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- [00:01]
Mayra Ameth
A Mochi moment from Sadie, who writes, I'm not crying, you're crying. This is what I said during my first appointment with my physician at Mochi because I didn't have to convince him I needed a GLP one. He understood and I felt supported, not judged. I came for the weight loss and stayed for the empathy. Thanks, Sadie. I'm Mayra Ameth, founder of Mochi Health. To find your mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com.
- [00:27]
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- [01:04]
Mike Pesca
It's Tuesday, January 15, 2026. From Peach Fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca, and let's play everybody's favorite game. Who is Donald Trump threatening now? All clips within the last 24 hours. The first one from last night's NewsHour on PBS. President Trump said today that he hoped for a resolution on his threat to. To what? What was that threat? He wants a resolution. That's a hint. Some of the threats are brand new, so he really just wants attention with those. Let's check in. President Trump said today that he hoped for a resolution on his threat to annex Greenland. The annexation of Greenland, a threat from the Manifest Destiny era, not the promise to nuke Greenland, the capital is already nuke, but to act boldly and take what should be ours as defined by what Donald Trump woke up and angriest about. Here's threat number two, issued soon thereafter. At least reported soon thereafter. This morning on npr, President Trump is.
- [02:04]
Libsyn Ads Advertiser
Issued another threat to what?
- [02:07]
Mike Pesca
To keep on keeping on. To continue pronouncing acetaminophen in his own quirky, fun filled way. What was this threat different from the Greenland threat? I'll tell you a new threat. Have a guess? Let's find out.
- [02:20]
Libsyn Ads Advertiser
President Trump has issued another threat to Minnesota.
- [02:24]
Charles Duhigg
Writing online, he says if attacks continue on ICE agents, he will invoke the Insurrection Act.
- [02:30]
Mike Pesca
Okay, not to nuke nuke, but this time to possibly attack Mankato. All Of Minnesota. It's Minnesota in the crosshairs. Seems a little excessive. As does just about every policy has in Minnesota. But that's the thing about threats. They never come off as excessive in Donald Trump's mind. They only make Donald Trump seem more powerful. All right, here's threat number three as reported this morning by the Wall Street Journal.
- [02:56]
Charles Duhigg
Meanwhile, President Trump appears to be backing off threats of an imminent attack on.
- [03:00]
Mike Pesca
Backing off a threat. Maybe this one's an economic one, right? Is it the threat to indict Jerome Powell? No, no, because I just gave that away. That's not the right answer. He denies that investigation is a threat. I deny that that threat is an actual investigation. So what threat might Donald Trump be backing off on? Let's listen.
- [03:20]
Charles Duhigg
Meanwhile, President Trump appears to be backing off threats of an imminent attack on Iran.
- [03:25]
Mike Pesca
Iran. He's backing off for now. I could have also gone with some threats to credit card companies, threats to Raytheon for on time delivery, lots and lots of threats. And of course tariffs. That's always a threat. Fun filled factor. But we know why there is this uptick in threats, right? It's because there is an uptick in flashpoints. No, no, it's not just that flashpoint has to equal threat with some international negotiators. It actually doesn't. It's because Donald Trump did in fact back up his last threat. His last words were met by the action of grabbing Maduro. He got some guff beforehand that that was just an empty threat. He's going to taco. Oh no, he aripaed or at least aripaed Maduro out of his homeland and he's now in the who's gal. So Trump thinks my credibility is at an all time high. Might as well spend it threatening everyone and everything. And, and of course, as with emperors and clothes and wolves and boys crying, not every situation can be solved by bluster or by no one actually poking and thinking critically about Donald Trump's threats. There is a limit to threats. It's that threats undelivered upon threaten to decrease the credibility of the threatener, thus increasing brazenness of the threatened. On the show today, I go on the Record about off the Record. But first, Charles Duhigg is here, a very insightful man, a very good writer. And I know this not just because I read his books, but because I listen to Charles, I talk to him, which is important because Mr. Doohigg is the author of Super Communicators how to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. It's a very interesting segment, I think you'll learn how to communicate better. Charles Duhigg up next. Thanks to Home Serve for sponsoring this episode. Being a homeowner is amazing. It helps to be married to a somewhat brilliant architect who designs a home such that it should go in some sort of digest. But I gotta tell you, there's a lot of stuff to do around the house. Cracks in the ceiling, cracks in the facade. You know what the big win was in the last few months? The neighbors demolished their house and we have the same kind of brick for our facade than they do. So we took some of their brick. They were just going to throw it away. And now we can mix and match all the cracks that their demolishment caused with our house. So what I'm saying is you protect your health, your car, your phone, but what about your home? It's the biggest investment you have and when things go wrong, you don't think of it in the context of insurance, like life insurance or any of those other things I talked about. So regular homeowner insurance doesn't cover the day to day wear and tear like plumbing failures and H vacs and electrical issues. Hey, you're on your own. And that is where HomeServe comes in. They're here to say you're not on your home. You subscribe to HomeServe for as little as 499amonth. They got your back and they get back to you quickly. Repairs hit hard and fast, but they have a 24. 