1. How to Talk to Anyone  ## Metadata - Author: [[Supercommunicators with Charles Duhigg]] - Full Title: 1. How to Talk to Anyone - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/24acab42-41f0-4dcc-a343-9717fe07c5a3 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Epley's DUIs** - Nick Epley's two DUIs as a teen. - The second DUI, where his parents asked 'why' questions, changed his life. Transcript: Charles Duhigg Deep questions and how to ask them is something Nick Epley has spent his whole career thinking about. And the reason why goes back to something that happened when he was a teenager. Nick Epley When I was a high school student, I was not necessarily the best listener. I was a football player. I spent plenty of time screwing around. And I made a couple of bad choices, really bad ones. I was caught twice by police officers drunk driving. Charles Duhigg The first time this happens, the cop telephones Nick's parents, and he asks them to come pick up their drunk son. And so they get in the car, and they go to get him. And on the drive home, they start lecturing him about what a dumb idea this was, that you really shouldn't be drinking, that they understand what peer pressure is like, but they're really Worried about him. Nick Epley All of which went about as well as you would imagine. They were not happy. They were telling me all the ways in which this could really ruin my life. And it kind of washed over me. I didn't I didn't really hear it. I wasn't really engaged with it. Charles Duhigg Nick basically ignores the lectures that his parents are giving him. He ignores all of the lessons that he should have learned by getting pulled over and given a second chance. And then just a handful of weeks later, he gets pulled over for a DUI again. Nick Epley And the second time it happened, again, the police officers called my folks and had them come pick me up. And I remember this time, my mom and dad started asking me more questions about kind of why I was doing this, why I thought this was a good idea. Charles Duhigg And this time, something about being asked why he was drinking, rather than just being lectured at about all the things he had done wrong, those questions caused Nick to start thinking In a different way about his own life. When his parents started asking him questions, it started with why. Why are you drinking? Why does it feel so necessary to impress your friends this way? It was somehow powerful. And what's more, those questions, they seem to spark something different in his parents as well. Nick Epley I do remember very vividly at one point my dad shared some stories with me about some mistakes that he had made when he was a kid that weren't too far off from this. And I remember that moment because we'd never really talked. You know, that was kind of the first time like I'd really kind of gotten to know my dad a bit and I could feel a bit more why he was concerned about me. And that was that was really powerful. I mean, that really shook me out of, I think, what was a bad path and kind of got my life back on the same direction. I've never been drunk again since I was 17 years old. ([Time 0:05:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6b3ebcf2-963c-40e0-b0d0-0bfb56c7d6ba)) - **Deep Questions** - Not all questions are created equal. - Questions prompting discussions about values, beliefs, and experiences have unique power. Transcript: Charles Duhigg But not just any question would have worked on him, he thinks. He suspects there's something, I don't know, almost magical about the questions his parents were asking. And so he starts to wonder, why are some questions more powerful than others? At about the same time that he's starting to wonder this, Nick is also attending these weekly seminars with all of the other grad students, where everyone gathers to discuss academic Papers. And he hears about something called the Fast Friends Procedure. Nick Epley We had what's called a pro seminar, this just magical weekly seminar, where all the faculty and the PhD students got together and read a paper called the Fast Friends Procedure, on a Series of 36 questions that escalate in intimacy. And by the end of these 36 questions, people tend to feel more connected to each other. That's how you take strangers and make them friends quickly. ([Time 0:09:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c887cd8c-07e3-4bd7-ba7b-df7904ee99d8)) - **Fast Friends Procedure** - The 'Fast Friends Procedure' involves 36 escalating intimacy questions. - Study participants formed strong bonds, with many continuing relationships post-study. Transcript: Charles Duhigg Full name is The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness, a Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings. It actually has some really interesting results. What happened is that the researchers asked pairs of strangers to come into a room and to sit down and to spend 45 minutes asking and answering a set of 36 specific questions. And once they did that, they told everyone that they could go home and all the participants assumed that the experiment was over. But actually, the experiment was just beginning. Because seven weeks later, the researchers contact everyone who had been sitting in those rooms and they asked them, you know, just out of curiosity, have you been in contact with that Person that you did this experiment with? Now, everyone participating was strangers, right? So they don't know each other, and they don't really have a way to contact each other after the experiment. But when the researchers start reaching out to them, they find that the vast majority of participants had sought out the person they had done that experiment with, and they had met up. There was this one guy who said, you know, I didn't really catch my partner's last