Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Charles Duhigg on the Hidden Power of Supercommunicators EP 420

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up next on Passionstruck. All of us have that person in our head. Everyone who's listening knows exactly who they'd call. That person for you is a super communicator. Odds are that you're a super communicator back to them. But there are some people who are more consistently good at this. They're that person for everyone. They can connect with anyone.

Starting point is 00:00:16 Oftentimes, it's only because they're thinking a little bit more deeply about how communication works. They've paid a little bit more attention to it. One of the things that they know to do is they know to listen closely. Welcome to PassionStruck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips,

Starting point is 00:00:34 and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turned their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become passion struck.

Starting point is 00:01:10 Hello friends, and welcome back to episode 420 of Passion Struck, ranked as the number one alternative health podcast. A heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you who return to the show every week eager to listen, learn, and discover new ways to live better, be better, and make a meaningful impact in the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here. Or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, and we so appreciate it when you do that. We have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter

Starting point is 00:01:42 packs to get started. In case you missed it, earlier this week, I interviewed Jamie Kern Lima, who is an American entrepreneur, creator of a billion dollar business success story, philanthropist, culture shifter, and highly sought after keynote speaker and New York Times bestselling author. In our interview, we discuss her latest book, Worthy,

Starting point is 00:01:59 How to Believe You Were Enough and Transform Your Life. I also had a truly inspiring interview with Harry Buddha Meghar, who's a figure of awe-inspiring strength, a man who has turned adversity into triumph in a way that challenges our perceptions of possibility. From the remote farming fields in Nepal, to the battlefields of Afghanistan, and then to the soaring heights of Mount Everest, Harry's life is a testament to the unyielding power of the human spirit.

Starting point is 00:02:23 I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews and if you loved today's episode, we would appreciate you giving it a five star review and sharing it with your friends and families. I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners. Today, we dive deep into the art of communication with none other than Charles Duhigg, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, New Yorker staff writer, and the New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Habit. Charles brings his signature blend of in-depth research and captivating storytelling to his

Starting point is 00:02:48 latest groundbreaking book, Super Communicators, how to unlock the secret language of connection. This book isn't just a collection of techniques, it's a journey into understanding the hidden layers of every conversation we engage in. In our interview, Charles reveals a transformative concept. Each conversation we have is actually three conversations, a practical dialogue, an emotional discussion, and a social exchange. These layers intertwine to form the fabric of our communications, influencing our relationships at work, at home, and in every facet of our lives. Today, Charles was sure how recognizing and navigating these conversations can turn us all into super communicators, individuals who not only express

Starting point is 00:03:24 themselves effectively, but also truly connect with others on a deeper level. We'll explore how super communicators understand that communications is a superpower. They recognize the importance of matching the type of conversation they're having, whether it's practical, emotional, or social, and they excel in hearing the complex emotions and deeply held beliefs that color much of what we say and how we listen. This skill set is not just for the naturally gifted. the complex emotions and deeply held beliefs that color much of what we say and how we listen. This skill set is not just for the naturally gifted.

Starting point is 00:03:47 Charles emphasizes that anyone can learn to be a super communicator. Join us in this enlightening conversation with Charles Duhigg. Thank you for choosing Passionstruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. Begin. I am absolutely so thrilled and honored to have Charles Duhigg on Passion Struck. Welcome Charles. Thank you for having me on. Oh man, I've been wanting to have you on for so long.

Starting point is 00:04:16 I've loved every one of your books and the one that we're discussing today, which I'm going to put right here. Super communicators is just as awesome as the last two. Oh, thank you. That's really kind of you to say. Charles, you and I were introduced through a mutual friend of ours, Katie Milkman, who co-leads the Behavior Change for Good Initiative with Angela Duckworth. What got you interested in the power of behavior science? Well, I think that back when I wrote The Power of Habit about a decade ago,

Starting point is 00:04:44 I just was looking around and there was so much interesting research that was being done that seemed really vital to people's lives, including my own life, but that oftentimes were a little out of reach if you weren't a scientist, right? If you weren't a researcher and you didn't read academic studies, it was hard to not only follow what was going on, but understand the implications of what was going on. And so I wanted to help remedy that. And because I'm a journalist, the thing I can do is story tell it. I believe really strongly that the best way to remember an idea is to embed it in a story, because it's the story that we end up recalling. And as a result, hopefully we remember the idea as well.