7 hotline scheduling. Repair has never been easier. A little bit about them. They have four and a half million customers. They're 4.8 out of five on their rating. They have an A plus from the better Business Bureau. They're the real deal. And as for me, I don't know. It's. It's so many things. But the cracks on the ceiling of the kids room, which we've been diagnosed that you better just fix the whole ceiling. Two plumbing failures, two floods. Lots of floods. Maybe air conditioning systems installed backwards. An emergency repair service really would have helped us out so many times. I'm glad I have it now. Help protect your home systems and your wallet with home serve against covered repairs. Plans start at 499amonth. Go to homeserve.com to find the plan that's right for you. That's homeserve.com not available everywhere. Most plans range from 499 to 1199amonth. Your first year terms apply on covered repairs. True Work. I'm wearing True Work now. It's Fashionable, but it gets the job done. And that's how it was started. The founder was a guy who worked in the trades who said, why am I always wearing jeans? Maybe back then they said dungarees, they get wet. They don't really work for me. So they made comfortable, capable, ready for work. Whatever the day throws at you, I have. I could list all the gear. I got this, I think it's called a Wabi hoodie. I got this great hoodie. The moisture is wicked away. I got a couple of pair of pro work pants. Lots of zippers, lots of hooks and they look good. I got one in black, which, you know, everyone is black. Then I got one in this kind of burnt orangey thing. It's a cool looking pair of pants. They have over 50,000 five star reviews from pros in every trade and every climate. I personally endorse true work. It's not what you say. That's what's on your body right now and that's what's going on with me. Upgrade your day with workwear built like it matters. Get 15% off your first order@truewerk.com with code. The gist A lot of times we spell the name of the company. It's very important. There's a little wrinkle here. T R U E w e r k.com youm get it? T r u e we r k.com.
- [08:49]
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- [09:51]
Mike Pesca
Charles Duhigg is here. Charles Duhigg is back. I like talking to the writer and thinker. We shall say thinker, journalist Charles Duhigg. Why do I like talking to him? Well, for years I thought he was just an interesting guy, had the gift of gab. Now I realize he is in fact a super communic. That is the name of his book now out in paperback. Super Communicators how to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection.
- [10:20]
Charles Duhigg
Hello, Charles.
- [10:21]
Mike Pesca
Welcome back.
- [10:22]
Charles Duhigg
Thanks for having me back. This is a treat.
- [10:25]
Mike Pesca
Let's talk or let's loop. This is the big. I think this is the big takeaway. This is maybe your 10,000 hours out of super communicators. Tell me about looping. The power of looping.
- [10:34]
Charles Duhigg
Yeah, Looping for understanding. So. So there's a couple of things that make the best communicators great. And it's just a handful of skills. It turns out when we look at the research, it's just a handful of skills that make people into great communicators. And they're skills that basically anyone can learn. And one of them is the ability to prove that we are listening, right? We think of listening as like I shut my mouth and I open my ears and that's listening. And that's the first step of listening. But it turns out that's not enough. You have to actually be much more active when you're listening. And sometimes that activity can be pretty easy, right? It's just me asking follow up questions or as me saying, oh, that's a really interesting idea. What I hear you saying is this, right? I can make it kind of casual. But when we're in tough conversations, when we're in conversations where we might disagree with someone, if we're. When we're in conversations at work and it's really important that we connect with each other, there's this technique known as looping for understanding. And it has three steps. Step one is that you ask a question and preferably it's what's known as a deep question. And we can go into what a deep question is. But you ask that question and in step two is when the person answers your question, you pay close enough attention that you can repeat back what you heard them say. And the goal here is not mimicry, right? It's not to use the same words, not just to prove I'm listening, it's to prove that I'm absorbing and considering. So I might. I'm going to restate what you told me in my own words. And I might actually draw a couple connections and say, oh, that's interesting. Like what I hear you saying is this. And that reminds me of something you said before, which is kind of related. And that's step two. And most of us actually, by the time we're adults, we intuitively know how to do step One and two. Right. We're good at asking questions, we're good at kind of proving that we're listening by asking follow up questions or repeating back what we heard. It's step three that I always forget to do, which is step three is ask if you got it right. Did I hear you correctly? Like, is that what you were trying to tell me? Because what I'm actually doing in that moment is I'm asking you for permission to acknowledge that I was listening. And what studies show is if you acknowledge that I was listening, you are much more likely to listen to me in return. Like 10 to 20 times more likely to listen to me in return. Yeah. And so this looping for understanding these three steps, ask a question, repeat back what you heard them say, Ask if you got it right. It's been shown more than any other technique to resolve or mitigate or lessen the temperature of disagreements, of conflicts, and to make each person, even if we don't agree with each other, even if we walk away disagreeing with each other, to make each person feel connected to the other person.
