Good Life Project - The 6 Magic Words of Persuasion | Jonah Berger

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

We want to hear from YOU! Take our survey.Have you ever wondered why some people seem to have a magical way with words, effortlessly connecting with others, inspiring change, being able to share ideas in a way that seems to bypass defenses, be wildly persuasive and lead to action and impact? What IS it that lets them do it? In today's fund and surprising conversation with Jonah Berger, we delve into the fascinating world of language, persuasion, and ethics, and reveal the secrets to harnessing the power of what my guest calls “magic words” in your everyday life.Jonah is a world-renowned expert on natural language processing, change, word of mouth, influence, consumer behavior, and why things catch on. His latest book, Magic Words: What to Say to Get Your Way, provides a powerful toolkit and actionable techniques around the science of language and how you can use it to change minds, engage audiences, and drive action.In today’s conversation, we explore the incredible ways in which language can impact our lives, relationships, and influence, including:The concept of "linguistic chameleons" and how adjusting your language can create stronger connections with others.The power of emotional language to hold attention, evoke curiosity and inspire action.How sharing vulnerabilities and failures can foster a sense of camaraderie, empowering others to persist in their endeavors.The importance of understanding similarities and differences in language, and the potential to drive creativity and cultural shifts.You can find Jonah at: Website | TwitterIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Zoe Chance about ethical persuasion.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED. To submit your “moment & question” for consideration to be on the show go to sparketype.com/submit. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This idea of magic words has been around forever. Abracadabra, Alakazam, whatever it is. But I think why I find this concept interesting is they're not magic. It's actually science. There are words we can use that will increase our impact. Adding a certain word to requests can make people up to 50% more likely to say yes. We found in our own work that saying I recommend something rather than I like something makes people about a third more likely to do it.

To me, this idea of words having power is really important. And given those words, what are they and how can we harness those powers? How by understanding the power of magic words, can we use them to increase our own impact, whether it's to persuade others, to motivate, to be more creative or to deepen social connections? So have you ever wondered why some people seem to have a near magical way with words? Effortlessly connecting with others, inspiring change, being able to share ideas in a way that seems to just bypass defenses, be wildly persuasive, and lead to action and impact? Well, what is it that lets them do that? In today's fun and inspiring conversation with Jonah Berger, we delve into the fascinating world of language, persuasion, and ethics, and reveal the secrets to harnessing the power of what he calls

magic words in your everyday life. So I've known Jonah for many years now, I think actually a little over a decade, and Jonah is a world-renowned expert on natural language processing, change, word of mouth, influence, consumer behavior, and why things catch on. His latest book, Magic Words, What to Say to Get Your Way, provides a powerful toolkit and actionable techniques around science of language and how you can use it to change minds, engage audiences, and drive action. And with over 80 published articles in top tier academic journals, his work has been covered all over the world, is constantly referenced by places like the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, and he consults for

giants like Apple, Google, Nike, Amazon, GE, the Gates Foundation, and more. In today's conversation, we explore the incredible ways in which language can impact our lives, relationships, and influence, including things like the concept of what he calls linguistic chameleons and how adjusting your language can create stronger connections with others or the power of emotional language to hold attention, evoke curiosity, and inspire action. And we dive into how sharing vulnerability and failure can foster a sense of camaraderie, empowering others to persist in their endeavors, and things like the importance of understanding similarity and difference in language and the potential to drive creativity and cultural shifts. So join us for a really enlightening conversation as we explore the hidden power of language and

reveal insights that can transform the way you communicate, connect, and influence. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him! We need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Excited to dive into magic words and like sort of like the universe of language and persuasion. But before we even get there, I was taking a look back in our catalog and

Contagious came out a decade ago now for you. We first talked right around that. So it's been about a decade since then. And you had this really fascinating take of these six elements of social contagion, of how things, ideas, product services, whatever it may be, phenomena, get passed around, get amplified. So I thought it may be, phenomena, get passed around, get amplified. So I thought it'd be interesting to just take a beat before we dive into language and persuasion. I'm curious, now that you have a decade and the world has changed in profound ways since that body of work came out, has your take on what makes ideas spread like wildfire changed in any meaningful way? It's a great question. I wouldn't say that it's changed in big ways. It's changed in some small

ways. So for example, I talked a lot about the power of practical value or useful information in driving what people share. I didn't know at the time, but there was about to be a big wave in what we now call content marketing, which is basically rather than talking about how great we are, as we might do in a traditional piece of paid media. Instead, we give people useful and entertaining information and we use it to bring us along for the ride. That to me is a direct application of the idea of practical value, but I had no idea that was coming down the pike and so didn't talk about it.

Similarly, when the book came out, I took a pretty strong stance saying, hey, influencers or at the time, influentials aren't what they're cracked up to be. I think I've slightly revised my opinion over the years to say that they're useful in some ways and not others, right? So they're very useful in terms of buying awareness. If you're a company organization and you want people to become more aware of you, just like you might advertise on television, or just like you might put out a piece of paid media. Now people spend a lot of time consuming the content of television or of traditional radio or traditional print online of, you know, so-called online influencers. And so they are a channel which you can reach your audience.

