert comes and they're kind of by themselves at the table and Jim thinks to himself, should I try to recruit her again? And he's like, if I do that, she's literally going to stand up and walk away. So what he decides to do is he decides, this isn't going to work. I'm giving up. i'm just gonna have a real conversation i'm gonna be honest and he starts saying to her look i know how you feel because i feel exactly the same way i like i wanted this job my entire life and it turns out i'm terrible at it i am so disappointed in myself and i don't know how i'm gonna go home and tell my dad that like i failed i got fired by the cia and he talks this way now what he's doing obviously without even realizing it is he's matching her matching right she was she was glum and he was trying to cheer her up that's not matching yep he was matching her and she's she's listening to this and she starts crying and he's like i'm such a jerk and in the ca you have to report every conversation so he's gonna have to write up a memo and he's like those guys are gonna fire me within seconds like they're just gonna laugh and he reaches over and he pats her arm and he's like i'm so sorry i did not mean to make you cry i am sorry and she says no no i think I can do this.

1:17:28Wow.

1:17:29Charles Duhigg:And then, and he's so inexperienced. He actually, the first things out of his mouth is like, no, no, no, you don't have to do that. Like, you don't have to like, cause he wasn't trying to manipulate her. He was just trying to. He finally wasn't. Yeah. He finally wasn't trying to manipulate her. And he's like, no, no, no. I don't want to put you at risk. You don't have to do it. And she's like, she says, no, no, what you want is important. I think we can do this together. So for the first time she was able to hear him, she was able to hear all those things that he had said over weeks and weeks and weeks about helping the women of her country she couldn't hear it until he matched her next day she goes to a safe house she gets trained in covert communications and other stuff she's the best source in the middle east for the next 20 years unbelievable and jim lawler becomes one of the top recruiters in the entire cia he teaches it today

1:18:14Ed Mylett:it's one of the best stories ever i i love that let's go i'm gonna pick it apart a little so people understand the dynamic in there so when you say matching was it that she was in an emotional conversation and he wasn't is that what you mean by that that's a huge part of it okay he was also

1:18:25Charles Duhigg:vulnerable but he was also vulnerable so she was not not only was she in an emotional conversation but he was listening to the type of emotion that she was transmitting right instead of saying like oh you shouldn't feel bad i'm going to cheer you up he's saying like look you feel bad like let's just acknowledge that and that matching feels good because it feels like someone's hearing us

1:18:45Ed Mylett:i think it's a huge thing i don't ever like saying gender specific stuff because i don't believe it But I do think, by and large, those two elements, women are better at naturally, meaning I think they're more naturally vulnerable in a conversation than a man can be. I just, and I don't even like saying this, but I just, I think in general, most people would agree with me. And then secondly, I think men try to fix things often, more often, so that when there is an emotional conversation you're in, we just want to fix it or solve the problem or be the savior or be valuable or be important. Yes.

1:19:16Ed Mylett:Rather than just be with somebody and acknowledge their emotion. And it's not always men and women, right? Sure. It's definitely not, but it's more prevalent, I think.

1:19:23Charles Duhigg:And I think what's happening there is we're falling back on what feels comfortable to us. It is for sure. So if you're saying something emotional and I get super practical and it pisses you off, it's not so much that I actually think we should be practical. It's that I'm uncomfortable with emotion. There you go. And so I'm going back to my safe place. There you go. And actually, that safe place is emotional, right? Like, the reason I'm trying to solve your problem is like, it really bothers me that you're upset. I don't know how to deal with the fact that you're upset. I want to make you feel better.

1:19:58Charles Duhigg:I feel like that's my job and I feel like I'm letting you down and myself down. Like, that is emotional, right? Right. I'm just disguising it as a practical conversation because that's my safe space. That's my pattern.

1:20:09Ed Mylett:That's how I hide. Yeah. That's a zillion percent right. I told you we're going to go a bit long, so we're going to. Absolutely. Okay, let me ask you this. This is a hard one. And so I keep using the term nonverbal. I've used that. Let me couch it a little differently.

1:20:23Charles Duhigg:Okay.