- [13:20]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, it's empathetic, it's graceful, it shows understanding and connection, it's high minded and kind. But it's also tactical and could be a sociopath could hear that and do it. Because the, when I get you to acknowledge that you heard that I understood, I mean this has deep roots, as you know, in psychology where once a person acknowledges something about an interaction, they are, because of ego, more invested in the truth of that interaction. So that's a very interesting aspect of it. Yeah.
- [13:57]
Charles Duhigg
And there's a reciprocity instinct that all of us carry in our brains, which is a product of evolution, which is that if I think you are listening to me, I feel an obligation to listen to you in return.
- [14:08]
Mike Pesca
And con, Right. Like cons are based on this, the reciprocity instinct.
- [14:14]
Charles Duhigg
Yeah, no, it's absolutely true. And in there's other techniques or other skills that we can learn to make us resistant against those cons or resistant against those psychopaths. But this is a technique that good normal people can use to really connect with someone else.
- [14:31]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. No, so tell me what the deep questions are. Questions that go to identity. Right.
- [14:36]
Charles Duhigg
So there's, so I mentioned there's a handful of skills that super communicators have. And we're all super communicators at one time or another. But consistent super communicators, they have a handful of skills. The first is this proving that we're listening, looping for understanding. The second is that the best communicators tend to ask more questions than the average person. Like, 10 to 20 times as many questions as the average person. And some of those questions, they're basically just invitations to participate in conversations. Things like, oh, oh, what'd you do next? Or, oh, what would you think of that? Like, did you see that movie? What do you think of it? Right. Those are just invitations to come in. But then there's another kind of question that's known as a deep question within psychology. And a deep question is something that asks about my values or my beliefs or my experiences. And that can sound a little intimidating. Right. Like. Like, we have to ask someone something really deep and personal. But it's as simple as if you meet someone who's a doctor, instead of asking them, oh, where'd you go to medical school? Asking them, oh, why'd you go to medical school?
- [15:38]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [15:38]
Charles Duhigg
Right. That second question, why did you go to medical school? That's an invitation for them to tell you about experiences they've had about the values that they carry. Like, it gives you a chance to figure out, like, where they grew up and, like, what. What led them to something. Just changing from ask. Asking about the facts of a question.
- [15:58]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [15:59]
Charles Duhigg
To how they feel or the why of a question transforms entirely the conversation. Because inevitably they are going to tell you something that you can relate to, something that you can ask more questions about, something that you find interesting, something that gives you an opportunity to say, oh, that's interesting. You went to medical school because you saw your uncle get. Get sick. I actually went to law school because I saw my uncle get arrested. And I wanted to. I wanted to. I did. I thought it was unjust. I wanted to be someone who could help him. Right now, suddenly you're both sharing with each other in a really meaningful way, and you're. You're learning and you're connecting with each.
- [16:34]
Mike Pesca
Other as an interviewer and for the audience, you know, this why is almost always the best question, and that's almost always the ideal length of the question. And I never stick to that length. I will ask why questions, but I just feel compelled, as you could hear in this question, to add a bit more. But you could just take anything. And if you get to explain the motivation for this and the person does, it unlocks so much. I just am picking up this quite random newspaper. The story on the front page is, Paramount attempts to edge out Netflix with a hostile Warner bid. So if I was interviewing the head of Paramount, Ellison, I might say, why. Why do you why do you want to own movie studios? Right, yeah. That might be an unlocking question. What about movies? What about that compels you? This has been documented. So maybe that's not the greatest question in the world, but the why are you doing this? Question, why are you really doing this? It unlocks a lot, and people absolutely never resent answering it, even if they're lying.
- [17:37]
Charles Duhigg
That's exactly right. And I think another way of framing that is a feel question, right? Like, do you feel like it's fair that you guys have to make a hostile bid? Do you feel like what's happening in the marketplace is fair to you right now?
- [17:48]
Mike Pesca
Ooh, that's good.
