0
SPEAKER_02
The following podcast is a dear media production.
0
SPEAKER_01
She s a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire.
0
SPEAKER_01
Fantastic.
0
SPEAKER_01
And he s a serial entrepreneur, a very smart cookie.
0
SPEAKER_01
And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride.
0
SPEAKER_00
Get ready for some major realness.
0
SPEAKER_01
Welcome to the skinny confidential him and her.
0
SPEAKER_03
So if you ask someone, oh, you had a long conversation with that person, what d you talk about?
0
SPEAKER_03
they might be able to remember one or two, maybe even three topics they talked about, but they won t remember exactly what they said.
0
SPEAKER_03
They won t remember what the other person said, not precisely.
0
SPEAKER_03
But if you ask them, how d you feel during that conversation?
0
SPEAKER_03
They will be able to tell you precisely.
0
SPEAKER_03
We don t remember what someone said to us.
0
SPEAKER_03
We remember how they made us feel during the conversation and the way that we do that,
0
SPEAKER_03
is we re in the flow.
0
SPEAKER_03
It doesn t matter if you say something wrong.
0
SPEAKER_03
It doesn t matter if your tongue get tongue tied.
0
SPEAKER_03
If like, if we re following each other, if we re matching each other, if we re having the same kind of conversation, if I m proving that I m listening to you and I m asking you deep questions, that s what you re going to remember about the conversation.
0
SPEAKER_02
Hello everybody, welcome back to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show.
0
SPEAKER_02
Today we have Charles Duhigg on the show.
0
SPEAKER_02
Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and the esteemed author of The Power of Habit, Smarter, Faster, Better, and his latest work, Super Communicators.
0
SPEAKER_02
There are times in doing this show that I get absolutely starstruck and Charles Duhigg is one of the people that did that to me.
0
SPEAKER_02
There are times that I have to do a double take.
0
SPEAKER_02
Sometimes I ll be sitting around reading my email and an email will come through from somebody I highly admire.
0
SPEAKER_02
Those are mostly authors you guys know I love to read.
0
SPEAKER_02
Charles Duhigg was one of those people.
0
SPEAKER_02
I had to do a double take when he emailed me and said, hey, I got a new book and I want to come on the show.
0
SPEAKER_02
In this episode, we talk about all things communication, how to be curious, the history of communication, the different forms of communication, how to infer rules via communication, the forms of unspoken communication, and how to just be a better communicator in general.
0
SPEAKER_02
Actually, how to be a super communicator.
0
SPEAKER_02
So this is for anyone that wants to have better relationships,
0
SPEAKER_02
speak to people better, communicate better.
0
SPEAKER_02
For any aspiring podcasters, this one s also for you.
0
SPEAKER_02
This is just for anyone that wants to develop deeper connections with the people in their lives by being able to communicate in a much more productive way.
0
SPEAKER_02
With that, Charles Duhigg, welcome to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show.
0
SPEAKER_01
This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her.
0
SPEAKER_02
We have done close to 700 interviews.
0
SPEAKER_02
Oh my gosh.
0
SPEAKER_02
Well, I don t say that to brag.
0
SPEAKER_02
I say that just to give you an idea of the amount.
0
SPEAKER_02
And it is very rare that I fanboy over anyone.
0
SPEAKER_02
True.
0
SPEAKER_02
I mean this.
0
SPEAKER_02
And the people I find myself fanboying the most over are authors.
0
SPEAKER_02
And when I got your email, I had to do a double take because I was like, no, not Charles.
0
SPEAKER_02
And because I ve read The Power of Calvin, I ve read Smarter Better, all of your books now.
0
SPEAKER_02
super communicators.
0
SPEAKER_02
Oh, thank you.
0
SPEAKER_02
Of course.
0
SPEAKER_03
That is so nice of you to say.
0
SPEAKER_02
No, but I mean it.
0
SPEAKER_02
And, you know, I ve, I ve had the pleasure of having a few authors that I admire so much like yourself.
0
SPEAKER_02
And it s always these weird, surreal moments.
0
SPEAKER_02
Cause I feel like with authors and people who write stuff, you know, you can see an actor or a podcast, somebody on screen, but with, with, with a writer, like I have been in your head.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_03
Does that make sense?
0
SPEAKER_03
No, absolutely.
0
SPEAKER_03
I feel the same way about other writers.
0
SPEAKER_02
Right.
0
SPEAKER_03
And, and, and actually podcasts too.
0
SPEAKER_03
I will say, you know, like when I listened to your guys s podcasts,
0
SPEAKER_03
There s something about someone being in your ear that you just feel a relationship with them, right?
0
SPEAKER_03
And it feels magical.
0
SPEAKER_03
It feels great.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_02
I was saying I did this book or this podcast the other day about like reading more and the importance of it.
0
SPEAKER_02
And I said it s one of the rare times you can get outside of your own head.
0
SPEAKER_02
And like, if you re going through a tough time or just anything, it s like, it s really hard to get outside of yourself.
0
SPEAKER_02
And when you re reading someone s work, it s like, it s a rare moment when you re not thinking as yourself, you re thinking, like you are, but you re thinking as you as well.
0
SPEAKER_03
Absolutely.
0
SPEAKER_03
And you feel like you re learning something, which, which, and it s the best form of learning, right?
0
SPEAKER_03
Because you re learning through stories, you re learning through like, like someone else telling you about their life.
0
SPEAKER_03
And it just feels good.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I think our brains actually evolved to crave that.
0
SPEAKER_00
Have you always been a curious person?
0
SPEAKER_03
That is a great question.
0
SPEAKER_03
I d have to ask my mom.
0
SPEAKER_03
She would probably say yes.
0
SPEAKER_03
I think she would say nosy is the way that she would describe it.
0
SPEAKER_03
But yeah, I think that.
0
SPEAKER_03
I think that when I was young and I m curious if what it was like for you guys and how you, how you think about raising your kids in this respect, that when I was young, I spent a lot of time wanting to understand how the world works.
0
SPEAKER_03
And in part, because like, I remember like as a kid, like, and I don t know if you guys had this experience of like picking up a book and just being like, if I can find the right book that tells me all the things I need to know, like I m having trouble making friends at school or I m having trouble, you know, talking to girls.
0
SPEAKER_03
Like if I can just find the right book.
0
SPEAKER_03
And the thing that you realize, which is I think a good, it s a part of growing up, is that there is no book that tells you everything you need to know.
0
SPEAKER_03
That actually books tell you a lot and then you have to go out in the world and you have to use it.
0
SPEAKER_03
I think I ve always wanted to learn and I just, I enjoy learning, which I assume you guys do too.
0
SPEAKER_03
The show is such an obvious example of that, that wanting to learn about how people see the world is just fascinating.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_02
I think, you know, your book and I m sure a lot of podcasts are saying this to you is so relevant to not, not just everything going on in the world, but to specifically what we re trying to do here, which is,
0
SPEAKER_02
Lauren and I have so many different characters with so many different backgrounds and so many different walks of lives and so many different perspectives on the show.
0
SPEAKER_02
And I think what we re trying to do constantly is get to the root of why people think the way they do, how they came to their conclusions,
0
SPEAKER_02
getting into the difficult nitty gritty types of conversations that maybe people shy away from so that we can understand why deploy empathy.
0
SPEAKER_02
And I always say like the easiest thing to do from a content creation perspective is to pick one base and just like dive into that and just like hit all that stuff on the nose.
0
SPEAKER_02
But really, I think what we try to do here is like, why does this person think one way that we may not agree with and how did they come to that conclusion?
0
SPEAKER_02
And it requires like a lot of listening and communication.
0
SPEAKER_03
Absolutely.
0
SPEAKER_03
And by the way,
0
SPEAKER_03
this is the thing that makes like a strongest people this is the thing that has made america such a strong nation and and other nations so strong is this ability to have conversations with people even if there s things we disagree with them communication is homo sapiens superpower right it is the reason why we have succeeded where every other more than other every other species it is how we
0
SPEAKER_03
build families and communities and villages and towns.
0
SPEAKER_03
It s how I can learn something and I can share it with you without you having to experience that same thing, that same learning yourself.
0
SPEAKER_03
And so our brains have evolved to be really good at communication.
0
SPEAKER_03
In fact, our brains have evolved to be fantastic communication machines.
0
SPEAKER_03
And so as a result, we can communicate with anyone.
0
SPEAKER_03
And when we look back on the times in our own lives that we re most proud of, or we look at the founding of America, or we look at those moments in history that seem inspiring, it s usually not because everyone agreed with each other, it s because people who disagreed with each other were able to come together and create something.
0
SPEAKER_03
I mean, that s kind of what a marriage is, right?
0
SPEAKER_03
That there s times that you agree with each other and times you disagree with each other, but you know how to live with each other and you know how to love each other despite those differences.
0
SPEAKER_03
And most importantly, to communicate with each other.
0
SPEAKER_03
That s what makes a marriage really special.
0
SPEAKER_00
What do you think is the biggest breakdown in communication in this moment?
0
SPEAKER_03
Well, I m kind of curious how you guys would answer that question too.
0
SPEAKER_03
I think
0
SPEAKER_03
One of the things that I would say is, so we used to teach communication in school.
0
SPEAKER_03
So we re, the funny thing is we re living.
0
SPEAKER_02
Do they not do it anymore?
0
SPEAKER_03
Not really.
0
SPEAKER_03
Interesting.
0
SPEAKER_03
Not really.
0
SPEAKER_03
We re living through this golden age of understanding communication because of advances in neural imaging and data collection.
0
SPEAKER_03
We know more about communication now than we ve ever known before.
0
SPEAKER_03
But a lot of that is happening in laboratories and not getting shared with people.
0
SPEAKER_03
So when your parents were in school and my parents were in school, they probably had a course like a home ec course.
0
SPEAKER_03
or interpersonal relations course.
0
SPEAKER_03
And in that course, and for me it was health and we never really got into it, but in that course they would learn how to communicate.
0
SPEAKER_03
They would practice communication.
0
SPEAKER_03
They would learn these tools, these tools that super communicators know in order to be able to connect with other people.
0
SPEAKER_03
And as schools got more technical, we stopped teaching a lot of that.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I think we re seeing the consequence right now.
0
SPEAKER_03
We re seeing what
1
SPEAKER_02
We re living through a time when people do feel divided from each other.
1
SPEAKER_02
If I have one difference with you, if we re going to vote for different people, it s impossible for us to have a conversation.
1
SPEAKER_02
Whereas this is the smallest difference on the face of the planet.
1
SPEAKER_02
We have so much more in common.
1
SPEAKER_02
remembering how to communicate with each other and learning the skills that make us into super communicators.
1
SPEAKER_02
Cause we all are super communicators at one time or another.
1
SPEAKER_02
That s the thing that lets us really connect.
1
SPEAKER_01
Obviously I ve read parts of your book, almost all of your book now.
1
SPEAKER_01
And one part I found fascinating was there was an area of the book where you talk about communicating in different forms and how it s different, which I m going to bounce around.
1
SPEAKER_01
Obviously I have no, please do.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I think this is relevant for this part of the conversation, which is,
1
SPEAKER_01
And by the way, thank you for reading the book.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s very nice of you.
