Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - How to Make New Habits Stick, Why You Can’t Break Old Habits and The Secret to Great Communication with Charles Duhigg #436

Episode Date: March 20, 2024

My philosophy as a doctor has always been connect first, educate second. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And this goes for all relationships, not just doctor-patient. Good communication is something we’d all like to master. And today’s guest, Charles Duhigg, author of Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection, is here to help us do it. A graduate of Harvard Business School and Yale College, Charles has won a prestigious Pulitzer Prize for his investigative reporting and he is also the author of international bestselling book, The Power of Habit, which has sold over 10 million copies to date. We start off our conversation, talking about habits, and why it is that so many of us struggle to make our new desired behaviours stick. The brain wants rewards and it needs cues. The trouble is we tend to let both of those things go, once we think a behaviour is becoming routine. But Charles shares that that’s exactly when we need to double down and take steps to make our new behaviours feel more enjoyable. We also discuss the science of small wins, momentum and the importance of keystone habits.   We then move on to talking about the importance of good communication. Good communication is inherently rewarding. It’s how humans connect, form families, villages, and share information. Charles believes all of us are capable of being supercommunicators and having more meaningful conversations. And during this episode, he explains some of the skills involved, such as mirroring others and asking deeper questions – those that probe feelings not facts. Finally, we talk about how fear of saying the wrong thing can often stop us from being vulnerable and connecting, why supercommunicators ask 10 to 20 times more questions than the average person and how they often shine in group situations, not by being the ‘ideas person’, but by giving the right people a spotlight. This was a truly wonderful conversation - full of practical insights to help you build better habits and become a better communicator in all aspects of your life. Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Find out more about my NEW Journal here https://drchatterjee.com/journal Thanks to our sponsors: https://vivobarefoot.com/livemore https://drinkag1.com/livemore Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/436 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

One of the things that we've learned is that every habit has three components. There's a cue, which is like a trigger for this automatic behavior, and then the behavior itself, and then a reward. Every habit that exists in our life has a reward, whether we're aware of it or not. You cannot extinguish a habit. The neural pathways associated with that habit still exist in your brain. What you need to do is focus on changing the habit

by finding a new behavior that corresponds to the old cues and delivers something similar to the old reward. Hey guys, how you doing? Hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Live More. My philosophy as a doctor has always been, connect first, educate second. People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care. And this goes for all relationships, not just the doctor-patient one. Now, good communication is something we'd all like to master. And today's guest, Charles Duhigg, author of the brand new book, Super Communicators, How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection, is here to help us do it.

He's a graduate of Harvard Business School and Yale College, and he's also won a prestigious Pulitzer Prize for his investigative reporting. And he's also the author of The International Sensation, The Power of Habit, which has sold over 10 million copies to date. Now we start off our conversation talking about habits and why it is that so many of us struggle to make our new desired behavior stick. The brain wants rewards and it needs cues. The trouble is we tend to let both of those things go once we think a behavior is becoming routine. But Charles shares that that's exactly when we need to double down and take steps to make our new behaviors feel more enjoyable. We also discuss the science of small wins, momentum, and the importance of keystone habits. And we then move on to talk about the importance of good communication. Now, good communication is inherently rewarding. It's how humans connect,

form families, villages, and share information. And Charles believes that all of us are capable of being super communicators and having more meaningful conversations. And during this episode, he explains some of the skills involved, such as mirroring others and asking deeper questions, questions that probe feelings and not facts. We also talk about how fear of saying the wrong thing can often stop us from being vulnerable and connecting, why super communicators ask 10 to 20 times more questions than the average person,

and how they also often shine in group situations, not by being the ideas person, but by giving some of the quieter people a spotlight. This really was a wonderful conversation, full of practical insights to help you build better habits and become a better communicator in all aspects of your life. better communicator in all aspects of your life. I thought, Charles, that we would start talking about habits. Yeah. A lot of people want to improve their health.

And often, I'm trying to recommend new behaviors. Yeah. Right? Which hopefully they can turn into long-term habits. But what I often find is despite people's best intentions, they really, really want it. But despite that strong intention, often they can't make those new behaviors stick in the long term.

In your view, why is that? I think it's usually because they're so focused on the behavior that they're not thinking about the cues and the rewards that have to change over time as their relationship to that behavior becomes deeper. So, and for anyone, you know this, but for anyone who's listening who hasn't been exposed to some of these ideas, one of the things that we've learned is that every habit has three components. There's a cue, which is like a trigger for this automatic behavior, and then the behavior itself, and then a reward. Every habit that exists in our life has a reward, whether we're aware of it or not. And I think what happens is that oftentimes, when we start a new behavior,

we focus on the cue and the reward, right? We say, oh, I'm going to meet my friend Steve at the gym every Wednesday night. That's the cue, a certain time of day and in a certain place. And when I'm done, I'm going to like let myself have a beer with Steve, or I'm going to give myself a piece of chocolate or take a nice long shower. And then over time, as the behavior becomes more regular, we stop thinking about those cues and those rewards. And the reward stops being rewarding, right? We get to the place where we're like, I can't have a beer every single time I work out, right?

But instead, we don't supplement it with anything else. Or we get so accustomed to running that we go in the morning for a jog. And instead of letting ourselves relax afterwards, now we're late for work. And so we're rushing to get to work and we're rushing to take the kids to school and we're stressed. We're actually punishing ourself for that behavior. And so I think what happens is that when we first start a behavior, it's so novel that the novelty of it is a reward in and of itself. And we feel so good about doing that behavior that we give ourselves something we can enjoy. The reward becomes even more rewarding because we're giving it to ourself. And then

over time, it's almost like a form of stoicism. We think that we shouldn't have to reward the behavior anymore. And so we stop paying attention to the cues and the rewards. And once they're gone from your environment, the habit just crumbles. This whole idea around reward is really interesting. What we're all trying to do, and of course, New Year is the classic time when many people try and do this,

is bring in the new behavior, the desired behavior the behavior that we believe is what we need in that moment to improve the quality of our life whatever that might mean to the individual and we want to turn it into a long-term habit that You're saying there's this habit loop there, there are these three components. But at some point, a new behavior that we're trying to introduce becomes an automatic habit that we're not even thinking about. So presumably when you're not thinking about a reward, could we make the case that that's because it's become automatic? Or are you saying that because we're not thinking about the reward or we're not actually doing something to give us that reward, that's why the behavior falls by the wayside? That's exactly right.

I think it's the second thing. So take on, there's been these interesting studies looking at, so 40 to 45% of what we do every day is a habit. We're not aware of that, right? We think of it as a decision, but it's actually just a habit. And think about the habits like backing your car out of the driveway. So the first couple of times you do that, the first week or two that you're living in your new house, you have to really concentrate on it, right? You're looking in the mirror. And then at some point it becomes much more automatic. You can do it almost on autopilot. And what's interesting though, is that in neurological studies, what we find is that when someone, even once it's on autopilot, once they back the car into the driveway,

we see a small reward sensation in their brain. We see actually oftentimes a release of some dopamina agent or serotonin agent that is causing some type of reward. Now, you don't feel a reward sensation when you back your car out of your driveway. You're not aware of this, but your brain is designed to pay attention to those reward sensations. And when it comes to bigger behaviors like exercise or eating more healthily, or eating more healthily, sometimes those intrinsic rewards emerge on their own. You learn that you feel really good after going for a run, right?

Again, you have that sort of brain chemistry release. But sometimes you don't. And sometimes that reward process does not take hold. And in those situations, you have to give yourself a reward. You have to jumpstart the reward system. And that means that initially I need to give myself a small piece of chocolate whenever I go and exercise. And eventually I'll learn that exercise makes me feel good. And that's enough of a reward in itself. But at some point,

that reward may become less rewarding. And if I'm not aware of that, and I don't supplement it with a new kind of reward, then that's when the habit crumbles, is because my brain is no longer getting a reward for this behavior. And so it just allows itself to discard it. Let's say, for example, someone wants to take up, I don't know, journaling, for example, okay? Maybe they've heard me say on a podcast how beneficial I think journaling is, or they've read it somewhere else, and they think, okay, I want to bring in a practice of journaling into my life, perhaps first thing in the morning.

What would you say to that person as you think about that habit loop? Absolutely. Okay, so let's start with the cue. So almost all cues fall into one of five categories. It's usually a certain time of day, a certain place, certain other people, a certain emotion, or a preceding behavior that's become ritualized. Okay. So for journaling, let's say, let's say, do you journal? I do journal. Okay. So let me ask you, do you journal at the same time every day? Do you journal at the same place? Like what's the, what's the consistency? Yeah. Same time, same place. Okay. So, and you can have more than one cue, right? And that, that cue. So just choosing that,

just saying, I'm going to journal from, you know, every morning, 10 minutes after I wake up, I'm going to get my cup of coffee. I'm going to go sit down in this one chair. I'm going to journal for 20 minutes. So that's the cue. Now, the behavior we understand is journaling. Now we have to choose a reward to give ourself. And when you first started journaling, what was the reward? What is the thing that you looked forward to? Yeah, what's interesting here, Charles, is that I have a morning routine which has evolved over the years. So I've been putting into practice things in my life to make this morning routine happen for over five years now, maybe even longer, right? So it started off as a five or ten minute routine and it's now sometimes 30 or 40 minutes

yeah okay so it's hard for me now to unwind right towards the back of that but let me try and simplify for you i have these three m's of a morning routine that i often talk to people about mindfulness movement and mindset now i do it at the same time every day and I do it in the same place every day, which for me is very, very important. Yeah. So consistent cues, consistent pattern. 100%. So currently how that looks is that I wake up, I live in a house, so I wake up upstairs in my pajamas. I go downstairs and I sit in my living room and I meditate for 10 minutes. That's my mindfulness practice. I then walk out of my living room into my kitchen where we've just been sitting and I very mindfully prepare my coffee. I weigh it out. I put it in the French press. I pour the boiling water in and I put a timer on for five minutes. In those five minutes,

And I put a timer on for five minutes. In those five minutes, I do a five-minute strength workout in my kitchen. And then at the end of this, I get the reward of a gorgeous cup of coffee exactly the way I want to make it. And I do my journaling at my kitchen counter while sipping my coffee. So it's interesting as I explain that to you, it's not so much, although I'm sure there are some mini rewards around journaling, but you could also take it on a much more macro level and go halfway or two thirds of the way through my morning routine. the reward is this hot cup of coffee that I enjoy with my practice of journaling. Yeah. And that makes a ton of sense. And my guess is, how do you feel after

journaling? Do you feel differently after than before? I feel completely differently. I feel, and we'll talk about this when we talk about your new book, Super Communicators, about the importance of conversation. I feel that journaling is a way of having a conversation with ourselves. So I feel, because I ask myself some key questions each morning, and by answering those questions, I feel I've reflected on my life and my day. And I feel differently. I feel much more intentional and purposeful at the end of my journaling practice. So what I hear you saying, and tell me if you think this is wrong, I hear you describing a situation where you're very deliberate about your cues and you're actually giving yourself very

deliberate rewards. And more importantly, you're recognizing them as rewards. Because a funny thing about our brains are when we decide a reward is rewarding, it actually becomes more rewarding. And so setting up the coffee. So you do the strength workout and at the end of it, you get your coffee, right? A little bit of a reward and you get it exactly right. Like you spent five minutes exactly doing your – and so you give yourself the coffee and then you start journaling and you get to enjoy the coffee as you're journaling. And you know that when you're done journaling, you're going to feel better. And actually knowing that you're going to feel better, knowing that you're giving yourself

permission to have this reward actually means you're going to feel better, right? It makes it more likely. It's really interesting, Charles. I haven't really thought about my practice, my morning practice through this lens, but I also now, and this may sound over the top to some people, but when I'm traveling or if I'm in London for work, I'm staying in a hotel, I take my French press and my coffee with me. Do you really? I really do because I'll tell you what happens. And I will wake up in my hotel room and I'm not perfect when I'm in a different location, for sure. Sometimes things fall by the wayside. But one thing I'll do in my hotel room, which usually has a kettle, is I'll boil the water. And because I drink black coffee, I can just put the coffee

in there. I can put the timer on, do a little workout in my hotel room and then do my practice of journaling. So it's a way I have found to bring this routine, bring this practice that I know makes me a better human being in every aspect of my life. It helps me take it with me when I'm on the road. I love that. And there's this word ritual that we tend to think of as being something religious or something. But actually rituals are basically sort of habits that we choose and that we define ourselves through. And what I'm hearing is that when you are traveling, you bring a ritual with you that allows you to remain centered and tied in a way that feels, and that feels wonderful. When we do a ritual, we feel good. Yeah. Even if the ritual itself doesn't provide a reward, the ritualization makes us feel comfort. It makes us feel a sense of accomplishment. It makes us feel something

positive. It becomes a reward in and of itself. And when you bring that fresh prince with you, which of course you don't have to do, right? You could certainly order coffee from the room service. Yeah. But in bringing it with you, you're creating, you're keeping the cues and the rewards consistent for yourself, which means you can fall into that pattern immediately. It's grounding for me. It gives me a sense of control. And I realized when I don't do it,

I just don't feel quite as grounded. Exactly. Okay. Now I want to be dead clear. It doesn't mean that other people have to do this. To me, it works for someone else. They may go, well, I'm in a different city. I like to go for a walk and go to a local coffee shop

or whatever it might be. And I totally get that. I've just learned for me, it works really well. But Charles, okay, let's just imagine that I have that routine. And, you know, I think you're widely regarded as someone who's written one of the best books on habits, maybe of all time. Okay.

