Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - The Lost Art of Connection: How to Be a Supercommunicator | Charles Duhigg

Episode Date: April 17, 2024

How good are you at really communicating? In a world drowning in words, how do you make your words matter?I'm not talking about small talk or working a room or the gift of gab. I'm talking about the kind of communication that works on a deeper level – a level where we truly connect, challenge, grow with, and inspire each other.Back on the podcast this week is Charles Duhigg, who's spent a career in journalism diving into what makes humans do what they do – and today, he’s here to talk about what it takes to be a ‘Supercommunicator’. Charles is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times and the New Yorker, and he's written two best-sellers about personal excellence that mesh neuroscience with great storytelling and practical tools: The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better.Charles’ newest book is Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. And this one's a little different -- instead of focusing on how we can maximize our own personal abilities, this one is all about how to be extraordinary in our interactions with each other – the ability to genuinely engage, to echo emotions, and to create space for real, heartfelt exchanges. Charles says communication is humanity's superpower, and lately that ability has become strained. There’s evidence of that everywhere -- in politics, on social media, online -- but with the right tools and practice, we can get it back.In our conversation today, we unravel how to reclaim our conversational depth in a world buzzing with superficial interactions._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. Homo sapiens superpower is communication. Every conversation is made up of multiple kinds of conversation. If two people or more are having different kinds of conversations at the same time, they won't hear each other. And most of those different kinds of conversation. If two people or more are having different kinds of conversations at the same time, they won't hear each other. And most of those different kinds of conversation, they fall into one of three big buckets.

Why do you say that it's a superpower? I think we're terrible at it. You're exactly right. Much of communication is not as good as it could be. And there's three things that if you just practice them a little bit, they're going to become habits. It's literally just a set of simple skills.

Charles, you brought the heat again. Okay. Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Michael Gervais by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. Okay, simple question for you today. How skilled are you at communicating? In a world that is drowning in words, how do you make your words matter? Returning to the podcast this week is Charles Duhigg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of bestsellers like The Power of Habit and Smarter, Faster, Better.

He's got a new book, Super Communicators, How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. And this one's a little different. Instead of focusing on how we can maximize our own personal abilities, this one is all about how to be extraordinary in our interactions with each other. The ability to genuinely engage, to echo emotions, and to create space for real heartfelt exchanges. We unravel how to reclaim our conversational depth in a world that is buzzing with superficial interactions. I need this. This was awesome. I am so fatigued by superficial interactions. This is timely and it's wonderful. And with that, let's dive right into this incredible conversation with Charles

Duhigg. Okay, Charles, welcome back to the Fighting Mastery Podcast and congratulations on your new book. Thank you. Communicators. Yes, this is awesome. Congratulations. And then just before we dive in, I just want to find out, like, how are you? I am great. Thank you for asking. That's very – you're a super communicator because you start with questions that invite the other person to say something meaningful. I am doing great. So since the last time we talked, I moved from New York to California. I'm talking to you from Santa Cruz, California, which has been a massive, massive improvement in our quality of life.

And then I've spent the last couple of years writing this book and just being really, and now I finally get to share it with people, which is really exciting to me. So things are going fantastic. That is awesome. Okay, cool. And the pressure's on now to be a super communicator with you if you've just written the book on it. So, cool. And the pressure's on now to be a super communicator with you if you've just written the book on it. So, and I know you've heard that before, but I really, I really appreciate that challenge. So how about this? Let's, let's have an agreement. Okay. If I'm blowing it. Okay. If I'm blowing it in any kind of way or slightly beginning to blow it, will you just kind of wave both your arms and say,

I just want to... Absolutely. I'll be like, you know, my friend. Yeah, right, right. But I don't think you're going to blow it. Have you ever thought about... Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, to be determined. Okay. So last time we connected, you had written a first rate book, The Power of Habit. Congratulations on that success. And then we kind of missed each other on your second book, The Power of Habit. Congratulations on that success. And then we kind of missed each other on your second book, which is Smarter, Faster, Better. And then here you are on the third book, Super Communicator. So can you just bring in the arc of why you are from those two into Super Communicators? Yeah.

And there's a very specific reason I got interested in communication. But part of it was that power of habit and smarter, faster, better, which is about productivity, they're both really focused on the individual, right? What do I do to make myself better? How do I build the habits to make me successful? But the truth of the matter is the more and more time I spent thinking about this, the more I realized so much of our success depends on other people, right? It depends on the teams we belong to. It depends on how we get along with coworkers, how we get along with our partner and our kids, our spouse. And I saw this in my own life, right?

That I fell into this bad pattern. Two things happened. First of all, I was made a manager at the New York times. And, um, I thought I would be great at this because, you know, I've had managers before and I have a MBA from Harvard. And so, and I was terrible at it. I was just like so bad, like, and I was good at that. I was fine at the logistics part. I was fine at the like strategy. It was the, it was the communication part that I was terrible at, which of course is like 95% of being a manager is communication. And then I would fall into this pattern when I'd come home with my wife.

And, and I think this is fairly common. I would be at end of a long day. I'd be complaining about my boss or my coworkers. And, and she very reasonably would say something like, oh, well, why don't you take your boss out to lunch and you guys can get to know each other better. And instead of hearing her advice, I would get even more upset, right? And I would say like, why aren't you supporting me? You're supposed to have my back. And then she would get upset because I was overreacting. And I was just befuddled by what was going on here, that it didn't matter

what my habits were, how productive I was. If I couldn't figure out how to communicate with other people, it wasn't going to work. I see none of me in you. Perhaps this is something that is familiar to you from your own home. Oh, God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is great. Okay. So why focus on, why was the output on communication strategies or best practices for the great communicators and not on relationships? Because going to lunch is about building the relationship and you're pointing to the power of communication while at lunch to build the relationship. So why was communication your

