Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - TALK Is Everything with Alison Wood Brooks

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

This week, Anthony talks with Alison Wood Brooks, a professor at Harvard Business School, about her brand-new book TALK: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves. They explore human interaction, self-disclosure, and the importance of authenticity. Alison highlights listening, charisma, and apologies in relationships, while also discussing nature vs. nurture in conversation and the role of humor and kindness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is Open book where I talk with some of the brightest minds out there about everything surrounding the written word from authors and historians to figures and entertainment, neuroscientists, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Sorry, I can't resist. Before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe, wherever you get your podcast, and leave us a review. We all love a review, even the bad ones. I want to hear the parts you're enjoying or how we can do

better. You know, I can roll with the punches, so let me know. Anyways, let's get to it. Today, we're diving into the science of conversation with Allison Wood Brooks, a Harvard professor and author of talk, the science of conversation, and the art of being ourselves. Now, we all talk every day, but are we really connecting? Allison breaks down why we struggle to be ourselves in conversations from mastering active listening to using humor and knowing when to apologize. This conversation will change the way you talk and maybe even the way you think about yourself. Let's get into it. Okay, so joining us now on Open Book is Allison Wood Brooks. She's an associate professor and fellow at the Harvard Business School.

It's a place I always wanted to go to Allison, but I didn't have the balls to apply to it. We'll talk about that in a second. Love it. The title of your book is Talk, The Science of Conversation, and the art of being ourselves. And if you hear some hoarseness in my voice, I apologize. I'm a little under the weather with these young kids in the middle of the winter. So first of all, let's talk about this, okay, because I love this book. And I think we have a hard time being ourselves. And I'm very good friends with Robert Green, who I think you may know from the 48 laws of power and from the art of seduction and all the different great books that he's written. But he says this to me all in time that we have good things in us and bad things in us and we have types of conflict in us. And we

have a very hard time articulating it to other people because we don't want to be perceived as bad people. Yep. So let's start there. But before we do that, if you don't mind, let's talk a little bit about your background so we can establish who you are for our viewers and listeners. And then let's talk about why we have such a problem being ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm Allison Woodbrooks. I'm a professor at Harvard Business School. I've been there for 12 or 13 years. You know, I look impossibly young. I got my PhD at Wharton, and I'm a behavioral scientist. I created a course. I was recruited to Harvard to teach a course on negotiation, did that for about four years, and then created a new course called Talk, which is the basis of this book and has

sort of hit a nerve at Harvard and beyond. Before that, though, before that sort of professional turn in my life, I'm an identical twin, which I think is not just a coincidence that I ended up becoming sort of fascinated and obsessed with conversation and studying humans, because being a twin is a weird and very lucky existence. What is your, what does your twin do if you don't let me ask? Yeah, her name is Sarah Carney. She runs a nonprofit called Prime Coalition. They've, the business, some professors of my colleagues of mine at the business school have written two cases about her. And I didn't even know it. So she's kind of the, she's a very interesting person. I'm very lucky to know her. Okay, so I have to ask this, when is your birthday?

March 12th. Oh, March 12. You only, you almost, okay, it's your Pisces. And it's our 40th, Anthony. We're turning 40. Yeah, I feel bad for you, okay? At age 61, I feel really bad for you guys. Okay, it's like a, you know, the funny thing about 40 and I'll just say this, too, when I turn 40, I'm like, okay, wow, I think I'm very old. I didn't start getting into the groove until 40. So life begins at 40, Allison, you're going to be just fine. Thank you. That's very empowering. So, yeah, and you know that already anyway. You know, you're just like psychological. Let me tell you the bad part about being 40. I just, I turned 60 last year. I just turned 61 yesterday. I was just getting used to 60. Thank you. I was just getting used to 60. Thank you. I was just getting. used to 60 and then boom, I'm now 61, right? So before you know, you're going to be 45, okay? So don't worry, okay? You're very useful, Anthony. Very useful. Yeah, so there's a lot of work being done, okay? I can give you, if you're nice to me, because one of the problems with me is I don't have a problem being myself, okay? So this is why I want to talk to you about this. I want to understand what this is all about. But if you're nice to me, I'll give you all my health and beauty tips, okay?

