Tools For Deeper Connection: How To Have Better Conversations with Celeste Headlee— TED's Most-Watched Expert on Communication

Celeste Headlee: journalist, bestselling author, NPR host, and one of TED's most-watched speakers (31 million views+) has spent decades studying the art (and science) of conversation. But she didn't always get it right. In fact, she says she used to be "the worst." In this episode, Celeste shares how she rewired her communication style, what most people get wrong about connection, and the powerful tools anyone can use to become a better conversationalist. Celeste shares:

• How to start a conversation when you don't know what to say
• Why the common advice about conversation (like "maintain eye contact") doesn't actually work
• The real difference between debate and discussion + why we're confusing the two
• The surprising neuroscience behind great conversation (and why voice matters more than words)
• The truth about curiosity + how to practice it (even if it doesn't come naturally)
• How neural coupling creates the feeling of being seen and understood
• What small talk really does for your brain + why it's not so "small" after all
• The simple trick she uses to diffuse conflict and build connection in just 3 questions
• How to stop trying to "win" arguments and start learning from disagreement
• Why younger generations are craving connection more than ever (and what's getting in the way)
• The power of follow-up questions + how they make people feel heard
• What we're getting wrong about inclusion and how tiny micro-interactions create belonging
• Why performative listening is worse than not listening at all
• How to say "I don't know" in a way that builds trust and authority
• Why smart people often struggle in conversation and what to do about it

Book Rec: Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Follow Celeste Headlee here.

Grab a copy of her book We Need To Talk here

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
No one has all the answers, but when we ask
the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Danielle Robe and each week, my guests and I come
together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?

(00:28):
And who says? So? Come curious, dig deep, and join
the conversation. It's time to question everything. Have you ever
walked away from a conversation and thought, Wow, I actually
feel full, like something in you shifted, even though you
can't quite explain it. That feeling is real connection, and

(00:53):
it's what today's episode is all about. Our guest is
Celeste Headley, journalist, NPR host and the woman behind one
of the most watched TED talks of all time. It's
called Ten Ways to Have a Better Conversation, and with
over thirty four million views, she's helped redefine how we

(01:14):
think about communication. So Leste has spent decades understanding what
makes people connect and why so many conversations leave us
feeling drained or disconnected. You know that I got into
this one. So in this episode, we explore why small
talk isn't small at all. She actually changed my opinion
on small talk, how to disagree without destroying a relationship,

(01:37):
how to start a conversation if you just don't know
what to say, and why asking better questions could quite
literally change your life. She breaks down why connection isn't
just a nice to have, it's actually how we survive.
So the question we're circling today is what if the
secret to a more connected, joyful, even longer life it

(02:00):
was in a wellness hack or a productivity tool, but
just a conversation. It's time to question everything with Celeste Hadley. Celeste,
when did you first become interested in the art of conversation?

(02:21):
Do you remember?

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well? Yeah, because I had been a reporter and a
correspondent for years and then I got a job as
the anchor of an NPR show and I had never
had to do that job before, not really, And so
I was started to do research on how to become
a better interviewer, because you know, an interview is a

(02:43):
formalized conversation, a formalized, time limited conversation. So I started
doing research on that. And I think what made me
dig deeper is because the advice that I got was bad.
We had for so long been getting all that advice
on you know, like I say in the Ted Talk,
nod your head, smile, say a hum, mirror your body language.

(03:07):
I hosted a daily talk show where I could test
out every one of those things in my little conversational laboratory, right,
And so if they said maintain eye contact, I could
try that.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
When you're doing a daily show, the amount of practice
you're getting in conversation is unmatched.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Absolutely. Yeah, it makes it for a great experimental laboratory, right, totally.
And I found that maintaining eye contact is awkward and
makes people feel really uncomfortable. So and that's what I
found about almost all the advice that we've been getting
for so long, is that it just it didn't work.
And then I had to do it myself. Right. Then

(03:46):
I had to go and find the research studies that
actually related and then test those out to see what
actually worked.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Did you grow up in a conversational family if.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
You call arguing conversation, I mean, yes, there was a
lot of talking, but I'm not sure it was a
conversational family, because you know, conversations are more about listening
than talking. So I grew up in a very verbal family.
I mean, honestly, people who knew me when I was younger,

(04:18):
like my college friends, were like, I can't believe you're
now known for conversation because I was the worst, just
the worst, I really awful. Oh absolutely, yeah. I was
a know it all and interrupted people all the time
and got super excited about stuff and would just would
keep talking and talking and talking. Oh it was horrible.
It's just horrible.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Do you think that you are living proof that conversation
and asking questions is a learned skill?

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah? Absolutely. I mean if I can do it, literally,
anyone can, you know. Just to break it down to
evolutionary terms here, our species has survived through conversation. That's
literally how we have always in three hundred thousand years
in change made up for our fragility art we're slow,

(05:08):
we're very easy to kill, you know, we don't have
defensive mechanisms like talons or venom or whatever. But the
way that we have survived is through conversation and collaboration.
And I say that to say that every Homo sapiens
has a high level of communication and conversational skill, that
is generational knowledge. The same way that a dolphin uses sonar, right,

(05:29):
and a bat uses echolocation, So we start at this
extremely sophisticated level, perhaps the most sophisticated communicators on the planet.
After that. Yeah, a lot of people think it's a
talent that some people are born as great conversationalists and
some people never will be. But it's really not. It's
really a skill that you can practice and learn and improve.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah. I think so too. I've seen it in my
own life. I do feel a little bit lucky in
the conversation realm because my dad and my grandfather we're
expert conversationalists. My grandfather was a professor. I think a
lot of time professors are just very well spoken, glib
they practice conversations a lot too. So I do think

(06:13):
I picked things up as I was growing up. But
to your point, I only learned through my job that
conversations are really about listening, and that's a huge element
that I think we're missing. You mentioned your Ted talk.
It's one of the ten most watch talks posted on
Ted's homepage. That's pretty remarkable.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
What does that.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Tell you about the state of our world right now
and what people are seeking?

Speaker 2 (06:37):
I mean, I think that's really optimistic, right. I mean,
it means that a lot of people have put some
version of how do I improve my conversation skills into the
search string? Right, In some way, people make it to
my Ted Talk because either someone else has said this
is really good, you have to watch it, or they're
looking specifically for that. And I think that's really hopeful.