North Star, not the building of a relationship? So it's communication and also connection, right? And I think a lot of it has to do with, if you think about it, Homo sapiens superpower is communication, right? That's what has caused our species to succeed so much it's allowed us to to form families and to build communities and then to build cities and nations our ability to coordinate with each other is entirely dependent on our ability to communicate with each other and that doesn't just mean verbal communication right there's different kinds of communication including non-verbal or non-linguistic, and those are important. But I think that the thing that's underlying all of this is that when we want to connect with someone, the easiest and best way to do it is to talk with them. In fact, there was a study that

was done by Harvard, the Harvard Study of Adult Happiness that you've probably heard of. It's one of the largest and longest longitudinal studies in history. So for almost 100 years now, they followed around thousands of people trying to figure out what makes them healthiest, what makes them happiest, what makes them more successful. The only thing that they found is a reliable predictor is that if you have a handful of deep, meaningful connections at age 45, you will be healthier and happier and probably more financially successful at age 65. And of course, it's not 45 and 65 aren't magical, right? If you could do it at 45,

you've been doing it for decades already. But what they have found is that the way that we create those connections, those deep, meaningful relationships is through conversation. It's through sharing our ideas and feelings with each other and then understanding that, knowing that other people want to understand us. So Dr. Robert Waldinger was on the show as well. And for folks listening, you know, he was on episode 375 to, it's a quick reference. He was remarkably clear on those two points that you just made. And then he just had this way of communicating, condensing 85 years of research into just a couple basic principles. And so are you riding on the spine of, quote unquote, the good life? It comes down to connections and communication.

Yes, but I think it's actually, certainly you need that for the good life. But I think that there's something about communication that sort of transcends the good life into parts of our life that aren't so good, but are necessary. When you're at a party and you meet someone new, when you're in an argument with a coworker, when you and your spouse have a difference of opinion, I don't know that those are necessarily parts of the good life. It'd be great if we could avoid some of them, but they are parts of life and they're parts of life that we need to know how to really do well. And the thing about learning good communication, about becoming a super communicator, is that it equips you to make all of those situations better to help you understand what's actually going on.

And it might be useful to define what a super communicator is. I find that the easiest way is to just ask a question. Like if you were having a bad day and there was someone you were going to call who you know would make you feel better, does that, does that person pop into your head right away? Do you know who that is? who who is it for you it's my wife your wife so for you she for clarity she can go both ways so like she can be like a kick in the ass and like i got you yeah you know so if i if i want to just kind of bake, you know, or bake, if I want to front load the security that I might get from some, you know, unconditional support, it might be somebody else, but a truth speaker, a fire breather, or some, and somebody who like will absolutely give it to me straight.

That is definitely my wife. So I don't know if that's who you're talking. No, that's absolutely who I'm talking about. Because for her, for you, she's a super communicator. And I'm sure it's true back to that. You're a super communicator for her, that you guys know how to listen to each other and show your listening so well. Now, there are some people who can do this with almost anyone. And the thing that we've learned is this is not like something you're born with. This is not something that you have to be a charismatic or an extrovert. It's literally just a set of simple skills.

And we used to know these skills. We used to actually teach these skills in school. And they're skills that evolution has given us. But in the contemporary world, it's sometimes very easy not to listen to your instincts. And so by explaining what the skills are and explaining how communication works, we make it easier for people to listen to that sense of how to actually connect with others that all of us carry around, but sometimes can forget. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true.

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And what I really appreciated that you're doing here is you're tying together the best practices to communicate well to foster a real connection. And before we get into the skills, let's start, why now? Why now with this book? What was calling you to say, okay, I got to dig in to better understand something? Yeah, it's a really good question. And I think the reason why now, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, is starting what now, six or seven or eight, even before the 2016 election, I felt like we were living through this age when people just had forgotten how to have conversations, right? It sort of felt like there were all these people who like either the

goal of talking to each other was to convince each other that I'm right or to talk to people who already agree with me. And this is really confusing to me because just to take the US, the US was born in conversation, right? The constitutional convention were people who hated each other getting together and having conversations until they figured out and agreed on a constitution. And our best moments as a nation, and also our best moments as a world, have been when we can sit down with someone whom we disagree with, maybe even we dislike, and the goal is not to convince them you're right or I'm right. The goal isn't necessarily sometimes to find a common ground. The goal is just to understand, understand why the other person

feels that way, what they're going through and help them understand us. Because the thing we know, you mentioned belonging before. At the core of belonging is understanding. When I say I belong to this community, what I'm really saying is I feel like they want to understand me and I want to understand them. And it felt like right now we are at a moment when learning, relearning, reminding ourselves how to communicate, how to have conversations is really, really important and will hopefully be really powerful. Triple down on the need to communicate well and to create the space for that feels like that's a sec, maybe a primary challenge to communicating. Well, there was that,

that disease of busy and the disease of like on the go and fast paced and the always on society where like there was a recent research that I came across where, um, what was the number? 47%, 40. It was, the always on society where like there was a recent research that i came across where um 47 40 it was there's differences in genders but basically they gave people the chance to be with their own thoughts something that most people would say out loud like i just wish i had a little more time to myself yeah just i just wish man it's so busy there's so much happening i just wish i had a little more time to breathe.

And then they gave them time to be with themselves. And it was somewhere around 47% of people would rather shock themselves than be with themselves. So, you know, I don't know how we square that one, Charles, but like, so, um, okay. So, so that being said is I, I tripled down on the importance to, to listen well, to be able to be an active communicator. Let's just start with the United States for just a moment. What grade would you give us? Oh man. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to say, and then I'm going to ask you to answer the same question. I'd say a B tops. And honestly, sometimes like a B minus C plus, like when I watched conversations around politics,

people don't want to share with each other. Family members don't want to share with each other. I know, I know people who avoid talking about politics who are going to vote for president and, and that shouldn't be true. That should be an easy conversation just to have, even if we believe different things. That's what a democracy is. Well, so I got a different score than you. Yeah. I'll give like, let's do a bell-shaped curve, and I'll get up in that upper 3% like are extraordinary.

