Charles Duhigg (on being a supercommunicator)

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts. on Expert. I'm Dax Shepard, I'm joined by Monica Padman. Today we have Charles Duhigg. Oh my gosh, was this fun.

We do.

Charles was so nice about our communication, for the most part. He was.

He had some questions for us, which was nice.

It is nice.

But it was also really informative. I think it's a very good listen for anyone in the world right now. Yeah.

Anyone who considers themselves living on planet Earth.

Yes.

I hope Charles feels like this is a feather in his cap. He's our 700th guest. Also, yesterday was six-year anniversary. Happy anniversary.

Happy anniversary to you.

I don't think, because we didn't have an episode that came out on the day. We didn't really have a moment where we said thanks.

We talked about it for a second on Valentine's Day, Armchair Anonymous.

Right, which will be tomorrow.

So please listen to that. Which will be tomorrow, yeah. But yeah, happy anniversary.

Happy anniversary.

Six years, 700 episodes.

20% of your life. I mean, not quite 20%, but almost.

In the Armchair Anonymous episode, you also give a stat.

Yeah, I had a-.

I think you said one-sixth of my life.

It is, it is. It's really one-sixth. So I cannibalized that. It'll be less important if you hear it tomorrow. That's the whole thing.

He's an armchair expert.

He's an armchair expert.

How are you?

Great to meet you. Welcome to the attic.

Absolutely, thanks for having me.

Yes, happy to have you.

Really appreciate it. And you guys are friends with Adam Grant.

Yes. He's a great guy. Oh, we love Adam.

He's in the Good Guys.

I've listened to the show for years. I did not actually realize that you guys genuinely were in armchairs.

Oh, we gotta be comfy. Well, I wasn't for a while. I was in that yellow chair.

That's evolved, that's evolved.

But then he got too sweaty in this chair. So he bought this grandma chair.

Specifically my back.

Your back got too sweaty.

Do you deal with any back sweat, Charles?

Oh my God, all the time. And sometimes I'll get up, I look fine in the front, and then there's like a streak of moisture along the back of my shirt.

Well, compound this with imagine you stand up, you make that realization, fuck, I'm wet back there. And now I've got to step outside and take pictures with Adam Grant. And he's gonna put his arm around me, and it's gonna be disgusting. Actually worse, like an actress that's probably attractive. Yeah.

It's fine, you need to be humbled.

Well.

So this is the world.

That's your theory. I think I'm very humble.

This is life telling you how to be humble? Yeah.

I think I'm the most humble person in the world.

I know, yeah.

You know, you master humility, like a motherfucker.

Black belt in humility. Where are you from? No, I know there's New Mexico, but where specifically?

Yeah, New Mexico originally. I'm impressed.

There's not a lot to work with in your Wikipedia. I just gotta complain publicly.

It's true, at some point I need to go in.

and actually put some stuff. Like I don't know what your parents do. I don't know what time in New Mexico.

Well, good, we'll get a lot of new info.

Now I live in Santa Cruz.

Okay, wonderful. Yeah. Do you love it there?

So we moved there three years ago from Brooklyn. My wife is a marine biologist. I had made her move to New York. Not great for marine biology. She had done her grad work up in Monterey.

Okay, great.

So yeah, Santa Cruz, have you spent time up there?

I bought a half pound of mushrooms there when I was 24..

Only a half?

But let me tell you, a half pound of mushrooms is two full gallon size Ziploc bags.

Wow. Yes. How long did that last?

My best friend, Aaron, and I kept, I guess it would have been a quarter pound for our own consumption. And then we sold the other quarter pound in Michigan. It was impossible then to get. Santa Cruz, you trip over mushrooms.

Literally a half pound. They're like, that's your hors d'oeuvre, but what is yours?

Also, it was like 10X as cheap in Santa Cruz. And then we did imbibe there and walked around the Redwoods. It was awesome. So that's my singular Santa Cruz experience.

And do you surf?

I don't.

Okay, do you? I do, yeah. Yeah, me and my wife. I mean, we only picked it up 10 years ago. So, like, I'm a late in life coming to surfing.

Did you start in the wake of that documentary, Happiness, where it said it was like probably the most endorphin-inducing activity? Oh, really? Yeah, it's supposed to be like that. Because it's combining physical activity with also your nature. There's a lot of things happening.

I'm a terrible surfer, but as someone who, I mean, I know that you're athletic.

I just lift weights. Don't get ahead of yourself. She's a state champion. You snowboard.

I am humble, so I won't say it. Yeah.

I've never been particularly athletic or good at it. And on a surfboard, I feel graceful for the first time in my life. It feels like you're embodying poetry. Yeah. I think snowboarding is kind of the same, right?

That's my haunch.

You have to work with the-.

Yeah, you ride it. It's not-.

You can't control it. You have to like dance with it.

Yeah, it's a wave form. It's not a photon.

You're giving in to gravity.

Did your wife see Free Willy and then want to go into marine biology? Like what was her inciting incident that sent her into that? It had to be something in media, right?

So she grew up in Saudi Arabia. She's a third generation, born in the Middle East, of Western parents. Oh, wow. And so her dad would take her spearfishing in the Red Sea and all these places.

Maldives is close to there-ish.

