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You're listening to life kit from NPR Hey everybody it's Marielle I have certain friends who I always feel better after talking to.
They bring this combination of warmth and support and a lack of judgment.
I always feel like they're listening, actually tuned in, and interested.
For you, that person is a super communicator, and you're probably a super communicator back to them.
Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize -winning reporter, and his book, Super Communicators, is a guide to how to connect through conversation.
He says there are some people who do this consistently, And he's been watching them.
And what we've learned is that it's not an inborn trait.
It's not a, it's not that introverts can do it better than extroverts or vice -versa.
Rather, there are some people who have just paid a little bit more attention to how they communicate with other people and how others communicate with them.
And he says these people, these supercommunicators, tend to build and maintain genuine connections, which can lead to happier, fuller lives.
It starts with authentic conversation.
Listen to their own instincts and saying the goal of this discussion ought to be not to impress you, not to make you think I'm smart, not to convince you that I'm right.
The goal of this conversation should be to understand you.
And if you know that I want to understand you, you're going to want to understand me.
And that is actually the most magical thing we can happen.
On this episode of LifeKit, which first ran in February 2024, for how to be a super -communicator.
Reporter Andy Tagill talks to Charles about connection, conversation, and the power of asking good questions.
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President Trump is back in Washington, pursuing major policy changes on his own terms.
We know from the past that means challenging precedent, busting norms and pushing against the status quo.
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Charles, let's talk a little bit about the power of connection.
I think everyone would agree that it's nice to have a nice conversation but that's different than real meaningful connection, right?
I'm really fascinated by the physiological effects that connecting can have on people.
Can you talk to us about that a little bit?
Yeah, absolutely. So when we, when we really connect with someone in conversation when we are sort of on what you might refer to as the same wavelength, what's interesting is it's reflected in our bodies and our brains.
Right now we're having a conversation even though we're separated by hundreds of miles and yet if we could measure this what we would see is that your eye pupils and my eye pupils are starting to dilate at the same rate, our breath patterns are starting to match each other, our heart rates are starting
to match each other and even more importantly, if we could see inside our brains what we would see is that my brain waves are starting to look like your brain waves, and vice versa.
Within psychology and neurology, this is known as neural entrainment, and it's at the core of how we communicate with each other.
And what it tells us is that communication is connection.
When you and I are really communicating with each other, our bodies and our brains become connected in a way that allows us to understand and hear each other much more clearly.
So takeaway one, communication is connection.
We tend to think that the goal of a conversation is to make a point, or say your opinion.
Charles says, that's not a good way to judge the success of an interaction.
Instead, in order to really connect, aim to have what he calls a learning conversation.
A conversation is successful if I understand you and you understand me.
And what's really nice about that is that if you go in with this attitude of wanting to have a learning conversation where my goal is simply to learn how you see the world and And to share with you how I see the world so you can learn my perspectives.
Then it takes away all this pressure.
I don't have to convince you to vote for my guy.
I don't have to convince you to support my issue.
I don't have to convince you to support my team.
Instead, what I want to do is I want to understand how you see the world.
And there's tactics that help us do that.
One of my favorite ways of doing this, particularly if you're having a conversation amid conflict, is something known as looping for understanding.
And what it is. It has three steps.
You should ask someone a question and some questions are more powerful than others You should listen to what they say and then step number two.
You should repeat back in your own words What they just told you and then step number three and this is the one we usually forget is You should ask them if you got it, right?
The reason this is so powerful is because particularly when we're in conflict The other person doesn't know if we're listening or if we're just waiting our turn to speak but if it's a learning conversation, a conversation where I really want to understand you, if I start proving to you that I'm listening,
proving that I want to understand, and then asking you to make sure that I'm getting this right, that I genuinely do understand, both of us are going to trust each other more even if we completely disagree with each other.
So let me make sure that I have that right.
That was looping for understanding, but we're actively showing people that we're listening to them by, you know, paying attention by asking follow up questions and making follow up questions and making sure that we have that information correct, is that correct?
That's exactly it, so yeah.
How do we do. So ask a question, you did a good job, you did a good job, ask the question and then repeat back what you heard them say in your own words as you just did and then ask if you got it right.
