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Welcome to the School of Greatness.
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My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.
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And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.
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Thanks for spending some time with me today.
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Now let the class begin.
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Welcome back, everyone at The School of Greatness.
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Very excited about our guest.
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We have the inspiring Charles Duhigg in the house, who is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, author of the number one New York Times bestseller, The Power of Habit, which has now sold almost 10 million copies, and author of the new book, Super Communicators, How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection.
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I m super excited you re here.
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And I wanted to start with a quote before we dive in.
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Okay.
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I saw this quote.
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about the current loneliness epidemic that s happening in the world, but specifically in the U.S.
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And this was from the, I believe the general surgeon, who said, the lack of social connection poses a significant risk for individual health and longevity.
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Loneliness and social isolation increase the risk for premature death by 26% and 29% respectively.
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More broadly, lacking social connection
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can increase the risk for premature death as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.
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Poor or insufficient social connection is associated with increased risk of disease, including 29% increased risk of heart disease and 32% increased risk of stroke.
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Furthermore, it is associated with increased risk for anxiety, depression, and dementia.
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And I wanted to start by asking you to reflect on that.
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And I m curious, how can the principles in super connectors, super communicators, how can these principles
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really help put an end to the loneliness epidemic that we are seeing in the US, but also in the world?
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It is a fantastic question, and probably the most important question to be thinking about right now, right?
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So there was this study that was done called, they now call it the Harvard Adult Happiness Study.
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You re probably familiar with it.
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The longest longitudinal study that s ever been done.
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And it started over 100 years ago.
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It was actually called the Grant Study at first, because this guy named Grant gave money to start it.
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And they started following all these people, originally just students at Harvard, but then people who lived in tenements in Boston and, and as everyone got married and had kids, they started following them.
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And they had this hypo, these hypotheses and what they wanted to figure out is.
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What is the correlate with future success and happiness and most importantly, longevity health.
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And they had these hypotheses.
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Again, this is like the 1910s, 1920s.
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They were like, you know, um,
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the, if you have a two parent family, you re probably going to live longer than if you have a one parent family.
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If you, if you, if you go to Harvard, you re probably going to live longer than if you didn t go to Harvard.
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And they studied all this stuff, you know, what, how, what, what careers people have, what they eat.
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And they found ultimately there was only one overwhelming thing that determined whether people were happy and whether they lived long, a long time, longer than average, how many connections they had to other people, particularly when they re 45.
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So it s not, there s nothing magical about 45 except that they would look at people at 45 and they found if you had twice as many friends, like people that you re actually engaged in a relationship with.
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Like meaningful relationships.
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A meaningful relationship.
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Right.
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If you have twice as many of those people in your life, on average, you will live up to 20 years long.
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Wow.
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And by the way, you ll end up being more financially successful.
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So then the question becomes, okay, so, so if we know that loneliness is a killer, it s equal to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
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And we know that we need to have connections with people.
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How do we form connections?
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And part of it, as you know, we were talking about sports, you re an athlete.
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Like part of it is you can go and do things with people.
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You can be on a team together.
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But the number one way that we create relationships, that we create connections is through conversation.
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Yes.
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And, and what s interesting is you don t have to have a conversation every day.
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One of my closest friends is a guy I talked to every six to seven weeks.
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But every time we talk, we have a real discussion and I feel as close to this person as anyone on earth.
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Yeah.
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And so then the question becomes, okay, so, so what is it?
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And, and we re living through this golden age of understanding communication because of advances in neuroimaging and data analytics.
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And so now we know what has to happen in a conversation for people to feel close to each other.
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And that s the answer to the lowliness epidemic, is bury people.
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But why do people struggle so much with, I guess, building relationships?
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Is it they don t have the skills of communication?
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Is it they don t have the courage to communicate?
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Is it they re afraid of rejection or embarrassment or not being liked or loved by someone?
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Why are so many people isolating, you think, more than ever?
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I think, I think there s two things.
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First of all, you know, just the internet has made it easy.
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Like you can stay in your house now, right?
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Whereas before it was more boring.
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Yeah.
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So, so that s part of it.
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But I think the other thing is exactly what you just said, which is.
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people don t know what the first step is, right?
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It used to be that you were in public school in America and they taught you how to have conversations.
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There was classes.
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Debate club.
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Debate club.
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HOMAC, right?
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They would send young women off to finishing schools where basically you learn to be a conversationalist.
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I m not saying we should return to those days.
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But it was something that people saw as a virtue.
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That s teaching social skills.
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That s exactly right.
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We don t really teach social skills unless, as parents, like you were talking about before we started, creating those environments and exercises and experiments or games for your children to put themselves out in public at a restaurant or ask someone for a favor or just put themselves out there.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And so the thing is that I think most of the people, they are scared and they are anxious and they are uncertain.
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And the answer is that there s actually, so nobody s born a super communicator, right?
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What is a super communicator?
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Super communicator is.
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And the easiest way to say it is it s the person you call when you re having a bad day, who, you know, will make you feel better.
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Right.
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Like for me, it s a guy named Greg.
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Like I give him a phone call and like, I just know he s going to make me feel better.
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He s going to like make me feel listened to.
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He s going to make me feel happy.
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Another guy named Donan.
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And you, do you have someone like that?
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Like when I sure Matt.
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Okay, Matt.
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Right.
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Exactly.
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And like, so, so for you, Matt is a super communicator and Matt is probably a super communicator for other people and you re a super communicator for other people.
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Yeah.
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That is not an inborn trait.
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It s not like Matt was born under a different star or he has some special charisma.
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It s probably that Matt has learned how to communicate, oftentimes by failing to communicate or oftentimes by feeling like he s left out and paying attention to how other people behave and sort of just noticing a little bit more what s going on.
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What we know is that anyone can become a super communicator because it s just a set of skills that any of us can learn the same way we can learn to read.
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But as a society, we have not said that s an important set of skills for a little while.
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And, and I think that with the Surgeon General and others coming out, we re, we re beginning to say, right, actually this, this is critical.
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Is there a difference between super communicators and super connectors?
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So, so I think that there s some people, the answer is yes, depending on what you mean by super connector.
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There s like, sometimes there s super connectors who are like kind of transactional, right?
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Super service level, like, or transactional.
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Or they just know everyone and you re like, I need a favor.
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And they re like, oh, this guy can help you out.
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Now that being said, when we communicate, and this is one of the things that we ve learned in the last 10 years, you and I having this conversation right now, we re totally unaware of this, but our pupils are dilating at the same rate.
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Our breath patterns are actually starting to match each other.
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Most importantly, if I could see inside your brain and you could see inside mine, what you would see is our brainwaves start matching each other.
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Really?
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This is what communication is.
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Communication is I have a feeling or an idea, I describe it to you, and you experience to some degree that feeling or that idea.
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And it s actually reflected in your brain.
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Literally the neuroscience, the neurochemicals, you feel what you re feeling.
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That s exact.
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It s called neural entrainment and it s the core of communication.
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Really?
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So when we, when that happens, and again, evolution is hardwire this into our brain.
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When we re neurally entrained, we feel closer to each other.
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We feel connected.
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We feel connected.
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So, you could be a super connector, because Matt is a super connector because he s so good at making you guys feel like you re in sync.
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But the way he s able to do it is through communication.
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You know, the better you can learn to communicate and someone feels understood with your communication, the stronger the connection and the stronger ability to create together or to make things happen together as well.
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Oh, absolutely.
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And the more surface level the communication
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I m assuming, or the less alignment that you have with one another, the more unlikely you will create something unique or special or powerful to get.
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That s exactly.
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And so let s talk about what super communicators do.
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When you re talking to them, let me ask you a couple questions about.
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Matt, and is he like a friend who lives here?
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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COO of the company, best friend.
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Okay, yeah.
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Play college football together, yeah.
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So when you talk to Matt, does he laugh a lot?
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Do you guys laugh together?
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We laugh a lot, we play a lot.
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I play more with him, you know, I m more jokey, but yeah, he laughs with me, yeah.
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But is he the funniest guy?
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Like if you were like, who s going to be a stand-up comedian?
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He s not the funniest guy.
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Right.
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He s the middle child.
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So he s kind of like always learning to navigate both sides, you know?
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Okay, so here s another question.
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I m certain if you ask him advice, he gives you good advice.
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But if you were like, is he your most genius friend?
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Is he the guy who like...
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He knows a lot about it.
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He knows a lot about everything, like a little about a lot, right?
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But he s probably not the smartest person I know, but he s the most rational person I know.
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Which is, that is key.
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And my guess is, and tell me if I m getting this wrong, I ll bet you if I watched you guys talking, what I would see Matt doing to you and you doing back to him,
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is that when you say something to Matt, he proves to you that he s heard you.
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He s proved to you that you re listening.
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Yeah, for sure.
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And there s this thing called looping for understanding that s actually like a formalized way of doing it.
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Looping for understanding.
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Looping for understanding.
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What does that mean?
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So, looping for understanding has these three steps.
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It s particularly useful if we re in a conversation where we re in conflict with each other.
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So they teach it in the Harvard Negotiation Program and in law schools.
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And what you do is if you want to prove to someone that you re hearing them, which is critical if you are in conflict, is first of all, ask a question.
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And there s specific kinds of questions that are powerful that we can talk about.
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Step number two is repeat back what that person said in your own words.
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Not what they said exactly, but how you interpreted it.
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How I m hearing you, what I m hearing you say.