1
SPEAKER_01
I really appreciate it.
1
SPEAKER_01
I have a stack of like five or six at the same time.
1
SPEAKER_01
Cause like we do, we batch a lot of these and I m like reading them.
1
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, but of course, no.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think we need to, but this part of your book where you re talking about like the way I would write a letter is different than the way I would send a text, different than the way I d send an email.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s different than the way I would have this interaction.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think like,
1
SPEAKER_01
Maybe in terms of like you asked about what we thought about social breakdown is maybe we haven t fully yet learned how to communicate on social as well and like receive that information because it s so new.
1
SPEAKER_01
Lauren and I are like one of the last, we didn t get a smartphone until we got out of college.
1
SPEAKER_01
I feel like we were the last generation to grow up without
1
SPEAKER_02
this kind of technology where it can absolutely in your pocket twelve year old fifteen year old and what s interesting is that.
1
SPEAKER_02
This same conversation happened about a hundred years ago when telephones first became popular.
1
SPEAKER_02
There were all these articles that were written the saying.
1
SPEAKER_02
Okay telephones are in people s homes now no one s ever gonna have a real conversation on telephone cuz you can t see each other you re not gonna be able to communicate in a real way.
1
SPEAKER_02
And what s interesting is at the time they were right, if you read these early transcripts of those early conversations, it was people using telephones like, like telegraphs.
1
SPEAKER_02
They would send each other like stock orders or grocery lists, but they wouldn t, they wouldn t have conversations.
1
SPEAKER_02
Now, of course, by the time we re in middle school, we could talk for like seven hours a night.
1
SPEAKER_02
And these were like the most meaningful conversations of our life.
1
SPEAKER_00
He wouldn t get off the phone with me.
1
SPEAKER_02
That s which is a good sign.
1
SPEAKER_02
It s a good sign.
1
SPEAKER_00
I d go to fall asleep on the phone.
1
SPEAKER_00
Go ahead.
1
SPEAKER_02
And did you guys fall in love over the phone was like, he fell in love.
1
SPEAKER_00
I was indifferent.
1
SPEAKER_00
Go ahead.
1
SPEAKER_02
It s still kind of the case.
1
SPEAKER_00
I was asleep.
1
SPEAKER_02
So at least one of you is a super communicator because you want, you won her over.
1
SPEAKER_02
But, but what s interesting is that
1
SPEAKER_02
Different forms of communication have different rules, and we learn to infer them.
1
SPEAKER_02
So when we talk on the phone without realizing it, oftentimes we overemphasize our words.
1
SPEAKER_02
We over-enunciate.
1
SPEAKER_02
We ll put more emotion into our voice because we know the person can t see us, so we need to show them what we re feeling through our vocal tones.
1
SPEAKER_02
So we ve learned how to use, we ve learned the rules of telephones.
1
SPEAKER_02
But you re exactly right when it comes to so many other forms of communication that exist now.
1
SPEAKER_02
You know, I got my first email address when I started college.
1
SPEAKER_02
I like sending people emojis and using that to have a conversation, which is what my kids do.
1
SPEAKER_02
That s like three or four or five years old.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so it s very understandable that we haven t learned some of those rules yet.
1
SPEAKER_02
We haven t internalized them.
1
SPEAKER_00
I would love for you to going off of this like on a tangent to also talk about when you re texting someone or you re emailing someone and there s a negative energy or a negative connotation so like I always say like the word unfortunately
1
SPEAKER_00
Never start an email off.
1
SPEAKER_00
No one wants to wake up to an email that says, unfortunately.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I would love for you to talk about the energy that we use through email and text message that can come off where the person who s receiving it is immediately on the defense.
1
SPEAKER_02
Absolutely, another one is, actually, that was pretty good, right?
1
SPEAKER_02
If you just say it s pretty good, they re gonna like it a lot more than like, actually, I thought it was gonna be terrible, but it s pretty good.
1
SPEAKER_02
So here s what we know, and here s what we can teach our kids about online digital conversation and communication, because they re gonna do it.
1
SPEAKER_02
They re growing up in a world where having these skills are essential.
1
SPEAKER_02
The first thing we can teach them is think about how each form of communication is different.
1
SPEAKER_02
Sending an emoji is different from sending a text is different from sending an email different from calling someone some kinds of conversations.
1
SPEAKER_02
Are better in different channels like if you need to talk about something serious you should probably pick up the phone rather than doing it over text and then observe the rules respect the rules so if i send you an email.
1
SPEAKER_02
If I m talking to you and I m sarcastic, we can both hear the sarcasm in my voice.
1
SPEAKER_02
But when I send you a sarcastic email, you might not hear that sarcasm.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so we got to think about that.
1
SPEAKER_02
Like, like they might think what I m saying is serious.
1
SPEAKER_02
They might get offended.
1
SPEAKER_02
And the number one thing that we ve learned when it comes to digital communication, and there s been study after study that looks at this, is over-emphasized politeness, under-emphasized sarcasm.
1
SPEAKER_02
that in a conversation that s negative, that negative energy you re talking about, if just one person starts saying please or thank you, the quality of the conversation will ratchet up almost 50%.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s unbelievable though, some of the emails that I get that also the long winded ones that are 600 pages.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s like, it s almost like when a 600 page email comes in, it s like you have no respect for anyone s time.
1
SPEAKER_02
Right.
1
SPEAKER_02
You re right.
1
SPEAKER_02
You could take it, you, you could take a moment and you could, you could clarify.
1
SPEAKER_02
Now, now I will say that sometimes, so I put my email address out there in the world as Charles at Charles doing.com and I respond to every email I get from a reader or a listener.
1
SPEAKER_02
And sometimes someone sends that huge long email and it s just stream of consciousness and you re reading it and you know that they re in pain, right?
1
SPEAKER_02
They re not actually writing for you, they re writing to let this out.
1
SPEAKER_02
And sometimes all they need as a response is to say, I hear you, I see you, I m sorry you re going through this, I know it will get better.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s just like they want acknowledgement.
1
SPEAKER_02
They just want to be seen and heard.
1
SPEAKER_02
And honestly, oftentimes when we have conversations,
1
SPEAKER_02
The thing that makes the conversation good, the thing that makes us into a super communicator is just proving to the other person that we re listening to them.
1
SPEAKER_00
How can we as women make our husbands communicate more effectively?
1
SPEAKER_02
So okay, I ll tell you what s happened in my marriage, okay?
1
SPEAKER_00
Give us all the juice.
1
SPEAKER_02
Careful, Charles.
1
SPEAKER_00
Step into the dungeon.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yes, exactly.
1
SPEAKER_02
So one of the reasons I wrote this book is that I got into this bad pattern with my wife, whom I love and adore.
1
SPEAKER_02
We ve been married for 20 years and she s smarter than I am.
1
SPEAKER_02
Congratulations.
1
SPEAKER_02
She s a better surfer than I am.
1
SPEAKER_02
She s wonderful.
1
SPEAKER_02
I would come home from work and I would like start complaining about my day and Liz very practically would give me like a suggestion like why don t you take your boss out to lunch and you guys can get to know each other a little bit better and instead of being able to hear her I would get more upset and I would say like why aren t you supporting me you re supposed to be on my side and then she would get upset because I was attacking her for giving me good advice and I wanted to understand why this kept happening because I knew it was a bad pattern but like I m a professional communicator why do I slip into this so easily
1
SPEAKER_02
And so I called up all these neurologists and psychologists and I said, well, I m going to write a book about it.
1
SPEAKER_02
So will you please tell me how to, how to fix my own problems?
1
SPEAKER_02
And what they said is, well, here s the thing that you re missing.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I think this gets to what happens in a lot of marriages.
1
SPEAKER_02
We think of a conversation as being about one thing, but actually most discussions are made up of different kinds of conversations, right?
1
SPEAKER_02
And in general, they fall into one of three buckets.
1
SPEAKER_02
There are practical conversations where we re solving problems together.
1
SPEAKER_02
We re making plans.
1
SPEAKER_02
There are emotional conversations where I might tell you how I m feeling and I don t want you to solve my feelings.
1
SPEAKER_02
I want you to, to empathize.
1
SPEAKER_02
And then there s social conversations about how we relate to each other in society and the social identities that are important to us.
1
SPEAKER_02
And they said, if you re not having the same kind of conversation at the same moment, you re not really talking to each other.
1
SPEAKER_02
So when you came home, you were having an emotional conversation and your wife, Liz, was having a practical conversation and you literally couldn t hear each other.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so here s what we do now.
1
SPEAKER_02
I come home and I complain and Liz says,
1
SPEAKER_02
Do you want me to help you figure out how to solve this problem?
1
SPEAKER_02
Or do you just need to vent and complain?
1
SPEAKER_02
And it feels so good when she asks me, right?
1
SPEAKER_02
I m because up until that moment, I haven t stopped to ask myself.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I say like, no, no, no, this isn t a big deal.
1
SPEAKER_02
I just need to, I just need to vent about it.
1
SPEAKER_02
So I think that one of the things we can do, particularly women, because I think they re particularly talented at this is to just take a beat and say, what kind of conversation are we having?
1
SPEAKER_00
I asked
2
SPEAKER_00
Michael, are you at request for coaching?
2
SPEAKER_02
So sometimes, to your point, if I m in a certain kind of mood and I get that question, I m going to meet that with some resistance because it feels like
2
SPEAKER_02
in a way you are like, you know, I m patronizing.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I, and I love how you framed out the three kinds of conversations actually had these highlights is one of those.
2
SPEAKER_02
Could you elaborate a little bit more on the three types of conversations from your perspective and how people can maybe identify which kind of conversation they re in?
2
SPEAKER_01
And I ll, and I ll tell folks the right way to figure out what kind of conversation you re in.
2
SPEAKER_01
which is probably something that you guys do intuitively with each other, which is to ask questions and in particular to ask a special kind of question known as a deep question.
2
SPEAKER_01
And a deep question can sound kind of intimidating, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
But a deep question is just something that asks me to, to just talk about my values or my beliefs or my experiences.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it can be as simple as, you know, bumping into someone and saying like, Oh, what do you do for a living?
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I m an accountant.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, do you love being an accountant?
2
SPEAKER_01
What s that like?
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, how did you decide to become an accountant?
2
SPEAKER_01
What made you decide to go to medical school?
2
SPEAKER_01
Those are deep questions and they re not hard to ask.
2
SPEAKER_01
And when the person responds, they usually tell you what kind of conversation, what kind of mindset they re in.
2
SPEAKER_01
So think about the difference.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the same person might answer the question both ways to say, oh, I became an accountant because, you know, I wanted a steady job and I knew that there was always work for accountants.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s practical.
2
SPEAKER_01
That person s a practical mindset.
2
SPEAKER_01
Now think about that same person might say, you know, I just fell in love with numbers like and like my dad, my dad had an accountant who he relied on and he helped us when we were in some financial distress and I saw how much he could change this person s life.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s an emotional perspective, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
And it might even be social.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like I just, you know, I think that there s that in, in America we need more people increasing financial literacy.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s social.