Yeah. And then I think that there's a curve here that's noticed, like this radical drop where we've got, I don't know, I'll say like 10% are doing okay. And so I think the 85% are like an F. And the reason I'm being hyper critical in that score is because the, the connection between story first wanting to listen and then secondly connecting thought streams with feelings and then emotions. And then the context of all of that broth is like, that's sophisticated now to take yourself out of that, not get sucked into the, into the narrative,

but to have a sense of groundedness, to really be present with the thoughts and then ignore those thoughts pretty quickly and get right down to the feelings and emotions. That type of broth, that's a soup that I want to be part of. Where's this metaphor going? I'm not sure, but that's the relationships I want to be part of. And I think they're pretty fair. It's interesting that you mention it that way because one of the big insights. So after I had this experience with my wife and I kept on getting into fights that I couldn't figure out why we were having, I started calling all these communication experts, asking them

what's going on. And what they said, and this gets to what you were just saying, is they said, look, in the last decade, we've learned a huge amount about conversations because of advances in neural imaging and sort of our ability to collect and analyze data. And they said, for most people think of a discussion as being about one thing, right? Like we're talking about our vacation plans or what we should do about our kids' grades. But actually, they said, every conversation is made up of multiple kinds of conversation. And most of those different kinds of conversation, they fall into one of three big buckets. There's practical conversations,

like you were talking about, the top of that broth, right? Where we're making plans or we're solving problems or we're figuring stuff out. Then there's emotional conversations where if I tell you how I'm feeling, I don't want you to solve the problem for me. I want you to empathize and I want you to relate. And then finally, there's social conversations, which is about how we relate to each other and how we relate to society. And they said, the thing that we've learned is if two people or more are having different kinds of conversations at the same time, they won't hear each other. That's what was going on with me and my wife. I was having an emotional conversation complaining

about my boss. She was having a practical conversation suggesting solutions. So I couldn't hear her and she couldn't hear me. But if we learn how to align what's in the language of psychology and neurology is known as neural entrainment. If we learn how to have the same kind of conversation at the same moment, then suddenly connection becomes so much easier. And that soup, that broth that you're talking about, those deep, meaningful conversations, they become actually easier than making small talk. I'm a fan of like half sentences. Yeah. And they're like these preceding little sentences to set a frame.

It doesn't need to be a long narrative about anything. And they often come in the form of like things like this, like what I'm about to say might seem insensitive and I'm going to do my best. So it's like a, it's an cents, two, it's an idea, but it's not just a half sentence, but that type of framing mechanism. And so I, in that spirit, I've, I've learned, we'll just stay with our wives for a minute here. Hey, Mike, I want to talk about something. And here's, here's my response. Okay. Solution mode, feeling mode, or just absolutely just listening. And then, so now I know I've

asked for, tell me which hat to put on. And she'll, she'll, she'll say something like, look, I just need you to, I just need you to understand something. And really what she's saying is like the feeling piece, you know, or no, I, I need, I need a solution here. Like, this isn't going to be, this is a quick conversation and I'm stuck. Bang. I know exact practical hat. Okay, good. Go to solution mode.

But if that's a default for me, which, you know, the old gender narrative about, you know, men go to solutions or whatever more often. But I get myself in trouble. So I love that little framing. And the three that you have, they're so clean. Well, and it feels really good. So my wife does the same thing with me. She says, like, you know, do you want me? Do you want me to solve this problem? Or do you want me just to listen while you vent? Which and the thing is, it feels so good when she asked that you would think that like, I would I would be but no, because like, oftentimes, I haven't sat down and figured

out what I wanted out of this conversation. And when she asks, I'm like, Oh, no But no, because oftentimes, I haven't sat down and figured out what I wanted out of this conversation. And when she asks, I'm like, oh, no, no, no. This isn't actually a big deal. We don't need to solve it. I'm just grumpy, so I need to get it off my chest. And I think it's really powerful to do that. In schools, actually, they oftentimes teach teachers to ask students, particularly when the student is upset, do you want to be heard? Do you want to be helped? Or do you want to be hugged? And of course, that's the three conversations, right? The practical, the emotional, and the social. And what it does is it kind of teaches these kids to say, oh, this is what I need from you, which of course is critical. That's what

you're doing with your wife when you're asking her. And when she tells you what she needs, it feels great. Got it. I understand the assignment. Now I know how to succeed. So let's do a cadence. Typically, communication is like what I'm sending verbally and non-verbally. But I think that you've got a different way to talk about what a super communicator does. But if we could just break it up into sending signals and receiving signals, how do you split those two? So the receiving is actually more important. The sending is critical, right? But the receiving is the most important.

And this is just listening. And we oftentimes mistake how listening happens. One of the chapters in the book is about this experiment that was done where they brought in a bunch of gun rights advocates and a bunch of gun control activists. And the goal was not to have them convince each other. The goal was just to see if they could have civil conversations. And in order to do that, what they did is they taught them this technique called looping for understanding. And looping for understanding has three steps. The first is you ask a question, right? And there's these things called deep questions we can talk about are really powerful. Secondly, once the person has answered that question,

you repeat back in your own words what you heard them say. And then finally, and this is the step most people forget, ask if you got it right. And what they found is that when they taught these folks who were normally enemies, normally people who would like be screaming at each other over gun issues, when they taught them to loop for understanding, suddenly all the conflict disappeared. And that didn't mean everyone agreed with each other, but now they were showing each other that they wanted to understand. They were proving that they were listening. And this is something critical about receiving information, about listening, is that oftentimes we do things like nod our head or we smile to show that we're

listening. But speaking is such a cognitively intense activity that the speaker doesn't really pay attention to what the audience is doing. So to show that we're listening, to prove that we're listening, oftentimes, and this is particularly useful in conflict, we have to do something once they stop talking. And that looping for understanding, the proving that I just heard what you said and I process it and I can say it in my own words. And by the way, did I get that right? Or do I need to loop this again? Do we need to drill down deeper? That's critical because one of the things that we know about super communicators, consistent super communicators, is they ask 10 to 20 times as many questions as the average person. And then they listen to what people say.

That's a big number. Yeah, right? That's a big number, isn't it? I mean, what's interesting about those questions is that some of them are deep questions, which are really powerful. But some of them are things like, hey, what'd you think about that? Or, oh, what'd you say next? Or, oh, yeah, then what happened?

They're these questions we hardly even register. But what they do is they invite other people into the conversation. I was with, I'm going to go way back to high school years. And while punk rock was not my music of choice, certainly there was a little bit of that in the counterculture kind of action sport world that I grew up in. And so just to paint the picture of my friend group, this was not a highly sensitive, committed to intellectual prowess. This was like, let's push against the grain and let's go for it in life, whatever that might mean for somebody. And there was an aggressive nature to it. So this was not a safe community that I was in, unless you were really putting yourself out there.

