Pulitzer Prize Winner: How to Speak So People Actually Listen | Charles Duhigg

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast

Episode: “Pulitzer Prize Winner: How to Speak So People Actually Listen | Charles Duhigg”

Date: August 21, 2025
Host: Craig Groeschel
Guest: Charles Duhigg (Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, author of “The Power of Habit” and “Super Communicators”)

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Overview

This episode explores the science and art of effective communication and habit formation, featuring insights from Charles Duhigg. The discussion blends leadership strategies, organizational culture, and personal growth, focusing on actionable ways to become a “super communicator” and to leverage keystone habits for cascading positive change. Craig and Charles share personal stories, practical frameworks, and research-backed advice for both individual leaders and organizations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Myth of Inborn Communication Skills

[00:00–01:19]

• Charles debunks the idea that some people are simply born “great communicators.” Instead, the best communicators are “people who think about communication and who practice it.”

  “Practice has to include you doing it wrong sometimes so you can learn from those experiences.” — Charles Duhigg [00:00]

2. The Power of Keystone Habits

[01:23–06:46]

• Keystone habits create chain reactions, making other habits easier to develop. Examples: daily exercise, morning routines, or even making your bed.
• Craig shares how Charles’ keystone habit framework allowed him to “obsess about some habits that… create a compounding chain of other positive habits.” [03:30]
• Charles emphasizes that these are highly personal:

  “Look for the types of change that seem irrationally hard or scary to you… That’s the kind of change that… will be a keystone habit.” [04:59]

3. Organizational Habits & Accidental Keystone Habits

[06:46–12:03]

• Craig describes a practice at Life.Church where all staff regularly participate in stage communication drills, leading inadvertently to a culture of giving and receiving feedback—a “key ingredient” to team growth.
• Charles connects this to creating “psychological safety,” referencing Harvard Business School research that proves its essential role in successful teams:

  “Building psychological safety is not something that’s natural to anyone. We have to practice doing it.” [09:36]

4. Identifying High-Leverage Changes

[12:03–16:29]

• Charles tells the story of Alcoa’s accidental transformation under a new CEO who made safety the focus, which cascaded into productivity, communication, profitability.
• Leaders can identify such “pressure points” in any organization by asking: If you had a magic wand, what’s the one thing you’d change? Drill down to root causes—often entrenched policies, bureaucracy, or “organizational scar tissue.”

  “Once we begin valorizing the behavior that you hope to see... then that behavior becomes more acceptable, and that’s when we start to see a change in how people behave.” [14:43]

5. Personal vs. Public Communication: Mindset & Strategy

[16:29–19:47]

• Charles introduces three “buckets” of conversation:

  • Practical (solving problems, plans)
  • Emotional (sharing feelings, seeking empathy)
  • Social (relational, communal connection)

• Leaders often mismatch their approach to the listener’s mindset; effective communication begins by matching the audience’s or colleague’s mood first.

  “If I’m in an emotional mindset and you’re in a practical mindset, we’re like two ships passing in the night.” — Charles Duhigg [17:06]

6. Engaging Audiences & Establishing Permission

[19:47–23:05]

• Best practice is to start with the audience’s state of mind—ask “meta-questions” to gauge what’s present emotionally or practically.
• In large groups: Start with relatable questions (“What’s a habit you’d like to change?”) to open dialogue and signal awareness of their mindset.

  “By asking that question, you’re getting a sense of how you can match them.” [21:23]

7. Nonverbal Cues & Mirroring Engagement

[24:09–27:05]

• Effective communicators unconsciously read emotional states through laughter, facial expressions, and group dynamics.

• Training: Watch videos with the sound muted to focus on cues; practice mirroring and emotional variety in delivery.

  “You can say the same thing in different ways, and it can hit, it can miss, it can backfire.” — Craig Groeschel [26:49]

8. One-on-One Developmental Conversations

[27:05–39:36]

• The importance of starting such conversations by understanding (not guessing) the other person’s mindset—use deep questions about values, beliefs, experiences.
• Sequence: Emotional safety → Application of practical solutions → Clarification and emotional closure using “looping for understanding.”
• “Looping for understanding” steps:
  1. Ask for their takeaway.
  2. Repeat back what you heard.
  3. Get confirmation/correction.

• “You’re doing them an act of kindness by saying, loop for understanding… Not only does that reinforce those lessons, it also makes us feel like we’ve been heard.” — Charles Duhigg [37:59]

9. Self-Assessment & Communication Growth

[39:36–41:22]

• Ask others for feedback—even though it can be “an ego blow.”

• Engage in cognitive routines: personal reflection, journaling, discussions with family.

  “Those moments, those cognitive habits, …that’s how we figure out, did I really connect with this person?” — Charles Duhigg [39:50]

10. Leadership Mistakes in Communication

[41:22–45:24]

• Leaders’ common pitfalls:
  • Talking too much, not listening enough.
  • Assuming their own agenda is shared.
  • Asking questions that are intimidating rather than open (e.g., “Critique me” is less effective than “What about your experience here would you do the same or differently as a leader?”).
  • Failing to model the communication behaviors they want to see.

11. Building a Culture of Communication: Meta-Conversations

[45:24–48:40]

• To improve teamwide communication, have “meta conversations”—talk about how you’re talking.

• Practice skills like looping, calling out miscommunication as it appears, and creating exercises around recognizing mindsets.

  “Communication is not easy. It’s not natural. It’s something that we learn to do and we practice.” — Charles Duhigg [47:01]

12. Know, Feel, Do: The Essential Communication Framework

[48:40–50:52]

• Craig’s actionable formula:

  • Know: What do I want them to know?
  • Feel: What do I want them to feel?
  • Do: What do I want them to do?

• Most communicators stop at know/do; “feel” drives actual change.

  “Emotions impact every conversation we have, whether we’re aware of them or not.” — Charles Duhigg [49:50]

13. Direct Feedback & Interviewing Techniques

[52:38–54:50]

• Charles offers feedback to Craig: empathy is apparent, and a “messy” conversation often indicates real engagement.

• The best interviews/conversations allow for interruptions and passionate debate, which can indicate both parties are present and invested.