The Power of Habit. Let's say someone like me, for example, has this established routine. And let's say I said, okay, you know what? I want to try a couple of months without coffee. Right. But coffee is actually a crux. It's almost like a foundation that this routine hangs off. So knowing what you know about habit loops, how might I maintain that routine, not have caffeine or coffee, but still keep it going?

It's a great question. And there's this basic principle in, we think of it as breaking a habit. This is, there's this phrase, right? I want to break this habit. And that's the wrong way to think about it because breaking a habit, you cannot extinguish a habit. The neural pathways associated with that habit still exist in your brain.

What you need to do is focus on changing the habit by finding a new behavior that corresponds to the old cues and deliver something similar to the old reward. So let me ask you this. Let's take apart the coffee as a reward. What is it about the coffee that you enjoy so much? I like the fact that it's hot. I've always found hot drinks comforting. So when, let's say, I'm on a book deadline, as I am at the moment, right, trying to finish my next book, I notice that my emotional crutch is coffee. So my coffee intake starts to go up and I convince myself, yeah, I need to stay focused because, you know, I've got

to get the book in. That's a story I'm telling myself because I know it's not helping me right right so what I'll do then is I will just have hot water okay or I really like chopped ginger and hot water that's one of my favorite drinks so in terms of answering your question

I like the fact that it's a hot drink yeah there's probably a little bit of a buzz from coffee because it you know it's a psychoactive stimulant so it gives us it gives me that little buzz. I don't know what else, you know, I guess I- Do you like the taste?

Yeah, I do. I do like the taste. Do you? I love the taste. Yeah. Yeah. I think people who love coffee, they love the taste of coffee. Yeah. So I hear, I hear three rewards that coffee is delivering to you. Taste, a hot drink, a hot beverage, and a little bit of a buzz. And so if we want to find a new drink for you to consume that

is healthier than coffee, and coffee is pretty healthy, so I don't know that you need to do this, but let's use it. This is more, I'm using it as a theoretical thought experiment. So what I would say is you need to do some experiments. Okay, so the hot beverage, we know that we can replicate the hot beverage, right? We know that ginger and hot water. So I would say two mornings in a row when you normally make your coffee, make hot water and ginger.

And then afterwards, 20 minutes after you've drank that, ask yourself, am I craving coffee right now? Like, has this satisfied the reward that I'm seeking? Or does the hot water and ginger do the trick? Now it might this satisfied the reward that I'm seeking or, or does the hot water and ginger do the trick? Now it might not do the trick, right? Cause there's these two other things that coffee's providing. If, if taste is one of the huge rewards, if that's really driving you, then hot water and ginger might not be enough. You might need to do a hot water and ginger and some citrus, something that makes it taste or perhaps some bitters, right? Something that gives it a coffee-like sense.

And you can definitely, and again, you experiment with that. A couple of days, you put bitters in your hot water and ginger to see if that satisfies your taste sensation, that taste craving that you have. Now, the caffeine is the harder one, right? Because you're trying to move away from caffeine, I assume is why in this theoretical... You know, a couple of years ago, I think I had a few weeks off. Yeah. And it was

great. You know, I went through the withdrawal. Right. And then I felt just fantastic. So I think, you know, it's definitely something I've been thinking about recently. And I know how I might try and do it, but I'm very interested with all your expertise and what that looks like through the lens of the habit loop. So here's the test that I would do. And again, you're trying to figure out which of these rewards is the one that's really most powerful, right? Is it because it's a hot beverage? Is it because of the taste? Is it because of the caffeine? So what I would do to test the caffeine theory is I would start cutting your coffee with decaf and try and figure out. And then, you know, because it's going to take a couple days, right, to detox. It's going to take a couple days to get to a fully decaf cup.

But then spend two or three days having a decaf cup of coffee and see if you still have this craving. Yeah. The goal here is to kind of look at ourselves as like a laboratory where we are scientists and we're conducting experiments. And the thing about an experiment, my wife is a scientist and you're a scientist. If every experiment my wife did succeeded,

she would be the worst scientist on earth, right? The whole point of doing experiments is that some of them fail and we learn from that. And so when you're testing the hot water with bitters and the hot water with ginger and the decaf, as you're doing these experiments, if you're paying attention to the results, if some of them don't work, that doesn't mean that you made a mistake. That doesn't mean that you're a failure. It means you're learning what the reward is that can change the behavior. Yeah. I love that because one of the big problems I've seen with patients is that when they try something and it fails, they think that they've failed. Yeah. So the, you know, the guilt, the shame, the negative self-talk all starts to kick in.

And I think what you just said is so, so powerful. Let's have experiments. Do the experiments. You're the test subject. See what works. See what doesn't work. Really, really powerful. And it's funny because I met your son, who is delightful, like a wonderful 13-year-old.

And I have a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old at home. And with our kids, we tell them to experiment, right? We tell them like, oh, go try basketball. See if you like it. Try football. See if it's, you know, try the debate club. And we don't pose it as, oh, if you don't like this sport or if you don't like this activity, you're a failure. It's exactly the opposite.

And yet when it comes to ourself, we sometimes have this self-punishment instinct. And the more we rid ourselves of it, the more we unlock our capacity for change. One thing many people who are trying to improve their health are working on all the time these days is reducing their sugar intake. And, you know, I've been, well, it's been over two decades now since I qualified and started practicing. So I've seen a lot of patients in my time. One thing that became clear to me a few years ago is that it's not just knowledge that people need, it's self-awareness. Yeah. It's insight. And this little exercise I created

to help some of my patients who were, despite their best intentions, ending up on the sofa at 9.30 in the evening, stuck in a tub of ice cream, right? Even though they've managed to stick to what they wanted to in the day, even though they were trying really, really hard, they were pre-diabetic, they knew the knowledge that actually this is not helping me, but they were still doing it. So I create this little exercise and I wonder how you would assess it through the lens of the habit loop, right? It was called the three Fs,

basically, the freedom exercise. And I would say, okay, next time you're on a sofa and you feel the urge to have ice cream, just take a pause and ask yourself what you're really feeling. Is it physical hunger or emotional hunger? Yeah. Okay. Then if you want to have it, go ahead and have it. But you start to build in that awareness. Oh, actually, you know, I'm a bit stressed or I've just had a row with my partner, whatever it might be. Okay. Next time, then you do the first step, then you do the second step, which is okay. Now that you know the feeling, how does food feed that feeling? Oh, okay. So I'm feeling stress. I've had a row with my partner. When I have the ice cream, I feel less stressed at least for a few seconds, for a few minutes.

Yeah. And then the third F is, okay, now that you know what the feeling is, now that you know how food feeds the feeling, the third F is find. Can you now find an alternative behavior to feed that same feeling? Oh, I'm totally going to steal this. This is so good. Oh, you like it? Okay, good. So it was kind of like you're feeling stressed. So maybe instead of going to sugar, you know, maybe you can do 10 minutes of yoga. Yeah. Or maybe you run yourself a bath.

Yeah. Or maybe you're feeling lonely and And instead of going to sugar, maybe you phone your mom or you phone your best friend. So I don't know, maybe you could unpack that with me through the lens of your work. Absolutely. And what I love about that is, another way I think of saying this,

and tell me if you think this is wrong, is so what we know is that if we just give people knowledge, all of us know that we should eat more healthy and exercise more, right? Just knowledge does not actually solve the problem. And when I write my books, what I do is I take these ideas and I always try and embed them in stories. Because the thing is, if you tell someone an idea absent everything else, either they'll forget it or they won't see how they application, but if you tell someone an idea embedded in a story, then we remember that story. Our brain latches onto that story. It's the thing that we carry in our pocket and it reminds us of the idea when we need to be reminded. And what I hear you saying is you're telling your patients to create a story for themselves.

Like here's the three Fs. This is a story. It's not that I am just sitting on a couch. I'm actually someone who's feeling something, right? And that feeling is prompting me to look to food. That's sort of the middle of the story. And the ending of the story is that I can find something else to do. I can find this alternative. And it's not a sophisticated story.

It's not like Cinderella, but it's enough of a story that when I'm sitting on that couch, I can say, oh, the three Fs. I remember I'm supposed to do the three Fs. It's empowering. Yes. But it also makes you think,

the first one of the habit loop is the Q. Right. It's so important to know that Q because otherwise you're thinking you're a failure. I can't stick to anything, but you're not recognizing what the cue is. That's exactly right. And in this case, I think that cue is, I feel bad, right? I feel I just had a fight with my wife or my husband, or it's been a long day and I wasn't as successful as I want. So that you're helping people realize that their cue for many, many health-related behaviors

is an emotional cue. Yeah, I really think it is. And people say, okay, well, now that I'm aware, what do I do? And I often say, hey, wait a minute. Do not underestimate the power of awareness. Simply being aware that you go to sugar when you're feeling stressed, that will start to change things. Even if you consciously do nothing else, you will change your relationship to that behavior. Absolutely. Just by knowing that.

Absolutely. Because you don't recognize the link previous, right? Yeah. And that's the thing about habits is that when we're in the grip of a habit, our brain actually powers down, right? This is why habits exist is because every animal on earth has a part of the brain known as the basal ganglia that exists essentially to make habits. And it's because if you don't have habits, you have to decide every time you pass an apple or a rock, which one you ought to eat, right? You have to think about how you walk. So our brain developed this system where when we're in the grip of a habit, we can make a

behavior automatic without having to think about it the entire time, which means we can think about other things. We can dream up how to build fire or forts or video games. But when our brain turns off in the grip of a habit, we tend to stop paying attention to the cues and the rewards, right? We don't notice, oh, I want ice cream right now because I'm stressed. We don't some part of us knows but it's very easy to ignore that voice. And when you pull it into the forefront of your brain when you make yourself start thinking about it again and someone

says oh my cue is stress. I usually turn to sugar and by the way the second and the third F are teaching me that sugar actually does not solve this problem for me. It's a crutch, but there's another behavior that would be healthier

and provide the same reward. Then all of a sudden change becomes so much easier. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that change is easy. No. But it means change is easier. You can't extinguish a bad habit because those neural pathways stay in play. That's really, really interesting. Yeah. Let's use sugar or chocolate. Let's stay on those

because I think they're so common, particularly in my world. Yeah. You feel a bit low, you get your favorite chocolate bar, you get a big reward, don't you? You feel high, you feel a bit low, you get your favorite chocolate bar, you get a big reward, don't you? You feel high, you feel good, you've self-soothed, right? So that's the reward. It's quite tricky to change that though, isn't it? Because once you've locked that in, it's quite hard to change it. to change it. Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to AG1, one of the sponsors of today's show. Now, if you're looking for something at this time of year to kickstart your health, I'd highly recommend that you consider AG1. AG1 has been in my own life for over five years now. It's a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health.

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experiments, we figure out what I'm actually craving. What's the reward that my brain wants? And once we know that it's self-soothing as opposed to the taste of chocolate or the buzz that chocolate gives me, then at that point, it's a question of what else also delivers self-soothing. So you, I mentioned some before, calling a friend. Calling a friend oftentimes is one of the greatest sources of self-soothing. And so it's worth at that moment saying, instead of picking up the chocolate bar, I'm going to self-soothe because I know that I'm craving that right now by calling a friend. Now, it might be for someone else that actually the taste of the chocolate is what they really, really enjoy. In which case, we should experiment and they should have a piece of apple, right?

That's also sweet to see in a healthier, to see if that satisfies the craving that they're feeling. There's actually some experiments done where they gave people Splenda and they told them just to rub it on their tongue. And they found that people who crave taste sensations, sugary taste sensations, this will basically satisfy that craving. And so the thing is to figure out what is actually driving the behavior. For me, when I was writing Power of Habit, I had this bad habit where every afternoon I'd go eat a cookie in the cafeteria of the New York Times where I worked at the time. And I couldn't figure out why. And I talked to these researchers and they said, well, let's look for the cue, right? Like, tell me about when this happens.

And I was like, oh, it's usually between 3.15 and 3.45. And they were like, sounds like a time of day is probably your cue. And then we know the behavior. You go up to the 14th floor, you buy a cookie, you eat the cookie. And what happens then? And I said, well, usually I'll like go over and like I'll, you know, I see some friends and I'll sit down and I'll kind of gossip with them for a little bit and I'll eat the cookie.