Starting point is 00:05:21 Yes, I completely agree with you. I have my own book coming out by the time that this interview comes out. It'll have come out, but I try to do congratulations. Or thank you storytelling as well. So you start out your new book by sharing that the book was born in part from your own failures at communicating. Can you give us some context behind that story? Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:40 So it was a couple of things. The one that I think is most probably the most familiar to most other folks is that I would fall into this pattern all the time where I would come home from work after a tough day and I would start complaining to my wife and I would tell her, my boss doesn't understand me and my colleagues don't appreciate me. And she very reasonably would say something like, well, why don't you just take your boss out to lunch and get to know each other a little bit better?

Starting point is 00:06:01 And that'll probably help the relationship. I, instead of hearing what she had said to me, I would get even more upset. I would start saying, look, you're supposed to have my back on this. I want you to support me, be outraged on my behalf. And she very justifiably would become upset because I was acting irrational. It was not taking your advice. And I wanted to figure out, I'm a professional communicator. I'm supposed to be able to do this well as a journalist.

Starting point is 00:06:25 And it wasn't just there. Was it work? The same thing would happen with my kids. There just seemed to be all this miscommunication. And so I went to researchers and I said, look, what's going on here? And they said, well, we're living through this golden age of understanding how we communicate, which is really for the first time because of advances in computer and data

Starting point is 00:06:44 analytics. And they said, one of the things that we're learning is that we tend to think of a discussion as being about one thing. We're talking about my day or we're talking about Jimmy's grades. But actually almost every discussion is made up of multiple different kinds of conversations. And most of those conversations fall into one of three buckets. There's practical conversations, which are like solving problems, making plans together. There are emotional conversations. Where my goal is to tell you how I feel,

Starting point is 00:07:10 and I don't want you to solve my problem. I want you to empathize. And then there's social conversations, which is when we talk about how we relate to each other and how we relate to society. And they said, if you're not having the same kind of conversation at the same moment, you're miscommunicating,

Starting point is 00:07:24 and that's what's happening with you. You're coming home and you're having an emotional conversation, and your wife is having a practical conversation. And because of that, because you're not having the same kind of conversation at the same time, you can't hear each other. And so the answer is what's known as the matching principle within psychology, which is when people want to connect with each other, they have to match what kind of conversation is occurring. I have to match you and I have to invite you to match me. And then once we become aligned, then we can move from topic to topic or type of conversation to type of conversation together.

Starting point is 00:07:58 It's interesting to me because I'm currently taking long form improv and in it as we're setting up a scene we often work through these exact questions because you want to know what's the relationship, what's the emotion, what does that person want so you understand where the scene is coming from. Did you find any correlation between practicing improv and being a super communicator? I didn't look specifically at that, but it would make sense to me. I think in many ways improv is about trying to communicate and really listen to what the other person

Starting point is 00:08:31 is trying to tell you. And this is one of the things that we know about super communicators. And it might be worth defining what a super communicator is. The easiest way is if you were having a bad day and you wanted to call someone who you knew would make you feel better. Does someone come to mind for you who would do that?

Starting point is 00:08:47 Yeah, my feeling is that. Yeah, yeah, exactly. All of us have that person in our head. Everyone who's listening knows exactly who they'd call. That person for you is a super communicator and odds are that you're a super communicator back to them. But there are some people who are more consistently good at this. They're that person for everyone.