2
SPEAKER_01
If we listen, if we ask a deep question and then we just listen for one of these three conversations, um, well, can I ask you guys, how has your communication changed?
2
SPEAKER_01
How long have you been married?
2
SPEAKER_01
How many years?
2
SPEAKER_01
We ve been married since 2016, so eight years.
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
How has your communication changed over the course of your relationship?
2
SPEAKER_01
We know each other since we were 12.
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you ve got, you ve got some.
2
SPEAKER_00
He s respected my boundary.
2
SPEAKER_00
I cannot wake up at eight in the morning and hear 700 things.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like he goes so intense and he s backed off in the mornings, which is incredibly helpful.
2
SPEAKER_02
What I ve realized is that being together so long, and honestly this show has been a little bit of a hack because we get to speak to people that are much smarter than us for a living, or at least smarter than me.
2
SPEAKER_02
I ve realized that just because you have a certain type of energy or a certain type of communication style doesn t mean you can deploy that all the time the way you want to deploy that all the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think there was an emotional residency happening where he wanted me to take emotional residency wherever he was at.
2
SPEAKER_00
So if he s stressed, he wants me to get on the same level of stress.
2
SPEAKER_00
Or if he needs to get something done right away, he wants me to take on that level.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think he s learned that just because he s ruminating on something doesn t mean I have to then.
2
SPEAKER_02
Or like the other way, like, you know, I m more like turbo in some approaches and maybe she s more loxodasical in some, but it s like, we ll take a business perspective.
2
SPEAKER_02
she like wears the more creative hat, but sometimes there s something that is more logistics or practical working together.
2
SPEAKER_02
And before I d be like, you need to, like, I would be like, you got to do it this way.
2
SPEAKER_02
And now I will frame it as like a question where I d be like, Hey, what do you think it would look like if we tried this or did that?
2
SPEAKER_02
And I let her kind of see what I m trying to convey, but without me forcing it.
2
SPEAKER_02
Does that make sense?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it absolutely makes sense.
2
SPEAKER_01
And what I hear you guys saying, and tell me if, if I m getting this, this right, is that
2
SPEAKER_01
you guys communicate differently and you communicate about different things sometimes, but the, you show each other, you re listening.
2
SPEAKER_01
So if he s stressed, you, you can say either directly or indirectly, I see that you re stressed.
2
SPEAKER_01
I hear that you re stressed.
2
SPEAKER_01
I, I, I m not going to become stressed with you.
2
SPEAKER_01
That might not even be helpful, but I want to acknowledge that I hear what you re saying.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re saying a little more eloquently than me, but I ll take notes on that.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m a little bit more Kurt.
2
SPEAKER_02
No, but one of the things I got, but I ll take your notes.
2
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I got a lot from you, but one of the things I also got was.
2
SPEAKER_02
Sometimes we re trying to talk about a specific issue that feels like it s a practical issue, but it actually is much more of an emotional issue.
2
SPEAKER_02
Let s take personal finance.
2
SPEAKER_02
I might want to like, you know, maybe that is a hat more than I wear in the house and probably stems from having a childhood where there was like a scarcity mindset of like, is money not going to be there?
2
SPEAKER_02
And so I want somebody to dive into it.
2
SPEAKER_02
And my conversation is more of a fear of like, hey, why won t you talk about this with me?
2
SPEAKER_02
And hers is not.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so what I realized is even sometimes with practical communication where a couple is fighting, there is an emotional element.
2
SPEAKER_02
If I stepped back to her and said, hey, I m just a little bit nervous of this because of this, she might receive that differently than me trying to talk finance with her.
2
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
2
SPEAKER_01
And
2
SPEAKER_01
The only, the big fights I ve ever had with my wife are usually about finances, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Or usually about money.
2
SPEAKER_01
And my wife is fantastic at money.
2
SPEAKER_01
She s great.
2
SPEAKER_01
She runs, she s a scientist.
2
SPEAKER_01
She runs these big multi billion or multimillion dollar grants.
2
SPEAKER_01
She is really, really good at money.
2
SPEAKER_01
But when we start talking about money, sometimes, sometimes I fall into that practical mindset where I m like, look, let s do the budget.
2
SPEAKER_01
Let s figure out, let s figure out why.
2
SPEAKER_01
And really what I m feeling is something emotional.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m feeling something like, you know,
2
SPEAKER_01
I m stressed about this and I don t know how to express the stress or I feel like we re spending too much and that makes me worry about what s down the line.
2
SPEAKER_01
And one of the things that s great about Liz is that she is really good at stepping back and saying, actually, this isn t necessarily a conversation about money.
2
SPEAKER_01
This is actually a conversation about how we feel and how much control we each have in this relationship and how we appreciate each other.
2
SPEAKER_00
She sounds like a real communicator.
2
SPEAKER_01
She is amazing.
2
SPEAKER_01
She s amazing.
2
SPEAKER_01
And she s, she s just really good at figuring out what we ought to be talking about and bringing us there.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you asked, what is the one thing we can do immediately that helps us?
2
SPEAKER_01
And the number one thing we can do, and Liz does this really well, is we can prove that we re listening.
2
SPEAKER_01
When someone says something to us and it seems like something meaningful, even if we ve heard them,
2
SPEAKER_01
When we repeat it back to them and say, am I getting this right?
2
SPEAKER_01
This is what I heard you tell me.
2
SPEAKER_01
Or when we ask a followup question or when we say, look, this is something, you know, I know that this is a hard conversation.
2
SPEAKER_01
I want to thank you for having it.
2
SPEAKER_01
We might even walk away feeling differently about this, but I want you to know, here s what I heard you say.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I appreciate you saying that to me, that changes everything, particularly in a conflict conversation.
2
SPEAKER_00
Listening seems to be a real underrated, like I feel like it s an art and it needs to be talked about more because it s really something that anyone can tap into and get better at.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the great thing about listening is that to get better at it, all we have to do is listen, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
You don t, you don t have to like go run a marathon.
2
SPEAKER_01
You don t have to like learn how to speak a foreign language.
2
SPEAKER_01
You just listen.
2
SPEAKER_01
Now what s important though, is that when we are listening, the other person might not realize that we re listening.
2
SPEAKER_01
And oftentimes, particularly in a conflict conversation, even with someone we love, if we re disagreeing about something, if we re in a fight, there s a part of our brain that suspects this person isn t listening to me.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re waiting their turn to speak.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so when we prove that we re listening, when we show that we ve actually processed what someone has said, we ally that anxiety.
2
SPEAKER_01
And there s actually a great technique that they teach at Harvard and Stanford and a bunch of fancy places called looping for understanding.
2
SPEAKER_01
It has three steps.
2
SPEAKER_01
Step one, ask a question, preferably a deep question.
2
SPEAKER_01
Step two, repeat back in your own words what you just heard the person say.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then step three, and this is the one we often forget, ask if you got it right.
2
SPEAKER_00
you
3
SPEAKER_00
brain just processes faster than a normal person.
3
SPEAKER_02
I will repeat back to her what she said, but I will not do the third part.
3
SPEAKER_02
I just realized I don t do the third part.
3
SPEAKER_00
You also could repeat it back to me.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s the second part.
3
SPEAKER_00
It is a sandwich.
3
SPEAKER_02
So next time he says my brain processes faster than the normal part of
3
SPEAKER_02
Part of having you on the show today, I knew, again, reading the book, I was like, this is going to be, this is going to come up.
3
SPEAKER_02
I m going to be a punching bag on this show.
3
SPEAKER_02
But no, but I do like, listen, jokes aside, I could be better.
3
SPEAKER_02
We all could be better.
3
SPEAKER_02
We all could be better.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
And you know, you asked about like what we ve learned.
3
SPEAKER_02
This show has forced me and taught me to be a better listener.
3
SPEAKER_02
And also I think as an interviewer,
3
SPEAKER_02
many interviewers fall into the trap of waiting for the person to stop so they can ask the question.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_02
And, you know, we have notes and stuff, but like what we try to do here and we ve had to work, I mean, listen, we ve never been perfect and we re still working at it, but we ve had to spend a lot of time following the conversation where it actually goes as opposed to like, wait, I got my next question.
3
SPEAKER_02
It doesn t work.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s exactly.
3
SPEAKER_01
And what s interesting is that when researchers look at conversations, what they find is exactly what you just said is incredibly powerful.
3
SPEAKER_01
So if you ask someone, Oh, you had a long conversation with that person.
3
SPEAKER_01
What d you talk about?
3
SPEAKER_01
They might be able to remember one or two, maybe even three topics they talked about, but they won t remember exactly what they said.
3
SPEAKER_01
They won t remember what the other person said, not precisely.
3
SPEAKER_01
But if you ask them, how d you feel during that conversation, they will be able to tell you precisely.
3
SPEAKER_01
We don t remember what someone said to us.
3
SPEAKER_01
We remember how they made us feel during a conversation and the way
3
SPEAKER_01
that we do that is we re in the flow.
3
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t matter if you say something wrong.
3
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t matter if your tongue get tongue tied.
3
SPEAKER_01
If like my, the ideas always sort of have trouble getting from my brain to my lips.
3
SPEAKER_01
But if we re following each other, if we re matching each other, if we re having the same kind of conversation, if I m proving that I m listening to you and I m asking you deep questions, that s what you re going to remember about the conversation.
3
SPEAKER_00
Sun bum just launched their new daily collection with three new products to be used on the daily and the one that I am loving out of all three is the daily body.
3
SPEAKER_00
I recently just traveled and you guys know I m a sunscreen freak and I wanted something really great for my body.
3
SPEAKER_00
This one
3
SPEAKER_00
feels like your favorite body lotion but with SPF.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t like something thick and sticky that gets everywhere all over my clothes.
3
SPEAKER_00
I wanted something light like I m wearing linens and silks and I wanted it to be really sort of like comfortable.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I love that it feels like your favorite body lotion like it s just lightweight.
3
SPEAKER_00
You put it on in the morning, and you truly forget about it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Sun Bum s new sunscreen really thinks it s a moisturizer, and that s a good thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like I said, it really is ultra lightweight.
3
SPEAKER_00
It has a moisturizing formula with a built-in SPF, so it s easy to stay protected from the sun every day.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can use this when you get out of the shower.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can put it on your arms, on your hands, on your legs.
3
SPEAKER_00
I even put it on my feet.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m serious about it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you should know, and this is important for a sunscreen, that it has 24-hour hydration.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s also SPF 50.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s sheer and invisible.
3
SPEAKER_00
Really, like, the whole entire time that I wore it, it was not sticking to my clothes.
3
SPEAKER_00
I just feel like everyone needs a good daily sunscreen, and the daily body is the best.
3
SPEAKER_00
Visit sunbum.com, that s S-U-N-B-U-M.com and use code SKINNY15 at checkout.
3
SPEAKER_00
You get 15% off your first purchase.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s S-U-N-B-U-M.com code SKINNY15.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you get 15% off your first order.
3
SPEAKER_00
sunbum.com code SKINNY15.
3
SPEAKER_00
If you are going to do one thing in your home to upgrade your home, my recommendation would be to do all non-toxic cleaning supplies.