- [17:49]
Charles Duhigg
The important word there is not fair. The important word is feel. I'm asking this person sort of to talk about their emotional. Sort of shallow emotions, but real emotions On. On perspective on this question.
- [18:03]
Mike Pesca
I have a little pet peeve with the feel question. If you asked, do you think it's fair, would that be as good a question?
- [18:10]
Charles Duhigg
Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because. Because I think. I think that you're. You're asking basically, do you feel that it's fair? Just by saying, do you think it's fair?
- [18:18]
Mike Pesca
And it makes it feel fair is not a logic thing. But maybe someone who's in the market, Larry Ellison, would answer, think better than fear.
- [18:25]
Charles Duhigg
Exactly. Exactly. And fair. You're exactly right. Fair is an emotional question, is an emotional word. It's. It's asking about an emotion. And that gets to the next skill that super communicators have, which is they recognize that there are different kinds of conversations and that it's important to match each other when you're. When you're having a conversation. And I'll give you an example I got into. One of the reasons I wrote super communicators is I got into this bad pattern where I'd come home from work, I was working at the Times at that point, and I'd start complaining about my day, and I'd say, like, you.
- [18:59]
Mike Pesca
Know, by the way, thank you for anticipating that. I meant to ask you, why did you write super communicators? Thank you. But super communicator will assume that the other person has asked the right question.
- [19:09]
Charles Duhigg
Exactly, exactly. And you're very good at it. So. So I'd come home and I'd start complaining to my wife, and I'd say, like, you know, my boss doesn't appreciate me, and my co workers don't realize what a genius I am. And she very reasonably would give me some good Practical advice. She would say, like, you know, why don't you take your boss out to lunch and you guys can get to know each other a little bit better? And instead of being able to hear what she was saying, I would get even more upset. And I would say, like, why aren't you supporting me? You're supposed to be on my side. So I went to these researchers, and I asked them, like, why do I keep falling into this trap? Because this is pretty common in relationships, right? One person brings up an emotional problem, the other person tries to solve it. Practically, they don't appreciate the solutions. And so I went to these researchers, and I asked them, like, why does this keep happening? And they said, well, first of all, we're really glad you showed up, because we're actually living through this golden age of understanding communication for really the first time because of advances in data collection and neural imaging.
- [20:07]
Mike Pesca
We're glad they showed up. We had no way of getting it out unless Charles Duhigg showed up at our doorstep. All these journals going unread, right?
- [20:14]
Charles Duhigg
Yes. And so they said, here's. Here's one of the big things that we've learned. We've learned that when you are having a discussion, you think you know what that discussion is about, right? You're talking about your day, or you're talking about where to go on vacation next year, or you're talking about this funny story you heard from a friend. But the researcher said, if we look inside your brain, what we see is that this discussion is made up of many different kinds of conversations. And in general, these conversations, they tend to fall into one in three buckets. There's these practical conversations where we're making plans or we're solving problems together. But then there's also emotional conversations where I tell you what I'm feeling, and I don't want you to solve my feelings. I want you to empathize. And then finally, there's social conversations, which is about how we relate to each other, how we relate to society, the identities that are important to us. And what the researchers said is, they said in one discussion, you might cycle through all three of these different kinds of conversations. Emotional to social, to. To practical, back to emotional, they said. And all three of them are equally legitimate and important. But if you and the person you are talking to are having different kinds of conversations at the same moment, then you will fail to hear each other. You'll fail to feel connected to each other. It's just we're using different parts of our brains, and for this reason, Known as neural synchrony or neural entrainment. That means that we're not really able to listen or hear each other. They said, what's important is having the same kind of conversation at the same moment. And within psychology, this has become known as the matching principle. That successful communication demands having the same kind of conversation at the same time. So one of the big things that super communicators do is they often use deep questions to try and figure out, what kind of conversation are you having right now? Like, what kind of mindset are you in? And then they match you or they invite you to match them. And this worked perfectly with me and my wife right now. When I come home from work and I complain about my day, she says, do you want me to help you figure out, like, a solution for this, or do you just need to vent and complain? And I say, oh, I just need to vent. Like, this isn't that big a deal. I just need to get it off my chest. Right. What I'm basically saying to her is, I need to have an emotional conversation with you. And she says, okay. And she listens and she empathizes. And then at some point, she might say, okay, so I understand how you're feeling. Do you want to talk about solutions for this? In other words, can we move from an emotional conversation to a practical conversation? And when she does that, and I say, yes, we move together so we're still having the same kind of conversation. And in fact, one of the things we know is that once you get synced, you tend to move together through different kinds of conversations pretty effortlessly. So that's the next big skill is figure out what kind of conversation is.