(06:59):
I also think it's really a great sign that a
lot of the people who really watch the Ted Talk
and have watched it multiple times and have, you know,
then read the book are younger people. That you know.
Number one, flies in the face of the stereotype that
that you know, there's some older people who think, oh,
young people don't know how to talk to each other,

(07:20):
they don't have any social skills, etcetera, etcetera, they're buried
in their phones. But that's completely not true. A young
people are seeking out social connection. Young people have the
exact same high level of social skills and conversational skills
as any other generation. The only difference. And when I
say young people, not necessarily meaning millennials anymore, that's not

(07:42):
the young generation.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
I feel personally attack celest but okay, fine.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Gen Z and then Alpha of course, the only difference
is that the younger generation is more likely to believe
that texting back and forth is the same as a conversation,
and it very much is not by any measure, and
it does not fulfill the inherent need for belonging and
community that all human beings have. That literally is such

(08:10):
an inherent need that we will die without it. Loneliness
will kill you. So that's what makes gen Z and
maybe Alpha will see the loneliest generation on record, because
they haven't even though they seek out connection, they haven't
quite realized that social media does not fulfill that, that

(08:31):
texting back and forth or dming or whatsapping or whatever
you use, does not fulfill it.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
When I think about the impact of emojis or gifts
or memes, I always think of emojis as hieroglyphs, hieroglyphics.
What are they called, Yeah, hieroglyphics, hieroglyphics, So I don't
want to discount them, but it is not the same.
When I have a really great conversation, I feel so energized,

(09:00):
so fulfilled. That's the word that you use, fulfilled, And
actually I haven't thought about the other word you used,
which is belonging. Why do you think great conversations? Is
there a psychological or even neurological explanation for that feeling like,
is there a reason some conversations are more memorable and

(09:21):
impactful than others.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
So I'm going to answer this in a couple ways,
because there's so much evidence I could bury you in
evid bury me good. But I'll start with first. Have
you ever called up a friend and they say hello,
and you say what's wrong? Yes? That is how quickly
some extremely sophisticated and nuanced information is translated to your brain.

(09:45):
Just through this out to some of these laws. Our
voices are uniquely evolved and designed to communicate meaning in
a way that no written communication, I mean written communication
is pretty recent in our history. For most of our history,
our history, our culture, our knowledge was passed down just

(10:07):
through our voices. We got really good at communicating meeting
through the sound of your voice, so that if you
ask me to do something and I say maybe, that's
really different than me going maybe right. Yeah. But I'm
glad that you mentioned neurologically because let me tell you
about just one particular area of research, and it's a

(10:29):
research into a phenomenon that's known as neural coupling. So
the original experiment curred at Princeton and Ury Hasen wanted
to figure out what actually happens in the brain when
somebody really clicks in, Like we know what it looks
like in the brain when someone's really listening, right, First

(10:50):
of all, it lights up like crazy, like listening uses
a huge amount of your gray cells. And so he
would bring people in and he would hook everybody up
to an fMRI, and he would have some people telling stories,
real stories from their own lives. And so for one
of them, as a young woman, and she's telling the
story of her high school prom, which I guess was

(11:12):
tragic and awful, like everything went wrong. And then he
had everybody come in and listen to her story. And
what they discovered they never expected, which was that when
the participants began to listen in an engaged way, their
brain waves began to move in exact sink with hers

(11:33):
exact sink. In fact, sometimes at some points the sink
was so exact that the listener's brains anticipated changes in
the speaker's brains by a fraction of a second. And
I just want you to think about this for a moment.
This is what we tried to replace with emojis. Right,
nothing against emojis, but that is mind meld. That is

(11:56):
the kind of authentic connection, the kind of bond you
can career with an complete stranger through the most analog
equipment that there is, right, your voice and your ears.
Now there's really similar and parallel research into ASL and
the non hearing community, but right now we're just talking
about the speaking community. There is no way you can

(12:19):
replicate that, replace it with anything else. There is nothing
else more sophisticated than what lives in our heads.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah, you know you're making me think too. When people pass,
the first thing that we say is either I miss
their smell or I miss the sound of their voice.
It is so powerful. David Brooks has this quote. He says,
the real act of building a friendship or creating a
community involves performing a series of small, concrete social actions. Well,

(12:50):
disagreeing without poisoning the relationship. Is there a way that
we can learn to disagree better? Because I think there
are so many benefits to being friends with people whose
opinions you disagree with, even often.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
I mean, the first thing is just to understand that
you're going to disagree, even with the person you love
most in the world. You are not going to tell
me you agree on everything. Not true, That is not true.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
I don't even want to do you.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
No, of course not. That's so yeah, no, it's boring,
incredibly boring, But you don't. There's no such thing as
two people who are in complete agreement. I mean maybe
even maybe a clone, but I would imagine they would
disagree also. So that's Number one is just accept that
you will disagree and so therefore you're not avoiding disagreement,

(13:41):
which is what most people do. They're doing everything they
can to avoid conflict, except that it's going to happen.
And because disagreement is going to happen, you're also going
to make mistakes. You're going to say the wrong thing.
Accept that, Yeah, you will screw up, they will screw up,
And think to yourself, Okay, when someone else says the
wrong thing, what do I need from them in order

(14:03):
to be able to move on? When I say the
wrong thing? What can I do to make it okay?
That's the second thing is prepare for mistakes. And the
third thing I will say is stop trying to change
people's minds. It's the most ridiculous feudal exercise ever. So

(14:24):
we know neurologically speaking, that you can't. We have zero
evidence that in a conversation you can change somebody's mind.
Not happening. I mean, I would love to see the
person who's going to tell me the story of the
last time they were in a real disagreement. I'm not
talking about like pineapple and pizza. I'm talking about like
a real disagreement and they had a conversation with someone

(14:46):
and we're like, you know what, you are completely right,
and I've been wrong this whole time. I am gonna
stop thinking that like it has not happened. And so
if you stop going into the conversationtions and making your
goal to change their mind, right, then what's the goal?

