2. How to Communicate Without Words  ## Metadata - Author: [[Supercommunicators with Charles Duhigg]] - Full Title: 2. How to Communicate Without Words - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/4bc1760c-a387-4748-a1f2-6a905e8749e5 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Doppler Effect Costume** - Dave Goetsch, a TV writer, landed a job on The Big Bang Theory by showcasing his nerdiness. - His anecdote about dressing as the Doppler effect in college convinced the showrunners he was a good fit. Transcript: Speaker 2 I heard about the Big Bang Theory, and I told my agent, I was like, just please get me a meeting. Charles Duhigg And I met the showrunner, and I told him, you know, I love nerds, and I am so passionate about this. This is Dave Goetsch, and these days he's a very successful TV writer. But two decades ago, when he was essentially completely unknown, he was trying to get a job on a sitcom about a group of characters who were very, very awkward. Speaker 2 So it was helpful that he was a little awkward himself. And then I told the story that when I was in college, I had a costume party dressed up as the Doppler effect. And so I had, I was like in all black and I had these white stripes that got tape that got farther apart and they ran around the room going, wow. And they were like, okay, you're a nerd. ([Time 0:00:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1e0adfa2-568d-4763-9fee-ac3905bdf835)) - **Nonverbal Communication's Importance** - Nonverbal cues like tone and gestures often matter more than spoken words. - The Big Bang Theory's success relies on understanding characters through nonverbals, highlighting their awkwardness. Transcript: Charles Duhigg Luckily for the writers, there were some social scientists who had looked at problems like this, and they had found some interesting insights. When we're communicating with someone, what we say, the words that come out of our mouth, sometimes they matter much less than what we communicate non-verbally. It's really interesting, and I think it's the success of the Big Bang Theory truly, is the ability to understand these characters without them having to say a word. You see the emotions, and you see the pauses, and you see the inflection in their voices, and that's what changes everything. And it's brilliant. I'm Charles Duhigg, the author of Super Communicators, and this is the second episode in a special series about the science of communication. Today, we're going to examine nonverbal communication, the noises we make, our gestures, the expressions on our faces, and how quickly or slowly we talk. And we're going to explore how these nonverbal habits influence how we connect with other people. ([Time 0:03:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1c7ba420-b85c-46f8-816a-3a0d0e022a95)) - **Projecting Confidence** - To project confidence, keep your shoulders away from your earlobes. - Use three slow nods and an eyebrow flash to make others feel confident and speak more. Transcript: Charles Duhigg Let's say I'm having a conversation with a stranger, but it's someone that I really want to connect with. It's a new coworker. It's yeah. And I'm going to put my hands on the table. What do I want to pay attention to that might tell me what they're feeling? One is look at the shoulders. Speaker 2 Okay, so a pro tip, if you want to look confident, look at the distance between your earlobe and your shoulder. The farther your shoulder is away from your earlobe, the more confident you look. Anything else that I should be paying attention to or looking for? One thing you can actually do to cause the other person to warm up, right, is what's called the three nods. So you probably know that the bobblehead person that's just constantly bobbing their head, yes, that's too much. But three very slow nods of your head and what's called an eyebrow flash, Basically, it's your eyebrows go up, again, for two seconds to do this once every couple minutes. Don't be a character out of it. But using those two techniques, the three nods, the eyebrow flash, actually causes the other ([Time 0:09:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/837756f7-f251-41b3-bca6-eaf4c07e45c9)) - **Mirroring and Trust** - Mirroring others' nonverbals, when genuine, creates connection and trust. - This 'tribe' effect is rooted in our evolutionary need for belonging and survival. Transcript: Charles Duhigg Person to feel more confident and speak more. And why is that? Is that because these clues that we send, that we're not even aware that we're sending, are they more revealing than what we decide to do in a conversation? 110% yes. As Dustin got deeper and deeper into this research, he found one big lesson that kind of linked together all these different nonverbal cues and findings. There was one kind of nonverbal habit that, more than any other, seemed to help people feel connected to each other. When people would mirror each other, when they matched their expressions or their gestures or their posture or tone of voice, as long as it was done in a genuine way, it made everyone In a conversation feel like they were in sync, like they were really hearing each other, like they were connecting. So I'll give you an example. Speaker 2 If you're buying a new car, you go to the car lot, you're talking to the salesperson, and you lean on the car, right? And wait a couple seconds, and that salesperson, if they're trained, will also lean on the car, right? So they sort of mirror your nonverbals. It's not comically, so they're not just mining what you're doing. It's wait some time. If you cross your legs, the other person, here's why it's important. This new stranger, if they look similar to me, I trust you more. You're part of my quote unquote tribe. Humans are wired to trust a tribe because we have thousands of years of needing a tribe to survive. So if you look similar to my tribe, then I trust you more. I'm more open to what you have to say. I'm more, you can be more persuasive. And ([Time 0:10:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/dc8c650f-d9b1-4ce3-b22e-9069b3b8dc13)) - **Genuine vs. Manipulative Mirroring** - Focus on genuine communication rather than manipulative mirroring. - People can detect inauthenticity, especially in sales, so build trust through honest connection. Transcript: Charles Duhigg I might get duped by someone or I might feed a harmful bias, the kind of tribalism that keeps us apart, or I might come off as untrustworthy. Let me ask, because there's this prejudice about car salesmen, right? That they mirror you, that it's very manipulative and it can come off as very phony. Like where is the line between me showing you I want to connect with you and me showing you that I'm trying to pull one over on you? Speaker 2 It comes back to, are you