Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - The Psychology of Being a Super Communicator | Charles Duhigg

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

Why do so many conversations break down, even when both people are trying to connect?Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Supercommunicators. This is his third conversation on Finding Mastery, and the timing matters. The world has shifted since the last time he and Dr. Michael Gervais spoke. Families, friendships, even whole countries are talking past each other. AI has quietly eroded the signals we used to read each other by. And the ability to genuinely connect with another human has gone from useful to essential.The first thing Charles makes clear is that being a great communicator is not a gift reserved for a lucky few. It's a habit. And it starts with noticing something most of us miss in real time: we are all moving through three kinds of conversations every day. The practical, the emotional, and the social. Most of our misunderstandings happen for one simple reason. The person across from us is in one kind of conversation while we're in another.Charles unpacks what he calls the matching principle and one of the most useful questions a teacher ever taught him: do you want to be helped, hugged, or heard? He explains why looping for understanding tends to work when arguing does not, why deep questions invite people to reveal worldviews they didn't even know they had, and why polish and fluency no longer mean what they used to in a world where AI can make any email sound thoughtful.The conversation also gets personal. Mike shares the story of a professor who once interrupted him mid-trauma with a single odd question and walked away, an act of communication so strange it took him years to understand. Charles talks about how he tries to stay genuinely connected to his two teenage sons, how to navigate Thanksgiving with someone you voted against, and the quiet research finding that strangers can become friends in under an hour if the questions are deep enough and the back-and-forth is real.If you've ever walked away from a conversation feeling unseen, struggled to get through to someone you love, or wondered why connection feels harder than it used to, this conversation offers a practical, science-backed way back in.Anyone can be a super communicator. Charles will show you how it actually works. _____________________________________________________Links & ResourcesSubscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMastery Get 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: findingmastery.com/morningmindset Follow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and XLink: Charles and Mike reference “36 Questions” or the Fast Friends Procedure: https://www.stafforini.com/docs/Aron%20et%20al%20-%20The%20experimental%20generation%20of%20interpersonal%20closeness.pdfCitation: Aron, A., Melinat, E., Aron, E. N., Vallone, R. D., & Bator, R. J. (1997). The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(4), 363–377.Link: New York Times Article: “36 Questions That Lead to Love.” https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/style/no-37-big-wedding-or-small.htmlSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Nobody remembers what you say. They remember how you made them feel. Why does so many conversations break down, even when both people are trying to connect? If you look at the research on communication and you ask people, what did you guys talk about in that hour long conversation you had? People on average won't remember anything specific that was said. But if you ask them, how did you feel throughout that conversation? They'll be able to say, oh, at the beginning, I felt like really good. And then we talked about this one thing.

I started feeling really bad about myself. Welcome back. Or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dr. Michael Jervais. A high-performance psychologist named Michael Treveig. Who Pete Carroll brought into work with the Seahawks. Famous for his work with Felix Baumgartner when he jumped out of space in the Stratos Project. Olympic athletes depend on something more than just training and talent. They have to stay mentally tough. Today's conversation is with Charles Duhigg, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist

and best-selling author of The Power of Habit and Supercommunicators. So what's important is to have the same kind of conversation at the same moment. It's known as the matching principle, that when you and I are in the same mindset, as long as we are aligned, then we can move from conversation to conversation together, and we feel connected. This is Charles, third time on the podcast, because the world has shifted since last we spoke. We're at the Thanksgiving table. Politics comes up. I'm going to prove to you that I want to understand how you see the world. I'm going to say, the rise of AI has quietly eroded the signals that we previously used to read each other. Now, every day. Every email can be really well-written.

And so these soft skills that we have as humans, the ability to transmit emotions, to be emotionally contagious, to detect insincerity, those are becoming even more valuable now because the practical has gotten easier. So with that, let's jump into this week's conversation with Charles Duhigg. Charles, this is the third time. We don't have many people that come on three times to the podcast. And so this is the third time that you're here and the first time that we've met in person. Yeah.

Well, it's a huge honor. I feel like I would rather be on this show three times than on Saturday Night Live three times. You had that loaded. That's not true. Saturday Live would be a lot of fun. Well, we've got something to live up to that. Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah, cool. You're exceptional as a storyteller. As a writer, you've had huge success on those fronts. The last time you're here, we talked about your book, which I think is still, your newest book. Yeah. Right. So there's no new book that I've missed here.

Right. Super communicators. Yeah. And when we spoke, I was like, oh, the perfect timing. It was like, 2004 super communicators. Okay, let's be great. Let's understand the science, the application of it. What's changed?

Your experiences, the world has changed. How are you thinking about super communicating differently? Well, I think one of the things that comes up a lot when I'm talking to people about the book and about how to use the book is there wasn't a chapter on AI because generative AI really didn't exist at that point when I was writing it. And now, of course, we live in a chat GPT and Claude world. But what's interesting is that I was talking to someone, actually, someone at Microsoft the other day, and she was saying that the drawback of generative AI is that it used to be when someone sent you an email and it was really well written, that was a signal. It was a signal that

they had thought about it, that they had spent some time on it, that they're pretty smart. Now every email can be really well written. And as a result, what's happened is that, a lot of the signals, not just in emails, but in all kinds of things around language, a lot of the signals are no longer functioning as well as they can. Right. We've lost where a fluency and a polish meant something, because that fluency and that polish can be artificially manufactured now. Absolutely.

I think everyone in our community knows exactly that. Like, emails coming through now, you can't tell if somebody took a lot of time, a little bit of time. But on that point, it's almost like, let's go back to 2024, 2014, whatever, there's an artificial nature to that signal. That's exactly right. Oh, okay. So here's the thing that I think it's not so much that it's changed as much as it

become more true, which is in the book we talk about the practical conversation, the emotional conversation, the social conversation. Let's come back to that. You really open those up? Yeah. Okay, but to hit your- The practical, AI is really good at the practical conversation, right? AI can give you instructions on how to do something.

