Something You Should Know - Why We’re Wired to Imitate Others & How to Have a Great Conversation

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

You probably think raw vegetables are healthier than cooked vegetables. Sometimes they are. But some common veggies get a nutrient boost from the right kind of heat. This episode begins with several of those vegetables and an explanation of how cooking makes them better for you. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/raw-veggies-are-healthier/ Humans are wired to imitate others like no other creature on earth. In fact, almost everything you do today is the result of imitating someone else at some point in your life. But wait! Aren’t we independent thinkers with intelligence and ability to think for ourselves? Yes, but according to my guest the primary way you learn everything is by copying others – from driving a car, writing a letter, eating a meal, everything you’ve learned how to do came from imitating others. Here to explain why this is important to understand is R. Alexander Bentley, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee and coauthor of the book, I'll Have What She's Having: Mapping Social Behavior (https://amzn.to/4kbT4NK). Your conversational skills are key to your success in every aspect of your life. People like people who speak well. Yet, I suspect no one ever really taught you how to converse. You just do it. Conversation is both an art and a science. And someone who studies it is my guest Alison Wood Brooks, Professor of Business Administration and Hellman Faculty Fellow at the Harvard Business School. She is author of the book TALK: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves (https://amzn.to/4bgzWtF). Listen as she reveals the anatomy of good conversation and what can often go wrong. One of the cool things about a snowfall is how quiet it is afterwards. And it’s not just quiet – it’s a different kind of quiet. Why is that? Listen as I reveal the science of the quiet after a new fallen snow. Source: Kathy Wollard author of How Come (https://amzn.to/3XfrMvN). PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! FACTOR: Eat smart with Factor! Get 50% off at https://FactorMeals.com/something50off DELL: Anniversary savings await you for a limited time only at https://Dell.com/deals SHOPIFY:  Nobody does selling better than Shopify! Sign up for a $1 per-month trial period at https://Shopify.com/sysk and upgrade your selling today! HERS: Hers is changing women's healthcare by providing access to GLP-1 weekly injections with the same active ingredient as Ozempic and Wegovy, as well as oral medication kits. Start your free online visit today at https://forhers.com/sysk INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING right now! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, some vegetables actually get healthier when you cook them. I'll tell you which ones. Then, why do you do the things you do? For a hundred years or even more, we've always assumed that humans are fundamentally rational creatures. And one of the arguments that I've been trying to make is that we are fundamentally social creatures and much of what we do and decide is based on what others around us are doing. Also, why is it so quiet after a snowfall? Then the fascinating anatomy of a great conversation.

It's probably not what you think. Even in conversations where you walk away feeling like, oh my gosh, that was great. If you look back at the transcript, what you would see is we interrupt each other all the time. There's all kinds of moments of misunderstanding, but there are these moments where you'd say, wow, oh, that felt really good. All this today on Something You Should Know.

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Today, something you should know with Mike Carruthers. I'll bet you think, I bet most people think that eating raw vegetables is healthier than eating cooked vegetables. And while that may be true some of the time, it's not always true. Some vegetables are actually better for you when you cook them. Carrots, for example. Boiling carrots until they're tender boosts their concentration of carotenoids, it's a cancer-fighting compound, by 14 percent. However, frying carrots has the opposite effect. Mushrooms, a cup of cooked mushrooms,

has about twice as much potassium, niacin, zinc, and magnesium than a cup of raw mushrooms. Spinach. Spinach is packed with nutrients, but you will absorb more of the calcium and iron if you cook it first. Asparagus. One study found that cooking asparagus raises the level of six key nutrients,

including antioxidants by sixteen percent. And tomatoes, whether they are baked, fried, or turned into spaghetti sauce, heat increases the levels of lycopene, which has been linked to lower rates of cancer and heart disease. And that is something you should know I'm sure you like to think of yourself as an independent person you do things because you choose to do them No one's telling you what to do most of the time Generally you do what you do because it is what you choose to do humans Humans have big brains, we think independently, we're wired to blaze our own trail.