Does that mean that they have as much impact as someone's best friend? Certainly not, but they do a good job of reaching a large audience. So I hesitate to call them influencers. I might call them reachers instead, but I do think they can be a really good way to reach an audience in some cases. But what I would also say is while things have changed, a lot has stayed the same. So the idea that, oh, people care how they look to others, I didn about things that are top of mind, that idea of triggers. Again, I didn't invent that idea. I talk about that idea. But cognitive psychologists have known the power of accessible things in our mind for decades.

It's been true for hundreds of years. And so while some things have certainly changed, there's a bigger shift to online than ever before, the underlying psychology of why we share things, I think, is very much the same. Yeah, because I remember in that original conversation, and if I remember correctly Or the underlying psychology of why we share things, I think, is very much the same. Yeah. Because I mean, I remember in that original conversation, and if I remember correctly from the book, one of the big surprises for me was this notion that word of mouth a decade ago, when we were deep into technology already, right? But a decade ago, if I remember the data right, you shared that word of mouth, still the primary

driver was person to person. It wasn't tech enabled. Do you feel that that's shifted? You know, I think it's certainly shifted. The bigger question is, has it shifted as much as we tend to think it has, right? So I give presentations now, I'm still on Contagious, clients still ask me to talk about it. And sometimes some of the audience go, oh, but you know, my kids spend hours on TikTok. You TikTok. There's no way that offline is valuable anymore. And so has the percentage of time that we spend online gone up? Certainly it has in the last decade. Is the amount of time that younger people spend online higher than it was a decade ago? Definitely. And so is the proportion of online word of mouth among young people higher

than it was a decade ago? Certainly. By some estimates, though, it's still nowhere near the 50 or 60 or 70% people might think, right? We still spend a lot of time offline. Even if you spend two, three, four, even five hours a day online, even more, six, maybe even seven. I hope not, but maybe.

You're still spending a good bit of time offline. You're asleep some of the day, but you're still spending a good bit of time offline. You're asleep some of the day, but you're still spending a good bit of time offline. And so it's not that offline doesn't matter at all. It matters more than we think, even though online is growing. I would say the other trend, I mean, I don't have to tell you about the pandemic, but everybody's working from home. Technology has become an easier way to reach our colleagues at the office. The water cooler is no longer a literal water cooler. It may be some metaverse space or something on a Slack channel where we sort of drop off information.

So that has also moved more things to be online. But offline, whether it's face-to-face or phone, still play a big role in communication. Yeah. And I guess there's an interesting sort of conversation also about how do you define online versus offline? It's like, is texting offline or is it online? Or DMs texting? But I know personally still to this day, there's something I'm just completely jazzed about. I'm more likely to just use that rare function on my phone, the actual phone, call someone and say like, I just read this book. I just saw this movie, whatever it is. And you have got to check it out. Like I'm going to

hold on while you check it out. That is sort of like the highest level of me wanting to share something. Yeah. And I think there are a couple of interesting things about the phone, right? You're alluding to a little bit. So, so one is the humanizing impact of voice, right? So, you know, yes, we can communicate through technology and we can even record voice notes, right? We can record something and send it to someone, but lots of very nice research shows that the voice is quite humanizing, makes us seem more like real people, can impact persuasion and do a variety of different things. But I think also the phone call is a very much an immediate synchronous medium, right? When you call someone on the phone, you talk and then they talk, you talk and they talk. Whereas you

text someone, you text them now, they may not read it for a while. They may not get back to you for an even longer while. And so when you want that deep social connection, it's hard to be face-to-face and then if face-to-face isn't possible, it's hard to beat the phone or something like it. Those mediums are still quite useful when connection's important. Yeah. I read a study, it came out towards the end of last year, if I remember correctly, that was looking at how empathy is transmitted across different mediums. And voice was far and above still the top transmitter, the experience of empathy, which a lot of people I think is counterintuitive too, because it's sort of like, well, if I can see the person's body and face and their emotions in their face, like,

shouldn't I be able to read that more? But it turns out there's something that is still to this day so powerful about just spoken word. Yeah, no, I very much agree. So you also brought up the notion of voice and conversation, influence, persuasion, you use the word influencers. Interestingly enough, now most influencers don't call themselves influencers anymore. They call themselves creators, which I think is a really interesting shift in psychology because it's almost like, I don't want to just be seen for who I can reach, but I want to be known for the creative act that is actually generating heat around my ability to have reach. Yes. And I think what I would also say is,

you know, influence has a little bit of a negative connotation. Sometimes people see influence as like a four letter word, like a dirty influence. You're influencing someone. It's a bad thing. And so it can seem very transactional and not very desirable. Whereas being creative is a wonderful, there are a few downsides to being creative or being seen as a creator. And so I understand the desire to shift language in that direction. Because beyond the label of influencer online, the general phrase influence or persuasion, it can come with all sorts of baggage, all sorts of ethical badges. Like it's not okay to either understand, invest in, or certainly apply tools or wisdom or insights or strategies when it comes to quote, influencing or persuading others. Talk to me a little influencing or persuading others.