And so, um, they would recognize that like, oh, I see that you're going for it. I see that you've got some, you're leaving blood on the asphalt, you know, from skateboarding or I see that hold down from surfing, you know, like that's where you would garner this sense of, um, acceptance in the, in the, in the, belonging, if you will. Now, I'm going to go way back because what would happen for me is that we all would always have, all of us would have some sort of thing that we get made fun of. And so mine was questions, right? Like, dude, would you stop fucking asking so many questions?

You know, right? stop fucking asking so many questions you know right because now here i am you know 50 40 years later like loving i get to ask questions all day long yeah thing that i was punked for and now you're saying hey listen just maybe maybe you've met some of these criteria and so um no no loss on me that i had to go to psychological, the end of the psychological institution of studying to understand these things. But yeah, please. And what I love about that is that they have to make fun of something, right?

So they made fun of questions, but they probably loved it when you, who doesn't love answering questions about themselves, right? When somebody- Oh, yeah. Okay, so let me pause, because it was an, it's an introspective, it can be really dangerous if somebody double clicks and, and I didn't have

at that time, the, the right contour of micro expressions, body expressions, tonality, and, and, and the half sentence proceeding to create that shape where someone's like, I want more. There was a double clicking inspection, you know, hostility. You're about to get exposed, you know, for the fraud that you know that you are. Right. As teenagers, most of us are anyway. But yeah. So no, it was not appreciated, Charles.

This was so I wanted to understand, but yeah. So this is where deep questions comes up. Because you're exactly right that some questions can feel like an interrogation, right? But deep questions are these things that ask us, rather than about the facts of our life, they ask us to describe our beliefs or our values or our experiences. And they're easier to ask than you'd think. They don't often seem like deep questions. So if you bump into someone and you say, oh, what do you do for a living? Oh, I'm a lawyer. A deep question would be, oh man, how'd you decide to go to law school? Or what do you love about your job? Or what's the best case

you've ever tried? Those are deep questions because they're asking someone about their background, their experiences, the values that they had that led them to law school, the beliefs that they carry into their work. And the thing about that is that when we ask those questions, we invite the other person but not require them to tell us something about themselves. And so I'm wondering, but tell me if I'm getting this wrong, the questions you were asking as a kid, they maybe felt a little bit like interrogations. Like I'm going to drill down until I find some fact about you that you don't like. Whereas if I ask someone, what do you make of the world? How do you, like, what do you think?

Everyone is an authentic expert on themselves. When I ask you about your experiences or your feelings or your beliefs, I'm allowing you to be vulnerable if you want to be. And matching that vulnerability is important. But equally, I'm not putting you in a position where like I'm trying to trick you because you're the only person who actually knows what you think and feel and believe. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company.

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Clean, clear, no funky color distortion. Just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's felixgray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code findingmastery20 at felixgray.com for 20% off. And when you shape that in the relationship um the dialogue prior to in whatever ways that can be established then it's safe yeah right but when it's like where's that come from right right question you know question after question yeah right then it's all the sense like whoa whoa whoa whoa and so

um i i didn't realize that my sharpness was actually um coming off that way until later. And so, you know, it took, it, it took me time. I just really wanted to understand. And, and then I wasn't until later, Charles, like I didn't understand how to almost ignore the narrative and be more interested in that next layer down, which is like, what are the feelings that are going with the narrative that's taking place? That's exactly. Oftentimes there's this saying that don't ask someone about the facts of their life, ask them how they feel about their life. And it's really easy to find those questions when we look for them, right? Like instead of asking you like, where do you live? Asking like, you know, like what's the best thing? Like,

what do you love about your neighborhood? Why'd you decide to live there? Like suddenly now I'm asking you how you feel about your life instead of just the facts of your life. And it's also really useful because again, and I'm wondering if this is true for when you were young, that oftentimes we get into conversations where we're asking questions and the other person doesn't ask a question back, right? So it feels like an interrogation because it's your job to keep the conversation going by asking question after question. And the thing about deep questions is they make answering your own question very natural. Like if someone says, you know, I became a doctor because I wanted to help people.

Or I became a lawyer because I wanted to help people. It's really easy to say, oh, man, I became a doctor because I wanted to help people, or I became a lawyer because I wanted to help people. It's really easy to say, oh man, I became a doctor for the same reason. Like that's why I decided to go to medical school too, right? Oftentimes there's this thing that happens with reciprocity that's really important, which is if you say something meaningful or something vulnerable, I really need to match you. I need to respond in the same way. And that can be awkward if somebody doesn't ask a question, unless we're answering deep questions, at which point it seems totally natural for me to respond to the question I've asked, because it's clear that I'm looking for something that we have in common. It's really cool. It's really cool. And so let's just go through a bit of a checklist.

Okay. That, you know, like what are some of the, your best understandings of what makes somebody a super communicator? So, so there's a couple of things that they, that super communicators do. As I mentioned, they ask a lot more questions. They ask deep questions that might not even seem deep, but allow someone else to, to, to sort of share themselves. They often ask permission and the way that they ask permission can be as, as subtle as just saying like, Hey, can I tell you what I think about this? Or it can be something like saying, yeah, that's really interesting. Like,

what did you, what did you make of that? Like, why, like, what did you do? Like, what did, what did you say next? And like, why did you say that? Right. I'm asking permission to learn a little bit more about you. And you might say like, whatever, I'm not going to tell you about my personal life, but, but now I'm not in invading your territory. I'm inviting you to connect with me. In addition to listening and to asking questions, super communicators tend to figure out what kind of conversation is happening and match people and invite them to match back. Right? So let's say, again, back to this, what do you do for a living?

I'm a lawyer. Why did you decide to become a lawyer? If somebody says, oh man, I've, I, it's because it was a steady job and taking care of my family is really important to me. Think about that versus someone who says, I saw my dad get arrested and I really wanted to fight for the underdog. That first question, that first response is very practical. And that tells me we're in a practical conversation. And I can say, that makes a ton of sense. Like, you know, one of the things I love about my job is that like, it just feels so good to get that paycheck and not have to go from week

to week. Or the second thing, talking about my dad getting arrested, that's clearly emotional or perhaps even social. And that gives me an opportunity to talk about what my family is like, what emotional experiences caused me to go into this work. And so this is another thing that super communicators do is they try and match you where you are and they try to invite you to match them. There's a story in the book about the CIA officer who was like sent over his first job after he gets hired is to go to Europe and recruit spies. And he's just terrible at this job, like, like just miserable at it. And he's about to get fired. And he finally takes this woman to dinner who he's been like trying to recruit for months. And she she's refused and she won't even meet with him because she's just so scared and the dinner's a total flop and he has no idea what to do and so at the end of the dinner he just

gives up and he just says like look i understand what it's like for you to be like so scared and so frustrated because i am terrible at this job and i'm about to get fired i'm scared i'm scared at what's going to happen to me because I've wanted this for so long. And when he said that, when he said something honest and vulnerable, when he matched her, that's when suddenly she said, you know what? I think I can help you. I think we can. I feel like I can trust you.