But the emotional conversation and the social conversation, those are as important, if not more important, and AI isn't good at that. You're exactly right. I can read a beautiful worded email that actually even has some poetry to it that's written by AI, but I can tell when it's AI and when it's a real person. Okay, so actually I was doing something a little differently. I'm agreeing with you. What I was pointing to is, let's go back 2014 before we knew about AI, is that email is

a signal of a thoughtful, smart person. But I'm saying, wait, hold on, maybe, maybe not, because it's a, you know, it's a It's not an honest signal. It is a signal. So honest signals, quote unquote, honest signals, and that's an actual thing, is when somebody gives you a tell that they can't hide. Right. And like pupil dilation, like a reflexive sweating in an uncomfortable situation or heart palpitation

or hives crawling up the neck. Like there's quote unquote honest signals. Those for people that are exceptionally aware and tuned are incredible bits of information, but on an email, I don't know how long you took to craft it. I don't know if you asked your neighbor to help you craft it. So there's a proxy in here somewhere. That's where I was going. Yeah.

And I think that's right. I mean, I think what you're getting at is that different channels of communication have different densities, right? And when we're talking face-to-face, those honest signals, I can pick up on a lot of them. Because I have so much information. I get to see where your eyes are going. I get to hear your tone of voice. I get to see your expressions.

On an email, I still have some channels and information available to me, but it's less. And so as a result, what I think was happening back in 2014 and is happening even more now is we are starting to lean into the other forms of information in a much more serious way. For example.

For example, if somebody sends me an email and it's just effusive with praise, You wrote the best book ever. I read it and it changed my life. There's a part of my brain that's saying, this seems like it might be AI generated, right? This seems like it might be something that like is a form letter that maybe it's not AI generated,

but maybe you're saying that to everyone. But then if it says something not only unique to me, I liked this about the power of habit or super communicators, but more importantly, something that seems emotionally true, something that seems emotionally real, that's the signal I pay attention to now. And so these soft skills that we have as humans,

the ability to transmit emotions, to be emotionally contagious, to detect insincerity, those are becoming even more valuable now because the practical has gotten easier. There you go. So you're still supporting your framework, practical, social, and emotional.

A little bit, yeah, yeah, yeah. And just to reiterate the obvious of what you've said, is that AI is exceptionally skilled at practical communication. Yep. Right? So that mindset of like, let me just hit the kind of thing.

And it tries with some emotion. bit, but it's not very good at it. Right. Is what your point is. And as humans, there's three approaches to be great communicators. There's a practical communication style. There's the emotional and there's the social. And we'll do all three of them, right?

So in a real conversation, like this conversation, we will move from a practical conversation to an emotional conversation into a social conversation and then back to a practical conversation together. And that's the key is that if we're having different kinds of conversations, if you're telling me about something emotional that happened with you and your family, and I say, oh, here's how you want to solve that. Here's what you want to do, right? I'm in a practical mindset.

You're an emotional mindset. We're not going to feel like we're connecting with each other, and we're definitely not going to be able to hear each other really well. It's really frustrating. Absolutely. So what's important is to have the same kind of conversation at the same moment, it's known as the matching principle, that when you and I are in the same mindset, when we're having an emotional conversation together,

when we're having a practical conversation together. As long as we are aligned, then we can move from conversation to conversation together and we feel connected. So are you saying, okay, I just had an idea. I'll see if I'm missing the point here. Let me say good communicators, specifically using the word good.

Good communicators are able to discern which type of mindset, which type of communication path we're on. They pay attention to it. I'm going to say good. Yeah. Okay. Super communicators.

Let me do great communicators can actually, so I'll go good, great, super. Okay, great communicators know what path we're on, and they can move in and out, they can stay at a depth of whichever of those three that feels appropriate for the other person, and they're good partners in the conversation, in the relationship.

Super communicators, and I don't think I remember this part. This is what I would add, if, like you and I were writing it together, I would say that the super communicators are able to pick up above and beyond what mere mortals seem to be able to do all of the honest signals. So I would say yes, except with one caveat.

I don't think being a super communicator is that above and beyond. I actually think every single person can be a super communicator. It's just a matter of looking for the signals. If you're busy in your head or you're anxious or you're frustrated or you're run with emotion, right? And I mean emotions are running the program as opposed to you being able to work with them. you miss so much of this on a signal. Absolutely.

Right. Yeah. So you also, to be a super communicator, need to be able to work with emotion well. Absolutely. Well, and here's what I would say.

And I'm curious your thoughts on this, because you obviously communicate and you teach communication for a living. Not like you. I think I just do it. Right. Well, yeah.

And I don't know how to necessarily teach any of this. I think that... So the reason why I'm saying you don't have to be like a superhuman to do this, that anyone can do this is because if I'm in my own head, and I am anxious and I'm thinking about myself and I'm wondering, oh, does he think that I'm cool?

Does he, like, is my answer impressive? It's hard for me to connect with you, right? So what's the way that I break myself out of that? I ask you a question. And the thing is, anyone can ask a question, right? Learning to ask a question is not a hard skill to learn. It's a habit that anyone can build. And particularly if I ask you what's known as a deep question,

if I ask you a question that invites you to talk about your values or your beliefs or your experiences, I'm going to figure out what kind of mindset you're in right now. Like, are you looking for an emotional conversation? Are you looking for practical conversation? And that can sound kind of intimidating, but it's as simple as instead of saying, you know, what team are you working with right now? Saying, you know, what made you excited about sports?