Definitely compared to us. And she just fell in love with, like the underwater world. And the funny thing is, so marine biologist is not actually a job. She's a professor of marine genetics at the university. But what's really interesting is that whenever I describe her as a marine biologist, because I'm proud of her, the number of people who are like, oh, I almost became a marine biologist.

No, I was gonna say this. This is something every five-year-old thinks they wanna be.

I would, parallel with the dolphin, tattoo on females' backs. Like there's something- Like everyone had a face. It's like, I want a tattoo. I want a dolphin. Yeah.

It's so original, right? I don't know where it came to me. I was just sitting there and I was like, on the small of my back. Yes. Or my ankle.

I think it would look cool.

I don't know where I got this idea, but maybe a dolphin? And then dudes are like, give me something tribal. Yeah. I wanna look like I'm from the islands.

That's exactly.

You can say that,

because you did it. Because if there's someone who says tribal, it's this pudgy white guy. You know, with the gray in his beard.

You and I both scream indigenous.

So I actually lived like a mile from here. You did? I used to go to Byrds all the time. Oh, sure. This was like 20 years ago.

Did you like it here?

I loved living in LA. I loved writing for the LA Times. I mean, I love New York too. New York is an amazing city, but LA has this hidden energy. It's like a thousand cities, right?

It is.

And so you can dip into all of them.

Polycentric multinodal. That's from an LA geography class. Wow, that's pretty good. That's pretty good.

You pulled that out like nobody's business.

Thank you. It was, as it was coming out, I wasn't sure about it, but back to the humility. I have to say I'm confident. Monica's like, oh gosh.

I'm gonna edit it out.

I do want to shoot you, as you should. We're gonna go back to New Mexico because we're at LA Times. One thing I was immediately curious about is you wrote there, of course, but then you also wrote the New York Times for quite a stretch, like 14 years or something?

Yeah, 14 years.

So how did the two cultures differ?

And I'll say the LA Times when I was there, is a very different newspaper than it is today, right? Because there's been all these ownership issues. It was before it was bought by a chain. So it was still owned by folks who felt very local about LA. When I got the job at the New York Times and I was at the LA Times, I called up a guy who had made that same transition and I asked him and I was like, what's the difference?

Ah-ha.

Ah-ha.

They want attention.

Yeah.

What a funny.

And at the New York Times, you will definitely not be the ugliest person in the room. Right. And no one will want to talk to you ever.

Yeah.

Of zero interest because they're off making gajillions of dollars or whatever.

Yeah. That's good summation of New York and LA. Yeah. Which is like, you could try to get someone's attention on the street in New York. It's not happening.

Whereas in LA, they'll stop and talk to you. And then they'll be like, you know, if you just lost 10 pounds, you would look a lot better.

People want to talk to you because you could be the one to give them their big break. That's true. Or, like you, never know what you might be able to get from someone. Yeah.

To be honest, Charles, it does also look like you could have created a TV show. Exactly. You very much look like a writer.

Showcomer.

Yeah, linen shirt and a beard.

I think what you're saying is I have a face for radio. No. It's like a face for writing. You look like you belong in a writing room. No.

You're very handsome and rugged looking, but you look like a writer. This could be Mike Schur.

So that adds up.

But I mean a TV writer.

Yeah, but it's just one in the same.

That's true. Was there varying levels of pride about the institution itself? Because for me, New York Times feels like as much as we have of a megalith in this country of literary tradition. Of course, you're at the only one. that's crazier than at the New Yorker now, but how did that vary?

I mean, there's this thing that happens when you go to the New York Times, which is that, first of all, people who wouldn't return your call before suddenly not only will return your call, they will call you with a story. So I would lose out to stories all the time. And they were like, it's the New York Times advantage. They literally called them and just handed it to them. So once I was on the other side of that, that was great.

With great power comes great response. And the LA Times, you're like, I don't know, maybe we'll read this edition or not. We're not sure. Some of these things work.

Did I get it next to the cooking thing? So maybe people will see it.

Where do you think LA Times ranks in cachet in the national newspapers?

I mean, the problem is, the newspaper industry has basically died. There was something like 2,000 local newspapers shut down in the last four years. It is crazy. If you wanna go commit graft or be corrupt in a city, now's the time, man. Nobody's watching.

Boston.

The Globe, yeah. And magazines, there's obviously the New Yorker, the Atlantic. I still read Wired. And I actually have this question for you guys, because you guys are at the white heart center of the new culture. Do you think people wanna read books anymore?

I do, it's my resolution.

But the fact that you made a resolution means you're not doing it on your own.

I'm not.

I kind of have two answers for that. Also, are we gonna incorporate listening to them?

I think so.

Yeah, consuming books, I think, should be the measure.

Yes, I agree.

But I'll give you a great example. So we have Matthew McConaughey in recently. And his memoir, I believe, is the most successful memoir in the last 20 years. And it has sold three million copies. Then we had our friend Jedediah Jenkins, whose father wrote these series of books about walking across America in the 70s, from which that part of Forrest Gump was based.

I think people still wanna learn and take in information, but reading has gone by the wayside in the way to do it. People get quick information from TikTok and social media, and they'll read the headline of the New York Times and skim, but sitting with a book feels so daunting in this current attention era.