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And then step number three, and this is the one we always forget, ask if you got it right.
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Interesting.
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Now I m guessing, tell me if I m wrong, that if I was watching you and Matt, that you say something to Matt kind of meaningful and Matt is like, you know, man, like, I totally hear you because it sounds like you re feeling down and it s been a tough day and, and that you need, you need to make it through this.
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Like,
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Did I get that right?
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Does he do stuff like that?
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Yeah, I mean, I guess when you re that close, you don t need to know that you got it right.
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Exactly.
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You just get it right.
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Right.
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You re just so in sync that if he didn t get it right, I d be like, no, that s not how I feel.
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That s exactly right.
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I would correct him because we have that type of relationship.
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But that makes sense.
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And I think that s what a lot of therapists do, too.
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Yeah.
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It s almost like they ll ask a deeper question.
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Let me understand deeper.
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What I m hearing you say is this.
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Does that sound about right to you?
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And I know that you ve spent some time in therapy.
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How does it feel when that therapist does this?
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It s incredible.
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It feels magical.
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You feel heard.
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You feel like someone finally understands you.
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Yeah.
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And being understood allows you to feel, it s a safer feeling.
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Now, my friend Jay Shetty says that learning to be misunderstood has been a superpower for him, not having people understand him.
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Not everyone s going to understand you, but I think when you have relationships where people do understand you or see where you re coming from, it makes you feel safer with them.
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Yeah.
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That type of communication.
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Evolution has developed a reward sensation from feeling understood and feeling connected because that s what helped our species survive, right?
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The early ancestors who said like, I want to take care of my young because I feel a bond to them.
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or I want to pair off with this community and invest in this community.
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they re the ones who made it.
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And so we have this inborn need and desire and sense of reward when we feel understood.
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That being said, if I m saying something, even if you re listening closely, I might not pick up on it unless you tell me.
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Repeat it back in your words and say, did I get this right?
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Yeah, and that s kind of formal.
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It can be more casual, like it is with Matt, which is to say, I hear what you re saying.
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That s so interesting.
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It reminds me of this thing.
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Like, to show that I m hearing you.
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which you re very good at.
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I ve watched your show a number of times.
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You do this almost automatically.
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Practicing, yeah, yeah, practicing.
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What s also like, you know, we were talking off camera a little bit about how if you, I mean, I speak for myself, I grew up feeling like I didn t have any friends, right?
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That was the feeling, whether that was 100% true or if it was the story I was telling myself, it just felt like I didn t have friends for a long time.
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Until I was like 14 and I started to get more athletically confident and have skills and you know,
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add value to teams, then I started to feel like I had friends.
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And it was almost like because I didn t have this, I wanted to find any way to feel like, okay, what s it going to take for this person to connect with me?
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Yeah.
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Oh, I heard that they re having a bad day.
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Let me check and ask them what s going on and how can I help them?
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Oh, this is what you re going through.
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And then you see, oh, someone s listening to me.
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So I became really good at listening.
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That s interesting.
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Because I didn t have a lot of friends.
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And so I would just ask people questions.
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I also never felt confident being the center of attention and having all the funny stories or knowing what to say or knowing anything to say because I didn t feel like I was intelligent.
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So I would ask questions because that was the easiest way to build relationship.
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Right.
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Not by having all the answers, but having the right questions built the deepest relationships for me, not by being the smartest, funniest, best looking or whatever, but by being interested in other people made me more interesting to them.
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and just being an attentive listener.
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Like you said, this goes into looping for understanding.
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I didn t know this was a thing.
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I was just like, oh, it s working.
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Let me ask more questions.
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Let me get deeper.
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The deeper I would ask the question, I really rarely ever ask surface-level questions.
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If it is, it s like I quickly go deep just because I can t stay there.
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It just doesn t feel right.
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So the deeper I go into more questions, people feel like, wow, no one s really asked me these things.
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Right.
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We must care in a different way.
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Yeah.
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They must be curious about me.
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Wow, that feels good for someone to be interested in what I really think or feel about this situation.
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Yeah.
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And I did it out of necessity, out of like,
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a survival mechanism essentially as a kid, but it ended up being a superpower as an interviewer now.
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And probably as a human, right?
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Sure, yeah.
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And by the way, the fact that you weren t good at it is something you have in common with most other people who are consistent super communicators.
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Really?
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This is one of the reasons we know it s not an inborn characteristic is because if you talk to people who are the best communicators and you say, have you always been a great communicator?
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They ll tell you no.
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Like I, like I, as a kid, I felt lonely.
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I felt like I couldn t connect with people.
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I felt like I didn t have friends or my first job, they made me a manager and I completely screwed up.
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The reason they become a super communicator consistently is because they ve just thought a little bit harder about it.
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They usually because they have to, usually because they screwed up and they re like, I don t want to screw up again.
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And it s just thinking a little bit more about how communication works that allows us to really connect with other people.
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So how does communication really work?
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Are there different styles of conversations?
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Yeah.
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So this is one of the big insights.
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And then I want to get back to questions because I think it s really important.
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One of the big insights from the last decade is that we tend to think of a discussion as being about one thing, right?
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We re talking about my book, or we re talking about whether we should send the kids to this school or that school, or where we should go on vacation.
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But if you look at the conversation that happens, the discussion, what you ll see is that there are multiple different kinds of conversations in that same discussion, in that same dialogue.
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And most of them fall into one of three buckets.
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There s usually a practical conversation, which is a conversation where we re trying to figure out actually what we want to talk about and how to talk about it.
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But also maybe we want to like fix a problem or make a plan.
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It s practical.
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It s using the frontal cortex of our brain.
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There s a second kind of conversation, which is an emotional conversation.
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And if I come into you and I m telling you about where I am emotionally, and you suggest a solution to me, I m going to be like, people don t like that.
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You re a jerk, right?
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Like, because when you re in having an emotional conversation, you want to share how you feel and hear how other people feel.
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You do not want to necessarily solve the problem.
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This is where you hear all the stereotypes of how men in married relationships struggle to relate or connect to their wives because they re more solution-oriented.
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Not everyone, but that s where you hear the stereotypes.
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They re more trying to fix the problem of an emotional feeling that someone s having versus being comfortable sitting with the discomfort and just saying, I m here for you.
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Yeah, saying, I hear you, right?
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Which is, that s like solving the problem.
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That s exactly right.
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If men understood that you just doing that is solving the problem, and sitting in the uncomfort of that, but that s a hard
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It s a hard skill to learn.
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It s a hard skill to learn.
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It s a hard skill to learn.
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So that s the second one, the emotional conversation.
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Practical, emotional, and then the third one is a social conversation.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s about how you and I see ourselves in respect to society, how we think society sees us, how we get along with other people.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so one of the things that we ve found is that exactly what you just said, that what s known as the matching principle within psychology, that if I m having an emotional conversation and you re having a practical conversation, they re both legitimate conversations, but we won t hear each other.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like I m going to hear, I m going to say something emotional to you.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re going to try and fix my problem in a practical way.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I m going to be like, A, you don t hear me.
2
SPEAKER_00
And B, I don t hear you.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like I m not paying attention to your solution.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s going to create more miscommunication.
2
SPEAKER_00
So how do you know which one you re in?
2
SPEAKER_00
So through deep questions and what super communicators do is they match the other person and they invite them to match back.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so how do we do that?
2
SPEAKER_00
These deep questions, which is exactly what you just said.
2
SPEAKER_00
A deep question is a question that asks me about my values, my beliefs, or my experiences.
2
SPEAKER_00
And as you mentioned, like a deep question might not seem deep.
2
SPEAKER_00
So if somebody says, what do you do for a living?
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I m a lawyer.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh really?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, do you love practicing law?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, did you always want to be a lawyer?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like what made you decide to go to law school?
2
SPEAKER_00
Those are easy questions to ask, but all three of them are deep questions.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because what I m asking you is I m asking you, what are the experiences that led you to where you are today?
2
SPEAKER_00
What are your beliefs that motivate going into the law?
2
SPEAKER_00
What are the values that your work means to you?
2
SPEAKER_00
And when you answer that question, you re going to tell me so much about yourself.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then if I m, if I m prepared for this, I can listen.
2
SPEAKER_00
Cause if someone says, Oh, you know, I went to law school cause like, it was really important to me to have a steady job and I knew lawyers, there s always work for lawyers.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so I, okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
So this person is in a practical mindset.
2
SPEAKER_00
And if somebody else says, Oh, you know, I went to law school cause I saw my dad get arrested and I wanted to fight for the underdog.
2
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s emotional.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s emotional, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_00
Interesting.
2
SPEAKER_00
And by the way, the same person might answer that question both ways, depending on how they re feeling at that moment.
2
SPEAKER_00
But now I know like, Oh, I can match this person emotionally, or I can match this person practically.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you can sometimes just ask.
2
SPEAKER_00
In schools, they teach teachers that when a student comes up and they re upset, they should ask them, do you want to be heard?
2
SPEAKER_00
Do you want to be helped?
2
SPEAKER_00
Or do you want to be hugged?
2
SPEAKER_00
And those are the three kinds of conversations.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it just feels, yeah, what do you need?
2
SPEAKER_01
It s essentially what do you need without saying, what do you need?
2
SPEAKER_01
If you can learn to listen and then ask a deeper question, you ll understand what they need based on these three levels, I guess, of practical, emotional, or social conversation.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s exactly right.