Like, what was it about sports psychology that really, like, attracted you? That's second question. That is not an overly intrusive question. That is not a too personal question. But it invites you to tell me so much about yourself, right? What you're passionate about, the experiences you've had. Because what that does is, now if you're a great communicator and what your job now at this point is is you've kind of

thrown the ball up in the air as a lob so to speak as a metaphor and depending on how I go get it I might say oh let me tell you when I was a kid like I was that that da da and I'm going to an emotional place absolutely then you're like oh okay I know the mindset that he's in so let me parallel path yeah that's exactly and you might just as easily say depending on how you're feeling of that moment might say, you know, I just, I really, I heard a lot about Sabre, Sabre metrics and I think the stats of sports are really compelling to me because we can measure stuff. Okay, you're using words to tell me you're in a practical mindset right now. That's right. Or look, sport was so much fun and I loved it and like me and my friends and da-da-da-da. And you're like,

I bonded with my dad. Right, exactly. This is how me and my friends got to know each other. So it's fun like in my training, which I don't talk about much, you know, like I think, I want to tell you a funny story in a minute, but I don't talk about my training. And one of the things that I think was this amazing gift that one of my professors just hammered. This was in graduate training, and he said to me very clearly, he's like, Mike, what are you listening for? I'm just, I'm really attuning and following the story and just want to make sure I really understand. He goes, you're missing most of the story then. I go, what do you mean? He says, there's two conversations that are happening within a person. Which one are you listening to? I said, well, the story. He goes, right. Well, the story

is emotional. So listen to the words, but let them fall away as best as you possibly can and work to understand the emotional experience that's happening that happened or is happening now. Yeah. Right? And so there's the talk track and there's the emotional track. And if you can get both of those lined up, like you've really got an understanding. But I was just busy trying to be like clocking, you know, all the beats. Right. And then the other person wants to tell their story over and over and over and over. Now they've perfected their traumatic story.

Yeah. Now we've got a different problem that I'm introducing. But the idea that there's at least two was part of my training. I love that. Yeah, it was a really, it was an important. Well, and I think the best example of that is that if you look at the research on communication and you ask people, what did you guys talk about in that hour-long conversation you had? people on average will be able to remember two, maybe two and a half topics, and they won't remember

anything specific that was said. But if you ask them, how did you feel throughout that conversation? They'll be able to say, oh, at the beginning, I felt like really good. And then we talked about this one thing. I started feeling really bad about myself, as Maya Angelouins put it. Nobody remembers what you say. They remember how you made them feel. That's right.

Yeah. And that emotional level is so critical. So let me ask you something, actually. Because oftentimes my experience of sports is that particularly coaches, particularly in the training room, particularly, is that that can become a very practical conversation. How are you going to react? What are you looking for? But I imagine emotions for those players and for anyone who's performing as an elite executive or artists or athlete, those emotions must be a huge part of how they're making decisions. Yeah.

You know what I love about sport is that it's really honest. Yeah. So there's two rooms I'll talk about in sport and then I'll move it out. outside of sport. Sport for me is like what I liked about it is that it's so concrete. And I am fascinated by the invisible world. Like thoughts are invisible. We can't see them. We don't know how much they weigh, where they come from, where they go. We don't know really what the immaterial world of thought is at this point. And so it's hard to wrestle it down because you can't get your arms around it in any meaningful way. But we know that thoughts matter. But the

artifact of thoughts are behavior. Okay? So follow me on that. And then we can observe performance is the cauldron, if you will, when you put some pressure on it to see how behavior and thoughts work and what's the stitch between our emotions. Yeah. So sport at the highest level, and same with business and same with relationships, are for big emotions. So you ask the question about emotions, really. And if the conversation between coach and athlete or executive and manager or husband-wife, fill in any relationship pair you want, is transactional in nature and it's information sharing, you're missing. I'm missing if I'm in one of those people, so much of the information, if it's true that to live in extraordinary life and do extraordinary things like the

Olympics or the Super Bowl or like boardroom pitches that could change the world or the business, There's a lot of emotion involved in there. And the idea that we haven't taught our people, our children, how to work well with emotions, has provided a massive opportunity for me and people like me to say, hey, let me show you how thoughts, emotions, and behaviors work together so that you can literally dissolve pressure because you're in control of the things that you actually can control. And once that starts to open up and the coaches in elite sport that are not untrained, let's say, but very sophisticated,

they are working at the emotional level. They must be, right? There's so much going on there that, I mean, every conversation that we have is colored by emotions. And if I'm talking about the thing I love most, right, the way I define myself is I am an athlete,

I get on that field, and I perform well every single time, then of course there's a huge amount of emotions and social issues and identity issues, right? All that. I recently went to Indian Wells to see the tennis tournament.

Oh, you did. Yeah. I haven't been my hair. It's really fun. It's awesome. It's my first time at a professional tennis tournament. And it was just amazing. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Fatty 15.

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Fatty15, Fatty15.com slash Finding Mastery and use the code Finding Mastery at checkout. What Stephanie and the team at Fatty 15 are doing is something I'm really excited about. I really hope you'll check them out. But you see, you see those tennis players. It's a loneliest game on earth, right? You see them on that court. They just lost a point. They have to get their mind in the right place for the next.

for the next serve. There's nowhere to go. There's nowhere to hide. There's nowhere to hide. There's no one to talk to. And it's entirely emotional, right? Whether it's the yips on a golf course, whether it's what my team does from me, do we come together as a team or are we just individuals who happen to be playing with each other?

And of course, the exact same thing is true in business and in relationships. Yeah, I think that if on the surface level, if you just look at sport, you're like, oh, it's so transactional. It's so agro. It's so whatever. When you look at the sophistication of the best of the world, it is marrying that or merging that with the high emotional kind of context that's taking place. And here's the thing.

I don't know, 300,000 years ago, our ancestors passed on this gift. When something matters, your body's supposed to respond with emotions. Survival matter. Our brains are wired to find the threats and kick on the emotional kind of all the kickers that happen. But you know what? Performing well, that matters. Yeah.

So we're dealing with this like a circuitry that's pretty ancient. Absolutely. Well, and this gets to language. Like one of the things that I think is really interesting about language is that it did not evolve as a knowledge or information sharing device. It's a nice secondary benefit that I can tell you, oh, the code for the lock is 0-894, right? We can use it as an information sharing device. But the reason why language evolved was to help us connect with each other. And if you think about 90% of the conversations you had yesterday, you weren't really sharing that much information.

You were talking to your wife and you were saying, hey, how is your day? Not because you really want to know exactly what she did that day, but because you want to connect with her, right? Or you're saying to a friend like, hey, I saw this movie. It was pretty good. Like we should hang out sometime. When we communicate. And the reason why communication, which is our superpower, homo sapient superpower is our ability

to communicate. When we communicate, it is not to share information. It is to feel connected to each other. Did you just go practical for social? and emotional? What do you mean? So your mindset. Yeah.