  “The best conversations usually are messy…when people interrupt each other…that’s when a conversation sort of transcends to a higher level.” — Charles Duhigg [54:50]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Practice has to include you doing it wrong sometimes so you can learn from those experiences.” – Charles Duhigg [00:00]
• “Look for the types of change that seem irrationally hard or scary to you… That’s the kind of change that… will be a keystone habit.” – Charles Duhigg [04:59]
• “When we shift that part of our brain through our behavior, we invite ourselves to see ourselves in a new light.” — Charles Duhigg [05:56]
• “Within organizations, creating psychological safety is the most important aspect of helping a team gel together.” — Charles Duhigg [09:36]
• “If I’m in an emotional mindset and you’re in a practical mindset, we’re like two ships passing in the night.” — Charles Duhigg [17:06]
• “Loop for understanding… Let’s check in with each other. Did I get it right? Am I hearing you correctly?” — Charles Duhigg [37:59]
• “As a leader…you make so many assumptions and so many mistakes. Mistake number one is we talk too much. We don’t listen enough.” — Craig Groeschel [41:22]
• “Communication is not easy. It’s not natural. It’s something that we learn to do and we practice.” — Charles Duhigg [47:01]
• “Emotions impact every conversation we have, whether we’re aware of them or not.” — Charles Duhigg [49:50]
• “The best conversations usually are messy…when people interrupt each other…that’s when a conversation sort of transcends to a higher level.” — Charles Duhigg [54:50]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00–00:22] – The myth of natural communicators
• [02:09–04:50] – Keystone habits and their ripple effects
• [06:46–09:36] – Organizational habits and psychological safety
• [12:03–16:29] – Keystone habits in organizational leadership
• [17:06–19:47] – Types of conversations: practical, emotional, social
• [24:09–27:05] – Nonverbal cues and deliberate speaker training
• [28:32–30:41] – Questions to create safety in one-on-one conversations
• [37:59–39:36] – “Looping for understanding” technique
• [41:22–45:24] – Leadership communication pitfalls and self-assessment
• [47:01–48:40] – Creating a culture of communication (meta-conversations)
• [48:40–50:52] – The “know, feel, do” framework for effective messaging
• [54:50–55:40] – Feedback on interviewing and the value of conversational messiness

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Resource Links

• Charles Duhigg: charlesduhigg.com
• Charles’ Substack: "Science of Better"
• Books mentioned:
  • The Power of Habit
  • Smarter, Faster, Better
  • Super Communicators

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Actionable Takeaways for Leaders

• Identify and cultivate keystone habits, both personally and organizationally.
• Build a feedback-rich, psychologically safe environment using regular practice and meta-conversations.
• Match your communication style to your audience’s or counterpart’s current mindset before moving to practical solutions.
• Practice “looping for understanding” to ensure clarity and connection.
• Develop the habit of regularly seeking feedback, allowing for growth.

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This episode affirms: Leadership and communication are crafts—requiring thoughtful practice, courageous feedback, and a willingness to embrace both the messy and the transformative in every conversation.

Transcript

[A]

We have almost this myth in our head that some people are born great communicators. Right? Someone's born with the gift of gab. And what we know is that the best communicators are people who think about communication and who practice it. In fact, practice has to include you doing it wrong sometimes so you can learn from those experiences.

[B]

Welcome back to another episode of the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast, where our mission is, is to help you become a leader that people love to follow. And hey, if this content is helpful to you, it would mean the world to me if you hit subscribe like now, wherever you consume the content and post on social media, tag me if you do and our team may repost you. Today's content, I promise you, is going to add value to your leadership. I've got a very, very smart and helpful guest, Charles Duhigg, who is an mba, Harvard Business School grad. He, he's a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, New York Times bestselling author. He's written the Power of Habit, Smarter, Faster, Better, and his most recent book is called Super Communicators. He hosts his own podcast called how to and Get Ready. This guy is brilliant. Let's go now to my interview with Charles Duhigg. Charles, man, it's a great honor to have you on the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast.

[A]

Well, thank you for having me. This is such a. It's a huge treat for me and I really appreciate it.

[B]

Well, it's a bigger treat for me because I've been studying your work for. For a long time. I think. I've read all of your books and I'm a little frustrated because I want to talk about all of them and we don't have time, so we may do bits and pieces, but you're gonna add a lot of value to our community. So thank you. Thank you. Hey, I just got back from the Global Leadership Summit and I referenced your book there, the Power of Habit, and I talked about the keystone habit idea, which has been one of the most helpful ideas to my life and leadership. Can you tell me a little bit about what is a keystone habit? Then I want to ask you some newer questions about the idea.

[A]

Absolutely. So what's interesting is that, and we've all experienced this, that sometimes we change one pattern in our life. We start exercising in the morning, and sometimes suddenly other patterns or habits seem like they're easier to shift. On the days that we exercise, we eat more healthily that day. In fact, according to studies, on the days that we exercise, we use our credit cards less often, and we procrastinate less at work and at home. And the reason why is because for many people, exercise is a keystone habit. And a keystone habit is something that when it starts to shift, it sets off a chain reaction in our lives that causes other habits and other patterns to start shifting. As exercise is a great example of this, for many people, it could be something like making your bed in the morning or, you know, always, always doing the dishes as soon as you get home in the evening, or starting the day not by checking your. Your email, but by doing something else from your to do list. When we change those habits, it gives us the power to set off that chain reaction to make other types of change easier to accomplish. And so a big part of becoming a master of our own habits is learning to recognize what. Which habits are keystone habits for us. Because by focusing on those, we will change many, many parts of our lives much more easily.

[B]

So that idea, to me, it kind of gave me permission to obsess about some habits that when they are present, create, like a compounding chain of other positive habits. And when they're absent, I compound negatively. I'm curious, Charles, in your own life, has there been a newer habit that you found that's made a big difference?

[A]

So when I was writing the Power of Habit, one of the things I did is I started running more seriously, and I started training for half marathons and then for marathons. And that was a keystone habit for me. And exercise isn't a keystone habit for everyone, but it was for me. And what I've started doing recently is I've started stretching a lot more in the morning. So I use a couple of apps and spend anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes stretching in the morning. And what I found is that much like other keystone habits, what it does is it makes my body feel differently throughout the day. I become much more conscious about my posture. I become much more conscious about how I'm sitting. I become much more conscious about how I'm holding my hands when I'm typing. And those things shift almost without me having to think about them. But what's important is that this habit of stretching in the morning, it does something to how I see myself and how I experience the world that makes those other changes much easier.

[B]

How would you, if you're consulting someone, helping them, discover what might be a keystone habit for them, how do you help someone name that habit?

[A]

Absolutely. So here's the way to do it. Look for the types of change that seem irrationally hard or scary to You. Right. I mentioned exercise before, and exercise isn't a keystone habit for everyone. For people who are athletes or athletes in high school or who see themselves as athletes, if they start exercising again after taking some time off, it's great. But it usually won't set off that chain reaction because it doesn't change how we see ourselves. But for someone like me who was not an athlete in high school and who, who is, is, you know, uncoordinated and clumsy, the idea of going and running every single morning, it at first seemed a little irrationally scary. Like I didn't know, like, what I should wear or what route I should take. It seemed harder than it should have been just to get out the door and like, run two blocks. That means that this is potentially a keystone habit for me because when I start exercising, there's some part of my brain that will say, you know what? I didn't think about myself this way before, but I'm an exerciser. I'm a little bit of a jock. And the thing about jocks is they don't eat like that unhealthy hamburger for lunch. They eat the healthy salad because they care about their body. And the thing about jocks is that they, they're really disciplined. They're not the type of person who like, you know, loses time on social media at work. They're the type of people who get down to business. There's a part of our brain that's almost, almost subconscious that has an opinion of who we are and tells us who we are. And when we shift that part of our brain through our behavior, we invite ourselves to see ourselves in a new light. So any kind of change that seems irrationally scary or difficult, that's the kind of change that if you make that adjustment, it will be at keystone habit that sets off other changes in your life.

