Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 494: How to Speak Clearly, Calmly, and Without Alienating People | Dan Clurman and Mudita Nisker

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

Most of us talk all day long. We speak to each other, we type at each other, and of course, we talk to ourselves internally. Talking and listening is a key part of what it means to be human and It’s very hard to be a successful person if you can’t communicate your ideas and listen to and understand other people. Today’s guests, Mudita Nisker and Dan Clurman, are here to explain some very simple and easy to understand communication skills that can transform your life. Their new book, Let's Talk: An Essential Guide to Skillful Communication concisely summarizes their teachings and they’re coming on the show today to walk us through some of the key learnings from this book. Over the past thirty years Nisker and Clurman have provided communication training to individuals and organizations in the private, public, government, and nonprofit sectors. They have also led workshops, and trained staff at leading mindfulness centers such as Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Clurman is a communication coach and professor in the Ageno School of Business at Golden Gate University in San Francisco. Nisker is a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice. In this episode we talk about:Talking vs. listeningContent vs. process The power of saying nothing at allReflective listening The Buddhist concept of Right SpeechContent goals vs. relationship goals“I” languageProvisional languageStating positive intentionsFramingAnd Flooding vs. chunkingYou can read an excerpt of the book, Let's Talk: An Essential Guide to Skillful Communication if you subscribe to our TPH newsletter, which comes out every Sunday. And you can subscribe if you go to: tenpercent.com/newsletter.Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dan-clurman-and-mudita-nisker-494See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, everybody. Most of us talk all day long. We speak to each other. We type at each other. And of course, we talk to ourselves internally and incessantly. Talking and listening is a key part of what it means to be human.

It is very hard to be a successful person incessantly. Talking and listening is a key part of what it means to be human. It is very hard to be a successful person in the world if you cannot communicate your ideas and listen to and understand other members of a homo sapiens. So why, given the indisputable importance of communication, are very few of us ever taught how to do it effectively. Speaking personally, many, if not most, of the biggest problems I've had in my life are the results of my failure to communicate effectively, or my failure to listen to other people and make them feel hurt. As some of you know, because I've mentioned it, perhaps a few too many times,

here on the show, four years ago, I received a rather devastating 360 review. here on the show. Four years ago, I received a rather devastating 360 review. A 360 review for the uninitiated is an exercise that is often conducted in corporate circles where an anonymous survey is done of your boss's peers and direct reports, the idea is to give you a panoramic sense of your strengths and weaknesses. I got a colonoscopy version of a 360, which included not only my colleagues, but also my wife, my brother, and two of my meditation teachers. In any event, there was some pretty devastating stuff in there, including the fact that I could be while communicating, sharp and dismissive.

In the aftermath of that report, I started working with a pair of communications coaches who were recommended by the great meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein. Mudita and Niskar and Dan Clermann both come out of the Buddhist meditation scene. And they've come up with a very simple, very easy to understand set of communication skills that have, and I don't think this is an overstatement, and you'll actually hear me say this directly

to them in the interview, they have utterly transformed my life. In fact, three years after I got my first unpleasant 360, I got a second one, which was way more positive. And many of the people who participated in that 360 talked about how my communication skills had massively improved. Mudita and Dan have now written a book, which concisely summarizes their teachings,

and they're coming on the show today to walk you through some of the key learnings. Their new book is called Let's Talk and Essential Guide to Skillful Communication. Side note, you can read an excerpt of the book for free if you subscribe to our TPH newsletter, which comes out every Sunday. And you can subscribe to it if you go to 10%.com slash newsletter. Anyway, in this conversation, we talk about talking versus listening content versus process, which they will explain, the power of saying nothing at all, something called reflective listening. And I cannot say enough how crucial this skill has been for me.

The Buddhist concept of right speech, and we cover some of Dan and Moudita's foundational concepts such as content goals versus relationship goals, eye language, provisional language, the value of stating your positive intentions in a conversation, framing and flooding versus chunking. Anyway, they will explain all of this lingo, as I said, very easy to grasp and truly,

truly transformational on a day-to-day basis. By way of background, Budita and Dan have led communication trainings for NASA, Wells Fargo Bank, and the San Francisco Transit Authority, and many other corporations. They also do work with nonprofits such as United Way and Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Dan is a professor in the School of Business at Golden Gate University in San Francisco and Mudita is a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice in Oakland. Okay, we'll get started with Dan Clermann and Mudita Nisker right after this. Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping

our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app.

It's taught by the Stanford psychologist, Kelly McGonical, and the great meditation teacher, Alexis Santos, to access the course, just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10percent.com. All one word spelled out. Okay, on with the show. Hey, y'all.

It's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur on my new podcast. The baby is a ski. You Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts, the questions that are in my head. Like it's only fans only bad. Where did memes come from and where's Tom from my space? Listen to baby.

This is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. Moody time Dan, welcome to the show. Thank you Dan. Thanks for having us Dan. All right Moody time, I want to start with you. I mean you have so much training in meditation as a couple's therapist. Why focus so much of your work these days on communication? It's a hard question to answer because it happened unexpectedly. It wasn't necessarily intentional. I'd say it was serendipity or perhaps good luck that led me to be sitting here as a communication expert with you. I did do graduate studies in psychology

and prepared to be a marriage counselor and all of that. But what happened was I was working in a nonprofit called Sage doing group work with older people, people who preferred being called elders actually than older people. At any rate being called elders, actually, than older people. At any rate, the elders didn't have much exposure to mind-body spirit work, and through a series of events ended up as the director of training of that organization. Part of what I trained people to do was communication, communication skills, along with meditation and movement and lots of yoga,

lots of things. But the communication seemed to really catch on. And people in this NIMH-funded training group wanted more communication and wanted me to teach them outside of the program. So I started to do that, and then more people wanted it, more people wanted it, and before I knew it, I'm sitting here with you.