I'm listening to your mindset. I'm listening to the words, but also tracking the mindset that you're in. Yeah. And you're just explaining the utility for language is to connect. But you went very practical. Were you in a practical mindset just now?

Yeah. But for the utility of driving home two points, which is social and emotional valiance or value of using words well. And because we're connected, so you probably know this research, within the neuroscience, this is called neural entrainment,

that if we could look at our bodies right now, we'd see our pupils are dilating at the same rate, our heart rates are starting to match each other. More importantly, the activity in our brain is looking more and more similar. It's becoming very simultaneous as we share ideas, as we share emotions. And so if I get practical,

because we're entrained, because we've matched each other, you can get practical with me right away. And then if you say, you know, that reminds me of this conversation I had with my son that made me feel like just amazing, then you're emotional, and I'm going to go emotional right with you.

We don't even have to think about it. Very cool. So, all right, so let's kind of go backwards to take maybe a couple of steps forward. Maybe give a definition, if you can, about, or just describe the practical one more time, the social and the emotional, and how to help people tune to those better, and then how to help with the entrainment piece. So they can become a super community. Exactly. Each of these three kinds of conversations, and this is what researchers, neuroscientists have kind of found, is that we're having multiple different kinds of conversations every time we have a discussion with someone. but they tend to fall into one of these three buckets.

And the practical is exactly what it sounds like. In a practical conversation, we are usually sharing information, or we are solving problems together, or we are coming up with plans together. We're doing something where there is an outcome that is not only practical, but is oftentimes maybe transactional, but maybe also just like an itinerary. But then there are times that I tell you about what I'm feeling. and I don't want you to solve my feelings. I don't want you to come up with a plan for me to improve my feelings.

What I want in that case is I want you to empathize with me, right? I want you to show me that you understand what I'm feeling. And you might say like, oh, that's a really hard problem. I don't know if we're going to be able to solve that, but I'm so sorry that you're going through that. That sounds so hard. I'm not looking for you to solve it, right? All I'm looking for you is to empathize.

And then finally, the social conversation is when we're talking about how we relate to each other, how we relate to society, when we're talking about other people, when we're talking about the identities that are important to us. And in that conversation, I'm not looking for you to solve anything. I'm also not looking for you to empathize. I'm looking for you to acknowledge. So if I say something like, you know, as the father of a 17-year-old, like, it's really, really hard to like raise kids right now, I'm not looking for you to say, I understand what it's like to be the father of 17-year-old. You also have a 17-year-old. So you can, you can empathize, but simply to say, you know, you.

You know, that's a really interesting perspective. Like you have a unique experience there that's giving you some perspective on this. Just acknowledging the identity that you just voiced that's clearly important to you, that's what we're looking for in that conversation. So how do people actually do this? Okay, so one of my favorite ways of explaining this is that if you're a teacher, one of the things you learn in teacher training is that if a student comes up and they have something important that they want to ask you about, you should start by asking them a question.

And the question you should ask is, do you want to be helped? do you want to be hugged or do you want to be heard, which of course is the practical, the emotional, and the social, right? And what's amazing is that if anyone listening has young kids at home, and next time they come up to you with something, ask them, do you want to be helped hugged or hurt? And they'll know exactly what they want right away. They'll tell you like, no, no, no, I don't need you to help me. I just need you to know that Jimmy's been mean to me, right?

I want to, I need to tattle on them. I need you to hear me, right? Or I don't need you to fix this problem. I just need you to give me a hug and make me feel better about it. What about when the response comes back and is like, you should know the answer to them. You've been talking to my wife, haven't you? Don't you know me by now? Damn it, I need a hug or whatever it is.

Yeah. Well, so one of the things, I mean, the other place is that in the workplace, you can't really ask people if they want to be helped. Hug to hurt, right? They're going to call HR. So in those cases, asking a deep question is the next best thing we can do. And sometimes you can just ask a question about what kind of conversation they want. When I come home and I start complaining about my day, my wife.

wife will often say, do you want me to help you solve this problem or do you just need to get it off your chest? Yeah, that hinge between those two ideas has been really important for my wife and I. Are we in problem solving mode? Right. I'm just asking, like, do you want me to go problem solving with you or is this calibration? Yes. You know, problem solving or calibration? And she's like, nah, calibrate. Like, I just, I need to talk it through. You know, or like, no, I'm looking for a solution. Come on. Get with it. Got it. You know, so. And we can do that in any conversation. That's why I say, being a super communicator, it's not really something, a superhuman thing. It's something that any human can do. Because at any point, we can ask, you know, that sounds like a really tough time you're going through.

Do you want me to help you think through some solutions to it? Is that helpful? Or do you want to just tell me sort of like what it's like to be living with this? Yeah. But what you're doing that's, I think, materially important, that's almost kind of the trick in plain sight. So let me go back to my training one more time is when you're going to ask a question, have a general idea of where it's going to go. Yeah. And if it zigs when you thought it was going to zag, no problem. But you have a general idea of where it could lead. And that's exactly what you're doing. You're having a general idea.

Am I going towards practical? Am I going towards social? So you're giving a pretty innocuous, thoughtful question. You're lobbying it. Back to that sport analogy. And then you're watching where they go. Yeah. And what I love about what you just said is, if I have a vague hypothesis in my head,

and my hypothesis is this might be emotional. we should probably, I'm going to pay a lot more attention to your answer. I'm going to listen a lot better. That's exactly it. Because I want to see if the hypothesis in my head is true. So let me ask you a question, because I have this theory about psychology, particularly about therapy, which is that one of the most powerful things that we do as psychologists, as people who are helping other people, whether we're trained or untrained, is that we're helping them recognize the story they're telling themselves, sometimes without realizing it, and helping them re-contextualize that story a little bit. You know, it sounds like you're having a really hard time.