Oh, I can't wait. I want them all. You got very good skin from this YouTube video, I can tell, okay? But not for long. I mean, I get into the age, I'm going to need help soon. Yeah, I'm not worried about you right now. Tell me about why people can't be themselves. You're hitting a nerve. You said you're hitting a nerve. I know why you're hitting a nerve because people can't be themselves. So tell me why. There's a million reasons that we can't be ourselves, especially in conversation. I mean, when you're talking to somebody else, we're constantly doing a curation task. We're deciding the full contents of our mind is incredibly complex and sophisticated. And there's so much you could possibly say to somebody else. And we're doing this, we're making these little micro decisions of like, well, what tiny fraction of what's in my mind am I going to say out loud to another live human being? And that curation decision is really fraught.

I mean, we're making a decision of who am I going to be to you in front of you. I'm doing it right now. I'm like, you know, should I be scientist Allison? Should I be professor Allison? Should I be basketball player? Should I be mom, Allison? and we're constantly toggling and making these micro decisions every time that we speak in a conversation. Is there a mean Allison in there?

I think there's a mean Allison. She's, I think back in middle school and high school, I had more of an open battle with mean Allison. And I hope that nice Allison really won. But I do feel like in my mind, I still, like everyone, have to fight against judgmental reactions to other people's behaviors. But it's become more, it's become more second nature to not let her out so much. Right. So you, you have habits, habits. You got to work on these habits.

That's right. I mean, again, I'm not putting this on you because there's a mean Anthony in there. There's a jealous Anthony in there. There's an envious Anthony. There's a rude Anthony. There's an arrogant Anthony. There's all different types of emotions. But there are certain emotions that we want to project to the world that we're nice and kind and we're philanthropic.

Yeah. We don't want to project those other emotions. And when we get caught doing that, we make ourselves feel bad, don't we? Yeah, you do. Now, there's a potential for great humor in it, right? Acknowledging that there are all of those versions of you inside and sort of letting them leak out in moments when it seems like you're going to say like, hey, I'm going to tell you something true right now, right? Like, here's something that's living within me. Most people wouldn't let you see this, but I'm going to let you see this little piece of me.

There's potential for real connection and humor there. But when you do that, don't you feel like you're more connected to somebody? Yeah. So when you're like more vulnerable with somebody, you're letting them in and all of a sudden you're able to establish some trust with them, right? There's, there's, it's so funny. I have a colleague at Harvard. Her name is Leslie John.

She studies self-disclosure. She has a book coming out next year called Reveal. And it's, it's very much navigating this spectrum of transparency and sharing and opacity or not sharing. I think about it constantly in terms of like, what do we decide to say and where. There's also magic in keeping things unsaid, right? And knowing that you're so close with somebody that they understand what's happening in your mind even without you saying it. Yeah, but you don't want to say stuff because what ends up happening is you don't want to be overly judged either, right?

Like if you came from a broken home or you came from a abusive family or whatever it is, you put all that stuff in the closet, right? You want to project something that isn't. So in the conversation that you and I are having, has your mind wandered a little bit? Because in your book, you say that 24% of the conversation time, the mind is moving on or wandering to other things. My mind has wandered so much. I mean, part of my 40-year-old awakening has been a realization of my intense ADHD. So, like, all people's minds wander, particularly mine. You have so many books in your background and a little Yoda.

And I'm reading that, I'm wondering about the car. You also said, yes, we're managing our, the impression we make on other people. My mind wandered. I've been thinking about Irving Goughman and his theory in the 20th century about, impression management and saving face. Like your mind, my mind is going all over into the stratosphere all the time. If you saw my entire office, you would know that I am a train wreck of a mind. Okay. I am ridiculously disorganized. I showed you the shit thrown in here. But that car is actually from Superman 1. So I'm a big Superman enthusiast here. You see that? My wife and I are actually in that picture on the bottom there. I had the artist painted in.