(15:06):
Why are you having that conversation? Maybe instead of changing
their mind, your goal should be Okay, we disagree, Let
me learn as much as possible about their point of view.
I'm going to try to figure it out.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Do you think that we as a country are disagreeing more?
And let me preface this question. We hear so often
about the tribalism and the divisiveness in our country. When
I go out into the world. I feel it less
than I actually hear about it. And so I'm curious
what your thoughts are, because actually your book was written

(15:42):
in or released in twenty seventeen, and it's called We
Need to Talk How to have conversations that matter? And
I think our country has changed a lot since twenty seventeen.
So I'm curious to hear if you think we're really
hearing each other less or what's going on.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
I actually don't think Americans disagree on most things. Okay,
I think Americans agree on a lot of stuff. If
you actually look at the policies, I mean we are
going to disagree on politics, and by politics, I mean
what politicians say and they're talking points when you break
it down to the policies Americans. Most Americans think teachers

(16:18):
get should get paid more. Most Americans think there should
be laws preventing landlords from just increasing rent. Most Americans
don't like Mitch McConnell at all. Most people think that
the government should forgive medical debt. Most people agree that
abortion access should be legal. Most people agree that same

(16:39):
sex marriage should continue to be legal. Like there's a lot.
Most people agree on common sense gun safety reform. When
you break things down to their most basic level. We
mostly agree that's the truth. Even in DEI. The majority
of Americans believe that the not DEI the buzzword, but

(17:03):
the principles of it, learning to be fair, learning to
be inclusive, are important and they want a workplace that
values those things. So are we disagreeing more? No? I
think we're getting in more arguments because we've bought into
these politicians' talking points. And you know what, I've been

(17:26):
a journalist now for over twenty five years, Like I guess,
I mean, I am biased. I don't like politicians, any
of them. I see how the sausage is made. I
know that there's things that they hold back, there's things
they fudge the truth on because they're worried about getting
re elected. And so I would say, do not trust
the talking points, the speech is any of that. Break

(17:48):
it down. What are they doing, what do they vote,
what are their votes on, what's their voting record, what
is the plan? And you might find out that you
actually support different candidates than you'd expect.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
I find that we're having less discussion and more debate,
and I enjoy hearing a debate every so often, particularly
like a philosophical debate. Sometimes I think the answer is
less important than just having the conversation for the conversation's sake.
But the debate of it all seems to be an issue.

(18:22):
I guess I come back to listening. I think we're
not hearing each other.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, we're just we're listening in order to respond, not
in order to understand. Right. You know, I wouldn't use
the term debate. I totally understand what you're saying. But
I think we're just arguing more. And really what we're
doing is just talking more and loudly, because debate. You know,

(18:47):
my third book, Speaking of Race, is it's called Speaking
of Race, but really it's about how to have difficult conversations,
any difficult conversation. And in there I interviewed a man
who's an expert in the ethics of rhetoric. Schools used
to teach rhetoric, which is the study of how we
use language to inform or persuade people. Right, And there's rules,

(19:09):
there's ethical rules like that, just like the rules of
engagement in an armed conflict. We don't think very often
about the ethics of conversing with other people. We don't
think very often about things like consent. Right, if I
bring up a story about trauma, do I stop and think,
do I have this person's consent to talk about this

(19:29):
very difficult subject matter. This may not be the right
time for them. Do we think about things like balance,
like taking turns? Do we think about things like intellectual honesty?
Intellectual honesty being if I say it, I have to
believe that it's true. It may not even be true,
but I have to truly believe that what I'm telling

(19:51):
you is the truth that's required in rhetoric. That's not
what we're doing. So I wish we were debating more
interesting we're not.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
I think that being a good communicator in America at
least is quite profitable. There's a lot of research that
states that, like all these great American companies are built
on the foundation of questions, Apple employees the Socratic method.
Eric Schmidt says that Google's a company built on questions,

(20:24):
not answers. Do you have research to share about companies
and leadership in terms of curiosity and asking questions? Also,
you're making the funniest face you've made this entire interview,
So I'm really curious's what you're gonna say?

Speaker 2 (20:40):
So yeah. First of all, I'm the worst poker player
in the world. I can't lie to save my life.
So if anyone hadn't noticed, yes, So I don't have
specific research on that. We have lots of research on
question answering, question asking, et cetera, et cetera, but not
on that as part of a corporate leaders personality. However,

(21:01):
I will say that we have a ton of research
on empathic readership, and part of empathic leadership is learning
how to listen and ask empathic questions as opposed to
most people ask questions that are either dismissive or they're
part of the writing reflex, meaning people are rushing to
solve things when someone comes to us with an issue,

(21:24):
immediately going to, oh my god, you should read this
book I read or blah blah blah blah blah blahlahlahlah,
where we have this writing reflex let's make it right.
Or they're dismissive, or oh I know exactly how you feel,
which is dismissive, or you know, whatever it may be,
it'll get better, it's all going to be okay, that's dismissive.
So we know a lot about empathic leadership, and we
know that that's basically the only kind of leadership that

(21:48):
brings your team members well being. It also just happens
to improve productivity. It also happens to reduce turnover, reduce burnout,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But you know, empathy,
especially if it then takes the next step toward compassion,
which is emotion and action, that's what you need to be. Now,

(22:09):
we don't hire for that. We hire for the opposite.
But we also know that the majority of leaders fail.
We're hiring the wrong people. We're recruiting for the wrong
personality traits. There's a great book that's on some of
this research is that which was called something like why
are men we have so many men such terrible leaders?

(22:33):
I'm getting the title wrong, and I'm very sorry, tom Us,
But there's all this just a data dump of fascinating
research on the fact that we hire for the wrong qualities.
And a lot of the companies that I see that
say they pride themselves on asking questions. What they're doing
is performative listening. They say they listen to customers. But

(22:53):
if what you hear doesn't change your behavior or decisions
at all, you're not actually listening. It's just a performance.
So I don't think Apple is particularly good at listening.
They certainly don't listen to their consumers, right, same with Google,
Come on, give me a break. Maybe it was that
kind of company when Eric was running it. He's not

(23:14):
running it anymore. And performative listening is worse than not listening.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
At all, formative anything. Yeah, are there power dynamics in conversation?

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Oh? All the time. Interrupting is a power dynamic, right,
We know that it makes people feel dominant. There's all
sorts of ways in which you know, when you start
to talk to somebody, your brain makes a calculation that
happens so quickly and so far beneath your level of
consciousness that you have no idea what's going on, but
it is. Your brain makes a calculation as to whether

(23:49):
the person you're speaking to is above the same or
below your rank in intelligence, in power, et cetera. And
if they are below your rank, you're really going to
have trouble listening to them. Your brain will almost immediately
shut it off and it'll take a lot more effort
to listen to them. This is happening to everybody, and

(24:11):
it's happening again before you have a chance to intervene.
The other thing I will say is that the smarter
you are, the higher the likelihood that you're bad in conversation.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Bad bad. Wait, that's hilarious, what do you mean.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
The higher your IQ, the worse your conversational skills in general.
And there's a lot of different reasons for this. One
of them is that when you are smart, you know
a lot, and you enter conversations getting ready to tell
other people what you know, so you're not listening. Another
one is that smarter people tend to try to deal
with others in a logical way, and no conversation is logical.

