#909 - Charles Duhigg - The Secret Habits Of Supercommunicators

Communicating effectively with others is a crucial skill—it’s how we build and maintain relationships, solve problems, and accomplish tasks. However, James Williams explains that good communication skills don’t come naturally—instead, they’re built up over time through intentional practice. In Communication Skills Training, Williams outlines the core abilities of effective communication and how to develop them so you can communicate well, build your charisma, and win people over.

In this guide, we’ve broken Williams’s advice down into two main sections. In Part 1, we’ll explore four core abilities of effective communication—active listening, establishing connections, controlling emotions, and being accurate and clear. We’ll outline why they’re important and how to develop them. In Part 2, we’ll discuss how to communicate effectively in three scenarios—handling misunderstandings, navigating feedback discussions, and giving public presentations.

Throughout the guide, we’ll supplement Williams’s recommendations with advice from other communication books like Thanks For the Feedback by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen and Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg.

Most people communicate from their own perspective, but great communication comes from understanding and connecting with other people. Written by communication expert Jay Sullivan, Simply Said is a blueprint for effective business communication. Top-notch communication skills are essential to success in any professional field—after all, you can only get clients, colleagues, and audiences to buy into your ideas if you’re able to communicate them clearly.

Sullivan argues that you can deliver a clear and compelling message by focusing on what others hope to get from the exchange and communicating in a way that serves them.

In this guide, we’ll discuss Sullivan’s advice on how to:

• Create and deliver memorable presentations
• Write documents and emails that people will actually read
• Navigate communication in specific business scenarios

Our guide will compare Sullivan’s ideas to insights from other communication experts and suggest how to adapt communication to other cultures.

Does the thought of public speaking make you nervous? Do you have something to say but don't know how to get your message across? In The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication, internationally renowned speaker John C. Maxwell shares his secrets to becoming a confident and effective communicator capable of delivering any message to any audience. According to Maxwell, anyone can master public speaking, connect with their listeners, and make a lasting impact with their words by following the 16 laws he’s developed from a lifetime of public speaking.

In this guide, we’ll discuss how to become a credible speaker people want to listen to, craft a powerful message, and form a meaningful connection with your audience. Along the way, we’ll compare Maxwell’s techniques with those of other communication experts and provide actionable tips for improving your speaking skills.

In How to Know a Person, New York Times columnist David Brooks argues that our ability to truly understand and connect with others is in crisis. As a result, we have problems like political polarization, mental health issues, and an epidemic of loneliness. Brooks contends that by rediscovering the lost art of “knowing” people, we can bridge divides, foster empathy, and rebuild our moral character.

This guide explores Brooks’s key insights on seeing people as individuals, appreciating diverse perspectives, and recognizing the inherent dignity of every person around you. You’ll learn practical strategies for deeper listening, asking meaningful questions, and cultivating crucial social skills. We’ll also compare his insights on social behavior and relationships to those of other experts and look at how Brooks’s advice aligns with research on understanding and communicating with each other.

Communicating effectively with others is a crucial skill—it’s how we build and maintain relationships, solve problems, and accomplish tasks. However, James Williams explains that good communication skills don’t come naturally—instead, they’re built up over time through intentional practice. In Communication Skills Training, Williams outlines the core abilities of effective communication and how to develop them so you can communicate well, build your charisma, and win people over.

In this guide, we’ve broken Williams’s advice down into two main sections. In Part 1, we’ll explore four core abilities of effective communication—active listening, establishing connections, controlling emotions, and being accurate and clear. We’ll outline why they’re important and how to develop them. In Part 2, we’ll discuss how to communicate effectively in three scenarios—handling misunderstandings, navigating feedback discussions, and giving public presentations.

Throughout the guide, we’ll supplement Williams’s recommendations with advice from other communication books like Thanks For the Feedback by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen and Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg.

Is there a research-backed way to make love last? In The Love Prescription, relationship researchers Julie Schwartz Gottman and John Gottman argue that long-lasting love is sustained by small, daily acts. They explain that regularly practicing behaviors such as expressing gratitude for your partner and being honest about your needs make all the difference for long-term love.