Talk to me a little bit more about the psychology. I would say a few things. So, you know, first of all, we don't like seeing ourselves as influenced. I've done a bit of work in this space and, you know, one, because it seems like it's a bad thing. We want to see, particularly in American culture, like where, you know, we choose our own things, where I have autonomy and agency and I make my own choices. But also we don't like influence because we're not always aware that it's happening, right? We're not always aware that influence is occurring. I think the other thing is influence can have a very negative connotation, right? If you said, hey, I'm going to influence people to eat food that's not good for them and make decisions that are bad for the environment or get someone to do something they

don't want to do. well, that sounds pretty bad. What I think is interesting, though, is influence by itself is just a tool. If I told you I was going to use influence to get people to eat more fruits and vegetables, or I was going to use influence to get them to care more about the environment, we'd all say, that's fantastic. That's a really great, great goal. And so it's not that influence by itself is positive or negative. Influence is just a tool. It's like a hammer, right? A hammer is not positive or negative. You can use a hammer

to bang in a nail. You could use a hammer to hurt someone. And so influence itself is just a tool. And I think the better we understand that tool, the more we can both take advantage of its power and defend against it, decide we don't want to be influenced or choose our influence. And so I think understanding how influence works has a lot of benefits. I completely agree with that. I see it as inert, just sort of like as it's the container and it's the intention behind it and how it's actually used. I can either make it functional or dysfunctional, constructive or destructive. Not entirely unlike AI, which is the buzzword these days. But when it comes to it though, I mean, your point about like a lot of us feel like we don't want to be influenced.

I almost can't imagine an interaction that you have from the moment you open your eyes, the moment you lay your head down at night, when you're in some sort of relationship with anybody where there isn't some level of influence happening. And this could be just brushing your teeth in the morning. You're doing that because at some point along the way, somebody in a position of authority or social pressure or whatever it is kind of made you feel like this is an important thing for me to do. Like we don't sort of like emerge from the womb saying time to brush my teeth. So there are so many just rote behaviors that we take for granted that we do because at some point there was an influence process. And we're really glad that we do them. But my sense is it's when we feel like we're

being influenced in a way which is against our interest, that's where the hair on the back of our necks risen a little bit. But I also think that that is very often the popular assumption. That's what influencer persuasion is. It's the art of getting somebody else to do something that they wouldn't organically want to do. And maybe it's not in their best interest, but is in your best interest. And that's where so many of us really just have friction with it. Yeah. I mean, I actually thought a lot about this in the subtitle to Magic Words. So the subtitle to Magic Words is what to say to get your way. I actually don't love that subtitle. And for two reasons, one, it can sound a little bit negative.

It can be misinterpreted in a negative way you just talked about. But two, this isn't just an influence book, right? I mean, there are parts of this book which are about how to use language to be more creative. There are whole sections of the book, 50 book, which are about how to use language to be more creative. There are whole sections of the book, you know, 50 pages, which are about how to deepen social connection using language. There is a whole section of book about how to use language to better understand others and, you know, understand sexism and racism in society. And so it's, it's not just an influence book. You know, another subtitle we played around with was, you know, what to say to be more creative and influence others and deepen social connection and motivate yourself. And I just looked at that and I was like,

who's going to buy that book, right? Like you're going to like, like where, first of all, where are you going to fit all the words? But second of all, I think it spread things a little too thin. And so we ended up with this subtitle because it rhymes and it sounds nice and it was better than the other options. If I was more creative, I would have come up with a better option that was better than either. That's certainly one thing the book talks about, but it's not the only thing it talks about. Yeah. No, for sure. I mean, before we dive into sort of like the six major categories, there's also been really a lot of evolution in technology and how it allows us to understand language in all these different use cases that you just described.

Certainly, as I just mentioned, we are dropping into the world of AI faster than anyone ever saw it coming. Maybe some people saw it coming, but then most people. But even before that, I mean, even going back to the work that you did for Contagious, where you're actually using some tech to really analyze en masse what's getting shared. But in the last decade, I would imagine the tech that's actually allowed you to do the work that you're doing and deepen into the research has evolved in really powerful ways that give you the ability to have much more nuanced insights. Yeah. I mean, I think there are two trends. One is just the availability of data,

right? So 50 years ago, you and I could have been having a conversation like this over the phone. If we wanted to, we could record it. We could then take it, listen to it, and transcribe it and turn it into language data, but it'd be pretty effortful. Today, at the end of this conversation, you can probably press a button and the whole thing will be transcribed. Millions, if not billions of people every day share their thoughts and opinions on social media and through online reviews.

There are repositories of books and newspaper articles and movie scripts. And in some sense, basically everything we do linguistically, much of it, not all of it, but much of it is captured and digitized in a way that makes it easier to study. But then second is, as you sort of alluded to, you know, there's been a big shift in tools. So people talk about natural language processing or automated textual analysis. And you very rightly remember that one of the first things I did in this space was in Contagious, a big analysis, the New York Times most emailed list. What made the list? We did automated textual analysis to get a sense of whether the conversation on an article was more positive or more negative. Those tools were pretty cool at the time I did that work, which is in the late 2000s. Things have changed a lot, right? So, you know, now there's different machine learning approaches, topic modeling and word embeddings, and we can do so many things.

And you mentioned the word precise. I think it's really nice when to get deeper, more precise insights about what's going on in all sorts of different contexts. And so just like the microscope might have revolutionized chemistry or the telescope kind of revolutionized astronomy, these natural language tools have revolutionized the study of behavioral science, right? We can study different things in more detail than we could ever study them before. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. It'd be fascinating to see where we are a decade from today. Yeah. a lot of sense to me. It'd be fascinating to see where we are a decade from today. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. You use the word magic words. It's literally the name of your new book. Magic in what way? Like, why that word?