(24:52):
In fact, human beings are not logical. We're not logical thinkers.
So yeah. Another thing is that the higher you are IQ,
the more you are subject to unconscious bias. The more
likely you are to discriminate based on your the stereotypes
that live in your subconscious than others. And part of

(25:12):
that is because you think you're smart, and so you
think you're protected against bias. You think all the decisions
that you've made are really well thought out and logical,
and that assumption that you're protected against it is actually
makes you more vulnerable to it. And the final thing,
which is what I'm getting to, is that you don't
listen to people. You assume you know what they're going

(25:33):
to say, and so they get ten seconds into what
they're saying, and your brain is going to get ye
yea yea yea yea gee, so you can get to
what you're going to say in response, and you don't listen.
Listening and talking require use much of the same exact
same parts of the brain. You cannot do them both
at the same time. I mean, you cannot both listen
to what someone's saying and be thinking about what you're

(25:53):
going to say in response.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Have you learned anything about delivering bad news or hard
information that people don't want to hear from your daily show?

Speaker 2 (26:04):
So one of the things I try to do is
I don't give advice anymore, she says, after she just
spent the past twenty minutes giving advice.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
Now I consider that insight.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yeah, like this is the things I've learned, right, But
I don't give advice because we know that biologically speaking
and neurologically speaking, when you give somebody it, there's only
two situations in which a conversation has negative impacts on
a human being. They are if the conversation's hostile obviously,
or if the conversation involves getting advice. Even if you've

(26:41):
requested the advice, your brain reacts in the exact same
way as though you've just been punched in the face.
It starts the same secrets of events it would if
you were attacked.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
And so you're not exaggerating.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
No, no, wow, I'm simplifying, but I'm not exaggerating. So
we have to find a way of informing people without
telling them what to do. And you know, there's a
lot of ways to do that, and one of the
ways is to have a conversation in which you spend

(27:16):
most of the time listening and you're getting them, you're
guiding them to find the answer. Right. So, in asking questions,
it means asking questions, it means asking good questions. It
means especially asking follow up questions. There's a unique power
to follow up questions that makes the other person feel
as though they've been heard. It makes them feel as

(27:36):
though you are likable, that you are respectful, because to
answer a follow up question, you had to be listening, right.
But you can guide people, So I'll give you an example,
scientist have been trying for a really long behavioral scientist
for a long time to figure out how to break
through confirmation bias. Confirmation bias, for those listening, is when
you believe something, you are presented with evidence that's absolutely

(27:59):
wrong what you believe, and that makes you believe it harder.
We are the only species that suffers from confirmation bias,
and they have been trying for a very long trying
to figure out how to break through it. Right, if evidence,
clear evidence doesn't work, what does. So this one group
of scientists found that if you ask questions, forcing somebody

(28:22):
to explain all of the impacts, the ripple effects of
their belief, right, having to walk that through and explain
every step of it is the first crack they have
seen in confirmation bias. Right, So, if you say to
a person, let's say that somebody is doesn't believe in vaccines,

(28:42):
and I hear this all the time, right, I want
to say, at the outset, this is not a vaccine skeptic,
that's a science DENI or vaccines are safe and they
protect an entire globe. But if you find someone who
doesn't believe in vaccines and they will give you. They
almost always give you evidence that's bogus. And I will say,
that's interesting that you mentioned that research. Every other piece

(29:03):
of research I've seen says the opposite. Where did you
find that? I'd be interested in seeing that. Can you
link that to me? Can you send it to me?
I would be very interested in seeing that. Let's imagine
that we take away the polio vaccine, walk me through that.
Then what happens? So polio will reservice and then and
then and then and as you walk them through this again,

(29:26):
it is not going to happen that they then end
the conversation by saying you're right, I was wrong this
whole time. That's not going to happen. But it is
possible that you will be able to just put a
tiny little crack right, Like Leonard Cohen says that the
cracks are how the lights gets in. It's possible you
could make a crack in that hard shell of absolute

(29:47):
certainty that so many people have. It does work. It's
also a way to deliver bad news right to people.
So the main thing about delivering bad news to stop
for a moment, just take a breath and think, what
would I need to hear at this moment, Yeah, how

(30:08):
would I want to hear this? And then move forward?
A huge amount of the suggestions I have about conversation
involves slowing down, just taking a breath, slowing it down,
And this is one of those things. What would you
need before somebody told you this? How would you want
to be told? And then listen and watch watch their reaction,

(30:31):
see what they need in that moment. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
I feel at most oftentimes in hard situations, people really
just want your presence because they know there's nothing about
you can say. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah. It's really common for when people start to tell
you about something tough, that we do that thing, the
I know how you feel thing. And this isn't the
tad talk too, where I'm saying, don't equate your experience
with somebody else's and I give everybody the benefit of out.
I do believe that most people are doing this because
they think it's going to create an empathic bond, but

(31:03):
we also know that it doesn't. In most cases, it
just is turning the spotlight back on you. Right. You
then tell about your painful experience, and there's part of
them that feels the need to comfort you when what
they want is to be heard right, if their dog died,
they want to tell you about their dog, Yeah, how

(31:24):
great that dog was, how much they loved that dog.
They don't want to hear about your dog that you lost.
It doesn't accomplish what you think that it accomplishes.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah. So, last, I want to get into the nitty
gritty of conversation tools with you. Is that okay?

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Okay? So the question I most often get asked by friends, family,
and listeners of the podcast is how do you open
a conversation, especially if you're at a dinner or a
work event and you just don't know what to say.
My first question to you is what question do people
you most often? And then I want to know the answer.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
To that one. So the number one question that I
ask get asked is always about how to change somebody
else's behavior. It's always some form of how do I
get somebody to stop interrupting me? How do I handle
someone who talks all the time without stopping? Blah blah blah.
It's always some version of that, And I can very
quickly answer with that, which is you can't write hard.