[B]

Yes. And it doesn't, I would say it doesn't even have to be a habit. It could be an activity. For example, I started, I became a pilot maybe five years ago. And that activity, it's not a habit. Like flying is not a habit, but it was something I was intimidated by. That triggered something in me at the age of 57 that says, I am still a student, I am still growing, I am still able to accomplish things that make me nervous. And what I like about your work is you give us tangible, little small things that we can do that cross collateralize into successful areas, have broader impact. That's exactly right. I like that. I want to ask you about organizational habits which, and this will Even so, first of all, the book is the Power of Habit. If you haven't read that to our community, I've told you 50 times, you gotta read the book. It's indescribably helpful to help you build the small habits that'll create big changes in your life and leadership. You also wrote the book Super Communicators, which again is, you know, I'm a fan of all of your work. I want to combine those two themes. I want to tell you about something that we do organizationally here, and then I wanna ask you about how others can do it in their businesses or ministry as such. So we have, Charles, we have 45 different church locations that we in different cities. And so at each team, each location there'll be a team of eight to 20 pastors and leaders. At most places, almost every week, we'll do what we call stage communication drills. And so they'll get up and, and it could be a 22 year old intern, it could be a 45 year old veteran pastor. And they'll get an assignment to make an announcement about something or cast vision for something that's coming up or invite people to serve. And so they're learning to communicate better. And then what happens is the people watching give them feedback. We started this years ago to help people become better communicators. What we didn't realize is this became a key ingredient of teaching our team to give and receive feedback. Yeah, it is an organizational game changer because every week everyone is giving and receiving feedback. And when you get good at that in one place, you can become good at everywhere. It became an accidental keystone habit that created exponential benefits elsewhere. I'd like for you to talk about that. Organizationally, how can teams of people discover create some types of organizational keystone habits that will multiply into compounding benefits?

[A]

I love this example and I think it's a wonderful accidental discovery on your part and also a perfect example of how organizations and institutions can evolve and can learn, which often times happens accidentally. One of the things that I hear you saying, which makes a lot of sense given the, the academic literature on communication, one of the things that we know is that we have almost this myth in our head that some people are born great communicators. Right? Someone's born with the gift of gab that they're a super communicator. But it turns out that's not true. When researchers look at the best communicators, what they see is that they say things like, you know, when I was in high school, I was really bad at making friends. And so I really had to study how other kids talk to each other and like sort of practice it or my parents got divorced when I was young and I had to become the peacemaker between them. What they're describing in those moments is they're describing practicing communication. And what we know is that the best communicators are people who think about communication and who practice it. And practice does not mean you do it right every single time. In fact, practice has to include you doing it wrong sometimes so you can learn from those experiences. And what it sounds like you've done is you've created an environment where, where it is okay for people to practice communicating with each other. If I know that, I have to give you some feedback on how you just communicated. And it can't just be, you did a great job, you're fantastic. Right. I have to say something a little bit critical. I'm practicing telling you something that you might not like, like to hear. Within organizations, creating psychological safety is the most important aspect of helping a team gel together. And that psychological safety, that's a, that's a phrase that comes from a bunch of researchers at Harvard Business School who. What it means is that it means I think I can say something and even if I say it the wrong way or it's something you don't want to hear, that will not be held against me. I can, I can be honest with my opinions without having to fear the consequences. When you're building psychological safety is not something that's natural to anyone. We have to practice doing it. And so this activity that you've created that helps people practice giving that kind of feedback and receiving that kind of feedback, that's essential because what it does is it creates psychological safety where people say, oh, I can be a little critical of you. And I saw that I did it this morning and that you're not holding it against me. It's really powerful.

[B]

Thank you. So in your book you wrote about Alcoa Steel and I'll keep it short and won't get all the details maybe exactly right, but a steel company that had maybe more accident workplace accidents than they would like, new CEO comes in and says, we're going to create a no accident workplace. We're going to be the safest place to work. And the board's confused, the team's confused and he keeps saying, we're going to create a safe place to work. And before long, the byproduct is they're creating better systems, better communication, hiring better people. Having better accountability, they. They get safer, and mysteriously, production goes up, profit goes up, and wow, this one little small thing seemed to create compounding wins. Can you give me examples of how I could think as a leader? I might be leading a student ministry, I might be leading a nonprofit, I might be working at a bank and want to create a better environment? How do I look at my organization and pinpoint an activity or a mindset or a habit like that that might have compounding wins?

[A]

Absolutely. That little pressure point that can. That can have huge dividends. Well, let's use. Let's use something real. Tell me, in your organization, if I gave you a magic wand and you could change one thing overnight, what would you change? What's the thing that, like, kind of keeps you up at night?

[B]

I would say that now, with over 1,000 staff members in 45 different locations, we are not as fast and efficient as I'd like for us to be. Growth creates complexity, complexity kills growth. I'm fighting against complexity, and I feel like I'm often losing the battle.

[A]

Okay, and let's drill down just a little bit to try and fight root causes. Why do you think that has happened? If I was looking at one of your branches, if I was looking at one of your teams, what am I seeing that's slowing them down?

[B]

So this is not original to me, but I think someone called it like organizational scar tissue. Someone makes a mistake, someone else creates a policy. What used to take, someone could say yes, now takes two signatures, and processes are slow. So I would say that decision making takes longer, and there's more layers and more unhealthy bureaucracy that we're trying to cut through.

[A]

So I love this example that you've given me because it's the exact same problem that NASA confronted as the organization.

[B]

We're kind of a lot like NASA. You know, life, church, NASA. You're putting people on the moon all the time.

[A]

And what's interesting is, so this new guy came into NASA to run the organization, and he realized that they were just too bound up by bureaucracy. They weren't taking enough risks. They weren't moving fast enough. So what he did is he instituted this policy that anytime in Mission Control, anything went wrong or anything blew up, the entire Mission Control would applaud for it because they had just learned something. Right now, the truth of the matter is that if you go into your organization and you tell them, I want you to start moving faster, some people are going to make mistakes. The reason that scar tissue exists is because somebody made a mistake. In the past, it's the fear of the mistake that's holding people back. And so the habit that should emerge is applauding when that mistake occurs and saying, oh, we learned from this. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to learn how to do this better. It could be as simple as sending out a weekly email where you describe, here's the three things I did wrong this week and what I learned from them. And I asked some of my colleagues, and here's two things that they did wrong, what they learned from them. Once we begin valorizing the behavior that you hope to see, valorizing, making quick decisions, taking the initiative, then that behavior becomes more acceptable, and that's when we start to see a change in how people behave.