And she became one of the best assets in the Middle East. And he became one of the best recruiters in the CIA. But it's because they were honest and vulnerable and really wanted to connect with each other. And that's the main thing that super communicators do. They show you that they want to connect. That's really cool. And you've taken the individual lens between two people, and then you've also broadened it out to talk about what some of the best organizations do. You studied or brought case examples of the CIA and NASA and Netflix. And so when we think about the right culture for super communicators, can you get into that rubric a bit? What do these extraordinary communicative organizations do to create that culture that says, no, no, no, we value?

And there was one organization, I'll give you the context of this question. It was an organization, Fortune 10 organization, that they were specifically trained in a type of questioning to find publicly find where the logic break is in the person's um uh position about where direction to go or why something's important or not important whatever so this type of questioning is made to find the break in logic. And we do that publicly. We, they would do that publicly. And okay. So that, that the idea was like, we're going to create an organization that is built on foundational thinking, first principles, and we're going to be rock solid because we need to have that framework to stand up.

However, it accidentally created an organization where people were terrified to raise their hand because the other very smart people in the room were weaponized to ask questions that were going to find the flaw in their thinking. So counter-rotation, what do the best communicative organizations do? So what they do is they acknowledge that challenge you just mentioned. So as you mentioned, there's a chapter in the book about Netflix. And it's about how Netflix dealt with this race controversy that they had inside the company. About five years ago, they had a senior executive who used the N-word during a meeting. And as you can imagine, and he wasn't using it in a pejorative way, he was describing something, but he said the word. And there were many, many people who got very upset.

And then there were other people who didn't think it was a big deal. And this started tearing the company apart. And Netflix has this culture where you're allowed, they encourage people to attack each other's ideas, exactly as you were just describing, to be brutally honest. But when it came to race, brutal honesty can be really, really hard, right? Because if I say something and I say, oh, it's just a word, it doesn't matter. As a white person, I don't know what it's like to hear that word, right? If I was black or if I was brown. And this was just destroying the company.

It was just tearing it apart. And so Netflix brought in a new person, a new head of diversity. And she did this thing that was really interesting. She started having workshops. And at the beginning of the workshop, she would always say the same thing. She would say, here's some basic rules for how we're going to communicate with each other. And now I want to acknowledge this conversation is going to be awkward and we are all going to say the wrong thing at some point. And we all have a right to

speak up and be in this room, right? It's if, if you're white, you've had a racial experience. And if you're black, you've had a racial experience. And we need to hear about both of those experiences because you are the only expert on you. And I do this all the time now in tough conversations is I say to folks, like, look, let's just acknowledge this could be awkward. And that's okay. Actually, awkwardness indicates that something real is happening. And I'm probably going to say the wrong thing. Like, not because, like, I mean to, but, but because like sometimes my mouth moves faster than my brain. And I hope that you'll, you'll have some grace with me when I do. And I promise to do the same

with you. Like once we do that, once we acknowledge how hard communication can be, then we start having these more real conversations because in a situation like you just described, if people said, look, I'm going to bring up an idea and this idea is not perfect and I need your help to make it better. I want you to tell me what parts you like of it and what parts you don't like. Think about how powerful that would be that now when I speak up, I don't have to wait. I don't have to expect that everyone's going to attack me right away. Instead, I've told them, I want you to help me improve this idea. Now we're all on the same side. I hear a shorthand version of that, which is create psychological safety. Yes, that's exactly what it is. Yeah. And so let's double click on psychological safety for a minute because

one, the research is great. If folks are unclear with the research, it's great. It does not mean though that we're going to do therapy at work. No. It does not mean that you are entitled to bring your quote unquote whole self to work. And what I just said is controversial. i know that that's jarring but what it does mean is that a leadership or others a team is creating the safety to speak truth to power exactly to be able to have some grace in when mistakes are made to be able to you know at the seattle seahawks coach carol and the coaches there was a phrase that we would use often, which was, this was in the locker room. And so it was all men. It's a male dominant, male sport.

Sometimes you got to give a brother a break. And so that idea that we would front load conversations like, Hey, sometimes look around, people are going to screw up in what they say and what they do. Sometimes you got to give them a break. It doesn't mean you don't call them out. It doesn't mean you don't address it. It doesn't mean you don't put words to it and sometimes actions. But sometimes you just got to have that space to be able to say, okay, can I have a conversation with you? Yeah, that's exactly.

Yeah, please. Well, one of the ways I love to think about psychological safety is something that Amy Edmondson told me who helped sort of do a lot of the research on it. She said, it means that you can say something at work and know that other people will not use it's so good. That doesn't mean that they agree with you. That doesn't mean that they are not going to challenge you. But it means that if I say, if I bring up some idea that no one's going to weaponize it, no one's going to make it into something that I regret saying. And actually, Google has done a bunch of research trying to figure out how to foster psychological safety. And what they found is that there's these two main ingredients in meetings that create it. The first is what's known as equality and conversational turn-taking, right? Getting everyone to speak up. And that's one of the

things that super communicators do really well. If somebody hasn't said anything in a little while, they say, Jim, I notice you've been thinking about this. Tell me your thoughts. Or Susie, you brought up this great idea a couple of weeks ago. I'm wondering, can you share it with us again? So they invite other people into the conversation so everyone's participating. Then the second thing is ostentatious listening. That when the leader of the team proves he's listening by repeating what people have said, by calling back what they've brought up, by looping for understanding, then at that moment, what you're doing is you're teaching everyone else to show they're listening. And that makes everyone feel like they belong in that room.