Well, not always. Here's an example of what I mean. You go into a restaurant with a group of people and the waiter finally gets to you and says, what do you want? And you say, I'll have what she's having. Well, why not get something you want? The fact is we look to others and we follow their lead a lot more than we think. It's what explains the spread of culture, fashion, language, ideas, and behavior. We do what

we see other people do. And here to explore this topic and explain why it's important to understand is our Alexander Bentley. He's a professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, and he's co-author of a book called, I'll Have What She's Having, Mapping Social Behavior. Hi Alexander, welcome to something you should know. Great to be here, Mike. So before we get too far into the details here,

why is this important? And what's the big aha here? The main thing is that for 100 years or even more, we've always assumed that humans are fundamentally rational creatures, that they weigh up costs and benefits, and then they make a decision based on that. And one of the arguments that I've been trying to make for a couple of decades now as an anthropologist

is that we are fundamentally social creatures, and much of what we do and decide, and even opine, is based on what others around us are doing. And just to make sure I'm on the same page with you, that I know what you mean by that, can you give me some examples of how we look at other people and follow what they do? The first example is that babies will imitate the facial expressions of their parents right away. Young children and toddlers will imitate certain tasks to get to little reward

like a treat or something out of a box. They prefer to imitate what they've just seen, even in a situation where it might be a very complex action that has been demonstrated to them, where a chimpanzee will just figure out how to do it without imitating. Toddlers prefer to imitate rather than the more simple action. And the most evident example is simply language. We have, all humans have an innate capacity to learn language very quickly as children, but of course we each learn a different language from our parents or caregivers right from

birth. And the example of the title of your book I love because I've always been fascinated by when people say that, I'll have what she's having, because there's a whole menu of things you could have. It's so easy to say, well, I'll just have what she's having. Because there's a whole menu of things you could have. It's so easy to say, well, I'll just have what he's having. And I wonder, well, why not? Why do that? Why not get something you really want?

Because that is probably what you want. Everything I say is informed by what I know about human evolution and the way our brains came to be. And one of the things that's important in evolution is of survival, of course. Saying I'll have what she's having usually works. I can't see you right now, but if I said I'll wear what you're wearing tomorrow to work, it would be fine. Even if you're thinking about what stock to invest in and if you know, even if you're thinking about what stock to invest in, and if you know somebody who pretty good investor, just say, I'll buy what she's buying. It works wonders and it saves us an

incredible amount of time. We can't all be experts on everything. But I will almost never, just out of principle, I will never have what she is having or he is having. Just because I don't, there's something about that. It's like too easy. And yeah, I want to, so I just out of principle, don't do that. One of the things to think about is that you're not always copying people in the room at the same time. You're often a lot of the things that you're doing, and maybe I'm bending the definition here, but you're copying people from previous generations. So, if you go to an Italian restaurant, you're copying people within a culinary tradition from previous generations. And as an archaeologist,

I know that dietary traditions in different parts of the world survived for thousands of years. So if you think of it that way, maybe I'm not copying somebody right here, but what's influencing my decision? Is this really independent what I'm deciding here? Well, is anything ever completely independent? It seems like everything is shaded a little or a lot by what's come before. Yeah, it's a tough question. I mean, look around you on the table

and the equipment that you're using right now. It's all been generated by science or people learning from previous examples, building technology up from what they've learned before. I like to think of it as we have a certain number of innate capacities. So if you needed to do something like maybe cut a rope or something and you saw some rocks around you,

maybe you figure out how to pound out a couple of stone tools or break off a flake of tool and cut that rope. But beyond that, so many of the things that we do, or even our ancient ancestors did, was learned and that's the basis for the success of our species. So what is innate is our capacity to do this learning.

We're the best in the business at this. We can imitate like no other species on the planet. But our inclination to imitate other people, we don't imitate everybody. There must be a hierarchy of people. There must be, maybe it's our friends or people that we work with, or you know, our family. There are more people I'm more likely to imitate than others, I suspect.

Pete Yeah, yeah. So, there are lots of nuanced details about the way that we copy. And one of the things that humans will do, and chimpanzees will do this as well, and a few other species of monkeys, is we prefer to copy individuals who are high ranking in the ranking system or prestigious or successful. But it's interesting because that's not even specific to our species. Even fish, learning, trying to stickleback fish, little fish, learning where food is, will actually kind of sit in the vegetation and watch to see which other fish, where they're getting their food

and whether they were successful or not. So the point is that the copying is not just ad hoc, it's strategic. Here's something that happens. And it's not exactly imitating or copying other people's behavior. But I imagine it's part of this same discussion. And that is recommendations.