In this guide, we’ll explain why small acts sustain healthy relationships and discuss how to implement the most crucial habits in your romantic life. You’ll learn how to express gratitude for your partner’s admirable actions, ask deep questions to stay connected with them, and make time for date night no matter what. We’ll also compare the Gottmans’ approach to the ideas of other relationship and communication experts, including Mark Goulston (Just Listen) and Gary Chapman (The 5 Love Languages).

A third to a half of Americans are introverts, according to author Susan Cain, but they’re often marginalized. In Quiet, Cain contends that Western society is designed around an “extrovert ideal” that celebrates those who are bold and charismatic. However, unbridled extroversion can lead to disasters, such as the fall of Enron and the 2008 financial crisis.

By overvaluing extroverts and treating introverts as misfits, society loses out on introverts’ unique strengths—for instance, they’re highly creative, astute observers, and adept at solving complex problems. Cain argues for a balance in society, school, and work that lets introverts be true to themselves and where the two personality types complement each other.

We tend to assume that people who are quiet, isolated, and direct in conversation are antisocial or arrogant. In reality, they’re introverts. Until we understand their unique characteristics and how to best approach them, we’ll continue to oppress them.

Communicating effectively with others is a crucial skill—it’s how we build and maintain relationships, solve problems, and accomplish tasks. However, James Williams explains that good communication skills don’t come naturally—instead, they’re built up over time through intentional practice. In Communication Skills Training, Williams outlines the core abilities of effective communication and how to develop them so you can communicate well, build your charisma, and win people over.

In this guide, we’ve broken Williams’s advice down into two main sections. In Part 1, we’ll explore four core abilities of effective communication—active listening, establishing connections, controlling emotions, and being accurate and clear. We’ll outline why they’re important and how to develop them. In Part 2, we’ll discuss how to communicate effectively in three scenarios—handling misunderstandings, navigating feedback discussions, and giving public presentations.

Throughout the guide, we’ll supplement Williams’s recommendations with advice from other communication books like Thanks For the Feedback by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen and Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg.

Do you ever wonder why you struggle to connect with certain co-workers or why your team or department doesn’t run as smoothly as others? Organizational anthropologist Judith Glaser argues this is likely due to a lack of conversational intelligence, an understanding of how important conversations are to effective teamwork and how to infuse conversations with trust. While conversational intelligence is missing in many workplaces, Glaser believes any leader can develop this faculty using a few key tactics, thereby improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their team and making employees happier and more at ease.

In this guide, you’ll learn about the importance of conversations to human growth and success, and what defines a “good” conversation. You’ll then learn how to deploy conversational intelligence and avoid dialogue-killing distrust. Along the way, we’ll supplement Glaser’s ideas with ideas from other conversation specialists and provide more detail on how to implement some of her suggestions.

Many of us are glued to our smartphones, tablets, and laptops, to the point that we’ve lost control of how we spend our time and attention. We feel overpowered and exhausted by the multitude of digital tools at our fingertips, including smartphones and tablets, websites, addictive apps, and social media platforms. Meanwhile, tech companies continue to invest major resources into making their products and services addictive so that we’ll continue scrolling and tapping.

This book explains how you can transform your tech habits by adopting digital minimalism, which aims to maximize the benefits of technology and avoid the pitfalls by identifying your values and determining how to use technology to support them. Learn how tech companies use human psychology to make their apps addictive, how likes and comments are weakening your relationship, and why trading your smartphone for a dumb phone could change your life.

We often feel pressured to be as productive as possible, striving for intense, uninterrupted concentration—but what if being laser-focused isn’t just unrealistic, but detrimental? In Attention Span, Gloria Mark suggests that attention isn’t limited to binary states of focus or distraction, but that there are multiple types of attention, all of which have value—even time spent doing mindless work or letting your mind wander.

Mark draws from decades of research on how the human brain spends its mental energy, the many ways we become distracted, and how our capacity to focus fluctuates. In this guide, we’ll explore Mark’s different modes of attention, how digital media acts to break our concentration, and how Mark says we can reclaim our attention from the distractions of the modern world. We’ll also look at what other experts say affects attention, how to direct it, and whether distractions are something you can control.