name, but I knew his first name was John, and I thought his last name started with an R. And so I went through the directory one night, and I called every single John R until I found the right guy. Another participant told researchers that he went to go have a beer with the person he had done the experiment with. And then a week later, they went to go see a movie together. And a year after that, when they announced they were getting married, they invited everyone in the psych lab to come to the ceremony. All told, about 70% of the people who had participated in the experiment went out of their way to find their partner. And to Nick, learning about this paper, it seemed kind of amazing, because getting 70% of strangers to feel like they've made a friend in just 45 minutes, that doesn't really happen. ([Time 0:10:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/24cd44f6-b11e-493f-bcb5-9d9b8aa536cb)) - **36 Questions to Love** - Mandy Len Catron's NYT essay 'To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This' detailed her experience with the 36 questions. - It went viral, sparking widespread interest in the questions and their effect on relationships. Transcript: Charles Duhigg So, okay. So let me, let me take a step back. Do you remember the first time you heard about the fast friends procedure? Mandy Len Catron I do. I think I was in the midst of a breakup when I found it initially, actually. And yeah, I was writing about love because I was going through this breakup and, and my parents had divorced a couple of years earlier. And I was thinking like, surely there must be better sources of information about this experience of committing to someone. And so I was very interested in taking a more sort of scientific approach. Charles Duhigg If you've heard of the Fast Friends Procedure, or as it's also known, the 36 questions that lead to love, it's probably because of this person, Mandy Lynn Catron. Mandy is a writer and a professor of creative writing at the University of British Columbia, and she rocketed to international fame about a decade ago when she wrote a modern love essay For The New York Times. Mandy Len Catron So basically, I had been dating online for, I would say, a couple of years at that point and sort of having a short relationship here and there. And basically, sort of out of nowhere, I ended up going out on a date with an acquaintance of mine. And I say out of nowhere because this was someone that I was sort of interested in, but I didn't know him well. And I didn't know that we were on a date. Like, I kind of thought, oh, we're just going to the art gallery together because we're both interested in this exhibit. And after we left the art gallery, we went to a bar and we started talking about love and relationships. And he said to me, oh, you know, I have this theory that actually given enough sort of commonalities, you could really fall in love with anyone. And I said, you know, actually, there is this study. And because, you know, I thought he was kind of cute, I said, I've always wanted to try it. And so we sat down at this bar, I pulled up my phone, I pulled up these 36 questions, and we just passed my cell phone back and forth across the table for hours, just taking turns asking and Answering each of these questions. And it was like the rest of the world sort of fell away. And it was just the two of us talking. Charles Duhigg Mandy thought this was a kind of interesting experience. And so a few days later, she writes a quick essay about it and she sends it off to the New York Times. And then weeks go by and she doesn't hear anything back from the paper. And so this, so you're sending it at this point where like, you've just been on one date with this guy. Like, like what's the next conversation with him? Yeah. Mandy Len Catron So there was a sort of conversation where I said, you know, are we dating? Like, is this a thing? And he said, yeah, I think we, I think we are. Charles Duhigg That's, that's the rousing enthusiasm you want to hear from the other person, but it sounds very real. Mandy Len Catron I should clarify. It was complicated by the fact. Charles Duhigg So they're dating. They finally get clear on that. And Mandy at this point, she's kind of forgotten about this essay that she had sent into the New York Times back when it wasn't clear if they were actually going to become a couple or not. And then one day the Times out of the blue emails and they say, hey, we really liked your essay. We're going to publish it. Mandy Len Catron So it was published when we had been together seriously for probably like two or three months. And I thought, oh God, this is going to be so embarrassing if this thing gets published in like a national newspaper. And I'm like, I don't know about this guy. When in fact, like we were pretty committed. Charles Duhigg However, Mandy figures, you know, she probably doesn't really need to worry about this, right? This is one small essay. And even though the New York Times is a big newspaper, how many people are actually going to read this one essay about her going on a date? Nick Epley The questions were featured in a recent New York Times essay titled, To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This. It went viral. The author, Mandy Lynn Catron, When the essay gets published, it explodes. Mandy Len Catron Still to come, if you're looking for love, the simple questions that just might make anyone fall for you. I just wildly underestimated the kind of attention that would come from that experience. And within the first month, the article had been viewed 8 million times. Mandy ([Time 0:13:04](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ec999246-0591-45f0-ae49-42e3d2586246)) - **Escalating Questions** - Start with easy questions. - Gradually escalate intensity to build