[B]

I like that idea of celebrating the failures and the mistakes. I had a person that I did their review every year, and very capable, very smart person, but more hesitant. And so one of the assignments I gave was, in the next quarter, I want to name and define three aggressive mistakes that you made. In other words, you got too aggressive, you got ahead of it. And we're going to celebrate those mistakes because I'd rather say whoa, than giddy up.

[A]

And.

[B]

And so I like the way you're thinking. I want to ask you a little bit about stay on the idea of communication. And to me, I've got a couple. Well, actually more than a couple, but two main layers of communication. One I would call personal communication, where if I'm sitting down with somebody more intimate, one on one or one on three or four, and the other would be public communication, where it would be one on a bunch of people. Can you tell me what are the differences in mindset in those two types of communication? And then I want to kind of drill into some specific questions about it.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. So let me just talk a little bit about what we know about communication. When we have a conversation, whether it be with an individual or with a group, we tend to think that we know what that conversation is about. Right. I'm telling you what activities we have coming up next week, or I'm telling you that here's how I'd like to see you improve your performance. But actually, what researchers have found, particularly neuroscientists, is that they found that when we're having a conversation, we're actually having multiple different kinds of conversations all at the same time. And these conversations tend to fall into one of three buckets. There's these practical conversations where we're solving problems or we're making plans, 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. And then finally there's social conversations, which is about how we relate to each other. And what researchers have found is that having the same kind of conversation at the same moment is really, really critical. If I'm in an emotional mindset and you're in a practical mindset, we're like two ships passing in the night, right? So what does this mean for one on one versus group conversations? Well, oftentimes we have to pay attention to what kind of conversation is happening. And in a one on one conversation, we might come into it thinking that it's a practical conversation. I'm here to tell you, give you some feedback on your performance so you can improve. But from your perspective, what we need to talk about first is how you feel about this because you feel really down on yourself and you feel really scared that you're going to get fired and you feel really disappointed that, that you don't see what I'm doing, that you don't think as highly as me, as I hoped you did. And until we bond on that emotional level, until I say, look, I think you're doing a fantastic job, I want you to know I really like having you around the office. But can I give you some advice on how to do the job better? In other words, can we start emotional? And can do I have your permission to move to a practical conversation that's going to make all the difference in how you, how actively you can hear what I'm saying? Now, the same thing is true of groups. Oftentimes when we stand up in front of a group, we think everyone is in a practical mindset, right? We think, oh, you're here to learn a lesson, you're here to get some solution, you're here to hear about some logistics. But oftentimes, particularly in a faith based setting, in a spiritual setting, people are coming in to sit down in a spiritual and emotional mindset, maybe a social mindset, maybe they're there for communion and for getting to know their fellow parishioners. And as the person on the stage, if we don't signal that we understand the mindset that they're in, that we're willing to match them and meet them where they are before getting on to the logistics we're here to discuss, it's hard for them to hear us.

[B]

So that leads me to a question that, and I want to think about it both in public and personal communication. So I Noticed, Charles. I talk to the whole staff, everybody, four times a year. And I've put more work into those four talks than just about anything. Because as it goes with the team, it goes with the organization. And what I noticed over time is that there are kind of categories that just would appear. Sometimes. What I would do is I'd be doing, like, kind of like an encouragement and a motivation talk. And that was like a bucket. Another time I would be doing is kind of like a cultural correction where I'm bringing, you know, here's where we are and here's where we're gonna go. Another time I'd do is just what I call, like, spiritual encouragement and development. And so I found myself because I had those different buckets. This is after 30 years of doing this, right? I would actually tell the team, hey, this time what I wanna do is I wanna bring. And I'd actually tell them, is it wise to do that? I guess what I'm trying to ask is, should I start with them in mind, going in and saying, I'm aware of where you are, so I'm starting there, or is it wise to come in and say, here's what I want to try to accomplish? Or some combination of that?

[A]

I think both of them in combination. But the first one is the most important one, right? To show them that you understand where they're at. Now, the truth of the matter is, sometimes you might not. We all might not know where someone else's head is at. And so the question becomes, how do we figure out where people are? And there is a way of doing this, which is to ask questions. So I give a lot of speeches from stages, and I often start it by asking people a question.

[B]

What kind of question?

[A]

5,000.

[B]

What kind of question do you ask?

[A]

So I say, look, I want you to take a second. I want you to think about what's one habit that you would change, right? What kind of habit? Is it a habit at work? Is it a habit at home? Is it a habit with your kids? Right? And I asked for a show of hands. How many said kids, how many said home, how many say work? What I'm doing is I'm establishing a dialogue there. They're not speaking because there's too many of them. And then midway through the speech, I'll actually have people turn to each other and ask and answer this one question, which is, when is the last time you cried in front of another person? Now, when I tell people we're going to do this, they hate this idea. Nobody wants to have this conversation with this stranger sitting next to them. But afterwards they say, this is one of the best conversations I've had in the last week, week or month. I loved this activity. Oftentimes when we're on that stage, we think of the audience as being in a passive situation, but we want to get them active. And the way that we get them active is we ask them questions and what they're going to do is they're going to tell us what kind of mindset they're in. If you start by saying, how many of you, you know, how many of you, when you woke up this morning got something on your mind? How many of you had to do with work, how many of you, it had to do with home? Well, you're asking them, are you in a practical mindset right now or are you in a social mindset or an emotional mindset? By asking that question, you're getting a sense of how you can match them. And that doesn't mean you have to spend the entire conversation talking about problems at home, but it means you can start by saying, I understand a number of you are struggling with teenagers at home. I hear that from what you're saying right now. And I want to talk about how we get better at work because I think that'll help you at home as well. You're asking for their permission to have a practical conversation rather than an emotional or social conversation.

[B]

So I think that's really helpful. This is interesting. Like in my context in a church world, I can do the exact same Talk at an 8:30 service and then go do very close, similar word for word at the 10 o' clock and it's almost like two entirely different talks. The feel of the room is really different. I'm sure you do this as well. You might have a talk on super communicators that you give to one business event and there's 400 people in the room and they're cheering. You go to another event that's similar size, even similar part of the country and they're looking more bored and you don't know the difference. The words we say don't necessarily connect emotionally because of the state of the people we're talking to. What else are you looking for? So you're going to try to find out what's on their mind, their heart, there's obvious things. If they're nodding, they're engaged. If they're sleeping, they're bored. When you're trying to emotionally connect with a big group and then I want to get personal, what are Some cues you're looking for to mirror them and to help keep them engaged and take them where you want to take them.