A few years ago, our first child was born. His name is Jasper. And this is actually the opening story to the book, but I think it's a good one to sort of illustrate the idea. And so like many kids, he got older. Eventually he started getting language. So he'd say words for things he wanted. He'd say yo, if he wanted yogurt or brow bear, if he wanted brown bear. But what's interesting is he started using the word peas. And he didn't mean peas. He meant please, but he didn't have his L's yet. So he couldn't actually say please. So he would say peas. And what he would do is he'd use it in a very particular way. So he'd say something he wanted, like yo, try saying it once. And if nothing happened, he'd try saying again, yo. And if nothing happened, then a third time he would go, yo,

peas. And he was basically saying, look, if you're not getting what I want right away, I'm going to add this thing on the end because I know that it'll make you more likely to do it. Now Jasper is five, almost six years old. He has a lot more language. A couple of days ago, he was like, dad, you're not being specific enough. When I asked him to do something, I was like, thanks. Where did you learn the word specific from? But peas was, to me, was really interesting, really fascinating because it was the first time

I think he realized that words had power, right? That if you used a certain word, it could make the likelihood of something happening different. And this idea of magic words has been around forever, right? Abracadabra, Alakazam, whatever it is. But I think why I find this concept interesting is they're not magic. It's actually science. It's not magic. There are words we can use that will increase our impact. Adding a certain word to requests can make people up to 50% more likely to say yes. We found in our own work that saying I recommend something rather than I like something makes people about a third more likely to do it. And in everything from the language you might use in the emails we send at the office to the language you might use in the emails we send at the office to the

language you might use in a loan application provides insight into who we are and what we're going to do in the future. And so to me, this idea of words having power is really important. And given those words, what are they and how can we harness those powers? How by understanding the power of magic words, can we use them to increase our own impact, whether it's to persuade others, to motivate, to be more creative or to deepen social connections? Yeah, I love that. And I'm such a believer in that as well, that language matters so much and so much more than I think a lot of people really realize. I remember in a very past life being in law school and in a first year law school class and having one professor that literally deconstructed a decision from his favorite justice, Justice Benjamin Cardozo, and would walk through word for word

and sentence by sentence and really just flag what was happening in this seemingly innocuous sentence. But then under the hood, what was really happening here factually, emotionally, cognitively? What was this person doing with the language? And then years later, probably a decade later, I found myself in with some very old school copywriters who had been around for a long time, had written copy that had collectively generated many billions of dollars in revenue for different companies and sort of like sharing the secrets of the trade. And this went on for a couple of years where I was deeply immersed in that world, learning that art and being utterly blown away by how meticulous

the detail or the attention to detail was with every word that was chosen in order to have a particular effect on the reader. And how literally testing the identical 10,000 words of copy with five words change would lead to a very different effect. It really opened my eyes to how much it matters. And even how much the slightest changes, like you just described the difference between I like versus I recommend, most people would be like, come on, how much could that really matter? It turns out a lot. Yeah. I think as communicators, as writers, as speakers, we are constantly using language in all contexts, whether we're talking to bosses or colleagues or clients or, you know, family members. And while we think a lot about what we want to

talk about, the ideas we want to communicate, you know, okay, I want to talk about our plans for dinner Friday night, or okay, I want to pitch my new idea, or okay, I want to get the client to agree to do something. We think a lot about top-level ideas we want to communicate. We think a lot less about the words we want to communicate them. As you just said, that's a big mistake because there's a big opportunity in the language that we use. I think what's most exciting to me is this is not the first book out there on language. There are lots of articles online that say these are five words you shouldn't use in resumes or the six things you should say when doing this and that. And I love anecdotes just as much as other people do. And I think anecdotes can be a

good way to illustrate ideas, but for anecdotes to be useful, there has to be some science underneath them. And so I think what's exciting is in the past decade and even more so, we've uncovered some amazing insights from language that are not just opinion, they're statistical outcomes, right? We can change this if we do that. And so it's been a nice opportunity to share those insights and showcase how we can use them. Yeah. So let's dive into some of those insights in the context of these different categories of words that you say really make a difference. By way of summary, before we walk through them, you identified six categories, activating identity and agency, conveying confidence,

asking the right questions, leveraging concreteness, employing emotion, interesting crossover from contagion there, by the way, and harnessing similarity and difference. So let's kind of walk through these. So starting out with the notion of agency and identity. First, what are we actually talking about when we're talking about these terms? Yeah. And I'll say one thing. To help people remember, I try to put those six things in a framework. I often talk about the word speak. So how you can speak more impactfully. The S is similarity. As you mentioned, the P is the language of posing questions. The E is the language of emotion. The A is the language of agency and identity. One of the Cs is the language of posing questions. The E is the language of emotion. The A is the language of agency and identity. One of the Cs is the language of concreteness. And the other is the

language of confidence. For the folks that are paying attention, you're probably going, speak doesn't have two Cs. It ends in a K. And you're exactly right. It does. I couldn't come up with a framework that ends in a K, but I think it's a nice way to help people remember those six buckets. But to spend a minute on agency and identity, as you said, I think a good way to think about that is we often think about language as conveying information, provides information, others or collects information. Language also suggests what it means to engage in a particular action, who it suggests you are, and who has agency or control.