2
SPEAKER_01
And if you have trained yourself to understand how to be a super communicator and practice it, you re going to feel like a hero to everyone you connect with.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re going to feel like, wow, Charles really understands me and really gets it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he s just so easy to talk to.
2
SPEAKER_01
Every time I talk to him, it s going to make you more likable.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
More opportunities are probably going to flow your way.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re going to be more top of mind for people in the future when something comes up in a positive way.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re going to come to you.
2
SPEAKER_01
All these different things are going to happen.
2
SPEAKER_01
I guess you re going to have to learn how to create certain boundaries if they re coming to you too much or using you or whatever it might be.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but those are good problems to have.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
Everyone wants my attention.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m too popular.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
And, and I find that it s also when somebody asks you what you want out of a conversation, it feels really good.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like I might come home and sometimes I come home and I m like upset about work and I m complaining to my wife and she ll say, okay, do you want me to, do you want me to solve this with you or do you want me just to listen?
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
Invent or whatever.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
And until that moment, I didn t know what I wanted.
2
SPEAKER_00
But when she asked the question, I m like, oh no, I want you to listen.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like I don t want a solution.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, suddenly now I know, like, oh, the way I feel better is just by venting.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_01
I can be that way sometimes.
2
SPEAKER_01
You say in the book that all conversations are negotiations.
2
SPEAKER_01
Can you explain what that means?
2
SPEAKER_00
So, they re what s referred to, particularly at the beginning of a conversation.
2
SPEAKER_00
we usually have what s called a quiet negotiation.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s important, oftentimes people hear negotiation and they think of a negotiation where the goal is to win.
2
SPEAKER_00
A quiet negotiation is very, very different.
2
SPEAKER_00
The goal is not to win.
2
SPEAKER_00
The goal is simply to understand what the other person wants.
2
SPEAKER_00
That is the win, I guess.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s the win, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
That s the win.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t have to defeat you, but we can win together.
2
SPEAKER_00
So when I came in today and I sat down with you and we were kind of chatting about
2
SPEAKER_00
about how our lives are going, we signaled to each other a bunch of stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
We signaled that we were casual with each other, that we like each other.
2
SPEAKER_00
We signaled that it was okay to interrupt each other.
2
SPEAKER_00
We signaled that we didn t have to do looping for understanding.
2
SPEAKER_00
You can hear that I m listening to you and I can do the same.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s all these small cues that we pick up on.
2
SPEAKER_00
Now, imagine if we had come in and I had sat down and you were like, hey man, what s going on?
2
SPEAKER_00
well, it s good to see you today.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, whoa, allow me to tell you about myself, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, and we had that, like people, I had this last week with someone who was here, I won t say who it was, but I was trying to be, you know, more playful and open and, you know, flexible.
2
SPEAKER_01
And they eventually got there, but in the first 10 minutes, I like, not intentionally interrupted, but I just kind of added to something and, you know, followed up with a question while they were still finishing something.
2
SPEAKER_01
But it s kind of how I do a lot of things.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he goes, you know, make sure you don t do that with the next person.
2
SPEAKER_01
He kind of, like, cued me, like, let me finish first.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was like, OK, I m going to make sure I let him finish before I add something.
2
SPEAKER_00
I know what the rules are.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I know the rule.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he was kind of like, Hey, you know, it was like, which we, right.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was kind of playful, but it was kind of like, okay, like, I don t know him.
2
SPEAKER_01
So, okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
All right.
2
SPEAKER_01
I want to make sure we get a good interview.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I m going to play by your rules.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, and, and oftentimes what happens at the beginning of a conversation, even without us recognizing we re doing it is that we conduct experiments.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
I might say something casual to you.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then I pay attention.
2
SPEAKER_00
Do you, right.
2
SPEAKER_00
Do you laugh back?
2
SPEAKER_00
I might interrupt you.
2
SPEAKER_00
And if you say like, don t do that again, I ll notice, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
And the thing to remember is that I don t think it was a, it was not a mistake that you did that.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was not even a failure because the whole point of a conversation at the beginning is to work out those rules.
2
SPEAKER_00
Experiment with it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Experiment with it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And if some, and if every, like my wife is a scientist, if every experiment is a success, you re a terrible scientist, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
You want to do experiments that fail and succeed.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s when you re learning.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the fact that this guy told you that, it means that he actually told you something about how he sees communication.
2
SPEAKER_01
He likes, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
And as an interviewer, I don t know if you do this when you re doing research or interviewing people as well.
2
SPEAKER_01
For me, I like to tell people when they ask me about interviewing or podcasting, this is my 11th year now of doing this show.
2
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_01
It ll be 11 year anniversary probably when this episode comes out.
2
SPEAKER_01
I always tell people that the pre-show is the show.
2
SPEAKER_01
us talking for 10 minutes before we turned on the camera really determines a lot of how successful or unsuccessful the episode will go, or the energy or the flow is based on the connection when someone enters the door, the experience and the environment you create for them, whether that s you or the actual environment, your ability to see them before going on,
2
SPEAKER_01
And if they feel heard and seen.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
That is the show.
2
SPEAKER_00
And vulnerability, right?
2
100%.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think what, so there s another idea that s really critical in the book and that is critical to what we ve learned in the last decade, which is known as emotional reciprocity.
2
SPEAKER_00
That when I show you something vulnerable,
2
SPEAKER_00
You need to show me that you ve heard it, but if you share something vulnerable in return, we will feel closer.
2
SPEAKER_00
We really can t even, we can t, it s like hardware, we can t not feel closer.
2
SPEAKER_01
So one person shares something vulnerable and the other one does not at least show empathy,
2
SPEAKER_01
even if they don t share something vulnerable about them, but if they show some type of... Well, so showing empathy is a form of vulnerability.
2
SPEAKER_00
So if you say like, you know, my dad passed away, and I say, oh man, I totally understand.
2
SPEAKER_00
My aunt died 12 years ago.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s not empathy.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s not empathy.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m trying to steal the spotlight from you.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m not trying to share it.
2
SPEAKER_00
But if you said, you know, my dad passed away, and I said, oh man, I know how hard that is.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m really sorry.
2
SPEAKER_00
And like, I ve struggled with it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m sure you are if you want to talk about it.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s all it takes for me to reciprocate that vulnerability and to say to you, like, I welcome your vulnerability.
2
SPEAKER_00
I am trustworthy with it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And more importantly, like, I m willing to go there with you.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s when all of a sudden, we know the rule.
2
SPEAKER_00
We know the rules of this conversation.
2
SPEAKER_00
We know that... And when we were talking before the show,
3
SPEAKER_00
And you know, I asked about Martha and I asked about your life and like, you re very open and you re very, you re very easy with your vulnerability.
3
SPEAKER_00
And just hearing that, like it tells me the rules, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
That like, this is a conversation where we can be honest with, where we can be honest and real.
3
SPEAKER_00
And once you have that, you re exactly right.
3
SPEAKER_00
The rest of the conversation is so much easier.
3
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
A lot of it is the first interactions you have with someone and kind of experimenting so you can understand
3
SPEAKER_01
the rules, the quiet negotiation, what are the rules of this dialogue going to be?
3
SPEAKER_01
Speaking of honesty and challenging conversations, how can a super communicator
3
SPEAKER_01
that might be avoiding hard conversations with someone that, as a friend, or a business colleague, or their partner, their intimate partner, how can a super communicator, I guess, navigate conflict, disagreement, or challenging conversations?
3
SPEAKER_00
To create a win-win, it s a great question.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right, and there s a couple chapters on it, and it is sort of one of the biggest questions.
3
SPEAKER_00
And this is particularly in the last couple years, there s a chapter about,
3
SPEAKER_00
the story of what happened at Netflix, because there was an executive at Netflix a couple years ago in a meeting used the N-word.
3
SPEAKER_00
And very quite rightfully, the rest of the company was like, this is totally unacceptable.
3
SPEAKER_00
But it threatened to actually divide the company, because this was a popular executive.
3
SPEAKER_00
Some people were like, look, he didn t mean it as a slur.
3
SPEAKER_00
He was using it as an example.
3
SPEAKER_00
And other people were like, this is unacceptable.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can t like- He s got to be gone.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so, and it took four months for them to fire him.
3
SPEAKER_00
But at that point, the company was on the brink of civil war.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so the culture wasn t good.
3
SPEAKER_00
The cult there, the culture was just tearing themselves, tearing them apart.
3
SPEAKER_00
So they, they hired this woman, Renee Myers, who s an amazing woman to come in.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the first thing that she did is she said, okay, look, instead of avoiding conversations about race, we re going to have conversations about race, but here s how we re going to do it.
3
SPEAKER_00
We re going to start each conversation by acknowledging this is going to be awkward.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, and by the way, I m going to make a mistake.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re going to make a mistake.
3
SPEAKER_00
We re going to say things that like, don t really come out the way we intended.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s going to be hard.
3
SPEAKER_00
And number two, everyone at this table deserves to be at this table.
3
SPEAKER_00
So simply, you know, obviously someone who s black belongs to this table, but if you re white, you also have a racial experience.
3
SPEAKER_00
And like, we need to hear that experience.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can testify, you can witness how your life has been as an expert.
3
SPEAKER_00
And everybody at the table has an equal right to talk about their own experiences.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that worked at Netflix.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it actually worked really well.