And I think that actually, one of the things, I have this hypothesis, I don't know if this is true, is that people just need a certain number of stories in their lives, and books used to provide stories, right? You read Malcolm Gladwell, you read a Big Idea book, and it had all these stories in it, and that's what I try and do with my books. But I think that that itch for story is increasingly being filled by podcasts. Yeah. Right, because podcasts have great stories, or that itch for hanging out with people you like, because I can listen to you guys while I'm driving down the road, and it just feels like I'm with friends.

You get hopefully both things.

And you're delivering actual ideas to me. And TV is so much better now than it was 20 years ago, right?

A thousand percent. It's better than movies.

There's so many stories, yeah. And so as a result, I think that people are getting their story fix in other places.

The only upside of all this, I would say, is that I do think reading now, because we do this other thing so much, in the 80s, when you read a book, it was like, yeah, this is boring too, and I'm calm.

Yeah.

It wasn't relative to anything else, whereas now I think, when you read a book, at least for myself, it's taken on this other property, which is almost meditative. It puts me into a space in my brain that I'm not in as much as I used to be, with less stimulation. It's like therapeutic more than ever.

Okay, so let me ask you another question. Sorry, I'm asking you.

You're the interviewer. This is so fun. No, I love this, yeah. I regret doing any research.

Since the book I wrote is about communication, I was actually really looking forward to coming on, because you guys do long shows. You're always present throughout the entire show. I never get the sense that you're thinking in your head, like, I gotta ask this question. I gotta push it this way. Have you become super communicators through the show, or were you a super communicator before the show?

I'll let Monica answer first.

I'll answer for you.

Well, no. Yeah, a little bit. I'm gonna answer for you.

Well, I think you've been an incredible communicator before we started this. I think we've both gotten a lot better, but I think you have that innate ability.

I would say that's definitely a strength of mine, and I was disheartened to see that. one of the original questions you propose in the book is to say, when you've had a problem, think of who you've called recently. Were they the funniest? Were they the most entertaining? You basically listen to what I would think is like my other qualities.

So you're probably an exception to the paradigm. Okay, okay.

But it's a great point.

Most people, when we have a problem, we don't call someone who's like a movie star.

You don't even call the smartest person.

No, you call that person who's a super communicator. I'm gonna try an idea, and you tell me if I'm getting that right. Even though you are smart and funny, probably the reason those people call you is because they feel like you're really listening to them. You hear what they're saying, and you're trying to see things through their perspective. Do you think that's right?

I do. This feels so self-indulgent, but let's do it, because we're fucking here,

and I'm gonna answer your question.

I have a few explanations. A, I've been for 20 years. I sit and listen to men share. That clearly has done something. My dad was a good communicator.

But that's actually what a super communicator does, because in addition to listening closely, they're paying attention to what the other person is transmitting, beyond just the words that are coming out of my mouth. And we can talk a little bit more about this later, but there's these three kinds of conversations that most of us fall into. And the thing is that it's sometimes hard to figure out which kind of a conversation we're in, but people who just train themselves, by the way, anyone can be a super communicator. It's just a set of skills that you learn.

Right, there's no biological disposition for this.

No, not at all, or even a certain personality. But I think what you just said, that you're watching me like a hawk, without making me feel like I'm being interrogated or watched like a hawk. That's really important, because if you say something and I'm like, you're gonna pick up.

Yeah, I'm not gonna miss anything.

Yeah, and so, as a result, not only can you match me, if I just sent you a little micro message, like I'm kind of uncomfortable, you can invite that into the room.

Charles, the funnest moments we've had on the entire show in six years, or at least from my perspective, have been those little things where I just saw someone's eyes move a tiny bit and then they moved on for a second. And then I said, hold on, let's go back. Something just happened, and I would love to get into that. And it's generally, too, it's another hypervigilant person. Interesting.

I guess if your first name's Machine Gun, they probably could like...

It's probably... Yeah, it's like on brand, you know? Yes, yes, yes. But all this is so fascinating, and you've already introduced the three different kinds of conversations you could find yourself in.

If your first name's Machine Gun.

You gotta wonder, what are his parents thinking?

I think we should first lay out what the incentive would be for someone to even explore this. Why would someone take the time to even evaluate their communication and or try to better it?

I mean, what's interesting is you mentioning that you pick up on that little eye twitch, right? That you're looking for that. That's actually why your friends call you. when they're feeling bad, is because you help them understand themselves. When you think about humans, communication is our superpower.

Pass on knowledge, pass on culture.

Communication is at the core. And, by the way, our brain has evolved to be really good at communication. That's why we all have the potential to be super communicators, because we all have the circuitry there. We all have the instincts. We just have to understand how to let them out.

And I think people would overlook how much communication is a part of their job.

Oh, absolutely.

I think there are people that would be like, well, no, I install mufflers at Midas. Communication's really not all that essential to this.

Until your boss comes over and is like, hey, can you go work on this car instead of that car? And you're like, whatever, jerk. Right.

And you get fired. To say it's everything is not an exaggeration.

Well, relationships are everything between humans. That's exactly right. And that's the only way to succeed in a relationship is have good communication.