3
SPEAKER_00
I cannot tell you how much this has changed my life.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was recently on a trip, I was traveling and the whole time they were using toxic cleaning supplies and I totally noticed that I was sneezing,
3
SPEAKER_00
I had a redness on my leg from laying in the detergent.
3
SPEAKER_00
I just didn t feel as good as when I m at home with non-toxic cleaning supplies.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s because Branch Basics is free of fragrance, hormone disruptors, and harmful preservatives.
3
SPEAKER_00
There are so many cleaning supplies on the market, you ll notice this too if you travel and you switch over, that just make you feel like shit.
3
SPEAKER_00
Branch Basics, though, has you covered.
3
SPEAKER_00
Their premium starter kit replaces all your harmful cleaning supplies in the home.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s like one swipe.
3
SPEAKER_00
I also love their hand soap.
3
SPEAKER_00
The Branch Basics now has a luxurious gel hand soap.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have it in my kids  bathrooms, so I don t need to worry about them washing their hands with products that disrupt their hormones.
3
SPEAKER_00
Branch Basics is made with only the safest ingredients to nourish your skin.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have switched literally everything in my house to them.
3
SPEAKER_00
I cannot shut up about them.
3
SPEAKER_00
Everything is non-toxic.
3
SPEAKER_00
Amazing.
3
SPEAKER_00
Your home should be a place that you detox.
3
SPEAKER_00
Save 15% on your starter kit or their new hand soap when you use code SKINNY at checkout.
3
SPEAKER_00
That is branchbasics.com.
3
SPEAKER_00
Use code SKINNY.
3
SPEAKER_00
Again, code SKINNY for 15% off when you purchase a starter kit or their new gel hand soap.
3
SPEAKER_00
One of the most savvy supplement companies on the market is Symbiotica.
3
SPEAKER_00
I love their products because they make it so easy to incorporate them into your routine.
3
SPEAKER_00
So what I ll do is I ll put like three of their little packets in my handbag on the go.
3
SPEAKER_00
I like how they re in those like tiny packets and they taste delicious as opposed to like an actual pill.
3
SPEAKER_00
They have this vitamin C that tastes absolutely delicious.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like
3
SPEAKER_00
creamy and like orangey and so good.
3
SPEAKER_00
My kids love it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then I love their glutathione.
3
SPEAKER_00
I always take their glutathione when I m drinking alcohol.
3
SPEAKER_00
We were just on vacation and I had my house stocked with glutathione.
3
SPEAKER_00
All my friends were taking it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then my other favorite product by them,
3
SPEAKER_00
It s a spray, and basically what I do at night is I spray it on my body.
3
SPEAKER_00
It smells like lavender, and it just goes into your skin.
3
SPEAKER_00
It smells absolutely delicious.
3
SPEAKER_00
I ll even use it sometimes as a perfume, because the magnesium just sinks right into your skin.
3
SPEAKER_00
Their supplements are so savvy, and it s a really easy, effective way to get your daily dose of nutrition.
3
SPEAKER_00
Every product is really, really thought out.
3
SPEAKER_00
We have a code for you.
3
SPEAKER_00
I ve given my family this code.
3
SPEAKER_00
I use the code.
3
SPEAKER_00
Start your subscription today.
3
SPEAKER_00
Get the vitamin C, the glutathione, and the magnesium spray.
3
SPEAKER_00
You will not be sorry.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can save up to 15% off your subscription with our code SKINNY.
3
SPEAKER_00
Just go to symbiotica.com and use code SKINNY on your subscription order.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can save up to 15% off your subscription with our code SKINNY.
3
SPEAKER_00
Just go to symbiotica.com and use code SKINNY on your subscription order.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s symbiotica.com.
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you think that the reason that people have sort of lost the art of listening is because social media is so quick and it s like that quick hit that they re used to being just hit with the drug right away?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean I think that s definitely part of it and I think part of it too is
3
SPEAKER_01
So, so your kids are too young to have phones, I assume, or, or to, to use them regularly.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re too young to have.
3
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
Excellent.
3
SPEAKER_01
So, so mine, my kids are 12 and 15.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the one thing I will say is my kids, they use their technology really differently than I do.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like they have whole conversations that are just emojis and those emojis are emotions, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
They re telling each other like, oh, that made me happy.
3
SPEAKER_01
It made me laugh or it made me sad.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so our kids are going to be better at this than we are.
3
SPEAKER_01
They are learning how to do it better, better than we did.
3
SPEAKER_01
But to your point, there are aspects of social media that can be destructive because they re not conversations, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
When you re just flipping through video after video after video, you re not actually having a conversation with someone.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re just absorbing.
3
SPEAKER_01
Or if you re on Twitter and you re screaming at each other and you re seeing people all
3
SPEAKER_01
lump on and jump on someone and talk about how terrible they are, that s also not a conversation.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s not trying to show that we re listening to each other, that we re understanding.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so the more that we teach our kids and ourselves that like, let s remember what s good about communication, the more that we can use these devices and these new tools to really connect with each other.
3
SPEAKER_01
Can we discuss, you have these rules in your book?
3
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
4
SPEAKER_00
around having, I guess, would you call it more productive or a learning conversation and I probably screwed this up.
4
SPEAKER_00
I probably in the beginning could have done some of these things to set my goals and intentions, but we dove right in and I got too excited.
4
SPEAKER_00
I love it.
4
SPEAKER_00
But okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
So for the learning conversation, you have rule one here, which looks like we ve, we ve kind of dove into already, which is pay attention to what kind of conversation is occurring.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s really easy.
4
SPEAKER_01
You don t even, you can even just be like as basic as like, is this emotional or practical or social?
4
SPEAKER_02
So this right now is social, us three.
4
SPEAKER_01
Every conversation contains all three elements and you ll move between emotional and social and practical.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like practically we re talking about this book.
4
SPEAKER_00
But emotionally you ll bring up your wife.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes, exactly.
4
SPEAKER_01
So we talk about my wife and that s kind of emotional, but you re asking about the four rules and that s kind of practical.
4
SPEAKER_01
As long as we re matching each other and moving together, as long as we re moving from conversation to conversation together,
4
SPEAKER_01
If I say, tell me the rules when you re about to cry, having an emotion, that s if I m like, you know, I went to my dad s funeral and you re like, I d like to know what the rules are, then it might not have to laugh.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
It might not land quite as well.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
So that s rule one rule to share your goals.
4
SPEAKER_00
And this is what I was just mentioning Lauren and ask what others are seeking.
4
SPEAKER_00
So like if I would have started the conversation and said, Hey, Charles, so nice to meet you.
4
SPEAKER_00
One of my goals here is to learn how to be a better communicator.
4
SPEAKER_00
One of my goals selfishly is also, I want you to like me so that you ll come back on the show.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to be unliked.
4
SPEAKER_00
But if I share the attention from the beginning of the conversation, what does that do?
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it transforms things, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Because part of it is that if we know our own goal,
4
SPEAKER_01
we re a lot more likely to achieve it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, if you know, like, my goal in this conversation is to become a better communicator, to learn a couple of tips, then you are so much, you ask so much better questions, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Because they re the questions that you want to ask.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if you can elicit from me, like, what I want, like, oh, I d like to get to know you guys a little bit better.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think you re interesting and I want to see how, understand how you see the world.
4
SPEAKER_01
Then you understand where my questions are coming from.
4
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes we can just say, like, what s the agenda for this conversation?
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, you know, it s a business meeting.
4
SPEAKER_01
We have an agenda.
4
SPEAKER_01
We know what the goals are.
4
SPEAKER_01
But in casual conversations, it s a little bit different, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes the way that we figure out what people s goals are is that we run little experiments.
4
SPEAKER_01
We might tell a joke to see if they laugh back.
4
SPEAKER_01
Is this a casual conversation or is it a formal conversation?
4
SPEAKER_01
You might bring up an idea, and I say, oh, that s a great idea.
4
SPEAKER_01
Here s another perspective on that.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I m asking, essentially, are you interested in sort of figuring out how to test these ideas and sort of make them bigger?
4
SPEAKER_01
We do this almost naturally, instinctually.
4
SPEAKER_01
But the more that we do it deliberately, the better off we are.
4
SPEAKER_01
And there s this really fascinating study that was done by Harvard Business School professors
4
SPEAKER_01
where they told students, okay, look, you re gonna have a conversation with a stranger.
4
SPEAKER_01
And this is usually like the most anxiety producing thing you can ask a person to do, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
To go have a conversation with a stranger.
4
SPEAKER_01
But they say, okay, before the conversation, we want you to just take seven to 10 seconds and write down three topics that you want to discuss.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it can be stuff like, you know, have you seen Dune II?
4
SPEAKER_01
And like, what do you think of this weekend s game?
4
SPEAKER_01
And then take seven or 10 seconds, stick it in your pocket, go have the conversation.
4
SPEAKER_01
So they go and they find, afterwards they ask everyone, how d that go?
4
SPEAKER_01
And the topics that those people wrote and stuck in their pocket almost never came up.
4
SPEAKER_01
Or at least not directly, not in that way.
4
SPEAKER_01
But what they said was, that conversation went so much better than I thought it was going to go.
4
SPEAKER_01
I felt so much more confident.
4
SPEAKER_01
I felt so much less anxious.
4
SPEAKER_01
I kind of knew what I wanted to talk to them about, and they knew what they wanted to talk to me about, and it felt so good.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s because they had the safety net in their pocket because they had forced themselves to think just for seven to 10 seconds.
4
SPEAKER_01
What do I hope I m going to get out of this conversation that can make all the difference in the world.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s also like you suffer more in your imagination.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_02
And we, and we like create this whole thing.
4
SPEAKER_02
And when you re actually energetically having the conversation, I think it s more comfortable than when you re thinking about it.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I imagine even in like a conflict in a relationship, if you started that conversation with like, Hey, one of my goals and intentions here is like, let s even pick on the financing.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s like, I m stressed about this money.
4
SPEAKER_00
One of my goals is to like, have you help me work through this and feel better about it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
4
SPEAKER_01
The thing that you just raised that when in a conflict conversation, when we announce our goal.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oftentimes, when we come in and we re clear about what our goal is, we stop this other pattern from happening, which is known as kitchen sinking.
4
SPEAKER_01
So one of the most dangerous things that can happen in a relationship is that you start arguing about one thing and suddenly it becomes a fight about everything, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
We re talking about like, yeah, we talk like we re like in 19.
4
SPEAKER_01
You did this one and you and you don t earn enough money and you don t respect me.
4
SPEAKER_01
So this is called kitchen sinking and it is literally the thing that marriage therapists look for as the danger sign.
4
SPEAKER_02
I can kitchen sink sometimes.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we all can.
4
SPEAKER_01
We all can do it.
4
SPEAKER_01
The solution to that is to basically control control the fight together to be partners and think about how wonderful it is to start a conversation by saying, OK, I want us to talk about where we re going to go for Thanksgiving.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I know that s a hard topic.
4
SPEAKER_01
Let s not talk about money.
4
SPEAKER_01
Let s not talk about our mothers.
4
SPEAKER_01
Let s not talk about like what happened in 1982.