Starting point is 00:09:03 They can connect with anyone. And oftentimes it's only because they're thinking a little bit more deeply about how communication works. They've paid a little bit more attention to it. And one of the things that they know to do is they know to listen closely. And I think that's the same thing is true in improv, is that if you go into a scene

Starting point is 00:09:21 and you're not listening to what the other person is saying, you're not gonna know how to play off of them. So one of the things that I assume they teach you to do, tell me if I'm getting this wrong, is that they probably teach you to listen really deeply to what the other person is saying so that you can align with them. Exactly. As I was more in my infancy and improv, one of the mistakes that I think you make is you're trying to anticipate the scene and how it's unfolding. And when you do that, you're not being present in the moment, you're not really listening to your scene partner. And what ends up happening is often they're gifting you with something such as more details about their character, they might be gifting you an object that you could use as part of the scene or they tell you who they are

Starting point is 00:10:10 and that identity then forms something. But if you're thinking too far ahead, you often miss the intricacies that build the conversation, the way that it could go and that the audience is gonna enjoy it. Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right and well put. So similar to improv, knowing the right conversation at the right time can have a dramatic impact of changing everything.

Starting point is 00:10:35 You talk about this same thing in the book. Can you elaborate on how well timed, well executed conversations can lead? I'm going to put it in terms of behavior changes, both in ourselves and in others. Well, so I think that one of the things that I'm not sure about behavior changes, to be honest with you, because I think oftentimes when we're communicating, the goal is not necessarily to change the other person. It's simply to understand what they're trying to tell you.

Starting point is 00:11:00 In fact, we know that if you go into a conversation and you're trying to convince someone else to change, odds are they are not going to listen to you. There's a chapter in the book about the anti-vaxxers and what happened during the COVID pandemic. And initially, when the vaccine was released and there were people who refused to get the shot, the CDC's first guidance was simply educate them. Like these are people who clearly don't understand that this is an important drug that it can help their lives. So doctors, when they come into your exam rooms, just give them the facts. If you give them the facts, then they'll change their mind.

Starting point is 00:11:33 And of course, that was a complete failure. Every doctor knew that was going to be a failure. They had been interacting with people who refuse vaccines for a year. And it's not that they don't know the facts. They've done hours and hours of research on their own on the internet. Now, some of that research is probably not the most stellar and peer reviewed, but they believe that they know the answer. And so what the CDC very quickly said is, the difference here is that instead of trying to convince people that they should get the shot,

Starting point is 00:11:59 you should use something called motivational interviewing. And motivational interviewing, many of your listeners probably know, is a method of asking questions that get someone to understand the complexities of their own beliefs. And at the core of that is this belief that because all of us contain multiple identities, I'm a white man, but I'm also a father, and I'm a journalist, and I'm someone who cares about the climate, and I'm also a father and I'm a journalist and I'm someone who cares about the climate and I'm a Democrat and I'm a fiscal conservative. Because I contain all of these different identities, if you draw all of those different identities out, first of all, it makes me feel seen and heard.

Starting point is 00:12:36 But second of all, it gives me an opportunity to see an issue like vaccines from different perspectives because the truth of the matter is all those different identities might nudge me in different ways. And so the goal is not to change someone's mind when they come into that exam room. The goal is to get them to engage with the question a little bit more deeper. And about half the time, that actually results in them getting the shot.

Starting point is 00:12:58 But that's not what they're saying they want to happen. It's more that they want someone to have an honest conversation. Give them a chance to tell the doctor why they object to vaccines and hear about that. One of the things I often talk about in passion struck is that becoming passion struck is similar to building muscles. It takes consistent actions aligned with your intentions and aspirations. In the same light, can anyone become a super communicator? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And we know this. Communication is human superpower. It's what

Starting point is 00:13:31 has made Homo sapiens such a successful species. And so as a result, we all have forged by evolution these inherent communication skills. And in many ways, the goal of super communicators, the book, and the skills that are in there is to teach people how to listen to those instincts. Because sometimes the instincts, sometimes it's easy to not listen to them. We don't trust them or there's conflicting instincts. So how do we find our way through to allow ourselves to communicate? And the truth is that anyone can do this, right? That this is not something that's exclusive to people with a lot of charisma or introverts or extroverts. Anyone can learn to be a super communicator.