So you mentioned AA. I wrote this book called The Power of Habit,

and there's a whole chapter. Very successful book, let's say. Yeah, yeah, it's great. It's on all the bestseller lists.

It's great. 2012? Yeah, a decade ago. And there's a chapter on AA. How does AA work?

Yeah, what was your conclusion about the proprietary thing that's happening? When I try to explain the magic of AA, it's not just that you're listening. You're almost listening as an outside observer, in that your own self defenses are not enacted, because the share is not directed at you personally. So it's this bizarre privileged position to listen to someone's most intimate thing, but you're not on the hook for anything. You will not be asked to engage.

That's really insightful. I had not thought of that until just now.

Okay, should we do an addendum to the book?

Yes, absolutely. We got a new chapter for the book. So I think one of the things that's happening there is that what super communicators can do really well is they can disappear into the conversation. So they're not thinking about what they're gonna say next. They're not thinking about how they present themselves.

Neural simultaneity?

Yeah, neural simultaneity, yeah. Tough word. Yeah, it's a tough word. It's a tough word. Tough one to spell.

Because it's supposed to be I before E, except for after C, but it's not.

That's where the spell check comes up. If we could measure this, what we would see in this conversation, because I think we're connected, our pupils are dilating at the same rate. Oh, wow. Our breath patterns, without us noticing it, are matching each other. In our brain, if we could do brain scans, the three of us, we'd see that our brains start looking similar.

But is that why, like, cults, happen?

Like all tools, communication is a tool, right? You can use an ax to build a house or to go chop off someone's head.

Get Lizzie Borden's mom in the car.

I mean, these are super communicators, cult leaders, and, like, Trump.

Oh, my God, who are you gonna whisper?

He doesn't like to go political, but hello.

We had a president. Somebody say any president is a super communicator.

Well, one specifically got a lot of people's brains to move in a direction.

Yes. We have a lot of defenses for interpersonal communication against this manipulation. Basically, we can detect inauthenticity really, really well.

That's why it's hard to be a great actor.

Oh, that's interesting.

There's any number of millions that have tried it, but it's not memorizing the words. We are the best lie detectors on planet Earth. We can see bullshit.

Yeah, to your point, is this something that creates cults? Yes, but it's also the thing that allows us to develop relationships with other people. I am married to my wife because of conversations we have had, and I can tell you the top 10, and none of them were easy, and they were all conversations where I learned something about myself based on what I said and based on what she said. Those are the most-.

You sound like a dream husband.

He knows the top 10 conversations. He's a great listener and knows how to communicate.

Let me just say, so this book was born in part by fights I had with my wife, where I was like the asshole.

But great to admit that. They give you to admit it.

Now, now, now I've admitted it. I called her yesterday and I was like, I'm gonna describe this one fight we had, and she was like, we weren't fighting for the reason you thought we were fighting. Oh, that's great. We were fighting because you were being a jerk.

Is that in your book? You got a chapter on just being a straight up asshole, without any neurology? Back to the thing you were just saying, though, how we'll match each other. You give a great example in the book when they do fMRIs of musicians that are playing by themselves, and they have completely unique and fingerprint-y type brain activity, and then, when they start doing a duet, now all of a sudden-.

Oh, that's so cool.

They look exactly the same. There's another study where they basically had this woman tell a story about her prom night, and it was this long, complicated story that went on for like 20 minutes, and they had people listening to it. They could tell who understood the story best, by how closely their brain matched the speaker's brain. No, that's so interesting. Without even listening, right?

Yeah, well, you say, when you get to this neural, what's the word we want to say?

Entrainment.

Yeah, but the word we hated.

Oh, synchronicity.

No.

Neurosynchronicity. Simultane- Neurosimilarity. Something.

No, you're forcing me to look at the piece of paper. We just said it's hard to spell.

Simultaneity or whatever.

Neural simultaneity.

Simultaneity. When you reach that neural simultaneity, you listen better, but you also speak clearer.

That's exactly right. You know how to say something, so someone is gonna listen to you. For the same reason that when you're picking up on stuff about me or Machine Gun Kelly or whoever it is, and you ask me a question, the way you ask me, that question is tied into what I'm thinking and feeling, right? If you were just like, Machine Gun, it looked like your eyes went off to the side. Tell me what's going on there.

Are you stoned? Yeah, right, exactly. Wait, I know you're stoned. Is anything else happening?

But you probably asked that question in a way that made it feel really safe for him to answer it, and that's really important.

We should earmark that, because I think that's another element of what happens in here. that happens in AA, which is, people are also inclined to match other people's vulnerability. There's some weird ethical... We have it. It's one of the most beautiful parts of ourselves.

What I love about that is that in the psychological literature, that's actually referred to as emotional or vulnerability reciprocation, and it's exactly what you just said. So there is this thing that's hardwired in our head by evolution. Vulnerability is the loudest thing that someone can do. If someone is saying something vulnerable, we cannot help but listen to them, even if we want to ignore them. In politics, this is why it happens, right?

And it's an open door. It's like, oh, this is the chance. Most people want to be vulnerable. It's just really hard. And so if somebody else is doing it, you feel like they kind of gave you permission to do it.