using these communication techniques in a genuine nature? I mean, I think a lot of people have created this filter that we can see through BS much easier now. We know when someone's not being genuine. So am I being genuine with this communication? Am I just trying to sell you this car because I'm trying to get my quota for the month so I mirror your language? That's going to come across. I'm going to see through that. But if I want you in a comfortable situation where you make the best decision, that communication is going to look a lot different. ([Time 0:12:56](https://share.snipd.com/snip/68a2f236-6b57-4805-84e4-c34bcf2f01c3)) - **Friends Theory** - The 'Friends Theory' suggests viewers understand muted episodes through nonverbals. - This reflects how we interpret emotions daily, even without words, like sensing a partner's mood. Transcript: Charles Duhigg This kind of emotional matching is so powerful that it can help us understand what people are thinking, even if we can't hear any of the words coming out of their mouths. But hey, it's over now, right? Because you can tell them you know they know, and I can go back to knowing absolutely nothing. Unless. No, not unless. Well, this must end now. Speaker 2 There's a theory, it's very famous now, the Friends Theory. So that research was if you muted an episode of Friends, you would know exactly what's happening. You would know when Joey did something embarrassing and then Monica is getting on to Joey. You may not know every single joke, but you would understand the entire story. So what we're seeing is media is just playing off of society, right? We do this every single day. If your partner, as soon as they come in the door, you understand the vibe, right? You understand there's something wrong. There's something exciting. They're tired. They're stressed. We as humans pick up on those non-verbals. If our entire lives were on mute, we could understand each other. ([Time 0:15:28](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8f1375a6-5d84-44fa-a8b0-1227cf74e6ee)) - **Intonation and Emotion** - The Big Bang Theory uses varied intonation of the same word ('hi') to convey distinct emotions. - This allows viewers to instantly understand each character's feelings and the scene's humor. Transcript: Charles Duhigg So I imagine if you come into the writer's room of The Big Bang Theory on the first day, and this is a show about these scientists. They have trouble communicating with normal people. They have trouble understanding themselves. And yet you have to write scenes that let the audience know exactly what those characters are thinking and feeling the second they hit the screen. Is that right? Yeah. I mean, that's pretty much it. Dave Getsch and the other writers on The Big Bang Theory encountered their biggest problem right away. It had to do with the sitcom's basic premise. There's these two physicists, Sheldon and Leonard, who are very geeky, really socially awkward, and they live together in an apartment. And a new neighbor has moved in across the hall named Penny, and she's this actress who's bubbly and socially graceful, and she's very, very pretty. So how do you write these two awkward physicists interacting with Penny to show how uncomfortable they are talking to this beautiful woman, but also in a way that the audience knows What everyone is thinking and feeling. You can see the solution they came up with in this scene, the first time that Leonard and Sheldon meet Penny. New neighbor? Evidently. Significant improvement over the old neighbor. Oh, hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. We don't mean to interrupt. We live across the hall. Speaker 2 Oh, that's nice. Charles Duhigg Oh, no, we don't live together. It's pretty sitcom-y, right? But you know exactly what each character is feeling based on how they say their lines. So can you walk me a little bit through that scene? Because I'm imagining if I was reading it on a piece of paper, the transcript, it would just look like a series of hellos. Speaker 2 But that's not what happens. So what is wonderful is that you see Penny being sincere and saying hello. And you see Leonard clearly in love, and he doesn't want this moment to end. And you have Sheldon, who is not clocking any of that, and being confused by why this is still going around, and he's going to keep saying hello. Charles Duhigg And so you have three really clear attitudes. All the actors are saying the exact same word. Hi, hi, hi, hi. But because each of them are doing it with a different intonation, and most important, because none of those intonations match each other, you, the viewer, you understand what these Characters are feeling. You can tell that they aren't connecting with each other, even though they're all saying the exact same word. And that awkwardness, that lack of connection, that's what makes the scene funny, of course. But it also gives you an insight into who these characters are. You understand what they're feeling, even if they haven't said anything at all about their emotions. You know what they're thinking, even though they're all saying the same word over and over. ([Time 0:17:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d207c646-1f26-4b1e-a83c-050751e06501)) - **Building Deeper Connections** - Search for deeper similarities, like shared emotions, rather than superficial ones. - Showing emotional understanding builds connection and creates a more meaningful 'tribe'. Transcript: Charles Duhigg A basic lesson here for not only writing sitcoms, but for having better conversations in everyday life. As Destin York pointed out, our brains have evolved to look for similarities. And sometimes that instinct can nudge us to focus on superficial similarities, like, do we look alike? And so our subconscious feeds prejudice and a divisive form of tribalism. But there's another way to use this instinct, to make it into a tool for connection. By searching for deeper similarities, like emotions we have in common, we show that we want to connect with each other. We can show through our gestures or our tone of voice or how quickly or slowly we speak that we're trying to connect with another person by showing that we want to understand how they feel. So show that you're really excited for someone or that you hear their sadness or both of you are kind of amused. When we prove that we want to understand what's going on inside someone else's head, it brings us together. It creates the right kind of tribe. And we communicate our emotions not with words alone, but through everything that surrounds them. When we allow ourselves to show our emotions and listen for others' feelings, We invite them to trust us, to feel closer, to connect. ([Time 0:24:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ea7d7155-be54-4536-8134-ff5df24cd000))