I can say just as one person, I am the beneficiary of that history because as I will have said in the intro, your work has had a massive impact on my life. And if my wife knew we were talking right now, she would be sending you flowers. I'm really happy to hear that. You know, I love seeing people get along well and have more peace and harmony in their lives. And I get to experience that in my work.

And when I bring in communication training, people start applying it. They report similar things as you're saying now, and it's wonderful for me. Dan, what about you? I know from having spoken to you over these past three years that I believe you've described your own childhood as not being the best training ground for communications that, and that might have led you to studying in this area.

I would say that's accurate. The communication that was modeled to me when I was younger was suboptimal. And it provided a good incentive to explore more effective communication. And I also had a very strong interest when I was younger in not just psychology but anthropology. And I particularly was interested in how communication changed in different cultures, the different styles of communication, how much people could talk about, how little they could talk about, the protocols for communication. So I had a background

interest in terms of anthropology about culture and communication. However, when I started to work with the communication skills, that allowed me to practically speaking, look at it in our society, in our culture, and then with friends and groups and parents, and the whole thing. How would you say we generally mess communication up? What are the biggest pitfalls?

For me, having worked with couples and individuals for so long, but especially with couples, unskilledful communication really messes people up. A lot of times I've seen people who have good intentions, but the impact does not represent what their intentions are. And a lot of it has to do with communication. We get a lot of our needs met through communication. And as the saying goes, you cannot not communicate. Whenever someone else is in the room with you, you're communicating. Even if you're silent, you just can't get away from it.

What you're wearing, how you're moving, how your voice sounds, you're constantly communicating. I would say that picking up on that, that inattentive or poor listening is probably one of the biggest barriers, is saying that one of the biggest assumptions with communication is that it's taken place. And I think that's often the case that we assume we've understood somebody, biggest assumptions with communication is that it's taken place. I think that's often the case that we assume we've understood somebody.

We think we know what they're talking about. Many times, that's just not accurate. It takes some confirmation, reconfirming that the accuracy is there. Listening is one place where without listening, it's hard to have a conversation. You've led us very nicely, nicely down to some of the concrete skills that you have to offer.

And I want to flag that for some people, these may sound, and they certainly did to me at the beginning, very basic. So basic has to be just sort of a common sense. But Buddhism has been described as advanced common sense. And I would say that that moniker could apply to your communications roadmap. So having issued that caveat, one of the key skills, the early building block skills is knowing the difference between talking and listening.

I'm glad you brought that one up because that's one of those skills that seem so easy, so common sense. And it is. Knowing the difference, well, most of us know that seems so easy, so common sense. And it is, knowing the difference, well, most of us know that when we're talking, we're talking and when we're listening, we're listening. If they pay attention, they know that and that talking is often imparting information and listening is often taking in information. The thing is, many people wander into one or the other habitually, that without consideration, people don't say, well, would it be better for me to talk or listen at this juncture,

and make it a conscious choice, bring mindfulness, bring attentiveness to it, they just follow whatever is habitual. So we've seen big changes in the simple, just the simple awareness of, are you talking or listening and which do you think would be better in this situation? And one more thing I want to add, all the skills that we talk about, including being aware of talking and listening, have to do with communicating and important or consequential conversations, with communicating in important or consequential conversations, that you don't have to be conscious all of the time. It's too odious for people.

You have to space out and just be on automatic some of the time. That's just part of human nature, I think. And so just to recognize that these skills can enhance your communications in consequential conversations. Yeah, I think that's an example of thinking about or being discerning about when to talk and when to listen that falls in the category you're describing then. It's obvious and yet it's often overlooked. That falls into another category for us,

which is looking at in communication two areas. There's content that is what we talk about, the topics we cover, and this process, how we talk about it, the way in which we conduct the conversation. The skill of being discerning about when to talk and when to listen is an example of a process skill. It's about how we conduct the conversation.

And that aspect is often invisible. That people don't notice that it's in the background where much more focused on the content, what we say. But the interesting thing about both areas is that you can improve communication by adjusting either area and content is practically endless. There's so many things we could talk about. But process, there are relatively few simple principles with process that are in the background. so it's something that you can track when you know about it, and by adjusting the process, you can influence the quality of the content.

Can you say more about what process entails? Process entails how you talk. Content is what you talk about. The process of whether to talk or whether to listen, that's one. The process of deciding what type of listening to use is another. We've mentioned and worked with you around reflective listening that is summarizing in your own words your understanding of what someone's saying. That's another kind of process. the idea of being silent and not saying anything in order to create space for the other person to come in to add content is another type of process. These

are simple things, but they're often overlooked. Let me restate it to you, just to put a fine point on it. We can't use our mindfulness. We don't have to be advanced meditators. We could just use our basic self-awareness to know, and not just self-awareness awareness of whoever we're with, to know, okay, it's now time to talk or listen. That's one thing. Second, we can think about conversation as having these two levels of the content, what we're talking about, and the process, how we're doing the talking. And we can tune in to everybody knows about the content.