3
SPEAKER_00
It brought the company back together.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now, when that tough conversation you were having with an intimate partner or with a business partner where there s some conflict there, think about how differently it goes if you sit down and you say, something serious I want to talk about.
3
SPEAKER_00
Let me just acknowledge this is going to be awkward.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I m going to say some things that I don t
3
SPEAKER_00
They re going to come off dumber than I mean them.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I m just going to ask for your forgiveness in advance.
3
SPEAKER_00
And my goal here is to like really understand where you re coming from because you belong at this table as much as I do.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, there s like three things that happen there.
3
SPEAKER_01
One is courage and vulnerability.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like, hey, I want to have a challenging conversation with you.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it s like you re being vulnerable and you re being courageous.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re talking about something challenging.
3
SPEAKER_01
The second thing is really saying, it s going to be hard and I m going to make some mistakes.
3
SPEAKER_01
I may not say everything, so asking for forgiveness, which is also vulnerability.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then I guess really the third thing is like, I really want us to come to a good place at the end.
3
SPEAKER_01
I want there to be a win-win from this challenging conversation.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think Chris Voss talks about a similar concept around that.
3
SPEAKER_01
The former FBI negotiator, his book, I think, Never Split the Difference, where he s like, the best way to negotiate something challenging is to say, this is going to be a hard conversation.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re not going to like it.
3
SPEAKER_01
starting with something around, saying it as it is, as opposed to skirting around the challenge, is at least setting an expectation.
3
SPEAKER_01
And people would rather know what the expectation is going to be.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like when a doctor says, it s not going to hurt that much, but then they pinch you and you re like, ah, that was really painful.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like I did a
3
SPEAKER_01
I had to do an implant surgery with a fake tooth, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because I had teeth removed when I was younger, and so they put these teeth in me the last couple of years.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I asked the doctor, I go, how painful is this going to be?
3
SPEAKER_01
And he s like, it s going to hurt.
3
SPEAKER_01
He was like, it s not going to be comfortable.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s like, there s going to be pain.
3
SPEAKER_01
I really wanted him to say, it s not going to be that bad.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re going to be fine.
3
SPEAKER_01
He goes, it s going to be uncomfortable.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s going to be painful.
3
SPEAKER_01
Ah, this, I don t like knowing the anticipation of the pain.
3
SPEAKER_01
But when the pain was happening, it wasn t as bad.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it was painful.
3
SPEAKER_01
With the expert, I met the expectation, because he communicated clearly.
3
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so it made me trust him more.
3
SPEAKER_01
It made me feel safer, because I knew what to expect.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so when you re talking about this, like having this
3
SPEAKER_01
I guess directness of like, hey, this is going to be a hard conversation for me, maybe for you, but I want us to win at the end of this.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s totally, and that s key.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I mean, you know, the last five years, like there s been a lot of conversations about race, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
And the difference between going in and saying, I want to acknowledge up front that you as a black woman have had very different experiences than me as a white man.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I want to, I want to really understand you versus having a conversation about race that we ve been forced into where we never acknowledged that actually we re talking about race.
3
SPEAKER_00
that first conversation goes so much better.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the same is true of gender, of religion, of politics.
3
SPEAKER_00
When you sit down with your crazy uncle at the Thanksgiving table, if you say to them, we have a difference of opinion, but I really want to understand where you re coming from, it changes the entire dialogue.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_01
When you were doing the research for super communicators,
3
SPEAKER_01
What was the thing that stood out to you the most?
3
SPEAKER_01
That you either were doing well, and it was a confirmation to what you were doing, or something you realized, oh, I ve had this whole thing wrong, and a lot of people have this thing wrong.
3
SPEAKER_00
And if we just started doing more of this, there would be a lot more harmony in relationships.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think the biggest thing, two things.
3
SPEAKER_00
The first is listening for and engaging with people s emotional conversations.
3
SPEAKER_00
So think about how frequently like you re at work and you talk to someone and you re like, how was the weekend?
3
SPEAKER_00
And they were like, they re like, Oh man, my son graduated and I was just so proud of him.
3
SPEAKER_00
Or, or actually it was a tough weekend.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like I, it was just like some stuff came up.
3
SPEAKER_00
And our instinct is oftentimes to go straight to the practical, be like, sorry to hear that.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, let s talk about next year s budget, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Let s get down to work.
3
SPEAKER_00
But if you just take a beat and you, and you match that person and you say like, ah, like, tell me about your son.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, I can t wait.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, tell me, like, tell me what he s like.
3
SPEAKER_00
Or you say like, I m, I m sorry that it was like a tough weekend.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like I ve definitely had tough weekends.
3
SPEAKER_00
If you want to, if you ever want to talk it over with me, I m here for you.
3
SPEAKER_00
that engaging that emotional conversation, allowing yourself to recognize it and saying like, this is actually an important part of communication.
3
SPEAKER_00
That I think has been super powerful.
3
SPEAKER_00
Really?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Just because I think I, in 2017, I was at the New York times and they made me a manager.
3
SPEAKER_00
How was that?
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, I thought I would be great at it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was like, I have an MBA.
3
SPEAKER_00
I ve had bosses before.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I was OK at the logistics part of it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was a terrible manager.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was so bad because of the communication part.
3
SPEAKER_00
And usually what it came down to is- But you re a writer.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re a journalist.
3
SPEAKER_00
I know.
3
SPEAKER_00
Award-winning expert at this.
3
SPEAKER_00
Believe me.
3
SPEAKER_00
I like it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Caught me off guard too.
3
SPEAKER_00
And again and again, the thing that happened was that somebody would come and they would basically say, I want to talk to you about something emotional and I would treat it as something else.
3
SPEAKER_00
You went right to practical or something.
3
SPEAKER_00
Or social or like problem solving.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And
3
SPEAKER_00
And if I had just slowed down and said, okay, look, just tell me how you re feeling.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, I just want to like, understand how you re feeling and hear it.
3
SPEAKER_00
It would have changed everything.
3
SPEAKER_00
I would have been such a better manager.
3
SPEAKER_00
So that s the first thing that has really shaped how, shaped how I communicate.
3
SPEAKER_00
The second thing is.
3
SPEAKER_00
So we humans superpower is communication, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
The reason we survive as a species is because we can communicate the reasons why we ve thrived.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we have instincts on how to communicate.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the other thing I ve learned is to be a super communicator means
4
SPEAKER_01
learning some stuff, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Learning tools or skills.
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But the goal of those tools or skills are actually just to remind us of what our instincts are.
4
SPEAKER_01
Ah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because our instincts are really, really good.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
And when we screw up, it s usually because we don t listen to our instincts.
4
SPEAKER_01
When all this dark got.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Instead we re like, we re like, well, you know, I m supposed to behave this way.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m supposed to be a macho or I m supposed to be X or Y or Z. Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Instead of like stopping and being saying like what am I authentically experiencing right now?
4
SPEAKER_01
Because if you share that You re probably gonna connect with the other person.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so I ve tried to indulge that more.
4
SPEAKER_00
Wow, that s cool.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we talked about looping for understanding We ve talked about deep questions We ve talked about the three different types of conversation.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and
4
SPEAKER_00
I m curious about how to have a conversation that turns into abundance of opportunities for you.
4
SPEAKER_00
Is there a way to draw from your work in this book that people could say, if I just started doing this thing, it would unlock a level of abundance?
4
SPEAKER_00
financial abundance, better opportunities for me.
4
SPEAKER_00
Is there a certain style of conversation I should be having, a way I should be listening that unlocks abundance?
4
SPEAKER_00
Is there anything from your research?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
So, so let me, let me ask you a question.
4
SPEAKER_01
Cause I know that this podcast started with you looking for mentors, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
You going out trying to learn.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
So when you approach someone before, before you re a known, you re like a young guy, you re reaching out to these like very successful folks.
4
SPEAKER_01
What do you do that gets them to take some time to tell you their insight?
4
SPEAKER_00
You mentioned something in this book that I think you re gonna be referencing here in a second, which is about really creating relatability on different things from either the past or whatever it might be.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so originally, I would reach out to people through LinkedIn, this is in 2007, eight, and nine, from my other business that I had, and I would reach out to them, leaders in kind of like the local community in Columbus, Ohio.
4
SPEAKER_00
CEOs and executives, and I would email people originally and just say, hey, I m inspired by what you ve done, can you help me with some advice?
4
SPEAKER_00
Type of conversation.
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SPEAKER_00
And I wouldn t give many responses.
4
SPEAKER_00
Maybe a couple of like, hey, I have no time for you, or not right now.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then I started just experimenting other things.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I started really researching the person I was going to be messaging and emailing.
4
SPEAKER_00
And on LinkedIn you could see where they went to school, different clubs and associations they re a part of, awards, hobbies, interests, also different connections that they had with you, second and third degree.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I started saying, well, let me try to find different things we have in common.
4
SPEAKER_00
And in the first sentence or two, I would say, you know, hey, Charles, I see we both live in New York City.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, whatever it is, any commonality at all.
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SPEAKER_00
We and nine other million people.
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SPEAKER_00
We re both authors.
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SPEAKER_00
I ve written a book.
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SPEAKER_00
And I see that you like running half marathons.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I just ran my first marathon last year.
4
SPEAKER_00
Whatever it would be, I would try to find three levels of commonality.
4
SPEAKER_00
And when I started to do that, it was almost like every person was replying to me.
4
SPEAKER_00
And everyone would give me an hour to either jump on the phone, meet in person, like whatever I asked, they would give me time.