4
SPEAKER_01
But like, can I can I ask your permission to focus on this one question?
4
SPEAKER_01
When we do that, it transforms it because suddenly we re partners.
4
SPEAKER_01
We might disagree with each other, but we re partners in controlling the boundaries of this conversation and what we want to get out of it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Kitchen sinking is a really interesting concept and I think that articulating it the way you did is probably very powerful for people listening because we all know and we ve all been in these kind of arguments where all of a sudden you think you re talking about
4
SPEAKER_00
one thing and all of a sudden you re in a whole nother world and you weren t prepared for it and somebody s blindsided.
4
SPEAKER_00
Totally.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I like, I literally did it last night.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was talking to my wife and she brought something up and I was like, well, yeah, but what about this time that you did that?
4
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, as the words came out of my mouth, I was like, oh, this is I m doing exactly the wrong thing.
4
SPEAKER_02
Why do I feel so comfortable communicating via text message when I m angry?
4
SPEAKER_02
Because I m the type that fires like 40 bullets over text and then blocks him.
4
SPEAKER_01
So the blocking might not be the healthiest thing, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
I would say that, but we might want to like... I ll be back in an hour.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
But actually, I don t know that that s a terrible thing.
4
SPEAKER_01
I know.
4
SPEAKER_01
See?
4
SPEAKER_02
Charles likes it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Here s what I m hearing you say, and you can tell me if I m getting this wrong.
4
SPEAKER_01
What I hear you say is when you are upset, you know that if you have that fight face to face, if you share what you re feeling face to face, it might make things only worse.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s going to get ugly.
4
SPEAKER_02
So I go take a walk.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
And then I get my phone out.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then, and then you send these texts.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the nice thing about a text is you get a chance to kind of like, you type it out and you re like, yeah, you re a jerk.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then you look at it and you re like, well, let s just like, what s the second part that I voice note it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_01
But at least you re taking that step.
4
SPEAKER_01
You, you know, and my guess is, and tell me if I m wrong.
4
SPEAKER_01
My guess is that when you start getting all those voice notes, you re like,
4
SPEAKER_01
Fuck.
4
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like I m going to set aside.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m not going to assume that the first voice note is going to be like the last voice.
4
SPEAKER_00
You asked how we ve been learned how to communicate as we ve gone in marriage.
4
SPEAKER_00
Early days, I would try to respond individually to each one.
4
SPEAKER_00
Now I respond, okay, got it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Let eight more come through.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes, dear.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then I step back for about an hour and a wait.
4
SPEAKER_00
And by the time she comes back, it s like, okay, like we,
4
SPEAKER_02
I m like, pass the ketchup.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think also, and maybe you ve experienced this in your own marriage, I think most mature couples have, is you get to a point in a relationship where you decide, like, is this the hill you, like, meaning, like, is this the real serious fight that you want to really have?
4
SPEAKER_00
Or is this one of those moments where you re like, hey, we were in a bad mood, bad moment.
4
SPEAKER_02
Your mom always says that.
4
SPEAKER_02
Is this the hill you want to die on?
4
SPEAKER_00
We talk about, like, we recover fast from something.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, we have two young kids under four.
4
SPEAKER_00
We re sleep deprived.
4
SPEAKER_00
We re sick.
4
SPEAKER_00
They bring the plague home every other week it seems.
4
SPEAKER_00
And we just look at each other sometimes and I would just be like, listen, don t know what I said, don t know what I do, but like, I m deprived.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m tired.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like I m exhausted.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like didn t, you know, move on.
4
SPEAKER_00
Didn t mean it.
4
SPEAKER_02
You like the text message.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think it s great.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know that there is no one form of communication that s right for the entire world, but what I hear you guys saying is we pay attention to how we talk to each other and we know that we can t have perfectly rational, calm conversations all the time because we re human, because humans want to express things.
5
SPEAKER_01
But what we have learned is how to do that in ways that don t become destructive, but rather allow us to find a pressure relief, to allow us to send my husband 40 voicemails and have him write back, I hear you, I hear what you re saying.
5
SPEAKER_01
Prove that he s listening to you.
5
SPEAKER_02
He s glad it s not a message in a bottle and I decide to go to some foreign island and run away with the bartender.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like whatever, I guess also as I ve matured and realized that not all of us are perfect and we re all going to have these moments of frustration or weakness.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like, if that is your venting process and we can then recover after, and it s like, I don t have to rub that venting process in her face, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like I m not going to turn around and be like, look what you did in this moment.
5
SPEAKER_00
And like, really like, I mean, I could, but I, I just, it s not productive.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so I try to be like, okay, like we all have,
5
SPEAKER_02
Sometimes I just take your phone when you re in the bathroom and delete the text when I feel stupid.
5
SPEAKER_01
Just delete them all.
5
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I have to say, so I was on another podcast and I was talking about money and, and my, my wife and our relationship and.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I implied something that she s not good at money, which is not right, or that we have a difference on money.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it really hurt her, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
She heard it and it hurt her.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I feel so bad about it.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I ve apologized and I ve said like, look, I m sorry.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like in the, in the flow of the moment, I said this thing that I, I said it wrong and I didn t say what I was feeling.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so much of communication is understanding that and giving grace to other people understanding.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s just hard.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s hard to communicate.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right.
5
SPEAKER_01
And the more that we.
5
SPEAKER_01
allow the other person to screw up as I screwed up when I had, when I said this thing and I ve apologized so much, the more that we say, look, I understand it is hard to talk.
5
SPEAKER_01
It is hard to get those ideas from your brain to your lips without something screwing up.
5
SPEAKER_01
the more that we empower them to actually share with us who they really are.
5
SPEAKER_02
I think saying sorry to in any case where you are sorry should be like, that should be normalized more like people like want to die on the hill.
5
SPEAKER_02
Like if you do something wrong, say sorry, take accountability.
5
SPEAKER_01
And honestly, when you re saying sorry, what you re also saying is I hear you, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
I m proving that I m listening to you.
5
SPEAKER_01
I heard you say that I hurt you.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I, at the time of that didn t even occur to me, but I m sorry.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like I hear that you told me that you were hurt and I wish that I had done things differently.
5
SPEAKER_00
I really don t like the state of most, you know, politics and not to go political, but in the mainstream news outlets, because to your point, communication is very hard.
5
SPEAKER_00
We do this in a very long format so that if there s something I don t understand or is not articulated correctly, or if somebody makes a mistake, we have time to be like, Oh, what did that really mean?
5
SPEAKER_00
And then I, and even if you, maybe you said something and it was like, Oh, I didn t mean it that way.
5
SPEAKER_00
Can I clear it?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like we live in an environment where people pull soundbites.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
and are trying to pigeonhole people to say the wrong thing quickly so that they can then prove their point or pull another soundbite.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s how a lot of us are getting our information and then passing judgment.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think it s a, it s a really dangerous place to be in because we re not really listening.
5
SPEAKER_00
We re just waiting for people to screw up and then attacking them and not even taking the time to figure out like, wait, what point were they actually trying to articulate?
5
SPEAKER_00
And what do they actually mean?
5
SPEAKER_01
I think that s really well put.
5
SPEAKER_01
And, and, and one of the questions that this raises is like, what is the goal of a conversation?
5
SPEAKER_01
Right.
5
SPEAKER_01
And what we know is that the goal of a conversation is just one thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
It is not to convince you I m right and you re wrong.
5
SPEAKER_01
It is not to, it is not to get you to like me.
5
SPEAKER_01
It is not to impress you out with how smart I am.
5
SPEAKER_01
The goal of a conversation is to understand what you are trying to tell me and to speak in a way that you can understand me.
5
SPEAKER_01
And if we do that, we have succeeded.
5
SPEAKER_01
We might walk away thinking like, that person s completely wrong, I don t agree with them, but I understand them and they understood me.
5
SPEAKER_01
And the nice thing about that is it lowers the expectations, lowers the temperature, lowers what you have to demand of yourself so much.
5
SPEAKER_01
When you go into a conversation with your crazy Uncle Jimmy about politics, or a fight that you know you gotta talk about this hard thing and it usually becomes a fight,
5
SPEAKER_01
When you go into that saying, I don t have to convince them that I m right.
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t even have to agree with them.
5
SPEAKER_01
All I have to do is understand what they are trying to tell me and help them understand me.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s a success.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s so much easier.
5
SPEAKER_02
I also think that when you re talking to someone that s committed to being right, I always look at it as someone, I look at them as a child and I m like, there s something in their identity as a child where they felt that to get attention, they had to be right.
5
SPEAKER_02
And so when I m talking to someone who has to be right, I just like, just let them be right.
5
SPEAKER_02
That s what they need out of the conversation.
5
SPEAKER_02
So just let them hold space for them to be right instead of being combative because I, and you could tell me more,
5
SPEAKER_02
Like what are the turnoffs in conversation?
5
SPEAKER_02
I would think conflict and being combative is one.
5
SPEAKER_01
So it s interesting.
5
SPEAKER_01
So there s a difference between conflict and being combative.
5
SPEAKER_01
So you re exactly right.
5
SPEAKER_01
Trying to make someone feel small, making this conversation less safe, making them feel like if they say something, I will use it against them.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s disastrous.
5
SPEAKER_01
But conflict can be very different, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
We can sit down and we can say, oh, you re a Democrat and I m a Republican, or I m a Republican and you re a Democrat, or we feel differently about all these issues, or we just, whether Star Trek or Star Wars is better.
5
SPEAKER_01
Star Wars, but go on.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Harry Potter.
5
SPEAKER_01
I totally agree.
5
SPEAKER_01
But that being said,
5
SPEAKER_01
We can have that conversation and we can engage in that conflict, discuss that conflict without being combative.
5
SPEAKER_01
And the way that we do that is that we prove that we re listening to each other and we ask each other questions.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right?
5
SPEAKER_01
We, this is the thing that super communicators do.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s a bunch of different things.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s asking deep questions, looping for understanding, you know, often acknowledging differences rather than pretending they don t exist.
5
SPEAKER_01
But all of these things, all of what they serve is this basic thing showing you that I want to connect with you, showing you that I want to have a conversation with you and I want to understand who you are and I hope that you want to understand who I am.
5
SPEAKER_01
When we say that to someone, when we show that to someone, then even if they disagree with us about star Wars or Star Trek or politics.
5
SPEAKER_00
then we have a connection.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
I agree with everything there except with the Star Trek people.
5
SPEAKER_01
So it s going to come get you in the night, man.
5
SPEAKER_00
That kind of goes into your rule three, which is ask about other feelings and sharing your own.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_00
That is a critical component.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s critical.
5
SPEAKER_01
The second part of that is ask about others, people s feelings, and then share your own.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s this thing known as emotional reciprocity or vulnerable or often reciprocity of authenticity.
5
SPEAKER_01
If I say something real and meaningful to you, if I share something about myself with you, and you just go, oh, interesting.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m glad you shared that with me.
5
SPEAKER_01
We re not gonna feel close to each other, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
But it s an opportunity for you to possibly share something about yourself, or at least show that you were listening.
5
SPEAKER_01
A good example of this is, I mentioned my father s funeral.