We can tune in to the process level, again, through our innate capacity to just be aware, to be mindful, and think, okay, so I've got a bunch of levers I can pull here, is it the talking listening binary, or is it a specific kind of listening that I want to do, like reflective listening, which we're going to talk about soon,

which is a transformational skill in my view, or is it now is the time to just stay silent, even if it's uncomfortable to leave room for people to expand on what they've just said. Anyway, am I restating this correctly? Yeah, I think that's it. And just to pick up a little bit on the option of staying silent, that sometimes following the,

say, the Buddhist idea of right speech, that not saying something can be the most skillful thing to do, if you don't have something to say that is useful in the conversation, restraint can be a powerful form of communication. We look at it as a learned skill, restraint. There's so many times people say things and then realize retrospectively, and that was not the right thing to say. That saying anything at that moment wasn't that productive, and then they have to clean it up later.

So the mindfulness of being aware of when to stop talking is a key skill as well. For example, if somebody is very upset, being silent and not adding more information, not sharing things with the person who's upset often works best. When someone's upset, it's hard for them to take in information, depending on how upset and how much practice they've had doing that. But it's challenging to listen to someone else when you yourself are triggered so that if you're with somebody who's triggered, if you understand that it's hard for that person to take in information, even your information,

then you're less likely to start making assumptions. Like, well, if they really love me, they'd listen to what I have to say now. And you'd realize that the person just isn't able to. They're too triggered. So that's a very important skill or distinction to make in the process. It harkens back to talking or listening. In the three years I've worked with you guys, I've often thought and sometimes articulated a basic lesson from brain science, which I think goes to the core of much of what you're teaching, which is when the amygdala or the stress and fear center of the brain is activated, the prefrontal cortex,

the more modern evolved aspect of the brain, which allows us to use logic and reason, goes offline. And so I often think that one key to your set of skills is to learn how to communicate in a way that does not trigger the amygdala of your interlocutor, which can be aware enough to see when it is triggered so that you're not adding information that will not be heard. Yes. And that's based on the assumption that when you do want to get your message across to someone and you don't want to trigger that, you want to get your message across, you want to be understood, you want the person to be able to hear what you have to say. That's the very basic reason for wanting to communicate skillfully and not trigger the

emotionality. Just to get your message across is very self-serving in a way. In light and self-interest. Exactly. We talk about that, yes. You want to use respectful means in the conversation that optimize your own sense of being understood by the other person and arriving at some mutual understanding and also where you're able to,

at times advocate for the other person even through reflecting so that you can have both voices in the conversation. You mentioned reflecting again, we're gonna get to that. But before we do, Dan, you mentioned the Buddhist concept of right speech a few minutes ago. Can you just give us a primer? I've never known how to pronounce that word,

primer primer on right speech. And maybe even say a little bit about to go, can you just give us a primer? I've never known how to pronounce that word, primer primer on right speech and maybe even say a little bit about how Buddhism has impacted your teaching. So I think there are many ways to understand right speech. Certainly people who are scholars would go into this with more depth. But the piece that I think both of us take from it is that it involves being truthful in your speech and also noticing whether what you're saying is useful in the current context. Useful in terms of your goals with the other person, your mutual goals in the conversation. Useful in terms of being a response which is non-harming, which may include more of a compassionate

or empathetic response. So usefulness, of course, is situational, but taking those two factors, truthfulness and usefulness, that's how we integrate right speech into our approach. And that means you don't say everything you're thinking, because that wouldn't necessarily be useful, even if it might be true. And since we really can't talk as fast as we can think,

we're constantly not saying things that we're thinking. So it's a matter of what criteria we use to differentiate, what we say and what we don't say. So in this case, usefulness, as Dan said, in right speech, becomes a really important guidepost for making that decision and not having a lot of clean-up work afterwards. Although I would add one other thing, which is the meditative aspect of Buddhism as it connects to communication. We like to think of communication sometimes as meditation and action. It's where you can really test your sense of equanimity. It's sometimes we've noticed, for example, sitting and retreats.

It's possible to get to a very still and quiet and an equanimous space and then going back out, starting conversations, how quickly it's possible to get triggered again. It's a test to bring that meditative awareness into conversation that requires practice and patience and the sense of working with situations where it's not always possible to maintain that equanimity, and to developing compassion for oneself or others just in that communication as a lifelong practice. Would it be accurate to say you don't have to be a meditator to apply these skills, but it certainly helps?

I would agree with that. We've worked with a lot of people who aren't meditators. Many of them can still pay attention and be discerning and be a metacognitive, which is what this skill depends on. That is being aware of your thoughts and feelings and sensations, thinking about your thinking. Those are some of the ways we think of metacognition. thinking about your thinking, those are some of the ways we think of metacognition. So it helps to be a meditator, but it's not necessary for learning the skills. So back to the skills, we've made several references to reflective listening. I want to get you guys to describe it and then maybe we should even roleplay a little bit, because this, in my experience, is, you know, this is the money.

This is such an incredible skill. And as you know, I came to you after having had a 360 review, which was where people in my life were able to speak anonymously about my strengths and weaknesses, particularly my weaknesses. And one of the big weaknesses was, you know, I could be pretty unskillful in my communication. And then I got another 360 review and it was very different. You've read both of them and one of the things that people talked about the most in the second, much more positive 360 review, which came three years later.

One of the things people talked about the most was reflective listening. With that introduction, would one of you describe this skill? Yes, I'd love to. It's one of my favorite of the skills that we teach, actually. And I agree with your assessment of the impact of it. Reflective listening is simple and radical. It's radical because the only goal you have when you're using reflective listening is to try to understand what the other person is saying in the way they would like to be understood. So you're not psychoanalyzing them or interpreting them.