Starting point is 00:14:11 And in fact, many people have learned to become a super communicator who are very unlikely candidates for it. And maybe a follow-up to that, because I wanna tie this into habits. Your previous New York Times bestselling book, The Power Habit, which you referenced earlier, delve deeply into how habits shape our lives. In your current work, Super Communicators, do you see a relationship between our communication habits and the habitual ways of communicating

Starting point is 00:14:35 and how that impacts our effectiveness in communicating with others? Yeah, absolutely. Communication is a habit. And so super communicators have simply developed slightly better habits. So one example of this is that we know that super communicators ask 10 to 20 times as many questions as the average person. Many of the questions don't even register as questions because of things like, what do you think of that? Or, hey, what did you say next? Or why did you do that? These little almost throwaway questions that invite someone else in. They invite other people to speak. But then there are some questions that are more powerful than others.

Starting point is 00:15:07 And within the psychology literature, these are known as deep questions. And Nick Epley at the University of Chicago is one of the foremost researchers on this. But what a deep question does is it asks someone to describe their values, their beliefs, or their experiences. And the thing about a deep question is that it really gives us a chance to see the other person and to make them feel seen. And they're easy to add.

Starting point is 00:15:30 We tend to think of them as maybe too hard, but the truth of the matter is that, if you bump into someone and you say, oh, what do you do for a living? And they say, I'm a lawyer. And you say, oh, did you always want to be a lawyer? Like what made you decide to go to law school? Do you love practicing the law?

Starting point is 00:15:43 Those are three deep questions. They're asking that person to talk about their values and their beliefs and their experiences, but they don't seem overly familiar. They don't seem overly intimate. And then if I listen to what that person says, and I reciprocate with some insights about myself, that's when we're going to begin to connect with each other. Thank you for sharing that. And you jumped a little bit ahead of me. I'm gonna go back to some of the stories that you talk about earlier in the book.

Starting point is 00:16:10 And I wanna start out by talking about Jim Lawler and his journey at the CIA, because it was interesting to me reading your story about him, because I went through the hiring process to join the CIA and was also similar to him, but through the series of exams, that honestly made me feel like crap because they all seemed designed to figure out what I didn't know more than they did.

Starting point is 00:16:33 What I did know. But Jim ultimately got an offer, ends up going to the farm. And what he found out was that working for the CIA was really a communications job. Can you explain why? Well, that working for the CIA was really a communications job. Can you explain why? Well, that's what the CIA does. They go out and they try and learn as much as they can. And the best way of learning is to have conversations with people. When Jim Lawler, he joined in the early 1980s and he was sent to Europe to recruit overseas spies, essentially, to find people who work in foreign embassies and see if they would share gossip with him or would share information.

Starting point is 00:17:07 The only way you do that is by having conversations with people and you're asking someone to take what could be a suicidal risk. And in order to do that, they genuinely have to believe that your values align with theirs and that you are there for them, that you will keep them safe. You will do anything to keep them safe. The way we prove that is through conversation. That is how we get to know each other. That is how we learn to trust each other. That is how we learn to believe each other. And so the CIA's job as a CIA officer overseas, your job is to have conversations. And not all of them are in like dark parking lots with anonymous people.

Starting point is 00:17:45 A lot of them are conversations that you have at an embassy or at a party where you're just getting to know someone and you're asking them a question. It's not even like you're looking for a secret. You're just saying, look, I need to tell my boss what to make of this guy who's coming in. And I know that you've worked with him before. Can you give me some insights on just how this guy works?

Starting point is 00:18:05 Those conversations are really valuable and important, and that's what the CIA does. The CIA has conversations so that they can learn the information we need to know to make the world hopefully a safer place. Hopefully the FBI is based on the art of communication as well, because I would think that would be critical, important to a special agent's job.