5
SPEAKER_01
So seven years ago, my father passed away, and I went to his funeral, and this was like the biggest, right, this was all I was thinking about for months.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I came back from the funeral, and I went back to work, and I would mention to people, they were like, where were you last week?
5
SPEAKER_01
My dad passed away.
5
SPEAKER_01
And they would say something like, oh, I m sorry, my condolences.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then they would just move on.
5
SPEAKER_01
We d talk about whatever else we normally talk about.
5
SPEAKER_01
And if somebody had said to me, had said, oh, I m so sorry to hear that.
5
SPEAKER_01
What was your dad like?
5
SPEAKER_01
It would have been amazing.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s all I wanted to talk about.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was been thinking about what he was like for, for weeks.
5
SPEAKER_01
But we don t do that, because we re worried that we re going to say the wrong thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
We re worried that it s going to be uncomfortable.
5
SPEAKER_01
We re worried that we don t know what to say next.
5
SPEAKER_01
Specifically with death, huh?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, most importantly with death.
5
SPEAKER_01
But when we invite someone, sometimes the way that we say something emotional about ourself is simply by asking a question that says, I have been through this.
5
SPEAKER_01
I know what this is like.
5
SPEAKER_01
I know that you re thinking about your dad all the time right now, tell me
6
SPEAKER_01
about him.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so, so part of emotional connection is not only asking about other people s emotions, it s also sharing how we re feeling, sharing who we are, not stealing the spotlight, not saying like, Oh, your dad passed away.
6
SPEAKER_01
I totally understand.
6
SPEAKER_01
My aunt passed away seven years ago.
6
SPEAKER_01
And like, you know, right.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like that s not, that s not a conversation that s, that s trying to get the spotlight for yourself.
6
SPEAKER_01
But when we re authentic and we re genuine and we share, I m sorry your dad passed away.
6
SPEAKER_01
My dad passed away.
6
SPEAKER_01
I know how hard this is.
6
SPEAKER_01
What was he like?
6
SPEAKER_01
That feels amazing.
6
SPEAKER_02
My baby, don t mean to brag, sleeps from 7.30 to 7.30.
6
SPEAKER_02
And I have hacks for you.
6
SPEAKER_02
The first thing I do is there s no lights in his room, okay?
6
SPEAKER_02
It s completely dark, that s really important.
6
SPEAKER_02
And then I play like a white noise machine, but instead of the white noise, I use the like cackling fire.
6
SPEAKER_02
And then the other thing I use that has changed my life is Dreamland Baby s Lightly Weighted Sleep Sack.
6
SPEAKER_02
First of all, when I pull this out, he associates this with sleep.
6
SPEAKER_02
So immediately he knows it s time to go to bed.
6
SPEAKER_02
So he s like, OK, it s time to wind down.
6
SPEAKER_02
I put it on.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s lightly weighted, so it immediately relaxes him.
6
SPEAKER_02
It eliminates anxiety.
6
SPEAKER_02
And when I put him in the crib, because it s lightly weighted and kind of like a cocoon, he goes right to sleep and he stays asleep.
6
SPEAKER_02
And this is the product that I recommend to all new moms when they tell me their baby isn t sleeping through the night.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s absolutely changed my life.
6
SPEAKER_02
I love my sleep, and I want my baby to love the sleep.
6
SPEAKER_02
The Dreamland Baby Lightly Weighted Sleep Sack gives your baby a deeper sleep, a better sleep.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s easy to use.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s quality material.
6
SPEAKER_02
I really like the colors, too.
6
SPEAKER_02
There s a neutral one and a black one.
6
SPEAKER_02
Towns uses both.
6
SPEAKER_02
And we really just cannot live without it.
6
SPEAKER_02
I m telling you.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s the move, OK?
6
SPEAKER_02
Go to dreamlandbabyco.com and enter our code SKINNY at checkout to receive 20% off site-wide plus free shipping.
6
SPEAKER_02
This offer is for new and existing customers.
6
SPEAKER_02
That s dreamlandbabyco.com, code SKINNY, and I would get this for every new mom.
6
SPEAKER_02
Great baby shower gift.
6
SPEAKER_02
I am very proud of the way that I ve rehabilitated my hair.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s been a journey, let me tell you.
6
SPEAKER_02
So my problem wasn t necessarily like hair thinning, it was more shedding.
6
SPEAKER_02
So every time I got out of the shower, I would notice on my silk pillowcase that there was hair shedding.
6
SPEAKER_02
So I did a couple things.
6
SPEAKER_02
I started doing scalp massage daily.
6
SPEAKER_02
I got like a microneedler to go over my scalp.
6
SPEAKER_02
I started eating a lot of meat for the aminos and then I implemented a supplement and that supplement is the best one on the markets.
6
SPEAKER_02
I know because I have tried a lot of different products and this one is by far the best.
6
SPEAKER_02
Nutraful.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement.
6
SPEAKER_02
With over one million people seeing thicker, stronger, faster growing hair with less shedding, I ve noticed so much less shedding.
6
SPEAKER_02
I cannot even tell you my hair has never been thicker.
6
SPEAKER_02
I m not even wearing extensions, which is wild because I ve always worn extensions.
6
SPEAKER_02
Your hair is never just about your hair, and Nutrafol knows that.
6
SPEAKER_02
That s why Nutrafol takes a whole body approach to hair health.
6
SPEAKER_02
They address the problems inside to help hair grow on the outside, supporting your lifestyle, not just your hairstyle.
6
SPEAKER_02
Take the first step to visibly thicker, healthier hair.
6
SPEAKER_02
For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutrafol.com and enter promo code SKINNYHAIR.
6
SPEAKER_02
Nutrafol.com spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L.com.
6
SPEAKER_02
promo code skinny hair.
6
SPEAKER_02
That s neutraful.com promo code skinny hair.
6
SPEAKER_00
Quick break to talk about one of my favorite partners to talk about.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that s because every single time I talk about it, I feel like I m putting some good out into the world, getting some good karma.
6
SPEAKER_00
That is with the farmer s dog.
6
SPEAKER_00
If you are not taking care of your dog with the most nutritious, delicious food, what are you doing?
6
SPEAKER_00
We spend so much time thinking about how we take care of ourselves, what we put on our body, and not nearly enough time thinking about what we feed our most precious pets.
6
SPEAKER_00
For those of you that aren t familiar with the Farmer s Dog, the Farmer s Dog makes and delivers fresh, healthy food right to your door.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s developed by vets, nutritionally balanced, and made from real meat and veggies to the safety standards of human food.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s the best option for dogs of all life stages because it s not kibble, it s not canned goo, it s just real healthy food.
6
SPEAKER_00
Lorne and I switched our dog s food to the farmer s dog a few years back, and we ve noticed immense changes.
6
SPEAKER_00
Their coats are better.
6
SPEAKER_00
They re happier.
6
SPEAKER_00
They re just thriving.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that s because traditional dry and wet dog food options are highly processed, can use much lower quality ingredients they claim to, and are extremely difficult to portion accurately.
6
SPEAKER_00
The farmer s dog isn t just fresh, higher quality food.
6
SPEAKER_00
They also send the food pre-portioned specifically for your dog based on the unique nutritional needs.
6
SPEAKER_00
This makes it easy to help your dog maintain their ideal weight, which is one of the biggest indicators of a full, healthy life.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it doesn t matter if your dog is young or old, it s always the right time to begin investing in their health.
6
SPEAKER_00
That means more happy, healthy, and full years together.
6
SPEAKER_00
And as always, we have an incredible offer from The Farmer s Dog.
6
SPEAKER_00
Get 50% off your first box of fresh, healthy food at thefarmersdog.com slash skinny.
6
SPEAKER_00
Plus you get free shipping.
6
SPEAKER_00
Just go to thefarmersdog.com slash skinny to get 50% off.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s thefarmersdog.com slash skinny.
6
SPEAKER_02
I think that it would be horrible to have you here and not talk a little bit about habit.
6
SPEAKER_01
Of course.
6
SPEAKER_01
Of course.
6
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
6
SPEAKER_02
I would love to.
6
SPEAKER_00
For those that are not familiar, I think you ve also written probably one of the most prominent and prolific books on habits in the history of books on habits, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s so kind of you guys to say.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I love hearing from people about habits and talking about habits.
6
SPEAKER_02
Well, habits is like my favorite thing ever to talk about in the world.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s my favorite.
6
SPEAKER_02
So I guess my first question about habits is how do you make a habit quickly and efficiently and make it effective?
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
6
SPEAKER_01
So the thing to understand is that every habit has these three components, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
There s a cue, and this comes from a part of our brain known as the basal ganglia.
6
SPEAKER_01
Every animal on earth has a basal ganglia, and it exists literally to make habits.
6
SPEAKER_01
Because if you can t make habits, you can t evolve.
6
SPEAKER_01
What it does is it takes a cue, a trigger, and it links it to a routine, a behavior, and then it notices if there s a reward.
6
SPEAKER_01
Every habit in your life, and 48 or 45% of what you do every day is a habit, every habit in your life delivers a reward to you, whether you re aware of it or not.
6
SPEAKER_01
When you back the car out of the driveway without hitting the garbage can on the way out, and you make it into the street, almost by habit, you re also thinking about the meeting you got that day,
6
SPEAKER_01
There is a little reward sensation in your brain that occurs when you make it out into the street and you don t hit the garbage can.
6
SPEAKER_01
You re not aware of that, you don t notice it, but your brain does.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so your brain says, okay, I m gonna make, the basal ganglia says, I m gonna make this cue, this routine, and this reward into a habit loop.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I m gonna make it easier and easier and more and more automatic to do this thing.
6
SPEAKER_01
So if you wanna create a habit in your life, don t focus on the behavior, focus on the cue and the reward.
6
SPEAKER_01
Find a stable cue that you can give yourself.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like what s a habit you d like to create?
6
SPEAKER_02
What s a habit I d like to create?
6
SPEAKER_02
Maybe waking up a little bit more early.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so let s figure out a cue for that.
6
SPEAKER_01
And most cues fall into one of five buckets.
6
SPEAKER_01
There s time of day, there s a particular place, there s a certain emotion, there s the presence of other people, or there s a preceding behavior that has become ritualized.
6
SPEAKER_02
Oh my god.
6
SPEAKER_01
And you get to choose.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s up to you.
6
SPEAKER_01
For you, maybe it s time.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think it s going to be like a time of day, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
Because you want to wake up a little bit earlier.
6
SPEAKER_02
I want to wake up a little bit earlier.
6
SPEAKER_01
OK.
6
SPEAKER_01
So we re going to set an alarm for that for when you wake up.
6
SPEAKER_01
OK?
6
SPEAKER_01
I know.
6
SPEAKER_01
I know.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m sorry.
6
SPEAKER_02
OK, that s hard.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s hard.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s hard.
6
SPEAKER_01
But we re about to make it better.
6
SPEAKER_02
OK.
6
SPEAKER_01
So, time of day, I m gonna wake up at 5.50 rather than 6.15.
6
SPEAKER_01
6.30 instead of 7.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay, love it, love it.
6
SPEAKER_01
6.30, you re a woman after my own heart.