And they said, okay, the reward might be the cookie. It might be sugar. It might be the just taking a break from work, but it might also be those friends. So next time you do this at 345, whenever you feel the urge, stand up, look for someone to go gossip with it without going up to the cafeteria, go gossip with them for 15 minutes and then come back to your desk and see if you're still craving that cookie. And the answer was no. The reward for me was this social experience. The cookie was an excuse. Yeah. I love that. I love that example so much because I honestly believe, I'm not saying this is easy, but I think we're making these things often a lot harder than they

need to be. We always think it's the chocolate. Well, what if it isn't? What if it's something else you're getting? As you say, the social connection, what if it's the act of going to a cafe, interacting with the person and saying hi? Maybe there's someone you like in the cafe who actually, you know what? Yeah. You tell yourself a story, you're going there for the crisps or the chocolate, but maybe it's just because you're a bit bored at your desk and you like the social interaction. Or maybe it's just, you need a break from work, right? The 345 comes along and you're feeling a little bit low. So like maybe taking a walk around the block does the same thing. And again, this is why experiments are so important is because if you come up with a list of potential rewards that are

alternatives and you experiment with them, you're gonna figure out what's actually driving your behavior. Now, so this is for changing behaviors. The other question often is how do we create a new habit? And in that case, it's very similar, but a little bit different in that we need to choose a cue, right?

So for me, it was running. I was never athletic before I started writing The Power of Habit and I really wanted to get in better shape. And so my goal was I was going to run a half marathon. Okay. So I needed to choose a cue. So what I would do is I'd put my running shoes next to my bed.

So I saw them as soon as I woke up. And that became a cue for me. And I would run before work. So that's a visual cue. I was using a visual cue. Also time of day. Also, I would lay out my clothes. So it was very easy to cue also time of day. Also I would lay out my clothes.

So it was very easy to get into my running clothes. Okay. And you can, it's good to have more than one cue. One of them's really gonna be the powerful one, but you don't know ahead of time what it might be. Oh, so you're, I like that. So you're peppering in a few cues to see one of these is gonna stick.

One of these is gonna stick. One of these is gonna stick. And it turns out it was the shoes. Like when I'm traveling, if I put my if I put my running shoes next to my bed, that gets me going. And then I needed to choose a reward for myself. So instead, I didn't run every day. Instead, I only ran on days when my wife was going to bring the kids to school that day

so that I knew that when I got home from the run, I could take a nice long shower. I could have a nice smoothie with breakfast. So did you intentionally think about the shower and smoothie as rewards? Absolutely. run, I could take a nice long shower. I could have a nice smoothie with breakfast. So did you intentionally think about the shower and smoothie as rewards? So it wasn't just, oh, I'm sweaty after the run. I need to shower. It's like, I'm going to be sweaty and I'm going to really enjoy that shower. That's, I'm going to take, I'm going to give myself an extra three minutes. Like normally I'd rush through the shower. I'm going to let myself enjoy the shower.

And this really makes a difference, doesn't it? Makes a huge difference. Because if we decide something is rewarding, it becomes more rewarding. It's like when we, you can think of stress a little bit like this, can't you? You know, it's how we perceive things that often determine whether they're stressful or not. If we perceive it as stressful, it is. If we don't, a lot of the time it ain't. No, that's exactly. And if you think about it, like you and I and our children, they did not, they were not born thinking that getting an Aeon report card

is something they should feel good about, right? They only feel good about it because we've told them, you should feel really good about this. We constantly tell ourselves what we should find rewarding. And when we grab a hold of that and we take the power for ourself.

Now, here's the one other thing with starting a new habit. So the first day that I woke up, I saw my shoes next to my bed, never run before. I put on my clothes, I walked outside and I walked for one block and I came back and then I took the nice long shower. And then the next day I walked like two blocks.

And after a while, you get to this point where you're like, okay, I'm walking a couple blocks. I might as well like jog a couple of blocks and I might as well run, you know, like half a mile. There's this thing known as the science of small wins. And oftentimes the way that we change is nonlinear, right? We find something that's unexpected that makes it easier for us to change. We find a reward that we didn't anticipate. It's these little experiments. And when we see change as a series of shifts, and it's okay for those shifts to be small, then what we're doing is we're freeing ourself to learn from ourself, to learn from our patterns. And so that's how I ended up running a half marathon. And then a

marathon was literally just by taking it as these small little incremental improvements. Well, first of all, congratulations. Thank you. Wonderful achievements. Um, I love this idea about small wins. Yeah. It's, it's really interesting. Um, it's really interesting um i have found through years of clinical practice that the best way to help a patient turn a new behavior into a lonesome habit is to start small i've just seen it through trial and error i thought when they make it really big it kind of happens for two or three weeks and then it falls off whereas when i start small and and once i honestly made a trade with a patient i say a trade an agreement that she would meditate

for one minute a day huh and that one minute became five it became 10 it became 15 over a course of four to six weeks because initially she was like i don't have time i said okay do you have 10 minutes no so do you have five minutes well no, no. Do you have one minute? Yeah, I've got one minute. I said, all right, okay, let's start there. And it was only when I met Professor BJ Fogg in about 2017, 2018, I was in America, got together with BJ and he shared with me some of the science on small wins. And we had this awesome aha moment where we both figured out that he'd come to that conclusion from the clinical research.

I came to that conclusion from real life clinical practice and trying to figure out what works. But these small changes, when done consistently, they help to build momentum. That's exactly right. And so I wonder, when done consistently, they help to build momentum. That's exactly right. And so I wonder, from your perspective, what is momentum? Is there any science behind momentum? Because it feels to be this really powerful, energetic force that if we can harness it,

it kind of moves us in the right direction. And here's how I think about it. I think of it as we are convincing ourself to believe in another version of ourself. So there's this idea known as keystone habits, that some habits are more powerful than others because when we build a new habit, it triggers a bunch of other changes in our life. For some people, exercise is a great example, right? And probably everyone who's listening has had this experience. You exercise in the morning and for some reason you also eat healthier that day, right? Like it's easier to like eat a salad rather than the hamburger when you walk into the cafeteria.

We also know that when you exercise, other things happen. You procrastinate less. You tend to use your credit cards less often on the day that you exercise. Wow. We're not aware of that. But I think what's happening is that for many people, exercise is a keystone habit. It changes other patterns like eating patterns and spending patterns. Because even if I think of myself as someone who's disciplined, there's a part of my brain that isn't listening to what I tell myself until I prove it to myself. And so I might know that meditation is great. I might say like, of course, I've read all the studies. Meditation is so good.

I should definitely do that. But until I prove to myself that I can meditate and that there is some reward that it's giving me something, my brain basically thinks I'm a liar, right? It's very skeptical until I prove it. And this is what Keystone Habits do. They change how we see ourself. We start thinking, I'm the kind of person who runs in the morning. And the kind of this is what keystone habits do. They change how we see ourself. We start thinking,

I'm the kind of person who runs in the morning. And the kind of person who runs in the morning, they eat a salad for lunch, right? They don't pull out their credit card for anything. They make wiser decisions. I'm the kind of person who meditates in the morning. And that kind of person, that's someone who can find five or 10 minutes, right? They're mindful. What's one of your keystone habits? Exercise. Exercise is a big one for me. And what's interesting is for people who were not athletes, the reason why exercise is so powerful as a keystone habit for some people is because if you weren't an athlete and you start running or you start exercising,

it forces you to think of yourself as a new kind of person. It forces you to see yourself in a new light. Now, for people who were athletes as kids, and then they take some time away and then they start running again, oftentimes exercise is less of a keystone habit for them because it just conforms to their mental image of themselves. But for me, exercise is a huge part of it. Going to bed. I'm someone who used to stay up till midnight, you know, every, and like my wife. You're a writer, going to bed. I am someone who used to stay up till midnight, you know, every, and like my wife. You're a writer, hey? Exactly, exactly. So writers do. Right, I'm supposed to. And my wife goes to bed at like nine or 9.15. And so, and so I go to bed at 9.30 with

her. And that's a keystone habit for me. Like it, it makes me feel like I am in control of my, I am making good choices. I'm setting up the next day for success by going to bed early. And again, it's the story that we tell ourselves, right? Stories are so powerful. We start to tell ourselves a story about ourselves. And that's how change happens. Let's say someone has just heard that

and is thinking about a keystone habit for themselves and thinking, because I would agree, I think it's an excellent thing to pay attention to, which is that one habit that when you do it automatically means that these next five things are going to be better. Always been thinking about that with my patients. It's trying to figure out, you could tell them 10 different things, but what's the one big one that when they get that right, those other things are going to happen automatically. Right. All on their own. For me, it is my morning routine, right? When I do it, even if it's a cut down 10,

15 minute version of it, I'm basically showing myself, yeah, you know what? It doesn't matter how busy the world is or how much stuff you have to do with the kids or for your mom or your wife. You know what? I still made time for myself. I'm worth it. I can rely on me. I can trust myself to say I'm going to do it and follow through. Oh, that's so wonderful. That is such a wonderful way of putting that reward. And I'm sure that makes it more rewarding. I think it does. I've gone through it and I always am keen to emphasize that I've been working on this for many years now because I don't want anyone to listen to this conversation

and then suddenly go, wow, I need to try and do Dostoevsky's 45-minute routine straight away. It's like, hey, I was rubbish for a few years. I'd do it for a bit. I'd fall off. I just realized more and more that, oh, when I do it, I'm a better human in every aspect of my life. I'm a more patient husband. I'm more present with my kids. I'm calm. I'm more productive. Do you know what I mean? So for me, that's one of my

keystone habits. But a lot of people find this stuff uncomfortable, right? So I wonder, Charles, But a lot of people find this stuff uncomfortable, right? So I wonder, Charles, what you would say to someone who goes, okay, I know what I want to do. Am I going to find it hard forever? Or is it just going to be hard for a few weeks? At some point, will it no longer feel hard and it will become automatic? How would you help them think about that? So I'd say two things.

Number one is trying to figure out what your keystone habit ought to be. One way that you can do that is ask yourself, what kind of change seems irrationally frightening to me? Right? Like before I became a runner, when I thought of running, it was a little like,

I was like, I'm going to look terrible in those like spandex, right? Like I look so goofy when I'm running. Like, so it was irrationally scary. That's a sign that this kind of change is, will be meaningful to you. It's going to change how you see yourself. Then the second part of your question, which is, will it be hard forever? The wonderful thing is again, and back to the basal ganglia, our brains exist. There's a part of our brain that literally exists to make that pattern

easier and easier and easier. So is it going to be really easy on day three? No, but it's going to be easier than it was on day one. And by the time you hit day 21 or you hit day 30 or day 45, at some point it's going to become a habit. You won't even think about it anymore. You'll just do it automatically. You'll just do it automatically. You'll put on your, lace up your shoes, go out for a run, and you'll be looking forward to the podcast that you're listening to. And it won't even occur to you to think about like, oh, this is hard. It's like brushing teeth, right? Exactly. Brushing teeth was not a habit when you were three or four or even five years old. I mean,

my kids are a bit older now. Sometimes I'm not even convinced it's a habit yet. Yeah. But I think, I hope for most people listening, it is now a habit, right? So at some point it does change. And like I get out of the shower now and even if my teeth are clean, I have to brush my teeth.

I don't feel clean unless I brush my, unless I have that minty feeling in my mouth. Yeah. You're exactly right. Our brains exist to create as many habits as that possibly can. It wants to conserve all the cognitive energy it can by making these behaviors automatic.

So if you give it the cues and the rewards, it will make that behavior easier and easier. What about some of these memes that you often see? In fact, I saw one literally yesterday on Instagram. I personally haven't seen any science to support this. I think I know where this comes from, but someone, I read a post yesterday saying it will take you 21 days to form a new habit. What's your take on that? I mean, there's, unfortunately, there's no science behind it. Different habits and different people.

So if you want to form a habit involving chocolate, like I want to eat chocolate every day, you can probably do that in a day, right? It's not that most people know, but they could do that in a day. Yeah, exactly. If you want to start endurance running, it's probably going to take a little bit longer

and it might take longer than 21 days. There is no science that says this is the magic number. But what we do know is that if you have consistent cues and rewards, if you're paying attention to those cues and rewards, then each day it will get a little bit easier, almost imperceptibly easier. But on day two, it'll be easier than day one. And on day 21, it's going to be easier than it was on day two. And at some point your brain takes over and it just becomes a habit, something you do thoughtlessly. This reward piece is so interesting. So I really do believe that a lot of the time we skip this.

Yeah. Let's use meditation as an example. Someone is trying to bring that in there. Let's say they're on an app and they're doing 10 minutes of meditation. They could do that 10 minutes of meditation. As soon as it finishes, they could get up and go open their laptop and start emailing, right? That is one option. Perhaps if you take that option, you're missing out that critical third part of the habit loop, the reward. In your view, would even something like for a minute you sit there afterwards and go, oh, wow, I feel lighter. Yeah. Wow. I just, I feel I've got some clarity now on how I want

the day scale, how I want to show up in the world. That counts as reward, doesn't it? Absolutely. Or just congratulating yourself, taking a minute and saying like, you know what? I just meditated for 10 minutes. I am awesome, right? Eventually, your body and your brain will learn the intrinsic reward, right? The meditation will become a reward in and of itself. But at first, you need something to jumpstart that because it takes your, it takes your brain a little while to learn, to appreciate that reward. And just sitting there and saying, I'm awesome, or this is going to help me so much today. I'll tell you how I meditate. Um, so I, um, cause I had, I have real trouble meditating. I get very, very bored. And so I use this biofeedback tool that gives me a little rewards if I'm meditating well,

which is of course exactly the opposite of what meditation is supposed to be. But what I find is that looking for those rewards, it makes it so much easier for me to fall into the sort of meditation state. And so it's called a muse band that I use. And again, it's about giving ourself that reward. When we decide something is rewarding, it becomes more rewarding. But we have to let ourselves enjoy it.