(32:25):
There's nothing you can do about other people's behavior. I
will say that more than four out of five people
admit that a past relationship has been damaged because of
bad communication, but fewer than one in five think it
was their fault. So we are not taking responsibility for
the times when we have not listened, when we have interrupted,

(32:45):
when we have escalated things into an argument. And if
we focus on what other people are doing all the time,
we won't get better. That's the first half of that answer.
The second one. I love this question because it's so common.
And this is another really common question. Is I can
tell us ten things people can say to open a conversation.
I can't. There's no ten things that you can say

(33:07):
that are going to work. But you know, I was
at the TED summit one year and this scientist from
Japan came up and he said, you know, I've watched
your talk like twenty times and I still don't know
how to start a conversation. How do you start it?
And you know TED, they have their badges are huge,
they're massive, and they'd say where you're from and all

(33:27):
this information about you, and his said that he was
from Kyoto and I said, you know, he says you're
from Kyoto. I've only ever been to Tokyo. Like, what's
Kyoto like? And he's like, well, you've seen the pictures.
It's like the cherry trees and the temples. And I
was like, yeah, but where do you live. You don't
live in the temple. Like do you guys have streets
and little houses or is that all packed into apartments

(33:47):
like in Tokyo. He goes, no, no, no, we've got
houses and I might get with a backyard. I mean,
you have pets in a backyard somewhere. Like, tell me
what the street looks like. And he starts talking about
his street, and he starts talking about his town, and
about five minutes later, I say, that's how you start
a conversation. You ask people questions they know the answer
to about something they care about. About their tattoo. People

(34:09):
tell you there's not the story behind their tattoo. There
is always a story behind the tattoo, like they got
up that morning and chose what to put on. Ask
them about the things that they're wearing, Ask them about
anything that you see. Take a good look at this
person in front of you. Yeah, and ask.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
So I have a follow up about that, because that's
considered good small talk. Like I often go I'm a
sneaker person. I love shoes. So if someone's wearing like
interesting sneakers or even not interesting sneakers, I'm like, oh,
are you a new balanced person? I'm a Nike person,
Like how long have you been wearing those? And it's
just kind of fun banter, right, And I think it's

(34:47):
easy in low stakes. But I have heard people say
that you shouldn't really ask people about their appearance or
something they're wearing. I've found that personally not to be
the case. I'm curious what your thoughts are.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, I've never found that to be the case. I mean,
if somebody is clearly in economic distress and therefore what
they're wearing is not by choice but by necessity, I'm
not going to ask them about that. There's other things
to talk about, but like, what do you need right now?
But I have never found that to be the case.
You know, don't assume people are more sensitive than they are.

(35:22):
We the behavioral studies have shown that people overestimate the
extent to which other people will be offended by something,
or how sensitive they are. You know, if they don't
want to tell you, you'll say, oh, I hate these sneakers,
and you're like oh, okay, fine, then blah blah blah
blahlah blah blah blah blah. I have sneakers I hate too.
Mine came from my aunt, who is the worst buyer

(35:45):
of presence ever. You know, you can then start a
question about giving presents like people are either good present
buyers or really not. I have found that to be true.
I mean, you can start conversations about all kinds of things.
But people choose what they wear in the morning. Yeah,
you know, so my choice.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Yeah I think so too.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
Yeah, they'll wear a hat. Guy was walking by was
wearing a Kansas City hat, but I know he grew
up in Wisconsin, and I was like, what the what
the heck here? And he's like, well, my dad grew
up in Kansas City and so we always had us
watching the Kansas City game. He starts telling me the
blah blah blah blah. You know. Terry Gross, who hosts
a show on NPR called Fresh Air, She says, tell

(36:27):
me about yourself is the only opener you'll ever need.
And I have found that to be true.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
Okay, so tell me more about what you mean, because
I think I think you and I actually from understanding
your work, disagree on only one thing, okay, and it's
open ended questions. I have found that open ended questions
startle people. If you said to me, tell me about yourself,

(36:55):
I'm like, I'm from Chicago, and it's like not specific
enough for me to dive headfirst in what do you think?

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Right? So tell me about yourself? Isn't an open ended question? Right,
it's not a question. I think what she's really using
that about is as a as sort of a metaphor
for any question that invites people to tell you about themselves.
But open ended questions are the type of questions that
invite people to say more right. I have heard people

(37:26):
there's this habit of asking questions in a way where
you answer it yourself. Like I'll give you an example.
People will say, Hey, what time are you coming home tonight? Six? No? No,
you have that meeting that's going to go to what
what did you say? Six thirty? You know you're really
going to hit traffic by then, even if you take
the back way up, you probably won't get here to
like seven seven thirty. Do you have a full tank?
I'm not. No, I drove it yesterday and it was

(37:46):
nearly empty. So you probably want to make sure you
get I mean, five minutes later, they have not allowed
the other person to respond at all. And it's partly
because we have this fear of giving up control of
the conversation. The number one fear that most people have
when they hesitate to start a conversation is they are
afraid they'll get stuck in it and won't be able

(38:07):
to get out. Now, the interesting thing to me is
these people who are surveyed cannot give a single example
of a time when that happened, when they were stuck
in a conversation and unable to get out right. I
used to feel that way, so less how did you

(38:27):
get over it?

Speaker 1 (38:28):
I actually had to interview people, and I interviewed people
mostly in hospitality because they're so adept at moving in
and out of conversation quickly because they're at a party
or a restaurant and they have to be gracious and
warm and move on quickly. And I got great tips
from them, and I thought, you know what, I'm never

(38:49):
offended if somebody moves on from a conversation from me.
So I'm going to stop assuming offense the way you
just said, overstating the assumption and just move on politely.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Yeah, it's such a great point that you bring up here.
And when I do workshops for people, I will spend
time having them practice leaving a conversation. Oh I love that.
I'll be like, all you have to do is say
I gotta go, it's so great to see you, see
you later, and just spend whatever excuse they want, just
practice it over and over and over again so they're
ready with it. You know what you're talking about. Asking

(39:24):
people from hospitality is another thing, a piece of advice
that I give people all the time, which you did naturally.
You know, when people are hesitant to start conversations, I say,
go talk to those people who are being paid to
be nice to you. Go start the conversation with your barista,
because a you know, it's time limited, it has to
end quickly. It's going to be maybe ninety seconds and
be that they have to be nice to you.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
Right, And so the stakes are super super low. And
yet we know that even under those circumstances, you're still
going to get a boost to your mood. You're still
going to get a boost to your sense of belonging.
Like body will respond. That's sort of the beauty of it.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
Yeah. Okay, wait, I want to go back to our
open ended questions moment, So can you share more about
open ended questions? Take me through how you do that,
because you really are an expert at it and you
don't leave people feeling startled.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, an open ended question just means a question that
can't be answered with yes or no. Okay, right, that's
what an open ended question is. It's open ended. But
I would take it a little bit further and say,
you want to keep your question brief. You want to
make the other person feel as though you're really curious.