Tell me, what was it like last time you were in this? Well, last time it was like in this, it all turned out fine. So, so now I'm changing the story in my head. The story isn't, I'm on the path to doom. The story is, this is kind of like last time and everything worked out okay. You know, I think we don't really know how this works. I think we have a good sense that being part of it was someone else that is not judging or critiquing or shaming or any of that kind of performative, less than stuff that there's something about just having somebody else with a positive regard, non-judgmentally going, yeah, oof, you know, like, but honestly doing that, there's a recalibration that takes place there. And there's something about not letting people, sounds like a little directive,

if you will, not tolerating people to re-traumatize themselves by telling the story again. Oh, interesting. I'll tell you how this happened for me. I was in a tough way, freshman year in college. And there was a professor. He happened to be a psychology professor. And there was an attunement that was happening. Like I felt like connected to him some kind of way. I like, I didn't know psychology was a thing, really. But I liked the conversations in the class. I saw him outside of the building as we were walking to the building.

And I was having a tough time. I was like really anxious at this time of my life. So I came up to him. I was like, hey, Doc, you got a minute? He said, yeah. And I go, I just want to talk to you about something real quick. Is, are you going to class? So we both knew it was a short conversation.

Yeah. And he goes, yeah, let's walk. And so he said, what's up? And I started getting into this. thing that was bothering me. And he interrupted me. Right in the first third of my entree into what I was struggling with. He didn't even get to the struggling piece. And he said, Mike, when the doorbell rings, do you have to answer it? And I looked at it. I'm like, what's that got to do with anything? And my thought was like, psychologist or cooks. And he looked at me and he saw that I was like,

big-eyed, like, what are you saying? And what has this got to do with my trauma, that I'm, you know, not really trauma, micro-trauma. And he peeled off and walked away. I didn't get it. It took me another the next week. I was like, hey, Doc, I came back around to him. I didn't get what happened. Like, do you have a minute? I just really want to tell you that he did it again.

He interrupted me about a third of the way through. It took me years. He never gave me the answers to like what he was doing. But I know now he interrupted my story. And in doing that, he didn't allow me to rehydrate. it. Yeah. He stopped it from blooming. He created a chaos that was like a gift. He wasn't going to sit in the presence of a person re-traumatizing themselves through telling their story again and again. I had this story perfected. Yeah. Yeah. So was he a good communicator? I think he was a super

communicator. Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. Well, and what I love about what you just said is you had this story perfected. Like this story was so integral to how you saw yourself. Right. How you saw, was happening to you, it didn't even occur to you. I'm guessing that there was another story you could be telling yourself, right? Or that I don't need to keep telling this story. Yeah. Or that this story is in the past and now we're writing a new story. That's right. And I think that sometimes one of the most powerful things we do as communicators, as humans, as people who feel connected, is simply listening to someone tell their story and then saying like, you don't have to answer the doorbell when the doorbell rings. Which just for clarity means that when the thought

arises, you don't have to entertain it. Exactly. Exactly. Or to say, I'm really sorry you going through that. Let me tell you about something that's similar that happened to me, right? Now, what's key here is it's not to steal the spotlight. Like oftentimes we'll tell a story and someone else, or even worse, we go to a party and someone says, where'd you go on vacation? And we start answering the question. We know within 10 seconds, they don't care where we went on vacation. They just want to talk about their vacation, right? They want to tell us about the fancy yacht that they rented. So I think when we ask questions of people, people when we say, you don't have to answer the doorbell when we say, it sounds like this is tough

for you. Let me tell you about something I went through that was similar. If my goal is to help you instead of stealing the spotlight away from you, you can feel that. That's cool. And I think when your professor said, you don't have to answer the doorbell and you walked away, what he was actually saying is he's saying, I'm not stealing the spotlight from you, right? Like, I'm going to let you sit in the spotlight. I'm just going to tell you, this is a spotlight I don't want to be a part of. You don't have to be a part of. Are you using the word spotlight from Gillivich's work, you know, the spotlight effect? A little bit, yeah, yeah. So Professor Gillovich did an experiment, right, where he identified that people

are thinking about themselves way more than anyone else ever would. Right. And is, are you purposely using that? Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, because I think that we feel that generosity of spirit. We feel when someone actually wants to help us. And sometimes that help. I mean, what's amazing to me about the story you told is that you came back to the professor, right? Because it would have been really easy to be like, oh, this professor just blew me off. Like, I'm not, I'm not going to make a fool of myself again. Like, I'm going to find someone else to talk to. Thank you for pointing out. Yeah, my inability to recognize that. But he did it in a way that you knew he was doing it for your benefit. You knew that he was trying

to help. I knew he had something that was useful, that could be useful. And I went back because I thought I missed kind of the mark. I just thought it was weird. I thought he was doing something weird. But I knew that like if there was a moment to syncopate, he could be helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Full circle.

Like his name is Dr. Cusio, Dr. Perkins, and Dr. Zanka, these three professors. One was a psychologist, theologian, and the other was a philosopher. Those three were their best friends. Huh. And materially changed my life. That's amazing. Yeah.

Yeah. So that interaction sounds like it was maybe. casual, but it was actually really important. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm certain that they thought about connecting with you. And for you connecting with them. That's right.

I mean, these are people you look up to. These are people you admire. Yeah. Like the desire to connect is probably, you don't even have to think about it. How are you doing with your connection in life? We're in L.A. right now. I'm here because I took my 14-year-old and two of his friends on their spring break trip down here to L.A.

and I think a lot about how to connect to my kids. I have a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old, both boys. And, you know, part of it is that I really want to have a relationship with them that as they get older, that we have a genuine relationship. Friendship is like, I want us to be friends, but like that's almost too small a word for what I want, right? But I want to know who they are in the most genuine way, and I want them to know me.