4
SPEAKER_00
Now based on that conversational time,
4
SPEAKER_00
and how I showed up and being genuine and asking the right questions, that determined what was gonna happen next.
4
SPEAKER_00
But it got my foot in the door to at least have a conversation by creating that level of common interest from shared experiences of the past.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the better I got at researching and understanding based on a profile and able to communicate our shared interests, the more people wanted to connect with me.
4
SPEAKER_01
So here s what I hear you saying, and tell me if I m getting this right.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because if you email me and you re like, we both live in New York, we both run marathons, I d be like... It s more direct to what the person is saying.
4
SPEAKER_01
Let s say it is more direct.
4
SPEAKER_01
Let s say like, you know, I see that you re on a softball league.
4
SPEAKER_01
I played softball.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s actually not, like, there s no reason that I m necessarily gonna reply to your email because we both love softball.
4
SPEAKER_01
But what you re really saying is, I m proving to you that I wanna connect.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m making an overture.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m not just dropping you an email because you re a famous person and you re like, I said 30 of them today.
4
SPEAKER_01
I actually spent some time, I m making what s known as a bid for a connection.
4
SPEAKER_01
So one of the things that super communicators do is they make these bids a lot, oftentimes without us realizing it.
4
SPEAKER_01
When I asked if Matt laughed a lot,
4
SPEAKER_01
One of the things we know is that super communicators laugh much more.
4
SPEAKER_01
I saw that in the book too.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
But they don t laugh in response to things that are funny.
4
SPEAKER_01
Uh-huh.
4
SPEAKER_01
They laugh just because they want to show you that they want to connect.
4
SPEAKER_00
Interesting.
4
SPEAKER_00
And when you laugh back, you re showing you want to connect back.
4
SPEAKER_00
You had a, I think you had some research in there or something.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was like, I can t remember what those percentages, but most people just are laughing.
4
SPEAKER_00
Not because there s something funny, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
80% of the time we laugh, not in response to humor, but to show someone else that we want to connect with them.
4
SPEAKER_01
And when they laugh back, they show us that we want to connect.
4
SPEAKER_01
The other thing about super communicators, and I love that you mentioned that when you got together with them, you asked the right questions.
4
SPEAKER_01
Super communicators tend to ask 10 to 20 times as many questions as the average person, but it doesn t feel like an interrogation because a lot of the questions are things like, oh, that s interesting.
4
SPEAKER_01
Tell me about that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Tell me more.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Tell me more.
4
SPEAKER_01
How did that work like that?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
What did you think about that?
4
SPEAKER_01
Why did you do that?
4
SPEAKER_01
There s questions that are so fast that we don t register them as questions.
4
SPEAKER_01
But what they re doing is again, they re proving that we want to connect showing interest, showing interest, showing, listening, showing, showing that I am opening myself.
4
SPEAKER_01
There is this thing about vulnerability that.
4
SPEAKER_01
vulnerability tends to be the loudest expression we can make.
4
SPEAKER_01
If someone is saying something vulnerable, we cannot help but listen to them.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right?
4
SPEAKER_01
All reality TV is based on this principle, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Like our brain is hardwired so that when we see vulnerability, we have to stop and listen.
4
SPEAKER_01
And when you say to someone,
4
SPEAKER_01
I see that we both love softball and like, can I have a couple of minutes?
4
SPEAKER_01
You re exposing a vulnerability and they listen to it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Interesting.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it makes you seem trustworthy.
4
SPEAKER_01
So that s the thing that I would say is that the, the thing that creates abundance
4
SPEAKER_01
is to put those bids out there, to make that first offering, and to laugh at someone s joke to show them you wanna connect, to ask them a deep question, to say like, I understand that you probably don t wanna talk to someone like me, but I ve done a little bit of research about you, and you just seem so interesting to me, can I just ask you a couple questions?
4
SPEAKER_01
That vulnerability, that authenticity,
4
SPEAKER_00
We hear that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I understand you re probably the busiest person.
4
SPEAKER_00
You probably have no time for someone like me.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
I would just love to be able to ask you like two or three questions.
4
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
4
SPEAKER_00
And by the way- You re probably gonna say no, but you know, I m just- And by the way, we both went to this high school, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Right, it s just something.
4
SPEAKER_01
By the way- It s something.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s something.
4
SPEAKER_01
By the way, the fact that we both went to that high school doesn t mean anything, but the fact that I looked up what high school you went to shows that I genuinely want to connect.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it s fascinating.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if you re like, where did you go to college?
4
SPEAKER_00
I went to Yale.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yale.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if someone reached out to you who s like, I don t know, 24 and just graduated Yale, who s like wrote at the Yale newspaper or whatever, and they reach out to you and they re just like, you know, I know that you probably don t have time right now because you ve got all these things going on.
4
SPEAKER_00
but I d love to have five minutes of your time.
4
SPEAKER_00
And we both went to Yale.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re probably more likely to reply to that person than someone at Harvard who said the same thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s not just because of the association.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s because they sought me out.
4
SPEAKER_01
They know enough about me to know that we have this thing in common.
4
SPEAKER_01
The fact that I went to Yale, I haven t been to Yale in 20 years, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t really matter.
4
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t matter.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s not part of my identity.
4
SPEAKER_01
But the fact that they did the research to figure out where I went to college.
4
SPEAKER_01
So if they went to Harvard and they were like, or they went to University of New Mexico and they say like, I saw that you went to Yale and like, I ve always admired Yale.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I m just wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions.
4
SPEAKER_01
Literally someone did this three days ago and I got on the phone with them and I was like, don t become a journalist.
4
SPEAKER_01
The industry s disappearing, but, but it is.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s, it doesn t matter what you say as much as it matters what, what s behind what you say, the message I m sending the same way that like, when I ask you a question and you respond vulnerable, vulnerably to me, and then I reciprocate that vulnerability, we re making an offer to each other.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we re seeing if that offer is accepted or not.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
And asking someone for advice is not an offer.
4
SPEAKER_01
saying, I researched you and I admire you.
4
SPEAKER_01
Can I just ask you a question?
4
SPEAKER_01
That s an offer.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s interesting.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m curious about this, Charles.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, you, 10 years ago, your life really kind of changed in a way with Power Habit, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, put you on a map in a different way.
4
SPEAKER_00
You had a successful career, but it wasn t as big of a platform as when that
5
SPEAKER_01
that book came out, correct?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it was transformational.
5
SPEAKER_00
What is it like being a super communicator before a lot of success comes your way?
5
SPEAKER_00
Kind of when you re trying to figure out life or your career or developing yourself, skills and talents, versus boom, I m on number one New York Times, Pulitzer Prize winner, three years on the Times list, 10 million copies of the book, like boom, an explosion of this world s success
5
SPEAKER_00
How does it differ to be a super communicator after and before?
5
SPEAKER_01
So I think the thing that happened, I will say this.
5
SPEAKER_01
So 2013, Power of Habit comes out, and that s the same year I won the Pulitzer Prize for this work I was doing in the New York Times about Apple.
5
SPEAKER_01
It had nothing to do with habits.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it was definitely the hardest and maybe one of the worst years of my life.
5
SPEAKER_01
Really?
5
SPEAKER_01
How is that possible?
5
SPEAKER_01
And the reason why is because it went to my head, and I stopped listening to my instincts.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like I just got like blocked from like leading up to that.
5
SPEAKER_01
I like what I found was that like when people start telling you how smart you are, at some point you start believing them.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that s always like the path to ruin.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like luckily I have a wife who like would tell me how dumb I was.
5
SPEAKER_01
So that helped a lot.
5
SPEAKER_01
But.
5
SPEAKER_01
But it was a really challenging time.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think what happened is that- You had more success than ever before.
5
SPEAKER_00
You had more money, more fame, more opportunities.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and all that stuff was great.
5
SPEAKER_01
I feel so lucky to have had that.
5
SPEAKER_01
I feel so fortunate that this happened.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was the lowest time for you.
5
SPEAKER_01
You couldn t pay me enough to go back to that year and relive it.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was so hard.
5
SPEAKER_01
I felt.
5
SPEAKER_01
I felt like every single opportunity, like I felt like, I felt like I was on top of the, like I had won the lottery and twice.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Twice, twice.
5
SPEAKER_01
And if I, and the only future was downhill.
5
SPEAKER_01
And by the way, if I don t continue winning the lottery, it s because my fault.
5
SPEAKER_01
Cause I, cause like I m, I m a dummy.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like I, I squandered this opportunity.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so I got so inside my own head that I actually stopped, I stopped being a super communicator to be honest.
5
SPEAKER_01
I just, I talked a lot more than I listened.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because everyone wanted your advice, or they thought you had all the answers, or whatever.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, or because they were giving me money to go stand on the stage.
5
SPEAKER_01
And nobody ever says, your idea is not a good idea when you re standing on that stage.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s when you re in a newsroom, or when you re with your friends, or when you re with your spouse.
5
SPEAKER_01
They re the ones who are like, that s a dumb idea.
5
SPEAKER_01
You aren t thinking clearly.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so a lot of the reason I wrote Super Communicators was because
5
SPEAKER_01
I had these experiences where I felt like I m a professional communicator and I m doing something wrong.
5
SPEAKER_01
And actually one night I wrote, I sat down and I wrote out over the past year, all the places where I felt like I had failed to communicate.