Starting point is 00:18:24 Charles, there's a famous conversation between Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin, and it goes something like this. Albert Einstein says to Charlie Chaplin, what I most admire about your art is your universality. You don't say a word, yet the world understands you, to which Chaplin replies, true, but your glory is even greater. The world admires you even though they don't understand a word of what you say. And this makes me think about why people click and why some people, but not others, get along. And it's one of the great unresolved mysteries of science.

Starting point is 00:18:58 Can you maybe explore that a little bit? I don't know that I can because I'm not certain. It sounds like they weren't necessarily having a conversation there. They were creating some clever quips with each other. But I would say in general, what we know about people who communicate really is that they show the other person that they want to connect with them. So take for instance, laughter. 80% of the time of the laughter that we experience, when we laugh 80% of the time, it is not in response to something funny. It's because somebody has said something and we show them that we experience. When we laugh 80% of the time, it is not in response to something funny. It's because somebody has said something and we show them that we want to connect with them. And when they laugh back, they're showing us that they want to connect with us. It's almost

Starting point is 00:19:32 automatic. And so if Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein were talking to each other and one of them laughed, the other one probably would laugh back. Now, they might have said something funny and they probably didn't because I don't think Weinstein is the funniest guy on the base of the planet. But that laughter is an expression of I want to connect with you. And that's what super communicators do, is not only do they genuinely want to understand other people, they show them that they want to understand.

Starting point is 00:19:58 And as a result, those people feel more trusting of them. They're more willing to listen themselves. They're more willing to share things. And that's really at the core of them, they're more willing to listen themselves, they're more willing to share things. And that's really at the core of this, that connection is vitally important, and that oftentimes the first step is just showing someone that we want to connect with them. That's interesting. Going back to improv, during one of my last classes, our instructor, who's a university professor, was talking about Oppenheimer. And as they were going through the Manhattan Project, a lot of the scientists were not listening to each other.

Starting point is 00:20:29 And so they actually had this group of scientists start doing improv together because they couldn't permit each other to think that their views weren't correct. And by going through and understanding the philosophy of yes and it actually allowed them to start yes anding when they were having scientific discussions and change the whole parameters. It's interesting. Hatton Project or happily married couples or negotiators who we see as successful politicians who are persuasive from the world I come from, executives who are influential, they're basically

Starting point is 00:21:14 all effective communicators. Are there four basic rules that they all follow to create these effective communications? Well, I would say that in general, they're probably doing a handful of things. And one They all follow to create these effective communications? Well, I would say that in general, they're probably doing a handful of things. And one of them is that they're paying close attention to how the other person is speaking and what they wanna speak about.

Starting point is 00:21:33 They're looking to match the other person. And then they're also inviting them to match themselves. And sometimes that means listening for, if you ask someone before a meeting starts, how was your weekend? And they say, I was great, my kid graduated. It's someone, you know, before meeting starts, how was your weekend? And they say, Oh, it was great. My kid graduated. It's really easy to say, oh, congratulations. And then let's get on to the budget. Now, let's

Starting point is 00:21:50 get down to business. If you really want to connect with someone, if you want to match them, you might say, Oh, it's amazing. What did it feel like watching him walk across that stage? That must have been fantastic. You're matching that person and it only takes 30 seconds, 45 seconds to have that conversation. But you've shown them that you want to match them. And in return, they're going to want to match you so that when you do get down to business, they're going to be ready for it. That's the first thing that I think people

Starting point is 00:22:15 are doing. The second thing that they're doing is they're asking themselves what this person wants from a conversation. And equally importantly, what do I want from a conversation? There was a study that was done where they looked at people who work within investment banks. And this is a company where people would fight with each other all the time. They would scream and yell. And so for a week, these researchers asked every person

Starting point is 00:22:35 who worked in the bank to write down on a card before each meeting one sentence, just describing what they hope to accomplish in that meeting and what mood they hoped to establish. My goal is to work out a budget for next year, but I want everyone to be on board and agreed that we've come to consensus and feel good about it.