(40:41):
And this is the thing about any question at all,
It needs to come from a sincere place of curiosity.
So whatever it is that you need to get in
your head to get you into that frame of mind,
The book Speaking of Race has some suggestions by the way,
some exercises. If this is tough for people to get
yourself into that headspace, I wonder you know, when I'm

(41:02):
preparing for an interview, I'm not asking questions for myself.
I'm a surrogate for the audience. They're not going to
get the chance to sit down with the Secretary of Defense,
so I need to be their surrogate, and I have
to sit there and ask myself, Okay, what what would
most people want to know? Right if they were talking

(41:22):
to Michelle Obama? What would what would people want to know?

Speaker 1 (41:26):
Are you able to separate your own curiosity? That's pretty remarkable.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
Yeah, I think so. I mean I I oftentimes satisfy
my own quick curiosity as well. Right. Sometimes I'll read
some wild story from their past and I'll be like, Okay,
I read this thing, and I have to know if
this is true?

Speaker 1 (41:46):
Right?

Speaker 2 (41:46):
Like, but yeah, I am able to sit there and
think what Here's what I think is to myself. What
can this person tell me that no one else can?

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Mm hmm. That's a great question.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
The logistics, the details about things. Anybody can tell you that,
you know, the stories that everybody's heard before. Everyone can
tell you that. But what can this person tell me
that only they know? And that's the most useful conversation
is to really dig into some what they know best?

Speaker 1 (42:20):
You know what.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
It frustrates me to no end when people bring in
especially artists, musicians, writers, and they don't ask them about
their craft. Right, Like you bring in a musician who's
a slap guitarist and you don't ask them about that,
like how why would you do this? This is the
thing they've been doing for thirty years. It's clearly the
thing they care most about in life. If you're trying

(42:43):
to get something good about them asking about the craft.
You know. I did an interview with Tony Morrison, and
I didn't know this when I was doing the interview.
Is that when she had her the opera based on
her novel, Beloved was premiering. And I didn't know this,
but I guess she was notorious Lee a very very
difficult interview. She had walked out on interviews. She clam

(43:05):
would clam up, and I ended up having like a
nearly hour long conversation with her. They had to ask
her to get up lead because somebody else is coming in.
And later on when I was at a fellowship, they
were like, clust, we want you to talk to the
rest of the fellows about how you got Tony Morrison
to talk. And I was stunned. I'm like, what do
you mean what I read her books? Like that's what

(43:28):
I did. Yeah, And that's that's totally true of many
of the best interviews that I've had, is that I
listened to their work. Right. I interviewed John Irving, who
again is another notorious difficult interview, and his press person
warned us many times in advance, you know, but I

(43:50):
read his book and I had so many questions and
there was like this one chunk of the book and
I was like, Okay, look, I know that people say
this all the time and it's you bunk, but I
think you are writing about yourself here, and stay with me.
I'm gonna explain why. And I get to the end
of it and he's like, holy cow, like you're right.

(44:11):
I think you're right. And when he's leaving, he told
his press person, Okay, I'll come back and do an
interview with her anytime. I'm not doing anything special. I'm
just reading their work. I'm looking through the work that
they have done, their actual work. I'm not asking about
their four divorces or their relationship with their dad. I mean,

(44:34):
that's okay, if that's what they want to talk about.
What they really want to talk about is their work.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
That's actually an interesting perspective in terms of small talk
and and sort of the idea of clamming up because
everybody knows something that you don't, right, Yeah, right, to
like find out what that is and hone in on
it and just be really curious about the most niche

(45:01):
thing possible. They light up talking about it. I was
sat next to a guy on the plane who ran
golf courses around the world. I know very little about
that industry. I peppered him with questions and he was like,
you know, I never talked to people on a plane.
I am so I can't believe we talked the whole time.
And I was like, yeah, you sat next to the

(45:22):
wrong person, you know, but everybody does know something. Speaking
of knowing, in your TED talk, one of your tips
for better conversations is, if you don't know, say you
don't know. Why is their power in admitting something that
you don't know?

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Well first, pretending to know something about everything erodes trust.
You know, there's times when someone talks about something that
one article in the New Yorker today, right, and you're
really quickly googling it on your phone underneath the table
so you can try to add it to the conversation.
We know, subconsciously, we know that other people cannot know
something about everything, so when they pretend to, we know

(46:01):
some of it's bullshit. We just don't know which, So
we start to get a little skeptical of everything because
that might just be the bullshit. No, eight, that might
be the bullshit. It erodes trust. You know, one of
the professions that has the hardest time saying I don't know.
In fact, the profession that has the hardest time, it's

(46:23):
not lawyers. It's doctors. And we can understand, right, like,
you don't want to go to the doctor and be like, okay, doc,
what's wrong with me? And then I go, heck if
I know?

Speaker 1 (46:32):
Right, Like.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
You get why yes. But what happens is doctors guess
all the time, and the American Medical Association would like
them to stop doing that. So they've run some experiments
and in one they had their control group right where
they just kept going on and doing what they're doing.
But the other group, they taught them to say, I

(46:57):
don't know, but i'll find out. And they spent months
doing this with patients, and they were scared to death.
They thought all those patients would leave to find a
doctor who had more knowledge. Right, But at the end
of the months long experiment, those doctors who said I
don't know, but I'll find out, the trust in them

(47:18):
was significantly higher. The patient's estimation of their knowledge of
their smarts of their experience went up, not down, because
it increases trust. And I hope everybody does the same thing.
I don't know about this all. Shall let other people
be experts in what they do. Learn from them, you know,

(47:40):
let other people tell you. I mean, everybody has an
experience with someone else who knows nothing about their job
giving them advice on how to do their job. Even
real table clerks, even janitors know what that feels like
and it's not great. So let's not do it to
other people.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Do you think you're able to tell in interviews when
people are full of it? No?

Speaker 2 (48:03):
I mean I do a lot of prep. I'm sure
you do too. So if they're saying stuff that I
know is factually incorrect, I will correct it. But I
can't tell who's lying. I mean, I just tend to
trust people what they're saying about themselves, you know, like
you know, people blame Oprah for what it was, a

(48:23):
million little pieces or whatever it was. Not knowing that
that was all, I wouldn't have known, like ch of
Us would have known that. I know, I have no idea.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
Yeah, yeah, Do you feel like you have a sort
of gift in this, like what is Everyone sort of
has the lens through which they see things. I think
like Oprah like her lens was spirituality. Barbara Walters to
me there was always a question behind the question. She
was getting to something other than what she was saying,
what is your thing?

