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The Goop Podcast: How to Have Better Conversations with Charles Duhigg
Episode Overview In this episode of *The Goop Podcast*, host Gwyneth Paltrow is joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Charles Duhigg to discuss the art and science of meaningful conversations. Duhigg, known for his book *Supercommunicators*, shares insights on effective communication, including types of conversations, traits of successful communicators, and tools to navigate difficult discussions.
Key Concepts and Insights
Types of Conversations
Duhigg defines three main types of conversations
- Practical Conversations: Focused on making plans or solving problems.
- Emotional Conversations: Involves expressing feelings and seeking empathy rather than solutions.
- Social Conversations: Relate to social identities and how we relate to one another.
Importance of Vulnerability
- Definition: Vulnerability is not just about emotional displays; it can be as simple as sharing a joke or asking for someone's perspective.
- Power of Vulnerability: It prompts genuine connection and attention from others, as our brains are inherently wired to respond to vulnerability.
The Matching Principle
- Effective communication requires matching the type of conversation happening. If one party is discussing emotions while the other is focused on practical matters, a connection is unlikely.
Listening and Looping for Understanding
- Looping: A technique where one person restates what they have heard from another to confirm understanding and demonstrate active listening.
- This method fosters a sense of safety and encourages deeper emotional sharing.
Overcoming Barriers to Vulnerability
- Past experiences, such as being burned in previous conversations, can make individuals hesitant to be vulnerable. Acknowledging this can help in creating a more open communication environment.
Tools for Effective Communication
- Preparation: Before a conversation, take time to define personal goals and the mood you want to create.
- Deep Questions: Asking open-ended questions can facilitate deeper connections (e.g., “What did you make of that?”).
Charles Duhigg’s Four Rules of Communication
- Identify the Type of Conversation: Understand whether it is practical, emotional, or social.
- Share Goals and Ask About Others' Intentions: Clarify what you want to achieve and invite the other person to share their goals.
- Discuss Feelings: Encourage emotional sharing and respond with empathy.
- Acknowledge Identities: Recognize and respect the multiple identities people hold and how they may influence the conversation.
Key Takeaways
- Real Connections: The quality of conversations directly impacts personal relationships and well-being. Genuine connections can foster happiness, health, and success.
- Self-Communication: Regularly check in with oneself to understand emotions and thought patterns, which can enhance communication with others.
- Dinner Party Conversation: A suggested question to facilitate deep conversation at gatherings is, “What was the last time you cried in front of someone?” This can lead to rich, engaging discussions.
Conclusion In this enlightening episode, Charles Duhigg emphasizes that mastering the art of conversation is essential for deeper connections and understanding in both personal and professional contexts. By leveraging vulnerability, active listening, and empathy, anyone can become a more effective communicator.
*For more insights and to explore this topic further, consider reading Charles Duhigg’s book *Super Communicators*.*
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:02When you are pioneering anything or introducing new ideas to the culture, you get criticized. You do? Yeah. Did you hear about that? I didn't find the one. I found someone I respected and we made it the one. In a sort of longing kind of view of love, people understand each other as if by magic. Nothing in itself is addictive on the one hand. On the other hand, everything could be addictive if there's an emptiness in that person that needs to be filled. I now know that nobody changes until they change their energy. And when you change your energy, you change your life. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. This is the Goop Podcast, bringing together thought leaders, culture changers, creatives, founders, and CEOs, scientists, doctors, healers, and seekers, here to start conversations, because simply asking questions and listening has the power to change the way we see the world.
0:58Here we go. Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the best-selling author of the power of habit. His new book is called Super Communicators, How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. I just read it and I found it really fascinating and helpful for reframing how we approach different types of conversations. Today, Charles is sharing the art and science behind meaningful communication, what makes certain conversations work, and how we can have better, deeper conversations when we move ourselves away from reactivity and into vulnerability. He shares a few tools for approaching difficult conversations, especially when people seem intractable, and his advice for those who dread small talk like I do.
1:45Let's cut to my chat with Charles Duhigg. So tell me a little bit about how communication, I mean, I've read the book, so I know. Oh, that's very nice of you. It's great. And to be honest, it's so funny. Like I was dealing with a difficult situation, you know, where I just kept being kind of at loggerheads with a particular person. And I was like, what the fuck? Like, what am I doing wrong here? Like, and I was sitting at my kitchen table and my team had sent your book over. And I was like, maybe this is a good time to start this book. And did it help? Let's diagnose the situation. What was going on?
2:31What was the blockage? It helped so much. Well, first of all, what really helped was kind of the framing, your sort of three-prong framing of like, what kind of conversation is this? Yeah. It's sort of as the headline, because we think we're having a casual exchange. change. And when we lose the context of what we're actually trying to say and what the other person wants is like where all the fodder for problems are. And there's this incredible maturity in being able to say like, okay, what kind of conversation really is this? What does this person want? And in this case, also what was really helpful was that sort of anecdote on the negotiation strategy where you were talking about this idea of like, how do you make everyone feel like they're winning in a negotiation and in a conversation?
3:32It's interesting because I, and I'm curious if this is true for you as well. I've found that as I had kids and as I got older, that it's been, becomes so much more clear to me how important communication is, how important good conversations are. And that it's not just about the other person. It's about me very often. I need to quiet that thing in my head that starts arguing with you before I even open your mouth. So I'm just waiting my turn to speak. I have to trick myself into listening to you. And not you, but the person that I'm arguing with. Listening and communicating is a very soulful activity when you do it right.
4:10And it's easy to make it soulful. Our brains are designed to make it soulful. We just sometimes have to be reminded of how. But it's interesting because soulful comes from a word you use a lot in the book, vulnerability, right? Coming from a place of, I think the vulnerable piece is what makes it feel soulful, but it's very hard to access, especially when there's consternation or friction. So how do you counsel people to approach a conversation with vulnerability, especially when there's, you know, people are intractably sort of in their position. Absolutely. So I think there's a couple of things there.