If you needed a dentist and you said, hey, Mike, I'm new to town. I need a dentist. Can you recommend one? And I gave you the name of my dentist, that's probably gonna carry a lot of weight with you. You're gonna call, probably call that dentist. But the reality is that, you know, I'm no expert on dentists.

I don't have a lot of experience with them. And so I don't know, maybe my dentist is a great dentist, maybe he's not. But the fact that I recommended it to you will carry weight with you. And we do that right from when we're children, where children are more inclined to copy or learn from others when they're uncertain of something. But think about the fact that if we go back a few centuries and then go way back, thousands and thousands of years, we humans and their ancestors lived in small communities,

and they always knew who the experts were. And the experts are always in different topics. So, they might be an expert in your village in yam cultivation, might be somebody who knows about fishing, and there might be somebody who knows about medicinal plants in a hunter-gatherer society. We always know who those experts are. And so when I come to a new neighborhood, I know this person's an expert on local dentists, and I'm going to trust that person. I think that's a pretty deep-seated kind of trust that we have in asking other people, particularly when we have some reason to think that they're at least some kind of expert, which is something we don't have online. We have no idea who the experts are online. We're talking about how so much of what we do, we do by imitating

others. My guest is our Alexander Bentley, professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, and co-author of the book, I'll Have What She's Having. A while back we had Ramit Sethi on as a guest, and he's one of the smartest people you'll ever know when it comes to everyday money matters. And he was here talking about money and couples. As it turns out, he has his own podcast called Money for Couples. Which, if you're part of a couple, then I highly recommend you listen to this podcast. Because when you do, instead of fighting about money, you and your partner will discover how to start building a rich life together. Money for Couples is a podcast full of real-life actionable advice like how to pay off your debt and still enjoy your life,

how to build a shared financial vision, how to spend extravagantly on what you love and cut back on what you don't. And you'll learn from real-world stories of couples facing the same money challenges as you. All of the episodes are helpful, but if I had to pick one or two, there's one called We Make $300,000 a Year, but Spend Like We Make a Million. That's a situation I think a lot of people can relate to. And another is called We've Saved for Retirement, but Have No Money to Spend Now. Money for Couples is the name of the podcast hosted by Ramit Sethi and all you have to do is search for Money for Couples wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

For a long time now, I've been recommending The Jordan Harbinger Show as another podcast you might want to listen to. The Jordan Harbinger Show is different than something you should know, but as you'll see, it aligns well with this audience. Meaning, if you like this podcast, you're probably going to like that one. The Jordan Harbinger Show. Each episode is a conversation with a different, fascinating guest. Recently he had on Amanda Ripley talking about how to survive an unthinkable disaster, which

strikes close to home for me me having just been through the fires and mudslides in California and evacuated twice. He also spoke with Jay Dobbins, who's a former ATF agent who went undercover with the Hells Angels. Now, that's a conversation worth hearing. And listening to his conversations will make you a more critical thinker about the world around you Check out the Jordan harbinger show and there's a good chance it finds its way into your regular rotation of podcasts The Jordan harbinger show on Apple podcast Spotify or wherever you listen

So professor I I understand that we copy we imitate people, and there are really good reasons for that. But I'm wondering, how much do we not do that? I mean, I like to think that many times, I make my own decisions to do things or not do things, where I'm not copying other people, I'm making an independent decision. Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, when I go, if I'm going to buy a car,

I go and look at all the statistics and metrics and stuff like that online and try to make a decision based on that. And still, I might wind up buying something that I just saw on the street not too long ago, because you'd be surprised how often. When you think you're making an original decision, and I used to notice this about baby names as well.

You think you're coming up with something original and you look it up and it's one of the most trending things out there. But when we are uncertain about things, that's when we're most likely to make decisions by learning from others. So you gave that great example of learning directions in a new neighborhood. Children will do this as well.

When they're uncertain about something, they're more likely to then copy a parent or something. And it was shown years ago that when people are confronted with a complex problem in a psychological experiment, like something looking, some kind of obscure facts or some kind of puzzle, if it's a difficult problem, they're more likely to look it up on Google.

And it seems obvious. And if it's an easy problem, they're more likely to look it up on Google. And it seems obvious. And if it's an easy problem, they're more likely to just do it themselves. So we gauge when to socially learn versus when to try to solve something ourselves. Is looking it up on Google the same as I'll have what she's having? That's kind of philosophical. I'm often amazed at how good Wikipedia usually is, and that's because it's moderated to my knowledge by human experts.