5
SPEAKER_01
So like fight with my wife that we could have avoided, um, manager at work and not doing a good job, not doing right by my, my
5
SPEAKER_01
team, uh, my kids coming to me and like, you know, clearly wanting to like connect and I m like caught up in like some article I m writing or something too busy or whatever.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s not like I was a monster, like I wasn t doing this all the time, but as I looked at it, there was like once every two weeks, once every three weeks there was something.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I thought to myself, like,
5
SPEAKER_01
If I m so smart, why am I failing at this?
5
SPEAKER_01
And so the way the book started was me calling experts and just saying, I have this friend who s bad at communication.
5
SPEAKER_01
Can you tell me?
5
SPEAKER_01
But I would say, look, this is a fight I had with my wife.
5
SPEAKER_01
Explain to me what I did wrong.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that s when they started saying, actually, there s a science behind this.
5
SPEAKER_01
You can learn this science.
5
SPEAKER_01
You can get better at this.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so a lot of recovering from that success
5
SPEAKER_01
was learning to re-listen to these instincts that were there that the success had sort of made harder to hear.
5
SPEAKER_00
Even the words you just shared there, recovering from the success, there s so many people that want to be successful.
5
SPEAKER_00
They want to make more money.
5
SPEAKER_00
They want to have their work or their message be a bestseller.
5
SPEAKER_00
They want to get acknowledged for their work, their efforts.
5
SPEAKER_00
They want to win awards.
5
SPEAKER_00
They want bigger followings.
5
SPEAKER_00
But when you got those things initially,
5
SPEAKER_00
you had to recover from them.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was the most challenging year of your life.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
What is it about fame, money, and success you wish everyone knew about?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
And a lot of people, I mean, you ve spoken about this eloquently, Tim Ferriss has written about this.
5
SPEAKER_01
The problem is that when you re chasing something and the chase is glorious, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
The chase is pure.
5
SPEAKER_01
It feels so good.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like you know what to do every morning when you wake up, you start to think that the point of it
5
SPEAKER_01
is the thing at the end of the chase rather than the chase itself.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, you re so focused.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was so focused on winning a Pulitzer Prize.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, I, like, wanted it so bad.
5
SPEAKER_01
And the letdown was... I mean, I love having won it.
5
SPEAKER_01
I feel like it s a real honor.
5
SPEAKER_01
But, like, once that was gone as a North Star, I was like, what do I write about for The New York Times now?
5
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so I think what happens is that was there a big hangover, emotional hangover for you?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like how long did the, the joy last when you won Pulitzer prize?
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t know, 30 or 40 minutes.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like really?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Cause then I started stressing about like, what am I going to say in the speech?
5
SPEAKER_01
I got to think this guy, like how do I navigate?
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, like, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, because that s the, this is the thing that people like everyone who s listening.
5
SPEAKER_01
They re listening because they want to become better, not because they want to be best.
5
SPEAKER_01
Once you re best, like.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s, that s less fun than improving yourself.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right?
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, frankly, they re already best.
5
SPEAKER_01
Everyone who s listening to this is probably a huge success at what they do.
5
SPEAKER_01
They, they, they are successful.
5
SPEAKER_01
And the reason they re successful though, and the reason they re happy is because they wake up every day and they know I can get a little bit better.
5
SPEAKER_01
And if what you re saying is here s the mountaintop, once you reach it,
5
SPEAKER_01
you don t know what to do next.
5
SPEAKER_01
It feels like then you need to look for a new mountain.
5
SPEAKER_01
And the real answer is just to recognize actually the mountain is life.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like the mountain is like, I have a great relationship with my wife, but how much
5
SPEAKER_01
better can I be as a husband?
5
SPEAKER_01
And like, I love my kids and I m close to them, but like, how can I know more about their lives?
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, how can I, how can I help them more?
5
SPEAKER_01
Like once you stop saying there is a goal I m moving towards, then you start to recognize like the goal is actually what you do every day.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that s so much more rewarding.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you think, and you think I think so?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m curious about right before, maybe the year leading up to that moment,
5
SPEAKER_00
If you could assess yourself on an inner dialogue or an inner feeling between one and 10, call it the self-love, inner peace scale.
5
SPEAKER_00
10 being you had lots of love and acceptance and peace and joy inside of you, one being you re miserable.
5
SPEAKER_00
Where were you that year leading up to that success?
5
SPEAKER_00
And where were you, you know, the year or years afterwards?
5
SPEAKER_01
So leading up to it, I would say I was like an eight.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_01
It felt great.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like I was like, I was operating on all cylinders.
5
SPEAKER_01
I felt like I was doing good work.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then I have the, and then I have the success and I feel, I just, I felt like
5
SPEAKER_01
I felt anticipatory regret.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like I felt like I m going to make a mistake and I m going to feel like the stupidest person ever for not taking advantage of this opportunity.
5
SPEAKER_01
Really?
5
SPEAKER_01
And it took a couple of years for me to get back to being an eight.
5
SPEAKER_01
And the thing that happened was I wrote another book that did not do very well.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I wrote a book called smarter, faster, better, which I think is actually, I loved writing it.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was a, I think it s a good book.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean,
5
SPEAKER_01
It was a, it was a good book to write.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s a, it s not a good book.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s not designed as a book.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s, it s too random.
5
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I wrote it because I thought that it s what readers wanted from me rather than something that I was really, that you wanted to create, that I wanted to create.
5
SPEAKER_01
And, and it did fine.
5
SPEAKER_01
It sold over a million copies, but it was nowhere near like the power of habit.
5
SPEAKER_00
Nobody talks about it.
5
SPEAKER_00
A million copies is a massive success.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was great.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was great.
5
SPEAKER_01
And people, but, but afterwards I thought to myself, like the next book I write, it has to come from a question I actually want to answer for myself.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like again, like the journey is more important than the destination.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, because the destination is one day and the journey is years leading up to it.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like you re going to be excited about it.
5
SPEAKER_01
Interested in it.
5
SPEAKER_01
You got to be excited.
5
SPEAKER_01
You got to be interested.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re going to spend so much more time in the journey than you are in the destination.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
So if you re only thinking about that destination, you re, you re missing a lot that s happening around you.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
5
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Can I ask you?
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Because I know that your athletic career, your football career, was cut short by an injury.
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When that happened, what was that like afterwards?
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It was pretty depressing for about a year and a half, the sadness.
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Well, I had a surgery, so I was in a cast for six months in this position, like on a full-arm cast.
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where I couldn t straighten my arm.
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Couldn t turn it or straighten it for six months.
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Except for every six weeks, they d take it off to replace it, and I was like, oh my gosh.
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Six months like this, living on my sister s couch, making no money, and this was in 2007 and eight when the economy crashed, housing market crashed, so people weren t hiring.
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I didn t have a college degree yet.
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I left early to go chase the dream of football.
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I had five credits left, but I was like, I didn t have, I didn t even study in school though.
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So I didn t have confidence from school to get me a job or something.
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So I just felt like, what am I going to do the rest of my life?
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So what pulled you out of that?
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Like, what s the turning moment that like, well, I, I felt I had a lot of time alone and I felt
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I was listening to my inner voice that saying that was meant for more.
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Like there was something more that I was supposed to do.
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I didn t know what, but I knew I needed to just take action on something and course correct along the way.
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So I didn t know what direction.
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And I started with a list of my fears.
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And I said, I don t want to be in fear anymore.
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I don t want to be afraid of my insecurities.
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So I started writing down a list of my fears.
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Public speaking was at the top of it.
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Salsa dancing was one as well.
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Learning the musical instrument.
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All these different things that I was like, I m just not good at these things.
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And the downside of getting injured is I couldn t practice my sport anymore.
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The upside is I had all this time.
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I had unlimited time, essentially, to attack all my fears.
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And that year after that, I went to Toastmasters every single week for a year.
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I found my kind of a coach mentor that helped get me into Toastmasters that recommended it.
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And would give me feedback on my little five minute speeches that were horrible.
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And I would study every single week, I would practice, I would rehearse, I would film myself and get better at that.
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I went salsa dancing three times a week.
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I was obsessing about salsa dancing at night to go to the clubs.
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I did group lessons, private lessons, anything I could do.
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I begged people to teach me.
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I was listening on CD to a CD of all salsa music and just practicing in my mind throughout the whole day, then practicing at night physically.
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going to Toastmasters.
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I was being a super communicator and connector.
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I was on LinkedIn all day, reaching out to people, trying to connect with people to find opportunities.
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So I was building relationship skills.
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All these things that I was insecure about, I started to apply them.
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And it gave me an incredible gift.
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It gave me more skills.
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It gave me connections.
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And one connection led to the next opportunity.
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And so I just tried a lot of things.
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which I might ve been distracted, but it was a season of trying and experimenting.
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And that led me to my first kind of money-making opportunity, an online marketing company that I created.
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And I did that for many years until I transitioned into the podcast.
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So it was kind of like, all right, let me just try a lot of stuff and then see where something takes me.
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And what I love about that story is that
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It was the things that you were bad at, you studied and you became not just good at, but really good at.
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And that s why I say so many of these super communicators, they are people who have these periods where they were bad at communication.
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So they felt like they had to pay more attention to it.
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They had to study how it works.
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I mean, I say this confidently and with humility at the same time, that I can go anywhere in the world, to any salsa club in the world,
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and walk in randomly and look for the best female salsa dancer and ask her to dance and have an incredible dance with this person.
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That s amazing.