4:51And I think this is the key question that you've, that you've arrived at, which is how do we get to a place where we can have an authentic, meaningful conversation, giving all the stuff that's already happening in our heads and your head and all the baggage we're carrying in. And the first thing is to talk about what is vulnerability? Because I think sometimes when we use that word, we think of people crying, right? We think of this big emotional display, but vulnerability can be as simple as telling a joke and then seeing if you laugh, right? It can be as simple as saying like, oh, that's really interesting.
5:23Tell me more about that. Because somebody could say like, it's actually not that interesting. You're wrong, right? And I might not care what your judgment is. I might not care if you laugh at my joke. I might not care if you're interested in my story. But the fact that I'm opening myself up to your judgment isn't in itself vulnerable. And that feels important. And what's interesting is that vulnerability is the loudest form of communication that we can offer someone. And this makes sense. Well, if you think about it, in the state of nature, back when people were hunting animals and each other, if something was vulnerable, you paid a lot of attention to that.
6:01That might mean that they're a weak member of your tribe, or that's an animal that you should attack. Or if you have a vulnerability, you need to be worried and make sure that the people around you are protecting you. So our brain is designed to listen really closely to vulnerability. If I see something vulnerable to you, even if you don't want to listen, you almost can't. And we see this in TV shows and movies all the time, right? That when a movie is well-written and it exposes something about someone. We just fall in love with the character. And that's because what they're saying is so loud, even if they're not using their voice, the vulnerability.
6:37And so then the question becomes, how do we use this capacity in our brain to get to know each other better? And the answer is authenticity. The answer is honesty. And the answer is saying things about myself that feel like they're meaningful. And then when you do the same, letting you know that I hear you, that I want to listen to you, that I want to connect. So how did we move from that reaction of vulnerability, you know, where like the amygdala or like the reptilian brain is like, I'm going to kill you because you're being vulnerable. It being a sign of connectivity and like engender that empathy.
7:25It's actually the evolution of communication. So communication is Homo sapiens superpower. It has what allowed our species to survive so well. And what did we do with communication? Because birds communicate somewhat, right? Other animals can communicate with each other, but what do humans do with communication? We used it to encourage pro-sociality. So if I'm vulnerable, if I'm wounded and I don't have a tribe around me or a village around me or a family around me, it's deadly. But if I have other people I can count on, other people that I know will protect me because I will protect them or I will give to them at some point, then all of a sudden that vulnerability doesn't necessarily become a condemning weakness.
8:07But the only way that I can convince others to take care of me and they can convince me to take care of them when my turn comes is through communication. That's what we can do with conversation that other animals can't do. We can express to someone, I want to spend, I want to take care of you and let you take care of me. Here's a vulnerability that I have. I want to share it with you and let's make it a source of connection and the strength for us as opposed to something we have to be scared of. So why is it so hard for us then, or so many of us, to show up vulnerably in a conversation. I think there's a couple of things going on.
8:43And I'm curious, I'm curious your perspectives on this. Cause I know that you, I've listened to the podcast for a long time and I know that you're very good at having vulnerable conversations. And I think part of it is - I didn't know it until I read this book. And I was like, oh, how do I do this? Oh, I'm a super communicator. I think part of it is just, if you've been burned once, you kind of are twice shot, right? And all of us have been, I mean, I have a kid who's in middle school right now. Think about how awful, like - God help him or her. It's like the knives are out for any vulnerability in middle school.
9:19And so you kind of learn this defensive posture. And then part of it too - Or offensive posture. Yes, that's true. Or offensive posture. And then part of it too is that sometimes people don't know how to show us that they're listening to us. And so we'll say something vulnerable and the other person will hear us, but we don't know that they're hearing us. And as a result, we're not certain that they're connecting with us. We're not certain if they're judging us. And so one of the techniques that's really powerful is known as looping for understanding. And it's just a way of proving that you're listening to someone.
9:57And it's, you know, you ask them a question and when they answer it, you repeat back in your own words, what you heard them say. If it's a tough conversation, you might say, did I get that right? Am I understanding you? And the reason why that's so powerful is it proves to you that I'm listening. It proves to you that I've heard your vulnerability and I haven't held it against you. But equally importantly, it makes me actually pay attention to what you're saying. Instead of coming up with counter arguments in my head, by telling myself my assignment is to listen to Gwyneth so well that I can repeat back what she says to me, all of a sudden I've hacked my own brain into listening really closely.
10:33And that's really powerful. Powerful because it elicits a more honest response or fosters - Absolutely. Because it's hardwired into our brains to make us feel safer. When we believe that someone is listening to us, we feel safe with them. Let me ask you, if you don't mind. So when you have conversations with people who you don't necessarily know and you want to get to a vulnerable place, what do you find helps you get them there? I think for me, it's a mix of, it's a few things. You know, there's one sort of veil to get through of like this famous thing, which is whatever the projection is of what they're holding about who I am before they walk in the room, which probably everybody has to some degree.
11:18I can make assumptions about who you are based on your credentials and that you went to Yale and that you have all this stuff. So I think people are always consciously or unconsciously aware that there is that there. So there's one veil. I try to show up really authentically always. I sort of just am who I am for better or worse at this point. Like I don't pretend to be something I'm not. And I think that sort of engenders a, a certain safety because I think people can feel when they're in the room with someone who's a bullshitter or manipulative or like there for their own agenda. I think I do it with humor a lot.
11:58I have like a pretty shocking sense of humor and people like don't expect certain words and, thoughts to be coming out of my head. And I do think I really am so curious. There's so much I want to know, for example, right now about who you are and what happened to you that this was an interesting topic to you and how you formulated this thesis. And I really want to know the answer to all of that. And so I think if you feel seen and you're a point of interest, I think that engenders vulnerability and good communication as well. I absolutely agree. And what I hear you saying, and tell me if you think I'm getting this wrong, is by being authentic, by making jokes, by being real, particularly when you walk into a room and people assume you're going to be like this fancy star, and you're just a very real person, that what you're doing is you're showing me, I actually want to connect with you.