And then I'd add on the first one, one little nuance, which is sometimes the reason people aren't bringing something to the surface is because it's like a race for ideas and they just don't want to be in that competitive nonsense. Other times they're introverted thinkers and feelers and they are mulling it over first while the rest of the world is being noisy. They're thinking deeply. And if you can create some space in there, which you just suggested, it's radical for them. And sometimes people, and you could have a combination of the first two that I just talked about, they don't want to deal with this crazy competitive race for ideas.

They're an introverted thinker or feeler. And then the other is like, maybe, maybe it's scary. And it's not because the environment is, it's because of their unique history. You know, like bringing ID up was, maybe they came from, you know, a highly humiliative, a highly humiliating, what's the word?

A highly embarrassing community. And so all that being said is if you can do this little, like little nuance, which is like, hey, Shirley, I know you've got ideas about this. Hold on. Let me finish my idea. And I want to come right back to you. And then I'll say something.

And I'm giving the person all the space to gather themselves or whatever. Like that little subtext can go a long way as well. Absolutely. And what I hear you saying, and the science backs this up a lot, and tell me if I'm getting this wrong from your perspective, is conversational turn-taking does not mean everyone has to speak the same amount. It means everyone has to feel like they can speak when they want to, creating that space for them to do so. And then let's add one more to the space because I want to double click here. Sometimes space.

Okay. So we're going to talk about the space between a question and an answer that you can weaponize space even. If you want to create great stress in another person, And this is a weaponization of a psychological tactic. Ask a bunch of questions in rapid succession. So there's very little space. So now you've got them on their heels and you can whip them left and right. It's a terrible thing. It's a cheap trick.

The second thing is you can just pause. And without moving your frontalis muscles, without leaking any microexpressions at all, you just pause. And that can create such a heightened amygdala hijack that your stress system goes through the roof. It can be terrible. So if you pause, the contouring shaping of it can go almost is a prerequisite. Like pause and then nod, microexpressions, lift your eyebrows or like smile gently, you know, like all of that can create an invitation as opposed to a hostility about it. That's, I love that. I love that. And in fact, one of the things that we know that

super communicators tend to do in, in conflict conversations is they say things like, give me a second, I need to think about what I want to say. Or they have a habit of saying, okay, wait, hold on just one second. Okay. What they're doing is they're not only creating space for the other person, they're slowing down their own thoughts. And we all know this, right? When we're in a conflict, when we're disagreeing with someone, when we're debating something, you kind of are listening and you're waiting your turn to speak. And you might not be saying the right thing. And so the question is, how do we slow ourselves down? How do we build a habit that lets me think just a little bit deeper before I open my mouth so that I'm certain what I'm saying is something I actually believe and I'm certain

I'm saying it the right way? I've seen tapes of people doing this and it's amazing because they just do it again and again. They're like, okay, I hear what you're saying. Just give me a second. I want to think about how to respond to you. And then they respond. And that slight pause, it cools down the conversation enormously because it helps reduce the anxiety. Because now the other person knows they don't have to respond right away, right? They can take a moment to collect their own thoughts. And that's really valuable. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down.

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If you're trying to draw something out to better understand, so you've got the orientation, seek to understand, you've got the right contour to create that relational connection of safety. And then if you really don't like the idea, and sometimes people are very decisive, right? They hear enough information like, bang, done, move on. That can feel threatening, but they're actually just very decisive. They don't need to wallow in it. They hear enough to say, no, that's four degrees off. Stop. No, I don't need anymore.

How do you help the decisive person with the person who is wanting to get a new idea surfaced or maybe kind of turn the ship just a little bit. How do you help that narrative? So I'll say two things. The first is not everything has to be a conversation, right? And not every moment is ready for a conversation. So like when I talk to my kids and I'm like, look, I'd like to have a conversation with you about your room. I don't really want to have a conversation with them. I just want them to clean their room, right? But let's say we do want to have a conversation. Let's say that time is right, that we're all in a place where we can do that. There's this thing that happens at the start of a conversation that psychologists refer

to as a quiet negotiation. And the goal of the negotiation is not to win or to score points. The goal of a quiet negotiation is simply to understand what the other person wants. And oftentimes this negotiation has two elements. There's what are we going to talk about? And then secondarily, how are we going to talk about it? And we usually don't acknowledge it. We usually don't even register it. But at the beginning of a conversation, you might do something like say like, hey man, what'd you think about the game last night? I'm introducing a topic. I'm saying like,

are we going to talk about sports? And then, and people do this unthinkingly, when you respond, I might interrupt you. And I'm going to pay close attention to how you react to that interruption, right? Because what I'm trying to figure out is how are we going to do this? Is this like a conversation where we're just like buddies who are like can interrupt each other and talk over each other? Or is this like something where like we both take our turn? Is this a formal conversation or a casual conversation? Is this a conversation where we can come up with crazy ideas or we really want things to be grounded in our experiences? We do this all almost automatically

without thinking about it, without even realizing that we're doing it. People become very hyper attuned to the beginning of conversations and noticing the nonverbal communication of the person they're talking to. But what super communicators do is they pay a little bit more attention, just like half an inch more attention. And most importantly, when they conduct an experiment and it doesn't work, they don't see it as a failure. They see it as a piece of information, right? My wife is a scientist. She's a research scientist. If every single one of her experiments worked, she would be the worst scientist on earth. The whole point of being a scientist is that some of them succeed and some of them fail.

And so when we're trying to figure out how to communicate with someone and we try something, we tell a joke and it falls flat. We, we ask a question and they like, they, they're like, oh, that's, that's like too much. I don't want to get that personal. Instead of being chagrined and feeling like we did something wrong. What we should feel is like, I just learned something about how this conversation can unfold. And that experiment yielded this insight that I can work with. I am so like, as you're saying that, I was thinking, oh, he's talking about running experiments. And then you said the word experiment. And I'm so happy that you brought that up because if you can orientate yourself to run little experiments to see how the relationship

goes or how a conversation can go, it's so much more freeing. And it's not, I don't want to set, me personally, I don't think that you would agree that you're trying to manipulate, you know, by running an experiment on somebody without them knowing. But it's like this test and adjust model. Like, can we can we banter at that way? Or like, is it to take your turn? Yeah. Reflect. Gather yourself.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's I don't think it's manipulative at all. It's an invitation. It's an invitation to tell me how do you communicate best? And it's helpful to know what's going on inside our brains during those moments. So communication is Homo sapiens superpower, right? Throughout history, it is why we have succeeded. Wait, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. See, I'm trying to get in there without being rude.