And so I spend a lot of time thinking about how to connect with them because they're not thinking about it. Right? They're kids, they shouldn't have to be thinking about it. They should be thinking about girls or sports or, you know,

riding scooters, which is what they love to do in L.A. And so I spent a lot of time thinking about how do I create moments when we can actually hear each other? How do you do it? So a lot of it's in the car, right? Because with boys

and you have a 17-year-old boy, you know this. Shoulder-to-shoulder conversations. They're amazing. They are fantastic. finding mastery is brought to you by momentous we tend to think about creatine as something for athletes for power for muscle for strength but what often gets missed here is that our brains rely on creatine just like our body does your brain burns about 20% of your body's total energy means every thought every decision every late night brainstorming it depends on that same cellular energy system

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finding mastery for those who are in it for the long game. My friends who are raising daughters, like a lot of it for them is about talking about emotions, right? Their daughters are having an emotional life in middle school and high school that often my male friends didn't have themselves because as men, we tend to mature a little bit slower than our female counterparts. And part of it is learning just to say, like, tell me how you feel. And not trying to solve those feelings, right, but just saying, tell me how that made you feel. Like, why did you feel that way? What do you think would make you feel better?

Do you use the word feel? Oh, all the time. Yeah, that's cool. All the time. Yeah. I'll sometimes if I want to slide into it a little bit easier, I'll say, what was that like for you? And then watching, if he says, that I was scared, or he says, like, ah, you know, I don't know, da-da-da-da-da.

I'll go, oh, he wants to go feelings or he wants to stay practical. Yeah. To your, I didn't have your framework before I read your book three years ago, two years ago now or whatever it was. But your framework is, it shows up. It's very intuitive, right. I think it's how many of us communicate. I think that's exactly right. Is asking that question like, like, you know, what do you make of that?

Like, again, at the core of these deep questions is why? You just told me about something. Why is it important to you? Right. Why are you telling me about this? What does it mean to you? As you've been studying super communicators and the real thing that you're studying one more time is about connection.

Yeah. How are we doing? Just do the U.S. for right now. Like, how are we doing as communicators? I'm going to answer that question, but let me preface it by saying this. The moments in our nation's history that we are proudest of are not when everyone agreed with each other. Let's go back to the Constitutional Convention.

To write the Constitution, you get like a couple of dozen. men in a room, many of whom actually hate each other, right? They were like, they were physically threatening each other. And they certainly didn't agree about what America is supposed to be, but they managed to write a constitution. The moments in our history, whether it's that moment, whether it's a civil rights movement, whether it's post-World War II, the moments that we're proudest of are not when everyone agreed with each other. It's when we could disagree and hear each other and still live peacefully alongside each other. When we felt connected, even though we disagreed with each other. And so I look now at the test that I'm going to apply there and say,

so if I voted for someone different than you voted for for president, can we talk about that and still feel connected to each other? It's hard. It's hard. It's really hard. It's getting harder. Yeah. Like people aren't wanting to show up at family events because it could go sideways. Yeah, absolutely. Take us through some things that we can do a little bit better here. Absolutely. So what are the components of feeling connected even when we disagree with each other? A huge part of it, is that I need to believe you're actually listening to me. Because very often, if I'm in a conversation about politics and you're telling me all about why you support your guy and I'm going to tell you all about why I support my guy, as you're

talking, I'm waiting my turn to speak. I'm not necessarily listening. And you know that, right? You can feel that in the back of your head. Is this person actually listening or is he just waiting his turn to speak? So I have to actually prove to you that I'm listening. I have to say, look, here's what I hear you saying. You told me that you like your candidate because it feels like he's standing up.

for the little guy. And what I hear you saying is that it feels like the little guy isn't getting the opportunities that you think America is supposed to provide for them. Am I getting that right? Am I hearing you correctly? At that moment, what I'm doing is I'm proving to you that I'm paying attention. I'm proving to you that I'm processing what you're saying. Most importantly, I'm asking you if I got it right. What do you do in a situation to be a super communicator when you are listening hard, well, and you are recalibrating that you're a lot, You just heard, this is what I heard you say. And you might add a little to it to take it a little bit deeper, further, whatever.

And then the person is not as interested in your experience, but wants to keep going. Because now they feel seen and heard. Yeah. Right. Like, would you say, fine. Just let them go. Like, let that. You got to be, I mean, look, you don't have to have a conversation with anyone.

There is no obligation to have a conversation with someone, particularly if they don't want a dialogue with you, if they just want you to be a listening post. That's a cool framing. I can walk away from it. Yeah. Now, sometimes, though, I can just remind to the other person that I belong in this conversation. The classic thing that happens is you go to a party, start talking to someone, you're asking them question after question.

They never ask you a question back. Here's what I do in that situation. I say, oh, my gosh, you know, I've been asking you so many questions. I'm sure you have some questions to ask me. Let me take a break and give you a chance to ask me some questions. And here's the interesting thing. They do. They have questions.

That's a nice bit of judo. It's a nice little bit of judo. Yeah. And most importantly, it's not that they didn't have questions. it's that they're not in the habit of asking questions. They don't feel comfortable asking questions. They need my permission. Why do you want to ask them questions?

I mean, sometimes it's just because you're at a party and you need someone to talk to, right? I was wondering if this is for you or for them, yeah, or for the material understanding. Yeah, okay. So. But sometimes, let's go back to family. Yeah, but let's say it's my kid, right? And I'm asking my kid questions after question. And I often use the, yeah, the fast friends procedure, which I'm sure you know that.

Oh, the 36 questions that like lead to love. It's this great experiment. If anyone looks it up, it's called the Fast Friends Procedure, these 36 questions that they use in experiments to help people feel closer to each other. Whoa. What is this? Really? Yeah.

How have I missed this? Yeah, it's wonderful. It's a wonderful. It's called Yum? No, the Fast Friends Procedure. Oh, what did I hear Yum from? I thought this was like, I thought you were saying Dr. Yum. And it's like, okay, the fast friends procedure.

I don't know this. Yeah, Arthur and Elaine Aaron in Rhode Island. They came up with this. Okay. Say the names again. I missed it. Arthur and Elaine Aaron, A-R-O-N. Okay, cool.

Married couple. Let's find the link and put it in the show house. Yeah, and it's actually a fun story behind it because what happened was they wanted to come up with a system that could make any two strangers into friends. And they tried all kinds of stuff. They like had people going walks together or do puzzles together or sing songs together.

