Something You Should Know
Magic Words That Influence Others & How Feeling Healthy Makes It So
11 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: How can washing your hands improve your mood?
Today on Something You Should Know, how washing your hands at just the right time can change your whole outlook on life. Then, how to choose and use words wisely because the right words matter.
Losing is bad. Being a loser is even worse, right? Cheating on a test is bad, but being a cheater is even worse. And so research shows that one way to get students to cheat less is just by telling them, well, you know, cheating would make them a cheater.
Also, there's an interesting way walking can improve your sleep if you do it right. And you can be healthy even if you're sick. It's all about how you adapt to the situation.
Chapter 2: What words can influence our communication and relationships?
Healthy is really a judgment for yourself, right? Around 75 to 86% of people with a single disease, like diabetes or arthritis, actually consider their health to be positive. So do 50% of people with three diseases.
All this today on Something You Should Know.
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Smart recaps, insider energy, and zero fluff. Listen to All About TRH podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. New episodes weekly. something you should know fascinating intel the world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today something you should know with mike carruthers
Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. I hope you're having a spectacular day. But if you're not, if you're having a crappy day, if nothing is going right, I have a really good suggestion for you. And that is to wash your hands. It can actually make a difference and break a streak of bad luck.
A study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that people who wash their hands for a full minute after making a mistake or experiencing some bad luck significantly increase their success rates. Washing your hands seems to send a subconscious message to the brain that you're ready to start over.
Those in the experiment who washed their hands were then more likely to take chances now that they had clean hands, which increased their odds of good fortune. And that is something you should know. Whenever you talk to people, at home or at work or in social situations, the words you choose to use make a huge difference.
A difference in how people perceive you, in how influential or persuasive you are, how people remember you. And that may seem pretty obvious that the words you use matter, but there's more to that statement than you may realize. But you're about to realize it as you listen to my guest, Jonah Berger.
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Chapter 3: How can our perception of health change our well-being?
Jonah is a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He's written some really interesting books, and his latest is called Magic Words, What to Say to Get Your Way. Hi, Jonah. So I can imagine people hearing this and thinking, well, this is really about manipulation and trickery or clever little sales tactics to maneuver people in a way you want them.
But this is clearly not that. So let's start with an example. You say, and I've done this many times with my two sons, you say that telling a kid, that he or she is really smart is not a good idea. And I think this is a good example of what you're talking about. So let's start with this example. Why in the world would I not want to tell my son how smart he is?
Yeah, well, taking a step back, I think there's a difference between traits and states. And what do I mean by that? Well, a trait is something that's who you are. It's a fixed thing. A state is something that happened, right? A state is something that occurred. And so when we tell kids they're smart, that sounds like a trait. That sounds like who they are.
And while that's good in some ways, it's good to be smart, it suggests you don't have to work very hard, right? Because it's who you are. And so you didn't get here because of working hard. You got here because you're just a smart person and you're always going to be a smart person. And so that's just great for you.
The challenge there is when we say something like that, it can often undermine people's future efforts, right? They think, okay, I don't need to work hard. I've already got it. And so some very nice research shows that when we want to encourage people and encourage them in a positive way, sometimes it's better as parents or as loved ones or as colleagues to
to to talk about states rather than than traits right I can tell you worked really hard on this I'm so proud of the effort you put in right recognizing that they did a good thing but recognizing that the way they got there wasn't just who they are it's the work they put in which is going to encourage them to put the work in next time rather than just assuming that it'll happen because I'm I'm just great as is you say the word because is very important that
Human beings like to hear what the reason is behind any requests that you make. And so when you're talking to people, the word because becomes very important. So explain what you mean.
Yeah, there's a nice study that was done many years ago now in New York City where they went up to people at a library and they said, hey, I know you're in the middle of making copies. The person was in the middle of making copies. And they basically interrupted them and said, let me cut in line. Usually I would have to wait, but I need to go ahead of you to make copies.
And not surprisingly, most people said no. But they were interested in what would lead people to say yes. And so some people went up there and they said, hey, I'd like to make some copies. And most people said no. A different group of people approached them and said, hey, I'd like to make some copies because, and then listed a reason.
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Chapter 4: How does self-rated health impact longevity?
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Okay, so Jonah, now talk about the words fix and solve.
So we did a study a few years ago where we looked at the language of customer service and customer services. You got it. You got a tough job, right? You got people calling all the time. They're often unhappy and you've got to figure out how to make them happy in a short period of time. And it's challenging to do in part because you only have so much control over your situation.
And so what you'd really like to do is show people that you listened and that you care, but how can you do that? And notice that's a problem that doesn't just happen with customer service folks, right? If I'm a leader, I want to show my team that I listen and I care. If I'm a spouse, I want to show my partner that I listened and I care. And so how can we show listening, right?