You're just trying to understand them in the way they want to be understood. And you're feeding back to them what your understanding is, and you're doing that in your own words, your paraphrasing. You're not parroting, you're not saying what they said. You're not using their words. Using their words can be helpful at times, but I think in a lot of ways it shows

that the person who's doing that has a good memory and can memorize what you said and feed it back. It doesn't necessarily mean that the listener has taken in the message in order to repeat back verbatim, but when you translate what you're understanding into your own language, you have to really be taking in what they're saying. And for the speaker to hear their message in your words, oftentimes it's very helpful. It's very clarifying. And within the process of reflective listening, the speaker gets to correct or add on whenever they want. They're in the driver's seat. and you follow that speaker with your reflective listening

and acknowledging corrections. So in reflective listening, I repeat back to the person in my own words, what I've understood from what they've said. Correct, and you're agreeing or disagreeing with them is irrelevant. At that moment, when you're listening, it doesn't matter if you agree or disagreeing with them is irrelevant. At that moment when you're listening, it doesn't matter if you agree or disagree or have opinions or have good advice. None of those things matter because in reflective listening, you're like a mirror. You're reflecting back. You don't even exist

in a certain way. This is not to say that you won't have opinions. Exactly. Or reactions. You very well might, you put those on the back burner when you're reflecting, when it's your turn to talk, and the person indicates that either verbally or non-verbally, of course, you do want to share your views with the person, especially if you have a different view. Sometimes people equate reflective listening with agreement. It isn't agreement, although it's easy to think that the person who's reflecting is agreeing with you since they're reflecting accurately what you're saying.

That's when, after reflectively listening, it's important to come in if you have a different view and talk about it. But back to the brain science, what you're doing, especially in contentious discussions, by reflecting before you send your own message, is really giving a massage to the other person's amygdala of, okay, it's all good. You're being understood, you're being heard. And once we get that visceral and often subconscious, because sometimes we don't even recognize we're being reflected, once we get that satisfaction, we are much better able to listen to what somebody else has to say. Yes, we recommend reflecting someone who's to say. Yes, we recommend reflecting someone who is distraught so that they can calm down and they can receive your message. It can help them and it can help you. It helps them organize

their own experience, their thoughts and feelings being reflected as they get to notice what they are through your reflections. And that has a very soothing effect for many people. The challenge is that it's difficult for people to hold back on their own messages, their own agreements and disagreements and opinions in order to really do a good job reflexively listening. Again, it takes some restraint to wait till it's timely for you to express yourself. Yeah, I don't know anybody who's struggled with that. Definitely not anybody on this. So let's do some role play here because I think it's much easier for people to understand it once they see it in action as opposed to

having heard a discussion about it. Yes. How would you like to do that, Dan? Do you want to do that, Dan? Do you want to talk about something and I'll reflect you on a Hill coach? Or do you want Dan to play it and you want to sit back? What would you? Robert Burke.

Why don't you, just because this has the potential to be embarrassing for me, I think that would be good. Let's put me in a position where I could get embarrassed. Why don't I be the person in the hot seat trying to reflect? And I can reflect whatever you have to't I be the person in the hot seat trying to reflect? And I can reflect whatever you have to say, Moudita and Dan can play coach. How does that sound?

You'll be the listener, in other words, and reflector. Yes. Okay. You'll be the reflector. That's why. Why don't maybe you send. I'll send if you want, and she'll be the coach. Great.

He's a good sender. My specialty. Okay. Okay. So what would you like me to talk about? What topic would you like to talk about? I don't make it as hard as possible. Well, let's talk about something that would be say interesting for you to reflect. So we don't recommend the diamond slope to start out with. We think the middle path would be useful. So what might be useful for you? With the process of publishing and publicizing a book is very stressful. Why don't you tell me how you're doing?

Well, as you know, our book is coming out, it probably will be out when this podcast is aired. And there are just so many pieces. It's such a long journey. I think for us, we've been writing our book for five years, and we've been doing it collaboratively the entire way through. And there are many, many decisions to make in co-authoring a book where we're trying to capture the scope of our methodology that we've taught for 35 years. So many pieces to juggle, so many relationship issues to keep in mind while you're doing the work. It's a huge job. Yeah, that's one side of it is the huge job. Nice example of paraphrasing in your own words. Yes. Yes.

And not only is it a huge job, finding the voice, the mutual voice, because when we teach workshops or do consulting, we each have our own voices that can dance together with the group or the people that we're working with. And in writing, we had to find a unified voice, a voice that had both our styles, mixing with it, and that took about a year to discover.