And basically none of it worked. Like some people would become friends and others wouldn't. And so one day they have a big graduate lab and their grad students are like kind of like hippie pot smokers. And so they're like, look, why don't you guys just come up with a bunch of questions that you ask each other after you've been recreationally relaxing? So they write up a bunch of questions and they choose 35 of them. And it starts pretty easy. The first question is, if you could have dinner with anyone from history,

who would it be? That's pretty easy, right? But question number seven is, how do you think you will die? Question number 18 is, tell me about your mother. Question 35, the second and last question is, when was the last time you cried in front of another person? Because one of the things that the errands found is they would bring people into a room, sit down kind of like this, they'd give them the list of questions, and they'd tell them go back and forth. So I would ask you the first question. You'd answer it, and then you'd ask me the first question, back and forth, back and forth.

And people felt incredibly close to each other. In fact, so much so that seven weeks later, 70% of the people who had sat in that room had sought out the other person on campus or in the workplace and just said, like, let's go have a beer together. One of them actually got married a year after doing the experiment. It's very cool. They do the exact same experiment, but this time, instead of having them go back and forth, they give them a list, I ask you all 36 questions.

You answer them. Then you ask me all 36 questions. Didn't work. I think what's important, and this gets to what we were saying before about the back and forth, the why I can't just ask you questions. You have to ask me questions, too. It is the back and forth. It is the synchronicity, the building with each other.

That's what makes us feel connected. So go back to somebody who's having a hard time, speaking to their brother, to their sister, to their parent, cousin, uncle. So the first thing they're going to do is they're going to prove that they're listening, right? And they're going to indicate,

I genuinely want to listen to you. Like, I understand we voted for different people. I don't want to convince you that my guy is right and your guy is wrong. I don't want to convince you, I'm smart and you're dumb. I honestly just want to understand

how you see the situation. And when you tell me, I'm going to prove to you that I'm paying attention. And what's going to happen is you're going to be more likely to listen to me in return, right? It's just social reciprocity. We can't help but do it. But then the second thing I'm going to do is I'm going to try and abstract that conversation

to talk about what underlies it. And this is where the why question, the deep question becomes so powerful. Okay. You voted for your guy. I voted for my guy. They see the world really differently. Instead of asking you why you voted for your guy, I'm going to ask you, why is this important to you?

Like of all the things we could be talking about, we could be talking about the Super Bowl right now, right? But we're talking about politics. You seem to care a lot about this candidate. Why do you care about this candidate? Why don't you? I mean, I do. I care about my candidate, right? But I'm just wondering, like, but you see, you're seeing, I don't understand how you're seeing it. You're seeing it so wrong. You're missing the big point. So instead of trying to convince you that I'm seeing it wrong, let me just ask you because I really genuinely want to understand, how do you see it? And you're going to answer that question, and I'm going to repeat back, what's known as looping for understanding, proving that I'm listening.

I'm going to repeat it back. And because you and I feel like we're actually sharing with each other, we're not going to change our mind about who we vote for. But we're going to walk away feeling connected to each other. Right? Because the truth of the matter is that if I'm talking to my neighbor and we vote, we have different lawn signs on our lawn for different candidates, that takes up like 1% of my brain, right?

What do you do in that conversation when you're in question mode, listening mode, and you get an uptick in emotions. You get triggered. Somehow, you stepped on a wire and you're shocked. Yeah. What do you do with that? I think at that moment, you say, I want to tell you how I'm feeling. You actually say like, okay, like, we're having kind of a practical conversation. We're talking about who's increasing the deficit, but I'm going to ask your permission. Can I tell you how I'm feeling? Can we move together from a practical to an emotional conversation? You know what's cool about this? Because let's say you do that. And then if I say, whatever, now you should probably walk away.

Yeah. Right? Or if I say, yeah, what happened? And you're like, oh. Yeah. So you can go into it. Yeah. That's cool.

So then you're taking a moment for vulnerability. Taking a moment for vulnerability. Yeah. And it's costless, right? Because I'm asking you. Can I tell you how that I actually haven't said anything. Yeah. Right.

I haven't said anything. Right. I've just asked you if we can go there together. And the truth of matter is that like you're definitely not going to say no. You're not going to say whatever. I don't care how you feel unless you're a real jerk in which case, we're not going to have a conversation. anyways, but what you're probably going to say is you're going to say, no, what are you feeling?

And then I'm going to talk about myself. I'm going to talk about what I am an expert on, because I am an expert on my own emotions. I'm an expert on my own experiences. I'm not going to say, the reason I get super scared is because your guy just seems mean and he seems crass. Instead, I'm going to say, sometimes when I watch the news, I feel bad. Like, I feel like there's something on that news that makes me feel bad about our country, and I don't like feeling that way. Yeah, but you're watching the wrong news. You're watching fake news. It could be.

It could be. But I don't need to disagree with you, right? Like, all I have to do is tell you about what I'm an expert on. I'm an expert. So you're staying on my experiences. And when you're doing that, are you enveloped in yourself because you're like accurately trying to express your emotions? When you do that, you almost kind of look within to make sure that you're calibrated.

That's what most people do. Or are you doing something simultaneously, which is you're looking for signals. Is it okay for me to keep going? I think both. we do the second thing almost unconsciously. But at that moment, my goal is to help you understand how I see the world. So in a tough conversation, the only goal should be, I want to understand how you see the world, and I want to speak in such a way that you understand how I see the world.

This seems like a non-sequitur, but was it high a goal? There's a German philosopher, I'm blanking on his name right now, that introduced the equivalent of the word called worldview. and it's a German word I can't explain. We'll put this in the show notes too. It looks like Wienerstitial in my mind, but of course that's not it. But it's the first time that the word worldview as one word was introduced. Interesting.

Do you have a methodology to help people understand their own worldview or methodology to help people understand somebody else's worldview? So what we know from the research, and I'm sure you know this also, is that oftentimes we talk about perspective taking, right? we say like, put yourself in someone else's shoes. So if I want to explain my worldview to you, I'm going to invite you to sit in my shoes. Perspective taking does not work very well. What works pretty well, because it's just hard to do, is perspective getting.