- [23:06]
Mike Pesca
Occurring, men being as they are from Mars and women from Venus. But you know where I'm going with this? The assumption and assertion is that it's a womanly trait to have venting conversations where they don't want answers. And it's a man's trait to hear a woman venting and offer practical answers, thus mismatching. Do you think. Do the experts who are just waiting for you to knock on their door, do they credit that at all? Is there any truth to the gender breakdown of this?
- [23:35]
Charles Duhigg
So what we find is we find that people develop different habits and that those. It's not that. That men and women have different kinds.
- [23:42]
Mike Pesca
Of brains to plug another Charles Duig bestseller.
- [23:46]
Charles Duhigg
Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's that men and women are often inculcated as they grow up in different habits. And so you're exactly right. Men are often taught to frame Things in a practical, a practical stance. What's interesting is if you look under the hood and you see what they're actually saying, it might sound practical, but it's just as likely to be emotional. So if I'm feeling emotional, I might make it sound practical. I might say, look, this is really bothering me because you do X and Y and Z and in order to make the household run, I need to do A, B and C. Right. It sounds as if I'm having a practical conversation, but I started it with saying, this is really bothering me because, or what you're doing is stressing me out because I'm actually in an emotional mindset. Right. I want to have an emotional conversation. I'm right.
- [24:34]
Mike Pesca
You could, you could list out a bunch of tangible facts, but they're all service to an emotional point, which is, yes, I'm overwhelmed. And so instead of ranting in general about how you're overwhelmed, great. You list these points to show to, to put some meat on the bone. But yeah, exactly. It's very, and so it would be.
- [24:53]
Charles Duhigg
Important for the other person to start that conversation by saying, look, I hear what you're saying is that you're, you're overwhelmed and stressed out. And I, I, I apologize if I contributed to that. That feels terrible. And I felt that before. And no one should have to feel that. You listed some, some reasons why. Can we talk about some solutions to each of those things that you just listed? And again there, what I'm doing is I'm offering empathy, I'm matching them in an emotional conversation. And then I'm saying, do we have permission to move to a practical conversation? That. So men and women oftentimes will use different kinds of language because they've been inculcated, habituated to different kinds of language, but what's going on in their brains is exactly the same and a good communicator. And I'm sure people do this in their own relationships. They learn to listen for those words that indicate whether this person is in an emotional mindset or practical mindset or social mindset.
- [25:49]
Mike Pesca
Mm, mm is certainly helpful if both interlocutors have an understanding of this. Can you do it if only one does? This wouldn't work with your wife. You could, you could fill your wife in on, oh, look what I learned from the experts who are waiting for me to come and ask them. But yeah, what if it's a one time conversation and it's with your I don't know, it doesn't matter mechanic and you know, you don't have time to tell him that. What can you do to clue him in on this whole thing?
- [26:14]
Charles Duhigg
Yeah, all you have, if one person understand what's going on, what's going on, the conversation gets better. Right. Like, like think about how many conversations you have with your mechanic where your mechanic starts like complaining about something and you think to yourself like, this isn't really a practical complaint. This is like something you're stressed out about, like X and Y and Z and you can just say, wow, you sound, that sounds really hard. Like, like that sounds really stressful and you don't deserve that.
- [26:38]
Mike Pesca
I want to ask about a couple items that are in your book and in the news, though not directly. I'm going to make the connection. You talk about a doctor who has experience explaining why vaccines are important to maybe patients who would normally be vaccine hesitant. And the book talks a lot about the evolution or how he learned to be a better communicator, maybe a super communicator about this. But let's cut to today and the rise and to some extent triumph of vaccine denialism. Why do you think that vaccine denialism in general is more powerful as communication than I shall just flat out say the better science and better course for humanity, Something like vaccine acceptance. What's the communicative advantage of how the vaccine denialists do it and frame it?
- [27:30]
Charles Duhigg
So and let me answer this in two ways. The first is it's important to recognize that even though very high profile people are changing government policy around vaccine denial, that, that the majority of people are still pro vaccine. Right, Right.
- [27:45]
Mike Pesca
That is true. So we're not seeing, I will add that trickle there, but it's not. But rhetorically, I think what I'm saying is rhetorically, the arguments about it are so ascendant, the denialists, whereas acceptance can be just a default mode or I don't even think about it. Or there's so many reasons for acceptance other than rhetoric.