Starting point is 00:22:51 Most of the people would just write this on a card and they'd stick it in their pocket and they would never think of it or mention it again. But they found that when people did that, the incidence of conflict at that firm went down by 80% during that week. And it's because people not only knew what they wanted out of a discussion,'s because people not only knew what they wanted

Starting point is 00:23:05 out of a discussion, other people were prepared to say what they wanted as well. And think about how many times we go into a discussion and we don't actually know what we want out of it. And that's okay. But in that case, we should engage in this kind of quiet negotiation, a process of trying to figure out, not only do what both of us want from this conversation,

Starting point is 00:23:22 but what are the rules that allow us to communicate? That's the second thing. The next thing that super communicators do is that they tend to listen for emotion and match it. And this is like the matching principle, but they tend to ask those deep questions that I mentioned because it elicits someone talking about what they're feeling or what they're proud of or what has happened to them in the past. And then the final thing that super communicators tend to do

Starting point is 00:23:45 is they tend to be conscious of how our social identities influence this conversation and acknowledge that. But oftentimes when we're in a conversation and the topic of race comes up, if one of us is black and one of us is white, well, people won't mention it. They'll dance around the fact that we might have different perspectives on this given the color of our skin and the experiences we've had as a result. But what a super communicator does is they say, I'm wondering, you probably see this

Starting point is 00:24:11 issue a little bit differently than me as a black man. And I'm wondering, tell me a little bit about that. I'd like to learn from you how you think this issue is different for you. And they'll take it even a step further. And they'll say, you know, I know that you're also a lawyer. And I'm wondering when it comes to, for instance, like police violence, that as a lawyer, you must see this a little bit differently, but you're also a black man and a father. Tell me how you think about this issue given all those different identities. What that does is it empowers us to have a social

Starting point is 00:24:41 conversation, to explain who we are. Nothing feels better than being able to bring our full self to a discussion. And so that's one of the things that super communicators do. So for the listener to summarize this, what Charles just went through is first, you need to pay attention to what kind of conversation is occurring. You then need to share your goals

Starting point is 00:25:00 and ask what others are seeking. Ask then about others' feelings and then share your own, and lastly explore if identities are important to the discussion. Yeah. So in the book, you discussed the trial of Leroy Reid and how communication played a critical role in the courtroom. Can you elaborate on that story and how it outlines some of the concepts and strategies and super communicators? Yeah, so Leroy Reed was an individual who had already served time. He had been convicted of serving as the getaway driver in a car where his friend robbed a convenience store.

Starting point is 00:25:39 And he was actually released early from prison because nobody thought that he actually knew that he was a getaway driver. It just happened stance. But it was also unclear if Leroy even understood that a crime had occurred and that he had been convicted. He was fairly significantly developmentally disabled. And he decided he wanted to become a private investigator. And so he wrote away for instructions on how to do that. And he got a tin badge in the mail and instructions that he's supposed to run every day, and he's supposed to go buy a gun. So he goes and he buys a gun from a local sporting goods store, and he never actually

Starting point is 00:26:11 opens the package. He never opens the box, the container, the gun. He just puts it in his closet. And then one day he's down by the courthouse and a cop sees him there and a cop says, do you have any ID? And Lee Rohryd pulls out the only thing he's got with his name on it, which is the bill of sale from buying this gun. And the cop says, do you still have this gun? And Leroy Reed says, yeah, and he says, go bring it into the station. So Leroy Reed goes and he gets the

Starting point is 00:26:32 box again, doesn't touch the gun, brings it into the police station, he gets arrested because it's against the law in Minneapolis for a convicted felon to own a firearm. So he goes to court. And there's only been about five or six trials in the history of America where they have recorded with audio or video a jury's deliberations. But this is one of them. A TV station had got permission to go in and deep everyone deliberating. And there was one guy in that room, a guy named John Bollie, who was a super communicator. And what he realizes, there's two conversations going on as the jury is discussing whether Leroy Reed should be found innocent or guilty. And one of those