We have to let ourselves indulge in it. I know I'm focusing a lot on the mornings with these habits. That's, I guess, because it's what's worked for me, but I've also seen it change the trajectory of people's days. You know, what they do for the first 10 or 15 minutes in the morning, I think can have significant downstream consequences. For example, if the first thing you do is look at your phone, look at how many emails you've got to answer, you go on the news and see the state of the world, you're bringing in negativity.

You're reacting to what the world is saying to you rather than actually having a think about how you want to be that day, what you want to do that day. You're starting to react rather than be proactive. Exactly. As opposed to having some time to yourself each day. So let's think about someone who gets up in the morning and they come into their kitchen, make a hot drink, and they sit and they scroll the news and Instagram or TikTok or whatever for 10, 15 minutes. And they go, okay, you know what? I don't want to do that anymore. I would like to meditate instead. Can you walk that person through what might be going on and how they can start to change that? The first question I'd ask them is, what reward is scrolling through the news or scrolling through

Instagram giving you? And the reward might be that you feel informed, right? You feel sort of a self-congratulation that like I'm responsibly learning about the world. It might be just the novelty. Like there's something kind of pleasantly mindless about scrolling through Instagram. So it's delivering some reward and your new behavior meditation has to deliver something similar to that. So it might be that when you're first starting with your meditation practice, what you should do is you should meditate for two minutes and then meditate for two minutes while listening to a podcast or meditate for two minutes or you leave the TV on in the background. If novelty is what's driving you, then don't say, I'm going to extinguish this craving for novelty. Say, I'm going to use this craving for novelty to, to facilitate a new behavior. And then at some point you're going to be meditating and the podcast will be on in the

background and you'll be like, this is kind of distracting. Like the podcast is distracting to me because there's an intrinsic reward that comes from meditation, but you have to learn it, right? Your body has to learn to enjoy this activity. And then at that point, you're actually going to turn off the podcast. You're going to be like, okay, I just want to spend four minutes meditating because it just feels good to do this. I love that. You're meeting that person where they're at. This is what you're getting. Don't suddenly think you can get rid of that and become a monk overnight, which is what I think we often think.

Yes. I used to think that about myself and then beat myself up when I couldn't do it. It's like, how on earth are you expecting to be, you know, very well practiced at distraction and news and information and suddenly be able to just sit there doing nothing. Which, and by the way,

monks don't become monks overnight, right? They go to the seminary and they're forced into like learning these patterns and that's hard. But it's, you know, what I love about that is, so for me these days, I no longer use an app to meditate, but I used to, right?

Because on that journey, you know, it was helpful to have someone talk me through. So it was one lesson to think about. Let me just follow what this person with a soothing voice is telling me to do. But after a while, and this happened maybe a couple of years ago, it was starting to irritate me. I'm like, I don't want someone in my head. Like, and now I just like the silence. Yeah. But I didn't at the start. And I think this is the thing for people to recognize.

Just because you're walking one block instead of running a mile, just because you're meditating with the app on or with a podcast in the background, that doesn't mean it's gonna be like that forever. Yeah. It means that you're helping yourself get to that eventual goal. And actually this, this, this brings us to communication in kind of a funny way, because

one of the things that we know about conversation and communication is that one thing that stops people from doing it is the fear that it will be awkward. doing it is the fear that it will be awkward and the fact that sometimes conversations are awkward and they get out of the habit of talking to other people because they think about the negative the negative examples that they have in their mind and don't think enough about the positive examples and don't say oh i had an awkward conversation with someone that actually taught me what i needed to know to have five or 10 or 15 better conversations. Yeah, I love that. Before we get onto the new book, Super Communicators, when did you write The Power of Habit? So I wrote The Power of Habit, it came out

in 2013. So I wrote it in the two years preceding that. Okay. It's 2011, 2012, something like that. Okay. So we are well over 10 years on from you writing that book. And I would say that these principles of human behavior have probably always been there, right? They've always been the same. It's who we are. It's how we're wired, essentially. If you were writing the book today, what would you add to it? So the thing I would add, I think, is probably talking about digital devices, which were less of an issue in 2013 than they are today, particularly with kids and teenagers. And, you know, you have kids, I have kids. Does your son use his phone obsessively? Like, You have kids, I have kids.

Does your son use his phone obsessively? Like, does he have a phone? He does, but he does not use it obsessively. And I, you know, perhaps later I can share why I think that is. But we, yeah, I mean, look, the truth is, is that I passionately believe that the most important thing or one of the most important things for our children is what they see us doing. Yes. So one of the big drives for me to be a lot more mindful with my phone use, especially in the house, is I want to model really good behaviors and habits around digital screens. So it is very, very rare for me. And I don't, I'm not saying this to make anyone else feel bad. Okay.

I'm doing what I feel is right for me as I think all parents are, but I very rarely use my phones or scroll social media or anything in front of my children. Very rarely because I don't want them to ever think, and maybe I'm over the top about this, but I never want them to think that what's on my phone is more important than them. I think that that's really important. And if I was writing The Power of Habit today, I would have an extra chapter talking about art. One of the harder things is that our children have these devices that we didn't have in our youth that is designed to become habit forming, right? They design social media to become, addiction's maybe too strong a word, but they design it to become habitual. And I think the more that we can model for our children that we are in control of our habits, that it's something we can choose in our life as opposed to something that happens to us, the more that we can teach them

to recognize what's happening. Like, do you really feel good after you look at TikTok? Or is it just that like, it changes so fast that the novelty is interesting to you and you don't feel great afterwards? Do you feel better having a conversation with a friend than watching social media? The more that we help them understand their own habits,

the more we empower them. Because these devices are going to be around. Yeah, it's interesting. We haven't really spoken about how our environment influences our behavior, but one conversation currently going on in my household is whether we should have a smart TV or not. Oh, interesting. Now, you know, maybe I sound like a Luddite and stuck in the dark ages, but I am often quite slow to adopt new technologies. And I'm quite happy with that approach, right? We've got a very old fashioned television, okay? That takes ages for things to load onto it.

Now, most other people in my immediate family would like us to upgrade, and we're having a constant dialogue about this. My own view, and of course everyone's view is important in the family, but my view is, I don't want one of these flash, big LED smart tellies where everything can happen instantaneously. So I think, how on earth are we going to be able to self-regulate and control our behavior?

Of course, we can do, but you're making it easy to basically engage in behaviors that perhaps you don't want to be engaging in. That's exactly right. The reward, you're making the reward even more rewarding. Yeah. If it takes 30 seconds to get like Netflix to show the show. It takes 30 seconds or sometimes two minutes for Netflix to load. I love that because that can bring in procrastination. That can bring in, do we really need to watch this? Oh, forget it. Let's do something else. And I love that. As a result, Netflix is less rewarding than it would be if it comes on right away. And so that habit has less hold over us.

Yeah. I think that a huge part of life is not only deciding what you want to move towards, it's making it easier to move away from the things that you don't want, right? It's just like, so when I work now, I always have a piece of fruit on my desk because I know at some point I'm going to have written something or I've done a call and I'm tired and I just want something in my mouth to like make me feel like a little burst of sweetness. And if that apple is not on my desk, I'm going to go get a piece of chocolate. Yeah. But if the apple's there, I just pick it up and I eat it. And like, that works. Yeah. And just something has been satisfied.

That's exactly right. That craving for novelty, for a sense of reward, for a sense of indulgence. Yeah. Well, let's talk about communication. Okay. I'm sort of halfway into the new book. I really, really like it. Oh, thank you. I guess we're going to talk about why communication is so important. I guess it's at the heart of literally everything we do is good quality communication.

But I'm thinking about what you said earlier on in our conversation, Charles, that it's at 40 to 45% of what we do is habit, right? It's automated. I suspect you could put communication into that category. The way we communicate, most of the time we're interacting with our partner or our kids. It's just, we're just repeating the way we've always done it, right? Yeah. it's just habitual. Yeah, no, and now that being said, when it becomes meaningful, right? When we have a conversation with our spouse or our kids

or with a patient, and that conversation is more than just, let's exchange information, then it stops being a habit, right? Then it becomes something that we think about and we really find a lot of meaning and sustenance from. And in many ways, that's kind of the point of super communicators is to tell people how to have those more meaningful conversations because it doesn't take any more energy. That's the interesting thing about conversation is our brain has evolved to be good at communication.

And so it doesn't take more energy to have a meaningful conversation than it does to have a, an automatic sort of thoughtless conversation. But the meaningful conversation makes our life so much better. I went to your TED Talk yesterday in Manchester, which was fantastic. Oh, thank you. And you said something to the effect of this. All of us are hardwired to be excellent communicators. Maybe you didn't quite phrase it like that, but it was something to that effect.

What did you mean by that? Before we get back to this week's episode, I just wanted to let you know that I am doing my very first national UK theatre tour. I am planning a really special evening where I share how you can break free from the habits that are holding you back and make meaningful changes in your life that truly last. It is called the Thrive Tour. Be the architect of your health and happiness. So many people tell me that health feels really complicated, but it really doesn't need to be. In my live event, I'm going to simplify health and together we're going to learn the skill of happiness, the secrets to optimal health, how to break free from the habits that are holding you back in your life, and I'm going to teach you how to make changes that actually last.

Sound good? All you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash tour and I can't wait to see you there. This episode is also brought to you by the Three Question Journal, the journal that I designed and created in partnership with Intelligent Change. Now, journaling is something that I've been recommending to my patients for years. It can help improve sleep, lead to better decision making, and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. It's also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviours into long-term habits and improve our relationships. There are of course many different ways to journal and as with most things it's important that you find the method that works

best for you. One method that you may want to consider is the one that I outline in the three question journal. In it, you will find a really simple and structured way of answering the three most impactful questions I believe that we can all ask ourselves every morning and every evening. Answering these questions will take you less than five minutes, but the practice of answering them regularly will be transformative. Since the journal was published in January, I have received hundreds of messages from people telling me how much it has helped them and how much more in control of their lives they now feel. Now, if you already have a journal or you don't actually want to buy a journal, that is completely fine. I go through in detail all of the questions within

the three-question journal completely free on episode 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen to check it out, all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal or click on the link in your podcast app. So if you think about it, communication is Homo sapiens superpower, right? It is the reason why our species has succeeded so much better than every other animal species. It's why we're at the top of the heap is because our ability to communicate

allows us to form families. It allows us to form villages, towns, cities. It allows us to share information so you don't have to experience it yourself. It allows us to connect with each other in a profound way. And because it's been so beneficial to us, our brains have evolved to be very good at communication. In fact, our brains have evolved to be communication machines. Now, of course, we evolved in a very different time, right? We evolved before computers, before phones, before, but our brains have this ability, have this craving to connect with other people through language, through conversation. And part of it is just learning the basic rules,

reminding ourselves of the basic rules of how communication works. And then once we are reminded of those rules, our brains will actually make these rules into habits very, very quickly because we're hardwired. We're hardwired to grasp on to good communication tactics because they're inherently rewarding.

Yeah. Did we always need to learn the rules of communication? That's a really good question. Well, can I ask you a question in return? So as a physician, if one of your family members was sick and you couldn't treat them yourself, or if you were sick, would you rather go to a physician who clinically had learned an enormous amount, but was terrible at communication, or a physician who was middle of the road clinically, but really, really good at communication? I mean, I know the answer. Middle of the road clinically, but an excellent communicator. And why? No question. I mean, where do I start? Good communication, in my view, is the most important skill for any healthcare professional.

Now, you could argue, let's say in intensive care, right? When people are acutely unwell, with life-threatening illnesses, actually, you know what? You probably want a doctor or a healthcare professional who is excellent at reading the blood tests and knowing what the right medical intervention is. Okay, let's just park that for a moment. In most scenarios where people go and see their healthcare professionals today, which are generally situations where we become sick in some way because of the way that we live

modern lives now. I'm not putting blame on people. Just modern lives are stressful. There's pollution everywhere. There's diesel fumes. It's hard to eat healthy. It's hard to eat well or move our bodies, right? You have to go against the norm. I have learned myself that the ability to communicate well with a patient is the most important skill. And it still shocks me that this isn't one of the top criteria for choosing which doctors can get into medical school. Yeah. I think it's so, so important. We know in therapists, for example, in psychological therapy, actually your relationship with that therapist hugely determines how successful that relationship is going to be. Absolutely.

Because it's who we are. And it's interesting, so there's been some studies of the acute settings, right? ICUs or situations where patients are intubated and can't actually speak. And what the researchers have found is that clinical knowledge on its own is not a determinant of clinical outcome. Even then. Even then. Wow. Because the physician has to be able to communicate with the nurses and the nurse practitioners at the mid-levels, right? Moreover, you could be the best clinician on earth.