12:51I don't want you to play the role of the adoring public. I want to connect with you. And when someone tells us, I want to connect with you, our brain almost immediately instinctually says, I want to connect back. Laughter is a really good example of this. You made a joke and I laughed. And most of the time when we laugh in a conversation, it's not in response to anything funny. We laugh because we're saying to the other person, I want to connect with you. And when they laugh back, they're saying, I want to connect back. Right. Right. So what are the other non-articulated signs that people are connecting?
13:25And besides laughter, is there body language, eye contact. So what's interesting is that when we communicate with each other, our bodies actually become similar. So even though we're separated by hundreds of miles right now, our pupils are dilating at the same rate. Our breathing patterns are starting to match each other. And most importantly, inside our brains, our neural activity is beginning to look similar. And that's what communication is, right? I described to you an emotion or an experience, and you kind of have that same emotion or you feel that same experience, that's when we're connected and that's what communication does.
14:02And so a big part of this is what's known as the matching principle, that if we're having different kinds of conversations, if I'm having an emotional conversation and you're having a practical conversation, we're using different parts of our brains. And so it's very hard for us to connect. So the matching principle says, you need to be having the same kind of conversation at the same moment in order to really listen to each other. And that's not just the words coming out of my mouth. That's if you're nodding your head and you're smiling, I'm smiling and nodding back at you. If you're frowning and you're telling me about something sad, instead of trying to cheer you up and make you feel better and pretend that you're not feeling something, just say, tell me more about that.
14:40I want to understand. I want to understand what you're feeling. That's how we align our brains so we become what's known is nearly entrained. At Goop, we believe the spaces we spend time in shape how we feel and how we connect. That's why we're drawn to Convene, a global hospitality brand reimagining work in meeting spaces centered around design and care. Convene's sophisticated purpose-built locations are designed to inspire connection, whether it's a board meeting for 10, a team off-site, or a workplace membership that gives you and your team a home base. With hospitality at its core, every detail is taken care of, so your in-person time feels seamless, elevated, and intentional.
15:23If you're looking for a new workspace or planning your next off-site or meeting, schedule a tour today at convene.com. And for our Goop listeners, mention Goop to receive up to$500 off your next meeting or event reservation rental fee. This promotion is valid for all new clients on select spaces booked and actualized prior to December 30th, 2025 and subject to availability. Convene for the moments that move your business. it's a little terrifying as i hear you talk because i think god one could really study this as a science and have no skin in the game no real emotion behind it and be manipulating somebody into having this thoughtful empathetic connected conversation and it could be false So it's interesting.
16:15And as an actress, I'm curious what you think of this. So there were these studies that were done trying to figure out how susceptible are we to that kind of manipulation. And the way that the researchers did it is they recorded a whole bunch of friends laughing together, like genuine laughter, and a whole bunch of strangers laughing together. So basically trying to mimic it. And then they would play just one second clips of the laughter for subject participants, and they could tell with 90 % accuracy who were friends and who were strangers. Just based on the last year. The same way that we're programmed to listen to authenticity, we have this hair trigger thing in our brain about inauthenticity, about duplicity, about manipulation.
16:57Because again, in a state of nature, if someone's manipulating you, you're probably going to end up dead. Now, the exception to this that really interests me are actors because actors are in the business of conveying emotions or experiences that they didn't necessarily have themselves and making them feel real. And I guess my question for you is when you're acting, does it feel real to you? Do you feel like you're pulling something over on the audience or does it feel like you're actually having this experience? If you're good, it feels real. I mean, in my experience, I don't do it very much anymore, but in my experience, when it works, when the audience connects, it's, it's because it's real for you.
17:44And that's always the way that I approached it. I, I didn't do sort of method acting where, you know, I, I carried it with me through my regular life and, you know, kept the accent at home and that kind of thing to engender that kind of, you know, confluence of all the parts of it. But for me, it's almost like the channel opens and you're conveying your and the collective feeling about whatever it is that's happening in the scene and what you're trying to convey in the story. And it just kind of comes through and it, it does feel really real. I mean, yeah. And it seems real. It looks real, It feels real to the audience.
18:28And I think that gets at why this doesn't become a tool for manipulation is because if I'm going to fake authenticity to really convince you that I'm being authentic, if I'm going to fake vulnerability to convince you that I'm being genuinely vulnerable, I'm going to end up having to be actually vulnerable. The same way you can't fake a character. You can't fake a conversation and expect it to work. Even if you're like, you know, a CIA, like a world-renowned communicator in the CIA? Yeah, even them. I mean, so the first story in the book, thank you for bringing it up, is the story about the guy who he's a brand new CIA officer and he's sent to Europe and he's terrible at his job because he tries to fake it.
19:16He tries to pretend he's something he isn't. He tries to be like suave James Bond, that doesn't work. Then he tries to be like, buddy, buddy, and that doesn't work. And none of it works because it's not real. And then he meets this woman who works for the foreign ministry of her government in the Middle East. And he gets to know her. They become friends. He asks her if she would work for the CIA. She starts crying and freaks out and says, no, you're going to get me killed. And he has one more dinner with her. And during the dinner, she's kind of glum and he's trying to cheer her up. And it's not working, right?
19:44Because it's not authentic. And then he just decides, I'm going to give up. I'm going to be honest with her. and he says, I understand how you feel that you're disappointed in yourself. I've wanted to be a CIA officer my whole life. And I'm so disappointed in myself that I'm failing at this. And it's at that moment that she said, I hear what you're saying. I think I can help you. I feel like we're in this together. She becomes the best asset in the Middle East for the CIA for the next 20 years. But it's only because he didn't try and fake it. He didn't even try and influence her. He just decided to be honest.
20:20But then I guess my next question is, with the next source, knowing - Can you fake it? Well, could you, right? So you're following a template. It's really clear what was learned from that conversation and those series of interactions. Could you transpose it to a new source and fake it? And fake it? It's a really good question. And there's been a lot of studies that have been done on this. And I'll tell you what Jim Lawler, the CIA officer, told me. He told me he tried that. And we've all fallen into that, right? We tell some story to someone and it's really touching. And then it just becomes one of these stories we tell as we sort of pull it out of parties, right?