So I'll give you a fun example. There's a study done a number of years ago at Stanford University where they went to a local preschool and they asked students for help cleaning up. So it was like four or five-year-old kids. Kids are asked to clean up a mess on the floor, their blocks, crayons, books, whatever it is. And for some of the kids, the scientists asked them, hey, can you help clean up using the verb help to encourage them to take action? For other kids, they use a similar word with just a couple letters different. They say, hey, can you be a helper? Rather than

can you help clean up, can you be a helper? Now, the difference between help and helper is quite small, two letters. Yet that difference leads to a 30% increase in students' likelihood of helping, just two additional letters saying being a helper. And it's not just students in classrooms. Same idea has been shown with adults and more important behaviors like voting. So researchers looked at getting people to vote. Some people were asked, hey, can you go vote? Others were asked, can you be a voter? Again, the difference between vote and voter is extremely small, just a letter. But when people asked to be a voter, they were much more likely to take that action, about 15% more likely to go vote. And so what gives, right? Why did helper matter more than help and voter matter more than vote? And the reason is by turning actions into identities,

we can make people more likely to take those actions, right? Voting, helping, I know those are things I should do, but I'm busy. I might not want to do them. What I care more about than actions are identities. I want to feel like I'm a good person, like I'm intelligent, smart, knowledgeable, competent, all those different things. And if actions are opportunities to show myself and others that I hold desire of identities, well, now I'm much more likely to take those actions because they're not just actions, right? They're actions that give me an opportunity to claim a desired identity. Voting, yeah, that's fine. But being a voter, well, now I'm more likely to vote if it gives me that opportunity. Same thing is true on the negative side, right? Losing is bad. Being a

loser is worse. Cheating on a test is bad. Being labeled a cheater would be even worse. And so researchers show that when cheating on a test would make you a cheater, well, now people are less likely to do it because they don't want to engage in an action that would lead them to claim an undesirable identity. It's like that old don't litter campaign, which they eventually switched to don't be a litter bug. Littering, yeah, I know it's bad, but oh, being a litter bug, well, now I really don't want to do it. And so by framing actions as identities, we can make people more or less likely to change those actions.

That in particular, that whole concept is so fascinating to me. There are shades of time back to Cialdini's work on the consistency principle there also, right? Because if you see yourself as a particular type of person, I'm the person who does X or who doesn't do X, you want to see yourself as acting consistently with that identity. And you want to be seen socially as a consistent person who says, this is who I am and I behave consistently with that. So there's an internal and an external social compass that gets harnessed to sort of like Venn drive behavior that's consistent with that identity. So it's fascinating to sort of like see the evolution of that work, which is sort of like the word that you're talking about here and that simple shift. So when you're thinking about actually having conversations with people, but actually using identity-based language, it's so subtle yet powerful. You also talk about this in sort of

in the context of almost different types of domains or behaviors, creativity, even sort of in the context of almost different types of domains or behaviors, creativity, even sort of like mental health, like how we deal with anxiety. Talk to me a little bit about this. Sure. Yeah. So I'll mention the creativity one briefly, and then I'll talk sort of about anxiety, managing anxiety. So often when we're trying to solve a tough problem, we're trying to figure out which of two things to do or what course of action to take or come up with a creative solution. We often think about what we should do, right? So maybe I'm choosing between two job offers. Which one should I take? Which one is the right thing to do? Or, you know, I'm thinking about how to solve a problem. What should I do to get out of this

situation? And that's the standard approach. But researchers wondered if a subtly different word, in this case, magic word, would encourage people to be more creative. And so they gave people some different problems. For some people, they asked them to think about what they should do, like what we usually do. For others, they said, hey, don't think about what you should do. Think about what you could do. Subtle shift just from should to could. They found that thinking in terms of coulds led people to come up with better solutions and more creative solutions as well. Because while should focus on kind of one right answer and which is that right answer,

coulds encourage us to open up our vision a little bit and say, well, what's out there? What could I do? What's possible? And by focusing on what we could do, even if we don't end up doing all those things, it encourages us to find more creative solutions overall, just by a subtle shift from should to could. And in terms of anxiety, managing anxiety, another sort of example, and all of these are under this bucket of agency and identity, sort of language that suggests who's in charge or what identity it means to do something in particular. You know, coulds encourage us to think more broadly.

There's another study looking at managing anxiety, making a tough presentation. You're standing up in front of people to give a big speech. You have to do something that's sort of very anxiety-producing. Often, when we're in that situation, we're like, oh my God, I'm going to mess up. I don't know if I can do it. We use a lot of I language. We're focused on ourselves. If someone else is in the same situation, we wouldn't say, I don't think you can do it. We'd say, you can do it, right? You've done this before. Because when it's not us, we can see that someone can achieve the thing. else, like you rather than I, or using your own first name, can that language make us more likely to be successful because it helps us distance ourselves from that anxiety provoking situation. So they had people give speeches.