And every mistake I've made in communication, when I look back on it, one night, I sort of wrote this long list of all the past year, all the things. This is why I wrote the book, is because I wanted to learn how to do this better. Basically, every communication mistake I've made comes down to not recognizing someone's vulnerability or recognizing it and ignoring it. Not reciprocating, not taking seriously that debt that I owe them.

Well then, okay, so now let's get into those three different kinds of conversation. Because, as we just talked about, there's a bunch of neurology involved and different areas of your brain are responsible for different types of communication. So, of course, someone speaking out of their amygdala is not gonna be communicating with someone that's in their frontal lobe to another person that's in the hippocampus. Those three areas of the brain don't speak the same language.

That's exactly right. They're literally speaking different cognitive languages. So what researchers have found, we're living through this kind of golden age of understanding communication because of advances in neuroimaging and data collection. And what they found is that we think of a discussion as one thing, but actually every single discussion is made up of different kinds of conversations. And in general, most of those conversations fall into one of three buckets.

There's like decision making.

Exactly, that's the prefrontal cortex. Then there's these emotional conversations where I come in and I say something emotional and I don't want you to solve my problem.

Now this is the most generic male-female genderized debate ever.

I'm just gonna guess. I don't know how gender works out in your relationship.

Feel free to bet your life on it. I'm sure you're gonna get it right.

Your wife brings you a problem.

and you try and solve it. That's right. And then she gets pissed off.

I try to figure out how to prevent her from ever feeling this way again. I've got a solution. You'll never have to feel this way again, because I'm terrified of your emotions.

I just want you to listen to how I feel.

And be compassionate and be present.

To have an emotional conversation with me. And then there's these social conversations, which are about how we relate to other people and how we relate to society, how we think society sees us. That's a huge part of where identity becomes this huge pillar. And what researchers have found is what's known as the matching principle. That if your wife comes to you and wants to have an emotional conversation and you reply with a practical conversation, you're both having legitimate conversations.

Yeah, why aren't you just acknowledging? if you put your phone on the nightstand every time, you'll never have to look for it again? Right. Why are you crying about this? Yeah.

And so part of it is just developing a slight habit. This is what super communicators do. They have this slight habit just to pick up on what kind of conversation is happening. So if I said something vulnerable right now, my guess is the two of you, you would respond with vulnerability. You would know that I'm having an emotional conversation.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

Challenging someone's sense of identity rather than acknowledging it. Right. Right, so there's been a bunch of studies that have looked at conversations, particularly between white people and black people, because of the post-George Floyd period. And what they found is that people's instincts are often to not acknowledge race. I sit down, you're my black friend.

You know, I was on Parenthood. My wife on the show was black, Joy Bryant, one of my very best friends in the world. And we were together all week long for six years and we never ever stopped talking about race. It's our favorite conversation. It's found it endlessly fascinating.

Because you're both allowed to bring your true selves to the conversation, right? Monica, you're a brown person, right? I'm a white guy. Dax is a white guy. We're talking about race.

Totally. I think it's like with Joy, you two knew there was no judgment. You have to know that in order to be able to have a real conversation with someone, or else you're gonna get defensive. And you guys also were the same on the level of power. Like you guys both had the same job.

Same size trailer.

Those things matter. If someone's talking down to you, if someone's your boss and they're talking to you, in a certain way, that's different.

Well, I think it's safe to say, even your and I's comfort level with discussing your Indian-ness has evolved over the last eight years.

I think it's gone up and down.

Oh, tell me.

When we first started becoming friends, we talked so openly about so much stuff. And then, when we became very good friends, it almost got in some ways harder, because if there was a challenge, it felt like, oh no, if he doesn't get it, then how could I still be friends with this person? Whereas when you're first getting to know someone and first understanding them, the stakes are not that high.

That's really interesting.

But then we'd come back. I just think it's more complicated.

And there is some research on how to make this easier. What most of the studies say, a tough conversation like this about identity, if you start it by saying, I just wanna acknowledge upfront, this is gonna be an awkward conversation. And, by the way, I'm gonna sound stupider than I am.

I don't have any of this worked out.

Yeah, and you're probably gonna say things that you don't mean. it, don't mean what you're actually saying. And, by the way, here's an obstacle we might hit. I'm worried that if you say something, maybe it's gonna prove that you're racist and you're my friend, and I don't wanna think that you're a racist. And what do we do when we get to that point?

Yeah.

How do we plan in advance?

Also, I am. We all are. Yeah. Literally, on some scale, I am.

That's absolutely right.

And that'll pop up. And then you'll correct me, you know?

Yes, yes.

But I'm most certainly gonna step in it. I think in that moment when you do that, it's very popular to say intentions don't matter, but I really actually believe what you're doing is you're pretty clearly stating your intention, which is like, I want to come to understand you and I'm not gonna do a very good job in route to it, but I want you to know my goal is to do that and not to label you or dismiss you or judge you for something. I just really wanna know, and that's my intention, and I'm gonna do it ineloquently.

The thing that's really important about that that I think you put very well is the goal of a successful conversation is a conversation where you understand each other. It is not a conversation where you convince each other. It is not a conversation even where you come to agreement on something, right?

Totally.

Well, this is the Netflix example. Exactly.

From the book.

This has gotta be the best one. Yeah, walk people through the Netflix.