Oh, I love that. Okay. And so that's Superman and Muhammad Ali fighting. These headsets are from my podcast. Okay. If you look over here, this is, look at, look at the mess here. I love it. There's so much potential for distraction.

Has your mind already been wandering? How much has yours might have been wandering? Yeah, no, my mind has totally been wandering because I'm trying to figure you out because you're presenting something, but you are something else too. And so I'm trying to figure it out. Maybe I need to read the book reveal as well, right? There's a lot, a lot going on. Every person you talk to is so many different people.

Everyone has multiple selves. Everyone knows so much. And the only way you're going to figure me out is by asking the questions that you actually want answers to. But aren't you as a person, it's a more generic question about people. Aren't you born a certain way, Allison? You know what? As a psychologist for a long time, I thought not. I thought everything was learnable and trainable and you could develop better habits.

And then I had my own kids, just like you did. and it did change my perspective. They do come out quite different from each other. So I think I've softened my view on what's the balance between nature and nurture. And particularly in the context of conversation, my students ask about this all the time. Aren't there people that are just born good conversationalists? Aren't they just naturally charismatic? Aren't they extroverted?

Aren't they gregarious life of the party? And I think to some extent, they're not born that way. I mean, no one's born knowing how to even have conversation, but some people pick up on the feedback all around them and get better at it faster than others. But we can all get better at it. What makes somebody charismatic? Oh, my God. All the things in the book, every little thing. Often when we think about people who are charismatic, they're really great listeners and they're really good at calling back to things.

They think about other people and they call back to stuff that you've experienced before. They're curious. They want to hear about it. They want to reminisce. They want to make things. They also seek to make things fun. They don't let conversations get boring. That's the L and the talk maxims.

The L is levity. So they tend to be really good at levity. They're good at listening, good at asking questions, good at picking topics that will be interesting to their partners, not just to themselves, and then sensing when the topics start to lose steam

and move to something else. You're really good at that. You move topics fast. Well, because I got, I think I've got 30 minutes with it. I want to have five hours. I want to be like a joke.

Rogan conversation with you, but I've only got 30 minutes. I only got 30 minutes. So I got to talk fast. I've got to think about what I'm saying, right? Yep, it's exactly right. So this is something that charismatic people do. They tend to switch topics more quickly until they land on something that's really juicy and really exciting. And then you can kind of stay there for a little bit longer. Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you a fun quick story. So I, you know, Bill Clinton and I have a little bit of a relationship. I invited him one of my conferences. And he was like, you know, you're good on TV. Do you have a media coach? And I said, no, I don't have a media coach. He said, hey man, Tiger Woods has a golf coach. You got to have a media coach. And so I said to him,

so who's your media coach? And so anyway, he introduced me to his media coach about 12 years ago and I did a one-year course in media training. What did you learn? I'm going to tell you what I learned. I'm going to tell you what I learned. Okay, shut up, shut up and listen. Yeah. Okay, particularly if you're moderating something, shut up and listen and you'll be more interesting to people if you shut up and listen. And the other thing I learned is talk more slowly. You won't say the word um or okay or any of these verbal ticks that we have as we're trying to form our thoughts if you just talk more slowly. But people can put a lot of pressure on themselves to get rid of those verbal tics,

which I understand. When my students listen back to their recordings of their conversation, they're mortified by how many disfluencies, um,s, us stutters are there, which is true. If you're doing sort of podcasting or one way speaking, ums and us are distracting, in natural dialogue between real people and their lives, those, Fluencies serve important purposes. They often signal someone's... A thousand percent right about it.

It's so important. Like, it shows that you're feeling uncertain about something and that your partner should wait and wait for you to sort of clarify. So, so much so do I believe that, just going back to the media coaching, I had gotten myself to the point where I said no ums and okays. And the media coach said to me, you sound like a robot. Yeah, you know, one wants to interact with a robot. You have to feather in some ums and okays.

Yeah, it's exactly right. People are expecting some ums and okays, but in a public speech, they want less of them. Let's put it that way. Okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my out of office has a forever setting. An IG private wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business,

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So you've got students. What do you tell your students? How do you become a better listener? Listen, for decades, people have been talking about active listening, this idea of using nonverbal cues like eye contact, smiling, nodding, leaning forward to show someone that you're hearing them. That's good. That's like listening 101.