20:58And we're not really feeling it anymore. Like the first time we told the story and it stops working for our audience. Now that's just at a party. If I'm trying to convince you to take a suicidal risk by becoming a spy for the CIA, the only way, your bullshit detector is going to be so prized to pick up on when I'm being authentic. And so what Jim Lawler told me is he said, I tried to fake it and I failed every single time. What I had to do is I had to sit down, I had to get to know this person, I had to connect with them and I had to be as honest as I possibly could with them about myself. That's the only way that it worked.
21:36That's actually super interesting because I was wondering, as a former-ish actor and really as a business person now, you know, communication in my life has taken so many different forms. When I was acting to your point, it's so visual and emotional. I think that is true in a conversation about business, but it's so much more about language. And what are you willing to say? Like, how honestly are you willing to say it? You know, what about the other person's feelings? And it just, it sort of set me on this path of thinking about in my work now, how can I kind of apply some of these? Because I'm a very, I'm a very like ruthlessly authentic person for better or worse.
22:22Like I'll get myself in trouble for saying the wrong thing or whatever. And so for me, this rubric brings like a measure to structuring a conversation in a way where it's really productive or at its most productive. And I would love it if you could talk a little bit about the sort of three tenants or bars, you know, three different kinds of conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the bar stool. That's a good metaphor. Yeah. Yeah. So, so this actually, I first came across this insight, which turns out to be this huge insight from the last decade, because my wife and I fell into this bad pattern, which is I would come home from work and I would have had a bad day.
23:07And I would start complaining to her about my work and being like, my boss is a jerk. And she very reasonably would suggest some good advice. Like, why don't you take him out to lunch and you guys can get to know each other. And instead of being able to hear what she was saying, I would get even more upset. And I would be like, why aren't you supporting me? Why don't you have my back? And then she would get upset because I was basically being mean to her for giving me good advice. And so I went to these researchers and I think every relationship has some element of this, right? And we flip positions.
23:37And so I went to these researchers. I was like, what's going on here? I'm theoretically a professional communicator and I love this woman. We've been together for 20 years. And they said, well, what you don't understand is what we've learned from all these new studies in the last decade, which is we tend to think of a discussion as being about one thing. It's about your day, or it's about the party that's coming up. But actually every discussion is made up of multiple different kinds of conversations. And in general, most of those conversations fall into one of three buckets. There's practical conversations where we're making plans, solving problems.
24:09There's emotional conversations where I want to tell you how I feel, and I don't want you to solve my feelings. I want you to empathize. And then there's social conversations, which is about how how do we relate to each other in society and our social identities? And they said, when you were coming home, you were having an emotional conversation and your wife was having a practical conversation. And so you could not connect. And so the matching principle says, when we have the same kind of conversation at the same moment, that is what is required for us to make that connection. And that means I have to match you or I have to invite you to match me.
24:43And then we can move from different kinds of conversation, different kinds of conversation together. And you found that all communication really falls into one of these three buckets. Yeah. There's some outliers, right? But in general, or let me ask you as a business person, when you have meetings, meetings are kind of practical, right? We have an agenda, but do you feel like there's emotions that are sometimes in people's heads that are shaping how they hear things and what they say? We're talking about the budget, but I'm worried we might have to do layoffs. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Or even when it gets more complex, like I'm talking about the budget, but I'm really worried about the fact that I feel inadequate.
25:27You feel like this is revealing something about me in a way that I don't, you know, it's like the, the, the, the reactivity piece is like about something very extremely close to the bone. Absolutely. And in those settings, and I'm guessing you do this in one way or another, it feels like such a relief when someone says, let's put the budget aside for a second. Let's talk about you're doing a great job. Like you should not feel the imposter syndrome. You are doing a good job. And we might have disagreements about this budget, but we'll work through them. This is not me judging you on this, your worth.
26:08When we do that, when we say, let's have an emotional conversation, even just for a couple of minutes, it gets us aligned. And then we can move together to say, now let's talk about the budget. And like, is that, do you think that's sort of okay in a group setting? Like I'm, I, yeah, because I tend to have those thoughts, you know, to the individual person. And I think I don't want to put them on the spot further by making this an emotional conversation. So I never know quite what to do in the group work settings specifically. I think, I think it's a really strong point because there are times we don't want to shine the spotlight on someone who's feeling insecure.
26:44And so sometimes the way that we open an emotional conversation or practical conversation or social conversation is by asking a deep question. And we can ask the deep question of the whole group, right? Instead of saying you, one person who I'm worried about, I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask a question of the group. And a deep question is a question that asks us about our values or our beliefs or experiences. And the reason it's powerful is because it invites someone to reveal who they are, to tell you something about themselves. And they're really easy to ask. If you meet someone who's a lawyer, you could say, these are deep questions.
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27:17What made you decide to go to law school? What do you love about practicing law? Those don't seem intrusive, but what they do is they invite the other person to tell you who they are. And in a group, instead of necessarily shining the spotlight on one person, sometimes if we say something emotional, we say something vulnerable, we give permission to everyone else, including that person that we're focused on, without having to call out that focus and all that attention just on them. So an example of that might be, wow, this is getting to be a heated discussion around budget. I just want to acknowledge that I'm here from a place of vulnerability and listening, and I'm really bad with numbers, you guys.
28:02So, you know, this is like, it's that kind of thing. That's exactly right. That is so powerful, right? Because what you've done is you've given me permission to talk about what's really worrying me or what's really on my mind. Because I'm worried that like everyone else at this table is better at numbers. But now the CEO has told us that she's not great at numbers. Like it's okay. I'm not good at numbers either. And like, I feel all right about that. But oftentimes the way that we show someone that we're listening to them is by saying the thing that we know they wish they could say themselves and giving them the space to do so, particularly when there's these power imbalances, because I'm the boss and you're the employee.
