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Hey everyone, it's Rosie here.
Welcome to Radio Headspace and to Sunday.
So I'm actually going to be doing something pretty different today.
I'm going to be chatting with someone I've been looking forward to meeting for a very long time.
Charles Doohig. Charles is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, journalist, and all-around incredible human being.
He's worked for The New York Times, maybe you've heard of it.
And it's also the author of several super fascinating books, including The Power of Habit, Smarter Faster Better, and his latest book, Super Communicators.
There's a lot in here, but it's about the art of communication, how it works, who does it best, and most of all, how to improve it.
I think this is essential for us at work, home, and just life in general.
So yeah, Charles, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
So I've been reading your book, and I have to say that I was so fascinated by everything that you talked about in the book.
But I know that the thing that prompted you to write this was the communication or lack thereof you were having with your wife, right?
Yeah. I'm curious for you even after you've done this work and this research, what your communication is like with your partner now.
Well, it's a lot better now, right?
And so the thing that you're referring to is that one of the reasons I wrote this book is that I got into this pattern with my wife, and I'm a journalist, I'm a professional communicator theoretically, and my wife and I have been married for 20 years.
And we got into this pattern where I would come home from work and I'd start complaining about my day, and my wife Liz would like respond with this very good advice.
She would say something like, you know, why don't you take your boss out to lunch and you guys can get to know each other a little bit better.
And instead of being able to hear what she was saying, I would get even more upset.
And I would say like, why aren't you supporting me?
You're supposed to be on my side.
You should be outraged on my behalf.
Then she would get upset because I was attacking her for giving me good advice.
And this happened again and again and again.
And I'm sure this happens in your relationships, right?
This is part of relationships.
And so I went to these experts and I asked them what's going on here?
Like, why does this pattern keep emerging?
And they said, well, actually, it's good that you called us because we're living through this golden age of understanding communication.
Like we, we actually know for the first time what's actually happening inside your head as you're having this discussion.
And they said, the thing that we've learned is that we make this fundamental mistake, which is that when we're having a discussion, we tend to assume that it's about one thing, right?
We're talking about my day or we're talking about where to go on vacation or we're talking about our kids.
But actually, every discussion is made up of multiple kinds of conversations.
And those different kinds of conversations, they tend to fall into one of three buckets.
There's these practical conversations where we're solving problems or we're making plans together.
But then there's also emotional conversations where I tell you what I'm feeling.
And I don't want you to solve my feelings.
I want you to empathize.
I want you to like, like show me that you support me.
And then finally, there's social conversations, which is about how we relate to each other and relate to others and the social identities that are important to us.
And what they said is, look, if you're having different kinds of conversations at the same moment, it's really, really hard to hear each other.
It's really hard to feel connected.
And this gave rise to what's known as the matching principle in psychology, which says that at the core of successful communication is having the same kind of conversation at the same moment.
And that if we're not doing that, then it's hard to converse.
So obviously, what was happening when I was coming home with my wife is I was having an emotional conversation and she was having a practical conversation and we couldn't hear each other.
And now when I come home and I start complaining about my day, my wife will often say, look, do you want me to help you come up with a solution to this?
Or like, do you just want to complain?
And I say like, oh, look, this isn't that big a deal.
I actually just want to complain.
Like I just need to vent and get this off my chest.
And as a result, we can get aligned with each other and the conversation goes much better.
Yeah, I love that. And if I'm hearing this correctly, I'm hearing that you and your wife were able to set parameters when having these types of conversations.
You're exactly right. And actually, they teach this in schools now.
They teach teachers that when a student comes up and they're having something important that they want to talk about, the teacher should ask them as the first question, do you want to be helped?
Do you want to be hugged or do you want to be heard?
Which are the three kinds of conversations, right?
The practical, the emotional and the social.
Okay, so let me ask you a question.
So are you married? Yes.
Okay. Okay. And how long have you and your husband been married?
We're not married. We've been together for 21 years.
Okay. So I'm sure we can have a whole podcast on that.
But yes. So let me ask, how has your communication with your husband or your significant other changed over time?
Like what have you learned about communicating with each other that makes it easier?
I think that that's why super communicators resonated with me so much because I feel like a lot of those skills and the way in which you're asking certain questions and being an active listener really has helped us become more aligned.