But to really be a charismatic, responsive, intensive listener. What you really need to do is fight against your mind wandering, which you and I both do intensively. It's part of why I love conversation is that it's like the challenge of trying to stay engaged. How can I make this interesting for you, but also for myself? So doing that hard work of making it engaging for everyone. But then, and this is what I teach my students, and this is really, this is like listening 201, advanced listening. You need to speak your listening out loud. You need to repeat what you've heard something. say you need to ask follow-up questions, you need to paraphrase what multiple people have said in a

group, you need to call back to stuff that you've talked about earlier in the conversation or earlier in your relationship. Those are the only undeniable signals that you've actually heard the other person, smiling, nodding, leaning forward. You can do those things, even if you're thinking about Yoda or your grocery list. You cannot repeat what someone said or ask a follow-up question if you weren't intensively listening to them. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's well set. And so since I am listening to you, you're curious about Yoda. So I'll just tell you that my seven-year-old gave me that because it's from the

Mandalorian. Mm-hmm. And he said, dad, put this in your office. It'll make you smart like Yoda. Okay. So hopefully I'm getting a positive aura. I don't know if it's working or not, okay? But I hope so.

I mean, I hope I'm trying to be smart. Do you, let me ask you a question. And on any level, do you feel like putting Chachkes in your office is a great topic seed so that someone like me will then say, what's the deal with Yoda? Yes, yes, but I'm also a child, okay? I am very in touch with my inner child, okay? So you're, okay, can I, I'm going to show you something that's so end up in the podcast. Something I'm very proud of.

Can you hold on one second? Of course. This is very embarrassing. I go. So do you recognize that? Okay. And for people listening in, do you recognize that? You see, you're too young to recognize me. Oh, I dream of Jeannie. It's Barbara. Oh, you are. Okay. Okay. And you see, so Barbara's been on my podcast. And I've had dinner with her in LA several times. And for people listening in, I have the original Jeannie bottle from I Dream of Jeannie. What? There's about 70 of these. And Barbara signed it for me. See? She signed it there.

That is gorgeous. And if you. you were my vintage, if you were 61 and you were a male, heterosexual, you had a crush on Barbara Eden. And so my wife, who has no problem with me having dinner with Barbara Eden, okay, I will say that she brings her 91-year-old chaperone, aka her husband, with her. But, you know, it is what it is, right? How old is Barbara Eden now? 94. Wow, I bet she's still a babe. Does she have a belly button?

Because they never showed her belly button on the show. Yeah, she does have a belly button. I haven't seen her belly button, to be honest, but she does have one. But I'm bringing this up because, like, my office is a throwback to my childhood because I want to come into my office. I want to think about what I was doing as a kid and what my inner child was. Does that help you bring yourself to conversations and to your work? Yeah, I think it's important, don't you? Yeah, I do.

Very much so. So you mentioned humor a lot in this book. I do. Are you a humorous person? I mean, I know the answer, but I want you to articulate it. Who can say that about themselves? That's crazy. Of course you're a humorous person.

I live, as a family, core family value, I don't think I would have survived my childhood if I didn't learn to keep up with the silly humor in my family. I live for humor. In fact, a huge part of the value ad that I hope I bring to the Harvard Business School is like a relentless insistence on levity. I think it might be one of the biggest weaknesses of, probably a lot of organizations, but also Harvard is like the only way that you can make great progress and feel connected and alive and safe is if you feel a spirit of play. And that comes largely from humor.

If people aren't funny, they can they can just find it through just like warmth, I think, too. But yeah, I live for, I live for levity, Anthony. What's your favorite TV show? Right now or forever? No, tell me. Right now, I mean, right now we've been watching silent. which I will say is a, in this theme, I also just watched The Diplomat with Carrie Russell and silo is Rebecca Ferguson. I'm really liking seeing these, these protagonist main character, female characters emerge, who are physically tough, super smart. They have skills. They're nuanced. They're interesting.