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Anyone in the world, because I ve done it.
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I literally traveled the world doing this to give myself these experiments.
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I go, what if I do this in Argentina, in Mexico, in Ireland, in France, in Australia, in New Zealand?
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I went around the world.
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because I was afraid to do it.
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And I was afraid of rejection.
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So I was like, I need to put myself in situations to be rejected.
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And it would be an experiment.
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I m going to go in, I m going to look for the best female dancer, and I m going to ask her to dance with me, even if I don t speak the language.
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And I would get rejected a lot.
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And I was like, oh, that doesn t feel good, but let me just keep going.
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And I would make it a game.
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I was like, how can I get them to come up to me by the end of the night to dance with me?
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Because they see how good you are.
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Or he could actually dance.
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It s just like experiments and games, right?
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Yeah.
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And the public speaking thing, you know, I m going to Mexico next week to get a big paycheck to speak.
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And I would have never been able to do this had I not had that time to practice every single week.
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Well, and so what I love about that is that you ve changed the definition of success.
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And I think that gets back to why that year after Power of Havoc came out was so hard for me, is that oftentimes when we go into a conversation,
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We think that the point of a conversation, the definition of success, is to convince the other person of something, right?
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Or to win the conversation, or to prove that I m right, or to feel smart, to look smart.
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And the real point of a conversation is simply to understand the other person.
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It s not to agree with each other.
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If you and I differ on gun control, or fortune, or something like that,
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We re not going to convince each other, but if I understand what you re saying and you feel listened to, and if you understand what I m saying and I feel listened to, then that conversation is a success.
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Wow.
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The same way that going into a club and trying to learn to salsa dance, the definition of success is not that the
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The best answer in that place says yes, right away.
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The definition of success is that you asked seven different people and six of them turned you down and you persisted, right?
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Or that like after writing a book and winning this prize, that my definition of success was doing work I m proud of every day, regardless of whether it s going to win a prize or anyone s going to read it, doing work that feels meaningful to me.
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When we, when we find the right definition of success, it s not hard to align how to achieve it.
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It s just that oftentimes we haven t thought more deeply enough about what success actually means for us.
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Right.
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If someone s in a, you mentioned kind of winning a conversation or trying to look right in a conversation, what s the best way super communicators can navigate or influence or resolve the conflict if it s just not going well?
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Maybe at a family,
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you know, holidays thing or a relationship or whatever it might be where it s just, oh, this is not going well.
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There is this power move.
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And before I describe it, let me just say.
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Not every situation has to be a conversation.
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It s fine if your uncle is spouting off about some crazy lizard people are going to take over the world.
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Just walk away.
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Yeah, or just be like, oh, that s interesting.
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And then just don t engage.
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You don t have to have a conversation with everyone.
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When I say to my kids, I want to talk about your room, I m not looking for a conversation.
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I m looking to tell them it s time to take your room.
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But let s say you do want to have a conversation.
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So what s the number one thing you can do if someone has said something to you, that s aggressive or crazy or offensive to you is to ask a deep question.
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And the easiest question, ask the deep question is tell me, like, I, you re clearly passionate about this.
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Like, why is this so important to you?
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Like, what is it about this that s so important to you?
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Why?
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And, and at that point, I m not judging, I m not offering any judgment.
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Right.
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And what that person is going to tell you is they re going to tell you not about that topic.
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They re going to tell you about who they are, their values, their beliefs, their experiences.
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That s exactly right.
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Like, like if, if you re saying something, you know, you like the Eagles and I hate the Eagles.
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Right.
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And I say to you, like, why are like, why are the Eagles so important to you?
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where you can tell me about it.
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It s like me and my dad used to go and it s so meaningful, this relationship and these moments.
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Yeah.
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And I know what it s like to have meaningful relationships with a dad, right?
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Like I had those moments, like that s something where we can connect.
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And the fact that I think that you re an idiot for liking the Eagles, which let me just say, I love the Eagles as an example, but like,
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suddenly we re not talking about this thing that s a source of conflict.
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We re talking about who we are.
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And the truth is you are an expert on who you are.
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Like I can t take, I can t even question your expertise on your values, your beliefs, your experiences.
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So once you, once I put you in a position where you can confidently talk about who you are, you re just much more relaxed and you re willing to listen to me.
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That s cool.
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What if you know the person s wrong?
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Like, you re like, Oh man, this person s just so emotionally irrational that they re not listening to me.
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And also my side, like, what if you just know, like, nah, they re wrong.
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Yeah.
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Maybe they re not, but you just feel, gosh, whatever they re saying, they re just belief is just not the right belief.
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So there s been, there s been a ton of research on this because of COVID.
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So, so when, um, when the COVID
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vaccine rolled out, there was a lot of people who were anti-vaccine.
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And the CDC basically said, we tried lecturing at them and that didn t work, clearly.
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So now we need to understand how to communicate with folks, not to try and necessarily force them to get the vaccine, but just to understand why they re saying no to us and to understanding if there s another way to presenting this information.
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And so they did a ton of research and ton of experiments.
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And what they found was that the most effective technique is something called motivational interviewing, where I asked you that why question.
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So if someone comes in and they say, I m opposed to, I m opposed to vaccines and I m a doctor.
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It d be really easy for me to say like, let me show you all the evidence about why vaccines are great.
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Right.
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Let me show you, but a better way it is to say,
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Tell me why, like, A, why you ve anti-vaccine, but B, tell me why this is important to you.
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Like, there s a lot of things you could have told me.
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The fact that you re telling me this means that it s meaningful to you.
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So they answer that question and then I hear something that they say that indicates a value of belief or an experience.
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They say, look, I m really worried about my kids.
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I ve heard rumors that this vaccine can hurt kids, you know, for, it d be fine for old people, but for my kids, I m really worried about it.
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Then you can say, again, you re an expert in you and I m an expert in me.
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You can say, I totally hear what you re saying.
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I, I have kids too.
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I am really worried about the safety of my kids.
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The thing that s hard for me is that.
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I see kids come in every day who are unvaccinated and they re sick and I can t help them.
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Right.
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And that s, that really like, it s just hard for me to see that.
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Now I m not telling you you re wrong.
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I m not telling you you re dumb.
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I m not telling you you don t know what you re talking about.
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I m telling you about my experience because we have something in common.
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We both care about our kids.
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Right.
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That s good.
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And what s amazing is I ve talked to dozens of doctors who have been taught how to do motivational interviewing.
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They say that again and again, what happens is that person starts the conversation by saying, I m against vaccines.
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I m never going to get vaccinated.
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They feel listened to.
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They feel like the doctors heard what they said, reaffirmed what they said, shared their own experiences.
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And at the end of it, they re like, you know, like I m willing to try it.
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Like I trust you.
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So I m willing to try the vaccine.
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And this technique of motivational interviewing, there s been a lot of experiments in politics around using this technique.
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And what they find is that around gay marriage was kind of the platform that was used to try and study this.
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The most effective way to get someone to support gay marriage who has said that they do not support gay marriage
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is to ask them what they think about marriage.
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Don t argue with them.
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Don t disagree.
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And then say, you know, I think marriage is really important too.
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And I have a friend, James, who s gay and he loves his boyfriend.
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And what do you think we should do to let them experience like to marriage is really important.
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You and I, like we both like, like tell, like, what do you think we should do?
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Help me understand where you re coming from.
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That actually is what changes people.
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That worked.
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It worked overwhelmingly.
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Wow.
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It worked.
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It actually, it was like a 6% change in the people who were polled, which in politics, you don t change 6% of minds on anything.
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Wow.
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And it was because they didn t argue.
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They just listened.
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They didn t say, you re wrong, you re right, or whatever it is.
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They just said, what s a better solution?
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How can we make this work?
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And we both believe in this thing.
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We both think that marriage is so important.
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And I love this guy, James.
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And maybe you know someone who s gay.
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And if they came to you and they said, I love this person, and I want to show my love for them.
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Like you just told me how important marriage is.
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Like how do we give that to them?
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Yeah.
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Then suddenly it s, it s, we re on the same side of the table.
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We re solving.
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You re agreeing with something.
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Yes.
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We re solving this question together.
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Interesting.
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Instead of at odds with each other.
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Right.
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They say in like marriage conflict or relationship conflict that it s never you versus the person.
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It s you both versus the problem.
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That s exactly right.
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and it s approaching it, okay, the problem is this, how can we solve the problem together?
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Not you did this thing, or I did this thing, or whatever.
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Here s the thing, let s find a solution.
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And when we re in conflict, particularly in a marriage, we have this instinct to try and control things, because we feel, conflict s scary, right?
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You want to control.
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And the easiest thing to do is try and control the other person.
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You re like, you re wrong, you should believe this.
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If you say that, I m going to leave the room.
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But what researchers have found is that the way that you say, like, we re going to focus on the problem is instead of trying to control each other, you try and control things together, like controlling when this argument takes place, like instead of doing it at two o clock in the morning.
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When you re both exhausted.
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Yeah.
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We re going to wait till 10 a.m.
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when we like have some time or trying to control the boundaries of the fight.
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Right.
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Like instead of
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Where are we going to spend new years?
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And your mother-in-law drives me crazy and we don t have enough money. 
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Like both of you sitting down and saying, okay, the thing we re going to talk about is where are we spending new years?
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Not about mothers, not about like money, like let s control the boundaries of this discussion together.