Or if you're a scientist, to what degree are you learning from others? I mean, ideally, science is building on the shoulders of giants. So if you kind of think about it, you can really go deep into it. And that's where I come to the conclusion that almost everything we're doing, we are actually learning from someone else. They just might happen to be in the past. So I wonder how the speed of change influences all you're talking about. And what I mean by that is, you know, when I was growing up,

I copied a lot of what my father did. I would watch him and then do that. But today, there are people doing things that I don't even know what they're doing, because it's some new gadget, some new technology, some... So it's hard to copy it because I don't know what it is, that the speed of change is messing with your theory somehow. You know, in the 60s they invented that term called future shock

and I think we experience it now. Most of human history is a time where change was very gradual, something that maybe you wouldn't even think of as every generation. It makes you think about our, it's remarkable I think that humans can handle the amount of change that we experience today where it's almost intra-generation, within a generation, a younger sibling may grow up on different media platforms than an older sibling.

It's really insane that we don't all go a little bit crazy. So do you ever say, I'll have what she's having? Yeah, I did so just recently, yes. It's really fun to do when actually you don't even know what the other person's having. I'll just go with that. So ironically, you wind up doing the unique thing by saying, I'll have what she's having because you never actually tried it. Well, I could never do that.

I could never do that. But it is interesting to think how much we're influenced by other people when we like to think we're not. Because I think we like to think we're not. We do. We love to think we're not. I remember when we had a son who was born in the early 2000s. But before we knew it was going to be a boy, we were thinking of girls names and I thought,

all right, Lily. Lily to be a boy, we were thinking of girls names and I thought, all right, Lily. Lily will be a great name. Just seems really different and unique. Of course, I went and looked it up and it just broke into the top 10. But I was trying to pick something that was unique. You just can't escape it. Maybe you've had this happen to you before where that was unique. And I couldn't, you just can't escape it. Maybe you've had this happen to you before

where you try to say something original or you think you've come up with original joke and then people have already heard it. What else do you think people would be interested in hearing about regarding this whole idea that so much of what we do, we copy, we imitate other people. There's a little bit more about the fundamental nature of this in our brains.

So about several hundred thousand years ago, Neanderthals were on the planet. They survived until about 30,000 years ago. But at some point, our ancestors, modern humans, evolved a gene which produced a protein which facilitated the development of neurons when we develop as babies and children in the neocortex. The neocortex is the part of the brain that handles all of our social relations. Oh, what's she thinking? Our theory of mind. I'm trying to think right now what you're thinking about what I'm saying. That's theory of mind. I'm trying to put myself in your place. All those abilities evolved in us probably after we diverged from Neanderthals, at least in that lineage. The point being, we're so specialized at social learning, social relations, thinking about what others are thinking,

doing things collectively, that it's literally in our genes and it's what's made us distinct from even the closest cousins we have in our ancient evolutionary ancestry. So it really is something, social learning is really something to think about as absolutely part of us. And once you start thinking about that and about the fact that most of human society was traditional, learning things from previous generations, I think that you can become a lot more comfortable with doing as others do, or I'll have what she's having. And I don't mean conformity. Conformity is something different. Well, it sounds like conformity. Conformity is something different. Well, it sounds like conformity. Conformity is doing something that maybe is even against what you think is correct just because others

are doing it. And it does remind me of that classic experiment from the 1950s where you could have, I could walk into a room and several people pointed a line on a piece of paper and say, this line is exactly like this other line when I can see that it's, they're clearly very different lengths.

And it was shown in the 1950s that, you know, if most of the people are saying that and I walk in, I'll just go with it, even though I know that it's not true. But if just one person out of that group that are, in there, the scientists put them in there, it's all part of an act. But if they do the experiment where just one person says, no, actually, those two lines are different lengths,

then the person in the experiment would very often have the confidence to say, oh yeah, yeah, no, that's not true. It takes very little for people to break out of their conformity, but it's still a form of social learning. It still took someone else to break that spell. Now you think, oh, here's an actual expert.

Here's somebody who seems to be able to see straight, and these other people can't. So I'm going to believe what that person said, and that person helps me trust my gut. So even when we're trusting our gut, it can help that social learning can help us do that. Well, this is certainly a topic I haven't given a lot of thought to,

but it's actually quite fascinating to think how much of what we do we do by imitating others. Our Alexander Bentley has been my guest. He is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee and the name of his book is I'll Have What She's Having, Mapping Social Behavior and there's a link to his book in the show notes. Professor, thanks for coming on. Thanks, Mike. This has been fantastic, and I loved your questions.