So the challenge is not just doing the work and synthesizing 35 years of teaching, but it's synthesizing your respective voices. Yes, to form a more unified voice, exactly, exactly. So there were many false starts with doing that. And many ways in which each of us, I think, had to compromise on the use of language, flowery, less flowery, more direct, less direct, types of metaphors, types of examples,

topic selection, a lot of mutual decision making. And I think actually if we didn't know the skills or practice the skills as much as we had, it would have been far more challenging relationship-wise. Right, writing a book is hard for anybody, but it sounds like actually there's the challenge of writing the book and then the challenge of practicing what you preach. Yes, it's nice again. It's exactly. That's it. You're sucking out the essence of what Dan is saying and beating it back to him, which

you let me ask Dan how's this feeling? Yes, this is wonderful. Since I'm getting a chance to talk about something that's been brewing in the background for a long time and to have be able to hear it coming back in the kind of crystalline way you're reflecting. It's helpful for confirming it, but it's evocative for me. I get to go a little bit further

with what I'm trying to say when I hear that reflection. And what I think you're illustrating here and now I'm no longer reflecting is that this skill is useful not only on the diamond slope of conflict, but also in any conversation where you want to make sure that you're having a healthy dialogue and it is as you describe it a kind of gift that you're offering to somebody

else to show that you understand that you're giving them this primordial human desire of being heard and seen and understood. Exactly. Yes. And just to add a little distinction to this, sometimes people think that asking questions is the same exact thing as reflecting. And there is a difference. And I think that's important to understand is that questions are very useful and can be certainly a helpful part of conversations. We distinguish reflecting from questions and that questions often contain what the person who's asking the questions think would be valuable for the other person to talk about.

So in certain sense, questions in their own way direct the other person who's speaking down a particular path that the listener thinks would be useful to talk about, which might be the case or might not be the case. Yes, they're both ways of getting information, soliciting more information. Reflective listening often has a gentler feel than questioning, questioning can sometimes seem like interrogation. And people might not like that and it might have the opposite effect on them. They might close up rather than open up. Well, that's a mistake I've made many times as a trained

interviewer and sometimes trying to port my interviewing over to actual interpersonal interactions with people I'm not interviewing like my spouse. I would also say a benefit of this. For me has been that one of the very accurate complaints that people have had about me over the years is that I can be impatient and dismissive and training myself to listen closely to what people are saying so that I can repeat it back to them in my own words or as Moody to Lexus say, reflect the bones of their message. Has been a huge shift in the way I interact with people. It's changed your style of, I guess, being responsive to people.

It sounds like nice reflection, a nice reflection. You're on a sense of responsiveness, I would say. Yes, exactly. And that you get more out of it in some way. There's something additional that you get out of these conversations. Yes, I mean, I would say this leads me to another skill, something that I've heard you talk about, which is understanding in a conversation, what are your content goals?

In other words, what do you want to convey? And what's your relationship goal? So I may be in a conversation where I don't care about the content, but the content is coming from my wife who I do care about and I don't want to spend the next 48 hours of my life miserable. So I try to revert back to what's my relationship goal here. Yes. Maybe you could say I'm curious how you orient yourself when you're thinking that way about your relationship goal versus your content goal.

How does that change your communication behavior, say, in that situation? I think here to foreign, if I'm being honest, it still happens now. I can be in a conversation where I'm not that interested or I'm too distracted and I'm just trying to quickly convey a point or quickly hear what somebody has to say and move on and when I'm on my game, which is maybe 10% of the time now, I can remember, oh no, no, no, let's shift out of content goal for this interaction

to relationship goal and realize, actually this is an important person in my life. I wanna have a good relationship with them. I should make sure that they understand that I've understood. Yes. Exactly, yes. So that's a wonderful additional tool

and communication is to have awareness of both those goals. I see that, for example, some people who've taken our training, say, attorneys, who usually love our training because it has a critical thinking component to it and invites rational or logical thoughts just fine in it, is that they might be habitually used to being argumentative in their professional life and having a focus on winning points and yet in a family situation when they're having dinner with their

family with their kids That style doesn't work that well to engender harmony and the relationship goal of closeness and MSC Yeah, I think with content and relationship goals and the awareness of them, it's very helpful and a really good feeling when you know what you're going towards, what your priorities are. When you can keep your priorities straight and let them guide you in terms of how you want to behave in a situation. It takes a load off. It's like finding the path somewhere. Coming up after the break, Mudita and Dan explain what they mean by

eye language and provisional language, and of course how and why to use both of those concepts after this. After a childhood of being ignored by his absentee father, Rue goes out searching for love and acceptance. But the road to success is a rocky one. Substance abuse and mental health struggles threaten to veer Rue off course. In our series, Rue Paul Bornnaked, we'll show you how Rue Paul overcame his demons and carved out a place for himself as one of the world's top entertainers, opening the doors for aspiring queens everywhere.

Follow even the rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app. You use the phrase critical thinking again. What do you mean by that in this context? Critical thinking is assessing the quality of your thinking. And in our work, that's an important aspect of the skills, the communication skills. We alluded to that earlier when we were talking about right speeches. One aspect of critical thinking could be to notice what you're saying and, you know, is this truthful? Is it useful?

That's a critical thinking element. Another one is separating facts from opinions. Is what I'm saying a fact or is it an opinion? Because if I state my opinions, this goes to content now. We're talking about the content aspect of communication. If I state my opinions to someone as if there are fact and it's not a fact. That could be very confusing. And we see this being played out on the larger stage where opinions are stated as facts and politics, for example, and it makes for very poor decision making a lot of misinformation and confusion.

So in the skills, we really like to distinguish between stating opinions as opinions and clarifying that they're different from facts. Mojita, how do we do that when the rubber hits the road? Well, through noticing the language, I'd say, noticing how we're using language. If I say, Dan, you're inconsiderate. You didn't remember my birthday this year. You didn't acknowledge my birthday this year. You didn't acknowledge my birthday.

You're inconsiderate. I'm saying that Dan is inconsiderate as if it were a fact. I'm not saying it as if it's my opinion. Just to be clear, you're talking about Dan Clurman, not Dan Harris. Oh, of course you would never forget my birthday. Dan Harris.