[A]

Well, one of the things I love about what you just said is you described exactly one of the traits that's important is you said, look, I gave the same speech twice, but I noticed the audience was reacting differently. I noticed how it felt. Now, my guess is, if I asked you, tell me exactly what you noticed. Did you see someone's expression? Did you hear something? You might not be able to remember. In fact, even when you're noticing it, it might not be something that you register with full consciousness, but what you're doing is you're training your mind to pick up on small cues and small clues about how people are reacting. You're listening to the laughter. You're trying to figure out, do they laugh when I expect they. They will, or is it just kind of a mild chuckle? You're probably also noticing if they're looking at each other. Are people looking at each other for permission to react, or are they so, so comfortable with being who they are that they're able to just focus on you? You're probably noticing things like how they react to different tone of voice, to different types of presentation, to different cadence. These are all things that you have trained yourself because you're. You're a speaker to. To notice without even noticing that you are noticing them. And when. When we're talking to large groups, one of the things that we can do is we can practice and, and an easy way to do this is like just Turn on a YouTube video, turn on the nightly news, and turn down the sound, and try and figure out what that person is talking about, what they're feeling, what they're thinking based on how they re based on their expressions, on their gestures. If you turn it down a little bit, you can't hear what they're saying, but you can hear their tone of voice. That practice that I talked about is not only practice in having conversations, it's practicing and noticing how other people react to conversations. And because you have spoken from a stage so many times, you've practiced it to where that ability, that detection is almost second nature. And it's something we can all do.

[B]

I like that idea too, of. And I'll do it in a couple different ways. When I'm training communicators, one thing is I'll have them watch a video of someone that they like, and I'll have them watch the video themselves, and I'll have them turn the volume down of Both and put both speakers up at the same time and try to find out where are they mirroring each other? Where can they be more effective? And then I'll do the same thing, Charles, is. I'll have someone on stage and I'll say, like, okay, this is a Bible verse. What I want you to do is I want you to act it out. You say the words, but there's no sound. And I want you to do it when you're excited. Then I want you to do it when you're more authentic in learning different ways to connect, because you can say the same thing in different ways, and it have entirely. It can hit, it can miss, it can backfire, it can ricochet. It can go different places.

[A]

It's exactly right. And the thing about communication is it's so cognitively intense. Like, it takes up so much of our attention that we oftentimes notice things without realizing that we've noticed them. And what you're doing in those exercises is you're helping people be more sensitive to what they're noticing.

[B]

And this is important. So I've done public communication for years, and I recognize when I walk off the platform, then go talk to people individually, I might be effective on stage, but not as effective personally. Big problem.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Big problem. And so, yeah, I had to work on learning to be incredibly engaged. Eye contact, remember names, focus, be others, intentional. And I want to talk about that for a minute. Let's say we're going to have a developmental conversation. And like, I love your idea. And anybody who's married, I'm assuming, has been there. My wife comes in and says, here's what's on our mind. She's in an emotional state and wants me to listen. I'm all practical. Let me fix it. And we miss each other. I think there's probably not a marriage that hasn't been there in some form or fashion. In the same way, let's say you're on my team and you're late, you're harsh, and you raise problems, but don't bring solutions. And I want to coach you on these things. So we're going to have a developmental conversation, and in my mind, I care about you. I'm not mad. I want to help you get better. So I walk in in a practical state. The moment I start to coach you, you're going to be a little nervous, defensive, and you might be emotional. What's my mindset? Do I want to take you to practical? Do I want to acknowledge your emotions? Help me know what do I do? First, to create that emotional safety for you so that I can help you get better.

[A]

So I think the first thing you do is it's going to be hard for you to guess what mental state I'm in, so ask me a question. And in fact, there's some questions that are known as deep questions that are more powerful than other questions. And a deep question usually asks us about our values or beliefs or experiences. And so if someone comes in and you're going to do a performance review with them, I think the first thing to do is to say, look, I want to know, what do you think you're doing well, and what do you think you're doing? Not well. Particularly the not well. What are you worried about? What's blocking you from doing the job you want to do? At that moment, someone might say, well, look, actually, I really wish I spent less time on expenses because expenses are taking up a lot of time. And, okay, that person's in a practical mindset, right? They just told us they're thinking about practical issues. But they might also say, you know, I just. I like. I worry that other people here don't like me. And I. And I. And I, at the end of the day, I find that I'm, like, way more anxious than I, than I. Than I want to be. Okay. That person's in an emotional mindset. And at that moment, what I'm going to do is I'm going to match them. I'm going to say, look, what I hear you saying is there's aspects of this job that are impacting you emotionally, and I want to be able to talk about that, or there's aspects of this job that logistically you're just having trouble with, and we got to make some changes. In other words, I hear what kind of mindset you're in, and at that moment, I might say, I hear what you're saying. Can we talk about some solutions that might help us overcome this challenge? In other words, do I have your permission to. To start a practical conversation? And just like talking to your wife, if you start that conversation by saying, honey, I hear what you're saying, and I hear that you've had a really hard day, and I'm sorry for that. If it's okay, can we talk about some ways to structure tomorrow differently that might help, she's going to be right there with you, and that person you're talking to is going to be right there with you. But the key is to start with that question, because otherwise we assume we know what the other. The other person's mindset and we might be completely wrong. And also they want us to prove that we've heard them.

[B]

Yes. Super, super important. And I think sometimes leading somewhere to leading someone to a better solution with questions, kind of like a counselor will do. A counselor typically isn't going to. A good counselor isn't going to tell you the solution, but help you discover it. So by leading with questions, I think we can get people there. I'm kind of curious. Is there a point where you said, tell me maybe what you're concerned about? And let's say we discovered they're in more of an emotional state and they're worried at what people think about them. They feel like they're not good enough. And so we say, oh, my gosh, I've been there, too. I hear you saying that you feel insecure. And I felt like that my first three years here. And you worry about what people think, I worry about what you think right now. And so we're connected there. Do you at any point shift the conversation intentionally and say, so let's talk about how we can get better and then get practical? Or do you try to keep it on an emotional state and lead them? What do you do when you're.

[A]

Well, part of it is a question of what your goal is. If your goal is simply to bond with someone, then you could stay emotional the entire conversation. But if your goal is that I'm the boss and I want to sort of give you some advice on how to get better at your job, then. Then you should shift to the practical. And what I love about what you just said is you said two things. You said. First of all, I'm going to acknowledge that you're feeling emotional by telling you that I have felt emotional in the past as well. Right. But then I'm going to ask your permission. I'm going to say something like, can I tell you how I dealt with this problem? Because I felt the exact same way you did. And it would keep me up at nights, but I was able to work past it. Can I tell you a little bit about the solutions I found that helped me out? What I'm doing in that moment is I'm asking your permission. We started emotional. We bonded emotionally. I'm asking your permission. Can we move this to a practical conversation? And once you give me your permission, we're in sync. Because the truth of the matter is, if that person sits down and they are in an emotional mindset, they might not want to have a purely emotional conversation. It might be that they just feel so overwhelmed and they're desperate for someone to get them out of this loop in their head where they're feeling bad about themselves. But if you force them to do that, it's going to feel bad. If you ask them permission to do that, they're going to say, yeah, yeah, let's talk about solutions.

[B]

So one of the most common questions we get here, people email in and is one of the most common categories, is somewhere around developmental conversations. And as a boss or leader, you want to be liked, you don't want to be harsh, and sometimes you're kind of friends with the people and you don't know how to do it. Can you talk to me about, in a conversation like that, how direct can I be without being. Without coming across harsh?