Okay. So I think we're terrible at it though. It's a superpower, but this is a made up language. Everything you've said and I've said, it's completely creatively made up. And that's to create some sort of way for us to communicate. This is why I think a superpower that is underdeveloped or something, I don't feel like we've really gotten out of the gate yet. And the reason being is because we haven't properly stitched the feeling. So we're communicating at the cognitive level, not well enough at the emotional level. And again, you know this, but there's a difference between feelings and emotions. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. And so why do you say that it's a superpower? Well, I mean, compared to other species, the reason Homo sapiens have been so successful is because we can communicate with each other, but also push back a little bit because you're exactly right. Much of communication is not as good as it could be, but think about how amazing it actually is, right?

Like when you have a conversation tonight with your wife, she's going to tell you things about her day and you are going to understand what she was thinking and feeling without being there next to her side. And in fact, our brains have evolved to do exactly that. In this conversation, for instance. Charles, that's actually really cool. Right? What you just introduced is really cool. That's going to sit with me for a while. Because you just looped in, sorry, you just looped in

imagination and all of this superpower computer processing that we have to create images. And those images elicit feelings and potentially emotions that are as if we were in it. But to do that, we have to be incredibly present and grounded, get ourself out of it so that we can be in it. That's a weird way of thinking about it. I love what you just did there, Charles. Oh, thank you. Okay, so let me ask you a question.

So think of the last meaningful conversation you had with your wife. What's different about how you communicate with her now than when you guys first met each other and started dating? How long have you been married for? Oh, it's like, we're at 19, hold on, married in 95. Okay. Okay. I was, I was, I, so. It's a long time. That's a while. I've been married almost 20 years. So,, I was, I, so it's a long time. That's a, that's a while. I've been married almost 20 years.

Um, so, and, and you're, you're even longer than I am. So if you, if you can remember what it was like when you guys first met each other, how do you communicate differently today than you did those many years ago? Uh, part of me just really craves that part. Like I remember Charles, like, I don't know if this is where you're going, but I remember it was like the next morning we'd wake up, we're in school together. High school is where we met. And so we would wake up the next morning, like we'd see each other, like 7.45 in the

morning. And we'd be like looking at each each other exhausted. Cause there was a moment in our conversation on the phone where it was like, Holy shit, it's three o'clock, you know? And it's like, we started the conversation at 10 PM after like, you know, homework or dinner or something was done. Like, I don't, Oh, it's so good. And it was because like, yeah, it was like this commitment to like really understand. And my last conversation with my wife today was, um, I got your text. I got your text. Uh, did you solve everything? Right. She's like, yeah, I got it. I'm getting something done. Can I call you

back? You know, it's like, yeah, it's like, you know, so, um, I don't know where you're going, but so what I love about that is like, you're right that oftentimes communication is imperfect and oftentimes we fail at it. But something happened in high school when you were talking to your wife that you guys connected in this profound way that has now carried you for through marriage for what? This will be 30 years for you, right? Yeah, exactly. 30 years is a long time. And it's not surprising to me that not every conversation is like that right now, right?

Like if it was, you wouldn't have time for anything else because you'd be staying up to talking three in the morning. But the truth of the matter is that what happened when you were having those conversations is that you and your wife became nearly entrained. You actually began thinking alike. And, and when we think with someone else, that's when we, they describe an emotion and we experience it ourself. They describe an experience and, and we can imagine ourself living through it and we can build on that. And I'm sure you still have real conversations with your wife and

meaningful conversations. Sometimes once you have kids, it's a little bit harder and you're like, you sort of, instead of staying up for seven hours and talking, you've got like a good 45 seconds of talking. But because you guys can get in sync so quickly because you can match each other, you can get that same feeling of being of understanding. And my guess is actually compared to when you were young, you can do that like this now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's way faster. Yeah. And that's really powerful. Okay. So, so finding master is brought to you by I restore when it comes to my health. I try to approach things with a proactive mindset. It's not about avoiding poor health.

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They've donated over 41,000 mattresses to people in need. I love that. So right now you can get 25% off all mattresses at lisa.com plus an extra $50 off when you use the code finding mastery at checkout. That's lisa.com. The promo code is finding mastery for 25% off and then plus an extra $50 on us because quality sleep is just too important to leave to chance. This is awesome. Charles, this is like,

I think so too. I'm so stoked that you are introducing this. It's like nothing new really is under the sun. Communication and connection are really important. But you're adding depth to it right now in a time that we're not listening properly. And you're saying, hey, let's remember the superpower. I'm coming around here because of this brilliant insight you added to it, that we could experience somebody just through communication. I love what you just did there.

But anyways, we're coming back around. You're saying, let's get better. So if there's something that you could point to, one or two or three things that we can do to practice to get better, how do you start that list? Or where do you point us to? Okay. So it's just, and there's three things that if you just practice them a little bit, they're going to become habits. The first thing. Oh, look what you just. I know. I know. I bring it all together, right? All right. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So the first one is these deep questions. When you're going into a conversation, going to a party, right? You know, you're going into a conversation, going to a party, right? You know, you're going to meet new people and you're going to have to make small talk. Just say to yourself, okay, I'm going to meet someone. I'm going to ask them a question. And then I want my next question to be basically some form of what do you make of that? Right? Oh, you're a lawyer. Why'd you decide to become a lawyer? Oh, you live in Scarsdale. What do you like about Scarsdale? Like what's like, what, what attracted you there? I'm going to ask a question that's, what do you make of that? And then when they answer,

I'm going to answer my own question afterwards. Oh, you live, you live in Scarsdale because you love the community. It's interesting. I live in Park Slope because I love the community there. It's just so like the people are so special. And that becomes automatic once we start doing it. It's so easy to ask deep questions. That's number one. Number two is when we're in a conversation that's a little tough, we do this looping for understanding. And again, there's three steps, right?

Ask a question, preferably a deep question. Repeat back what you heard the person say in your own words, and then ask if you got it right. It is impossible to have a fight if you're looping for understanding. You can disagree with each other, but if you are proving to that person that you want to listen, you want to understand, they're going to be more trusting of you, they're going to like you more, and they're going to listen to you in return. And that's really all we want out of a conversation is understanding. Do you add the feeling slash emotion connection to that or it's not in that looping? So you can, right? When you're repeating back, oftentimes what I say is, here's what I heard you say.