You don't even know where my birthday is. Well, that's great. I had there's nothing to forget. So I'm saying it like it's a fact that he's inconsiderate. You're inconsiderate. I always knew you were inconsiderate. Great. So when she states it that way, it seems like it's a fact. Even putting in just in terms of language that that behavior of not calling me this morning on my birthday, I think of that as being inconsiderate. Now we're distinguishing a little bit more. The event was didn't receive the phone call.

That's a fact, but the opinion about it is, to me, that's a sign of being inconsiderate. Still likely to land hard on the interlocutors Emigula. Yes. Yes. It still would be a tough one to take. This is where we go back to using more eye language, which we've talked about, too. But that distinction alone is often helpful, because people will have a knee jerk reaction to being characterized as if it were as a fact. That's the way they are versus this is what I saw happening. This is the behavior.

You know, this is how I translated. This is what I call that. You mentioned this term, eye language. We haven't talked about it yet in this conversation. The three of us have talked about it extensively in our work together, but it's a key concept. And it does help you communicate in a way that sounds less accusatory. So if somebody just staying with your birthday example,

where Dan Clermann, horrible person, forgets your birthday again, there's a way to talk about that using, and this is the term of art here, eye language, that might allow it to go down easier in the brain of the other person. So can you describe how that would work, what eye language is? Well, the difference between accusing Dan in a way that makes it sound like a fact

that he's an inconsiderate person versus saying, really look forward to people I love contacting me on my birthday. I really, to me, that's like, makes it a special day. And I miss not hearing from you or getting those flowers that you usually send me. I miss that and I'm going to stop there. So that would be the eye message would be what it means to me. It's focused more on the meaning of his not acknowledging my birthday rather than focus on characterizing him in a certain way. It sounds like it's factual. And there's something about that that is just markedly different from pointing a finger and talking about you, you, you, you. This is just describing your experience. It's very hard to argue with somebody's experience. Yes, and you know, as long as we've been doing this work, it's amazed me that this is one of the hardest things for people.

Myself included, it takes a lot of practice to learn to do something so simple, it's just to report what's happening for you. It's so much easier to point what's happening for you. It's so much easier to point the finger at somebody else. I used to think it was because for me, you language was easier because I studied psychology and kind of I was focusing on the other person a lot. But then I saw that almost everybody I've ever trained

has the problem of just reporting what's happening for them, which is very meditative. Eye language is another tool for mindfulness because it asks the person using it to notice their own experience. What's happening, thoughts, feelings, sensations, rather than characterizing somebody else. And there's something about our socialization that seems to point us quickly towards characterizing other people and it's more difficult to take a look at what's happening for us. Is there never a time when it's appropriate

to characterize somebody else by appropriate, I mean, within this framework. Well, I would be very reluctant, of course, to say that there would never be a time. In general, we stay away from characterizations because they often imply that people are a certain way across time. And most people aren't, most people vary in their behavior. So it's often not accurate to characterize it. We like being accurate. I think just to that point is that the danger with characterizing other people is that the

label can become a shortcut for noticing the exceptions that if I say that someone's irresponsible, would they take that to mean across everything they do, or is that in a certain situation, they acted in a way that I wouldn't say was being responsible, to me that was not what I would call being responsible. These labels become blinders in a way or filters. Even positive characterizations can be problematic. I know I felt uncomfortable when people have characterized me in positive terms sometimes. It's like, well, I don't deserve that. You know, that's I'm not always that way or something.

I start to find exceptions just like what Dan is saying for positive characterizations, but negative ones really... Much harder, thank you. ...more, much harder. It's usually not necessary to characterize someone. It's not that you can't, especially if it's clear that it's your characterization, you're owning it as yours. You're not saying it as if it were a fact.

But still, I don't see the need for it that much. I want to amplify, and this I think is directly relevant, we'll build upon what we've just been discussing. I want to amplify, there was a little moment a few minutes ago where you said, well, I would be reluctant to say never. And that goes to another key skill that has been very powerful in my own life.

The term, your term for this is provisional language. Can you describe that? Provisional language is language that takes into account that changes a constant, that uncertainty about the future is the norm. We don't know what's going to happen in the future. So if we say something never will be for many examples, we don't know that that's true or not. Or if I say, I'm a shy person, that implies that I'm always shy. I start to think I'm always shy. I don't go to that party where new people are going to be at the party because

I think I'm shy. And I know I'm not going to be at the party because I think I'm shy. And I know I'm not going to have a good time because I'm a shy person. So then I don't go to the party. And then that proves that I am a shy person. I can't go to parties. Non-provisional language like that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And box you in. Provisional language, as Moodoo is saying, just acknowledges the possibility of change.

And certain words like always or never, can evoke defensiveness for the part of the person hearing a statement that contains that. You always forget my birthday. They'll most likely dig in and find one or two exceptions. And then your conversation becomes about the exceptions. And how they didn't take that into account. It's hard to move on to the rest of your message when you use triggering non-provisional language. I don't know if I'm misapplying it, but another way

which I found myself applying what I would call provisional language, but maybe I'm mislabeling it, I would call provisional language, but maybe I'm mislabelling it. Is to have the mindfulness to see that dogmatism comes with subtle pain, pretending, and that's usually what I'm doing, pretending that I am more certain that I am doesn't feel good if I'm paying attention. So if I can just put in some little caveats and what I'm saying, you know, maybe what happened last night was that or maybe you maybe what was going on for you here was or perhaps the reason why we hit that tree is because you were looking at your phone or just having some humility baked into whatever is coming out of your mouth, feels better and is more aligned

with the truth. Well, it's often more accurate when you say aligned with the truth. I think that when you make statements that go beyond the evidence, you're less likely to be proven accurate. So by relying more on the evidence and less on over generalized language, you can get a little closer to what we're calling truth or accuracy. It feels, it often feels better.