28:43The more that we're a servant leader, the more that our goal is to serve our employees, to understand them rather than telling them what to do, rather than changing their mind, to understand where they're coming from. That's how we become a great leader. I could not agree with that more. That models just humanity. That models respect and parity. Of course, in an organization, intrinsically, it's hierarchical. And there are reasons that it's structured like that. But if the communication follows, it's almost like the communication piece needs to be totally upside down from that. That's exactly right.
29:24And one of the best ways to do that, because if you and I are having a conversation, whether it's in a meeting or in the hallways, that conversation needs some equality, right? It needs some parity. Yeah. And the thing that is true is that no matter what my title is and your title is, you are an expert in being you. If I ask you about your life, if I ask you how you feel about something, the answer you give me is that you're an expert. Right. And that doesn't mean I'm not an expert. It doesn't mean I don't have the same power as you. Because if you ask me that same question back and I answer, I'm an expert in me.
29:58And now rather than being boss and employee, we're two experts on ourselves sitting down and having a conversation. And there's sometimes that you have to be a boss, right? There's sometimes that you don't want to have conversations. You want to tell someone like, I need you to do X, will you please do it? But when we do want to have those meaningful conversations, we want to be on an equal plane. And so what are the ways just to double click on the more difficult conversations? How do you make that distinction? Or what are the ways to have the most productive, difficult conversation with someone?
30:32There's two things in particular that the research tells us. And in the book, there's a chapter about this experiment that was done where they brought together gun control advocates and gun rights activists. And these are people who normally hate each other, right? And they bring them all into this, there are dozens and dozens of them. They bring them to Washington, DC and they tell them, okay, look, the goal here is not for you guys to change each other's minds, because we don't think that's possible. It's just to see if you could have civil conversations. questions. And the first thing they teach them is this looping for understanding that I mentioned.
31:04Ask a question, preferably a deep question. Repeat back what you heard them say in your own words, and then ask if you got it right. And they taught folks how to do this. And they found everyone suddenly was talking with each other. They loved talking with each other. I talked to one woman and she said, I was in this small group with this guy who was literally my mortal enemy. and we gave each other a hug at the end of this conversation because they both felt so heard by the other person. So that's the first thing that we do is we prove that we're listening in a hard conversation. We make that a priority.
31:49Then the second thing is what happens next in this experiment because they sent everybody home. Everybody said this was life-changing. Sent them all home. They created a Facebook group for them, a private Facebook group. And within 45 minutes, people were calling each other jackbooted Nazis. It all fell apart immediately. And so they tried to figure out why. And actually what they came across was a bunch of research that's been done about marriage therapy. When psychologists look at why some marriages are successful and others aren't, one of the things that they find is that people fight differently.
32:24And in particular, everyone fights. But when we're having a fight, our instinct is to try and control something. We feel overwhelmed. We feel flight or fight, right? We're scared. And so we look for something to control. And the easiest thing to control, the most obvious thing is the other person. And so we try and control them by saying like, look, I'm not going to talk about your mom. I say things like, look, if you just saw things from my point of view, if you just listened to what I was saying, you would agree with me. I might try and control your feelings. You say you're upset about something.
32:56You shouldn't be upset about that. That's not worth being upset about. I'm trying to control the other person and that is toxic. That destroys the relationship, but we still have that instinct for control. So what we need to do is we need to find things we can control together. and some of the easiest ones are the environment. If a fight starts at two o 'clock in the morning and someone says, look, let's wait until we get a good night's sleep. It's 10 AM. Then we'll talk about this again. If sometimes we can just control the boundaries of the fight, there's this thing called kitchen sinking and marriage therapy, where a fight become a fight about like where we should go for Thanksgiving becomes a fight about like your mother hates me and we don't have enough money and you're a jerk, right?
33:37I'll fight about one thing becomes a fight about everything. That's the kitchen sinking. And that is literally, that spells the path to divorce. Right, right. Whereas if you do the opposite and you say, look, I want to talk about Thanksgiving. I only want to talk about Thanksgiving. Let's stay focused on Thanksgiving. Let's not talk about money. Let's not talk about mothers. We're controlling the boundaries of that argument together. We might not agree with each other. We might still have differences of opinion. We might still have some tension, but we're controlling something together. We're cooperating on at least one thing.
34:12And this is where the maturity comes in as well that I referenced because really it takes a lot of practice not to make the conversation about Thanksgiving, not to drag that stuff into new units of time all the time. Yeah. So does there need to be like deep resolution on topics before or no? No, this is what's really interesting. So they, they looked at thousands of couples, all of them fought. They found that for some couples they would fight and it would fester and it would, the fight would come up again and again. And other couples they fought and like, after they finished fighting 10 minutes later, it's like, not like, like blue skies again.
34:57They totally have forgotten it. And it turns out it's not like one group solved their problems or agreed with each other more than the other group. Whether we agree with each other matters so much less than whether you feel like I'm hearing what you're saying and I feel like you're hearing what I'm saying. right right once we have that connection most disagreements they're kind of unimpactful yeah right like oh you want to vote for this guy and i want to vote for that guy and yeah you know it's kind of like a bummer to like live with someone who's voting for someone different but like it's not like it changes our day-to-day and if i can hear why your reasoning and you believe that i've heard your reasoning then somehow the disagreement it just seems less important.
35:42I'm just thinking about myself and my own marriage and thinking like my husband and I have one fight with just one. And it's been about like blending families, integration and kids, kids stuff over the years. Like we're, we're good now, but like the, it has always been this really difficult conversation for us. And I think like, until I was able to resolve some of my stuff around why I was so triggered, say by certain behaviors, like I couldn't have a fight, like a normal person. Like I couldn't have a fight that was contained to the subject at hand. And I like went away and did a whole bunch of work around that.