6
SPEAKER_01
So, I m gonna wake up at 6.30 rather than 7.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m gonna set the alarm for 6.30, that s my cue.
6
SPEAKER_01
Now, what s the routine?
6
SPEAKER_01
You wake up, what do you want to do to avoid going back to sleep?
6
SPEAKER_02
Meditate.
6
SPEAKER_01
Meditate.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
6
SPEAKER_01
So you got to get out of bed.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
You got to go over and sort of get into the meditation position.
6
SPEAKER_01
You re not going to meditate, hopefully under the covers.
6
SPEAKER_02
I meditate under the covers, Charles.
6
SPEAKER_01
Here s what I do.
6
SPEAKER_02
I put my legs up on the wall to drain my legs to get my nervous system.
6
SPEAKER_00
She is on her high horse saying she meditated for 45 minutes, but I think sometimes I
7
SPEAKER_01
here and they re snoring.
7
SPEAKER_00
No, I meditated this morning for 45 minutes.
7
SPEAKER_00
I had my legs up on the wall.
7
SPEAKER_00
The only problem is it starts at 7 and sometimes my daughter wakes up at 7.30.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s kind of like when I m watching Shogun at night, I m actually just, I m studying, I m not actually just watching Shogun.
7
SPEAKER_02
So, okay, so the routine for you, the behavior is you re going to put your legs up on the wall.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
7
SPEAKER_02
That means you re ready for meditation.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
7
SPEAKER_02
Then you re going to meditate.
7
SPEAKER_02
When you are done meditating, you need to give yourself a reward and you need to let yourself enjoy that reward.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_02
And that reward can be taking a nice long shower.
7
SPEAKER_02
It can be going and having a smoothie.
7
SPEAKER_02
It can be taking a couple of minutes and thinking like, you know what?
7
SPEAKER_02
I just feel really good and proud about myself.
7
SPEAKER_02
Like I m going to let myself enjoy that.
7
SPEAKER_02
I just meditated and I did a good job of it.
7
SPEAKER_02
It could be eating a small piece of chocolate.
7
SPEAKER_02
You need to give yourself a reward because what s going to happen is that basal ganglia, it s going to notice that reward and the reward has to come right away.
7
SPEAKER_02
And it s going to say, Oh, tomorrow morning when the alarm goes off, I m going to make it a little bit easier to put my legs up on the wall.
7
SPEAKER_02
Cause I know at the end of it, I m going to get that piece of chocolate or I m going to get that smoothie or I m going to get that self sense of self-congratulation.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think the reward is to dry brush and then get in a freezing cold shower, which sounds weird because people are like, Oh, that s free.
7
SPEAKER_00
But like the freezing cold shower with dry brushing gives me so much energy that I, that is that a reward?
7
SPEAKER_02
I mean, do you enjoy it?
7
SPEAKER_02
Do you look forward to it?
7
SPEAKER_02
And it s a reward for you.
7
SPEAKER_02
I don t think it d be a reward for me, but, but for you, it s clearly a reward.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_02
And, and what s important is that
7
SPEAKER_02
each day, you re not going to notice this.
7
SPEAKER_02
Our brains turn off when we re in the grip of a habit.
7
SPEAKER_02
Each day is going to get easier.
7
SPEAKER_00
So you just start doing it.
7
SPEAKER_02
You just start doing it.
7
SPEAKER_02
You re going to start doing it automatically.
7
SPEAKER_02
And at some point you re not even going to think about it.
7
SPEAKER_02
You re going to, the alarm is not going to go off.
7
SPEAKER_02
They re power outage, daylight savings, and you re going to wake up at six 30 and you re going to put your legs up on the wall and then you re going to think like, I can t wait to get that, like that, that, that cold shower.
7
SPEAKER_00
That makes sense because that s how I got myself to get in bed earlier is I have this like magnesium drink that I like.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I like to read my Kindle.
7
SPEAKER_00
And so getting in bed earlier means I get to do those two things.
7
SPEAKER_02
Exactly.
7
SPEAKER_00
That makes total sense.
7
SPEAKER_02
Now, now the thing is, think about how often we do this, which is you mentioned that your daughter wakes up.
7
SPEAKER_02
So you wake up at, you wake up, you put your legs up on the wall and then
7
SPEAKER_02
your daughter starts crying and you re a little stressed, right?
7
SPEAKER_02
Or let s say I say tomorrow morning, I m going to go for a run and I go out and I run around the block and I come back and now I m sweaty and now like I m behind schedule.
7
SPEAKER_02
So I have to like rush through my shower and I got to get the kids ready for school.
7
SPEAKER_02
I got to drive to work.
7
SPEAKER_02
Sometimes we create systems that punish us for doing the habit and our brain notices those punishments.
7
SPEAKER_02
It notices if I wake up, like if I wake up and I try and meditate and my daughter cries, I get really stressed about it.
7
SPEAKER_02
I don t want to, I don t want to make it easy to wake up and meditate.
7
SPEAKER_02
Like that s, that s a bad idea.
7
SPEAKER_02
So we have to we have to not only plan on the reward, we have to create an environment where we can enjoy that reward, which maybe means you don t wake up early every single day.
7
SPEAKER_02
You only wake up on days when your husband is taking care of your daughter or when you know that you have enough time to do that.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s so interesting you mentioned this because in the morning, most of the time I m doing the stuff in the morning and trying to get her to the time to do it.
7
SPEAKER_01
But I personally also been trying to get up early and like do the meditate.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s one of the, it s one of the things I m working on, but I ve noticed sometimes I will be in the routine, but since I m also on kid duty, if they happen to get up earlier, get crazy, it disrupts that whole thing.
7
SPEAKER_01
And then what it s done is it s created what exactly what you re talking about, but I ve never thought about it that way.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s like I m in the middle of the meditation, kids come down or start screaming and it rips me out of it.
7
SPEAKER_01
And it s like created a negative punishment.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s you re punishing yourself for that activity.
7
SPEAKER_02
Now, that happens.
7
SPEAKER_02
That is part of life, right?
7
SPEAKER_02
And the thing to recognize is just to say, this is not a punishment for the meditation.
7
SPEAKER_02
This is life.
7
SPEAKER_02
Because oftentimes, simply deciding something is a reward actually makes it more rewarding
7
SPEAKER_02
And deciding something that is not a punishment makes it less punishing.
7
SPEAKER_01
Because in a perfect world, the way I would do it is I would get up.
7
SPEAKER_01
We have this red light.
7
SPEAKER_01
I do it to like, you know, it s good for my eyes.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I m using that.
7
SPEAKER_01
And then I will do the breath, work and meditation.
7
SPEAKER_01
And then I reward myself with like this great coffee, but I won t do it until after that.
7
SPEAKER_01
But if that gets all derailed, then it kind of screws up the whole process.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I ve like, it s interesting you articulate that because now I m going to think about this whole process differently.
7
SPEAKER_02
A lot of habit is just about how we design our life to make those habits sort of flourish.
7
SPEAKER_00
How have you seen healthy habits out of your writing?
7
SPEAKER_00
Like what have you seen from your audience and from yourself?
7
SPEAKER_02
Oh my gosh.
7
SPEAKER_02
So in The Power of Habit, actually this is the number one thing that I hear.
7
SPEAKER_02
There s a chapter in The Power of Habit about AA and about being in recovery.
7
SPEAKER_02
In many ways, what AA is, is it s a habit change device.
7
SPEAKER_02
It helps us take a dysfunctional habit where we ve associated drinking with certain kinds of rewards, right?
7
SPEAKER_02
Relaxation and sociability.
7
SPEAKER_02
And it helps us find a new way to access those same rewards by going to a meeting and spending time talking about things that matter to us.
7
SPEAKER_02
And the emails that I get from people who say things like, I, I,
7
SPEAKER_02
I felt powerless to stop my drinking for decades.
7
SPEAKER_02
And then I read the book and I went to my first AA meeting and I ve been sober for 18 months.
7
SPEAKER_02
Those are amazing.
7
SPEAKER_02
Because the truth of the matter is.
7
SPEAKER_02
We all have something, we all have something that we feel like we don t have control over, right?
7
SPEAKER_02
I wish I exercised more, I wish I ate less, I wish I was kinder to my kids.
7
SPEAKER_02
And what they re really saying is, we can change.
7
SPEAKER_02
And this is what we know from the science.
7
SPEAKER_02
We can change any habit.
7
SPEAKER_02
We can create any habit.
7
SPEAKER_00
Your work, I imagine, is incredibly fulfilling for you.
7
SPEAKER_02
That is very nice of you to say.
7
SPEAKER_02
I really, really enjoy it.
7
SPEAKER_02
If you talk to my wife, she would say all he does is complain all the time about how hard it is.
7
SPEAKER_00
Write about complaining.
7
SPEAKER_00
I love it.
7
SPEAKER_00
I love it.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s the topic, complaining.
7
SPEAKER_00
I definitely will.
7
SPEAKER_01
Before, going back to this, to the super communicators book, I think there s a lot of people that
7
SPEAKER_01
would maybe look at this book and potentially look at it as an opportunity to maybe take advantage of people in certain conversations, especially like you mostly, you write for a lot of business.
7
SPEAKER_01
I write for the New Yorker and I write about business topics.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I imagine there s a lot of business people like, Ooh, I can get this.
7
SPEAKER_01
And one of the things I ve heard you talk about is negotiation and how sometimes people don t realize that negotiation, it s not actually about winning.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s about understanding and empathy and getting to a place where you both feel like there s something that s productive happening, right?
7
SPEAKER_01
And really understanding the person.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I d like for you to talk about that a little bit in communication because I think it s important.
7
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
7
SPEAKER_02
So when you talk to really elite negotiators, they don t talk about trying to get the biggest slice of pie.
7
SPEAKER_02
They talk about trying to figure out ways to make the pie larger.
7
SPEAKER_02
Because if you can find a win-win solution, like everyone s better off, that s the easiest negotiation on earth.
7
SPEAKER_02
But oftentimes to find a win-win solution, I can t go into that saying, I want to win.
7
SPEAKER_02
Here s what I, here s what I want to get.
7
SPEAKER_02
I need to understand what you want and I need to help you understand what I want because there s probably some things that overlap.
7
SPEAKER_02
where we can come to an agreement and we can say, actually, we can t give you a salary increase, but what I hear you saying is your employees actually just want more time.
7
SPEAKER_02
They see time as money.
7
SPEAKER_02
What if I gave them more time?
7
SPEAKER_02
What if we had an extra week of vacation?
7
SPEAKER_02
That s how we make the pie bigger.
7
SPEAKER_02
And what s really, really important is that when we are having those conversations, when we are going into that discussion, we need to know what we want.
7
SPEAKER_02
And sometimes we don t.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think sometimes people just want to win.
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_02
And that s totally natural.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I know you said that you shouldn t, like you shouldn t go into it, but there are people that just want to win.
7
SPEAKER_02
That s a totally natural instinct.
7
SPEAKER_02
And by the way, this happens all the time, particularly in marriages, right?
7
SPEAKER_02
So there was a bunch of researchers who looked at what, this is where kitchen sinking came from.