Hello, I am Kristin Russo. And I am Jenny Owen Youngs. We are the hosts of Buffering the Vampire Slayer once more, with spoilers, a rewatch podcast covering all 144 episodes of, you guessed it, Buffy the Vampire Slayer once more with spoilers, a rewatch podcast covering all 144 episodes of, you guessed it, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We are here to humbly invite you to join us for our fifth Buffy Prom, which, if you can believe it, we are hosting at the actual Sunnydale High School. That's right, on April 4th and 5th, we will be descending upon the campus of Torrance High School,

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Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to hit the follow button. Every day, I imagine, you have conversations with people. You do it because you have to. No one probably taught you how to have a good conversation. You just do it. And your ability to be good at it will impact your success in all walks of life. Your career, relationships, friendships. People have to like talking to you or feel comfortable talking to you or feel like they

get something out of the conversation. And here to make sure that happens is Dr. Allison Wood Brooks. She's a professor of business administration and Hellman faculty fellow at the Harvard Business School and she is author of a book called Talk the Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves. Hi Allison, welcome to something you should know. Thank you so much for having me, I'm so happy to be here. So as someone who has conversations for a living, I certainly enjoy this topic. And I find it interesting that most of us were never taught about conversation. Still, some people are,

they're so good at it and other people are so not good at it. And I wonder why that is. Conversation is a surprisingly vast ocean of complexity. There's a lot going on under the hood. For something we learn to do as toddlers and practice doing every day of our lives, every day, all day long, with a huge range of partners, it feels like we get to adulthood and we should be experts. And in truth, we are far from being expert at conversation. Well, it's interesting that as much as we all do it,

no one ever said, well, let's talk about how you're doing it. Let's have a class in how to have a conversation. You just do it and kind of learn as you go and do the best you can. But no one ever teaches you the principles of a conversation or how to make it interesting. Or I certainly never got that kind of education. Yeah, I think we in a way are learning all the time by watching other people and just

sort of bumping and stumbling through life. We have little mini successes and we think, okay, I'll try that again. Or we have little fail, little or big failures and think, oh, well, I guess I won't do that again. And so we're kind of learning through the school of hard knocks as we go through life, but you're right. It's a very wicked feedback environment where we don't get perfect feedback about how we're doing.

And we certainly don't often take classes about how to have conversation until now. Well, and the other really interesting thing that I don't think is a good thing is because there's so much electronic communication, we have fewer face-to-face conversations and so people aren't as good because they don't have the practice. They don't know how to do it. That's right. Yeah, we're getting less practice than ever before

in human history. And with less practice comes less feedback and sort of the feedback we do get is even more mysterious and diffuse. I mean, when you're texting someone, you have no idea how your messages are landing with them. Right? You can't read their facial expressions.

You really have no idea if they've even read your message until they respond. So yes, we find ourselves in an even more difficult learning environment about our communication than ever before. So this is probably an unfair question because it's too big, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. What's a good conversation look like?

The definition of a good conversation is not up to me as a scientist or as a professor. It's not even up to you, Mike. It's determined by the goals of the people participating in the conversation. And the goals that people have when they interact with other people are vast. I mean, if you didn't have, we always have at least one goal,

even if it's just to have fun or be polite or to uphold the very basic expectation that you're gonna respond to another person. Usually people have many more than just one goal. So you kind of hold on to this rich constellation of things. You might want to share a story. You might want to seek someone's advice. You might want to have a great time.

You might want to give them a compliment. You want to persuade them to agree with your view on a certain issue. And also, you need to leave in five minutes. So we all hold these very many goals at the same time. And the person you're talking to has their own constellation of goals that they hold onto. And so the definition of success in any given conversation

depends on achieving at least some subset of those goals. And achieving those goals is harder than it first appears. I remember hearing somebody say something about Bill Clinton, that he is a great conversationalist. Because when you talk to him, you feel like you're the only person in the world, that he makes you so the focus of his existence for the few minutes he's talking to you,