36:34And it was only then that I was able to have a productive conversation about, you know, I guess what I'm trying to say is for, for me, I have always struggled and maybe it's because I'm an Enneagram one. So I'm all about justice and what's right and what's wrong. So I'll like aggregate data points from other things and times to prove that I'm right. It's not, it's a quite like, it's not, it's quite ugly, not that productive, but as a communicator, that's what I'm working on the most right now is like not dragging stuff from old units of time into this. Into today. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
37:23I love that. And one of the things that I hear you saying, and tell me if you think this is right, is in addition to having conversations with other people, we have to have conversations with ourselves. Well, exactly. That's a great way to frame it. And sometimes we say to ourselves, look, well, we're talking about who's going to be at whose house, right? When are the kids with us? And when are the kids with other people? That seems like a practical conversation, but you have to have that conversation with yourself and say, actually, this is an emotional conversation for me. I need to let myself feel these things and understand them.
37:56Because if you don't, they're going to pop up anyways, right? They're going to screw up the conversation by making you angry or making you scared. And so when we sit down and we say, I'm going to have a conversation with myself and the same science and the same compassion I apply to other people, the same empathy that I'm willing to give them, I'm going to pretend like I'm having a conversation with myself and I'm going to give that compassion and empathy to me. I mean, do you do that? Do you have a self-communication practice? Like what is that like? So I it's, for me, it's kind of manifest in two ways.
38:27The first is that my wife and I have a lot of conversations. I kind of think there's conversations where she's, she's basically an extension of my brain and conversations where I'm extension of her brain. And we're very deliberate about that. We're very deliberate about saying like, we're not going to talk about, we're not going to talk about Charlie today. We're going to talk about Liz and you don't have to feel guilty about that. But then I also have on my calendar blocked off at least half an hour a day where I sit down away from the computer, away from my phone, away from the kids. And I say, let's just check in.
38:58How are you feeling today? And most of the time the answer is, you know what? I'm feeling great. There's this thing that's worrying me, but I think it's going to be okay. And so after 10 or 15 minutes, I go and I do my thing. But sometimes I sit down and I'm like, oh my gosh, actually, I'm really stressed and I don't know why I'm stressed. I need to have a conversation with myself about where this stress is coming from. And 20 minutes in, I'm like, oh, this is what it is. It's my mom. I haven't called her lately because last time I called her, we had a fight. And so I don't want to deal with it again.
39:31And that's actually stressing me out more than I realized it was. But it's the same thing, trying to figure out what's a practical, what's emotional, what's social. That's so interesting. Yeah. I mean, that's a really interesting thing to apply to one's own self, I think. Yeah. Do you feel like you have conversations? When you have conversations with yourself, how does it happen? I have conversations with myself quite a lot because I do because I think I've dedicated my purpose to be around like, how can I really get the most out of this thing? But like, life is so finite. It's over so fast. I want to show up in my fullest self way, like at all times and in my highest self, like how do I get there?
40:25And I've always been a searcher like that. And I've always tried to like go deeper and understand more and, and unpack things. And so I think because of my therapy and because of what I've learned, I, I spend a lot of time throughout the day talking to myself and checking myself. And, you know, I think because I've also gotten so much feedback in my life and it's so valuable to me around like, how can I communicate better? How can I bring like softness into this? Or like, how can I break this pattern, you know, in the way that I was parented with my kids? Like I always orient towards that. And I think the only way that I've been able to make strides there is by talking to myself.
41:15So like, I try to be aware of all those parts that drive these different reactions and feelings. It's a really powerful habit. And it sounds like it's become habitual. And the truth of the matter is, it's just practice. I noticed you're talking about parts and there's a branch of therapy that's sort of devoted to parts. Oh, the IFS. Yeah, the IFS. It's so cool. It really is. I've done a bit of it. And I think it's just incredibly, like for trauma, I think it's a great modality. It's a really, really. And oftentimes when we go to therapy, we are having a conversation with ourselves, right? There's someone else in that room who's helping us realize the questions we're not asking or is forcing us to answer the questions that we'd rather avoid.
42:03But therapy really works because it's introspection. Yeah, totally. And I'll mention one of the things that I think ties into this, which is, and I'm assuming that you believe this and agree with this, but tell me if I'm wrong. It sounds like one of the things that you do is you prioritize real genuine connections with people. 100%. And that, that is the most important thing. There's a study, I'm sure you've heard of it, the Harvard Study of Adult Development. it's one of the largest and long longest studies we have for a hundred years, almost a hundred years. Researchers have been following thousands of people trying to figure out what makes you, as you get older, what makes you happy, what makes you healthy and what makes you successful, however you define that.
42:48And what they found is that the only thing that is a good indicator of age, whether you're going to be healthy and happy and successful at age 65 is if you have at least a handful of real connections at age 45, right? My ability. And that means that you've had, it doesn't start at 45, right? It means you probably have been getting to know those people for years. It doesn't have to be a huge number, although it can be, but if you have just a couple of people that you feel genuinely connected to, then that, it causes us to live longer. It causes us to be more healthy. It causes us to be more financially successful.
43:26And what's really interesting is that researchers looked at, does this mean, how does these connections happen? And they found the connections happen through conversation, but that doesn't mean that the conversations have to happen all the time. I have this incredibly close friend who I haven't seen in two or three years, and I probably talk to him once every four or five months. But when we talk to each other, it is a real conversation. We are getting deep. We are connecting with each other. We're being vulnerable. We're listening. and just having that relationship, even though it doesn't occupy a big part of my life, it is so nurturing.
44:04And that's why conversation is so valuable. That's why learning to become a super communicator is so valuable and anyone can learn it is because it lets us connect. Yeah. I have a question for you. I have a really hard time at parties because I I really like, don't like small talk and I find it incredibly draining. And like, I feel my life slipping through my hands and I just want to like go home. What is the antidote for that? Like, do you, is it to try to have a real or deep conversation or is it just to not go to the party? The funniest thing is that, well, you definitely don't have to go to the party.