- [28:03]
Charles Duhigg
Yeah. So here's, here's what we know about communicating with vaccine skeptics is that oftentimes for them it is an emotional conversation and that we respond with a practical science based conversation. So the thing that happens very frequently is someone comes into a doctor's office and the doctor says, you know, you should get the mmr. And they say, you know, I'm really worried about that. Like I've been reading all this stuff about how it can hurt my kid and like I, like my kid is so precious to me and I'm worried, I'm worried about all kinds of things about Protecting their safety. And, like, this just seems like a lot to, like, add on top of that. And what the doctor says is, the doctor says, let me show you the data, right? All the studies show that the vaccines are safe. All the studies show that the vaccines will help your kid. So the patient has come in and made an emotional statement. I am worried. I am anxious. I, like, don't know how to prioritize anxieties. And the doctor responds with a practical conversation. Here's the data. Here's the evidence. I know what I'm talking about. The people you're listening to don't know what they're talking about. It's a complete mismatch in the kind of conversation that's happening. And so what physicians have found is that the best way to have that conversation is not to come in with a bunch of data. Because, by the way, the person who's vaccine skeptic, who's a vaccine skeptic, they've already looked at tons of data. They've been researching this online. Now, the data, you might not think the data is right, but they think the data is right. And so they don't need more data. What they need is someone to connect with them emotionally. So that what the best physicians do is they say, I totally understand that you're concerned. It's legitimate to be concerned. And, like, we have this new kid in our life, and it feels so. They feel so precious, and it's just hard to be a parent. Like, you're worried all the time as a parent. So I completely hear what you're saying about why you decided what. Why you're skeptical about this. If you don't mind. I got my kids vaccinated. And I'd love to tell you why I did it, because I saw. I see patients come in and they have these. These beautiful children, and they get whooping cough, and it's six months of them struggling to breathe. Or I see them come in and it's a kid with measles. And I know that if they have measles, there's, like, all these. Like, they could go deaf. And I think about my own kids, and I think about. I think about the, like, putting them through something like that. It kills me. It just tears at me. And so I decided to get my kids vaccinated because I wanted to make sure that I had done everything possible to keep them healthy and to protect them from things that I know are real at that moment. What they've done is they've responded with an emotional conversation, right? They've put a few facts in there. Like, I see kids come in. This is what can happen. But what they're really talking about is they're talking about how I feel, what I worry about, that your worries are completely legitimate. And in about 95% of cases, that convinces the parent to get the vaccine. It's known as motivational interviewing within medicine, but it works.
- [31:18]
Mike Pesca
So scale this out from that technique in the doctor's office to the national conversation. Maybe it's the case that you can't have it at the point that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is running HHS and getting his policies through, you had to have had it beforehand. But what could have been said into a microphone or any other forum to forestall the ascendance of the vaccine denialists? So they have real power.
- [31:48]
Charles Duhigg
It's. I mean, the vaccine denialists are. What's driving them is much more. And driving their popularity is much more than just vaccines. Right. It's a skepticism with expertise. It's a skepticism of modern science. It's the fact that many people in this nation have been left behind economically and that they've been told that the elites will take care of them, and the elites are not taking care of them economically. And so they're, they're suspicious of how the elites, such as doctors or medical professionals, are taking care of them otherwise. So it's, it's. There's no one magic conversation that's going to resolve this because it's part of a bigger problem. But what I would say is, you know, when a new administration comes in and they have someone who is more sensible on Healthcare than RFK Jr, what that person is going to do is they're going to start by having the emotional conversation. They're going to say, look, we understand that you're confused. We understand that, like, for the last four years, you've heard these messages that vaccines don't work and that they're really, really risky. And as a new parent, you're just trying to do your best. Right? And I completely understand that. And so let me tell you how I deal with the uncertainties in life. This is why I and my colleagues think that vaccines are okay. And we're not saying that it's illegitimate to be worried about them, that it's that they're always okay, because we know that vaccines aren't always okay. But let me tell you, when you're evaluating the risk of this, how I evaluate the risk for my own kids, right. I think if we do that, if we had leaders who were talking about this as a personal issue, as something that they struggle with themselves rather than leaders coming in and either saying all the science is bogus or saying just listen to the science and you'll be fine. They're not having any conversation on an emotional level. And so I think that the national conversation has to acknowledge the real validity of these parents concerns, even if you don't think they should be concerns. And of their anxiety, even if you feel like they shouldn't have anxiety. You have to acknowledge them. You have to engage with them.
- [33:55]
Mike Pesca
Charles Duhigg is the author of most recently Super Communicators how to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. I did mention his previous bestseller, the Power of Habit. Charles, thanks so much.
- [34:09]
Charles Duhigg
Thanks for having me on.