And actually in both of those shows, they have male partners who are also interesting and high achieving, but aren't the main dish. They're a side dish. So I love. watching that. Okay. I've watched both those shows. I love both those shows. You know, I'm a, I do a lot of traveling, so I'm always on a plane. Did you notice that about those shows? I have noticed that about those shows, but I would say that those shows, you know, listen, we probably shouldn't get political, but I'm not a very woke person. It's all right. And what I like about those shows, they're not woke. They show women who are tough and strong, but they're not patronizing these women in these shows. Do you see what I'm saying? And I think that's a very important message. If you're in Hollywood listening, you want tough, strong women and you don't want

virtue signaling. You don't want patronization, if that makes any sense. It does. How do you think other shows patronize women? Or how, what are they doing right? Listen, if you go to Broadway now, they will put the whole spectrum of people on the stage as a virtue signal. There'll be very heavy-set people in the dance troupe. There'll be very different types of people. There'll be men and women that shouldn't be there, okay, but they're there. And I think we have a tendency to do this now as a form of virtual signaling as opposed to just talent. Yeah. Okay. And I think we, I think people be mad at me for saying that, you know, and I think the cancel culture is ebbing now finally. I think people are finally saying that that's not going to be the thing, you know? Yeah. So, but hopefully that

continues. All right, we've got a couple more minutes. Apologies. Let's talk about apologies. Do we apologize to each other too much or too little? Too little. Too little. There's a lot of discord. There's a lot of discord. You know, people born in the 1940s that are men, they don't apologize. I know. It's a sign of weakness for them to apologize. I know. It's a real, I think it's a real problem. Until recently, so scientists hadn't studied real conversations between real people until probably the last five or ten years. We've studied public speaking and like pretend interactions for many decades, maybe even centuries. But studying real transcripts between real people and real relationships. is a thing that's only possible now at large scale. And one of the things that has jumped out at me and at all scientists is like, oh, my, we have not studied apology behavior in real conversations. And when you do and you look at real relations, people in real relationships,

the people who apologize frequently and well have better relationships. And there's almost no evidence from real conversations that refusing to apologize or neglecting to apologize is ever better than apologizing. So have you ever read Dale Carnegie's book How to Win Friends and Influence People? Of course, yes. Okay. What does he say in that book about apologies? I don't remember what he says about apologies.

Does he say anything about apologies? Yeah. He says that you have to apologize. He says that the minute you apologize. Remember, if you read Robert Cedledini's book, the psychology is influenced. Chaldini, Chaldini. Chaldini. If you read his book, what does he say?

He says that there's a common bond that we have in terms of reciprocation. and then the second bond that we have is in our vulnerability. If we can share a piece of ourselves with another person, we can establish trust. And so the combination of those two things create bonds, they create relationships. And so what Dale Carnegie said is that when we offer up an apology and we make an admission that we're actually human and we're wrong about something, it makes us more human and more endearing to the other person. but it also gives the other person an opportunity to do us a mitzvah, which is to forgive us

and to move on and also to accept their fallibility in situations. Yeah, we're, it's very, couples that can apologize to each other for various indiscretions or they usually, you know, there's a, there's a very funny expression, and you, you can be right or you can be married, Allison. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Sometimes you have to eat a little bit of crow in life. Okay, so.

Yes. And apologizing is. hard. People don't like to do it because it makes yourself vulnerable to the other person. They don't have to forgive you. But that's not the point of making an apology. Apology is saying, look, something, I see that you've been harmed or you've been hurt or something as bad has happened. And I'm sorry for that. I don't like that you are hurting. And they have, then they can control how they respond to you, right? You don't have, actually, in the book, we talk about the study that found that asking for their forgiveness is not a particularly effective thing to do in the moment. You should really

focus on the other person and say, look, I've realized that this was hard for you or you're hurting in some way or I harmed you in some way. And for that, I'm sorry. And then let them decide whether they want to forgive you. And it's hard to do. It takes a tremendous amount of strength to make yourself vulnerable in that way to other people and to possibly admit that you did something wrong. Okay. So this is stuff that is really a very popular course. It's going to be a bestselling book because people, no, it will be. Of course it will be. And you know it's going to be. And it's going to be because it's real. And people need to hear it.