44:44If you don't want to go to the party, you don't have to go to the party. There's no obligation. Sometimes you have to go to the party. Sometimes you have to go to the party, right? It's your cousin's bat mitzvah. You got to go. Yeah, exactly. So what's funny is it takes much less energy to have a deep, meaningful conversation than to have a shallow, boring conversation, right? We think it should be the other way around, but having a shallow conversation is so taxing because you're trying to think about like, what am I going to say next? How am I going to get out of this conversation? Like, do I need to drink my drink fast so I can be like, oh, I got to go back to the bar, right?
45:16But a deep conversation just is easy. And so I have for you the killer question. Yes. Oh, that was my next question. Do you have any? Okay. So you go to a party, you talk to someone, they're talking about something and you just say to them, oh, that's really interesting. What did you make of that? Why did that seem important to you? And it works with anything. And what they're going to do is they're going to tell you something interesting about themselves. They're going to reveal something real about themselves. And then once they do, you can answer the same question and it feels very natural.
45:51But what if they said something really like, oh, I just got this Lamborghini and it's like, great. And I love, you know, like, how do you, how do you. Okay. So, so you're the Lamborghini owner. So that's really interesting. You know, like what, what is it about cars that's so, that seems really important to you? What is it about this Lamborghini that has given you such joy? And you know what that person's going to say back? They're going to say something like, well, it was poor as a kid. And this is evidence that I've made it. It's like I get to pat myself on the back. And you know that feeling.
46:26And you could be like, oh, I know that. I don't buy cars for myself, but I buy lotions or I buy something else. Suddenly now you're having a real conversation. because instead of asking someone about the facts of their life, you've asked them how they feel about their life. And when we ask what someone feels about their life, they will inevitably say something real. So do you think that would work? I think it would work. I mean, maybe in LA, it would work less successfully than in other towns, just to be cynical. You can ask, why is this important to your agent? What is your agent? Oh my God. Something about, about kids.
47:09Yeah. So how old are your kids? I have a almost 20 year old daughter who's a sophomore in college and I have a 17 year old, almost 18 year old son. He turns 18 in April. Oh my gosh. So like you're, you're, it's right around the corner for you that. Empty nest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How do you, how do you feel like, what have you learned about communication from your kids? So much. I mean, I think I learned so much about how to communicate and how not to communicate from my parents. So I think they were amazing at certain things and really not so great at other things. And in my house growing up, there was a lot of judgment infused in conversation.
47:59And so I really made that a focus of my parenting conversation is like to never, never feel like there was any shame in the conversation. And I ask a lot of questions. And it's funny because I was reading a parenting book years and years ago when they were little. And it was like talking about how, you know, as parents, we want to say, oh my gosh, I love your drawing. Is this of the apple tree outside that we went to? You're so clever that you remember that. And are you excited? And like, we pepper them with and fill them up with all these ideas we think that they have or are supposed to have.
48:38And that's my natural inclination to do that. But I really try not to do that. So I don't, I try not to say like, are you excited about Saturday night? You know, I, I try to say like, what's going on and tell me where you are. And what did that feel like when they, you know, responded in that way? And how are you thinking about that for next time? And I try to keep myself out of it because I think it's our inclination as parents to, you know, fill up their head with stuff. To coach. Yeah. To parent. Yeah. How about you? Well, you, you actually just caused like a mind explosion for me because in the mornings before I have a 12 year old and a 15 year old, they're both boys.
49:22And before they go to school, before Harry, the younger one goes to school, I'm always like, are you excited for today? And he's always like, no, I'm not excited, but you're exactly right. That's the wrong question to be asking. I should just be asking him, how do you feel about today? Like, what are you looking forward to? What are you dreading? Like, just tell me like what's on the agenda and how are you feeling about stuff and to let them emerge as their own thinkers. And because I feel like in our culture, there's so little space for our kids to kind of just take inventory around how they are feeling, what's true for them.
49:56there's so much input all the time. So I try to not do that. And with phones and Tik TOK and snap, it gets, it gets even worse. And I think, and this is one of the things that we do know about consistent super communicators, about people who manage to connect with almost anyone is that in addition to the showing you that they want to connect with you, they also just take communication a little bit more seriously. And they take listening to themselves a little bit more seriously. And it's not a big, it's not a lot, right? It's like thinking about what I want to say for half a second before I say it, instead of just blurting the first thing into my mind, or before I have a conversation or a meeting, just spending like 10 or 15 seconds writing down like, here's my goal for this meeting, and this is the mood that I want to establish that I'm hoping that we can get to.
50:44It gives you such clarity when you walk in. And super communicators are not different. They are us, right? We are all super communicators to someone. The people who do it consistently, it's just because they think a little bit more about conversation. They think a little bit more about how do I show this person I want to connect? And that small two degree difference makes all the difference in the world. Can we talk, can we, or I guess we've just sort of begin to wrap it up, but I do want to talk to you about your four rules, the rules of communication. if you don't mind sharing, just because I think it's, it's such a nice takeaway.
51:26It's something that people can really, you know, you have, you have, you mentioned four rules really. So what are they? So the first rule is pay attention to what kind of conversation is occurring. And that's what we talked about. Is this emotional? Is this practical? Is it social? Just, just try and figure out what's going on. The second rule is share your goals and ask what others are seeking. And we sometimes forget to do this, right? Or we come in and we say, I want to talk about the budget. But we don't say, what do you want to talk about? Or we really want to talk about a problem we're having in our relationship, and we never tell our friend, I want to talk about my relationship.
52:06And so they don't know to ask. The third rule is ask about others' feelings and share your own. And this is really important because we don't have to ask about feelings. We can just show curiosity and feelings. But when someone reveals something vulnerable, when they say something emotional, we need to reciprocate. And that doesn't mean that we have to share the same thing about ourself. If somebody says, I'm kind of down because my aunt passed away, it's not appropriate to say, oh, I understand because I had a pet who died seven years ago. That's not reciprocating. That's stealing the spotlight for yourself.