For some people, they encourage them to take the traditional approach of, you know, use I language to talk to yourself. For other folks with their self-talk, they encourage them to use this outsider perspective. Talk to yourself like an outsider would using words like you or your name, Jonah, you can do it. And you could also say, Jonah, you're not going to be able to do it. What they found though, is that when people took that outsider perspective, use that different type of language, not only did they give better presentations, but they were less anxious as a result because that language encourages them to see the situation like an outsider would. And as a result, not be less, not be as anxious and give a better talk overall. And so language can be very powerful. It's not

only how we influence others, it's how we look and consider options. It's how we manage our own emotions. And so the language of agency at the end is just one bucket, but it's a powerful toolkit to help us be more impactful in every area of life. Yeah. I love that. The whole idea of saying like, you can do this. It's interesting also because it feels like that creates a certain dissociation because like, who's the person saying you can do this?

Well, certainly it's not the person who's experiencing anxiety. So that must not be me. You know, so there's like this almost dissociative effect in there, which kind of maybe helps you just pull back enough so that you experience more ease in doing the thing. It's really fascinating. Yeah. It's a nice word. You step outside yourself. Yeah. I love that. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised.

The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him!

Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. One of the things you talk about also is the notion of confidence. Now, this makes a lot of sense to me. I don't want to listen to or believe somebody who doesn't present as being confident in themselves and their ideas and what they're offering or inviting. Is it as simple as that or is there more nuance to this? Yeah. Well, first of all, we all know that confidence is a desirable trait. We all have friends that are confident that when they open their mouths, everybody listens. So I don't think anyone say confidence is bad. What I think is interesting though, is most of us don't know what makes someone confident, right? We know when we see it, we say so-and-so is confident, but what does that actually mean? And language is one place where confidence shows up. And one way

to signal more confidence is to shift the language we use. And so I don't want to get into politics here. Everyone's entitled to their own beliefs, but if you look at the language of Donald Trump, whether you like him or you hate him, you can't deny he's done an amazing job of motivating his audience, right? Getting them to believe him, support him, go along with what he wants to do. And so how does he do it? And he's particularly interesting because if you look at him, you know, some of the stuff he says when he ran for his first election, he said something like, you know, America doesn't have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don't anymore. If I'm elected, you know, I'm going to build a great wall. I have victories all the time. I'll beat China in trade deals. That's just what I do. And some people pan the speech as

bluster and empty. And yet a year later, he was elected president of the United States. And so clearly something he's doing in the way he's presenting is impacting his audience. And if you look though, it's not unique to him. He actually does the same thing that great salespeople, that startup founders like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, gurus do, which is they speak with a great deal of confidence. And what does that mean? Well, first, it means not a lot of ums and uhs and fillers, being very direct, skipping those things. But second, he uses a lot of what some people might call definites. It's obvious that this will occur. Everyone agrees. Certainly. Definitely. It's undeniable. He doesn't say things like, oh, we don't have as many victories as we used to. We don't have victories anymore. It's absolutes. He's speaking in absolutes, which make him seem more confident. And indeed, research shows that when financial advisors, for example, seem more confident, people are more likely to pick them. They prefer confident advisors because confident advisors seem like they know what they're doing. Contrast that though with the way most of us speak. So I'll pick on myself. I use a lot of hedges. And what do I mean by hedges?

I think this is a good approach. This might be a good idea. That could work. That'll probably happen. I use language that sort of steps away from the things that I'm saying to indicate uncertainty. The problem is that undermines our impact. In many situations, the more we hedge, the less persuasive we are. Why? Because it makes us seem less confident, right? Well, if you're not even sure if this strategy is going to work, why should we do it? And so we certainly shouldn't hedge without intending to. If we're using them just because of crutch, because it's easy to sort of throw words like that in there, maybe possibly seems like I think we need to ditch that language.

But second, there are ways we can be uncertain without seeming uncertain. So take the difference between something like, I'm not sure if this strategy is going to work versus I think this is a great strategy, but to make it work, we need to do these three things. In both cases, I'm not saying the strategy is going to work. And one, I'm saying I'm not sure it's going to work. And the second one, I'm also saying, I'm not sure it's going to work, but I'm saying, I think it could work if we do these things, right? I think it's a good strategy. If we do these things, it's likely to work. And so it's almost calling out the uncertainty, right? It's saying, these are the things we need to do rather than just seeming like you have no idea. I mean, and that was my big

curiosity around like when you were genuinely uncertain about an outcome, what about the third scenario where you're also completely uncertain about the fact that even if we do these three things, that I have no idea if this is going to work or not. Isn't there a risk of you repeatedly showing up using language that conveys certainty and then time after time, things don't come to fruition the way that you predict. And then people not only don't trust you anymore, but they feel estranged or alienated or betrayed. Yeah. I think a word I would use to describe what you're talking about is overconfidence, right? We like confidence. We don't like overconfidence.

We don't like when people dissociate or separate how confident they are from things and whether those things are actually going to occur, right? If someone says, this will definitely happen, and they say that a bunch of times, and whenever they say it, it doesn't happen, we start not to believe them anymore, right? Because what they're saying and what is occurring aren't connected. And so we certainly don't want to be overconfident. And there are times to indicate uncertainty, right? There's very nice research that shows that being uncertain can actually make us seem more receptive to other people's opinions, which makes them more likely to listen to our opinion.