And it will help people get comfortable with who they really are, which is the reason why we wanted to bring you on the podcast. Yeah, I do think. Don't say you hope so, by the way, okay? You have to manifest. Oh, definitely. It should be. It should be.

I know that the framework is effective because I've seen it work with so many students already, right? I've been now teaching this for five years. And it is remarkable to see how learning about the intricacies of these little micro decisions you make at every time. turn of every conversation, how it really changes people's lives. It's wild. And people come in, just like you said, people come in with different strengths and weaknesses. Some people are funny and some are not. Some are good at asking questions. Some aren't. Some are good at focusing on other people.

Some are insanely selfish and self-centered. Whatever your strength or weaknesses, this framework is helpful. Okay. So if you've listened to any of my podcast, we pick five words from the book. And then we ask the author to respond in a sentence, a word, something that comes to mind. I'm going to say the word and you're going to respond. Okay, you're ready? I'm ready. So if I say the word asking, you say what? Delightful.

Okay. Give me more context. So you have to ask people things, right? You've got to ask people things. We all need to ask more questions, especially follow-up questions, open-ended questions that start with what rather than why. Why questions can feel accusatory. So what are you doing later today?

What are you excited about? What were you thinking about when you had breakfast this morning? These types of questions are delightful and extract a lot of information. Why questions? Like, why did you have corn flakes for breakfast? Why are you going to pick up your kid later? Why there can feel accusatory? So ask more questions.

All right. It's a good segue to my next word. Topics. Topics are everything. I think that might be the most novel part of the book, meaning like this, this is a really new science. the topics piece of the book. We are making topic choices at every moment of every conversation, not just like, oh, what are we going to talk about at the beginning?

No, every time you're speaking, you are deciding whether to stay on this topic or switch to something else. And we can all make those choices much more effectively. Okay, the L for levity, levity. Levity. It's not about being funny. It's about finding the fun, making it fun for people because conversation requires mutual engagement. It cannot be boring. So it's not about being funny. It's fine. The fun. You can do that with

humor, but you can also do it with warmth, compliments, switching topics, just focusing on the other person. What about kindness? Oh, what about? What's not about kindness? It's something, kindness is a word that we all learn to treasure and cherish as children. And then we never really figure out how to do it in practice. I think in the book, we put out a nice, very concrete way to think like a kind person, act like a kind person, talk like a kind person through respectful language, receptiveness to opposing views, which can pop up at any moment in any conversation, even ones that are supposed to be fun, and listening, using your words to show people that you're listening to them. Those are kind things. T-A-L-K, talk. Yeah. I think the talk is everything. It's every

relationship in your life is a sequence of conversations. And if we can do each one of them, even a tiny bit better, imagine the accumulated effect that would have on your life, on your relationships, and on your work, on the world. This is what we all need to get better at. And it's going to happen in tiny little increments, tiny microdecisions, the decision to make that joke, that decision to ask that great question, the decision to let people have differing views and not get mad at them. So the book is awesome, by the way. And I got to tell you something. I am very impressed with you because you are an old soul. You're not talking with 40 years worth of wisdom. There's a lot of insight that you're providing. What are some of the people in your life

before I let you go that you've read or that you've gotten some insight from? It could be as old is Dale Carnegie. It could be as new as Robert Green. Yeah, I'm blessed. I love people. I'm blessed with so many smart, loving, wonderful people in my life that have been influential, starting with my twin sister and amazing parents, all the way to my colleagues at Harvard. I have a wonderful friend at Harvard named Mike Norton, who's just a absolutely brilliant psychologist. He wrote a book last year called The Ritual Effect. We have this sort of fight club. It's Mike Norton, Todd Rogers, who wrote a book called Writing for Busy Reuters, Leslie John, whose book Reveal is coming out next year. And we get together almost like a little

fight club of behavioral scientists. And they've really shaped how I see the world and think about humanity and think about how to do good in the world, how to make a small positive dent in the world. There are so many other unexpected things. So I invite a lot of visitors to my class, including that you mentioned Broadway, but we have some like, Freestyle rappers come to my class. I've learned a lot from people who do improvs. Kelly Leonard, the Second City is a good friend. And Anthony Benetziale and Lynn Manuel Miranda, who did this show called Freestyle Love Supreme.