I think the thing that I've learned is it's very important to have those guardrails in conversations because I find that men in my life tend to like to fix things.
They want to fix. And so I would notice whenever I'd come home and I'd have this problem, I'm having an issue with a friend or something's happening at work and he starts trying to be like, why don't you just do this or why don't you just tell him this or why do you keep blah blah blah?
And to me, it feels very like it's negating the emotion I'm having.
And so then I realize, right, I'm having an emotional experience.
So I just want somebody to listen.
And so I think that that's one of the things that I've learned after many years of failing.
And it sounds like you are having an emotional conversation and your partner is responding with a practical conversation.
And as a result, you're saying, look, this is not, we have different goals here.
Like, I don't want you to solve my problem.
I want you to comfort me.
I want you to listen and empathize and just understand where I'm coming from.
But I think one of the things that I was curious to know is what do we do in a situation where we're wanting to connect with somebody we're wanting to communicate.
But the other person doesn't want to.
Yeah, it's a really good question.
So okay, so let's just say at the outset, not everything can be or has to be a conversation.
And so the first thing that we can do is we can just be respectful of whether someone wants to connect or not.
Now, that being said, let's say it's someone who you really feel like you have to connect with.
Let's say it's in an uncle and you're at the dinner table and you're like, look, I just can't, I can't spend Thanksgiving dinner with this guy like, you know, staring off in a space or it's with your partner and you guys are upset with each other.
The first and most important thing we can do is we can ask them a deep question.
And a deep question is something that asks them about their values or their beliefs or their experiences, which can sound kind of intimidating, but it actually isn't.
It's very easy to do. If you meet someone, for instance, who's like a doctor.
Instead of saying, where do you practice medicine?
You can say, why'd you decide to go to a medical school?
Or what do you love about being a doctor?
Those are very easy questions to ask.
And what they do is they invite the other person to say something real and meaningful.
And they might change their mind and want to converse with you.
Does that answer your question?
Yeah. Yeah, it does. In fact, I have a little bit of a follow up.
Why does small talk bother us so much?
I know when I'm having small talk with somebody, it feels a little disingenuous, right?
Yeah. So tell me the last time you had small talk and you were like, this is boring.
I wish that we were talking about something else.
Yesterday. Okay. So what happened?
I was speaking at an event.
And you know, I'm standing around waiting for my time to go on stage and people are just kind of lulling about.
And you know, somebody came up to me and we just started to chit chat.
And I could just tell it was, you know, like, oh, how what do you do?
But nobody was paying attention to this.
It makes sense. Because it's boring, right?
Yeah. So small talk is not inherently bad.
It's bad to have a conversation that's boring, that's boring to both people.
But like, you know, oftentimes I make small talk with my wife all the time.
I'm like, what'd you do today?
Or like, go to a party and like, I like to talk about surfing because I surf.
And I'm like, what breaks do you surf?
And like, you know, what kind of board do you ride?
And to someone listening in, they might be like, this is the most boring small talk I've ever heard.
But to me, it's kind of fascinating because I care about surfing.
And I like to talk to this person.
So it's not that it's small talk we want to avoid.
It's bored them that we want to avoid.
And when we feel most bored is when it feels like we are doing something perfunctory that we don't care about and neither does the other person, right?
But on the other hand, simply by asking that question a little bit differently, you know, where do you live?
Oh, I live in this neighborhood.
Oh, yeah, what do you like about that neighborhood?
Did you move there on purpose?
Or did your spouse make you move there?
Like, that's not boring.
That is small talk. We're still talking about where we live.
But now I've asked you a deep question that asks you, get invites you to tell me who you really are.
That feels like something that's meaningful and interesting and that helps us connect.
Yeah. Do you find that that type of communication is more helpful to our mental health?
Like, oh, yeah, this will help improve our communication skills to lead to a better mental well-being?
Absolutely. I mean, we know from study after study.
Like, the thing that can create mental ill health is isolation, right?
We know this from study after study.
The US Air General has said that being lonely is equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
There are many groups who believe that solitary confinement in prison is a cruel and unusual form of punishment, not because we're abusing you, not because we're beating you or with sticks, but because isolation feels terrible.