[A]

I think you can be very, very direct if you set it up the right way. And that's why. So I have these conversations all the time, right, with folks who are working for me. And I always started by asking one question. I start by saying, I want you to tell me what two things you think you do really well at this job and two things you don't do well at this job and sort of what's going on there and why you're not doing well. So now instead of me accusing them of something, they're putting some issues on the table. And like, 90% of the time, the things that they think they're not doing well are also the things that I don't think they're doing well. Right. Like. Like we're in agreement. They know the problem. They're not. They're not blind. And so when they've done that, now they've given me permission to talk about those things. And. And then I start by saying, look, I hear what you're saying. I hear that, you know, these two things are really bugging you. You want to get better at them. I am here to help you get better at them. Can I give you some suggestions that I think might help? When I'm asking what. What we perceive as harshness is not actually the content of the words that are said, it's oftentimes how they're said. Whether you're. You're getting my permission to tell me something I might not want to hear or might be painful to hear versus just forcing it on me, that's where that resistance comes from. But if I'm making you a participant in this conversation, if we're sitting on the same side of the table and saying, there's the problem in front of us, we both Agree on this problem. Let's go fix it. That's not harsh.

[B]

Super helpful.

[A]

That's an act of mercy and of kindness.

[B]

It is. And I want the leaders out there to hear that right now, it's actually. It's less loving not to tell the truth. It's more loving to help them get better. And you're not. You're not being harsh or cruel when you. When you are very direct with people. You're actually.

[A]

Because they know if you're disappointed in them. Right. The same way that you pick up on how the audience is reacting. They know that you think there's some issues. They know that you call them into their office for your office for a specific reason and not acknowledging that.

[B]

So as we're talking, I apologize. Speaking over. As. As we're talking, I realize I've asked a lot of people about what I call, like, phase one and phase two of a developmental conversation. Phase one is just the whole, how do you get into it? And that'. Like I like to say, don't shoot the breeze. Don't ask about their family, their vacation. Like you kind of. It's better just to get right into it. And then sometimes what I'll do is, I love your idea of asking that question. I will implement that is I'll try to. I'll say, let me tell you what's not happening here. You're not in trouble. You're not losing your job. And so. Because in the back of their mind, they have a lot of fear, and I am absolutely here because I care about you. I wouldn't be having this conversation if I don't care about you and I want to help you get better.

[A]

Well, and what I love about that is what you're actually saying to them is you're saying, I understand that this conversation is a little bit emotional for you, and I want to acknowledge that it's emotional and put those emotions, empathize with those emotions and hopefully put them to the side so we can talk about other stuff. It's a real act of empathy.

[B]

Would be better and more effective by giving them permission to. Or at least discovering where they are first. I think sometimes.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. And there are those situations where someone says, well, I think I'm really bad at filling out expense reports. And you're thinking in the back of your head, no, you're really bad at communication.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

At which point you can say, can I tell you about some things that I've noticed? But again, you're asking permission.

[B]

So I'd like to talk about the last third. In my mind, there's three parts to this conversation. There's going to be, and I'm kind of making this up as I go, but there's going to be the emotional safety part where we are connecting with them and giving them permission to feel safe. Then there's going to be what I kind of call the application of the practical. Like, here are the specific things that need to change and they need to change by this time. And here's what we're going to do to help you get there, whatever. And afterwards, to me, there's going to be kind of a wrap up cleanup clarification time where again, we're helping them know that we're for them, but we gotta be really, really, really clear. Talk to me about that phase. When we're in the last 10 minutes of the meeting and we're gonna actually send them back out, they're gonna go home, talk to their spouse. Oh, I had a hard conversation today. They're gonna go back to their office and they're gonna marinate on it. And I should have said this and I didn't say that. Lots of emotions. How do you button it up, tighten it up where you are, validating their emotions and feelings and yet making sure they are crystal clear on what you said and, and send them out with the best chances of success.

[A]

So there's actually a technique for this known as looping for understanding. And at its core, what it shows us is that when we're communicating with people, both of us need to believe that the other person has heard us and we need to prove that we are listening. And so in that last stage of the conversation, if you said something like, as a favor to me, can you, can you just tell me what you've carried away from this so that I see, I can see if it lines up with what I've carried away from it. They're going to, they're going to tell you what they've learned. And at that point you can say, what I heard you say is this. I heard you say that you understand you got to work on communication and that we need to work on expense reports. Another thing I brought up. Wait, first of all, did I get that right? Am I hearing you correctly? Yeah, you're hearing me correctly. Okay, so there's one other part of that that I think I missed. That I think you missed. Let me repeat it again. And, and then do the exercise again. So when you go home and you discuss this with your wife, tell me, like, what are the, what's the conversation with her. What are the three things that you're going to focus on? Because you're exactly right. We are so overwhelmed in that development conversation that it's really easy to lose track of what's been said, to just remember what we felt. But you're doing them an act of kindness by saying, loop for understanding. Let's go back and let's try and repeat for ourselves what we carry out of this meeting and then let's check in with each other. Did I get it right? Am I hearing you correctly? And not only does that give us the ability to reconfigure and reinforce those lessons, it also makes us feel like we've been heard and that will put us at ease.

[B]

Super helpful. If you're working with someone or we've got a lot of people listening to you right now and they say, okay, I actually really want to get better at communication. How do I self assess and how do I know where to start?

[A]

Yeah. So I think the first thing to do is just to ask the people around you. Right. And it's hard, It's a little bit of an ego blow to turn to someone and say, look, I'm trying to get better at communication. I'm just wondering, how do you think I'm good at it and how do you think I'm. Where are the places that I can work on it? But then the other thing is to. To spend a little bit of time reviewing each day or each week, getting back to habits. There's some kinds of habits that are known as cognitive routines, where it's things that I put in my day that allow me to think a little bit more deeply. So for me, the cognitive routine is I come home from work and I tell my wife all about my day in excruciating detail. She does not care about my day in excruciating detail. This is boring for her. But it's a routine, a habit that I'm in that helps me review my day to figure out what went well and what went poorly and what I can improve tomorrow. And I think we all need these moments of contemplation. For some of us, it's prayer. For some of us, it's a Sunday review where we look at the past week and we look at the upcoming week. Sometimes it's just having conversations with our family about how things went the more. And those don't necessarily feel productive. That can feel like I shouldn't be doing that I should actually be doing work. But those moments, those cognitive habits, those cognitive routines that we get into those are the ones that allow us to recognize when things went well and things went poorly. And that's how we figure out, did I really connect with this person? Let me think back to that conversation. Did they walk away with it and did their behavior change or did it feel like we connected but nothing was different afterwards?