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Suddenly you re on the same side of the table and you might not agree with each other right away, but you feel like you are working together.
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Absolutely.
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That s powerful.
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This is inspiring stuff.
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I want people to get the book, Super Communicators, How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection.
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I truly believe that the power, the quality of our life is related to the quality of our relationships.
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And the quality of our relationships is directly related to what you re talking about in this book, which is how to communicate
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more eloquently, more intentionally, and with better ease with other people, and really understanding where people are coming from.
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So if you want to have a higher quality life, make sure you get this book and understand this process.
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And again, this is a powerful stuff, especially now when loneliness epidemic is at, it seems like, an all-time high in the US, and something that we really need to think about over the next decade of life.
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Are we going to get lonelier?
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Are we going to have less skills and tools for communication?
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What s that going to do to our health, our opportunities, our lack of abundance, our safety, all these different things?
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Learning to communicate is going to be the difference between having a miserable life with your friends and families, or being in conflict, or having a beautiful life.
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Based on your ability to learn these skills.
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So I m really grateful that you decided to make this your last few years of curiosity and dive into this.
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And I want to acknowledge you, Charles, for continuing to pursue wisdom
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when you don t have to.
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You ve made a ton of money.
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You ve won every award.
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You ve been on the top of every list.
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You ve sold almost 10 million copies of your books.
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You don t have to keep being curious and keep adding value to people.
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You ve done a lot.
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So I want to acknowledge you for taking your time to craft, create, and curate information that can help all of us.
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Oh, thank you.
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And by putting this out there, and I want people to get a copy of this book,
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How else can we support you right now?
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Where should we go to follow you or connect with you?
7
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Well, and let me just start by saying thank you.
7
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Thank you for having such an amazing conversation with me.
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Thank you for being so honest and vulnerable and real and authentic.
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If people do want to follow up, if they, luckily my last name is Duhigg.
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I m like the only Charles Duhigg on earth.
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If they Google me, they ll find my website and they ll find the books.
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most importantly on my website and actually in the end notes of the book is my email address.
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And every single person who emails me, every single reader who emails me, I read and reply to their email.
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No way.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It s over 28,000 so far.
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Holy cow.
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And, and the reason why is because like, you got to live what you preach, right?
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Like, like if someone takes the time to send me a note because they ve put time and energy into,
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You owe that a debt of honor, right?
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You must spend like four hours a day just replying to people.
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You let them build up.
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Then I spend a Saturday going through and reading them.
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I m Charles at CharlesDuhigg.com.
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If anyone wants to reach out, I ll definitely see your email.
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And I would love to hear people s stories about how they communicate, like what they ve found has helped them be a super communicator when it s cool, when they ve needed it.
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Awesome.
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I love it.
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So they can follow you, get the book, email you.
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SPEAKER_00
Um, you re not, you re on social media a little bit, but you re not on there like not as much, right?
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Yeah.
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Not as much as I should be.
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I see you re surfing, and I see you travel.
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We were both in Japan last year, I think.
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You were in Japan, right?
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Yeah, were you in Japan at the same time?
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I saw you with the arches.
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I didn t post my photos, but I saw your photos, and I was like, that s cool.
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Very cool.
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So people can do that.
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How else can we be of support and serve you?
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You know, honestly, the best thing that you can do is if you read the book or you ve heard an idea that you think is powerful, share that idea with someone else.
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I mean, we were talking before.
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If I can make one or two people a better communicator, it s relatively modest.
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But if all of us make one or two people a better communicator, that loneliness epidemic goes away.
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Absolutely.
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Right?
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If there s thousands of people saying, I m willing to have a tough conversation with you, I want to model for you how to do this.
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Like, I have a friend I haven t talked to in six months, and it seems awkward to give them a call, but I m just going to do it.
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Cause they might be feeling lowly right now.
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That is the, the truest gift that I think someone can give me and themselves in the world is just to reach out and to try and communicate.
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That s cool.
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That s cool.
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I asked you this the last time we had a conversation, but it was a while ago.
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This is a question I ask everyone at the end called the three truths.
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So a hypothetical scenario, you get to live as long as you want to live, but it s your last day on Earth.
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You ve created everything you want to create, personally, professionally, hobbies, you do it all, from this moment until that day.
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But you have to turn the lights off and go to the next place.
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And for whatever reason in this hypothetical question, you have to take all of your work with you.
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So no one has access to this book, any book, articles, interviews, it s all gone.
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Hypothetical.
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But you get to leave behind three lessons that you know to be true from your whole life s experience, everything you ve learned.
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What would be those three truths for you that you would leave behind?
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So I think the first one is like, is just pops into my mind immediately is the more you invest in your spouse and in your kids or whatever your relationship is, that s the closest relationships you have.
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Every single ounce of that investment.
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will be worth it and it will be returned to you in like 10 X. And there are so many times, particularly when we re chasing success, that we don t invest in the people around us.
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And whatever that prize is that you get, whatever those, that money is that you get, it s, it s nice.
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It s freeing, but it s not as nice as like a wife who loves you or kids who enjoy spending time with you or a husband who like thinks the world of you or just having like
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a great friend you can call anytime.
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That s a beautiful one.
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So that s number one.
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Number two is... I don t think I ve ever heard that one.
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Oh, really?
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I don t think I can remember hearing investing in people like that and how it will return in your investments.
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So that s really cool.
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And the second one, I think, is it is always worth betting on yourself.
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Like, you know, when I went to business school,
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I graduated with my MBA and I decided to become a journalist and I was the lowest paid member of my class for the next four years.
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I went to Harvard Business School, everyone wanted to go make a ton of money.
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I was making I think $40,000 my first year after, and I had like 90 grand in student loans.
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And, but the thing is, I was like, look, I, I m going to bet on myself.
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Like, I think I can figure out how to make, how to make a career in this.
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And everyone I know who succeeded, they ve succeeded because they bet on themselves, not because they bet on the safe course, not because they bet on what the wisdom of the masses, it s because they bet on themselves.
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So bet on yourself.
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And then the third one is that as soon as you get something, you don t really enjoy it until you start giving it away.
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Right?
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Like, like I found, I was lucky enough to make some money from the power of habit and I have tried to give to charity and I ve tried to, to support my friends and, and I have never felt as rich in my life as when I give a check to someone who needs it.
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Like otherwise, like having a lot of money is great because it frees you up, but it can also be a little stressful, right?
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You re like managing all these things.
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You re not spending too much taxes, X, Y, and Z. It s a good problem to have, but it s a problem.
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But then we started this scholarship for new writers who work at bookstores.
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And like when I sent over the check, I was like, man, this is like the richest I ve ever felt in my entire life.
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So I, and I think that s true, not just of money.
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It s true of like influence and, and kindness.
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Right.
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Like, like as soon as you find something, it s when you give it away that you re like, Oh, this is something I actually have.
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Wow.
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That s cool.
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Those are great lessons, man.
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I love that.
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Um, so wait, what are yours?
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Can I add, like, what are, do they change?
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They ve definitely evolved over time, but I would say my three truths in this moment would be.
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to live in gratitude and to really have a perspective of life and look at the beauty and the gratitude of the things that are happening as opposed to the negative sides of things.
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Living in gratitude always makes me feel better.
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It always puts me in a state of appreciation.
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And when you appreciate something, it tends to appreciate in value, even emotionally.
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So living in gratitude would be number one.
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Number two would be,
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to make your health a high focus daily, physical, emotional, spiritual health.
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When you re sick, all you care about is being healthy.
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And it s like, there s no other problem that matters in the world when you re sick, except for that thing.
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When you re healthy, you can have lots of problems, but it s like when you re sick, you ve got one problem, getting healthy again.
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So stay healthy, because I think that ll enrich your view of life, your relationships, everything.
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You ll be able to move with more ease in the world and have more energy.
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And the third would be to live in service.
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You know, this is really living in service in relationships.
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Being a great listener, a great communicator, I think is a service.
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I remember when I was starting after football and starting to meet with these kind of mentors, I didn t know what value I could add to people.
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I didn t have skills, I didn t have money, I didn t have talent.
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I was just like, ah, they re meeting me, but what can I do for them?
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And I started to realize that asking them the right questions where they could reflect and remember stories and share was a great service to them.
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It opened them up.
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It got them excited.
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It s like they felt like they were empowering me by teaching.
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I was adding a service to that and therefore developing in deeper relationships.
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And so living in service to the people around you is how I d say is my third truth.
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Those are really beautiful.
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Gratitude, health, and service.
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I m going to totally steal them.
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I like yours, though.
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I like yours.
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Final question for you, Charles.
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What s your definition of greatness?
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Honestly, my definition of greatness is that when that day comes when we die,
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that people show up and they say, you know what?
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I just really liked knowing this people, this person.
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My dad died about six years ago and, and I, we went to the funeral and all these people showed up.
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So many people.
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And they just said like, I liked, like your dad brought some joy into my life.
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It s cool.
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And, and he did lots of other stuff, right?
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He, but like,
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I don t know what could be greater than when you re no longer there for people to say, I m so glad I knew that person.
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Wow, that s cool.
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That is greatness.
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Charles, thanks man.
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Appreciate it.
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Thank you.
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I hope you enjoyed today s episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness.
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Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today s episode
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with all the important links.
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If you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple podcasts.
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Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple podcasts as well.
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Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review.
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I really love hearing feedback from you.
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And it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward.
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And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
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And now it s time to go out there and do something great.