We often think about listening as something that we do. How can we show it? And so we did an analysis of hundreds of customer service calls. So we worked with a big airline company
and we worked with a big online retailer, and we analyzed the language that their customer representatives used, as well as how satisfied people were at the end of those calls and whether people came back to buy something from that company. And we found something pretty powerful. So controlling for the issue people called about and whether that issue was solved and a variety of other things,
We found that using concrete language made customers more satisfied and made them buy more in the future. And what do I mean by concrete language? Well, if someone calls customer service, the representative could say, oh, I can help you with that. Or they could say, I can see if I can find a direct flight from Milwaukee to Kentucky.
In a retail setting, someone can say, oh, yeah, I'll go look for that. Or I'll go try to find you a t-shirt in gray. Using concrete language is language that's touchable, feelable, perceivable through our senses. A table is really concrete. Strategy is pretty abstract. A word like soon is somewhat abstract. A word like tomorrow is really concrete.
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Chapter 5: Why shouldn't you label children as 'smart'?
and then leave you to be on customer hold for another 20 minutes. And so just because someone says that they care doesn't mean that they do. But concrete language shows caring, right? Because for somebody to be able to use that language, they have to have heard what you said, understood what you said, and be able to show you that they listen. And that's really key, right?
Listening is not just about the actual act of hearing or understanding. It's also to get the benefit of it. It's about showing other people. and concrete languages is really useful in showing others.
It also seems to matter too, although the emphasis is on the words here, but how you say it. You know, listening to you, for example, you could talk about anything, and the way you talk, you speak with confidence, you know what you're saying, you say it very well, you don't um and ah your way, and you're not searching for answers. That kind of
makes a big difference in whether I believe you or not.
Thank you very much for the kind words. I mean, I'm not one of those people that everybody goes, oh, they're so charismatic. Or we all have folks in our own lives where we think they're amazing communicators. When they talk, everybody listens. But one question is, well, why do people listen when that person talks? What does that person do that makes people listen?
And so I talk a little bit about the language of Donald Trump. And I don't want to get into politics here. But whether you like Trump or whether you hate him, You can't deny that he's been amazingly effective at selling his ideas. He's gotten a lot of people to listen. He's been able to persuade a large swath of the American public about what he wants them to think about.
And so something, whether you like him or not, he's doing is working. what is it? And so if you look at his language, it's actually pretty interesting, right? Consider, I think he gave a speech, for example, when he was announcing his presidential run a number of years ago, where he said something like, you know, look, America's not what it used to be.
You know, I'm going to build a great wall and I'm going to build it very expensively. And, you know, we don't win anymore with trade deals with China, for example, we're not winning. And, you know, I beat China all the time, all the time. And I'll do it here as well. And, you Some people listened to that speech and they said, you know, it's empty, it's vacuous, it's overly simplistic.
And yet, a year later, he was elected president. And so, again, even if he didn't like that speech, something he's doing is working. What is it? And it turns out, if you look at his language, He's doing the same thing that a lot of great salespeople do, that a lot of leaders like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk that gets a lot of attention, even gurus do, which is he does one particular thing.
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Chapter 6: What role does language play in shaping our identity?
Is there research? Who did the research? How do we know that your foundation here is real science?
There is the definition of health that was put forth by the WHO, which has been the main definition of health for decades, which is health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. And this is clearly... false, right? Then none of us could be healthy based off of this premise, right?
If you have cavities, if you wear glasses, if you're a little bit stressed, if you need to go to the bathroom, you're no longer healthy. You can't be healthy, right? So Alex, Dr. Haddad, my co-author, he challenged this definition and put out a call to redefine and reconceptualize health with the British Medical Journal.
And he gathered the best minds, the top experts, the top academics and scientists and communities around the world to challenge this definition and propose a new one. And that's this one. And this is the one that has been that is being championed and that's being pushed more and more so that we can actually be healthy.
Something that's a definition that is helpful to us rather than already setting ourselves up for failure. So that definition is the ability to adapt to the inevitable challenges that life presents us. So with this perspective, if you have an eye condition and you're not able to see far or near, but you wear glasses, you can then be healthy.
Or if you have cancer and you are dealing with the symptoms or you're getting treatment and you're keeping up with everything that your physician is telling you to do and you're staying active and eating well, you can still be healthy within your constraints.
So that's what this definition of health does and why this new perspective that is backed by many scientists, academics and institutions around the world, like why that is the one that we should actually embrace.
race how much of this though could be if you believe you're healthy you're probably going to live a life that promotes that that as opposed to believing you're unhealthy and you're kind of powerless and so you would lead a life that well i don't care anymore kind of and so and the results are the results of that you know if you lead a healthy lifestyle you're more apt to be healthy
you're absolutely spot on. And that's essentially thanks to something we have, which is like self-perception, right? And our ability to perceive our behaviors and then interpret who we are from that, right? And it's kind of a feedback loop essentially. So if we believe we're healthy and if we identify ourselves as healthy, then we make more healthy choices and we behave healthier.
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