So you are super communicator, you do this really well.
We're doing okay, thanks so much Charles, we're hanging in there, we're hanging in there, that's wonderful.
Let's move on to the matching principle I know is a big part of super communicating.
Matching isn't as simple as mimicking someone's body language, right?
Yeah, absolutely. So, one of the best examples is how I came to this book because I felt like I was having some communication problems in my life.
One in particular pattern that I found was happening again and again is I would come home after a tough day at work, and I would start complaining to my wife and I would say, you know, my boss is a jerk and my coworkers don't appreciate me.
And she very reasonably would say, why don't you take your boss out for lunch and get to know each other a little bit better?
She would try and solve my problem.
And instead of listening to her, what I would do is I would get even more upset.
I would say, you know, I want you to be outraged on my behalf.
I want you to support me.
And she would get upset because I was acting irrational.
She was giving me good advice.
And so when I went to research and I asked them about this, what they said is, like, well, here's the problem.
People tend to think of a discussion as being about one thing.
It's about my day, or it's about Jimmy's grades, or where to go on vacation.
But, actually, every discussion is made of multiple different kinds of conversations.
And in particular, those conversations tend to fall into one of three buckets.
There's practical conversations where we're solving problems or we're making plans.
There's emotional discussions where I might share how I'm feeling, and I don't want you to solve my problem.
I want you to listen and empathize.
And then there's social conversations conversations, where we're talking about how we see each other in the context of society and other people see us.
And they said, look, when you were coming home, you were having an emotional conversation, you wanted to talk about how you feel.
And your wife responded with a practical conversation.
And both of those conversations are totally valid.
But because you are having different conversations at the same moment, you couldn't really hear each other.
And so the answer is what you mentioned, the matching principle.
that once we figure out what kind of conversation is occurring that if I match you, or I invite you to match me, that's where we really are able to hear each other.
Understand what kind of conversation you're having with someone.
It's practical, emotional, social.
Once you understand their goals, it'll be easier to really connect.
Here's how to decipher one from the other.
You say in the book that we all send clues as we speak to other people about what conversation we want to have.
Can you give us some tools to be better conversation sleuths?
What should we look out for in ourselves in other people to determine where a conversation is headed?
There's one tactic in particular that's really helpful in figuring out what kind of a conversation is happening.
What does this other person want to need?
And what do I want out of this discussion?
There's certain kinds of questions that are special.
These are known as deep questions.
To figure out what everyone wants from a conversation, you should ask deep questions.
And a deep question is something that asks about people's values or beliefs or experiences.
And that can sound kind of scary, right?
That sounds pretty intimate, but it's actually pretty easy to do.
If you meet someone who's new.
And you ask them, what do you do for a living?
And they say I'm a lawyer.
You can ask, oh. What made you decide to become a lawyer?
Did you always want to be a lawyer?
Do you love your job?
Those three questions, they're asking that person to talk about their values and their beliefs, the experiences that led them to law school, whether they enjoy going to work each day, what they enjoy about it, they're easy questions to ask but when we respond to them we describe so much about ourselves
and by listening closely to that we can figure out where this person is coming from, the difference between someone who says oh I decided to become a lawyer because, you know, I grew up a little bit poor, and I I always wanted to have a steady job.
I wanted to be able to provide for my family.
That person is in a practical frame of mind.
They're having a practical conversation.
But someone else who says, I decided to become a lawyer, because I saw my dad get arrested, and I wanted to fight for the underdog.
That person is in a more emotional, or maybe even social, state of mind.
We should have a different kind of conversation with them.
It's easy to ask deep questions, easier than we think it it is, but more importantly, we learn what this other person is seeking out of this conversation and we get to share with them what we want as well.
It sounds like what you're talking about is the idea of emotional reciprocity, right?
Yes, absolutely. So, if someone says, you know, if someone shares something with us that's a little bit vulnerable, we should acknowledge that we've heard that.
If they say, well, I had to go to a funeral.
So, at that moment, what we should do is rather than skip avoided at all costs, right now is lean in a little bit and say, Oh, I'm so sorry.
Like, tell me about the person.
Wait, what did they mean to you?
And then we can share about ourselves and we can say, you know, my father, and this is actually true.