That when I ask you questions about your perspective, oftentimes what I'm doing is I'm nudging you to actually come up with that worldview. The truth of the matter is we all walk around with a worldview and we don't think about it. That's right. It's not really clear. No, it's background noise. Yeah, yeah. It's water.

The two fish in the water. One of them says, how's the water, boys? And they go on and then one of them says, what the hell is water? What are you talking about? We don't know what our worldview is until someone asks us about it. And so it's a gift.

Okay, our producer just put it up. It's Velten Shanung. Veltin Shanung. Okay. I love it. It was the first time worldview or world perspective was introduced as a word. So I think that there's,

what you're doing is helping people, I think you use the word nudge, nudge towards understanding their worldview. Yeah. And maybe it's just thin slice to the political worldview. Perhaps. You know, but there's probably other stuff in there. I'm fascinated by people's worldview of their belief systems, which are very hard to excavate. Yeah.

They're very difficult. But they're so powerful. I think part of that is also signaling to you that I'm actually curious about your worldview. I'm interested in your worldview. I'm not just asking you about your worldview because I want to change it. I'm asking because I want to understand it. So get back.

We're at the Thanksgiving table. Politics comes up. I'm going to prove to you that I want to understand how you see the world. I'm going to prove to you that I'm listening, that I'm actually taking that in. Then the third thing I'm going to do is I'm going to share something that I'm an expert on.

And that's probably going to come across a little bit of vulnerable. I'm going to say the reason I'm so worried about this election is that it makes me scared or it makes me excited to like to elect someone like this, to have my kids see that someone like this can become president, that is so exciting to me. You can't disagree with that.

You might not be excited. That's right. But this is my experience. I'm telling you what I'm an expert about. Very cool. Clean, simple. It's something that I can deploy, you know, at the next kind of holiday.

And it becomes a habit. That's the nice thing about communication. Our brains have evolved to be really good at communication. And one of the things that we do is we create communication habits very, very quickly. Finding Mastery is brought to you by AG1. Spring is, it's just a natural time to reset. You know, the days are getting longer, at least for the northern hemisphere. And there's just an energy in the air that shifts.

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That's a $72 value for free. Again, that's drinkag1.com slash finding mastery. I want to take a second here to tell you about a morning routine that I've been using for years. For me, it's a great way to switch on my mind, to ready myself to take on the day. So before I check my phone, my emails, market updates, or text threads, I choose how to start my morning. That's always in my control. That's always in your control, too.

This is the same morning mindset routine that some of the world's top performers across sport, business, and the arts are using. The best part, it only takes about 90 seconds to do. So just head over to finding mastery.com slash morning to download the audio guide for free. Again, head to finding mastery.com slash morning to get your morning mindset routine. How clear are you that we're social beings? A hundred percent. Yeah.

And if there was a better way for us to do the social, environment better, would you say it's asking questions? Yeah. Well, I think that's part of it. I think definitely part of asking questions. And second of all, it's something that you said before is just transmitting non-judgmentalism, right? Saying, look, I actually want to understand you. I don't want to convince you that you're wrong and I'm right. Yeah. Carl Rogers, Dr. Rogers says unconditional, positive regard for the other person. And if you can hold that, you're going to do more good in this world than not. I have a friend named Greg Nelson who, like, you bring him to a party and he just like he can talk to anyone.

And I've studied why he's so good at this. And the reason why is because when he's in the conversation, you feel like he is genuinely in the conversation, right? He's never saying like, he's never looking over your shoulder. He's never saying like, ah, it seems like a really dumb thing for you to believe. Right? Instead, he's saying, like, tell me more. And let me tell you about me.

Let me tell you how I think about this. Yeah, right. That's cool. So he gets himself in there. Yeah, he gets himself in there. in that positive regard, it doesn't cost us anything. It doesn't mean that you agree with the other person. It doesn't mean that I'm saying, actually, you know what, your candidate is the right

candidate. It simply means I want to understand you and I want you to understand me. Charles, well done. Always enjoy our conversation. Me too. Quick hits, though. If I knew what you knew, how would I be a better leader? I think the best leaders are people who ask a lot of questions.

And what's interesting is if you look at Jamie D. Diamond, if you look at leaders from history, we tend to put these people on a pedestal, and we tend to remember the moment when Abraham Lincoln gives the Gettysburg address, right? He's speaking. He's not listening. And then you read a biography of this guy, or you read his writings, and he talks about all the questions he's asking. Very cool.

If I knew what you knew, how would I parent better? I'll just speak for myself, how I try and parent better is instead of trying to teach my kids so much, I try and just ask them to teach me. I want to understand how you see the world. I want to understand why this seems so important to you. Like our instinct is to say, I know so much. I want to help you avoid these missteps. But they get that if we say to them, teach me how you see the world. That's rad. And then, you know, lastly, how would I be a better spouse? If I knew what you knew, how would I be a better spouse? Again, just speaking from my own experience, the most important things I've done in my marriage is to tell my spouse that I want to connect with them.

Like sometimes just saying, because you can get so bogged down by the nature of life, sometimes just saying like, look, if it's okay, could we go take like an evening and just like walk around and talk for two hours? Because I really, like, I just want to feel close to you. Did they teach you this at HBO? They did not teach me this at Harvard Business School. This was not a lesson at Harvard Business School. Oh, my God.

No. You've come a long way, my friend. Yeah, well done. This is not what's taught there. Charles, thank you for coming through. Thank you for having me. This is so much fun. Yeah, let's do a fourth one.

Absolutely. I love it. Do you have a book on the horizon? I'm working on, I'm trying to figure out what it is right now. So I'm playing with some ideas and hopefully going to figure out what the next book is. Well, I'm looking forward to it. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next time on Finding Mastery, Dr. Sonia Lubamerski joins us to explore a powerful idea that that happiness may depend less on being loved and more on whether we truly feel loved. This conversation is full of practical insight on connection, curiosity, and the small ways we can create more love in our everyday relationships. So join us Wednesday, May 20th at 9 a.m. Pacific, only on Finding Mastery.

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