And if you can't talk to the patient's family and get the medical history, it doesn't matter how good a clinician you are. You don't have the right data to make a decision. So what they found is you're exactly right. In critical care settings, having excellent diagnostic and clinician skills is really important, but it turns out that communication is part of that treatment. It's interesting. Last year, I spoke to Tim Peake, who has been out into space.

He's one of the first British astronauts in years. And when I was reading his book in preparation for talking to him, one of the things that struck out to me was that as well as all their physical resilience training and everything that they do, you know, how well can they cope with stress, being underground without food and dark, you know, all that kind of stuff, a key part of what they were assessed for was their soft skills. Yeah. Like that was key in terms of determining who they were going to send up in a rocket to

space. And it kind of makes sense, doesn't it? It doesn't matter how physically resilient you are. It doesn't matter how much of the science you know as a doctor, if you can't communicate well and effectively with those around you, everything's going to fall. So in the book, there's a story about NASA. I don't know if you've gotten to it. Yeah, I did. I saw that bit. So it's, I mean, it's, what's really interesting is, so NASA came to the same conclusion. NASA, particularly when space missions started getting longer and they said, look, we're going to send people up for six months or a year.

They said, we have to find people who are emotionally intelligent. Like we can't find people who get on each other's nerves because you're living in a tin can together for a year. we can't find people who get on each other's nerves because you're living in a tin can together for a year. And the problem is, and I imagine that the British Space Agency had the same issue, is that by the time you make it to those final rounds

of interviews to become an astronaut, you're really good at answering questions, right? You are amazing. You're the creme de la creme. Everyone thinks you're fantastic. And what they found was that there were people that people could fake emotional intelligence really, really well. Right.

And the problem is if you fake it in an interview, you might fool people, but if you can't fake it for six months in space, right. At some point you're going to crack. So they were saying like, how do we figure out who actually has emotional intelligence? And I think this gets to the medical school issue thing you just raised, which is they had this one psychologist who he noticed that really great astronauts tended to laugh differently than everyone else, particularly during interviews. They didn't all laugh the same way, but they all had this pattern, which is he started doing this in interviews. He'd walk into an interview. He would spill papers as if on accident.

And then he would laugh this big boisterous laugh, like, ha, ha, ha, ha, I'm such a klutz, right? Like bigger than you would expect. Everybody in that, every astronaut he was interviewing would laugh back because of that social politeness. But some would chuckle. They'd go like, ha, ha, ha, that's funny. Let me help you with that.

And then some would match his laughter. They would go, let me give you a hand. Let me help you clean it up. The people who matched him were showing him that they wanted to connect with him and they would do it across all types of different expressions, right? He would mention a sibling of his who had passed away. And some people would say, my condolences. I'm really sorry. And other people would say, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Like, what was that like? What was your sister like? Like, do you still think about her? Because I have a friend who passed away 12 years ago and I still sometimes have dreams about him. That desire to connect, showing the desire to connect indicated that they think more about

emotional connection. That's where emotional intelligence comes from is thinking about it. And to the same point that you raised about doctors, you're right. We give them exams to see their clinical knowledge, to see if they can memorize chemical formulas. But sometimes just sitting down with someone and seeing if they really want to connect with you would be just as essential. I co-created this course called Prescribing Lifestyle Medicine that is accredited by the Royal College of GPs. And some colleagues and I teach doctors how you know, how you apply these lifestyle medicine principles with your patients. And we've taught several thousand now over the past few years. And

there's something I always say to doctors when I'm teaching them. I say, you need to know these four words. Connect first, educate second. Yes. And I was thinking about that as I was reading through your books, I thought there's such a synergy there. People don't care how much you know. No. Until they know how much you care. Yeah, that's absolutely right.

And I always found that, yes, it's hard in 10 minute consultations, no question. But I always found that if I invested the time in getting to know this person, empathizing with them, understanding them as much as I could, and then I gave them some advice, hey, they were all in. But if you try and skip the connection side and just go to giving advice, this is why so many doctors will say, oh, the patient didn't do what I told them to do. And it's not that they're not trying to help. I think the healthcare system doesn't put a premium on conversation and connection,

right? For a number of reasons, which doesn't help. But I honestly feel as clinicians, for a number of reasons, which doesn't help, but I honestly feel as clinicians, you've got to connect. If you don't connect, the advice you give is almost going to be falling on deaf ears. It literally will be falling. I mean, and this is interesting because this is also rooted in our neurology. So in this conversation we're having right now, in any conversation, our brains and bodies are starting to match each other. We're not aware of it, but our pupils are dilating at similar rates. And that would be true even if we were talking on Zoom, if we were separated by thousands of miles. Our breath patterns are becoming much more similar. Our heart rates are matching each other. But most importantly, the activity within our brain is

becoming more and more similar, right? If we could do neural scans of both of us, what we would see is that our thoughts are starting to align. And this actually kind of makes sense because when I describe an emotion to you or I describe an idea, you actually experience that emotion a little bit. You experience that idea. The goal of communication is to bring our brains into what's known as neural entrainment or neural alignment, to have the same thought at the same time as what communication is. So when you go into that room and you just start by giving someone advice, you're not aligned with them at all. They're terrified. They're, they're emotional. They're worried. They are thinking about a thousand other things. You're just thinking about science.

You guys, your brains are not linked up at all. But if you take a minute and you connect with someone, and more importantly, and I think this is probably something you do because I see it even in this conversation, you show the person you want to connect with them. And then that reciprocity indicates it, like pushes us to connect back.

Once you're neurally aligned, then you give them the advice and they can really hear what you're saying. Yeah. The idea of showing that you want to connect. It's interesting. We're having this conversation in my podcast studio. And this studio has been put together

with a lot of intention to facilitate intimate conversation. Yeah. So I've always been very clear that my podcast, despite me being a doctor, is not an education delivery mechanism. It's about a connection with my guest. If I can connect well with my guest, the helpful information spills out as a side effect. And this is really, really important

to me. This podcast that I host, these are not interviews. I'm very clear on that. I do not interview a guest. If people want interviews, they should probably choose a different podcast. people want interviews, they should probably choose a different podcast. This podcast is about meaningful conversation, right? So in this room, the desk is very narrow on purpose because it means I'm very near to you, which means it's very hard. This can almost sound bad. It's very hard to escape the conversation. Oh, that's interesting. You have to be in it because you're right here next to me. As you were just saying about neural entrainment, as you were talking about showing someone, you can show someone, I imagine, I'd love your perspective on this in a variety of different ways, show them that you want to connect.

But the fact that you can see already that there are all these papers here that I've got red, green, blue writings. These are all things that I've gleaned from your book. You know, super communicators on the desk. There's all kinds of things that have been underlined in here. I mean, you tell me, what does that say to you? Oh, it makes clear that you want to connect with. You want to, yeah. It makes clear that like, that you, that you want to connect with, you want to, you want to, yeah.

Your environment is making clear to me how seriously you take this conversation. Yeah. And as a result, there's an instinct for reciprocity, reciprocity of authenticity and vulnerability that I want to take this conversation seriously too, because you've clearly prepared so much for it. Yeah. Now what's interesting though, is like, let's say that we weren't together. We weren't sitting in the same room. I couldn't see all these papers. Yeah. Now what's interesting though, is like, let's say that we weren't together. We weren't sitting in the same room. I couldn't see all these papers. Yeah. Part of your brain would realize that you need to signal that you want to connect differently. And we know this because of experiments that were done when telephones first became popular. So about a hundred years ago, when people started using telephones for the, for the most, for the first time,

there were all these studies where people said, we don't think anyone's going to be able to ever have a real conversation on the telephone. Because if you can't see each other, you can't engage in all that nonverbal communication. And nonverbal communication is critical. And what's interesting is that at the time they were right. If you read transcripts of people from those early telephone conversations, they use them like telegraphs. read transcripts of people from those early telephone conversations, they use them like telegraphs. They send grocery orders or stock purchases. But then by the time you and I are a teenager, we can talk on the phone for like seven hours a night, right? There's some of the most meaningful conversations of our lives. And what's interesting is if people aren't aware of this,

but when you're talking on the telephone, if you can't see the other person, we tend to over enunciate a little bit. We put, we make our words a little bit clearer. We put more emotion into our voice because we know that the person can't see us. And so we know that if we're going to convey emotion, we have to do it through our voice. The same thing is true. If we were having this conversation over zoom and I couldn't see all your papers, you would do something to signal to me that you're taking this seriously, that you want to connect with me. Probably it would be like a chat that we have at the beginning, or it'd be telling me the work that you've done. Do you know what, as I reflect on that, because pre-2020, I only ever did face-to-face conversation,

that I did change it because of circumstances. And I would say, you know, 80% of them are face-to-face, but maybe 20% of them, usually with guests I really want to speak to from the States, I will consider doing remotely, especially if they have a good remote setup. Yeah. Right. And I've noticed a couple of things. One is, And I've noticed a couple of things. One is, by the time we finish today and you've left, right, I will feel I know you. I'll feel, you know, if I ever need something, I can call Charles or send him an email. I feel- We have a connection. Well, I've got a real connection. You've been in my house, you've sat in my studio, we're,

you know, less than a meter away from each other. If we had a two-hour conversation on Zoom that you were just doing your emails beforehand and you had things afterwards, that this was just something on your schedule, oh, I've got this guy from England, he's going to interview me. Okay, cool. What time is it? I don't feel, and I know this from people I've spoken to online, I don't feel I know them at the end of those two hours in the same way. I do know them, but not in the same way. The second thing relating to what you just said is what I've noticed, and I did a remote conversation last week, I'm nodding more. I'm trying to show the person, I think I've always done this quite naturally. It's not a way that I'm consciously thinking I need to show them, but I'm just aware that they can't really see

all of my body language in here. There might be a slight delay. So I'm smiling, I'm nodding my head. I'm trying to send the signals over 3,000 miles through the internet. Yeah. Hey, I'm listening to you. I'm paying attention.

Yeah. That's what you're talking about, isn't it? Absolutely. And you do that actually without even thinking. It's not like you start that conversation by saying, I need to smile and nod more because we're on Zoom. Yeah. You do it automatically because you recognize,

our brains recognize that we need to fill in the gaps. So what's interesting, I think you're exactly right. That oftentimes it's very easy to do this face-to-face, but that doesn't mean it can't happen when we're not face-to-face. Yes, sure. I think one of the ways to do it is, and having listened to your show, I know that you're very good at this. There's a special kind of question known as a deep question. And a deep question asks us about our values or beliefs or experiences in a way that

allows us to be a little bit vulnerable. And that can sound kind of intimidating, but it's actually as easy as saying like, you know, instead of saying like, oh, you're a doctor, where do you practice medicine? Saying, oh, what made you decide to go to medical school? Right? What do you love about practicing medicine? When I ask those questions, I'm inviting you to tell me something real about yourself. It's almost a why question rather than a what question. That's exactly right. Don't ask people about the facts of their life. Ask them how they feel about their life, how they make sense of it. I love this idea about asking deep questions. I know from your work,

Charles, that super communicators tend to ask more questions than those who are not. But this idea of a deep question is something I was thinking a lot about yesterday evening. You spoke about it in your TED Talk yesterday. And the deep question you recommended to people, which perhaps I can ask you now, is when was the last time you cried in front of somebody? Right. And I can absolutely answer that. Before I do, let me tell you why I think the answer is meaningful. I will say something vulnerable. And if you respond with vulnerability of your own, then we will feel connected to each other. And that's hardwired into our brain. That's known as emotional reciprocity.

It's almost impossible to avoid. So I'll tell you, the last time I really cried was when my father died about six years ago. And I've weeped a little bit since then, like when I'm watching movies on the airplanes. But the real cry, both your parents are still alive? No, first of all, I'm really sorry to hear that. My dad died just over 10 years ago, which is obviously a really- It's massive, right? Yeah. Huge moment. Yeah. And it's complicated. It was obviously sad, but it's also interesting, right?

Like you, you experience these things that you don't anticipate and you, your relationship with your father, at least in my case, continues after they, they pass, right? It changes and it, and, and it was, so that's the last time, um, you know, the evening that he passed away, I was in the hospital room with him. And then I came home to a hotel where I grew up in Albuquerque and I called my wife and just like, like saw like that, like ugly sobbing, right? Where it's, you're powerless against it. And yeah. yeah and and honestly like in this conversation like mentioning that being vulnerable that way even if i don't

when i say that i i put myself in a place where you could judge me and i might not care about your judgment but being authentic and being vulnerable that way and you mentioning that your father had passed away 10 years ago and obviously affected you that is how we connect with people is we share we share some vulnerability or some authenticity and we see each other really as as fellow humans have you ever cried in front of your kids? At his funeral. Yeah. How about you? Yeah, I have.