1:20:23Ed Mylett:Literally nonverbal. Okay. So types of communication that are not done verbally. Okay. Mail, written, email, text, whatever. Yeah. I have found for me, if I'm transparent with people, I feel like I'm a pretty darn good verbal communicator. I've also found my friends that are hyperverbal people in general, again, another generality, aren't so good in the written word. And for some reason, when I write or text, it comes across as harsh, curt, sometimes aloof. My writing style does not make the impact in text or email that my verbal style does. And I'm really not very good at that. So what about tips or keys on that?

1:21:07Charles Duhigg:So what's going on there? So it's interesting. If we were having this conversation about 100 years ago, a little bit under 100 years ago, when phones first became popular, what we would be talking about, and there were all these articles that said this, no one will ever be able to communicate on the telephone well. Because unless you can see someone, you're not going to figure out what's going on in their voice. Telephone communication is basically going to be for sending over grocery orders. Now, you and I are both Gen X, right? When we were kids, we were on the phone for like seven hours a night.

1:21:37Ed Mylett:100%.

1:21:37Charles Duhigg:I have friendships where I only talk to the person on the phone.

1:21:42Ed Mylett:So do I. And I still remember the phone numbers of my friends when I was a kid. I don't know anybody's phone number now, but I know Andy Quirin's phone number. Yes, right? It's like in there. Right, it's true.

1:21:52Charles Duhigg:And so what's interesting is if we were to watch ourselves talk on the phone, what we would find is that we behave a little bit differently on the phone. When you're on the phone, people tend to over-enunciate because they know that they can't see us, right? We tend to explain ourselves a little bit more. And when we make a joke, we laugh faster to let the other person know it's a joke. we know that they don't have the visual signal and so we're trying to compensate by giving them more audio so now the thing is we've been talking on the phones for over over a hundred years we've been communicating face-to-face for millennia the first email was sent in 1982 right most people didn't get an email account until the late 90s we basically have 20 years of learning how to how to communicate digitally point we have not though the rules about how that channel is different have not become intuitive yet so the solution is we have to think about it more when we're texting or emailing okay and we have to say to ourselves okay and these are the tips when i am online and i'm communicating that way politeness matters a lot more than when i'm face to face okay and study after study has shown this that if you say please and thank you in an email there's like 70 percent higher response rate okay because because i need to signal it right if I'm now if I'm texting you I can be short but if I send you an email and I treat it like a text unless we're good friends that's my problem like it's gonna it's gonna rub you the wrong way right so part of it is just saying what are the rules for this particular channel because our instinct is to say the rules for one channel is the rules for every channel you're right so we treat email and text and slack and everything exactly the same way but the truth is if you just take a second and you say like, oh, I don't have to say please necessarily in this text because it could be short, but every email I should like bend over backwards to be a little bit more polite, it works wonders.

1:23:45Ed Mylett:Brother, I'm such a bad emailer. I'm so lazy with emails. I sometimes don't even put my name at the end of it. You know what I mean? Never mind a thank you. I think I'm the worst emailer that's ever lived. And I've had a lot of people, even that I've worked with, you know, even like in the podcast space, were like, man, when I met you, you're so nice and kind, but I read your emails, you're scary. I'm like, really? I didn't mean it that way. I'm just trying to get to the point so we could go do something else. I thought email was the faster way, but you're 100 % right. The rules of engagement, so to speak, are something that I've been oblivious to.

1:24:13Ed Mylett:That right there was huge for me.

1:24:14Charles Duhigg:And sometimes you can establish new rules, right? Like if you say to your employees, like, look, I just want you to know, I'm going to send you brusque emails because, like, I'm moving a million miles an hour. You should not read anything into that. Yeah. Now we know the rule.

1:24:28Ed Mylett:Well, now I've pre-framed it, but I don't do that.

1:24:30Charles Duhigg:Yeah.

1:24:30Ed Mylett:And I treat everybody like they should know better, and they don't. And by the way, the worst thing I'll do is I'll get a nice long, you know, six paragraph email and I reply with like seven words. Right. And I wonder why they feel dismissed. Sounds great. In a conversation, that's my daughter. Yep. Yeah. Uh-huh. Right. That's the extent of my email to people. So you're a thousand percent right.