My father passed away six years ago.
And and one of the things that's been really fascinating to me is how much my relationship with him has continued after his Now we're we're you know forty -five seconds a minute into a conversation and we're talking about something real.
Something where we can get to know each other and understand each other a little bit better.
And that emotional reciprocity is at the core of how we learn to trust and like each other.
Take away three, ask deep questions.
That means going beyond your go -too -small talk.
But you don't have to do that on the fly.
on Friday. Charles recommends preparing for conversations.
There was a study that was done at Harvard Business School where they asked students before they had a conversation with a stranger, they asked all the students to write down three topics that they thought they could discuss.
This took like ten seconds, right ?ck People would write down, like you know, this weekend's game and what TV shows I watch, just little dumb throughaky things.
And then they went and they had conversations with strangers and everyone would would put the card away.
Many of them would put it in their back pocket and the topics they had jotted down often never came up but the fact that they were there almost overwhelmingly made all of the participants feel less anxious about those discussions, and as a result those discussions went much much better.
Oftentimes when we're thinking about talking to someone, when we're thinking about a conversation, particularly a hard conversation, write a serious one, we can get really anxious about it because we don't know how it's gonna go.
And if we just sit down and we just think a little bit, you know, I'm calling out my friend Greg and I really want to find out, like, if he has any plans for this summer and I hope that it's just an easy light conversation.
That takes four seconds for me to decide before I start dialing, but studies show it'll make the conversation go better, because I'm prepared, I'm prepared for for what arises, but I also know what I want and and I'm prepared to listen to what he wants.
Such a simple thing.
Rises, but I also know what I want and I'm prepared to listen to what he wants.
Such a simple thing.
If you're nervous or just having a couple of topics in your back pocket can make it easier.
It makes all the difference in the world.
I've been thinking about this a lot with conversations with my kids.
So I have a 12 year old and a 15 year old.
They come home from school and like I go into auto mode sometimes where I'm like, hey, hey, how was school today?
Without even thinking about it, I start asking all these undeep questions and so now what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to, before my kids get home, I try and think up what's the question that I can ask my son that he actually wants to answer and sometimes that 25 question is things like, you know,
who do you think is the Apropos of nothing, but he loves to answer.
And sometimes it's like hey you know I, you mentioned that you went skateboarding with your friends after school and I'm just wondering Jasper, he seems like a really good friend of yours.
What is it about Jasper you like so much, like what do you admire about Jasper?
When I think and try and come up with these slightly deeper questions it's as if I've unlocked something in my kids.
And suddenly they start telling me about why they like some of their friends and drama with other friends.
Then we have real conversations.
Then I can tell them about when I was a kid, which they're hopefully fascinated by and sometimes bored by.
But it just takes like 10 seconds to come up with the real question as opposed to the the rote question, which is how was school, do you have homework.
So I try and do that more.
Just to take a little bit of time, I love that.
What about for people who don't, for which that creative question isn't readily available, You know, like if were for the stranger for someone you don't totally know I mean you can do a little bit of your research But if you're not quite sure what's going to open them up what advice there So there's
a guy named Nick Nicholas Eppley who's a professor at the University of Chicago who studied this exact question his whole career And what he's found is that?
Almost any question that asks why?
Helps people open up hmm.
So as I mentioned, you know, what do you do for a living?
I'm a lawyer Oh, yeah, why'd you decide to become a lawyer?
you know, what did you have for lunch today?
I had grilled cheese, oh yeah, why did you decide to have grilled cheese?
When we ask, why? What we're doing is we're inviting the other person to explain who they are.
And and it can, when I'm describing it this way, it consists that within three questions ,between strangers, between close friends, between people of nothing in common, within three questions, you can get to something real if you ask, why.
And it's always easy to ask, why?
People love to be asked why because they love to they love to talk about how they see the world.
Charles could we practice because, of course, there are three questions...
okay Charles what did you do this weekend?
You know I was in Los Angeles and I flew back on Saturday.
Why were you in LA?
Oh so I was out there I was actually promoting my book I was going on podcasts I was talking to folks and kind of it was kind of amazing because I used to live in LA and a chance to go out there and be back there.
It's changed so much, but it sort of felt like home in a strange way.