7
SPEAKER_02
There are some couples that can fight and it has no impact whatsoever on the marriage.
7
SPEAKER_02
They re just as happy in the marriage.
7
SPEAKER_02
And then there s some couples who fight and it becomes toxic.
7
SPEAKER_02
It becomes dangerous because every couple fights, right?
7
SPEAKER_02
Every single couple fights.
7
SPEAKER_02
So they were trying to figure out what s the difference between the good fight
8
SPEAKER_02
and the bad fighting.
8
SPEAKER_02
And they looked at all kinds of things.
8
SPEAKER_02
They looked at like, maybe people are fighting about different topics.
8
SPEAKER_02
Nope, everyone fights about the same basic stuff, like money, kids, that s what they fight about.
8
SPEAKER_02
Maybe some people are better at compromise and some people just want to win more.
8
SPEAKER_02
Turns out, the evidence shows that s not actually true.
8
SPEAKER_02
That there s basically a, we all kind of want to win and we all are pretty good at compromise.
8
SPEAKER_02
The difference between the good fighters and the bad fighters
8
SPEAKER_02
was control.
8
SPEAKER_02
Everyone, when you are in a disagreement, when you re having a fight with someone, when you re having some conflict, everyone has an impulse for control.
8
SPEAKER_02
Because we get into fight or flight, right?
8
SPEAKER_02
So we re desperate to find something to control.
8
SPEAKER_02
And the easiest thing to control is the other person.
8
SPEAKER_02
And so we do things like we say, oh, that bothered you?
8
SPEAKER_02
That shouldn t have bothered you.
8
SPEAKER_02
Like, that s not that big a deal.
8
SPEAKER_02
I try and control your emotions.
8
SPEAKER_02
Or we say things like, look, I m going to talk about this for five minutes and then I m going to walk away.
8
SPEAKER_02
We try and control their time.
8
SPEAKER_02
That is toxic.
8
SPEAKER_02
It is toxic to try and control another person because they will rebel.
8
SPEAKER_02
And that s that person who just wants to be right.
8
SPEAKER_02
What they re trying to do is they re trying to control you.
8
SPEAKER_02
They re trying to force you to agree with them.
8
SPEAKER_02
So what s the right way to fight?
8
SPEAKER_02
The right way to fight is not to say we don t want to control something because this is an impulse we all have.
8
SPEAKER_02
The right way to fight is to say, what can we control together?
8
SPEAKER_02
And I heard you guys actually say this before.
8
SPEAKER_02
Sometimes we control the environment.
8
SPEAKER_02
We start fighting at two o clock in the morning and we re like, look, we re both exhausted.
8
SPEAKER_02
Like let s go to bed.
8
SPEAKER_02
Let s get a good night s sleep.
8
SPEAKER_02
Let s pick this up again at 10 a.m.
8
SPEAKER_02
Right.
8
SPEAKER_02
So that we, so that we re not so, so together we re controlling the environment.
8
SPEAKER_02
Sometimes we re controlling the boundaries of the fight.
8
SPEAKER_02
We re saying, look, let s just let s just talk about Thanksgiving.
8
SPEAKER_02
Let s not talk about like my mom and your mom and money.
8
SPEAKER_02
And we can talk about that later.
8
SPEAKER_02
But like, let s just focus on Thanksgiving.
8
SPEAKER_02
We re together controlling the boundaries, the bare, the edges of the fight.
8
SPEAKER_02
Sometimes it s just controlling ourselves.
8
SPEAKER_00
I have a hack.
8
SPEAKER_00
Someone wants to control their environment.
8
SPEAKER_02
What s that?
8
SPEAKER_00
If your husband s fighting, just put mouth tape on.
8
SPEAKER_00
I take my mouth shut when he annoys me and I can t talk or just slap it on him if you want.
8
SPEAKER_02
That is fascinating.
8
SPEAKER_02
And can I ask, how does that, when she does that, there s nothing, he can talk all he wants.
8
SPEAKER_00
I can t respond.
8
SPEAKER_00
I do it all the time.
8
SPEAKER_00
Is that controlling?
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I think Lauren, I think there s some toxic behavior.
8
SPEAKER_02
Well, I will say actually in that case, you re controlling yourself.
8
SPEAKER_02
You could put the mouth tape on him and he would hate that.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I m controlling him so I do it on myself.
8
SPEAKER_00
I control myself.
8
SPEAKER_01
Charles doesn t think it s that toxic.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think the biggest thing though in a marriage specifically where it gets particularly toxic is that you know that person so well and everything that makes them tick and like their family background and their parents.
8
SPEAKER_02
You know the buttons to push.
8
SPEAKER_01
For me to get a rise out of you, maybe I d have to search around and try to figure it out.
8
SPEAKER_01
For me to get a rise out of her if I was really intentional and wanted to say some really harmful things that I know, it would take maybe half a second?
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, because I know.
8
SPEAKER_01
And same with her and same with me.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s good to file in my files.
8
SPEAKER_00
This is good to know.
8
SPEAKER_00
This is good for my data.
8
SPEAKER_01
But I just think it s relevant and important for couples to be aware of because
8
SPEAKER_01
people that forget that can potentially like really hurt their significant other easily because you have all, it s like, it s like you re stacked the deck, right?
8
SPEAKER_01
Like you, you know exactly what to do.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
And we do it because when we feel hurt, we want to, we want to hurt back.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_02
We want to, we, when we feel hurt, we feel that like anxiety, we want to control something and we want to, the most obvious thing is to control the other person.
8
SPEAKER_02
So we, we punch back, right.
8
SPEAKER_02
We try and punch them to like control whether they re coming at us or not.
8
SPEAKER_02
So there is something else that in marriages is really, really important that the good couples do, the couples that stay together no matter how much they fight.
8
SPEAKER_02
Because again, we all basically fight the same amount, to be honest with you.
8
SPEAKER_02
It s just whether those fights get out of control or not.
8
SPEAKER_02
What really good couples do is they match each other.
8
SPEAKER_02
They match the kind of conversation they re having.
8
SPEAKER_02
So we re in a fight.
8
SPEAKER_02
If I tell a joke, you might not feel like laughing, but you re like, okay, I hear what you re saying, right?
8
SPEAKER_02
good couples are almost constantly showing that they re matching each other.
8
SPEAKER_02
And oftentimes if you ask them, like, did you, like, did you agree with him?
8
SPEAKER_02
They ll say things like, no, no, I don t agree at all.
8
SPEAKER_02
I think he s kind of an idiot on this topic.
8
SPEAKER_02
But when you watch them and they re playing off each other, even though they disagree, that matching, that figuring out what kind of conversation is happening and then in joining someone or inviting them to join you, that makes all the difference.
8
SPEAKER_00
Hope you re taking notes in your trapper keeper.
8
SPEAKER_01
I got all and I got the notes in the book.
8
SPEAKER_00
Charles, you re welcome to come back on the show.
8
SPEAKER_00
I know you re going to write another book.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s absolutely amazing.
8
SPEAKER_00
You can come back anytime.
8
SPEAKER_00
I find you fascinating.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think this was like fucking marriage therapy for me and Michael.
8
SPEAKER_02
OK, can I ask for a favor?
8
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
8
SPEAKER_02
OK, so I m curious.
8
SPEAKER_02
Hey, a month from now, a week from now, whenever the next time you guys you guys have a fight.
8
SPEAKER_00
Should we Instagram live it?
8
SPEAKER_02
You won t need a month.
8
SPEAKER_02
You won t need a month.
8
SPEAKER_02
Just send me an email.
8
SPEAKER_02
Send me an email.
8
SPEAKER_02
Tell me.
8
SPEAKER_02
I will.
8
SPEAKER_02
Tell me this is what happened.
8
SPEAKER_02
This is how it could have gone bad and this is how it got better.
8
SPEAKER_02
Tell me what you learn about.
8
SPEAKER_00
Tomorrow morning when he tries to talk to me before 10 a.m.
8
SPEAKER_00
I ll see how he responds and if he matches my energy and then I ll send you an email.
8
SPEAKER_02
Although you will have already, you know, you woke up early and you meditated.
8
SPEAKER_02
You re going to be like in this zen state.
8
SPEAKER_01
I m not saying this to yank your chain.
8
SPEAKER_00
I might need to wake up earlier.
8
SPEAKER_01
I told Lauren when I got this book from you and when I saw you writing this, I said, this is maybe one of the most important books that you can read.
8
SPEAKER_01
He did.
8
SPEAKER_02
Thank you.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I m not saying just saying us for what we do.
8
SPEAKER_01
I m saying any human being, because who doesn t want to learn how to communicate in a more effective way, better listen more?
8
SPEAKER_01
And I just think the world needs more of it.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
8
SPEAKER_01
And again, going back to the intention of this show, honestly,
8
SPEAKER_01
We try to be a conduit to serve our audience in a way to get them to question themselves and think deeper and understand, more importantly, deploy a little more empathy.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s funny, we ll have someone that is maybe fully to the left,
8
SPEAKER_01
on the show and about half the audience will lose their shit.
8
SPEAKER_01
And you have someone that s fully to the right and half the audience.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I m like, there is something there in the middle where it s like, that s the reaction you re having.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s likely because you re, you re not quite listening carefully enough and you re not deploying enough empathy to understand like, why does somebody, it doesn t mean you have to agree.
8
SPEAKER_01
You don t have to agree, but you should understand like why somebody, cause nobody comes out just like, Oh, I m, you know, this or that.
8
SPEAKER_02
And understanding feels good.
8
SPEAKER_02
We want to be friends with our neighbor, just regardless of the political lawn sign that they have in front of their house.
8
SPEAKER_02
We want to be able to talk to crazy Uncle Gary, even though he believes that lizard people are taking over the world.
8
SPEAKER_02
We want to connect.
8
SPEAKER_00
I am going to be a super communicator.
8
SPEAKER_00
Watch out, Charles.
8
SPEAKER_00
Thank you for coming on the show.
8
SPEAKER_00
Where can everyone buy your books?
8
SPEAKER_00
Find you, pimp yourself out.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh, anywhere you buy books, Amazon, Audible, Barnes and Noble, your local bookstore.
8
SPEAKER_02
That s the best place to go to buy the book.
8
SPEAKER_02
And you can find me.
8
SPEAKER_02
So if you just Google my name, Charles Duhigg, I ll come up with the power of habit or super communicators.
8
SPEAKER_02
But most importantly, my email address is Charles at Charles Duhigg dot com.
8
SPEAKER_02
And if you email me, I will read and reply to your email.
8
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
8
SPEAKER_02
I take it seriously, that if you want to connect with me, I feel like I should honor that.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s a full-time job.
8
SPEAKER_00
What s your Instagram handle?
8
SPEAKER_02
My Instagram handle is cduhig, I think.
8
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_00
All right.
8
SPEAKER_00
I love it.
8
SPEAKER_02
I m not such an IG-er.
8
SPEAKER_02
Not a big IG-er.
8
SPEAKER_00
You guys, I highly recommend going to buy this book.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think this is what, like Michael said, something everyone needs.
8
SPEAKER_00
And definitely also check out The Power of Habit.
8
SPEAKER_00
Thank you for coming on the show.