And when we get a chance to not be isolated, when we get a chance to connect with someone, it makes us feel better in our bodies, it makes us feel better in our brains, it makes us feel better in our mental health.
In fact, one of my favorite studies, and this is in the book, comes is about the Harvard study for adult development, right?
So about 80 years ago, Harvard researchers start following around thousands and thousands of people, trying to figure out what makes them healthier at age 65, what makes them happier at age 65, what makes them more successful at age 65?
Do you know, defining success however, however they want to.
And what they find is that the only thing that reliably predicts health happiness and success at age 65 is having at least a handful of close relationships at age 45.
You could be rich, you could be the most successful lawyer on earth, you could be president of the United States, if you do not feel close to other people, then when you hit 65, your health is going to start declining.
Your happiness is non-existent.
If I ask you if you're successful, even if you're wealthy, you're going to say no, I don't feel successful at all.
Connection with other people is the single most important thing for a human being.
And the way that we connect with other people is through conversation.
It's not an accident that talk therapy is called talk therapy.
I love that so much. I'm curious how being a father has made you a better communicator.
That's a really good question.
I mean, okay, can I ask you a question?
Are you playing on having kids?
Do you think you're going to be a mom at some point?
We tried. I wasn't able to, but there are other ways of becoming a parent.
I love my nieces and nephews, and I do still see myself being a mother.
Do you feel like being an aunt has made you a different communicator?
I think so. Kids are just so, I mean, they're sponges, and they're just so different.
The my niece, she just turned eight, and she's obsessed with me.
I mean, I can totally see that.
I'm her only aunt, and she just...
And you're the cool aunt, aren't you?
You're the aunt. I'm the cool aunt, and she loves bees and shopping.
Everything. Everything.
And she's like into, she meditates, she's into crystals.
I got her little sound bath thing.
I've learned more about myself in the way that I communicate with her more than anything.
So here's what I would say.
If you were telling me about your daughter, instead of your niece, you would be saying the exact same things.
And so what's important here is not, it's not that like by becoming a parent, you get access to some like magical store of knowledge that is not available to non-parents.
It's that as we live, and as we have different kinds of relationships, those relationships teach us about different forms of communication.
And so you know how to talk to an eight-year-old, right?
You know how to connect with an eight-year-old.
In part, because you remember being eight yourself, but also in part because you're listening to her and you're engaging with her.
And if it was your own daughter who was eight years old as opposed to a niece that was eight years old, it might be slightly different.
But the lessons are not these lessons that you don't have access to.
The real question is how much do you think about communication?
And my guess is when it comes to communicating with your niece, you think about it a lot, right?
You think about like how do I tell her this thing that I learned that I want you to know, but you're kind of young for me to explain it.
And so I need to tell it to you in a way that you can absorb it and that makes sense to you.
When you think about communication, when you, which is what a good aunt does, what you're doing is tapping into that knowledge about how to communicate.
It's oftentimes the thinking about communication that's most important.
And one interesting thing about consistent super communicators because we're all super communicators at one time or another.
If you ask them, were you always good at communication, they inevitably say no.
They say something like I had trouble making friends in high school.
And so I had to study how kids talk to each other.
Or they say, you know, my parents got divorced and I had to be the peacemaker between them.
It's the act of thinking about communication that makes us a super communicator.
And you don't have to think that deep.
You don't have to think that hard.
You just have to think a little bit more.
If you could give one takeaway from super communicators, particularly in the context of mental health, what is the one thing that you would hope that they take away from this book?
The thing I would most hope, build that relationship that's that's faltering.
Your college roommate that you haven't talked to in 10 years, your aunt that you haven't that you haven't really hung out with, just send them an email and say, hey, look, I'd love to catch up.
Can we set aside, you know, 20 minutes to talk on the phone next week?
When you do that, you are going to not only feel better after that conversation.
You are going to feel better in general.
Because when we take those relationships that are atrophying and we invest in them and we lean into them, what we're really doing is we're taking care of ourselves.
Charles, thank you so much for coming onto the show.
Thank you for having me.
This has been such a joy for me.
I really appreciate it.
All right friends, thanks for listening.
We'll be back tomorrow with the normal radio headspace episodes.
And remember, you can find me at Rosia Costa on Instagram.
Let me know if there's anyone else you'd like me to talk to.
I'll see you back here soon.
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