Sure, so there was this VP of communications who, during a meeting, used the N-word. He was sort of explaining a situation and he said, it's as if someone who is African-American had heard the word, and then he said something.

Okay.

And at the time, Netflix has this culture where you're supposed to say anything. You're supposed to challenge each other all the time, attack each other, and one of the things that happens is that this incident is like a spark to set off the Civil War, where basically there's a bunch of people who are like, look, we have problems with race at Netflix that we have not been acknowledging. And other people who are like, we don't have any problems with race. It's just that you don't work hard enough and that's why you haven't gotten promoted. Right.

Well, by the way, there were iterations of it. There was moments in my 25 years here in Hollywood where it's like, if you were directly quoting somebody who said something, you would do it. I wouldn't do that now. No. But there was a time where it was like, I'm not saying that thing.

Or in scripts, I'm sure.

Yes, if you're writing for a black character who's in a verbal dust-up with someone else, the reality is that word's coming out a bunch. Yeah. So what do you do as the writer?

So what's interesting is about how Netflix resolved this. Okay. Because as the company's getting torn apart, so they hire this woman, Vernée Meyers, who's a wonderful woman. She's basically spent her whole life thinking about how to have conversations about diversity. And she comes in and what she says is, we need to have way more conversations about race.

Right.

By the way, I want people to talk about the racial experiences. If you're white, you have as much a racial experience as everyone else. You need to talk about the, and it's unfair to the black or brown person. You're gonna tell us all about race.

Yeah, teach us.

Yeah. So they did that and that was really effective. And then they did this. other thing that we've seen a lot of conversations works, even beyond the social conversation, the identity conversation. She asked deep questions.

Was there a moment?

Was there a moment that changed your mind? Like. I'm getting into some beliefs there, right? Right. It's a super easy thing to say, but when you respond, you were telling me so much about who you are.

Because you want money.

Yeah, right. I can't second guess your experiences about you.

That's why, when you're arguing with your partner, that's why the me statements are so important, which is this isn't about you. I'm telling you how I responded and that can't really be debated. Now, whether I shut the door with the intention to, that's a debate, but how I felt is not a debate.

And I own that. I have the right to own that. And, by the way, whatever I'm feeling is probably something you have felt in the past. Whenever I fight with my wife, and at some point she says something like, I'm feeling really threatened and I'm feeling like I can't say my thing. I know what that feels like.

I wrote down a little thing because that wasn't where it ended at Netflix, because then we also had Chappelle. Yeah. So to refresh everyone's memory, his standup routine comes out. People within the company are very upset. People quit.

And they're not talking about the rules when they start. Like if we just sat down and we're like, here's the rules of us talking about religion. We all think they're good. Then suddenly we're cooperating.

When I heard the statement, because this was, as I recall, this is also someone who was quite critical of them allowing the Chappelle thing to exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He helped lead the complaints.

The charge, yeah. So I do, and again, this is such a stereotype and it's probably offensive, and I'm probably wrong, but I do feel like the younger generation seems a little bit like to be heard is to get your way. There's some expectation that when I say what I say, if you really heard me and comprehended and took the time, then the outcome should go my way. And I think that's a weird expectation. That's not really it.

And I don't know if it's the younger people, because I see it happening with my peers all the time. And I do it sometimes. There is this mindset we get into where I'd sit down with my uncle and he thinks lizard people are taking over the world. And I'm like, if I can just show him the right evidence, he's gonna see that that's crazy. But the truth is, my uncle has spent 45 hours researching this online.

And what are they threatening? What are they gonna do?

And he's probably gonna say something like, I think that things are stacked against guys like me. I think that the elites are taking advantage of us. And at that point, now we can have an emotional conversation about that. Because I can say, I feel that way sometimes too.

Right, it's a different group, but I feel that way.

Yeah, I feel that way about the Plutarchs or whoever. When we walk away from that conversation, I am not gonna believe in the lizard people. He is not gonna think that the lizard people don't exist. We are gonna disagree with each other. But I understand why.

What fear has been triggered.

Yes, or joy, or whatever. Whatever it is.

I know, this is the thing I kept saying during the last election, which I can't believe. we're here again. But I was listening to both sides, and it occurred to me all of a sudden, it's like, neither side's really about anything other than their fears. Each side is afraid of different things. Both sides are afraid.

Injustice, I mean, there's a lot.

And the right is terrified that this place that they've known their whole life is not gonna exist.

Or that guns, which are something important to me, are gonna be taken away from me.

Yeah, that's gonna be able to feed my family. Have everyone just learned to, instead of like, you're full of shit because of blank, it's just, I'm afraid of this. Mm, I can relate to that.

And this happened with COVID.

Oh yeah, because you have a vaccine chapter.

When COVID started, the vaccine came out. There were a bunch of anti-vaxxers. And the CDC said, at first, just go give them the evidence. You're a doctor, if you just give them the evidence. And that was a total failure, right?

Well, during the vaccine thing, the thing that struck me is if you were an alien and you had no emotional attachment to either of these arguments I'm about to parallel, it would be so blatantly obvious that both people have the exact same view. And it is abortion and vaccine. So the right didn't want to vax because they didn't think the government should have control of their body. The left does not want abortion rights to be abolished because they don't think the government should tell them what they should do with their body. And it's like, how could these two groups, who are literally diametrically opposed, who have the exact same argument about these two things, cannot see in each other that those are valid arguments?