that everybody walks away from a conversation with him feeling terrific. And we've all had those people, you talk to them and you walk away, you feel better about yourself, you feel smarter, you just feel terrific. And then the other side of that is you walk away from some conversations and feel horrible.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I've heard that about Bill Clinton as well. There are people in the world who have developed conversation as a skill. And it's very easy to look at someone like Bill Clinton and think, boy, he was he is gifted. He is a gifted, natural conversationalist. He has this charisma. He's really good at connecting with people. And maybe it's effortless for him. And when you look at someone like Bill Clinton, who just seems charismatic and so good at connecting with people, such a great listener, it kind of

can make you feel bad about yourself. What am I not doing right here? What is this thing that he's so good at? Which I call the myth of naturalness. Even for someone like Bill Clinton, what you can't see are all the many experiences that he's had in his life that led him to this place where he became such a good communicator. And you can't see all of the effort that he's putting in to every conversation to make sure that his partners are feeling so understood and loved and listened to and charmed and delighted.

Also, when people describe Bill Clinton in particular, I suspect what he's quite good at is listening. And listening is one of the most important skills in conversation overall. And it's much more complicated than it first appears. So let's talk about that then. What does it mean in a conversation? What does it mean to listen well?

So I think as humans, we tend to fixate on talking, thinking about, well, when am I going to speak up? And what am I going to say? What am I going to disclose? What should I ask this person? When in fact, I think perhaps the more important part of the equation is listening, focusing on your partner, and working really hard to listen to their words,

but also to their nonverbal cues, their gestures, their facial expressions. When we study listening as behavioral scientists, we think of it as all of the information that's coming at you visually and through your ears, the audio, right? And so that's the person and how they're moving, what they look like, the sound of their voice, the meaning of their words, and also the environment all around you, sort of reading the room. All of this is required when you're listening. So perhaps it's no surprise that listening

is incredibly effortful. You need to be perceiving all of this information. And then in your mind, you elaborate and think more deeply about some of it. We can't really take it all in and think about all of it. And the third step of listening that's so unique to conversation is the expression of listening. It's not that you just hear and see things

and then think about it. You can actually say and show your partner that you've heard them. So Michael, just now you've made a really great distinction between talking and listening. The only way I can say that back to you is because I heard you say it in the first place. I'm thinking about this distinction very carefully.

I'm compelled by it. And now I have the ability to repeat it back to you and affirm the distinction and say, hey, I'm willing to go there with you. Let's do this together. So one of the tricky parts of conversation seems to be ending it, especially if it's not going well, or you get one of those people

who answers with one word answers, and you find yourself in a conversation that's going nowhere, how do you, what do you do? Yes, there is fantastic research on conversational endings by behavioral scientists, Adam Massariani and Gus Cooney. The end of a conversation, if we think of a conversation as the series of coordinated decisions between two people, the end of the conversation is the last coordination decision. It's saying, okay, the next topic we're going to choose is silence, and we're going to walk away from each other and it's over. And so even though we're, that begins at the very start of like,

where, what are we going to talk about now and now and now and now, and then we get to the end and somebody has the power to end it. So just like every other coordination choice, this ending decision is surprisingly difficult and causes a lot of awkwardness. In their study of conversational endings, they found that essentially we can't read other people's minds about when they would like to end. We're not even really that great at knowing

when we would like to end a conversation, so self-awareness and sort of other awareness. And because of this, almost no conversation ends when you want it to. Like we're just bad at guessing, which is on one hand, sort of depressing, on the other hand, I think very empowering. So it's saying like, look, you're going to get it wrong anyway. So as soon as you start to feel like a conversation is running out of juice, just leave. Like, just end it. It's OK. The bigger risk is actually stagnating and lingering and staying too long.

And you part ways, and your partner thinks that you're sort of boring and uninteresting. So I think that the takeaway from this research is just leave. What I'm curious, like when you are in a conversation with someone, what what are the things that bother you if it's not going well? What are the things that really like, oh, here we go. Oh, no. You know, it's funny when I talk to people myself, I truly honestly have a mindset of how can I make this good?

Like what power do I have? Even in the worst of circumstances, like it's really someone's really struggling, they're really awkward, or they're a windbag, or they're not very nice nice or they're boring, whatever, whatever the challenge is. I love taking that on as a personal challenge of like, how can I make this interesting? How can I make this productive? How can I make it fun? It's a sort of treasure hunt for me.