They come to my class and teach my students about freestyle rapping. I mean, if you can freestyle rap, you're definitely going to get better at conversation. It's great stuff. Yeah. Listen, I really appreciate you coming on. The title of the book is Talk, The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves. Yeah. It's by Alison Wood Brooks.

Thank you so much for being on Open Book. Thanks for having me, Mooch. Good luck with those little kids. Thank you. So Allison is obviously a brilliant professor, and it comes as no surprise after interviewing her why she is so successful at her job and why her course is in such great demand.

And so you've been listening to this show for a while. You know I love using humor in our conversations. And I think what Allison gets in which I want to share with you, it's okay to make fun of yourself. I think the minute you do that, there's a little bit of vulnerability and there's a little bit more compassion that the rest of the world has for you, that they realize that you don't think you're too big for your own bridges. And so for me, I greatly enjoyed speaking with her, but I also really, really loved her book.

I would go out and buy that book. The best advice that I got, and it was too late in my life, actually, to be totally honest, but I went for media training when I was 45 years old, and someone was reviewing tapes of me interviewing people, and they said to me, you talk too much. Why don't you shut up and listen? And I was like, wow, that's probably the secret to being a good moderator. And so read the book, Talk, and you'll get a lot out of it as I did.

Ma? Hello? You want to come on the podcast, or no? Yeah, of course. You have to take care of your fan base, right? Like you were talking about last night, right? Right. People know you're on the podcast, right? Yeah. Thank you.

Okay. All right. The next person I interviewed was a woman from Harvard Business School. She wrote a book called Talk. And it was about the conversations that we have with people. Her name was Professor Allison Wood Brooks. So tell me, Ma, what do you do all day? You talk on the phone, right? How is it possible for you to have call waiting and every time I call you the phone is busy? How is that possible? It's like a switching station. Now, maybe eight, so the phone is a very good pastime. But when I was young, I was edgy. I used to drive a motorcycle, and I loved it, and I didn't have a helmet.

It was away from my brother who was named McGough, and I still love it today. And I used to work a back ride that was fast. I was edgy enough to do something wrong. What did you do wrong in the Beauty Poll? I didn't do anything wrong, but I could have done it. There was things flying around. Oh, you mean men were making the move on you? Yeah, and it was a fast.

moving son. Oh my God. Because I was edgy. When I was young, not now. I even make, hell is it they used to say to make me. And they used to try to make my hairstyle like that. And I do have pictures where she had that hair.

I'm definitely going to need therapy after these podcasts conversations for sure. But do you think you're a good listener, ma, or what? Yes. Tell me what makes a good listener? Well, I used to read quite a piece. that one I read like about Roosevelt. Why now?

Now I read makeup books. Oh, you like reading about makeup? I love reading. You didn't answer me, though. What makes you a good listener? Are you a good listener or not really? It depends on the topic. Okay, so what makes a good listener if it's not you?

If it's not me? What makes a good listener? You're a good listener because you go forward and you absorb, you don't reflect stuff. Okay. I think that's a good listener. Okay. When you can absorb what people are saying of any walks of life, you become a good listener. You don't reflect it.

Okay. Love you, Mom. Love you very much. All right. See you. I am Anthony Scaramucci, and that was Open Book. Thank you for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast.

While you're there, please leave us a rating or review. If you want to connect with me or chat more about the discussions, it's Add Scaramucci on Twitter or Instagram. I'd love to hear from you. I'll see you back here next week. When a country's productivity cycle is broken, people feel it in their paychecks, their communities, their futures. What does this mean for individuals, communities, and businesses across the country? Join business leaders, policymakers, and influencers for CGs national series on the Canadian Standard of Living, Productivity and Innovation. Learn what's driving Canada's productivity decline

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