When you're in a scary situation, you feel really threatened. Even though they didn't say that. Even though they didn't say that. They didn't say anything about emotions, right? They said like, take the gun control thing i was talking about someone said there was this one conversation where a woman had seen a shooting in her own school as a kid and what the what this gun rights guy said to her was he said what i hear you saying is you have been carrying some some terror your entire life and you don't want other kids to feel that same terror like you want to spare them that.

Now, this is a guy who loves guns. He owns like 13 guns. But when he said that, it unlocked something for that woman because she felt listened to. Because that's exactly what she was feeling and what she was struggling with. But she didn't say it that way. And to know that someone had listened to her, had identified the feelings underneath her words, that feels really profound. And I want to, I'm going to ask you to go back and do the looping, the three steps of looping, but I want to add one piece is that what I found is that when you, there's a calibration that takes place is that when you use the word terrified, let's say, that's a really strong, provocative, high intense emotion of fear. So say that's what you actually think it is and use that

word. The other person will, of course, correct. Yeah. They'll say, actually, there's only one way to go there. Like maybe you say you're really scared and they, now they could go lower than fear or scared or above it. And they say, no, I'm not scared. I'm terrified. Or if you say terrified, they say, you know, it's actually, I'm really just chronically nervous. Like there's a calibration moment that we give each other there that is awesome. So do the looping one more time. Okay. So the looping is the first step is ask a question, preferably a deep question. Listen to what- What's that?

For example. So for instance, in this guns thing, tell me why gun control is so important to you. Got it. Tell me if we're in a fight with each other, tell me why it's so important to you that I put the dishes in the dishwasher. I'm trying to understand why you want me to do it. Step one, then you listen. Step number two, repeat back what you heard them say in your own words to show you've processed it. And if you can use, if you can acknowledge the feelings underneath even better. Okay. What I hear you saying is you want me to put the dishes in the

dishwasher rather than the sink. Cause you feel like I disrespect you when I put them in the sink. Like it's just this like visual reminder that I don't care what you want. And then step number three, and this is the one we usually forget is ask if you got it right. Did I get that right? Am I understanding you correctly? And that's the point at which they do that calibration. They say, no, it's not disrespect. It's just that it's more of an annoyance. Okay. So what I hear you saying is that when I do this thing, it's an annoyance for you. You feel annoyed by it. And this is something that I could easily take this annoyance out of your life. And you're wondering why I don't.

Did I get that right? So this looping for understanding, this is the second habit we can get into, particularly in conversations with conflict. And it's really powerful. And a third best practice? The third best practice is look for nonverbal communication and match it. So laughter is a great example of this. According to studies, about 80% of the time that we laugh, it is not in response to something funny. Rather, we are laughing to show that other person that we want to connect with them.

And when they laugh back, they're showing us that they want to connect with us. So one of the things that super communicators do is they tend to laugh way more than the average person. Oh, that's cool. And it's not just laughter, right? It's also like an expression of condolence. Here's a good example is about six years ago, my dad passed away. And I went to the funeral and then I came back to, I was living in New York at the time. And people would say like, Hey, you know what, what's up with you? And I'd say, Oh,

I just went to my dad's funeral. And they would usually say something like, I'm sorry, or condolences. And then they wouldn't ask me anything about it. Right. I had just been through this like incredibly interesting experience, this meaningful experience. If someone had said like, Oh, what was your dad like? I would have loved to have told them that. But oftentimes- It's a great question. It's a great question. Right? Maybe after, oh, how are you doing? Yeah. Yeah. Right after.

Right? Yeah. Yes, exactly. Exactly. With the person and then be curious about the relationship. Yeah. Are you doing okay with that? How how are you feeling is there anything i can do what was your dad like and and what's really happening there is that they're showing me that they want to understand but they're also paying attention to to what i'm saying non-verbally they're paying attention to the fact that like you know i seem like i'm doing fine but i just mentioned that my i went to a funeral and I probably look a little downcast and instead of being like, Oh, that's okay. I'm sure. I'm sure he's in a better place now. Right. They're matching me. And they're saying, they're saying, look, I want to share this emotion with you. You don't have to, you're not being pressured to,

but if it's something that you, that's important to you, I'm here to share it with you if you'd like. Charles, you brought the heat again. And so well done. Like, thank you for your time and what you've poured into this research and writing of this book. And it's not lost on me how thoughtful you are and how earnestly you want to help people be just a little bit better in their lives. So thank you, Charles. And you know, where, where do you want to drive people to be more connected to what you're doing? So, so let me just say, thank you in return. Like it is such a joy to get a chance to come talk with you. Like you are a super communicator, Park Store Denar. You just bring this, this spirit and gentleness to the conversation.

That's just so it's like a warm embrace. I appreciate you. Thank you. But if people are interested in learning more, if they Google me or they Google The Power of Habit or they Google Super Communicators, I will come up. The book is on sale everywhere. You might buy books, Audible and Amazon and your local bookstore. Supporting local bookstores is fantastic. And then I will actually say my email address is charles at charlesduhigg.com. And one of the things that's really important to me is anyone who emails me, I read the email and I reply.

It might take me a couple of days or a week, but I sort of feel like if you want to start a conversation, if you want to communicate with me, I have an obligation to respond to that. So any email you send me, I mean, if you're, if you're a Nigerian Prince, I might not like respond, but yeah. Right. But if you take the time to email me, I promise I will read it and I will email you back. Charles at Charles Duhigg. D U H I G G. Yep.

Let's go. And so, look, I got a challenge for us is that at the Finding Mastery community, let's be great. Let's be great at being super communicators. And like, if we could point to Charles and say, thank you, brother. You know, like, it's a cool challenge. Thank you for supporting us, Charles. And look forward to connecting soon.

All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Thanks for supporting us, Charles, and look forward to connecting soon. follow button, wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday. Punch over to findingmastery.com slash newsletter to sign up. The show wouldn't be possible without our sponsors and we take our recommendations seriously. And the team is very thoughtful about making sure we love and endorse every product you hear on the show. If you want to check out any of our sponsor offers you heard about in this episode, you can find those deals at findingmastery.com slash sponsors. And remember, no one does it alone. The door here at Finding Mastery is always open to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help others do the same. So join our community, share

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