And the ways that I most commonly do that and try and pursue the adventure of making it good is through question asking a lot of the time, trying to ask questions that help us together, search for better treasure. Like how can, I know that every person out there, even those who seem boring or blustery or not that nice, I know they have something in their mind

that I will be so interested to learn about and uncover. And so I like trying to figure that out. It requires giving other people the benefit of the doubt. It requires pushing yourself relentlessly to not be overly judgmental of people, especially when you find them unlikable or, you know, annoying. I also find many people to be sort of too serious and a little boring. And so I have a sort of personal mission of injecting levity through humor, but also through warmth moves like flattery and just changing the topic to

unexpected Unexpected things my friend calls it breaking the pace. I like to break the pace sometimes. I like that Yeah, that's a great idea that brings up and this is probably my own failing But I realized that most of the conversations like if I'm at a party or something I mean, I'm never gonna see this person again. I'm never gonna remember what they said. It's like, why make the effort? I mean, not always, but I mean,

sometimes you get worn out of small, this is all small talky kind of stuff. And it's, you know, I much more enjoy conversations like this where we have a very specific topic that we're talking about. And I can try to ask good questions and listen to your answers but if I'm just meeting you at a party it's gonna be how are you what do you do you know and and and those kind of conversations are fairly forgettable and so why put the effort in So I want to push you on this. All right. You, you never know what you could uncover,

even in a seemingly sort of shallow context or a shallow conversation. You never know when you're going to see someone again. You never know if you could uncover something in that conversation that would inspire you to see them again. So even in the unlikeliest of circumstances, I just want to push you and everyone to consider the idea that maybe it doesn't have to be as shallow as it first appears. I teach about this in my course at Harvard. There's this topic pyramid with three levels. At the base of the pyramid, this is where small talk lives. This is topics you could talk about with anybody, let's say at a dinner party or a cocktail party. So the traffic, the weather, the weekend, the holidays,

whatever, stuff you can talk about with anyone. The problem isn't with small talk in general. In fact, it's a very important social ritual that helps us initiate conversations, get acquainted with people we don't know well, or reacquaint ourselves with people we haven't seen in a while. The mistake that most people make,

particularly at a cocktail party, or maybe a networking event, or really anywhere, is they stay too long at the base of the pyramid. So you need to think of small talk as a place to be searching for something more meaningful, for looking for doorknobs to go through doors to more meaningful rooms of the conversation. And if you find them, you can move into the second tier of the pyramid, which is medium or tailored talk. And the way to get there is to get more personalized. And this might look like asking questions that triggers self-disclosure from your partner.

It might mean sharing something personal, maybe something joyful or painful about your own life. Or it could not be about disclosure at all, but just trying to find topics that are exciting to both of you, sort of chasing the energy to find topics where they're an expert of you, sort of chasing the energy to find topics where they're an expert or they have some interest or just positive energy in general. So chase the energy to launch away from small talk. At the very top of the pyramid is deep talk. This is

a meaningful topic that maybe only you two people could talk about at a specific moment in time. The conversation we're having right now feels like we're getting there, right? Like we're there because we have this substantive topic to talk about. You have this expertise. We're getting to know each other. We're sort of hovering over deep talk

and having a substantive collaboration and work to work on together can help you get there. And we're sort of all navigating this topic pyramid all the time. Not every conversation is bound for the peak of the pyramid. It would be annoying if someone is always trying to have these sort of deep, meaningful conversations with everybody. You don't need to have a deep conversation

with the barista at Starbucks. Um, but you could maybe give them a compliment or ask about their kid, right? If it's the same person you're seeing every day and get into that medium, second tier of the pyramid. But I do want to push you and everyone on this idea of like, it doesn't have to be shallow, and you never know when something that seems

like a small talk conversation could become something more. Yeah, I know you're right. I think it's more weariness, like when you're at a networking event or something, and you've had 10 or 12 of those shallow conversations, you just kind of run out of gas. It's like, I'm done.

I'll try again tomorrow, but I just, enough's enough. Yeah, or not. Maybe take a rest. Don't talk to anybody tomorrow. Yeah, exhaustion is real. So I think all of this stuff, thinking about how to have great conversations, how to really connect with people,

one thing that has become clear through our research is it does require a tremendous amount of energy and effort. You even just listening, your mind is wandering 24% of the time, even when you're trying to listen attentively. So to be a good listener like Bill Clinton or like you, it takes a lot of energy, a lot of focus. And we're not always prepared.