And it's interesting. I think for much of my life, I would want to display a front to the world. Be very careful about what signals I'm giving to the world outside of me or the immediate family. I think that, well, I know that came from a huge feeling of insecurity and a desire to be liked by other people, like not a healthy desire, like almost change who you are so that you fit in and you accept it. And I think there's multiple reasons

for that, including coming from an immigrant family and growing up in a very white neighborhood. I think you would, I think there's multiple reasons for that, but I think many people face that to be fair. But I do remember about just over a year ago, my mom was really badly unwell on Christmas day night, ended up in the ER basically for three days. It was touch and go for a while, but after three weeks, mom did come out, but she wasn't the same person. But it's interesting. The reason I ask about kids is because I can remember between Christmas and New Year then, I've always been the one in my family to make sure everyone's okay, right? I'm the one, or I certainly perceive myself to be the one, maybe everyone doesn't, but maybe it's a story I tell myself that I'm the one who has to make sure everyone's okay. It was when dad was

alive, it was the same. And now with mom, like I was going to the hospital four times a day. I was phoning the consultant. I was trying to figure out what was going on. I was on top of everything in the hospital when things weren't happening because they were overrun at Christmas.

But of course it's my mom. So I'm like, okay, but I'm still gonna maybe be the annoying son because ultimately it's my mom's health and her life that's at risk here. And I remember coming back and just, I probably couldn't stop crying sometimes for 20 minutes in front of my children.

And I think initially I was uncomfortable about that because part of me was feeling, I've got to be this strong father figure who's looking after the family. What will they be thinking with daddy crumbling like this? But that was just story, isn't it? Because ultimately it's probably a really good thing that they see you as a human being. Absolutely. And they know that like having emotions are normal. And have you ever asked your kids about that period? Like, have you asked them what they...

and have you ever asked your kids about that period? Like have you asked them what they... You know, I think I did at the time. I think, you know, I'd like to think I'm pretty tuned into emotions and emotional intelligence. So I remember thinking at the time, you know, this is probably really good for them. It's probably really good that they see me just lose it basically in sort

of grief and worry that I may not have a mom, you know, alive basically. Yeah. And they know that that means that like when they feel that way. It's okay. It's okay. It's not unnatural. It's not that they're like not living up to the standard that you're setting for them. It's very human. We don't have to talk more about dads, but I do have this question. When your father passed away, what did other, and you went and you told people, what would they say? Wow.

I don't think I've thought about this in a long time. Honestly, that sort of time in my life, it feels like quite a blur now, so much of that, because I feel like I'm a very different person. You know, my dad dying, it's the first time I think I honestly felt that, oh, death really happens. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's the first time I had to come face to face with death. And because I helped to care for dad along with my brother and my mom, I mean, I struggled for a few years. That was a massive hole for me in my life. And it really was the catalyst for me to go on an inner journey. That's interesting. Right? I learned so much about myself. I actually now think that dad's death was a gift to me.

Yeah. Because it forced me, I don't know, it's almost a bit cliche to say this, but to grow up and become a man. I like go, well, what's my view? How do I want to live life? Not in the shadow of someone else, for example, but what do I want to do with my life? And so I honestly don't remember, Charles, what people said, but I think it was just stuff like, oh, I'm so sorry, you know, your dad was a great man or something like that. Condolences.

Yeah, well, I guess, what are you getting at with that question? So I found the same. So when my dad passed away, I found the same thing. I went back, they live in New Mexico and I lived in New York and I went back to New York and I told people, you know, oh, my dad just passed away.

I was at his funeral. And they would always say something like condolences or I'm sorry or, and yet it is such this meaningful moment. I mean, this, you just described very beautifully that like him and the hole it left, like this is such an important moment for you. What I really wanted is I wanted someone to say like,

what was your dad like? Like, tell me about your dad. I was thinking about my dad all the time, right? It's all I was thinking about. Not only was I thinking about him, I was thinking about me. I was thinking about like mortality and like, this was the most important thing that, and nobody ever asked me, nobody ever asked me a question. And I think that, I think that this is where deep questions are so powerful, is just to say to someone like, what was it like when your dad died? That tells me so much about you.

It's really interesting. I think, stroke I know, that one of the reasons people say these kind of pleasantries when a friend of theirs' parent dies or some sort of comparable situation is because of a discomfort. Oh, absolutely. They don't know what to say. So it's really interesting. One of my best mates from primary school, his dad died recently. And I remember thinking, well, I'm going to just say something meaningful. Don't let your insecurity and fear

about saying the right thing get in the way of saying the important thing. So I sent him a really personal text. I won't say what I shared with him, but I shared a moment that I remember being with his dad, what it meant to be. And I did ask him some questions, but I guess I've been influenced by, I've spoken about death before on this podcast. And I think this really relates to your key message in super communicators in many ways. It's like, how do we become better communicators? And it's not just so we can navigate conflict with our boss. Right. It's everything. It's how we interact with life.

It's how do you show up for your best friend when they've lost their parents? Yeah. How do you say something meaningful and not just one of these pleasantries? And that anxiety that we're going to say the wrong thing, that's what gets in our way all the time. Can you say the wrong thing?

I mean, sure, you could. You could have phoned up your friend and you could have been like, I know exactly what you're going through. Cause I had a, I had a pet who died seven years ago. Right. And your friend would have said like, look, man, you're like, this isn't, you're not trying to connect with me. You're trying to steal the spotlight from me. You're trying to, but, but if we say something meaningful, if we call up or we send a note and we do exactly what you said, and we say like, look, this is what I'm feeling authentically for you and your dad right now. And I just want you to know that it's not just in your life that he was important. It was in my life.

And here's the thing that I carry from him. That's so meaningful, right? And my guess is like, if you were rewriting it today, maybe it'd be more poetic or maybe you would rewrite it differently. It doesn't matter what you, it doesn't matter the words you choose. What matters is that you're saying to him, I want you to know that I feel connected to you. That's such a key point, isn't it?

We worry about perfection, getting the exact words right, when actually it doesn't really matter. What matters is the emotion you convey. That's exactly right. You know, I've learned that with patients. They just need to know that I really care about them. If I fumble one of my words or what, who cares, right?

And I don't know if you've read the book by Sherry Turk or Reclaiming Conversation. I really liked that book. And one of the things she said in that was about, she spoke about how in a lot of teenagers now, they are preferring to communicate on, let's say text message or WhatsApp, whatever it might be, because it's much more controllable. Yeah. Right? In real time, you have to answer immediately.

Right. But on a text, you can edit it, you can reword it, you can get it just right before you send it, but you don't have that opportunity in real life conversation. So it's safer to communicate electronically, but safety is not everything, is it?

Safety is not everything. So where I think this, we really see this is conversations about things like race, right? Where there's been a bunch of experiments that have been done about why do we avoid conversations about race or about religion or about sexual orientation?

Like the fact that you grew up the son of Indian immigrants, like that's a huge part, I imagine, of who you are and your experiences. And yet, yet to bring it up feels so dangerous, right? In a casual conversation. And it's because people think like, I'm going to say the wrong thing. I'm going to say something that seems racist. I'm going to make this person feel uncomfortable. But the truth of the matter is that what we know is if you acknowledge that, that awkwardness, and that doesn't mean we should

bring a brace all the time, but if we're having a real conversation, if we start the conversation and experiments have shown this by saying, look, there's something I want to ask you about. And, and I, I want to warn you that this conversation might be kind of awkward and I might say the wrong thing. I might ask you a question that seems so naive and I hope you'll forgive me. And I promise if you say the wrong thing, I'll forgive you. If we take that anxiety off the table, the conversation becomes so much easier. And inevitably, if we were talking about you growing up and what it's like to be the children

of Indian immigrants, that would be so much more fascinating. That's who you are, right? Yeah, I love that. You're setting the parameters at the start. You're opening up and saying, listen, I may get this wrong, but I really want to understand.

You also said something, Charles. You said, we may feel uncomfortable talking about race. And of course, it doesn't mean we need to talk about race all the time. Right. But just on that, right? I think this is something that has really helped my life over the last few years, is this curiosity with everything and everyone. So, for example, let's say somebody is talking about race all the time, and we don't think they should. Well, instead of judging that, I think it's much more helpful to understand, well, why is this person doing that? What is their life experience?

Maybe if I had their life experience, maybe if I had gone through all the life experiences they had gone through, well, maybe I'd also be talking about race the whole time. Oh, absolutely. Do you know what I mean? So I think we love to judge others and say, well, this is okay, this is not okay. But if you lead with curiosity,

and I know this is something you're very passionate about, you're trying to understand that person, not change their mind. I know there's a section in your book on that, right? What is the goal of meaningful conversation? It's to understand the other person,, not change their mind. I know there's a section in your book on that, right? What is the goal of meaningful conversation? It's to understand the other person, not to change their mind. In fact, there's a chapter in there about Netflix, this controversy that they had at Netflix. If you could talk about that, that'd be really interesting. I didn't know any of that and it was fascinating. So at Netflix, there was an executive

who in a meeting used the N-word. And he ended up getting fired for this. It was obviously a terrible thing to do. But it set off this civil war inside the company because some people, particularly people who were people of color, said like, this is evidence that Netflix is a racist workplace. Like this is a problem that we have not acknowledged. And then there were a bunch of other people who said things like, you know, like, I'm not racist. Like, don't call me racist. The only reason you haven't gotten promoted here is not because of the color of your skin.

It's because you're not prepared for success. You're not willing to make the sacrifices that I'm willing to make. And people were just going at each other's throats again and again and again. And it would have been the most natural thing on earth would have been for Reed Hastings, the head of the company to say,

look, keep politics at home. Like this is not like we are a business place. This is not a place where we have conversations about race. Like, you know, unless it impacts your work, this is not appropriate here. But it said he did exactly the opposite. What he did is he said, we are going to talk about this and the way we're going to talk about it

is we're going to create an environment where everyone belongs in this conversation. Because if you're black, you've had a racial experience. And if you're white, you've also had a racial experience. And the only way that we understand each other is to create an environment

where we acknowledge this could be awkward. We acknowledge that we may say the wrong things, but I want to ask you, I want to understand what it's like to be a black person or a gay person or an Indian person at this company. And I want you to really share with me. And if you're willing to share with me, I have to be willing to share with you. And that's what ended up resolving this crisis. So what they found at Netflix is that if you have this conversation where you try, where your goal is understanding, your goal is not to convince someone of something. Your goal is not to even find common ground, but your goal is simply, I want to understand you and I want to speak in a way that you can

understand me. That is actually how we work through our most difficult problems. Yeah. And it's true for medical providers too, right? In the book, there's this story about this guy, Dr. Bafar Adai. Yeah. This is great. Who's a LFA. And this really speaks to what we were talking about before, right? Connect first, educate second.

Absolutely. It kind of plays in. That's exactly what he had to learn. So he's a prostate surgeon. He removes tumors from prostates. And he had this problem, which is when he would get a new patient comes in every day and he tells them, look, you have a slow growing tumor. I know that the most certain way we could treat it is to cut it out. I'm a surgeon, I love surgery. But he says, but look, as many in your audience know, the problem with prostate surgery

is that the prostate's located very close to the nerves that control urination and sexual function. For some percentage of men, there's a side effect that's lifelong. So what he would say, and he said, prostate tumors are very slow growing. For most patients, what he would recommend is this thing known as active surveillance. You basically don't do anything. You take blood samples every six months to look for PSA indicators. You do a biopsy every two years. You do an MRI if it looks like

the tumor is getting bigger. But beyond that, there's no treatment, there's no surgery, there's no radiation. He would give this advice to patients. Patients would go home, they would discuss it with their spouse, and then they would come in the next morning and inevitably insist on getting the surgery. They would say, I just want you to cut me open and take it out. And Dr. Adai was bewildered by this because he thought these were going to be the easiest conversations of his life to tell someone that they don't have to have surgery. So he realizes this is a problem with him. He's doing something wrong in this conversation. So he goes and he talks to these professors at Harvard Business School. And what they tell him is, the mistake you are making is assuming you know what patients want. You're

assuming when they walk in that they want medical advice, but you need to ask them a deep question. You need to ask them what they actually want, which is hard to do and tricky. So a couple of weeks later, a patient comes in, 62 year old man, and Dr. Dye, the first question he asked him is, tell me what this diagnosis means to you. And this guy starts talking about how his dad had died when he was 17 years old, and he'd seen what that had done to his mom. And he doesn't want to do that to his wife. And he talks about how at work, he's afraid that people are going to see him differently if they know that he's sick. And then he starts talking about his grandchildren and like global warming and all of his fears. He never mentions his cancer. And Dr. Adai realizes this man does not want to talk about

diagnostic options at first. He wants to have an emotional conversation about what cancer means. And only once Dr. Adai matched him, only once he started talking about his own father getting sick and what that meant for them and how it changed the relationship, once they were connected to each other, then he could say, can I give you some medical advice? And the man listened for four minutes and agreed. And that happened again and again and again, because you have to connect first. Yeah. Connect first, educate second. Yeah. You know, it's interesting hearing that. I can remember as a young GP early on, I didn't even know if I was meant to do this, or whether it was, you know, not the right thing with

professional boundaries. But often if a patient would share something, and if there was something that I could connect with from my own life, I'd share it. I'd say, you know what, I don't know what it's like for you, but I can tell you, you know, when I was caring for my dad, I also really struggled with that. Like I felt guilty about taking time for myself or whatever it might be. I would also naturally, you know, your posture would change. Yeah. You'd come in, you know. So what's interesting actually, Charles, I filmed a BBC One documentary series back in 2015 and 2017 called Doctor in the House. And I would go and live alongside families who were struggling with their health.