Better in the sense that internally I'm stating things that are more accurate that leave possibilities for exceptions, that invite the other person to talk about something that they may perceive differently. So provisional language can be very useful in conversations where it would be easy to get polarized or triggered and get into a conflict.

And you were doing it just there. You said it feels better, but then you corrected yourself to say, it often feels better. And then you corrected yourself to say it often feels better. And then you went out to say provisional language can be useful. You know, it's, it's just these little ticks that can seem inconsequential,

but they're massively consequential, again, in how they land in the brain of whoever you're talking to. Yes. Imagine writing a book and wanting to be provisional about just about everything we're saying in the book. Quite a challenge. That was part of the challenge.

And I would say one aspect of it is, and this is an important part of our work too, is that we believe that language influences behavior and perception as well as communication. So we've noticed I think that over time using provisional language as part of how we communicate and teaching it to other people, that starts to actually shift my perception of how I see the world. Occasionally, not all the time, and the more I can be provisional,

the more I see the world in that way. It changes the perception that things can change. It starts to recondition perception. It starts to change my attitudes, my way of seeing the world. You know, that's making me think about something. You said Moody to once this incredibly, I found it to be incredibly profound. It just came up in one of our sessions. And you were not in any way demeaning therapy. But what I heard you say was that we can do tons of therapy to get at the root of our behavior, and it can be useful.

But this, going right to the tip of the spear of rewiring how we communicate, and in some way, sort of like back program the mind and have all of these profound consequences. Am I restating what you said with some degree of accuracy? I love it. I think you're stating it more eloquently than I did. I doubt it. But I'm good with that. Coming up more tools from Moudita and Dan, including stating positive intentions, framing, and the concept of flooding versus chunking. Plus, we're going to talk about the ultimate goals of learning and applying all of these tools after this. So, we've been doing this great sort of romp through your

skills, and we're really just skimming the surface, but I think we're giving people some practical takeaways, and I recommend everybody read the book to go deeper on this. But so another skill that I think worth talking about in our remaining time here is stating your positive intention. What is that? Stating your positive intention might be one of the most important parts of what you say to someone. Although in more recent times, noticing the impact you're having seems to be right up there with stating your positive intention.

But I'm not going to talk about impact right now. Just focus on positive intention. What do you want in this message? Why are you bothering to speak? What are you looking for? Most people know what they don't want. I don't like it when you, or I don't want to, many people state their intentions in the negative. Maybe it's the negativity bias. I'm not sure what. But people seem to need a little time and practice

to figure out what is it they do want. And when you know what you don't want like I don't want to be late well then what do you want I want to be on time I want to leave earlier so I can get there on time it's not that hard to translate a negative stated intention into positive. One of the benefits of identifying and stating a positive intention is it lets the other person know where you'd like to go, particularly in a conversation. And particularly when we're in a potential conflict or we're trying to make a decision,

stating intentions negatively, don't move the conversation ahead. But a positive intention points to a direction of possibility. So even though it seems obvious or it seems simple, just identifying and stating positive intentions in a conversation can start to orient both people to a possibility in mind. It sort of provides a little bit of a roadmap in a sense

to where to go next. Yeah, I'll just provides a little bit of a road map in a sense to where to go next. Yeah, I'll just talk a little bit about how I've found it to be useful in my own life, which is that, especially in a difficult conversation, where I have something to say that could be triggering or could be hard for the other person, to state my positive intention, which is, I'm telling you this because I care about this relationship,

or I wanna have a good working relationship, or I wanna not get divorced, intention, which is, I'm telling you this because I care about this relationship or I wanna have a good working relationship or I wanna not get divorced or whatever it is. That frame, which by the way, frame is another term of art we might wanna get to before we close here, but putting that kind of top spin on the message does what I keep talking about here, which is it gets you down the road toward preventing unnecessary activation of the other person's amygdala

so that they can't hear the crucial thing you're trying to tell them. Yeah, true, very true. So I mentioned it, what is a frame? A frame is a way that you'd like to orient, say the person who is listening to the conversation overall. It's a path towards what you'd like to achieve in the conversation or how you'd like the other person to take your message or the conversation.

I think of it as a kind of heads up to the person. Kind of a listen up, this is what's coming. So, they're more prepared to hear what you have to say. And one of the benefits of thinking about what's my frame for this conversation, particularly a consequential one, is it would orient me as the person who's maybe trying to influence someone to pick up on a certain policy or a way of solving a problem, it orients me towards what way can I start this conversation so it's invitational. So it takes both of us towards a point that we'd like to get to. So that's a big advantage and unless the other

person know where I'd like to go to it or it. Too often when people don't think about it, they might say a frame, they don't even know they're framing and they might say something like, well, I'm just having a really hard time with how we're working together and start with that is their frame. Let me tell you about a problem I'm having with you. Exactly. And so, obviously, it is not the most inviting frame. Whereas, you know, I'd like to talk about our conversation, figure out how we can improve or how we can work together, just something more positive and inviting.