And there was a period in our history when that was easier. I mean, America was born in conversation. The Constitutional Convention was people who hated each other, arguing with each other.

It's incredible. anything got done. It's amazing.

Abortion's a great example. Pre-Roe versus Wade, if you look at the conversation around abortion, it was much more moderate than it is today. It was much more people listening to each other. And there's actually a lot of political scientists who say that Roe v. Wade was bad because it stopped.

I think the most provocative and entertaining explanation is the Malcolm Gladwell one he did on Revisionist History last year, which is, there was a point in the past where 35% of us all watched the same TV show on Wednesday night. And we got on a bus and the person next to us probably saw the Cheers finale. Just that. Monoculture. Yeah, the monoculture that the networks themselves were forced to have the dialogue and come up with a compromise before they presented it.

And now the biggest variable is whether you went to college or not. And it's for the exact same reason. Because if I went to college and you did not, we both believe that our lives are totally different. Now, they might not be. We're neighbors.

We're still trying to solve our wife's emotional issues with pragmatic solutions, yeah.

But for whatever reason, we've gotten stuck in this viewpoint instead of bringing it up and saying, hey, you didn't go to college. Tell me a little bit about what that decision was like. Are you happy you made it? Instead of having that conversation where actually we would figure out what we have in common, even around this issue, we avoid it because we're terrified that asking the question is gonna piss them off or it's gonna be awkward or we're not gonna know how to end the conversation.

Is there anything in there about taking a couple extra minutes to pursue a path that isn't divisive? first? Example I always give is I go to the sand dunes. a lot. I'm going next week.

Absolutely. And the reason why it's important to do that is not because you have the thing in common. So the fact that you're a good dad and that this other guy is a good dad, there's lots of good dads. But what's important is that when you bring it up, you're showing him that you actually wanna match him. You're showing him that you wanna connect.

That's embarrassing.

It's the impulse. Which in itself is funny. Yeah. Right, yeah.

But the impulse to show that I wanna connect with you. So when you talk to a dad and you're like, we both love the White Sox, or we both love our kids, or, oh, you grew up in this place, I grew up near there, it doesn't matter. It's not like you both care about that place. What you're saying is, I want to connect with you. I'm kinda hoping to learn something about you.

How about this? This feels new, that people are, I think, increasingly threatened, that people don't think like them. That was the most interesting thing about traveling. It's actually super interesting that people don't think like you. But now I feel like it's identity first at all times.

Well, politics have changed a lot, and it does feel more threatening. It does feel like they've become more extreme. And so, if you agree with this president, you're actually signing up for something that could actually hurt me. It is threatening. It's not like, oh, yeah, I don't love that idea.

Is that person threatening?

That person can be threatening if they're contributing to someone who could hurt me.

I get that part, but could they individually?

Yes, I believe voters have an impact.

Right, so it's already done. They voted for Trump. Do they actually, in real life, not theoretically, not downriver, does the person who voted for Trump in front of you, are they gonna put you in a cage or are they gonna oppress you for your race in real life?

The chance that they might oppress you for your race or say something racist, when you've had experiences in life where that's happened, you know when the chances are higher with each individual person that's in front of you.

I think my thing is, though, is it's such guilt by association. So it's like, maybe they voted for Trump. Let's just be really generous. They're a fiscal conservative, right? So really, they would never oppress you.

I think that's really important. And I think that there's this jump that has become a norm. If you're talking to someone and they voted for Trump, it's very hard for you, I imagine, to hear that and tell me if I'm getting this wrong. No, no, yeah. To hear that and not feel like, actually you were doing something that's against my interests.

But we can get there, come in the back door and find it out. Oh, you figure it out quick. You figure it out quick. When they ask where you're from.

There's this thing called looping for understanding. This changes the goal of the conversation, how you evaluate the success of a conversation. Many people feel like if I'm in a conversation, someone says something I disagree with, I'm letting myself and my people down if I don't disagree with them.

There's that great Orna moment with the Palestinian girl.

Yeah.

She felt like she was betraying her family by trusting this Jewish doctor. Right.

But of course, you're not betraying anyone. Yeah.

Nor is Orna Netanyahu.

That's really important. So for looping, for understanding, ask a deep question, just something with why. Number two, repeat back in your own words what you heard them say. And then number three, and this is the step we usually forget, but it's the magical one. Ask them if you got it right.

Oh.

Because if you're talking to that guy and he's like, I love Trump, he's amazing. And you're like, I'm just wondering, can you tell me like-?

What do you like about him?

Yeah, what do you like about him? He grabs him by the pussy. Yeah.

Okay, so you're saying that what you like is that- His pussy. No, is that? he grabs him by the genitals.

Did I get that right? Yeah. So my guess is that if that person is like, yeah, you got it exactly right. Then you know, I don't want to have a conversation with you. And you don't have to have a conversation with everyone.

And most certainly many people will fall into the exact thing you're afraid of.

Yes, I want to say I grew up in Georgia. I had no choice but to grow up giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, or I would not have had friends. I wouldn't have had anyone in my life. So I do think I am actually good at it. In fact, I'm like, there's no way you can possibly be racist.