I've got some vague recollection. I'm a tall guy, right? You know, I'm six, six and a half, almost two meters. And so I remember, I can't remember which episode it was, but I was basically talking to a patient. And you know, I think on Twitter afterwards, people were criticizing my posture, which is really interesting. And I get it, right? People love to criticize all kinds of things. I'm totally okay with that these days. But it's really interesting because I thought,

you know what, if I was in that situation again, I wouldn't do anything different because actually the patient was 5'4", I'm 6'6 1⁄2", I'm not going to sit upright and be miles away from that patient because there's a distance there. But if I slouch and come in and my bat's rounded and I'm on their eye level,

that's showing them something, that's connecting with them. And in that moment, that's more important than my posture. A thousand percent. And I'm sure that that patient trusted you so much more. Or when you're talking to your, as an early GP, and you're talking to your patients and you're sharing things about your dad,

like at that point, they trust the advice. This person gets me. Yeah. Okay, what's he got to say now? Yeah. It's interesting, he said with this prostate surgeon, he said when he spoke to those guys at Yale, they said that you are, was it Yale?

Harvard. Harvard Business School, yeah. Sorry, excuse me, especially when you were a Yale graduate. Okay. That's okay, I went to Harvard Business School too. Okay. So you took both of those boxes. Okay. They said to him, the problem you've got is that you're assuming you know what your patient wants. Yeah.

Now let's zoom out from the doctor-patient relationship for a minute. Isn't that one of the causes of conflicts? Oh. All the time or with our partner. Yeah, all the time. It's the same thing. We assume we know what they want, but we haven't asked. That's exactly right.

And think about how frequently our kids come to us with a question. And we think what they want is advice, but what they actually want is they want praise or they want understanding or they want consolation. And unless we ask them, what kind of conversation are we having here? Like, what do we, what do you, what do you want? And it's hard to ask that, right? to ask that, right? So one of the things that makes it a little bit easier is you mentioned partners. I got into this bad pattern with my wife, which exactly had to do with this, assuming what each other wanted, where I'd come home from work after a long day and I would complain to her about my day and she would propose a solution. And that would make me even more upset,

right? Like instead of hearing her good advice, I would, you know, take your boss out to lunch so you get to know each other. I would, I would be like, why aren't you supporting me? You're supposed to be on my side. Like, why aren't you outraged on my behalf? And then she would get upset that I was attacking her for giving me good advice. And so I called up these researchers and I asked them what's going on here. And they said, well, here's a way to sort of short circuit because you're assuming that your wife knows that you want comfort and your wife is assuming that you actually want a solution. And the problem is that you're having different conversations. Like we can see these assumptions and the kind of conversation you're having. They said a discussion is not about one thing. A con a discussion is made up of different kinds of

conversations and they tend to fall into one of three buckets. There's practical conversations where we're making plans or sharing information or solving problems. There's emotional conversations where I tell you how I'm feeling and I don't want you to solve my feelings. I want you to empathize. And then there's social conversations, which is about how we relate to each other and society and our social identities. And they said, if you're not having the same kind of conversation at the same moment, you can't connect with each other. So when you came home, you were having an emotional conversation and your wife was having a practical conversation. And as a result, you couldn't really hear each other. You couldn't connect. Yeah. And so when we make those assumptions, what we're usually assuming is what kind of

conversation we think the other person wants. But often what we need to do is we need to ask a question to see what kind of conversation they actually want to have. This is interesting. I have a very, I have had many similar experiences with my own wife,

which I've shared before on this podcast. And again, I would say one of the biggest learnings that I've had in my marriage is literally to ask my wife when she's sharing a problem, do you want me to just listen or to offer a solution? Now, what's really interesting, until I learned the hard way to ask that question, you would often find this kind of low-grade tension or conflict in certain situations, which I used to find baffling. I was like, hey, I'm trying to help here. I've got all these great ideas that I think can help. And you came to me with a problem.

Yeah. And I must be honest, even though I do ask, I probably struggle with that still, but I stick to it. Like I'll ask, I'll ask my wife, what do you want here? And 99% of the time she'll say, I just want you to listen. Yeah. And so even though my brain has got 20 different solutions that are popping out, I'm like, no, she's told you very clearly. She just wants you to listen. So I just listen. And it is amazing the difference this has made. But this goes to a wider point, Charles, for me about communication. And yes, in the book, you've kind of, you outline these three different kinds of conversation, the rules of having meaningful conversation. I love those four rules. You know, you've got all kinds of methods that people can use. But do we sometimes think that good communication is intuitive? Do we think that with my loved one, with my intimate partner, I shouldn't need to ask, I should just know?

Right, right. We always, yes, we make the mistake of assuming my intuition can take care of this on its own. And it's not totally off, right? As we were saying before, our brains have evolved to be good at communication. And so we have a lot of intuition, but we have to train our intuition on the right things, right? If you have practiced all of your conversations online via text where you can edit them and you can be perfect, your intuition isn't ready to have a face-to-face conversation. You can't rely on your intuition. But what we know is that if we can tell you about the principles of how communication works, if we can tell you about the rules, particularly those that we know from science are true, then your brain will make them into

intuition. But a huge part of that is that the first intuition you should have is to say, my goal in this conversation is to understand the other person. It is not to convince them that I'm right and they're wrong. It is not to convince them that I'm smart. It's not to convince them they should like me. It's not to convince them that I'm right and they're wrong. It is not to convince them that I'm smart. It's not to convince them they should like me. It's not to convince them that there's a solution to their problem. My goal in this conversation should simply be to understand the other person. That as a primary intuition sets us up for everything that's good. This plays out online massively, doesn't it?

We see so much conflicts online. I'm trying to find this bit. There's a lovely bit towards the end of the book where you outline rules for online communication or guiding principles. I really, really like that bit. Could you maybe speak about that? Because I know many people listening to, will have ended up in quite a lot of conflict. Maybe they're trying to help someone online, but because of the way they're communicating, it ends up getting out of control. And the way I got to this was that there was this experiment that was done where they brought together gun rights advocates in the US, so people who own like 40 or 45 guns, and gun control activists, people who,

who want to limit the number of guns. And these are people, these were committed, like activists, like these are people who knew each other. They had screamed at each other for years across protest lines and on the floors of legislatures. And they bring them all together and they say that to them, look, our goal here is not for you to, to find common ground. Our goal is just to see if you can have a conversation. And they teach them how to prove that they're listening to each other, a method known as looping for understanding. It has three steps. I ask you a question, preferably a deep question. I repeat back what I hear you say in my own words. And then the third step, and this is the one people

usually forget, is I ask you if I got it right. And the reason why this is powerful is because it proves to the other person that we genuinely want to understand them. So everyone has these conversations. They say they're wonderful and amazing. They get to know each other in a way that none of them agree with each other, but they feel really connected. They feel like this was really positive. And then they go home and there's a private Facebook group that's been set up for them. And within 45 minutes, people are calling each other jackbooted Nazis, right? They're like, they just like go off when it's online, everything falls apart. And the reason why is because they assumed that communicating face-to-face is like communicating

online. But actually every form of communication has its own rules, right? We know this. We know that if you say something sarcastic, I can hear the sarcasm in your voice. And if you type something sarcastic, I'm not gonna hear that sarcasm. I'm gonna think you're serious.

I'm gonna get upset. And so what we have to do, the rules of talking online is to remind ourselves that this form of communication is slightly different from a phone call. It's slightly different from texting. It's slightly different from face-to-face. Each form of communication has its own rules.

And online, one of them is, I have to be more polite. I have to go out of my way to show you that I'm being polite. Studies have done show that when people are fighting online, if just one person, this is like groups of 30 people arguing with each other. If just one person starts saying please and thank you, the entire conversation gets better. Yeah, I can believe that. I mean, I get sent a lot of DMs on Instagram and it's amazing how often people don't say stuff like, oh, hi, Rangan. Right. It's just like, can't believe you spoke to that guest. It's really interesting to me that I've seen this enough times. So's just like, can't believe you spoke to that guest.

It's really interesting to me, like I've seen this enough times. So I'm like, I feel I can really start to make, you know, a pretty good guess of what's going on in someone's head based upon how they're communicating. Now I will always, maybe not 100% of the time, but if I do reply to someone, and you often can't tell their name from the handle, I'll go into their account, find out what their first name is. And I will say, oh, hi, Sandra, thanks so much for your message. And then that's how I'll interact. And it's amazing what happens when you do that. In fact, this happened a few weeks ago. Someone who I think is a fan of mine was unhappy with something and put this kind of one line message in my DMs with no anything. And I was

feeling quite good and charitable that day. So I replied really nicely. I looked up her name. I said, hi, and I explained my perspective on something. And then, you know, it's funny, a couple of days later, I got a message back from her saying, something like, you've really made me reflect on how rude my last message was and how it's so wrong to just judge based on that. And she sent me a really nice message. That wasn't my goal. But I thought, wow, it reminds me of what you said, when you start using pleases, when you start using these things, I think what happens is that you remind people that I'm a human being. That's exactly right. You're a human being. Right. And when they say, when they started by saying, hi, Rangan, what they're saying is, I see you as a person, right? If they started

by just saying, you're an idiot, right? Or like, I can't believe you. Then they're not saying like, I see you as a person. They're not even saying, I want to have a conversation. They're saying, I want to shout. Totally. If someone says to me, for example, hi, Rangan, you know, love your work. Normally really love your podcast. I've got to be honest, the last guest,

these two points I didn't agree on, you probably get a response from me and a really nice response. I'm like, hey, no worries. Great, let's engage. They're showing you that they want to connect with you. Yeah, exactly. And I do think that half the arguments online, actually forget half, 90% are because we feel we're in a rush. We don't have time for the pleasantries. Hey, listen, in my view, Charles, once you don't have time for the basic pleasantries of human

conversation you might as well give up you shouldn't be having the conversation don't have the conversation if you can't say hi to that person and say something i'm quite look i'm quite old-fashioned in certain ways like even on emails and i know again with all these newer methods of communication there's there's new norms right right But the problem is we don't all subscribe to the same norms, right? So when I get these really quite curt one-line emails, you know what, with requests, with the best will in the world, when I have so many emails to get back to, I just tend to ignore them. Not because I want to, I just like, I don't feel like I want to get involved. You know, and people think it's like meditating in the morning, right? Just to try and connect this to earlier. You think you don't have time for five minutes of meditation or whatever

keystone habit you choose. You don't realize yet, because you haven't done it enough, that those five minutes you invest in yourself in the morning will pay you back 50 minutes throughout the day, because you'll be less reactive, you'll be calmer, you'll be more productive, all those things. I think it's the same in online communication. You don't realize it just saying, oh, hi, Sam, how are you doing? Just wanted to check, you know, you said you'd get this to me by this time, but I noticed that hasn't come. Just the extra 15 seconds will pay you back so much. Huge dividends. And this is great because the keystone habit, so we, you know, all the tactics we've talked about, asking deep questions, looping for understanding, trying to figure out which different kind of conversation you're in.

At its core is a keystone habit, which is showing you that I want to connect with you. This is what super communicators. So super communicators, they ask many more questions, 10 to 20 times as many questions as the average person. They tend to match whether it's an emotional or practical, but the most important thing that they do, and this is what happens

when you write that pleasantry in an email, is they show you that they want to connect with you. Yeah. When I laugh the same way you laugh, it's not because I think it's funny. It's because I'm showing you that I want to align with you. What was that stat in the book about laughter? Yeah. 80% of the time when we laugh, it is not in response to any attempt at humor.

Right. And like, we've laughed in this conversation. Neither of us have told any jokes. We're not, I mean, I'm not- Yet, yet. Yet at humor, right? And like, we've laughed in this conversation. Neither of us have told any jokes. We're not, I mean, I'm not a comedian. And yet when I laugh, it's because I'm showing you I want to connect with you. And when you laugh back, you're showing that you want to connect with me.

This is the keystone habit that if we just do this, it guides everything else. The thing about laughter is interesting, right? I've been thinking about this recently, and look, my wife produces this show, so she's tired of the mentions of her in this conversation. She'll just cut it out, okay? So let's give this a go. But laughter is interesting, right? Because I believe I can tell the same joke, right? In our kitchen. And sometimes she'll laugh and sometimes she won't. And my current working hypothesis is that it's dependent on her mood.

Yeah. Not in a bad way, but if she's busy with stuff for the kids or her own work or whatever, it kind of speaks to what you're saying in that moment she probably doesn't want to connect she's doing other stuff other important stuff to be clear but at other times let's say on a Sunday when maybe there's less admin to do for example I'll notice she laughs at the same joke. So I guess what we're saying is that it's not inherently what we're saying or the joke that's funny or not. It's kind of the laughter often is a signal that, oh yeah, okay, I'm open to what you're saying now. I want to show you that I'm ready to have a conversation. I don't mean to dash your hopes as a comedian. Okay, come on. Probably the joke isn't that funny, right?