52:44But you could say, oh man, I'm so sorry to hear that. Tell me about your aunt. What was she like? That's a reciprocation that shows that we're both connecting emotionally. And then the last rule is explore if identities are important to this conversation. And what I mean there is a lot of the research tells us that particularly in workplaces, particularly in tough conversations, we tend to minimize our differences. We tend to pretend that they don't exist. If we're having a conversation about race and you're black and I'm white, we'll never mention that we come to this conversation from different perspectives.
53:23But of course, both of us are thinking about it. It's obvious. And so the answer is not to pretend differences don't exist. It's to acknowledge them. But equally importantly, to acknowledge that we all don't possess just one identity. We possess many identities. You are a woman and and you're a business person, and you're a mom, and you're a wife, and you're a sister, and you're a child, and you're a cultural influencer, all of those things belong at the table. But if I just say, Gwyneth, as a white woman, what do you think about this? It would feel like I'm pushing you into a stereotype. But if I say, as all of these different hats that you wear, how does it help you see the world differently?
54:05Then it feels like I'm listening. And that's the last rule. Yeah. And I think under that umbrella of the last rule is the piece that I'm always trying to search for, which is like the sort of Oprah part, like the what happened to you part? Like, why are you showing up in this way? Like what happened to you that besides being an entrepreneur and a writer and a journalist and this and that and a dad of two boys, like what happened to you that's making you respond in this way? Yeah. And it feels so good to be asked that. When you asked me that, I want to tell you all about myself. I wrote this book called The Power of Habit 10 years ago.
54:44Oh yeah. New York Times bestseller. Yeah. And I got these emails from folks and they would say, thank you. The book was so great, but how do I change other people's habits? Because the problem is this other person. And I realized that it has to be communication. And then I would have, I'm sure you experienced this. When my kids were young and I was so busy, there are times that they would come up and they'd really want to talk to me. And I would kind of say, oh, go ask your mom. Or why don't you just watch TV for a couple of minutes? And I'd look back at those times and I'd think to myself, what a dummy I was.
55:20I would do anything to recapture one of those minutes right now. I know. Believe me. it's and it's and they're so cute right i mean it's just it's heartbreaking how cute i know i know it's crazy and it goes it really does go so i'm not the precipice of this so it's like that's like extra resonant for me right now yeah okay here i promise is my last question and then i'll okay i love it no i'm having so much fun so i when i have a dinner party i love to have a single thread conversation okay so that there's no like people breaking apart like it's i like to have 10 people or less at a table and have one conversation happening.
55:59It doesn't always work, but that's like the ideal scenario. And I, I usually seed a question at the beginning of the dinner. And I'm wondering what question you would ask at a dinner party to facilitate like a single, a good single thread conversation. Okay. So I'm going to cheat a little bit. And I'm going to tell you a question from a study that was done called the fast friends procedure where these two researchers wanted to figure out if they could make strangers into friends in 60 minutes. And the answer was yes, if they gave them the right questions to ask each other back and forth. And one of the most powerful ones is when is the last time you cried in front of another person?
56:45And you say, okay, what I'd love us to do during dinner, like let's go around and just each person, when's the last time you cried in front of another person? And what you're going to find is that half the stories that you hear are not sad stories. They are happy stories. It's people saying, I cried because my son came home from college and I was just so overwhelmed. Or one guy I was talking to you said, I adopted these kids and I saw them playing soccer the other day and they're so strong now and they were so weak when we adopted them. So they're happy stories. They're not sad. And inevitably someone will say, this is the last time I cried.
57:18They'll tell their story and someone else at the table will say, oh my gosh, like that just made me think of something that happened in my own life. And I feel like I've learned something from listening to you because I also had a fight with my father and like people for the next three hours, no one will shut up. They'll be talking to each other nonstop. Okay. I love that one. That's great. Can I ask you, what's your go-to question? What have you found is a good one? My, my one that I've been asking recently, it's like, cause just cause I'm so curious about it. It was like, what is the issue that's currently in your life that you're really working on trying to resolve?
58:01Oh, that's a great one. That's a really, really good one. And people are really like, they really are, are, are vulnerable. And, and then, you know, then like I ask, like, how are you doing that? And is it impacting positively or negatively? Like, but I'm, I'm always curious about how people are handling adversity and like at what level it is. Like, is it up here at work? Like, I don't like my coworker or is it like, I'm uncovering something about who I am or what I did that I can't reconcile all or like, I just, so I always love to know what people are working on. And my guess is that as soon as one person shares something like that, everyone else at the table feels safe to share.
58:45Right. Just that all we need is someone else to say, it's okay, I will share something vulnerable. And everyone else is listening as closely as they can because it's such a loud form of communication. And they're saying like, okay, I can do the same thing. I had the same experience over New Year's when I went to this conference where it was kind of talking about our lives. And I didn't expect to share a lot with the folks in this small group that I was talking to. And by the end of it, like I was like bawling tears and I was telling them all about the traumas of my life. And like, it was really, it was overwhelming, but it felt so good.
59:26That's beautiful. And it's so nice that like when men are able to do that and model that kind of openness and vulnerability. Yeah. It's important. Shit. I better let you go back to your life. Well, thank you so much. This was so much fun. Thank you so much for doing it. I really appreciate it. And thank you so much for the book. It really helped me a lot. Oh, that's so good. A lot, a lot. That makes me so happy to hear. It's fantastic. Well done. Congrats. And if you hit another conversational impasse, let me know. And let me know how this new question goes at the dinner table. Yeah, I'm going to.
1:00:03I will.
1:00:09Thanks for tuning in to today's episode with Charles Duhigg. I hope you pick up a copy of his book, Super Communicators, which is out now. Thanks for tuning in. This has been a presentation of Cadence 13 Studios. I hope you'll listen, follow, rate, and review all of our episodes, which are available for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.
From the publisher
Gwyneth is joined by the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of Supercommunicators to talk about the art and science behind meaningful conversation. Duhigg explains the three types of conversations, what makes certain ones work, and the traits of highly effective communicators. He also shares a few tools for reframing difficult conversations and his most important tip for moving past small talk. And at the end, GP shares the dinner-party question she likes to ask to build connection.
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