I think the only thing I'm, well, I'm highlighting two things here. First, we all know that certainty is important. There may be some situations where it's better to be certain, better to be uncertain, but I don't think we have a good understanding of what makes us seem certain or uncertain. And so one thing is just let's understand the language that signals certainty and uncertainty. So if we're in the situation where we want to seem certain, we use that language. And if we're in the situation where we want to indicate more uncertainty, we know what type of language to use. I think that's the first thing. And then the second is just harness its power, right? I think there are many situations, you know, myself as a communicator, as a scientist, scientists are well known for hedging. And that's good in some ways.

The problem is if you're hedging all the time, eventually no one's going to listen to you. And so I don't think we want to be overconfident, but I also don't think we want to be underconfident, right? We need to strike the right balance, particularly if we're trying to persuade others. Yeah. So there's sort of a sweet spot in there is what it comes down to. Yeah. I think about so many founders that I've known.

I think about companies that I've founded and how you bring people along when you genuinely don't know how this is going to turn out. Yeah. And very often, the power of a vision, steep and profound impact can be enough for you to, what I found, stand up and say, look, I honestly don't know if this is possible, but I believe that it's worth the pursuit. And if you paint a picture that is so powerful that a lot of people will say, I don't know either, but I think it might be. And if we are actually able to accomplish this, the impact, the outcome would be so worth the effort and so worth even not being able to do it

that I'm still all in. I think that in a way sort of brings us to the conversation around emotion at the same time. And this is, again, like of those six categories of words or language that you're using, like it's language that is employing or steeped in emotion that has a very particular effect. Yeah. A good way to sort of step back and think about the language of emotion is what words communicate emotion and when do we want to use emotion? And in each of the chapters, I talk about different ways that that high level idea plays out, right? So we, for confidence, for example, or certainty, we just talked about hedges. And I talked briefly about fillers like ums and uhs, and there are two or three other buckets that I talk about. Same with emotion.

I think the easiest one to sort of think about here is I think many of us, when we're presenting ourselves, want to present ourselves as a highlight reel. So particularly online, everyone's doing is amazing. It's all working out. Everything is great. Everyone's life just looks like this amazing, perfectly varnished highlight reel. And we think that's a good way to present ourselves. Why? Because we think it will signal desirable characteristics to others. But there are two problems with that. First, it's not a very interesting story. Most stories you look at aren't just positive moment after positive moment after positive moment because you change the channel. Really great stories often are more like roller coasters, right? Yes, there are high points, but there are low points before we get to those high points.

Why? Because it makes the high points all the more valuable. We did a big analysis of tens of thousands of movies and found that movie scripts that sort of have more ups and downs, people end up liking them more. Why? Because it's more engaging. You don't know what's going to happen next, right? And you can empathize with them a little bit more. You can see yourself in them. Think about a movie like Star Wars or Harry Potter, where they overcome obstacle after obstacle to eventually reach their goal. That feels, for most of us, like much more what our lives are like, right? Our lives aren't just highlight reels of positive moments. We have to overcome a lot of obstacles. And so when we're presenting ourselves to others, presenting ourselves, when we tell stories, when we provide information in ways that feel a little bit more emotional, but also more emotionally volatile, both the ups and downs can be really beneficial. One, I'm a leader. I'm standing up giving their presentation. If it just seems like everything that's happened to me is great, not everyone else can sort of resonate with what I'm

saying, but it seems like I've gone through a lot of difficulties to get to where I am today. And everyone else is going to feel like, wow, they're like me. I can connect with them and their leadership is going to be more effective. And so the language of emotion can be a useful tool to, again, make us more impactful. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense to me. I feel like so many of us also, one of the things that we really yearn for is this feeling of I am not alone. And when you hear a story that's just like, and this succeeded and I tried this and this succeeded and I tried this, you feel actually more alone than less alone because you're like, oh, I'm the loser who's not actually just knocking off win after win after win.

Regardless of the fact that it's a complete fantasy scenario for the vast majority of human beings, and it's rarely the actual true story. It feels like when you invite people into that rollercoaster and say, I've been through this, and maybe I'm even in it right now, people feel like, okay, so I'm less alone in the world. And I see this in social media. I follow some quote influencers who basically share their neurotic self-talk and they give language to their own chatter in their head that is clearly so resonant with the chatter in millions of other people's heads that they accumulate massive, massive followings. They're not giving advice at all. They're not asking people to do anything.

They're not selling anything. They're simply saying, this is what's happening in my head. And other people are saying, wow, it's not just me. There's power in that. Yeah. You know, it reminds me, some magazines just have a section like that celebrities are like us, right? And be like, here's a celebrity at the grocery store, not dressed up. And everyone would be like, oh yeah.

And I always wondered, why did people like those sections? And I think I really liked the way you framed it, which is it makes us feel like, look, you know, these are our celebrities, but they're just like us. They, not every moment is magical. They go through difficult things. And so I think it can be a great way to connect with people is to reveal things about yourself, not just, you know, focus on the highlights and as we often tend to do, but reveal that it's not perfect, that there are challenges. You know, I work with a lot of doctoral students and I often say, look, you know, every paper I published got rejected from somewhere first because it often does.