trust and rapport. Transcript: Charles Duhigg She just had an interesting experience. But she does have some guesses about what's going on. For instance, the first few questions in the Fast Friends procedure are pretty easy to ask and answer. They're things like, if you had a dinner party and you could invite anyone from history, who would it be? Or what would constitute a perfect day for you? Mandy Len Catron Like it matters that they sort of start out pretty casual, like icebreaker style questions and then become more intense as you go along. Charles Duhigg Question number seven is, do you have a secret hunch about how you will die? Question 24, how do you feel about your relationship with your mother? And question 35, the second to last question, describe the last time you cried in front of another person. Mandy Len Catron It matters that both people are doing the self-disclosure. Like, both people are answering every question. And I think it matters that they're not about, like, politics. They're not about, you know, books that you've read. They're about you. They are personal yeah and i think all of that makes a big difference and so that creates this sense of like shared warmth toward one another that's like built into the process it's just Like it's so beautiful i mean this sounds super cheesy but like it just feels so like you feel yourself being noticed in this way that is like really a nice feeling. ([Time 0:18:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/78a3cc1a-3840-4955-a441-0b19eaa948d0)) - **Starting Conversations** - Don't start conversations with intense questions like, 'When's the last time you cried?'. - Begin with general, open-ended questions, such as, 'Are you looking forward to your day today?' Transcript: Charles Duhigg So I went back to Nick Epley and I asked him, how do you do this? So you sit down next to someone on the New York subway with one of your kids with you who are like, dad, don't embarrass me. What's the first question? Because if you start with when's the last time you cried in front of another person, they're probably not going to react positively. Nick Epley That is not a good conversation opener. Not in real life. Like in our experiments, it works. I mean, because people, they feel they're given license to have that conversation. But you have license in daily life to be interested in other people too. Like that's what it means to care for somebody. You have a license to care about somebody, right? So for instance, we were in New York a little while ago and I was there with my daughter Sione and multiple train rides. I had conversations with people. One of them, woman came down and sat next to us and I asked her, you know, are you looking forward to your day today? That was my first question. And she said, no, I'm, uh, I'm going to try to find my brother who's schizophrenic, ran away last night and spent the night on the streets. And right away, because this was something about, you know, what are you looking forward to? Something meaningful as it wasn't just what you're doing or how's the weather. It was something personal. And right away, she knew I was interested. She shared this super meaningful thing with me. We had a very powerful conversation that I think it was uplifting ([Time 0:25:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2518bb0a-99a0-45dc-88eb-d9c7352a0f1c)) - **Genuine Interest** - Focus on showing genuine interest in the other person. - Practice asking deep questions regularly to improve your conversational skills. Transcript: Charles Duhigg It's about showing the other person that you want to learn from them, that you're interested in them. What matters is showing that you want to connect. Nick Epley There's not a magical list of questions to carry with you. There are questions that have properties in them, properties that reflect interest. And, you know, the last time you cried in front of another person is one of those, right? That gets really meaningful. But when I sit down next to somebody, I can make that moment great by trying to take an interest in that person. And I know if I really take an interest in that person, I try to get to know what do they care about? I know we'll find stuff we have to be interested in each other. And then for me, at least the questions often just flow from one to another. Right. And when your mind is open to engaging, the words often follow. Charles Duhigg And here's the thing. There's one other big insight that Mandy and Nick found to be really helpful in becoming better at asking questions. It's important to ask deep questions, right? But you also have to remember that it takes practice to get good at that. And if the first couple times you do it, it feels awkward, that's totally fine. If the person next to you on the bus, if they blow off your question and they don't want to have a conversation, that's okay. That doesn't mean that you failed. What matters is that you keep practicing at it. And eventually you'll get to a point when asking these questions is like the most natural thing in the world. And the thing that we've learned is that even if this doesn't work all the time, it's still completely worth learning how to do this. Nick Epley What I think happens when you become somebody who does this a lot is you become an expert at spotting opportunity. Like person sat down next to me on the train. We were there one-on I said, hello. She said, hi back. That was an opportunity. Why wouldn't you choose to do that? Yeah. It's just dumb. This is dumb. Have bad conversations. You don't have to do that. You can have good ones, right? So that's what I choose to do, have good ones. And then you make nice friends and it's better. It's better. ([Time 0:27:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f87c352e-edb1-492f-8ac6-6895cfb1c604))