That is super duper interesting.

They're just in their own bubbles. Who cares? You don't have to understand anybody.

You didn't have the luxury.

Exactly.

Right, you couldn't just retreat into your community and thrive.

There wasn't, that didn't exist. I had to figure out a way to feel like there was love coming from people who weren't like me.

Yeah.

And I already know you've had this experience. Like, you meet people, you like them, you go by their house, you're like, there's a Confederate flag in the garage. Ooh, okay. That's hard to make peace with. Does it mean to them what it certainly means to me?

Does it mean they think a certain way about me? It doesn't seem like it.

Are they into the rebel spirit of hunting and fishing?

And those are actually legitimate questions. The best way to confront them is to say, I'm gonna ask you an awkward question, and I want you to know. I'm probably gonna say it wrong, but I really wanna understand you. Why do you have a Confederate flag?

I would also add, Yeah? Because I'm scared.

Oh, the vulnerability, please.

I'm not asking you to judge you. I'm asking you because I'm scared.

I think putting it that way would be great. I would actually,

Go ahead and amend it.

You can break it into two pieces. They give you their response. You can sort of repeat it back, did I get that right? And then say, let me tell you why I asked, or let me tell you how the flag makes me feel, because it's clear. it makes you feel something really different.

Yes, I think, unless you're talking to an actual monster, if this little cute girl told me that thing makes her scared and it's my thing, my humanness would be like, oh my gosh, I don't want you to feel scared. You don't need to be afraid.

Could they feel so defensive though, that they were a part of making that person feel scared, that then they retreat?

I think they'd feel defensive. if the question is why would you have that? But if the question is, why do you like that flag? It really scares me.

This is why.

That's right. And then you're showing some vulnerability.

Yeah, exactly. Again, unless you're talking to a fucking monster, no one wants a guest in their property to be scared while they're there. So you might get the best.

You're trying to send this message. The same way that when we laugh, we're sending a message, I wanna connect with you. You're sending a message, I actually want to understand you, and I want us to be closer. I'm not asking this question to push us apart. I'm asking this question to bring us together.

Oh, this is fun.

Talking, about talking.

You guys are very good. Okay, I do have a couple questions for you guys.

But hold them, because you're still here to promote a book. We talked about Netflix. We talked about vaccines. I like that. How does the trial of Leroy Reed demonstrate that every conversation is a negotiation?

Every dialogue that we have, often, at some point, is what's known as a quiet negotiation. And it's a little bit of a misnomer, because we think of negotiations as trying to get the best deal. A quiet negotiation is totally different, and this is what most high-level negotiations are. It's about understanding what you want. If I sit down at the table with you and I understand what you want and you know what I want, we're gonna get to a deal faster, right?

Oh boy, that third recommendation. Yeah, yeah. A little haphazard.

The first two steps are okay.

Learn on a strangle infants. Yeah. Oh, excuse me?

So he goes down to a sporting goods store. This is in Milwaukee. He buys a gun. He fills out all the paperwork, totally legal purchase, brings it back to his house. He puts the box in the closet.

Oh, no, my God. This is so sweet.

And a cop asks him for some ID, and the only ID that he has is the bill of sale in his pocket. So he hands it over to the cop and the cop says, have you ever gone to jail? And Leroy Reid says, yeah. He says, go, bring the gun into the headquarters. I wanna see it.

Oh, no, this is upsetting.

He's gonna get sent back to jail. So they have the whole trial and then the jury goes into the deliberation room and there's only five or six jury deliberations in the history of America that have been taped. So this is one of them. And I got the tapes, I got the transcripts. The crowd is basically divided.

Have you read Metamorphosis? Right, right, right.

Tell me on French post-modernism, what do you think? One of the things we know about super communicators is they ask about 10 to 20 times more questions than everyone else. But what's interesting is we don't even register it because they're questions like, hey, what'd you think of that? Oh, that's interesting, why did you say that? What's going on there?

He probably thought he should go free.

So it's interesting, I reached out to him and he's an elderly now and his wife said, I don't think he's in a place to talk to you. So I asked her, I think that at the end of the day, he thought that Leroy Reed should go free, but if he had tried to use this technique to manipulate everyone else, they would have sniffed it out. They would have been like, this guy is just playing games with us. When you look at what he said, when you listen to what he said, it's really even handed. It's very neutral.

That's cool.

So, when you get arrested, pray that you have a super communicator on the jury. Yes. But more importantly, recognize that actually all of us can do this. He didn't have some superpower. He just thought a little bit more about communication.

And what two conversations were actually being had.

Exactly, exactly how conversations work. And the fact that he was so awkward and kind of put on airs and everyone else didn't like him, it's probably why he was a super communicator.

Right, because he was in neither camp. He wasn't in an in-group to not be trusted.

And my guess is that when he was younger, he had trouble communicating. He had to study how people talk to each other.

Right, he didn't have that natural charisma that attracts people to you. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

And so here's my question for you guys, is. I am.

Oh, is that not the?

Ah, oh, my God, that's so dark. Straight, straight to the. When you guys were young, if I met you when you were 12 or 13,, whatever your most awkward year is, would you be the communicator you are today? Were you popular?