How to Become a Supercommunicator  🔗 **Source:** [How to Become a Supercommunicator](https://share.snipd.com/episode/493d0ad9-b742-48aa-9366-254efdef8055) ## Highlights - **Three Types Of Conversations** - Conversations fall into three distinct types: practical (solve problems), emotional (seek empathy), and social (identity/relations). - Recognizing which type is happening lets you match the other person and change outcomes, like shifting from empathy to problem-solving. Transcript: Charles Duhigg So you're exactly, I mean, obviously the folks who are listening to this are probably super communicators. They're professional communicators, right? People who communicate for a living. Even if you're just an executive in a company that has nothing to do with marketing, it has nothing to do with the internet, you're still really a communication professional because You're communicating your direct reports. You're trying to help people share a vision. And what's interesting is we are living right now through the golden age of understanding communication like never before because of advances in neural imaging and data collection. We can see what's happening inside people's brains and inside their bodies as they're having a conversation. And that's been sort of transformative because one of the big insights is that until now, we kind of assumed that people knew what they were talking about when they were having a conversation, Right? We're having a conversation about marketing or having a conversation about where to go on vacation next week or the budget for next quarter. But actually what researchers have found is that when you are having a discussion, you're having multiple different kinds of conversations. And some of the conversations, most of them fall into one of three buckets. Most of them are either practical, we're talking about solving problems, making plans, or they're emotional, in which case I don't want you to solve my emotions, I want you to empathize, Or they're social, which is about how we relate. ([Time 0:01:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/31464821-5913-4b0c-8bd8-696b8dc5034e)) - **Doctor Shifted Vaccine Talks By Empathizing First** - Doctors misclassified vaccine conversations as practical and failed when patients were actually emotional and distrustful. - Physicians began by inviting feelings, empathizing, then asking permission to share their personal decision to bridge to facts. Transcript: Charles Duhigg And so, yeah, there was a bunch of experiments that was done at the beginning of COVID to try and figure out because there's a lot of people who are vaccine skeptical. That doesn't mean that they're like anti-vaxxers, but it means that they have questions and they're concerned and they might choose not to get their kids vaccinated for all kinds of Things or get vaccinated themselves. And what's interesting is that when doctors at the beginning of the pandemic, when the vaccine first came out, and even before then, when doctors had conversations with these patients Who were vaccine skeptical, they figured it was a practical conversation. They figured this patient just needs to hear the evidence, right? If I tell them the science, if I give them the papers, and that almost never worked. Like you could never persuade someone the vaccines are safe by giving them data. And what was happening there was that the physicians thought they were in a practical conversation. But for the patients, this was really emotional, right? They're talking about, I'm worried I'm going to put a poison in my kids. I'm worried that I can't trust the government. And like, I look at the government and they lie about all these things, I think. And so why aren't they lying about this? You're just some, like you went to some fancy school and you have an MD and I didn't go to college. And I think you're looking down on me. And so I'm going to be distrustful of you. Those are all emotional conversations. And so what the physicians realized was we can't have a practical conversation until we match each other on this emotional level. And so oftentimes what doctors will do is they'll say, tell me how you feel about vaccines. And they just give the person all the space in the world to bring up all their concerns. And they don't say, no, that's wrong. Or let me show you the study. They say, I understand exactly why you feel that way. Like I, I would feel exactly the same way. And I've, and I'm worried about my kids the same way that you're worried about your kids. And you're right. Like the government does let us put crap in our bodies, right? There's not enough like organic rules, whatever it is. So we're going to get aligned on this emotional level. You're going to, you're going to see that I've heard you and that, that I'm someone who can empathize with you. And then I'm going to say something like, can I tell you why I decided to give my kids the vaccine? Right? Which is a way of asking, can we move from an emotional to a practical conversation? Can I personalize? But instead of having to think about this on