- [34:23]
Mike Pesca
And now the spiel on the Substack Channel. I did a Pesca profundities piece on Dexter Filkins, who's a great reporter, has been on the show twice, and his recent gigantic profile of Marco Rubio. I was not exactly critical of Filkins. I'm glad I read the piece. A lot of information there. I did note it kind of smacked me in the face that it was filled with, with anonymous sources, which aren't necessarily bad. Sometimes they give you the most delicious quotes because they are anonymous. Although I have another theory about that. If it seems like the anonymous quotes are the most vicious quotes, are they because the freedom of anonymity allows it or are they because if they put the name to the quote, you'd say, that guy, why are we believing that guy? Or I've not heard of that guy, but you could see why he'd say something like that. Anyway, I put together a spreadsheet of all 80 anonymous quotes. Of the 40 something quotes that are attributed to people, the article had about 250 quotes. And I'm not talking about the two quotes that were from New Yorker cartoons that ran within the pages, the 16 pages in print of the article. My Pesca profundities piece got some good reaction, some bad reaction, but one of the things that I wanted to talk about was this knee jerk reaction from. Yeah, I don't want to jump to conclusions and just eschew the first syllable of knee Jer.
- [35:43]
Charles Duhigg
Jerk.
- [35:43]
Mike Pesca
But certain critics who find me tedious say that, you know, Mike, anonymous quotes, they're the backbone of sourcing Dexter Filkins. He is a great reporter and without anonymity. And then, you know, they tell me something that the Columbia Journalism School probably tells their kids. Yes, yes, I know all that. But if you can, you should try to get all the quotes you can on the record. And as a reader and as a citizen trying to evaluate things, we actually don't want to sacrifice. The great insight that can only be gleaned from anonymity. But I think, subconsciously, anonymity, the granting of anonymity, works on us in ways we don't always recognize. I'll get to that in a second. So here are a couple of quotes from the article that did they really need to be given under the COVID of anonymity? Marco got lucky. A Republican lobbyist in Florida told me, Charlie fucked himself. Now, of course the quote's going to run. It says, Charlie fucked himself. That's Charlie. Charlie Crist, who was Rubio's last opponent in the Senate race. Charlie fucked himself. He governed from the left, which he could get away with. But then hugging Obama, Marco just jumped on him. Like we know Marco jumped on him. It was chronicled in quotes right beforehand that Marco made a big deal about Charlie Crist hugging Obama. And we don't know who that lobbyist is. If he's an NRA guy, would we. Would we take that with a couple of bullets or rounds of salt? Maybe we would. There was another quote in there attributed to a former Rubio staffer. He reads voraciously, but most senators don't read. Again, maybe the quote couldn't have run if the guy wouldn't go on the record. I understand that it came after a quote that the staffer gave talking about Marco Rubio is an introvert. I'd not heard that. So maybe, you know, a psychological examination of your former boss can only be given off the record. But then maybe you do the thing that journalists do where that quote's on the record. And you also have later in the piece, something about him being a great and voracious reader. There was an unnamed British diplomat who also said his speeches are good. And most people write their speeches with AI, But Marco Rubio looks you in the eye. I understand diplomacy is shadowy and in darkness, but did that have to be just a nice general quote? Yeah, Marco Rubio is pretty sharp. Does that have to be off the record? And likewise, do some of the more vicious criticisms of Marco Rubio have to be off the record? Bob Woodward. And we know about Deep Throat. Famous off the record source, Mark Felt. Did we. Oh, wait, did I blow anonymity? No, I think it's okay. He's dead. Bob Woodward wrote a series of books, Rage, Peril. Hey, now, about the Trump presidency the first time. And a couple of them certainly contributed to the public record. A couple of them added question marks. In one of his passages, he has Trump talking about nuclear weapons. And the passages make it seem that Trump is curious to the point of near term essence about the use of nuclear weapons. Woodward then released tapes or some tapes about these conversations. And the tapes didn't contradict what Trump was said to have said, but they certainly didn't fully confirm it. It made it seem like Trump was talking in general terms about nuclear power. And he wasn't talking like an anti nuclear activist would, but he was maybe talking like someone who is drawn to power. But also, and I think this is important deep down, wouldn't use nuclear weapons. I don't know. You got to say, you can't put anything past Trump. But from the Woodward book, you certainly got the impression that Trump was dangerously ensorceled by the power of nuclear weapons. He does like power and things shaped like penises. But I do think you'd be convinced that Trump was more into actually using nuclear weapons than he was. And if the quotes weren't anonymous or were actual quotes and not just reminiscence s of certain people, they'd have a different effect. That's another thing. An off the record quote characterizing a conversation can lead to digging more into the conversation and then you find out what actually happened. So I do think newspapers, as opposed to the New Yorker, especially the New York Post and the Washington Post for a while very much wanted to address the topic of anonymous quotes. And so what they did is they started a procedure by which they would always explain why they gave