Well, lovely. What do you love about LA?
The thing I love about LA is it's like 20 different cities in one.
And so many parts of the cities are so different from each other.
There's Koreatown, and there's Chinatown, and there's downtown.
There's all these different parts of LA.
and as you move through them, you get to experience those cultures in a way that, even in a place like New York, it's hard to do.
It's just, it's a really dynamic city, and you pick up so much energy just from being on the streets and talking to people.
Totally agree, totally agree.
I'm actually, I'm from L .A..
Oh are you? Yeah I am, I'm from L .A., I grew up in the San Fernando Valley and then I went to UCLA and I hung out in Westwood for a little while and every place I've lived in L .A.
has felt like a substantially different place than the L .A.
that I was at previously.
Fun, right? It's like you get to go around the world by driving, you know, three miles.
It's amazing. I mean, when the three miles takes 45 minutes, I feel a little bit less enthused at times.
That's true. Well, and what I love about what you just did is that you looped me.
You, you, rather than, rather than meeting, waiting for me to ask you, where did you grow up?
You built on what I was saying to say, Oh, I actually no, Elley.
I grew up in LA, I can share with you things about LA.
We can share this together.
And that may means a I know that you were listening to me.
But B, it means that in addition to sharing who I am, I get to learn something about you, which is that you also like that energy and you love you liked being in Los Angeles, but that much like me, and probably most people the traffic is not ideal.
But you probably value your time more than more than more than just the traffic is not ideal.
on, right? That you probably value your time more than, um, more than just being in a place that's exciting.
And so it all took us three questions, but I feel like we know each other.
I agree. I feel like we did okay, Charles, thank you.
I was nervous about that.
Thank you. Thank you for the positive feedback.
See how easy that was just listening and responding as yourself can help you really connect.
So takeaway four, be authentic.
One of the things, that we know about super communicators is that they have a couple of characteristics, people who are consistently super communicators.
They They tend to ask ten to twenty times as many questions as everyone else, but the questions are kind of throw away questions.
A lot of them are like, you know, what do you think about that?
What happened next so that we don't even hardly register them as questions.
They tend to laugh more because they want to show us that they want to connect, but most importantly they are authentic.
So So if you say something that indicates that you're struggling with something, they authentically listen to you and they might share something about themselves or they might ask you a question about that, but they don't try and force something that's false.
They don't try and imply that they're curious, but the reason that they're asking what happened is because they really want to talk about what happened to them.
And so the more that we can be authentic with each other, the more that we can listen to what we're feeling and thinking the more paradoxically we get better at listening and in speaking in ways that other people want to listen to us.
Okay super communicators let's recap...
Takeaway one communication is about connection and a learning conversation is a great way to get on the same wavelength with someone.
Take away two, understand what kind of conversation you're having with someone.
Practical, emotional, social?
Then match accordingly.
Takeaway three, ask lots of questions.
Remember, super communicators tend to ask 10 to 20 more questions than everyone else, and deep questions will build connection quickly.
If nothing comes to mind right away, start with why.
Takeaway four, be authentic.
You don't have to be an extrovert, or comedian to really connect with people.
Just lead with your curiosity and don't be scared to be vulnerable.
Remember, being a super communicator isn't just for the elite few.
The book is because it's just a set of skills that anyone could learn.
And when we learn them, and when we use them, we begin connecting with other people in this profound way that makes our life so much more meaningful and ultimately makes us healthier and happier and more successful.
That was life kit reporter Andy Taggle talking to Charles Duhigg, author of the book super communicators.
For more life kit, check out our other episodes, we've got one on how to give a toast and another on how to stop being a people pleaser.
You can find those at NPR dot org slash life kit and if you love life kit and you want even more, subscribe to our newsletter.
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This episode of Life Kit was reported and produced by Andy Thigal.
Our Visuals Editor is Bec Carlin and our Digital Editor is Malika Grieb.
Megan Kane is our Supervising Editor and Beth Donovan is our Executive Producer.
Our production team also includes Claire Marie Schneider, Margaret Cerrino and Sylvie Douglas.
Engineering support from Kwesi Lee.
I'm Mariel Sendara.
Thanks for listening.
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