[B]

Yes. Yeah, I think we've all been there. I want to talk to our community just for a second and wrap back to something that Charles said. And you went by pretty quick. I may have you add to it, but as a leader, I think one of the most important things that you can do is regularly ask the people some form of the question, what's it like to be on the other side of me? This was super embarrassing to me years ago, but I'd speak a message. I'd go out and talk to people in the lobby, and I had someone who was kind of a communication expert, and they said, you are the best and the worst I've ever seen. You're really, really good on stage, and you're horrible in person. I'm like, what do you mean I'm horrible in person? And they said, you're in the lobby, and instead of looking at the person in front of you, you're looking around the whole time, and you're not making eye contact. You look like you're trying to see who else is there. And I said, I actually am. I'm trying to figure out who needs to talk and who's next. And it shows that you don't care about the person in front of you. I actually do, but I also care about the next person. And so I had to admit that, number one, I wasn't very good at it. And then two, I had to learn the skills. And now I'm very blessed that people say, oh, my gosh, you really care. You're really. But it's not that it was natural. It was something that I had to work at. I would love, and I want to say just to those in our community is ask people, and the higher you rise, the more you have to work to get them to tell you the truth, because they're not going to tell you. We as leaders make so many assumptions and so many mistakes. Mistake number one is we talk too much. We don't listen enough. Mistake number two is our agenda, and we don't care about their agenda. Can you give me just a few more? As a leader, what are some of the most common mistakes that you see? Especially powerful leaders who've been doing it for a long Time.

[A]

Absolutely. So sometimes it's born out of good intentions. So going to a junior employee in your organization and saying, tell me what I'm doing well, and tell me what I'm doing poorly, yep, that's pretty intimidating.

[B]

It is, right?

[A]

Like, all of a sudden there's you're saying, criticize the boss. That's going to be hard. So one of the things to do is to recognize that when we ask those questions, those can be hard questions in and of themselves, and we should make those questions softer. And one way I do it is to say, someday you're going to be a leader. I'm wondering, can you tell me what about your experiences here? Do you think you'll carry forward as a leader you'll imitate, and what are some of the things that you think you're gonna do differently? Right. Instead of asking you, can you criticize me? I'm now asking you, can you tell me which parts of this experience you find meaningful and which parts of this experience you would change? It's the same question. Right. Essentially, I'm asking you to criticize me, but I'm doing it in a way that doesn't put you on the spot. So I think that's one of the big things that leaders can think about. When I ask someone a question, when I give them a command, am I putting them in a position where they are prone to be more anxious or less anxious? And then finally, I think the other thing is, how am I modeling the behavior that I want them to? Have I mentioned this thing, looping for understanding? Right. It has three steps. You ask a question. When the person answers a question, you repeat back what you heard them say, and then you ask them if you got it right. Now, if you're talking to some junior person in your organization and they say something, you understand it right away, but they don't know that you've heard them. Right. And so when you do that, looping for understanding takes 10, 15 seconds. You're proving to them that you're showing that you're listening, but more importantly, you're showing them how they ought to behave going forward. So if. If folks are behaving in ways, particularly conversational ways, that you find less productive, the number one question to ask is, how do I model what I want them to do? Because often, as a leader, we don't need to do it. We're so good that we can bypass it. But it's that modeling that helps the people who report to us learn how to change their own behavior.

[B]

Okay, So I Hear you saying a lot right now, and I kind of want to repeat some of it for the sake of our.

[A]

See, you're really good at looping for understanding.

[B]

No, but I just. I just. There's. There's so much good here. So I'm thinking organization. I'm thinking I've got a leader who's been leading five to 10 years. So they're starting to get their feet under them. They've got a team of eight people. They walk into a meeting and they're going, okay, I need to actually know what wavelength they're on. Are they in an emotional state? Is this practical? Are we problem solving? What kind of state? And so they ask them questions, and then they're going to kind of define. They're going to validate where the team is, and they're going to try to create some movement in a different direction. Let's say they recognize we are missing each other here. I understand it, My team doesn't. How do we teach our team to understand these principles and to communicate better? Because I think I might understand it, but they're not gonna understand it, do I? And I'm gonna answer my own question. One of the ways we do it is we read your book, like, literally. And I'm gonna answer, how do we do anything? One of the things we do is we find great resources and we go through them together. We're gonna watch a podcast together. We're gonna read a great book together. We're gonna watch a great YouTube talk together. Because what we're doing is we're creating common language, common understanding and common experience. And. I'm sorry, I just answered the question I'm asking you, but put a little more skin on that for me is organizationally, I wanna teach our team to be better communicators. Listening, empathizing, being clear, having looping conversations. What are some practical ways to.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Create a better organizational culture?

[A]

The best way to do this is to have what are known as meta conversations, which are conversations about conversations. Right. To. To say, I'm in a meeting, or like, ships pass in the night, nobody's hearing each other. To take a break and say, look, everyone's making good points, but I don't think we're not connecting for some reason. Let's talk about why we're not connecting, Right? If we've read a book together about communication, let's just set. Set aside 15 minutes. Let's practice. Let's practice listening to each other, looping for understanding. I. I'm gonna. I'm gonna Tell, tell you something that's going on in my life and I want you to tell me whether I'm in a practical mindset or an emotional mindset. Right. Oftentimes, again, we think that communication should be natural. We think it should be easy, and that if it's not easy, we're doing something wrong. But communication is not easy. It's not natural. It's something that we learn to do and we practice. And when we're not good at it, the answer isn't to say, ah, I made a mistake. I'm really, I. I'm such a screw up. The answer is to say, how do we create an environment where we can practice this until we get better? And sometimes just calling out the elephant in the room. When I come home and I start complaining about my day, my wife will often say, do you want me to help you solve this problem or do you just need to vent and get this off your chest? She's asking me, do you want to have a practical conversation or an emotional conversation? And I appreciate it because usually I haven't stopped to think about that myself. When we call out miscommunication, what we're doing is we're helping ourselves get better at it. And when we have conversations about communication, what we're doing is we're practicing the skills that we need.

[B]

So again, I wanted to say to our community. The book is called Super Communicators by Charles Duhigg. It's a must read. And I wanted to say to you, one of the most important things you can do as a leader is work on your communication skills. I tell our people all the time that just because you said it doesn't mean they heard it, believe it, or will do it. I want to say it again, just because you said it doesn't mean they heard it. Believe it or we'll do it. And so I teach our team members all the time is when you're communicating, the three categories I want is I want, know, feel, do. What do I want them to know? Information. What do I want them to feel? Because emotion drives action, what do I want them to do? Most communicators just do the know and the do. Here's what I want you to know and here's what I want you to do. The feel matters so much. Can you add a little bit of color around that for me to be effective in communication? A lot of times we say, well, I told them and they didn't do it. Well, just because you said it doesn't mean they heard it. Believe it or we'll do it. Give me some color on how to become more effective. And then I'm going to put you on the spot and ask you a super personal question. That may make you nervous, but I'll ask anyway just for fun.