anonymity. And Gene Weingarten in the Washington Post a few years after this started, wrote a very funny piece about certain quotes that were given off the record. He quoted one after the impending death of Aretha Franklin, quote, it's in God's hands, said one longtime friend who requested anonymity because of the family's wish for privacy. I guess they could have said he requested anonymity due to their closeness to the deity, said someone familiar with the Lord's thinking. Here was another one about Tiffany Trump's appearance as a student at law school. People were following her around with cameras and it looked really uncomfortable, said a student who attended the event. And like most of Trump's classmates, requested anonymity to discuss a fellow student. So I guess, as Gene Weingarten noted, dishing on a celebrity, this is always protected speech. We can't make you go on the record. By the way, they were following her with cameras and they posted them on social media. So do you really need someone to anonymously tell you they were following them with cameras? There was nothing quite like that in the New Yorker piece. But I do think that there is a problem of trust with the media. And it is true that if anonymous sources were fabricated or made up, that would further erode the trust. But even the presence of these anonymous sources often does more work in the reader's mind than if the name and motivation of the speaker were attached to the quote. Here's what I think is happening. When you read a book, you put it in your voice, in your own head, and it's an entirely different experience than when you listen to an audiobook and the book read in your own head goes through your own filter and is more likely to be affected by your own view of the world. Therefore, if you are an anti Marco Rubio person or generally disinclined to cut the guy a break, you read these anonymous quotes and, and you know that they are attributed to a former official, the same former official, a senator who attended a classified briefing. He doesn't say which party, any senators. Anonymous senators are a former Florida politician who knows Rubio, a former U.S. official who worked in Latin America. You see that and you just kind of gloss over it and you give it credence. And I do think with the names less credence would be given. And I think it's important to try to limit the number of anonymous sources, not because it's an invitation for lying, but because it's kind of unfair. As a journalist, it goes further than a normal on the record quote often would. I understand sometimes you have to have quotes that are off the record, like in that classified briefing. But how often have we gotten quotes after a classified briefing and then we hear quotes on the record, or at least from senators identified as the other party, and they're in total conflict. And then the truth doesn't really align with the off the record quotes. So many examples of that. I also read a lot of stories, well reported stories in places like the Washington Examiner. And when they use off the record sources, they're trying to, if not prove a point, more or less advance a worldview, such as Filkins does in his version of fairness, which I do think is fair. Advance a worldview. And the off the record quotes there clearly serve a purpose. But if you don't agree with the Washington Examiner's worldview, it's quite, or at least they're skeptical of it. It's quite natural to read such a piece and saying, well, who is this? Why are they saying that? And I'm just saying the same skepticism, the same level of scrutiny should be applied to the New Yorker. And the reason I did it in this piece was the sheer tonnage of quotes. But also, as you'll see from my Pesca profundities, I think the quotes were used in service to come to a conclusion that I don't quite agree with. I don't think Marco Rubio was done dirty. I've read a lot of especially business stories with disgruntled employees grousing from inside the organization. If you knew more about the status of the disgruntled employees, sometimes, and this happens with union fights, also if you understood who these people in the union were, you might have a different view of management. If the papers allowed management to go off the record to denigrate the union, you'd say, wait a minute, what is their motivation? So that does always go on. But in my piece, I in Pesca Profundities, which was done under my own name and byline, I did say, you know, generally, this is not a hit job, not a smear job. It's kind of an everything. It's a kaleidoscope and a panopticon because it runs so long at 12,000 words. But, but it does come to the conclusion, Rubio bad, more or less, Rubio bad, Secretary of State. And I have come to the conclusion in part from reading the piece and there are some nice quotes there and some people calling Rubio a realist. I have come to the conclusion, not going to say Rubio good, but for Trump administration, Rubio good. And I don't want to blow the entire joy of reading my piece. It's mostly in the spreadsheet, I have to say. I'll just read the last line of it. It Filkins offers a thorough dossier of sometimes indeterminate providence. I offer a three word rebuttal. Rubio is advance. And that's it for today's show. Cory Warra, who I shall name as the producer of the Gist. Then there's Kathleen Sykes in, nope, not her real name, but close, close to her real name. She does the Gist list. And there is a guy named either Craig Jeff or Jeff Craig. I'm gonna leave it ambiguous. He runs everything that moves on the Gist's feed. And of course, Leah Yanni, if that is indeed her name. Here's a hint, it's not. Michelle Pesca is in fact the CEO. But I'm not never going to tell you what that stands for of Beach Fish Productions. And thanks for listening. G Peru.
- [46:23]
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