Speaker 2 (48:54):
I think I'm the queen of the follow up question.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
That's a gift.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Yeah, because I really listen and people will say stuff
and surprise you with what they say. And I will
sometimes be like who whoa whoa bo what wait, stop
for just a second, did you just say to And
they were like, yeah, I guess I did, right. Or

(49:19):
I'll repeat back their words to them, and people will
reveal themselves to you in a beautiful, wondrous, magical way,
even with what they're saying is neither beautiful nor wondrous.
It's kind of a magical transaction, the revealing of a
human mind. Through conversation. People will say stuff that's unexpected,

(49:39):
like I hate to do an interview where there's no surprise,
sometimes surprise for me, sometimes just a surprise for the listeners,
and sometimes a surprise for the interviewee. And I think
that that's probably my special skill. You know, I also
have a really good skill of explaining very complicated things

(50:00):
to people in a way that they understand. Yes, and
that is so rare.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
That is true. That is a gift.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Yeah, I didn't. I've never thought of it that way,
but it's now come up so many times that I've
sort of accepted, Oh, this, I guess this is relatively unique.
But I'm very good at it.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Yes, it's hard to break down medical studies and neuroscience
and share it in a way that's interesting and digestible.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yeah. I get notes of appreciation from scientists all the time,
like I'm the science translator.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Oh my god, I interviewed a science communicator. I didn't
know that was a job. So you are technically important, Yes,
it is.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
It is. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Okay. So you mentioned in your book that you've had
moments in your career where you've suffered because you couldn't
seem to make yourself understood during important conversations. What was
holding you back and what did you need to switch
up in order to get your point across?

Speaker 2 (50:59):
I think the main thing callding me back with self consciousness.
I was way too wrapped up in my inner monologue
and look like most other people, my inner monologue is
not very kind, right. I was just trying to be
so careful and say exactly the right thing, and I
was also anticipating pushback. You know, we'll have will rehearse

(51:23):
these things in our head and will practice arguments.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
Right.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
And then I said, you know, and I was preparing
myself for the wrong thing. You know, I wasn't. I
was preparing myself to try to defend myself when no
one had attacked me yet. And also I didn't give
any thought whatsoever into what I needed to hear from them,

(51:51):
what I needed to learn from them, all of my
preparations on what I was going to say, and it
was about like the most superficial thing either what words
to use, you know, which doesn't It doesn't help at all. So,
you know, I think a common thing I used to
believe that I would get too emotional. That's not true.

(52:14):
Don't let people tell you not to bring emotion into
a conversation. First of all, it's complete bullshit. There's no
such thing as a conversation that doesn't have an emotion
in it. But also, emotion is important data, it's information.
For us. We are big brained social animals, and our
emotion is information. It's your subconscious trying to tell you something.

(52:36):
Ignore it at your peril. So when I was getting
emotional and wrapped up very often, what I was feeling
was frustration, And that was important for me to realize
at that moment, I was frustrated because I wasn't expressing
what I needed to express. And what I really did
to do that moment is say, give me a moment
for a second, let me get my head straight. Okay,

(52:57):
I'm gonna start over. Here's the issue, here's what I need. Now,
what's the issue from your point of view? And how
do we move forward?

Speaker 1 (53:07):
Right?

Speaker 2 (53:07):
Like, that's what I needed to do.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Do you have tools now in terms of how to
handle conversations with people who are not capable of meeting
you in a meaningful conversation.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
So it depends on what flavor of not meeting me
you mean. If you're talking about a conversation in which
someone is disrespecting me, abusing me in any way, shape
or form, I mean abusing me by using belittling language,
dehumanizing me, etc. Walk Away, Yeah, just walk away. There's
no point if you're talking about not meeting me because

(53:42):
they're wrapped up in their own stuff. Yeah, my tool
is to say, hold on a second, WHOA, I feel
like you're not hearing me. My sense is that you're
not hearing me. It feels as though you're really focused
on what's going on in your head. So let's deal
with that first, because I need to be heard. Talk
about what's happening with you, and then me okay, is

(54:02):
that a deal. My tools are almost all related to
just bringing the unspoken out into the open, making the
undiscussable discussable. And one of the comparisons I use in
the book is like when you're at a play and
there's a really dramatic scene and the female actor's wig
starts to slide off her head, Like you can try

(54:25):
to ignore it, but that's the only thing anybody. No
one is hearing any of the things are saying. They're
only concerned about that wig. It's the same thing in
conversations when stuff is unspoken. Yeah, you just have to
pull a wig off or secure it again, whatever it
may be, and then move forward. And I found that
in conversations too, where I'll be like, hey, I saw

(54:48):
an expression on your face. I interpreted that is that
I said something wrong? Is that true? Is that right? Am?
I am? I accurate? I just bring it out into
the open now.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
Yeah, I think that's great advice. Even though you don't
give advice, it's good insight. One of the things that
I struggle to communicate is how to foster curiosity. I've
found that reading helps foster curiosity. But other than that,
if somebody feels as if they're not innately super curious,

(55:20):
which is sort of I think the very beginning or
the first seeds of conversation, are there things that we
can do to foster our own curiosity or even plant
it within children, like at the dinner table.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
So role playing is incredibly powerful, and I know that
people feel silly when we talk about role playing. I'm
not trying to, you know, enlist anyone in an improv
class or anything, but it is shocking how powerfully we
can affect and even change a mind by asking people

(55:57):
to role play. So when it comes to curiosity, I
want people to what questions would you ask if you
were this was your pet subject, Like if you were
you're talking to a chess master, you yourself, you don't
care about chess, we know that, but Let's imagine that
you were a nerdy kid who like thinks chess is
the greatest thing ever, Then what would you ask, Right,

(56:20):
here's this gardener. Let's imagine that gardening is your frickin' jam.
Then what would you say? And you can start to
foster curiosity that way. The other thing is to you know,
what I was saying before, is like to look for
the stuff that surprises you. Look for the contradictions, right,
the vegetarian who makes their own barbecue sauce. Right, look

(56:43):
for the inherent contradictions, because everyone has contradictions in their life.
And then maybe that's what sparks your curiosity. Imagine if
you were in their shoes, what decisions would you have made? Differently?
How would you have handled what they went through? And
you can by creating that connection with your own personal experience,
you can start to foster curiosity. Curiosity is about It's

(57:07):
about slowing down just a little and looking at all
the different sides of what it is until you find
the side that sparks a neuron in your head.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
Has all of this research deepened connections in your own life?