a purely emotional level, do I have your permission to move us into sort of the practical questions? And what they found is that works perfectly. That doesn't mean every single person gets a vaccine, but it means at least they're listening to what you have to say. ([Time 0:04:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bb2be9ba-7254-4ba9-8fab-1264423c2287)) - **Ask Permission Before Presenting Facts** - Do invite patients or interlocutors to express concerns first and explicitly empathize instead of immediately offering data. - Then ask for permission to move to practical details, e.g., "Can I tell you why I decided to give my kids the vaccine?" Transcript: Charles Duhigg And so oftentimes what doctors will do is they'll say, tell me how you feel about vaccines. And they just give the person all the space in the world to bring up all their concerns. And they don't say, no, that's wrong. Or let me show you the study. They say, I understand exactly why you feel that way. Like I, I would feel exactly the same way. And I've, and I'm worried about my kids the same way that you're worried about your kids. And you're right. Like the government does let us put crap in our bodies, right? There's not enough like organic rules, whatever it is. So we're going to get aligned on this emotional level. You're going to, you're going to see that I've heard you and that, that I'm someone who can empathize with you. And then I'm going to say something like, can I tell you why I decided to give my kids the vaccine? Right? Which is a way of asking, can we move from an emotional to a practical conversation? Can I personalize? But instead of having to think about this on a purely emotional level, do I have your permission to move us into sort of the practical questions? And what they found is that works perfectly. ([Time 0:05:52](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ad1da9db-64e1-404c-ae97-f0fc21f1a4e6)) - **Connection Over Winning In Identity Talks** - The goal in divisive or identity conversations is understanding and connection, not winning. - Showing you understand someone’s worldview increases connection even if you still disagree politically. Transcript: Charles Duhigg Of the time, they agree to get the shot if that's the thing that you're advocating for. And so a big part of this is recognizing when you're talking about Crazy Uncle Gary or when you're talking about politics, the goal is not to convince the other person that you are right And they are wrong. The goal is not to convince them that you're smart and that they should respect you or even like you. The goal is simply to understand how they see the world, to show them that you understand how they see the world, and then to speak in such a way that they can understand how you see the world. And if you do that, even if you walk away deciding you're going to vote for different people, you don't agree on who should be president, you are going to feel connected to each other. You're going to feel a little bit closer to each other. And oftentimes that's all that we need to coexist peacefully. ([Time 0:07:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1b94a0ed-95a4-4f65-93bc-c7fe7279aaba)) - **Ask Deep Why Questions** - Do ask many more questions and favor deep questions that reveal values or motivations rather than surface facts. - Example: instead of "Where did you train?" ask "What made you decide to go to medical school?" to prompt storytelling. Transcript: Charles Duhigg Let's talk about how to do that, right? Because one of the things that we know from studies of psychology is that people who are really good communicators, consistent super communicators, they ask more questions than the Average person. They ask like 10 to 20 times as many questions as the average person. And what's interesting is that some of those questions are just invitations to kind of participate, right? Like, oh, what do you think about that? Or did you see that movie? But some of the questions are what are known within psychology as deep questions. And a deep question is something that asks me about my values or my beliefs or my experiences. And that can sound kind of intimidating, but it's as simple as if you meet someone who's a doctor, instead of saying, oh, what hospital do you work at? You can ask them, oh, what made you decide to go to medical school? Right, that second question, that's a super easy question to ask, but it's a deep question because it invites the other person to tell you about their experiences, to tell you about Their values, what they enjoy about their work, why they want to be a healer. And then you're having a real conversation. And once you're having that real conversation, that's when people are engaged and they start to sell themselves, right? Then you can ask the deep question, like, tell me, tell me what's bugging you about your marketing right now. What's the thing that's driving you crazy? And now they're starting to describe their problem to you and you say, well, have you thought about this solution that we're experts in? Now they're