I tell the same joke over and over and over again to my kids. And you're exactly right. Sometimes they laugh and sometimes they don't. And it doesn't have to do with the quality of the joke. It has to do with me making the same joke to say like, I want to connect with you right now. And sometimes they have time for it. And they say like, I want to connect back by laughing.

And sometimes they've got their own thing going on. And they let me know. Charles, in the book, there's a lot of tips and we've spoken about a lot of them so far about how we can become better communicators. And one of your key messages is that we can all become excellent communicators. We can all be super communicators. Once we develop the skill, once we know the principles, once we work on it, once we cultivate that skill, I think that's a very empowering message. But what about when we're in group settings, right? So one-on-one with you, okay, I can apply these principles, okay? I can try and understand or I can ask you, what is this conversation really about? What do you want out of this? I can try and match you, mirror what you're doing,

you know, rephrase what you've told me in my own words to show you that I've listened, right? I can do all those things. But let's say you are on my team for the podcast, right? And there were eight of us sitting here in a room. How do these principles apply in a group setting? So what's really, really interesting is, well, let me ask you. So when you have those eight people, your team for the podcast, some people probably talk more than others, right? That's just natural

in a group. But are there some people who ask more questions than others? Ask questions that sort of help you illuminate like what you actually want to be talking about what's really going on. Yeah, I think they probably are. Yeah. And those people are probably super communicators. So in these same principles of asking deep questions of figuring out what people want to talk about when we're in a group, they're still true. Now, oftentimes we don't have to take all the responsibility on ourself. In a group conversation, we can be the person who asks the really smart question instead of having the really smart answer. And actually what we'll find is that we'll get invited into those conversations more

and more and more because no one will say like, oh, Charles, Charles always has the right answers. But they'll say, I just, these conversations go better when Charles is there. Like, like, I don't know what he's doing, but what I'm doing, what you're doing, what super communicators are doing is they're, they're asking questions. When, when someone says something smart and the group hasn't heard it, they're repeating that. They're saying, you know, Jim said this thing that's really important.

Let's think about it. They're re-emphasizing what other people say. They're showing each other that they listen. They often listen ostentatiously by repeating back what people say, by saying that's a really smart idea. And when somebody gets serious, they're the first person to get serious with them. Or when someone tells a joke, they're the first person to laugh. They're matching other people's types of conversation. So you're right. It's a little different in groups, but it's the same basic principles. But we can wait for our opportunities to help the group understand each other. It's interesting. Communication is clearly one of the most important skills we can learn. Because our relationships, which are one of the most important skills we can learn. Yeah. Right? Because our relationships, which are one of the most important things for our health and our wellbeing,

basically rely on good quality communication. If you can't communicate, you don't have a relationship. You're going to struggle to have good relationships, right? But let's just stay in that team setting for a minute. If someone is a bit shy, they don't feel they're a good communicator, and they're in a team meeting at their work, have you got any advice for them? How can they get involved with that conversation when they feel a little bit afraid to. Yeah. So I think, I think you mentioned before that as, as, as the team leader, as someone who's guiding the conversation, you invite them in and that's, that's so helpful, right? Because what you're really showing when you say like, Susie, we haven't heard from you a

little bit. We're like, what do you think about this? What you're saying is I want you to connect with us. I want to make it easy. I want to invite you in. But for that person themselves, I think that this is where asking questions is really powerful because oftentimes when we're scared of speaking, it's because we're scared of saying something that makes us look dumb. But when you ask a question, you almost always don't look dumb. You oftentimes look very smart. Like when you, there's something about questions, people love being asked questions. They love being asking, you know, what do you think about this? Like what, what happens next? What's your thoughts on this? What plan should we, people love being asked questions. And so if you're someone who's feeling reticent in a

conversation or in a group setting, don't put that pressure on yourself that you have to say the smart, perfect thing. Just ask a genuinely curious question. And you're going to find that everyone around you thinks that you're so smart because you asked a smart question. It's like this magical thing that questions end up making other people like us. But we think that we have to say smart things, but actually we just have to ask questions. Supercommunicators ask 10 to 20 the times of questions as non-supercommunicators, right? So asking questions is a key skill. And I guess in many ways that takes the pressure off people because they don't have to think of something really smart to say. You know, maybe they missed something in the meeting or they're not following.

They could just say, hey, can you just remind me, why is this so important for the team? Like, that's such a simple question. You don't need any expertise or knowledge, but it then is probably going to do two things. A, it brings you in, and B, you probably provide a ton of clarity

for everyone else who was probably thinking the same thing. And they're all afraid to ask. At its core, every great question, every deep question has, what do you make of this? That's why when Dr. Adai asked his patient, tell me what this diagnosis means to you. At its core, when we ask a deep question, what we're asking is not like, tell me some fact, but rather, what does this mean to you? At its core, when we ask a deep question, what we're asking is not like, tell me some fact, but rather, what does this mean to you? How do you make sense of this? How does this fit into your explanation of the world for yourself? And that's never a dumb question, right? Because it's a legitimate question with anyone.

Charles, to be a super communicator or to be a good communicator, let's say, So, Charles, to be a super communicator or to be a good communicator, let's say, I guess one thing you need is to be able to pick up on signals. Yeah. So, there's a lot of people who have had traumatic upbringings. Let's say their parents were in fighting the whole time. Yeah. Right? There was a lot of tension in the family home, let's say.

Now, a lot of the time, these kids become highly attuned to picking up on body language and tone of voice because they need to know, is there conflict? What's going on here? So it's just an interesting thought experiment. I don't know if you have any research on this, but I wonder if there's any research to support this idea that kids who've had problematic childhoods on some occasions become exceptionally good communicators. Oh, absolutely. Really?

There's a ton of research and evidence of this. So, and we haven't really talked about what a super communicator is. We all have moments of super communication. We all have these moments when we walk into a room and we know exactly what to say to like win the team over to us or a friend has a problem

and we know what to say to them to make them feel better. But there are these people who can do it much more consistently, people who can connect with basically anyone. And what's interesting is when I started doing this research, I thought that maybe they would be more charismatic or extroverts or something special that they were born with. But it turns out that's not true at all. The research shows that super communicators come from all walks of life. The thing that they have in common is that something, whether it was just desire on their

part or an experience, something pushed them to think about communication a little bit more. So many of the best super communicators, if you talk to them and you're like, oh, you must've been good at communication your whole life. They'll say things like, no, no, in high school, I had real trouble making friends. Like I had to think about how kids talk to each other because, cause I couldn't, I couldn't get through. Or they'll say things like, my parents got divorced and I was the peacemaker. I had to think about how to talk to my mom and my dad

so they're not at each other's throats. It's this thinking about communication a little bit more that oftentimes makes us better at communication. That's really all that we need is we just need to pay a little bit more attention to become a super communicator. And that's why it's within grasp of everyone, because we can all learn to pay more attention. We can all learn to show that we want to connect. It's not magic. It's not like some crazy technical skill. It's literally something that we're born to do if we just have the right guidance.

On the subject of deep questions, I've got one I'd like to ask you. You have written multiple global bestsellers, okay? So you've toured the world, you've given speaking events, you've been in London, New York, LA, you've been on big podcasts, big TV shows. Right now, you are in leafy Cheshire in the Northwest of England.

Yeah. In my garden, in my studio. Okay. You've been around the world. You've been on some of these massive, massive shows. What does it mean to you at this moment in your life that you're sat here with me right now in my back garden talking about the importance of communication? Well, first of all, your show is a massive show, right?

Okay. This is no small cheese to be on your show. Many, many people tune in. I mean, so when I was younger, um, as I think many young people feel, I wasn't certain that I would be successful and being successful was really, really important to me. Right. I wanted to test myself. I wanted to, and, and I would focus on these external measures of success. I, I became a journalist and I really wanted to win a Pulitzer. And I really wanted to write important stories. And eventually I won a Pulitzer and I actually found that it was like this very anticlimactic thing. It was very nice. I feel very, very lucky to have won one, but it didn't change my life at all. What did change my life was writing The Power of Habit. And the reason why is because i started

getting these emails from people saying you know i read your book and i've been struggling with alcohol for years and some of the ideas in there helped me figure out how to get beyond drinking or overeating or you know i i argue with my wife all the time and some of the ideas getting those emails tens of thousands of emails from people saying, the ideas made me feel like I was living a better life. That was so rewarding. That was so meaningful. And that's the point at which I decided actually,

writing these books is going to be the focus of my life. Now, I will say, and, and I'm, I want to ask you the same question. If you were to ask me like, what is most important to me right now? Um, it's talking about this book and helping people have conversations, but also I have this 12 year old son that I actually struggle to, I, I struggle to connect with him sometimes. And it's so important to me. I, I want to so much and I need to figure out and I'm working on it. I need to figure out how to unlock his passions, how to figure out how to ask him the right questions. Cause I ask him questions sometimes now and you know, how was your day? Oh, it was fine. What'd you do at school? Nothing. And I find if I ask

deep questions and I say like, you know, I noticed you hung out with Jasper. Like, what do you admire about Jasper? What's what, why is your friend that that helps? But, but I think what's really important to me is, is trying to live these principles as much as write about them. Yeah. Because, as you know, like, when we, the only thing that actually makes us happy is connecting to other people. And I think that's why those emails from readers were so meaningful to me. Because they were saying, I want to connect with you. Your book connected with me.

And I'm hoping that this book, Super Communicators, that it helps people connect with each other. And I'd love to hear from any, I read every single email that comes. I respond to every single email that comes from a reader or a listener, but also trying to embody these principles in my own life. I just, at some point I want to,

as my kids get older, I want them to be my friends. And so that's, I spent a lot of time thinking about that. Do you ever go away with them one-on-one? Yeah. Yeah. Do you do that with your? Yeah. It's something I've started doing and it's just been amazing. I recently went on a ski trip with my son, just me and him for a few days. And was it awesome? I mean, it was just phenomenal. And I found that we ended up talking about different things and

connecting in ways that we don't in the normal routine of day-to-day life. And it reminds me of something we spoke about before about how much our environment influences our behaviors and our habits well i think our environment also influences our conversations yeah and sometimes i'm not figuring this out in real time as i speak but sometimes i think that changing the environment also is a very valuable tool at changing the types of conversations we're having. Absolutely. That's why I love last summer, my wife and I took our two boys to Japan. And this summer, we're actually coming to London and Paris. And I love going to places that are new. I'd never been to Japan before and I don't know London and Paris very well because we're all amateurs, right?

We're all on the same level, right? Like I don't know how to speak French. I mean, honestly, sometimes I can't understand what someone from Scotland says to me. But when we're all equal, we're all in the same boat, it just feels so wonderful. Because usually I'm the dad and they're the kids and I'm no more than they do. But now we get this chance to all be amateurs together. I love that.

Charles, it's been an absolute pleasure meeting you in person and talking to you. I've really, really enjoyed our conversation together. If you were going to leave people with one tip from your latest book, Super Communicators, someone's listening to you right now and going, you know what? I'm not great at communication, but Charles has inspired me. He told me that anyone can be a good communicator. What's the one tip you would leave them with? I think the one tip I would leave them with is to, so there was this interesting study that was done by Harvard. I'm sure you've heard of it.

The Harvard study of adult development. They followed thousands of people around for nearly 100 years now and they found the only good predictor of how happy you are and how healthy you are and how successful you are, however you define success at age 65, is having a handful of close relationships at age 45, which means you started building them before you were 45. So the advice I would give to people is to say, it is often hard to show someone you want to connect with them, right? You have a friend that you haven't talked to in a year and a half. And if you call them up, you know, the first couple of minutes are going to be awkward. Like you're trying to like reorient yourself or, or there's someone you see every day and you sit next to them on the bus and you never talked to them. And it is going to be hard at that first moment. And yet if we ask them a question, if we share something about ourself,

if we ask them a question, if we share something about ourself, if we try and genuinely connect with them, it will make us happier and healthier and more successful. It is literally the best thing that we can do. And think about how many hard things we do because we think they're going to pay off, right? We save money. We go to school and we study really hard. We eat healthily even though we want that chocolate. This is as important as all of those things. Decide that you want to connect with people, at least a handful of people, and then invest in them. Invest in them by asking them questions about yourself. Invest in them by being authentic and honest about your own self, your struggles and your vulnerabilities. And I promise you, you will feel so grateful that you have this connection with people.

The same way I feel so grateful that you've had me in. It's just having a wonderful conversation just makes you feel terrific. Anything good in life is downstream from good quality communication. I totally agree. That's coming on the show, Charles. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me. This has been so much fun. Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. Do think about one thing that you can take away

and apply into your own life. And also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else. Remember, when you teach someone, it not only helps them, it also helps you learn and retain the information. Now, before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday Five. It's my free weekly email containing five simple ideas to improve your health and happiness. In that email, I share exclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else, including health advice, how to manage your time better, interesting articles or videos that I'd be consuming, and quotes that have caused me to stop and reflect. And I have to say, in a world of endless emails, it really is delightful that many of you tell me it is one of the

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