And I think sharing those failures as you nicely laid out helps make other people feel, well, I'm not alone. Not only am I not alone, but maybe I can do this too. If failing once doesn't mean I'm a failure, failing once just means I'm maybe on a road to a bigger success. I'm going to be more likely to persist. And I'm more likely to work through that because I realize it's temporary, not something permanent about me. Yeah. So similar to confidence, it also seems like with using emotional language, emotional words, emotional stories, or anecdotes, there's probably a sweet spot there too. And I'm thinking all the way back to that original work you did around contagious

again, where emotion was a part of what got things shared, but every emotion was not equal. And I would imagine in terms of the way that it lands in the context of the magic word categories, that there are emotions that are powerful connectors, but also that repel at the same time. Yeah. I mean, I'll pick out one piece of research that we've done recently on this, is about the emotions that hold attention. So we looked at tens of thousands of pieces of online content and essentially looked at what leads to longer reads, right? All of us write things. Some things we write, people read them all the way through. Others, they read the first little bit and then they go on to do something else because it doesn't hold their

attention. And we found that emotions have a really important impact. Emotional language has a really important impact on whether content holds attention. And it's not just positive emotions or negative emotions, often emotions that evoke uncertainty. So both on the negative side, things like anxiety, but on the positive side, things like hope, they actually encourage us to pay more attention to what happens next because we want to resolve that uncertainty. So both on the negative side, things like anxiety, but on the positive side, things like hope, they actually encourage us to pay more attention to what happens next because we want to resolve that uncertainty. I'm hopeful that this happened. Okay, well, will it happen? Let me stay tuned to find out. Same on the negative side with anxiety. And so I think a lot of this can help us think about crafting better content and helping us craft things that people are going to pay attention to, not just providing

information. You know, one thing we looked at in this paper is like, Hey, is this the topic of what we write about? Like some stuff has got to be more attention getting than others, right? Celebrity gossip is probably going to beat out, you know, personal finance tips or environmental news. So if we're writing about environmental news, are we just stuck? Well, not quite, right? Because our work actually shows, Hey, any type of content, the more we write in a certain way, let's separate kind of topic and style. Yes, topic's important. Certain topics may be naturally more attention-getting. But if we understand the right style to use, if we understand the right way to unfurl ideas and talk about things, we can hold people's attention more for any topic that we're writing about. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it really, I mean, you write and talk about the notion of the context also matters. It feels like that's sort of like where we're starting to weave into it as well. Like it's context really does play into this. I mean, you're talking about types of content also, but the broader context, I think probably also really has an impact.

Yes. So we've talked about a handful of things that really matter here. One of the things that I think, and there are like a couple of other topics that you really dive into in the book, but one of the things I want to tease out a bit with you is this notion of similarity and difference,

because this is not just about language. It's not just about persuasion or influence. There's certainly broad societal contexts here that really matter in the way that we relate to other human beings? I think language is a great way to connect with others. There's a variety of research that speaks to this. There's some work that shows that the more similar the language we use to somebody else, the more likely we are to become friends. And the more likely if we interact, the better those

interactions go. If two people on a first date, for example, use more similar language, they're more likely to go on a second date. Similarly, the language we use can help predict how well we're going to do at the office. If we're able to enculturate whatever company we join and use language in a more similar way to our colleagues at work, it ends up we're more likely to get promoted or at least have the opportunity to stick around at the firm. And so I think it's not just about kind of one word versus the other. And the book is architected starting with simpler approaches. So, you know, say could rather than should, and it will lead to this impact. The language of similarity is more complicated, right? Because being similar to someone else's language involves a lot of different dimensions, but being similar and by

being similar can lead to a lot of positive downstream outcomes. There are also benefits to being different. We've shown in creative industries, for example, like song lyrics, songs whose lyrics are more different from their genres end up being more popular. Their songs end up going higher on the Billboard chart because they're more different from what people are used to, which is novel and stimulating and leads people to like them more. And so it's

another category of language that it's important to understand. Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense to me. It's interesting. I recently was listening to an interview with Rick Rubin, a legendary music producer who really was describing the fact that all he knows is his taste, what he likes and what he doesn't like, his absolute confidence in it. And very often what he really likes is stuff which is counterculture, not mainstream. But within a matter of years, and sometimes because he's now stepped into it and helped bring it to the world, it becomes the culture. It moves things forward. So it's almost like the ability to see difference before others see it and then get behind it, there's an interesting lever to be pulled there to sort of like move culture, taste, ideas forward if you're open to doing that.

Yeah. Feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation as well. So as I always wrap in these conversations with the same question in this container of Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? I think curiosity is such a powerful thing. And having kids has only reaffirmed this belief. Seeing something through a kid's eyes, everything is interesting, right? Everything is exciting and new and worth understanding. And I think as we get older, sometimes we lose that curiosity, right? We see things and we're like, I already know what that is. And I remember somebody once said this really interesting thing to me.

They said, every six months to a year, I move the paintings or wall coverings, art, whatever I have on the walls of my house around. And I do that because if I leave them in the same spots, I don't see them anymore. But if I move them around, I start to see them differently, right? I see them again. They're no longer in the same spot. So I can really see them. And I think that idea is a really interesting one for our lives more generally, not just about our wall hangings, but how we see people, how we see relationships, how we see the world. I think if we can remind

ourselves that things aren't as simple as we might think, or as kind of obvious as we often feel they are, We can see things in some new and powerful ways. Love that. Thank you. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it? Maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person. Just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered because when podcasts become

conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him.

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