convincing themselves that this is the right answer. ([Time 0:10:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/76dfc8f7-5d56-4a91-9ad4-82acf007e89e)) - **Phrase Deep Questions As Invitations** - Try phrasing deep prompts as invitations not mandates so people can opt in to vulnerability. - Example progression: "What made you decide..." then share a brief related personal example to encourage reciprocity. Transcript: Charles Duhigg And a deep question is something that asks me about my values or my beliefs or my experiences. And that can sound kind of intimidating, but it's as simple as if you meet someone who's a doctor, instead of saying, oh, what hospital do you work at? You can ask them, oh, what made you decide to go to medical school? Right, that second question, that's a super easy question to ask, but it's a deep question because it invites the other person to tell you about their experiences, to tell you about Their values, what they enjoy about their work, why they want to be a healer. And then you're having a real conversation. And once you're having that real conversation, that's when people are engaged and they start to sell themselves, right? Then you can ask the deep question, like, tell me, tell me what's bugging you about your marketing right now. What's the thing that's driving you crazy? And now they're starting to describe their problem to you and you say, well, have you thought about this solution that we're experts in? Now they're convincing themselves that this is the right answer. And that's so much more effective. So we like to work with and we like to buy from and we like to sell ([Time 0:10:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5b277a5a-4e45-470a-ae22-57a5101c4752)) - **Fast Friends Procedure Produces Rapid Closeness** - The Fast Friends procedure shows 36 reciprocal questions can create strong closeness in ~45 minutes. - Charles demonstrates you can reach emotional depth by question three if you layer shallow-to-deeper invites. Transcript: Charles Duhigg So there's something called the fast friends procedure. And what's interesting about the fast friends, it's 36 questions that studies have shown. If people go back and forth asking these 36 questions, it only takes about 45 minutes. They feel very, very close to each other. Like so close that they'll, even if they don't know each other's names and they were strangers before, they'll seek each other out to try and get together. Some people actually end up getting married after doing this. And there was a theory that you had to start pretty shallow and then get deep. And what they discovered was that's actually not true, that pretty much you can get deep by the second or third question. So it's weird if I come up to you and I ask, for instance, like, I'm just out of curiosity, when's the last time you cried in front of another person? By the way, my name's Charles. Nice to meet you. Right. That's, that's not going to go over so well. But if I come up and ask you like, right, right. What do you do for a living? Oh, I'm a doctor. Oh, why did you decide to become a doctor? Oh, you know, because like i really wanted to be a healer i imagine that's tough like do you find yourself like getting teary sometimes with with patients because you probably get attached To them that's three questions in i'm basically asking you when's the last time you cried in front yeah but yeah like the other nice thing about it is that if you'll notice each of those Questions was posed as an invitation rather than a mandate. So instead of saying, tell me when you last cried, I'm saying, oh, what's this like? And you could very well say, yeah, actually, like sometimes it's really emotionally challenging. Or you could say, you know, I'm able to like kind of leave my work at work and come home. ([Time 0:13:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ff3d37a3-3193-4524-a6bf-0c0a368a32f3)) - **Model Vulnerability With Short Self Shares** - When you ask deep questions, it's natural and effective to briefly answer your own question to model openness. - This reciprocity encourages others to disclose but keep your self-share short to avoid monologue. Transcript: Charles Duhigg Right. That's the nice thing about deep questions, is that when you ask someone a deep question and they answer it, it's very natural to answer your own question. Ralph Burns Hey, quick heads up. If you're marketing to marketers, this is where you want to be. Sponsor Perpetual Traffic and get seen and heard by thousands of seasoned marketers, CMOs, and agency owners. We get hundreds of thousands of downloads every single month, all to marketers. So go to perpetualtraffic.com to apply for a spot on the show in Q1 or Q2 of 2026. Charles Duhigg So why did you decide to become a doctor? Oh, my dad got sick when I was a kid and I wanted to be a healer. Oh, that's funny. I'm a lawyer and it's because I saw my uncle get arrested. Right? And now I can ask another deep question. ([Time 0:15:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a0d0ea60-a670-49ef-bd35-4972848d4a7c))