Implied in what you've been talking about, both of you for the last few minutes, is that we should be doing some thinking before consequential conversations about how we're going to frame it. Yes, very good point, too, which we haven't made explicit that some of these skills do take forethought. And so you can get ready for a communication. Of course, you don't know how it's going to unfold exactly, but just getting ready, thinking about your frame

and what you want to say and what your positive intention is, can improve the outcome. There's another really important skill. One, I probably should have steered us too earlier because it's foundational, but I don't want to, or at least I think it's foundational, see some big provisional there. I don't want to have gotten through this conversation and not touched on it,

which is the difference between flooding and chunking. Flooding is when you're sending a message, when you're talking, and you're talking in pages. If you were writing it would be pages, versus chunking, which is talking in the equivalent of a paragraph, much shorter. When you talk in chunks rather than flooding, you're making room for your listener to participate with you, to come in, ask questions,

contribute when you're flooding. There's not enough space between what you're saying to allow the listener to come in. In other words, when you chunk, you're leaving pauses rather than just going on and on and on. And just to point out that flooding and chunking, these are process skills that influence the content. Bringing a full circle there, Dan. I like that. Bringing it back to the distinction between process and content. Bringing a full circle there, Dan. I like that. Bringing it back to the distinction between process and content. And you know, what I love about this flooding and chunking things, but actually one of the first skills you brought up in relationship as my teacher student relationship with both of you. And it was, again, one of these seemingly obvious

things, but I realized I've been flooding my whole life. I just been, you know, saying everything I wanted to say all at once. Without applying the skills I learned as a journalist, as a storyteller, which is you have to be really strategic about how you impart information in what order and what length so that you're again, like making sure that the other person is online and with you. And I think what you're talking about is related to another principle in our work, which is what we call loop communication, which is that when you are speaking to someone, they have a response to what you're saying.

And when you chunk and you leave room for their response, it's important to hear that response because it's going to affect what you say next as someone who's also worked with flooding excessively. If I start flooding and I get oriented towards just this one way aspect of the communication and I don't pick up on how the other person wants to get into the conversation or is signaling me or wants to influence me to consider another idea then I'll lose that loop aspect of the communication. We'll get out of sync And sometimes when the listener tries to get in the person who's flooding might say don't interrupt me Let me finish not realizing that it's just going on for too long not realizing that it's just gone on for too long. Often when somebody floods,

they just kind of get going, riffing on what they're saying. And a lot of times, the most important part of what they're saying is in the middle of their long flood. And by now, the listener has tuned out. Yes. And one thing to add about this is that when you flood, it's not that someone necessarily has a malicious intent. We're talking about communication habits.

This might have just been modeled where your parents did it, or was there a style of communicating where it's to go on for pages and not chunk. inadvertently, just pick it up and use it and not even think about it until it's pointed out. We only have a few minutes left, so I'm gonna ask the two final questions I often ask. One is where, if anywhere, did I commit any journalistic malpractice and not ask you a question? I should have asked. Are there any remaining points you'd like to make that I failed to give you the opportunity to make? I would say maybe just to add that the aim of our work is to promote harmony and reduce suffering, that we see communication, effective communication as a way for people to

get along better with each other. Probably also have more fun and conversations, but also to be able to coordinate and work together in ways where they can build trust. Communication is a stress reduction tool, and when people are less stressed, they're usually more able to be compassionate with other people. So by helping people reduce their own stress, hopefully we're spreading a little bit more compassion into the world. Well, you've spread more compassion into my world. I'll say that to very least. Thanks to him. Thank you, Dan. Thank you both for all the work you've done. And just in closing here, can I get you to

just plug your new book and any other resources you've put out into the world that you want us to know about. Sure. Our new book is Let's Talk. So, Taito. An essential guide to skillful communication. And our site is Let'sTalkMethod.com. And we will most likely offer a workshop that will be through Zoom on the skills. We regularly do coaching with individuals, groups, and organizations.

To get in touch with us, you can email us at Let'sTalk method at gmail.com. You can stay in touch with us by going to our site and just signing up for our mailing list. This is a book that's based on the work we've been doing for over 30 years. And if you're interested in communication, I think it's pretty juicy and very helpful. It's got foundational information, philosophical, lots of skills, it's got application of skills. We put our heart and souls into this,

so we hope lots of people will buy it and take it to heart and improve their communications. Congratulations on the new book. Thanks for doing the work. Yeah. And thank you for doing what you're doing too and bringing so many voices. To so many listeners. To so many listeners in a time when people really could use this type of information, all the things that you discuss on 10% and bring it to the world is really valuable. Thank you. Thank you.

Yes. Thanks again to Dan Clermann and Woody Tennisker. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for being a part of my life. Really appreciate both. Go check out their book. Thank you as well to all of the amazing people who work so hard on this show.

10% happier is produced by Gabrielle Zuckerman, DJ Cashmere, Justine Davie and Lauren Smith. Our senior producer is Marissa Schneidermann, Kimmy Regler is our managing producer and our executive producer is Jen Poient, scoring and mixing by Peter Bonaventure of Ultraviolet Audio. We'll see you all on Wednesday for a brand new episode with Susan Piver, a great meditation teacher.

She's going to be the first guest to come on the show and explain what the hell the Enneagram is. I've been hearing so many people though, I really respect and trust, raving about this thing called the Enneagram. Susan's got a whole book about this thing called the Anyogram. Susan's got a whole book about the overlap between the Anyogram and Buddhism. So she's going to come on and communicate effectively

on Wednesday. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. Serve.