[A]

So what I really enjoyed about what you just said is that you focused on that feel. Right. The truth of the matter is emotions impact every conversation we have, whether we're aware of them or not. Whether you're nervous or you're feeling ecstatic, that's going to influence what, what you say, but it's also going to influence how you hear. If I'm really anxious about this meeting, I'm not going to be able to hear you quite as well. Right. Until that anxiety level comes down, you could, you could tell me all the things you want me to do and you could diagnose the problem really, really well. But if I don't hear you, then it doesn't matter. And so the most important thing that we can do is. I love that thing that, that think, feel, do that. That when we focus on all three of those, because those are all in one way, one of the kinds of conversations. Right. The practical, the emotional and social. When we do that, what we're doing is we're opening ourselves up to new possibilities. And all we have to do is get connected. Once we're connected, you can hear what I'm saying and I can hear what you're saying, but until that connection is made, it's going to be really hard to fully hear each other.

[B]

Yes. And as leaders, we tend to think we're connecting and we're often not.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Because we're not asking people for evidence. We're not paying attention.

[B]

No. What I've noticed, if I'm talking to someone in the organization, I'm relaxed and they're often not. And I'll do. And I don't understand why I try to help them feel relaxed. But sometimes we're in the middle of an awkward conversation, we don't know what's awkward, and so we have to work really, really hard.

[A]

And I think at those moments when you notice that, that's when the meta conversation can occur and you can say, look, I'm feeling really relaxed about this topic, but my intuition is telling me some of you are a little bit more on edge. Let's just take a break. I want to understand why you're on edge. Right. This is a, like, help me understand better.

[B]

Yes. Good. Okay. This is the fun part. So I'm going to rant for a minute. I am interviewing you, and like you said, communication is not easy. Doing interviews is excruciatingly challenging. I'm gonna show you. These are my whole notes. I don't know if you can probably see them or not, but this is. There's almost nothing on here. So I come in with just an awareness of your work and ridiculous curiosity. I try to be engaged in the moment. I don't have three questions planned. I've got. I'm in the moment trying to talk to you. So then I look on the comments, and people say, like, ah, you know, whenever you say. Or, mm, that's good. I don't like that. So I'll be quiet. I won't say anything. Next time I go on. Do you even care? You're not even commenting on there. What do I do? I don't even know what to do. And so what I'd love if you would be just really honest with me and help me and tell me, what did I do well in this interview? And then what I want you to do is I want you to be really clear and not even kind, but, like, very direct. What could I do better?

[A]

Okay, so before I do that, I'm happy to do it, but let me ask you, what do you think you did well in this conversation?

[B]

I'm not playing this way. I'm the interview guy. I ask you the question. Okay.

[A]

So.

[B]

So, yeah.

[A]

Okay. So normally I'd start by asking you.

[B]

I'll answer it if you want, but.

[A]

We'Ve been talking for a while.

[B]

Yeah. So one of my goals is to get you a little bit off script because you're so into your language. So I wanted to try to ask you questions you hadn't been asked before.

[A]

No, I love it. I love it. And I think you did that. Okay, so here's what I think. One of the things that I noticed in a conversation with you is that your empathy is absolutely apparent from the start. Right. You are constantly telling me, here's what I hear you saying. You're proving that you're listening. You're telling me. That makes a lot of sense to me. That seems like an important idea. You're relating it to your own life. You're showing me that you have empathy. Now, one of the things, and this is a little bit different from conversations versus interviews, like podcasts, is something that that could. Where there's this placest experiment, is that the best conversations usually are messy. Right. If you think about the most con. Most important conversations you've ever had, if I looked at the transcript of that conversation. What I would see is people talking each over each other. I would see like someone bringing up an idea and then getting distracted and never coming back to that idea. And there was a moment in our discussion when you said, I didn't mean to talk over you. I apologize for that. But actually talking over me is the hallmark of a good conversation. When people interrupt each other, when they're, when they're getting messy, when they're saying things that seem at that moment important and real, that's when a conversation sort of transcends to a higher level. And so the thing that I think that, that you could do, do differently. And I admire, I admire how much you're clearly thinking about how to structure this conversation so that an audience can listen to it is that sometimes it's also good to kind of throw that out the window, that discipline out the window and say, actually we're just two people kind of chewing the fat about something. I'm going to talk over you, you're going to talk over me. We're going to start an idea and never come back to it. That's not a bad thing. That's a good thing.

[B]

So that's super interesting because I actually agree 1000%. And I like when people almost like Argan debating. And I heard you say in another interview that if we're having a good conversation, our heart rates start to match each other, our pupils start to match each other. And so if we're really going at it at some point, I'm gonna joke with you, I'm gonna speak over you, you're gonna do it with me, and I don't mind because we like each other. In the dang comments, they'll say, you spoke over. I'm like, oh, so I'm gonna try not to do that. And so it's a balance. One is I wanna respect your ideas and don't wanna interrupt you, but I do wanna be engaged enough to where that we can interact, I think, at that level. So I hear that and I was working to not interrupt you today. And so next time I interview, I might interrupt you with the passion of we'll do it a little bit more.

[A]

We'Ll do it again.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get to interview non stop. So our guest is Charles Duhigg. He is the author of many great books. The Power of Habits, One I recommend all the time. Smarter, Faster, Better. Is that the name? Yeah, Smarter, Faster, Better. And then the most recent one is called Super Communicators. What I wanna do? I wanna bless our audience today. We're gonna give away five of these books. And so if you'd like to potentially win one, hop over to YouTube and just you can comment on there. I wanna be a better communicator. Comment that on YouTube and then we'll give away five of those books. So I know that you've got a great newsletter, the Science of Better, if people want to get that or find out more about you. Charles, where do they go?

[A]

Yeah, they can go to Substack, where the Science of Better Lives. So they can just also Google me and find my website where you can sign up for it. It's just CharlesDuhigg.com and because it's a weird last name, it's D U h, I G G. And they'll also find on that website my email address. And I read and respond to every single email I get from a reader. So if there's a question that you have, if there's something you want to follow up with, if you want to tell me what you think Craig did well or did poorly or you didn't.

[B]

Or why, I'm going to interrupt you right there because we don't care what I did well or poorly. So I'm interrupting you because you gave me permission to. But you could email them there. Hey, I'm super grateful for your investment. Your hard work has made us better here. And so thank you. And I do want to tell our audience, grab these books. I'm not just there's. I'm just. I'm telling you to read them because they've been super helpful to me and they'll be super helpful to you. So, Charles, thanks for being on today. You did a fantastic job.

[A]

Thank you. Thank you so much. As did you. I really appreciate it.

[B]

Well, we'll do it again. And guess what? To our community, you got a little bit better today. You're going to be more intentional about your habits. Create the right habits that compound into other good habits. And you're going to walk into a conversation and ask, hey, what's going on in this room? And pay attention to the people that you're with because they value. They matter to you so much. And when you care about them, you can all get a lot better. And you just got better today, which is great news because we know that everyone wins when the leader gets better. Thanks, Charles.

[A]

Thank you.