Starting point is 00:27:10 conversations is about justice. It's essentially an emotional conversation, perhaps even a social conversation, where people are talking about not necessarily what does the law say, but is this right? Leroy Reed, he never even used this gun. He never held the gun. Is it fair for him to go back to jail simply for buying it? And then there's other people in the room who are having a very practical conversation. From their perspective, they're saying,

Starting point is 00:27:36 look, this is about what the law says. The judge told us, here's the criteria we should use and we should apply it. And if people don't follow the law, whether it's fair or not, that's when anarchy starts, right? That's when society falls apart. Now, these folks were at each other's throats.

Starting point is 00:27:51 They weren't able to communicate well with each other, but John Bollie, the super communicator, he understood, I need to encourage one kind of conversation for the justice folks and one kind of conversation for the rule of law folks. And when both of them have a chance to say what their piece in a way that feels authentic to them, then they'll be able to hear each other. And that's exactly what happened. And they ended up setting Leroy free.

Starting point is 00:28:18 And then Charles, the last question I have for you is, since you've written this book, how has your own approach to communication evolved? Oh, I spend a lot of time basically asking my wife and my wife asking me what we should be talking about. Like if I start complaining about my day at work, she says, look, do you want me to listen to you or do you want to solve this problem? Like what's going on here? And I do the same thing.

Starting point is 00:28:40 There's a technique that they teach in schools called where they teach teachers that when a student comes up and they have something important to discuss or they're upset, they should ask them, do you want to be heard? Do you want to be helped? Or do you want to be hugged? And those, of course, are the three conversations, right? The practical, the emotional and the social conversation. And just being asked that often helps students figure out what they actually need. So we don't use that at home because it's a little cheesy, but we do something very similar where we say, look, what's the goal of this conversation? I really want to connect with you. How can I do that in a way where we both understand each other better? And then lastly, Charles, where's the best place for people to find you?

Starting point is 00:29:22 So if they just Google me, Charles, do Higg, I'll come up and the name of the book is super communicators. It's gonna be in bookstores all around the world. Okay, thank you so much for being here. Again, it was such an honor to have you on. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Charles Duhigg and I wanted to thank Charles, Katie Milkman

Starting point is 00:29:41 and Penguin Random House for joining us on today's program. Links to all things Charles, be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature. Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. Videos are on YouTube and our main channel, John R. Miles, and our clips channel at Passionstruck Clips. Please go check it out and subscribe. You can find me on all the social platforms at John R. Miles. You can sign up for my personal development newsletter titled Live Intentionally on passionstruck.com.

Starting point is 00:30:10 You're about to hear a preview of the Passionstruck podcast interview that I did with Cass Sunstein, the nation's most cited legal scholar, a prolific author, Harvard professor, renowned for his co-authorship of the groundbreaking book Nudge, alongside Nobel Prize winning economist Richard Thaler. We explore his new book, Look Again, the power of noticing what was always there, which offers an enlightening journey into the concept of a situation, our

Starting point is 00:30:35 psychological tendency to get used to our surroundings and how it shapes our thoughts, our actions, and ultimately our lives. There's a mirror image lesson from randomized experiments, which surprised me also, which is if you're having a bad experience like cleaning up, let's say, a room that's really dirty or messy, people tend to think I'll break it up, they'll do half now and then half tomorrow. No, you do it all now, you'll habituate to the unpleasantness and the second hour in won't be as bad as the first hour in, on average, which means motor through the bad experiences and chop up the great experiences.

Starting point is 00:31:12 The fee for this show is that you share it with family or friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you found today's episode on super communication useful, then definitely share it with family or friends. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you

Starting point is 00:31:27 listen. Until next time, go out there yourself and become a passion struck.

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Charles Duhigg on the Hidden Power of Supercommunicators EP 420

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