Speaker 2 (57:23):
Oh yeah, I'm a better person. I mean, there's not
very many other ways to do that, to say that
I'm a better kinder, more compassionate, more moral, a better friend.
I'm a great gift buyer because I listen right, I

(57:44):
am a better person with a better life, with more
love in my life, with more people I can rely on.
You know, when I was younger, I don't know who
you know. I probably the people I could have called
in case of emergency was made. There's maybe two or
three of them, right, I have a dysfunctional family, so
my family's not among them. Now I got a whole

(58:06):
call list. Give me the roster. There's so many people
that can rely on me, and who I can rely on,
life is better.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
I think sometimes we put a lot of energy into
thinking about conversations with new people with work, sort of
like in networking, we think about conversation as a tool
to get something oftentimes and fiction. Yeah, the best conversations

(58:34):
are the opposite. It's really about giving, for sure. But
I am curious about how we can apply some of
these small talk, low stakes ideas or lessons to the
people closest to us, because I think forget to ask
the people close to us the real curious questions. We

(58:56):
kind of just ask about the weather.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
Of the day, what you ate to me.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
Those are the moments to really that's where the open
ended questions and the follow ups really shine.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
Yeah. And you know, the book that I'm currently working
on right now is about my great grandmother, and I
find myself over the course of this wishing so much
that I had asked my grandparents more questions.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
Yea.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
And I hear that often about people who after they've
lost a loved one, and you can't hear those stories anymore,
wishing they asked more, that they listened more. You know,
a lot of people think of conversation as something we're
doing for other people. Right, Okay, I'm gonna be nice
and I'm gonna listen. Really listen so hard, it's so hard.

(59:39):
It's so hard. Okay, I'll listen. They're so boring. Oh
my god, when are they gonna stop talking? I'm gonna listen.
And it's true that listening to others is a gift
that we give to others, but we really underestimate how
much it does for us. Ralph Nichols, a scientist who
is called the father of listening, said that the most
basic of all human needs is the need to understand

(01:00:00):
and be understood. And the best way to understand people
is to listen to them. You know. I often ask
what I'm doing, like workshops or whatever. I'll ask people
to take a moment and think about the last time
they felt really heard, like really heard, like the other
person really understood them, and what that felt like. You

(01:00:26):
know that that feeling of being heard, that is just
an irreplaceable experience for us. We can have that experience.
We can also give that experience to other people for
no money, for no investment. Yeah, and think about how

(01:00:51):
much that one small change could change the world, all
the things going wrong. I'm not trying to be simplistic
or naive here, but think of all the things going
wrong in the world, and how just those that experience
of feeling understood can change the course of history. Like,
that's a gift you can give every day every day.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
That was so beautiful, Celestia almost brought me to tears.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
Oh thanks, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
Really true, it is. Do you feel seen and heard
very often or is it rare for you?

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
Oh? No, I do all the time. I mean I
have surrounded myself with people who are loving and open
hearted and smart. Surround yourself with Okay, I will give
one piece of advice. Surround yourself with people who are
smarter than you are is the best. It is the
best ever. Yeah, I yes, I am very very lucky.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
I do a little rapid fire to tie things up,
so if you'll indulge me, I have like five or
six for you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
How important are names in conversation?

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
I'm terrible with names, so I'm biased, and I'm going
to say not that important, although we do get a
real big, nice boost of our mood when someone else
has our name. So learn people's names.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
What is something you're currently trying to improve.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
Upon learning people's names? No, seriously, it's a lifelong, lifelong
work in progress to get better at remembering people's names.
I'm terrible, terrible at it, but yes, so fine.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
I am too, and we're both conversationalists. I don't know
what that is professional, Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
What that is. Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
Something about your future that you love imagining?

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
I love to imagining retiring. I'm going to be so
good at retirement. I'm going to be the best retire Like,
if they graded retirement, I would be absolute four point
zero retiree. I'm going to be really got it?

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Yeah, are you going to be on island time? What's
the plan?

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
I mean, I I'm just gonna do the stuff I
want to do. I'm gonna visit every the miniature's museum
in the whole country. I'm gonna like find every isolated
cabin ever and go up there with a big bag
of groceries. Like, I am just gonna you know, I'm
gonna do nothing at all. I'm so fricking lootly laughing.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
Funny, I would not have guessed that. Okay, if someone
feels socially awkward or anxious, what's one small step they
can take today to become more comfortable in conversation?

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
Ask more questions. When you're asking other people questions, all
the pressure is off of you. Also, I will mention
that research up again at Harvard showed that talking about yourself,
what you like, what you know, what you don't like,
activates the same pleasure center in the brain as sex
and heroine. So if you allow other people the opportunity
to talk about themselves by asking them questions, you are

(01:03:50):
giving them a very pleasurable feeling, and they will think
you're the greatest person ever. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
Wow, Okay, a book that changed your life, something you
think everybody should read.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
That's a question question. There's a lot of them. Let
me go back to the og and say that Bleak
House from Charles Dickinson was one of the books that
really changed my life. But I would go back to
even the Pickwick Papers because when you talk about listening
to people, that book is like disconnected and disjointed, and
but he's so good at giving you a feeling for

(01:04:25):
a character within a couple paragraphs, like every distinct individual
and their own little foibles and how it makes them
who they are. And it's a really good reflection of
you know, our own global community.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
Cool. That's not a recommendation that I've gotten on the
podcast yet, So thank you for that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
Okay, I do a question everything card every single time,
so please just tell me when to stop. So, okay,
what's your favorite scent?

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
It has become pine.

Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
We're meant to be in a cabin in the woods,
CELESTI right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
I never would have guessed that, and Celeste Younger would
be like, what is this a seventy five year old's buick?
But no, the scent of pine is very comforting to me.

Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
I loved hearing at the beginning of this conversation that
you weren't always this remarkable in conversation. I think it's
like it's so inspiring that it really is something that
you can think about, learn about, practice and apply to
your own life.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Thanks. Yeah. If I'm just waiting for the day when
somebody gets my old college roommates online and they start
talking about how terrible I was in the past. I'm
also not great all the time on planes like you.
You know, we could do an event like a keynote
or something, and it is emotionally exhausting, and then I
get on the plane and I'm like, don't look at me,
don't touch me, don't make eye contact with me. So

(01:05:53):
there's times when you have to know your limitations even now,
and you have to pay charge. Yeah, yeah, you have
a you have one bucket of social energy each day
and there's no refilling it until the next day. So
conserve it, you know, spend it wisely.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
So lest you are such a fun conversation partner, I'm
so grateful for your time.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
Thank you for this. Oh, it's been my pleasure. It's
been a true joy.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
Okay, you know what time it is, Today's a good
day to have a good day. I'll see you next week.