1:24:48Charles Duhigg:My son texts me K. He doesn't even put OK. He just puts K.

1:24:52Ed Mylett:I'm like, how much lazier can you get? I relate to that.

1:24:55Charles Duhigg:But that setting the ground rules, setting, like figuring out the rules together, we can do that in a conversation too. So if we're talking about say race, right, which is a tough topic If I start that conversation by saying I'd like to talk to you about this and I just want to acknowledge It's gonna it will likely be awkward I will probably make mistakes and say things that I don't really not saying it the right way You're probably gonna make mistakes Like I think just as a ground rule like let's just say It's okay to say things and forgive each other very not getting it right Right. So now we've established that now all of a sudden that conversation about race feels so much easier.

1:25:32Ed Mylett:Right. We're both open. We're both vulnerable. We've both given ourselves some space to make a mistake and share our real thoughts. And the other thing is, if you don't create that space, then you're really not saying what you really think either. And it's not an authentic exchange. That's exactly right. I agree. When you ask for permission. I'm going to ask you two more things. Sure. Okay. You said earlier something about repeating back to someone, hey, what I think I heard you say was, help me understand this. I love that and totally agree. so sorry go ahead well i want you to reply with that and then also what about the conversation's been over to me when i think when i feel the most listened to you and i had lunch together okay and you did that but 7 30 that night i get a message from you you're gone i'm gone and you say i just want to tell you something i enjoyed our conversation so much and the way that you spoke about your wife or what you shared about blah blah blah i just want to tell you it was so meaningful for me to me that's like what you suggested on steroids that actually after the conversation has ended, I come back later and say, not only have I listened to what you said, but I've been thinking about what you said and it made a difference to me.

1:26:37Ed Mylett:I just want to share that I do that and I think that's a way of me saying I really value and appreciate what we discussed.

1:26:43Charles Duhigg:And it feels so good. I've gotten an email like that from you and like it felt really good to get it. And it was a great conversation, but like to know that it was meaningful to you and it's much like laughing, it's you saying like, I want to connect.

1:26:55Ed Mylett:You wanted to say something and I think I jumped in front of it.

1:26:57Charles Duhigg:Oh, I was just going to talk about this looping for understanding. These three. So looping for understanding, there's three steps to it. You ask a question, hopefully a deep question. Repeat back in your own words what you heard someone say. And then step number three, ask if you got it right.

1:27:13Ed Mylett:Ask if you got it right.

1:27:14Charles Duhigg:Because, and it's that third step that we often forget to do and is the most powerful.

1:27:19Ed Mylett:Okay.

1:27:19Charles Duhigg:Because what I'm saying when I ask you if I got it right, and I do this all the time, I'm like, let me tell you what I hear you saying. and like, tell me if I'm getting this wrong, is that we are saying to them, not only do I want to understand you, I acknowledge that I might have missed something and you might have phrased it in a way that doesn't actually capture what you want. And so like when someone says that to me, when they're like, tell me if I'm getting this right and they repeat back what I just said, I actually find it valuable as the speaker because I'm like, no, no, no. Like I did a bad job of explaining like the thing that like I really care about because you didn't pick up on it and you were listening.

1:27:58Charles Duhigg:I need to get better at that. And that feels good.

1:28:00Ed Mylett:That's outstanding. All right. Last question. First off, let me say this. This is awesome. Oh, thank you. And I both times we've had to interact together like this. It flies by for me. And frankly, that's because you're a super communicator. As are you. Thank you. And the quality of your work. Listen, guys, there's a lot of books. this man doesn't write a ton of them because they're so good when he writes them there's so much in here even in today's podcast like i hope you understand the value of getting good at these what i would call almost nuances that make all the difference in the world so this is a broad question just framing it differently i want to finish with it and thank you for that it's true

1:29:01Chuck Wisner:Rinse knows that greatness takes time, but so does laundry. So Rinse will take your laundry and hand deliver it to your door expertly cleaned. And you can take the time pursuing your passions. Time once spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing, now spent challenging and innovating and pushing your way to greatness. So pick up the Irish flute or those calligraphy pens or that daunting Beef Wellington recipe card and leave the laundry to us. Rinse. It's time to be great.