Charles Duhigg

I haven't stopped to figure out why I'm complaining.

And I can say to her, no, I just want you to listen.

It's not a big deal.

Or I can say, yeah, let's solve this together.

So oftentimes, simply asking and getting permission to find out what kind of conversation is happening is really powerful.

And in fact, in schools, they teach teachers to do this by asking students when they come up with something, do you want to be helped?

Do you want to be hugged?

Or do you want to be heard?

And those, of course, are the three conversations, the practical, the emotional, and the social.

But sometimes it's as simple as that, just asking someone, what do you need from this conversation?

And then telling them what you are hoping to get from this conversation as well.

So if you think about it, what's really interesting about how our brains have evolved the capacity to communicate is that the reason why communication is so important to the homo sapiens is because whoever could communicate the best survived the longest.

They were able to build families and societies and cultures that helped them persist.

And when we're in a conversation and we're really connecting with each other, something interesting happens to our bodies.

We never, of course, noticed this, but if you could pay attention, the person you're talking to, your pupils will start to dilate at the same rate.

In fact, this is probably happening between you and me right now.

We start breathing at similar rates.

And most importantly, there's these electrical impulses within our brains.

They start to match each other.

They start to look similar.