We don't always have that energy. So I think giving yourself grace about that and giving others grace about social and conversational fatigue is also really important, particularly in this world where we're constantly toggling between text threads and emails and phone calls and Zoom calls and in-person conversations. We're sort of having more conversation across all different modes of communication

than ever before in human history. So the fatigue, the drain on our energy that comes from that is very, very real and should be taken seriously. Lastly, I wanna ask you about, you just used the word, connect with someone. And everyone's connected with someone, and you sort of know what that feels like, but what does it mean to connect with someone?

And do you think that because I feel like I've connected with someone, how likely is it that they feel the same way? Hmm. What a lovely question. I sometimes think of conversation as the sort of journey that you're going on, a sort of relentless search process where you're searching for deep, meaningful moments where you get to the peak of that topic pyramid

where you feel like, oh, we did it. We did the thing where we feel really close and connected and like, I trust you. And we talked about a thing that felt really good. We felt connected. I don't think we can expect that all the time. And even in conversations where you walk away feeling like, oh, my gosh, that was great. If you look back at the transcript, what you would see is kind of like a train wreck. Like it would, we interrupt each other all the time.

There's all kinds of moments of misunderstanding. There's we say things that we probably shouldn't. We forget to say things that we should. But there are these moments where you come together and say, wow, like, oh, that felt really good. And likely, if you're feeling that way, it's likely that the other person is as well. But to your point, Mike, like the you never know, you you we really cannot read the minds of other people.

The most direct way to understand what is in someone else's head and how they felt like the conversation went is to ask them directly. Questions are the most direct pathway to learning about someone else's mind. Well, I enjoy having a conversation about conversation, because it's something we do, we all do every day. And yet we don't talk about doing it. We just do it. something we do we all do every day and yet we don't talk about doing it we just do it but today we talked about doing it while we were doing it I've been talking to dr. Allison Wood

Brooks who is a professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School and she's author of the book talk the science of conversation and the art of being ourselves if you'd like to read, there's a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. And Allison, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me, Mike. I've had such a great time. One of the things I really appreciate about a snowfall is how quiet it is afterwards. Why is that?

Why is it so quiet? Well, partly because fewer people are out doing things because of the weather, but there's more to it. It's the arrangement of the snowflakes. As the snow falls, it piles up loosely with a lot of air spaces in between, and those air spaces absorb the sound in much the same way as holes in an acoustic ceiling tile do. As sound travels across a layer of fluffy snow, the pressure of the sound waves pushes air down into those spaces between the snowflakes, so the sound waves lose more and more pressure. So by the time the

sound reaches your ears, you hear a softer, more muffled sound or maybe no sound at all. Experiments show that a loud bang like a firecracker in the summer makes a quiet hump noise in a winter landscape covered with new snow because of the effects that I just described. And that is something you should know. If you enjoyed this podcast, you can show your support by leaving a five star rating and review. On whatever podcast platform you listen on, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, they all offer the ability

to leave a rating and review and it would be greatly appreciated. I'm Mike Carruthers, thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. For a long time now, I've been recommending The Jordan Harbinger Show as another podcast you might wanna listen to. The Jordan Harbinger Show is different

than Something You Should Know, but as you'll see, it aligns well with this audience, meaning if you like this podcast, you're probably gonna like that one. The Jordan Harbinger Show. Each episode is a conversation with a different, fascinating guest. Recently he had on Amanda Ripley talking about how to survive an unthinkable disaster. Which strikes close to home for me, having just been through the fires and mudslides

in California and evacuated twice. He also spoke with Jay Dobbins, who's a former ATF agent who went undercover with the Hells Angels. Now, that's a conversation worth hearing. And listening to his conversations will make you a more critical thinker about the world around you. Check out the Jordan Harbinger Show and there's a good chance it finds its way into your regular rotation of podcasts. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

From the podcast that brought you to each of the last lesbian bars in the country and back in time through the sapphic history that shaped them comes a brand new season of cruising beyond the bars. This is your host Sarah Gabrielli and I've spent the past year interviewing history-making lesbians and queer folks about all kinds of queer spaces from bookstores to farms to line dancing and much more. For 11 years every night women slept illegally on the common. We would move down to the West Indies to form a lesbian nation. Meg Christen coined the phrase women's music, but she would have liked to say it was lesbian music. And that's kind of the origins of the Convihugera collective.

You can listen to Cruising on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes air every other Tuesday starting February 4th.